Twelfth Grade Kills Page 14

  A shadow, one of mournful regret, passed over Joss’s face. His eyes filled with tears and he met Vlad’s eyes, guilt flowing from him. “I’m sorry, Vlad.”

  Vlad squeezed Joss’s shoulder and sighed. “Me too.”

  As Joss turned away to head to his next class, Vlad called out to him. “Joss, if you’re not busy later ... I’d like to take you somewhere.”

  Joss hesitated for a moment, then nodded. Suspicion crossed his eyes, followed quickly by guilt for having been suspicious of his friend’s motives.

  Vlad couldn’t blame him. They’d been through a lot together. Not all of it good. “Henry will pick you up. Be ready at eight, okay?”

  An exhausted smile lit up Joss’s face. “Yeah. Yeah, no problem.”

  Vlad watched out the window for Henry’s car to pull up that night, and when it did, he wasn’t the least bit surprised that it took Henry’s cousin more than a few minutes to get out of the car. The plan was simple—introduce Joss to Tomas before heading out to Matthew’s annual Halloween party.

  Before they could ring the doorbell, Vlad had opened the door. “Come on in. I want you to meet someone.”

  He walked a very nervous looking Joss through the house and into the kitchen, where Otis was carving a pumpkin with Nelly, and Tomas and Vikas were emptying a bottle of bloodwine. All eyes turned to Joss as he entered the room, and instantly, he flicked his eyes to Vlad, as if wondering if he’d been betrayed.

  Nelly smiled brightly. “Joss! How are you, dear? There are fresh baked cookies on the counter, boys. Help yourselves.”

  Vlad nudged Joss over to where Tomas was standing and said, “Joss ... I want you to meet my dad. He’s where I get my vampire traits from.”

  Both Joss and Tomas looked caught, shocked, as if neither thought Vlad had any sense left in his skull.

  Henry helped himself to a handful of cookies. Earlier, when Vlad had told him his idea, Henry had agreed that it was pretty brilliant.

  Of course, Henry also thought that finding new things to blow up with firecrackers was pretty brilliant.

  “And Dad,” Vlad cleared his throat, readying himself for any kind of outburst, “Joss is a very good friend of mine. He’s also Henry’s cousin. And a Slayer.”

  Tomas tensed, but Otis and Vikas didn’t. They were too busy pretending that Joss wasn’t even in the room. Through clenched teeth, Tomas said, “And you brought him here to meet your vampire father.”

  Vlad nodded, setting his jaw. “I want the people I care about to know one another, and what’s more, I want them to have a healthy respect for one another.”

  The room fell silent. That is, until Nelly rinsed her hands off in the sink. She was drying them on a kitchen towel when she smiled at Joss. “You and Tomas share a love of history, you know. You’ve read it, and well, he’s lived it. An old man like Tomas has lots of wonderful stories to share.”

  Tomas’s tension broke as he chuckled. “Old man?! Nelly, I’ll have you know I am very young. Just experienced.”

  Henry nodded. “Experienced is code for old.”

  Everyone—even Otis, even Vikas—laughed.

  Then Tomas turned back to Joss, who still looked a little on edge, and said, “Can I get you something to drink, Joss?”

  “That would be great. Thanks.” Joss smiled at Vlad then—a careful, still concerned smile.

  After finishing a few sodas, the boys said their goodbyes and headed out the door to Matthew’s party. Just as they were stepping up onto Matthew’s porch, Henry stopped Vlad and said, “Dude. I don’t get it. Why did you feel the need to introduce Joss and your dad? I mean, I’m totally happy to help. I just don’t understand exactly what purpose it serves.”

  Vlad watched as Joss greeted Meredith and then looked back at Henry. “I live in two worlds, Henry. And in one of those worlds, I stand between mortal enemies. I needed to know, just for one moment, that peace is possible.”

  Henry sighed and shook his head. “But if peace isn’t likely—and trust me, it’s not—then why bother getting them together?”

  Vlad shrugged and headed for the door. “I have to try, Henry.”

