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  “Girls?”

  “I’ll get it, Mom.” Sunny jumps up, ready to oblige with the door opening.

  “Wait!” I cry. “Didn’t The Lost Boys teach you anything?” According to the movie, the boys’ plan to determine whether their mom’s BF was a vamp was foiled because they invited him into the house. Evidently if you let a vampire in, you’re powerless against him. “We must learn from the lessons the bad eighties movies teach us.”

  “Uh, right,” Sunny says, sitting back down. The doorbell rings again. She picks up the DVD case and skims the back. “Though did you really think it was that bad? I thought it held up kind of well, considering it was made, like, twenty years ago.”

  “Sunny! Rayne! Answer the door!” Hm. Mom’s not sounding as sweet and patient anymore.

  Sunny sets down the case. “Anyway, what if Mom lets him in? Does that mean the house is still safe for him? That anything we do won’t work?”

  I scratch my head. “I don’t know. The movie never addressed that possibility. Maybe we should go to the door and refuse him entrance. Just to make sure. Then if Mom lets him in, she’ll be the only one rendered powerless.”

  “Good idea.”

  We jump up from our seats and rush to the door. We stare at it for a moment, then at each other, both wondering what we would find on the other side. Would he be elegant and poised? Would he try to hypnotize us with mesmerizing eyes? What if he had one of the hounds of hell with him, like the boyfriend in the movie, ready to attack? Or maybe he’d be full-on vamped already, having decided to skip dinner and go right for our necks . . . as dessert.

  You never knew with an evil vampire, now did you?

  “Okay, let’s do this,” I say. I take a deep breath, then wrap my fingers around the handle and pull it open, revealing the man on the other side of the door.

  Sunny looks at the guy, then at me, one eyebrow raised in doubt. I know what she’s thinking. The guy doesn’t exactly look like a creature of the night. Out of his tux, he looks more like . . . well, an accountant. Maybe it was the lighting in the Blood Bar that made him look so commanding. Or the tux. Dressed in a pair of beige slacks and a button-down shirt, I gotta admit, he just doesn’t give off the same ghoulie glow.

  Or maybe it’s the pocket protector that’s throwing us off.

  He’s also . . . tanned looking. But, of course, that could totally be faked with Jergens. There’s this girl at school, Denise, who always looks like she’s been vacationing in the Bahamas, but it’s totally bogus. The girl has never been south of Jersey.

  In short, the guy looks nothing like a blood sucker. But that could be his clever disguise. One thing I’ve learned in the vamp world—no one is as they seem. The former Master of the Blood Coven, Lucifent, looked like the little boy from The Sixth Sense. The former slayer, Bertha, resembled a hippo more than Sarah Michelle Gellar. And, of course, Jareth, who is uber-hot and channeling Jude Law, is in actuality the most annoying, uptight, jerky vampire in the known universe.

  Not that I’ve been thinking of Jareth. In fact, I’d nearly forgotten he even exists up until this moment. I’m not even disappointed that he had a council meeting tonight and couldn’t meet me at the Blood Bar. In fact, I’m relieved. Very relieved not to have to see him again. . . .

  Sorry, tangent. Back to what happened.

  “Hi. I’m David,” Mr. Accountant Nerd says, incidentally (or not so incidentally) giving the same name as Kiefer’s character in The Lost Boys. He’s carrying a bouquet of dark red roses. The color of blood, I might add. “You must be Sunshine and Rayne?”

  Hm. He knows our names. Very interesting. Then again, I guess Mom could have told him. . . .

  “I’m Sunny. She’s Rayne,” Sunny says, helpfully. I wonder for a moment whether she’s been hypnotized to do his bidding and tell him all, then I decide it’s just typical Sunny, being overly friendly.

  David looks from me to Sunny and back again. “Um, would you like to invite me in?” he asks, looking a little doubtful.

  Ah-ha! I shoot Sunny a triumphant glance. He used the exact words! He asked to be invited in! I knew it! I knew he was a vampire.

  “It’s pretty wet out here,” David adds.

  Whoops. I’d been so wrapped up in what he looked like I hadn’t even noticed the torrential downpour the guy is standing in. Guess at least we could rule out him being a witch. He so would have melted by now.

