I check the other two, who have generally the same memories of being abducted and turned into living tools. They’d all been given a simple command to stop anyone from letting me go by any means necessary. Turns out I didn’t imagine a voice. Fred expressed confusion at me not burning, but only because his compulsion told him to stay there until I burned. He became frustrated at me not doing so.
Glad to disappoint.
For once, I’m happy not to be the ‘hot girl.’
It’s not too difficult to remove the command and blank out their memories of having seen me. Sophia rendered them magically unconscious, so I don’t have to erase the house or my family from their minds other than my sisters helping fight them.
Once finished, I stand and set my hands on my hips. “Okay. All set. So… where should I send them?”
“What do you mean?” asks Mom.
“Like… where should I make them go, so they don’t get re-mind-controlled and forced to attack us again.”
My parents discuss various places like Olympia, Tacoma, maybe Portland or even as far away as Los Angeles.
“What about New Jersey?” asks Mom. “A long trip should keep them busy for a while.”
Dad tilts his head. “Allie, if someone claims to have a powerful need to randomly go to New Jersey, everyone will know they’ve been mind-controlled.”
Mom sigh-laughs.
“Hmm. Here’s a thought. I’ll send them to Montana.”
Dad grins proudly. “Red October. Nice.”
My sisters both sigh.
“Are they even going to come back after us?” asks Sierra.
“Hmm.” Based on what I saw in their heads… probably not. “Honestly? Doubtful. These guys appear to be random victims again. I’ll just send them home.”
I take a few minutes to install a mental compulsion. As soon as they wake up, they will go directly to the place they consider home and relax, having no memory of the past twenty-four hours.
Once done, I stand. “Okay, Soph. How much longer are they going to be unconscious?”
“Umm. I don’t know. Maybe another hour or two.” She shrugs, offering a cheesy smile. “Maybe three.”
“Leave them on Niedermeyer’s lawn,” says Sierra. “No one will ever see them again.”
We all laugh.
“Once it gets dark, I’ll drag them out into the woods behind the house. They’ll be in a fog until they get home, and lose all memories of today.” I slouch, relieved. A nice big blood meal has me feeling pretty much normal… except for my clothing smelling of burnt meat.
Honestly, I didn’t scorch anywhere near as much as expected. The tree cover helped. Maybe I pulled some super-vampiric feat of adrenaline and overamped my powers. Who knows? I’ll take it.
“I could try opening a gate and sending them somewhere?” Sophia holds her arms out to either side.
“Can we not?” Sierra cringes. “I’d prefer not to be bitch slapped by a ten-ton void octopus again.”
Mom makes a face like she’s contemplating yelling at Sierra for saying ‘bitch slapped,’ but it strikes her funny.
A door shuts upstairs.
“That was awesome,” says Ronan.
“Totally.” Sam thuds to the floor, probably sitting by the PlayStation. “Uh oh.”
“What?” asks Ronan.
“It’s almost eight… we were in there like four hours.”
“Didn’t feel like it.”
“Didn’t. Nope. Time flow’s different, I guess. Mom and Dad are gonna realize we disappeared and be upset.”
“Guys?” I say. “Sam’s out of the closet.”
Mom and Dad stare at me.
“Literally.” I shake my head. “As in, he was inside his bedroom closet and is now no longer inside his bedroom closet. He and Ronan are back. I can hear them.”
Dad chuckles. “I think we’re beating the closet joke to death.”
I make a pinchy gesture. “Just a little.”
“Beating it to undeath,” deadpans Sierra. “Make the joke again and it’s going to bite us.”
The ’rents groan.
“Ouch. C’mon, guys.” Dad smiles. “The vampire jokes are starting to get a bit stiff… but I understand what’s at stake.”
Mom searches the ceiling for help.
Sierra walks up to me. “Bite me now. I can’t take the dad jokes.”
“Careful, hon. Vampirism can be draining.” Dad winks.
Sophia screams.
Before Sierra can go all Foamy the Squirrel on Dad, I hurry upstairs to my brother’s room. And whoa… one or both of them fired off some serious egg farts. I cringe, waving my hand in front of my face.
