Suck It Up and Die (36 page)

He lay on the bed and switched the TV back to one of the networks. It showed a news bulletin on a caravan of vehicles heading west, and reported how Leaguers were making a mass migration to Leaguer Mountain by plane, train, bus, and car because of the new fear about being hit by a warfarin bullet. No one wanted to be carted off to Leaguer Mountain like Rachel. As one Leaguer driver in the caravan put it, “If I gotta go live in a foreign country, I don’t wanna get there leaking oil.”

Morning realized that warfarin was the secret weapon they had talked about the day before. As he thought about
Sister Flora being one of the Leaguers in that exodus west, he wondered if he should join them. Then he reminded himself he was a fugitive; if Lifers caught him they’d just put him in front of a warfarin firing squad. It wasn’t the worst thing he could imagine, since he was hardly brimming with reasons to live. But then he also reminded himself that Cody had been right. It had been worth seeing
Casablanca
. It had him thinking.

He channel surfed till the TV settled on a business report. It was on the commodities market in Chicago, which Morning knew about from when he had checked to see if the metals some superheroes used were real, like the vibranium in Black Panther’s bodysuit and the adamantium in Wolverine’s claws. The business reporter talked about a mysterious buyer who was cornering the market on a type of wood. The wood, hawthorn, was known for its hardness and fine grain and was prized for knife handles and walking sticks. Because this mystery buyer was trying to grab all the hawthorn available, the price was skyrocketing.

It didn’t take much mental rummaging before Morning made the connection to what he had learned in Vampire Health back at Leaguer Academy. Hawthorn was also called thorn apple, because of its sharp thorns and apple-like fruit. It was one of two types of wood that, shaped into a stake, could start a successful vampire slaying.

He instantly realized who would (1) know how deadly hawthorn was to vampires, and (2) want to buy it all up. DeThanatos. Morning’s thoughts accelerated like a runaway train.
That’s why everyone’s being ordered to Leaguer Mountain! It isn’t to deport Leaguers to Transylvania, it’s to dispatch ’em once and for all!

The next morning at the Dredfuls’ apartment, Portia checked in on Cody, who was finishing up the graveyard shift watching Zoë. During the night, Zoë had regained consciousness, sort of. She was in a delirium and half-muttering, half-singing snippets from a song. “Down where they stalk … bloodlustin’ free … I’m gonna be … part of your world.”

Cody was getting all this on video and was already thinking about renaming his Leaguer doc
The Little Bloodmaid
. He told Portia to go make herself breakfast before starting her shift monitoring Zoë.

After Portia went to the kitchen and got a kettle heating, she noticed an odd arrangement on the kitchen table that hadn’t been there the night before: a couple of pigeon feathers and a tightly rolled bit of paper smaller than a cigarette.

She picked up the paper cylinder. On the outside, in a tiny scrawl, was
Only open after Leaguer Outta Here Day
. She recognized the handwriting: Morning’s. Her heart raced and her mind leaped to the logical conclusion. Having returned to being all-vampire Morning, at some point during the night or early a.m., had flown in as a pigeon and left the note. Of course, being take-charge Portia, she disobeyed and opened the tight wrap of paper.

When she unfurled it, she saw more writing inside.
I need a favor
, it said in letters so tiny she almost had to get a magnifying glass.
I’d like you to try to clear my name. Not with the public—I’ve given up on them—but with my fellow firefighters at the academy, and Captain Prowler
.

She read on.
Leaguer Outta Here Day is going to turn
into Leaguer Rubout Day
, he wrote.
The inside of Leaguer Mountain is going to get turned into a stake-and-fire pit of genocide
.

He then asked Portia to tell Cody two things:
(1) I watched
Casablanca.
(2) Since my end will probably come before the End Is Upon Us Ball, I hope you’ll take Portia and have a great time
.

Portia turned the tiny scroll of paper over. There was more. Much more.

The paper went blurry as Portia’s eyes welled up. She turned the paper over, and tried to read it again. The note only went blurrier. Then a sound invaded her tunnel vision: the fading whistle of a teakettle.

She looked up as Cody put the kettle on a cold burner. “Why are you crying?” he asked.

Portia sleeved her wet cheeks and sucked in a breath. “I’m not. Get the camera. We’re going on location.”

“We?” Cody echoed, his eyes popping wide. “You mean you’re back on the movie?”

“I’m not back on anything but trying to stop a bloodbath. Now go.”

He started out, then turned back. “What about Zoë?”

“When Mom wakes up, she’ll take care of her. Go!”

It was still early enough for Portia and Cody to sneak out through the back garden and evade the media encampment out front. They also didn’t wake the U.S. marshal dozing in the front entrance. He had been posted to whisk Zoë to Leaguer Mountain when she completed her ecdysis to vampire.

