Vampire Island (6 page)

Maddy

O
ne thing Maddy was sure of—a good bat offense is the best bat defense. Once Snooks had appeared to the von Kriks’ rescue, she’d flown at him in a flapping, hissing flurry.

“How dare you call yourself a servant, Snooks, when you haven’t cleaned this den in weeks? No wonder you keep these curtains closed!” She’d swooped in closer. “It’s like a dust palace in here!”

For a moment, Snooks looked bewildered, but that moment didn’t last long enough to permanently damage the Kriks. He shooed off Maddy, lurching over to the velvet drapes and yanking them shut.

The barely conscious Kriks whimpered with relief.

“Little shrimp,” said Snooks, wagging a finger right back at Maddy, “you are strange and dangerous.” True. The Kriks convulsed in agreement. From beneath the sofa, Nigel’s icy eyes were alert as one brittle, waxen hand reached up to grasp Nicola’s.

“How do your allergies fare, my darling?” he wheezed.

“Minor hives, my pet. Minor hives.” Nicola coughed. “Snooks. Remove her.”

Snooks had already hooked a grip under Maddy’s collar and was dragging her from the den, down the staircase, and out of the house, where he deposited her with a plop between the smirking doorstop gargoyles. “Don’t come back, little shrimp,” he said. “You are an unwanted pest. And—” Snooks held up the flat of his palm—
“uninvited.”

Whether he knew it or not, Snooks had cast a spell over his home. Once a vampire has been forbidden from entering the home of an enemy, she cannot intrude under the guise of false friendship. In order for Maddy to cross the von Krik threshold, she would have to announce that she was up to no good. Which, of course, was out of the question.

At least Maddy had her answer. The sunlight test had proven it, she decided. Those von Kriks were bloodsuckers. Even if they were living according to New World rules, their presence was a danger. Who knew when they’d decide they might want to attack their fruit-fortified neighbors? They needed to be driven off, quietly and expertly.

Maddy waited a couple of days before she put the next phase of her plan into action. She used most of her allowance to purchase the ingredients from the grocery store, and walked the whole twelve blocks to St. James Church on Madison Avenue to fill her thermos with the secret kicker ingredient.

Back in the kitchen, Chef Maddy rubbed her hands together. Humming, she tied on an apron and whirled like a windstorm, pulling down bowls and excavating the electric whisk from the cobwebby back of the cupboard.

She stopped a minute to stare down the oven. Since the Livingstones followed an all-raw-foods diet, the oven had never been turned on. Tentatively, Maddy swiveled one knob to
BAKE
and another knob to 350 degrees. After a few seconds, she opened the oven door and lick-tested the grill—yes indeed, it was warming up nicely. She set two garlic heads onto the oven’s top shelf and resumed studying her cookbook. It appeared she would have to improvise in some places.

“For example, instead of using cooling racks, I’ll stick them on the counter.”

“Stick what?”

Maddy jumped. “Crudson! Get down from there.” A pesky squirt of a kid brother was bad enough, but one who could perch from the highest rafters was even worse. “You know Mom says no roosting on the refrigerator.”

“And what does she say about hiding icky stuff in the yewn?” asked Hudson.

“First of all, the New World word is not
yewn
, it’s
oven.
Second, not that it’s your business, but I’m using the oven to bake my delicious white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. Now get lost.”

“Watercolors would have been a more chill hobby for you.” Hudson pinched his nose and made a face. “You’re a terrible cook. It smells putrid in here, like…like…”

“Garlic,” said Maddy. “I’m softening two heads. After I peel and chop them, they’ll look just like macadamia nuts. Reformed purebloods can’t resist gorging on sugary food. But instead, they’ll be treated to a sachet of pure garlicky poison.” She threw back her head and did her best Count Chocula laugh. Maddy was a big fan of Count Chocula.

“Don’t you dare turn on that mixer,” said Hudson. “It’s a waste of energy. I’ll come down and mix the cookie dough for you by hand.” In the next instant, he was off the fridge and standing beside her. He sampled a white chocolate chip. “Blech. Tastes like a dried-up powdered pear, but worse. I’ll stick to fruit.”

