“Sure,” I say. “But I’m gonna be up for a while.”
Lifting Spirits
13
Ashley and I have shared a bed many times since we became friends, always innocently. Tonight’s no different. Well, it’s a little different. We’re not chattering away keeping my parents or her mom awake and getting yelled at. She’s out cold and I’m not. Since I’m not even close to passing out, I fly straight up, glide sideways over her, and land in my desk chair with my feet up.
This situation requires information, so I call Aurélie.
“Oh, Bonjour mon chéri!” she chimes. “It is a pleasure to hear from you. How are things?”
“Interesting…” I fill her in on the vampire hunters, which sets her off laughing.
“They must have been quite new if they tried to stake one such as you,” she says between giggles.
“Umm. Dalton said stakes don’t work at all. Is that wrong?”
“A properly-prepared witchwood stake can immobilize a Shadow or a Beast, or so I’ve heard. Otherwise, he’s mostly correct.”
“Hmm. I’m no expert, but something tells me a bunch of guys who make a stake-chucking crossbow probably aren’t into witchwood and mysticism.”
She laughs. “You dealt with them well.”
“Question. Do I radiate any kind of charm power?”
“It is possible,” says Aurélie. “I have heard of Innocents having that ability, but it is neither as strong as mine nor quite the same.”
My turn to laugh, though quietly. “I doubt many vampires are as strong as you at charming people.”
“Aww, you say the sweetest things.” She air-kisses at me.
“So if I do have it, how would I know?”
“The Innocents I’ve heard of with radiant charms were able to project an air of inconspicuousness or harmlessness.”
“So, when my dad tells me not to abuse my powers of cuteness, he could be more than metaphorical?”
She giggles.
“Can I ask you something more awkward?” I whisper.
“Of course, chéri.”
I describe how Ashley’s been on sexy-time overdrive for the past two weeks. “It’s really weird seeing her like that. Did something happen? Even by accident?”
“Your friend is a most unusual mix of shy and adventurous. Inside, she wants things, but she is afraid to admit it to herself.”
Great. That much I already figured out. Not going to say that to Aurélie though. “Hmm. But she’s never really acted like this before.”
“Perhaps my presence may have left the poor girl a bit flustered.”
Massive understatement is also apparently one of her vampiric superpowers. “Yeah, a bit.”
“The changes you’re seeing in her should fade soon. It’s a mere aftereffect of feeding. The longer we are around, the stronger our bite becomes. Those upon whom we feed can become more like us for a short while.”
What? She bit Ash! I glance over at my best friend. She looks so innocent asleep, hearing Aurélie admit she fed off her pisses me off like someone casually mentioned throwing one of my little siblings out a third story window. I leap to my feet, ready to scream into the phone, but manage to hold myself back. Eyes closed, I shiver with rage. Most likely, Ashley gave her permission to bite―though given her mental state at the time, I could question the validity of her consent. Also, it’s probably not a great idea to piss off a woman who might very well be the oldest vampire in the area, especially since she seems to like me.
I grit my teeth and scowl at the ceiling.
“You are quite protective of your friend,” says Aurélie. “That is so heartwarming.” She emits a wistful sigh. “Please know it did her no harm, but if it plagues you to think about, I do not need to feed from her again.”
Did she read my mind over the phone, or was my long silence telling enough? “Umm, thanks.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and pace around. “Yeah, I guess it doesn’t really make sense for me to feel weird about it, but thank you.”
“I understand more than you think I do, chéri,” says Aurélie. “You’re struggling with how to regard people. The vampire part of you views them as a food source, essentially cows. But your true nature still sees them as people, especially your friends.”
My legs give out and I sink into my desk chair, staring at Ashley. “Wow… yeah.”
“There is another way to look at it, one I often embrace. People do not always eat for mere sustenance.”
“What, like chocolate cake?”
She giggles. “Perhaps somewhat. But if you are sharing a romantic moment with a mortal, and you feed from them in that moment, it can be like a joining of souls. Far beyond making a simple meal of them, a true act of intimacy. So, I hope you don’t think I regarded your dear friend as a steak dinner.”
