Vampire Breath by R. L. Stine Read Free Book Online Page B

she choked out. “Freddy—?”
    I spun toward the big open window to see the giant bat that had carried me
back to the kitchen. Its wings flapped against the floor. The red eyes glowed
angrily from its big, ugly face.
    It saved our lives! I realized.
    I collapsed to my knees. I grabbed the side of the stove to hold myself up.
    I’m okay. I’m going to be okay, I told myself.
    I raised my eyes to the enormous bat.
    It started to shrink. It tucked itself inside its black wings. Wrapped the
wings around its body.
    The wings melted into a cape. A purple cape. And as the cape swept back,
Count Nightwing appeared.
    “You made a serious mistake, young man,” he scolded sternly. His strange,
silver eyes burned angrily into mine. “Did you think you could fly?” he demanded with a sneer.
“You are not ready to fly—yet!”
    “I—I—I—” I was still shaking too hard to speak.
    “When I turn you into a vampire, you can fly every night,” Count Nightwing
snarled. He lowered his face close to mine, so close I could smell the decay of
his pale skin. “Don’t try to escape again,” he growled. “It is a waste of time.
And the next time… I won’t catch you.”
    I swallowed hard. I held my breath, trying to force my heart to stop pounding
so hard.
    Count Nightwing turned away from me. Swirling the purple cape behind him, he
floated past Cara, through the kitchen.
    He stopped at the door and swung back to us. “Don’t just stand there,” he
ordered. “Come help me find the Vampire Breath. I know it’s somewhere in
this wing of the castle.”
    He grabbed his pale throat. “I’m so thirsty… so thirsty.” His silvery eyes
locked on Cara, then on me. “I must remember where I hid my fangs. Hurry. Help
find the Vampire Breath. It’s somewhere nearby. I’m certain of it.”
    Cara and I had no choice. He stood at the doorway, waiting for us to follow
him.
    Holding on to the stove, I pulled myself to my feet. Then I followed Cara
through the kitchen to the hall.
    “Perhaps I hid the bottle in the royal guest room,” Count Nightwing said,
talking to himself. He pushed open a door and vanished inside the room.
    Cara and I kept walking. The hallways appeared to stretch for miles ahead of us. Door after door after door. And this was only one wing of the old
vampire’s castle.
    “Are you okay?” Cara asked, studying me as we walked. “You still look kind of
shaky.”
    “I am kind of shaky,” I confessed. “After all, I fell off a cliff!”
    Cara shook her head. “It isn’t going to be easy to escape.”
    “We can’t escape,” I replied. “The castle was built up here on top of the
cliff to keep anyone from escaping.”
    She brushed a strand of black hair from her eyes. “We can’t give up, Freddy.
We have to keep trying. As soon as he finds his fangs, he’s going to turn us
into vampires.”
    “That’s why my first plan is the best,” I insisted. “We have to find the
bottle of Vampire Breath before he does. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe
we’ll find it first.”
    “But what will we do with it once we have it?” Cara demanded.
    “Mainly keep it from him!” I declared.
    I pulled her into the next room. We both gasped when we saw the coffins.
    Dozens of them. All lined up perfectly in four rows, the length of the room.
All open.
    “Another vampire bedroom!” Cara cried. She shivered. “It’s so creepy, Freddy.
Look how many there are!”
    “The vampires are all out somewhere, swooping around, searching for blood to
drink,” I said. “But soon they’ll be flying home. And when they see us…”
    Cara gulped. “We’ll be their dessert!”
    “Uh… maybe we should search for the Vampire Breath in another
room,” I suggested. “Somewhere away from these coffins.”
    But then my eye fell on something. A coffin against the wall.
    A closed coffin.
    “Cara—look at that!” I whispered, pointing. “All the other coffins were
left open. That’s the only one with a closed lid.