“Sable?” he asks.
I smack him on the shoulder. “No! And who’s Sable?”
“Minx?” He wheezes, lurching along like Quasimodo in the bell tower.
Another slap. “How many girlfriends do you have, Tristan? It’s Bianca, you fool.”
“Out there? Why? How?”
“Have you even been paying attention?” Zander asks, still moving steadily, his breath hot on my neck, his hands gently shoving me along, his long legs outpacing mine every now and again. “We’re under attack, idiot. By vampires. Three of them. And they’re out there. Limp along, playboy. You’re holding us up.”
I smirk over my shoulder at his newly macho tone, trying not to laugh at the pitiful coffee table leg stake in his trembling hand.
The scratching comes, horrible nails against beautiful stained glass.
Reflexively, we pause.
First, one Vampress scrapes with her long claws, leaving deep gashes in the crumbling, quaking, dense glass.
Then the next, her fingernails starting at the very top of the window and screeching all the way down like forty pounds of chalk on the world’s biggest chalkboard. Chips and rusty solder crumble, scattering like pebbles on the hallway floor.
By the time the third Vampress starts, chunks of beautiful, antique, no doubt expensive stained glass are falling to the floor.
“It’s like during the Zombie Film Fest,” Zander whispers breathlessly in my ear, so close I can almost feel his lips. “It wasn’t a bird at all.”
I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t.” I turn to him, hunks of stained glass scattering on the floor, the rush of chill air from outside streaming through the cracks. “You were protecting us, weren’t you?” He cocks his head slightly.
“I was trying then. I’m trying now.”
I hear hissing and see Bianca through a hole in the glass.
More hissing. Alice claws at the lead holding the stained glass pieces together.
On the other side of Bianca, Cara is systematically yanking out glass fragments, dropping them to the ground below.
It’s beginning.
All of it.
Right here.
Right now.
“Run,” I shout.
For once, I don’t have to tell them twice.
Chapter 29
The cafeteria is empty and desolate and so, so big. The doors swing shut, and I still hear the muffled scraping, the trembling of walls, the cracking of thick stained glass echoing through the halls. I know it won’t be long before they claw their way through, stiff, dark toenails scurrying toward us on the marble floor.
“Here?” Tristan says. “This is where you choose to have our big standoff with the Bitches of Eastwick?”
Grover snorts.
“Not here.” I point to the silent kitchen doors. “There.”
The floor seems to lengthen. We pass rows and rows of empty tables.
What will happen if this doesn’t work, if we don’t find some way to trap, conquer, or stop these beasts?
We reach the swinging doors, rush through.
Grover flips on lights as we go. No need for hiding anymore.
The vampires are surely through the windows and right around the corner.
I stand in the middle of the room, get my bearings, and try to figure out where Tristan can do the least damage.
I shove him to the floor in the corner near the dishwasher.
The dishwasher where I met Grover and Zander when this crazy week began.
It seems like yesterday. It seems like ten years ago.
“Stay!” I order.
Tristan crouches, knees against his chest, as if he can roll into the cabinets at his side.
“Do not move.”
He grumbles.
Grover and Zander both join me at the metal cutting counter in the middle of the room.
“What now?” Grover pants and rubs sweat off his forehead with one beefy arm.
I point to the utensils, the tools, the bowls, and the pots and pans. “Now we get to work. We need two things: wood and garlic. Zander, gather the rolling pins, the soup spoons, anything long I can sharpen into a stake. Grover, find the garlic, as much of it as you can. Just keep it away from me. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
I grab a paring knife, short but solid and thick, and sharpen the coffee table leg I’ve been lugging. When it’s done I ask Grover for his, then Zander.
Wood cuttings flutter to the floor, making a small, uneven pile at my feet.
Grover rummages through cabinets, a huge pantry, drawers, and gleaming metal shelves lined with huge jars of tomato sauce and industrial-sized ketchup barrels.
A small pile of garlic grows on top of the table next to the sharpened rolling pins and wooden spoon stakes: garlic cloves, minced garlic in big jars, garlic paste in shiny metal tins that look imported like Tristan’s blood sausage.
My eyes begin watering, my skin itching even from a few feet away, like a skunk has sprayed someone nearby or the room is filling with acrid smoke.
“You’ll have to handle the garlic,” I warn them, shoving the pile away with the blunt end of a rolling pin stake and even then feeling my fingertips sizzle. “I can’t touch it. I shouldn’t even be near it.”
Grover pulls some toward him, shoving some cloves and a smaller jar or two in his jeans pockets, and Zander does the same.
I watch them work diligently, not speaking, not looking at each other, as if to share a glance would prove too terrifying or drive them, or even me, insane.
I do this every day, train for this every week, test for it every month, and these guys are just, well, guys. Geeks, really. Big old softies doing what they’re told, going on autopilot, listening to me because I’ve got fangs.
I know what’s clawing through those windows, what’s skulking our way, will kill them if they get the chance, will tear them limb from limb without mercy, without thought, sucking them dry. As if they’re not Zander, not Grover, not boys with hopes and dreams and healthy, beating hearts.
