Fangtastic

by Lucienne Diver

  “Where to now?” he asked.

  “Office,” I croaked. “I’ll show you.” From there, if I could get Very Scary’s screens to work, we could see everything. We could pinpoint the action in an instant.

  With a monumental effort, I rose, swaying as I did.

  “You okay?” Eric asked.

  I waited to respond until my brain decided there really was just one of him as opposed to the three I was seeing. He resolved into the one in the center. “No. I’m a nightwalker and it’s day. I still can’t believe I’m even wake. Don’t know how long I can stay this way.”

  “Would blood help?”

  My fangs slammed down into position, and I answered without even thinking. “Yesss.” So instinct, at least, was alive and well.

  Eric swallowed hard and offered a wrist. I nearly jumped on him, sinking my teeth into his lovely ripe veins. Oh, the sensation. Imagine your favorite chocolate lava cake or other indulgence and multiply the sweet sensation with a burst of pure adrenaline. Like a chocolate energy drink. Bliss.

  Too soon I felt something grab at my hair, pulling me back. Reluctantly, I went, licking at my lips to collect every last drop.

  I met Eric’s gaze, and he looked … loopy. A bemused smile was on his face. “Ah, now I understand.”

  There was some magic to our bite that made things pleasant for the bitee. This was usually a good thing. But when the bitee was old enough to be your father … Ewk.

  “Follow me,” I ordered, choosing action over reaction.

  I ran for the stairs. We hit the top floor at a dead run, and I risked a dislocated shoulder to bust the door into Very Scary’s inner sanctum. The dazed look hadn’t even faded from Eric’s face by the time I got the flat-screen monitor on Very Scary’s desk to pop up out of hiding and accessed the keyboard. From there I was stumped. Everything was password protected.

  “Move aside,” Eric ordered back. “Machines are my specialty.”

  His hands flew over the keys so quickly I couldn’t even follow, and within seconds the wall panels had slid back to reveal the surveillance screens. Eric flipped through the screens quickly, as soon as he could determine that they weren’t what he was looking for. Then we caught sight of them. Two bodies lay on the floor at the feet of the killer kids—or, at least, I could see a pair of splayed feet to the right and an elbow to the left that couldn’t possibly belong to the same person … not and still be attached. But whose were they? The cameras didn’t pick up the vampires, but we could see their beds and the Japanese shoji screens separating them … and the kids closing in, wooden bats once again in hand.

  “Where is this?” Eric asked me, like I’d know.

  I got closer to the screen he was pointing to and studied the picture, thinking fast. I almost missed the window because it was completely blacked out and the room was pretty dim to begin with, but when I looked closely, there it was, past the shoji screens—a small round window like you’d find in an …

  “Attic!” I said out loud. “Top of the Tower.”

  “You know how to get there?”

  I answered a question with a question. “Can you find us a schematic?”

  His hands flew over the keys again, and he ended up with a blueprint of the place on every screen.

  “Great. Now, do you know how to read it?” I asked.

  He took it all in at a glance and said, “This way.”

  He tapped one final key on the keyboard and darted for the wall as one of Very Scary’s wall panels opened before us.

  I chased after him. “We’re still missing a plan.”

  “You kick butt and find Nelson, I get everyone to safety.”

  “Sure, why didn’t I think of that?”

  He took the stairs two at a time, and then suddenly went down like a ton of bricks, landing hard as he twisted to save his precious invention rather than himself. I vaulted him to keep from going down myself, but when I turned to help, he panted, “Trip wire. I’ll be okay. Just … let me catch my breath. I’ll be right behind you.”

  I wasn’t so sure of that, the way he’d fallen. I’d definitely heard the sound of bone breaking—leg, rib, I couldn’t tell, but I gave him a nod. I couldn’t stop now. Momentum was the only thing keeping me going.

  I hit the third floor landing, and a thick plywood club, studded with nails, pointy sides out, came flying at me out of nowhere, swung like a major-league bat. I almost didn’t get a hand up in time, but my vampire reflexes, even slowed, still beat any hopped-up human’s. One of the nails went right through my hand, but that only guaranteed that the board was coming with me when I gave it a tug. The person on the other end—Burly Boy—came flying with it, and I sidestepped to let him take the tumble down the stairs that he’d meant for me. From his moan, I knew he’d live, even if I didn’t much care at that point.

