Fangs for Nothing (Vampire Hunting and Other Foolish Endeavors) Read online

  Xander took the valley on the way home. I personally find the Cleveland Metroparks a little spooky after the sun goes down, but he insisted it was atmospheric. It was quiet with no one else was around, and Xander had the Dart’s top down, naturally. At first, I was feeling tense about it, imagining the eyes of God-knows-what staring down at us from the trees. But soon, the sultry summer breezes and gentle chirp of crickets lulled me into enjoying the ride.

  That was until a bunch of kids in a car careened up behind us with their brights on. I turned around and tried to signal them that they were blinding us, but that just made them drive closer. I swear—their bumper was practically touching ours. “What the hell are they doing?” Xander barked, gripping the steering wheel tightly to keep the Dart on the road. “What’s their problem?”

  “I don’t know!” I shouted back, doing my best to wave them off. There were obviously several girls in the car because I could hear them shrieking with the delight of terrorizing us. After catching a few snatches of their words above the cackling, I began to get a bad feeling, like they were waiting until the road drew closer to the river, and then they were going to ram us.

  Xander stomped on the gas, and the other car fell back a few yards. For a brief moment, I thought maybe they had decided to leave us alone—until I heard them rev their engine. They were just giving themselves space to get up to ramming speed. The car came hurtling at us again, and I knew they weren’t going to stop. We were as good as dead.

  Xander wrenched the Dart’s wheel abruptly to the left propelling us up a small lane to Wooster Road, and we shot out of the Metroparks. The other car wasn’t expecting this maneuver, apparently, and they missed the turn. I thought maybe they’d pull a U-turn or something, but I didn’t see any headlights, so I guess they kept going, barreling through the valley.

  Once we knew we were in the clear, Xander pulled the Dart over to regain his composure. “What the hell?” He slammed his fist into the leather seat. “What the fuck was that? They were they trying to kill us.”

  “Maybe it was someone you used to date?” Rini suggested as she unclenched herself from the tiny ball she had formed in the passenger seat.

  “No,” Xander protested a bit too loudly. “I don’t… I mean, I wouldn’t… I mean, those chicks were really trying to kill us. And I’ve never, you know… done anything that warranted killing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” Xander said vehemently.

  Rini shrugged. “If you say so.”

  Xander pulled the Dart up in front of the post WWII bungalow that I shared with my grandmother. Almost every light in the house was on, but that’s the way Grandma liked it. She wanted to make it perfectly clear that people were home. She felt it dissuaded robbers, but I think it really only jacked up our electricity bill. Besides, what were they going to steal? The dusty hook-rug wall-hanging of a pony? The radio Grandma’s had since the seventies? I did have a nice collection of vintage jackets that I’d managed to score over the years from my dedication to thrift store shopping, but I doubted thieves cased a house based on the availability of classic menswear.

  “I’m thinking L.A. next time,” Xander said as Rini got up to release me from the backseat. The top was still down, so I could have just hopped out, but Xander doesn’t like it if I stand on the upholstery.

  “Why would vampires be living in L.A.?” I wondered aloud as I unfolded myself. “It’s sunny all the time there, isn’t it?”

  “I still say they’ve got to be somewhere in New York,” I heard Rini say as Xander unlocked the trunk and I hauled my suitcase out. “I mean, that’s where you find all the cool clothes and all the nightlife. If you think about it, it’s the only American city that really makes any sense.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Xander replied. “I’ll do some more research, but I’m still feeling L.A.”

  Rini snickered a little. “I think you want to go there to try and get discovered. Wear a tight sweater and sit at the counter at Schwab’s kind of thing.”

  “You want to be the next Robert Pattinson.” I laughed.

  Xander snorted as he hopped back into the car. “I do not. That guy’s a poser.”

  “Why is he a poser?” Rini demanded with a little more force than the comment seemed to warrant. I had my suspicions that Rini was harboring a secret crush on the actor. After all, she’d seen Twilight like a zillion times.

  “He just is.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Xander groused. “I’m tired from crazy chicks trying to run us off the road.”

