by Willow Rose
Am I really a monster?
Amy looked at her hands when Billie Jean brought the ball back for her to throw again. She did, and the dog ran into the yard and found it, then returned with it in her mouth.
Amy chuckled and threw the ball one more time, only this time it flew over the fence into the neighbor's yard. The dog ran to the fence, then started to bark.
"Sorry, Billie Jean," she said. "I’m afraid that ball is gone."
The dog didn't take that for an answer and continued to bark at the fence. Amy sighed.
"Let it go, Billie Jean. It's gone."
Just then, the ball came flying back over the fence and landed in the grass. Billie Jean ran to it and picked it up, excitedly, then ran with it to Amy and placed it by her feet. She picked it up just as Kipp peeked over the fence.
"Hi there."
Amy froze. She got up and started to walk inside.
"What? I don't even get a thank you?" he asked.
Amy stopped. She turned around, a small cloud of smoke emerging from her nostrils. "A thank you? A thank you? For what?"
Kipp looked confused. "Uh…for giving you the ball back…what did you think?"
Amy looked down at the dog, who wagged her tail happily. She felt a shooting pain in her back as her wings and tail grew out. She blushed and tried to make it stop, but it was too late. She still couldn't quite control when her dragon appeared, and her parents had told her it would still happen now and then without her making it happen. She looked down at her huge feet, then up at Kipp, whose eyes grew wide.
Never in her life had Amy felt this embarrassed, but she forgot all about that when suddenly Mr. Aran came rushing into her yard, running around the house, jumping over the fence, staggering along on his long, skinny legs, holding out his strange black vacuum cleaner, and yelled at her.
"Ha! Gotcha'!"
Chapter Forty-Seven
This was torture. Absolute torture and pain. Sitting so close to Jayden, holding Duncan's hand, while Jayden was having a great time with that…that girl. That beautiful creature of a girl.
How had it come to this?
The show had started, but I wasn't paying any attention to it. Not to the acrobats, not to the horses or even to the elephants. Not even the lions could make me stop looking at Jayden and Ruelle sitting in front of me. Never in my life had I felt this terrible. This was so wrong. This was so awfully wrong and, worst of all, I couldn't do anything about it. Nothing.
Please, let this evening be over soon; please, let it be over.
The music changed and became upbeat. The Ringmaster told us now it was time for the children's favorite act, the clowns. That finally made me look away from Jayden and Ruelle. This was what I had come for. This was my grandmother's act, and I had been looking forward to seeing it for days. Nothing—not even Jayden and Ruelle together—was going to ruin it.
"Here she comes," Duncan said and leaned against my shoulder. "This is her act."
I knew he believed I had forgiven him and maybe I had. Maybe I was tired of being angry with him.
I sat up straight to better see as my grandmother and two other clowns came out from behind the thick curtain, dancing goofily, and the kids started to laugh as one of them slipped on his extremely long tie. My grandmother saw it and rushed to him but tripped over her big shoes and fell on top of him and received an even louder laugh for her little mishap. The third one ran to them, then tripped over the sand and flew into the other two, and all three of them tumbled into the arena. The entire tent burst into laughter. Even Duncan and me. It was the first time I had laughed all night, and I had to admit it felt good. Duncan looked at me and smiled.
"You're so pretty when you're happy," he said.
"Thanks," I said.
The clowns now engaged in some acrobatic act that you just knew would go all wrong, and of course, it did, seconds later when plates and sticks came tumbling down on top of the clown's head. My grandmother helped him back up, but accidentally kicked herself in the behind and fell forward on top of him, squishing her nose flat in the sand, then started to cry.
"She's good, huh?" I said.
"Yes," Duncan said. He smiled and held my hand tightly.
"What?"
"This is nice," he said. "I like to make you laugh."
"Well, it wasn't you. It was the clowns."
"Still. I brought you here."
"Don't flatter yourself," I said. "I could have gone to the circus on my own. Or with a friend."
"But you didn't. You came with me."
One of the clowns ran into the audience with a bucket that he pretended was real water but was really just confetti. Someone screamed, thinking she was being soaked in water, but then laughed when she realized it wasn't real water. Another clown then came closer to us and approached Duncan. He took off his red nose and placed it on Duncan's nose, and everyone laughed, even me. The clown then winked and smiled, and I felt Duncan go numb. As the clown disappeared, Duncan looked at me, a different look on his face. It wasn't scared, more like worried.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "Didn't you like it?"
"There was just something…" he said right when all the lights went out inside the tent.
Chapter Forty-Eight
She was running as fast as she possibly could through her neighbor's backyard, but her heavy body was slowing her down. From behind, she could hear Mr. Aran laughing manically while closing in on her, running fast on his long thin legs, changing more and more into a spider every time she turned to look.
Fly, Amy. You can fly. You're a dragon, dang it. You have real wings. Use them!
Amy tried to flap her wings, but her body wouldn't lift off the ground. A fence was approaching, and she tried again. Her wings flapped desperately, and soon she felt her feet lift off the ground, not by much, but just enough for her to get to the top of the fence, but then they failed her again, and she tumbled to the ground on the other side.
