“Hah.” Sierra sticks out her tongue, then blinks, looks around, and narrows her eyes at me. “Hey. I can’t remember running in.” Her cheeks go bright red. “Gawd. You guys were doing stuff, weren’t you?” She shivers. “Ugh! Thank you for making me forget seeing that.”
Snickering, I poke her in the side. “Relax. You didn’t see anything. We were just lying there.”
“Eww.”
“This will be you someday. And Sophia. Another couple years, you’ll feel differently about boys.”
“Eww.” She shudders.
“Or girls. Whatever.”
“You think I’m gay?” Sierra blinks.
“I don’t think anything. Just saying it’s fine whatever.” I pat her on the head. “Someday, it’ll be me, Dad, or Mom barging in on you when you’ve got someone.”
“Eww.” Sierra shakes her head. “There is no way that’s happening in Mom and Dad’s house. I don’t know how you can even do it.”
“When you’re older—”
“Eww.” She jumps up. “I’m going back to bed. Thanks for helping me calm down. And if you tell anyone, there will be consequences.”
I draw an X over my heart.
“Oh, and hang a sock on your door.” She trudges out.
“I did.”
Sierra pauses a step outside in the basement. “There’s no sock on your door.”
“The ghost probably took it.”
“Which ghost?”
I get up and pad over there to look around. Sure enough, no sign of any sock. “The same one that’s been stealing everything else.”
“My Halo guy disappeared, too. It better not be Blix.” She folds her arms, scowling. “Or I’m gonna use him for a sword dummy.”
“You don’t have a sword.”
“There are brooms in this house. Close enough.”
I chuckle. “Really doesn’t seem like something an imp would do.”
She yawns. “Gonna go back to bed.”
“Night.”
Sierra trudges off to the stairs.
I check the dryer and the basement laundry basket for the missing sock, but both are empty. On the surface, the random thefts of small objects seems like nothing I should be concerned about, but the way things are going lately, anything could be a sign of imminent badness. Today, a missing sock, tomorrow an apocalyptic collision of multiple divergent planes of existence.
And for all I know, Sophia’s new kitten is going to explode with the force of an atomic bomb.
It’s utterly astounding that she’s managed to keep it hidden from the parents thus far. That can’t last much longer. Eventually, someone will notice she’s using her allowance money on cat food and litter… and there’s a cat box somewhere in her bedroom.
At least, hopefully, there’s a cat box in her bedroom.
Then again, does that kitten poop? She made it out of fungus dust.
It is eating, so it stands to reason there will be poop. I stare down at my hands, gripped by the sudden dissociative worry that I’m not real. Vampires don’t exist. Magic doesn’t exist. Right now, I’m either asleep in my old bedroom on the night before SATs having a stress-induced nightmare. Or maybe I’m still bleeding to death in the woods after Scott stabbed me and the past five months have really all happened over the course of like fifteen seconds.
Nah. I haven’t taken anywhere near enough drugs to imagine one third of the crap that’s happened to me since that night.
The eerie feeling of un-reality fades. I head back into my room, grab the phone, and call Dalton. Again, right to voicemail. Drat. Really don’t wanna get involved, but it’s becoming harder not to worry about him.
I hang another sock on the doorknob, close the door, and slip back into bed with Hunter after depositing my long T-shirt on the floor in easy reach. I’ve barely had three seconds to adore the sensation of our bodies pressed together before noises outside put me on edge. Sounds like someone rummaging around and trying—unsuccessfully—to be quiet about it.
Dammit. I’m really not in the mood for an abduction tonight.
Grumbling, I get out of bed and pull on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt I won’t care about losing. Vampire fights aren’t exactly kind to my wardrobe. So damn frustrating. Kinda redefines the term ‘naked aggression.’ The rustling from outside sounds farther away, but I’m on my feet and dressed already, so no point ignoring it. I head upstairs to the kitchen and go out the patio to the deck. The faint rattling of a stepladder comes from the left side of the house. Oh, that can’t be good. Expecting something ridiculous rather than dangerous, I peer around the corner but there’s no one trying to go in a second-floor window. From that angle, the sound shifts, becoming obvious as an echo from a greater distance than right beside my house.