  Still, that doesn’t mean the plan has changed any.

  “Actually, no. We can’t invite you in,” I say, trying to sound as apologetic, but firm as possible. “We are not inviting you in.”

  “Right,” Sunny adds. “In fact, we personally, Rayne and I, are denying you entrance to our house. If someone else wants to let you in—like Mom or something—well, we can’t stop her. But that doesn’t mean we’re inviting you in. It’s her decision. Which is separate from ours.”

  “Right. What she said,” I agree. “We cannot invite you in to our house. Nothing personal. We just . . . won’t. Can’t.”

  “What’s going on out here?” Mom comes up from behind us. She surveys the scene. Us blocking the door like two identical sentries. David standing outside in the rain with his wilted roses. “Girls? Why are you standing in front of the door?”

  Caught. We jump aside, both with matching guilty expressions.

  “The girls were just saying that it was up to the lady of the house to invite me in,” says Mr. Smooth, tossing us a little wink.

  Mom looks over at us, her eyes narrowed. She’s wondering what we’re up to, I’m sure, and doesn’t look the least bit amused.

  “O-kay,” she says at last. “Well, please come in, David. Before you get soaked to the bone.”

  Bingo. She says the magic words and the vampire steps over the threshold and into our house.

  Ugh—hang on. Getting IM’ed. I’ll write more in a few. . . .

  POSTED BY RAYNE McDONALD @ 10 P.M.

  ONE COMMENT:

  ThisVampsGotBack says . . .

  You know, you can be very discriminatory when it comes to your narrow definition of an appropriate-looking vampire. First poor Francis, who has a little extra muscle, and now this David guy, who because he wears glasses is all of a sudden Clark Kent. Vampires are not all Goths. They come in every shape and size and race. I’d appreciate a little more tact when you describe our kind from now on.

  15

  TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 10:30 P.M.

  Dinner with Dracula

  Okay, sorry, I’m back. Ready to recap dinner with Dracula. So we all go into the dining room, which for a moment I don’t even recognize. We’re not all that formal in the McDonald house, you see, and we usually sit at the kitchen table. The dining room is reserved for big projects like 1,000-piece puzzles or papier-mâché recreations of Custer’s Last Stand or whatever school project we’re currently working on. It’s usually messy and informal and covered in books and jackets and other bric-a-brac.

  Mom’s totally cleaned house. I actually think I see things sparkling.

  I don’t know how she managed to work all day and still have time to cook and tidy up. I feel a stab of guilt that we didn’t help her, but what could we do? We had major preps to take care of. She’ll thank us someday. When we save her from becoming a snack. When she gets to live to see us help clean the house another day.

  “Everyone take a seat and dinner will be right up,” Mom says, motioning to the table. Wow. Fancy water goblets and matching plates. Who knew we had matching plates? I wonder if she borrowed from the neighbor. And candles! In the center of the table sits a beautiful lilac and candle centerpiece. Did she actually make that? Candles and flowers and matching plates—oh, my! This guy is morphing Mom into Martha Stewart. Too bad he’s an evil dark lord of the night or I’d be welcoming his influence with open arms.

  Sunny and I watch as David picks his seat. Then we choose seats right across from him, so we can check out his every move. If he even dares to sneeze, we’re going to catalog it for futur
e study.

  Mom sniffs the air, a puzzled look falling across her face. “What’s that smell?” she asks. “Do you guys smell something?”

  Ah-ha! I elbow Sunny in the ribs. “Bad breath,” I whisper. “That was a sign of someone being a vampire in The Lost Boys.”

  “Puh-leeze. That’s just a movie thing,” Sunny hisses back. “Magnus doesn’t have bad breath.”

  Maybe not. I’ve never gotten close enough to smell it. But still, I’m not entirely convinced. And after all, Mom did say she smelled something and it certainly isn’t Sunny and me.

  “It smells like a garlic farm in here,” Mom adds.

  Okay. Maybe it is Sunny and me.

  “Uh, we ordered in some pizza for lunch,” Sunny says. “Extra, extra, extra garlic.”

  David wrinkles his nose. “Ugh. Sounds terrible,” he says with a small laugh. Sunny and I exchange glances.

