"His arms and, I think, his legs. They don't match. One is longer than the other. And they're different colors. Sort of blue or purple."

Really bad news.

I knew where this was going and I didn't like the sound of it. "Does he have scars around his neck?"

"Yeah. I think so. Although I wasn't really checking out the guy's neck when he started to rip me open."

"Any scars on his wrists? I need you to think. This is really important."

"Think? All I want to do is get the fuck out of here. Who are you?"

"Someone who got lost in the woods," I said absentmindedly, mentally running through the list of supplies that I knew I had with me.

The guy sat up. "Look, I don't know who you are, or if you know who that crazy dude is, but I'm just a guy with a flat. Let me out of here and I swear you'll never see me again."

"You had a flat tire?" I asked.

He nodded.

Great. So our flat wasn't an accident.

Sliding the dagger back into my pocket, I put the flashlight between my teeth and spoke around it as I pulled out what I would need from my utility belt. "I'm not the one keeping you here. Feel free to leave. But if you want to actually, you know, stay alive? You'd better stick with me."

A scream came from the floors above us. An unmistakable woman's scream, and I looked up.

"What does he want?" the boy asked.

"He wants a piece of you. Arm, leg, thumb, heart . . . any of it. All of it. He's a resurrectionist. Sort of a mad scientist."

"Oh, shit. Like Dr. Frankenstein?"

"No. Dr. Frankenstein made a monster. This guy is the monster." Resurrectionists were possessed by demons that drove them mad with their constant desire for the perfect body. They would find human hosts who disassembled and reassembled themselves hundreds and hundreds of times just to get the right "match."

Leaving a wave of body parts in their wake.

"How do you know he's a . . . what did you call him again?" the boy asked.

"Resurrect-" I sighed. "Never mind." It would take way too long to explain to him about my family and the fact that we'd already come across one of these guys before in Utah. "I just like to watch a lot of TV, and there's a serial killer who's loose. They gave him a nickname."

Holding up a quarter-sized piece of quartz crystal, I looked it over and then quickly palmed it again.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Protection. A girl's always gotta carry some. But we need to leave. Now. Follow me."

He nodded and, thankfully, didn't ask any more questions. Creeping toward the stairs, he stayed close behind me as we went up. The door was jammed, but my favorite silver dagger easily proved once again why it was my favorite as I jimmied the lock.

I stuck my head out slowly, surveying the scene in front of me. The living room had a dark red streak running across it that hadn't been there before, and humming sounds were coming from the kitchen.

But the path to the front door was otherwise clear.

"Ready?" I whispered. "On the count of three, we run to the door. No matter what, do not stop. Do not look around. Just hit the door, get outside, and go through the woods. The main road is about eighty feet south of here. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Okay, one . . . two . . ."

Loud sobs filled the air, and I knew, just knew, that it was Kelly.

"It sounds like he's got someone else," he said. "Are we going to help them?"

"No."

"No?"

"No. They're . . ." Vampires. But I couldn't leave them. They were defanged, for God's sake. "Shit!"

Cannibal Girl Scouts were one thing. I'd known I'd be able to find them because the moon was full and that's when their feeding frenzies were always at their worst. But vampires and a resurrectionist now too? I could seriously use some backup.

I took a deep breath. "Okay, new plan: on the count of three, you go."

"But what about-?"

"I'll take care of it. You just get free and clear, okay?" I didn't leave room for any hesitation. "One . . . two . . . three . . . go!"

We burst out from behind the door and I focused on finding the vampires. The boy was on his own. Hopefully, he would listen to me.

The living room branched off into a sitting room, where I found Kelly huddled in the corner, with Dickson tied to a chair. His head was down, eyes closed. I ran to Kelly and grabbed her arm.

One shoe was gone and her makeup was running, but she looked up at me and struggled to her feet. "I thought you were dead," she hiccupped. "He has Joe and David. David's leg . . . his leg is . . . gone. . . ." She started crying again, and I forced her to follow behind me as I went to Dickson.

He was harder to wake up. It took a couple of slaps, but then he bolted upright. Straining at the ropes, he loosened them a bit as he thrashed from side to side, and then I was able to get him free. "We gotta get out of here," he kept saying. "We gotta get out of here."

"You two, go," I insisted, pushing them to the door as soon as the last rope fell away.

"But what about Joe and David?" Kelly asked. "It's horrible."

"I'll find them. Just go. I don't need the two of you to worry about."

Dickson grabbed Kelly's hand and they took off. One minute they were right there, standing next to me, and the next, their boas were flapping behind them as they scrambled out the front door. I turned to the kitchen. Two down, two to go.

Or so I thought.

The boy, it turned out, had not listened to me.

As soon as I entered the kitchen, I came face-to-face with the resurrectionist sitting on top of him, holding him down. David was in the corner, minus a leg. Just like Kelly had said.

The resurrectionist looked awful. Bloated skin and mismatched arms. Even though he was crouching, I could tell that one limb was drastically shorter than the other. It didn't reach the ground. In fact, it almost looked like a woman's leg.

"So, I have a question," I said, holding the crystal behind my back and clutching it with all my strength. If it was torn out of my grip, it could be the end of me. "Are you technically a man, or a woman? I mean, you've pretty much replaced all the important parts, right?"

As I spoke, I felt the crystal growing warmer in my hand. It was absorbing my energy, and I'd need that to help me take this big boy down. "In the Name of God, the God of Israel," I chanted quietly, "may Michael be at my right hand, Gabriel at my left-"

"Why do you do that?" the resurrectionist said, looking over at me. "That does not stop me."

