No sense hiding it anymore, then. Doug brought the stake out in the open.
Victor nodded. "Do you want to stop being a vampire?" He’d been wondering just this for weeks, but when Doug spoke his answer still surprised him.
"Yes."
Victor waved him forward. "Then come on!"
It was the best invitation Doug was ever going to get, so he lunged up the steps and swung his weapon high toward Victor’s chest. But standing on a lower step put him at a disadvantage. Victor deflected Doug’s arm to the side, both boys lost their footing, and two entangled bodies came tumbling down the stairs.
On the ground floor Doug collected himself but couldn’t account for the stake. He couldn’t even remember dropping it.
Victor coughed, still on his back. "What are you doing? Not me! Stephin David!" He tried to get to his feet, but Doug pushed him off balance again. Victor’s back hit the wall, the portrait of Tom North came down on his head. The glass shattered.
A creaking upstairs told Doug that Stephin was now on the move. And so was Victor. He scrambled backward to the front door. Doug went at him again, but this time Victor found his footing and hit him, hard. Everything went red. Doug felt and heard a door slam right between his ears. He staggered and took a few halting steps backward. Glass crunched under his heels.
"I’ve been punched by a vampire, an Indian girl, and a panda," he mumbled. "I should be a video game."
He took two deep breaths and charged again. A moment before Victor tossed him over backward and through Stephin’s front door, Doug questioned the wisdom of rushing a varsity football player, and as he lay at the bottom of the porch steps he silently congratulated himself on his insight.
He was acupunctured all over with splinters. Victor came to the door, breathing hard. Doug was counting on this—he was full of convenience store blood, but Victor was running on empty.
"Stop it, Doug! I didn’t kill Jay! Stephin David probably did it — he’s a seriously bad guy!"
"Very bad." Stephin’s sonorous voice tolled behind Victor. Victor scrambled forward and turned, and both boys could see the man was holding Doug’s lost stake. "Did anyone drop this?"
Victor made as if to grab it, but Doug grabbed Victor and dragged him down the porch steps into the street. The boys traded punches and the fight lurched across the street and into the park.
Doug could feel an itching in his gums. Victor’s fangs were bared, too. Victor got under him and threw Doug up against the thick branch of a tree. There came the cracking of wood, maybe ribs, and when Doug picked himself off the ground there was a sizable piece of tree next to him.
Victor was on his back, winded from the effort. Doug took the tree limb over his knee and snapped it in two. Then he went after Victor, swinging, but Victor clambered away, tottered at the edge of a hill, and went down.
Nearly half Clark Park was given over to a huge natural bowl, the length of a football field, which had once been a millpond. Victor tumbled into the basin and Doug came tumbling after.
"I’m sorry, Victor," Doug huffed, "but you’ve gone bad. And I need a do over for these past few months."
"I didn’t hurt—" Victor began, but Doug clubbed him with the tree limb. Victor reeled and collapsed.
Doug breathed, light-headed, and tried to focus on the limb. It was thick for a stake, and it wasn’t sharp, but hadn’t Stephin told him all the old movie tropes weren’t really that important? He stood over Victor with the branch like a great spear, and heard a faint voice calling his name.
"Doug! No! Don’t do it!"
Looking up, Doug could see two people had joined them in the basin. Stephin, and Sejal.
"Sejal?"
She was running toward them from the other side of the bowl, dressed like the heroine of some dark story. His story, maybe.
"Don’t do it, Doug!" Sejal shouted again. "I do not know what Victor has done, but he didn’t hurt Jay."
Doug went to her, his head swimming.
"You’ve got to leave here. This is a very dangerous…" He struggled to finish, but dropped to the ground by her feet.
"Your back," said Sejal. "You’re bleeding."
"Didn’t know…"
"Well, this has been a super evening," said Stephin. "It’s nice to see you again, young lady — I assume you’ve remembered our little chat."
She scowled at him. "You could have just killed yourself, you know."
"Suicide is ungrateful. And my life is not my own."
"And so you make vampires of boys like Victor. The sorts of boys who you think will want revenge."
"Hmm…" Stephin began, his hands folded in front of him, holding a spike of wood. "I’ll volunteer that my selection of Victor was a little more complicated than that, but you’re essentially correct."
Stephin stepped to the base of the hill. "It came to my attention several months ago that my behavior had become reckless, inadvisable. What seemed at first to simply be poor decisions began to look like a subconscious plan. I was scouting my own executioner. When I heard all these boys had concocted some fantasy of a mysterious female vampire, I thought the end was near. They obviously would not let it stand, being assaulted by someone like me. But now look at them," he said, his gaze falling on both Victor and Doug in turn. Victor wasn’t moving at all.
Sejal was cold. "That night I met you, you said you were observing. Observing me, perhaps, but also Jay, isn’t it? He lives nearby."
"Yes. Trying to get people motivated. Doug wanted to kill the head of his vampire family. He had only to realize who that was. How is Jay?"
"You don’t care," said Doug, trying again to stand. His breathing was labored, and his arms gave out from under him.
"I suppose neither of you would believe I do," Stephin told them.
"Victor left his mom a note…" Doug whispered. Sejal could barely hear. "I get it now…He wasn’t here to kill you ’cause you’re gay, just an asshole."
"I’m sorry," said Stephin to Sejal, "what was that last bit? Our Doug seems to be losing steam."
"He said you’re full of shit," Sejal hissed. "These boys are better than you think."
"What a comfort. So. Your champions seem to be down for the count. Are you going to kill me yourself? Here."
He tossed Sejal the tree branch stake. It landed out of reach but rolled a few feet in the crackling leaves. Sejal watched it with a sick feeling.
"Is this why you brought me here? Am I your plan B?"
"Brought you here? My dear, I haven’t made you do a thing. I only planted the merest suggestion in your mind. But, no, frankly, you were only meant to be here to assuage my ego. I’m just vain enough to want a witness."
Sejal looked from the stake to Doug. She couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep. Alive or dead. She satisfied herself that he was still breathing as Stephin continued.
"You have to strike very hard. I wonder if you have the strength. And the catch is, for all my dreams of oblivion, I don’t believe I’ll go without a fight. I may just let you do it. Or I may take your little stick and snap it along with your neck." He gave an embarrassed smirk. "I honestly don’t know."
"Don’t do it," groaned Doug from the ground. "I’ll get him. I screwed this all up, but I’ll make it right."