Vampires Don't Sparkle!

by Mia Archer

  Not that I cared about my surroundings. No, I was more interested in this fucking vampire and taking out some of the frustration that’d been building over the past couple of days on this bloodsucker.

  “That’s right you bloodsucking bastard!” I said, pulling my arm back and slamming it into his face a couple of times for good measure.

  The big difference between beating the crap out of a vampire versus beating the crap out of a human was the vampire didn’t get bloodied or bruised or anything like that. Not exactly. Sure I was rearranging his face with every hit, but those hits healed up fast enough that his face was mostly pristine when I hit it again.

  Which was just fine with me. That meant I could beat the crap out of him for even longer.

  “Why the fuck do you assholes have to…”

  I paused as I pulled my fist back again. Because there was something odd about this vampire. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but…

  “What decade are you from?” I asked.

  The guy coughed and spluttered a couple of times. Then the other vampire was there right next to me, leaning down over the guy. He wheeled his foot back like he was getting ready to give me a kick, and so I reached out and caught his foot before he had a chance to land that hit.

  The geeky vampire cried out in surprise as he went tumbling back. His neck landed on the edge of one of these weird semicircular steps, and there was a slight crunch as his body started to twitch.

  Ouch. That looked like one of those unfortunate incapacitating spine hits. Whatever. He’d get better, and a convenient upper spine injury meant I didn’t have to worry about a second bloodsucking bastard coming at me while I was trying to have a conversation with this bloodsucking bastard.

  I raised my fist again. Held it there so he could get a good look at the world of hurt that was about to pay him a visit if he didn’t talk.

  “I’m fucking serious,” I said. “You tell me what the fuck is going on here or you’re going to have a really bad fucking day. Got it? What fucking decade are you from?”

  “I think I recognize that guy,” Luke said, floating in. “Yeah, I think I recognize both of these guys! That’s Michael Thomas you’re beating.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. Long enough that I hoped it was pretty clear I had no idea who the hell Michael Thomas was.

  “Oh, right,” he said. “We’re talking the urban legend of a bunch of kids who went for a joyride out on the country roads and ended up getting killed really messily.”

  “Wait, I thought you guys were the ones who got killed while you were joyriding,” I said.

  My dad had apparently been the one doing the driving when that happened, or at least he’d been in the car and felt responsible for what’d happened. It didn’t help that considering his unique supernatural origins his friends had become ghosts while he’d continued living his life as though nothing had happened.

  I couldn’t imagine what that must feel like living your life knowing you were partially responsible for your friends dying, and on top of that knowing the only reason you’d survived when they didn’t was because you were a reaper.

  It was something I’d come close to understanding when my friends had been taken out by Graham the idiot necromancer, but at least I’d been able to save them. Well, all of them but Graham, but he sort of had it coming.

  I was worried I was about to suffer the same fate with Stacy now that she’d been turned to a vampire, but I tried not to think about that too much.

  “This is the one where the kids were killed when they tried racing a train,” Luke said. “Happened a couple of years before us, but my understanding is a bunch of people have kind of combined the two stories so they’re all the same thing.”

  “Yeah, something like that,” I said. “Weird. So you’re saying these two vampires were in that accident?”

  “Well honestly considering there are two vampires here from that car accident I’d be willing to bet that racing a train wasn’t the main reason the people in that car died that night.

  “Huh,” I said. “That’s an interesting supposition there. They ran into some vampires, and after the fact the bloodsuckers made it look like they were hit by a train. Clever.”

  I turned back to the vampire who’d been beating the crap out of the poor bastard who seemed doomed to forever live the life of a geek who got the crap kicked out of him by the asshole bullies who’d picked on him while he was still alive.

  Talk about my idea of hell.

  “What the fuck are you doing beating up on that guy?” I asked. “And what do you know about Stacy and the other vampires? Why did they steal my girlfriend?”

  The vampire laughed. It struck me what was slightly off about him now. Most of the other vampires I’d met looked like extras out of some ‘50s greaser movie, Veronica being the exception even though she was out of time too, but this guy looked like he’d raided the Brady Bunch wardrobe or something with the clothes he was wearing.

  If he did come from the late ‘70s then I guess that made sense. He would’ve been in that weird in-between time that wasn’t quite the ‘70s as people imagine it, but also wasn’t quite the ‘80s everyone thought of when that decade came to mind.

  “Your girl begged for it,” he said. “She asked the Master to take her, and she squealed like a stuck pig when his fangs sank into her neck!”

  I’m not sure what my bloodsucking friend was hoping to accomplish by taunting me like that, but he sure squealed like a stuck pig himself as the death magic I’d been tossing around slammed into his chest.

  His eyes went wide and his whole body started to convulse. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Just that I was good and pissed off, and whatever the fuck I was doing here seemed to be hurting him real good so I was going to keep doing it.

