Vamplayers

by Rusty Fischer

  I stop looking when I can see clear through her rib cage to the cafeteria table behind her. I hang my head in shame, in fear, in anger, in grief.

  I hear shrieking and realize it’s me.

  I want to help, but even as I cross the room I know it’s too late.

  Eventually all that’s left at Grover’s feet is a pile of bones and pus, half bubbling, half spreading across the cafeteria floor.

  Another bottle lands at Bianca’s feet, searing her toes, igniting her heels in flames. She stumbles back, hissing violently, a pool of wine chasing her across the cafeteria floor. Unlike everything else she’s done to date, her movements are frantic, detached, unpredictable, unwieldy. She’s like a housewife screeching at a mouse in some black-and-white fifties sitcom.

  Unfortunately, she’s not alone.

  I’m already in pursuit, watching Zander’s fear as Bianca’s wicked claws dig into his shoulder.

  She drags him toward the doors.

  “Zander,” I shout.

  Another volley of bottles sails through the air. Like beer bottles in a bar fight, they splash the walls on either side of the cafeteria’s double doors. The hallowed wine splatters Bianca’s face and scores her to the bone.

  She screams, her hair on fire before she pats it out with one hand and tugs Zander into the hall with the other.

  I rush to Grover, who stands amidst a pile of what used to be Cara.

  Sweet Cara.

  I’m careful of the wine at my feet. Even a drop could burn through me like acid, taking me out of this game before it even starts.

  I rip a strip of cloth from the hem of my shirt and wrap it around my hand, hesitating. My wrapped fingers linger over what’s left of Cara’s carcass.

  I reach into her putrid flesh to grab Grover’s stake from where it’s fallen into her ribs. “Gross,” Grover says.

  “I know.” I grunt, wiping it off on my pants. “But we might need this for late—”

  Just then, something metallic-sounding rattles across the floor.

  I look, rush to it, wipe still steaming flesh from its digital display, and exhale.

  It’s Cara’s and must have fallen out of one of her pockets. I might not have found it otherwise or, in my shock and panic, thought to look.

  “What is it?” Tristan says, handing Grover a wine bottle.

  I hold up the pager, my finger pressed firmly on the red button in the center. “Salvation.”

  Chapter 32

  We follow the growing blood trail through the surprisingly silent halls. Grover is breathless, tired, a gore-stained stake in one hand, a bottle of sacred wine in the other.

  Beside me, Tristan grins, hoisting his own stake and wine bottle for effect. “Some performance back there, huh, Lily?” he says as if he’s just entertained fifty thousand screaming fans.

  I cluck my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “Yeah, Tristan, sure. Why not? We could have used it before they kidnapped Zander and lured him to his death, but whatevs.”

  He seems offended. “I saved the day, did I not?”

  ”Yeah, sure, you saved the day. I’m very grateful, but we don’t leave anyone behind, okay? The day’s not over. Not until we get Zander back.”

  “Forget him.” He pauses near a fire alarm.

  I stop, if only to give Grover a moment to catch his breath. “We can’t forget him. We won’t forget him. Fine, you don’t care about Zander; we get that. But in case you’ve forgotten, this school is full of hims and hers. If we don’t stop Bianca, innocent kids will get slaughtered, drained, and turned. Do you care about them?”

  His impatient expression makes it clear that, no, he really doesn’t. “The exit is that way,” he says, pointing in the opposite direction of Bianca’s blood trail. “The school is in danger. Look at this beautiful fire alarm. I say we pull it, alert everybody, and wait for the cops. Let them take care of it. We’re kids, remember?” What is this guy on?

  Seriously?

  Does he honestly think this is over?

  That we can walk away and whistle a tune while a Royal runs amok at Nightshade?

  “The cops are twenty-five minutes away, Tristan! They’re also human. They haven’t seen what you’ve seen. I’ve been here before, okay? It will take them two hours to believe us, and by then Bianca and Zander will be long gone.”

  “Let them be,” he says. “We are alive, no? Zander is … is done for, I’m afraid.”

