Limbo's Child (56 page)

Lucy followed the thick-knuckled hand of the person who had shut the door all the way up to his brutish, pockmarked face.

“You’re not doin’ this.”

“MILES!!” Sky yelled, “Get your hand off the door!”

The red-haired vampire just ignored Sky and pushed him back against the car.

“Hey! What are you doing?!” Sky yelled, but something in Miles’ look didn’t make him protest any further. Miles just turned to face Lucy with a look of determination on his face.

“Put her down,” he said to the vampire holding her as he folded his arms defiantly. Lucy raised her eyebrows.

“Um…I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, Miles,” Tim said nervously.

The red-haired vampire sighed, then spoke directly to Lucy, “If I have him put ya down do ya promise not to run until I have said me peace?”

“Miles, what are you doing?” Sky said, disbelieving.

“Shut ya gob, Sky!” Miles shot back. Then he turned back to Lucy and continued to stare her down.

“And then what?” Lucy asked cautiously.

“Just listen to what I have to say. Then ya can make up yer own mind to come with us or not.”

“Miles, are you crazy?!” Sky said impatiently behind him.

“Shut up, Sky! We’ve done it yer way long enough!!” He looked back to Lucy but said nothing.

Lucy looked nervously back and forth. This was a better chance to escape than she was likely to get again. She nodded once quickly. Miles and Tim exchanged glances. Tim slowly let her down and quickly backed away to avoid another sharp jab in the ribs.

They all just stood there stupidly for a minute before Lucy said, “
Well?!
”

Miles looked around as if hunting for the right words. He was obviously having a hard time thinking of just what to say. Looking at him, Lucy realized he wasn’t much taller than her and not much older…well at least he didn’t look much older than her, fourteen, maybe fifteen tops.

Finally, he clapped his hands together and rubbed them nervously before starting out a little haltingly, “Um…well…we are vampires.”

Lucy stared at him contemptuously. “Uh, yeah…I kinda figured that out,
thanks
!” Lucy responded sarcastically.

“I’m not,” Tim said, chagrined, from behind her.

“Right,” Miles said kind of embarrassed. “Sky and me, we are vampires, but Tim’s an orderly.”

“An
orderly
?” Lucy said, disbelieving. “But I saw his teeth! What was all that about?”

“Fake,” Tim said simply.

“Why would you pretend to be a vampire?!” Lucy asked in disbelief. Tim opened his mouth but never got to answer.

“Yeah, and you still owe me for those!” Sky interrupted, sounding annoyed.

“Well then you owe me for the dented fender!” Tim retorted.

“Dude, that was
her
fault,” Sky threw his chin towards Lucy.

“
My
fault?! You’re the creeps who grabbed me in the first place!”

“Anyway!” Miles jumped back in to stop the argument, “None of that matters right now!” There was silence for a minute as Miles rubbed his forehead in thought. He was certainly taking his time getting to the point. “What matters is that…we…” he rubbed his scalp as if he needed to massage the words out of his brain. Finally, he just blurted it out in one breath, “We are on a mission, of grave importance, from the Fawder of all Vampires, Hokharty-Ra, to take ya back to Rivenden, that’s our den in Philly.” He paused. “Soooo…let’s go.”

Sky rolled his eyes and then began banging his head against the roof of the impala. Lucy looked at Tim. He just shrugged. When she looked back at Miles he was smiling stupidly.

“L-let’s go?!!” Lucy stammered dumbfounded. “That’s the great explanation of why you tricked me and kidnapped me and tried to tie me up in the back seat?!
Let’s go
?!! Well,
SCREW
THAT!!”

“Well there’s a bit more to it than that,” Miles tried to go on.

“
A BIT
?! Ya’ think?!”

“Well, there’s the whole end of the world thing too.” That came from Tim behind her. She turned to gape at him. Schuyler went back to banging his head on the car roof.

“End of the
world
?!!” Lucy replied in sheer disbelief. Lucy was near exhaustion from the night’s revelations so far. Just in the last few hours she had found out she was a necromancer, her only potential guardians were a psycho-witch and an unknown great uncle, these three
idiots
were vampires, well
two
of them were, and now it was the end of the world?! It was just too much. “How is it the end of the world?!!” she yelled.

