The Phantom Oracle (Vampire Innocent Book 5)

by Matthew S. Cox

  I’m sticking with my ‘health issues’ excuse.

  Anyway, my schedule isn’t that bad. Classes five days a week. I’m not exactly killing myself credits wise. What’s the rush, right? If I have anything, it’s time… and I can’t take classes too early in the day for obvious reasons. Monday’s English Lit from 7 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. Tuesday is Intro Bio, same hours. On Wednesday, I have two classes: Comp Sci 101 from six to seven, and Intro to Calculus from eight to nine. Thursday is Philosophy/Sociology from eight to nine, and Friday is a repeat of Wednesday.

  Wednesday and Friday are the riskiest days, since toward the end of the school year, I might run into sun problems on the way to school for a class starting at six. Still can now, but in another month or two once the clocks go back an hour, it’ll be dark before I even leave the house. That will let me fly there, which drastically cuts my commute time from about a half hour to five-ish minutes. As far as driving in goes, there’s a parking deck across the street from the school. Even on nights when I can fly in, it’ll make for a good place to land.

  I get up and fluff out my hair a bit with my hands to check for dampness. Satisfied it’s dry enough, I change. Not looking to impress anyone, so it’s a Nike T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Though, the sneakers can wait. I still have a little while left before I have to leave.

  A few months ago, I killed an enormous troll with a giant iron spear. Why is the first day of school freaking me out?

  Nah. That troll thing didn’t really happen. We inhaled something funny deep in the cave, passed out, and hallucinated all of it. Yep. Ben and Cody Peters and I all had the same dream at the same time and nothing that bizarre really occurred.

  I spend a few minutes staring at the pile of books I bought a couple days ago, especially the calculus one. Forget Kevlar… they should ship these bad boys over to wherever the heck they’re fighting now and use them for armor. Cripes, this thing is like 500 pages. How do people without vampiric strength even cope with this? And whoa. College. No lockers in the hall. Wait, stop panicking. Only one (or two) classes a day. I don’t need all the books with me all the time.

  It’s a little after four, so I’ve got three hours until my first class starts. Since I haven’t quite worked out teleportation, I need to factor in travel time. First-day jitters plus not knowing how bad traffic is going to be now make me think I should head out the door around six. Allocating a full hour for a trip that ought to be around half that should be okay.

  Were I alive, I’d head upstairs to eat something. I still could eat, but nah. No sense taking food away from the littles. It’s one thing sitting down with everyone for dinner. For me, that’s less about eating and all about spending time with them. Alas, given my class schedule, I’m not going to be attending too many dinners. The parents usually had food on the table around six… and that’s when I have to leave. Though, there’s still Thursday. That class doesn’t start until eight, so I will be home for dinner. Tonight, I’ll have to run out the door right as everyone’s sitting down.

  Sigh.

  I’ve looked over these maps as much as I can. Gonna spend some time with the sibs before I leave. Ashley, Michelle, and Hunter are all working anyway. Not that we’d really be able to do that much in two hours. The littles have adjusted to the new normal of my not being dead. We haven’t gone back to the old arrangement of me mostly ignoring them, Sophia being super clingy, Sierra being moody, and Sam being… well, Sam. The near miss with almost losing me has made permanent changes in our family dynamic. However, they’ve all dealt with what happened enough that normal has returned. Sophia’s got friends over and is hanging in her room. Sam’s off at his friend’s place, and Sierra’s invited Nicole over.

  Okay, since they’re spread out, I activate my powers of time budgeting. I pop in to check on Sophia and her two friends. Megan, the slightly chubby girl from her dance class and Priya, one of her school buddies, are sprawled on the rug, talking about stuff that happened at school. I don’t quite remember where Priya lives, but I know it’s far enough that someone will need to drive her home. She probably got off the bus at Sophia’s stop.

  “Hey.” I lean in.

  The girls all wave at me.

  “What’s up?” asks Sophia.

  “Nothing specific. Starting school tonight, so I wanted to see you before I left. You’ll probably be in bed by the time I get home.”

