Nightkeepers

‘‘Rabbit?’’ There was a knock on the door. ‘‘You in there?’’

The voice was female, which pretty much guaranteed he was going to answer. He cracked the door and saw Tracy Lindh, a dark-haired junior cheerleader he knew in passing, who scored about a seven of ten on the do-ability scale, mostly because her breasts balanced out her chunky legs. ‘‘Yeah?’’

‘‘I, uh, don’t want to interrupt or anything.’’

‘‘I’m alone. Just taking a time-out. You want in?’’ He let the door swing wide enough that she could get through, but kept it tight so she’d have to slide up past him.

But she stayed put. ‘‘No, I, uh . . . You know that room in the apartment? The one with the padlock? Well, Ben Stanley and a couple of his buddies—’’

Rabbit was out the door before she finished.

He should’ve been cursing whatever asshole’d invited the terrible trio, when pretty much everyone who was anyone knew they’d made Rabbit’s life a living hell since junior high. It’d gotten so bad he’d actually studied so he could graduate early and get away from them.

But all he could think as he bolted up the hallway and skidded through the front door of the apartment, heart pounding in his ears, was, Oh, shit. Oh, no. No, shit, please, no—

He broke off when he saw that the door to the ritual room was splintered wide-open, with the padlock still attached to its hasp. Raucous male laughter sounded from within.

Lunging for the door, hoping like hell he wasn’t too late, he shouted, ‘‘Hey, get out of—’’

He stopped dead, heart slamming in his chest at the sight of three guys standing over the chac- mool altar, drinking beer from the ritual bowls.

Ben Stanley—a big, arrogant blond jerk who was a second-stringer on the football team and acted like he was captain—stood in the middle. Rabbit didn’t recognize the guys on either side of him, because they were wearing the Nightkeepers’ sacred robes, one red, one black, with the hoods pulled forward to shadow their faces. The hems and sleeve points dragged on the floor, which was littered with broken nachos and what looked like a big spooge of string cheese.

‘‘Get. Out.’’ Rabbit tried to keep his voice even, but it shook with rage.

They shouldn’t be in the ritual chamber. Hell, he shouldn’t even be in there. Not if the barrier had reactivated.

He’d never doubted the magic, even when it failed to work year after year. Somehow he’d always known it’d work someday; he just hadn’t counted on being left behind. And in response, he was just now realizing, he’d made a big fucking mistake.

Probably the biggest of his life.

‘‘Hey, Bunny-boy,’’ the black-robed guy said. ‘‘What the fuck is this? You part of a cult? You and your fucked-up father worship the devil or something?’’

Rabbit ID’d the voice as belonging to one of Ben’s two usual partners in crime: brown-haired, pockmarked Zits Vicker. That meant Jason Tremblay, skinhead extraordinaire, was wearing the royal red.

‘‘Come on, guys,’’ Tracy said, surprising Rabbit because she’d followed him into the apartment. ‘‘Lay off. You’ve gotta admit this is a pretty cool place. You want to be invited back, right?’’

Rabbit turned to her. ‘‘Go downstairs, okay? I’ve got this.’’

He didn’t want her to see him get his shit knocked loose.

‘‘Aw, let her stay,’’ Zits whined. ‘‘We’re just gonna have a little fun.’’ He shook the black robe, making the stingray spines dance. ‘‘Is this your dress, Bunny? Or does your daddy like you in the red one better?’’

‘‘Go,’’ Rabbit whispered, his heart bumping unevenly in his chest. ‘‘Please.’’

Tracy finally left, and Ben shut the door after her, giving it a shove so it wedged against the busted part and stuck fast. Then he crossed to the altar and dropped the bowl he’d been drinking from, giving it a spin so beer sloshed over the edges.

Rabbit was tempted to tell them that the last thing to hit those bowls had been human blood. He was going to take a pounding anyway. Why not deserve it?

But where before he’d more or less taken what they’d dished out—because resistance was futile and just earned him more of a beating—now he found himself squaring off opposite Ben as Zits and Jason moved up on either side of their leader.

Outside the sacred chamber, somebody swapped out the music, and a heavy throb of drumbeats sounded, seeming to echo up through the floor.

‘‘Wanna tell us what goes on in here?’’ Zits asked. He slurped from his bowl, beer sloshing down the front of the sacred black robe.

Rabbit wanted to kill him. Really and truly kill him— a quick slash across the throat would do it, or even better, he could cut the bastard’s heart out of his chest and watch as Zits’s blood pressure crashed, his brain cut out, and he dropped dead. Better still, he could burn him, robes and all, and listen to him scream.

For a second the image of it was so vivid in his mind, so perfect, Rabbit thought he’d already crisped the son of a bitch. Then the fantasy winked out and he was stuck back in the reality of high school torment, three months after he’d escaped the halls of hell.

This time, though, he wasn’t the skinny kid who’d moved to town halfway through junior high and got caught doodling a black-robed wizard in his algebra notebook. This time he was . . .

Nothing. He was nothing. A half-blood who couldn’t even jack in.

‘‘He’s not gonna tell us,’’ Ben said. ‘‘Guess we’ll have to make him.’’ He slapped the ceremonial bowl off the altar, sending it across the room. The thin jade shattered when it hit the wall, and the air hummed off-key.