Vampire High Sophomore Year - By Douglas Rees Page 0,53

the other, checking out its defenses. Splitting up the town. That’s what the fires were about—ash wood for Burgundian fires, oak for Mercian. Fires set on street corners or in the middle of intersections. Then, in the darkness, someone watched to see who came to put them out, and whether new fires were started on top of the ashes of the old.

I couldn’t see how the Burgundians could lose. There were about ten of them for every Mercian, and the Burgundians were the jenti who could fly, or turn into wolves. Some could do both. The Mercians turned into selkies. In a stand-up fight, things could only go one way. But was that how the jenti fought their wars?

I went to bed and lay there listening to the sounds of New Sodom slipping into the kind of violence it hadn’t seen for centuries.

Over what?

Somebody must know, but there were no answers to be found in that darkness. There was only smoke, and more smoke, making everything darker.

23

I had a crazy dream. I was walking around in New Sodom, and it was now, but it was also then, and it looked like I imagined New Sodom must have looked, with log houses made with overhangs, and muddy streets, and a long rickety bridge leading to Crossfield. So I walked on, and started to smell smoke. I wondered what was burning, but I couldn’t see any flames. There was just the smell. I followed it, and came to one of the two-story cabins. The invisible smoke was coming from there. I figured there might be someone inside who needed to be rescued, so I ran to the front door and pushed it open.

Inside were Ileana, Justin, Gregor, Turk, and pretty much everybody else I knew. They were all sitting around a woman in old-fashioned clothes who had to be Mercy Warrener. She was typing away on a laptop, and when I came in, she waved.

“I got your message,” she said. “I’m CCing everyone.”

I wanted to say, “But don’t you smell the fire?” but I couldn’t. I just watched Mercy Warrener typing and everyone else smiling at us, while the smell of the smoke got stronger and stronger.

Then there was a rush of heat, the roof started to crack, and I looked up. Flames were spreading across the ceiling, reaching down for us.

“Everybody out!” I shouted.

And I woke up.

I just lay there trembling for a while. Then I reached over and turned on my light.

Morning was starting to come into the sky. I could hear Mom and Dad getting up.

I was too tired to move, but I did it anyway. I was going to go to school today, just to see what was happening. I staggered to the bathroom and ran the shower over me until my heart started beating and my eyes were open. I felt a lot better afterward, and I got dressed and went down to breakfast.

Mom and Dad were sitting closer together than usual. They kept touching each other, and Mom put her hand on my arm every couple of minutes.

“Cody, do you really think you should go to school today?” Dad asked.

“Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen,” I said. “And I feel sort of okay.”

“I’d better check on Turk,” Mom said, and went to invade the attic.

She was back in one minute.

“Turk’s gone,” she said.

Turk had taken her clothes, her sleeping bag, and her car. She’d left a note, and her inflatable Scream.

The note was for me.

Hey, Cuz,

This scene is getting too bogus. I’m out of here. Thanks for trying. You were almost human.

Always Leave First,

Turk

PS Say so long to Bat Boy for me.

When I showed it to Mom and Dad, Mom started to cry.

“How could we not have heard her leave?” she said between sobs. “That ladder makes a huge thump when you drop it. And you can hear her car two blocks away. We should have woken up and stopped her.”

“I don’t think she used the ladder,” I said. “I think she went out the window and climbed down the oak in the front yard. And if she was worried about the car waking us up, she could just have pushed it to the end of the street before she started it.”

“Anyway, we couldn’t have stopped her, short of physical force,” Dad said.

“It was physical force that drove her away,” Mom said. “Damn them all.”

But Mom was wrong. Turk hadn’t left because of what had happened to us in Squibnocket, or because of what