Deadly Offer Read Free Page B

friendship is, Althea thought. Somebody telling you something they wouldn’t tell somebody else. “I can see. Does she always treat you that way?”
    “Or worse. Honestly, I don’t know where they find these coaches!”
    Althea thought Mrs. Roundman was an excellent coach. Certainly the school had the best cheerleaders Althea had ever seen. But she said sympathetically, “Gosh, you must be tired, Celeste.”
    “I’m utterly exhausted. People don’t know how difficult cheerleading is. You don’t get the credit you deserve.” Celeste arched her back like a cat and slowly melted down. A few golden threads of hair across her forehead annoyed her, and she stroked them into place. Rotating her long neck to relax herself, she added, “And what’s more, I have to wait an hour for a ride home. A whole hour! Just sitting here! Till my parents are out of work and can come for me.”
    What a lovely neck she has, Althea thought. It really is swanlike, just the way they say a high-fashion model’s should be. What soft white skin she has.
    Since we’re becoming friends, Althea thought, perhaps I’ll ask her if she has ever thought about modeling. I’ve always wanted to be a model myself. We could go into the city together!
    “I am so bored,” said Celeste.
    Althea looked at her uncertainly.
    “ Nobody is around,” Celeste said. “Everybody has left.”
    Not quite everybody, thought Althea. I’m here.
    Celeste ran beautifully polished fingers through her silken hair. Her nails were pale, pale pink.
    But they could get paler, Althea thought. And I know somebody who would also think that’s a lovely neck. “You poor thing,” said Althea. “Well, I’m heading out right now. Want a ride?”

Chapter 4
    H IS SKIN HAD DARKENED in patches, like fruit going bad. If she touched it, the skin would feel like a sponge. The fingernails seemed detached. She could pluck them, harvest them, fill a basket with old vampire nails.
    Althea closed her eyes to block out the sight, and then quickly opened them. It was difficult to breathe evenly in his presence, but she knew that if her breathing were ragged and frightened he would enjoy it; it would give him power over her. So she regulated her breathing. She blocked out visions of Celeste being touched by the vampire’s spongy skin, his foul mold against her swan-sweet neck, his smell in her hair. But she had to know. “What happened?” said Althea.
    The vampire looked surprised. “You want details?” His teeth overhung his lower lip, shimmering like pearls, like Celeste’s hair.
    “I don’t want details,” said Althea hastily. “Just—well—an overall picture.”
    With a long bony finger, the vampire traced his lips, as if savoring something. How thin his lips were. How bloodless. Although actually he looked somewhat healthier than the last time Althea had encountered him.
    Althea felt a little queasy. What could have made him healthy?
    I did it, she thought. I actually gave a vampire his victim.
    The air around her thickened. It crawled up her legs and crowded against her spine, and her heart, and her head. She could not see the air, but she could feel it, all woolly and damp, whispering, That’s what you did. You are bad, you are evil, Althea.
    She straightened her back and stiffened her jaw. I did what I had to, she thought. And Celeste deserved it. So there.
    The dark drapery that seemed to be the vampire’s clothing shifted and swirled as if it were leaving. But the vampire stood still. The hem of his black cloth blew toward Althea. She stepped back, and the black cloth reached farther, trembling eagerly. The vampire collected it back and wrapped it around himself like a container. To Althea he said, “It was only necessary for Celeste to enter the path of my control. Once you and she circled the house, she was within my light path.”
    “Light? You are dark. You are night.”
    “It is in fact a dark path,” admitted the vampire. “I thought you would better