She had been so deep in thought that she hadn’t heard the voice calling her name.
When at last the shouting came into her awareness, she brushed back her dripping wet hair, wiped her nose, and turned with a huge smile on her face, expecting to see Abdel running after her.
“Michelle’s having another party,” Sudi yelled, holding her umbrella over Meri’s head.
Meri looked down the street. Abdel had vanished. She folded her arms over her chest against the cold. Her jacket was soaked and stank of wet wool, but worse, rain was dripping down her back, and her hunger was turning into sharp stomach pains.
“How did you find out?” Meri asked over the sound of her teeth chattering. “I thought Michelle was only inviting kids from Entre Nous.”
Sudi put her arm around Meri and squeezed her tightly, trying to make her warm.
“Carter got an invitation,” Dalila explained. “But I don’t have a cell phone—”
“So he called me because he knew Dalila was with us and he wanted to invite her,” Sudi raced on excitedly, her happiness escalating to a level that Meri couldn’t bear. “We have to go,” she continued. “Scott will be there. Let me see the invitation.”
When Meri didn’t move fast enough, Sudi snatched the envelope from her jacket pocket and tore it open.
“Read the fine print,” Meri warned. “It’s going to be a karaoke party, and Michelle expects everyone to sing.” Meri felt miserable, and it wasn’t just from shivering and not eating. Without Abdel, the party sounded like a night in hell.
“Singing will just add to the fun.” Sudi pulled out the invitation. “Besides, it can’t be bad if Michelle is giving it. She spends like a zillion dollars on her gala fetes.”
Sudi’s excitement ended. A high whistle escaped her lips. She handed the invitation to Dalila and shook her head.
Dalila began reading; her regal bearing seemed to slump. A sudden gust tore her umbrella from her hand, and she didn’t even try to catch it. It cart-wheeled down the street, a streak of red in the gray storm.
Dalila stared at Meri. Rainwater ran in tiny rivulets over her perfect features and twisted down her thin neck.
“We have to go.” Dalila pointed to the location written on the invitation.
“Just because it’s at The Jackal?” Meri didn’t finish her sentence but turned and started tramping through the puddles. They couldn’t make her go just because she was a Descendant.
Sudi ran after her. “Why are you so upset?”
“We don’t have time for parties. We have to fight Apep. All right?” Meri answered, but that wasn’t the reason for her anxiety. “I think that’s enough to make me tense.” She continued with her lie. “My life cannot get any—” She stopped. Every time she had said that lately, another problem had been dumped on top of the ones she already had.
“I’m going to talk to Abdel and see if he wants to go,” Dalila said behind her.
Meri spun around. She hadn’t sensed any teasing in Dalila’s voice, whose expression remained tense.
“I think he should be with us the first time we go to The Jackal.” Dalila handed the soggy invitation back to Meri. The blue ink had run until the letters were long blotches.
Meri let it fall to the ground, and the rainwater washed it into the gutter.
Then Dalila and Meri linked arms with Sudi and squeezed under her umbrella. They began walking toward the Capitol.
“Abdel won’t go to a party,” Sudi said. “He’s way too stuffy. He probably doesn’t even know how to dance.”
Meri started to defend Abdel, but Dalila spoke first.
“Do you think this means that Michelle has joined the cult?” she asked.
“Michelle’s too self-centered to join any group that doesn’t center around her,” Sudi answered bitterly.
But Meri wondered. Perhaps Michelle hated Meri for a reason other than simple jealousy. Maybe they were enemies fighting on different sides of the ancient battle between order and chaos.
Meri stared into her dressing-table mirror and smoothed on lip plumper. She loved the sting, but when she puckered up, she didn’t see any change. Then, she worried that the thick layer of balm might make her lips taste like Vicks. She grabbed a Kleenex and rubbed until her lips burned. When she had finished, tiny flecks of tissue covered her chin.
Dalila and Sudi stared at her.
“Why are you so nervous?” Dalila asked.