Amy complained as she tried to get up, when she spotted Mr. Aran on top of the fence, looking down at her, balancing with his eight thin legs bent. He pointed his vacuum-thingy at her and was about to turn it on when Amy managed to get up and stumble across the yard. She made it to the other side and, rolling sideways through a bush, made it into yet another yard. Mr. Aran soon set off after her, still laughing.
"You can run all you want to, little dragon, but I will get you."
Amy panted and wheezed to breathe. As Mr. Aran once again approached her, he opened his mouth and spat out a lump of web toward her. Seeing it in time, Amy in return spewed fire at him. That made him wheeze and jump backward as the web melted. Amy hurried and leaped into the street, running across the asphalt, frantically trying to flap her wings, but not having any success in lifting her heavy body off the ground. She was getting tired from all the running, but the sound of Mr. Aran's legs tapping along behind her, getting closer and closer, gave her new energy and strength.
She ran into a parking lot of some sort and tried to get lost between the many cars, but Mr. Aran jumped onto their roofs and leaped from car to car, zooming through the air, approaching her fast.
She should have heard the music, or even noticed the huge tent in front of her, but in her desperation and fear, she didn't. She stormed through the entrance and into the arena, panting and wheezing. It wasn't until she stood in the middle of it, feeling the sand between her toes, that she realized she had stormed directly into the circus, and now she was standing in the middle of it like she was part of the show.
Blushing, Amy stared at the many faces, when suddenly she realized something was completely off. None of the people sitting in the rows were moving or even blinking. Their faces were frozen, some in the middle of laughter, others while yelling, and some even in a frown. All of them were completely paralyzed in the middle of a movement. Like time had suddenly stopped. Except the very young children. They were all weeping and trying to wake up their parents.
Something was wrong. Something was ver
y wrong.
And that was when she saw it. The only things moving inside the tent were three clowns. All three of them were each bent over a human, their teeth planted solidly into their necks, sucking their blood.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The next thing I remembered was seeing Duncan's face. He was shaking me heavily and calling my name.
"Robyn! Wake up! Wake up!"
I blinked a few times, trying to figure out who I was.
"Duncan?" I looked around and realized we were out of the tent, sitting on the grass. "Where are we? What happened?"
I could tell Duncan was in great distress. His nostrils were flaring, and his eyes were worried. I had never seen him like this before. He exhaled with relief.
"You're okay. Good."
I sat up. "What happened? Why are we outside?"
He gave me a concerned look. "I had to get you out of there. Before the attack."
My head hurt as I looked at him. "What do you mean attack?"
"It's an ancient technique that is used by some vampires. They paralyze their victims and make them forget. Then they suck their blood."
My eyes grew wide. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"Some vampires have persuasive powers to a point where they can do whatever they want with humans. In this case, they paralyze them, and then they make them forget it happened. They'll see the bite marks but won't think it is important. The only people immune to it are young children. But no adults will believe them when they tell them that clowns sucked their parents’ blood, especially when the parents are being told not to care."
"So, they're like…hypnotizing them?" I asked.
"Yes. This way, they can go off on their blood rush as long as they want to and no one will remember afterward."
"But…but…I don't understand…won't that just turn them all into vampires?" I asked.
Duncan looked at me, then shook his head. "That's not how it works. That's werewolves. Becoming a vampire is a little more complicated than just being bitten."
"But…I thought…Stacy. She was turned by your bite, right? You told me she would turn into one because she was bitten."
"I had to finish it. To become a vampire, she had to drink my blood, and then I had to watch her die," he said. "I just didn't want you to know that. It's kind of brutal. She had to go through a great deal of pain."
"Does that mean that…she didn't have to turn into a vampire?"
"She would have been killed if I hadn't done what I did. She knew too much. Turning her into one of us put my family at great risk, but I saved her…for you, because you wanted me to."
"So…what about all the people in the tent? Are they still in there?"
Duncan nodded. "They won't remember anything, though. I just…their persuasion doesn't work on me or other supernatural beings. I got you out of there in time. I couldn't just let them do that to you."
I swallowed and gave him a grateful look. "Thanks…I really appreciate it."
I sat for a second as the realization sank in. So, this was my grandmother's act? Was that why my mom was so embarrassed about her?
"Jayden," I said, then stood up. I felt dizzy. "He's still in there. He'll be…they'll suck his…"
"If you go in there, they'll see you and put you under their mind control."
"But…he's in there and so is…Jazmine…"
Chapter Fifty
Jazmine and Logan looked at one another.
"What the heck is this?" Jazmine whispered. She stared at the couple sitting next to her, completely frozen in laughter. Another couple sitting in front of them were in the middle of a fight when they were paralyzed.
Logan seemed as clueless as she was. That was when something even stranger happened. In the middle of the circus arena, Amy burst in like she was about to put on some dragon act. She seemed to be in distress. Jazmine rose to her feet, not quite sure what to believe. A clown spotted her and stormed toward her, hissing, showing his fangs. He approached her very closely and sniffed her skin.
"A witch, huh? Yummy! Hey, Pete! Come over here. I've found a witch!"
