Vampires Rule (17 page)

“An hour, maybe more, sitting in the dark
alone. Then I heard the sheriff arrive, and I ran outside. He tried
to stop me, tried to keep me from seeing the three of you lying on
the ground, covered in blood, ripped to shreds. I can’t wipe that
image out of my mind no matter how hard I try. I drank too much,
and I slaughtered as many of them as I could. Nothing helped.

“Then one night I come across a werewolf with
information to share. I attacked him and before he dies he tells me
how you’re one of them. He tells me my brother isn’t in the
cemetery anymore, because he’s a monster too.” Billy laughed
without humor. “You have no idea how it felt to unbury your coffin
only to find it empty. It killed me to know you were a vampire. I
had nightmares about it. I slept with a stake under my mattress in
case you returned for me. I lived with the knowledge that someday I
would probably have to put you down.”

Billy looked away, took deep breaths, trying
hard to get control of his emotions.

Jack shifted uncomfortably from one foot to
the other and furiously blinked his eyes to keep tears from
forming. He’d had no idea how bad things had gotten for his kid
brother. He certainly hadn’t made them any easier by giving him a
hard time over every little thing.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, hoping it was
enough.

Billy shrugged.

Jack tried to lighten the mood. “Okay, great
and mighty hunter, share your wisdom with me. How do I take a
werewolf out and live to talk about it?”

A reluctant grin stretched Billy’s mouth.
They walked into the living room as he told Jack everything he ever
wanted to know about the hairy beasts and then some. The tension
between them slowly dissolved.

“Werewolves are total idiots,” Billy said.
“Sometimes we follow their tracks, but mostly we set traps and let
them come to us. They like to attack people who seem vulnerable and
weak.”

Jack had a flashback of Silver in the
cemetery, playing the part of a defenseless girl.

Billy added, “It’s good to work in pairs. One
person is the bait, and the other is the hunter.”

Jack didn’t have to ask which one he was
going to be. As if reading his mind, Billy nodded. “They want you.
You probably smell like a vampire to them. When one of them comes
at you, I’ll shoot it. Then you can finish it off if you want.
After you get your feet wet, I’ll trade places with you. How does
that sound?”

Dangerous. Jack asked, “How have you done
this for so long without getting infected?”

A single scratch would do it.

Billy replied, “I have a secret stash of
Silver’s blood.”

“What?”

“When her parents trained me, they let me in
on their secret. Silver can be killed by a werewolf, but she can’t
be infected. Something about her blood makes her resistant. So she
gets it drawn once in a while, and they store it in a cooler.
Whenever a hunter in the nearby area gets infected, they put a
couple drops of blood into the wound. It has to be done almost
immediately though or it won’t work.”

Creepy. Jack didn’t like the idea of Silver
sharing her blood with others. As a former vampire, he believed
blood was sacred. He pushed the thought of Silver out of his head.
They weren’t friends anymore, so he needed to stop obsessing over
her.

“What’s wrong?” Billy asked. “You look a
little green.”

“It’s nothing. Finish telling me about the
werewolves so we can go get some.”

His anger aroused, he couldn’t wait to get
started.

****

Hours later, Jack was on the verge of losing
his mind. It was below freezing outside, and he’d been walking back
and forth in a field on the edge of town for what seemed like
forever. On top of that, he was bored out of his skull. He didn’t
even have his brother to talk to because Billy was sitting in his
car with a shotgun on his lap. His brother was watching him through
binoculars, waiting for a werewolf to find him.

Jack couldn’t believe Billy did this for a
living. It was worse than fishing. If a werewolf didn’t attack him
soon, Jack was going to fall asleep standing up. He cupped his
hands around his mouth and blew hot air into them. His fingers had
gone numb several minutes ago.

His mind drifted to Silver. He wished she was
here backing him up instead of his brother. They would make a great
team. For a moment he allowed his mind to wander, and he pictured
Silver working with him to dispatch werewolves.

The crack of a shotgun startled him out of
his daydream. The bullet whizzed by his face, barely missing him.
He started to yell at Billy. Then he noticed Billy running at him,
screaming at the top of his lungs for Jack to watch out.

