But the election is only the tip of the stress iceberg.

  Darius also has to keep a secret about the town being cursed.

  Then there’s that unsettling feeling knowing the blood bank was robbed.

  Oh yeah, and Halloween is in two days. Well, since it’s five in the morning, it’s technically tomorrow.

  Darius feels silly that he flinched throughout the “Witching Hour” performance last night, even though he normally doesn’t get scared.

  But it’s understandable he’s a bit skittish. What with the whole having-to-face-down-a-bunch-of-monsters thing and it being so close to Halloween.

  He shuts his eyes, willing sleep to come.

  Then he hears voices. Darius sits up in his twin-sized bed with an Avengers duvet cover. There are footsteps in the hallway. Coming closer and closer … Darius glances at the baseball bat he has in the corner of his room … just in case.

  “I can’t believe it!” his mother’s voice comes from the hallway.

  Darius gets up and presses his ear against the door.

  “How many bodies?”

  That doesn’t sound good.

  “Stay right there and do nothing. Do not call or tell anybody else until I arrive.”

  Darius goes to open the door, but stops himself.

  Maybe it’s because his parents never believed him when he talked about Ann Wilder’s curse.

  Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to deal with it. Let the adults handle the scary stuff now that they know the kids weren’t lying.

  Either way, Darius sits down on his bed. No way is he going to be able to sleep. So he decides to get ready for school. As he heads downstairs to the kitchen ridiculously early, he’s sort of hoping he’ll find out what’s going on.

  Darius’s dad is already at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, looking tired. Even more so than most adults.

  Can we stop for a moment and talk about how tired your parents or guardians are sometimes? It’s like you get to be an adult and don’t have to go to school and can do whatever you want. You have it so easy, adults. Okay, you have to work and pay bills and put food on the table, and make sure kids are safe and all … Hmm. Reader, maybe you should put this down and give the adult in your life a hug.

  Also, you’re going to need a hug to prepare yourself for what’s about to happen. If you think the last chapter was bad, that was nothing compared to what’s next.

  It’s okay. I’ll wait.

  Aww … wasn’t that sweet? If the adult was all, What’s gotten into you?, be sure to tell them that I’ve been an excellent influence and they should buy these books for everybody in their lives. (It’s okay, you can go back again and tell them. I’ll wait, since this is very, very important work you’re about to do.)

  (Thanks, you da best, reader!)

  Okay, so where were we? Oh yes!

  Mr. Washington’s head snaps up when he sees his son. “Oh, hey, buddy.” He glances at the clock and sees it’s a little before six. “You’re up early.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” Darius drags his feet over to the refrigerator to get milk for his cereal. “I heard Mom in the hallway, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” He drags his hand over his face.

  “Dad.” Darius stands in front of him. “If this has to do with Ann Wilder’s curse, it does have to do with me.”

  Mr. Washington opens his mouth, then closes it. His shoulders slump.

  (These “adults” are no match for Ann Wilder.)

  Darius pulls up a chair next to him. “I know it can all seem like a lot, especially when you have to say things like ‘it’s a clone’ or ‘zombies,’ but I’ll believe you. I’m here if you need to talk.”

  Aw, isn’t that nice. And wouldn’t it have been way nicer if his parents—and the other kids’ parents—had done that for them at any point since they were first put in detention. It was only after the Norland-Vargas wedding was crashed that they sat the kids down to listen to them, and even then it was more of a command.

  “I know, son.” His dad gives him a strained smile. “But we don’t know what this is. Plus, there’s a part of me that can’t help but think that Hearse is up to everything that’s going on. Although I can’t imagine he’d …” Mr. Washington looks like he’s going to be sick.

  “What happened?” Darius presses. “Where’s Mom? If I know what’s going on, maybe we can help—”

  “Darius, we’re going to handle this,” Mr. Washington cuts him off. “You’ve done more than enough.”

  Um, doesn’t that sound like something parents say when you’re in trouble?

  “And by enough, you mean save the town. Twice.” Darius raises his eyebrow because truth!

