I withhold a smirk; I’ve got him completely fooled. “Hey, I haven’t enjoyed real food in almost a year,” I remind him. “I’m so not missing out on my one chance to chow down on a veggie burger.”
When my father had informed us that even vampires could eat food down in the Underworld, I realized it was my perfect excuse to get Jareth out of the house to see his family. After all, there was no way he was going to agree to the mission if I told him the truth. But after Sunny and I had perused his family’s Hellbook wall and discovered they lived about a mile away from Dad in the super-uppity Elysian Hills neighborhood, we knew it was vital I make this family reunion happen while there was still time.
“Besides, what else do we have to do today?” I continue. “I mean, Dad’s still got to set up our meeting with Hades. Might as well take advantage of all the Elysian Fields has to offer while we’re waiting. And I hear the chef came from a five-star place in Manhattan before he died in a tragic flambé accident.”
Jareth leans back in his seat, staring out the window. “I suppose it will be nice,” he admits. “I just don’t want you to get sidetracked here.”
I smile at him, appreciating the sentiment. He came back about an hour after storming off from my father’s house, full of apologies. It wasn’t my fault, he admitted. And he didn’t want to distract me from my mission. From now on, it was all about Sunny.
Except that it wasn’t. Not that he needed to know that right now. Didn’t want to scare him away again.
The bus pulls up to the side of a pristine, tree-lined street in a gated community with huge mansions that makes my dad’s place look like a small shack. The grass is so plush and green here that it almost looks fake and the gardens are overflowing with the most exotic, colorful flowers I’ve ever seen.
“Here we are,” I say, grabbing Jareth by the arm and dragging him off the bus. We step down the stairs and the doors close behind us as the vehicle pulls away. Jareth looks around the neighborhood with puzzled eyes.
“Are you sure this is the right stop?” he asks. “It doesn’t look like Hell’s Kitchen…”
“Trust me,” I say, leading him down the street, following the directions Sunny printed off Hellbook. As we walk, I take a closer look at the houses we pass. Unlike the subdivisions back home, where every house looks cookie-cutter, here, they’re all completely different. Different styles, different generations. I guess everyone built the home that they felt most comfortable in, in the same style that was popular when they lived or died. There are adobe forts, Victorian mansions, New England saltboxes, and…
… one big, old, honkin’ castle at the very end of the cul-de-sac.
Jareth stops in his tracks, his eyes bulging from his head. “That castle,” he murmurs. “It looks just like…” He glances over at me, his expression full of fear. “You’re not taking me to dinner, are you?”
I shake my head. “Not exactly, no.” I try to grab his arm, to get him to continue to walk. But he seems frozen in place. “Come on,” I urge. “We’re almost there.”
“Rayne,” he says in a strained voice. “No. You shouldn’t have done this.”
“Yes, I should have. After all, you’ve spent years and years missing your family. Are you going to tell me you’re going to voluntarily give up a chance to finally see them again?”
“Well, no. I mean, I don’t want to. But what if they…” He trails off, looking miserable. “What if they don’t want to see me? I don’t think I can live with that.”
“Well, I don’t think you get to make that decision,” I say, grabbing his arm again and dragging him a few feet closer. But he digs his heels into the pavement. Argh. Stubborn vampire.
“Rayne, don’t think I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do here,” he says. “But I don’t think it’s a good—” He stops, eyes widening at something behind me. I whirl around in time to see a petite, purple-glowing woman with hair down to her waist, running across the castle drawbridge as fast as her slim legs can carry her.
“Jareth!” she cries in an English-accented voice. “Is it really you?”
Jareth’s nails dig into my arm, so hard they draw pinpricks of blood. “Sarah?” he whispers.
It must be, because a moment later, the girl has thrown herself into his arms, squeezing him with wild abandon. “I can’t believe it!” she cries. “You’re here. You’re actually here! I heard the rumors but I didn’t believe it!” She buries her face in his chest and hugs him even tighter. “Oh, Jareth, it’s so good to see you at long last!”
It takes a moment for my shell-shocked ex-boyfriend to find his voice. “Sarah,” he says at last, pulling her away to look her over. “You’ve grown up.”
She giggles. “I had an extreme makeover at one of the Elysian salons down here. It’s one of the benefits of being truly dead—you can pick whatever you want to look like. Of course, most people choose to go younger—shave off ten years or so. But after living in the body of a ten-year-old for a couple hundred years, I figured it was time to try life as a teenager.”
She turns to me, her eyes—so much like Jareth’s—shining brightly. “Oh, Rayne, thank you,” she says. “Thank you for bringing my brother back to me. And for taking such good care of him.”