A cat call echoed from somewhere in the backyard, followed by the hissing scream of pain from a vampire.
What the hell?
Out of the darkness, silhouettes moved over a fallen figure. The screams ceased, and into the fire light came—
Gregory and Laura, my neighbors and friends from school, standing over a slain vampire in front of Mom’s blood red hibiscus bush in the side yard.
Laura, the ever-popular cheerleader, looked as good fighting vampires as she did doing her classwork. Her blonde hair was tied in a tight knot on top of her head, and she was wielding bottles filled with holy water in each hand.
Gregory, a gangly sort of boy, stood beside her, a stake raised in front of him like a sword. The firelight glinted off the lenses of his glasses.
“Cassie, you okay?” he called, his voice shaking only a little.
“Been better,” I said, moving closer to the screen, a little wash of relief running over my skin as though I’d just taken a dip in the pool. Nope, not from swimming. Just sweating like a pig from nervousness. “You?”
I was torn about seeing them. On one hand, I couldn’t have been happier to see the cavalry, seeing as we were trapped like deer surrounded by a pack of wolves. But they were out there with all of those vampires and had just outright attacked them.
That definitely was not destined to end well.
There was another crinkling sound, and I realized it was coming from Laura’s water bottles. She chucked one like a pro softball pitcher, and as it spun through the air, water spewed out and splattered the vampires nearest to Jacquelyn. She managed to duck out of the way as her bodyguards collapsed into screams.
“Did you bring holy water?” I asked, my eyes widening as the smoke rose off the vamps outside the screen door.
“No,” Laura said, tossing another bottle at a vampire who was charging her. “I’m just really keen on hydrating after cheerleading practice, and these guys are allergic to Gatorade.” She flashed a smile through the darkness. “What do you think?”
“That in spite of your grades, you’re kind of a genius,” I said. “And that I now see why every boy in school is in love with you.”
Gregory was in front of her, and as a vampire ran at the two of them, he whirled aside, drew his hand back around, and slammed the stake right between the vampire’s shoulder blades. The vampire tumbled to the ground, screeching as it started to turn to goo.
Gregory withdrew the stake from its back and turned on the other vampires like a gladiator facing his opponents.
A ripple of hesitation ran through the vampires in the yard. Laura and Gregory looked like a couple of crocodile hunters, calm and collected.
“Cassie, not sure if you know this, but your house is on fire,” Gregory said. “Being your neighbor, I thought I should come and check it out. And given your history with vampires—or our history, rather…”
Another vampire approached, and Gregory leapt into the air and slashed the stake across the vampire’s face. It shrieked, and then Gregory sank it into its chest, black blood spurting onto his wrist.
Laura threw the bottle into the air, which drew the eyes of the vamps. While they were distracted, she pulled a water balloon that I hadn’t noticed hanging from a backpack she was wearing and tossed it at the chest of the vampire closest to her. It exploded like a wave crashing against a rockface.
That vampire, and the two beside it, fell to the ground, their skin already starting to peel off. The acrid stench of vampire blood reached the inside of the lanai, overriding the smell of the burning house.
“Oh, God... What is that?” Mom said, clamping her fingers over her nose.
Mill took off in a rush of wind. He kicked open the screen door and charged at the vampires just outside, using their surprise as a chance to sink a couple stakes of his own into their chests. He then charged on, leaving them clawing at their chests in helpless horror as they sank to the ground.
Mom let out a shriek as I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door. My dad followed without me having to say anything, the heat from the housefire finally driving us forward now that Mill had cleared the way.
It probably sounded like we were having a wild backyard party to others in the neighborhood, but it was more like Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios with all the screaming. Vampires were leaping into the air, so fast that I couldn’t keep track. Mill was keeping them distracted, moving in a blur, drawing their attention away from my family and me.
Laura and Gregory were back to back, pulling off moves that Kim Possible would have been proud of. A pile of water bottles lay at Laura’s feet, and she was lobbing water balloons like there was no tomorrow. Gregory’s sudden acquisition of ninja skills seemed to be paying off; or maybe it was his crush on Laura and desire to impress her that was giving him the strength to fight like a guy on steroids.
Jacquelyn hung back, eyes wide, her wicked grin gone. I recognized the look in her eyes; it wasn’t that far off from how she’d looked when all my lies had come crashing down on the both of us. Her bad girl demeanor all wrapped up in disappointment and crushing defeat, her lips pressed together in a tight pout. With a shaky hand, she pointed at me, but looked at the remaining vamps circled around and upon the lanai. “If you let her get away, Draven’s going to stake you to the fields at Raymond James Stadium an hour before sunrise and park his limo on the fifty-yard line so he can hear you scream your last.”
One vampire threw himself right at me without any hesitation, through the open gate to the lanai. Mom and Dad screamed behind me, but I was able to duck just as he reached me. Good thing I anticipated it.
I fell backward to the ground, rolling, keeping my neck well out of his reach and latching onto his grasping hand. With the momentum of my legs and of his charge carrying us both, I planted my feet in his chest and shoved, sending him flying over me and into the window behind me.
Ka-Ching. Field goal.
