Deadhead (Damned Girl Book 1)

by Clare Kauter

  If you’re wondering how I knew so much about the feeding habits and preferences of vampires, just know that I hung out in some dodgy bars as a teen. Satan had an interesting idea of what constituted an ‘education’. To be fair, though, this knowledge was much more handy than quadratic equations. What even was a quadrat? Why would I need to equate it? Does anyone actually know?

  See, parents send their kids to school to learn these useless skills when they should be taking them to dodgy pubs filled with the scourge of magical society. Satan should write some sort of manual on how to raise well-adjusted kids. Well, mostly well adjusted. I was doing OK, wasn’t I? Yeah, alright, I’d killed three people today, but on average I was doing less than one murder a year. Rounding down, that’s a totally acceptable level. So shush.

  Where was I? Oh right, vampire infested cave. Who they were going to eat first etc. Right, well, they wouldn’t want to have a go at Henry in his current state – vampires preferred humanoid victims. However, a lot of magicians have the simple ‘force shift’ trick in their arsenal. If Henry had a human form, which as far as I knew all shifters did, he was in trouble, too.

  As for me? Well, they’d tried it a couple of times before. With the way my elevated heart rate was pumping blood through my many arteries, I could only imagine they’d be willing to try it again.

  “They’re using the carpet as a blanket,” I whispered.

  “OK,” said Henry. “This might call for a rethink of strategy.” Daisy nodded in agreement. Thank goodness for Henry’s practical, sensible side.

  “Strategy?” said Hecate. “Don’t be ridiculous. We walk in and take it. We took on the grabbers. We can handle a couple of puny vamps.”

  Unfortunately, Henry and Daisy appeared to have been swayed by this argument. Daisy turned to me.

  “Where is it?”

  “To the left of the room as you walk in,” I answered.

  Ed flew over to me. “You have to stop them,” he hissed. “If they go in there, we’ll all die.”

  “How?” I hissed back, refraining from pointing out that Ed was already dead. “They’re the police! They’re actually doing their jobs. Except Henry, that is. I don’t really know what he’s doing…”

  “So, I don’t know, distract them!”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know! Henry’s the weakest link – start with him.”

  I thought. Henry was some sort of bureaucrat, right? He did a lot of fieldwork, but at heart he was a pen pusher. So what could I say that would…

  “Warrant!” I squealed.

  “Brilliant,” said Ed, grinning.

  “Of course,” said Henry, looking both relieved and deflated.

  “What?” said Hecate, which was a confusing and worrying question to hear from a police chief.

  “Ah,” said Daisy. “Right. Of course. We, uh, we really should run this past The Department.”

  “Yes,” I said. “We need to get out of here before we’re seen.”

  “But my carpet…” said Hecate, looking so devastated that I almost felt bad for pointing out the illegality of our actions and saving everyone’s lives.

  “No,” said Daisy. “I know we need to get that carpet back, but Nessa’s right – we should do it properly. We’ll come back later with a proper team and a warrant.”

  “Oh, will you just?” said a snide voice that I realised with a sinking feeling did not belong to any of the people in our group.

  “You’re unbelievable,” said another voice. “You come into our home, clomping down the corridors, stumbling over every little pebble –”

  “The lighting isn’t great in here,” I said. I don’t know why I felt the need to respond.

  Jessie moved towards me so quickly that I didn’t see her coming, but suddenly she was inches from my face. Terrified by her sudden proximity I began to scream, but then I began to feel self-conscious (there were six other people here – this was no time to be acting out). I aborted the scream halfway through and instead honked at her. From the corner of my eye, I saw Ed look at me with an expression that might have been disgust. I needed to sort out that honking problem.

  “You’re the little girl from the woods, and from last night. The one Satan likes so much. Unfortunately for you, she’s not around,” she said. “I can smell garlic on you again, but I’m afraid that this time it’s not quite strong enough to keep me away.”

  With that, she grabbed my shoulders, pushed my head roughly to the side, and bit me.

