Wow, time flies when you’re plummeting head first down a kaleidoscopic tunnel of psychedelic craziness.
Thankfully, my life appears to be stabilizing as much as it can. No part of my future is even close to what I’d spent the previous eighteen years thinking it would be, but I’m making this work. Even Stefano has backed off his overt contempt. Not sure if he respects me for doing what had to be done or if he’s afraid I might visit him with a giant firebomb in the middle of the day. Innocents are not a ‘powerful’ bloodline, but we don’t need to be strong during the day when other vampires can’t do anything. Meh. I doubt he’s afraid of me. Not only is he old enough to read my mind and know I have no interest in causing trouble for him, if he truly feared me, I’d be gone by now. Yeah, I’m afraid of him. But not like terrified afraid. It’s more like respect. He’s an elder. I’m no more ‘scared’ of him than a low-level D&D character is ‘scared’ of a level-twenty monster. If the barbarian pokes the dragon with a stick, the barbarian deserves whatever happens to her.
At least he’s an Old Guard, not a Fury or Beast, so I don’t have to worry about a sudden fit of rage.
Year one of college is basically over. Guess I will finish after all. Might take me five years instead of four due to night class scheduling. Whatever. Not like I’m in a rush to jump into the workaday world. I take my time meandering along the sidewalk in a group of other students, all heading toward the parking garage at the corner. It’s dark now, but the sun’s doing its thing early again, preventing me from flying to class. Gotta bring the car home.
No sooner does my sneaker hit the sidewalk after crossing the street than a woman comes out of nowhere at my side and clamps an arm around me. I say ‘clamping’ because I kinda feel like a prize in one of those grabby claw games. She’s as strong as a forklift, and ‘escorting’ me past the parking garage entrance.
Conventional wisdom says not to let aggressive strangers take you anywhere isolated. This fact of life for young women generally assumes several things being true. One, the aggressive stranger’s a guy. Two, bystanders will be of some assistance. Three, screaming and or making noise will dissuade the attacker into running. Four, the person grabbing you is not an old vampire.
None of this is true for me now.
I’m being—sorta—abducted by a woman, who’s clearly a vampire, and old enough for me to sense as being old. Any mortals trying to ‘help’ me are only going to end up dead or maimed, and the best result of me screaming would be for everyone to ignore me. Worst result of me screaming is some poor guy runs over to help me and ends up wearing his intestines as a necktie.
“We have to talk,” says the woman, her tone confident.
She’s got a mild accent, too. Can’t place it. Maybe Russian, Slavic, or some flavor of Eastern European. It’s not pronounced enough to be recognizable. Maybe she’s one of those people who thinks all vampires should do a crappy Dracula impression but decided to dial it back a bit not to sound so campy. Then again, I wouldn’t know Russian from Polish from Turkish hearing it spoken. She’s taller than me by a good margin, her chin’s even with the top of my head. Long, straight black hair, black clothes, chalk white skin, black lipstick. She’s basically a gothed-out version of Xena. It takes serious commitment to wear heeled thigh-high boots and a pleated leather skirt outside of a comic con—or an adult club. Tim Burton meets Roman Imperial Army here.
Her accent doesn’t lend any malice to her words. For example, hearing the phrase ‘we have to talk’ when a guy with a strong Italian accent drags you off means something entirely different than say someone who looks like Ashley says it. Either that or I’ve seen too many movies. Not sure what to make of a Boris and Natasha version of ‘we have to talk.’ Pretty sure she’s not going to ask me if I have a spare tampon she can have.
Also, I really hate it when girls ask to ‘borrow’ a tampon. Like, no, hon. You keep it. Don’t want it back.
She’s already got a heck of a grip on me. I’m not happy about it, but in the interest of not wanting any innocent bystanders hurt, I let her lead. This amazon would probably pick me up and carry me otherwise. Once the initial shock of having a strange elder yoink me out of pedestrian traffic fades, I look her over.
