Chapter 25
The vampire considers Rafa’s unconscious form, his lower lip pushed up in a pout. “You know, I’ve done my best to keep him safe and away from all this. But I suppose this day was inevitable.” He fluidly swivels on his heels to take me in. Velociraptor smile. “So… who would you be?”
“Keep him talking, Alvin. I just— I just need a minute. Feck!” Collin darts in close enough that I feel his breath now. It’s ragged.
I don’t think we’re actually going to get a minute. But the Avatar of Knowledge is doing his looking-up-and-scanning-the-ceiling thing. Guess I’ll figure it out!
The question is, how is this thing talking at all? Vampires are little more than wild animals!
But San Francisco vampires are special…
I let my hands drop from the keyway, turn, and stand up. I force my legs not to tremble.
“So, uh, are you really Rafa’s father?”
It’s a stupid question. And my voice literally squeaks at the end. But I need to stall, and I have no idea what else to say.
His smirk sharpens. He begins to circle the space, running an index finger casually, possessively, over the iron cages in front of the kids on one side of the room. His fingertip flicks with a dull snap from bar to bar, creating a dull metallic ring. He’s in no rush. He knows he has me.
The kids recoil back against the far walls of their cells, whimpering, as he comes near.
“I am. And I do my best to keep informed about all my son’s acquaintances. You, I don’t know.” Small half-shrug. “But you look about his flavor, if a little young.” His voice becomes hard and commanding. “Tell me who you are.”
I don’t think there’s any power in his words, and something about the way he speaks feels affected, like he’s putting on airs—but that doesn’t stop a small, cowering part of me from wanting to tell him any little thing he wants, just so I can go somewhere and hide. (Probably in a puddle of my own urine.)
“I’m just… you know… some guy…” I sound weak. I sound like prey.
“Just some guy who tagged along with a Monster Hunter on what I can only assume is a daring and foolish rescue, hm?” He’s almost finished his tour of the side cells.
He takes in the locksmith tools in my hand.
“Since Rafa is no longer welcome with his clan here, it would make sense he’d have to go bargain shopping when it comes to professional assistance.
You’re some kind of cracksman, I assume? ”
Bargain shopping? I’m pretty sure I’ve just been insulted. (By yet another random, pompous bad guy!) And I have no idea what a “cracksman” is. (Sounds a little dirty, to be honest.) But if mocking me keeps him talking…
“Rafa never told me he was no longer welcome with his clan. At least not in so many words. So, uh, how exactly did that happen?” I try to look shocked. It’s not hard.
The vampire stops at the corner of the room. He’s only ten paces away. He chuckles, amused at my distress. “I suppose we all have our secrets, don’t we?” His eyes narrow. “Some are, of course, deadlier than others.”
And if that doesn’t sound like a perfect setup right before you swoop in and bite some terrified dude’s neck, I don’t know what is.
But luckily, Collin seems to have finally gotten what he needed from the mothership, because he blurts out: “Right, right, right! The Molotov cocktails! Even just a little bit of your magic can ignite the wick, and vampires are vulnerable to fire! Alvin, don’t think!
Just bend down, grab a bottle cork-side from Rafa’s pack, channel the fire in your stomach like you did in the car, and throw it directly at his torso! Right now!”
Uh-huh. This is the part where I would typically have a full-on mental freak-out about how all of that is impossible for me, and that I’m clueless about what I actually did the last time I created a spark, and that it was all probably just a fluke, and that vampires are crazy fast, and it’ll be on me before I even lay a finger on one of those bottles.
But Collin just told me to not think, and when it comes to not thinking and doing something crazy, it’s practically become my go-to move with him, so I quickly duck down, grab a bottle, picture fire in my belly, and chuck the damn thing (along with the hook pick!) as hard as I can dead at the vampire’s chest.
And the bottle hits! Right on target, even!
It even shatters spectacularly! BLAM!
And absolutely nothing happens, except for me getting a huge splotch of gasoline all over this monster’s obscenely expensive jacket.
He looks down at the spill, eyebrow cocked. “Seriously?” His eyes flick up to me and he appears more disappointed than pissed, the high-class air dropped. “You realize that’s not how those work, right?”
“Alvin! What the hell was that?!” Collin steps in front of me, face red and incredulous.
He thrusts out his hands toward my chest. “For feck’s sake, do it again!
And this time, actually picture raging fire inside you and send it to your fingertips!
