hand.
“That’s right,” said Winnie, matching the woman’s brazen stance.
For one of society’s outcasts, Bray thought, Winnie was admirably feisty.
“I’m pleased to welcome you both. I always find more in common with correspondents than with the youngsters.”
“We have more focus,” prompted Winnie. “We know what we want.”
“Precisely.” The woman’s face lit up. “Say what you will about the merits of the annual prom kill, it does tend to distract the teenage mind from the task of learning. But get beyond that, venture out into the world for a spell, and well by golly, experience gives a correspondent a much clearer perspective on life-not to mention the legal exemption for returning students.”
He chuckled. “No slasher.”
“Not for you two.”
“We’d submit to it if we had to,” he assured.
Miss Brindisi moved in to confide, her right breast against Bray’s sleeve: “It’s for the young.” Her smile overwhelmed. “They need it.”
Bray nodded. “I understand.”
“It’s good for them. It toughens the fiber. And it’s one hell of a tonic for us post-teens as well, to witness it.”
“Yes.” His lip corners felt as if they would crack. The woman’s lobes looked delectable. “I’m sure it is.”
“Well,” she said, almost as if they’d shared a dance. “Brayton, Raven, I’ll leave you to it. Stop by and say hello, after all the excitement dies down.”
“We will,” said Winnie.
“Several of your teachers are here tonight, and I know they’d love to meet you.”
Bray waved. “We’ll be around.”
“Enjoy yourselves.” She eased off. “And eat up!”
A whirl and she was away, heading back toward the tall man.
“Lion of God be praised,” muttered Bray.
“Amen,” said Winnie, turning her smile to him.
“Let’s hope the real Bray and Raven aren’t here.”
“Are you kidding? Coffinville’s at the southern end of the state. I’ve seen maybe four other older couples. A school this size probably has, oh, I’d guess thirty or forty grads-by-mail each year. They rarely show up on prom night.”
“Only the vultures,” he said. “The ghouls.”
“Yeah, the ones I’ve seen seem pretty seedy. I say we avoid ’em. There’s more virtue in the prom-jumping coward and his societally challenged date than in any hundred of those folks.”
“We’ll open their eyes,” said Bray, scanning for them.
“Damned straight we will.”
“Or die trying.”
“Will you quit harping on death? Nobody’s gonna die. Not tonight and maybe at no other prom ever again.”
The layout of the gym was different than it had been at Bray’s school. Bigger too. But the hard knot that was high school had tied itself tight in his stomach.
The feeling was the same.
Stifled growls of pent-up fury.
Naked fear.
“We’ll see,” he said and endured her seethed volley, comforted-even as she had her verbal way with him-at having Winnie by his side.
The fear was delicious.
Thick as oil paint gobbed on with a palette knife.
It rose out of the kids Jonquil passed on the dance floor. It fell in waves from the bleachers, rich and blunt and thrilling beside the music’s brassy panic. Claude, captivated by the wicked red ogre towering at the center of the gym, had moved not at all.
“And the purveyor of lesser vices,” she said, “having made the mistake of calling the Ice Ghoul dull, found that he could no longer tear his eyes away, forever ensnared in its charms.”
Claude smiled at her. “Oh, hello. So who were they, the correspondents who have somehow managed not to look as unsavory as they’ve got, most certainly, to be?”
Jonquil touched his arm. “Our secret, okay? I don’t have the slightest idea. The young man’s name is Brayton, I’m fairly sure. The woman went along with my offer of Raven, so you can call her that if the need arises.”
“Crashers,” he said, bored. “Passes real?”
“Pretty convincing if not. Elwood would’ve caught an obvious fake at the door.”
Claude gestured upward. “You know, in the right mood, and with a certain sinister fall of shadows across its body, this monstrous mound of kitsch has an undeniably creepy allure.”
Moisture continued to drip down the sides of the Ice Ghoul’s head.
“Does it stack up against the one in seventy-six?”
“This one easily outstrips the other,” he said. “It’s bigger. More height, more bulk, more menace. I get the uncanny feeling that it’s aware of the outrage perpetrated against Futzy. Speaking of which, where is our illustrious leader hiding himself? Doesn’t he realize we’re all starting to extend the gossip about him?”
Mister Weight-of-the-World Principal.
Old Futzy would be in his element tonight, the focus of punishment, wallowing in misery. A fitting climax to weeks of increased student floggings, his admission of impotence after the prom committee announced the Ice Ghoul as its centerpiece at the dance.
“In his office is my guess. He’ll slip in under low lights, keep himself apart from the kids, maybe even from us, until the ceremonies.”
“A prom he’ll never forget,” said Claude.
“Yes. Expect new bylaws next year. No more Ice Ghoul at the prom as long as he’s in charge.”
Claude nodded. “The one in seventy-six was appalling, but only after Futzy’s daughter and her date lay dead before it. The teacher who slashed them worked out a transfer. He’d really gone to town that night.”
Jonquil thought back. “Let’s see. I was all of fifteen then. My prom took place two years after that in seventy-eight.” Someone, after the bodies had been retrieved, had arranged Quill and Dane arm-in-arm, their staved heads angled together, against the hard concavity of a black angel’s sorrowing embrace. The deaths of her dearest friends had given Jonquil a backbone of steel.
“So are we going to blow the whistle on these two?”
“Let’s not,” she said.
“By which I take it, the left lobe of one or both of our crashers-the genitalia as well?-are at risk of being loved, for lack of a better word, by a certain sexy, horny instructress of my near acquaintance.”
“Cruel, cutting, and unkind,” she demurred, “and quite possibly true.”
“I minored in the study of Jonquils.”
“Who knows? The night’s young. Survivors grow unusually festive at these things, and the spirit’s infectious. Let me observe them, maybe have a little fun with them. We’ve seen really ugly souls buy prom passes from correspondents in the past. There’s nothing new about that.”
“It provides an additional pinch of terror.”
“Which is all to the good,” she said. “Let ’em hover at the periphery, add atmosphere, then throw ’em out after the futtering’s done and the padlocks have come off. But what is new is this: These two don’t strike me as your typical bogus grads-by-mail. There’s something different about them.”
“A new mix of body parts, Jonquil dear?”
“Never discount it, Claude. People don’t couple enough in my opinion-which is the right opinion. They don’t inflict enough violence. And when they do, there’s no creativity, no spirit of inventiveness to it.”
