Fangtabulous

by Lucienne Diver

  Bobby and I stopped outside of the theater area, where he sank to the floor and put his back to the partition wall, signaling for me to join him. I so wanted to just sink into his arms, but more than that, I wanted to be able to see his face, spot the second he changed, if he changed. I was standing guard for internal threats as much as external. If he went ballistic again, I didn’t want him breaking up the circle and my chance at getting him back for good.

  But I didn’t want to be the one to bust him up again, either. I could still feel the snap of his neck beneath my hands and hear his vertebrae breaking. I wondered if it would ever leave me.

  Bobby looked sad when I didn’t join him. He drew up his legs, ready to get to his feet again at any moment, but then stayed low, beneath any casual surveillance of the store by, say, a security guard on rounds. I paced, too agitated to sit.

  On the one hand, I really, really wanted to know what was going on behind those curtains. On the other, I could almost feel it. Chanting started, and the power of the amulet began to pulse in time … and me with it. I felt it like a heartbeat. I hadn’t realized I’d missed it. Who would miss something they were rarely ever aware of to begin with? But now it filled my chest and reverberated through my body. Every cell vibrated with it. It was as though I’d truly been dead—empty—and now I was full, alive, restless, and sad … so, so sad, because I was going to lose it again. They were going to neutralize the amulet, and it felt like I would go with it.

  Jenny floated over to us, skirting the cage and coffin as if she too felt something of their history.

  “I feel … strange,” she said softly, meeting my gaze. She was solid enough that I could read the fearful wonder shining in her eyes.

  “Alive?” I asked, still feeling that phantom heartbeat.

  Instead of responding, Jenny froze. “Someone comes.”

  Bobby suddenly sat ramrod straight, head cocked to the side, listening as though he felt it too.

  I dropped to a squat beside him, out of the casual sight line, but I knew that wasn’t going to do it. I’d just known things had been too easy. That feeling I’d had, of something unfinished, rushed back at me full force. My fashion senses were sharply honed, but my Spidey-senses … those were still a work in progress.

  I saw the problem about two seconds later: two figures converging on the shop from different directions. One tall and one not-so. One male, one female. I knew those figures. I’d dated one of them back in Mozulla, Ohio. We’d “died” together on prom night when he’d wrapped his shiny red convertible around a tree with the two of us inside. The girl was my arch-nemesis, Tina Carstairs. I’d recognize the blond bimbo anywhere, even with a black scarf tied over her hair and muting the salon shine. My two least favorite members of my former team of fanged Federal flunkies. I should have known that Sid and Maya wouldn’t be working alone. They were the public face of things. Tina and Chaz, being vamps, were a field team. But if they were here, their handlers couldn’t be far behind.

  “Incoming,” I whispered.

  I signaled Bobby to go right. I’d go left, and we’d ambush them from behind displays when they broke in. I hoped he’d hold it together that long, but even as I was thinking it, something rose to a crescendo behind the curtain, and I felt it like a fist to my heart. I cried out silently and clutched at my chest, like I could fight off the heart-attack. I couldn’t catch a breath, and felt suddenly like I needed one. Desperately. Which was absurd—unless, with Rebecca’s blood coursing through me and with that blood tied to the amulet, we were somehow linked. Was I feeling her heartbeat? Her panic? Her gasping pain?

  I didn’t have time for this! I lurched toward the theater, frantic to stop the spell, forgetting about the incoming agents. Then the shop door burst open behind me and a bolt of screaming agony shot through me, piercing my chest just to the right of my heart, impaling me against the semi-permanent wall like a bug to a board. A wooden stake.

  “Stop right there!” Tina commanded, maliciously gleeful about it.

  I didn’t see that I had any choice. I craned my neck around to glare, to face death head-on, and saw Bobby hurl himself at Tina, knocking the crossbow out of her hands and throwing her backward into Chaz, who was coming through behind her. Tina tore at his hair as they went down.

  Brent, Marcy, and Ulric poured out of the back, alerted by Tina’s oh-so-subtle entrance and my impact on the wall. Using that wall as leverage, I tried to tear myself free of the stake to go to Bobby’s aid. The pain blackened my vision and nearly made me pass out. I tried to ghost, but with the wood stuck through me, nothing happened except crippling, rippling agony, shooting through my body so that all my nerves screamed as one.

  My heart squeezed one last time as the chant ended, and I shattered. My knees gave out and I collapsed, the stake ripping through me as I went down before catching on bone, keeping me half-upright, sagging like a scarecrow. I could feel the blood, the life seeping out of me, the wood like poison killing the flesh around it.

  A white light beamed down from above, blasting through the darkness stealing my vision. I thought at first I was fainting. The cold stopped; the pain stopped. Time froze. But I was still aware, and the light … so beautiful, only it wasn’t coming for me.

  The beam fell on the face of the little ghost girl—Jenny—lighting her up like the Christmas tree of an overzealous suburbanite. So lovely. So angelic I checked her for wings. Was this the white light people talked about, summoning her to heaven or whatever lay beyond?

  All I wanted to do was go toward that light, to find out, but Jenny shrank back from it—fear and longing battling it out on her face.

