Fangs for Nothing (Vampire Hunting and Other Foolish Endeavors) (15 page)

Sherbert: Give it a few weeks, and half of Cleveland will be in love with you.

Turnover: But not you?

Why was she doing this? We had just survived a vampire attack. Well, not an attack but a vampire roofie with intent to attack. Then I remembered the kiss. Lana’s good luck kiss. We’d been so busy fleeing for our lives that I hadn’t had time to think about it and dissect its meaning. Was I just an idiot, or was there the vaguest, smallest, tiniest chance that Lana actually liked me?

T
he whole thing just felt like too much. If I was honest, a huge part of me really liked her, and I didn’t want to risk getting my heart broken. So I lied.

Sherbert:
Oops! Got to go. Grandma’s orders.

Turnover: Seriously?

Sherbert: Yeah.

Turnover: Call me tomorrow?

Sherbert: Okay.

Turnover: Good night.

I logged off and went back to lie on the bed again. I still wasn’t able to sleep, but at least I had something to occupy my brain besides vampires.

Chapter 20

I had the funkiest, craziest, scariest dreams. I mean, real psycho stuff. Sometimes I was being chowed on
by a flock of vampires; sometimes I was the vampire. In a couple of them, Lana, Xander, and Rini were in a burning building or on a sinking boat, and there was nothing I could do to save them. In the worst dream, Grandma was the vampire. Needless to say, I did not have a restful night. I was just finally hitting some solid REM sleep in the early light of dawn when I became aware that Grandma was in my room.

“Herbert, wake up
.” She tugged at the sheet that I’d twined around my legs.

“Gah!” was the first word out of my mouth.
I was going to protest more, but something about Grandma’s voice set off an alarm bell in my head. She wasn’t using her usual we-have-to-make-something-of-this-day voice or her you’re-getting-up-early-because-you’re-being-punished voice. This voice had a little hurt in it. Something was wrong. “What is it, Grandma?” I propped myself up on my elbows squinting into the morning light.

“Get dressed and meet me out front,” Grandma said in a tight voice.

“What is it?” I asked again.

Grandma shook her head as she left the room. “I don’t
even know.”

I pulled on some sweat pants and hurried outside. Grandma was standing on the front walk with a mop and a bucket full of sudsy water. For the briefest of seconds
, her jaw trembled, and she was on the verge of tears. Then she saw me and immediately pursed her lips, blinking rapidly. “See what some damn hoodlums did to our house.”

I joined her on the pavement and looked back at our home. Big red smears ran down the aluminum siding. Bloody, sticky smears.
I scanned the ground and saw dozens of eggshells littering the flower beds. We’d been egged. Repeatedly. My stomach clenched.

“Is it the Greeks, do you think?”
Grandma asked. “Don’t they do something with red eggs?”

“Uh, I think they just dye their eggs red at Easter. And j
ust the shells. Not the insides,” I told her. “I don’t think it was them,” I added, hastily. I pretty much knew who had made the mess, and I saw no reason to vilify an entire nation in the process of soothing my grandmother.

Our house was really just a one
-story nothing, but Grandma took great pride in its appearance, keeping the yard neat and well tended, so I knew the egging cut her to the quick. She made a long, stoic sniffing sound, and I could tell she was fighting back the hurt. “I just don’t understand why anyone would do something this disrespectful. It’s just so…” Her voice began to waver, and she broke off mid sentence.

I felt bad. I mean, I felt really bad. Grandma was
upset, and I couldn’t even explain why it had happened. I put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. She was not the kind of grandmother that would appreciate a hug at that moment, but I thought a little contact wouldn’t be unwelcome. “I think it was some jerky teenagers I met,” I confessed. “Once I got to know them, I figured out they were kind of weird, so I told them I didn’t want to hang out with them anymore. I think they probably did this just to be assholes.”

“Language
,” Grandma barked, quick as a wink. She was upset about the house, but that didn’t mean I was allowed to curse.

