Fatal Bargain (12 page)

The first vampire nodded.

“I suppose that was a promise?” the vampire of the shutters said sadly.

“It was merely
my
promise,” said the first vampire. “
You
didn’t make it.”

Mardee had had it.

First of all, even though they could see the Land Rover right there, they could not reach the vehicle. It was surrounded by these stupid fallen trees. And they weren’t little piddly Christmas trees you could just drag off. They were immense, as big as ranch houses. How on earth had the others gotten that vehicle in there, anyway?

Mardee snagged her legs and her ankles and her hair in every single hemlock branch there was.

Kevin, of course, was unscathed.

I will never associate with a boy again, Mardee told herself.

Mardee’s brother, Bobby, was a total annoyance in her life. His friends and teammates were even more annoying. Given this depressing exposure to the opposite sex, Mardee had never been willing to give boys much of a chance. People said things looked up after eighth grade, and boys became human, but Mardee had seen no signs of this in her brother.

So here she had taken a chance on Kevin, because he had such a sensible sister — Lacey — and all Kevin would do was laugh at her, accuse her of screaming, and lead her into thickets of scraping, vicious, dead trees.

“You said on the phone,” Kevin reminded her, “that we would come over here and make noise and frighten the kids inside.”

“The
noise
,” said Mardee frigidly, “
came
from inside. It was probably your very own sister, whom you are
deserting
.”

“Deserting,” said Kevin, delighted with the pun he was about to utter, “in order to have dessert. Come on. Let’s go get ice cream. Nobody’s here.”

“Have you forgotten what just happened?” shouted Mardee.

Kevin stared at her, genuinely surprised to be yelled at.

And Mardee saw that, truly, Kevin had forgotten what had just happened. He did not remember the wet slimy mass that had slid past them, holding some terrible sobbing burden in its grasp. He did not remember the terrible force of its wake, the sucking wind that had yanked Mardee in through the window. He could no longer hear the moaning and the weeping that Mardee had heard coming all the way out of the earth, out of the soil, out of the cellar, out of the ages. He did not remember the cruel horrid laughter that sprang like opposite choruses of evil from the sky and the ground.

He had forgotten.

He was just a teenage boy, equally inspired by food or girls.

“Let’s sit in the backseat of the Land Rover,” said Kevin, leering.

Mardee favored him with a look of absolute loathing, but Kevin, being as stupid a boy as her brother, Bobby, misinterpreted Mardee’s look as one of agreement: that backseats and kisses were tops on her list, too.

Boys, thought Mardee.

She was getting in the Land Rover, all right, and then she was slamming the door and staying nice and safe in there until everybody came out from whatever ghastly party they were having inside and she didn’t care what dumb old Kevin did. He could have all the ice cream on earth for all she cared.

Mardee climbed over the last interfering branch and grabbed the handle of the Land Rover.

Teeth glittered through the window.

Roxanne was the first to understand this new piece of information. “You mean, even if we get out,” shrieked Roxanne, “even if you take only one of us, this other vampire can have more?” She could not believe this. A deal was a deal. What kind of game were these vampires playing?

“Perhaps if you make your choice more speedily,” said the vampire, “my guest will still be busy with the humans in the yard. Perhaps in that case, you will indeed escape notice by my guest.”

Who on earth could be in the yard? thought Lacey. Who else was dumb enough to be here at this hour? In this terrible dark? With the horrible smells and atmosphere?

Lacey took swift steps to the open shutters. Grabbing the window rims, and leaning into the fresh air, she screamed out the window. “Run!” she shrieked, calling on every molecule of lung power. “Get out of here!”

There was no sound anywhere.

Not in the tower, not in the yard.

“Go away!” screamed Lacey. “Quick! Run!”

The vampire of the shutters said gently, “You are clearly not, although a human yourself, a student of human nature, my dear. When told to run, human beings inevitably stand still. When told to be afraid, human beings inevitably become curious instead. What you have done, of course, is merely to whet the appetites of those below.” The vampire smiled, this time courteously covering his mouth. “And my appetite, too, of course.”

