The Girl With Crooked Fangs

by Amy Cross

  “Family,” Izzy whispered, feeling a shudder pass through her chest. “Sure. Whatever, but...”

  She turned to him.

  “What was my mother really like? Do I look like her?”

  He nodded.

  A smile crossed her lips. “Do you think she'll like me? When we meet, I mean...”

  “I think...” He paused. “I think you'll have to ask Gaal about that. Like I told you before, I don't know the details of what he's planning. All I know is that he swears he's a changed man, and I...” Another pause, as if he was struggling to get the words out. “I believe him. Absolutely.”

  Izzy stared down at the metal bowl, her mind filled with other questions, but after a moment she heard footsteps hurrying away and she turned to see that O'Malley had already left.

  “This is the right thing to do,” she said out loud, trying to shake the sense of doubt in her heart. “I'm going to get my mother back. We'll be a family again. That's all that matters.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “McGurdy Prospecting Company,” Natalie muttered, reading from the battered old sign for a moment before turning and watching as Rita continued to set the dynamite next to the metal door. “Humans are so weird. All this effort, just to dig some chunks of gold out of the ground.”

  “I take it you're not into jewelry, then?” Rita asked, packing another set of sticks into a small gap at the edge of the door and then grabbing a timing system from her backpack.

  “Can we hurry this up, please?” John asked, glancing back across the dark chamber and shining his flashlight toward the far wall. “We can't be sure that more cold-bloods haven't been left to guard the place.”

  “I'm sure they all scattered when I showed up,” Natalie told him. “That the problem with hired mercenaries. They usually don't have the guts for a proper fight. They're probably halfway to Redburgh by now.”

  “And how do we know this dynamite won't bring the entire mine network crashing down?” John continued, stepping toward Rita. “You might end up entombing them down there!”

  “I'm not using that much,” Rita replied, carefully sliding the timing mechanism into place. “Just enough to blow the door apart, and a little more for luck. Trust me, dude, I've been experimenting with this stuff ever since I found it. I know what I'm doing.”

  “There's no other way through,” Natalie pointed out. “No other quick way, at least. We don't know what RaYuul is doing to Izzy down there.”

  “He's a cold-blooded killer,” John replied, watching as Rita continued to work. “He only cares about himself. I always hoped he'd respect Genevieve's memory enough to leave Isobel alone. Once again, I gave him too much credit.” He paused, filled with hatred. “He's incapable of change. Once a monster, always a monster.”

  “Okay, we're ready,” Rita said, getting to her feet and stepping back from the crude dynamite rig she'd set up around the metal door. “The timer's all set with a ten minute delay. That was the tricky part, I've never really used the timer system before, but I'm sure it's more or less sorted. Once it's all gone off, we can come back down and the door should be wide open. Of course, there'll be a bit of a bang, so they will know we're here.”

  “It's hard to believe RaYuul thinks he can accomplish anything,” Natalie muttered. “He must be utterly desperate. From what I understand, Sentinels have been zeroing in on him for a couple of years now, never letting him stop anywhere to recover from his injuries. Holing himself up here must be his way of making one final stand. Or luring Izzy out.”

  “I don't care what he wants,” John said firmly. “Izzy shouldn't be a part of this.”

  “We should get up top,” Rita told them. “You know, away from the blast zone.”

  “I'm sure Izzy's handling herself just fine down there,” Natalie said, placing a hand on John's arm. “You raised her well. She's a smart girl.”

  “We really should go up top now,” Rita continued. “There's no point hanging around.”

  “Fine,” Natalie told her. “Set the ten-minute timer going.”

  “I already did,” Rita replied. “Three minutes ago. That's why I keep tell you guys to move your asses!”

  ***

  “How much longer?” Natalie asked a short while later, as they waited in a patch of moonlight near the mine's main exit tunnel.

  “Fifty-nine seconds,” Rita replied, after glancing at her watch. Turning, she saw John pacing back and forth nearby. “So are all vampires this angst-ridden and complicated, or is it just these guys? 'Cause I've gotta tell you, Izzy and John have got some Days of Our Lives level shit going on.”

  “The vampire species does have something of a reputation,” Natalie muttered, with a faint smile. Pausing, she watched for a moment as Rita checked her watch again. “So why are you really here?”

  “I told you. To save -”

  “To save Izzy, fine, but... How well do you really know her?”

  “We're friends,” Rita replied, a little defensively.

  “For what, a few days? And now here you are, risking your life. You seem to have become very attached to her, very quickly.”

  “It's kind of been an initiation by fire,” Rita admitted. “The whole vampire thing seems to have crept up on Izzy pretty fast.” She checked her watch again. “Twenty-eight seconds.”

  “Izzy's a nice girl.”

  “Sure.”

  “Funny, smart, not bad-looking...”

  “What are you trying to imply?” Rita asked.

  “Nothing, just... I could understand if maybe you've taken a liking to her, but if you have...” She paused for a moment, before glancing at John and then back at Rita. “If this whole sorry mess concerning Izzy's mother teaches you anything, it should be that inter-species relationships tend to be a bad idea. You're a human, you should only be with another human.”

