Vampire Innocent (Book 10): A Vampire’s Guide To Adulting

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Nothing ruins a dancer’s career like poorly timed flatulence in a pin-drop-silent theater.

  While Ashley safely hides in my bedroom, Sophia and I gather the horde into the Tahoe—sorry, Mom, but the Sentra’s out of the question unless I strap two kids to the roof like dead deer. Something tells me the police would object. Pretty sure the kids would object, too.

  My three siblings plus Nicole, Megan, and Veronica pile in for a trip to the store. Meg and Veronica are already wearing their costumes, leotards divided diagonally down the chest, the left arm and upper part jet black, the bottom and other arm grey, a metallic silver stripe separating the two. They’ve added white leggings, metallic silver ballet flats, and gossamer frilled skirts. Fortunately, Sophia’s online search found the leotard and trimmings she needs for the recital already at a store specializing in ballet and dance costumes, and even called to make sure they had it in stock. The silver ballet flats, she already owned.

  This is, after all, a kids’ dance school. The instructors aren’t going to have an aneurysm over slight variations in shoe style.

  Withering heat from an uncooperative sun coupled with the sheer volume of six children makes for a grueling trip. Worse than either of those problems is me constantly thinking about having six children in a five-thousand-pound death machine I’m responsible for controlling. I don’t know how Megan and Veronica’s parents would feel about their daughters getting in a car driven by a teenager who can’t see well in bright sunlight, but I can’t exactly leave them at the house with a child-i-fied Ashley to watch them.

  The girls tease me a little for driving like grandma, but it doesn’t bother me.

  Getting them to the store in northwest Seattle safely is easy compared to trying to keep tabs on them once we arrive. It’s like letting mice loose in a maze full of cheese bits. Yeah, I know mice aren’t really as into cheese as cartoons claim. But for metaphor purposes, I’m sticking with it. Sophia goes right to the counter where a purple-haired woman a few years older than me leans against the wall, talking on the phone. I can’t help but stare at the huge nose ring she’s wearing. It’s damn near a door-knocker.

  “The Gates of Az-Muradin shall never be opened for as long as I draw breath,” mutters Sierra.

  I whirl away and laugh, making Sierra smile. Sophia takes a second longer to catch the reference, then blushes while laughing. Last year, Dad ran a D&D game for us where we went into this old underground maze and ended up having to fight a minotaur guardian. It said the same line right before our characters fought it. Sierra’s saying this girl looks like a minotaur with the huge nose ring.

  Oh, so wrong. But so funny.

  Sophia coughs. “Umm, hi. I called a little while ago to ask if you still had the starlight leotard in stock?”

  The woman mutters, “Gotta go” at the phone, hangs up, then smiles at my sister. “Hey, sweetie. Sure. I remember. Pulled it aside for you.”

  “Awesome! Thank you.” Sophia bounces on her toes, takes the package from the clerk, and zooms off to the changing room.

  Sam hovers beside me, not having any interest in looking over girls’ clothes. This place carries mostly dance costumes and frilly dresses. I catch Sierra eyeing a gown in her size. The girl does have a fancy side, but keeps it in a locked trunk most of the time. Hmm. Maybe she didn’t hate sitting for the paintings at Aurélie’s as much as she claimed. Veronica and Megan run around checking out various cute outfits.

  Sophia scurries out of the changing room, runs to the shelf of frills to select a gauzy skirt, then approaches the counter. The leotard’s a perfect fit. Surprising, since almost nothing ever fits her right. She’s both at an awkward age for sizing plus rail thin. Clothes where the fit is right aren’t tall enough. Anything tall enough is baggy on her. I suspect magic happened to the leotard in the changing room. Duh. We could’ve ordered it online. So what if it didn’t fit? She’d fix it.

  I pay the clerk, round the kids up, and hit the road again.

  We make it to the theater at 5:22 p.m. The routine is supposed to run for about an hour, starting at six. On the way inside, I notice Sam’s wearing a backpack with the zipper open. It appears empty but the shape suggests otherwise. Blix. Gotta be. Not sure how to react. Sam isn’t exactly bringing a dangerous, uncontrollable pet creature into his sister’s dance recital. Blix is rather intelligent. He may, however, fail to resist the urge to mess with people in a crowded theater. Fingers crossed he only picks on audience members. Considering Sophia is in the show, I’m sure he’ll leave the performers alone.

