7
A Little Recreational Decapitation
There has to be someone out there who would find it ironic for a vampire to be researching Poe. Or would it be more ironic if I’d picked Bram Stoker? Eh, too meta. It’s not terribly unusual for a college student to take a break in the middle of doing their homework for a snack. Few college students have an irresistible itch to consume blood, though. I’m in a rare minority along with business majors.
So, I took a break from reading for a quick flight to Seattle downtown. It doesn’t burn too much time for me to get there, and downtown is my preferred feeding ground. Big cities are ideal, since it’s easy to select people who will never see me again in their lives. Ambushing my neighbors isn’t wise. Not only does it increase the chances of someone who knows me catching me in the act, I usually need to eat more often than a small population can support without health complications. A good safe rule is not to feed from the same person more than once every eight weeks. I’m basing it on the guidelines for donating blood. Obviously, if I don’t drink as much as they take during a donation, it shortens the re-feeding time, but it’s still safer to avoid biting anyone twice at all.
Tonight’s meal is a security guard I notice standing alone in an alley behind a high-rise office building. He’s a bit on the heavy side, his body pear shaped—not too surprising for a dude working security who spends ninety percent of his time behind a desk. I land unnoticed at the end of the alley and walk toward him. A weird smell of raw potatoes hangs in the air, mixed with something fruity—probably his vape wand. Ugh. Potato-berry? Eww. I sneak up on him, opening with my usual, “Hey, what’s up?”
The guy’s in the middle of sucking a hit of vape juice when I break the silence. Startled, he inhales a giant breath through the thing and lapses into a coughing fit, spraying fog from his nose and mouth.
As soon as he turns to face me, I recognize him: Bobby Archer. He was in my class from kindergarten straight to the end of high school. The ‘potato’ smell makes sense now. For some reason I never understood, he just smells like raw potatoes. Always has. The berry is totally coming from his vape. Bobby’s had a few extra pounds on him his whole life, but the security job has clearly gone straight to his butt.
“Sarah?” he gasps in between coughing. “From school?”
I dive into his head, deleting his memory of seeing me tonight. Already here, so no point skipping a meal, but I can’t let someone who recognizes me remember. Easier to replace with a random, nondescript brown-haired girl he thought was me… wait, no. Eliminate any hint of me. Blonde.
Bobby’s not a bad guy. Little quiet, but can’t blame him. Kids teased him for his weight all through school. Okay, I gotta know. Why the potato smell? Oh, ack. His mother and grandmother are hoarders. Their garage is full of vegetables in various states of rot. Looks like he finally moved out. The potato smell on him now is all in my head from memory due to some weird subconscious association. Apparently, I recognized him before realizing it. Poor guy. Also, he’s trying to stop eating junk food but has no willpower. Hmm. Is it unethical of me to help him out? I mean, he wants to… just can’t. Oh hell. Least I can do for the guy for feeding me once is help him out.
I bite him, totally ‘shocked’ to taste blood flavored like French fries.
Once the feeding is done, I stare into his eyes and implant a compulsion to listen to his inner voice and stop eating five or six cupcakes, Twinkies, or blueberry pies a day. Not easy to cope with the environment he grew up in. Suppose snack cakes are a better vice to fall back on for comfort than drugs, but still. Maybe giving him a little push will help. I’m not forcing him to do anything he doesn’t already desire, merely helping him overcome a lack of willpower.
“Thanks, Bobby. Take care of yourself.” I pat him on the arm and leap into the air while he’s still lost in a mental fog.
Drat. Now I want actual French fries. Might be a fast food place open at this hour, but hunting for one would waste time. Besides, my wallet’s at home. I’d have to compel a clerk to give me free food, which would attract attention and probably get someone fired. Yeah, Follows Rules Girl strikes again. I’m the world’s lamest vampire. Of all the nefarious deeds an undead immortal is capable of committing, stealing one order of fries isn’t exactly high up on the badness scale. Me? I can’t even move statues around as a prank without feeling guilty.
Whatever.
I fly toward home debating the right or wrong of harmless pranks. The statue thing isn’t exactly harmless. Normal people can’t simply pick those things up and lug them around. Putting them back where they belong would likely cost money to hire a crew, so not entirely harmless. However, flying gives me the ability to TP the hell out of a house—or hang Christmas lights. Sigh. Thanks, Dad.