I bite my lip, feeling guilty. “I did, but I didn’t understand.”
“That’s all right dear. You’re still a baby among our kind.”
“Yeah.”
We talk for a little while, and Aurélie invites me to a ‘thing’ she’s having next week, though suggests I not bring Ashley or Michelle with me. I know it’s going to involve my playing the part of living doll while the woman dresses me up in some frilly monstrosity. As much as I cringe at the thought, I agree to go. Still, it’s going to feel like a family gathering with a bunch of distant, boring relatives who appear out of nowhere once every few years and I can’t really stand―with the added discomfort of formal wear. Like it or not, I am a vampire and I should probably attempt a passable effort to insert myself into ‘the scene.’
Aurélie makes idle chitchat for a while more, and we get off the phone at a couple minutes to five in the morning. The Internet helps me kill boredom until it gets close enough to sunrise that I crawl back in bed. Dawn’s approach triggers an increasing sense of heaviness in my body. Over the course of two minutes, I go from feeling dizzy, to sluggish, to like I’ve got a heavy flu (minus the head cold), to Ashley disappearing and the clock jumping to 2:19 p.m.
I groan and sit up. The strange yellow blur in my vision makes sense when I try to rub my eyes and find a Post-It note affixed to my forehead.
Felt weird hanging out here with you sleeping, so I went home. CU soon.
-Ash
Oh, okay. Wow. I totally didn’t notice her climb over me to get out.
Faint giggling tells me my siblings are running around outside in the yard. Intermittent Sophia squeals can only mean cold water in the form of a lawn sprinkler. Well, that’s one thing I’ll never do again. Though, honestly, I’m a bit old for that, but it would be nice to hang out with my family and watch them having fun.
When I approach the door out of my room, I get this uneasy sense of warning that probably means it’s a really bright day out there and opening the door will be bad. I snag my iPhone off the nightstand and check the weather app. It’s showing an unusual eighty-one degrees and sunny. Ugh. Yeah that’s my butt turning into charcoal. Dammit. This completely sucks. Being awake but essentially trapped in my room is going to get old fast. Either Sam or Sierra wouldn’t mind it. Plop either one of them down in front of a computer and they can sit still all day, just like Dad.
I should try to talk Dad into putting tint on the basement windows so I have a little more range of motion on bright-as-hell days.
A string of texts from Hunter pops up on my phone. He starts off asking what’s up, and moves from ‘you there’ to eventually appearing to think I no longer want to see him. Ugh. Guess he didn’t get the memo about me being nonfunctional early in the morning. So, I do the best thing possible, and call him.
“Hey,” he asks, nerves clear in his voice. “What’s going on?”
“You remember all that stuff I told you about?”
“Yeah.”
“You sent me seventeen texts during the time I’m sleeping. I wasn’t ignoring you.”
He exhales. “Oh… duh. Right. Sorry. Been nuts here and I’m kinda losing my mind. Hey
wait. How are you awake now?”
“Side perk. Doesn’t do me much good today though. Too bright out. I’m stuck in my room.”
“Yeah, it’s hot. No clouds at all.” Hunter chuckles. “Don’t worry, it won’t last long. This is Seattle.”
“Right.” I flop on the bed.
We chat for a while about random stuff. Apparently, his mother and little brother both think he got into a big fight with his father and kicked him out. His kid brother is in awe, and Hunter’s thinking of taking some kind of martial art classes in case he ever has to really do something like that. No sense me telling him about the ‘vampire hunters’ since, officially, that never happened.
My door opens, letting in an inferno blast of light. I’m only partially aware of a hissing growl coming out of me as I recoil back against the wall and curl into a ball, trying to shield my face with both arms.
Mom screams and slams the door.
I sit there for a few seconds in stunned silence, staring at my right hand, covered in creepy black veins. My skin’s also gone corpse-white and a haze of smoke surrounds me. What the f―before I can complete the thought, my normal skin tone returns, and the marks begin fading. My mother has a nasty habit of walking into our rooms unannounced.
