Mick, however, gave Mortimer an eye roll and merely brushed the spiders climbing up his legs. "You think I'm afraid of spiders?" he said.

Strength and fury flooded into my muscles. "I really don't give a crap." With that, I blurred toward him. Delivered a left hook to his face. He ricocheted off the wall and splatted face-first into Brad's puke.

Mortimer, meanwhile, ran in frantic circles, sweeping his arms and blood-soaked hair as the spiders had their way with him. I took the respite and, dodging around Mick as he sputtered and pushed off the floor, raced from the bathroom, Mortimer's yells echoing behind me.

My hands trembled as I ducked into Biology. I took my seat as the teacher pulled a huge corn snake from the aquarium in the center of the room while lecturing about poisonous and harmless species. A lone eight-legged escapee from the bathroom, a spider the size of a tarantula I hadn't noticed, crawled up my back and perched on my shoulder. A girl in a neighboring desk loosed an ear-shattering scream, apparently noticing the hitchhiker the instant I did. The spell must have worn off at that moment because the spider flopped off my shoulder in a final death spasm, tumbled to the floor, and promptly collapsed into a pile of fine dust.

The rest of the students jumped at the scream, several other girls and Andy Dudowitz adding their own shrieks to the mix. The teacher let out a disgusted yelp as the corn snake loosed the considerable volume of its bowels on his polyester pants. I felt as rattled as the poor snake which the teacher quickly put into its aquarium so he could clean the white snake feces off his lovely brown pants. My stomach twisted and my heart pounded at the thought of Brad, now a vampire maniac, going berserk in the school. He'd looked like someone about to flip their lid, but I didn't know what I could do about it. And the fact no less than three vampires were here to take me kicking and screaming to Maximus didn't make me feel any better, either.

I had to get word to Underborn ASAP. I also had to warn Elyssa. And Katie. And Nyte and Ash. Ugh. This day was turning out to be a lot more complicated than I'd thought.

The intercom speaker buzzed and a squeal of feedback pierced my eardrums and sent everyone's hands racing for their ears.

"Mr. Rogers?" said the mousy voice of the Principal's secretary, Agnes Wright.

Our teacher looked up from rubbing the smelly mess off his pants and at the speaker. "Yes?"

"Please send Justin Case to the front office. That is all." Another shriek of feedback preceded a loud click as the intercom went off.

A chorus of "oohs" and "uh-ohs" filled the room as the other students looked to me, faces filled with the kind of joy which only comes from other people's suffering.

"Yeah, yeah," I said, and groaned through clenched teeth. What the fudge was this about?

I left and made my way to the front of the school, eyes alert for any hint of hoodies or other vampiric lurkers. A cute girl appeared around a corner and smiled at me. I didn't recognize her, but smiled back. Then she grabbed my arm and jerked me down the adjacent hall, pressing me against the wall.

"Hello, Justin," she said, her voice sickly sweet.

"Another one of Maximus's cronies, right?" I jerked my arm loose and backed away.

"We're not cronies," said another female voice behind me, this one low and seductive.

I turned so I could see the vampire chicks to either side. Their skin looked normal, and they weren't wearing hoodies. Everything about them looked so ordinary that I never would have guessed they were vampires. Neither was overly gorgeous or stood out from the typical female population which made them perfect for fitting in.

"No hoodies for you?" I said.

"Girls know how to apply makeup," the first girl said, and made a pouty face. "Brad refused to let us touch him up."

"Which one of you is Lauren?" I asked.

"How do you know my name?" the second girl asked.

"I just met Brad and his buddies."

The vampires looked at each other, displeasure carving scowls on their faces.

"Idiots!" said the first girl, presumably Tammy.

"I think you two should get the hell out of this school before I report this to the Templars."

Tammy laughed. "As if they'll listen to you."

"What the Sam Hill is going on here?" came a shout from the end of the hall. I almost cried with joy at the sight of Ted Barnes and his shiny bald head. He glared at the two girls. "This is the second time I've caught you two out of class. You'd better git right now or so help me I'll send you straight to Ms. Foreman for an after-school detention you'll never forget."

Lauren's eyes practically caught fire behind the contacts she wore. "This isn't over, Case," she hissed as she and Tammy left.

"Now get your butt in gear, Case!" Barnes yelled.

I followed him the rest of the way to Principal Perkins's office, my heart pounding at an alarming rate and sweat covering my palms. I'd probably die of an anxiety attack before Brad had another shot at me. Instead of dropping dead, I found Coach Burgundy flirting with Agnes in the front office while Barnes continued to the back.

