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

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “Nice effect.” I take a step back. “Totally sounds demonic.”

  The cop looks down at himself, notices he has a gun on his hip, and reaches for it.

  “Shit.”

  I run straight out of my flip-flops, hauling ass for the nearest gap between cars. Being shot is never fun, but it sucks extra hard when it can actually kill me. It would be cool to say I pull some kind of Sarah Connor judgement day thing and hit the deck like a soldier. Alas, reality is more like I’m in the first movie where she’s a clueless waitress. I might even be screaming, hard to say.

  Only thought on my mind is putting as much metal and concrete between me and a bullet as possible.

  Parking garages make guns sound like howitzers. A Land Rover side window explodes on my left, pelting me in a rain of tiny glass bits. A few nuggets probably end up embedded in my soles, but I don’t feel them yet. Too much panic. The only thing saving my ass at the moment is whatever soul decided to body-jack the cop might be so old he’s never used a modern firearm. He obviously—bang—knows what a gun is. Aiming it, however, he’s not terribly good at.

  A clank far too close on my right announces another miss. The cop decides to chase me. Oh, wonderful. This guy would kick my ass bad enough already, but he’s also a thrall. Wait… daytime. I think thralls lose their strength in the sun just like I do. Okay, so my only problem is the normal degree of beating a guy his size would inflict on a girl my size when neither one of us had supernatural powers. News flash: this does not end well for me.

  Officer Trujillo is fast for a mortal. Tall… long legs.

  Every time I reach a lane between rows of parked cars, I zig-zag two or three spaces left or right. Can’t simply run away in a straight line or he’s going to shoot me in the back. There’s not much deep thought going on in my head beyond ‘run for your life’ until I reach the wall at the end of the floor. The stairwell door gives me an idea: underground levels. Two entrances on Second Ave led into the garage. The closer one went up, the other down. There’s definitely a basement. I’m dead if I run outside. My only chance is finding darkness.

  I sprint out from between two cars across a traffic lane, heading for the door. My hand makes contact with the knob the same instant the cop crashes into me from behind. Stars dance in my vision. Breathing is merely a hobby, so being squished into the wall doesn’t leave me stunned, gawping for air. He bounces away, giving me the chance to go for the door again. I get it open a few inches, but he yanks me back and flings me around, pinning me to the wall by a hand around my throat.

  His piercing, glowing purple eyes give off zero sense of humanity. None of my bones have broken, and the grip around my neck isn’t crushing my spine. The guy’s no stronger than he should be as an ordinary mortal. Unfortunately, he’s plenty strong enough to do whatever he wants to me. At the moment, what he wants to do is strangle me. This is not what they mean by ‘choking under pressure.’

  I’m not sure what it is about human nature. We are often driven to do futile things despite knowing full well they’ll never work. Like, try to return a coffee maker someone at the office gave you for Christmas a year ago at Walmart without a receipt, separate the last two shopping carts in the stall from each other, or submit an insurance claim hoping the premiums won’t go up.

  Or, as I’m doing now, try to peel this dude’s grip away. Ack. Is this how mortals feel when I grab and throw them around? Can’t even budge this guy. Sad thing is, he’s clearly not supernaturally strong. I’m a wimp during the day. Same old me from before the Transference. Maybe even a little weaker. Dunno what effect death had on my muscles when the vampire stuff is offline.

  Oh, wait. It might be worth smoking myself a little to get away. I can back off my sun resistance to let a little strength out. It’s kind of like the whole ‘redirect all power to shields’ thing they use in every science fiction movie. I could divert some to ‘weapons,’ only question being how big a hole doing so is going to put in my hull. For now, he’s only trying to strangle me.

  Wait… he’s starting to realize I’m not passing out. Gun’s coming up for my face.

  Crap.

  Offline or not, I’m still a vampire. Subconscious survival instinct is serious. The world turns red for an instant. Next thing I know, Officer Trujillo’s in the air, my foot’s in his crotch, and I feel like I’ve been dipped in boiling water. A haze of smoke surrounds me. He scrambles upright as soon as he hits the ground, in complete disregard to being kicked in the balls so hard I lifted him off his feet. Crap. I shouldn’t have made a Terminator reference before. He looks too much like one; I’m freaking myself out.

