The Longest Night: A Drake Chronicles Novella (3 page)

Aggie pretended to limp away from the skating rink as though she had blisters, her
stolen skates dangling over her shoulder. Tonight was just pretend, but Yen had promised
she could try actually ice skating in the morning. She’d also told her to cry because
it would be more believable. Aggie didn’t have to pretend that part. She was cold
and scared and it was really dark away from the skating rink lights.

“Daddy?” she asked tremulously. She was supposed to act as if she was lost. If her
father were still alive, he’d never have let her get lost.

“Well, what have we got here?”

But he wouldn’t have been able to protect her from vampires either. Not like Yen.

Aggie wiped the tears off her cheeks, where they were growing uncomfortably cold.
“I’m lost,” she said in a small voice. “Can you help me?”

“Even better.” The first vampire grinned, flashing her fangs. “I can help myself.”

There were two of them, all hunger and cruel beauty. For a moment, Aggie was mesmerized.
She’d heard that vampires were ugly monsters and she’d expected some kind of stench
or bloody saliva. But these girls were only a little bit older than Yen. One wore
a baby-doll dress with little pink bows. She looked like a birthday cake, sweet and
special.

Aggie had paused for too long. If she’d been alone, they’d have drained her.

Instead, Yen dropped down from the tree above them. She’d rubbed herself in dirt and
snow to cover her scent. Not that vampires sniffed a lot of trees. Yen took out the
girl in the dirty jeans by landing on her head. She used the speed of her fall to
drive a stake down into her heart. The girl made a strange sound, and fell to ashes
under Yen’s boots as she landed. The girl in the pretty dress gave a strangled scream
of shock and rage. No, not a girl.
A vampire
. Aggie had to learn to recognize them for that they really were.

The vampire backhanded Yen, sending her crashing into the bushes. She turned to Aggie
and Aggie broke into a run, abandoning Yen’s first lesson: Never run. Stand and fight.
Always.

The vampire gave chase, eyes flashing silver. Yen scrambled free of the thicket.

“Aggie,
Ochiru
!”

Aggie did as she was told and dropped suddenly, hitting the ground so hard her jaws
clacked together. The vampire reached for her but it was too late. Yen had already
released a bolt from her miniature crossbow. It whistled through the air and Aggie
saw the moment the vampire recognized the sound, but the bolt was faster. It slammed
into her chest and she fell apart, a pile of ashes in an empty party dress.

Yen limped toward her baby sister, grinning fiercely. “I told you, you can trust me.”

* * *

Aggie paused for a brief moment on the threshold of the living room to dry off. As
usual it was stuffed with couches, dog fur, and vampires. Paige elbowed her aside
to get to her favorite cushion. The farm dogs, Van Helsing and Gandhi, were sprawled
on the floor waiting for popcorn to fall. Family nights usually involved movies and
pretending that you didn’t know eight different ways to kill the person across the
room from you.

“Zombies?” Paige asked hopefully. Lucy had a weakness for bad horror movies.

Lucy shook her head. “I think it’s time we watched
The Breakfast Club
again.” Unfortunately she also had a weakness for 80s teen movies.

There was a chorus of groans. Catelyn scowled. “Okay, who the hell pissed her off
this time?”

Lucy slipped the DVD into the player. “This isn’t a punishment. It’s a classic.”

“
Casablanca
is a classic.”

“Potato, Potahto.”

“I still want to know whose fault this is,” Noah muttered as Aggie and Cal studiously
avoided everyone’s condemning gazes.

Lucy always made them watch
The Breakfast Club
to prove that people from different social groups could learn to get along. When
Aggie pointed out that the only thing the characters had in common was detention and
that high school sucks, Lucy smiled and said, “Exactly.” If they made it work on so
little, humans and vampires could make it work too. There was no winning an argument
with her. Especially not about John Hughes movies.

“You guys should thank me,” Lucy grinned, sitting on the floor and resting her head
on Nicholas’s knee in the chair behind her. The dogs inched closer hopefully. “If
my mom was here she’d make you use the talking stick to share all your angsty teenage
shit.”

