No, I’m not being a sad sack. I have an actual, practical reason for preferring rainy days. And hey, it is an excuse to curl up in a blanket with a hot cup of tea.
I get out of bed and head to the bathroom to deal with the inevitable downside of eating normal food. Only, those chicken nuggets don’t qualify as normal. You know how most living humans like digest stuff? Yeah, well… not me. Whatever went in, comes out unchanged. So that yummy but too hot sauce? Yeah.
Let’s just say the screaming brings Dad to the basement bathroom door. He asks if I’m okay a couple times, but all I can do is moan and cry—and bite my arm to muffle more screaming.
Oh… never again.
By the time I’m done, I stagger bow-legged to the door and open it. My T-shirt is spattered with blood, my hair’s a mess, my eyes are red, and I’ve got blood dribbling down my arm from where my fangs dug in.
“Good grief, Sarah!” Dad grabs my shoulders. “Are you okay? What the hell happened?”
I wipe my face on the back of my right arm. “They cancelled Firefly.”
Dad gets misty eyed, nods, and sniffles on my shoulder.
Sad thing is, I can’t tell if he’s kidding. “Remind me not to eat super spicy stuff now.”
“Oh.” He cringes.
“I’ll be fine in a moment. I think the pain’s mental at this point. I got over a broken spine in a couple minutes.”
Dad pushes me out to arms’ length. “What?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you about that, uhh, troll?”
“On Facebook?”
“No, Dad. Actual troll.”
“Oh, the cave thing.” He nods. “Yeah, you did tell me about that.”
I stiff-leg it past him, heading to my room. “Got some homework to finish up.”
“Ouch, hon. You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. The fire’s already going out.” I lick my arm to close the bite wound, then clean the blood off my hand. “The worst part is, I honestly don’t even know why I ordered that.”
Dad laughs. “Sometimes people do strange things. Live and learn, right?”
“One for two?”
He walks up behind me and wraps me in a hug.
“Sorry.”
“What?” asks Dad.
“For reminding you. Hey, I’m not dead. I’m better than that.”
He manages a weak chuckle, then holds me in silence for a little while before Sierra’s shout of, “Fuck!” reaches us downstairs along with a couple hard stomps on the floor.
“Wow. Someone really must’ve pissed her off,” I say.
Dad looks at the ceiling. “She is so lucky your mother isn’t here right now.”
“You’re gonna let her slide?” I blink at him in shock. “That was a hard f-bomb.”
“Well, I could say I didn’t hear it down here, but I think the Perry’s next door heard it.”
“Hah.”
“Sounds like it’s time for a talk on managing anger. Let the bargaining commence.”
I salute him.
Once he walks out, I turn my attention to homework. It only takes me about an hour to finish it, so I head upstairs. Sierra’s on the couch looking glum, Dad sitting next to her. She looks up at me, teary eyed.
“Sare!”
Dad’s expression is a mixture of worry and frustration.
“Hmm? What happened?”
“This guy on the other team got mad at me and said he knew where I lived and he was gonna do stuff to me. I got scared and started dying a lot and…”
I flop down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, I heard.”
“Is someone really going to come here to kill me?”
“I sincerely doubt it. Idiots like that just say stuff to scare people.”
Dad pats her on the arm. “Someone who had the skill or the equipment needed to figure out where we are wouldn’t waste the effort over a couple virtual deaths in a video game. And the most they could probably do is grab the IP address, which isn’t going to give them our exact location.”
Sierra sniffles and nods, then looks around like she doesn’t know what to do with herself.
Since the PlayStation is already off and packed away, I’m guessing she’s been grounded from it for at least the rest of today.
It’s too rainy to go outside. “Board game?”
Dad smiles. “She needs to clean her room up first as part of our agreement.”
Sierra nods and slides forward to scoot off the couch.
“I could help?”
She hangs her head. “Thanks, but that feels like cheating. I should probably clean it myself… but you can hang out.”