  “Is that right?” Rita replied, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  “You might not like to hear it, but it's true!”

  “So the races shouldn't mix, huh?”

  “That's not what I mean, and you know it. Humans are fragile, they don't tend to last long in the vampire world.”

  “And what about werewolves and vampires?” Rita replied, glancing at her watch for a moment. “Rita told me about the opera tickets you were using to lure John on a date. I guess the rules are different for you guys.”

  “That was part of my job,” Natalie muttered, clearly a little uncomfortable. “There was no personal feeling behind any of it.”

  “Then why are you blushing?”

  “I'm -”

  “The dynamite should have gone off thirty seconds ago,” Rita continued, glancing along the dark tunnel. “Something's wrong.”

  “Maybe someone found it and disabled it,” Natalie suggested.

  “Maybe, or...” Shoving her hand into the cloth bag that hung from her belt, Rita pulled out a bunch of small metal rings. “These are the timing loops,” she explained. “I thought I used the right one, but maybe I...” She held one of the rings up and studied it for a moment. “Stupid,” she added finally. “Stupid, stupid, stupid...”

  “What?” Natalie asked.

  “It's okay, I just have to go back and fix it.”

  “I'll come with you.”

  “No, wait here,” Rita replied, flicking her flashlight on and stepping into the tunnel. “There's no point in two of us taking a risk. If I'm not back in ten minutes, you'll know something's wrong.” Stopping, she glanced back at Natalie. “Oh, and you were dead wrong earlier, but now I'm tempted to get a crush on Rita purely to call you out on all your bullshit. Maybe there are a few areas where humans are a little more open-minded than werewolves.”

  Natalie opened her mouth to reply, but Rita was already trudging back along the tunnel.

  “What's wrong?” John asked, hurrying over to join her. “Where's she going?”

  ***

  Scrambling back down the rope, Rita landed on her knees but quickly got to her feet and hurried throu
gh the darkness, heading over to the dynamite.

  “How could I have been so dumb?” she muttered as she crouched down and saw that, sure enough, she'd used the wrong timing loop. Sighing, she quickly removed the old loop and then started putting the new one in place, although she quickly found that this one, too, wasn't quite a perfect fit.

  Reaching into the bag that hung from her belt, she took out some more and started sorting through them, frantically trying to find one that would do the job.

  “Just hang on tight, Izzy,” she whispered under her breath. “I won't let you down, I'll -”

  Stopping suddenly, she realized she'd heard a faint shuffling sound nearby. She turned and shone the flashlight through the darkness, but there was no sign of anyone. She waited for a moment, before getting back to the job of trying to fix the timer. She'd studied the details online, but now she was really feeling out of her depth, although finally she began to thread a new loop into place, figuring she could bodge something together. Working as fast as possible, she set everything up and then checked the timing coil, only to see that it still didn't quite fit the way it should.

  “Come on, brain,” she sighed, trying to come up with a solution, “don't fail me now. There has to be -”

  Hearing the shuffling sound again, she turned and shone the flashlight toward the broken platform. Now she was sure the sound had been real, although she quickly told herself that there was no reason to be alarmed. Turning back to the dynamite, she began to look for another coil.

  “I can do this,” she told herself. “I'm way smarter than the average -”

  Suddenly something grabbed her from behind, dragging her by the collar and slamming her against the wall.

  Crying out, she landed hard on the rocky ground and twisted onto her back, just as the flashlight rolled away. After a couple of seconds, however, the flashlight stopped as it bumped against a foot, and then a hand reached down and picked it up, shining the beam straight back toward Rita's face.

  “What the hell?” she gasped, shielding her face with her hands. “John, is that you? Natalie?”

  After a moment, the flashlight's beam was lowered, allowing her to take a look. She felt a cold shiver pass through her body as soon as she saw O'Malley's face staring down at her.

  “Imagine my surprise,” he said calmly, “when I was on my way out and I happened to see you scurrying about in here.” He glanced toward the metal door. “Is that dynamite? Are you actually -”

  Lunging at him, Rita tried to push him away, only for him to laugh and slam her back against the wall.

  “Are you actually trying to interfere in this?” he asked, clearly amused by her efforts. “How utterly insane must you be, to think you have a chance? Izzy's with her father now, her real father, so she doesn't need rescuing. I promise you, even if by some miracle you made it down there, she'd only tell you to leave again. She's in a different world now, you need to -”

  Before he could finish, Rita lunged at him again. He pushed her back, just as before, but this time she managed to duck out of the way at the last moment. Slipping past, she lunged for one of the old pick-axes, only for O'Malley to grab her arm just as she reached the handle. She managed to turn, swinging the pick-ax toward his chest, catching him just below the collar and bringing a brief, astonished cry from his lips.

  “Did you just -”

  Clearly shocked, he saw a trickle of blood running from his flesh.

  “Dumb little human!” he hissed, grabbing her wrist and pulling her closer. With pure anger in his eyes, he snapped her wrist with one sudden move, causing her to cry out as he forced the pick-ax from her hand. Turning the blade around, he flashed it across her face and then pushed her back, sending her crumpling to the ground in a heap with blood flowing from a wound on her neck.

