32—Count Chocula Motherfuckers
Dallas slowed to maneuver over a tangled mass of tree roots disrupting the trail. Birds chirped madly in the trees around them, preparing for sleep.
“Uh oh,” Dallas muttered. Bonhi had ‘switched on’, which meant vampires were close.
He’d be thrilled about it if they weren’t alone out here in the middle of nowhere.
He considered turning back but decided there was nothing to do but keep going.
Aven and Dakota were on their way, and Bonhi would be a fierce fighter, once she found her magic, he knew it.
Dallas got them going again at a slower speed, nose ready for the scent of vampires.
Bonhi tugged at his shoulder, then spoke in his ear. “We’re getting close.”
Dallas stopped and found a place to stash the four-wheeler, not mentioning Bonhi’s brighter glow. He cut the engine. “We go on foot from here.”
His phone rang, buzzing in his pocket. It was Maze calling.
Dallas answered quietly. “Yeah.”
Maze sounded out of breath. “Some human came and visited Judge Sturn. We’re pretty sure he took the key. He twitched, and I followed him, but someone shot at me and I lost him.”
“Shot at you!”
“Yeah, I was up high, too. He was a crack shot with a high-powered scope because he almost got me. I lost a couple tail feathers,” he said, his voice dark. “I’m still looking for the guy and for vamps but staying under cover until dark. The vamps are on their way to you.”
“Shit, stay safe,” Dallas said.
“You too.”
Dallas hung up and put the phone in his back pocket. Bonhi yanked on his hand, pulling him up the hillside in front of them with surprising strength and intensity. Dallas leaned back, slowing her down. He considered picking her up and running out of there, but a voice inside him spoke clearly.
(fight)
Dallas dropped all thoughts of retreating and nurtured thoughts of victory. He would protect Bonhi, and Bonhi would kill any vampires they came across.
If only he had the knife he’d made for her, but it was in his room in the house that had disappeared.
At the top of the hill, a break in the trees showed them a meadow, and a cabin centered in it, situated next to a strange looking tree. The door to the cabin was standing open, and the inside was dark. They heard banging and the scraping of metal against rock.
“There’s someone in there,” Bonhi growled in a low voice. “The cabin is hiding him from me, because I want to kill him.”
“Whoa, girl, there’s a vampire in there?” Dallas whispered. He grabbed her elbow and steered her around the back of the cabin to a window. They peeked in.
The one room was empty with no furniture.
The wooden floor was pried up in a few spots and two male vampires wrestled with a crowbar, trying to get more boards up.
They were both tall and slender with glowing red eyes and half-white, half-black hair, wearing full suits.
Their elongated fangs flashed in their mouths when they spoke.
Hostility flared inside Dallas at these parasites.
He remembered the group of women at the caves, and how the vampires had treated them like animals to be controlled, humiliated, and fed from.
If Aven was right, they’d also shot Dallas, which had fucked up his life pretty good.
Fiery hate and animosity filled him, and he struggled to clamp down on it before it made him reckless.
Bonhi pulled her hand away from him and headed around the cabin at a run.
Dallas caught her by the elbow. “Hold on, Bonbon, let’s be stealthy.
” He pulled her close and stepped around her, so he was closer to the door.
She planted her feet and tried to bulldoze him, but she couldn’t move him an inch.
“Dallas, don’t you understand?” Bonhi panted. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Shhh, shh, just don’t go running in there without a plan,” Dallas said, encircling her with his arms, containing her attempts to get past, but not wanting to hurt her.
She stamped her foot. “We need to get those gross motherfuckers out of the cabin!”
He shook his head about to speak but she feinted right, then spun on her heel like a football player and took off the other way. Dallas grabbed her around the wrist, grinning at her athleticism. Blue lightning crackled in the evening air and electricity seared Dallas’ hand.
He let go of Bonhi with that hand, shaking it and grabbing her with the other. “Ow! Bonhi, did you shock me?”
“I have to get them,” she said, her eyes searching his, her expression full of pain. She pounded her chest. “I feel it here. It’s so strong.” Flecks of blue light popped off her like campfire embers.
“Okay,” Dallas said. She was leaking magic and didn’t appear to know it yet, but he wasn’t going to hold her back if it was painful. He let her go.
She bent and gathered rocks off the ground. Dallas kicked a couple of big ones out of the dirt with his boots, then wiped them on his jeans.
“Ooooh,” she said, dropping all the small rocks. She took the two big ones, both about the size of a hefty potato, and studied them like they were diamonds. She clacked them together, smiling a wicked smile he’d never seen on her face before.
The scent of rotting plants hit him, and Dallas whirled around to face the front of the cabin.
A Count Chocula motherfucker came around the corner with a gun in his hand and a grin on his face.
He was pale as a sheet of paper and smelled like a fucked-up pine tree forest full of rotting and moldering herbs. Gross.
Dallas shoved Bonhi behind him, shielding her with his body. She clawed to get past him. He grabbed her wrist and turned around, hugging her tight, then picked her up and ran into the forest with her. She freed one arm and flapped it wildly, still holding the rock.
The vampire laughed, firing the gun from only twenty feet away. If it was a bloodbullet and the vampire had halfway decent aim, Dallas was a dead man, and his jaguar wouldn’t be able to save him.
A guttural roar of earth ripping made him duck and try to protect Bonhi with his body while stones and dirt pelted them from above.
The cavalcade slowed, then stopped and he felt safe to look around.
Behind them, a wall of boulders the size of porta potties had shot out of the ground between them and the vampire.
He put Bonhi down, pride coursing through him.
“Was that you?’
“That was me!,” she cried, smiling. “I told the rock to come out of the ground and protect you and it did! I knew it would and it did!”
Dallas kissed her hard, saying, “I always believed in you.”