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

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Belinda appeared to react to Sophia’s complete lack of fear of her by clearing her throat a few times. She sounded a bit like Mom watching a sad or mushy movie.

  “We’ve got a little problem.” Sierra helped swat funk from the dress. “The ring we found belonged to her grandmother. We can’t take it.”

  Sophia looked up at Belinda. “I’m sorry. Didn’t know anyone still owned it. Would it be okay if we borrowed it? We—”

  “It’s all right, child.” Belinda brushed her fingers at Sophia’s cheek. “I believe you. And yes, you may borrow it. I am sure my grandmother would like to see magic flowing through her ring again. Do return it as soon as you are finished.”

  Sierra nodded toward her. “She knows where we live.”

  “I do.” Belinda leaned back in a humorous attempt at being intimidating.

  Sophia headed over to the mushrooms, and gingerly poked one. “Soft.”

  “Huh?”

  “The thorns. They’re not really thorns.” Sophia examined the cluster, then selected a four-inch-tall one, which she plucked. “This looks perfect.”

  “You should not eat those,” said Belinda.

  “What the heck are they? Mushrooms aren’t supposed to have spikes.” Sierra scratched her head.

  “My family conducted many rituals on these grounds. The land is saturated in energies going back hundreds of years. These mushrooms occasionally develop on Earth charged with spiritual energy.” Belinda rested her hands on the girls’ shoulders. “They are most often used as a power source for spells as they soak up the magic.”

  A spinning wall of inky vapor welled up around them. When it faded a second later, they all stood outside by the front porch.

  “Whoa,” whispered Sophia.

  Sierra blinked, too shocked at the sudden change of scenery to find words.

  “The house is not safe for you two. You might fall and hurt yourselves.”

  “Already fell. Twice.” Sierra raised a hand.

  Belinda patted her on the head. “Your sister isn’t as resilient as you are.”

  “Thank you.” Sophia curtseyed. “We only need one more thing… some dirt where faeries walked. It’s supposed to be under rose bushes.”

  “In the garden.” Belinda gestured at the corner of the house. “When you return the ring, come after dark and knock on the door. I will meet you there. I’d prefer if you didn’t go inside, so you don’t get hurt.”

  The girls nodded at the same time.

  Belinda vanished in a cloud of black smoke.

  “So cool,” whispered Sierra.

  “I wanna go home.” Sophia exhaled.

  “Yeah.”

  “C’mon.” Sophia darted off toward the garden.

  Sierra tucked the sword under one arm and ran after her into a dead hedge maze. Sophia somehow led the way to a rectangular ‘room’ of hedge containing overgrown rose bushes without getting lost or finding a dead end. Sierra whistled to herself, unsure what impressed her more: Sophia seemingly knowing where to go or finding live bushes in this place.

  Her sister used a small empty flowerpot to collect a quantity of soil, then promptly marched out.

  Sierra turned as she passed. “Not gonna look for faeries?”

  “Nope. Too scary here. Wanna go home.”

  “Heh.” Sierra hurried after her. “But you adore faeries.”

  “True. Still. Too scary… and the portal’s going to close soon. We have to get home before Mom or Dad notices we went anywhere.”

  “Think we’ll get in trouble?”

  Sophia wagged her head side to side while walking. “Umm, I dunno. But we won’t be able to tell her where we went without telling her about the enchantment or you having vampire blood. She’s probably going to freak and order me not to try enchanting you.”

  “It’s cool. If we get interrogated, let me do the talking.”

  Sophia glanced over at her. “You get upset when you lie to Mom, too.”

  “Yes, but I don’t start crying while she’s still right in front of me.” Sierra tossed her hair over her shoulder. “If I give her a story, we’ll have at least a day or two to come up with a better one before she catches me.”

  Sophia laughed.

  They followed the dirt path into the woods surrounding the house. After a few minutes, they spotted Klepto sitting patiently on the ground.

  “Mew!” The kitten teleported onto Sophia’s shoulder.

  Three steps later, a rectangular opening shimmered into view, looking in on Sophia’s closet. As soon as they stepped in, the cool dampness of Salem night air faded to the cool not-so-dampness of home.

