Deadgirl

have listened to a speech in that voice.

I touched my pockets and shook my head—the international symbol for no dice. It took some doing, but I convinced her to take the tiny amount of cash I had on me. I found my seat and let the radio fill up my thoughts.

I listened to the end of Muse’s Starlight, and a voice hissed into being, swimming out of the static.

“The time is five-to-eleven, and it’s 75 degrees. The search for fifteen-year-old Lucy Day has yielded little results. As stated earlier, she disappeared last night at approximately nine-thirty, according to eyewitness reports —”

I reeled. Holy shit. We’d been gone over a day. Twenty-six hours, almost. I touched my lips. They felt like ice. My parents. My poor parents.

“—and the status of the two teenagers, names undisclosed, hasn’t improved. You’re listening to the World Famous—”

The bus driver clicked the radio off. Thankfully.

I cupped my hands over my mouth and leaned forward. The bus rumbled underneath me, and for a long while there was nothing. I tried not to think of my mom and dad. They would despise me for putting them in this situation. Again. My stomach dropped out from under me. My life was over. Even if I somehow got through all of this mayhem tonight, my life would never be the same. Would I transfer schools? Maybe even boarding school? I might never see Morgan again. Or Zack.

The bus rolled slowly to a stop. I looked around, surprised by the speed. We’d arrived at a little line of houses in the middle of a suburb. I checked the address—it wasn’t too far from where I was going.

The doors closed behind me, and the bus pulled away from the curb with a hiss of hydraulic breaks and the squealing-squeak of ancient machinery. I watched it go until it was nothing but a pair of tiny red dots in the distance. I thought I had felt alone at the bus stop.

Out of habit, I flipped my phone out my purse and checked the time. The screen was cold—was it dead, or just off? I didn’t care. If it had died, having the worried text messages and terrified voice mails at bay was a good thing.

The address took me to 516 Spruce Street. I looked up at the house as I approached, a little surprised. A smoke-gray little BMW coupe sat in the driveway, like it had just leaped out of a James Bond movie. I could imagine Daniel Craig in that thing, glaring into his rear view mirror while he bled from a gash over his eye. He was even making that little sexy pout in my daydream. I took a deep breath.

Down, girl. Really not the time. Anyway, Bond drove an Aston Martin.

I walked up to the doorway, under the eave, and rapped the wood with my knuckles. Three solid hits.

I felt nervous, and cold, don’t forget cold, but kind of light. Airy, almost. I think knowing that some of the Puck mystery was about to be revealed pumped a little helium into my balloon. I knocked again.

The door swung open, and I turned from my musings to say hello and to get my first glimpse of Puck’s granddaughter—down the gaping barrel of a giant black revolver.

“Whoa! Whoa!”

I held my hands up and staggered backward, tasting nothing but metal. I couldn’t make out the figure of the woman holding the gun, back-lit by the bright light in the doorway, but I could make out the gun just fine. And it brought to mind the little bald wannabe vato and his friends who had joked about raping me, and had settled on pumping a bullet into my stomach. The metal taste disappeared, replaced by the taste of bile and fear.

“Wait, please…”

“Stop moving, girl,” the voice said. It could have been a vulture with a bullhorn. That voice could cut glass.

The flood of memories made my legs tremble, but other than that I was a statue.

“There’s silver in here, girl, and I promise there’s enough.”

I didn’t miss it that time. She was putting on an act, I was sure of it. Granted, I had no idea what she was talking about with the silver, but her voice trembled. She might have been as afraid as I was. Maybe even more.

“I’m not here to hurt you. I just…I need your help.”

The expansive maw of the revolver barrel, floating a foot away from my forehead, dipped only slightly. It was enough.

A surge of uncontrollable anger blasted up from my stomach and into my chest, making my heart hammer and jive. My hand flicked, imperceptibly, just a little clench and unclench. The hot flood of energy burned through me, warming my skin, if only for a second before streaming out of me.

Something invisible and powerful ripped the revolver out of her hand. She barely had time to yelp before that same wave came back in and blasted her backward. Her butt landed on the entrance steps at the exact same moment that her revolver whumped softly into the grass behind me.

I could see her now, in the porch light. A frail-looking woman, somewhere in the vast gulf between fifty and sixty years old. Her huge eyes, wide in shock and terror, were crystal blue. Her graying, thinning hair was twisted up into a bun. A pair of sweatpants clung to her legs, and a simple white tank top hung from her thin shoulders.

The hot wave of anger, and energy, passed. I felt colder than ever.

“Not gonna hurt me, hmm?” The woman asked in her crone’s voice. It didn’t fit her. That voice would have been at home in some gnarled ninety-year-old. This woman might not have even qualified for a discount on her Grand Slam Breakfast yet.

“You had a gun on me.”

She shrugged.

“What did you mean about the silver?” I asked her. The idea made my mind itch. “I’m not exactly a werewolf.”

“You don’t know?”

I sighed. “If I knew I wouldn’t ask.”

She nodded at that, even smirked a little. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Well?”

“It’ll send your kind packing. At least for a little while. Force you into the Grey to rebuild. Well, as I understand it. I’ve never actually used it.”

There was enough in that sentence to keep me occupied for a while. Still, I didn’t have time for twenty questions. If she said silver could hurt me, I believed her. It could have been plausible—it hurt werewolves and vampires, right? Why not ghosts, too?

“I need to talk to your daughter, maybe granddaughter,” I said.

“Don’t have a granddaughter,” she said. “And Barbara isn’t in town. Sorry to disappoint.”

It didn’t take me long to put that one together. If this was Puck’s granddaughter…then Puck had to have a century or two under his belt. Wow, capital W.

“You’re Ophelia?” I asked, though I knew the answer easily enough.

“Yeah,” she said. Her face went from confused to angry in seconds. “Granpa sent you? Are you serious?”

I raised an eyebrow. She must know something all right. Either that or she thought having a living grandfather who might have fought in the Civil War was normal.

“Come inside,” she said, and sighed. “I guess we have talking to do. Mind picking up my gun on the way up?”

With that she disappeared inside the house. I grumbled, scooped the cold, heavy revolver out of the grass, and walked toward the house. As I did, I popped the chamber of the revolver open, thank you, Dad, and dumped the cartridges into my hand. One-two-three-four-five-six. I’d never seen a silver bullet before, but I’ll be damned if those weren’t them. The rounded tips gleamed with a sheen lead envied.

Unbelievable.

I followed her into the house and shut the door behind me.

The house was cozy, if a little cramped. Old-fashioned, elaborate ottomans and free-standing cabinets