A Killer First Date Read online

I moved between frozen students. They were creepy and glass-eyed, like wax statues. The wind fluttered their hair and their clothes, but no one moved. I stopped, recognizing Nathan.

  “Oh, crap,” I said, rushing to his side. I waved my hand in front of his face. He didn’t blink, didn’t slide me his patented disgusted glare. I hadn’t expected him to, but one can hope. “We’ll fix this,” I promised him quietly. “You are not going to spend eternity with that look on your face.”

  I swallowed, walking toward the girl as she darted in and out of the crowd. Even though I couldn’t see Nicholas, I knew he was nearby.

  “Hey!” I called out.

  The girl spun around, her hair obscuring her features. Nicholas was a blur, circling around behind her. He’d knocked her out before she’d even turned to face me completely. He caught her before she hit the ground with her face.

  “Shouldn’t everyone unfreeze now?” I said when nothing changed. “She’s unconscious, right?” Nicholas nodded. “Stake her?” I suggested.

  “She’s not a vampire,” he reminded me.

  I paused, staring at him, bewildered. “Shit.” I didn’t know what to do when the bad guy wasn’t a vampire. “So what now?”

  He lowered her to the ground and pushed the hair off her face, frowning. “This is the girl from the woods. The one who grabbed Quinn.”

  I crouched next to him, holding my stake at the ready. I’d seen too many horror movies to ever trust an unconscious villain. “I know her,” I said, astounded. “Her name’s Vanessa.”

  “Evil?” Nicholas asked.

  “No, just perky.” I frowned, more confused than ever. “I don’t get it.”

  She stirred and I lowered the point of my stake over her heart.

  “You can’t stake her, remember?” Nicholas hissed.

  “Well, she doesn’t know that.”

  Her eyes fluttered open. “What happened?”

  “That’s what we’d like to know,” Nicholas said drily.

  Vanessa sat up slowly, then squeaked when she saw the stake. “Lucy?” she asked uncertainly. “What are you doing?”

  “What am I doing? What the hell are you doing?” I pointed to the creepy tableau of creepy people around us. “Also? Undo it!”

  She looked around, openmouthed. “Wow. I’ve never frozen that many people before!”

  “Gee, congratulations,” I said sarcastically.

  “Thanks!”

  I shook my head, glanced at Nicholas. “If I can’t stake her, can I at least poke her with the sharp end? Just a little?” I turned back to Vanessa, talking to her through gritted teeth. “What,” I asked, enunciating very slowly and very clearly, “did you do?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I was getting tired.”

  “That’s why you’re so perky?” I asked. “Because you suck it out of other people? Rude much?” I leaned back out of reach, just to be safe.

  “I can’t help it.” Tears glimmered prettily on the edge of her lashes as she looked up at Nicholas.

  I made a sound of disgust. “Stop flirting with my boyfriend. Not only are you embarrassing yourself and all of womankind, but he’s way too smart to fall for it.”

  She pouted. I rolled my eyes. I was used to a little more villain in my villain. Lady Natasha, vain and crazy as she was, had made me want to pee my pants. She’d actually eaten a raw deer heart, thinking it was Solange’s. That was commitment. This was just pathetic.

  “I just took a little,” she insisted.

  “Brent’s out cold and kind of green,” I corrected her. “That was more than a little. What did you do to him?”

  “I just kissed him. I miss him.”

  “Uh-huh. And the others?”

  “They won’t remember. No one ever does.” She smiled again. “So, it’s okay! See? No worries!”

  “So you are a vampire,” I insisted.

  “I don’t drink blood! Gross!”

  “Psychic vampire,” I elaborated. “You take their energy.”

  “And you were drunk in the woods less than ten minutes ago,” Nicholas said.

  “I wasn’t drunk.” She sounded offended. “I was just really tired and I tripped and fell. And then that monster came. What was she? Did I imagine her? Do I have a concussion?”

  “Sure, we’ll go with that,” I said. “Now, undo whatever you did or I will punch you in the face.” Before the entire carnival became a vampire buffet. “So talk.”

  She whimpered again. I just folded my arms and waited. After a moment she wiped her eyes and sighed. “Look, I really don’t know how this happened,” she said.

