"No," Rose spoke up. "We return to the cemetery."
CHAPTER 8
Roland raised an eyebrow. "Why there?"
"There was a reason I drew the symbols on the floor," she replied. "They help to guide and control the spell, and prevent such catastrophe as happened here."
"But you just did the spell out here," I reminded her.
She pursed her lips. "That was rather reckless of me, but I felt I had no choice."
"You could've chosen not to try to suck Roland's soul from my body," I pointed out. "Heck, you could've even chosen not to be a complete ass and left us alone in the first place."
"Misty," Uncle Seward spoke up. He stood and held Aunt Ma in his arms. "Don't antagonize her. We may need her help at the cemetery."
Rose grinned and folded her arms across her chest. "A smart human."
Uncle Seward whipped his head to her and narrowed his eyes. I cringed from the look of fury in the depths of his gaze, and even Rose winced. Uncle Seward's voice was low, but firm and dangerous.
"You shut your mouth, monster, or I swear to God I will shut it for you," he growled. Rose frowned, but said nothing. My uncle moved towards the truck. "Misty, get the tailgate," he ordered me.
"Right!" I agreed.
I put down the tailgate and jumped up to help Uncle Seward place my aunt in the bed of the truck. Uncle Seward made to climb in with me, but Roland dropped his hand on my uncle's shoulder.
"The bed is not safe for humans," he pointed out.
Uncle Seward pursed his lips, but nodded. "All right, but buckle your seat belts and hold on to the oh-shit handles," he advised us.
The other four, with the book in Rose's hands, piled in and Uncle Seward drove us in the direction of the cemetery. I sat beside Aunt Ma and looked her over. She looked so peaceful, so serene. I opened the window between the back seat and bed. Ginsleh and Uncle Seward took up the front seats, and Roland sat behind my uncle with Rose in the last seat.
"So is there any way of snapping my aunt out of this insanity before we swap souls?" I asked our group.
"Doubtful," Rose replied. "If my personality overwhelmed her from the beginning then her own personality may be buried too deep for your simpering human words to reach."
"You know you're insulting yourself when you insult humans, right?" I pointed out.
She pressed her lips together. "Though I have a human soul I remain a vampire."
I rolled my eyes. "Fine, you're a vampire without a vampire soul and with part of your ego missing, but you know yourself better than anybody else. There's got to be a way of tricking her into letting my aunt's personality out to play."
"I wouldn't fall for such tricks as you could devise," she proudly boasted. "On the contrary, I would have tricks of-" She stiffened and spun around to show me her wide eyes. "Punch your aunt!" she ordered me.
I frowned. "But that'll wake her up."
"She's already-" Aunt Ma sat up and smiled at me.
"What a lovely nap, but I'm so very parched," Aunt Ma commented.
She slapped me upside the face with the force of an anvil. I tumbled into the side of the bed and saw stars. Then I realized it was the night sky above me.
Aunt Ma sailed past me and through the tiny window. She passed the back seat and grabbed the steering wheel.
"Do you mind? I need to pull over," she quipped.
She yanked the wheel while Uncle Seward's foot was still on the gas. The truck twisted and tipped onto its side. The humans inside the cab were thrown into their strangle-inducing seat belts. The momentum forced the truck to slide two dozen yards down the road. I clung to the side above me and stood on the grinding edge as sparks flew beneath my feet.
The truck came to a stop at the foot of a tall metal arch and dead grass. I looked up and beheld the archway to the cemetery and the tall hill filled with the dead.
"Give it to me!" Aunt Ma screamed.
I ducked down and looked inside the cab. Rose and her each had their hands on one end of the book. Aunt Ma wrenched the tome from Rose's human-weakened fingers and burst through the driver's door. The door sailed away and Aunt Ma landed a few yards from the truck. She held up the tome above her head and cackled.
"Mine! Now I will-" We didn't get to hear her master plans because a large shadow leapt out from behind one of the ancient trees.
The shadow collided with Aunt Ma and they tumbled to the ground. The tome flew through the air and stopped a few feet short of the truck. I looked over at Aunt Ma and had to rub my eyes.
