Interview with the Vixen Page 14

  Reggie grins to himself. She doesn’t know what she’s missing.

  IT’S FULLY DARK by the time Veronica reaches Betty’s. That’s okay; she’s beginning to feel more at home in the darkness.

  Her phone buzzes, again, and Veronica knows it’s going to be Betty, again. I’m right here! she wants to call out, but she takes her phone out anyway.

  Above her, a window opens, and Betty leans out. “V! Oh my god, I’ve been texting you all day!”

  “I know!” Veronica holds her phone up. “I just—”

  Wait.

  The name on her screen isn’t Betty’s but Reggie’s.

  Reggie. Veronica wants to smack herself in the head. She’d kind of forgotten all about him. It’s not like I didn’t have a good excuse! Archie was kidnapped; I almost drove a car into the woods (again)!

  She opens the text, expecting it to be Reggie complaining about her ignoring him, but what she sees makes her stomach drop.

  It’s a picture of Reggie, full vamp mode engaged, and Moose.

  Moose is a vampire? But who turned him? Did Reggie—

  There’s no time for figuring out all the details, Veronica realizes. Because the picture he’s sent was taken right outside Cheryl’s house.

  The party.

  Why don’t u come join us? Reggie’s text says, and Veronica feels a panic begin to bloom in the depths of her stomach. Everybody is at Cheryl’s tonight for her party. That means everybody is in danger of being attacked by Reggie and Moose.

  And judging from their red eyes and bloodstained fangs, this won’t be their first feeding.

  “Idiot, idiot, idiot!” She gets louder with each sharp stab of the word, until Betty calls down to her.

  “What’s wrong?” Betty hangs farther out of her window. “V, what is it?”

  Veronica looks up at her, formulating a desperate plan. “Give me your keys!” she says. “I need your car!”

  THEY LAND ON the other side of the fence with catlike finesse. There’s only one person Reggie really wants to taste tonight, and he can see her up on the deck, spinning around with her arms in the air.

  He doesn’t know if there’s such a thing as a vampire delicacy, but if there is, then redheaded Cheryl Blossom is probably the closest thing to it.

  Reggie breaks into a run, and he can feel Moose at his back, same as they are on the football field. He was right about the element of surprise; as they break into the crowd, not hiding their vampire features, a girl screams and the air around them changes instantly.

  Reggie slows, lifting his nose as he catches a sweet scent on the breeze. Cheryl.

  She turns, her hair fanning around her, and narrows her eyes. “Excuse you,” she says, and her voice is loud. Oh, she’s not afraid like all the rest. Good; he’s in the mood for a challenge. “This party is exclusive. No sloppy messes allowed. Got it?”

  He skulks toward her, keeping his face in shadow.

  “Hey,” Cheryl says. “Are you listening? Shoo, little vermin.” And then she jumps, finally seeing Moose appear out of the dark.

  The crowd around them is beginning to thin out, people pushing past in their effort to get away from whatever’s happening. Reggie knows what they’ll be thinking, feeling—that same unease that flooded him when he woke up the morning after the crash. Knowing something’s off, but not being able to pinpoint exactly what it is.

  That he’s the source of that unsettling feeling now fills him with pride, and he watches Cheryl as he paces closer. Look at her, he thinks, and he can see a little fear now. I’m going to enjoy this.

  “Take him with you, too!” Cheryl snaps, and then she takes a few steps forward, hands on her hips. “I said, get—”

  Reggie rears up, snarling as he launches himself at Cheryl, and she finally screams, a glorious sound to Reggie’s ears.

  “Don’t worry, Cheryl,” he says. “This is only going to hurt a little.”

  VERONICA FISHTAILS TO a stop outside the Blossom mansion and stares in dismay.

  People are flooding down the driveway and out of the house, the air a cacophony of panic.

  I’m too late, she thinks. Am I too late?

  She throws herself out of the car and begins running against the tide, elbowing her way through. Inside, the house is empty, and Veronica dashes through, finding her way to the yard.

  There’s a scream.

  Veronica sprints through the open French doors, and there they are: Moose, and Reggie, hovering over Cheryl, and Cheryl on the ground scrambling backward.