I want to warn them of the danger to life and limb, to say one of them—maybe all of them, all of us—may not survive. But what kind of strategy is that? I should be giving them a pep talk, like some football coach during halftime or four-star general before a big battle. But while I can’t exactly share the truth about the danger they’re in, I can’t outright lie to them either.
Instead I stay silent, head bent to the work, stretching the time, making us worthy of the task.
I hear fumbling in the corner. Tristan leans against a counter in the corner, scavenging through a cabinet full of grape juice. “Will this help?” he asks, almost meekly, holding up a bottle in his trembling hand.
I look at the shiny foil wrapper and groan. “These are vampires, not third graders. I’m not going to ask them to take naps and pour fancy grape juice in their sippy cups.”
“Are you quite through? This is communion wine, dear, for our humble chapel.”
I shrug, still sharpening, no time to spare, least of all to soothe poor Tristan’s ego.
“It’s a little too late to pray, but if you think it will help, be my guest.”
From behind, where Grover’s busy dipping sharpened stakes into a reeking tin of garlic oil, he says urgently, “No, he means it’s blessed.”
“As in?”
“As in it’s holy.” Tristan smiles, carrying a case of bottles from the bottom cabinet to our stash on the counter.
“Holy communion wine.” I smile, patting him with a free hand, and pick up another rolling pin to sharpen. “Way to make yourself useful.”
He ignores the jab, studying the bottles of wine as if he’s measuring how much they might help the cause.
“Now,” Zander says, smiling and holding a sharpened stake, “this is shaping up to be a fight.”
Yeah, a short one.
Chapter 30
The cafeteria doors burst open, and even I get chills. The sound is so expected; we’ve been waiting for
it for like ten minutes. Yet it’s so unexpected, too, so loud and rough and unforgiving, like the vampires themselves.
Grover looks through the grimy kitchen window and says, unnecessarily, “They’re here.”
“You think?” Zander says, then joins him at the window.
I’m shoving stakes in every possible belt loop.
“All three?”
Zander and Grover answer in unison, “Yup.”
“Turn around,” I say. When they do, I toss multiple stakes at them.
They grab them clumsily, and two clatter to the floor.
No, wait, only one falls to the floor. I watch it land near Zander’s feet before he leans to pick it up and shove it through a belt loop. (Good boy.)
So … what’s the other clattering noise?
Is that? Really? Yes, it is; it’s the vent cover from the ceiling right above our heads.
“Tristan”—I follow Zander’s gaze toward the nearest air vent, where Tristan’s bloody leg disappears—”get down here and fight like a man.”
“Fight your own battles.” We hear him scuttling away crab-like in the air ducts above our heads. The sound is far from quiet, like two coffee cans slamming together over and over again.
“Can you believe that?” Zander says, looking at the grate on the floor.
I hear claws on tile on the other side of the kitchen door, sense the vampires getting closer, closer. “Put that back, Zander, before they get here.”
“What, you’re going to let him run?” He stands on the chopping table and wedges the vent cover in with the fat end of his palm.
“If he won’t fight anyway, it’s better not to have him around. Get down before they see you.”
He jumps to the floor.
The double doors swing open, slamming into cupboards on either side and sending pots and pans and jars of oregano skittering on the rust-colored tiles. The sound is at once grating and shocking.
Grover and Zander scramble to my side. The pungent odor from their garlic-tipped stakes makes my eyes water and my throat tighten.
I tread forward, a stake in each hand, and crouch in a thrust and parry stance I learned my first week at the Academy. My legs are limber, back loose, sharp claws stretching from fingertips, fangs sliding deliciously from upper gums, pores open, senses on red alert.
Bianca stands in front, radiant in a black leather track suit open at the collar like an action figure version of herself.
Cara stands to her left, sleek in all white.
Alice wears red and lots of it.
“Amazing”—I hope they won’t hear the warble in my voice—”that you three found the time to coordinate your look. Bianca, I guess that makes you Josie. And these two are the Pussycats?”
Apparently Grover’s the only one to get the joke. He smirks.
“You have two choices.” Bianca feigns boredom, peering at Grover first, then Zander. “Give up or die horrible, excruciating deaths.”
“We’re not giving up.”
She hasn’t actually looked at me yet. “I wasn’t talking to you. You’re already dead and, besides, I’ll let the Council of Ancients deal with you later.”
“The Council? What for? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Bianca smiles. I swear she’s had her frickin’ hair done! It’s like she’s ready for prom or something. Who takes time out of a Vampire Armageddon to get their damn hair done?
“Why, trying to kill a Royal, of course. The Academy might not take such infractions seriously, but the Council certainly does.”
“The Council started the Academy,” I remind her. “They wanted us to stop witches like you from turning whole schools like this. That’s why they started the Sisterhood in the first place.”
“Be that as it may, being a Sister doesn’t exempt you from the Vampire Book of Laws.”
“Vampires have laws?” Grover says.
“Silence, human!”
The way Alice snaps is so ridiculous even I want to snicker. “What law is that?” I say instead.
”Why, the very first one: thou shalt not wound a Royal.”
“Hmm, well, that clashes with law number two: thou shalt not kill an Innocent.”
“Innocents are children. Everyone knows that.”
