The Phantom Oracle (Vampire Innocent Book 5)

by Matthew S. Cox

  It’ll also prove this supernatural crap is corrupting my family.

  “Ugh.”

  “What’s wrong?” whispers Sophia.

  “Go to sleep. It’s way too late for you to be awake.”

  “I can’t sleep,” she whisper-whines.

  “Why not?”

  She limply hugs me again. “Because I’m scared you’re gonna run away.”

  “Shh. Go to bed. I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

  Sophia smiles at me in a dreary half-awake sort of way. In seconds, sleep takes her again.

  After backing out of her room and easing the door closed, I mime banging my head on it a few times before trudging back to my room, chanting ‘Coralie said it wouldn’t hurt her’ to myself mentally the entire way downstairs until I fling myself on my bed with all the drama of a fourteen-year-old breaking up with her boyfriend for the first time.

  I’m worried to bits, but I can’t leave home. Scott killing me wasn’t my fault, but ditching my family to hopefully shield them from all the strange stuff would totally be on me. Not sure if it’s selfish to listen to both my parents and Sophia telling me to stay here, but I can’t disappear. No way could I do that to them. Guess I’m going to have to keep a super low profile for the next ten years or so. I’ll just go to school and hide under my bed…

  As soon as Coralie moves out.

  21

  A Small Request

  To avoid poking any sleeping dragons, I don’t make contact with Wolent—or anyone else.

  No point making arrangements while Coralie is trapped in the house. Glim, or whoever actually made contact to sniff around, didn’t tell anyone where she is or who has her. It wouldn’t do anything but invite more trouble to say anything before I’m even able to bring her out the door.

  Wednesday night after calculus, I leave the Sentra in the parking garage at the school despite rain, and fly the couple blocks southwest to the Brass Tap. The place kinda looks like a hipster bar. Wood covers the walls on the outside, styled in that ‘fake old’ way that some people think looks cool. I can’t tell if the owners are trying to give this place an Old West feel on purpose. At least it’s got a real door, not saloon-style swinging ones. The interior is dark and cozy, and whoa. I haven’t seen this much brass in one place since I went with Dad to the lighting section of Home Depot. Damn… railings, trim on the walls, coat hooks, switch plates, light fixtures, plaques, and yeah, the entire bar area is practically metal. Wow, the light switches are like those giant lever things from Frankenstein. Maybe they’re going for an attempt at ‘steampunk.’ I’m honestly not sure where the line between hipster and steampunk falls, but I don’t see anyone wearing needlessly complex, pointless goggles.

  The bar area takes up about a third of the building, but the place mostly appears to be a restaurant. That probably explains why no one’s tried to kick me out yet. I don’t simply look ‘too young’ to buy alcohol. I’m squarely in the ‘oh, this is obviously a joke, where’s the camera’ category.

  A late twenty-something guy with dark brown hair so over-styled it could probably deflect bullets approaches me. Based on his black polo and pants, I’m guessing he works here.

  “Hi, sweetie. Are your parents hunting for a parking spot? How many in your party?”

  Okay, maybe there is something that I don’t like about my new vampiric existence. If I ever snap and go crazy after however many decades of immortality breaks my mind, being called ‘sweetie’ one too many times will probably be the trigger.

  “No, just me. I’m meeting someone here.”

  He bites his lip. And, naturally, he thinks I’m thirteen and got tricked into a date with a grown man I met online. Sigh. I push my thoughts into his head, delete the idea that I’m a kid being victimized, and search his memories for Darren Anderson. This guy—Nate according to his shirt—remembered seeing Anderson walk in a little while ago with two other men. I give him a mental nudge to take me to their table, then back out of his head.

  “My friends are already here,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah. Those guys.” He turns toward the seating area, nodding to the side. “Right this way, miss.”

