Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire (13 page)

“Maybe she was anorexic,” I said.

Kayla bit her lip. “I don’t think so. At least she wasn’t a week ago. That girl could put down mad ice cream.”

“Bulimic?” I guessed.

“I think she was just too scared to eat,” Kayla said. “She told me it was going to happen. She warned me. She said, ‘The evil one is coming for me.’ She begged me to sleep in the bunk with her, but of course I didn’t.” She buried her face in her hands.

Helios glanced at me and asked quietly, “Did you know any of this?”

I shook my head. It was all news to me.

Kayal continued to moan, “I should have done what she asked, because this morning…” She looked up, horrified. “She was gone.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” I asked.

Kayla fought back tears. “I just met you and I wanted to be friends. I was afraid if I laid all of that on you, you would think I was insane and wouldn’t want to hang out. But when Sadie went missing, I didn’t know who else to call. You’re the only person who’s been nice to me in so long.”

“It’s okay.” I reached over the back of the seat and held her hand. “I’m going to help you.”

“Thank you.” She squeezed my fingers. “It’s been the same with the other girls who disappeared, Bethany and Rhonda. Every one of them got scared and skinny then they were gone but they left all their stuff behind.”

“That part doesn’t make any sense,” I said, half to myself and half to Helios.

“It’s after me now,” Kayla announced.

“What is?” I asked.

“It’s like I’m dreaming, or at least, at first I thought I was. I mean, what else could it be?” She looked lost as she tried to explain. “Whenever I fall asleep. Like today when I was reading on my bunk. It came into the room. I could feel it. Smell it. Hear it creeping. But I couldn’t
move. I couldn’t wake up. It was there, though. I know it. And I felt it. It climbed on top of me.”

I sucked in a deep breath and Helios shot me a worried look. Oh crap, I thought. Was there a perv on the loose? Was someone abusing the girls?

“It weighed a million pounds and just sat there, perched like a giant evil cat.” Kayla pressed her hands into her chest. Her eyes were wide and haunted. “And I could feel it, draining me. Taking something from me. Sucking the life out of me.”

I let a long, slow breath go. Maybe Helios was right. Maybe I didn’t know Kayla very well and she was a kook. Then again, that’s what I thought about the paras at first.

“Sounds like a Vrachnas,” Helios said under his breath.

“A what?” I asked.

“That’s what we call them in Greece, anyway. It’s a kind of demon who comes when people are sleeping.” He was very matter-of-fact and hardly bothered by what he was saying. “She sits on your chest and smothers you.”

My mouth dropped open. “Are you making this up?”

He looked at me like he was annoyed. “Why would I do that?”

I leaned in close to him and whispered, “You mean you believe this?”

He chuckled. “Oh right, sorry. Forgot. Human on board.” He turned to Kayla and gave her a sympathetic
smile. Then he spoke to her in a loud, slow voice as if she were a small child or a dotty foreigner. “It was probably just a common condition called sleep paralysis. It happens to some people when they’re under a lot of stress. You can’t breathe, you can’t move, you imagine or dream something is trying to kill you. It’s a part of REM sleep. I wouldn’t worry about it.” He glanced at me and winked like we were both pulling one over on the dumb humans to keep them from flipping out.

“No,” Kayla said. She looked up with those haunted eyes. “It was real. That’s how it started with Rhonda and Sadie. They thought they dreamed it. Then they got weaker and weaker every time they went to sleep until they were gone. And I was next.”

All right,
I thought to myself.
You’ve got your vampires. You’ve got your werewolves. You’ve got your faeries and Greek gods. So why wouldn’t there be soul-sucking demons running a shelter for runaway girls? And how unjust would that be?
At that moment, I didn’t know what to think but I decided that I believed Kayla and that I had to help her no matter how scary the whole thing might be. “What are we going to do?” I asked Helios.

“We?” he said.

“Yes!” I said, and it hit me. “We! The paras. We have to help the girls. Let’s go to Buffy’s and find the others.”

Helios looked over his shoulder. “She can’t go to Buffy’s,” he whispered.

“You guys took me there,” I said.

“Yeah, but you’re a…you know.”

“Right.” I sat back and tried to think of another plan.

“Then again,” he said with a shrug, “southwestern cheddar poppers sound pretty good right now.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said.

