by Brian Rowe
“Are you ready for the show to begin?” Chace asked.
Paul looked at Chace and shook his head. “You still have some of my spit on your cheeks. You should probably take care of that. As my dad’s newfound son, you’ll want to look presentable.”
“Nah,” Chace said. “He’s about to watch you die. Nothing could change the mood he’s in. He’s happy, Paul. He’s happier than ever.”
They made a sharp right turn, then a left, then another right. Chace and Sawyer pulled Paul through a big set of double doors, emerging into the underground underneath the Underground, the same place Brin met Droz.
But Chace and Sawyer didn’t give Paul a lot of time to reminisce about the recent past. They started to lead him up the staircase, to the auditorium, to the vampires.
“You don’t have to do this,” Paul said.
“Trust me,” Sawyer said, jabbing his left elbow against Paul’s rib cage. “We do.”
“Oww,” Paul said. He hurt all over, so much so that didn’t think he could make a run for it even if the opportunity presented itself.
But Paul ignored the pain in his gut and instead focused on the pain in his ears, as the chanting and applause from above grew louder and louder. The spotlights hit Paul’s eyes the minute he reached the top step, blinding him. He blinked a few times, trying to see through it. When he did, he saw the vampires in the audience, so few and far between, not the large crowd that had presented itself last time, when Paul was there with Brin.
As the annoying spotlight finally moved away from Paul’s eyes, he looked to his right to see his father, dressed in his Sunday night best, as he played giddily with his fancy new top hat.
For so many years, Droz had stood alone in that cold auditorium, but tonight he had a lady friend by his side. Tessa Skar held his hand, and, unlike his father, she was dressed a lot differently than before.
Brin’s mom wore a stunning white wedding dress.
“Welcome home, Paul,” Droz said, putting his arms out. “Are you ready to say goodbye to your life… as I begin a whole new one?”
Paul was in pain. He knew he had little time left and needed to stay on his best behavior. But despite all that, he still couldn’t prevent himself from being snarky. “Kind of a small crowd out there, huh, Dad? That must have been difficult, having so many members of your clan die right in front of your eyes. Now you’re down to what, a hundred or so? On your wedding day, too. You must feel so… unimportant.”
“Stop,” Droz said, his voice lower. “Shut up. You’re done. Now get over here.”
Paul shook his head. “You’re going to have to come and get me, Dad.”
Paul could have said a lot more to his father, but he figured this was the last time he had to escape. He elbowed Chace in his side and slapped the back of Sawyer’s head. Chace tried to grab for him, but Paul ducked, leaped forward, and ran toward the staircase. Paul reached his hand out for the railing and touched the first step.
But he didn’t make it any farther than that; Droz sunk his long, sharp fingernails into the back of his son’s neck and turned him around.
“You’re not escaping me, Paul,” he said. “Never again.”
He kept the nails lodged into Paul’s neck as he guided him toward the center of the auditorium. Every member of the Bodie clan rose to their feet, hopping up and down and cheering at the top of their lungs. Chace and Sawyer stepped toward Tessa; all three stood in a line and clapped their hands together with unnerving enthusiasm.
Droz stopped Paul in the center of the room. The spotlight touched down on Paul’s face.
“Dad,” Paul said, closing his eyes. “Dad, I can’t breathe.”
“That’s kind of the idea.” Droz looked out at the vampires, all sitting up in the bleachers like they were about to take in a final championship football game, certainly not a showcase for a vampire demise and a sparkly wedding ceremony. “Everybody! Men, women, children! I’m not going to prolong this any longer!”
Droz put his hand out and started shaking it so fast, Paul felt the ground start to move underneath him.
Paul tried to ignore it, but he knew what was about to happen. The dirt in the middle of the auditorium started parting, to reveal a hole in the ground that stretched not a few feet deep, but hundreds of miles deep.