Jack spun around to see a werewolf coming at
him. It was the kid from school. Since he was a new werewolf, he
couldn’t transform into an animal yet, but his eyes glowed in the
moonlight. Billy fired again, and this bullet struck the kid in the
chest. He stumbled backwards, a hand over the gunshot wound.

Billy yelled, “Get out of the way!”

Jack stood his ground. The kid didn’t deserve
to die. It wasn’t his fault he had been infected by a werewolf. On
the other hand, they couldn’t just let him go. If he hadn’t already
killed someone, he would. It was only a matter of time.

The werewolf kid recovered quickly. He
charged again, swung wide with his invisible claws, almost clipping
Jack on the shoulder. Jack weaved to the left. The new werewolf
swung his arm backwards. It struck Jack and knocked him down.

Billy entered the fight.

The werewolf kid turned, grabbed the rifle
and tossed it to the ground before Billy could pull the trigger
again. The kid lunged at Billy, but Jack was faster than him. Jack
reached out, latched onto the werewolf’s feet. He managed to trip
the kid.

The werewolf kid went down hard, and Jack
climbed up his body, holding him to the ground. The kid was
stronger than he looked. Jack could barely keep a grip on him as he
twisted, pulled, and kicked like a rabid animal.

“Get off him,” Billy said. “I need to finish
him.”

“No.” He wasn’t going to let Billy kill a
kid. There had to be another way. Perhaps they could lock the young
werewolf up somewhere until they could find and kill the leader.
The kid would be free then, human like Jack. He deserved a second
chance too.

“Are you crazy?” Billy had the sword ready.
“Get off him so I can take care of business.”

Jack opened his mouth to tell his brother to
forget about it, but the words didn’t make it to his lips. The
werewolf kid got a surge of energy. He knocked Jack to the side and
was off the ground before either hunter had time to react. Billy
was the target. The werewolf kid attacked him, and the sword fell
to the ground, useless. The werewolf kid prepared to strike Billy
with his claws.

Jack reacted on instinct. He swiped at the
boy with his hand. It was automatic. Metallic claws caught the
moonlight and shimmered for a moment before slicing into the
werewolf’s arm.

The werewolf kid’s body began to quake with
terrible ferocity. He fell down and had a seizure while Jack stood
by, unable to do anything. As abruptly as it started, the shaking
stopped. The kid went limp. His eyes stared up at the night sky,
unseeing. They glazed over with a milky white substance.

Billy bent over and pressed a couple fingers
against the kid’s throat. “He’s dead. How did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Jack lied.

He stood over the boy’s body and stared at
him. No longer aware of the frigid air, all he could think about
was how he’d taken the kid’s life. A decade spent as a vampire, and
he hadn’t killed a single person. Now he was human for less than a
month and he’d killed a young boy.

Jack didn’t know how he’d live with that on
his conscious.

It was Friday night, and it looked like the
whole school had shown up for the party. One notable person was
missing: Silver. There was a mountain of burning wood in the center
of the field, a bonfire on the verge of being out of control. Some
of the kids had parked their cars in a wide circle facing the
party. Several radios were tuned to the same station. Music blared
from all directions, and a few of the morons had left their
headlights on.

Jack picked his way through the crowd,
searching for a familiar face. He couldn’t stop thinking about the
werewolf boy he’d killed last night. He hadn’t meant to do it, but
his intentions didn’t matter now. The boy was dead. That kid
wouldn’t be getting a second chance, not like Jack.

Tucker Binn ran around the bonfire in a
circle, swinging his sweatshirt over his head. He tossed it into
the fire. His friends laughed and cheered him on. His happy,
drunken gaze fell on Jack, and his smile died a quick death. Tucker
tried to put on a brave face as he scurried away.

Jack looked down, checked his own shoes out.
He desperately wanted to leave. He didn’t belong in the company of
normal people. If he spent too much time around them, he was afraid
they would figure it out, his secret.

He glanced up and saw an old friend.

