Mom nodded in approval.
"Now, now. That's no way to show your gratitude to such
a generous benefactor," Mr. Smith tutted. "You should have come out
to pick up your father earlier, Maggie MacKay. You could have prevented me
from involving your mother and your sister. But now that you're all here, why
don't you come down so that I can get to know all of you better?”
I hollered back through the empty windowpane, “We’re just
going to hang out here until you’re done with things, if that’s okay with you.”
“Is the all powerful MacKay family reduced to hiding in
abandoned buildings?” he asked. He then started laughing and did not sound at
all like the wheezy old man who has been asking for tea just a couple days ago.
“You’re supposed to be dead!” I reminded him.
Mr. Smith put his finger to his lips, “Oh dear, I’m afraid
that I forgot. It threw you quite off the track, didn't it?”
I looked at Mr. Smith and he smiled, sporting a pair of
fangs I hadn’t noticed before.
“I thought you were fighting
against
the vampires!”
I shouted.
“What a naïve child you are, Maggie-girl,” he laughed.
“Hey, only my dad gets to call me that!”
“And what are you going to do about it?”
“Absolutely nothing,” I stated.
“Because you know you have no more hope of standing against
me than an ant beneath my shoe?”
“No, because I have much better reasons for killing you.”
“Name one.”
“Um… how about that you’re a vampire!??”
Mr. Smith held out his arms to his army, as if about to
bust with pride, “We truly are the superior species aren't we, pitiful human.”
"Suck it, Mr. Smith."
"Oh, that is my intention."
“So how long has this been going on, because it seems like just
this morning you were walking through daylight to get blood all over our office?”
I asked.
“Didn’t you know?" he laughed, delighted that I hadn’t
figured it out, "I’m your landlord, Maggie. Coming to see you was merely
a matter of walking up a few flights of stairs. Ironic isn't it that not only
did your father run around the two worlds finding objects I could never touch,
foolishly believing he was weakening the vampires' hold on Earth, all the money
I paid him to do it came directly back to me at the end of the month. Every
check you have written to cover your rent has gone to help me make my own clan
of vampires stronger.”
I turned to my Dad, “When is our lease up?”
“I’m afraid you will not live that long,” called Mr. Smith.
“Double-crossing bastard…” muttered my dad.
"It really is quite brilliant, isn't it? But don't
feel too bad that you did not see it coming. There are many more who are
proving just as easy to manipulate as you. And you helped, Maggie! You
slaughtered quite a few vampires in Vaclav's castle," he said as he
motioned to the master sucker, "So many of his faithful clan will continue
following him, no matter what I make him do. And those who have not forgiven
him will watch as he, under my gentle guidance, further implodes. They may
hide in the desert now, but soon they will flock to my side. They will watch
as he engages in the most despicable acts in vampire history, never knowing
that I pull the righteous strings of his humiliation. Perhaps I will even
marry him to a werewolf."
“Whatever!” I shouted back, “So you’re a political
mastermind with a good head for psychology. You and every member of Congress.
Tell me something I haven’t heard before.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know how I got this necklace?” asked
Mr. Smith, fingering the stinking glowing thing around his neck.
Oh man, I was going to walk right into it, but what the
hell. I said, “Sure. How did you get that necklace?”
Mr. Smith waved a hand and out walked that witch of a witch
the police had hired me to help. The one who had reported that her necklace,
the necklace of her ancestors, had been stolen by a genie. One Miss Veronica
Dubois.
“I’m afraid your tracking skills will no longer be needed
on this case, Maggie," said Mr. Smith.
“Has SHE always been a vampire, too?” I shouted back,
completely fed up with this entire conversation.
“Oh, no,” said Mr. Smith, brushing back her hair, “she is
still quite young. Only since I learned she had the necklace. Amazing what a
girl will do after a few drinks in a smoky bar. She was quite obliging to
invite me back to her place. To neck.”
“Ugh, that’s just gross.”
“The timing with the genie couldn’t have been better if I
had planned it.”
“Mr. Smith," I said, "since it seems you lost me
a job by stealing that necklace, why don’t you let us go? I have lots to do if
you expect to get rent this month!”
“I would love to do that for you, Maggie, but it appears both
you and your father are having car problems.”
He pointed his finger and four vampwolves leapt up. I
could hear the sound of crunching metal. Seems they were living out the dream
of actually catching a car and were treating our family’s vehicles like chew
toys.
“Okay, so maybe I don’t have that much to do anymore,” I corrected.
“Son of a bitch,” my dad muttered. “I just finished paying
that car off.”
“Hopefully our insurance covers monster attack.”
“I can’t remember if I upgraded our coverage.”
"I’m sure you could file this claim as an Act of a
God!” shouted Mr. Smith, “You have so many breakdowns, Maggie... I am grateful
that you were able to fix your tire in Calico and bring me that brass comb. I
never would have found that illegal portal on my own. Being able to cross my
armies over to Earth at will is well worth the price of that trinket."
My dad turned to me, "You used the San Onofre
portal?"
"I had to smuggle a car and an elf and myself AND a
magical comb," I grumbled. "What did YOU use when you transported
your illegal jade comb, Dad?"
"The San Onofre portal."
Mr. Smith was still yakking away down below. Dad and I
both stood there staring at his minions, noodling through what folks would
think if all these suckers showed up on the beach. They'd probably blame it on
a nuclear reactor leak. They should be so lucky.
"As soon as we get through this," Dad said,
"we shut the portal down."
"Deal."
The sound of my name dragged my attention back to Mr.
