I looked around the room, at all those fresh faces—some nicely framed with wispy bangs, others, like Marcy, in desperate need of a makeover—and my mouth went dry. As if she knew, Cassandra handed me the last little cup of blood, and I smiled gratefully while hoisting it up.
“To us and freedom!” I managed not to dribble any of it down my chin when I drank. They were a great audience. Those who had not already drunk raised their glasses and downed them with me. I had the spotlight; now I just had to figure out how to use it to best advantage.
“They’re coming,” I said simply, raising my voice enough to carry and bounce back at me threefold. No one asked how I knew. “If we let them in, there’s going to be hell to pay. Anyone who survives the punishment will end up answering to some bigger, badder vamp and will never be totally trusted. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of their little reindeer games. I like having my own room.”
Folks cheered.
“So I need you all to grab whatever you can. Trevor, you head Team Alpha. You’ve got the basement and back doors. Bobby, you’ve got Beta. Take the front door and the rooms with vulnerable windows. We can do this!”
People cheered again, but not quite as confidently.
Trevor skirted them to bump my shoulder. “You’re in Alpha. Are you with us?”
I shook my head. “There’s something else I have to do”—which sounded like a total cop-out. “I’m going to search the dragon lady’s office for blueprints or something,” I quickly explained. “Make sure there are no more hidden ways in, and see if there’s another blood or weapons stash somewhere.”
He nodded, and my shoulders, which I hadn’t even realized were tense, dropped to a comfier position. I didn’t have the faintest clue what I was doing. Right now, approval was the only guide I had.
“Alpha, to me,” Trevor called.
“Beta, this way,” Bobby seconded.
The room split like the Red Sea. I took a second just to watch this group, which had totally become my new family. A warm and fuzzy feeling reared its ticklish head; my throat kinda closed up and my stomach clenched. This had to work. My classmates, every single one of them, had to live, or else I was going all Gina on someone’s ass.
I slipped out of the room before I could go all gooey emotional and took the stairs two at a time to Melli’s office. I started with the desk drawers, just ’cause they were easy. The top one wasn’t even locked. It wasn’t very helpful, either—paper clips, lipstick and eyeliner, miscellaneous bills, rubber bands, a dried-up glue stick. Totally useless—except maybe the makeup, which I swiped.
The other drawers needed more encouragement to open, and I’d just succeeded when a burly boy burst into the room, scaring me half to death.
“Bobby sent me,” he said when I stupidly clutched my heart like an old-time heroine. “I’m supposed to watch the windows … and your back.”
Fear made me snarky—like I needed an excuse. “My back’s not about to do anything interesting, so you just focus on those windows.”
On cue, the middle one shattered. I might have screamed. Burly—I was going to have to start learning names—whirled, his stake raised even though Bobby’s punji sticks, or whatever he called them, were already on target—the body that came bursting through impaled itself. I braced myself for the horror, the writhing and shrieking, but there was none. The council—Melli—whoever, had launched an already-dead vamp through the window to trigger our defenses. I cringed at the thought, but didn’t have long with it.
Above the body, where the glass had shattered but there was no stake to stop it, something came flying right at us. It hit the ground practically at my feet and exploded open. I’d been looking right at it, and it hit me like a can of mace. If my lungs had been working they would have seized. My eyes teared up, blazing like an out-of-control forest fire. My nose dripped blood. A garlic bomb!
“Guy!” I called.
“Jim,” he answered.
I held back my “whatever,” because it did matter, and flailed blindly toward the voice.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I told him.
My hand caught one of his biceps and squeezed reflexively.
Together we stumbled toward the door. I bumped my legs on one of the guest chairs and blessed my vamp healing that it wouldn’t even leave a mark.
As soon as we opened the door I could hear the chaos in the hall. They must have had enough garlic bombs to go around. I blinked about a thousand times per second, trying to clear my vision, but my head was swimming and between that and my eyes, everything was a blur. In the room we’d just left, it sounded like the window frame itself was splintering.
“Everyone, back to the windows,” I called, my voice sounding like I’d gargled with razor blades. “They’re coming through. Ignore the doors; they know we’ve got them covered.”
Jim and I rushed back into the office, still blinking back blood tears. Thing One, all model gorgeous and feral as hell, had climbed over the cold, dead body of his compatriot to plant himself in the room. He’d teamed up with some chick I didn’t recognize—had to be council—but it didn’t matter. They were going down. My family wouldn’t fall.
“Got an extra weapon?” I asked Jim out of the corner of my mouth.
Only he didn’t get the chance to respond before they were on us. Thing One lunged for me, stake flashing directly for my heart. He used no finesse at all, like he didn’t expect any worthy opposition. Defenseless, I shrieked, which would have been totally useful if I’d been a banshee or something, and leapt for one of the chairs, hoping to use it like a lion tamer against a feral feline. The legs were kind of like four really dull, metal-tipped stakes.
