by Mia Archer
14
On Our Own
I hesitated at Stacy’s door. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do this, but at the same time it was something that had to be done. I’d come to a decision, after all.
So I knocked on the door before I could really think about what I was doing. After all, there was no time like the present to take care of unpleasant business.
The most unpleasant thing about all of this was going to be the “I told you so” smug look on her face.
A moment later the door opened and Stacy’s dad was blinking at me.
“Gwen?” he asked. “Isn’t it a little late for you to be out here?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I really need to talk to Stacy. Is she around?”
His face screwed up in even more confusion. Immediately I was worried. That was the kind of look I got when Stacy had done something that frustrated me, and I figured seeing it on her father’s face could only mean she’d done something to frustrate him as well.
“Um, she said she was over at your house tonight,” he said. “So do you want to tell me where you think she is now? Because if she’s not with you then she’s in deep trouble.”
There must’ve been something about the way the blood drained from my face that told him something was seriously wrong here.
“Gwen?” he asked. “Is there something you need to tell me? Is Stacy in trouble?”
“Um, no,” I said, though I wasn’t doing a very good job of covering up my panic from the skeptical look he gave me. “I just remembered I was supposed to meet her at a swim meet tonight.”
That was a lie, of course. The swim team was something I’d given up this year. Mostly because I’d been so freaked out in the aftermath of everything that happened with Graham that I hadn’t been in a very sporting mood when the season started, and then it was too late.
Which had felt like a shame once I got out of my Graham-induced funk, but now I was wondering if it was a blessing in disguise considering I’d have trouble worrying about the swim team and hunting vampires.
“A swim meet,” he said, his voice flat and telling me exactly what he thought of my flimsy excuse. “So you’re saying if I pull up the athletic schedule I’m going to see that the swim team is having a meet tonight, and that’s where she went?”
Shit. I didn’t think that through. Lies like that must’ve been so much easier back in an era before everyone had a little computer in their pocket they could consult to double check whether or not the teenager in front of them was lying through their teeth.
Though most of society’s stubborn refusal to use that ability to tap into the sum total of mankind’s knowledge at a moment’s notice never ceased to amaze me.
“Uh, yeah?” I said, my voice faint because I knew I was screwed, and I really wanted to get to the school because I had a feeling Stacy was putting herself in danger out there.
His fingers darted across his phone screen, then his eyes darted back and forth as he no doubt stared at the athletic schedule. Finally he grunted and looked up at me.
“Well you two have fun out there tonight,” he said. “I gotta say, I didn’t believe you at first. The next time Stacy decides to go out make sure she lets you know what the plans are so you don’t freak me out like that again.”
He smiled. I barely managed to avoid letting out a sigh of relief. I’d just gotten a little reprieve here, after all, and the last thing I needed was to let him know I was lying through my teeth.
I waited until he’d closed the door before I flew. No need to take a car when I could do the whole flying thing. Which was usually only the kind of thing you saw in Starlight City, but I had no intention of going anywhere near that mess until they’d taken care of business, and even then it seemed like it’d be nothing but work for any poor reaper who decided to hang out their shingle there.
I flew over the town and looked down at the twinkling lights. It was late enough in the year that it got dark early, and the whole place seemed so peaceful as I floated over it.
Like you’d have no idea that there were vampires down there who were doing their best to take over the high school, and maybe the world. The motherfuckers.
I landed outside the school in a nice out of the way spot. Sure it involved landing in a stand of trees that upperclassmen had their lunch in during the day, and snuck away to create more future work for reapers decades down the line after school was out, but I figured that was better than landing in a place where…
Rustling caught my attention. I looked around and wondered if there was a vampire out here waiting for me. Could they sniff me out? I’d heard they could sniff out specific humans, but I was hardly human.
Even if they could sniff me out, would they really come out here and try to start a fight with me when they had to know that wasn’t going to go well for them?
Then again I figured it could be a cute little bunny rabbit or something like that hanging out after hours and freaking out the poor reaper who was already on edge. I frowned as I stared into the darkness. Then finally I heard whispering.
My robes appeared around me, my scythe at my side, as I moved in closer to that whispering and wondered what I was going to find. Maybe the vampires were out here scouting a place where they could take people and have their meal in peace. Maybe the place was used for the exact same purposes at night as it was used for during the day now that there were vampires in town, only with a lot more bloodsucking and a lot less sucking down greasy food that couldn’t be good for our long term health.
I moved closer and pushed some of the branches to the side. Stared into the darkness. Then I was promptly blinded by a bright light.
I held my scythe up and was on the verge of bringing it down on someone when a scream told me I wasn’t dealing with vampires. At least I was pretty sure vampires wouldn’t scream like that, for all that they’d seemed pretty afraid of me.
“What the fuck?” someone shouted.
