by Bill Blume
Nothing else immediately useful popped out at Gidion. He wanted a better look at this guy’s Facebook page and Twitter feed, but it was close to one in the morning and his laptop was at home.
He set his alarm to go off about 5:30 in the morning and groaned. He still needed to get Grandpa to the funeral home to torch that vampire’s corpse. If he had any hope of getting some sleep, he needed to sleep here. This wasn’t the first time he’d used the sofa in Grandpa’s den for a bed, but the last time he’d done that, he must have been about nine years old when it was rare for Dad to work overnight and he still needed someone to look after him.
With the den lights turned off and Milton’s belongings put away, Gidion’s mind returned to Grandpa Murphy. He’d never seen his grandfather like this, drunk and out of control. Had Grandpa really changed that much, or had Gidion finally gotten old enough to see what was always there? That thought and the thin pillow he borrowed from Grandpa’s bed kept him awake for another hour. Just as he fell to sleep, another thought struck him. How would he hunt if he didn’t have Grandpa there anymore?
Chapter Twenty-Three
The James Bond theme blared from Gidion’s cell phone at the appointed time. He hit the snooze, but Grandpa stumbling out of his bedroom rendered that moot.
“Gidion? What the hell you doing here, boy?”
He sat up and rubbed his face, as if to force feed himself alertness from his palms. “You don’t remember?” No, of course, he didn’t.
“Don’t get wise with me.” The way he snapped his fingers suggested he was well-rested without a bit of the hangover he deserved. “What’s going on here?”
“What’s going on is there’s a vampire’s corpse at the funeral home. I need you to get there ASAP and cremate it.”
Grandpa’s left eye twitched. “You lose your marbles? You know damn well that you don’t hunt without calling me first.”
“I wasn’t hunting. The jerk ambushed me outside of my house, and I did call you. How many beers did you drink last night? Is that why I’m supposed to call first, so you know when it’s safe to get plastered?”
“Listen here, boy. I don’t take that guff from your daddy, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna take it from you.”
Holy crap. No wonder Grandpa drove Dad insane.
“Grandpa, you nearly shot me with a rifle last night!”
“Bullshit.” He hobbled to the kitchen. “I’m gonna make myself a cup of coffee before we go. That’s assuming it fits into your busy schedule.”
“And yes, I’m fine,” Gidion called after him. “Thanks for asking.”
“Don’t need to ask, when I can see it with my damn eyes.” Grandpa banged around a lot for someone who was just making a pot of coffee. “You wouldn’t be getting ambushed at all if you did like you were fucking told. This is what you get for bringing home stragglers and trying to protect a damn feeder.”
“Whatever.” Gidion stumbled his way to the bathroom. Damn, he was a sight: bed head, bags beneath his eyes and a royal nasty case of morning mouth.
He splashed water on his face, not that it did much. Was his brain swelling, because it felt like it was trying to push his eyeballs out of his head? This was when his dad sleeping during the day just sucked. It wasn’t like Gidion could play hooky and sleep in without getting caught.
“What did you do with the body?” Grandpa shouted from the kitchen.
Gidion swished some water around his mouth and spit it out to mitigate his morning mouth. “Beheaded it. Put it in one of the plain, pine boxes. I trust the cremator can handle duct tape?”
Grandpa didn’t answer. Instead, Gidion heard his own voice coming from the kitchen. Grandpa was playing the answering machine.
Crap, Gidion thought, here it comes.
“Are you out of your Goddamned mind!”
Gidion didn’t answer. He kicked the bathroom door closed and splashed water onto the top of his head. He mangled his fingers through his hair, trying to rub out the anime-character-worthy waves. A look in the mirror told him he wasn’t having much success. The bathroom door muffled Grandpa enough to make him unintelligible, so he decided to give his hair a few more tries instead of facing that nonsense.
Having fixed his appearance to something resembling school-acceptable, he abandoned his hiding place. “You ready, Grandpa?”
