DEATH OF A FLEDGLING
It was the memory of Coach Ed's end, what Ethan had told Sarah of the evil coach's begging for help as he was pulled into the "locker of the night", that finally persuaded Sarah to risk going to the party.
Sarah hadn't receive Erica's interrupted message. But she had, well into the evening, received a couple of messages from Ethan.
"Everything awesome as you can expect" Ethan had wrote. "Playing pool on my last night alive as ME. Jane OK? Don't see Erica. Don't care. She dumped Hodges after I killed him in eight-ball. Asked. Heard she's with some dude."
"No sarcasm there" said Sarah.
Sarah had presumed everything was okay. That is, until the next message about an hour later.
"Have an update for you. Still holding the table. Trixie's all over me, finally gave in and had a few cold ones for her. No worries. Afraid I'd start acting weird, full moon, but I'm okay. Can't drive now, so I'll be home in the morning.. Yeah, Erica's got a new date. Hodges too wasted to know. The French girl from Western, that Skyler's been with, she's jealous! She's swearing revenge. Haha."
Sarah narrowed her eyes. So Ethan gave into peer pressure after all, and because Trixie asked him to!
"If Ethan wants to spend the night howling at the moon and chasing cars, that's up to him" Sarah observed bitterly. "It doesn't matter how mental he acts as long as he doesn't actually turn into what he is."
But then Sarah remembered the reference to the "French girl at Western" (that is, the University of Western Ontario).
"What are the chances?" Sarah said to herself.
A Quebec girl in her late teens, early twenties had decided to spend time away from the university where she was enrolled to go to a dance with a high school jock from Whitechapel? Even if Valentine's Day was on reading week (something Sarah didn't know), the whole thing made no sense.
"Maybe she's a friend of Jarod's? suggested Jane.
"We would have probably heard about her already" said Sarah, adding. "And you were supposed to be in bed an hour ago."
"I was" Jane replied.
Sarah sent a text to Ethan asking if the girl's name was Coquette. "If it is, she's a vampire, and a very old and dangerous vamp."
No answer. After ten minutes, Sarah phoned. Still no answer.
What Sarah didn't know, was that as soon as Ethan read "She's a vampire" his eyes glazed over, he deleted the message and turned off his phone. Then he went back to eight-ball.
"I can't just wait here" Sarah said.
But first, she had, in her mind, covered her bases in case the bargain she had struck with Jane was binding. The fact that Jane was alone in the house was definitely a problem though . . . was it not for the fact, that as Sarah was warned, Jarod Vincenzio Hodge's chronically depressed father brought over a plate of his wife's cannoli as an excuse to regale Sarah with his past life as the editor of Teen Camping and Wilderness Life.
Sarah feigned tiredness and begged him to take over babysitting duties.
Finally, it helped a lot that this Ethan had an old bicycle stuck in the back of the garage (Sarah suspected her Ethan might have too, but had never seen him use it). It saved her walking, or, worse, calling Dirk or begging a ride from Hodge's Dad.
Still, it was over twenty-minutes biking on an icy night. It did, however give Sarah time to gather her thoughts together.
After what seemed like forever, Sarah arrived at Skyler Barton's street and in front of the large Tudor house announcing the party with the dull beat of the music behind its walls.
Sarah had no sooner gone two steps than she felt a frigidness that surpassed that of the subzero night. She turned to face Tempus yet again.
His sharp-features had been made more youthful; he looked more like a sixteen-year-old than Werewolf Ethan (who, of course, really was sixteen). He was smiling what must have been his widest grin. It was a remarkably unsettling.
"You broke your deal with Jane" said the sharp voice of Tempus. "A supernatural bargain if ever there was one. I can do with you what I want. But I find it more valuable to me if you go back right now. I'll let you out of your, say, breach-of-contract, if you go right now. Let you have a second chance to try and force yourself out of this brave new world. You have one minute."
"And if I don't?" asked Sarah.
"You don't believe me?" said Tempus. "Try and move."
Sarah couldn't move her feet. This frightened her, but she kept this to herself, She looked at the demon with an infuriated expression.
"You see, I have power over you now. Then I'll strike you dead" said Tempus. "And I'll drag away your soul. Ethan once told you about something like this happening to Coach Ed. Forty-five seconds Sarah. You don't forfeit, you'll die."
Sarah was taken aback a moment. Had her plan backfired?
