To her credit, Lyra looked abashed. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to . . . sorry. Pax, can you help me with my leg extensions?”

“Sure,” he said, and walked with her to the other side of the stage. Anders was already sitting on the edge, flexing and unflexing his feet; their departure left me and Malena alone at the back. If we kept our voices low, we wouldn’t be overheard.

“More intimate than sex?” I asked.

She shrugged. “It worked. Real answer is I figure if shit gets bad, you and shark-boy stand a better chance of keeping me in one piece and breathing than anybody else I’m going to find around here. You are thus elected as my new best friends.”

“Swell,” I said. “Have you noticed anything unusual?”

“You mean apart from the tattooed squatter in the apartment under yours? Nah. I’ve been watching, but there hasn’t been anything. No smell of blood, either. If somebody’s carving up the janitorial staff, they’re doing a good job disposing of the evidence.” Malena studied her nails. “I figure I’ll keep staying in well-lit areas with lots of other people around, and not get caught in whatever weirdness is going on.”

I glanced over my shoulder, making sure Lyra and Anders were still too far away to hear me. Then I looked back to Malena, and said quietly, “The tattooed weirdo is my Grandma Alice. She’s here to help make sure we don’t all die.”

“What?” Malena yelped. Everyone turned to look at us. She smiled weakly. “Get out of town, Val, you don’t dye your hair? Wow. You’ve got some great genes in your family tree.”

“We all hate her for it,” called Lyra, before she winked at me and went back to extending her left leg over her head.

“Way to draw attention,” I hissed. In a weird way, I was pleased. Any jealousy Lyra might have been harboring over my new friendship with Malena had just taken a blow. After all, Malena didn’t know I wore a wig.

“Sorry,” whispered Malena. “I just didn’t expect . . . your grandmother? Like, Franny Brown’s kid?”

“Yeah.” My great-grandmother, Frances Brown, was originally from the Southwest. It made sense that a chupacabra would have heard of her, although I hadn’t been expecting her to be remembered that clearly. “She’s here to help. Don’t worry about her.”

“Worry about her? I should kiss her. On the mouth, with tongue.” Malena shook her head. “Franny Brown was a great friend to our community.”

I blinked. “Okay, that’s cool. I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. She needs anything you can’t help her with, you tell her to come talk to me. I’d be happy to be of service. I’d be honored.” Malena shook her head. “Wow.”

I needed to get the conversation away from my family before someone wandered into it that shouldn’t have. “So nothing else has seemed strange?”

“No.” Malena looked at me. “Maybe it’s over, huh?”

“Maybe.” I hesitated before saying, “Look, this Sunday, we’re going to head for the flea market downtown. You want to come with us?”

“What for?” asked Malena.

“You speak Spanish, we’re going to be buying a lot of knives, it could be a handy combination.”

Malena blinked at me. Then, slowly, she grinned. “It’s a date.”

“There you losers are.” Malena and I turned. Jessica was standing in the wings. There was a soft thump behind me as Lyra got her foot back on the floor. Jessica folded her arms, lip pushed out in a pout like the world’s biggest toddler. “Sasha said I had to find everyone to pay for being the one who stopped rehearsal, because now it’s my fault I got hurt. This is so unfair.”

“Thanks, Jessica,” I said. “We’ll be right there.”

“Whatever.” She turned on her heel and stomped away, hips swaying so hard that I worried briefly that she was going to dislocate something.

“What a bitch,” said Anders, stepping up next to me.

“That’s an insult to dogs everywhere,” said Malena. “She’s a—”

“Let’s get back to rehearsal!” I chirped, linking my arms with theirs and starting to march, Wizard of Oz-style, toward the others. The sooner we got back to work, the sooner we’d be finished, and the sooner we could find out what was really going on.

We didn’t find out what was really going on. Malena and Pax excused themselves enough times to get on Sasha’s nerves, but they failed to find any suspicious traces of blood anywhere in the building.