Vlad took a deep breath. He was about to willingly break Elysian law If he were able to stop the Slayers then he might still be able to get out of execution if he played his cards right. They might actually give him a fair trial. After all, he hadn’t known about the law when he broke it before. If he broke the law now, he would condemn himself to death. That is, if he survived the day.
But he had to tell them. He had to tell the goths about who and what he was. Because he needed them. Now more than ever. And the only way for him to know they were on his side was if he was completely honest with them.
“What is it, Vlad?” October had moved closer to him, putting her hand on his shoulder in concern.
He took a deep breath. Then another one, this time deeper.
He was nervous.
Strike that. He was downright terrified.
“I’m ... a vampire.” He braced himself for the laughter and ridicule that was about to come. It would. After all, none of them really believed in vampires. And even if they did, that would make him a freak. A bigger freak than they’d thought he was before his admission.
October, Sprat, Andrew, and Kristoff exchanged glances, then looked at Vlad like they were still waiting for him to reveal his big secret.
October smiled. “Yeah ... we kinda know that already. Is there ... something else you wanna clue us in on?”
“You told us sophomore year, remember?” Sprat shrugged like it was no big deal.
Andrew merely nodded.
Kristoff said nothing.
Vlad blinked in utter confusion. “Wait ... you already know? How do you already know? It’s my deepest, darkest secret.”
October shrugged. “You told us a few years ago at The Crypt, remember?”
Vlad did remember. They had been playacting. Or so he’d thought. And for fun, because he knew they’d assume he was pretending, Vlad had told them his inner truth—that he was a vampire. Running a hand through his hair in confusion, Vlad blinked again. “But I thought you thought I was joking.”
She raised a sharp eyebrow at him. “Vlad, no offense, but look at you. If you’re not a vampire, you’re clearly the most anemic goth I’ve ever seen.”
Sprat nodded enthusiastically. He seemed to have a hard time standing in one spot. Vlad wagered it had something to do with his pixie stick obsession. “Yeah, you’re way pale. Plus, your fangs are cooler than Kristoff’s ... and he had his custom made.”
Kristoff’s face flushed red as he whipped around to glare at his hyper friend.
October gave Vlad’s shoulder a squeeze. “We believed you. Because that’s what friends do.”
“Big whoop. So you’re a real vampire, who cares.” Kristoff stormed off around the school, his shoulders slumped, the edges of his very being sizzling.
Vlad watched after him, somewhat taken aback. He and Kristoff had never really been what you’d call friends, but it still bugged him that Kristoff was acting so upset. “What’s his problem anyway?”
“He wants what you have, Vlad.” October peeked around the end of the school building and watched Kristoff walk away. “That’s why he never liked you.”
“Oh, I didn’t know. I mean ... wait a minute ...” Realizing what she was saying, that Kristoff had always been jealous of him for actually being a vampire, Vlad gaped openly “You mean, you all believed me back then? Every word I said about being a vampire? I thought it came off as a joke.”
“I’m sure that’s how you meant it, but c’mon, Vlad. If you can be honest with anyone, you know it’s us, right?” October smiled at him. “So, what do you need our help with?”
Vlad found himself smiling, even amidst all the chaos. “I need to find Joss.”
“Done.” Andrew led the way, and the rest of the goths followed. Sans Kristoff.
And Vlad was left knowing that his true friends didn’t care that he was such a freak after all.
37
TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS
T
HEY’D JUST REACHED EAT, when Vlad spied a familiar sight. Eddie Poe, vampire, chasing Kristoff down an alley. Kristoff, who looked absolutely terrified.
Just like in Vlad’s vision.
Vlad shouted to October, and then took off after them. He didn’t catch up until Eddie and Kristoff were crossing the football field. Vlad moved with vampiric speed, until he was standing right in front of Eddie Poe.
Eddie, who now had fangs.
Eddie, who had somehow gotten himself in too deep.
Vlad looked him over, his pale skin, his elongated fangs, and shook his head slowly, both in disappointment and disbelief. “How, Eddie? Exactly how did you become a vampire?”
