by Minda Webber
My shot was good and I hit him in the face with the Holy water. His eyes were watering so badly he hadn’t seen me coming. I heard the vampire shriek and saw part of his face melt. I winced when I heard Dagan scream in pain as the drops fell on him as well. He was also still choking on the stench of garlic and I was afraid that the friendly fire might do in my boyfriend.
Suddenly, I was airborne and landed about three feet back having been tackled by a short vampire with really large breasts. She flashed her fangs at me and bit my arm which I had automatically thrown up to protect my neck.
I was the one who screamed in pain this time. My back and head hurt where I had hit the ground and her tearing at the flesh of my arm didn’t help. With my other hand I reached out and yanked the large silver cross out of my shirt and slammed it into her arm. The smell of burning flesh almost gagged me. We both struggled as I continued to hold the cross to her arm and she cursed me fluently in Italian, I think.
Behind me I heard the sounds of Zoe screaming and Hart shouting. I saw a flash and knew that Hart had used the flame thrower. I smelled more burnt flesh as Hart’s shot went true. The vampire ignited like a candle and Zoe was free.
The busty vampire I had burned with the cross lurched backward quickly to escape the burning of my cross. But she didn’t retreat, seeking to attack me again. Luckily for me, Jason hit her in the back with the Holy water machine gun. Water went all over both of us. I watched in horrified fascination as she began to melt. We sure weren’t in Oz anymore.
Quickly, I glanced around, my eyes filled with concern, noting that Zoe was lying motionless on the ground. I hoped Zoe wasn’t dead. I was beyond frightened. One of my friends might be going to die tonight. I might die. My parents would kill me.
Somewhere along the line, the B movie plot had changed. We were losing!
I looked over to where Debbs had been held captive. I figured that she was either dead or severely hurt. Happily, I was wrong because Debbs was free. Seth had gotten to her in time. The relief I felt was overwhelming and I couldn’t help but grin for she had taken the crossbow away from Seth and was in the process of nailing another vampire. Her shot was true while Seth was shooting at another vampire who was stalking Bea. Seth’s gun held silver nitrate bullets which exploded upon impact and burned the vampire from the inside. Seth wasn’t as good a shot as Hart, so his shot went wide and only nicked the vampire in the arm. Still the nitrate hurt and it slowed the vampire down enough for Bea to turn and run.
Bea didn’t have time to shoot, one of the big disadvantages with the bow and arrow. They didn’t fit well in a shoulder holster either.
I glanced around and found Dagan wiping his eyes as he struggled with the vampire still trying to drag him off. His legs were encased in silver chains, but his hands were still free. Another vampire went to help subdue Dagan.
Quickly, I got to my feet and staggered. My head still hurt from hitting the ground so hard. My arm was bleeding from where the vampire had torn into it. But I wouldn’t let Dagan down. He needed me!
I started forward to help Dagan to escape, only to be defeated in my attempt at rescue, by the sudden rampage of the remaining ghouls from the cemetery where we had opened Dagan’s grave.
“Great, just great! They picked now to find us!”
What utterly rotten luck!
I screamed, a short brief sound that burst into the night as the ghoul tackled me from behind. But I knew immediately what held me for I could smell its stench. The corpse smelled of rotting flesh and I felt a piece of it fall on my back. This was an older ghoul. Even more rotten luck. I wanted to gag!
I tried to roll with it but it held me to the ground as it went for my neck. Fortunately for me, Hart saw and used the flame thrower. I felt the heat go over my back as the ghoul fell away, burning like a human torch.
I did gag and staggered to my feet in time to see Debbs shoot a ghoul through the head with the crossbow. The skull shattered. I was surprised. I didn’t know you could kill a ghoul that way. I wondered if Debbs did? I’m glad no one had told her it wasn’t possible, since when you’re told you can’t do something, most times you go with the flow. But then ghoul killing was the mother of invention, along with vampire kidnappings.
Again I gained my legs, I was shaky but I’d live. If only Dagan would as well. I quickly scoped out the scene. Hart was firing away with the flame thrower and managed to send another ghoul off burning, to die in the night and send him to hell.