He had watched his father make the hole nearly half a mile wide up on the Bodie surface two weeks ago, allowing more than half of his men who were chasing after the group to fall through the cracks and disappear forever. Paul had watched him create these holes over the years to rid himself of both vamps and humans he didn’t like, those who stole from him or badmouthed him or tried to kill him… or who simply existed.
But Droz had never made a hole for a member of his family. Paul never thought his own father would make a hole… for him.
“Dad. Dad, please.”
Droz put his hand down and pushed Paul forward. “Not another word. It’s time.”
He kicked him against his back, hurtling Paul forward. He landed on his hands and knees, just inches away from the hole, from the drop into the center of the earth.
Droz pressed his hands against Paul’s back. Paul felt a soft kiss against his neck, where his father’s sharp nails had just been. Blood dripped down to the ground. Paul closed his eyes. This was it. It was over.
“Goodbye, my son,” Droz said, readying the loudest, harshest kick he could muster. “Paul, my boy, my sweet, sweet boy… goodbye. Goodb—”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The blast hit Droz in the back so hard that he fell to his side.
“What the…” he said, reaching for his back to feel the gunshot wound.
“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Brin screamed as she ran toward Droz, holding the sword out in front of her with the utmost confidence. “Ash!” she screamed, glancing back. “Shoot him again!”
Ash almost fell over from the force of the shotgun blast, but he stayed steady, stomped forward a few more steps, and fired again. This time, one of Droz’s minions jumped in front of him to take the shot.
Droz laughed, wiped some black blood away from his lips, and jumped up to his feet. “Brin Skar? Is that you? You’ve arrived just in time for the final showdown!”
Brin didn’t say a word; she had no interest in chatting. She started wielding the sword around, marching at top speeds, straight at Droz, straight for his neck. She rushed as fast as she could, but it still wasn’t enough; five of Droz’s henchmen leaped out in front of him and reached for Brin.
“You’re dead!” one of them shouted.
“No,” Brin said. “You first.”
She ducked as the first vampire grabbed for her, and she pummeled the sword straight through his chest, like a knife through butter. She pulled the sword out and swung through the air, right at the neck, decapitating him in a lightning second. Three more rushed her and she sliced through them as well, splitting two of the vampires in two, and dislodging the brain from the third vampire’s head. Five seconds, and they were dead. Brin continued toward Droz.
He put his hand out as she raised the weapon up high.
“Why’d you give your henchman up top a sword?” Brin screamed. “That was pretty stupid, pal—”
He moved in a flash; one second he was ten yards away, and the next he had his hand over her throat. Droz ripped the sword out of her hand and tossed it in the hole before she could try to reach for it. He brought her down to the ground, choking her so hard and fierce that Brin thought she could feel blood seeping out from her eye sockets.
“It’s admirable, really, that you would come here to save Paul, kill me, and go back to your perfect boring life… but such is not the case, girly.”
Brin tried to push herself out of the big baddie’s grasp, but she couldn’t budge. She was fading. She looked to her right to see her mom in the wedding dress.
“Mom…” she tried to say, but nothing intelligible came out.
Droz clamped his hands over Brin’s neck and waited for her to die.
“I’ve had enough of your bullshit!” he screamed.
“So have I!” Paul shouted from behind his father and struck the sword—Brin’s sword—diagonally across his father’s back, piercing it so much that the blade cut through most of his upper body, all the way to where his heart would be—if he had one.
Droz let out an audible gasp and opened his mouth wide, like the indestructible villain actually had the capacity to feel pain. He fell to the ground.
Brin rolled over to her side, coughing so hard she thought she would never get a chance to suck in oxygen again. She got up on her knees and continued to cough, as a hundred vampires up in the bleachers released a loud, unified shriek. The creatures all started running down the aisles, toward the stage, toward Brin and the others. Brin finally got her breathing back in check, but she had no time to relax.
“Oh shit,” Anaya said, firing a couple shots from her silencer toward the bleachers.
