358"Guys, he'll be f –,"
"Oh, God, Lord, help us through this!"
Bella's screaming and crying might bring unnecessary attention to the five of us, all huddled up behind a cardboard box in the alley; Emily had picked up a box to cover us from passerby, apologizing quickly to the homeless man who'd been asleep under it. None of us know why the hobo took to sobbing over Derek's bleeding body beside Bella.
"Jesus saves," the homeless man cries thoughtlessly.
I touch Derek's face, my own feeling a bit wet from crying earlier. Madam Gordosimo made us take his body from her room and I nearly threw up. Shane is repeating that we haven't got anything to worry about and Emily barely seems bothered. On the contrary, she seems excited.
"Guys, wait, c'mon."
I frown at Emily's calmness when a boy just got stabbed, and look back down at Derek, whose face seems peaceful for the first time since I've met him. He'd be much better looking if he wasn't spewing shit from his mouth. Which opens.
I jump back when he says, "If she doesn't shut up, I swear, I'll slit her throat and rape her dog."
Derek sits up, making Bella squeal gratefully and the homeless man fall backwards in horror. Emily gasps in awe. Shane smiles a bit.
"I told you guys he'd be fine," Shane says gaily. "Knives don't hurt him, they just knock him out if he loses a lot of blood." While he's saying this Derek touches the deep wound and puts some of the blood on his tongue. "The doc'll kill us, though, because we always use up his bleach."
"I knew you'd be better," Bella whines, wrapping her arms around Derek's neck and getting covered in his blood. She kisses him on the cheek. She's good at getting over break-ups, I guess.
"Why isn't he dead?" I ask dryly. I keep feeling like the only ones not in on it are me and the hobo. "I saw him get… she tore him across… what's going on?"
Shane gets a bit pale and looks at my sister, who has this 'oh shit' look on her face. It's the one she makes when she forgot to let me in on a secret. Bella keeps petting her crush.
"Are you, like," I think, hard, and the first thing that comes to mind is my brother. "Saiyan or something?"
"Saiyan?" Derek asks blankly. "Like Goku?"
"Yeah… with the hair and stuff? Or half-Saiyan? Gohan, maybe?"
Derek stares at me, almost like he doesn't believe what I'm saying. But I've seen the characters in Dragonball Z – they get beat up and torn up but never die. It's possible.
"I'm a vampire," he says bluntly. "Not a Saiyan."
Ho. Lee. Shit.
"NO WAY!"
Derek puts on his wicked grin and sucks the rest of his blood from his thumb while I cover my mouth and look from Emily to Bella to Shane to Bella to Emily to Bella to Shane to the hobo to Shane to Bella to Emily.
"No way! You knew!" my voice is caught in my throat and sounding very airy.
"Yeah – I'm sorry, Vi, I forgot to tell you!"
"He was – you're the cannibal?" I ask Shane shakily.
"Not cannibal, that was just a really bad… blood sucking time."
I hold my breath and stare at him. Then I exhale slowly. I have to accept it. It was easy for the others. There's got to be – I mean, it must be something easy to process. Vampires – of course they're real. Why shouldn't they be?
"No," I say, shaking my head. "You drink blood?"
"Well, yeah, we're vampires," Shane says this plainly.
"Why can't you drink animal blood?"
"It tastes bad," he says simply. "Besides, I hate killing critters, they're so cuddly!"
"All – all n-nice v-v-vampire," I'm shaking now, "they all drink animal b-blood. Or… kill themselves."
Shane's shoulders drop dispiritedly.
"Violet, I'm sorry if it bothers you… I – we don't have to… I…." Shane pauses and looks for something to say, faltering under my eyes. "I… all I can say is that you know we won't… like, attack you or your family."
"Well whose blood do you drink then?"
"The doc makes sure we only get bad people – criminals we've seen do wrong, nothing else! Rapists, pedophiles, murderers – most vampires do this, it's standard code… it's… we keep criminal populations pretty low in small towns like this."
The hobo and I exchange nervous glances while the others watch anxiously. I keep taking deep breaths and the Our Father is being recited in my head, over and over. They cannot be telling the truth.
"I'll bet you fifty bucks I can beat you arm wrestling."
"You're on, little lady."
Bella and I watch while Mary holds her thin, pale arm out and grasps the quarterback's fist. One of his friends comes forward and, on the count of three, taps their clasping hands.
