Evernight (Evernight 1) - Page 142

Lucas’s talent at lying was easier to admire when I wasn’t the one he was lying to. Of course, the genius of it was that Lucas wasn’t actually making any of it up. Every word he’d said to his mother was factually true. He’d simply unfolded those facts in a way that led his mother to believe in an alternate sequence of events, one in which Erich had bitten him and I was the sweet, savvy, totally normal girl who had helped him recover afterward.

“You’ve seen what we’re up against.” Kate spoke to me more respectfully than before. Anybody who had helped her son was apparently okay in her eyes. She never looked away from the road as she sped over the badly paved streets, steering us into a smaller suburb, one that looked older and fairly run-down. “This is dangerous work, and you’re not ready for it, but I realize that we have a responsibility to keep you safe. If that demon Mrs. Bethany realizes that you’re helping a member of Black Cross, your life won’t be worth a dime.”

I’d always known that Mrs. Bethany would do a lot to protect her secrets, but I still couldn’t quite believe that she would be willing to kill, much less kill me.

“All that time, all that risk, and what was it for? Because I don’t guess you managed to figure out the big secret after all,” Kate said to Lucas. “Seems like the kind of thing you would’ve mentioned in one of your reports, if you had.”

Wearily, Lucas shook his head. “I didn’t get it. So cut me some slack, okay?”

“Secret?” I wondered if maybe it was something my parents might have mentioned. If I could help Lucas, if there was information I could reveal that wouldn’t hurt my parents or Balthazar, I would do it. “What were you trying to find out at Evernight?”

“This is the first year they ever let humans in like regular students. The Black Cross fighter who got in before, the handful of other humans over the years—those were special cases, exceptions the Evernight vampires made to get their hands on a lot of money and avoid attention. Whatever they’re up to now is different. They let in at least thirty humans. Why did it change?”

Mrs. Bethany had said that “new students” were allowed into Evernight so that we could get a broader perspective upon the world. In reality, that was the last thing she really wanted. Yes, the students were there to learn more about the world, but Mrs. Bethany had another agenda—and for that agenda, having human students at Evernight was a risk. Raquel understood that something was wrong, if not exactly what, and Lucas’s example spoke for itself. The vampires were also forced to hide what they were in one of the few places on earth where they could’ve expected to relax and be themselves. Only a powerful motive could lead Mrs. Bethany to permit such a thing—but what? “I don’t know,” I admitted.

“How could you?” Kate shrugged as she took us down a shady lane. The houses on this street all looked shabby, and one or two of them appeared to be abandoned. She pulled into what appeared to be the rear driveway of one of the abandoned buildings, though I realized quickly it wasn’t a home. It was an old-fashioned meetinghouse, the kind nearly every town in New England possessed, though nobody had held a meeting here for decades at least. The white paint was chipped and water-stained, and at least half the windows were broken. “Just the fact that you kept your head after you learned about the bloodsuckers is more than most people could manage. Lucas is a pro. If he couldn’t figure it out, they buried that secret deep.”

“A pro, huh?” Lucas grinned as we got out of the truck. I got the sense that his mother didn’t praise him much, but he ate it up when she did.

She nodded, and I saw for the first time that her smile and Lucas’s looked a lot alike. “A pro who’s already back on the clock, I’m afraid. We’ve got work to do.”

I wondered what she meant by that. “On the clock?”

Kate caught herself. “I don’t mean you. Bianca. You’ve done enough, and I’m always in your debt. Always. Helping Lucas in that slime pit—maybe saving his life—” She smiled at me as we walked to the back door of the meetinghouse. “I’m not going to repay that by sending you into danger. You’ll stay here. Stay safe. We’ll take care of everything else.”

“By ‘we’ you mean—”

“Black Cross.”

With that, Kate turned the key in the lock and tugged the door open. We stepped into darkness, and I felt a queasy shiver of unease, but my eyes adjusted quickly, allowing me to glimpse the scene inside. Almost a dozen people were gathered together in a long, narrow rectangular room with a wooden floor so old the boards had shrunk enough to separate. A few old benches still lined the walls, the wood so soft and old it peeled. Weapons were laid out upon each bench, as if for an inventory: knives, stakes, and even hatchets. The people inside were a motley crew, each as different from the other as they could be: tall and short; fat, skinny, and muscular; dressed in a dozen different kinds of everyday clothes. A tall black girl who looked no older than Lucas wore an oversized hoodie, and she stood next to an old man with short silvery hair who wore a baggy gray cardigan and reading glasses that dangled from a brown cord. The only thing they all had in common was the way each sighed in relief when they recognized Lucas.

Lucas took my hand in his as he said, “Hey, guys.”

“You made it.” This was the girl in the hoodie, who turned out to have a big smile with one crooked tooth that somehow made her look a little bit sweet. “Not quite finals time, though, unless they’re having them in March now.”

“I get it, Dana. I didn’t make it a whole year, which means you win the bet.” Lucas shrugged. “The vampires got my wallet, though, so I’m afraid you’ll have to be content with a moral victory.”

“Looks like you brought the most important thing.” Dana held one of her hands out to me. I wasn’t willing to let go of Lucas, but I shook with my left hand. “I’m Dana. Me and Lucas go way back. You must be Bianca.”

“How did you hear about me?”

“Like he could talk about anything else all Christmas.” Dana laughed. I glanced sideways at Lucas, whose bashful smile made me feel proud and—even in the midst of strangers—sure of myself.

“Oh, is this your young lady?” The gray-haired man beamed at us. “I’m Mr. Watanabe. I’ve known Lucas since he was—”

“Long enough to embarrass him,” interrupted someone else, a tall man with dark hair and a mustache. He unnerved me in some way I found hard to pinpoint, and the twin scars on his right cheek made him look scary even when he smiled. Kate put one arm around him as he stood before us. “I’m Eduardo, Lucas’s stepfather.”

“Right. Hi. Pleasure to meet you.” Lucas had never mentioned a stepfather. Apparently Lucas wasn’t eager to admit him as part of the family.

Lucas’s smile was thin. “I had to get Bianca out. I know I broke protocol by telling her about Black Cross, but I trust her.”

“I hope Lucas’s right about you, Bianca.” His eyes narrowed, focusing hard on me before darting over to Lucas. Clearly he meant that I better hope Lucas was right. Giving away secrets wasn’t something this group took lightly—especially not Eduardo and Kate, who seemed to be the leaders. “We don’t have much time for explanations, not if we’re about to move.”

The others all started talking to Lucas about his narrow escape. I knew I ought to talk to them, too, to help Lucas with the cover story if for no other reason. Yet I remained distracted. My entire life was changing every second, pulling me away so quickly from the world I’d known that I felt a kind of psychological whiplash. And there was even more to it than that. I felt a sort of buzzing so low I couldn’t quite find the sound, like a subtle vibration in the earth. Despite the fact that I hadn’t eaten in almost a day, my stomach churned. Something was wrong with this place, deeply wrong.

Then I glanced at the wall and saw a shape on the wall where the plaster was brighter than everywhere else, where something had hung for years and blocked the light. It was the shape of a cross.

Too late I realized that this wasn’t just an abandoned meetinghouse. Back in earlier centuries, a lot of meeting houses had served another function as well. During the week, they were halls for debate or community functions or sometimes even trials. Then, on Sundays, the meetinghouses became churches.

Tags: Claudia Gray Evernight Vampires
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