Vamplayers (22 page)

Chapter 31

I
t comes to this. A simple standoff in the middle of the night, the school sleeping around us quietly, its fate in the balance here in this large, Lysol-smelling cafeteria.

Around us the tables seem to stretch for miles, empty chairs like tombstones lined silently next to each other.

“Fine,” I say, hands up. “Release them.”

Bianca snickers, tossing her head back, flipping her hair. Her claw never moves from where it’s held against Zander’s soft, vulnerable neck. “In due time. First we’ll have to make sure you get to the Council safely, of course, and after that we’ll let them—”

“You know the Council will never let these boys live, not once they’ve seen where the Ancients dwell.”

Bianca looks unconcerned. “That’s a risk we’ll have to—”

Screams from the kitchen cut her off. Through the red double doors, Alice stumbles, melting from head to toe. Slabs of her skull are already visible, one jawbone poking out from shrinking flesh, teeth clattering to the floor. Smoke sizzles from her hair, her ears, her shoulders, her thighs, burning from an invisible fire even I can’t see. Shoulders drip into biceps drip into elbows drip into forearms. Like a chicken left too long in the oven, her skin literally falls from her bones.

“Alice,” Cara shrieks, seeming ready to drop Grover and run to her ex-Sister.

Bianca silences her with a hiss.

I feel Cara’s pain. I want to join her as well, but too much has happened between us this week for me to feel much regret over Alice’s current, bubbling misfortune.

“But … but garlic can’t do that.” I stand my ground, desperate, anxious to use this development to free Zander, to reach Grover.

“No,” Cara says, loosening her grip on Grover, “it can’t.”

The room grows still.

Alice sizzles, melting into the floor like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Maybe she’s having an allergic reaction.

Or maybe that’s how Royals, or vampires turned by Royals, react to garlic.

I hear clanging in the kitchen, a pot falling to the floor.

We all flinch, even Zander.

Then silence.

Several yards away, the red doors remain still.

Bianca watches carefully, moving behind Zander.

The doors fly open, and two bottles sail across the room, careening end over end, whispering through the air above us.

“No,” Tristan shouts from the kitchen doorway, triumphantly, his hands empty, “garlic doesn’t do that, but holy wine sure does.” His expression is ecstatic, his arms wide, his shirt grimy from the air ducts high above, dried blood staining the yellow thong tourniquet on his leg.

Cara ducks again, her reflexes right on cue but not in time.

Not this time.

The bottle hits her head with a solid thunk, exploding in a red gush of sacramental wine and searing her beautiful skin.

Grover sees his opportunity, slips away from Cara, and instinctively plunges the stake from his belt loop into her gurgling chest. It strikes gold, piercing her long-dead heart.

While he backs away excitedly, she shrieks until her vocal cords melt, waving her arms wildly. The skin peels away, and the clean white bones poke through. Skin and muscle and cartilage slither onto the floor between gushes of blood expelling from her body to escape the consecrated wine.

I stop looking when I can see clear through her rib cage to the cafeteria table behind her. I hang my head in shame, in fear, in anger, in grief.

I hear shrieking and realize it’s me.

I want to help, but even as I cross the room I know it’s too late.

Eventually all that’s left at Grover’s feet is a pile of bones and pus, half bubbling, half spreading across the cafeteria floor.

Another bottle lands at Bianca’s feet, searing her toes, igniting her heels in flames. She stumbles back, hissing violently, a pool of wine chasing her across the cafeteria floor. Unlike everything else she’s done to date, her movements are frantic, detached, unpredictable, unwieldy. She’s like a housewife screeching at a mouse in some black-and-white fifties sitcom.

Unfortunately, she’s not alone.

I’m already in pursuit, watching Zander’s fear as Bianca’s wicked claws dig into his shoulder.

She drags him toward the doors.

“Zander,” I shout.

Another volley of bottles sails through the air. Like beer bottles in a bar fight, they splash the walls on either side of the cafeteria’s double doors. The hallowed wine splatters Bianca’s face and scores her to the bone.

She screams, her hair on fire before she pats it out with one hand and tugs Zander into the hall with the other.

I rush to Grover, who stands amidst a pile of what used to be Cara.

Sweet Cara.

I’m careful of the wine at my feet. Even a drop could burn through me like acid, taking me out of this game before it even starts.

I rip a strip of cloth from the hem of my shirt and wrap it around my hand, hesitating. My wrapped fingers linger over what’s left of Cara’s carcass.

I reach into her putrid flesh to grab Grover’s stake from where it’s fallen into her ribs. “Gross,” Grover says.

“I know.” I grunt, wiping it off on my pants. “But we might need this for late—”

Just then, something metallic-sounding rattles across the floor.

I look, rush to it, wipe still steaming flesh from its digital display, and exhale.

It’s Cara’s and must have fallen out of one of her pockets. I might not have found it otherwise or, in my shock and panic, thought to look.

“What is it?” Tristan says, handing Grover a wine bottle.

I hold up the pager, my finger pressed firmly on the red button in the center. “Salvation.”

Chapter 32

W
e follow the growing blood trail through the surprisingly silent halls. Grover is breathless, tired, a gore-stained stake in one hand, a bottle of sacred wine in the other.

Beside me, Tristan grins, hoisting his own stake and wine bottle for effect. “Some performance back there, huh, Lily?” he says as if he’s just entertained fifty thousand screaming fans.

I cluck my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “Yeah, Tristan, sure. Why not? We could have used it before they kidnapped Zander and lured him to his death, but whatevs.”

He seems offended. “I saved the day, did I not?”

