“What do you want to do?” asks Mom.
“Umm.” Sophia grinds her toe into the rug. “Stay home.”
Mom grasps her shoulders. “Are you being serious? Do you really want to skip it?”
Sophia’s eyes widen. “Umm…”
“You’ll do wonderfully, sweetie,” says Mom. “But if you’re that upset over it, I won’t force you to go.”
“The way the lights are, you won’t be able to see the audience. Just pretend it’s an empty room.” I smile.
“Umm.” Sophia looks back and forth between Mom and me a few times before looking at the rug. “Okay. I’ll go. Thanks for not making me.”
Mom hugs her.
Sierra drags herself down the stairs, looking oh-so-thrilled about going to a dance recital, even as a spectator. Sam’s got his PS Portable and headphones. Soon, Dad emerges from his work cave, and we all pile into the Yukon.
The dance studio has an arrangement with the theater. It’s a little more involved than a simple ‘kid talent show’ in that they’re selling tickets, but it’s some charity thing. I can’t remember if it’s going to the children’s hospital or some education assistance program. Skipping the lines by the ticket booths up front and going in a special side entrance for performers makes me feel like a quasi-celebrity.
Some of the other kids in the production also opted for leggings, and no one seems to be making any issue of it either way. Both of the boys are covered neck to toes in black, with swooshes of silver sparkles across their chests. This, of course, gets Mom complaining about the double standard. Plenty of the boys I went to school with routinely complained about not being able to wear shorts in the warmer months when girls could wear skirts, but it’s not like it really gets terribly hot here.
Once she’s surrounded by her friends from the dance class, Sophia’s nerves relax and she settles into her usual self. Eventually, the instructors shoo us out to take seats with the audience.
Within minutes of us settling in to a reserved area for family of the performers, Sam’s gotta pee. Dad leads him off in search of a bathroom. I recline, gazing around at red curtains covering most of the walls. The place even has balcony box seats, but no one is up there.
Sierra looks around nervously, then huddles low in her seat.
I lean closer to her. “What?”
She glances at me. “I don’t wanna get shot.”
Oh. My. God. Did she seriously just say that? I put an arm around her and pull her close. Yeah, I could tell her something like ‘that won’t happen here’… but, she’s made the mistake of watching the news. I’m sure her school running drills on how to react to a lunatic with a weapon has left a mark. Barring someone with a personal grudge, it seems highly unlikely that a spree killer would target a live theater production put on by a bunch of tweens. This isn’t exactly what one would call ‘sold out seating.’ Still, I can’t dismiss her worries.
My eleven-year-old sister is terrified of being killed in a public theater. How messed up is that?
“Hey,” I whisper. “It’s dark. No windows. I’m fully online. No one’s gonna do anything while I’m here, okay?”
She nods and relaxes a little, though she still appears ready to dive to the floor at the slightest unusual noise. Sierra’s never been outwardly shy like Sophia, but she does tend to prefer small groups of friends or keeping to herself with video games. So yeah, maybe she’s not a crowd person. Also explains why she dropped a hard ‘no’ when the ’rents tried to get her to take dance lessons or gymnastics. She might go for martial arts of some kind though. That at least has the ‘cool factor,’ and doesn’t require any sort of performing in front of crowds.
Eventually, the lights dim. Dad and Sam return barely ten seconds before the stage lighting comes up and the curtains part. I’m sure the kids are doing some version of a famous play translated into a dance production without any spoken dialogue… but yeah, I am a slacker. I didn’t pay that much attention in English class, so I have no idea what it is. Probably something Shakespearean. Or maybe that’s coming from the ‘hey it was already here, why not leave them on stage’ faerie forest background set pieces.
Sierra continues holding my hand as the show begins. I keep my senses tuned on the room around us, listening for doors opening or anything like the rattle of a gun. Not that I’m expecting trouble, but if my staying alert helps Sierra relax, then that’s a small price.