He leaned in close and whispered, “Anyway if she sees or hears anything she shouldn’t, Tarren can just zap her.”

Avis and Tarren pushed me into a corner of Buffy’s and let it rip.

“Are you out of your frickin’ frackin’ freakin’ skull?” Tarren was up in my face, almost spitting. “What the hell were you thinking bringing a human here?”

“And where did you find her?” Avis asked, his head bobbing and arms flapping. “What if she tells other people? Do you know how much danger you’re putting us all in?”

“First off,” I said, pressing my hands against their shoulders to back them up a little. “There are other non-paras here.” I pointed to the love zombies huddled around a table like junkies over a trash can fire. “And secondly, Kayla needs our help.” I looked over at our table where Helios chowed on a big basket of cheddar poppers and chicken wings while Johann loomed over Kayla, salivating. “Oh crap,” I muttered. “That’s not good.”

Tarren glanced over at them then rolled her eyes. “What did you expect? You brought him fresh meat. Muman heat, I mean, human meat! Blonde female human meat, you idiot.”

“Something about that girl’s got him all revved up,” Avis said.

Tarren turned back to me and balled up her fist. “I should hex you into…”

“Just wait!” I pleaded.

Helios sauntered over gnawing on a half-eaten Buffalo wing. “I’ve never seen Johann this bad over a chick before.” Then he gave a little half-amused snort.

Tarren exploded. “You think this is funny?”

Helios shrugged. “Yeah, kind of. He’s talking like some Gothic romance dude about fate and destiny and lost love and how she smells just like Wiener schnitzel and sauerkraut and how he wants to take her dancing in East Berlin. He’s totally into her.”

“Seriously?” Tarren said, hands on hips as if she was slightly offended by the idea of Kayla getting this much male attention. “I’ve seen mannequins with more personality than that girl.”

“She’s not usually like that,” I said. “Something happened to her at HAG. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

We all looked over in time to see Johann run his fingers through Kayla’s long blonde hair. He almost trembled as the strands fell behind her shoulder. Then he trailed his finger down the side of her pale neck where a faint blue vein pulsed. “Oh crap!” Avis said and we all ran for the table.

I climbed over the back of the booth and pushed my way between Johann and Kayla, which wasn’t easy because Johann wouldn’t budge, but Kayla crumpled
to the side like a Victorian woman on a fainting couch. “What the frig!” I said to Johann. “Back off.”

His eyes were black disks. “This is too much. You bring this exquisite flower here and expect me not to pluck her?”

“Nobody’s plucking anybody, Johann!” I smacked his shoulder, which was hard as marble. “Ouch!” I shook the pain out of my fingers. “What’s going on with you?”

Kayla pushed herself up, her large eyes looming through the blonde locks that had fallen across her face.

“I cannot help myself,” he announced, his hands pressed over his long-dead heart.

“Oh, for the love of Jenny Greenteeth,” Tarren muttered. She stomped over, flicked her fingers at Kayla, and commanded, “Sleep!” Kayla immediately slumped with her eyes closed. Then Tarren turned to me. “Look, Josie, you’re obviously a really nice person and you have some kind of helping complex, but this isn’t
Scooby-Doo
and we aren’t crighting fime.” She looked side to side, trying to figure out what she’d just said. “I mean, fighting crime. You don’t know this girl and if she’s a runaway, she’s not the kind of person we want to get mixed up with. People like that…”

“People like what?” I huffed. “You don’t even know her!”

“I’ve known her for eternity,” Johann declared. “I’ve only been waiting to meet her all of my life.”

“Johann, put a sock in it!” I told him.

“Tarren’s right,” Avis said. “She’s obviously not in the most stable situation and…”

“I can’t believe this is coming out of your mouths! You of all people,” I said.

Tarren reared back. “Why?”

“You know what it feels like to be different. To be in a situation that you can’t control. To not get along with your family. To be in a place where there are all these rules that you have to follow that don’t make sense. Kayla and the other girls at HAG are no different than that. Except they don’t have any power and they need help!”

“Join the freakin’ club,” Tarren snapped.

“There’s a Vrachnas there,” Helios said. He dropped yet another chicken bone into the basket. Johann, Avis, and Tarren stared at him. “You know, sleep demon, wraith, Mora. Some creepy lady demon sucking the souls out of the girls when they sleep. You guys have those?”

“Succubus,” Tarren said quietly.

