"He talked about Raoul," Diego said, the corner of his mouth twisting down.
"What skil does Raoul have? Super-stupidity?"
Diego snorted. "Definitely that. But Riley thinks he's got some kind of magnetism - people are drawn to him, they fol ow him."
"Only the mental y chal enged."
"Yeah, Riley mentioned that. Didn't seem to be effective on the" - he broke out a decent impression of Riley's voice - "
' tamer kids.'"
"Tame?"
"I inferred that he meant people like us, who are able to think occasional y."
I didn't like being cal ed tame. It didn't sound like a good thing when you put it that way. Diego's way sounded better.
"It was like there was a reason Riley needed Raoul to lead - something's coming, I think."
A weird tingle spasmed along my spine when he said that, and I sat up straighter. "Like what?"
"Do you ever think about why Riley is always after us to keep a low profile?"
I hesitated for half a second before answering. This wasn't the line of inquiry I would have expected from Riley's right-hand man. Almost like he was questioning what Riley had told us. Unless Diego was asking this for Riley, like a spy. Finding out what the "kids" thought of him. But it didn't feel like that. Diego's dark red eyes were open and confiding. And why would Riley care? Maybe the way the others talked about Diego wasn't based on anything real. Just gossip.
I answered him truthful y. "Yeah, actual y I was just thinking about that."
"We aren't the only vampires in the world," Diego said solemnly.
"I know. Riley says stuff sometimes. But there can't be too many. I mean, wouldn't we have noticed, before?"
Diego nodded. "That's what I think, too. Which is why it's pretty weird that she keeps making more of us, don't you think?
"
I frowned. "Huh. Because it's not like Riley actual y likes us or anything...." I paused again, waiting to see if he would contradict me. He didn't. He just waited, nodding slightly in agreement, so I continued. "And she hasn't even introduced herself. You're right. I hadn't looked at it that way. Wel, I hadn't real y thought about it at al . But then, what do they want us for?"
Diego raised one eyebrow. "Wanna hear what I think?"
I nodded warily. But my anxiety had nothing to do with him now.
"Like I said, something is coming. I think she wants protection, and she put Riley in charge of creating the front line."
I thought this through, my spine prickling again. "Why wouldn't they tel us? Shouldn't we be, like, on the lookout or something?"
"That would make sense," he agreed.
We looked at each other in silence for a few long-seeming seconds. I had nothing more, and it didn't look like he did, either.
Final y I grimaced and said, "I don't know if I buy it - the part about Raoul being good for anything, that is."
Diego laughed. "Hard to argue that one." Then he glanced out the windows at the dark early morning. "Out of time. Better head back before we turn into crispies."
"Ashes, ashes, we al fal down," I sang under my breath as I got to my feet and col ected my pile.
Diego chuckled.
We made one more quick stop on our way - hit the empty Target next door for big ziplocks and two backpacks. I doublebagged al my books. Water-damaged pages annoyed me. Then we mostly roof-topped it back to the water. The sky was just faintly starting to gray up in the east. We slipped into the sound right under the noses of two oblivious night watchmen by the big ferry - good thing for them I was ful or they would have been too close for my self-control - and then raced through the murky water back toward Riley's place. At first I didn't know it was a race. I was just swimming fast because the sky was getting lighter. I didn't usual y push the time like this. If I were being honest with myself, I'd pretty much turned into a huge vampire nerd. I fol owed the rules, I didn't cause trouble, I hung out with the most unpopular kid in the group, and I always got home early.
But then Diego real y kicked it into gear. He got a few lengths ahead of me, turned back with a smile that said, what, can't you keep up? and then started booking it again. Wel, I wasn't taking that. I couldn't real y remember if I'd been the competitive type before - it al seemed so far away and unimportant - but maybe I was, because I responded right away to the chal enge. Diego was a good swimmer, but I was way stronger, especial y after just feeding.
See ya, I mouthed as I passed him, but I wasn't sure he saw.
I lost him back in the dark water, and I didn't waste time looking to see by how much I was winning. I just jetted through the sound til I hit the edge of the island where the most recent of our homes was located. The last one had been a big cabin in the middle of Snowvil e-Nowhere on the side of some mountain in the Cascades. Like the last one, this house was remote, had a big basement, and had recently deceased owners. I raced up onto the shal ow stony beach and then dug my fingers into the sandstone bluff and flew up. I heard Diego come out of the water just as I gripped the trunk of an overhanging pine and flipped myself over the cliff edge.
Two things caught my attention as I landed gently on the bal s of my feet. One: it was real y light out. Two: the house was gone.
Wel, not entirely gone. Some of it was stil visible, but the space the house had once occupied was empty. The roof had col apsed into ragged, angular wooden lace, charred black, sagging lower than the front door had been.
The sun was rising fast. The black pine trees were showing hints of evergreen. Soon the paler tips would stand out against the dark, and at about that point I would be dead. Or really dead, or whatever. This second thirsty, superhero life would go up in a sudden burst of flames. And I could only imagine that the burst would be very, very painful. This wasn't the first time I'd seen our house destroyed - with al the fights and fires in the basements, most of them lasted only a few weeks - but it was the first time I'd come across the scene of destruction with the first faint rays of sunlight threatening.