"Yes, Dad."
"Tammy, I mean it."
An icy chill crept into her voice. "Yes, sir."
"Have fun, dear," her mother said between the incessant clicking of needles.
On her way out, Tammy made sure to slam the door because she knew how much it irritated her father. She didn"t care for Sam much. He wasn"t that big of a jerk. Better than a lot of her friends" dads. But she was Mistress Lilith, Queen of Night, and it was hard enough to resurrect the old G.o.ds without having to deal with curfews, groundings, and math homework. She didn"t know what the big deal was. A C-plus was pa.s.sing. Maybe she wasn"t "living up to her potential," as he so often put it, in geometry, but in the new age geometry would mean little. Denise Calhoun had a straight-A average. It wouldn"t save her from the special h.e.l.l Tammy had in store for pig-faced s.l.u.ts who thought they were so smart just because they knew all about planes and points and parallel lines and other completely stupid stuff that n.o.body ever used in real life.
Tammy stopped at the curb and scowled at the yellow Gremlin waiting to whisk her away. She threw open the door.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, you stupid son of a b.i.t.c.h."
Chad smiled stupidly. "What"s wrong, babe?"
"I thought you were going to borrow your parents" truck?"
"Oh, well, I couldn"t swing that. But I gave my brother ten bucks, and he let me borrow his car." His smile widened, transforming from stupid to downright idiotic. He revved the engine. It banged and popped and belched a large cloud that smelled of burning oil. "It"s a hatchback."
She flopped into the pa.s.senger seat and slammed the door. Chad struggled with the gearshift for a while, eventually grinding his way to first.
Tammy slouched in her seat, propped her feet on the dashboard, and pulled out her geometry book and penlight. She studied on the way. There was much to do tonight and getting it all done before eleven-thirty was going to be difficult.
Chad put his hand on her knee. "So what"s the plan tonight, baby?"
She smacked his fingers with her penlight. "Quit it. I"m trying to study here."
"d.a.m.n it. I was just asking."
"Just drive."
He grumbled under his breath. "You can be such a b.i.t.c.h, sometimes."
"What?"
"Nuthin"," he quietly replied, sucking his stinging knuckles. "Nuthin", Mistress Lilith."
Tammy said nothing, but Chad wouldn"t be scoring tonight. She knew it. He knew it.
He switched on the radio. "Oh, h.e.l.l."
Forty-five minutes later, the Gremlin pulled up to the gates of McAllister Fields, the largest defunct cemetery in the county. Chad killed the engine but left on the headlights. He and Tammy went to the gates, locked by a heavy padlock and a thick chain.
"Did you bring the bolt cutters like I told you?" she asked.
"Uh . . . no, but I"ve got this." He held up a crowbar.
"Jesus, you can be such a dumba.s.s."
"No. It"ll work. Look." He adopted a batting stance. "You better stand back, babe."
He struck a powerful smack against the lock. Metal clanged against metal. The padlock swayed on its chain with only a tiny scratch to mark the a.s.sault.
Tammy pulled her abridged Necronomicon from her backpack and, with great irritation, flipped through the pages.
Chad unleashed a relentless barrage on the stubborn padlock. Blow after blow rained, but, dented and sc.r.a.ped, the lock held. He wheezed, wiping the sweat away from his face.
"I think . . . I almost . . . it"s ready to . . . any second now . . . babe."
She pushed him aside. Arms outstretched toward the gate, she chanted the Invocation of the Opened Way. It took five minutes to complete. On the utterance of the last syllable, the lock clicked open.
"I must"ve loosened it. So what are we here for, babe?"
"Bodies."
He paled. "But . . . but . . . I didn"t think we needed bodies to make zombies."
"We don"t. We"re not making zombies anymore. We only need a couple," she rea.s.sured. "Four or five."
Chad froze. His upper lip twitched.
"C"mon, dumba.s.s. We don"t got all night."
He shook his head very slowly. "No way. No way. I"m not touching any dead guys."
"Yes, you are." She put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot impatiently.
"No, I"m not, and you can"t make me."
"Don"t be such a wuss."
"No way."
Tammy was prepared for such a reaction. He"d nearly wet his pants the time they"d had to collect the finger bones of a hanged man. His adolescent fear of the dead was yet another obstacle between her and destiny.
"Fine."
She set down her backpack and removed a c.o.ke bottle. She twisted off the cap and ran her fingers up and down the length of the neck.
"If you don"t want to, you don"t have to."
She brought the bottle almost to her mouth and moistened her lips with her tongue.
Chad"s h.o.r.n.y teenage knees wobbled.
Tammy wrapped her lips around the bottle and took a long, long drink. A drop dribbled down her chin. She pulled away the bottle slowly and wiped away the drop with a deeply satisfied smile.
"Okay. Four dead guys, but I"m not touching any more."
She moistened her fingertip with the droplets on the bottle"s rim and sucked it dry. "Five."
"Okay, but only five."
Tammy smiled. Boys were so easy.
