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

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Know how much I hate the smell of old cigarettes?

  I strip to my underwear and wrap myself in another curtain purely to keep the stink from soaking into my clothes. Bad enough it’ll be in my hair.

  Consciousness returns with the burden of a thousand souls hanging heavy upon my chest.

  Oh, wait. It’s only Klepto.

  She’s curled up on top of me in a cute little grey ‘fur donut.’ This kitten is so damn small she’s honestly about the size of a large donut. And damn. Sorry, Mom. We’re not going to be able to get home for Christmas unless this cat moves. I don’t want to disturb her.

  A smell like Pine Sol hangs in the air. The whirring of a washing machine running comes from upstairs along with quiet scratching. What the heck? I don’t hear the man who lives here anywhere, or anyone heavy enough to be an adult moving around. Hmm.

  “Mew,” says Klepto. She stands, stretches, and jumps to the floor.

  Aha! I am free!

  Since I must shower the funk of old cigarette out of my hair and no one is in the house but me and Sophia, I decide to carry my clothes upstairs and get dressed after cleaning up. Four kids plus two parents in the same house divided by only two bathrooms equals underwear no longer being embarrassing. It’s a good thing I decided not to get dressed before leaving the basement, since my clothes are not on the floor where I left them.

  I glance down at myself.

  Underwear’s gone too.

  “Wow.”

  I’m not even sure how to react. What creature of ancient myth did I piss off now?

  “Oh, wait.” I point at Klepto. “You had something to do with this.”

  Tribble.

  “Why did you steal my underwear?”

  She sits up on her back legs and makes a series of paw motions I utterly fail to comprehend.

  Sophia had to put her up to doing it, so I’ll ask her. I grab the curtain blanket, wrap myself in it, and go upstairs, grumbling at being surrounded in the stink of musty cigarette. The couch I slept on must’ve spent a century or longer in a bar… or the parents of the guy who lives here smoked a carton a day while sitting on it.

  Upon opening the door at the top of the basement stairs, a standing wall of stink slaps me in the face so hard my eyes tear up. It’s not ‘stink’ per se, but a collection of artificial smells and cleaning products, pungent enough to be instantly eye-watering. Coughing, I stagger into the hall, waving a hand in front of my face. I find Sophia in the kitchen wearing a man’s tee shirt for a dress, down on all fours, scrubbing the floor like some kind of barefooted Dickensian waif servant. About the only break in the image is a lack of filthiness. She’s squeaky clean—as is the rest of the house.

  “What are you doing?” I croak, still not fully awake.

  “Cleaning,” chirps Sophia. “Since we’re using the man’s house and I kinda helped myself to some food… cleaning for him makes it feel less like stealing and more of a trade.”

  “Think you’re taking it a little too far scrubbing the floors.”

  “The man lives alone. I don’t think he understands floor scrubbing is a thing people can do. The dirt in this linoleum is older than I am.” She points at where she hasn’t scrubbed yet—dark yellow—then where she has—white… ish.

  “Hah. Okay, whatever. I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Bathroom’s down there.” She points.

  “Oh. Why did you have the kitten steal my underwear off me while I slept?”

  “So I could wash them. We’ve been wearing the same stuff for days. It’s disgusting. They’re in the machine now. I’ll grab you a T-shirt to borrow. There are no girl’s clothes in the house.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  I stagger down the hall past a tiny washer-dryer combo and find the bathroom, my curtain wrap trailing behind me. I’m well into a nice, relaxing shower before I do the math about there being a washer and dryer in the house, upstairs, on the same water line as the bathroom.

  Unfortunately, I figure this out about half a second before the washing machine’s second cycle kicks in and sucks up the majority of the hot water.

  Yeah, the neighbors are probably going to call the police.

  Girls don’t scream like this unless they’re being murdered, step barefoot in cold vomit at two in the morning while on the way to the bathroom, or fall headfirst into an Arctic lake—like I just did. The time Sam left a realistic fake tarantula on Sophia’s bed came close too, but I have bigger lungs than her.

  My vampiric nature compensates in maybe thirty seconds, taking the paralyzing effect away from the ice blast coming out of the spigot.

