Vampires Rule (2 page)

Or worse—change him into a vampire.

Billy returned to the foyer, shook his dark
head and mumbled, “Okay. Have it your way, bro.”

The words sounded almost sinister.

Jack’s eyes popped open. He must have
imagined the words. Billy thought he was dead. There was no way
Billy could know he was in the closet. It wasn’t fair! Why did he
have to lose his life? A murderous rage climbed to the surface. He
tried to calm himself, took several more deep breaths. He couldn’t
afford to lose his temper, not when his brother was this close.

Billy took the stairs two at a time, and Jack
sighed with relief.

He slowly stepped out of the closet and went
to the front door, careful to open it without making a sound. Billy
thumped around upstairs. Jack took one last look at his past. In
the blink of an eye, he was gone. Before Billy could reach the
foyer, he was miles away

****

Next stop on the comeback tour: the local
graveyard.

He stood over the grave of a boy named Jack
Creed, a boy long ago dead but only temporarily buried. The grave
belonged to him, his final resting place. What a joke! He squatted
in front of the headstone and traced the letters of his name in the
cold, hard granite. It was a repulsive yet necessary tradition.

Jack’s foul mood sank further south.

He needed to pull himself together before
rejoining his friends. Cowboy didn’t appreciate sentimentality of
any kind. The eldest member of the gang (a ripe twenty-two on the
day of his death) thought he was bending over backwards as it was
to accommodate Jack’s weird thirst for nostalgia by making the
annual stop in Nebraska.

Jack remembered the first time he’d returned
to the cemetery with his friends in tow. Lily had freaked out.
“It’s bad luck to see your own grave,” she’d said. “Turn around
three times and spit to ward off evil. It always works for me.”

“Silly superstition,” Cowboy had insisted,
yet his eyes wandered the graveyard as if he expected ‘evil’ to
attack him.

Summer had been the only one not to give him
a hard time. She at least tried to be understanding even though she
didn’t get it either. The rest of them had adjusted to their second
identities long ago, embraced life as vampires. Not Jack. He
couldn’t let go of his past.

Jack lifted his chin and sniffed the air.

He smelled two things at once: one stronger
than the other but not as pleasant. Because the two odors mixed
before invading his nostrils, it took him a moment to mentally
decipher the information. Of course it helped when he looked up to
see one of them, a girl standing a few tombstones away.

He knew her in an instant.

It was the girl in the fuzzy pink sweater,
the one Lily had warned him about. He tried to remember every word
Lily said about the girl. There had been confusion on her hair
color. Jack made a mental note to tell Lily it was like warm honey.
It spilled over the girl’s shoulder in soft waves, blocking her
face from view so he couldn’t tell if she was pretty or not.

She stood over a grave, oblivious to his
presence.

What had he promised to do when he saw her?
Run? Problem was his feet were glued to the ground. Something about
her held him in place. He couldn’t move. He didn’t want to
move—unless it was to close the distance between them. His fingers
itched to touch her. She smelled intoxicating, a lovely floral
scent mixed with a hint of sweet fruit.

The other smell grew stronger, forcing his
attention away from the girl. He realized what it was and his heart
dropped to his feet. He quickly scanned the surrounding area. It
only took him a moment to find the owner of the offensive smell: a
werewolf.

Jack hated werewolves more than anything else
on earth. They were rotting, stupid, stinking animals. As Cowboy
often said, “The only good werewolf is a dead werewolf.”

It stepped from the bushes, still in human
form, but it was just as deadly minus fur and fangs. It had the
power to rip apart its prey with invisible claws that only a
vampire or another werewolf could see. Jack clenched his teeth to
keep the frantic warning in his mouth. There wasn’t anything the
girl could do. She couldn’t outrun the beast. She definitely
couldn’t win in a fight. That left him as her only means of
survival.

To be killed by a werewolf was horrible,
painful beyond description.

The wolf snarled. The girl jumped to her
feet, took a step backwards, hands stretched out in a defensive
maneuver. Jack could hear her heart beat faster. It drummed a
hundred miles a second. He had to do something. He had to save
her.

The werewolf attacked.