Did I mention what his great idea was this year coming up? He wants to go full Clark Griswold and have me put a ton of blinking lights on our roof since I can fly. He’s tossed the idea of roof lights around for years, but Mom shot it down. Dad plus ladder plus electricity equals bad things happening. And crap. If he gets Sophia in on it, turning our lights on will black out all of Cottage Lake.
Maybe it’s time to break my promise—slightly—and delete the idea from his head.
A flash catches my eye below me on the ground. Out of curiosity, I look—surprised to see five men in nice suits swinging swords at two guys and a woman in ordinary clothes, if a bit ‘grunge.’ The blonde woman is easy to recognize—Amy, one of the ‘Seattle Lost Ones’ as I call them. Considering it’s her, I assume the two men are Dante and Luke. You know, the same Dante who loaned me his Fury power so I had a chance against Petra?
I’m reasonably certain The Matrix hasn’t sucked me into a real-life simulation of Grand Theft Auto and random well-dressed corporate heavies are not supposed to mysteriously appear with swords. Dunno who these creeps are, but they’re trying to kill three vampires I consider my friends. The thugs having swords tells me two things: one, they know they’re dealing with vampires. Two, they’re most likely intending to kill my friends. Thanks to Dalton, I also know a third fact: the suits are completely unskilled in how to use blades, hacking away like they’re swinging baseball bats.
Dante’s handling three of the five suits on his own, but only managing to keep himself alive. One of the guys on him has long, blond hair. He’s like a cross between the lead singer of a hair metal band and an Eighties pro wrestler who’s stuffed his bulging muscles into a suit not made for him. The fabric’s about to rip at any second. A guy chasing Amy around—ugh. ‘Chasing Amy.’ Sigh. Dad joke and didn’t even mean it—sports the slicked-back hair of an old-school mobster. The suit trying to kill Luke has a little grey in his brown hair, seems to be the oldest in his middle forties. Amy and Luke dart around in circles, avoiding a constant series of clumsy sword strikes. Luke’s holding a handgun, which appears to be empty. Can’t tell on the black suit, but the older dude swinging a sword at him probably absorbed a few shots to the chest. Yeah, guns are more irritating than dangerous to vampires, barring head shots, which are knock-out hits.
Mr. Mafia kicks Amy’s legs out from under her, flinging her onto her back, then steps on her chest, raising his sword to go all Highlander. Grr. I dive at him, accelerating as much as I can in the relatively short distance between me and the ground. A cool—and presently helpful—aspect of vampire flight is total silence. The dude doesn’t notice me coming until I dive-bomb-tackle him to the side, plowing him into the rear end of a red sedan. Our impact crumples the trunk and shatters the back window, setting off a few car alarms nearby.
Oh, that’s a broken rib. Owwie. Maybe my collarbone, too. I hate to say it, but after having my spine broken in two places, a single rib (and possibly collarbone) barely register on the pain scale. Yeah, I need serious counseling.
Sudden, rapid lateral acceleration from zero to a hundred miles an hour in an instant is enough to daze even a vampire. He emits a disoriented moan. I grab the cutlass from his hand. Mine. Hmm.
Not bad. Little heavy, single-edged, slight curve. Not too long for me. Balance is decent. Wow, this sword is ‘real,’ not a Home Shopping Network fake. While he struggles to pull his arms out of the bent remains of the car’s trunk, I separate his head from the rest of him.
And, ouch. Yeah. My collarbone went. Can feel the two pieces grinding against each other. At least it’s the left side. Not affecting my sword arm.
A fair amount of blood sprays up from the neck stump… but nowhere near as much as should come out of a body—proof he’s also a vampire.
“Right on!” yells Amy. “Thanks!”
Luke gurgles.
I spin. The older dude has rammed the cutlass into Luke’s stomach.
“Luke!” I yell. “Use the force!”
“Not funny,” gurgles Luke.
Amy rolls her eyes at me.
Growling, he punches the suit in the jaw, knocking him into a backward stagger. The smallest of the three guys on Dante breaks away from him, seeing an opportunity to double team the injured. I run to intercept his attempted cheap shot at Luke’s back, raising my borrowed sword to block. Our blades meet with a loud clank. Nice. This cutlass feels beefier than my katana. It’s definitely better for the style of fighting Dalton gave me. Might just hang onto it. Luke jumps away, spinning to keep Old Dude and this guy in sight.