After Lucy’s parents left on a world trip, Lucy and Nicholas turned the family homestead
into a house for troubled students. It didn’t matter to them if they were vampire
or human. Lucy was determined to make everyone get along. She was weird, but kind
of cool if you could get past her cheerful irreverence for the things that made most
people wake up in a cold sweat.

With eleven detentions and two suspensions all in the first term of school—all for
infractions against vampires in town—Aggie had no choice but to get used to it. Especially
since one of those transgressions involved Hunter’s fiancée Quinn Drake. How was she
supposed to know he’d been on campus to help with a demonstration? He was a vampire.
She’d done what she was trained to do.

So now it was the farmhouse or expulsion.

She had nowhere else to go, and what’s more, she loved the academy. She’d just have
to find a way to get used to knowing Cal was in the room across the hall, along with
the other vampires. She wasn’t the only one who was having trouble acclimatizing;
there were daily fights in the hall every time the sun came up and went down.

“Movie night sounds great,” Kali said quickly. She was tucked into the farthest corner.
She always sat the farthest away and said the least. A talking-stick sharing circle
was her idea of hell. She held a pink mug filled with blood, like Cal, Noah, and Nicholas.
Lucy designated all pink mugs for blood consumption. She claimed it was not only sanitary
to separate dishes, but that a vampire’s worst problem was a tendency to brood. And
it was hard to brood properly while holding a pink mug.

This time they managed to get almost halfway through the movie. It was a record. Tell
that to the third coffee table they’d built this month alone. And to Kali as she crashed
through it.

Aggie didn’t even see what set them off. One moment it was popcorn and bad 80s music,
and the next Catelyn was attacking Kali. Fletcher and Paige were the only ones who
didn’t lunge forward in response—Fletcher because he was so meek and quiet, and Paige
because she refused to risk getting blood on her favorite dress.

The fight didn’t last long. Nicholas leaped out of his chair so fast he blurred.

Vampires always have the advantage
. Aggie could hear Yen’s voice in her ear.
Two hunters are better than one. Use every trick.

Lucy took advantage of her position and went low, kicking her legs between Catelyn’s
ankles and taking her down. She landed hard, and the stake in her hand shimmered briefly
before shattering. The magic wrapped around the house prevented lethal force, if not
violence.

After a brief savage moment, Nicholas pinned Kali’s arms behind her back. She was
snarling as he forced her out of the room.

Vampires always go for the kill. Don’t hesitate. Heart, throat, holy water.

Lucy sat on Catelyn’s legs. She snapped her fingers and Gandhi, the biggest of the
Rottweilers, sat on Catelyn’s chest to further secure her.

“With me,” Nicholas barked over his shoulder to the other vampires. “
Now.
”

It wasn’t until Cal let go of Aggie’s shoulder that she realized he was even standing
next to her. He’d held her back from joining the fight. Yen’s voice turned to a screech
in Aggie’s head.

“Stand down, Aggie,” Lucy said sharply. “That’s an order.”

From the expression on her face, Aggie knew it wasn’t the first time she’d said it.
Aggie felt the cool press of Cal’s fingers through her shirt. His eyes were a pale
electric blue, like winter lightning. He released her so abruptly, she stumbled slightly.
He stalked away without a word.

As usual, family night ended with blood and broken furniture.

More unusually, it wasn’t Cal and Aggie’s fault this time.

She honestly didn’t know how she felt about that.

* * *

Aggie spent her tenth birthday waiting for Yen.

By four o’clock in the morning, it was obvious that something was wrong. She should
have been back by now. Aggie switched on the GPS in Yen’s phone and grabbed two stakes
and a miniature crossbow. Yen had been teaching her how to use it in an abandoned
warehouse full of rats. She also had bottles of holy water which they bought off Napoleon.
He rode the subway all day and if you knew where to find him, he had all sorts of
vampire hunting kits and weapons to sell.

Yen’s phone was currently in an alley only a few blocks over. That wasn’t a good sign.
If she hadn’t made the short distance back, it was because she couldn’t. Panic was
bitter and fluttered in Aggie’s belly like wasps’ wings. She forced herself to check
her weapons one more time, and pulled her hoodie up over her head. The last thing
she needed was a Good Samaritan stopping her because she was too young to be out alone
so late.

