“If I’d have known you had the gift so soon, I would have found you and taught you how to use it. Maybe you’re different. Maybe you’ve been given the tools to defend yourself.”
I cried softly on her shoulder.
“Tools? I don’t think so. By luck Nicholas came into my life and he kept them away from me. And now he is gone, and Mom is gone, and I don’t know what to do, let alone how to handle it. I don’t want this
gift
anymore! I’ve never wanted it. It’s cost me everything …”
“Dear, child.” Grandma patted my back. “You carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. It’s okay. I’m here.”
I tried not to completely fall apart, keeping my shoulders stiff and holding most of my tears in. But Grandma had guessed right. The responsibility behind the prophecy haunted me any chance it got. I couldn’t just live my life in peace and ignore it. The vampires would always be there, hunting me. And even worse, if I had a daughter … “I’m just so tired.”
“I know. This is a very draining thing to deal with.”
“Is there someone we can talk to about it? Anyone?
Grandma sighed. “Not that I know of, but it’s not difficult to avoid danger, Julia. They can’t get you when you’re safe inside. They only come out at night.”
Such a ridiculous and impossible way to avoid them.
“Or if you invite them in,” I added.
“Now why would you ever want to invite one in?” She handed me a coy smile.
I smiled back, her kindness finally breaking in and comforting me. If only she knew about Phil—that there were actually good vampires in the world. “Well, that’s kind of impossible to avoid being out at night, don’t you think?”
Grandma shook her head. “I’ve done if for over fifty years. People just think I’m scared of the dark.”
Killing them all off seems easier.
She smiled mysteriously as if she’d read my mind just as Dad appeared on the porch, slightly worried.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But Luke isn’t feeling well, so I’m going to run him to the hotel. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” I said, kind of wishing I could go, too. But the thought of Luke heaving and the small space we were staying in changed my mind.
“Oh, the poor boy,” Grandma said. “I hope he feels better soon. I’ll keep an eye on Julia.”
I smiled as the talisman warmed on my skin. If anything, she needed me to watch over her.
As the day continued, Grandma filled me in on the missing pieces of Mom’s life, stuff Dad never talked about. Mom and I were alike in so many ways, which thrilled and scared me at the same time. But the truth became evident. We were all basically the filet mignons amongst fast food hamburgers of society, tempting vamps much more than we should. So, the prophecy, highly flawed, didn’t make sense. Other than empathy, there was nothing else present to assist when slaying vampires. Mom had become a victim, like anyone, like all the Seers before her. Maybe the talisman was the key. Thank God I had it so I could at least be outdoors at night.
The sun moved closer to the horizon, Grandma grew nervous. Dad still hadn’t returned.
“I need to be getting home,” she finally said. “Could you call me a taxi?”
“What? No. We could drive you. Let me just text Dad to see where he is.”
After another thirty minutes, he finally returned—disheveled and smelling slightly of vomit. Luke must have lost his lunch multiple times and reeked up the joint. Something fun to look forward to.
As we drove, Grandma wrung her hands, her eyes glued to the sunset all the way to the Wilshire Rest Home. At the double doors, she hugged me tightly and whispered in my ear. “Get to your hotel quickly, you hear me? Don’t tempt the devil.”
“Yes,” I whispered, then watched her walk inside.
Dad and I drove in silence, both of us completely exhausted.
“Sorry,” he finally said.
I looked at him questioningly. “Dad, it’s okay. Really.”
“No. Somehow in the whole ordeal, I ended up hurting you kids.”
His words were mostly truth. There was something underlying, another reason he kept us away from L.A. but especially after the trauma of the day, I didn’t want to push things.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s in the past.”
He groaned, seemingly at the red light, but I knew it was at himself. “I really hate this town. So many people.”
So do I.
I bit my lip and leaned back in my seat. “Are we going home tomorrow?”
“The sooner the better,” he said with an exhale.
Good.
I didn’t want to ask about how Luke was doing, or what took Dad so long; I just hoped he’d be well enough to handle the drive home and not puke all over my car. At the hotel, I planned to bathe in anti-bacterial lotion to prevent catching whatever he had. My bout with the flu a few months ago was bad enough, thank you.