  Sophia faced the opening and made a little hand motion. The portal to the creepy forest collapsed down to a glowing spot, then faded. They removed their sneakers before entering the bedroom. Sierra slouched in relief at arriving home safely. Next time they did anything like this—if a next time happened—she’d insist Sarah be invited.

  “’Kay. It’s gonna take me a while to put everything together and study the magic.” Sophia plopped down in the middle of the room. Klepto jumped from her shoulder to the floor beside her.

  “Umm, didn’t you already study? You sent the big book back.”

  Sophia looked up at her. “Yeah. Gonna go over my notes again.” She patted a spiral notebook covered in crayon drawings. “I absolutely don’t want anything to go crazy or wrong and mess with you.”

  “You wrote in crayons? What are you, five?” Sierra whistled.

  “Wax holds power. I know it looks stupid, but it works.” Sophia reached under her bed to grab a plastic tote box.

  “What’s in there?”

  “More stuff I need for the spell. Gimme like an hour and I’ll let you know if this is going to work.”

  Sierra tapped her sword at the floor, shaking her head. “You still don’t know if it’s going to work?”

  “I know it will. I just wanna make triple sure.” Sophia paused to take the spiky mushroom out of the flowerpot she’d carried it in before giving her an earnest stare. “Not gonna do anything if it won’t be perfect. I swear.”

  “Okay.” Sierra exhaled. “I’ll be in my room.”

  20

  Bends Rules Girl

  A chance exists I may no longer be able to refer to myself as Follows Rules Girl.

  Depends on one’s interpretation of rules. It’s pretty difficult to consider breaking into a police station as anything other than wrong. Technically, though, I’m not breaking into the station as much as sneaking into the parking lot to burglarize a car.

  Having nothing else to do until dark, I drove back to Hunter’s. Couldn’t really talk much about everything with his mother in the room during dinner. He got the brief version once we retreated upstairs. As soon as the sun went down, I leapt out of his window to keep working on the issue. Owing to the idea this should have all been done before dark, I’ve got a giant blanket of anxiety wrapped around my shoulders. Wolent wanted me to grab the reliquary before sunset for a particular reason. I’m assuming said reason involves any Oblivare in the area becoming aware of the soul jar’s location and likely intending to rip nonessential pieces of anatomy—perhaps essential ones too—off anyone who tries to keep them from taking it back.

  The guy who originally called and gave me the job did so from a number not accepting inbound calls, so I haven’t made contact with ‘the boss’ yet. Sure I have his direct number, but better to save it for emergencies. Not sure how happy or unhappy he’s going to be about me not being able to resolve the location of the reliquary before dark. He’s probably aware Ladonna is in the area. She’s pretty old and is definitely going to be trying to get her hands on it. In a way, I suppose it’s a good thing failure here won’t lead to some kind of world-ending catastrophe. The vase isn’t the key to some apocalyptic event like summoning an ancient god asleep beneath the arctic for 50,000 years who will lay waste to the Earth, the key to making SPAM a dietary staple, mind-controlling people into thinking taking
cryptocurrency mainstream is a good idea, or normalizing anchovies as a pizza topping.

  No end-of-the-world scenarios.

  Worst that’ll happen is a bunch of new Oblivare exist… which presents a certain collection of separate problems—none of which involve bitcoin farming while choking on fishy pizza. Bad, but nothing unmanageable or apocalyptic. Still, I gotta try to do what the boss wants. I am, after all, Follows Rules Girl, even if I sometimes color outside the lines. Hmm. Here’s a question. If Wolent tells me to do something, but doing the thing is breaking a minor law, am I following the rules by obeying someone in authority or breaking the rules because of the law?

  Argh.

  Philosophy isn’t as fun without Professor Heath’s commentary.

  The ghost of Officer Trujillo can fly. Apparently, spirits have the same sort of relationship with gravity celebrities have with the real world: they tend to ignore it whenever it gets in the way. He leads me across Seattle to where they’ve put his patrol car—once he gets over acting like a giant little boy going in circles, around trees, between buildings, and so forth, enamored with how it feels to fly.

