The Coffin Club (Vampire Kisses 5)

Aunt Libby`s face flushed bright red. She grabbed a brown hobo purse that was sitting on her paisley futon and pulled out a rainbow-colored beaded wallet. She opened it and presented me with a Renegades paper napkin. It had a man`s name and phone number written on it. He has beautiful handwriting, doesn`t he?

Devon. That`s a cool name.

I can`t wait to tell you all about him.

Tell me all!

He has pool-colored eyes and salt-and-pepper hair.

He sounds dreamy.

I noticed him in the audience when I was onstage. I almost couldn`t see him because he was just outside the glare of the spotlight. He has the most piercing blue eyes I`ve ever seen. Our eyes locked and I forgot my lines. I stood there, frozen, for what seemed like hours. He had this hypnotic stare.

I laughed. Aunt Libby was like a sixteen-year-old girl who had fallen in love.

When the show was over, he was waiting for me. We had this intense connection I`ve never felt before.

I know exactly what you mean. That`s how I feel about Alexander. That`s why I had to come here....

Come here? she asked.

Uh...yes, for girl time.

I know what you mean. I`m bursting at the seams to talk about him, but there`s not much I know--besides how handsome he is!

I`m sure I`ll be calling him Uncle Devon within a matter of days. Can I wear black to your wedding?

I wouldn`t want it any other way. We have a date in the next few days and you have to come.

You are going out on your first date with him and you`re going to show up with me? Your vampire-obsessed niece? Even I don`t think that`s a good idea. You have to come. I can`t wait for you to see him...and I can`t leave you here alone.

Of course you can. But we can talk about it tomorrow.

We had just placed the dishes in the sink when Aunt Libby noticed the time.

I have a drumming class tonight. I was hoping you`d join me.

Well...I...

I don`t have to go.

No, I don`t want you to miss it on account of me.

It`s a master class tonight. Otherwise I wouldn`t think about going.

Please go. I`ll be fine. I wouldn`t be able to run across town and try to make contact with Alexander if I were stuck in a drumming class all night.

Think about it while I get ready.

While Aunt Libby prepared for class, I stretched my legs out on her futon and turned on the nineteen-inch TV with a leaning cactus on it. Her TV received only local channels and the color faded in and out at will.

How do you live without cable? I asked, frustrated.

I switched on the local news. Normally I would have turned the set off quickly and kept myself busy text-messaging Becky about my arrival. But something caught my eye.

Hi, I`m Anne Ramirez, reporting to you live. I`m standing with Fred Sears, a farm owner who discovered a crop circle in his wheat field. This is the second one reported in this county in less than a month, this one being a little more intricate than the last.

The camera panned to the wheat field, where stalks had been crushed against the ground in the shape of a fifty-foot circle, with several smaller circles in the center.

The petite woman stood next to the black-haired farmer, who was three times her size. When did you notice this? she asked.

When I woke up. It just cropped up,` he joked.

I rolled my eyes as I watched two preteens running around it.

I saw bats hovering over the area last night, said one boy, almost breathless, to the reporter.

Those were crows, stupid, the other admonished. Flying away from the alien spacecraft that landed here.

They were bats! the boy insisted.

Anything interesting? my aunt called from her room.

Just a crop circle with hovering bats.

The girls at the agency were talking about that at lunch. They are convinced it`s all for publicity.

The video switched to an aerial shot from WBEZ`s helicopter. The circle was impressive.

Then the camera was back on the reporter.

Spacecraft or just spaced out? You decide. Back to you, Jay.

That`s so bogus..., I called to my aunt. I saw a report on TV once where kids confessed to creating them. They demonstrated to the reporter how in the middle of the night they used a stake, a rope, and wooden boards to press down the stalks and form a giant circle.

My aunt came back into the living room dressed in an off-the-shoulder cotton top and pea green yoga pants. I believe we aren`t the only ones in the solar system. They could be aliens. No one has disproved their existence.

Are you kidding? You really believe in aliens?

Do you really believe in vampires? She had a point. Yes, but they are real, I blurted out without thinking. Uh...I mean, no one has disproved their existence.

I`m just saying, Aunt Libby argued as she added some final touches to her hair, it could be the markings of an alien aircraft--or a signal for other aliens. Aren`t crop circles meant to be viewed from the air?

The boy on the news swore he saw bats last night. Maybe it could be vampires signaling other vampires, I suggested.

Hmmm. I like your theory better. Aliens are kind of odd-looking and have green heads. Vampires are sexier. I`d prefer to see them invade our town.

I gave my thought pause as the anchor turned the focus to weather. Our five-day forecast calls for rain and fog.

Curiosity getting the best of me, I couldn`t shake the farm boy`s claim. After all, who better to go undetected in the night than vampires? They could easily see the circles as they fly in bat form over the horizon. There was no way to confirm my theory by sitting in my aunt`s apartment, and it wasn`t like me to not poke around for some clues.

Do you mind if I check my e-mail? I asked.

Sure. The computer is already on.

I searched the Internet on my aunt`s iMac for vampires and crop circles. I scrolled past various movie and book sites until I came to a small website that specialized in paranormal sightings in North America. All the entries detailed unearthly bright lights, alien abductions, and hoaxes. Just as I began to click out of one such site, I spotted something of interest. Instead of green-headed monsters, one blogger claimed that the night before he spotted a crop circle, he`d seen a swarm of hovering bats.

I thought I`d stumbled onto something big. The entry had to be posted by a Harvard scholar, a scientist, or a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Instead it was signed Bob from Utah.

Bob could have been a crackpot like any other, a bored kid in study hall posting erroneous entries on websites, or, like me, a vampire-obsessed mortal with an overactive imagination. But I took his single entry as a sign.

There was one way to investigate my theory further. I had an advantage that Bob in Utah didn`t--I was dating a vampire.

Are you sure you don`t want to come with me? my aunt asked as she picked up an African drum lying next to the fireplace.