  I crouched down next to the car to talk in a lowered voice, just in case Grandma was in the kitchen and had the window open. “Thanks for the trip, Xander.”

  “Yeah, no problem. Remember, Young Lords at the Agora Saturday night.” The Agora show had been sold out for weeks, and we didn’t have tickets, but for Xander, that was never a problem. Say what you will about him, but the guy was incredibly generous with his dad’s money.

  “Okay.” I stood up. “See ya.” Something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. It was a car sneaking up on us with the lights off. It was the car. The girls must have somehow followed us. “What the hell?” I blurted.

  A girl was hanging out the open window of the car. She had a black ski mask covering her face. “You’re next.” She pointed at me. I felt something hit my chest. It was a sharp then dull pain. As I looked down, confused, the car peeled off.

  Xander was instantly out of the Dart and by my side. “Are you okay? What’d they throw at you?”

  The front of my black vintage blazer was slimy and wet. I had a flash of panic thinking they’d somehow shot me and my brain hadn’t yet registered the pain of my guts spilling onto the sidewalk. “I don’t know.” I brushed away the goo. The slime felt familiar. “An egg. A bloody egg.”

  “What?” Rini got out of the car, and Xander bent down to examine my jacket.

  “They just egged me, but it’s red.” I viewed my stained hands under the streetlamp. “Gross.”

  “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Xander straightened himself.

  “I’m fine,” I said, feeling more bewildered than anything else. “I hope it doesn’t stain. This is my favorite jacket.”

  “Run cold water on it,” Rini advised. “Don’t use hot. That’ll just cook it on there.”

  “Okay.” I scraped off as much of the slime as I could and flicked it on the tree lawn. Bending over, I wiped my palms on the grass.

  “Well, if you’re all right, then we’re taking off,” Xander said as he turned to get back in his car. “What do you think she meant by ‘you’re next’?”

  Standing up, I grabbed Grandma’s suitcase. “I don’t know. Next to go to the drycleaner.”

  Chapter 2

  I came in through our back door intentionally so I could stash the suitcase in the laundry room and let some water run on my jacket. I’d empty my luggage and fully deal with the egg later after my grandmother fell asleep. I just didn’t want it to dry on there. It was one of my only jackets that fit me like it was custom made. Plus, the blue silk lining was in perfect condition. Not torn or anything.

  “Is that you, Herbie?”

  “Yeah, it’s me, Grandma.”

  “How was the slumber party?” Her voice wafted in from the living room. Grandma persisted in calling anything a slumber party if I spent the night away from home. I knew she did it just to bug me, so I didn’t rise to the bait.

  “It was good, Grandma. Lots of fun.” I opened the fridge and poked around inside to see if there was anything I felt like eating. I’d filled it with a bunch of Grandma-type supplies before I left. She’d cooked everything, broken them down into meals, and neatly stored the food in generic Tupperware-style containers.

  “Were there any cute girls there?” Grandma called from her burnt-orange Barcalounger, which was permanently parked in front of our ancient television. She spent the night on the thing half the t
ime.

  “A few,” I called, grabbing a tub of what I thought was probably pot roast out of the fridge. “Rini was there.”

  “Oh, Irene,” I could hear her mutter. “She’s not so cute.”

  “She’s not bad,” I called, not willing to let her get away with putting down one of my friends.

  “Don’t you settle for a plain girl, Herbie. Let me tell you something, you could do a lot better than that Irene.” My grandmother was the only female on the planet that suffered under the delusion that I was attractive. Of course, all the other females on the planet usually saw me when I was standing next to Xander, so that didn’t help my cause any.

  “I won’t, Grandma,” I said as I dumped the contents of the Tupperware onto a plate and shoved it in the microwave. The way my love life was going, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to settle for someone plain. To prevent Grandma from launching into a rambling lecture on my physical attributes and attractions to lure the opposite sex, I distracted her with, “Xander was there.”

  “Was he?” Grandma tried to keep the spark of interest out of her voice.

  “Sure. He said to say hello.”

