The Series that Just Plain Sucks: The Complete Trilogy

by Charissa Dufour

  “Ashley! Ashley!” the others called as they splashed their way to where I stood, still standing in waist deep water, the surf rocking my tired body back and forth.

  I took a second to look at the object in my hand and confirm that it was in fact the missing staff.

  “Are you hurt?” asked Emma, the first to reach my side.

  I hesitated a second, taking stock of my body before shaking my head. I blew air out of my mouth like a wale’s blow hole to clear it of monster guts before saying, “No. It’s the monster’s blood.”

  “What about the staff?” asked Thomas, less concerned with my wellbeing than the mission. “Now we don’t know where it is!”

  I looked down, suddenly realizing that in my exhaustion I was holding the sought-after object under the water. With what little energy remained to me, I lifted it out of the waves. A general cheer went up before Nik took the staff out of my hand. Disregarding my smell and the entrails draped around my neck, Emma slipped my arm over her shoulder and half carried me out of the water. Josh took my other arm and copied Emma.

  “No offense, but you reek,” he said as they dragged me up onto the beach.

  “Don’t listen to him,” said Nik from a few feet ahead of us. “You’re always lovely to me, Ash.”

  I rolled my eyes, but otherwise ignored Nik as I collapsed on the sand. My body continued to heave with the waves, as though I had just spent the last twelve hours on a boat. It made me sick to my stomach, or maybe that was the entrails.

  Emma and Josh went to work on clearing away the monster guts from my clothing as best as they could.

  “Nik,” began Emma. “I think we need a hotel for the night.”

  I didn’t hear Nik’s response over the murmur of my own sleep.

  To my utmost disgust, I woke up. My let-down increased when the smell of my surroundings hit me smack dab in the face. I stirred, trying to sit up, when I felt a hand grab my shoulder and push me back against the soft surface I had been laying on. The surface crinkled in a familiar way, though I couldn’t place the sound.

  “Where are we? Why’s it so dark?” I asked into the darkness.

  “We couldn’t find a hotel before the sun came up,” said Emma from somewhere near my ear.

  I heard more rustling as the others shifted.

  I sniffed again and instantly regretted it. Mixing with the stench of the monster’s guts smeared on my clothing was the smell of rotting vegetables and dirty diapers. Over all, the odor assaulting my senses made me think a garbage disposal had vomited.

  “Where the hell are we?” I asked, an idea sneaking into my mind.

  “We’re in a dumpster,” grumbled Nik.

  “A dumpster?” I gasped, regretting it when I instinctively took in a deep breath.

  “It was that or burst into flames,” said Thomas as though our predicament hadn’t fazed him at all.

  “What if someone comes to throw something away?” I asked.

  “We’ve tied the lid down,” said Josh.

  “Great.”

  “Half the smell is coming from you,” added Josh, nudging me with his elbow.

  “Hey! Did I get the staff or not?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” chuckled Josh.

  “You could have been killed,” growled Nik at the same time, his over-protectiveness coming out to play.

  I shifted, trying to get more comfortable. Something lumpy and round was jabbing me in the back. I found it and, based on the creases in it, I assumed it was a large can, once holding ground coffee beans. I had once assumed that our long days hiding in the airports had been the worst of my vampire existence. I was wrong, very wrong. I’m mean, like as wrong as a person can be!

  This day, locked in a half-full dumpster, while coated in sea-monster guts, with two men who were both in love with me was the worst of my entire existence. And I stand by that statement.

  It only improved for a split second when Josh’s dog poked his head through the dumpster, yipped at us, and tried to run away, only to be trapped by his sudden corporealness. The dog jerked backwards, it’s tiny, scraggly head banging against the metal dumpster. It gave a yelp of pain, shook its head, and suddenly ran away, once again a ghost.

  “That poor dog,” I sighed as I settled back down to try to sleep again.

  The only other excitement we had all day was the one time someone tried to open the plastic lid to the dumpster. The others had tied it down thoroughly, but one ray of light managed to sneak past, searing Josh on the leg. We all jerked back into the corners to wait for the person to give up. Eventually they did and we heard the sound of a neighboring dumpster being opened and shut.

