Ordinary Problems of a College Vampire (Vampire Innocent Book 7)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Sophia looks up at me. “Okay, but it’s up to Sarah.”

  “We’ll run it by the parents first,” I say. “Can I call you in a few hours?”

  “Of course.” Darren smiles. “I shall be waiting with extreme anticipation.”

  7

  Oopsie

  One of the things I never imagined I’d ever have to ask my parents is ‘Hey, can I take Sophia to a mystic’s lodge so they can teach her magic?’ It’s weird seeing her this interested in something that isn’t dance class or makeup artistry. The whole ride home, she rambled about having magic abilities and worried that Mom would refuse to let her see the mystics.

  Whatever fear she had of those guys before is gone.

  Guess she’s forgiven them for kicking her out of her body and stealing it for a while. I can understand how she got over it though. For one thing, it didn’t hurt her, and more importantly, being targeted with that magic is what unlocked her abilities. At least, that’s what the mystics said. I’m still a little suspicious of that though. No one in our family—at least that I’ve ever heard about—has any connection whatsoever to things paranormal or strange. You’d think if Sophia had latent magical ability all along that she could never have unlocked herself, there would have been something in our past to hint at it. Some eccentric relative surrounded by strange stories or some such thing. Granted, my father’s side of the family came from England… so maybe we do have a weird relative but they’re way, way back.

  I spend the rest of Saturday worrying that my presence here is having unintended consequences. Sort of like putting a heavy object in the middle of my bed creates a well that causes other, smaller objects to roll toward it. What if being a vampire is a paranormal magnet and it’s attracting energy to my house? That may not be a bad thing, actually. At least in Soph’s case. I’d much rather she have some ability to protect herself against whatever clawed, fanged bullcrap messes with me.

  Anyway, we managed to get Mom’s approval. Mostly, because I played up the worry of accidents if her abilities ran wild. Darren asked me to meet him with Sophia tomorrow at Woodland Park’s rose garden. So, she’s on cloud nine, like tomorrow’s Christmas. Again, it’s surreal to see her into something this much that isn’t dance. But making objects move with magic is infinitely cooler than zooming around in tights leaping and spinning.

  Doubtful she’s going to lose interest in dance, but she’s pumped about magic.

  Ugh. This could go wrong in an infinite number of ways.

  I’m supposed to be studying, but I wind up doodling Fuzzydoom chasing faceless little people. Okay, enough. Work time.

  Monday is high on the sun-bitchiness index.

  Figures now that I want it to be gloomy in Seattle, the sun decides to become an exhibitionist. And yeah, it is far more likely that nothing is different and my perceptions are skewed. Prior to my death, I adored sunny days because they felt few and far between. It’s doubtful my immortal powers are strong enough to affect the solar system. Logic says the fiery ball isn’t showing itself more often to spite me. I’m merely paying attention to it now.

  Because it’s a pain in my ass.

  At least it’s November, so bundling myself up to ridiculousness won’t seem too weird. I’m going to be hungry tonight from this, but it’s worth it to protect Sophia—and keep everyone else safe from what she might do without meaning to. And speaking of keeping safe from things, it’s astounding that Blix hasn’t played any pranks in the house. That gets me wondering about the true nature of imps.

  Anyway, a little after three, I race out the front door as covered as possible: winter coat, jeans, boots, gloves, scarf around my face, sunglasses, and a wool hat. Only a little bit of skin right below my eyes is exposed to daylight… and holy hell this hurts.

  I jump into the Sentra and slam the door.

  Sophia climbs in, coughing and waving her hands at the smoke hanging in the air. “Wow, Sare. You’re smoking. Maybe this isn’t a great idea.”

  “I’m already in the car.”

  She looks me up and down. “Want me to see if I can protect you from the sun somehow?”

  “If all my clothes fly off, I’m going to give you a mental command to wear that bunny costume Grandma Sheridan made for you last year to school tomorrow.” Mom’s mom is super sweet. She tries so hard but… yeah. She still thinks we’re all four years old.

  “Eep!” She blushes. “You wouldn’t! You promised you wouldn’t mind control us!”

