Ice water filled Peter’s feet and legs. “What are you doing here?” he croaked.
“Your mother was so nice to invite me in,” Agnes explained. “You know the best part about that? I can come over any time I want now!”
Agnes clapped her hands like she’d just gotten the birthday present she wanted most in the world.
Peter felt like throwing up. “What do you want?”
He moved slightly, to put a table and lamp between him and Agnes.
“Just to see how your talk with Mercy went.”
“My talk.”
“Just now. Out in the yard.”
You mean the one where she tried to suck out all my blood?
“Um…well…”
“She said I should come with her, but she seemed like she wanted to spend some alone time with you,” Agnes confided. “And I was like, ‘That’s cool, I’ll just hang out.’ And then I thought, ‘Y’know, if it doesn’t go so great, maybe we better have a plan B.’” Agnes smiled sweetly. “So I told Mercy, and she was like, ‘Great,’ and I rang your doorbell, and now here I am!”
“Uh-huh.” Peter nodded, trying to take it all in. “Soooo…what do you want?”
Agnes leaned in. Her eyebrows arched high over her sunglasses. “Do you like Mercy?”
Peter squinted. “What?”
“She likes you,” Agnes whispered in a fake way, as though Mercy was right outside the room and could hear.
Maybe she really is.
Peter’s stomach turned, and he darted a quick glance around. No Mercy.
“You’re all she ever talks about,” Agnes continued. “She’s just boy-crazy. ‘Peter this, Peter that.’ So I came over to find out if you like her.”
“Like her?”
She just tried to kill me, Agnes. Tell Mercy I want to marry her.
“Couldn’t you have sent a note over?” Peter asked, and edged behind the couch.
“Like ‘Check Yes or No’?” Agnes laughed. “We talked about it, but that’s more of a school thing, and as you’ve probably guessed, I don’t think we’ll be going back to school anymore.” Agnes grinned. “Unless they start having night classes.”
Peter was looking for something, anything, he could use as a weapon. So far he could only see a candlestick, but it looked like it was brass and not silver. There were some old National Geographics lying around, but he doubted he could kill a vampire with paper cuts.
“Soooo…what do you want, Agnes?” Peter said for the umpteenth time.
“Do you like Mercy?”
“Uhhhhh…Mercy’s okay…” How do I say this and not get killed? “…but I don’t really like her the way I think she likes me. Maybe we should just be friends.”
Agnes stamped her foot. “Mercy’s not going to like that.”
Yeah, she didn’t seem to like it too much when she was ripping through the screen door with her claws and fangs.
Agnes sighed. “I told her girls mature faster than boys. I said, ‘Let’s go find a cute fifth grader, an older man,’ but nooooooo, she has to have you.”
Peter shrugged and smiled goofily. “You know me, I’m just really…immature.”
Agnes took her first step towards Peter. Peter automatically took two steps back.
“I think you could really learn to like her. Just spend a little time with her, Peter. It’ll be a friends thing – love can come later. We’re going to have so much fun! You really don’t know what you’re missing out on! No more school, ever.”
That would normally be reason enough for Peter to do just about anything, short of selling his soul. At the moment, however, the safety of Mrs. Cashew’s classroom seemed like the most wonderful thing in the world.
Peter studied the doorway to the den out of the corner of his eye. If he bolted for it, could he outrun her?
“Um, you know, I think I’m going to stick with school.”
Agnes frowned. “Really.”
Running was his best option. There was nothing in here to defend himself with.
But there are knives in the kitchen.
“Yeah. I’m, uh…I’m really digging fractions.”
“Fractions.”
“Yeah. It’s like…pie.”
“Pie.” Agnes frowned, clearly not following.
Good. Confuse her. Count of three – on strawberry pie.
“Yeaaaah. Banana cream pie…cherry pie…straw – ”
“I love your family, Peter,” Agnes interrupted.
Peter froze, the countdown kaput. He hadn’t been expecting that.
