Atonia blinked, trying to make sense of everything. “Did you…?” She looked at Maron but pointed at me. “Is she…?”
“I don’t know what she’s doing here,” Maron said.
“Just thought I’d help out!” I said and started cramming skirts and shirts back onto the rack.
Maron glared and came at me like a bull. I faked left then ran right and grabbed a rack of clothes. I spun it around and pushed as hard as I could toward Maron. It caught her in the boob and she stumbled off balance. As she careened sideways, clutching her right breast, I knocked over three more racks of clothes. “Run, Kayla! Run!” I screamed and dashed up the stairs. I exploded out of the stairwell into the kitchen and lurched around the corner where I hit a wall of girls. They packed the hall, moaning and shuffling.
“Move! Move! Get out of the way!” I yelled as I tried to push through them, but they were stacked three wide and five deep and drawn forward by some invisible force. I turned and ran the other way, into the kitchen again, still screaming for Kayla to get a move on. I barreled across the room toward the murky moonlight of the back porch. I reached for the door. I fumbled for the lock. I yanked and clawed at the metal, but something held me back. Hands around my waist dragged me down and pulled me to the floor. My knees crashed against old linoleum. I grappled for a corner of a cabinet, but something jerked me backward. I was flat on my belly being hauled against my will with my fingernails scraping across the floor. “No! No! No!” I screamed. “Help me! Somebody help me!”
Maron rolled me over on my back in the center of the kitchen. She huffed and snorted above me, her red hair shooting from her head like flames as she pinned my arms to my side. “Get off me, you fat cow!” I yelled as I thrashed and bucked. My knee connected with her kidney and she howled. I did it again and again until she let go of me and rolled off, writhing in pain. I struggled to my feet and came face-to-face with Atonia.
“You get away from me,” I warned. “I don’t know what you are or what you’re doing, but you’re not going to get away with it!”
She didn’t speak. She just kept coming, slowly, steadily, silently. The doorway to the hall was still choked with zombie girls. Now the stairwell was clogged with the photographer and the girls coming up from the photo shoot. And between me and the back door was Maron, who’d managed to get to her feet, although she was clutching her side and breathing hard.
As Atonia got closer to me, I took a swing at her, but she was quick. She ducked and I missed. I ran in a circle and swung at her again but, like a cobra, she moved the top half of her body out of my reach then righted herself and kept advancing. I’d never been in a fight. Never taken a martial arts class or self-defense. There was only one way I knew how to use my body.
I counted in my head, Five, six, seven, eight. I clasped my hands in front of my chest, then reached into a high V above my head, I bent my knees, swung my arms, and just as Atonia lunged for me, I sprang, kicking my right leg forward and my left leg back in a hurdler jump. My toe caught her in the center of the chest and knocked her back. She stumbled, stunned. Blinking at me.
When she got her balance, she gasped for air and said, “Was that a cheerleading jump?”
“Yeah!” I said, pumping my fist. “And there’s more where that came from!”
Atonia stood up straight and shook her head slowly.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Maron said then she laughed. “We hate cheerleaders.”
“Join the club,” I told them, readying myself to jump again.
In the fuzzy gray light I could see a change come over Atonia. She ducked her head against her chest, rounded her shoulders, and collapsed in on herself. Then the top of her scalp beneath the spiky black hair split open and peeled back. A shrunken, shriveled wretch writhed forward out of the shell of her body. Sparse tufts of gray hair stuck out from her bulbous skull. Her nose, a pointed beak, thrust forward sniffing at me. She opened her mouth, revealing rows of crooked, razor-sharp fangs.
“Holy crap!” I said, paralyzed with fear. “I didn’t see that coming.”
Neither did the photographer who gaped at the wretched creature and ran screaming for the door.
“Aw, you stupid ninny,” Maron yelled. She swiped, trying to grab him, but he wriggled past her, out the door and she made no move to chase him.
I looked back at the miserable creature Atonia had become. Wings unfurled from her shoulder blades and she flew at me. I threw my arm in front of my face then hit the floor before I knew what happened. “Sleep,” she rasped, reaching for me with bony claws. “Sleep.” Her claws dug into my collarbone and my body grew heavy, as if I had been suspended in thick, liquid amber.