The way she looks up at me while saying ‘you can hang out’ makes it more of a plea than a suggestion. So, I head upstairs with her and sit on the bed while she runs around tidying up. Honestly, her room (my old one) needs it bad. She’s exploded all over the floor between clothes, shoes, gadgets, and school stuff.
Sierra drags a laundry basket into the middle of the room and starts tossing stuff into it. “How can someone get so mad over a game they wanna hurt someone?”
“No idea. Probably because they’re not too sane to begin with.”
She scoots around the floor on her knees, collecting clothes. “Dad was surprised I already had the PS4 off. First time I ever rage quit.”
“That idiot broke your concentration. Happens to everyone sooner or later. Nothing to beat yourself up about.”
Sierra twists back to look at me. “I was scared. Like a little kid. I thought he was really going to hurt me.” She smirks. “Don’t say it.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I wasn’t going to make a joke. It’s shocking enough to hear you admit to being scared.”
She grumbles. “You were gonna say I am a little kid.”
“You’re a kid, not a little kid.” I wink.
“Thpbpbpbt!”
Sierra’s been on edge ever since the school did that drill for active shooters. Grr. I hate seeing my ‘tough’ sister scared like this over some idiot halfway around the world who probably forgot all about her as soon as the match ended. I hate that she’s eleven and so worried about dying.
So, I try to take her mind off it by talking about stuff she likes. Mostly video games and movies.
Eventually, her room is reasonably clean. I do help a little by carrying the laundry down to the basement. She overloaded the one basket, making it a bit heavy to manage herself. Sophia looks up from her Kindle when we collect in the dining room.
A rainy afternoon of board games and hanging out with the family later, I decide to drive to school anyway despite the darkness.
It’s effing pouring.
Showing up at school as wet as if I’d jumped in the lake would suck.
Hang on. Jumped in the lake…
Sounds like I know what I’m doing after philosophy class.
Practice.
I run downstairs to change, grab my books, and haul ass out the door to the Sentra in the driveway. That short sprint nearly soaks my hoodie. Damn. I might not even need to locate a body of water for experimental purposes. Simply walking outside almost requires the ability to hold my breath for an infinite amount of time.
Driving in heavy rain is going to stink in a big way, too. But less so than showing up at school in a bathing suit and changing in the bathroom. I really wouldn’t have any good explanation for that and I can’t spend all night mind-wiping witnesses.
So… I hit the road.
Fortunately, this being the Seattle area, people are pretty used to driving in the rain. The ride is longer than usual, but I’m not late since I still over-budget an hour for travel. Professor Heath is in a good mood. I wonder if he was kidding about staying in the school or if he’s got a place somewhere. You’d think someone would eventually discover a vampire sleeping on campus during the day.
Tonight we lean toward the sociology aspect. It’s mostly a lecture this time—as opposed to a meandering class-participation talk—on the
‘sociology of gender and sexuality.’ The guy is an awesome presenter, somewhere between a stand-up comedian and a motivational speaker. As captivating as his class is, the two huge chapters of reading for next week plus 2,000 word essay required is less cool.
But, hey, I signed up for this.
Again, he asks me to linger a moment after class. So, I wander over to his desk while the rest of the students file out the door.
“Just checking up, hoping everything is well.”
“Little weird, but not bad.”
Heath tilts his head. “How so?”
I’m not getting any bad vibes from this guy, like he’s trying to mine me for information or anything, so I tell him about Coralie. Not being a total naïve idiot, I omit that I’ve got her at my house, and say only that I’m trying to figure out where best to put her remains for her benefit.
“Interesting. Have you considered a museum?”
“No. Honestly didn’t. She’s not Egyptian. And the people who are trying to grab her would eventually get her back from a museum without too much difficulty.”
“Ahh. All right. How are you holding up?”
“Fine.”
He smiles. “That’s good. Not missing the sun then?”
“Oh, nah. This is pretty damn awesome. Why would anyone get all emo over it? Does that really happen or only in movies?”
