Vampire Breath (5 page)

The shrill hissing surrounded me. Seemed to be coming from
inside
my
head. I covered my ears, trying to shut it out.

Covered my ears. Watched their red, glowing eyes—and waited for the attack.

But to my shock, the hissing bats didn’t swoop toward us.

They fluttered up, up. Turned. And flapped in a line out the open window at
the other end of the room.

My mouth hung open. I realized I had stopped breathing.

I watched them fade into the moonlight, shiny wings fluttering rapidly, the
shrill hissing fading with them.

Then I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Cara,” I whispered. “We’re
okay. They didn’t see us back here.”

She nodded but didn’t reply. A thick strand of her black hair had become
matted to her forehead. She brushed it back with a trembling hand.

“Wow,” she murmured, shaking her head. “Wow.”

“We’re okay,” I repeated. My eyes checked out the long room. The open coffins
stretched to the window. Their dark wood gleamed in the moonlight. Their long
shadows crept along the floor.

“We’re okay now,” I repeated to Cara. “We’re all alone.”

Footsteps behind us made us both cry out.

I heard a throat being cleared.

I spun around so hard, I nearly toppled over.

Count Nightwing strode into the room carrying a flaming torch. The torchlight
flickered over his smooth face. His silvery eyes were wide with surprise.

“What are you two doing here?” he demanded.

I opened my mouth to reply. But a sputtering, choking sound was all I could
force out.

“You do not belong here,” the old vampire boomed. He waved the fiery torch in
front of him. It left a trail of orange light as he swung it. “You have no right
to be here. This is my time. And this is my castle.”

He floated off the floor. His eyes suddenly glowed as brightly as the torch
flame. “You do not belong here!” he repeated menacingly.

“But—but—” I stammered, frightened and angry and confused—all at the same
time.

“But you brought us here!” Cara protested angrily. She waved her finger at
him, accusing him. “We didn’t follow you!”

“She’s right!” I finally found my voice. “You promised us you would go away
and leave us alone. But you brought us back to your castle with you.”

Still floating a few feet above the floor, Count Nightwing held the torch in
one hand and rubbed his frail-looking chin with the other. “Hmmmmmm,” he murmured.
His eyes glowed at us. “Hmmmmm.”

“You have to send us home,” Cara told him, pressing her hands against her
waist.

“Yes!” I agreed. “Send us home—now.”

Count Nightwing lowered himself silently to the floor. In the flickering
torchlight, he suddenly looked weary. The light in his eyes dulled. He sighed.

“Just send us home,” Cara insisted. “We won’t tell anyone we saw you. We’ll
forget this whole thing happened.”

The old vampire brushed back his cape. He shook his head. “I can’t send you
home,” he whispered.

“Why not?” I demanded.

He sighed again. “I don’t know how.”

“Huh?” Cara and I both gasped.

“I don’t know how to send you home,” Count Nightwing repeated. “I’m a vampire—not a magician.”

“But—but—but—” I started sputtering again. My whole body shook in total
panic.

“Then what are we going to do?” Cara demanded shrilly.

The old vampire shrugged again. “It’s really no problem,” he replied softly.
“No problem at all. As soon as I find my fangs, I’ll drink your blood. And I’ll
turn you both into vampires.”

“But we want to go home!” I screamed.

“We don’t
want
to be vampires!” Cara wailed. “This isn’t fair! We
helped you. Now you have to help
us
!”

The old vampire didn’t hear us. In the flickering orange light from the
torch, I saw his eyes go all dreamy. His whole body appeared to flicker in and
out with the light.

“The
Vampire Breath,
” he whispered. “I need it—now.”

“Send us home—now!” Cara ordered him. “I mean it. Send us home!”

I balled my hands into fists. I felt so angry!

I mean, we helped him return to his castle. And how was he going to pay us
back?

By biting our necks and turning us into vampires. By keeping us here forever.

I tried to imagine what it would be like living here in this castle. Sleeping
all day in a coffin.

Rising up at night and turning into a bat. Flying out night after night in
search of necks to bite.

Forever.

Just thinking about it made me shake with horror.