I mean, c’mon! This vampire is going to kill you! Get angry!”
I don’t really know if anger is the most appropriate emotion for someone being attacked by the undead.
Fear, horror, despair—any of those seem much more of a natural response.
But the fact that Collin is acting surprised that I couldn’t do his stupidly impossible magic trick is, indeed, a bit annoying.
And when I reach back down this time, I’m not going to lie, it’s mostly just to prove how positively ridiculous he’s being, right before I get torn apart by a storm of claws and fangs.
Of course, there’s only so much damage that Mr. Suave-and-Malevolent is willing to let his suit endure, so the second I go for another bottle, he’s rushing me.
By the time I’m back up—cork and wick half-slipping through my fingers—he’s only a few feet away.
And I don’t know if it’s really anger or just blind terror that fills my insides as I picture a bright flare racing from my guts to my fingertips, but whatever it is, this time my nerves jangle with hot, explosive energy.
So, when my hand smashes the bottle into his oncoming stomach, there’s a quick flash of light—
—and then the vampire’s entire upper body explodes into a blaze of raging orange and yellow.
My eyes dazzle from the glare, and for a second I’m sure that I’ve been caught up in the conflagration, too, but then he leaps away from me with a soul-rending, ear-splitting shriek and is back rolling on the bare concrete floor, desperately trying to put himself out.
“Yes!” Collin exclaims, now apparently back to thinking I’m the bee’s knees. “That was class, Alvin!”
The hook tool tumbled onto the ground just a few feet away. I immediately move to grab it, but Collin grips my bicep, stopping me.
“There’s no time! We have to go. Now.”
As if to make his point, my enhanced hearing picks up running velvet footsteps upstairs. A lot of them. I suppose we haven’t exactly been quiet down here.
I dash over to Rafa and shake his shoulders. “Rafa! Rafa! Wake up!”
His father pounded his head like a pile driver, so I’m not shocked to find his dense, muscular frame just flops, limp, in my hands.
Icy terror trickles into my sides as I realize I might be completely on my own here.
I glance over at the backpack, wondering if there’s any way to Molotov cocktail my way out of here without killing all of us, including the kids.
(Bet not!) But then those superior Hunter genetics must kick in, because Rafa’s eyes flutter and open.
“Alvin?” He tries to focus on me.
“Vampires coming! A lot of them!”
My words are like a splash of cold water.
In the space of a few seconds, he’s pushed me out of the way and is on his feet—unsteady, but definitely awake.
Then he sees his father on his back a few yards away, staring blankly at the ceiling, charcoal smoke rising up from his chest. A stink of acrid, burnt hair permeates the room.
The suit is scorched and black. His whole body is badly charred.
The vampire’s fingers twitch. Down, but not dead. (Or not even more dead, anyway.)
Rafa picks up the sharp stake he dropped, eyes still on his father. “The lock?” His face is cold, but I hear raspy emotion in his voice.
“I couldn’t finish,” I say, my own words low and rough.
We turn at the same time to Emma. She’s back curled up on her cot, arms tight around her knees again, staring at the side of her cell, looking even more miserable than we found her. She knows she’s not getting saved.
Collin leans into my field of view, serious and haunted. “Alvin, I’m sorry, but we are out of time. You’ll be no good to any of these kids if those vampires get their hands on you!”
The Hunter squeezes his stake, now standing above the smoking monster on the floor. I step up to him.
“Spirits say we gotta go.” I force the statement out. I don’t want it to be true. But there has to be something we can salvage from this disaster. “If nothing else, we need to tell people what we’ve seen here… right?”
We both stand frozen for a moment, then Rafa nods. “Right. Let’s move.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder and starts to firmly and quickly guide me toward the door, like when we first met. He leaves his father on the ground, untouched.
Then I remember.
“The book!” I slip out of Rafa’s grip and run back to grab it from in front of the redheaded boy’s cell. I can’t help glancing up when I get there. The kid’s right above me, fingers wrapped around the iron, eyes pleading.
“Please… Don’t go… Don’t leave me here…” he says. It’s barely a whisper. And it’s like a scalpel slipping right into my heart.
I grab the book and turn away.
The blue glow immediately blooms out from its cover as I grip the leather in my fingertips. Vampire Dad startles, still splayed out on the floor.
“You,” it says, its neck craning up, its blackened face incredulous. “You carry the watch?!”
I’m caught in his furious glare. The rest of its body remains fixed, but it trembles with effort, struggling to rise.