We danced like that, him faking right and going left, but I had enough coverage with the chair to fend him off. It couldn’t last forever, though. I was no good to anyone in the thick of the fight while I was just holding my guy at bay. Then he surprised me with a stop, drop, and roll maneuver, which brought him in under my chair so he could slash at my ankles. I jumped back, smack up against Jim’s back as he went head to head with the council lady—although “lady” was probably giving her too much credit.
But Jim wasn’t used to this kind of fighting any more than I was, and when the lady lunged and he dodged, I was the one who got hit right in the shoulder by her pointy stick. My whole arm went numb, and one side of the chair I was holding dropped to the ground. Thing One took advantage and rushed in, and I had to drop the other half of the chair to block him. I swept my working hand up and deflected the stake just enough to make it miss my heart, though it pierced a boob.
“If they come out of this uneven, I’ll boil your brains,” I threatened, my teeth clenched against the pain. I’m sure I was very scary.
He snarled and tried to pull back the stake, but it was trapped between two of my ribs. I howled as he twisted and threw myself to the side, stake and all. With a huge effort, I pulled it out myself, spurting him with a burst of blood. My knees almost buckled, but I had a weapon now if not the strength to use it.
Thing One pulled another stake out of thin air and lunged for me again. My only chance was to outrun him, but that meant turning my back. From the corner of my eye, I saw the council conspirator go down, and I faked a swipe at Thing One to distract him while Jim stabbed him from behind. It seemed a crappy thing to do, but love, war and all that … I couldn’t worry too much when it was kill or be killed.
“Thanks!” I yelled, running—more like jogging with my tanks on empty—for the door. “Hallway,” I explained shortly, saving my strength. “See who else needs help.”
We got to the office door just as the whole house started to shake.
23
The hallway was in chaos. It was as if the vamps had broken in on all sides, surrounding us. A bunch of the kids had retreated into the hallway and were in
one big huddle, about to be mobbed.
“Hey!” I yelled at the vamps closing in. “Looking for me?”
It was a toss-up which was bigger, my ego or my mouth, but it had the desired effect. Those closest to me whirled, bringing me face-to-fugly-face with the dragon lady.
Her lips were peeled back from her teeth, which had grown into a Hollywood cliché. Still, I wanted the name of her dentist, because they were blindingly white.
“Finally,” she hissed.
She lunged—no warning at all, no witty banter. A showdown with my arch nemesis should at least involve a good monologue with plenty of time for a brilliant escape, but all I had was a split second before her hands were wrapped around my neck like a vice, her talons drawing blood where they dug deeply into my flesh. Since I didn’t need to breathe, I wondered if I’d driven her beyond all reason or if she intended to cut my head off in teeny tiny increments.
I remembered the stake I’d pulled from my own body and managed to jab it into her hip, her chest being pressed too closely up against mine in a creepy, jigsaw puzzle kind of way.
She howled and leapt back, but I kept hold of the stake, which slid from her body with a wet, suctiony sound I’d carry with me forever.
“You bitch,” she spat.
“Takes one to know one,” I fired back. Okay, so I had to work on my one-liners, but I was under just a little bit of pressure right then.
She leapt for me again, this time batting my stake aside as I tried to go for her chest. My hand went numb at her solid blow, just like before. My only weapon fell to the ground and rolled straight under my feet. I went down, but I took Melli-noma with me—a combination of the momentum from her swing and the sharp crack of my foot on her shin as I fell.
She landed on top of me, and I kicked for all I was worth to reverse that, but she didn’t play nice and in fact sunk her teeth into my neck as if she would tear it out. I forced my hands up between us, but they were slow and weak, and the light around us flickered … or maybe that was my vision.
The strobing glimpses I got were not good. Jim going down with a stake to the chest, courtesy of Thing Two; Bobby with a club coming at his head even as he flung a hand out to disarm two council vamps with his power; Pam and Vanessa taking down unnamed blond chick with their water guns … okay, that last one was heartening.
I tried to cry out a warning to Bobby, but then the whole place shuddered. A lamp crashed to the ground, shattering glittering shards over the floor, and a magazine rack thudded from the pile of junk stacked up in front of the door.
“Police!” called a voice with totally its own reverb. It sounded like he was on a megaphone and totally meant business. “Open up!”
Melli and I looked at each other, and for half a second we were totally on the same oh crap wavelength—only I’d bet the words she used were a helluva lot less ladylike.
“I will kill you,” she snarled.
“You can try,” I answered.
She pushed up off me. “To me!” she called to the others.
The invading vamps, those who could rise, looked at Mellisande. “I know a back way,” she said. I silently wished her luck getting to it and moving all the piled beds in time to escape, but I wasn’t up to pursuing them.
The door quaked again and the voice rumbled, “I’ll say it again—OPEN UP!” The caps on the last two words were as clear as a cloudless night.
I looked at Bobby, Trevor, everyone who met my gaze. My heart all warm and fuzzy at the sight of them. And I had a sudden thought. While my crashing-graduation plan had been all about recapturing my life, I had all I really wanted right here. And I had an idea how to hold onto it.
“We could run,” I told them, my voice carrying. “Anyone who wants to, I won’t blame you, but I have an idea about how we can do this on our own terms. You just have to trust me.”