  His dad hangs his head. “Yes, we should’ve believed you and stepped in.” (No duh!)

  “So tell me what’s going on? I feel like I have a right to know. I’ve more than proved that I can handle tough things.”

  Yes, Darius has. All the kids have shown they’re a lot tougher than these so-called grown-ups.

  Mr. Washington looks thoughtful for a moment. “Okay, I’ll tell you what we know so far, but you can’t tell anybody. This can’t get out.”

  Darius opens his mouth to agree, then pauses. “Well, if it does have to do with the curse, I’ll need to talk to Sofia, Bennett, and Regan. As you know, we’re great at keeping secrets, even when we think it’s unfair.”

  Score another point for Darius!

  His father nods in agreement. “Okay, but it’s pretty serious. There were bodies found at the carnival. Four.”

  Darius plunks down on his usual seat at the table. “Four bodies?”

  Mr. Washington stares into his cup of coffee. “It was four workers in town for the carnival. And the thing is, their bodies were …”

  “Were what?” Darius’s throat has gone dry.

  “It’s … not something that …”

  “I can handle it,” Darius says confidently, but there’s a slight tremor in his voice.

  “Are you sure?”

  Now, dear reader, Mr. Washington is saying this to his son, but I’m going to ask you the same question—are you ready? You read the last chapter and know we have four bodies, but it’s about to get a lot worse. So maybe go back and read the warning or hide under your covers or let out that fart you’ve been holding in.

  Are you ready? (But also, PU, what did you eat for breakfast?)

  Here we go …

  “The bodies were strung upside down and drained … of their blood.”

  Darius’s eyes get wide. More blood being needed.

  There’s only one creature that feeds off blood.

  “Dad, this has to be—”

  “Son,” Mr. Washington says in his low voice, “we have this handled. This is serious, and we have to do everything to contain this until we get through Halloween. And if it isn’t Hearse, can you imagine what will happen if he finds out?”

  “Do you really think Mr. Hearse is capable of …” Darius starts, but then he thinks about the creepy dude up against his mom.

  “I’d hope not, for the future of our town. But we have to keep this a secret.”

  So another cover-up by the adults. But that’s assuming there won’t be any more bodies because whatever is doing this needs to be stopped.

  “But, Dad—”

  “No.” He gets up from the table. “I’m serious, Darius, I’m only telling you because you’ve earned our trust. Don’t make me regret that. You go to school and let us adults deal with this.”

  With that, his father walks up the stairs.

  Yeah, like leaving the adults in charge is making anybody feel confident.

  Darius goes to his phone that’s on the counter to message the group, but Sofia has already beat him to it because of course she has.

  Lunch. We need to talk. I was right: Ann Wilder isn’t done yet.

  I feel we’ve built up a certain level of trust at this point, lovely reader. So I’m going to let you in on a little publishing secret: Editors don’t like writers to overuse terms.

  Editors, am I right?

  They’re like, Stop having characters roll their eyes, or pick their noses, or bash in people’s heads.

  No fun, those editors.

  But there’s one phrase I’ve admittedly used to death in the other books. Like, a lot. And I’ll be using it this time. A lot. And I get away with it because it’s so true and necessary to write about, there can’t be any argument.

  Poor Regan.

  Yup. Poor Regan. This poor girl keeps going through the ringer. First she gets bullied. Then she’s cloned. Then she finds out she’s related to Ann Wilder. Then she has to kill a bunch of zombies from her family.

  And we’re only getting started with what’s about to come next.

  Say it with me: Poor Regan.

  She did her best to concentrate during her math exam that morning, but all she could think about was Sofia texting about meeting for lunch. And here she thought things were going so well with getting a bunny and Matthew being so cute and kind to her.

  Regan drags her feet to the table where she and Sofia eat lunch. Darius is already there and taking out a container of freshly baked salted caramel cookies.

  “Stress baking?” she asks as she sits down.

