A crack outside announces the chair hitting the ground.
“Who!” roars Wolent, his face reddening, veins rising in his forehead.
I cringe, keeping my gaze on the floor. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wolent. I’m just a kid. Dalton didn’t tell me anything except that he stole this from you, but before he could give it to the other person, Zarkhov’s people stole it from him. I snuck into Abaddon to get it back for you, and then some other vampires attacked me, and they threatened my little sister trying to steal it. That spyglass is yours, and I’ve brought it back to you. I’m sorry, but it’s not my concern who wanted it stolen.”
The three in the back of the room collectively gasp.
Wolent glares at me for another few seconds before bursting into laughter. He ambles over and pats me on the back. “I like you, girl. You’ve got balls.”
“Not the last time I checked,” I mutter.
He playfully elbows me in the side and gestures at the other three. “Get a load of this one. I love her.”
The scariest thing about this guy isn’t his age. It’s watching him go from warm to furious to warm again so fast. I weather the constant elbowing with a weak smile.
“You have my gratitude for returning the spyglass.” He waves dismissively. “The thing itself is not worth so much as the insult of having someone invade my home and steal. I respect what you have done for me at personal risk, and risk to your family.”
“Oh, this is the girl who’s still associating with her mortal kin?” asks the redhead. “That’s so adorable.”
The two men beside her stifle snickers.
A confused man in a green jumpsuit pokes his head in the smashed window. He surveys the damage, shakes his head with a put-upon sigh, and walks off grumbling.
Wow. Guess that sort of thing happens a lot.
“I believe that is the case,” says Wolent with a smile. “She is a little young to have received the Transference, but not so small it would create an issue.”
“Wasn’t exactly my idea.” I fidget. “I’m glad it happened, but I didn’t ask for it.”
He nods. “Aurélie filled me in. You also did us a favor by dealing with that Scrap. Perhaps I should offer a favor in return.”
“That would be most generous of you, but unnecessary. The Scrap was a personal issue… and, well, if you’re so inclined, could you maybe not kill Dalton?”
“Considering you have returned what was taken, I give you my word he shall not be destroyed.”
Ugh. That’s somewhat open ended, but it’s better than nothing. “Thank you.”
“Come.” He slips an arm around my back and ushers me over to the group. “Since you’re already here, you may as well be social.”
“Arthur,” says the blond man, “can’t you see the little thing is terrified? I’m sure she wishes to go straight home.”
“It’s likely past her bedtime.” The dark haired guy snickers.
“Would it be rude of me to tell these dandies to go eff themselves?” I ask, glancing at Wolent.
Both men gawk at me. Wolent breaks out in bellicose laughter. The redhead covers her mouth to hide her laughter.
“Not at all, kid.” Wolent squeezes me against his side in a brief one-armed hug. “I tell them that, and a lot worse, all the time.”
Oh, great. Guess I’m in for a long ‘social’ night.
A Life Left Behind
27
So, I had a weird night hanging out with an old-as-hell vampire and his hangers-on, largely standing there while they talked about philosophy. The prig who said I stayed up past my bedtime actually thinks the Greek gods were real, but vampires instead of actual gods. Gotta admit, it was kinda fun watching Lily (the redhead) mock him mercilessly. I finally excused myself when the opportunity presented itself. Another supernatural ass-kicking left me famished, and I wound up feeding twice on the way home.
I can’t decide if I feel guilty about the first one. The girl was only fourteen, a runaway. I guess someone like her amounts to the vampire version of guilt eating. Her blood tasted like angel food cake with a hint of orange citrus. I needed something super yummy to purge the memory of Lynn’s vampire blood from my mouth. Swear I won’t bite under eighteen again. For what it’s worth, since she’d only run away to meet some dude she met online, I compelled her to go home and walked with her to a police station so no one attacked her before she could get there. That made me feel less guilty about biting someone younger than me.
My second meal was a security guard. I did it backward and had dessert before the main course. For whatever reason, my brain associated his blood with the flavor of steak. I’m no vegetarian like Sophia, but I never really adored steak like Dad.
Anyway, being I didn’t get out of Wolent’s place until after three in the morning, I decided not to go home since no one would be awake. Randomness brought me here, to the Space Needle. There’s a little grey round part at the center of the roof with a flat surface that makes for a nice perch. Sitting on top of it staring out at Elliott Bay watching the ripples is kinda calming.
Despite having a skirt on, I curl up with my chin on my knees, arms wrapped around my legs. So what if birds see my underpants. Seeking solitude is totally unlike me. Way up here, out of sight, apart from the world. Guess it’s a metaphor for this life I’ve landed in. I’m no longer fully human. I’ve popped up out of the crowd, cruising along at a higher altitude and slower speed. The entire reality I know now is going to careen out of sight eventually. Mom, Dad, my siblings, Ashley, Michelle, even Hunter. They’re all going to follow the current rushing past me to go down the drain at some point.