  They never really adequately express in those sexy vampire novels how much being bitten hurts. Maybe when it’s with your (slightly paedophilic) vampire boyfriend it’s different, I don’t know. Perhaps he bites you lovingly, like a hickey with follow-through. Jessie did not bite like that. Jessie bit like she was… well, drinking me to death. Her teeth were thick, and not nearly as sharp as I’d thought they’d be, which meant she really had to chomp down. I cried out again. This time, however, it was not a honk. This time it was a scream.

  It occurred to me that I didn’t even know her real name. That seems like something you should know – the name of the person who kills you. Or, in fact, the name of anyone who’s consuming your bodily fluids. What if you caught something from them? This consumption of raw blood thing seemed really insanitary.

  “Can vampires get AIDS?” I asked, before wondering whether those few strangled words would be my last.

  At my question, Jessie pulled back and looked at me in horror. I saw James standing not far behind her, staring lustfully at my neck. Ah, but to see that look on the face of someone who didn’t want to kill me.

  “What?” she asked.

  Before I could answer, however, Jessie’s eyes began to widen and she released my shoulders, looking down at her hands. They’d begun to shake dramatically, like she’d just been sipping on a quadruple shot latte. Was it the vervain?

  James had stopped staring at my throat and had instead moved over to see if Jessie was alright.

  “Honey?” he said, still providing no clue as to what her name was. “Are you OK?”

  In response, she collapsed into his arms, eyes rolling back. She began to heave slightly as purple foam spewed from her mouth. She coughed and choked as it made its exit. James looked on in horror.

  Purple? What the hell? I didn’t have purple blood! I had red blood! She should be vomiting red, not purple. Unless…

  James gingerly laid her on the ground and turned to me, standing. “What have you done to her?”

  “I dunno, hey,” I answered, channelling my inner bogan. It was true – I didn’t.

  He grabbed my shoulder and drew me towards him, staring into my eyes. “What have you done?”

  Oh dear. I could feel it… feel it welling up again. Twice in one day? Oh my goodness. This was not good. I took in a deep breath and said very evenly, “Let go of me.”

  My voice didn’t sound like it normally did. It was lower, deeper, more authoritative. At least James seemed to think so. He let go of me immediately, as though my flesh was burning him, and stepped back. Well, I say ‘stepped’. Really, he kind of leapt. Flew, some might say. Right into the side of the cave, hitting it with a dull thud. Judging by his facial expression, I’d say he wasn’t expecting to hit that wall. Or, in fact, to move at all.

  I decided to test my strength. “Fetch me the carpet,” I ordered.

  James stood, looking utterly bewildered, and walked into the bedroom, emerging a few moments later with Hecate’s carpet. He handed it to her and she cooed, like a mother being handed her child.

  “Everyone on the rug,” I said. The group obliged. Hecate was too absorbed in her excitement to notice what was happening. Daisy and Ed both knew something about my magic, so I wasn’t concerned about them. Henry, however, was frowning, and I don’t think it was just about getting on the carpet.

  The foaming-at-the-mouth thing could, of course, be blamed on the potion, as no one else had been bitten, and therefore we couldn’t prove that it wasn’t
the potion. The purple colour was weird, but I hoped he wouldn’t dwell on it. My ability to order James around was trickier to explain. I knew that Henry already suspected me of some necro skills (that’s -mancy, not -philia – mind out of the gutter. Or mortuary, whatever). I had just proven I had some abilities. The trouble was figuring out exactly what I’d exposed.

  Basic control of a corpse wasn’t too hard – raising zombies was about the easiest. They were like vacant shells. Very easy to channel your energy into them and control their behaviour. Ghosts were slightly harder, but still reasonably simple. They didn’t have physical bodies, of course, so all of your energy was poured into controlling their spirit.

  Vampires, though… And magical vamps at that…

  They had the body and the spirit to overcome, in addition to the natural protection they got from their abilities. (Magicals were much harder to control through magic than normals. We had a kind of immunity.) So explaining this one away to Henry could be a little tricky.

