The Afterlife of the Party

by Marlene Perez

  I liked the sound of Marisol already.

  “Where else can we look?” I asked.

  “Maybe the housekeeper’s room?”

  “Show me where it is,” I said. “And hurry.”

  Jure struck me as the kind of man who didn’t have much patience. He’d come for me, and I needed to be ready for him.

  How was I going to get my friends out of here? There were at least seven vampires in the living room, not including Jure, who was the most powerful one of them all.

  Then I realized what Opal Ann had said. “Are the other girls still here?”

  She shrugged. “Probably. I think I heard Marisol the other night, but she was screaming a lot.” Her voice was flat, but her hands shook as she said it.

  “We have to check all the bedrooms.”

  We moved slowly and carefully. I opened each bedroom door with the keys Opal Ann had stolen from the guy probably bleeding out in her bedroom. I felt a twinge of remorse, but then I remembered what he’d done to a sixteen-year-old. Only a year younger than me.

  I stuck my head in a bedroom, but it was empty.

  There was no sign of Skyler. I heard a creak and turned, fangs bared, but it was Vaughn. His shirt looked like it had been ripped from his body, and there was blood all over his arms and legs. He gave me his don’t worry look, which made me really freak out. The last time he’d used that look, he’d broken his ankle while we were hiking. I didn’t trust Vaughn’s don’t worry.

  “I’m okay,” he said.

  “Sure you are,” I said. “You’re bleeding.”

  “It’s not my blood,” he said. “I killed one of them.”

  “What? How?” I said. It was bad enough that I was a killer, but now Vaughn had taken a life, too. It had been in self-defense, but that didn’t make it easy.

  “I found this mounted over the fireplace,” he said. He held up a sword, its blade still wet with blood. “It was bolted to the wall, but I managed to pry it loose.”

  His hands were bruised and bloody. He caught me staring at them.

  “I was…highly motivated.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “I used it on the vampire who came in.” He made a slicing motion across his throat. “Off with his head.” His words sounded glib, but his face was sweaty and pale. He looked like he was one good exhale away from upchucking all over my Chucks.

  “At least we know one thing that will kill them,” I said. “I don’t suppose you saw any more swords lying around?”

  “Just this one,” he said.

  “Why would they be stupid enough to leave a weapon in plain sight?”

  “They kept us so weak and scared, they thought we wouldn’t fight back. And we didn’t.” Opal’s voice was weary. “Except for Sarah, and she’s probably dead.”

  I sent a sharp glance her way. “That’s not your fault. Everything that happened to you isn’t your fault. It’s Jure’s.”

  Bobbie Jean stepped into view, arms raised. “Don’t shoot! It’s me!”

  I ran up to her and punched her right in her backstabbing face.

  “I said it was me,” she groused but stayed on the floor.

  “I know,” I said. “That’s why I hit you.”

  “Fair,” she said.

  I grabbed her hand and helped her up.

  When she saw Opal Ann, her shoulders relaxed, but she didn’t smile. It was too early for smiling.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Bobbie Jean said. She hugged Opal Ann so tightly that the other girl nearly fell over.

  “We would have helped you,” I said. “Instead, you led us into a trap.”

  “He had my sister,” she said. “That’s why I cozied up to Travis. He told me where she was.”

  “Well, now he has all of us,” I said.

  “I know a way to get us out,” Bobbie Jean added.

  “Oh, so now you’re suddenly on our side?” I’d had a plan, but it hadn’t included Bobbie Jean sharpening her knife on my spine.

  “Less talking, more moving,” Bobbie Jean said.

  “We’re not leaving those other girls,” I said. “We’re not leaving Sky.”

  “He knows she’s your best friend,” Bobbie Jean said. “He’ll try to use that against you. She’ll be safe as long as he thinks she’s an asset.”

  I glared at her. “You better pray she’s still alive.”

  It was too much to hope for that they kept diet soda around, but maybe one of the humans had a secret stash.

  I didn’t have much time. Jure and the others would wonder where their meal was, and he seemed like the type to get hangry.

  “Where’s Skyler?” I asked Bobbie Jean. “And don’t you dare tell me you don’t know.”

  “There’s a bedroom in the attic,” she said. “She might be there.”

  “You take Opal Ann and get her out of here,” I said. “Vaughn, you go through the house and search every room. Except the living room, where I’m sure the vampires are still drinking cocktails and thinking about their dinner.”

  He started off but came back and kissed me quickly. “Be careful.”

  “You too.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Opal Ann said. “I want to help.”

  We all looked at Bobbie Jean, who said, “Okay, but the second the rooms are unlocked and we find your friend, we’re out of here.”

  “Agreed,” I replied.

  Vaughn came back with four girls trailing him like little ducklings to his mama duck. There wasn’t time for introductions.

  I thought the attic bedroom was empty at first, but I found Skyler hiding in a closet. She had her arms wrapped around her legs and the frightened look of a child who’d just woken from a nightmare.

  Finally. My emotions seesawed between relief and anger. Was it wrong that I wanted to smack her and then hug her? I’d found my best friend again, and this time, I wasn’t letting her out of my sight.

