Strikeout of the Bleacher Weenies (16 page)

Something hovered above us.

An angel—white as new-fallen snow, and small as a child, hovered, sword in hand. Another angel rose from the snow next to Ian, who'd gotten back on his feet. And then, a third.

Angels. Three Ian-sized snow angels, brandishing gleaming golden swords, dove at Fwosty. One sword pierced his chest. A second cleaved him from top hat to bottom orb, splitting him in half. The third went back and forth, dividing the three parts.

The three angels touched their sword tips together, aimed at Fwosty's remains. A stream of fire turned the top hat to ashes and melted the snowman parts. Without a word, or even any sign that they acknowledged our existence, the snow angels flew to the clouds, and beyond.

“You okay?” I asked Ian when I reached him.

“Yeah.”

Bobby and Jill staggered over to us.

We stared at each other for a moment.

“You see that?” I asked Bobby.

He nodded. “Smart move, little dude,” he said to Ian.

“Let's get out of here,” I said. We headed off the lake, skirting widely around the still-steaming puddle of melted snowman.

As we reached the path that led to the cabins, Ian started to sing, “Fwosty, the—”

I tapped him on the shoulder. “Maybe a different song?”

“Okay.” He took my hand, and we walked together up the hill.

 

SERVES YOU RIGHT

So my parents had
dragged me and my little sister, Rebekah, on another thrilling family vacation. In other words, we were freezing or burning in the backseat of the car—depending on whether Mom or Dad had control of the air-conditioning at the moment—while mile after mile of perfectly enjoyable countryside zipped past our window. We were on a five-hundred-mile trip to some place that looked exactly like where we were, where we'd been, and where we'd soon be. But the folks had bought a cabin somewhere out there, way way way out there, so that's where we were headed.

Once or twice, just for fun, I asked, “Are we there yet?”

Every time I did that, Mom would glance over her shoulder and say, “Don't annoy your father while he's driving, Katie.”

So I'd go back to reading.

“Let's grab some dinner,” Dad finally said, when we were halfway between nowhere and somewhere else.

“It's about time,” I muttered. Dad didn't like to stop. Not for food, not for bathrooms, not for anything. But I guess even he had to eat, eventually.

“There's a diner,” Mom said, pointing ahead to a big silver building with neon lights along the sides and a sign near the road that promised fresh-baked blueberry pies.

“Hardly any cars in the lot,” Dad said. “The food can't be very good.”

Dad's picky about restaurants. He zoomed past the diner. He also zoomed past the next three places we saw, including one that offered giant, frosty milkshakes and char-grilled burgers.

Mom tried to find a restaurant using her phone, but she's hopeless at that, and she refuses to let me do it for her.

Finally, Dad pulled into a parking lot at a restaurant called The Kreepy Cafe. Under the sign, in smaller letters, I saw:
ICKY FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY
. “Icky” and “fun” didn't strike me as natural partners.

I got out and stretched. I was starving. I took Rebekah's hand and followed my parents inside. The place was really dark, with fake—I hoped—cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, and creepy organ music wavering in the background. The guy at the register was wearing a lot of eye shadow, like someone playing a vampire in a low-budget movie. I felt the urge to give him a lesson in how to apply makeup.

“Four?” he asked.

“Four,” Dad said.

“Walk this way.” He chuckled after he said it, like it was some kind of joke.

We followed him to a table in a dark corner of a dark dining room. He handed Mom and Dad big menus shaped like coffins, and then gave me and Rebekah children's menus shaped like spiders. It was hard to see the menu in the dark. I squinted at the page, expecting the usual hot dog, grilled cheese, and hamburger that seem to haunt every kid's menu at every restaurant I've ever been to. Instead, I saw stuff like this:

Wormghetti with clot balls

Chicken Needle Soup

Harmburger

Killed cheese sandwich

Severed chicken fingers

And so on. Some of the items were served with “French flies” and “cole slaughter.”

Next to me, Rebekah, who was just starting to read, said, “Ewwwww,” and dropped the menu, as if the spider had come to life and started wriggling in her hands.

