Blood Feud copyright © 2011 Steven A. Roman
Pandora Zwieback, Sebastienne Mazarin, and all related characters are TM and copyright © 1994, 2011 Steven A. Roman and Uriel Caton
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, by recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system—except for review purposes—without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and/or institutions featured in this publication are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, institutions, or locales, without satiric content, is coincidental.
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-9841741-0-2
First StarWarp Concepts Print Edition: June 2011
Cover painting by Bob Larkin
Edited by Howard Zimmerman
Cover and title page design by Mat Postawa
Interior e-book design by 52 Novels
StarWarp
Concepts
P.O. Box 4667
Sunnyside, NY 11104
Visit our Web site: www.StarwarpConcepts.com
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at:
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Smashwords Edition December 2011
CONTENTS
Other StarWarp Concepts Titles
CHAPTERS
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24
25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34
Coming Next: Book 2: BLOOD REIGN
Rave Reviews for BLOOD FEUD!
“A fun and very much recommended read that shouldn’t be overlooked.”
—Midwest Book Review
“One of those fabulous books that manages to straddle the young adult/adult fiction divide…catering equally for teens and more, ahem, ‘mature’ readers alike with a light touch that makes it a joy to read.”
—BCF Book Reviews
“A big-style cinematic vampire and monster hunter shoot-’em-up with a very human, sweet kid caught in the crossfire… but her relationship with her parents and close friends makes the story gold.”
—Goodreads
“A young adult book that does the all-important job of translating well to an adult audience…. Definitely recommended for the target audience (and us readers who are that little bit older).”
—Taliesin Meets the Vampires
“Well written… This modern-day Goth horror will have readers turning the pages to discover how Pandora comes to terms with a very old problem: encountering the monsters among us!”
—Gothic Blend
“This book absolutely sucked me in and didn’t let me go! The characters are beautifully developed and relatable…. No matter what genre you’re into, Blood Feud has something to offer any reader of any age.”
—Krypto Dies!
“Pandora is cooler than Buffy, tougher than the emo wimps of Twilight.”
—The Sexy Armpit
“Charmingly fun, addictively energetic, explosively violent and almost terminally endearing. Oh, and highly recommended.”
—Sci-Fi Saturday Night
Other
StarWarp Concepts Titles
You Will Enjoy:
Classic Dark Fantasy
CARMILLA
by J.
Sheridan Le Fanu
Illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia
Artists’ Sketchbooks
THE BOB LARKIN SKETCHBOOK
Coming Next:
Young Adult Dark Fantasy
BLOOD
REIGN: THE SAGA OF
PANDORA ZWIEBACK, Book 2
by Steven A. Roman
Graphic Novels
LORELEI: SECTS AND THE CITY
Written by Steven A. Roman
Art by Eliseu Gouveia, Steve Geiger,
and Neil Vokes
This
one’s for
Uriel Caton,
Pan and Annie’s co-creator
and
“artistic dad,”
and Michael Z. Hobson,
who knew a
winner when he saw one
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As much as writers often enjoy being shut-ins who keep their own counsel, no book is ever really written in a vacuum. It’s always good to have your work looked over by a fresh pair of eyes—actual live ones, I mean, not just the ones you collect in a jar on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.
…
I’ve said too much, haven’t I…?
Anyway, here’s a hearty shout-out to Vaughne Hansen, Bob Larkin, Clarice Levin, Mat Postawa, Mike Rivilis, Dan Weiss, Sui Mon Wu, Scott Zwiren, and especially my editor, Howard Zimmerman—the folks who offered much-appreciated advice along the way as Pan sets off on her journey. Blood Feud’s a much better book for it, so thanks!
Now I can finally go back to my hermitlike existence—it’s scary out there in the real world!
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
—Friedrich
Wilhelm Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil
Prologue
Halja’s
Island
South Pacific Ocean
November 20, 1820
“OH, for the love of God, would you just die already?”
A man. A woman. A star-filled, moonlit night. Under normal circumstances they would be the classic ingredients for a romantic evening … except there was little that was either normal or romantic about the combination of these ingredients on this particular night. Not when the full moon that hovered over the rocky, volcanic landscape glowed with the color of freshly spilled blood, the woman was an immortal monster hunter standing on a plain littered with the corpses of human and otherworldly combatants, and the man she had run through with a sword wasn’t just an ex-lover but a former heavenly messenger recently added to her to-do list. And certainly not when said messenger had designs on unleashing hell on earth in a mad attempt to take revenge on God Himself.
As breakups went, this one probably ranked just short of the long-prophesied battle of Armageddon—but not by much.
Ebon wings spread wide behind him, the handsome, dark-skinned angel took a moment to glance down at the sword protruding from his bare, sculpted chest before turning his attention to the woman who was attempting to shove the remaining two feet of steel through his rib cage.
“I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, dear Sebastienne,” the angel commented glibly, “but if this is how you normally show affection to your lovers, I’m beginning to understand why you live alone.”
“Go to hell, Zaqiel. Or go back to heaven, if He will have you—I don’t care which it is. But your madness ends here. Tonight.” Gripping the ivory hilt with both hands, she threw her weight against the sword, grunting loudly from the exertion as she tried to force the blade deeper. The night air echoed with the nerve-jangling rasp of metal scraping bone.
“Do you want me to say it tickles more than the whisper of your sweet breath caressing the nape of my neck?” he asked with an infuriatingly playful grin, which quickly evaporated into a sneer. “Because it doesn’t, actually. It’s rather quite painful.”
“Good,” Sebastienne snapped through clenched teeth. “I’m just getting started.”
“No, I rather think you’ve had enough fun for one evening,” Zaqiel said. “You can stop now.”
Sebastienne dug her boot heels into the earth and pushed harder on the weapon. Sweat beaded on her temples as she strained, but the blade wouldn’t penetrate any farther.
“No, really,” he insisted. “Stop.”
“Shut up and die,” she growled.
The fallen angel sighed melodramatically—and then smashed her across the face with a backhanded slap. Sebastienne lost her grip on the sword and staggered back a few feet before crashing to the ash-covered dirt on her rear end. Too dazed to move, she could only sit and watch numbly as the former prince of heaven wrenched the blade from his chest. The wound healed instantly.