  The living room had been completely transformed into a foggy, misty swamp, complete with swamp monsters bursting from the fog and Spanish moss dangling from the spooky fake trees. Vlad and Henry made their way through the crowd and down the stairs to the basement, where the party was in full swing. Matthew’s parents had completely outdone themselves this year, and what Vlad descended into looked nothing at all like a basement and everything like a creepy haunted castle.

  Standing by the punch bowl, though, was a beautiful fairy. With black, tattered wings.

  Vlad beamed at Snow and made his way across the room. “Hey. Nice wings.”

  Snow eyed him up and down for a moment before grinning. “Let me guess. Renfield?”

  Vlad chuckled. “Of course! Y’know ... you’re one of the few people that will see the humor in my being Henry’s human slave.”

  She took a drink of punch and set her glass on the table. Vlad couldn’t help but notice that her smile was smaller when she spoke. “Well, I have some experience in that department.”

  Vlad cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable. There it was. That eternal reminder that he had hurt Snow. That he had changed their lives forever.

  “I’m sorry, Snow. For leaving you the way I did. I should have explained.”

  Snow watched him for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. You should have.”

  Music was playing, something with a heavy techno beat. But after a moment it stopped, and was replaced by something slow and melodic. After a moment, Vlad recognized it as “Broken” by Seether. After the first verse, Vlad met Snow’s eyes. “Wanna dance?”

  She smiled again, this time more completely, and said, “I’d love to.”

  He led her to the fog-covered dance floor. By the time they reached the center, the chorus had started, and Vlad’s hands were shaking slightly.

  He reached for her hand and she gave his a squeeze, her lips in a nervous purse. Then Vlad pulled her closer and they began to sway. His hands were on her waist and her arms looped his neck. And the warmth between them was amazing.

  She smelled sweet and good and so wonderful that Vlad breathed in her scent, and he didn’t once think about her blood, or how it had ever tasted on his tongue. He only thought of the way she looked at him, and the way it made him feel. He only thought of what his life had been like with Snow, and what it had been like without. It had been better with Snow, despite the guilt of using her as a food source. Better, because she listened whenever he needed to talk. Better, because she had been everything he’d ever needed her to be for him, whenever he needed her to be it. She’d understood him, accepted him, and loved him.

  And in return, he’d pushed her away.

  Vlad’s heart was thumping strongly. It felt good to hold Snow in his arms. It felt right. But he couldn’t seem to open his mouth to tell Snow what he was feeling, or how he wished that it would never end.

  She looked up at him wordlessly, and her eyes said it all. She felt the same way, but something refused to let her say it aloud. Maybe they were cursed by the same thing: fear. Utter terror of knowing what it was to love someone so deeply that they became a part of you. Snow was no longer his drudge-she was his match. She was funny, intriguing, confident, and cool. She was, Vlad saw now, everything he had ever wanted in a girl. And as they swayed to the music, they grew closer and closer, until their bodies were pressed together, their foreheads touching.

  Vlad pulled back, but only long enough to look into her eyes before placing a tender kiss on her lips. Snow kissed back and when their lips parted, she drew him closer, her arms wrapped tightly around him.

  When the song ended and they broke apart at last, Vlad swore that he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

  24

  SHUTTING UP

  ALL VLAD WANTED to think about was how Snow felt in his arms last night. But other things—
darker things—kept invading his thoughts, demanding his attention. Enrico was dead. Dead and gone, and all that Otis would say about it was that he’d heard from someone—some nameless vampire—that someone had killed him.

  D’Ablo was dead too. Someone had ripped the heart from his chest and crushed it into a pulp.

  Vlad was very worried that that someone just might be Otis. That Otis, maybe, had killed both vampires. For reasons he did not yet know.

  Not that he could blame Otis for wanting to obliterate D’Ablo. After all, he and D’Ablo completely despised one another. Judging by the fight they engaged in during Vlad’s sophomore year, they shared a dark history that Vlad didn’t know the half of.

  The evidence was staggering. Otis’s blood-soaked shirt the morning after Enrico had been killed, and this.