“Sorry
, Grandma.”

“I don’t want you hanging out with those kinds of people anymore,” she told me.

“Definitely not,” I replied. “They’re seriously jerks. This really goes to prove it.”

“I should call their mothers and make those hooligans come over here and scrub my house.”

“Uh, I’m not really sure how to get a hold of them,” I scrambled. “I didn’t know them for very long. I’m sure they’ll leave us alone now that they’ve done this.”

“That’s fine, but if you see them again, Herbert, you tell me right away. This is
vandalism. It’s illegal.”

“I will. This is definitely not cool
.”

“And Herbie
.” Grandma softened. “You’d let me know if you were upset or depressed or…” She paused for a moment and then continued in a half whisper, “having suicidal thoughts?”

I pulled back in surprise. “Grandma, I’m not depressed. Killing yourself is totally stupid. Why would you even ask me that?”

“Well, it’s just they fished three more dead teenagers out of the Cuyahoga this morning. Slit their wrists and jumped off a bridge or something.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “If this crazy fad keeps up, there won’t be any young people left in this town.”

“Oh
.” I gulped. “Um… That’s awful. Slit their wrists and jumped off a bridge.” I felt my stomach shrivel. “That’s really…” I sought the right word. “Bad.”

“Just promise me you and your friends would never do anything that stupid no matter how popular
suicide gets.”

“I promise.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. Now go around and get the hose,” Grandma ordered, locking into a brisk, let’s-get-this-cleaned-up-before-the-neighbors-see mode.

“Okay
.” I started jogging toward the back of the house.

“Let’s get this cleaned up before the neighbors see,” she called after me.
I stifled a laugh. Grandma and I had lived together just the two of us for way too long.

Due to poor spi
got placement and an unreasonably short hose, it made more sense to drag the green tangled tube between our house and the neighbor’s instead of down the driveway. Every time I used the hose, I swore I was going to coil it properly, and I never did. So I fought with it, stopping every two or three steps to unknot a knot or unkink a kink. I wasn’t exactly paying attention to my feet until I felt something give way, a crunch and a splat. Looking down, I realized that a small nest filled with chicken eggs had been placed beneath my bedroom window. I’d broken two of the eggs, and red slime covered my left foot. Fortunately, I had the hose with me, so at least that wasn’t a problem. There was a note tucked in with the eggs, and I snatched it from the nest. It read, “After everything I’ve done for you and you still don’t know who I am.” There was a small flower drawn at the bottom of the note, much in the manner of the Scarlet Pimpernel, but I knew it was meant to be a violet.

*****

“Where is she?” Xander asked for the eleven-hundredth time. He’d just been trying Rini on her cell phone again, but she wasn’t answering.

Wh
en I showed up for work after scrubbing off dried egg all morning, Xander was at the mall, but Rini wasn’t. It was definitely strange. Rini was an incredibly conscientious employee. She rarely missed work and was never late. “Maybe her parents really decided to make the whole being grounded thing stick this time,” I offered. It was unlikely.

“N
o.” Xander shook his head. “They wouldn’t ground her from work. She needs the money for college.”

I sighed, glancing at my watch. There was only five minutes of my break left
, and we’d spent the first ten talking about Rini. Xander had barely touched his reject pretzel, so I knew he was really worried. “I’m sure she’s fine,” I told him. “Maybe she’s sick or something.”

“Maybe,” he said, grudgingly ripping off a piece of pretzel and drowning it in spicy mustard. “It’s just she was so weird last night about the whole vampire thing. Can you even begin to believe she let that disgusting creature bite her?”

“Well,” I hemmed, “kind of.” Xander lowered his hand from his mouth, staring at me in disbelief. His look was so accusatory that I shoved my hands in the air between us, palms out, to ward it off. “Hey, I obviously didn’t sign the blood contract or anything, but I thought about it. I mean, it was seriously tempting.”

