Vamped (17 page)

No, there wasn’t anyone I could call in for reinforcements. We were on our own.

Cassandra jogged up next to me and asked quietly, “You have a plan?”

“I’m open to suggestions,” I told her.

“That would be ‘no’?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Work faster,” she suggested.

“Great, thanks.”

As we exited the tunnel, I aimed my own water gun at Connor. “Our ride is in the school parking lot?”

He looked like he was doing his very best to shoot daggers out of his eyes, but failing miserably. “Yes,” he answered through clenched teeth.

I led the way, trying to march tall despite my uncomfortable height deprivation. I was totally confident in my three-inch heels, but take those away … at least my new kicks didn’t sink into the ground, ’cause it had totally rained during the day. My sneaks were wet by the time we reached the van in the lot. It was the same one Bobby and I had seen that first day, a lifetime ago, idling outside the sporting goods store while Chickzilla, Rick, and Larry raided it.

“Who has their license?” I asked, not even sure why I was worried about that. We had way bigger problems than a ticket if the police stopped us and recognized anyone.

“I do,” half the kids chimed. I chose a spiky-haired guy who just looked like the speed-demon type, figuring if we needed any quick getaways …

“You, what’s your name?”

“Frank.”

“Good. Frank, you’re in the hot seat.”

Trevor frisked Connor for the keys and tossed them to Frank, who got a huge grin on his face like he’d just found his happy place.

I didn’t even have to tell anyone what to do next. As soon as Frank had the doors open, I called shotgun and the rest piled in.

“Where to?” Trevor asked, and I craned my neck to see what kind of threat he was using on Connor now. In close quarters he’d chosen the stake, rather than risk incidental damage with the water pistol. He was holding it just south of where I figured Connor’s heart would be.

“Turn right out of the lot,” Connor answered unhappily, but his eyes seemed kind of vacant. Either he’d given up or he was busy plotting.

Frank gunned the van and it lurched forward, knocking everyone back. Just as we were pulling out of the lot a car flew out of nowhere to cut us off. Frank slammed the brakes instead of the gas this time, throwing us all forward again into whiplash territory. But it wasn’t soon enough to avoid a head-on collision with the broadside of a car I knew way too well, and a driver who the others thought dead. They’d witnessed his execution, after all.

“Damn it. Rick!” I yelled, like he could hear me through the van window.

Rick nearly fell out of his car, staggering a step before bracing himself and his very serious crossbow on our hood, the bolt aimed right toward our driver. His eyes were a mile wide, but I couldn’t tell if it was sheer adrenaline or something to do with Connor and mind control.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Connor spoke for him, solving that mystery.

“Really, how do you expect to lead when no one else will follow?” I asked reasonably.

“I’ll find a way.”

“Everybody out of the van,” Rick ordered a second later. His voice was raised, but it was also dead flat, like he was speaking someone else’s … Connor’s … words.

“Shoot him,” I told Trevor. I could have shot Connor myself, but I figured if he suddenly had to control Trevor, he’d lose control over Rick and I’d have a chance to get through to him.

I wasn’t counting on Connor turning Trevor’s hand against himself. “Cass, help him!” I cried, “Cassandra” being way too long to spit out in an emergency.

She lunged for the gun and a crossbow bolt pierced the windshield just to my left, halfway between me and Frank, who let lose a “Holy shit!”

I jumped nearly out of my skin and whirled on Rick, who was staring through the windshield.

“Rick!” I yelled, fixing on his anime-huge eyes. “Change sides and I’ll turn you, right freakin’ now! No more games, no more feeling your body dying around you, just eternal life.”

Rick’s crossbow twitched and Frank pulled his own bow and arrow, like it would really go through glass. Rick’s bolt had to have been steel-tipped—not to mention that his crossbow looked way tougher than Frank’s more traditional bow.

“Down, boy,” I told Frank. “Rick?”

There was another tense second of silence, during which I looked back to see that Cassandra had won the battle for Trevor’s gun and Connor now had way too many muzzles pointing at him to control them all. They were only water guns—some brightly colored and all completely plastic—but there was no mistaking they meant business. Connor’s control faltered.

“Gina?” Rick called out. “I’m in. I’ll lower my weapon, but only if you come out alone.”

