From below, a girl blasted the boogeyman with a stream of holy water, and the freak did nothing but turn its head, totally unnaturally, like an owl or Linda Blair spitting pea soup. He focused on the girl and spasmed strangely, like he was about to hoc a loogey. Then, without warning, he spit out a stream of blood that must have been mixed with something stronger than stomach acid, the way the girl screamed … and screamed … and screamed.
My brain shrieked at me to run, but it didn’t seem like we were on speaking terms because, for some stupid reason, I totally ignored it.
“Get. Off. Him,” I ordered.
“Make me,” he hissed.
And me fresh out of hair spray and lanterns.
“It’s not us you want.”
“Don’t tell me what I want,” he roared.
“Okay, fine. I’ve pissed you off. You want a piece of me, I get that. But now? With all these distractions? Don’t you want to take your time? Like, pair me with a nice Chianti?”
I was now officially over that have you lost your mind look.
“Are you using logic?” he snarled.
I ignored Rick’s snicker and focused my glare.
“What, like I’m incapable because I’m a girl?”
“No, because you’re you.”
I wanted my super power to be fire-breathing. I’d roast him where he crouched.
“Fine, come and get me.” I pretended he was a downed log between me and the only mochachino machine on a deserted island and literally took a run at him, avoiding his snapping teeth and throwing him off balance by planting two fists on his back so I could vault over him. My gym teacher would have been so proud, once she woke out of her dead faint.
I tried not to look back, knowing I’d be faster if I didn’t, but something compelled me. I turned to see that the freakshow had unfurled his legs again and seemed to be leaping on all fours, more like a grasshopper or monkey than a man-like thing. There was no sanity in those eyes whatsoever. I put on a burst of speed that had to come from total terror, following the path of the fallen, hurdling over things I didn’t even want to think about. There was a horrible clatter behind me and I figured the freakshow had gotten tangled in one of the bowstrings or something, but I didn’t look back again.
Bobby! I screamed in my head.
Here. It was faint, like there was a barrier, but it was unmistakably ahead. It seemed weird that I could tell direction from a word, but life had gone so far off the normal track into bizarro-world that I didn’t even expect things to make sense anymore.
“This way!” I yelled to Rick, in case he couldn’t just track the trail of the great galloping ghastly behind me. I hoped he and the others were close behind.
The scene I burst in on stopped me cold, and let the freakshow knock me ass-over-ankles in a flying tackle. We rolled across the floor, my spine snapping and twisting over bodies, but not nearly so many as I’d feared. We were moving too quickly to see if the bodies belonged to anyone I knew, and one girl in a tracksuit was missing the better part of her face anyway. Denial reared its blessed head, and my thoughts shut down. We were vamps. We could regrow faces, right? That was as far as I got. The Crypt Keeper wound up on top, with me pinned painfully over something extremely pointy. From the way my body shivered violently at the contact, that thing was wooden and probably stake-shaped.
But now that I was under control, the freakshow wasn’t paying any attention to me. He was looking around the room, eyes focusing like lasers on Mellisande, who stood—torn, bloody, hair half in her face—with most of her cabal and what was left of Team Beta, in a face-off with the council. We must have reached the inner sanctum.
The council and the minions had retreated behind some forcefield thing my boyfriend was straining to hold. Sweat poured down Bobby’s face, red like blood, and his hair was in his gorgeous eyes. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Not that I’d ever tell him. Guys got weird about things like that. But I was so totally proud of him, holding a barrier against outright bloodshed.
He met my eyes as I lay there pinned and mouthed something that looked like I love you, and I went all stupid girly gooey inside. I stiffened against the feeling, that mellow lose-yourself-in-someone-else … thing … and a tiny shift away from the stake helped just a little with the shaking. And, see, if I’d melted I’d have been a goner. Love was poison. Too bad it came in such a cute package.
“Bobby, drop the shield,” Mellisande ordered, ignoring the psycho-psychic and our little interruption. My posse, Team Alpha, crowded in through the doorway behind me, stopping cold to assess the scene.