Zaqiel hefted the blade in his fighting hand and nodded appreciatively. “Good balance … well crafted,” he commented, “but not a very effective weapon against the Almighty’s favorite children—”
“The Almighty’s rejects, you mean! Admit it, Zaqiel, that’s what you really are—you and Lucifer and all the other traitors He cast out! You’re an embarrassment to your creator. That’s why he banished you Watchers to that stinking pit for the rest of eternity—so He wouldn’t have to look at you anymore … so He wouldn’t have to remember you ever existed.” She flashed a wicked smile. “Forgotten by all … mourned by none.”
Zaqiel’s lips pulled back in a snarl; a flash of lightning in the ever-rising pyroclastic cloud above them gleamed off razor-sharp fangs. She’d hit a nerve with that remark, doing far more damage than her useless sword ever could. She hoped they left a ragged scar on his heart, as his betrayal had left on hers.
“Perhaps you are right,” he growled. “But I escaped the crucible, did I not? While God looked the other way and busied Himself with offering salvation to his monkey-children I regained my long-denied freedom—unlike my brothers who still beg Him for release!” He pointed up toward the rim of the volcano. “And now I have returned to free them!”
Zaqiel strode toward her, tightly gripping the sword’s hilt. “And yet who should arrive at my hour of triumph, to disrupt my plans? The lowly beast I had the poor judgment to choose as my lover—who now has turned on its master. A mongrel that doesn’t know whether it should be human or animal!” He sneered. “And you have the temerity to speak to me of God’s rejects.”
Sebastienne blinked back tears. Her words might have hurt his pride, but his tore at her soul. “Damn you, Zaqiel …” she whispered hoarsely.
“I am already damned!” the angel roared, and raised the sword above his head. “But I will not suffer alone!”
The blade swept down, and she screamed.
1
Mariz, Czech
Republic
Present Day
IF Dalibor Frantisek hadn’t already been dead for a quarter century, the fifty-caliber bullets that punched a hole through his brain and tore into his chest might have really hurt. As it was, he just found the unexpected barrage annoying as hell—and that was only because the snipers had utterly decimated the latest addition to his wardrobe.
A two-thousand-dollar, hand-fitted, gray Gucci suit fresh from the tailor, ruined in a shower of blood and cranial fluids just seconds after he’d stepped from the Humvee; not even the most skilled dry cleaners back in Prague would be able to get out those stains. Well, he thought dourly, that’s what happens when you decide to wear fancy dress to a recovery mission. Everyone else will be wearing body armor, but you just had to go and show them up, didn’t you? You’ve no one to blame but yourself.
But, honestly, who would ever expect a bunch of Roman Catholic priests to be so well-armed? With high-powered army-issue sniper rifles, no less?
Dalibor sighed and patted down his brown hair to cover the ragged but already healing exit wound in the back of his skull. Then he turned his attention toward the source of his annoyance.
Sitting atop a hill on the outskirts of the remote Czech Republic village of Mariz, the Church of Saint Adalbert of Prague wasn’t a spectacular-looking house of worship by any means—not after five hundred years of neglect. Its plain stone walls were pitted, its single bell tower was crumbling around the edges, and the weed-choked grounds of the church were littered with masonry that had fallen off and never been carted away. But Dalibor and his soon-to-arrive companions weren’t interested in lighting votive candles or admiring baroque architecture. It was the Prize rumored to lie somewhere within its underground passages they were here to claim—if one of the other houses hadn’t already gotten to it.
And if they could make it past the damned sharpshooting priest …
The screech of tires behind him caught Dalibor’s attention but didn’t concern him. It was only his backup finally making their appearance—fashionably late, of course. As always. After he’d drawn the first round of enemy fire. Again. He gazed at the half dozen strike-team members from House Karnstein as they swarmed out of two black Humvees to take up defensive positions. A mix of the living and the undead, they formed the Special Ops branch of the Prague chapter: warriors outfitted with FN P90 submachine guns and the latest in magick-enhanced body armor designed to protect its wearer from most kinds of explosives and weapons fire.
Dalibor gazed down at his raggedy clothing, then sighed. It certainly would have come in handy tonight …
Jenessa Branislav, of course, had to comment on his bullet-assisted wardrobe malfunction. Shapely and tall, the black leather jumpsuit that she wore under the armor covering her like a second skin, she was easy to spot since she was the only soldier not wearing a protective Kevlar helmet; despite the risk of getting her head blown off, she just didn’t like the way the oversized metal bowl flattened her shoulder-length, bright-red hair. Not exactly the best example to set as strike-team leader, especially with those flame-colored tresses presenting such an inviting target for a sniper’s bullet, but Dalibor had long ago given up trying to convince her otherwise. Her boots’ two-inch-thick rubber soles crunching loudly on the asphalt, she jogged over to join him, paying no attention to the bullets that whipped past her to gouge baseball-sized holes in the grassy field, the cracked pavement, and her company’s vehicles.
“Hey, Dalek,” she called, addressing him by his childhood nickname, “is that a new look for you?” She gave his tattered suit a quick glance and smiled, revealing gleaming fangs. “Very cutting edge. Where can I get one?”
He nodded toward the church. “Take another five steps in that direction. I’m sure they’ll be happy to custom-tailor it for you.”
She took a closer look at the suit and raised an eyebrow. “With what? A howitzer?”
He gingerly stuck a finger into the dwindling hole in his head and poked around. “Felt like something smaller. Can’t really remember, though.” He frowned. “I think it took out my short-term memory.”
She shrugged—“Whatever.”—then turned to her group. “All right, children, our first order of business is that snipers’ nest on the roof. I want Milkors all around, loaded with HE warheads. Zuzana! Krystof!” A woman and man—with the body armor and helmets it was hard to tell who was the vampire, and who the human—tilted their heads toward Jenessa. “Take the east! Dusana! Sionek!” The other female/male team turned to face her. “The west! Vincenc—you’re with me!” The remaining male soldier nodded in response, then began making his way over to join her as the others hurried to their positions.
“And what would you like me to do?” Dalibor asked.
Jenessa nodded toward the church and smiled. “Take another five steps in that direction.”
Dalibor laughed mirthlessly at her joke. “I’ll pass.”
“Then just stand back and watch the fireworks. This won’t take long.”
