Sex, Lies, and Vampires

"I'm glad you guys are happy to find me, really I am, but this is too weird for words," I told them as I struggled out of the pile of mummies, pulling myself to my knees behind Damian's seat. Adrian had used the impact of the van to clear away one of the obstacles, the force of the van reversing at a high speed doing the rest of the job. He slammed on the brakes, yanked hard on the steering wheel, and jammed his foot down on the gas, effectively spinning the van around clear of the blockade. We burst out into traffic with a squeal of tires on asphalt, the mummies flying backward with the acceleration. I clung to the back of Damian's seat, damn near jumping out of my skin when a black shadow at the edge of the road threw itself onto the passenger-side front window.

Adrian's face was plastered up against the window, his eyes almost white with fury.

"Onkel Saer!" Damian gasped, lapsing into German as he flung himself back in his seat, one hand thrown up protectively as if to ward off a blow.

Adrian snarled a curse, yanking the steering wheel to the side in an attempt to dislodge Saer. We spun through a red light, barely missing a big lorry, the sounds of crumpling metal and breaking glass that trailed us through the intersection giving testament that others weren't so lucky. I sent up a little prayer that no one was hurt as I scrambled under the van seat until my hand closed around a familiar-shaped object. I opened the leather-bound volume, squinting in the dim light provided by the street-lamps to find the charm meant to stop an ejection curse. I found the pertinent words, grabbing Adrian's shoulder to tap into the blackness inside him.

"Adulterinus succenturio!" I yelled, throwing every ounce of purpose I had into the demand that Saer be displaced. I had forgotten that I still wore the ring. Adrian was right about its powers—not only had it protected me earlier so I felt not even the slightest sense of strain when charming Damian's curse, now it took a simple ejection curse and added the equivalent of a nuclear-powered wallop to it. One moment Saer was slamming his fist through the windshield, grabbing for a screaming Damian, the next he was flung to the side, splatting against a wall of the museum.

Adrian looked back at where I knelt on my pile of mummies, the charm book clutched in my hands. "Remind me never to make you angry while you're wearing that ring," he said.

I started to smile at him, but saw through the cracked windshield another familiar figure as it stepped into the street before us. "Adrian!" I shrieked, pointing.

His eyes narrowed as he beheld the figure of Christian, standing in the middle of the street holding up a hand in a command for us to stop. The van jumped forward as Adrian stomped on the accelerator, clearly intending to run down the other vampire.

"No, you can't!" I yelled, jerking on his shoulder. "Don't kill him!"

"Why not?" Adrian growled, his fingers tense on the steering wheel as the van hurtled directly toward Christian. The stupid man just stood there, inviting Adrian to run him over, but I couldn't stand that. Not that I cherished any warm feelings for him—he'd done his worst to try to kill Adrian—but when we were so close to regaining Adrian's soul, I wasn't about to let him blow it on a hasty act of revenge.

"Because you don't have your soul yet!"

"I told you—that was because Asmodeus's curse continues to bind me. If that was removed, I could reclaim my soul."

"Not if you go around…" I glanced over to where Damian was crouched against the back of his seat. His eyes were wide with horror as he watched Christian loom up before us. "Not if you kill someone without just cause. You can't run him down, Adrian. Please, don't do this. Don't risk everything for a fleeting moment of pleasure."

"Papa?" Damian asked, his face a mask of worry as the van approached Christian.

The vampire just stood there, as if he were giving Adrian the choice to kill him or not.

"Verdammt noch mal!" Adrian spat in German, jerking on the steering wheel at the very last second. The van's tires, not used to such driving, screamed on the asphalt as we spun around in almost a 180-degree turn. Inside the van, both Damian and I screamed, the mummies' high-pitched shrieks cut off as the van sideswiped three parked cars with a great crashing and squealing of metal upon metal. The engine coughed, sputtered, then died in a glorious silence.

A silence that was quickly filled by the sound of sirens racing toward us.

"Quickly, you must come with me!"

I pushed off the mummified body that lay across my head and looked in utter disbelief at the man who yanked open Damian's door and pulled the boy out of the wreckage.