The rare old book met the same fate--but I was too worried about Chad to stop and rescue it.
I ran out of my bedroom and took the requisite four steps to the boy's room.
The door wouldn't open.
The knob turned, so it wasn't locked.
I put my shoulder against the door, but it didn't budge.
I tried to use the walking stick, which was still warmer than it should have been, as a crowbar, to force the door open, but it didn't work.
There was nowhere to get a good place to pry.
"Let me," whispered Stefan just behind me.
"Where have you been?" I said, relief making me sharp.
With the vampire here, the ghost would go.
"Hunting," he said, putting his shoulder to the door.
"You looked like you had everything under control." "Yeah," I said.
"Well, appearances can be deceiving." "I see that." I heard the wood begin to break as it gave reluctantly for the first few inches.
Then it jerked away from the vampire and flung itself against the wall with a spiteful bang, leaving Stefan to stumble into the bedroom.
If my room had been cold, Chad's was frigid.
Frost layered everything in the room like unearthly lace.
Chad lay still as the dead in the center of his bed--he wasn't breathing, but his eyes were open and scared.
Both Stefan and I ran for the bed.
The ghost wasn't gone though, and Stefan didn't scare it away.
We couldn't get Chad out of the bed.
The comforter was frozen to him and to the bed, and it wouldn't release him.
I dropped the walking stick on the floor and grabbed the comforter with both hands and pulled.
It quivered under my hold like a living thing, damp from the frost that melted from contact with my skin.
Stefan reached both hands just under Chad's chin and ripped the comforter in half.
Quick as a striking snake he had Chad up and off the bed.
I collected the staff and followed them out of the room and into the hall, wishing I'd updated my CPR skills since high school.
But, safely out of the room, Chad started sucking in air like a vacuum.
"You need a priest," Stefan told me.
I ignored him in favor of Chad.
"You okay?" The boy gathered himself together.