She"d picked McAllister Fields for a very simple reason. It was the closest cemetery that had aboveground crypts. It was so much easier to collect bodies when you didn"t have to dig them up. She lucked out even more as the first crypt wasn"t even locked. Chad used his crowbar to pry open the coffin inside. He recoiled from the stench of fetid flesh and retreated to a corner to vomit.
Tammy glanced over the corpse. "She"ll do."
Chad wiped his lips and leaned over the open coffin. "What do we need them for, anyway?"
"Quit asking stupid questions and take her to the car."
Squeamish delicacy pummeled beneath the raging fists of surging hormones, he lifted the corpse over his shoulder. He gagged, inhaling a thick dust cloud that smelled like moldy cotton and reminded him of grandma. The body"s pinkie finger snapped off with a dry crack.
"Be careful, moron," Tamrriy snarled.
Their task went smoothly. Chad"s repulsion faded to mere discomfort by the time the fifth body was loaded in the back of the Gremlin. It was a tight fit. Huffing and cursing, he wedged the cargo in and slammed the hatchback shut, accidentally chopping off a dangling leg just below the knee.
"s.h.i.t."
"Come on already," Tammy growled from the pa.s.senger"s seat. She glared with the aid of the rearview mirror.
He bent down so that she couldn"t see him and considered the limb laying in the dirt.
"Is there a problem?"
"No. No, it"s cool."
He tossed the leg into the night"s darkness. If she asked him about it, he"d just say the corpse had already been missing it. It was a poor ruse and doomed to failure. But his l.u.s.t gave him the barest of hopes that she might believe him. He wasn"t scoring tonight, but a half-hour grope session was still a heartening possibility.
The grind of wheels in the dusty road announced the approach of a brown police car. Chad froze before its headlights. Sheriff Kopp stepped from the vehicle. He shone a flashlight into Chad"s stymied eyes.
"Chad Roberts, is that you?"
Stiffly, Chad nodded. This was it. They were finally busted. He"d always known it would happen eventually. You couldn"t run around graveyards and summon the powers of darkness, even in a place like Rockwood, for long without drawing attention. The cult was over. His dad would whup his a.s.s. His mom would frown in that quietly disapproving way of hers. He"d probably get expelled and might even go to jail for desecrating the dead. He wasn"t sure that was a crime, but it seemed like it should be.
Well, he mused, at least I got some action out of it. And while Tammy could be a real Grade A superb.i.t.c.h more often than not, she was one fine piece of a.s.s. He had no regrets.
Sheriff Kopp strode over and opened the Gremlin"s door. "Alright now, young lady, step out of the car."
Tammy did as she was asked. The tall, lean man towered over the short seventeen-year-old.
"You wanna tell me what you kids are doing out here?"
She craned her neck all the way back to look him in the face, squinting in the point-blank glare of his flashlight.
"Nuthin", sir."
"Nuthin", sir," Chad echoed. His voice cracked.
Sheriff Kopp moved toward Chad, who quickly stepped forward and away from the Gremlin. Kopp was not fooled.
"Stay put, boy."
"Yes, sir."
Chad"s heart thumped noisily. His stomach churned. His bladder suddenly felt excruciatingly full.
Behind Kopp, Tammy, eyes closed, was mumbling inaudibly.
The sheriff scanned the Gremlin"s interior with a sweep of his flashlight. He frowned ever so slightly at the five bodies piled in the back.
"Looks to me like you kids got some explainin" to do."
The statement was powerful in its understatement. Too powerful for Chad to stand against.
"She made me do it! I didn"t want to do it! I didn"t!" Tears welled up in his eyes. "She"s a witch! She"s got these weird powers. She hypnotized me! Yeah, that"s what she did!"
Sheriff Kopp looked Tammy"s svelte form up and down. "I just bet she did. Okay, into the back of the squad car. I don"t want any trouble from you two." He gently, yet firmly, guided them toward his automobile.
Tammy spun around and held her hands in Kopp"s face. She had to stand on her tiptoes.
"Shurma"laka"rala"kama, Lord of Dreams, Master of Souls, I invoke thee."
Sheriff Kopp shuddered and stopped.
"There"s nothing going on here," Tammy said, "Everything"s fine. Nothing needs explaining. In fact, none of this ever happened. Now get in your car and go away."
Sheriff Kopp"s expression became normal, save for a certain vague dullness behind his eyes. He climbed into his cruiser.
"You kids better get yourself home. It"s getting late." He started the car and drove off without another word.
"Wow! That was awesome. I didn"t know you could do that!"
Tammy socked Chad directly in the solar plexus.
"You a.s.shole."
"What is that?" he asked between coughs. "Some kind of mind control thing. Like in Star Wars, right?"
She sneered. "Let"s get out of here."
"You aren"t mad about that whole "she made me do it" act, are you, babe?" he asked as they drove back. "I was just distracting him for you. So you could do your Jedi mind trick on him." He grinned. "Man, that was so f.u.c.king cool!"
She stared at her geometry book with burning intensity.
"Can you show me how to do that?"