  “I agree,” Mom says, giggling like a school girl. I have to resist the urge to roll my eyes. She’s got it bad for this guy.

  “Actually, I have a garlic allergy,” David says, further damning himself to the dark side. “That’s one of the reasons I shop at the co-op. I can get foods that don’t contain certain ingredients that would cause me to have an allergic reaction.”

  I exchange an excited glance at Sunny. A garlic allergy? A little bit of a convenient excuse, don’t you think? Good way to pass off to gullible humans that you’re not a doomed creature of the darkness set to eat our mom.

  We’re wise to you, Vamp Nerd.

  “Well, you won’t find any garlic in tonight’s dinner,” Mom says, having no clue about my secret last-minute add to the marinade. “Or any preservatives. I don’t trust ingredients I can’t pronounce.”

  “I agree. In fact, this may sound crazy, but I’ve always believed that the food industry could be being paid off by the pharmaceutical companies to make people get illnesses like cancer or high blood pressure. The more sick people, the more medication sales.” He chuckles, looking down at his plate. “Probably a little out there, I know.”

  Oh, no. Ohhh, no. Mom’s eyes are lighting up like a Christmas tree. Here we go.

  “I’ve always said the exact same thing!” she cries. She turns to us. “Haven’t I, girls? In fact, just the other day when Raynie was coloring her hair with some drugstore dye . . .”

  I tune her out. I’ve heard her conspiracy theories one too many times. I can’t believe David here thinks the same thing. I didn’t know anyone could be as flaky as Mom. Too bad he’s an evil blood-sucking beast, ’cause they’d be a great fit.

  The oven timer dings just as they’re getting to the part where the government is working with alien nations to secretly control the economy of the universe. Mom heads into the kitchen.

  “So,” David turns to us, all ready to be Mr. Friendly. “What do you girls enjoy doing for fun?”

  I’m about to say, “I slay vampires,” but Sunny beats me to the punch with a much wiser answer. She grabs the cross on her rosary beads and holds it up to David.

  “Mostly we pray to God,” she says, smiling sweetly. “Don’t you just love my rosary beads?”

  David doesn’t break out into a full sweat or anything, but he suddenly looks mighty nervous.

  “Have you given your life to the Lord Jesus?” I ask, taking my cue and grabbing my own cross. “He died to save your soul, you know.” Not that you have one, Vamp Nerd.

  David swallows hard. You can totally tell he wants to run screaming from the room. His insides are probably boiling, just from the proximity of the crosses.

  He is so definitely a vampire.

  I’m just about to ask him if he’d like to say a few Hail Marys with me, but then Mom returns. Which is convenient, in a way, since I actually have no idea how to say a Hail Mary. We borrowed the rosary beads from Old Sister Anne, the retired nun down the street who’s been using them to pray for our family’s soul for years.

  “What are you girls wearing?” Mom asks, looking more than a tad confused.

  Caught. Sunny turns beet red and I’m sure I’m the same. “Uh, rosary beads?” I say. “You know, for when we . . . confess?” Is that what you do with rosary beads? We were brought up in an ultra-liberal church where most of the choir members are drag queens and are thus ultra-clueless to the tenets of the Catholic church.

  Mom raises a questioning eyebrow, then turns to David. “Kids,” she says, shaking her head. “We’re actually lapsed Unitarians. We don’t use rosary beads.”

  David smiles indulgently at her. “I’m sorry to say I’m a bit of an agnostic, myself,” he says. “You’ll never find me setting foot in a church.”

  Of course you wouldn’t, Vamp Nerd. You’d probably spontaneously combust from the pure evilness that is in your soul.

  “Well, in some respects, I believe religion has been set in place to sedate the unhappy masses so the government can control our lives,” Mom theorizes as she dishes out the tofu steaks and vegan mashed potatoes.

  “I completely agree with you,” David says.

  Oh, god. Here we go again.

  Mom sits and the conversation goes back to the bizarre. For a vampire, David has a lot of out-there political opinions. Either that, or he’s just trying to impress Mom. Which means he’s done his research. Suddenly, this situation becomes a whole lot scarier. I wonder what he knows about me. About Sunny.

