Interview with the Vixen Read online

  Turning the corner, Veronica actually smiles a little. Well. At the time it seemed ridiculous, but now—that would have been pretty funny, actually. Betty would have freaked. Her ponytail would have done a full 360, like that creepy little girl’s head in the old movie.

  Veronica keeps on walking without any real idea of where she’s going. Her house is out, and now so is Betty’s. Archie is with Betty. Where else can she go? She’s so tired she just wants somewhere to curl up and get some rest. That’s all I need, she thinks. Some sleep and then I can figure out what the hell is going on and what I’m going to do.

  Pain twists her stomach and Veronica gasps, stopping to bend over.

  Okay, okay, she thinks. I get it, body. You’re hungry.

  So maybe sleep isn’t all she needs.

  She keeps on walking. This whole eating part of her new reality? Already not her favorite. What’s she supposed to do? Drink human blood? The blood of another living, breathing being? First: gross. Second: How’s she supposed to feed from anyone in Riverdale? She can’t just attack someone. She’s not going to eat any of her friends, and that leaves her with a bunch of kids whose post–gym class sweat-stench she’s been subjected to and a bunch of adults who dress like it’s still their late-nineties glory days.

  Veronica wrinkles her nose. Sure, she may be a vampire, but she still has taste.

  Taste. Huh.

  What does it taste like? Is it one of those things where now that she needs it, it’ll be like the finest filet mignon? Or will it be more like those überhealthy grass-and-cucumber juices her parents try to force down her? Good for you, sure, but foul.

  She’s tasted blood before. Once, when she and her parents were on vacation in England. They stayed with old family friends somewhere in the countryside near Oxford, and one morning at breakfast, their hosts served a whole spread of eggs and bacon and everything, plus this sausage-looking thing they called black pudding.

  Of course Veronica tried it, and of course it was disgusting, and of course she swallowed it even as everybody laughed at her. What she’d wanted to do was spit the gross mush into a napkin, but her parents would have been embarrassed, so her manners won out.

  My parents were still alive then, she thinks, and swallows a sob.

  At least then, as a human, she’d had the choice to eat something else. Now?

  What if I don’t feed? she thinks. Will I die? Starve to death? Or what if I can only hold out so long—what if it gets to a point where my body, or instinct, or bloodlust, or whatever takes over and I have no choice? I might not be able to control myself. What if that’s what happens if I don’t eat soon?

  Veronica’s been walking without any particular direction, and she doesn’t register where her feet have taken her until she sees the sign looming: RIVERDALE HIGH SCHOOL WELCOMES YOU.

  She looks up at the building, dubious. Well. It’s the weekend, technically; no one will be there, so she won’t have to see anyone or explain what happened to her. And the couch in the student lounge is pretty comfy, if you ignore that one sharp spring in the middle.

  She sighs. “Don’t really have any other choice, do you?” she says to herself, and so she heads into the school.

  It’s easy enough to get in—over the years, with her powers of persuasion, Veronica has learned every unlocked entrance and key code from the sweet old janitor. She gets inside, half waiting for some alarm to go off, but after a minute it’s still all quiet.

  At least one thing has gone right tonight.

  Veronica makes her way to the student lounge and sighs in relief when she spots the old couch, perfectly illuminated by moonlight through the windows, like the night’s saying, Here, rest your weary feet, V.

  There’s a box of old costumes in the closet at the back of the room, she knows, and so she roots around inside, looking for something she can change into and another something that will work as a blanket. Veronica strips off her torn and bloodied dress.

  “Farewell, fallen soldier,” she says, stroking the silky Peter Pan collar sadly. “You worked hard for me. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten.” Then she puts on a dress that must have been from an old performance of Grease: a long full skirt and a heart embroidered over her left boob. It’s not particularly warm, but at least it’s clean, she thinks, and then she takes an old coat to drape over herself.

  Once on the couch, curled beneath the coat and feet tucked beneath the poodle skirt, Veronica closes her eyes and grits her teeth. If she doesn’t think about the hunger, then it doesn’t exist.

