Fangtabulous by Lucienne Diver

eyes to concentrate his mental mojo on the locks and alarm system.
    Brent clenched his teeth together to keep them from chattering and wrapped his arms around himself. Marcy added hers and huddled against him for warmth, but since she didn’t generate any of her own, I doubted she was good for more than a windbreak.
    The door popped open in Bobby’s hand.
    “Quickly,” he said, holding it aside for us. “I gave the alarm system a burst, which should blank it temporarily. If we’re lucky, it’ll look like a natural power surge.”
    We hurried through, and Bobby yanked the door shut behind us, making sure it was firmly locked again so that we’d be the only people who didn’t belong skulking around the place.
    “Okay, guys, just in case the security company sends someone to check things out, we want to get in and get out. No dawdling,” Brent commanded, like he was still one of our handlers back at spook central.
    “Sir, yes, sir,” I said, giving him a mock salute.
    Marcy, maybe to prove she was her own person, paused in front of a window display that held an incredible cobalt-blue kimono-style dress with golden dragonflies taking flight across it and a matching gold sash. She came with us when I tugged her away, but reluctantly, like she was already planning how to spend her tips—and not on gas and food. Not that I blamed her.
    Bobby tumbled the locks of the Morbid Gift Shop with his mental mojo, and we all ducked inside. There was plenty to gawk at here too, of course, especially if you were in touch with your inner goth, but I think we all felt Brent’s sudden tension in some way. It infected us with an unnatural seriousness.
    Gravely, Brent removed his gloves and tucked them into his jacket pocket. He removed his cap, too, as if it might stop him from getting some kind of signal. Or maybe it was just about not overheating, now that we were out of the wind and into a store that still retained its heat even if it had been shut off for the night.
    “Quiet,” Brent warned us, though no one had spoken.
    I looked at Marcy, who made a funny face behind Brent’s back. I tried not to laugh, which would definitely break
the quiet. Instead, I watched, curious. I’d never really seen Brent work before. Not up close and personal. Spying from a
distance, before I was sure we were on the same side, hadn’t given me a really good feel for what he could do.
    Brent approached the coffin on the cart that made up the front window display. The look on his face was something between determined and … scared? Nervous, anyway. I wondered what he thought he’d find.
    Marcy, Bobby, and I hung back, Marcy apparently taking seriously her offer to play look-out, because she kept glancing back and forth between the window and Brent, keeping an eye on both.
    I watched as Brent closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths as if psyching himself up for what he was about to do, and reached out to touch the coffin. Even with his eyes shut, I could see them roll up into the back of his head. His whole body tensed and began to shake. Then his mouth fell open with a low moan. It was eerie. Goose bumps started on my arms and flowed right on up to the back of my neck, standing my hairs on end. Brent’s shakes started to give way to more violent twitching, almost convulsions.
    Marcy let out a gasp and moved toward him, but Bobby got there first. He reached for the hand connecting Brent to the coffin, and as soon as he made contact with it, images burst into my head—like Bobby’s mind-reading was being overloaded and broadcasting on all frequencies.
    Inside the coffin, someone thrashed … or once had. I knew that terror. I’d awakened in a coffin myself and had to claw my way out, but this guy—and I knew it was a guy from the dark, wiry hair on the back of the hands beating at the sides of his prison—didn’t have super-vamp strength. He was purely human and running out of air, his lungs working hard to inflate in the absence of oxygen.