  Also, ouch.

  The sun still stings when I turn my back on it.

  I dart out of the smoke cloud and hit the stairs. A few bullets cause explosions of shattered cinder block around me. Once I’m through the doorway, he gives up shooting and resumes chasing. Never in my life have I run away from cops before. They talk about the long arm of the law, not usually the long legs of the law. Bad guys must hate this dude when he’s out doing normal cop stuff and not busy being possessed by ancient quasi-vampiric energy. I can’t even outrun him going down stairs. Even having a one-story lead, he’s practically on top of me in seconds.

  Luck is with me.

  The cop doesn’t tackle me until I reach the very bottom of the stairwell at the B2 level. Sure, I kiss concrete floor with like 200-some pounds of cop on my back, but we’re underground. Red light flashes briefly on the grey in front of my face, reflecting the glow in my eyes. He wraps his left arm around my chest, trying to hold me down while putting the gun to the side of my head.

  I grab the wrist of his gun arm, push the weapon away, and fly/levitate straight up like the woman in Ghostbusters… only I’m face down and don’t have a bed under me. It’s trivial to fling the guy off my back, rotate upright, and toss him into the wall. He’s clearly not in his right mind. No need to hurt him. It’s tempting to give him a bonk since he scared the freakin’ hell out of me. Haven’t been so frightened since the half second between seeing the knife in Scott’s hand and losing consciousness.

  Not this guy’s fault.

  He’s obviously still alive. I can smell him. Hear his heart beating—and he’s standing next to me.

  I glance left. A transparent version of Officer Trujillo watches the goings-on in complete bewilderment. Mind you, I’m still holding Officer Trujillo against the wall.

  “Uhh, out in the open is probably not the best place to be…” I look around at the underground parking deck. Reasonably full of cars. Some voices echo, but the people aren’t close enough to see us past all the vehicles and partitions.

  Like fifty feet away on my left, there’s an ‘employees only’ door. Perfect. Gotta get out of view of random passersby. I drag the struggling cop with me and jog to the door. Seems someone else who didn’t count as an employee and wanted to go in there had a similar idea before me. The door’s already busted to the point it can’t lock. The ghost of Officer Trujillo follows me as I drag his mortal remains into a back hallway. PVC and metal pipes cover the left wall. A couple people who work for the parking place peer out at us from a door on the right, looks like a small office. They get a hard mental stab of ‘forget me.’ Takes me a second to do and leaves them in Derpville for about a minute.

  A grey steel door at the end of the hall leads to a small generator room. This will work. I overpower the cop, shoving him to the ground before swiping the handcuffs from his belt and using them to secure him hugging the generator frame, so there’s no way he can reach anything on his belt.

  Not sure what to do with the gun. Leaving it near him is a bad idea. Taking it is a bad idea.

  The ghost stares at me while his body emits a rapid, pulsing demonic growl in time with yanking on his arms in an effort to snap the cuffs. Wow… I didn’t think vampires knew Lamaze. He’s either having a serious freakout or trying unsuccessfully to make himself stronger. Problem being, he’s not a vampire and can’t b
urn energy to gain temporary strength. Not exactly sure what the crap is going on here. The poor guy’s ghost is watching his body thrash, growl, and snarl. Gotta be rough on a dude. He looks a little broken, to be honest.

  I glance at the spirit. “What the heck are you doing here?”

  “I’d like to know that as well.”

  “Hmm.” I shift my gaze back to the struggling cop. “Crap. Something dark and unwanted has invaded your body.”

  Officer Trujillo’s ghost gives a weak laugh. “That’s not supposed to happen outside of prison.”

  Sigh. “I’m talking about supernatural phenomenon.”

  The ghost shrugs. “Depends on who your cellmate is.”

  Wow. I shake my head. “Can you please try to be serious here? A dark force has evicted you out of your body.”

  “Happened a few times before.” He nods.

  I raise both eyebrows. What kind of crazy stuff has Wolent sent this guy to do? “Wow, really?”

