by Mia Archer
I winced. The lunch ladies, and the couple of guys who worked in the cafeteria, were not going to be happy about that. I just hoped they didn’t go back and review the footage from the cameras, because if all that nonsense about vampires not showing up on film was anything to go on then it was going to look like I was throwing around a whole lot of nothing in here and trashing the place.
The last thing I needed was to be blamed for destruction of property on top of everything else, damn it.
“What are you?” the girl asked.
Her voice didn’t sound quite the same as when she’d been dealing with the reality of her death moments ago as a spirit. No, there was something raspy about her voice. Again, like there was a spirit in there somewhere that was getting used to operating the biological machinery of a human body again after a long time not getting a chance at that.
“I’m a reaper,” I said. “And I’m about to kick your ass.”
The vampire’s eyes went wide, and then she did something that really surprised me. She turned tail and tried to run. Okay then. I guess whatever spirit was in her had heard about what a reaper could do to them. Well I figured that meant it was time for me to do my thing and make this fucker regret that it’d ever thought of invading this girl’s body.
I lashed out with my death magic. Tendrils of darkness wrapped around her and I yanked her back. Again this was the kind of thing that was going to look really freaky if the whole “vampires don’t show up on cameras” thing actually was true and not just something invented by Bram Stoker to sell copies.
The girl flew through tables and chairs that’d been left in place by students earlier in the day. Or maybe it was the janitors cleaning things up.
If they hadn’t already come through here then they were in for one hell of a surprise. I almost felt sorry for them, but I was more interested in getting this vampire girl under control before she went out there and did something stupid.
Where “something stupid” was either trying to attack someone who was still in the school after hours, or maybe running out into the sunlight and getting herself killed.
“Not so fast,” I growled.
“Let me go!” the girl hissed, her eyes going wide as she started pleading. “I promise I won’t hurt anyone! It’s been so long!”
“Yeah, well maybe you should’ve thought of that before you possessed a girl in front of a reaper,” I said.
That really made no sense when I thought about it. I mean it’s not like this thing probably had a choice where it came into the world, but whatever.
“You won’t stop us!” the thing hissed. “We will take over this school first, and after that the world!”
I rolled my eyes.
“What?” the thing hissed.
“I was just thinking. Like, what the fuck is it with you evil creatures of the night and taking over the world?”
“Um, we have to take over the world so we can take our rightful place as the rulers of this planet and have the cattle respect us as they once did?”
I rolled my eyes again. “Calling the humans cattle. Now there’s an edgy vampire idea. Is the teenager’s head you’re occupying rubbing off on you, or are you really that cliched with your thinking?”
“Fuck you, reaper!” the girl spat in a voice that sounded like Linda Blair and Kevin Conroy had an unholy baby and it grew up to go into a voiceover career.
“Tempting, but not into possessed girls,” I said.
I threw the thing across the room for good measure. I really hoped that wouldn’t hurt the poor girl if it turned out she was still in there and there was a way to resuscitate her after the whole vampire possession thing had been taken care of, but this fucker annoyed me.
“Y’know if I were a vampire I’d probably do my best to stay in the shadows. Taking over the world doesn’t seem like the best idea in a modern world where humans have all sorts of fun technological ways to reduce you to dust. Like I seriously doubt it’s going to matter if you get staked to the heart when you’re getting atomized by a bunker buster slamming down on whatever building you’re trying to take over,” I growled.
“Fuck you!” the thing shrieked. “We will take our place as rightful rulers of this world, and…”
I slapped the girl across the face a few times. This was a very Evil Dead kind of moment we were having here, and the talkative demons had always been annoying. Thankfully here I had the upper hand. Well, more of an upper hand than Ashley Williams ever had in those films. Wink and a nudge.
Sort of. I still had to figure out more about this whole plan to try and take over the world, because the only person I trusted with that kind of responsibility was a genetically modified lab mouse, and I didn’t see any of them in this room.
“So do you want to tell me a little more about your plan to take over the world?” I asked. “Or am I going to have to rough you up a little bit before you start telling me the good stuff?”
Surprisingly the girl actually looked at me like she was a normal person for a moment. Her face went from being twisted with the whole vampire rage thing to staring at me like she was a genuine human. Or at the very least like there was a genuine human in there who was doing her best to break free.
“Not falling for it,” I said.
The vampire face was back. It wasn’t anything as pronounced as some of the shit that modern effects had come up with to make vampires look horrifying in an era where Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee in a pair of fake fangs wouldn’t do enough to terrify audiences. It was more like she had one hell of a nasty case of bitch face, complete with the fangs.
Still, it would’ve been unsettling if I was mortal.
“What the fuck is going on in here?”
Talk about unsettling. That voice chilled me to the bone. It was the last voice I wanted to hear. I turned in surprise to see none other than Stacy standing at the entrance to the cafeteria. She was flanked by Arnold, Jake, and Luke who were giving me looks that clearly said they were sorry, but it’s not like there was much they could do to stop her considering she was in the living world and they were in the spirit realm.
