Chapter Eleven
MASIE
“Mamma! Maybell!” I sprinted into the Rooster, all sweaty and tired, never so relieved to see bales of hay and sticky hardwood floors in my life.
I’d been lucky enough to catch a direct flight from Tacoma to Nashville after the helicopter landed and I ditched Teri. Cost me everything I had in my checking account, too. Six hundred buckaroos. The taxi here from Nashville cost me another two, which I had to put on a credit card.
Damned vampires! Bleeding me dry all over the place. Or, at least, they planned to.
Mamma looked up from behind the counter, holding a dish towel. Maybell was setting out saltshakers, and a few random customers looked like they’d just sat down to eat. The other servers were probably in back, getting ready to start the dinner shift.
“Masie?” Mamma said. “What are you doin’ here? It’s still daylight out.”
I ran behind the counter and took Mamma’s hand. “I’m not a vampire. Stark lied. He and all the other vampires lied, too. They eat people. They kill them, Mamma.”
Maybell walked up to the counter with her dark hair in a high ponytail. She wore Daisy Dukes and our standard T-shirt with the Flaming Rooster logo. “Masie, what are you talking about? We watched you die, so you’re a vampire now. Stark saved you with his blood.”
I gave her a look. “What part of me walking in from the sunlight didn’t you get? And me being a vampire or not isn’t the headline here.”
“Sugar baby, I’m not followin’,” Mamma said.
I drew a deep breath. “Stark drugged me and kidnapped me to that island I told you about on our call yesterday. He said it was to keep me from killing people during my transition, but really? He only made me think I was a vampire—some kind of preparation for when he actually turned me. Which he was gonna do before he married me. Or maybe after. I’m not sure. But he’s got everyone still believing—”
“He proposed?” Mamma’s eyes lit up with joy.
Leave it to her to only hear that one fact.
“Yes. Sort of.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now.
The important part is that the vampire world still thinks I’m that Anna woman.
Stark only wanted to marry me so I—she—can help him take over and carry out his master plan.
” I took another deep breath. “They want to make the world into a vampire Buc-ee’s!
Aisle two, live people. And aisles three, four, five—the whole dang place! Even Daddy’s in on it.”
I reached up and turned on the TV mounted to the wall behind the bar. Hopefully, I wasn’t too late.
I changed channels to the news. Please be covering the weather. Please? Anything boring was a good sign. “Weather! Yes! We still have time to stop them.”
Mamma rolled her eyes. “Your father might be a vampire, but he would never hurt anyone.”
“Oh yeah? Ask him about the waking chambers, Mamma. Ask him what they do to the poor people inside.”
“Is it sex stuff?” Maybell asked excitedly.
I frowned. “They suck on ’em like turkey wings. Until they’re dead.”
“I hate turkey.” Maybell winced.
“Masie, that’s just crazy talk.” Mamma began wiping down the counter. From the look on her face, she didn’t believe me. Neither did Maybell.
“No. It’s not. And we need to tell everyone what they’re planning,” I said frantically. “I’m human, and Montgomery Stark tricked me into believin’ otherwise. You think a man like that isn’t up to something?”
“Well, maybe he thought you’d turned,” Mamma said sympathetically, “and when you didn’t, he wasn’t sure how to break the bad news. The man really does love you.”
How in the world had Mamma reached such a stupid conclusion? “Has Daddy been giving you a special drink?”
Mamma’s cheeks flushed from her usual light tan to a guilty pink.
Gasp. “That stuff is a drug,” I barked. “Vampires use it to brainwash people.”
“I like moonshine,” said Maybell. “Tastes like chocolate ice cream.”
Her too? “You both need to listen,” I fumed. “Do not take any more. It’s poison.”
“Your daddy would never hurt us,” Mamma argued.
“Daddy’s a vampire, and Stark is his master,” I said. “He probably didn’t have a choice. Promise me, whatever happens, that you won’t drink any more moonshine. And don’t look them in the eyes. They have some weird voodoo powers or somethin’.”
