Vampire Innocent | Book 12 | Ancient Vampire Death Cults & Other Annoyances

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Didn’t recognize him right away because we didn’t exactly hang out. He had his clique; I had my non-clique. You know, the smallish group of high schoolers who don’t fit any of the stereotypes and simply exist. Popular kids probably lumped me in with the nerds or oddballs, but not so much so they picked on me.

  Anyway, what the hell?

  “Brady?” I ask.

  He shows zero recognition, simply keeps trying to get away from me. Some portion of his brain stem is still operating because he hasn’t tried to bite me. There’s a trace of processing going on, enough to make him realize biting me won’t result in feeding.

  “What happened to you?” I pat him on the face a few times while keeping him pinned against the cargo box. “You’re like days old, aren’t you?”

  Brady grunts, still attempting to shove me away.

  Grr. This stinks. He might be seriously new, but I’m not old enough to read his thoughts. Something like a hundred-year age gap is needed before a vampire can see into another vampire’s head. As far as I know, it’s not possible for us to mind-control each other no matter how ancient we get. Works for me. Kinda reassuring to know I’ll never be the victim of a compulsion.

  Hmm. What do I do with him? Can’t leave or he’ll go maul someone and make a big hard-to-hide spectacle of it. He might even get himself destroyed. There’s clearly no talking to him at the moment.

  Son of a… whoever gave the Transference to him obviously abandoned him right after. Probably didn’t even explain what happened. Bet he’s got no idea he has to drink blood, and this is him experiencing the aftereffects of starvation. Okay, we might not have been friends, but I definitely didn’t have a problem with the kid. Kinda pisses me off some jackass randomly turned him, maybe as a joke, for being a goth. Well, former Goth. At the moment, except for the hair, he’s a male model for an LL Bean catalog.

  Obviously, he needs blood. But… he’s most certainly going to kill anyone he bites. In his state of mind, he won’t be able to stop feeding before he takes too much. Problem is, I can’t hold him back and go find a blood donor.

  I pin Brady to the cargo box by one hand around his neck and pull my phone out.

  “Hey, Siri. Call Glim.”

  “Calling Glim…”

  It rings four times before silence, which is normal for him. He never says anything when he answers a phone until he knows who’s on the other end.

  “It’s me. Do you have a couple minutes? Found a new guy who’s a little out of his mind, and I could really use a little help wrangling him.”

  “Hello, Sarah,” says Glim. “All right. I’ll be there soon.”

  9

  Mostly Painless

  Brady keeps fighting me like an android unaware of its surroundings.

  He’s not even really looking at me, almost as if his brain can’t process the reason why he’s unable to roam off in search of food. Even though I’m expecting Glim to arrive at any minute, when he finally steps out from between two cargo boxes amid a whorl of black fog, I jump. It amuses him to lightly startle people. Shame he can’t do it too often. Any mortal who sees him would scream and either faint or sprint away.

  Shadows are, as they say, not ‘aesthetically pleasing.’ Grey skin, bald, pointy ears, yellow eyes, extremely obvious non-retractable fangs… yeah. His appearance never bothered me. Horror movies have never been my thing. By all expectations, I should have taken one look at him and screamed or cringed away… but I saw the guy he really is inside. Yeah, sappy as hell, I know. But it’s what happened.

  “Hmm.” Glim leans close, examining Brady. “You know him.”

  Not a question.

  “Sort of. We went to the same high school. Never really talked. I saw him like every day for four years… except like summer and stuff.”

  “Would explain the weakness of the connection.”

  Whoa. I raise both eyebrows. “What kind of connection? We’re connected?”

  Glim flashes a toothy smile. “Spend enough time in someone’s presence, a connection develops, even if you do not interact. Your energies are familiar with each other.”

  “I didn’t turn him.”

  “Of course not. The link between the two of you is nowhere near strong enough for such a bond. He’s quite new.”

  “Yeah. Got that feeling. He’s starved, isn’t he?”

  Glim takes his left arm. “Yes.”

  I let go of his shirt and grab his other arm. “He can’t feed while he’s like this or he’s gonna kill someone.”