She reached over her left shoulder to unhook the weapon that was clipped to a harness on the rear panel of her armor: a South African–made Milkor MGL-140 multishot grenade launcher. Dalibor caught sight of Vincenc doing the same as he sauntered over. The one-forty was a formidable weapon, capable of firing all six of its shots in less than three seconds. Looking somewhat like a single-barrel, sawed-off shotgun with a pistol grip and a large rotating cylinder in the middle, it fired a variety of shells, from 40mm ammunition to tear-gas canisters and rubber slugs. But it was the HE—high explosive—warheads that Jenessa had ordered her team to use. HEs were shaped like miniature missiles, constructed mostly of plastic, and their tips were tinted in red and yellow hues—the colors of flame. There was good reason for that.
Vincenc followed Jenessa’s lead as she unfolded her one-forty’s shoulder stock, then slipped on a pair of ballistic goggles to protect her eyes and inserted foam plugs into her ears. She flipped off the safety on her weapon.
“Hey, Dalek,” she warned as she lined up her shot. “Cover your ears.”
Dalibor, who’d been examining his already-healed chest wound in his Humvee’s passenger-side mirror, turned around. “What?”
The roar of the grenade launchers almost permanently deafened him. Dalibor staggered back, his hands clasped over his ringing ears, and cried out a string of curses in Slavic. At least he thought he did—he knew his lips were moving, but the only thing he could hear was the booming echo reverberating in his head. Or was that the sound of the grenades blowing apart the church? It was hard to tell the difference.
Jenessa fixed him with a withering look and shook her head. If he hadn’t forgone the earplugs that went with the same body armor he’d neglected to wear, he might have been able to make out what she was saying to him. It certainly wasn’t anything complimentary, if the lopsided grin Vincenc flashed at him was any indication.
His hearing finally returned in time for him to catch the last echoes of the barrage, mingled with the pitiful groans of dying clergymen. When the smoke from the multiple explosions cleared, Jenessa walked forward, loudly counting out five paces. Then she stopped and waited. After a few seconds—during which Dalibor was certain he’d be witness to her head exploding from one last sniper round—she turned and looked over her shoulder at him.
“Drama queen,” she said lightly. “Seems perfectly safe to me.”
***
The damage to the church, and to its defenders, was far worse than anything done to Dalibor’s expensive suit—which, in his opinion, was only right. The thermobaric HE warheads used a fuel-air mixture to create their devastating effect: on impact, the warheads released a flammable liquid in aerosol form, thoroughly dousing their target just before the payload detonated, creating a high-pressure blast wave that burned anything—and anyone—at ground zero, and shredded everything else within a fifteen-yard radius. So with six warheads for each strike-team member, fired from six MGL-140s, there was little remaining of the snipers’ nest on the church’s roof … or the roof … or the snipers themselves. Scorched body parts, shattered masonry and brick, and a number of ornamental crosses had rained down on the grass in front of St. Adalbert’s, giving the appearance of macabre lawn ornaments. Dalibor gazed at all the blood soaking into the ground and his stomach rumbled.
Jenessa stared at the source of his hunger pangs, then up to his face. “Skipping meals again to maintain that girlish figure?” she commented wryly.
Dalibor snorted. “Hardly. It’s just that some of us are too busy tracking down leads on the Prize to think about eating.” His stomach roiled again, louder this time.
“Riiiight.” The redheaded strike-team leader jerked a thumb in the direction of the Humvees. “Need something to tide you over? We picked up a farmer along the way for snacks—he’s a little gamy-tasting, but you get used to it after the first couple of gulps.”
Dalibor shook his head. “No thanks. I can always grab something on the way back after we’re done here.”
Jenessa shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She flashed a mischievous grin. “He’s a pretty one, though …”
He grunted and stuck out his tongue. “Country boys always taste like dirt. And manure.” He grimaced and waved a hand in front of his face, as though trying to dispel a nasty odor. “I’m never going back to that.”
Her grin broadened. “Elitist. City life has changed you, Dalek.”
“And I’m very proud of that fact.” He waved a hand toward the church. “Now if you would be so kind as to focus on the mission instead of my feeding habits, Commander Branislav …”
Jenessa sighed melodramatically. “Very well, Dalek, I can take a hint. To business, then.” She folded the stock on her one-forty and slipped it back over her shoulder, swapping the grenade launcher for her submachine gun. The other team members—with the exception of Vincenc, who was busy reloading his weapon—did likewise as they joined her. “The entrance to the catacombs is just past the altar, correct?”
Dalibor nodded. “And I’m sure it will be even more heavily defended than the roof.”
She shrugged. “That’s to be expected.” The sly grin returned as she gazed at his threadbare clothing. “Want to go first and see if you’re right?”
“Oh, I think I’m done playing the clay pigeon for this evening, thank you very much. And, as you’ve obviously noticed, I’m not wearing magically enhanced body armor to ward off”—he pointed toward the night sky—“his influence. So, one step past the threshold and poof! Instant bonfire.”
Her full lips contracted into a playful pout. “Spoilsport.” She turned to her team. “Very well, children, Dalek doesn’t want to play anymore. But that’s all right—more fun for us.” Quickly, she began laying out her attack plan. “Vincenc and Sionek will accompany me on point; Zuzana will follow, with Krystof and Dusana bringing up the rear.
“Ready, children?” she asked, her voice rising in excitement. Her team nodded, and she looked to her right-hand man. “Vincenc, would you be so kind as to open the door?”
The burly soldier hefted the MLG-140 back to his shoulder. This time, Dalibor was alert enough to cover his ears just before Vincenc pulled the trigger, unleashing a hellish barrage that not only removed the church’s main door, but a good portion of the front wall as well.
“Move out!” Jenessa barked.
The Special Ops team charged across the lawn before the smoke cleared and dove through the gaping hole. Gunfire immediately erupted from both sides; occasionally the swirling darkness was shattered by the strobing light effect of muzzle flashes. But the conflict didn’t last very long. By the time the smoke finally dissipated, the only sound that echoed inside the church was that of Jenessa’s sharp voice as she ordered her troops to prepare for whatever obstacle should come next.
Standing on the moonlit lawn, Dalibor sighed. Until the team completed its mission, there was nothing for him to do but wait for their return. And who knew how long that might take? According to the maps he’d studied, the catacombs ran throughout the hillside, with numerous twists and turns to scout and countless nooks and crannies to poke around in; Jenessa and her people could be searching for the Prize for hours.