“Oh shit is right,” Ash said, and he waved the shotgun back in front of him. He aimed the gun at the oncoming vamps, but when he pulled the trigger, the blast blew him back so hard that the gun tilted upward and the bullet struck one of the spotlights on the ceiling. It shattered into a million pieces and came unglued from its source—and Ash looked up in horror as a string of twelve spotlights all fell to the center of the stage.
“Oh my God,” Anaya said, grabbing Ash’s arm. “Look out!”
Anaya tried to save Ash, but he was only concerned with one person. “Brin! Get out of the way!”
Brin grabbed the sword from Paul and let it hover over Droz’s body. She was a second away from slashing it against his neck.
“Hold on!” she shouted.
“No! Brin! Move!”
Ash grabbed Brin and pulled her back. Justin grabbed hold of Anaya, and all four of them jumped away from the stage, just as the spotlights crashed down and burst into flames.
Brin and Ash fell against their backs and watched as the fire rose up into the center of the stage. Brin darted her eyes every which way. She saw Anaya limping toward them; she had a cut on her leg but seemed relatively unharmed. Justin jumped back up to his feet, unscathed, thank God. Then she looked to her right to see Mr. Barker, still a wolf, still in fighting shape, roaming toward her. He had a vampire’s severed head dangling from his teeth.
“Oh, wow,” Ash said, standing back up.
Mr. Barker stopped to the right of them and dropped the head at their feet. “One more down,” the wolf said, “but many more to go.”
A few days ago the sight of a decapitated head would have sent Brin Skar to the bathroom barfing up a lung. But in this moment she just kicked it aside and headed toward the flames.
Anaya and Justin collided against Ash, and the trio watched in terror as Brin kept walking forward.
“Brin?” Justin said. “What are you doing? Get away from there!”
“I’m not leaving here until I know he’s dead,” Brin said. She searched the grounds for the wounded—fatally wounded, Brin hoped—Droz, but she didn’t see him anywhere. She stepped all the way up toward the flames, stopping just a few feet in front of them.
“Droz?” Brin shouted, her breathing heavy, her face soaked in blood. “Come out here and fight, you coward!”
Without the flames, Brin would’ve had to turn around and run. The firewall from the exploded spotlights blocked Brin and the other humans from the opposite side, from the other angry, bloodthirsty vampires.
Droz was missing. The hundred vamps all stood in a line, ready to pounce on Brin the second the fire lessened.
Worst of all, at the front of the group was her irritated mother, standing tall and devilish in her sparkly wedding dress.
“Brin,” Tessa said. “You never should’ve come back here—”
“Where is he?” screamed Brin, who was slowly descending into madness. “Where the hell is that groom of yours, Mom?”
“You’re never going to defeat us. Why even bother, my darling?”
“Because,” Brin said, taking a deep breath, trying not to faint from the sight of her own mother, who looked so sickly pale her skin could have passed for paste, “I have to try.”
The fire was raging, but Brin still heard the crash of the podium on the other side of the stage. Droz, limping even more than Anaya, was up on his feet, and racing out of the darkened auditorium, lit up now only with the ferocity of orange fire.
“Hey!” Brin shouted, but Droz didn’t turn around. He disappeared out of the corner of the room.
Brin readied herself to chase after him, when the loud scream of her mom stopped her in her tracks. Brin turned to her right again to see Tessa approach the fire even closer.
“Enough with this,” Tessa said. “You’re not going to harm my husband-to-be, Brin. I love him! Don’t you understand?”
And with that, Tessa took five big steps back, steadied herself for a second or two, then sprinted forward. She leaped over the flames and landed a mere foot away from her daughter, grabbing Brin’s right foot and bringing her down to the ground. When Brin slammed her arm against the dirt, the sword flew out of her hand and bounced five yards forward.
Tessa stood up, spit unladylike on the ground, and took hold of her daughter’s legs.
And she started pulling Brin back into the fire.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Oww! Mom!” Brin shouted, but Tessa already had a tight grip on her legs.