The two exchanged skeptical glances. They weren’t buying my story, and if my own family wouldn’t believe me, how was I going to convince the world?
“And in other news,” said the voice on the TV, “the Repurposed People Act has unanimously passed the House and is expected to have the full support of the Senate. The law would go into effect immediately, giving full living-human rights to any repurposed individual born in the United States or to those who can show they were in the country legally at the time of their death.”
My mouth dropped, and I pointed at the screen. “Are they talking about vampires?”
Maybell nodded. “You mean repurposed people? That’s what they liked to be called now. I kinda like it. Vampire sounds too scary.”
I can’t believe it. They’re trying to rebrand themselves as just recycled people. “They are not gently used jeans, Maybell! They’re monsters. And they want to kill us all!”
“Now that’s just silly, darlin’.” Daddy appeared behind me. Like Uncle Jimmie, he was a tall man with warm brown eyes and a husky build. His brown hair was unkempt as usual, but his beard had been neatly trimmed.
His gaze affectionately locked on Mamma.
Wait. Or was that hunger? She’d confessed that he’d been using her for food.
I looked at him again. Yep, he’s staring at her like she’s a cheeseburger.
Bleh! I took a step back, realizing that if Daddy was here, then the sun had gone down. It wouldn’t be long before Stark caught up with me.
Daddy reached for Mamma’s face and swept his knuckles along her jaw. “Good evening, my little bunny.”
“My wolf.” She giggled.
“Stop touching her.” I smacked his hand away. “I won’t let you kill her and turn us all into a chow line.”
Daddy laughed. “Why would we want to kill the people we love, not to mention our only source of sustenance?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find a way to fatten us up on moonshine and keep us all penned up like piggies,” I spat. “And for the record, this piggy don’t want no Easter dress. You’ll have to look the ugly truth right in the dirty asshole.”
My father arched a brow. “Masie, you know how your mamma feels about cussing. Also, I have no idea what you just said.”
I didn’t have time for this. I had to stop Stark from turning the world into a Snack Shack for vampires.
Uncle Jimmie came out of the kitchen, holding his cell. “Masie, Stark is on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”
“Hang that up!” I squawked.
“Why would I do that? Stark’s my friend,” Jimmie replied robotically. “Just do us all a favor and hear the man out.”
Oh no. Oh no! Stark had gotten to Uncle Jimmie, too.
“Y’all are about as useful as a fork at a soup shop.” I shook my head.
“Stark says you drank too much moonshine, that you’re not thinking straight.” My uncle wiggled the phone. “Just speak with him, and he’ll explain.”
“Yes, darlin’,” said Daddy in a deep, commanding voice. “Just listen to the man.”
I can’t believe this. Daddy’s trying to put ideas in my head. He thinks I’m still on moonshine. It instantly became clear that I was on my own. There would be no family by my side, helping me figure out how to stop these evil creatures. They’d all been pod-peopled.
I snatched the cell from my uncle’s hand and pressed it to my ear. “Stark, you disgustin’, dirty SOB. You are not getting away with this.”
“Masie,” said that deep, menacing voice, “if you wish your family to survive, you will listen and do as I—”
“Don’t you dare threaten them,” I growled. “You hear me? You so much as lay a fang on—”
“You have only one card to play, woman,” he said, “and that card is taking your place by my side, doing exactly as you are told, and—”
“Over my dead fuckin’ body.” I ended the call.
Mamma gasped. “Masie. Language.”
I pointed a finger at her. “My cussing is the only thing going for us right now.” It meant I was spitting mad and ready to fight.
But fight how? The world was doomed if I didn’t figure out a plan, and the only thing I could come up with was getting the word out.
I turned to leave.
“Where are you going?” Uncle Jimmie asked.
To convince the world to start killing vampires. What other option was there?
I left without another word, praying they wouldn’t stop me.
They didn’t.
But during the short walk to my apartment, I felt dozens of eyes on me from the rooftops along Main St., from the darkness of the trees, and from every alley between houses. Stark’s army was everywhere.
If I had any chance at all of stopping the vampires, I’d have to act fast.