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

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “Yeah, sure. Be right there.”

  “Cool. Hope I’m not interrupting.”

  “Nah, my plans were kind of up in the air.”

  “Hah. Great. Okay. See you soon.”

  I gaze down past my sneakers at a nice lawn. Flying really is cool.

  The local Lost Ones, or at least the three I know, are in mid conversation when I arrive.

  Dante thinks they should ‘just go out’ and let Brady stay here if he doesn’t want to join them. Luke’s uncomfortable leaving him alone for fear he’ll do something stupid to himself. Amy’s torn. She’s referring to Dante as ‘Mike,’ which means she’s annoyed. The guy’s real name is Mike. He changed it post-vampirism since he thought his birth name sounded ‘lame’ for a creature of the night. Luke sometimes calls him ‘Count Mike-u-la’ to get a rise out of him if he’s being moody.

  As soon as I walk in, Dante grabs me by the shoulders and ‘gently shoves’ me toward Amy. “There. Problem solved. Babysitter’s here.”

  Amy catches me in a brief hug.

  “I don’t need a damn babysitter,” drones Brady from the couch.

  “Dude.” Amy sighs. “You’ve been talking about being an abomination that shouldn’t be allowed to exist for the past three days. Sorry if you’re upset we’re actually concerned about you.”

  “Hey, if you guys wanna go party somewhere, I can hang with Brady. It’s cool. Least I can do.” I fist-bump Luke and Dante, then sit on the armrest of the sofa. Brady’s crashed there looking hung over.

  “He needs to get out there and do stuff.” Luke nods at the door. “See if you can talk some sense into him.”

  Brady gives me this ‘sorry they dragged you into it’ eyeroll. “Hey.”

  “Hey. So, what’s up?”

  “Nothing’s ‘up.’ I’m dead.”

  “Is that the problem? Little guy won’t listen?”

  Amy, Dante, and Luke snicker.

  Brady groans. “Really? I thought only guys made stupid dick jokes.”

  “To be fair,” says Dante, “you did kinda emphasize the word ‘up.’ Anyone’d take it the way she took it.”

  “Come on…” Brady exhales. “There’s more to life than hanging out, partying, going to concerts, and having sex.”

  “Maybe so.” Luke chuckles. “But ain’t none of that other shit worth worryin’ about.”

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “What’s wrong? Seriously?” Brady pushes himself up to sit. “Everything is wrong. I’m dead. I can’t tolerate sunlight. I’ll never see the sky again during the day. Everyone who knows me thinks I’m missing.”

  “Those are all valid things to be upset about.” I flick a lint ball off the leg of my jeans. “Have you spent any time thinking about the good parts?”

  “Being a killer?” Brady scoffs.

  “Nah. Vampires aren’t killers. Sure, we’re predators, but we don’t need to kill our food. How many people out there would give anything to stop getting old? We’ll never get sick. No cancer. No diabetes, no—”

  “We can’t get diabetes because we can’t eat any freakin’ real food,” yells Brady. “I’m seriously fiending for a goddamned Hostess cupcake right now. I love those things. They’re little bundles of awesomeness.”

  “And an express train to the beetus,” mutters Dante.

  “Not in moderation.” Brady sighs. “I didn’t eat tons of them.”

  I squirm, a tad guilty since I can eat real food and fly. Can’t say for sure if the inability to consume food would bother me. Since doing so for fun is still an option for me, it’s difficult for me to sympathize. Closest I’ve come to violently throwing up everything I try to eat was a bad stomach virus at fourteen. And yeah, those two weeks sucked. If normal vampirism reacts like that to standard food, then yeah, he deserves to be upset. He doesn’t look like he’s suffering the cold sweats though. Hmm. He’s probably a Scion, so… not really sure what they’re known for. They evolved from Old Guard, so perhaps similar.

  “You’re strong, fast, tough… you’ll eventually develop some other cool powers totally out of my reach.”

  Brady shrugs. “I don’t want powers. What I want is not to be an evil monster.”

  “You’re not. Stop thinking you’re defined by your physical existence. Being a vampire doesn’t mean you have to act a certain way or do certain things.”

