According to Dalton, he stole this spyglass from an elder. Supposedly, it once belonged to an admiral in the British Navy back when they had sailing ships, like total Pirates of the Caribbean type stuff. This particular spyglass had been all the way to Antarctica at one point and even survived the sinking of three ships, having been the prized possession of the navigation officer or some such thing like that.
I’d make a lousy criminal, as I can’t imagine why anyone would steal something so unique and priceless it could never be sold. Not like there’s dozens of ancient spyglasses out there, lined up on the shelves at Walmart and the stolen one could get lost among them. People steal expensive cars, but they’re not unique so that makes sense.
This thing? Ugh.
Well, these are vampires after all. I’m guessing the motive here wasn’t selling.
It would be easy to cheat and influence Dad to let me borrow the car no questions asked, but I promised myself―and my parents―that I would never use my powers on them like that. Betraying that trust is something I refuse to do. The only way I’d ever influence them against their will is if not to do so would get them killed. For that, I think they’d forgive me. Anything less, no way. Not risking it.
So, I consider the old teenage standby of lying. I’m not good at it. I know I’m the nerdy good girl, but still… having a lawyer mom made my early attempts at lying fail in grand ways, so I gave up trying. Hmm. I know. I’ll try ‘partial truth.’
Dad’s in his study clicking away.
“Hey,” I say. “Working?”
“Yeah.” He stops typing and turns toward me with a smile. “What’s up, hon?”
“I need to go somewhere for vampire stuff I can’t really talk about. It’s daytime, so I can’t fly. I was wondering if I could borrow the Sentra for like an hour or two.”
He regards me with a mixture of worry and suspicion for a moment. “Why can’t you talk about it? Someone swear you to secrecy or something?”
“Well, you know it’s easier to read the minds of normal people than vampires. If I told you about it―and I really want to by the way―then other vampires could find out by reading your mind. I don’t wanna put you at risk.”
“Oh.” He rubs his chin.
“It’s also a little dangerous and you’ll probably wanna help me.”
“You’re scared.”
I can’t keep the ‘well, duh’ expression off my face. “It’s daytime. I’m nervous.”
“Can you give me a watered down version?”
“Some vampires stole something from some other vampire, and it’s being kept in a place full of vampires. Since I’m like the only one in the whole area who can go outside during the day, the good guys want me to get their thing back while the bad guys are sleeping.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad. I’m guessing they have mortal agents guarding this thing?”
I laugh. “Wow, Dad, you sound so serious.”
“Well, as your primary mortal agent, I’ve made it a point to know these things.”
“Aww.” I lean down and hug him. “I promise to be as careful as possible. This thing isn’t worth my life. I’ll run away before I take a stupid chance.”
“Okay. But be careful on the road.”
“Thanks, Dad. And I will.”
I head back to my room and change from my sweatpants to a tee and jeans. Luck is with me and it’s drizzly today, so I rock the short sleeves. After grabbing the keys off the peg in the front hall, I step into my sneakers and go outside, dashing across the lawn in a light rain to the Sentra.
The car smells like a rental bowling shoe for some reason. If I get out of Abaddon clean, I think I’ll stop somewhere and buy an air freshener, not that it’ll help. This is the car Dad taught me how to drive in, and it barely ever leaves the driveway. It’s getting old, too. But I guess until he changes jobs and has to actually go to an office on a regular basis, he probably won’t bother getting a new one.
The engine hesitates at first, but kicks in, proof that it’s probably a good idea to take the car out for a spin more often than once every few months. In the fall when I start going to school again, I’ll likely wind up using it any day I have classes that start before sundown. Maybe I’ll drive anyway if only for the feeling of normality.
I prop my iPhone up on the dash after plugging in the address for the nightclub. It’s toward the northeastern end of downtown Seattle, so I’ve got a nice little ride ahead of me. Ugh. I’m so damn nervous. Why did I agree to do this?
“Please drive to highlighted route,” says the IPhone, blithely unaware its helping me be a criminal.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter. Guess our cul-de-sac is too small to be worth including.