What the hell is wrong with our society that a kid even considers someone might show up to kill her in a theater? It’s beyond me to comprehend. Not that I’m an old maid, but when I was her age, a thought like that never would’ve occurred to me. Great. Just when I thought I got done being all emo about everything, I’m ready to cry over my sister having to deal with our screwed up society.
Within a few minutes, the calming music eases Sierra’s death grip on my hand. My thoughts drift from fifth graders being terrorized by active shooter drills to grinning like an idiot at Sophia leaping and twirling around on stage with a dozen other kids.
The school has an advanced class on other nights, and those students (mostly older teens) are here as well. For basically a bunch of children, they’re surprisingly good. I’m sure the kind of people who would pay money for tickets to watch a live dance production are satisfied. This is way beyond a school talent show.
And it’s so normal, us sitting here watching Sophia do her thing. The sort of evening ordinary families might have. Okay, an ordinary family solidly in the middle class. Still, I can’t help but share some of Sierra’s fear. Maybe she wasn’t talking about a typical spree killer as much as she worried something supernatural would show up here coming after me? On second thought, she wouldn’t be that oblique. Sierra is way more direct. She’d say it to my face.
No, I’m the one who’s worrying the part of me that’s gone into an unbelievable other realm of existence is going to result in bad shit happening to my family. If I ever think the vampire stuff is going to hurt any of them, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect the people I love. Even if that’s never seeing them again. I can already hear my parents begging me to stay, telling me they don’t care about danger. The worst part about that is, I think it’d work. I’d totes cave in and stay with them. Ugh. My best choice is to just keep my head down and not make any (well, any more) waves in the vampire world—at least until my siblings are grown and out of the house.
Sophia darts across the stage, leaping and twirling, into the arms of a boy who’s gotta be seventeen or so. He scoops her off her feet as though she weighs nothing and tosses her straight up. Five other older teens simultaneously launch five other girls from my sister’s group. For three seconds that feel like an eternity, my little sister spins in midair looking like a music box ballerina. Mom all but screams. Sophia lands back in the teen’s arms. He sets her on her toes and she goes pirouetting off to the side, rejoining her friends.
So many bodies zoom around, I can’t even tell what’s going on in terms of any kind of story.
The next time Sophia goes by at the front, she’s got a giant smile on her face. She really does enjoy dancing, and it looks like my suggestion to ignore the audience existing has worked.
Ninety minutes later, the whole group lines up on stage for the final bow. Sophia goes pale when a roar of applause fills the theater, but she manages to resist the urge to run screaming from the spotlight.
Well, how about that. Three whole weeks of normal without anyone trying to kill me.
4
A Plea from Beyond
Much to Sierra’s annoyance, Dad decides to spring a movie on us when we get home.
She doesn’t mind too much, but she hasn’t touched a video game all day and I think she’s starting to get withdrawal tremors. Tonight’s featured bit of Eighties cheese is The Beastmaster. Okay, I can certainly spend a couple hours of my immortality staring at this guy running around topless. The animals are cute too, but the ferret biting the guy on the neck makes Sophia scream.
Sierra’s totally into it. She loves fantasy stuff. As the credits start going, she and Sam get into a debate about what animal would make the best companion. Somehow, that sets Sophia off begging for a cat or dog. The ’rents both react as if she’d held up a jar of nitroglycerin. One wrong move equals explosion, only tears instead of flames and ouch. It is kinda weird that we don’t have the obligatory family pet (Sam’s occasional frog aside). Ashley’s got a cat. Michelle’s got a dog. Though, technically, the dog (poodle) is her father’s. Whenever he’s home, that dog is next to him.
The pet conversation fizzles down to a ‘we’ll think about it’ stalemate. This doesn’t exactly prevent all tears, but it’s enough to stop a meltdown.
“All right, time for bed,” says Mom.
“Night,” mutters Sophia, while hugging Dad. She hugs me next, then Mom, then heads upstairs.
Sam hugs everyone without a word before plodding upstairs.
Sierra sighs. “But, Mom… I’m eleven. Why do I have to go to bed so early!”