His stomach rumbled again, and he found his gaze wandering over to her Hummer. There, the farmer was tucked away behind all that armor plating—“for snacks,” Jenessa had said. Dalibor unconsciously chewed on the lining of his bottom lip as he stared at the vehicle. A snack would certainly help pass the time …
He grimaced. Country boys. He’d sworn off those thirty years ago, after he’d walked out of his village and set off for Prague to start a new unlife. It was the earthy smell of them that bothered him the most … well, that and the unpleasant memories the odor always brought back. He’d probably start gagging the moment he got a good whiff of snack-boy.
Still …
“Maybe just a few sips,” he concluded. “To settle my stomach.”
His decision made, Dalibor ran a hand through his hair to smooth it out, buttoned the last remnants of his Gucci suit jacket, adjusted his tie, and set off down the hill to silence his gnawing hunger.
***
“What do you mean it’s not here?” Jenessa roared hours later. The playful team leader was gone; in her place now stood a snarling, dagger-toothed monster whose bloodred eyes blazed with anger. And that anger was directed at an elderly priest—the lone survivor of the siege.
“Do I really need to repeat myself?” Vincenc asked over the walkie-talkie. His voice was tight with frustration. “We’ve made a complete sweep of the place. There’s nothing here but rats and old bones.”
The old clergyman chuckled. He was well into his seventies, with short, snow-colored hair parted on the left side of his head and a neatly trimmed beard. The brilliance of all that white stood out in great contrast to his weathered, deeply tanned skin—this was a man of God who enjoyed being out in the sun, basking in the glory of his savior. For some reason, that angered Jenessa almost as much as the realization she’d come to that House Karnstein had fallen for a ruse. And a very old one, at that.
“The thing you’re looking for is not here, spawn of Satan,” he said. “It never was.”
“You’re lying,” she growled. “Every shred of information we compiled over five decades, every rumor and legend we investigated, indicates it’s hidden away in the catacombs beneath this church.”
He shrugged. “Then search again all you like. There’s nothing I can do to stop you.”
Jenessa snarled. “Tell me the truth, knëz, and you may see the sun rise this morning. Where is the Prize?”
The priest smiled. “Is that what you lot are calling it these days? ‘The Prize’? Back in the days of my youth, when I first came to St. Adalbert’s, it was known as the Devil’s Heart. A far better name, wouldn’t you agree? Much more dramatic.” The smile widened. “It wasn’t here, then, either.”
“Then where is it?” she hissed. “You know, don’t you? Or at least where we should start looking—true?”
The priest said nothing.
“Fine.” She grabbed the old man’s throat in a clawlike hand.
He gasped. “H-how can you …?”
“Touch you without bursting into flame?” Jenessa smiled. “Do you know what a dhampyr is, Father? It is the progeny of a vampire and a human—a child that possesses all the strengths of the undead, but none of their weaknesses. Holy water does not burn their flesh, crosses and prayers do not ward them off, sunlight cannot harm them. They are immune to your God’s weapons. I am immune to your God’s weapons.”
It took a few moments for that information to sink in—she could practically see the cogs turning in the old man’s brain—but at last his gaze tilted down toward his throat, and the bare, unprotected hand of the monster that held him aloft. Slowly, his eyes widened and his jaw began to drop as he stared into her blood-hued orbs. “You …”
Jenessa nodded. “That’s right, Father, I am such an offspring.” She flashed a shark-tooth grin. “Do you know what else I can do? You’re about to find out.” The grin widened. “Just scream out when you’re ready to talk …”
***
The right-side rear door of the Hummer flew open, and Dalibor jumped in surprise. Hurriedly, he wiped his bloodstained mouth with a tattered sleeve and tried not to look guilty at having completely drained Jenessa’s snack. His hunger had gotten the best of him—even with his nostrils filling with the disgustingly earthy scent of his prey—and before he knew it a few sips had turned into an out-and-out feeding frenzy.
Not that Jenessa appeared in need of sustenance. Her own lips were caked with dried blood, and twin streaks of crimson ran down from the corners of her mouth to her chin. No doubt she’d feasted on a holy man or two during the search.
“Did you find it?” he asked eagerly.
“No, I didn’t find it,” she replied bitterly. She stripped off her weapons and tossed them to Vincenc as he and the rest of the team arrived at the vehicle. “It was never here.”
Dalibor’s eyes widened. “But the information—”
“Was wrong,” she snapped, then held up a hand to cut off the question he was about to ask. “But I have a new lead. When we get back to Prague, I want you to contact the council. Get us clearance to move on to the next stage of the operation, and then make the necessary travel arrangements.”
His eyebrows rose. “And where exactly are we going?”
“New York.” She motioned with her head toward the church. “That’s part of what I learned from an old priest in there.”
Dalibor nodded. “So the Prize is in New York?”
Jenessa shook her head. “Not the Prize, but the person who guards its true location.”
“And do you know who that person is?”
The dhampyr smiled wickedly and licked her lips. “Oh, yes. That’s the other thing I learned. I know exactly who she is, Dalek. And just before I tear out her throat, she’ll be begging to tell us where we can find the Devil’s Heart…”
2
Albany, New
York
United States
Present Day
IF there was a spot on the face of the Earth more craptacularly boring than the town of Schriksdorp, New York, Pandora Zwieback had never heard about it. Oh, sure, there were probably reference books she could browse through at the library, Web sites she could check out by running a Google search, maybe there was even an article she might find in an old National Geographic magazine that profiled it as “The Dullest Place in America,” but she’d never been able to work up enough interest to go look. Besides, she already knew any information she’d gather would only confirm her own findings: that the town she liked to call Schriksdork was the Suck Capital of the Universe.
And she, unfortunately, had been condemned to live there—for the rest of her life.
All right, maybe that was being a little too dramatic. It wasn’t like she was locked up in prison, after all. She had her learner’s permit, which meant she’d soon be able to try her hand at navigating her mom’s Toyota 4Runner, she could leave the house when she needed to, and her mother gave her a fair amount of freedom to live her life. Sure, there were rules she had to follow—helping around the house, letting Mom know where she was going when she went out, stuff like that—but there were no guards at the doors, no bars on the windows, no attack dogs patrolling the grounds. And as long as her grades were good and she didn’t get mixed up with things like smoking (a really disgusting habit, in Pan’s opinion) or drugs (absolutely not) or drinking alcohol (well, not anymore), she didn’t have to worry about Mom getting on her case … too much. Besides, in two years she’d turn eighteen, and then she’d be able to make her own decisions about where she wanted to live. And no offense to Mom, but Schriksdorp wouldn’t even make it onto the list of eligible places, even if the English translation of the name for this former Dutch settlement was the admittedly intriguing “Terror Village.”