The demon inside him had taken on the voice of a young boy.

"What is with the demented children's voices?" I asked, stopping my chant. "Do you creatures want to scare me off from ever having kids of my own one day?"

The resurrectionist turned his head to one side with an unearthly calm.

Almost time. "Uriel before me, Raphael behind me, and above my head, the presence of God!" I said.

He just looked confused.

"The protection spell is for me, dumb-ass. It might not be able to stop you, but this can." Holding the crystal out in the flat of my hand, I said, "Return to the center of the circle, from whence you came. No man shall come upon you, until the end of time. So mote it be!"

I waited just long enough for the demon to start separating from the man he'd possessed. The room filled with an angry swirl of black haze, and I couldn't see. I had to time it just right, or he wouldn't be captured in the crystal. And I wouldn't be going home at all tonight.

"So mote it be!" I screamed, as the black smoke was sucked into the center of the stone. I smashed the crystal down onto the wooden floor as hard as I could.

It shattered to pieces.

The empty shell of the man that the resurrectionist had been possessing fell over, long dead generations ago. His skin was molting off of him in little flakes, and his eyes were a filmy blue. The boy on the floor just lay there, quivering under the hulk of rotten flesh.

"It's all fun and games," David said suddenly, hysterically. "It's all fun and games until someone loses a leg. He took it! He took my leg!"

I glanced over at the crude chop job that had severed his right limb just below the knee. Luckily, one of the side effects of being a vampire was that they bled very slowly. What should have been a torrential stream from opened veins and arteries was only a slow trickle. The leg in question, however, was nowhere to be seen. And I wasn't going to stick around to find it. Resurrectionists usually traveled in pairs.

"You'll be fine," I told him. "Now you'll have a story to tell all the other vamps at the convention." I leaned over to give the boy on the floor a hand up. "Since you didn't take my advice and get out while you could, you're going to help me carry this whiny bloodsucker all the way back to the car."

The boy didn't say anything, but moved when I pushed the body of the former resurrectionist off of him. I rigged David in between us, and a loud whimper came from the cabinets to my left.

"What . . . ?" I turned to glance at it.

The door swung open slowly and Joe came crawling out, his fishnets torn and holey. "I hid when he went after David," he admitted sheepishly. "Sorry, buddy," he said, casting David a baleful look.

David groaned loudly.

"Where's Dickson and Kelly?" Joe asked.

"Already out. You want to go find them?"

He nodded, and David groaned again. Joe led the way to the front door. "Well, this has been the best night of my life," I said, as we limped toward it. "I think I'm in the mood to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show now. Maybe I'll even go to next year's convention. You guys want to go with me?"

Joe started to say something, but as he opened the door, we were greeted by a new sight. And a new sound.

Ten little Girl Scouts in perfect green sashes and perfect green bows with bared teeth and raised hands lunged at us, growling in unison.

Troop 409.

I looked back and forth between Joe and the boy, calculating my chances of getting out of here with the least number of flesh wounds. Wondering who was going to get the worst of it.

It was David who surprised me.

"You little bitches," he said, almost growling.

"Ready to do this thing?" I asked Joe. "We're going to have to make a run for it and if you're going to leave us behind, tell me now."

Joe stood taller and straightened his shoulders, eyes turning completely black. Another neat vampire side effect. Impressive. Apparently, he'd decided to atone for his act of cowardly cupboardness.

"It's only fair. You didn't leave us behind, so we can't leave you."

The Girl Scouts snarled, moving closer, and I knew my night was far from over. "Okay," I said, preparing to head into battle.

I knew my role. The one I played perfectly. And this time, I had backup.

"Bait me."

IV League

by Margaret Stohl

I.

he thing I mostly care about," I repeat, "is the food." Hopper ignores the slick pamphlet in my hand. Instead, he pulls his hoodie closer around his face, digging his ratty sneakers into the ratty back of the green upholstered seat in front of him. "Yeah? You checkin' out the eats up North? Thinkin' of knockin' back a six-pack of blue bloods, Wrennie?"

"Maybe," I say, looking out the window. The sign says massachusetts avenue, which, if you think about it, is not the most original street name in the world, especially for a town that's supposed to be so smart and all. "But I hear you eat like crap up here." Our bus inches down the road, and a dirty city square comes into view. Long-haired street guitarists pull the crowd into distinct encampments. The lone juggler doesn't stand a chance.

Miranda Cooper giggles in front of us. Natalie Anne Rutledge, one seat over, shoots Hop and me the same old look she's been shooting us since the day we met, except now all you can see is eyeliner. She sighs because she's the expert at pretty much everything, which I guess understandably calls for a whole lot of sighing.

"Don't you know, Maynard Hopper Wilson? That's Harvard Yard over there, behind that gate. Har-vard Yard." She says it like it's a hot guy or a hot car or something, which it isn't. Still. Gyll-en-haal. Fer-arr-i. As far as I can tell, it's just a gate, and not even as nice a gate as they have over in Charleston, where the iron's all twisted up like pearls and ribbons around every window and every door.

"So?" Hopper shrugs under his hood.

"So, dumbucket, old money just tastes better." First her tongue, then her teeth slide out over her Dr Pepper-Lip-Smackered lips, and I can tell the kill is coming. "But I guess y'all wouldn't know much about that, would you?"