Almost Final Curtain (19 page)

Holding my breath, I listened.

“But we don’t know what would happen. It’s dangerous to assume in this case. What if we unleash something we can’t control?” It was my mother’s haughty Witch Queen tone; I’d recognize it anywhere.

“We can’t do nothing. We’ve been doing nothing for generations and the vampire problem hasn’t solved itself.” This was a man’s voice, thick with an Eastern European accent. He sounded tired, like they’d had this argument a dozen times already.

It was hard to distinguish the words over the chatter of birds and nearby traffic sounds, so I closed my eyes and concentrated.

“Let’s be honest—their very existence is our fault. Every death from the hunt is our responsibility. We should take them back under our control. Then we can decide what’s to be done.” I had no idea who said this. It sounded like a woman, but it wasn’t Mom.

“You make it sound like that’s an easy option.” Mom sighed.

“It could be,” the woman said, “if you would just agree with the rest of us.”

“Hush,” the man said suddenly. “There’s a vampire near. I can sense it.”

When I opened my eyes in surprise at his words, I realized my mistake. Everything had the sharp focus I’d come to associate with my heightened senses. In my desperation to overhear, I must have gone a bit vampy.

Crap!

I pressed myself against the wall, but my sharp ears detected the sound of footfalls on the stairs. Someone was coming down! Running would expose me, I was sure. Frantically, I looked around for a place to hide.

The door creaked open. In a minute, I’d be discovered.

When a raindrop hit my head, I knew what to do. Surrendering completely to my inner vampire, I climbed the ropy stems toward the roof. That strange ability that made the forest glow with an inner light guided my hands and feet to sections that could support my weight. By the time the door clicked back on its hinges, I’d hauled myself onto the roof.

Unfortunately, thanks to the slant of the roof, I was still exposed. I clambered quickly across the shingles to crouch behind the chimney. Then I felt it, a spike of magic that sizzled across my skin like lightning, making the hairs on my arms stand up.

An energy blade!

The man circling the carriage house searching for me must be Nikolai’s dad, the vampire hunter.

“Check the roof,” he said. “They tend to go up.”

“There he is!” Mom shouted, and I ducked, half expecting to feel the pierce of a psychic missile through my shoulder blades. “At the end of the alley.”

Carefully, I peeped around the chimney. Sure enough, there, near the sidewalk, was the red-haired vampire who’d stalked me from school. Mom and the other woman started toward him. Nikolai’s dad lagged behind, and without warning he turned back to look me directly in the eye.

I cringed and quickly huddled behind the chimney. Had he recognized me? Nikolai had never brought me back to “meet the parents,” and since Nik’s dad wasn’t a witch, I never saw him at the coven gatherings. I wouldn’t have recognized him at all if it weren’t for the familiar sensation of the blade.

The worst part was there wasn’t really anyplace for me to go. The closest thing I could jump to was a power line, and though my vampire form seemed light and swift, I didn’t think I could zip along it like a squirrel. I might make the neighbor’s garage roof if I took a run at it, but I didn’t have the same experience Elias did at midair acrobatics. Then his words came back to me:

Could I really?

I guess I’d have to try. From the shouts, it sounded like one of the women was hot on the heels of my unlucky stalker. Where was Nikolai’s father? I stood up to see. He’d made only a perfunctory step in the direction of the other vampire and, instead, was watching me. When our gazes met, he motioned for me to come down with a crook of his finger.

Though there was something similar about the shape of his eyes, I could see very little resemblance between Nik and his father. His dad’s frame was stocky and square. A shock of blond brush stood up on the top of his head. In his hand, I could see the glimmer of a long, curved ghost blade.

He pointed downward again.

Like I was just going to surrender myself? What a cocky bastard!

I’d show him.

Pivoting on my heels, I took off at a run for the edge. I’d forgotten about the rain, however, and my Converses began to slip. Soon, I was hurtling uncontrollably down the slope.

I had all the momentum, but none of the trajectory. It probably didn’t help matters that I flapped my arms uselessly and squawked like a chicken when I found myself airborne. I hit the other roof just long enough to know that under other circumstances I might have made it. My fingers frantically pawed for purchase, feeling the drainpipe slip from my grasp.