The woman looks a little bit younger than Xena and, other than having long black hair and a sexed-up version of fantasy leather armor on, bears no resemblance whatsoever to Lucy Lawless. Guessing mid-twenties when she became undead. Dark blue eyes and snow-white cheeks turn her into a life-sized version of a creepy doll no one would want to be alone in a dark house with. No obvious weapons, but her black fingernails are awfully long and certainly not as fake as a normal person might assume.
“Are they filming another Underworld movie around here or did you not notice the Nineties are over?”
She narrows her eyes at me.
“Seriously. Too much makeup.” Yeah, I know she’s not wearing face paint, but playing innocent might make the difference between me spending the next two weeks soaking in peaches & cream again or being able to walk.
“I’m not wearing makeup.” She guides me downhill along Pine Street, past the parking garage. We hook a right on Boylston Ave and cross to the opposite side, going by a Capital Loans place and an Enterprise rent-a-car.
“Your lips are naturally black?” I ask.
She sighs. “Fine. I’m wearing lipstick. The rest is natural.”
We pass a tall grey and blue building marked ‘Heath Printers.’ Huh, wow. There’s a coincidence. Wonder if the professor is related to whoever owns it. The woman drags me into a small, rectangular parking lot behind the printing place, surrounded on all but one side by three-story buildings. Balconies on the building straight ahead at the back of the lot tell me it’s an apartment building. She pins me to the less-than-clean wall of the printing company.
“You kids have it rough these days,” says the woman.
“Umm, are you planning to kick my ass?”
“Not yet.”
“Whew. Okay. I have no idea who you are.”
“Call me Ladonna.”
I nod once. Yeah, sure. If that’s her real name, I’m Catherine the Great. Hey, for all I know, this woman might actually be Catherine the Great. Nah, she’s totally a Freja or Olga or something along those lines. Looking right at her, my opinion of her accent changes. Thinking Swedish or Norwegian… maybe Finnish. I’d bet money her last name starts with a J and ends with ‘sen’ like Jansen. Maybe a -berg or -borg. She’s going way overboard with the goth look. Oh, wow. Is she the one who turned Brady?
“Hi, I’m Sarah. Is, umm, Brady yours? You here to tell me to stay away from him and let him learn to fly on his own or something?”
Ladonna regards me, no emotion on her face.
“Okay, maybe not. What did you mean we have it rough?”
“I awoke during the Civil War to vast fields of blood everywhere. We were free to prey where and whenever we wanted.”
“I’m not religious.”
She laughs.
Hah. Direct hit. Finally got one past her wall.
“Wrong kind of prey, or were you making a joke on purpose?”
“Sorry. Joke. Should I take you threatening me more seriously?”
Ladonna quirks an eyebrow. “I’m not threatening you… yet.”
“You’re dragging me off with a grip like a forklift. Figured a verbal threat would come soon if I missed the implied one.”
She gives this wicked little smile. I’ve never been a good liar, and the handicap extends to body language. Ladonna undoubtedly knows I’m afraid of her. Nothing personal, all elders have that effect on me.
“Where is the reliquary?”
Aww, shit. She’s Oblivare… and if she’s as old as she feels, she’s already seen into my thoughts and knows what I did. A spike of dread sends a wave of heat washing over my face down to my chest. Feels like Follows Rules Girl got tricked into shoplifting and ran out the door straight into two cops. Never mind I’d been ordered to
burn the four Oblivare. Also never mind the probable truth destroying them had been the right thing to do in terms of the greater good for both mortals and vampires.
“No idea. The car was burning too hot to go near last time I saw it. We left the reliquary in the car. If it didn’t shatter from the fire, the cops have it.”
Ladonna frowns.
“So, umm… is it true you guys were never human? Sorry, I’m new. You know, kids and questions.”
She brushes the back of her hand across my cheek. “The cute act is not going to work on me.”
“Okay. But to be fair, the destroy all civilization act doesn’t work for me.” Channeling a bit of Sierra, I find a nugget of irrational bravery and stare the woman in the eye. “Really, why would you want to? What did vampires do for fun before video games and television? Weren’t you bored?”
