Blood Candy (26 page)

Blake jumped. Two seconds.

Meatrack appeared midair out of nowhere. One
second. Candy tried to warn Blake, she shouted, but he didn’t
hear.

Blake threw the ball as the buzzer rang.
Meatrack brought his hairy arm down like a sledgehammer, slamming
both the ball and Blake into the ground. Then he kicked Blake
across the court.

Candy’s heart stopped. They lost.

“Foul!” Chester screamed.

Nigel wouldn’t hear any of it. The game was
over. They lost.

The vampire audience erupted, jumping to their
feet and clapping with enthusiasm. Blake lay on the floor with his
hands over his face. The rest of the Mullins looked miserable.
Rupert and Hayden sauntered over to the sideline where Candy sat
with Anastasia and the Magister.

“Let’s go,” Hayden said.

Candy and Felicia didn’t let go of each other.
Hayden gave the Magister an expectant look.

“We won the game,” Hayden said. “The girl
belongs to Rupert.”

“Yes,” Fernando said in his deep voice. “Those
were the terms. The grievance is settled.”

Candy couldn’t believe it. Anastasia stood up
and looked past her to Medium Dave, giving him a slight nod. Candy
didn’t know what she should do. Anastasia took a few steps down
towards the Kingsley brothers.

“Good game, boys,” she said. “May I make a
proposition?”

Hayden crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes,
both interested and skeptical.

“Two million dollars for the girl,” Anastasia
said.

Hayden whistled, though Rupert didn’t like the
idea. Candy felt someone’s hand on her shoulder. Medium Dave
whispered so softly next to her ear she could barely hear what he
said, “Be ready to run. I’m getting you out of here.”

“Two million for a girl? Blake must
really
love her to offer up that kind of cash,” Hayden said.
“But, since we all know their love is a charade, there must be
something else that makes you want her so much. We’ll take the
girl.”

Rupert held his hand out. “You belong to me
now. Get your ass down here.”

Jimmy hopped over the seat and came between
Candy and the Brits. “She’s not going anywhere! She’s not a piece
of meat to be sold and owned by you soulless pricks.”

Hayden stepped up to his face, sharp fangs
flashing only a few inches away. White Paul and Were-Jew sprung up
from their seats.

“What did you say, little wolf?” Hayden bumped
a shoulder into Jimmy that sent him back a few steps. “I’m not
taking the girl, is that what you said? I’d like to see you stop
me.” He turned to Candy with the intention of retrieving
her.

Jimmy held his ground. “I’ll fucking kill you
if you touch her.”

“I’d like to see you try to kill me,” Hayden
said with a grin that brandished his deadly fangs. “Go ahead and
change. Do it you bag of shite!”

Jimmy threw his shirt off over his head. His
eyes turned golden brown and the pupils went jet black. Short, tan
hair sprouted from his skin. The vampire spectators watched on with
interest; Nigel most of all, rubbing his hands together with
anticipation. Fernando’s voice boomed throughout the
stadium.

“There will be no shedding of blood! I
proclaimed this ground neutral. The girl belongs to
Rupert.”

Anastasia took his hand and said something in
Spanish, averting his attention. Medium Dave took Candy’s arm and
led her to the edge of the aisle. She stumbled after him, turning
away from the court. She didn’t know what she should do; she
couldn’t let Jimmy and the Misfits get into a fight because of her,
the vampires would tear them up. She hoped Anastasia had a
plan.

And then complete silence fell over the
stadium. Candy turned and saw a donkey where Jimmy had been
standing. She could only stare while the donkey, with intelligence
in its dark eyes, glared death at Hayden. The animal snapped its
teeth and bucked its hind legs.

Every vampire in the stadium burst into
uncontrollable laughter. The Mullins all stared on in disbelief,
Chip and Coop laughing as well. Anastasia had to put a hand over
her mouth to hide a grin.

“Jimmy . . . ,” Candy said.