“Seems to be more of a trend among new additions as of late. Something about the young people. And when I say ‘young people’ I’m talking about twenty, thirty years of age, but I suppose millennials have enough to be emo about already without undeath.”
“If you say so.” I shrug.
“Forty or fifty years ago, a girl your age could wait tables or some such thing and earn enough to pay tuition at a private university.”
“Yeah right. There’s no way in hell I could ever have paid my own way at USC. I might be able to swing this place under my own power but I’d be working so much overtime I’d barely be able to do homework.”
“Exactly my point, dear.” He chuckles. “Well, I wanted to say feel free to ask if you have any questions about your new self. Since it hasn’t been long since your Transference, I’m sure there’s much you haven’t learned.”
“Thanks. Okay, yeah. Weird question: can we survive the deep ocean? Like, the cold and pressure and stuff?”
“Well, I can’t say that I’ve ever personally visited the sea floor. However, unless you are considering visiting extreme depths or arctic locations, it shouldn’t be a danger. We are still rather capable of freezing solid. Resisting it is possible to a point, though it… well I suppose it would be like your special relationship with the sun.”
I nod. “But the ocean off the Pacific Coast isn’t that cold that a body would freeze solid is it?”
He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t imagine so. Might I inquire as to why you’re asking?”
“Sure.” I lean on his desk. “The mystics want me to hunt down a shipwreck and look for something their order lost. If I do that for them, they’ll leave me and Coralie alone. I’m kind of worried because… if we can do that sort of thing so easily, why don’t we?”
“Our kind don’t usually make the news.” He wags his eyebrows. “I know of at least one who found a considerable fortune from locating a stash of gold coins in a wreck.”
Well, that’s promising. Not that I plan on going all Jacques Cousteau. My luck, I’ll wind up eaten by a giant squid. “Duh. That was kinda dumb.” I wave a hand suggesting a headline. “Vampire discovers treasure off the coast of Spain. Full story at ten.”
Professor Heath grins.
We chat a little while more about nothing of consequence. Turns out he does have a small place within walking distance of the school. He mind-whammied the landlord to completely forget the room he’s using exists. Once he moves on from this area, he’ll remove the mental block.
I head outside to find it still raining but nowhere near as hard as earlier.
The ride home is boring—hey, I’ll take boring. It beats having vampires dropping out of the air onto the hood again. No cops or anyone else bother me on the way back home. I park the Sentra in its usual spot, then head inside to my bedroom, where I change into my two-piece swimsuit and put my T-shirt and jeans back on over it. Meh. I’ll skip shoes. One less thing to lose.
Okay time to commence Operation Dumbass.
Well, at least the dry run for it. Or ‘wet’ run technically.
Mom and Dad are on the couch watching one of the newer James Bond movies… not sure which one. I scoot by without being noticed and head outside via the kitchen. The deck is wet and slippery after a day of rain, but I only take two steps before I’m in the air. I’m not entirely sure why I bothered putting anything on over the swimsuit. It’s still raining and my clothes will wind up wet anyway. Maybe it’s for stealth? I’ve gotten a bit paler since I became a vampire, and if I fly around in a bikini, someone will definitely see me. Then again, no one spotted me the first night when I didn’t even have a bikini on. But yeah… I’m not exactly in a hurry to do that again.
It takes me only a moment to fly to Cottage Lake. By some subconscious pull, I wind up landing in almost the same spot where that guy, oh what the hell was his—River! That idiot. Yeah, this is the same spot I pulled Ashley out of his car.
Since no one’s nearby, I pull off my shirt and jeans, stash them up a tree where the rain’s not quite able to reach, then fly out over the lake. Hope no one sees me out here. Swimming in September is really weird. So weird in fact, I think people would wind up not even noticing that I’m flying and fixate on ‘what the hell is that dumb girl doing in a swimsuit?’
I gaze down at the surface rippling along below, and gasp at the bizarre appearance. While the dirt and such suspended in the water prevents it from being clear, it’s not entirely opaque. Oh hell. The longer I fly around above the lake, the more chance someone’s going to see me.
