Эллен Шрайбер: Cryptic Cravings

“My family?” Jagger sat up. “The irony, you mean. That he’d travel so far away from my family and ultimately we’d wind up settling here, too?”

“You guys have a truce.”

“I know. He helped my brother, Valentine. When Valentine was weakened and alone, Alexander cared for him and returned him to me. I’m not suggesting we restart that feud. But does that mean that what’s good for Alexander is good for us, too?” Jagger asked pointedly. “Do we have to live our lives around his? Besides, maybe a vampire club is just the thing he needs. He won’t be so alone on that hill with only a butler to attend to his needs.”

“I’m just saying. I know he’s still mad at me for what I did to Luna at his party. I know he thinks it jeopardized his existence here. And more of us coming to town — the kind that might be like me and act on impulse. . it wouldn’t be good for any of us.”

“You were just being you. Just being us.” Jagger leaned in. Even from far away, his blue and green eyes were piercing. “I can’t help it if Alexander’s more. . restrained. He should have bitten Raven a long time ago. Why let it drag on?”

Just then my foot slipped and I knocked over the empty soda can on the windowpane.

“What was that?” I heard Jagger say.

“I think someone is outside.”

I held my breath. Alexander did, too.

Alexander and I stood against the wall. A pigeon was walking along the window ledge.

Alexander tossed a twig near the bird. Startled, it flapped its wings wildly and flew off past the window.

“It’s just a pigeon,” I heard Sebastian say.

Alexander cupped his hands and helped me up again.

“You shouldn’t be on edge,” Jagger said. “Why are you so worried? It’s just a club.”

Sebastian thought, then finally spoke. “But it’s a club with vampires — in a place that has been inhabited by only one. Alexander fights every day to be who he is and do the right thing. Just because you and I might be more alike? That doesn’t mean he’s the one that’s wrong.”

Jagger now was the one riffling his fingers through his white locks.

“I really want to run this past him,” Sebastian said.

“And what’s he going to say, yes? Besides, you can’t tell him you’ve been hanging out here with me and Luna.”

Sebastian hung his head low.

“Don’t despair,” Jagger said. “It’s going to be awesome. Music blasting, drinks flowing, dancing until dawn.

Beautiful girls everywhere. What’s not to like?”

Sebastian’s face lit up in the candlelight.

The Crypt sounded like the kind of club I’d want to hang out in. Just like the Coffin Club — but only a few miles from my house. I bit my lavender lip in excitement.

“I know he’s mad at me. .” Sebastian said, “but I still have his back.”

“He’ll see the club once it’s open,” Jagger said, rising. He put his arm around Sebastian. “It won’t be too long.

We’ll decorate at night. I have ways of getting these things settled very quickly.”

Sebastian bit his black nails.

“Just think it over,” Jagger said, slapping Sebastian on the back like a coach does to a football player. “You have a place to stay, a new best friend, and. .”

“A girlfriend,” a sweet, ethereal voice said.

Just then pink hair bounced in from behind the shadows.

Luna was dressed in a wickedly cool frock — a pink mini-dress with black spiderwebbed tights. Her perfectly straight baby pink hair appeared as soft as something out of a shampoo commercial.

Sebastian shot up.

She took his hand and pulled him into her. They shared a kiss that probably would have gone on forever if Jagger hadn’t cleared his throat.

“It’s Luna,” I whispered to Alexander. “Now we should go in—” Alexander helped me back to the ground and I told him what I’d heard. He shook his head. “We need to wait,” he said.

“Really?” I was surprised by Alexander’s sudden change in course.

“Yes,” he said. “But not for too long. I’m always getting Sebastian out of predicaments. Maybe this time he needs to figure things out himself.”

“But what about this new club?” I asked. “It will be here, in Dullsville.”

“That we will have to fix. But I don’t have to at this moment.”

We heard the sound of a car driving over the gravel. Alexander pulled me back into an alcove.

A white Beetle painted to look like a skull drove past us and parked. Scarlet and Onyx hopped out of their car.

“I think it will be fun to hang with them here for a little while longer,” Onyx said.

“That’s because you want to be next to Jagger at all times.”

“I do not!” she declared.

“It’s okay,” Scarlet reassured her. “I’d like to try to see that Trevor guy again.

He’s such a prep — but I have to admit, I really think that’s hot!”

Onyx giggled.

“Too bad I can’t bring him here,” Scarlet said. “Maybe I’ll just show up at his school in his locker room.”

The two girls giggled as Onyx opened the trunk.

“But he can’t know about us,” Onyx said. “That’s why it’s best to date vampires. We don’t have to hide. Maybe you should like Sebastian?”

“He’s all into Luna. That girl gets on my nerves. I sense something fake about her.”

“Like she’s not a real vampire?” Onyx asked as they retrieved several bags of groceries.

“No — like she’s up to something. She’s either really saccharine-sweet or totally aloof.”

“Do you think she really likes Sebastian?” Onyx asked as they headed for the door with groceries in hand and passed by us.

“I think she likes—” Scarlet said, but we couldn’t hear her answer. They had disappeared into the factory.

Alexander took my hand and led me away from the abandoned mill.

“I have other things on my mind tonight,” he said, his eyes still dreamy from the blood exchange, and he drove me back to the Mansion.

As I lay in my bed, I cuddled Nightmare in my arms. Alexander had finally taken my blood as his own. The moment felt as intense for me as it was for him. To be one of the few living humans in the world to have blood taken by a vampire thrilled me beyond belief. And that it had been done in a harmless and loving way made the whole event exhilarating and blissful. The most important part to me was that Alexander showed me that he needed me, craved me, wanted me. The feeling of connection I now felt to him was stronger than blood.

And that moment was much different than when Sebastian had taken Becky’s blood. One, she hadn’t known it had happened; two, she wasn’t aware that Sebastian was a vampire; and three — and most important — she wasn’t in love with him.

With Alexander, this was something we shared together as a couple. He needed me — inside and out, just as I did him. Heart, soul, and blood. And if he’d done this, something I never thought he would do, did that mean that he was one step — a big step — closer toward turning me? I threw my head back on the pillow in laughter. At this moment, I didn’t care about being a mere mortal. A vampire had taken my blood! I’d experienced much more beyond belief since meeting Alexander Sterling. I’d always dreamed that vampires existed, and now I knew. I’d fallen in love with one — and this very night, he’d acted as a true vampire and shown me how much he needed me.

But what should have been a uniquely blissful moment was complicated once again by the nefarious vampire twins, Jagger and Luna. If only I could spend time just thinking about Alexander. Finally our lives could be about just us. I wondered if that would ever happen.

I was torn about the Crypt. When I thought about what Jagger was proposing, a fabulous new dance club where none before existed, I was ecstatic. Practically speaking, though, there was nothing worse than having vampires (ones other than Alexander and his family, of course) inhabiting our town and mixing with mortals. If this place became a second Coffin Club, we could only guess what new vampires would do. Would they put the lives of unsuspecting students or townspeople in danger? But the other part — the dance club itself — was exactly what I’d really wanted all my life. A club, a haunted happening, only a few miles from my own house, that I’d be able to attend. A place, unlike school and all of Dullsville itself, where I would finally fit in.