“Uh, we said we weren’t into guys,” Jason said.
“No, dude, shut up! He’s gonna get the guy who’ll take us to the chicks,” Zack said. “You just can’t walk in and do this shit like it’s nothing. There’s rules that have to be followed. Right, Heath?”
“Yes,” Aurox said. “We will follow the rules.” He stood and held his cup out for another refill. Then he pointed at Zack and at Jason. “You. And you. Stay. I’ll be back with the vampyre and the rules.”
Holding his full cup carefully, Aurox crouched, and then sprang up to land on the top of the twelve foot wall.
“That was awesome!” Jason said.
“No wonder they keep this shit quiet. If everyone knew that you got, like, superpowers from vamp sucking there’d be a line around the fucking school to get in!” Zack said.
“Stay,” Aurox said. Holding the red cup carefully, he dropped down into the school grounds.
He meant to run swiftly to the field house. That was where the entrance to the basement was, and that was where he thought Stark would probably be, helping the red fledglings get settled in. But Aurox’s run was more of a sideways jog. And instead of a swift, stealthy entrance to the field house, the doorknob was turning wrong and when he finally managed to open it, Aurox’s momentum had him stumbling inside, staggering across the sand and into the hallway that led to the door to the basement and somehow bumping up against Kramisha.
“Damn, Aurox! ’Scuse yourself,” she snapped at him.
“I didn’t mean—I couldn’t get the door—well, sorry,” he finally managed. He saw that she, and the group of fledgling behind her, were staring at his beer. He followed their gazes, looking down at an almost full cup. When he looked up it was to grin at her and slur, “I didn’t sssspill any!”
“You’s shitfaced,” Kramisha told him. Then she turned toward the open door to the basement and shouted, “Z! Your boy’s out here makin’ an ass of hisself!”
“Noooo! Not, Zo, I need—” Aurox tried to whisper to her, but Kramisha waved a hand in front of her face, screwed up her nose, and backed away from him.
“Shewww!”
“Kramisha?” Zoey was coming up from the basement. Aurox was relieved to see Stark right behind her.
“That smells nasty.” Kramisha pointed at Aurox. “He been drinkin’. A lot. I ain’t entirely sure what he is, but I’m sure gettin’ shitfaced can’t be good for him.” The other fledglings were still staring at Aurox, and she motioned for them to follow her. “Let’s get settled. And leave Z to her own business.”
Watching them go, Aurox said, “I’m not a that.”
Zoey and Stark walked up to him. Zoey sniffed and looked from his almost full cup to his face. Her big, pretty eyes got bigger, but not really prettier. “Holy crap! You’re drunk!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Stark
“Drunk?” Aurox said. He looked confused and, well, drunk. “Drunk,” the kid repeated. Then he nodded with exaggerated seriousness. “Yes. Drunk.”
Zoey opened her mouth, no doubt to ask Aurox what the hell was going on, but he ignored her, stepped into Stark’s personal space, and in a gush of beer breath spoke way louder than the whisper he’d been trying for, “Stark, you come with me. You have to pretend to be vampyre-specialist-donor vampyre and make them forget vampyre pussy.”
Zoey made a noise that sounded like she might have been choking. Stark couldn’t look at her. He was too busy trying not to bust out laughing. Aurox was totally wasted! And he’d just said vampyre pussy—out loud. Man, Zoey was gonna shit kittens! The whole thing was awesome.
“Aurox, how many of those have you had?” Stark pointed at the almost full red solo cup.
Aurox squinted at the cup. Stark watched him count on his fingers. “One, two, three, four. This is four, and I didn’t spill it, even though I jumped on and off the wall. Stark, beer is good!”
“My head is going to explode,” Zoey said.
“No! No! No!” Aurox assured her, sloshing beer all around them. “Nothing bad will happen. Stark will make the human boys forget.”
Suddenly, Stark didn’t think Aurox was so funny. “Hang on—what human boys?”
“The ones with the keg who’re looking for vampyre pussy,” Aurox said, totally matter-of-factly.
“What in the hell is going on!” Zoey shouted.
“Jeesh, Zo, take a chill pill,” Aurox said. “Me and Stark can handle it.”
For just that instant Aurox sounded so much like Heath that Stark watched Zoey’s face pale. Her hand went to the Seer Stone around her neck and she fingered it nervously.
“Zoey.” Stark spoke softly, trying to radiate calm to her. “It’s going to be okay. Whatever’s going on, Aurox is right. He and I can handle it.”
Zoey met his gaze and nodded, not saying anything. Stark turned back to Aurox. Damn, it was so fucking weird! The kid looked nothing like Heath. He usually sounded and acted nothing like Heath. And yet here was Heath’s spirit, all bathed in beer, shining through Aurox so brightly it almost blinded them.
“Give me that.” Stark took the beer from Aurox and tossed it onto the sandy floor of the field house. Aurox watched it spill as if Stark had wasted water in the desert. “Now, tell me exactly what’s going on.”
“I drank beer with them. It was good, and they were nice, but they shouldn’t be here. I didn’t want to scare them and make them tell other humans about,” he paused, and did his exaggerated whisper again, “you know, my bull. So, I told them to wait and I came to get you so that you could make them go away and forget.”
“There are human boys here somewhere?” Zoey asked.
Aurox’s face scrunched up as he frowned at her. “Not here. Outside—out there.” He pointed in the general direction of the door to the field house behind them.
“Outside the field house!” she almost yelled.
“Zo, sometimes I think you don’t listen so good,” Aurox said. Still frowning at her, he continued speaking slowly, as if trying to get her to understand a foreign language. “Two boys. Outside the wall. With the keg. And cups. They. Want. Hot. Vampyre. Chicks.”
“Okay, I think I get it.” Stark grabbed Aurox’s arm and started to drag him toward the door and away from Z before she went for his throat, although that would have been funny as hell. “You found two kids, with beer, trying to get over the wall, right?”
“See, you listen better.” Aurox patted him on the back, almost knocking Stark over. “But they’re just looking through the hole for vampyre pussy, not trying to get over the wall.”
“If you say pussy one more time I’m going to smack the crap out of you,” Zoey said, coming after them.
“You can’t come!” Aurox stumbled to a stop. “You have legs and tits!”
“Oh. My. Goddess. I’m going to kill him!”
Stark stepped between the two of them. He faced Zoey. She’d gone from pale to bright red in zero-point-nothing seconds. “Z, I think this is something that a Warrior needs to handle.”
Behind him, Aurox belched, sending a wave of beer air wafting over them.
Zoey narrowed her eyes and pointed at Aurox. “You have never been able to drink!” Then she spun around and stomped back to the basement entrance, slamming the door behind her.
“She seems mad. Should we bring her a beer?” Aurox said.
Stark covered his laugh with a cough. “Ur, no. Z doesn’t like beer.”
“Doesn’t like beer? She should. It would make her head feel bubbly and happy.”