  Other than that brief fright, we spent the day trying to sleep, despite the noxious stench surrounding us.

  “So, what do we think of Sahara?” I asked when it became clear that none of us were going to get any more sleep.

  “She’s pretty… enough,” said Emma, sounding very much like a petulant child.

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “She’s nothing compared to you,” I said to Emma, trying to comfort her.

  In all the months since first meeting Emma, I never thought I would one day care about her feelings. It was a pleasant sensation. I liked having a friend, though I couldn’t help but wonder if her friendliness was due to the link between me and Sedgrave.

  I pushed those thoughts from my mind. I had gone over all this in my mind before; repeating the same thoughts, the same worries, wouldn’t help anyone.

  “I kinda think Mikhail likes her,” said Josh as he shifted against his garbage bag.

  “Mikhail?” I asked with a laugh before turning to where Nik sat. “Nik, has Mikhail ever had a girlfriend?”

  “Girlfriend?” Nik asked, scoffing at the modern name.

  “Lover. Mistress. Sweetheart, Partner of the Opposite Sex?” I prompted.

  “I don’t think it is my place to tell his story,” grumbled the old vampire.

  “Then I’ll tell it,” giggled Emma. “In all the years we were together, I never knew Mikhail to have any sort of lasting relationship. He’s had lovers, but not what we would call girlfriends. What he’s done since I left, I couldn’t say.”

  “Sounds lonely,” Josh said, sounding half asleep.

  “When you’ve lived for that many years, it’s hard to try relationships,” said Nik. “Women die, humans and vampires.”

  I would have liked to have seen Nik’s face as he spoke. It was the first time he’d spoken about romance without sounding like a fool since Sedgrave was raised. It made me wonder what pains he had suffered, what loved ones he had lost.

  “Did he have a woman when he was turned?” asked Thomas, speaking for the first time.

  “He was engaged,” grumbled Nik, as though the words had been forcefully pulled from his lips. “He has never allowed himself to care for someone since. Now I suggest we drop the subject.”

  I could only imagine the chagrined looks on everyone else’s face as we nestled down to wait in silence.

  Finally, when I thought we were all going to kill each other, the sun set. It would have been the happiest moment of my life if it wasn’t for the fact Nikolai insisted on us waiting until the streets emptied.

  Add three more hours to our torture.

  I was ready to break free when Nik finally began to shift. He tore away the bindings used to tie the lid down and climbed out. Emma followed, graciously accepting his help and, despite the muck coating her outfit, looking as though she were exiting a carriage rather than climbing out of a dumpster.

  “Now what?” I asked. I climbed out of the dumpster and only kept from falling on my face by Josh’s strong hands.

  If I hadn’t been covered in crusty guts and dumpster juices, and if we hadn’t been surrounded by an audience, we might have had a moment. I quickly turned away before I could get drawn in by his bright green eyes and took a deep breath of fresh air.

  “We go back to the airport,” Nik said as he pulled out h
is cellphone and began punching in a number.

  “Like this?” I asked, looking down at my clothing.

  The light colored t-shirt I was wearing almost looked tie-dyed with blood, sand, and something else. I wasn’t exactly sure what was turning portions of my outfit purple, but I suspected I didn’t want to know. Though the other’s didn’t look quite as bad as me, a smell still clung to their clothing, and each bore a stain or two from the dumpster.

  I tried to run my hand through my hair, only to find it matted and stiff with dried monster guts. A sudden itch on my cheek revealed a swath of scales stuck to my skin. I pealed it off and scratched at the irritated flesh.

  “I’m hardly presentable,” I added when Nik turned away to make his phone call.

  No one responded as Nik’s call went through. Instead, we turned to listen.

  “Drake here,” came the clipped greeting.

  “Drake. We got the staff. You’re intel sucks. What’ve…”

  “If my intel sucks, then maybe you can get it yourself,” said Drake, cutting Nik off.

