The kitchen was as white and polite as the living room, a sure sign of lack of use. I glimpsed in the fridge. Fairly minimal. Probably enough food for a Renfield. No emergency blood supply. Then again, they couldn’t keep it up here. No sign of the housekeeper. I was being given run of the house. Someone was expecting me.
I ran up the second flight of stairs, emerged into the hallway, and shined my flashlight down the gloomy hall. No windows up here. Marty was leaning against the wall. She must have snuck by me while I was checking out the kitchen. I started.
“What are you doing up here?” I asked.
“Coral sent me to get you. We’re having pizza. Aren’t you hungry?”
What had Coral been thinking? “Not too much.”
Marty stepped away from the wall. “You’re acting weird, Abby.”
“This surprises you why?”
“I mean more than usual. What’s going on?”
The best defense is a good offense. “You snuck out. Coral didn’t send you.”
“So what?” said Marty. “Something’s going on with you. What is it?”
Now Marty had to develop backbone. “Just trying to find some time, you know, with my boyfriend.” Urgh.
“Okay.” She walked toward the stairs. “Except you keep telling me, always, you aren’t interested in a boyfriend. Why now? Why Austin Von Trapp?”
“Because I’m thirteen?” Not the best improv ever.
“You would have told me about it, not dropped it on me tonight.”
“I’m reserved,” I said.
“You can’t shut up when you’re excited about something,” Marty said.
“You know we went out.”
“Vince told me it was a disaster.”
“Abby,” said William. “Why don’t you just tell her?”
I jumped. William was right behind us. Crap on a cracker.
“Tell me what?” Marty said.
“Where’s Ned?” I asked.
“Come find out,” said William. He disappeared behind a door. We followed him in. No Ned. The door closed. I swallowed hard. Now Marty and I were both here, and William was thirsty. I took a deep breath. I needed to stay calm.
William’s bedroom could have belonged to me, if I’d had more money to spend on collectibles. There were Fangoria posters, models from Universal movies on shelves close to the ceiling, and a cool alarm clock that was the head of the Wolfman. I bet it howled. Old Abby from two weeks ago might have been thinking about lifting the Wolfman after William was slain. Old Abby was an idiot. I couldn’t help myself. I gawked and William looked pleased. “Pretty cool, right?”
I looked at the tickets displayed in a frame on the wall. “You’ve gone to all these?”
“Sure,” said William. He was trying to maneuver between Marty and me. So not happening.
One ticket caught my eye. “Premiere of The Blob? Nineteen fifty-eight. What was that like?”
“Nineteen fifty-eight? Stupider. More hair cream.”
Marty asked again. “Tell me what?”
At this point, it was more dangerous to not tell Marty than to tell her. “Marty, I’m gonna make this concise.” One of our new vocabulary words from English class. It means to use no more information than necessary. Many people think it means short. “Coral and William are vampires.”
“I’d guessed about Coral.”
I blinked. Well, she wasn’t blind, was she? “Well, Coral is troubled, but probably okay. William, on the other hand, is bad like yesterday’s boy band.”
William frowned. “That’s not cool.”
“You are not cool, William. Where’s Ned?”
“In trouble. So are you, really. You aren’t leaving here alive.”
Marty backed up to the door. The doorknob rattled, and I heard the door open. “We’re leaving, Austin Von Trapp.”
“Yeah. They’re leaving. Marty and our classmates are going to leave here, and then all of us members of the community will have a conversation.”
“Abby, that’s not what I meant,” Marty whispered. “I meant all of us.”
I painted on a smile I hoped communicated assurance. She didn’t have to know about the fluttering in my stomach. “I can handle a pipsqueak vampire like William.”
“No one’s going anywhere.”
“Sure they are, Willie.” Maybe I shouldn’t poke at the vampire with a sharp stick, but I just couldn’t help myself. “You’re going to let them go. You’ve still got Ned. That’s enough to make me do what you say. No reason to drag all these other folks into our parents’ private vendetta. Not that your mom is really your mom.”
William’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You know, it’s not like once you’re dead, you can have kids.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure I do. You’re going to give me a sad-eyed master vampire bonding speech, but it’s not like real parents, right?”
“He’s a tool?” said Marty.
“Like a wrench,” I said. “But I give you my word, William, that if you let the slumber party leave, I’ll stay.”
William rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. I was always kind of wanting a vampire harem like the head vampire always has in the films.”
Suddenly I too doubted the wholesomeness of old horror films on the young. The young-appearing. “That’s my deal. Take it or leave it.”
“You’re in no position to deal.”
“You know I am. I may be one monster hunter, but you’ve let me keep my gear because in your mind I am no threat. Mistake. I can set your collectibles on fire in a matter of seconds.”
“You wouldn’t—”
“Destroy such priceless, irreplaceable paraphernalia? Usually you’d be right. However, since I’m not shallow, there are some things more important to me than your ticket collection. You have thirty seconds to choose.”
We stared each other down, me doing my best to appear like I was on the edge of desperation. Not too far of a stretch.
With a careless shrug, the action of dismissal from boys from any time, he said, “All right. They can go.”
We needed to act