  I follow him past the podium, down a short hall, and up three stairs to an aisle with tall wooden booth seats on both sides. He stops and indicates a round corner table, encircled by one continuous bench seat except for a gap to get in and out. Anderson as well as the other two men I saw in Nate’s mind pause their conversation to look at me. One guy’s in his later forties with greying black hair and a short beard, the other one’s a little younger, paler than I am (which says a lot). Longish curly blond hair hangs draped over his shoulders around a ‘pretty’ face. All three are dressed in suits that look like they’re from a hundred years ago.

  Anderson’s sitting at the left end of the bench, close to the entry while the other two are in the corner.

  “Wow, you guys are inconspicuous.” I slip into the booth on the right, on the opposite side of the gap from Anderson.

  Nate sets a menu in front of me and walks away.

  “Menu ninja. Where the heck did he get this from?”

  “Inconspicuous?” asks Darren.

  “Those suits are from like 1890. The three of you look like fancy vampires about to go exploring New Orleans.”

  The older guy raises an eyebrow at me. “Anderson, are you sure this is the young woman you spoke of? She doesn’t seem at all like what you described.”

  “Forgive me.” Anderson places a hand over his frilled chest and bows his head at me. “Allow me to introduce my associates: Landon York”—the older dude nods—“and Callum Bailey.”

  The blond man also nods in greeting.

  All three are wearing amulets that consist of metal discs inscribed with weird symbols. Darren keeps fidgeting with his, though the other two don’t appear as nervous. I’m guessing they don’t believe I’m a vampire.

  “Okay, so was it you guys who warded my house to trap Coralie?”

  “Yes,” says Darren. “Mostly because we became aware of another lodge discovering she is no longer within our vault.”

  I lean on the table, arms crossed. “So you guys aren’t the ones who possessed my sister?”

  Callum and Landon glance at Darren questioningly.

  “Possessed?” asks Darren.

  “Yeah. Someone knocked her out of her body.” I explain Sophia walking around like a zombie searching the house while her ghostly self had a panicky meltdown.

  “That must have been Meredith,” mutters Callum. “The woman’s rather skilled with astral projection.”

  I shake my head. “Unless Meredith is super butch, I don’t think so. Whoever jumped out of her looked like a man. Kinda blurry, but I could at least tell it wasn’t Darren.”

  They all seem confused. Callum shrugs.

  “This might’ve gone farther that we thought,” says Landon.

  “Word of Coralie’s ability is overstated.” Landon fidgets at his water glass. “But they have only old tales at their disposal.”

  “Yeah. She told me it doesn’t work like you guys wanted it to. Kinda random. So, what’s this favor you guys want me to do for you in order to leave her—and me—alone?”

  Landon leans forward, eyeing me. “Are you sure you haven’t lost your touch, Anderson? This girl doesn’t look at all out of the ordinary.”

  “Verum apocalypsis,” says Darren.

  “Whoa.” I hold up both hands. “No one’s apocalypsing anything, especially me.”

  All three of them chuckle.

  A waitress with reddish purple hair who can’t be more than a month past turning twenty-one interrupts us, asking if we’re ready to order. Considering it’s after ten, I’m surprised they’re still serving food. Struck with a sudden craving, I order some buffalo chicken nuggets. The men request an appetizer sampler platter, a snack more than a meal.

  She collects the menus and whisks off down the aisle.

  “It is an incantation that reveals
the true nature of things.” Callum grasps his amulet and holds it up, peering over it at me while whispering something in Latin that’s way too fast for me to follow. His eyes flare wide. “Well, that is most surprising.”

  “I told you,” says Darren, before taking a sip of wine.

  Landon’s black-and-grey eyebrows creep up. “Most impressive how normal you appear.”

  “Perhaps a side effect of her tragically young age?” asks Callum.

  “Hi.” I wave at them with a fake smile. “I’m sitting right here.”

  Darren clears his throat. “Please forgive my associates. You are the first of your kind we have encountered and have already shown yourself to be quite contradictory to what we had previously believed.”

  “That I’m sitting here like a normal person talking to you instead of like climbing the walls and tearing throats out?”

