Revenant Read Online Free PDF Page A

So—believing vampires are real? Uh-uh.”
    “It’s not like Dracula—”
    There was a honk from the back of the kitchen, outside the door. Rhonda was there. I grabbed up my backpack (small, black, and covered in Jolly Rogers—borrowed from Rhonda’s old stash), kissed Mom on the cheek, grabbed Tim’s rock, and held it up. “I’m taking this,” and I bounded out the back door and down the steps, again feeling the gentle tug on Mom and Jemmy’s wards on the house.
    Rhonda had made good time getting to the shop since she now lived in her uncle’s secondary estate in Alpharetta (I kinda knocked down the first one—oops)—a thermos of oolong tea out and ready for me (I would have preferred coffee, but Rhonda was all about this keeping the mind and body in sync shit lately)—and a granola bar.
    Ick. Twigs in a wrapper.
    I’ll pass.
    Tim appeared ghostylike in the backseat as I tossed my backpack into his middle. He frowned at me and vanished—but I knew he was still there. I had his rock.
    Rhonda was dressed in her usual—black hoodie, jeans, anarchy shirt, black nails and lipstick, dark makeup even at the butt crack of dawn. A month ago she’d gone through this weird transformation when she’d housed my mom’s soul for a bit when Nona ran away from TC—but couldn’t get back in her body. Rhonda had actually started looking basically normal—new haircut, clothes, shoes—but now she was pretty much back to her old self.
    And looking nothing like the leader of a secret society should.
    This morning her hair was in pigtails. Her earlobes had skulls and crossbones in them. “You tell Nona?”
    “Uhmhm . . .” I sipped the tea after pouring it into the thermos lid. Mmmmm. Nontoxic. “You know she’ll be on the Internet or on the phone to Jemmy in less than an hour.” I managed to get my seat belt fastened before Rhonda took off, snapping my head back on my neck.
    We drove in relative silence as Atlanta woke up slowly on a Wednesday morning. Traffic grew increasingly thick as she took Ponce into Decatur—luckily it was heading in the other direction. The silence continued, though it wasn’t as thick as Rhonda’s non-speak. She was thinking, wanted to ask me something.
    But . . . I could wait it out.
    *Whistles*
    I finally refastened the lid on the thermos and put it between my legs before holding up my hands. “What?”
    Rhonda was actually smirking behind that dark lipstick. “You have got to be the worst liar I’ve ever met.”
    “Hah?” I played it off not guilty, but my mind was barreling zero to one hundred toward the door handle—in case she decided to zap my ass.
    Oh. Yeah. There have been a few changes with Rhonda’s little magic as well. Zapping being in the top five.
    “This sneaking out at night?”
    Man, I was sure I looked guilty as hell. I stared at her, trying to figure out exactly how she knew . I threw Tim an accusing stare, but he only shrugged his half-visible shoulders.
    “Don’t look at him,” Rhonda said. “He didn’t tell me anything.”
    I decided that being silent and feigning innocence was the best course of action. There it was again—that really weird insane desire for me to be quiet. Hrm . . .
    “Zoë—who is it? Is it Dags? I mean—I understand it. I don’t like it—but I understand the attraction. I have it too—and I don’t think it’ll ever go away.”
    If you could actually see the face I was planting at that moment as I stared at her. I mean stared at her as if she’d grown not just a third eye on her forehead but a whole other face.
    And she was still talking!
    “—he was in town. It’s not that I keep spies on him or anything. I mean—well, yeah, I do—’cause he’s got the Bonville Grimoire and all locked inside of him. But I also worry about him. So if you’re sneaking out to see him—”
    “Wait!” I put up a hand as she made a really scary last-minute turn to the right. “Stop—please. Before I totally hurl on you.