Chance in Hell Read online

  I felt something slip across my rear, and turned to one side, wide-eyed. Megan had been looking at the box; she noticed me staring and turned to look at me, raising her brows in a question. Then I heard Lacey move behind me and realized the source of the grope.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Lacey said.

  “If you don’t know—” I stopped, remembering the envelope I took from the locker. I turned around to see her opening it. I felt Megan’s hand leave my shoulder.

  “Damn!” She said. “Dinner’s on Chance.” She pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills from the envelope and fanned through them. “Where did this come from? There’s at least twenty grand here.” She said almost accusingly, “I thought you were poor?”

  Ouch. “It’s the payment we were supposed to get for retrieving and destroying that thing. It was in the locker with the box.” I heard a rustling sound and, turning back, I saw Megan had unceremoniously dumped the box upside down, using one hand to catch anything important that fell out. Hundreds of pieces of white Styrofoam landed on the table, then cascaded down around Lacey’s new outfits and onto the floor.

  Megan caught what looked like a brass vase you’d keep someone’s ashes in. It exited the box top-down. She grabbed it and then turned it over, taking the base with her other hand. She let the empty box fall to the floor, swept a spot clean on the table with her arm and set the urn down.

  We all gathered around, looking at the urn. It wasn’t that remarkable. It was maybe eighteen inches high, made of brass. And it had some type of star engraved on its body and lid, along with some other symbols that I wasn’t familiar with.

  “Huh,” Megan said.

  “I wonder what’s inside it?” I asked. Whatever it was, I wasn’t getting any vibes from it.

  “I don’t think we should open it,” said Lacey. “I recognize some of those symbols, and they’re bad news.”

  I shrugged. “Good enough for me.” I was curious by nature, but someone paid me twenty grand to destroy it, not to figure out what was in it. That got me thinking, though. How exactly did they want it destroyed? Could I take a sledgehammer and just pound the thing out of shape—would that be enough? Or should I get a hacksaw and cut it up into pieces? If I did that, I was certainly going to find out what was inside. I supposed I could always throw it into a hot fire and melt it down. “Now I just need to destroy it.”

  “Shouldn’t we find out what it is first?” said Lacey.

  “I gave my word I would destroy it.”

  “Sure, but let’s find out what it is first, and then destroy it.” I must have looked unconvinced, because next she tried logic. “Knowing what it is will help us know how to get rid of it. It’s magic, that much I can tell, and you don’t want to start messing with it until we know more about it.”

  She had a point, so I gave in. “Fine. Any ideas how we find out what it is?”

  “We can ask around,” Lacey suggested. “I know some people who might know something about it, and I can borrow a couple of books from the coven. If that doesn’t work, there is always the internet.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “First, let’s eat—I’m starved.”

  “All right.” I was really hoping I wasn’t on the menu. I risked a quick glance over at Megan, but she was busy, bent over the urn examining the symbols. “Just let me call my brother before we go.”

  “Sorry!” said Megan, bouncing up. “That’s why I was trying to call Lacey earlier. Your brother called like five times. I kind of got distracted by all of the clothes and the box and forgot to tell you.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Dunno.” She shrugged. “I was asleep, and I guess he doesn’t believe in messages.” She held out her phone.

  I shook my head and showed her my new phone. “Grabbed one at the mall. Thanks, though.”

  I was about to dial the number and then stopped, voicing my own random thought. “So, wait—it’s still light out. What are you doing awake?”

  “Are you trying to say I need more beauty sleep?” Her tone held a warning.

  I looked at her, relieved to notice her playful glance. “No, no; I just thought you guys slept while it was light out, but this is the second time I’ve seen vampires awake during the day.” I tried not to remember what had happened the first time.

  “Normally we do. Not being able to go out in the sun kind of makes you nocturnal by default. So we tend to sleep during the day. Now, if you’re asking if we have to sleep during the day, that we go into some kind of coma or something, then the answer is no. We can sleep whenever we want. I normally go to bed at sunrise, and I’m up by midafternoon.”

  If I had known this only a few days ago, then maybe I could have saved a lot of people. But we didn’t know. Countless hours of vampire movies had told us differently. If Robert knew better, he didn’t say anything. He had never said any more about it other than it’s best to kill vampires during the day because that’s when they sleep, and if things go wrong, you can always run outside.

  “I don’t think he believes you,” said Lacey, mistaking my expression of regret for skepticism. “Maybe he just needs to see for himself. Hey, Chance, how about you sneak into Megan’s bedroom tomorrow morning to, you know, see if she wakes up. Of course, she might just be a heavy sleeper, so to be really sure, you might want to try something like snuggling up with her to see what happens.”

  I assumed Megan would have rolled her eyes at Lacey’s remarks, but I saw her looking at me funny, like she was wondering if I might try it. I turned around, pointedly ignoring them both, and dialed my brother’s number. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Dude, what the fuck? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day. Doesn’t your girlfriend ever answer her phone? I thought that’s all girls did!”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Who gives a fuck?” He sounded stressed. “They trashed our house, man!”

  “What?”

