I didn’t envy the Minister her decision, and I doubted that a year’s wait would make it any easier.
You might recall that, while he ate his fried egg sandwich, Felim told me he was tired after dealing with Bella this morning? Well, that was because he and I had been at Witchfield along with my grandmother, performing a spell which trapped Bella Foyle’s power and her soul once again. She had finally been forced to vacate the body of Catriona Eager, and the mild-mannered history teacher would be back in the classroom soon – after a stay at Night and Gale and some powerful memory suppression, of course.
Alvis had disappeared along with Bella and I hoped that, wherever he was, the owl had found some happiness.
All was well in Riddler’s Edge, and for the first time in weeks I felt free of worry. My friends and family clearly felt the same, as they chatted by the bar and enjoyed my mother’s tea party.
‘I can’t believe you baked all of this yourself, Abby,’ Greg said, through a mouthful of muffin. ‘It all tastes amazing. Everything tastes amazing now that I’ve taken the cure. I mean sure, I snuck the odd lollipop while I was pretending to be Gregariad, but I still had to swallow it down with a boatload of disgusting blood.’ He looked at Pru and winced. ‘No offence.’
‘None taken,’ she said, kissing him lightly on the cheek.
‘Well, I’m offended,’ said Jared. ‘I mean, you were a vampire, Greg. You were immortal and strong. How could you give that up? You know, my sister’s not gonna fancy you anymore once you start to get wrinkly.’
Greg took a sip of tea and said, ‘Who knows? In a few decades time if this one thinks I’m getting too old for her tastes, then I might reconsider it. For now, I prefer to live off food, not blood.’
Pru kissed him once more. ‘I’ll love your wrinkles, silly. They’ll be adorable.’
While they cooed over each other, Jared brought his fingers to his mouth in a throwing-up motion. ‘I’ve had this for days now, guys. Do you know how painful it is for me to have to watch my best friend and my little sister?’
Pru lightly swiped at her brother. ‘You’re just jealous that I pulled the most ingenious wizard in the world.’
‘Anyway, she’s not your little sister,’ Dylan pointed out. ‘She’s your twin. Something both of you failed to mention.’
Nollaig smiled sadly. ‘The thing about my family, Dylan, is that we’ve always preferred to leave the past behind us. Not much chance of that anymore, I suppose, now that all of you know our deepest, darkest secrets.’
We sure did. The whole of the supernatural world did, as a matter of fact. All of the news programmes had been filled with talk about Ronaldo the Righteous, Leader of Vlad’s Boys. Most of them had about five percent of the facts right, but now that we’d recuperated from the battle, Grace and I would be setting things straight in this evening’s edition of the Daily Riddler.
‘There are a few things I still don’t get,’ said Grace, elegantly sipping some coffee and crossing her legs. ‘Well, actually, I don’t get much of it at all. Pru saw whoever she or Jared turned becoming a crazed vampire, someone dark and cruel enough to turn on the people he loved. Someone who saw murder as a game. So why didn’t you go dark, Greg?’
‘I really don’t know,’ he replied. ‘When Pru turned me I was more powerful than either Jared or Pru. As soon as the process was complete I was able to read her mind. I saw it all – everything she’d predicted. And I knew that with the power I had now, I could easily be the one to make all of that happen. Heck, I could rule the entire world if I wanted to.’
With his muffin annihilated, he grabbed a slice of chocolate cake for himself. ‘But even though I did get all of that power, it was … I dunno. I mean, she’d never actually seen me become a megalomaniac vamp, had she? In all the versions she dreamt, I was the one person who always got murdered but who was never turned. So maybe when Alvis slipped the locket onto Dylan and the death spell shifted to me … maybe a new future began to form?’
‘I know it did,’ said Pru, stroking his chin. ‘Because now, when I see our future, it doesn’t end in murder and doom. Now it ends with me, in a happy relationship with a super-special and awesome guy.’
He smiled lovingly at her. ‘You’re super-special and awesome.’ Dragging his eyes from Pru, he turned to focus on the rest of us. ‘So anyway, I came up with my plan pretty much the second Pru’s memories came into my mind. As soon as I saw what could happen if I turned out the way Dylan did in Pru’s visions, I decided that the best way to beat Vlad’s Boys was to play along with that. They were super-protective of the Staff of Wrath, and I knew they’d only give it to me if they trusted me completely. As much as it hurt me to have to trick you guys, I couldn’t see any other way through all of this. They had so much power at their disposal. Getting it into my hands at precisely the right time was vital. I had no choice. I had to act just about as cray-cray as I could manage.’
‘You sure managed that.’ Fuzz hopped up onto Dylan’s lap and began to lick his paws. ‘That fountain and those coffins were a delightful touch.’