“Well, we’re not exactly sure…really,” Miles said at last and cringed a little.

“Yeah…we’re kinda new at the the whole ‘End-of-the-World’ thing,” Tim tried to add helpfully.

Lucy gaped at them all in turn, ending on Sky. “Don’t look at me!” he said, “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t even be hanging out with these two losers.”

Lucy looked down at the ground, her jaw was slack, her hands numb. She just kept shaking her head back and forth in shock. “What. On. Earth. Has the End-of-the-World got to do with ME?!!” she yelled at last jumping up and down in frustration.

“Well we ain’t exactly sure,” Miles said cautiously rubbing his neck as he spoke, “All we know is that our master, the Fawder-of-all-Vampires, well, he has a master too, ya see, some bloke called ‘The Necromancer.’ ”

Lucy’s eyes widened, staring off into space as a dawning realization hit her. “Lazlo Moríro,” Lucy said the name barely above a whisper, retrieved slowly from her conversation with Amanda.

“Yeah, that’s him!” Tim jumped in enthusiastically, “Do you
know
him?!”

“Um…no…well…
maybe
…he’s my
uncle
. I
think
,” Lucy said at last. She buried her face in her hands.

Everyone exchanged glances, but no one knew what to make of this. Lucy was numb. What had Amanda said? There must always be
one
Necromancer or the world will fall into chaos? But hadn’t she also said the current Necromancer had lost his way – that he had taken on too much for himself and wouldn’t let go of the power?! Who was right?! Amanda or these clowns? Who was the good guy and who was the bad guy?! She felt like she wanted to sit down, but she couldn’t move for fear that if she tried she would crumple like a piece of paper.

Miles and Tim looked at her a little worried. “Well we were supposed to fetch ya an all and bring ya back to him so ya could help him or sometin’,” Miles tried to explain. “Only we were supposed to try an’
persuade
ya.” Miles shot a dirty look towards Sky.

“Wait…
what
?” Lucy had been distracted in thought over this new revelation about the end of the world and the Necromancer, so it took her a while to digest what Miles was saying. “You were supposed to come here and
persuade
me to come with you? So what…you just decide to what…
LIE
to me instead?! Is that it? And when that didn’t work you were going to tie me up?!!”

Tim and Miles looked shame-faced at their shoes.

“What kind of
screw-ups
are you guys?!!”

“That was Sky’s idea,” Tim pointed an accusing finger at Sky. Miles rolled his eyes.

“It was your call, OH FEARLESS LEADER!!” Schuyler shot back as he leaned against the car and pouted while twirling his lollipop stick. “So, don’t give me that butt-covering crap now, Tim!”

“NONE A THAT MATTERS NOW!!” Miles jumped in to stop the fight. “What matters now is that we need yer help. We’re sorry we lied, but sometin’ big is gonna happen, sometin’ important and we don’t know what, but we know we need yer help to fix it. So, please…will ya come with us?”

There was silence for a moment while Lucy considered it. Then Tim added another tidbit of information, “Oh…and we also have your mom’s body.”

Lucy turned slowly and looked directly at Tim, her nostrils flaring.

“YOU’RE THE JERKS THAT STOLE MY MOM’S BODY?!” Lucy was fuming.

“Don’t look at us, we weren’t there! That was all orderly boy’s doing,” Schuyler said dismissively. Schuyler’s main operative seemed to be to pin the blame on everyone else.

“Well it’s not like I had a choice!” Tim whined defensively.

“A CHOICE?!” Lucy said tearing, “Why. On. EARTH! Would you steal my mom’s body?!”

“Lucy?” A timid voice came from the other side of the car.

“What could it possibly mean to you?!” But none of them answered.

“Lucy?” It was Yo-yo’s nervous voice again, but Lucy ignored it.

“What in the world would make you think that I would trust you three NOW?!”

“Lucy!” Yo-yo’s voice was louder this time.