Maddy swatted him away. “And when you’re finished mixing, you’re going to do another favor for me.”

“What?”

“You’re going to put on my Elf Scout uniform and sell these cookies to the von Kriks.”

“Why would I do that?”

Maddy thought. “Because otherwise tonight while you’re sleeping, I’ll lock your sleeping bag zipper so you can’t get out and fly around, ha ha ha.”

“That’s called blackmail, Mads.”

“That’s called you’re right, and so what?”

“Well, because it’s too wicked. You have to strike a bargain with me, not blackmail me, if you want my cooperation.”

Maddy pondered this. Possibly he had a point. Sometimes her darker vampirey instincts did not steer her in the nicest directions. “What’s the bargain?”

Hudson whispered it in her ear. Easy enough, and possibly fun, but Maddy acted as though she had to consider it. No use letting Hudson think this was an easy trade. “Mmmaybe.”

A smile lit up her brother’s face. “O Happy Day!”

“‘O Happy Day’ is worse than
yewn
as an Old World expression, Hud,” Maddy warned. “You’ve really got to get with modern vocab. Even
chill
is kind of over.” Then Maddy poured carefully from her thermos. “Substituting some holy water for the egg,” she explained. “Watch and learn. And put the thermos back in the fridge—never know when we’ll need it again.”

“You’re not going to really hurt those Kriks, are you? They have as much right to live here as we do.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Crud. We were here first. We need to protect ourselves. They can go find another neighborhood.”

Hudson nodded solemnly. She liked how he was being so attentive.

And she especially liked how he looked all dressed up in her blue Elf Scout uniform once the cookies were cooling and they’d gone to her room to transform Hudson into a girl.

“I don’t need a mirror to know I wear this tunic better than you ever did,” said Hudson, giving a pretty twirl.

“You wish.” But Maddy knew this was untrue. Hudson could wear a laundry bag and look photo perfect, if he could show up in a photo. Maddy yanked up his knee socks and flattened his sash, which had no badges, since Maddy had only been in Elf Scouts for three weeks before she’d been kicked out for biting the troupe’s Persian cat mascot, Quincy.

Back in the kitchen, Maddy smoothly slivered open a box of Elf Scouts buttercrumblies. Her parents had bought some boxes last year to be neighborly, then tossed them in the cupboard and forgot about them. Maddy shook out a sleeve of buttercrumblies and replaced them with her own creations. Her cookies looked hunchbacked. Maybe she’d needed that egg after all?

“Good enough,” she decided. “Remember, Hud, you’ll be selling these buttercrumblies to Snooks. He’s the von Kriks’ butler, and I’m counting on him to have a sweet tooth, too.” She pinched Hudson’s cheeks and poofed his hair. “Speak loud and repeat everything Snooks says so I can echolocate.”

Hudson looked perplexed. “And you
promise,
if I sell these cookies, that you’ll help me with my project?”

“A bargain’s a bargain, not a promise. Let’s see how much you help me first. Now go.
Go
.”

They left the apartment together. Maddy watched her brother cross the street and knock on the von Kriks’ front door before she ducked down the alley and crouched by the pantry entrance, the closest she could get to the Kriks without being inside. She could feel the curse Snooks had set against her hanging thick as a frozen fog around the house. Dang that Snooks and his Unvitation!

“Hello, sir.” Hudson’s voice was light as meringue. “My name is Henrietta Hudson, and I wanted to know if you’d like to buy some Elf Scout cookies?”

Maddy snickered. Hudson sounded so sweet and innocent. How could Snooks not take the bait?

“Of course you can sample one,” said Hudson.

Maddy’s fangs gnashed. O Unhappy Day! What kind of dimwit Elf Scout was Henrietta Hudson, anyhow? Offering free tastes was absolutely against Elf protocol. “No samples!” Maddy bounced the words like a punch. Too late.

“Glad you like it,” purred Henrietta Hudson. “Elves have been selling reasonably priced, tasty cookies for many years. It’s a shame that they insist on using these plastic sleeves, which are a crime against the environment. And now, since you have tried one of these delicious buttercrumblies, you’ll have to buy the entire box.”