  “I have to drink freakin’ blood from people. That’s kinda required.”

  Dante makes a silent ‘ooh, bitchy’ gesture.

  “Yeah, but so what. They don’t remember anything and it doesn’t hurt them unless you decide to do it wrong.” I tell him about my first feeding and how awkward it had been to get close to a total stranger and bite, only to taste pizza. “You really do get used to it. Doesn’t bother me at all anymore to give hickeys to people I’ve never seen before.”

  Amy laughs.

  “Do you think of people like walking cupcakes?” asks Brady.

  “Only if they’re in a giant foam cupcake costume.”

  “You know what I mean.” He does the epic goth-emo eye roll. “Are they still people to you or merely food?”

  “Still people. You’re being melodramatic. Being a vampire is really awesome. I’m serious.”

  Brady smirks. “Easy for you to say. You went home to your family.”

  “She’s one in a million,” says Amy. “Almost none of us ever do that.”

  “It opens you up for a ton of problems.” Luke shakes his head. “Sarah wouldn’t have done it if she knew then what she knows now.”

  I point at him. “No way. I might do a few little things differently, but I’d still absolutely go home. Knowing what I know now also includes the knowledge my family would have basically imploded if I’d let them believe me dead. Yeah, shit’s crazy as hell now, but it’s good crazy. And we’re really close.”

  Brady buries his face in his hands. “I used to be so angry at my parents for wanting me to stop dressing Goth, act normal, try to get into a big-name college, get a fancy job. They hated everything I liked: music, fashion, girls.”

  “They hate girls?” asked Luke. “Weird.”

  “No, man.” Brady sighs. “No girl I dated was ever good enough for them. They’d always find something to complain about and tell me being with her would be wasting my life.”

  “A lot of parents can be like that.” Luke takes a joint out of his coat pocket and sniffs it. “Uptight rich folks.”

  “We aren’t rich. Middle class. Maybe upper middle class. I dunno.” Brady grinds his face into his palms. “Now, I don’t care how much they complained. All I want to do is go home. I never even got a chance to tell them what happened or say goodbye. I can’t be this evil creature.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re thinking about it all wrong. This is like the most awesome thing ever. C’mon, man. I used to think those ‘oh, poor me, I’ll never see the sun again’ emo vamps were just a Hollywood thing.”

  Dante barks a laugh. “Easy for you to say, girl.”

  I chuckle. “Fair, but I still love being a vampire. This is seriously cool. Never asked for it, but shiz happened and here I am.”

  “Heh.” Dante shakes his head. “Nah, girl. ‘Shiz’ don’ work for you. You’re way too ‘suburban white girl.’”

  “Ouch. Okay.” I fake roll my eyes. “Fair point. I cringe whenever my dad quotes rap songs.”

  Everyone except Brady chuckles.

  I glance over at them. “Do you guys ever miss the sun?”

  “Kinda.” Amy shrugs. “But I’m over it. At first, it bothered me since I’d always been such an ordinary ‘good girl,’ but I’m used to it now.”

  “Never gave it much thought.” Dante shrugs.

  “What is, is.” Luke sniffs the joint again. “Don’t much care about the sun, but I damn sure wouldn’t mind bein’ able to smoke up again. Damn pain in the ass having to give this wonderfulness to a mortal, get them baked as hell, then feed on them. An’ even then, it don
’t last near long enough.”

  “You poor, deprived man.” Dante claps him on the shoulder. “Takes a half a trunk load to get him high these days, plus about ten people smoking it.”

  Amy mouths ‘nowhere near that much’ at me.

  “Yeah. Only good thing is, I don’t gotta pay for none of it.” Luke again takes a long sniff, dragging the joint under his nose. “Ain’t never smelled so good when I’s alive, neither. Damn, talk about unfair.”

  Blink. “Hey, wait a second.”

  Everyone stares at me.

  “Waiting,” says Luke, pausing in mid sniff.

  Heh. “Everyone’s going nuts looking for the source of the noob invasion. I might be able to cheat and find it.”

  Amy, Luke, and Dante shrug, roll their eyes, and murmur. They couldn’t care less if anyone finds the guy or girl doing this.

