Third Strike

by Heather Brewer

  He didn’t enjoy breaking the rules, but at times he was forced to—whether by his parents or by the Slayer Society. Sometimes it felt like someone besides Joss was always running his life, always telling him what to do, always dictating what direction he should move in or what he should be doing. It made his chest feel tight—so tight that it was difficult to breathe—if he really thought about how little control he actually had over his own life. And that asthmatic feeling turned to a crushing sensation whenever he pondered that it would never end—not when he graduated from high school, not when he graduated from college. His life would always be controlled by someone other than himself. The Society would make certain of that.

  Joss squeezed his eyes closed and sat back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment. Just long enough to willingly forget about how his life was not his own. Just long enough to squash that driving need to be in control of his own destiny.

  With a stretch and a deep sigh, he returned his attention to the screen, hoping that his rule breaking would at least prove fruitful. On the screen was a photograph of a man in his midforties, with black curly hair that stopped just short of his shirt’s collar, and bright blue eyes. Above the photograph was the article’s title: LOCAL MAN KILLED BY PACK OF COYOTES. Above that was the newspaper’s title, the Santa Carla Sunset Times.

  The article was short and fairly straightforward, and one of only a few mentions that Joss could find of the man’s passing available online. It stated that Hayworth Banning, age forty-seven, had simply wandered out of his family-owned ice-cream shop one day, presumably to go for a stroll, and had been attacked by a small pack of coyotes on the edge of the woods nearby. Nothing at all about the article struck Joss as unusual. People went for walks all the time. Coyotes were dangerous creatures. So he still wasn’t certain why the Society had marked this man’s death as something to investigate further, with an eye toward vampire involvement. Apart from the fact that the man had apparently been deemed almost unrecognizable by the family members who came to identify the body. But wild animals did that, too.

  Joss glanced up at his window, which now framed the rising sun. He’d been so immersed in the work he was doing that he hadn’t even noticed the sun was on the verge of coming up. And now the sky was bright orange and yellow. A new day had begun.

  It disturbed him that his mind had been so deep into his task that he hadn’t noticed the sun creeping up on him. What if a vampire had chosen that moment to attack him? It might have succeeded in killing him, all because Joss’s head was stuck in the World Wide Web.

  Dragging his finger across the trackpad, Joss shut his computer down. He really needed to spend less time online.

  Besides, according to his research, the ice-cream shop was about a twenty-minute walk from his house and would be open in about two hours. It was crazy that it opened so early, but this was a tourist town, and such things just were.

  He closed his laptop and grabbed some clean clothes on his way out of his bedroom door. After a quick, hot shower to help him wake up, Joss spent a long time brushing his teeth and trying not to fall asleep while standing up. The lack of rest was catching up to him. Catnaps were about all that he could manage without being tormented by Cecile and the nightmarish images that appeared inside his sleeping mind, but they weren’t enough to make him feel truly rested. After he slipped into clean boxers, jeans, and a T-shirt, he rinsed his mouth, dropped his dirty clothes in the hamper, and hung the wet towel on the towel bar. Then, as quietly as he could, Joss descended the stairs and readied the coffeepot. Mornings like this called for caffeine. A lot of it.

  There were many stark differences between Henry’s house and his own, but a big one was morning. In Henry’s house, Joss would stumble down the stairs to a cozy kitchen in the morning, where he was greeted by Aunt Matilda’s cheery smile. The smell of bacon and eggs would tantalize his senses as he grabbed a seat at the table. Over a cup of steaming coffee and the morning paper, Big Mike would ask if he had any plans for the day. Then, as Joss shoveled food into his mouth, Aunt Matilda would insist that all plans waited until the boys had washed and dried the breakfast dishes and put them all away. And Joss was happy to do it. He was happy to have that familial obligation, the way he didn’t really have it at home.

  Since Cecile’s passing, the kitchen at Joss’s house was cool and lonely in the morning. If Joss wanted breakfast, he had better cook it himself, and it had better be Pop-Tarts. On occasion, his mom would already be sipping hot coffee when he made his way down the stairs, but she rarely greeted him, lost in her own world. His dad was never in the kitchen. There was no morning paper to read. Morning was a lonely time.

