Jane Jones (19 page)

“Jane, when Dad and Ma told me you weren’t coming with us, I snuck away to try to find you. I thought you went to school to see Eli. I just wanted to say goodbye,
Jane. I’m sorry if I messed everything up—” The muffled sounds returned, and then Astrid was back on the line.

“I know you’re with Timothy and I know what you’re doing,” she hissed. “If the two of you don’t show up at the school, I’m going to deliver you-know-what to you-know-who for you-don’t-even-want-to-
know
-what. You’ve got till four o’clock. And you both better still be vampires when you get here.” The message ended. I tried to hang up, but the phone fell from my numb fingers.

“We have to go,” I said to Timothy.

“What? Where?” Timothy asked, confused.

“Astrid knows everything. She has my brother and he’s in danger,” I wailed. “I would go by myself, but she’s demanding that both of us meet her at school before we take the cure. She said to be there by four o’clock or …” I couldn’t go on. Timothy turned to Dr. Erdos.

“Doctor,” he said, his voice thick with reluctance, “will you wait here for us until we get back?”

The doctor ran his hands through his disheveled mop of curly hair and shook his head, gesturing to the two test tubes, the contents of which were now nearly clear. “I am afraid,” he explained, “zat if you do not take ze cure within ze hour, it loses its … efficacy. It becomes …” He struggled to come up with the most scientifically accurate word. “It becomes junk!”

Timothy looked from the doctor to me. I could tell he was loathe to run out of his house to help me save a little vampire kid he’d never even met while our window of opportunity quickly shrunk, but I was ready to pick him up and throw him over my shoulder if I had to. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But we have to go save my brother first. If you care about me at all, you will come now!” I grabbed my bag and started for the door, then turned back to see Timothy, still standing where he’d been, dumbfounded. I shouted, “Timothy, please! If we don’t both show up, Astrid is going to do something really bad to Zachary.”

Timothy opened his mouth to speak to the doctor, possibly to ask him to talk some sense into me, but Almos Erdos, obviously sympathetic to my intense state of distress, spoke first.

“Go,” he boomed, sweeping his shovel-size hand toward the door. “Go, go! I come wiz you.” He scanned his work area, then grabbed two black rubber stoppers that he shoved into the tops of the glass test tubes, which he carefully transferred to the inner pocket of his sport coat. He glanced at the big octagonal face of his digital watch and announced, “Ve have ezzactly fifty-sewen minutes.”

I flew through the front doors of Port Lincoln High without looking back to see if Timothy and Dr. Erdos were keeping up.
The slap of my sneakers echoed off the walls in the dim and deserted entrance hall. I charged up the stairs two at a time, never letting up despite the burning in my atrophied legs. When I got to the doorway of Ms. Smithburg’s class, I saw Astrid’s long, shimmering waves but could not see my brother. As soon as I threw open the door, Astrid jerked around to face me, and there was Zach, his neck squeezed under her arm with his own scrawny wrists bound behind his back. “Jane,” he rasped, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

A moment later, Timothy pelted into the room with Dr. Erdos right behind, gulping and gasping and clutching his weathered briefcase with one hand and his chest with the other. I remembered what it felt like to have a pounding heart and was glad for once that mine could not.
Astrid’s perfectly glossed lips broke open into a vulgar grin that revealed her perfectly glistening white fangs. “Jane,” she exclaimed in faux surprise, “you came! And you brought friends! How sweet.”

“Astrid,” I commanded, “let him go.” She tightened her hold on Zach’s throat, causing him to make a strangled gagging noise. I looked to Timothy and Dr. Erdos. Astrid was certainly a more powerful vampire than I, but between the three of us, surely we could take her. Or could we? Perhaps Timothy and I put together were no match for Astrid, and Dr. Erdos was just a person. There was even a risk that he would be bitten, and that his incredible formula for curing vampirism could die with him. Still, I thought we should go for it and I tried to convey my idea to Almos and Timothy with my eyes, but it was Astrid who could read me. She scanned the desks around her and snatched up a sharpened pencil, aiming the point directly at my brother’s heart. Funny, it had never occurred to me that I should be afraid of pencils, but now that I thought about it, they were nothing more than little wooden stakes you could write with. I dropped the idea of overpowering her.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I just want what you want, Jane,” she replied, trying to sound innocent. “It didn’t take a genius to figure out what you and Timothy were up to.” Well, that was obvious now.
“And when I put two and two together and realized today was the big day, I said to myself, ‘Ya know what? I’ll have what she’s having!’ ” She tilted her head to me, awaiting my response, but it was Timothy who spoke up.