  Vlad turned Otis’s hat over in his hands. It was what he’d found in the closet, and hadn’t yet had a chance to question his uncle about. But he really needed to. The hat was splattered with blood—blood that smelled like D’Ablo’s, even after an obvious dry-cleaning attempt. Was Otis trying to cover his tracks? Why? And why kill Enrico?

  It bothered him that Otis would take a life, let alone vampire life. Even D’Ablo’s. Vlad felt like if anyone had to do it, if anyone really had to kill D’Ablo, that it would’ve come down to him.

  But it hadn’t.

  It had come down to someone else—maybe his uncle—and Vlad hadn’t even gotten a chance to make D’Ablo see the error of his ways.

  Stupid vampire. Stupid half-insane D’Ablo.

  Vlad returned the hat to the bag in the closet. He’d have to talk to Otis soon and find out exactly what was going on. Because bloody shirts and hats and learning of the deaths of people all around Vlad didn’t exactly make him want to trust Otis.

  His thoughts flashed back on their beginning. Once Otis had revealed his relationship to Vlad, Vlad had been so willing to trust him, so anxious to help him and listen to him. What if the whole thing had been an act, a trick? What if Otis was a horrible person, even worse than D’Ablo? What if Otis had been spending all this time studying him and trying to find a way to steal his Pravus powers? What if his insistence that the Pravus prophecy was just a myth was all an act?

  Vlad shuddered at the idea. He made a mental note to discuss the possibility with his dad, who he knew would protect him, if needed. He hadn’t found his dad’s journal yet, but it had to be somewhere. And once he did locate it, his dad would fix everything.

  That’s what dads do.

  Though the death of Enrico weighed heavily on his thoughts, it wasn’t his reason for leaving Nelly’s place and crossing town, and then standing outside the front doors of Bathory High, watching students as they hurried from warm cars, through the blistering early chill of autumn, into the warm building. There was no avoiding school. And there was something else there. Someone else.

  Snow.

  Before they’d danced at the Halloween party, Vlad had been avoiding her for weeks. Watching her closely, longing for her touch, but keeping a careful, safe distance. Because he didn’t want to hurt her.

  He’d been both thankful and disappointed that they shared no classes, and relieved that she stayed true to her curfew so that he wouldn’t bump into her on his way to the belfry at night. But there she was, her pale cheeks flushed pink from the cold, a stocking cap with bat wings on her head, shivering her way up the steps.

  He had to hand it to her. Snow certainly wasn’t like other girls. She didn’t call or write him notes. She didn’t talk about him to his friends or wait outside his locker. She went on with her life with quiet dignity and grace.

  And it was really starting to bug the crap out of Vlad.

  The truth was, he’d missed her. Missed her kisses, missed her company. And last night showed him that he was tired of being without her, tired of fighting against his feelings for her. He only hoped that she felt the same way.

  But how was he supposed to relate that to Snow without sounding desperate? And wasn’t it cruel to confess his feelings to her only now that he was going to die? At Nelly’s house—still at Nelly’s; he and his dad hadn’t moved back home just yet because his dad was still tormented by the memory of Mellina’s death—Vlad had circled the date on the calendar that he and Joss had agreed to. The date he would die, if he didn’t locate the journal in time, in order to save everyone that both of them loved. December thirty-first. His death was imminent. He’d see them all just one last time and then disappear into the blustery snow with Joss. To end it. To end it all.

  Maybe it was selfish to choose to leave them all behind on a holiday. But he had no choice.

  Selfish or not, that made telling Snow how he felt all the more important. And after not being able to say anything at the party to her about it, he knew he had to tell her today.

  Vlad smiled as she ascended the steps, completely unaware that he was even waiting for her. She was wearing black pants with laces that went all the way up each leg, Converse shoes with tiny skulls all over them, and a T-shirt which read Come to the Dark Side: We Have Cookies. She was beautiful, with her eyes lined thickly with black, her lips in a slight, confident smirk as she passed a group of popular girls, who made quiet, snarky comments about her fashion choices. Like him, Snow was different. Like him, she stood out from the crowd. But unlike him, she totally owned it.

