Part 18 (2/2)

”What's the problem? You jealous?”

”Hey, please give me my -”

”d.a.m.n!”

”Watch - !”

And I'm out the front door and into the night.

It's after ten, and I've blown it. I've blown my cover. I don't know how I'll find the conclave of vampires now, or how I would get there if I found it. The conclave is miles away. The town's spells of binding will be interrupted in less than two hours.

I am wandering around the fairground, full of the knowledge that I have endangered the world, and my body is sliding into a murderous thirst, and I can do nothing to stop either thing.

And worse than that, I am being sought. They want my blood, one way or another. I turn around often as I skulk from tent to tent, and I make sure that Bat and Lolli aren't slinking up behind me through the ranks of half-s.h.i.+rts and flip-flops.

On the loudspeaker, we are coming to the goat part of the evening. The mayor is talking about it. ”Let's prepare the elements. Can, uh, can everyone at the other sites hear me?”

”Yes, Ed.”

”Sure, Ed. We're reading you loud and clear.”

”Thanks. First we'll, uh, prepare the goats. Out on the boat, we have Sal Garozzi, butcher at the Purity Supreme in Bradley. Sal has kindly offered, once again, to do the honors. You there, Sal?”

”I am, Ed.”

”How's it looking, Sal?”

Sal considers for a minute. ”Well, it's looking pretty nice out tonight. There's a moon. Oh, you mean the lake? The lake is calm.”

I can't see the lake from here because of the trees, but I can see the three radio towers, their lights winking regularly like breaths softly hissed into the night.

That is when I spy Rebecca. She is walking with Tom and Kristen toward the tilt-a-whirl. Jerk bobs along behind them. I can see Rebecca laugh deep and long.

Above them all, there is the monotonous sound of the butcher, the mayor, and the town selectmen sacrificing a goat to cosmic forces. They say, ”We cry out to you that the Dark may be bound. We cry out to you, O, s.h.i.+ning sentinels, for strength in the night.

”And now we shall bind the foe, by your grace. And now with the blood of this living creature, and with these malleable spirits, we follow the silver cord into Darkness,” the voice calls out.

I feel lighter just looking at her. Rebecca, who told me she would talk to me. Rebecca, who knows spells.

Suddenly, the screaming of the goat starts.

”Get the goat. Get that d.a.m.n goat!” someone out on the lake yells over the loudspeaker.

It screams again.

People stop what they're doing - stop licking their ice creams, pa.s.sing their tokens, playing their games. They look up.

There's a silence. Kristen has covered her ears.

There's a trickling noise over everything. It is brief and poignant.

I run toward Rebecca and the rest, all of them together, while above us, strung on wires and poles, the incantations continue, booming: ”Hear us, O Tch'muchgar, Melancholy One, Vampire Lord. Hear us and despair. You shall be blinded with light. You shall be bound in radiance. You shall stare, unblinking, at the light that sears you, and burns you, and claims you, for all eternity.”

Rebecca's step is light; and her sandaled feet arch on the gra.s.s as they did long ago, bare, that night when I saw her with her sister at Persible Dairy.

I want to embrace her.

Suddenly, as if cued by Rebecca's beauty, the air is filled with the cooing of distant police sirens, like pretty birds rising all around from a Persian palace court.

And I am by her side.

”Rebecca,” I call. ”Rebecca!”

”Hey, Chris,” they all say as I run up.

”What happened to that girl?” says Chuck. ”Lolli whatever?”

”I don't know,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant but looking wildly over my shoulder, past the Dizzy Caterpillar. ”She's trying to find me. There's safety in numbers.”

”Especially ten, in the Cabala,” Rebecca offers idly, looking sideways. ”That's the number of the Sephiroth.” Everyone finds that a bit of a conversation stopper. For a minute, we all think of what to say next.

Then Andy says, ”Hey, want to go on the tilt-a-whirl?”

Everyone says yeah and starts to head over to it, Tom and Andy and Chuck looking back at me and whispering among themselves. They are whispering: Why is he running away from Lolli? Boy, if she were looking for me, man, I sure wouldn't be hiding, it would be ollie, ollie in-come-free. Jerk trudges beside them, looking guilty and upset at hearing bad things about me. Kristen walks up between Tom and Chuck.

”Rebecca,” I say. ”I -” For the moment, that seems enough. Then I continue, ”Rebecca, I need to talk to you.”

She stops. She hesitates, poised as if standing on top of a column. ”What's wrong?” she asks and follows the lines of my face with her eyes. ”You look really sick.” She turns all the way toward me.

I shrug. ”I need to talk to you,” I say helplessly. ”Could we talk?”

”Of course. I told you . . .” She nods. ”You could come with me on the tilt-a-whirl.”

I look ahead at the tilt-a-whirl. It flings people around at fifty miles per hour, their hair streaming, their mouths open, their hands clutching at the sides of the car. I admit, ”I'm not sure we'd reach any definite conclusions after talking on the tilt-a-whirl.”

Rebecca nods. ”Just a sec,” she says in shorthand. She jogs up to Kristen and whispers something in her ear.

Kristen points at me and says something to Chuck, Tom, and Andy. The three of them start laughing and glancing back at me.

I don't care. I glance up at their necks, craned back to look at me, and at the wiry tendons there, and I think a pa.s.sing thought about how pleasant it would be to kill them and feel their blood moving through me.

But now Rebecca is at my side, smiling uneasily.

”Come on,” I say to her hoa.r.s.ely. ”Come on.”

”What is it?” she demands. ”What?”

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