The Birch House

Chapter Eleven

Chase was in the doorway, ready for action, when Alyssa screeched the car to a stop; if he was still mad, at least he wasn't letting it get in the way of a good fight. Alyssa frantically signalled for him to stay where he was, on safe ground, and checked the street on all sides.

"Do you see anything?" she asked me anxiously. I shook my head, still sick. "Damn. Damn! Okay... but you know the drill, right? Asses and elbows. Bail!"

I fumbled open the lock, bolted out of the car, and hit the pavement running. I heard Alyssa's door slam and running footsteps. Déja vu, I though. Now all we needed was for Michael to show up and act like a total asshole...

I nearly ran into Chase as I pelted across the threshold; he stepped out of the way, just far enough to let me pass, and grabbed Alyssa to pull her inside as he slammed the door and locked it.

"You have got to get a better job," he said. Alyssa wiped at her ruined make up with the back of one hand and threw him a filthy look.

"At least I have a job!"

"What, professional blood doner? Because that's all you're going to he if you-"

I turned, ran into a vampire, and screamed my lungs out.

Okay, so she wasn't a vampire. That was established in about thirty more seconds by a combination of Chase doubling over with laughter, the vampire screaming in fright and cowering, and - last of all - Alyssa saying, in blank surprise, "Isabelle! Honey, what the hell are you doing here?"

The vamp - she looked like a vamp, I amended, but now my heart rate was going down below race-car speeds I saw that it was make up and drama, not nature - slowly lowered her arms, peered at me uncertainly through thick black mascaraed eyelashes, and made a little O with her ruby red lips. "I had to come," she said. She had a breathy, floaty voice, full of drama. "Oh, Lyss! I had such a terrible vision! There was blood and death, and it was all about you!"

Alyssa didn't seem impressed. She sighed, turned to Chase, and said, "You let her in? I thought you hated her!"

"Couldn't leave her out there, could I? I mean, she's got a pulse. Besides, she's your friend."

From the look Alyssa gave him, friend might have been stretching things.

Isabelle gave Chase a loopy smile. Great, I thought, annoyed and disgusted and still trying to contain the aftermath of a nuclear terror explosion. The girl was tall and most of her was thin, storklike legs revealed by a black leather miniskirt. She had lots of make up, the standard dyed black hair, shag cut around a long white face. Ragged Marker crosses drawn on her wrists and around her neck.

Isabelle suddenly swung around and looked up at the ceiling. She raised her hands to her mouth in dread, but, I noticed, didn't smudge her lipstick. "This house," she said. "Oh my. It's so... strange. Don't you feel it?"

"Izzy, if you wanted to warn me about something, you could have called," Alyssa said, and steered her into the living room. "Now we've got to figure out how to get you home. Honestly, don't you have any sense? You know better than this!"

As Isabelle sat down on the couch, I caught sight of something else on her neck...bruises. And in the centre of the bruises, two raw, red holes. Alyssa saw it, too, and blinked, looked at Chase, and then at me. "Izzy?" she asked gently, and turned the girl's chin to one side. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing," Isabelle said. "Everything. You've really got to try it. It's everything I dreamt it would be, and for a second I could see, I could really see-"

Alyssa let go of her like she'd caught on fire. "You let somebody bite you?"

"Just Sebastian," Isabelle said. "He loves me. But Lyss, you have to listen - this is serious! I tried to call, but I couldn't get anyone, and I had this terrible dream-"