  It was amazing how reviving anger and action could be. I felt my senses perking painfully as I pulled the nail from my hand and reversed my grip on the plywood so that I held the smooth part. Their weapon was now mine, and it would work on killer kids and vamps alike.

  I didn’t rush the next landing. I hoped they’d assume I’d gone down, as intended, and that it was Burly Boy himself headed their way.

  I burst through the half-open door, slamming it back against the wall, and found myself, sure enough, in the room we’d seen onscreen, only the scene itself had changed. Or maybe I was just now able to see the missing pieces. Very Scary faced off against the killer kids, who were armed with more nail-studded bats. He stood between them and his fellow vamps, barring the way. He had to be ancient, as I’d guessed way back when by the lack of any color to his skin. Only the very oldest vamps could resist the pull of the grave when the sun came up. All the other vamps slept like what we were—the dead. The body parts I’d seen onscreen belonged, I guessed, to Very Scary’s human servants, because all the killer kids were accounted for.

  They turned when I crashed into the room, and the

  distraction was enough for Very Scary to lunge for Nelson, lips pulled back from his fully fierce fangs and hands curved like claws. Seriously like claws, I realized. His nails had somehow grown like Freddy Krueger’s manicurist had gotten ahold of him.

  As I watched, Nelson sidestepped the attack with near-vampire speed, and Elise whirled just as quickly to strike Very Scary a blow from the seriously spiky side of her bat. He dodged that one, right into Kelly’s counter-swing. Blood spurted into the air, and my own fangs came crashing down.

  Behind me I heard what sounded like a rhino charging up the stairs, but had to be Burly Boy—quickly recovered, curse him, and from my stolen energy. I slammed the door shut behind me and put my back to it just in time to stop him from blowing through. Still, his attempt rocked me on my feet. The killer kids had already busted the lock, and the only thing standing between Burly Boy and the fight was me.

  Even bloodied, Very Scary managed to dance back from two more blows coming his way and hissed at me, “You wanted to prove yourself. Now’s the time.”

  I was torn. I definitely didn’t want whoever was body surfing the real Nelson Ricci to win the fight. Their plan couldn’t be allowed to succeed; they were too blood-thirsty. Too…psychotic. It was a dark day when Very Scary and the vamps—great name for a goth band if ever I heard one—were the lesser of two evils.

  I waited for Burly Boy’s next run on the door and darted out of the way, letting his momentum tumble him into the room. As he pinwheeled past, I used the less lethal side of the bat to knock him into the midst of the fight. Very Scary blurred out of the way and Kelly leapt him to come at me, a really credible growl rumbling in her throat. Burly Boy went down, taking Elise with him, but I didn’t have time to see how hard they fell, as Kelly was swinging like a girl possessed.

  “Come back for more?” I asked. I was still glad I hadn’t drained her dead, but unconscious I could have gone for right about now.

  “This time things are going to go a little differently,” she spat. Her but
ton nose made it a little hard to take her seriously, even in full snarl.

  “Well then, what are you waiting for? Have at me.”

  I wanted her to lunge in anger rather than cold calculation, and I wasn’t disappointed. It was so easy to catch her arm as I sidestepped it and whirled her into the door Burly Boy had blown through. She caught the edge of the door straight to the forehead and folded like a Macy’s stock girl.

  Just as I turned back to the rest of the action, the glass of the single attic window shattered inward and shards flew in every direction. I flinched away to protect my eyes and heard the sudden explosive hiss of pressurized gas releasing. I dropped low to avoid it, my flesh burning, my eyes red-hazed from blood tears, and my whole body on fire, not sure whether to implode or combust. A garlic bomb? Something else? My ears still worked, even if my eyes didn’t, and I could hear retching, coughing, cries of pain from the killer kids and Very Scary alike. So, a double-edged sword then, something for everyone.

