READ THIS OR PREPARE TO SUFFER MY KOLUMPICUS WRATH (kolumpicus is my word to describe something even bigger than ginormous)
So, I was reading this book by Vivian Vande Velde called Companions of the Night. The usual vampire romance, yada yada, except this one wasn't as cheesy and annoying. It was an amazing story with an amazing plot...until the last two pages, where Kerry, the, you could say, "heroine" of the story just decided to leave Ethan, the incredibly attractive dark-haired blue-eyed vampire. It was a devastating experience to me, and I am fully intending to write a complaint letter to the author. Yes, yes, my friends have been a bit critical, and if you ask me, rude about this, but hey, I'm a dedicated individual.
Anyway, since I highly expect Vivian Vande Velde to return my potential letter with a bunch of nice sweet sentences that disguise her want for me to shut up (I know you are wondering, then why do I want to write the letter? Well, it was a spur of the moment decision, so get off it), I've decided to take matters into my own hands and write a "sequel" to it. Of course, it will be nowhere as good, but at least it will relieve me of some of my aggravation.
Okay, so you are probably wondering when I am going to shut up and get on with it. Well, sorry to break the news to you, but I'm first going to write in this first chapter a summary of Companions of the Night so you won't be confused when I write my "sequel." It won't be too detailed, but it should include a good amount of significant stuff, so be patienta and READ IT. You'll find out why the plot is so amazingly amazing.
HOWEVER...I'd recommend going to right now or to your library to get this book instead (Remember: Companions of the Night by Vivian Vande Velde, author of the widely-acclaimed Heir Apparent and Never Trust a Dead Man). You'll probably get more details and be less confused, and also, you will understand my fervent desire for a sequel to come out - yes the ending is a huge letdown and a source of much depression. Now, enough of my blabbering...
Kerry goes to the public laundries to get her little brother Ian's stuffed Koala Bear, called Footy (not significant detail, but whatever). She is going to the laundries because when her mother left, she took the washing and drying machines with her.
At the laundries, she finds Footy, but right when she's about to leave, a bunch of men, including the laundry owner, come in dragging a boy who looks older than her, maybe a freshman in college (Kerry's 16). The men see her and drag her from her hiding spot under a table, and she gets a good look at the boy. He is incredibly attractive with dark hair and blue eyes. His face, however, is covered in blood, and his leg is dreadfully injured. The men treat him horribly, and when she asks why, they say he is a vampire.
Kerry feels scared now, sure she has landed herself in a situation involving lunatics, but she keeps her calm. Because of her sympathy towards the boy, the men suspect she is a vampire too. Of course, she proves them wrong when, in her defense, she bites one of them, and it obviously is not vampirish.
She smuggles a razor blade, from before the men came in, into her pocket. They don't notice. When they are distracted by a woman coming to help them hold the boy there until sunlight hits and kills him, she saws through the ropes tying his legs, and he is free. He takes the razor and threatens the woman (I think her name is Martha, but I'm not sure), giving him and Kerry a chance to escape. He takes her to his house where a woman, who looks to be in her thirties, is waiting. He talks to her for a while out of earshot while Kerry waits for him to take her home.
Kerry fully expects the, however old, beautiful woman named Regina to be the boy named Ethan's girlfriend. She feels disappointment, but knows she shouldn't have expected otherwise.
Just before she leaves with Regina for home, Ethan tells her she won't be included in his testament against the "crazies", and he promises she will never see him again, which is not a wonderful thought to her.
Regina takes her home and Ian gets Footy. The next morning, everything is normal. Her father is completely unaware of what has happened the other night.
After school she goes to her job. Her father fails to arrive to pick her up, and she gets worried. What if his lateness has to do with last night? she wonders, since her father has never been late before.
Just before the hysteria sets in, Ethan shows up unexpectedly at the supermarket where she works. He is just as surprised to see her.