  I do notice that the guy doesn’t eat much dinner. He mostly pushes the food around on his plate. At first I think this could be another sign of vampirism, ’til I notice Sunny doing the same thing and realize it could just be Mom’s cooking. I’m not too thrilled with it myself. Plus, he does take a confirmed bite or two.

  The two grown-ups are so engrossed in their conversation that they don’t notice as Sunny and I slip out of our seats. Mom’s too wrapped up in Mr. Conspiracy Theory. In fact, she’s almost glowing. I haven’t seen her this happy in years. Really blows that I’m going to have to kill the guy.

  Oh, well. It’s for the best. But first we have to confirm our suspicions. I need to make sure the guy is one hundred percent evil vamp before I go whip out my stake.

  We grab the Super Soakers we’d hid behind the couch. Time for Phase Two.

  “Lock and load,” I say, raising my gun.

  She grins. “I’m so going to soak you!” she cries in an extra loud voice.

  “Not if I soak you first!”

  For the record, this was Sunny’s plan. I personally didn’t think anyone would buy that two sixteen-year-old girls would run around the house playing with water guns. Except, I guess, crazy Aunt Edna, who bought them for us. But she also bought us sweater sets in girls’ size 6X, so I’m not sure she’s aware that we’ve graduated from kindergarten yet.

  The main floor of our house is all connected, each room leading into the next. So we split up. Sunny goes through the living room and I go through the kitchen, all the while yelling threats back and forth.

  “Girls? What are you doing—?”

  But suddenly Mom knows exactly what we’re doing, though, of course, not what noble reason we have for doing it. We’re in the dining room, one on each side of Vamp Nerd, spraying each other with water and “inadvertently” spraying him in the process.

  He starts screaming like a little girl, putting his hands over his head. Sunny and I stop squirting.

  “Argh! I’m soaked!” he cries.

  Mom stares at him, then at us. I’ve never seen her look so upset. She looks like she doesn’t know whether to cry or scream. “David! Are you okay?” she asks before turning to us. “Girls! What is going on here?” she demands. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Uh, sorry, Mom. We were just playing around.” ’Cause, um, sixteen-year-old girls always play with water guns at the dinner table. She’s so not going to buy this.

  David rises from his seat, shaking the water off. We stare at him, waiting to see what will happen. Will his skin start burning off his body ’cause of the holy
water? Will he burst into flames?

  I watch as red blotches start appearing on the guy’s neck, spreading upward to his face. I knew it! The water burned him. He really is a vampire. I resist the urge to give Sunny a high five. The two of us rock. Mom is saved. She will so be thanking us later for this.

  “Oh, David, I’m so sorry,” Mom says. She grabs a handful of napkins and runs around the table to dab at his soaked clothes. I wonder if it wasn’t overkill. Those Super Soakers really put out a good deal of H2O. “I don’t know what’s gotten into them.” She shoots Sunny and me death glares. “How about an apology, girls?”

  “Actually, I’m not feeling very well,” David says to my mom. “I, uh, think I should go.”

  “What’s wrong with your face, David?” Sunny demands, not sounding all that apologetic. “Did the water burn?”

  David reaches up to touch his face. His eyes widen. “I think I may be breaking out in hives!” he cries.

  “Well, holy water can do that,” I say, having no idea if that’s true or not.

  He ignores me. “Was there garlic in that tofu?”

  Uh-oh.

  “No. Definitely not!” Mom says, looking like she’s going to cry. “David, you’re really red. Maybe we should get you to a hospital.”

  “I can drive myself,” he says grimly.

  “I really don’t—” Mom sighs. She gets the hint. “Okay. If you’re sure . . .”

  The speed by which David heads for the door makes it clear that he’s pretty sure. He wants out of here. Not that I blame him. First garlic, then crosses, followed by holy water. He knows the stake can’t be far behind. Adios, vampiro.

  “Good-bye. I’ll, uh, call you.” He doesn’t sound all that sincere.

  “Bye, David. I really am sorry.”

  But David has already left the building.

  We win.

  Mom sinks into her seat and puts her head in her hands. We wait for her to yell. To scream. But she doesn’t. She just starts to cry.