Unless…unless someone invited him in.
As if on cue, a piercing scream cut through the night.
“That came from the shop.” Heathcliff lunged forward, but Grey threw out a hand to stop him. I expected Heathcliff to snap his fingers, but Grey must have vampire super strength because he sent my gothic antihero sprawling across the cobbles.
Heathcliff let out a string of curse words as he struggled to keep hold of Quoth’s cage. He looked ready to launch himself at Grey again, but I held his arm. “Don’t. We can just go through the back door.”
We sprinted down the alley between Nevermore and Oliver’s bakery, but as we rounded the bins, Grey stepped out of the shadows to leer at us. “You can’t escape me that easily, Mina.”
More noises reached me now. Bangs and crashes and someone yelling, “Quick, Sylvia, toss me that garlic…”
My blood ran cold. I recognized that voice.
Mum.
The Spirit Seekers must’ve gotten into the shop. Mum knew where we hid the spare key. And with me, Heathcliff, and Morrie out of the shop, they wouldn’t have known not to invite Dracula inside.
My mum was in the shop at the mercy of the Count.
“It’s time to give up this absurd notion that you can beat him, Mina.” Grey folded his arms. “My master has his vitality and his full powers at his disposal, and soon he’ll have control of the waters of Meles. He’ll be able to travel anywhere to feed. He’ll be able to change the past and mangle the future. You cannot win against him. You must join with him as his bride.”
“If he’s so powerful, then why does he need me?” I shot back at him, trying to keep the fear from my voice. “It’s the twenty-first century. Dracula doesn’t need a bride. Unless…”
Something occurred to me.
“Unless he needs me to use the waters of Meles?” I quirked an eyebrow at Grey. “Unless Dracula can’t travel through the waters without Homer’s magic?”
Grey bared his teeth, snarling at me. I smiled.Bullseye.
“Well, well, well, this is a turn up for the books. Dracula needs little old me.” I tugged Heathcliff’s sleeve. “I wonder what he’d do to have me? I wonder if I can make him dance like a puppet.”
Heathcliff’s fingers dug into my flesh. “Mina, don’t provoke him.”
“That’s right, Mina. Listen to your oversized baboon. If you don’t come willingly, I’m to take you by force.”
He was even faster than Quoth. One moment he was standing in front of us. The next, he’d shoved Heathcliff away from me and his hands were wrapped around my throat. I tried to scream, but he cut off my airway. My ears buzzed. My head filled with fog. I knew any moment I’d be out—
“Just a taste,” Grey whispered, sniffing hungrily at the spot where Quoth bit me. This close, his decaying breath soured the air. I tried to twist away, but I had no strength left. “Surely my master won’t mind if I take just a sip of Homer’s blood? I bet it tastes like roses and…”
Behind him, I heard Heathcliff struggling and Quoth squawking and Oscar growling, but the sounds faded as the buzzing became a roar. The darkness crept inward, and I tried one last time to breathe before everything went black and—
Grey’s grip slackened. His body slumped against mine. I stepped aside, gasping for fresh air against his powerful stench. He dropped on the cobbles. A short wooden stake stuck out of his back.
“No one messes with my Mina,” a voice barked through the darkness.
“Mrs. Ellis!” I cried, clutching my throat.
My heroine stepped beneath the streetlight, another stake from her Vampire Vanishing Kit gripped in her hand. She planted her orthopedic shoe on Grey’s back and kicked him.
“You saved us,” I choked out. Every word hurt my throat. Wetness seeped between my fingers. I was still bleeding where Quoth had bitten me.
She dusted off her hands like it was no big thing. “I couldn’t very well allow him to devour my favorite ex-pupil and the most handsome creature ever to come from the pages of a book.”
I stared at her in shock. “You…you know about Heathcliff being…Heathcliff?”
“My dear, I may be old, but I’m not senile,” Mrs. Ellis tsked. “Or blind. I’ve been reading filthy romance novels my entire life. You don’t think I’d recognize Heathcliff Earnshaw if I met him in the flesh?”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?” Heathcliff growled as he staggered to his feet, Quoth’s cage still held in his arms.