Does Hunter deserve to be stuck with me? What if he wants kids? Could I possibly give him any sort of real companionship? He’ll grow old and I’ll still look exactly like this. No one will care at first, but when he’s forty or so, everyone will look at us like he’s some kind of perv.
Maybe I screwed up going back home.
Grief, as if my whole family and all my friends died at the same time, crashes into me, and I bawl like a child. Was it selfish of me to go home? How much of that came from me really caring what my family went through so much as me being too much of a chicken to be on my own? The idea of heading off to USC had scared me to death, and that didn’t involve any actual death. Yeah, sure, my family lost their collective minds with grief when they thought me gone, but it wouldn’t have destroyed them. Families have to deal with losing people all the time. They’d have coped with it.
They would have, right?
A leathery flutter to my right precedes the soft clunk of boots hitting the roof. I let my feet slip forward so my skirt falls flat over my legs.
“Do you prefer to be alone?” asks Glim.
I sniffle-chuckle. “I’ve never really wanted to be alone before. I’m not the ‘alone’ type.”
A black boot steps into my peripheral vision. “That’s neither a yes nor a no.”
“It’s cool.” I pat the roof next to me. “If you wanna hang out.”
He sits beside me, black trenchcoat fluttering in the wind. “So, what’s on your mind?”
“I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out how you did that turning into smoke thing.”
“You’re terrible at deception.” He grins. “But, if you want to know… I don’t really turn into smoke. It’s an illusion. I make people see it.”
“Oh, that’s cool.”
“The one who brought me into the darkness taught me many things. I suppose I have come to value that knowledge, if not the gift he bestowed.”
I glance down at the frilly tiers of my skirt ruffling in the breeze. “How’d you get away from him?”
“We reached a point where he had taught me all he cared to, and he went on his way.” Glim picks at his nails, making a scraping sound like someone sharpening bone knives. “Saeed El-Amin is an individual I both loathe and respect.”
“Glim?”
“Hmm?”
I look over at him, taking
in every ghastly contour of his face. For no reason I understand, it doesn’t bother me. Our circumstances couldn’t be any more different, yet we have those two things in common: neither of us wanted to be vampires and we both still have families.
“Did I make a mistake going home, not letting my family believe I was dead?”
He takes my hand, gazing at it as if comparing my pinkish skin to his slate grey fingers. “If I appeared as you do, I would have done the same. Why do you doubt your choices, or the grief you spared them?”
A sigh slides out my nose as I look back out over the bay. “I’m afraid I’ve put them in danger.”
“What you’ve become isn’t putting them in danger. Getting involved with thieves who’ve pissed off powerful people did.”
Sadness tinges my laugh, but at least I stop crying. “Yeah, I guess that’s a good point even if it is a technicality.”
“It’s not a technicality.” He grins. “You could live as a vampire for years, leaving your house only to feed, and never bring a bit of trouble to your doorstep. It’s not what you are, it’s what you do.”
My grief cracks open like an egg, bursting into a momentary upwelling of happiness at still having a family. The day will come when I have to deal with losing them, but maybe I’ll try to act like a teenager for once and push that thought out of my head as a distant future that’s so far away I can’t even comprehend it.
“Did you ever think about using your tricks to make your sons see you as you used to be?”
Glim shakes his head, glowing yellow eyes downcast. “Anthony Chavez died in Mosul. I’m Glim now, merely the ghost of a lost father talking to his kid from beyond the grave. I guess it doesn’t really look like it, but I’ve made peace with that.”
I nod, choking up at the idea of never being with my family again.
“Actually,” says Glim, “I couldn’t bear the thought of them seeing a monster like this and screaming.”
“One of my sisters screams at her own shadow sometimes. In fact, one time, she hung her winter coat on her closet door. Something woke her up in the middle of the night and the hood made a silhouette against the window. She thought someone snuck into her room, so she screamed her head off.” I put an arm around him. “Kids can be skittish. Hey I’m still sort of a kid, and I think you’re pretty badass looking. People are monsters on the inside, not the outside.”
Glim shifts his weight and coughs to the side. Wow, I think he’s choked up.
“Except for Scott. Then it’s kinda both.”
He sputters into a chuckle. “I think you’ll do okay among us.”
“I’m figuring it out.” I extend my fangs. “These things really ought to come with a user’s manual. I don’t even know enough to know what I don’t know.”
Glim laughs. “If you do nothing else, promise me you’ll hold on to that positive outlook.”
I lean against his side. “I’ll try. If I can ever get my emotions under control.”
“Oh?” he asks.
“Lately, I’ve been swooping from happy to crying to terrified to feeling overwhelmed. I even took my stuffed animals out of my closet. It’s really damn annoying.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much. That’s normal.”
“Normal?” I glance up at him. “Somehow, I don’t see you burying yourself in teddy bears, unicorns, and stuffed rabbits.”