  “Walk us through it,” I insisted, glancing around for unnatural shadows. Nicholas was already patrolling in a slow circle around us, painfully alert. “Every single thing you did.” I noticed car headlights moving up the side of the mountain. At least Vanessa hadn’t frozen the entire town, and Quinn and Hunter should be safe out in the middle of the lake. Of course, if anyone drove up to the carnival right now, they’d be traumatized for life. “Quickly.”

  “I went by the booths there because someone was complaining that the Frog Prince game was rigged.” She pointed.

  We walked around frozen people, my math teacher included. She was laughing, her mouth so wide I could almost see her tonsils. Two guys were pouring contraband liquor into a soda bottle. The merry-go-round was still spinning madly. We went down the midway and back up around to the spot where we’d found her. Since she was running the event for the prom committee, she’d been everywhere. I didn’t have a clue what had set off the big magic freeze, if she was even telling the truth about not knowing how it had happened.

  “And then what?” I asked. “What made you go off into the woods?”

  “I . . . saw Brent.”

  “And?”

  “And I was upset.” She looked away, shifted uncomfortably. “So I went to the woods so no one would see me cry.”

  Nicholas looked at me over her head. His eyes gleamed. “She’s lying,” he mouthed.

  “Are you sure that’s everything, Vanessa?” She nodded. Disgusted, I turned around to start another walk-through.

  Nicholas’s fangs flashed suddenly and he grabbed her shoulder. “What is that?” he demanded, plucking something that poked out of her jacket pocket. It was a small glass bottle filled with red heart-shaped foil confetti and glitter.

  And blood.

  I could tell by the way his pupils dilated and his fangs elongated as far as they could. I knew a familiar blue vein was throbbing in his neck. He inhaled, then cursed.

  “Vampire blood,” he said quietly, too quietly for Vanessa to hear over the waves breaking on the rocks on the other side of the boardwalk.

  My eyes widened. “Seriously? Why is it always vampires even when it’s not actually vampires?” I went to stand in front of Vanessa. “And where the hell did you get this?” Vanessa pointed to the red velvet tent with a sign that read Madame Juliet’s Love Potions, looking embarrassed. My mouth dropped open. “You didn’t. And Madame Juliet? Did she even read Romeo and Juliet?”

  “It was just a joke, to make me feel better. I thought I could convince Brent to take me back,” she explained in a rush. “The woman said I should put three drops of my own blood in it to make it extra powerful. I know it sounds stupid, but I was desperate. So I went off in the woods to prick my finger and that’s when those . . . things . . . showed up.”

  Nicholas stared at me. “Hel-Blar blood got into the bottle.”

  A cheap, fake love charm was no big deal. A bottle filled with vampire’s blood was always a big deal. Especially crossed with the work of a psychic vampire. I vaguely remembered Isabeau talking about sympathetic magic, about like attracting like. Or had that been my mother?

  Either way? We were so screwed.

  Because magic gone awry was just one of the many ways this night sucked.

  “Lucy?” Vanessa’s voice was tiny.

  “Yeah?”

  “What the hell is that thing?”
she screeched, finding her larynx again.

  I knew that screech. In Violet Hill that screech translated to: Oh my God, I just saw a vampire! Nicholas’s gaze broke from mine and I whirled around, lifting my stake. I followed Vanessa’s horrified pointing to the edge of the lake, where a blue-tinged Hel-Blar was crawling out of the dark water.

  “That’s a vampire,” I said blandly.

  Nicholas was already charging toward it, the tacky love charm tumbling to the boardwalk. “Get her out of here!”

  “I’m not leaving you alone, you idiot!” I shot back.

  “I really must have a concussion.” Vanessa gaped at the Hel-Blar, clacking his jaws. A second one emerged from the water; a third scrambled down the beach, tearing into a frozen pigeon with a mouthful of needle-sharp fangs. Blood and feathers stuck to his chin. Vanessa gagged. “Vampires don’t exist.”

  “I don’t think he’s vulnerable to an existential crisis,” I snapped. “Try something pointy.”

  “But . . . but . . .” She looked behind us at the frozen carnival. “Another one!”

  “Crap.” I glanced over my shoulder. A Hel-Blar had darted over the decorative fencing onto the grounds. He was approaching two girls who were trapped midgiggle. Saliva dangled from his fangs.