”Yeah, sure, you saved the day. I’m very grateful, but we don’t leave anyone behind, okay? The day’s not over. Not until we get Zander back.”

“Forget him.” He pauses near a fire alarm.

I stop, if only to give Grover a moment to catch his breath. “We can’t forget him. We
won’t
forget him. Fine, you don’t care about Zander; we get that. But in case you’ve forgotten, this school is full of hims and hers. If we don’t stop Bianca, innocent kids will get slaughtered, drained, and turned. Do you care about
them?”

His impatient expression makes it clear that, no, he really doesn’t. “The exit is that way,” he says, pointing in the opposite direction of Bianca’s blood trail. “The school is in danger. Look at this beautiful fire alarm. I say we pull it, alert everybody, and wait for the cops. Let them take care of it. We’re kids, remember?” What is this guy on?

Seriously?

Does he honestly think this is over?

That we can walk away and whistle a tune while a Royal runs amok at Nightshade?

“The cops are twenty-five minutes away, Tristan! They’re also
human.
They haven’t seen what you’ve seen. I’ve been here before, okay? It will take them two hours to believe us, and by then Bianca and Zander will be long gone.”

“Let them be,” he says. “We are alive, no? Zander is … is done for, I’m afraid.”

Rough hands pin him to the hard stone wall. Grover, red-faced and standing on tiptoes, says through gritted teeth, “Zander is my friend, you big, phony, pompous jerk, and none of us, you included, leave without him. Got that?” He shoves him one last time for good measure before releasing him.

Tristan coughs and sputters. “Of course, my friend. It was merely a suggestion.” But his eyes say otherwise.

I pledge to watch him more closely.

We silently move away from the fire alarm, away from the cafeteria, away from safety, and willingly toward danger.

And hopefully a rescue.

The trail disappears where two hallways begin.

I bend to the floor, studying the end of the smear.

Grover grunts, kneeling by my side. “Looks like she wiped it up.” He points to a clean swipe mark that signals the end of Bianca’s trail as clearly as if she’d used a giant eraser to blot out her name.

“So we wouldn’t know which way she was going,” I murmur somewhat approvingly. “Smart. So where do these halls lead?”

Everything has happened so fast and gone so wrong. I’ve never had time to scope out this particular section of the school until now.

Grover looks down both halls, scratching his curly black hair. “I have no idea.”

“That is because you are a techie,” Tristan says. He’s not leaning to the trail but still standing above us, smirking, a stake slid through his belt loop, the bottom of his wine bottle resting against his thigh.

“Trekkie,” Grover corrects without looking up.

“No, because you are a technical person and you only live in the computer lab in the technical wing. These halls are for active people. One leads to the varsity locker rooms, the other to the indoor pool.”

I stand. “She’s smart; she wants us to split up.”

Tristan says, “That is a bad idea.”

“Really?” I snap. “Thanks for the input.”

Grover struggles to get up, and I drag him to a standing position. A tad forcefully (okay, a lot forcefully), he says, “But we have to, Lily. We don’t have time to mess around. She’s probably at the pool already. Let me take Tristan, and I’ll—”

“I don’t trust Tristan,” I say, not caring that the guy himself is standing right behind me, sniffling.

Grover shrugs and lopes in the opposite direction. “Fine,” he calls out. “I’ll go myself. I’ve always wanted to see the girls’ locker room anyway. You know, other than on the girls’ locker room webcam, that is.”

“Grover,” I shout, but he’s already too far away and I don’t have time to chase a practically grown man into the locker rooms.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

But Tristan stands firm. “Why should I go with a woman who doesn’t trust me?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll shove this stake where the sun don’t shine. That’s why.”

He follows me resolutely, the wine in his bottle sloshing, the glass clinking against his expensive belt buckle.

The auditorium at our feet is large, dank, and dark.

I wouldn’t flip on the lights except I need Tristan’s help, and he has to see. One after the other, the lights flicker on like a wave spreading across the ceiling some three or four stories above, illuminating an Olympic-sized pool, several Jacuzzis, and numbered rooms for what look like saunas.

“Look for wet tiles,” I say, nose wrinkling at the scent of chlorine permeating the air. “Discarded towels. She’ll want to get wet to stop the holy wine from doing any more damage.”

“Surely she can’t have gotten far?” he says, inspecting the pool deck nonetheless. “Last time we saw her, she was practically melting.”

“She’s a Royal, Tristan. She’s probably already healing as we speak. The water will help, but she doesn’t necessarily need it for her cells to begin regenerating.”

I spot a puddle on the pool deck and get hopeful, and then a drop of water splashes on my shoulder.

It’s from a leak in the ceiling high overhead.

I keep moving, keep lurking, the serene surface of the pool water placid and relaxing.

You know, if you’re not smack-dab in the middle of Vampire Armageddon, that is.

I stop and put my hand on the floor, trying to sense the Royal. Nothing.

I stand, recognizing the sound of silence, the sound of absence.

“She’s not here.” I clutch Tristan’s collar and drag him back into the empty hallway.

“Maybe the lockers,” he says, back to using his stilted Euro-speak.

We start walking, only to hear sneakers squeaking in our direction.

Grover rounds a corner and stumbles into view.

“What happened?”

His face is flushed. “I looked everywhere. Girls’ lockers, girls’ shower. She’s not there.”

I look down the hall we came from, where the blood trail ends. “Where would that hall have led if we’d gone the other direction?”

“What, you think she circled around?” Grover asks.

“Like the hunters do,” Tristan says, nodding, “when they follow their tracks back through the snow.”

Who is this guy, and what has he done with Tristan?