Book Six is still a work in progress, so this may not be the final form of this chapter, but …
Book Six: GUARDIANS OF THE TWILIGHT LANDS
Chapter One: Staked for Her Troubles
Rachel Griffin paused on the seventeenth step of the staircase leading to the boys’ side of Dare Hall. It was four in the morning, and she was dressed like a cat.
It was Sunday, February twenty-fifth. She was still in her Year of the Dragon Ball costume, a black bodysuit with white spots and a tail wired to stick out behind her. Her hair was twisted into two tight cat ears atop her head, and smudged black grease pen whiskers meandered across her face. Her nose was a smeared dab of white make-up.
In one hand, she held a speckled feather given to her by the Guardian of the World.
Was it the next step that had a loud squeak? Despite her exhausted state, she thought back, precisely recalling the last time she had climbed this staircase. She did not want to accidentally wake the boys in the nearest dorm room.
Rachel stepped over the noisy stair and continued creeping upward. She was so tired; her sight kept blurring. She had been up all night. She longed to return to her room and take off her costume, which she had been wearing for almost ten hours. This task had to be done tonight, however; or her friends would make her promise not to share secrets, and she would not be able to keep her word to the Prince of Transylvania. She just had to make it to the fourth floor and find Wulfgang Starkadder.
She nearly tripped on the rug of the second landing. Only by windmilling her arms did she avoid a fall. She almost tried to catch herself with the hand clutching the feather. Frightened of damaging it, she pulled the pouch she wore around her neck from under her bodysuit and slipped the feather into its bigger-on-the-inside space. To her relief, it fit.
Then, right hand on the railing, she continued up the stairs.
As she climbed, her fatigued mind wandered, drifting, in a kind of nigh-delirious shock, over recent events. The previous day had been the best and the worst of her nearly fourteen years, and she was still having trouble taking it all in. Wonderful things had happened: a delicious Lunar New Year’s celebration, her first masquerade ball, her first dance with her boyfriend—though that was not the dance lingering in her memory—and, most importantly, her first meeting her eldest sister, Amber.
But terrible things had happened, too.
From the moment she had learned that a daughter had been stolen from her parents, she had longed to meet this lost sister. Only, reality was nothing like what she had imagined. While tiny and childlike on the outside, Amber been raised to be a killing machine—a “death doll.” She was also completely uninterested in being a member of the Griffin family.
She swallowed, a lump forming in her throat. Grasping the banister more tightly, she sped upward, almost as if in a dream. As she recalled the dire events of the previous night, however, it felt less like a dream and more like a nightmare. She and her siblings had taken Amber to England to meet their parents. They had learned that, while everyone else’s memory of the stolen baby girl had been erased twenty-two years earlier, her mother’s perfect memory had not been touched. For more than two decades, her mother had suffered the agony of her first child having been stolen—without being able to speak about this to anyone.
Tears filled Rachel’s eyes. Thinking of it tore her heart—what a lonely existence.
Then, on their way back, Amber had altered the lives of the students at Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts forever.
When Rachel had first arrived at school, Stony Tor, rising to the north of Roanoke Island, had been the prison of Heer of Dunderburg—a storm goblin who had terrorized the Hudson Valley for centuries, casting lightning bolts and sinking ships. The Roanoke Covenant, which governed the relationship between the Academy and the many fey who lived on the once-floating island, relied upon the school keeping the storm goblin imprisoned. In return, the fey had promised not to trouble the mortals—the magical Wise or the mundane Unwary.
Last November, the storm goblin had escaped into the Hudson Highlands. Over the last four months, he had remained at-large, attacking the school with storms and boulders. Yet, Rachel had held out hope that he could be captured and the Covenant restored. Last night, that hope ended abruptly—when her death doll of a sister captured the storm goblin and casually killed him.
Now, all bets were off.
With Roanoke Covenant permanently disrupted, the local fey were free to wreak havoc upon magical and mundane alike. To counter this, the Wisecraft had sent Agents to patrol the campus and protect Roanoke’s students. But who would protect the ordinary Unwary who lived on either side of the Hudson River?
As she climbed the stairs, Rachel recalled Tommy Check, an Unwary teen who had been a victim of an ogre. She gritted her teeth, grateful that her blood brother, Sigfried Smith the Dragonslayer, had killed that ogre. How many more like Tom Check will there now be?
Quietly, alone on the staircase, dressed like a cat, Rachel Griffin vowed to find a way to restore peace to the fey and the mortals.
* * *
Reaching another landing, Rachel abruptly returned her attention to the present. Had she climbed three flights while reminiscing? Or four? Ordinarily, she would check her perfect memory, recall each motion of each leg, and count how many times she had moved from stair to stair, but she was so weary. This mental act, usually so simple, daunted her. She had been climbing this staircase forever. Surely, this was the fourth floor. Reaching the landing, she turned aside and crept down the hall.
She moved to the third door on the right and opened it a crack. Inside was pitch black. The curtains were drawn. She could make out nothing. Down the hall, a door closed—the loo, if she guessed correctly—and footsteps sounded, coming toward her. Rachel ducked inside the dorm room and pulled the door closed behind her.