  “You guys don’t care this could cause a crapstorm for us all if our existence gets out?” I ask.

  “Nah.” Dante waves dismissively. “No one will ever believe it because it’s true. People out there only believe dumb shit some idiot makes up in their mother’s basement. Like vaccines causing autism or being some kinda secret government plan to track people. Say some shit like that, some people believe it. Say something true, they laugh and ignore it.”

  Amy snort-laughs. “If someone tries to put video or pictures of a ‘real’ vampire on the internet, it’s gonna get shredded. In between comments telling the person who posted it to do random sexual things to farm animals, everyone’s gonna be saying ‘fake’ or ‘special effects’ or ‘video editing.’ People don’t want to believe in the supernatural.”

  “She’s right.” Luke tucks the joint back in the breast pocket of his Army jacket. “Post vids about ghosts, light orbs, aliens, any of that stuff, it’s gonna get laughed at. Won’t take the information ministry long at all to make it go away.”

  “Uhh, what?” I scrunch my nose. “The information ministry?”

  Luke waves his hand around at random. “Whatever vamps are out there working to keep us secret.”

  “Tinfoil hat stuff isn’t limited to mortals.” Dante winks. “Luke here thinks there’s a secret order of vampires who go around like dudes from that Men in Black movie. Next time you’re on YouTube search for ‘real men in black’ and so forth.”

  “Most of those sightings are during the day, though.” Amy smirks. “They’re not vampires, whatever they are.”

  I take Brady’s hand. “Forget about Men in Black. I need you to go somewhere with me.”

  “I don’t even really know you.” Brady shrugs. “Is this a date?”

  “No. You’d be helping possibly stop a giant poop storm and maybe help stop a bunch of other random people from being turned into vampires against their will.”

  He looks down, most of his face hidden behind an unruly mop of black. “If it will stop anyone else from having to go through this, sure.”

  The Lost Ones all shake their heads in unison. Dante mouths ‘lost cause.’

  I tug Brady to his feet. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.”

  31

  Outside the System

  One could say it’s a bit presumptuous of me to think I have a chance to solve a problem all the vampires of Seattle have thus far been unable to. Maybe so. But I have two possible advantages the rest of the vampires don’t.

  We exit the apartment building and walk to the curb. I pull my phone out and open the Uber app. Brady chuckles.

  “What?”

  “Just find it funny a vampire’s using Uber. No horse and carriage?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “No.” He sorta smiles. “Still weird you don’t have a car. If being a vampire is so awesome, why not use your mind powers to steal one?”

  “There’s no way to tell you the truth without making you more depressed, so can I stay quiet?”

  “You couldn’t make me more depressed.”

  “Are you really depressed or just playing a Goth on TV?”

  He shrugs. “Sometimes I lose track. Not really sure… I do want to go home, though. How much trouble would it really cause if I did?”

  “A lot of it depends on how your parents react. Mine took it well. Not every parent would. My friend Michelle? Her parents are so religious they’d probably try to kill her if she revealed herself to be a vampire.”

  He whistles. “Wow. She lives with them and they’d kill her if they knew?”

  “No. She’s mortal.”

  “Whoa. You have mortal friends?”

  “Yeah. As I said, my life is complicated. How do you think your parents would react?”

  “Heh. Dad would accuse me of doing it on purpose as the ‘next phase of Goth.’”

  I shake from silent laughter while finishing up summoning the Uber. “Wow. Well… once we’re done, if you want to go talk to them, I’ll tag along to erase their minds if they freak out. Won’t know how they’ll react until you try.”

  “So, what were you gonna say that would depress me?”

  “I do have a car. It’s old and I didn’t need to use mind control to get it. Also, the reason my car isn’t here is because I usually fly.”

  “Fly…” He blinks.

  I float up off the ground briefly. “Yes, fly. Not every vamp can. I’ve heard it’s pretty lucky for me to have considering my bloodline. I’m like the slowest possible flyer in the vampire kingdom. Glim makes me feel like an old lady with a walker trying to chase a speeding car.”

  “Seriously? Flying. That’s so… out there.”