  Rapid thumping approaches the door. Sophia barges in, gawking at me. “What happened?”

  “W-w-washing machine ate the hot water.”

  She slouches, relieved. “Oh. Whew.”

  I resume cleaning my hair, the icy water now feeling neutral in temperature to me. Granted, it means my body is also the same temp, even colder than the morgue cooler. No sooner do I settle back into the routine than the washing machine stops sucking up the hot water.

  This girl is on fire.

  Well, not literally.

  I do manage not to scream at least—however, some F-bombs fall. Carpet bombing in fact. So this is how microwave entrees feel. From the freezer to the oven.

  Sophia walks back in and deposits a T-shirt on the sink for me, then leaves.

  I rush the last of my shower, dry off, pull the shirt on, then check myself in the mirror. Okay, this shirt will work as long as I don’t move. It’s basically car insurance: if I do anything with it, I’m no longer covered. Bending forward or back at even a five degree angle is going to reveal parts unknown to the world. My luck. I couldn’t pick a larger man to home invade.

  Towel time.

  I make a temporary skirt from a dry towel and go to the living room. At least this couch doesn’t stink like cigarettes.

  Sophia putters around cleaning. She’s both guilty for us using the man’s home as well as taking food, plus she’s nervous. My sister’s one of those people who needs to keep themselves occupied whenever they’re overly anxious. Sitting still doing nothing is the absolute devil for her when she’s wound up about something. I’m still impressed she tolerated the brownie camp so well, being unable to move for so long. Ninety percent chance she caught a nap.

  Once the dryer’s done with our clothes, we change. There’s something so nice about putting clothes on right out of the dryer. Like a warm hug. My sister throws the two borrowed T-shirts plus the towels we used in the washer and runs another cycle. It’s a little wasteful on detergent and such, but she doesn’t want to leave any trace of our presence. I can respect that. This poor man is going to think faeries invaded his house and cleaned it from top to bottom.

  Finally, she flops on the sofa beside me. Despite her outward calm, she clings tight while we’re channel surfing to find something to watch. We settle on a cartoon. It’s not in English, but amusing enough visually—and there’s nothing else on. So, we sit there for a little more than an hour until it’s dark out. I take the opportunity to send the parents, friends, and Hunter updates via text. No, I’m not telling them about brownies and leprechauns in any forum where the NSA is going to see it. I’m sure Mom is climbing the walls in frustration at me using couched language like ‘our vacation is taking some unexpected swerves, but everything’s fine and we’ll be coming home soon.’

  Dad, of course, gets the hint about things happening I can’t properly explain. He asks me if I wore a headband. It’s tempting to say ‘of course,’ but doing so would be lying to Dad, so I tell him I didn’t have one.

  Sophia shuts off the TV. “It’s dark out. Can we get food somewhere? I don’t want to steal more from this man.”

  “Sure.” I stand, stretch, and reflexively yawn.

  She yawns in response while putting her coat on. “Do you still need to yawn, or did you do it to make me yawn?”

  I purposefully yawn at her.
/>   Naturally, she yawns again—and playfully punches me in the arm.

  We head outside.

  Since my purse is back with the mystics at the bookstore, I have no money on me. Compelling some random mom-aged woman on the street to pretend to be our mother long enough to take us to a little place for food doesn’t bother me much. It’s less embarrassing than pretending to be homeless kids begging for food or money.

  Sophia and ‘Mom’ remain at the table while I ambush a goth girl a year or two older than me in the bathroom. The girl’s fast, and nearly gets me with a knife before I can dive into her head for the initial derpification. Her blood tastes like blueberry pie, probably a result of her having blue hair. No, I’m not tasting the dye. It’s mental. I see blue, think blueberry.

  After Sophia and I eat—I did not make the woman waste money on real food for me—it’s time to erase us from her memory. Once she thinks she merely popped into this place for a bite on a completely random whim, Sophia and I slip away while she’s still in a fog. An alley behind the restaurant offers a concealed takeoff location. I scoop Sophia up in my arms, holding her sideways before jumping into the air.

