Vampire Innocent (Book 9): An Introduction To Paranormal Diplomacy

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “Thanks for your sympathy, but I’m not talking about myself. An actual little kid. The dark dryads have her and they’re torturing her.” I explain what happened at the other grove, everything I saw, and how wonderfully my attempt to fight them went.

  Over the course of a few minutes, the dryads exchange looks. Got a feeling they’re having a telepathic communication or something similar to it. I’m unable to listen in, and yeah, I tried. While their thoughts are on a different wavelength, my mind powers do pick up traces of emotion. They’re afraid at first, then cautiously sad, then spend a while radiating a mood like Sierra when she’s on her way to the mall to get a new PlayStation game.

  Now I’ve got two little girls attached to trees to deal with. Standing here watching a bunch of impossibly beautiful green women make odd faces at each other isn’t helping. I’m about ready to yell at them to hurry it up when they all face me.

  Three approach.

  Okay, guess they’ve decided to believe me honest about not wanting to hurt them.

  They’re also surprisingly tall. Must be originally from Norway. My head only comes up to their shoulders. Yeah, I know I’m on the low end of average size and have an overly young face, but it’s not too often I legit feel like a twelve-year-old by height next to another woman.

  “We will help,” says the dryad in the middle. “We ask you to help us as well.”

  Naturally. Massive amounts of willpower allow me not to roll my eyes.

  Left Dryad smiles. “We will give you two wellspring seeds, which you can take and offer the dark ones in trade for the child they have stolen.”

  “For this, you will bring us a group of human men,” says Right Dryad.

  Ugh. I can’t sacrifice a couple dudes to save one kid. “Umm… what’s going to happen to these men?”

  The three women in front of me smile, the rest all giggle.

  “Use your wildest imagination,” says Center Dryad. “They will not be harmed… but may be tired.”

  I blush. “Oh… you’re going to…”

  They all giggle.

  “How long will you keep them here?”

  Right Dryad grins. “A few hours. They cannot stay here.”

  “To part with a wellspring seed, we will need to make more.”

  “Umm, you’re going to give away your babies so I can save the human girl?”

  Center Dryad rests a hand on my shoulder. Ooh. Tingly. “Not entirely. A wellspring seed is not our young, but a vessel which can become such given the proper infusion of energy.” She sighs. “While it pains us to think of a seed being tainted by the dark ones, it is far, far less a tragedy than a human’s life being infected by their corruption.”

  “Balance,” whispers Mardle. “The dark and light dryads do not seek the others’ destruction.”

  None of this makes sense. But hey, I’m a vampire with a multipurpose stealth attack kitten. The dryads want men to have some, umm, ‘vigorous fun’ with. Oh hell. I gotta get this kid off the damn evil mother tree.

  “Okay. I’m going to guess you won’t trust me to bring you these guys after you let me use the wellspring seeds to stop the dark dryads from killing her? She’s in a lot of pain and looks close to dead.”

  They make sad faces at each other.

  “You are a creature of darkness,” says Left Dryad.

  “I’m more dimness than darkness.” Sigh. “Right. Thought so. No one makes a fetch quest and gives the reward out before the deed is done.”

  “What is a fetch quest?” asks Right Dryad.

  “I’m making a video game joke. Be back soon.”

  Another dryad runs out of the distant woods, zooming up to us. She’s carrying two pale, whitish-green objects about the size of large potatoes, halfway between fat pumpkin seeds and acorns for shape.

  “Whoa…” I pause. “You’re going to let me have the seeds now?”

  Center Dryad takes the giant seeds from the runner in both hands, then faces me. “The child you describe will not survive long once she is disentangled from the Dark Mother. They will most certainly agree to your demand of an exchange for two seeds. Not only are you giving them two in trade for one, a dryad grown from these seeds will be stronger and healthier than a corrupted human.”

  Stunned, I wordlessly accept the offering. Guess I’m committed to dragging a bunch of men out into the woods now.

