49 - Vampire Breath

  “Oh!” I cried out when I heard a cough.

  Behind us. From the hallway.

  “It’s him!” I whispered. “It’s Count Nightwing!”

  “Smash the window!” Cara insisted.

  “No. He’ll hear us! He’ll find us!” I whispered back.

  I lowered the skillet to the floor. And turned back to study the window.

  Another cough. Closer this time.

  “Look,” I whispered to Cara. “It pushes out, I think.” I reached with both hands and pushed at the dust-smeared windowpane.

  Leaned into it. Pushed with all my strength.

  Slowly, slowly, the window slid out. With a groan, I pushed it open as far as it would go.

  A gust of cool night air swept over me. I grabbed Cara’s hand and started to give her a boost.

  A noise behind us at the doorway made me jump. “Hurry—!” I whispered. “He’s coming!”

  My heart pounding, I pushed Cara up to the window. Then we both scrambled frantically out onto the ledge.

  18

  “Did he see us? Was he in the kitchen?” Cara whispered.

  “I don’t know,” I told her. “I didn’t see. But he was definitely in the hall.”

  “If he saw us…” Cara started. A gust of wind drowned out the rest of her words.

  The night wind felt cool and refreshing on my skin. Heavy clouds floated over the full moon, plunging us into total darkness.

  We were both on our knees, our backs to the kitchen. Huddled close beside Cara, I struggled to keep my balance on the narrow stone window ledge.

  “Let’s get going,” I urged.

  We both turned and faced the window. Then, gripping the stone ledge with both hands, we began lowering our legs down the wall, lowering ourselves to the ground.

  Lower. Lower…

  “Hey—!” I cried out when my feet didn’t touch anything solid.

  A shaft of moonlight broke through the clouds.

  I looked down.

  And opened my mouth in a hoarse scream.

  My feet kicked the air. My hands gripped the ledge above me.

  I stared down into empty space.

  Far below I could see dark, jagged rocks glowing dully in the moonlight.

  Far below!

  Miles below!

  “We—we’re on top of a cliff!” Cara stammered. “The castle—it’s built on a cliff!”

  “Ohhhhh.” I uttered a terrified moan.

  The castle was built on top of a sheer rock cliff. And we were now dangling over the side. Dangling by our arms. Dangling…

  My arms started to ache. I could feel my hands slipping, losing their grip on the stone window ledge above me.

  “Cara—!” I gasped.

  19

  My hands scraped the dark stones of the wall.

  I struggled to grab on to something—anything!

  But I was falling too fast.

  My feet kicked. I thrashed my arms. The wind rushed up at me as if trying to push me back up.

  Was that me howling like that?

  I was falling too fast to hear my own scream.

  And then suddenly I stopped.

  Stopped screaming. Stopped falling.

  A black shadow swept around me. I felt something sharp dig into my shoulders. Hot breath grazed the back of my neck.

  I heard a loud flapping sound. A fluttering heartbeat.

  Gripped inside this shadow, I felt myself being pulled up.

  I twisted my head back—and saw two glowing red eyes. The hot breath poured from its dark gaping mouth.

  It’s going to eat me! I realized.

  I’m trapped inside this red-eyed shadow. Trapped in its talons as it carries me higher. Higher.

  And then darkness surrounded me.

  I landed somewhere. Landed hard on my feet with a loud thud.

  The darkness lifted. I opened my eyes and saw Cara. Her mouth dropped open in amazement. “Freddy—!” she choked out. “Freddy—?”

  I spun toward the big open window to see the giant bat that had carried me back to the kitchen. Its wings flapped against the floor. The red eyes glowed angrily from its big, ugly face.

  It saved our lives! I realized.

  I collapsed to my knees. I grabbed the side of the stove to hold myself up.

  I’m okay. I’m going to be okay, I told myself.

  I raised my eyes to the enormous bat.

  It started to shrink. It tucked itself inside its black wings. Wrapped the wings around its body.

  The wings melted into a cape. A purple cape. And as the cape swept back, Count Nightwing appeared.