Burgundy's eyes narrowed to puffy slits on his porcine face when he saw me. "And there he is, the famous Mr. Case."

Principal Perkins emerged from his office with Barnes in tow. "Ah, our esteemed Mr. Case." He looked at the vice principal. "Keep an eye on things for me, Ted. This won't take long."

"Him again, Mr. Perkins?" Agnes said and made a tsking noise. "They really need to bring back capital punishment to teach these kids respect."

"I think you mean corporal punishment, sweet thing." Perkins gave her a yellow-toothed grin.

She batted her eyelashes and fanned herself with an index card. "You're so smart, Mr. Perkins," she said breathlessly. "That's why you're the boss."

A distant hammering sounded in my ears and it took a moment for me to realize it was my heart. "What's going on?" I asked.

"Just follow us, Mr. Case." Perkins headed out the front door.

The last thing I wanted to do was meekly go along, but I wasn't sure what else to do at this point.

Coach Burgundy held open the door and motioned me out. "Get a move-on, boy."

I stepped outside and followed Perkins down the sidewalk as it looped around the back of the building and toward the practice fields and the workout rooms. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. We entered the football locker room adjacent to the state-of-the-art weight room. Voices and laughter echoed from within and curiosity edged out some of the anxiety.

"…about as useful as tits on a boar hog," said a man with a redneck accent, much to the amusement of whoever else was in the room with him as evidenced by another round of hooting laughter.

As we rounded the center bank of lockers, my curiosity ran away and hid. Sheriff Skinner, Police Chief Amerson, and a thin strange man with bony cheeks and a gaunt face waited inside. Two tall, heavily-muscled men with buzz-cuts stood quietly in opposite corners of the room, their eyes scanning me.

"Gentlemen," Perkins said, nodding to the group. "As you can see, the errant Mr. Case has returned to us." He swung shut the heavy metal door and slid a bar across it.

At a motion from Chief Amerson, one of the burly men approached and frisked me, removing my smartphone and keys from my pockets, not bothering to take the harmless-looking spider balls. He opened the back cover of the cell phone and removed the battery, then set it on the bench next to the sheriff. Next, he looked under my shirt and patted down my legs. "He's clean," he said in a calm professional voice, and returned to his corner.

"All that and no flowers?" I said, trying to keep the tremble of anger from my voice. "What's going on here?" A part of me roared with inner fury, demanding I coat the room with their blood. It shocked me to hear a part of myself demand such slaughter, no matter how justified it might be. I'm not a killer.

Sheriff Skinner sat on a bench and rested his elbows on his knees. "Rumor has it you left your house and ain't been back in days, boy. Now you show up out of the blue and ask us what's going on?" He chuckled without an ounce of humor. "We got a real simple question for you, boy, and I suggest you answer it fast and honest."

Goosebumps crept up my arms as a chill settled onto my skin. I tried to speak but my voice suddenly felt very dry. Did they know about the hellhounds? About what I really was? "What's the question?" I said, finally able to get words out.

"My man has seen a lot of people in suits around your house. He also told me your front door was kicked in." The sheriff sat upright and stared me in the eye. "You been talking to the FBI, boy?"

Relief thawed my frozen joints and I had to suppress a grin. They didn't know anything. They must have seen the hellhounds in their black suits and mistaken them for the feds. "No, I haven't."

Sheriff Skinner glanced at the Chief Amerson who shook his head.

"In law enforcement we deal with liars like you all the time, Case." He stood and planted himself inches from my nose. "Spit out the truth or things are gonna get ugly real fast."

"I'm not lying. Besides, you guys might have the local law in your back pocket, but we're right next to metro Atlanta. It's not like we're some isolated redneck town in the middle of nowhere you can run like your own little kingdom. You do anything to me or my friends and I promise you I will take things to the FBI."

Skinner smiled. "See, that's where you're wrong, boy. You might try taking things to the FBI. You might even get them to believe you. But if things go bad for us, it'll go doubly worse for you and your friends. We know where you live. We know who your friends are and who you care about. We know how to hit you where it hurts."

"You people are insane," I said as doubt gnawed at my confidence. "This can't possibly be just about winning football games or betting on them."

He chuckled. "The money ain't bad, boy, but we discovered something else that made us a whole hell of a lot more interested in you. We know you've been juicing. In fact, when the results from your blood test came back, they were clean. All except for a few strange things the doc here noticed." He motioned at the gaunt-faced stranger.