“Put that down!” yelled Ned. He sprang away from the table.
“You see?” I said to Vince. “Unholy.”
Ned snarled and ran into the night. Several of the diners started for our table. Vince threw a twenty down on the tabletop and followed, all before I had time to blink.
Shoot! What was Vince thinking, heading out after a vicious vampire? I slung on my backpack and caught up with Vince. His eyes searched up and down the street. Lots of neon and street people, but no Ned.
“Do you think he’ll attack us on the way home?” I asked.
Vince rounded on me. “Abby, for a smart girl, you don’t get it, do you?”
“What?”
“Ned is a lonely guy, but he’s also a nice guy.”
“That’s what you think!” I said. “You’re playing with fire.”
“Maybe I’m wrong, but I think he likes me and he isn’t going to mess with me, or my parents.”
One of the customers popped out of the restaurant. “You kids shouldn’t be down here. You want me to call you a cab?”
“Nah,” said Vince. “I’m with killer here. I’ll be fine.”
We walked away before he could press the matter. I swallowed my anger. “’I think he likes me?’ Vince, this is a vampire, not a stray dog!”
“I think he’s okay.”
“You are all deluded and stuff, converted by the vampire. He mojo’ed you. You know how this works. You’ve read the books.”
“No, I haven’t.”
A blond woman weaved across the road toward us. She smelled sour, like beer that has baked on the beach. “You kids,” she said. “You got any change?”
Vince found her a dollar, and then shoved his wallet back in his pocket. We walked toward the Temple and Grand bus stop. The city was cooling down after a day in the sun. I glanced at alleys, between stopped cars. No sign of Ned, but lots of people who had the same haunted look. Some of them could have been undead, but most of them were just unlucky.
“Have you thought about what being a vampire slayer means?” I said. I threw his words back at him. “’I hope to heaven I could figure out who needed killing and who didn’t?’ Vince, all vampires need killing!”
“Really?” Vince was striding, his legs eating up the sidewalk. He was angry.
“You know what I mean.”
“Then maybe I don’t want to be a vampire killer.”
I threw up my hands. “Obviously you don’t! You want to be a vampire social worker. Poor Ned, he’s not a
dangerous demonic creature from the nether regions. He’s just misunderstood.”
Vince pulled out his phone and punched in numbers, his fingers jackhammering the keyboard.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling my parents to come and get us.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I don’t know why I let you talk me into this.”
“Talk you into this? You wanted to find him. I was helping you!”
Vince stared at me. “What’s your plan, Abby? Our parents need to know we’re all right. We need to go home.”
The evening had been a disaster. We hadn’t slain our first vampire. Vince had gone all funny. We were in more trouble than we had ever been in before in our lives. I was pretty sure it would all have been okay if we could have shown we were competent enough to slay Ned. That window had closed.
“Okay,” I said. “Call your parents.”
“Hey kid.”
The voice belonged to a guy not much older than Ned looked. Under the light, his skin was gray and his hair was black, buzzed on the sides, but floppy on top. Chains connected his wallet to a denim jacket. He rubbed his nose and sniffed like he had allergies. He towered over Vince and me by a good two feet. He blocked the sidewalk in front of us. “Give me your phone.”
Vince shook his head. Not the wisest of actions if you are a peevee, which is a technical term we monster hunters use for potential victim. Vince and I looked like peevees to this guy. Little kids alone.
This guy chose the wrong phone to jack. We were so not peevees.
“Give me the phone,” the guy said.
I unzipped my backpack. I pulled out a squirt gun and leveled it. The XP-215 Super Soaker was small, but it was mighty. I could hit a square of terry cloth from twelve feet with it. “Take a walk,” I said.
“Abby,” Vince said, “don’t do anything stupid.”
“Last chance,” I said to the guy.
He laughed. “Give me the phone,” he said to Vince, “or I’ll cut you.”
“I’m serious,” I said. I pumped the XP-215.
He lunged at me. I backed away and at the same time let the Febreze stream out of my squirt gun, trying not to get it in his eyes. It was all over his jacket and jeans. I reached into the Hello Kitty purse pouch dangling by my hip, pulled out a cheap lighter, dropped the gun, and flicked the lighter on.
A small crowd of bus riders gathered at the stop across the street watched. “You leave those kids alone!” an old lady yelled.
The guy stopped. He could smell the Febreze I’d sprayed on him, April rain scent. “What is this?”
“I’ve hosed you down with ethyl alcohol. Not only do you smell better, now you’re flammable.”
Now, I wasn’t going to set him on fire, but he didn’t need to know that. It’s my job to protect humanity. I was hoping he wouldn’t call my bluff.
The guy pulled out his knife. It glinted, scary-like. Shoot. Vince held out the phone for him.
A blur flew past us slightly up to right. I caught a flash of unnatural red, the color of bad hair dye. The thief hit the
side of a building and slid down to the ground with a
