"I'm leaving," I said. I forced as sincere a smile as I could for Jill, who now looked on the verge of tears. "You were amazing tonight. Really."
"Sydney - "
"It's okay," I told her. "I've got some things to do." I groped for what they would actually be. "I need to, um, clean up the stuff Keith left behind. Can you get her and Eddie back to Amberwood?" This was directed to Micah and Lee. I knew one of them would step up. I felt no need to make any such provisions for Adrian. I honestly didn't care what became of him tonight.
"Of course," said Lee and Micah in unison. After a moment, though, Lee frowned. "Why do you need to clean up Keith's stuff?"
"Long story," I muttered. "Let's just say he left town and won't be back anytime soon. Maybe never." Inexplicably, Lee seemed bothered by this. Maybe during all the time Keith had spent at Clarence's, the two guys had become friends. If so, Lee owed me.
Jill still looked upset. "I thought we were all going out to celebrate?"
"You can if you want," I said. "As long as Eddie's with you, I really don't care." I reached awkwardly to Jill. I almost wanted to hug her, but she was so elaborate and magnificent in her clothing and makeup that I was afraid of ruining her. I settled for a halfhearted pat on the shoulder. "I meant it. You were breathtaking."
I hurried away, half-afraid that either Adrian or I would crack and say something stupid to the other. I had to get myself out of there. My hope now was that Adrian would have enough sense to let the topic go and not make this night any worse for Jill. I didn't know why the fight with him upset me so much. He and I had been bickering nearly since we'd met. What was one more quarrel? It's because we'd been getting along, I realized. I still didn't think of him in human terms, but somewhere along the way, I'd come to regard him as a little less of a monster.
"Sydney?"
I was stopped by an unexpected source: Laurel. She had touched my arm as I passed by a group of girls from Amberwood. I must have looked really mad because when I fixed my gaze on her, she actually flinched. That had to be a first.
"What?" I asked.
She swallowed and stepped away from her friends, eyes wide and desperate. A fedora covered most of her hair, which - I'd heard - she still hadn't been able to restore to normal. "I heard... I heard you might be able to help me. With my hair," she said.
That was another favor Kristin had done me. After letting Laurel suffer for a few days, I'd had Kristin put out the word that Sydney Melrose - with her dorm room pharmacy - might be able to fix what was wrong. I'd also made sure, however, that it was understood that Laurel wasn't my favorite person and that it would take a lot to convince me.
"Maybe," I said. I tried to keep my face hard, which wasn't difficult since I was still so upset over Adrian.
"Please," she said. "I'll do whatever you want if you can help me! I've tried everything on my hair, and nothing works." To my astonishment, she shoved some yearbooks at me. "Here. You wanted these, right? Take them. Take whatever you want."
Another five days of scrubbing with heavy detergent would actually fix her, but I certainly wasn't going to tell her. I took the yearbooks. "If I help you," I said, "you need to leave my sister alone. Do you understand?"
"Yes," she said quickly.
"I don't think you do. No more stunts, bullying, or talking about her behind her back. You don't have to be her best friend, but I don't want you interfering with her anymore. Stay out of her life." I paused. "Well, except to offer an apology."
Laurel was nodding along with everything I said. "Yes, yes! I'll apologize right now!"
I lifted my eyes to where Jill was standing with her admirers, Lee's flowers in her arms. "No. Don't make this night any weirder for her. Tomorrow's soon enough."
"I will," said Laurel. "I promise. Just tell me what to do. How to fix this."
I hadn't expected Laurel to approach me tonight, but I had been expecting her one of these days. So, I already had the small bottle of antidote ready in my purse. I retrieved it, and her eyes nearly popped out of her head as I held it in front of her.
"One dose is all you need. Use it just like shampoo. Then you'll have to re-dye it." She reached for the bottle, and I jerked it back. "I mean it. Your harassment of Jill ends now. If I give this to you, I will not hear one more word about you giving her a hard time. No more grief if she talks to Micah. No more vampire jokes. No more calling Nevermore and asking about tall, pale people."
She gaped. "No more what? I never called anyone!"
I hesitated. When the tattooist had mentioned someone calling and asking about people who looked like vampires, I'd assumed it was Laurel running with the vampire joke. From the baffled look on her face now, I no longer thought that was true. "Well, if I hear about any of the other stuff continuing, then what happened to your hair will be nothing in comparison to what happens next. Nothing. Do you understand me?"
She nodded shakily. "P-perfectly."
I handed her the bottle. "Don't forget."
Laurel started to turn away and then cast another uneasy glance at me. "You know, you can be scary as hell sometimes."
I wondered if the Alchemists had had any idea what I'd be doing when it came to this job. At least this settled one thing. Laurel's desperation convinced me the vampire jokes had only been a tactic. She didn't really believe any of them were true. It did, however, raise the unnerving question about who had asked about vampires at Nevermore.
When I was finally out of the building and heading toward my car, I decided I really would go to Keith's. Someone needed to sort through his belongings, and it seemed like a safe way to avoid the others. I still had a couple of hours before curfew at Amberwood.
Keith's apartment hadn't been disturbed since the Alchemists had raided it. The telltale signs from before were there, where we'd discovered his stash of Clarence's blood and silver supplies. The Alchemists had done little more than retrieve the essentials they needed and had left the rest of his belongings behind. My hope in coming tonight had been to get ahold of his other ingredients, the ones not used to manufacture illicit tattoos. It was always handy to have extra amounts of those chemicals on hand, be it for destroying Strigoi bodies or making dorm room chemistry experiments.