“I thought you promised you were going to bring me with you if you want vampire hunting!” she said, stalking across the cafeteria and glaring daggers at me.
Stacy glaring daggers was a problem, because it suddenly had me faltering. It sort of blew my concentration to smithereens, and that was enough to interrupt the magic I’d been using to hold the vampire in place.
I wasn’t quite mortal. I wasn’t in much danger from a vampire on the warpath. It was a different story entirely for Stacy though. So I was less than amused when that vampire let out a horrifying shriek and threw itself across the room at Stacy with a speed that astonished me.
A moment later they were on the ground rolling around struggling, and I was racing to catch up and trying to figure out which hot blonde I was supposed to be hitting to save my girlfriend!
10
Stacy the Vampire Slayer
I looked between the two girls, but in the darkness in the cafeteria it was difficult to tell which was which as they rolled around the floor. They were both pretty blonde girls, but I couldn’t exactly see the fangs when they were fighting.
“Lights, damn it!” I shouted, not sure who I was even talking to.
“How are we supposed to turn the lights on?” Arnold asked. “We’re fucking ghosts!”
I growled. Of course they wouldn’t be able to turn the lights on. They were fucking ghosts. The man did have a point.
“Okay,” I growled. “This is not cool.”
I floated over to the edge of the room and flipped a couple of switches. The light came on and I was treated to a firsthand view of my girlfriend getting attacked by a fucking vampire. Exactly the nightmare scenario I’d been trying to avoid when this whole thing got started.
Only when I looked I realized that wasn’t exactly what was happening. One pretty blonde was on top of the other, but it wasn’t the vampire on t
op of Stacy clawing at her like I’d expected.
No, Stacy was on top of the girl and she was holding the vampire down with one muscled arm while repeatedly bashing the vamp in the face with her fist with the other arm.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
“Holy shit is right,” Jake said, floating up next to me. “I mean I’ve got like the most confused boner in the world right now!”
“Seriously?” I asked, glaring at him.
“Well I mean I guess I don’t know if I would call it a boner considering I don’t have any blood in my body to…”
“Would you please shut up before I pull you to the other side and let you see what kind of eternal reward is waiting for you?” I growled.
“Shutting up now,” he said.
I floated over to where Stacy was beating the ever loving crap out of the vampire girl. I’d always known my girlfriend was freaky strong, but I guess I’d never figured that freaky strength would extend to her being able to beat the ever loving shit out of a vampire.
Sure the vampire had it coming, but they were supposed to be stronger than humans. Not like Superman strong like you saw in the movies, but still pretty strong.
The vampire, meanwhile, was hissing and spitting and trying its best to bite her, but Stacy seemed to have a natural ability to hit the thing wherever those fangs weren’t. Like the vamp was seriously sporting a look that seemed to say “Is this really fucking happening to me after I spent so many years waiting for my chance to raise hell in the mortal world?”
It had to be a hell of an indignity. Resurrected into the mortal world only to have its ass handed to it by a pretty cheerleader. It would’ve seemed ridiculous and cliched if I wasn’t seeing it happen right before my very eyes.
“Um, Stacy?” I said. “I think she’s had enough.”
Stacy looked up at me, her hand still balled in a fist that she looked more than ready to use. Her chest was heaving, and I’m not going to lie. In that moment I sort of understood what Jake was talking about when he said he had the world’s most confused boner.
I mean sure I couldn’t get boners, but looking at her straddling a vampire with her fist out breathing heavily like she was ready to kick any vampire ass that dared come her way, well it was pretty fucking hot.
“I’ve got this, Stacy,” I said, wrapping the vampire in tendrils of death magic once more now that I could tell which pretty blonde was which. I pulled the girl up and walked around her, inspecting her and trying to ignore the way Stacy had suddenly turned that seething anger from the vampire she’d been beating the shit out of to yours truly instead.
That wasn’t a pleasant look, and I found myself worrying she might take a swing at me next.
“So what the hell am I supposed to do with you?” I asked.
“You can let me go so I can finish off this bitch,” the vampire hissed.
I slapped her across the face with a tendril of my death magic. The slap echoed through the cafeteria, it was a little more intense than I’d intended, but it seemed like the vampire could take a beating.
“You just got the shit kicked out of you by that bitch,” I said. “And if you don’t watch your mouth I’m going to let her have another go at you.”
Besides, it’d been really hot watching her kick the shit out of the vampire. I was surprised to look deep inside myself and realize there was a part of me that maybe wanted to see a repeat performance.
I was going to have to be careful not to let what I very much wanted affect how I was doing my job.
“Y’know we could probably splinter one of the chairs in the library or something,” Stacy said, still looking between me and the vampire as though she was having trouble deciding which one of us she wanted to glare at more.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“They’re all made of wood,” she said “If we’re going to find a stake to ram through this thing’s heart then we’re going to need something like that. I could also go down to the wood shop. Maybe we could make something with one of the belt sanders or something?”
