Vampires Don't Sparkle!

by Mia Archer

  “Fucking vampires,” Stacy said, echoing a sentiment I’d been feeling pretty regularly since this whole fucked up situation started. “Y’all really need to be better about keeping up with pop culture. You missed some great stuff.”

  She pulled her hand back out and crushed the dude’s heart. He made another noise and then his body turned to dust that fell into a pile on the floor. I stared at it, and then up to Stacy.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Turns out I was never under their control,” she said. “Good thing too, because that would’ve been an awkward wrinkle in my whole plan to get captured and infiltrate their ranks, y’know?”

  I shook my head. That sounded like the kind of stupid thing Stacy would do. And I couldn’t help but think it was partly my fault she’d felt the need to do it at all. After all, I was the idiot who couldn’t actually track down the fucking vampires in the first place. I was the idiot who let her out of my sight so she could go and do something stupid like this, for that matter.

  “We are so going to have a conversation about this,” I said.

  Though the shrieking that was coming down from the bleachers all around us as an entire gym’s worth of vampires cried out for our blood would seem to indicate we were going to have some trouble surviving for the next five minutes, let along long enough for us to have a conversation about this.

  “Vampires first,” Stacy said. “Take care of everything else later.”

  “Right,” I said, holding my hand out and letting my scythe materialize around me as my robes appeared and fluttered in that strange wind that was never actually there. “That doesn’t mean we’re not having this conversation though.”

  “Yes mother,” Stacy said.

  I didn’t get to let loose with a quip. No, vampires started pressing in around us and Stacy went to work laying into them with a surprising amount of vampire strength. Jimmy started doing the same, but I could tell we were going to be overwhelmed pretty damn quick considering there were two of them, plus Veronica hiding in the middle, and a whole fucking gym of the bloodsuckers pressing in on us.

  I lashed out with a bit of the old death magic that slammed into the vampires pressing in all around us. I figured the least I could do was make sure the bloodsucking bastards couldn’t move in on my friends right away, but I could still tell this was going to be a losing battle.

  There were too many of them and not enough of us. Especially if I wanted to try and save some of the poor teenagers who’d been turned into bloodsucking bastards against their will.

  I honestly wasn’t in a mood to save most of them, but I also figured I needed to be smart about this. I needed a way to take out a bunch of them all at once, and the only way to do that was to go after the head dude.

  And pray this whole vampire thing really did work under Lost Boys rules, and that wasn’t just some bullshit that’d gone back and forth between Hollywood and the real world so often that no one knew which was real and which was fake.

  Whatever. There was one chance to make this all better, and that ended with my scythe running through a school administrator’s heart. So I shot up into the air and searched through the crowd of vampires for Assistant Principal Lee. It was easy enough to find the prick, which was a relief. If the dude was smart then he would’ve gone to ground the moment he realized his plan wasn’t quite going to plan, but it looked like he was confident enough in his bloodsucking bastards saving the day that he wasn’t bothering to hide.

  Which made it that much easier to fly down at him, ready to deliver a bit of the reaper justice that he’d obviously been avoiding for far too many years of his undeath.

  38

  Head Vampire

  I barreled towards Assistant Principal Lee, trailing a cloud of inky darkness behind me as I worked up a good pissed off head of steam heading for the prick.

  He looked up and locked eyes with me. His reaction wasn’t anything like what I’d expected. I’d figured an ancient vampire who was hellbent on world domination, or at the very least hellbent on pulling a ‘Salems Lot on this little corner of the world, would’ve been a bit more terrifying when he saw a potential challenger coming for him.

  Lee wasn’t anything like that. He didn’t flash the old fangs at me. He didn’t raise his clawed hands in preparation for a hell of a fight with yours truly. He didn’t turn into a bat or fog or a wolf and prepare for a fight.

  No, he looked up at me and his eyes went wide as he screamed like a little bitch. Like we’re talking his scream sounded like a little girl screaming at the top of her lungs. Which wasn’t the kind of thing I expected to hear coming from an ancient vampire who’d been acting so tough just moments ago.

  I landed in front of him and some of the hardwood cracked under me. I winced. My body still hadn’t quite recovered from the first beatdown I got from these vampire bastards. Plus I figured fixing those boards couldn’t be cheap.

  Then again with the way things were going with these bloodsucking bastards the school was going to be lucky if I didn’t burn the gym down around us trying to take care of the vampire bastards infesting it. The real bitch was something like that would probably go on my permanent record with all the stuff about burning the gym down being rendered in loving detail while all the stuff about saving the world from a bunch of bloodsucking bastards would be left out.

  Whatever. I could worry about that later. Right now I had a vampire to take care of.

  “Mr. Lee,” I said, my voice low and menacing. At least I hoped it was appropriately menacing.

  He made a little motion with his fingers. Vampires rushed in, and I pressed out with another wave of death magic that pushed them back. A cloud of darkness moved around and surrounded us like a wall, and no bloodsuckers got through that wall.