Five minutes into the ride, I’m shaking from nerves. My head fills with something out of a bad movie: a dim nightclub interior full of twenty copies of the same guy wearing denim and biker leathers with Uzis or something, all trying to shoot me. As if. My life has become a horror movie, not a Jean Claude VanDamme flick.
Speaking of which, my Dad loves that guy. Has a whole shelf of DVDs.
And speaking of that, I really should think about taking like a martial arts class or something. My life’s going way off the rails from anything I ever imagined, and those rails are leading me straight into one dangerous situation after another. It couldn’t hurt to learn how to actually use my claws. Though, what martial art practices fighting with vampire claws? Ugh. Get real, Sarah.
A few people beep at me on the way since I’m driving like a little old lady. It’s raining and I’m afraid of dying, not to mention distracted by worries about what awaits me in a place called Abaddon. Maybe I’m being superstitious, but that just doesn’t sound like a friendly environment. In fact, it sounds the exact opposite.
Eventually, my iPhone leads me to the place.
A large, one-story building sits at the back end of a smallish parking lot. It’s almost entirely black, with violet highlights here and there. Tall letters in a demonic script spell out ‘Abaddon’ over the entrance, a set of double doors with round windows.
I gotta say, the exterior décor isn’t doing much for my confidence either.
No one’s around. Dad’s Sentra is the only car in the lot. A little too obvious, so I pretend to be there only to do a U-turn and drive a block off to a parking space. It’s a real pain in the butt to feed coins into a parking meter with shaking hands, but I manage it. Trembling, I walk back to the corner, turn left, and approach the nightclub on foot. The closer I get to the building, the more I feel that I’m never getting out of there if I go inside. When I get within arm’s length of the entrance, I turn around to go home, but stop myself.
Dalton saved my life. Well, sorta. I probably owe him at least a reasonable effort here. With a sigh, I force myself to face the building again.
Amazingly, the front doors aren’t locked. It’s a little after four, so maybe the mortal employees have started showing up to get ready. I pull the door open with a soft shchlep sound of a rubber gasket unsealing. The interior is less sun-hot, but annoyingly bright. I’d been hoping they’d blacked out all the windows, but no such luck.
I slip in and ease the door shut so it doesn’t slam, then creep into a short corridor with a coat check counter on the left and bathrooms on the right. At the end, a three-step stairway leads to a sunken room that looks like Tim Burton opened a franchise bistro. Black tablecloths and purple napkins are everywhere. Each table has black candlesticks shaped like roses, and the thorn motif continues with the decorations around the walls. A narrow art deco podium on the left, studded with dog collar spikes, makes me think of the hostess from Mi Tierra wearing black lipstick and a mesh top. Far to the right past the seating area, a big dance floor takes up the second half of the building, a stage for live entertainment at the back end. Narrow metal walkways connect to two sets of spiral stairs, for anyone brave enough to sit at tables on an elevated platform above a crowd.
A little off to the right at the
division between restaurant and dance club, a ‘staff only’ sign hangs above curtained hallway. That has to be where I want to go. A clank of bottles makes me freeze and duck low. Someone’s moving around behind a bar all the way against the wall on the left.
Shit.
I scramble forward and crawl under the nearest table, hiding behind the floor-length tablecloth, which is heavy enough to let my powers come back. My ears tell me there’s at least one person in the room, and a man at that. I can also hear other voices in the back, more than likely in the hallway I need to get to. Well, as long as I stay under this tablecloth, I don’t have to worry about catching a random case of death. Maybe I could trick the bartender into crawling under here with me and pulling the cloth down so I can mind-whammy him?
Eh, probably not.
When it gets quiet, I peek out from the table and crawl across to the next table. Dalton said to act like I belong in here, and crawling around and hiding is a total show of confidence, right? Okay, yeah, I’m a chicken―at least when I don’t have superpowers. Table by table, I make my way across the room toward the hallway. Once or twice, my hand squishes into something unpleasant on the floor, thin black carpet flecked with a purple thorn vine pattern. Sniffing my palm yields a faint greasy smell, but nothing identifiable.