"If I did break my bargain with Jane" thought Sarah, "would that give him the right to take away my soul?"
"Thirty seconds"
"I made a new bargain with Jane" said Sarah, summoning up her courage. "We even wrote it down and signed it. Right here. Since it was her bedtime, since it was her bedtime she didn't really mind that I no longer had to babysit her. Jane isn't evil, she just wanted to have fun. She didn't want the vampires to prey on Ethan or the other teenagers at the party. And I think you know all this. I know you spy on us."
The "contract" didn't glow, or display any supernatural properties; and it was written on a paper torn from a notebook, but it made Tempus frown.
"What did you give her for cheating her out of your babysitting duties?" asked Tempus contemptuously.
"Something invaluable" said Sarah seriously. "Because after all these Friday nights I trust her . . . when it really counts. The bolt."
"Idiot" spat Tempus, and rather than say anything more the demon faded into the night.
Sarah wasn't such an idiot as not to realize that Tempus had been bluffing. Now she knew for sure that he only told the truth when it suited him; only to use a lie when it might be of the most benefit! There was her Ethan dissing Werewolf Ethan, and now, and more importantly, this!
"He's never tried to fight us" said Sarah. "Even though he's supposedly a rare demon who has a physical form? Why not? He has a physical form to fight us. Of course . . . he has a human form. That means . . . .
Sarah was interrupted in her thoughts by the black-haired cheerleader Maurecia. Maurecia bumped her as she walked down the sidewalk.
"Sorry" said Maurecia in a montone as she continued walking.
Several yards down the sidewalk, was a waist-high bank of snow that had blown against a hydro-post. There were several footprints to one side as the neighbours using the sidewalk (and their dogs) avoiding wading through the snow. Not Maurecia, who followed a path several others had instead waded directly through a snow-bank.
"She would not do that" Sarah said thoughtfully. "No more than Erica. Or me for that matter.
Well, maybe, a childish part of Sarah, deep down would love to take part in a snowball fight with Ethan. Maybe with Jane, and Erica, and Ethan's friends joining in for a free-for-all. But just walking into a snowbank at a "cool" party . . . .
Sarah wasn't a detective, but this didn't make sense for a cheerleader. It was something a little kid would do, or Rory, but not Maurecia.
"Ethan'll be fine chasing cats or howling at the moon" Sarah said
Sarah looked at Maurecia as went toward Jesse's mansion; Sarah knew she had to follow.
Several footprints went up the drive to Jesse's place. Sarah thoughtfully pulled a bare branch from a bush bordering the sidewalk. She made an improvised bō of the stick, that is to say a staff used in the traditional art bōjutsu. It can be compared to the quarter-staff, famously used by Little John of Sherwood Forest fame. Often bōjutsu is taught alongside empty-handed arts like karate. Sarah was just beginning to learn the art from her sensei.
Was that a match for a vampire? It was also useful for staking. And it was a good decoy from Sarah's real weapon.
"You are not under see glamour!" said a creaky voice who blocked Sarah's way into the house. "You will regret your foolishness, mon petite."
Sarah was face-to-aged-face, as she saw the wrinkled, parchment-coloured visage of Andre.
Sarah winced.
"Erica told me all about you" said Sarah, holding the staff in front of her. She looked at the lean figure in front of her, and it struck her there was a tragic quality about Andre.
Maybe it was because Sarah had once been a vampire against her will. This man was made a vampire when he was on his deathbed. How much of a free choice could it have been?
"I almost feel sorry for you" said Sarah. "I can't believe that Coquette would let her closest friend get old, and then when he's an old man trick him into becoming a vampire so he can be her servant forever."
Andre laughed coldly. Evilly, would be a good description.
"It is my honour to serve the Mademoiselle. It is true, I dreamt of her being mine when I was young, alive and myself hot-blooded. But it is all I want to be at her side through the ages. That is her gift to me, you foolish girl. Over 350 years have been together. But mesa mi Erica, she is mine tonight. Her hot young blood will again warm up my cold old frame with its delicious fervour. How she will scream when I use the deadly bite to take hers and refresh mine! As for you and your imbecile la canne . . . that is the quarterstaff to you Anglais. I spit on you and your la canne!
"It's a bō" said Sarah. "And I'm not relying on it. Andre, behold the power of the lucifractor."
There was a look of astonishment and horror on Andre's wrinkled face; he knew what the lucifractor was! But this was only for an instant. Then all that was left of Andre was a muddy patch atop the snow.
