Envious Of Fire (Kissing With Teeth #2)

27. Not Bad, but Definitely Not Good.

—?—

Long before the town looms in the distance, Kyle swears he can sense Elias. All the other human beings in town barely register, hardly there, total afterthoughts. The only person who clicks wholly and potently into place is the man in a house at the edge of town who holds Kyle’s heart. The idea becomes a reality as Kyle stumbles onto his street. His house sits there just as he left it under the glow of a streetlamp, soft light pulsing in the front window, candlelight. He clambers up the steps of his dark porch, peels open the door and comes inside.

Only to find Cade, Layna, and Jeremy seated around the kitchen table. In its center: a bunch of lit candles, their flames dancing. Also: saucers of spices, of herbs, leaves, rose petals. Bottles and squatty glasses filled with different oils.

“The fuck?” mutters Kyle half to himself.

Cade is the first to her feet. “Kyle!” She comes halfway to him, stops. “What in the hell happened to you?”

“This is Drake with the pink hair,” says Kyle without even looking. Mikey barges in, heads straight to the kitchen, twists on the faucet, and plunges his face under it. “And … that was Mikey, who is very, very thirsty.”

“Hi,” says Drake with a demure wiggle of his fingers.

Cade is at a loss for words, gazing at the man chugging water from the faucet in a golden thong, then at pink-haired Drake and Kyle. “You guys look like you climbed out of a hole.”

“We did.” Kyle comes up to Cade. “Are you okay? What’s going on here?” He glances to the side, sensing Elias elsewhere in the house. “Is Elias in the bathroom?”

“Showering,” she confirms, flustered. “He’s a wreck. But that apparently doesn’t compare to whatever you’ve been through. Are you okay? You in danger? Hurt? Elias told us everything. Well, I assume it’s everything. About the … the more vampirey vampire you two encountered.”

“Hi, Mr. Kyle,” says Layna quietly, her chair squeezed up next to Jeremy, who just stares at Kyle ghoulishly.

When Cade takes Kyle’s hands, he comes to. “Yes,” he says at last, “yes, I’m fine, we’re fine, everyone’s …” He squints at the table. “Really, though, what’s going on exactly? Is this a … a séance? Did you guys think I was dead?”

“Um, no. This is us pretending to have magic powers,” says Cade, then stops herself, eyes wide, and lowers her voice. “Are we in safe company? Can I talk openly around them?”

“We’re safe,” Kyle assures her, patting her hands. “Drake’s like me. Mikey’s like you guys. Uh, Mikey?” He peers around the archway into the kitchen. “Down the hall, the bedroom, there’s a closet full of stuff. I doubt I’m your size, but maybe my boyfriend has something you can borrow.”

Mikey lifts his face from the sink, out of breath, dripping with water. “You … want me … to go and fish something … out of your boyfriend’s closet …?”

“Yep.”

“I’m fucking starved,” says Mikey, running his wet hands over his reddened face, then heads for the hallway as Cade, Layna, and Jeremy watch with unblinking eyes, paying witness to the stranger in a spiked leather collar and shiny golden thong disappear.

Cade lifts an eyebrow. “Are we … gonna get an explanation for … whatever the hell that was?”

Drake has closed the front door and is slowly walking around the room, taking in the atmosphere. He pulls off his denim jacket, hugs it to himself, then comes to a stop in front of the painting of the lion, studying it in silence.

Kyle is drawn to the table full of items and peculiar aromas. In front of Cade’s seat, he notices a large book. It is opened to a page that makes entirely no sense at all, as if the words are all hieroglyphics, the illustrations utter nonsense. The book’s hard cover appears to be thick and leathery with metal trimming, almost giving it the appearance of a weathered treasure chest.

“Is this … uh … some kind of spell book?” Kyle guesses.

Cade comes up to his side. “Tell me something. Do you see words? Can you read any of this?”

The question makes Kyle chuckle. “Who the heck could?”

“Really? You don’t see any words? None at all?”