Once we pulled up to the hotel, Dad growled something under his breath as he slowed down and wove around clusters of excited girls in cheer uniforms. Due to a cheer competition, parking had become sparse.
“Here,” he said, motioning to the curb. “Jump out and I’ll go park the car.”
“No,” I said, noting a wave of bloodlust bouncing on the fringe of my detection zone, almost in tandem with the setting sun. My heart practically catapulted itself from my chest in fear. I couldn’t let him walk outside unprotected, just in case. “Let’s use valet.”
“Oh, wait. I see one.”
Before I could insist further, he zipped around the corner and parked in a dimly lit section behind the building. My heart continued to flounder like a fish out of water. Something lurked in the shadows and I didn’t want to wait around to see who it could be.
“Come on, Dad,” I said, pulling him by the hand.
“It’s okay, Julia. You’re with me,” he said with a chivalrous tone in his voice.
I managed a smile, but still tried to coax him along faster toward safety. Once we approached the corner and the side door came into view, I felt confident we’d avoided disaster until the hair prickled on the back of my neck.
“Why, isn’t this a treat?”
The vampire’s voice, etched forever in my mind from my last visit, scratched its nails down my spine. I turned and cringed. Slide, the vamp with the orange mohawk, smiled back in recognition. “Daring to trespass into lands you know you’re not welcome.”
My legs scrambled to bolt for the door when Dad swiveled around and pushed me into the wall, shielding me with his body. His fear escalated as he fumbled in his pockets for something.
No! We need to run!
“Dad,” I whispered, tugging at his arm, my voice trembling as I watched Slide close the gap between us. Somewhere close by, more unseen lustful creatures lay waiting, excited at our predicament.
“I’ve got this, just close your eyes,” he said, still heavily pursuing the item in his pocket—his wallet maybe?
Was he kidding? My extremities shook under the increased supply of adrenaline, wanting to run—now. These creatures weren’t some gang members looking to rob us. They were vampires. Blood. Sucking. Vampires. I needed a weapon of some kind, maybe a pencil to stake it once and for all. Otherwise, Dad was going to follow in Mom’s footsteps, right here behind the Beverly Hills Hilton.
“No, Dad. They don’t want your wallet.”
“Julia, don’t argue with me.”
I kept trying to inch us toward the door, pulling his sleeve to get him to move. For some stupid reason, he wouldn’t budge. A cackle from above sent shivers up my legs.
“Please,” I begged.
Dad finally found what he wanted and whipped out something that looked like a pen. He pointed it at Slide.
“Armed with a pen? Is that your stake?” Slide laughed and pounded his fist on his chest. “Be still my beating heart. Oh wait. You do know it needs to contain wood to do any damage. Who would have thought the old man and this shifty little sidekick knew each other? Family perhaps? And no protectors around. Interesting.” He followed his statement by licking his teeth. “This is going to be fun.”
Wooden or not, I wanted to grab the thing and chuck it at his heart anyway, knowing my aim would be aided by the talisman and could give us a few seconds to escape. But when I lunged for the pen, Dad pressed a red button and twisted his wrist. Red light beamed out and crisscrossed over Slide’s chest in a big X. In awe, Slide stared down at his jacket as charred marks magically appeared behind the path of light. A huge chunk of leather fell onto the pavement at his feet.
Slide looked up, fury ripping through him. “Why you little—”
But Dad sliced the light across his throat and Slide’s head lopped off his body onto the pavement with a thud. Slide looked at us from the ground and then over at his smoldering body; smoke poured out from his neck like a chimney. “Oh, crap.” In unison his detached head and body burst into flames and turned to dust.
Dad continued to wave his magic wand around, into the sky and over the parking lot, making large swooping motions as he backed us toward the door.
Another scream brought down a man’s body from the sky, which busted into a dust cloud upon contact with the asphalt before I could see if I recognized him—at least I thought it was a man. I gasped, but allowed Dad to kick open the door and lead me inside.