I swallowed a breath in order to heave a sigh of relief. It could be a trick, but every second of our stand-off was another one in which our friends in Team Beta went without backup. I had to risk it.

“You,” I said, making eye contact with Trevor and Cass, “find out where we’re headed. Beat it out of Connor if you have to. You,” I said to Frank, “
drive
.” To everyone else, “Follow Trevor’s orders. Win the day! I’m taking alternate transport.” I waved a hand at Rick’s T-bird.

“But I don’t know—” Trevor protested.

“And I do?”

That shut him up. I opened the van door and descended into the face of a bolt pointed just slightly away from me. It was clear it could swing around at any moment.

I slapped the side of the van twice like it was a reluctant horse, and Frank put it into reverse to pull a hasty turn. I only hoped everyone got to the council house in one piece.

“Well?” Rick challenged, eying me warily, like
I
might be the trickster.

“Give me your wrist,” I said impatiently, because there was no way I was necking with the rat, even to save us both.

“You just want me to take my hand off the weapon.”

“Duh. What choice do you have? You think you’ll be in a position to shoot me if we’re neck and neck?”

He got one of those wicked guy smiles on his face. “We could find out.”

“Ewww. Pass. Now,
the wrist
.”

Nervously, Rick took a hand off his crossbow and offered it to me. His nails were in worse shape than mine, bitten to the quick and bumpy besides, like he wasn’t eating right. I was totally glad I had the vamp immunity and couldn’t get rabies or scabies or anything from him.

“Ready?” I asked.

He nodded, but then winced as I bit in, his hand jerking just a bit. I held firm and he subsided, even moaning like it was good for him. It icked me out enough that I didn’t get carried away. A little was more than enough. My hunger wasn’t too certain of that though, and I used my still-elongated teeth to open a nick in my own wrist.

Rick’s eyes looked dazed. He lost his grip on the crossbow with the unbitten hand and didn’t even notice when it fell to the ground.

“Suck,” I offered, holding my arm out.

He swayed, as if maybe I’d taken too much and he was going to pass out. I slapped him and it felt so good I did it again on the other cheek. He snapped out of it with a glare.

“Your turn to drink,” I told him.

A look of
ugh
crossed his face, and then he bent his head to lick at the blood welling on my wrist.

“Ick. Suck or don’t suck, but don’t lap at it like a dog.”

Rick grabbed my wrist to keep me from pulling back and sucked like a Hoover.

I yanked it away when I was sure he had enough.

“Okay, let’s roll,” I said, yanking open the passenger door to the T-bird.

“But I don’t feel any different!”

“Don’t make me ‘duh’ you again. Really. You’re still alive, like a pre-vamp or something. If you’re lucky you’ll die tonight. I may kill you myself. Now, let’s
go
.”

20

G
ina!
a voice called in my head.

“Bobby!” I answered out loud.

“What?” Rick asked, swerving just a little as his gaze strayed from the road.

“Never mind, just keep driving. And step on it. We’re already behind!”

He looked at me like I’d lost it, but I was totally getting used to that.

Bobby?
I asked, in my head this time.

Where are you?
It was almost like we had a bad connection or someone was sitting on the volume control of a remote, the way the sound wobbled.

On the way.

Better hurry!

Have the reinforcements arrived?

They—
he cut out on me, and I banged both hands down on the dashboard. I looked over at the speedometer, which only said 75. I was pretty sure this thing could go faster than that.

“Is this what ‘step on it’ means to you?”

“The T-bird isn’t exactly new. It starts to shake itself apart at 80.”

I threw a leg over the junk between us and stamped down on his foot. The car jumped forward, more like a bronco than a bird, and true to Rick’s words felt like an earthquake on wheels.

“H-h-how f-f-far?” I asked, my teeth clacking together.

“An-n-nother f-f-five,” he answered.

It was less than that when we spotted Team Beta’s van, abandoned in a ditch just a few feet from a nearly hidden driveway that went up a hill to something that couldn’t even be seen from the road. Alpha must have driven straight up to the door.

“The s-surprise is already b-b-b-blown,” I said. “N-n-no need to h-hoof it.”

