by Mia Archer
I suppose it was a statement on how used to horror society had gotten. All those years of being trained to see special effects monstrosities made people bored with the same boring old monsters. Like Bela Lugosi in a cloak hissing at someone was enough to make people crap their pants back in the black-and-white days, but that certainly wouldn't cut it today.
Which made it all the more ridiculous that the vampire girl getting pissed off and baring her fangs at Stacy looked like… Well she looked like a person who had a set of very realistic looking fangs she’d gotten from a Halloween store. There wasn't any other change to her face. She didn't suddenly get real ugly or anything. She was the same pretty girl.
Plus fangs.
I'm sure there was someone out there who was into that, but I wasn't. Especially considering she'd wrapped her hands around Stacy's neck and was lifting her up. Stacy moved her own hands to the girl's wrists and held on so she wasn't getting choked out, but I knew that even with her strength the vampire would be able to outlast her.
"Stop it," I said, finally starting to get annoyed with all of this.
None of them listened to me. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that none of them were listening to me. There’d been an unfortunate precedent of supernatural creatures and regular humans not listening to me lately.
I was used to it, but it didn’t mean I had to like it. Especially when the bitch who currently wasn’t listening to me was the bitch who was doing her best to choke out my girlfriend.
Darkness gathered around me. Oh yeah. This was happening. I’d gotten good and pissed off and now it was time to break out some of the death magic.
“I said stop it,” I said.
I surprised even myself that time around. I’d never heard my voice change like that before, but sure enough it sounded like I was speaking with all the power and horror of a creature from the other side.
I blinked and looked down. Mostly to make sure it was still me standing there. Black robes had appeared around me, and my scythe appeared out of nowhere as well which meant I was getting good and pissed off.
Good. Maybe that would show these fucking vampires how fucking serious I was.
“Fuck off,” the vampire girl said.
She was still concentrating on Gwen. She hadn’t even bothered to look at me. So she had no idea what was standing beside her.
The same wasn’t true of her bloodsucking buddies though. They looked at me and started to back away, their eyes wide. The big one leaned forward and elbowed the girl.
“Leave me alone,” the girl growled. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something here?”
“Um, I think you want to not be in the middle of something Veronica,” the guy said.
“Come on Bruce,” she said, smiling a cruel smile as the darkness surrounding me started to gather around her. She still didn’t notice the angry tendrils of death magic surrounding her. I guess she was just that oblivious about her surroundings.
Also, Bruce? Talk about an old school name. If this weren’t so serious I’d probably have some fun asking him if he had any plans to menace tourists at Amity beach or go out at night and beat people up wearing bat pajamas.
This was serious though. I had to keep my amusement at the old timey names on these teenage vampires in check. Long enough to save Stacy, at least.
“I said let her go,” I said, and this time there was no mistaking that there was something weird going on with my voice. Like I’d put it through a voice changer or something. It actually sounded kind of cool, but the girl still didn’t take the hint.
So I slapped her across the back with a tendril of death magic. That got a reaction out of her! I guess that magic worked about the same on the undead as it did on ghosts and necromancers. Basically anything that sort of walked the line between life and death was susceptible to it, and the closer the supernatural creature was to that line the more effective it was.
Which, of course, meant that vampires in particular were in for some real trouble.
The vampire, Veronica, threw her head back and let out a terrible scream. Like she was feeling the kind of hurt she hand’t had to deal with since… Well probably since she became a vampire. She obviously hadn’t been staked in the time between becoming a vampire and now, so clearly she hadn’t had to deal with much in the way of pain.
I felt something weird, too, when I touched her with that magic. As though there was something in there that wanted to lash out at me. A darkness that clawed at me through that magical connection. It surprised me so much that I yanked back, and that thing seemed to come with me.
That terrified me so much, the idea of unleashing some dark spirit without realizing what I was doing because I really still didn’t know what I was doing with all this, that I severed the connection.
That didn’t stop Veronica from screaming in pain, but it did cause whatever that thing was to sink back down inside her to wherever it’d been lurking within her soul to begin with.
Okay. Talk about freaky. Like really fucking freaky. I stumbled back just a bit, but none of the vampires seemed to notice.
Which was probably a good thing. They looked nice and intimidated. Intimidated was good. Intimidated meant they were going to leave us the fuck alone.
Veronica released Stacy. Stacy took a couple of steps back, and I was there to catch her and keep her from falling. Plus I really didn’t mind any excuse to get up close and personal with my girlfriend. Even if it was something ridiculous like saving her from a fight she’d picked with a bunch of scary vampires.
“Holy shit,” the big one, Bruce, said.
Veronica stared at me in astonishment. She finally saw the dark magic roiling around me for the first time. Her eyes went wide.
“You can’t be here,” she said. “He’s going to…”
“Forget what he’s going to do,” Bruce said, grabbing her by the shoulder. “We need to get out of here, now. No way we’re going up against a reaper!”