It shattered as he struck it, and he sailed into the burning house, disappearing amongst the flames behind the glass.
“Cassandra!”
I scrambled to my feet. Mom was staring at me, eyes wide with horror. Dad was looking past me through the broken window.
“Mom,” I said, “vampires.”
Her eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head. “That is your answer to everything!”
“Not so,” I said, turning back to the yawning lanai door. Beyond it, the vampire fight was raging on and Jacquelyn was looking at me with pure malice in her eyes. “My answer to homework is ‘burn it’. Which is kinda my answer to vampires, too, though, so there’s a symmetry at work in my life, at least.”
Mill had left a trail of bodies behind him, all of them turning to a black goopy mess on the lawn. Dad was going to love that. He was peering at it, even in the dark, brow furrowed beneath his glasses. “Living is priority now, Dad. Focus on lawn care later.”
“I... was definitely not thinking about the fertilizer properties of vampires,” Dad said, blinking in surprise.
“What is happening to those people on the lawn?” my mother asked, staring into the dark. “It’s like they’re melting.”
“They’re secretly the wicked witches of the north, east, south and west,” I said.
My mother stared at me in the dark, fire reflecting off her eyes. “Really?”
“No,” I said. “Vampires, Mom. Keep up.”
She made a grunting noise deep in her throat and I grabbed her hand, dragging her toward the door— and Jacquelyn.
I was feeling entirely too trapped inside the lanai, just watching Gregory and Laura and Mill out there with weapons. Jacquelyn’s posse was dwindling, and she was slipping away, moving behind a wall of them that was at least three bodies thick.
“Hey, Jacquelyn,” I said, the anger flushing through my body as I surged forward, pulling Mom with me. “I don’t think this career you’ve got planned as a supervillain is working out very well. Maybe you should stick to someth
ing you’re good at. Probably not cheerleading, because you sucked at that, too. Or dance, because you have white girl rhythm.” I frowned. “Actually... Thinking back... Was there ever anything you were actually good at?”
She glared at me, her eyes flashing dangerously. “I’m getting pretty good at burning down your houses.”
“Well, I’m fresh out of those, so unless you’re planning to buy me another one to burn down,” I said, striding forward, “I’d say you’ve about run out of use. Especially since your services as ‘bestie’ are no longer needed.”
Jacquelyn stooped behind her offensive line of vampire muscle, her brow an angry line that probably needed some plucking. She let out an angry hiss and motioned toward me, sending a couple vampires at me.
“Cassie, heads up!” Mill tossed a stake onto the ground just outside the lanai for me.
One of the vampires that was a little closer saw it, and we made eye contact for a fraction of a second over it.
Then we both dove for the stake.
I threw my body across it, and the vampire flung herself on top of me, knee catching me in the ribs and knocking the wind out of me. I squirmed to pull my arm, and the stake, from beneath my chest. She was trying to roll me over, hands dragging at my side. I let her win that one, using her movement to dislodge my arm. As I came over, I thrust the stake through the middle of her chest.
Her eyes bulged, and when she coughed, she sprayed my face with black blood. It speckled my cheeks and eyebrows, and I flinched as it spattered me. “Oh, gross...” I shoved her off, yanking the stake free. “Why can’t vampires turn to something nice when they die? Like bath beads?”
I furiously scrubbed at my face with my sleeve. A sharp, piercing wail sounded in the distance. It took me a second for my brain to register what I was hearing. Living in the city of Tampa, or any city in general, really, there are certain sounds you always hear.
Car horns.
Slamming doors.
And sirens. Generally, not as close as these, which were getting nearer with every passing second.
The vampires who were still standing perked up like cats hearing a rustle in a nearby bush. Almost as one, they turned and looked at Jacquelyn.
She seemed lost, too. Or like she had lost.
Because she had. They’d failed.
“Ha,” I said. “You monologued too long.”
Jacquelyn stood behind her line of vampires, staring between two muscly shoulders at me. “This isn’t over, Cassie.”
“You’re right about that,” I said. My face darkened. “Get out of here.”
Jacquelyn stared at me for but a moment before letting out a snarl. Then she took off, disappearing around the side of the house as the sirens grew louder, her vampires fleeing behind her.
My adrenaline seemed to leave me the moment she was gone, my knees, already weak, giving way as I hit the lawn, palms striking the sawgrass like jagged, pointy blades. I turned my head to look—
Flames were rising out of the roofline, now, billowing into the night sky. The first flashes of red and blue lights fell along the sides of the house to either side of ours, mingling with the orange cast of the flames.
It felt like all the life had left me as I knelt there in the shadow of my house. It shouldn’t matter; we were safe, after all. Jacquelyn and her vampires had left. With the help of my friends and my boyfriend... We’d won.
But somehow none of that mattered, and it consoled me not at all as I stayed there on my hands and knees as my house, my home, burned before my very eyes… Again.
Chapter 5
A shock blanket. That was what the firemen had called the soft, bright orange cloth that they had wrapped around my shoulders. Somehow it was supposed to give me comfort like a swaddling cloth around a baby. How was a blanket supposed to help me deal with the emotional trauma of yet another one of my houses burning down? Was the orange supposed to be distracting? Was it supposed to warn everyone to stay away that wanted to come near me and ask me how I was feeling?