Jason was still fighting off two vampires with his Holy water machine gun which was running low on water. We’d need to visit the church again soon if we survived the night, which I now felt like we would.
Suddenly, Seth was behind Jason with my gun. I saw the flame bullets fire up on impact and the two vampires slowly back away and then vanish into the night. As I looked around I noticed that there were four dead vampires on the ground and only two more were still fighting with Bea and Debbs. When Debbs raised the crossbow they backed away into the shadows just as all the rest had done. And they were gone into the night swiftly and silently. Unfortunately, with my boyfriend! The very worst of luck!
I picked up my Holy water gun and ran to where Dagan had last been. He wasn’t in sight. All that was left was a scrap of blue material from the shirt my boyfriend had been wearing. I knelt and felt my heart breaking as I picked up the scrap. I looked all around the clearing and shouted out my cry of rage. “He’s gone!”
I stood starting at the spot where I had last seen him. How would I ever find him? Would I have time to find him before they killed him? “Why?” I didn’t expect an answer.
“I don’t know,” Hart said as he hugged me. “Dagan didn’t have to come tonight. He was brave to do it, knowing what he knew. His granddad would be proud.”
“We kicked butt,” Jason said, boasting as he wiped blood off his forehead. Evidentially a vampire had scratched him there. He didn’t appear to be hurt anywhere else. “Did you see them run?”
Debbs grinned and gave his shoulder a friendly punch, while Seth clung to her hand. “Yeah, we sure did, Jason. Did you see that shot I made with the crossbow? It was fricking fantastic!”
They were happy and I was miserable. I probably shouldn’t be so sunk in gloom and doom. We were alive. But Dagan was gone. “We’ve got to find him.” I held on tightly to Hart and felt tears slip down my cheeks. I hated crying in public. I never minded at home behind closed doors, but in public I felt kind of silly. “We’ve got to get to him fast.”
“How do we do that?” Hart asked as he rubbed his leg. A vampire had managed to stake him with a tree branch. Luckily, it was a small wound and didn’t do much damage. “We need bloodhounds. We’ll have to call in the police and explain.”
Even bloodhounds couldn’t track vampires as fast as we needed. We needed paranormal bloodhounds. The thought hit me like a ton of bricks-or a flying vampire. In fact, I had already been hit tonight and I knew I’d have many bruises tomorrow to prove it.
I jumped back from Hart to scan the area again. Only one ghoul was left. Bea and Zoe had it pinned on the ground and Seth was about to dispatch it.
“Don’t!” I screamed, running towards him. “Don’t kill it. Just subdue it.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, and smiled and grabbed some of the netting that was lying across the deadened grass of October.
“What are you going to do with a ghoul?” Debbs asked.
“Use it.”
“How?” Jason asked his tone terse. “What crazy scheme are you hatching up now?”
“It’s going to find Dagan. The ghoul is going to be my paranormal bloodhound.” I glanced over at Debbs. “Any objections?” I was happy to see her alive and well. But now that she was, I was angry that my boyfriend was in the hands of Attila, the Vampire. He’d saved her at maybe the expense of his own life. The morose thought chilled me to the bone. Geez, nothing was going to make me happy tonight.
She raised eyes filled w
ith shame to me, her earlier confidence now faded. “Not a one. I’m indebted to Dagan.”
I guess she felt like she owed Dagan her life once again. She helped me bind the ghoul’s arms, along with Hart. We had to leave his legs free. All the while he kept trying to bite us with his nasty jagged teeth.
“How do we get him to follow Dagan’s scent? He’s got ours now and won’t go hunting for Dagan as long as we’re alive.”
“Curry,” I answered. “I put a whole bunch of little containers in my vampire kit the other day after our adventures at Howl at the Moon.”
She nodded. “Me too. But how will this creature here know to follow Dagan?”
I held up a piece of bloody shirt I had found over by the water fountain. I started to shake. Shock was setting in. “You’ll see this through?” I asked my best friend.