“Your mom was carrying your little sister when she answered the door – she’s sooo cute!” Agnes squealed.
And then her voice changed, got darker. There was an evil sense of humor in her words now.
“So cute that I could just eat her up.”
Peter’s blood went from icy to boiling. “You stay away from my sister,” he snarled.
“All that talk about pie was making me hungry.” Agnes smiled. “Well, what about your mom?”
“If you hurt my mom…”
“You’ll what? What’ll you do, Peter?” Agnes mocked him.
Peter’s entire body shook – from fear or anger, he couldn’t tell.
When Agnes next spoke, her voice was soothing, gentle. “It doesn’t have to be like this. All you have to do is come with me. Mercy came and got me last night, and it’s been…”
Agnes took a big breath and blew it out.
“It’s wonderful, Peter. Don’t get me wrong, it was scary at first…the dying part. But then I woke up again a couple of hours ago, just like Mercy said. Everything is just like she said. Flying is so cool…and life is going to be different now. School doesn’t matter…grown-ups don’t matter…the only bad thing is how thirsty you get,” Agnes muttered, and licked her lips. “But Mercy told me there’s something you can do to make that go away, too.”
Peter realized that she was looking at his neck. It felt like a cockroach was creeping across his skin.
Without thinking, he bolted for the door.
Agnes leaped through the air and snagged him by his shirt before he even got halfway there.
“That’s not a good idea,” she said, and smiled right into his face.
With a single flip of her arm, Agnes threw him five feet in the air – entirely over the couch – and sent him sprawling onto the floor.
She hovered midair and slowly advanced towards him.
Peter’s arm hurt from landing on it badly, but he had no choice except to move. He backed up on the floor like a crab in slow motion.
“If you won’t come out of the house, Peter, maybe we’ll just get it over right here.”
“Get…get what over?” Peter asked shakily, although he already had a good idea.
“Mercy’s going to be sooooo mad at me.” Agnes shook her head, then whispered, “She wanted to kiss you first, but she’ll get over it…the important thing is we take you along with us.”
Peter discovered that it was hard to crawl when all your limbs felt like jelly. He wasn’t sure if it was from the knowledge that Agnes planned to turn him into a vampire right here and now…or if it was because she planned to kiss him.
Agnes was almost directly over him when she took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were like Mercy’s – black and oily, no white or color at all under the lids.
“Peter…” she whispered. “Peter, do you think I’m pretty?”
Peter pointed at her skirt. “I can see your underpants.”
“WHAT?!” Agnes screamed, and zipped backwards in the air about two feet, her hands pressed against her legs.
Peter flipped over onto his belly and crawled for his life.
Agnes looked up and scowled. “Oh, you little…”
But by then Peter was under the coffee table, which had a wooden frame with a plate of glass in the middle.
Agnes flew to the ground beside the table, hissing and clawing.
Peter kicked at her with all his might and
smacked away her hands.
Then she was gone, only to reappear on the table top. Her palms pressed down against the glass, and she peered straight into Peter’s face from twelve inches away.
She hissed like a cat. Her fangs gleamed in the dull lamplight. They looked oddly out of place among her other teeth, like two knives against a row of pearls.
“Okay…so that’s how you want to play?” Agnes smiled with her cobra fangs and shark’s eyes. “Maybe your little sister would like to come with us.”
“NO!” Peter yelled. “NO, DON’T YOU DARE – ”
But Agnes was already gone, up into the air and away.
29
Peter scrambled out from under the coffee table and ran after her. There was a part of him that said this was all a trap, that Agnes was doing this to draw him out. But there was an even bigger part that pictured Beth asleep in bed and Agnes drooling over her.
That was never going to happen. Even if Peter had to die to stop it, that was never going to happen.
He dashed out into the open hallway. The giant staircase sloped thirty feet in the air, crisscrossing from the first to the second story, then in the opposite direction to the third floor.
Agnes was already halfway to the top, twirling in the air so her dress poofed out. She smiled sweetly. “So you decided to come out and play.”
