“She’s what?” he bellowed.
“I know,” Vivian replied. “I didn’t want to get her in trouble but the thing is, I’m worried about her. This guy is a total bum. I think he’s been to prison.”
Jasmine’s dad had heard enough. He turned and roared Jasmine’s name up the stairs. Lights flickered on from a room upstairs. A woman appeared on the landing wrapped in a white dressing gown.
“What are you screaming about, Hal?” she demanded.
“Get Jasmine!” he shouted. “Get her down here right now!”
The woman disappeared from view. Vivian was filled with excited anticipation, waiting to see what punishment would be inflicted on Jasmine. She looked at Blake but he didn’t look back at her.
Instead of Jasmine appearing at the top of the stairs, it was her mom who reappeared.
“She’s not there!” she shouted, rushing down the stairs.
When she saw Vivian and Blake on the doorstep, her frown intensified.
“Who are you?” she barked.
“We’re worried friends of Jasmine’s,” Vivian said. “We think she’s met a guy, a bad guy. Scarlet Paine introduced them, you see, and everyone knows how messed up she is.”
Jasmine’s mother was becoming increasingly flustered.
“Hal. Hal, where’s our daughter? We have to find her!”
Vivian was thinking the same. She was hoping Jasmine would lead her to Scarlet, but it looked like she hadn’t made it home from high school today. Either she was out there with Scarlet already, surrounded by Kyle’s vampire army, or she’d already been turned. That meant Scarlet was with Becca. Becca lived way out, and though it wouldn’t exactly take Vivian long to fly there, she really didn’t want to miss out on any of the chaos happening in the center of town. She was itching with her desire to hurt Scarlet then join in the rampage.
“We can help you,” Vivian said to Jasmine’s terrified parents. “Why don’t you call her cell?”
The woman was in such a flustered daze she did exactly as Vivian said. Vivian grinned to herself, loving how powerful she was, how much she could mess with people’s emotions. But Blake was still and silent beside her.
“She’s in town!” the woman cried. “It sounds like there’s a party or a riot. I can hear screaming!”
Jasmine’s mom was working herself up into a panicked frenzy. Hal tried to calm his wife down but she was becoming frantic.
“Is she with Scarlet?” Vivian asked.
But the woman was pacing, too overwhelmed to ask the question Vivian needed answering. She’d hung up her phone before Vivian even got a second chance to demand the answer from her.
Hal started pulling a jacket over his pyjamas. He handed one to his wife, then reached for his car keys.
“We have a quicker way of getting there,” Vivian said.
Jasmine’s parents look confused. Vivian turned to Blake.
“You take him,” she said, nodding to Jasmine’s portly father. “I’ll take her.”
Blake frowned.
“What are you doing, Vivian?” he said. “You’re messing with these people. It’s sick.”
But Vivian didn’t care. She smirked.
“I’m having fun,” she said with a sneer. “You should try it some time.”
With that she sprang forward and grabbed Jasmine’s mom, sweeping her up into her arms and leaping into the air. The woman screamed murder, completely taken by surprise by the speed at which Vivian flew, and the height she climbed.
“What are you?” she shouted.
Vivian laughed manically, enjoying the thrill of causing the woman to experience such absolute terror. She flashed her fangs at the woman.
“I’m your worst nightmare,” she said.
The woman’s face drained entirely of color. When she looked down to see the town lights twinkling below her, she began to scream again.
Vivian was loving every second of this. She looked back to make sure Blake had followed her orders. Sure enough, there he was, holding Jasmine’s father in his arms, following his sire dutifully through the night sky. He did not look happy. Vivian was starting to get really annoyed with him. When exactly was he going to get over himself and start enjoying it? The world was descending into anarchy, with Blake and Vivian at the top of the food chain!
Jasmine’s mother screamed the whole flight to the center of town. But once they reached the main high street, her screams changed.
“I see her!” she shouted suddenly. “I see Jasmine.”