So, no, she wasn’t really “condemned” to a life sentence in Stinkville, USA, but there were times when it sure felt like it.
Maybe it was the environment that bothered her. She was a Queens, New York girl, born and bred, used to the grit and the grime and the frantic pace of urban living, and the idea of being surrounded by so much Nature was just a bit … unsettling. There were too many trees, too much fresh air and wide-open spaces, too much overall peace and quiet. She missed the noise of the city, the feel of unyielding concrete under her boots, the smell of air laden with the grease of Chinese takeout, the smoke of street corner shish kebab, and the steam of overboiled hot dogs.
Maybe it was just because she was an outsider: a teenager with a penchant for occult-themed jewelry, black clothing, and even blacker hair dye—although she kept a streak of the natural blond coloring she’d inherited from her mother as a highlight—who was also a whopping big fangirl when it came to all things horror-related, whether it was movies or literature, comics or television, toys or games. A green-eyed Goth girl trapped in a land of preppy, blond-haired and blue-eyed suburban kids who dressed in the latest oh-so-hip and trendy styles, courtesy of the Gap and H&M and Abercrombie & Fitch. It sometimes made her feel like she was caught in a reality show version of Disturbing Behavior, that movie where disobedient kids got their brains rewired by the adults in their town to make them “perfect” sons and daughters. And if she was a stand-in for Katie Holmes’s character in that movie … well, then Mom must be sort of like Nicole Kidman in that remake of The Stepford Wives, where women were forced to become “perfect” wives for their husbands. The difference was, no one had gotten around to rewiring Pan’s and Karen’s brains. Unless, of course, Mom had already been rewired when she was a kid …
Not such a crazy idea, when Pan thought about it. It would certainly explain why Mom had pressed so hard for her to move to Schriksdorp with her: she was hoping to get her daughter “fixed.” Get her to wash out the dye and have her shoulder-length locks styled into something a tad more ladylike. Suggest tossing out her battered black leather jacket, the cuffs and back panel of which Pan had painted with images of demons and damned souls burning in the fires of hell. Convince her to trade in the combat boots, black T-shirts, and distressed jeans she tended to wear for tasteful pumps and a bright, frilly sundress.
Like that was ever gonna happen. At least not without a fight to the death first, and then Mom could dress up her corpse however she wanted for the funeral. Pan wouldn’t care by that point, anyway, just as long as she’d gotten in the last word before she croaked. A clever declaration like You can take away my VampireFreaks T-shirts and my T.U.K. boots, but you’ll never take … my freedom! Only not, y’know, such a direct swipe from Braveheart. Something a little more original.
On the other hand, maybe some mental fine-tuning was just the thing she needed to finally put an end to the psychotic episodes she’d started experiencing … again.
The most recent psychosodes—her latest therapist, Dr. Nicole Farrar, preferred calling them “visions” (probably so it didn’t make Pan seem quite so crazy)—weren’t as bad as others she’d suffered through over the past decade, and were nowhere near as bad as the ones she’d had during that tumultuous period when her life was being torn apart by her parents’ disintegrating marriage and her equally disastrous relationship with a boy named Curtis “Amadeus” Sheridan. But the early warning signs were all there: the creeping sense of unease; the feeling she was being watched (the doc had filed that little tic under “paranoid delusions”); and, worst of all, the occasional flicker in the corners of her eyes, of shadowy, blurred things that lurked on the edge of her vision, only to disappear as soon as she turned to look directly at them. And yet, even though those fleeting glimpses of otherworldliness had always tended to freak her out, even though there was every indication that her personal demons were clawing their way back into her psyche after a blessed eight-month, med-free reprieve, she hadn’t been able to work up the nerve to tell anybody.
Besides, nobody really believed she could see monsters … not even Pan herself.
“Penny for your thoughts, Panda-bear?”
Pan turned to face her mother. Karen Bonifant—she’d dropped the Zwieback and gone back to her maiden name after the divorce from David was finalized nine months ago—sat behind the wheel of the 4Runner, lightly tapping the tips of her fingers against the rim in time to the song on the satellite radio: Gorillaz’s “Dare.” Not one of Mom’s favorite groups—she still preferred old punk-rock bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash, and The Ramones—but every now and then a song came along that she could get into, usually much to Pan’s surprise.
It was easy to see where Pan got her good looks from, because Karen had lost none of hers. At forty-three she could have passed for her daughter’s sister—a much older sister, of course. Like her daughter, she had an affectation for wearing rings on all ten fingers, although their tastes differed: Karen’s were bands of gold and silver; Pan’s were a collection of pentagrams, ankhs, and other mystical symbols. This being Casual Summer Friday at her Web-design job, Karen was decked out in jeans, motorcycle boots, and a white T-shirt—a relaxed look, but still a lot more conservative than her daughter’s somber attire.
Pan watched Mom’s steering wheel drum solo for a few seconds, then raised an eyebrow. “A penny? That your best offer? And I thought we were done with that ‘Panda-bear’ stuff. It’s so embarrassing.”
“I thought you liked it when your dad and I called you that.”
“I did—when I was five.” Pan gestured at herself. “Hello? I’m sixteen now, Mom. ‘Panda-bear’ was a long time ago.”
“Not that long ago,” Mom remarked wistfully, then shook her head as though to chase away the pleasant memories. “Anyway, right now a penny’s the best I can offer. We are living on a tight budget, after all. But I should be able to do better, after I have my meeting with Jerry this afternoon.” Jeremy Barron was Karen’s boss and the president of BarronQuest.com, an Albany-based Web-design company whose client list included Fortune 500 companies; Karen was one of his top designers. The job her old high school boyfriend had offered was the reason Karen had decided to move back to Schriksdorp—that, and the finalization of the divorce.
“Think you’ll finally get that raise you’ve been asking for?” Pan asked. “It’s been—what, three months now?”
“Don’t know, sweetie,” Karen replied. “I hope so. We sure could use the extra money, now that you’re out of school for the summer.”