Oddly, neither boy claims it or blames the other, just stares at me like I’m hallucinating.
“Who ripped one?”
“No one,” says Sam. “Your overclocked schnoz is probably detecting the ambiance of the demi-plane we were in.”
Blix babbles, points at the closet, and nods.
“Yeah, he says you’re smelling the place we came from. It’s probably in our clothes.” Sam shrugs.
“Guys, you weren’t gone for four hours. You were gone for twenty-eight. It’s four hours later the next day.”
Sam’s face pales. “Oops.”
“Oh no.” Ronan starts crying. “Mom’s gonna kill me.”
Several thoughts crash into my brain at once. One is making an offhand quip about how she can’t be upset over Ronan missing for a day because she’s presently freaking out at the hospital with Hunter. Yeah, not gonna say it. I hate myself for even thinking it. Another thought is, yeah… his mother is probably fried. Astonishing there’s no police sitting at the house. The stronger thought is ‘oh, shit, Hunter!’ and a strong compulsion to race right the hell out the door and go see him.
Visiting hours do not apply to vampires.
Despite the storm going on in my head, what comes out of my mouth is, “I’m sure the parents will understand you didn’t mean it. You’re a novice at exploring alternate dimensions.”
“Cool. Think so?” asks Sam, grinning hopefully.
I cringe. “Dunno. It’s going to be a hard sell. Mom might still be upset at you for going into a demi-plane without asking first.”
He snaps his fingers, making an ‘aww shucks’ face.
The parents rush in… and proceed to scoop Sam up and compete for hugs. Okay, they’re so happy to see him okay he might actually slip out of this without even being grounded. Being the baby of the family does convey certain advantages.
“I’m okay.” Sam hugs Mom and Dad back. “Oh, there’s a portal into a demi-plane in my closet. I’m sorry we were gone so long. Didn’t know it had weird time differences.” Sam kicks his sneaker into the rug. “Ack.” He hastily pulls his shoes off. “Sorry. We just got back.”
“Should we be worried?” asks Dad.
Ronan kicks off his sneakers, looking frightened Mom is going to yell at him.
“Nah.” Sam smiles. “The guy who lives in there is cool.”
I exhale in relief. The big dog in the yard is helpful. Great. Sam’s collecting demons like Pokémon. That’s gotta be setting us up for a bizarre event. Just hope it’s not too flamey when it happens.
“Okay…” I pick Ronan up. “I gotta get him back to his mother. And I need to check on Hunter. Not gonna believe he’s really okay until I see him.”
“What happened to Hunter?” Ronan’s eyes go wide.
I cringe. “Some bad vampires tried to hurt me and he kinda got caught in the middle of it.”
“Just a bonk on the head.” Dad offers a reassuring smile.
“He’s fine.” Mom smiles. “Little sore, but fine.”
“Are we taking a mirror?” Ronan picks up his shoes.
“Nope. Flying.”
“Okay.” He carries his shoes out into the hall.
I follow him to the kitchen. Once outside on the deck, he puts his sneakers on and walks around behind me so I can pull him on like a backpac
k. Poor little guy weighs less than the books I carried freshman year of high school. “Be home in a little while.”
“Be careful.” Dad says from the patio door behind us.
“I will.” Sniff. “What smells burnt?”
“My shoes,” mutters Ronan. “The floor was lava. Like for real.”
20
Sore Spots
Funny thing about head injuries… they tamper with memory.
Funny thing about language… the word ‘funny’ can sometimes mean the exact opposite. The whole fight behind the restaurant didn’t register in Hunter’s brain at all. He remembers smiling at me in the kitchen and being happy to have a few hours to spend with me—then he’s in the hospital and his mother’s freaking out.
I never realized how much of a professional bullshitter my mother can be. Okay, considering she’s high up the food chain in the legal department of Boeing, maybe I should have suspected her powers of ‘creative explaining’ are superhuman. She somehow managed to convey to Mrs. Lawrence why Ronan disappeared for an entire day without technically lying or revealing the truth the boys had gone into another dimensional reality via a hole in Sam’s closet.