Vivian squinted into the distance and sure enough, there she was. Jasmine was with Becca in a parking lot, crouching behind a row of cars as chaos reigned round them. Vivian assumed that since they were hiding they couldn’t have yet been turned. Good. That meant she’d get the pleasure of ending their lives.
However, as they got closer, she realized that Scarlet was nowhere to be seen. Vivian hoped she wasn’t too far from her friends. They’d practically been glued together when they were human; she couldn’t think of a reason why they’d be separate now.
Vivian turned back and gestured to Blake who was lagging behind. She beckoned him to follow her and together they hovered over the parking lot where Jasmine and Becca were hiding. From beneath her, Jasmine’s mom started calling for her daughter.
“Jasmine! Jasmine, sweetheart! Are you okay?”
Jasmine looked up. Her face turned to an expression of utter horror. She leapt up from her hiding place and ran into the middle of the parking lot, looking up the whole time, shouting for her parents. Becca tried to drag her back into the shadows and out of danger but nothing was stopping Jasmine. She ran like a woman possessed and screamed for her parents.
“Mom! Dad!”
Vivian felt a smile tug at the side of her lips. She looked over at Blake, who was stony faced.
“On the count of three,” she said. “One, two, three.”
And with that, Vivian and Blake dropped Jasmine’s parents. They tumbled through the air before landing in the parking lot with a horrible thud.
Jasmine shrieked and raced towards the deathly still bodies of her parents.
Vivian looked at Blake.
“Having fun yet?” she said slyly.
Blake kept his eyes fixed to the ground, on the sight of Jasmine weeping over her parent’s bodies. His expression wasn’t one of excitement and joy, but of guilt. Vivian rolled her eyes.
“Come on,” she demanded, “let’s go and talk to the freak’s little friends.”
She flew down to the parking lot where Jasmine was howling with grief, Becca trying to comfort her.
Blake followed his leader silently, his expression as cold as ice.
*
Vivian coiled her fingers into Becca’s hair, making the girl wince. Both Becca and Jasmine had been forced to their knees in the middle of the parking lot, at the complete mercy of Vivian and Blake. Though Blake was executing his torture with lacklustre, Vivian was still having the time of her life.
“Tell us where Scarlet is!” she screamed in Becca’s face. “Before I fly to your house and kill your parents in front of you.”
Jasmine wailed at the memory of her parents’ death being brought to the forefront of her mind by Vivian’s words.
“I told you,” Becca pleaded. “I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen Scarlet for days.”
“I don’t believe you!” Vivian screamed. “You’re protecting her, I know you are.”
“Protecting her from what?” Becca shot back. “You? You think you’re some big shot vampire now? Well look around Vivian—everyone in town’s been turned! You’re nothing special. How exactly would I be protecting her from lying to you about her whereabouts?”
Becca’s words enraged Vivian. She twisted her fingers more deeply into Becca’s hair, making the girl cry out in pain.
“What’s your problem with Scarlet anyway?” Becca cried, not about to give up. “She never did anything to you. She even saved your life once, or have you conveniently fo
rgotten?”
“She stole my boyfriend,” Vivian hissed.
Becca narrowed her eyes.
“And then you turned him into a vampire,” she hissed. “So you won, Vivian. You’ve got a nice little lapdog to follow you around for eternity. So why don’t you just let it go?”
Blake was expressionless beside Vivian, his face unreadable. He didn’t seem to be engaging with the situation at all. It was as though he’d shut down completely.
Vivian wrenched Becca’s head back, exposing her neck.
“You see, I actually am a big shot vampire. Just like I was a big shot human. Some people, like me, are just better than people like you. We make better cheerleaders and better vampires. And way better girlfriends. So, yeah, I have won. I was always winning. What I want now is to make Scarlet Paine suffer.”
“God!” Becca cried. “Are you really that petty and jealous? Scarlet doesn’t even like Blake anymore. She’s completely in love with someone else.”