“No,” Bobby grated out. “Didn’t open the doors. Won’t help you kill.”
So he’d resisted whatever compulsion she’d put on him to aid her invasion. Go him! But it was clear he couldn’t hold out forever. More blood was going to be shed. Probably even his.
“Lemurs!” I yelled. It was our school identity. I only hoped enough people had the spirit. “Are we going to let these vamps throw us into their stupid war or are we going to fight for ourselves?” I called out.
“Ourselves!” Bobby yelled from behind the barrier, backing me up. Mellisande glared daggers at him.
The psychic focused his freaky eyes back on me … or really, un-focused back on me. His face was looking my way but his gaze was totally elsewhere, like he was trying to see the future.
“Do you mind?” I asked.
I don’t know what he saw, but slowly he pulled his body off mine. I didn’t trust it.
“Alistaire!” Mellisande shrieked.
The council bastard and babe from Melli’s study gasped at the name. “It can’t be,” the man said.
“He doesn’t even look—” the woman breathed.
“Human?” Alistaire asked, laughing that creepy-crawly laugh of his. “No, pretty pretty, I don’t expect I do. Alistaire has left the building.”
“But you’re dead,” the man hissed. “Mellisande killed you.”
“Indeed she did,” the psycho—Alistaire—admitted. “I am death itself. Death warmed over. The angel of death. Yes, that’s it. I am the dark angel of death that creeps upon his petty pace.”
If a vampire could pale, the councilman did. I didn’t know what the heck Alistaire was talking about, but clearly it meant more to him than it did to me. Who was this Alistaire that his resurrection rocked their world? But then it came to me. Hadn’t the council people practically accused Melli of killing her sire? Could he be … ? But how? Had she tried and failed to kill him, somehow turning him into the twisted thing he was today? Maybe they’d even concocted a scheme together to release Alistaire from the council’s control, and it had gone horribly wrong.
But whatever the past, right now was the perfect opportunity for us to strike, while everyone was still reeling.
“Now!” I shouted, rising to my feet and grabbing the lone water pistol still lodged in my pants, becoming one with my ribs.
The remains of Alpha and Beta teams rose up.
Melli spun, trying to face down all angles of threat. Her remaining minions—the Chick, Hawkman, Things One and Two, blond-lady-without-nickname, Sparky—all closed around her like some kind of panty shield.
But my minions, my Lemurs, my … friends closed around them, greater in number and all righteously pissed at seeing their buds go down in the dragon lady’s play for power.
And then all hell broke loose. The first shot was fired, and a woman’s high-pitched shriek split my eardrums. But I couldn’t see which side it was coming from, because Bobby’s power had just given out and he and the shield both went down.
I launched myself toward him and the council lady intercepted me. I held her at water-gun-point while she had only her fangs and killer nails filed to points. Nice manicure, though—a little faux diamond chip on each tip.
“He’s mine,” I told her.
“Ours,” the lady hissed.
I shot her right between the eyes and body-checked her to the ground as she howled in pain, so that I could stand between Bobby and the world—which was totally lame, since he had all the power.
The wench recovered almost instantly and grabbed me by the arm, her diamond tips digging into me like spikes. She whirled me around, away from Bobby and back toward the chaos that had erupted around us. I lifted the water gun to fire again, but my hand knocked into someone with an impact that hit a nerve or something, ’cause my hand went numb and flew open. The gun went end over end, striking Chickzilla with the butt, but to no effect. I, meanwhile, was getting my arm nearly yanked from the socket. My ankle twisted as I tried to wrench myself away, and I fell halfway to the ground with my arm still behind me and up at a really awkward angle. Around me were ki-yahs and other sounds of power, snarls and growls of rage. In battle, no one could hear me whimper—I took full advantage of that.