Granted, this represented one of those times where telling someone the actual truth with a straight face would have resulted in an appointment to see a psychiatrist. Last time I checked, Mom doesn’t have legit powers of mind control, but Mrs. Lawrence took her straight-faced delivery and complete lack of being upset to accept Ronan slept over Sam’s place and perhaps assumed it had been planned and agreed upon and she simply forgot due to her new job being busy and the chaos of Hunter getting hurt.
Not to express any sort of happiness about him ending up in the hospital, but Mrs. Lawrence going there to visit him stopped her from noticing the email from the school asking why Ronan missed a day.
Yeah, I got tasked with cleanup duty. Six teachers, an assistant principal, and one lunch lady now think Ronan (and Sam) were at school the other day. Kidding about the lunch lady, by the way. No, not about erasing a lunch lady’s memory, only about it being related to Ronan and Sam missing a day of school. I caught her snooping around school grounds hunting for a faerie. While it might have been okay to leave her to a quest any rational person would consider nuts, I erred on the side of caution and erased the memory of having a ton of chocolate pudding explode all over her. Not a literal ton. I have no idea how much twenty industrial-sized cans of pudding weighs, but it’s not 2,000 pounds.
The spell my sister released at school turned into the ‘Sophia version’ of an imp. All the pranks, none of the cruelty.
Hunter, by the way, is doing okay. He took a pretty decent whack to the head and… me throwing him into the kitchen headfirst didn’t help. Whether the two jerks who grabbed me left him alone for sake of time or not wanting to murder the entire restaurant staff to cover their tracks, Hunter’s being in the kitchen saved his life. I still don’t know if Mohawk and Mr. Pistol wanted to kill him on purpose to hurt me or simply eliminate a witness who happened to be there. If I ever see those two again, I’ll ask Eleanor St. Ives if she can extract the answer to a question from a brain Slurpee.
For the first time in my life, I fully intend to attack and kill someone without giving them a chance to even say a word. Three reasons. One: they tried to kill me already. That kinda pisses me off. Two: they tried to kill Hunter. That really pisses me off. Three: my best chance of winning—or surviving—a second meeting with them is to ambush them before they realize it. Mohawk threw me around like a karate instructor picking on a white belt. He knows how to fight, but I’m going to assume he doesn’t know how to use a sword. Also, it won’t matter if he knows how to use a sword if he doesn’t have one.
A hospital stay—they’re keeping Hunter overnight—did allow us to have a few hours together without him having to worry about making it to school on time in the morning. We cuddled on the bed together sorta-watching the tiny little television. Even though he eventually fell asleep, I stayed with him until impending dawn chased me home. He felt well enough to make a joke about a tree not being the kind of wood I was hoping to ride last night… with his mother right there. Yes, he’s on pain medication. Fortunately, no one captured the mortifying joke on video.
Thanks to the attack, I missed my Thursday class. Weird twist of fate. Thursday, I have philosophy with Professor Heath, who is a vampire. There’s no need for me to come up with a wild excuse for why I missed class. Not only is it impossible for me to mess with his mind, it’s totally possible for me to tell him the truth. Sure, college profs don’t really care if students show up or not. At least, not in the same way teachers in high school do. No one gets in trouble for it. Worst penalty for absences is failing a class we’re paying for… and possibly having a four-year program turn into five.
Still, next time I see him, he’ll get the truth. Feel bad no-showing the guy. He’s cool. I did email him to apologize and ask what work needs to be done for next week while remarking ‘powers beyond my control’ kept me away from class. He ought to get the subtle hint.
I wake up a bit late on Friday at 4:19 p.m., feeling like an Olympic bobsled after a grueling all-day practice session. Notice the absence of the word ‘team’ there. No, I’m not going for the ‘feeling like a bunch of guys rode me’ joke. My body is as sore as if I’d spent eighteen hours bouncing headfirst down a concrete chute. The prolonged battle between me and the sun yesterday hurt. Also, no. I am not complaining. Feeling as sore as a forty-year-old basement-dwelling Twitch streamer going from video games to military boot camp overnight is a small price to pay compared to what the sun could have done to me.