“You bet. He didn’t leave me to die at the hands of dirty rotten vamps,” she replied fervently. Then she looked away and said quietly, “I’m sorry, V.J. I was wrong. You were right, but I didn’t want to see it. Dagan is one of the good vamps and courageous and I shouldn’t have been ripping at you about him.”
I stared at her, not knowing what to say. Debbs rarely apologized because being a Van Helsing and only a tiny bit spoiled, she seldom thought she was wrong.
“I thought you’d blame him for being captured.”
“It’s not his fault really. I was over my mad by the time they hauled me out here. I also had to wonder if he’d even come. I haven’t been very nice to him. So why should he risk his life for me?”
“No, you’ve been a witch,” I replied honestly. I hurt and was scared and I didn’t care if she knew that I wasn’t that happy with how she had acted towards my kidnapped boyfriend. “You were worried that you wouldn’t be rescued?”
“No. I knew ya’ll would come. One for all and all for one.” She smiled at all of us as we stood looking down at the ghoul and back at each other. We weren’t exactly the Three Musketeers, but then they probably hadn’t had to deal with vampire, ghouls and werewolves.
I looked over at my friends. They were now all standing in a semi-circle around the ghoul and me. “This is going to be bad, worse than what we’ve gone through tonight already. But I can’t let Dagan be killed by those vamps. I’m going to hunt them down and try to get him back. I won’t ask anybody else to go.”
“But we won,” Zoe said. I could tell she was confused. Her face was covered in dirt and blood and I could see where a vampire had bitten her on the collar bone. The tear in her skin was jagged and must hurt.
“You did good,” Debbs said as she smiled at Zoe. “For a freshman, you’re not too bad. You just might be a keeper.”
It was a high compliment from Debbs. I guess she was going to get over her thing about the House of Usher.
“All of ya’ll were just so great. You looked like the military guys in the movies,” Bea added. “And we beat them! Vampires!”
“Only because they got overconfident about battling humans and only because Bea invented those bombs. They distracted the vampires. This time we don’t have time for Bea to make more and I bet we don’t have many left. Sunrise is coming and we’ve got to track and find Dagan tonight. This time we’ll be in their home territory and we don’t know how many of them there are,” I explained.
“Oh,” Zoe said, her voice deflated like a bike’s tire.
“You shouldn’t go, Zoe. You don’t even really know us this well and you’ve already bravely risked your life tonight. Once is enough.” I tried to smile and failed.
“None of us should go. Dagan’s with his own kind. Let him be.” Jason was shaking his head as he helped Hart bandage his leg.
“They might kill him. They’ll probably kill Dagan. We killed four of them so they’ll want to retaliate.” The thought terrified me because I reasoned that they’d really hurt Dagan bad before they killed him. I couldn’t stand the thought of him suffering. I had failed him tonight when I’d first heard Debbs had been kidnapped. I’d been angry at him and he knew it. I had also let him get taken away.
“You’re stupid, V.J. It’s a losing deal. The guy’s dead this time, really dead.” Jason was eloquent as always. “I can’t believe you think we’re going to stick our necks out for a vampire.”
“I’m going if Debbs is going,” Seth replied, as he put his arm around his girlfriend and held her close.
Bloody and covered in dirt, Bea just grinned. “It’s exciting. I never get to do this stuff.” Both her arms were clawed up pretty bad, but she hadn’t been bitten by one of the vamps. “We’ve got to be involved. We are fighting for freedom. Vampires can’t go around kidnapping and killing people just because they can. It weakens democracy.”
This time I did manage a faint smile. Trust Bea to put a patriotic slant on tonight’s fiasco.
“Bea, don’t be dumb. This has nothing to do with liberty, it’s about a royal vampire getting taken for greedy purposes,” Jason remarked sarcastically. “What’s next, the Gettysburg Address?”
“You’re the one being stupid. Greed is always an enemy of liberty. If they can take one of us, they can take all of us. If we don’t make a stand now, greed wins and it lessens our own freedom. Then who’s next?” Bea wisely asked. “I’m no summer solider or sunshine patriot.”
