I slumped to the concrete, my energy giving out. “Looks like the white knight came through.”
There wasn’t enough of William left to hear me.
Vince, wielding the silver bat and a holy water squirt gun, found me. “Abby? Are you okay?”
“No,” I shook my head. “How did you know about the cross? You haven’t seen Brides of Dracula.”
“Your dad told me the vampire in that one gets killed with a windmill that becomes a cross. Last year, on the first night of the new Ferris wheel, there was a pattern that was like a cross. When you hang out with monster hunters, you remember things like that. I got the operator to freeze it at the cross,” Vince said.
“I thought he was mind-controlled.”
“Marty snapped out of it, so I figured something was up with William. I made for the control booth, and asked the guy to run that sequence. After being bit by William, he was happy to help.”
“How did you know it would work on William?”
“My bracelet did, right? And William is a sucker for a classic horror film. The belief thing must work both ways.”
“Good work, Vince. I could use some help now.” I planned to lay off vampire films for a little while.
There comes a time in every girl’s romantic life when they decide to move on. Last week’s boy isn’t this week’s boy. Even though, just two short weeks ago, Vince had rescued Marty with much derring-do, Marty had decided Vince was no longer the boy in her life. Now she saw the world of vampires as dark and mysterious, and she was crushing big time on Ned. And oh, let me tell you, Ned was avoiding Marty. He hardly ever worked the Saturday night shift any more, except when it was unavoidable.
In the meanwhile, Coral crushed on Vince. And Vince was hopelessly in love with Marty.
That’s right. Not me.
Now, Coral was asking me to help her with Vince, and Vince was asking me to help him with Marty, and Marty was asking me to help her with Ned, and Ned and I were just hiding from all of these crazy people.
At Kaplan Kone, I was grabbing a quiet moment. Everyone else was out at Pacific Park except Mom and me, neither of us enjoying our invalid status, she with her cane and eyepatch, and me with my cast. It was my hope while there were monsters in our lives, we would be done with the actual scary stuff. Mostly, I wanted to get my arm healed up before summer was over.
One of the perky girls in a Kaplan t-shirt called my number from the counter, and I went to get my marshmallow shake. Another hand reached for the shake, and we touched it at the same time. Neither of us let go.
He was a cool looking guy, his hair in small braids. “That’s mine,” he said. That was an accent from somewhere else, English, sort of. I guess us Rath women liked English accents. I’m sure that was one of things Mom liked about Dad.
“Sorry,” I said. “That’s mine.”
He held up his number and asked the perky girl, “Mine or hers?”
“It’s Abby’s. Yours is coming right up.”
“My mistake.” He walked away.
Okay. Being a teenager didn’t seem like it would be so bad. I would look out for him this fall.
Acknowledgements
February 23, 2020
Abigail Rath and Vince Cooper began their lives in a roleplaying game from the early 1990s. Vince and Abby were the children of intrepid monster hunters. In the first short stories I wrote about them, Abby and Vince were a bit younger, but their chemistry was established early on: Abby, obsessed and manic, and Vince, supportive and long-suffering.
While I was working on another novel, I needed a break, so I turned to Abby for that break. She was voice-y and funny, and full of life. I was pretty sure I had stumbled onto a funny, and dare I say it, commercial book series, which I thought would be a lot of fun for kids. Armed, like Abby herself, with pluck and confidence, I began looking for a publisher.
Abby hit right at the time no one wanted to talk about publishing vampires ever again, even if only the first book was going to be about vampires. I want to write seven books about Abby and her friends, and so here we are again, living the dream of independent publishing. You can count on those seven books appearing over the next few years, with the second book appearing before the summer is out.
There are a few people to thank. The book is dedicated to Steve and Kurt Wilcken. Kurt, a cartoonist, will be drawing the covers for these books. Steve and Kurt are long time friends and members of the roleplaying campaign that created a lot of the characters you’ll meet in these books.
I’ve had a great deal of support from my writing friends. This draft was poured over by members of my Taos Toolbox class, who gave me lots of great feedback. Chris Cornell, George Galuschak and Chia Evers all contributed a great deal, as did the members of Eric’s workshop, who made sure Abby got grounded. Chia Evers is also responsible for editing the draft. Humorous science fiction and fantasy writer Jim Hines inspired me to write my own comedy, the result of which you see here. Finally, a special shout-out to Shannon Ryan, who believed in this entire project back when it was just the two of us at Paradise Icon.
My husband Bryon Stump continues to support my writing and publishing efforts in all of the best ways. I couldn’t do any of this without him. I am also indebted