Headless dude charges me. Fortunately, his head is facing away from the fight, so the body’s nowhere near on target.
I stare at the guy in front of me. His light brown hair is short and neat, bit of a goatee going. “Wow, is someone ordering henchmen from Dudebros R Us?”
Frowning, he dismissively slices at me. I parry and cut a slash down his chest, destroying his blue necktie. He chops overhead in a super telegraphed maneuver so basic even Sierra could parry it. Wait, she’s actually fairly good. I keep forgetting Dalton brain-zapped her, too. She could totally have parried this moron—but at her size, would’ve gone flying anyway. Let me rephrase. He chops overhead in a super telegraphed maneuver even Sophia could parry. I knock his blade aside and swipe at his throat. Dudebro leans back, reducing another beheading to a half-inch-deep slice across the front of his throat. Dark blood seeps down into his shirt. He grabs the wound, blood oozing between his fingers. Takes him a half second to realize his head’s still attached.
Speaking of detached heads, the headless corpse lumbers by again, grabbing at nothing.
Amy trips him.
My maneuver appears to piss Dudebro off. He growls, attacking me as fast as he can slash, each successive swing coming faster than the one before it. Fortunately, he has about as much finesse in his technique as Rian Johnson directing a Star Wars movie. Our swords clash six times before I seize an opening to disarm him—by cutting off his thumb. His cutlass falls from his grip and clatters to the parking lot. Not sure where the thumb went. He backs up, stuffing the thumb-stump in his mouth. I grin at him, wagging my eyebrows in an ‘I win’ gesture while he makes this stupid bewildered face at me.
Amy pounces on the severed head, sticking a knife into it. The rampaging blind body promptly falls over.
The blond ‘wrestler’ dude goes flying across the parking lot, embedding headfirst into the side of a van. Ooh, they finally hit Dante’s Fury button.
“Sarah?” yells a guy. “What the hell are you doing?”
I point my cutlass at Dudebro’s neck in a ‘you stand right there’ motion, and glance toward the voice. The fortyish-looking man who stabbed Luke is gawking at me with the same horrified/bewildered expression Uncle Hank uses on us for wearing casual clothes at Christmas dinner. Or the look on a judge’s face if the defendant arrived in court wearing a T-shirt saying ‘F the police.’ It’s about the same level of offended disbelief.
“Helping my friends. Who the hell are you?” I shout back.
Old Man swings his cutlass back and forth in a gesturing motion at Amy, Luke, and Dante—who have mysteriously stopped fighting. It’s like all of them had merely been playing a super high contact version of football and a time-out got called. “Wolent wants these anarchists wiped out.”
Oh, shit. Double shit. I glance down the length of my cutlass at Dudebro. Already, a quarter inch of new thumb has sprouted from his right hand. If he is one of Wolent’s heavies, it might explain why he’s just standing there making sour faces at me instead of either running or trying to smash me.
“Are you serious?” I ask. “You guys really work for Wolent? Crap!”
“Wait.” Amy stares at me. “Seriously? Are you really going to help them kill us for Wolent?”
I blink at her. “Of course not. I’m just… shocked. This can’t be legit.”
“It is,” says the older guy who stabbed Luke.
“Hey, Siri,” I say in a loud voice. My pocket beeps. “Call Arthur Wolent.”
“Dialing Arthur Wolent,” replies my phone.
The remaining four suits lower their weapons, evidently waiting for me. Uh oh. If the bit about them being here at Wolent’s behest was a lie, they would be running away now… or at least appearing worried at me calling their bluff—literally.
“Sarah, good to hear from you,” says a somewhat muffled Arthur Wolent.
I fish my phone out from my pocket. It’s on speaker, so I switch it to normal. “Umm, sorry to bother you, sir. Did you send some guys to destroy Lost Ones?”
“I sent some associates to deliver a message. Attacks on my interests will not be tolerated.”
“Umm.” I shift my gaze to Amy and Luke. No point trying to talk to Dante at the moment. He’s Fury raging. Wrestler Man’s back on him. He left a hole in the van where his head went through the side. He and the other suit I’ll call Dudebro2 are trying to hold Dante down and are almost managing to do so. “Did you guys mess with anything Mr. Wolent controls?”