  Rough hands pin him to the hard stone wall. Grover, red-faced and standing on tiptoes, says through gritted teeth, “Zander is my friend, you big, phony, pompous jerk, and none of us, you included, leave without him. Got that?” He shoves him one last time for good measure before releasing him.

  Tristan coughs and sputters. “Of course, my friend. It was merely a suggestion.” But his eyes say otherwise.

  I pledge to watch him more closely.

  We silently move away from the fire alarm, away from the cafeteria, away from safety, and willingly toward danger.

  And hopefully a rescue.

  The trail disappears where two hallways begin.

  I bend to the floor, studying the end of the smear.

  Grover grunts, kneeling by my side. “Looks like she wiped it up.” He points to a clean swipe mark that signals the end of Bianca’s trail as clearly as if she’d used a giant eraser to blot out her name.

  “So we wouldn’t know which way she was going,” I murmur somewhat approvingly. “Smart. So where do these halls lead?”

  Everything has happened so fast and gone so wrong. I’ve never had time to scope out this particular section of the school until now.

  Grover looks down both halls, scratching his curly black hair. “I have no idea.”

  “That is because you are a techie,” Tristan says. He’s not leaning to the trail but still standing above us, smirking, a stake slid through his belt loop, the bottom of his wine bottle resting against his thigh.

  “Trekkie,” Grover corrects without looking up.

  “No, because you are a technical person and you only live in the computer lab in the technical wing. These halls are for active people. One leads to the varsity locker rooms, the other to the indoor pool.”

  I stand. “She’s smart; she wants us to split up.”

  Tristan says, “That is a bad idea.”

  “Really?” I snap. “Thanks for the input.”

  Grover struggles to get up, and I drag him to a standing position. A tad forcefully (okay, a lot forcefully), he says, “But we have to, Lily. We don’t have time to mess around. She’s probably at the pool already. Let me take Tristan, and I’ll—”

  “I don’t trust Tristan,” I say, not caring that the guy himself is standing right behind me, sniffling.

  Grover shrugs and lopes in the opposite direction. “Fine,” he calls out. “I’ll go myself. I’ve always wanted to see the girls’ locker room anyway. You know, other than on the girls’ locker room webcam, that is.”

  “Grover,” I shout, but he’s already too far away and I don’t have time to chase a practically grown man into the locker rooms.

  “Come on. Let’s go.”

  But Tristan stands firm. “Why should I go with a woman who doesn’t trust me?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’ll shove this stake where the sun don’t shine. That’s why.”

  He follows me resolutely, the wine in his bottle sloshing, the glass clinking against his expensive belt buckle.

  The auditorium at our feet is large, dank, and dark.

  I wouldn’t flip on the lights except I need Tristan’s help, and he has to see. One after the other, the lights flicker on like a wave spreading across the ceiling some three or four stories above, illuminating an Olympic-sized pool, several Jacuzzis, and numbered rooms for what look like saunas.

  “Look for wet tiles,” I say, nose wrinkling at the scent of chlorine permeating the air. “Discarded towels. She’ll want to get wet to stop the holy wine from doing any more damage.”

  “S
urely she can’t have gotten far?” he says, inspecting the pool deck nonetheless. “Last time we saw her, she was practically melting.”

  “She’s a Royal, Tristan. She’s probably already healing as we speak. The water will help, but she doesn’t necessarily need it for her cells to begin regenerating.”

  I spot a puddle on the pool deck and get hopeful, and then a drop of water splashes on my shoulder.

  It’s from a leak in the ceiling high overhead.

  I keep moving, keep lurking, the serene surface of the pool water placid and relaxing.

  You know, if you’re not smack-dab in the middle of Vampire Armageddon, that is.

  I stop and put my hand on the floor, trying to sense the Royal. Nothing.

  I stand, recognizing the sound of silence, the sound of absence.

  “She’s not here.” I clutch Tristan’s collar and drag him back into the empty hallway.

  “Maybe the lockers,” he says, back to using his stilted Euro-speak.