  “Our house! They burned it to the ground!”

  “Wait, who did? Where’s mom?”

  “How the hell should I know?” He answered both my questions with a single response.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I was in my truck listening to tunes and smoking out just in case mom came home.”

  I made some disapproving noise, and he said, “What? Julie was over, and the bitch stresses me out. Every time we finish, all she wants to do is sit around and talk or whatever. She’s fucking high maintenance. I finally got rid of her, and I needed to chill.”

  And girls actually liked this guy. Seriously, I had no idea why.

  “So, then this car pulls up and a bunch of people get out. They walk up to the trailer and knock. I’m thinking I forgot about a party or something and I’m about to get out and say hi, when the one guy gets all upset and rips the fucking door off the hinges. I mean, I know it’s only a trailer and they’re built like crap, but shit, that’s some serious ‘roids that guy must be using.

  “Anyway, so now he starts calling your name, saying how he’s going to kill you like he killed your friends. So I decide to stay in the truck.”

  “They ripped off the door and didn’t go inside?” I asked. One of the myths Robert had told me that was true was that vampires had to have permission before they could enter a residence. Made no sense to me, but he insisted it was some part of the eternal curse or something.

  “Nah, it was weird. He just stood on the porch and yelled shit at you. A couple of the others were looking in windows and stuff, but then they gave up, went to their car, got some Molotovs, and chucked them inside the house. Trailer went up like a fucking box of matches.

  “So then they took off, and I called the cops. Spent most of the morning hanging with the five-oh. I told them you were out in California looking at a school like you told me to. They asked about Mom, and I told them that she was still gone with some dude. I tried her cell, but apparently she’s taking lessons from your girlfriend, ‘cause she‘s not
answering either.”

  “Bryan, is it dark there?” I said, suddenly remembering the time difference.

  “Just about. Why?”

  “Shit. Bryan, listen to me—you have to go somewhere and lay low, okay? Stay away from the house. Go over to Tim’s for a while, or Julie’s or something, ok? I’ll be home in a couple of days and we’ll figure something out.”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m over at Tim’s now.” He paused. “Hey, were those assholes the vampires you kept talking about? The ones that killed Robert and them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So they can, like, turn people into more vampires, like in the movies and stuff, right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Chance?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know how I said there were like four or five of them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A couple of them were chicks.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Bryan, I told you they’re monsters!” I cringed as soon as I said it, remembering whose kitchen I was standing in, and who saved my ass last night. I thought maybe they had gone to watch TV or something and didn’t hear me. I nonchalantly turned around to look. Nope—still there. They heard me. I turned back around. “Anyway, Bryan, they just killed my friends and burnt down our house. Don’t you think you can find some other chicks to hit on?”

  “Dude, are you stupid? I’m not dating a chick that just torched my house. Well, unless she was smoking hot and liked to—“

  “I cut him off. “Okay, so two of them were chicks; what’s your point?”

  “One of them looked a lot like Kristi’s sister.”

  “Katy?”

  “Yeah. I mean, maybe it wasn’t her. I don’t know. It was dark and you know our porch light sucks, but it kind of looked a lot like her. I’m sorry, man.”

  “Just find somewhere safe, okay?” I thought about the last time I had seen Katy, crumpled up on the floor of the Ranch. Robert had said she was dead, but I don’t think he meant at that moment. I think it was more like “as good as.”

  “Yeah, all right. I know just where to go.”

  “Great. I’ll call you soon, and I have a new phone, so you can call me.”

  “I have caller ID; I figured that out by myself. Besides, I’d rather talk to your girlfriend. I’m telling you, dude, she sounds cute. Does she do—”

  I hung up on him, and saw Megan and Lacey looking at me.

  “I’m sorry,” Megan said.

  “What?” said Lacey. “Fill those of us monsters in who can’t hear well enough to eavesdrop on other people’s phone conversations.”

  “You could hear him?” I asked Megan. She nodded.

  “The vampires that killed my friends just burned down my house,” I told Lacey. “No one was inside. I’m just worried that now they’re going to go after my mom or my brother, trying to get to me.” I stopped for a moment. “And I think they turned one of my friends. Katy.”

  “Hey—Katy—wasn’t she your dead girlfriend’s sister?” I was beginning to understand that tact was not one of Lacey’s strong points.

  “Yeah.”

  “Bummer. They must really hate you.”

  “I think they just really hated Robert, and I’m basking in the fallout.”

  Chapter 11

  Once it was dark, we grabbed dinner at a pizza place on one of those hip streets lined with coffee shops, trendy bars, and overpriced restaurants. It was Sunday night and the streets were crowded. Lacey was wearing jeans and a college sweater; I still had on the clothes Megan had bought for me the night before. Megan, of course, was in a cocktail dress and heels, making us look like schlubs.

  The pizza was better than anything I remembered having in Texas. I felt kind of weird eating in front of Megan, who sat with us and sipped at a water. She didn’t seem to mind; I guess she was used to it. I sat back contentedly after my fourth piece and watched Lacey finish off the pie, then hunt for any straggling bits of toppings that were left on the tin.