Summer strolled towards him, hands in
pockets, and an easy smile on her lips. The fire made her hair
shimmer like spun gold. When she reached him, she placed a palm on
his chest. Summer liked to touch people as she spoke with them. It
didn’t mean anything—usually.

Jack knew he should walk the other way, but
the comfortable feeling her presence brought was impossible to
ignore. All week long he had been drowning in the unfamiliar. It
was nice to relax, if even for a moment.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I can still smell you a mile away.” Summer
leaned in, closed her eyes, and breathed deep. She exaggerated a
sigh. “Miss me?”

“Sometimes.”

“There’s a simple cure for that. Come home
with me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. I’m not like you
anymore. I’ve changed.”

“I have the remedy for that too.” She
playfully bit the air; then she performed a throaty laugh. “You and
I were meant for each other. We’ll die in each other’s arms.
Promise.”

“I thought the whole point of being a vampire
was not dying.”

A few people danced into them, bumping Summer
so hard that she fell against Jack. His hands automatically caught
her, and memories spilled forth, memories of how good it had been
between them. She smiled up at him, triumph in her eyes. The
manipulative girl knew she was on the verge of winning him
over.

“Sorry,” one of the guys muttered as he
stumbled away, obviously drunk. A fourth person handed Jack a drink
before giving one to Summer as well. He grabbed the paper cup with
both hands, using it as an excuse to let go of Summer.

She sniffed the drink after the guy walked
away. “Hmm. There’s alcohol in this punch. Probably vodka.”

“Block me so I don’t have to be obvious about
it.”

Summer turned her back, shielding him while
he dumped the contents of his cup and hers onto the ground.
Vampires couldn’t drink alcohol. Booze made them deathly ill, and
although he was human for the moment, Jack wasn’t prepared to take
the risk. According to the Reign family, he was going to regain
powers of a vampire. Perhaps he would also have some of the curses
to go with it.

“It’s too crowded here,” Summer said. She
spun back around and pressed her body against his. “We can go to
your house. Or you can come home with me. Either way. I’m
easy.”

It was tempting; being human was harder than
he remembered. Maybe he would be better off as a vampire. It wasn’t
the ideal situation, but he had friends at least. If he went with
her, he wouldn’t have to worry about returning to school on Monday
morning. The Silver situation would be instantly resolved. His
destiny would be of his own choosing again.

He sighed. “I can’t.”

“Why not? Are you seeing someone else?”

Summer inhaled deeper this time.

Jack stiffened, waiting for the verdict.

“You are,” she said. “Why didn’t I notice it
before? It’s a very light scent…faded. You haven’t been with her in
a couple days, but there is another girl. Who is she?”

There was no use denying it. Summer had the
scent and could track Silver if she wanted to, satisfy her
curiosity and perhaps even hurt Silver. Better to admit it and try
to reason with his former girlfriend. There was nothing worse than
an ex with superpowers and a grudge.

“There was a girl, but that’s over.” He
steeled himself to lie. Summer could be fooled by wide eyes and an
innocent smile. He knew how to play her. “She was a little nobody,
just someone to pass the time with.”

Summer smiled, satisfied. “I’m glad you
realize there’s no one for you but me. Now you need to make up your
mind to return to the fold. We love you, and we want you back.
Nothing in the mortal world can compare with what we have to offer
you.”

She held her hand out, and he stared down at
it. A desperate part of him wanted to grab onto it and run across
the field with her. They could disappear into the night. His
brother would get over it, and Silver would be better off without
him.

Jack’s hand rose of its own volition. He slid
his fingers across hers, silky to the touch. A sizzle of
electricity passed through him, but it wasn’t there to signify a
coming flash of memory. It was pure physical attraction. He was
going to do it, toss caution aside and run wild just like the good
old days.

“Introduce me to your little friend.”
Jersey’s abrupt voice cut through the intimate moment.

Jack jumped and snatched his hand away from
the vampire girl, flushed with guilt for considering a return to
his bloody roots. It especially bothered him that Jersey had been
the one to catch him. For some reason the thought of Jersey seeing
him in a weak moment crushed his spirit.