  Gasping, she tried to crawl away, only for him to kick her hard in the ribs, cracking several in the process.

  Slumping down, Rita struggled to get air into her lungs.

  “I might as well feed before I get out of here,” O'Malley muttered, tossing the pick-ax aside as he stepped closer. “It'd be a shame to let all that blood go to waste.”

  Struggling to her feet, despite the increasing pain radiating through her body, Rita briefly considered trying to grab the pick-ax again. After a moment, however, she realized her only shot was to fix the dynamite, so she stumbled over to the metal doorway and then dropped to her knees. With trembling, bloodied fingers, she slipped the timing coils away and tried to insert a new one before -

  O'Malley grabbed the back of her jacket and pulled her back. Crying out, Rita tried to get away, only for him to pull her closer and lean down, baring his fangs as their faces almost touched.

  “Keep struggling,” he sneered. “The faster your heart is pumping when I feed, the faster I'll drain you like the blood-bag that you are.”

  Letting out a grunt, Rita slipped her arms out of the jacket and fell forward, lunging at the dynamite and landing on top of the broken timing system. Before she could get up, however, she realized her hand had fallen on the system's control paddle, and when she looked at the wiring she saw that the entire set-up was live. Panicking, she tried to find a way to break the connection, but the link was complete.

  “I can't stop it,” she whispered, realizing that as soon as she moved her hand off the paddle, the dynamite would blow.

  “If it's any consolation,” O'Malley told her, dropping her jacket as he approached from behind, “your death will serve to strengthen a much more powerful, much more important creature.” He smiled. “Me.”

  “Oh crap,” Rita muttered, still trying to think of a way to rig the paddle, before feeling a sudden wave of resignation in her chest. The inevitable had finally arrived, and for the first time in her life she couldn't even begin to think of a way out. “I guess this is for you, Izzy.”

  “I'm sorry, human,” O'Malley continued. “I guess you're just not as smart as you thought you were.”

  “Oh dude,” she replied, turning and waiting for him to get just a little closer, as a cold sweat broke through her face, “nobody's as smart as I thought I was.”

  With that, she moved her hand off the trigger paddle.

  “Good luck, Izzy.”

  PART SIX

  ANOTHER WORLD

  Chapter Fifty

  “No,” John replied with a sigh, “you don't understand. Natalie – I mean, Doctor Laine...”

  He sighed.

  “What I mean is, there's no -”

  Before he could finish, a loud blast could be heard coming from somewhere deep in the mine. The ground shuddered, causing them both to lose their balance and drop to the ground, and a moment later a gust of smoke and rubble erupted from the mine's entrance.

  “What the hell was that?” Natalie stammered.

  “The dynamite,” John replied, already getting to his feet. “But where's...”

  Shining the flashlight along the tunnel, he waited for some sign that Rita had made it out. As the seconds ticked past, however, all he saw was the dark passageway with a few large chunks of rock on the ground.

  “The door,” he whispered, before hurrying along the tunnel with Natalie just a few steps behind. “We have to get to Izzy!”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “Rita?”

  Turning and looking back across the chamber, Izzy listened as the sound of the distant explosion began to fade. Whatever had happened, it had shaken the entire network of tunnels and had brought a few small fragments of rock raining down from above, but more than that, it had also caused a sudden and inexplicable sense of emptiness to open in Izzy's chest.

  And a feeling that something had just been lost.

  “Rita?” she whispered again, taking a few steps toward the doorway.

  Somehow, she could hear the echo of a silent scream that had suddenly been cut off.

  “Izzy,” a frail voice said suddenly. “It's time to start.”

  She stared at the doorway, before turning to see th
at her father had finished setting up the equipment.

  “I think something's wrong,” she told him. “I have to go check on my friend, she might be -”

  “We have to hurry,” he replied, interrupting her. “People are going to try to stop us. People who don't understand. We have to open the gateway before they get here.”

  “But I think my friend just -”

  “There's no time!” he said firmly. “Izzy, remember why we're here. We're going to get rid of all the cruelty and pain I brought to the world, I'm going to finally fulfill the promise I made to your mother all those years ago...” He paused for a moment, as if he was once again struggling to keep his pain contained and hidden. “If everything goes according to plan, we'll also make it so that she never died in the first place.”

  Izzy paused for a moment, still feeling as if somehow Rita's soul had just been snuffed out, but mention of her mother was enough to make her shuffle back across the chamber. The idea of seeing her mother, of having her back, was enough to brush away all doubts, all misgivings and concerns about Gaal's plan.

  “Do you know about my previous attempt to break into the great library of the vampires?” he asked.

  “I know you failed.”

  “I came so close,” he continued, “but... You're right. I did fail.” He spat those words out with a hint of venom, as if it pained him to admit such a thing. “This time, with you by my side, I shall succeed.”

  “But I still don't understand how -”

  “You will,” he replied with a smile. “I promise, Izzy.”

  She opened her mouth to ask more questions, but suddenly she turned to look back at the doorway. The echo of that silent scream was still lingering in the air, still warning her that something terrible had just happened.