Vampires Don't Sparkle!

by Mia Archer

  "It will, but…"

  My eyes narrowed. It occurred to me that she'd just made it one of those weird half promises where I felt like I wasn't going to like the end results.

  "What exactly do you mean when you say you promise not to go after creatures of the night when I'm not around?" I asked.

  “Simple," Stacy said. "You have to make a promise to me as well."

  "Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this promise?"

  She grinned. Did a little thing where she stood up on her tippy toes and pushed her hands behind her back. Which had the added effect of pushing out two very prominent pieces of her anatomy that I was a big fan of. My eyes went down there without thinking, and I felt myself getting into that weird headspace where I was willing to do just about anything the pretty cheerleader asked me to do.

  Which was a dangerous headspace for me to be in. Dangerous for her, that is. She really didn't understand just how dangerous this was going to be.

  "You have to promise you’ll let me come along whenever you’re hunting scary creatures of the night. That's not so hard, is it?"

  I sighed. Rolled my eyes. And when I was done rolling them I came back down to see her lips moving towards mine. Pressing against me. Her mouth opened and then for a brief moment we were pretty much making out in the middle of the school hallway.

  It was a good thing those school hallways were mostly deserted. That was definitely the kind of thing teachers frowned upon.

  When she pulled back from the kiss she was smiling an almost too-sweet smile.

  "So what do you say?" she asked. "Do we have a deal?"

  I looked her up and down. Thought about that kiss and how good it felt. I weighed my options. In the end there was one thing that had me agreeing to her conditions. The knowledge that no matter what I said, there was always the option to simply give her the slip and go out looking for vampires without telling her that's what I was doing.

  If she didn’t know I was going out into the world looking for bloodsucking undead creatures of the night then she couldn't demand to come with me, and she wouldn't get into any trouble. Yeah, the logic of that was elegant. I’d get those kisses, she’d be happy, and I’d be secure in the knowledge that she was safe because she wouldn't be anywhere near me while I was hunting vampires.

  Or any other scary creatures of the night, for that matter. We’d already had to deal with necromancers and vampires, so who knew what would be the next horror to come down the line?

  So I grinned and lied through my teeth.

  "You know what, you wore me down. You can come along with me the next time I'm hunting vampires."

  "And every other time too," she said. "Vampires and any other monsters. I don't want you lawyering me out of this!"

  “Of course not,” I said with a smile as I leaned in and kissed her again. “Now come on. We should get back to class. I don’t think we’re going to find any vampires out here today.”

  Tonight after school was a totally different story, of course, but she didn’t have to know that since she’d be busy at cheerleading practice and far from me and my vampire hunt.

  6

  Sneaking Away

  “Hey! Crowd! Here’s what we want!”

  I tuned out the sound of cheerleaders telling the imaginary crowd what they wanted. There was still something about the whole cheerleader thing that struck me as faintly creepy. Like there was some sort of mind control going on or something, for all that they were fun to look at.

  Especially during practice when they were all wearing tight shirts and even more impossibly tight shorts. Can you say yum?

  I had to pull myself away from that wonderful sight though. As much as I hated pulling myself away from that sight.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Arnold asked, watching me stand and make my way towards the exit.

  “I’ve got something to do,” I said.

  Arnold floated in front of me wearing a faded Rush 2112 t-shirt that I’d always thought looked pretty awesome. Though it wasn’t pure black like it would’ve been in the real world since he was a floating ghost who looked more like the Force ghosts you see in Star Wars, or something out of Ghostbusters.

  “Anything we can help with?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m hunting vampires.”

  “Vampires?” Luke asked, floating in front of me.

  I glanced out onto the gym floor. Stacy wasn’t looking at me. She was busy spotting some girl who was flying in the air, but I knew it wasn’t going to be long before she turned and looked at me. She was always glancing up into the bleachers to make sure I was watching her do the impressive things she did out there on the gym floor.

  It seriously was impressive. Tossing girls through the air and catching them before gravity seriously maimed them? That was pretty awesome.

  “Man, cheerleading is way more intense than it was back when we were in school,” Jake muttered.

  “Right,” I said, remembering what I was doing. “I need to go do something important and I don’t need you three hovering around me letting Stacy know I’m up to something.”

  “Oh yeah?” Luke asked, floating around me and doing the exact opposite of what I wanted him to do. “Sounds like a good time. Can we come along?”

  “No you can’t…”

  I glanced out to the gym floor again. They were almost done doing whatever the heck it was they were doing. I figured that meant I didn’t have much longer before Stacy looked up here.

  If she just didn’t see me in the bleachers she might not think anything of it. If she saw me by the exit surrounded by the geek ghost crew then she’d definitely think something was up.

  “Fine,” I hissed. “You guys can come with me, but you have to promise not to say anything to Stacy. Got it?”

  “Promise on our hopes that they actually fix the new Star Wars movies with the next release,” Arnold said, holding up his hand like he was taking an oath or something.

