The Explosion

Anyone who's being hypnotized by a vampire tends to be muddled in their thoughts and actions. That also applies when the anyone who's been hypnotised is a bloodsucker themselves.

And it went double for Rory, whose thoughts tended to be woolly at the best of times.

As Bram Stoker wrote in Dracula, "the dead travel fast." So, it was no time at all before Rory had flown back into town, landing beside Erica and Anastasia, the head of the vampire council. The three were standing before the building Rory always thought of as "Vampire HQ."

Vampire HQ was smashed to atoms. No, it wasn't smashed to atoms, thought Rory, because then it would have be invisible and blown to the winds. At any rate, where a short while before had sat a heavy, stone, neo-gothic building was now a pile of dust and rubble. Hardly anything left.

"Whoa!" said Rory. "I hope Benny and Ethan caught that explosion! Look at the place!"

Anastasia glared Rory into silence. Rory again wondered what he was doing following that creepy little girl. He just knew he had to.

"I sense Stern is dead" Anastasia said authoritatively, as she walked around the perimeter of the ruins. "That fool overloaded the lucifractor and destroyed my council chambers, my library and my property. Centuries of vampire heritage destroyed. If Stern was still alive, oh what delicious tortures I would set up for him! How I'd enjoy draining every ounce of life from him, drop by agonizing drop!"

"That would be something" said Erica, who showed her fangs.

"He's wasn't that bad of a guy" said Rory, defensively. "Mr. Stern, he let me out of detention once. I was in the basement hunting for rats. And then Stern, I don't know why he was down there, but he caught me, and I was like . . . ."

"Fool" said Anastasia.

Rory bit his lip.

"Don't you get it, you moron" said Erica. "Stern destroyed all of Whitechapel's vampire records, literature, history and money. He chased all the other vampires in the city out of town. And that's just for starters. Sarah was going to help your geek friends go after Stern. I don't even know if she's safe. That green shock wave we saw could have killed her!"

"That green wave was the dark energy in Whitechapel being destroyed . . . temporarily" said Anastasia. "It likely killed any vampire idiotic enough to remain within its path. That leaves me with you two as a pathetic combined bodyguard and entourage to prepare for the return of the rest of our kind."

Erica and Rory exchanged glances. They weren't concerned about Anastasia's criticism. What was significant was that Sarah was dead.

As for Ethan and Benny, well in Erica's mind they were, at most, of secondary importance to Sarah. And on occasion, Erica would, for her own reasons, have gladly seen either one or the other dead.

But Ethan and Benny had (had?!) been Rory's best pals. It was safe to say they were crushed dead if they had been in Vampire HQ when it blew up. As for the rest of the town, Rory now looked around for the first time.

From the woods at a distance, it looked as if all Whitechapel may have been blown to smithereens. But no, it was only Vampire HQ that was gone. The rest of the city was dark, and Rory, since being turned into a vampire, could see well in the dark. All that happened was the hydro had been knocked out with the dark-energy wave. Did electricity require negative energy? Probably not, but it sure was a cool side effect.

All the street lights were off. But even now, as Rory watched, the lights sporadically turned on here and there with a hum and a click. The traffic lights and store signs too. More like the city lights coming on at sunset instead of the instant recovery that comes as power's restored after a blackout.

The glass store-windows along the street hadn't even shattered.

"If Ethan and Benny weren't in the building, they probably lived" said Rory, hesitant and with some trepidation. "And if Sarah wasn't, she should have lived too."

"Get it through your skull, Rory" said Erica, turning on him eyes blazing and fangs drawn. "Vampires, like me, like Sarah, like you don't live the way mortals do. We . . . ."

"Quiet" Anastasia ordered. Rory and Erica, still under her mind-control, had no choice but to obey.

At the far edge of the Vampire HQ property, there were a tree and a few thornbushes, covered in plaster from the recent explosion.

Anastasia led the other two across the property in the blink of an eye. For the dead travel fast.

Notes

Early this month, I couldn't sleep. I ended up watching My Babysitter's a Vampire for the first time at 1:00 am in the morning. I thought it was clever and very funny. Although I'm really too old for what's really a kids program. In some ways, the show reminds me of 60's sitcoms like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie (which I mean as a compliment). Having a interest in seeing series having a conclusive ending, I decided to write this story. Any and all reviews (positive or negative) are greatly appreciated.