The power was amazing! When she held the lucifractor, she could feel it working against her enemies! She could feel the warmth of the jewel in her hands and radiating outwards! AND The ability to just turn a vampire to dust like that . . . ."
What else could Sarah do with it? Almost anything . . . .
"The power's also intoxicating" thought Sarah grimly. "Power does corrupt. I need to be careful with this thing; whatever it does its addictive. I just hope that being an ordinary teen I don't have the same issues Ethan, Benny or Stern might have even holding this thing."
Sarah quickly replaced the lucifractor in her pocket. She didn't want to even hold it.
Sarah went onward to the front door, opened the handle and stepped in. There she was met by an attractive women with white-blonde hair in a long purple strapless evening gown. The woman had a wine-glass in hand; but what she was she drinking probably wasn't wine but blood. Though, as Sarah reflected, she could no longer sense the sticky blood smell under these circumstances.
"And who is this?" said the woman, with a fanged smirk. "We've almost all had our supper entrees. 18 of 21. Blood under ice is nothing like the real, fresh taste pulled from the victim's still pumping arteries. I see you must be Colby Flood's little dinner entrée. I thought he liked blondes. Well, dear, I suppose you'd better follow me for now as he's left to see the teenager's revelry."
Sarah carefully followed the woman, who guided Sarah into the foyer. The woman's touch was cold but steady.
"It'll soon be time for you to die dear" said the woman, in a friendly, casual tone as if she was commenting on the weather.
The woman looked disapprovingly at a large number of gasoline jerry cans and fireworks that were stored in the foyer. Sarah forced herself not to show surprise.
"What are they doing? Burning the place down?"
The woman in the evening gown was soon joined by a tall, dark man in a tuxedo.
"I wish I hadn't drank the red-head so soon, Lorelei" said the man with a sigh. "I should have saved her for when Coquette arrived for her toast. She's supposedly bringing that Barton boy to drain as the piece de la resistance."
"Oh, don't worry yourself Reginald" laughed the first woman. "Coquette will make her speech at three. You know how she loves to toy with the quick."
"Don't we all, Lorelei?" agreed Reginald, with his own fanged leer. "But this vintage AB negative is very good."
Jesse's living room was similar to the way it looked before. Similar . . . but not the same. There was a thin, sallow woman in the middle of the room keying away on a large black grand piano. The crowd this time wasn't teenagers (or vampires who looked like teenagers), but what looked like rich, very snobby twenty and early thirty-somethings.
"Isn't this the most!" gushed one red-headed woman in a blue evening-gown.
"They say awesome nowadays" observed a yawning vampire at her side.
Sarah thought it very boring. It was like a vampire "networking" party.
"Coquette always set a grand table" said a fat man with unusually large eyes to a rail-thin woman with her hair in a high pompadour.
"C'est magnifique!' agreed the woman.
"Je me souviens quand nous avons dû fuir juste avant la revolution. Les paysans étaient après nous deux" said the man.
"Ah yes, we barely escaped" laughed the woman. "But two years later, as vampires, we had our vengeance on them all. Our estate in Quercy is still desolate three hundred and twenty years later!"
"And we kill all who seek to live there" laughed the large-eyed man. Qu'il s'agisse de membres de la famille ou d'étrangers."
The two laughed uproariously.
"But I have grown indolent in my undeath" said the man.
"Oh, you were indolent when you were alive" said the woman.
"C'est vrai!" agreed the bug-eyed man. "I did not want to go fly across the ocean. But, this feast of Coquette, to do her the honour I would."
"I don't know if these are worst vampires I've ever met" thought Sarah acerbically. "but they're definitely the most boring. Erica might have loved them, but at least . . . for vampires . . . they don't seem much like fighters. The closest thing I've ever seen to them was the vampire restaurant crowd . . . some of them might even have been customers."
Sarah hid her feelings, and wondered how and when she should use the lucifractor on the crowd.
Sarah looked with disgust at several vampires standing around a large buffet table with several glass punch bowls and bottles. They were labelled by blood type, as if this was a vampire's version of a wine-tasting.
"Soon" thought Sarah irritably. "Coquette and this Colby guy are at Skyler's party and looking for victims. Maybe I'll hear more."
Sarah reflected on the name.
"Colby?" wondered Sarah. "I think he was one of the vampires Ethan and his buddies faced-off against in Toronto last summer. The undead teen that Rory light-sabred."
