On the way to the door, she looked hard at Thea. "You do have everything you need for tonight- don't you?"
The vial was in Thea's pale green clutch purse. Thea still didn't know how she could possibly get it filled, but she nodded tightly.
"Good." Blaise swept out and got into a silver-gray Porsche that was parked at the curb. Kevin's car. But, as Thea knew, she wasn't going to pick up Kevin.
"I think I made her mad," Eric said.
"Don't worry. Blaise likes being mad. Should we go now?"
Business, business, business, Thea chanted to herself as they walked into the school cafeteria. It had been completely transformed from its daytime identity. The lights and music were oddly thrilling and the whirl of color out on the dance floor was strangely inviting.
I'm not here to have fun, Thea told herself again. But her blood seemed to be sparkling. She saw Eric glance at her conspiratorially and she could almost feel what he was feeling-as if they were two kids standing hand in hand at the edge of some incredible carnival.
"Uh, I should tell you," Eric said. "I can't really dance-except for slow ones."
Oh, great. But of course this was what she was here to do. To put on a show of romancing Eric for Blaise.
A slow song was starting that minute. Thea shut her eyes briefly and resigned herself to fate-which didn't seem all that awful as she and Eric stepped out onto the floor.
Terpsichore, Muse of the Dance, help me not make a fool of myself. She'd never been so close to a human boy, and she'd never tried to dance to human music. But Eric didn't seem to notice her lack of experience.
"You know, I can't believe this," he said. His arms were around her lightly, almost reverently. As if he were afraid she'd break if he held her too hard.
"What can't you believe?"
"Well..." He shook his head. "Everything, I guess. That I'm here with you. And that it all feels so easy. And that you always smell so good."
Thea laughed in spite of herself. "I didn't use any yemonja this time-" she began, and then she almost bit her tongue. Adrenaline washed over her in a wave of painful tingles.
Was she crazy? She was blurting out spell ingredients, for Earth's sake. He was too easy to talk to, that was the problem. Every so often she'd forget he wasn't a witch.
"You okay?" he said as her silence stretched on. His voice was concerned.
No, I am not okay. I've got Blaise on one side and the laws of the Night World on the other, and they're both out to get me. And I don't even know if you're worth it....
"Can I ask you something?" she said abruptly. "Why did you knock me out of the way of that snake?"
"Huh? It was in a striking coil. You could have got bit."
"But so could you." So did you.
He frowned as if stricken by one of those unsolvable mysteries of life. "Yeah... but that didn't seem so bad somehow. I suppose that sounds stupid."
Thea didn't know how to answer. And she was suddenly in terrible conflict about what to do. Her body seemed to want her to lean her head against Eric's shoulder, but her mind was yelling in alarm at the very thought.
At that moment she heard loud voices at the edge of the dance floor.
"Get out of the way," a guy in a blue jacket was saying. "She smiled at me, and I'm going over there."
"It was me she was smiling at, you jerk," a guy in a gray jacket snapped back. "So just back off and let me go."
Expletives. "It was me, and you'd better get out of the way." More expletives. "It was me, and you'd better let go."
A fistfight started. Chaperones came running.
Guess who's here? Thea asked herself. She had no trouble at all locating Blaise. The red-trimmed tuxedo was surrounded by a ring of guys, which was surrounded by a ring of abandoned and angry girls.
"Maybe we should go over and say hi," Thea said. She wanted to warn Blaise about starting a riot.
"Okay. She sure is popular, isn't she?"
They managed to worm their way through the encircling crowd. Blaise was in her element, glorying in the adulation and confusion.
"I waited for an hour and a half, but you never showed up," a very pale Kevin was saying to her. He was wearing an immaculate white silk shirt and exquisitely tailored black pants. His eyes were hollow.
"Maybe you gave me the wrong address," Blaise said thoughtfully. "I couldn't find your house." She had her hand tucked into the arm of a very tall guy with shoulder-length blond hair, who looked as if he worked out four or five hours a day. "Anyway, you want to dance?"
Kevin looked at the blond guy, who looked back impassively, his cleft chin rock hard.
"Don't mind Sergio," Blaise said. "He was just keeping me company. Do you not want to dance?"
Kevin's eyes fell. "Well, yeah, of course I want to...."
As Blaise detached herself from Sergio, Thea leaned forward. "You'd better not do anything too public," she hissed in her cousin's ear. "There's already been one fight."
Blaise just gave her an amused glance and took Kevin's arm. Most of the boys followed her, and with the crowd gone, Thea saw Dani at a small table. She was wearing a sparkling gold dress and she was alone.
"Let's go sit," Eric said, before Thea could even get a word out. She threw him a grateful look.
"Where's John?" Thea asked as they pulled chairs to the table.
Dani nodded toward the pack following Blaise.
"I don't mind, though," she said, sipping a cup of punch philosophically. "He was kind of boring. I don't know about all this dance stuff."
Thea knew she meant it was different from Circle