The police showed up shortly after and started asking us questions. They also asked about the flecks of black…whatever it was all over us.
“Oil,” Mill said. “We were changing the oil in our car before dinner. Hadn’t had a chance to wash up when everything... Happened.”
Dad, Gregory, Laura and I gave Mill a look. Dad then looked at me like, so your boyfriend is a liar, too?
Ouch.
Mom was catatonic, so I told the police, with Dad’s help, that we had been eating dinner when a Molotov cocktail was tossed through the dining room window. I knew that the forensics would turn up the bottle as what had caused the fire in the first place. There was no reason to lie about that. If I hadn’t already just sworn off lying.
“Do you have any idea who could have done it?” the police officer asked, his silvery moustache twitching as he spoke. This guy had seen some stuff in his time. His scrutinizing gaze didn’t faze me, though; I was used to Mom’s lawyer stare.
“I know who it was, actually,” I said. “A girl I used to know when we lived in New York…she seemed to have a real grudge against me…and also to sunlight, for some reason. Can’t imagine why. Grunge fan, maybe—”
The police officer had been scrawling my response down on the tablet in his hands, and hesitated, staring up at me.
I shrugged.
I heard Mill sigh beside me.
The officer left us with a promise to investigate, but I knew it didn’t matter. Jacquelyn would be untraceable as a vampire. It was the same thing with Byron. That was why I hadn’t given the police her real name.
Why did this have to be so messy all the time?
It didn’t take the firemen long to put the fire out, which was good, all things considered, but they made it very clear that we were not allowed to go back inside. There was the chance that it could reignite, and they would need to ensure that it was safe before we could get the insurance company in there to assess the damage.
As to the damage... it was considerable. I couldn’t even see how bad it was, but the skeletal frame of the attic beams was visible where the roofing tiles had been burned away.
The firemen told us we could keep our shock blankets. It was really hard not to laugh at the sight of Mill wrapped snugly in fluorescent orange. If anything, I thought he looked downright adorable, though I doubted he would appreciate me saying that out loud.
The firetrucks left shortly after the cop cars, and we were alone. All of the neighborhood onlookers who had been snooping on their lawns had come and given their condolences before returning to their own warm, well-lit, still intact homes.
“It’s good to know that the house isn’t a total loss,” I said, staring up at the charred building. There was black soot outside of the dining room, and water dripped from the broken window. It was probably going to be a long time before we could move back in, but at least we still had a house when I thought we had lost everything.
“Well,” Dad said, “I guess I should start calling hotels, seeing if they have any availability...”
“That’s not a good idea,” Mill said, shaking his head. “The vampires are going to go looking at nearby hotels for you. It wouldn’t be safe.” He turned to look at me. “I’d suggest my place, but....”
“Yeah, Draven will be looking for us there, too,” I said, crossing my arms. “You probably can’t go home now. Sorry.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t really love any of that stuff anyway. Except the Roomba. That was kinda cool.”
Mom was sitting on the ground, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, staring off into the distance. She wasn’t contributing to the conversation in any way.
I tried not to get lost in worry about her mental state in that moment. We had to get to safety, first. Then I could have a freak out if I needed to.
“You guys can stay at my house,” Gregory said.
“Or mine,” Laura said, her perfect hair still perfect, even after a fight with vampires. “My family
isn’t even home right now.”
I looked at Laura and the whole trip to Miami came flooding back to me. I had literally traveled across the state to protect this girl. I was not going to let anything happen to her now by turning her home into a vampire magnet. I shook my head. “Laura, I hate to break this to you but…you should come with us. Because they’re going to be looking for you, too.” I looked pointedly at her and Gregory. “Both of you.”
Gregory shrugged. “Thanks for the offer, Cass, but I can’t. My parents are here, and it would probably be best if at least one of us stayed around here to keep an eye on things, you know?”
I didn’t like that answer. “Gregory, I’m not sure that’s smart.”
“Did you see me tonight?” he asked. He twirled the stake in his hand, stained black, like a drumstick. It tumbled out of his grasp and he scrambled to retrieve it as it clattered on the asphalt. “Just ignore that. I totally have things under control. I’ve got more of these, and some holy water, just like you had suggested. I’ll be fine.”
I sighed. He had done pretty well. And it wasn’t like I could force him to come with me. At least, I didn’t think that it would be smart to pressure him. Besides, he was right. His parents were here, and if we were to leave them unprotected, they could end up getting hurt. “Just…don’t be stupid, okay? If they show up again…please get out of here, okay? You and your family.”
He nodded his head. “Don’t worry. I’ll be in contact every step of the way.” He looked at the stake in his fingers, then sort of brought it around behind his back, as though I’d just forget about it. “I won’t do anything stupid. I promise.”
That should have been a relief, but since I had no idea how long this ordeal was going to last, it only just made me worry about leaving him in the first place. If I didn’t have eyes on him, how could I be sure he’d be safe? That any of them would be safe?
And why did I feel so responsible?
Her Lying Days Are Done Page 3