Okay, odd. I creep down the length of the house to the front yard, peering out at the cul-de-sac.
Mr. Neidermayer, wearing a bathrobe over pajamas and a cast on his right foot, struggles to position a ladder beside the roof of his porch. Oh, crap. He’s hurt. Dammit. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He drags himself up the ladder and starts mounting a small camera. Looks like he’s gone full paranoid. Of course, given the circumstances, I can’t really fault him. He probably blames my siblings for everything that’s happening to him as retaliation for calling the cops but can’t prove it. Given the kind of things that imps can do, he’s also likely questioning his sanity.
Confident there isn’t a hostile vampire lurking about, I go back inside, but sneak up to Sam’s room. Blix the imp is sitting cross-legged on the floor playing a video game with the sound off. Apparently, the light from the TV doesn’t bother Sam at all, as he’s sound asleep.
The imp pauses the game and peers up at me with a hopeful expression.
“Not yet. I need to make some money before I can get you a game. Probably do that tomorrow night or over the weekend.”
He nods and gives me a thumbs-up.
“I just saw Neidermayer. His foot’s in a cast. Didn’t you agree not to hurt him?”
Blix drops the controller and waves both hands at me like he’s trying to warn me away from driving off a cliff.
“You didn’t do that?”
He shakes his head.
“What happened?”
Blix stands. He shakes his fists in the air, putting on a furious grimace, then kicks an imaginary object before grabbing his foot and hopping on the other leg.
“Oh. He got pissed and broke his own foot kicking something.”
Blix nods again.
Is it cruel of me to find that funny? “Okay. Cool. No problem.”
Mr. Neidermayer’s scream precedes the crash of a collapsing ladder.
Blix puts a hand over his chest and rapidly shakes his head.
“Yeah, not you. I know. You’re right here.” I sigh. “Guess I should probably go make sure he doesn’t need an ambulance.”
The old man is quiet for a moment, but when he starts spouting curses insinuating what the guy who made the ladder does with goats, I decide he’s okay enough to leave alone. Maybe someone will call in a noise complaint on him for installing video cameras at almost four in the morning.
Wouldn’t that be karma?
14
Tainted
I haz job.
Well, not entirely. I sort of had a job. Friday night after class, and Saturday after dark, I made good on my idea to earn some money delivering pizza. It didn’t take much effort to convince the owner of the shop to both hire me for two nights and keep everything off the books. I wound up strapping my iPhone to my left forearm so I could see the screen while flying and holding a pizza warmer bag.
Somewhere, there’s an ancient vampire walking around with a face like someone filled his knickers with lukewarm oatmeal. He doesn’t know why he feels awkward, but some deep, inner part of his being objects to the mundanity of a vampire using their immortal powers to deliver freakin’ pizza. The boss had this system where whatever driver happened to be available and wa
iting by the counter got the next order. So, by exploiting my ability to fly at over a hundred miles an hour—avoiding traffic and lights—I had pretty much every order to its destination in a few minutes. In the time a normal driver dropped off one order, I delivered three or four.
Naturally, the boss thought I merely went out back and tossed them in the dumpster, but when no one called to ask where their order ended up, he assumed I had a motorcycle or something and drove like an insane person.
Anyway, I made almost $350 in two nights’ work, most of that tips. For a job, it actually wound up being kinda fun. It would absolutely suck in the rain, though. Also, can’t do it too often since a few landings ended up being tricky on account of trying to remain unseen.
Saturday, Mr. Neidermayer let out this Tarzan scream at a few minutes past one in the morning, as if he’d channeled the pure quintessence of agonized frustration into audible form. I have no idea what the heck the imp did that made a man produce that noise but it got me laughing like an idiot.
Sunday late afternoon, I took the littles plus Blix to the mall. The kids had some allowance money, Mom gave me the nod to use the credit card to grab a few things they needed, mostly clothes or school supplies, and deal with feeding them dinner. Mom and Dad are having a date tonight, going out to eat and maybe a movie in an actual theater. While at the mall, we hit a game store where Blix picked out his reward: a fantasy adventure where one of the playable characters looks like a succubus.
