It was an exceptionally warm March day, so Vlad slipped off his jacket and draped it over his arm. March. He could hardly believe that he hadn’t heard from his uncle Otis in three months, ever since the day they’d parted after their trip to Siberia. Vlad had written Otis immediately following Jasik’s attack and had continued to do so once a week in increasingly worried tones, but he’d heard nothing back. At least the months since the attack had been blissfully free of Jasik, and there had been no sign of the slayer Otis had warned him about. But there was always the possibility that Otis had received misinformation. What if there was no slayer? What if it was just Jasik, the thief, in Bathory? Still, Vlad had kept close to his house and the school, never going anywhere alone, just to be safe. And he continued to worry about Otis.
They walked between houses, leaving Henry behind at the school for yet another student council meeting. Before they could move out from between the houses directly across the street from Nelly’s, Joss hesitated and croaked, “I need to talk to you.”
He looked pleadingly at Vlad, but there was no way Vlad was going to make it any easier on him. Dude. Friend code. Violated. Joss would have to deal.
Joss took a deep breath, steadied himself, and said, “I feel terrible about what I did to you. I knew you liked Meredith, but when she asked me to the dance, I couldn’t believe it. She’s just so pretty and funny and smart and—”
“Not helping the situation.” Vlad pursed his lips, picturing the first time he’d seen Meredith. They were in the third grade, and Meredith was the new kid. She stood in front of the class, all scared and timid, twisting the pink ribbon in her hair tightly around her fingertip. She’d looked so frightened. All Vlad had wanted to do was to take her hand and protect her.
“I’m sorry, okay? I was way wrong. And now I feel like I’ve screwed up our friendship and I feel terrible, Vlad.” Joss met Vlad’s gaze with honest eyes. “Please. There’s gotta be something I can do to make this up to you.”
Vlad adjusted the strap of his backpack on his shoulder and tensed his jaw, still angry. “Next time you think I like someone, don’t ignore that thought, okay? You really hurt my feelings, Joss. I thought we were friends.”
“We are.” Joss dropped his bag on the ground, his cheeks flushing some. “To be honest, other than Henry, you’re my only friend . . . and he’s family. If he doesn’t hang out with me, his mom will ground him.”
Vlad groaned as a sudden, unexpected flash of guilt shot through him. “That’s not why he hangs out with you, Joss. Henry likes you. We both think you’re pretty cool . . . when you’re not dating girls we like.” He sighed and dropped his backpack next to Joss’s. Maybe he’d been too hard on Joss. Maybe he could consider this time served. After all, in the end, all Joss was guilty of was accepting an invitation to the dance. “Look, I haven’t even told Henry how much I really like Meredith. And when you went to the dance with her . . . it just felt like you took our friendship and flushed it. That’s hard to get over.”
“I’ll never do anything like that again. I swear, okay?” Joss sighed, a cloud of lost cause hanging over him. “Can we be friends again?”
Vlad ran a hand through his hair, brushing it away from his eyes, and mentally kicked himself. A large part of him wanted to hold this grudge forever, but he knew he couldn’t. This was Joss. He was almost as important to Vlad as Henry. “We never stopped being friends. Just because I’m mad at you doesn’t mean we’re not friends.”
Immense relief crossed Joss’s eyes. Both boys were silent awhile until Joss cleared his throat. “So you really like her, huh?”
Vlad released a tense breath. He felt like he’d been holding it in since he heard about Meredith’s Snow Ball plans. “Yeah. I do.”
Joss eyed him for a moment, then said, “That took a lot of trust, spilling your guts like that.”
“Well, I trust you.” Vlad shrugged, suddenly feeling lighter, better after clearing the air.
“I trust you, too, Vlad.” Joss grew quiet then, and when he spoke again, his voice shook slightly. “In fact, I’ve got a secret. A big one. One that I’d like to share with you. Is that okay?”
Vlad nodded. “Fine by me. Is it something bad?”
“No. Not really. I mean, I’m really proud of it. I just don’t get to talk about it much. Plus, it’s tied to a real problem I have, and I’ve been thinking maybe you could help me with that.”
