Sally Bosco

DEATH DIVIDED

By Lynne Hansen & Sally Bosco

Cyberspace has fangs…

An online murder mystery club for teens discovers they have a real murder to solve when one of their members is found dead under suspicious, perhaps even paranormal circumstances. The AltDeath Club knows that their friend Rachel didn’t commit suicide. Her blue lips and withered body are not the product of poison like the Rappahannock police believe. An energy vampire is prowling their isolated stretch of Northern Neck, Virginia. The AltDeathers must find the killer before they, too, fall prey to the vampire’s foul trap. Through their investigation, Tori St. James, her wheelchair-bound boyfriend Matt, and the rest of the AltDeath Club uncover the truth—that cyberspace…has fangs.

DEATH DIVIDED – Excerpt:

Prologue – Sunday

Rachel swung one leg over the windowsill and shimmied down the maple tree outside her bedroom.  The branches ended about ten feet from the ground.  Although they never talked about it, her parents had trimmed the tree way up hoping it would keep her from ducking out at night.  

What a joke.  

Dropping the rest of the way, she landed with a crunch on a pile of autumn leaves.  Smoke from distant fireplaces tinged the night.  Rachel tugged her short skirt back down and picked at her purple paisley blouse so it pulled across her chest.  Prometheus would be pleased.  

She thought again about the last e-mail he had sent her.  

Subj:    It Is Time
Date:  November 5, 8:06:59 PM
From:  Prometheus@hotmail.com
To:      Rachel@altdeath.com

My dearest…

Tonight is the night.  A scream will pierce the darkness.  Your blood will run cold.  And when the full moon scowls from its zenith, we will finally meet.  Then we will be together in the eternal night.  

All my love to you…

Prometheus

A quiver curled through her.  This was the excitement she craved, not the fake stuff they manufactured with the AltDeath club.  Tori, Dexter, and the others just didn’t get it.  They wrote little murder mysteries for each other hoping for a jolt of excitement.  Rachel knew better.  Prometheus had taught her you weren’t living if you didn’t take risks.  

The AltDeath group had its uses.  She first met Prometheus in the club’s online chat room. 

Rachel snuck along the side of the house.  The full moon bounced her reflection off the living room window.  She paused and stroked the tendrils of her long red hair, wrapping a few stray curls around her finger to make them lay down.  God, she looked washed out.  And those bags under her eyes–she’d been tired lately and her late-night adventures didn’t help any, but she hadn’t realized how old she looked, and not in a good way.  Perhaps one more touch-up.  She applied some blusher and plum lipstick from the tiny purse at her waist.  

A face with disapproving eyes materialized in the glass.  Rachel jumped then raised her finger to her lips.  “Shhh…” she whispered.  

The figure opened the living room window.  “Take me with you.  I want to go, too,” her thirteen-year-old sister Cathy said.

“No,” Rachel said.  “And lower your voice.”

She didn’t.  “Take me or I tell.”  Cathy had her sister’s fiery red hair but she kept it cropped short so it crimped into tiny curls like a clown wig.  

“You can’t come.  What are you doing up anyhow?  Go to bed.”  

“Some people don’t get to have a computer in their room.  Some people have to share the crappy one in the living room.”

“And?”  

“You’re not the only one with a boyfriend.  I had to e-mail Danny.”

“You don’t even know where I’m going.  How do you know you want to go?”  

“If it’s worth sneaking out in the middle of the night, it’s cool enough for me.”  Cathy popped the window screen out and straddled the ledge.  

The full moon loomed overhead.  Prometheus could be waiting for her right now.  

“Look, you can’t come.  But if you shut up and promise not to say a word to Mom and Dad, ever, you can use my computer to e-mail Danny.”

“Tomorrow too?”  

Rachel sighed.  “Whatever.  I’m late.”

“So what’s the password?”  Cathy asked, not moving from the window ledge.  “The computer won’t finish booting up without it.”

“And how do you know it needs a password?” 

“Just give me the freaking password or I’ll rat on you.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes.  “It’s pandora, all lower case.  And if you change it once you get in, I’m going to kick your butt from here to Richmond.”

“But then you’d have to tell Mom and Dad why you have a password on it to begin with.”  Cathy smirked and ducked back into the house, shutting the window behind her.  

Did Cathy know?  She couldn’t possibly.  Cathy couldn’t get on her computer or she wouldn’t have asked for her password.  Still, it unnerved her.  She couldn’t have anyone finding those files, especially not her bratty sister.

She couldn’t worry about it now.  Prometheus called.  

Choosing the shortest path to the circle of oaks, she crept along the edge of the yard until she found the break in the forest undergrowth.  The dewy grass slid through her toes and she wished she hadn’t worn sandals, no matter how slim they made her feet look.  Frogs croaked and unseen animals rustled in the underbrush–raccoons, maybe mice.