  Now, it’s not like Regan wants Darius to be stressed and all, but that usually means he bakes something super, duper delicious. And hey, if you have to deal with things like curses, you should absolutely be rewarded with gooey deliciousness.

  “Yeah,” Darius replies. He looks exhausted. “I didn’t really sleep last night, and then this morning I was in the kitchen with nothing to do but worry, and well …”

  “Hey.” Bennett sits down next to Regan. “How’d your math test go?”

  Regan shrugs. Math is the last thing she wants to think about right now.

  “We’ve got a bigger problem than tests.” Leave it to Sofia not to beat around the bush.

  “Yeah, there are four bodies.” Darius pushes his sandwich away. “It’s people from the carnival.”

  “The carnival?” Regan’s eyes are wide, that unsettling feeling in her stomach growing.

  You know what, she’d love nothing more than to only think about math right now. That’s how bad this is.

  “Yeah, but they all left this morning in a rush, and no surprise, my mom is covering it all up. She doesn’t want to dampen the Halloween festivities for tomorrow.” Darius looks around the cafeteria, making sure nobody is listening. “I don’t know if I should be more worried that Damien Hearse will find out or maybe he’s the next person Ann Wilder has cursed.”

  Oh yeah, in case you forgot, this whole Ann Wilder nonsense started when Ms. Stein, their science teacher, was cursed. Could Damien Hearse be cursed? (Hey! That rhymes! Which can happen from time to time.) And could Mr. Hearse be responsible for all the blood and murder?

  “But the thing is …” Darius starts slowly. “As much as I hate to admit it, Damien Hearse is very much a mortal. He’s been out in the sun. He’s aged.”

  “Mortal? What does that mean? What do you think is going on?” Regan asks, trying to catch up.

  Darius, Bennett, and Sofia all look at one another. Like none of them want to be the one to say it.

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” Sofia says because of course she does. “Vampires.”

  “Yeah.” Darius runs his hand down his face, just like his dad.

  Regan sinks farther in her seat. Out of every creature, why did it have to be vampires?

  (I mean, what would she prefer? Werewolves? Because yes, they are also real, but that’s for the next book.)

  “And we know who the vampires are,” Bennett says with a satisfied grin.

  “Who?” Regan asks, her eyes darting around the cafeteria, even though she knows vampires can’t be out during the day.

  “Well, let’s look at what we know about vampires.” Sofia takes out her notebook but gives Regan a look that she does not like at all.

  Bennett leans toward Regan. “How about we’ll start with vampires can control minds.”

  Regan’s face scrunches up, and she’s wondering why Bennett is so focused on her, it’s not like—no.

  “Wh-wh-what do you mean?” Regan asks. Her entire body has started to shake.

  Okay, Regan will admit there has been some weird stuff she’s noticed with Matthew, but just because he wears old clothes and can, like, hypnotize people, and yeah, um, that dart really didn’t do anything …

  Oh no.

  Nope. Just nope. Nope. NOOOOOOPE.

  “Okay, vampires.” Sofia looks down at her list. “They live off blood, they need to be invited into someone’s home—”

  Regan remembers the welcome greeting her mother gave the Clements when they arrived at the B&B.

  “—they have faster-than-normal healing abilities—”

  Regan looks at the red spot on her finger where the dart pierced her skin.

  “Oh no!” Regan exclaims as she puts her head on the table.

  Darius looks confused. “Ah, what am I missing?”

  “Regan finally realized the people staying at the B and B are a bunch of bloodsuckers,” Bennett says with a smug smile. “Told you I didn’t like that guy. You can do so much better.”

  But wait just one second. Observant reader, you know what the number one rule of being a vampire is? I mean, besides the drinking of blood? They can’t be out in the sun.

  Regan’s head snaps up. “It can’t be Matthew. I saw him outside yesterday morning with his sister. During the day.”

  This drops that smug smile off Bennett’s face.

  Sofia looks thoughtful. “It was overcast yesterday.” She looks over at Darius. “Would a vampire be able to be in cloudy weather?”