Vlad waited, but Joss didn’t continue. “I can’t help if you don’t tell me.”
“I will. It’s just . . . hard, you know? I never tell anyone. And I need to talk to someone. And you . . . you know the town, the people. You have an open mind, judging by your book collection. I feel like I can trust you, like I finally have a friend that I’m not related to.” He looked over his shoulder and then past Vlad, as if making certain they were alone. “I’m almost out of time. If I don’t finish soon . . . I could be in serious trouble.”
Vlad wrinkled his brow. Something in the pit of his stomach lurched forward, almost sending him off balance. It was his nerves. Something felt . . . wrong. “Dude, what’s up? Is everything okay?”
By the look on Joss’s face, everything most certainly was not okay. He licked his lips and flashed a nervous glance over his shoulder again. “I need your help.”
Vlad wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to hear whatever it was that Joss wanted to tell him, especially the more Joss rambled. His nerves moved and clenched, tying his stomach into tight, nervous knots.
Joss leaned in, keeping his voice low. “Listen, I’m seriously breaking protocol by telling you this. Hell, I broke protocol by coming here in the first place. Private gigs are prohibited. What was I thinking?” He shook his head, as if silently chastising himself. “I can’t tell Henry, and you’re the only other person here that I trust, Vlad. And now, with my nine-month contract nearing an end, I need help to finish the job. Truth be told, I haven’t even started. And I wouldn’t normally freak out about it, but the guy that hired me is making threats on my life. And I’m pretty sure he’ll deliver, if I don’t.”
Vlad nodded, as if he understood, but he didn’t. Not really.
Joss paused a moment, as if he was searching for the right words. “I didn’t move here because of my parents. I came here on my own, because I have a job to do.”
Vlad could feel himself leaning forward slightly in anticipation. “What job? What are you talking about?”
Joss held his gaze. “My dad works for this company that moves us all around the world. But the thing is, neither of my parents realizes that I’m the one really working for them. Dad’s job is just a cover-up. A cover-up that neither of them is aware of.”
Vlad raised an eyebrow and tried to act casual. “For what?”
“For my job. I’m a slayer.” Joss nodded matter-of-factly. “A vampire slayer.”
No.
His eyes were clear, cold, and honest. And no matter how hard Vlad tried, he couldn’t find a joke within them.
No, no, no. Not Joss.
“I was contracted at the beginning of the school year to hunt and kill a vampire that’s been lurking around Bathory. It’s a private gig, something that the Slayer Society frowns on. Slayers have been banished for taking contracts, which is serious business—if a vampire ever threatens you or your family, you’re on your own then. But when I learned that this vampire has been living under cover right in the middle of my cousin’s hometown, I couldn’t say no, Vlad. You’ve gotta protect your family.” Joss’s shoulders relaxed, as if a great weight had been lifted from them. “It was tough convincing my parents that I needed to come stay with Aunt Matilda and Uncle Pete for the year—normally the Society does my convincing for me. It’s always tough lying to my mom and dad . . . but with Henry’s life on the line, not to mention his brother and parents, there was no way I was going to let this one live.”
The knots in Vlad’s stomach tightened further until his midsection felt like a solid, heavy mass. “But vampires aren’t re
al.”
Joss leaned in close, as if they shared a morbid secret. Strangely, Vlad thought, they did. “Oh yes they are, Vlad. I know. I’ve killed them.”
Vlad swallowed hard and darted his eyes from Joss to the ground and back. “H-how? How did you kill them?”
Joss’s tone was frighteningly calm. “Oh, lots of ways. Stake through the heart, mostly. I’ve dragged a few out into the daylight while they were sleeping. Chopped off a head once. It’s pretty brutal, but I believe in the cause behind it, Vlad. If we slayers don’t do something about the . . . infestation . . .”
Vlad winced.
“. . . the world will be overrun by those things.”
Vlad looked at Joss and searched his eyes for a lie. He desperately hoped to find it, but there was none. The boy in front of him was responsible for the death of Vlad’s vampire brethren. “How many have you killed?”