  I start the engine and back out of the driveway. “Runaway magic creates an exigent circumstance.”

  Sophia jabs a finger at me. “Don’t go into lawyer mode! You promised. Sare!”

  I grin. “Okay, fine. I’m just kidding. I can handle this… probably. Look, if I legit catch fire, then go ahead and try, but until you know what you’re doing, the accidents might be worse. Remember the stool.”

  “Okay. I’m just worried. I don’t want you to burn to ashes.”

  “Great. That’s two of us.”

  She’s quiet for a few minutes watching me try to navigate the street away from the house, driving as slow as if it’s my first time behind the wheel. Even with sunglasses on, the world is a nuclear glowing blur to me. Maybe I shouldn’t be driving at all given I can barely see anything but ouch.

  “Sare!” shouts Sophia. “Look out!”

  I jam on the brakes, only noticing the black Labrador in the road after we screech to a stop. The dog looks at me for a second, then darts off. Ugh. “This is a bad idea. We should go back and let Dad drive us.”

  “He’s with Sam and Sierra at karate.”

  “Taekwondo?”

  She raspberries me. “Whatever. Kicky-punchy stuff.”

  I laugh, remembering Sam referring to it as ‘yoga with screaming.’

  “It’s not funny.” Sophia pulls at my arm.

  “You’re right. This isn’t safe. I don’t want you getting hurt. We need to do this when it’s gloomy out or when Mom or Dad can drive us.”

  Sophia tilts her head to the right. “Ashley?”

  “In class.”

  She tilts her head to the left. “Michelle?”

  “Work.”

  “Ooh. Hunter?” Sophia grins.

  “Probably homework in the few hours he has between class and his job.” I grumble. “Notice how little he’s been around lately?”

  She sighs. “Wow. You need it bad.”

  I gasp. “What?”

  Sophia looks up at me, all innocence. “Time with Hunter, maybe a hug. You relax when you’re with him, and you’re all wound up right now. Why are you gasping?”

  “Umm.” Great. At least she can’t see me blushing with the scarf over my face at what I thought she meant. “Painful sunlight.”

  Sophia emits a grunt of annoyance while thrusting her hand toward the windshield—which darkens like a giant sunglass lens.

  “Whoa.”

  “Holy crap it worked!” She squeals in delight. “Awesome! Umm, does that help?”

  “Yeah, actually.” Straight ahead is still a little painful to look at, but it’s not washed-out white. “Great. I’m going to get pulled over for having too much tint.”

  She shakes her head. “If we get pulled over, I’ll change it back.”

  “Okay… but please don’t turn the cop into a frog.”

  Sophia laughs. “That would be toad-ally rude.”

  “Ouch.” I groan.

  The drive into Seattle is nerve wracking, to say the least. Makes me think of our grandfather on Dad’s side. His eyesight isn’t the greatest, so he hates driving at night. I’m the reverse. Day driving blows. I’m so worried about getting into an accident that my brain starts hallucinating vampire-Sophia in the passenger seat. But even that won’t happen. If we crash bad, I’ll end up mauled, too and won’t be able to do anything to help her before it’s too late.

  So, yeah. There’s a lot of beeping and middle fingers coming my way for merely driving the speed limit.

&nbs
p; We make it to the park without causing or suffering serious injury. Conveniently, the place has a parking lot right across from the rose garden. After stashing the Sentra in the rearmost row due to ample tree shade, I hop out and move a few steps deeper into cover, taking a moment to enjoy not feeling like I’m standing in a giant microwave being high-beamed to extra crispy.

  “Umm, Sare, the garden’s that way.” She points.

  “Yeah, I know. But there’s shade here. Need a moment.”

  “Okay.”

  Not long after we get out of the car, a red minivan pulls in to park two spaces away from my Sentra. A man and woman in their later thirties emerge from it. He pauses, sniffing the air while the woman pulls open the side door for a pair of seven-year-old-ish boys.

  “You smell that, hon?” asks the guy. “Something’s on fire. Almost”—he sniffs—“smells like steak but, that meat’s gone south.”