A large humanoid wolf was hunched over her. Its face was nearly pressed against hers and its lips were curled back in a snarl. The beast growled and drool dribbled onto my aunt's face. She didn't react because she was out cold.
Uncle Seward poked his head out his broken window and pointed Ginsleh's rifle at the beast. "Get off her!"
The beast turned to him and its eyes narrowed. My uncle shot off a warning bullet that clipped the beast's arm. The creature roared and clutched at its arm as it stumbled back. Smoke rose up from between his fingers. The beast steadied itself on its pawed feet and glared at us.
"You don't know what you're doing," it snapped.
"We're keeping a talking rug off my aunt," I quipped as I jumped over the side of the truck and landed neatly on the ground.
"This monster stole the book from me, and will probably use it for some evil purpose," he insisted.
I snorted. "Okay, there's too problems with that statement. One, it's already been used for evil, and second, and most importantly, my aunt didn't steal anything. She won't even take a grape from the grocery store."
"I know what I smell!" the monster growled.
I held up my hands and slowly walked towards him. "You've got it wrong, Wolfy."
"Misty, move away from it!" Uncle Seward yelled at me.
"Not now, Uncle Seward," I told him.
"I am not mistaken," the werewolf insisted. "I've followed this monster's trail and I find her standing here holding the book."
"All good points, but take a deeper sniff and tell me if you smell something else. You know, like a heartbeat that shouldn't be there or the smell of cooking that wasn't there before," I suggested to him.
The werewolf pursed his pink lips together, but he turned towards Aunt Ma and I noticed his nostrils flared. He stiffened and his eyes widened.
"She's the same, and yet not," he commented.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you," I insisted. "She's got part of the vampire's being inside her, but she isn't the one who stole your book. The one you want is in there." The werewolf growled and lunged at the truck, but I stepped in front of him and held up my hands. "Wait! We need her to fix this soul swapping mess!"
He skidded to a stop and tilted his head to one side. "Soul swapping?" he repeated.
"Yeah. It's the ultimate in identity-crisis mayhem," I quipped. "We've all got our souls or beings or whatever swapped between the six of us, and we need that vampire to help us get things straightened out."
"How did this-"
"It's a long story, and the longer we wait the more likely my aunt's going to wake up and run amok again," I told him. I pointed at the cemetery. "We need to get to a mausoleum and perform a spell, and then you can have your book back and maul the vampire to your heart's content."
"I don't agree to that," Rose spoke up as she peeked her short head through the passenger window.
The werewolf snarled at her, and the vampire half-ducked beneath the window. I turned to her and crossed my arms over my chest.
"You'd better agree to the first part of I'm going to let him have you right now," I warned her.
Rose glared at me. "I have already agreed to assist you," she reminded me.
"Then stop making it worse for yourself by opening your big mouth," I snapped.
A foot slammed through the cracked front windshield, and Roland emerged. He dragged the unconscious Ginsleh after him.
"We should all do with less talk and
more walking," Roland advised.
The werewolf sniffed the air and turned to me. "Who are you people?"
"Just your ordinary family trying to survive the inordinary paranormal world," I replied. "So do you think you can help us out by giving us some breathing room?"
The werewolf straightened to his full, tall height and smiled. "I'll do more than that. I'll help you." He walked over to Roland and took Ginsleh in his arms.
That left Aunt Ma for me, and Uncle Seward took the tome. Our strange little group crunched through the snow up the hill with Roland in the lead, and we soon arrived at the mausoleum. Roland turned to the werewolf.
"Set him inside against the wall, but you should wait outside the magical circle," he advised our new friend. "We wish to avoid any further complications."
The werewolf nodded and stepped inside only long enough to set Ginsleh against the center of the wall to the right. The rest of us positioned ourselves in a circle. Uncle Seward and I swapped with him holding Aunt Ma and me with the book. The werewolf stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest.