“No,” I moaned. “No.” I couldn’t move beneath her enormous weight perched on top of my chest, but I could feel her draining something from me. Taking it for herself. My childhood slipped away. Mornings, snuggled in my parents’ bed, my tiny feet finding a warm spot behind my mother’s knee. The smell of peanut butter toast and hot chocolate with marshmallows melting, steam thawing my frozen nose after sledding. My grandmother showing me how to pluck ripe black raspberries from the vines behind her barn, the taste bursting in my mouth, and then a pie cooling on the wire rack while we squeezed fresh lemonade. Aunt JoJo running alongside me, cheering me to pedal faster and hold on tight as she let go and sent me coasting on two wheels.
My first kiss. Kyle McIlhaney, red hair and freckles, tasted like barbecue potato chips and I pushed him away. Holding hands with Jarrett Duran, the first time my heart truly fluttered and how much I sweat when we went into the closet for Seven Minutes in Heaven at Chloe’s sixth-grade birthday party. A new girl in eighth grade. Geeky in her braids and retainer, slurring all her Ss. Madison. I didn’t laugh. Invited her to the pool. We played Sharks and Minnows and ate Laffy Taffy then pinky swore to be best friends forever because who else would love “Hollaback Girl” and the Chronicles of Narnia as much as we did?
Atonia was draining it all from me, feasting off my memories and taking my life force for her own, sucking me dry like she had all the other girls. She would leave me a zombie, stuck between life and death, begging Johann to end the agony by sinking his fangs into my flesh. But I didn’t want to die. I had too much to do. Too many things left to accomplish. I fought to open my eyes and when I did, I saw a beautiful thing.
Johann, Helios, Avis, and Tarren burst through the back door.
Helios pointed to me. “Get off of her!” he yelled, and the electricity surged. Every bulb in the house snapped on and the ceiling fan began to spin.
Atonia screeched and retracted her claws from my body. I scrambled backward, gasping for breath as Tarren rushed in, waving her arms and yelling, “I’ll whip your clings, you bugly itch!”
Atonia fluttered for a moment, as if trying to figure out what Tarren meant but Maron saw an opening and charged.
“Tarren, look out!” I tried to yell. It came out barely more than a croak, but it was enough for Tarren to spin around and see Maron rushing toward her.
Tarren pointed to one of the broken chairs across the room. She raised her arms and the chair levitated then she flung it toward Maron. The chair zipped through the air as Tarren yelled, “Blushing crow!” The chair transformed into a large black bird that looked strangely embarrassed to be in the room. “Crushing blow! Crushing blow!” Tarren yelled, but it was too late. The crow flapped away through the open door. Tarren held out her arms to block Maron and screamed, “Hop stag!” Maron jumped and in midair morphed into a deer with huge antlers. The stag cleared Tarren’s head and landed in the center of the room, confused and angry.
Atonia screeched and rocketed forward. She sank her sharp talons into Tarren’s shoulders, but Tarren refused to go down. “By the strength of ten thousand faeries!” Tarren yelled. “You’ll never take me.” The wraith flung Tarren across the room, but she didn’t smack into the wall or fall to the ground because the strap of her tank top caught the edge of the spinning ceiling fan blade.
She hung from the whirling fan like a faerie-shaped piñata, screaming obscenities and daring Atonia to come back for her. “Bring it, you hazy crying flag. I’m not done with you yet!” she yelled as she twirled.
“Baby, I’m coming!” Avis yelled. He ran forward, furiously high stepping into the center of the room, which startled the stag. It reared onto its back legs and ran for the door.
“Helios! Johann! Stop her!” I barked, but they both ducked out of the doorway as the stag charged. She hurtled into the dark night and we heard her hooves clattered against the pavement outside.
