I was mentally reviewing my DVR list, trying to decide what to binge on while Eli was at work, when I noticed a young woman moving down the street toward me. She had a strange, mechanical walk: arms jammed against her sides, head locked in the “forward” position, not bothering to account for anything in her peripheral vision. Next to me, Shadow tensed, her eyes fixed on the girl.
I leaned forward, reaching under my seat for my handheld Taser. Don’t leave home without it, that was my motto, although the girl didn’t exactly look like a threat: she was younger than me, dressed in a Cal State Long Beach T-shirt and jeans that had been artistically shredded at the knees. As she approached me I could see that her expression was unnaturally blank, her eyes empty and unfocused. And that one of her hands was clenched in a fist.
With a little effort I extended my normal radius, the sphere of nonmagical space that emits from me, an extra ten feet so it would encompass the girl. I could feel Eli and Shadow, but the girl wasn’t registering any kind of signal, which meant she was human. Shadow must have smelled this at the same time, because her body seemed to relax, her clubbed tail giving me a reassuring thump.
Human or not, I did feel the tiniest little zing, like when a witch tries to use a spell against me. Witch spells usually flare out in my radius, sort of like a June bug hitting one of those bug zappers. This felt more like a mosquito. I’d known enough vampires to recognize the sensation: this girl had had her mind pressed, which was our term for when a vampire compels someone magically. And I’d just undone it.
The girl’s vacant expression cleared, and she looked around with confusion. Her forward momentum propelled her the rest of the way to my van door.
“What was I . . .” she mumbled, her brows furrowing.
I needed to help this along. “What do you have there?” I asked, pointing to her hand.
The young woman followed my gaze and raised the hand with the fist, looking at it curiously. She uncurled her fingers and revealed a folded scrap of paper. Shadow let out a sudden growl, trying to climb into my lap to protect me. It confused me for a second, until I registered that the folded paper was splotched with red, as though paint had been sponged on it. Or as though a bloodstained hand had written the note.
“Shadow, sit,” I ordered, pointing at the passenger seat. She didn’t like it, but she lowered her haunches until they almost touched the car’s seat. “You must have brushed against that painting back there,” I told the wide-eyed girl, nodding over her shoulder at an imaginary artist. “I thought it looked like it might still be wet.”
It was flimsy as hell, but the girl’s shoulders relaxed a little. Human brains just love having “rational” explanations to cling to, even if they border on ridiculous. Without turning away from her I leaned my body to dig into the small packet of baby wipes I keep between the seats of my van.
She read the name on the outside of the folded note. “Scarlett Bernard.” She looked up at me, her face a mask of bewilderment. “Are you Scarlett Bernard?”
“I hope so; I’m wearing her underwear,” I replied. The girl’s expression didn’t change. Tough crowd. “That’s me,” I confirmed. She held out the note, and I held out a wipe. “For your hands.”
We traded, and I unfolded the note quickly, knowing she was about to ask a lot of questions. There was an address scrawled at the top, 2310 Scarff. In block letters below it, the writer had added, DON’T TELL ANYONE. EVEN ELI.
I had already opened my mouth to ask where the note came from when I saw the extra scribble at the very bottom of the paper, done in desperate, hurried cursive: please Scar. I snapped my mouth shut. I knew that handwriting.
Molly.
Chapter 2
Once upon a time, I sort of had a fake best friend.
Okay, that’s not fair. Years ago, when I needed a new place to live, I moved in with a very young-looking vampire named Molly. It was a mutually beneficial thing: I needed a break on rent, and Molly wanted to be near me so she could age. She’d become a vampire back in the nineteenth century, when seventeen was more or less an adult, but her options were extremely limited in modern society. I could help her with that—hanging around a null would let her body age like it was supposed to, at least when she was close to me.
Molly and I had become friends, although I often thought she wasn’t letting me see much of the real her. She liked to pretend the two of us lived in a fun, Sex and the City–type world where we gossiped and hung out and did girlie things together, and I played along, because . . . well, it was surprisingly comforting. I knew that Molly was also reporting some of my activities to Dashiell, the cardinal vampire of the city, but because she was open about it, this was weirdly okay too.
But that had been three years ago. I hadn’t heard from Molly since shortly after she’d asked me to move out, when things had gotten awkward. Until I opened the note I hadn’t even known for sure she was still in Los Angeles. It wasn’t like Dashiell and I spent a lot of time chatting about our mutual acquaintances.
I crumpled the note, my stomach roiling with sudden nerves. Molly had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure there was no record of her contacting me. And there was only one possible reason for doing that: she didn’t want Dashiell to know.
This scared me more than the blood, more than the prospect of dealing with the confused twenty-year-old in front of me. As long as I’d known her, Molly had been a compliant little vampire. She had always followed all of Dashiell’s rules, and lived very quietly, especially compared to some of the other vampires in this town. Hell, her desire to stay on the fringes of supernatural society, keeping her head down, was most of why she’d kicked me out. And now she wanted to hide something from Dashiell?
Relieved of the paper, and the only discernible reason for being here, the girl in front of me began to panic. “What . . . where am I?” she said, her head swiveling around.
“You’re at the downtown art walk, remember?” I said helpfully.
Her eyes met mine again. “But how did I get here? I was just . . . I was going to a party . . .” Her tone was almost a whine, but I couldn’t really blame her. Losing patches of memory is a college female’s worst nightmare.
“Check your pockets,” I suggested.
Her hand emerged with a few twenties and a receipt. “It’s a cab company,” she said wonderingly. “But I never take cabs.”
Luckily Eli chose that moment to come around the side of the van. “Sorry, I kind of got stuck there . . . who’s this?” He looked at the girl, eyebrows raised pleasantly.
I looked pointedly at the girl. “I’m Britt?” she said hesitantly, as if afraid her recent blackout may have included a name change.
“Eli,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand. He studied her confused expression for a moment and then turned to me. “Um, can you give me a quick hand in the back?”
Britt automatically stepped back so I could get out of the van. I left Shadow inside and followed Eli toward the rear doors—and held up a finger for him to wait. I was watching Britt. Now that I’d moved away, she just stood there with her eyebrows knit together, not moving. Which was unusual.
Vampires usually press humans for two reasons: to make them forget something—like a feeding—or to get them to do a single task. “Get this message to Scarlett Bernard,” for example. But every pressed human I’d encountered had recovered better and faster than Britt. Once the . . . okay, we’ll call them “victims”—had completed their task, they went smoothly back to whatever they had been doing. The human brain is complex and interesting—capable of filling any logical gaps with its own little assumptions. I’d never seen a human victim so untethered after being pressed, and it wasn’t because I’d zapped out the vampire’s influence. If anything, that should have made her recover faster.
It was like whoever pressed her mind had done it with very little control. A brand-new vampire wouldn’t have had enough power and precision to manipulate a human mind. It must have been someone old enough to press hard, but upset enough not to do it well.
This was very bad.
“You seeing this?” I asked in a low voice.