Alex felt oddly unconvinced, but he didn't have a better theory to suggest. A thought distracted him. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Sangster said.

"Why did you want Vienna to come to this meeting?"

Vienna looked at him angrily. "They wanted me to come? They summoned me and you were the delivery boy?"

"Well, they asked me to come, too," Alex said. He saw her disappointment and felt his face grow hot. "I thought-I thought you liked the ride," he said stupidly.

Professor Montrose leaned forward. "That scarf around your neck is the curse, is it not?"

She looked down, s.h.i.+fting her shoulders so that it danced slightly as if alive-which, Alex now knew, it was. "Yes."

"We will find a cure for you," the professor said. "If you'll let us try."

Sangster interjected, "And if you'll let us keep the scarf after we manage to remove the curse."

Vienna's eyes were wide in something like disbelief. Alex jumped in. "Come on, you can't make a bargain like that. Removing that thing is dangerous. The deal has to be that you make sure it doesn't hurt her in the process."

Sangster threw Montrose a look that said, See? He's smart. "What kind of people do you think we are?"

"I'm just sayin'," Alex said.

Vienna ran her fingers along the scarf. "Don't listen to him; if you can cure me, you can keep it."

"It will take some time," Montrose said, "but now that I'm here and the lab is being set up, we have time."

Alex realized that Vienna's curse removal project likely meant he would be giving her frequent rides to the HQ.

I can handle that. But as Alex and Vienna rode back to town, there was a far-off buzzing in his head-not static, not magic, but something more personal and instinctive, as though he were missing something important.

Or maybe he was just afraid of having to wear a tuxedo.

Chapter 25.

The next day was finally Friday. Alex, Paul, and Sid brought their clothes to the still-unoccupied New Aubrey House to get ready for the benefit ball, because it was awkward changing and swinging their arms around in the sheeted Kingdom of Cots. Alex would be accompanying Vienna, but Sid wasn't off the hook: He'd be escorting a deb whose date had left Glenarvon in the wake of withdrawals.

In the drawing room they chose for getting changed, a ma.s.sive mirror hung from wires, threatening to fall and crush them like vested insects. Alex worked on his tie and looked into the mirror at Sid, who had finished his.

"You look like Dracula," Alex said. "A red-haired Dracula."

Sid laughed. "First, Dracula bore no reflection." He fiddled with his own tie. "Second, the whole opera attire thing was a detail that was added in the play."

Alex tore his tie off, starting again, coming closer to the giant mirror. "Why's that?"

"Because it looks cool," Paul said. "Good lord, mate, let me before you ruin it." Paul grabbed Alex's tie, curving the fabric up and about in an incomprehensible flurry. He turned Alex back around to face the mirror. "See?"

The finis.h.i.+ng piece was something that had been delivered to Alex that morning, a gift from his father, which arrived with the rented tuxedos from Secheron. It was a silver lapel pin, with a discreet VH inlaid. A note inside said simply, Love, Dad.

Alex swiveled the pin until he was satisfied it was straight. The three boys stood there in front of the mirror, suddenly nervous.

"I feel like The Three Tenors here," Alex said.

"Yeah, this is kinda sad." Sid nodded. "Let's go."

They walked over to the library, where before the crackling fire stood Minhi, Vienna, and a girl Alex immediately recognized as the yodeler from the first Pumpkin Show, and, though he wasn't totally positive, one of the girls from the woods. She was a junior deb as well and had persuaded Sid to be her escort through tenacious force of will.

Minhi was wearing a blue evening gown that wrapped in a way suggesting an Indian sari. Alex nearly gasped aloud and had to stop himself, feeling his eyes widen. He saw Paul almost stagger when he saw how glamorous she looked.

Vienna was not so dramatically transformed; she had gone from elegant casual to elegant evening, wearing black that went all the way up to her neck, with the green scarf blazing as always.

They seemed absurdly gorgeous and grown-up, and Alex felt strange and unformed in comparison. It occurred to him at that moment that the men wear black and white because they are essentially intended to be invisible next to the women in the gowns.

"Oh my G.o.d," said Minhi, laughing as she beheld the boys. "You look like The Three Tenors."

Alex threw up his hands. "Thank you, that is totally what I . . ."

"I think you look marvelous," said Vienna, moving forward to touch and peer at Alex's tie. "That's a fantastic knot."

"Thank you. Or thank Paul; he did the knot, you know. I will stop talking now." Alex looked at the girl next to Minhi. "I'm sorry, I don't know your name. . . ."

"Ilsa Applebaum," she said.

Sid said, "Ilsa's dad is, like, the minister of finance for Germany or something."

"Or something?" Ilsa smirked. "Deputy Minister of Finance, Banking Regulation."

Sid turned. "And yet she wants me to be her escort."

"That is truly something," Paul said.

Out of the doors of New Aubrey, the procession of six reached the courtyard. Alex saw others heading to the gate and its line of waiting limos as the sun dropped over the trees and the lake.

