FRIDAY NIGHT, Serena was the first to arrive. She wore a slinky one-shoulder black dress with a plunging neckline and a beaded gold belt slung low on her waist. She carried a fringed bag, and Jimena suspected that her dangling earrings were a gift from Stanton.
“Wow,” Jimena squealed, as she let Serena into her grandmother’s apartment. “You’re dressed to kill.”
Serena seemed breathless with excitement. “What about you? I love that halter top with the split up the middle.”
“Thanks.” Jimena hurried back to the bathroom. She hadn’t finished putting on her makeup yet.
A sly smile crossed Serena’s face as she sat on the edge of the white porcelain tub. “Why are you fixing yourself up so special tonight? Are you meeting some hottie you haven’t told me about?”
“I do this whenever we go out.” Jimena rolled mascara on her lashes.
“You always look good, but tonight you look extra special. Maybe it’s the glow of love,” Serena teased.
Jimena bit her lip. She had been dying to tell Serena about Veto all week, but the right time never came. It seemed that Serena was always running off with Stanton, and if she and Serena had a moment together, Catty and Vanessa always showed up.
Jimena turned and faced her. “There is someone.”
Serena gasped with delight. “I knew it. I’ve been picking up these dreamy thoughts from you all week of kissing and hugging, but I couldn’t see who you were with.”
“No fair reading my mind,” Jimena said with a smile as she snapped crystals into her hair.
“Who are you going to see?” Serena stood.
Jimena looked back at the mirror and saw a blush rising to her cheeks, then she glanced at Serena’s reflection.
Serena appeared perplexed. “Veto?! How?” Then her face became serious. “How are you going to meet Veto at Planet Bang? Are you having a séance?”
Someone knocked at the door.
“I’ll explain later.” Jimena hurried to answer the door.
Serena followed her. “Tell me.”
“His ghost is still haunting me,” Jimena teased mysteriously. She didn’t have all the answers yet herself, so how was she going to explain Veto’s sudden reappearance to Serena? “Let’s talk later.”
She opened the door and Catty and Vanessa pushed inside. Catty wore an iridescent hot green mini and matching eye shadow. Vanessa had covered herself with an ultrafine glitter. It looked really hot with her gold halter top. Her skirt hung across her flat stomach and hugged her hips.
“Tell her she needs to pierce her belly button if she’s going to show off her body like that,” Catty said as if she were continuing an argument they had started on the bus.
Vanessa ignored Catty. “Are we still planning to go to the park again tonight? It feels like such a waste of time. We haven’t seen Cassandra all week.”
“I think she knows about our plan and that’s why we haven’t seen her,” Catty said.
Vanessa stared at Serena. “Did you tell Stanton that we were planning to stake out the park? He might have said something to Cassandra.”
“I can’t believe you’d think I’d tell Stanton our plan,” Serena answered and toyed nervously with her new gold earrings.
“It’s just strange Cassandra never showed up.” Vanessa sighed. “I guess we should go to the park one last time.”
“Dressed like this?” Catty asked.
“No one will see us if we’re careful.” Serena started toward the door.
Jimena followed her. “Yeah, and if some tecato does see us he’ll just think he’s having a heroin dream.”
Vanessa stuck her hand into her gold velvet bag and pulled out a lipstick. She brushed it across her lips. “It’s Friday already, and it just seems that if we haven’t seen Cassandra once all week we’re not likely to see her tonight. Besides, the moon is full. Do you really think she’d do anything during the full moon?”
The Daughters were more powerful under the steady glow of a full moon, but Followers were betrayed by the same light; their eyes turned phosphorescent and even ordinary people could sense their evil during that time.
“You just want to get to Planet Bang because you’ve made up with Michael again,” Serena said accusingly.
“Would you stop reading my mind!” Vanessa tossed the lipstick back in her purse.
“What was all the big deal about needing breathing room?” Catty badgered.
Vanessa beamed. “We gave each other breathing room, but then we missed each other too much.”
“You mean you were afraid he’d get interested in someone else,” Catty put in.
“Maybe.” Then Vanessa looked at Jimena. “Seriously, do you think it’s worth staking out the park one more time? Maybe we should just go on to Planet Bang.”
“I think we should try one last time.” Jimena opened the door.
“Yeah,” Serena agreed. “Then we’ll go see Maggie tomorrow.”
The night was warm, with a gentle wind. They walked up Wilshire Boulevard under swaying shadows cast from the palm trees. As they neared the park Jimena noticed how each of them became quieter and started glancing at her moon amulet.
They hadn’t gone far when they passed a guy removing the hubcap from his car. He looked suspiciously at Jimena, then stood and with the skill of a magician, swapped a small plastic bag for the bills wadded in the trembling hand of a man standing near him. Only someone who knew would have seen the transaction. Others would have thought the drug dealer was shaking the hand of a friend who had come to help him change a tire.
The full moon hung low in the eastern sky as they strolled into the park. Homeless people were starting to make beds for the night, laying out pieces of cardboard and claiming shelter under park benches.
Vanessa kicked aside a used hypodermic syringe. “I don’t know what Followers could do to make the park worse.”
Catty agreed. “What would they want to do here anyway?”
“It doesn’t make sense, when they usually hang out in Hollywood.” Serena added.
