Dark Dreams Part 5

84 * Children of the Night Inside, Lila was dancing with impatience to be out of there. But she was cutting through Mrs. Parsky's yard, after all. She couldn't be rude.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that, Mrs. Parsky," she said distractedly. She couldn't see the motorcyclist anywhere. He must have given up. With a little wave, Lila walked quickly toward Mrs. Parsky's back gate.

Once through the gate, Lila paused. Suddenly she wished, childishly, that she could go back and ask Mrs. Parsky if she could come in for a little while. Weren't there houses where schoolkids could stay if they felt threatened by bigger kids? Couldn't she do the same thing, just until she was sure the guy on the motorcycle had given up following her? But that would be silly. She had no reason to hide out anywhere.

You're being ridiculous, she told herself. You see one guy on a motorcycle, and you imagine that he's tracking you down. You'd better not read any more werewolf books. They 're making you paranoid.

She headed down the driveway of the people who lived behind the Parskys and turned briskly toward home.

DARK DREAMS * 85.

There was no sign of the motorcyclist at all. To her own disgust, Lila found herself feeling a little disappointed. He had given up awfully easily. Maybe he hadn't been following her at all. In fact, he probably hadn't been following her at all.

Look at you. You get totally agitated about some guy who doesn 't have the slightest interest in you, who you don't even know, and you forget to think one thought about your boyfriend in the hospital. Pretty pathetic.

It was true that she hadn't remembered Corey once all afternoon. She'd have to call him the second she got home. But what was she going to say? They hadn't exactly parted on a friendly note. Lila was sure that was why Corey hadn't called her to let her know what had happened. He probably figured she was mad at him. It wouldn't have been like Corey just to drive away after she'd jumped out of his car in such a spectacular manner. He'd have been worried about her. He would have parked somewhere and gone off to find her. And look how she'd rewarded him.

Yes, she decided. She would call him right away and get it over with.

Lost in thought, Lila reached her own street 86 * Children of the Night without realizing it. The half-hour walk seemed to have gone by in about thirty seconds. She was heading up the front walk when she heard the motorcycle again.

It was louder this time, as though its rider didn't care if she heard him. With a roar it pulled up right in front of her house. And stopped. And waited.

Slowly Lila turned around.

Staring straight into her eyes was the most mesmerizing person she had ever seen in her life.

He was about Lila's age, maybe a little older. Tall. Lean but muscular. Long black hair that fell across jade-green eyes. It was funny she could tell their color from so far away. Yes, he was dressed in standard-issue black leather, but on him it was as if he'd invented the look. A boy like this could never wear anything but jeans, boots, and a leather jacket.

Of course he hadn't bothered with a helmet. That kind of person never did.

Lila could hardly stand up. She felt as if the heat coming from his eyes was scorching her. He was staring at her as if he were waiting for something, DARK DREAMS * 87.

but she couldn't move. It never occurred to her to speak to him.

He was still waiting.

Lila's heart was thudding in her throat so hard she couldn't breathe.

Gasping slightly, she forced herself to break the stare. Then, utterly helpless, she looked back at him again. The boy tilted his head speculatively, as if a.s.sessing her. Then he narrowed his gaze, sending a message she couldn't decipher. Slowly he turned his face away and throttled his engine, abruptly speeding away down the street.

Lila was furious to find that her legs were shaking so badly she had to sit down on the front step. What was the matter with her? She'd seen handsome guys before. She was acting like a fifth-grader with her first crush!

But she still couldn't help feeling as though she did know him already, as though on some level she'd always known him. As though she'd been waiting for him forever.

Would she ever see him again?

The late-afternoon sun dipped below the hori- 88 * Children of the Night zon. Shivering, Lila stood up and went into the dark house-where she stood indecisively in the front hall for a long time. She had no idea what to do with herself. All the adventure had evaporated from the day, leaving it flat and empty. She completely forgot to call Corey.

Another country It is almost dawn, but the brightening sky only points up the chill in the air more cruelly. On a hilltop stands a cauldron that was placed over a fire at midnight. The cauldron's unpleasant contents have had five hours to cool and freeze. Their power is gone now.

But already they have done their work. Thousands of miles away from that icy hill, a boy rides his motorcycle into a small town in America. He has been sent to find someone.

He has no idea where he will sleep tonight. He has no idea why he has been sent to that town, nor who sent him. He has never been there before. He has what he needs to get through the day, and no more.

Nineteen years old, and this boy has never known a home. He cannot even remember a time when someone was looking after him. It seems to him that he has always been on his own.