I raised my hand and chanted the words. "By the darkness in my hand and the dark lord in the land, let our souls be born anew in the body of we six." Fortunately, nobody held their breath because nothing happened. I frowned and cleared my throat. "By the darkness in my hand and the dark lord in the land, let our souls be born anew in the body of we six!" I was met with the same result.
"What's wrong?" Uncle Seward asked me.
I tapped the page of the book and shrugged. "I don't know." I glanced at Rose. "You know more about this stuff. What's wrong?"
Rose furrowed her brow. "It may be because the sentence doesn't rhyme," she guessed.
My face fell. "Seriously?"
She glared at me. "I am not one to joke."
I held up my hand. "Fine, fine, but how do we fix it?"
"The last part of the sentence must rhyme with the first, so change the 'anew' part to a word you believe best fits the 'six,'" she instructed me.
"Me? Why don't you think of something?" I shot back.
"Because you are the one casting the spell," she snapped.
"Ladies, if I may remind you, but our unconscious captive may awaken at any moment," Roland spoke up.
I glanced at Ma and sighed. "Gimme a sec." I wracked my mind for an idea.
"I no longer have all eternity," Rose spoke up.
I glared at her. "I'm fixing your-" My eyes lit up as a word came to mind. "Okay, I've got it! Everybody hold on to your hats, and prepare to be amazed." I raised my hand and cleared my throat. "By the darkness in my hand and the dark lord in the land, let our souls be now fixed in the body of we six!"
The symbols on the floor lit up in a brilliant dark light. A burst of wind flew off the pages of the book and swept over the room. The six shadows from before leapt off the pages and rushed at the six of us. I cried out when my shadow rammed into my chest. The book clattered to the floor and I stiffened as Roland's soul was torn from me. The cold of the vampire left me, and in its place came the warmth of my human soul.
The whole process took only a few seconds, and then the wind was sucked back into the pages. The lights on the floor disappeared, and the whole affair ended on a loud note as the explosion of completion blew up the whole place.
CHAPTER 9
The force of the blast knocked all of us against the walls, and Ginsleh in particular had his head whacked against the hard stone. The dust settled over us like a smog winter and I choked on the stagnant air. I waved my hand in front of my face and peered into the impenetrable darkness.
"Everybody okay?" I choked out.
Roland sat up next to me. "More or less," he replied.
"I'm all right," the werewolf's gravelly voice answered from the doorway.
"We're here, but Ma's out cold," Uncle Seward spoke up.
"One sec. I'm coming," I called back.
I stood and patted the walls with my hand as I stumbled in their direction. My lead foot connected with something soft and limp. It groaned, and I leaned down and squinted. Ginsleh's pale, scrunched face appeared from the misty dust. I 'accidentally' gave him another kick with my foot and stepped over him to Uncle Seward and Aunt Ma just a few yards beyond.
Uncle Seward sat with his back against the wall and Aunt Ma in his arms. She was ghostly pale and her breathing was very shallow. I knelt beside him and looked her over.
"I think she's okay, just still knocked out," I told him.
"You think she's the same as she was?" Uncle Seward asked me.
I shook my head. "I don't know, and I don't think we'll find out until she-" She stirred, and her eyes fluttered open.
Uncle Seward and I breathed a sigh of relief when they showed their normal color. She looked up into our faces and smiled.
"Thank you," she whispered to us.
"For what?" I asked her as Uncle Seward wiped a few loose tears from his happy eyes.
Aunt Ma grasped my hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. "For knowing when to give me a good walloping."
I shrugged and sniffled. "I'd hate to lose you. You're the only one who knows how to babysit Uncle Seward."
"Young lady," he warned me.
Aunt Ma turned to him and chuckled. "Have you been in my bleach again? You look as white as a sheet," she teased. He, like Aunt Ma and the rest of us, was covered in the mausoleum's dust.
He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm. "I'm okay now that you're back."
She giggled and playfully batted at his arm. "Oh, you!"
"This sentimentality is sickening," a voice hissed.
A short shadow rose from the darkness. A sudden wind blew from the figure and revealed Rose. She stood in the center of the room with the tome open in one hand. Her red eyes glared at all of us.