Grandpa was slurping coffee from a plain, white mug. “Waiting on you.” He’d put on his work clothes while Gidion had hidden in the bathroom. The black suit and tie made him look more like a mobster than a funeral home director.
“I’ll follow you.” Gidion dreaded how slow Grandpa would probably drive, but that was preferable to the lecture he’d get for speeding and picking a non-Grandpa approved route.
They didn’t say much once they got to the funeral home. They’d made it there by a quarter after six. The sky was still dark with a hint of pink in the east.
Grandpa didn’t say much. He’d returned to the grunting method of communication from the other night. Gidion kept his mouth shut. Doing his best not to be obvious about it, he watched everything Grandpa did to operate the cremator. For every button pushed and sensor checked, Gidion sent himself a text message noting what the step in the process had been. That way he’d not only be able to study the order of the steps later, but he’d know how long it had taken Grandpa to get to that step. He decided he’d need to do this several times before he felt certain he could do it himself.
Between texting himself, Gidion had Milton the vampire’s cell phone out, and sent Stephanie his status report. Just to keep things real, Gidion included the trip to Barnes & Noble minus all the “fun” that had followed.
The James Bond theme sounded from his cell phone about a quarter to seven, the usual time he set it to go off in the morning. “Gotta get to school,” he said.
Grandpa didn’t look at him, just grunted as he checked the temperature on the panel.
“I’m going hunting tonight.”
Another grunt.
Dammit. Gidion didn’t need this crap. Dad gave him enough grief as it was. Last thing he needed was for Grandpa to start. Gidion got in trouble for stuff as simple as getting his pants dirty, but Grandpa gets drunk and nearly shoots him with a freaking rifle and gets a free pass. Total BS!
What he wouldn’t give to stay home today. He needed the sleep, and he wasn’t sure he’d finished all of his math homework. Maybe he could get a nap after school. He needed to rest sometime, because hunting with his head in a fog guaranteed getting himself killed.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The rest of the day didn’t go well. The Little Hearse roared into the driveway with barely a minute to spare thanks to a stupid gray hair in a silver land yacht. The lady hadn’t recognized the difference between the Smart Tag lane and the Exact Change lane at the Midlothian tolls until she was sitting in it with Gidion right behind her and six more cars behind him. A chorus of horns attacked her for being the moron she was. She was so flustered that she’d nearly backed into Gidion’s car.
From her early morning perch on the den sofa, Page watched Gidion sprint into the house. “Dad’ll have to get you when he comes home,” he said, careful not to use the word “out.” She didn’t look worried, not that he had time to study the look on her face. He darted into his room and tripped over a box of Kleenex he’d left on the floor. The edge of the bed saved him from a total wipeout. He threw his school books into his backpack and tossed in his laptop.
Flinging on his backpack threw Gidion off-balance, but he kept upright. He ran through the den for the front door with an indifferent yawn from Page.
The drive to school was blessedly free of any more idiot drivers. Good thing, too, because he still had to sprint from his car to his first class. The bell sounded just as he ran through the door to the classroom. His teacher gave him an evil eye that suggested she’d still like to mark him tardy, but decided against it. She exacted her revenge when she went around checking everyone’s homework. Gidion hadn’t f
inished the last two problems.
Mrs. Brown marked up his paper with her infamous red pen. She drew an “X” followed by a long line at the bottom of the page. “Finish those problems and get your father to sign this.”
Ugh! Uptight bitch! Why couldn’t the vampires have gone after her instead of Ms. Aldgate? Killing her would be a service to every student in the world. Of course, for Mrs. Brown to get killed by a vampire, she’d need to get a real life first.
Dad was gonna go off on him when he saw this. He really needed to learn how to forge Dad’s signature. Maybe he could ambush him on the way out the door for work tonight, limit the time he’d have to endure the “Wrath of Dad.”