“What?” I said, unable to resist just a little smile. “You guys don’t want to stay and play with us? I thought you were going to try and push us around some more? Maybe bite my neck?”
I turned to Stacy. She was shaking her head and smiling. Doing the whole thing where she was trying not to look like she was amused by what I was pulling, but clearly it was getting a laugh.
When I turned back the vampires were gone. Well all but one of them were gone. Which was a damn shame.
I hated it in movies when monsters did that whole thing where they were able to disappear in a puff of nothing. Like the sort of cheesy effect you’d see in an old Star Trek or something where they clearly spliced the footage together, and didn’t always do a good job of it, between a room where William Shatner was standing being all handsome and an empty shot of that same room minus the smoldering Shatner.
I would’ve really liked to see how the vampires disappeared. Like did they turn into myst or something? Maybe a big scary wolf? Basically any of the super powers you had to work your ass off to get in Symphony of the Night?
Alas. It didn't look like any of those vampires were going to be revealing their bloodsucking secrets to me any time soon. More's the pity. If I knew how they were escaping then I might be able to figure out a good way to catch them.
Stacy looked at me and put a hand to her neck and felt where the vampire bitch had been suffocating her.
"Thanks," she said.
I rolled my eyes. "You're an idiot."
She smiled a thin smile and wrapped me in a hug. Then she really got my attention when she planted a kiss firmly on my lips. I was always a fan of kissing Stacy.
"I might be an idiot, but that's only because I know I have you around to protect me!"
"Whatever," I said, trying to hide the blush. After all, there was still that one vampire just hanging out there, and the last thing I wanted was to look like a lovesick idiot in front of the scary monster.
Well, honestly he was a not-so-scary monster. Like path
etically not scary. It looked like someone accidentally bit a nerd once upon a time and now he was stuck like that forever, which seemed like a pretty shitty situation.
Normally nerds could grow up and get programming jobs where they made enough money to live a good life, or maybe they got in shape like the weakling from an old Charles Atlas ad, but he was stuck perpetually being an awkward teenager getting beat up by vampire bullies. Talk about a living hell.
"Um, so what the hell are you?" the guy asked, looking a little nervous about being around me.
My eyes narrowed. I wasn't particularly happy to still have a vampire standing around, even if so far it looked like he was a vampire who wasn't in league with those other assholes.
"I think the more important question is who the hell are you," I said. "And what the hell are all those bloodsucking bastards doing in my school?"
The guy looked between me and Stacy. Sighed. Muttered something under his breath. For a moment I thought he might try to turn into mist or something and get the hell away from us just like the others, but then he shook his head.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I guess I kind of deserved that. Thank you for saving me."
Well then. Not exactly what I was expecting, but it was a start. An apologizing vampire was better than a vampire who was trying to kill us, after all.
5
Chase
Stacy took a step forward. Like she was actually considering getting closer to the bloodsucking bastard. Sure he might be a bloodsucking bastard who, so far, hadn't threatened us, but that didn't change the fact that he was a bloodsucking bastard.
I didn’t need my girlfriend getting any closer to something that wanted to turn her into a snack than she had to. Especially considering this dude had been hitting on her in her biology class.
I put a hand on her shoulder. Stopped her before she could get any closer. She looked at me, clearly irritated.
"What are you doing?” she asked.
"I'm not sure you want to get near that guy," I said.
"What?" she asked. "Why wouldn't I want to go near him? He obviously needs our help."
I eyed him. That apology had been a start, to be sure, but I still couldn't be totally sure this guy was on the up and up.
"What if that's what they want us to think?" I asked. "What if they left this guy behind so he could make us feel bad for him and then suck you dry the moment we let our guard down?”
The guy held his hands up. His eyes were wide. Clearly he didn't like the idea of being on my bad side.
"Now hold on," he said. "I'm not doing anything like that. I don't even like sucking blood! It's just that…"
"Can it for a minute," I said. "You've sucked the blood of other people, right?"
He frowned, and that was all the answer I needed. I got even more exasperated and held my scythe out just under his neck. I wasn't sure if that could actually do anything against a vampire, but from the way he went cross eyed it was scaring him.
I’d take it.
"Talk, or else," I growled.
"I don't think he can talk Gwen," Stacy said.
"What?"
"I don't think he can talk. You just told him to can it. He's following orders. Being pretty literal about it, too, but he's just following orders."
I growled again. This was getting frustrating. And on top of all that I was late for class. Just fucking great.
"You can talk if you're answering my questions," I said.
"Do you have to be so mean to the poor guy?" Stacy asked. “It’s bad enough he was getting bullied by those vampires. Now we’re doing it?”
“Have you lost it?” I asked. "He's a vampire. An undead bloodsucking creature of the night who’d kill you for a snack! This isn't some sparkly dude who wants to seduce you."