I blinked a couple of times and finally moved my scythe up so it was blocking that light. Light, I might add, that was attached to an LED on the back of a cellphone. Not the kind of technology I’d expect a bunch of bloodsucking vampire sons of bitches to be wielding.
I was given to understand they mostly got sort of frozen in whatever time they came from. Sort of like humans did, but on a far longer time scale considering some of them could date back hundreds or even thousands of years.
“Turn that thing away from me!” I hissed.
“It’s her!” someone whispered. “The girl from the homecoming game, and she’s coming for us!”
The light finally turned away and I found myself staring at Steve Reynolds, captain of the football team, with his pants around his ankles. Next to him was a pretty junior girl with dark hair who was on the cheerleading squad. I thought her name was, oddly enough, Phyllis, which seemed totally out of place in this day and age.
Her eyes narrowed as she saw me. Oh yeah. I’d seen her around because she was one of the girls who Stacy didn’t really get along with. Something about her knowing she was going to be in Stacy’s captain position the next year, and so she tried her best to lord it over everyone this year even though she wasn’t the captain yet.
I didn’t have time for that kind of drama though. Not when Stacy was out there somewhere and there was a good chance she could be getting devoured by vampires even as I was wasting my time with these two yahoos.
“Would you two get the fuck out of here?” I asked.
“Why should I do anything you say?” Phyllis asked.
I frowned and thought about lowering my scythe at her. I didn’t care for the unspoken “bitch” in what she’d said, and I figured having a little bit of sharp metal in her face might encourage her to be a little nicer to people who could pull her to the other side.
But I didn’t do it, no matter how satisfying that might be. Not when I was pretty sure that would get me in trouble when I brought her to the other side. I’d never heard of a reaper going rogue, but
if it did happen I didn’t imagine the consequences would be all that pretty.
For the reaper, that is.
“There are vampires out here,” I said, speaking slowly so she could understand me. “So unless you want the last thing you see when you’re getting ready to suck Steve’s dick here is a vampire moving in to suck the blood straight from your neck, I’d suggest you get the fuck out of here and stop giving me shit.”
Her eyes went wide. Steve’s did too, for that matter. Like he went from looking pissed off that I’d clearly prevented him from getting his dick sucked, seriously why the fuck were they out here on a chilly night like this doing something like that when I knew Steve had that ridiculous Mustang he was always revving when he got to school, to preventing him from getting his blood sucked.
Maybe. There was still the drive home, after all, but I got the feeling that the vampires were operating inside the high school if they were operating at all tonight.
“Um, thanks?” Steve said.
“What the fuck ever,” I said. “Get the fuck out of here. I have work to do.”
Both their eyes went wide that time. Yeah, they’d seen the same videos everyone else had, and they knew who’d been flying over that crowd. They also clearly had no more desire to be around me while I was working than Mr. Lee had.
I stalked off through the night towards the school, muttering under my breath the entire fucking way. So much for trying to land in an out of the way spot so I wouldn’t have to worry about people seeing me landing or flying or doing my necromancer thing. So much for keeping everything about the vampires on the down low.
I couldn’t believe I’d said anything. I’d just been so pissed off at the way she was talking to me that I’d needed to say something to get her attention, and the damned vampires were the first thing that came spilling out.
Which meant it wasn’t going to be long before everyone around here knew there were vampires running around. Which meant there was probably going to be a fucking panic sooner rather than later. Which meant the cops were going to get involved and be good and pissed off that the veil between the natural and the supernatural was being peeled back and panicking all the kids at the high school.
Again.
Which meant I was doing one hell of a bang up job while my dad was out of town. Honestly. Of all the times for him to decide he needed to go off to the other side of the country, this was quite possibly the worst.
I sighed. There was nothing for it. Things were going to play out the way they were going to play out, and there wasn’t much I could do about it but see where the ride took me.
I stepped into the school and listened. It’s not like I expected to hear the vampires doing their thing, but at the same time I figured there was always a possibility they would obligingly be that stupid.
More than that, though, I was terrified I was going to hear the sounds of Stacy in the middle of a fight. Or, worse, the sounds of Stacy screaming, and those screams getting fainter and fainter as the blood was drained and there was nothing left of her.
Though I could even go one worse than that. I could imagine her screams getting fainter and fainter until it was replaced with a snarl as her body was taken over by a vampire. Ugh.
I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t going to let that happen, damn it, and if those vampire motherfuckers thought they were going to drain my girlfriend then they had another thing coming!
I floated down the halls, and the sounds of cheering in the distance drew me towards the pool. There was a little staircase that ran to an area overlooking the pool that was mostly used for storage, it’d been bleachers once upon a time before the school realized that all the heat and humidity from the pool tended to rise and make anyone sitting there even more miserable than someone sitting in the bleachers on the ground level, and I figured that’d be a good spot to have a look around without being seen.
