by Ian Hall
I couldn’t help myself. “Nebulous?”
He smiled triumphantly, and paid me a flirtatious wink. “Too amazing for comprehension.”
“Down, Nebby,” Malcolm demanded in a dry tone.
Bernadette stretched a flat line that might have been a smile over her face. I could tell my presence had stolen some of her thunder for being the only girl. Typically, Mandy Cross would have strutted a little, let the plain girl wallow in her inferiority. However, Tracy Walters simply fluttered her fingers effervescently and maintained a bashful posture.
“This is all so interesting,” I said to her. “Are you the one who caught that EVP?”
Her smile became more genuine. “I did! What’s weird is that I didn’t hear a thing at the time. I was all alone in the room, too. So, it was definitely startling when I listened to the recording.”
I mirrored her wide-eyed expression. “Bizarre!”
“I know, right!” she gushed.
Just that quickly, I’d won my potential adversary over. Now that I was no longer a fly on the wall, I repeated my question from before.
“Who are the Comptons?”
“Those are the people who let us come out and investigate their house,” Malcolm explained. “Their daughter, Jamie, goes to our school and came to us a few weeks ago ‘cause of some crazy stuff going on at home. She talked her parents into giving us the green light.”
“That’s lucky.”
Malcolm shrugged. “Luckier if we’d actually caught something verifiable. Right now all we’ve got are some strange light spots on photos and what sounds to me like a freaking dog snoring from under the bed.”
His harsh evaluation visibly took the wind right out of Bernadette’s sails. Her already-flat chest sank in deeper and her shoulders slouched.
“You never know,” I said diplomatically. “I think you may really have something there.”
Bernadette dipped her head to conceal a smile from Malcolm. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the EVP was total crap. Besides – who was I to dispute her belief in ghosts and goblins? I’m a GD vampire, for goodness sake.
The next hour and a half was passed reviewing more “phenomenon”; creaking floors. By the time Malcolm announced the end of the meeting, my brain had gone dull and my eyes felt heavy. I didn’t think I could survive another meeting.
Malcolm folded his laptop shut and clasped his hands on top of it. “Okay… good work, guys. This coming Saturday is our investigation of the old Weatherby mansion.” He turned to me. “Tracy, you’re welcome to join us; we could always use an extra set of eyes and ears.”
I inhaled, pausing before I delivered my polite excuse.
Luckily, he cut me off.
“This time we’re gonna have a guest investigator – someone with some real background in paranormal phenomenon.”
Bernadette about jumped out of her chair. “Connie?”
Malcolm nodded his affirmation. “The one and only – Mizz Alvares.”
I perked way, way up. “Oh, I’ll be there for sure!”
Lyman looked positively catatonic when I got in the car. “Guess who I’ll be hanging out with Saturday night?”
The Biggest Surprise
If there could be a facial expression that combined the exuberance of the Cheshire cat, and the smugness of the cat that had just eaten the canary, Mandy exhibited it. “Guess who I’ll be hanging out with Saturday night?”
I let her have her moment, let her wallow in her smugness, and pulled out of the school parking lot. But I did get a shock when she said ‘Mizz Alvares.’ “Sounds like she’s some kind of local personality or something?”
“Yeah, they certainly elevated her to a status beyond a mere member.”
“Do you think I could tag along? You know, do the protective brother kind of thing?”
“I’ll find out tomorrow, seems the group is close-knit, but there is one thing wrong.”
“What’s that?”
Mandy paused. “Well, usually vampire recruiters pick the uber-hotties to turn. Football jocks and cheerleaders; gives them more influence over humans and an added edge to the sex part. But these guys are geeks. I’m not sure I can see the connection to Connie Alvares. A connection to the vampire part; none of these guys are all that good-looking.”
I had witnessed the vampire infrastructure first-hand. Despite the older vampires I’d seen, like Amos Blanche, the majority were the cream of the crop. Even those turned in their ‘middle ages’ were good looking people. Both Angela McCartney and Elena’s ‘mother’ in New River were lookers, definitely in the VILF category.