I’ll never complain about having to baby-sit for Tyler Brown again, I
decided.

And then the horrifying thought made my heart skip: I may never see Tyler
Brown again.

Or Mom and Dad. Or any of my friends.

“You’ve
got
to send us home!” I cried to Count Night wing. “You’ve
got
to!”

He was pacing back and forth in front of us now, the torchlight dipping and
darting. He didn’t pay any attention to us. I don’t think he even remembered
that Cara and I were in the room.

“Vampire Breath,”
he repeated. “I must find the
Vampire Breath
.”

Where
is
the bottle of
Vampire Breath?
I wondered. I was
holding it in my hand when we opened it back in the little room.

My eyes searched the floor. No sign of the little blue bottle.

It must have disappeared when we traveled back in time, I realized.

“Why do you need it?” Cara asked.

The old vampire narrowed his eyes at her. “When he is awake, a vampire needs
Vampire Breath
every day,” he said softly. “We cannot live by blood alone.”

Cara and I both stared at him, waiting for him to continue. “We all live
together, here in my castle,” he explained in his hoarse, whispery voice. “We
live here so we can be close to our supply of
Vampire Breath.
We each
have our own bottles. We guard them closely.”

He sighed. “But now I remember—the supply was running low. I was down to my
last bottle. I must find it. I
must
!”

“But what does it do for you?” I demanded.

“Everything!” Count Nightwing shouted. “
Vampire Breath
does everything
for a vampire! It allows us to travel in time. It can make us invisible and
reappear again. It keeps our skin smooth and clear. It gives us energy. It helps
us sleep. It keeps our bones from drying to powder. It freshens our breath!”

“Wow,” I murmured, shaking my head.

“But how will it help you find your fangs?” Cara demanded.

“
Vampire Breath
restores the memory,” the old vampire told her. “When you
live for hundreds of years, it’s hard to remember things. The
Vampire Breath
will help me remember where I put my fangs.”

He spun around. His eyes locked on me. “The bottle. Do you still have it?”

I could feel the power of his silvery eyes. I could feel them burning into
me, searching my mind.

“N-no—!” I stammered. “I don’t have it.”

“But it won’t do you any good!” Cara cried. “We emptied it, remember? We
emptied the whole bottle to get you back here.”

Count Nightwing shook his head impatiently. “That was in the future,” he
snapped. “That was over a hundred years in the future. This is 1880, remember?
In 1880, the bottle is still full.”

My head was spinning. I leaned against a coffin and tried to make sense of
what he was saying.

The old vampire started to pace again, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I hid
the bottle somewhere,” he muttered. “I hid it so that the others couldn’t find
it and use it while I took my nap. But where? Where did I hide it? I must find
it. I
must
.”

He spun away from us, his long purple cape swirling behind him. The orange
torchlight bounced ahead of him as he floated toward the doorway. “Where?
Where?” he asked himself, shaking his head.

A few seconds later, he vanished.

Cara and I were left alone with the rows of coffins in the long room. Cara
sighed unhappily. She motioned to the coffins. “I hope I get one near the
window,” she joked. “I like a lot of fresh air.”

I was still leaning against the nearest coffin. I stood up and slapped the
side angrily with my hand. “I don’t believe this!” I cried.

“I’m only twelve,” Cara moaned. “I’m not ready to die and then live forever!”

I swallowed hard. “You know what we have to do—don’t you?” I said softly.
“We have to find the
Vampire Breath
before Count Nightwing does. If he
finds it first and gets his fangs back, we’re doomed.”

“I don’t agree,” Cara replied sharply. “I have a much better plan.”

“A better plan? What is it?” I demanded.

Cara glanced to the doorway, then back to me. “We have to get out of here,”
she whispered.

“That’s your plan?” I exclaimed. “That’s it? That’s a plan?”

She nodded and raised a finger to her lips. “Maybe if we run away from the
castle, we can find help,” she explained. “If we stay here, we’re doomed no
matter what we do. If we stay here, we’re in his power.”

“How is anyone going to help us?” I argued. “This is over a hundred years ago—remember? How will anyone outside the castle help us get back home to the
future?”

