Vampires Rule (29 page)

He knew it was her fear talking, fear for
him. She didn’t want to lose him, and he didn’t blame her. After
seeing her almost die, he knew he wouldn’t be able to go on without
her. As sappy as it sounded, if anything happened to her, he would
die.

Jack stroked her cheek. “Relax. I won’t take
any stupid chances. If I don’t get the perfect opportunity, I won’t
do it. Okay?”

“Okay.” She hugged him again. Her head fit
just below his chin. “Tomorrow, take the stone to school with you.
When you’re in his class, look for a way to touch him without him
seeing it. If you can’t, then forget it. Deal?”

“Sounds like a plan.” He turned and pushed
her toward the door. “I need some sleep. Tomorrow could prove to be
a long day.”

Silver smiled as she left his bedroom.

Jack went to bed. This time he turned the
light off and pulled the sweatshirt over his head before tossing it
to the floor. He rested on top of the covers instead of climbing
under them. The chilled air felt good against his too-hot skin. He
blamed Silver for his rise in temperature.

A smile raised his lips. Silver loved him.
The knowledge made him want to scale the highest building in the
nearest city and shout the words for all to hear. He was the
luckiest guy in the world. Funny, a short time ago he wouldn’t have
thought so, but that had been before he’d met Silver.

Hard to believe a pint-sized girl with huge
blue eyes could make his life worth living again.

The door opened and light hit the bed. It
closed before he could see her sneak back inside. The girl just
couldn’t seem to stay away from him. Neither of them said a word as
she settled beside him on the bed. He decided to let her stay a few
minutes. Then he’d throw her out before her father caught them.

He closed his eyes, smiled, and waited for
her.

She turned to him, placed a hand on his bare
chest. His heart quickened. She leaned against him. Her mouth
touched the side of his throat, sending a shiver through him. His
breath caught in his throat. He needed to get her to leave before
he lost control. He didn’t want to do anything that might hurt
her.

She opened her mouth on his skin.

He frowned. A wet kiss didn’t seem like the
Silver he knew. She might have pressed herself against him earlier,
but it had been done in innocent abandon. Silver was pure and
untouched.

He sniffed the air. The scent was all wrong.
Silver wasn’t in bed with him; it was Summer.

Teeth pierced his skin without warning.
Summer bit him, infecting him for the second time, and it was too
late to stop her. He was going to be a vampire again by morning.
Nothing he could do about it.

He felt the blood slowly drain from his body,
leaving him with a dizzy, euphoric sensation. He closed his eyes,
floating on a familiar high. His thoughts turned to Silver. He
would have to leave the house tonight, never see her again. He
couldn’t risk biting her.

Summer’s body jerked. She cried out and fell
backwards off the bed. Jack lifted on his elbows in time to see
Summer explode into ashes. Silver stood beside the bed, a stake in
her hand. She had killed the girl too late, and she knew it. She
turned on the lamp and stared at the bloody bite mark on his
neck.

“What do I do?” she asked, panicking. Her
gaze flew around the room. She grabbed his shirt off the floor,
wadded it up, and held it against his throat. She repeated, “What
do I do?”

“It’s over,” he said, feeling hopeless. “You
can’t do anything.”

“No! I am not going to lose you now!”

He placed a hand on top of hers. “I’m sorry.
I thought she was you when she first came in.”

“Stop talking like you’re going to die. You
aren’t. I won’t let you.”

Silver raced from the room. She returned in
mere seconds with a knife. Before he could demand to know what she
was going to do with it, she sliced her thumb and held it over his
wound, dripping blood into the open cuts.

“It works for werewolf bites,” she said.
“Maybe it kills vampire venom too.”

Jack’s mind began to drift away from her. He
could barely hear her anymore. Regardless of her strong will, his
body was dying. Soon he would be a vampire. This time it would be
permanent.

A question gnawed at the back of his
mind.

Vampires couldn’t enter a home without being
invited, so how had Summer gotten inside?

It was a long night.

