The Slayer Chronicles: First Kill Read Free Page B

bed.
    Tiptoeing across the bare wood floor, Joss crept to his bedroom door and put his ear to the wood. Cecile had quieted, but he was sure she’d start up again soon. Her nightmares were never brief. Without reason, she’d been having them since she was a toddler. They’d come on the heels of her night terrors, and could only be calmed by the presence of Joss and his assurance that everything would be all right. He wrapped his fingers around the doorknob and turned, pulling the door until it opened a few inches.
    Cecile was silent.
    Joss furrowed his brow and looked longingly back at his warm bed. But a noise drew his attention to the hallway. The soft creak of mattress springs.
    Curiosity filled Joss, and he crept down the hall toward Cecile’s mostly-closed bedroom door. Stopping in front of it, Joss whispered, “Cecile?”
    There was no sound. Not from Cecile or anything else. The air was heavy with silence. It was almost too quiet.
    Joss leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the wood until the door opened just a crack and he could peer inside. What he saw stopped his heart from beating for several moments.
    Joss scrambled back from the door. He backed hard into the wall behind him, his jaw hanging open in utter horror, his trembling fingers clamping tight over his mouth so that his screams would not escape. He slid to the floor, frozen in absolute fear.
    Cecile—small, sweet, six-year-old Cecile—was lying on her bed, pale as snow. A dark, fluid line had been drawn from her neck to her pink ballerina sheets. Blood. Cecile’s blood. Her eyes, thankfully, were closed. She wasn’t moving. Standing by her bed was a man that wasn’t a man. His teeth were razor sharp and pointed. His skin was paler than Cecile’s. He was a monster, and looked like every stereotypical vampire that Joss had ever seen in a movie or on television.
    Joss couldn’t move. Not to check on his sister. Not to force the terrible creature from their home. Not to call for his mom or dad. He couldn’t budge. And what’s worse, the creature—the monster—had noticed him.
    It licked Cecile’s blood from its lips and stepped into the hall, crouching before Joss. And when it sighed, Joss almost gagged at the smell of his sister’s blood on its tongue. “Little one,” it said, as if they were old acquaintances. “You weren’t supposed to see this. Or me. So forget my face. It will be easier for both of us.”
    Then the monster touched his finger lightly to Joss’s temple, and Joss screamed.

3
     
    THE DEATH OF A FAMILY
     
    The funeral home was packed with people—most of whom Joss either didn’t know, or simply had no memory of meeting before. All around the room were bouquets of pink roses. At the far end of the room, at the farthest point from where Joss was seated with his hands folded and head down, was a small white coffin. Inside was Cecile, or what had once been Cecile.
    He had silently begged the powers that be that her coffin would be closed, that her body wouldn’t be put on display for people to gawk at. But his pleas had fallen on deaf ears, it seemed. So Joss stayed where he was, at the back of the funeral home, and refused every suggestion that he go up and say his good-byes.
    He would never say good-bye to his sister. Never.
    And he wouldn’t cry over her shell until his pain had been relieved, either. No, he would use that pain, tuck it somewhere inside of him until he had the strength to find whatever had killed her and bring it to justice somehow.
    He’d told his parents about the monster—that he’d seen a creature looming over his bleeding sister, but could not seem to recall its face, no matter how hard he tried. Whenever the smallest detail of the face would begin to creep into his mind, it was whisked away by a gray fog. But they wouldn’t listen. They thought a madman had killed Cecile. Joss had tried explaining to the police what happened that night, but no one would listen to him. They simply