The Dark Reunion Read Free

wouldn’t be having Death by Chocolate.”
    “And that makes it all worthwhile?”
    “Well, it helps,” Bonnie said, with an air of being reasonable. “And really, it probably won’t be so bad. Caroline’s actually trying to be nice, and it’s good for Vickie to get out of the house for once….”
    “It doesn’t look like it’s good for her,” Meredith said bluntly. “It looks like she’s goingto have a heart attack.”
    “Well, she’s probably just nervous.” In Bonnie’s opinion, Vickie had good reason to be nervous. She’d spent most of the previous fall in a trance, being slowly driven out of her mind by a power she didn’t understand. Nobody had expected her to come out of it as well as she had.
    Meredith was still looking bleak. “At least,” Bonnie said consolingly, “it isn’t your real birthday.”
    Meredith picked up the camera and turned it over and over. Still looking down at her hands, she said, “But it is.”
    “What? “Bonnie stared and then said louder, “
What
did you say?”
    “I said, it is my real birthday. Caroline’s mom must have told her; she and my mom used to be friends a long time ago.”
    “Meredith, what are you talking about? Your birthday was last week, May 30.”
    “No, it wasn’t. It’s today, June 6. It’s true; it’s on my driver’s license and everything. My parents started celebrating it a week early because June 6 was too upsetting for them. It was the daymy grandfather was attacked and went crazy.” As Bonnie gasped, unable to speak, she added calmly, “He tried to kill my grandmother, you know. He tried to kill me, too.” Meredith put the camera down carefully in the exact center of the coffee table. “We really should go in the kitchen,” she said quietly. “I smell chocolate.”
    Bonnie was still paralyzed, but her mind was beginning to work again. Vaguely, she remembered Meredith speaking about this before, but she hadn’t told her the full truth then. And she hadn’t said when it had happened.
    “Attacked—you mean like Vickie was attacked,” Bonnie got out. She couldn’t say the word
vampire
, but she knew Meredith understood.
    “Like Vickie was attacked,” Meredith confirmed. “Come on,” she added, even more quietly. “They’re waiting for us. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
    Meredith doesn’t want me to be upset, so I
won’t
be upset, Bonnie thought, pouring hot fudge over the chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream. Even though we’ve been friends since first gradeand she never told me this secret before.
    For an instant her skin chilled and words came floating out of the dark corners of her mind.
No one is what they seem.
She’d been warned that last year by the voice of Honoria Fell speaking through her, and the prophecy had turned out to be horrifyingly true. What if it wasn’t over yet?
    Then Bonnie shook her head determinedly. She couldn’t think about this right now; she had a
party
to think about. And I’ll make sure it’s a
good
party and we all get along somehow, she thought.
    Strangely, it wasn’t even that hard. Meredith and Vickie didn’t talk much at first, but Bonnie went out of her way to be nice to Vickie, and even Meredith couldn’t resist the pile of brightly wrapped presents on the coffee table. By the time she’d opened the last one they were all talking and laughing. The mood of truce and toleration continued as they moved up into Caroline’s bedroom to examine her clothes and CDs and photo albums. As it got near midnight they flopped on sleeping bags, still talking.
    “What’s going on with Alaric these days?” Sue asked Meredith.
    Alaric Saltzman was Meredith’s boyfriend—sort of. He was a graduate student from Duke University who’d majored in parapsychology and had been called to Fell’s Church last year when the vampire attacks began. Though he’d started out an enemy, he’d ended up an ally—and a friend.
    “He’s in Russia,” Meredith said. “Perestroika, you know?