After hearing her worries, he drives her back home, but when she goes in, she sees the living room is ransacked and a threatening message has been painted on the wall, in red paint, thank god, not blood: "Vampire, we have your family."
She leaves with Ethan to go find her family. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem too pleased for her company.
They go to Regina's home, and Ethan begins swearing in French. They get to Regina's bedroom and find her dead, head chopped off and skin black and burned. Kerry runs to the phone to call 911, but Ethan stops her. When she asks why and he doesn't respond, she realizes in an instant: Ethan is a vampire.
Because of this accusation, Ethan bends down to kill her. He can't afford her to know his secret. Just before he does it, she stops him and convinces him that they can work together to find Regina's assassin and her family. He agrees.
They burn down the house and drive to Bergen Swamp. There, they dispose of the body, and at a critical moment, Ethan almost kills Kerry again. But was it a death threat? Kerry is confused by the turn of events. She can't decipher Ethan's emotions at all.
They stop at a partly-filled railroad station and deep within its bowels, Ethan handcuffs Kerry to make sure she doesn't escape and then goes to sleep. Kerry, waking up, realizes Ethan made her fall asleep to keep her from knowing how to get into the station. She is stunned by this power of his.
After he wakes up, they proceed on. They stop at a Greek-style family restaurant (because Greeks serve breakfast night and day) and Kerry gets food. While reading a newspaper, Ethan tells her who and what the assassin looks like. His name is Marsala (Sorry, but I forgot his first name). The police are also looking for her. Kerry listens to him, little knowing the crucial information he has left out.
After a lot of other events that are not worth mentioning, they decide to visit Marsala's house to see if Kerry's family has been locked up there. Nobody is there, and Kerry sees a few photos and items. Turns out, Marsala once had a wife and a son. Also, it seems he has not returned to the house, so her family is definitely not here.
They leave, and uncertain what to do, return to her house. Kerry, seeing Footy lying crumpled in a corner, begins to cry, and Ethan says absolutely nothing (becomes important later, just read).
After much pondering, Ethan decides to "throw her to the wolves," or in this case, "to the vampire hunter." They plan for Kerry to lead Marsala to his house where Ethan will kill him. He tells Kerry to be prepared for Marsala to lie to her, and she nods.
After a while of searching, she finds him. At first, she does according to plan, but then, Marsala begins to talk.
Vampires, he says, are evil. He used to have a wife and son Joey, but when vampires entered Joey's life, he was ruined. Once a staright-A student, he became the opposite. He smoked weed, drank liquor by the packs, stayed out all night partying, and when his parents talked to him, he was rude and loud. He was slowly turning into a vampire, he said, but Kerry already knew that was wrong; Ethan had told her it took a few seconds for the transformation, not a few months. On the other hand, what had Ethan told Kerry so far that hadn't been a lie?
Regina, Marsala continues, was the culprit. Of course, Kerry is highly skeptical and only asks where Marsala has kept her family hostage. Marsala tells Kerry that her family is fine and free at the moment, but Kerry, prepared for lies, doesn't believe him. However, when Marsala shows her the exact same newspaper that Ethan had been reading the other day and points to where it says they have been found and are safe, Kerry feels hurt and betrayed. Ethan, despite knowing her extreme anxiety, had not told her a thing, and she is furious.
Marsala uses that as a reason, and Kerry agrees to help him kill Ethan, because she knows it's the right thing to do, as attracted to him as she is. Marsala gives her a gun.
Kerry takes him to where Ethan is waiting and Ethan checks him. Then he drags him into Marsala's house. Right before he leaves the car, though, Kerry slips Marsala the gun.
Marsala then says to Kerry to take out the gun, and Ethan, thinking Kerry has the weapon, lunges out at her and releases Marsala, who grabs his chance and shoots Ethan in the leg. Ethan becomes crippled and unable to walk, but he is healing, fast. Unfortunately, Marsala shoots him several times.
