The deer screamed again. Wrenched violently.Seemed to be having convulsions.
The flashlight beam was all over the place. Then it dropped. At the very edge of the light, Mary-Lynnette could see two other figures join Kestrel.They were all holding the deer. There was one last spasm and it stopped fighting. Everything went still. Mary-Lynnette could see Jade's hair, so fine that individual strands caught the light against the background of darkness.
In the silent Bearing the three figures cradled thedeer. Huddling over it. Shoulders moving rhythmically.
Mary-Lynnette couldn't see exactly what theywere doing, but the general scene wasf,miliar.She'd seen it on dozens of nature documentaries. About wild dogs or lionesses or wolves. The pack hadhunted and now ft wasfeeding.
I have always tried... to bea very good observer. And now, I have to believe my own eyes... .
Beside her, Mark's breath wassobbing.
Oh, God, let me get him out of here. Please justlet us get out.
It was as if she'd been suddenly released from paralysis. Her lip was bleeding again-she must havebitten down on it while she was watchingthe deer.Copperbloodfear filled her mouth.
"Come on," shegasped almost soundlessly, wiggling backward. Twigs and needles raked her stomachas her T-shirt rode up. She grabbed Mark's arm."Come onl"
Instead, Mark lurched to his feet.
"Mark!" She wrenched herself to her knees andtried to drag him down.
He pulled away. Hetook a step toward theclearing.
No "Jade!"
He was heading for the clearing.
No, Mary-Lynnette thought again, andthen shewas moving after him. They were caught now, andit really didn't matter what he did. Butshe wantedto bewith him.
"Jade!" Mark said and he grabbed the flashlight.He turned it directly on the little huddle at the edgeof the clearing. Three faces turned toward him.
Mary-Lynnette's mind reeled. It was one thing toguess what the girls were doing; it was another thingto seeit. Those three beautiful faces, white in the flashlight beam ...with what looked like smearedlipstick on their mouths and chins. Cardinal red, thimbleberry color.
But it wasn't lipstick or burst thimbleberries. It wasblood, and the deer's white neck was stained with it.
Eating the deer, they're really eating the deer;oh, God, they're really doing it....
Some part of her mind-the part that had absorbedhorror movies-expected the three girls to hiss and cringe away from the light. To block it out with bloodstained hands while making savage faces.
It didn't happen. There were no animal noises, nodemon voices, no contortions.
Instead, as Mary-Lynnette stood frozen in an agonyof horror, and Mark stood trying to get a normal breath, Jade straightened up.
And said, "What are you guys doing out here?"
In a puzzled, vaguely annoyed voice. The way youwould speak to some boy who keeps following you everywhere and asking you for a date.
Mary-Lynnette felt her mind spinning off.
There was a long silence. Then Rowan and Kestrelstood up. Mark was breathing heavily, moving the flashlight from one of the girls to another, but always coming back to Jade.
"What areyoudoing out here; that's the question!"
he said raggedly. The flashlight whipped to the hole, then back tothe girls. "What are you doing?"
"I asked you first," Jade said, frowning. If ft hadJust been her, Mary-Lynnette would have started towonder if things were so awful after all. if maybethey weren't in terrible danger.
But Rowan and Kestrel were looking at each other,and then at Mark and Mary-Lynnette. And their ex
pressions made Mary-Lynnette's throat close.
"You shouldn't have followed us," Rowan said.She looked grave and sad.
"They shouldn't have beenableto," Kestrel said.She looked grim.
"It's because they smell like goats," Jade said.
"What are you doing?"Mark shouted again, almostsobbing. Mary-Lynnette wanted to reach for him, butshe couldn't move.
Jade wiped her mouth with the back of her hand."Well, can't youtell?"She turned to her sisters."Now what are we supposed todo?"
There was a silence. Then Kestrel said, "We don'thave a choice. We havetokill them."
Chapter 9
Mary-Lynnette's hearing had gone funny. Sheheard Kestrel's words like a character remembering a phrase In a bad movie. Kill them, kill them, kill them.
Mark laughed In a very strange way.
This is going to be really rotten for him, MaryLynnette thought, curiously dispassionate. I mean, if we were going tolive through this, which we're not, it would be really rotten for him. He was already afraidof girls, and sort of pessimistic about life in general "Why don't we all sit down?" Rowan said with astifled sigh. "We've got to figure this out."
Mark threw back his head and gave another shortbark of a laugh.
"Why not?" he said. "Let's all sit down, why not?"
They're fast as whippets, Mary-Lynnette thought.If we run now, they'll catch us. But If we sit, and they get comfortable, and I distract them-or hitthem with something...
"Sitl" she ordered Mark briskly. Rowan and Kestrel moved away from the deer and sat. Jade stood with her hands on her hips for a moment, then sat,too.
Sitting, Mark was still acting punch-drunk. Hewaved the flashlight around. "You girls aresomethingelse.
You girls are really-"
"We're vampires," Jade said sharply.
"Yeah." Mark laughed quietly to himself. "Yeah," he said again.
Mary-Lynnette took the flashlight away from him. She wanted control of it. And it was heavy plastic and metal. It was a weapon.
And while one layer of her mind was thinking:Shine the light in their eyesat just the rightmoment andthen hit oneof them; another part was thinking:Shemeans they'repeoplewhothinkthey're vampires;peoplewith that weird disease that makes them anemic; and one final part was saying:Youmight as well faceit;they're real.
Mary-Lynnette's world view had been knocked rightout of the ballpark.
"Don't you justhate that," Mark was saying. "You meet a girl and she seems pretty nice and you tell all your friends and then before you know it she turnsout to be avampire.Don't you just hate it when that happens?"
Oh. God, he's hysterical, Mary-Lynnette realized. She grabbed his shoulder and hissed in his ear, "Get a grip, now.", "I don't see what the point is in talking to them,Rowan," Kestrel was saying. "You know what wehave to do."