  I didn’t even really know what I was doing. Just that hitting him with that magic, wrapping him in tendrils of darkness and pressing some of that darkness into him, felt sort of like when I’d been facing down Graham the necromancer and I suddenly discovered there were souls lurking deep inside the glowing staff thingy he was using to steal people’s souls.

  Only the soul deep inside this motherfucker was all dark and disgusting. Not at all like the still mostly pristine soul on the last girl I’d saved. No, this soul had been fused with a vampire long enough that it’d done some shit.

  I wanted to pull away. I felt dirty just touching it. Only I knew I had to keep going.

  Finally something snapped inside the vampire. I yanked, hard, and one of those freaky vampire soul things came flying out of the fucker with a messy explosion of blood and guts and flew across the room.

  The vampire stared in astonishment. Sure that might’ve been that he was still trying to regain control of his body after having a good chunk of it ripped to pieces by that throw, but I liked to think he was looking at his body’s former undead occupant and thinking about how good and fucked he was.

  The vampire spirit slammed against a wall, and for a wonder it actually caused that wall to rattle and sent a couple of framed bits of music falling to the ground where the glass shattered.

  I blinked and looked around, and suddenly everything made a lot more sense. I’d been going to hunt vampires in the band, choir, and drama hallway, and it looked like I’d tumbled into the band room as I was fighting this vampire fucker.

  Right. That would also explain the weird tiered stairs running in a semicircle up the room. All the band kids would sit in chairs on that semicircle while they did their thing.

  I pulled myself to my feet. Brushed myself off. Stared at the vampire on the ground, but he wasn’t moving. That made sense considering the mess it’d made when I ripped the vampire spirit free. I hadn’t intended to be that violent. I guess I’d just learned a lesson though. I needed to be careful if I was doing vampire spirit removal.

  Something to keep in mind with Stacy, but right now I had more immediate problems. Like the very disoriented vampire spirit looking around
the room.

  Its eyes came to rest on me, and I knew this vampire fucker was seeing its end. The thing stood and tried to get away, but I wrapped it in tendrils of death magic, and a moment later we were on our way to the other side where this thing could be properly disposed of.

  26

  Vampire Disposal

  “Another one?”

  Death looked down at the vampire spirit. The thing still had a little bit of fight in it when we first came through to the other side, but all that fight had gone out of it as soon as it realized where it was.

  “Another one,” I said. “Turns out my school is crawling with vampires. I ripped this one right out of one of the fuckers. Good to know I can do that, too.”

  Death’s lips compressed to a thin line. “You’ll want to be careful about doing that to someone you actually care for.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, thinking about the mess this thing had made coming out of the vampire dude and how I really didn’t want that to happen to Stacy.

  “I don’t understand why this one was different,” I said. “The last one got ripped out of that girl without killing her. Well, without killing her again. You know what I mean.”

  “Did it?” he asked.

  “Well I sort of intercepted it right after it possessed her, but yeah,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s the thing,” he said. “The longer these things spend in a person’s body, the more difficult it is to remove them without causing some damage. It’s one of the reasons I was so surprised that you pulled it off. No one’s been near a vampire close enough to them turning. You need to be careful.”

  I stared at the vampire spirit as it was lifted up and carted towards the great portal to the great whatever the fuck was waiting for things on the other side. Other reapers were handling it this time around. I guess my little back and forth with Death was more important than tossing that thing through the portal personally.

  “Fuck,” I said. “So you’re saying I could hurt someone by pulling the vampire out?”

  “Sometimes you have to nuke the original vampire from orbit,” he said. “It’s the only way to be sure.”

  I eyed him sideways. I was pretty sure he was quoting something there, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. I’m sure one of the three stooges would know. Assuming it was something that’d been out before their untimely death.

  “How does that work, anyway?” I asked. “Do you kill the head vampire and they all die off or something?”

  “Nothing quite as dramatic as that,” he said with a chuckle. “If you want to get rid of a vampire soul infesting, say, someone you love, then all you have to do is kill the vampire that turned them. Or kill a vampire somewhere down the line that was involved in siring the vampire that killed you. So I suppose killing the head vampire would do it, assuming that head vampire went down the line to the person you’re trying to save. Makes it very easy and very difficult to take care of vampire infections, y’know?”

  “Great,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I can’t even track down the vampires who turned Stacy, let alone figure out which one of those assholes was the one who turned her.”

  He looked down at me sharply. “Stacy? You mean that nice girl who got attacked by the necromancer?”

  “Well yeah,” I said. “She has a habit of running headfirst into supernatural shit. I keep telling her it’s going to get her in trouble someday, but did she listen to me? Hell no. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is having a girlfriend who doesn’t have an appreciation of her own fucking mortality?”

  I expected agreement. Instead all I got was silence. I looked up at the big guy and he had an odd look on his face. Like he was thinking something over rather than simply agreeing with me.