  “Stay behind me,” I said. She probably didn’t deserve to die for being too perky, too dumb to live in Violet Hill, or even for sucking energy out of people.

  I ran at the Hel-Blar, but I knew I wouldn’t reach him in time. I was too far away, and he was too feral. I had to be careful because both his saliva and blood were contagious. I slid on the ground at the last minute to pick up speed and momentum, crashing into his legs. He wiped out, howling as he landed. He spun, almost too quickly for me to see, and hurtled up into a crouch. Vanessa was hovering on the boardwalk, shrieking. I didn’t have time to worry about her and I figured if she was shrieking that loudly, she was probably all right.

  The reek of wet, rotting mushrooms clogged my nostrils. He raked at me, his hand curled into a claw shape. His eyes burned red and his breath was as fetid as the rest of him. He snapped at me, lunging for my neck. I scuttled back, using my feet to kick him off balance. He stumbled, but didn’t fall.

  First rule: never run. Vampires are predators at heart and they can rarely resist a hunt. Especially the Hel-Blar, so vicious and feral; they don’t bother resisting anything.

  So I ran.

  I scrambled to my feet and headed back toward the beach, away from all the people. He followed me, even though there were two vulnerable girls behind him, easy as picking apples off a branch. I knew my blood smelled sweeter, adrenaline and sweat buzzing in my veins and seeping through my pores. I yanked a “You Must Be This Tall to Go on This Ride” sign out of the sandy ground and spun, jamming it into his chest. He was still running, still pushing himself in a feeding frenzy, and his own momentum impaled him. I just had to shoulder the weight for a moment, until he crumbled to ashes. Vanessa had stopped screaming. She just stared at me.

  “Lucy!” Nicholas yelled from the sand. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine! You?”

  “Yeah, this is just what I had in mind for our first date,” he muttered as a Hel-Blar exploded, ashes landing on the surface of the water. The sounds of fighting drifted our way from the middle of the lake, followed by a mad kind of laugh.

  “Quinn,” Nicholas and I said in unison.

  We’d already taken out three Hel-Blar, but there were more coming and not just the one eating his way through the pigeons. There were shadows on the water’s edge and darting between the trees. Soon there’d be too many of them and the carnival was just too big to protect on our own. This was going to turn into a massacre if Vanessa didn’t undo the magic.

  Isabeau had helped us break a love charm meant for Solange just a few weeks ago. She’d warned us not to burn it or drown it, since we didn’t know how the spell was set. But we didn’t have time to stick the bottle in the freezer as she’d done to bury it days later. And besides, freezing it didn’t seem like a terribly good idea right now. There was enough of that.

  Maybe smashing it would work.

  Or it could make it worse.

  But it was the only idea I had. I was too far from the charm bottle to stomp it into pieces and Nicholas was surrounded by Hel-Blar. The pigeon-smeared Hel-Blar launched himself at me, jaws clacking. I jabbed with my stake. He snarled, grabbing for me. I leaped out of the way, tripping over a rock. Vanessa just stood there, shell-shocked. A rowboat scraped on the shore, and Quinn and Hunter leaped out, drenched but unharmed. I threw sand in the Hel-Blar’s face. He clawed at his eyes just as Hunter darted past, staking him right between the shoulders. He disintegrated and she tossed me the miniature crossbow again.

  “Hi, Lucy.”

  I caught it, armed it, and shot the Hel-Blar trying to eat my boyfriend’s face. “Hi, Hunter.”

  She darted past me, into the frozen crowd. “Backup’s coming!”

  Quinn followed her, splitting away to cut off the Hel-Blar shoving in through the hole in the chain-link fence from the parking lot.

  “Vanessa!” I scrambled to my feet. “Smash the bottle!”

  She blinked at me, then down at the red glitter-filled bottle. “But . . . Brent . . . the prom . . .”

  “Did you just mention prom? Now?” I paused to stare at her long enough that the Hel-Blar was nearly on me. The crossbow was out of bolts and I had only the one stake left. I was feeling bruises and cuts I hadn’t realized I had.

  “You know what?” I yelled, slipping into the melee of vampires surrounding Nicholas. He turned, putting his back to mine. “Dead girls don’t dance, Vanessa. So do it! Do it now!” Blood trickled down the back of my knee, driving the Hel-Blar into a mad fever. Blue hands and needle fangs came at me. Nicholas staked one and tossed me through his ashes, through the sudden opening. Hungry snarls punctuated the air. They were too mad with hunger to form words.