“Are you kidding? W
hy?”

“Xander, don’t be an idiot. Not everyone
has it as easy as you. Did it ever occur to you that once in a blue moon I might like to have a girl actually interested in me?”

Xander
let out a laugh that sounded more like a grunt. “Girls are interested in you all the time. You’re just too picky.”

“Yeah, right.” I pulled a folded newspaper out of my back pocket and slid it over to Xander. “Did you see this?” I tapped at an article.

Looking down, Xander took in the headline. “Triple Teen Suicide Continues Disturbing Trend,” he read.

There w
ere school photographs of all three victims, and I pointed at the center shot. “Doesn’t that guy look familiar? Like, maybe it’s Mr. Helpful Purple Jacket.”

Xander leaned closer and squinted at the photo. “Nah, doesn’t look anything like him.”

“How about if he’d become one of the Chosen and handed over a few pints of blood? The nose is really similar. It could be the same guy.”

“No
.” Xander shook his head. “It says here this kid was an honors student, and I don’t think he would do something as foolish as…”

“Rini,” I
choked, interrupting him. Xander gave me an angry glare and was about to say something, but I nodded my head for him to look over his shoulder and said, “Rini’s here.”

Whipping around, Xander scanned the mall’s food court. “Where?”

“Right here.” Rini replied for me, slipping into a chair at our table.

“Where the hell have you been?” Xander thundered
, sounding a lot more like a father than a concerned friend. “I called you like two million times.”

Rini smiled. There was something different about her
, and I couldn’t quite figure it out. She looked great. Especially for someone who’d been a vampire snack the previous night. But it was more than that. She smiled wider, and then my brain clicked. “Rini, you got your braces off.”

“I know
.” She ran her tongue over her teeth. “They feel great.”

“Well, why the hell are you so late for work?” Xander asked, barely sparing a glance for her
straightened, pearly white teeth. “And where the hell is your uniform?”

Rini rolled her eyes. “Sorry, Mr. Hipsher. I didn’
t realize you were secretly Aunt Agatha.”

“No, but seriously,” I interrupted before they started yelling at each other.
Xander had a certain look in his eye. “Why are you late? Because of your braces?”

“Exactly
.” She bestowed me with a smile. I had to admit, brace-free Rini was a lot hotter. “I had an appointment with my orthodontist this morning,” she explained. “He said my teeth were straight, and I could get my braces off right then if I wanted. He didn’t have another patient for a few hours, so I took him up on it.”

“Is that how it usually works
?” Xander narrowed his eyes at her. “You just show up one day, and the orthodontist says he’s ready to take your braces off.”

“I have no idea
.” Rini gave him a little pout. “This was the first time for me, so I don’t know how it usually goes.”

“Well, you could have called in, you know,” I told her. “Nigel had to come in
, and he’s super pissed.” Nigel was the day manager, and he’d been making my life hell for the last four hours.

“Oh
, well.” Rini shrugged.

“Rini, what are you talking about?” Xander demanded. “That Nigel guy is
mega-pissed. I heard him yelling. You could get fired.”

This made Rini laugh a little. “Oh, I really don’t care. I was thinking of quitting anyway.”

“You were?” I asked. Actually, I was kind of hurt. Rini was the only thing that made working at Agatha’s even slightly tolerable. I couldn’t believe she would quit without at least giving me advanced warning. I shot a look at Xander to see how he was enjoying the new, wildly less considerate Rini. The look on his face made me freeze. He was staring at Rini’s neck with an expression of rage and fear that I’d never seen him wear before.

“What the hell is that?” Xander got to his feet so fast he knocked
over his chair. “What the hell is around your neck?” He made a grab for Rini, but she was too quick for him, jerking out of his reach.

I
craned my neck, trying to figure out what she’d done to make him spaz, and then I saw it. Dangling from a silver chain around Rini’s neck was an enamel, multicolored bat pendant.