Vampire Addiction (2 page)

Chapter Two: The Host Family

When she arrived at the station in Athens, she found a boy holding up a sign with her name written on it: Gertrude Morgan. She almost didn’t see the sign, because the boy holding it was so beautiful. He was flanked by another boy about his age—eighteen or nineteen, but shorter—and a girl, either the same age or younger.

The girl had studs in her nose and cheek and had spikey, short hair. All three wore summer shorts, flip flops, and t-shirts with graphics of what appeared to be bands. Gertie realized the outer two were related, both having the same brown hair and brown eyes and petite build. They looked nothing like the boy in the middle, who towered over them and was breathtaking, like a Greek god.

“Gertie?” the girl asked as Gertie came to a halt in front of them.

“That’s right.”

She was astonished when the girl nearly plowed her down with an embrace. “I’m Nikita! It’s so great to finally meet you!”

Nikita was the name of one of the members of her host family. She and Gertie had been texting and emailing the past two weeks about the trip—what to bring and what to expect. Surely this girl wasn’t one and the same.

“You’re Nikita?”

The girl frowned. “This is Hector, our friend. And that’s Klaus, my brother. I’m pretty sure I told you all about him. He’s been dying to meet you.”

“Okay, Nikita,” Klaus said. “You don’t have to make me sound so eager.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Gertie said, still a little shocked. They didn’t look like the private school kids back home.

“Our parents and little sister are waiting in the car,” Nikita said. “Can you boys help her with her bags?”

The two boys took her rolling suitcases—one apiece—and Nikita took one of her shoulder bags, and then they followed the boys through the station to the sidewalk outside. Gertie found herself studying the lines on the back of the taller boy named Hector.

When they reached the car, Gertie had another shock. It was a two-door coupe meant for four passengers, but there were already three inside.

They weren’t inside long. Just as Nikita had done, the man, woman, and child, all thin and petite and dark-haired like their other family members, climbed out and hugged her. The mother even kissed her on her cheek.

“We’re so glad to have you join our family,” the mother said, cupping Gertie’s face in her hands. “Look at you, Gertoula! You’re so beautiful, koreetsi mou!”

“It’s Gertie,” Gertie said.

“Of course, Gertoula! I mean Gertie.”

“Mamá  puts oula and itsa and aki on the end of everyone’s name. Even Babá’s!” Nikita explained. “She calls him Babáki mou!”

“Yes, Nikitsa, koreetsi mou!” her mother said, and turning to Gertie, said, “So you call me Mamá, too. Yes?”

“And I’m Babá,” the father said affectionately. Then he picked up his little girl, who seemed seven or eight years old, and said, “And this is Phoebe.”

“Mamá calls her Phoeboula, so don’t get confused,” Klaus said.

“Hello,” Gertie said to the girl.

The girl smiled, but said nothing. Then Gertie remembered what Nikita had said in her text about the fire three years ago. Their baby brother had died. Phoebe hadn’t spoken since.

Babá and the boys put her luggage in the trunk of the coupe before piling into the car. Phoebe sat in the front seat, without a seatbelt, and Nikita climbed on her brother’s lap.

“Should I call a cab?” Gertie asked.

“No, no!” Babá said, holding the door open for her. “There’s room for you.”

Hector climbed out. “Take my place. I need to head home anyway. I’ll take a cab or the bus.”

“No, Hector. I promised you baklava,” Mamá insisted.

“I’ll come by for some tomorrow,” Hector said. He waved goodbye and then raised his hand for a cab.

Gertie climbed in beside Klaus. Nikita shifted from her brother’s lap and squeezed between them. No one wore their seatbelts. Gertie wasn’t even sure the old coupe had them.

The car smelled like onions, mold, and sweat, but Gertie resisted pinching her nose as they drove through the streets of Athens from the bus station. Mamá and Babá spoke animatedly about their country, the American school, the ruins, and many other topics during the thirty minute ride. When they pulled up in front of a dilapidated apartment building, Gertie thought they were playing a joke on her.

It wasn’t a joke.