He no longer remembers a helpless, vulnerable baby boy who was stolen from his parents. Perhaps his mem,ory has mercifully slammed shut on those horrifyingly tortured early years. Perhaps he only became aware of him- 90 * Children of the Night self once he had been cast adrift in the wild by his guardian.

Perhaps there is a formless, forgotten part of him that longs disconsolately for the love and security he has never had, and will never have.

In any case, he has answered the summons. He has come.

CHAPTER 8.

Lila paced back and forth in front of her bedroom window, waiting restlessly for the moon to rise. Three hours had pa.s.sed since she had seen the boy on the motorcycle, and she was still too keyed up to do anything. She had fidgeted through her homework, pecked idly at her dinner, and taken a shower she didn't need, always trying to put the stranger out of her mind. It hadn't worked.

All she could think about was his face, the look of his hands, his eyes searing into hers. It was ridiculous to be so obsessed, she knew, and yet the few seconds of their encounter seemed infinitely more real than the drab, everyday world around her. She couldn't stop reliving them.

The scar on her leg was throbbing in its now-familiar way, and her skin was crawling. But just as 92 * Children of the Night on the previous evening, scudding clouds were covering the moon. Would the moon break through? Would she change into a wolf? And when? When?

It wasn't that she wanted to, exactly. But tonight the dark, restless world of the wolf matched her mood exactly. If she couldn't see the boy on the motorcycle again, even the bloodiest kind of danger was preferable to being trapped in her room. She needed something to s.n.a.t.c.h her out of herself. Lila had the feverish sense that change, any kind of change, was the thing she needed most desperately.

Just then there was a tapping on her bedroom door. Lila crossed the room and opened the door to find her mother.

As was often the case, Mrs. Crawford seemed to be simmering with barely repressed irritation. "There's a phone call for you, dear," she said. "Why on earth didn't you hear me calling?"

Lila's heart leaped despite herself. Maybe it was the boy who-no, he couldn't possibly know her number. He didn't even know her name-nor did she know his. "Who is it?" she asked her mother.

DARK DREAMS * 93.

"Corey," her mother answered briefly. "Don't talk on the phone too long, okay?" Without another word she walked away down the hall.

Corey. Lila's heart sank with disappointment. There was no chance it could have been the other boy, but still... I forgot to call Corey, too, she thought guiltily.

Slowly she walked into the room across the hall and picked up the phone. "Hey, Corey!" she said brightly. "How are you? Are you at home?"

That sounded pretty convincing, she thought grimly. You 'd never guess I was the reason he was in the hospital in the first place.

"Yup, I'm back home. The hospital just let me out. You heard about what happened, I guess?"

"I sure did! Uh, Karin Engals told me. I was so sorry to hear about it." Now I sound too polite. Get some emotion into this! Lila ordered herself. She thought briefly about asking Corey why he hadn't been the one to tell her, but she didn't really want to know the answer. "I kept meaning to call you," she went on, "but things got kind of crazy here this afternoon. You know how it is."

94 * Children of the Night "Yeah." There was a pause-short, but long enough for plenty of things to go loudly unsaid.

It took everything Lila had to sound normal when she asked her next question. "Did they find the dog that, um, attacked you?"

Of course she knew they hadn't. She was just trying to find out if Corey suspected anything. But he couldn't suspect, could he? Lila could hardly believe the incredible truth herself.

"No, they didn't find it." Lila closed her eyes with relief, Corey hadn't questioned her use of the word "dog." That meant he wasn't thinking about wolves. She was still safe.

But his next words drenched her with a new fear. "It's kind of too bad they didn't find it right away," Corey went on. "Because the doctor said it's probably going to need to be destroyed. You can't let a vicious animal like that stay on the loose. But, I don't know," here his voice grew softer, "it's funny, even though it knocked me down and everything, it didn't really seem vicious to me."

I'm not vicious! Lila protested silently. "Destroyed," she repeated. "How?"

DARK DRBAMS.

95.

"Shot, I guess," Corey said slowly. "It's too bad. It was such a beautiful animal."

"Shot?" Lila felt a tidal wave of emotion washing over her. She was scared and angry, but most of all she felt an unreasoning terror that everything was closing in on her. As if she were a hunted animal at bay, enemies all around her. "Shot?" she repeated incredulously, defensively.''Don't you think that's a little extreme? It's a ... a dog, Corey! Don't you care that an innocent animal might die?" Lila was on the verge of tears, so great was her distress.