Felicia looked away with tears welling in her
eyes while the rest of the Misfits turned red in the face. Jimmy
bucked again, his eyes fierce and angry. He let out a high pitched
bray that made everyone laugh even more. Hayden and Rupert doubled
over with laughter. Jimmy’s body tensed with thick muscle as he
lowered himself close to the ground. In one motion, he spun around
and snapped out a double kick.

Hayden’s head, complete with stunned
expression, flew through the air.

The laughter immediately died out as every eye
inside the stadium went wide. A chorus of gasps sounded as the head
landed, bounced several times, and then rolled to a stop at Blake’s
feet. The now headless body of Hayden Kingsley slumped to the
ground. Blood poured violently from the neck, sending the
decapitated vampire into a fit of flopping and spinning.

Rupert yelled something unintelligible, his
face twisted up with rage. Vivian managed to look even crazier than
normal.

Panic and angry outbursts filled the stadium.
The head at Blake’s feet started spurting blood from the ears, eyes
and mouth. Blake watched it for a moment in shocked horror then he
violently vomited blood all over the court, his feet, and the
severed head.

Medium Dave pulled Candy up the aisle to the
tunnel, but she kept her head turned to the court. Vivian and Gavin
rushed Jimmy with their fangs exposed. They stopped dead in their
tracks when White Paul jumped over the front row and shifted in
midair. The floor shook with the force of a thousand pound polar
bear crashing onto it. Standing nearly eight feet tall, White Paul
let out a blood curdling roar. The spectator vampires, Nigel, and
the Mullin children backed away.

“Come on!” Medium Dave yelled.

With fists clenched, Fernando Fedora stared
the huge polar bear down as he moved forward. In the confusion,
Medium Dave and Candy ran into the tunnel. Fernando yelled
something in Spanish. She didn’t want to run. She didn’t want to
leave the Misfits there among all those vampires, but Medium Dave
wouldn’t let her go. He shifted into a moose. Candy, with tears in
her eyes, reluctantly climbed onto his back.

The last thing she heard before he took off
was Rupert. “You’re dead, wanker!”

Medium Dave rushed them through the tunnel.
Candy screamed when a guard who may or may not have been a vampire
came running around a corner towards the courts below. The moose
lowered its head and the man went up into the air with a grunt and
a snap of ribs on the end of broad antlers. Without slowing down,
the massive animal tossed its head to the right, grinding the man
into the wall, and the guard went screaming to the ground before
the sound of more snapping bones preceded his silence.

Candy heard shouts from behind and then they
were out into the night.

Chapter Twenty

As had become a summer habit, Candy didn’t wake
up until well after noon. She spent a brutal night and part of the
morning with Medium Dave finding their way back to the Kennel, half
of the time on his back in the wilderness getting torn up by
mosquitoes and the other half walking along the sides of roads. To
make matters even worse, Medium Dave was naked until he managed to
snatch a granny dress off someone’s clothesline.

Candy sat on the couch for a moment, trying to
let the grogginess of sporadic sleep drain out of her brain. Her
dreams, though broken, had been extremely vivid. Blake was with her
every time she closed her eyes, each time she nodded off. He had
taken a lot of her blood and she knew they had come close to the
bond the vampires were always talking about, which was more than
abundantly apparent in her dreams.

Never in her life had she dreamed of a naked
man before, of the possibility such perfection might exist. She had
welcomed his milky chest each time she saw it, even though outside
of her dreams she was upset with him. In the dreams they didn’t
talk much, there had been so little time, but Candy knew, as it had
been with Rupert, that Blake was in her head. Or perhaps she was in
his head; she didn’t know which.

Each time Candy had drifted into fitful sleep
Blake said, “I’m sorry. I let you down.” She enjoyed the feeling of
being in his arms, her bare chest pressed against his. “Don’t let
them take me, Blake. Don’t let them ruin my life.”

