They didn’t answer me. They weren’t drunk enough to be quite that cold about it. One finally said, “She told us she’d make it worth our while if we got her a vampire.”
“Well, she’s fifteen. Her definition of worth your while is probably a whole lot different from yours, you asshole.” Man, I was angry. Angry at Miranda, for getting herself and us into this. Angry at the boys. Angry at Michael, for not already walking away. Okay, I understood now why he hadn’t. He’d already known he’d be throwing her to the wolves (and the bats) if he did.
I was angry at the world.
“We’re leaving,” I declared. I grabbed Miranda by a skinny, scabbed wrist and pulled her to her feet. Her Cleopatra headdress slipped sideways, and she slapped her other hand up to hold it in place even as she decided to pull back from me. I didn’t let her. I had pounds and muscle on her, and I wasn’t about to let her stay here and throw her own vamptastic pity party, complete with dangerous clowns.
Up to that point, Miranda had been all talk, but I saw the look that came across her face and settled in her eyes when I grabbed on to her. Blank, yet focused. I knew that expression. It meant she was Seeing—as in, seeing the future, or at least something the rest of us couldn’t see.
The hair shivered on the nape of my neck under my Catwoman cowl.
“It’s too late,” she said, in a numbed, dead sort of voice. I drew in my breath and looked at the door. “Oh dear.”
The door slammed open, bowling over a couple of football players along the way, and three vampires stood there. One of them was the vague Mr. Ransom.
Another was a particularly unpleasant bit of work named Mr. Vargas, who had the looks of one of those silent film stars and the temperament of a rabid weasel. He’d always been one of the dregs of vampire society. Oliver kept him around—I didn’t know why—but Vargas was one of those you had to watch for, even if you were legally off the menu. He was known to bite first, pay the fine later.
The last one, though, was the one who really scared me. Mr. Pennywell. Pennywell had come to town with Amelie’s father, the scary Mr. Bishop, and he’d stuck around. I knew he’d sworn all those promises to Amelie, but I didn’t believe for a second he really meant them. He was old. Really old. And he looked like some androgynous mannequin, with no emotion to him at all.
Pennywell’s cold eyes looked around, dismissed the jocks, and focused in on three things:
Miranda, Michael, and me.
“The boys are yours,” he said to Ransom and Vargas.
Vargas’s teeth flashed in a white grin. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said, and stepped aside, out of the way. “Run, mijos. Run while you can.”
The jocks weren’t stupid. They knew the odds had shifted. They were severely in trouble. Not a one of them was willing to stand up for Miranda, or for us, and that didn’t shock me at all. What shocked me was that they didn’t take their beer with them when they broke for the door and stampeded out into the night.
Vargas watched them go, and counted it off. “Twenty yard line. Thirty. Forty. Ah, they’ve reached midfield. Time for the opposing team to enter the game, I think.”
He moved in a blur, gone. I resisted the urge to yell a warning to the football guys. It wouldn’t do any good.
Pennywell said, “You, girl. I hear you want to be turned.” He was looking at Miranda.
“No, she doesn’t,” I said, before my friend could say something idiotic. “Mir, let’s get you home, okay?”
Faced with the alien chill that was Pennywell, even Miranda’s great romantic love of dying had a moment of clarity. She gulped, and instead of pulling free from my grip, she put her hand in mine. “Okay,” she said faintly. I wondered exactly what her vision had shown her. Nothing that she wanted to pursue, clearly. “Home’s good.”
“Not quite yet, I think,” Pennywell said, and shut the door to the field house. “First, I think there is a tax to be paid. For my inconvenience, yes?”
“You can’t feed on her,” I said. “She’s underage.”
“And undernourished from the look of her. Not only that, I can smell the witch on her from here.” He sniffed, long nose wrinkling, and his eyes sparked red. He focused on me. “You, however . . . you’re of age. And fresh.”
That drew a growl out of Michael. “Not happening.”
Pennywell barely glanced his way. “A barking puppy. How charming. Don’t make me kick you, puppy. I might break your teeth.”
Michael wasn’t one to be baited into an attack, not like Shane. He just got calmly in Pennywell’s way, blocking the other vampire’s access to Miranda and me.
Pennywell looked him over carefully, head to toe. “I’m not bending any of your precious rules,” he said. “I won’t bite the child. I won’t even swive her.”