Galen took a step toward her. His jaw was tense, but his gold-green eyes were fixed on hers, and his hand was slightly lifted. Keller wondered if it was the gesture of a hostage negotiator. He opened his mouth to say something.
And Iliana came to life, jumping up and running past him and shrieking at Keller all at once.
"What are you doing? That's Jaime! What are you doing to her?"
"You know her?"
"That's Jaime Ashton-Hughes! She's Brett's sister! And she's one of my best friends! And you attacked her! Are you all right?"
It was all shrieked at approximately the same decibel level, but on the last sentence, Iliana looked down at Jaime.
Keller moved her palm from Jaime's mouth. As it turned out, though, that didn't seem to be necessary. Jaime raised her free hand and began to make swift, fluid gestures at Iliana with it.
Keller stared, and then her insides plummeted.
She let go of the girl's other arm, and the gestures immediately became two-handed.
Oh. Oh... darn.
Keller could feel her ears flatten backward. She looked unhappily at Iliana.
"Sign language?"
"She's got a hearing impairment!" Iliana glared at Keller, all the while making gestures back at Jaime. Her motions were awkward and stilted compared to Jaime's, but she clearly had some idea what she was doing.
"I didn't realize."
"What difference does it make how well she can hear?" Diana yelled. "She's my friend! She's president of the senior class! She's chair for the Christmas Benefit bazaar! What did she do to you, ask you to buy a teddy bear?"
Keller sighed. Her tail was tucked up close to her body, almost between her legs, and her ears were flatter than ever. She climbed off Jaime, who immediately scooted backward and away from her, still talking rapidly with her hands to Diana.
"The difference," Keller said, "is that she didn't stop when I told her to. I yelled at her, but... I didn't realize. Look, just tell her I'm sorry, will you?"
'You tell her! Don't talk about her as if she isn't here. Jaime can lip-read just fine if you bother to face her." Diana turned to Jaime again. "I'm sorry. Please don't be mad. This is terrible-and I don't know how to explain. Can you breathe now?"
Jaime nodded slowly. Her dark blue eyes slid to Keller, then back to Diana. She spoke in a hushed voice. Although it was flat in tone and some of the sounds were indistinct, it was actually rather pleasant. And the words were perfectly understandable.
"What... is it?" she asked Diana. Meaning Keller.
But then, before Diana could answer, Jaime caught herself. She bit her lip, looked at the floor for a moment, then braced herself and looked at Keller again. She was frightened, her body was shrinking, but this time her eyes met Keller's directly.
"What... are you?"
Keller opened her mouth and shut it again.
A hand closed on her shoulder. It was warm, and it exerted brief pressure for an instant. Then it pulled away, maybe as if revolted because it was resting on fur.
"She's a person," Galen said, kneeling down beside Jaime. "She may look a little different right now, but she's as much of a person as you are. And you have to believe that she didn't mean to hurt you. She made a mistake. She thought you were an enemy, and she reacted."
"An enemy?" There was something about Galen. Jaime had relaxed almost as soon as he got down on her level. Now she was talking to him freely, her hands flying gracefully as she spoke aloud, emphasizing her words. Her face was pretty when it wasn't blue with suffocation, Keller noticed. "What are you talking about? What kind of enemy? Who are you people? I haven't seen you around school before."
"She thought-well, she thought you were going to hurt Diana. There are some people who are trying to do that."
Jaime's face changed. "Hurt Diana? Who? They'd better not even try!"
Winnie had been twitching throughout this. Now she muttered, "Boss..."
"It doesn't matter," Keller said quietly. "Nissa's going to have to blank her memory anyway." It was too bad, in a way, because this girl's reaction to the Night World was one of the most sensible Keller had ever seen. But it couldn't be helped.
Keller didn't look at Diana as she spoke; she
knew there was going to be an argument. But before it started, she had one final thing to say.
"Jaime?" She moved and got instant attention. "I'm sorry. Really. I'm sorry I frightened you. And I'm really sorry if I hurt you." She stood up, not waiting to see if she was forgiven. What difference did it make? What was done was already done, and what was about to happen was inevitable. She didn't expect to be forgiven, and she didn't care.
That was what she told herself, anyway.
Diana did argue. Keller tried not to let Jaime see much of it, because that would only make her more scared and miserable, and the end really was inescapable. Leaving her memory intact would be dangerous not only for Iliana but for Jaime herself.
"It's death for a human to find out about the Night World," Keller said flatly. "And it's worse than death if the dragon and his friends think she's got any information about the Wild Power. You don't want to know what they'll do to try and get it out of her, Iliana. I promise you don't."
And, finally, Iliana gave in, as Keller had known she would have to from the beginning. Nissa moved up behind Jaime like a whisper and a shadow and touched her on the side of her neck.
Although witches were the experts at brainwashing, at inserting new ideas and convictions, vampires were the best at wiping the slate clean. They didn't use spells. It was something they were born with, the power to put their victim into a trance and smooth away hours or even days of memoiy. Jaime looked into Nissa's silvery-brown eyes for maybe seventy seconds, and then her own blue eyes shut, and her body went limp. Galen caught her as she feU.
"She'll wake up in a few minutes. It's probably best if we leave her here and get out," Nissa said. "Lunch is over, anyway," Keller said. In the quiet minutes while Jaime was being hypnotized, Keller had finally managed to convince her body that there was no danger. It was only then that she could relax enough to change back.
Her ears collapsed, her tail retracted. Her fur misted into jumpsuit and skin. She blinked twice, noticing the difference in brightness as her pupils changed, and the tips of her fangs melted into ordinary teeth. She stood up, shifting her shoulders to get used to the human body again.