Vampire Innocent | Book 12 | Ancient Vampire Death Cults & Other Annoyances

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Unless the two days I spent in a morgue cooler count as ‘sleeping.’

  Sam pokes his head in, sees me sitting up looking at him, then smiles. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself. How’s it feel to be in double digits?”

  “Same as yesterday.” He steps in, eases the door closed, and walks over. “I’m excited for the party and stuff.”

  “Cool. You smell like people. You guys went out already?”

  “Yeah. We hit the mall. Party moved back here.” Sam looks at the door as if to make sure no one followed him downstairs. “Can you do us a little favor?”

  I shrug. “Probably. As long as it doesn’t involve inflicting grievous bodily harm, having to watch anything containing the Kardashians, shock therapy, or breaking another ethereal containment vessel.”

  “Nope. Promise.” He smiles. “Can you please do something to Daryl and Jordan’s heads so Blix doesn’t have to hide all day? I feel bad he can’t have fun because my friends can’t know he exists. I want him to be part of it, but it would be really crappy of me not to invite the guys over, too.”

  Seeing him torn between two separate worlds he can’t mix is kinda painful. Next time any traditionalist vampire gives me grief about risking secrecy by living at home, I’m going to introduce them to Sam. How many boys his age could keep this stuff secret from their friends for even one week?

  I pull him into a hug. “Sure, kiddo. Yeah, I think I can give them a compulsion to ignore everything supernatural they see for a day. Might cause them to go derpy sometimes, but they won’t remember seeing Blix, or anything he does.”

  He hugs me. “You’re the best! Blix is gonna stay invisible, just wants to be in the party with us.”

  “Give me a few minutes to change, okay?”

  “Sure.” Sam darts to the door. “Gonna bring them down here to see your katana.”

  I throw on a shirt and shorts after crawling out of bed. My brother’s two friends have known him since kindergarten. They’re as tight as preadolescent boys can be, which is a few degrees less than combat veterans or anyone who’s gone to Walmart with a friend on Black Friday and escaped with all their limbs attached. Despite the craziness in our lives, Daryl and Jordan have mostly avoided it—except for one time a group of vampires abducted them. Giving the boys a command to ignore unusual things tonight will block short-term memory, preventing any information from ever migrating into long-term memory. Since I won’t need to touch their long-term memory, there shouldn’t be any risk of breaking the erasure of being caught in a vampire free-for-all at an old factory.

  Sam returns in a few minutes, his friends in tow. Jordan’s a few months younger than Sam. He’s blond like Hunter’s kid brother Ronan, but not as skinny. Little dude kinda resembles a mini-Thor. Daryl’s the oldest and biggest. Wouldn’t call the kid overweight, but he’s probably two of Ronan. Then again, Hunter’s little brother is small. Every class group has a runt. Ro is definitely going to be the smallest in his class all the way through high school.

  Speaking of Ronan, he hovers in the doorway watching. No need to play with his memories. He’s fully aware of the supernatural stuff. Between his spending so much time hanging out over here with Sam and being the little brother of my boyfriend, we figured it inevitable he’d see stuff and way too much work to keep him ignorant of it. And, crap. It also occurs to me that Daryl and Jordan have already seen my sword. In fact, I took it from one of the vampires who abducted them. Slight chance, but it’s possible seeing it might put a crack in the memory erasure. Probably not since Dalton did the bulk of the thought surgery. He’s had a lot more practice than me.

  “Hey, Sare.” Daryl saunters over to me, his thumbs hooked in his jean pockets.

  He’s so unimpressed with the world, it’s kinda cute. Ten going on thirty. He’s also the only one of the boys with short hair, so brown it’s almost black. Even Sam’s letting his go… nearly to his shoulders already.

  “Hi.” Jordan waves. “Is it true you have a sword that’s killed someone?”

  “Well… maybe. It’s really old. Authentic Japanese katana. Sam thinks it might have killed someone, but if it did, it was a really long time ago.” I lean toward Daryl and stare into his eyes. Maybe I’m stretching truth, but we are talking about normal mortals here. I haven’t used my katana to kill anyone alive. Slicing up vampires is not ‘killing people.’ We’re already dead. Can’t speak for the dude I took it from. Maybe he killed a mortal using it, but no angry ghosts are following me around, so it’s probably safe to say it’s been a while since this blade has killed a mortal.