  That’ll work, right?

  Just a couple hours sleep, she thinks. Just a little while and then I’ll be ready to go.

  Then I can figure this all out.

  DILTON DOILEY LETS himself into the school building as the early-morning sun struggles up into the sky. He fights back a yawn as he locks the door behind him. Yeah, he’d rather be in bed at this hour on a Saturday morning, but he’s in the middle of an extremely sensitive chem experiment, and if he doesn’t come in to check it, it could all go wrong. If it goes right, though, it could secure him a college scholarship, and that’s why Ms. Arnold gave him a key to get in.

  Sure, maybe he hasn’t been exactly 100 percent honest with Ms. Arnold about what exactly the experiment involves, but the teacher doesn’t need to know that yet. As long as Dilton does everything right and keeps the checks regular, then that pesky little risk of explosion won’t be anything to worry about.

  Dilton’s about to head upstairs to the lab when he catches sight of a dark smudge just down the hall to his right. Probably just a stain the janitor missed but—there’s something about it that draws him in.

  He gets closer, adjusting his thick-framed glasses, and frowns. It’s not a stain; it’s a footprint. It’s the first in a chain of footprints, made in … Dilton sniffs and then wrinkles his nose. God knows what that is.

  But he follows the trail anyway. Call it the scientist in him—he sees a puzzle and he has to put it together. Give him a mystery and he has to unravel it.

  It’s silent, and an eerie quiet surrounds Dilton. School’s always weird without anybody else in it. It’s the kind of place that’s built for crowds and loud noises, not for a singular soul creeping around in the dawn hours. He follows the footsteps, his shoes squeaking alongside them, until he’s outside the entrance to the student lounge.

  “Hello?” Dilton calls into the room, and he swallows. Not that he’s nervous, or scared, or anything like that. Of course not.

  He steps into the lounge, left in its usual end-of-the-week state: recycling bin overflowing, sticky rings on the tables, a girl on the couch—

  Dilton does a double take. Okay, everything but the girl is normal.

  And then he looks closer and relaxes. “Veronica?”

  Veronica Lodge is asleep on the couch in the student lounge, which is a sentence Dilton never thought he’d say. She also appears to be wearing some kind of costume, which makes him smile because the Veronica he knows, the Veronica who’s been his lab partner since freshman year, would not normally be caught dead in a cheap, shiny pink dress like that.

  Image is important, Dilton, she’s always telling him. Lets you control the narrative. See, in those awful old glasses you had, you looked like a little kid who didn’t know jack about science. But in these? Chem genius. Fashion is not a game, trust me.

  Why she’s curled up on the couch here, he doesn’t know. But Dilton figures he should wake her up. She probably expected to be alone here, and he doesn’t want her to freak out if she wakes up later and hears him and his music in the lab. He crouches beside the couch and shakes Veronica gently. “Hey. Veronica? Wake up.”

  She stirs a little, a lock of dark hair falling over her face, but shows no further sign of waking.

  So Dilton shakes her a little harder. “Veronica,” he says loudly. “Time to—”

  —get up is how that sentence should end, but Dilton doesn’t get to say it because Veronica rears up, making an unholy
noise so loud Dilton has to throw his hands over his ears. “Veronica—oof.”

  All the air goes out of him as he flies backward, landing on the floor with a thud, and all of a sudden Veronica’s on top of him. Except—

  She doesn’t look like the Veronica he knows anymore. Instead of brown eyes, this Veronica stares with red eyes, and her usual playful smile is replaced with a cruel snarl, showing—

  Dilton blinks, like it’ll clear his eyes of what he’s seeing.

  But no. He’s seeing fine.

  Veronica Lodge has fangs.

  Veronica has fangs and they’re heading straight for his neck.

  “Veronica!” He thrashes beneath her, and, whoa, when did she get so strong? “It’s me! It’s Dilton!”

  She stops, mouth inches from Dilton’s neck, and pulls back. Her red eyes are unfocused. “Dilton?”