Babá and Klaus dragged the heavy suitcases up the three flights of steps to the apartment. Apparently, there were no elevators. When Mamá opened the door and flipped on the light, at least a dozen roaches scrambled for cover.

“Get them!” Babá called.

Nikita dropped Gertie’s bag and rushed in behind her brother, stomping like wine-makers in a vat of grapes. Phoebe joined them, enthusiastically, like it was a game.

“Good! Well done!” Babá said as they scooped up the dead bugs with their bare hands and threw them in the garbage can across the room.

Gertie was afraid to step inside.

“Come in! Come in!” Mamá said. “It’s not much, but it’s very comfortable. No? Let me take your coat. You won’t need that here but maybe a few days out of the year.”

Gertie kept her coat. “That’s all right. Thank you.”

The furniture was shabby, but tidy. The kitchen across the room was neat but very outdated. The lighting was poor, which Gertie thought was probably good.

“I’ll show you where to put your things,” Nikita said. “Let’s go.”

“And then come back here for my baklava, so Gertoula has a proper welcome,” Mamá said.

As they turned down a narrow hall, Nikita said, “That’s my brother’s room, and my parents have a room down the hall. There’s the bathroom, and here is my room, where you’ll be staying.”

Gertie’s face paled. A family of five shared a three-bedroom apartment? The living area and kitchen were tiny, so Gertie had hoped there were bedrooms to escape to. How did everyone fit?

“You can have Phoebe’s bed. She’ll sleep on a cot with Mamá and Babá while you’re here.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” Gertie managed to say.

“You must be joking!” Nikita said. “We’re all so happy to have you. It’s all Mamá and Babá have been talking about. It’s been the American girl this and the American girl that for two weeks!”

“I don’t understand why they are so happy to have me,” Gertie said.

Nikita shrugged. “They are very proud of our country and relish the opportunity to show it off to a young, impressionable American. In other words, they have plans for you every day between now and the start of school. Tomorrow, we go to Crete, Babá’s favorite island.”

Gertie took in a deep breath. A tiny apartment filled with people and daily activities galore. She wondered when and how she would have time to be alone to read and relax.

She wanted to call her parents and tell them she was sick.

“I’m not feeling well,” she said to Nikita. “Can I go straight to bed?”

Nikita’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. You just arrived! Mamá and Babá and Klaus and Phoebe—they will all be so disappointed. They’ve been anxious. I’m sure Mamá has some medicine to make you feel better. Come with me.”

Gertie hesitated, so Nikita waited for her in the doorway as Gertie looked around the small bedroom, with its plain white walls and short metal beds. Two scratched-up wooden chests of drawers took up all the wall space between the beds, and there was no on-suite bath—just a small closet without a door, stuffed to the gills with clothes and books.

Gertie stepped closer to the books. “You like to read?”

“Oh, yes. Klaus and I both read voraciously. This is only a small part of our collection. We have many more books downstairs in the basement.”

“There’s a basement?” Gertie wondered if that might be her getaway.

“It’s not very pleasant, but yes. I’ll show you tomorrow. Right now, Mamá wants us to eat her dessert.”

Chapter Three: The Basement

Gertie had hoped to sleep in, but the walls were thin and the rooms too close to keep the apartment quiet much later than nine o’clock, so she crawled out of bed and asked to use the shower. Because the shower in the main bathroom didn’t work, Gertie was forced to use the one in Mamá and Babá’s room. Nikita warned her, however, that the toilet in that bathroom was broken, so she should use the one in the hall. So between the two bathrooms there was only one working shower and one working toilet, but plenty of roaches.

“When do we leave for Crete?” Gertie asked Nikita once she had finished dressing and had put on her shoes.

“Not until tonight.” Nikita plopped on the rickety bed across from Gertie’s. “Want some breakfast?”

“No, thank you. Why tonight?”

“Well, mainly because Babá works all day, but also because it’s better to take the ferry while you’re sleeping, so you don’t waste time.”

Great, Gertie thought. Another long ferry ride. She wondered how many people would be sharing her cabin.

“Babá wants us to lunch at his café,” Nikita said.

