Vampire High Sophomore Year - By Douglas Rees Page 0,59

something. Tonight was the first night I’d been happy in a long time. All of a sudden, I wasn’t carrying the center all by myself. And there was that kiss. Oh, yeah. There was that kiss. I didn’t know what to make of it yet, but I was still tingling from it, almost half an hour later.

And there was something else that had come out of tonight. The look on my mother’s face. Dad’s good talk. It hadn’t mattered that Pestilence was a stranger, and even stranger than most. Art, poetry, had cut right through everything to make us all friends and make us happy to be together.

And if Mom and Dad could get into a night with Pestilence, who knew what real people might do?

“Hey, Mercy,” I said to the night. “We’re gonna do it. Don’t be late.”

25

I didn’t see Pestilence again that week. She e-mailed me a lot, and sent me updates to the Web site every day, but there was no mention of kissing at all. She was strictly business online.

Meanwhile, Dad got word on Turk. She was in Manhattan overnight, then in Brooklyn, then in New Jersey. Then the detective lost track of her for a day, and when he located her again, she was in Baltimore.

“She’s not doing anything,” Dad said. “She just checks into a motel, gets some gas, and drives on. Maybe she’s heading for Mexico to get some more tattoos.”

Then we lost her again, and this time the detective couldn’t find her. Mom and Dad were worried, but I wasn’t. Not much. I figured the detective had tipped his hand somehow and Turk had thrown him off her trail. Wherever she was, she was probably enjoying the feeling of being followed.

As for me, I was wondering if Diaghilev had ever had to beat people off with a stick.

Once the Web site was up and linked to, a lot of kids started to find out about the center. We were getting comments from people in Connecticut and Rhode Island as well as from the towns around New Sodom. Poets and painters and performance artists and dancers were checking in and signing on. The warnings about what might happen on Halloween didn’t scare them off. Some of them sounded like they were hoping for the worst.

I made up charts of every floor to figure out who could perform where. They filled in fast.

I told Gregor at school the next day. He was okay with the whole thing, which surprised me.

“Excellent idea,” he said when I told him. “The artists will meet under the wings of the Burgundians that night. The Mercians will be shamed and stay away, or they will come and we will defend the gadje artists against them. Either way, it will be our first victory. Thank you.”

“Man,” I said. “I am just trying to get the center open.”

“I know,” Gregor said. “But sometimes, Cody Elliot, you accomplish more with your stupid ideas than the cleverest jenti. This will be one of those times.”

“Just one thing,” I said. “Let me cut the police tape. If the police show up, they might not want to arrest everybody. Maybe they’ll just take the one who let the rest in. I don’t want any confusion about who that was.”

“As you like,” Gregor said. “I think the police will be the least of our concerns. If they are wise, they will not come to Crossfield that night. There are very few jenti among them, and if we decline to be arrested, there will be not much they can do.”

Another pleasant possibility for opening night.

I went over to the classics building. My feet made the only sound in the hall. Vlad didn’t feel like a school anymore. All the paintings on the walls and the expensive architecture seemed to belong to some other time all of a sudden.

As I passed Mr. Shadwell’s room, he came to the door.

“Ah, Elliot. I was hoping to see you. Please come in,” he said.

“I have to get to class,” I said.

“I don’t believe you have a first period this morning,” Mr. Shadwell said. “No one from the math department is here. And I have something to discuss with you. Please.”

I went in. Some of the chairs had been pulled out from behind the desks and arranged in a circle by the blackboard.

Mr. Shadwell pulled out his cell and dialed. “He’s here. Come right over.”

“Uh-oh,” I thought. “The gadje’s in trouble again.”

I expected to see cops, or maybe sword-waving jenti, come through