The Thirteenth Curse Read online

  “But this should do the trick!”

  The monster’s black eyes went wide as the rusty saw blade tore a jagged path through its neck. The decapitated head tumbled, landing neatly in the girl’s lap as she let loose a startled shriek. It was as if a switch had flipped in her head—with the glamour lifted, the effect of the spell ceased instantly. No longer the beast’s consort, she was just a confused young woman cradling a hideous, stinking, slack-jawed skull.

  “Vampires,” said Max Helsing, with a shake of his head. He tossed the bloodied saw aside as the monster’s corpse collapsed into the dirt. “Terrible boyfriend material.”

  ONE

  xxx

  BREAKFAST-A-GO-GO

  The fried eggs quivered, threatening to leap from the pan at any moment. With deft flicks of the spatula, Jed sent droplets of hot oil across their surfaces, the yellow yolks clouding over like cataracts. He only partly paid attention to the frying pan, his eyes drifting over the New England Examiner that lay open before him. Beneath the kitchenette counter, a battle of wills was under way.

  “He’s a hellhound?” asked Max incredulously.

  The ugliest dog in the world sat on the linoleum floor opposite, locked in a staring contest with Max. He was a small black pudgy thing, unblinking bug eyes regarding the young monster hunter vacantly. With a face like he’d been chasing parked cars, he wasn’t going to win any puppy pageants any day soon, not unless some terrible accident took out every other dog in the western world. He’d probably still lose out to a strategically shaved warthog. A bright pink tongue poked out of his panting mouth, a glob of pendulous drool suspended from his lip like ectoplasm.

  “Eightball’s pedigree,” said Jed, reading glasses focused on the newspaper. “You shouldn’t be so quick to judge a book by its cover.”

  Never a truer word spoken, thought Max. Jed was old as the hills, with a bum leg, but you underestimated him at your peril. A boxer in his youth, the man had fought alongside Max’s grandfather and trained his father. Jed’s own monster hunting exploits had been cut short when he went toe-to-toe with a minotaur in a Minneapolis junkyard. He’d killed the monster, but not before it gored him good and proper, leaving his left leg busted and locked at the kneecap. It had taken him out of the field, but there was still plenty of fight left in the old warrior. Max hadn’t been awake long, but Jed had been up for hours, hitting the punching bag before sunrise. His white vest left his arms exposed, the honed muscles belying his seventy-odd years, brown skin still glistening with beads of workout sweat.

  “Where did you get this mutt?” asked Max with a blink, now wondering if the dog even had eyelids.

  “Odious Crumb. He passed on his best wishes. I thought you’d be more grateful; you’ve always said you wanted a pet.”

  “I wanted something cute.”

  “Like a Pomeranian?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Fluffy dog, looks like a teddy bear.”

  “I wanted a puppy,” said Max, rising from the floor and taking a seat at the counter. Eightball smacked his lips, sniffing expectantly at the air. “I don’t know what this is.”

  “Stick with him. He’s a remarkable wee beast. He might surprise you.”

  “You know, most people get regular-looking dogs.”

  “We ain’t most people,” said Jed, sliding the eggs from the pan to a plate. He shoved it across the counter just as the toaster popped. Max caught the two slices and juggled the hot bread. He didn’t stop to butter them; he was already running late for school. Eightball watched hungrily.

  Jed raised a steaming mug of coffee to his lips. He took a slurp, pondering the newspaper as Max tore apart a slice of toast and dunked it into an egg. “You sleep okay?”

  “Yeah. I was wiped out after that Walden Woods job.”

  “Vampires will do that to you.”

  “Actually, I think it was the fresh air.”

  Jed arched a gray eyebrow over the rim of his half-moon spectacles. “Sorry it turned out to be a sucker, son.”

  Max shrugged. When possible, he tried to rehabilitate the creatures he encountered, or at the very least relocate them. Sadly, some beasties were beyond his help. Vampires fell firmly within that category. There was nothing grand or romantic about those particular demons. They were parasites that gorged on the blood of the living. Once drained and dead, their thralls would rise from the grave as newly made vampires. Thankfully, few of these monsters survived. The world had the Van Helsing family to thank for this, not that it would ever know.