Until something grabbed my other arm and jerked me away from my captor—or tried to. For a second I felt like I was being drawn and quartered, like Mel Gibson in Braveheart (when he was still cuter than he was crazy). I couldn’t suck in a breath to howl. My vision started to spot. And then something gave. For a second I thought it was me, that my body had snapped and the lack of pain was death, but the backlash of sudden release flung me into the thing that had used me as the rope in his tug of war.
Hawkman.
“It isn’t enough that you’ve killed me once?” I asked, my chest aching with the effort to push air through it.
He didn’t answer, just kept swinging me, right into the arms of my nemesis—Melli-noma. Then he turned to deal with the council chick himself.
“You are so dead,” Melli told me.
“Well, duh. Thanks for the news flash.”
I might not have said it if I’d noticed the stake in her hand. I had nothing. No more water guns, no pointy sticks. I was a goner.
Mellisande lunged at me, her stick poised to kill, and I had nowhere to go. Not with Hawkman fighting a hairsbreadth away and leaving me no room at all, except maybe for a fateful trip. I didn’t even get that lucky. The point pierced me like butter. The flare of pain was so intense my vision went black, my knees buckled, and I slid to the ground. But I was not dead. Smelly Melli’s aim, like her personality, was off. Still, there was nothing I could do if she gave it another try. Nothing about my body was obeying me. I willed my hands to reach for the stake, to turn it on Melli, but every, like, synapse or whatever in my brain was flooded with ack, there’s a freakin’ stick poking out of my chest messages.
Someone hit Mellisande, and she nearly went down on top of me before Hawkman leapt to her aid. The action moved on around me, leaving me for dead.
Gina? a voice asked in my head.
Bobby?
Such warmth wrapped around me that I almost forgot all about the stake and the fact that some of these people were here, fighting, hopefully not dying, because of me, and that I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Marcy. It was like the sun on the first really warm day of spring, when the whole world comes out in shorts to play catch or Frisbee or whatever. My heart swelled so much I thought it was going to brush up against the stake.
“Enough!” Bobby shouted, no longer in my head. Power reverberated out of him with the force of a rock-show stage amp. It was enough power to goose my goose bumps and bring the hair all over my body to attention, making it very clear how desperately I needed to shave certain parts. Everyone in the room froze, except me. Suddenly I felt as if my hands might almost work again—like Bobby’s blast of power had given me a boost. Squeezing my eyes shut with the effort, I lifted hands that felt more like anvils to my chest and struggled to close them around the stake.
Meanwhile, Bobby held the room spellbound.
“There’s a new power in town, and it is us,” he said, sounding totally recovered—strong even. A force to be reckoned with. “I don’t care about your struggles, but you will fight them somewhere else. Mozulla is a high school town now!”
The power of his words rushed over me and through the room. It was as if he wasn’t just laying down the law, but like he was laying down reality—which was way, way cooler. I wondered if either side would have let him live if they’d known he could do this.
I was still tingling when I pulled the stake from my chest … slowly, because that was all I could manage. My body jerked, but I managed to hang on to the stake and finish the job. It was a good thing I was already on the floor, because the pain would have dropped me where I stood.
“Lemurs, let’s move out,” Bobby finished.
He came to help me to my feet, and I gasped as he slipped his hands beneath my arms to lift me. My chest was on fire.
“I can’t hold them long,” he whispered in my ear, totally ruining the my boyfriend is a demigod fantasy.
I did the best I could to get my feet under me.
“Marcy?” I whispered back.
“I think I know where they’re holding her.”
It must have taken titanic strength to hold some people frozen and release others. That had to be why, when I swept the room to see who was still standing, I saw both Mellisande and the psychic twitch. I remembered Connor saying that Melli was resistant, like me. I could only hope that Bobby, as “the key,” had grown enough power to hold her. The psychic … well, he was a law unto himself.
The others moved out—Frank, the spiky-haired guy who’d driven the van, Cassandra, Katie and Di, and more. On the ground I spotted a pixie cut and recognized my work. I went to the fallen girl and turned her over. My heart broke. There was nothing I could do. Someone’s aim had been better than Melli’s.
