Vampire Innocent (Book 9): An Introduction To Paranormal Diplomacy

by Cox, Matthew S.

  The man directly in front of us holds his hands up in a ‘whoa, hang on a sec there’ gesture. At my continued hesitation in ripping faces off, he reaches up and pulls his hood back, revealing a poofy mass of dreadlocks. He’s got a fairly dark complexion and movie-star good looks. A hint of grey in his thin mustache says he’s pushing forty or so, but hair dye could chop ten years off. The guy’s wearing multiple rings, though none have gaudy, glowing gems. Guess magic only goes so far over the top in the real world, right? It seems I’ve encountered Dr. Normal.

  “I am Asher Jones. Please, do not be alarmed,” says the guy in an accent like Dalton’s.

  Wow. ‘Asher.’ There’s a bad name for a vampire hunter. Since none of these guys have crossbows or swords on them, I’m guessing they’re not hunters. The others also pull their hoods down. A pale, red-haired woman in her later thirties on Asher’s left stares at Sophia, her expression pleading. An Indian dude on his right nods once at me in greeting. Beside him, a scrawny girl about my age stares at me, wide-eyed in terror. Her shoulder-length snow-white hair is clearly a dye job as her eyebrows are still dark. A Chinese man stands to the left of the redhead. He, too, looks at Sophia the way one might look at the firefighter about to drag them out of a burning house. Beside him is a tall, thin guy, mid-forties, wearing an average grey business suit under his black robe. Right of the Indian dude, a somewhat younger guy who’s either Hispanic or Middle Eastern offers me a shallow bow of welcome. Behind us, stands another woman. She’s thirtysomething and has this air about her like she teaches third grade.

  I’m sure parents would be alarmed to learn their kid’s teacher moonlights as a creepy cultist.

  Okay… not expecting this. They’re not giving off hostility or malice. Frustratingly, their minds are blank to me. Feels similar to my first attempt to read Damarco’s thoughts, only rather than a sense of an impenetrable shield around their brains, it’s more of a total absence of anything in their heads… like trying to use telepathy on a stone.

  Wonderful. Anti-vaxxers.

  Oh, hang on… I can see into the mind of the white-haired girl. Her thoughts are unshielded and mostly ‘oh, shit. What the hell is that?’ in regard to me. The girl’s trying to figure out what kind of demon is impersonating a young teenager.

  “I just tumbled into a limitless non-space concealed in my sister’s closet, only to land in a creepy dungeon surrounded by people in creepy black robes. I’m supposed to not be alarmed?”

  “Apologies.” Asher clasps his hands in front of himself. “We are in need of your sister’s assistance.”

  “Me?” whispers Sophia, so faintly no one notices.

  “Umm.” I blink, then yell, “You guys ever hear of these devices called telephones? They’ve been around for a couple of years. They even have this email thing now. What the hell is going on?”

  Asher’s expression shows no reaction to me shouting. “We are members of the Aurora Aurea. Please understand we did not bring the child here to harm her. We are in need of her help.”

  The red-haired woman leans closer to Asher and whispers, “Does the older kid have claws? What on Earth?”

  “Looks like it,” whispers the Chinese guy.

  The maybe-Hispanic guy makes a ‘these aren’t the droids you’re looking for’ hand motion at me. A faint amber glow dances in his eyes and fades, though I don’t notice any unusual sensations. “Iinaha masas dmaa’un.” His expression goes from suspicious to frightened, and a touch surprised.

  It’s tempting to comment how sharp my claws are and offer to give the redhead a nice close look, but it’s probably better to not let them know I can hear her whispering. “Not sure what language he’s speaking, but I think he’s figured me out.”

  “What are we dealing with?” asks the redhead a little louder.

  Klepto emits a tiny hiss.

  Good idea, kitty. I bare my fangs. Not the most subtle way to keep secrets, but these are mystics after all. They are certainly aware of vampires already, and a bunch of other stuff. “An ass-kicking if someone doesn’t start explaining why my sister’s closet ate us.”

  The white-haired teen looks ready to faint. Ms. Redhead and the Chinese guy both stare at me like I’m their next greatest specimen they can’t wait to put in a jar.