He slowed to take the turn, and my liquefied insides thanked him. Trees obscured our view all the way up the hill, reaching nearly to the car, blocking out even the night sky. When we came free of them, the house before us could have been a temple—large and square, with mile-high pillars and a triangular piece below the roof that had some kind of raised design I didn’t have time to appreciate. I did notice that not all the figures in the design were clothed … or even proportional.

The front door hung open on its hinges. An arm blocked it from closing, its fingers curled to the sky like a spider gone belly-up.

“Whoa,” Rick said, voice hushed.

“Let’s go.”

We got out of the car and approached slowly. All was quiet—here at least. The fight had moved on.

There was no body to go with the arm in the entrance, which we had to step over. But there was remarkably little blood, and I did my best to pretend it was some drama club prop, like from
Sweeney Todd
.

Farther in we could hear the fighting—furniture getting knocked around, bodies hitting the wall,
hard.

“Ladies first,” Rick offered, sweeping a hand before him.

“Yeah, ’cause I really want
you
covering my butt.”

“It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.”

I couldn’t waste any more time trading mediocre banter with Rick-the-rat. I only hoped I’d have a lifetime to do denial on the idea that he was now my offspring or whatever it’s called in the vamp world. I so wasn’t ready for motherhood. I could only imagine the Popsicle-stick art I’d get for mother’s day. And it made his smarmy comments that much grosser.

Bobby!
I called out mentally, hoping I’d get a fix on him and the center of the action, but I got nothing. Again I clung to the thought that he was just occupied elsewhere, and not dead.

It was all fun and games—blood trails, the occasional body part or hank of hair ripped out by the roots, in one case a shoe with a broken heel—until we hit the staircase into the unknown. Unknown because blocking the sight of what lay beyond was Team Alpha, Trevor at the head, slashing about him with a sharpened stake. The others weren’t doing as well. Weapons had been dropped, making the stairs treacherous. Already I could see teammates who had fallen fighting the council vamps. My heart did its best to climb into my throat.

Trevor himself went down with no warning whatsoever, like someone had just grabbed his feet out from under him. He held onto the stake and it flailed dangerously at everyone within range. Without thinking, I vaulted over Trevor’s downed body, ready to stand between him and his rival, when something else pounced, knocking Trevor’s opponent to the floor. Suddenly, I was face-to-face with a pair of fiery red eyes. The psychic crouched, smiling at me with gleaming, blood-stained teeth. The freakshow had clearly fed recently. I hoped for Trevor’s sake that he was full.

From below, a girl blasted the boogeyman with a stream of holy water, and the freak did nothing but turn its head, totally unnaturally, like an owl or Linda Blair spitting pea soup. He focused on the girl and spasmed strangely, like he was about to hoc a loogey. Then, without warning, he spit out a stream of blood that must have been mixed with something stronger than stomach acid, the way the girl screamed … and screamed … and screamed.

My brain shrieked at me to run, but it didn’t seem like we were on speaking terms because, for some stupid reason, I totally ignored it.

“Get. Off. Him,” I ordered.

“Make me,” he hissed.

And me fresh out of hair spray and lanterns.

“It’s not us you want.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” he roared.

“Okay, fine. I’ve pissed you off. You want a piece of me, I get that. But now? With all these distractions? Don’t you want to take your time? Like, pair me with a nice Chianti?”

I was now officially over that
have you lost your mind
look.

“Are you using
logic?”
he snarled.

I ignored Rick’s snicker and focused my glare.

“What, like I’m incapable because I’m a girl?”

“No, because you’re
you
.”

I wanted my super power to be fire-breathing. I’d roast him where he crouched.

“Fine, come and get me.” I pretended he was a downed log between me and the only mochachino machine on a deserted island and literally took a run at him, avoiding his snapping teeth and throwing him off balance by planting two fists on his back so I could vault over him. My gym teacher would have been so proud, once she woke out of her dead faint.

I tried not to look back, knowing I’d be faster if I didn’t, but something compelled me. I turned to see that the freakshow had unfurled his legs again and seemed to be leaping on all fours, more like a grasshopper or monkey than a man-like thing. There was no sanity in those eyes whatsoever. I put on a burst of speed that had to come from total terror, following the path of the fallen, hurdling over things I didn’t even want to think about. There was a horrible clatter behind me and I figured the freakshow had gotten tangled in one of the bowstrings or something, but I didn’t look back again.