  “You don’t have to do this, Gwen,” he said, looking around and seeming more than a little worried for the first time.

  It was a confusing feeling. Here he was an undead bastard who’d been so confident and full of himself just moments ago, and now he was staring at me like I was the monster or something. Talk about a weird trip.

  “You’re threatening to take over the town with your teenage vampire minions,” I said. “I sort of have to do this.”

  “You could join us!” he said. “I’d be willing to make you my second! I didn’t mean all that stuff about Corey being my second!”

  “Well Corey is a pile of dust right about now, so I’m guessing that’s not going to happen for him regardless of what your plans were,” I said.

  Anger flashed in his eyes. For a moment he looked every inch the angry Assistant Principal and not an angry bloodsucking vampire trying to take over the world.

  “You are causing quite a bit of disruption here tonight young lady,” he growled. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll cease and desist from all of this immediately and maybe you won’t get in too much trouble.”

  I stared at him like he’d sprouted a pair of fangs. Which wasn’t all that difficult considering, y’know, he actually had sprouted a pair of fangs and he was staring at me with the fangs out.

  “Are you serious?” I asked. “You really think you can pull the whole ‘business as usual’ schtick and threaten me with getting in trouble?”

  “This is the kind of thing that could go on your permanent record young lady,” he said, still playing up the role of the Assistant Principal.

  I wasn’t sure if he was doing that because he actually thought it might work, maybe it had with some of the unfortunate teenagers who’d been his victims over the years, or if he was doing it because the role he’d been playing for all these years was, at the end of the day, the last refuge he had when things clearly weren’t going in his favor.

  Either way it wasn’t going to be enough to save him.

  “I think it’s a little too late for you to try and pull the whole teacher thing to try and get me to not go after you,” I said. “We both know what the fuck you are and what the fuck you were planning, and I can�
��t let that happen.”

  Mr. Lee looked down at me, and there was nothing but scorn in his eyes now. He glanced around the gym, to the throng of vampires who were in his thrall, and then back to me. His face contorted into something very close to rage, and for a moment he actually looked like the monster he was and not like some boring assistant principal who’d maybe had dreams once upon a time that’d long ago died by a thousand paper cuts administered by uncaring teenagers.

  “You really think you can defeat me?” he asked. “What gives you the arrogance to think a teenager would ever be capable of doing something like that?”

  I cocked my head to the side.

  “Are you serious?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Are you seriously trying to give me the old “You have no idea how powerful I am and can never defeat me!” villain speech?”

  “I…”

  I suppose as a tactic it would’ve been a good one if he actually had a leg to stand on, but as it stood… I sighed. Slammed a tendril of the old death magic right into his chest. Right about where his heart would be.

  Stacy might’ve done her Temple of Doom moment the old fashioned way by reaching her hand straight through that Corey prick’s chest and giving him the business, but I had access to forces beyond the understanding of mortal man, or undead bloodsucker, to play with.

  “That whole speech was nice and all,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you to feel like it wasn’t working or anything. I’m sure it would’ve terrified a mortal, but you’re forgetting one thing: I’m not a normal mortal teenager.”

  His eyes went wide as he stared at me, and then he took a step towards me. Now that was interesting. None of the other vampires I’d faced down had done anything like that. What the hell?

  I blinked and I was standing in a strange location. Lightning streaked the sky all around me. Angry red lightning, not the cool white stuff streaking through the sky during a thunderstorm which was one of my favorite things ever.

  Everything about this place was trippy, too. Floating black islands lazily moved past. Dark clouds boiled overhead, and all around me was a dull purple light.

  What the ever loving fuck?

  Something big landed in front of me. Like we’re talking it was big enough to shake the ground all around me. Think Godzilla going for a stroll in your local park, if your local park was a strange place filled with floating islands and evil red lightning, and you start to get the idea of what it felt like.

  I looked at the thing, and hoo boy was it an ugly motherfucker. It looked sort of like the vampire spirits I’d seen in the other vamps, only this thing was fucking huge.

  “Hoo boy are you one ugly motherfucker,” I said. That was the kind of thought that needed to be given voice.

  The thing was all black and almost seemed to blend in with its surroundings. Its eyes glowed a bright red, because of course its eyes glowed a bright red. What self-respecting evil creature of the night didn’t have a set of glowing peepers, the better to terrify the normies with my dear?

  It leaned forward and bellowed at me. Again comparisons to Godzilla came to mind, though those cheesy old monster movies didn’t capture the smell that was came off of this thing when it opened its mouth and gave me a little bit of the business. We’re talking a very unpleasant smell sensation.

  I waved a hand in front of my nose to try and get rid of some of that offending smell.

  “You really need to brush your teeth buddy,” I said.

  The thing took another step towards me. Again the ground shook around me. We’re talking if I’d had a cup of water in front of me on the dashboard of a hypothetical Land Cruiser I was sitting in these giant steps would’ve knocked it over instead of creating a little ripple in the water to let me know something bad was about to go down.

