“I know.”
“It’s not your decision to make. It’s his.”
“If we don’t find her by then, I’ll tell him.” I was already in motion, grabbing my knapsack. I went to the kitchen and packed a flashlight and a butcher knife, for all the good they would do.
“You can’t kill him with that,” Katie pointed out.
“I know. But it’s all I’ve got. Even if I had a stake, I’m not strong enough to drive it through his rib cage. He won’t just melt away like on TV.”
“I’m strong enough,” Katie said.
I shook my head. “You’re not going with me.”
“You need my help and you know it, so don’t waste time arguing. But I’m not going without something I can kill him with.”
“We’re not trying to kill him, we’re just trying to locate him. Once we figure out where they are, we’ll call Alexander.”
“Alexander isn’t answering his phone. He could be in a tunnel miles away.”
“Then we’ll get the police.”
“The police won’t know how to kill him.”
“They don’t have to. We just need them to distract him so that we can get Chrissy out of there.”
“Fine, but I still want to bring a stake,” she insisted. “We’ll drop by my place on our way.”
“You have a stake at your place?”
“No, but the next best thing.”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
WE RAN TO KATIE’S PLACE, where she grabbed a hockey stick and broke it over her knee. “Here’s our stake.” She tucked the sharper half into my knapsack with the tip facedown.
By 2:47 P.M., we were at the mall.
My phone buzzed. It was Alexander.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I am almost at the mall.” It sounded like he was running. I heard a car horn blare.
“We’ll meet you in the basement in front of Michaels Crafts,” I said.
Five minutes later, he joined us. He wore his long coat. He had a stake in there, I knew. Maybe several. When he shot a suspicious glance at Katie, I explained that she had been filled in — and was trustworthy. Alexander looked dubious, but nodded.
“Two days ago I followed the tunnels north,” he told us. “Vigo would not be hiding there unless he moved last night, and I doubt he had the time to do so. He would take her where he had already established a hiding place. We’ll go south and check the offshoots. Follow me.”
He led us to a maintenance door. We blocked him from view as he jiggled a small metal gadget in the lock until it clicked open. Then we all slipped inside and down a staircase. He opened another door, and we entered the darkness of the tunnel.
It was cold. I felt the crunch of dirt underneath my feet. My eyes slowly adjusted until I saw the ground beneath me and a long, curving tunnel ahead. Every few yards there was a maintenance light attached to the wall, a beacon for city workers who came down here.
Katie and I started walking, but Alexander blocked us with his arm. “Not that way. This way.” He switched on his flashlight for a second, and it revealed a cavelike passageway to our left. My throat constricted, but I didn’t back away. We had to find Chrissy.
“Follow me by sound,” he whispered. “Don’t use your light unless I tell you.”
Follow him by sound.
One step at a time.
One step after another.
After a few minutes, Alexander came to a sudden halt. Katie bumped into me, stepping on the back of my shoe. I felt her hockey stick jam against my ribs, but I didn’t let myself grunt. At least I knew it was sharp.
“Look.” Alexander flickered his flashlight, which allowed us to see that the tunnel branched off in several directions. We could keep going straight, or turn right or left.
“This tunnel likely goes forward a few miles,” he surmised. “Passageways like this one always have a purpose. They are used by bootleggers in my world. The same was true here.”
“Which way should we go?” I asked him.
“Vigo prefers left. It is in the books.”
Our pace was slow, our steps careful. There was no margin for error. It would be a mistake to cough or stumble. I heard breathing: mine, Alexander’s, Katie’s. It felt like the walls around us were breathing, too.
The darkness got softer until it became a deep gray. I didn’t know if my eyes were still adjusting or if I was imagining it, but the darkness appeared to be getting lighter. I felt Katie squeeze my arm, and I knew she was thinking the same thing.
Alexander stopped. He whispered, “I hear them.”
It must have been his keen hunter’s hearing, because I couldn’t hear anything above the sound of my breathing.
As we continued to move forward, I began to see something take shape ahead. I could faintly make out the outline of a door with light seeping through the edges.
“Unless the door is dead-bolted, I should be able to get through,” Alexander said. “I’m going to rush him. Get Chrissy out and run back this way. Don’t stop for anything. Now stay close behind me. It’s about fifteen steps.”
Fifteen steps until we were within reach of Chrissy. My pulse pounded in my ears.
Just five more steps. Then there was a burst of sound, and the door was gone. Alexander had slammed it open. He was in the room now.
Katie and I ran in. In the corner of my vision, Alexander and Vigo were fighting. The sounds of grunting and punching filled the room. Thirty seconds. Alexander had thirty seconds.
Chrissy — where was Chrissy? All of my senses took in the room at once. Small, cluttered, dirt floor, table. I spotted her lying on the floor, facedown. I ran up, turned her over. It was a corpse.
“Amyyyy!”
She was at the far end of the room, a figure struggling in the shadows. Katie got to her first. Chrissy’s hands and ankles were bound with rope. Katie took the butcher knife from my knapsack and sawed at the rope holding Chrissy’s ankles. It came free. We pulled her to her feet and ran for the door.