  “And maybe I can give your broach away or donate it to a museum here.”

  “Your last threat was better.”

  “Now,” sighed Nik. “What do you have for us now?”

  “I found the mask, the one in the shape of the sun. It’s in Egypt.”

  “Oh good grief. What is it doing there?”

  “From what I can tell,” began Drake, “It got donated to a traveling exhibition. The show will be in Egypt at a special display at the Giza in two days.”

  “Where does it go from there?”

  “The vault. The whole exhibition is going in for restoration.”

  “Dammit,” growled Nik. “Fine, we’ll go to Egypt. Keep me posted.”

  Nik snapped the phone shut and turned to stare at us.

  “Let’s go,” he said when we didn’t move.

  “Don’t you think I’ll draw attention,” I said, waiving toward my crusty shirt.

  “We shouldn’t have left the luggage at the airport,” said Thomas, his eyes looking about the alleyway as though he was admiring a beautifully decorated room.

  “Yes,” I sighed. “Thank you. Very helpful.”

  “We’ll just have to steal you a new outfit.”

  “Why can’t you just go buy one,” I asked, disgusted with the amount of thieving we’d been doing, stealing from monsters aside.

  “Not a lot of shops are open at 1 am,” Josh pointed out.

  “Oh all right. Let’s go,” I said, waiving toward the beach-front road.

  We wandered down the street, trying our best to look inconspicuous to the occasional pedestrian. Just as I was contemplating eating the next human to pass us on the street, we found a tiny little boutique selling women’s clothing, though unlike anything I had ever worn.

  Without waiting for a go-ahead, Thomas drove his elbow into the tall window of the display and snatched one of the dummies garbed in a flowing gown and headscarf. Before we could respond, Thomas took off at a run. We followed him, barely able to keep up. Thomas ran all the way out of the city, following the beach. When we were a good mile or two out of the city, he came to a sudden stop.

  I glanced around, eyeing our surroundings. On one side was the vast expanse and dark depths of the Mediterranean Sea. On the other side stretched a deep, sandy beach beyond which lay what appeared to be fields, though what was being grown I couldn’t tell.

  “Well, that was easy,” said Thomas as he set the mannequin down on its feet; standing in the middle of a beach in the faint moonlight, the object looked rather creepy.

  “That was not your call to make,” snapped Nik as his eyes ran over our surroundings, watching for any sign of pursuit.

  “Why don’t you go bathe in the sea,” suggested Emma. “The men will keep watch over the land.”

  Obediently, Nik, Josh, and Thomas gave me their back. I hopped into the gentle surf, a little wary that there might be another sea monster lurking in the dark waves.

  I quickly stripped out of my ruined clothing and dropped down under the waves. I felt Emma join me in the water. When I surfaced, she took a fist-full of sand and used it to break up the dried guts stuck in my hair. When I was sure I had no scalp left, she allowed me to dunk my head under the water and rinse the last of it out.

  “Best I can do without soap,” she said, sounding disgruntled.

  “It’ll do. I think there’s a scarf with the outfit. That’ll cover whatever’s left in my hair. Will you get the clothing?” I asked, glancing back at the beach.

  Emma jogged back to the mannequin and returned with the ostentatious outfit Thomas had acquired for me. I was just about to drag myself out of the warm, soothing water, when a voice interrupted me.

  “Why do you pollute my waters?” asked an unfamiliar voice.

  Chapter Eleven

  I turned back to the open sea to find a rather naked woman bobbing up and down in the gentle waves. Her unusually thick hair lay heavily across her shoulders, covering his ample breasts. Something about her movements suggested she wasn’t a normal woman underneath the waves.

  In shock, Emma stepped into the water, her eyes wide with surprise as she stared at the distant woman.

  “Who are you?” I asked, lowering myself into the water until my wedding plums were covered.

  To no one’s surprise, the men had turned at the sound of the strange voice and were already wading toward me.

  “Why do you pollute my waters?” she repeated.