  “We will need to bring him somewhere he can be contained while we find some blood for him.”

  Ack. Can’t bring Brady back home. In his condition, he’d be way too dangerous to my parents and the Littles. Though… it might be more a matter of protecting Brady from my siblings. Maybe I could ask the hellhound to sit on him. Nah. “Umm, any idea where we can take him?”

  “Yes. Follow.” Glim floats upward.

  Between the two of us, we carry Brady while flying north and east of the railroad-truck interchange. Glim leads us a few blocks deeper into the industrial district. We land behind a possibly abandoned small warehouse or factory in a lot packed wall-to-fence with junk, mostly parts from large machines. Maybe truck engines or factory stuff. I don’t recognize any of it. Even a few random old toilets lay tossed around. An overwhelming stink of heavy fuel oil mixes with the ocean smell all over this part of Seattle.

  If not for already being dead, I’d be afraid of growing an extra toe standing barefoot on this dirt. This is like the kind of place you always see EPA dudes in full clean suits raiding. Glim drags Brady over to the building and breaks the door open. We enter a large room containing various giant machines, most of which are covered under plastic tarps. Yeah, definitely abandoned. Or at least closed down for a while. It’s not a ruin, but we are in no danger of being disturbed here. The fragrances of dust and metal add to the ambiance. Every breath tastes as though I’m licking dirty steel covered in motor grease.

  Glim keeps dragging Brady across the former factory, so I help. He appears to be heading for a spot in the back where a metal mesh wall forms a security cage around three empty shelves. Someone has already cleared out whatever high-value items used to be kept in there. A broken padlock lays on the floor not far from the door. Glim shoves Brady into the security cage and closes it. I grab the busted padlock. It will never lock again, but simply hanging the metal U in the latch is enough to keep the cage closed.

  Most vampires, with sufficient motivation, could break out of here. Brady has neither the strength to bust the door open nor the mental faculties to remove the busted padlock. He merely flings himself at the closest part of the mesh and bangs on it.

  “Wow, he’s pretty far gone,” I whisper.

  “Seen worse.” Glim winks. “It’s quite a bit scarier when it happens to an elder. Would you rather keep an eye on him while I go find a donor, or shall I watch him while you go hunting?”

  I fidget. Sure, feeding has become pretty casual, but it isn’t entirely free of guilt. Doesn’t bother me much really, but abduction is a little bit too far, even knowing we practice catch and release. Honestly, the only apprehension I feel about feeding nowadays is dreading bumping into creeps or sickos. There are some minds out there too frightening to look into.

  “Go for it. I’ll stay with him if you don’t mind.”

  Glim smiles as if he expected me to say that, then vanishes in a whorl of inky black vapors.

  Can’t tell if he jumped into the shadow realm or simply made an illusion, then stopped allowing me to see him. Yeah, Shadows get some really cool abilities. As much as they give up in looks, they deserve to get something out of the deal.

  I stand by the door of the security cage attempting to talk to Brady. We existed in two entirely different orbits back then. Listen to me saying ‘back then’ as if talking about a time more than one year ago. Okay, to be fair, it’s five years ago. High school lasted four years and we’ve only been graduated one.
Five years to a nineteen-year-old is a significant portion of our lives. So yeah, being a freshman does kinda feel like a long time ago. Add to it how much has changed for me since then.

  Because we had no common interests and didn’t even talk to each other, I’m stuck trying to reminisce about goofy things teachers did or a few things students did so crazy everyone from the jocks to the nerds to the delinquents all talked about it. Some guys from the senior class two years ahead of us broke into the school at night in April and spread mass quantities of spray lubricant—like what people cook with—all over the floors. Most of the kids found it hilarious to watch everyone flailing around, unable to stay upright, clinging to locker doors and so on. The faculty didn’t appreciate the prank. Rumor had it the principal even wanted to press breaking and entering charges, but they couldn’t figure out the specific students involved. Apparently, none of the security cameras had been on that night.