“Back here,” Bobby reminded me, standing at the exit where the other kids had gotten while the getting was good.
I went too, stepping over one more familiar body—Rick’s. His chest was still rising and falling, but just barely. It seemed so weird that the pixie girl, an immortal vampire, wouldn’t live on while Rick, the human, would. Which meant I had to take him with us. I couldn’t leave him for the council.
“Help me,” I appealed to Bobby. If I hadn’t taken the chest wound, I probably could have handled Rick myself with my super vamp strength, but as it was my chest felt like it was going to rip in two. I was going to need some serious blood to heal, and my one and only human minion had temporarily checked out.
Bobby helped me drag him into the hall. After we were all through he closed the door and, like, fused it or something. Then he told me I was on my own. It was up to me to drag Rick and lead the others to safety. He’d go for Marcy.
I was about ready to suggest that he do the dragging and I do the rescuing when something went BUMP against the closed door.
“Quickly!” he said. And since he knew where he was going on the Marcy-front and I didn’t, I suddenly saw the sense in being the one to get out.
We found Trevor lying where he’d fallen on the steps, groaning, his eyes just flickering open.
“Trevor!” I snapped, and his lids shot open, zeroing in on me with only a little drifting. “If you’re not going to die today, I need your help. Snap to. Get everyone to the vans.”
Cassandra shot me a shocked look and rushed out from behind me to help Trevor stand, but I was counting on duty to drive him, like a good soldier, to get himself and everyone else out alive.
I let the others stream past, holding only Di back to help with my dead-weight issue.
“Ewww,” she said when she touched Rick, taking some of his weight. “He’s dead.”
“Hello! Pot, kettle. Besides, he’s only unconscious,” I said. “He’ll get better.”
She didn’t argue, but she was as skeeved at touching him as I was at the thought of mayonnaise or cottage cheese. Particularly cottag
e cheese. I shuddered. Nothing should look like that. Certainly nothing that went into my body.
“Get to the vans,” I shouted out. “Fill one up—and go! Leave one for the rest of us.”
Though if I had my way, I’d be taking the T-bird myself. That was a sweet ride.
We hit a traffic jam when the leaders of our group stopped to pick up another downed friend, the owner of the arm blocking the front door. From the looks of her, she was miraculously still living, although none too happy about it at that moment. And then we were off again. Behind us, the banging against the door began in earnest, and I knew that Bobby’s whammy had worn off.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I chanted under my breath, thinking of Bobby and Marcy and how they were not allowed to get themselves captured again. And true death was absolutely out.
We broke from the house into the dark of night and made a mad dash for the van in the driveway.
“Go, go, go!” I encouraged, though no one seemed to need it.
Everyone piled in, even though there were way more people than seats, but someone—Trevor?—solved some of the space issues by opening the back doors and throwing Connor out on his ass. I wondered how Connor would explain himself to Melli when she got free (if the council didn’t finish her off), but I didn’t really care. But even with the extra room, there was no place for Rick and me in the van.
“Cram in,” I told Di. “I’ll take him from here.”
She eased Rick’s weight back fully onto me and did as I said.
“Get back to Mellisande’s place,” I shouted through the open van door. “Start thinking of ways to secure it in case they come after us.”
“Who died and made you boss,” someone yelled, clearly a remnant of Team Beta, ’cause Alpha and I had already worked these things out.
“No one. Yet,” I answered.
It was enough for now. We could be all democratic tomorrow. Tonight I didn’t think I was asking too much.
Frank was already set up in the driver’s seat. He reached over to all but slam the van door in my face and took off with a squeal of tires. I didn’t have to tell him twice to get the hell out of dodge. I jumped back as he missed my toes by a whisper. I wanted to curse him, but he was only following orders and if I really was “chaos” (which I doubted), I didn’t want to doom the whole van to a head-on collision due to his being a jerk.
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