Being asked again brings Kyle pause. He peers down at the pages once more, confused. “Is this a puzzle? All I see are a ton of weird-ass symbols and gibberish. This in code or something? Is there a legend?” He looks at Cade, only to find her smirking across the table at Layna. He glances back and forth between them. “What am I not getting?”

“See?” says Cade to her daughter.

Layna cradles her head in her hands. “Ugh, so weird.”

“Elias said the same thing,” Cade explains to a baffled Kyle, coming around to his other side. “But when Layna and I look at these pages?” She touches a word that looks like a bunch of tiny curlicues and zigzags. “That reads ‘cinnamon’ to me in perfect English, written out as plain as day.”

Kyle looks at the page again. “Cinnamon?? The fuck?”

“Exactly. I look at that word, I literally see ‘cinnamon’. Not the chicken-scratch nonsense you and Elias seem to see.”

Kyle peers across the table. “And what about you, Jeremy? Can you read this?”

Jeremy stares blankly back.

Cade leans into Kyle. “He’s … a whole other issue.”

“A whole other issue?” Kyle turns to Cade. “What are you talking about? Jeremy can’t speak? Why can’t he speak? Why is there this big scary book sitting on my kitchen table?”

“Elias’s mom gave it to us.” That explanation does nothing to curb Kyle’s bafflement. “You never told me who he really is. He’s the son of the Madame Rose? Seriously? All this time you guys have been canoodling? Kyle, Kyle … I thought you and I were friends, and you didn’t even spill the tastiest tea you had.”

“Kyle …?”

The sound of Elias’s voice is electrical. Kyle spins, finds him standing in the living room wearing just a towel around his waist, hair wet, golden brown skin aglow in the candlelight.

Kyle rushes across the room and crashes against his body for a happy, unrelenting embrace. Elias’s arms close around him, the two hugging so tightly, it aches. At once, Kyle becomes flooded with an urge to cry. Is it his own urge? Elias’s? Are these tears of happiness or relief?

Then Kyle steps back. “Sorry. I’m dirty. You just showered. I literally spent last night in a hole.”

Elias lifts an eyebrow. “A hole. Okay.” He glances over his shoulder, then leans into Kyle’s ear. “You gonna tell me who this pink-haired punk is? And also why there’s some stripper in a thong rummaging through our closet right now?”

“Yeah. I just … I need …” Then suddenly Kyle is unable to answer a damned thing, hugging Elias again and spending all his attention enjoying the sense of feeling at home with his face buried in Elias’s warm, strong chest. In this moment, nothing else in the world matters.

Nothing else at all.

The peace lasts about seven minutes as Kyle explains where he’s been, until the wrong words spill out of his mouth. “Wait, wait, wait a fucking minute,” says Elias, then points at Drake, who stands near the front window with his finger through the curtains, keeping watch. “That punk is Lazarus’s brother?? Lazarus’s real-as-fuck brother? You brought Lazarus’s real-as-fuck brother here?”

“He’s more like me,” explains Kyle. “Look at him. Human in appearance. No fangs or uncontrollable bloodlust.”

“That doesn’t mean he isn’t one of them! Loyal to them , to his own brother , Kyle. What the fuck?”

Kyle sighs. This is all going wrong. “He’s here to help us. We got to know each other a lot in a short period of time. He wants his own life now. We have a lot in common. He’s tired of being their bait, luring out humans for them.”

“That so?” Elias lowers his voice, brings his face right in front of Kyle’s. “Has it not occurred to you that he still might be playing the role of bait? And you’re just the latest fish with too big of a heart who’s taking the bite?” Kyle scoffs, indignant, then averts his gaze as an inkling of doubt creeps in. “And you brought him here,” Elias goes on, “to our home, this defenseless town, a fishbowl for a whole cave of monsters to take a dip in. This is exactly what we were trying to prevent.”

“No,” Kyle still insists. “No, he’s not … That isn’t …”

“Your boyfriend has a point,” says Drake from the window.

