Otis had mentioned the idea that Tomas might want to move into his house permanently—it was, after all, Tomas’s home—but Vlad’s dad wasn’t comfortable with the changes that Otis had made. He needed time to adjust, time to mourn Mellina, time to ready himself. So Tomas was staying with Nelly for now.
Vlad understood completely.
Henry walked through the gate and up the front steps, and moved into the house, shouting, “Hey, Mr. Tod! You home?”
Vlad stepped inside, now grinning at the surprised, befuddled expression on his father’s face. “Henry McMillan?”
Tomas looked from Henry to Vlad and back, his own lips curling into a smile that barely mimicked theirs. “It’s been years. How are you, Henry?”
“Starving. But I know there are cookies around here somewhere. Nelly bakes like a fiend and is a sucker for every big-eyed girl scout in town. So cough up the goods.”
Tomas chuckled and Vlad followed suit. His dad pointed to the freezer. “Thin Mints are up there. They’re better frozen.”
Ten minutes later, as they were munching on chocolate cookies and catching up on current events, Henry shoved three cookies into his mouth and said, “Y’know what would go great with these? Carnage. Is your Xbox 360 still hooked up?”
Vlad nodded toward the living room, his mouth too full of sugary sweetness to speak.
Henry grabbed the box and led the way. “C’mon, Mr. Tod. You can be the red android.”
“I ... don’t play video games, Henry.” Both boys snapped their eyes to Tomas, who looked admittedly ashamed. “That is, I ... I never have. Played them. Before.”
Vlad shook his head in a chastising manner. “Well, that’s something we have to correct immediately. Wouldn’t you say, Dr. McMillan?”
Henry folded his hands in front of him, straightening his shoulders and rocking back and forth on his feet. “Yes, Dr. Tod. I’d say the patient is suffering from lack of exposure to kick-butt graphics and gore galore. What do you prescribe?”
Vlad nodded knowingly. “Immediate and intense
Race to Armageddon
activity. It’s the only cure.”
Henry raised an eyebrow, a smirk on his lips. “Stat?”
Vlad grinned. “Stat!”
Dragging Tomas into the living room—Henry pulling from the front and Vlad pushing from the back—they ignored his pleas and sat him on the couch. Vlad dropped a controller into his hand and gave him the best advice he could. “Don’t die.”
Three hours later, Tomas had died more than Vlad ever had during an afternoon of play.
Henry shook his head, chuckling. “No offense, sir, but you suck even worse than Vlad does at this game.”
Tomas laughed, warm and real. The sound of it warmed Vlad’s heart.
Vlad emptied the glass of O positive he’d been sipping from and his stomach rumbled its protest. It wanted more, and refused to be satisfied.
Especially with bagged blood.
His dad smiled at him, a curious gleam in his eye. “You look thin, Vlad. Are you getting all the nutrients you need?”
Vlad nodded, but he wasn’t honestly certain he was telling the truth. After all, what did he know about the differences between nutrients in bagged blood versus fresh? “Yeah. I think so.”
Tomas leaned closer, and in a bemused tone, said, “But are you getting all that you’d like?”
Suddenly, Vlad’s stomach rumbled with need. Before Vlad could answer his dad, Henry glanced at the clock and muttered, “Oh crap, I’m late. Mom will kill me.”
“Late for what?”
“You don’t want to know. Let’s just say it involves ten neighborhood women, tea, quilting, and me being charming and fetching cookies.” Henry shuddered visibly. “Otherwise known as the worst night of hell a guy my age could possibly experience. ”
“And I thought Nelly was bad.” Vlad chuckled. “See ya, man. ”
“See yea.”
Henry hesitated in the doorway for a moment before speaking. “Hey, Mr. Tod?”
“Please, Henry. Call me Tomas. We’re both men, and grown men refer to one another by first name.”
“Tomas.” Henry seemed to mull the name over on his tongue, getting comfortable with it. Then he broke into his trademark grin and on his way out the door, said, “I’m glad you’re not dead, dude.”
Tomas smiled, his eyes dancing with a bemused light. “As am I, Henry. As am I.”