  We start walking, only to hear sneakers squeaking in our direction.

  Grover rounds a corner and stumbles into view.

  “What happened?”

  His face is flushed. “I looked everywhere. Girls’ lockers, girls’ shower. She’s not there.”

  I look down the hall we came from, where the blood trail ends. “Where would that hall have led if we’d gone the other direction?”

  “What, you think she circled around?” Grover asks.

  “Like the hunters do,” Tristan says, nodding, “when they follow their tracks back through the snow.”

  Who is this guy, and what has he done with Tristan?

  “Where does it lead, Grover?” I say, impatient.

  “The chapel, but why would she go there?”

  Chapter 33

  Bianca is praying, smoke still rising from her ripe young body, half her expensive, color-coordinated clothes torn from the searing heat, her skin underneath already puckered pink.

  She’s already healing. In some places, she’s already healed.

  I think of my finger pressed firm on the red send button of Dr. Haskins’ beeper and pray it went through, pray they’re on their way.

  “Hey,” Grover whispers, apparently not wanting to disturb Bianca. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be in here. Aren’t you supposed to burst into flames or something?”

  I roll my eyes despite the grim circumstances. “Don’t believe everything you read.”

  Tristan stands at the door, and I can see his gaze darting down the hall to safety.

  “Look,” I say, my voice low but not out of respect for Bianca’s silent prayers. “Run away or stay. I don’t care. But we could use your help, and it would be nice to count on you for once. Make up your mind, will you?”

  “Okay, okay.” He groans, following us in reluctantly.

  Bianca is kneeling at the altar, her head bowed. Even her hair is growing itself back out. From across the room, I can hear it: the sound thread makes scratching through fabric, follicles and long red strands extending through her scalp.

  I watch the boys’ faces, but apparently they can’t hear it. Frankly, I wish I couldn’t.

  I can see she’s weak but not down for the count, wounded but far from vanquished.

  “What are you praying for?” I interrupt, walking forward boldly because this is the part where I finish her off.

  She doesn’t look up. “Your soul, of course.”

  “Where is he?” I ask, ignoring her repartee, trying to sound strong.

  ”Safe and sound.” She points behind me. Thin smoke, almost like a mist, rises in coiling tendrils from her fingers as her skin continues to regenerate.

  I guess it’s true what I’ve always heard about Royals: they are badass!

  In a wading pool behind me, Zander rests nearly up to his shoulders in holy water.

  The liquid comes gurgling from a copper fountain shaped like a winged cherub pouring a wine jug into the pool at Zander’s feet.

  Well, that doesn’t look very hazardous at all.

  Zander’s not a vampire, so he’s not in any danger from the holy water, right? If this is her big, shocking finale, then she’s not very good at this because—

  His posture looks awkward. I peer in. His hands are bound behind him, pushing his spine upward and his head slightly back.

  His curly hair is wet in the back, his broad forehead waxy, his eyes glassy, his clothes soaked, his lips sputtering as water laps up and ebbs back, the fountain gushing, splattering him all around.

  He looks dazed, like maybe she conked him on the head when she dumped him in there.

  The pool is filling quickly, the water racing up his chest and, gently, to his shoulders. His ankles are tied up. He can’t move, and the pool is already three-quarters full.

  “No worries.” Grover ambles over. “I’ll just snatch him out, and we’ll be on our way.”

  Before I can move, before I can blink, Bianca rises from the altar, sails across the room, and grabs Grover by his hair.

  There is a moment there, trapped in time, when she holds him so effortlessly, so lightly, it’s like she’s in some black market bazaar holding a shrunken head.

  He squirms.

  It’s all happening so fast.

  He flashes me a panicked look.

  I flash one back.

  It’s like Bianca’s had enough. She flicks her wrist and tosses him against the chapel wall.

  Hard.

  He hits with a deep, wet smack and slides down the wall, wheezing. His head leaves a straight trail of blood, almost like it’s been applied by a paint roller.

  The slap of his skull on marble still ringing, the holy water in Zander’s pool swashing, I’m momentarily paralyzed.

