Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(57)

The last one, though, was the one who really scared me. Mr. Pennywell. Pennywell had come to town with Amelie’s father, the scary Mr. Bishop, and he’d stuck around. I knew he’d sworn all those promises to Amelie, but I didn’t believe for a second he really meant them. He was old. Really old. And he looked like some androgynous mannequin, with no emotion to him at all.

Pennywell’s cold eyes looked around, dismissed the jocks, and focused in on three things:

Miranda, Michael, and me.

“The boys are yours,” he said to Ransom and Vargas.

Vargas’s teeth flashed in a white grin. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said, and stepped aside, out of the way. “Run, mijos. Run while you can.”

The jocks weren’t stupid. They knew the odds had shifted. They were severely in trouble. Not a one of them was willing to stand up for Miranda, or for us, and that didn’t shock me at all. What shocked me was that they didn’t take their beer with them when they broke for the door and stampeded out into the night.

Vargas watched them go, and counted it off. “Twenty yard line. Thirty. Forty. Ah, they’ve reached midfield. Time for the opposing team to enter the game, I think.”

He moved in a blur, gone. I resisted the urge to yell a warning to the football guys. It wouldn’t do any good.

Pennywell said, “You, girl. I hear you want to be turned.” He was looking at Miranda.

“No, she doesn’t,” I said, before my friend could say something idiotic. “Mir, let’s get you home, okay?”

Faced with the alien chill that was Pennywell, even Miranda’s great romantic love of dying had a moment of clarity. She gulped, and instead of pulling free from my grip, she put her hand in mine. “Okay,” she said faintly. I wondered exactly what her vision had shown her. Nothing that she wanted to pursue, clearly. “Home’s good.”

“Not quite yet, I think,” Pennywell said, and shut the door to the field house. “First, I think there is a tax to be paid. For my inconvenience, yes?”

“You can’t feed on her,” I said. “She’s underage.”

“And undernourished from the look of her. Not only that, I can smell the witch on her from here.” He sniffed, long nose wrinkling, and his eyes sparked red. He focused on me. “You, however . . . you’re of age. And fresh.”

That drew a growl out of Michael. “Not happening.”

Pennywell barely glanced his way. “A barking puppy. How charming. Don’t make me kick you, puppy. I might break your teeth.”

Michael wasn’t one to be baited into an attack, not like Shane. He just got calmly in Pennywell’s way, blocking the other vampire’s access to Miranda and me.

Pennywell looked him over carefully, head to toe. “I’m not bending any of your precious rules,” he said. “I won’t bite the child. I won’t even swive her.”

Leaving aside what that meant (although I had a nasty suspicion), he wasn’t exempting me from the whole biting thing. Or, come to think of it, from the other thing, either. His eyes had taken on an unpleasant red cast—worse than Michael’s ever got. It was like looking into the surface of the sun.

Miranda’s hand tightened on mine. “You really need to go,” she whispered.

“No kidding.”

“Back this way.”

Miranda pulled me to the side of the room. There, behind a blind corner, was the open window through which I’d originally heard the boys partying.

Pennywell knew his chance was slipping away. He sidestepped and lunged, and Michael twisted and caught him in midair. They’d already turned over twice, ripping at each other, before they hit the ground and rolled. I looked back, breathless, terrified for Michael. He was young, and Pennywell was playing for keeps.

On our way to the window, Miranda ducked and picked up something in the shadows. My cell phone. I grabbed it and flipped it open, speed-dialing Shane’s number.

“Yo,” he said. I could hear the jocks pounding on the car. “I hope you’re insured.”

“Now would be a good time for rescue,” I said.

“Well, I can either ask real nice if they’ll move the cars, or jump the curb. Which do you want?”

“You’re kidding. I’ve got about ten seconds to live.”

He stopped playing. “Which way?”

“South side of the building. There’s three of us. Shane—”

“Coming,” Shane said, and hung up. I heard the sudden roar of an engine out in the parking lot, and the surprised drunken yells of the jocks as they tumbled off the hood of my car.

I began to shimmy out the window, but an iron grip closed around my left ankle, holding me in place. I looked back to see Mr. Ransom, eyes shining silver.

“I was trying to bring you help,” he said. “Did I do wrong?”

“You know, now’s not really the time—” He didn’t take the hint. Of course. I heard the approaching growl of the car engine. Shane was driving over the grass, tires shredding it on the way. I could hear other engines starting up—the football jocks. I wondered if they had any clue that half their team was doing broken-field running against a vampire right now. I hoped they had a good second string ready to play the next game.

Mr. Ransom wanted an answer. I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. “Asking Pennywell probably wasn’t your best idea ever,” I said. “But, hey, good effort, okay? Now let go so I’m not the main course!”