Vampires Rule (26 page)

He wasn’t, but he also wasn’t the kind of guy
who waited around for the love of his life to return. “What if you
meet someone in college?”

She sat up then, and her eyebrows drew
together. “I am not going to meet anyone else. You and I are
destiny, so that means you’re stuck with me forever.”

“Does it?” He swallowed, unsure of what to
say and what not to say. “According to destiny, you and I have to
fight in a war against the werewolves someday. If we fix it to
where it never happens, we might not stay together. We’ll be
changing the future.”

Silver returned to her previous position
lying next to him. “Are you saying you won’t do it? Are you
refusing to use the stone?”

“No.” He brought the rock up to his face and
stared at its smooth surface. “I want to use it, but I don’t want
to use it against Jersey.”

Her entire body tensed beside him. The
silence in the room grew to epic proportions before she leaped off
the bed, her eyes flashing in anger. “I cannot believe you just
said that! If you aren’t going to use it on Jersey, then who? Oh,
don’t tell me! You want to go after the werewolf janitor. You want
revenge.”

What was wrong with that?

Jack felt awkward being yelled at while he
was flat on his back, so he stood too. Once again they sparred from
opposite sides of a mattress. He held the rock up and pointed it at
her. “Lovely made this for me. You can’t use it. Your parents can’t
use it. I think that means I get to decide what to do with it. Not
you.”

She shook her head slowly, mouth open. With a
frustrated grunt she turned and slammed out of his room. He heard
her stomping footsteps going down the stairs. Her mother asked her
what was wrong. If he didn’t intervene, she was going to tell them
everything. He didn’t care if they knew he had the rock. He just
wanted them to have his side of the story too.

Jack raced downstairs to the living room
where they were all gathered like

mutinous workers. Their eyes simultaneously
turned in his direction. Each pair held an accusing glint in them.
How had she told them so fast?

Andrew held his hand out. “Give it to
me.”

Jack’s fingers tightened around the rock.
“Not yet. First, I want a fair hearing. I think everyone in this
room deserves a vote on what to do with the rock, if anything.”

Vanessa placed a hand on her husband’s arm
and gently pushed it down. “Sounds fair to me. Who wants to
begin?”

“I’m the one with the rock.” Jack waved it in
the air. “Lovely made it for me, so I’d like to go first.”

He didn’t know what he would do without
Vanessa there to referee. When Silver opened her mouth to argue,
her mother motioned for her to shut it. Vanessa got everyone seated
and ready to listen. She gestured for him to begin.

“Silver has probably already told you she
wants me to kill Jersey Clifford.”

Andrew nodded. “The English teacher.
Yes.”

“We’re reasonably sure he’s the head
werewolf, and Silver wants me to use the rock against him, but
there’s a more dangerous threat in the vicinity. The janitor is
extremely powerful, and he’s psychotic. He killed my parents. He
killed me.”

Andrew said, “But if Jersey Clifford is the
leader, he’s the one who has to die. It’s what the stone was made
for. Once he’s gone, the others will revert to normal.”

“That’s right,” Jack said. He looked
pointedly at his brother, their gazes locked in understanding. “If
I kill the teacher, the janitor becomes human. We can’t kill him
then. He gets away with murdering our parents.”

Silver leaped to her feet. “Lovely didn’t
create the stone so you can get revenge on your pick of werewolves.
It has to be used on
the
werewolf.”

“Honey, sit down,” Vanessa said. “Allow Jack
to finish, and then you’ll get your turn.”

Silver fell back in her seat, arms crossed.
Her jaw was tight, and her hard stare was on Jack. He loved her,
but she made a better girlfriend than she did an enemy.

He continued. “Jersey saved us from the
janitor. If it wasn’t for him, we’d be dead. I’m sorry, but I can’t
kill him. I just can’t do it.”

Jack went to stand behind Billy’s chair,
hoping his brother would back him up on this. Vanessa waved to
Silver, signaling that she could talk now.

She got up slowly this time, walked in a
circle around the coffee table, deep in thought. Watching her was
like watching a top-notch prosecutor getting ready to send a man to
the chair. She spoke in a loud, clear voice. “I have several points
to make.”

