Finale

waitress who swept past. I surreptitiously glanced around for Patch, but he hadn’t surfaced. I’d rehearsed my lines too many times to count, but my palms were still slick with sweat. I
wiped them on my thighs, wishing I were a better performer. Wishing I liked drama and attention.
    “You don’t look so good,” Vee said.
    I was about to quip that I was probably carsick from her lack of finesse at driving, when Vee’s eyes swiveled past me and her expression soured. “Oh heck no. Tell me that isn’t
Marcie Millar flirting with my man.”
    I craned my neck toward the stage. Scott and the other members of Serpentine were onstage warming up for the show, while Marcie propped her elbows prettily on the stage, singling out Scott for
conversation.
    “Your man?” I asked Vee.
    “Soon to be. Same difference.”
    “Marcie flirts with everyone. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
    Vee did some deep breathing that actually made her nostrils flare. Marcie, as if sensing Vee’s negative vibe like voodoo, looked our way. She gave us her best beauty pageant wave.
    “Do something,” Vee told me. “Get her away from him.
Now.
”
    I jumped up and strolled over to Marcie. On the way over, I worked up a smile. By the time I reached her, I was pretty sure it looked almost genuine. “Hey,” I told her.
    “Oh, hey, Nora. I was just telling Scott how much I love indie music. Nobody in this town ever amounts to anything. I think it’s cool he’s trying to make it big.”
    Scott winked at me. I had to shut my eyes briefly to keep from rolling them.
    “So . . . ,” I drew out, struggling to fill the lapse in conversation. At Vee’s command, I’d come over here, but now what? I couldn’t just drag Marcie away from
Scott. And why was
I
the one over here playing referee? This was Vee’s business, not mine.
    “Can we talk?” Marcie asked me, saving me from having to come up with a tactic on my own.
    “Sure, I have a minute,” I said. “Why don’t we go somewhere more quiet?”
    As if reading my mind, Marcie grabbed my wrist and propelled me out the back door and into the alley. After glancing both ways to make sure we were alone, she said, “Did my dad tell you
anything about me?” She dropped her voice further. “About being Nephilim, I mean. I’ve been feeling funny lately. Tired and crampy. Is this some kind of weird Nephilim
menstruation thing? Because I thought I already went through that.”
    How was I supposed to tell Marcie that purebred Nephilim, like her parents, rarely mated together successfully, and when they did, the offspring were weak and sickly, and that some of
Hank’s final words to me included the somber truth that Marcie would in all likelihood not live much longer?
    In short, I couldn’t.
    “Sometimes I feel tired and crampy too,” I said. “I think it’s normal—”
    “Yeah, but did my dad
say
anything about it?” she pressed. “What to expect, how to cope, that kind of thing.”
    “I think your dad loved you and would want you to keep living your life, not stressing about the whole Nephilim thing. He’d want you to be happy.”
    Marcie looked at me incredulously. “Happy? I’m a freak. I’m not even human. And don’t think for one minute I’ve forgotten you aren’t either. We’re in
this together.” She jabbed her finger accusingly at me.
    Oh boy. Just what I needed. Solidarity . . . with Marcie Millar.
    “What do you really want from me, Marcie?” I asked.
    “I want to make sure you understand that if you so much as hint to anyone that I’m not human, I will burn you. I will bury you alive.”
    I was running out of patience. “First off, if I wanted to announce to the world that you’re Nephilim, I already would have. And second, who would believe me? Think about it.
‘Nephilim’ isn’t an everyday word in the vocabulary of most people we know.”
    “Fine,” Marcie huffed, apparently satisfied.
    “Are we done here?”
    “What if I need someone to talk to?” she persisted. “It’s not like I can dump this on my psychiatrist.”
    “Um, your mom?” I suggested. “She’s a Nephil too, remember?”
    “Ever since my dad disappeared, she’s refused to accept the truth about him. Big-time denial issues going on there. She’s convinced he’s coming back, that he still loves
her, that he’ll annul the divorce, and our lives will go back to being peachy keen.”
    Denial issues, maybe. But I wouldn’t put Hank above mind-tricking his ex-wife with