Smith, “You never finished the job for me, Maggie. You were supposed to track
down a quartz comb if I remember correctly.”
“Yah, I’ve got it right up here. With me!” I said. I
looked over at Dad and shrugged my shoulders. If Mr. Smith didn't know it was
mere feet from where he stood, I wasn't going to tell him.
“This is going to end one way, Maggie, and that’s with you
giving me that comb!”
"I have a different ending in mind. It involves my
family going home and us never seeing your ugly mug ever again. It might also
involve some pizza delivery."
Mr. Smith pointed at our building, his eyes glowing, “Burn
them. Burn them all. And when there is nothing left but embers and smoke,
retrieve the quartz comb from the ashes.”
The werepires hissed and flashed their fangs. One ripped
out a porch column and broke it over his knee to make torches as Mr. Smith
started stirring up the sky. The clouds flashed with electricity and the
thunder rumbled.
"Stay on the ground stay on the ground stay on the
ground," I muttered as I loaded up my gun, getting ready to start taking
pot shots at whoever gave me the first opportunity. I could not let those
vampires fly. If just one of them dropped fire on the roof of this dried out
tinderbox, it would be game over.
“Oh, he did not want to do that,” said my mom to no one in
particular.
“Anyone besides us going to stop him?” I asked as I aimed.
Mom pointed down at the street. As if with one mind, all
of the ghosts of the city turned and looked at us, their eyes focused on our
window. I gulped. It was like something out of my worst night terrors. And
then, in one blue breath, the entire population disappeared.
There was nothing but silence. Then, there was the
earthshaking crack of thunder as the lightning struck Mr. Smith's hands and
jumped to the wood the werepires held above their heads. It caught and the
werepires advanced, ready to set our not-at-all-secret hideout ablaze.
And that's when the ghosts reappeared, armed to the gills.
They formed a protective circle around Thomas's house and you could almost hear
them daring Mr. Smith's minions to cross the line.
One vampwolf apparently felt he could take 'em, and stalked
towards the spirits with a rippling growl. He pulled back his muzzle and
flashed his canines.
And that's when a strapping, young ghost stepped up and
punched him in the nose.
The dog went down with a yip.
Now, see, ghosts aren’t really that dangerous to humans or
werewolves. Or at least that was the story my parents have tried to tell me
since I was a wee little tyke. There is an exception to the rule for poltergeists,
who can move things around and can carry wicked looking farm instruments and
smack them threateningly in their invisible hands like a bunch of them were
doing right now.
But regular ghosts? Supposedly they are just shadows to the
living.
But they’re not harmless to the dead. You know. Because
they’re both dead. And unfortunately for the bad guys below, vampires fall
into that “dead” category.
And unfortunately for Mr. Smith, he had just turned his
pack of living werewolves into a horde of undead puppies.
Meaning my family just got ourselves an army that could do
some serious damage.
I could kick undead ass on this side, and the ghosts could
kick undead ass on the other. And together, we could buy Mr. Smith's gang a group
rate ticket to the Happy Hunted Grounds.
“Looks to me like perhaps this is what they call a golden
opportunity,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Everyone ready to go take
care of some business?”
Killian gave me a high five.
Chapter 25
We crept onto the wrap around balcony outside our window. The
sounds of battle bombarded us from all directions. The werepires and
vampwolves were getting their asses handed to them by the ghosts.
I, for one, welcomed our spectral partners.
Thomas had shown Mom where there were a couple of tarnished
candlesticks hidden beneath the floorboards and Mindy had found his silverware
collection. We snapped the candlesticks in two to give them an edge that could
probably do some damage, push come to shove. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take a whole
lot of pushing and shoving to get them through the sternum of the bad guys.
Dad was already pretty well armed. He's like me when he gets ready to leave in
the morning. Keys, dark glasses, extra gun... But I loaded him and mom up
with some backup weaponry, just in case.
I pointed at the car and Dad nodded his head. He took Mom
by the hand and they made their way to the edge. Dad crawled over the railing
of the balcony, bent down and gripped the eaves to lower himself to the ground.
He dropped the last few feet. He held up his arms and motioned for mom to do
the same. She gave him a look and whispered, “Is this a cheap ploy to look up
my muumuu?”
He gave her a wink.
I rolled my eyes and waved for Killian to follow me to the
other side of the balcony. The one that wasn’t hidden from Mr. Smith’s view.
I pulled myself over and dropped onto the ground. Killian
just jumped, landing on his cat-like elf feet in a perfect ninja crouch.
“Show off.”
“You made more noise than a giant marching through the dry
leaves of an autumn maple forest,” Killian said, looking out at the battle on
the street.
“Maybe for my birthday you can buy me some of those fancy
elf shoes and I wouldn’t have that problem.”
“Your shoes are not the problem.”
“Can we go kill some monsters or what?”
“After you.”
Mr. Smith was still up on his medicine show stage,
conducting his army like the head of the philharmonic. He looked like he had
already aged like, a hundred years or something, but he wasn’t getting weaker.
The necklace around his neck was glowing yellow. Mmm… warm sulfur… I bet it
smelled absolutely divine.
He was distracted enough by the ghost attack not to notice
us sneaking out of Thomas's pad. For a moment, I entertained the daydream that
we could just fire a bolt through his heart and be home in time for
Good
Morning Other Side.
That dream lasted about two seconds.
As I motioned to Killian to aim the crossbow at Mr. Smith,
the vampire turned towards us, his eyes opened wide. They were pupiless, just these
two glowing orbs of light. I was shocked they didn’t shoot lasers. He opened
his mouth and let out a furious howl.