Vampire Beach: Legacy (2 page)

And all those French-ancestored, very important families also happened to be vampiric and living in DeVere Heights. Where else? Jason suspected that he and his family were practically the only regular humans who lived in Malibu’s most exclusive gated community. And he
knew
he was one of the very few regular humans who’d made it into the uber-popular group at DeVere High.

Sienna could have been out having fun with any of those ubers tonight
, Jason thought as he pulled into his driveway. He knew she could have been indulging in some Senioritis of her own. Instead, she’d chosen to help her French-challenged boyfriend study. He grinned. He was one lucky individual.

As he climbed out of the car, he heard the soft purr of his friend Adam Turnball’s Vespa pulling in behind him. Turnball – as in, not of French ancestry, not even especially good in French! Adam was mid-level popular at DeVere High, except to the movie nerds – Adam was a god to them – and definitely not a vampire.

‘What’s up, my brother?’ Adam called as he parked the moped. ‘Is everything copasetic?’

Jason laughed. Who but Adam talked like that? ‘Ultra copasetic,’ he answered. ‘Come on in. Mom hit Malibu Kitchen today. Let’s see what she brought home.’ He led the way into the house and straight to the kitchen. His father sat at the table, brow furrowed, shoulders hunched, surrounded by stacks of papers, forms and receipts. A calculator was positioned at his elbow.

‘Hey, Dad, we’re doing a food raid,’ Jason announced.

‘I always fast before I come over,’ Adam told Mr Freeman. ‘I like to have belly room because you guys always have the best chow.’

Mr Freeman answered with a grunt.
Weird!
Jason thought.
He usually talks too much to my friends.

‘What are you in the mood for?’ Jason asked Adam, opening the closest cupboard. It was only then that his brain registered what his eyes had just seen: forms, receipts, calculator, cranky and distracted father. Jason knew these could mean only one thing: his dad was in the middle of his usual February pre-tax family financial review. A financial review that would include Jason’s college fund, which happened to be seven thousand dollars light for a reason that Jason absolutely could not explain to his parents. He’d withdrawn the cash to buy back a vampire artifact that his friend Tyler had stolen and pawned. That was the kind of thing parents just didn’t understand.

All the saliva in Jason’s mouth dried up. His father was going to go ballistic.
Maybe I’m wrong
, Jason told himself.
I could be wrong.
He swallowed hard, then forced out the words, ‘Whatcha workin’ on, Dad?’ while peering over at the table to see if statements for his college fund account were in the mess of papers.

‘Just going over our financial stuff so I won’t go nuts at tax time,’ his father answered.

Adam’s eyes widened. Jason could see he understood that they had walked into a Code Red situation here.

‘Hey, you know what? There’s a
Godfather
marathon on tonight. It’s starting . . . basically now,’ Adam said. ‘We all have to watch it. We’re men. That’s what we do. We watch
The Godfather
, then quote it on all occasions to the bafflement of womankind,’ he finished in a rush.

‘Yeah, Dad. You’ve got ages to worry about tax,’ Jason added, getting on board with Adam’s Plan of Distraction. ‘Let’s do
The Godfather.
I’ll get snacks.’

‘“Leave the gun, take the cannoli,”’ Adam encouraged, already quoting. ‘Now that has to be an offer you can’t refuse, Mr Freeman,’ he added, in his best Brando imitation.

Jason’s father twisted his neck from side to side, trying to work out the kinks. ‘I’m almost done here, and it’s wiped me out. I’ll have to take a pass.’

Almost done?
Jason thought. Surely that meant that at any minute his dad was going to find out about the missing cash.

‘I completely forgot. I didn’t do my chem homework for tomorrow. I should take off,’ Adam said, inching toward the door.

Rat attempting to abandon sinking ship
, Jason thought. Well, there was no way he was letting this rat leave. As long as Adam stayed, the extreme badness that was about to rain down on Jason would be delayed. And the delay would give Jason’s dad some cool down time.

‘You can use my chem book,’ Jason told Adam, giving his friend a meaningful glare. ‘I need to finish up the assignment anyway.’

Adam replied with a reluctant OK-OK-I’ll-stay nod and Jason turned back to the cupboard. ‘Here, we’ll take these wasabi peas,’ he said, hurling the bag at his friend. ‘And, um, this black licorice.’ He tossed the package over his shoulder in Adam’s direction and heard it hit the ground. ‘And now a couple of sodas.’ He plucked two Dr Peppers out of the fridge. ‘So let’s get upstairs to the Wonderful World of Chemistry.’ Jason started out of the kitchen, knowing Adam would follow.