Then I fell.

The only good thing about my misaimed jump was that my bounce off the roof sent me careening into the neighbor’s buckthorn hedges and not flat, splat, on the pavement. Though the snapping branches scraped and clawed my skin, they also slowed my descent. Even so, the impact knocked all the air from my lungs.

Stunned and feeling half dead, I lay in a flattened tulip bed, waiting for Mr. Kirov to come and finish the job.

I heard my mother’s voice: “Was there another one, Ivan?” When she said his name, it sounded more like “Evan.”

“I thought so, but a vampire would have made that jump. It was just an Igor. It landed over there somewhere.”

“Shouldn’t we make sure he’s all right?”

“If it’s still alive, the vampires will take care of it,” he said, and then added ominously, “One way or another.”

Wow, he was
cold
. Yet, I had to bite my tongue to fight the urge to croak out an inappropriate Monty Python reference, “Hello? Not dead yet!” Instead, I decided my best defense was just to lie perfectly still. As it happened, that was about all my body could manage.

“I told you they know something about all this,” Mom said.

“And I told you my opinion.”

“Yes, well, your plan seems to boil down to ‘kill them, kill them all,’ Ivan. That hasn’t worked out very well so far.”

“It would with the talisman.”

I’d been ready to snicker at Mom’s evil-overlord rant, but Mr. Kirov’s words froze my throat dry. Was that how they planned to deal with their “vampire problem”? Bind everyone’s will and then slaughter every last one?

That was too horrible. No way would my mom go for that. Right, Mom? Mom?

But she had no reply.

T
he mud under the crushed tulips had seeped into my jeans by the time I felt ready to move. My entire body ached, though I didn’t think I’d broken anything beyond my shattered pride and about a zillion stems of our neighbor’s prized flowers. “A vampire would have made that jump,” I repeated in Mr. Kirov’s snotty tone.

And they never even came to check on me!

Seriously, what kind of soulless monsters left a kid for dead—or vampire food? Apparently my mom and her cronies, that’s who, because they went back to their League of Evil conference in the carriage house without a backward glance. I pulled myself upright with some effort. My knees wobbled and my back felt like a huge mass of bruises. With scraped fingers, I picked branch bits and tulip shreds from my hair.

I had to find Elias.

This was too important to wait for him to wander by and happen to notice socks sticking out of my window. I had to go underground.

Though my mom and her pals clearly couldn’t have cared less about whether I lived, I took care to walk around the far side of the neighbor’s garage so as not to be easily spotted. Mr. Kirov might change his mind about letting me live if he knew I planned to report back to the vampire prince. I did not want to deal with Nikolai’s dad again. I was so mad at him, I might bite him. Making things up with Nik would be really hard if I sucked his dad’s blood. Even if he totally deserved it.

I limped down the alley, and when I reached the sidewalk, I wondered what became of my luckless red-haired stalker. Had Mom chased him off with magic? Did he get away?

I’d have to worry about him later. My biggest problem right now was figuring out the best way to get to the vampire underground. Once, Elias had taken me down a manhole. From there we’d walked along an abandoned railroad tunnel to some natural cave formation and the remains of an underground river. There was no way I could navigate through all that again.

However, I remembered that the rail tunnel eventually opened up in the train yard in Lowertown. Maybe I
could
find my way back there.

I headed to the nearest bus stop that would take me into downtown. Underneath the T sign was a concrete bench. Even though the wooden-slat seat was dotted with moisture, I sank down onto it gratefully. As I waited for the bus, I made an inventory of my injuries. Scraped knee, check. Banged elbow, check. Sore ribs. Scratched arms and fingers. Aching back. Check, check, check, and check.

I was inspecting individual cuts when the bus pulled to a stop in front of me, warm air escaping from the door as it swished open. After digging the fare from my pocket and dropping it in the slot, I took the first seat available. Hardly anyone was riding on a Saturday evening. There was a black woman in nursing scrubs reading a paperback novel next to the window, and an old white guy with Gandalf eyebrows and a shapeless green parka in the back.