  “Our lodge is under attack by a paranormal force we are unequipped to handle.” Asher sighs inaudibly out his nose. “Already, we have lost six of our number to car accidents, falls, or strange coincidental fatalities.”

  I tilt my head. “Define ‘strange coincidental fatality.’”

  The schoolteacher-looking woman behind me makes a bird motion with her hand. “Pigeon flies into the head of a man up on a platform cleaning high-rise windows. He drops a water bucket. Forty stories below, the bucket strikes a car, causing it to swerve off the road and hit a lamp post. The post falls over, spearing into the window of a café and almost impaling an old man. The barista screams, throwing a pot of coffee into the air. The scalding coffee hits another man, sending him running out the door half-blind and screaming. He collides with Leo—who happens to be walking by at the very moment—accidentally shoving him off the sidewalk into the path of an oncoming double-decker bus. Leo was one of us.”

  I stare at her. “Are you messing with me?”

  “No, lass. I’m afraid ’tis the all of it.” The woman dabs a tear from her face. “Crushed his ’ead, it did. Right under the tire.”

  I’ve no idea how the woman got through such a story keeping a straight face. It’s so ridiculous, Sophia and I are obviously the victims of some bizarre prank implemented by highly trained actors capable of spouting off the most ludicrous things without cracking up.

  “So… you guys can’t deal with some monster, and you think a little kid is going to help?” I go to scratch my head, but stop myself as the claws are still out. “Makes less sense than a guy getting run over by a bus because a pigeon hit some other dude in the head. Oh, wait. I get it now… None of this is really happening. I’m dreaming, and the insanity is coming from me having to write a paper on chaos. A dog farts in Munich causing a guy in Arkansas to suffer a heart attack.”

  The others briefly exchange glances of ‘this girl is nuts’ then continue giving Sophia ‘please help us’ stares, except the white haired teen. She’s ready to scream and run the instant I twitch.

  “Sophia is in a unique position to be able to remedy our situation,” says Asher.

  “Let me guess…” I rub my forehead. “She’s some kind of untapped prodigy with magic prophesized in some obscure writing who’s going to save all of wizard-kind from this great, unstoppable horror… and do it all in time for the next Quidditch match.”

  Sophia glances up at me with a ‘you’ve gotta be kidding’ expression.

  “Oh, no.” Asher chuckles. “Nothing so grand. Curses can be complicated and strange. The entity killing us off one by one is the same spirit she released from a soul jar. Her connection to the spirit trap persists, linking her essence to that of the wraith. For her, magic has fifty times the potency over the spirit than for us. The same mechanism by which it is vulnerable to her shields it from others. Believe me, we have been trying. We simply aren’t powerful enough.”

  “Umm,” says Sophia in a small voice. “You guys do realize I’ve only found out about magic recently, right? I don’t really know how to use it to fight.” She kicks her toes at the floor. “I don’t like fighting.”

  Asher approaches us, breaking their circle formation, and smiles down at Sophia. “Your inexperience in the arts does not matter. The enchantment within the soul jar bound you to the spirit. The entity is weak to you.”

  “Oh.” Sophia looks down. “I thought it was cruel to keep him in there. I’m sorry. He told me he wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “He obviously fed you a pile of bollocks,” says the Indian man.

  “Whoa, hold on,” I say. “You guys can’t be serious. I can’t let my kid sister get mixed up with a 300-year-old murderer. This is
clearly a nightmare. You guys are all talking in Dalton’s accent. The comi-tragic pigeon-to-bus death is totally the result of the chaos assignment priming my subconscious mind. Thanks, but I’m going to change the dream channel. We’re leaving.”

  Asher sighs, but steps back. “We are not abducting you. You are free to leave if you so choose.”

  Of course we are free to leave. It’s my dream, so I’m in control.

  “Umm.” Sophia blushes. “Why did you guys steal my clothes when I was at school the other day?”

  “Please accept our apologies for that mishap. None of us had ever attempted to use magic to transport a person in such a manner before. Our aim had been bringing you here, not merely your apparel.”

  The redhead grimaces apologetically. “We waited until you were alone so no one would notice the magic.”