‘Jason,’ his father called.

Jason stopped. This was it. His life was over.

He turned around.

‘Don’t blow up the house,’ Mr Freeman joked.

‘Just pens and paper, no chemicals,’ Jason answered, wondering if his father could possibly have forgotten to look at his account.

Mr Freeman stood up and started gathering his piles of receipts together. ‘I think we’re in decent shape for April. The—’ He was interrupted by his cell. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked the screen. ‘It’s work. I’ll take it upstairs. I might need the computer,’ he said.

Jason felt like the oxygen in the room had turned to helium. That’s how relieved he was. As soon as his dad left, he rushed over to the table.

‘Do you think he could have forgotten how much money you were supposed to have in the account?’ Adam asked as Jason scanned the piles of paper for his college account statements.

‘By a few hundred bucks, yeah. By several thousand, no way,’ Jason replied, spotting the statements and snatching them up. The most recent one was on top. And the total . . . was exactly what his father would have been expecting.
Not
minus seven thousand. Jason stared at it, his mind whirling. The account was exactly as it had been pre-pawn shop. The seven thousand dollars had miraculously reappeared.

His dad must have checked only the current total, because down a few statements it was clear that Jason had taken out the cash – right when Tyler had rolled into town from Michigan. Tyler had owed his drug dealer some serious cash, so when he had gone to a party at Zach Lafrenière’s place – Lafrenière, as in French ancestry, as in vampire – he hadn’t been able to resist picking up a silver chalice that looked like it was worth enough to save his butt.

It was. But the chalice was also an heirloom used in sacred vampire rituals, and the vampires were not at all happy that it was gone. In fact, they had planned to kill Tyler in retribution. Jason had managed to save his friend’s life. And then he’d bought back the chalice in a gesture of good will. In the end, the only thing that had got hurt was his college fund.

‘Somebody put the money back,’ Jason told Adam. ‘There’s a statement – a statement I’m going to, um, disappear,’ he added, folding the statement and putting it in his pocket, ‘that shows me taking seven thousand out. Then, three weeks later, it shows that there was a deposit for seven thousand going back in.’

‘Hmm. Looks like you were the recipient of a special grant,’ Adam said. He tore open the bag of wasabi peas and popped a handful in his mouth. ‘Dr Pepper! Now!’ He stuck out his tongue and fanned it with his free hand.

Jason handed him a soda, and Adam drank it down. ‘I love those things, but I always forget how insanely hot they are,’ he explained.

‘You’re not supposed to scarf them,’ Jason laughed.

Adam coughed a couple of times, then cleared his throat. ‘As I was saying, it seems like someone made a contribution to the Jason Freeman Needy Boy Foundation.’

‘Who would do something like that?’ Jason asked. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate it, but I can’t think of anyone who—’

A car horn cut him off.

‘That’s for me!’ Jason’s sister Danielle called from upstairs. ‘Wave or blink the lights or something to let them know I’m coming.’

‘Remember when Dani didn’t think she’d have any friends at her new school?’ Adam asked.

‘Yeah, for that whole day and a half,’ Jason replied as they walked over to the front door. He flipped the porch light on and off.

‘Who’s out there, anyway?’ Adam said, peering through the long narrow window next to the door.

‘Kristy, of course,’ Jason said, taking a look. ‘She and Dani start to wither if they are apart for more than eight hours. And that’s Maria, Billy . . . and I think Ryan Patrick from down the block is driving.’ Jason turned to Adam. ‘So what’s our thinking on Ryan? He spent last semester in Paris as an exchange student. He lives in DeVere Heights. But Patrick is not a French last name.’

‘True. But he’s always been a member of the V-crowd, ever since we were kids,’ Adam answered. ‘I think odds are that he’s a Friend of Dracula.’

‘Where are you off to?’ Jason asked as Dani rushed toward the door. The heels of her leopard-print Stella McCartney shoes – the ones she ‘love, love,
loved
and could not live without’ – were clicking on the tile of the entryway and her auburn hair was flying around her face.

‘Big date?’ Adam chimed in.

‘No, just the movies. No parties on Wednesday night. Nothing juicy,’ Dani explained.