“Oh, my God, Sarah, what the hell was that?” yells Mom from the other side of the door. “You scared the piss out of me.”
“Babe, you okay?” asks Hunter. “Did you get a pet cougar?”
“Umm, one sec,” I mutter to the phone before shouting, “Sunlight, Mom! It’s really super bright out today.”
She clears her throat. “Yes, well, that’s no reason to do… whatever you did. Good grief, dear, you looked like a demon.”
“Sorry, but that just happened. I didn’t do it on purpose. Umm. Please knock?”
“Well, I suppose you’re eighteen after all now and deserve some privacy.”
Ya think? I roll my eyes. “Not so much privacy as spontaneous combustion.”
“I was going to see if you were up and wanted to join us for a day trip to the aquarium, but that might be a bad idea.”
Ouch. I really hate missing out on that, but I’m not in any great hurry to turn into a cloud of dust. “I wanna go, but I’m allergic to disintegration.”
“I understand.” Mom sighs. “Sorry, sweetie.”
Absentmindedly, I fidget at my knife scar. It might only be a faint white line, but it presently feels like a huge open wound. “Not your fault, Mom. I’d rather be like this than totally gone.”
My door rattles, probably her leaning up against it. “I love you, Sarah.”
I hop off the bed and press myself into the door on the other side. “I love you too, Mom. Be safe.”
For the first time since waking up as a vampire, my condition feels like a bummer. I trudge back to the bed, pick my phone up, and whine to Hunter for a while about being stuck down here while my family gets to go off and have fun. At least it doesn’t take him too long to cheer me back up.
Eventually, he leaves for work, and I sacrifice more time upon the altar of the Internet gods, watching fail videos, random paranormal sighting videos, and wherever YouTube’s random suggestions lead me.
Around six, the rumble of the fam coming home shakes the ceiling. I dash over to my door and grip the knob. Hopefully, it’s dimmed enough that I can at least tolerate being out of my room in the house. After a moment of standing there without feeling any sense of warning, I crack the door an inch. It’s bright in the basement, but nowhere near as bad as when Mom barged in.
It does, however, feel like a hundred degrees out there, but I don’t care. I’m done with being trapped in my cell.
I run upstairs, but stop short at the kitchen archway, cowering behind the wall from the blast of sunlight coming in the front door. Sierra, Sophia, and Sam run in. The girls are wearing shorts over their bathing suits, Sam’s in only his swim trunks. All three ditch their flip-flops by the door and barrel upstairs, fighting over who gets to take a bath first. Sophia’s horrified by the ‘stink’ in her hair from the orca tank splashing them. Sierra thinks she should go first being the eldest, and Sam couldn’t care less, but joins the argument anyway for amusement.
Once my parents come inside and shut the door, I emerge from my hiding place.
“Careful, hon,” says Dad. “It’s still pretty sunny out there.” He stares worry at me for a few seconds before dropping all the crap he’s carrying and rushing around pulling shades down and closing blinds.
Mom groans at the pile, but I dart over and grab it all before she can.
“I got it.” Mostly, it’s a cloth satchel with souvenirs/toys, and a couple plastic grocery bags.
She hugs me as soon as I stand up straight with the load. “I’m really sorry about earlier.”
“It’s fine, Mom. You didn’t know.”
“I still feel awful.” She brushes a hand over my face. “I think you might’ve given me nightmares for a month.”
Hmm. I squint at her, and hunt around for that memory. The sight of what I looked like to her makes me lean back in shock. Holy crap! When she saw me cringing in the corner of my room, my face had gone dead grey, my eyes both glowed red, and my fangs had grown way long. The hissing roar that came out of me sounded totally demonic. Yeah… Mom doesn’t need that memory. I change it to just me covering my face with my arms and screaming, “Mom, I’m on fire! Shut the door!”
Which, I probably would have done if my vampire side didn’t take over. Guess sudden sun exposure is like a reflex test where the doctor whacks me in the knee with a hammer, only with more murder involved.