“No.” It was the voice of Tina-the-tramp, who stepped forward right up into my grill. I’d somehow missed her in my warm and fuzzy sweep of the room. “So far, your orders have brought the council and the police down on us. I say we put it to a vote.”
I was so not in the mood for her petty party. Something heavy slammed into the door, knocking more furniture to the floor, and I saw the chance to take control rapidly running out. “Fine,” I said, surprising her. “All in favor of Tina as our spokesperson, raise your hand.”
I waited for hers to go up, as I knew it would. It left her open, and I popped her one right in the nose. She’d been a pain in my butt for longer than I could remember. It was about time for me to return the favor. And it felt good. Her nose crunched under my fist. I knew it would heal, but for now the satisfaction was enough. She howled and buckled to the floor. Chaz stared at me, stunned, eyeing me like he might be next, but I had way more important fish to fry.
I finger-fluffed my hair, straightened my war-torn clothes, and went to let the lions into the gate.
“We’re opening up,” I called through the door as loudly as I could. “We’re unarmed.”
I pulled off the first layer of junk and let it tumble to the floor. “A little help here?”
The others dropped their weapons and came to haul down the barricade.
“What’s the plan?” Trevor asked.
“We’re coming out of the closet.”
“You’re gay?” Tina asked, only it came out more like “Or ay?” and I totally ignored her.
“Someone called this in,” I explained. “Which means it’s probably been picked up on police scanners and everything. Even if Bobby could whammy everyone, there’d be no way to hide all these bodies indefinitely. The only other option is to run. If we do that, we’d have no safe haven—the council doesn’t want us on the loose. We’d be hunted. But if we can make national news … ”
He stopped what he was doing. “You’re kidding, right? Think about the hysteria, the government, the testing—”
“Paranoid much?” I asked, even though I’d had the same worries myself. But I had a solution … maybe. “All that requires secrecy. We’re going to blow this whole thing wide open.”
He gave me that look I was starting to own, the one that said I was totally crazy but we were just going to roll with it, and it got him moving again.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Me too,” I muttered.
The cop’s patience lasted maybe a half-minute more before he yelled, “What’s going on in there?” The sound of moving furniture must have disturbed him. Interior decorators probably gave him fits.
“We were attacked. We put up a barricade to protect ourselves,” I yelled back. “Give us a second.”
There was silence outside, but I chose to take that as a good sign.
“Quickly,” I said.
All we had left was a sofa and a gaggle of books that had been pulled from their shelves. It took only the promised second to move them.
I signaled for Katie to open the door and greet the police. She’d be the most likely to put them at ease—unless we were faced with Dumb and Dumber, they had to have found the bodies hanging out our windows, but there was no way to face Katie’s prima ballerina looks and think “psycho killer.” With any luck, they’d even have noted that the window glass had shattered inward and the bodies had to have been flung against us (or died attacking, if the police’s time-of-death skills were anything like my algebra).
Katie gave me a betrayed look, but I’d smooth it out later. Meanwhile, at least she opened the door before any more pounding could take place.
Two cops stood there, to either side of the doorway as if we might have blasted them had they stood dead center. And they had back up. In a town the size of Mozulla, that was easily half the force.
“Officers,” she said, her voice gone suddenly all breathy. “Thank God you’ve come!”
They looked really confused. Faced with a group of innocent-looking teens covered in blood, I guess I would have been too … until they saw Bobby, at which point their eyes hardened and the guns that had slowly begun to lower came suddenly back to center of mass … his.
“Hands up, boy,” said the taller of the two in front. He had a gap between his front teeth, which was supposed to mean sensitivity or sensuality or something, but his rock-steady aim said otherwise.
I’d momentarily forgotten all about Bobby’s wanted status. Now we were going to pay.
“There’s been a mistake,” I said, and the officer, who’d passed over little ’ole me in his visual scan before, went stiff with shock.
“But you—you—And he—”
His partner let out a whistle. “Ben, she’s not the only one.”
Ben looked, really looked at the rest of us and eased one hand off the gun to give himself the sign of the cross. “Sweet Jesus,” he muttered.
A news van pulled up outside, just visible over the shoulders of Ben and (for lack of a better name) Jerry and their backup.
The door panel said News Channel 9, which meant either Chad Erickson or Sandra Barnes. I didn’t even know which to hope for. Chad had the killer cleft chin, but Sandra and I could do some serious retail damage. She had wicked taste.
“Won’t you come in?” I asked the cops, stepping up beside Katie to play hostess.
They looked at us; they looked at each other. Clearly kids thought dead and bodyknapped suddenly walking around and offering hospitality had stripped their mental gears.
“Sh-shouldn’t we wait for the detectives … and CSI?”
“Please,” Bobby said. “Come in.”
It was said politely enough, but I could feel the power behind it. My body hair stood on end until my arms looked like the top of Marcy’s head.
“You too,” he added when Sandra Barnes raced up in her red power suit and matching stilettos. The way she worked those things, she could probably do a 20k run in them without even blistering. She’d even left her cameraman several paces in the dust, but both were close enough to feel the power of Bobby’s invitation.
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