  “Bring the child to us as fast as you are able. We shall tend to her.” Center Dryad steps back, clasping her hands in front of herself. “When you return with the men, the child will be healthy enough to go with you.”

  Reading between the lines, it sounds like she’s saying they intend to hold the kid prisoner until I make good on my part of the deal. These dryads don’t look likely to torture her at least. And… it’s hard to argue the offer of magical healing. Who better to undo the effects of dark dryad’s corruption than light dryads? After getting a close look at Addy, it’s easy for me to believe these dryads’ story she’ll die anyway. Medical science is awesome and all, but I don’t think they can fix ‘thorn vines growing into the body.’

  And wow, I thought for sure they’d insist I get the men before they parted with these seeds. They really are kind. I’m finding it impossible not to trust them.

  “Thank you! We’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  The dryads bow their heads in acknowledgement.

  It’s difficult to think of a six-pound nugget of wood as a baby, yet it basically is. These women regard them in reverence, but no way would they give away their children. At least, I hope not. The seeds don’t give off any sense of intelligence or sentient thought. Not sure I’d feel right with myself taking a baby light dryad and giving her to the dark ones to corrupt. It would be like transplanting a normal kid away from home so they grow up liking country music.

  Some evil is just too unspeakable.

  34

  Child for Child

  Seeds clutched close to my chest, I fly scary fast across the forest.

  Mardle started off sitting on my back, but my sudden acceleration made him lose his grip and tumble down over my butt, sliding all the way to my sneaker. He curses me out in not-English, then teleports onto my back again—and proceeds to bonk me.

  “Wahrn me next time!”

  “Sorry. In a hurry. Need to get this done before the sun comes up. Sophia’s not going to spend a whole day tied to a tree.”

  “Oy what?” Mardle scratches his beard. “Didn’t tink brownies tried ta corrupt small girls.”

  “You’re thinking of Girl Scouts… they turn them into aggressive cookie merchants.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “They’re not doing anything to my sister worse than holding her prisoner until I do their bidding.”

  Mardle goes off on a rant about how irritating brownies are. Clumsy curses, jinxes, making machines fail, going into towns or villages and tripping people, making them drop things, locking people out of their houses naked, stealing food, and so on. Leprechauns, also being highly magical creatures, are immune to the worst of it. Brownies also resist most of the magic leprechauns throw at them. The ‘war’ between them essentially consisted of a bunch of two-foot-tall people chasing each other around, brownies stealing hats and running away from the leprechauns trying to bonk them.

  Pure insanity.

  I don’t know whether to laugh at the crazy scene he’s describing or scream in frustration at being caught up in such an unbelievably weird mess.

  Fortunately, our arrival at the dark tree ring spares me having to make the decision.

  We fly right into it, reappearing in the gloomy, overgrown forest of all-consuming dread and suffering. A sense of foreboding doom hasn’t hung over me this heavy since I had a paper due for school in three days without even starting it.

  Every direction still looks the same, so it isn’t my memory failing me. Screw it, I’m in a hurry.

  “Addy? Where are you?” I shout.

  A weak moan comes f
rom behind me.

  I fly around the tree ring and cruise toward her. Already, dark dryads emerge in response to me yelling, whipping vines at me high and low. Their wooden bodies creak as they reach their arms out from the trees, some in the high branches, others at ground level. One or two at a time, it’s fairly easy for me to duck, swerve, or pop up to get past the thorny tendrils attempting to ensnare me. Cutting a dive too close forces Mardle to jump off my back to avoid being whipped in the face, but I grab him before he hits the ground.

  He yelps, dangling from my fingertips, glaring at me like a cat who really hates being picked up.

  By the time we reach the Dark Mother, a wall of evil dryads has gathered, easily seventy or more of them. The child doesn’t look any worse than before, thankfully, though they’ve repaired the one thorn I severed.

  The lot of them raise their arms, conjuring whipping tendrils studded in thorns.

  “Stop!” I yell, slowing to a hover in front of the ‘wall,’ far enough away to avoid being grabbed. “I’ve come to offer you a trade.”

