Ancient Vampire Death Cults and Other Annoyances
Vampire Innocent Book 12
Matthew S. Cox
Ancient Vampire Death Cults and Other Annoyances
Vampire Innocent Book 12
© 2020 Matthew S. Cox
All Rights Reserved
This novel is a work of fiction. Any similarities to actual living or undead persons, long-forgotten cabals of nihilistic vampires, or extraplanar minions of darkness is coincidental. No portion of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author except for quotes posted in reviews or blogs.
Cover & interior art by: Alexandria Thompson
ISBN (e-book): 978-1-950738-38-0
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-950738-39-7
Contents
1. Tracers
2. Delicate Negotiations
3. Pear-Shaped
4. A Smidge Beyond Bactine
5. Everything Will be Handled
6. The Tome of F-Something
7. The Magic of Peaches & Cream
8. Even Vampires Get Hangry
9. Mostly Painless
10. No One Suspects the Cute Girl
11. Not For Children Under Twelve
12. The Old Ways
13. Double Digits
14. Of Course It Would Happen
15. Stranded on a Wooden Boat
16. Schrödinger’s Cop
17. Straight Into a Nightmare
18. A More than Occasional Advantage
19. The Crawford Coven
20. Bends Rules Girl
21. True Friends Help Hide Bodies
22. Fast Becoming Normal
23. Innocent and Sweet
24. It’s Good to Have People
25. It’s Latin for Destruction
26. A Ghostly Loose End
27. It only Cost a Crapton
28. Unstable Fiends
29. Sorry, My Bad
30. Farewell to the Sun
31. Outside the System
32. One Horror Movie Set After Another
33. A Serious Case of Burnout
34. Here Comes the Sun
35. Dust to… Sparkles?
36. Sierra’s Gone Extra
37. The Last Boyfriend
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other books by Matthew S. Cox
1
Tracers
Weird has become my new ordinary, and it’s usually pretty fun—except when little balls of fiery death are whizzing past my head.
Know what’s pretty cool? Vampire reflexes seemingly slowing down time to the point bullets look like laser bolts straight out of Star Wars. Know what’s considerably less cool? Watching those glowing bullets creep through a cloud of floating white bits from the headrest of the car seat I’m presently occupying. Fortunately, the vampires chasing us aren’t terribly good at shooting. The orange streak passing two inches from my ear had to be luck. Bet they’re using a PlayStation controller instead of a keyboard and mouse.
Trust me, Sierra and I have gotten into long debates about it. Mouse wins, no contest.
Also in the car with me is Holden Marston, several bullets, and a giant pile of unanswered questions, plus whatever this odd fluffy lump on the floor by my foot is. Probably a bit of stuffing from the back seat. Oh, and some weird-ass giant vase thing my new associate decided we had to steal.
Who’s Holden?
A bullet clanks into the door on my side.
He’s a co-worker, basically. There’s nothing between us other than smoke and bits of foam.
So, umm, both good and bad are going on at the moment. In the good column: this isn’t my car, so any damage it suffers won’t get me in trouble with the ’rents. Also, Arthur Wolent didn’t sound too fond of the vampires chasing us, so it’s also unlikely we’ll get in trouble with him for stealing the thing in the back seat. Item three in the ‘good’ column is no bullets have hit me yet. The car is, alas, down several windows, a few big chunks of seat foam, and the driver side mirror.
In the bad column, the weird vase in the back seat is giving off some seriously dark vibes. I don’t mean vibes in a hippie or pothead sense. The thing is legit radiating evil. It kinda reminds me of a worse version of my Uncle Hank. They’re both full of hatred and malice but stuck sitting wherever someone puts them, largely powerless to act on their contempt for the world at large. Also under ‘bad,’ I’m pretending to adult by wearing a skirt suit, hose, and heels. Makes me feel like a twelve-year-old playing dress up. Also, if I ever get my hands on a time machine, the first thing I’m going to do is find whoever came up with the idea to put a stick on the heel of women’s shoes and stab them with one.
Tires shriek as we swing around a hard left turn, running a red light and nearly mowing down two people. The ass end of the Caddy swings wide, dragging us to the side and costing us a little speed. A dull thump in the back makes me picture the giant vase attempting to break out and run away.
“Careful!” I shout. “You almost ran two people over!”
“It’s fine,” says Holden, calm as anything. “They’re hipsters. No one would notice.”
I glare at him.
A bullet pings off the roof close to me. More people outside scream. It’s nothing short of astounding we don’t have half the police in Seattle following us already. Good thing—for them. So weird. It’s almost as if the cops know when vampires are doing stuff and stay away. Wouldn’t surprise me if the local elders have influence over the police and mortal government, but getting them to ignore a car chase with gunfire downtown is a bit much.
“What?” Holden looks at me, all innocence. “Did you hear about the one hipster who tried to sue a place for using his photo without permission in a satirical thing that said all hipsters look alike, and it turned out not to even be his picture?”
“They’re still people, Holden. You can’t randomly run them over.”