The werewolf growled and lunged through the door, but Rose jumped back and avoided his outstretched arms. He flew to the end of the room and spun around. She pointed her fingers at him.
"Another step and you will be a puppy," she warned him. He hesitated, but snarled at her. She turned her attention to Roland as he climbed to his feet. "Now I will finally get what I deserve."
Roland glared at her. "You deserve nothing but a short lifespan," he shot back.
Her eyes narrowed. "I will grant that wish, but on you." She wiggled her fingers and a slight wind picked up around her.
My family and I jumped when a shot rang through the small stone room. The bullet hit her hand that held the book and lodged itself in the thick spine. Rose let out a scream and the book dropped to the ground. She clutched her arm in her other hand and raised her wounded hand. Smoke rose from the perfectly round hole. She whipped her head to Ginsleh as he stood holding his rifle Uncle Seward had appropriated.
"How could you injure your mistress?" she snapped.
"You are not my mistress any more than I am your slave," he countered. He raised the barrel and pointed the end at Rose. "I remember everything, and my last service to you will be extinguishing your hated life."
Roland took an inopportune step back, and Ginsleh swiveled so the barrel pointed at his head. Ginsleh grinned at him through the scope and his finger pressed against the trigger.
"But first I will finally get you, vampire," he snarled. "You've been a thorn in my side too long."
"Wait!" I shouted. I hurried past Ginsleh and stopped between Roland and the hunter. I faced Ginsleh and held my hands above my head. "Wait a sec! Just wait a second!" I pleaded.
His eyes hardened and narrowed. "Get out of the way or I will shoot you, too," he warned me.
"But why shoot any of us?" I asked him.
"Because he is a vampire, and all-"
"I know, I know, all vampires must die, but why not kill-"
"Destroy," he corrected me.
I rolled my eyes. "Why not destroy them in the order they deserve?"
He frowned and lowered his gun so he looked at us over the sight instead of through it. "W
hat do you mean?"
I jerked my head over my shoulder at Roland behind me. "He could have killed you a half dozen times-"
"Three," Roland corrected me.
I turned and glared at him. "Do you want help or should I just leave you to be killed?"
"Destroyed," Ginsleh spoke up.
I prayed to the saints of patience and turned to Ginsleh. "Okay, the vampire behind me has had plenty of opportunity to kill you, and he hasn't." I glanced past him and pointed a finger at Rose. "She made you her bitch. Which one do you think deserves to be destroyed first?"
Ginsleh pursed his lips. "They all deserve to be destroyed."
"Yes, but what rule says you have to do it in any order?" I pointed out. "Besides, can't you at least give us a running start? I promise I won't move apartments until you get back."
Ginsleh furrowed his brow. The air was deathly still and I dared not breathe. He finally lowered his gun and I gasped for breath.
"I see your point," he commented.
He swung around and pointed the barrel of the gun at Rose. "You die first, bitch."
"Be destroyed," I corrected him.
Rose hissed at him as Ginsleh fired off several rounds. She dodged the hail of bullets and dove out the doorway. The short vampire flew into the air with Ginsleh close at her heels. The pair disappeared into the night, and the last we heard from them was the gunshots from Ginsleh's gun.
I hunched over and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. "That was a little too close."
Roland came up behind me and set his hands on my shoulders. "Yes, but you were quite cunning."
I smiled and shrugged. "Maybe being a vampire for a little while made me a little more devious."
"I should leave as well," the werewolf spoke up. He walked to the door and I noticed the tome was tucked under one arm.
I held out my hand to him. "Wait a sec. We didn't even catch your name," I pointed out.
He paused and partially turned to us. "It's Lance, and thank you."
I furrowed my brow. "For what?"
"For reminding me what it means to be human, and have friends," he explained.
He turned away from us and disappeared down the hill.
"Well, that was strange," I commented.
"That is an understatement," Uncle Seward quipped as he helped Aunt Ma up. He looked sternly at me. "You have a very dangerous life, young lady."