I wipe my hand on a dry patch of carpet, then keep crawling.
Footsteps thump closer. I scoot under the next table and curl up in a ball. A man, probably a fairly big one, walks by, fluttering the tablecloth. He stops a few paces away.
“Huh. This place is so damn creepy.” He huffs. “Screw Bobby. Ghosts, my ass.”
“Yo, Nate, what’s up?” yells a more distant guy who doesn’t sound quite as buff.
“Bobby and his bullshit ghosts. Thought I saw something moving back here.”
The far man laughs. “I’m tellin’ you man. This place has a crazy vibe.”
Nate walks away, again brushing the tablecloth of my hiding spot. I twitch at the motion, covering my mouth with both hands to avoid squeaking in fear.
“The pair of you can eat a dick,” says Nate. “This place is less creepy at two in the morning.”
“That’s because there’s too many people in here to pick up the noises from the other side.”
I imagine Nate giving the other guy the finger, since he laughs.
For a minute or two, I hold tight, listening to the soft thumps of Nate walking around over by the bar. I’ve got two tables to go before I reach the hallway. My heart’s pounding in my chest from nerves. Weird. Such a normal reaction to fear. My heart doesn’t really need to do anything, though I’m glad it didn’t retire. Dalton’s hasn’t twitched in years. I’m sure he can make it beat if he needs to fake being alive, but I’ve never seen him bother. Vampires-not-Innocent have to consciously try to appear like the living.
That gives me the somber thought of wondering if Glim can do it, too. Something tells me that’s a big fat no. Dalton also said to act confident, but I don’t think walking ‘confidently’ into a place I shouldn’t be in the first place is going to work, so my butt stays down here.
The table above me jostles and I almost cry out in shock. I’d been too distracted feeling sorry for Glim that I didn’t notice footsteps getting close. Two soft thuds hit the wood, followed by the jangling of silverware.
Crap. Someone’s going to be roaming around setting tables. I look around―not that there’s anything for me to see other than black cloth―in search of a way out of here without getting busted. I suppose it wouldn’t be too bad if the cops arrest me for trespassing. As soon as it gets dark, I’ll just make them let me go and erase the minds of any officer who saw me. Giant pain in the ass, so I’d rather avoid it if I can.
Yeah I’m a vampire, but there’s still too much of me left in here. I’m terrified at the thought of being arrested. It would kill my parents.
A squeak behind me gives away a pushcart, probably full of silverware trays. Nate’s humming sounds like he’s right next to me. I can just picture him folding black napkins. Ugh. He’s going to be there forever. Hmm. A devilish grin spreads across my face.
I lift the bottom of the tablecloth up enough to find the wheel of the pushcart, put my toe against it, and give it a shove.
“The hell!” yells Nate.
“Hello, Nate,” I whisper, trying to sound eerie. “I see you.”
“Holy shit!” he roars.
His voice is so deep my bones vibrate. It’s really hard not to laugh like a fool at the sound of a huge dude screaming and running away. No time to waste. I crawl out, then scramble as fast as I can around the other two tables before dashing through the curtain. Once past it, I stand and flatten myself against black wood-panel walls. The corridor goes maybe twenty feet to a left corner, and there’s a damn window right at the bend, bathing me in fail.
And by fail, I mean sunlight.
And by sunlight, I mean ‘no powers,’ but at least this girl is not on fire.
The hallway smells like wet dog and sex with an abundance of cheap perfume and leather mixed in. Gee, I can guess what probably goes on back here. Out in the restaurant, Nate excitedly rambles about his cart moving on its own and hearing a voice. The other guy thinks he’s trying to mess with him and isn’t buying it.