She was late.  Good.  He’d want her more if he had to wait.  She shuddered in anticipation.  Or was it something else that chilled her?

Rachel looked back at the house one more time.  Her parents slept soundly, but in her own bedroom window she could see the faint glow of the computer monitor.  Cathy had wasted no time getting onto her computer.  A thought sliced across her brain–would she ever see the white two-story again?

Rachel shook her apprehension and darted into the forest.  Her stomach might be somersaulting into her ribs but the fear seared her brain and made her feel as if her actions mattered, that they could change her life.

Or end it.  

A lone owl screamed from the trees.  It dove into the bushes and swooped back into the darkness with a struggling rodent in its claws.

Rachel skidded and turned her ankle, sending a stab of pain up through her leg.  A cold blast of November air rippled her skirt and she shivered.  

Okay, so she hadn’t picked the best clothes for hiking through the woods, but she’d still look devastating if she could make it there in one piece.  

A circle of oak trees loomed ahead.  For as long as she could remember the circle of oaks protected her.  They comforted her when she cried.  They hid her when Cathy and the rest of her irritatingly middle-class family closed in on her.  They sheltered her the night she and Clive had first been together.  

But Prometheus was no Clive.  Clive might play the bad boy with his black leather and tattoos, but underneath he was just as much of a pushover as Tori was.  Prometheus though, Prometheus was different.  

She didn’t know what would happen when they finally met after weeks of chatting online.  His words made her pulse race, but would the man?  Time to find out.  

Rachel stepped inside the circle of trees.  “Prometheus, my love, I’m here.”

Her voice bounced off the flat boulders that lined the clearing.  No answer.

Rachel dug her watch out of her purse.  Ten after midnight.  She tapped her foot.  How dare he keep her waiting, even if she was late?  He’d better have a good excuse.

Pulling out her Internet-enabled purple cell phone, she logged on to the AltDeath web site to see if he had e-mailed her.

The air hung stagnant and oppressive.  Even the late autumn wind no longer howled outside the oaks.  It was as if the trees too, waited for Prometheus.  The forest cloaked itself in silence.  

A voice tumbled forth from the darkness.  “My dearest.  We are together at last.”

Chills.  

Rachel’s eyes darted along the edge of the trees.  “Prometheus?”  

An answer echoed from the other side of the glen.  He exhaled as he spoke, his voice deep and rolling.  “My darling…”    

Rachel turned.  “I can’t see you.  Where are you?”  

“Oh, but I can see you, my Rachel.” 

His voice seemed to be coming from the branches above her head.  

Rachel’s voice tightened.  “Prometheus–“

“Are you frightened?”  Now the voice originated from her left.  

“Yes.  Now stop it.  Just come out.”

“Come out?”  His voice resonated from all sides of the circle.  

“If you don’t come out now I’m leaving.”  Rachel tried to sound impatient instead of terrified.  “This isn’t funny anymore.”

“Very well.”

A dark figure peeled itself from the bark of the oaks.  Salt air surged into her nostrils.  

Rachel backed away.  “I don’t think this is such a good idea,” she said, inching toward the path.  Cast in shadows she couldn’t see his face, but right now she was pretty sure she didn’t want to.  “Maybe we should have met at Denny’s or something.”

“Ahh…so mundane, aren’t we?”  Prometheus scoffed.  “A little bit of adventure and you turn into a sniveling, unimaginative waste of skin.”

“Now wait a second,” Rachel began.  “I’m not–“

In two steps the figure crossed the ring of trees.  He sealed her mouth with his hand and whispered into her ear.  

“Oh yes you are,” Prometheus hissed.

Rachel struggled in his hot grasp.  She clutched at his clothes, kicked at his crotch, anything to get away from this monster.  Each time she only hit air.  He held her so tightly and yet she couldn’t hurt him back.  Finally she lashed out with her well-manicured nails and caught a chain that circled his neck.  She pulled.  The chain and its medallion flew backwards into the air.  

“No more fighting, my love.  It expends valuable energy.”  His words lulled her.  The full moon that had guided her through the forest now diminished.  The darkness invaded her and honey ran through her veins.

Rachel looked up into Prometheus’s intense eyes.  At last she could see his face.

“You!”  

He answered in his normal voice.  “And who were you expecting?”  The tone changed back to the reassuring lilt. “Prometheus?”

She tried to answer but the words stuck in her throat.  Prometheus tilted his head back and laughed.  The sound faded, transforming itself into the warm, salty waves upon which Rachel floated.  Prometheus’s arms rose up from the ocean’s floor.  For a moment they wrapped comfortingly around her waist.  Then, with a quick jerk they pulled her under.  She wasted her last breath on a scream that filled her lungs with the ocean’s unforgiving brine.