Added bonus: no one kept screaming at me to move my candy ass.
Shouldn’t talk, really. Mortal me could in no way have handled military boot camp either.
Hi, I’m Sarah Wright and I used to be kind of a wimp.
Diary of a Wimpy Vampire, I am not.
Diary of a somewhat geeky, neurotic, rule-following vampire, maybe.
There’s one cure for ouch like this. No, not weed. A peaches-and-cream bath bomb. Don’t care it’s broad daylight. After spending sunrise chained to a tree, walking around my house in the daytime is nothing.
I chant a mantra of ‘ouch, F-you’ under my breath while walking up to the second-floor bathroom. We have a little bathroom on the ground floor, but it’s really a toilet closet. Sink and commode, not even a shower. Our mini-bath in the basement does have a shower stall, but my present needs transcend simple cleanliness. Today is uncomfortably warm, but the sun isn’t going to get the satisfaction of seeing me flinch. Looks like it’s on the brighter end of Seattle possible, one of those days where I’d never have even opened my bedroom door prior to my brief foray with Greenpeace.
That’s a tree-hugging joke by the way.
Bathroom’s not too bad with the curtains closed.
Even better totally submerged.
Well, the soak didn’t do much for undead muscles, but I have nice, soft skin.
And I smell like a peach orchard exploded all over a dairy farm. Not normally an unpleasant smell, but my nose is cranked up to eleven. Still not unpleasant. Merely not quite pleasant. Oversaturation has changed it from peach to ‘obviously fake chemical peach.’. Ask me if I care.
I spend the rest of Friday’s available ‘me time’ working on my Poe paper before saying a quick goodbye to the family and heading to school. Today, I’m using my freshman year bookbag, which is big enough to smuggle tweens into R rated movies. Why anyone would lug a hockey bag into a movie theater, I have no idea, but it’s a silly metaphor to express the massiveness of the thing. Not supposed to make logical sense. It’s not heavy. Still only bringing books for computer science 101 and calculus. The huge bag is to conceal my sword. This katana is way cooler being in my hand rather than impaled into my body. It’s not the most ideal weapon for the style of sword fighting Dalton pumped into my brain, but having a sword at all beats not.
Maybe one of these da
ys I’ll pick up a cutlass, saber, rapier, or longsword even. Hasn’t exactly been a priority, but recent events are changing my opinions.
Good chance bringing a razor-sharp sword to college is not going to be received well. Probably illegal, too. However, I am taking precautions. It’s not loaded. Seriously, though. It’s staying in the bag unless vampires come after me. As long as it remains hidden until sunset, it won’t matter who sees it.
Much to my surprise, my Friday classes happen without a problem. I don’t even get ambushed by missionaries on my way to the parking garage. The whole ride home, my anxiety is at peak. I’m constantly watching all angles up out of the car in case more vampires decide to drop out of the sky without warning. I make it home without incident. Hmm. Maybe whoever is doing this either assumes my butt roasted to ashes already, or they’ve given up. Wait, no. If the creepy long-haired dude I saw in Mike’s memory is aware the whole melodramatic ‘chain her to a tree for sunrise’ thing didn’t work, he’d totally be sending Mohawk and Mr. Pistol to grab me again for study purposes.
Then again, it’s totally possible my significance is nil.
If video games have taught me anything, the first enemies are the weakest and you work your way up to progressively more difficult opponents. Could be, I’m simply the weakest vampire around, so this guy figured he’d start by messing with me.
Whatever. I’ll take it.
My plans are to go to Hunter’s and make up for the night we were so cruelly deprived of. However, some loose ends need wrapping up first. I leave the bookbag in my room, grab the katana, and go upstairs.
Dad’s in the kitchen foraging for a snack. He glances at me emerging from the basement steps carrying a sword. “Uh oh. Where are you headed?”
“Following up on a promise I made.”
“Eek,” deadpans Dad.
“Relax. Not hunting anyone. When making promises to the Universe, it’s best to keep them.”
Vampire Innocent | Book 11 | How To Stop A Vampire War In Six Easy Steps Page 18