It was a short, progressively downhill ride. St. Paul was built along a river valley, and nowhere was it more evident than as you traveled
down
town. The angle of the descent could be seen in the slant of the skyscrapers’ foundations. Skyway pedestrian walks connected one building’s second floor to the next’s third.

I got off near the Radisson Hotel on Kellogg. Pointing my nose toward Lowertown, I continued along the sidewalk, my knees feeling the sharp decline in every step. What little nightlife St. Paul had to offer was here in the insular, hidden depths of the city. The open door of a windowless bar let out the smell of stale beer and the jangle of blues piano.

Continuing downward, I passed modern, cavernous parking garages and stately office buildings with faded advertisements etched in century-old brick.

The street made a curve that angled sharply downward. I followed it under a road that seemed private—or forbidden. A barge blew its foghorn out on the Mississippi, just beyond the bright lights of the Wabasha Bridge. Seagulls wheeled overhead.

Highly industrial buildings gave way to patches of tall grass and garbage. The river’s fishy smell competed with the city’s diesel scent of urine and homelessness. The traffic noise hushed to a distant whisper. A boxcar, sprayed garish with graffiti, sat alone on a nearby track.

I’d found the train yard, at least.

Shoving my hands in my jeans pockets, I looked both ways down the tracks. I thought maybe I’d emerged near the river, which made sense given the cliffs there. So I turned in that direction. Though the sun had never come out from under the heavy cloud cover, the sky grew darker.

Above, the windows of office buildings glowed faintly in strange square patterns. Pop cans and discarded fast-food cups lay tangled in the tall grasses and wild purple and yellow clover that grew along the tracks. I kicked one of the cans. It made a hollow noise as it skittered across the cracked and crumbling pavement.

Next time I had any money, I was going to buy Elias a cheap cell phone.

After a couple more blocks, I saw the tunnel. It was just as I remembered it. Gang graffiti spattered every surface, even bleeding into the sandstone. The stench of piss was strong enough here that I rubbed my nose. At least no one seemed to be hanging around. I jumped onto the tracks and walked along the ties, stumbling on gravel until I found the right gait to hit wood every time.

The entrance was blocked by boards and chain-link fencing. But there was an area that had been dug by many hands that was just large enough for someone slender to wriggle under. Trying not to think about the additional stains I was getting on my jeans, I pushed myself under. My shirt snagged a bit on the rough underside of the fence, but I managed to pull free without tearing anything—much.

Inside, the cave smelled dank. Broken whiskey bottles and crushed beer cans lined the walls, almost like temple offerings. The ceiling was high, but it took only a few steps before the outside light vanished completely. I was surrounded by dark.

Man, I hoped like hell this was the right place.

Since I’d forgotten a flashlight, I was going to have to get a little vampy in order to see. That seemed like a good idea, regardless. The tunnel kind of screamed “serial-killer hangout” and I could use a boost of strength and speed to my advantage if I ran into anyone.

I rubbed my sore elbow, and Mr. Kirov’s snotty assessment of my skills came back to me. Could I help it if I was only half vampire? And maybe jumping rooftops was like any sport—I sucked at it, and, you know, maybe I’d get better with practice.

My fangs dropped, and the tunnel came more clearly into focus. Though with the absence of living things, vamp vision didn’t help all that much. In fact, it seemed only to heighten the creepy factor of the place. The moist cold sank deeper into my skin, and my sense of smell sharpened. Now, too, the black maw of the cave seemed that much deeper, and I could discern all the evidence of human traffic—a single shoe, cigarette butts, and crumpled food wrappers strewn along the rails.

Great. I was beginning to think that being half vamp came only with all the disadvantages and none of the cool.

But without it, I surely would have walked right past the narrow fissure in the wall. I smelled the water first, and the warm, animal scent of a bunch of sleeping bats. Squeezing through the crack, I heard the soft trickle of a brook. The walls narrowed and lost their man-made smoothness. Above, I could see the bits of rubble the city had used to fill in the river canyon when they decided to pave over the top of it. I ducked nervously as I picked my way along, though the ceiling had stood for at least a century.