It starts. Poor guy.
Mary has the quarterback's eyes watering seconds after the match begins and gets him down with a smile on her face. He rubs his bicep, tearing up a bit, while Mary holds her fist up proudly. He was just beaten by what seems to be a twelve year old girl.
I stand up and walk away from the scene edgily. Getting used to being around vampires is not easy. Shane tries to be friendly, but it's still freaking me out. The more the idea plays around in my head, the worse it sounds; vampires. Vampires. Vampires. And, in Derek's case, mentally disturbed vampires.
School ends and I have to wait outside for Emily to come. She's hanging out with her grumpy punk friends and ignoring the fact that I do wait for her.
"Oy! Purp! Where'd you get to!" Bella waves to me from across the parking lot. Mary is standing beside her looking at me carefully. I wave back and let them run over to me.
"Why'd you leave like that? I wanted you to see me beat the principal," Mary says softly.
"It's alright," I mumble. She's either faking this softness or the tomboy attitude. Something about Mary makes me uneasy, though.
Mary looks at me warily and glances at Bella as though unsure on whether or not she can hear a secret or something.
"Does it bother you?"
"What?" I ask quickly.
"About… us? Being… those."
I shake my head, lying gracelessly. "Of course not."
"You can tell the truth."
"I'm – it's – it…," I look up and see Bella eyeing her prey, Derek, across the parking lot. She's not listening. "It'll take some getting used to, that's all."
Mary touches my arm softly and smiles. "Thanks."
"It's nothing," I grumble.
While we were talking, Bella had been messing with her blazer and starting to unbutton her shirt.
"What're you doing?" Mary asks her, again tomboyish.
"I'm going to endanger myself," she says simply.
"What? Why? What for?"
Bella looks at Mary as though she asked an insane question. "His love!"
"You turned his love down two days ago," I say incredulously. "Derek doesn't love. He… breaks!"
Bell ignores this statement and goes through her book bag until she finds a pencil. "Time – love – pain – ignoration – patience – they all go into one thing – love! And for me to find true love with my one and only, the father to your spawn from Satan," she points to me dramatically, "is to be his concubine in our holding place called Hell!"
"What?" I shout.
"Clementine started using Herbal Essence even though her dandruff problem isn't under control. It's gross. And now Jamie's on the rag and I can smell her nasty pad from here. Purp," Bella starts to yell so that she's sure Derek hears, "I must leave this cruel world!"
Bella takes the pencil and, with a loud and painful scream, stabs herself in the wrist. Rather than being rescued by Derek, she gets the attention of students.
"Whoa! Goontz stabbed herself!"
"Daayyy-umm!"
"Dat bitch is currazzehh!"
I stare at Bella while she falls to her knees dramatically and cries out for the love of her life to come and steer her from a life of eternal cooch smells.
"Oh, Lord, oh!"
Derek eventually comes over to watch her because she's making quite a scene.
"What's her problem?" he calmly asks Mary and I while we watch, mortified, as Bella screams and shouts in agony. "Possessed? Or is she finally listening to the talking space-monkeys?"
He manages to take my attention off my friend for a moment.
"Talking space-monkeys?" I repeat.
"Yeah. They tell me when the moon's in position for their takeover." He raises his eyebrows. "For the swarm of maggot-nuggets to eat away at all vaginas and earlobes."
"Maggots don't swarm," I say impulsively.
"But I'll still eat away at your vagina and earlobes."
"They don – what? Are you really – are you serious?"
Derek blinks and squints harshly. "Yes. Captain Bananas, she does know too much now, you're right, it's my mistake – destroy her? But she's ever so young. You're right, sir. The – the takeover is more important, I suppose."
Derek makes a vacant expression and holds it. I wait for it to falter, but it doesn't. He really is insane. Oh my god. I've never met anybody who seriously seems to lack sanity. Aside from the few times he isn't being crazy, he seems to be completely apeshit. He's gaga.
"Goontz! What the hell is going on out here?! Goontz!"
A teacher comes stomping outside and, upon seeing Bella screaming for Derek's love and shrieking in pain from the hole in her wrist, slaps her in the back of the head.
"Goontz! Get up and come inside! Right now! Stabbing yourself in the wrist again? Who is it this time? All of you, beat it! Hanging around and not calling a goddamn teacher! For Christ's sake!"