Jack steeled himself for the attack.

“First of all, killing Jersey will save an
unknown number of lives.” She went to her father, her eyes silently
begging for his help. “Lovely saw a long and bloody war. Even if I
can kill Jersey myself, people will die in the meantime. Hundreds,
maybe thousands of people. Maybe even millions.”

Silver went to her mother next. “We can stop
the war before it begins. No one will die. How can that be wrong?
We can prevent others from becoming werewolves. Do you have any
idea how many lives will be saved that way? Hunters kill a high
number of werewolves every year. If we put a stop to it now, there
won’t be any more werewolves. How can you possibly say no to
that?”

She went to the center of the room and
presented the rest of her case. “Now for a selfish moment. I want a
normal life.” Her eyes touched on Jack for brief time. They
glistened with tears. “Everyone in this room knows I want to be a
lawyer. I was born to be a lawyer, maybe even a judge someday. I
can’t do that if I’m hunting every night or involved in a war.”

She looked to her parents again. “Mom…Dad…you
hated the idea of me giving up my life for something decided
thousands of years ago by some woman we never met. I didn’t
complain, did I? I did what was expected of me. I took on my
destiny without whining, but now we have a way to stop me from
losing another week of my life to this nonsense.”

She finished with Jack. “I can’t make you
make the right decision. I can only give you the facts. Either you
selfishly take out the monster responsible for hurting your family
and condemn the world to war, or you can kill Jersey Clifford and
save the lives of perhaps everyone on this planet. It’s up to you.
Are you going to do what’s right for you or what’s right for the
rest of us?”

She took her seat, and a heavy silence fell
on them. Jack felt like applauding. She’d been so convincing he
felt like voting for her himself. Only he wasn’t going to because
he wanted to kill a monster. Speech aside, he didn’t care if he was
being selfish. The janitor deserved to die and Jersey didn’t.

Andrew said, “I don’t want the rock used
period. It needs to be saved in case we have to use it later.”

“But we know who the head werewolf is,”
Vanessa said. “We may not get another chance like this. Jack should
use it on the teacher.”

“I vote he kill the janitor,” Billy said.

“Of course you do.” Silver shook her head and
turned to her dad. “I don’t think he should be allowed to vote. The
rock was made by a relative of ours, not his.”

Andrew frowned at her. “Your mother and I
taught you better manners than that. Billy has been a gracious
host, allowing us to stay in his home since the fire. You will
speak to him and about him with respect.”

Silver apologized to Billy before sitting
back down.

Vanessa called for a vote. “All in favor of
killing Jersey Clifford raise your hand.”

Vanessa and Silver lifted their hands
high.

“Okay,” Vanessa said. “All those in favor of
killing the janitor raise your hand.”

Billy and Jack shot their hands into the
air.

Vanessa clapped once in frustration. “Great.
It’s a tie.”

“Daddy didn’t vote,” Silver said.

Andrew shook his head. “And I’m not going to,
because I don’t want the stone to be used.” He sighed and scratched
his head. “Anyway, I think Jack is right about one thing. He is the
one who has to use it. If something goes wrong, he gets himself
killed. The choice is up to him.”

Jack could see how hard it was for Andrew
Reign to say those words, but thankfully he had. The decision
belonged to Jack. Silver sat with her arms folded and a cute pout
on her lips. Vanessa and Andrew left the room together. Billy
remained in his chair, his jaw tight. He wanted the monster dead as
much as Jack did. At least Jack had one ally in the house.

Silver stood and took a last parting shot at
him. “I meant what I said. I hope you think about it some more and
make the right decision. You already have too much blood on your
hands.”

He blinked at her. “What does that mean?”

“You told me yourself how guilty you feel
about killing the werewolf boy and about Lily’s death. Think about
it.”

Jack did.

He had a rough night ahead of him. Either he
could kill someone who deserved to die, avenge his family. Or he
could kill a man who had been nothing but kind to him, a man he
looked on as a father figure. Yes, Jersey had sent the wraiths, but
maybe there was a good reason behind it. He felt sorry for the man.
It wasn’t his fault he’d been cursed.

Should he kill one of them?

Should he throw the magic rock away?