“Astrid,” he said, gently, “I know I’ve hurt you, and I can see that you’re upset. Why don’t you let Jane’s brother go, and you and I can discuss it.” He reached his hand toward her, nervously, but still much like a prince offering to dance with a lady. Astrid scoffed. It was not attractive.

“Shut up, Timothy,” she sneered. “And stop flattering yourself. I’m not doing this because I looooove you,” she said, glowering. “I’m doing this because I hate Jane. Little Miss Perfect Vampire with the loving family and the great grades plus an undead
and
a real live boy falling all over themselves to be with her. She simply can’t tolerate drinking one drop of blood and she has a fake eating disorder! Poor baby.” It was no surprise that Astrid hated me, but when I heard the reasons why, it actually sounded like she was kind of jealous. Of me! I would have liked to enjoy that feeling for a second, but Astrid’s testy tirade wasn’t over just yet.

“Everybody else might be buying your bull, Jones, but not me. I was in the middle of trying to come up with a brilliant plan to wreck
your
brilliant plan, when your dumb little brother fell right into my lap. What’s his name? Zach?
Well, I like to call him Chip, because he’s my little bargaining chip.” Astrid gave Zach’s neck another squeeze for effect, then laughed as Dr. Erdos raised his eyebrows at Timothy. I tried to think of what I should do, inching backward toward the teacher’s anteroom office, wondering if there was something, anything in there that I could use.

Astrid continued her assault, saying, “Honestly, Tim, I don’t give a shit what happens to you. I just want the cure and you’re gonna give it to me or I’m gonna give Jane’s brother to someone who’s going to do very bad things to him.” I froze as everyone’s eyes turned to me to see how I would respond. I tried to sound tough.

“Astrid,” I said, “I didn’t know it was possible for someone to be a vampire and a witch. But that’s what you are. A witch.
But with a
B.” I wasn’t sure, but despite his terrible position, I thought I saw Zach actually roll his eyes at that one. Astrid didn’t seem as rattled as I’d hoped either, but before she could reply, a loud bang startled us all as the door behind me burst open. I never had a chance to turn and see who it was, but from the hands that had suddenly wrapped around my throat, I got a pretty good idea. Then I heard her voice and I knew for sure.

“Welcome to my class, everyone,” said Ms. Smithburg. Ruth Pike. Besides the choking, I felt a cold jabbing a few
inches below my jaw. I strained my eyes to see the source, and once they focused, I could see that my American history teacher was holding a syringe filled with red fluid. Blood. Probably not the rare Bombay blood that I drank in small amounts to survive either. I was guessing it was just the regular kind of blood that I was allergic to. Even if I had thought to bring in the bag with my medicine in it, which was still sitting on the backseat of Dr. Erdos’s rental car, the amount of blood aimed at my jugular looked sufficient to render me incapacitated in a pretty bad way. Probably worse off than old Turner Pike.

So, this was great. Out of six people in a room, the two of us who were Joneses were both in headlocks with deadly implements aimed at us. It was something of a standoff. Astrid looked like she was about to have a temper tantrum.

“What are you doing here?” she shrieked at Ms. Smithburg. “I told you I would take care of it!”

“I know you did,” Ms. Smithburg replied, “but I have trust issues. Forgive me, dear. I’ll take young Mr. Jones off your hands now.” But Astrid didn’t budge. Now the allies looked like enemies too.

“You were right not to trust her,” I croaked. “She was never going to give him to you.” Timothy and Dr. Erdos looked at me, wild-eyed. At some point, both of them had
put their hands up like this was a bank robbery. It wasn’t exactly confidence-inspiring.

“Lame’s right,” Astrid hissed. “I know I told you that I would help you get the kid, because I wanted to stick it to his dear, dear sister. But then I thought,
What’s in it for me?
I don’t even take American history, so it’s not like you can even give me an A for my trouble. Even if you could, it’s not like I care about my grades, right? Then, when I figured out that Jane and Timothy were cashing in his fortune to pay for this doctor’s cure for vampirism, I decided I wanted that and the brat was the perfect way to get it.”

I couldn’t see Ms. Smithburg’s face, but I could feel her rapid exhalation on the top of my head as she said, “A cure? For vampirism? That cannot be.”