“We are alphas, child. Humans belong hiding in their pathetic little huts, huddled together in the dark, not knowing if they’ll see the sunrise.” She flashes an eerily warm smile, like a twisted Rachel Ray sharing a recipe for roast infant. “They have been allowed to breed out of control. There are too many of them. Earth cannot handle the strain. Vampires are a necessary darkness. Your kind are not true vampires, merely aberrations, an accident. A meal who should not have survived escaped. They eventually became sire to all the false vampires. It happened so long ago, not even my kind knows how this mortal got away from us. Your kind has potential despite your inherent weakness, but they refuse to claim their proper place as masters of the night.”
I’d lean away, but the cold bricks at my back are a bit on the solid side. “Umm, nah. Dominant power fantasies aren’t my thing. Love the black leather on you, though. Looks awesome.”
“You will surrender the reliquary.”
“Seriously.” I raise my hands. “I don’t have it. We left it in the car. Cadillacs burn really hot when the fire is engulfing an urn of ancient evil.”
Ladonna folds her arms, tapping one foot. “The reliquary would not affect the flames.”
Aha! She didn’t dispute the evil part.
Her eyes narrow. Damn. Well, figured she could read my mind, or at least see my surface thoughts. That means she obviously knows I’m not lying about abandoning the bottle of vampire mix in a car fire.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Hmm?” She quirks an eyebrow.
“You mentioned being turned during the Civil War, but you sound European. If it’s true about the Oblivare not having human souls, wouldn’t that mean you aren’t the woman whose body you inhabit?”
“For such a young one, you are quite perceptive. A few of my brethren made the journey to America to enjoy the Civil War.”
“Enjoy?” I blink.
She laughs. “To us it was an open buffet. Food everywhere for the taking. Dinner and a show so to speak. My brethren found this body you see before you, dead to a stray bullet in a field, and thought her a suitable vessel to free me from the oubliette.”
Oh, hmm. So, the odd accent must be from her Oblivare soul.
“Finland,” mutters Ladonna. “Spend enough time in a place, the accent creeps in.”
“Oh, neat. You kinda look like the front woman for a symphonic metal band.”
She stares at me. “The world these mortals cling to will drown in blood. Be sure you are on the correct side when the new order arises.”
I tilt my head. “Star Wars? Wait, no… they had the ‘First’ order. Hope your vampire apocalypse has a better screenwriter.”
Ladonna sighs, shakes her head, and walks off, muttering, “Kids.”
Whoa. I let my head lean back until it rests against the wall, then stand there shaking from nerves. The clicking of Ladonna’s boots on the sidewalk grows distant. My heart races kinda like a velociraptor charged out of the bushes, cornered me, then only sniffed me a few times before walking away. I’m genuinely shocked she didn’t break me in half for revenge over burning those four dudes. Wait… purple glowing stuff wafted off the bodies. Holden said something about smashing the reliquary would only allow the Oblivare to collect the souls again. Duh. No wonder she’s not angry with me. We didn’t destroy anything except some already dead bodies. Those vampires are pure energy.
And wow. ‘Mortals will drown in blood.’ Vigo the Carpathian’s daughter is trying a little too hard.
13
Double Digits
Well, I survived a year of college—and a dark elder.
Wolent didn’t sound too worried when I called to tell him about meeting Ladonna. It’s also unlikely he’d allow me to hear him sounding worried even if he had been. No idea how ‘a little more powerful than normal vampires’ translates to elders in regard to Oblivare.
I stayed after class on Thursday to pick Professor Heath’s brain about them. Suppose it should reassure me he’d only heard of them in passing and has never met one face to face. As far as he thinks, they’re a fringe group of weirdos kind of like PETA. Don’t think Oblivare are going to sit in cages on street corners while screaming at passersby, though.
He did spend about an hour sharing his opinion on Ladonna’s claim the Oblivare were the ‘original’ vampires and the rest of us happened by accident. In short, he called it rubbish. His actual word. I don’t use ‘rubbish,’ like ever. Vampires have had as much luck understanding where they came from as mortals, meaning none. When I brought up the obvious problem of vampirism being parasitic in nature, requiring a vampire to exist before a vampire could exist, he explained the most well-accepted theory.