  THE SECOND TIME Reggie comes to, he’s in his own backyard.

  He wakes with a jolt, his eyes snapping wide open.

  This time he’s able to sit up—wincing as he does it, but he’s better than before, that’s for damn sure.

  Before.

  The car accident, and fire tearing through him, and that beady-eyed bird, and—

  And Ronnie.

  “Ronnie!” Reggie whirls into movement and pats himself down, searching for his phone. He has no idea how he got home, and, it turns out, no idea where his phone is.

  The last thing he remembers is that intense pain that had spread through him—like he’d been on fire. But when he looks at his skin, he sees no marks, no blemishes. And he feels—fantastic. Better than he’s ever felt before, maybe—like the adrenaline of scoring a touchdown but none of the pain from the tackles he has to take to get there.

  It’s as if nothing at all happened to him. Not that fiery pain, not the car accident.

  Nothing.

  Reggie slowly climbs to his feet. He’s way down at the end of their long, lush yard. Up ahead he can see his house, cloaked in clouds. He has no idea what time it is, or even what day it is, but nobody in his house seems to be awake or aware of his existence out here.

  I have to get back to Ronnie. She must be out there, still, stuck on the road. And the longer I wait around here, the longer she has to lie there, in pain. Maybe—

  No. She’s not dying. Not if he can help it.

  Reggie starts up the garden, his feet dragging through the mud. And then—

  A shadow moves across the lawn in front of him.

  Reggie freezes. Stiller than he’s ever been before. The reflex happens so fast, he’s almost shocked by it.

  Ahead, the shadow trots out into the foggy morning, the red of its coat gleaming.

  A fox.

  Reggie locks eyes with the raggedy creature, and everything else around him fades away. All he sees is this animal; all he hears is the steady thump-thump-thump of its heart, the dull roar of its blood rushing through it.

  What happens next is beyond Reggie’s control.

  One second he is watching the fox, and the next he has moved; he has leaped on it and pinned the creature to the ground.

  It begins to make noise, a piercing shriek, and Reggie grits his teeth as he wraps his hands around its neck and twists and—

  Snap.

  The fox falls silent.

  It’s still warm, though, the thrum of life still faint beneath its skin.

  There’s a gnawing hunger inside Reggie, and something is calling to him. Something about this animal and himself.

  And he is starving, suddenly, aching as if he hasn’t eaten in days, weeks, months, and before he knows it, he has brought the fox to his mouth.

  He bites, fur and tough skin and muscle grinding against his sharp teeth but then, the break, the barrier giving way, and the animal’s hot blood gushes into Reggie’s mouth, and he lets out a noise of feral satisfaction.

  More, more, he thinks as he feeds from this poor creature, alive only a few short moments ago.

  He hunches over the animal and does not think about what he is doing, does not consider Veronica, does not notice the hot blood turning to cold stickiness around his mouth and down his neck and all over his hands.

  Reggie doesn’t notice any of that. He just feeds.

  VERONICA SHAKES HER head, a face coming into focus beneath her. Glasses, freckles scattered across light brown skin, deep brown eyes open wide—

  Dilton?

  She becomes aware of their positions: him looking terrified on the ground and Veronica pinning him there.

  “Oh my god!” She jumps up and it’s like some tide is receding. The red film over her eyes fades to leave the scene before her bathed in its usual Technicolor, and then there’s the weirdest sensation as, within her mouth, those brand-spanking-new fangs shift and move, retracting into her gums. Veronica feels it and touches a hand to the outside of her mouth, awed, and then she shakes her head. “Dilton, I’m so sorry.”

  He doesn’t move, watching her from the floor. “Veronica,” he says, his normal introspective tone replaced by something a little shakier. “What—your eyes. Your teeth.”

  “I didn’t mean to jump you,” she says. Okay, so maybe there’s her answer about the whole what happens if I don’t eat thing. Or maybe it was just because he woke her up—she’s never been a morning person. Maybe she can totally control her hunger, actually.

