The plan was simple — get Laura alone.
I waited in the hallway, just outside the heavy double doors that led to the gymnasium. I knew Dracula would flush them out, as easy as a cat flushing out a pair of scared mice. I stood in the shadows, ready to pounce.
But I waited so long, that I began to suspect something was wrong.
What's going on now? I thought.
I pressed my ear to the door.
Dracula was right; I heard more than one heartbeat. There were nearly half a dozen of them, huddled together in pairs in different corners of the room, so terrified that their pulses sounded as loud as beating drums — a resounding rhythm that got my blood boiling and my mouth watering.
And there, right in the middle of the room, there she was.
I could smell her! I nearly blasted right through those doors, but I bit my lip instead.
What's taking so long?!
Then lightning flashed! (Though the skies had been clear only moments before.)
Lightning flashed and the trapped mice screamed!
I resumed my position in the shadows just as the double doors swung open.
One little mouse, two little mice, three little mice!
They ran past me, and down the hall but none of them were her.
Four, five, six!
I heard shouting and a struggle coming from the darkened gymnasium.
"I've got him! I've got him!" Danny shouted.
"Hold him still!" Laura shouted.
Now what?! I thought.
"Get your filthy human hands off of me!" Dracula protested.
"Spray him!" Danny shouted. "Spray him!"
"No one touches the Ghost of…"
But he was cut off by a hissing spray that gagged and choked him. He spit and sputtered.
"My eyes!" he howled. "What the hell?!"
"Run!" Laura shouted.
I heard their footsteps approach — two sets of footsteps where there should have been one.
Damn it, Dracula! You had one job! I thought.
I stayed in the shadows until they passed. It wasn't the right time to make my move. And when I entered the gymnasium, I found Dracula — the infamous and terrible — sitting in the middle of the basketball court, nursing his inflamed eyes and running nose.
Tears ran down his face as he growled. No, growl isn't the right word — it was more of a whimper.
"Well, that didn't go exactly as planned," I said.
He howled, and if one didn't know better, they'd think it was the howl of a ferocious beast and not a crying man.
"What was that fire water?!" he said.
"Oh that? That was pepper spray," I said. "A miracle of modern self defense."
I grabbed him by the elbow and lifted him up.
"Why would anyone invent that? Why?!"
"I know, tell me about it. Humans and their darned need to protect themselves," I said.
"Protection? That stuff is inhumane!"
"Anyway, how did they even get close enough to pepper spray you? I thought you could walk through walls, or whatever."
"They ambushed me. They were supposed to scream and run like everyone else, but as soon as that Amazon saw me, she kicked me right in the bagpipe!"
"Bagpipe, huh?"
"It's a euphemism. It means…"
I waved my hand, cutting him off.
"I know what it means."
He groaned a little more.
"Well, now what?" I said. "You were supposed to help me get her alone."
"I don't know what you see in that girl," he said. "She's a menace to all vampire-kind."
"You might be right," I said.
I had to admit, I felt better knowing that Laura could hold her own against a vampire, even if she did think it was a ghost, and even if Danny did give her a literal leg up in the situation.
Maybe I should just go back to the dorm, I thought. She seems totally fine without me.
I pulled the bat wing bracelet out of my back pocket.
She doesn't need this…or me.
Just then, I heard approaching footsteps and hushed voices.
I pulled on Dracula's arm, and he whined in return.
"Shut up!" I whispered. "We have to hide."
We crouched behind the bleachers just as their shadows appeared in the doorway. Danny led the way, using her phone like a flashlight, and Laura followed close behind, a camera in one hand and a dustpan in the other.
She's filming this! I thought. What a Nancy Drew nerd!