Her Lying Days Are Done

by Robert J. Crane

  A vampire with shockingly blond hair was leading the field. I pretended to throw, and she dodged, exceptionally well. She looked a little like a pixie-cut version of Iona, and I feinted again. She dodged, cutting closer to us, now only about ten paces back and moving with blurry speed.

  “Hey,” I said as she closed the last distance between us, “you're really fast. Good for you. You win the race.” I held my hand out, ready to toss the balloon.

  She snapped a claw-like vise grip around my hand, halting my throw. A loud snarl left her lips. “No more.”

  I squeezed the balloon and it popped, raining water down on her hand, arm, body and face, and she screamed as she fell over, Iona dragging me forward, my feet not even touching the ground. “Pro tip, guys,” I said, shaking out my wrist from her grip. “Like horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear warfare, close does count with holy water balloons.”

  “Here,” Lockwood said, and Iona let me go. I fumbled, caught my balance, and found myself standing up on the last row of seats in the fairground amphitheater.

  I looked around. We'd covered a lot of ground with Iona dragging me while I was busy chucking water balloons into vampires.

  Lockwood dropped, taking a knee, breath rushing out in great gasps. The werewolves were somehow behind us, rushing into the amphitheater now, bursting past like a herd, barking and snarling as they went and flooding down the main row toward the stage. What they were after, I didn't know, but they seemed focused on something.

  I blinked a few times. Sparkling lights dotted the corners of my vision, and not the kind that came from failure to breathe. The vampires were quite a distance behind us, and it took me a moment to realize something magical had happened.

  I turned on Lockwood, who was looking quite pained. “What did you do?” I asked.

  “He leaped us forward,” Iona said. “Short-cutted us through Faerie.”

  So that was what had happened. And it had taken some fight out of him, by the looks of it, tapping into magics when Lockwood was already running low on sleep and stamina. “You shouldn't have done it, Lockwood,” I said.

  He smiled faintly. “It was either that or be run down.”

  “I guess being run down would be worse,” I said, glancing around. So we hadn't just appeared at the amphitheater while I was distracted hurling holy water balloons. I looked up at the white seashell roof that overhung the building, then down at the rows and rows of blue seats set into a manmade hill. It sat higher than the rest of the fairgrounds, and I could see everything from here—the highway, the parking lot, the swarming army of vampires following in our wake.

  The air was growing warmer, stickier. Dawn was not far off.

  “Get ready,” Iona said, looking at the vamps. “They’re coming.”

  I checked to make sure the stakes were still my hair. That was the last resort, and I reached down to fill my hands with water balloons as the main course. But if the vampires got that close, well…then we’d be in a world of trouble, wouldn’t we? I'd have to seriously consider just swinging my bag and hoping the splash damage would do enough to keep them at bay.

  The werewolves were snarling, like rabid dogs tearing apart a helpless rabbit. Did that mean they got to the wizard already?

  It was hard for me to say. It had seemed sure that I'd killed that one back at Byron’s when I plunged the knife in, yet there she'd been, on the field of battle not five minutes ago, until a few hungry werewolves had finished the job I'd started.

  “Will they help us?” I said, glancing at the roaming pack, swirling around near the stage, clearly enraged about something.

  “Who, the werewolves?” Iona said. “Doubtful. The vamps and wolves do their best to avoid one another, keeping an uneasy peace. Their fight is with the witches and wizard.” She looked down at the stage. “And unless I miss my guess, they've got a sniff of one of them now, down there.”

  I swallowed nervously as the first flickering shadows indicating the arrival of the other vampires crossed my vision. I looked at the horizon. Dawn was definitely coming soon.

  “Here, take one of these,” I said, thrusting a water balloon at Iona.

  She raised a perfect blond eyebrow. “Those have holy water on them from when you filled them. Unless you want to hear me scream as the skin melts off my hand, keep them away from me.”

