Her parents were the sort who would have kept it the same. Shut the door, entering only to clean every now and then, or sit and brood. It wouldn’t be a shrine—they were sensitive but not foolish—but she could also imagine them maintaining some form of hope. Shrunken now, of course, fading with time. But clearing her room would have seemed like the ultimate betrayal.
It would be a stranger’s room. Nothing in there belonged to her anymore, whereas Marty’s room still contained something that had accompanied her across the strange threshold she had stepped over: the memory of her brother, and the desire to watch over him.
She sat there for an hour, knowing that he would come soon. She heard the sound of the TV downstairs and wondered what it would be reporting this time tomorrow. Nothing, she thought. There’ll be nothing, because we’re never seen and never known. And that’s the way it must always be.
At last the door opened and Marty entered, and she smiled grimly because she knew what was to come. Just a few minutes before, she had heard the first scratchings outside, the animal snuffling, and the soft wet rumble of the vampire’s breath as it waited.
“Rose?” Marty said, his eyes flickering from her to the window.
This is going to hurt, she thought, standing to offer herself as a larger target.
“Look out!” Marty shouted. He brought up his left arm, his right hand delving into his jeans pocket. Rose held up one hand, palm out, to prevent him doing whatever he was about to do, but he was quicker than she expected. She heard a leathery twang and then a wet thud from behind her. The attacking vampire screeched.
Rose leapt forward and gathered Marty to her, knocking the slingshot from his hand even as she felt the weight of the thing behind her.
“Rose?” her brother gasped, and then the pain bit in. The thing clasped her hips and pulled, his long claws sinking into her flesh and scraping bone. His strength was immense; she felt the meat in that part of her body stretching and parting, and a red haze of agony blinded her as he snatched her back toward the window. Wasn’t meant to be quite like this, she had time to think, letting Marty go and turning, stretching back with her left hand and closing her fist around a wad of greasy hair. She tugged, not to hurt but to give her more leverage to turn around, and as the vampire backed heavily into the wall beside the window, she found herself face-to-face with him. His right eye was swollen and leaking from the stone Marty had fired, and Rose felt a momentary flash of respect for her little brother.
But he had no idea what he was dealing with.
The vampire hissed and gripped harder, twisting his hands and pulling out two handfuls of flesh and cloth from the tops of her hips. Rose screamed—it came out as a screech, spittle- and blood-flecked, as her teeth chomped at the air.
The vampire laughed and pushed her away, tripping her as she went, and was falling on her even as she sprawled to the carpet. The plan was solid in her mind, but instinct would not let her lie back and submit. So she fought. Hands clawing, she lashed at the slavering thing, going for the wounded eye in the hope that she could temporarily blind him. He kneed her between the legs and slashed across her throat, parting skin, eyes widening at the splash of blood.
He’ll smell the difference, she thought. But then, the vampire must have known that already.
Marty was shouting. Something splashed across Rose’s raised arm and the vampire above her winced, then started screaming again. He reared up and wiped at his face, clawing deep runnels in his own forehead and cheeks as he wiped away whatever Marty had thrown.
Rose’s arm burned, but she ignored the pain, managing to free one leg and kick up with her heel. It cracked into the vampire’s chin and sent him back against the wall. Plaster cracked and powdered, timber split, and then she heard two voices she had not heard for a very long time: Marty’s parents shouting up at him, concern and fear behind their voices.
“Run!” Marty shouted, but he had his back against the bedroom door. In one hand he clasped a sharpened stick of some kind, his eyes wide and determined, and Rose thought, Oh, Marty, what have you been reading?
This was quickly getting out of hand. She stood, made sure she had the vampire’s attention… and then let him fool her with a feint to the left and a punch to the right. He beat her back down, and all the while as he pummeled her she had one eye on Marty, trying to communicate what she had planned.
He came at them, raising the cricket stump. The vampire punched out and caught Marty across the chest, sending him back over his bed. He fell on the other side and Rose thought that he might be safe, that he might be all right, if only he would stay down. Let him be winded, she thought. Let him stay down for a few more seconds.
The vampire paused in his attack. Rose groaned, feigning semiconsciousness. And he started to talk.
Francesco had said this would happen. That most vampires were proud, arrogant and superior. It was what their plan had pivoted upon, and when she had objected to being bait for the monster, Francesco had calmed her with a smile and looked at the other Humains gathered there. We are better than them, he had said. But our superiority is based on truth.
“Foolish fucking bitch!” the thing spat. “I can hardly believe you came back for more.”
“She kicked your stinking ass last time,” Marty said. He’d hauled himself up on the bed, face white, blood speckling his chin.
“You shut up!” the vampire said. “I’ll rip you open soon enough.” He looked back down at Rose and grinned. His mouth was huge, the teeth too numerous, the eyes shrinking into blackened pits, and there was very little humanity left about him. That’s what the suit saw in me, she thought.
There was a sound from downstairs, a muffled scream followed by a thud. The vampire’s attention flickered for a moment… then his grin grew wider, and Rose knew that there were others. They’d expected that, and planned for it. With seven Humains, they could handle anything.
“You’ll find my blood tainted with rat and dog,” she said. His disgust was immediate and extreme. He drew back and looked at the wounds he’d inflicted on her, then down at his hands that had made them.
“How can you… ?” he asked.
“How can you?”
He reared up again, pride taking over once more, and stood with one foot pressing on her stomach more heavily than his mere weight should allow. Rose could wriggle, but little more.
“Filthy fucking dog,” he said. It was muttered, not shouted, and she heard the complete disgust and disdain in his voice. For a moment she wanted to say, But I have killed, I have drunk warm. But that was pandering to his monstrosity.
The door burst open. The vampire looked up, and she felt the pressure of his foot increasing horribly as he prepared to crush down and break her spine. It would not kill her—she’d helped nurse Rain back to health once after she’d been hit by a tube train, every bone shattered—but she knew just how much it would fucking hurt.
For the first time she saw a flicker of doubt on the vampire’s face, and then he roared.