‘Just the movies,’ Adam repeated, shaking his head sadly as Dani hurried out to the car. ‘Even a bad movie is better than pretty much anything else the world has to offer.’

‘You need to get out more,’ Jason told Adam as he watched his sister and her friends drive off. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Ryan in the mix before. But at this point Dani had even more friends in Malibu than she’d had in Michigan. And that was saying something. He could only really keep track of the key players.

‘So you want to hang by the pool for a while?’ Jason asked his friend. ‘Oh wait. No, you have all that chemistry homework to get to.’

‘Smart ass,’ Adam answered. He headed back through the kitchen and straight out the French doors to the pool. ‘Although I really do have homework. I’ve been spending too much time on my extra-curricular project.’

‘Still?’ Jason asked.

‘Still!’ Adam repeated, sitting down on the diving board. ‘Excuse me for wanting to make sure another vampire hunter doesn’t slide into town. I want us to be prepared next time.’

‘Tamburo
was
the first one since the Renaissance,’ Jason pointed out. Like he’d pointed out several times before.

‘That doesn’t mean it will be centuries until another one shows,’ Adam argued, as he always did. ‘The bad thing is, I’m having a hard time finding any solid info on the web. It’s all Van Helsing and Buffy and Blade and the Belmont clan.’

‘The who?’ Jason asked.

‘It’s from this Japanese video game series,
Castlevania
,’ Adam told him. ‘It’s fun, but not useful. I—’

The French doors swung open. ‘Guys, what, no
Godfather
marathon?’ Mr Freeman called. ‘I got my second wind. And I made popcorn!’

Adam turned his head to hide his laughter.

‘We’re there,’ Jason called back. He glanced at his friend. ‘It was your idea. Looks like you’re stuck watching a mafia-fest.’

‘Oh, like I’m going to complain about that,’ Adam said, getting up. ‘You really dodged a bullet tonight, you know.’

‘I know.’ Jason grinned, still feeling a little heliumed out. ‘I’ve got good friends, a truly amazing girlfriend, Dani is happy, the parents are happy, there’s an actual swimming pool in the backyard, and since my dad is ignorant of the seven grand I spent on non-college related expenses, I can live to enjoy it all!’

‘And we’re about to watch
The Godfather
,’ Adam added as they headed inside.

‘And that,’ Jason agreed. ‘Life is good.’

THE LIFE
-
LOVING FEELING
was still there the next day at lunch, when Jason and Adam headed out to the huge balcony overlooking the ocean. Sometimes Jason still had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that this was part of his school cafeteria.

He spotted Sienna and Belle at one of the larger tables, and his pace automatically picked up. He slid onto the bench next to Sienna, put down his tray of food, and gave her a quick hello kind of kiss. As he started to pull away, Sienna wrapped her fingers in his hair and pulled him back, keeping the kiss going. ‘Not in front of the children,’ Jason finally said, jerking his chin toward Adam and Belle.

Sienna laughed. Jason couldn’t get enough of that laugh!

‘We have our own Romeo and Juliet at the table,’ Belle said to Adam.

‘Are we talking the Baz Luhrmann or the Franco Zeffirelli variety?’ Adam asked.

Belle looked helplessly at Jason. ‘Translation?’

‘Can’t help you,’ Jason told her. ‘I’m pretty sure he’s slipped into film speak.’

‘OK, I’ll forgive you for not knowing Zeffirelli,’ Adam said. ‘But Baz? He’s one of the greatest directors of our time.
Moulin Rouge!
anyone?’

‘Sorry,’ Belle answered, shaking her head.

‘Wasn’t there singing in it?’ Jason asked. ‘I don’t do movies with singing.’

Adam turned to Sienna. ‘You’re my last hope. Tell me you saw
Moulin Rouge!
’

‘I think I was, like, twelve when that came out,’ Sienna protested.

Adam leaned across the table toward her as if he were imparting a great secret. ‘There’s this new invention. A machine that lets you play movies on your TV screen whenever you want to!’ he told her. ‘The movies come on these cool little discs – they look like crêpes, but smaller, and thinner, and metallic. With this machine, you can watch movies that were made before you were even born!’

‘Maybe I’ll check it out sometime,’ Sienna laughed.

‘Not with me,’ Jason teased.

Brad Moreau dropped his tray onto the table and sat down next to Jason. ‘What’s the topic?’ he asked. Ryan Patrick and Maggie Roy were with him.