Hours later, after dinner, and once his dad and Otis were well into a bottle of bloodwine and reminiscent tales of their youth, Vlad slipped out the door and down the street to the belfry. With barely a thought, he floated upward and stepped gingerly through the stone arch. He didn’t light any candles—he knew exactly what he was going to find and where it was. As he retrieved his journal from the small table next to his dad’s chair, Vlad smiled, pressing the book to his chest. He could hardly wait to share it with his dad, and hoped that Tomas would feel a stronger connection with him by reading what awaited him on the pages within.
With his journal in hand, he dropped from the belfry and headed back to Nelly’s as fast as he was able, despite the nagging reminder in his thoughts that he needed to find Tomas’s journal, and find it fast. Tomorrow, he told himself. He’d look for it some more tomorrow. Tonight belonged to the only semblance of normalcy Vlad’s life had ever really had.
A cool breeze floated through the air, brushing Vlad’s hair from his eyes as he made his way from the belfry back to Nelly’s house. He was feeling oddly light, strangely hopeful, as he navigated his way through the darkness. A brief flash of memory flitted through his thoughts like a hummingbird—Ignatius, his grandfather, the maker of both his dad and his uncle, had once attacked him on this stretch, and had almost killed him. He wondered if his dad would have killed Ignatius the way that Otis did, without regret. Something told him Tomas would have.
He rounded the corner then, thinking back briefly to Jasik, and how Jasik had stolen his blood. He wondered if the money had been worth the theft and all that would come to pass, but wagered it had not. The memory of the pain, the utter emptiness that had enveloped Vlad left a dark, shallow hole at the center of his being.
It was weird how the past kept sneaking up on him. Just when he thought he was over something, there it was again.
A shadowy figure sat on Nelly’s porch swing. Vlad froze with his foot on the bottom step.
The figure lifted its head, meeting Vlad’s eyes.
Vlad’s world came to a screeching halt, an utter stop.
He didn’t even breathe. The journal in his hand was completely forgotten.
Joss nodded, as if acknowledging the strangeness that was hanging in the air between them.
Vlad parted his lips to speak, but then realized that he had nothing to say. He wanted to apologize, but somehow it felt as if they were past that, as if it were too late for words. He wanted to ask if Joss was okay after how badly Vlad had beaten him, and where he’d gone to heal from his wounds, but he closed his mouth and pursed his lips instead. Because the truth of it all remained: they were even. Each had nearly taken the other’s life. They were in a dead heat in the race to kill one another. Once friends, they were now something completely different. They were vampire and Slayer. Mortal enemies.
Vlad braced himself for what he knew was coming, readying himself for a fight.
Joss shook his head. Apparently, he didn’t need telepathy to read Vlad’s thoughts. “I’m not here as a Slayer. I’m here as your friend. My last act as your friend, you might say.”
Vlad relaxed some, but only slightly. He had to be vigilant, to remain on guard. Slayers, after all, couldn’t be trusted. Otis had been right all along, something which pained Vlad terribly. He’d wanted to believe in their friendship, to believe that despite their differences, he and Joss were really friends. But what if he was wrong?
He met Joss’s gaze. “Is this about revenge? Because I won’t let you trick me again, Joss.”
He knew it couldn’t be so simple. Joss wanted what he’d wanted all along: blood. Strangely, the same thing that Vlad wanted, but in another way. For another reason. Just another one of the vast differences between them.
Joss shook his head in response. “This is about something else entirely. I’ve been trying to call you all summer, but ... my mom isn’t exactly keen on the idea of you and me talking”
Vlad swallowed hard, remembering her reaction to him the night he’d put Joss in the hospital. “So what do you want?”
Joss dropped his voice to a hushed tone, one that Vlad nearly had to strain to hear. It sounded like he’d been crying.
Joss. Who never cried.
“Peace, Vlad. I want peace. But no peace can exist between us. Not now” He shook his head again, this time as if to summon the strength that he would need to say whatever it was he’d come here to say. He looked at Vlad again, his eyes hidden by the night’s shadows. “I was originally sent to Bathory to locate and extinguish you. I was sent back to gather information and then kill you, Otis, and Vikas. After I failed on both counts, the Slayer Society convened and it was decided that they would cleanse Bathory.”
