Blood Candy (32 page)

“Death by television . . . ,” Felicia
whispered in wonder. “Wicked.”

Vivian clenched his fists. “Yeh’ll pay fer
that!”

Candy gasped, but it wasn’t the remnants of
Gavin beneath the television that stole the breath right out of her
lungs. Rupert must have seen what she saw too, because his grip on
her eased to nothing. Outside, beyond the glass doors, stood the
form of a massive, bipedal beast covered in black fur. The monster
was so tall it had to crouch down to look in through the doors with
red eyes. It had the snout of a wolf full of sharp teeth and its
fur was stained with dark blood.

“Bloody hell,” Rupert gasped.

Vivian’s face slackened. Before he could turn
around the lupine smashed its arms through the glass and sunk
dagger long claws into his sides. His mouth opened to scream but
the lupine ripped him out of the room before a single sound came
out. The beast stood to its full height, concealing its head as
well as everything above Vivian’s knees over the top of the door. A
single blood curdling scream filled the night air followed only by
the sound of crunching.

“Holy shit . . . ,” Rupert said. Candy thought
the same.

Vivian’s legs twitched and then he fell
headless to the ground. The monster lowered itself back down, its
red eyes searching into the room, blood dripping from its chin. A
piece of bone fell from the side of its mouth—no, a piece of
skull
. Felicia and Melvin took steps away from the doors.
Gavin twitched, moaning like a helpless cripple. The lupine craned
its head in the wounded vampire’s direction and then began to slam
its muscled shoulder into the doorframe.

Everyone ran the other direction.

Candy’s chest burned as she pushed her legs as
fast as she possibly could. Rupert disappeared into the darkness in
front of her as she came into a foyer that had a smashed door
leading outside. She tripped over something wet before she reached
the exit and fell hard onto her chest. The paintball gun went
skidding across the floor. Melvin and Felicia didn’t notice and
hauled ass outside. Jimmy stopped and went back for her, holding
his hand out.

Rupert appeared out of the shadows. Jimmy went
flying into a wall.

Gavin’s short-lived screams rang out from the
back room.

Rupert pulled Candy up by her hair and wrapped
his fingers like a vice around her throat. His screams echoed
throughout the house, “You’re all fucking dead! They won’t stop
until they find every one of you. Did you think you could come into
the house of the most powerful family in America and get away with
this?”

He tightened his grip until Candy felt like
her chest was about to explode. Inky darkness crept into the
corners of her vision. Rupert’s voice seemed to come from far away,
“If I can’t have you, no one can.”

And then his grip released and Candy fell to
her knees. Wonderful air rushed into her lungs. Feeling returned to
her extremities and her vision became clear again. Rupert slammed
into a wall. Then he moved, swinging out his arm, and Blake went
sliding across the floor.

Rupert screamed like a madman. “You’ve killed
your whole family!”

Blake jumped up onto his feet and tackled him.
“Not if you’re dead!” They both went crashing over a couch and into
a table.

Rupert clawed Blake’s eyes and threw him into
a wall. He was too fast for Blake.

“Fucking yanks!”

Candy scrambled over to Jimmy. He moaned and
rubbed his head, and then yelled, “Behind you!”

The paintball gun lay right there next to her.
She picked it up, rolled over onto her back, and held down the
trigger. The balls streaked out at Rupert, a few hitting him, more
hitting the wall behind him, and some hitting Blake slouched
against the wall. They both screamed and then she lost sight of
Rupert. A second later, her hand flared with pain as Rupert knocked
the paintball gun out of her grip. He lifted her up by the neck and
once again precious air couldn’t make it to her lungs.

Jimmy said something behind her, but she
didn’t know what.

Rupert’s face looked like it had been burned
all over.
This asshole’s ugly, burnt up face is the last thing
I’m ever going to see
. As Candy thought that, his face twisted
with surprise into a silent scream of agony and she had to cover
her face as blood sprayed out of his mouth. Rupert fell to his
knees, clutching the tip of a stake protruding from his chest as
the blood continued gushing out.

Candy wasn’t sure if her oxygen deprived brain
was playing tricks on her or not. The image of a girl with black
hair stood out against the darkness for the briefest of seconds,
like the flash of a ghost in her mind. She blinked. There was no
one there.

The lupine howled down the hallway, shocking
her back into reality. She felt faint. Blake held her
up.

The lupine howled again, this time closer. Red
eyes flashed in the dark.

“Get her out of here,” Jimmy said. “Get her
someplace safe. Go!”

Candy looked down at Jimmy, at his face
twisted with pain. She saw Rupert there, too. He turned his head
ever so slowly, the stake still sticking out of his heart, his eyes
begging, pleading for help. Jimmy picked up the paintball gun.
Candy didn’t want to watch as he put it in the vampire’s mouth. She
was tired, her whole body throbbed, and she wanted nothing more
than to close her eyes. But she had to see. She had to
know.

“I hope you burn in hell with the rest of your
fucked up family,” Jimmy said.

He held back on the trigger. Rupert convulsed
while water mixed with blood, flesh, and the torn shells of the
paintballs poured out of his mouth. His head exploded like a bomb,
splashing brains and bone against the wall. Jimmy slumped down to
the floor. Candy closed her eyes.

“Get her out,” Jimmy said again.

Blake lifted her off her feet and she wrapped
her arms around his neck. Wind rushed against her, through her
hair. After an amount of time she couldn’t recall, he set her back
down. She didn’t want to let go of him. They held each other for a
long time.

“We need to get you someplace safe,” he
said.

“Is it over? Is the nightmare
over?”

“Almost.”