There was a very long pause.

“What’s he saying?” Maddy squeaked. She could hardly stand the suspense.

“I’m sorry that you don’t want to purchase this box, but it’s a standard consumer rule—you taste it, you buy it.” Henrietta Hudson’s voice was polite, but firm.

“
Now
what’s he saying?” Maddy’s fingernails were pointy enough to cut glass. She scraped them against the side of the stone wall. Snooks’ curse tingled back through her fingertips.

“Very good, sir. You’ve made a reasonable decision. Fifteen dollars, please.”

Wow—he did it! Hudson had sold the poison cookies, and at a ridiculous markup. Her little brother was not such a bad Scout after all.

As soon as Maddy saw Hudson trotting back across the street, she dashed after him.

“Nice work, Henrietta!”

“Easy.” Her brother dropped the money in her palm. “So you’ll do that thing for me? Say, next Monday?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And can I keep this tunic?”

“No way.” Maddy was still hopeful that the Elf Scouts would ask her back into the troop. After all, she hadn’t meant to bite Quincy; it had been pure instinct after that nasty cat had hissed at her. And she’d barely broken skin, really, it was more of a taste, just enough to scare him. Maddy hadn’t meant to also scare the Elves.

“Here’s what I don’t understand,” said Hudson that evening as he and Maddy swung upside down by their knees in the coat closet, an Old World habit that still worked nicely when they needed a stretch. “A cookie can’t slay a vampire. I don’t get your diabolical scheme, Mads.”

Maddy flung out her arms so her knuckles brushed the floor. Her ears were close enough to the ground to hear mice scrabbling under the floorboards. “Think of it as chasing down the wildebeest. When the wildebeest is too tired to move from the poison effects of the dart—or in this case, when Snooks and the Kriks get too sick from the cookies—that’s when I move in for the kill.”

“Aha. But how? Stakes through their hearts?” asked Hudson. “Silver bullets? Replace their sunblock with vanilla pudding?”

“Just leave the dastardly details to me.”

“But here’s what I also don’t get,” said Hudson. “Why would anyone want to chase down a wildebeest?”

Maddy appraised her upside-down brother, wondering if she could trust him. After all, it had been a triumphant day of sibling teamwork. “You wouldn’t understand, Crud, but I’ve got to get to the bottom of the Krik mystery. I think it’s my fate.”

“Oh, yes. I’m beginning to think a lot about my own fate, too.” Even with his hair standing off his head, Hudson looked as solemn as Maddy had ever seen him. “Like, why did I get to keep my chill nightly transformations? Why am I the only one of us who can communicate with other species?”

Maddy usually would have been irritated to hear Hudson’s questions, because they sounded showoff-y. But since he seemed so earnest, so ready to absorb her every word, she confessed, “I think my destiny is not to be a vegan. Let’s face it, I’m way more predator than the rest of the family. One drop of blood bug is tastier to me than a crate of perfect apricots. When I’m on the hunt is when I’m at my best. And those Kriks have got my instincts up.”

Hudson bit his bottom lip. “Do you honestly think the Kriks are vamps?”

“All I know is pureblood vampires living across the street from hybrids means danger for us, no matter how peaceful they’re pretending to be. We need to strike first.”

“If you drive them away, Mads, then we inherit their townhouse. That’s the Old World rule. Though I’m not sure how it works here.” Hudson looked skeptical. “And I don’t know why anyone’d want to live in that place.”

“Yeah, no kidding. It’s almost
too
perfect.” Maddy sighed. She couldn’t help but sometimes daydream of leading her parents across the street to their new home. Her mother daubing her eyes, her father puffed with pride, her brother and sister trailing behind. A nice change! Lexie always got the lead in school plays and recitals, and she’d won the Presidential Fitness Test three years straight—whereas Maddy wasn’t anything special at drama, and no good at gym on account of her asthma. Then there was Hudson’s handsomeness, which got him plenty more attention than he deserved.

It’s about time, Maddy decided, that my special talent got noticed.