  “Essentially, yes,” says Landon with a hint of high-society aloofness in his voice.

  “This presents a unique opportunity to us, one that—dare I say—would be well worth trading Coralie.” Darren smiles.

  “You can’t trade in people. She’s not a thing.”

  Callum holds up a finger. “The woman has been dead since 1849. Her remains do not possess personhood under any sense of the law anywhere.”

  “Not entirely true.” Darren flashes a small smile of victory. “They issued a passport to Ramses II in the seventies when they sent him to France.”

  “One example does not precedent make,” says Callum.

  “Au contraire mon ami.” Landon grins. “A single example is precisely precedent. But precedent is not precept.”

  Callum narrows his eyes at him.

  Darren clears his throat. “Fair point. Instead of in trade for Coralie’s physical remains as an object, consider it a matter of soothing the trespass of your breaking into our vault.”

  “That’s kinda like kidnappers being angry at the police for kicking in a door to save someone.” I subconsciously pick up my water glass and drink—mostly because it’s there.

  All three of them stare at me like I conducted a demonstration of cold fusion using only household items.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You’re consuming water?” Callum reaches over and gently grasps my wrist. “She’s warm to the touch, as if alive.”

  I glance at his hand, still around my wrist. “Easier to shop for food while blending in I guess.” A twinge of unease circles my gut from fighting the urge to explain that I just want to be normal. Even talking about Innocent vampires seems like a bit too much information to give away. These guys don’t need to know that, and having them somewhat afraid of me so they think twice about screwing me over is a good idea. Scaring them too much would bite me in the ass.

  “Look, I don’t think you guys really want to sit here all night and debate the semantics of right or wrong about what happened. I’ll do your favor if it means you’ll leave my family alone and consider Coralie a free person. She doesn’t even really hate you guys. She objected to being trapped.”

  The waitress returns with the food. “Here you go, hon.” She smiles at me and sets a basket of orange nuggets with fries in front of me, then places a huge plate of various random stuff in the middle of the table. “Any refills on the drinks?”

  Landon requests another wine, but the other two pass.

  “You got it.” The waitress nods and walks away.

  “As I was saying…” Darren adjusts his ascot. “Your nature provides us with a unique opportunity. I assume you don’t need to breathe?”

  I shake my head.

  “Perfect.”

  “In the early 1900s, a sailing ship, Enigma, went down in the Graveyard of the Pacific.” Darren opens his suit coat and pulls out some folded papers.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s such a small area. Should be super easy to find. By the way, the closest thing to diving I’ve ever done is swimming in my friend’s pool.”

  “We were hoping your nature obviates the need for any experience or equipment. You have advantages that the living do not possess.” Darren stares at me for a moment. “Or, at least, we think you might.”

  I smile. “Your information may not be accurate considering you believed us all animalistic fiends.”

  Darren opens the folded papers, photocopies of old maps. “Are you able to see in total darkness?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you don’t need to breathe.” He smiles. “Shall we assume that the chill of the deep ocean won’t bother you?”

  I stab a nugget with a fork, pause long enough to say, “No idea. But probably not,” then eat it. Sitting underwater in my bathtub to hide from the world for two hours isn’t exactly the same as deep-sea diving, but it makes for a decent proof-of-concept that keeps me from laughing and walking away. Wow, these things are actually hot. Restaurant ‘hot’ is usually what I’d call ‘mildly spicy,’ but these things aren’t playing around.

  “How long will that food remain down before you… become sick?” asks Landon.

  “Couple hours, and it goes out the usual way. This is probably stupid of me. It’s going to burn later.”

  They squirm.

  “Ask invasive questions, get uncomfortable answers.” I wag my eyebrows at them and eat another nugget. While hot, they do taste pretty amazing.

  “Right, well then.” Darren pushes the maps closer. “Enigma sank somewhere within this circled area. It carried an enchanted trunk containing irreplaceable unique books.”

  “When you guys came over from England? Well, not you three. But your order?”

  They nod.