  I give Daryl a mental compulsion to dismiss anything inexplicably supernatural he sees today. Jordan gets the same. Once done, I insert a memory of checking out my sword, but change it from a white-and-silver handle to black-and-red. Don’t want to accidentally unlock memories. These kids watched me use the katana to lop the head off a vampire. They probably also saw it stuck into me. Pity I can’t make myself forget that.

  Hopefully, tweaking a couple of kids’ memories is going to be the most outlandish thing to happen today.

  Sam’s second phase party is reasonably normal as birthday parties for ten-year-old boys go.

  One problem with summer birthdays is not getting to bring cupcakes to school. Sam’s never complained about it, though. He’s too old for inviting random kids to a party simply for being in the same class. He’s also not too worried about trying to be everyone’s friend. My li’l bro is definitely in the ‘better a small number of good friends than a large number of people who sometimes remember who you are’ group. Before I woke up, the parents took the boys to the mall for the ‘first phase’ party. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to trust Sierra and Sophia to be home alone or suffer the slings and arrows of cramming six tweens in one GMC Yukon, who can say.

  The house hadn’t been sucked into a wormhole by the time they returned.

  Honestly, if ever kids existed who could be trusted home without parental supervision existed, it would be my sisters. Sierra might be willing to misbehave, but she’s generally glued to the PlayStation. Even if she did something against the rules, it wouldn’t be dangerous like playing with fire or drinking. Before, I’d have said Sophia is the perfect, harmless angel. She would still never misbehave on purpose, but now she might try to do something innocent with magic and end up causing a catastrophe. To be fair, having Mom or Dad home wouldn’t make any difference if her magic got out of control, so, I can’t fault them for trusting her. The only real reason to be nervous about leaving the girls home alone is outside forces. E.g. a man breaking into the house. However, we have a hellhound. And a Blix. Not that an imp is a dire threat to anyone’s life, but it’s hard to chase frightened tweens when your clothing comes to life and attacks you.

  Sam’s presents include a PlayStation game (Jedi Fallen Order), a couple toys from franchises I don’t recognize—making me feel old—as well as some Dad classics: Transformers and GI Joe. The boys run around being generally loud and having fun for a while. Due to ‘birthday,’ the other kids are having dinner here—pizza—then cake. Blix pretty much acts like another one of the kids, not really doing anything obnoxiously supernatural, beyond being an imp. The mental compulsion avoids only a handful of awkward explanations whenever he bumps an object over or crashes into Daryl while they race around the backyard trying to kill each other using a Nerf football. Blix recovered the ball a few times when it left the boundary of our backyard, momentarily derping the boys as their brains rejected the sight of a self-propelled football. Jordan also ran face-first into the invisible hellhound. Thanks to my mental poke, he thinks he hit the fence. Fortunately, he only suffered a mild bruise. The nosebleed stopped in a few minutes.

  Like a pair of cats laying low when guests come over, my sisters have been hiding out upstairs all day.

  However, they come down for pizza and cake.

  Sophia gives Daryl a weird look. Not too surprising. He did, after all, tie her to a tree in the backyard l
ast summer. Granted, he’d been possessed at the time. Sierra seems a little off. More subdued than usual. Looking down a lot. Fidgety. Ever since I gave her some blood at the warehouse so we could fight those jackasses, her mood has radiated off her as obviously as mind-reading. It’s a weaker version of the link I have to Dalton. Unless they go halfway around the globe or deep underground, a sire essentially has access to the mind of any vampire they’ve given the Transference to. It’s the one situation where we can read another vampire’s thoughts without having to be a century older. Can’t implant compulsions or erase memories, merely see what’s going on and carry on telepathic conversations. None of that’s going on between me and Sierra. She is not a vampire.