  Sophia, Megan, and Veronica rush off to the backstage area while I take Sam and Nicole down the hall to the normal theater entrance. Nicole, never having been to any sort of live performance, gazes around in awe, asking a dozen questions every minute. I’m hardly an expert on theater, but I do my best to answer her questions.

  Eventually, the lights dim. The curtain parts to reveal Lindsey alone on stage. This is the girl who made fun of Megan for being a little chubby, total alpha. No surprise she got the ‘lead’ part. At least, I think there’s a lead. The instructors at the dance school love to ‘adapt’ popular plays and turn them into routines without words. Not sure they’re going for ‘interpretive dance’ or anything artsy, merely something fun for the kids.

  If whatever the kids are doing on stage is inspired from a movie or Broadway show, I am totally clueless as to which one. For the Les Mis adaptation, they did some of the songs but no dialogue. Tonight is pure dance, no words. The two boys, Ryan and Darian, are wearing all black outfits. Kids ranging in age from like nine to fifteen fly around the stage doing some fairly impressive moves considering their ages. Predictably, as one of the lighter students, Sophia’s got an ‘aerial’ part. She’s easy to lift and toss around. Drives Mom nuts with worry, but Sophia adores it. Tonight’s routine isn’t dangerous, merely a lift over the head and spin around type deal. They don’t do wire work. Parents would object and I’m sure the insurance company would freak.

  You know, I never thought watching a bunch of kids dance would hold my attention, but they are kinda mesmerizing. It’s totally not the clumsy-funny-awkward sort of thing one would expect from a school talent show. They’re surprisingly good, as are the student musicians from a local music academy the dance studio partners with. The hour goes by fast. And yeah, I recorded the entire performance to show Mom and Dad when they return.

  Sam, Nicole, and I wait out in the foyer along with a bunch of other parents.

  I assume the dance instructors are having a post-recital meeting, party, or something. Eventually, the dancers, most of whom are wearing coats over their costumes, spill out of a steel double door and rush over to their respective families. Sophia zooms up to me, practically vibrating from excess energy. She’s thrilled, excited, and nervous. Poor kid’s having an emotional short circuit. She’s frightened of being on stage in front of a crowd, but also had a blast tonight. Being so exhilarated at the performance despite being terrified of getting up in front of an audience is causing her to tremble. She’s not sure how to process the conflicting emotions, so she settles for bouncing around and squealing in delight.

  The drive home is much less nerve-wracking for me since I’m online. It’s after seven and dark. Yeah, I’m still in a constant state of reminding myself this vehicle, being higher off the ground, has a greater chance of rolling, so no sudden swerving. Nonetheless, Grandma Wright gets us home in one piece. The kids—even Sam—spend the ride talking about the show. For the most part, he sounds serious saying they did a great job, but he can’t resist teasing Sophia about Ryan ‘grabbing her butt’ when he held her up over his head.

  Predictably, this makes Sophia turn bright red.

  I get to deal with “It’s not like that!” shouted multiple times before she realizes Sam saying “sure it isn’t” over and over again is entirely meant to mess with her and not a serious accusation of her having a new boyfriend. The other girls find this hilarious, mostly since Ryan is—according to
rumor—sweet on Alexis.

  Anyway…

  I drop Nicole off at her house, bringing Megan and Veronica with us back home. Veronica’s parents are both working and couldn’t take her to the recital, or attend it… so she’s going to get a copy of the video I took. Megan’s mother is also stuck working. Her father’s in the Navy, presently out on a ship somewhere. Both girls are expecting to stay at our house until their parents pick them up here.

  Ashley—back to normal—is sprawled on the living room floor surrounded by her school work. Yes, she still has my unicorn plushie nearby.

  Sophia looks at her, glances at me, and pantomimes wiping sweat from her forehead.

  Sierra and Sam run to the kitchen on the hunt for snacks. Megan flops on the couch. Veronica stands inside the door awkwardly for a moment before realizing she doesn’t have to ask permission to take a seat on the couch.

  “Ash!” I rush over.