  “You made a serious mistake, young man,” he scolded sternly. His strange, silver eyes burned angrily into mine. “Did you think you could fly?” he demanded with a sneer. “You are not ready to fly—yet!”

  “I—I—I—” I was still shaking too hard to speak.

  “When I turn you into a vampire, you can fly every night,” Count Nightwing snarled. He lowered his face close to mine, so close I could smell the decay of his pale skin. “Don’t try to escape again,” he growled. “It is a waste of time. And the next time… I won’t catch you.”

  I swallowed hard. I held my breath, trying to force my heart to stop pounding so hard.

  Count Nightwing turned away from me. Swirling the purple cape behind him, he floated past Cara, through the kitchen.

  He stopped at the door and swung back to us. “Don’t just stand there,” he ordered. “Come help me find the Vampire Breath. I know it’s somewhere in this wing of the castle.”

  He grabbed his pale throat. “I’m so thirsty… so thirsty.” His silvery eyes locked on Cara, then on me. “I must remember where I hid my fangs. Hurry. Help find the Vampire Breath. It’s somewhere nearby. I’m certain of it.”

  Cara and I had no choice. He stood at the doorway, waiting for us to follow him.

  Holding on to the stove, I pulled myself to my feet. Then I followed Cara through the kitchen to the hall.

  “Perhaps I hid the bottle in the royal guest room,” Count Nightwing said, talking to himself. He pushed open a door and vanished inside the room.

  Cara and I kept walking. The hallways appeared to stretch for miles ahead of us. Door after door after door. And this was only one wing of the old vampire’s castle.

  “Are you okay?” Cara asked, studying me as we walked. “You still look kind of shaky.”

  “I am kind of shaky,” I confessed. “After all, I fell off a cliff!”

  Cara shook her head. “It isn’t going to be easy to escape.”

  “We can’t escape,” I replied. “The castle was built up here on top of the cliff to keep anyone from escaping.”

  She brushed a strand of black hair from her eyes. “We can’t give up, Freddy. We have to keep trying. As soon as he finds his fangs, he’s going to turn us into vampires.”

  “That’s why my first plan is the best,” I insisted. “We have to find the bottle of Vampire Breath before he does. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe we’ll find it first.”

  “But what will we do with it once we have it?” Cara demanded.

  “Mainly keep it from him!” I declared.

  I pulled her into the next room. We both gasped when we saw the coffins.

  Dozens of them. All lined up perfectly in four rows, the length of the room. All open.

  “Another vampire bedroom!” Cara cried. She shivered. “It’s so creepy, Freddy. Look how many there are!”

  “The vampires are all out somewhere, swooping around, searching for blood to drink,” I said. “But soon they’ll be flying home. And when they see us…”

  Cara gulped. “We’ll be their dessert!”

  “Uh… maybe we should search for the Vampire Breath in another room,” I suggested. “Somewhere away from these coffins.”

  But then my eye fell on something. A coffin against the wall.

  A closed coffin.

  “Cara—look at that!” I whispered, pointing. “All the
other coffins were left open. That’s the only one with a closed lid. Do you think—?”

  Cara squinted at the closed coffin. “Weird,” she murmured. “Very weird.”

  My brain whirred with crazy ideas. “Maybe it’s an empty coffin,” I suggested excitedly. “Maybe no one sleeps in that coffin. That would make it the perfect place. The perfect place to hide a bottle of Vampire Breath.”

  Cara held me back. “Or maybe a vampire is sleeping in the coffin,” she warned. “If we open the coffin and wake him up…” Her voice trailed off.

  “We have to look inside!” I exclaimed. “We have to take that chance.”

  We made our way to the coffin. I stared at the polished, dark wood of the lid. I cautiously ran a hand over the smooth wood.

  Then, without saying a word, Cara grabbed one handle, and I grabbed the other. And slowly, slowly, we began to lift the coffin lid.

  20

  The lid was solid and heavy. Cara and I leaned into it and pushed. Finally, it dropped to the other side of the coffin.

