Hellforged

Tina was talking a mile a minute. “… and Jenna is so jealous. She says she’s not, but she is.”

“Wait a minute. Jenna didn’t make the cut?” I’d assumed Tina and her friend came as a matched set. Plus Jenna came closer to carrying a tune than Tina. Then again, maybe that was the problem.

“She didn’t even try out. She got stage fright and wouldn’t go onstage. Now she wants to be my manager.”

“Not everyone is cut out for stardom.”

“Yeah, right. You sound like Jenna. She just chickened out.” Excitement charged back into her voice. “You’re coming, right? To the concert? You’ve gotta come. Promise you will.”

“I might be out of town. I have to go to Wales.”

“Where’s that? Out on the Cape?”

“No, Tina. It’s on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“Oh. I must’ve been thinking of whale-watching. You mean the place where your aunt lives. Next door to France, right?”

Too bad she couldn’t see my eye-roll over the phone. “Actually, it’s to the west of England.”

“Yeah, like I said. But you’ll be back, right? The concert is, like, over a week away.”

“I don’t know, Tina. I might be gone for a while.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause. “Well, that’s okay, I guess. I’m going to be really busy. I won’t have time for school or demon fighting or anything. If you miss this concert, there’ll be others, right? I mean, you can travel and stuff. You’re not stuck in Deadtown until somebody else gets a permit to take you somewhere. You can see us another time.”

We said good-bye, and I hung up feeling like I should’ve urged Tina to finish high school. Maybe even learn how to find Wales on a map. But what was the point? Zombies didn’t go to college. Most of them did manual or menial labor. Look at Gary—he’d been a professor, and now he was glad to be working as a doorman. Zombies weren’t supposed to have dreams. But Tina did. If she had a shot at living hers, who was I to tell her to put it off?

I never thought the flighty kid was demon-fighting material, anyway. My job would be a lot easier without her tagging along and messing things up. And I could stop wasting two evenings a week trying to teach her Russom’s.

Jeez, Vicky. Sour grapes much? If Tina could hear my thoughts, she’d think I was as jealous as Jenna.

I still held the phone. I knew who I should call next—my sister, Gwen—but I wasn’t eager to talk to her. Gwen and I had been close as kids. And we’d stayed close, even though we’d made different choices. Among the Cerddorion, only females can shift—we gain the ability at puberty, and we lose it if we give birth. Gwen chose a norm lifestyle, marrying Nick Santini and having three kids. I adored my niece and nephews, but I was committed to remaining a shapeshifter and killing demons. Different strokes. Still, despite Gwen’s annoying habit of fixing me up with her husband’s norm friends, we got along.

Until that mad scientist kidnapped Maria. I’d brought my niece home safe and sound, but the poor kid was traumatized by the experience. It didn’t help that she’d seen me shift into a nightmare creature to get her out of there. Gwen had gone into protective mother-hen mode. All perfectly understandable.

What I couldn’t understand was why Gwen shut me out of her family. She’d asked me to keep my distance for a while, until Maria recovered. And I did, even though it hurt. No more phone calls to see what the kids were up to, no more family dinners at Gwen’s suburban home. My sister and I still talked, but her calls were less frequent and always came when the kids were in school. A strain arose between us, and I didn’t know how to make it go away.

Now, I was relieved—and a little ashamed to feel that way—when Gwen’s voice mail picked up. I left a brief message that Mab had summoned me to Wales and I expected to be back within a couple of weeks. She wouldn’t want to know more—when Gwen decided to go norm, she’d left the world of shapeshifting and demon slaying far behind. Besides, she and Mab had never gotten along. I ended with a quick “Give the kids my love,” wondering if she’d do it.

I hung up wishing I’d said more, just like with Kane. Then I shrugged it off. It would take time to mend my relationship with my sister, and it wasn’t going to happen today.

One more call to make, and then I could pack. I’d saved Daniel for last because I hoped he’d have news about T.J. At this point, I just wanted to hear a friendly voice.

I wasn’t disappointed. “Vicky, hi.” I could hear his smile; it made me smile, too. “I wanted to call you, but I didn’t think you’d be awake yet. Are you up for the day? Can you meet me for lunch?”

Yes, I wanted to say. I wanted a nice, normal lunch, with good food and laughter and flirting. “I can’t. My day’s going to be jam-packed. I’m leaving for Wales tonight.”

“You’re—?” I could almost see the surprised look on his face, the crease it made between his eyebrows. “I’m sorry. My ex-wife used to say I never listened. But I honestly don’t remember you telling me you’re leaving town.”

“I didn’t. I only found out myself an hour ago.” I decided to take the same tack I’d used with Kane. “It’s my aunt Mab. She’s getting on in years. She called and said she needs me there.”

“Oh, I see. It must be hard to have an elderly relative so far away.”

“She was my dad’s sister. I’m the only family she has.” Actually, Mab’s handyman, Jenkins, and his wife, Rose, were closer to my aunt than I was to my own sister right now. It felt more like Mab was my only family. “Anyway, I’ve got to pack and dig out my passport”—I hoped I hadn’t let that expire—“and rush around doing God-knows-how-many errands. I called to tell you I was leaving town, but I was also wondering whether you found out anything about T.J.”

“Hang on a minute.” There was a change in Daniel’s voice, a tension that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He spoke away from the phone, telling someone he was almost done.

“I can’t talk now.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Do you have any time at all today? Even ten minutes?”

“So you do have information?”

“Yeah. But I can’t talk about it over the phone. Hampson was furious when some reporter rang his doorbell last night. If it got back to him I was asking questions …”

“I understand. Okay, when and where?”

“What is it now, ten thirty? Let’s make it noon. At the Hatch Shell. Nobody will be around on a day like this.”

That was for sure. The Hatch Shell was an outdoor stage beside the Charles River. No concerts there when it was below freezing.

“All right. Thanks, Daniel. I know it’s risky for you to help me.”

“Wait—can you hang on again?” Away from the phone he said, “Go ahead. I’ll catch up in two seconds.” A pause of a few more beats, then he was back. “I’ll see you at noon,” he said in a low, hurried voice. “There’s more to talk about than T.J.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s happened again.”

“It’s—Daniel, what do you mean? What’s happened?”

But he’d already hung up.

12

IT’S HAPPENED AGAIN.

Another zombie had been killed. That had to be what Daniel meant. I turned on Juliet’s TV, lowered the volume a few notches, and found Channel 10. A local talk show was on: A pastry chef was teaching the host and hostess how to make crepes suzette. The chef used a lighter to ignite the dessert, and the hostess screamed and jumped back, laughing.