  But by the time we’d ridden the magic carpet out of the maze of caves and into the fading afternoon sunlight, all appeared to be forgotten. In fact, listening to the conversation between Hecate, Henry and Daisy, I was having a little déjà vu.

  “The way we busted those vamps was, if I say so myself, pretty fucking awesome,” said Hecate. She seemed to be getting a little high on power.

  “I still think we should have gone back for a warrant,” said Henry, chewing his lip.

  “Probable cause,” said Daisy. “If it’s good enough for the TV cops, it’s good enough for me. Besides, I don’t think they’re going to report us.”

  “Not after that beating we gave them,” said Hecate. “That’ll teach ’em to steal from us. First the grabbers, now these vamps. We’re taking down all the magical scumbags today.”

  We? I turned to Ed, who shrugged and shook his head at me. I guessed he was thinking the same thing – the others didn’t remember what I’d done. I was off the hook. Death must have clouded any use of my powers from their memories so that I wouldn’t get in trouble. It helps to have friends in high places. Or low places, I guess. Like the underworld.

  Chapter 16

  The trip home only took about twenty minutes on the carpet. Briefly, I considered getting one for myself, but if the standard licensing procedure for magical transportation was anything like the licensing for use of magic, I was definitely going to skip it. One impossible quest was more than enough. I really didn’t want to spend more time around government officials/law enforcement than I had to, for obvious reasons.

  Maybe I could get Death to teach me how to create portals instead. That would save a lot of time, and would make carrying home my groceries much easier than the usual trek through the forest. Although I’d probably lose some of the impressive tone in my biceps that I’d built up since moving out of town.

  The mood had sobered by the time we reached my little cottage as everyone realised that none of the ‘awesome’ things that ‘we’ had done today had any bearing on the case (or cases) we were meant to be solving. Most of the group didn’t even know that I knew about part of the case. It was getting a little tricky to keep track of who knew what.

  We decided to fix some afternoon tea since we had nothing better to do. Henry baked choc-chip cookies for us all as a special reward for being alive while Ed made up a pot of French Earl Grey tea. Daisy and Hecate sat on my couch typing up statements on their phones of their entirely false recollections of the day’s events.

  I sat in an armchair facing everyone, and went around the room trying to remember what everyone knew. First, Hecate. She knew, as far as I could tell, some vague rumours about my abilities, which is what had caused her to report me to The Department for my quest. She knew about the bank robbery, but thought I didn’t know. She had seen me use my powers twice, but for some reason couldn’t remember. And she couldn’t see Ed.

  Daisy seemed to know more than just vague rumours about me. She had asked me for advice on the potion back in the book shop, and appeared to know what the message I’d gotten from the ether about the King had meant. She didn’t know about my purple magic – or at least, she didn’t know about it from the two times I’d used it today. She definitely knew something about me, though. More than I did, it would seem. But she couldn’t see Ed either.

  Henry suspected me of something. I’d known it from the first night, when he’d balked at trying to classify me. He’d known even then that I was holding out on him, trying to hide my powers. Luckily he couldn’t remember the forest or the caves, otherwise he’d probably have me arrested. Is that why he was really here? Could it be that this wasn’t just a standard licence quest, but some sort of undercover operation? Is that why there were two cops here too? Was that what Death and Satan had meant about not trusting any of them? No, that was stupid. Then why would Daisy be helping me? She was clearly trying not to alert the others to my trip into the ether back in the shop. I was pretty sure it wasn’t an act. But I couldn’t be sure.

  But Henry could still have it in for me. So could Hecate. And, according to Death, so could Satan.

  That left Ed and Death.

  Ed knew everything. I wondered why Death hadn’t clouded his memory along with the others. Maybe it wasn’t possible to cloud ghosts. Or maybe he realised Ed didn’t want to do me any harm. Or, more likely, Death knew that Ed wasn’t really a threat to me.

