Not Another Vampire Book (27 page)

“I’ll
try not to, believe me.”  Kara assured him.  Her ears were still ringing from
the zombies’ inhuman cries.  She hung onto his neck, her head swiveling around
to look towards the wide doorway as the sound got closer.

Grey-skinned
Night of
the Living Dead
rejects lumbered into the ballroom. 
Tattered clothes fell from their bodies, their sightless eyes fixed on nothing
as they stumbled forward.  Beyond them, she could see even more coming, arms
stretched out before them like mummies.  Hundreds of them lurched through the
World’s Fair, headed straight for her.

“Damien?” 
It was barely a whisper.

“Someone
has sent them after you.  Someone knew you’d be here.”  Damien’s jaw
tightened.  “To’kel.”

“The
Vampire is a zombie master?”  Damn, she just really said that, didn’t she?

“No,
only a necromancer can control the dead.  To’kel must have hired one.”

“People
can hire necromancers?”  Since when was that a possible?  Since when did To’kel
have the balls to try?  It sure hadn’t been in Tanya’s text.  That little Vampire
punk was rewriting the plot even faster than Kara.

Behind
them, the glass doors to the ballroom shattered, more zombies came pouring in
and surrounded them.  Damien swore and stepped back into the center of the
ballroom.  “I think it would be best to leave.”

“Hey,
I’m okay with good, old-fashioned retreat. 
Shit!
”  One of the creatures
got close enough to grasp at her and Damien’s powers sent it splintering into
several neat pieces.

The
body parts kept coming.  The zombie’s shriveled arm slithered forward across
the floor, reaching up.  Kara realized that it wasn’t really after her...

...It
was trying to steal
Eternal Passion at Sunset
.

“It’s
the book.”  She hugged it closer to her chest, protectively.  “To’kel sent them
for the book.”  She’d kill that slimy bastard!

Damien’s
foot came down, crushing the creeping appendage with a ruthless twist of his
boot heel.  “That damn manuscript is cursed.  I told you that, didn’t I?  You
never listen.”  His powers crashed into several more extras from
The Walking
Dead
, breaking them apart like sawdust.

And
still they came.

“It
is pointless to try and kill beings that are already dead.  We would be here
forever.”  Damien shook his head.  “I know that you dislike teleporting, but we
could...”

“Hell,
yes!  Teleport.”  Seasickness sure beat zombie venom.  She held tight to Damien
as the live-and-in-person Romero film drew closer.  “Just go!”

An
outraged bellow echoed from outside, even louder than the zombie noise.  “You
shall pay for this, my illegitimate cousin from hell!”

Slade
.

“Oh
no!”  Kara lunged free of Damien’s grasp, knowing instantly what had happened.  “To’kel
has Slade!”  Adrenalin and panic drove her into action.  She landed on the
ground and bounced right back up, dodging zombies on her way to nearest broken
window.

“Kara
Lynn! 
Fuck.
”  Undead foes went flying, before they got close enough to
touch her.  Kara didn’t even have to slow her pace.  Damien cleared the path
for her as she hurried forward.  “Must you run off every time we are attacked?”

“To’kel
has Slade!  He’s going to feed him to the zombies or something!”

“So
what?”  Damien sounded genuinely baffled as to why that was a bad idea.

She
ignored him and dashed out into the night, scanning for any sign of his royal
pain-in-the-ass-ness.  If that lummox got himself zombie-fied, she was in big
trouble.  No romance novel ended with the hero turning into a cadaverous brain eater. 

“Slade?!” 
She looked around the deserted White City.  Well, not really deserted.  The living
humans had fled, but the reanimated corpses were certainly out in force. 
Several of them grabbed for the manuscript as she dashed past.  Their bodies
were magically twisted into horrible new shapes for their trouble.  Damien
wasn’t a subtle man.

“Kara
Lynn, this is not safe.  There are too many.”

She
flashed Damien a desperate look as he came up behind her.  He waved a hand and
another zombie was eviscerated.  She barely noticed.  “We need to find Slade. 
To’kel decided to hold his ambush, after all, and I think it’s actually working. 
We have to do something to save Slade, before it’s too late.”