Vienna walked close to him, and Alex heard her murmuring something in Spanish.

"What's that?" he asked, curious.

"Just a little song my brother used to sing," she said.

"Ours is the Lincoln," Minhi said, as they began to mix with the other couples walking through the gate. She pointed down a long line of vehicles and Alex saw a stretch town car about four cars down. They headed toward it. Alex's phone buzzed. He stopped and took it out. Vienna stopped, too.

"What is it?"

"Text." The caller ID showed up as POLI HQ. That was new; usually it came in as FHOUSE. But whatever. Alex opened it impatiently,

NEEDED NOW. VAN COMING FOR YOU. BACK GATE.

Panicked, Alex looked at the others, who had paused as well.

Paul was eyeing him with concern. "Oh, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l."

"I . . ." Alex slumped. You've got to be kidding.

Vienna came around to look him in the eyes. "What's going on?"

"They want me to go."

"What? No, you can't."

"Tell them no, Alex," Minhi said. "That's completely not cool."

Alex heard Ilsa whisper a question to Sid and the boy shrugged.

Another text buzzed.

EMERGENCY.

Alex shook his head, feeling himself separate even before he knew what he had decided. "It's why I'm here," he said.

"It's why you're here?" Vienna hissed. "Not tonight, it isn't, for heaven's sake."

Alex pleaded, "Look, I'm sorry."

"Alex!" He was doing something terrible. She needed an escort, at the very least. She couldn't go stag.

"Maybe somebody can lead you-"

A stoic sadness crept into her eyes and she said, "Eh."

"Look, I'll try to catch up," Alex said to them all. "It's an emergency."

Paul and Sid shrugged. Minhi just looked mournful. Vienna had already transitioned to controlling the fist of death, and Ilsa was thankfully clueless. He couldn't look at them anymore. Turning, he bolted through the gate and headed clear around the campus to the back. He had barely gotten there when a black van roared around a corner. He felt overwhelmed with anger; it was buzzing in his brain, drowning out every other sensation, and urging him to scream and punch the first person he saw. Is this my life now? I said I wanted it, so is this what my life is?

Alex couldn't see through the driver's side window but he started yelling anyway. "What the h.e.l.l, Sangster!" He didn't have a go package, so they'd better have equipment. What was it going to be now? Were they going bungee jumping over another train?

He thrust his phone forward. "You totally destroy my evening with a text?"

The van doors slid open.

Steven Merrill grabbed Alex's hand and crushed the cell phone in it like an aluminum can as he yanked him inside. Alex's sliced palm sang with pain. He flew through the air and crashed against the far side of the van.

He rolled to a stop under the grinning, fanged visage of Steven's brother, Bill.

Chapter 26.

The Merrills are vampires, thought Alex wildly.

No time for that now. Get the h.e.l.l out.

Alex scrambled to his feet as he felt the van lurch and begin to accelerate. For a moment he considered leaping away from Bill, who was slowly turning toward him, regarding him as a cat would a wounded mouse. Alex glanced at the front of the van. Maybe he could take the wheel-but no. There was a roll cage installed, heavy mesh, a single window with metal slats showing him the road outside, which was moonlit. The vampires were driving with no lights.

"Look at you!" Bill said, his face pale, his eyes dilated and icy. "You look like Dracula."

"Dracula didn't wear a tux," Alex recited, backing into the rear corner, grasping for the door handle. If he opened it now he might be able to escape. He'd have to roll, and it wouldn't be pretty on him or his tuxedo. His hand reached the silver handle and he gave it a yank. For a second it was jammed and he felt the brothers at his back, the static hissing in his brain, and then the handle jerked free and turned. The doors flew open and he grabbed the top of the van, watching the lines on the road whiz by into darkness.

Go. He could do it, just leap, keep his arms over his face. He'd break his elbows, probably. That would hurt. Go. The books his father had given him told him about survival in cases like this and the one piece of advice he could count on was that you had to accept that there will be pain. Pain doesn't kill. Pain just hurts. So go.

d.a.m.n, that was gonna hurt.

"No, no," said Bill, sounding amused, and as Alex looked back he saw the boy nod at Steven, who leapt like a tiger and s.n.a.t.c.hed him again, sharp claws digging into his collar. He hurled Alex in a second time and Alex felt himself roll along the roof and slam into the mesh cage before crumpling to the floor.

The force shook the van and sent Alex's head spinning; the van careened for a second and kept moving. The driver, wearing a fetching black cap in the darkness, did not look back.

"Why would you do this?!" Alex roared. Steven took a seat at the bench chair and his attention was caught for a moment by a piece of felt that had been torn from the ceiling as Alex had crashed along it. He clawed at it slowly, as if amazed at the sharpness of his newly reinvigorated nails. So sharp, it cuts anything! Even felt!

Bill slammed the doors shut and came to sit next to his brother. "Did he ask something?"