  “Did he, now?” Grandma chuckled. “Boys like Alexander put the smirk on the Mona Lisa.” She would never admit it, but Grandma had a bit of a crush on Xander. Just like every other female in the northern hemisphere. I entertained her with a few of the latest Xanderisms, all the while neatly avoiding the fact that I’d just spent the last four days in San Francisco. As far as Grandma was concerned, I’d been at a slumber party. I guess if she’d thought about it, she’d realize that slumber parties don’t usually last 96 hours, but she chose to ignore that detail, and I chose not to point it out. It was the glue that held our relationship together. Grandma wanted to raise me properly to be a well-brought-up young man. That included good table manners and a college education. I, on the other hand, wanted to go and do whatever I felt like doing, which I pretty much did if I could afford it. With that said, I’d always been an “A” student and had a part-time job. I’d never even been close to getting a girl “in trouble” unfortunately. And besides trying a little pot, I was living drug free in America. Okay, so I drank. Sue me. I had to have some vices. America was fooling itself with the whole 21 being the legal age for drinking, anyway. I didn’t know of a kid in our class that didn’t imbibe at least at parties and stuff. The way I saw it, at seventeen, I was legal to drink in most of Europe. Really, I was just trying to be more international.

  After a while, I could tell Grandma wanted to get back to her shows, so I wolfed down the rest of my pot roast and wandered off to my bedroom. I logged on to my dial-up account and waited for a connection. That’s right, dial-up. There was no way Grandma was going to pay to get broadband for something she essentially considered a fancy toy. I’d tried explaining to her a million times that I needed the Internet to get into a good college, but she wasn’t having any of it. I tried pointing out that with cable television she’d have a lot more programs. Still no. That’s why I paid for dial-up out of my wages from working at Auntie Agatha’s Pretzels in the mall. The job pretty much sucked. Unless I was working with Rini, of course. She had recently been promoted to assistant manager, which meant she did the scheduling most of the time and made sure to put us on the same shifts when she could.

  There was an instant message waiting for me as soon as I’d managed to log on.

  Bar-B-Trix: You there?

  Sherbert: Just logged in.

  Bar-B-Trix: Any guff from Grandma?

  Sherbert: No. I’m not even sure she realizes how long I’ve been gone.

  Bar-B-Trix: That’s good. I guess...

  Sherbert: You grounded?

  Bar-B-Trix: Yep.

  Rini’s parents didn’t feel as flexible about their daughter disappearing for four days as my grandmother. Especially her taking off with two guys, even though we were all strictly platonic. I had my suspicions that Rini would like her relationship with Xander to be much more than friends, but she never said anything about it to me.

  Sherbert: Still going to Young Lords?

  Bar-B-Trix: You bet your combat boots.

  Sherbert: How long are you grounded for?

  Bar-B-Trix: For this offense or grand total?

  Sherbert: Grand total.

  Rini kept a log of how long her parents grounded her and how much time she’d actually served.

  Bar-B-Trix: Closing in on two years.

  Sherbert: You’ll be in college.

  Bar-B-Trix: I’ll have to stay in my dorm room.

  Sherbert: What’cha think of SF?

  Bar-B-Trix: It was okay. Pretty cool, I guess. Except for the poo.

  Sherbert: They should make fertilizer.

  Bar-B-Trix: Impossible. Dog poo kills any plant it touches.

  I did a quick Google search while we were chatting, and it turns out she was right. Dog poo is surprisingly toxic.

  Sherbert: Think there’re vamps in L.A.?

  Bar-B-Trix: No.

  Sherbert: Where are they, then?

  Bar-B-Trix: Washington State?

  Sherbert: That’s right, Bella.

  Bar-B-Trix: Fuck off.

  Sherbert: Not very ladylike of you.

  Bar-B-Trix: Please, fuck off.

  Sherbert: Much better.

  My laptop informed me that a new person wanted to chat.

  Xan-Z-Bar: What are you and Rini talking about?

  Sherbert: You.

  Xan-Z-Bar: Naturally. She grounded?

  Sherbert: Naturally.

  Xan-Z-Bar: She still going to Young Lords?

  Rini interrupted.

  Bar-B-Trix: Are you IMing Xander? STOP FAVORING HIM!