  She’s alive, still, but she won’t be for long if Veronica doesn’t act.

  “Get away!” she hears Cheryl yelling, her voice cracking, and Reggie looms there, a howl erupting from his fanged mouth.

  Now or never.

  “Hey!” Veronica’s yell is loud, sharp. All eyes snap to her—Reggie, and Moose, and a terrified Cheryl on the ground.

  Reggie’s grin spreads wider. “So glad you could make it, Ronnie,” he’s saying, but she’s already sprinting at him, her fist cocked back. Without slowing she reaches him, cracks her fist into his chin, and it sends his head snapping back, him stumbling. Then she drops into a crouch and kicks out low at Moose, taking his legs out from under him, and he slams to the ground. Another big shout-out to that self-defense class.

  The hits won’t take them out, of course not, but it gives her enough time to get Cheryl to safety.

  “Wakey wakey, princess.” Veronica grabs Cheryl’s hand and yanks her to her feet.

  Cheryl stares at her, bottom lip trembling. “Veronica?”

  “No time,” Veronica says tersely before spinning her away and pushing her toward the house. “Get in there,” she says. “Lock the d—”

  Veronica feels the hot, wet breath on the back of her neck a second before it’s too late, and she ducks out of the way just as Moose’s teeth snap shut in the air. She jumps and lands a few feet from both Reggie and Moose, crouched in attack position, drawing them away from Cheryl.

  “Listen up, boys,” she says, her adrenaline pumping as she shifts from side to side, their snarling faces her focus. “We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. Your choice.”

  For a second she and Reggie just stare at each other, a moment of stillness in the whirlwind of panic that this night has become.

  And then Reggie lunges at her.

  Veronica darts sideways and snaps out her fangs. “Fine,” she says with a growl. “We’ll do it the hard way.”

  The next time he lunges, she’s ready—two hits to the gut and another to the face, her knuckles smacking loud against Reggie’s perfect cheekbone. As he stumbles back, Veronica raises her other hand high.

  Good thing Betty’s car is now stocked with not only strawberry bubble gum and tampons but vampire-killing stakes, too. She grabbed one on her way in and barely had time to think about what the weight of it in her hand meant—if she was really planning on killing Reggie and Moose tonight. But she sees no other way to stop them.

  If Reggie’s out there attacking people and turning his friends into monsters, then he must be stopped.

  Veronica flips the stake around, pointed end aimed directly at Reggie’s heart, and she’s about to plunge it in when—

  Footsteps thunder toward her, and she glances up just in time to see Moose heading straight at her.

  Nice work, Ronnie! You forgot about Moose. Get it together, god.

  He’s coming so fast that she doesn’t have time to dodge or duck or do anything but take the tackle. Moose brings down not only her but Reggie, too, and all three of them fly through the air in a tangle of limbs and crash into the pool.

  Veronica holds her breath as they go under, and through the water filling her ears she could swear she hears Cheryl scream her name.

  But again—no time.

  The water slows things, but Veronica’s always been a good swimmer. And most important: She still has hold of the stake.

  Her lungs are beginning to burn already, but she push
es herself deeper in the water, kicking and thrashing her arms to send up a storm of bubbles. Enough so that she can no longer tell which way is up or down—but neither can Reggie or Moose.

  They’re grabbing for her through the water, meaty Bulldog hands trying to catch her clothes, an arm, an ankle, but Veronica’s distraction proves useful, and they can’t get to her.

  She spins around behind Moose. Aim right, she tells herself. One shot.

  Veronica moves as fast as she can and slices down through the water. She connects, and Moose’s flesh has a strange soft give kind of like Jell-O as the stake slides into his heart, and when she rips it back out a trail of blood follows.

  She doesn’t have time to admire the almost pretty shapes the blood forms in the water; she still has Reggie to deal with.

  The bubbles are beginning to clear now and Reggie’s in front of her. Fast as the first time, she jabs—and misses.

  Her lungs are on fire now but she can’t stop, not until Reggie is stopped.

  Veronica pulls back again but Reggie’s ready this time, and he grabs her wrist, squeezing hard.