Greg gave the cat a dry smile. ‘Yeah well, when in Crazyville … I had to act the way Roger and the rest of the vampire-arm of the gang would expect me to. If that meant coffins and stupid clothes, then that’s what I was gonna do.’
‘I had no idea about any of this at first,’ said Pru. ‘I was on my way to see Cassandra when Greg tracked me down. He connected his mind to mine, and showed me his plan. After that, I pretended he’d compelled me so that I could help him out. If Vlad’s Boys were to believe he’d gone bad, then all of you had to believe it too. There was no better way to achieve that than if he pretended to do something as gross as compel me to be his girlfriend.’
‘I get why you did it,’ I told her, squeezing her hand. ‘I have to say, though … you sure did do an awesome job of pretending to be compelled.’
‘Why thank you kindly,’ she said, taking a bow. ‘I may just go on the stage. But our plan would have been well and truly foiled if you guys had murdered Greg – or if the sióga-blood thorns had hit us. If that had happened, Greg wouldn’t have been able to compel the Vlad’s Boys minions to stand down. Man, you guys were tenacious.’
‘I knew this one was stubborn the second she came to work with me,’ said Grace, with an eyebrow raised my way. ‘But you and Greg are just as bad. I don’t know whether to hug you both or to strangle you. I mean, giving your van and wand to Roger Balfe? That’s when I feared you were really lost to us.’
Greg shuddered. ‘It was the hardest thing I ever did, but Roger was obsessed with the Wizardly Wagon, so I had to give it to him to prove I was loyal. I had no idea why he wanted it, or my wand, but I thought he was too incompetent to do much damage, so I just gave them to him. I suppressed the wand’s power and I taught him all the wrong ways to do wizardry but … he was determined, I guess. I mean, what was he even thinking? The spells he used would never have killed Rita, seeing as she’s a vamp. It was just bad luck that he wound up hitting that doppelgangered witch instead.’
‘It really was,’ I said. ‘He hit her with about a gazillion death spells before one of them killed her. He must have really hated his wife, considering that’s who he thought he was murdering.’ I glanced at Dylan. ‘I know I’m incredibly annoying, but if you ever feel the need to kill me, maybe try breaking up with me first.’
He looked curiously at me, while he stroked my cat between the ears. ‘You’re not annoying. Miss Smith, you’re … well, you’re the love of my life.’
My mother had been sliding a fresh plate of muffins across the bar, and my dad had been deep in discussion with Felim, but they both stopped what they were doing, and stared. Everyone in the tavern stared, in fact, perhaps sensing something in the air.
And it seemed that they might be right. Dylan slid Fuzz off his lap, stood up from his stool, and got down onto one knee. From his jacket pocket, he pulled out a small, heart-shaped box.
‘It’s not the key to my house o
r my mushy heart,’ he said, opening up the box to reveal a white-gold ring with a shining stone at its centre. ‘You already have both of those. So, Miss Smith … will you … will you … The thing is, you see … Hmm, how do I put this? Miss Smith, would you like to …’
While he stammered and stuttered, my breath caught in my chest. It was too soon for this. I’d never planned on being in a long-term relationship and, even if I had, I would have liked to get to know someone for at least a couple of years before I walked down the aisle.
And yet …
Ever since I’d arrived in Riddler’s Edge, life had been an adventure. Sometimes wonderful, sometimes frightening, sometimes potentially deadly. If I’d learned anything since moving here, it was that this journey could end at any time.
‘Miss Smith,’ said Dylan, continuing with his eloquent proposal. ‘What I’m trying to ask is will you, well … look, I’ve already thought through all of the reasons you could say no, and I’ve written out a list of counter arguments – the biggest of which is that I only narrowly avoided being an evil, Greg-murdering super-vamp. So …’ He fished about in his other pocket, pulling out a piece of paper and handing it to me.
‘Dylan!’ I cried exasperatedly, screwing up the paper and throwing it on the bar. ‘I don’t have any reasons to say no, you ninny. I mean, for criminy’s sake, life’s too short for should’ve dones or might’ve beens, isn’t it? So will you just ask me already?’
He swallowed, and held the ring box towards me. ‘Okay then,’ he said, gazing levelly at me and taking a very deep breath. ‘Miss Smith, will you marry me?’
I took the box from his hands, pulled out the ring, and slid it onto my finger. I did say, ‘Yes, Detective Quinn, I’ll marry you,’ but by that point in the conversation, my words were drowned out by the whoops and yells of my family and friends.
I wasn’t surprised to find that they shared so deeply in my joy. After all, every single one of us had just been through the deadliest battle of our lives. It was time for a happier adventure to begin.
≈
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A Little Bit Vampy Page 16