Vampire Breath (6 page)

The long table filled most of the room. It was bare except for a tall
candelabra in its center. Stubs of white candles poked up in the candelabra. Wax
had dripped in small puddles onto the tabletop. The puddles were buried in a
gray layer of dust.

“No one has been in here in a long time,” I muttered.

Cara was already at the window. She pulled back the drape to reveal another
barred window.

“Aaaggggh!” She tore at her hair in frustration. “Every window! Every window
has bars!” she wailed. “And we can’t keep walking through these halls. Someone will find
us.”

Staring at the long, dust-covered dining room table, I had an idea. “Vampires
don’t eat,” I said.

“So what?” Cara cried. She slammed her fist against the heavy black drape.

“So they probably never go in the kitchen,” I continued. “We’ll be safe in
the kitchen. And maybe there is a kitchen door. Maybe…”

Cara sighed. “Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.” She shook her head glumly. “There are a
thousand rooms in this creepy old castle. How will we even find the kitchen?”

I took her by the shoulders and guided her to the door. “Well, this is the
dining room, right? Maybe the kitchen is close to the dining room.”

“Maybe maybe maybe,” she repeated bitterly.

I guided her into the hall, then led the way to the next door. We pushed it
open and peeked inside.

No. Not the kitchen.

We quickly crept down the hall, trying door after door.

No kitchen. No kitchen.

We kept glancing back, watching for Count Nightwing, hoping we wouldn’t bump
into him.

We turned a corner. Found ourselves in a narrower, darker hallway. I tried
the first door.

Yes!

An old-fashioned kitchen with a wide fireplace hearth, a wood-burning stove, and blackened pots and pans hanging on the wall
beside the hearth.

My eyes glanced quickly around the room. And landed at the broad kitchen
window.

No black drape.
And no bars!

“Yaaaay!” Cara cheered.

We both dove for the window. Could we open it?

We tried pushing it up from the bottom. But there were no handles, no place
to grip the frame.

“Smash it!” Cara cried. “Smash the window open!”

I ran to the wall and pulled down a heavy metal skillet. I lugged it to the
window. Pulled back my arm. Prepared to swing.

“Oh!” I cried out when I heard a cough.

Behind us. From the hallway.

“It’s him!” I whispered. “It’s Count Nightwing!”

“Smash the window!” Cara insisted.

“No. He’ll hear us! He’ll find us!” I whispered back.

I lowered the skillet to the floor. And turned back to study the window.

Another cough. Closer this time.

“Look,” I whispered to Cara. “It pushes out, I think.” I reached with both
hands and pushed at the dust-smeared windowpane.

Leaned into it. Pushed with all my strength.

Slowly, slowly, the window slid out. With a groan, I pushed it open as far as
it would go.

A gust of cool night air swept over me. I grabbed Cara’s hand and started to
give her a boost.

A noise behind us at the doorway made me jump. “Hurry—!” I whispered. “He’s
coming!”

My heart pounding, I pushed Cara up to the window. Then we both scrambled
frantically out onto the ledge.

“Did he see us? Was he in the kitchen?” Cara whispered.

“I don’t know,” I told her. “I didn’t see. But he was definitely in the
hall.”

“If he saw us…” Cara started. A gust of wind drowned out the rest of her
words.

The night wind felt cool and refreshing on my skin. Heavy clouds floated over
the full moon, plunging us into total darkness.

We were both on our knees, our backs to the kitchen. Huddled close beside
Cara, I struggled to keep my balance on the narrow stone window ledge.

“Let’s get going,” I urged.

We both turned and faced the window. Then, gripping the stone ledge with both
hands, we began lowering our legs down the wall, lowering ourselves to the
ground.

Lower. Lower…

“Hey—!” I cried out when my feet didn’t touch anything solid.

A shaft of moonlight broke through the clouds.

I looked down.

And opened my mouth in a hoarse scream.

My feet kicked the air. My hands gripped the ledge above me.

I stared down into empty space.

Far below I could see dark, jagged rocks glowing dully in the moonlight.

Far below!

Miles below!

“We—we’re on top of a cliff!” Cara stammered. “The castle—it’s built on a
cliff!”