She paused at the mouth of the alley. The shadows were thick and shaped like monsters.
She swallowed on a dry throat and crept around several planters filled with weeds
and dead chrysanthemums. She couldn’t see anyone, no bodies left on the ground or
sprawled on the fire escapes.

The GPS flashed imperiously. Yen was definitely here somewhere. There was a metal
Dumpster at the end of the alley, beside the back door to an Indian restaurant. Despite
the seriousness of her situation, Aggie’s stomach growled at the thought of naan bread.
There hadn’t been anything to eat today. She tried to ignore the smells of curry and
chai tea. She stepped farther into the darkness.

There was no warning. She just knew she wasn’t alone anymore.

She turned slowly on her heel. The silhouette of a man filled the opening of the alley.
He looked like a businessman in a suit and shiny shoes. But she knew him for a vampire
instantly, even before he lifted his lips off his fangs. His eyes were pale yellow
and impossible.

Fear and adrenaline made her lightheaded. The moment stretched on until she could
have lived her entire life in that filthy alley. He smiled. He was faster, stronger,
meaner. She was human. Not only that, she was just a little girl.

Yen’s advice throbbed in her ears.
Turn your disadvantages into advantages.

He’d never think she’d know what he was.

Or that she’d be armed.

He didn’t bother with threats. He just lunged for her, deadly and sudden as black
ice. She scrambled back and tripped over her own foot. She sprawled on the cracked
concrete, skinning her palms raw. He crouched down, reaching for her.

She flung holy water in his eyes.

His screech lifted the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. As he clutched at his face,
she fumbled for the crossbow in her backpack. Her fingers trembled but she managed
to load the bolt and fire. It caught him under the heart. Blood oozed through his
shirt. Yen had perfected the angle to give her just enough time to yank a fang out
before they disintegrated. She wore them on a chain around her neck as a trophy and
a warning. Aggie just wanted to hit the heart before he killed her.

She fired again and this time, she was on target. He hissed, turning to dust that
clung to the puddles of black water on the ground.

Aggie ran to the Dumpster, trying not to throw up at the smell of garbage and the
fact that she had just killed someone. No, not someone. Some
thing
. She flung the lid open, gagging.

Yen lay on masses of vegetable peels and slimy refuse, clutching her favorite oak
stake. There was blood on her throat. Aggie’s vision went white and she clutched the
metal side to keep from fainting. Her sister had been bitten. She was dead. Undead.

Yen stirred, cracking an eye open. “I’m not bit,” she croaked. “Just broke my collarbone
so I had to hide.”

Aggie started to cry.

“Hey, the Kiku sisters don’t cry,” Yen said sternly, just before she passed out.

* * *

“You’re going to give me Santa nightmares,” Aggie said to Paige a little while later.
Paige had changed into flannel pajamas covered with reindeer and snowflakes. There
was tinsel draped over her lamp and from the picture frames on her side of the small
room.

“Scrooge,” Paige said. She didn’t glance up from the gingerbread man she was adding
to the miniature tree at the foot of her bed. “We’ve got two weeks off from school.
Seriously, what’s there to complain about?”

“That’s two weeks I’m stuck
here
,” she grumbled. “With
them.
”

Paige shrugged. “At least we don’t have to deal with dorm showers. And running laps
on that damn track.”

“Just vampires.”

“It’s not that big of a deal. Lucy and Nicholas seem to have it figured out.”

Aggie considered Paige her best friend. Well, her only friend, really. She was one
of the very few people Aggie didn’t want to punch in the face. But Paige had weird
ideas for a vampire hunter. Especially one banished to what basically amounted to
a halfway house. Last year she’d hated vampires just as much as Aggie did, but a few
months with Lucy and she just shrugged them off like they were normal.

“How can you be so comfortable here?” she asked Paige, getting up to peer uneasily
out of the window. The snow was faintly blue under the moonlight.

“Hey, I’ve been here since August,” Paige said. “I’m considered rehabilitated.”