Everyone turns. Cade, Layna, and Jeremy, all still seated at the table full of spices and candles. Mikey, curled up on the couch in one of Elias’s old t-shirts and basketball shorts, hugging a loaf of bread and shoveling slices into his mouth. Elias and Kyle by the archway leading into the kitchen, turn to listen, silent.

Drake continues staring out the window as he speaks. “Just keeping it real with you guys. I love my brother Laz, my weirdo aunties and uncles at the cave … and while it’s true I don’t have an ulterior motive to lead my family here, I can’t exactly control what they might do …”

“Family,” says Elias. “He even calls those bastards his family.”

“They’re not any more or less evil than anyone else,” says Drake, rubbing his nose. “Sure, they’re unusual, reckless, a bit immoral, can be rude, but have you ever been to a frat party? Those polo-wearing dude-bros are downright demented …”

“No,” Elias cuts him off, shaking his head. “No, no, no. I don’t trust this guy. I don’t trust him one fucking bit. I want him out of here.”

“Elias,” sighs Kyle.

“And this dude?” Elias goes on, gesturing at Mikey on the couch, who looks up, mouth stuffed. “His vampire owner’s gonna come for him too, y’know. Lazarus and the perv vampire who owns him. Two enemies, you’ve made. Are you keeping count?”

“H-He’s not my owner,” says Mikey through his mouthful.

Kyle takes both of Elias’s hands, despite him trying to back away. “I know you’re afraid. You’re probably still mad I left. But I think it’s good I did. We need to know what’s out there. We can’t just keep our heads buried in the sand. Drake isn’t like them. And I couldn’t just leave Mikey there. They were torturing him.”

Elias leans in. “Kyle. You can’t save everyone in the world.”

“What kind of person would I be if I left him there?”

“You’ve known these guys for a day.”

“And I’ve known you for a month,” snaps Kyle, taking Elias aback. “What’s the difference in a day or a month? I’ll remind you that it’s an immortal vampire asking you that question.”

Elias’s eyes turn dark. “You’re not a vampire , Kyle.”

Kyle hardly noticed he used the term on himself. His gaze catches the trio at the table, Cade, Layna, Jeremy, all three of them watching their argument, frozen to the spot. Kyle looks away only to find Drake and Mikey staring back.

Drake cuts the tension by cheerily stating: “I have an idea.”

Elias eyes him. “No one asked.”

“My idea is that I leave,” finishes Drake, catching Elias by surprise. His lips curl with that cute, charming flair of his, tiny dimples popping out at a corner of his mouth. He combs his fingers through his pink hair, all the short and uneven strands flipping and resettling however they please. “I did say I was just an escort for you, Kyle, you and pet boy— sorry, bro, I’m just not vibing yet with ‘Mikey’, but I’ll get there —and if I go, then there’s no reason for them to come here. Maybe I can talk Salazo into keeping a real pet instead. Y’know, like a cute little ankle-biting Chihuahua. And even if he ends up eating it, what’s the harm? No one likes Chihuahuas anyway.” He puts up a peace sign, gives a thumbs up to Mikey, then winks at Kyle. “I’ll see you in another lifetime. Or maybe never would be better. I’m saying that with love, by the way. I’m not a grudge holder. Zero hard feelings, except for the ones in my pants.”

Then Drake slips out of the door, as easy as that.

When it shuts, the room falls silent. Even emotionally, it’s as if everyone has shut off, relieved somehow at his departure, Kyle picking up everything with his Reach.

Kyle glances at Elias. “Happy now?”

He frowns back. “Do I look happy?”

Just then, they hear voices outside, startling them all. Kyle senses someone else, and their emotional landscape—red hot and vibrating—is familiar enough to recognize at once. Kyle hurries to the door and slips outside. The police car is by the curb, and standing at the front step of the porch is the rigid shape of Chief Juan Rojas, appearing to be facing off with Drake. The chief sees Kyle, lifts his flashlight up.

Kyle shields his eyes and squints. “Chief?”

“Who’s this guy? Why’s he in my town?”

Kyle already gets the fast impression that the chief knows something is up. “Just a visitor, sir, on his way out.”