  A shiver of nervousness crawled up his spine. She might resent him for not being in touch until she moved to Bathory. She might not have any feelings toward him at all anymore, despite what it had seemed like at the Halloween party. None of these responses would surprise Vlad. He was wrong to cut her out of his life. He was wrong to push her away in some insane pursuit of protecting her.

  But he was really just trying to protect himself. Snow was his match, his perfect match. She was understanding, open, honest, and so very beautiful that it made Vlad’s chest ache.

  A good ache. One that hinted that his heart would explode if he didn’t hold her again soon.

  “Snow ...” Her name fell from his lips in a whisper, but it was enough to make her stop in her tracks.

  She looked up at him and smiled, a sadness lurking in her eyes. Maybe it was a sadness that spoke of her longing for him. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe she’d moved on, had found another boy, and that’s what the threat of tears at the end of their dancing had meant, and what her eyes were trying to tell him now.

  Vlad moved down the steps, until he was standing right in front of her. He held her gaze for a long time, searching for the right words. None of the ones he’d practiced with on his way to school seemed right. Finally, with a deep breath for bravery, he spoke. “Sometimes, I do incredibly stupid things. Like challenging Henry to a Mountain Dew chug-off. Like giving Amenti extra catnip when Nelly isn’t looking. Like breaking off all contact with my perfect match. Can you forgive me? Can you ever forgive me? Because ... I love you, Snow. And if you can’t forgive me, I—”

  “Vlad.” She shook her head. “Shut up.”

  At first, his heart sank. Then she moved forward, pressing her lips tightly to his in a dizzying, wonderful kiss—one so much better than even the kiss they’d shared on the dance floor—and Vlad’s heart soared up into the atmosphere, through clouds and sky and stars, and it never came back down.

  He loved Snow. And Snow loved him.

  And for the moment, that was all that mattered.

  25

  THE END OF ALL SECRETS

  THERE IS NO WAY this is gonna work.” Henry shook his head adamantly, peering up at the open arched windows of the belfry with doubt. ”No offense, Vlad, but I’ve seen you in gym class and I’m not about to trust my future career as a ballroom dancer to someone who can’t bench press eighty pounds without using his freaky vampire powers.”

  Vlad raised an eyebrow. Ballroom dancing? Henry was about as graceful as a three-legged dog. He had to be joking.

  Henry surveyed the distance, shaking his head once again. “You’ll break ou
r legs, for sure.”

  Joss’s eyes grew wide, and Vlad almost slugged Henry. The last thing he needed was two panicky passengers. “It’ll be fine, Henry. Now hold on.”

  Joss had looped his arm through Vlad’s left arm, and Henry grabbed onto Vlad’s shoulders. With a deep breath, Vlad concentrated and willed his body upward, floating through the air, carrying his two closest friends to his most secret of sanctuaries.

  It was time to let go of all secrets.

  Besides, they needed somewhere quiet and private to talk, somewhere that Henry couldn’t run away from.

  When Vlad reached the ledge, the three of them stepped inside the room. Henry looked around and whistled, impressed. “Whoa ... when you said you hung out up here, I’d expected some old books and a few dust bunnies. Not this.”

  Vlad lit the candles and nodded to Joss, who’d been watching him expectantly since they entered the belfry. They’d planned it all out. Henry’s cousin would start the explanation, and Vlad would assist. Maybe it would be easier to hear coming from family.

  Maybe it wouldn’t.

  It didn’t matter. Henry had to hear, had to know what was coming for him. For them all.

  Joss cleared his throat and looked at his cousin. Nothing about his posture said that he was ready for this. “Henry ... listen. There’s something Vlad and I need to tell you.

  Henry flicked his eyes between them, suspicion and concern lighting up his expression.

  “Something’s about to happen. Something that none of us can stop. And I need your support—we need your support.”

  “Is it something bad?” Henry whispered.

  Vlad gave his shoulder a squeeze, but said nothing.

  It was bad. Really bad. Worse than Henry would ever know—he and Joss had agreed on that. They’d tell Henry about the Slayer Society and about Em. They’d tell him about the journal and how important it was. But they wouldn’t tell him about their last-resort plan of action, about Joss staking Vlad.