Page 13

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

Kade felt gingerly at his neck as Theo drove them down the back roads of Lock. No burns or tears from Theo’s mouth. Just smooth skin. Like it never happened.

Theo pulled the car off the road, driving far enough into the grass that no one could see them. Only then did he turn the car off. He’d been strangely quiet as he drove out of the school parking lot. It freaked Kade out. Like he was the victim in a horror movie.

He sat up in the backseat. “Did you bring me here to kill me?”

Theo twisted to stare at him. “ Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know! You bite me, you drag me to the backseat of your car, drive me out to the middle of nowhere… ”

Theo made a noise through his teeth. “Are you this annoying on purpose? No, I’m not killing you. I…we…”

He jerked a hand through his hair. It was already glossier than it was at school today, his skin more pink. Kade looked down to see his arms were no longer shiny, all the sweat was old. He could make a fist without his fingers trembling. No more chills.

Theo sighed. “We… need each other. Alright? Animal blood isn’t enough. I thought I was going full beast mode in that game, I was five seconds from chowing down on Rusty Legard. And if you don’t get venom…”

Kade groaned. “What kind of DARE shit is this? Two hits and I’m hooked? Full-on… venom withdrawal, complete with shaking and sweating and almost barfing in the cafeteria? That’s bull.”

“Yup.” Theo toyed with the hem of his basketball shirt, that ugly blue and orange mesh that Kade wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. Not even Theo Fairgood could make it look like a fashion choice.

“At least you get a nice high. And you’re officially dragged into my…” Theo’s straight nose twisted. “Little vampire adventure of discovery.”

Kade cackled. He couldn’t help it. Theo was an asshole, but he could be funny sometimes. Also, he was pleasantly surprised Theo listened to him enough to repeat that phrase days later.

“So,” Theo continued. “I know you were… out of all this. But you were so excited about solving mysteries. Did you dig into anything? ”

He was so hopeful. He was trying to hide it, but Kade could see it behind that careful cool.

“You still have no idea what’s going on,” Kade said flatly.

“I know things,” Theo argued. “I…I can’t eat human food! The vampire’s leader, Cyth, had a lover who vowed to bring her back! He might still be around!”

“Oh. Shit.”

“Oh shit,” Theo agreed, triumphant. It wasn’t his usual smug triumph, either. This was…bigger. More relieved. Like a golden retriever who finally found a stick after hours of searching. He rubbed the steering wheel, which was covered with scratches. Like he’d been pushing his nails in, not noticing his newfound strength until the plastic peeled away.

Kade offered, “Coach Cheech is wearing a necklace that has the creepy book symbol. The one Milly showed us.”

“Coach…” Theo squinted at him. “Coach Cheech . You’re saying Coach Cheech is…what, a hunter? He can’t be a vampire, he smells like food all the time. Are you screwing with me?”

“I said I saw it.”

“When? I’ve never seen that necklace, and I’m around the guy ten hours a week.”

“When I almost passed out against him in detention today!”

“Oh.” Theo looked surprised, like he couldn’t believe that had happened today . “So we…shit, we can’t ta lk to him now, he’ll be so pissed I walked out on the game. We could go to Milly’s? No, she said she doesn’t have anything new. Also I don’t know where she lives. We could…go to the Lemmings house? Look for clues? He was a vampire, he must’ve had…I don’t know. Stuff around the house. Stuff that could tell us what the hell is going on. Maybe a diary?”

Kade rubbed the newly healed skin of his neck. He’d been under the impression Theo would drop him home, save the actual investigation for later. He was tired. Not bone-tired and shaky, like he’d been before getting another sweet, sweet dose of venom—but he’d like a rest before they headed out to the next thing.

But Theo looked so lost, and something in Kade tingled excitedly at the idea. Look for clues. Like they were in a mystery story, and anything could be lurking around the corner.

“Hell yeah, Scooby,” Kade said. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not Scooby,” Theo told him, relieved. “ You’re Scooby. I’m Fred. Wait, no, you’re?—?”

“Shaggy,” Kade finished in unison with Theo. He felt a strange urge to grin at him. He bit his cheek instead. He refused to have a moment with Theo Fairgood. Even if he was stuck with him now.

“Get down,” Theo told him.

Kade rolled his eyes and lay down in the backseat. “Right. Can’t let anybody see Monster in golden boy’s backseat.”

“Got that right.” Theo started the car and pulled back into the road. Then, so fast Kade almost missed it, he said: “So, you knit?”

Kade stared at him, uncomprehending. Then he remembered the broken knitting needles jutting out of his backpack, Theo’s shocked face after his foot came down.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Kade insisted.

He waited for Theo to laugh. Hold it over him as leverage. Make a shitty jock joke, at the very least. It was funny—the big bad goth, hiding his knitting needles in his backpack so he could knit in the school bathrooms.

But Theo just watched the road, voice surprisingly quiet as he said, “I won’t.”

He drove in silence for several seconds. Then, wonder of all wonders, he spoke again.

“Sorry for saying you had no friends.”

Kade blinked, lashes brushing the leather seats. “What?”