“Zander is innocent. Grover is innocent.” I almost add Tristan, but that would make her too suspicious. I wonder if he’s listening somewhere overhead. If he’s feeling guilty for running out on us when we need him the most. Or if he already slid down a laundry chute somewhere far, far away, hot-wired a van in the employee parking lot, and is cruising to safety (and the nearest strip club).
“We’ll let the Council sort it out. Hand over the humans, or we’ll be forced to break any number of laws by tearing each of you limb from limb.”
I hold up my pitiful two stakes, garlic stinging my eyes. “Just try it,” I say, stepping forward.
“Seize them,” Bianca says.
Cara and Alice stalk.
I leap onto the table, kicking several bowls of minced garlic square at their faces.
Cara, always the fastest of the two, ducks in time. Behind her the minced garlic explodes on the wall in a cartoon splat that instantly fills the room with a vampire version of tear gas.
The fumes are noxious and violent. It’s all I can do to stand upright.
Alice, who always preferred texting to training, ducks more slowly and winds up with a faceful. She gags and coughs and sputters, retching violently.
I leap from the table and shove one of the stakes into her chest, missing her heart by a fraction of an inch.
She hisses and kicks me across the kitchen, swiping frantically at her skin to get the garlic off and the stake out.
I land in water near the giant dishwasher, shake my head, and kneel. I stand, grabbing the nozzle to spray, if only to confuse them, but drop it instantly.
It clangs to the floor, the sound echoing loudly off the walls.
“Like I said, Lily,” Bianca says calmly, her long, quivering fangs bared at Zander’s throat, “give up or let these boys die horrible, excruciating deaths.”
Cara has Grover in a similarly compromising position.
Alice retches on the floor, her hands flat and trembling on the tiles, her back alternately arching and dipping as she tries to exorcise the garlic fumes from her already singed lungs.
I approach, dropping stakes from my belt loop one by one. They’re of no use to me now anyway. The last one rattles to the rust-colored tiles, and I raise my hands.
Cara backs through the kitchen doors into the cafeteria, dragging Grover with her.
Bianca follows with Zander in tow, leaving Alice behind to fend for herself.
I heel like a good little dog.
Because that’s what we’re trained to do when a human life is in danger.
Chapter 31
It comes to this. A simple standoff in the middle of the night, the school sleeping around us quietly, its fate in the balance here in this large, Lysol-smelling cafeteria.
Around us the tables seem to stretch for miles, empty chairs like tombstones lined silently next to each other.
“Fine,” I say, hands up. “Release them.”
Bianca snickers, tossing her head back, flipping her hair. Her claw never moves from where it’s held against Zander’s soft, vulnerable neck. “In due time. First we’ll have to make sure you get to the Council safely, of course, and after that we’ll let them—”
“You know the Council will never let these boys live, not once they’ve seen where the Ancients dwell.”
Bianca looks unconcerned. “That’s a risk we’ll have to—”
Screams from the kitchen cut her off. Through the red double doors, Alice stumbles, melting from head to toe. Slabs of her skull are already visible, one jawbone poking out from shrinking flesh, teeth clattering to the floor. Smoke sizzles from her hair, her ears, her shoulders, her thighs, burning from an invisible fire even I can’t see. Shoulders drip into biceps drip in
to elbows drip into forearms. Like a chicken left too long in the oven, her skin literally falls from her bones.
“Alice,” Cara shrieks, seeming ready to drop Grover and run to her ex-Sister.
Bianca silences her with a hiss.
I feel Cara’s pain. I want to join her as well, but too much has happened between us this week for me to feel much regret over Alice’s current, bubbling misfortune.
“But … but garlic can’t do that.” I stand my ground, desperate, anxious to use this development to free Zander, to reach Grover.
“No,” Cara says, loosening her grip on Grover, “it can’t.”
The room grows still.
Alice sizzles, melting into the floor like the Wicked Witch of the West.
Maybe she’s having an allergic reaction.
Or maybe that’s how Royals, or vampires turned by Royals, react to garlic.
I hear clanging in the kitchen, a pot falling to the floor.
We all flinch, even Zander.
Then silence.
Several yards away, the red doors remain still.
Bianca watches carefully, moving behind Zander.
The doors fly open, and two bottles sail across the room, careening end over end, whispering through the air above us.
“No,” Tristan shouts from the kitchen doorway, triumphantly, his hands empty, “garlic doesn’t do that, but holy wine sure does.” His expression is ecstatic, his arms wide, his shirt grimy from the air ducts high above, dried blood staining the yellow thong tourniquet on his leg.
Cara ducks again, her reflexes right on cue but not in time.
Not this time.
The bottle hits her head with a solid thunk, exploding in a red gush of sacramental wine and searing her beautiful skin.
Grover sees his opportunity, slips away from Cara, and instinctively plunges the stake from his belt loop into her gurgling chest. It strikes gold, piercing her long-dead heart.
While he backs away excitedly, she shrieks until her vocal cords melt, waving her arms wildly. The skin peels away, and the clean white bones poke through. Skin and muscle and cartilage slither onto the floor between gushes of blood expelling from her body to escape the consecrated wine.
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