“Let’s see. . . .” Joss counted on his fingers, then remained quiet for a moment, pondering. “Twenty-three, not counting the two I had help with when I first started out.”
Vlad shook his head. “But you don’t know anything about them. You don’t know if they’re evil or not. How do you know they deserve to die?”
Joss pursed his lips. When he spoke, his voice was gruff, as if he were on the brink of tears but fighting them. “I know enough. One killed my sister. I saw it happen. And I’ll keep slaying until the world is rid of those monsters.”
Monsters. How could Joss call vampires monsters when he was killing them without bothering to get to know anything about them?
“Do you have any idea where the vampire you’re hunting is?” Vlad shoved his shaking hands in his front pockets.
Joss’s eyes dropped to the ground between Vlad’s feet. He seemed very relaxed. Maybe he had no idea he was talking to a monster. “Not yet. This one’s crafty. And . . . well, I’ve been distracted, what with the length of the contract, getting to hang out with you and Henry, not to mention Meredith. Listen, you won’t tell anyone, will you?”
Vlad thought of telling Otis, but he didn’t imagine Otis would react well at all to Vlad’s close friend being a slayer. He shook his head, swallowed hard, and dropped his eyes. "What will you do if you find him?”
"It. It’s a thing, Vlad. Not a person.” Joss squatted down and unzipped his backpack. "I’ll do what I’m employed to do—kill it any way I can.”
Vlad felt his stomach flip-flop. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Joss cast Vlad a glance that might have been comforting in any other situation. “Relax. The only one who needs to worry about what will happen when I find the vampire, is the vampire.”
For some reason, Vlad wasn’t comforted by Joss’s words.
Joss reached into his backpack and pulled out a large wooden case. He unlocked it with a tarnished, silver key and reached inside, then thrust a small metal object into Vlad’s hand. “That’s a sterling silver crucifix. Vampires can’t go near crosses. And they hate silver.”
For a second Vlad nearly laughed, but then Joss pulled out a thick, foot-long, wooden stake.
Vlad closed his fist around the silver cross in his hand. He’d never seen a scarier piece of wood.
Joss held it out to him. Vlad squeezed the cross even tighter before handing it over and timidly taking the stake from his friend. “Right between the ribs, and through the heart. But it has to be deep, or they’ll fight like crazy.”
Vlad swallowed the hard lump that had formed in his throat, “Have you done that . . . for real?”
“Of course I have. These things have to be killed, Vlad. You have no idea what they can do if left unchecked.” Joss ran a hand lovingly over a bottle marked GARLIC JUICE. “It’s my job to kill them . . . and I like my job.”
The last four words that left Joss’s lips were almost too much for Vlad to bear. He shook his head, his heart racing in panic. “Joss, this is crazy! These are people we’re talking about. Vampires aren’t real, you’re killing people.”
A shadow passed over Joss’s features, darker than Vlad had ever seen. “No, Vlad. I’m killing monsters. Monsters that would take a little girl out of her bed and kill her while her big brother watched from the hall, cowering behind the door, too afraid to move or scream.”
Vlad stared at his friend in disbelief, lost in the horror of what must have brought Joss to this point. He tried to calm his heart, but it refused to settle its crazy fast beating, so he forcibly relaxed his shoulders and tried to appear calm. Or, at the very least, not like he was the very vampire Joss was hunting. He hefted the weight of the stake in his hand, trying not to picture it in its intended destination. “Fine. Okay, let’s say for a moment that this is all true. What do you do? You just run up and stick this thing into them?”
“That’s about it.”
Vlad shook his head. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the sense of it. “No ‘Hi, my name is Joss, and I’ll be killing you now’ or anything like that? Just a stake in the chest, huh?”
Joss shrugged. “That’s all it takes. Why waste time talking? That only gives the creature an edge.”