“You’re not going anywhere, Brin!”
“Mom!” She tried to kick the woman away, but she wouldn’t let her go. “Mom, what happened to you?”
“This is the only way. If I’m going to die, you’re going to die.”
Brin watched as another vampire jumped over the flames, then another, and another. When five more vampires made it over the fire, Brin knew she had no more time to waste.
“Mom? Mommy?”
“What?” Tessa shouted.
“I’m really sorry. Forgive me for this.” Brin brought her leg all the way back to her chest, then kicked it forward and struck Tessa hard in the face. Brin’s mom fell to her side and finally let go of Brin.
Brin climbed back up to her feet and raced back toward her friends.
“What do we do?” Ash said. “They’re jumping over the flames! We can’t fight them off forever!”
“And we’re not going to,” Paul said, appearing on Brin’s left. He looked out of breath, still shocked he hadn’t been thrown into the hole of impending doom, that the Grisly group had arrived just in time. “Even if we fired a thousand rounds of bullets, there’s no way we could fight them off!”
“And the sword?” Anaya asked, pointing to the ground. Brin picked it back up again and held it close.
“Hang onto it,” Paul said. He looked at the group of humans in front of him, plus the scary wolf. Then he looked out at all the vampires running toward them, including Brin’s irked mother. “We need to get out of here. Let’s follow my father. He’ll lead us back out.”
“OK,” Ash said. “Sounds good—”
Ash’s jaw dropped as he watched Paul take this opportunity to pull Brin close to him and give her a kiss on the lips, albeit brief and with little passion. “Thank you for saving me,” he said.
“Of course,” Brin said, obviously trying not to look Ash’s way, and she and Ash and the vampire and the wolf started sprinting toward the back left corner of the auditorium, toward the exit where Droz sped out all by himself, like a coward, not wanting to stay and put up a fight.
Ash felt tears well up in his eyes, for an altogether different reason, but he blinked them away and stayed focused on the mission.
“What about your mom?” Ash asked Brin.
“I can’t help her right now. She’s beyond—”
Brin turned around. “Wait. Where the hell’s my brother?”
“What?”
Brin looked around Anaya, just in time to catch Justin speeding in the opposite direction, straight toward the vampires. Brin wanted to scream fo
r a second, but no sound came out. Then: “Justin! What are you doing?”
She waited for her brother’s annihilation, but then he did something else entirely; Justin grabbed Tessa, and whisked her to the right side of the auditorium, so fast none of the other vampires tried to stop him. Brin watched her mother try to fight him off, but he kept a tight a grip on her, as they both disappeared from sight.
“Mom! Justin! Where are you—”
“Come on!” Paul shouted. “Keep running, Brin! There’s no time!”
And there wasn’t. The vampires were five seconds away from tearing Brin and the rest of the group to shreds.
“Shit,” Brin said, wanting to run after her family but also knowing she couldn’t leave her friends behind. She turned around and followed Paul out of the auditorium.
They entered the winding corridors, Paul out in front. Brin stayed closer to Ash than she did to Paul.
“I don’t know why, but I have this feeling that defeating Droz, once and for all, will save my mom,” Brin said.
“How do you know?” asked Ash.
“I don’t. I just… it makes sense.”
“Hurry up, guys!” Paul said, reaching a winding staircase that was even narrower than the corridor.
The wolf raced past Brin and Ash and joined Paul near his hip as they climbed higher and higher toward the black night sky. Brin looked up to see Paul hit a locked trap door at the top of the staircase. He started pounding his fists against it, to no avail.
“Damn it!” Paul shouted.
Brin let Ash pass her by, and she waited for Anaya to catch up to her. Brin stopped for a second. Two seconds. Five seconds. No Anaya.
“Anaya! Are you coming?”
No answer.
“What the hell…” Brin started running back down the staircase.
“Brin! Where are you going?” Ash said.
“I’ll be right up! Help Paul! Get that door open!”
