End of Days Read Free Page B

the Baron Vrolok. My uncle Maximilian told me about him. That he’d killed my parents and infected me. Later, Vrolok tried to kill Charlie and me. And Luna. But, thanks to Ophelia, we’d survived. So had he, but only because I didn’t have the heart to kill him. Now he was missing, or his body was. It meant he might still be out there. Although he’d almost burnt up in the sun, nearly dead for a vampire isn’t really dead at all. Unless the head is cut off, or the body is incinerated, all it takes to bring us back is a bit of time and blood. Lots of it.
    â€œWe should never have stayed in Peterborough,” Charlie whispered.
    It was hard to disagree at the moment.
    We ran over the downtown and sprinted along the river until we reached a picnic area between one of the city’s hydro stations and a row of houses. Then the smell of vampire blood returned, stronger here than at the house. I slowed, then stopped. Charlie pulled up beside me. The way his nose flared, I could tell he’d noticed, too. His teeth were down and his pupils were two black disks again. Wide. Alert. Nervous. I felt the same.
    I scanned the shore and the grass around the trees. A few picnic tables sat near a trash can. Drops of vampire blood ran past them in a straight line toward the river.
    â€œOver here.” Charlie pointed to a large bootprint in the grass a few steps away. “Do you think it’s from one of those vampires at the rave?”
    I had no idea.
    â€œLook, it leads straight into the water.”
    In the mud on the lip of the bank was another print. I set my foot in it, then backed up and looked for another. Whoever it was,he’d lost a lot of blood here. Then jumped into the river. It made no sense. Blood doesn’t clot underwater.
    â€œWhat can do this to a vampire?” Charlie asked.
    I shrugged. “A stronger vampire maybe.”
    He kneeled down and smeared his fingertips with blood, then raised it to his nose. He was about to stick it in his mouth when I grabbed his arm.
    â€œOh, right,” he said.
    I let go of his arm. He wiped his fingers on his pant leg and stood. A vampire’s blood could be fatal to another vampire. I wasn’t exactly sure why.
    â€œHe was motoring.” Charlie stared at the bootprint in the grass. The other print, the one in the mud by the water, was at least twenty feet away. “You think he was being followed?”
    My eyes swept over the grass. “I don’t see any other footprints, do you?”
    Charlie went back to the bank where the ground was softer and shook his head. Then he kicked off his shoes and waded out to his knees. A few seconds later, he pointed to the ground at the lip of the river. I saw a hollow depression. A few inches of water had washed inside, obscuring the bottom. We found several more. They were deep, as if someone had pressed a large tin can into the muck.
    â€œWhat makes that kind of mark?” he asked.
    I couldn’t say. I stared at the round hole and tried to imagine what might have done it. It looked almost like a bear print, but was wider at the front, with no toe markings, though the river might have washed them away.
    Charlie slapped my shoulder gently with the back of his hand. “Don’t go catatonic on me now.”
    I wasn’t planning to. But I often got quiet when I was thinking and sometimes forgot to answer people when they spoke to me. I’d picked up this bad habit from living in the Nicholls Ward. Half the people there couldn’t carry on a conversation. They just muttered all the time or repeated themselves or completely ignoredme. Since it didn’t really make a difference what I said to them, I got used to keeping my mouth shut and thinking about things in my head. The busier my mind got, the less likely I was to say anything out loud.
    Charlie gently punched my shoulder. “Say something, turkey meat. Your tongue’s frozen.”
    â€œSorry. I’m