Death's Excellent Vacation - By Charlaine Harris & Toni L. P. Kelner Page 0,13

the kudzu, before I called the local law. The skinny blond vamp did the same thing with your blouse—Sugar.”

“Right,” Pam said.

“So off you go, ladies! Have a nice night!”

After a moment of silence, we got in the car. Mohawk watched us as we drove away.

“How long do you think he’ll last?” I asked Pam.

“Russell has a reputation for acuity. If Mohawk is a good club manager, he’ll get away with killing Michael, for a while. If he doesn’t earn money, Russell will make sure he doesn’t last. And Russell won’t forget that Mohawk is patient and wily, and willing to wait for someone else to do the dirty work.”

We drove for a few minutes. I was anxious to get back to my room and wash away the atmosphere of the Blonde.

“What did you promise the vamp that helped us?” I asked.

“A job at Fangtasia. I had a conversation with Sara—that’s her name—after you went to bed last night. She hates her job in Tunica. And she used to be a stripper, which gave me the idea of planting her here in case we needed some help. Besides extra costumes, she brought a number of handy items in her bag.”

I didn’t inquire as to their nature. “And she did all that for us.”

“She did all that because she wants a better job. She doesn’t seem to have much . . . planning ability.”

“In the end, the trip was for nothing. It was a trap.”

“It was a bad trap,” Pam said briskly. “But it’s true that because of Victor’s greed, we were almost in serious trouble.” She glanced over at me. “Eric and I never thought Victor was exactly sincere about his motives in sending us here.”

“You think he was trying to hamstring Eric by getting rid of both you and me? That he knew Michael really wasn’t going to defect?”

“I think we’re going to keep a very sharp eye on our new master’s deputy.”

We rode in silence for a couple of minutes.

“You think Sara would mind if we kept the costumes?” I asked, now that Eric was on my mind.

“Oh,” said Pam, “I’m planning on it. Without some souvenirs, it’s not a real vacation.”

The Boys Go Fishing

SARAH SMITH

Sarah Smith’s YA ghost thriller, The Other Side of Dark, will be published in November 2010 by Atheneum. She has written the modern stand-alone Chasing Shakespeares, about the Shakespeare authorship controversy, and three historical mysteries: The Vanished Child, The Knowledge of Water, and A Citizen of the Country. Two of her books were named New York Times Notable Books of the Year. They have been published in twelve languages and have reached bestseller status in the United States and abroad. She is working on a novel about the Titanic and another YA thriller, A Boy on Every Corner.

for Yuki Miuma

TIME could lie lightly on Mr. Green. He could choose to be young, his face smooth, his hair black. He could catch an explosion in a force- field container. But under the weight of loneliness he is just another old man.

His friends have gone. Robin grew up, came out, moved to San Francisco, he’s in politics now. The Bat retreated into “scientific experiments.” The last time Green saw him, the Cave smelled and the Bat looked like Howard Hughes: long fingernails, dirty beard. Iguana’s dead. Atom, dead. Thunderbolt, dead.

And Lana. His girl, his only girl. He remembers every moment they spent together, but the good times are fading. They’re places he’s gone to in his mind so often he can’t see them anymore. The bad times don’t fade at all, the sonsabitches. Toward the last, when she could barely speak, he visited her in the hospital, changed his face and hair back to what he’d been, changed into the costume, the whole thing, the mask, the green cloak. “I remember you,” she whispered. But she really didn’t know him.

Sometimes it isn’t worth getting up in the morning.

“I need your help,” says the red-haired girl.

Her knocking wakes him. He squints out the door of his cabin into early-morning sunlight, sees a face that reminds him of girls in old comics. The sultry Chinese villainess. But the sultry Chinese villainess would wear a red silk dress cut up the side and she’d have black hair. This one has hennaed hair, cut spiky, and is wearing a parka from L.L. Bean.

The Thompson brothers’ rental SUV from town is parked by the fence. Whatever she wants from him, she drove forty miles on logging roads in the snow to