Ritual magic.
The story goes something like a group of powerful mystics who didn’t want the minor triviality of a natural lifespan getting in the way of their search for knowledge attempted to make themselves immortal. The end result of their effort to ‘magic’ themselves into living forever turned them into the first vampires. Some theories even claim the different bloodlines are the result of each member of the original society. Like one dude who detested being around people, kept to himself, and was willing to sacrifice anything for power started the Shadows. Another who wrapped his entire life around science started the Academics, and so on. Not sure I buy that. Scions, for example, didn’t exist until the Eighties. I can maybe believe some of the bloodlines exist because of the originals—assuming the whole ‘sect of mystics’ story is truth—but most of them probably evolved. Maybe some died off.
Obviously, demons exist. Professor Heath thinks the Oblivare are, in fact, a form of demon lacking a physical body. Bear in mind, people have a bad habit of calling supernatural entities they don’t understand ‘demons’ without caring how accurate the word is. If you ask the average religious person—the true believers, not the get rich quick guys—demons are unabashedly evil.
Blix and the hellhound prove that wrong. This also reinforces my belief all dogs are good boys. Even demonic dogs.
Olmaz, I don’t know well enough to say. He’s probably not evil. He could have pushed Sam off the cliff and watched him try to swim in lava, but he didn’t. Unless he’s got some long-game style elaborate plot to use my little brother as an agent of discord in the mortal world, an ‘evil’ being would totally have tortured or killed two small boys. Mel, the succubus, seemed reasonably nice.
Where am I going here? My point is, the blanket statement of all demons being evil is false. Unless, of course, the ones my brother talks to aren’t true demons, which brings me back to disputing the use of the word ‘demon’ to describe the Oblivare. Sure, they’re energy beings from another plane. Doesn’t make them demons.
Whatever.
Oblivare also aren’t responsible for vampires. Professor Heath thinks—and I agree—they have delusions of their own grandiosity. Since their consciousness has never been human, it’s easy for them to think of people as herd animals for the taking. I’d initially been kinda shocked Ladonna didn’t rip me apart. Chances are, she didn’t because the Oblivare want to destroy society as a construct, not every person or vampire they run
into. Even if they did want to kill everything, it would be also hypocritical of someone from a ‘bloodline’ seeking to destroy everyone else to be upset at me for destroying some vampires.
I had nothing she needed, so Ladonna left me in peace.
Fair bet she also regarded me as a harmless kid who couldn’t possibly be a threat to her. Is it weird an ostensibly evil inhuman vampire has more integrity than some humans?
So, anyway, first semester is over. Nothing happened as far as I am aware in regard to the Oblivare or the reliquary. Wherever it is, Wolent and his people are handling it without my involvement. Works for me. I’m the new girl. I shouldn’t be involved in anything too important. Keeping to myself and my family is still my greatest desire. The more they leave me out of, the happier we are.
It’s Tuesday, June 19th. Halfway into my first full week of not having classes, also Sam’s birthday. I took advantage of summer freedom the past two nights to hang out with Ashley and Michelle. Tonight—assuming no one opens an interdimensional rift in our living room—I’ll be on a date, then going back to Hunter’s place.
A few minutes after I wake up, someone drops a dead deer down the stairs from the kitchen to the basement. Just kidding, it’s Sam. It would be easier to determine the origin of vampires than understand how such a scrawny boy can make so much damn noise on stairs. Hunter did not spend the night in my room, so there’s no need for me to panic and race to throw something on before the boy gets to the door. I’m already wearing a long T-shirt. In the TMI column, Ashley told me she usually sleeps naked when at home. Not really the sort of thing one needs to know about their best friend. In the Way TMI column, she mentioned her mother does, too. Apparently, according to some internet article, it’s healthier. Not exactly a concern for me now. Okay, I’ve done it sometimes, but only when Hunter slept over.
Vampire Innocent | Book 12 | Ancient Vampire Death Cults & Other Annoyances Page 10