I looked back at Avis, whose head jutted and arms flapped. I cringed and covered my eyes, half afraid to witness his transformation into a wolfman. Then I noticed that he’d sprouted what appeared to be black feathers over his body. His shoes and clothes peeled away as his arms became wings, his toes grew webs, and his face morphed into two beady eyes and a bright red beak under a flopping cockscomb on the top of his head.
“You’re a were-chicken!” I croaked at the mad-flapping rooster on the loose.
The feathers around his neck splayed forward as he jumped and crowed around the room, chasing Atonia who flapped from wall to wall, dive-bombing our heads. The zombies ducked, I hit the ground, and Helios crouched with one arm up, but Johann lost his mind. He ran across the room, waving his arms, squealing like a little girl. “Shoo! Shoo! Get away! Get away from me!” he screamed. Atonia grazed his head, followed by a squawking, flapping Avis. “It’s in my hair!” Johann screeched and frantically batted at his head as he ran into the zombie girls at the top of the steps. They enveloped him, moaning and begging, pulling him down the stairwell like an undertow. “Kayla!” he yelled. “Kayla, help me!”
“Johann!” came a muffled cry beneath the flailing arms and legs. Then zombie girls were flung from the doorway like useless rags. Kayla and Johann emerged, arm in arm, triumphant in their reunion. But Atonia plunged at them. Johann squealed and clung to Kayla. Together they thrust across the floor as if they were dancing the tango. Atonia swooped again and Johann threw his body over Kayla in an epic dip. They rolled across the floor and landed under the rickety table.
I pushed up to my hands and knees, trying to find the strength to fight for my friends but I was still woozy and weak. I looked to Helios. Our last remaining hope, but he hadn’t moved from his crouch, one arm shielding his face as if he were paralyzed with fear.
Atonia flapped up to the ceiling and hovered over me, claws out, teeth bared. “Josie!” someone yelled. I turned to see Kayla standing tall. She looked different. Not exactly like herself, but no longer zoned out like the zombies. Her eyes shone and her skin glittered. She grabbed the table and snapped one of the legs off like it was a toothpick then she threw it to me. I snagged it midair.
I felt the weight of the wooden leg in my hands and I planted my feet. “Come on!” I screamed, my voice now strong. “Bring it, you evil hag!” Atonia plunged at me claws first. I pulled back on the chair leg and swung as hard as I could. Thwap! The wood caught her squarely in the jaw and sent her tumbling backward across the floor. I tightened my grip and ran for her. Atonia looked up at me and bared her fangs. She hissed and spread her wings, but before she could lift off the ground I swung again and landed a blow on her sternum.
Pffff! Her body exploded like a vacuum cleaner bag full of dirt. A million tiny particles drifted in the air and covered all of us with a fine, powdery dust. We coughed and sputtered, manically trying to brush the dust off of us, but it absorbed into our skin. I tingled, from the inside out as the memories of my childhood rushed into my body again. One by one each of the zombie girls shuddered, shook, and reanimated, inflating like balloons on a helium tank.
“What happened??” “Where am I?” “What’s going on?” they asked as they came to.
“Kayla!” I called. I searched for her in the bedlam and found her standing beside Johann, an eerie glow to her skin and eyes. “Kayla,” I reached out to her. “Are you okay?”
Johann covered his face and wailed, “I was weak!”
My hand flew to my mouth. “You didn’t.”
Slowly, sadly, he nodded. But Kayla smiled, her incisors gleaming. “He set me free,” she said. “Just as I asked him to.”
“Oh hells no,” Tarren said as she spun. “This is a truttload of bubbles.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, tiny floating spheres filled the room. Raining down softly from the ceiling, our hair and clothes and the floor were quickly covered with thousands of sudsy bubbles.
“What in the name of Zeus!”
We all turned around. There in the doorway stood the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen. Her black hair, shining like polished onyx, tumbled over her shoulders and down her back.
“Mom!” Helios shouted, then the lights went out.