  “Maybe?” Darius lets out a long sigh. “There are different lores about vampires, but being in sunlight is definitely the one thing most vampires can’t do.”

  “I have to put sunscreen on no matter the weather.” Regan holds out her alabaster arm. But then she remembers the Clements put paper up on their windows to not let light in.

  “Uh, I think the fact that the guy controlled our minds proves that he’s a bloodsucker.”

  “Controlled your minds?” Darius’s mouth is open. “What on earth has been going on? I’m missing everything because of this election coming up.”

  “Sofia and I were really confused on why we left the carnival yesterday. We both did after talking to Matthew, who told us to leave and we just did what he said.”

  Regan nods for a moment, still not really believing it could be Matthew. “I did think it was weird that you both went along with what Matthew said.”

  “Wait.” Sofia looks up from her notebook. “You weren’t hypnotized?”

  Regan shakes her head. “No. He did the whole wave-his-hand-and-tell-me-to-forget-about-what-he-did-to-you-guys thing, and he healed quickly from the dart I put in his hand—”

  “You put a dart in his hand?” Bennett exclaims a little too loudly, and some heads in the cafeteria turn.

  “Just relax,” Sofia says to Bennett with a snicker.

  “Nicely done.” Bennett puts his arms around the back of his head, like he’s glad Regan injured Matthew.

  “It was an accident.” It’s not like she meant to hurt him.

  “Wait a second, we need to get back to him trying to control your mind and it didn’t work.” Sofia’s familiar scowl comes back to her face as she’s probably none too pleased that Regan’s mind is perhaps stronger than hers. At least when it comes to vampires.

  Regan shakes her head. “I’m not sure that’s what he was trying to do, but I just sort of went with it.”

  “Did you make eye contact with him?” Sofia presses.

  “Yes.” Regan thinks about his dreamy pale eyes … which then turned nightmarish when they were red. Oh goodness. Red eyes.

  Of course. Of course the cute boy who is nice to her is a … she can’t quite get herself to finish the thought.

  “Huh.” Darius nods to himself for a moment. “I wonder if he can’t control your mind because, well, you know …”

  “What do you—oh.” Regan thinks about being related to Ann Wilder. Maybe it gives her some special powers? Maybe there can be something good that comes from her being from the bloodline of a witch. “Maybe?”

  “This could help us!” Darius says, just a little too excited for Regan’s nerves. “Okay, so, Regan, you need to tell us everything you know about Matthew and who he’s with. How many? Names? Ages? Everything.”

  “Maybe it’s not …” But Regan’s stomach is turning big time. Telling her that, as much as she doesn’t want to admit it—he is. Matthew is a vampire.

  Gulp.

  As Regan fills her friends in on everything she knows about the Clements, she starts to feel a little foolish when she tells them they brought in huge human-sized suitcases, blacked out the windows, and didn’t want to be disturbed during the day. How did she not suspect it sooner?

  Cute boys, am I right?

  But there’s another part of her that’s growing angry. Just why? Why does it have to be vampires? And why do they have to be in her house? And why did it have to be a boy who was nice to her?

  Why can’t she get a break, just for once?

  Say it with me, dear reader: Poor Regan.

  “Well, I guess this makes it sort of easy,” Darius says.

  “How is any of this easy?” Bennett slams his hand on the table. “We’re talking vampires! And they’re in Regan’s house!”

  “Bennett,” Sofia says calmly. “You’re at a twelve right now and we need you at a four.”

  “Come on, Sof.” He throws his head back.

  “It’s Sofia.” Sofia turns to Darius. “But you’re right. We at least know where they’re staying and where we can find them during the day when they’re at their most vulnerable.”

  “Oh no.” Bennett shakes his head. “We’re not doing anything. Our parents know about Ann Wilder now, so they have to believe us.”

  “But they’re going to ask us to prove that the Clements are vampires. If we just wildly go around making accusations, they won’t believe us,” Darius reasons. “So we just need to get proof so our parents will listen.”