Stage Fright (Bit Parts) (26 page)

After a half an hour of tossing and turning in my bed, I realized that sleep was out of the question.  I flung off the covers and went into the hall.  The muted sounds of Portal came from behind Andrew’s bedroom door.  It was a relief.  Andrew might say he trusted Caleb again, but the fact that he was wrapping himself up in his favorite video game proved that he was as uncertain of his ex as I was.

I went into the kitchen to make tea, but Andrew’s baked goods called to me from the freezer.  I sat at the table and nibbled several cookies as I fretted.  Vampire hunting, crazy ex-boyfriends…how on earth had I gotten myself into such a mess?  I’d never asked for any of this crap.

After a while, however, I realized the cursing and fretting weren’t doing me any good.  Neither were the cookies.  Andrew’s post-break up cooking binge and my feed-my-stress mentality were going to make us co-dependent for sure.

To stave off temptation, I dumped the rest of the cookies in the trash.  Then, because I didn’t want Andrew to see I’d thrown out his creations, I tied up the bag and took it to the garbage can behind the house.

I walked outside in my stocking feet, grimacing at every step.  Halfway across the back porch, my heel landed on something small and hard.  I dropped the garbage bag and cursed, hopping in pain.  A flare of light from the driveway lit up the backyard.  Headlights.

For five, terrible seconds I imagined Caleb or Martin bolting out of the darkness and grabbing me.  When that didn’t happen, I tossed the garbage into the bin, and returned to the house.  Before I reached the back door, my foot clipped the small object again.  Reaching down, I found a plastic key fob attached to an envelope.  I clicked a random button on the fob, and the headlights blinked on again.

Growing bolder, I left the porch and walked to the driveway.  Parked alongside the house was a car.  It was too dark to see the color, but it was small and sleek and topped with an enormous bow, just like in those ridiculous holiday ads on TV.  I didn’t have to open the card to know who had sent it.  Victor.

Unable to resist, I unlocked the driver’s door and slid inside.  My nostrils flared at the twin aromas of leather and new car.  I ran my hand over the steering wheel and dashboard, trying to imagine how much it had cost.  When I found the switch for the overhead light, I turned it on and read the card.

My dearest Cassandra, Consider this a thank-you present for becoming my director.  I’m so pleased you’ve signed on with the play.

I had a strong feeling that Victor’s present wasn’t really about my agreeing to direct
16 Voices. 
Like the promise to give me the Bleak Street, this was another way to woo me into becoming his blood partner.  Well, forget it.  I shoved the card back into the envelope.

Still, I didn’t move from the seat.  It was so cold outside that my fingers were growing numb, and my nose was running.  To solve that problem, I started the car and looked for the heater.  And, oh my God, the thing had heated seats!  In less than a minute, my backside was toasty.  I tried the stereo, and gave a yip of glee at the rich sounds of the speaker system.

I would return the keys in the morning, I told myself sternly.  I would not be bought off with a car.  For the first time, however, I started to really understand that Victor could give me anything I wanted.

Still too jacked up to sleep, I made a cup of tea and snuggled under an afghan on the living room couch.  The day had been like a ship riding the waves: down one minute and up the next.  Sitting on the couch in the quiet house was like finally standing on dry land.

When my phone chimed, I picked it up. 
Everything okay?
Isaiah asked me.

I smiled and texted,
All’s quiet here.

Goodnight, Beautiful
.

My smile changed to a grin. 
Goodnight.  Kisses.

Wish I could get those in person.
 
See you tomorrow?

Definitely
.

I set the phone aside.  That day, I’d watched Victor nearly break Charles’s neck, had been asked to be a vampire’s blood partner, had been attacked by a man in a ski mask, helped fight off a group of rogue vampires, and had my bff’s evil ex storm back into my life.  Yet, I still thought that it had been a good day.

Smiling, I re-read through Isaiah’s texts.

A really, really good day.

Chapter Eighteen

When I dreamed of icy fingers caressing my cheek, and a soft voice calling my name, I bolted awake, a scream lodged in my throat.

I still lay on the couch, huddled under the afghan.  The front door stood open, and a cold draft made my niece’s paper mobiles flutter.  Other than that, the house was perfectly still.

The wind had blown the door open.  Nothing to worry about.  Still, when I hopped up and closed it, I remained on high alert.  I set the deadbolt and slid the chain in place.