Alexander flew in front of us, thrown by Vigo. Chrissy stumbled over him, but managed to keep going. Katie sprawled, the hockey stick skidding out of her hand. She scrambled to her feet, but Vigo grabbed her, hoisting her across his chest like a shield and dragging her back into the shadows.
“You never did play fair, Alexander,” Vigo snarled. “I offered you a fair exchange and you ambushed me. Very well. It’ll be this one instead of the other one.”
Alexander rolled to his feet, blood streaming from a gash on his hairline. I wanted to rush over and help him, but I was frozen to the spot.
“What exchange?” Alexander spat angrily.
Vigo looked at me, cocking a brow. “Indeed? She didn’t tell you that if you handed yourself over to me, we could have avoided this? Tsk, tsk, little girl. Well, it is too late now. I expect this one will do.” Vigo sank his teeth into Katie’s neck.
I screamed, running at them. Alexander caught my waist, yanking me back. “Don’t get close to him!”
I stopped, watching Katie’s face contort in agony. She didn’t scream. She couldn’t scream. I was racked with terror for my friend.
Vigo pulled back. “A love bite for now.”
Alexander took a step closer to him. “I’ll give myself up, Vigo. Let the girls walk out of here.” He dropped his stake on the floor.
What was Alexander doing? Why didn’t he just lunge at him?
But I knew why. It would take him at least a second to cross the room to Vigo and Katie. In that second, Vigo could kill her.
Vigo’s eyes fixed on him. “Take off your coat. I expect you have an arsenal in there.”
Without hesitation, Alexander started unbuttoning his coat.
“You always take the same direction, don’t you, Vigo?” Alexander took off his coat and tossed it aside. You could hear solid objects hitting the ground.
“Which direction do you mean — the murderous one? What other direction should I take — diplomacy?” Vigo cack
led. “Now your shoes,” he commanded. “I’ve known you to hide weapons there, too.”
Looking defeated, Alexander bent down, taking off one shoe, then another. One sock, and then he grabbed something on the ground and threw it forward with lightning speed.
My heart stopped. The stake was going to hit Katie, not Vigo!
But at that moment she ducked to the right. It was enough. The stake caught Vigo in the forehead, causing him to howl and lose grip of her. Katie wrenched away. He lunged to grab her again, but only caught her shirt. And then she was gone, scrambling out the door.
I was right on her heels, running through the tunnel. I shot a glance back. Alexander wasn’t behind me.
I heard the sound of stumbling up ahead. “Get up, Chrissy!” Katie shouted. “Almost there!”
Then they were running again, two shadowy figures in the darkness. Katie didn’t forget where the turn was, thankfully. We ran down the tunnel until we spotted the maintenance door. We piled back inside the mall, closing the door behind us.
Katie pressed her hand to her neck, blood covering her fingers. She was pale and sweating. “Where’s Alexander?”
“Killing Vigo.” I hoped I was right.
At the police station, I insisted on going in with Chrissy when she was being questioned. Mom was on her way, but the police weren’t willing to wait for her, not when their suspect was getting away. A horde of cops was, right now, descending on the tunnels in search of Vigo. I’d given them the best directions I could.
Chrissy clung to me like a small child would to her mother. I stroked her hair and told her that she was safe now.
The room contained a large steel table and a mirror that I guessed was a one-way. There was a female and a male detective in the room with us, Moody and Hogg. Detective Moody was the one who asked the questions.
“How did he first make contact with you?” she began.
“Facebook.” This wasn’t news to them, since I’d shown them his profile last night.
“He added you as a friend?”
“Yes.” Chrissy’s voice was quiet and childlike. I hardly recognized it.
“What did he tell you about himself?”
She didn’t answer. She seemed to go into a haze.
“Christina?”
“He said he was seventeen. Went to St. Mark’s.”
“We’ve seen those details on his Facebook profile. Did he tell you anything that might help us figure out who he really is?”
She shook her head.
“Where did you arrange to meet him?”
“The AMC downtown. But then he said we shouldn’t bother with a movie. He said …” She drifted off again.
“Christina, tell me what he said.” The detective’s voice was gentle but insistent.
“He said he knew an underground club I could get into.”
“But he didn’t take you to a club.”
“No. There was no club.”
“I know this is difficult for you, Christina, but I need you to tell me what happened in that room.”
Her eyes stared. “They were alive.”
“Are you referring to the bodies we found?”
“Yes. They were alive then.”
“How many people were there?”
“Two. A girl and a guy.”
“What happened to them?”
“He killed them.”
I felt a shudder. I wasn’t sure if it was Chrissy’s or mine. It must have been mine, because Chrissy was eerily still.
“You saw him do this?”
“No. I was blindfolded.”
“Do you know how he killed them?”
“He drank their blood. That’s how vampires kill.”
Chrissy didn’t say a word on the cab ride home, but hung on to my mom as if her life depended on it. Officer Moody called my cell to say that Vigo’s hideout had been discovered, along with the two bodies. But there was no sign of Vigo himself.
Two bodies. That meant Alexander wasn’t among them, thank God. Although wounded, Vigo had somehow gotten away. Alexander was undoubtedly hunting him right now.