I stared at my girlfriend. I was having trouble believing this was the same Stacy I’d been making out with so often lately, but then again it wasn’t much of a surprise at all. She was obsessed with the paranormal, and apparently now that we were dealing with bloodsucking vampires that obsession extended to killing any supernatural creatures she happened to come across.
“We’re not going to do anything like that,” I said.
“Why not?” she asked. “She’s a vampire. She said it herself. If we let her go she’s going to attack someone else.”
I hit my girlfriend with an irritated glance. This was another reason why I hadn’t wanted her along for this particular ride. This whole bloodlust thing she had going for her wasn’t a good look.
“This girl was a person with a soul,” I said. “I’m sorry, but it’s kind of hard to so cavalierly talk about staking someone when I was just having a conversation with her ghost who refused to believe she was dead.”
Stacy’s glare was all on me now. Clearly she thought I was being soft on the bloodsucking monster. Hell, she might be right on that point, but it didn’t change the fact that there had to be a better way to take care of this, damn it.
“Look,” I said. “I know you’re pissed off that I didn’t call you when I was coming out here to hunt vampires, and I’m sorry. But this is dangerous. The fact that the vampire was able to come after you like she did should show you how dangerous it is.”
Stacy stood there with her arms crossed staring at me. It was the kind of look that said she didn’t like what I was saying.
“Yeah, well are you forgetting the part where the vampire attacked me and I proceeded to beat the shit out of her?” Stacy finally asked, her voice dripping with acid. “Because I’m not forgetting that part. It was pretty awesome.”
“It was pretty awesome,” I said, not really thinking about what I was saying before it came out. “Shit. I didn’t mean to say that.”
Stacy smiled a triumphant smile. “So we’re agreed you’re going to let me come along when you do more vampire hunting?”
“I’m not agreeing to anything,” I said. “What I’m going to do is take care of this.”
I reached out and touched the vampire girl on the shoulder. And I immediately felt something weird. Well, more weird than touching a girl who’d so recently become a bloodthirsty bloodsucker. It was almost an echo of what’d happened when I touched the staff Graham the necromancer had been using to suck people’s souls out of their body.
I stumbled back at what I felt roiling inside the girl. Her soul was in there, but she was sitting in her own body looking out and screaming in gibbering terror wondering what the hell had been done to her. Meanwhile there was also a malevolent spirit in there, the essence of vampire, that was feasting on her soul even as it delighted in torturing her by giving her a view of the outside world she couldn’t control as the vampire spirit navigated the world using the girl’s body.
I stumbled back. The feeling was too much for me. The terror that poor girl felt broke my heart, and I had to do something to save her.
“What’s wrong?” Stacy asked, concern breaking through her anger.
“She’s still in there,” I said. “That vampire is torturing her, but she’s still in there and someone needs to help her!”
I grimaced. I knew what I had to do to take care of this. I didn’t like it, but I knew what I had to do.
“This is going to suck,” I said. “And I’m going to need you to back off. Listen to me for once.”
Stacy held my gaze for a long moment, but finally she nodded and took a step back. Good. She could listen from time to time, for all that she seemed to love creating headaches for me by doing the exact opposite of what I needed her to do when I was hunting deadly creatures of the night.
I reached out with my magic in the same way I would when I was taking on a necromancer waving around his staff of death, or whate
ver the fuck that thing had been. Graham had spent most of his post-pubescent life hoping I’d grab his staff, and he’d learned, too late, that he should’ve been more specific about what he was wishing for.
I touched the girl again. Admittedly it was a lot more pleasant touching her than it was grabbing Graham’s necromancer staff, but I tried not to look like I was too interested in the pretty vampire girl standing in front of me.
After all, Stacy was right there, and she might not take kindly to me acting too interested in saving the pretty sophomore girl.
As soon as I touched her she lashed out, but I held her in place with my magic as I grabbed the vampire spirit within her in the same way I would’ve grabbed the soul of someone stuck in a necromancer’s staff, and I yanked. It took a couple of tries, but finally the thing went flying out of her and slammed into a wall on the other side of the room.
The girl blinked a couple of times and looked genuinely surprised before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell back. Thankfully Stacy was there to catch her, because I had bigger undead to fry.
I turned to face the vampire spirit, that strange Gollum-like thing with the claws, and held out my scythe. It was go time, bitches, and I was going to take this thing out before it could hurt anyone else.
11
The Other Side
“No!” the thing shrieked. “I’m not going back! I’m not…”
I lashed out and caught the thing. The more I’d used my death magic the more I’d come to the realization that it was sort of like Ghostbusters, only instead of holding something in place so I could put it in a ghost trap and deliver it to a custom-built ecto containment unit, I was trapping creatures on the other side of the veil so I could take them to the other side and throw them through the portal to whatever eternal reward was waiting for them.
That was the thing about being a reaper. I never saw what that eternal reward was, and I wasn’t sure that I ever would. The gate just sat there, a big hunk of rock surrounded by a bunch of rocks that looked like something out of the end of Star Trek V, but whatever.