  Infiltrating a police station’s parking area is one of those rare times where I’m almost envious of another bloodline’s powers. Lost Ones—like Dalton—can hide themselves from cameras and security systems. Yanno how certain groups of people throughout history, like Roma or Pikeys, have unfairly been considered by society as being all thieves and criminals? Well, in the case of Lost Ones, it’s actually true. Their vampiric abilities are all about sneaky stuff. Sure, not every Lost One actively steals or breaks into places, but they have the best tools for it, second only to Shadows.

  Yeah. Here I am standing in the darkness at the edge of a police station parking lot, looking for cameras, planning to break into a police car while it’s parked at a station. Totally normal thing for a young woman to do, right? A little low-grade felony action is the perfect end to a day of shopping at the mall, playing with my hair, talking about boys, and whining over my crappy retail job. Oh, wait. I’m not Bree Swanson.

  Anyway, Follows Rules Girl is losing her damn mind.

  Speaking of losing minds, Officer Trujillo’s ghost has spent the past two hours ranting about how none of the cops investigating the parking garage found his body. He starts up again while I’m scoping out the police lot. Even though no one can hear him but me, having a dude shouting is super distracting when I’m trying not to be caught. Okay, to be fair he’s not ‘shouting’ as much as talking at a somewhat raised volume. In an otherwise dead-silent parking lot, it feels like shouting.

  Seriously, I shouldn’t be on edge. If any cop sees me, they aren’t going to remember it.

  “Relax, okay?” I whisper-shout. “Those cops are lucky they didn’t find you.”

  “I’m missing.” He paces. “They should be tearing the city apart trying to find me. Makes them seem incompetent for missing me right under their noses.”

  Sigh. “Officer Trujillo, calm down. The entity possessing your body might be repelling them even while asleep. I don’t know why it would though. Maybe it can’t help but radiate creepiness and all the cops who went downstairs refused to go into the hallway.”

  He stops pacing. “Call me John, please. Hey, what’s that thing want, anyway? Why did it attack me?”

  “I think the reliquary did it as a defense mechanism. My best guess is it wanted to kill me so I couldn’t bring it to a guy who can destroy it. The energy inside it can’t possess me because I’m already a vampire.”

  “Oh.” He huffs, then makes a ‘well that just sucks’ face at me. “Think they might have at least warned me not to go near it.”

  “I’m sure no one had any idea it could take over a living person.” I bite my lip. Or maybe they did, hence me being sent to transport it.

  “So, what’s in that thing, anyway?”

  “A bunch of vampire souls, but weird ones. Never human. They steal bodies after death.”

  He nods. “Oh, well, makes perfect sense.”

  “Why so sarcastic? You’re Wolent’s—or someone’s—thrall. You know about us already.”

  “Not that. Didn’t think vampires had souls, or could put them in jars.”

  “Hah. You’re confusing vampires with healthcare executives. We have souls. The jar thing, though, isn’t normal. Only one crazy bloodline. Not even sure if they count as a bloodline or they’re basically Domino’s.”

  “Those little chips people set up and knock over? You lost me. What’s that gotta do with undead?”

  I smile. “No, Domino’s pizza.”

  “Still missing the relationship.”

  “Something that kinda looks and kinda behaves like pizza but isn’t really.” I wag my eyebrows. “The Oblivare are similar to vampires, but they might be an entirely separate creature people mistake for real vampires.”

  “Ahh.” He sets his hands on his hips. “Hey, I like Domino’s.”

  “Not saying it’s bad. Just it isn’t real pizza. Sometimes you have a craving for it, but no one craves crazy vampires who want to destroy society.”

  “True. I’d destroy society right now for a couple slices of pepperoni.” He smacks his ethereal lips. “Damn. You made me hungry.”

  “It’s good to see you’ve kept a sense of humor after possible death.”

  “Same to you.” He winks. “Am I actually dead or is this the Domino’s of death?”

  “Huh?”

  “Kinda looks and feels like death but isn’t?”