“I don’t know why I care what I look like,” Meri complained. “The cult is probably using Michelle’s party to trap us, anyway.” Meri threw down the tube and sprawled across her bed. “Forget it. I can’t go.”
“Of course you’re going,” Sudi said as she added lilac eye shadow above her own spiky lashes.
“I can feel magic gathering around us,” Dalila said. She took a kohl liner from her velvet drawstring bag, kneeled beside the bed, and gently began outlining Meri’s eyes.
“How do you always stay so calm?” Meri asked, loving the attention.
“I’ll share one of my secrets with you sometime, when you really need it,” Dalila said. “But if I showed you right now, you’d laugh at me.”
“Try us.” Sudi pulled a sheer top over her silky camisole. “Do you royals really have secrets that you keep from all the plebeians like me?”
“I have something better than a secret,” Dalila said mysteriously. She stood and picked up her velvet bag, then carried it over to the bay window. She pulled out three red votive candles and set them on the sill. After that, she took out a book of matches. “Ancient Egyptians didn’t have matches or use candles, but I needed one flame for each of us, and this was the best I could do.”
“For what?” Meri asked, bouncing off the bed and joining her.
Dalila seemed breathless and excited. Her enthusiasm spread through the room, infecting Meri.
Sudi sat down on the window seat, still using a fluffy makeup brush to sweep bronze shimmer over her cheeks. “What are you doing?”
Dalila smiled. “Thoughts are like magnets, and we draw into our lives what we think about most.”
Sudi and Meri nodded.
“This past week we’ve been focused on the cult and Apep,” Dalila continued.
“What else should we be thinking about?” Sudi countered and tapped the makeup brush against her palm.
“This could be our last—” Meri stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“But if it is our last night,” Dalila went on, “then let’s concentrate on something that will give us joy.” The match flared, and she lit the candles one at a time. “Great Isis, goddess of love, hear us,” Dalila began. “We entreat you to turn our thoughts to love and romance.”
Meri smiled. Unexpected warmth flowed up her arm and into her heart. She touched her chest and suddenly imagined Abdel’s lips touching hers. She caught her breath and placed her fingers over her mouth. The sensation felt too real.
“Woo-hoo!” Sudi shouted. “Did you put a spell on us?”
“No,” Dalila said. “Isis made you stop worrying about all the bad things that could happen, and she turned your mind to concentrate instead on all the good fun you’re going to have tonight.”
“But you must have done something.” Meri strode over to her full-length mirror. Dalila had made her eyes smoky and sexy. She suddenly felt all glamorous and seductive in her chiffon skirt and lace tunic. Her bare legs looked luxurious and long in her spiky sandals. She wiggled her toes to show off the three toe rings she wore for good luck.
“Wow,” she whispered, then spun around. “Dalila, what did you do, really?”
“Nothing.” Dalila smiled. “Isis banished your doubts so you could feel the confidence with which you were born. That’s all.”
“Come on, gorgeous,” Sudi teased and grabbed Meri’s arm. “Let’s go, before all the cute guys are taken.”
“You mean, before Michelle gets Scott,” Meri teased back.
Sudi stared at herself in the mirror. “Wi
th the way Dalila made me look tonight, that’s impossible.”
“I told you. I didn’t do anything,” Dalila said lightheartedly. “You’re just feeling what’s inside you.”
Meri set her cell phone on the dressing table and tucked her house key into her skirt pocket. She wanted her hands free—she smiled to herself, imagining Abdel—just in case the mental image she had had of the kiss came true.
Less than an hour later, Meri, Dalila, and Sudi strode down Seventh Street in the Penn Quarter, their high-heeled sandals tapping out their pace. The spicy smells from the restaurants in Chinatown wafted around them as they neared The Jackal, and the pulse of music came through the walls, flowing out into the night.
“We’re here to party,” Sudi reminded the other two and gave them each a mint from her tin.
“Party,” Meri agreed without any enthusiasm and bit into the candy.
“An arit sen tet er a,” Dalila recited as they stepped past the gilded wooden figures of pharaohs that lined the façade.