Pan looked at her slyly. “And what would you use it for if you get it?”
“Well, I don’t have it—I don’t even know if I’ll get it—so asking me is kind of a moot point, don’t you think?” Now it was her turn to raise an eyebrow as she looked over. “Why?”
“No reason,” Pan answered, and flashed a disarming smile. Not as disarming as she thought, however. From the look in Karen’s eye, it was evident that Mom was already wise to her.
“Oh, I get it,” Karen said slowly. “If I got the raise, would I use it to buy something like … oh, I don’t know … say, a car of your own?” She chuckled. “Boy, that learner’s permit is just burning a hole in your pocket, isn’t it?”
Pan shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant—but yeah, she was dying to get behind the wheel of her own ride. “Just seems a shame letting it go to waste, is all I’m saying.”
“Riiiight.” Karen paused while she guided the SUV into a lane change. “Truth is, it’s not such a bad idea. I mean, I’m more than happy to drive you where you need to go, but with all the hours I’m putting in at work I don’t always have the time. And I know how much you dislike sitting around the house.” She glanced down at the black sweatshirt Pan wore under her leather jacket: a hoodie with the words I HATE THIS TOWN emblazoned across the front in bright red letters. Just in case anyone still had doubts as to how she really felt about Mom’s old stomping grounds. “And then there are things like bills and food and your college fund that have to come first.” She shrugged. “Let’s see how it goes with Jerry. If he says yes, maybe we can look around for a used one next weekend, just to see what’s out there. Then I’ll talk to your father—if he can hold off buying trinkets for the store for a little while he might be able to help cover a down payment.”
“Really?” Pan’s mood immediately brightened—so much, in fact, that she didn’t even bother to correct her mother (for, like, the millionth time) that David Zwieback owned a horror museum, not a store. Which Mom knew, of course.
Renfield’s House of Horrors and Mystical Antiquities—named after Count Dracula’s insane, bug-eating lackey—was her dad’s pride and joy. A loving tribute to the movies he grew up watching, the comics and books he liked to read, the toys he collected, the actors and directors, writers and artists he came to idolize. His enthusiasm for creating the ultimate gathering place for horror fans had been absolutely infectious; even Karen hadn’t been immune. There’d been a lot of family bonding then; a lot of good times. Long drives to upstate New York in search of antique toys and such. Attending horror conventions to hunt down rare movie memorabilia and comic books. Visiting H. P. Lovecraft’s hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, and locations in Maine where some of the Stephen King movie adaptations were shot, and even the mall outside Pittsburgh where George Romero filmed the original Dawn of the Dead. That last trip had been part of the best summer ever, three years ago. Unfortunately, that happiness hadn’t been destined to last.
“Anyway,” Mom continued, “we’ll see.”
Pan shrugged. “That’s okay. I don’t mind taking the bus.”
“But I mind that you do, especially with all the sick freaks running loose in the world. I just don’t want anything bad to happen to my little girl.”
“Yeah, well, me going out on my own didn’t seem to bother you so much when we were living in New York.”
“That was different. When you went out, you usually had all your … uh …” Karen let her voice trail off.
“My friends, right?” Pan asked, unable to keep the edge out of her voice. “I had my friends with me. But I don’t have any friends here, and that’s why you’re worried.”
“Hey, it’s not like I haven’t been encouraging you to make new ones, honey,” Karen replied.
“What—in Crapville?” Pan snorted. “Fat chance.”
Karen flashed her a stern look. “Well, maybe if you tried cutting back on the attitude you wouldn’t be so off-putting to the kids around here. We live in the suburbs, Pandora, not Appalachia. Stop treating them like they’re inbred hicks from a Nat Geo documentary.”
“Hey, if they were inbred hicks, at least there’d be something interesting about them,” Pan countered. “Bunch’a soulless, fair-haired mallrats.”
Mom opened her mouth to reply, closed it, sighed deeply, and focused on her driving.
***
The remainder of the trip passed without further discussion. Karen pulled the SUV up to the curb in front of the main entrance to the Albany Megamall and turned to her daughter.
“Look, sweetie,” she said slowly, “I know how tough the past year has been for you, what with the divorce, and moving to a new town, and leaving all your friends behind. But things will get better. I promise.”
“I know,” Pan replied. “It’s just … just …”
Karen nodded sagely. “Just that you’d like Dad and me to patch things up. You’d like us to be a family again.” She flashed a half-smile. “But that’s just the nature of the beast, Panda-bear. Sometimes people fall out of love, and it isn’t pretty to watch and not everything always works out in the end.”
She reached out with her left hand to brush a few strands of jet-black hair away from Pan’s face and behind her right ear. There was a gentle tinkle of metal as the ring on Karen’s third finger brushed against the three tiny silver hoops in Pan’s earlobe. Pan glanced at the ring as Karen pulled her hand back.
Nine months after the divorce and she was still wearing the wedding band. Force of habit, Pan wondered, or because she just wanted old boyfriend and the other guys at work to leave the single mom alone? Or maybe …
“Dave and I didn’t part on the best of terms—you know that,” Karen went on. “And I know how sometimes it feels like the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders. But no matter how bad things ever get, I want you to remember this: We might not be together anymore, but your dad and I love you and will always be there for you. We made quite a few mistakes in our marriage—but you, Pandora Millicent Zwieback, were the one thing we ever truly got right.”
The enormous tears that rolled down Pan’s cheeks were dwarfed in size only by the lump that formed in her throat. “Mom, I …” was all she could manage. Then she threw her arms around her mother’s neck and pulled her close, clinging tightly to her in a way she hadn’t since she was little. Since the Panda-bear days.
She didn’t feel the least bit embarrassed doing it, though, even with all the mall-goers she knew must be watching them. She wanted to hold—no, she needed to hold her mother right now. Because the pain and the misery and the sense of loneliness that constantly darkened her thoughts, that weighed so heavily on her heart, were more than she could bear, and the only cure for it was a comforting hug from her mom. That, and to know she was loved.
And you know what? she thought. It felt good. It felt right. It felt … like everything would be okay. Like she would be okay. And it had been so very, very long since she’d had that kind of reassurance.
Reluctantly, she eased her stranglehold and released Karen, who stared at her, then burst out laughing.
