For Kurt and Steeve Wilcken,
without whom this series of books
would not have been possible
Copyright 2020 by Catherine Schaff-Stump
All Rights Reserved.
First Edition: March, 2020
ISBN:
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles, reviews, social media, and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests please address Catherine Schaff-Stump, PO Box 89, Blairstown, Ia 52209.
Your support of the author’s rights is much appreciated.
Cover Art: Kurt Wilcken
Interior and Cover Design: Michele Maakestad
CHAPTER ONE
Destroy All Vampires
Most people do not understand the danger they are in from the constant and twilight threat of monsters. Yes, monsters. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, the occasional mad scientist. There are dinosaur throwbacks in the center of the earth too. Okay, I am lying about that one, but chances are if Universal has made a film about it, it exists.
I am Abigail Rath. I am thirteen years old, and I fight the forces of darkness every day, because I don’t want your happy life to become a horror film. Pulling humanity back from the brink of the abyss is what I do. Humanity is welcome.
Most of the time, problems in my life begin with my friend Vince. This time was no exception.
We were at Big Mel’s Skateway. Big Mel’s has a classic rink, concrete with no cracks. For good skating, no cracks is key. The walls and side rails are red-carpeted so kids who can’t skate can catch themselves and pretend to be cool without intense bruising. Mirrors cover one wall. When Mel breaks out the disco ball and turns on the lights, the atmosphere is not only retro, but also magical. Vince and I are Mel’s favorites because we take lessons. I can skate backwards, although Big Mel frowns upon that. He threatens kids who skate backwards with an aluminum baseball bat, in a loving owner kind of way.
On that particular Saturday, I was the undefeated limbo champ for seven weeks running. I watched two new kids on the skate floor. The girl had long red hair and skated more like she was on ice than concrete. I couldn’t get a good look at the boy because he was surrounded by a group of goggling girls. Whatever. Vince sat down by me on the wooden bench while I was unlacing my skates. Most skates at Mel’s are old school. Vince’s skates looked like sneakers, which is an option. Mine were classic white with silver lightning streaks down the sides. Classic, but with a twist of individualism.
“Can we talk?” asked Vince.
“Hmm.” I found a knot and I tried to get it undone with a fingernail.
Vince thrust a thin, dusty book across my field of vision. Go, Trojans! was embossed in gold on the front of
the yearbook.
I blinked away the little dust particles that floated in the air.
“Look at the page I marked,” said Vince.
I dropped the skate into my bag and opened the glossy pages. The book smelled like damp garage. Vince pointed to a picture of his teenaged mom and dad.
“Look at her hair!” I couldn’t help myself. Mrs. Cooper had a topknot that made her look like a poodle.
“Abby,” said Vince, his index finger guiding me through the image. “Listen. That’s my mom. There’s my dad. And this guy, this scrawny guy? That’s Ned.”
I slammed the book shut. “Okay, Vince, where we going with this?”
“I think he’s following me.”
“Ned?”
“Sure. Except he looks just like that, like he did about twenty years ago.”
Since I am a monster hunter, I did not blow this off. Vince isn’t exactly a monster hunter, but his dad met my dad on one of my dad’s cases, so that makes Vince’s family familiar with weird stuff. “Since when is Ned following you?”
“A week ago. I think he might be a vampire.”
“I am sooo sure your parents would have a little vampire friend.”
Vince said in that quiet Vince voice of his, “Your parents know vampires.”
“Big difference. Dad’s—”
“Reginald Rath, vampire slayer.” Vince rolled his eyes, like being a slayer of the spawn of Satan and protector of the waking world was like picking your nose in class. “I know.”
I pulled off my other skate and stuck it in my duffle bag. “Back to Ned?”
“I’ve seen him at the Circle K a couple of times. He said hi once.”
“You’re sure it’s the guy in the year book?”
“Yup. Dad messed up. He said hi back.” Vince waved his hand in a hello arc. “’Hi Ned.’ I asked Dad who he was, and Dad didn’t want to talk about it.”
That was weird. Vince’s dad was a talky guy. “And?”
“I asked Mom if they knew some guy named Ned. She asked me why I asked. I said that Dad told me a story about Ned. She chillaxed and told me about Ned from high school. So I dug out the yearbook. Looks the same.”
“It could be this guy’s son.” I jostled the skates together so they fit into the bag.
Vince waited a beat. “That’s a Mr. Christopher line.”
Yeah, even I didn’t believe that one. “What else you got?”
“He’s stopped showing up at the Circle K. I saw him in the parking lot here.”
“Not good,” I said. “We don’t need vampires hanging around Big Mel’s. We need to investigate.”
“Or we could call the police.”
“You don’t want to do that,” I said, “or you’d be talking to your parents instead of me.”
“You’re right,” said Vince. “I want to know why my parents are so...weird about this.”
Vince had come to a professional. Well, someone who wouldn’t tell on him. I smelled an opportunity.
For most of my thirteen years, I had been honing myself to be the perfect monster hunting machine. To follow in the footsteps of my parents was my first and best goal. I was Abigail Rath, humanity’s first line of defense. My parents didn’t acknowledge that, but this would be a great chance to show them I was a serious monster hunter.