At school the next day, Mandy hung out with her new friends at lunch, and I sat solo with my loaded tray and a copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It wasn’t my idea; Mandy suggested it, her version of putting more stickiness on the fly-trap. It was slow reading, but I didn’t mind it, I mean, I wasn’t really meant to be reading it anyway.
I saw her approach over the dining room, but kept my eyes firmly on the book.
“Class reading?” a honeyed voice asked.
I looked up, supposedly surprised, but actually got taken aback at the girl’s appearance; she was thin, tall, and really quite pretty, but all in a kind of matronly package. Almost as if my favorite cute librarian had been whisked back into high school. Thick-rimmed glasses sat on a very pretty face, dark hair tied fiercely back. As I looked up, I suddenly realized I was looking at Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series. Well, without the overly-large tits. “Eh, no. Not class reading; just trying to get some perspective from all the modern vampire crap on television.”
She smiled. “And don’t forget the glittery ones.”
I joined her grin. “Yeah, I just thought I’d get some clarification from the originator.”
Her expression became suddenly serious. “Well, he actually wasn’t the first, you know.” Her enunciation was suddenly sort of school-ma’army. “Even on Wikipedia, there’s ten or more references to vampires before Stoker. Some go back almost two hundred years before his ‘Dracula’ novel.”
“Wow.” I put the book down. “I had no idea.”
She stuck her hand out stiffly at me. “Rebecca Finchley. My friends call me ‘Finch’.”
I shook her hand and indicated the seat in front of me. “George Walters.”
“Nice to meet you, George.” She smiled again, and it would be trite to say that her ‘inner beauty’ shone outwards when she smiled, but that seemed to be a pretty accurate description. She was like a flashlight, and when she smiled, she beamed. Without it, she looked older and quite grey. She pointed to my book. “So are you a believer?”
I sat for a second, knowing my answer, but pretended to be musing over her question. I quickly went over the facts; I am a Ginger Nut, and as much of a pull on the ladies as Richie from Happy Days, but I also knew the draw of the new kid in town. I knew I had time to fathom her interest in me, but I didn’t let my guard slip. “Naw. I’m a strictly non-believer in the vampire stuff. I mean, how would it be possible?”
She smiled again. “I’m so glad. My aunt is a psycho-nutcase that believes in all that stuff. It’s refreshing to meet someone with their feet firmly on the ground.”
I nursed the remote idea that Alvares would be the aunt, but I mean, that would make the approach obvious, wouldn’t it? “My sister’s got the same bug in her head. ‘Ghosthunters’ on TV, all the ‘What’s that?’ crap. It drives me demented. She even joined the school Parapsychology group.”
Finch’s face fell. “Not Malcolm’s group?”
“The same. Why?”
“Oh, they’re pretty harmless, but they did lose a student earlier this year.”
“They did?” I asked, suddenly interested. “Tell me more; my sister’s going on some ghost-hunt this weekend.”
“Oh, she’ll be fine. Like I said, they’re pretty harmless, but they used to be a much bigger group, maybe twenty or so. The rats left the sinking ship when Victor went doo-lally.” She leant o
ver the table, conspiratorially. “He went to one of their ‘ghost-hunts’, and lost it completely. There was a bit of a scandal by all accounts. Got taken away by ambulance, never seen again. He’s in an institution, we got told. His parents left town soon after; couldn’t stand the place anymore.
She’d just described a typical vampire death and cover-up. I wasn’t about to let this little lady walk away without getting to know her a bit better.
“You drink coffee?” I asked.
“Sure. You asking me out?” She smiled again, and to be honest, I found it hard to resist.
“Damn straight.”
Lyman set it up for me to “accidently” bump into him and this Finch chick after school. I, in turn, roped Bernadette into giving me a ride, and joining me at the coffee shop. We beat the other two by a good ten minutes, long enough to get our lattes and claim a table. She seemed in good spirits, excited for the upcoming investigation and going on about the super-amazing Connie Alvarez.