The wind rushed again. The next thing she knew
she was in the passenger seat of his car. Candy curled up, not
bothering to put on the safety belt. She just wanted to sleep. She
just wanted to forget.

“It’s over,” she heard Blake say.

The car pitched into motion. Exhaustion crept
over her. A woman was singing on the radio.

Girls just want to have
fun.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Candy woke up in the impossibly comfortable
four poster bed. She was wearing plaid pajamas and there were
several bandages on her body from wounds she didn’t realize she had
suffered. She sat up and looked out the window to a bright and warm
summer afternoon.

If she had dreamed, she only vaguely
remembered it.

Someone knocked on the door. Candy tried to
say “come in,” but her neck was terribly sore and a crackled mutter
came out instead. She went over and opened it to see
Renaldo.

“Good afternoon, Miss Candy. Are you feeling
well?”

She nodded and said in a hoarse whisper,
“Yes.”

Renaldo smiled pleasantly. “Very good. I’ll
have one of the maids come up again to check on your wounds. Is
there anything I can get you in the meantime?”

Candy shook her head. Renaldo turned to
leave.

“Wait. Where’s Blake? Is he okay?”

“Master Blake is well. He’s
asleep.”

Renaldo retreated down the hallway. Candy shut
the door and went into the bathroom. She took off the bandages and
found a nasty cut on her arm. She stood beneath hot water in the
shower for a long time before getting dressed in jeans and a plain
shirt. All of the clothes Renaldo had bought for her were tucked
away in drawers or hanging in the closet, plus quite a bit
more.

She started towards the door then paused. Out
of the corner of her eye she noticed several boxes wrapped with
bows beside the bed. She reached for one of the boxes and then
noticed a car key with a pink bow on top of the nightstand. She
picked it up and put it in her pocket.

Renaldo sat in the antechamber near the front
door reading his book. He hopped out of the chair when Candy came
down the stairs.

“Are you hungry?” he said.

“No.” She reached out and hugged him. He stood
there awkwardly. “Thank you for everything, Renaldo. You’re a good
man.”

He cleared his throat and straightened his
suit. “You’re welcome, Miss Candy.”

Candy started to unlock the many bolts on the
door.

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” she said as she opened the door. Out
on the driveway a pink Porsche waited for her. She pushed the
unlock button on the key fob. The sports car beeped and flashed its
lights.

“I’m going home, Renaldo.”

* * * * *

“You know how worried I’ve been?”

Somehow, Candy didn’t think her mother had
been half as worried as she now tried to make it seem. When Candy
arrived home none of her friends or extended family were waiting
for her return. Her scrawny mother, who was only thirty-eight but
looked more like fifty, had been sitting in front of her favorite
daytime talk show in a night gown with a glass of whiskey dangling
in her hand. Her mother hadn’t mentioned anything about the police,
a missing persons report, or an ongoing investigation. Candy opened
up the refrigerator and pulled out a jug of orange
juice.

“You need to get a job if you’re going to be
back eating all my food again. God knows no college wants you and
your luck with men’s worse than mine.”

“That’s the truth,” Candy muttered.

Her mother belligerently carried on. She must
have been one glass shy of the kind of drunk where a person rambles
nonsensically. “If you’re going to run around for days at a time
doing God knows what, at least warn me. This is my house! And keep
your legs closed, I can’t afford another child.”

“Yes, Mother,” Candy said to appease
her.

Candy went to her room. She was surprised to
find her mother hadn’t moved everything out of it. Her bed was
still there, made up with a black and white comforter the way it
had been the last time she was home several days earlier. Her red
laptop was on the desk where she left it along with mail strewn all
over the place; mostly letters from colleges.

She sat on her bed and pulled out the cell
phone the Misfits had given her. She thought about calling her
friends, at least Amanda, until she realized she didn’t care. They
had all probably forgotten about her and, if they hadn’t, she had
forgotten about them.

She stared at the ceiling for a long time with
the cell phone on her chest. She heard her mother yell, asking
whose pink Porsche was in the driveway. Candy laughed, though the
humor was short lived. She had almost died. She had seen other
people die, even if they were the vampires trying to get
her.

The Misfits might have started a war with the
vampires because of her.

The cell phone buzzed on her chest. She read
the display and knew the number. It wasn’t yet evening, closer to
four o’clock, and she knew vampires usually didn’t get up quite
that early in the summer, though they could if they wanted. The
early call didn’t surprise her. She ignored it and waited to see
how long it took for him to call again. Six minutes.

She flipped the phone open and hit the “END”
button to cancel the call. Then, she scrolled through the address
book to another number and hit “TALK.”

“I’m glad you called,” Jimmy said.

Candy smiled. She put her head on a pillow and
said, “Hey. Do you want to hang out sometime?”

Misfits Forever.

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Read on for the first chapter of Blood Slave,
the second book in the Fangs Deep series.

THE FANGS DEEP SERIES

Blood Candy

Blood Slave

Blood Dreams

Chapter One

The vampire slipped through the crowd, a model
of beauty against a backdrop of small-town mediocrity, yet no one
else in the restaurant noticed his presence. Candy noticed. Never
would she forget the inhumanly pale skin, the jet-black hair, the
eerie gray eyes. No matter how much she wanted, the dreams never
let her forget.

The tables in her section were forgotten as
the noise and bustle in the restaurant faded away, everything
except the vampire and what he represented. He was the unsettling
reminder of cold hands around her neck, choking the life away, of
menacing fangs stained red with blood, of the bite that burned
through her with an indescribable passion. The memories of a
nightmare she’d lived through day and night, what his kind had put
her and her friends through, how close they had come to
dying.