Done with checking windows, Dad cruises into the kitchen and hugs me before retreating to his office to catch up on the work he hadn’t been doing all day. I wind up helping Mom put the groceries away as much as I can. Getting too near the windows is painful and dangerous at the moment. By the time dinner is almost ready, the kids come downstairs and swarm me, all eager to share how cool the aquarium was, though Sophia is sad at them keeping the big stuff like the orca and dolphins locked up instead of setting them free.
Yeah, I can kinda sympathize after today.
“Can you drink fish blood?” asks Sam.
“No idea,” I say. “Not seeing that really ever happening though.”
“She’d have to go into the water to catch one.” Sierra shakes her head. “She’s a vampire, not a mermaid.”
“I like mermaids,” chimes Sophia.
“We know,” says Sierra and Sam at once.
I join my family at the dinner table, though only snack on a little bit of spaghetti. I do, however, cause Sam to laugh until pasta dangles out of his nose when I impale two sausages on my fangs and make awful Dracula noises.
The doorbell rings right as we’re all cracking up like idiots.
“I’ll get―” I eye the front windows. Still bright. “Never mind.”
Sierra zips out of her seat and runs to the front door. I don’t know what makes me do it, but I shift my weight, ready to sprint after her if it’s someone dangerous. Sunburn or not, no one is hurting my sister.
“Oh, hi there, sweetie,” says a man. “Is your mom or dad home?”
“Who are you supposed to be?” asks Sierra in a flat tone. “And why are you carrying a gun?”
“Shit,” I mutter, pushing myself upright.
“I’m Detective Giancarlo with the Duvall Police department.”
Relief siphons all the strength from my legs and I flop back in my chair.
“Oh. Come in.” Sierra backs up, pulling the door open. “We’re eating now, but you’re a cop so I guess it’s important.”
Dad apparently loses rock-paper-scissors with Mom; he gets up and walks around the table on the way to the living room.
Detective Giancarlo steps onto the linoleum square by the door, the ‘shoes allowed’ zone inside the house―not that he knows or cares. “Sorry to interrupt your meal. I won’t be long.” He spots me and beckons with a wave. “Sarah,
you might want to hear this, too.”
Oh, great. My mind races to come up with what possible way I screwed up while overwriting his memory, but I draw a blank. Still, I get up and pad up behind Dad, who shakes hands with the detective.
“I’m here about the Deacon case.”
Dad’s jaw tightens. “You find the bastard?”
Oops. I try to look as innocent as possible. Perhaps I should’ve told my parents that I killed him. Then again, maybe it’s better they don’t know. At least for the immediate time being. Their surprise will be genuine.
“Yes, we did,” says the Detective. “That’s why I’m here.”
Mom leaps from her chair and runs over. “Sierra, please go back to the table.”
Sierra, as unfazed as an eleven-year-old in a blue-striped T-shirt and jean shorts can be, folds her arms. The look she gives Mom says, ‘I have seen some shit, woman, who are you talking to?’ Mom doesn’t back down her stare, so Sierra sighs and plods off.
“It’s not that bad, Mrs. Wright.” Detective Giancarlo manages a weird sorta smile that tries to be reassuring without radiating happiness about the news he’s bringing. “We found Mr. Deacon’s remains. He appears to have been the victim of an automobile accident and fire.”
Dad blinks and whistles. “He’s dead?”
I pretend to be worried and freaked out, gasping and grabbing on to Dad’s arm. “Holy crap! Scott’s dead!?”
“Yeah. Would’ve rather got him alive, all things considered. Attempted murder would’ve put him away for a good while. He got off light.”
The detective looks at me with a weird twitch in his eye. Ugh. I wish I could read his mind right now, but the sun is all over me. Damn that stupid ball of raging nuclear fusion. He’s probably still got a vague notion of feeling horribly sad at finding me dead, and being reminded he has a daughter a little younger than me. He got all dad-ragey about it. Aww. That’s sweet of him, being protective and stuff. If he’s glitching at my rewrite of his memories, it must’ve really bothered him.
A Beginner's Guide to Fangs (Vampire Innocent Book 2) Page 16