  Her stomach twists in response, the yawning ache inside her making itself well and truly known.

  Or maybe I need to eat something before I eat somebody.

  Dilton’s still eyeing her suspiciously, and Veronica shakes her head. “You—surprised me. I didn’t think anyone else was in the building,” she says.

  If she talks at him enough, maybe he’ll forget what it was he just saw. Or—what he thinks he saw, right, because maybe he didn’t see Veronica’s face all vamped out at all—if she can convince him he didn’t see that, then she’ll be safe and she won’t have to worry about Dilton Doiley.

  “I guess you’re thinking, like, what the hell is Veronica doing sleeping in the lounge?” Her voice is too high, but she can’t seem to bring it down to its normal pitch. “Weird, right? But I mean, it’s a funny story, so—I’m heading up the costume department for the musical and I thought I’d get a head start working on things, so I just came in to check out the supply situation and I guess I was super tired or maybe I’m coming down with something, maybe I should go to the—”

  “I saw you.” Dilton cuts her off, and he doesn’t look so terrified now, but he is still staring at her with an intensity that makes Veronica want to run away as fast as she can.

  Run, rabbit. Run run run.

  “I saw you,” he repeats, and he gets up, slowly. “What’s going on, Veronica?”

  Veronica swallows. “Dilton, I can explain,” she says. “I …” But she can’t explain, can she? The only explanation she has is the truth, and what will sensible, logical Dilton Doiley say when she tells him she was bitten by a vampire and is now a vampire herself?

  “Dilton, I didn’t mean to—” She cuts herself off and begins to slink toward the door. “Listen. Forget you ever saw me. You don’t need to be involved in this.”

  Dilton moves to the doorway, blocking her in. “I saw you,” he says earnestly. “Veronica, I’m not stupid. I know—I know what you are.”

  Veronica stops where she is and raises her eyebrows. “What?” she says. “Dilton Doiley, don’t tell me you believe in vampires.”

  Dilton reddens a little at the word and straightens his glasses where Veronica had knocked them askew. “Contrary to popular belief,” he starts, and Veronica recognizes his lecture tone, “vampires are not solely mythological creatures. There’s plenty of historical evidence to … what?”

  Veronica knows he’s stopped because she’s laughing, but she can’t help herself. It’s just all so out-of-this-world absurd that the only thing she can do is let the laughter bubble up. If she stops to think about all of this for a moment too long—about the hunger she is
n’t sure how to feed, and the new world she’s in, and her dead parents, oh god her dead parents—then she’s pretty sure she’ll lose it. She’ll shatter into a thousand bloody pieces, and as much as this vampire thing has shaken her, she’d still quite like to live, thank you very much.

  “What?” Dilton says again, his eyes narrowing. “What’s so funny?”

  More absurd—a minute ago she was ready to rip Dilton’s throat out, and now he’s standing there telling her all about the historical legacy of vampires.

  “Nothing,” Veronica says, covering her mouth. “I just can’t believe your immediate reaction to what just happened is ‘I completely believe, without even a second’s doubt, that what I just witnessed was definitely Veronica Lodge as a vampire’ and not more like my reaction, which was ‘Holy crap I’m either hallucinating or in some kind of fever dream because vampires are not real,’ you know?”

  “I’m a scientist,” Dilton says self-importantly. “I trust the evidence in front of my own eyes, every time.”

  Her laughter fades. “So you …” She isn’t sure what to say, really. She likes Dilton, and he’s a good lab partner, but they’ve never really hung out outside of school. She never would have expected that, out of anybody who might find out, he’d be the one to instantly believe her and understand, and most graciously of all, to not make her feel like she’s the protagonist in an extended, extremely realistic nightmare. “You believe in vampires, or whatever? You aren’t—you aren’t scared of me?”

  Now Dilton’s the one who laughs. “Of course I’m scared of you,” he says. “Everybody’s scared of you, Veronica. But if you’re asking am I scared specifically because you’re something more than human? No, not particularly.”