GLITTER & GORE Chapter 2
Bloodsucker Break-In
"They're very pale and it's not raining but they have umbrellas! Are you doing skin cancer research?" Quieter, probably to the fucking vampires, Mom added, "I always knew Nova had the smarts to cure cancer, but I didn't think she cared about humanity enough to try. This is refreshing!"
"Don't let them in!" I shouted as I hastily piled my alchemy equipment into the bag.
"Should I pack my laptop?" Amy whispered, moving it in and out of her backpack repeatedly. "Do you think vampires use electricity? Do you think they've seen Twilight? Oh my god, do you think Twilight's a documentary?"
I shot her a puzzled look as my crucible clanked against vials and jars. "The movie was based off a fictional book."
"Could it have been non-fiction, though?"
"You're stalling to thwart my escape plan," I deduced, rounding the table to shove in the laptop for her. "Bring it. We're not going with them."
Her pastel purple lips parted for a rebuttal, but then my dad's voice carried down the stairs, probably as he witnessed the vampires for the first time.
"Wow, I thought Nova and her friends dressed weird, but I guess it’s the fashion these days."
Amy gasped. "Oh my god, they're goth vampires? Can it get any better?"
"They could burn up in the sun and leave their charred carcasses on my front step to deter any other guests," I suggested, zipping shut the duffle bag even though I had plenty left to pack. I would have to acquire new supplies when we arrived at the farthest location my life savings could take us. "How did the vampires find us so fast?"
Amy scraped her boot across the rug awkwardly. "I may have started sparkling overnight and it sprinkled off me while I ran here… I thought I just put on too much glitter yesterday!"
"So you left a sparkly trail all the way to my front door? Wonderful. Let's hope they don't have super speed."
"What? What are you doing?" she demanded as I slipped on my sneakers and climbed onto my dresser. A small window rested near the ceiling with just enough room for us to squeeze through.
I didn't cast a last glance at the basement. My focus had always been fixed on the future, almost to the point of ignoring the past. Still, I sent a silent goodbye to my parents, hoping they could feel my remorse through the collective unconscious.
"Nov—ahh!"
Amy's warning turned into a muffled yelp, and even before fingers dug into my messy bun, I knew we were fucked.
My assailant threw me from the dresser onto my bed, my head narrowly missing the wall. Without sparing him a glance, I snagged the lamp from my nightstand and hurled it at him. The shattering of glass filled the air as I rolled off the bed and darted toward my work table, already winded and tripping over my own feet. Fuck me for neglecting the gym this semester in favor of studying and working and thinking I wouldn't have to fend off a mythical monster. How short-sighted of me.
Stumbling into the table, I impaled my hand on a shard of glass and grunted but didn't yank it out. Amy stood not far away, a vampire pressing his sharp nails to her throat, holding her still. His blond hair looked almost yellow in comparison to his near translucent skin, and even without one blemish on his body, his jagged facial features reflected a lifetime of violence.
The other vampire grabbed my hair from behind again, but this time I expected it and whirled around, swiping my glass embedded palm down his face. Blood swelled from his cheek across his lips while the cut in my hand worsened, sprinkling stars across my vision.
"Shit, I missed your eye," I complained, mostly to myself. My body swayed a little from the agony radiating through my hand, and I half expected the vampire to tear the extremity off for what I'd done to him.
"Try again," he offered instead, leaning forward. The scent of old leather books overwhelmed me, and I almost flinched back as his dark eyes blinked in my face. Up close, I was forced to finally examine the austere angles framed in long strands of black hair, his pointy canines on display as he gave a blood-stained grin.
"You look like a stereotypical vampire. It's embarrassing for you," I said rather than gouging out his eyes. No doubt the invitation was a ploy, an excuse to hurt me in return.
"Oh yeah?" He inched a little closer to more quietly ask, "Do all vampires have a swarm of mosquitos tattooed on their left ass cheek?"
"These days? Probably."
That had his eyebrows wrinkling, and I used the moment of confusion to grab a glass flask and smash it against the arm holding my hair.
As soon as his hand released me, Amy squeaked from behind. For hurting his friend, the blond vampire had dug his nails deeper into her skin, enough to draw a droplet of blood.
"Why did I let you convince me Christianity is a lie created by a bunch of shroomed up dudes in a cult two thousand years ago?" she questioned, hyperventilating. "I could really use my cross necklace right now!"