  I turned to the door to make sure Count Nightwing hadn’t heard.

  No sign of him.

  I pulled myself up straight and peered into the open coffin. The inside was covered with dark green felt. It reminded me of the pool table in our basement.

  I sighed. I wondered if I’d ever see my basement again.

  “It’s empty,” Cara murmured sadly. “Just an empty coffin.”

  “We’ve got to keep searching,” I said. I started to back away from the coffin when I saw the pocket.

  A green pocket in the side of the coffin. Like the pockets on the sides of suitcases. It bulged out a little from the side.

  “Whoa. Hold on a minute,” I told Cara. She was already halfway to the door, I reached into the pocket.

  And pulled out a blue glass bottle.

  “Cara—look!” I cried. I forgot that we didn’t want Count Nightwing to hear us. “I found it! The Vampire Breath!”

  A smile broke out over Cara’s face. Her dark eyes flashed with excitement. “Excellent!” she exclaimed. “Excellent! Now we’ve got to hide it from Count Nightwing. Somewhere he’ll never find it.”

  I held the bottle up close to my face and studied it. “Maybe we should open it and pour it all out,” I said.

  Cara rushed up beside me. She took the bottle from my hand. “When we opened it before, it took us back in time,” she said excitedly. “Maybe if we opened it now…”

  “It will take us forward in time!” I finished her thought for her. “Yes! Count Nightwing said it can be used for time travel. Maybe if we open it—and think real hard about where we want to go—it will take us home to my basement.”

  We both stared at the blue bottle.

  Should we hide it and keep it away from the old vampire to stop him from getting back his fangs?

  Or should we open it up and hope that the smelly mist would carry us home?

  Cara gripped the bottle tightly in one hand.

  She raised her other hand to the glass stopper on the top.

  She started to pull it open—then stopped.

  We stared at each other. We didn’t speak.

  “Go ahead. Do it,” I whispered.

  Cara nodded in agreement. She squeezed the stopper again and started to pull.

  But she stopped once again. And gasped.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. I heard a soft footstep.

  And I realized that we were no longer alone.

  21

  I spun around, expecting to find Count Nightwing.

  “Oh!” I cried out when a girl stepped out of the shadows.

  Her pale blue eyes were wide with shock. I think she was as surprised to see us as we were to see her!

  As she stepped toward us, I saw that she had ringlets of blond curls that fell past her shoulders. She wore a gray jumper, very long and old-fashioned, with a white blouse underneath.

  She’s about our age, I realized. But definitely from a different time.

  She stopped several coffins away. “Who are you?” she asked, eyeing us suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”

  “We—we don’t really know,” I stammered.

  “We know who we are. But we don’t really know what we’re doing here!” Cara corrected me.

  “We got here by accident,” I added.

  The girl’s confused expression didn’t change. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her jumper.

  “Who are you?” Cara demanded.

  The girl didn’t answer right away. Keeping her distance, she continued to study us with her pale blue eyes. “Gwendolyn,” she said finally. “My name is Gwendolyn.”

  “Are you one of them?” The question popped out of my mouth.

  Gwendolyn shuddered. “No,” she answered quickly. Her mouth curled into an angry sneer. “No. I hate them!” she declared. “I hate them all!”

  Cara shifted her weight tensely. I could see that she was really nervous. She handed the bottle of Vampire Breath to me. The bottle felt cold and damp from Cara’s hands. I lowered it to my side, out of Gwendolyn’s sight.

  “Do you live here?” Cara asked Gwendolyn. “Are you related to Count Nightwing?”

  Gwendolyn’s sneer grew more bitter. “No,” she choked out. Tears welled in her eyes. “I’m a prisoner here. I’m only twelve. But they treat me as a slave.”

  She let the tears run down her pale cheeks. “A slave,” she repeated in a trembling voice. “Do you know what they force me to do? Clean and polish their coffins, night and day.”

  “Yuck,” Cara murmured.

  Gwendolyn sighed. She brushed her blond ringlets off her face and wiped away a tear. “Night and day. There are a dozen coffin rooms in this castle. All filled with row after row of coffins. And I must keep them smooth and shiny and clean for the vampires.”