  I rolled my eyes. That’d been another change that’d happened between the good old days when I thought I was the only one who could see these guys and now. My dad had taken to coming to the high school to hang out with them and have movie marathons featuring all the stuff they’d missed over the years.

  Lord of the Rings had really blown their minds. I guess before the movies came along the best the geek world had were some old animated movies that had way too many songs for my comfort. Then again when I actually read the books there’d been way too many songs too, so whatever. Not that I said that around these guys. I didn’t want them going all Poltergeist on me because I insulted their nerd Jesus.

  “Come on guys,” I said.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when we got out to the hall. I turned and glanced into the gym one last time, but Stacy was still concentrating on stunting. I figured it’d be a few more minutes before she realized I was gone.

  Plenty of time for me to do some vampire hunting.

  “So what are we looking for?” Jake asked.

  “And why are you reaping out?”

  I looked down as darkness surrounded me and replaced my normal school clothes with the black robes and scythe. I figured if I was going to go looking for those vampire assholes, I had a sure feeling they were somewhere here in the school, then I wanted to make sure I was wearing an outfit that made it clear I was the hunter and not the hunted.

  “We’re going after vampires today boys,” I said. “I didn’t have a convenient whip, so I figured this would have to do.”

  They hit me with blank stares. I stared right back at them, then remembered an important detail about their untimely demise.

  “Right,” I muttered. “You all died in the early ‘80s so you have no idea what Castlevania even is.”

  “Caslewhatya?” Arnold asked.

  “It’s an old school video game that came out about seven years after you guys kicked the bucket,” I said. “Because your deaths are officially older than old sc
hool.”

  “Huh,” Jake said. “Damn shame we can’t interact with the mortal world to play some of those new games.”

  “Yeah, something like that,” I said.

  The idea of a bunch of geeks reaching from beyond the grave to play video games on modern consoles sounded like the sort of premise you’d find in a cheap direct to Amazon movie that had mostly one and two star reviews griping about the production quality.

  “So do you have any idea where the bloodsuckers are?” Jake asked.

  “I’m pretty sure they’re hiding in the school,” I said. “But I have no idea where they are. There was a girl named Veronica, and a dude by the name of…”

  “Veronica?” Arnold said, frowning. “She wouldn’t happen to be an impossibly hot girl with dark hair that went down past her shoulders and a pair of tits that…”

  Arnold stopped and did the ghost equivalent of a blush, which meant his cheeks turned a deeper blue than the rest of him and his glow muted just a bit.

  “Don’t worry Arnold,” I said with a grin. “That does sound like the girl, and I was appreciating what you’re reminiscing about. Do you know her or something?”

  As far as I knew there wasn’t a way for ghosts to communicate with the land of the living, but vampires were also in a sort of weird in between space where they weren’t quite among the living and they weren’t quite among the dead.

  They didn’t sparkle though. Vampires don’t fucking sparkle.

  “I mean it’d be impossible to miss her,” Arnold said. “Didn’t go to school with her, but you bet your ass we notice when there’s a new hottie in this small school.”

  I rolled my eyes, but the cheering coming to an end behind me got me moving. No more cheering meant Stacy would be looking for me, which meant it was a good time to get the hell out of there before Stacy came looking for me.

  My escape would be all for naught if she could just step out of the gym and see me still standing here like an idiot.

  “Come on,” I said. “You can tell me about it while we’re walking.”

  “Floating,” Jake said, pointing down.

  I glanced down and rolled my eyes. I was floating. That was something I could do now, apparently, though it was really only something that ever happened when I forgot myself.

  The fact that the video from that football game had gone viral with the “floating reaper chick” had been bad enough, even if the whole thing did look pretty fucking awesome. That video was also taken on an old camera that used some sort of real analog tape to record because the school had never bothered upgrading their equipment, and the last thing I wanted was to be caught in full HD on someone’s phone video where they’d actually be able to recognize me.

  “Walking, floating, what the fuck ever,” I said. “We need to find these assholes, and we need to find them before something bad happens to someone who’s still among the living.”

  “Um, are you sure that’s the only reason you’re so intent on finding these guys?” Jake asked. “I mean you’re usually not this intense about this stuff.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “The last time we were doing this we were chasing down a necromancer and I was pretty fucking intent about catching him.”

  “Yeah, but there’s something different about you now,” Luke said.

  “Like last time around you were Ripley from Alien, and this time around you’re Ripley from Aliens climbing into that robot thing ready to kick ass,” Arnold said.

  “Or Sarah Connor. You were totally scared Sarah Connor when you were taking on the necromancer, but now you’re badass Sarah Connor taking on a T-1000 all by your lonesome,” Jake intoned.

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. I was going to have to have some words with my dad about the crash course in geek cinema he’d given these guys. It’s not like I could begrudge him spending time with his friends, but their preoccupation with all that pop culture that was being shoveled into their spectral minds was more than a little annoying.