He sifted between her and the windows. Lacey did not flinch. She would not give him the satisfaction.

The vampire evaporated, slowly, his eyes going first, then his flesh, then his teeth, and at last his wrappings.

He drifted out the window rather like smoke from a fireplace, slow and thick and gray.

“And now,” said their vampire, “let us finish up.”

T
HE VOICE THAT SCREAMED
from the tower was his sister’s. It was Lacey.

Airhead Lacey was, after all, partying in the mansion.

Kevin had never heard her scream like that. He had never heard anybody scream like that. The ferocity in her voice —
Run! Get out of here! Quick!
— stunned Kevin.

He could not worry about the person sitting in the Land Rover, whoever he was. He could not even worry about Mardee.

Mardee had actually fainted. Kevin had been thrilled. He had not known this happened in real life, either — girls passing out lightly in their boyfriends’ arms. Of course, Mardee despised him, but on the other hand, he had caught her before she fell all the way, so perhaps that would count for something.

But he forgot Mardee. His hands didn’t forget; they yanked her vertically to her feet, although this was not the proper reaction for dealing with faints. She became a simple burden to him, a thing to haul along, like schoolbooks down a hallway.

“Lace!” he shouted. “Lace!” Nobody answered. The house was silent.

Mardee had not actually fainted, just dropped down so that the vampire in the Land Rover would not see her so clearly. Now, clearly, she could see it was not a vampire at all, but some boy with bad teeth. Randy must have loaned his car to the guy.

This was definitely not the place for a girl with an overactive imagination. Mardee shook her head to clear it of idiocy. Perhaps it was Kevin’s influence, seeing all this nonsense.

“We’ll be out of your way in a moment,” she said to the driver of the Land Rover. The guy gave her the creeps.

“She’s in there,” whispered Kevin, staring up at the tower.

Shutters banged. Down here among the dead trees there was no wind, but the wind at the rooftop must have been strong, for blackness seemed to dip and sway along the windows, as if the sky itself were casting a shadow on the mansion, and then taking it away.

“I heard her!” whispered Kevin.

“Told you so,” said Mardee.

Boys drive me crazy, thought Mardee. I said to Kevin, I said, Lacey’s in there. Your sister. And he said, Nah, let’s go get ice cream. I said, Kevin, there’s a vampire in there. And he laughed at me. Now he’s acting as if
he’s
the only one who noticed that something is wrong!

Kevin tried to find his way out of the fallen trees. “I’m coming, Lacey!” he yelled.

“Alternatively,” said the vampire, “you may all stay.”

The room was absolutely quiet.

“After all,” said the vampire, “if you each wish to experience this event, who am I to deny you?”

The thickness of his atmosphere was so great that they had difficulty breathing.

“I would think it more logical to choose one for me and save the rest, but if you feel you should all stay,” said the vampire, and here his teeth seemed to point individually at each of them, “I am willing to work harder tonight. I am willing to work all night.”

The vampire laughed.

Jordan’s car steered into the driveway and stopped.

Jordan opened his door.

Ginny opened hers.

They got out.

The shadow in the sky drifted slowly down across the roofs, like a sleepwalker, and descended gently to the ground.

Yes, thought Ginny, not knowing what she was saying yes to, or why she felt that yes was the right syllable. Only knowing that something — some strange gravity — was pulling her toward that shadow. It was pulling Jordan, too, they were going in a pair.

Ginny wanted to call out, “Over here!” but she could not seem to move her lips.

She was not afraid, and yet she was terrorized. Her body was doing things without her, as if this had been rehearsed for all her life.

Jordan felt like paper. He was blank. Nothing was written on him. Nothing was on his last page and nothing would be on his next page.

He did not feel like a man or a boy or a human being.

He did not even feel.

He was hardly even there.

His feet continued to move, and yet he did not feel as if he were walking. He felt as if he had become sort of an amoeba with jellied expansions instead of legs. He was floating in a new kind of water.

Whatever the shadow was, whatever the shadow meant, Jordan would be absorbed into it.

Yes, thought Jordan.

