Page 8 of Circle of Death
Maddy isn’t so sure about that. Some days, she’s not even sure if she picked the right school. Or if she should be in college in the first place. All she knew was that Lamont’s big old mansion on Fifth Avenue was starting to feel like a prison. She needed a life of her own. Friends of her own. And she knew Lamont would take care of the tuition.
“Anyway, I can’t go clubbing like this.” Maddy tugs at the front of her baggy T-shirt. Airtight excuse. Done. Case closed.
“Correct,” says Deva. “I can’t be seen with you in that.” She reaches into the cloth bag over her shoulder. “But inthis…” She holds up a silk dress as shimmery as her own, and equally short.
“Forget it,” says Maddy. “Not my look.” T-shirts and jeans are usually as dressed up as she gets.
“C’mon.Please!I know a great place.” Of course she does. Deva knowsallthe great places. When Maddy sits next to her in class, she can usually spot glitter in her hair from the night before.
“I have to get home,” says Maddy.
Deva puts on a dramatic pout. “You can’t send me out into the city alone,” she whines. “It’s dangerous.”
“No.You’redangerous.”
Maddy exhales slowly and stuffs her notebooks and pens into her backpack.
She pauses for a few seconds, then snatches the dress and heads for the restroom to change. “For the record, I’m only coming to protect you from yourself.”
CHAPTER 8
DEVA FLASHES TWO passes at the entrance and leads the way downstairs into the club. She turns to Maddy. “My treat,” she says. “In exchange for kidnapping you.”
The sound and heat roll up the staircase as they descend. When they reach the bottom, Maddy rocks back in disbelief. She realizes that they’re standing on the uptown platform of the abandoned 14th Street subway station. The dance floor covers the tracks and extends into the tunnel—the same tunnel where Lamont dispatched the Voodoo Master’s bloodsuckers more than a century ago. She’s walking in the footsteps of the Shadow.
Maddy rests one hand against the tile wall and closes her eyes, half expecting a grisly flash from the distant past. But all she feels is the vibration of the speakers and the slick condensation rising from a couple hundred bodies.Liveones. Within a second, her head clears. Deva spots Maddy’s hesitation and shouts above the din.“Been here before?”
“Never!”Maddy shouts back.“But I’ve heard stories!”
The bass rumbles through the floor and passes right through Maddy’s body. The crowd is young and ecstatic, dancing mostly in darkness, illuminated only by sporadic strobe blasts. The club is more funky than fancy. Maddy feels overdressed.
A bar table along one wall is filled with bottles of cheap beer and booze. A giant garbage bucket full of ice sits to the side. In places like this, admission covers all you can drink. And people drink a lot. The air reeks of sweat and alcohol.
Maddy leans in tight to Deva’s ear. Even this close, she still needs to shout.“Do you know anybody here?”
Deva shakes her head and shouts back.“Just you!”She grabs Maddy by the arm and pulls her into the center of the crowd, creating a tiny space for the two of them. Deva backs off a few inches and starts to move—eyes shut, hips pumping, arms swinging.
Maddy feels the perspiration starting to prickle her scalp and neck as she breathes in the thick atmosphere. At first, it makes her queasy. Then she just surrenders to it. Toallof it. The noise, the smell, the humidity, the raw human energy. And Deva’s pure joy. It’s infectious.
Maddy’s getting jostled from all sides, but it doesn’t matter now. She keeps her eyes on Deva’s pulsing silhouette and does her best to mirror her moves. Deva’s sparkly dress lights up in the strobe bursts like a series of punchy snapshots.
By the second song, Maddy’s hair is damp with sweat, blond strands swinging across her face. Her head is buzzing and her skin is warm and tingly. She’s happy she came. Happy to feel like a normal teenager for a few hours. Happy to just melt into the crowd.
As the second song segues into the third, two figures bump their way into the sliver of space between her and Deva. Two guys, lean and glistening, shirts peeled open to expose taut chests. In strobe flashes, they look enough alike to be brothers. Same stringy hair. Same perfect teeth. Same cocky physicality.
Maddy shifts her body to make room, but the men follow her with hip-thrusting moves until she’s being pressed from both sides. And not in a good way. The guy on her left places a damp hand on her shoulder, his fingers brushing her neck.
“Let’s have a drink!”he shouts.
Maddy pulls his hand away.“No, thanks!”
The brush-off doesn’t work. He just grinds in closer. Oppressive now. His friend has moved on to Deva, working the same moves. Now they slide in behind the girls, grabbing their hips and moving in tight.
“One drink!”the first guy shouts in Maddy’s ear. Maddy sees Deva doing her best to push away from the other one, but the space is too tight for a clean escape.
Maddy shouts again, louder this time.“Leave us alone!”
“Don’t be so stuck up!”the guy shouts back. There’s a nasty edge to his voice now. Maddy realizes that her refusal is not registering.