“Hah.” Air passing around his fangs whistles as he laughs. “I was older when it happened to me. You’re not only a teenager right in the middle of your hormonal rage, you’re dealing with being stuck between the world of the living and the dead at the same time you’re neither a child nor an adult. If your worst problem is heavy mood swings, you’re doing okay.”
“Thanks. You really think so?”
“Yes.” He looks me in the eyes. “You’re feeling your new abilities out and, honestly, I don’t think any other vampire in this city could’ve gotten away with talking to Arthur Wolent like that.”
I gasp. “You were watching?”
“Not in real time. I heard whispers after the fact.”
“Neat trick.”
“I’m full of neat tricks.” He gazes up at the sky. “Withstanding the sun, however, is not one of them. I should be on my way.”
“Yeah, me too.”
We stand at the same time.
“See you around.”
Glim bows like a Disney prince. “Farewell, sweet maiden fair. May the winds carry you home and the shadows protect you.”
“I’m sure at least one shadow will be watching over me.” I kick the toe of my sneaker at the roof of the Space Needle, and grin at him. “Take care of yourself, too.”
He nods once, and whirls into a shadowy cloud.
“Drama queen,” I say with a chuckle, then let gravity take me off the edge.
The city below rushes toward me for a second or so before I pull out of the dive.
A broad smile curls my lips as I climb back into the sky.
Time for this vampire girl to go home.
Fin
Acknowledgements
Thank you for reading A Beginner’s Guide to Fangs! I hope you will take the time to leave a review, even if it’s just a few words. Reviews are incredibly vital to independent authors.
Additional thanks to:
Alexandria Thompson for the beautiful cover.
About the Author
Originally from South Amboy NJ, Matthew has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Since 1996, he has developed the “Divergent Fates” world, in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, The Awakened Series, The Harmony Paradox, and the Daughter of Mars series take place. Along with being an editor at Curiosity Quills press, he has worked in IT and technical support.
Matthew is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, Gamemaster for two custom RPG systems, and a fan of anime, British humour, and intellectual science fiction that questions the nature of reality, life, and what happens after it.
He is also fond of cats.
Links
Please visit me on the web at: http://www.matthewcoxbooks.com/wordpress/
Also, for news, updates, and exclusives, join my readers group on Facebook: Division Zero
Reader Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/137705036768984/
Find me on Twitter: @mscox_fiction
For contact or inquiries regarding this novel, please email at: [email protected]
Other books by Matthew S. Cox
Middle Grade
Tales of Widowswood series (fantasy)
Emma and the Banderwigh
Emma and the Silk Thieves
Emma and the Silverbell Faeries
Emma and the Elixir of Madness
Emma and the Weeping Spirit
Citadel: The Concordant Sequence (post-apocalyptic)
The Cursed Codex (LitRPG – Fantasy/contemporary)
The Menagerie of Jenkins Bailey (contemporary fantasy)
Young Adult
Caller 107 (contemporary paranormal – Note: strong language)
The Summer the World Ended (nuclear apocalyptic/family drama/contemporary)
Nine Candles of Deepest Black (witchcraft horror)
The Eldritch Heart (fantasy / LGBT)
The Forest Beyond the Earth
Out of Sight
Adult
(Divergent Fates universe – Science fiction / Cyberpunk / Paranormal)
Division Zero series
Division Zero
Lex De Mortuis
Thrall
Guardian
The Awakened series
Prophet of the Badlands
Archon’s Queen
Grey Ronin
Daughter of Ash
Zero Rogue
Angel Descended
Daughter of Mars series
The Hand of Raziel
Araphel
Ghost Black
Virtual Immortality
The Harmony Paradox
Divergent Fates Anthology
(Non-DF novels)
The Roadhouse Chronicles Series (post nuclear apoc/zombie)
One More Run
The Redeemed
Dead Man’s Number
Faded Skies series (post-ww3 / sci fi)
Heir Ascendant
Ascendant Revolution
Chiaroscuro: The Mouse and the Candle (vampire, drama)
Temporal Armistice Series (urban fantasy)
Nascent Shadow
The Shadow Collector
Wayfarer: AV494 (sci fi horror)
Axillon99 (LitRPG)
Vampire Innocent series (vampire, comedy-drama)
Operation: Chimera (sci fi – with Tony Healey)
The Dysfunctional Conspiracy (nonfiction memoir – with Christopher Veltmann)
Winter Solstice series (urban fantasy – with J.R. Rain)
Convergence
Containment
Alexis Silver series (urban fantasy – with J.R. Rain)
Silver Light
Samantha Moon Origins series (urban fantasy – with J.R. Rain)
New Moon Rising
Moon Mourning
Maddy Wimsey series (detective / witchcraft – with J.R. Rain)
The Devil’s Eye
The Drifting Gloom
The Far Side of Promise (anthology)
Sophie’s Light (novella)
A Beginner's Guide to Fangs Page 29