  Max’s family had dropped the Van prefix before their surname during the war years, on account of it sounding too German. That it was actually a Dutch name was neither here nor there. The family’s unique line of work required them to remain inconspicuous, so the last three generations had all been plain Helsings. Max tossed a crust to Eightball, the pup’s lips smacking as he snatched it from the air.

  “Don’t feel badly about how it went down,” said Jed.

  “I don’t. I was just out of options. Only hope the girl can come back from that. Being enthralled by a sucker ain’t nice at all.”

  “Let’s count ourselves lucky that the few vamps that linger are a weaker, late-generation variety. Nowhere near as dangerous as the Elders your forefathers faced.”

  Max chased the yolk around his plate with the toast, nodding toward the newspaper. “So what’s happening in the world today?”

  “Which world do you want to know about?” Jed sighed, returning to the Examiner. “Politician popularity polls or baseball batting averages?”

  “That’s news?”

  “My sentiments exactly,” said Jed, rifling through the paper to the culture section. A long finger trailed across the articles. “You gotta look below the surface to find the real stories. Here we go. A showing of rare Native American art at the Waterfront Gallery; the opening of an early settlers exhibition at the Museum of Anthropology; an archaeological dig out in Rockport that’s turned up some strange finds. This is where the real stories are, hiding in plain sight behind the slick senators and snarling sportsmen. This is our world.”

  Max nodded. “I’d better get going.”

  Dabbing up the last bits of egg with his toast crust, he snatched up his messenger bag. He paused beside the stove, where something bubbled in a covered pot. Taking a wooden spoon, Max removed the lid and gave the contents a stir. Lumps of indiscernible meat bobbed to the simmering surface of the soup, the unmistakable stench of shellfish rising on the steam.

  “It’s your favorite,” said Jed. “Homemade clam chowder.”

  Max blanched at the old man’s bad joke, and his signature dish. Besides eggs, it was Jed’s only dish. He regularly made a great batch of the soup, which would feed them for a week. Max couldn’t bear the stuff, but a boy had to eat. Sometimes.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “It’s for tonight, numbnuts.”

  “Still, doubt I’ll be hungry,” replied Max, popping the lid back onto the pot. “You ever think of expanding your repertoire beyond eggs and soup?”

  “Your chores all done?” retorted the old man, eyes still on the paper. “Garbage taken out? Leaves brushed off the steps? Velcazar’s Words of Warding memorized?”

  “Yep, yep, and yep!”

  “Creaky floorboard outside the Liu apartment? That still needs nailing down . . .”

  “Remind me again why I have to fix things for everyone in my house?”

  “Strictly speaking, Helsing House ain’t yours anymore. It’s owned by the Cole Corporation. We’re building superintendents.”

  “Glorified janitors, more like.”

  “Be thankful you’ve a roof over your head, even if it is the attic. Now scram before you’re late for school again.”

  Eightball leaped after him, giving chase as Max scampered through the door.

  “And g
et yourself straight home tonight, y’hear?” the elderly guardian shouted, but the boy was gone.

  The staircase shook as Max’s sneakers struck one step in six, carrying him down the flights in swift succession. He paused on the second floor outside the Liu apartment, placing his heel on the misbehaving floorboard. The warped wood groaned. He made a mental note of the job for later. He was determined to be punctual today. On too many occasions in the last few months, his unusual life had conspired to make him late for school, resulting in trips to Principal Whedon’s office. Turning from the Lius’ threshold, he charged straight into the stationary figure of Mr. Holloman.

  Max bounced off him with a clang, his head ringing as he regathered his senses. He looked up at the statuesque fellow from 2A. Mr. Holloman’s broad, slablike face stared down without emotion, his expression as blank now as on the day he was forged. Max hadn’t even heard him open his door. For an iron golem, his neighbor was awfully light of foot.

  “How you doing today, Mr. Holloman?” said the boy, stepping around the towering figure. “Anything interesting planned? Hijinks ahead? Shenanigans afoot?”