Vivian couldn’t help notice the way Blake suddenly snapped to attention when Becca said that Scarlet didn’t like him anymore. If Blake still had feelings for Scarlet she didn’t know what she’d do.
Vivian wanted to let her rage out on Becca. She bared her fangs, ready to end the girl’s life, when suddenly, something in the sky caught her attention. She looked up and narrowed her eyes. Someone was flying through the sky at top speed, heading in the direction of the Hudson river. Even from this distance, Vivian recognized Scarlet. She felt herself fill with hatred.
She dropped Becca and turned to Blake.
“Come on,” she snapped, all pretences of being in love completely dropped.
Blake rose into the air, following his sire with about as much enthusiasm as a downtrodden husband. Vivian was enraged that he wasn’t in love with her. That even the power of her siring him was not enough to make him fall in love with her. She was going to take out all her anger on Scarlet. She was going to make Scarlet suffer.
As the two vampires rose into the air, the sun was just starting to reach the horizon. Morning was about to break.
The morning that would change everything.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Police Officer Sadie Marlow was sitting in her patrol car, preoccupied by thoughts of Maria, the mentally unwell girl she’d met in the hospital, and the police chief’s reaction to Maria’s premonition of an impending vampire war. After the girl had descended into silence, Sadie and her partner, Brent Waywood, had been ushered away, told to go back to the station and await further instruction. Then it had been hours of silence, of evasion, of Sadie’s questions going unanswered. And so, as the night began to draw to an end, bringing with it the last hour of Sadie’s shift, she’d found herself in her patrol car with Brent responding to a residential disturbance, none the wiser about what was going on.
She was just pulling up to the curb of the house in question when the patrol car’s radio crackled and a voice sounded out. It wasn’t the usual emergency call operator’s voice, but the police chief’s.
“Officer Marlow, I need you in the center of town. Now.”
Sadie leaned forward and hit the respond button.
“This is Officer Marlow. I’m already responding to a reported 911, sir, way out in the suburbs. May I request another unit assist you?”
The radio buzzed immediately with a response.
“All other units are already assisting me.”
Sadie sat back, a frown across her face. She and Brent exchanged a glance. He shrugged. Office Marlow pressed the button.
“Sir, can I have more information?” she requested.
The chief officer responded in an angry tone.
“Don’t make me tell you twice, Marlow. Get your butt down here.”
In the seat beside Sadie, Officer Brent Waywood began to laugh. Sadie found her partner’s response inappropriate. The chief sounded harried, and something big was clearly going down. But typically of Brent, he was unable to take anything seriously. Worse, he’d often criticize Sadie herself for taking things too seriously. Sadie had lost count of the number of times she’d told him that, as police officers, it was a pretty key part of their job description to take things seriously.
“Sounds like someone’s having a bad day,” Brent scoffed under his breath.
Sadie gave him a sideways glance but didn’t respond. Instead, she clicked the button on the radio in order to the open the channel to speak.
“Chief, I’m not meaning to be difficult,” Sadie said into the radio. “But I need more information on the situation you’re calling me to. Do you have a code?”
Sadie was a level headed officer. She wasn’t about to dive head first unprepared into a situation just because her chief had threatened her.
“There isn’t a code in the book for this situation, Marlow,” came his response.
Sadie’s felt her frown grow even stronger across her forehead. What exactly was going on?
“Sir…” she began, but her chief cut her off.
“How about 1-8-7,” he said.
Sadie shivered. A 187 meant homicide. It was just about the last call an officer on duty wanted to hear. Policing a murder was a pretty grim end to what had already proved to be one of the most unpleasant shifts Sadie Marlow had had.
Sadie was about to reply but the police chief hadn’t finished.
“With some 2-4-0, 2-4-2 and a whole load of 6-0-4 thrown in.”
Assault. Battery.
