Rachel Caine & Kristin Cast & Claudia Gray & Nancy Holder & Tanith Lee & Richelle Mead & Cynthia Leitich Smith & P. C. Cast (24 page)

The crowd broke into applause, shouts of “Evan!” tossed around like confetti at a parade. Rick took the drums from his brother, and someone else handed Evan a beer.

Andi and her prey followed Rick to the corner of the room, where she helped plug in wires and adjust the surround sound settings while the crowd buzzed around them. This was evidently a regular thing for the locals: get drunk and play real songs on fake instruments with two hundred of your closest friends. And they'd accepted Andi like one of their own. It was kind of scary.

And it happened everywhere we went.

“You look like you need a drink.”

I jumped and turned to find Evan—he of the plastic drum set—leaning against the wall on my left. I fumbled for a smile and he held out a clear plastic cup half-filled with ice and fizzing soda, but the scent said he was offering me something stronger than Coke.

I had no idea what else was in the cup, but I took it. No matter what this human predator was after with his cheap alcohol and easy grin, Andi was the most dangerous thing in the room, and I was immune to her particular brand of poison—no matter how badly I ached to sink into her song and forget about everything else.

“Thanks.” I took a long sip from the cup, and bad vodka scorched a path down my throat. The stuff we snuck from Ty was much smoother, but considering I was underage and crashing someone else's party, I'd take what I could get.

Evan nodded and drank from his own cup, staring out at the room full of writhing bodies like we knew each other well enough to share a comfortable silence.

My next sip went down easier, so I took a third. The trick was to drink enough so that I didn't hate Andi when
she started singing—wasting unfathomable talent on a room full of humans who could never truly appreciate her—but not so much that I couldn't stop her before her lyrics became too dangerous for their fragile psyches.

Usually two drinks was plenty. But as I watched Andi laughing with her cowboy while she helped Rick adjust the guitar strap over his shoulder, jealousy scorched a trail up my spine. Two wouldn't do it this time. Two wouldn't even come close.

Because no matter what she said, Andi didn't need me like she needed the cowboy. On our own, we would never be enough for one another.

I drained my cup, wincing at the fresh burn, and Evan laughed out loud. “Not new at this, are you?”

Instead of answering, I held out my empty cup.

He set his drink on a nearby end table, where a bottle of vodka stood next to two sweating cans of Coke. “I didn't bring ice, but the soda's cold.” He popped the tab on the first one and half-filled my cup.

“I'll take it however I can get it,” I said, then flushed when I realized how that sounded.

Andi's laughter rang from across the room as he poured, and I tilted the bottle up, giving myself a stronger dose of liquid patience and tolerance. I was going to need plenty of both.

But as usual, when Andi started singing a few minutes later, I forgot how irritated I was. How jealous and . . . forgotten. I got lost in the song. In the beauty of the melody, the poetry of the lyrics. The perfect shape of her mouth as it
formed each word. The guitarist fumbled, and the “percussionist” sounded like he was trying to beat the drums into submission, but Andi was flawless. Exquisite.

In the middle of the first song, people stopped dancing to listen. To watch her. She sang “Bring Me To Life” better than Amy Lee. Clearer. Cleaner. More visceral. And when the next song started, she moved effortlessly into a lively country shitkicker about revenge on a wife-beating husband.

“You like music?” Evan asked, and I forced my eyes to blink, then focus on him.

Like a fish likes to swim.
“Looks like everyone does.” All eyes were on Andi. The rest of the fake band practically faded into the background. She could have carried the song all alone.

By the time Pat Benatar started in on her infamous “Heartbreaker”—Andi must have chosen the set list—Evan had gone silent beside me, absently sipping his first drink, tapping his fingers on the wall at his back. The crowd was dancing again, some people singing along, but Andi saw none of them. She watched her living snack like he was the only one on the planet, and he stared back at her like she'd invented sex and promised him the first taste.

She wouldn't sleep with him. She'd come to satisfy a different kind of appetite, and by the time she was done with him, he wouldn't be able to stand up straight. Anything more complicated than that would be impossible for the next couple of days, until he'd regained some energy.