  While my body tries to be as lifelike as possible thanks to my bloodline, certain vampiric truths remain. One such truth is I don’t get tired. This comes in quite handy for the nearly two-hour flight across the ocean back to England. Sophia’s skinny as heck, but no way could a normal person hold a sixty-something pound girl this long at all, never mind while flying.

  She asks me what happened after I left her at the brownie camp. I share the story for the most part… leaving out the bit about the thorns digging into Addy’s body. Telling Sophia they wanted to turn the girl into a dark dryad on top of even a watered down description of them might give her nightmares. No damn way am I going to mention the burrowing. Doing so would send her straight to therapy.

  “I never expected anything like this could possibly happen.” I glance down at the dark ocean racing along beneath us. “Stuff’s getting super crazy.”

  “If you say you should’ve pretended to be dead and not come home, I’m gonna be mad at you. There will be crying.”

  I chuckle, despite a tear in my eye. “Isn’t that a movie?”

  “I don’t think so. Dad said something about a movie called There Will be Boredom, but I’ve never seen it.”

  “Oh. Who’d watch a movie with boredom in the title?”

  She laughs. “It isn’t, silly. Dad’s making fun of some movie he fell asleep to.”

  “Oh. Duh. Right.”

  “I have magic and a teleporting kitten. Totally awesome. Stop being sad. No take-backsies.”

  “Okay.” I squeeze her a little tighter.

  “So were you really gonna get a flamethrower? Can you get a flamethrower?”

  “Yeah. Pretty sure. Just a little mind control in the right places. If I wanted to, I could probably get a tank or a fighter plane. Couldn’t do much with them, but… yeah. Scary, huh?”

  She nods.

  Before too long, we’re over land again. It’s not too difficult to find London from this altitude, especially at night. Once the vast swath of civilization and all its electric lights come into view, Sophia summons the little blue magic ball.

  “We haven’t even landed yet. Don’t you want to stretch your legs and rest a bit?”

  “Rest? You’re doing all the work.” She cradles the orb in both hands, waiting for the white spot to stop spinning around. “Besides, the ghost isn’t going to stop trying to kill people because I got tangled up with brownies.”

  “True.”

  “You didn’t groan.”

  “Should I have?” I raise an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. They wrapped me up in roots? Tangled?”

  “Ahh.” I laugh.

  “Ooh. Got him.” Sophia holds the tracker spell up.

  Since she’s in front of me, rather than riding on my back, I can see the ‘compass’ directly. It’s fairly easy to follow as all I need to do is turn until the tiny white dot rotates onto the side of the sphere facing forward.

  We follow the direction her spell indicates for a little more than ten minutes, flying at maybe half my speed. The dot shifts downward as we approach the Thames, pointing toward a bridge. I risk descending a bit, hoping the night sky will keep us hidden.

  “There! He’s chasing a white car.” Sophia points.

  She appears to be indicating a Volvo wagon. The car isn’t driving unusually fast or in an erratic manner. A faintly glowing haze zooms along over the road behind it, gaining ground. I squint, zooming my vision in on the car. The middle-aged woman driving doesn’t look at all familiar, but the white-haired girl in the passenger seat does—Mandy Carlin, the youngest and presumably least powerful of the mystics.

  “Damn. He’s gotta be trying to make them crash.”

  “Yeah. Hurry!” says Sophia.

  I swing left, flying in even closer, right above the road. People generally don’t look up unless a noise or flash of some kind grabs their attention. Hopefully, if I stay above the street lights, we’ll be invisible behind the glare.

  Sophia drops the tracking spell since we can see the ghost. She starts making weird faces and pointing her arms at the apparition. Not much happens other than a gurgle emanating from her stomach.

  Mandy’s car—assuming it’s her mother driving—leaves the bridge without incident. The ghost hovers close behind them, but doesn’t appear to do anything yet. Traffic here isn’t moving fast enough for a fatal wreck. Unless the spirit is planning some weird chain reaction involving pigeons and a busload of circus performers, I’m sure he’s got something specific in mind and is merely waiting for the Carlins to get to the right spot.