  “Oh, hi there. I didn’t notice you walk in,” she says, doing an impression of Tommy Wiseau. “Things have worked themselves out. I feel fine now.”

  I laugh. “Good.”

  “Talk about weird,” She says, dropping the impression. “This is going down as one of the strangest days in my life.”

  “At least it’s back to normal.” I bite my lip. “Umm, I really hate to do this, but you know I have an unavoidable errand I need to take care of. Would you mind holding down the fort here until I get back?”

  “Sure, no problem. How long do you think it’ll take?”

  “Uhh, good question. It’s too late now for me to, uhh, ‘walk’ there, so I’m gonna go commercial. Figure three-ish hours each way plus whatever time I lose waiting on a flight schedule. Once I’m down there, it could be as fast as ‘here ya go, bye’ or I might get pulled into an hours-long meeting.” I shrug. “Whatever happens, I’m going to try to be as fast as possible.”

  “Okay. You have my number. As long as your sister doesn’t turn me into a Pikachu, we should be good.”

  “Sorry!” yells Sophia from the kitchen.

  Megan and Veronica laugh, probably assuming we’re talking about a video game.

  Right. Time to do this.

  I head to the kitchen and bring the Littles—who are presently foraging for munchies—up to speed on my need to fly a message. They’re cool with it. Perhaps a little too much so. Sierra wants to come along, but fortunately doesn’t put up a strong argument when I ask her to stay here and be safe. The ’rents are probably going to be annoyed enough at me for running this message before they come home. I can’t bring Sierra into the world of vampire politics needlessly.

  After hugging through the ‘back as soon as possible’ thing, I run downstairs to grab the scroll and head out the patio doors to the deck behind the house. Shit, I forgot shoes. I look down—at my sneakers. Oops. Been walking around the house in sneakers. Sorry, Mom. Somewhere, far away in Iceland, my mother’s probably spent the past half hour or so attempting to figure out why a mysterious sense of wrongness came over her. Yeah, she has a sixth sense about people wearing shoes in the house.

  I’m about to leap into the air when I catch sight of a large paw print in the backyard about twenty feet from the deck. Oh, hell. What now? Sometimes having superhumanly sharp eyesight can be a curse. A quick hop-flight lands me next to the print. It’s the size of a bear track but more canine in shape. The faint hint of ‘wet dog’ smell hangs in the air, along with a sense of something watching me. No malice, though, but perhaps a little more intelligence than animal.

  I’d ask Ashley out here to look at the print, but it’s too dark. She wouldn’t be able to see it. Besides, she’s only seven months into her first year of college, hardly an authority on all things animal yet.

  “You’re probably the critter who tried to play with Sam the other day…” I look around, seeing nothing. This animal is either invisible or gone. Oh, great. Did Sam attract a freakin’ hell hound? Do hell hounds even exist outside of D&D or general mythology.

  Is it weird to say ‘oh, it’s a demon, no big deal; that’s on Sam’?

  Whatever. Let me deal with this message crap first.

  I do know flying at 120 MPH is not going to get me to San Diego before sunrise thanks to the dance recital. No problem. No way could I have missed it. Sophia is only going to be a kid once. ‘You blew off my dance recital to run a message for your vampire overlord’ sounds like a shouting argument from an episode of Jerry Springer brought to you by meth… or Florida. Wait, same thing.

  Anyway… into the air I go.

  It’s really easy to spot SeaTac from the air. Being easy to see from high altitude is a good quality to have in an airport. It doesn’t take long for me to find a shadowy place to land and slip inside. No point bothering with a fake ticket since it’s only me this time, no Sophia needing to fly, too.

  A little brain surfing for information leads me to the terminal where the next direct flight to San Diego Airport is leaving. Alas, the flight isn’t taking off until 9:15 p.m. I’ve got a little over an hour to kill. Might as well go eat someone. The airport isn’t big on secluded areas, and bathroom feeding—especially in a big public airport—is disgusting. Sierra thinks she had it rough trying to take a bath in the room after Sam blew up. Hah. Her sense of smell is normal. A vampire trying to eat in the presence of similar fumes is… no. Just… bleh.