The girl whipped around, bringing her foot up
in a hard arc. Her heel hit the werewolf in the face. The force
knocked it back a few feet. It growled, and saliva glistened on
human looking teeth. The thing quickly regained its balance and
lunged a second time.

Jack watched in awe as the girl fought with
the werewolf. She had the grace of a dancer and the strength of a
gymnast. In all his years he hadn’t seen such an incredible sight.
Maybe she didn’t need him. Since a single scratch from a werewolf
could kill a vampire, he was reluctant to join the fight. As long
as she could handle it, he might as well hang back and watch.

The werewolf swiped at her with invisible
claws and missed.

Figuring it was on the losing end of a long
battle, the werewolf changed forms. It seemed to melt. The liquid
metal molded into an animal as if invisible hands were working on
it. It transformed from man to beast and snarled at her with sharp
teeth. Now it was a wolf complete with fur. The thing’s eyes
glowed, liquid gold flashing in triumph. It had the advantage.
Hand-to-hand combat would no longer work.

The girl froze. She and the beast stared into
each other’s eyes for what seemed an eternity. The only movement
was the slight lift and fall of the girl’s chest as she took slow
and even breaths.

Jack didn’t have a choice anymore. He had to
save her. There was no one else around. The hell with his promise
to Lily. He wasn’t going to let this innocent girl get torn apart
by a stinking werewolf.

He moved fast. In an instant he blocked the
girl, using his own body as a shield. He heard her barely audible
gasp, and the sound of it stirred the hair at the base of his neck.
There was something about her, something sweet and familiar. He
wanted to turn around and take a good look at her, but he had to
save her life first.

“What are you doing?” she shouted.

Distracted, he took his eyes off the werewolf
for a split-second, and that was all it took.

The werewolf was on him in an instant. It
knocked him to the ground, landing on top of him, teeth bared. It
snarled and went for his throat. Saliva dripped from the snapping
jaws. Disgusting. Jack tried to focus on what he was doing and push
aside how much he loathed touching a werewolf.

He grabbed its head with both hands and
struggled to keep the sharp teeth at a distance. It was hard to get
a good grip because of the thick fur and the animal’s violent
movements. The beast tried to turn its head, catch his arm, but he
squeezed it tighter.

The werewolf changed tactics.

It swiped hard at his chest. Razor-sharp
claws sliced open his shirt and the flesh beneath. The pain
distracted him. His fingers cramped, almost letting go. Blood
soaked the front of his shirt in seconds. With the cold ground
beneath him and the sudden loss of blood, his mind began to drift.
A werewolf had killed him for the second time. He only hoped the
girl had gotten away.

As if in answer to his thoughts two graceful
hands reached over his head and settled upon his. He opened his
mouth, tried to tell her to run, but he couldn’t speak. A single
slurred word left his parted lips. It was unintelligible, even to
him.

The wolf looked at her. It stopped in
mid-attack. The hairy beast slowly backed off him, growling as it
retreated. Was it afraid of the girl?

No way. Jack couldn’t believe it. He used
what strength he had to raise his head and watch as the girl walked
over to the wolf without breaking eye contact. She knelt in front
of it. The two of them seemed to be in a silent struggle. Their
eyes remained locked until Jack thought they would stay that way
forever, frozen in time.

With a whimper, the wolf began to shake.

The girl stroked the furry head. They could
have been dog and owner, taking a break from a walk in the park. It
didn’t make any sense to Jack. The wolf’s eyes closed and it
collapsed in a heap next to her.

The girl in the fuzzy pink sweater returned
to Jack’s side. She yanked his blue plaid shirt down his arms but
left him with the t-shirt. She rolled the blue plaid material into
a ball and placed it over the bleeding wound. He ground his teeth
together to keep from crying out. No reason for her to remember him
as a big baby.

“You’re beautiful,” he said with awe. The art
of breathing grew harder. He gasped between words.
“What’s…your…name?”

“Are you trying to flirt with me? Now?” Her
pink lips tilted at the corners, but the smile didn’t reach her
eyes. “My name is Silver Reign.”

He snorted and a new wave of pain jolted
through him.