  A short while later, they follow a road out of the city proper, heading toward the countryside east of the city, accelerating up to about sixty. Two spots of bright light get my attention in the distance: an oncoming big rig. Uh oh. There’s a problem. I can practically feel the delight waft off the ghost.

  “If you can do something, do it quick,” I say. “He’s going to make them hit the semi.”

  Sophia gasps. She thrusts her arms out. Pale yellow light surrounds her fingers. Similar light flickers around the ghost of Fletcher Maltby. For an instant, the vaporous form implodes in on itself, compressing to a spot the diameter of a tennis ball. He snaps back to full size seconds later, emitting a horrible screech, and abruptly veers off the road, racing out over fields. Wow, I think my sister basically tazed a ghost.

  Hoping he’s given up on the car, I chase him, having to fly faster than I’m comfortable going while carrying Sophia to keep up with him. She doesn’t complain, despite having to flinch away from the wind in her face.

  Fletcher re-enters London, bee-lining for a small, gothic graveyard fairly close to the city outskirts.

  “He’s in a graveyard… not good.”

  “Go after him!” mumbles Sophia into my shoulder.

  38

  Deal with the Devil’s Third Cousin Twice Removed

  Graveyards—especially ones dating back to the 1700s—give me the creeps.

  I don’t know exactly how old this one is, but it looks pretty ancient. European cities are weird. You can find buildings from the 1300s standing next to modern ones. Wonder if some vampires around here look at places like Westminster Abbey and think ‘oh, I remember when they built that.’

  Slightly more epic than Dad making the same comment about the Denny’s in Woodinville.

  We land on a narrow stone path in the midst of multiple tiny mausoleums at the graveyard’s center, the spot where the ghost disappeared. Sophia stumbles a few steps on the ice before she finds her balance.

  I am impressed.

  My littlest sister isn’t freaking out, crying, and begging me to get her out of this scary graveyard. We’re surrounded by old stone, gargoyles, ivy, crumbling tombstones—some of which are taller than me—and darkness. Well, she’s surrounded by darkness. I can see. Normal me would’
ve taken one look at this place and run the other way. Sophia should be scared out of her mind. I think she’s too fixated on finding the ghost to really comprehend where we are or what it looks like. Or maybe she can’t see where we are too well.

  “Fletcher Maltby,” says Sophia—then stops, blushes, and looks up at me. “Should I call him Mr. Maltby?”

  “Not sure rules of etiquette apply once someone’s dead. If the magic they taught you requires using the ghost’s full name, you better do it.”

  “Okay,” she whispers, then faces one of the mausoleums. “Fletcher Maltby, I need to talk to you.”

  “Are you sure he’s in there? I didn’t think people who died on the gallows ended up in private tombs.”

  “It’s not his tomb. He’s hiding in there.” She clutches at the air and makes a pulling gesture as if dragging someone forward by their shirt.

  A transparent—mostly human—figure glides toward us out of the wall, flailing his arms as if attempting to grab onto nonexistent random objects in order to resist her dragging him into view. His head is slightly oversized, atop a distorted, stretched neck ringed in black bruise from the killing noose. Sunken dark eyes and elongated limbs further lend an otherworldly, ghoulish quality to his presence. I didn’t get a great look at him when he escaped the jar, but he seemed far less human then. Guess he’s piecing himself back together.

  Sophia steps off the stone path into grass to avoid ice, and edges closer to him. “Please stop running away from me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You’re the one who released me!” Fletcher points at her, his voice faint and echoing. “Why do you pursue me?”

  “Do you understand why I let you out?”

  He hovers there in silence for a few seconds. A sudden change in his appearance makes me jump back. The man’s face goes blank—no eyes or nose—with an inhumanly large mouth leaking blood. His pallid skin stretches tight to the skull with a leathery creaking, bony chest visible under the tattered remains of the threadbare prison garment he died in. Fast, rapid breaths force his ribs outward, stretching the skin covering them to a grotesque degree. His hands enlarge even more, ink black wraith claws extending. His body contorts in agony and shudders, face twisted in as much a mask of unbearable soul-destroying pain as blank skin can convey.