Silver stayed with him, soothing him with a
wet cloth when the cramps hit. Sometime in the middle of the night
she got up and closed the curtains to block the sun’s rays. He
watched her perform the task with a heavy heart. Blinking his eyes
against the tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks, he
purposely turned his head. The saddest part wasn’t that he wouldn’t
see another sunrise; it was the loss of Silver and Billy, his
family. He couldn’t possibly stay with them now.

He held onto Silver that night, but neither
of them slept. They didn't talk either. As if by an unspoken mutual
agreement, they kept their dark thoughts to themselves.

When morning finally came, he asked, “Is
Billy waiting outside with a stake in hand?”

“I haven’t told him about Summer yet.”

“You didn’t tell anyone?”

“Only my mother, in case I need help.”

The good news: he wasn’t in pain anymore. He
felt great in fact, better than he had in weeks. The bad news: life
as he knew it was over. He thought about returning to Cowboy, the
only surviving member of his group, but he couldn’t even fathom
living as a vampire again, not after this wonderful second chance
at life.

He made up his mind he wasn’t going to do it.
Summer had taken the choice from him, forced him to become a
vampire again, but no one could make him live as one. He touched
his throat as if it hurt and used a raw voice to make a request,
“Could you get me some water, please?”

For some reason Silver seemed reluctant. She
got up, walked to the door and opened it, but she hesitated in the
doorway. She suspected he was up to something. If he wasn’t quick
about it, she’d call for reinforcements. They might pile on top of
him, hold him down or tie him to the bed so he couldn’t find
peace.

Jack threw off the covers and raced to the
window. Before Silver could stop him, he yanked the curtains open
wide, closed his eyes tight, and mentally prepared himself to burst
into flames. It might hurt for a few seconds, but at least it would
be over fast.

Nothing happened.

Jack opened one eye a slit. He saw the sun
and felt its warmth on the bare skin of his chest. He placed a hand
on his stomach, testing the theory. Giant butterflies fluttered
their huge wings as his stomach growled, hungry for food, not for
blood.

“You aren’t a vampire.” Silver's voice
mirrored his shock. She repeated the phrase with a huge smile on
her face. “You aren’t a vampire!”

“They don’t call me Jackpot for nothing,” he
joked.

They met in the center of the room. He picked
her off her feet, twirled her around, and laughed with her. Her
blood must have kept him from turning back into a vampire. She'd
saved his life. What would he do without her?

He set her down and smoothed the hair back
from her face. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, unsure.

“It means we can be together forever,” he
said. “It means we’ve shared blood, the most intimate of things,
and now we're linked together for an eternity. It means I can kill
Jersey before he starts a war. It means you can have your life,
live it the way you want.”

“Remember your promise about Jersey. If you
can’t do it without risk, I don’t want you to. I can survive as a
hunter, but I can’t live without you.”

If anyone else had said those words to him,
he would have cringed or laughed at how corny they were, but coming
from Silver’s mouth they sounded like the most beautiful words in
the world. And he totally agreed with her.

“I remember,” he said.

“I’ve been thinking about college.” She
twisted her fingers. “I don’t need to go. I don’t have to be a
lawyer. It was just a silly dream.”

“It’s not silly, and I want you to have your
dream.”

“People can’t always have everything they
want.”

“You can,” he insisted. “Don’t turn your back
on your dreams because of me. I didn’t mean what I said before.
I’ll go with you, wherever you go. I can find a job and get a place
off campus to live.”

Her eyes lit up at the thought. “Yeah. We can
get a cute little place, and I’ll cook for you when you get home at
night.”

“You don’t have to do that either.”

“I want to do it.”

She stepped into his arms and hugged him.

There was a knock on the door. Her mother
stuck her head in and asked if they were okay. Silver quickly
explained everything that had happened since Summer bit him. After
she was finished, Vanessa said, “You both need to get ready for
school or you’re going to be late.”

They looked at each other, both thinking
about Jersey.

“You don’t have to do it,” Silver said. “Not
today. We can wait.”