“May they not do evil to me,” Meri whispered, repeating Dalila’s invocation in English. Sudi mouthed the words with her.
Meri pushed through the revolving door. The rubber edges of the black glass panels made soft, swooshing sounds as the door turned.
Once inside, they stood in an entrance hall paved with glittering gold tiles and flanked with statues of reclining black jackals. From hidden speakers, the wild dogs’ howls filled the passageway.
“Do you think it’s a trap?” Meri asked.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Dalila started forward with the confidence of a queen.
At the other end of the entry, two bare-chested men wearing low-slung white kilts opened a second set of doors and waited for the girls to step through the threshold into utter darkness.
“Jeez,” Sudi muttered. “Where’s the party?”
The doors slammed behind them, leaving them in complete blackness. They waited, clutching each other, as their eyes adjusted to the gloom.
A warm air current encircled them, caressing their arms and bringing the scent of sun-scorched sand.
“Are we sure we’re inside the club?” Dalila moved away from them toward a glimmering light.
Meri joined her, spellbound. A starry night covered the huge, vaulted ceiling above them.
“It looks like we’re standing near the pyramids on the Giza Plateau,” Dalila said, staring at the scene of a desert night painted on the wall.
The angry thump of music broke their trance.
“Come on,” Sudi yelled excitedly.
Meri ran down a curving ramp that led out on to a vast dance floor.
Light shuddered across the dancers, and the beat rushed through Meri with a hypnotic feel, enticing her to move.
The fragrances from designer perfumes filled the room, mixing into one blissful scent. She flung her hands over her head and slid between two guys. Sudi and Dalila moved with her, hips undulating, bodies close, pressed next to strangers on the crowded dance floor.
A guttural yell made them stop. They glanced at each other.
“Is someone hurt?” Dalila asked.
“That’s someone’s pathetic attempt at singing,” Sudi explained.
Two voices squawked and bawled, destroying the guitar-driven music.
Meri and Dalila started laughing.
Sudi grabbed their arms. “Let’s find out who’s ruining the song.”
Scott and his friend Carter stood onstage, singing off key and laughing at their inability to read the lyrics scrolling on the prompter.
“You guys need help!” Sudi’s ex-boyfriend Brian yelled as he jumped up on the stage, joining them. He swung his head and began playing air guitar. Then he pushed between Carter and Scott, his lips on the mike. His deep, hoarse voice made everyone laugh.
Brian’s new girlfriend, Dominique, placed her hand over her mouth and turned her back to the stage so he couldn’t see her giggling.
“I love karaoke,” Sudi said, beaming. “It’s making Brian look like a fool.”
Her breakup with Brian had been bad, but she had never told Meri everything that had happened between them.
“Get off it, Brian,” someone yelled. “We want to dance, and you’re killing the music.”
Brian answered with an obscene gesture.
More kids booed him.
Sudi stopped laughing; her nervous stare made Meri take her hand.
“Are you all right?” Meri asked.
“Brian’s getting upset,” Sudi explained, no longer enjoying the taunts flung at him from the audience. She began easing back, pulling Dalila and Meri with her.
Without warning, Brian broke into a run, his footsteps pounding loudly. When he reached the edge of the stage, he dove onto the audience, his arms spread wide. Kids squealed and ducked. He landed on enough people to cushion his fall and cause pain for others.
Guys cursed and complained and dumped Brian in front of Sudi.
Brian and Sudi glared at each other; Brian’s lip curled as if he were going to say something, but before he did, Dominique placed her arms around his waist and leaned against his back.
“You were marvelous,” she said in her French accent.
Brian smiled broadly. “Yeah, marvelous.”
Sudi rolled her eyes, but Brian didn’t catch her look of disdain. Meri wondered what he would have done if he had.
Suddenly, Carter shoved through the crowd.
“I was afraid you weren’t going to come to the party after all.” He kissed Dalila’s cheek. His lips lingered, and he whispered something into her ear.
Dalila placed her hands on his chest.