But he'd live.

Andi had to feed to keep from literally wasting away, and she thought it was more humane to take a little bit from
someone different every month or so than to drain some poor soul completely every couple of years. She did love singing for them—she
was
a siren, after all—but she wasn't a killer.

“She's really good.” Evan pointed at Andi with his empty cup.

“Yeah, and she knows it.”

His brows rose in surprise, and I realized he hadn't known we'd come together. “Do you sing too?”

I flinched, and a cold, hollow ache throbbed deep inside me, so deep no one else could ever see it. No one could ever know how bad I hurt. Except Andi. She knew, but she couldn't fix it.

“Alas, I am completely, tragically talentless.” I forced a laugh, like I didn't care that such beautiful music was so far beyond my capabilities that I couldn't even
see
art from where I stood. “I'm just a spectator.” A desperately hungry spectator.

“Oh, everyone has a talent,” Evan insisted, turning away from Andi to face me fully. “You must be good at something.”

He was wrong, on both counts. But he was looking at me rather than at Andi, and that intrigued me, so I answered instead of killing a discussion I would normally never pursue. “No, I am honestly no good at anything that requires creativity. Talent just . . . doesn't run in my blood.” I'd never uttered a truer statement, but his grin said he thought I was being humble. Or trying to prolong the conversation.

“Oh, I bet we can find
something
you're good at. . . .”

“Well, I do have my moments.” They just don't involve instruments, paints, pens, cameras, clay, or even paper mâché.

Evan's grin deepened, and the look in his eyes could have set off the fire alarm. “Maybe you just need help finding your hidden talents.”

“Maybe so. . . .”
Wait.
I took a step back to clear my head and frowned up at him.
Better safe than sorry.
“You don't sing, do you? Or play Rock Band?”

“Nah.” He set his empty cup on a shelf to his left. “Those plastic guitars hate me, and I'm not a very strong vocalist.”

Relief washed over me, and I felt my smile brighten. “Great. You wanna. . . .”

But that's when Andi's three-song set ended, and the crowd burst into applause. I turned to see her scrolling through a list of songs on the huge, flat screen TV, and nearly choked on my own surprise. Her eyes were glowing—actually pulsing with light—though I was the only one who could see it.

Startled, I went up on my toes, searching the sea of faces for Snack-in-Boots, but he wasn't at the front of the crowd. Or the back of it. He was sitting alone on a couch near the wall, sweaty and pale, still watching Andi like he literally could not tear his gaze from her. He was totally mesmerized, and already suffering, though he didn't seem to realize it.

“Um . . . can you hang on a minute?” I asked Evan, then took off before he could answer, pushing my way toward the front of the crowd. She'd already gone past her safety line, and I'd been too busy flirting to notice. At least she hadn't ditched the band for a solo act yet. That's when the real trouble began.

“Okay, this is a vocalist-only challenge.” Andi's crystalline voice carried easily without the mic, and I groaned aloud. “I'm gonna let these guys take a break for a minute and sing one of my personal favorites,” she said, beaming at the fake backup band. Because this was her show now.

Crap!
She was already flying too high to come down on her own. Andi would turn the microphone way up and the vocals track way down, and within a few bars of the opening notes, she'd be singing her own words without even realizing it. Once that started, it wouldn't end well.

At the front of the crowd, I gestured wildly to get her attention, and all I got for my efforts was a wide Andi-grin, all straight white teeth and hypnotic, glowing eyes. “Andi, you've hogged the mic enough for one night,” I said, trying to ignore the stares that turned my way. “Give someone else a chance to sing.”

“You want a turn?” Evan called from the back of the room, and I could have died right then.

But Andi just laughed, and the crowd laughed along with her. Not a good sign. She was affecting most of them now, instead of just her snack. “Mallory can't sing!” she cried, then winked at me like she'd just done me a favor. Rescued me from her new too-loyal fans and their glittering adoration.

“Andi. . . .” I began, but she brushed my hand off her arm.

“Just one more song, Mal. I know what I'm doing.”