“And then what? You just leave them there and hope that they’re dead?” Vlad threw up a hand in disgust. A killer. Joss was a killer. And what’s worse, Vlad hadn’t seen it coming. He wasn’t sure who he was madder at: Joss, for being a slayer, or himself, for being stupid enough to befriend a slayer. Vlad made a mental note to amend the friend code: thou shalt not date the girl that thy best friend has a crush on . . . nor shalt thou try sticking thy best friend in the chest with a sharp hunk of wood.
Joss dropped the crucifix back into his case and sighed, as if Vlad was overreacting. “What is the big deal, Vlad? Yes, I leave them there. Once the job is done, it’s done. I contact the Society for cleanup and go home.”
Vlad dropped his gaze to the ground between them. It was just a few feet but felt worlds apart. “What if you miss?”
In a flash Joss grabbed Vlad’s wrist and twisted. Before Vlad knew what happened, Joss had spun Vlad around into a headlock, still holding his wrist. The stake was in Joss’s right hand. Vlad didn’t even remember letting go of it, yet here it was, being thrust through the air toward the center of Vlad’s chest.
Vlad’s head swooned, and the color escaped from his face, making him even paler. He’d asked too many questions. Joss had noticed his tattoo. Something. There had to have been something he let slip. Because somehow Joss had realized that Vlad was the only vampire in Bathory. And his friend was about to kill him.
The silver tip of the stake sparkled in the sunlight, hovering less than a quarter of an inch above where Vlad’s heart beat forcefully against his chest. His eyes were wide and his breath came in quick, nervous gulps. Joss’s whispered voice in his ear confirmed that he wasn’t dead. Yet.
"I never miss.” Cold determination echoed in his words as Joss lowered the stake and released his friend. Then Joss smiled in bemusement at the look of frozen shock on Vlad’s face. “Look, Vlad, I can understand your being uncomfortable. This is a lot to take in all at once. But don’t worry. I’m not asking you to stake the thing, just help me find it.”
All the betrayal, the terror, the fear that Vlad was feeling boiled over. He shoved Joss back with trembling hands and growled. “What are you doing? You could have seriously hurt me!”
Joss dropped the stake to the ground, stunned. "I was just showing off a little. I thought you’d laugh.”
“It’s not funny.” Vlad shouldered passed him and shot him a furious, terrified glance as he made his way around the corner, heading for home. “And killing people isn’t funny either.”
Once home, he slammed the door behind him and threw his backpack across the room, just missing Amenti’s pudgy body. Both Nelly and the cat looked at him, surprised by his outburst. “Vladimir? Are you okay?”
Vlad ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. “I’m fine! Just leave me alone, I’m fine!”
He slammed his bedroom do
or, too, and threw himself onto his bed, trying to shake the image of the stake from his mind.
Through bleary eyes, Vlad glared at the slight glow of his tattoo. A tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek. He’d never felt so alone, so frightened, so unbelievably lost and helpless.
That is . . . not since he found his parents dead four years before.
19
A SON’S DUTY
VLAD BLINKED AT the clock, willing the numbers to change, wanting to get this over with so that he could spend the day feeling a little less sad about what happened four years before. As the numbers switched to 12:01, Vlad bent down and slid on his tennis shoes, tying them haphazardly.
He didn’t exactly want to be outside in the middle of the night—especially if Joss was out and about, looking for a vampire to stab in the chest with his wooden stake—but he didn’t have much choice in the matter. Some things, like this, were more important than fear.
Not that he wasn’t afraid.
On the upside, Vlad was almost positive that Joss hadn’t yet realized that he was a vampire, but that didn’t stop him from vowing to never invite Joss over for dinner again. With a pause, he tied his other shoe and thought about what it would be like to cut one of his two friends out of his life. How could he? Joss was his friend. A misguided, stake-carrying, threat-to-Vlad’s-life friend, but still. Besides, doing anything out of the ordinary might clue Joss in to Vlad’s unusual dining habits.
His shoes finally tied, Vlad plucked the Lucis from atop his dresser and crept out of his bedroom into the library. There was a line of light coming from under Nelly’s bedroom door. He closed his door behind him and was two steps from the top of the stairs when Amenti darted from the darkness and swatted his ankle. Vlad whispered harshly, “Amenti! Stop that!”