Vlad looked at him then, a question poised on his tongue. Something that in his head sounded like
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Joss sighed heavily, as if a huge weight were on his shoulders. “A cleansing removes all life within an area that does not belong to a Slayer.”
Vlad’s eyes grew huge. His heart picked up its rhythm in shock. “They plan to kill everyone?”
Joss nodded gravely. “That was the plan. But I struck a deal. To save everyone—even some vampires—I have to kill one vampire, Vlad. Just one. One specific vampire.”
The air left Vlad’s lungs in complete understanding.
Him. Joss had to kill him. In order to save everyone, Vlad had to die.
“They agree that if I take your life, everyone else will be allowed to continue living. But if I don’t . . .” Joss swallowed hard, as if the subject were a difficult one for him. “. . . or if I try to help people run and hide from the cleansing, they’ll hunt everyone down and kill them all, me included. I don’t care about that part, but Meredith, my mom, my dad, everyone . . .”
Vlad shook his head. It wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be possible. “Can they really do that?”
Joss nodded then, without hesitation. “It’s what they do, Vlad. Slayers are naturally skilled. Enough to take down vampires, and you know what skills vampires possess. Now imagine unsuspecting humans. It’s possible. Believe me.”
Vlad sank down until he was sitting on the porch step.
It had to be him. Him or everyone he’d ever loved.
His insides felt as if they’d been painted black.
There was a soft squeak as Joss left the porch swing and came to sit beside him on the steps. After a long, silent moment, Joss slipped his wooden stake from the leather holster on his hip and placed it between them.
Vlad could think of no better fitting metaphor.
When Joss spoke again, his voice was soft. Soft and strangely kind. “The thing is ... we both know that you’re stronger than I am, Vlad. We both know I can’t beat you. But I have to try. And the only way I can succeed ... the only way that everyone we care about can possibly survive this ... is if you let me.”
“Let you?” Vlad’s eyes snapped to those of his former friend. “You mean, let you kill me?”
Joss nodded slowly. “The Slayer Society is giving me until the end of the year. By December thirty-first, either you’ll be dead or the cleansing will begin.”
Vlad’s shoulders sank in defeat. No matter what Vlad did, it seemed, he was going to have a terrible New Year’s Eve.
Joss was leaving the decision up to him, and trusting he’d make the right choice. And there was no question what that choice was.
Joss’s voice was a whisper. “Just so you know, I’m working on a plan. There has to be some way we can stop the Society from doing this without killing you.”
“What’s your plan?”
Joss swallowed hard, his eyes straight ahead.
Vlad gauged him for several minutes before a horrified whisper escaped him. “You don’t have a plan. Do you, Joss?”
Joss shifted uncomfortably. “No. But I’ll come up with something.”
“We.” Vlad patted Joss on the back firmly holding his gaze. “We’ll come up with something.”
They sat there, silent, for a long time as Vlad took the enormity of his situation in, wrapping his head around it. Live and everyone would die. Die and everyone would live.
It seemed like such a simple choice.
But nothing is ever as simple as it seems.
13
SCHOOL SUCKS
V
LAD YAWNED so hard that his jaw ached slightly once he was finished. He hadn’t exactly been sleeping great since ... well, ever. But staying up late with Dad and Otis had proven ill-advised when it came to the first day of Vlad’s senior year. Vlad hadn’t even set foot on the grounds of Bathory High yet, and already, he was suffering from an acute case of Senioritis. How was he supposed to care about what grade he’d get in World History when everyone in the world was out to kill him? He was mulling over the ethical obligation of not skipping his first day when a familiar car pulled up.
Henry rolled down his window and grunted at Vlad to grab his backpack. Neither was looking forward to World History first thing in the morning, especially not after a summer of things that had kept them from hanging out very much. Vlad had been totally immersed in his search for his father, and then once he’d finally found him, he’d been all about making up for lost time. So, apart from teaching Tomas how to vanquish two-dimensional evil foes, time with Henry had fallen by the wayside. Movies went unseen, concerts went unattended, or at least these things weren’t done with his best friend. Vlad cast Henry a guilty glance. “So you never told me how
Return of Psycho Slasher Chainsaw Guy from Hell
was. Did you find someone to go with?”