And, I got to spend some time with Hunter and my family. Sunday night, Dad put on Conan the Destroyer. Sam dubbed himself Conan the Destroyer—of popcorn.
All in all, I had a good weekend with much needed fun, time to wind down, and a bit of cuddling at Hunter’s house.
Monday afternoon, I awake to find a grey kitten perched on my chest.
“Oh, hi there.”
“Mew,” says the kitten.
She stands, stretches, then disappears into thin air.
No, that’s not weird at all.
But that does explain how Mom hasn’t seen her yet.
My bones feel like they’re made of lead, a good sign the sun is glaring today. I drag myself to my computer desk and start on the calculus homework dumped on me Friday. Computer science had a test, so Professor Garcia only gave us a short reading assignment, which I’ll do after the more demanding math exercises.
A ping comes from my phone at 3:14 p.m.
Ashley: ‹Plz come over b4 I do smthg I’ll regret.›
Aww shit. A panic bomb goes off inside my head. I scramble out of my nightgown into my clothes, then add gloves, a scarf, and a hoodie before running upstairs. The kitchen feels like I’ve thrown myself into a pizza oven. It’s so nerve wracking and hot, I run straight out the door without stopping to grab shoes. Better to get to Ashley’s faster than spend the twenty seconds standing still in sunlight.
I leave a smoke trail—literally—to Ash’s house, four houses down the street from my cul-de-sac. The gravel walkway around the side to the back yard is like running on forks, but that pain barely registers to me past the sensation of being microwaved on high. I knock over their outdoor trashcan in my haste to get around into the backyard and onto the rear porch, which gives me some protection from the sun. It’s enough to let me think again, rather than follow the primal cavegirl urge to get the hell out of the light as fast as possible. I grab the key from the fake plastic rock and let myself in.
“Ash?” I shout.
A faint moan comes from upstairs.
Crap! I’m too late. She’s already done something to herself.
I sprint across the house to the living room and go upstairs to Ash’s bedroom. Crying and sniffling inside gives me hope that there might still be time to save her. I shove the door aside and barge in. Her thick, pink curtains are drawn closed over the windows tinting the room a shade of rose like a cheesy Sixties porno and reducing the sunlight from body surfing a hibachi table to broken tanning machine.
Ashley’s curled up atop her bed in a long-sleeved pink sweater and jeans. She’s barefoot, bawling her eyes out… and her right wrist is locked to the headboard by a set of fuzzy pink cuffs. Umm. Okay.
“Ash?” I ask barely over a whisper.
She sniffles. “Sare.”
I close the door to block the sunlight from the hall and hurry to the side of the bed. A cloud of smoke continues seeping out of my clothes, hanging around me.
Her blue eyes widen. “Wow. You look like the L.L. Bean ninja. Oh, crap. You’re on fire.”
“Just a little superficial combustion. No open flame. What’s up?” It’s dim enough in here that I can take the sunglasses off without blinding myself. “What happened?”
“Thanks for coming over so fast. I didn’t realize it was that bright.” She sits up and wipes her eyes with her left hand. “You could’ve said too sunny.”
I sit on the bed next to her. “Do I want to know why you’re handcuffed to the headboard?”
“To stop myself from doing something I’m going to regret.”
“Aww.” I hug her. “It’s not that bad. It’s never that bad.”
Ashley exhales. “No. No. Not that. I’m not gonna kill myself. I was close to eating an entire box of ice cream.”
I stare at her. “Wait, you chained yourself to the bed over ice cream?”
Ashley tugs at her arm. “Not just ice cream. Rocky Road. It was an emergency. I had to stop myself or I’d have killed the whole box.”
“Oy.” I slouch, sighing. “Seriously?”
“Yes!” She puts on this sad fake-pouty face. “I have no willpower. Please don’t be mad.”
She’s far too upset for me to be angry. “I’m not mad at you. Who did whatever that’s got you crying like this?”
“Tabitha.”
“Okay…” That name means nothing to me. “Umm. Who?”
Ashley cries on my shoulder for a little while, her right arm dangling from the fuzzy cuffs.