  “What?” I asked. “What am I missing here?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve never known of someone to survive a necromancer like she did and then get attacked by vampires.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well I’m the lucky one dating a girl who was unlucky enough to get caught up in both. Lucky me, right?”

  “Something like that,” Death said.

  I stared off at the vampire spirit as it approached the gate. From the wide-eyed look of terror it was giving us as it was dragged off to the inevitable it didn’t like the thought of being pulled off towards that inevitable.

  “You should probably get back to the other side,” Death said. “Something tells me there’s something very weird going on over there, and I’d feel better if you were there keeping an eye on things.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I be there keeping an eye on things? It’s not like I have a life or a girlfriend to worry about or anything.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “I know you’re having some difficulties with this, but if anyone can handle all the craziness happening in that town it’s you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  I wasn’t sure I liked his reference to “all the craziness happening in that town.” That sounded an awful lot like vampires and necromancers and other things that go bump in the night were something I could come to expect on the regular, and that wasn’t a comforting idea.

  “You are your father’s daughter,” he said. “And I have confidence that you’ll be able to handle anything that gets thrown at you.”

  “That’s not very comforting,” I muttered.

  But I let the death magic gather around me as I stepped back into the real world. And found myself staring down at the asshole I’d ripped that vampire spirit out of.

  He was still twitching, but he also didn’t look long for this world.

  “Did you kill him?” a voice asked from beside me.

  I wheeled around and found myself facing the vampire asshole who’d been getting his ass handed to him. I sighed. I wasn’t particularly worried about him causing any trouble, though he had been on the verge of getting his ass handed to him all over again.

  “Don’t you know it’s dangerous sneaking up on someone like that?” I asked.

  “Sorry,” he said, eyeing the tendrils of death magic that’d materialized around me like someone who was mortal might eye a venomous snake. “But is he dead? I saw what you did.”

  There was something to the look in his eyes. Almost as though he was hopeful or something.

  “Do you want me to do the same to you?” I asked, lashing out at him with some of that death magic and knocking him on his ass.

  He didn’t seem like he was ready for that. Then again I got the feeling this guy wasn’t much for dusting it up with people no matter what. His feet went out from under him and he hit the ground with another loud crack.

  “Ow!” he cried out. “That hurts like a motherfucker! Breaking my neck wasn’t enough for you?”

  “I’m only getting started,” I said, looming over him with my robes flapping in a nonexistent breeze as I held my scythe up. “I’m one for one tonight with vampire spirits, so let’s see what happens with you.”

  He held his hands out. Like that might actually stop me from taking him out.

  “Wait!” he said. “I want to help you!”

  I paused in the act of bringing the scythe down. I cocked an eyebrow. I was skeptical, but I was also willing to hear this asshole out.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “He was beating the crap out of me because he knew I was going to try and find you,” the guy said.

  I glanced down at the guy twitching on the ground. “Why the hell would he be doing that? He doesn’t even look like he’s from the same time period as the other vampires!”

  “That’s the thing,” he said, eyeing my scythe and licking his lips. Which, incidentally, also showed me his fangs which reminded me that I was dealing with a bloodsucker for all that he was a bloodsucker who was talking fast in an attempt to save his ass.

  “What’s the thing?” I said, pressing the tip of that scythe against his nose to remind him who he was dea
ling with here.

  “You’re going to be seeing a lot of people from different decades here soon,” he said. “They’re planning a gathering, and they don’t want you around when that happens.”

  “A gathering?” I said. “Is this like a vampire reunion or something?”

  “Or something,” he said, licking his lips again and going cross-eyed as he stared at the tip of my scythe pressing against his nose.

  I pulled the scythe away. Rolled my eyes. Meanwhile the guy down below twitched a final time, and then he went still.

  “Man that sucks,” I said. “I thought I was doing him a favor pulling that vampire spirit out!”

  “Yeah, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t help me or do me any favors,” the vampire said.

  A ghost rose out of the recently departed vampire. He shook himself a couple of times and then turned to focus on me. His eyes turned to pure fury and he launched himself at me, though of course it didn’t do him much good considering he was a ghost and I wasn’t.

  “You killed me you bitch!” he said.

  “What’s he going on about?” I asked. “And aren’t vampires supposed to turn to dust or something when they die? Why did he turn into a ghost?”

  “He turned into a ghost?” the vampire said, looking around the room and rubbing his arms like he was actually afraid of the idea of a ghost floating around the room somewhere.

  I rolled my eyes. There was no rhyme or reason for supernatural creatures.

  “Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. “The guy just turned into a ghost, and now he’s attacking me. Well, he’s trying to attack me. It’s not actually doing much good.”

  The guy flew through me a second time. Then a third time. His hands were waving this way and that and he was doing a good job of it. The only problem being he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually hitting me.

  “It doesn’t look like anything’s attacking you,” the geeky vampire said. “Like are you sure you aren’t hallucinating or something?”