Bella ignores the teacher's comments and stands up behind him dramatically, looking at Derek purposefully.
"Oh – oh, the woe!"
He waves to her while she gets dragged away, probably to the nurse's office. This is too much. I turn away from Derek and Mary to sit down and clear my head. I'm going to have to call my mom and let her know that Bella just stabbed herself with a pencil. And that I have no clue where Emily is. She'll tell me that she's sure Emily ran away with a boy (something she's done many times before) and I'll have to comfort her with the idea that Emily would never do such a thing on a school night, even though she would.
And then I'll have to straighten things out with myself.
Fact number one – I now know a family of vampires. Two – my best friend has an enormous crush on the nuttiest of the bunch. Three – she's trying her hardest to get him. Four – a possibly transvestite psychic told me and Derek that we'd be falling in love soon. Which is highly doubtable. Five – my sister probably ran away with Cleveland, her oafish boyfriend.
There. Now I feel better.
I look up and see Mary and Derek standing together, talking apparently. He isn't laughing or doing anything remotely crazy at the moment, but he could be telling her about the talking space-monkeys and maggot-nuggets. Weirdo.
But, I must admit, if he had been joking – and I'm pretty sure, or at least praying that he was – space-monkeys and maggot-nuggets sound pretty funny.
Emily did run away. She left a note in my room – I guess she skipped half the school day – and it read:
hey i left wit cleveland. we're goin to da killa babyz concert. if i dont cum home in da nxt week and dont call den im dead, k? tell da news people dat i was a good girl wit good potental. thanx violet luv u tell perce i sed hi and i luv him k later
emily
Bella also got to stress my parents. After getting checked out by the school nurse, Mom took her to the hospital to make sure the hole will be alright.
"I swear, Purp – something about Derek… it's like being in a trance, y'know?"
I raise my eyebrows because Derek may be good looking, but I've honestly never been under a trance by him. I just shrug and scoot over so she can sit on the bed beside me. I'm sitting in Percy's room and watching him play Halo Two. He hates other girls and sometimes even Emily and me, but for some reason unknown to us, has no problem when we pet him and actually used to beg us to sleep with him at night because he was horrified that a thetan would get him.
I dunno what that is, but he's horrified of them.
"It's like Derek is dazzling me sometimes. That's what it is."
"Dazzling you?" I ask.
"Yeah. Like… hypnotizing. He's so gorgeous. He dazzles everybody. If he wasn't insane, he'd be like… some sort of… god."
If she thinks that, I guess.
"And," Bella turns to me and raises her eyebrows suggestively. "The whole, y'know… appetite thing… that's hella sexy, hmm?"
"Not really."
Bella frowns.
"He's got steel balls, Purp. Seriously. Did you know," she leans toward me and whispers so that my brother can't overhear, "he steals cars?"
"Oh. Nothing's better than that. Grand theft auto."
"What?" Perce asks, upon hearing the term.
"Nothing," Bella snaps. "Purp. Listen – he goes to people… like, whoever he wants… and just tells them that he's going to rob them. He says they can either give him the keys or do things the hard way," Bella sounds a bit horny when she says 'hard' but continues, "and the hard way once included Derek getting shot with two rounds from a shotgun after he told a farmer that he'd steal his truck."
I raise my eyebrows and tell her that I've just never found people who rob farmers attractive.
"Why aren't you guys allergic to sunlight?" I ask Shane quietly on our drive home. He looks up from his finger, which he'd been biting because of a hangnail, and answers graciously.
"Our dad's not a You-Know-What."
"What is he? Like, normal?"
"Um…."
I stop in front of Shane's house and let him out.
"You can meet him if you want… he loves visitors," Shane says carefully. Bella squeals like a mouse and starts to climb from the backseat while Percy just looks up from his PSP.
"No – Vi, no – we gotta go home! I got friends waiting for me to sign onto X-Box Live, I can't –,"
"Shutty Percy! This is my chance!" Bella snaps, getting out and going to open his door. Percy clutches the door handle and pauses his game so he can try his hardest to pull and keep the door shut.
I look back up at Shane and sigh.
"Mom's probably got something cooking – she eats a lot," he says, grinning a bit.
Sometimes I surprise even myself.
The Wellington house – not normal.
That's all I can say.