  “I’m guessing this means you have no plans to go quietly?” I said, cocking an eyebrow.

  I looked around. If my experience with Veronica was anything to go on then there should’ve been a genuine Assistant Principal Lee soul hanging around here somewhere that was ready to get the fuck away from this giant vampire motherfucker.

  Then again that thing was way bigger than any of the other vampire souls I’d come across since this whole thing started. Maybe it ate the old soul or something. Maybe it just…

  Something slammed into me and answered that question quite nicely, thank you very much. I went skidding across ground that felt sort of like volcanic rock, only slimy, and then I was falling over the edge.

  That was new. There hadn’t been an edge with the others.

  I was treated to a view of a roiling lavascape down below the floating islands. Because of course there was a roiling lavascape down there. What self-respecting villainous monster creature didn’t make its lair on, in, over, or otherwise around a boiling lavascape?

  I had a moment of panic falling screaming through the air towards that lava far below, hot enough that I could feel it even though we were thousands of feet over the stuff, before I remembered I could totally fly and it’s not like I had to worry about something as mundane as falling.

  So I whipped around and came back up to the floating island I’d been on, only the vampire soul was gone. I blinked a couple of times. Where the hell had that thing gone, and what the heck had hit me to knock me over the edge like that?

  “You can’t win young lady,” a familiar voice said.

  I whipped around and looked at a floating jagged black rock floating by. Standing on the thing was a very boring looking old man who would’ve been able to move through just about any crowd unremarked. The sort of person who’d dedicated their whole quiet and unassuming life to education.

  Or the kind of person who’d lived that quiet and unassuming life because they’d discovered it was the perfect cover for the fact that they were a bloodsucking bastard hellbent on world domination via converting some of their students to vampiric slaves over the course of decades.

  As plots to try and take over the world went, it seemed a little needlessly complicated. Like it wasn’t as needlessly complicated as, say, building a second Chia earth and luring the world’s population over to it with offers of free T-shirts so they could take over the world, but it was definitely up there.

  “Why aren’t you glad I’m here?” I asked. “Veronica was happy to see me.”

  “Well that’s the big difference between me and Veronica,” Assistant Principal Lee, or whoever the fuck he was, said. “She doesn’t want to be a vampire, while I’m quite content in my current state. More than content. Happy, you might say.”

  Something slammed into me again. I groaned as I flew through the air, but this time I was able to course correct before I went hurtling down towards the scary lava flowing so far below, at least, so I had that going for me.

  I whipped around and found myself facing the giant vampire soul kaiju thing that was stomping around the place. The thing leaned forward and bellowed at me again. Again that stinky breath wafted over me, and I waved my hand in front of my face to try and ward off an evil that was far greater than anything as simple as a vampire soul trying to kill me.

  Like we’re talking if Godzilla managed to hit King Ghidorah with breath like that instead of the whole nuclear breath then the movie would be over about halfway through.

  “Man your breath stinks,” I said.

  “You can give this up now, Gwen,” Lee said, floating along on a rock beside me. “You’re overmatched here. I was serious when I said you don’t have a chance to defeat me, for all that you have all the overconfidence I’ve come to expect from the teenagers in my town.”

  “Like hell am I giving up that easily,” I said. “What the fuck am I supposed to do, join you and we rule the town as vampire sire and vampire daughter?”

  “Well I mean if that’s something you’d be interested in then I’m sure we could move you up the org chart just a little,” he said, sounding genuinely surprised that I’d suggest something like that. “I d
o have an opening since your girlfriend killed Corey and you took care of Veronica. I’m not sure how it would work with a reaper, but it would be a worthwhile experiment!”

  I rolled my eyes. Fucking vampires.

  “It’s a quote from Star Wars, asshole,” I said.

  He blinked. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t have time for much but reading. I’m not a fan of the new moving pictures. Never have been.”

  “Seriously?” I said.

  “Someone dragged me to see Nosferatu when it made its way to the states, but I didn’t find it to be a charitable depiction of my life and gave up on the moving pictures after that,” he said.

  “Right, well if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go and defeat the scary vampire soul that’s taken up residence in your head and try to save you,” I said.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” he said, and he launched himself at me.

  39

  All In Your Head

  Lee was surprisingly strong. Like way stronger than Veronica had been when I was tooling around inside her head. I found myself flying down towards that creepy lava stuff in the distance just to get away from the bastard for a moment.

  I wasn’t sure if that stuff could even kill me in here. This was all in Lee’s head, after all, but I suppose what happened in his head could be pretty dangerous considering I could kill the vampire souls in here.

  If this could be dangerous for the vampires then I figured there was a pretty good chance it could be dangerous for yours truly as well.

  Something small slammed into me and wrapped its arms around me. That would be Lee. The vampire kaiju wasn’t nearly as delicate.

  I pushed at the wiry bastard, but he was surprisingly strong. So I wrapped death magic around him and yanked at him. That was enough to get him away from me, but I could feel him tugging at that death magic.