Eddie clucked his tongue, shaking his head in bemusement and running the tip of his tongue over the points of his fangs. “Vlad, you know how. Why ask a question when you already know the answer?”
Terror filled Vlad’s insides. What was Eddie insinuating? That Vlad had turned him into a vampire and then somehow forgotten? That was insane ... wasn’t it?
“I mean ... how did you become a vampire without my help?”
“You’re not the only vampire on the planet, as you well know.” A sly grin spread across Eddie’s face. It was all Vlad could do to refrain from slapping it off of him. “After you refused to become my creator, I was furious. I was on my way to the post office, ready to ship off a package that would expose you and, eventually, the rest of Elysia.”
Elysia. Eddie knew all about Elysia now. Intimately. In a way that only vampires did.
This couldn’t be possible. It couldn’t be happening. Eddie was a vampire. A real, live, bloodthirsty vampire.
It was like a bad dream.
But it was real.
“But then I ran into Em.” A smile danced on Eddie’s lips, one that made Vlad cringe. Em. Of course. If anyone was maniacal and insane enough to think that making Eddie Poe into a vampire was a good idea, it was her. “She told me she admired my strengths and would give me the gift of eternity. All I’d have to do is rid the world of you when the time came.”
Vlad shook his head and spoke as if he were talking to a child. “Hasn’t Em told you about the prophecy, Eddie? I’m the Pravus. And the Pravus can’t be killed.”
“You can now. Ever since D’Ablo removed your invincibility a few years ago with that ritual.” Eddie’s tone was bitter. Each word that left his lips hit Vlad hard in the gut, like punches. Then Eddie smiled pleasantly, a cruel glint in his eyes. “I’m not stupid. You really shouldn’t underestimate me.”
Eddie knew. He knew everything. Em had made him into a vampire, armed him with knowledge, and set his sights on Vlad.
Eddie’s eyes grew disturbed as he looked over Vlad’s shoulder. “You also shouldn’t underestimate your Slayer friend.”
Vlad whipped around to find Joss approaching, his stake held firmly in one hand. A moment of doubt shadowed his thoughts, and he wondered if Joss was there to make another attempt on his life.
Then a familiar feeling swept over him. The feeling of being punched in the back. That same sensation he’d experienced his freshman year, when Joss had staked him.
Vlad looked down as he dropped to his knees. His world swirled before him, then sharpened once again.
Wood. There was wood sticking out of his chest. He’d been staked. For the second time.
Only this time ... it was by Eddie.
Shock took him over. His heart beat strongly, defiantly against the splintered wood of the crude instrument that Eddie had constructed.
Vlad wondered briefly if Eddie had created it in wood shop.
If so, he probably got points off for not sanding it smooth enough.
Vlad hoped so, anyway.
Joss’s eyes grew wide in horror as he rushed to Vlad’s aid. He dropped to his knees, his hand shaking over the end of the stake. “Vlad! Vlad, are you okay? What do I do? What do I do?!”
Vlad coughed, sending a small trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.
There was nothing Joss could do. Nothing at all.
And strangely, Vlad wasn’t scared. Just surprised. Surprised that it had been Eddie to stake him. Surprised that it hadn’t been Joss.
He also wasn’t in a whole lot of pain, which meant one of two things. Either he’d begun to go numb from shock, or something was different this time around.
And with every blood-drinking fiber of his being ... Vlad was betting on option B.
He reached up with a steady hand and grasped the tip of the stake between his fingers. With all his might, he pulled on the wood until it slipped painfully from his chest, leaving tiny splinters behind in his lungs, his heart.
There was no gush of blood, no dizzying pain.
It was easy.
Far easier than Vlad had ever imagined.
Once the stake was out, he stood, aware of a tickling sensation in his chest. Eddie and Joss were staring, dumbfounded, as the hole that Eddie’s stake had made, healed closed before their eyes.
It sounded a bit like spiders ... just like when his blood had healed the hole in D’Ablo a few years ago.
Vlad moved closer to Eddie and growled. “I told you I can’t die.”
Eddie’s eyes grew enormous in fright. He turned and ran as fast as his vampire legs could carry him. Vlad was amazed not to see a stream of urine trailing after him.