  Ed knew about the Doomstone, but didn’t know what it was. Was it time I played that card and asked the others?

  Not yet, I decided. Wait until after cookies and tea. Snack first. Interrogate later. I didn’t want to run the risk of having the offer of baked goods revoked.

  While we ate our afternoon tea, we began discussing potential next moves. Now that the euphoria of beating the vampires and grabbers had worn off, it was painfully clear that none of us knew what to do. The autopsy and police reports had been useless. Ed’s friends had been useless. Ed had too many enemies to even name, let alone track down.

  Why hello, Square One. Fancy seeing you again.

  “I think we should look at Patty again,” said Ed, surprising everyone. Well, surprising me and Henry, and then the others when we passed his thoughts on.

  “He didn’t know anything when we first talked to him,” said Daisy. “What possible use would another interview with him be?” Her skin was probably still crawling from his pickup attempts.

  “The only thing he’s been killing off is his own brain cells,” I said. Only Henry laughed. Oh good. I was making dad jokes now. I nearly blamed it on my earlier blood loss, but then realised that most of the others had forgotten about that. Man, I really did need to take notes on this stuff.

  “I didn’t mean interview him. I think we should follow him.” Henry and I stared at him for a moment, before glancing sideways at each other.

  “Why would we follow him?” Henry asked.

  “Follow him?” Hecate repeated. “Sure, that doesn’t sound like a complete waste of time.”

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Daisy added.

  “Good idea,” I said.

  “What?” said everyone in unison. Even Ed. Clearly he still wasn’t used to me agreeing with him.

  “It makes sense,” I explained. “Patty’s two housemates have been killed. Maybe he did it. Maybe he’s next. Either way, he must know something. We should at least check in to see if he’s still alive.”

  “The more I think about it, the weirder he was acting in the lead up to my death. I think we should hang back and observe him. We don’t want to freak him out by going back there now that he knows you’re with the cops.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “What makes sense?” asked Daisy. This whole ‘no-one-can-see-Ed’ thing was getting a little old.

  “Ed thinks Patty knows something, but reckons we should hang back and watch him so that we don’t spook him since he knows you’re a cop.”

  Daisy and Hecate nodded slowly.

  �
��That sounds fair.”

  “After that, I might try to contact Jon’s ghost agai–”

  “No!” Ed cut me off.

  “What?”

  “You can’t,” he said. “It… it could be dangerous. Remember what happened during the séance? You don’t want to overextend yourself.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Hecate, speaking at the same time as Ed. “Not after your little turn during the séance.”

  “Oh, I passed out one time!”

  “Still…”

  “Fine,” I said. “I won’t try to contact him.”

  So what else could I do? If I could track down Death again – and somehow get him alone – I could quiz him more about the Doomstone and maybe see if he knew who killed Ed, or for that matter Jon, and ask who I wasn’t meant to trust and check why he hadn’t erased Ed’s memories of my power when he had erased everyone else’s and –

  “How is your neck?” Ed whispered. The main conversation had moved on while I was lost in my thoughts, so no one else was paying attention to us.

  “Uh, fine,” I said. Earlier, when we had escaped from Gladesta and realised that the others didn’t remember what had happened, Ed had quietly instructed me to cover my neck with my hair before the others noticed the bite and started asking questions. Sometimes he came in handy. “It doesn’t sting anymore. Wait, should I clean it with some antiseptic or something?”

  “I don’t think you can catch vampirism like that. I’m pretty sure they have to drain you and –”

  “I know that. I just don’t want it to get infected. There’s vampire spit in that wound, and there’s no telling where she’d stuck her fangs earlier. Plus, she didn’t answer my question about AIDS. What if I can catch blood borne diseases through her?”

  “Like how you get malaria through mosquitoes?”

  “Exactly!”

  “I don’t think it’s going around…”

  “Probably because everyone else died from the blood loss before they could catch infections.”