First of all, every wall in every room has at least one spot that's covered in a thin line of splattered blood.
"That's from Derek," Shane mutters.
"Is he a cutter?" Bella asks, rubbing one of the dark marks dreamily.
"Something like that."
A loud heavy thump makes Percy clutch my arm and has his eyes wide as dinner plates.
"That's probably just Drew," Shane says coolly.
He continues walking us through, stopping to point at pictures on the wall of a red-haired woman with huge boobs that are always popping from a skintight black dress.
"Mom," he says lightly. "She was a ginger – explains Derek and Shane."
"Where is she?" Bella asks.
"In the kitchen probably."
"Why is Derek's hair so bright?" I ask.
Shane shrugs and nods ahead, "We're going into the kitchen now… um… you… if you're queasy, you might want to brace yourself."
Perce's grip gets tighter as we both prepare ourselves. I'm ready – cups of blood, bowls of intestines, finger sandwiches from talking space-monkeys or fried earlobes. Bella is so excited that she opens the door before Shane can.
Her courage never ceases to amaze me.
The kitchen looks relatively normal and messy enough for me to believe that at least seven people live here. Aside from the planks of wood over the windows (it's lit by a fluorescent light) the kitchen seems typical. But, at a round table in the corner, watching TV, is a grossly old man in a wheelchair. His back is bent in an extreme slouch and a brace of sorts is under his head to hold it over the table. His eyes are white and milky while his mouth is hanging open and wet with drool. A thin line of white hair is barely visible under the rolls of skin on his head and the liver spots are nauseating. I see a cable going from his ear to a small machine strapped onto the wheelchair.
I can even faintly smell poo coming from the old man, so I think he might've pooted himself. In the corner of my eye, Bella clutches her nose because she can probably smell it, too, and her nose is like smell's equivalent to a magnifying glass.
"Hi, Dad," Shane says to the man, waving. "Mom – he's drooling."
A woman comes from a pantry with dark red hair. Her lips, hips and boobs are all disturbingly oversized, and if she didn't look like a glamour model for some men's magazine, then she'd look domestic, what with the apron and can opener in her hands.
"Oh, thanks honey," she says quickly, rushing to the table and wiping the old man's mouth with a cloth. "Who're these? Your friends?"
"Yeah. This is Violet, Isabella and Percy."
I wave weakly while Bella steps forward to shake her hand. Percy is frozen and still staring at the old man.
"Welcome," Mrs. Wellington says politely, wiping her hand before shaking Bella's. "I didn't clean up – Shane never told me he'd bring," she gets cut off by shrieking and a loud thump from upstairs that has Percy shivering, "…guests. Anyway, there are cookies in the oven, Shane, if you'd like some. Get your brothers and Mary, they'll want some, too. And our guests."
Shane nods and beckons for us to follow him from the kitchen. He walks us to a den and stops.
"That's my mom and dad…."
"How old is he?" Bella asks.
"About one hundred and thirty eight. We think. He – he's not all that good with math anymore."
I completely understand.
Shane leads us outside.
"Well… those are my folks. Mom and dad."
"How's your dad so old?" Bell asks nosily.
"He's a doctor and did something – don't ask me, I don't know, I don't understand how he did it. But anyway, he did it and now that his body's too old to function all that well, he has a computer transmit his thoughts so we know what he wants or needs or says."
"Did he know your mom was a vampire when they got married?" Bella asks, making Percy blink. Damn. Now he knows.
"Yeah. Dad was a vampire hunter – one of the best human vampire hunters in history, actually," Shane adds proudly. "But says when he met Mom, he couldn't stop himself. They had problems, though, so they had to change their names and move away. From Vanellsig to Wellington. And then came the genetic problems…."
Bell and I both wait for him to elaborate.
"Humans and vampires are different enough for interbreeding to be… um… undesirable. Something about chromosomes. Either way, Mom had two miscarriages before Drew was born, and… well, you know," he shrugs. "Then they had another miscarriage – then Derek and Vilmer. They had another brother, too – triplets – but the third baby died. Deformity issues. But Derek and Vilmer have issues, too. Vilmer has seizures… bad, bad seizures that have nearly killed him. Dad installed something in his and Derek's heads when we were younger so that if he ever had a flatline – that's what Dad calls them – then Derek's brainwaves would always manage to zap his brain into working. Derek's completely colorblind in natural sunlight and used to go deaf whenever he hadn't…um… eaten in a while. Dad fixed that, too, though. But them and Drew – those three are the strongest, so they shouldn't complain.