“You
want me to
rescue the Vampire?
”  Damien spaced out the words in
disbelief, like he couldn’t possibly be understanding that right.  “You’re not
serious.”

“You
have
to help him, Damien!”

“No.”

“Slade’s
in trouble!”

“Good. 
I hope he dies.  I believe I’ve been very clear about that.”

Another
bellow ripped through the night and Kara spun around looking for the source.
The glowing outline of the Ferris Wheel lit up the sky, drawing her eyes.  Highlighted
against it, she saw Slade flying around up there, having a sword fight with
To’kel and about fifteen other guys.

“Oh
shit
.”  Those had to be To’kel’s men, the Dark Vampires or whatever.

Not
good.

“Damien...?”

“I’m
not helping him.”  Damien repeated, stubbornly.  “It will
never
happen.”

“Damien!”

“No! 
He is my mortal enemy and I will
never fucking help him!
”

“Fine. 
Then, I’ll do it myself.”  Hiking up her skirts, she started running for the
midway.  The zombie infestation lessened as she drew closer to the Ferris
Wheel.  The ride was gigantic. Twenty-five stories straight up.  The Vampires
crashed into its sides as they battled, their large supernatural bodies rocking
the whole structure.

“Stop!” 
As she watched, eleven of To’kel’s men grabbed Slade, trying to wrestle him
into submission.  Electric lights exploded one after another as the men slid
down the spokes of the ride, making it harder to see.  Kara dug into her purse,
which she had looped around her shoulder.  Damn it, why didn’t she carry around
a gun or something?  Instead, she came up with a portable pink flashlight. 
Clicking it on, she aimed it at the combatants, spotlighting them.

“Witch!” 
Slade looked bewildered and relieved to see her standing below.  The Vampire
King was putting up a pretty good fight, but there was just no way he could win
against those numbers.  They’d gotten his sword and were trying to tie him up
with some kind of golden rope.  “Use your magic book!  Something is going very
wrong here!”

“My
gods.”  To’kel sounded awed.  “You can create light and predict the future, yet
you waste these powers on Damien and Slade?  What are you, woman?”

“A
book editor.”  Since it was the only thing she had handy, Kara hurled the metal
flashlight at To’kel’s head.  They were close enough to the ground that she
only missed by about ten feet.  God, she sucked at sports.  “Now, let him go,
you son-of-a-bitch!”

He
chuckled at that.  “I don’t think so.  How did you like the zombies, by the way? 
Bet your book didn’t tell you
they
were coming, did it?”

She
glowered up at him.  “You have no idea the mess you’re making, right now.”

“Yes,
this is not how it’s supposed to go!”  Slade shouted.  “I am the greatest
warrior of our people and you can’t treat me this way!  I am destined to win!”

To’kel
smirked.  “You’re the biggest asshole I’ve ever met in my life.  I can’t
believe I ever listened to you.  My men and I have outsmarted you and now we’ll
take the Vampire Isle.  Come tomorrow, your kingdom will be ours!”

“But,
tomorrow’s my birthday celebration!”  Slade gasped, indignantly.

To’kel
shook his head in disgust and looked back at Kara.  “I see now you were right
about my first plan to kill him.”  He dropped gracefully to the ground in front
of her and she resisted the urge to take a step back.  “It was so poorly
thought out.  So
stupid
.  I would have surely died.  You weren’t trying
to kill me when you confronted me in the bar.  You were trying to save me.”

“No,
I really wasn’t.”

He
disregarded that.  “You make things clear with your magicks, don’t you, Witch? 
You clear away the fog.  For the first time, I see everything and it is
beautiful.”

This
was bad.

He
should have been dead, by now.  Thanks to Kara, though, they’d skipped his
death scene and now nothing stood in his way.  Having escaped his fate, To’kel
was completely unfettered by Tanya’s limited imagination.  Free from the constraints
of the story, the Vampire was running wild.  Like her, he didn’t technically
exist in the real
Eternal Passion at Sunset
.  Not anymore.  He was
making stuff up as he went alone, slipping through plot holes and taking
advantage of the other characters’ predictable ruts.

