“Are they gonna find us?” whispers Ben.
“No way, dude.” Cody fiddles at the focusing knob.
I half sit on the desk beside the window, arms folded. “The cops are probably going to be more confused why the tank had propane in it at all. You said no one’s operated the funeral home officially for like twenty years, right?”
“More than twenty,” whispers Ben. “Closer to forty.”
“And we don’t even know if those vampires even officially bought the property. They might’ve simply moved in.” I fidget. “Ehh, probably had the old man’s name on the paperwork if anything.”
“Remember, we weren’t anywhere near the place, hiking the riverbed.” Ben whistles in awe. “Check it out. The basement is wide open. Don’t see the coffins, though.”
“Three houses left, on the roof. There’s one. I think. Kinda looks like it used to be a coffin. Nothing in it.”
I cringe.
Cody shifts to look. “Whoa. Whoever was in that got freakin’ launched.”
“Umm, all those houses there, the windows are busted.” Ben peers over at me sheepishly. “Didn’t think it would blow up this big. We’re going to get in a shitload of trouble.”
“Dude.” Cody lowers his binoculars, faces his brother, and raises a hand. “We did it. We finally got confirmed kills. Five fiends dusted!”
“Righteous!” Ben high-fives him.
What have I done…?
“Guys…” I shake my head. “Do you understand how lucky you got? You can’t keep being so reckless. You’re going to get yourselves killed.”
Cody wags his eyebrows. “We almost did. You saved our asses.”
“Yeah.” Ben sighs. “We should take it easy until we’re older.”
“Take it much easier.” I smile. “Don’t want you guys to get hurt.”
“Cody?” asks Mr. Peters from the hall. “Is there a girl in your room?”
“Don’t worry, Dad,” calls Ben. “It won’t happen again—like… ever.”
Cody slugs him in the shoulder and they both burst into laughter.
Mr. Peters looks in, spots me, and waves. “Oh, hi. I remember you. The caverns, right? Aren’t you from Washington?”
“Yeah. Had to visit California and decided to stop by. Can’t stay long. I’m going home tonight, actually. Gotta leave pretty soon to catch my flight.”
“All right. Nice to see you.” He smiles.
“Oh, Dad!” Cody grabs his phone and tosses it to his father. “Take a picture of us?”
The boys stand on either side of me making goofy faces. Apparently, ‘unimpressed smirk’ doesn’t make for a good photo. Multiple goofy—and one or two serious—pictures later, the sun is down enough for me to slip the boys a tiny mental compulsion to feel satisfied at being bona fide vampire hunters and not go out of their way to get killed until they’re over twenty-one.
They hid it well, but old dude abducting them at gunpoint kinda scared them. I’m fairly confident they’ll think twice before doing anything reckless in the name of ‘destroying fiends’ again. Well, at least for a few years. Who knows? Apparently, Ventura has a ton of vampires in it, and not the nice kind.
I finally bid my farewells and head out the door at 7:14 p.m.
After sending ‹OMW to airport› to Ashley, I take off… though I do make a quick stop to feed from a middle-aged guy jog-walking his dog. It’s a friendly goldie who doesn’t mind me biting his—or her—master. Good dog. I erase myself from the guy’s mind and add a little nudge for him to give the dog an extra treat.
Finally… on the way home.
Swear, if anyone else tries to get in my way, I am going to claw the shit out of them.
32
Tradition
Okay, I kinda lied to myself.
Got halfway to LAX before I remembered promising to help Javier. Whenever—if—being a vampire ever starts to feel like something bad, I’m going to remember him. Ending up as a ghost sucks way more than vampires. Wait, no, not really. They don’t drink blood. Being a ghost stinks more than being a vampire. We kinda have the ‘sucking’ part monopolized.
Gah! Without Dalton, I’d probably have been a ghost haunting my house and having to watch my family fall apart. Especially Sophia.