  His parents didn’t like him drinking coffee, but Joss was sly. He grabbed a red mug from the corner cabinet that read “Keep Calm and Carry On” and turned it over in his hands. It was chipped slightly, evidence that this mug was his mom’s favorite. He wondered how she was doing at that whole “carry on” thing, or if she could see the irony of a woman who was so frazzled, so broken, using a mug instructing her to do the very opposite. After pouring it full of hot coffee, he moved into the living room, where his mom was just sitting, and handed it to her. “Morning, Mom. Here’s your coffee. Black, right?”

  She nodded a thank you and blew the steam from her mug’s contents. No smile. No cheery banter. Just a nod. But Joss would take it. Even though he was tempted to ask her if she was carrying on okay, he didn’t ask because he already knew the answer. No. She wasn’t okay. She wasn’t carrying on very well at all.

  He moved back into the kitchen and grabbed a second mug from the cupboard. This one read NOT ALL SUPERHEROES WEAR CAPES. Never a truer statement ever printed on a mug, he thought. He was like that—all the Slayers were. Superheroes with stakes instead of capes. He held it in his hand for a good long time before setting it on the counter and pouring himself half a mug of wake-up juice. After adding more cream and sugar than he’d ever seen either of his parents use, he gulped the sweet concoction down, rinsed out his mug, and glanced at the clock. According to their website, it was only about an hour until the ice-cream parlor opened—though Joss had no idea what kind of person would want ice cream that early in the day—and Joss was feeling jumpy. Maybe that was due to the coffee, or maybe it was because he hadn’t seen his dad yet and wanted to get out of firing range before he did something to upset the man. Either way, he thought it was probably a good idea that he get out the door and get moving.

  As he approached the back door, a familiar voice stopped him in his tracks. “Where are you going?”

  Henry was standing in the kitchen, hair still damp from a shower, looking bored, but curious. Joss was surprised to see him. Maybe he hadn’t slept well in a strange bed. Or maybe he had hoped that no one else would be up, and he could enjoy a moment of quiet before being subjected to his cousin’s presence. Joss wondered if Henry had also reflected on the differences in mornings at their houses, and if he was feeling homesick at all because of it. But he wouldn’t ask. Mostly because he was feeling homesick enough for Henry’s house.

  Joss shrugged casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “I’m going to go to Driscoll’s ice-cream parlor down the road a bit and get some ice cream.”

  Henry raised a sharp eyebrow at him then. “For breakfast?”

  “Yeah.” Joss bit the inside of his cheek. Henry was going to see through his casual trip to the ice-cream parlor for what it really was—reconnaissance for the Slayer Society—and then he was going to get all defensive in the name of Vlad and vampires everywhere. It wasn’t a conversation that Joss wanted to have at all. But especially not one he wanted to have on no sleep and hardly any caffeine.

  Henry nodded. “I’m in.”

  “But . . .” But. Joss needed a but. Because Henry couldn’t go with him. How was he supposed to investigate a potential crime by vampire with his girl-crazy cousin hanging around? He scrambled f
or something—anything—to keep Henry from tagging along. “You haven’t had breakfast.”

  Henry slipped his Converse on and tied the laces before meeting Joss’s eyes. “Dude, ice cream is breakfast.”

  “How ya figure?” Desperation gave way to panic. He wasn’t certain how Henry would react if they got attacked by a vampire. He only knew that it wouldn’t be good. For either of them.

  “Two words. Bacon. Sundae. Let’s go.” Henry opened the back door and gestured for Joss to go first. As Joss did, still trying to think of some way to get Henry to remain behind, Henry lowered his voice so that neither of Joss’s parents would hear. “Besides . . . there’s no way I’m letting you out of my sight after what you did to my best friend.”

  An image crept into Joss’s mind without his permission. That of blood pouring out onto Joss’s palms. Vlad’s blood. He blinked it away and met his cousin’s gaze with a stern jaw. “What you don’t know about that is that I saved him. I saved Vlad’s life.”