“Nothing like a little Patrick Henry quote to put things right.” I put my arm around her waist and laid my head atop her shoulder. She was such a good soul who never backed down from what she perceived as the right thing to do. The Founding Fathers would be proud, or at least Abraham Lincoln.
“This is all so bogus! I can’t believe you’d risk your lives for a blood-sucking parasite,” Jason stated angrily.
I started to argue, but Debbs held up her hand. “I owe Dagan a debt. He didn’t leave me to rot; I won’t leave him. Besides, he’s one of us now since he’s my best friend’s boyfriend.”
“Well, I’m not going. Let’s go, Hart.”
“I’m going with them, Jason.” Hart hauled the ghoul to its feet while it groaned and tried to scream between the gag we had stuffed in his mouth.
The ghoul moaned again and tried to shake Hart off, but Hart was a big boy and the ghoul was short and not very old so the ghoul ended up standing rather tamely alongside Hart.
Jason looked angry and hurt. “You’re my cousin. Why would you go? It’s a suicide mission.”
“Because Dagan risked his life for me. I never asked him to and he never hesitated. He’s brave and if I went home now I don’t think I could stand to look in the mirror tomorrow.”
“This is lame, Hart, just lame!”
“Will you take Zoe home? She’s been a big help, but I don’t want her in any more danger,” I asked of Jason.
“No, I’m going to help too,” Zoe stated adamantly. “Just because it’s scary doesn’t mean I’m going to quit. You wouldn’t have quit on me. You stood by me twice already, protecting me from Carol and Robbie’s taunting. Hey, after dealing with them, how much worse can a pack of hungry vampires be?”
“Let’s clean up our wounds with the Holy water and get tracking,” Bea said practically.
“Man, you’re all so lame! You deserve to be vampire fodder.” Jason, his face dark with rage, turned his back and stomped away.
I felt something tear in the fabric of our friendship and knew after tonight nothing would be the same between us again. It was strange. You could share a lot with your very good friends, a thousand memories, some bad and many good. You weather the times. You get mad at them or they get mad at you but you get over it, because you’ve shared a communal type memory of events and things you’d all done together. You believe that you will be friends throughout your life. Then the unexpected happens and it fundamentally changes the way you feel. It had happened tonight with Jason.
The love he once said he had for me had changed to hate. I saw it happen before my eyes. And I was tired of his quick temper and the way he assigned blame to the blameless. Jason’s friendship would
be a loss, but nothing compared to what I would feel if Dagan died this night or the next.
“We have to find him and fast,” I muttered.
Debbs patted me on the arm as we walked back to Hart’s pickup. She had heard me over the growling of the ghoul, our friends talking and the noisy sounds of our footsteps hitting the graveled road. Not so surprising, really, considering that a Van Helsing needed good hearing skills to survive since they had to be ready to stake a vampire at the drop of a hat or an opening of a coffin.
“We will find him, V.J. We will.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I felt like I had a starring role in the Magnificent Seven, a western that all of us had watched with Hart and his uncle over the years. Of course, there were only six of us and we weren’t wearing cowboy hats or boots. And we weren’t in Mexico. Well, maybe not the Magnificent Seven after all, more like the Monster-Hunting Six. Still, Steve McQueen never lost his courage or cool under fire. I hoped I would do as well. We were lucky that none of us had gotten seriously hurt in MacArthur Park, but now we faced the same vampires, probably with more reinforcements at their home base.
Still, as frightened as I was, I just couldn’t leave my boyfriend in their bloodthirsty hands, which led to the situation I was now in, following behind the ghoul with Seth. Seth had his cell and he was giving directions to Zoe who was riding in the front seat with Hart driving.
The ghoul, who had his arms tightly bound behind him with a pair of silver chains and handcuffs, didn’t just follow the streets; he cut across yards and vacant lots and things like that. That is why the two of us were following closely on his heels. The curry was working because the ghoul paid us little attention. With the scrap of shirt tied hanging under his nose, the ghoul was after Dagan. With luck the ghoul would lead us straight to him, and the vampires would be unprepared for our quick response.