My head whipped toward my duffle bag on the floor. I'd thrown in the upside down cross necklace Amy gave me for Halloween a few years ago, and I didn't know if it would work against the vampires—possibly it would give them more power for being kinda Satanic—but I had to try.
Or not, since Mr. Mosquito Ass had regained his bearings and stepped directly in my path.
"You're a lot more trouble than you're worth," he huffed, flashing another bloody smile. "I like it—the unchecked ego, I mean. It'll hurt that much worse when we rip you apart."
He lunged at me, not with vampire speed but definitely with the speed of a practiced fighter. Since I had zero combat skills, I didn't know which way to dodge or how to properly stop him from catching me. So when he did grab my shirt, I hastily jerked away, popping off all the buttons.
"Oh," Mr. Mosquito said, his eyes falling to my exposed torso. And the bright pink bra with sparkly spiders on it.
"Oh em gee, girl, you're actually wearing it!" Amy squealed. Then, to her captor, "I gave that to her for her birthday and she said she threw it in a bonfire, but I knew she didn't."
Disregarding the others' reactions, I didn't waste a second in slipping my arms out of the sleeves and diving toward my bag.
My hands shook as I dug through the clothes and vials, desperately searching for the necklace, our last hope. Even though I'd scored most of the hits so far, I knew the vampires were going easy on us. Surely they could kill us in a matter of seconds, but they wouldn't since we were valuable. I had to use that to our advantage.
"If you're searching for another shirt, I would suggest something a little more durable." Mr. Mosquito tossed my broken one onto the floor, his voice close as he loomed behind me. "Or not, you know, since this isn't a bad look on you."
"I'm searching…for this." Spinning around, I shoved the inverted cross necklace in his face, situating it right side up. He noticed where the chain hung from and craned his neck to view it from its intended angle.
"Ahhh, yes, the symbol of the devil," he said, eyes closing contentedly.
"No, I'm holding it the Jesus way. It's supposed to make you wither with the weight of your sins, or something."
"Oh, but that's not the intent. That relic is imbued with unholy energy. I can feel it, filling my veins, empowering my body." He closed his hands into fists, muscles constricting under his black t-shirt. Before, he hadn't seemed that jacked, but the popping veins and corded muscles didn't bode well for me.
"Fuck," I sighed, more resigned than surprised.
"I bought that at the dollar store and it's genuinely occult?" Amy enthused. "What a good deal! Well, not at the moment, but in general, it was a steal."
“Conforta me, satanas,” Mr. Mosquito recited. “Sine te eam perdere non possum…”
Oh shit, he was possessed, spewing some demonic Latin prayer. I knew bits of the language from my alchemy studies, but not enough to grasp anything beyond the generally destructive sentiment.
The crazed vampire lunged toward me, slapping his hands on the dresser behind me, his body mere inches from mine as he caged me in. When his eyes flared open, I expected them to glow blood red, but the same dark irises greeted me. "You can't escape me now."
"Uh, no, nope, definitely not," I said as I slowly slid downward, reaching for my broken shirt. I could've tried strangling him with the necklace, but the dollar store metal would snap quicker than fabric.
Unfortunately, the unholy energy didn't make him cocky enough to miss my ploy. Before I could retrieve the shirt, his fingers inched behind my back, deftly unclasping my bra.
"Oops," he said without a hint of sincerity as I threw my arms over my bra to stop it from falling off.
My heart beat erratically, but I tried not to show the fear and humiliation on my face, any proof of the realization that I'd lost.
"Sorry." His eyes flickered down to my crossed arms, a triumphant half smirk on his lips. "Well, not that sorry."
I stood paralyzed for a moment, unable to contrive another plan. He'd wedged me into an inescapable corner. I couldn't reclasp my bra and fend him off at the same time, and either choice felt like a victory for him. Preserving my dignity was idiotic, but I couldn't convince myself to use the bra as a weapon.
My glare settled on him with the intensity of a fulminating gold explosion as I twisted my arms to fix the clasp.
Without any urgency, he threaded his fingers through my bun, this time almost affectionately. Any façade of kindness died when he used his hold to steer me around and clamp my wrists together with his free hand. One of the clasps on my bra was still undone, but that didn't concern him.
