Ninth Grade Slays by Heather Brewer Page B

leave at four in the morning.”
    Vlad opened his mouth to protest—after all, his uncle looked exhausted—but something in Otis’s eyes when he glanced back at Vlad told him to keep his opinions to himself. He offered a nod and made his way slowly up the stairs. This wasn’t exactly the reunion he’d hoped for.
    Vlad lay on his bed and dozed in and out of sleep until a soft ball of fluff stepped on his forehead. With a grunt, he nudged Amenti off his face and sat up. The alarm clock glowed a cool blue 1:31. Vlad sat up and rubbed his eyes. His stomach rumbled its late-night demands, so he slipped out the door and downstairs for a snack.
    The light in the living room was on. He peered around the corner, hoping to find Otis either snoring away on the couch or wide awake and ready to answer Vlad’s questions about the slayer. What he found gave him pause.
    Otis was sitting in the wingback chair, looking exhausted and sad. Nelly stood behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Otis covered her hand with his and squeezed. Each of them smiled wearily into the other’s eyes, and as Vlad looked on, he couldn’t help but smile, too. He’d never seen two people so immediately, unabashedly attracted to each other. Not since ...
    Vlad’s smile slipped.
    His eyes brimmed with tears.
    Not since his parents.
    The scene in front of him changed. Vlad was ten and up hours past his bedtime. He’d snuck down the hall to his father’s study, where he’d spied his parents exchanging loving glances and holding hands. His mother had been standing behind his father in his favorite chair.
    It was the last time he saw his parents alive.
    The next morning, he’d risen early, turned off their alarms so they could sleep in, and gotten himself off to school. That afternoon he’d found them dead.
    Vlad blinked away more tears. Nelly had draped a blanket over Otis, who, despite his will, was beginning to doze off.
    Suddenly, Vlad didn’t feel hungry anymore.
    He went back upstairs and looked at the framed photo of his parents on the dresser before crawling under the covers. His mom and dad were smiling at him, but tonight their smiles seemed forced—almost as if they were trying to hide the pain of missing him. He tried to block out the memory of finding their charred remains, but the nightmarish experience rushed through the forefront of his mind with a whiff of ash and smoke.
    Vlad hugged his pillow and stared at the photo of his parents and cried until sleep took him over at last.

10
    SIBERIA
    AFTER TWENTY-SIX HOURS on various planes that took Vlad from Stokerton to New York, then Paris and after that, Moscow, Vlad was about as exhausted as a person could get. Everyone in the world seemed to be traveling with him and Otis, as each airport had been exceedingly, obnoxiously busy. On each plane Vlad had tried to nap, but apparently, flight attendants are part bloodhound and can sniff a sleeping person from a mile away. By their third flight, he’d become convinced that it was written in their flight attendant bylaws that if anyone within their reach on an airplane begins to feel remotely drowsy, they should offer them a drink . . . or some pretzels . . . or one of those stupid little pillows that were barely big enough to cover Vlad’s ear, let alone cushion his head against the window.
    Otis had apparently no trouble snoozing his way from Moscow to Novosibirsk, Russia, as he’d snored quietly into Vlad’s ear for roughly an hour before Vlad nudged him. Otis snorted and turned his head the other way, content to snore in the direction of the angry-looking woman across the aisle. Vlad watched out the window but couldn’t see anything but clouds. His entire body felt alive with energy— soon he’d be getting instruction on telepathy from, what Otis had said, one of the oldest, most talented vampires around. The anticipation was making it increasingly difficult