Bobby!
I screamed in my head.

Here
. It was faint, like there was a barrier, but it was unmistakably ahead. It seemed weird that I could tell direction from a word, but life had gone so far off the normal track into bizarro-world that I didn’t even expect things to make sense anymore.

“This way!” I yelled to Rick, in case he couldn’t just track the trail of the great galloping ghastly behind me. I hoped he and the others were close behind.

The scene I burst in on stopped me cold, and let the freakshow knock me ass-over-ankles in a flying tackle. We rolled across the floor, my spine snapping and twisting over bodies, but not nearly so many as I’d feared. We were moving too quickly to see if the bodies belonged to anyone I knew, and one girl in a tracksuit was missing the better part of her face anyway. Denial reared its blessed head, and my thoughts shut down. We were vamps. We could regrow faces, right? That was as far as I got. The Crypt Keeper wound up on top, with me pinned painfully over something extremely pointy. From the way my body shivered violently at the contact, that thing was wooden and probably stake-shaped.

But now that I was under control, the freakshow wasn’t paying any attention to me. He was looking around the room, eyes focusing like lasers on Mellisande, who stood—torn, bloody, hair half in her face—with most of her cabal and what was left of Team Beta, in a face-off with the council. We must have reached the inner sanctum.

The council and the minions had retreated behind some forcefield thing my boyfriend was straining to hold. Sweat poured down Bobby’s face, red like blood, and his hair was in his gorgeous eyes. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Not that I’d ever tell him. Guys got weird about things like that. But I was so totally proud of him, holding a barrier against outright bloodshed.

He met my eyes as I lay there pinned and mouthed something that looked like
I love you
, and I went all stupid girly gooey inside. I stiffened against the feeling, that mellow lose-yourself-in-someone-else … thing … and a tiny shift away from the stake helped just a little with the shaking. And, see, if I’d melted I’d have been a goner. Love was poison. Too bad it came in such a cute package.

“Bobby, drop the shield,” Mellisande ordered, ignoring the psycho-psychic and our little interruption. My posse, Team Alpha, crowded in through the doorway behind me, stopping cold to assess the scene.

“No,” Bobby grated out. “Didn’t open the doors. Won’t help you kill.”

So he’d resisted whatever compulsion she’d put on him to aid her invasion. Go him! But it was clear he couldn’t hold out forever. More blood was going to be shed. Probably even his.

“Lemurs!” I yelled. It was our school identity. I only hoped enough people had the spirit. “Are we going to let these vamps throw us into their stupid war or are we going to fight for ourselves?” I called out.

“Ourselves!” Bobby yelled from behind the barrier, backing me up. Mellisande glared daggers at him.

The psychic focused his freaky eyes back on me … or really,
un
-focused back on me. His face was looking my way but his gaze was totally elsewhere, like he was trying to see the future.

“Do you
mind?”
I asked.

I don’t know what he saw, but slowly he pulled his body off mine. I didn’t trust it.

“Alistaire!” Mellisande shrieked.

The council bastard and babe from Melli’s study gasped at the name. “It can’t be,” the man said.

“He doesn’t even look—” the woman breathed.

“Human?” Alistaire asked, laughing that creepy-crawly laugh of his. “No, pretty pretty, I don’t expect I do. Alistaire has left the building.”

“But you’re dead,” the man hissed. “Mellisande killed you.”

“Indeed she did,” the psycho—Alistaire—admitted. “I am death itself. Death warmed over. The angel of death. Yes, that’s it. I am the dark angel of death that creeps upon his petty pace.”

If a vampire could pale, the councilman did. I didn’t know what the heck Alistaire was talking about, but clearly it meant more to him than it did to me. Who was this Alistaire that his resurrection rocked their world? But then it came to me. Hadn’t the council people practically accused Melli of killing her sire? Could he be … ? But how? Had she tried and failed to kill him, somehow turning him into the twisted thing he was today? Maybe they’d even concocted a scheme together to release Alistaire from the council’s control, and it had gone horribly wrong.