  Henry grabbed Joss’s shirt collar and yanked him closer. His face was flushing red, and Joss could tell by the way his chest was rising and falling that it was taking every ounce of his cousin’s self-control not to strangle him right then and there. Not that Joss blamed him. Not really.

  Henry’s grip tightened on Joss’s shirt until his knuckles turned white. His words were more than a whisper, but just less than a growl. “You stabbed him through the heart with a hunk of wood.”

  If it had been anyone besides Henry, Joss would have removed their grip and taught them a good lesson on why they shouldn’t invade someone’s personal space like that. But this was Henry. They were more like brothers than cousins. And even though it had torn them apart for Henry to learn Joss’s darkest secret, he was relieved that Henry had found out. At least that lie wasn’t standing between them anymore. At least, in that sense, anyway, Joss was free. Before he could summon an excuse in his mind, the truth came pouring out of him in whispers, like the rambling of a madman. “I moved it. The stake. I moved it. At the last minute. To the side. So he’d survive. I had to stake him. The Society would have . . . they would have done horrible things if I didn’t. But I was willing to make it look like I missed by accident, Henry. Because it’s Vlad. He was my friend, too.”

  Henry winced at the word “friend.” His eyes looked furious, but his grip released slightly. And in that moment, Joss saw hope. Hope that maybe someday, somehow, he could make his cousin understand. Maybe they could be friends again. If Henry didn’t kill him first, of course.

  Henry released him, shoving him back a little with a grunt. “You tried to kill him, Joss. Nothing can change that.”

  “I had to try. It’s my job to try. It’s my duty to try.” Joss made certain that Henry met his eyes then. He waited for his cousin to look at him, so that Henry could see the absolute sincerity in his gaze. When that moment came, he said, “But I didn’t succeed, and I didn’t succeed on purpose. He lived, Henry. Vlad lived. Because of me.”

  The corner of Henry’s mouth twitched. It was the only response he gave.

  Joss stepped forward, brushing by Henry on his way out the door. Just as he’d stepped outside, Henry stepped out after him. “I’m going with you, Joss. And I’m staying on your every move for the next month, like your new shadow. Because who knows who you might attack if someone’s not there to stop you?”

  “I’m not going to attack any—” Joss stopped himself before he lied. It was true that he didn’t plan on attacking anyone, but what if a vampire attacked him? Then it was all bets off. He didn’t want any more lies between his cousin and himself. Shaking his head, he said, “You don’t have to follow me. Really.”

  “Don’t have to. But going to. Where’s this ice-cream parlor anyway?” Henry stepped outside completely, letting the screen door slap shut behind him.

  Joss wasn’t exactly sure what to say or what, if anything, he could possibly do to convince Henry that it wasn’t the best idea on the planet that he follow Joss around. So rather, he sighed his frustration and shook his head, pointing up the road. “Just up the road a bit.”

  Henry moved in the direction that Joss had pointed, as if he were leading the way, rather than shadowing Joss’s every move. Joss had to jog a little at first in order to catch up with him. When he did, he slowed his pace to match Henry’s stride. The two walked in silence for several minutes, until two young boys crossed the road in front of them carrying Nerf guns and sprinting as fast as their small feet would carry them. The sight of it brought a small smile to Joss’s face. He dared a glance at Henry, who still wasn’t smiling, and bet that Henry might not allow himself even a moment’s happiness while he was in the company of Joss McMillan, Vampire Slayer. “That reminds me of the time we snuck up on Greg with Super Soakers.”

  No response from Henry. Not even a small twitch.

  “Do you remember? We filled our squirt guns with cranberry juice and climbed that tree in your backyard. We were going to get him through the open window.” Joss chuckled at the memory. “Only it turned out he was supposed to get pictures taken that day and we had no idea.”

  “My mom was so mad at us.” The corner of Henry’s mouth lifted in a smirk—one that Joss was enormously relieved to see.

