Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell Page 0,28

sword. My extremely shit sword. Which buckles over the bastard’s shoulder.

I shuffle back, directly into another sword stall. (Which doesn’t take as much luck as you’d think; at least half of these shops sell weaponry.) I grab a claymore and swing. The blade hits the vampire, then separates from its hilt.

This vamp’s got shaggy blond hair and a Count Chocula cape with a big collar. I grab another sword and hold him back for a moment, before he pulls it out of my hands by the blade. I hook my tail around his leg and yank him to the ground—which gives me a second to grab a scimitar with my left hand and a battle axe with my right.

He’s already recovered. I step back, onto the main thoroughfare. All the fairgoers have lined the dirt pathway like they’re watching a parade. I can’t see Penny. She won’t have enough magic left in her for another decapitation. But she’s clever, I tell myself. And Baz is an even match for any three of these creeps. I hope.

The vampire lunges towards me—and I bash the scimitar into his chest. It breaks like a matchstick, and the vampire gets hold of my hand. This is very bad news. He could bite me like this. Or break me in two. If I still had magic, I’d be trying and failing to think of a good vampire spell about now. (Imagine how much I’d miss magic if I’d ever properly mastered it.)

I try to fly up and away from the vampire, but he holds on tight. I’ve still got a battle axe in my other hand, so I take one last desperate swing at him—

The head of the axe snaps off when it hits his neck.

22

BAZ

Penelope Bunce has decapitated one vampire and set two more on fire. She’s my mother’s daughter.

Where is Simon?

I keep looking for a way to contain the vampires. (Contain them, for what? For who? The authorities? Does America even have magickal authorities?)

Where are you, Snow?

He’s not with Bunce. She’s still fighting one of the vampires.

I’m keeping two more at bay: a guy in a polyester cape and a woman dressed like Tom Cruise’s Lestat. (Of course I’ve read Anne Rice. I was a 15-year-old closet case whose parents pretended they didn’t notice when the family dog disappeared.)

And I’m trying to find Simon. He’s usually impossible to ignore in a fight.

None of my spells are doing much damage. I try “Guts for garters!” but it just seems to irritate them. Then I try “Sod off!” That should push them back a few feet and at least give me time to think. It doesn’t. It doesn’t do anything. Which means I must be being too English again. What a time to realize I should have been watching more Friends reruns.

“Bugger off!” I shout, fruitlessly, dodging behind a tree. “Push off! Naff off!” Nothing, nothing, nothing. (I would try “Fuck off,” but the magickal effect of swear words is unpredictable; it depends entirely on the audience.)

“Buzz off!” someone in the crowd shouts at me—a young black man in granny glasses. I’ve jumped into the tree. The cloaked vampire is tearing at the branches below me. “Buzz off!” the man in the crowd shouts again.

I point my wand at the vampire. “Buzz off!”

It works. He jumps back like he’s been shocked.

I cast it at Lestat de Lioncourt, too. “Kindly buzz off!” The adverb doesn’t give the spell the extra zing I’m hoping for. But it still works: She falls back.

I drop out of the tree. What’s my plan here.… (And where is Simon?)

And why am I holding back? I’m casting playground spells at coldblooded murderers—at no-blooded murderers.

When I first realized what they were, I told myself I had to act. That I had to do something. My mother’s murderer might be gone, but her death isn’t avenged. That’s what my aunt is doing now. Hunting vampires. Repaying them for my mother’s death, one by one.

We saw these vampires attack those girls. If we let them go now, they’ll kill more people. That’s what vampires do.

There’s no point in trying to be covert. They’ve already chased us into the middle of a crowd. We’re all going to be Internet famous after today. The Mage himself wouldn’t be able to clean up this mess.

And there’s no point trying to be humane. Penny’s on the right track: We can’t lock them up, and we can’t let them go. And it’s not like I have an opportunity to convert