Funny enough, there was still a decent crater on the car’s front bumper. Blood could be washed away, but the dent couldn’t be totally smoothed over. Brennan shivered and resiliently did not vomit.
“What were you doing in the area, then?” Brennan asked. “And how did Travis end up turning us?”
Dom glanced over her shoulder at the dead end.
“You want to ask him yourself?”
Brennan took in Dom in all her new Goth glory, took in the overgrowth behind her, the trees and bushes winding together in intricate braids. It was almost unnatural. It was almostmagical.
“You’re kidding me,” Brennan said. “How?”
Dom shrugged, then turned and knocked on the thickest tree trunk. Banged on it, really, with a tight fist. Brennan closed the distance between them, passing her car and standing a few feet behind her, looking over her shoulders.
“You know him? That’s why you’re here?”
“We’ve kind of been friends since I turned,” Dom said, like it was to be expected. “Now come yell with me, the asshole probably fell asleep.”
She banged harder against the wood and took a deep breath to shout out, “Travis!”
This was the best lead Brennan had gotten in a while, and he had nothing better to do, so then they were both banging on the tree trunks and shouting for Travis.
After a few calls, Dom changed to, “Hey, asshole!” and Brennan started laughing, and that was when the trees started to shift.
They unwound from one another like vines growing in a reverse time lapse, stretching apart and away in intricate patterns. Cole had said that vampires made the world feel more magical, but this was the first time Brennan felt it. The plants curved to the side, opening like a curtain in a wide arc that led to an impossibly huge clearing.
It was an expanse with wild tall grass, littered with hunks of metal, trinkets, and lawn ornaments, a few tires and lawn flamingos scattered about like sprinkles. Across the field was a structure that could generously be called a shack, next to an equally ramshackle greenhouse and two chicken coops with approximately eight thousand chickens toddling about a fenced-in area, clucking and doing their chicken thing.
Standing halfway between the structures and the entrance was a man with a mess of dirty blond hair in the kind of not-quite-dreads that white people get when they just don’t wash or brush their hair for an ungodly amount of time. From a distance, he cupped dirty hands around his face and shouted,
“VAMPLINGS!”
The guy with the blond dreads—who, Brennan was realizing, was Travis, the oldest and most powerful vampire in the New England clan—started toward them, moving with a pep in his step and a wide grin. He wore denim overalls and nothing underneath, giving the illusion of a sexy farmer costume.
“Hey, lil dudes,” Travis said once he’d gotten close enough not to shout.
Brennan tried to keep his jaw shut over the fact that this was the Vampire Jesus who had turned him. And he was a literal hippie, with an accent somewhere along the lines of Australian, who said the word “lil” out loud, on purpose.
“Dom! I wasn’t expecting another friend, but the more the merrier, right?”
The Australian accent was wrong somehow, a bit too strong, like someone doing a Steve Irwin impression.
Travis went for a hug from Dom. Brennan couldn’t quite believe that Dom hugged him back. Travis turned to Brennan right after and held open his arms.
“Are you a hugger? I’m a hugger,” Travis threatened.
“Please, god, no,” Brennan said, and it came out panicked enough that Dom and Travis thought it was a joke and laughed it off.
Travis settled for punching Brennan in the shoulder and saying, “It’s good to see you in one piece, brother! You were pretty banged up last I saw you.”
Brennan was too busy taking in Travis to process the bundle of fur that pushed its way through the tall grass until it launched itself at Brennan.
Some sort of Lab with sandy, shaggy fur jumped on Brennan with its front paws, tail wagging violently. She nudged a wet nose into his stomach and Brennan relented, petting her and laughing in delight, vampire lord forgotten. Brennan’s mom had never let them have pets since she wasn’t around enough, but he’d always wanted one.
“Rosie, down!” Travis called, and the dog dropped down but continued to wag her tail and nudge her head against Brennan’s legs.
“It’s okay,” Brennan said, scratching her behind the ears.
“Come on, come in!” Travis said, waving them down a path of slightly flattened grass that led to the shack. “I have tea on and joints rolled.”
