Creature Discomforts (Descendants) Page 5

  “It’s not a Malaysian unicorn,” Sid said. Rachel’s bed groaned as he sat next to her, and she pulled her knees together so their legs wouldn’t touch.

  “I’m being thorough.” Rachel couldn’t quite keep the annoyance out of her voice. She didn’t need Sid commenting on how she researched.

  “I’m telling you, it’s not an abath.”

  Rachel’s lips compressed to a slit, and she stubbornly stared at each word of the description. Beside her, Sid twitched.

  “Are you done yet?”

  Rachel didn’t answer.

  “Just turn the page.”

  “I’m not turning the page,” Rachel said through clenched teeth.

  “Turn the stupid page, Rachel.”

  “Guys?” Kendra interjected, but they both ignored her.

  Sid reached over and tried to flip to the next entry, but Rachel slapped her hand onto the page. “Get your own Corpus.”

  “Guys,” Kendra tried again, and was once again ignored.

  Instead of getting his own Corpus, Sid tried to take hers. He yanked at the book, but Rachel held tight, veins in her wrists cording with effort and her jaw set. Sid resorted to trying to pry her fingers away one at a time until their hands were twisted together and they were nose to nose, glaring.

  And that was the moment Beth Ann burst in.

  “I knew it!” The girl’s eyes bulged and she clutched at her bag until her knuckles were white knobs in her tan skin.

  Rachel and Sid jumped away from each other so fast Rachel slammed into her nightstand and sent her reading lamp crashing to the ground.

  Beth Ann stalked forward, the lace hem of her pale pink sundress swishing around her thighs. Rachel didn’t know why that transfixed her so. Maybe because it was easier to look at a hem than into Beth Ann’s livid face.

  “Beth Ann, I …” Sid stammered.

  “You stood me up,” Beth Ann said, every single syllable its own sharp knife. “You stood me up. I waited for an hour. And all that time you were here.” Beth Ann turned on Rachel then, jammed one acrylic-tipped finger into the air. “With her.”

  The way she said it—the astonishment in her voice that Sid could actually pick hanging out with Rachel over her—made something deep inside Rachel flip over. Like a switch being thrown. A match being lit. Rachel looked up into Beth Ann’s face and stood tall. Distantly, she was aware of Sid talking, trying to beg forgiveness, but it was nothing more than the buzzing of gnats in her ears.

  “Yes, Beth Ann. Sid was with me,” Rachel hissed. She took two big steps closer and reveled to see the way the girl stumbled for just the tiniest of moments. She didn’t expect push-back. That just made Rachel thrust her chin out. “Because we’re friends. We hang out like friends.”

  “Girls can’t just be friends with guys!” Beth Ann said, her voice growing more shrill with every word. “It doesn’t work that way!”

  “It does with us!”

  “Too bad,” Beth Ann shrieked. “It can’t be that way because I won’t allow it!”

  Rachel closed the distance between them and shoved the tip of her finger into Beth Ann’s sternum. “I dare you to try, you stupid, vapid—”

  Beth Ann swatted away Rachel’s finger, shook her hair out behind her and laughed, a sniggering, cruel thing so unlike her usual giggle. The shrieking was gone, replaced with arched eyebrows and a cold smile. “Did you ever consider that Sid feels bad for you?” Beth Ann waved a manicured hand up and down Rachel’s form. “Seriously, look at you. A greasy pony tail? Clothes that look like you slept in them? You can throw yourself at my boyfriend all day, but it’ll never work.”

  Rachel reached for the dagger hiding in her boot without even realizing it, but then Kendra was hauling her back and pinning her arms to her side and Sid was jumping between them, his face a burning red. Beth Ann looked at her in triumph, her perfectly pink lips curled up at the edges in a smirk.

  Sid held both arms out like someone desperately trying to keep two cats apart. “I don’t want you hating each other,” he said, swinging his head back and forth to look at each. “You’re both my girls.”

  Rachel froze just as Beth Ann did, both sets of eyes going wide.

  “She’s not your girl,” Beth Ann spit at the same time Rachel said “I’m not your girl.”