  Sophia peers up at me with this mixture of guilt and annoyance. I don’t even need powers of mind reading to know she’s realized we have limited time and her usual clinginess has started a fistfight with her want to hang with friends her age.

  I slip into the room and sit on the bed. “Can’t stay too long… but how’d it go?”

  She leans against my leg. “It was okay. Didn’t really do much today.”

  “Yeah.” Priya scissors her feet back and forth while fiddling at her phone. “Kinda boring really. I heard Mrs. Pearson gives a lot of homework.”

  Both Sophia and Megan groan.

  We chat for a little while before I start feeling like a fifth wheel and slip out. Sierra and Nicole are beating the crap out of each other virtually while discussing something that’s either an upcoming video game or an anime movie they can’t wait to see.

  “Hey, Sare,” says Sierra, by way of greeting.

  “Oh, hi.” Nicole’s character grabs onto Sierra’s character. She takes the few-seconds-long break from playing to twist around and wave at me.

  Sierra growls. “I hate grapples!”

  “So block them.” Nicole twists, giggling as her character suffers a vicious mauling.

  That explains why this girl is Sierra’s bestie: being pummeled in a video game makes her laugh. Two kids who both became furious at losing wouldn’t be a good match. While I don’t think Nicole lets Sierra win, she doesn’t care at all when she loses.

  I sit on the couch to watch a few matches. Sierra’s not big on public shows of affection—especially in front of her friends—but she repositions herself from sitting on the floor to the couch and leaning against me.

  For her, that’s clingy.

  My ‘is everything okay?’ glance receives a nod and a smile back before her game face returns. She’s being affectionate like a cat that hates being picked up but will sit next to you for hours. I soon learn that Kuroi Tsuki is an upcoming game with anime style art. Something mixing cyberpunk with ghosts. Sounds creepy and pretty cool. Might be a bit intense for an eleven-year-old, but sitting here, talking with these two, it’s pretty easy to forget how young they are.

  I say this like I’m an old maid at eighteen.

  Really though, talking to Sierra… what kid her age considers character arcs and branching story paths and depth of narrative? Around 5:30 or so, a pallid ghostly form drifts silently down the corridor toward the kitchen. For an instant, I’m like ugh, a ghost? What now… then I realize it’s just Dad.

  “Ack. I need to get ready to head out,” I say.

  “Okay.” Sierra un-leans from me, then gives me a playful punch to the shoulder. “Good luck on day one.”

  “Thanks.” I pat her on the head—earning a small snarl—and head into the kitchen where Dad’s staring into the fridge like Indiana Jones opening the Ark. “That bad?”

  “Huh?” He peers over his shoulder at me.

  “You look like you’re expecting last Thursday’s meatloaf to melt your face off.”

  Dad laughs. “I have averted my eyes from the Meatloaf of the Covenant.”

  “So…”

  “Ehh, just trying to figure out what to get started for dinner. Your mother’s going to run late again tonight.” He glances down. “Forgetting something?”

  I lift and lower my toes. “Still in the house. It’s probably going to take more than one day of college to turn me into a hippie.”

  “Still a bit light out for you to fly. Remember, you can take the Sentra whenever you need it for school purposes.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” I hug him. “I’d offer to he
lp cook, but I gotta hit the road in like twenty minutes. Ugh, this makes no sense.”

  “What makes no sense?”

  “How nervous I am. Everything that happened to me this summer, and I’m anxious about going to school. I’m not even out of state.”

  He closes the fridge and pats me on the shoulders. “You’ll do fine, hon. Maybe after all this new stuff you’ve been exposed to, you’re worried it’ll be too mundane and boring there.”

  That gets a laugh out of me. “Maybe. It’s my fault for never really thinking about what I wanted to do with my life… before I lost it. I picked this major more or less at random since it sounded reasonably fun and possible to work from home.”