  I ambush a guy in his younger twenties, basically someone who wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows if seen making out with me in public. We’re not actually making out. I’m feeding, but I position us so it looks as though we’re having a PDA. Feels like I’m in a CIA movie. Stealth isn’t about not being seen at all. Sometimes, it’s easiest to hide in plain sight. Let people see you, but make them see something other than what’s really going on.

  An ominous narrator type voice rambles in my head.

  Young couple kissing by the wall. Innocent. Harmless—or so people think.

  Go figure, his blood tastes like avocado toast, extra tomato.

  “Blaze!” shouts a woman. “You bastard!”

  Uh oh. I hastily slurp down a few more mouthfuls before retracting my fangs and cleaning up the wound. Girlfriend’s coming in hot, going to grab my hair and yank me away from her man. She’s not at all prepared for my speed and stops short when I whirl to stare at her. Rage melts out of her expression as my mental power overwhelms her mind. A minute later, she doesn’t remember seeing me and Blake thinks he’s spent this whole time making out with her. I leave them sucking face and hurry back to the terminal.

  A few minutes before they’re ready to call for boarding, I get up and approach the ramp door.

  Any airline employee who looks at me gets a mental prod to see me wearing a flight attendant uniform or simply ignore me. I make my way onto the plane, surprised to see the flight crew before they close the security door to the cockpit.

  Hmm. Idea. There’s a little fold-down jump seat behind the left pilot’s chair. I could totally avoid being seen on this plane and bypass a potential argument with a passenger from taking an occupied seat by staying in here. Nice. I zap the flight crew into thinking I’m close family of the pilot and erase their hesitance at letting me ride up here.

  Cool. Works for me. Scary how easy it would be for a vampire to cause serious damage, but airplane crashes tend to be fiery affairs. It’s highly improbable we’d survive. Though, I suppose any vamp who could fly could bail out before impact.

  Dammit. Stop thinking morbid thoughts.

  The jump seat isn’t exactly comfortable, but the view is amazing. I’ve been in cockpits before, but never of a production plane and certainly not while it flew… only halfway built ones at the Boeing plant. Pretty sure this is a 737. All digital screens and stuff. Pretty cool. This is my first time having a view out the front windows of a functional airplane.

  I am—other than forcing my way onto the plane—my old alter ego, Follows Rules Girl, for the entire trip, keeping to myself and not interfering or getting in their way.
It occurs to me on the flight down to San Diego I could’ve also hidden in the cargo hold with the luggage. Thin air or deadly cold won’t bother me. Still, a baggage handler seeing a girl climb out of the underbelly would be the opposite of subtle. Easy enough to erase memories, but airports usually have security cameras on baggage areas. I’d have no way to know how many people saw me slip out and run off.

  Grr. And really… running a physical letter by hand like some sort of Pony Express carrier? Haven’t vampires ever heard of email? Wolent is so old, technology probably stops working around him. Maybe his fingers don’t register on iPhone screens because he’s too dead or something. Sigh. I’m sure sending me is some ceremonial thing, like, ‘Hi, check out my new baby apprentice.’ Maybe he wants his friend, this Cassandra Upton person, to meet me. Wait, no… he said it would be unlikely for me to see her. Oh, well. Might as well go through the motions and keep everyone happy.

  While I don’t mind doing the guy a favor, 1,100 miles is a complete pain in the ass. It’s only bothering me because of the parents-on-vacation situation. I hate leaving the Littles on their own while going off to do ‘vampire stuff.’ And yeah, it’s not like the four of us are still super clingy over my near death and always spending every minute of the day together. We’ve processed the guilt and almost-grief enough to return to normal. Mostly, I want to be there in case they need me.

  Ping.

  The co-pilot looks back at me. “Sweetie, you gotta turn your phone off.”

  “Ack. Sorry.” I take it out of my bag and notice a text from Ben previewing on the lock screen: ‹The crazy neighbors have…› but can’t get into a back and forth now. Gotta shut the phone off. No idea if a cell phone really can threaten an airplane, but Follows Rules Girl is not willing to take the chance.

  After we’ve landed, taxied in to the terminal at San Diego Airport, and the pilots have finished all the end-of-flight checklists, they get up and open the cockpit door, standing there to interact with disembarking passengers. I stay hidden behind in the jump seat, legs up, curled into a ball, more or less out of sight from people going by.