Jimena looked around. “The park’s different during the day, when the old men and street vendors and children are here. It’s a nice place then.”
“Yeah, maybe the Followers have always claimed it at night,” Catty suggested. “That could explain all the bad stuff that happens here after the sun goes down.”
They stopped near the edge of the lake. Jimena’s amulet began humming softly against her chest. “Look,” she whispered.
Cassandra walked toward them, her hips swaying with practiced ease, and high-heeled boots clicking nicely on the asphalt path. A breeze blew through her long maroon hair as she tossed her head. She wore tight, low-cut jeans and a skimpy studded top. Silver chains dangled low on her hips. Under the moon’s steady glow the jagged STA scars on her chest seemed to luminesce against her skin. Her eyes burned yellow.
A homeless man started to ask her for money but then drew back as if he had suddenly sensed her evil.
Jimena, Catty, and Vanessa quietly stepped into the shadows. Jimena had to pull Serena after them. Jimena felt a kind of nagging fear at the back of her mind as she watched silently. Her nerves tingled with anticipation.
Cassandra stood at the edge of the lake and waited for a paddleboat to drift toward her.
“How did she do that?” Vanessa wondered. “The boats are all tied together.”
Jimena shook her head “Maybe she didn’t do it. Maybe the boat just got loose.” But she knew that wasn’t the case. She sensed that more was happening than they were seeing. She could feel the change in the air, something electrical and alive.
Cassandra stepped into the boat.
“Why’s she doing that?” Catty asked in a low voice.
“That’s what I saw her do that first day,” Jimena whispered back. “The boat ride was closed, but she somehow found a stray boat and stepped on.”
Cassandra rode the bobbing boat toward a geyserlike fountain.
Jimena was filled with frustration. Her muscles felt tight. “We can’t see her if she goes behind the jet of water.”
“I’m going to go invisible and follow her.”
Already Vanessa’s molecules were starting to separate and she looked like a dusty cloud. The cloud swirled with a twinkle of gold, and then she became completely invisible.
Jimena could no longer see her, but she could feel a soft breeze as Vanessa flowed up and over her and headed toward the lake.
They waited impatiently in the shadows. Then a thought rose inside Jimena and she knew Vanessa was in danger. Her hands clasped into fists, and she started to run toward the lake as the ground began to tremble.
Thunder crashed through the air and the earth shook.
Jimena stopped. She glanced up and saw a golden burst of light over the lake. The light quickly became a dense form.
“Vanessa!” Jimena shouted with alarm.
Vanessa was visible again and tumbling quickly toward the water.
“Come on. Let’s go help her!” Serena yelled, but Jimena was already running to the other side of the lake.
Just as Vanessa was about to hit the water, her molecules separated into long strands and she became invisible again.
“She caught herself just in time.” Catty panted as she came to a stop.
Serena slowed her pace. “Something bad must have happened to make her lose her concentration. Do you think Cassandra did something to her?”
“I hope she’s all right,” Jimena whispered.
A whirlwind whipped around them and then molecule by molecule Vanessa pulled herself back together until she was standing whole in front of them.
“What happened?” Catty asked.
“Cassandra disappeared.” Vanessa caught her breath.
“What do you mean disappeared?” Jimena felt baffled. “How could she just disappear?”
Vanessa smoothed her hands over her body, straightening her halter and skirt. “Just that. She was there one minute and the next, both she and the paddleboat were gone. I wasn’t expecting it, so I lost control and started falling toward the water.”
The girls stared at each other.
“Does she have a special power like Vanessa’s?” Catty wondered.
Serena shook her head. “I’ve never heard Maggie mention it. She would have told us. Some of the Followers are shape-changers, but those are all Immortals.”
Vanessa interrupted. “You didn’t let me finish.” Her hand clasped Jimena’s wrist. Her fingers were ice-cold.
“There’s more?” Catty’s eyes widened.
Vanessa nodded. “It didn’t look like she became invisible. I would have understood what was happening if I’d seen her molecules spreading. It was just that she was there and then all of a sudden she was gone. As if she and the paddle-boat had passed into another dimension.”
They stared out at the moon’s reflection on the lake.
Catty broke the silence. “So now we’ve seen Cassandra in the park, but can anybody figure out what she was doing?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“What we do know is that she’s doing something odd here and that it involves the lake,” Jimena said.
They all turned back and watched the shooting fountain in the middle of the water.
Serena nodded and stepped to the edge of the lake. “What’s so important about this lake?”
“Beats me,” Catty answered.
“The land here used to be a swamp,” Jimena explained. “But the swamp was drained a long time back, and now the red-line subway tunnels under it, so the lake’s bottom is actually the subway’s roof.”
Vanessa looked perplexed. “That doesn’t sound like enough of a reason for Cassandra to be interested in it.”
“Maybe it’s what you said,” Catty put in.
Vanessa turned to her, confused. “What?”
“Maybe she goes into another dimension. . . . Maybe there’s a door or tunnel into another realm,” Catty suggested.
“Could be,” Vanessa answered.
“We can ask Maggie tomorrow,” Serena suggested.
Finally, Jimena took a deep breath and sighed. “We might as well go on to Planet Bang. We’re not going to get anything done here.”
The girls started walking away from the lake. They didn’t noticed the empty paddleboat bobbing back to the shore.