  But, the blood link—stronger due to us being actual family—tells me she’s scared-slash-worried. We’ve gone a whole month (roughly) without anyone trying to kill us, so she probably thinks we’re about due for a crapstorm. Ugh. I also get the feeling she wants to ask me for another taste of blood, but is hesitating. Glad she is. I mean, it was pretty freaky to see her zooming around fighting vampires. Risking whatever potential side effects come with thralling my sister is far better than the alternative of her getting killed. Neither Dalton nor Aurélie mentioned bad side effects. As in, giving her blood won’t hurt her or end up turning her into a mindless servant. Aurélie said it can likely slow down aging if she has regular feedings, but she’d never heard of anyone turning a child into a thrall before. Hollywood likes to do the thing where if a person who’s been existing as a thrall for decades is deprived of their master’s blood, they suddenly age into a pile of dust. Doesn’t work that way. A thrall cut off from the supply simply resumes aging normally, though depending on how long they’ve been ‘on vampire blood,’ they might feel so weak and lethargic they can barely move for a long time.

  Sierra had a good reason to ask me to boost her when she did. I bet she’s trying not to make a habit of asking frivolously. Good chance the next time the Forces of Evil ™ show up at our front door, she’s going to appear at my side like a hungry baby bird. Yeah, now there’s a mental image I really could do without. She doesn’t look too freaked out, depressed, or worried, so I decide to respect her space. If anything bothered her enough, she’d tell me.

  I have a slice of pizza not to seem weird, then lurk by the wall in the dining room. Putting pizza down in front of four tween boys is about as gory as throwing a whole cow in a river of piranha. Blix kills half a pie on his own. No idea where he put it since he’s a little smaller than an adult housecat. Finally, Mom brings the cake in. The kids cheer. Cake’s not on the table for a full two seconds before all ten candle flames turn red and stretch upward into jets of fire, sizzling like firecrackers about to explode. Daryl and Jordan don’t react, but everyone else—including Sam—leans back from it, wide-eyed.

  Blix lands on the table, pumping his spindly little arms in the air, cheering.

  Some of the new toys—especially the plastic GI Joe airplane—begin flying around in circles. Ronan and Sam cheer along with Blix. My sisters laugh. Daryl and Jordan clap, oblivious to the weird stuff, and urge my brother to make a wish.

  Not sure Sam could blow those candles out at the moment.

  However, as soon as he tries to blow them out, the bizarrely intense flames vanish. Each candle fizzles up a sparkling stream of smoke, lets off a miniature fireworks display—gotta be an illusion as I do not smell explosives—then quiets.

  Mom cuts the cake, distributes slices to the kids, then walks over to stand with me and Dad at the side of the room, handing us each a small paper plate. Dad, on my left, grins at the spectacle like he’s gone back to being ten.

  “I don’t know how it’s happened.” Mom gives her cake an ‘oh screw it’ look before digging in. “But it feels like we’re living inside one of your crazy Eighties movies.”

  “Yeah.” Dad keeps grinning.

  We stand there eating cake, watching random objects fly around, a GI Joe guy fight a Transformer on the table, and half the ‘happy birthday Sam’ signs I hung up last night come to life as if animated into cartoons.

  “This is like Gremlins crossed with The Gate.” Mom shakes her head, then stuffs a hunk of cake in her mouth.

  “I know, and it’s awesome,” whispers Dad.

  Mom peers toward the kitchen. “No hellhound?”

  “He’s asleep.” I wag my eyebrows. “Ate a whole office of telemarketers. Kinda overdid it.”

  Dad whistles.

  My mother gasps, nearly dropping her cake.

  “Relax, Mom. He didn’t hurt anyone.” Mmm. Lemon cake. Nom. Guess who ignores calories? This girl.

  “At least he didn’t hurt anyone considered a living being,” mutters Dad.

  “Telemarketers?” Mom gives him side eye.

  “Debatable,” mutters Dad.

  “Jonathan.” Mom sighs.

  “You remember what the boy said, right?” Dad smiles. “Hellhounds feast on misery and suffering. Not flesh.”

  “Oh. Right.” Mom exhales out her nose. “Not enough wine in the world.”

  She is mostly kidding, making fun of the mom-wine stereotype. She does use the occasional unsmall glass to cope with a bad day, but I’ve never seen her drunk. “Don’t worry, Mom. Worst he’d do is make them drowsy or give them mild medical conditions.” I wink. “Besides, I’m kidding. No idea what he’s been eating. Probably only has to go smell Niedermeyer’s house once a month and he’s gonna put on weight.”

  Dad snickers.

  Mom almost chokes trying to laugh, coughs once, then slices off another bit of cake on her fork. “I’m not sure how to handle this. Life’s becoming so bizarre. Almost as strange as my first job right after I passed the bar. Night traffic court. All the weird ones come out after dark.”

