Vamplayers

by Rusty Fischer

  “Not normally, no. There aren’t many Royals left anymore, but what I’ve seen Bianca do, only a Royal or someone who’s been turned by a Royal can do.”

  “What’s a Royal?” Grover says.

  “A Royal is a vampire born, not bred. In other words, a Royal is not turned into a vampire like I was but is born a vampire from an Original vampire line, and they are the strongest vampires of all.”

  “Whoever turned Bianca had to be a Royal. Is that what you’re saying?” Grover looks skeptical.

  “Has to be,” I hem.

  “You don’t sound very certain,” Zander says.

  “I’m not, okay? I’m not trained to fight a Royal

  or even a girl turned by a Royal.”

  “What?” Grover squeaks. “Don’t you think that’s a pretty big part of your training, missy? That’s like calling yourself a black belt and then, when twenty ninja assassins drop from the roof, saying you don’t know kung fu!”

  I frown. “Grover, the Royals are a myth. They’re pure fiction, like your Jedi knights. In all my years, I’ve never met a vampire who’s met a Royal. My headmistress has never met a vampire who’s met a Royal, and she’s, like, ancient. That’s like me dissing you because you haven’t been trained to shake hands with a Wookie.”

  “Who says?” he sasses, but I’m not in the mood and neither is he, really. I guess old habits just die hard. “I don’t get it. If these badass Sister chicks are as good as you say, why didn’t they tear us limb from limb when we were climbing up the wall?”

  “And if Bianca hates you so much, why did she hold back?” asks Zander, still pacing. “If they wanted to get rid of us, now would be the time, don’t you think? Before we tell anybody what’s going on? Or call in the National Guard? Here we are, all in the same place together … What gives?”

  I shake my head, picturing Bianca hovering there, red hair flowing in the air like one of those underwater mermaids’ wigs at some tatty Florida theme park. “I dunno. Maybe she was testing us, you know? Maybe she’s trying out her powers.”

  The room is deathly still until Zander says, “Or maybe she’s testing yours, Lily.”

  Chapter 27

  Tristan literally falls into the room when I yank open the front door. I’m in such a rush to get Grover and Zander to safety that I step on him on my way out.

  “Ouch!”

  “What are you doing here?” My voice borders on hysteria, my fangs snapping in and out like rubber rodents in some Whac-A-Mole game at the carnival.

  A sleek digital camera hangs on a thin black strap around his white linen collar, and a bag full of pricey lingerie has scattered across the floor.

  Lingerie?

  Grover sneaks a peek. “Dude, cross-dress much?”

  Tristan stands, face red, nostrils flaring. “Nothing. I was doing nothing. What are you two doing here?”

  Now that the shock of finding Tristan at my front door is wearing off, I’m instantly on high alert. I herd Zander and Grover deeper into the room.

  Suddenly it all makes sense. This must be why Bianca and the girls retreated, why they let us go in the first place. It’s a great plan, and even as I backpedal I can’t help but admire it. They chased us up through the back windows while Tristan, the Royal, waited for us to come out the front door.

  It’s a brilliant strategy, really. Too bad I’ll never live to duplicate it on another mission someday.

  I’m still dragging Zander and Grover along like a mother cat drags her kittens across a stream.

  But we can only go so far, and soon my back is brushing curtains.

  “Windows! Stay away from the windows,” Grover says.

  I laugh, picturing three pairs of vampire hands reaching in and snatching us out. “Good call.”

  We crouch in the middle of the room, me without a stake, pager, tool, or weapon of any kind. Without even my Sisters.

  And with a Vamplayer standing in the doorway.

  Scratch that. A Royal Vamplayer!

  Hmmm, where’s the Simulation for that, Dr. Haskins, huh?

  Beside me is a small coffee table. I regard its four legs eagerly and without hesitating stomp on it, mid-table, like a frat boy squashes a beer can against his forehead to impress some skeezy coed.

  It collapses on itself, sending one leg flying toward Tristan and leaving three behind. He ignores the table leg as it scoots by him and clatters out in the hallway. Ah, if only it had flown straight into his heart, this could all be over.

