P.C. Cast - Mysteria Nights

Summer snorted a little laugh. That had to be Purdom and one of his partners in crime. Jenny had been right. There was more power behind that spell than one kid could have conjured.

“That Ms. Sullivan is one mean woman,” said the first voice.

Summer smiled. Yep, Jenny had definitely known it.

“Yeah, but she’s so fiiine,” said the second, she now recognized as her student and Purdom’s bud, Blake McArter.

She heard Colin’s deep voice answering them but couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. She attempted to sit still for a minute more, then curiosity killed discretion, and she walked quietly to the doorway of the office.

“We thought we’d make up a little thang for ya,” said Purdom.

“Like, to make up for what we did,” said McArter. “Okay with you if we bust out with it?”

“Sounds fine with me,” Colin said.

This time she could hear Colin’s voice more clearly, and the good humor in his tone made her smile. Her feet seemed to move of their own accord as she continued walking soundlessly down the hall. After all, she’d been a victim of Purdom’s magical stunt. He should apologize to her, too. Well, again, that is. Naturally, Jenny had made him grovel appropriately at school earlier that day. But still, more groveling never hurt, plus the other kid was here, too, this time. She crept slowly into the gallery until she came to the room that held the Romeo and Juliet painting, aka the scene of the crime. The two boys were standing in front of the painting with their backs to her. Colin was facing them, so he could have spotted her, but his attention was focused, with an amused lift of one of his dark brows, on the boys as they started making the ridiculous rap noises that always reminded Summer of a mixture of farts and messed-up engine sounds. As McArter did the sound effects, Purdon rapped their song.

We come to apologize ’bout the other day.

See, we didn’t know you and Miss S. would go away.

We was just tryin’ to get in some play.

We sorry you had ta dress all gay.

And then Miss S. and you almost went all the way.

Those brats! They did know Colin and I had been in the painting! At that point there was a “musical” interlude in the rap, and both boys mouth farted and popped around looking silly and semicharming at the same time. Summer had just decided she’d been entertained enough and had started forward again when her eyes went to Colin, and she froze in place. He was watching the boys and laughing with the youthful joy of a man filled with light and promise. And Summer once again saw the happy, open man who had shared the painting, and his passion, with her.

He was completely and utterly captivating.

It was then that the question of whether she should risk getting entangled in a life of passion and darkness became moot. She was entangled with him already. Somehow within this dark, brooding vampire there lay the man she’d fantasized about and longed for all these years. It wasn’t a question of fitting him into her future. Colin was her future.

Summer must have made an involuntary sound, because Colin’s gaze instantly went from the boys to her. The smile didn’t leave his face; on the contrary, when their eyes met, his joy seemed to blaze from him to her.

“So we be here to make yestaday okay,” rapped Purdom.

“Yea, we got to give you somethin’ ’cause Sullivan says we got to pay,” intoned McArter.

“And she’s scary—even though I’d like to tap that play.”

The fart noises came to a crescendo, then Purdom went into the closing lines of the rap.

“We thought ’bout what we could do that would stay.

And come up with a magic spell to melt our dissin’ ya away.”

Magic spell? Those words broke through the smoldering look she was sharing with Colin at the same time she noticed that the little shivers going up and down her spine weren’t just because she was hot for the vampire. The rap was really a spell the boys were casting! Then four things happened simultaneously.

Summer opened her mouth to scream at the kids to stop.

Colin moved toward her with an inhuman speed that blurred his body.

Purdom finished the rap/spell with the line, “Dude, we give you a future bright as the sun’s ray!”

And as the vampire’s body slammed into Summer, she realized the magic catastrophe was unavoidable, so she closed her eyes and braced herself, sending out one concentrated desire: This will not mess up Colin and me. Then the area around her exploded with light.

When Summer opened her eyes, she was in a strange bed in a room she didn’t recognize. It was nice—she noticed that right away. Actually, it was freakishly like her dream room: huge, antique iron bed piled with rich linens in soft blues and yellows. The furniture was simply carved oak, well made and expensive but not fussy. The floor was glossy pine wood, dotted here and there with thick butter-colored area rugs. The walls told her she was in a log cabin—a damn big one at that. There was a fireplace along one wall. The others held several incredible original watercolor paintings of landscapes that all had one thing in common: they were bright and beautiful and painted in the full flush of summer days.

Then her eyes caught something on top of the long, low dresser. Was that her jewelry box? She climbed down from the mountain of a bed and realized two things: One, she was wearing her favorite style of pajamas: men’s boxer shorts and a little matching tank top. Two, it was, indeed, her jewelry box sitting on top of the dresser. Actually, as she looked around the room more carefully, she saw that the jewelry box was just one of several items that belonged to her. Over the ornate beveled mirror hung one of her favorite scarves. The Kresley Cole book she’d been reading was on the nightstand beside the bed, as was her favorite honeydew-scented candle. Feeling surreal and very Twilight Zone– ish she opened the top drawer of the nearest dresser and, sure enough, inside was a neat row of her bras and panties.

“What the hell is going on?” She cried, and then, wondering how she could have been stupid enough to forget, memory flashed back to her, and she recalled the two boys and their rap that had become a spell and the terrible light that exploded just as Colin had grabbed her.

Light? Colin?

Light! Colin! The two definitely didn’t mix. Where was she, and where was Colin? Summer hurried to the window and peeked out. The sun was setting into the mountains, painting the lovely landscape around the cabin in hues of evening. She was definitely in a cabin, out in the woods. But it wasn’t her sister’s cabin. She tried to calm her freaked-out mind. Think—I have to think! The kids’ spell finished with something about Colin having a bright future. Goddess! Did that mean he was trapped in the dark somewhere? And if so, why was she here in this pretty cabin? It didn’t make one bit of sense.

“Okay. Okay. You’re a college graduate. You can figure this out,” she told herself. “This room looks like it could belong to you, so . . .” With sudden inspiration, Summer went back to the bedside table and, sure enough, plugged into the charger, just as it was in the bedroom in her sister’s cabin, was Summer’s cell phone. She grabbed it and dialed the first number that came to mind.

“Summer! Where are you? Are you okay?” Jenny’s voice was uncharacteristically frantic.

“I’m fine, I think, and I don’t know where the hell I am. Where’s Colin? Is he okay?”

“Other than having lost his damn mind worrying about you, your vamp’s fine. And what do you mean you don’t know where you are?”