  “Maybe you should make time for a hobby?” Dad nudges her. “You wanted to try painting a few years ago.”

  Mom blinks. “In this family? Painting? Hah. My hobby ought to be something like tarot reading or channeling spirits.”

  I pretend to shiver. “Mom, if you start singing Day-O in a man’s voice, I’m going back to bed.”

  Dad chuckles. “Sarah, don’t give Blix any ideas.”

  14

  Of Course It Would Happen

  Sophia buckled the seat belt and swished her feet back and forth, proud of herself.

  Mom backed the Yukon out of its parking spot by the dance studio. No one, not even her mother, noticed Sophia change out of her leotard into a dress. She’d waited for the perfect moment, when most of the girls—plus the two boys in her dance class—rushed for the door. The magic hadn’t been extreme, not involving conjuration or apportation of objects over long distances. She’d brought the dress along and used magic to trade the garment in her hands for the leotard she wore, which appeared in her hand, neatly folded. She’d broken Callum’s advice, but she considered it practice.

  According to Callum, people shouldn’t use magic for any task they could do normally if at all possible. Changing clothes hardly required magical intervention. However, she wanted to practice doing something minor in a way no one noticed. Simultaneously obvious and subtle. The sort of thing people called a ‘glitch in the matrix.’ A person noticing she’d gone from a dance leotard to a dress in an instant would doubt themselves, say they’d imagined it because obviously what they witnessed couldn’t possibly happen. They’d go on with their lives and not question anything.

  If Mom noticed, she hadn’t said anything. Considering Mom always said something, Sophia believed her mother missed it or perhaps saw, but dismissed it as being tired and seeing things.

  Darren Anderson’s favorite saying went something like ‘the greatest feats of magic are often the smallest’. He referred to how giant explosions come from small sparks. The best spells did something minor resulting in ordinary events snowballing in a desired manner. For example, a tiny fire spell no more potent than to light a candle igniting a cache of explosives to destroy an entire building. Did magic
destroy the building or not? Obviously, such a practice didn’t lend itself to every situation and took a great deal of planning. He claimed some of the greatest (or most nefarious) moments in history happened as the result of tiny spells. Alas, many of the events he referred to hadn’t been recorded anywhere, as they occurred during the ‘lost period,’ referring to the time around Camelot, Atlantis, and so on. All real, but deleted from the collective human consciousness.

  Except for Sam’s birthday party yesterday when the house had been too loud for her to think straight, she’d spent the past week trying to work out a way to help Sierra. Her sister definitely appeared to be suffering from the absence of vampire blood. It hadn’t gotten to the point Mom or Dad noticed it. Sarah hadn’t even said anything. Mostly, Sierra acted like she had a mild cold. Little lethargic, little surly. No sniffles, coughing, fever, or such. If anything, she had a reverse fever, her head somewhat colder than normal to the touch.

  There had to be a way to essentially ‘enchant’ Sierra to accomplish something similar to what she gained by drinking a sip of vampire’s blood. No need to go crazy. Sierra only needed to be able to survive vampire attacks, not throw cars across the street. Any prodigy mystic capable of localized time suppression ought to be able to safely make a kid a touch stronger and faster.

  Safely being the most important word.

  She considered the times her magic worked perfectly, rare as they’d been. In all but one case, she’d been trying to protect her family. The outlier, when she rewound time to redo a botched conversation path with Mom regarding Klepto, had also been a moment of high emotion. Step one in getting anything she did for Sierra to work needed to be grounded in a strong emotional anchor based on wanting to protect her sister.

  Easy. She totally did.

  Sophia only had to concentrate on her enchantment being vital and necessary for keeping Sierra alive and safe. Again, shouldn’t be too difficult. The hard part would be figuring out how to shape intention and desire to do exactly what she hoped to do. No more accidental pseudo-faerie summonings. No more accidentally launching her clothes into space. Attempting to remove a sauce stain from her dress using magic had been an embarrassing mistake. Fortunately, she’d been in the school bathroom at the time. Her magic failed to differentiate between contamination and fabric, consequently getting rid of the whole dress. Klepto bailed her out by teleporting in with a replacement from home. Having a long-distance mind link to her kitten familiar rocked.