  “And vampires aren’t?” I snap my fingers. “Oh, hey, another plus. We can see and talk to ghosts. Didn’t you and your friends start a paranormal club or something?”

  “Yeah. Got some EVPs. Nothing real decent though. Mostly, we went to creepy places late at night and freaked each other out.”

  We get to talking about high school and how it felt completely different to each of us. A blue Honda pulls up—our Uber—so we transplant the conversation to the backseat. I had a tiny group of friends and mostly got ignored by the school as a whole. Brady hung out with a larger group of friends, but they usually suffered stares, ridicule, avoidance, or occasionally ended up in trouble with the administration for simply being goths. Once, they even had the cops called on them for wearing long coats. Someone thought they might be hiding guns.

  “I think I remember that…” I whistle. “Locked down the school, but never told us why.”

  “Such bullshit.” Brady scowls. “We didn’t do anything wrong, but they grilled us for like an hour over where the guns were. Searched our lockers, dragged us home, searched the house. My dad was pissed. Almost sued the school.”

  “Damn. I’m sorry.” I nibble on my lip.

  Hearing this, it somewhat makes sense why he’s so emo over becoming a vampire. He’s used to being ostracized for being different. One could say he always had the choice to dress like everyone else and stop being goth, but why the hell does society think it has the right to force people to act a certain way? Now, he’s stuck as a vampire and probably thinking it’s going to be more of the same.

  Can’t talk about vamp stuff until we’re out of the car.

  “Not your fault. People are dicks.”

  Brady and I keep talking about random crap for the fortyish minutes it takes the driver to reach my house. We’d never work as a dating couple. For example, I’ve never heard of any of the bands he likes and he’s never watched anime. Upon arriving home, I pay the driver via the app, thank him for the ride, and drag Brady inside.

  “Don’t get any ideas, but you’re only the second boy to see my bedroom.”

  He laughs. “So, wow. Seriously. You went home. This is the place you grew up?”

  “Yeah.” I lead him across to the kitchen and downstairs. “My bedroom used to be upstairs. Had to move it for sun reasons.”

  “Makes sense.”

  As soon as he walks into my room, he stares at the stuffed animals on the bed. “You
are kidding.”

  “Huh?”

  He points. “You’re a vampire with an army of cute stuffed animals on your bed.”

  “So? Remember how I said being a vampire doesn’t make you a killer? It also doesn’t make anyone into a black-clothing-obsessed doom queen.”

  “Sarah, how does going to your bedroom help us stop other people from being vamped?”

  “Working on it.” Time to test possible advantage number one. “Coralie? Are you around? It’d be super amazing if you could pop in for a bit.”

  Cue fifteen seconds of Brady and me awkwardly standing there staring at each other, not talking.

  Coralie sinks into view out of the ceiling. “Hello, Sarah. I was already here.”

  “Holy shit.” Brady jumps back. “A ghost.”

  She laughs.

  “He’s new. Don’t mind him.” I pat him on the back. “Can you tell who his sire is?”

  “Hmm.” Coralie regards him for a long moment. “Alas. This is not something possible for me to discern. My suggestion would be to try divination.”

  “The heck is divination?” asks Brady.

  I fold my arms. Drat. “Crystal balls, reading tea leaves, tarot, that sort of thing.”

  He snickers. “So, totally scientific.”

  “Says the vampire,” I mutter.

  “Ugh. True.” He gazes at the ceiling. “Crap. This is really real.”

  “It is,” says Coralie.

  Well, I still have my second possible advantage. Figured it might come down to magic. “Sec.”

  Coralie and Brady get into a conversation, mostly about the early 1800s and her being a former mystic while I send Darren Anderson a text.

  ‹Hi. Are you awake and do you have time for a question?›

  ‹U caught me preparing for bed. If it’s short, ask away.›

  ‹Can you divine a V to determine the sire?›

  ‹Possibly, but it involves blood magic we have neither tried nor are willing to risk. I strongly advise you not to involve Sophia. Blood magic goes dark extremely quickly, especially with impressionable minds. It is tapdancing on the edge of an abyss while wearing roller skates.›