Chapter 23

"Turn your damn phone off," Brooke kept saying in annoyance as she shook Sarah awake. Sarah mumbled a swear word back at her before fumbling her hand into her pocket. "I didn't leave the thing on," she muttered.

"Susie's a trickster with technology," Jack said irritably. "She once hacked into my email just because she was in a temper. She only had to look at my computer screen and it completely opened every email account I've had within the last five years. So it must be her."

Amazed, Sarah finally located her phone that trilled harder and higher until she put it to her ear.

"Where the hell are you?" Susie was demanding. "Blade looks ready to deck Laurence. Where have they taken you? Sarah!"

"I'm okay," Sarah said hastily.

"That's not the point!" Susie yelled, her voice breaking. "We're best friends, Sarah! I should be there with you, not stuck in a mansion with an angry vampire and a pissed-off cousin! I thought you'd promised I'd be here with you!"

"Tell her we're going to Hunter's seaside resort," Jack interrupted, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "She'll know what I mean."

Reluctantly, Sarah repeated this to Susie.

"I'll be there in one hour," Susie cut her off and the phone turned off completely.

"She'd never told me she could fiddle machinery," Sarah said, amazed.

"She's a clever little girl," Brooke said dryly. "She used to levitate her toys, according to her mom. So a game of Airplane was kinda literal. Especially when she learnt about airplane crashes. Gave me nightmares, that kid. Luckily she got a healthy obsession with makeup."

"So Blade's going nuts?" Jack said with a laugh. "That vampire cracks me up sometimes, I swear."

"She looks quite nice to me," Kelly said thoughtfully. "A bit insane, but that's fine enough."

Sarah gave him a sly look but said nothing, thinking about Susie. "So what's Anthony's deal?" she asked finally.

"He's Roseclear's Christmas present," Brooke said sarcastically, settling back comfortably. "So, Jack, do you think Susie will tell Daybreak where we're going?"

"She's predictable," Jack answered. "She'll tell them just so she'll get their help. So if we wait a few minutes somewhere out of the way, they'll make a big mess and we can slip in easy enough."

"There," Roseclear pointed ahead at something around the next corner of the road, thickly hidden by black, twisted trees. "There's a travel pub there, Jack. Can we have something to eat? Anthony's probably hungry."

The way she said it was like Anthony was her pet and couldn't speak up for himself.

Obediently, Jack followed the road around and true to Roseclear's statement, a pub was there, its parking lot empty and its windows shuttered though yellow light seeped through cracks in the wooden shutters. Kelly went ahead of them, turning his head at every noise and Sarah turned her attention to some other thought. So Jack was a witch, Roseclear was a vampire, Brooke was a witch. Was Kelly a shapeshifter? And she had a nervous theory about Anthony and Roseclear's relationship. She'd heard an account from the famous shapeshifter, Raksha Keller, about the dragon she'd fought. That it had looked like a handsome male for a while. Was Anthony a dragon? And was Roseclear the one holding his 'leash'?

"You have a lot of questions," Roseclear said, turning her head to look at Sarah. The look on her face was almost a glare, but softened by curiosity, almost like a little girl. Her eyes shone a strange cold violet in the late morning coldness.

Sarah nodded. "Is Anthony a dragon, Roseclear?"

Jack burst into laughter. "What a direct little thing you are!"

"Is he?" Sarah insisted.

"Of course," Roseclear said comfortably. "Why?"

"And you…woke him up?" Sarah continued, hazarding a guess. "Didn't you?"

Roseclear frowned. "Now that I'm not telling you. A girl must have her own secrets. That's what my mother always said." Her lips thinned in something near a grimace. "Of course, mother's dead."

With that, Roseclear looked around, her eyes gleaming a feral violet. Her gaze stopped on the human youth who was working at the bar, slowly wiping the wooden surface with a cloth. "I'm going to get myself some dinner," Roseclear murmured, running her tongue over her vampiric fangs. Jack rolled his eyes and they all watched her get up and go to the youth, smiling at him sweetly. "Is there a phone?"

"In the corridor behind the bar," the human replied, his voice a note higher than if he'd been talking to anyone else.

Roseclear gazed at the corridor. "It's very dark," she pointed out softly. "I don't like the dark." Within a few minutes, the boy was escorting her off into the corridor.

"Got Redfern blood in her," Brooke murmured with a grimace. "She's bloody sadistic sometimes."

"So are witches, sometimes," Kelly pointed out with a smirk.

"And so are shapeshifters," Jack said firmly. From there it went into a debate of which thing was most savage.

"Shapeshifters rip their food apart," Brooke said fervently. "At least vampires only sip. And witches don't even use humans in that way."

"But witches use human body parts to cast spells on us all," Kelly argued. "Human ears, eyes, brains, toes, fingers…at least we eat because it's the food we need. You lot just use it to work your mojo on whoever annoys you."

"Witches are benevolent," Brooke said angrily. "Most of us anyway," Jack murmured, eyes distant.

"Anyway," Kelly continued smugly. "Vampires and witches mess their victims up mentally. At least shapeshifters keep it pretty business-like. They just tear the people apart, eat the flesh and all that. That's nice compared to the way witches and vampires fool humans, twist their desires and fears, take away memories…do I need to go on? Heck, sometimes we don't even need to eat humans!"

With that, Roseclear came back into the room, licking her lips as her fangs shrank and she looked like a normal girl again. "We ought to go now," she said firmly.