  “What if you refuse?” I asked. “What if you tell Count Nightwing you won’t do it anymore?”

  Gwendolyn uttered a dry laugh. “Then he’ll turn me into a vampire.” She shuddered again. “I’d rather clean their coffins,” she murmured bitterly.

  “Can’t you escape?” I asked.

  Another dry laugh escaped her lips. “Escape? If I did, they would track me down. They would turn into bats and fly after me. And they would drink my blood until I was one of them.”

  I swallowed hard. I felt so bad for her. I didn’t know what to say.

  “We don’t belong here,” Cara told her, glancing to the door. “Count Nightwing brought us here by accident. Can you help us? Is there any way for us to escape?”

  Gwendolyn lowered her gaze to the floor, thinking hard. “There may be a way,” she said finally. “But we’ll have to be very careful. If he catches us…”

  “We’ll be careful,” I promised.

  Gwendolyn glanced to the front of the room.

  “Follow me,” she whispered. “Hurry. It is almost dawn. If the vampires return and see you—it will be too late. They will pounce on you and drink your blood. You will never see daylight again.”

  She led us into the hall. Clinging to the wall, we stopped and looked in both directions.

  No sign of Count Nightwing. But we knew he was nearby. Searching for the bottle of Vampire Breath. The bottle I held tightly in my hand.

  “This way,” Gwendolyn whispered.

  We followed her through another door. It led to a narrow stairway. Gas lamps on the wall cast a dim glow, lighting the stairs as we made our way down.

  We found ourselves in a long, twisting tunnel. Gwendolyn led us through it, walking rapidly, silently. The tunnel was so narrow, we had to walk single file. It twisted and curved, and took us down, deeper into the castle.

  “Is there really a way out down here?” Cara asked Gwendolyn. Cara’s voice echoed in the narrow tunnel.

  Gwendolyn nodded. “Yes. Follow me. There is a secret exit through the castle cellar.”

  Our footsteps thudded on the hard tunnel floor. Up ahead of us, Gwen
dolyn’s blond hair glowed like a torch leading the way.

  The way to freedom. The way to safety.

  I leaned close to Cara and whispered. “This is great! We’re getting out of here—and we’re taking the Vampire Breath with us!”

  Cara raised a finger to her lips. “We’re not out yet,” she reminded me.

  The tunnel emptied into a huge, dark cellar. Gwendolyn pulled a flaming torch off the wall and carried it high in front of her to light our way.

  “Follow me,” she whispered. “Hurry.”

  The flickering torch cast a narrow path of light through the cellar. I couldn’t see anything on either side of us. Total blackness.

  Gwendolyn led us deeper into the darkness. It smelled damp and sour down here. Somewhere in the distance I heard water dripping.

  Cara and I huddled close together, trying to stay in the light of the torch. I squeezed the bottle of Vampire Breath tightly in my hand.

  Gwendolyn stopped so suddenly, we nearly walked into her.

  She turned slowly. The torchlight revealed a smile on her face.

  “Are we here?” Cara demanded. “Where is the door?”

  “Yes. We’re here,” Gwendolyn replied in a whisper. “We’re all alone here.”

  “Huh?” I cried. I didn’t understand.

  “I have you all to myself here,” Gwendolyn continued. Her smile grew wider. Her eyes were half-shut. “We won’t be interrupted by Count Nightwing or the others.”

  “But—where do we escape?” I demanded.

  Gwendolyn didn’t reply.

  “Why have we stopped here?” Cara cried.

  “I’m so thirsssssty….” Gwendolyn hissed. “So thirssssty…”

  As she lowered the torch, I saw long, pointed fangs slide down her chin.

  “I’m so thirsty….” She sighed. “So terribly thirsty…”

  She grabbed me by the shoulders. And I felt the scratch of her fangs against my throat.

  22

  “No—!” I screamed.

  I grabbed her arms and shoved her off me.

  “No! Get away! Get away from me!” I howled.