  “Oh,” I said, “right,” and chucked one at the top of the stairs. It hit the ground and splashed, sending a vampire scrambling to dodge at the last second. He ended up in the last row of seats, where he caught a spell from Lockwood, howling in pain as it struck.

  “I feel like I should have taken up softball given how good I am at this,” I said, launching another one after a solid feint. It landed right in the center of a vamp's chest and he squealed, keeling over and melting right there. “Do you think the Tampa Bay Buccaneers could use a quarterback?”

  “I think you have to be able to throw it farther than thirty feet,” Iona said as I splashed another one at a vampire's feet, sending him tumbling into the vamps behind him, making a pile. I launched another one and it hit him on the side of the leg, splashing him and the two vampires he'd knocked over with him, prompting a cacophony of howling that set off the werewolves behind us. Hopefully no one would hear it and call the cops thinking it was a dying animal.

  “It’s working,” I said, lobbing another and sending vampires scrambling out of the way. Not one of them had been brave enough to push through the balloons to get to us.

  My heartbeat was loud in my ears as I tossed another one. It fell short, but the water splattered high into the air, sending them back even farther in retreat. Smoking, melted black piles of ick filled the aisle at the top where the vamps I'd doused had melted like the Wicked Witch of the West.

  “Cassie,” came Jacquelyn's voice, “we’re leaving.”

  “Awww, but you haven't even participated in the water balloon fight,” I called back. “Come on, Jacquelyn. Remember your eighth birthday party? The one with the Slip N' Slide, where you broke your arm getting a little too aggressive with the slipping and sliding? This could be like that, but with you ending up as a puddle of black goo.”

  I couldn't see her face, but I could hear her burning in the tone of her answer. “See you again soon, Cassie.”

  I turned to look at the stage. The werewolves were gone, and there was a bloody mess in the middle of the stage, with drag marks leading off. I wondered if that was the end of at least one of them...?

  “Where'd the werewolves get off to?” I asked, tentatively hiking up the amphitheater steps, avoiding the thick puddles of vampire tar.

  “They exited, stage left, once they finished with the sorcerer down there,” Iona said, pushing past me to stand at the top of the steps. “They tore him to pieces and...well, just be glad you were busy taking care of the vampires.”

  I blinked. “It was that bad?”

  She shrugged. “No, it wasn't bad. Kinda made me hungry.”

  I could just make out the car doors slamming, and the roar of engines in the distance. I caught the last flight of the vampires as I crested the top of the steps, peeling out as they left the fairgrounds.

  “They gave up awfully easily,” I said. Two cars remained, abandoned. Must have belonged to the puddles of goo down the steps.

  “They already watched you vanish once,” Lockwood said, finally reaching the top with us. “I suspect your friend concluded that attempting to storm this particular castle would result in unacceptable casualties, with no victory at the end.”

  “Yeah, if you killed almost all of them and then vanished before they got you, that probably wouldn't raise Jacquelyn's stock in Draven's eyes,” Iona said. “More like sink it. Better she retreat now and tell him she lost a few than lead her people into a catastrophe and explain losing all of them.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But we don't know how to fix Mill.”

  Iona shook her head. “Cassie...the witch. She told you, remember?”

  My heart felt lik
e it was splintering, like someone was squeezing it to breakage. “You think she was telling the truth?” Her laughter filled my mind, and I had to shake my head to clear it, goosebumps popping up on my arms.

  “Oh, she was telling the truth,” Iona said. “Why choose her last moments to lie? What good would it do?”

  “What good did it do for her to say what she did say? What did she gain?” I said. “I don't know—driving in the spite a little deeper. Depriving us of hope as the wolves deprived her of her life.”

  Iona shook her head. “That wasn't spite you saw from her.” Her face fell. “It was triumph. Come on, we should head back to the house. We need to check on Mill.”

  I thought I might be sick. Since when did she call him “Mill” and not “Forehead”? Had Iona just given away her own worry for him? “Yeah. We should go,” I said, desperate to see him and terrified all at once.