  Screw you too, pal.

  “Brakes?” The woman sniffs at the front wheel. “Yeah, I smell it. It’s stronger up front.”

  “I just had the pads replaced.” He reopens the door and pulls the hood release. “Maybe I hit something and there’s roadkill roasting on the engine.”

  Sophia tugs on my arm.

  I sigh. “Yeah, good idea.”

  Before the guy’s nose can lead him to me and he starts asking why the smell of burned meat is coming from a person, we head to the east, crossing the street into the rose garden. I’d say it’s pretty, but that would largely be a guess. My vision is full of painful white light—and I walk straight into a tree where the paved path abruptly becomes a circle. Sophia laughs, but takes my hand, leading me like a blind person. Good enough. Might as well close my eyes to stop the pain. She’s considerate enough to move in quick scurries from shade patch to shade patch. This really is a bad idea. If the feeble cloud cover in the sky decides to clear up at some point, I’m going to be in big trouble.

  Eventually, she stops short and swerves to the left. “I see Darren.”

  “Great. Lead on.”

  We walk for another minute or so, off paving and onto grass. There’s no shade on this route, so I cringe in on myself while hurrying along wishing for the burning to stop. It’s tempting to jump headfirst into a giant deep fryer so I can cool off.

  “Oh, my,” says Darren. “You should have postponed. Quick, inside.”

  He grasps my left hand and hurriedly drags me forward. As soon as the burning lessens from being in shade, I risk a peek. We’ve entered a tiny, beige gazebo in front of a wall of trees. Darren mutters a word or three in a foreign language, then grasps a ring on his left hand, twisting it around his finger.

  The world outside the gazebo changes from an outdoor rose garden to a smaller, indoor garden under a greenhouse roof. A similar gazebo stands against the wall of an old manor house. It takes a second or two for the disorientation to wear off.

  “Whoa. Did we just teleport?” I ask.

  “Not exactly.” Darren smiles. “We’re essentially in the same place, but we’ve moved in the fourth dimension. It would be more correct to say we passed through a doorway than ‘teleported.’ Let’s go inside before you roast.”

  “Sure…” I’m in too much discomfort to protest.

  Darren leads us down a short stone path past a fountain to an ancient black wood door covered in bas-relief cherubs. Inside, a hallway lined with oil lamps hung from wall mounts leads into a mansion stolen straight from the early 1800s. It makes sense why Darren wears such odd suits. He fits right in here. Oh, please don’t be insane. This guy better not be loopy.

  We make our way along a corridor lined in blue-patterned wallpaper and dark wood wainscoting to a set of double doors on the left. Though a set of floor-to-ceiling windows at the end of the hall lets in a flood of light, they’re far enough away that I’m no longer burning—merely standing outside on a 110-degree August day. Or at least what I imagine that would feel like, since it’s never been that hot up here in my lifetime.

  Darren pulls the doors open, then gestures for us to go in.

  Sophia clings to my arm as we enter a large room somewhere between library and 1800s-mad-scientist lab. Several long tables on the right hold disorganized stacks of books and candelabras. More books are stacked here and there on the floor, several piles taller than I am. Shelves on the left hold yet more books, everything coated with a layer of dust so thick my mother would probably have a seizure if she saw this place. Cabinets line the back wall in the spaces between three massive windows that appear to also be glass doors out to a courtyard.

  Darren again mutters an incomprehensible word. Dense burgundy curtains at each window come unbound as if in response to his command, draping closed. Darkness washes over me like a moving wall of air conditioning. The transition in temperature is so stark and sudden that it makes me shiver from the chill for a few seconds. In fact, the curtains are thick enough that they block the light to the point I come online.

  “Gah!” blurts Sophia. “It’s dark.”

  “Yes. Your sister is not enjoying the daylight.” He snaps his fingers and a hundred or so candles spontaneously ignite all around the room.