Marsala orders Kerry to open the windows. The sun will rise soon. It is only now that Kerry realizes her mistake and sees that Marsala intends to torture Ethan to death with the excruciating rays of sunlight on his side.
Of course, Marsala doesn't stop there, and proceeds to go into a very detailed description of his murder of Regina (best not written here for fear of the upheaval of weak stomachs). Kerry is distraught and tells him to stop, but he won't. Ethan, meanwhile, stares Marsala down with utter fury and hatred, while glances at Kerry with blank stares of betrayal.
Marsala proceeds to ask Kerry how she would like to die. Kerry is confused and shocked. Marsala believes she is in the stage between human and vampire, where Joey had once been, a stage that didn't exist.
Marsala comes to kill her, but Ethan rises to stop him. He shoots Ethan again, and while he is whirled around, Kerry, in anger and disgust, pushes him. Marsala falls down the steps, and that is the end of him.
But it is not over. The sun is rising, and Ethan begs Kerry to shoot him with the gun. It will be a much less painful process, he pleads. But Kerry, unwilling to see him die, pulls him into a dark closet. There, Ethan goes to sleep with Kerry guarding him.
When Ethan wakes up, he is still surprised to see her there. His burns from the minimal touch with the sun are painful, but he withstands them. Kerry confronts him about his lack to tell her of her family's safety, but Ethan has no good argument. Then, kerry asks him how he would've felt if it were Regina captured, and Ethan butts in.
He and Regina were never lovers, he says, but Kerry doesn't believe him. he tells her he was upset because he had thought Regina's, uh, death, for lack of a better word, was his fault, and his sadness was a result of guilt, not love. Kerry finally turns around, and Ethan kisses her.
Of course, this is the gooey love scene, and no matter what I write, it will never sound as good as Vivian Vande Velde put it, so if you want the details, read the actual book (title in my introduction). However, as much as she wants to, Kerry knows she cannot, will not, be a vampire, and so Ethan has to let her go home. And she leaves the house, knowing full well she may never see his incredibly attractive face again.
Okay, so that last phrase was stupid, but it's true. Anyway, now doesn't it seem a bit sad. Even though kerry loves Ethan, she has to leave because she knows it's the moral thing to do. I admire her decision, but I'm still depressed the KxE relationship never worked out.
Okay, so a bunch of information I now realize I left out but do not want to go back and add:
1) Ethan's origin probably from France, hence his swearing in French.
2) Ethan's original name probably Michel.
3) Vampires can turn back into humans. Shocking, I know, but isn't it refreshing to know that vampirism isn't an incurable thing?
4) The vampire hunters from the laundry room scene were later killed by Ethan and Regina so they wouldn't spill the beans.
5) Ethan's hair grows longer after he sleeps. That is how vampires heal; they revert back to their pre-vampire selves.
6) Joey was later killed in a car crash (I forgot to add this to the tale) and Marsala's wife left him.
7) Kerry's story for the police is that when her father did not pick her up, she got a ride home with a boy named Ethan Bryne. A psycho called Marsala ambushed them and forced Ethan to drive to Marsala's home, where he locked Kerry in the basement. When she finally shoved her way out, Marsala was there waiting for her, and proceeded to talk about Satan and vampires, etc. She pushes him in distress and he falls, cracking his head open. She, thinking Marsala is not dead and will come to kill her, runs into a room and barricades it. She falls asleep and comes out, while realizing Marsala was dead all along. Kerry, after all the stress of the situation, walks home instead of calling 911. Ethan Bryne is never seen again.
8) THIS IS NOT A FANFICTION!! IT IS A SUMMARY, LONG, I KNOW, BUT STILL A SUMMARY OF A BOOK WRITTEN BY VIVIAN VANDE VELDE. I TAKE NO CREDIT, AND WILL NOT TAKE CREDIT IN THE ENSUING CHAPTERS FOR THE CHARACTERS, UNLESS I MAKE UP NEW ONES. THANK YOU.
Yours,
fAT bRUNETTE