“What was all of that yelling inside your house? Is it your birthday? Having a party in there?”

Drake glances back at Kyle, appearing to stifle a smirk.

Kyle shakes his head. “No, it’s—”

“I know you’re not having a damned party,” snaps the chief with eyes narrowed. “Something’s going on. Spit it out, Kyle.”

It’s then that Cade appears at the door. “Juan.”

The chief straightens up, his voice softening. It always does when it comes to her. “Cadence? You’re here?”

“You don’t have to worry, Juan. I’m sorry for acting funny, for being so secretive lately, making you worry. It’s just that …” She glances back into the house, wringing her hands.

“What is it? Tell me.”

She frowns, then turns back to the chief. “It’s my daughter. She’s … going through something.”

“So why are you here?” presses the chief, still trying as best as he can to maintain his calm. “At Kyle’s house, of all places?”

“Because it’s something I thought Kyle could help me with. Something …” She finishes in a whisper: “… unusual .”

Somehow, the chief seems to understand her. He stiffens up, his harsh eyes on the front window, his lips pulling into a straight line. “This where my son is, too?” he asks. Cade nods. “And this is why Leland and Becks are running the bar all by themselves tonight? You and this thing with your daughter?”

“Yes.”

After eyeing the others, the chief comes even closer, right up next to her. “Are you in danger, Cade? Tell me straight.”

“Quiet,” hisses Drake at once.

Everyone turns to him.

He rushes off the porch, goes to the curb, stares down the street one way, then the other. As Kyle watches, he picks up a burst of panic snaking uncomfortably through his body. Drake peers up at the sky for some reason, then off in the direction of the open desert, as if he can hear something. He squints, leans forward, straining.

“Drake?” Kyle calls out cautiously. “What’s going on?”

Drake comes to, looks at Kyle. “We … We need to go.” His eyes turn blank, detaching, a dark cloud of worry covering his face. No one moves, waiting for more. He says nothing else.

Kyle takes a step toward him, impatient. “What is it? Is it your brother? Are you sensing him?”

Drake snaps out of it again, then hurries back to the porch, appearing uncharacteristically flustered. “Yeah, uh … maybe I should’ve … maybe it’s better if we …”

“Pick a sentence and go with it,” snaps the chief.

Drake’s eyes light up. “Do you have a church somewhere in this town? Preferably one with a nice, snug basement?”

“The hell you need a church for?” asks the chief.

“For us to hide in,” answers Drake, like it’s so obvious. “A safe place that can protect us from superstitious vampires with too much time on their hands.” He swallows hard, glances into the distance again. “I’m pretty sure they’re coming.”

It’s now that Kyle feels the chief’s emotions shift from red hot to ice cold. “They?” he barks. “Who the fuck are ‘they’?”

Kyle wastes no time, rushing back to the front door. Elias stands there, having heard everything. “Babe, you remember all that stuff I told you to store away in the closet for me? The box in the back? I need you to get it.”

“Box …?”

“Silver,” emphasizes Kyle. “It’s why you had to handle it yourself. We need it.” Elias catches on, mutters something to himself, heads off. “Jeremy, Layna,” Kyle calls into the house. “I need you two to grab everything—the book, the candles, whatever you need. Fast. Mikey, you, too.”

The house becomes a mess of everyone rushing around as fast as they can, gathering things. Cade helps her daughter at the table, filling bags with their items. When the chief pushes past Kyle into the house, he goes straight to his son, asks him what’s going on, softly at first, then again with more urgency, and finally: “Why isn’t my son talking??” Cade tucks the spell book under her arm and pulls a linen bag of tins and jars over her shoulder. “I’ll explain everything on the way, Juan, you’ll be totally caught up. Be a doll and pack those other candles, will you? Hurry.”