“It’s almost ten. You’re already up later than we let Sarah stay up at your age.”
“It’s summer.” Sierra flails her arms.
“That’s why you’re up until ten. Now go on. To bed.” Mom points at the stairs.
“Listen to your mother,” says Dad without looking up from a book.
Sierra grumbles. She makes it halfway to the stairs before turning back. “If I was a vampire, would you still make me go to bed at ten?”
“I’m not having this conversation,” says Mom, giving me an uneasy glance.
“If you turned into a vampire, you’d have to bite PlayStations,” yells Sam from upstairs.
Dad chuckles.
I lock eyes with Mom. One: I don’t know how to pass it on. Two: I would never do that to them. Well… unless like what happened to me. If they’re a hundred percent gonna die already, maybe I would. But I still don’t know how.
Her eyes flutter from my telepathic message, but the meaning calms her.
“Going out?” asks Dad.
“Yeah. Tank’s low,” I say.
Mom fusses at my shirt for a bit like she’s sending me off to my first day of kindergarten. “Well, be careful, and try not to traumatize anyone, dear.”
I laugh. “Okay, Mom. I promise.”
Maybe I’m not doing the vampire thing right.
I mean, in the handful of movies Dad has brought up involving creatures of the night, they’re always like these counterculture punk types wearing wild fashion with wilder hair. They hang out and party all the time, or go clubbing, or get in people’s faces and be anti-mainstream. I want to find a food source, eat, and go home as fast and quiet as possible. The less time I spend outside, the less likely I am to get the wrong kind of attention. Yep. That’s my goal: be invisible.
Kinda like how I was at school.
After ducking around the house to our backyard, I zip into the air and head for Seattle. The T-shirt and jean shorts I’m already wearing work for flight. I don’t bother putting my flip-flops back on. They’d only fall off in midair, and I’m not planning on walking around much. I’m also too hungry to spend the time to grab socks from my room. It’s also not like stepping on ick would bother me. Yeah, broken glass or something sharp would hurt, but I can’t get sick, or infected. Besides, I’m planning to be home in fifteen minutes.
Flying at close to 140 MPH makes the trip to Seattle pretty quick. Granted, the hard part isn’t getting there, it’s finding someone alone enough to feed from. Usually, I search for a meal in the downtown area. More chance of avoiding repeats since no one really lives here. It’s not even eleven at night yet, so there’s still a fair amount of foot traffic.
I cruise down into a shadowed alley, but don’t actually touch the ground until I get close to the cleaner sidewalk. Hey, just because I know stepping barefoot on something foul can’t possibly hurt me doesn’t make it any less disgusting. Especially with my insane amped-up senses. If I can feel every single fiber in the carpet I walk on, I don’t want to know how disgusting street goop would feel.
At the corner, I lean against the wall and observe people walking by. After a few minutes, my attention settles on a tall guy in a suit who kinda resembles a Hispanic version of Ben Affleck. His height and broad shoulders catch my eye. I try to feed from large people if I can, since the amount of blood little old me takes won’t faze them much.
As soon as the guy gets close enough, I step out into the street and bump into him, taking a pratfall so it looks like he sent me flying onto my ass.
“Sorry!” says the guy, not quite yelling. He reaches toward me to help me up. “I didn’t even see you there.”
I take his hand, smile, and stare into his eyes. “It’s all right.” As he pulls me to my feet, I force my will over his mind. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”
His expression vacant, he follows me into the alley. As soon as we’re out of sight from the street, I compel him to mentally check out and stand there. While he does his best zombie impression, I float a few inches up off my feet and latch onto the side of his neck. The definition of weird is not me hovering in midair slurping blood from a man’s jugular vein. No, the definition of weird is blood that tastes like liquefied salmon and capers.
The surprise of the taste almost makes me cough and sputter, but I’ve gotten better at bracing for unusual flavors. I can really sympathize with the kids in the Harry Potter world and those funky jelly beans with random (often horrible) things lurking inside. Whenever I bite someone, I don’t know what I’m going to get.