Most people might think that Vince and I were going to get into trouble chasing down some innocent guy who isn’t really a vampire, and this story would only end in tears. However, Vince and I know something most people don’t. We know that vampires exist, because we know a vampire.
“We should find Ned,” I said. “And if he’s a vampire, we should stake him.”
Vince stood up and slung his skate bag over his shoulders. “I don’t think—”
I put the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. “If he’s fiendish undead, he’s gotta be staked!”
“You sound like one of your dad’s movies.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, Vince Cooper. Your problem is that you don’t take any of this seriously. You’re never going to be a good monster hunter.”
“Who said I wanted to be a monster hunter?”
I pointed at him, wanting him to know I meant business. “Do you have any idea what a great responsibility it is to carry on the age-honored tradition of protecting the world from unseen forces?”
Vince’s eyebrows rose. “You think I could hunt monsters?”
“You’re a natural. Good investigative skills and a solid head on your shoulders.” Good sidekick material for sure.
“Wow. I—it just never felt right for me...to be a monster hunter...it seems like an odd thing to write a book report about. You? You’re going to be a monster hunter?”
What did he suppose? “I consider
myself one already!”
“Hunh. I thought it was a passing phase. Okay. How are we going to find Ned?”
“I have a couple of ideas,” I said.
On Sunday nights, Dad and I have father-daughter time in Dad’s man cave. Old movie posters cover the walls, except for the wall right across from the overstuffed couch, which is a screen opposite the projection unit Dad had bolted onto the ceiling. Hot popcorn made my mouth water. Next to the popcorn was an icy cold orange juice. Mom is a great believer in the insidious effects of soda, so I don’t get to drink it.
Dad and I had just finished watching the Anvil Studios production of Wolfman! Wolfman!. Wolfman! Wolfman! is that rarest of movies, a horror musical.
Dad loaded up a new DVD. “You’re going to love the makeup in this!” said Dad. “The transformation sequences are incredible!”
Dad used to be a B-movie actor who made most of his films twenty years ago. All monster movie fans know Dad. Reginald Rath, Vampire Slayer. Although my dad has acted the gauntlet of bad movie parts—he’s been everything from Quasimodo to a puritanical witch hunter—it’s his constant casting as a vampire killer which has made his reputation. His movies have taught me everything I know about killing monsters.
Wolfman! Wolfman! is rare in another way. It was one of the few Anvil films we watched that didn’t have Dad or Mr. Christopher in it. This next film did. Mr. Christopher was Dracula, of course, and Dad was Van Helsing. The poignant title? Return of the Son of the Bride of Dracula. It was the sixth film in the series, so they didn’t have a lot left to choose from.
I am a big fan of Dad’s films, don’t get me wrong, but we had watched Return last month, so I wasn’t as interested in it as I would usually be. Mr. Christopher, tall and lumbering, cape swirling, blood lining his lips like a demented clown, chased a beautiful blond across a moonlit landscape. She was the fiancée of Dad’s character’s nephew in the film, so as soon as she started sucking villagers dry, Dad would show up with his stakes and his ruffled shirts and his Gothic crosses, and spike the heck out of everybody.
Instead, my mind was on what might happen when Vince and I tracked down Ned. I soon replaced Dad’s movie with one in my head.
Vince and I found Ned in a building downtown in Central City East. Vince and I walked up the crumbling concrete steps, tugged the swollen door open, and walked into a musty lobby. Everything seemed covered by a thin coat of cheap.
I eyed the desk clerk, certain that he was a servant of the damned. “We’re here for your master,” I said.
Direct and straight to the point. That’s the monster hunter way. It also makes for snappy dialogue. In real life, there might be loads of stupid chitchat, but movies are much more direct.
Ned bounded down the stairs by the desk, spoiling for a fight. He was rail thin, wearing army fatigues and a black t-shirt with some band like Nine Inch Nails printed on it. He had a buzz of dyed red hair and his skin was pale like undeath.
“Hey, Ned,” the desk clerk said, “These kids are here to see you.”
Ned exploded into a fangy grin. Just flashed those fangs, right out in the open. He grabbed Vince’s hand and pumped his arm. “Nice to meetcha.”
Vince cricked his neck toward me. “This is a friend of mine.”
Ned extended his hand. I tightened my grip on my backpack. Ned nodded. “So, Vince, can I get you and your friend something to eat. You hungry?”
“No, sir,” said Vince. “We’ve eaten.”
“Yes,” I said. “Have you?”
Ned rubbed his chin. “I don’t think your friend likes me.”
“It’s nothing personal. That’s just her way. She thinks she knows everything about...everything.”
“I do. That’s the advantage of training hard.”
If it’s my head movie, I can say things like that.
I scoped out the room for ways to take care of Ned. Poker by the dilapidated fireplace? Check. Fire in dilapidated fireplace? Check. I pulled my crucifix out of my backpack.
I really do have one. Dad bought me one when I was eight.
“What do you think of this? Be gone, demon of the night!”
Ned was wild-eyed. “What else do you have in there?”