Soon, the unlikely group of eight are split among two cars on their way to the church in the heart of the town, two streets from the bar, right by the park and the school. As the chief hops out to unlock the building with the others following, Drake stays by the vehicles to listen, staring into the distance. That’s when the birds are sighted, dozens upon dozens of them, pouring into the empty park, flying and landing atop the roof of the church, power lines, nearby fences, even the cars. “What?” barks Layna when her mom looks her way. “I’m not doing anything!”

The inside of the church is old and musty, certainly not at the top of anyone’s priority list of being fixed up. A simple long room with rows of pews and an aisle down the middle that leads straight to a stage with a pulpit, old upright piano, and a modest crucifix hanging overhead, circled by candles. An annex spreads off from the side with a bathroom. Tucked in the back corner of that room by a sadly malnourished potted plant is a door. It opens to a set of narrow stairs leading down to a plain, one-room, rectangular basement lined with red brick and dark wooden bracing. The space is outlined with bookshelves, boxes of church items, folded sheets, stacks of things, knickknacks, all kinds of clutter. In the middle of the room is a fold-out table with a stack of fold-out chairs next to it.

Cade and her daughter quickly get to work laying out their items on the table, Cade giving directions from her big, ominous book. “No, no, we’re out of time for playing around,” she snaps the moment her daughter starts to complain. “We have got to make something happen before we run out of time.”

“What are we supposed to make happen?” asks Layna with due frustration. “We’ve been trying to figure out that ‘warding spell’ all day long and nothing happened. This is stupid.”

“We have no one here to teach us, Layna. Gran’s gone. If anything my fruitless quest through our family tree has taught me, it’s that all you and I have is ourselves. Jer Bear, be a sweetheart and light those candles, will you? The yellow ones.”

Layna makes a face. “ Ugh , I’m not a witch .”

Cade looks at her. “Baby, we don’t know what we are.”

“I’m not a witch!” she doubles down.

“Then do you want to explain why you and I—only you and I—can read this weird book? I told you. Gran. All the stuff I saw her do. I told you over and over, I wasn’t crazy. All my visions …”

“ Ugh ,” groans Layna, looking away.

“And don’t get me started on all your damned birds …”

“I said that wasn’t me!”

Jeremy lights candles as he glances back and forth between mother and daughter, eyes caught in a tennis match.

Kyle heads back up the stairs to check on the others. Elias, Mikey, and Chief Rojas are gathered near the door, making for a rather strange trio of guards. The chief is sorting through cases of firearms, spread out on the back pew. Mikey paces, watching the windows, face reflecting absolute fear with his wide eyes darting to wherever he catches the slightest of movement.

Elias stands at the front window, his shape eclipsing the moonlight. Kyle comes to his side. He spots Drake standing in the yard outside the church near the cars, staring into the distance, likely still listening for his brother. The birds are scattered all around, fidgeting, hopping, or sitting perfectly still, but none come within ten feet of Drake, creating a perfect circle around him. The scene is eerie and unexplainable.

“Any sign of anything?” asks Kyle quietly.

“No,” answers Elias. Then he adds, “Don’t come close to any of the windows, by the way. I placed random silver junk at every windowsill and other stuff from the box all over the ground outside. You know, acting like Lego bricks left on the floor by a kid for Mom to step on in the middle of the night.”

“Kids are such little shits.”

“They are.”

“I hope it’s enough.”

“You know damned well it isn’t.”

Kyle looks at Elias. He feels pinpricks of resentment that aren’t his own. He touches Elias’s arm. “Babe …”

Elias glances at him, says nothing.

Kyle drops his gaze to the floor—and his hand from Elias’s arm. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said earlier. About the month thing. I don’t know why I said that.”

Elias turns his stone-hard stare outside. The chief, who can clearly hear all of this, continues fussing with his firearms, his eyes on his work, keeping to himself. Mikey keeps pacing the room from window to window, his paranoid eyes glued to each one, noting even the movements of dead leaves stirred by wind.

Sometime later after Cade’s come up from the basement to check on everyone, give Kyle’s arm a squeeze, whisper a word of comfort to the chief, then return to her work downstairs, the tension in the room seems to ease. Even Drake has taken a seat outside, cross-legged, some of the birds daring to come up to him as if expecting bits of bread. Mikey has also taken a seat, but at the end of a pew, right up next to a window, convinced he saw something. Elias and Kyle sit next to each other on the foot of the stage staring ahead at the front doors.

