The Vampire Queen (5 page)
The next day, Marceline and her henchman Finn were out in the countryside wandering through a colourful field of flowers. Marceline took out an umbrella and held it over her head. There wasn’t a rain cloud in sight.
‘Hey! Can’t the sun, like, destroy you?’ Finn remembered.
‘Yeah, it hurts,’ Marceline admitted. ‘But I kind of like it. Reminds me of when I’d scrape my knees up as a kid, and my mum would patch me up. You know what I’m saying?’
‘Uh, Jake told me I came out of a cabbage,’ said Finn. Marceline and Finn had a good laugh over that one.
‘Hey, Finn,’ Marceline said. ‘I need you to strangle some pixies.’
‘Yeah, sure, that sounds good,’ Finn agreed.
‘Whoa, why are you being so casual about that?’ Marceline inquired. ‘Killing pixies is some hardcore evil.’
Finn did a back flip and pointed at the vampire queen.
‘I’m not falling for your junk anymore, lady!’ he replied. ‘You just like saying poop that jacks with my brain.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Marceline tried to act innocent, then laughed. ‘Dang, man, I didn’t think you’d ever catch on.’
‘I knew it!’ Finn shouted. ‘What about your old henchman? Who was that guy?’
‘Oh, just an old diving buddy,’ answered Marceline. ‘So, ready to go strangle some pixies?’
‘Yeah, man!’ Finn replied. ‘I mean, woman!’
In a nearby strawberry patch, one enormous strawberry appeared to have a yellow snout. It was Jake, still trailing his best friend.
‘Oh, no!’ Jake said to himself. ‘My buddy is totally under her vampire spell!’
Jake jumped out of the strawberry patch and tossed a handful of garlic bulbs at Marceline.
‘Die, unholy thing!’ Jake cried.
The garlic hit Marceline in the head, causing her to drop her umbrella. The vampire queen hissed as the hot sun burned her skin. She screamed in pain and fell to the ground.
‘Marceline!’ Finn gasped, concerned.
‘I’m staking that vampire and setting you free!’ Jake called. ‘No matter how terrified I am!’
Finn held his arms up and tried to wave off his friend.
‘She’s all right, man!’ he told Jake.
‘She’s still controlling your mind with evil!’ Jake countered. ‘Now back off and let me vanquish her from existence!’
‘I can’t let you do that, Jake,’ Finn replied.
Jake looked down and sighed.
‘I love you, brother,’ he murmured right before he turned and attacked Finn.
‘Jake, listen!’ Finn said as he defended himself. ‘Marceline is not how she seems. She’s a radical dame who likes to play games.’
‘What are you even talking about, dude?’ Jake asked, wrestling Finn to the ground.
While Finn and Jake battled, Marceline slithered over to her umbrella and crawled under it. Then Finn gave Jake a walloping kick that sent him flying back into the strawberry patch. Finn rushed over to check on Marceline.
Jake was back in an instant. He tossed Finn aside and drove the wooden stake down into the umbrella.
‘Marceline!’ Finn cried.
A cloud of smoke appeared from under the umbrella. Jake pulled it off. As the smoke dissipated, all he could see was the stake sticking out of the ground.
‘Where is she?’ Jake wondered aloud.
‘I’m free!’ Finn said to his friend. ‘Jake, you faced your fear and saved me!’
‘I did?’ Jake asked. ‘Yeah! I did! I saved my bro from a bloodsucking vampire.’
Jake frolicked off into the strawberry patch, happy to be brave and to have saved his best friend. Finn reached down and picked up the umbrella.
A small black bat peeked out of Finn’s backpack.
‘Is it cool?’ the bat asked.
‘Yup,’ Finn replied.
‘Finn, I owe you big time!’ the bat, who was really Marceline, said. ‘Changing into a bat and hiding in your pack was genius!’
‘That’s what henchmen are for,’ Finn replied.
‘Oh, that reminds me. You’re fired from your henchmanship,’ Marceline the bat told Finn. ‘It’s no fun when I can’t trick you.’
‘We’re still on for pixie strangling tomorrow, though, right?’ said Finn.
‘Definitely,’ Finn’s batty new friend agreed.
Marceline the vampire queen spread her wings and lifted off into the sky. Finn waved to his former master as she flew away. Then he chuckled to himself. He definitely had some great new tales to tell Jake on the next dark and stormy night.
The Vampire Queen
published in 2014
by Chirpy Bird, an imprint of Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street
Richmond, VIC 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au
This ebook is also available as a print edition in all good bookstores.
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A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.
eISBN 9781743582114
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Design by Ash Oswald @ Hey There’s Me
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