"Me and Mary were the last two. Mom didn't have any miscarriages between me and Derek and Vilmer, so she thought I was the lucky baby. But I'm bad about… eating because the others can tell when they're going to need to eat and I usually can't tell until two hours before I pass out. Also, I'm not as strong as normal vampires, and it takes me longer to heal. Mary was born after three more miscarriages and had a twin brother who died. Her main issue is really, really, really sporadic periods." Shane shrugs. "Dad thought it was a good sign that she had one, though, because everyone thinks we're supposed to be sterile."
"What about Derek being nuts?" Bella asks tactlessly.
"Oh… that's another story," Shane mumbles.
"Tell me!"
Shane shakes his head friendlily.
"I think it's better if you not worry yourself with vampire business, guys. It's really too much for someone who doesn't need to know."
"Come on! It's nothing big! You guys can't be that complicated!"
As if on cue, a black car with tinted windows drives by. The passenger seat window rolls down when we all look at it.
"That's them! It's them! James, get the gun!"
The girl who screamed that out turns to the driver. A dirty looking man with wide eyes and a five o'clock shadow looks at us all and pulls out a pistol.
"AAAAAAAARGH!" Percy screams and falls to the ground. I drop myself, too, yanking Bella down because she'd been poking her neck out to see the man.
BANG! BANG!
My eyes are shut, and I shudder when I hear the gunshots. The car speeds away, I can tell, because of the screeching tire sounds. I open my eyes and sit up. Shane is standing in place and looking at his arm, which is bleeding profusely. Standing beside him are, to my surprise, Vilmer and Derek. Vilmer is looking at his brother's injured arm, like he wants to tend to it, while Derek is looking at something in his hand.
"What h-happened?" I ask slowly.
"Someone just shot my brother in the arm," Derek says simply, showing me a bullet in his hand. "And I just did the best bullet-catch ever," he adds, grinning.
My jaw drops while Bella sits up; Percy is still shaking and down, only peaking up.
"You caught that?" Bella asks breathlessly. Derek nods and looks at his brothers.
"Who was it?" Vilmer asks Shane.
"James… he's here… again."
The other two groan.
"Who's James? What's he?" Bella asks quickly.
"Some crazy motherfucker who won't quit following us around," Derek grumbles.
"Why?"
"Derek killed his entire insect collection," Shane says angrily, rubbing his arm, which is now bleeding considerably less. "And set his house on fire. And stole his heart."
I raise my eyebrows while Bella looks insulted.
"No – not metaphorically – I mean for real. James kept his heart in a glass case back then and Derek stole it. And," Shane gulps, "cooked it."
"I ate it," Derek says aptly.
Oh, Lord, help him.
"Why don't you just kill him?" I ask crossly.
"He's very powerful," Vilmer says wisely. "James is three hundred years old… he's let his vampirism take over any humanity in his soul. He has assistants help keep him in check, but without them James would be a danger to all humanity."
Something tells me this wouldn't stop Vilmer's brother.
"I could beat him, I bet," Derek says curtly. "Or rape his mother, one."
Vilmer pats Derek's back and looks at us.
"It's best if you guys stay away from the house until we straighten this out."
"But I don't want to! I belong here – with you guys!" Bella stands up, so I follow suit and pull Percy up as well. "Violet and I want to be with you guys while you fight this ultimate of foes."
I honestly don't. Obviously.
The boys know better, though – thankfully.
Our ride home is subdued. Bella had been forced into the car by a reluctant Vilmer, and Percy had begun to cry when Derek approached him with his tongue sticking out, screaming something that none of us understood. He chased Percy around the yard and into the backseat of my car. Then he threw me, kicking and scratching, over his shoulders (this didn't involve a chase because he just sort of popped in my face after a noise like a whip crack broke the air) and started spinning around and laughing that godly laugh. I think he got the wanted effects because the second he let me down, I stumbled around, ultimately falling into the street and throwing up.
I absentmindedly rub the bruise on my forehead from when I hit the concrete.
Percy is staring out the window warily, jumping and twitching, while Bella grumbles about how lucky I am that Derek picked me up.
Yeah, right. Luck is my middle name.