"And I wouldn't be into a dude trying to seduce me anyway," Stacy said. "All I'm saying is you're being a little hard on him and…"
The faint hint of breeze was the only hint that something had changed. I turned back to the vampire, only there was no vampire there. I let out a couple of choice curses about the chastity of that vampire's mother, and then sprinted down the hall. I heard Stacy sprinting behind me, which wasn't something I needed.
It was bad enough that I was hunting a bunch of bloodsucking bastards. I really didn't need my very mortal girlfriend whose veins pumped with a delicious snack for these sons of bitches following behind me.
Only I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop her even if I did tell her to stay back. It's not like she’d listen.
I skidded to a halt at the end of the hall. I looked around, but there was no vampire to be seen. Not the big burly one. Not the Veronica bitch. And not that geeky one who'd been getting pushed around by the other vampires. It was as though they’d never existed.
I growled. I kept right on sprinting, and that's when we ran into none other than Mr. Lee, who looked even less happy to see us again. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was displeased about finding students out in the hall without a pass when it wasn’t a passing period or if it was because he was well aware of the weird things that happened around me.
"And what are you girls doing out here?" he asked.
I bit back a couple of choice phrases about how he'd turned tail and ran when he saw those vampires. After all, he was a human going up against vampires. It was the kind of creature of the night situation that I could totally understand freaking someone out if they were mortal.
Still. I didn't have time for this. Not when there were still vampires lurking, and I needed to find them and stop them. I didn't know what their plan was, but I knew they were up to something in my school and I didn't like it!
I let Graham pull his necromancer bullshit right under my nose, and I wasn’t going to let that happen in this school again.
"Kind of on urgent business," I said.
Mr. Lee looked at Stacy and then to me. He looked me up and down, seemed to be seeing the black robes and scythe for the first time, and we were far enough from Halloween that it sure as hell wasn't something I got from a costume store or something.
No, if I was on urgent business then it wasn’t the kind of shit a mortal like Lee wanted anything to do with.
His eyes went wide and then he shook her head. Muttered something about how he didn't get paid nearly enough to deal with anything like this.
“Back to class, now,” he said.
“But…”
“Do you want a detention, young lady?” he asked, his voice sharp despite the robes and the scythe. Weird. Usually the mortals were more intimidated by that. Even those vampires had been intimidated.
“Fine,” I said.
I turned and walked in the opposite direction, Stacy following behind me. She didn’t say anything until we’d rounded a corner.
“You folded awfully fast there,” she said.
“I’m not actually following that prick’s orders,” I said.
“Oh,” Stacy said, a grin lighting up her face. “That’s more like it!”
I sighed. I should’ve told her she wasn’t coming with me, but I knew it’d be useless to try and stop her. Besides, I didn’t think we were actually going to be running into any more bloodsuckers any time soon.
"Come on," I said to Stacy. "He's probably long gone by now, but we have to try.”
We did a complete circuit of the school, careful to avoid Mr. Lee, but there was no sign of any bloodsuckers.
"I'm not feeling anything," Stacy said.
I rolled my eyes. "What do you mean? It's not like you have some sixth sense or something. Or if you do, it's way off. That was a vampire you just let loose!"
"I let loose?" she said, some heat coming to her voice. "I didn't do anything to let him loose. You're the one who looked away!"
"Because I was trying to protect you from the bloodsucking vampire!"
"I don't need protection from creatures of the night," Stacy growled.
"Oh yeah?" I said. "Because the whole experience we had with t
he necromancer? When you got turned into a ghost multiple times? That would seem to say otherwise, wouldn't it?"
Stacy's nostrils flared. I knew I'd crossed a line. She didn't like being reminded of being turned into a ghost. It messed with this idea in her mind that if more crazy supernatural creatures came along then we would make like the Scooby gang and discover the monsters, then do the whole Ghostbusters thing and take them out. Only this was real life. This wasn’t some story where everything necessarily turned out happy in the end because the writers had to pull something out of their ass to give the story a happy ending by the thirty minute mark with time in between for commercials.
"You could die Stacy," I said. "Or you could be turned into a vampire. You're exactly the kind of hottie someone turning people into eternally young vampires would want in their collection, and I do mean collection. Vampires are very hierarchical and big on collecting pretties. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life in the thrall of some overweight bloodsucker born in the fifteenth century with all the ideas about women’s lib that come from being from that time?”
"But you don't understand," she said. "I have you to protect me. I'm not worried as long as you're there. Your the embodiment of death itself!"
At least she didn't say that I was death itself. That was something that’d taken some clearing up. Stacy hadn't ever actually met the big guy, and I’d been very careful about explaining to her that I wasn't the big guy so much as I was an avatar of his will in the mortal realm.
"That might be true," I said. "And I'm flattered that you have that confidence in me. Really I am. But that doesn't change the fact that they could get to you while I'm not around, and that thought terrifies me."
"Fine," Stacy said. "If I promise I won't go running after scary creatures of the night when you're not around will that make you feel better?" she asked.