  Dad grins. “New programmers don’t usually get the chance to work from home. This is like my sixth different company since I hit the workforce, and it’s a pretty sweet deal. Though, I imagine with your special talents, it wouldn’t take much for you to convince a hiring manager to let you work from home right out of the gate.”

  “Wouldn’t that be like unethical or something?” I ask.

  “Altering the parameters of a job to sidestep what’s basically a health condition you can’t really talk about doesn’t feel icky.” He winks. “Now, compelling the guy to hire you in the first place, inflating your salary, stuff like that is another matter.”

  “Right… Okay. Gonna get going.”

  “You’ll do great, hon.” He kisses me atop the head.

  Here’s hoping.

  3

  Disappear

  It’s a little bright yet, even at a couple minutes to six.

  Nothing a hoodie, sunglasses, and gloves won’t make bearable. I feel a bit like a basket of those rolls at the steak place they leave sitting under heat lamps, but the sun isn’t making me squint too much that I feel unsafe to drive. I used to be happiest driving in bright, clear weather while dreading being on the road at night. Dying has flipped me to the reverse.

  The ride into Seattle isn’t bad, but I still find it frustrating to be moving so slow. No one gets a Nissan Sentra up to 140-ish MPH without fire winding up where it doesn’t belong and serious bodily injury. Alas, until the sun is down, any comparisons to flying are kinda like using words greater than four syllables with Scott—completely pointless.

  And, dammit. I really need to stop thinking about him.

  I’m clearly not pining for him at all. Either his killing me has permanently burned him into my psyche, or I’m just that pissed. Being pissed off is a reasonable reaction, I think, for a girl to have toward the jackass who murdered her.

  Eventually, I’m downtown on Harvard Ave. I swing a left into the parking garage and drive around for a little while until I find a space. In another lifetime, the idea of walking alone from the school to this parking garage after dark would’ve terrified me. Maybe ‘terrified’ is a little strong, but I would’ve been on edge. As big cities go, Seattle’s fairly nice… especially compared to some areas on the East Coast. No point worrying about it. Had I not wound up as a vampire, I wouldn’t be attending night classes.

  I sling my backpack over one shoulder, grab the map pamphlet, and head out of the parking deck. Left turn at the corner, half a block down, I head into the school building and try to figure out where I’m going. While I do see a couple other people my age, the majority are older. A few give me weird looks, but no one says anything. Of course, receiving weird looks makes me stop to make sure I didn’t forget something trivial—like pants.

  Nope. I’m not re-enacting my dream. Pants are intact.

  Hmm. Guess I’m getting curious glances because I look too young to be in here. Do they all think I’m fifteen?

  Sigh.

  Or I look like a total dork walking around with a map in my hand. Yeah, that’s probably it.

  After five minutes of racing back and forth down the same hallway, convinced it’s an exact match for the map, I realize I’m not seeing the right room because I’m on the wrong floor. One quick stairwell later, I find the number I’m hunting for on a wall plate and head into the classroom I’m supposed to be in for English Literature I. It’s surprisingly austere, with minimal decoration that offers no clue what subject happens here. Though, I guess college-level English teachers don’t hang the alphabet up on the wall, but maybe a Shakespeare poster or something.

  This room is probably shared among multiple teachers and subjects. Bookshelves and whiteboards cover every inch of wall where there isn’t a door or window. A square panel in the ceiling probably hides an overhead projector presently retracted out of sight.

  Only two other people are in here at the moment, a woman in her early forties and a guy all the way near the back corner that looks like the delinquent from Breakfast Club after ten years at a soul-crushing retail job. Class starts at 7 p.m., and it’s only 6:49. I pick a seat near the middle of the room, closer to the back by one row. No idea how different this is from high school, but I don’t want to seem like a kiss-ass by sitting in the front, or like I’m uninterested by going all the way to the back. I don’t exactly have any trouble seeing the board. Heck, once the sun is down, I could read the whiteboard from down the street.

  I fidget with the textbook, which—like an absolute dork—I’ve placed dead center on my desk. The class came with a reading list for novels that we’ll be using. Hopefully, the teacher’s going to be okay with Kindle copies. Much easier to lug around, though I doubt we’ll do any actual reading of the novels during class time.

