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VIX SHUT her apartment door and leaned back against it. The others would arrive after a while. She insisted they stagger leaving Pent so it didn’t look suspicious when they all, internally freaking out, drove off in the same direction.
Opera was right where she’d left her, only now there was a pizza box on the coffee table with the lid propped open and the room reeked of dude farts. Half of the pizza was gone, and on the other half it was obvious, based on the rounded impressions in the cheese, that she’d eaten all of the pepperoni as well.
“Having fun?” Vix pitched her purse into the corner and grabbed a slice as she sat down.
She barely blinked, not taking her eyes off the TV screen. “I have six episodes left and I’m done with this season.”
Vix smiled. She thought she’d go dramatic sarcasm since it would get the point across and let off some steam. “That’s great news. I’m dying inside right now trying to think of a way to solve your problem before your body gets hacked, and you have six episodes left. Fan-fucking-tastic.”
“Hey!” Opera hit pause on the controller. Gracie mad that she moved. “You want me in a ball again? Unable to think? Unable to speak? Or do you want me distracting my mind so I can calm down? Which is it, . . . Vicky?”
“Goddamn it! You too, huh? I am not a Vicky! My mother called me that. I hate it.”
The girl huffed air, her chest rising and falling so fast her chest hairs danced above the shirt collar. “I’m scared, okay?”
“I know,” Vix shouted back. Taking a bite of pizza, her stomach turned. Too upset. She tossed the slice back into the box. “I’m sorry,” her voice softened. A cushion. A nest.
“Me too.” Opera stroked down Gracie’s back.
“I have a question for you?” Unsure how to ask, Vix figured she’d go right for it. “Did you see any energy spray out from you when you body jumped? Like a burst of glitter, or gunpowder?” Yeah, she probably botched that.
Scrunching her nose, she turned away, thinking. “Honestly, I don’t remember. Maybe? It all happened so quickly. If it did, I could have missed it. And if it didn’t, I didn’t see it.”
Crap. Straining to use a skill she didn’t understand, Vix tried to read Dorfman’s body for energy spatter, but got nothing. Not even a speck. Either way, she guessed that didn’t prove anything since maybe she wasn’t skilled enough to notice that kind of stuff yet. Hell, it could be all over her and she wouldn’t know it. But LaRiche would.
Opera waved in her face to regain Vix’s attention. “Why?”
“Well, LaRiche said when we die there’s a burst of energy, like an alien chest burster.” She rose and headed to the kitchen to grab a beer. “If it’s all calm, I guess the stuff settles back down, but if someone kills you, then it explodes outward.” Returning, she offered Opera a drink.
The girl waved it away. “I don’t think I died.”
Don’t laugh. “You what?”
“I mean, I left my body, but did I die?”
Vix scoffed as she popped the cap off with a hiss and guzzled half the bottle, the cold bubbles a nice replacement for the sensation of total panic. “There was a dead body, so . . .”
“But I’m right here,” Opera’s voice rose and Gracie booked it.
“Dorfman is here. I don’t know that you are.”
“Bullshit! You’re talking to me.” Dorfman had a vein in his forehead which jumped red under the skin. Opera was getting pissed.
“Then where is he?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“Okay, calm down.” She drained the bottle. “I don’t make the rules, and I sure as hell don’t know them. All I do know is, we have to get your body back before the autopsy or I’m betting you won’t want back in it.”
Her expression drooped, realization apparent. “Autopsy?”
A knock at the door. Vix jumped up and checked the peephole. Gails.
Letting him in, she peered down the hall to make sure none of her neighbors saw him. All clear.
“Hey! How’s that penis working out for you?” Gails asked Opera, laughing, as he handed Vix a six-pack and settled into the armchair.
She side-eyed him. “I can’t pee standing up. I just can’t.”
“Ha. You’ll get used to it.”
“I hope not.” Gracie jumped back into Opera’s lap. “I want out of here as soon as possible.”