  Vanessa lifted her foot and brought it down hard over the bottle.

  The glass cracked, oozing blood and glitter.

  The Hel-Blar paused, heads snapping in her direction. There was a crack of sound like thunder, and the smell of smoke and mushrooms and wilted lilies. The cacophony of the rides snapping into motion, of whistles and bells and voices all breaking open at once made my head throb. The shifting mob of human scents, warm with rushing blood, distracted the Hel-Blar further. Nicholas dispatched two and I took out the last one with my new hairpin stake. It splintered and broke, but at least it cleaved through vampire muscle and flesh first. I coughed at the foul dust, as Nicholas helped me up.

  “I wouldn’t step in that if I were you,” he told Vanessa as the blood oozed toward her foot. She leaped out of the way as if it were acid.

  We stood there for a long moment, catching our breaths, watching the colored lights flash and the people wander between the booths. Some of them looked faintly confused. I spotted Nathan stealing some of Linnet’s popcorn. They both looked fine. Relieved, I leaned against Nicholas. We stumbled through the sand and up the boardwalk. Vanessa followed us, looking bewildered. Hunter and Quinn joined us, Hunter’s cheeks red and her damp hair sticking to her bare arms.

  Quinn was grinning. “Well, that was fun,” he said. “Also? What the hell?”

  “Short version?” I nodded to Vanessa. “Psychic vampire plus vampire blood plus love charm equals very, very bad.”

  “So why weren’t you two affected?” Hunter asked. “You were right here.”

  “Vampire blood?” Nicholas guessed. “It doesn’t work against other vampires, not without it being ridiculously ancient or dosed with Hypnos.”

  “And I’m partly immune,” I added. “Growing up with the Drakes does have its advantages, even though someone’s always trying to kill me. And plus we were kissing at the time.”

  “When aren’t you kissing?” Quinn teased.

  “When I’m punching you,” I shot back with a grin.

  “I didn’t do it on pur
pose,” Vanessa said, her voice as unperky as I’d ever heard it. Strangely, I missed her exclamation points. The rest of us were used to this sort of thing and we knew banter would make us feel normal again. Vanessa probably didn’t think she would ever feel normal again. Some things you just can’t unknow.

  “It’ll be okay,” I said.

  “There are paramedics on their way,” Hunter agreed, looking at me. I knew that by paramedics she really meant Helios-Ra agents. She glanced at Quinn and Nicholas and back at me. “So you guys should get out of here,” she added. “Before my friends get here.” In fact, there were already a few suspicious-looking black cargos and army-style boots around.

  Treaties or not, it just wasn’t a good idea to have two Drake vampire brothers hanging around the scene of a vampire attack, even if it was a Hel-Blar attack. And since I was listed as a Person of Interest in their stupid Helios-Ra hunter handbook, I wasn’t too keen on hanging around either.

  “Sorry, Van, I gotta go.” I squeezed her hand and she smiled tremulously. There was no flash of light and I didn’t feel particularly sleepy or drained though Nicholas tensed beside me. “It really will be okay. Hunter will help you, and I’ll see you at school.”

  Nicholas, Quinn, and I sprinted toward the parking lot, stopping behind an innocuous-looking beige minivan.

  “How can we be sure she won’t do it again?” Nicholas wondered.

  I snorted. “Are you kidding? I’m siccing Isabeau on her ass.”

  Quinn climbed onto his motorcycle. “See you at home, Nic. Bye, Luce.” We watched him peel out of the lot.

  “Stealthy.” Nicholas snorted.

  “So much for our first date.” I sighed.

  He handed me a motorcycle helmet. “Not quite.”

  I took it curiously. “What do you mean?”

  “Just get on,” he said, straddling the bike.

  I climbed on behind him. “Where are we going?” But he didn’t answer, just revved the engine.

  Hunter

  “Will she be okay?” I asked Spencer, my cell phone tucked between my ear and my shoulder. Most of the agents would be combing the forest around the fairground and the beach. I had a few minutes before I had to debrief. Vanessa trailed after me, looking lost as I slipped into Madame Juliet’s tent.