“No.” Amy scoffs. “Why would we? All that political stuff is BS.”
“Naw, girl.” Luke shrugs. “You know us. We just hang out and relax. Ain’t got time for any agenda besides what concert’s up next. Need them tunes.”
Dante’s response is a noise similar to what I’d imagine would come out of a moose if someone shot it in the balls.
“Uhh, sir, I think your people made an error,” I say. “They’re attacking some Lost Ones I know, and it’s pretty unlikely these three are the vampires responsible for messing with you.”
Wolent remains quiet for a few seconds. Amy, Luke, Dudebro1, and Old Guy all exchange uneasy glances. Dante lifts Wrestler Man and Dudebro2 off their feet, swinging them around. Neither loses their grip on him. The spin costs Dante his balance. He topples over sideways, the two other vampires dragging him down and attempting to pin him again. Fortunately, they’ve had to drop their swords to keep hold of him and no longer appear to be interested in doing anything worse than holding him down until the Fury fades.
“Sarah,” says Wolent. “Are these friends of yours willing to tell me to my face they are not involved in the attack?”
I look at Amy. Obviously, Wolent knows he’s old enough to be able to read her mind, or at least assumes he can. She’s been a vampire for fifty years, so there’s a good chance he can read her mind. Little fuzzy on the gap needed, but it’s either 100 or 150 years… unless some vampire out there is as gifted with mind-reading as Aurélie is gifted with charm. One thing I’ve learned as a vampire is not to trust anything to be true unconditionally. There are exceptions to every situation.
“Guys, he wants to know if you’ll meet with him in person and tell him you aren’t involved in whatever happened.”
“Yeah, no problem.” Amy flaps her arms in a motion part ‘whatever’ part shrug. “We’re not involved.”
“Sure.” Luke rubs his stomach. “If we can trust him.”
I nod. “You can. Since you guys didn’t do anything, he won’t have an issue with you.”
Dante grunt-growls from the strain of lifting the two vampires pinning him.
“I’ll take that as a yes, too.” Smiling, I move the p
hone close to my mouth again. “Sir, they are all willing to tell you in person.”
“Speakerphone please,” says Wolent.
“Sec.” I hit the button, then hold the phone up on my palm. “Go ahead, sir.”
“Clark?” asks Wolent.
“Here, sir,” replies Old Guy.
“Please escort Sarah’s friends back to the estate so I may speak with them. If they are cooperative, treat them like guests. If they are not involved in the events at the warehouse, they will not be harmed.”
“Yeah, cool,” shouts Amy. “We’re fine talking to you. We had nothing to do with any attack.”
Wolent chuckles. “You’ll have to tell me sometime how you ended up there, Sarah.”
“Luck, sir. Was flying home after feeding. Saw the fight from the air. A bunch of guys waving swords around in a parking lot isn’t exactly… uhh, subtle.”
He pauses. I picture him pinching the bridge of his nose and thinking the men he sent are morons for doing it so publicly. He sighs. “All right. Tell Clark to bring your friends by the mansion. I’ll make it right by them if they’re not the ones we’re looking for.”
“Yes, sir.” Since it’s on speaker and Clark obviously heard him, I simply hang up and stuff the phone in my pocket.
Dante finally calms down and lays there glaring at the sky. Wrestler Man, who Dudebro2 calls Jay, goes with him to pick up the headless body they refer to as Virgil. I sheepishly walk over and retrieve the head, carrying it back to the black Chevy Suburban they drove. Jay and Dudebro2 (Donnie) toss Virgil in the back.
“Uhh, here. Sorry.” I hold out Virgil’s head to them. “Don’t usually offer strange guys head, but I’ll make an exception in this case.”
Jay rolls his eyes, takes the severed head, and sets it back on Virgil’s neck.
I cringe and put the cutlass in the truck, too. Darn. Wanted it, but it belongs to one of Wolent’s guys so I can’t steal it. “Sorry. Sense of humor is from my father.”
“How the hell did you do that?” Dudebro1 walks up to me.
Vampire Innocent | Book 11 | How To Stop A Vampire War In Six Easy Steps Page 7