The side mirror on my door explodes from a bullet strike.
“Gah!” I jump like my kid brother snuck up on me and popped a paper bag. “Why are they shooting at us?”
Holden accelerates, weaving around slower cars and going into the oncoming lane. “Because it’s difficult to use claws in the middle of a car chase when you’re not in the same car as the vampire you want to hurt.”
We screech back into our lane and whip around a right turn. My ability to fly is the only reason I don’t end up in Holden’s lap. Maybe I should put my seatbelt on. Nah. If we crash, getting flung out the window is preferable to being trapped inside a burning wreck. It’s way easier to heal broken bones than cremation.
As soon as the G forces relax, I stare at him. “You know what I meant.”
“Honestly…” Holden shrugs. “I’m not sure what you meant.”
This guy. I swear.
I’ve only known him for like an hour, and the urge to slap him is almost irresistible. Yes, he’s that annoying. At least he hasn’t treated me like a child. He’s merely sarcastic, relatively callous about the lives of mortals, and it’s entirely his fault I’m stuck in the middle of a car chase.
“We’re out in public. They could hit someone.”
He says, “hold on” as calmly as if asking if I want cream in my coffee, then drives up onto the sidewalk, skirting around a bunch of cars stopped for a red light and cutting the corner to make a turn. We hit three people. A woman slides off the hood into the road on the left. Two guys smash the windshield before bouncing up over the roof and rolling off the trunk.
&
nbsp; Thankfully, we aren’t going too fast and all three people get right back up.
Once he straightens out on the road again, Holden checks the center mirror. “Fairly sure the ones chasing us aren’t terribly concerned if they hit bystanders.”
“Neither are you.”
He sighs. “We weren’t even doing twenty miles an hour. Hardly the same as being shot.”
“A car chase is bad enough, but shooting? It’s going to get the police involved, which is only going to be an enormous pain in the butt for everyone. Besides, bullets don’t really work on vampires too well.”
A streak of orange zips between us. The center mirror explodes.
I duck down in my seat. “Unless they hit us in the head. Ugh, when you said ‘a chance of mild disagreement,’ I expected an argument. Maybe shouting. Possibly a fistfight. Not this Last Action Hero BS.”
Holden stomps on the gas to beat a yellow light. “When in the history of bad people doing bad things has anyone ever stopped because someone asked nicely? Did you honestly think they were going to leave the area because we asked?”
Grr.
The car chasing us—not a Cadillac, by the way—rams us from behind. My face bounces off the glove compartment. Wow, genuine leather. Nice. Yeah, there’s no way a giant Caddy is going to outrun or outmaneuver a… whatever they’re driving. It’s some kind of muscle car, but not an antique. Like a boxy Camaro or a Charger or something, one of those new cars trying to look like an old car. Smaller, faster, more agile. I’m not sure what the hell Holden’s plans are. Unless they run out of gas before we do, this luxury land boat isn’t going to be able to get away.
From the sound of the engine, we’re going way over the speed limit.
“Please tell me you’re not doing 110 in downtown Seattle.”
“I’m not.” Holden smiles at me. “We’re doing 120 in downtown Everett.”
“Oh, that’s so much better.” I climb back up into the seat. If we hit something, I want to fly out the windshield. Better yet, if I see a collision coming, I’m launching myself out the window before the crash. “At least they stopped shooting at us.”
Holden points a thumb back over his shoulder. “Because they’re shooting at the police.”
I bite my lip. In another world where girls like me remained blissfully unaware of vampires, imps, demons, and all the other craziness now part of my life, seeing cops show up while I’m stuck in a car being shot at would have been awesome. Now? I feel bad because the cops are going to get hurt trying to interfere in something they have no business getting involved with. As my dad would say, they’re a party of level one characters trying to kill a beholder.
Sure, mortals can be a threat to vampires, but it takes preparation, equipment, and a bunch of luck.
Looks like he’s gotten us onto a highway, probably 529. We’re stuck on a two-lane bridge crossing the Snohomish River. The red Camaro is like twenty car-lengths behind us, unable to get closer due to slower traffic. Two vampires hang out the windows, firing handguns at several police cruisers behind them. Okay, I’ve played Grand Theft Auto. Looks like we’re about on level two wanted. Won’t be long before the cops have a helicopter coming after us. This crap needs to de-escalate like right now before anyone dies. Problem being, I have no idea how to do it. Can’t exactly jump out of the car and fly into a claw fight with dozens of witnesses and police dash cameras capturing it all. Video of me streaking out of the medical examiner’s building caused enough problems. I really need to thank the gods of cameras for making all security video footage so damn blurry. Ever notice how every time there’s a ‘paranormal activity caught on video’ posted to YouTube, the resolution is crap? Wonder if it’s on purpose. Also, a flying leap onto their car would almost certainly end with me taking a bullet in the forehead. Won’t kill me directly, but it’s a semantic point. I doubt those vampires are going to leave my body alone long enough to heal.
Squealing tires and the whump of metal against metal make me look back again.