I clung to Dad’s arm in shock. We’d survived. My eyes zeroed in on the ashes on the other side of the glass doors. Dad’s focus lingered behind us, probably checking the lobby to see if anyone saw. Hyper girls’ voices paired with nervous excitement was all that milled about. Somehow no one witnessed the carnage that had just happened outside. Together in relief, we watched the wind scatter the ashes away, wiping clean the evidence. Perfect timing as another pack of girls walked up from the parking lot ready to enter the lobby.
“Are you okay?” Dad asked.
I stared up into his hardened face. He’d been so tough the entire confrontation, but now that it was over, sheer terror looked back at me. I nodded my head, absolutely speechless. He took my hand to lead me into a corner, far away from prying eyes. We stared at one another some more in silence, riddled with shock.
“How did you know?” we asked each other in unison.
Dad splayed his hand on his forehead. “You know? How long—?”
“How long have
you
known?”
“Pretty much since your mom disappeared.” His shoulders fell and he bowed his head. “And you?”
“Since this year.”
“Was it that boy? The one who’d disappeared from school? Phil?”
I couldn’t stop my eyes from wandering, looking everywhere but at the lines pressed in his face. “Yes.”
“I knew it,” Dad said, then grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”
I pulled away. “I did listen to you, but he hunted me down.” Do I tell him about the mountain lion? Do I tell him about Nicholas? Or Scarlett? Or the prediction?
“They’re dangerous, Julia. Nothing to toy with. If it wasn’t for the fact he’d died in that fire, I would have moved us away. But now they definitely know that you know, which is the worst possible scenario. They hunt survivors down. That’s why I have to travel so much. To keep them away from you kids.”
He sat me down on one of the two love seats against the wall.
“Wait. You travel to protect us?”
“If I’m on the move and keep my private life separate, they don’t have any information to blackmail me with. But now—”
“But you’re a computer consultant.”
“I do computer consulting, but for the government. For the ET unit. We investigate extraterrestrial activity.”
“Like the
X-Files
?”
Dad laughed, which loosened him up a bit. “Something like that. But we can’t stay around here anymore. We have to leave first thing in the morning. They’re going to round up more numbers and come after us. They’ll all know our scent. I need to call the office.” Dad turned to me. “After Phil died, did you have any more problems? Any more sightings?”
I sucked in a deep breath, hating to lie, but he’d majorly freak if he knew how deeply entrenched I was with vampires. “No.”
I wouldn’t know where to begin to explain, let alone that Nicholas was a half-breed. But Dad didn’t even seem to notice. He was lost someplace else, his mind whirling too fast with questions and fear.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll leave your car here and sell it. Or get new plates. I’m going to have to take you with me when I travel to be safe, so I can keep watch over you. No. Better yet, we’ll all go to the detention facility in Tulsa for the summer. Maybe we can fly out tomorrow. I can’t have you kids wandering around unprotected. There’s a training facility there. We’ll get you inducted into the protection program. The VPP.”
He jumped up and grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the elevators.
Protection program? Training? Moving?
“Whoa, Dad,” I said, stopping him. “Sell my car?”
“They saw us. They can easily break into the mind of a DMV worker and get our address. Wait. I used the P.O Box for your car’s registration. So, that’ll be okay. We can keep the car.”
He pressed the button to summon the elevator. I started to breathe faster. Dad was going overboard. “Everything has been perfectly fine in Scotts Valley. They can’t possibly discover where we live once we leave,”
and never showed up when I was here the last time.
The door opened and he ushered me inside. Once the doors shut, words flowed from his mouth about uncovering a huge operation where a rogue vamp was creating drones—sterile vamps. They were about to close in on the leader and now he would have to hand it off to someone else.
“Wait, you know about Cain?” I interrupted. “Where is he?”
Dad stopped; his eyes widened. “How do you know about that? That’s top top TOP secret information, Julia. Did you find my room?”
“Room? What room?”
Dad grabbed my arm. “Tell me the truth. How do you know?”
“’Cause one told me. It’s how they came into being. The serpent’s bargain for his soul.”
“Stop.” Dad held his finger to his lips. “We shouldn’t talk about this here. Did Phil know? Did he tell the others he told you? Never mind.” When the doors opened on our floor, he took my hand.