“You talk about a day with him,” says Elias suddenly, voice quiet and calm, “and a month with me … I gotta admit, leaves me wondering what twenty-six years means to you.” Kyle peers at him. Elias meets his eyes. “I know he’s still in your heart.”

Kyle wrestles away the thought—and a bit of unexpected warmth emanating from Elias. “I wasn’t even thinking about him . Why would I be thinking about him at a time like this?”

“Because I know part of you wondered why he didn’t show up to save us from the vampire the other night.”

Kyle nearly laughs. “Now you’re the one reading me?”

“Maybe I’ve got all of this wrong. You and I are more alike than I realized.” Elias stares ahead. “Who am I to blame you for being any degree of reckless? My middle name is reckless.”

“Actually, it’s Asad, which means ‘lion’ in Arabic. And yes,” says Kyle, “I remember.”

Elias smirks, then shakes his head and says, “I still don’t think it’s a good idea, trusting this Drake guy. I’m not behind this, Kyle. At all. But I’m sucking it up right now for the sake of survival.”

“I know.”

“My so-called Protected Blood status means shit to these vampires,” he goes on, as if in reminder. “It won’t save us here. My mom didn’t want me to come back, y’know. She’ll probably try to contact whoever she’s got, get someone big involved …”

“You mean someone from Vegasyn?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. I don’t get the sense they give any form of a shit what happens to their Protected Blood. That list only exists so they know who’s fair game to feed on. There’s no ‘ protected’ about it. Might as well call that list a room service menu. Or more like: what’s no longer available. A paper pamphlet they stuff into the menu. A fucking joke.” Elias rubs his head. “Nah, no one from Vegasyn is on their way to help us, no one at all, no, sir. We’re on our own out here. If I had money on it, I’d say Lord Mark- fuck -ian would be downright overjoyed if you, me, and this whole town were wiped off the map tonight.”

Kyle glances blankly ahead, realizing the truth of it. How foolish, to think for one fleeting instant Tristan could suddenly show up, Tristan and his knowing misty blue eyes and infallible confidence, bringing with him his impenetrable attitude that nothing can possibly touch either of them, knowing what to do in any situation, making damned sure not a hair on Kyle’s head is harmed. Tristan, who looks like a gust of wind could knock him over, yet proves in the end absolutely fearless of placing his head directly into the mouth of the beast.

Kyle wonders suddenly if he took Tristan for granted all of those years they were together. The security he felt with him. The mentorship. The guidance.

The love.

Time passes. Even more time. Soon, no one in the church is scared anymore. Just restless. Bored. Mikey is curled up on a pew to rest, but getting little of it, peeking his eyes open every few seconds to glance at a nearby window. The chief has done all he can do in terms of preparing, and he sits still, gun in hand and eyes as sharp as arrows, waiting like a statue. Kyle and Elias are now the ones pacing the room.

Drake comes inside at long last. Everyone stirs from their spots, for a moment alarmed.

Until he says: “They’re not coming.”

Kyle comes forward. “They’re not? How do you know?”

“I could’ve sworn they’d come. They should’ve come. My brother at the very least. Why didn’t they? I even sensed him, for hours, in and out, like a bad radio signal, heard footsteps.”

The chief remains unsatisfied. “I don’t believe you.”

“You won’t have to. Soon, even this room won’t be safe for me and Kyle to stand in. See for yourself.” He nods at the nearest window. “Dawn’s already on us.”

The chief frowns, peers at his watch, then stands and heads to the window. Indeed, the sky is glowing a deep blue, signaling the end of the longest night of their lives.

Why doesn’t anyone feel relief?

“Either they’re toying with us, wearing down our patience, or planning something bigger,” says Drake, dropping onto the pew with a sigh. “It’s not necessarily bad they didn’t come … but it’s definitely not good.”