Lacey could hardly absorb the vampire’s words, let alone the diluted oxygen left in the tower. That was my brother down there, thought Lacey. My brother, Kevin. What is he doing there? My brother, Kevin, who is going to be the other vampire’s victim!

Lacey and Kevin had led remarkably separate lives for a brother and sister whose bedroom doors were separated by only thirty-six inches. They shared no hobbies, they had no common friends, they participated in none of the same activities. Since Lacey had become a teenager they had hardly even had dinner together, because her schedule was not similar to her brother’s.

At family gatherings, like Thanksgiving, Lacey and Kevin sometimes discovered that they, too, were having a reunion. That they would actually have conversations in which Lacey would think — so this is the kind of guy that Kevin is! They would actually catch up with each other when the room was full of relatives, as if they, too, were distant cousins who saw each other only on holidays.

“Lace!” came her brother’s voice from outside, from the safety zone, from the ground beneath the tower. “I’m coming, Lace!”

He did not call her Lace instead of Lacey because he was fond of her and this was a favorite nickname. He called her Lace because he was cutting down on the time he spent thinking of her — one less syllable spent on a dumb old sister.

For the same reason, she usually called him Kev.

We will each die, she thought. Well, no, not die. The vampire explained that death is not part of this. But we will be finished as human beings.

Our poor parents. Tomorrow they will have half-children. Half-personalities. Half-energies.

We will live together in some sort of mental and physical fog, drained by the vampire, and we will not know. We will not remember.

Lacey stared at the vampire, imagining the “event.” The vampire stared back, also imagining it. Although with more enthusiasm.

It was evident that, this time, the vampire was not going to leave.

There would be no escape.

There would be no exit unless granted by the vampire.

And her brother was in the yard. Coming up into the house.

I must get my brother out of here, thought Lacey. And while I’m at it, I must save the rest.

Lacey examined the others. She was no longer in human time, but vampire time: time that continued for aeons in a single black night. She did not have to rush. The vampire that had slid from the shutters was not rushing toward her brother, but savoring the moment.

Lacey looked at Sherree. Selfish. Silly. But Lacey felt a strange deep love for her. The kind of love, perhaps, that parents have: an unconditional love, for whoever and whatever their child turns out to be. Lacey liked it that Sherree had come back, had danced a little jig of joy because she had been a good person after all. Lacey liked the strength with which Sherree had tried to escape, even though that had let the vampire out of the shutters.

What strange lives these vampires led: half frozen by their own hibernation, half frozen by the lack of available victims.

Perhaps all evil was like that.

Perhaps it lay in wait for you, lying behind the door, in back of the shutters, hidden by walls and strangers and habits…but it was there.

Perhaps you had only to say the words, and evil could begin growing, filling every room and mind with its sick odor and its disgusting cloak.

I know the truth, thought Lacey. I understand the world. And what difference does it make? I will never get out there to tell anybody.

Lacey studied Bobby, whose magnificent muscular body had engineered many an athletic victory. Had Bobby learned anything from the night? It was hard to tell. With a person like Bobby, you tended not to look past the physical person to locate the emotional person. Bobby would always be able to hide behind his body, so to speak. He could put his muscles and his masculine beauty out front and nobody would know who was in back.

Zach, to whom appearances meant so much: Zach, expending so much energy trying not to be embarrassed or nervous or uncool. In a way she loved Zach most, because he was the most desperate to pull it all off. She wanted him to pull it all off. She wanted Zach to have it all, and not know how frail he really was.

Roxanne, who was not frail, and who did have it all, and who knew it. Lacey decided that after all, she liked Roxanne best, because Roxanne was toughest. Strong enough to rip nails out of floors, strong enough to herd scared kids down dark stairs.

Lacey admired strength. I won’t have any ever again, thought Lacey. Once the vampire takes me, strength will be gone forever.

She studied Randy, although he was safe without her.

Randy, who was everything the vampire had accused him of: dumb as ever, a sixteen-year-old show-off who didn’t know when to stop. But Lacey loved him for wanting to be a hero. She loved him for being crushed when it turned out his bravery saved only himself. If all the world wanted to be a hero, perhaps evil would never come out from behind the shutters.