I let out my own little ewwww, then said, “This is disgusting. Can I order from the adult menu?”

Dad glanced over at my menu. “Oh, come on. It's just a joke. ‘Wormghetti' is just going to be spaghetti. And the clot balls will be meatballs. You know that.”

“It's still kind of sickening,” I said.

“Would you rather not eat?” Mom asked. “You can sit and watch us, if that's what you want.”

I could see I wasn't going to win this argument. “I'll find something.”

The waiter, who was as badly made up as the host, came to take our orders.

“I'll have the spaghetti,” I said.

“Wormghetti,” he said, writing my order on his pad.

“Whatever.” I wasn't going to play that game.

Rebekah ordered the killed-cheese sandwich. She looked like she was about ready to cry.

“You don't have to eat it,” I whispered to her.

“But I'm hungry,” she said.

“I'm in the mood for steak,” Dad said. “I'll have the eye round.”

That made me even angrier. Mom cooked eye round for us once in a while, and it was really tasty. I liked it even better than sirloin or flank steak. It wasn't fair that Dad got a steak and I didn't. But there wasn't any steak on the kid's menu.

“I'll have the Hungarian goulash,” Mom said.

As the waiter left, Mom turned to me and said, “You will eat every bite on your plate. No arguments. Understand?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Every bite,” Dad said. “That's the rule for this meal.”

“Yes, Dad.”

Rebekah squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, trying to reassure her that everything would be okay. When the waiter came with the food and put my plate down in front of me, I was relieved to see that the wormghetti really was just spaghetti. And the clot balls were meatballs. Rebekah's killed-cheese sandwich was just grilled cheese, nice and gooey, with golden-brown buttery toast.

“Okay?” I whispered to her.

“Okay,” she whispered back.

I twirled some spaghetti on my fork.

That's when I heard my parents gasp. They were staring down at their plates.

I picked up the adult menu and took a look. I guess my parents didn't pay too much attention to what they were reading in the dim light. Mom's dinner was listed as “Hungarian Ghoulash,” which is definitely not the same as goulash, and Dad's meal was described as “eyes 'round a steak.”

Dad's steak was surrounded with eyeballs, staring up at him. Mom's stew had some ghoulish things peeking out of it, like shards of bone and strips of worm-infested meat.

“Every bite,” I said as I cut a meatball in half. I raised my eyes from my plate and forced myself to watch my parents eat. I knew it would make me feel a bit sick to see what they were cutting, chewing, and swallowing. But it would also make me happy.

 

BLOOD DONORS

Weak.

So weak.

If I don't get some blood soon, I will die.

No. Wrong word. Undead can't die. Still … I'd perish. I think that's a distinction without a difference. Either way, it won't be pleasant. I witnessed the perishing of an undead, once. He'd broken our most sacred law, speaking to a mortal about our ancient history, revealing our strengths and weaknesses. Rather than cast him into daylight, the council chose to let him perish from lack of blood. Sunlight is a painful, searing end, but it is quick. Starvation means days of suffering.

We can hibernate. Again, not the right word for our dormancy, but it will do. Some have passed decades entombed. But we can only survive like that in a coffin of our native soil.

They'd destroyed his coffin and scattered the soil. Then they kept him confined until he was nearly finished, moaning for mercy, begging for blood.

They'd released him in an alley, in the dark of night, to crawl, knowing blood was nearby, too weak to take any. He was too weak to call a mortal to him. Too weak, even, to call a dog, or a rat. The smaller the creature, the less will is required. He lacked the strength to draw anything to him.

We all watched. We were ordered us to observe. They wanted us to clearly see and understand the lesson. The rules are in place for a reason. Rules, order, obedience. That is how we have survived undetected among the warmbloods for so many centuries.

Now, I had violated one of those rules. I thought I'd been careful. I thought I'd hidden my work. But somehow they discovered my experiments. We've always had control of certain mammals, especially wolves and bats. And rats, of course. I'd wanted to extend our power.

My kind does not like progress or innovation. They are frightfully, and maddeningly, bound by tradition. There are some of us who disagree. I've had centuries to read the great books and letters of those scientists who've advanced the mortals' knowledge about themselves and the world around us. Without these innovators, we'd still be walking through the gas-lit coal smog of London, or crouching in caves.