“Too late.  I’m already inside.”

At Marcella’s raspy voice, I shrieked and whirled to face her.  To my surprise, the person standing in the kitchen doorway wasn’t Hedda’s paramour, but the woman from the picture sitting on top of Isaiah’s television.  His little sister.

Was I still dreaming?  Marcella was the one who had attacked Isaiah and maimed his leg.  Not even vampires would be so monstrous as to attack a blood relative.  Would they?

The vampire stood with her hands behind her back.  Her pouty, bottom lip and lowered eyelashes gave her a slightly innocent, childish air.  However, the strapless black evening dress and red stiletto heels spoke loudly of sex.

When she smiled, she revealed perfectly even, perfectly white teeth.  Along with a pair of perfectly sharp, perfectly lethal fangs.  “Cassandra and Isaiah sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”  Her voice rasped along the rhyme like dirty fingers strumming rusty guitar strings.  “Only it wasn’t a tree, was it?  More like a porch.  Better watch out.  My brother’s a smooth operator.”

My brother
.  No!!  Still, I couldn’t deny what I saw.  Marcella was the woman in Isaiah’s photograph.  When I’d first met her at the Muse, she’d been wearing a mask, and in the blind pig, she had kept her back to me.  Her skin was lighter than Isaiah’s, her face thinner, and her build more willowy.  There were no physical similarities between her and my vampire hunter.  Yet the truth hit with a sickening blow that left me reeling.  My heart plunged like a stone falling to the bottom of a very deep well.

I choked on my breath as I backpedaled.  I immediately reached for Andrew’s cross necklace before remembering it was still at Mercury Hall.  “Get out of here!”

Her laughter was flat and heavy.  “You can’t order me away.”

“It’s
my
house!”

“According to the realtor, it’s your
parents’
house.  The nice man in the gold jacket let me in today, and once I’m in, only he can revoke my invitation.  But he won’t be able to do that, poor thing.”  From behind her back, she withdrew a bloodied, gold blazer.  “He met with a terrible accident.”  She flung the jacket at me, laughing when I squealed and dodged it.

I forced air into my lungs.  “You can’t take someone’s shine without permission.”

Her upper lip lifted in contempt.  “He was a real estate agent.  He didn’t have any shine.”

I retreated to the furthest corner of the room.  My eyes clicked like cameras, my brain too overwhelmed to process anything but one snapshot at a time.  Cruel eyes.  Flashing fangs.  Bloody jacket.

“My, aren’t we scared?  Your little heart is beating like it’s about to explode!”  She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.  “All that lovely blood pumping through your veins!”  Opening her eyes, she rubbed the tip of her tongue over her fangs.  “Blood mixed with fear is the best.”  She gave me a conspiratorial wink, as if we were trading recipes.

“What about Hedda’s rules?!”

“I don’t give a damn about Hedda or her rules.”

I gaped.  “But aren’t you two lovers?”

She fell back a step and hissed in disgust.  “Lovers?!  Hedda doesn’t love me; she wants to possess me.  The fact that I was human meant we wouldn’t be together forever, so she changed me into a
monster
!”  Marcella hissed again, and her eyes turned bloody red.  “Hedda knew that doing so would ruin my voice, but she didn’t care.  She wanted me, and she took me!”  Marcella put her hand to her throat.  “She stole the one thing I truly cared about.”

“Isaiah said that Hedda only did it to save your life!”

Marcella’s laugh wrenched my ears.  “That’s what she tells everyone.  Including herself.”

So much for Hedda’s high ideals.  Briefly, I felt sorry for Marcella.  That quickly changed, however, when Marcella darted across the room to brush a finger under my chin.  “Because she thinks I love her, she lets me do whatever I want.  She’ll send the entire grieve after you if you hurt me.”

My knees weakened, and the world began to gray out.  I fought to remain conscious.  I couldn’t faint.  Not now.

Marcella blew cold breath against my cheek, laughing when I cringed.  “Don’t worry.  I won’t risk making Victor jealous by touching you.  I hate Victor as much as I hate Hedda, but he’s the dangerous one.  I came to find out what you and my brother were up to.  Word in the grieve is that you’ve been seeing a lot of each other.”

“Okay, so you got your answer.  Now go!”

Her red pupils enlarged, swallowing up the irises until her eyes became two, glowing embers.  Her hiss raised gooseflesh on my arms.  “I’ll leave when I’m ready!”  She pinned me against the wall.  “And I’m not ready.”