  “It will be all right, Lady Cassandra,” Lockwood said. He looked about as poor as I felt, but he walked tall beside me as we headed for the car. “We are with you.”

  Those were the sorts of things you said to a person who just lost someone. Mill was still alive. And I quickened my pace, resolving to do everything in my power to keep him that way.

  Chapter 21

  The first light of dawn was starting to show up on the horizon as we drove, that bright, burning ball of yellow hanging in the eastern sky. I'd forgotten my sunglasses and Iona had none (for obvious reasons) so I squinted as I drove, torn between my own thoughts and the occasional shouted suggestion from the back seat.

  “If you get one scratch on this car, I will kill you myself,” Iona said through the fleecy material of the blanket that covered her. She carried a bag in the trunk with clothing and blankets for emergency sunlight survival, and now she was speaking to me from beneath several layers of heavy cloth. She made herself clear over the material between us, though, so much so that it was driving me slowly nuts.

  “Touchy much?” I asked.

  “It's late and this might be the only possession I still have at the end of all this,” she said. “If you ruin this last thing like you have the rest of my afterlife, I'm going to find some way to get my revenge, and it's not going to be as gentle as a frat joke, either. We're talking a full-on assault of vengeance, from itching powder in your laundry to hiring a barbershop quartet to sing you embarrassing songs in the school cafeteria at lunch. I will investigate your class and find the worst possible crush you could have and send you flowers in the middle of class and have the delivery guy say they're from him.”

  I glared at the lumpy blanket that was her in the back seat but held my silence. She had a right to be angry.

  “And don’t glare at me,” she said.

  “What, now vampires have X-ray vision?”

  We made it back to the house before she had too much more opportunity to be grouchy with me. Not that she didn't have good reason. Lockwood and I led her inside, making sure that every inch of her was covered. The sunlight was not quite in Xandra’s yard yet, but even still. The last thing I needed was for her to give me hell about burns.

  “We’re back,” I said as we stepped inside the front door.

  Iona cast off her layers of clothing, looking around through messy hair that covered her face until her eyes came to rest on Xandra, who had come to meet us at the entry. “Do you have a bathroom?”

  “Um…yeah?” Xandra blinked a couple times, probably at being greeted with this question from a vamp.

  “Without windows?” Iona asked.

  Xandra's look got more confused. “Yeah? Why?”

  Iona turned to me. “Mill and I are probably going to need to camp out in there. The sunlight—”

  “No need,” Xandra said, hopping over one of the arm chairs in the living room and landing beside the window. She reached up and pulled one of the drapes down, smothering the morning sunlight. “Blackout curtains,” she said with a grin. “Dad works weird hours sometimes, so we had these installed to help him keep his sleep schedule. He has sleep apnea, so—”

  “You have mistaken me for someone who cares,” Iona said. “All right, this will work. For now.”

  “Cassie?”

  I looked up to see Mom sitting on the couch beside Dad, who looked pale, but was at least awake and sitting up.

  “Where did you go? When we woke up and you weren’t here—” Mom asked

  “I’m sorry, guys. I had to go take care of…” I said.

  What was I thinking? I'd almost lied, purely out of habit. But they knew the truth now. There was no sense in trying to lie or be vague about it. As I looked around, everyone who was there was watching me expectantly, waiting for the latest news.

  Mill was still lying on the couch, the only person in the room not watching me. If I hadn't seen the violently green and coppery colored wound on his arm, looking just a little larger than when I'd left, I might have thought he was just sleeping.

  “So…what happened?” It was Laura, standing in the archway to the living room, arms crossed over herself as if cold. Her eyes were wide, and she was staring at me hopefully.

  Why did that hurt so much? Was it because I wasn’t bringing good tidings?

  I looked over at Iona, who gave me a flat look, shrugging her shoulders, as if to say you do it.