  Max always hoped it might be the day that the peaceful giant spoke. Sadly, it wasn’t. Mr. Holloman’s face only turned with a creaking groan as he watched Max pass by. With his tarnished metal flesh passing for dull, dark skin, the man could be mistaken for a regular human in the street, if it weren’t for the empty holes where his eyes should have been. The sunglasses he wore helped conceal these iron sockets and kept him from scaring his neighbors, who were unaware of his remarkable condition.

  “Have a good one, Mr. H!”

  One more flight of stairs and Max was hurdling the banister, hitting the first floor with a thump. Dust billowed where he landed. Another chore for his list, Max mused. No menial task was too boring for Jed to set him on, no drain too blocked for Max to wrestle with. Jed said these were life lessons. Max suspected they were jobs the old-timer didn’t want to do himself.

  When Max arrived in the lobby he was surprised to find Eightball waiting, head cocked, drool dribbling, stubby tail thumping the welcome mat.

  “You’re pretty speedy, considering you’ve got cocktail weenies for legs.”

  Cracking the front door, he slipped out onto the pristine, freshly swept front steps of Helsing House, leaving a whimpering Eightball behind.

  Helsing House towered behind Max, a mountain of dark bricks and spires reaching for the heavens. It dated back to the mid-1800s, a fine example of the neo-Gothic architecture of that period, or so Max had been told. The wind whipped around the boy. The town of Gallows Hill was firmly in late fall’s bare-knuckled grasp. Skeletal trees swayed, their twisted branches stripped of foliage. Dead leaves had transformed the long driveway into a river of rippling reds, browns, and yellows, the occasional straggler fluttering on the breeze.

  A low granite balustrade flanked the entrance, with rampant stone lions roaring silently on either side of the door. Checking for a moment that he wasn’t being observed, Max jumped up onto the head of the lion on the left, reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out a blueberry muffin wrapper. A birdhouse stuck out from the brickwork above, its wooden wall and roof dappled with moss. Unlike most birdhouses, this one had a door on it, currently closed.

  “Yo, Mrs. Fairweather,” he said, lightly rapping a knuckle on the outside of the box.

  There was a rustle inside, and then the door swung open to reveal a tiny, smiling humanoid figure. She was perhaps four inches tall, and as she stepped out a pair of thin gossamer wings peeled away from her back. The pixie fluttered into the air, graceful as a hummingbird. The bickering of tiny voices in the nesting box made her warm smile vanish.

  “Will you kids keep it down in there,” she called back irritably. “I’m trying to talk to Max!”

  “Hey, Max!” the children called from inside the birdhouse, raising a smile on the boy’s face as Mrs. Fairweather gratefully took the sweet, crumb-coated wrapper.

  “It’s very good of you, Max. The brood and I appreciate it.”

  “No problem,” he replied. “Now get back indoors before the mailman—or a hawk—spots you!”

  The little lady winked, rolling the muffin wrapper under her arm before fluttering back into the box. “Kids! Breakfast!”

  Max hopped back down onto the porch, chuckling. Sure, the menial jobs could be a drag sometimes, but life in Helsing House was never dull. He didn’t know many people who had a golem and a family of pixies as neighbors. He sprang down the steps and set off toward the rear of the building.

  Eightball awaited him.

  “Didn’t I leave you inside? How’d you get out?”

  Max sidestepped the peculiar dog and crossed the drive to the side door of the detached garage. He yanked the clanking collection of keys from his pocket, sifting through for the one that matched the industrial-strength padlock. The key went in, and the brass mechanism popped apart in his hand. Stuffing the bundle back into his pants, key chain looping around his belt, Max opened the door, ducking in briefly to grab his Raleigh Chopper. There was no car in the garage: there wasn’t room for one. Workbenches crowded the floor alongside Jed’s gym equipment, while all manner of unusual and deadly looking ephemera adorned the walls and ceiling—the Helsing armory.

  He backed the bicycle out of the building, oblivious to the figure that crept up behind him. A crunching footfall suddenly alerted Max to approaching danger.

  Max’s left heel dug into the gravel as his right foot kicked the Chopper’s rear wheel into the air. He spun around instantly, his retro ride suddenly a weapon as he propelled it toward his follower by the high-rise handlebars. Almost too late, he spied the innocent—and terrified—face of his ten-year-old neighbor, Wing Liu. Max pulled back on the handlebars just enough for the kid to jump clear and land on his rump in a shower of dead leaves.

