"First because he likes girls. He's a real Don Juan." James glanced at Phil caustically. "And now he's got her alone. And second because he likes to play with things. Like a cat with a mouse. He'll fool around with her for a while, and then when he gets tired of her, he'll ha nd he r over."
Phillip went still. "Who to?"
"The Elders. Somebody in charge somewhere who'll realize she's a renegade vampire."
"And then what?"
"And then they kill her."
Phil grabbed the dashboard. "Wait a minute. You're telling me that a cousin of yours is going to hand Poppy over to be killed?"
"It's the law. Any good vampire would do the same. My own mother would do it, without a second thought." His voice was bitter.
"And he's a vampire. Ash," Phil said stupidly.
James gave him a look. "All my cousins are vampires," he said with a short laugh. Then his expression changed, and he took his foot off the gas.
"What's the-hey, that was a stop sign!" Phil yelped.
James slammed on the brakes and swung into a U-turn in the middle of the street. He ran over somebody's lawn.
"What is it?" Phil said tightly, still braced against the dashboard.
James was looking almost dreamy. "I've just realized where they've gone. Where he'd take her. He told her someplace safe, where people wouldn't care what she was. But vampires would care."
"So they're with humans?"
"No. Ash hates humans. He'd want to take her someplace in the Night World, someplace where he's a big man. And the nearest city that's controlled by the Night World is Las Vegas."
Phil felt his jaw drop. Las Vegas? Controlled by the Night World? He had the sudden impulse to laugh. Sure, of course it would be. "And I always thou ght i t was the Mafia," he said.
"It is," James said seriously, swerving onto a freeway on-ramp.
"Just a different mafia."
"But, look, wait. Las Vegas is a big city."
"It's not, actually. But it doesn't matter anyway. I know where they are. Because all my cousins aren't vampires. Some of them are witches."
Phil's forehead puckered. "Oh, yeah? And how did you arrange that?"
"I didn't. My great-grandparents did, about four hundred years ago. They did a blood-tie ceremony with a witch family. The witches aren't my real cousins; they're not related. They're cross-cousins. Adopted family. It probably won't even occur to them that Poppy might not be legal. And that's where Ash would go."
"They're cross-kin," Ash told Poppy. They were driving in the Rasmussen's gold Mercedes, which Ash insisted his aunt Maddy would want him to take. "They won't be suspicious of you. And witches don't know the signs of being a new vampire the way vampires do."
Poppy just stared at the far horizon. It was evening now, and a lowering red sun was setting behind them. All around them was a weird alien landscape: not as brown as Poppy would have expected a desert to be. More gray-green, with clumps of green-gray. The Joshua trees were strangely beautiful, but also the closest thing to a plant made up of tentacles as she'd ever seen.
Most everything growing had spikes.
It was oddly fitting as a place to go into exile. Poppy felt as if she were leaving behind not only her old life, but everything she'd ever found familiar about the earth.
"I'll take ca re o f you," Ash said caressingly.
Poppy didn't even blink.
Phillip first saw Nevada as a line of lights in the darkness ahead. As they got closer to the state line, the lights resolved into signs with blinking, swarming, flashing neon messages.
Whiskey Pete's, they announced. Buffalo Bill's. The Prima Donna.
Some guy with a reputation for being a Don Juan was taking Poppy in this direction?
"Go faster," he told James as they left the lights behind and entered a dark and featureless desert. "Come on. This car can do ninety."
"Here we are. Las V egas, " Ash said as if making Poppy a present of the whole city. But Poppy didn't see a city, only a light in the clouds ahead like the rising moon. Then, as the freeway curved, she saw that it wasn't the moon, it was the reflection of city lights. Las Vegas was a glittering pool in a flat basin between the mountains.
Something stirred in Poppy despite herself. She'd always wanted to see the world. Faraway places. Exotic lands. And this would have been perfect-if only James had been with her.
Up close, though, the city wasn't quite the gem it looked from a distance. Ash got off the freeway, and Poppy was thrown into a world of color and light and movement-and of tawdry cheapness.
"The Strip," Ash announced. "You know, where all the casinos are. There's no place like it."
"I bet," Poppy said, staring. On one side of her was a towering black pyramid hotel with a huge sphinx in front. Lasers were flashing out of the sphinx's eyes. On the other side was a sleazy motor inn with a sign saying "Rooms $18."
"So this is the Night World," she said, with a twinge of cynical amusement that made her feel very adult.
"Nah, this is for the tourists," Ash said. "But it's good business and you can do some fairly serious partying. I'll show you the real Night World, though. First, I want to check in with my cousins."
Poppy considered telling him that she didn't really care to have him show her the Night World. Something about Ash's manner was beginning to bother her. He was acting more as if they were out on a date than as if he were escorting her into exile.
But he's the only person I know here, she realized with a dismayed sinking in her stomach. And it's not as if I have any money or anything--not even eighteen dollars for that crummy motel.