  I’m sure it was a total coincidence this kid everyone called Sparks stopped being picked on the next day. Poor guy was eighteen, two years older than me, but looked more like twelve. Probably the smartest kid in the whole school. Total nerd—and AV geek. Yeah, the football guys going from throwing him in trash cans three times a week to defending him overnight had nothing whatsoever to do with the mysterious shutdown of the school’s security system.

  Brady agrees. At least I think his partially coherent enraged moan—tinged with highly confused desperation—means he thinks the same thing. Either that or he’s trying to read Battlefield Earth. Nah, he’s out of his head. Simply a well-timed animalistic noise randomly lining up with my words. Trying to talk to him seems futile, but I keep rambling. Nothing appears to get through to him until Glim reappears behind me, holding up a late-thirties guy in a frumpy business suit. He’s got the man’s arm across his shoulder as if helping a drunken friend go home. The mortal’s staring off into the ninth dimension, obviously under the influence of a mental fog.

  Glim pulls a small pack of red Solo cups from one pocket of his olive drab trench coat, slices it open using a fingernail, and plucks one out. After stuffing the package back in the pocket, he punctures the man’s arm with a fang, and begins to let blood dribble into the cup. The instant the man’s skin breaks, Brady launches himself at the cage wall in a renewed frenzy. Loud metal rattles echo over the entire building. It’s creepy watching him act like a starving dog smelling steak. No trace of humanity at all in his eyes or behavior.

  I never got the chance to feed yet. Smelling the blood—buffalo wings for some bizarre reason—makes me even hungrier. A twinge of pain echoes the lines of my healing claw marks. Yeah, I know. Relax. I’m gonna eat soon. This blood isn’t for me.

  Once the cup nears fullness, Glim seals the wound in the man’s arm. He hands me the cup, which is icky warm to the touch, and moves to the security cage. “I’ll hold him back. You feed him. Once he tastes it, he should calm down a bit.”

  I nod.

  Glim opens the door, catches Brady when he tries to charge at me, and gets him in a reverse bear hug.

  “You want this?” I hold up the cup. “It’s yours. Just relax.”

  Brady squirms. He couldn’t throw me off. No way is he getting out of Glim’s hold. The closer I get, the less frantic his flailing becomes. Gingerly, I raise the cup toward his face. He strains to lean forward. There’s a damn good reason people don’t feed infants using open cups. If Brady flails at the wrong moment, we’ll have blood all over the place. Fortunately, his lizard brain appears to understand what’s going on here.

  A few seconds after blood touches his lips, he stops fighting Glim and stands there. By the time half the blood is down, his eyes have stopped glowing and he reaches up to grasp the red plastic cup. At a nod from Glim, I let Brady have it and take a step back.

  Glim releases him.

  Brady drains the remainder of the blood, then holds the cup in the air over his mouth, catching drops until they stop falling.

  “So, umm… Brady Welch?” I ask.

  “Wow, yeah.” He blinks at me. “How do you know my name? And whoa. Where am I?”

  “Lucky guess. You’re in a random place we found to keep you safe. Kinda lost your mind for a bit there. So, how’d you end up starving?”

  Brady looks down into the cup. “Blood.”

  “Uhh, yeah.” I fold my arms. “Are you unaware of what’s happened to you?”

  “No… I sorta.” Brady grinds the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Woke up in a basement somewhere. A note next to me said some wild shit about being ‘elevated’ above mortals, and what I always wanted was mine now. Said I needed to feed on blood. Didn’t want to believe it. Sounds so crazy.”

  I exhale. Okay, this is kinda weird. “It does sound crazy, but it isn’t. I didn’t believe it at first, either. But it’s pretty cool once you get used to it.”

  Brady averts his gaze from the cup as if horrified by it. “I don’t want to hurt people… or be a vampire. I… can’t do it.”

  “Bit late for regrets, kid,” says Glim.

  Startled, Brady spins to look behind him. At the sight of a Shadow, he jumps back. “Gah!”

  I grab him by the collar of his Abercrombie & Fitch sweater and pull him close. “Knock it off. He’s here to help you, not be ridiculed.”