  None of them show the slightest sign of slowing down their attack.

  I hold the two seeds up. “You know what these are?”

  All the dark dryads freeze, staring at me with their hollow shadow-filled eyes. Some flash greedy smiles, black liquid dripping past their teeth and down their chins.

  “Yeah, thought so. I’ve got two of them, and I’ll give them both to you in exchange for Addy.”

  A smaller group steps forward from the wall, creeping closer, emitting raspy noises amongst themselves, a language so alien to human ears it’s indiscernible from wind hissing through the cracked boards of a rotting cabin.

  Addy struggles to lift her head and look at me. Blood wells out of small holes in her cheeks where the roots puncture in. Seeing a hint of hope in her eyes hurts more than Petra stabbing a piece of rebar into my back.

  I cautiously hold my ground, ready for a trick. “Two wellspring seeds are yours in exchange for the child.”

  The dark dryad nearest me reaches out a hand.

  “Let her down first.”

  A soft creak behind me gives away their ambush.

  Ugh. Dad. Dryads made of wood and leaves… ambush. I’m going to slap him for making me think like him.

  Twenty thorny tendrils burst out at me all at once.

  I launch myself straight up, evading all but two. The painful grip of a spike-studded vine pins my legs together at the shins, jerks me to a halt, and swings me downward. Before I crash flat on my chest, I toss the seeds to Mardle. Aside from two years in peanut soccer, I didn’t really do the sports thing growing up. And it shows. But… vampiric reflexes, strength, and a fast little leprechaun jumping make up for zero experience.

  Twelve pounds of wellspring seed hurled by superhuman arms is enough to swat Mardle out of the air and knock him into a tumbleweed roll.

  The dryads smack me face-first into the dirt. More vines grab me, but I don’t bother shredding them… yet. Others go after the leprechaun. He teleports around in random hops, laughing and mocking the dryads for being slow. The ones by me lose interest in doing more than holding me down, their attention focused on the seeds as intensely as Ashley spotting someone across the mall carrying a unicorn plush.

  Mardle feigns being afraid as a pack of dark dryads close in around him near a tree. He teleports behind them a fraction of a second before whips hit the trunk—then conjures a brilliant flash of white light, petrifying them momentarily.

  “You’ll never catch him,” I yell. “Let Addy go, and you can have the seeds. Hurt her, and I’m coming back here with a flamethrower and a fifty-gallon drum of weed killer.”

  The dark dryads cease chasing Mardle. Somehow, I don’t think my threat bothered them at all. They’re giving up because they know they’ll never catch him. Vines recede from me, so I stand.

  Addy cries out in pain.

  I spin toward her.

  She convulses. Pulsating black thorn vines slide out of her body, slick with blood. Shit! They’re just gonna drop her.

  I dive over the wall of wooden women, swooping up to the tree seconds before the last of the vines lose their grip on the inside of her torso. She lurches forward into my grasp, her arms stretched up over her head, still held up by vines extruding out of her skin. Afraid of hurting her, I don’t try to pull her down any faster than the horrible thorns retreat on their own. Finally, she’s completely free; her limp arms flop down, no strength left in her tiny body. Expecting more trickery, I glide into the air with her, ready for a flying sprint.

  Seeing us gaining altitude, clear of the Dark Mother, Mardle tosses the seeds at the dryad who first reached out to take them from me. The wooden fiends swarm after them like a pack of starving cats. Not waiting around for them to try grabbing me again, I fly low and fast. Mardle appears on top of me in a magical flash.

  “Yer off a bit.” He points the shillelagh over my left shoulder, about ten o’clock.

  Addy emits a weak moan. “Ow…”

  The smell of her blood is alarmingly strong. Just like the light dryads said, these cruel wretches didn’t do anything about the holes they left in her. “You’re gonna be fine. Don’t fall asleep.”

  “Are we flying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you an angel? Did I die?”

  “No, and no.”

  “I think you’re an angel,” says Addy in a whispery voice—right before she passes out.