“Can I get you something to eat, honey?” Mom asked Chrissy when we got in the door.
She shook her head.
“Are you sure? You must be hungry.”
Chrissy looked toward the window. “He can’t come in here, can he?”
“Not unless you invite him in,” I answered. “Did you ever invite him in?”
“No.” She looked at Mom. “Can I sleep with you tonight?”
“Of course, honey. Let’s get our PJs on.” Without removing her arm from Chrissy, Mom leaned over and kissed me. “Night, Amy.”
“Night.”
They went into Mom’s bedroom. I stood there, wondering what to do next. Chrissy was back, safe. Katie, who I’d been texting with this whole time, had been released from the hospital an hour ago. She was going to be fine.
Only Alexander was still out there.
Dizziness swept through me. I realized I hadn’t slept since … I couldn’t remember.
There was a knock at the door. A quiet knock, but it made me jump.
I looked through the peephole and breathed a sigh of relief.
I opened the door and threw my arms around Alexander. “You’re okay. Did you …?”
He held me close, stroking my hair. “No, I lost him. I tried to track him in the tunnels, but he’d had an escape route planned out.”
I squeezed him tighter, pressing my face into his shirt. I wanted to sob. Would this ever be over?
We went to the couch and sat down.
“How is Katie?” Alexander asked, taking my hand.
“She’s okay. She was taken to the hospital and got stitches. They sent her home.”
“Good. What about Chrissy?”
“She’s traumatized.”
“Did she tell you what happened?”
“I was there when she spoke to the police. Vigo had people down there, people he’d kidnapped. He killed them.”
“I’m so sorry, Amy.”
He held me for a while. The reassuring beat of his heart calmed me.
I raised my head. “She’ll be okay, right? I know she’s in shock. But, eventually?” My biggest worry for Chrissy was that her spirit had been broken. Right now I’d even welcome some of her old feistiness.
“I am sure she will be, although she will never see the world in the same way. Eventually, though, she will put this behind her and move on.”
“You didn’t move on, though.”
“No. I could not. But my circumstances were different than Chrissy’s. It was my family that was murdered.”
Maybe it was impossible to move on from that. Maybe something that traumatic had to define your life.
“Aunt Helen was convinced that I could put it behind me,” he said. “She suggested I visualize a compartment in my mind to contain the memory, where I could seal it up forever. The idea sounded silly to me.”
“I think it makes sense. Once Vigo is dead, you can move on. You can have a fresh start.”
“I am too old for a fresh start. I will soon be nineteen. That isn’t young in my world.”
It was true. Life expectancy in Otherworld was low — what I would consider middle-aged — a result of the many stresses of living in a society dominated by vampires. That, and the fact that their medical technology hadn’t advanced since the vampires came.
“You still have time to build a good life when you get back,” I said.
I meant it, but the thought of him leaving this world — my world — was impossibly painful.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
WHEN I EMERGED FROM my room the next morning, I couldn’t believe my eyes: Dad was next to Chrissy on the couch, and she was snuggled into his side. They were watching Two and a Half Men reruns.
Mom was in the kitchen doing dishes. When she saw me, she wiped her hands on a dish towel and hugged me tightly, as though she hadn’t seen me in months. “I n
eed to show you something, Amy.”
I followed her into her bedroom. She closed the door and put on the news. A press conference that had taken place earlier this morning was on. The police chief was taking questions.
A reporter asked, “How do you respond to people who say your department is making up this wild explanation because you can’t find the killer?”
“I’d say they should take a look at the evidence,” Chief Arland said. “This was the last conclusion we expected to come to, but the evidence is clear. We believe a real vampire is terrorizing our city.”
The truth was out. Finally.
Without warning, photos of the victims’ wounds came on the screen. I had to look away.
The press conference continued with more questions for Chief Arland. Then it was back to Roger Thompson in the newsroom with a panel of experts via satellite.
“There have been conflicting reports of what was actually found in this man’s hideout,” Thompson said. “Detective Gaston, what can you tell us about that?”
“Well, Roger, the police have confirmed that two bodies were found in the hideout along with several bottles of blood. Forensics is checking if that blood came from the current victims or if it was saved from previous victims.”
Vigo’s Facebook photograph flashed onto the screen.
“What exactly do we know about this man?” Thompson asked another guest, a retired FBI agent from Virginia.
“Very little, unfortunately. He claimed to be a seventeen-year-old student at a local high school, but that hasn’t checked out. We don’t know his age, where he comes from, or his real name. I’m sure investigators will be using facial detection software. Right now, they’re appealing to the public to help identify him.”
“You’re saying that we have absolutely no leads on this guy?” Thompson asked.
“It appears that way.”
Thompson then turned to a sociology professor from NYU. “Now, Professor, a lot of people are saying that this man is, in fact, a self-created vampire — that he’s nothing supernatural. Why have vampires become such a cultural obsession, especially for young people?”
“These days the most popular teen books are vampire books, especially the Otherworld series by Elizabeth Howard,” the professor replied. “The result is that many young people have immersed themselves in vampire culture. I believe it was inevitable that something like this would happen.”