“In the woods,” Theo explained, as if he needed to remind Kade about something that had him sniffing back tears as he walked away from Theo.

“I shouldn’t…” Theo hesitated. “I was really freaked out. But I shouldn’t have yelled. Or said that shit. You’re a good guy, when you aren’t barking at people. You don’t deserve that shit.”

Kade’s mouth went dry. He bit down on his cheek again, hard and gnawing, only stopping when he remembered Theo would smell blood if he bit through the skin.

“I can take it,” Kade said, and pressed his head back hard into the leather seat.

Jeremiah Lemmings’ house was on the edge of town.

A blight on the landscape , people called it.

Kade thought it was kind of cool. The windows were painted over black, and water stains turned the rear wall into a bloated white mess. If Kade squinted, the house looked like a mushroom growing on an otherwise impeccable street.

The house had no garden, just an overgrown lawn filled with daisies and stinging nettles. Kade was protected by his long jeans, but the nettles brushed Theo’s exposed legs as they crept through the rotting back gate. Kade watched the nettle leaves graze his skin and waited. Theo didn’t even twitch.

“I expected yellow tape,” Kade whispered as they reached the back door.

“Why? It’s not a crime scene. He got stabbed on the sidewalk.”

Kade peered in the back window, the only one without black paint blocking the view. “Okay. What are we thinking? Break a window?”

Theo took the door handle and yanked. The door cracked open. He had broken the lock .

“Awesome,” Kade whispered. He grinned. “Nice work, muscle man.”

“I like that better than blood boy .”

Kade waved into the dark hall with a flourish. “You first, blood boy.”

Theo rolled his eyes, but Kade thought he saw his mouth twitch.

He led Kade into the living room and flicked on a lamp. “For your weak human eyes.”

“Ha, ha,” Kade said distractedly. He was too busy staring around the room, looking for something that hinted at the man who had lived here.

But there was nothing. Any suggestions of vampires were nonexistent—it was just a room. A room full of dust and darkness, the paint on the windows so thick none of the evening light seeped through. The walls were bare. A pile of magazines was rotting wetly behind the door. A battered armchair sat in the corner, pointing toward an old TV. The biggest thing in the room was the bookshelf. Kade touched a small succulent resting on top of a stack of mystery novels. It couldn’t survive here—the old man must’ve moved it recently. The dust around it was disturbed, like it had been placed down in the last week.

“This is depressing ,” Kade said.

Theo nodded, staring at the doomed succulent under Kade’s hand. “No family photos, no hobby stuff except books. Might as well have boarded up the windows. How long did he live like this? How could anybody live like this? He locked himself in here for decades.”

“I don’t know.” Kade wiped a finger along an ornate mirror on the mantelpiece. It had been painted over, white instead of black. He picked flecks of paint and dust out from under his nails and continued, “I kinda get it. World obviously got too much for him.”

Theo snorted. “You could never do that.”

“I do it all the time.” Kade scratched a line into the mirror, exposing a gleam of streaked glass. “I was out of school for a month last year.”

“I remember. It was quieter.”

Kade snorted and kept scratching, white flecks falling to the moth-eaten carpet.

“What happened?” Theo asked. “Were you sick?”

“Kind of,” Kade said, squirming. He could change the subject, make some stupid joke. Find a fake clue and make Theo hide a smile again.

“Your aunt let you skip that long?”

“She didn’t LET me, I just…refused to leave. Couldn’t face it.”

“School?”

“The world. Life. I don’t know.” Kade stood back. He’d cleared a patch of mirror, enough to show glimpses of his face. He smiled, pale skin and patches of his teeth back at him. He shouldn’t have said it. He could see Theo’s reflection in the dull glass, eyes big and pitying.

“Are you okay now?” Theo said.

Kade forced an eyeroll. First Theo was apologizing for saying he had no friends, and now he was asking if Kade was okay after his depression spiral. Maybe the vampirism really had changed him.

“Can’t you tell? I’m great ,” he said, dripping with fake levity. “Are you hungry again ?”

Theo blinked. “Huh?”

“You’re staring.” Kade cocked his hip, his wallet chain jingling. He hoped he looked aloof and cool, like he was aiming for, and not like he was misdirecting the conversation to escape the vulnerability he’d just injected into it. “Am I just that delectable?”

“Shut up,” Theo said reflexively. “Let’s…let’s go check his bedroom, maybe there will be a diary like you said. Or he’s got a giant, mysterious crate in the attic.”

There was no diary in the bedroom. No anything in the bedroom. The attic was full of moths and tools and not much else. The bathroom was a lost cause, and the kitchen looked like it hadn’t been used in decades.

“Except by rats,” Kade said, closing the closet in disgust.

“I thought you’d be happy to see them,” Theo said mildly. “Don’t goths like rats?”

Kade scowled. “Hey, I like rats. Tame rats. Those guys would give you the plague just by looking at you.”

Theo started, “Maybe you should pet one and?—”

He stopped .

Kade turned, scowl falling off his face once he saw Theo’s startled expression. “What? What is it?”