  “Go. What are you waiting for?” I said … or tried to, anyway. I didn’t seem to have lips any more. Or if I did, I couldn’t get them to move.

  But somehow she heard me. “I can’t leave you,” she said.

  “You have to.” I didn’t know if the light would wait or if it was a limited-time offer, but I knew she had to take it. There was something about that light … glorious, warm, pure. Longing ripped through me like the stake. I wanted to go. But it wasn’t there for me. It never would be.

  I closed my eyes against the loss until a distant pain forced them open again. Jenny’s hands, quickly going ghostly again, were grabbing at the stake, trying to pull it out, but we’d taken that away from her. She could no longer grip strongly enough to finish the job.

  Gently, a pair of hands waved her aside, and I looked up into the face of an angel. My angel. My Bobby. He grabbed the stake in both hands and yanked it out in one great heave.

  My body finished its aborted slide to the floor and the light started to fade from the room. Or maybe from my consciousness. I sought out Jenny’s gaze. “Go!” I demanded.

  “I’m afraid.”

  I reached out a hand, and her wispy fingers closed on it. “You are the bravest little girl I know. You’re a tigress. Remember that.”

  She gave me a tremulous smile and turned her face to the light, taking a step away from me, then another, still holding my hand, letting it slide from hers until we barely touched fingertips.

  “What do you see?” I asked past a lump in my throat.

  But nothing else existed for her any more. She was being pulled into the light, a smile growing on her face that it hurt to look on. Rapture. Something I’d never get to experience. As even her fingertips left mine, the light exploded into a golden-white supernova of sparks and then she was gone. Just … gone.

  I blinked away blood tears and saw Bobby gazing down at me with so much love and concern that it was like my very own slice of heaven.

  “Bobby?” I asked, sounding like I’d been gargling acid. “Is it … just you in there?”

  He let his head drop to mine, going nose to nose with me and saying a little prayer of thanks before raising his head again to smile.

  “Just me. I think the spell worked. I’m alone in here. The spirits seem to be at rest. But we need to get you some help.”

  I looke
d around—at Brent with an oncoming black eye and a bloody arm where a crossbow bolt must have grazed him, then at Chaz and Tina, crumpled like linen on the floor, downed by my new team. I took in the stunned coven who’d filed out of the theater, Ulric and Olivia standing unconsciously close to each other, and my own blood decorating the wall behind and floor beneath me. I wondered what on earth we were going to do about it all. How did we clean up this mess?

  Chip echoed that thought. “You trashed my store!”

  “Very authentic,” Irish said, “Decorating with real blood.”

  Chip didn’t look charmed, but it gave me an idea.

  “How do you feel about coming out of the closet?” I asked them all.

  “What closet?” Chip asked.

  “Obscurity,” I answered. “Look, you might have noticed that we’re a little … different … from the rest of you. Just like you’re different than we are, with what you can do. Special. People are going to fear that, or want to use it or whatever. Our secrecy means they can do it without scrutiny; no watchdogs, no one to tell them they can’t. We tried to come out once to the media back when we were first … vamped.” It was surprisingly hard to say, after trying to keep it under wraps for so long. “But the Feds swept it under the rug. Now, though, if we provide witnesses and proof—if people know about us—maybe the authorities will come to us next time something like this happens, and the threat can be put down before anyone gets hurt.”

  Bobby put an arm around me. “Look at you, speechifying.” It was said with pride.

  “Who is with me?” I asked, knowing I had at least one on my side. Always. “I think it’s time to tell the world. With any luck, the Feds’ll be too busy with damage control to worry about coming after us.”

  “You’re crazy,” Chip said. “And anyway, the world knows about witches. We’re not exactly undercover. People know. They just don’t believe.”

  “Maybe it’s time to change all that,” I answered.

  “Count me out,” the hippy chick said, surprising me. She stepped away from the coven and flashed us an apologetic smile as she headed for the door. “The school I work for isn’t that open-minded. I’m sorry.”

  Irish looked at the rest of his people, lingering on Chip, who was also surveying the coven, getting nods or shrugs or whatever passed for agreement.

  “We’re in,” Chip answered for them all.

  I smiled, for the first time since the white light had come and gone without me. “Good. Because as far as I’m concerned, you’re the heroes of this piece. You laid the ghosts to rest, saved the town, et cetera and so forth. There won’t be any witch hunt this time.”

  “Until they find out that magic started the whole thing,” Olivia said.

  “People need to know it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly,” I declared. “No more secrets. It’s up to you to make sure people know the difference between what Rebecca’s done and what you do.”

  In the end, we made the call.

  And, more importantly, Bobby, Brent, Marcy, and I stayed for the interview.

  The End.

  © Olan Mills

  About the Author

  Lucienne Diver writes humorous vamps, because it’s hard to take life seriously when your puppy sits under your desk licking your toes as you type. Her heroine, Gina, got her start in Vamped and, as will come as no surprise to those who’ve read it, subsequently decided she wanted more, more, MORE! Thus, one book became two and two became four. Next, Gina’d love an appearance on the big screen, if only she can find someone fabulous enough to play herself. You can learn more about the author on her website, www.luciennediver.com.