  “You watched me in the bathroom!” squeak-shouts Sophia, too mortified to really yell.

  “No.” Asher shakes his head. “We could not see you, merely had an awareness of how many other people were in your vicinity, as well as whether or not you were able to be seen by people nearby. Once we sensed you were alone and out of sight, we attempted to bring you here during a moment when no one could see the magic.”

  “Only we… missed,” says the redhead.

  The tall, pale guy with the long face and curly roadkill hair glances at Asher. “Seems I was right, old friend. We should ’ave reached out to them via Darren Anderson’s group. Grabbin’ ’em outta the blue’s no way ta do things.”

  “They would not have sent her here based on a phone call.” Asher shakes his head slightly.

  “And draggin’ ’er ’ere fared much better, aye?” asks the tall guy.

  Whatever. Enough of this dream.

  I retract my claws, grab Sophia’s hand, and pull her with me to the room’s only exit. The door leads to a more ordinary looking basement area full of dusty junk covered in sheets. I head left, following the faint sounds of automotive traffic down a corridor, past several small rooms, to a stairwell. Stacked plastic boxes of books clutter the landing, but we squeeze past without much difficulty. Two switchbacks later, I open a plain white door into a relatively modern room—as opposed to the castle basement.

  The right side of this room has a small, round table, chairs, and kitchenette like a break area in a corporate office. On my left, long work tables hold various tools, some big hand-operated machinery I don’t recognize, and books in various stages of disassembly. The glue-and-paper smell is way strong in here. Not stopping to take in the sights too much, I head for the most obvious door, and emerge at the back end of an antique bookstore, surrounded by dark hardwood shelves two stories tall. Rolling brass ladders add to the effect, as well as various carvings in the wood depicting mythical beasts.

  “Whoa. Did they bring us to Diagon Alley?” whispers Sophia.

  “That’s not a real place, but yeah, this sure looks like it belongs there.”

  I lead her down the aisle to the front door. The bookstore appears closed for the night—it’s dark out—no one at the counter. Door’s locked, but easily enough opened from the inside. We step out onto a frigid city street where small shops fill the ground floors of six- and seven-story buildings on both sides. Black double streetlamps look nothing like anything I’ve ever seen in Seattle and there’s this weird red thing sorta shaped like an oval trashcan, only it isn’t one. The letters BR sit under a crown on the face near the bottom. Despite the archaic look of the bookstore, no dragons, wizards, or flying brooms are anywhere in sight. Cars are parked on both sides of a road too narrow for two-way traffic. A dry cleaners is directly across from us next to a wholesale jewelry place. Left of the dry cleaners is a huge grey building with no obvious signs, only three rectangular, gold bas-reliefs depicting the head and forelegs of a horse on the second, third, and fourth floor walls between windows.

  “Where are we?” whispers Sophia, past chattering teeth. She bounces on her toes, arms wrapped around herself, shivering.

  “Good question.” I glance down at my bare feet on freezing sidewalk, over at her bare feet on the same freezing sidewalk, then up at her gossamer nightgown… outside in the middle of December.

  Every retail shop around us appears to be closed as well. Weird. It’s only like 9:45 or so at night. Why is everything closed? Traffic’s also super light. Oh, maybe I can figure out where we are by the license plates. I try to take Sophia’s hand, but she won’t pull them out from under her arms, trying to keep her fingers from freezing. With a hand on her shoulder, I tug her along and approach the nearest car.

  The plate’s totally weird. White, black letters, half as tall as it should be but much wider. Umm…

  I stand there staring at it in bewilderment, until the scuff of a shoe redirects my attention to a thirtyish man walking toward us. He’s yawning, not really paying attention to us or his surroundings, and appears to be in a hurry.

  “Excuse me…” I step closer, not quite blocking his path.

  The man stops, looks at me, then Sophia, and back to me, seeming confused. “Aye, luv?”

  “What city is this?”

  He laughs.

  “No, seriously… where are we?”

  His mirth fades. Again, he looks at Sophia outside in a nightie. “London… have you two been abducted?” He pulls a cell phone off a belt clip. “I can ring the police.”