  She watches in desperation as her fingers start to let go of the stake without her meaning to. If she drops it, she’s dead. For real dead this time.

  With no time to think, she pulls the same old move as she did on Theodore, and kicks Reggie as hard as she can between his legs.

  His faces twists in surprised pain, and he releases her wrist. Veronica wastes no more time; she tightens her grip on the stake and stabs again, and this time she gets him right in the neck.

  Reggie gasps, opening his mouth to let a stream of air spread through the water, the last oxygen in his lungs leaving him, and he begins to float to the surface.

  Through the heart, Veronica thinks. It has to be through the heart. If he gets up there and takes a breath, that neck wound will start to heal and she’ll be back in danger.

  Cheryl will be in danger.

  With her vision darkening at the edges, Veronica grasps for Reggie. She catches his ankle and pulls him down, and places the stake over his heart.

  He’s watching her, and Veronica meets his eyes for a split second. This is Reggie. She’s about to kill Reggie. Is she really going to kill Reggie?

  I’m sorry, she thinks. We had fun, you and me, most of the time. You weren’t a bad guy. Maybe I could have treated you better, and maybe you could have treated all those other girls you screwed around with better, too. But you weren’t rotten, at your core. Only now you are, Reggie, and you get it, right? I can’t let you run around out of control like this. I’m sorry it had to come to this but—this is how it has to end.

  She punches the stake through his chest. It feels just like it did with Moose, his flesh surprisingly soft and then his blood flooding out around her hands, warm. She watches as long as she can, as long as she can keep that breath held, as Reggie’s red eyes empty and he’s left floating there, a normal boy. The Reggie she used to know.

  Veronica takes hold of Moose’s body then, Reggie’s in the other hand, and uses her last bit of energy to propel herself to the surface, to air.

  The water seems to crack as she bursts through, and Veronica gulps in a greedy lungful of oxygen.

  Congratulations, Vampire Slayer, she thinks. Add two to the body count.

  “Oh my god.”

  CHERYL’S WATCHING THE water. Go inside, Veronica told her, but what was she supposed to do? Leave her out here alone to face those—those monsters?

  Only now Veronica’s in the water with them, the surface still and steaming, and Cheryl doesn’t know what to do. Go in after her? Call the sheriff?

  What would she even say? Hi, Sheriff Keller, there’s a couple of vampires in my backyard, could you swing by real quick?

  Sure! That won’t get filed under “Cheryl Blossom’s being dramatic again” at all!

  She shivers, wrapping her arms around herself, and then she sees it.

  A swirl of red, bubbling to the surface and then beginning to spread.

  A scarlet slick that takes over the placid blue, until the pool is more blood than water.

  And then, like Venus herself, Veronica erupts from the deep.

  Her black hair is plastered to her face, and bloody water slides down her neck, but she’s victorious because with each hand she’s dragging a body, like a cat come to drop her prey at the feet of her mistress.

  “Oh my god,” Cheryl says, a quiet shock, eyeing the dead bodies. Because that’s Reggie, and that’s Moose, and they’re dead, and Veronica’s holding their bodies, and she’s covered in blood, and they’re dead, they died, at her house, in her pool— “Oh my god, oh my god, Veronica—”

  Veronica tosses her head back, and Cheryl wants to scream but she can’t find the sound.

  For a moment she thinks it’s the boys’ blood turning Veronica’s eyes red, but that doesn’t explain her mouth. The fangs.

  Veronica is a vampire?

  She drops the bodies at the edge of the pool, panting. “Sorry about the mess,” she says. “God, they would not play the easy way.”

  Cheryl feels it coming, and she tries to hold it in but it’s no good, she can’t, and then—

  She folds in half and vomits at Veronica’s feet.

  THE MOON SHINES down through the trees, illuminating the ragged hole Veronica’s standing in.

  She leans on the shovel for a second, breathing hard, and looks toward Cheryl. “Hey,” she says. “Hey! Look at me.”

  Cheryl’s staring at the bodies by her feet, like she’s unable to look anywhere else. And Veronica gets it. She’s had to force herself to look away and focus on the job before her multiple times.