Theo shushed him. He cocked his head, and Kade thought of golden retrievers again.

“Something’s here. In the house.”

“Some thing ,” Kade repeated, voice cracking embarrassingly.

“It…” Theo swallowed. “It doesn’t have a heartbeat?”

Kade stared at him. “Do we check it out?”

“I mean…” Theo shrugged. “We did come here to find stuff? This is…stuff.”

“Yeah, but we can’t do anything if the stuff we find kills us?—”

Theo grabbed his sleeve, tugging Kade behind him. Kade wanted to be miffed, but he couldn’t help but be touched. Even if it meant Theo thought he was a pathetic, lanky loser who couldn’t possibly defend himself from whatever was lurking in the house. Theo still wanted to protect him.

“Something’s moving,” Theo reported. “It’s…in the living room? How can it be in the living room, we already checked there.”

A low growl echoed from the living room. Kade shuddered.

“Oh shit,” Theo slurred, teeth turning to fangs.

Woodchips flew into the hallway. Whatever it was couldn’t fit through the living room door.

“Wait here,” Theo said. He stepped cautiously into the hall, eyeing the woodchips spilling out from the living room.

Another dull roar. Then something burst into the hall, the doorway flying off in chunks.

“Oh SHIT,” Kade screamed. He grabbed a broom from the kitchen floor and followed Theo into the hall, his heart thudding wildly.

The creature whirled to face them in the narrow hall. It was tall and horribly spindly and winged , with white skin pulled taut over its protruding frame. Huge flecks sloughed off its wings, and it took Kade a horrified moment to realize that was skin flakes dripping to the ground. Its ears were huge and ridged, its nose was a giant slit, its eyes liquid black. There were strange black markings on its chest and arms, bunching against its stretched skin.

Its jaw fell open. A hiss scraped up its throat as it crouched down.

Theo turned to Kade. “You need to go!”

The creature sprinted down the hall, blurring with speed. Theo grabbed the broom out of Kade’s hands, shoving Kade back into the kitchen.

Kade tumbled into the wall with a yelp, skidding to the floor. He grimaced, looking up just in time to watch the creature pounce on Theo. It roared, shoving him onto the rotting hallway floorboards.

The creature roared. Theo dragged the broom in front of him and the creature’s jaw caught on the hard wood, biting, snarling, trying to get past and open Theo’s throat.

Kade stumbled up. All his instincts screamed at him to run. The back door was open behind him. He even took a step toward it. Then the broom cracked under the creature’s teeth, almost snapping in two, Theo grunting with effort of holding the thing back.

Kade stopped. Theo had pushed him out of the way. He didn’t have to, but he did. Kade just found a clue , they were in this together—Kade couldn’t abandon him now.

“Shit,” Kade spat, fumbling with his wallet chain. He unclipped it from his belt and ran at the creature, chain taught between his hands like an assassin with a shitty garrote.

“What are you DOING?” Theo yelled.

“My best!” Kade screamed back, and he wrapped the wallet chain around the creature’s throat.

Smoke rose from the creature’s skin. It shrieked, rearing back from the splintering broom to claw at the burning brand around its neck.

“SILVER, BITCH,” Kade yelled as the creature writhed in agony.

Theo crawled out from under the creature, but not before the creature’s long leg struck out, catching Kade in the side.

Kade fell to his knees in the hallway, the wallet chain sliding from the creature’s neck. He wheezed, the breath punched out of him, watching through watery eyes as Theo blurred to stand in front of him. No weapons, just bared teeth.

The creature flared its wings and roared. Theo roared back, the noise edged with fear.

Hot , Kade thought hazily, clutching his wallet chain like it could do anything except provide a temporary distraction to the rampaging beast. At least he’d get to watch Theo’s back muscles through his terrible basketball shirt while he died.

The creature charged. Theo crouched like he was about to tackle an eldritch monster. Kade felt a panicked laugh escape his throat. I’m going to die in a hallway with Theo “Golden Boy” Fairgood, he thought, dazed.

Then a flash of silver whizzed down the hallway and lodged in the creature’s stomach.

The creature shrieked.

“Holy shit,” Kade said weakly.

Theo made a noise of dazed agreement.

They both turned to look behind them.

A man strode through the back door and into the kitchen, a handkerchief tugged high over his face, crossbow raised. The next arrow grazed the creature’s side and cracked into the hallway floorboards.

The creature howled, fell against the wall, and righted itself on clumsy limbs. It gave one last screech—neck still smoking from the deep burn scored into its flesh, stomach blistering around the arrow—and then blurred out the back door .

The crossbow man ran after it, coming to a stop on the back steps.

“Shit,” he growled, staring out over the empty backyard.

Kade squinted. The man’s voice was strangely familiar.

Theo took a tentative step toward him. “Coach Cheech ? Is that…is that you?”

The man froze. Then sighed, reaching up to tug the handkerchief down to reveal the same mustache, bushy brows, and put-upon expression Kade had stumbled into only a few hours ago.

“Boys,” said Coach Cheech. “We need to talk.”