So vampires could be "recalled" from the dead in this reality. But not humans. But not so far.
While Sarah considered this, her eyes fixated on Jesse's fireplace and then the large flat-screen TV.
Over the large-screen television set was hung a large banner. Joyeux massacre de la Saint-Valentin. That is to say, "Happy St. Valentine's Day Massacre".
Sarah thought it was incredibly stupid. She, in fact, was of Colby's opinion. If they really wanted to "celebrate" the St. Valentine's Day massacre, they ought to be dressed as gangsters and gun molls and carrying around tommy guns in violin cases.
"Maybe I've been hanging around with Ethan too . . . ."
Sarah didn't finish her thought. Being led around the room by Lorelei, she had been at the wrong angle to see past the piano. Finally, she had a good view of the leather furniture where Rory had video-phoned Ethan and Benny the night of Jesse's vampire party.
On the leather furniture, setup like grotesque life-size dolls, were sixteen or seventeen teenagers from Skyler's party. They were as pale as death and plainly slumped. The eyes were either closed or open with a sightless look of extreme fear.
One of the male vampires was adjusting the Mauricia's face so she'd look like she was slumped against her seat in mid-laugh.
"Since when do you play with dolls, Henri?" laughed a black-haired vampiress who strolled in for another room.
"They have sculpting possibilities" yawned Henri. "At least until rigor mortis sets in. They should all last until Coquette arrives. She will love them. Our tableau. Our tableau vivant."
"No, no, no" laughed Lorelei. "A tableau morte. They are no longer the quick, they are the dead."
"They're all dead!" thought Sarah in shock. "
"Except my meal" said the vampiress. "I have pulled a little trick with Bartos, the Student Council President. I am a Hungarian. He has a Magyar name, I decided to see what he is made of."
"She didn't" thought Sarah.
Anger welled in Sarah. Although she barely even knew Bartos, her heart immediately went out to the new fledgeling.
Would she have to kill him too? Well, what did the lucifractor do to a fledgeling?
"Anelia" said Lorelei disapprovingly. "You didn't. You know there is a curse."
"Yes, yes, yes" said Anelia, waving her hand dismissively. "I took just enough blood to make him fall asleep. He began his writhing immediately. I don't suppose he knows what's happened yet.
"This is serious, Anelia" put in Reginald. "There is a legend that the vampire who sires a reluctant convert to the undead brings misfortune on their community. Coquette will be furious. There might even be truth in it.
"It's some nonsense about the stealing of souls" laughed the woman with the pompadour, who floated over.
"Have you ever tried it?" asked Lorelei.
"I don't want some gauche reluctant vampire drooling all over me" sniffed the vampiress.
"Some say Horace Black's violation cost him his flock, and just the year before last his existence" said Henri with a yawn. "And set off the curse that killed many of the others in this town. Including Anastasia herself. But I have an idea. We give this Student Council President a couple hours to willingly join us, if he doesn't we kill him."
"Vampire bretheren-ship?" asked Lorelei. "Killing one of our own."
"Vampire balderdash" said Reginald. "Come. Let's watch him. This should be good fun."
"Should we give him this girl here?" laughed the large-eyed man.
He put his hand on Sarah's shoulder.
It took Sarah all her willpower not to shudder by the touch of the undead blueblood.
"No, save her for Colby" said another woman who hadn't spoken yet. "He'll be fine with the bottled blood."
"Here he comes" said the red-headed vampiress.
"Let's see how long it takes for him to catch on" said Reginald. "Remember, I'm Reggie."
"Reggie!" laughed the vampire playing the piano.
Bartos was bleary-eyed as he walked, or rather stumbled, into the living room. In spite of the deathly pallor on his face, he looked like an ordinary teenager.
A few of the vampires smirked
"How's it going . . . dude" said Reginald.
"Eh, man" said Henri. "You passed out."
"I feel like crap" said Bartos, rubbing his eyes. "Where am I? Who are you guys?"
"You crashed our party" said Reginald. "It's not exactly the kind you're used to."
Bartos looked around and saw Sarah.
"Sarah?" he asked.
At long last, the undead bug-eyed man let go as Bartos went up to Sarah.
"Where are we?" he asked her. "It looks like some sort of wine-tasting? Man . . . I really blacked out. Sarah . . . Hey is that . . . what?"