  Sherbert: He paid for my ticket.

  Bar-B-Trix: But I make your work schedule.

  Sherbert: You’re being a bully.

  Xander sensed that I was taking too long of a pause in my typing.

  Xan-Z-Bar: STOP FAVORING RINI!

  Sherbert: That’s just what she said.

  Xan-Z-Bar: I’m the one who paid for your ticket.

  Sherbert: That’s what I told her.

  Xan-Z-Bar: Besides, you’ll see her tomorrow at work.

  This was the way our conversations usually went via IM. Xander and Rini rarely IMed each other directly, that I knew about, but that probably had something to do with my secret crush suspicions. They preferred to both badger me for attention, but only if they believed I was favoring the other person. Hey, at least it’s nice to be wanted. Now, if I could only transform my powers into something that attracted girls. I mean, girls that weren’t Rini.

  *****

  I had rinsed the egged part of my jacket in the bathroom and hung it in my closet with a towel on the floor beneath it in case it dripped. I didn’t want to have to explain to Grandma that I’d been egged right in front of our house. That would really send her on a major tirade about “kids today” and I just wasn’t in the mood.

  My grandmother once told me that back when she was a kid, everyone went downtown to do their shopping. There weren’t any malls in the suburbs, and there weren’t any national chain stores. Cleveland had a couple big department stores called Halle Brothers and Higbees. These stores had stuff made especially for them from all over the world. A bunch of my vintage ties have labels that say things like, “Made in Florence, Italy, especially for the Halle Brothers of Cleveland, Ohio.” And I guess there were department stores like this all over the country. So if you went shopping in Atlanta, you’d find completely different stuff than you’d find shopping in Chicago. To me, that sounds totally cool. It would be so much more interesting traveling in America if there wasn’t a Gap at the corner of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco exactly like the Gap at Terminal Tower in downtown Cleveland. And don’t even get me started on chain restaurants. Bluk.

  Chapter 3

  “Herbert, wake up.” Grandma pulled open the curtains to both my bedroom windows, and the light of early morning came flooding in.
/>   “Gah,” was all I could manage while quickly burrowing my face under my pillow so my retinas wouldn’t be burnt to a crisp.

  “Stop being so dramatic,” Grandma said in her most we-need-to-make-something-of-this-day voice. “I need you to take me to the market.”

  “Buufff,” I groaned, knotting my body into a ball of protest.

  “None of that.” Grandma grabbed the sheet that I had twined around my legs and started yanking on it. “Come on, now. You know I like to get there early.”

  “All right, Grandma. Fine. I’ll get up. Just give me a minute,” I groused.

  “Thank you, Herbie,” Grandma cooed. “I’ll go fix you some breakfast.”

  Sighing, I hauled my carcass out of bed. When Grandma said she wanted to go to the market, she didn’t mean just the local grocery store. She meant the West Side Market in Ohio City. It’s this massive building that looks more like a place where they used to house zeppelins than a place to haggle over the price of a kumquat. The main reason Grandma liked going there was to harass the vendors. She would tangle with anyone from the butcher over the accuracy of his scales to the vegetable stand clerk about the freshness of his bell peppers. Rather than ordering a dozen Catawba peaches and having the clerk throw them in a bag, she insisted on inspecting each and every piece of fruit. “If you don’t check, they’ll give you the old stock with a few good ones on the top,” she insisted. After two solid hours of kung fu fighting her way through the market, putting the screws to everyone in a white apron and paper hat, Grandma was always in a terribly good mood for the rest of the day. My job was to drive the car, carry the purchases, and make sympathetic eyes at the vendors, sometimes mouthing the word sorry if Grandma was excessively vigorous in her quest for the highest quality at the lowest price.

  I slouched out of my room, yawning and starting to perk up as I detected the smell of sausage in the air. Why was Grandma trying to butter me up? She usually only broke out the breakfast meats on special occasions.

  As I rounded the corner to the kitchen, Xander nodded at me from his position over a half-devoured plate of eggs and sausage. “Hey,” he grunted, shoveling a large forkful of eggs into his mouth.