  35

  One Night in the Woods

  It’s not even scary flying close to my top speed through the forest while I’m carrying an unconscious, bleeding little girl and have a screaming leprechaun clinging to my leg.

  Hitting a tree at 140 MPH would sting, but I’ll recover. In Addy’s case, it might actually be a mercy. I’m not one of those girls who needs a GPS app and six stops for directions to find a place four blocks from home, but my sense of direction also isn’t exactly the greatest. Somehow, be it sheer luck, determination, or some previously unknown supernatural power of vampirism, I find the dryad’s flower circle right away without getting disoriented.

  The screaming leprechaun may have also helped. Some of those howls did kinda sound like ‘go that way ya daft fool.’

  Picture a bunch of small birds hanging out in a park, just doing their bird thing, when all of a sudden, some jackass on a Harley comes out of nowhere. The light dryads do a perfect impression of the way those birds would scatter into an explosion of feathers, except this is more a bunch of bare green butts than feathers.

  I’m the jackass on the Harley.

  Only, replace loud noise with whatever energy I have as an undead.

  I stop so abruptly, Mardle goes flying off my leg, wailing, and vanishes into the bushes. Cradling the girl, I land in the middle of the now-empty grove, surrounded by the rustling of a dozen naked green-skinned women running for their immortal lives. Captain Kirk would be in heaven here.

  “It’s me! Addy needs help!” I shout.

  Beautiful faces surrounded in snow white hair pop out of the woods around us. Glowing bright green eyes widen. Upon realizing it’s only me and not some undead harvester monster or whatever come to reap their souls, they come running over and mob around me. I feel like I showed up at Sophia’s dance school with a husky puppy in my arms—only the dryads aren’t squealing.

  Three of them collect Addy from me, gasping in horror at the sight of her.

  “Bring her to the spring, quickly!” says the woman I recognize as Center Dryad from earlier.

  The dryads carrying the child, plus four others, rush off with her into the woods—so fast they blur. I look down at the blood on my top. Even though it smells like cotton candy, it’s not the least bit appealing. The reality it came from such a small child hits me hard. On top of her passing out in my arms on the way here, it’s overwhelming.

  I sink to my knees, fighting not to give in to tears.

  Diplomatic solution or not, if Addy dies, I’m
legit going to the nearest military base and forcing someone to show me how to use a flamethrower. The absurdity of me genuinely being able to do it offers an emotional pillar to which I can cling, avoiding the sweeping tide of grief threatening to drag me into a sea of dark thoughts.

  “The child will be fine,” says Center Dryad. “She did not have much time left, but she had enough time.”

  I look up. “How much?”

  “Another six hours and she would’ve become a dark dryad sapling.”

  Pretty sure she would have bled to death a lot sooner than six hours after they let her go. A few deep breaths I don’t really need later, I stand. Screw it. I needed them. Maybe not for oxygen, but they help me feel calmer. “You can really stop her from dying?”

  The woman rests her hand on my shoulder again. Electric tingles from her touch spread down my arm. “Yes. It will take a little time. At this moment, my sisters are immersing her in the wellspring and infusing her with life energy to purge the corruption our warped cousins have inflicted.”

  Hope she doesn’t mean a literal pool of water. It’s freakin’ December. Brr!

  “Okay, umm…”

  “Niatha,” says the dryad. “I am the eldest of my sisters.”

  “Cool. Me, too.”

  She tilts her head, looking about as confused as Bree Swanson taking a physics final. “You do not seem to possess many years. Certainly there are others far more ancient.”

  “Oh.” I grimace-smile. “Not vampires. I mean my actual sisters. I have two and I’m the oldest.” I point both thumbs back to the right. “Anyway. Let me go do my part of the deal.”

  Niatha smiles.

  “Umm. I’m kinda not from around here. Where is the closest town?”

  She points. “Once you return to the outer world, travel a short distance east of the forest’s edge.”

  “All right. Thank you for helping me save Addy’s life. I’ll be back soon.” I start to turn away but catch myself. “How much time do I have before the sun comes up?”