  “Yeah.” The ghost of Officer Trujillo snickers. “Everyone else there called it ‘tequila,’ not ‘a dark force.’”

  “Grr.”

  The ghost holds his hands up in a ‘hey calm down’ gesture. “Sorry. Jokes are how I deal with bad stuff, and this is the most screwed up shit I’ve ever seen.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” I ponder bonking the cop over the head to knock him out, but don’t want to hurt him. “I mean ‘me too’ as far as cracking jokes at inappropriate moments. I’ve seen much stranger things than this.”

  “So, umm… am I dead?”

  “Still working that out.” I grab the physical cop’s hair and lightly bonk his head on the generator a few times. “Bad tainted dark energy critter! Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to possess police officers? Get out and leave him alone.”

  He emits a low, demonic growl. Wow. Brady’s band could probably use the audio sample for one of their songs. Hmm. Let’s see. Breathing. Heart rate. Body temperature. Zero supernatural strength. Yeah, the body’s alive.

  I look at the ghost. “Right now, you’re Schrödinger’s cop.”

  “Say what?” asks the ghost.

  “You’re neither alive nor dead.” I tap a finger to my chin. “Or does it mean your position between life and death changes relative to the perspective of the observer?”

  “Huh?” The ghost blinks.

  “Schrödinger’s cat? A thought experiment where a hypothetical feline is both alive and dead at the same time. Sorry, I can’t explain it too well. We only went over it one night in philosophy class. It’s got something to do with quantum superposition.”

  “I have no idea what on Earth you are talking about.”

  I laugh. “Good. Neither do I. Just repeating what Professor Heath said. This is all way over my head, both quantum mechanics and whatever the hell is going on with your body. Sorry, but I have to technically kidnap you.”

  “This is going to be difficult to explain to the department.” Officer Trujillo’s ghost sighs.

  17

  Straight Into a Nightmare

  Sophia shivered from happiness.

  A whole day of working with the Tome of F allowed her to successfully open a portal. She’d linked her closet door to the closet in Sarah’s bedroom without a single void octopus in sight. Doing it tired her out as if she’d run up a flight of stairs, but it worked! The book also guided her along in the process to develop an enchantment for Sierra. It required a few other components like hair from the intended recipient (easy to swipe from Sierra’s brush), plus hair or blood from a supernatural being in possession of abilities similar to what she wanted to give Sierra. This, too, proved easy to get. She found some hair in Sarah’s brush.

  The kitten assisted in obtaining a few other more difficult items.

  Klepto tried to grab the stuff the book mentioned they’d find in Salem. However, she couldn’t get into the house due to a defensive ward. Learning the creepy old house had a real spell protecting it from invasion by magical creatures simultaneously worried and excited her. More worried. Honestly, she’d probably have chickened out if not for Coralie. Not only had the spirit told her of bad stuff happening to Sierra if she kept taking vampire blood, she also didn’t say anything about Sophia getting hurt trying to put the enchantment together.

  Scary as it sounded, going to the house had to be safe—or at least not fatal.

  She hoped.

  Sophia picked Klepto up and kissed her on the head. “Will you please return this to where you found it?”

  “Mew,” chirped the kitten.

  For the first time since being in the presence of the magical book, its emotional radiance changed from indifference to gratitude. Apparently, it quite appreciated being returned to its favorite bookstand.

  She set her kitten down. Klepto promptly bit the corner of a tome ten times her size, then vanished in a violet flash along with it. She knelt on the rug, still shaking from excitement and anticipation. Discovering how to make the book work—something Darren Anderson and the mystics hadn’t been able to do—would be worth serious mage cred. Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell them about it without confessing to swiping it. Only her motivation to stop Sierra from getting herself killed gave her the resolve to not feel guilty about it. While rude and ostensibly unethical, borrowing a book without permission and returning it undamaged hurt no one. Her overdeveloped sense of right and wrong had to see the greater good here. The mystics lost nothing and it might save Sierra’s life.

  I’m so dead if they ask about it. Won’t be able to lie. Gotta hope they didn’t notice.