  Sid tried for a sheepish grin and waved his hands. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, his accent suddenly burring with French. “My English isn’t great.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. His English was perfect and he knew it. But Beth Ann’s shoulders relaxed just the slightest, and she pouted her lips. “It’s okay, Siddy,” she purred.

  Rachel shook off Kendra’s hands still clamped around her forearms and crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe you should just leave, okay?”

  A frown worked across Sid’s face. “You’ll be able to study without me?”

  The look Rachel threw Sid was acidic. “Yes,” she said, her voice even. “Somehow we’ll manage.”

  Sid held his hands up in surrender then let Beth Ann tug him from the room. Beth Ann looked over her shoulder for a moment as the door closed behind her, her blue eyes shining in victory. Then she turned her back on Rachel, stood on tiptoe, and pressed her lips to Sid’s.

  “Rach,” Kendra whispered close in her ear. “Are you okay? Do you want me to talk to him?”

  “I’m fine, Kendra,” Rachel snapped. “Just leave me alone.”

  The door slammed shut on Sid and Beth Ann at the same moment Rachel let her dagger fly. It hit the wood with a thud and a shower of splinters and stayed there.

  CHAPTER 8

  Rachel was not proud of the English paper she turned in. She dropped it off at the professor’s lectern and scurried back to her seat, feeling squirmy and disjointed. That had always been a feeling reserved for things like parties, not class.

  “I’m so glad that’s over,” the girl with the yellow were eyes whispered. She grinned at Rachel and let out a long sigh, but it all just made Rachel squirmier. It was like worms were tunneling under her skin and writhing in her belly.

  “Yeah,” she managed. “It’s over.” Whether she meant the final paper of the semester or her chances of salvaging her GPA, she wasn’t sure.

  Rachel tapped her pen against the top of her notebook. What was the date again? And why the hell was she forgetting things like that: dates and assignments and all the little things that knit together to form her Capital F Future. She stifled a harsh laugh. Her future. Right. That had been thrown out the window the moment she turned eighteen and could suddenly see a slug-like demon on the ceiling of a motel room.

  “Sorry,” she leaned over and whispered to were-girl. “What’s the date?”

  The girl chuckled. “Finals getting to you? It’s Monday, May sixth.”

  “Thanks,” Rachel muttered. She wrote the date at the top of the fresh sheet of paper and told herself she could do this: still be the Rachel she had always been—the girl who set the curve, the girl who got everything right—and the Descendant she had no choice but to be.

  Except she never even got a chance to try and pull it together for the semester’s last week of regular classes. Professor Michaels had just handed out the study guide when a knock at the classroom door stopped her. Rachel slunk down low in her seat and groaned as the door opened: It was Sid.

  He had a leather bag crossed over his chest and a sheaf of papers tight under his arm. He leaned close to Professor Michaels to speak then scanned the classroom. Rachel sank even farther in her chair and tucked her chin.

  “Ah, there she is,” Professor Michaels called. “Rachel? Mr. Martin needs to speak to you.”

  Rachel pasted on a thin smile as she trudged up the aisle toward Sid and her English professor. She hadn’t made it two steps before Sid stopped her. “Don’t leave your things, Miss Chase,” he said, his voice distant and light.

  Rachel clenched her jaw so tight she was certain her molars would turn to dust. “I don’t want to miss this class,
” she got out past her teeth. “It’s the finals review.”

  Professor Michaels waved a hand. “Oh, it’s fine. You’ve got your study guide.” She smiled encouragingly. Rachel wanted to slap her.

  “Fine,” she said, defeated. Rachel grabbed her notebook, shoved it into her bag, and followed Sid out the door.

  “What the hell are you doing,” she hissed the second the door closed.

  “Another missing girl,” he said, all lightness gone. “But there was an obvious struggle this time. Kendra’s waiting for us.”

  Rachel’s stomach jolted at Kendra’s name. The two girls hadn’t spoken since Rachel snapped at her the other night. It felt weird not speaking to Kendra, especially when the two shared a dorm room. She shook off the anxiety and checked her watch. “This couldn’t have waited another forty-five minutes?”