  Then something else slammed through the window, landing hard and shaking the floorboards beneath my feet. I struggled to focus on what was going on and could make out a commando standing where the window had been, his face and eyes covered by a mask and goggles to protect him from the gas. He stepped aside to unhook the cord from the harness he’d ridden in on and the light coming through the shattered window hit the first of the sleeping vampires. She instantly burst into flame. Too young to actually wake, but not to let out an unholy shriek as she burned, thrashing wildly in her sleep. It was horrible, and I leapt forward to help just as the commando yanked a dagger-sized stake from a bandolier across his chest and quick as thought plunged it into her chest.

  “No!” I cried, nearly unable to process what I’d just seen. The burning vampiress cut off mid-wail, convulsing around the stake before going deadly still. She hadn’t been a threat. She hadn’t even been awake.

  Stunned, I stared daggers at the window warrior, but in his breathing gear, he didn’t look even remotely human. He gave me a nod, as if we were on the same side, but I knew right then that we weren’t. I had about a split second to prove it.

  It sounded like a herd of elephants were charging up the stairs. Commando’s backup, I presumed. I broke my spiky bat over my knee, ignoring the pain, and grabbed the fragments I thought to be the right size, diving for the door to slam it shut and drive the splinters in like wedges beneath it.

  The commando didn’t settle for just staring daggers. He apparently preferred pulling a gun, a very serious-looking rifle, from a holster on his back. Two things happened at once, then: a shoji screen that had caught fire from the flaming vampiress crashed into one of the other beds, lighting a second vampire on fire, and Very Scary started to lurch upright, recovering from the smoke bomb.

  “Down!” I yelled, as the commando shifted his aim toward the new threat.

  I could see the shock in his eyes, but VS obeyed almost instantly, dropping back to the floor as a bullet gouged a furrow in his scalp rather than drilling him a third eye.

  The door behind me was being battered to within an inch of its life. Wood splintered. We wouldn’t be alone much longer, and with Very Scary down, the commando was retraining his gun on me. Without conscious thought, I launched a final splinter from my bat at him, like a throwing knife in a circus act. At the same time, Very Scary rose up again and barreled the length of the attic to take him down. Commando fired, but Very Scary was in close enough to knock the gun aside one instant and go for his throat in the next. He never stood a chance.

  The door splintered just as the killer kids, hacking up lungs, started to stagger upright, trying to escape or rejoin the fight. Feds poured into the room. I dove for the burning vampire and used my body to smother the flames.

  “Stop right there!” Sid yelled.

  I froze, like everyone else, guilty conscience making me check that the gun was trained on someone other than me. Commando wasn’t in any condition to let them know I’d switched sides, but I was still relieved to see that it was nasty-Nelson in the crosshairs. Maya, beside Sid, covered Elise and her cohort Kelly, who was still doubled over coughing. Behind them … holy crap! They must have drawn their backup from the vampire testing facility, because one of the guys crowding their backs, all in burglar black, was Pyro’s partner.

  I knew the second he saw me. His eyes widened and his gun came up, high enough to aim over Maya’s shoulder. “That’s the girl!” he shouted.

  Everyone looked at me, and while I normally liked to draw all eyes, this time I’d pass.

  “What girl?” Sid asked, not as if he didn’t know, but as if he wanted to be absolutely clear.

  I had one shot at getting this right. I’d had exactly zero time to practice my newfound ability. I didn’t even know for sure it was that and not a fluke, but I had to hope and pray to god or goth or whatever that I could pull it off.

  Without waiting for the accusation I knew would come, I closed my eyes and willed myself to ghost. Whatever’d been in the commando’s smoke bomb made it sting, so that I felt superheated, like steam, and it took a hair longer than it should have. Momentarily, though, I was lighter than air. I heard the commotion kick up at my disappearance—yelling, movement, confusion—but it was a distant thing, like playing telephone with tin cans. I didn’t dare try to open my eyes for a look. The last time I’d tried it while ghosting, I’d fallen back into physical form.

  This time, I focused on my other senses while rising above the noise and aiming to pass over the highest concentration of disturbance, figuring that would be the cavalry, and behind them stairs and freedom. When I was past it, when the air seemed … clearer, cleaner, less cluttered, I tried to sense down. But … hell, for all I knew, I was back in that attic, Pyro’s partner had already shot me, and I was living a fever dream. I started to sink at the very thought. Ah ha—down!

