Ralph took me into the foyer and handed me a cell phone. "It's disposable. And untraceable."
"You guys are really paranoid."
"For good reason."
I took the phone and flipped it open.
"Keep it short," he reminded me.
"I know," I said. It wasn't like I hadn't just been told the forty-two or so rules about making this call. "I only tell them I'm okay and I'll be in touch soon." I glanced at him. "I will, won't I?"
"Yes," he said without hesitation. "I'll make sure of it."
His confidence made me feel better. I wasn't sure how things were going to work out here, but at least the Consortium wanted to keep me alive. We had that goal in common. I dialed my mother's cell phone number. It went immediately to voice mail. Not good. Mom always answered her phone. She never wanted to miss the one tip that might bag us something supernatural. I didn't leave a message because I didn't want it to count as my phone call.
"She's not picking up. I'll try my father."
I had a choice. Dial my dad's cell and hope he answered. Or call Braddock Hayes, PRIS team leader, who was in Texas on another case. He'd joined us about ten years ago, not long after we lost Stan at the nightwalker farm. Brady was a former employee of a government agency he never named. He brought with him black-bag skills and technology that seemed plucked from the latest science fiction novels. He usually ran things from the command center, but he also had created and trained an elite team of investigators who took on the more covert operations. Truth be told, he intimidated the hell out of me. The pit of my stomach felt hollow. What if Mom and Dad weren't all right? Worry gnawed at me, but I was still reluctant to tell Ralph or his friends that my parents might be in trouble.
"Everything okay?" asked Ralph.
"Yeah." I punched numbers into the phone. "I'm going to try one more time." The phone started ringing. I scowled at Ralph. "Do you mind?"
Regret passed over his face. "Sorry, Libby."
"I get it. You have to make sure I don't violate Patsy's rules." I was disappointed, though. Not only because he didn't trust me, but also because he had good reason not to. I wanted someone at PRIS to know where I was and rescue me. But mostly, I wanted confirmation my parents were alive and well.
"Hayes." My eyes welled up upon my hearing a familiar voice. It wasn't Mom or Dad, but I'd take what I could get.
"Hi, Dad," I said, turning away from Ralph. I tried to keep my breathing even while I concentrated on keeping my heart rate steady. I didn't need my human reactions giving away my deception to the vampire.
"Liberty. Stats," he said.
That was Brady for you, all business. I knew he'd go with the lie immediately and would also know something wasn't on the up and up. We had member-protection protocols, which had been developed and implemented by Brady. Mom and Dad's loose style of running PRIS had tightened up considerably thanks to Brady. No one wanted to lose another member of our team, not like we had lost Stan.
"Is Mom around?" I asked. "I couldn't get her on the phone."
"Your mother's out shopping. Her cell's been acting up." He was saying my parents hadn't checked in or returned. Same as me. "When are you coming back, pumpkin?"
Oh, please. Brady trying to be affectionate was like Simon Cowell trying to give a compliment.
"I'm doing research and decided to hang out for a while." I swallowed the knot in my throat.
"In Broken Heart?"
"Claremore. Broken Heart was a bust." We used this phrase to confirm the opposite. Now Brady knew where I was and that there was lots of interesting stuff here.
"Your mom will probably want to call you back. Is your cell still giving you problems?"
"Yeah. Reception out here is really bad. Had to use a pay phone." I'd just told him my communication options were limited.
"I see." He paused. "Do you need anything?"
Despite my efforts to stay calm, my heart skipped a beat and my stomach squeezed. He'd asked the question we used as code for: Do you need help? Here was the part when I let him know my status.
"I'd love some chocolate."
"You and your truffles," he said, laughing. God, he was good at deception. "Dark, milk, or white?"
More code words. Dark meant I needed immediate assistance. Milk indicated I was safe for now, but I wanted backup. If I said white, then he would know I wasn't in danger, just being cautious, and would be in touch in twenty-four hours.
"You know milk chocolate is my favorite," I responded. He was in Houston, about ten hours away. I knew Brady would drive because getting his gizmos through airport security was impossible. Plus, he was strangely paranoid about the Transportation Security Administration. We said good-bye. I shouldn't have felt guilty for telling Brady to come to Broken Heart. But I was scared. I didn't know what was happening to me - all the weird stuff with fire and the near obsessive attraction to Ralph. I didn't know how long the queen and her cronies planned to keep me. But most of all, I didn't know what had happened to my parents. I needed to know they were okay. PRIS was my family. And they were coming to rescue me.
In Ralph's Honda, we followed Stan's minivan to a big, white RV parked in a vacant, well-lit parking lot. An old basketball court was a few yards away from a razed area. Soccer goals occupied the far end of the field.