Dr. Erdos spoke for the first time since he’d entered the room. “No, it is true. I have been vorking many years and my treatment is effectiff.” I’d have preferred it if he’d saved the sales pitch for another time, but I guess I couldn’t blame him for being psyched about his discovery. He continued, “Is prohibitively expensive for many of your kind, but Timosee”—he nodded to Timothy—“was able to come up with ze necessary funds for two doses, for him und young Chane.” Then, ever so slightly, it felt like Ms. Smithburg loosened her grip around my neck.

“But Jane is sick with a rare condition. Did she tell you
that?” Ms. Smithburg asked Dr. Erdos. For a second, I thought the woman who was threatening to end me had a change of heart and was now trying to protect me. Only for a second, though. Until Dr. Erdos nodded and replied.

“Ze treatment offers complete rewersal of the wampirism,” he explained. “It restores the subject to the same degree of health zey enchoyed as human.” I knew word of mouth was the best advertising, but I really started to wish that Dr. Almos Erdos would shut his big one. He smiled patronizingly at Ms. Smithburg and she slackened her grip even further. Then she remembered herself and clamped down on my neck tighter than ever.

“Then give it to me,” she said, “and I’ll let
young Jane
go.” Timothy looked at me, but I had nothing for him. This was a lose-lose situation. Actually, it might have been a lose-lose-lose situation, if that was possible. Timothy’s shoulders sagged and he gestured in resignation to Ms. Smithburg.

“Give it to her,” Timothy said to Dr. Erdos, who reacted with a look of utter shock. “Do it!” As Dr. Erdos carefully withdrew the two glass vials from the safety of his jacket’s inner pocket, Astrid’s face crumpled into a mask of bitter hatred.

“What?” Astrid wailed. “You have got to be effing kidding me!” I swiveled my head to see my baby brother, still
completely at Astrid’s mercy, and she frankly didn’t look all that merciful right now. I mouthed a silent prayer that an opportunity to rescue Zach would present itself, and fast.

As Dr. Erdos proffered the test tubes to my captor, she flung the syringe of blood to the floor and released me with a violent shove. I fell in a heap at Timothy’s feet, fighting to catch my breath. We all watched in awe as Ms. Smithburg held the two glass tubes in either hand. She used her fangs to uncork one and drank the entire contents in one greedy gulp. I glanced briefly around the room and couldn’t help noticing that even though things had gone horribly wrong for us, Dr. Erdos looked weirdly thrilled. His eyes were wide and he beamed as he clapped his beefy hands together in anticipation. Then the sound of breaking glass recaptured my attention as Ms. Smithburg tossed the empty vessel on the floor, where it burst into tiny glittering splinters of glass. She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand and gave a throaty, evil chuckle.

“I hate to drink and run,” Ms. Smithburg said, “but if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be bringing this home to my husband.” She held the second tube aloft and the late-afternoon sun shone through the clear solution inside.

“Oh, no,” Dr. Erdos said, cutting short Ms. Smithburg’s moment of triumph. All of our eyes turned to him. “I’m afraid zere isn’t time for you to go anyvhere. Unless you
can get to him wizin—” The doctor checked his watch. “Wizin eight minutes? Othervise, it vill no longer be effectiff.” For a second I stared at her, wondering how she would react. I knew that she knew there was no way she could make it to Fairhaven within eight minutes. Then I remembered to give Dr. Erdos a super-dirty look for not just letting her go. He shrugged at me as if to say,
Sorry, Chane. I’m un blabbermouse.
I shook my head in disbelief.

“Tough luck, Teach.” Astrid’s mood had vastly improved in the last few seconds, because she’d seen her opportunity. “Interested in making a trade?”

“No!” I shouted, but it was futile. I watched in horror as Astrid lowered the pencil from where she’d been poking Zach in his ribs and handed him over to Ms. Smithburg in exchange for the remaining vial of Dr. Erdos’s cure. Ms. Smithburg held my brother in front of her tightly, as if he was shielding her from imminent danger. Astrid pulled the rubber stopper out of the vial and held it up.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” Astrid brayed. “To Timothy and Jane and the good doctor who made this all possible. I think what I’m going to do is drink this, right? Then, I’m going to take off for Hollywood and become a famous actress. Then, after six or seven years, when I’m in my prime, I’m going to go vampire again. Ha-ha! I’m going revamp! Then, I’ll be eternally beloved
and
hot.…”