  “Oh.” I smack myself in the forehead. “You turned my metaphor against me and I missed it.”

  “You’re nervous.”

  “Yeah, a little.”

  “What are you worried about?” He gestures at me. “You’re a vampire.”

  “You know that kid in school who breaks out in a cold sweat at the mere idea of doing something against the rules? Yeah, that used to be me. Gonna take me awhile to realize I can get away with stuff.”

  John chuckles. “Well, I’m a cop and I’m telling you it’s okay to go get that stupid thing out of my frickin’ trunk.”

  “Thanks. Helps. Really.” I exhale.

  He frowns.

  “No, honestly. Helps. Here goes.” I start walking into the lot. Act casual, Sare. Totally normal.

  John leads me to his car, which surprisingly, is sitting in a space beside other patrol cars. I’m hardly an expert on police procedures, but it seems highly unusual for them to put it here. The cop who’d been driving it vanished without a trace—as far as they know. Shouldn’t this car be in a lab somewhere? Either they think John ran off chasing a suspect he opened fire on and thus had no reason to suspect anything criminal happened around the car, or we have another thrall in the department who ran interference.

  I approach the car, looking around. Doesn’t look like anyone’s noticed me. Doors are predictably locked. Can’t get to the trunk release. Smashing a window is going to make a ton of noise, but it’s easier than attempting to rip a hole in the trunk lid.

  John yells, “Wait” as soon as I raise my fist.

  I look at him.

  He swipes a hand at the trunk.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m a ghost, right?”

  “Still debating. You might be an astral projection or a momentarily displaced soul fragment.”

  Side eye from a ghost is kinda funny.

  “Well, I feel like a ghost. I’m basically electricity right now, so I can probably make the trunk thing open. Just gotta find the right contact to touch.” He reaches into the trunk lid as if fumbling around for something in a pocket.

  I tap my foot, waiting.

  Click.

  Holy crap. Stunned, I hurry around to the back of the car. Trunk’s open. “Wow… you’ve adjusted to being a ghost way faster than most vampires get used to the change.”

  John strikes a triumphant pose. “Hopefully, I’m only playing a ghost on TV for one episode.”

  I push the
lid up the rest of the way. In among all the police stuff he’s got crammed in here is a long cardboard box full of packing peanuts. Pale violet light seeps out from the Styrofoam bits.

  “Either that’s the world’s smallest nuclear reactor or the reliquary is still here.”

  “Don’t those things glow blue?” asks John.

  “No idea.” I paw at the peanuts enough to expose a blackened cylinder of dark green marble radiating a strong otherworldly energy—and more than a little bit of anger. “Yeah, this is it all right.”

  He nods. “Yeah. This is the thing I took out of the evidence room.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you to remove evidence?”

  “Nah. Not this. No crime happened needing to be solved. The whole thing is vampire related. Ain’t as if someone’s getting away with hurting innocent people.”

  I pick the box up. We’re still breaking rules, but he’s got a good way to justify it.

  21

  True Friends Help Hide Bodies

  My phone rings.

  Normally, stuffing my iPhone in a pocket isn’t a big deal. However, my superhuman sense of touch makes a ringing, vibrating phone against my leg feel like a jolt from a weak stun gun when I’m already on edge. Bad enough I’ve broken into a cop car, but this reliquary is throwing off seriously bad vibes.

  I rest the box on the trunk, yank my phone out, and prepare to ignore the call until noticing Ashley’s name on the ID. It’s not too common for her to call me this close to midnight. Yeah, it’s almost twelve. Took me a while to get up the nerve to enter the police station lot.

  “Ash?” I whisper. “What’s up?”

  “Sare,” she whispers back. “Sorry. I know it’s like real late.”

  “Not a problem for me. Not annoyed, just in the middle of something sensitive. This is early. ‘Real late’ for me is after four in the morning.”

  She doesn’t laugh, or even chuckle. Uh oh. Something’s wrong.

  “I think someone’s trying to kill me.”

  Shit! I stare at the reliquary. “Crap. Okay. What’s up? This is serious? You didn’t just wake up out of a nightmare after watching a scary movie?”