“I don’t know,” Cara replied unhappily. “I only know that if we stay here in
this creepy castle, we don’t stand a chance.”

I opened my mouth to argue some more. But I couldn’t think of anything else
to say.

Cara was probably right. Our only chance was to escape.

“Come on,” she whispered. She grabbed my hand and started to pull me along
the rows of coffins.

I held back. “Where are we going?”

She pointed. “To the window. Let’s see if we can climb out.”

The room was as long as our school gym. We walked quickly between the two
rows of open coffins. I couldn’t take my eyes off the old wooden coffins.

Vampires sleep inside them.

Those were the words that floated through my mind as we hurried past them.

Cara and I may soon sleep in them, too.

I shivered. And stopped. “Cara, look.” I pointed to the window up ahead.
“This is a waste of time.”

She sighed. She saw what I meant. The big window was set very high up in the
wall. It stood way over our heads.

We couldn’t reach it even if we had a ladder.

“The only way to get through that window is to fly,” I said softly.

Cara frowned and stared up at the window. “I hope you and I don’t spend the
rest of our lives flapping our bat wings and flying in and out of that window,”
she said.

“There’s
got
to be a way out of this castle,” I told her, forcing
myself to sound cheerful. “Come on. Let’s find the front door.”

“Freddy—no.” Cara pulled me back. “We can’t just go running down the halls. Count Nightwing will see us.”

“We’ll be careful,” I said. “Come on, Cara. We’ll find a way out.”

We turned and jogged side by side past the empty coffins. Through the door.
And into a long, dimly lit hallway.

The hall appeared to stretch for miles. Dark wood doors lined both sides. The
doors were all closed. Above each door, a gas lamp provided a soft glow of
yellow light.

My shoes sank into the thick, blue carpet. The air smelled sour. I glanced
back at the coffin room. An ugly stone gargoyle leered down at me, perched above
the door.

I turned away from its evil stare and gazed up and down the long hall. The
rows of doors stretched in both directions. “Which way?” I whispered.

Cara shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. We just have to find a door or
window that will take us outside.”

We made our way silently over the thick carpet. The gas lamps cast a gloomy,
dim light. Our shadows seemed to hide behind us as we walked.

Cara and I stopped at the first door we came to. I grabbed the brass knob and
turned it. The heavy door creaked as it opened.

We peered into a large, square room filled with furniture. The furniture was all covered with white sheets. Chairs rose up
like ghosts beside a long, covered couch. In a corner beside a darkened
fireplace, a grandfather clock stood guarding the room.

Cara pointed to the heavy black drapes that stretched over the far wall.
“There must be a window behind there. Let’s check it out.”

We raced across the room. My shoes slipped on the floor. Glancing down, I saw
nearly an inch of dust spread over the floor.

“I don’t think this room has been used for a while,” I said.

Cara didn’t reply. She grabbed an end of the heavy drape and tugged. I
reached to help her. The drape slid back. A dust-smeared window stood behind it.

“Great!” I cried.

“Not so great,” Cara replied glumly.

I saw instantly what she meant. The window had thick black bars across it.

“Uggggh.” With a disgusted groan, Cara shoved the drape back into place. We
hurried back into the hall and tried the door across the hall. We stepped into a
small room filled with luggage trunks. The trunks were stacked on top of each
other up to the high ceiling.

No window in this room.

The next room had an enormous, old dark wood desk in its center and shelves of ancient-looking books from floor to
ceiling. Another heavy, black drape covered the window.

I eagerly pulled the drape back—to find another dust-covered window. And
more thick, black bars. “Weird,” I muttered.

“This castle is like a prison,” Cara said in a shaky whisper. Her dark eyes
glowed with fear. “But there has
got
to be a way out.”

We crept back into the long hall. I stopped when I heard a soft fluttering
sound.

Bat wings?

Were the vampires returning?

Cara heard it, too. “Hurry,” she whispered.

We pushed open the next door and darted inside. I carefully closed the door
behind us. Then I turned and saw that we had entered a big dining room.