"What is wrong with you?" Riley screamed at us. "Why are you al so stupid?" He made a grab for the blond Spider-Man kid, but that kid leaped out of his way. His jump left him too close to Fred, and he stumbled back toward Riley again, gagging.
"Do any of you have a brain?"
Riley smacked a kid named Dean into the entertainment center, shattering it, then caught another girl - Sara - and tore her left ear and a handful of hair from her head. She snarled in anguish.
It became suddenly obvious that Riley was doing a very dangerous thing. There were a lot of us in here. Already Raoul was back, with Kristie and Jen - usual y his enemies - flanking him defensively. A few others banded together in clusters around the room.
I wasn't sure if Riley was aware of the threat or if his rant came to an end natural y. He took a deep breath. He tossed Sara her ear and the hair. She recoiled away from him, licking the torn edge of her ear, coating it with venom so that it would reattach. There was no remedy for the hair, though; Sara was going to have a bald spot.
"Listen to me!" Riley said, quiet but fierce. "Al our lives depend on you listening to what I'm saying now and thinking!
We are al going to die. Every one of us, you and me, too, if you can't act like you have brains for just a few short days!"
This was nothing like his usual lectures and pleadings for control. He definitely had everyone's attention.
"It's time for you to grow up and take responsibility for yourselves. Do you think you get to live like this for free? That al the blood in Seattle doesn't have a price?"
The little clusters of vampires no longer seemed threatening. Everyone was wide-eyed, some exchanging mystified glances. I saw Fred's head turn toward me in my peripheral vision, but I didn't meet his gaze. My attention was focused on two things: Riley, just in case he started to attack again, and the door. The door that was stil closed.
"Are you listening now? Real y listening?" Riley paused, but no one nodded. The room was very stil . "Let me explain to you the precarious situation we are al in. I'l try to keep it simple for the slowest ones. Raoul, Kristie, come here."
He motioned to the leaders of the two largest gangs, al ied for this brief moment against him. Neither of them moved toward him. They braced themselves, Kristie baring her teeth. I expected Riley to soften, to apologize. To placate them and then persuade them to do what he wanted. But this was a different Riley.
"Fine," he snapped. "We're going to need leaders if we're going to survive, but apparently neither of you is up to the task. I thought you had aptitude. I was wrong. Kevin, Jen, please join me as the heads of this team."
Kevin looked up in surprise. He had just finished putting his arm back together. Though his expression was wary, it was also unmistakably flattered. He slowly got to his feet. Jen looked at Kristie as if waiting for permission. Raoul ground his teeth together.
The door at the top of the stairs did not open.
"Are you not able, either?" Riley asked, irritated. Kevin took a step toward Riley, but then Raoul rushed him, leaping across the long room in two low bounds. He shoved Kevin against the wal without a word and then stood by Riley's right shoulder.
Riley permitted himself a tiny smile. The manipulation wasn't subtle, but it was effective.
"Kristie or Jen, who wil lead us?" Riley asked with a hint of amusement in his voice.
Jen was stil waiting for a sign from Kristie as to what she should do. Kristie glowered at Jen for an instant, then flipped her sandy hair out of her face and darted to stand on Riley's other side.
"That took too long to decide," Riley said seriously. "We don't have the luxury of time. We don't get to fool around anymore. I've let you al do pretty much whatever you feel like, but that ends tonight."
He looked around the room, meeting everyone's eyes, making sure we were listening. I held his gaze for only a second when it was my turn, and then my eyes flipped back to the door. I corrected instantly, but his glare had moved on. I wondered if he'd noticed my slip. Or had he seen me at al, here beside Fred?
"We have an enemy," Riley announced. He let that sink in for a moment. I could tel the idea was shocking to several of the vampires in the basement. The enemy was Raoul - or if you were with Raoul, the enemy was Kristie. The enemy was here, because the whole world was here. The thought that there were other forces out there strong enough to affect us was new for most. Would have been new to me, too, yesterday.
"A few of you might be smart enough to have realized that if we exist, so do other vampires. Other vampires who are older, smarter... more talented. Other vampires who want our blood!"
Raoul hissed, and then several of his fol owers echoed him in support.
"That's right," Riley said, seeming intent on egging them on.
"Seattle was once theirs, but they moved on a long time ago. Now they know about us, and they are jealous of the easy blood they used to have here. They know it belongs to us now, but they want to take it back. They are coming after what they want. One by one, they'l hunt us down! We'l burn while they feast!"
"Never," Kristie growled. Some of hers and some of Raoul's growled, too.
"We don't have a lot of choices," Riley told us. "If we wait for them to show up here, they wil have the advantage. This is their turf, after al . And they don't want to face us head-on, because we outnumber them and we are stronger than they are. They want to catch us separated; they want to take advantage of our biggest weakness. Are any of you smart enough to know what that is?" He pointed at the ashes at his feet - now smeared into the carpet and unrecognizable as a former vampire - and waited.