To make a long story short, I couldn’t find Miguel Abena, but it didn’t take me too much mind reading to find his crew. Well, I probably could have located him, but I didn’t feel like spending hours hunting. I was able to locate six of his associates, all members of a small gang. Four of them happened to be in the SUV at the time of the drive-by. Couldn’t tell which one shot me since none of them saw me in the dark at the fringes of the party. They’d sprayed full-auto wildly, not caring who they hit. While Javier did belong to another gang, he hadn’t done anything to antagonize them. The shooting had entirely been Miguel’s people doing some ‘rite of passage’ bullshit to prove they had the balls to kill someone.
I’ll trust Javier, as a ghost, to know for a fact Miguel’s the one who killed him, even if Miguel himself has no idea who he hit. Anyway, I gave each one of them a mental compulsion to go to the cops and confess, thinking if they did ‘real time,’ they’d be ‘legit.’ All six of them are going to mention Miguel killing Javier Oquendo. Maybe I embellished a little, making them believe Miguel wanted to kill Javier specifically.
Perhaps it’s a bit extra of me or even unethical, but I’m a little pissed at him for shooting me in the head and keeping me away from home for an extra day. Because of him, I’m missing my Monday classes. Bad enough I’ve kind of cheated on my responsibility to my family while the parents are away. I wasn’t about to let Miguel steal even more time from my life, so I settled for sending six of his ‘friends’ to the cops instead.
Either way, I hope Javier’s satisfied.
Worked out, too. Without the detour, I would’ve ended up waiting around at the airport for the next flight. Skipped the cockpit thing this time, helping myself to an unclaimed seat in coach. The flight is almost three hours, but it’s a third of the time it would take me to fly myself.
At 10:21 p.m., my feet finally make contact with the deck behind my house.
Feels like something big and nasty is watching me from the yard, but I don’t see anything.
Don’t sense danger, either, so… yeah.
“Thanks for keeping an eye on them,” I say.
Something emits a mrff noise.
Wow. Sam’s got a hell hound, even if he doesn’t know it. How am I going to explain this to Mom? Ehh, I’ll stay out of it. Let him explain it. I head inside.
“Lucy, I’m hoooome!” I yell.
PlayStation music in the living room stops. Sierra, already in her nightgown, sprints into the kitchen and crash-hugs me. She squeezes with surprising desperation, but lets go the instant the thumping of the other two Littles coming down the stairs rattles the living room. She doesn’t want to be seen acting scared or clingy. Wait, whoa. Sierra actually hugged me. Not merely leaned against me. Shit. I messed up.
“Hey,” says Sierra. “You’re late.”
“Sarah!” squeals Sophia. She runs into a hug, utterly unconcerned at being seen happy-crying.
Sam walks over and hugs Sophia into me tighter.
“Yeah. I’m back. Didn’t mean to be gone so long.”
Ashley appears in the archway connecting the kitchen to the hall. An explosion of wild red hair surrounds her face. She’s wearing one of Mom’s pink bathrobes over one of my long T-shirts, and looks fried.
“Ash?”
“They’re yours now!” she rasps, then cackles. “Freedom!”
Uh oh. “Are you okay?”
Ashley’s cackling morphs into normal giggling. “Yeah, just messing with you. Though, I did come pretty close to taking them to the vet clinic and putting them in kennels.”
The Littles laugh.
“So, umm, why are you late?” asks Sam.
“It’s too close to bedtime for me to start explaining.” I pat hi
m on the head. “Promise I will tell you guys about it tomorrow after you get home from school.”
“The story’s that long?” Sierra whistles. “Wow.”
“Let’s do something together.” Sophia hits me with her weaponized pleading Les Mis stare.
“Yeah.” Sam nods.
“Let’s do something together and we won’t tell Mom and Dad you left for three days.” Sophia raises an eyebrow at me.
Hah. I ruffle her hair. “You guys won’t rat me out anyway, but sure. What do you want to do?”
“Cheesy Eighties movie?” asks Sam.
Sophia shrugs. “Don’t care as long as we’re all doing it.”
Sierra shifts her jaw side to side. “I dunno. Feels kinda wrong to touch ‘the stash’ without Dad here.”
“Umm… cheesy newer movie then?” Sam scratches his head.
“Cool,” I say. “But… give me a few minutes. I really need to shower and change.”