“Ohhhhh.” I uttered a terrified moan.

The castle was built on top of a sheer rock cliff. And we were now dangling
over the side. Dangling by our arms. Dangling…

My arms started to ache. I could feel my hands slipping, losing their grip on
the stone window ledge above me.

“Cara—!” I gasped.

My hands scraped the dark stones of the wall.

I struggled to grab on to something—
anything
!

But I was falling too fast.

My feet kicked. I thrashed my arms. The wind rushed up at me as if trying to
push me back up.

Was that
me
howling like that?

I was falling too fast to hear my own scream.

And then suddenly I stopped.

Stopped screaming. Stopped falling.

A black shadow swept around me. I felt something sharp dig into my shoulders.
Hot breath grazed the back of my neck.

I heard a loud flapping sound. A fluttering heartbeat.

Gripped inside this shadow, I felt myself being pulled up.

I twisted my head back—and saw two glowing red eyes. The hot breath poured from its dark gaping mouth.

It’s going to eat me! I realized.

I’m trapped inside this red-eyed shadow. Trapped in its talons as it carries
me higher. Higher.

And then darkness surrounded me.

I landed somewhere. Landed hard on my feet with a loud
thud.

The darkness lifted. I opened my eyes and saw Cara. Her mouth dropped open in
amazement. “Freddy—!” she choked out. “Freddy—?”

I spun toward the big open window to see the giant bat that had carried me
back to the kitchen. Its wings flapped against the floor. The red eyes glowed
angrily from its big, ugly face.

It saved our lives!
I realized.

I collapsed to my knees. I grabbed the side of the stove to hold myself up.

I’m okay. I’m going to be okay, I told myself.

I raised my eyes to the enormous bat.

It started to shrink. It tucked itself inside its black wings. Wrapped the
wings around its body.

The wings melted into a cape. A purple cape. And as the cape swept back,
Count Nightwing appeared.

“You made a serious mistake, young man,” he scolded sternly. His strange,
silver eyes burned angrily into mine. “Did you think you could fly?” he demanded with a sneer.
“You are not ready to fly—yet!”

“I—I—I—” I was still shaking too hard to speak.

“When I turn you into a vampire, you can fly every night,” Count Nightwing
snarled. He lowered his face close to mine, so close I could smell the decay of
his pale skin. “Don’t try to escape again,” he growled. “It is a waste of time.
And the next time… I won’t catch you.”

I swallowed hard. I held my breath, trying to force my heart to stop pounding
so hard.

Count Nightwing turned away from me. Swirling the purple cape behind him, he
floated past Cara, through the kitchen.

He stopped at the door and swung back to us. “Don’t just stand there,” he
ordered. “Come help me find the
Vampire Breath.
I know it’s somewhere in
this wing of the castle.”

He grabbed his pale throat. “I’m so thirsty… so thirsty.” His silvery eyes
locked on Cara, then on me. “I must remember where I hid my fangs. Hurry. Help
find the
Vampire Breath.
It’s somewhere nearby. I’m certain of it.”

Cara and I had no choice. He stood at the doorway, waiting for us to follow
him.

Holding on to the stove, I pulled myself to my feet. Then I followed Cara
through the kitchen to the hall.

“Perhaps I hid the bottle in the royal guest room,” Count Nightwing said,
talking to himself. He pushed open a door and vanished inside the room.

Cara and I kept walking. The hallways appeared to stretch for
miles
ahead of us. Door after door after door. And this was only one wing of the old
vampire’s castle.

“Are you okay?” Cara asked, studying me as we walked. “You still look kind of
shaky.”

“I
am
kind of shaky,” I confessed. “After all, I fell off a cliff!”

Cara shook her head. “It isn’t going to be easy to escape.”

“We can’t escape,” I replied. “The castle was built up here on top of the
cliff to keep anyone from escaping.”

She brushed a strand of black hair from her eyes. “We can’t give up, Freddy.
We have to keep trying. As soon as he finds his fangs, he’s going to turn us
into vampires.”