Portia and Cody went straight to Prowler’s firehouse, where Portia asked a favor. “I know Morning’s crew is busy with their last day of testing at the academy, but I need to talk to ’em.”

Given everything that had happened, Prowler doubted Clancy would grant the request, until Portia told Prowler about the live fire exercise she had been rescued from. “I’ve never gotten the chance to thank Morning’s crew for saving my life,” she explained. “I’d like to, and if Clancy has a problem with it, I’ll be happy to tell the world about the time the academy made a fire exercise so authentic they added a live victim to the mix.”

Prowler chortled at her moxie, opened the door of his fire engine, and waved Portia and Cody in. “We’ll take the express.”

On the way to Randall’s Island, they filled Prowler in on everything that had gone down in the past few days. The fireman was greatly relieved to hear that his instincts were right and Morning was innocent, that his jump off the bridge was an escape and no suicide, and that Morning was probably headed to Leaguer Mountain to try and stop a vampire genocide. If this last item was true, Prowler suggested they should alert the FBI. But Portia convinced him that the FBI probably wouldn’t believe them, and even if they did, by the time they got their bureaucratic butts in gear, it would be too late.

At the academy, Clancy wasn’t happy to see Portia again, and was even less happy to hear her request to see Morning’s ex-crew. But her threat to blow the whistle on the academy’s lack of safety precautions, on his watch, persuaded him to give her a few minutes to talk to them while they were on a break between field tests.

After the exhausted crew finished a grueling 150-pound body carry through an obstacle course, they gathered around Prowler’s fire engine, which was parked between the training buildings. As they stripped off turnout coats and chugged water, Portia noticed that they had wooden stakes stowed inside their coats.

Despite the anti-vampire weapons, and the probies’ anti-Morning feelings, Portia launched into the details of how Morning had been framed, was innocent, and had been unjustly booted from the academy. “All he wanted was to be here today, with his crew, performing the tests
that would’ve realized his dream: becoming a firefighter. But the world conspired against him, and now he’s not only in a fight for his life, he’s fighting for all the Leaguers who are being led into a vampire genocide.”

Clancy, listening with a skeptical scowl, broke in. “This is America, kid. We don’t do genocide.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Portia replied, “but if you’re wrong it’ll be too late for Leaguers.” Then she told them about Leaguer Rubout Day, and how the inside of Leaguer Mountain was going to be turned into “a stake-and-fire pit.” When she finished, the probies stared in gawping disbelief.

Sully broke the silence. “Even if all that’s true, what can we do about it? We’re just a bunch of probies fighting fake fires and trying to earn our badges.”

Portia started to answer but Prowler stepped off his rig and asked to respond. Portia nodded.

Prowler took in the two dozen probies. “When you become a firefighter, you don’t just earn a badge, you earn the right to wear the emblem of all firefighters”—he tapped the stubby FDNY cross on his T-shirt—“the Maltese Cross. Any firefighter who wears this cross knows the code shared by all fire knights. He lives in courage, a ladder rung from death. He lives knowing he may lay down his life to save others. And he lives knowing that his life is protected by all other fire knights.”

Prowler gestured to Portia. “What she’s saying is that one of your crew, Morning McCobb, knows too well those first two things: he lives in courage, and he’s willing to sacrifice his life to save his people. What he doesn’t know is if his crew is willing to go into battle with him and protect him in the ultimate test: to see if every one of you has what it takes to be a knight at the fire table.”

Armando stood up. “I’m in. But how are we gonna join Morning in the fight when we’re in New York and Leaguer Mountain is in California?”

Prowler gestured to his truck. “They don’t call me ‘the chauffeur,’ for nuthin. Who else is gonna join us in the final test?”

“Armando,” Clancy barked, “don’t fall for his fire knight bull. If you leave here, you’re gonna kiss your badge goodbye. That goes for all of you. It’ll be your last probie screwup, and I guarantee you’ll never get another shot at being one of the bravest!”

Armando reached under his coat and pulled out a wooden stake. “Captain Clancy, this
is
my shot.” Armando tossed the stake on the cement. It skittered toward Clancy’s feet. He sidestepped to avoid being hit. By the time Clancy looked back up, Armando stood on Prowler’s truck.

One by one the probies tossed their stakes to the ground and climbed on the truck. The last probie stood by himself in the street: Sully. He reached to the back of his helmet and pulled a wooden stake out of his helmet strap.

“Don’t do it, Joey,” Clancy warned. “Your dad will roll in his grave.”

Sully shook his head. “Nah. The last thing my dad did was roll with his crew. I’m gonna roll with mine.” As he flipped the stake over his shoulder, his fellow probies cheered.