Page 46 of Missing Moon
She nods. My nervous energy is starting to get noticed by my brothers and Mary Lou’s kids… so I try to act more casual and resume my seat on the couch.
Someone knocks at the front door at the exact moment Dusk happens to be walking back in from a visit to the bathroom. He’s the closest to the door and goes for it. My alarm sense spikes as he reaches for the knob.
“Stop!” I yell and launch myself off the sofa and run for the door.
Of course, he doesn’t listen to me and opens the door. The instant he looks outside, he disappears in a blur as something drags him out of the house while giving off a deep, inhuman growl.
Paxton lets out a scream that could shatter glass.
I hurl myself out the door, chasing the blur of Dusk’s jeans. The vampire who grabbed him throws him off the porch, then leaps down after him. It lands on top of my brother as they crash to the ground. I’ve got maybe two seconds before vampire fangs tear into Dusk’s throat.
The vamp’s elevated groin is a very tempting target… with no time to think, I go for it and sprint straight into a kick with every ounce of my strength. My foot smashes into his manberries so hard I half expect to see them come flying out his nose. The bloodsucker lurches forward off my brother like an undead meat torpedo, hitting the ground on his face maybe ten feet away.
Dusk, flat on his back, stares up at me in absolute shock.
Multiple male voices in the trees groan in sympathy. I toss a quick glance in that direction and pick out eight pairs of eyes. The vamp I kicked is already scrambling back to his feet, growling. He doesn’t look the least bit fazed by having his sensitive bits crushed. Well, damn. I guess they reallyaredead.
I grab Dusk by two fistfuls of his shirt and pull him to his feet. “Get inside, D. Stay away from windows. I’ll take care of these fuckers.”
A shortish, somewhat pudgy bald guy with deathly gray skin speedwalks out of the woods, heading right for me while sniffing and huffing like some sort of bipedal hunting dog. He gives off a noise somewhere between grunt and the word ‘hiker.’ Uh, oh. I got a feeling they’ve scent tracked me from the farm. That’ll teach me to try being normal and not just fly everywhere.
“Go!” I yell, while giving Dusk a helpful shove toward the house.
He sprints.
Bloodhound guy gets to me before the first vampire (the door knocker), hurling himself at me. It’s nottoodifficult to sidestep him while leaving my right leg sticking out, so he trips. Alas, there’s no time to counterattack since door knocker dude is jumping at me with his mouth wide open.
Behind me, screams from Ellie Mae, Ruby Grace, and Paxton drown out Mary Lou shouting at everyone to go down the hall. One of the kids is asking, “What’s going on?” over and over, to which my sister simply shouts ‘bear!’
I duck the jumping vampire, avoiding his fangs, but end up getting a face full of his abdomen. Not great, but it beats teeth. The force of him crashing into me knocks me over backward and I land on top of Bloodhound guy with the other vamp on top of me. This is not a great place to be, and not just because his shirt smells like a moldy basement.
The guy on top of me suddenly zooms into the air—and screams. Without hesitation, I take advantage of the opportunity to jump off Bloodhound guy and roll to my feet as an impossibly huge brown bear—that must be Tammy—catches the jumper in her teeth, thrashing him side to side.
An inhuman male scream comes from the other side of the house. Sounded agonized. So glad I asked Anthony to watch the back door. Six more vamps come rushing toward me on the front side of the house.
It goes about as well as I’d expect. Six on one almost always ends up on the ground in a tangled mess. These fiends are a little stronger than me but marginally slower. A mild advantage in speed doesn’t make up for the numbers game, though. Frantic, I elbow and punch as much as I can while trying to ignore the painful rips and tears of vampiric claws and teeth all over my body.
Tammy-Bear chucks her first victim aside and starts nom-noming vampires off the pile, picking them up in her mouth and heaving them across the front yard like some enormous fur-covered crane.
When there are only three left on me, I fight my way into an almost seated position by smashing my fist into a dude’s mouth so hard both of his fangs snap off. The extremely surprised vampire—who resembles a dead version of Shaggy fromScooby Doo, blinks at me once before I grab his head in both hands and give it a neck-wrenching twist. His vertebrae breaks in multiple places with an unsettling crunch. With his head flopping loose on his neck, he loses his balance and falls off me.
Gotta be disorienting to have your head swinging around like that.
“Sorry, Jordan,” I say to him, remembering his face from the poster downtown.
I elbow the guy holding me from behind in the sternum, cracking it… and making my whole left arm and hand numb from the shot to the elbow. I’ll deal. Once his clawed hands slide off my arms, I’m free to jump away and go on the attack.
A wild howling scream of agony makes me look to the side. One of the vampires lays on the ground with a log stuck through him. He’s staring in horror at the six-inch diameter wooden spike sticking up out of his chest. Yeah, the tree isn’t exactly—orwasn’texactly—big. Someone cut it down a while ago for firewood and hadn’t finished the job.
Dude explodes into a cloud of ash.
What the heck? Staking them actually works? That’s new.
Ooookay. No time to ask questions. If it works, it works.
A blast of bright golden light comes from behind the house in time with another demonic scream. Sounds like Anthony’s got his second kill and I’m only at… zero. My fault for not having the ice blade ready. Didn’t want to freak out the family.
Tammy roars, chasing four vampires around in circles and swatting them as they keep trying to come after me or go to the house. There’s one more coming at me who got away from her. I sprint to the right, heading around the corner of the house… hoping things haven’t changed much since I lived here.