  I gasp and sail to him.

  I kneel, feeling for a pulse, knowing I’m vulnerable facing away from Bianca, aware that this is exactly what she wants.

  Tristan has my back. I look over my shoulder to see him react quickly, holding the bottle of holy wine above his head to douse her in it.

  But again she’s too quick.

  Bianca grabs his arm unnaturally, like you’d grab a porcelain doll, the kind with cloth arms and no bones.

  I hear something snap, watch Tristan’s face erupt in pain, and the bottle drops harmlessly to the floor.

  Before it can soak her feet or scald her toes or sizzle through what’s left of her tattered clothing, she yanks Tristan by the hair into an alcove just a few feet above the holy water pool.

  He’s over six feet tall, at least one hundred seventy pounds of straight-up, stone cold muscle, and she carries him like a plaything. She soars, and his legs dangle and swing.

  He yelps but doesn’t scream. He struggles but only until she threatens him, one long, pointy claw at his throat.

  She nestles him on her lap, like a mother nursing a babe.

  The alcove is high and deep, cast in shadows from the moonlight pouring in through the tiny chapel’s stained glass ceiling.

  I could reach it and save him if I had time, but already I hear Zander coughing and spluttering in the pool, the water reaching his throat.

  I shake my head. All that training and I’m nothing against a Royal.

  Scratch that.

  Next to nothing.

  All those Simulations, all those stupid stakes spitting out of idiotic walls, and they never said anything about having to save three humans all at once against a force so powerful it can repair itself—and kill your friends—right before your very eyes.

  Grover breathes raggedly. His skin is pale and slick. His eyes flicker but never open.

  I feel the pulse at his neck (I’m an expert in the jugular), and it feels like a hose that’s run out of water, growing slack beneath my fingers. There is a silence about him, a stillness, that I try to deny.

  “Grover!” I shake him until at last he coughs himself to life.

  He smiles and gasps and moves his lips, but he’s out of funny lines. The jokes have all run
dry.

  The water must be up to Zander’s chin by now.

  Tristan whimpers in the alcove, where Bianca gloats.

  Grover struggles to draw in one breath, then two.

  Then no more.

  There will not be a third.

  The light goes out of his eyes.

  His massive chest droops into his even bigger belly.

  I wait for him to gasp, to rise, to cough, to laugh.

  That’s how this is supposed to end: we all get up, we all walk away, we all go home.

  Not for Grover.

  There is no gasp, no wink to say he’s faking it, no Hollywood ending, no zombie hand reaching up from his grave.

  There is only stillness and softness and eternal, endless sadness.

  I scream, cry, rage, hiss, and fly—fangs popping, claws pouncing—to the alcove above.

  It is a soaring leap, like Michael Jordan in all those old-school YouTube videos from his glorious Air Jordan days. My chest is out, my legs bent slightly, my arms at my sides, my head back, the air playing with my long black hair.

  I am blind to my vulnerability, blinder still to the danger. I see only my enemy, fangs bared, claws out, Tristan squirming in her lap as we prepare to clash.

  It never gets that far.

  She kicks me once in the ribs so hard I land all the way across the chapel before I know what’s happened. I’m in a pile of pews, sharp edges in my bones, tears in my skin. It takes everything I have not to fly up there and try it all over again.

  Instead I stand.

  I walk.

  I run beneath the alcove, to the side of the wading pool.

  “You didn’t have to kill him.” I hiss up at her. “He never did anything to you.”

  She sneers, tousling Tristan’s long hair as if she hasn’t just taken a human life, as if she isn’t about to take another. “No, but you did. I told you I’d take something you cared about. Now you know how it feels.”

  “I knew how it felt. You already took two things I cared about.”

  She shrugs. “You should thank me.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Now your choice is even easier.” Bianca settles against the alcove, as if the only thing missing from her big entertainment is a bag of popcorn and an ice-cold soda. “You can choose to save Zander, which of course will result in horrible pain, maybe even death, for you. Or you can choose to save Tristan here, which of course will cause you no pain at all.”