Fatal Bargain by Caroline B. Cooney

of his car. “In fact,” he whispered, “the very air is redolent of evil.”
    Ginny rolled down her window.
    A strange thick smell sifted into their car.
    It was not car exhaust.
    Ginny did not know what it was. She only knew she was beginning to prickle all over with fear. “Jordan?” she whispered.
    Jordan was staring out the window he had just opened.
    His eyes were open far too wide. His hands had fallen off the steering wheel. His breath was coming in strange little spurts.
    Ginny looked where he was looking.
    Down the valley road. Down where once the hemlocks had towered around the old house with the twisted tower. Down where someday a parking lot would lie flat and black against the ground.
    The tower was visible against the sooty sky.
    And from the tower came curving, slinking squares of blackness like immense pieces of paper, curving and reshaping themselves.
    The smell grew worse.
    Ginny felt her lungs tiring, her heart slowing.
    Jordan’s hands went back on the wheel. Jordan’s foot lifted from the brake. The automatic transmission moved the car forward, slowly at first, and then gathering momentum. Jordan was not quite steering and not quite touching the gas pedal. The car was going down the valley road, going all by itself toward the black shape that lowered gently, as if to meet them.
    Ginny thought: Nobody will come to look for us. Because we’re supposed to be the ones doing the looking.
    “As I say,” repeated the vampire, “there is another interesting reality.”
    Randy tried to glare at the vampire, but it was difficult. The vampire did not stay in one place, and the parts of him that materialized changed each time.
    “You see,” said the vampire, “being a hero is a human reality. It is not part of my world. And it is within my world that we operate tonight.”
    “What are you talking about?” said Lacey. Could it really be correct that the six teenagers would retain no memory of the night’s events? How terrible that would be! Randy’s wonderful courage — lost like a fog burning off in the morning sun. Her own shattering fear — vanished like pain from a paper cut. This new deep knowledge of one another; this new view into the depths and the shallowness of five others — evaporated.
    Would Lacey really not know Sherree, or Zach, or Roxanne, or Bobby when school opened on Monday? Would they really be strangers to her as they had been strangers before? And Randy…
    What would Randy be?
    There would be less of him, the vampire had said. Not dead, and yet gone. Still breathing, and yet lacking personality.
    And would she, Lacey, for whom he had sacrificed, even know about it? Would she ignore him in the halls? Not see him in the cafeteria? Not care about him on the bus? Would Randy be faceless? Even though he had endured this horrible fate by choice, for their sake?
    Lacey did weep, after all.
    At least Randy saw that. At least Randy had a moment of tears.
    And then she wondered — would Randy remember?
    Would Randy be a zombie, staggering dimly through the remaining years of his life, lacking even the comfort of his own courage? Or would terrible knowledge lie within him — useless, unspoken?
    “My world,” said the vampire, very softly and very low. “In my world, you will recall, you had to choose my victim from among you. Randy has volunteered instead. And this, of course, saves him. Randy can no longer be my victim.” The vampire smiled. In his voice as rich as dark chocolate, he murmured, “I neglected to explain to you that a person who volunteers to sacrifice himself for others…” and here, the vampire smiled a smile so full of teeth it seemed that there were several vampires living in his mouth “…is always safe. You may leave if you wish, Randy.”
    Randy stared at the vampire. What was going on? What had happened to his great bravery, his sacrifice, his splendor?
    With a swirl of his cloak, the vampire discarded Randy. “You are out of the running, Randy. Very