"Used to be the high school," said Ralph as we got out of the car. He took my hand, which so gave me the warm fuzzies, as he led me to the edge of the blacktop. We stared at the place where the building once stood. "It got blown up last summer."
"Seems to be a lot of that going around."
"Yeah." He sighed. "I'm not sure how safe it is for the grown-ups, much less our kids. The children attend school in the compound now, which is at least semisafe."
"Eva's their only teacher?" I asked.
"Yes. We don't have a lot of students. The Consortium built the compound for its headquarters, but it turned out to be the only secure place in town. Patsy's been dismantling the wall around it and trying to get the residents to use the businesses and homes again.
"That was the whole reason the Consortium came here, to create a community for parakind to live and work. It would be nice to live in a town where the other residents understood each other's natures."
"I think that's the hope in every town," I said. "It's a great idea, though. I never thought about how difficult it would be for paranormal beings to hide in the world of humans."
"Yeah. If only the bad guys didn't drop by every couple of months to cause hell for us." He sighed as he turned to look at me. "I think I'd give almost anything to be human again. I want to have a normal life. I never thought that taking my boys to the park on a sunny day would be something I'd never do again."
My heart panged for him. I brought his knuckles to my lips and kissed them. He gathered me into his arms and looked down at me. Oh, he was so cute. My whole body seemed to cry, "He's the one ." I believed it. Sigh. Wasn't it just my luck that the guy who finally made me tingle in all the right places was dead?
"How did it happen?" I asked. "How did you become a vampire?"
I felt his shudder. He dropped his arms and moved back, his gaze on the field before us. "I had tucked the boys into bed and gone into the living room to study. I was still taking my courses to become a paramedic. After a while, I needed a breather, so I stepped outside.
"Michael and Stephen had left toys in the front yard. I started picking them up, tossing them on the porch. I heard this noise and turned around. I thought it was Bigfoot. I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing, and it was too late to run. He slammed me against my front door and tore open my neck.
"I remember a lot of pain and then I passed out. When I woke up, I was a vampire."
"Wait a minute. Bigfoot turned you into a vampire?"
Ralph laughed. "No. The creature was a vampire, but one suffering the side effects of a radical cure for the Taint. He was cured, but he attacked eleven of us, all single parents. Then the Consortium saved us, packed up all the other human residents, and just . . . took over."
He sounded resentful. I didn't blame him. I touched his arm, and he took my hand again. His eyes were filled with turmoil. "For the second time in my life, my choice had been taken from me."
"What was the first time?"
"When I lost Therese. She got a headache. I gave her some Advil, rubbed her shoulders. She went to lie down and never woke up." His voice was tender and I realized he must've loved her very much. "An aneurysm. She was gone before the ambulance arrived. The hardest thing I've ever had to do was tell my sons their mother was never coming home."
I hadn't yet faced a moment when someone else's decision had fundamentally affected my life. I froze.
What was I thinking? That's exactly what had happened to me. The dragon had kissed me and gave me fire magic. Patsy and her minions had taken away my choices, too. And I had been affected deeply. But something wonderful had come out of it: Ralph.
"Libby?" called Stan.
We turned around. Stan waited by the door of the RV. He had asked his wife not to accompany us, probably thinking she'd figure out a way to claw out my eyes. I didn't really expect her to be grateful I'd dug her husband out of the rocks, but still, you'd think she wouldn't be so . . . ferocious. In an odd way, I admired her loyalty; I wondered what it would be like to be loved by someone that much. Stan led us into the RV's gleaming, well-stocked laboratory. I sat on a stool and watched Stan prepare what he needed to take samples. Ralph stood nearby, just an arm's length away.
"I thought the hospital had all the bells and whistles you need," said Ralph. "Why are we here?"
"The workers over there play with my toys," said Stan. "And break them. Do you know how long it takes to replace a gas chromatography-mass spectrometer?"
"I can't pronounce it, much less figure out how to replace it," said Ralph.
"Exactly. So I do my more sensitive work here." He looked at me. "This is where I worked full-time before the other lab was built. I kinda missed it in a weird way."
"I miss a lot of things, too, Uncle Archie," I said. "Mostly being able to make my own decisions."
He shut up.
I didn't really want to play nice. Just because he'd gotten away with carving on me and I'd saved his life (sorta) didn't mean we were going to be pals again.
Stan withdrew several vials of blood, swabbed my cheek twice, and yanked out a few strands of hair.
"Ow." I rubbed my scalp. "Aren't you gonna pull Ralph's hair, too?"
"Yep." Stan reached over and plucked a few of Ralph's locks.
"Gee, thanks." Ralph scratched his head.