As soon as Finch walked through the door with my “brother” George, the bubbly Bernadette took on a much more abrasive persona. The second I called the duo over, all her chippy chatter ceased.
“Hey, Mand…man… whatcha doing here?”
It looked like I was the only one who caught Lyman’s little twist of tongue; I wondered how the two of us were going to survive these constantly changing names. Just that afternoon in English I nearly called him Lyman but stopped myself just in time to make it “Lime Head”, which I had to explain away as his family nickname. It caught fire pretty fast and would haunt him for the rest of the semester at least.
“Just hanging out,” I replied. “This is my friend Bernadette from the paranormal club.”
Lyman nodded at my stiff-lipped companion and introduced his tagalong simply as “Finch.” She seated herself and pivoted her chair slightly away from the table, looking distinctly at some random spot to her left. Bernadette followed suit.
I played dumb. “You two know each other?”
“Kind of; we both have the same parents,” Finch answered.
It was Lyman’s turn to act surprised. “Oh! This is your sister?”
Bernadette snorted unpleasantly. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
I giggled, but the sibling rivalry looked all in good spirits, despite the palpable negativity flowing between them. “Lym- …Head… here is my brother.”
“So, you’re the infamous ‘Lime Head?” Bernadette said, her chilly demeanor melting slightly. “I’ve been hearing that damn name all over the place.”
Lyman grimaced and slid me a warning glance. He wasn’t getting half the kick out of his new nickname as the rest of us were.
“My sister’s the only one who still calls me that.”
Finch perked up. “How’d you get that name in the first place?”
Lyman raised his brow at me with a “well, sis” kind of expression. I didn’t skip a beat.
“Growing up, there was this lime tree in our backyard. George used to just LOVE to suck on ‘em all summer long; he was always walking round with this puckered up face… voilà… Lime Head was born.”
Both the sisters chuckled and twisted in their chairs, effectively joining the conversation.
“Do you guys want to hang out a bit?” Bernadette asked, swirling the last of her coffee in the oversized mug.
“Oh, my!” Finch slapped her hands together. “You should see her apartment! It really is to die for.”
I looked at Lyman, and he managed to both shrug and nod at the same time. I guessed we were good to go. “Sure.” I looked at the time on my phone. Just after eight. “We can do that for a while.”
We took two cars; I sat up front in Bernadette’s, Finch and Lyman obviously doing a bit of gelling together in our blue compact. I found out in that short car trip that Bernadette was a texting nut. Four texts in five minutes.
Bernadette’s apartment didn’t look too shabby, but it seemed about the same as ours, and not that much to write home about. She fussed on getting some ‘drinks’ for us, and Lyman and I lounged on big couches in the living room. When she brought out four cold beers, Lyman and I exchanged worried glances.
Finch flicked on a big screen on the main wall, and fiddled with the menu for a while.
Then she slumped close to Lyman.
Bernadette sat next to me. “First,” she said, “We’ve got someone for you to meet.”
I relaxed back on my cushions, but my body was ready for hitting Bernadette over the head with the bottle and running. Something wasn’t quite right, and my Spidey-senses were hitting overload.
Then the screen came alive, and Howard Weeks’s big, friendly face was in true HD.
“Hi, kids. Are you enjoying your California vacation?”
Well, fuck me.
I sat openmouthed for a good five seconds, then Howard looked at me, then Mandy. I looked around, and sure enough, a small circle stuck on top of the television gave away the presence of a camera. “Hi there,” I said, still stupefied.
“We’ve had the two of you under supervision all the way, sorry and all that, but we had to keep tabs on you.” He looked from side to side. “Well, ladies, did our secret service agents pass the test?”
Bernadette grinned, leaning forward on the sofa. “We didn’t detect anything from Lyman at all, but Mandy proved relatively easy to latch on to.”
“Well, thank you very much.” Mandy folded her arms defensively. “We didn’t know we were going to be tested by professionals.”
“Lyman, Mandy,” Howard began, “Meet Valérie Lidowitz, and Finch Scholes. Both vampires, but both have been trained by the very best of the Order of the Strogoi, and have worked with us in the past. They would have helped us in Arizona, but things got so busy so quickly, we couldn’t mobilize them quick enough.”