  Following my fall, I continued down and down, bouncing along when things seemed to get … thick. I figured those were the times when I was sinking through the stairs and did my best to rise up again. Theoretically, I probably could have ghosted right through the Tower walls and out, but that way lay daylight and death.

  Then something rushed through me from behind, shocking me back into myself, and suddenly I was solid and stumbling. I grabbed for anything I could use to break my fall and latched onto a pair of serious shoulders, sending us both boobs-over-booty down the stairs. My boobs, anyway, his booty, since clearly I was holding on to a guy. The only woman I knew with shoulders like that was Chickzilla, and I’d left her back in Ohio with smelly Melli—Bobby’s sucky siress. We didn’t get far before we hit a landing, and even though I was pretty certain I was on the bottom, I’d fallen on something soft that oofed as I hit.

  But I didn’t have time to analyze that before my partner came down on top of me. Oh crap … make that Pyro’s partner. Now that we’d stopped spinning, I could see that was exactly who was snarling down at me. He’d lost his gun, but he had his weight, pinning me down. He didn’t need much else. I’d about exhausted my resources.

  “I’ll kill you,” he spat in my face. Literally, it was more spray than say.

  “No, you won’t,” said the pillow I’d landed on—Eric? I craned my neck to look, relieved that someone was finally on my side, even if he hadn’t been “right behind” me as he’d promised.

  Yes, Eric—still clutching his machine to his chest, still right where he’d fallen. He took in the situation in an instant and reached out to Pyro’s partner, flipping a switch on his machine. I watched as the thug went as stiff as a board, and then relaxed by degrees as all his vitality seeped out of him. When he’d sagged, Eric took his hand back, set his machine down, and lifted me and my dead weight right off him like he’d suddenly become Superman. Whatever had kept him down, it seemed that Pyro’s partner’s energy had temporarily counteracted it.

  “Nelson?” he asked.

  “The Feds have the place locked down. He’ll be fine until we can steal him away.” I tho
ught about the facility Eric had shown me … “For now. But we have to get out of here.”

  “I can’t leave him here.”

  On the floor above us, it sounded like they were moving furniture … or bodies. Someone else would be coming our way any second.

  “Well, I can,” I said. “You can either fight the Feds on your own and lose, or you can fall back with me and live to fight another day. Even as strong as you are now, you can’t take all of them.”

  He looked up, as if he could see through the furiously creaking floorboards. “Let’s go.”

  We ran, but not without his precious machine. Never that.

  We were all the way to the lobby of the Tower before I realized it wasn’t going to be as easy as making a quick getaway. If the Feds had any sense at all—and, sadly, they did—they were going to be watching entrances and exits. We were parked right out front. There was no safe way to go back to the Camaro, as sweet as it was. How, then, were we getting away? How were we even getting out? I might be able to ghost … maybe, if it didn’t take strength and concentration, which I was fast running out of … but that wouldn’t do a thing for Eric.

  “Eric, you’re going to have to save yourself,” I told him. “I’m trapped until night.”

  “There’s no way you can hold out that long. They’ll capture you.”

  “No, they won’t.” But it was a knee-jerk reaction. I didn’t really have a plan. We’d left the schematic up on Very Scary’s computer. There was no place I could hide where the Feds couldn’t find me. Unless … “Eric, do you have one of those photogenic memories?”

  He looked baffled. “You mean photographic?”

  “Yeah, whatever. Potato, potah-to. Do you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Can you tell me where the Tower stores its kegs?”

  His face cleared of confusion and he quickly sketched out where I should go.

  “Give me a sec to get away,” I ordered, “then launch a barstool through one window as a distraction and get out through another. Stay away from anywhere the Feds might think to look for you, and get in touch with … ” Crap, what was Marcy’s undercover name? Stacy … Stacy … “Santos, that’s it! Look up Stacy Santos. She hangs with the steampunk crowd here. You’ll probably have to leave her a message. Have her round up whoever she can and meet me here as soon as possible after dark. We’re going to get your nephew back.” And take down the Feds’ hospital of horrors while we were at it.