chapter 26
The Merrills are vampires, thought Alex wildly.
No time for that now. Get the hell out.
Alex scrambled to his feet as he felt the van lurch and begin to accelerate. For a moment he considered leaping away from Bill, who was slowly turning toward him, regarding him as a cat would a wounded mouse. Alex glanced at the front of the van. Maybe he could take the wheel—but no. There was a roll cage installed, heavy mesh, a single window with metal slats showing him the road outside, which was moonlit. The vampires were driving with no lights.
“Look at you!” Bill said, his face pale, his eyes dilated and icy. “You look like Dracula.”
“Dracula didn’t wear a tux,” Alex recited, backing into the rear corner, grasping for the door handle. If he opened it now he might be able to escape. He’d have to roll, and it wouldn’t be pretty on him or his tuxedo. His hand reached the silver handle and he gave it a yank. For a second it was jammed and he felt the brothers at his back, the static hissing in his brain, and then the handle jerked free and turned. The doors flew open and he grabbed the top of the van, watching the lines on the road whiz by into darkness.
Go. He could do it, just leap, keep his arms over his face. He’d break his elbows, probably. That would hurt. Go. The books his father had given him told him about survival in cases like this and the one piece of advice he could count on was that you had to accept that there will be pain. Pain doesn’t kill. Pain just hurts. So go.
Damn, that was gonna hurt.
“No, no,” said Bill, sounding amused, and as Alex looked back he saw the boy nod at Steven, who leapt like a tiger and snatched him again, sharp claws digging into his collar. He hurled Alex in a second time and Alex felt himself roll along the roof and slam into the mesh cage before crumpling to the floor.
The force shook the van and sent Alex’s head spinning; the van careened for a second and kept moving. The driver, wearing a fetching black cap in the darkness, did not look back.
“Why would you do this?!” Alex roared. Steven took a seat at the bench chair and his attention was caught for a moment by a piece of felt that had been torn from the ceiling as Alex had crashed along it. He clawed at it slowly, as if amazed at the sharpness of his newly reinvigorated nails. So sharp, it cuts anything! Even felt!
Bill slammed the doors shut and came to sit next to his brother. “Did he ask something?”
Alex couldn’t believe they would do this to themselves. Sid had laid out the process: The bite was poison, so poisonous it could kill you, so powerful it could save the dead. If you died and the spinal cord was intact—and you hadn’t had embalming fluid interrupt the vampirism process—you were in the clear, ready to go, come on back and bite some people.
But it did things to you. It made you colder, it ate away at the part of your brain that gave you empathy, the better to be a killing machine. But who would want this for themselves? “I asked, how could you do this?” Alex repeated.
“Do what?”
Part of Alex’s question was borne of sheer need to keep them engaged before they decided to rip him apart. He was trapped in a van with a pair of vampires, newborn or no.
The van turned a corner. Oh, and they were taking him somewhere, so if they didn’t rip him apart now, what they were headed for couldn’t be good. He had an idea, though. Chances are they were going straight down to the Scholomance, and he had escaped from that place once, and once was enough. Think. Get out. How?
But the question was also borne of a horror—the person he was looking at, Bill Merrill, wasn’t supposed to be dead. His brother, Steven, wasn’t supposed to be dead. This wasn’t how it worked; you didn’t just wake up one day and decide to commit suicide by vampire.
“Bill, you’re a jerk. You’re the biggest freaking jerk I’ve ever met. Ever, and I have some experience. But one thing I know is that jerks look out for themselves. And you’ve thrown it all away!”
“That’s interesting,” said Bill. “That you would suddenly care so much about me. That’s really sweet.”
Steven raised a hand. “I haven’t thrown anything away.”
Bill leaned forward, his pale face glistening in the dim moonlight that shot through the darkened windows. “Let me ask you something. What do you know about any of it? You don’t know jack. I’ve been going to school with you for a month and a half, and I don’t think you’ve ever asked a thing about me.”
Oh dear Lord, I’ve hurt Bill Merrill’s feelings. The very idea was absurd. “You made my life miserable!” Alex cried.
Steven raised a hand.
“Him too,” Alex said. “So don’t give me that crap about how much you were secretly hoping I was going to pull you both aside and trade baseball cards with you.”
“I’m just saying that you don’t know a damn thing,” Bill responded. The smile had gone away. “It’s easy for you, isn’t it? Three Americans, the three of us, and, buddy, you have some behavioral issues, but I see you, and it’s easy. You got this way, this walk, this smarm, this confidence. Everybody likes you,” he said, licking the l hard against razor-sharp teeth. “Not like us.”
Alex was flabbergasted. “I’m not going to make you feel better about yourself, you maniac; you are a freaking vampire now.”
“Listen, buddy,” Bill said. “I got one thing in this world. One thing. And that’s him.” Steven pursed his lips in acknowledgment. Bill went on, “There wasn’t gonna be anything left after he was gone. Do you get that? Is that even possible for you to understand?”
“I . . .” Alex was trying to get a handle on this suddenly confessional Bill. “Bill, you were alive. People die in accidents. You have parents, they—”
“They NEVER CAME,” Bill shouted. “Steven was in the hospital and they couldn’t be bothered to come. They wouldn’t even take my calls. Not. One. Word.”
“But you were transferred out,” Alex said.
“That was our new family,” Bill said. “They made us an offer. It was an offer Steven needed. But it was one I wanted.”
“Oh, man.” Alex shook his head. “You poor fool, this life isn’t gonna be what you think. You’re gonna have to kill. You’re gonna leave everything you’ve ever known behind.”
The window to the front of the van shot open and a female voice said, “Somehow I think they can handle that.”
Sound of wheels on gravel. The van was slowing and Alex instantly rose, jumping once more for the rear door. But Bill grabbed him and held his arms behind his back.
As the van came to a stop, the driver removed her hat. Alex saw Elle look back through the grating. “Put him out.”
Steven came from nowhere with a fierce punch to the side of Alex’s head, and all went dark.