The second clown came over faster than Jazmine could blink. He stood in front of her, his painted clown face really close to hers, sniffing her skin and licking her neck, almost shaking with excitement.
Logan rose to his feet and roared at them. "Hey! Get your hands off my girlfriend, you nasty vampire!"
Growing claws and hair, he turned into his wolf and growled loudly, causing the vampires to whimper and fall back. Jazmine stared at them as they recoiled, still shaking, when Mr. Aran entered the arena, looking even more spiderlike than Jazmine had ever seen him, tip-toeing along on his eight legs. His eyes were set on Amy, but as soon as he realized what was going on and spotted one of the vampires throwing himself at a human, he seemed to forget about Amy—at least for a little bit—and rushed toward the vampire-clown, holding out his vacuum-cleaner that Jazmine had seen him use to kill her own dad.
She held her breath as Mr. Aran ran to the clown-vampire and turned the thing on. The vampire screamed and pleaded for his life, but Mr. Aran showed him no mercy. He sucked his soul right out of him and into the machine and, after letting out a long hair-raising shriek, the vampire's empty body fell to the ground with a thud. Mr. Aran wiped sweat from his forehead with one of his legs, then turned to look at another vampire, who had stopped what he was doing and dropped the body of the woman whose blood he was sucking.
The clown vampire screeched and tried to run, but it was too late. Mr. Aran was on top of him, pinning him down with his thin legs before he placed the machine close to the body beneath him and sucked his soul out of his body too. The body remained behind, completely deflated.
Jazmine gasped, thinking about her dad, her heart racing fast in her chest, while Logan snarled at the spider-man, who now turned to look at Amy. Realizing what he was up to, Jazmine tried to hold Logan back, but in vain. Seconds later, he leaped toward Mr. Aran as the spider approached Amy, holding out his weapon toward her, grinning from ear to ear.
"Logan, no!" she yelled, but it was too late.
Logan was already in the air, a loud roar echoing through the tent. He landed on all fours in front of Mr. Aran, who turned to look, then shot him a grin.
"WOLF!"
Logan lifted his claw and slung it to hit Mr. Aran, but the spider jumped, and he missed. Sticking to one of the pillars in the tent Mr. Aran turned on the vacuum cleaner and held it out toward Logan. Realizing too late what was about to happen, Logan tried to get away, but couldn't.
All Jazmine could hear next was her own scream.
Chapter Fifty-One
Amy tried to scream, but not even a sound left her throat. She wished she was faster and could have spewed fire or something, but she wasn't. Instead, she stood like she was completely paralyzed as she watched Logan's dead body fall to the ground with a loud thud.
She heard a scream, but it wasn't hers. She looked up and spotted Jazmine, who was holding her head in her hands and screaming at the top of her lungs.
"Incendia. Incendia. Incendia!"
Mr. Aran jumped down from the pillar and landed in the sand. He looked up at her, then smiled.
"Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, now does it?" he said to her as smoke started to emerge underneath him. Jazmine was trying to set him on fire, but Mr. Aran tiptoed away on his long legs and avoided the fire, then sprinted for Jazmine, holding out his machine-thingy that had killed three people so far. Amy gasped in confusion and desperation, then lifted her head and threw a ball of fire from her nose toward Mr. Aran, hitting him in the back. He turned with a growl, his back sizzling where the ball had hit him.
"You…you…"
Mr. Aran gave up on Jazmine and stormed back toward Amy, holding out his machine in front of him, pointing it at her, his finger lingering on the button. Amy heard Jazmine yell something again and soon the tent was swarmed with birds. Black ravens were flying in huge flocks, diving toward Mr. Aran, peck
ing at him, but he wasn't so easily stopped. He continued toward Amy and, for some reason, she stood like she was paralyzed. It was like the fear made it impossible for her even to move until something grabbed her, and she was suddenly flying, looking down at Mr. Aran beneath her.
She looked up and realized it was Kipp. He was hanging from a trapeze, holding onto her arms, swinging her through the air and then letting go of her, causing her to dart through the air and shoot out of the tent. Amy was still in the air as she got outside and soon she realized she wasn't falling as she had expected to. She was actually flying. Her wings were flapping, keeping her up in the air and the ground at least twenty feet below her.
"I…I'm flying!"
Amy tried to lower herself, carefully, toward the ground, then fly back up and she did it without any hardship. She laughed happily at her own victory, but then heard Jazmine scream once again. She flew back down toward the tent, just as Jazmine somehow made the elephants break out of their cages and run to the arena, followed by horses and poodles. The sound of the animals approaching was deafening, and Amy flew inside the tent. She spotted Jazmine standing still by her seat, Mr. Aran right in front of her, the entire tent shaking from the approaching animals. Amy lowered herself quickly toward Jazmine as Mr. Aran put his finger on the button. Amy grabbed Jazmine by the collar and managed to get her away just in time before the suction began. She spotted Kipp, still on the trapeze, and flew past him. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up on her back as well, just before she disappeared into the night, leaving the circus, Mr. Aran, and the raging elephants behind.