“Leave my sister alone!” Peter yelled as he launched himself up the steps two at a time.
Agnes floated higher.
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want some grubby little boy, especially one who doesn’t appreciate what we’re trying to do for him. But I’ve always wanted a little sister. I can comb her hair, and dress her, and teach her everything…so she can be just like me,” Agnes cackled.
Peter made his way up to the second floor. “Stop.”
“Why?”
“I’ll…I’ll go with you. Just leave my sister alone.”
Agnes drifted down through the air like a dandelion puff on a summer breeze.
“Are you sure?”
Peter looked into those dark, bottomless eyes. His sister would never look like that. Not while he could do anything about it.
If he tackled Agnes, would they fall to the ground? Would it be enough to kill her? Would it kill them both?
He looked down at the hallway floor, twenty feet below.
It didn’t matter. He had to try.
“Yes,” Peter said.
Agnes held out her hand.
“Then come with me. It only hurts for a second, Peter…and then everything is wonderful.”
Peter put out his shaking hand…withdrew it…and finally placed his palm in hers.
From out of nowhere, a thick metal chain slapped and wrapped itself around Agnes’s body, SHINK SHINK SHINK.
“What?!” she cried out.
“GET AWAY FROM HER, BOY!” Grandfather boomed from somewhere below.
Peter pulled back, but Agnes held onto his hand like a vise. She snarled at him, drool dripping from her fangs. “Oh no you dooOOOON’T – ”
The chain yanked her towards the ground with such force that her grip on Peter’s hand slammed him against the staircase banister. The wood railing stopped him, which broke her hold on his arm.
Her plastic daisy sunglasses jerked out of her other hand and tumbled over and over towards the floor.
Down she plummeted. As she dropped, Peter could finally see Grandfather. He was pulling the chain hand over hand, his arms moving so fast they were almost a blur.
Agnes slammed into the hardwood floor and screamed. Grandfather was immediately on her, looping the chain again and again around her arms. Then he slid a padlock through the links – CLICK.
Agnes flipped around and snapped her teeth at Grandfather, but he was already out of reach. She struggled but couldn’t move her arms. Still screaming, she launched into the air, headed straight for Peter.
KA-CHANK! The chain snapped tight as she reached the second floor. Peter scampered back on the stairs and watched her clicking teeth through the wooden poles in the banister.
The chain tugged her out of view again. Peter crawled to the edge of the stairs and watched Agnes flit to and fro as Grandfather tried to reel her in. She was like some horrible, demonic balloon on a chain instead of a string.
Then there was a glint in her eye and the briefest of evil smiles. Peter didn’t understand until he saw her dart down instead of up, speeding fast as she could – for Grandfather.
“NO!” Peter yelled.
It was too late. Her mouth was open, her fangs were out. She aimed straight at Grandfather’s high collar, just to the left of his knotted tie. And Grandfather didn’t do a thing to stop her. He just stood there, expressionless, as she flew at him like a bullet.
A strangled cry came out of Peter’s mouth as Agnes buried her teeth in Grandfather’s throat.
30
CLANK.
Agnes’s eyes widened.
So did Peter’s.
The only person who looked totally unconcerned was Grandfather.
“Ow Ow OW!” Agnes yelled, her words muffled since her teeth were still embedded in Grandfather’s white collar.
Then she started whipping her head from side to side, thrashing back and forth like a puppy with a chew toy. There was a ripping sound, and she backed up in the air with tattered cloth still stuck to her fangs.
Now that the collar was torn off the shirt, Peter could clearly see the metal band encircling Grandfather’s neck. It looked like a steel ring about five inches tall, with a hinge and a latch to put it on and take it off.
Agnes realized what had happened, but she was too late: Grandfather had already reeled her in. She had nowhere to go.
Now that he was in range, Grandfather punched her in the mouth.
Or at least that’s what Peter thought until Grandfather pulled back his hand, revealing a shiny apple stuck firmly onto Agnes’s fangs.