“Yay!” cheers Sam. “I’ll make popcorn.”
“It’s like a half hour ’til eleven.” Sierra blinks at him. “Too late to eat.”
“We’re staying up late for a movie.” Sam grins.
“We don’t have to.” Sophia flashes an innocent smile. “I could pause time.”
“No!” yells Ashley. “The last time you monkeyed with time, you turned me into a little kid!”
“And you were adowable!” I grab her in a headlock, rocking her side to side. “Soo cute.”
Ashley sighs.
Sierra and Sam crack up laughing.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper, letting go of her. “Is Mom’s Tahoe okay?”
“Yeah.” Ashley nods. “The tire’s replaced and looks new.”
I stare at her.
“Hell hounds pee fire.” Sam whistles innocently.
“You guys are messing with me.” I point at Ashley. “You are an even worse liar than me. Especially when you’re lying for a prank.”
“Aww.” She snaps her fingers.
“Wait.” I look at Sam. “You know about the hell hound?”
“Ashley told me. He’s nice.”
“He’s huge,” says Sophia.
“You can see him?” I tilt my head at her.
Sierra looks a touch jealous, but doesn’t yell.
“Yeah.” Sophia grabs popcorn from the cabinet. “We don’t have to worry about feeding him. He consumes fear, avarice, and the spiritual energy released during human suffering.”
“So, if we bring him to one set of first-round auditions for America’s Got Talent, he’s good to go for a year.” Ashley wags her eyebrows.
Laughing, I hug her, then hurry downstairs to clean up.
Three damn days in the same clothes.
Ugh. Never again.
33
A Little More Than Slightly Charred
Wednesday, March 14th, 2:52 p.m, says voiceover guy in my imagination. An ordinary late afternoon in an ordinary Pacific Northwest town, only today, the sun decided to be a bitch.
Ashley’s probably just getting out of class now and going straight to her job at the vet clinic. Otherwise, I might’ve asked her to drive. I’m presently in the Tahoe on the way to the airport to pick up the ’rents. I almost made the Littles stay home due to the brightness.
The Universe decided to give me the middle finger. And it’s not being subtle about it. One knuckle is touching my nose. Seattle isn’t supposed to borrow California’s sun. It did. And gave it some Tabasco. Maybe because I dared to relax and feel happy about spending Tuesday at home doing what I should have been doing all weekend—watching my siblings.
Yes, I cheated. Cut class Tuesday night to stay home with them. Going to mind wank the teachers tonight to make them think I was there and figure out what I missed. Sierra decided to skip her sword class, too, for the same reason. Unlike taekwondo, the place charges by session. So, her not going once doesn’t technically make her miss anything permanently. Dad paid for forty-eight sessions, not six months of twice a week.
Anyway, relaxation, or not being terrified, or whatever… the sun is frying me unlike it did in California when I shouldn’t have been out in it. I wanna say it had been brighter in San Diego as I left the medical examiner’s office and it didn’t bake me this hard, but I’d been totally distracted by my situation at the time. There is some relationship between my mental state and my sun tolerance. Going to have to figure it out. If it’s a power I can develop, seems like a good idea to do so. How crazy cool would it be for me to be able to go outside during the day and act normal? Still wouldn’t let me wake up any earlier, but I’ll take not bursting into flames if possible.
Because I’m nervous about getting into an accident while driving the Littles around, they are keeping relatively quiet and not distracting me.
Everything’s going reasonably well—right up until a cop comes out of nowhere behind me with his lights on.
Shit… what did I do?
“Sare, there’s a cop behind us,” says Sierra.
“I know.”
“Why?” Sam twists around to look. “She’s driving like a little old lady.”
“They pull people over for going too slow sometimes.” Sophia shrugs.
“No, they don’t.” Sam shakes his head.
The two of them serenade me with a ‘no they don’t/yes they do’ back and forth like something out of a Bugs Bunny episode as I make two lane changes to the right—signaling both times—and pull over on the shoulder.
We sit there in nervous silence for a while, the cop staying put. I watch him via the side mirror. Probably running the plate. Shouldn’t be an issue. Registration is good. Insurance is good. Mom’s driving record is spotless.