  To me, absolute darkness looks like normal lighting. However, I can still tell that the room is dimmer than normal electric light. Darren waves for us to follow him, then proceeds to weave around the various stacks of books, boxes, and junk into the maze of shelves. More books. Good grief, there’s an entire rainforest of dead trees in here. On one shelf above my head level, an imp floats dead in a big jar of amber-colored liquid. Hard to say since they mostly look identical, but I think it’s the same one I killed at the veterinary clinic and dropped on the table at the Brass Tap a couple weeks ago.

  Other jars hold the remains of various small animals like bats, serpents, and a few I don’t recognize. Pretty sure they’re normal, albeit exotic, animals, not like demons or magical beasts. Darren takes a right turn to a small chamber surrounded by shelves deep inside the maze. A square table stands at the center, littered with objects both recognizable (bowls, candles, yet more books, boxes) and some unrecognizable stuff like metal crescents, weird crystal polygons and so on.

  Callum and Landon are waiting for us by the table.

  Sophia leans close to me and whispers, “This is so weird. It’s like we went back in time.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Welcome, Sophia.” Darren takes a place by the edge of the table and rests his hands on the dark wood. “You have demonstrated that you possess magical abilities. Today, our goal is to measure your knowledge and get a feel for where any instruction would need to begin.”

  “What school are you familiar with?” asks Callum.

  Sophia blinks. “Cottage Lake Elementary.”

  The guys chuckle.

  “We mean magical schools.” Landon brings his hands together. “What sort of mystical tradition are you following?”

  “What like evocation, abjuration, illusion?” asks Sophia.

  They exchange glances.

  “That stuff’s from a roleplaying game,” I whisper. “That’s not what they’re talking about… but I think it’s kinda close in concept.”

  “The Aurora Aurea, our order, is derived from a school once referred to as Thelema. It has changed somewhat from the 1900s.” Darren’s body language gets all sorts of awkward. He kind of looks like Dad when he gave me the talk about sex.

  I peek into his head. Oh, he’s thinking of someone named Crowley and a lot of messed-up sex magic. Ugh. Really? Sex magic is like a thing? Eww. Aha. No, he’s thinking that guy was just a creep who wanted to sleep with a lot of different women.

  “Regardless. That is just one tradition.” Darren smiles. “There are others. Druidy, Wicca, Santeria, voodoo, various branch-offs of witchcraft or other nonspecific occultism, several strains of Sumerian diabolism… though I doubt a small girl in the Pacific Northwest would’ve stumbled across that.”

  “Umm.” Sophia shakes her head. “None of that. I
’m not reading any books… except for that one stupid thing we found on the internet. But you guys didn’t think it was real magic.”

  “Interesting.” Callum rubs his chin.

  “Coralie said she’s like a natural or something.” I pick up a weird little metal star and look it over. Oddly, the flickering candles all over the room don’t reflect from its surface.

  “That’s curious.” Darren walks around the table to us, gently grasps Sophia’s cheeks, and stares into her eyes. “Yes. I do believe she is correct. There are some things you should know about her particular type of magic.”

  “Such as?” I ask.

  He folds his arms, tapping a finger to his chin. “True mystics as she appears to be ‘work in the here and now’ as we call it. Before you ask, that means she does magic when she wants to with little preparation or ritual involved. The advantage, of course, is not spending hours or days gathering reagents, etching circles, and so on.”

  “Saves quite a bit of money on components.” Landon grins.

  Sophia chuckles, as does Callum.

  “There’s a downside, isn’t there?” I lean on the table. “There’s always a downside.”

  Darren laughs. “But of course. However, it isn’t a crippling one. A natural mystic trades control for freedom and spontaneity. With ritual magic, some of the burden of powering it is drawn from reagents, the natural world, even the rigidity of performing the ritualistic actions.” He faces my sister. “In your case, all the energy is coming from inside. That means you run the risk of exhausting yourself, or in extreme situations, harming yourself.”

  Sophia leans back with a gasp.

  “Oh, don’t worry just yet. It will take years of practice before you are able to channel so much energy into a spell that you can accidentally feed it your life.”

  “Umm.” She shivers. “I can kill myself doing magic?”

  “Whoa.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe we shouldn’t go down this road after all. No one said anything about her being able to drop dead.”