“Better if I do it now. Get it over
with.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you downstairs for breakfast
after you put on some fresh clothes.”

Jack waited until she was gone. He picked the
rock up where it had fallen on the floor and rotated it in his
palm. There was no way he was going to let Silver down. Even if he
got himself killed, he was going to finish Jersey today.

Three days passed, and Jersey didn’t show his
face at school. Odd, but the total silence on Jersey’s end worried
Jack more than a full-on frontal attack. The principal was irate
because Jersey hadn’t called to give an explanation. Hardwick had
called the police, told them it wasn’t like Jersey Clifford to be
absent, so they went looking for him. It didn't take long for them
to report back that Jersey must have picked up and left town. This
theory was based on the appearance of his empty house. Of course
they hadn’t checked his underground mansion.

It was Friday. Jack and Silver couldn’t bear
the thought of heading into the weekend without knowing what Jersey
was up to, so they met in his empty classroom at lunchtime. They
would use their shared power to get answers.

Jack opened the drawer of Jersey’s desk,
looking for a personal item while Silver stood guard at the door.
Smiling, he lifted a comb up for her to see. “I think this will do
the trick.”

Silver rushed over to him and put her hand on
the comb, her pinky finger touching his. The familiar current of
electricity sizzled through Jack’s body. The two of them were
instantly transported through time and space. Dizzy, he closed his
eyes for a moment.

****

This time they weren’t in Jersey’s study;
they were in a wide hallway, a few feet from Pagan’s dangling body.
Silver swallowed hard. Jack squeezed her hand. He gestured to the
stairs, wanting to draw her attention to Jersey as he descended.
The teacher had an open book in his hand. He read it aloud to
himself. His voice echoed throughout the maze of connected, dimly
lit corridors.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs, and his
eyes immediately went to Pagan’s dead body. The book fell from his
fingers. “No.” He ran to her, fell on his knees in front of her,
arms thrown up and spread wide. “No! No! No!”

This time he changed into a half-man,
half-wolf creation. Black fur stood on end. His face totally
transformed into something the most creative and expensive horror
movie had failed to conjure, a true monster. He looked like an evil
species of hedgehog with glowing red eyes. He howled loudly,
creating his own private earthquake. The entire underground
structure shook with the force of an eight-point-five. Dust fell
from the ceiling. Crystals on the many chandeliers clinked together
with eerie harmony.

Jersey buried his face in his hands and
returned to human form. His shoulders shook as he sobbed. He had
genuinely cared about the woman. Jack almost felt sorry for
him.

After a few minutes, he pulled himself
together. He stood and grabbed the hilt of the sword. With a
vicious yank, he pulled it from her body. Pagan fell to the floor
while Jersey stared down at the blood-stained blade. “I will avenge
you! Whoever did this will pay. First, I will torture them until
they beg for death. Then, I will kill them as slowly as
possible.”

Jersey went to the center of the hallway and
screamed, “Attack! Arise, my beauties, and attack!”

“
What is he doing?” Silver asked.

“
He’s summoning the wraiths.”

Of course the wraiths didn’t respond. Jersey
blinked his eyes a few times, listening for the shrieks, but the
halls remained quiet as a tomb. He dropped the sword and raced
downstairs. Jack and Silver followed, wanting to keep him in their
sight just in case he started to plan his revenge out loud. Hand in
hand, they jogged after him.

He ran in one bedroom after another. Jack and
Silver stayed in the hallway, already knowing what he would see
upon each visit. Once he exited the final bedroom he screamed in
fury. His hands closed into fists.

His rage brought out the beast within again.
He turned into a solid black werewolf. This time he began to rip at
the walls, tearing huge holes in them. Next, he went upstairs to
his study and trashed the place.

Jersey ripped up papers on the desk. He threw
the chair across the room, tossed the massive desk on its side, and
punched a hole in the stone fireplace. Each act of destruction
seemed to fuel his fury. He grabbed his prized possessions, first
edition books of classic stories and pulled pages out by hairy
fistfuls. He tossed the pages into the lit fireplace, burning
them.