The rest of the school day went downhill from there. His English class had provided a pop quiz on the first act of Shakespeare’s boring-as-hell play Hamlet, which Gidion hadn’t read yet. At least Dad wouldn’t have to sign that.
He’d never been so glad for lunch. In his dash from the funeral home to school, food hadn’t really been an option. His usual PB Twix and Mountain Dew weren’t going to cut it, so he drove off-campus for lunch.
He went for Café Caturra since his lunch period was early enough to get there before the midday crowd. Even then, that would be cutting it close. At least it would give him Wi-Fi access.
Gidion cracked open his laptop and went straight for Facebook for a look at Milton the vampire’s page. Turned out he was a local guy. In fact, Milton graduated from Gidion’s high school just ten years ago—West Chester High. That didn’t feel like coincidence, not that he could pin down why. He didn’t know anyone with the last name Robbins from school or his neighborhood, but the more he dug into the Richmond Coven, everything kept hitting close to home.
Milton’s employer was listed as “Old World.” That could be a problem. He’d need to check Milton’s phone for a work schedule, if he even had one listed in it. For that matter, he needed to look for Milton’s car. He must have parked somewhere within walking distance to his house. Maybe he could find something useful in it.
Any hope of finding something helpful in Milton’s friends list was abandoned. The guy was a total Facebook whore with close to two thousand friends. He must have friended anyone in his life who ever sneezed in his direction.
He went to Milton’s Twitter feed next. The number of people he followed was even worse than his Facebook friends list.
Gidion remembered there was a Twitter app on Milton’s cell phone. He pulled it out to get a look at what the people Milton followed had to tweet. The feed was moving fast. Following close to three thousand people will do that. Fortunately, it wasn’t so fast that Gidion missed a tweet from a guy: “Enjoying an ale with my lunch. The waitress is a definite NINE out of TEN. Hellooo, Nurse!”
The tweet was from Ms. Aldgate’s ex-husband.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Gidion made it back to class with just a minute to spare. Ms. Aldgate gave him an odd look halfway through class, and he suspected it was probably because of how anxious he was.
“Gidion, would you please quit tapping your pencil on your desk.”
Jeez, he hadn’t even realized he’d been doing it. “Sorry.” He just wanted this class to end.
Trying to focus on class didn’t help make the time move more quickly. He noticed Andrea kept smirking back at him in that way girls seem to do when they know something about you. What was her deal? Seth had probably told her about one of his more embarrassing moments—lousy traitor.
With just ten minutes left, Principal “Vermin” interrupted class for a conversation in the hallway with Ms. Aldgate.
“This might take a few minutes,” Ms. Aldgate said. “Use the time to read over page sixty-eight. I will be just outside the door, so no talking.”
She left the door open just a crack, but he couldn’t make out anything they were saying. He tried to read his textbook, but all he could think about was what he’d learned during lunch. Would this class never end?
“Psst! Gidion!” The guy sitting in front of Gidion whispered as he planted a folded slip of paper on his desk.
He opened the note. ‘I hear someone has a secret, you sneaky stud.’
What the hell? He looked up and realized the note must have been from Andrea. If her smile widened any more, her face would split in half.
Everything in his gut twisted. Andrea might be perky as a jackrabbit after five espressos, but she wasn’t stupid. Not many freshmen made it into honors world history, proof enough she had brains in there somewhere. Could she be tied into all of this somehow? She was one of Ms. Aldgate’s students, after all.
He wrote a reply and stuck with print, because his cursive resembled bad line art on crack. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
She muffled a laugh as she read his reply. Her pen danced across the shrinking space of the paper. This time, she leaned back and handed it directly to him. Lord, he hoped Ms. Aldgate didn’t catch them passing notes. Bad enough everyone in the classroom could see it.
‘Everyone’s talking about it! You’re dating a senior! Is it true???’
