looked wistful again. "This guy who was really gorgeous, and really mysterious, and really just-just
different from anybody I ever met. And I thought he was maybe interested in me, because I saw him
looking at me once or twice, so I sort of joined the girls who were always hanging around him. We used
to talk about weird things."
"Like?"
"Oh, like surrendering yourself to the darkness and stuff. It was like the music, you know-we were all
really into death. Like what would be the most horrible way to die, what would be the most awful torture
you could live through, what you look like when you're in your grave. Stuff like that."
"For God's sake, why?" Rashel couldn't disguise her revulsion.
"I don't know." All at once, Daphne looked small and sad. "I guess because most of us felt life was
pretty rotten. So you kind of face things, you know, to try to get used to them. You probably don't
understand," she added, grimacing.
Rashel did understand. With a sudden shock, she understood completely. These kids were scared and
depressed and worried about the future. They had to do something to deaden the pain... even if that
meant embracing pain. They escaped one darkness by going into another.
And am I any different? I mean, this obsession I've got with vampires... it's not exactly what you'd call
normal and healthy. I spend my whole life dealing with death.
"I'm sorry," she said, and her voice came out more gentle than when she'd been trying to soothe Daphne
before. Awkwardly, she patted the other girl's arm once. "I shouldn't have yelled. And I do understand,
actually. Please go on."
"Well." Daphne still looked defensive. "Some of the girls would write poetry about dying... and some of
them would prick themselves with pins and lick the blood off. They said they were vampires, you know.
Just pretending." She glanced warily at Rashel.
Rashel simply nodded.
"And so I talked the same way, and did the same stuff. And this guy Quinn just seemed to love it-hey,
look out!" Daphne jerked back to avoid a wave of hot chocolate. Rashel's sudden movement had
knocked her cup over.
Oh, God, what is wrong with me? Rashel thought. She said, "Sorry," through her teeth, grabbing for a
wad of napkins.
She should have been expecting it. She had been expecting it; she knew that Quinn must be involved in
this. But somehow the mention of his name had knocked the props from under her. She hadn't been able
to control her reaction.
"So," she said, still through her teeth, "the gorgeous mysterious guy was named Quinn."
"Yeah." Daphne wiped chocolate off her arm. "And I was starting to think he really liked me. He told me
to come to the club last Sunday and to meet him alone in the parking lot."
"And you did." Oh, I am going to kill him so dead, Rashel thought.
"Sure. I dressed up..." Daphne looked down at her bedraggled outfit. "Well, this did look terrific once.
So I met him and we went to his car. And then he told me that he'd chosen me. I was so happy I almost
fainted. I thought he meant for his girlfriend. And then..." Daphne trailed off again. For the first time
since she'd begun the story, she looked frightened. "Then he asked me if I really wanted to surrender to
the darkness. He made it sound so romantic."
"I bet," Rashel said. She rested her head on her hand. She could see it all now, and it was the perfect
scam. Quinn checked the girls out, discovered which would be missed and which wouldn't. He
kidnapped them from the parking lot so that no one saw them, no one even connected them with the
Crypt. Who would notice or care that certain girls stopped showing up? Girls would always be coming
and going.
And there had been nothing in the newspaper because the daylight world didn't realize that girls were
being taken. There probably wasn't even a struggle during the abduction, because these girls were willing
to go-in the beginning.
"It must have been a shock," Rashel said dryly, "to find out that there really was a darkness to surrender
to."
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was. But I didn't actually find that out then. I just said, sure, I wanted to. I mean, I'd
have said the same thing if he asked me did I really want to watch Lawrence Welk reruns with him. He
was that gorgeous. And he was looking at me in this totally soulful way, and I thought he was going to
kiss me. And then... I fell asleep." Daphne frowned at her paper cup.
"No, you didn't."
"I did. I know it sounds crazy, but I fell asleep and when I woke up I was in this place, this little office in
this warehouse. And I was on this iron cot with this pathetic lumpy mattress, and I was chained down. I
had chains on my ankles, just like people in jail. And Quinn was gone, and there were two other girls
chained to other cots." Without warning, Daphne began to cry.
Rashel handed her a napkin, feeling uncomfortable. "Were the girls from the Crypt, too?"
Daphne sniffed. "I don't know. They might have been. But they wouldn't talk to me. They were, like, in a
trance. They just lay there and stared at the ceiling."
"But you weren't in a trance," Rashel said thoughtfully. "Somehow you woke up from the mind control.
You must be resistant like me."
"I don't know anything about mind control. But I was so scared I pretended to be like the other girls
when this guy came to bring us food and take us to the bathroom. I just stared straight ahead like them. I