“It’s not spelled like the kind of rain that
falls from the sky,” she said.

He laughed until he tasted blood. Funny how
it didn’t taste good when it was his blood. Resting on the ground,
his eyes took in the night sky. There seemed to be a million stars
shining just for them. It was kind of a romantic end, like Romeo
and Juliet only the girl would go on without him.

There was a shift in the atmosphere. Worried,
his eyes went to Silver’s face. He warned her, “My friends are
coming. I can feel them. You need to go. I don’t want them to hurt
you.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, silently
reminding him how easily she’d dispatched the werewolf.

“Okay,” he amended. “I don’t want you to hurt
them.”

“I won’t.”

As if on cue, he heard three pairs of running
feet. “They’re here. Go!”

He took one last look at her before she left.
Lily had been right. The girl wasn’t classically beautiful and she
wasn’t his type, but there was something mesmerizing about her. His
eyes drifted closed as familiar voices washed over him. His three
friends all talked at once.

“Looks like the werewolf got him before he
killed it,” Cowboy said in a matter of fact tone. “Good for
him.”

“We have to help him,” Summer insisted.
“Let’s get him to the house.”

“He should have listened to me,” Lily said.
“I told him to run when he saw the girl in the fuzzy sweater.”

Jack used every bit of strength he had to pry
his eyes open. He raised a hand, grabbed Summer by the hem of her
jeans. “I want to go home.”

Summer smiled with twinkling blue eyes that
paled in comparison to Silver’s. The chunky ends of her blond hair
rested against her freckled face. Before she got too excited, he
added, “I want to go to my real home, the house I lived in with my
family.”

Summer’s smile died, and she began to argue
with everyone over where they were taking him. Cowboy grabbed Jack
under the arms and lifted him to his feet. Jack swung an arm over
his friend’s shoulders while Cowboy’s arm snaked around his waist
like they were running a three-legged race at the county fair.
Together, they walked through the cemetery gates to Cowboy’s
car.

Jack resisted the urge to look for the girl,
not wanting to draw attention to her. He felt the heat of her eyes
on him. At least his friends were too worried about him to notice
her unusual scent clinging to the night air. Cowboy opened the
passenger side door, and Jack collapsed into the provided seat. He
bit his lower lip and prayed he’d live long enough to talk to
Billy.

****

“We need to take him to the abandoned house,”
Summer shouted from the back seat. “He needs us.”

She leaned forward between the front seats
inside the speeding car. She had to talk loud to be heard over the
engine, the music, and the rushing wind. The passenger side window
had been rolled down because Jack thought he might puke at any
second. She said, “We have to get inside before the sun comes up,
and Jackpot needs us. Taking him home is pointless. His brother
won’t know what to do for him.”

In the passenger seat, Jack waited for
Cowboy’s response. He wanted to argue with Summer, but he was too
weak. He couldn’t even sit up straight. Every time the car leaned
to the right or to the left, so did he, like he didn’t have a bone
left in his body. Life continued to drain out of him. His lowered
head bumped the edge of the car door with a painful thump every
time they hit a rough spot in the road.

“It’s not our call,” Cowboy said. “Anyway,
it’s just after midnight. We could walk and still reach both
places.”

Jack relaxed, but Summer wouldn’t quit.

“His brother won’t know how to help him,” she
insisted.

Jack used his last bit of strength to push
himself into a higher sitting position. He half-turned in her
direction and spoke between clenched teeth. “I want to go home. I
want to see my brother before I die.”

The car sped along the empty two-lane highway
between town and his family’s farm. They were flying, but the
darkness made it seem like they were moving in slow motion. Jack
hoped death was like this, moving through time and space faster
than light.

“You aren’t dying,” Summer said, her voice
cracking. “Not every vampire dies after getting clawed by a
werewolf.”

Jack scoffed. “Right. One out of every
hundred manages to live somehow. I’m sure I’ll beat those odds.
They don’t call me Jackpot for nothing.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Cowboy said, taking
his eyes off the road for a second. As usual his point of view came
across loud and forceful. “You have the right to die wherever and
however you want. Die with your boots on, buddy. That’s what I
always say.”