  “I saw the opportunity. I took it.”

  Without another word, Sid led the way. Rachel followed, her eyes on his back. His shoulders were bunched high and his strides jerky. He was tense and nervous, Rachel realized, though if it was the missing girl or that fact that he and Rachel had stayed far, far away from each other since her blow-up with Beth Ann, she didn’t know. Rachel grumbled to herself and stumped after Sid. She’d pushed her two closest friends away in a matter of days. That had to be some sort of surly record.

  Once she saw Kendra and the police tape over the dorm room door, Rachel didn’t care where Sid’s tension came from. She flicked her eyes up to her best friend then back down. Kendra’s face was stony.

  “When did this happen?” Rachel asked.

  Kendra shrugged, but Sid answered. “Last night, maybe? It was only discovered about an hour ago. Campus police have already been through, but the town police could be here any minute, so we don’t have long.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Rachel said. “So we could be caught tampering with a crime scene.”

  In answer, Sid dug into his bag and held up a fake press badge then handed out three sets of gloves. Without looking at Rachel even once, Kendra snapped on the gloves and followed Sid under the yellow police tape and into the destroyed dorm room.

  The place was a mess. One of the windows was shattered, jagged bits of glass edging a giant hole where something had crashed out of—not into—the room. A deep purple, satin duvet cover was flung across the room from the bed, a giant rip in the fabric spilling tufts of feathery innards. Over the sink, the mirror was broken as well, and there was a smear of dried blood across a long sliver still clinging to the frame.

  Across the room, Sid lifted an upturned chair before moving on to poke at the scattered papers and broken pencils littering the floor. Rachel glanced at Kendra and scurried closer, her feet crunching over more broken glass.

  “I’m sorry I snapped,” Rachel whispered in a rush of breath and words, her eyes on the makeup strewn over the vanity.

  Kendra paused her search through the toiletries. “You can’t take your frustration out on me,” she finally whispered back. “I’m not the one you’re mad at.”

  Rachel sucked her lips in. Kendra meant Sid, Rachel knew that. Kendra—like her mom had earlier—thought Rachel liked Sid. But if she did … and if she admitted that she did. No. Sid was with Beth Ann. Rachel wouldn’t be made a fool.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Kendra peered at Rachel from the corner of her eye, head still bent over the vanity.

  “I …” Rachel started. “I just …” She scrunched her face up and shook her head. Kendra reached across and squeezed her hand, and for the first time in days the tightness in her chest released. She squeezed Kendra back then moved on with the investigation.

  Rachel stepped over more broken pencils and a torn paperback to get a closer look at the whiteboard calendar next to the desk. There was a star outlined in purple and black over the square for May fifth with the word “date” written in a blood red marker.

  “Uh, guys?” Kendra’s voice was strangled and weird, and Rachel whirled to face her so quickly she knocked another stack of papers to the floor.

  Kendra had opened the closet door and was staring at a full-size poster of an actor from a popular series with expertly tousled hair, piercing dark eyes, and a strong jaw. And bared fangs. Next to Mr. Tall, Dark, and Bloodthirsty was a shelf stacked high with paperbacks titled things like “Once Bitten, Twice to Die” and “Immortal Love.”

  Rachel’s jaw dropped open, and she wrenched her eyes from the shelf of books to another broken wooden pencil at her feet. Now that she looked closely, she saw that the wood had been eaten away, yet there was still a trace of tar-thick ichor dried at the end.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “God, I am so over vampires,” Rachel moaned. “Seriously, could it be any more annoying?”

  Sid clicked his laptop shut and tossed it aside on Kendra’s bed. “Better than zombies. Those really suck.”

  “Okay,” Kendra said. “What do we know about vampires? I mean, what are they actually like?” She had both hands resting against her collarbone, her fingers protectively close to her neck and gills in case any vampires popped up from under the bed.

  Rachel read from her Corpus, the tip of her index finger tracking along the entry. “Um, they gather in groups called nests and have an elected leader. Apparently they don’t eat all that often, and kidnapping is definitely not part of their M.O. Neither is sticking to girls only.”

