Call of the Vampire Read Online Free PDF

came in.
    There was a weighty silver candlestick on a small table, so I grabbed it. If any perv came near me, I was going to give him a smack over the head with it. I knew a makeshift weapon was better than no weapon at all. I wasn’t a fall-down–and-whimper kind of girl. If the perverts caught me, I was going to fight.
    I slipped out the door, closing it firmly behind me. Blossom was as safe as I could make her. The hallway overlooked the great hall and no one seemed to be about, so I slunk down the stairs. It was only as my bare feet touched the cold marble floor of the main room that I cursed myself for not checking if the wardrobe had contained any shoes in my size. Still, I didn’t want to risk going back up. There was the sound of water running and pots rattling coming from one direction, which I assumed was the kitchen. The staff must have been cleaning up.
    I tiptoed along the wall of the great hall, heading for the patio. There was a drunk passed out on the floor, but besides that, the room was devoid of people. Standing to one side, I peeped out the large glass doors that opened onto the patio and dock area. It appeared deserted.
    Once outside, I immediately started shivering. It was much chillier than when Blossom and I had started our misadventure. I hurried out on the dock and stepped onto the first yacht. “Hey! What are you doing there?” someone called from the patio doors. It was a servant, still in his purple livery.
    “Oh, I’m not feeling well, so I’m calling it an early night,” I told him, trying to keep my voice calm. “Thought I’d lie down in our boat, but I didn’t want to disturb anyone.” I’d made it across the deck of the first boat and was transitioning to the second.
    “Wait right there,” he told me, then disappeared.
    When you are trying to get away from someone and they give you a command, like “Be quiet,” you should do the exact opposite of what they want. My mother taught me that, and I applied the principle immediately, scurrying across the second deck and leaping for the third boat.
    A few more minutes of frantic scrambling and I was only two boats away from land. My movements, plus an unexpected wake, had all the boats bouncing, and I was grateful for my bare feet to help keep me from plunging over the side. As I sprinted across the deck, my foot caught on a rope, and I went sprawling. My knees would be bruised, and my legs were scraped. I was limping but not greatly injured. Unfortunately, I had let a small yelp escape my lips as I tumbled. It turned out there was a crew member asleep near the bow of the yacht, and my commotion woke him up. “What are you doing there?” he barked in an angry voice.
    “Nothing. Just moving on. No reason to worry,” I assured him as I prepared to transfer to the final boat before I could step off onto the public pier.
    “You come back here!” he commanded, darting forward to grab me.
    “Get the hell away from me!” I shouted as I leapt to the next boat. He was hard on my heels, obviously used to dealing with bobbing boats more than I was.
    I scrambled across the final boat as fast as I could and was about to make the leap for the pier, just as he reached out to snag me. He didn’t get a firm hold, but the contact threw me off balance, and I plunged into the cold, dark waters of the Tiburon River.
    I made the mistake of shrieking as I fell, so when I landed, I got a good lung full of water. This caused me to panic a little, so when I tried to surface, I got disoriented in the dark and ended up smacking my head on the keel of the boat. At that point, I guess I really panicked because I started thrashing around, trying to find the surface while I choked on the water that desperately wanted to expel itself from my lungs. Because it was dark and there were no street lamps or anything, I was having trouble telling which way was up.
    I’m going to die , I thought. I’m going to drown because I was stupid enough to go on another