  Instead, I’m going to have to do things the old-fashioned way.

  I grab the three remaining stakes and focus on Tristan, who is busy gathering his lingerie from the hallway floor.

  I hand one splintered table leg each to Grover and Zander.

  “Gee, thanks.” Zander twirls his like a baton.

  “Yeah, awesome.” Grover grins, waving his like a Groucho Marx cigar in front of his red face.

  “They’re not toys.” I use my vampire voice: the one that growls like a sailor, roars like a bear, and cuts like a knife. “They’re stakes. If something happens to me, if he gets by or finishes me, the only way to stop him is to shove this through his heart.

  Get it?”

  “He whom?” Tristan says from the door, still blushing. A pair of lacy pink thong panties dangles from one long finger that’s pointing at me accusingly.

  “You, Vamplayer,” I shout, advancing on him with the shattered tip of the fourth table-leg-slash-stake held shoulder high.

  He makes a garbled eek sound in the back of his throat and stumbles farther back into the hall.

  Man, is this guy staying in character until the final curtain call or what?

  I think of potential witnesses who might walk by despite the late hour. I know I’m already dragging around too many, so I pull him back in the room, slamming the door behind us.

  “Grover, get the shades. Zander, check the windows.”

  “You mean again?” Zander says. “For, like, the sixth ti—”

  One flash from my orange-yellow eyes sets him scurrying midsentence.

  They scamper around, still clutching their coffee table legs, not sure if I’m joking but not wanting to argue with a girl with a makeshift stake in her hand and a voice like Batman’s.

  While they’re out of the room, I plant my foot on Tristan’s chest and push him onto the couch. He lands with a bounce but stays perfectly still.

  I spot his pinky and the finger next to it wrapped in a do-it-yourself gauze bandage from some type of home first-aid kit. “What happened to your fingers, Vamplayer? One of those girls you turned try to return the favor?”

  He snorts, looks at his fingers, and says, “If you must know, Lily, you did the honor. Last night, remember?”

  “Man, you are really good. You mean to tell me a big, bad Vamplayer like you—a Royal no less— hasn’t healed from a little wound like a sprained pinky yet? That’s good, Tristan. That’s rich.”

  “What is this Vamplayer game you keep talking about?” he says, all innocent, panties of all sizes and shapes shoved in his pockets. “And who is this Royal person? Another boy you’ve been seeing this week? What’s your total up to by now? Hmmm? Three? Four? Fourteen?”

  “Don’t play dumb.” I hiss, snapping back my head so that the fangs pop out. “We both know why I’m here.”

  His face grows pale, sweat beads on his brow (man, this guy is slick), and he points with trembling fingers to the drool dripping off my four-inch fangs.

  “Are those real?”

  “Trust me, dude,” Grover says from behind me, “they’re all her and they’re all real.”

  “He knows,” I tell Grover without turning around, kicking Tristan’s shin with a resounding thud.

  He yelps.

  Even Grover yelps.

  I kick him again, knowing the only way to lure Tristan’s fangs from his own jaw is to enrage or entice him. Pain works both ways.

  “Please,” the Vamplayer whimpers, rubbing his shin. “Please s
top kicking me. It really, really hurts.”

  The panic in his voice sounds quite convincing.

  The pain in his eyes looks quite real.

  “Yeah, Lily,” Zander says, placing a calming hand on one of my tense shoulders. “Look at the guy. He’s clearly not who you think he is. I hate the dude too, but I don’t want to see him in any more pain. Ease up.”

  “That’s his game.” I shrug Zander’s hand off and advance on Tristan.

  “What game?” Tristan whimpers, one hand covering his face, the other his bleeding shin.

  ”Your game.” I jab at his shin with the sharp end of the stake until he squeals.

  Squeals, I tell you.

  I’m talking, little-girl squeals.

  I’m talking, Vamplayer-who-thinks-he’s-acting-like-a-human-guy squeals.

  I jerk the stake, bring it to my nose, sniff. I draw it to my lips, flick my tongue, taste. I drop the stake, rush to the couch, yank open Tristan’s mouth, and feel his upper gums.

