Free Tail of the Devil by Danielle DeVor Page A

doing?”
    Lucretia was down on the floor, looking sweaty.
    “I gotta exercise. Gotta keep my body nice cause I get more work thatta way.”
    Mathias nodded and went into the bathroom taking his backpack with him. After he had showered and dressed, he came out and Lucretia was sitting on the bed watching TV.
    “Good, you done. I been thinking bout things. You better jus stay here while I work. If ya get bored, go see Carl, but don’t go outside witout me. You ain’t streetwise enough yet and las thing I wanna see is you get yoself killed over some stupid bullshit.”
    Mathias nodded.
    Lucretia pointed to a small refrigerator butted up against the wall. “Food in there. Take what ya want. I gotta get to work.”
    Mathias watched her leave the room. She locked the door behind her. Somehow, he felt protected. Why she cared, he didn’t know, but she did, and it felt nice.

Chapter Four

    Tepes knew that he had really managed to botch things up. Mathias had always been willful, and this incarnation was no different. The boy needed to feel secure, Vlad knew that, but it was so difficult. But then, he could only imagine what Mathias had been like as a child originally. Something told Vlad that he should count himself lucky indeed.
    More than anything else, he needed to offer some sort of peace offering to Mathias. And hopefully, he could figure out one that would keep Mathias with them all.
    Vlad left his rooms and wandered through the maze of hallways into the highest and darkest section of the castle. There was very little light there. That was how Nosferatu liked it.
    * * * * *
    Mathias woke to voices. He could hear the other students at the school through the walls now and then. He would hear them moving around between classes. He didn’t really wish to join them, he had nothing in common with them, but it did get boring.
    He knew now just how far he could push Tepes. And instead of a little bit of yelling, he’d really seen what the legendary vampire was capable of. He tried to stop shaking, but it was hard. Soon though, he heard some students in the hallway, leaning against the other side of the wall that butted up against his bed.
    “You don’t want to go upstairs do you?” Mathias heard a nasty voice say.
    “No, “a shaky voice said. Whoever it was sounded scared as hell.
    “Upstairs is where Nosferatu lives,” the nasty voice said. There was kind of an attitude to it. This guy was a total dick.
    The nasty voice was starting to sound familiar. Like one of those two kids who’d given him a hard time his first day.
    “I don’t want to see Nosferatu,” the shaky one replied.
    “You know the story of Nosferatu don’t you?” the nasty voice asked.
    “No.”
    “He’s a freak, an abomination. True, he’s our queen’s son, but he was made before any humans were even here. Our queen had relations with a bat.”
    Do I even want to know why the Queen of the vampires did that? Uh, yuck.
    “Is that even possible?” the shaky voice asked.
    “If it wasn’t he wouldn’t exist, now would he?”
    “But how?”
    “According to my father, when the Queen first began to walk the earth, she was the only one of her kind that had made the trip. God himself had planned to send a pair of them, but that idea was changed by an uproar in Heaven caused by Adam.
    “So Lilith had been sent down alone. With none of her kind around, she spent much of her time shape-shifted in the form of a bat. When God had sent Adam to earth, instead of his chosen one, Lilith chose to steer clear of Adam and his petty politics. She left the area to find her own way about the world. But God had made an error, and had sent Adam to earth as a human rather than as a vampire. After Adam got himself kicked out of the Garden of Eden with Eve, he began populating the earth, and as a result, creating his own army to fight the “demon” Lilith.
    “Hunted and fearful, Lilith kept to bat form. It was during this time that she recognized the soul of