I was mesmerized by the woman illuminated in the moonlight. Rays of sun seemed to emanate from her hand as she searched the room. Then I realized, it wasn’t sun rays at all. She was holding a flashlight. The bubbles created prisms in the light and made little rainbows dance over Avis, still in chicken form, scratching and pecking at the floor. Tarren spun slowly above our heads as the ceiling fan came to a stop. “Hi, Thea,” she called down. The former zombie girls wandered around the room in their skanky clothes that were then four sizes too small. They laughed and joked as they poked the bubbles and wondered what kind of crazy party they’d all been at.
Helios’s mom turned the flashlight onto him. He cowered in its glow. “Your text said people were in trouble here. I left my dinner party. I called the Council. But this…” She swept across the room with her light again. I dropped the chair leg. Johann quickly stepped away from Kayla. Avis’s feathers had molted and he’d morphed back into human form. “Oh no, not again!” he said, covering himself with both hands.
“This looks like you’re having a party!” Thea said.
“God, Mom,” Helios said, stamping his foot. “You never believe me.”
chapter 22
once we had Tarren down from the fan and some clothes thrown together for Avis, we all gathered in the living room and tried to explain everything to Thea. It took a solid fifteen minutes to get the story out, but by the time the line of white Council vans started pulling up in the driveway, she seemed convinced that we’d done the right thing.
“Well,” said Thea. “That’s quite a story. However, I don’t believe the Council needs to know all the details.” She looked from Tarren to Avis, Johann to me, then to Helios. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them and I can make sure they know just enough to count you all as heroes.”
We let go a collective sigh of relief.
“Except for you,” she said, pointing to Johann. “You broke one of the most sacred laws. You changed a human.”
Kayla stepped forward from the shadows and wrapped her arm around Johann’s shoulder. “It was my choice.”
Thea scoffed. “He took advantage. You were in an altered state.”
“I knew exactly what I was doing,” Kayla said. “I wanted this almost as soon as I met him.”
Johann blinked at her. “You knew?”
Kayla nodded. “Yes, that first day, I knew what you were.”
“But how?” he asked.
Kayla looked to me.
“My blog?” I cringed then buried my face in my hands. “It’s all my fault,” I moaned. “I’m so sorry.” I looked up at Johann, expecting to be met with hate, but his eyes were kind.
He put his arm around Kayla’s waist. “Without you, Yosie, I would have never met my destiny. How can I be angry?”
“Oh, Johann,” I said sadly.
“I chose to be changed,” Kayla said. She pushed up her sleeve and held out her inner arm. Two red puncture marks on the blue veins stared out like beady eyes. “After he ran for me in the kitchen, gallantly evading that horrible wraith, and we rolled across the floor in love’s embrace.…”
“That’s not the way I remember it,” Tarren said half und
er her breath.
“I put my arm in his mouth and begged to be bitten,” Kayla said.
“But he did the biting,” said Thea. “The Council has very strict laws about that. I won’t be able to intercede.”
“What will happen to them?” I asked.
Thea looked grim. “I don’t know. We haven’t had a case like this in a very long time. But whatever it is, it won’t be good.”
“What if we leave?” Johann asked. “Right now. Take our chances in Saskatchewan as a young married couple?”
“Johann?” Kayla squealed. She threw her arms around his neck and jumped for joy. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
Johann stepped away. “What, huh, whoa…” he sputtered. Then he snorted. “I’m from a different era. 1980s East Berlin.” He held her at arm’s length. “If I’d met you then, we would have gone to the discotheque. Maybe had a picnic with our weekly ration of hard salami. Then later, after we applied for our one-room apartment, then perhaps…”
We heard doors slamming in the driveway.
“You have to go,” I pleaded with them. “Before the other Council members get here.”
“Mom?” Helios said.
Thea pressed her lips together. “If perhaps I were to walk out to the front porch to greet the Council and when we returned Johann and Kayla were no longer here, I would have forgotten them completely.” She turned and strode slowly out of the room.
I was the first to throw my arms around Kayla and Johann and I begged them for forgiveness. “I’m so so so sorry. It’s all my fault and I…”
“Yosie,” Johann said, patting my back. “It’s okay. Kayla and I are meant to be together.”
Kayla snorted and stepped away from him. “Yeah, only you have no intention of marrying my butt.”
Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire Page 17