So there I was. Imprisoned while I starved. When they opened the door to fetch me, I couldn't even stand. I could barely even raise my head. They carried me to the street. The sun had just set. I'd have hours to lie, suffering. Our hunger is not like that of mortals. It enters every cell and fiber of our body. It is a longing, both mental and physical, that shreds the mind and eclipses all else. We become our hunger.

They stepped back after they'd tossed me to the ground. Watching. Some seemed pleased. Others, those who supported me, seemed saddened, at least to that small extent which we feel emotions. But they knew they couldn't come to my aid. We can never go to war with ourselves. This we learned from the mortals.

I will not perish without a struggle. My work is too important.

So hungry …

I wasn't in an alley. They placed me in a yard, near a wooden fence. I knew this was done to taunt me and heighten my suffering, because I could hear life on the other side. I reached with my mind, and found blood passing by on the busy street. But I couldn't turn the humans to my will. I was desperately weak.

A rat scuttled past. I tried with all my remaining strength to summon him.

He barely slowed. And then, he was gone.

I shifted my thoughts in ways I'd mastered during the past five years of research. I called out.

They came.

So small. Unseen by those who are not looking. But subject to my will.

They swarmed.

Mosquitoes. Small blood suckers.

Each brought to my thirsting mouth a tiny fraction of a drop of blood. It seemed an eternity before there was even enough to swallow. Finally, the first partial mouthful trickled down my throat. I felt my body respond. I lay still, not revealing my struggle back from the edge of extinction to the crowd of onlookers.

Another eternity, another swallow, and then another. It was nowhere near enough to give me the strength to rise, but it was enough to allow me the strength to summon two large rats.

I grabbed one in each hand, and drained them in an instant.

There was still hunger. But there was also strength.

I rose and turned toward those who condemned me. As did my allies.

The war began.

 

ABRA-CA-DEBORAH

How long before someone
says it?
Deborah wondered as she carried her equipment through the backstage entrance. She paused to study the crowd hustling around the dimly lit area and decided it would be less than a minute before she heard those familiar words. Bracing for the inevitable, Deborah took a deep breath, savoring the familiar mingled aromas of shellacked hardwood floors and musty velvet curtains.

Someone spoke the expected words before Deborah had a chance to exhale.

“Hey, what's she doing here? She's a girl.”

Deborah stared at the speaker. He was a grubby little boy, maybe five or six years old, dressed in a miniature tuxedo with a too-large top hat on his too-large head. A red clip-on bow tie appeared and disappeared beneath the loose flesh of his wagging jaw like an upside-down version of a bobbing apple. His face had been scrubbed and polished, but he still looked grubby. His mother, who was straightening the top hat, made a minor attempt to shush him, but he continued to broadcast his opinions.

“Girls don't do magic. Magic is for boys.” The last word came out sounding like “boyzes.”

I was right
, Deborah said to herself,
less than a minute and they've started
. She'd have guessed the first snub would have come from one of the boys her own age, but it didn't surprise her that a younger boy had spoken up. She felt all the other eyes shift toward her. The boys, as nervous as they must have been, turned away from their cards and doves and rabbits for a moment to glare at this girl who dared to practice their craft. She was used to boys acting this way, but Deborah expected better from the mothers. They were women. They should have known how it felt. They should have understood. But they joined their sons and stared at her with the scowl reserved for invaders of sacred turf.

“Girls don't do magic,” the boy said again, looking up toward his mother.

The mother gave a small nod.

“This girl does magic,” Deborah said, speaking quietly, and more to herself than to the angry figures that stared at her. She wove her way to the far wall, knowing most of the eyes were still following her.
I'm glad I didn't wear the dress,
she thought. That would have given them even more to stare at. Deborah knew she looked enchanting in the evening gown. She could be enchanting—that was no problem. But she'd decided to go with a modest blouse and black slacks. When she got onstage, she wanted to be judged on her skills. She didn't want to score points based on any gifts of birth.