  “Whoa,” gasped Max, booting the Chopper’s kickstand. “You were nearly wearing that bike for a moment. You okay?”

  Wing took Max’s offered hand, and the older boy hauled him to his feet. Wing peeled leaves from his clothes sheepishly, rubbing his butt.

  “You bruise your behind there?”

  “That and my pride.”

  “You’re in one piece,” said Max, straddling the bike. “That’s all that matters.”

  Wing cast his eyes over the Chopper in wonder. “Epic wheels, dude.”

  Wing cracked Max up. Everything was epic to his homeschooled neighbor. Wing was obsessed with myths, monster sightings, and weird goings-on, always reciting facts out of Ripley’s or trawling the Internet for the latest cryptozoological gossip and conspiracy theories. Too bad I can’t show him something really epic, Max thought.

  “Thanks, man,” said Max, trading a quick fist bump with his disciple. “What’s up?”

  “My violin teacher is coming for my lesson in about a half hour.”

  “I timed my escape pretty well, then,” chuckled Max.

  “Hey, have you seen that new Bigfoot footage?” said the boy, suddenly animated. “It’s epic!”

  “You can’t believe everything you see on the Internet, Wing.”

  “Aw, c’mon. The Internet’s your friend!”

  “Not mine. I put my trust in a good book, every time.”

  “The clip’s about twenty seconds long; you can see it clearly. There’s no way it’s not real.”

  The boy was in his element now. Max admired his passion, which made his skepticism act that much tougher to perform.

  “Where was it sighted?”

  “Oregon. A party of hikers filmed it, and their sighting was corroborated by a delivery man later that day. He nearly hit it with his van, apparently. You should see it, Max. It’s epic, I swear!”

  Max laughed and shook his head. Truth was, the story was probably right on the money—there was a long history of Sasquatch sightings in the Pacifi
c northwest. But the last thing Max needed to do was feed the flames of Wing’s fascination with the fantastic. The Lius wouldn’t be happy, and he was pretty sure Jed would skewer him if he shared their secret with the chatty kid.

  The two turned as Eightball suddenly emerged from some nearby bushes, dragging a huge branch behind him in his slobbering jaws. He deposited it beside the bike and looked extremely pleased with himself.

  “Who’s this little guy?” asked Wing.

  “Name’s Eightball.” The puppy answered to his name, scrabbling at Max’s leg until he bent to pick him up. Max patted the twigs from his coat, receiving a stinky lick in return. He grimaced. “We think he’s a dog.”

  “He’s adorable!”

  “Really?” Max handed Eightball over as the puppy transferred the slobberfest to his new victim. “Play nice with Wing, Eightball.”

  “You’re leaving him with me?”

  “I’ve got lessons of my own to get to,” said Max, pedaling away from both boy and dog. “But be careful: if you feed him after midnight he turns into a Pomeranian.”

  “A pommy what?”

  Max’s Chopper cut up the gravel as he disappeared down the drive.

  “Look it up, Wing! The Internet’s your friend!”

  TWO

  xxx

  CROSSROADS

  “You’re cutting it awfully close,” said the girl, lifting her sunglasses as he approached.

  She sat astride her BMX as Max cycled up to the gates of Gallows Hill Burying Ground. The girl wore skinny jeans and an oversize black sweater with her trademark white loop scarf, looking every inch the hipster.

  “I was worried you were going to be late,” she said. “Again.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Syd,” said Max, skidding to a dramatic halt beside her. “I could be an hour late, but I’d still make up the time on this beauty.”

  “Oh, so it’s a time-traveling bicycle now? It certainly belongs in the past.”

  Max grinned as he caught his breath. His Chopper was an antique. He and Jed had lovingly restored it to its former glory after rescuing it from a garage sale. Syd’s BMX was another story. Matte black carbon fiber frame, welded rims, custom chain tensioners, aluminum heads, stainless steel spokes—Max didn’t know what any of these words meant, but he knew them nonetheless, thanks to Syd never shutting up about them. “You’re just jealous.”