  Lacey wanted to bring the urn to a witch friend of hers to ask what it was. She was pretty sure this person would know something about it, or if not, know someone who would. I hated to let it out of my sight, but I had to admit it was as safe with her as it was with me. Safer, actually, because I knew for sure they were looking for me.

  Lacey left us after dinner. “Now, don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do,” she said as we separated in front of the pizzeria. A few feet down the walk, she turned around and said over her shoulder, “Not that there is anything that I wouldn’t do, so hey, knock yourselves out!” She waved and headed to her car.

  Megan sighed. “Want to get a drink?”

  “Yeah, I do.” We walked down the street until we found a classy-looking bar named after an obscure Irish folk hero. I opened the door for her and we headed in. We took a table by the window and watched the foot traffic in silence for a while. A waitress came over and took our orders: Newcastle for me and a martini for the lady.

  We sat in silence for a bit. The waitress brought out our order. I figured as long as I was going to be having drinks in a swanky joint with a beautiful vampire, I might as well take the opportunity to pump her for a little information.

  “So, you can drink?” I asked lamely, setting the tone.

  She looked at the glass she had just set down after having taken a sip from it, then back up to me. She was kind enough to answer me anyway. “Yes. Clear liquids only, though. No more milkshakes for me.” She pouted.

  “Oh, okay, but you can’t eat, right?”

  “I can eat.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure, but then I get violently ill and throw it all up.”

  “Oh, gotcha. That sucks.”

  “Yeah; I miss food.”

  I looked around and saw that the place wasn’t too crowded and no one was paying us any attention. “So, drinking blood. What is it like? Do you like it?”

  She considered for a moment before answering. “Have you ever had a random craving for something like orange juice or peanut butter? You know, not something you would normally want, but for some reason it sounds really good at that moment and you have to have some?”

  Sounded like a pregnant woman, but actually, thinking about it, I knew what she was talking about. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Well, it’s kind of like that. At least now it is; it’s different in the beginning. When we are first made, the thirst is more visceral, harder to control. After a week or so it begins to abate, and then it becomes more controllable the older we get.”

  “So what happens if you don’t get any?”

  “Excuse me? Oh, you meant blood. I get hungry. That is to say, if I don’t eat, I won’t die; at least, not right away. It’s the same if you decided not to eat. I’ll just begin to starve, and the thirst will grow and become harder to control. Also, if we’re injured, blood helps speed the healing process significantly. And, as with most things, we have a basic survival instinct, so if we are injured and there is blood around, there is a strong impulse to grab it.”

  I remembered that she had supposedly drunk from me after the run-in with the troll. “Huh,” I managed, wondering if she really had or if they had been pulling my leg. I decided not to dwell on it and changed the subject instead. “How about fangs?”

  She raised her brows and just looked at me.

  “Well, in the movies and stuff, any time a vampire gets excited they, like, vamp out. You know—grow big fangs, get all ugly-faced, that kind of thing.”

  She laughed. “Sorry, no; no dramatic metamorphosis. When we’re first made you can pick us out pretty easily—the eyes are bloodshot; we are more of a servant to our instincts; coherent speech is more difficult. But no—we don’t sprout fangs and scary faces when we’re pissed off.” She took a sip of her drink.

  “Okay,” she admitted before I could ask my next question, “if we get upset or angry our eyes can get the bloodshot thing going. And the canines might grow a little longer the few days after we ar
e turned, but then they stay that way.” She gave me an open-mouthed smile, showing me her teeth. I had seen glimpses of them before, and they were indeed slightly longer and sharper than normal. I realized then that she didn’t tend to show her teeth when she smiled. It must be a learned habit to avoid detection or make people ask uncomfortable questions. She closed her mouth and looked away at my stare, looking uncomfortable and maybe embarrassed.

  “I like them,” I said, surprised at myself because I realized I was telling the truth. “They’re kind of cute. They suit you.”

  She turned back and smiled at me. No teeth.

  “So why are you telling me all this?”

  She frowned. “Um, ‘cause you asked?” Then she sighed and looked down, considering her next words. She stirred her drink, chasing the olive around with a little plastic sword.

  “We’re like a small community. We all know each other, or at least of each other. Even if we don’t get along or hang out and chat, we respect certain rules. Like keeping our existence a secret. If the truth came out about us, we’d be killed at best, locked up in labs and dissected at worst. A normal human who knows what you do would be killed.”

  “Oh.” See, that was kind of what I’d figured, but I just wanted to confirm where I stood.

  She smiled again. “But since you’re not normal, you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Hey, whaddya mean? I’m normal.”

  “I disagree. You can put up with Lacey, for one, and that’s abnormality defined. Then there’s the fact that you can sense us, or whatever it is you do. And then there’s your resistance to things like vampire suggestion.”

  I almost choked on my beer. “So, uh, how do you know that?’

  She frowned. “Because you told us? When you described what happened at the ranch, you said one of them tried to compel you and nothing happened. You said the vampire was surprised it didn’t work, and that’s how you escaped.”