  “Chill.” Brady holds his hands up. “I’d have yelled like that from anyone sneaking up behind me.” He glances at Glim again, unable to conceal a mild wince. “Do we all end up looking like that?”

  “No,” I say, annoyed. “We’re not all lucky enough to have their amazing powers.”

  Glim chuckles. “You don’t have to lay it on so thick. And I did sneak up on him.”

  “Sorry. Just pisses me off when people can’t see past the outside.” I let go of Brady. “He’s a Shadow. Guess you don’t know about different bloodlines yet. You probably also don’t know which one you are.”

  “I’d wager Scion.” Glim leans in to sniff him, purely to be unsettling… probably.

  “The heck does that mean?” asks Brady in an uneasy voice. “You were in my class. I remember seeing you. Or at least you kinda look like someone I remember. Did you have a slightly older sister?”

  “Hah. No. It’s me. The change made me look a little younger. So, gave up the goth thing? Crombie isn’t exactly gloomy.”

  Brady again casts a despondent glance at the floor. “Nah. After graduation, I got into it with the parents. Didn’t want to go to college right away. My dad gave me one year to straighten up or I’d have to move out.”

  “Straighten up? Did you get into some nasty stuff?” I ask.

  Glim walks over to the still-dazed man in the suit. “I shall return momentarily.”

  They vanish in a black whorl.

  “Whoa.” Brady stares at the empty floor. “Did that freaky dude just disappear?”

  “Yes, and please don’t call him freaky. It’s beyond obvious he looks like he looks. There is no need to mention it. The outside does not match the inside.”

  Brady tosses the cup aside. “Nothing nasty at all. Just a little weed. Dad meant my friends, my ‘band that will never go anywhere’, the makeup, black clothes… he wanted this.” He gestures at his A&F outfit.

  “And you don’t?”

  “I wanted to be myself… not some clone of my dad. Kinda stupid. My parents were basically willing to let me stay there for a whole year and try to get somewhere with the band on the condition if it failed, I ‘went normal’ and picked a college.”

  Can’t say I’m qualified to comment either way. Spent my whole life as the normal girl, so I’m unable to imagine what it would be like to have my parents tell me to change. Then again, you don’t really see actual adults going around in goth makeup too often… unless you’re in Portland or at a Cure concert. Can’t think of any time I went somewhere and saw a thirty-plus person working a ‘real’ job in white face paint and black lipstick. However, Brady’s parents did support him for a whole year, giving him a chance
to get the band off the ground. Can’t really call them unreasonable.

  “Wow. Umm. I wanted to go to college. Had plans to attend USC. Got accepted and everything.”

  He looks up at me. “Why didn’t you?”

  I extend my fangs. “California sun.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, how’d the band do?”

  Brady barks a sad laugh. “Nothing. Played a few gigs. Sent out tons of demo tapes. Not one call. We got so desperate we even tried to get on Idol, but they ignored us too. Guess my dad was right. Life kinda sucks. I haven’t seen any of my friends outside the band since after graduation, and even they’ve stopped showing up. Everyone’s either working or at school, or both. Here I am just laying around the house like a total slacker.”

  “Yeah, I know the feeling. Both my friends are usually working or in school. We really don’t have any time to hang out.”

  “Huh? Hang out? Your friends? But you’re a vampire.” He points at me.

  “Yeah, it’s… complicated.”

  Brady studies me for a long minute. “Hey, you’re the girl who got stabbed. I remember the Facebook page.”

  “The Facebook page?” I raise both eyebrows. “What page?”

  “Justice for Sarah… trying to raise money to find the killer.” He scratches at his shoulder. A feral glint flashes across his face, but he’s not eyeing me like a steak dinner. Probably still quite hungry and at the edge of losing control again. “Then they said the cops messed up and you weren’t dead. Was it really a mistake?”

  “Heh, no.” I chuckle, shaking my head. “I almost died. Scott stabbed me right in the heart. Only reason I still exist is a vampire happened to be stalking me that night, intending to feed on me as soon as he could get me alone. He kinda mistook me for a kid, felt bad watching my murder happen, and turned me so I didn’t die.”

  “Wow…”