After watching my friend’s neck get ripped out, I obviously needed to throw his attacker out the third-story window. Given his ability to fly and my lack thereof, paired with his ridiculously long fangs and my lack thereof, I was pessimistic when he pulled me outside with him.

But as fate would fuck me, the guy’s head exploded in the morning light. I was able beat the odds by riding his sinking, flaming body safely to the ground.

All in all, it was a shit morning, but Data had it worse. I got to my feet and jumped back in through the first-floor window, then ran the steps three at a time while praying to a god I didn’t believe in that Data wasn’t dead.

As I got to the top of the third story, I slipped in his blood and nearly fell back down the stairs. I only stopped myself by grabbing the handrail, which was also coated in thick blood. Data had spilled more than I thought a human could hold.

I dove to the ground, moonlight illuminating just enough of the dark room to make out Data’s pale form; the early sun’s rays weren’t quite strong enough to compete with the lunar beams. Big Mike had his hands pressed up against Data’s shoulder and neck, but even his big mitts weren’t enough to hold back the carnage. It looked like he was trying to fight against an elephant birth.

I have enough EMT training to go right into “treatment” mode, and I have enough EMT training to know when no treatment will work. I laid my hand atop his head and leaned close to his face.

His skin was paper-white, which was made even more bizarre by the light of the moon.

“I don’t know how he’s still conscious,” Mike snapped. “But he’s barely hanging on.” The touch of sadness and fear in his voice cut me deeper than I was prepared to feel; Mike usually has the emotional intensity of beige wallpaper.

“Hey, man,” I offered my bleeding friend in a low voice, “I need you to be focused right now. That’s what Data does in Star Wars, right? He’s cold-blooded, so he just stays focused on what’s important, no matter what.”

Data wheezed. “I always tell you it’s Star Trek,” he breathed. “And it’s Vulcans that are cold-blooded.”

“Right,” I smiled, my voice low. “The one with the red phone booth, like a European Superman.” I grabbed his hand, our fingers squishing against the blood. “It looks like you got hurt real bad, man, and I don’t know if we can fix you.”

He coughed, spraying what little blood he had left. “Did you kill that fucker with the teeth?”

I huffed. “His dead ass is rotting in the street. You think I’d let him get away with that shit?”

Data nodded, but was too weak for talking. He didn’t have much time.

“Mike and I will be here until the end, understand?” I whispered as Mike wiped his eye.

Data nodded again. It was much more feeble than it had been just a few seconds before.

“He can’t be saved unless what’s been started is finished,” a tiny voice squeaked from behind me.

I spun around, grabbing the KA-BAR from my belt. The space was still mostly covered in shadow, but I could tell by the way our voices echoed that it was one unwalled room, maybe nineteen by thirteen feet. The only light came from open windows on either end. I should have checked my surroundings immediately upon coming up the stairs, but I let my friend’s injury get to my head. For a moment, I hated myself.

The only other visible person was the girl, silhouetted in the center of the room. Mike must have followed my order to untie her, because she was standing freely while she stared at us. The moonlight illuminated her eyes but left the rest of her frame pitch black, which sent a shiver down my spine and froze the shit in my colon.

“Why don’t you believe me?” she continued. “I can feel your doubt.”

That sent my personal creep level right over the edge. But I’m not trained to stop being afraid, I’m trained to live with it. “You’re Laney Vesely, right?” I snapped. “The thing who started this isn’t around anymore.”

“There is another one,” she answered.

God damn it, I hate when kids are creepy. I clutched the knife in a white-knuckle grip. “Where?”

“Your friend can still be saved,” she continued, stepping into the moonlight. She was wearing tattered pajamas, and her skin was whiter than Data’s. “But only if you trust me.”

Of course I was going to tell her that I don’t trust anyone who identifies as human, but Mike pressed a giant hand against my shoulder. “It would only be the second-craziest thing to happen this morning,” he offered in a low voice.

My eyes darted from Mike to Laney to Data. With exactly zero seconds left to make a decision, I opened my mouth and waited to be surprised by what came out. “Okay, who can save Data, how cam he do it, and why should we not kill him?”

Laney’s head cocked to one side, her braid dangling past her shoulder. “Not a ‘him,’” she whispered.

Then four-inch fangs erupted from her gums as she leapt at Data.

I was reacting before I was thinking, but Mike caught me and held me still.

I once broke facial bones on three different guys before they overpowered me and kicked my ass, but Big Mike could hold me fast with just one arm. “We’ve got nothing to lose,” he croaked.

Cold efficiency overpowered my thoughts and informed me that he was right: Data was dead.

Now, I hadn’t believed in vampires until four minutes earlier, but life can surprise the shit out of us. So I stopped resisting Mike’s grip (not that it mattered), and watched the little girl kneel down before Data’s neck.

Time didn’t just stop; it tilted sideways. You haven’t experienced fear until you see someone close to you dying an unexpected, violent death. Fear comes from the hope that things won’t be as bad as you know they really are.

I have no idea how long we sat and watched that little girl guzzling blood, but it was an uncomfortable length of time.

When she finished, Laney turned around, faced us, and smiled. A ring of blood coated her lips, glistening moistly against her alabaster skin in the moonlight.

I know I stopped breathing, and I think my heart stopped beating, too. Everything felt wrong.

Breathing and beating resumed in a sudden burst as Data sat up, gasping while he flailed his arms. I wanted to grab him, to ask him if he was okay, but that would have been stupid. Of course he wasn’t okay, not a single one of us was. Also, there was a little girl vampire between him and me.

Data gazed around in terror, seemingly unable to get his bearings. His eyes were several shades lighter, and the color hadn’t returned to his skin. After glancing all around the room, he finally focused on me.

“Dekrasi,” he gasped, “what the fuck?”

I stared at him, my eyes unmoving. “I have no idea what the fuck. But stay out of the sun.”

He looked at me, jaw hanging low, before facing the window. The sun was getting stronger. He crawled toward a dark corner of the room.

I looked back at Laney, who was still smiling. “Okay, little girl. We’ve got a phrase for these kinds of situations: this is way more elephant cock than I bargained for. I need to know what’s going on, and I need to know now.”

She licked her lips, collecting a thick coat of blood and slurping it into her mouth like it was rich marinara sauce. “You need to kill my parents.”

The fun with murder we had next

BD

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