"Of course the unholy energy would inspire you to do this," I grumbled as he led me across the basement to where Amy and Hay Head waited near the stairs.
"Oh no, the bra idea was all me. I was fucking around about the cross necklace. It didn't do shit."
"So you're immune to God stuff?" I probed, hoping to sniff out a weakness.
"I can hear you're getting ideas," Mr. Mosquito said, his breath on my ear. "You should probably stop."
"Can you read my mind?" I questioned, more terrified by that than anything he'd done to me thus far. My mind was my most vital asset, and I didn't have a plan in place to defend it.
"You should throw a shirt on her before we see her parents," Hay Head advised before his fellow vampire could answer me. Of course then Mr. Mosquito took that opportunity to ignore me entirely, and I was left reeling over the possibility that he'd infiltrated my mind.
"Eh, no need. We're gonna hypnotize them anyway."
"Then before we go in public." Hay Head's voice was strained as his dull blue eyes glared at my spider bra, but Mr. Mosquito remained placid.
"I'll hypnotize everyone."
"You're enjoying this that much, huh," I deadpanned as Hay Head grumbled to himself.
"Immensely." His fingers curled in my hair, a caress sharpened with the light scratch of nails. "No human has ever made me bleed."
"Wow, that's really helping me keep my ego in check."
I swore I heard him laugh, though all sound was drowned out when Hay Head started dragging Amy up the stairs by the chains on her overalls. Her legs thumped against the steps as she failed to find her footing, and she cried, "I was wrong, Nova, they're not secret softies!"
I might’ve laughed if these guys weren't being such dickheads. Mr. Mosquito yanked me up the stairs by my hair, forcing me out of my intellectual sanctuary and comfort zone, especially since I was half dressed.
Soon the four of us stood in the entryway with my parents, who huddled around my mom's phone, giggling at some online video. They didn't even acknowledge us until I said, "They're not even that goth, Dad. I’m kinda disappointed."
My parents glanced up, probably prepared to rant about how the vampires wore all black and, yeah, they only had a few ear piercings and edgy accessories, but they looked so gloomy. Instead their eyes locked on my bright pink bra, faces paling.
"Honey," Mom began, genuinely concerned, "if you came up here to ask for permission to sleep with your boyfriend, the answer is no, but also the answer is you shouldn't have even asked because we wouldn't have known."
Right, they didn't even acknowledge the blood or the fact he was holding me like a prisoner. They'd probably read an article about the younger generation's trendy kinks or something.
"Mom, can you just get the garlic, please?"
Mr. Mosquito's snicker rumbled against my back. "You really think we're afraid of an herb?"
Hay Head's cagey expression contradicted his friend's carelessness. Apparently he didn't have the vampire charisma to hide their vulnerabilities. Good to know.
Mom reared back, more flabbergasted by my request than the sight of my current state. "Nova, you know I'm allergic to garlic."
Mr. Mosquito laughed even harder, and I ground my teeth before imploring, "Dad?"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said, wiping beneath his eyes as tears brimmed. "It's just, I never thought we'd get grandkids, but here you are, fucking around with another human being. Maybe there's hope still."
I wished I could facepalm, and I kinda resented Amy for not doing so. Instead she covered her mouth and giggled.
"Your parents don't know you at all,” she said. “Obviously when you have a baby, it'll be a test tube baby."
Seemingly no one knew me at all, but I didn't want to argue about my baby aversion now.
I considered my options for taking the vampires by surprise, but anything I did might result in my parents' suffering or, worse, death.
"All right, fun's over." Hay Head bared his fangs at my parents, and I shit you not, the canines started swirling in shades of red, entrancing them. "Your daughters willingly eloped–"
"With two hot as fuck guys," Mr. Mosquito added.
"With two hot as fuck guys," Hay Head conceded, "and you had such a big fight with them that you never want to see them again."
My stomach sank at the last addition. Never would my parents believe I'd eloped with anyone, hot or not, but if they believed it had been an act of rebellion, a way to defy their own life plans for me…that they might buy. Now, even if I escaped the vampires, my parents would never accept me back, believing in a divide between us that only magic might repair.
Fucking hypnosis.
Fucking vampires, honestly.
They'd ripped the physical foundation of my life out from under me, but they couldn't steal my brain, my passion, my vision. Only my freedom, which they snuffed out as they hauled us through the front door.