Page 80 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

Bentley fell into the pool backwards. I hadn’t been watching them, bit it looked as though they were losing their fight. Jeremy had Theo wrapped in his roots, holding him aloft. Theo writhed and kicked.

No.

There was that cold rage again.

Cold. Hard. And done with everyone’s shit.

Mirror me snarled at Jeremy too. “Kill it. Kill it and save him. Save the heir.”

I might have been insane, but mirror me was right. “That’s it, I am done!”

I marched to the end of the pool, tore the lids off every single chemical I’d dragged out earlier, checked Bentley was crawling out on the other side of the pool, and kicked every single bucket and bottle into the pool. The Briars’ pool was the problem. Everything that had happened had been because of it. Well, I was going to make it so the wretched thing couldn’t hurt anyone ever again.

The black water boiled so violently it splashed over the sides, hitting me, Jeremy, mirror me, and everything else within its radius.

Mirror me poofed like smoke. Gone, like the imaginary thing he’d probably been.

Theo roared, and sank his fangs into the roots tangled around his neck.

Jeremy screamed. The roots unraveled. Theo dropped.

This was my chance, my moment.

No more hurting Theo, no more dead pool boys, no more weird pool creatures. It ended now.

I swung the piano leg at Jeremy’s middle, oofing the air right out of him. Theo dashed behind him and kicked him in the back.

Jeremy teetered on the edge of the pool, limbs flailing, seeking something to grab onto.

I scooted behind him, next to Theo, and gave him a helpful prod with the piano leg.

Over the edge Jeremy went, into the pool’s black, boiling water.

The water exploded, bursting out of the pool in a huge three-hundred-and-sixty-degree wave. The weight of the blast washed me off my feet, and Theo too. I hit the ground hard, teeth jarring, and we ended up near the broken music room window again.

The water—what was left of it—splashed back down.

And then came silence.

No more boiling water. No more Jeremy. No more mirror me.

I panted, stumbled to my feet, and approached the edge of the pool. Inside, the water level was down to halfway, and it was just plain ol’ pool water, transparent and empty. A bit foamy, from the thrashing and the chemicals, but that was to be expected.

I sighed hard, ran my hand through my hair, sweeping out water, and looked around. “That was a thing that happened, huh.”

Theo made his way over, breathless, bedraggled, wild, and . . . kinda hungry looking?

“Theo?”

He came closer, breaths sawing through his bared fangs.

“Hey, man. Don’t make me hit you with a piano leg.” I tightened my hold on the piano leg.

Theo blinked and gave his head a shake. He gasped, as though breaking the surface of something that had pulled him under, and looked around.

“Owen? Shit . . .” Theo stopped stalking me and turned to his brother, who absolutely wanted to tear into my throat and bury my desiccated corpse in the bushes. But he looked like that all the time anyway.

“It’s over?” Bentley asked, peering into the pool but staying well back.