  I slipped a protection necklace around her neck. “It’s me, Sky. I’m here.”

  Her eyes had that same scary, blank look they’d had the last few times I’d seen her. She stared at me like I was a stranger.

  I whispered stories to her of our childhood, of summer at the beach, of the fall when we had watched Connor play football, of the time in the sixth grade that Sky TPed Tamala Decker’s house because she’d called me fat. Of the time in middle school that I thought Vaughn liked me. Of the time that I finally found out he did.

  It took a long time—time we didn’t have—but her eyes eventually cleared. “Tansy?”

  “We have to get out of here, Sky.”

  “They scared me,” Skyler sobbed.

  “Shh, it’s okay,” I said, wrapping my arms around her. “We’re leaving, okay?”

  She nodded. We tiptoed down the attic stairs to where Vaughn was waiting.

  He carried Skyler, who seemed to sink into an exhausted stupor as we moved through the mansion. The other girls weren’t in much better shape. Opal Ann could barely walk, so Bobbie Jean carried her.

  Jure, because he was a rich asshole, had separate quarters for the hired help. They were in the same building but in a much less plush part. The carpet was brown, and the walls were beige. Stock artwork, like the kind you saw in hotels, hung on the walls. This part of the mansion looked like an upscale prison.

  Hilda the housekeeper was human. It was possible she didn’t drink soda, but it was also a possibility that she hid her stash from her boss.

  We didn’t have a lot of time, but we needed a defense against the vampires or we’d never get out the door.

  I felt weird rummaging through some stranger’s things, but then I remembered how the housekeeper had shown me to a bedroom and locked the door. She wasn’t innocent.

  I finally found her stash in her closet. There were two li
ters of off-brand soda wrapped up in an ugly sweater. I found a couple of minis in her boots and, when I looked under her bed, a six-pack of Diet Dr Pepper.

  “What are you doing in my private chamber?” I hadn’t heard the housekeeper come in. She was light-footed, but maybe she had to tread warily around a house full of vampires.

  She looked like she was going to scream, so I clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “Tie her up,” I said. I didn’t feel too bad about it. After all, she had to have known what the vampires were doing to all the girls locked away in this mansion.

  “You make me sick,” I hissed at her. My fangs had distended. “If they let you live, you better hope I never see you again.”

  I handed out the sodas. Bobbie Jean was wearing a pair of shorts and a halter top, so she didn’t have many places to conceal her weapon.

  Opal Ann was shivering, so I took a long gray cardigan off the chair and passed it to her. She took some of the soda. Vaughn loaded up the pockets of his jeans, and I stuffed a couple of cans in my back pockets.

  “Tansy, you’re bleeding,” Vaughn said.

  “J.T. stabbed her,” Opal Ann said. My throbbing arm confirmed Jure’s human servant had taken a slice out of me.

  “Let me see,” Vaughn insisted. I batted him away, but he caught my hand in his. “I want to take a look at it before I go kick his ass.”

  “Too late. He’s already gargling in his own blood.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Hey, you killed someone, too,” I said defensively. “Don’t get judgy.”

  Vaughn frowned. “It’s a nasty cut.”

  I glanced at my arm, which was a mistake. My blood looked thick and crusty. Dizziness threatened to overcome me.

  “Put your head between your knees,” Vaughn said, steering me to a bench in the hallway.

  “What kind of vampire faints at the sight of blood?” Bobbie Jean asked.

  I glared at her, but her words did the trick. “I’m not fainting. I just don’t like to see it. We need to get out of here.”

  I remembered I was mad at her and glared.

  “Y’all were so worried about your friend, but he had my sister,” she said.

  “Which you could have told us about,” Vaughn pointed out. “Instead, you let us walk into a trap.”

  I shot her a look. “Bobbie Jean, we’re going to get everyone out, okay? Not just Sky. Not just your sister. Everyone.”

  We were going to get everyone out of there. I had no idea how, but I couldn’t bear the thought of those girls, locked up and terrified.

  “Skyler, when I tell you to run, you run,” I said. “Don’t look back and don’t stop, no matter what.”

  “But—”

  “No. Matter. What.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll go first and make sure the coast is clear,” I said.

  I moved quietly to the door, but before I could open it, there was a rushing sound, and a blob of gray smoke materialized into a man. Or a monster shaped like a man.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Jure stood in front of the door, blocking our escape.

  The civilized businessman facade was gone, torn away by the vampire underneath.

  His talons were long and yellow-looking. His breath was so foul, I could smell it from three feet away, a rotten-egg sulfur belch of breath. Did vampires even have lungs?

  I tried not to flinch when he stepped closer to me. “Someone needs a Tic Tac,” I said, fanning the air dramatically.

  He hadn’t called his cronies yet—probably because he was more powerful than the rest of the vampires combined, and he didn’t think he needed backup.

  He’d kept these girls shackled in his house for months, and nobody reported it. Nobody noticed, or they were too afraid. But what I worried about the most was that everyone knew and they just didn’t care.

  I had to distract him. Vaughn and the others needed a few more minutes to get free.

  When Jure reached for me, I panicked. My mind went blank. I’d forgotten not to look into his eyes. I’d forgotten everything.