  I stare into his eyes, forcing him to see us both properly dressed in winter coats, and not remember my question. “Thanks.”

  “Uh oh. We’re gonna be in trouble.” Sophia peers up at me, teeth chattering even louder. “We’re outside after bedtime and we don’t have passports.”

  9

  Creeping Doom

  Crap!

  “Gotta be a dream,” I say.

  “You look like you’re awake.” Sophia shivers. “I’m cold.”

  “Dammit.”

  “What?” She tilts her head.

  “Mew,” says Klepto.

  “I’m a vampire.”

  “But you know that already?” Sophia scrunches up her nose.

  An uneasy feeling hits me while looking around. I fish my phone out of my purse, open my GPS app, and tag my current location. Apparently, the street name is both B521 and Hatton Garden. Oh, not confusing at all. Still, it would be dumb of me to forget where to find these mystics.

  I hurry back into the bookstore with her, out of the freezing December night. “I didn’t say dammit because of being a vampire. I said it because it means I can’t possibly be asleep and dreaming… unless the entire day has been a dream, including going to school.”

  “Oh. I don’t think you’re dreaming. ’Cause then we’d both be having the same dream at the same time, and it’s too weird to happen.”

  “More or less weird than us being drawn into a void in your closet?”

  She gives me a super apologetic look. “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop… I know you didn’t make it.” I ruffle her hair.

  “No. I didn’t close it right.”

  Grumbling, I storm down the aisle to the rear of the store, through the back room, and take the steps to the basement, interrupting the group of mystics having a ‘well, now what’ sort of discussion.

  “London?” I yell. “You yoinked us to freakin’ London?”

  The white-haired girl about screams at the sight of me, even though she’s a little taller and, unlike me, looks eighteen. Can’t fault her really. Normal-me would’ve reacted the same way to an angry vampire. Asher and the other mystics regard me, varying degrees of hope and worry on their faces.

  “We brought you to where we are,” says Asher after a pause. “You make it sound like we tossed you randomly across the globe.”

  “You guys grabbed a little girl out of her bedroom in the middle of the night. Only creeps and weirdos do that.” I jab a finger at him. “Open the—the… whatever you did, and send us back.”

  “It will require time for us to make the necessary preparations,
” says the Chinese guy. “But since you’re already here, please help us before the spirit wipes us out.”

  “Unbelievable,” I mutter. “You don’t even try to talk to us first, then somehow drag us to freakin’ London in the middle of the night without warning, and you expect her, a ten-year-old who has like a month of practice using magic, to take on this entity who’s killing off adult mystics?”

  The group trades glances again. Ms. Redhead and the schoolteacher have a ‘kid’s got a point’ quality to their expressions. Sophia timidly peers up at me. Ugh. She’s totally going to volunteer to help them, but at least she’s too shy to say anything. My sister is sweet and nice enough to risk herself to stop other people from dying. But she’s also a child who isn’t really capable of understanding what it means to risk her life. I just can’t allow her to jump into a situation like this.

  “You’re phrasing it in a way to make it sound bad,” says the Indian guy.

  I briefly daydream about ripping his spine out and clubbing him over the head with it, but resist the temptation. “How exactly should I phrase it? Other than a ghost and magic being involved, how is this any different from a bunch of wackos grabbing a child out of her room at night, handing her a gun, and asking her to go shoot bad guys?”

  Asher clears his throat. “It would not be in our interest to expedite your return to the United States. I understand your frustration, but please try to see things from our perspective. Only eight of us remain, and we will surely perish without your sister’s aid. Opening the portal would be no different from committing suicide. It has become clear to us she is our only chance to stop this entity.”

  Sophia starts to raise her hand.

  Before she can ask what she needs to do to help them, I grab her wrist and haul her back upstairs and outside, fuming. Stupid, thoughtless, entitled mystics. Where do they get off dragging us across the damn ocean to fix their problems for them? Okay, maybe the problem is one Sophia started, but she didn’t mean to. She’s a kid. If a child on a tour of a chemistry lab accidentally bumps something and starts a wicked fire, they’re not going to hand her a hose and ask her to help put it out.