He thought about chasing after Eddie, about finishing him off and putting him out of his misery. But in the end, he let Eddie go.
After a moment, Joss placed a still-shaking hand on Vlad’s shoulder. “You did the right thing, letting him go like than.”
Vlad shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure it was the right thing to do.”
He ran his fingertips lightly over his chest, where the skin was now smooth through the hole in his shirt.
One thing was for sure. D’Ablo’s ritual hadn’t removed his invincibility after all.
38
FALLEN SNOW
V
LAD TURNED FROM JOSS when he spied a familiar sight. Snow, looking lovely and rather kick butt in her stompy military boots, moving down the steps of Bathory High, her eyes reflecting the determination in her soul. He hadn’t worried about her, not even once, during the war that had broken out all over Bathory. There was no need for him to worry about Snow. She knew how to take care of herself. She was strong.
But he was incredibly grateful to see that she was okay, that she hadn’t been harmed by a flying stake or a biting fang.
She had just used a pretty fierce roundhouse kick on a Slayer, disarming him like a pro. Vlad didn’t even know she could fight. But it was cool to watch.
Despite what was going on all around them, Vlad found himself smiling at the sight of her. And when her eyes found his, she smiled too—in that same impossible way. Impossible because thre was no reason for them to smile now. But just seeing one another was proving reason enough.
Suddenly, Snow’s eyes went wide, so wide that Vlad thought she might be in physical pain. She ran toward him, down the steps, and lurched forward. Vlad moved to catch her, but she knocked him to the side. Twisting his body around, he caught her as he fell and they tumbled down the steps in a heap.
It was almost comical.
That is ... until Vlad saw the blood.
Snow’s blood. Flowing from her chest.
A broad-shouldered Slayer with a long, thin scar drawing a line from his left eye to the corner of his mouth approached with a heavy step and ripped the stake from Snow’s chest. She cried out and Vlad covered the wound, his hands shaking in shock.
He knew that Slayer. That was the Slayer from the alley, one of the four who’d been posing as policemen, from earlier in the year after he’d put Joss in the hospital.
But more importantly ...
Snow had been staked. Snow had been horribly injured. The Slayer must have mistaken her gothic beauty for the traits of a vampire.
The Slayer eyed Vlad for a second, and then lifted his wooden weapon in the air.
Inside Vlad’s veins, he felt a surge of immense power. He locked eyes with his would-be killer and uttered a single command, not knowing if it would work. “Drop it.”
The stake hit the steps and clattered down several more steps until it was yards away. The Slayer’s lips shook in fear. “Your eyes . . .”
Vlad gripped Snow—too pale now—to his chest and screamed at the Slayer with every bit of his anger and hatred and overwhelming frustration. “DIE!”
The Slayer’s eyes bugged and his jaw went slack.
Vlad’s heart beat twice before the man fell to the ground, dead.
A deep, critical horror enveloped Vlad as he stared at the man’s corpse.
He’d just killed the Slayer with a word.
He took one breath, released it slowly. Then another.
This power. It was too much to wield. Too much for anyone to even taste.
Struggling with his emotions—which were filled with all kinds of self-loathing, even though he’d only said it because of what the man had done to Snow—he turned back to the matter at hand.
Blood bloomed from Snow’s wound. Vlad had never seen so much red.
He opened his mouth to scream, to shout for someone, anyone, to save her, help her.
But no one could hear him over the sounds of war.
Snow’s pulse grew weak. Her eyes began to flutter closed, but before they did, she parted bloodstained lips and whispered, “I saved you. I had ... a vision. You were killed ... in my dream. But then I saw the Slayer ... and I stopped him. I saved your.”
His world swirled around him, but he forced the vision to remain at bay. He didn’t want to know what the future would bring. Not now. Not when he was on the verge of losing Snow.
Tears poured from his eyes. He was losing her. He was losing the only girl who had ever really understood him, had ever really loved him, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Vlad bent down and brushed his lips against Snow’s forehead. His tears dripped onto her cheeks, and he whispered repeatedly, “hat can I do, Snow? I’ll do anything. Anything. What can I do to save you?”