  I tried to swallow my nerves, and looked from person to person, waiting for something, anything, about what was going on.

  “The witches and wizard are dead,” I said.

  Laura made a gasp of excitement, clapping her hands. I caught a hopeful look from Xandra, too, but I held up my hands to stop her from getting too worked up. “But overall...we failed.”

  Laura’s brow creased, all that excitement fleeing. “How's them dying a failure? That’s what we wanted, right? So they couldn’t track us anymore?”

  “What about the Amish kid?” Xandra asked.

  “They took off after the fight,” Iona said. “Didn't even leave a note saying goodbye, thanks for the good times, anything. I swear, those Amish need some work on their manners. Maybe they didn't have a quill handy, I don't know.”

  “Amish?” Dad asked. “How do the Amish fit into this?”

  “Because I went to a barn raising this morning,” I said.

  His frown deepened.

  With more than a little frustration, I retold what happened at the fairgrounds, including the bits about Amish werewolves, covering the death of the German sorcerers, and then getting into Jacquelyn's appearance with her vampire pals.

  “We killed a few vampires,” I said. “But not enough. They retreated, and now I’m assuming they’re just going to bide their time. I doubt Jacquelyn is going to come rushing into a confrontation again anytime soon, but I'm sure she'll be looking for us.” I took a deep breath. “But that’s not all.”

  I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball on the floor right there. Maybe take a little nap. Or die. I wished Lockwood or Iona would take over for this part. I didn’t know if I was going to be strong enough to do it.

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to drop a bomb on us?” Xandra said from the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees. She brushed a couple of stray blue strands of hair out of her eyes.

  “The only thing we found out about was the spell that hit Mill,” I said, trying really hard not to look over at him. “Apparently, the effects will last until the person who commanded its use in the first place dies.”

  It was harder to say out loud than I thought it would be.

  “So...that would be the big shot, right?” Xandra asked. “Lord Draven?” I nodded.

  Laura’s face fell. “Oh. That is bad.”

  “Yes. It’s bad,” Lockwood said. He was standing over Mill, checking the site of the spell once more. “And only getting worse.”

  “So the only way to reverse it is to kill Draven?” Xandra asked.

  I nodded again.

  She shook her head. “That’s a total bummer, dude.”

  I could feel
my eyes stinging, so I ducked my head. “Excuse me for a second…”

  I turned and made my way out of the living room and toward the kitchen. I collapsed into one of the chairs and laid my head down on the cool table.

  How long had I been without sleep now? For a few minutes, I just listened to the sound of my breathing. I forced myself to draw breath in, hold it for a few seconds, and let the breath out. It was a technique I had read about for panic attacks. With my life as full of insanity as it was, I had a feeling it might come in handy eventually. I wasn’t wrong.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  I lifted my head and saw Mom standing there next to the table, looking down at me, concern rimming her eyes.

  I put my head back down. I was in no mood for a lecture. If I ignored her, maybe she’d go away.

  “So…” she said, taking the seat opposite me. “I just wanted to say…that I’m sorry. About Mill.”

  I looked up but didn’t say anything.

  “I just wanted you to know that Dad and I are here for you…all right? Whatever happens.”

  'Whatever happens'. That stung, opening up possibilities I was trying to ignore. “Thanks, Mom…” I said.

  She patted me gently on the arm and disappeared through the archway.

  Whatever happens.

  I had to face the reality that Mill might not make it through this. No matter how hard I fought, no matter how brave I was…

  It was possible that Mill could die.

  I couldn’t imagine it. Mill was one of the strongest people I knew and had overcome so much.

  But what was he supposed to do against magic? Against some curse running through his blood?

  Sitting there and wallowing wasn’t helping anyone. If anything, it was only making me more and more disgusted with myself.

  I dragged myself from the table back into the living room. No one was in there, and I vaguely recalled hearing movement, a door in the distance, quiet talk about sunlight. I put it all together and decided they must have gone outside.