Fortunately, I have yet to encounter a flavor I hate while feeding—though there have been things that should never be rendered in liquid form, like salmon. That’s probably because it’s is purely coming from my head. Men almost always taste like a ‘real’ dinner involving meat: steak, fish, chicken, something like that. At least the ones like this guy who look stable. Vagrants usually hit me with Spaghetti-Os or cheap ramen. People my age equate to pizza, onion rings, buffalo wings, that sorta thing—and little kids are sugary treats. Not that I know for sure. They just smell that way.
No, I’m not tempted to test it out. I promise. The closest I came was this fourteen-year-old runaway. Hey, I was desperate for food and I didn’t take as much as I should have. I also sent her home.
Once the WTF of liquid salmon wears off, I open my eyes as I drink—and wind up staring at the ghostly old man again. And oh yeah, he’s right behind the guy I’m feeding on, which puts his transparent, glowing damn face inches away from mine.
“Mmm!” I shout into the man’s neck.
“Hello,” says the old man. “Don’t let me interrupt.”
I keep staring at him as I drink enough to feel satisfied. Once I’m done, I close the wound and send the man on his way with a mild compulsion to eat cookies or orange juice. He walks away, straight through the ghost, and rejoins the flow of pedestrians out on the sidewalk. I keep hovering where I am, my toes a few inches off the pavement, staring at my spirit stalker.
“Umm,” I say. “You’re a ghost.”
He glances down at himself. For an instant while he’s looking at them, his legs appear, but they vanish as soon as he smiles at me. “So it seems.”
“Sorry, but I don’t think I’ve met you before. You’re probably haunting the wrong person.” I lean back a little. “Or did they like send you to yell at me for skipping out on death?”
“They?”
I shrug. “There’s always a they.”
“You’re not like the others.”
“Umm.” I peer down at my feet, still not touching the ground, and wiggle my toes. “Well, I guess that’s kinda obvious.”
He emits a ‘grandpa chuckle.’ “No, child… I mean like the other vampires.”
I blink. “You believe in vampires?”
“Well.” He gestures at me. “You were, a moment ago, draining that young man’s blood and you are presently levitating. And, I am a spirit.”
“Right. I didn’t think people took this stuff seriously. I spent the first day thinking I was dreaming and none of this was real.”
“Oh, before I died, I would’ve laughed at the idea of vampires existing. And ghosts. But, here we are.”
It’s kinda hard to grind my toe into the ground when I’m not touching it. “Yeah. Here we are.”
“You’re not like the others. I can tell you’re kind.”
“My kind?”
Again, he chuckles. “Forgive me. I meant you are kind. You’ve a big heart.”
Yeah, with a knife wound. “I guess.”
“Will you help me?”
“What, like figure out who killed you or something?”
The man shakes his head while emitting a sad sigh. “No, child. Cardiac arrest did that. Got me in my sleep. My grandson, Alex, has fallen in with a bad crowd, gotten himself on the heroin.”
I cringe. “Sorry.”
“It’s strange being on this side. I know things and I have no idea why. I fear Alex is likely to die within weeks if he doesn’t get help. Will you please find him and try to help him?”
I bite my lip. “Umm.”
The ghost tilts his head expectantly.
Wow, is this guy really asking me to do like detective stuff? I’m about as clueless as it gets when it comes to drugs or ‘the bad crowd.’ I wouldn’t even know where to start looking. Normally, I’d be too scared to even consider anything like this, but hey, it’s not like I have much to fear from ordinary people. So, deep breath.
“I can try,” I say. “Who are you? And your grandson?”
“Daniel Parrish. My grandson’s name is Alex.” He smiles. “Thank you.”
And fades away.
“Wait!” I say. “Umm… Little more info maybe? Like where is he?”
Confused, I hang there for a moment before the squeak of a door comes from behind me.
“What the hell are you doing?” asks a man.
The Artist of Ruin Page 4