It’s probably not a great idea to hit the water while flying at like forty miles an hour. I stop to a hover, then—for reasons I can’t even fathom—take a deep breath and lower myself into the water. And holy shit it’s cold. What the hell am I doing? Those mystics are out of their damn minds. Feels like I’ve jumped into a bag of needles.
That nice big breath I took? Yeah, I scream it out into a bubble. Or several bubbles. It takes the realization that I’m not panicking about not breathing back in to remind me I’m no longer alive—simply good at faking it.
Okay, I’m epic at faking it.
Still, I can barely move since I’m freezing.
At the moment, I feel no different from a normal person jumping in a Washington State lake in early September. Wait. Normal people wouldn’t do that. But I’m not normal people. It’s debatable that I even count as ‘people’ anymore, but I’m going to be an optimist there. I’m still enough of a sap to feel guilty over a ghost to once again put my family in the middle of supernatural bullshit.
I’d sigh, but the lungs are empty.
Right. I can do this.
My body simulates warmth because I’m Innocent. When I wound up in the morgue, I didn’t feel cold until after I escaped into a much warmer room. Really, that felt like going from normal to ‘too warm.’ Until I adjusted. So, maybe I just need to wait a moment?
I hang in place underwater, maybe three feet below the surface, forcing myself not to fold my arms, shiver, or act as cold as I feel. True, the most diabolical thing I’ve done with my vampiric powers is make people buy Girl Scout cookies, but dammit, I am a fearsome creature of the night. A little cold shouldn’t bother me.
Roughly two minutes after going under, my muscles decide we can be on speaking terms again.
Okay, progress.
The remaining discomfort is mostly due to being wet and having a mental hang up that I should feel cold being out here in a lake at this time of year. I spend a moment focusing on the idea that I’m a character in like Skyrim or something who can go swimming in a snowboun
d lake while wearing full armor like it’s no big deal. Hypothermia is for mortals.
First good thing to know: night vision works underwater. I should probably get a pair of goggles or a diving mask at least before I go into the ocean. I can’t see too far with the water in my eyes, but I can still see.
Flying still even kinda works, though I’m nowhere near as fast as I am out of water. I experiment for a bit, though with my limited visibility (about thirty feet) and not being deep enough to see the bottom, I can’t really tell how fast I’m going. The instant I sense my swimsuit preparing to rip off my chest, I try to stop—but wind up drifting. Oh, that’s weird. Aha! Unlike air, the water filling in behind has enough mass to push me. Another good thing to know: if I sprint, I can’t quite stop on a dime.
Since no one can see me down here and I’m pretty sure ‘fly-swimming’ too fast is going to tear off my bikini top, I slip it off and wad it up in my fist. The last thing I want to do is have my bathing suit randomly disappear and lose it down here. I’d never find it. I don’t think my bottoms are in as much danger, but… losing them would suck even more than the top. I really ought to test this out to prevent accidents.
Staring at my lower half, I resume attempting to ‘fly’ as fast as possible. Arms at my sides, my body rigid, I pull the ‘meat torpedo’ routine. It’s a bit like falling down while water skiing, and within seconds, the water rushing by rips my bottoms off.
Crap!
I whirl around and zoom back the way I came. Fortunately, I spot the pathetic scrap of electric green fabric tumbling around in my wake, and grab it. Dammit. Yeah, now that I think about it, I remember someone saying rip currents can sometimes tear a bathing suit off. While I’ve never been caught in one of those, I’m pretty sure ‘flying’ at however fast I’m going down here is subjecting me to water pressures way past a rip current. Since a dash tore my bottoms off, I don’t even try testing the top.
Well, I’m already out of my suit, so I clutch half of my bikini in each hand and do the nudist mermaid thing as a speed test. Without my iPhone on me, I can’t tell exactly how fast I’m going, but I do get up to a speed that makes it impossible for me to keep my eyes open.
The Phantom Oracle (Vampire Innocent Book 5) Page 20