“You can’t say, we swore an oath not to tell!” Tyler exclaimed.
“That was just Arielle and Nia, and they didn’t even come back here tonight. You Vina Fields girls, you make me sick, acting like you want to be friends with Beata and me, but really, you only come here because you know my mom works nights, so you can sneak out and not have any grown-ups listen in. You’re not even in our book group. I never even saw you before tonight, so don’t go telling me what to say or not say in my own home!”
“Don’t blame me!” Tyler replied. “They told me you liked to hold the meetings here on account of you have to babysit your little sister.”
“No one’s going to be meeting here again, so it doesn’t matter,” I said, “but, just out of curiosity, Kira, why did you take part in this group?”
“In case it’s true,” Kira whispered. “We thought, at least Arielle had this idea, maybe we could become shape-shifters, you know, like Giralda in the book. She learns to be a raven, and, well, I know it’s a sin, calling up magic spirits, but I thought if I could turn into a raven, I could fly to Tarnow, that’s where my tata—my dad, he left us, I thought—”
She turned a muddy pink and stopped talking.
“I think it would be good if you told me about how Arielle and Nia stick you,” I said. “I won’t be angry, but I need to understand.”
“Arielle and Nia, they stuck each other in the palm with these big sewing needles,” she whispered, speaking so fast I could barely understand her. “Then they licked each other’s blood, and then they stuck me and the others and we all kissed each other’s hands.”
“Oh, gross! Why didn’t you guys talk to me?” Petra’s mouth twisted in disgust. “I could have told you there’s nothing like that in any of the books. Vic, you have to believe I never talked about trying to turn into a vampire or a shape-shifter. I mean, everyone knows about Dracula and vampires, but we never talked about licking each other’s blood.”
I smiled faintly. “The power of the imagination. You should be proud you could unleash it.” I turned back to Kira. “Is that what happened the time Lucy saw you? Is that why you went out to the cemetery this time?”
Kira nodded. “Arielle and Nia, they couldn’t come last month, but the full moon before that, back in May, Lucy heard us. Jessie kind of screamed when she got stuck, so Lucy came out just when they were sticking me, and she screeched her head off. Arielle and Jessie and them took off. And then Lucy told my mom next morning at breakfast. I said some of my friends came over for a study group and we were practicing first aid and Lucy didn’t understand what she was seeing. But tonight, for Tyler, Arielle and Nia decided we’d better go outside, in case Lucy saw us again.”
“Everyone met up here?” I asked. “Arielle and Nia and the others?”
Kira nodded. “I told them to be quiet, but I guess Lucy woke up and saw us leave. She knew Petra’s number because I wrote it on the refrigerator for Mom, so she called Petra.”
“Why do their mothers let them come here?” I wondered.
Kira hunched a shoulder. “I suppose they say they’re going off to do good deeds on some poor stupid immigrant family.”
“It’s not like that!” Tyler burst out. “Arielle said we all should say we were going to her place for a sleepover, except her, she told her mother she was going to Nia’s. Then we met over on North Avenue, at the bus stop next to our school, and rode over here.”
I rubbed my eyes. I could picture it all. In fact, when I thought of my own childhood, the exploits I’d committed with my cousin Boom-Boom when my mother thought I was asleep in my attic bed, I could picture it all too well.
“You headed over to the cemetery, all seven of you together, and then Tyler saw the vampire.”
“I didn’t really,” Tyler said.
“No, really you saw a person,” I agreed. “Man or woman?”
“I don’t know. It was just out of the corner of my eye, it was just like a shadow, I can’t talk to the cops, if I do they’ll tell my dad.” Her voice rose in her anguish.
I wondered uneasily about Tyler’s home situation, whether her father was a garden-variety domestic tyrant, or if he was actively violent. I decided to sic Petra on that and keep my focus on what had happened in the cemetery.
“And the dead man—who was he?”
“I don’t know! Don’t keep acting like I killed him or something, I never saw him before.”
I glanced at the clock on the television. It was almost three. If Tyler or Kira knew anything about Miles Wuchnik, the dead detective, my brain wasn’t working well enough to come up with a clever question to pry it out of them. In any event, Arielle and Nia were the driving forces of the group; they had chosen the site. But did they have enough power over the other Carmilla club members to get them to engage in murder?