“That’s why my first plan is the best,” I insisted. “We have to find the
bottle of
Vampire Breath
before he does. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe
we’ll find it first.”

“But what will we do with it once we have it?” Cara demanded.

“Mainly keep it from him!” I declared.

I pulled her into the next room. We both gasped when we saw the coffins.

Dozens of them. All lined up perfectly in four rows, the length of the room.
All open.

“Another vampire bedroom!” Cara cried. She shivered. “It’s so creepy, Freddy.
Look how many there are!”

“The vampires are all out somewhere, swooping around, searching for blood to
drink,” I said. “But soon they’ll be flying home. And when they see us…”

Cara gulped. “We’ll be their dessert!”

“Uh… maybe we should search for the
Vampire Breath
in another
room,” I suggested. “Somewhere
away
from these coffins.”

But then my eye fell on something. A coffin against the wall.

A
closed
coffin.

“Cara—look at that!” I whispered, pointing. “All the other coffins were
left open. That’s the only one with a closed lid. Do you think—?”

Cara squinted at the closed coffin. “Weird,” she murmured. “Very weird.”

My brain whirred with crazy ideas. “Maybe it’s an empty coffin,” I suggested
excitedly. “Maybe no one sleeps in that coffin. That would make it the perfect
place. The perfect place to hide a bottle of
Vampire Breath
.”

Cara held me back. “Or maybe a vampire is sleeping in the coffin,” she
warned. “If we open the coffin and wake him up…” Her voice trailed off.

“We have to look inside!” I exclaimed. “We have to take that chance.”

We made our way to the coffin. I stared at the polished, dark wood of the
lid. I cautiously ran a hand over the smooth wood.

Then, without saying a word, Cara grabbed one handle, and I grabbed the
other. And slowly, slowly, we began to lift the coffin lid.

The lid was solid and heavy. Cara and I leaned into it and pushed. Finally,
it dropped to the other side of the coffin.

I turned to the door to make sure Count Nightwing hadn’t heard.

No sign of him.

I pulled myself up straight and peered into the open coffin. The inside was
covered with dark green felt. It reminded me of the pool table in our basement.

I sighed. I wondered if I’d ever see my basement again.

“It’s empty,” Cara murmured sadly. “Just an empty coffin.”

“We’ve got to keep searching,” I said. I started to back away from the coffin
when I saw the pocket.

A green pocket in the side of the coffin. Like the pockets on the sides of
suitcases. It bulged out a little from the side.

“Whoa. Hold on a minute,” I told Cara. She was already halfway to the door, I reached into the pocket.

And pulled out a blue glass bottle.

“Cara—look!” I cried. I forgot that we didn’t want Count Nightwing to hear
us. “I found it! The
Vampire Breath
!”

A smile broke out over Cara’s face. Her dark eyes flashed with excitement.
“Excellent!” she exclaimed. “Excellent! Now we’ve got to hide it from Count
Nightwing. Somewhere he’ll
never
find it.”

I held the bottle up close to my face and studied it. “Maybe we should open
it and pour it all out,” I said.

Cara rushed up beside me. She took the bottle from my hand. “When we opened
it before, it took us back in time,” she said excitedly. “Maybe if we opened it
now…”

“It will take us forward in time!” I finished her thought for her. “Yes!
Count Nightwing said it can be used for time travel. Maybe if we open it—and
think real hard about where we want to go—it will take us home to my
basement.”

We both stared at the blue bottle.

Should we hide it and keep it away from the old vampire to stop him from
getting back his fangs?

Or should we open it up and hope that the smelly mist would carry us home?

Cara gripped the bottle tightly in one hand.

She raised her other hand to the glass stopper on the top.

She started to pull it open—then stopped.

We stared at each other. We didn’t speak.

“Go ahead. Do it,” I whispered.

Cara nodded in agreement. She squeezed the stopper again and started to pull.

But she stopped once again. And gasped.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. I heard a soft footstep.

And I realized that we were no longer alone.

I spun around, expecting to find Count Nightwing.

“Oh!” I cried out when a girl stepped out of the shadows.

Her pale blue eyes were wide with shock. I think she was as surprised to see
us as we were to see her!