Now that the beer had settled Vix’s nerves, she tried to feel for energy in the room, and not just energy, but energy texture. Opera’s was slick and smooth. Not like she was relaxed, but more so that the air about her was rigid. Taut with anxiety. The smoothness of an overfull balloon before it pops. Gails, on the other hand, jumped with activity, making a ripple effect around him. He was scheming or wide awake, maybe. When it came to reading her own energy’s texture, Vix came up clueless. Buzzed, maybe?
“How long have you had a familiar?” Opera asked her, stroking down the cat’s back and the length of her tail.
“A what?”
“A familiar.”
Confusion knit her brows. “Gracie’s my cat. Nothing more.”
Opera rolled her eyes in a that’s-what-you-think annoying way. “Sure.”
“Seriously, that’s all she is. I’ve had her since she was a kitten.”
“Okay. Sure.”
“Stop it. She’s a cat, not a . . . whatever you just said.”
The girl shrugged her broad shoulders. “A familiar. That’s fine if you don’t believe me, she’s very compelling is all. Like you.”
Vix flipped her the bird. Clearly, Opera and Gails had been talking about her. “Laugh it up, yuk yuk yuk.” She retrieved another beer and tossed one to Gails. “I get it, I’m Compelling. Capital C. So glad you two know each other.”
While the pair laughed, Vix grabbed the door at the next knock. Takon this time.
Welcoming him in, Vix had barely shut the door before Ijemma arrived. And that made five of them. Five students. Five magical beings. Like the points on a star. She shook her head. Her mind had started to wander earlier today too. Weird stuff. Repeats and mantras. It was getting annoying.
“Thanks for coming back, you guys.” Vix gestured at Opera. “As you can see, we still have a problem. Any ideas?”
Takon half raised his hand, and then dropped it as if he realized he wasn’t in class. “The body is already at the medical examiner’s office. I talked to a buddy of mine who’s studying forensic pathology and asked him about the girl from the news. He confirmed he saw them bring her in.”
Something about that whole statement suddenly made it all seem real. Vix quietly sucked for air as she took the cap off her second beer. “Okay, great. We have the location. Now we only need to figure out how to break into the place, find the body, and sneak it back out.”
“If I get back in it,” Opera said, “then we don’t have to sneak anything out. I can walk out.”
“No, what about this Dorfman guy?” Ijemma with the questions now. “We can’t leave his body there or we’d be in trouble for that.”
“Look,” Opera spoke up. “If I can get back in my body, screw this guy. They can think he collapsed and died for all I care.”
Gails sat forward, elbows to knees. “Guys, how do we explain her body getting up and walking out of the morgue?”
“This is ridiculous,” Takon crossed his arms. “We don’t have a plan to get in the morgue, let alone walk her out.”
Tension built between and around them. The same tension as the night before, but hardened. All of them one big fucked up family, coming together over a common bond of graveyard theft.
But eventually all families broke. Vix couldn’t let that happen, not yet.
She stood and clanked the remote against her half-finished beer. “Everybody be quiet.” And yes, she shoved a huge amount of Compelling on them to get her way. For the first time ever, she actually knew she was doing it when it happened. She fought a smile.
“Opera, where is your family? Who misses you right now?” Such a selfish question considering it had taken her twenty-four hours to realize she’d never bothered to ask Opera where she was supposed to be if nothing had gone horribly and catastrophically wrong.
The girl shook her head. “No one.”
“Oh, come on. Parents? Siblings? Friends?”
The look on her face confirmed her statement. “I’ve been in inpatient care at the MHW Center for over a year. My family doesn’t even know I’m out. They never visited anyway, so I never told them.”
MHW. The Mental Health and Wellness Center. Vix let that electric ball of shock and pity sink into the depths of her stomach, but played it off as if it wasn’t even there. Opera was an orphan in the world. Perfect. “I’m willing to bet that right about now, the medical examiner needs immediate family to confirm with certainty the identity of the body, and when you identify someone, you get to go look at them. All you have to do, Opera, is identify yourself.” Vix smiled wide and started clapping halfway around the room to break up the negative energy.
She stopped behind Opera and leaned in close to her ear. “Well, lady, do you want to play your boyfriend or your brother?”