Corey naturally picked up on it.

"Hey, wait a minute," Corey protested with a little laugh. "I'm the one you're supposed to be worried about, not some strange dog."

"Why should I be worried about you?" Lila countered swiftly. She wished she could stop herself, but she couldn't. All the confusion and frustration of the past days welled up inside her and spilled over in a torrent. She suddenly identified so strongly with those ancient wolves and helpless peasants, hunted by vengeful mobs. She was cornered and needed to lash out at her attackers, those who mis- 96 * Children of the Night DARK DRKAMS.

97.

understood her. With some vestige of wolf sense she could feel Corey's bewilderment in the silence on the other end. But still she went on, "You're okay, aren't you? The dog didn 't bite you, did it? It ran away, right?" I didn't hurt you, Corey, and I could have! she wanted to shout. I could have killed you! Instead I used every bit of self-control I had, and now you talk about destroying me!

"Lila, are you mad at me?"

The question hung in the air.

"Because you sure sound it," Corey added. "And Isure don't have any idea why. I was looking for you in the woods last night, you know. That's why I got attacked."

"Oh, so it's my fault you got attacked!" Lila didn't even think about how strange the words sounded. She was too caught up in panic to hear herself, too swept with fury at Corey's lack of perception. He hadn't done anything to hurt her. He really hadn't. But he understood so little about her agony that Lila suddenly wanted to throttle him.

We're worlds apart, she reminded herself. Maybe we always were, and I just never saw it until now. But Corey's 50 ... uncomplicated, it's as if he's a different species. Poor guy.

She felt ancient compared to him.

"It's not your fault. I'm not saying it's your fault." Corey's voice was very gentle. "But Li, why'd you cannonball out of my car like that, anyway? You really scared me."

Here it was, and she didn't have an answer ready.

"I know something's going on with you. Can't you tell me what it is?" he asked softly, sadly.

Not even a fraction of it.

What she did want to say shouldn't be said over the phone. It was time to tell the truth.

Not the whole truth, of course. She couldn't tell him that. But it wasn't fair to keep him hanging around when whatever feelings she'd once had for him had evaporated entirely.

In a way, she still loved him. But it was a wistful love, the kind a child might feel for a cherished plaything now outgrown and lying lonely on a shelf. Because Lila had outgrown Corey. Something had pushed its way into her life and changed her so utterly and irrevocably it was almost impossi- 98 * Children of the Night ble to imagine how normal everything had been . . . before.

Corey was the perfect boy for the girl Lila used to be-and would never be again. Part of her felt sad to leave him behind. But in a deeper, hidden part of her, she couldn't really feel sorry. As much as her secret horrified her, Lila's spirits leaped and soared with every transformation. It made her feel alive as never before. And nothing in her old life could ever come close.

"Listen, Corey, I can't really go into it now," Lila faltered. "My mom needs the phone. Maybe we could talk tomorrow? In person?"

Lila would wait until then. It certainly wasn't fair to break up with someone over the phone.

"Well, okay," Corey said after a second. For the third time, a pause came up like a wall between them. "Not tomorrow, though. I won't be in school. The doctor thinks I should stay home one more day."

"Day after tomorrow, then. I'll meet you on the front steps after school.'1 We'll end everything then.

"Lila?"

"Yes?"

DARK DREAMS * 99.

"I love you."

"Me, too," Lila managed to get out. She hung up the phone before he could hear her choking sobs.

She is surrounded by fog-swimming in it, choking in it. Where is she standing? There are no sights, no scents to offer any clues. Everything looks different; everything smells different.

Someone is calling her name, and she is here to find him.

She has a confused sense that the one she's looking for is nearby. But there are so many barriers between the two of them! These thin, fingerlike branches winding their spidery tendrils around everything-what are they doing here? She can barely make them out through the fog, but they're everywhere. She takes a tentative step forward, and one clammy stalk twines around her ankle while another coils around her neck. She shudders and pulls backward, but there are just as many groping branches behind her. Retreating won't help anything.

And the hideous, sucking ground beneath her feet! Every time she takes a step, she feels herself 100 * Children of the Night starting to sink. If she stands still too long, she can feel the muck rising up around her ankles with frightening speed. This place wants to keep her here, she can tell. It won't let her out without a fight.

A small animal of some kind scuttles across her foot and disappears into the fog. She hears it scream thinly as something lurches forward and grabs it. Then she is alone again. Lila . . .

Is it her real name she hears? Or is it the wordless call of another being's emotion? She isn't sure. I need you.