I struggled to free myself.  My cross was at the Mercury.  The stakes were in the kitchen.  Without weapons, I was helpless.  “Isaiah,” I finally gasped.  “He wouldn’t want you to hurt me.”

She put her mouth very close to my ear.  “I’ve vowed to spend my life destroying my brother’s happiness.”  Her red eyes glistened like fresh drops of blood.  “And you make him very, very happy.”

“Why would you hurt him?  He loves you!”

“Really? Then why did he tell me to give Hedda my shine?”

I gasped.  “You’re lying!”

Her eyes gleamed.  “He didn’t tell you that, did he?  I’m not surprised.  It wasn’t the best advice he ever gave me.”

She kissed me, forcing her cold tongue between my lips and across my tongue.  Revulsion soured my stomach.

She laughed.  “Don’t I kiss as well as my brother?”

I longed to scrub my arm against my mouth to erase the feeling of her icy lips, but she held my hands fast.

“Isaiah set things into motion.  Because of him, Hedda stole everything I loved.  My voice.  My soul.  My music.”  Another of her kisses left me gagging.  When she let go, I fell with a thud to the ground.  She stood over me like the angel of death in a couture evening dress.

At the back of the house, Andrew threw his door open and charged into the kitchen.  I scrambled to my feet, hoping to reach him before Marcella.  It was no contest.  By the time I made it to the doorway, she already stood by the fridge.  She crossed her arms over her stomach and watched Andrew yank open drawer after drawer.

He was so intent on his search that he didn’t notice either Marcella or me.  His eyes were wild, and he muttered under his breath as he pawed through the drawers.  “I knew
it had to be something.  I just
knew
it!”  Finally, he found what he was looking for: a rolling pin.  He raised it over his head, ready to smash his cell phone which lay on the counter.

“Aren’t you the delicious actor who played Dracula in the Bleak Street play?” Marcella asked.

Andrew blinked in surprise and slowly lowered the rolling pin.  “Uh, yeah.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a beautiful shine?”

My purse with the stakes sat on the kitchen table.  Killing her wasn’t an option, but maybe I could drive her out of my house.  I dove for the weapons, but Marcella intercepted me.  With a laugh, she grabbed my purse and sent it sailing over my head and into the living room.  I suppose I could thank Isaiah for teaching his little sister how to throw.

She took my hand in an iron grip.  “Now, either stay in the corner, or I’ll break both your legs.”  She spun me around and slammed me into the wall.  I landed hard against my hip.  Something popped painfully.

“Cassie!”  Andrew went for me, but Marcella had her arms around him before he could take a second step.

 “You are so delicious,” she said.  “You had me salivating from the moment you stepped into Mercury Hall this morning.”  She put her lips to his neck.  “Whose plaything are you?”

“Don’t you dare touch him!”  Ignoring my screaming hip, I lunged for her.  Immediately, my back met the refrigerator as she threw me aside once more.

Andrew struggled too.  His face was red from the effort, something that delighted her.  “Keep fighting me,” she begged.  “I love the smell of your fear.”

The kitchen was full of weapons – the rolling pin for one thing, along with knives, and a cast-iron skillet – but what would work against a
vampire
?

“Garlic!” Andrew shouted as if reading my mind.

Marcella snickered.

It was worth a try.  I yanked open the refrigerator, but Andrew had not only restocked it, he’d reorganized everything as well.  I could spend ten minutes looking for garlic and still not find it.  I needed a cross, or silver, or
something!

Silver.

Balanced on the window ledge above the sink was a small, silver bowl that my mother had put her rings into whenever she washed dishes.  It was tarnished, but it had to be better than nothing.

Somehow, Andrew wrestled away from Marcella.  He went for the rolling pin.  Marcella, her hands behind her back once more, bounced on the balls of her feet, amused.  The moment he put his hand on the weapon, she playfully swatted it out of his hand.  With a sick lurch, I realized that he hadn’t fought his way free; she’d let him go.  In fact, she could take out the two of us whenever she wanted.  To her, this was a game.  She wanted to play.

Andrew dodged Marcella and grabbed a small paper bag.  He lobbed it like a grenade.  It hit a corner of the counter and broke open, spilling a pound of red lentils.  “Look!”  He pointed like a father to a small child.  “See that?”