  “I was just trying to get clean,” I responded, figuring I wasn’t going to get a coherent answer until I responded to her question.

  “You are foul,” she said.

  “It was a nasty monster before I gutted it.”

  The woman tilted her head in an animal-like gesture. “Not the sea-beasts remains. You pollute my waters.”

  “I… uh… I’ll get out,” I offered.

  “It is too late. You…”

  “Pollute your waters. Yeah I heard you.”

  “She’s beautiful,” murmured Josh from a few feet behind me.

  “I saw her first,” insisted Thomas.

  “Like she’d have you,” grumbled Nik.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” snapped Emma.

  “All right, all vampires out of the water,” I ordered, hoping my Sedgrave-link would override whatever this woman was doing to the men.

  I turned and began to trudge out of the deep waters, ignoring my modesty. I wouldn’t let my inhibitions get us killed. Something about this woman, though beautiful, said dangerous to me.

  “You too, Thomas,” Emma said, adding her own heft to the order.

  Thomas would do anything Emma said, or so we thought. I glanced back just as the water descended to my waist. The men hadn’t moved an inch. They were still staring at the woman.

  Before Emma and I could do anything, five more beauties surfaced to stare at us, making a loose circle around our small group.

  “Uh-oh,” Emma murmured.

  “What?”

  “I think we’re in trouble.”

  “What are they?”

  “Mermaids.”

  “Mermaids? Like ‘Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat’?”

  “Yup. Only more interested in taking human hearts than nick-nacks.”

  “Human? What about vampires?”

  “It would seem those too,” said Emma.

  Before we could say anything else, the lead mermaid motioned for the men to approach them. To my astonishment, the men immediately began to trudge out into the deeper waters. Emma and I dove forward, doing our best to intercept them before they could reach the mermaids.

  “What do we do?” I panted as we fought the increasing surf.

  “I don’t know!”

  I reached Josh a mere second before he would have been forced to tread water, the writhing liquid splashing against his neck. I grabbed his shoulders and gave him a swift shake.

  He turned his gaze on m
e for a second before his eyes drifted back to the nearest mermaid: a woman with curly black hair that was beginning to frizz the longer it was out of the water. In desperation, I grabbed his neck, pulled myself toward him, and pressed my lips to his.

  At first he remained stationary, as though he had lost all his senses. Slowly though, he came to life. His lips began to work against mine. He moved his hands to my waist, felt my bare skin, and pulled me closer. I had nearly lost my sense of place, time, and danger when I heard the mermaids cry out in disgust.

  I opened my eyes and pulled away from Josh. Emma was kissing Thomas and Nik was glancing back and forth between the two kissing couples, his face a mask of jealousy. I wasn’t sure if he was jealousy of Josh or Thomas, but either way it had broken the mermaids’ spell. The mermaids let out another cry of anguish before swooping and diving into the ocean, their fins proving to be much large and sharper than I had expected.

  The five of us swam toward shore as quickly as we could. You would think vampires could swim faster than mermaids, but that wasn’t the case. The mermaids’ mighty fins drove them until they blocked us from reaching the shore.

  The ring leader dove at me. I lunged to my left, thinking I had managed to avoid her attack when I felt a something sharp slice across my thigh. The other mermaids were doing the same thing to my cohorts. Quickly, the dark waters of the ocean began to turn red with our blood. I turned to watch the mermaids, ready for their next side-swiping attack. The sea creatures turned seemingly on a dime and zoomed toward us again.

  I balanced myself on the balls of my feet, ignoring the discomfort of fighting naked. The black-haired mermaid raced toward me, preparing to repeat the same move as she had used on Josh. I waited until the last second before flopping down on top of her. I landed on her back side, my weight dragging both of us down to the ocean floor. She tried wiggle free of my grasp. I managed to grab her shoulders and drag myself up until I could clamp my mouth on her neck. To no one’s surprise, her blood tasted rather fishy. I dragged her up to the surface, still drinking her nasty blood. When I had her above the waves, I released her throat, lifted her above my head, and chucked her up onto the shore.