  Also? They totally had a point. When we’d been fighting a necromancer I’d been terrified. Necromancers were the things that went bump in the night for reapers because they had the ability to fight us. I’d grown up terrified of them because it’d been a necromancer who killed my mom so long ago.

  I also had no idea whether or not I could take on a necromancer. This was different though. Those vampires were afraid of me, and they’d made it pretty clear they were afraid of me.

  “Yeah, well maybe this time around I’m the hunter and not the hunted,” I said. “Those assholes all should’ve died a long time ago, and that means it’s time for me to get out there and set things right before they turn someone else or kill someone.”

  “Yeah, I still don’t think that’s it,” Jake said.

  “Fine!” I snapped. “I also don’t want those vampires chasing after Stacy! They always go after the hot ones, and Stacy is about as hot as you get at this school!”

  “You’ve got that right,” Arnold said. “It’s a pity you don’t let us go into the locker rooms anymore.”

  I glared at him and snapped him with a little bit of death magic. He yelped and rubbed at his ass where I got him good. Sort of the supernatural equivalent of snapping someone with a towel. Something I was sure he’d been familiar with in life and didn’t care to be reminded of in death.

  “Plus she insists on coming along when I’m hunting these scary monster things that should terrify her, but she’s never scared,” I growled.

  “Sounds like girlfriend material to me,” Jake said. “Especially considering your line of work.”

  “Would you guys please just make yourselves useful? You can float through walls.”

  “So?” Arnold asked.

  “So float through walls and find those damned vampires for me!”

  They hit me with mock salutes, but at least they all disappeared into the walls on their search. I figured four of us searching was better than one. Especially when nobody in our vampire search party was in any danger of being killed or turned by those bloodsucking bastards.

  7

  Vampire Hunter

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” I whispered as I floated through the hallways.

  Someone rounded the corner ahead of me. For a brief heart stopping moment I thought it might be one of the vampires. It’s not like there were many people running around this place at this time of day.

  But when the person rounded the corner it was just Mr. Lee. He jumped when he saw me coming towards him, and then looked me up and down. His mouth turned down in a frown, but then he really took in what was happening.

  Like I was floating in the air. I had flowing dark robes all around me. I had a scythe in my hand. Basically I was the picture of that grainy football camera recording the school had disavowed all knowledge of, saying the whole thing was obviously a prank and had nothing to do with the mass hallucination on that football field or the alleged death of one of the school’s students at the hands of a deranged homecoming crowd.

  He took all of that in, and then wisely held his hands up and backed around the corner. Clearly he wanted nothing to do with whatever was going on here.

  The poor bastard was probably thinking of all the press conferences and statements he’d have to make if something did happen here again. Poor guy. I could feel for the administration and all the covering up they had to do here in the wake of Graham and his necromancy.

  I floated around the corner, but Mr. Lee was nowhere to be found. He must’ve disappeared into one of the many doors that led through the center of the building where the library and most of the administration offices were.

  “Where are you, you bloodsucking bastards,” I growled.

  “Right here!” a voice said from behind me.

  I whirled around and had tendrils of black mist wrapping around the source of that noise before I realized it was just Jake floating there looking very surprised that I’d wrapped him in the kind of magic that was usuall
y a precursor to dragging someone to the other side.

  From the way his eyes went wide he didn’t like the idea of being dragged to the other side.

  I sighed and let him go.

  “You really scared me,” I said. “You should know better than to sneak up on me like that!”

  “Sorry,” Jake said. “But there’s something in the cafeteria I think you really need to see.”

  I sighed. From his tone I didn’t think it was something I was going to like, but what could you do? I also didn’t have the luxury of being able to float through walls like Jake could, so I had to go around the school the old fashioned way.

  Well, mostly the old fashioned way. I still had the ability to float which meant I was moving a hell of a lot faster than usual.

  “Okay boys,” I said, seeing the three stooges hanging out in front of the cafeteria and not going in, which seemed ominous. “What do we have here?”

  “I was going to say nothing good,” Jake said. “But I always hate it when people do that in the movies so I’m just going to come out and tell you that…”

  “Dead chick in there,” Arnold said. “Two puncture marks in her neck like Christopher Lee was getting hot and heavy with her.”

  “Saruman?” I asked.

  Arnold sighed. “Yes. Saruman. Though I really think he would’ve made a better Gandalf and…”

  “Whatever,” I said. “I know he was the vampire dude to you guys. I would’ve gone with Bela Lugosi, but whatever.”

  “You mean the really old dude?” Jake asked. “Christopher Lee was so much better!”

  “Both of them are really dead old dudes at this point,” I said.

  “Whatever,” Jake said. “Are you going to go in there and check out the dead chick, or are we going to float around out here talking about old dead dudes who played vampires long before we were dead?”

  I floated through the cafeteria doors. I really didn’t want to float through those doors and see what was waiting for me on the other side, but then again that pretty much described the life of a reaper.