“Hey, where’s the key?”
“Over there on the floor.” She gestures at the corner by the door. “I threw it across the room.”
“What if I couldn’t get here?”
She shrugs. “Mom would’ve let me out eventually.”
“Your mom knows you have fuzzy cuffs?”
“Not yet.” She blushes.
“Since when do you have fuzzy cuffs?” I ask, eyebrow up.
“Umm. Since Aurélie. She, umm. Introduced me to some stuff. I, umm. Yeah. But this isn’t anything like that. I just didn’t want to run downstairs and whale a whole box of ice cream.”
I fetch the key, which did its damndest to hide. Little tricky finding a pink-plastic covered key on a pink rug in a room awash with pink light. Honestly, I should’ve traded places in the birth order with Sophia so she’d have been the oldest and best friends with Ash. The two of them are all about pink. They would’ve been… wait. No. That much pink in one place would’ve caused Armageddon. No wonder the Universe sent me here first. It couldn’t allow Sophia and Ashley to align.
Once I unlock her, she grabs me with both arms and cries for a little longer. “You gotta make sure I don’t eat a billion calories.”
“Okay.”
She sniffles. “No, I mean it. Put it in my brain that I don’t want to do that.”
“You want me to give you a mental compulsion?”
“Yes. But only one that makes me not want to grief-eat.”
I shrug. “Okay. But I can’t yet. Too damn bright.”
“Closet?”
“Wait, you want to go back into the closet?”
“Stop!” She laugh-cries, poking me. “Not funny. Okay. A little funny. Just for the darkness.”
“Dark sounds good.” I get up and walk with her to the bigger of her two bedroom closets, stuffing myself in among her dresses and coats.
Ash squeezes in after me, pulling the door shut. It’s like going from a Middle Eastern desert in August to an industrial cooler, even if I am mushed into her war
drobe.
“Oh…. That’s soooo nice.” I moan in relief.
“Hey, stop making noises like that. If my mother comes home, she’s going to get the wrong idea about what we’re doing in here.”
I laugh. “No, it’s just so… awesome in here. Not sure if I ever told you, but the sunnier it is, the hotter it feels. It’s like standing in a literal oven to me out there today.”
“Oh, sorry.” She hugs me. “You really should’ve told me you can’t go outside in this light.”
“Ash. You dropped a bomb on me that made me think you were going to do something drastic.”
She tries to look me in the eye, but she can’t see in here. “Eating an entire box of rocky road ice cream in one sitting is drastic. If I didn’t have those cuffs, you would’ve found me passed out on the floor in the kitchen in a diabetic coma.”
“Dork. You know what I mean. And since when are you diabetic?”
“I’m not. But I would’ve been if I ate all that ice cream at once.” She sniffles. “Okay, just go on and do the thing already.”
“You seriously want me to give you a compulsion?”
“Yes. I want you to give me the strength to resist binge-eating ridiculous amounts of junk.”
“Okay. I’ll try.” I grasp her head in both hands, stare into her eyes, and do my best to install the requested mental command. It’s impossible not to see what’s occupying the bulk of her thoughts because it’s so foremost on her mind: she’d been dating this cute blonde girl with a pixie cut named Tabitha, a lesbian, who she really liked. But the girl freaked out over Ashley being bisexual. Called her ‘tainted’ for having been touched by boys. Eek. That bitch treated her like she had dog poop smeared all over her—which, considering where she works, is an actual possibility.
Grr. If I ever run into that Tabitha, it’ll be difficult for me to resist doing something to her for crushing my best friend’s heart like that. Now for the hard part. No, not removing her urge to devour a whole box of ice cream in response to sadness. That’s easy. The hard part is going to be acting like I don’t already know why Ashley’s despondent. She might be upset at me later, but the easiest thing I can think of to keep her off empty calories is to replace the urge to eat with the urge to cling to her stuffed animal army. I rewire her brain slightly to get the same sense of comfort from squeezing plushies as she might’ve gotten from overdosing on sugary dairy products. That’s a lot easier and more permanent than simply leaving a blank space.
Ordinary Problems of a College Vampire (Vampire Innocent Book 7) Page 17