A slow song began, and Carter danced Dalila away from them.
“I hate that she’s with Carter,” Sudi said to Meri. “I tried to warn her.”
Carter attended Lincoln High and was one of Sudi’s best friends, in spite of his reputation as a heartbreaker.
“I know,” Meri agreed, as a jealous ache filled her chest. “But it’s not fair. Dalila has lived a sheltered life, and yet she’s so natural with the guys.”
“Maybe if you believed you were being reared to marry a king, a guy like Carter wouldn’t be a challenge to you, either,” Sudi offered and squeezed Meri. “Besides, all your fidgeting and giggles are adorable.”
“I doubt that,” Meri answered, trying to squelch her envy before it turned into bitterness.
“Let’s go find the buffet,” Sudi said. “Chocolate will make you feel better.”
Meri started after her, but Michelle blocked their way. She had added lash extensions, and her skin had the glow of self-tanner.
“Meri, I’m so glad you brought friends,” Michelle said, even though her heavily lashed eyes expressed anger. “Hi, Sudi,” she added in a petulant tone as Scott pushed into their circle.
“Scott.” Michelle posed seductively.
“Hi, Michelle,” he said, and then, ignoring her, he turned to Sudi. “Do you want to dance? The singers aren’t the best, but—”
“I wanted Sudi to sing,” Michelle broke in. She pursed her lips in a babyish pout. “It’s my party, and everyone has to perform.”
“Sorry,” Scott said, throwing Michelle a broad smile. “Sudi’s taken.”
Michelle watched Sudi and Scott until they disappeared behind other dancers. Then she wheeled around and scowled at Meri.
“Look at what you’ve done. Sudi’s going to steal him from both of us. She’s such a—” Michelle interrupted herself with a loud huff and ran her fingers over the hem of her ruffled pink mini. “I’d tell you what she is, but I don’t use that kind of word, because it’s too déclassé.”
“She’s really popular and well liked,” Meri offered. “Is that what you were going to say? That she’s such a great person?”
Michelle looked at Meri with the purest expression of hate. “Next time, don’t bring any tagalongs unless you get my approval first.” She stomped off.
But something other tha
n Michelle was bothering Meri. She squeezed into the crowd, unmindful of the feet stepping on her toes, and continued shoving through the throng of dancers until she could see Scott and Sudi again.
When she had talked to Scott about Sudi at school, he had said that she brought him bad luck. But at the moment, he was holding her and looking into her eyes as if he were about to kiss her. That worried Meri, and she wondered what had changed his mind. She hoped it was how gorgeous Sudi looked that night and not the demon growing stronger inside him.
An odd tingling on the back of Meri’s neck made her turn around.
A man Meri recognized as the club owner stood at the edge of the dance floor, staring angrily at her. His head was shaved, and his scalp reflected the dim light. He wore a tailored suit and a black sweater. A large gold ankh hung from his neck, a talisman that kept him alive. Meri had seen him perform arcane rites while dressed in leopard skins, his eyes lined in kohl; she had also watched him die, when Sudi tore the ankh from its chain. He was the high priest of the cult. They had encountered him when they had rescued Scott.
Dancers bumped in front of Meri, crowding between her and the club owner.
When finally she made her way to the other side of the couples, the man was gone. Now she wondered how many of the kids at Michelle’s party had joined the cult. And if they had, she hoped they weren’t dedicated to bringing chaos into the world.
Unexpectedly, someone grabbed her arms. She flinched and turned around, expecting to see the club owner. Instead, Jeff smiled down at her. He was a junior at Lincoln High, and a friend of Sudi’s. She had introduced him to Meri at Michelle’s last party.
“You look pretty.” He slid his hands around her waist. “I was hoping you’d be here tonight so we could dance.”
But the way he caressed her made her think he wanted to do more than dance. She tried to ease away and keep space between their bodies, but he pressed closer, his jeans rough against her thighs.
She pushed against his chest.
In response he smirked. His fingers slipped under her tunic, and he ran his palms over her bare skin.