“What the hell is going on, sir?” Sadie said into the radio. “How many perps are we talking about here?”
Through the buzz and crackle of the radio static, Sadie and Brent heard something that made them both freeze with shock.
“Looks like it’s every damn kid from the high school,” the chief said.
The two officers looked at one another. They were less than an hour away from finishing their shift and now they were being summoned to what sounded like a teenage riot. No, not a teenage riot—teenage riots didn’t usually escalate to murder. This sounded more like a teenage rampage.
Leaping into action, Sadie flicked on the siren.
“We’re on our way, chief,” she said as the blue lights flashed above her and the siren wailed.
She hit the gas and the cruiser sped towards town. She didn’t know what she was going to find when she got there, but something told her it would be a scene she never forgot.
*
Sadie and Brent arrived in the center of town to find a line of police cars positioned across the road, blocking access. They screeched on their brakes and parked beside them.
Sadie was shocked. The scene ahead was one of absolute carnage. Teenagers were milling all over the streets, smashing cars, climbing lamp posts, yanking fire hydrants right out of the sidewalk. The chief was right when he said it looked like every kid in the high school. There must have been a thousand of them.
If Sadie hadn’t been looking at it with her own eyes, there was no way she’d believe what was happening. There wasn’t a code in the manual that could cover all the felonies unfolding before her eyes. She saw a young girl, who didn’t look more than fifteen, with heavy black make-up and streaked purple hair swinging a car above her head like it didn’t weigh a thing. Beside her, a couple of grungy looking boys were terrorizing a young woman, letting her run from them, then dragging her back, then letting her go again. She’d lost her shoes, her tights were ripped, and her hair was a mess from constantly being grabbed. The whole scene filled Sadie with revulsion.
Despite years of training, Sadie found that her hands were shaking. She secured her bullet and stab proof jacket and commanded Brent to do the same.
Unlike Sadie, Officer Waywood was raring to go.
“Time to teach these punks some respect,” he said, clicking a magazine into his firearm.
“Be careful,” Sadie warned him, preparing her own weapon.
But Brent was already out of the car, gun raised, in full battle mode.
As Sadie cl
imbed out of the squad car, she couldn’t help but think again of Maria. Could the chaos unfolding before them be somehow related to what the girl had spoken of? Was this the vampire war she had warned them about? At the time, Sadie had felt a strong compulsion to listen to the girl’s words, to consider that what she was saying may hold an element of truth. But after she and Brent had been dismissed and sent back to the station, she’d had time to reflect, to ridicule herself for getting wrapped up in the moment.
Now, she felt there was a chance she’d been right to heed Maria’s warning all along. If Maria had been telling them the truth, then the vampire war she’d spoken of was starting.
Sadie was about to inch herself forward and join the other police when got distracted by the screeching sirens of army vehicles approaching from behind. Ten big black trucks pulled up behind the line of police cruisers, as camouflaged men and woman rushed out, carrying riot shields and heavy artillery. Sadie realized with a start that the National Guard had been called in. Why would the military get involved with some teenager thuggery? Unless they knew, too, that they were dealing with the beginning of a war.
If there was any doubt in Sadie’s mind they were dealing with something paranormal, it was wiped out by the reaction of the teenagers to the approaching military. Moving as though they possessed a hive mind, the thousand strong crowd of kids leapt up into the air and hovered fifty feet above their heads. The police officers stared upwards in complete shock.
The military, though, sprung into action. They began shooting at the flying high schoolers, the sound of gunfire filling the air.
But the kids, to Sadie’s shock, just whizzed around, moving faster than Sadie could keep up with them. They dodged the speeding bullets with ease.
“Bullets don’t kill vampires,” Sadie said aloud.
But there was no one near her, no one who would listen. She reached down, grabbing the megaphone from her glove compartment and clicking it on. But before she had a chance to say anything, something else caught her attention. Racing along the road, coming from the direction of the city jail, was a group of men in striped prison uniforms.