“Make him go away,” whispers Sam.
“Can’t. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s thermonuclear today.”
“Oh, crap.” Sierra gasps. “We’re going to jail.”
Sophia ‘eeps.’
“We are not.” Sam rolls his eyes. “She didn’t even do anything. Besides, we wouldn’t go to jail. We’d end up in foster care until Mom and Dad can get us back.”
Sophia ‘eeps’ again.
“No one is going to jail, foster care, or anywhere else,” I say, trying to calm Sophia down before she erupts in Mount Tear-suvius. “I’m legal, didn’t break any traffic laws, and have permission to use the truck. The absolute worst-case scenario right now is the cops arrest me and drive you three to the airport to get Mom and Dad. But there’s no reason for it. I don’t even know what the heck he pulled me over for.”
Cars keep whizzing by for a few minutes. It’s tempting to text the ’rents and tell them we’re going to be a little late, but I don’t want to touch my phone while a cop’s sitting behind me. Don’t want to give him any ideas about ticketing me for cell phone use while behind the wheel.
Finally, the guy gets out of the patrol car and walks up beside the Tahoe. I roll my window down. He gives me a weird look for wearing sunglasses. “Afternoon.”
“Hi, officer.”
“This your parents’ truck?”
“Yes. Mom’s.”
“She know you have it?”
“Yes. We’re going to pick our parents up from the airport.”
“You’re old enough to be driving, right?”
“Yes, officer. I’m nineteen.” I don’t bother saying ‘I have a young face.’ Sounds like a lie even if it’s true.
He glances to his right. “Know why I stopped you?”
“Honestly… not a clue. Was I going too slow?”
The cop jerks his thumb to his right. I look—and notice smoke wafting out the window of the door behind mine, which Sophia had cracked open a little. Oh, shit. Total Cheech & Chong moment. Cop probably thought he’d found a busload of stoners.
“Thought you might’ve been smoking a little of the ol’ hashish. Course…” He leans closer, sniffing. “That’s not weed. Something’s on fire. C’mon, get on outta there before it catches.”
What am I s
upposed to do here, tell him I’m what’s on fire? Pretending to be worried, I open the door and jump down to the street. The cop shoos the Littles out, telling them to all exit via the passenger side to stay away from passing traffic.
Once the Tahoe is empty, the cop half climbs in, looking around and checking between the seats and whatnot for the source of the smoke. A minute or so later, he backs out, seeming confused—until he looks at me.
Smoke’s wafting off my body. Not a ton of it, but it’s kinda obvious. I look like someone trying to conceal a dozen lit joints under my sweatshirt. He doesn’t seem to know how to process what his eyes are telling him. I can practically hear the gears in his brain jam to a stop.
“Craaaaaap!” yells Sophia, her voice as loud as if she’d screamed into a microphone connected to a concert sound system.
“Gah!” I clamp my hands over my ears—but gasp in shock at a sudden, awesomely pleasant coldness washing over me.
“Whoa,” whispers Sam.
“Why is it dark?” asks Sierra.
“Sare!” whispers Sophia, her voice part grunt as if she’s holding up a heavy object she can’t lift for too long.
I glance around. Looks more like I’m in the shade than darkness, but then again, I have vampire eyes. A totally sealed room with no light sources appears to be ordinary lighting to me. I can’t see the dark. I’m online and not roasting. The area of shade forms a perfect circle about as big around as our living room.
Oh shit. She conjured a sphere of darkness. I’m about to freak out at the idea every driver going by probably sees this enormous orb of infinite night on the side of the road when I realize all the traffic is frozen in place.
The cop, too, is standing there like a mannequin, not even breathing.
“Giant ball of night. Niiice,” says Sam. “Not very subtle.”
“Dork. She paused time, too.” Sierra elbows me. “You do realize our sister has become the kid from every Stephen Spielberg movie the government tries to abduct or destroy.”
“Max will eat them,” says Sam.
“Max?” Sierra and I ask at the same time.
Vampire Innocent (Book 10): A Vampire’s Guide To Adulting Page 30