I hurry past a bathroom and two changing rooms on the right. Two doors on the left have ‘guest act’ printed on them. At the corner, I stop and peer around. A longer stretch of hallway ends at a door marked ‘private,’ with eight or nine other doors between both sides. Bet those are the ‘love rooms.’ Pegs cover both walls, some holding coats. Shelves of papers, three-ring binders, and boxes of random junk stand on either side. The main office has to be the one at the end. Muttered conversation, all male voices, emanates from the third door on the right side.
As careful as can be, I sneak down the corridor, trying not to touch anything. I have no damn idea what possible excuse to use for being here if I get caught, so my best plan is: don’t get caught. That’s me. Sarah Wright: criminal mastermind.
I’m happily surprised when the ‘private’ door opens without being locked. That either means these guys are stupid, or only a stupid person would dare sneak into this office. Ugh. I’m beyond worrying about that now. I step in and rush the door closed behind me in case any of those guys I heard talking decide to walk into the hall.
The room in front of me looks like a study straight out of an old English manor house―with the Goth dial turned up to eleven. Anatoly Zarkhov probably wears a black lace smoking jacket with a huge furry collar, maybe an eyepatch. Two massive wingback chairs in black leather flank a marble coffee table by a fireplace. The desk straight in front of me is huge and looks like the kind of thing a medieval magistrate would sit behind while sentencing witches to death. Behind the desk on the wall, he’s got a life-sized oil painting of a nude woman hanging in midair, her toes inches from the ground. Blood rushes from a wound at her neck, cascading down over her snow-white breasts. Long black hair reaches her knees, falling around her like a cape. An army of tiny grey goblin-like imps gathers at her feet, lapping up the blood.
Whoa. That’s not creepy at all. Nope.
I take a step deeper into the room, feeling like a mouse dumb enough to invade a lair of cats. The sight of the rug by the fireplace halts me in my tracks. It looks like they killed and skinned a werewolf. I mean, it doesn’t really have human-like proportions, but wolves don’t get that big. The giant head frozen in a permanent tooth-baring snarl seems to stare straight into my soul. Its ebon fur looks super plush, but I don’t have any desire to touch it. Something about that thing’s dead eyes makes me think it would bite me, and being bitten by a wolf the size of a bear probably wouldn’t end well.
I emit a nervous whine from my nose. Sneaking in here is probably the most reckless idea I’ve ever had. Even more so than going into the woods alone with Scott to break up with him. I have no idea how to be a thief. This Zarkhov guy probably keeps that spyglass in a safe somewhere th
at I’ll never find. Futility grows in my gut, fear chipping away at my desire to do this. Right as I start to turn to flee, I catch a glint of gold on the mantel.
An ornate, engraved tube sits upon a wooden mount at the center, gothic dragon candlesticks on either side of it. That’s got to be the spyglass, but why would Zarkhov leave it right out in the open in an unlocked office? He probably thinks no one is stupid enough to steal from him. Or maybe that rug has secrets.
Hi, I’m Sarah Wright, and this is my first time at Idiots Anonymous.
After a quick glance back at the door, I approach the terrifying rug, giving the head a wide berth. The mantel is huge, putting the spyglass over my eye level but not out of reach. I edge closer and go up on tiptoe for a better look. No sense swiping the wrong thing. Sure enough, it’s got an old dusty lens on one end and an eyepiece on the other. Text along the underside entwined with engravings depicting mermaids and sea dragons says something about ‘His Majesty’s Royal Navy’ or some such thing.
The door clicks and swings open at the exact moment I pick the spyglass out of its holder.
Shit!
“Who the hell are you?” asks a man.
“Umm.” I twist around. “Lost?”
A thirtyish guy with long brown hair, wearing a Children of Bodom T-shirt and jeans stands in the doorway, giving me the same sort of stare a mall security guard might level off at a shoplifter.
“I was looking for someone to talk to about a job application. Didn’t see anyone out front, so I came back here looking for the manager’s office.” I gesture around at the room. “Wasn’t expecting it to be so… extra in here.”
He points at me. “What are you doing with that thing?”
I glance down at the spyglass in my hands. “Oh, this? Just curious. Never saw anything like this before.”
A Beginner's Guide to Fangs Page 22