“Not now, Yo-yo!!” She didn’t like to be stern with him, but she was strained to the breaking point and had to get this out. “After all the times you’ve
lied
to me,” she gritted her teeth and glared at Sky, “And all the
horrible
things you’ve done!” she shot venomous looks at Miles, “And what you’ve done to my mother’s
body
!” she yelled right in Tim’s face, “What makes
any
of you think I would ever go
anywhere
with you,
EVER?!
”

Hot tears were pouring down her face and she was breathing hard through her teeth. She pulled the sleeve of her bathrobe over her face to wipe them away and spoke more softly this time, but no less forcefully, “I’m not going with you
anywhere
.”

There was a pause before Sky stood up and clapped his hands together. “Ok, so we’re back to the tying her up in the back seat plan then. Tim! If you don’t mind?”

Miles rolled his eyes again, but Tim had already grabbed Lucy.

“WHAT?! Let go of me!! YOU LIARS!! You promised to let me go!” she yelled, kicking and screaming, but Tim was holding her tight by the elbows this time so she couldn’t even jab him back.

“Lucy!” Yo-yo said again.

“Sky! We
promised
!” Miles stood nose to nose with Sky, indignant.

“No.
You
promised. I didn’t agree to anything.”

“Sky, let her go!”

“Um…
no
.”

“But Hokharty said!” Miles tried to argue, but Sky cut him off.

“Yeah, and Hokharty turned the last people who didn’t do what he wanted into a pile of vampire nuggets and some charcoal, so if you don’t want to end up like Wallach, Forzgrim and Ulami I suggest you open the back door for Tim.”

“Unngh!” Miles was storming off again, so Sky just opened the door himself, keeping clear of Lucy’s kicking feet, but he stopped to look when Yo-yo tried one last time to get their attention.

“LUCY!!” Yo-yo screamed with intense urgency. All turned their eyes towards him and even Lucy stopping flailing for a moment. Yo-yo was peeking through the car windows just above the door, with one slender finger pointing down the isolated road.

All eyes turned and followed the finger into the darkness in the direction it was pointing. A faint ka-chunk barrap, ka-chunk barrap came up the road getting louder and faster as it got nearer. In the distance they could see a weird, lumpy, misshapen
thing
with large spikes jutting out of its back. It was getting closer and closer and approaching fast. It looked like a pig or a goose or some horrid, half-broken animal. Lucy couldn’t make it out, but as it came down the road, it filled her with an unspeakable sense of dread and horror.

“What in the HECK is
that
?” Tim said at last.

“PANT-FHWOOOOT!!” it bellowed ominously, somewhere between a squealing pig and a foghorn.

“Isn’t that the thing we hit a couple miles back?!” Sky said in horror.

Lucy looked hard, she couldn’t tell. It was difficult to figure out
what
in the heck it was. It had an awkward, sideways gait like a crab but was moving at such a furious pace it was a blur. Ka-chunk Barrap! Ka-chunk Barrap! It was half running, half scraping itself along the asphalt and there, in one hand, was a flash of metal. Lucy squinted her eyes…it was a knife! A huge…absolutely
gigantic
butcher knife, and the thing had a look of pure murder in its eye. It had a long snout like an anteater and coming from it was a froth of saliva and a bloody, red tongue. Tim saw it too.

“Um…maybe we should get in the car,” Tim said.

“PHARAAAANTTT!!!” it bleated out a horrifying war cry like a dying horse strained through an accordion.

The fear of the thing spurred Lucy to action. She had an idea. “I’m all for that!” Lucy stomped hard on Tim’s instep.

“Ouch!” Distracted by the oncoming
whatever
it was, he let go of Lucy and she lunged forward. Sky tried to get in the way but she jabbed him with a bloody finger and thought “GET AWAY!” as hard as she could. It worked! There was a crack and he shot back and plowed over Miles in the process. She jumped in the door and yanked it shut and locked it. Then she scrambled to the other side and opened the door for Yo-yo. He leapt in and locked it himself. Sky and Miles were pulling themselves up off the pavement. Tim was banging on the car door and jiggling the locked door handle when the creature hit them like a bowling ball crashing through a set of china.