Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2)(28)

Where is Simon?

I keep looking for a way to contain the vampires. (Contain them, for what? For who? The authorities? Does America even have magickal authorities?)

Where are you, Snow?

He’s not with Bunce. She’s still fighting one of the vampires.

I’m keeping two more at bay: a guy in a polyester cape and a woman dressed like Tom Cruise’s Lestat. (Of course I’ve read Anne Rice. I was a 15-year-old closet case whose parents pretended they didn’t notice when the family dog disappeared.)

And I’m trying to find Simon. He’s usually impossible to ignore in a fight.

None of my spells are doing much damage. I try “Guts for garters!” but it just seems to irritate them. Then I try “Sod off!” That should push them back a few feet and at least give me time to think. It doesn’t. It doesn’t do anything. Which means I must be being too English again. What a time to realize I should have been watching more Friends reruns.

“Bugger off!” I shout, fruitlessly, dodging behind a tree. “Push off! Naff off!” Nothing, nothing, nothing. (I would try “Fuck off,” but the magickal effect of swear words is unpredictable; it depends entirely on the audience.)

“Buzz off!” someone in the crowd shouts at me—a young black man in granny glasses. I’ve jumped into the tree. The cloaked vampire is tearing at the branches below me. “Buzz off!” the man in the crowd shouts again.

I point my wand at the vampire. “Buzz off!”

It works. He jumps back like he’s been shocked.

I cast it at Lestat de Lioncourt, too. “Kindly buzz off!” The adverb doesn’t give the spell the extra zing I’m hoping for. But it still works: She falls back.

I drop out of the tree. What’s my plan here.… (And where is Simon?)

And why am I holding back? I’m casting playground spells at coldblooded murderers—at no-blooded murderers.

When I first realized what they were, I told myself I had to act. That I had to do something. My mother’s murderer might be gone, but her death isn’t avenged. That’s what my aunt is doing now. Hunting vampires. Repaying them for my mother’s death, one by one.

We saw these vampires attack those girls. If we let them go now, they’ll kill more people. That’s what vampires do.

There’s no point in trying to be covert. They’ve already chased us into the middle of a crowd. We’re all going to be Internet famous after today. The Mage himself wouldn’t be able to clean up this mess.

And there’s no point trying to be humane. Penny’s on the right track: We can’t lock them up, and we can’t let them go. And it’s not like I have an opportunity to convert them to rat-drinking. “Have you heard the good news about small mammals?”

I can’t just keep pushing these two back. I’ve been trying to keep my distance from them, casting instead of punching. (I couldn’t take them both in a fistfight.) But Lestat has her eye on my ivory wand—she’ll grab it as soon as she’s close enough.

I hear a familiar bellow and spin around.

He’s at the other side of the square, swashbuckling out of a sword shop like the illegitimate grandson of Indiana Jones and Robin Hood.

There you are, Simon Snow.

With a blade in each hand and a fair-haired vampire on his tail.

Simon’s beautiful in battle: He never stops. You never see him plan his next move. He doesn’t plan, he just moves.

But he’s running out of options. His sword has already cracked in half. He’s got an axe in the other hand, and—it breaks against the vampire’s rock-hard neck. Crowley, no. Simon’s no match for him now, not without magic.

“Snow!” I shout, forgetting my two opponents—

Just as Simon takes the broken axe handle and stakes the vampire right through the heart.





SIMON


I hear Baz call my name. When I look up, two vampires have grabbed him by the arms.

The vampire impaled on my axe handle has already started to wither. Like it was the magic in his heart holding him to gether. I pull back the stake, and he falls—a man-shaped pile of blood and boots and ashes.

I’m already in the air, flying towards Baz as fast as I can manage. The vampires have pushed him to the ground—bollocks! One of them has his wand!

I beat her over the back with my axe handle; I’m at the wrong angle to stake her. She turns on me, waving Baz’s ivory wand as if a spell is just going to fall out of it.

Baz uses the distraction to get back on his feet and throw a punch at the other vampire, the guy. It’s a messy punch. Baz has never learned to fight with his body, even though he’s made of steel. But the vampire he’s fighting is the same—all power, no skill. They’re trading hits like clumsy steam engines.

I hook my tail around the girl vampire’s leg, but the trick doesn’t work this time. She holds her ground, then jerks her leg back, pulling me into her arms. Then she goes for my face with the wand—she’s given up on casting spells and is just going to stab me with it—but I wrap a wing around her, holding her so close she can’t move.

I forgot about her fangs. She opens her mouth wide.

I whip my wing open, flinging her away.

It gives me a moment to deck the guy Baz is fighting squarely in the jaw. (It has almost no effect on him—vampires are nigh invulnerable—but it feels good to land a punch.)