“Now you really look like a panda bear,” Mom said, pointing to Pan’s face.
Confused, Pan reached up with her fingers and touched her cheeks. “Gah!” she exclaimed when she saw the black streaks of mascara on the tips, then started laughing, too. Mom pulled a small packet of tissues from her pocket and dabbed at the dark blotches around Pan’s eyes. Pan took the tissue and swiped at the smudges. “Don’t worry about it; I’ll fix it in the ladies’ room.”
“And I thought the shoe polish on your head looked bad,” Mom said wryly, and smiled.
“It’s not shoe polish, it’s a cream,” Pan explained for what felt like the thousandth time.
“I know, I know …” Mom glanced at her watch. “Yipes! I’m gonna be late. I’ve gotta run, sweetie. But we can talk some more tonight if you want to.”
“Yeah. I’d like that,” Pan said. She grabbed her demon-decorated messenger bag from the backseat, gave Karen a quick peck on the cheek, and opened the passenger-side door. “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, too, honey. And I’m sorry about the ‘Panda-bear’ thing. It’s just … sometimes I forget you’re a young woman, now. I don’t mean to embarrass you.”
Pan felt her cheeks redden. “That’s okay, Mom—I know you don’t.” She glanced around to see if anyone was close enough to overhear them, then leaned forward and whispered, “And, y’know, it’s … okay if you do it once in a while.” She raised an eyebrow and smiled slyly. “Once. in. a while.”
Karen chuckled. “Okay, okay, I get the message.” She gestured toward the mall. “Now, you be careful in there. And try to curb the spending, all right? We’re—”
“On a tight budget,” Pan finished for her as she stepped out. “I know.”
“Okay, then. I’ll see you tonight. If you need to reach me for any reason—you have your cell phone?”
“Right here.” Pan reached into her the right hip pocket of her jeans and pulled out the cell for Mom to see. “Have fun with the big kids.”
Karen rolled her eyes. “Fun. Right.” Pan closed the door and Mom drove away, waving good-bye with her left hand out the window as she pulled into the street.
Pan waved back, chuckling as the 4Runner roared across three lanes of traffic to the passing lane, cutting off two delivery trucks and a minivan. Mom might have been born upstate, but her aggressive driving skills were pure New York City.
A rumble of thunder caught Pan’s attention as she walked toward the mall entrance. She turned her face to the roiling, green-tinged sky and smiled as warm, fat raindrops splashed against her eyelashes and the tip of her nose. So it was raining; so the weather was miserable. Who cared? As far as she was concerned, all was right with the world—at least for the time being—and not even a heavy downpour was going to spoil her good mood.
She eased into the throng of dampened inbound shoppers, ignoring the flickering images that danced at the corners of her eyes.
3
THE Albany Megamall was the ultimate tribute to consumer excess, wrapped in a three-story façade of polished glass and steam-scrubbed sandstone. Not even the cloudy sky looming above it could dim the pinkish glow the gigantic building seemed to give off. In the five years since its doors had opened, it continually provided the shops at Colonie Center and the Crossgates Mall, not to mention Woodbury Common in Central Valley, with some pretty stiff competition, and showed no signs of letting up. For one thing, you could find most of the items offered by the other places right here, without having to drive all over upstate New York. So the convenience of “one-stop shopping” had a lot to do with the mall’s success, as did its large number of parking spaces: acre upon acre of available spots in which to leave your vehicle, with little frustration of getting closed out. Except, as Pan had experienced firsthand, during the weeks leading up to Christmas—then the lots were freakin’ madhouses, with the shoppers’ bubbly holiday spirit replaced by a frightening mix of total panic and murderous road rage.
But, Pan reminded herself, next Christmas was still months away, so it was a safe bet no one was going to try and stab her with a curling iron over a limited edition gift-pack of scented candles she wanted to give her mom. Not again.
She let the flow of humanity streaming through the wide revolving doors carry her inside. Then, like every other time she’d been here, she paused in the enormous lobby to gaze at the sheer spectacle of the place. From the amusement park in the south wing to the movie multiplexes in the north and east, it was the closest thing to being in New York City’s five boroughs—just lumped into one location. Lots to do, lots to see, lots to explore, but right now there were only two stores in particular on which she was focused: the Spencer Gifts shop on the third level for more of that black “shoe polish” Mom so detested (actually Manic Panic’s “Raven” brand of color cream); and the art supply depot in the west wing to replace some dried-up oil paints.
After a stopover at the first-floor ladies’ room to fix her face, she walked over to the closest escalator that would take her to the second level and stepped on board behind a trio of jogging-suited grannies: mall-walkers out for their daily stroll, no doubt.
That’s when her hip pocket suddenly roared with the guttural vocals of the death-metal tune “Incubus Summer.” The high-decibel ringtone was guaranteed to cause people to look back over their shoulders to find out what was drowning out The Captain and Tenille’s “Do That to Me One More Time” currently blaring from the mall’s speaker system.
As if on cue, the grannies turned around and glared at her. Pan sweetly grinned at them as she fished the cell phone from her pocket. She didn’t need to check the caller ID, she already knew who it was by the ringtone: her best friend, Sheena McCarthy.
“Hey, jungle queen! What’s going on?” Pan said. The nickname was a private joke they shared because Mrs. McCarthy had named her daughter after an old comic book character, “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.”
“Not a lot. Just thought I’d give you a call, see how things are in Craptown.”
“Still crappy,” Pan admitted, and winked at the old ladies who were giving her the stink-eye. “I’m on my way to check out stuff at Spencer’s.” There was an odd sound in the background from Sheena’s end, like a bunch of people all yammering at once, but Pan couldn’t make out what they were saying. “Hey, where are you?”
“I’m in the City.” That was New York slang for Manhattan. It was a term generally used by people coming from the other four boroughs and not residents of the island, but common enough that everyone knew what it meant. “Standing in front of Burning Souls.” That was a former funeral parlor turned performance theater in the Bowery, a popular gathering place for Goths.
Pan glanced over at the face of the humongous clock tower that rose two levels above the mall’s main floor. “At ten in the morning, when you’re outta school? That’s kinda early for you, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about it!” Sheena said, laughing. “But Sarkophagia tickets are goin’ on sale today and I didn’t wanna miss out, so I got on line at seven. There’s like a hundred people ahead of me—they camped out on the sidewalk last night!”