But she had no idea what she was doing. She was flat-out drunk on human energy, because I'd let her go too far. What
happened to focusing on one member of the audience? What about all that miraculous control she'd gained?

Andi clicked a button on the wireless PlayStation controller, then exchanged it for the microphone as music poured from speakers all over the room. She swayed to the rhythm, and the crowd swayed with her.

I glanced around desperately, looking for a plug to jerk from the wall, or a speaker to turn off. But that wouldn't stop Andi. She was just as good a cappella, and if the crowd was too far gone, they wouldn't even notice the missing music. I needed something that would get their attention, because without that, Andi wouldn't sing. There was no point.

I considered “accidentally” bumping the huge TV, but it was a plasma screen—too expensive to replace. The speakers, maybe? No. I wasn't sure that taking out one of them would be enough to stop Andi.

Then I noticed the PS3 whirring on a shelf beneath the television. Perfect. Expensive, but not a whole year of flipping burgers and salting fries. I glanced around until I spotted an unattended drink on an end table, then picked it up casually, as Andi sang the first words of the song. She was sticking to the real lyrics for the moment, but that would soon change. I knew that from experience.

So I edged casually closer to the shelf and accidentally-on-purpose tripped over an area rug. I caught myself with one hand, but spilled someone's warm beer all over the PS3 in the process, making sure liquid splashed into the disk slot.

The television screen flickered, then went black, while the PS3 whirred and smoked.

All eyes turned my way, and Andi's voice trailed into pained silence. Rick shook his head to clear it, then rushed over, face flushed with either alcohol or anger. Or both. “Damn it!”

“I'm sorry!” I sat up unsteadily, faking a couple more drinks than I'd actually had, ignoring the daggers Andi shot my way as the glow in her eyes slowly faded. No one was watching her now. No one was listening.

She hated me right now, but later she would be grateful.

“Are you okay?” A strong hand pulled me up by one arm, and I found myself face to face with Evan, who looked more confused than concerned. He'd seen me rush off, and had probably seen me take someone else's drink off the table. I looked like either a lush or a saboteur.

“Yeah. I'm sorry. I just . . . lost my balance.”

“It's trashed,” Rick groaned, and the crowd murmured with disappointment. He threw his arms up in disgust.

I swallowed the thrill of success secretly buzzing inside me and was relieved to see anger fading from Andi's expression. She shook her head once, then her focus found me, and her brows rose in question.

I nodded. Yes, I'd sabotaged her song and ruined Rick's PlayStation. All to save her ass. “I'll pay for that,” I added softly as Rick unplugged his machine.
With Andi's money.

The whole thing was her fault. She could cover the damages.

Rick stood with the machine under one arm. “I'm gonna let this dry out and see what happens. So I can either put in
a CD. . . .” His gaze found Evan, and a sly smile stole over his face. “Or I can put my brother on the spot.”

“Evan!” someone called from the crowd, and several voices seconded the request. Then someone came forward carrying an acoustic guitar. Evan rolled his eyes like he'd refuse, but took the guitar without hesitation, and I couldn't miss the way his eyes lit up. It was a human glow, not as intense or as scary as Andi's. But it reflected true passion.

“Don't go anywhere,” he whispered, trailing one hand down my arm. “I'll just do a couple.”

Speechless, I nodded, even as Andi tugged me toward the door. “Let's go,” she hissed, glancing from me to Evan, then back to me. I nodded again. We should go while he was tuning, plinking individual notes like the first drops of rain onto a drought-scorched wasteland. I shouldn't risk listening. One near-catastrophe was enough for tonight.

But then he started playing for real, and the notes didn't just plink like drops into a puddle. They flowed, like rivers of sound. They filled my empty heart and echoed in my hollow soul. I ached for that sound. For those notes. For the hands that played them, like they were no big deal, when they were
everything
. My entire world.

I stopped, one hand gripping the doorframe on my way out of the house. Andi pulled on my other arm, but I barely felt it. Barely heard her whisper my name. “I wanna listen. . . .” I murmured, already lost in the sound.