What was he going to do?

After their big argument over who to use the
rock on, Jack felt he owed Silver special consideration. So on the
following morning when she insisted they kill Jersey’s wraiths, he
reluctantly agreed. Of course one reason he agreed was because they
didn’t know where the wraiths were. It was Silver’s idea to start
at Jersey’s house. She was hoping they’d find a clue that they’d
missed on their previous visit.

They skipped school and drove to Jersey’s
house. Was it his house? Jack had sincere doubts. There was no way
the head werewolf, the strongest and smartest of all fur-covered
creatures, lived in this dump. Lovely wrote about him, about how
clever and resourceful he could be. It would be very smart to have
a phony house.

Silver started in the living room while Jack
searched the kitchen. He slowly moved around, not working too hard
because he knew he wouldn’t find anything. Swinging a squeaky
cabinet door open and shut a few times, Jack mumbled, “Even his
cupboards bare.”

For half an hour they picked through the
house, leaving nothing untouched. Jack even lifted the mattress in
the bedroom. He removed the back from the toilet while Silver
crawled under the bed. Neither of them found anything useful. It
was a huge waste of time.

“Maybe his real house is in another town,”
Jack suggested.

“He would want to keep the wraiths
nearby.”

“We could touch something, see if we can get
another flash of memory. Maybe we could figure out where his real
house is at.”

They returned to the living room as a last
resort. Jack walked over to the tipped over file cabinet. He slid
his fingers beneath it and tried to lift it, hoping there were
important papers inside. It seemed to be nailed to the floor. Jack
held his breath, gritted his teeth, and pulled harder. The metal
creaked. It gave way slowly, moving an inch. It seemed to be stuck
on something. With a grunt he used every ounce of strength he had
to lift the thing.

A piece of the hardwood floor behind him
popped open.

Silver gasped. “He has a hidden dungeon.” She
crawled to the edge and peered into the hole. Raising her head, she
smiled at Jack. “You are not going to believe this. Come on.”

She swung her legs over the edge and found
stairs. Light shone from the room below, so they didn’t need a
flashlight or candle. She walked down quickly, leaving Jack to
follow when he was ready.

He was ready. In a flash, using his vampire
speed, he was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for her, hand out
to help her. She slid her fingers over his. “Show off,” she said
with a teasing smile.

Jack looked around, stunned. “It’s like we’re
in another house.”

It was more like a mansion. They started off
in a wide hallway decorated with red carpet, paneled walls, and a
few paintings. There were lights that resembled torches on the
wall. This was no dungeon; it was Jersey’s real home. Jack took the
lead. He walked to the first door and pushed it open. Silver’s body
pressed against his back as she tried to see past him.

It was a fancy dining room complete with a
ridiculously long table and about a hundred chairs. Three
chandeliers hung low over the table Crystal goblets and expensive
china had been set in front of each chair, even though Jack would
bet his life that Jersey didn’t entertain guests in his home.

Jack went to the next door and the next. At
the end of the hallway they found another hallway. The place was a
maze of endless hallways riddled with doors, and they all looked
exactly alike. Jack and Silver opened every single one in an
endless spree until...

Bingo. It was the den from their leap into
Jersey’s memory. Jack walked inside, a little uncomfortable about
being there in the flesh. He went to the desk, sat in the chair. It
was surreal, kind of like being on a set of a popular television
show after watching it for years. His eyes drifted to the tall
angel statues in the corners. He hadn’t seen them in his visions,
but everything else was the same.

Jack’s eyes went to the books lined up on the
shelves. Jersey had probably read every single one. He’d had plenty
of time.

“We need to find the wraiths,” Silver said
from the doorway.

Jack touched a small angel figure on Jersey’s
desk. A tiny electric shock warned him a flashback was headed his
way. This one only lasted a few seconds. It was quick but
informative.

Jersey stood in a hallway on the next lower
level. He summoned the wraiths. With a shriek they left their
bodies and their assigned bedrooms. They flew down the hall and
into a tunnel, streaked past Jersey, two thick lines of blue light.
The tunnel they entered stretched for miles. The wraiths took the
tunnel to a dry well. They flew up and out into the night sky, free
at last.