06 Love Bites - My Sister the Vampire Read Free

three first-class tickets leaving next month, in the hope that you will visit us.
    Love,
    Mother
    Ivy instinctively reached for the ring that she wore around her neck; Olivia had an identical one. Matching emerald rings with their family symbol – the outline of an eye with a V in the middle – engraved inside. After a lifetime of notknowing, she was finally going to find out where she came from.
    This week in Europe was going to be killer, but first she had to figure out what her boyfriend was up to.
    ‘So what’s the burger special today?’ Ivy asked innocently, seeing how far he would go to conceal where he was. Olivia covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.
    ‘It’s, uh . . .’ Brendan looked around frantically. ‘Green leather madness,’ he blurted.
    Ivy snorted. ‘That doesn’t sound very appetising.’
    ‘Well, I’m not going to order one,’ he replied.
    ‘It doesn’t
sound
like you’re at the Meat and Greet,’ Ivy tried again. ‘I can’t hear any music in the background.’
    ‘I think they’ve turned it off for a minute,’ Brendan replied, talking faster and faster.
    Ivy decided to let him off the hook. He wasn’t going to confess. ‘OK, well, I’ll see you at noon,’ she said.
    ‘OK, bye,’ he almost shouted and Ivy watched him collapse against the wall.
    ‘He would
not
keep it a secret if he wasn’t shopping for you,’ Olivia pointed out.
    Ivy saw him stride away. ‘I’m going after him,’ she declared.
    ‘I’ll be here,’ Olivia said, looking morosely at the line in front of her.
    ‘With me!’ said Janie. ‘Another candy heart?’
    Ivy darted across the lobby after Brendan, pressing herself against the walls. She followed him at a safe distance down the east wing of the mall. She had to be extra careful; Brendan was a vampire, after all, and might be able to sense her if she got too close.
    What do spies in movies do?
Ivy thought.
Melt intothe crowd.
She looked down at her black skirt and heavy boots.
Well, that’s not gonna happen.
She’d just have to be . . . discreet.
    Brendan went into Trudy’s Beauty Palace and Ivy ducked in and hid behind a rack of shampoo bottles. She peered between two mannequin heads displaying blonde wigs to see Brendan browsing the accessories in the glass counter. There were sparkly bracelets, dangly earrings, rings and brooches – nothing that her gorgeous goth boyfriend would ever buy for himself.
    Oh my darkness!
Ivy thought.
He
must
be shopping for Valentine’s.
    Brendan turned around and Ivy ducked behind the hair pieces, just in time.
    If he’s buying me something, I have to buy
him
something,
Ivy realised.
A present that is as good as whatever he gets me.
As Brendan left the store empty-handed, Ivy decided she had to followhim until she saw what he bought.
    She crept along behind him, staying out of sight.
    Be like water,
Ivy told herself. Olivia’s martial-arts-obsessed dad had taught her that. She slid from a tall fern to a marble column to a sunglasses stall.
    It was going well until, just outside the camera store, Brendan looked back over his shoulder. Ivy was next to a booth selling self-help books, so she ducked behind it. An old woman with a wart on her chin, sitting on the stool and tending the booth, looked at her.
    Ivy smiled like nothing was abnormal, but then she noticed a security guard on the other side of the walkway staring at her. He pointed two stubby fingers at her, and then pointed them at his own eyes.
I’m watching you,
he was saying.
    Ivy immediately straightened up and tried tolook innocent by grabbing one of the books from the display and opening it to a random page.
Bald is Beautiful!
it declared in large print.
    Ivy panicked, slammed the book shut and shoved it back on the shelf.
    ‘Can I help you?’ the old lady said in a scratchy voice.
    ‘Uh, just browsing!’ Ivy turned away to check where Brendan was, but the one thing she really didn’t need to happen had happened.
    Brendan had