Sarah didn't hide her sympathetic expression from Bartos' confused face. Bartos was tall, so he had to look down at her.
"What can I do with him?" Sarah thought desperately. "I waited too long to lucifract, hadn't I? I haven't learnt much here. Just that the sooner these vampire snobs are dead the better."
Bartos was wide awake now and his eyes had been disinterestedly looking at the punch with the blood-type placards.
"More Halloween than Valentine's?" he scoffed. "Man, Amanda's gonna dump me . . . ."
"I suppose Coquette brought over a set" said the bug-eyed man.
Bartos went to the dead bodies. Katherine was among them.
"What the hell? Amanda?"
The piano playing vampire started playing Chopin's Funeral March.
Several of the vampires went over and looked amused as Bartos tried to revive his girlfriend. In a panic, he tried to lie her on the floor and start CPR.
This gave Sarah the chance she was waiting for. She inched away from the other vampires, and reached into her pocket . . . .
But she hesitated. She herself was once a reluctant fledgeling.
"Buddy, don't sweat it" said Reginald. "She's dead . . . and you'll soon realize that you're very, very hungry."
"I . . . ." started Bartos in an angry voice.
Bartos started sniffing, and brought himself to his feet. His eyes sparked yellow for a second, went back to normal, and then sparked yellow again . . . and stayed.
"That smells awesome" said Bartos in a voice of astonishment.
Bartos frowned as he rubbed his mouth. He winced in pain, and stumbled back against the wall. He opened his mouth to show two large, white vampire incisors that had just forced their way through his formerly human gums.
"Nice fangs" said Anelia.
"You . . . are . . . hot!" said Bartos.
"We'll talk. First drink."
"Fangs?" said Bartos, as he licked them with his teeth.
"And that's blood, buddy" said the piano player, who now went with Bach's Toccata in D Minor.
"Dum dum dum . . . dum dum dum . . . Dummmmmmmm Dummmmmmmmmmmmmmm" sang Lorelei.
Bach's stomach growled, and he turned to face the nearest blood-filled punch bowl.
"That means I'm a . . . I'm so hungry . . . I"
"Drink" whispered Anelia into his ear.
She kissed him.
Bartos had a conflicted expression on his face. But it seemed he couldn't help himself. He literally began to drool. Bartos rushed to the bowl, and looked as if he would dip his head in.
"BEHOLD, THE POWER OF THE LUCIFRACTOR" said Sarah, at long last.
The vampires didn't know what hit them.
Sarah now knew why Ethan liked the laser-guns in Star Wars, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.
In seconds, she had zapped all the vampires in the room to dust. All eighteen of them. She had zapped them so quickly, it seemed as if even the piles of dust the vampires had left behind were still sizzling from her rapid-fire sweeping of the now silent room.
"Sorry, Bartos" said Sarah, with a sigh. "I guess being turned was too much for you. Maybe teen guys are just always hungry. I hoped the Lucifractor would cure you if you were still a fledgeling."
Sarah bent down over Bartos' body.
Sarah had managed to zap Bartos before he had drank human blood. So he had died a fledgeling and left a body behind. But the teen's hair was singed and his face and hands burnt a crisp black in several places; as if he had been horribly electrocuted as the bloodsucker's curse had been literally roasted out of him.
Sarah cringed. She could even smell Bartos' burnt skin and clothes.
"The full force of it was too much for you" said Sarah, looking at his pensively. "Your first hope was to save Kathy. You probably would have went to sae the others."
Sarah looked around and stood up.
"The sooner I'm gone from here the better" said Sarah. "Once we put the bolt back, none of this should have happened."
"You hope they'll come to life again" mocked Tempus, who again made his appearance. "That won't happen. Unless you make another deal with me."
"I never really made a deal with you" sneered Sarah, who turned her back on the demon and began walking out of the room. "And you're a proven liar. They'll all be alive again . . . like they're supposed to be, Tempus."
"What makes you so sure I'm lying?" said Tempus.
Sarah looked back.
"Even if you aren't, Bartos and the others will go where you can never follow them."
"Sarah!" said Tempus. "You forget one thing!"
"What?" said Sarah.
"AHHWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" "AHWOO"
That was Ethan's long, loud, ominous howl from somewhere in the distance. Followed by the far less threatening howls of the dogs in the neighbourhood.
Sarah ran out the door. She didn't pay attention to the fireworks in the hallway. They had also been singed by the lucifractor and were now starting to smoke.