Assuming no one was up there making out, which was another use they got out of that storage area, but whatever. I figured anyone trying to find a secluded spot for making out with vampires roaming the school were asking for trouble, but if they wanted to volunteer themselves as bait then I was more than happy to roll with it.
15
Armed and Dangerous
I crept up the stairs leading to the swim meet. Sure I didn’t think it was strictly necessary to be creeping up the stairs like this. There was enough noise coming from the swim meet down below that I wasn’t all that worried that someone would be able to hear me.
Still. We were talking about vampires, after all, and if there was one thing that all the movies and books agreed on, it was that vampires had the kinds of powers that would make them more at home in a comic book about superheroes than in a horror novel. Maybe they had super hearing.
Sure I was pretty sure some of that was just stuff creeping into vampire stories from the comic books, but you could never be sure. I didn’t want to be caught off guard, even if I wasn’t all that worried about them actually being able to do anything to me.
I didn’t even bother touching my feet to the concrete floor below me. No, I was careful to float with every step, which meant it wasn’t strictly taking steps at all, but whatever.
I didn’t want them to hear my robes flapping in the breeze either.
I finally reached the top step and peered over the top step. I found myself staring at…
A whole lot of nothing.
“Great job Gwen,” I said, standing and stepping into the room. “You’re jumping at a bunch of gym equipment that’s been up here gathering dust since the ancient ‘90s.”
Great. I sneezed as I leaned against a rolled up old mat and sent some of the dust flying.
At least I didn’t have to worry about anyone hearing that sneeze and coming up here to investigate. No, people were cheering as the unmistakeable sound of people swimming back and forth for carried up to the place people used to sit to watch those swim meets. I missed being down there, but tried not to think about it.
Besides, I had a more immediate disappointment to deal with. I’d figured this would be the perfect spot for a bunch of bloodsuckers who were looking to scope out a meal to hang out, but I’d been wrong, but the only things keeping me company up here were the dust bunnies.
“Motherfucker,” I growled. “If this isn’t where they are then…”
A hand closing around my mouth was my first indication that things weren’t all as they seemed up here. Unfortunately that hand closed around my mouth with enough force that I couldn’t do anything to stop it right away. Whoever that hand belonged to was strong.
Like a vampire. I tried to break free, but nothing happened. I was on the verge of really giving this asshole a shove that would send them flying out into the pool down below, but thankfully at the last moment a voice hissing in my ear stopped me from doing something I’d seriously regret.
Because I recognized that voice. I guess I’d been right about Stacy coming to the high school to see a swim meet.
“What are you doing up here in your robes?” she asked.
I mumbled something, and her hand disappeared as she realized I wasn't going to do much talking with her hand covering my mouth.
“You have some explaining to do!”
“Okay Ricky,” I growled, turning around to get a good look at her.
“Who?” she asked.
“Old joke. You wouldn’t understand if you never watched Nick at Nite back in the day. And what the hell are you doing dressed up like this?”
I looked her up and down, and I have to admit that what I saw on display there was definitely kinda hot. I mean I’d always had a thing for strong girls who were also femme, and she was pulling that off in spades tonight. Like she had a real Sarah Connor thing going for her.
We’re talking the second movie, not the first one. The last movie they ever made in that franchise, as far as I’m concerned.
“What?” she asked.
I looked her up and down, and this time my inspection
of my girlfriend had absolutely nothing to do with how hot she looked and everything to do with the ridiculous getup she was wearing.
She had a bandolier slung over her shoulder that had stakes in it. It looked like she’d sewn the thing herself so she could get as many stakes as possible in there, and it made her look sort of like a cross between Buffy and Mr. Worf. She had squirt guns attached to a tool belt running all around her waist. She had a cross around her neck, as well as a necklace made out of…
“Is that garlic?” I asked.
“Well yeah,” she said. “If vampires are real then it stands to reason that some of the stuff we’re supposed to use to fight them is also real. I’m bringing along everything to make sure I’m not caught with my pants down!”
I licked my lips. She was looking so good that I wouldn’t mind catching her with her pants down right about now. Even though there was another part of me that was screaming that was a terrible idea considering we were in an open area and anyone down there at the swim meet who looked up would be able to see us and what we were doing.
That would’ve been a hell of a show, and the kind of thing that would have me the talk of the school all over again. One scandal was enough for me, thank you very much. Especially when I was pretty sure that was hardly going to be the only scandal I was a part of before I graduated considering all the crap that’d been going down at the school since I discovered I was a reaper.
“You’re lucky I have a thing for Buffy and strong women,” I said. “Otherwise I’d be telling you to…”
“To what?” she asked.
I let out a low growl. I didn’t want to get into what I was and wasn’t going to let her do right now. I wanted to tell her that I had every intention of letting her in on this little vampire hunting game, that I’d come to that decision earlier after having a chat with my dad, but there was something about seeing her out here dressed in that ridiculous getup obviously hunting vampires whether or not I told her it was safe that had me more than a little pissed off.