  “Yes, that’s it,” he said. “Come closer.”

  I strained to keep my feet from moving, but they did. His hands were so cold.

  He held me by the arm with one hand and used the other to brush the hair away from my neck. He reached one talon under the chain of my necklace. I flinched when it snapped and fell to the floor, but I didn’t move.

  I couldn’t move.

  His fangs grew longer.

  There was death in his eyes, but I couldn’t look away. He’d drink me dry. My hands fumbled for something, my brain not able to remember what it was. Soda?

  Why was I thinking about caffeine at a time like this?

  But my hands knew. They opened the tab top of the Diet Dr Pepper and threw it in his face.

  Intentions plus actions, I remembered. I wanted the soda to be like acid on his skin, to melt away the smirk—the knowledge that he was stronger than me, able to overpower me.

  And it did.

  He screamed.

  I’d never heard a sound like that of an injured vampire before. He was only injured, not dead, which was unfortunate, and judging by his roars of pain and rage, I would be dead if I didn’t get out of there. Plus, his cries were bound to alert his pointy-toothed friends.

  While Jure screamed and staggered around, I shouted to the others. “Run!” And then I ran.

  I almost collided with Vaughn as I rushed out the front door.

  “I thought you were going to the car,” I said.

  “I wasn’t about to leave you here,” he said. “I’ll never leave you.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment,” I said, “but less talking, more running.”

  We darted through the trees until a sharp ache in my side made me double over. I looked back, but as far as I could tell, no one was pursuing us.

  “Why aren’t they following us?” I huffed out the question, vowing I’d start running more once I made it back home. Or at least get on the elliptical Granny kept in the spare room that we mostly used as a giant clothes hanger.

  Vaughn wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “It’s after sunrise,” he said. Hopefully Jure wouldn’t risk going out when he was injured, and the rest of the vampires probably weren’t daywalkers.

  I realized he was right and lifted my face up to the sun’s rays. The warmth reminded me I was still alive. We started moving again, slower this time. I ached all over, but we had to keep going. We wouldn’t be safe until we were out of Diablo—maybe not until we were back home, out of harm’s way with Granny Mariotti.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  We’d planned to drive straight through until we were home, but a summer storm was brewing, black clouds filled the sky, and the girls we’d rescued were tired and hysterical, so we stopped before night fell. We were safer in a hotel room than on the road, where a hundred terrible things could happen to us after dark.

  We’d used Vaughn’s credit card to rent a three-bedroom hotel suite—the kind that had a little kitchenette, meant for vacationing families trying to save a buck. We all crowded into it. Somehow, without saying anything, they’d given Vaughn and me one of the bedrooms while six girls shared the other two. Bobbie Jean chose to sleep on the couch where she could watch the door.

  Vaughn and I were unpacking in our room. I hadn’t anticipated that we’d be gone for as long as we had, and Opal Ann’s outfit was little better than rags.

  “What are we going to do with them?” Vaughn asked. “Long-term.”

  “We’ll take them back to Granny Mariotti’s,” I said. “She’ll help us figure it out.”

  “In the meantime, we need to feed them,” Vaughn said. “Opal Ann looks like she could use a few hot meals.”

  We went into the common ar
ea to ask about food, and Bobbie Jean was sprawled on the couch, watching the television intently.

  I cleared my throat. “It seemed like earlier, you wanted to talk to me about something.”

  “Yeah, I did,” she said, but she didn’t take her eyes from the screen. She cleared her throat. “I just wanted to say thank you for getting my sister out of there.”

  I was still angry at her betrayal, but I understood it. I’d done plenty of things I wasn’t proud of to save Skyler.

  We ordered groceries to be delivered. We couldn’t risk anyone seeing the emaciated, bruised girls and asking questions. Not before we made it back to Granny Mariotti’s, where we would be safe. Where she could help us contact the authorities to help the girls we’d rescued.

  “I need a shower,” Opal Ann said. “I feel like I’ll never get clean, no matter what.”

  “It’s something that happened to you, not who you are,” I told Opal Ann. “You can be whoever you want to be.”

  “He thinks no one can stop him,” she said.

  There was a burning in my chest when I thought of Sky and all the other girls he’d hurt. “He’s not unstoppable.”

  All those girls were dying, and no one seemed to care. But I cared.

  She shrugged. “You’re probably right, but no one bothered to try. Not before now.”

  It was almost too much for me. I was seventeen years old, and I had no idea how to help them.

  “You’ve already helped them,” Vaughn said, and I realized I’d spoken aloud. “I’ll make us something to eat,” he added. “These pans are worse than I expected, though. The best I can do is veggie omelets.”

  “Sounds great,” I said. “Keep at it—I’ll be back in a few minutes.” At least I could find them some T-shirts to sleep in. I’d been doing all the shopping at hotel gift stores lately, but this time, I went to the souvenir store I’d spotted on our way in. My debit card winced when the clerk ran it, but it went through, and at least the girls would have something clean to wear.

  When I got back to the room, Vaughn was pacing.

  “Opal Ann fainted in the shower,” he said. “Bobbie Jean’s with her now.” He held up a plate. “I made her something to eat.”