So they were vampires. I hadn’t detected a thing, not a trace. “I had no clue.” I said, looking Finch in her smiling eyes. “How’d you do it?” I kinda felt disappointed. I know Mary-Christine and I had just ‘done it’ before she got hit by the rage thing, but Finch looked cute, and so very into interesting stuff, and in the ten minutes I’d known her, I kinda had envisaged us actually getting it together. Damn.
I realized I’d missed some of Howard’s speech in my musings over getting dirty with Finch.
“…Connie’s spent over three years getting into the vampire scene in San Diego, and we needed another avenue to get you two into Alucard University in Phoenix. Gregor Academy would have been just far too obvious.”
Mandy seemed more up-to-speed than me. “So basically, we just sit out the rest of term, and sign up in the summer?”
Howard laughed. “Not so easy, Miss Cross. Alucard has an early enrollment program, supposedly aimed at getting a good intake, but we all know they’re up to something, and it’s happening soon. They need boots on the ground, and they’re doubling their student body overnight.”
“And we’re off to sunny Phoenix?”
“If you’re up for it.”
“Can we get a stop off in Chicago?” she asked. “See the ‘folks’? You know, just sit by their beds for a bit, kind of catch up, you know.”
“Why, Miss Cross, it seems that you’re becoming more human as you get older.” Howard grinned over her forced grimace. “Yes, you can visit, but you’ll have to make it quick. You’ll be enrolling in the University within a week or so. The last date they gave us was April 4th.”
“Wow, that’s in less than two weeks,” Mandy said.
“What about the rest of the schoolwork?” I asked, puzzled that we could just ‘up tent poles’ and move again.
“Well, that’s why we’re sure that Alucard is up to something. Usually your college choice would stay ‘unknown’ until halfway through the summer. Something’s boiling in Arizona, and we think they’ll be so gung-ho to get it going, that you’ll be able to get in on the ground floor without causing suspicion.”
We sat in silence for a moment.
“
So what happens now?” I asked. I mean, someone had to.
“Travel documents will arrive tomorrow or the next day,” Howard said. “Then off to sunny Phoenix for a quick look at the layout of the university.”
“With a stop off in Chicago, you said,” Mandy chimed in.
“Of course, of course, Miss Cross. You too, Lyman.”
He gave a wave goodbye, then the screen went snowy.
I looked at Finch and Valérie/Bernadette. “Okay, which one of you vampires is going to get the beers? Because the next hour’s going to be you… talking. Talking a fucking lot. I’m not going into Phoenix with you guys unless I know all about you. And I mean all.”
Trust Finch to be the one who broke the ice. She got to her feet with a grin and vanished. Seconds later, she knelt in front of me, slowly materializing, four cold ones chinking in her hands. To watch the slow transformation from invisible to normal proved simply spectacular.
“Now that was worth the price of admission,” Mandy said, grabbing her beer, a huge wide grin on her face. “I want to know that trick.”
I sat on the sofa, trapped between three very pretty girls, all vampire, all sexy, wondering what the hell could happen in Phoenix. I drank my beer slowly as Valérie and Finch opened up on their ages and backgrounds. Valérie seemed to be either French, Italian, or Russian, depending on what day of the week, although I couldn’t detect any accent.
Finch was a New Jersey girl, but both were reticent on giving out their true ages.
“I would’ve liked to be in on Alan’s end,” Valérie’s eyes glazed over for a second. “I attended his turning; he always looked like he’d be a nasty piece of work.”
“You knew Alan McCartney?” Mandy said, suddenly animated. “Did you turn him?”
I could see where her logic headed. If Valérie had turned Alan, and Alan turned her, then maybe there’d be a thread of Valérie in Mandy.
“Usually I did,” she replied. “The guys were usually mine to turn; I was the major recruiter back then. But for some reason, Amos wanted a stronger personal hold on Alan Rand. Turned him himself, right in front of me, just after fucking and killing Alan’s mother.”