"I'll need blood, too. And cheek swabs."
After he was done tormenting me and Ralph, Stan stood back. "That should do it. I hope to isolate what in your blood has affected Patrick. And figure out if your DNA has changed."
"Do you really believe . . . we're part dragon?"
"Yes. I think you believe it, too."
All this talk about me being hybrid, any kind of freaking hybrid, made me want to talk to my mom. She always knew how to comfort me.
"I don't know a lot about dragons," said Stan. "Like Ruadan said, they're rare. You know, Libby, the thing I most admired about your parents was how open they were to the supernatural possibilities. I thought you would be, too."
"Don't tell me how to feel about this," I said. "I've spent my whole life studying the paranormal world. It's one thing to hope for it, and another to see it with your own eyes. And now you're telling me I'm paranormal."
"You should be thrilled," said Stan.
"And you should've been blown up." Ralph put his hand on my shoulder and I calmed down. I sucked in a breath. "I'm sorry, Stan. I'm glad you're not dead. Well, you know what I mean."
Even so, whatever friendship we might've resurrected had died on the surgical table, the one he put me on without asking.
Was being a dragon so ridiculous? More ridiculous than falling in lust with a vampire or living in a town run by the loup de sang, or even being attacked by dragons?
"Can we go?" I asked Ralph. "I don't like it in here."
"Sure." Ralph ushered me out of the lab, and Stan followed us. He opened the door and I stepped out, happy to be free of the claustrophobic RV.
"How long until you get the results?" I asked.
"A few hours."
"That's fast," I said. "Doesn't it normally take much longer to do those kinds of tests?"
"Not with my equipment." Stan touched my shoulder. I turned to look at him. "I'm sorry, Libby. I really am. For everything."
I wanted to forgive him, but I couldn't. Maybe I just needed more time.
"I appreciate what you're saying," I said. That's all I could give him, and he seemed to realize he wasn't getting absolution.
I followed Ralph off the stairs. Behind us, I heard the door shut. No more lab, needles, poking, or prodding. Tension drained, and I sighed with relief.
Ralph looked at me. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay. Thanks." I got the warm fuzzies all over again. He really was my advocate. I blinked at him.
"Hey . . . uh, you're getting a little fangy."
"Sorry. I haven't eaten yet." He looked at me, then at the Honda. "Do you mind stopping at my donor's?"
I didn't want him to starve, even though breakfast for Ralph would be a tasty human. He would be gnawing on someone's neck. I was kinda jealous.
"Sure. As long as I don't have to watch."
"No problem."
We walked toward the car.
"I meant to ask how you got the windshield replaced so fast."
"Simone Sweet. She runs the garage. She keeps lots of replacement parts on hand."
I heard the soft, low sounds of music. Fire singing, and it was familiar. Yes. The same music I'd heard during the blast that killed Stan.
Ralph stopped walking, then turned to me, his gaze questioning.
"I hear it, too," I said.
A red dragon swooped out of the sky. With one big, fiery breath, it blew up Stan's white minivan. The blast threw us to the ground. Coughing and wheezing, I sat up. I was shaken and gritty, but not hurt. The same could not be said for Ralph. I scrabbled toward him and checked his carotid pulse. Oh, right. No pulse.
"That was Linda's van!" Stan was hanging out of the RV door. His gaze was on the destroyed vehicle.
"She's gonna kill me."
"Not if the dragon does first," I called. What an idiot.
The dragon turned its big, horned head in the direction of the RV. The creature was the size of a bus. Its red scales shimmered in the firelight. Its aura was black. I could discern it from the night sky easily. Dragon vision? Whoa.
The heat from the fire rolled over me. The odd music blared, rising and flowing and beckoning. We are one, it whispered seductively. Join with me, daughter. Let me show you beauty. Let me give you life.
"Get out of here, you moron!" I yelled at Stan, who was still gaping at the destruction. "Don't let the damned lab get blown up again!"
"What about you guys?" he cried. "Come on!"
I knew there was no way I could drag Ralph the twenty or so feet to the RV. If Stan tried to help us, he could get killed. I already knew that fire couldn't hurt me and Ralph, but Stan would be barbecued vampire in an instant.
"Just go! Hurry!"
The dragon issued an unearthly shriek. Twin streams of fire shot out from its nostrils and skimmed across the top of the RV.
"I'll get help!" Stan slammed the door. Seconds later the RV started up and sped out of the parking lot. The dragon returned its attention to us; we made much easier targets. I stood up and grabbed Ralph under the arms. I dragged him toward the Honda, which wasn't exactly great protection. But there was nowhere else to hide.
I barely made it a couple of feet.
Fire engulfed us.