Yeah,
very, very bad.

“You
have to stop this.”  She warned.  “We don’t know what will happen if you kill
Slade.  So far, everything can be fixed at the end of the book.  But, if he
dies, you might doom us all.  This all just might... stop.”  They could all
wink out of existence, for all she knew.

“I
guess we’ll find out tomorrow, then.”  To’kel leaned closer to her.  Slade will
miss his appointed Bonding Day with his Eternal-One and I’ll become king. 
Then, I‘ll execute him and take what always should have been mine.”

“The
other Vampires...”

“…Will
do as they’re told.  They’re sheep.  Everyone’s been a sheep.  I see that,
now.  You helped me see it.”  His eyes slid down her body.  “I didn’t
understand what Damien saw in you, at first, but now I get it.  You’re
special.  Different.  Killing you would be a mistake.  I can use you.  If you
just give me that book --if you use your powers for me-- I’ll reward you, Witch. 
I’ll make you my queen.”

“Tempting. 
But, I’m gonna pass.”  Kara instinctively glanced over her shoulder, looking
for Damien.  She didn’t see his big, dark form anywhere.  Had he really abandoned
her?

Jerk.

“Okay,
listen.”  She turned back to To’kel.  “I imagine it’s been stifling for you. 
Tanya’s idiotic plot making you do stupid things and then Slade forcing you to
work as a stable boy or whatever.  It must have been rough.”

“Working
with my horses is an honor!”

Neither
of them glanced in Slade’s direction.  The other Vampires had completely subdued
him with the rope, tying up his huge body so he couldn’t escape.  From the way
it glowed, Kara assumed the bindings were magic.  Unfortunately, Slade’s
captors had skipped the coordinating “enchanted, glowing gag” to shut him up.

Kara
met To’kel’s manic eyes.  He looked like a kid who’d just been given a bunch of
dynamite to play with.  Gleefully bent on destruction.  “I swear to you, this
is just a romance novel.”  She held up
Eternal Passion at Sunset
.  “It
tells me what
should
be happening in the story and that’s how I know
you’re screwing it up.  The book isn’t magic.  It can’t help you.”

“I’ll
be the judge of that, Witch.”  He smiled and it wasn’t a pretty sight.  “Why
don’t you just let me read that little love story for myself?”  He started
forward.

Kara’s
eyes widened, belatedly wondering if taking on fifteen armed Vampires by
herself had really been her best idea.  She shifted the manuscript, so it was
behind her back.  “No, I don’t think...”  She broke off with a yelp as To’kel
grabbed her arm and shook her.

“
Give
me that fucking book!
”

And
right about then, To’kel’s head rotated around like something from
The
Exorcist
.

It
wrenched to the back, bones snapping with sickening, wet cracks, so his face
looked off in the wrong direction.  His fingers went lax and Kara stumbled away
from him in shock.  His huge body hit the ground, withering.  Still alive, he
tried to push his head back to the front while he bellowed for his men.

Three
other Vampires were already coming to his aid.  Swooping down to from above, they
headed straight for her...

...And
were promptly blasted out of the sky.

Invisible
surface-to-Vamp missiles slammed into them, sending all three men careening out-of-control. 
They crashed into the side of the Ferris Wheel and fell towards the ground like
wounded birds.  The guys holding Slade froze as if they couldn’t understand
what happened.

Vampiric
eyes fixed on Kara and she heard the word “Witch” whispered in overlapping
voices.  They thought she’d done something.  That it was her powers at work.

Kara
knew better.

All
the magic in her life came from one surly, gorgeous, taking-his-own-sweet-time-to-lend-a-hand
sorcerer.  Her mouth curved, turning to look for him in the tangle of midway
booths and zombies.

Slade
gave a chortle of satisfaction.  “Ha-
hah!
  The Witch is on my side!  She
knows that I am the true Vampire King.”