“All sorts of things to deal with you, Dracula Junior!” I popped the top off the vial of holy water that pastor’s daughter Jo Kemp had blessed during study hall, flinging it at the undead target. I sprang forward…
From there, events would take their natural course. Either Ned would attack, or maybe take Vince as a hostage. We’d have to dispose of the desk clerk, and eventually we’d get Ned staked, or melt Ned with holy water, or something cool. I was hoping I might get a chance to use my Febreze trick.
“Abby?”
Dad paused the film. Frozen on the big screen television, Dad raised a stake above the chest of a deadly peasant barkeep.
“Yes?” I pulled my hand out of the bowl of popcorn I was eating on autopilot.
“Did you hear anything I said?”
I hadn’t, but I hazarded a guess. “Make-up for the Anvil Wolfman took three hours to apply? It was still a big improvement on the Universal technique where they nailed Lon Chaney Junior’s hand to a board and glued on one hair at a time?” Whoops. Flashback to the wrong film.
“All right,” said Dad. The remote clicked as he placed it on the coffee table. He picked up a mug of root beer. “What’s on your mind?”
“Dad, how old were you when you fought your first vampire?”
Dad settled back onto the couch. The leather sofa squeaked like a low note on a trumpet. “Thank goodness,” he laughed. “I thought you were going to ask me about boys.”
“No.” I rolled my eyes. Abigail Rath doesn’t have time for boys. Just evil. “How old?”
“Thirty-two. I slayed a lot of fake vampires before that. Two, three hundred. I slayed Lee Christopher thirty times alone.”
“How’d it happen?”
“It was a classic staking. I took the stake and-”
“No, Dad. I mean, what happened that made you fight your first vampire?”
Dad’s forehead creased right above his nose. “It…was an accident. I stumbled into the wrong room and saw something I thought was part of a movie. It wasn’t. In order to save the vampire’s victim, I staked her.”
“Her?”
“Yes.”
My father, man of action! “And you never looked back.”
“Abby, I’ve looked back often,” Dad said. He subjected me to intense scrutiny. “Why are you asking?”
“Oh,” I said, “Career report.”
“Really?”
I nodded and tried to convince Dad with wide-eyed sincerity. I am not a bad liar. I’d get a score of seven out of ten if there were a liar Olympics. “Can’t write about monster hunting, of course, but it made me curious how you got into the profession.”
Dad picked up the remote. “What are you going to write about?”
“Special effects,” I said. “Mostly makeup.”
“Good girl,” Dad said. “There’s more future in that than acting.”
Dad was gonna be pretty proud of me tomorrow night. If Mom were less thrilled, I was sure Dad would bring Mom around.
Vince came over Monday after school. He attends public school, so he always gets home a little earlier than I do. Mom decided I would attend Wolcroft, a private school for exceptional girls. I like it, so I don’t complain too much. My uniform is awesome and the teachers are really smart. I do miss getting to wear jeans and play football, but I can do that after school, so it’s all good.
My mom dresses like a stereotypical librarian, hair strangled back from her head, and tiny pince-nez perched on her nose. “What’s up for today?” Mom asked, looking up from a cutting board full of chopped carrots. The kitchen smelled like pot roast.
“Chemistry experiments,” I said, helping myself to a cookie from Dad’s weekend baking binge. Vince bobbed his head. Yes, that was us, two young persons in constant pursuit of
knowledge. Mom would approve.
Vince and I went to Mom’s study, which wasn’t in anyway to be confused with Dad’s man cave. Dad’s domain had lots of old movie posters, row upon row of horror DVDs, and a huge stack of books on vampire lore, actual and fictional. On the other hand, Mom’s study was full of uncomfortable antique furniture. There was a bust of Pallas Athena with her helmet on its own accent table. The table near the window was covered with weird science equipment, various magical braziers and bottles and things that would bubble if heated up. Mom was technically an occult researcher, but I knew she cast simple magical spells from time to time, which is what Vince and I were going to do today.
“Here we are,” I said. “Did you get anything of Ned’s?” Today’s exercise hinged on whether Vince had something from the person we were trying to locate. If Ned counted as a person.
“My dad had some old stuff.” Vince handed me an aged envelope, the flap ripped half off. The writing was brilliant red, like the kind of red you notice on an English paper when the teacher gives you a C, which is much worse than blood.
“Hey Charlie,
Hope you’re doing well. Give my regards to the girlfriend.
I’m not going anywhere. You never know when I might show up to exact my revenge.
Ned”
“Exact my revenge” was underlined three times, I noticed. “Did you read this?”
Vince nodded.
“Did your parents have something to do with Ned becoming a vampire?”
“Ned thinks so,” said Vince, “in the letter.”
There’s nothing considered worse among monster hunters than abandoning someone to the fate of monster conversion. While Vince’s parents weren’t technically hunters, if I read Ned’s note to Vince’s dad right, this was a real stain of honor against Vince’s parents.
“Can you do anything with this?” Vince asked.
“I thought we’d try a simple location spell.”
I’m not my mom, but what she’d told me is that you could capture the essence of a person from the things they’d touched and use that essence to locate them. Sounded easy to me.
Abigail Rath Versus Bloodsucking Fiends Page 1