  Those were her friends. That was Moose, the most genuinely good guy Veronica’s ever known, and that was Reggie, the boy she maybe used more than he deserved, and now they’re both dead. Because of her, they’re dead.

  She shakes her head as she resumes digging. No. Not because of me. I didn’t turn Reggie. I didn’t turn Moose. That’s not on me, and their actions aren’t on me, but I had to kill them; I had to stop them before they could do any more damage. Before they could hurt me. Hurt Cheryl.

  I did what had to be done.

  When the shoulder-deep ditch is wide enough, Veronica climbs out. “Help me with this,” she says to Cheryl, and even though Cheryl looks completely shell-shocked, she bends down and picks up Reggie’s arms.

  Veronica takes his feet, and together they swing once, twice, three times to build momentum and then toss him down into the hole.

  His body makes a dull thud when it hits the ground, and Veronica feels it deep down in her stomach.

  They do the same with Moose, and it’s funny, how familiar the motion is in the moment. Her and Cheryl lifting a body between them, synchronized. The only difference is it’s usually a Vixen they’re tossing through the air, not a dead vampire.

  Veronica wipes a hand across her brow, leaving a streak of mud through the redness that’s already there, and she watches as Cheryl steps up to the edge of the hurried grave and looks down.

  She’s barely said anything since Veronica emerged from the pool with the boys’ bodies. Didn’t protest when Veronica wiped away the vomit from around her mouth; nodded when Veronica told her they had to get rid of the bodies; pointed when V asked where she could find a shovel. It’s extremely unlike Cheryl to be this quiet, this compliant, and it’s making Veronica uneasy. At some point Cheryl’s going to ask, she knows: She’s going to ask what Veronica is and why their friends are dead and what the hell is happening, and Veronica’s going to have to tell her.

  Yet another person she’s going to have to convince that she’s not a complete monster. And what’s she supposed to say this time? Reggie and Moose were vampires on a rampage, so I had to kill them. Oh, me? I mean, yeah, I’m a vampire, too, but I’m, like, a good vampire. Sure, yes, I get how me having just killed two people probably makes me look like a bad vampire, but it’s really more complicated than you think, I swear.


  Veronica moves up to stand beside Cheryl. “Almost done,” she says. “I just have to—”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Veronica raises her eyebrows, both at Cheryl finally speaking and what she’s implying. “You want to fill it in?”

  “You did the hard part.” Cheryl doesn’t look at Veronica as she talks, her eyes locked on the bodies still. The moonlight hits her, running a pale gleam through her red hair, over her smudged-makeup face. “I got this.”

  “Okay,” Veronica says, although it goes against her better judgment, and hands over the shovel.

  Cheryl begins heaping dirt down into the grave, and Veronica watches as slowly, slowly, slowly, the moonlit bodies disappear.

  THEY TRUDGE BACK up to the house when it’s done.

  Bypass the pool full of tainted water, the small pile of vomit from Cheryl, the mess of plastic cups and bottles, and a single shoe abandoned in the earlier rush to escape.

  Cheryl leads Veronica upstairs and shows her to an opulent bathroom before leaving her.

  Once inside, Veronica locks the door and turns the shower on, running the water as hot as she can bear. She strips off her wet clothes and steps under the water, watching as it snakes clean rivulets through the dirt streaking her hands, her legs, the top of her chest. Blood and soil swirls around the drain, and she watches it spiral.

  What am I doing?

  What have I become?

  Heat pricks at her eyes, but she tips her face up to the water and refuses to let any tears fall. Feeling sorry for herself is not going to fix anything. So, she killed them. She’s going to kill Theodore, too. And maybe before, back in her own home, she would have killed her father, if he’d given her the chance. It’s not so much that she’s a monster now as it is that being a vampire has released the strength within her.

  Sometimes bad things must be done, in the name of protection, in the name of justice.

  The water stings as it hits her face, but Veronica welcomes it. She uses an obscene amount of shampoo and conditioner, trying to get every ounce of chlorine and blood from her dark hair, and then scrubs herself all over until she feels raw but clean.