She screamed until her cheeks puffed out, but the apple didn’t move. She tried shaking her head back and forth to dislodge the fruit, but it was stuck tight.
So she tried to fly away.
That wasn’t any good either, since Grandfather was holding onto the chain securely.
Agnes didn’t just look like a balloon anymore, she looked like a pig in an old timey cartoon, the ones they roasted with an apple in its mouth. A floating balloon pig in a plaid dress and ruffled shirt.
Agnes screamed and kicked her legs, but Grandfather hung on to the chain.
“Thanks,” Peter said over the edge of the railing.
“I thought I told you not to invite them in,” Grandfather spat.
“It’s not my fault! Mom invited her, not me!”
Grandfather muttered, and then started dragging Agnes towards the doorway under the stairs – the one he had warned Peter to stay out of, on pain of his life, on Peter’s very first day in the house!
“What are you going to do with her?”
“Never you mind. Go to bed.” Grandfather used a key to open the door, and struggled to pull Agnes inside.
Peter felt an odd tug of emotions inside him. Agnes had just tried to kill him. Worse, she might have tried to kiss him. But she was still the little girl in the third row at school, the one with the pug nose and the Barbie lunchbox.
“You’re not…going to kill her, are you?” Peter whimpered.
“Boy – ” Grandfather warned, but was cut off by a voice from above.
“Peter, what’s all this ruckus?” his mother called from the top of the stairs. “I can hear you from the third floor!”
Peter’s heart stopped. Then he realized that from where she stood, she couldn’t see anything of what was going on with Grandfather and Agnes below.
Agnes heard Mom’s voice and screamed, but the apple in her mouth made it sound like high-pitched humming.
Grandfather gave the chain a hard yank, and both he and Agnes disappeared into darkness. The door closed after them with a click.
&nbs
p; “What was that?” Mom asked as she peered over the edge of the banister.
“Uh…who knows,” Peter said. “Grandfather’s working down in the basement, I think.”
“Well what was all the screaming?”
“Um…” Peter looked down and saw the daisy sunglasses that Agnes had been wearing not two minutes before. He pointed at the hardwood floor. “I realized Agnes left her sunglasses.”
“You screamed about that?”
“Yeah…like, OH CRAP!”
“Twice?”
“Well…then I dropped them. So I screamed again. OH…DOUBLE CRAP!”
His mother looked at him and shook her head slowly. “I don’t know about you, Peter. Stop screaming so your sister and I can go to sleep. And you go to bed, too, young man, it’s a school night.”
Peter nodded.
His mother disappeared from the edge of the staircase. When he heard her footsteps fade away, he finally put his head in his hands.
This was horrible. He’d almost died tonight – twice! Grandfather was downstairs, probably driving a wooden stake into the heart of a girl from his class. And Mercy was still out there, free to cause trouble and try to kill him again.
Mercy.
Where was she?
Peter looked up instinctively at the giant window over the front door. It was ten feet by ten feet, crisscrossed by white strips that created dozens of glass panes.
And right behind them, twenty feet above the ground, Mercy was floating. Watching him.
Peter stifled a scream and shrank back against the wall.
She sneered at him, wheeled around, and launched into the air. She flew directly towards the full moon, and Peter watched as her body grew smaller in the distance, until she darted in a different direction and was swallowed by the black night sky.
31
“Okay, I’m kind of glad I didn’t spend the night at your house,” Dill’s voice crackled over the phone.
“This isn’t funny,” Peter whispered into the receiver. He kept a watchful eye out in case his mother should enter the kitchen.
“Tell me about it, man. Not only do you have two girls trying to kiss you – BLECH – they’re dead, too. How’d you get so unlucky?”
“I have no idea.”
“What do you think your Grandfather’s doing down there? You think he’s, like, going to keep her chained till the sun comes up and she bursts into flames?”
“Dill, they’re in the basement. There’s no windows down there.”
“Have you been down there?”