Before I had a chance to take it all in, Aidan and Brandon were first to dash onto the scene.
“Where is she?” Aidan asked, checking her secret chamber.
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said, “but if I were her, I’d want out of this Epcot version of Transylvania pronto.”
Brandon looked at Aidan, then grabbed me around the shoulder. “The Gibson-Case Center.”
I held on tight waiting for them to take off, even enjoying the sick thrill of the chase at these speeds. It was probably as close as I’d ever get to traveling at light speed.
32
The exit from the castle was a blur. I caught a brief green hint of the forest surrounding it as Aidan, Brandon, and I flew along. By the time we were heading for the entrance back into the Gibson-Case Center, the light through the now-open doors at the end of the tunnel made me feel like I was being born. We shot out into the open atrium of that section of the building and came to a stop almost immediately.
Beatriz was standing there, waiting. So were most of the people I knew from the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, including the Inspectre. Most of them were armed with crosses, vials of holy water, and stakes at the ready. At the front of the crowd stood Allorah Daniels, strapped to the gills with a small personal arsenal. There was only Beatriz between me and my fellow humans, but behind me I heard the sound of more vampires arriving.
“Inspectre!” I called out.
I looked back over my shoulder. The growing number of vampires was already transforming, hissing as their features stretched tight over their skin. The humans bristled and raised their weapons.
The pure hatred on Allorah’s face was almost as terrifying as the vampires. I followed her closely, watching her fingers tense on the wooden stake she clutched in her hand. By the mad look in her eyes, I had only seconds before she did something rash.
I ran for Beatriz right in the thick of it all. I went in swinging with my bat. Bea made a mad grab for me at lightning speed. My post-light speed chase rhythm was off just enough that Beatriz grabbed my bat midair, twisted it from my hands, and used it to pull me into a headlock with her other arm.
“Stop right there,” Beatriz said to everyone around us, menacing me with the bat.
Trapped like I was, I looked to Allorah. “How… how did you find this place?” I asked.
She looked fierce but shook her head at me. “That’s where the hunting part comes in with the whole ‘vampire hunter’ thing…? After you ran off on Godfrey and me the other day, I checked into what you had been researching with him. Building schematics, and, well, here we are.”
Part of me wanted to kill Godfrey even if he had only accidentally compromised me, but that was contingent on me not getting killed first.
Allorah stepped toward me and Beatriz, but Beatriz gave me a soft rap to the head, causing me to wince. Allorah stopped in her tracks.
“Stop right there or I’ll kill him.”
Allorah paused to consider this. “Go ahead and kill the traitor,” she said, moving to step again.
“Enough!” Inspectre Quimbley shouted. “Allorah, please… stay where you are.”
Allorah stopped, but she didn’t lower the stake in her hand.
Beatriz shook her head and sighed. “Sometimes I’m amazed that you people have ended up the dominant species on this planet.”
“You were us once, too, if you remember,” I said.
“Please,” she said, full of disdain, “don’t remind me.”
Beatriz spun around in a circle, assessing her predicament. There were humans on one side, vampires on the other, not to mention the two living statues on either side of the door that looked both confused yet ready to leap into action.
“What the hell’s going on, Bea?” Aidan said, stepping closer.
“Yes,” Brandon said, sounding pissed, “that’s what I’d like to know.”
“Just shut up,” Beatriz said, tapping the bat against my chin. “I’m going to kill him.”
“No,” Brandon said, his face becoming more human once again. “You’re not. The prophecy…”
“To hell with what the book says,” Beatriz said.
“Why would you do this?” Brandon said. His anger dissolved into genuine hurt. “Beatriz… we’ve worked so hard, for so very long… We’ve come so close to peaceful cohabitation with humanity…”
“Not we,” Beatriz said, shaking her head. “You. You worked hard for this. Don’t put all this on me. I was just your tool. When you needed an architect, I brought you Nicholas because I believed in you and Damaris. I even spent the last twenty years cozying up to your kidnapee, thinking you had a real plan for the superiority of our race.”
Aidan looked shocked. “You were playing me?”
“ ’Fraid so,” Beatriz said, laughing. She looked back at Brandon. “But when you started getting all hippy-dippy about peace and unity…”
“Bea…” Brandon said with sternness in his voice. “I don’t understand this change of heart, Beatriz. Why now, after all this time?”
Beatriz shook her head. “You were everything to us,” she said. “We believed in you, followed your counsel and did your bidding without question, and for what? To make peace with our food?” She looked over at the humans with revulsion, then turned back to Brandon. “Look at us now. We used to be kings and queens among men. We used to be feared, respected. People would tell tales of us and others would shudder. Why would anyone want to give that up? To give up their power?”
“This is power,” Brandon shouted at her. “The future is power! I’ve seen far too many of my kind, our kind, wiped away-out of fear, out of hatred. Yes, I was part of that, but I want an end to loss. When they staked Damaris, I truly remembered what it was to lose someone. I was devastated and I swore to myself no more. I want my family, all of you, to be a part of this modern world. You were part of that family.”
“I didn’t become a vampire so I could hang out around the castle watching 90210 for the next hundred years,” Beatriz yelled back at him. The pressure of her arm around my neck increased. I could feel Beatriz tensing up as she tapped my bat against my forehead. “Any last words?”
I looked to Jane over on the vampire-crowd side. She was clutching the heart-shaped necklace I had given her in her hands. I was about to die, but I would die knowing that I had tried my damnedest to keep the peace here. “I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too,” she said. She looked down at the necklace. “I love my present, too.” She looked up at me, our eyes meeting. “Speaking of presents,” she continued, “don’t forget my special delivery.”
With Bea’s arm gripped so tight around my throat, I had almost forgotten the bat she was threatening me with. It suddenly dawned on me, however, that she didn’t know of all it could do.
I double-checked the angle of the bat. Beatriz held the end of it tight in her hand, right about chest level.
“Bea?” I said.
“God,” she said. “Can you just shut up? I’m trying to kill you here.”
“Yeah, about that…” I reached up and grabbed the end of the bat. I pressed the button combo Jane had built into the high-tech gadget. The grip end of the bat sprung open and out shot the spring-loaded stake housed within it, lodging deep into Bea’s chest.
She looked down, surprised, and then her body began to shake. Her skin crumbled away from her body, and the arm around my throat started to fall away. Blood-slicked muscle caught against my neck, but dried out in seconds as it flaked to dust. Before her hand turned to dust, I grabbed my bat before it could fall. All the while Beatriz screamed in agony until there was nothing of her left to produce the sound. Her skeleton was the last thing standing, but within seconds even that fell to the floor, the impact breaking it into pieces.