A Grave Problem

37. Reinforcements

When Mia walked into class the next day, she was surprised to see Carmine already sitting down; Carmine was never actually late, but she cut it pretty close a lot of the time. Mia sat down next to her, immediately worried about the strange look on her face; she wondered what could be going through Carmine's mind. But when she saw her friend sneaking glances across the room in Zev's direction, Mia thought she was going to have a heart attack.

"Don't stare at him!" she hissed. What was Carmine thinking?

"Sorry." Carmine said, dragging her attention away from Zev and over to Mia. "It's just that he looks so...normal. I mean, how did I not know? He's been in my class since first grade!"

"Really?" Mia stared at her friend in amazement. It had taken Carmine less than a year to figure out that both she and Anna were vampires. How had she known Zev for so long and not suspected anything?

"Yeah. I just feel so dumb for not seeing it. I mean, I figured out about you, right?"

"Maybe it's because you haven't been talking to them for as long as you talked to me and Anna."

"I didn't have to talk to you for that long." Carmine said with a look that clearly said she was feeling undervalued. "Maybe it's because there were attacks in the paper, and there hasn't been anything werewolfy that I've seen around here."

At the mention of the word "werewolf" Mia's eyes got wide. They'd already been whispering quietly, but Mia wasn't taking any chances. Especially since she was sure at least one other student here was a werewolf.

"Shhh!" Mia said.

"I am being quiet!" Carmine told her, rolling her eyes. "You worry too much."

"You just don't worry enough." Mia shot back. Carmine thought about that for a minute.

"Possibly." she admitted. Then, changing the subject, she asked, "Do you really think he'll agree to help?"

"Yeah." Mia said. Actually, he seemed to Mia like the kind of guy who would enjoy the chase. She almost told Carmine that, but stopped herself at the last minute. She knew all that would accomplish would be getting Carmine to stare wide-eyed in his direction all over again.

"Either way, I'm still glad we're going to ask. The more people we get, the better." Carmine said, sounding relieved at just the thought of having Zev and Conner there to help.

Mia knew that more people also meant that there was a bigger chance of something going wrong, but she decided not to say that out loud. Carmine was worried enough as it was – having her start to second-guess herself would only make things worse. Even still, Mia couldn't help but be surprised when she saw Zev in P.E.

"I talked to Luke yesterday." he said, as if that would hold some special significance for her.

"Oh." was all she said. She didn't see what was so unusual about him talking to Luke – he probably did that every day. If he wanted to lead into something, he was going to have to do a lot better than that. Seeing that Mia wasn't going to be asking any questions like he hoped, Zev rolled his eyes.

"You can be really difficult sometimes." he muttered so low that even Mia barely heard it.

"What?" she asked.

"Huh? Nothing." Zev said, straightening a little. "Luke said he was going with you girls to try and catch some monster?"

"A Dullahan, yeah." she nodded. Luke must have been paying attention to just how worried Carmine was. "Actually, I was going to ask you if you wanted to help us out with it."

"Really?" he raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah. Carmine says it'll be a lot easier if you and Conner come."

"Oh, so it's Carmine who wants us to come. Not you?" He had a playful smile on his lips, but Mia could see he wasn't entirely joking.

"I'm the one who suggested bringing you!" Mia told him. Of course she wanted him to come. "But if you don't want to, that's ok."

"Why wouldn't I want to?" he blinked.

"Carmine's scared. She says it could be really dangerous."

Mia would never doubt Carmine when it came to things like this, but she was still having a hard time believing it would really be that bad. After all, Summer had been worried about the banshees, and look how easy that was. Not to mention the fact that they'd already disposed of two vampires. It might be dangerous, but surely it wouldn't be any worse than that. Still, Mia figured she should at least be honest with Zev.

"Actually, both Anna and Carmine are worried about bringing you guys."

"Did you tell them there's nothing to worry about?" he asked.

"Of course. But it didn't really help. Especially since I couldn't give them any good reasons for not worrying."

Zev nodded. "Thanks." he said.

"It might be easier if we did tell them..." she ventured, even though she was pretty sure what his answer was going to be.

"I don't think so." He said it in a way that sounded more like "definitely not."

"Up to you." Mia knew it would have been a lot easier if he'd said yes, but she wasn't sure how to tell him that. She'd come back to that later, she decided.

"It was bad enough when you found out. I think Luke would kill me if Anna stopped talking to him like that."

"I'm sorry." Mia said. She really couldn't tell him how bad she felt about that.

"It's not really your fault." he said, shrugging it off. Mia wished she felt the same way. "So, what do I need to know about this – what did you call it?"

"Dullahan."

"Ok. What do I need to know about this Dullahan? And how are we supposed to be getting rid of it?"

"Carmine's working on a plan." Mia told him, giving him a brief description of what it looked like.

"Well, if it's got no head, it should be easy, right?" Zev said. "We'll just sneak up on it. Piece of cake."

Mia laughed. She knew he really did grasp the seriousness of what they were doing. Still, it was good to finally meet someone who didn't seem to think they were all going to die.

"You tell me when and where." Zev said. "I'll fight monsters any day of the week!"