Multiple bystander vehicles spin out like bumper cars on ice. My guess is, the vampires chasing us shot out a few tires, creating a roadblock to trap the police. Headlights flash sideways from a small car in a spin. Horns blare. The Camaro, Mustang, or whatever it is, swerves around a yellow rental truck then rushes up behind us, gaining ground easily.
Holden floors it, but this Caddy isn’t built for hard acceleration or racing. With no other options, he uses bystander vehicles for cover, weaving back and forth from lane to lane. It seems to be working as the other vamps aren’t shooting at us. Doubtful they care about hitting innocent people. They’re probably low on ammo and don’t want to waste whatever they have left.
We zoom over Smith Island, another little bridge, then onto a short strip of land where Route 529 goes under an overpass. The vampires chasing us try to get up on our side far enough to attempt the thing cops do to throw a car off the road. Think it’s called a pit maneuver. Holden sees it coming, swerving to block them. Back and forth we go, ‘car jousting’ as the Camaro alternates from left to right. We bump a few times whenever Holden blocks them from getting in position to shove us into a spin. Our car jousting takes a pause at a bend in the road. We slide across lanes, drifting a curve.
An oncoming motorcycle forces Holden to veer even farther into the wrong lane, allowing the sports car to get around us on the right a split second after we clear the overpass. Poor dude on the bike is going to need clean underwear for sure. The red car rams us, starting a fishtail, but Holden corrects, skidding onto the left side of a fork that brings us up onto an elevated highway. The vampires overshoot, continuing on 529… at least until they slam on the brakes.
I think we’re on Route 5 now.
We race over another bridge, heading for downtown Tulalip.
“Ack. No!” I yell. “Don’t go back into a populated area!”
“Not planning to.”
Holden cuts off a small delivery truck to take the first off ramp after the bridge, followed by a strikingly illegal left turn. It’s the sort of maneuver where a cop wouldn’t simply give you a ticket, he’d question your intelligence while doing so. Holden didn’t even slow down to look. Vampire reflexes make up for a lot of shortcuts, but they can only do so much. If an oncoming car had been there, smack. We get lucky, not suffering a T-bone. We also get unlucky as the red car reappears behind us seconds later.
We get unluckier: I smell burning plastic. Oh, and smoke is starting to fill the back of the car. This is not good.
The road here is wider than the bridges. Two lanes in each direction, plus a giant turning lane between them. Holden’s all over it. Painted lines are for lesser mortals, apparently. Not sure if the weird vase in the backseat is a passenger or an abductee. Damn thing feels like it’s alive and watching us, probably cursing us out in ancient Sumerian. Or Slavic. Dunno. It kinda has an old-world vibe. Giant, antique vases are supposed to give off a faint purple glow, right? Totally normal. Nothing to worry about at all. Merely some angry spirit light.
On the positive side, we are avoiding the populated area of Tulalip, heading out toward the reservation. I think at this point Holden is trying to reach a spot without spectators so we can have a proper vampire fight. Society really needs to bring back swords as fashion accessories. Silly me, I thought it might be inappropriate to carry a katana into what sounded like an official political meeting. Hmm. This area looks pretty free of spectators and we haven’t stopped. Maybe he’s going somewhere specific he hasn’t bothered to tell me about.
The dudes chasing us resume trying to ram us off the road. I grab the door in one hand, the dashboard in the other, so the constant swerving doesn’t throw me around as much. Some manner of church blurs by on our left side. Lots of trees around here. Good, means less chance a bystander is going to end up dead. Where’d the cops go? Did they give up?
I’m about to ask Holden why the heck we haven’t tried to call Wolent for help when a sudden, alarming sense of doom pulls m
y attention to the rear. Dread subconsciously makes me amp myself, turning reality into slow motion Matrix style. The guys obligingly shot out the back window some time ago, so the smoke from the burning back seat cushion is being sucked out and not blinding us. An orange streak comes from the passenger-side window of the red Camaro, disappearing out of sight beneath our trunk. The rear end of the Cadillac inflates somewhat slower than one of those automatic rubber life rafts, only with a lot more fire involved.
They shot the damn gas tank.
The instant my brain processes the sight of a growing fireball, two ideas hit me at once. First, I thought cars turning into fiery plumes was movie BS. Oh, wait. They’re using tracer bullets. Yeah, those don’t play nice with gasoline.
My second idea is, I should probably get the hell out of the car before the expanding bloom of fire reaches me.
2
Delicate Negotiations
So, yeah. I’m in an exploding car.
How’d I get here? Let me back up a bit.
They say life imitates art. Or is it art imitates life? Maybe both. Everyone’s imitating everyone. Whatever. Point is, you know that movie Pulp Fiction? Two guys work for a crime boss and get sent to do some questionable things? Yeah. Hi. I’m Sarah Wright and my vampire boss sent me to do something questionable. This is why I look like a kid trying on her mother’s work clothes. Officially representing the boss, so I had to dress the part.
Vampire Innocent | Book 12 | Ancient Vampire Death Cults & Other Annoyances Page 1