  Nothing.

  I rip open his shirt, buttons scrambling like marbles across the hardwood floor. I place my palm on his heart and don’t just feel a thump-thump-thump-thump. I feel a resounding thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!

  I leap back from the couch.

  Oh no.

  It can’t be.

  This dude is not only scared; he’s … he’s … human.

  “Oh, God.” I gasp. “Oh, Tristan, I am so, so, sooooo sorry.”

  But he’s not listening to me. He’s doing everything but listening to me. He’s bleeding; he’s whimpering; he’s—

  ”Is he … crying?” Zander whispers in one ear.

  “Do vampires cry?” Grover whispers in the other.

  “If they could, I would.” I sigh and sit on the far side of the couch from Tristan, my wrongs weighing me deep into the cushions.

  Tristan whimpers, and Grover and Zander keep their distance.

  All this time, I’d assumed it was Tristan who was the Vamplayer, who was the Royal.

  But it’s not a Vamplayer at work here at all.

  It’s a Vampress.

  Bianca is the Royal, here to start an infestation. Somewhere along the line, she turned Alice and Cara against me. She turned them, period.

  It explains everything: the overnight stays, the all-night parties, the stupid excuses.

  Alice wasn’t skinny-dipping that night. She was turning.

  Cara wasn’t in Ravens Roost with the gang. She was turning.

  Bianca got to my Sisters, one by one. They needed twenty-four hours to turn completely, maybe more if a Royal like Bianca did it.

  That would explain Alice’s run-down look, Cara’s anemic spell in PE the other day. Not to mention their extra-long fangs, more dangerous claws, and overall bad attitude.

  Now it all makes perfect sense.

  She knew. Bianca knew from day one. The minute she saw me in the halls, soaking wet, she saw what we were, why we were here, and what we were about to do.

  She set about separating us, turning us, immediately. First it was Alice. Then it was Cara. Was I next?

  Or was I never part of the plan to begin with?

  I don’t know which is scarier: to be an accomplice or a victim.

  I rise on unsteady legs, my world shattered, the Sisterhood pulverized, the time at hand.

  It’s up to me.

  Cara? Alice? They’re gone, strangers, betrayers, mutineers.

  It’s all me. The Third Sister, the one who can’t pass the Infestation Simulation even after a few dozen tries, the one who is destined to never be a Savior, try as she might.

  But I can save a few before they get to me. I can save these three. These very different, very human boys.

  And that’s exactly what I intend to do.

  ”Come on.” I help Tristan up.

  He cringes.

  “Where are we going?” Zander says.

  “To finish this.” I reach for the door.

  “Finish what?” Grover is right behind me.

  I manage a weak smile. “You know how the good guys always get one last stand at the end of all your stupid horror movies?”

  “Well, not all of them are stupid but, yes, I know what you mean.”

  “I hope you remember how they win at the end because, fellas, this is our horror movie and this is our ending. And if we don’t stop those three witches tonight, this night, then by morning Nightshade will be full of vampires.”

  Chapter 28

  We limp along the halls, one Sister, three humans, at two in the morning.

  The hallway is dark, with stone walls to our right side and stained glass windows to our left.

  If you’re picturing the last place you’d want to be in the middle of the night with three Vampresses stalking you, well, congrats—you’ve come to the right place!

  The marble floor is hollow and dark with occasional splashes of dim yellow from weak bulbs spaced too far along the hallway to do much good.

  Our footsteps echo off the walls and high ceilings, behind, before, above, making me stop every so often to be sure it’s our footsteps and only our footsteps doing all that echoing.

  Even though we’ve come this far, the hallway stretches out endlessly in front of us, like one of those rooms in Alice in Wonderland growing longer and longer the closer Alice gets to the door.

  Tristan limps along, head a little higher now, his shame visibly turning to anger. “What’s the meaning of all this?” He fiddles with the lemon-yellow thong I’ve wrapped around his upper calf like a tourniquet to stop the bleeding I inflicted with my makeshift stake. “You realize you’re liable for all my medical bills.”

