Kill me, you coward, that look said. Kill me, you traitor. You liar. You double-crossing false friend. Shoot me between the eyes. I dare you.
I couldn't do it. I couldn't pull that trigger. And he knew it.
That's when he lunged, his mouth wide, teeth bared. Marissa screamed, tugging me back. I pulled the trigger, but the arrow flew uselessly up to the sky―and suddenly I was surrounded in a flutter of black.
Wings brushed passed me, dozens upon dozens, heading straight for Cedric. Cedric roared, and in a second he had forgotten about me, because he was covered by countless bats, every one of them digging their fangs into his wolf flesh, sucking deep, draining.
They were done in less than a minute. Then they fluttered away as quickly as they had come, leaving Cedric's wolfen form in a heap on the ground, moaning. His fur was already growing shorter. His snout pushed in to become a human jaw. The mist around us was glowing a brighter blue with each passing second. Dawn had arrived.
In a moment Cedric's transformation was complete. He was in human form again, and the bites from the vampire bats covered his body like measles. He gasped over and over again, like he couldn't get enough air. His eyes rolled in his head. I went over to him, kneeling down.
"No blood!" he said. "No blood! Bobby Tanaka! No blood!"
They had drained his blood, and there was nothing I could do. I took off my jacket and covered him, and Marissa, for all her hatred of him, took off hers as well. I rolled it up and put it behind his head as a pillow.
"Horrible!" he gasped. "Pain." He clutched his gut. "Like stones in my stomach."
I couldn't imagine the feeling. "It's okay," I said. "It's okay." But I knew it wasn't. It would never be okay.
Cedric tried to hold back his pain and looked at me with anguish in his eyes. "Why?" he said. "Why did you? Why did you, Red?"
"You said werewolves were a part of nature," I told him. "And maybe you're right. But it's also part of nature for humans to protect themselves. That's why, Cedric."
He closed his eyes, either from the pain of the vampire bites, or maybe from the pain of my betrayal. Then he opened them again. "Mother Nature's a tough old witch," Cedric gasped out. "Like your grandma."
I could feel his heart beating, but with nothing to pump, it just pounded against itself.
"Finish it," Cedric said. "Please, finish it."
I knew what he wanted, but the silver had all been spent. No more arrows, nothing. And then I realized that there was some silver left. Keep it close to your heart, Mom had told me. I did, and I guess it protected me. I reached into my shirt and pulled out the little coin with the image of Saint Gabriel. I took it from around my neck and gently lifted Cedric's hand. There were bat bites all over his palm, little bloodless wounds. I took the coin and pressed it into his palm, closing his fingers around it.
"I hope this pays the fare, Cedric," I said gently, "to wherever you're going."
He gripped the coin tightly, making sure the silver touched the open wounds on his hands, and he closed his eyes. He shuddered once, shuddered again, and then he was gone.
I stared at him long after he was dead, and when I finally looked up, a beautiful girl in a flowing black gown stood before me.
"Hello, Red. Sorry it had to end like this, but what kind of babysitter would I be if I let Cedric get you?"
Grandma and Marissa came up behind me. "Who in blazes is that?" Grandma asked.
"Rowena," I told her. "Queen of the Crypts."
Out of the mist behind her stepped Loogie, in human form. Well, sort of human, considering his recent undead status.
"We missed one!" said Grandma.
Rowena put up her hand. "Don't worry about him," she said gently. "He's one of us now. We'll keep him out of trouble."
Loogie looked at Cedric's body and lowered his head in respect.
"Go home," Rowena told us. "My girls will clean up the mess."
"We have to count the bodies," I told her. "To make sure we got them all."
Then Rowena came over to me and whispered into my ear. "You'll never get them all," she said. "They're werewolves, and no matter how many you kill, there will always be one more."
The thought made me shiver, but I knew it was true. Grandma got all of Xavier's gang, and still the wolves came back. Even if we got all of Cedric's, it didn't mean we were safe forever.
"The Wolves all had families," Rowena reminded me. "They won't take kindly to what happened here tonight―and who knows if there's a baby brother or sister who took the bite. So my advice to you, Red, is to fix that car of yours, and make sure it's faster than anyone can run―man, or wolf."
She backed away. I nodded to her in understanding, then she and Loogie turned into bats and flew deep into the Canyons.
"Hmm," said Grandma. "Vampires, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Somebody else's problem." She turned and walked away.
I took one more look at Cedric, the immortal leader of the pack, not so immortal after all. Then Marissa gently grabbed my arm, to lead me away. As dawn broke over the city, we walked out of that dismal place, across Abject End Park, and headed for home.
20
The better to watch you with
"I've been watching the news," I told Marissa the next day in the antique shop. "There aren't any reports of a gang war, or anything. It's like it never happened."
Marissa organized a shelf of knickknacks, not looking at me much. "I guess the Crypts cleaned up real good," she said. She glanced at me once, then looked away. "I did see one report, though," she told me. "They were talking about a pack of stray dogs roaming the streets. Animal Control is on it, but they haven't found anything."
"I guess they never will," I said. Then I reached over and took her hand. "I'm sorry about Marvin."
She tried to force a smile. "My parents think he ran off to Hollywood, like he always threatened to―and don't you tell them any different."
I'm sure her parents knew the truth, though, or at least some of it. I could see it in their eyes when they came by to pick up Marissa that afternoon. There are just some things parents know about you. Like whether or not you're a werewolf.
As for my parents, when they came back from their trip, they knew something had happened to me while they were gone, they just weren't sure what it was. "You're growing up, Red," was the closest my father came to putting his finger on it. The way they looked at me freaked me out so much, I gave myself the silver test―we all did, Grandma, Marissa, and me, gripping a silver spoon tightly in our hands―making sure it was silver and not just stainless steel. No reaction. It was the last time the three of us met together as a team of werewolf hunters.
With my car in the shop, I did a lot of walking over the next few weeks, just to listen to the gossip in the neighborhood. According to the rumors, the Wolves just disappeared, as they had twenty years ago. Some people thought they just left to find a better town to terrorize. "Good riddance to bad rubbish," they would say. There was, of course, a story being whispered about a single, hairy creature descending from the skies during the next full moon, draining all the blood from a couple of vicious junkyard dogs, but no one really believed it. Aside from that, the neighborhood was soon back to normal, short a handful of troublemakers that no one was going to miss.
There were some people out there who knew the truth, though. I know this because of all the envelopes that kept showing up in my mailbox and under my door. Thank-you notes, packed with money. Secret payments from relieved citizens, just like the ones Grandma had gotten years ago. It turns out she and Marissa were now getting those envelopes, too.