  Joss laughed openly, shaking his head. “How were we supposed to know he’d be wearing white?”

  “We both got grounded for a week.”

  “Yeah.”

  The two cousins exchanged looks then, and Joss wasn’t sure what it meant. He only knew that he missed their closeness, their connection. He missed the way that things had been before he’d lost Cecile, before he’d trained to become a Slayer, before he’d staked Vlad. He missed Henry.

  Henry blinked, as if bringing himself back to the present. The smile washed from his face, and he turned his attention back to the road. “But that’s the past. If I’d known then what you’d turn into later, I—”

  “You’d what? There was no stopping this, Henry. I’m a Slayer. It’s just a part of me, like having blond hair is a part of you. Like—”

  “Like being a vampire is a part of Vlad?” Henry stopped in his tracks then and met Joss’s eyes. His words weren’t bitter, just matter-of-fact, which in some ways, made them much harder for Joss to hear. “Don’t try to make me understand it, Joss. Because I won’t ever understand how you think that killing people is like having blond hair. You make choices in life. And you’re making the wrong ones.”

  Joss wanted to blurt out that vampires kill people all the time, much more than Slayers ever do, but instead he fought to keep his mouth shut. An argument at this point in time would get him nowhere. He’d seen the light in Henry’s eyes when he spoke of their shared childhood. There was hope there, hope that their friendship could be saved. But he could only save it with patience and time, not with arguments about who had a bigger body count.

  Like a beacon, the ice-cream parlor came into view. It was a small building, painted a pale pink color, with crude, childlike drawings of children skipping rope painted on its outer walls. As Joss pushed the door open, a bell jingled, announcing their arrival. No sooner had they approached the young man behind the counter than Henry blurted out, “Superman!”

  At first, Joss blinked. Did Henry know this guy or something? Had he seen him out and about in blue tights and red underwear, donning a cape? Or was Henry losing his mind completely?

  Henry jabbed a finger at the glass case that covered the enormous cardboard tubs of ice cream. He was pointing at one flavor that looked like the brightest rainbow that Joss had ever seen and grinning at the boy behind the counter. “Superman ice cream. Three scoops. Waffle cone. Make it happen, dude.”

  A small voice spoke in the back of Joss’s mind. “Not All Superheroes Wear Capes.”

  The boy piled three heaping scoops into a waffle cone and handed it to Henry before looking at Joss. He was maybe eighteen, and his eye
s looked suspiciously similar to those of the dead owner’s. Joss guessed that this was the man’s son. He said, “And what can I get you?”

  Joss mulled over the ice cream for a bit, trying to think of a casual way to work in questions about the boy’s dead father. “Hmmm. It all looks good. Which is your favorite?”

  “Moose Tracks. But we’re having a sale on Raspberry Bliss.”

  Joss shrugged and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “I’ll try the raspberry, I guess. Can I ask why it’s on sale? It’s not, like, bad or anything, is it?”

  “Nope. Just doing a little tribute to my dad. It was his favorite flavor.” As he spoke, his eyes shimmered. The pain was still fresh, the hurt still new. This was what Henry was missing about Joss’s job. Joss was helping people.

  As he handed over a ten, Joss frowned. “I’m so sorry. If you don’t mind my asking, how did he die?”

  “Coyotes, if you can believe it.” The boy handed him back his change and sighed, his shoulders slumped in sorrow. He pointed out the window behind him to a spot just across the road. “He was attacked by a small pack of them over there. Just a few yards into the woods. It was strange, too. My dad never went for walks in the woods.”

  That last sentence sent a curious bolt through Joss. If it was a vampire, it was messy work.

  After slipping his change inside, Joss returned his wallet to his pocket, shaking his head the entire time. He might not know what it was like to lose a parent to death, but he could empathize on what it was like to not have your father there for you anymore. And what it was like to lose a close family member. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.” The circles under his eyes suggested that Joss and this boy had more in common that he probably would ever realize. Shutting the cash register drawer, the boy sighed. “Anyway, if you want anything else, just shout. I’ll be in the back, doing inventory.”