She crouched low, moving slowly so as not to disturb the will-o-wisps in their nighthoods. If she had guessed correctly, the bunk on the right was Wulfgang’s. She crept forward, one hand outstretched, until she felt the window, thankful that no one had left shoes or pieces of costumes on the floor to trip her. She pulled back the edge of one curtain, trying to peer at the faces of the sleeping boys. A sliver of pure silvery moonlight pierced the darkness, illuminating the dorm room.
Rachel dropped the curtain as if it were hot. She stood motionless, listening to the pounding of her own heart. Closing her eyes, she recalled the moment when the moonlight lit the room, examining the boy in the bunk on the right. The dark hair was similar. It could be him.
Then she paused, her heartbeat taking off like a galloping horse. How was she going to wake him? Crown princes probably had martial training. If she tapped his shoulder, would he punch her in the face? Oh, why had she signed up for this?
Rachel put out her arm and began inching forward in the darkness, stepping where her memory told her the floor was open, avoiding a stack of books and a dropped suit jacket that lay just beside the bed. Two steps more and she would reach the bunk.
She never made it.
A sudden motion knocked her to the cold wooden floor. Something sharp poked into her chest, pushing against her breastbone. A weight pinned her legs. The curtain she had disturbed earlier swayed. In the flicker of silvery moonlight, she caught a glimpse of her captor. An older boy in pajamas straddled her, pushing her down. Dark shoulder-length hair fell around his face. His free hand pressed a wooden stake against her chest, its sharp point above her heart.
Rachel recognized him. It was Abraham Van Helsing.
“Little vampire wanted a snack before sunup, eh?” growled the leader of the Dare Hall Vampire Hunters Club. “You picked the wrong room, vixen!”
Boy, was he right about that! Wrong floor, even!
Terrified, Rachel croaked out. “I am in the wrong room. Sorry! Please don’t stake me!”
“Aww, poor little vamp, begging for her life, is she?”
What now? Should she call Vladimir Von Dread on her black bracelet? No one else could arrive in time. The thought gave her pause: What was the Prince of Bavaria doing with her sister Sandra in London? She was not entirely sure of the nature of their relationship. If Rachel called and Vlad jumped here to save her, would he be wearing pants?
A crackly voice from another bed said, “Guhhhh. Abraham, who are you talking to? What time is it? Can't you and the Ferret Brothers or the Colts, or whatever crazy animals your friends are named after, have your crazy meeting in their room?”
The door swung open. Above her, the domestic will-o-wisps whooshed out of their nighthoods, filling the dorm room with light. After total darkness, even their soft buttery glow seemed blinding.
An older boy’s voice snapped, “What are you doing, Abe?”
“What’s it look like? Staking a vamp.”
“Isn’t that Peter Griffin’s little sister? I thought she came in here. Get off the poor girl!”
The crackly, sleepy voice, asked, “What would Pint-Sized Griffin be doing here?”
Abraham growled back, “Looking for a snack. She’s a freaking blood-sucking vampire. Why else would she be prowling around on the night of a full moon, peering at sleeping people? Full moon’s their favorite snack time. Like werewolves.”
The older boy in the doorway replied, “Um, maybe she’s looking for her brother?”
Rachel lay on her back, still fantasizing about the expressions on the faces of the boys were Dread to suddenly appeared in their bedroom, but she could not do that to Sandra. The newcomer came over beside her and kneeled down. She could see now that it was Pete Komarek, her brother Peter’s best friend. He must have been the person whose footsteps she had heard coming down the hallway. His midnight trip to the loo may have saved her life.
He put two fingers lightly against the side of her neck. “Abe, she has a pulse. And a normal body temperature. She is not a vampire. If you hurt her, not only will you be murdering a little girl, but you’ll also be dead as soon as her family finds out. You know her oldest sister is Sandra Griffin, right? She could turn you into a pinecone.”
Abraham put his hand on the side of Rachel’s face. He frowned. “Yeah. Okay, Pete. She’s not a vamp.”
Rachel let out her breath. It came out in a huge whoosh of relief. Van Helsing grunted in disgust and climbed off her legs.
Pete smiled down at her. “Are you okay, Rachel? Are you looking for Peter?”
“No. Very sorry!” Rachel squeaked in her proper English accent. “Wrong room.”
Pete smiled kindly at her. “Hey, cute outfit. Have you been up all night? You should get some sleep. And avoid Abe here and his whacko friends.”
“Or you could try knocking,” growled Abraham.
He climbed back into his bed, grumbling to himself.
Rachel rose and gave a wobbly curtsy. “Thank you very much. For not staking me.” To Pete, she blurted out, “Thank you for saving my life, Mr. Komarek. If you ever need anything—your life saved? A cup of tea?—you have but to name it. Good night!”
She turned and ran.
* * *
Abandoning her Wulfgang plan, she ran down the steps to the foyer and headed for the girls’ side. She made it upstairs, gathered her night things, and took a quick shower, during which she tried vainly to scrub the greasepaint off her face. Then she fell into bed and slept.