  More people file in as the clock nears seven. It doesn’t take long before I feel like the youngest person in the room. One woman’s gotta be in her sixties. Another guy looks like a stunt double for ZZ Top. They’re all adults. I get a few more curious glances, but distract myself by fidgeting at the textbook, not paying attention to any of the motion around me. Random colognes, perfumes, and one waft of cigarette smoke go by. Not fresh, just the ghastly stink that clings to someone’s clothing after they’ve smoked recently.

  An odd floral fragrance catches me by surprise, more like someone’s got a bouquet of flowers than is wearing perfume. I look up and around, hunting for the source. Three people closer to my age have joined the class, one of them the evident owner of said perfume. She’s maybe a year or two older than me, sitting two rows to my right and one desk forward.

  This girl is wearing an elaborate dress with black-on-black embroidery, puffy shoulders, a frilled collar and sleeves, and a long skirt. Her hair, light brown and quite long, doesn’t really go with the look she’s aiming for. I mean, I figure she’s trying to do some kind of sparkle goth thing since she’s hit the white face paint kinda hard. Even put it on her hands. Or… maybe she is that pale.

  The woman catches me staring at her and returns this coy smile, like she’s wearing that outfit on purpose to make people look at her. I return a ‘hey, what’s up’ sort of nod.

  A man in a long coat breezes in the door, his afro already fully grey despite him not seeming all that old. Figure the guy’s around fifty and is probably the teacher. Or duh, this is college. They don’t call them ‘teachers’ here.

  “Hello everyone.” The man sets a briefcase on the desk at the front of the room. “I’m Professor Robin Kendall, and welcome to Introduction to English Literature.”

  I start to find myself tuning out of his introductory spiel, but this isn’t high school. Maybe I should, like, focus here. Of course, it’s not as if I’m really going to use this degree. ‘Sarah Wright’ is going to disappear in fifty years or so. Can’t exactly run around with a driver’s license that says I was born in 1999 in like 2050 or so when I still look the same. By then, I’ll have to get a fake ID… or maybe I’ll reach a point I just stop caring and mentally influence my way past any situation where a normal person who appears to be a teenager would need an ID card.

  While Professor Kendall hands a sign-in sheet to the kid in the front left desk, I glance again at the woman in the super-frilly dress. Kinda weird that she’s not getting any strange looks.
But, she’s a little older than me, so maybe she’s on her second or third year and people are used to her?

  Meh. This class is about literature, right? Maybe she’s just really into like, Great Gatsby or whatever. I’ve got more to worry about than some weird girl in a period dress. I’m going to school during the time slot where my friends—and boyfriend—are most likely to be not in school or at work. Except for Hunter. He works later at the restaurant. I doubt any of them would be up for doing much once I’m home after class since they’ve all got to wake up early.

  Great. I’m in for a lonely nine-ish months.

  Might as well focus on school. If nothing else, it’ll fill up time.

  And, time is something I have buckets of.

  4

  Job Security

  Dracula gives me an idea.

  I fly up to Hunter’s window around ten, only I’m not there to bite him on the neck. Well, not unless he asks me to—and not with fangs. I hang outside the house, tapping on the glass until his face appears behind the reflection of the moon, peering out at me with a bewildered expression.

  My attempt at an alluring smile makes him drop something that hits the floor with a heavy thump.

  He pulls the window up, but there’s still a screen in my way. “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve come to drink your blood,” I say in my best attempt at a Transylvanian accent… which isn’t all that good. Okay, it’s awful.

  Hunter coughs. For an instant, he seems to think I’m serious, then cracks up laughing.

  Bang!

  I twitch and scream in surprise. When the shock of such a loud noise in near total silence wears off, I rotate a quarter turn to my right and spot a car plowed headfirst into a van that had been parked in front of Hunter’s house. Not even any screech of tires.

  “Who hit what?” whisper-yells hunter.