“You go suck a bus,” I said to Tarren. “Whatever that means. This is serious business.”

“No, you moron, it’s called a succubus by the faeries. And an incubus if it’s a guy,” Tarren said. “But usually they want to, you know, get it on. Maybe this one goes both ways?”

“Witch-riding,” said Avis. “That’s what folks down south call it.”

“Meine schoene damen!”
Johann roared. “I will defeat any who try to harm her!” The love zombies jumped at the sound of his voice and began muttering to themselves, but we ignored his histrionics.

“You think that’s what happening at HAG?” Tarren asked Helios.

“That’s what she described,” he said.

For just a moment, I thought Tarren was going to soften. Something about her face relaxing into a half-second of pity. She caught me staring at her and said, “Big freakin’ whoop-de-doo. It ain’t my problem.”

“It should be!” I almost shouted. “Isn’t that what everyone’s most afraid of? Isn’t that why there are all these stupid rules put on you? Because a para could go rogue and hurt humans?” I felt the old Josie rearing up. The one who liked to fight the good fight. And get other people excited about it, too. Only this time I didn’t try to squash it. I let Old Josie and New Josie meld. “Only paras like you guys, the good ones, have to suffer under all of this BS because a few bad ones, like that crazy woman who runs HAG, ruins it for everyone. You could rectify that.” I stood up and slammed my hands on the table. “You could be the ones who show that paras and humans can help each other and live in peace. This is your chance to prove you aren’t monsters!”

“Who you calling a monster?” Avis wanted to know.

Tarren rolled her eyes at me. “Settle down, already. Don’t get your pom-poms in a twist.”

“Ugh.” I fell back into the seat and glared up at Tarren. “Okay, how about this—you’d get to kick somebody’s butt and you wouldn’t even get in trouble.”

Tarren whipped around and glared at me as if she wanted to turn me into an ashtray. “First off, werepire-girl,
there’s scarier stuff in the world than some random ghoul nibbling on a few runaways and secondly, you have no idea what we’re up against with the Council. They could be in on it for all you know.”

“No way,” I said, but the idea sent a chill through me. I didn’t know enough about this Council and from the way everyone talked about them, they scared me.

“Shhh,” Avis hissed at her. He craned his neck to look around the room. Then he tugged her into the seat next to him. “Tare, baby, you have to be careful. They could have spies in here.”

“Oh come on!” I said, but I looked over my shoulder. “Spies?”

“Josie,” Helios said, “somehow your parents have protected you from the Council. Probably because you have no power, so they figured why bother, but the rest of us have to be careful. We’re already on probation. The stakes are high.”

“But, you guys!” I leaned in and looked around my circle of friends. “If we exposed a nefarious demon, like Maron or Atonia or whoever is hurting those girls, then wouldn’t the Council be grateful? Maybe they’d even release you early from anger management.” They looked at each other, weighing my words and I was pretty sure I’d convinced them. The old Josie charm still worked, apparently. Not bad for a werepire. “So?” I asked. “Are you in?”

Tarren snorted. “Not a chance!”

“Avis?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Josie, I love ya, but no can do. I don’t want to be the only black guy in Saskatchewan.”

“Helios?”

He shrugged and pointed to the snoozing Kayla. “I already did my part.”

I looked at Johann. “Obviously you’re going to help me.”

He shrank in the booth and hunched his shoulders, “Well,” he said in his mealy-mouthed whiny way. “I’ve got a lot going on right now and it’s very hot outside and…”

“What is this? Diary of a Wimpy Vampire?”

He shrugged.

I tossed up my hands. “Oh forget it! I’ll just do it myself.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tarren said, which made Avis snicker.

“Can one of you at least take Kayla for the night?” I asked, slumping in my seat defeated. “She can’t go back to HAG.”

“You got her out, you take her,” Tarren said.

“I would, but my parents will call the ‘appropriate authorities’”—I did finger quotes—“and the whole thing will be botched.”

“Obviously she can’t come with me or Avis,” Helios said.

Johann watched her like a lion licking its chops over a lamb. He opened his mouth to speak but I shut him down before the words were out. “No way,” I said.

“Nice try, bat-boy,” said Avis.

That left Tarren. I stared at her. She crossed her arms and stared back at me. I thought of all the people who were scattered around her porch and in her yard. “Don’t do it, Josie,” she warned.