Hannah Jayne - Under Attack

My apartment was on the second floor and my hefty rent gave me a priceless view of a well-tagged brick wall and a bank of Dumpsters—not so useful for romantic dinners on the fire escape, but excellent for a midnight sojourn with destiny. In my own Nadia Comaneci move I vaulted from the end of my fire escape to land in an inglorious belly flop on a pile of bagged garbage. I bit my lip to keep from screaming as I picked my way through splitting bags of God knows what, cursing my neighbors for buying cheap garbage bags and Cala Foods for selling them. I swamp-walked through the trash, willing myself not to breathe, reminding myself that all the slimy hands that I felt reaching out for me were either banana peels or burger wrappers.

When I mercifully reached the rusted metal side of the Dumpster I hauled myself out, landing with an impressive thud on the cement below. I dared a look up to my illuminated bathroom window to check if Alex and the guys were on to me—nope. I took off running then, the sound of my sneakers slapping the pavement echoing through the dark alley.

Halfway to my destination I was heaving and certain my lungs were going to explode; I hailed a cab and paid the shameful $5.65 to go the next six blocks, then tore through the police-station parking lot, mashing my fingers against the elevator’s down button.

“Come on, come on,” I moaned to the molasses-slow machine as I danced from foot to foot. “Come on!” As I waited, I scanned the lineup of menacing-looking mug shots in the MOST WANTED photos and shivered. If Ophelia was just your basic, everyday homicidal maniac or computer hacker, I’d feel a lot better. At least then I’d have the whole police force behind me and she’d stay out of my head—and her mug could be plastered all over the streets of San Francisco, making everyone on high alert.

I stepped inside the elevator and watched the doors close on the safety of the police station vestibule. “I have to do this,” I told myself out loud. Suddenly, the thundering beat of my heart was all I could hear. My mouth went dry and my palms were wet; my stomach seemed to drop with every floor. I dipped my hand into my shoulder bag, fingering the comforting coolness of my gun.

“Everything is going to be okay,” I whispered.

When the elevator’s big steel doors opened, the UDA waiting room was dim, the empty furniture and deserted kiosks bathed in an eerie yellow glow from the room’s flickering emergency lights. The UDA was technically closed, but since the standard lock-and-key method did little to deter the undead who wanted in, the company was locked up tight with a magical charm, courtesy of the higher-ups at Underworld corporate. The supernatural padlock method was ingenious for keeping out curious breathers and impatient demons, but it had one weak spot—me. My magical immunity wasn’t just a fun parlor trick; it occasionally came in handy, too. I breathed deeply and tried to convince myself of my confidence.

Ophelia may have the supernatural powers of the otherworld behind her, but I had a gun, a handbag full of soap, and a team of mythical defenders who thought I was taking a bubble bath.

I gulped.

“Ophelia?” I called out.

I heard her giggle—this time it was out in the open and not in my head.

And then I heard a scream.

I tore down the hall, screaming for Nina and kicking open doors. When I got to the last one—the room the UDA used for storage—I paused, until I heard Ophelia’s laugh again. I yanked open the door.

I lost my breath when I saw the storeroom. Just like the rest of the UDA, the lights were off, the only illumination coming from the sickly yellow glow of the emergency lights. The storeroom furniture had been pushed back and heaped up against the walls, so towers of used office chairs and obsolete phones were stacked in precarious mountains all around me—everything except for one wooden desk and one chair. The desk had been pushed to the front of the room and Ophelia was stretched out on her stomach on top of it. Her fingers were knitted and her chin rested in her hands. Her long, bare legs were kicked up and she would occasionally kick her bare foot like a child watching fireflies. She was dressed in a red cotton sundress with crisp white piping—inappropriate both for the situation and for San Francisco weather—and her long blond hair looked flawless, held back by a thick white headband. Her curls trailed over her bare shoulders and spilled down to her elbows. There was a jaunty straw purse sitting on the desk next to her. If her arms and shoulders hadn’t been streaked in blood, she would have looked like a teenage girl lounging on a summer day.

“Sophie!” Ophelia squealed gleefully when she saw me. “So glad you could make it!” She waggled her bare feet and grinned at me, a shiny prom-queen grin that morphed into a pouty frown. “I don’t think Nina wants to play with me anymore.”

Ophelia stretched one arm, her talonlike nail pointing to where Nina was tied against one wall.

My stomach sank and I had to bite down hard on my lower lip to stop myself from crying.

“Nina?” I breathed.

My best friend was sitting on the missing desk chair, bare ankles double-roped against the legs of the chair, her arms tied behind her. She was wearing the slip dress I had last seen her in, except now it hung listlessly on her and her once-glossy hair was snarled in a series of rats-nest knots. There were large tears in the silky fabric of her dress and the elegant lace that edged the bodice was torn and hung around Nina’s neck like a noose; one strap hung ineffectually around her upper arm, right next to it a series of oblong purple bruises. Her exposed skin—usually marblesque and perfect—was pockmarked with angry red gashes, burn marks, and cuts. Splatters of blood marched across her chest and arms, and long, bloody rivers dripped down each leg.

“Oh,” I whimpered, feeling the sting of tears that wanted to fall, feeling the tension in my spine as it crawled up the back of my neck.

Nina’s head lolled to the side and I saw that her lips were puckered and had a handful of tiny cut marks on them. There was blood caked at the corner of her mouth and under her nose and one eye—usually decked out in a luxe MAC eye shadow palette—was nearly swollen shut. Half-empty blood bags were torn open and leaking all around Nina. I cringed.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat.

“You know what’s neat?” Ophelia said, hopping from her spot on the desk like an excited school child. “I can hurt vampires! And if I feed them just enough to get their system going—but not enough to gain their strength—I can make them bleed.” Ophelia was downright giddy and she clapped her hands, her straw purse bobbing jauntily as she wound it around her arm. “Isn’t that fun?”

My jaw tightened and my stomach went leaden. “Great. You can hurt a vampire when she has a quarter of her powers. You’re real tough.”

Ophelia’s eyes narrowed and she went on, ignoring me. “I wanted to tell you—I tried to get in your mind to show you all the fun stuff that Nina and I had discovered but your mind was closed completely. It was clogged by all the others around you.” She frowned a pouty little girl’s frown. “It made me sad. Where were you—the mall?”

“Broadway.” My voice was barely audible to myself and I didn’t want to raise it. I thought of us wandering aimlessly through town, and Alex and I rolling around in bed, all the while, Ophelia was learning—and hurting Nina.

“Don’t cry!” Ophelia said. “There’s plenty left for you, too!”

I backed up, slipped my hand into my shoulder bag. Ophelia’s eyes followed the line of my arm.

“You know what else is different?” Ophelia asked. “I can’t read your mind in here.” She held her arms open, blue eyes grazing the ceiling. “Must be something about the Underworld—protects their own or something? No, that can’t be it because you don’t belong here.” She grinned. “You don’t belong anywhere.”