  “Is that stuff about Crowley true?” I ask.

  Landon scoffs. Callum rolls his eyes. Darren sighs.

  “The man was an utter lunatic,” says Landon. “He only wanted s—umm. Well, he was not a well man.”

  “I’m not as young as I look. You can say the word sex around me.”

  “Absolute mockery,” mutters Callum.

  “Perversion even.” Darren shakes his head. “He had a little power and a few interesting theories, but he mostly wanted women.”

  “Fancied himself a divine being.” Landon rolls his eyes.

  “Okay so…” I pick up the copied map and look at it. “How the hell am I supposed to find this thing? Like thousands of ships sank there.”

  Darren leans closer. “Being what you are, you don’t need to breathe. You can survive the cold temperatures and likely pressures of the deep. You can stay down as long as needed to find the ship and the trunk. Retrieve it for us and we will forget entirely about Coralie. As well, you and your family will be far from our thoughts.”

  “So, you basically want me to go find a box that could be anywhere on the sea floor over a swath of like two hundred square miles? I’m not even sure I can see underwater.”

  “Have you tried?” asks Callum.

  “No. Not exactly. I mean, I know I can stay underwater for hours.”

  All three give me curious looks.

  “Bath bomb,” I mutter. “Expensive one. Didn’t wanna waste it.”

  “What does that have to do with being underwater?” Darren helps himself to a stuffed potato skin.

  I shrug. “Nothing really. Just hid under the foam to hide from the world. I had some issues to sort out and wanted to be alone for a while. Anyway, I’m open to doing this for you, but I don’t want to spend the next century with Coralie’s body in my house while I roam back and forth across the ocean floor looking for a wreck that might’ve disintegrated to toothpicks by now. I’ve got way too much studying to do.”

  “You’re a mystic as well?” Landon’s eyebrows go up for the second time tonight.

  “No. I’m a college student.”

  They stare at me.

  “No shit. I really am eighteen. Kinda new at the whole deadly powerful immortal thing.”

  “Hmm.” Landon rubs his beard. “All right. Give us a little time. We may be able to come up with a way for you to locate it more e
asily.”

  “What are you thinking?” asks Callum.

  “The enchantment placed on the trunk should still have at least some residual energy within it. If it has become unstable, it would only be more readily located.”

  Darren and Callum nod at him.

  “Sound logic.” Darren pulls a business card out of another pocket and hands it to me.

  It’s plain white with only a phone number on it.

  “What’s this for?”

  “When you receive a call from that number, please answer it. Once we work out if it is possible to assist you in locating the trunk, we will contact you.” Darren nabs a buffalo nugget from the sampler plate that looks exactly the same as the ones I ate. When he tosses it in his mouth, he turns red and coughs.

  “They’re a bit spicy,” I deadpan. “Like I said, that’s going to hurt on the way out.”

  I sigh to myself. That’s an apt metaphor for my vampiric life. Oh, this tastes great—ahh, damn, it burns! Why did I do that to myself? Just like picking up a doll for Aurélie, or helping that guy escape that crazy bitch Petra, getting a flower for an older vampire… or helping a sad, lost ghost named Coralie.

  They all seemed like the right thing to do initially, but now my butt is on fire.

  And you know what the worst part of this is? The next time I stumble across someone in need of help, I’m going to fall right into the sucker trap all over again. Honestly, I should start worrying about who I’ve become if I don’t.

  I just hope my ass can take the heat.

  22

  Testing the Waters

  Waiting sucks. Even if you’re immortal.

  Thursday is super overcast and gloomy, raining more than not. I used to have little reaction to weather. If it was nice out, cool. If it rained, cool, excuse to stay inside. For obvious reasons, I’m starting to prefer bad weather, but it makes me worry. Years ago, Ashley said something about people who love rainy days are depressed. She might’ve been kidding, and I’m pretty sure it’s not true that only depressed people like the rain. In fact, it’s quite possible that many depressed people hate the rain because it makes them feel worse.