“Okay,” I said to Vince. “Maybe Ned doesn’t need to be staked. I’m willing to consider further discussion on
the issue.”
Across the street, there was some applause from the bus stop. In the distance I heard police sirens. The blur I assumed was Ned was nowhere.
“Nice work, Abigail.”
Vince and I jumped at the same time. Mr. Christopher leaned against his big black sedan. With the tension of the showdown, I hadn’t even seen him show up. “Thanks,” I said. “Did you see—?”
“Your father sent me,” said Mr. Christopher. “He thought you might be up to something. He was right. Come on, you two. We’re going home.”
CHAPTER THREE
Reprimand from the Abyss
The ‘rents had found us from Vince’s GPS. My phone is not smart, a castoff of Mom and Dad’s old cell plan, but good old Vince, he had to have the phone with all the answers. I had wondered how Ned had known we were in the diner. I suspect Mr. Christopher told him, that he’d been keeping tabs on us all night. He would be much more permissive than my parents about the whole slaying Ned thing, given that he was a vampire. While that sounds counterintuitive, Mr. Christopher, like me, knew most vampires are dangerous.
On the way home, Vince had the jitters. I had a good view of Mr. Christopher’s head, and I was getting hit by the double adrenaline rush of dressing down both Ned and Phone Thief. While no actual monster slaying had occurred, I was increasingly pleased with our outing. My parents might not see my accomplishments in the same light as I did, as the evening pointed to me being more of a Batman than a Van Helsing, but there was always a silver lining if you looked long enough.
Mr. Christopher was a real vampire, just like Ned. He met Dad on the set of The Blood of Dracula when they began their careers at Anvil Studios. Dad was the junior vampire hunter in a supporting role, and Mr. Christopher was one of the townspeople turned into a vampire. No one knew it at the time, but these two were destined to become Anvil Studio’s Van Helsing and Dracula. Mr. Christopher was tall and had a deep voice. He was the perfect Dracula, although Dad told me that the main reason he was cast was because he was the only guy on the Anvil set who could carry the actress that Dracula had drunk blood from.
I guess being a vampire helped Mr. Christopher deliver an authentic performance.
When I was a toddler, I tried to tell my mom and dad that Mr. Christopher was a vampire. I would say, “Wampire” to Mom, and point at Mr. Christopher, and Mom and Dad would both laugh, because they thought I was confusing film with reality. I wasn’t. I’d seen him change into a bat. My popsicle stick cross bothered him.
I have no idea why my parents have this particular blind spot.
When I was in second grade, I sat Mr. Christopher down for a frank hunter-to-vampire talk. Mr. Christopher pointed out how you could see him in pictures and in mirrors, and didn’t that prove that he was alive?
I am still sitting on that. I haven’t figured out the picture and mirror thing yet. He could be using his powers of suggestion to dupe me, folklore could be misinformed, or science may have yet to explain how this works. But he was a vampire. He had changed into a bat. He did have an aversion to crosses. He would never go outside during the day.
When I was in the fourth grade, I confronted him again. Then, he confessed, and we had a conversation about his long relationship with my family, and how he’d never harm us.
I chewed on that for a shorter time. It was true that if he’d wanted to take advantage of Mom and Dad, he’d had a ton of opportunities to do so. I asked him if he felt his soul would be at peace more if he were staked, and he reassured me he wasn’t in inner torment. Since he wasn’t threatening anyone, and it would be hard to explain his disappearance to Mom and Dad, we left it there.
I don’t know how old Mr. Christopher is. I’ve seen the vampire “relative” paintings around his house. Only really stupid people believe in the power of genetic duplication. So, I’m okay with Mr. Christopher, but only Mr. Christopher. I’ve seen the movies. Dad trusts Mr. Christopher, but I know better than to trust any other vampire. Ned is a baby vampire. According to Mr. Christopher, that’s when vampires make their most dangerous mistakes. Unless they’re evil vampires, in which case every day is a dangerous mistake.
Vince knows about Mr. Christopher. Indiscreet? Sure. But every Sherlock Holmes needs a Watson. I can’t keep all these secrets to myself!
Mr. Christopher said Dad had sent him to retrieve us. Why would Dad send Mr. Christopher if Dad thought Mr. Christopher was an ordinary guy, and he thought we might be getting into trouble?
“Um?” That was my opener from the back seat.
I caught Mr. Christopher’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Yes, Abigail?”
Only two people called me Abigail. Mr. Christopher, as a sign of respect, and Mom when she was furious with me.
“You said Dad sent you to look for us?”
“Correct.”
Vince was so buried in his own impending doom he was missing this. “Why would Dad send you? Doesn’t he think you’re a normal actor guy?”
“You’ll have to ask your father about that, Abigail.”
This was proving to be an interesting night in all sorts of ways.
We drove into our neighborhood. Mr. Christopher lived in a cute little bungalow, a leftover from when our part of town was pivotal to the motion picture industry. Heavy drapes covered his