“He owns a café?”

“No, no. He’s the cook. He wants to show off his culinary skills. So what do you want to do until then? Hector offered to drive us wherever we want to go. Maybe you want to see the Parthenon?”

“Maybe.” She wouldn’t mind seeing more of Hector. “But what I’d really like to see is the basement. Before we go sightseeing, will you show me the rest of your books?”

Nikita frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Please? You were okay with it last night.”

Nikita stood up and crossed to the door. “Okay, but don’t touch anything.”

Gertie followed her out.

When Klaus heard where they were going, he wanted to come too. Mamá begged Gertie to eat something, but Gertie said her stomach was upset.

“Don’t touch anything that doesn’t belong to you down there,” Mamá said to her children as the three teens waved goodbye.

The stairs to the basement were not well-lit, so Gertie held tightly to the railing as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Once they had made it all the way down, Klaus pulled a chain above his head, and a single bulb illuminated the cavernous room. It was a fairly massive basement, with the dimensions of the building broken up into many nooks and crannies, and entire rooms closed off with heavy wooden doors.

“Our books are over here,” Nikita said.

Gertie followed Nikita through a maze of boxes and crates toward a wooden bookshelf against the back wall. Along the way, Gertie noticed two chests in the middle of the room resembling antique coffins. One was as large as a man, and the other half its size.

“Are those what I think they are?” Gertie asked. Heavy chains and padlocks wrapped around the middle of both coffins.

“Of course,” Nikita said. “But they don’t have dead bodies in them.” She laughed—nervously, it seemed to Gertie. “Just a bunch of old stuff.”

“How old are these?” Gertie touched the top of the one nearest her.

“No!” Klaus grabbed her hand. “Don’t touch that.”

Gertie lifted her brows with surprise. “Why not?”

Klaus was still holding Gertie’s hand. He dropped it, blushed, and averted his eyes.

“There really are bodies in them, aren’t there?” Gertie said without inflection.

“Yes,” Klaus said. “So leave them alone.”

Nikita narrowed her eyes at her brother. “He’s joking.”

“Why are they kept down here?” Gertie asked. “Instead of a cemetery?”

Klaus turned to Nikita. “We should tell her.”

“Shut
up
, Klaus!” Nikita gave him a threatening glare.

“Tell me what?”

“She’s going to find out sooner or later,” Klaus insisted.

“We are
not
having this conversation. It will gross her out.” Nikita turned to Gertie. “Just ignore him. He wants to frighten you with old stories about the dead, but they are
just
ghost stories.”

“I love ghost stories,” Gertie said, brightening. “I’m especially fond of vampires.”

Nikita clapped a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. “Can we just look at the books and leave?”

Gertie moved closer to the book shelf and read the titles along the spines. Many of the books were in Greek, but at least a third of them were in English. Of the English books, most were children’s classics, such as
The Secret Garden
,
Charlotte’s Web, Huckleberry Finn,
Little Women
,
Island of the Blue Dolphins
, and
Treasure Island
—all of which Gertie had already read. They also had the Harry Potter books, all Rick Riordan books, most of Tolkien’s works, and—of all things—all ten books of Anne Rice’s
The Vampire Chronicles.

“Have you read these?” Gertie asked.

“We’ve read everything down here,” Klaus replied.

“I’m on the first one.” Gertie plucked the dusty paperback from its place on the shelf and cracked it open. “I have it on my e-reader.”

“You’re welcome to borrow anything you see,” Klaus said.

“Any
book
you see,” Nikita qualified. “Most of this stuff down here doesn’t belong to us.”

“So which one of you is the vampire lover?” Gertie asked, as she returned the book to its shelf.

Before the siblings could answer, a loud noise, like the sound of a thud, startled all three of them.

And it came from the smaller of the two coffins.

All three looked first at the coffin, and then at each other with shocked and terrified eyes. No one breathed for a full five seconds.

Then Klaus said, “Let’s get out of here.”

The teens scrambled up the basement stairs.

In the doorway, Gertie said, “The light.”

“Leave it,” Klaus said. “Let’s go.”