  “Which is why I didn’t think it could be vampires,” Sid interjected. “They’re a lot like feral cat colonies. They keep a fairly steady number in the nest and only replace a member when someone dies, but these kidnappings make it seem like they’re creating a whole new nest.”

  “Aren’t they immortal?” Rachel asked, her eyes still on the Corpus.

  “Nope,” Sid answered. He stood to face them both, arms behind his back. It was all very professorial. “Barely any demon is actually immortal. Most have at least a trace of human ancestry, and vampires are no different. What we label demons and half-demons are the result of true demons mixing with early humans millennia ago. True demons are immortal, but it’s been a thousand years since the last was free on Earth.”

  Rachel looked back to her Corpus and noticed a tiny asterisk after the word “predator,” the term designated to mean a demon was to be killed on sight. The ink had faded with time, but the little mark had obviously been added after the book was created. She pointed it out to Sid.

  He tapped the asterisk then nodded toward his closed laptop. “That’s why I just emailed your mom. Different nests have alliances and treaties with Descendants. Your mom should be able to tell us how close the nearest nest is and the leader’s name. Maybe they know something. Every vampire I’ve ever met is pretty strict about policing their own.”

  Kendra frowned. “Hold on. You don’t kill vampires on sight?” She wrenched the Corpus away from Rachel and jammed a finger at the open page. “They’re a predator. It says it right here. And you’re saying they’re free to kill people because of some treaty?”

  Sid held his hands up. “I didn’t make the treaties, and I’m not exactly calling up a vampire to get a beer. But, well, first: Most don’t kill. They feed and then alter the memory.”

  Kendra snorted in disbelief.

  “It’s complicated, Kendra,” Rachel said, pulling the Corpus back to her lap. “And I’d think you’d get that. Treaties and everything. Until a few hundred years ago, Descendants hunted merpeople too. Some still think we should.”

  Kendra pulled a face. “That’s completely different.”

  Sid didn’t answer, but his thoughts were clear in the way he frowned and looked away from Kendra. And Rachel kind of agreed. Was it so very different? Merpeople were hardly a known species, and reading more on vampires Rachel realized they had a whole society and hierarchy as well. Kendra opened her mouth to argue, but Rachel talked over her.

  “The point is, we have a vampire—or a nest of them—acting weird, and we need to figure
out why before more women go missing.”

  *

  The first thing Rachel noticed were the cops stationed at the entrance to Caster Hall. Students grouped in front of the arched wooden doors, bent close together to gossip, their eyes on the police. Rachel hitched her bag higher onto her shoulder and threaded through the students, careful to keep her movements casual and her expression calm.

  “What happened?” She flashed a curious smile and peered behind the two young officers into her residence hall.

  “A missing woman,” the man on the right grunted.

  The news spread through the gathered students like a giant wave coming to shore. As it did, the whispers got louder, more shrill. More fearful.

  Everything inside Rachel deflated. It was getting more frequent, these kidnappings. And she still had no real leads. Her mom had tracked down the closest nest, which was a long-standing group in New Orleans, but their leader hadn’t heard any rumblings of a rogue vamp with a taste for college girls.

  Before she could ask anymore, one of the dorm’s RAs bustled through the doors with a sheaf of bright orange flyers. “Caster Hall, right?” The woman’s voice was strained and high. Rachel nodded and had a flyer thrust into her hands before the RA moved on, shoving papers at anyone who came close enough. Rachel stared at it, safety tips on one side and simple self-defense on the other.

  Over the next few days, those orange flyers appeared everywhere: taped to lampposts, stacked outside the entrance to the caf, handed out in classes. Cops patrolled the shaded walkways and forested paths between buildings and dorms, and a local martial arts club held free defense seminars. Rachel even found herself escorted from the library back to her dorm one evening when she’d stayed past sunset. And weaving through it all was the gossip and anxiety, like a current tugging at her limbs and trying to drag her under. There was no other word for it: Saint Etienne was scared.