  Guilt already caused a delay earlier in the afternoon. Megan and Nicole had wanted to hang out today. She couldn’t even tell a minor lie to her friends. She’d been tempted to say she ‘had to do some family stuff.’ The lie would have been from implying her parents wanted her to do something, not she intended to do family stuff she could’ve done any time. She didn’t exactly need to finish the magic for her sister before midnight to keep her alive. They did, after all, have a few years before Sierra ran into serious trouble from vampire blood. Sophia didn’t want to make her friends sad, especially Megan, and knew she’d have ample time after dinner to work magic. Summer, after all, did not have school mornings and early bedtimes.

  Considering she found herself presently existing in the enchanted time between dinner and bed, she prepared to do magic.

  Sophia got up and made her way down the hall to the stairs.

  At this hour, the ’rents took over the living room television. Sierra would be in her room on the computer playing games, possibly reading, maybe drawing. Careful not to make enough noise for Mom and Dad to hear, Sophia crept about halfway down the stairs to the landing by the front door. Two minor spells caused her and Sierra’s sneakers to jump out of their cubbies and float over to her.

  This isn’t using magic to do what I couldn’t do normally. Mom would see me and ask why we need sneakers. Are we going out? Where are we going? It’s almost dark. Sophia sighed out her nose. Sneaking around really bothered her, but she couldn’t let Sierra die. Mom barely handled Sarah turning into a vampire, and none of it had been her fault. If Sierra ended up a vamp at like fifteen by her own doing, Mom would completely freak.

  Breaking rules stirred a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Better a guilt attack than her family disintegrate after they’d all become so close. This is gonna work. She’s not gonna die. A moment of thinking about her happiness at getting a portal to work allowed her to set aside doubt.

  Phase one complete. Sneakers obtained. A quick trip outside wouldn’t have made her care about shoes, but exploring a collapsing house sounded dangerous. Getting a splinter—or worse—stuck in her foot would stink.

  She crawled back upstairs. As soon as her face rose above the level of the upstairs hallway floor, Klepto—waiting at the top of the steps—licked her nose.

  “Mew.”

  Sophia grinned, scooped the kitten up into a hug, and headed across the hall.

>   Her sister’s bedroom, mostly dark, flickered in the glow from the computer monitor. Sierra sat on her computer chair, one leg tucked under her butt, wearing a pair of jean shorts and a grey T-shirt with a cartoon squirrel shooting a machinegun from each hand. Her giant headphones made it pointless to try talking from the door, so Sophia walked in. A bunch of tiny vehicles and little men ran back and forth on the screen building a base, some manner of strategy game. Sierra stared transfixed at it, occasionally clicking the mouse or tapping the keyboard. Though late-evening sun painted the world outside the windows orange, the room had become quite dark.

  Sophia waited patiently for a few minutes until it seemed her sister hadn’t noticed her. She poked her in the arm.

  “Gah!” Sierra jumped so hard she fell off the chair and ended up flat on her back, legs draped over the seat cushion. The big headphones landed on the desk. “Don’t do that!”

  “Sorry.” Sophia ground her toes into the rug. “I wasn’t trying to scare you. Why are the lights off?”

  “Wasn’t dark in here when I started playing. Didn’t notice.” Sierra picked herself up, stretching to pause the game before standing the rest of the way. “What’s up?”

  “I’m gonna go get the last stuff I need for the spell. Do you wanna go with me? I’m kinda scared to go alone and Sarah’s not here.”

  Sierra nodded. “Sure. Where’s Sam?”

  “Ronan’s. Or Daryl’s, I think.” Sophia fidgeted. “Might not be a good idea to bring Sam to an old witch house. They cook and eat little boys.”

  “Oh, come on. That’s nonsense.” Sierra rolled her eyes. “The real problem would be he’d insist on bringing Ronan, too, and the boys would see some giant house and go running all over the place. We’d never be able to get them to go home before we got caught.”

  Sophia snickered. “True. But it’s abandoned. No one is gonna be there to catch us. Sam and Ro would probably get hurt running around.”

  “Yeah.”

  They headed across the hall to Sophia’s room. She handed Sierra her sneakers, then closed her closet door. Her sister backed up a step or two behind her, arms folded, a ‘yeah right’ expression on her face.