“Aw, damn it! I forgot all about that!” Pan moaned. Sarkophagia was one of their new favorite groups—a Norwegian death-metal band praised for their grisly concept albums and grand guignol–style stage shows, the latter complete with simulated human sacrifices and copious fountains of blood. And the dark-haired, muscular lead singer, Leander Faust, was such a complete stud that Pan would have paid to watch him read selections from Dr. Seuss … as long as he did it with his shirt off. Pan had played their debut CD, Incubus Summer, until it wore out Mom’s old Discman, and then replaced it with a bootlegged download—along with a copy of their recent follow-up, At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul—for her iPod. Mom never would have paid for a legal iTunes download, not when every song on Midnight was flagged with an “Explicit” warning—and with good reason. It covered some real hard-core topics: trepanation—drilling holes in skulls—as an exorcism technique; torture and mutilation; even an ode to cannibalism. It was the kind of music Mom would freak out over if she ever heard it—which, of course, made it even more enjoyable.
A weary sigh pushed past her lips. “This sucks total ass, Sheen.”
“Yeah, it’s a regular tragedy,” Sheen replied sarcastically. “ ’Sides, you really think your mom woulda let you come back here for a death-metal concert?”
“Well … no,” Pan admitted. “But maybe Dad could’ve …” She paused, and thought about that for a second. “No, he wouldn’t have gone for it, either.” Reaching Level Two, she stepped off the escalator and began threading her way through the crowds. The route to the third-floor escalator led through one of the megasized food courts, no doubt purposely designed that way by the mall’s owners to entice shoppers to stop and eat. The greasy odor of fish ’n’ chips fought with the smells of fried chicken fat, Szechuan stir-fried vegetables, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, and Indian spices for possession of the air above the dining area. It made her stomach rumble hungrily.
“So there you go,” Sheena concluded. “Besides, what kinda friend would I be if all I did was to call and torture you with the knowledge that, while you’re trapped there in Nature’s culture vacuum, I’ll be feastin’ my eyes all night long on Leeeannnnder?” She giggled.
“Bite me.”
“Awww, don’t feel so bad, Zee. According to Leander’s latest Tweet, they’re gonna be playin’ Craptown in October.”
Pan grimaced. “They’re coming to Schriksdorp? Why the hell would they wanna do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they like playing county fairs between major gigs. Or maybe nobody told them what that hole is really like. What, didn’t you explain that to Leander in all your e-mails, where you begged him to take you away from that hellish place so you can be his undyin’ sex slave?”
“Funny,” Pan said dryly, while thinking, Note to self: Stop copying Sheen on your messages …
“Think Mom’ll take your leash off for that one?”
Doubt it … Pan grunted. “Maybe. We’ll see. So, who’s going with you?”
“The usual crowd: Dylan and Lisa, Reyna and Tommy, Tory and Mora—not that any of them was willin’ t’get up this early to hang out on the line with me. Umm … Oh! Uwe’s here with me—” Her voice faded for a moment as she apparently turned her head away from the phone to add, “Sorry, babe. Didn’t mean t’leave you out.”
“Ooo-vay Kerr?” Pan replied, intentionally overstressing the first syllable of the Germanic name. “The one who called me a ‘lummox’ when I kept pronouncing it ‘Huey’?”
“Uh-huh.”
Pan snorted derisively. “You’re still going out with that jerk?”
Silence. Then: “I’m gonna ignore that, but only ’cause you’re not standin’ right in front of me so I could smack the crap outta you.”
“Ooh, you’re so tough when there’s, like, a thousand miles between us.”
That got a chuckle from Sheen. “Uh-huh … Oh, and my sister Rachel and her boyfriend, Joey, are comin’, too. And before you comment on that, no, I’m not happy about it, but Mom and Dad weren’t gonna let me go without—quote, unquote—adult supervision. I’m just gonna pretend they’re not even there.” She paused, then added in a conspiratorial whisper, “I think they’re all afraid I might get pulled up onstage and used as a virgin sacrifice.”
“Little too late for that, don’t you think?”
“Oh, nice. You’re one to talk.”
“Hey, at least I don’t go bragging about it on my Facebook page.”
Sheena sighed melodramatically. “Jealousy, thy name is Pandora.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Pan replied dismissively. “So, is …” She stopped, then unconsciously raised her other hand to nervously chew on the thumbnail. “So, is Ammi goin’ with you?” she asked hesitantly.
A very long pause; then: “Why would I invite him?” There was an unmistakably icy tone in Sheen’s voice.
“Well, I … I thought maybe you guys had made up by now,” Pan said. “I know you and him had stopped talking after he and I … you know. But now that I’ve been exiled to Siberia, I figured maybe …” A tiny, forced laugh bubbled from her lips. “I mean, you guys used to be so tight and everything before. I never wanted you to become, like, enemies.” She took another nibble along the cuticle, scraping off some of the black polish. “You know?”
“I don’t believe this!” Sheena snapped, her voice erupting from the receiver with enough force to make Pan flinch. “After all the garbage he put you through, after what he did, you’re still pining over that … that asshat?”
“No,” Pan replied. “I’m simply asking a question.”
“Yeah, well, don’t,” Sheena warned. “Ammi’s dead to me—and he should be to you, too. God, Pan …” Her exasperated tone of voice trailed off for a second, then immediately hardened: “You haven’t been talkin’ to him, have you? Or textin’ him or anything? ’Cause I swear to God, girl, if you start that self-abuse crap up again—”
“I haven’t done any of that,” Pan said earnestly. “I swear. Wiped his numbers from my cell, unfriended him on Facebook, listed his e-mail addresses with the spam blockers—the whole cyber-protection thing. But it’s like he dropped off the face of the earth since … you know.”
“The restraining order your folks took out?”
“Well, before that. Look, I’m not trying to hook up with him again—really. I was just … curious.”
Sheena hmmfed. “You know what your problem is, Zee? You’ve been stuck in the boonies too long and the isolation’s gettin’ to you. You need a new boyfriend to take your mind off your old boyfriend. Seriously—you tellin’ me there isn’t one fine-looking slab of meat in all of Backwoodsia that isn’t even a tiny bit curious about”—her voice dropped to a deep, seductive, Barry White-like growl—“gettin’ a little dark-side lovin’ from the queen of the damned? Ohhhh, baay-by.”