Candy tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes.
She probably hadn’t fallen asleep for more than thirty minutes at a
time, maybe an hour once she and Medium Dave reached the Kennel.
She pushed herself up off the couch and saw Felicia sitting at the
table with Were-Jew and Melvin. They went silent when they saw her
get up and stretch out her sore legs. She hobbled over to the table
and took a seat next to Felicia. Melvin glanced at her through his
glasses, his face creased with concern.

“Are you okay?” he said.

Candy nodded. “Is Dave okay?”

“Yeah, he’s still sleeping
upstairs.”

The events of the previous night came crashing
back like a flood. Medium Dave told her that they couldn’t go back
to his parents’ house in case they were followed. The plan was to
get back to the Kennel as soon as possible, which was way over on
the western edge of Massachusetts. Thankfully, Medium Dave didn’t
have a shortage of stamina, and while it was uncomfortable for
Candy to sit on his back for so long, he was able to trot as a
moose for hours before he needed to rest or walk in human
form.

Remembering what happened at the end of the
basketball game, Candy looked around the room for the rest of the
Misfits. White Paul was asleep in one of the recliners. She
recalled the massive polar bear he had changed into.

“Where’s Jimmy?” she said.

No one said a word, which was answer enough. A
knot tightened in her chest. She mulled over the last conversation
she had with him in the tunnel. She hated herself for all of the
stupid things she said, for how much of a bitch she had been. She
felt warm tears on her face.

“They have him,” Felicia said softly. “There
wasn’t anything we could do.”

“What happened?”

White Paul kicked himself upright in the
recliner. “I’ll tell you what happened. While we held them off so
you could make your escape, that Spanish asshole threw the smack
down on everyone. They have Jimmy because of you.”

“Calm down,” Melvin said. “We all knew what we
were getting into last night so don’t go blaming her.”

White Paul waved him off and rubbed the short
growth of spotty stubble on his face.

“It was chaos until the Magister broke it up,”
Felicia said. “I thought every vampire there was going to come down
on us. He said something about neutral ground and Jimmy breaking
the worst vampire law of all. He handed Jimmy over to the
Brits.”

Candy leaned her head into her hands. “What’s
going to happen?”

“Simple,” White Paul interjected. “We hand you
over to Rupert by midnight tonight or they execute Jimmy. Not a
tough choice if you ask me.”

Felicia shot him a nasty glare and said, “It
is a tough choice, asshole. Jimmy more than any of us wanted to be
there so don’t act like he’s an innocent bystander in all of
this.”

“Bullshit.”

White Paul was ready to say more when Tinch
came into the room looking extremely tired. Candy hadn’t any idea
he was there. She was glad to see him. He’d get Jimmy
back.

“This is the only time I’m going to tell you
all to stop arguing,” he said. “We have more important things to
think about.”

White Paul stormed off into the
backyard.

“Leave him,” Tinch said when Felicia made to
follow. “Sit back down. I have an announcement to make.” Felicia
took her seat again and everyone turned their eyes up to him. “Help
is coming.”

“A pack? Which one?” Were-Jew said.

“Not a pack,” Tinch said, his face hinting at
something more serious. “The Alpha.”

The Misfits looked around at each other with
their mouths hanging open. Hearing what Tinch said, White Paul came
running back into the house.

“The Alpha is coming here?” Melvin
said.

“When?” Felicia asked.

“He should have been here already,” Tinch
said.

Felicia shot up out of her chair and ran to
the stairs, bowling over Medium Dave as he came down. Medium Dave,
still in the red and purple flowered granny dress he snagged the
night before, strolled over to take the vacant seat. He set his
cell phone down on the table and yawned.

“So only this alpha guy is coming?” Candy
said.

Tinch stared at her. “Only? It’s an honor to
have him personally come here. He’s in charge of everything above
the Mason-Dixon Line. If anything goes down, you wouldn’t want
anyone else with you. He’ll figure out what we need to
do.”

“You think he can get Jimmy back?”