Undead and Undermined

Chapter TWENTY



At the precise moment the whooshing eerie warblings of hell cut out, the familiar sounds of big-city traffic cut in. And it wasn’t gradual, like clicking the volume with the remote until it got as loud as you like, while at the same time too loud as far as your mother’s concerned.

No, it was whoosh/crash/bang. I realized I was on my hands and knees in . . . a city street? Yes. A city street. A busy city street. Okay, great. Not falling, and not in hell anymore. Things could be worse. Things had been worse.

I shakily stood and was relieved to hear another familiar sound: the shriek of stomped-on brakes.

Wait, brakes? Stomped-on brakes?

Hey, I can fly! A new superpower; this vampire thing was getting cooler all the time. Check me out!

And I could fly fast. I shot by all sorts of shiny surfaces—man, I looked cool! Like Supergirl, except with a better rack.

“Look at meeeee, the vampire queeeen, so pretty, so rare, with the wind in her hair—”

(Ow.)