Holy crap! Was “everyone” really talking about it? At first, he enjoyed the ego boost of that thought, but then he broke down the implications. How would anyone even know that? Could this be a clever way for the coven to figure out if he was connected to Tamara, waiting to see if he’d confirm it? Even if it wasn’t, the rumor was already circulating. If Stephanie hadn’t started it as a test, then it wouldn’t be long before she heard it, if she hadn’t already.
Rumors were tricky things, and given the low rung on the social ladder he usually hung to, he didn’t know squat about how to stop or mitigate these things. Confirming it just felt like a bad idea, and denying it would suck. No matter which way he went, he was adding more information to feed the rumor’s fire.
Ms. Aldgate returned before he could write a reply.
“All right, everyone. We’re almost out of time, so let’s quickly go over what will be on tomorrow’s quiz.”
Thank God! How bad off was he when he was glad to have a teacher talk about a quiz? At least this would leave Andrea guessing, and it wouldn’t seem like he’d intentionally kept quiet. If he didn’t respond one way or the other, maybe the rumor would die before it could reach Stephanie or anyone else in the coven.
That last thought stilled his pencil. Had Pete heard about this? If he was at school today, Andrea would have been sure to mention it at lunch.
Grandpa’s warning about not being able to trust Pete gained newfound credibility. Dammit, he didn’t know what to do. All of his options sucked. He needed to confront Pete, find out what the coven knew, what they were saying. That was assuming he could trust a word out of his friend’s mouth.
Chairs creaked as everyone stood and shoved their books into their bags. Had the bell rung? He looked at his watch. Sure enough, he’d missed it.
Andrea winked at him as he stood. “You sly devil.”
Funny, he didn’t feel all that clever. He kept to his silent look of confusion. Under the circumstances, wasn’t difficult to maintain the appropriate expression. He took his time packing his bag, waiting until after everyone else had left the room.
“Gidion?” Ms. Aldgate looked towards the door and then back to him.
He walked over to the door and closed it. “You know anyone named Milton Robbins?”
She shook her head. “Who is he?”
“He was a vampire in the Richmond Coven until I killed him last night.” Had it really been less than twenty-four hours since that happened? Too much had gone down between then and now for that to feel possible. “He’s listed as a friend of your ex-husband on Facebook and Twitter. I’m not sure how closely connected they might be, but it’s a direct link to the coven.”
She sat behind her desk and didn’t meet his eyes. “Gidion, I have a hard time believing Charles—I mean…Dammit!” She stood and planted her fists on her desk. “Gidion, I cannot sit and wait like this. I’m scared to go home. I h
aven’t even slept in my bed in almost a week!” He’d been so focused on his own problems in all this that he hadn’t even picked up on the wear and tear on his teacher. Her shirt and pants were wrinkled, and her clothes usually looked ironed sharp enough to pass a military inspection. He sat a few rows back, so he hadn’t noticed the bags under her eyes. Up close, her makeup couldn’t conceal just how tired she was. That he looked little better probably added to her doubts in him.
“Ms. Aldgate, I’m close to finishing this. You’ve gotta believe me.”
She held up a hand for him to shut up. “I’m not even sure I believe any of this anymore. That I want to. For God’s sake, Gidion, you’re just a boy.”
“I’m not a boy!” Holy crap. He’d just shouted at one of his teachers and at school, no less. He took a deep breath. “I know I’m only sixteen, but I’m right about this. All of it.”
“That might be, but if my ex-husband has anything to do with this, then how are you going to prove it? Did you find any messages between him and this vampire? What was his name? Milton?”
“No, I haven’t found any communications between the two of them, not yet.”
She crossed her arms, but the way she did it looked as though she was hugging herself. “Charles is many things. He’s a philanderer and a chauvinist, but I’ve also seen him go out of his way to help many people over the years. He can be very generous, and frankly, I don’t see any reason he would want to kill me. It’s not as if I’m really a part of his life anymore. He’s moved on.”