  “Pal,” I say, towing him along as Grover leads us to the cafeteria and Zander brings up the rear, his pitiful stake held up near his shoulder, just like I taught him before leaving the dorm suite, “you’ll be lucky if I’m not paying your morgue bills by the end of this. Heck, I’ll be lucky if I’m paying anybody’s bills by the end of this.”

  He stops. We all stop. “What ‘this’ are you referring to?” he says, hands on his hips. “I insist to know what’s going on here. If you don’t explain yourself, I’ll be forced to call my father in Europe and—”

  A swift whack interrupts him, doubling him over.

  Zander stands over him triumphantly, his stake raised high.

  Grover yanks Tristan’s wallet out of his back pocket and hands me his driver’s license. His Pennsylvania driver’s license.

  Tristan glares.

  “Tristan Whitehead?” I stare at a paler, younger, thinner Tristan circa a few years ago. “Of 1927 Bay-shore Drive, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?”

  He steps forward. “I can explain.”

  “I don’t get it.” I stop him with the spiky end of my stake pointed at his chest. “The phony accent, the long hair, the manicured fingers, the picnic basket, the blood wine. That’s all expensive.”

  Grover yanks one pair of pink panties out of one of Tristan’s pockets. “I know how he affords it.”

  “Shut up, water buffalo.”

  Zander thwacks Tristan on the head with his stake.

  “Tristan runs this website, see. Nymphets of Nightshade. He told me about it once, bragged about it, actually, but I never believed him at the time. Now it all makes sense. He sneaks into girls’ rooms late at night, slips them some mickey, and dresses them up in sexy lingerie. Then he snaps pictures and uploads them to his site. The girls’ families pay to take them down, and he pockets the cash.”

  Tristan’s blush proves Grover right, though he seems hardly fazed by the admission. “Some of us work in cafeterias to pay our tuition,” he explains calmly, all former traces of his European accent suddenly gone. “Some of us are more resourceful. That’s all.”

  “You pig!” I shove him toward the cafeteria, and we march on. “You absolute moronic, presumptive pig. That’s why you were at my door when I came barging out? That’s why you had that camera around your neck?
And a bag full of panties? I should gut you right here and—”

  Grover’s the first one to spot them. “Uh, Lily, something … Make that several somethings seem to be following us.”

  I check the hall behind us.

  Zander shrugs, looking in the other direction and finding nothing in front of us either.

  “Not in here.” Grover points his stake. “Out. There.”

  We stop and face the stained glass windows.

  This hallway is part cathedral, part monastery, part tomb. Every sound is amplified, every sight is doubled, every breath takes a minute to reach the high arched ceiling.

  Moonlight plus streetlights filter through the glass, both weakly.

  It’s like someone’s on the roof, dangling Halloween witch cutouts from a fishing pole. The shadows zip around at first, unnaturally fast, then seem to hover.

  But I know that can’t be right. In training we’re taught to soar, not to hover. Soaring is like climbing, just without your hands or feet. But the longest I’ve ever lasted in midair is about fifteen seconds. Cara and Alice might last longer: twenty-five seconds, maybe thirty.

  These shadows are hanging, one arm dangling from the arctic, stone roof, the other seeming to point.

  I can see their outlines and make them out: Bianca in the middle looking distorted through a purple stained glass scene of women eating grapes on a lounge chair.

  To the left, Alice, hair wild, claws long in the filtering light, looks garish through a window depicting high, rolling green fields.

  To the right of Bianca dangles Cara, her features distinct yet gaudy behind a field of red roses, her mouth open. In profile, her fangs are like chopsticks jutting from her upper jaw.

  “They’re playing with us again,” I say through tight lips. “Keep moving. Fast, before they want to come inside.”

  We scramble ahead double time, each of us leaning closer to the rough stone walls. Our footsteps scrape, our breathing heavy and sour.

  Even Tristan is heeling, no longer complaining, his limp more pronounced.

  The shadows follow us, their outlines severe.

  “What is that?” Tristan hobbles along, sweat dripping from his forehead.

  “Not what,” I say. “Who. And one of them is your girlfriend.”