“Fucking vampires,” I muttered under my breath again, but Vaughn heard me.
“Vampires? Sky is dating a vampire? Are you high?”
“I know it sounds preposterous, but it adds up,” I explained. “The Drainers had fangs. Fangs mean vampires. And I got a look at them—they weren’t fake. Plus, Sky has bite marks.”
I was sure it sounded far-fetched to Vaughn, but I knew what I saw.
“I think you’re right,” Vaughn said after a very long pause. “Skyler doesn’t do drugs, and you saw something. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one.”
Vaughn had never doubted my family history, but I was grateful that he also believed me about the vampires.
Our popular culture was inundated with stories of vampires. There was even a non-scary vampire on a beloved kids’ show. Maybe there was more to it than just stories to make you shiver.
Skyler thrashed wildly as we wound the rope around her. “Not too tight,” I said. “But make sure she can’t get loose.”
Her dress rode up, and I noticed a bite on her thigh. It was an old mark, faded, but the skin looked ripped and swollen.
I sucked in my breath. “Those jerks.”
“What are we going to do at the book club?”
“Find out how to kill a bunch of asshole vampires.” I stared at the night sky. The moon was full and bright, a typical romantic setting, but there was a dark blot in the sky, and it was coming toward us. I stood frozen, my heartbeat loud and fast.
Vaughn came up next to me. “Get in the car, Tansy,” he said. He repeated it a couple of times before my brain, which had been locked down in terror, finally started working again.
“Help me with Sky,” I said.
He bent and, in one swift motion, picked up Skyler and carried her in a bridal hold to the car. She tried to bite his ear.
“Sky, stop it,” he said. “Or I swear I’m going to drop you on your ass.”
She growled at him like a feral cat, her teeth snapping, but he managed to dodge her.
I opened the door, and he shoved her into the back seat. I jumped in after her, and then Vaughn got in the driver’s seat and we sped home.
“I can hear you being all judgy over there,” I said. “Cut it out.”
“I’m not being judgy,” Vaughn said. “It’s just that—”
I cut him off. “Your best friend broke her.”
“Con didn’t break her,” Vaughn said. “He broke up with her.”
“Same difference,” I said, a hot feeling in my stomach all over again at the way Connor had dropped Sky so suddenly.
“Not always,” he replied carefully. “Sometimes, a breakup is a good thing—especially if one of the people is in love with someone else.”
My mouth fell open. “Connor’s in love with someone else?”
“No, I’m not talking about Connor,” he said.
“Who, then?”
He took his eyes off the road for a brief second, and something in his gaze made my heart pound in my ears. “Can we talk later?” he asked.
I nodded, barely restraining myself from asking more questions. From hoping.
He returned his attention to driving. “Good,” he murmured.
We’d reached PCH when a heavy fog rolled in, obscuring the road. Vaughn slowed down but kept a steady pace as the fog grew thicker.
“I’ve never seen a marine layer like this,” he muttered.
There was a sound like hail falling on the roof. Then something hit the windshield and clung there—a skeletal creature with wings like a bat but the face of a man. Its cheek pressed to the driver’s side, its mouth in a silent scream. Vaughn and I were both screaming now.
“What is that thing?” I yelled. The creature raised its bony hand and tried to punch through the glass to get to Vaughn.
“What the hell?” Vaughn swore but kept driving.
This night had been a freak show from beginning to end, and I’d had enough of things that go bump in the night.
“Leave him alone!” I screamed. The car swerved…
And then the creature was gone.
Chapter Three
It was a miracle, but Vaughn managed to turn onto PCH without crashing the car. In the back seat, I was shaking. “What was that thing?”
My question made Skyler laugh, but the wild and screechy sound wasn’t like anything I’d heard from her before. Her warm brown eyes had turned a violent red. “He’s coming for me.” She cackled again.
I flinched, which made her cackle louder. I started to tremble, which made her dissolve into another bout of malicious mirth.
When we reached Granny’s, Vaughn scooped Skyler up, and we dashed from the driveway into the house.
Our bungalow had been in our family for generations. Granny said all the houses in the neighborhood used to look like ours, but now it was the house the neighbors called a “tear-down.”
It was a block from the beach with a killer view, but it had seen better days. Still, I loved the small Craftsman with its wide front porch, dark wood bookcases and floors, and the backyard with Granny’s herb garden, avocado trees ripe with fruit, and the eucalyptus tree that Skyler said smelled like pee.
“Mariotti witches have always lived by the sea,” Granny had often said. “That’s why I’ll never sell this place.”
After the night we’d had, it felt like a refuge.
“Granny, I need you!” I shouted the second the door swung open.
“You’re home early,” Granny Mariotti said placidly as she blinked at me from the couch. Granny was nearly as fair-skinned as I was, although her hair had once been black. She had brown eyes, not green like mine, and she was thin and wiry. Sometimes, it seemed impossible that we could be related, but Granny assured me that we were.
She wasn’t alone. Her friends Edna and Evelyn were still there.
“Can I fix you a snack?” Edna asked. “You look tired, Tansy. Doesn’t she look tired, Evelyn?” I’d been the ringbearer at their wedding when I was five, and sometimes they still treated me like I was that age.
They studied me, and I realized that I was standing in the doorway, blocking their view of my friends, and stepped to the side.
“I have a little bit of a problem.” I undersold it, then motioned to Skyler, who snarled.
“My, you must have had an interesting evening,” Evelyn said.