Steering away adds a few more seconds before he can get his hands on me again. As soon as he comes around the other corner of the building, he turns toward me and zooms, snarling so loud I can hear him from a few hundred feet away.
… and I spot Aurélie’s place.
No idea if this is going to work, but I focus as much mental energy into wanting her to know I’m about to crash her pad and help is needed. I swoop down to her patio and break the door latch open barely a second before jackass lands behind me. He shoves me off my feet, but I catch myself flying before kissing the floor in her living room.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t appear to be home. Dammit!
LA Man jumps on me, swings me around, and rams me into the wall, pinning my wrists together in one hand against my chest.
“Get off me!” I shout, ramming my knee up into his side.
The hit launches him, but he doesn’t release my arms, dragging me along for the ride across the living room. We smash into the wall, knocking over a table with an abstract crystal sculpture. It’s so heavy and brick-like that it doesn’t even chip when it hits the floor. Dude lands on top of me, still keeping my claws out of the fight with a vice grip on my wrists.
“Heh.” He snags the big statue in his free hand, raising it up to mash me in the skull. “Nap time, sweetie.”
I cringe, bracing for impact.
Shit.
Sometimes, the bait goblin dies before it can run away.
16
Harmless
The crystal chunk falls toward my head in slow motion, thanks to panicky vampire reflexes.
LA Man vanishes in a blur of white.
A little bewildered and a lot relieved, I sit up.
The thug lays in the corner of the living room, twisted into a human pretzel knot. Aurélie stands a few feet from him in one of her elaborate gowns, glaring down at him with an expression of profound disdain.
He unfolds himself and lunges upright into a punch. She seems to shimmer, teleporting her body’s width to the right, though I’m sure she only moved too fast to see. Before the man’s punch finishes traveling forward, she spears her right hand into his chest, reaching up under the ribs and ripping his heart out in her clawed hand as casually as if she plucked an apple off a tree branch. The guy emits a bloody wheeze, staring at her in pure shock.
Aurélie crushes the heart, spraying streamers of blood all over the guy. While he stares at the crimson oozing between her fingers, she flicks her left hand out past his throat. His head slides backward off his neck and falls to the floor with a hollow bonk.
I’ve seen the look on Aurélie’s face once before, but not on her. Michelle’s mother had the exact same expression the time their dog pooped on their new sofa. Fortunately, Mrs. Gerard didn’t behead the dog.
“Whoa,” I whisper.
Aurélie’s disgust-riddled scowl softens to her normal reserved semi-smile. “Good evening, cheri. I would ask what brings you here unannounced, but I believe I understand.” She flicks her fingers, tossing the lump of heart meat onto the body.
I scramble upright and walk over. Except for her right hand, she somehow managed not to get any blood on her dress. “Holy crap.”
Only holes in the fingertips of her elbow-length glove give away that she’d used claws. I’m not sure I want to know how she managed to behead the guy with claws. Pretty sure she doesn’t have Glim’s sword-sized nails. LA Vamp’s neck’s as clean cut as if he’d been guillotined. Eek.
She fans herself with her bloodless left hand. “Why do you seem so impressed? I am but a simple ’armless noblewoman.”
That dainty voice, that delicate French accent, watching her eviscerate a man so casually. Yeah, my brain is shorting out at the contradictions.
Aurélie laughs. “I jest.”
“Yeah.” I offer a numb nod. “That jackass chased me across Seattle.”
“Why? Did he want to give you some literature about his church?” She sniffs her bloody fingers. “Hmm. A Scion.”
“No, he had a big sedan, not one of those little things.”
She gives me a curious look.
“Umm. Never mind. Stupid joke. Scion is a kind of car.”
“Oh.” She covers her mouth with her unbloodied hand and emits a courtly laugh. Probably merely to be polite. “No, he is a Scion.”
“Is that the same thing as a thrall? And did you destroy him?”
“No, cheri. Scions are a relatively new bloodline. They started here in this country a little over a century ago. They are everything the Traditionalists are not. Spontaneous, thoughtless, careless, live in the here and now with little planning. They are so enamored with technology and modern conveniences that they forget their true natures.”
“Right. So, umm. What’s their thing?”
“Their thing?” She raises her eyebrows at me.
“Yeah, like Beasts are really strong and dangerous.”
“Oh. I’m not entirely sure.” She peels her bloody glove off. “I am tempted to say they are merely vampires. A bloodline without direction.”
I check my stomach. Hole in the shirt, but the wound is gone. “So, they’re basically the OTC generic?”
She glances at me for a few seconds, then laughs. Pretty sure she had no idea what the hell I just said but read the meaning out of my mind. That works. Saves me from explaining. “It is possible they have an inner strength but they are not introspective enough to find it. There are not too many of them in this area. They tend to favor cities with a much different energy than Seattle.”
“Like Los Angeles.”
“Yes. You know something of this man.”
“Only that he’s from LA.”
She eases off on the aristocratic affect, shifting toward motherly. “That would explain much. Scions would not be given to respect my decree of protection even if they happened to reside here. One from so far away would surely ignore it.”
“That’s what I thought.” I scratch at the bullet hole in my shirt. “Thanks for helping and sorry about your door.”
“Oh, it is quite all right.” She leans in and lightly kisses me on the cheek. “I am glad you are unharmed. A snapped latch is easy enough to replace. Why did this creature want to attack you?”
Two big guys enter via the front door that basically goes straight to an elevator. This entire floor is her apartment. They appear to be humans, though their thoughts are still open to me, so not thralls. The men are aware of her being a vampire and willingly in her employ. Pretty sure her charming personality helps ensure their loyalty even more than their generous salaries.
They gather the not-quite-corpse up and lug him out. Beheading a vampire doesn’t cause final death, at least not in and of itself. Doesn’t even really slow one down, e.g. Scott running around headless. Not sure about ripping the heart out. That appears to have caused unconsciousness as well, since LA Vamp has stopped moving. However, it’s a near certainty those two men aren’t going to put this guy in a nice comfy bed so he can recover.
As soon as the elevator doors close behind them, Aurélie faces me with an expectant look.
I explain the guy following, then threatening me over something Dalton did. “Guess they can’t find him so they tried to grab me. Glim thinks one of them can do some blood magic type thing. I have no idea where Dalton is, what he did, or what I should do.”
She pats me on the cheek. “Do not fret, cheri. While these upstarts have no respect for my protection, they will regret crossing me.”
“Thank you.” Normally, I’d feel a bit too embarrassed to bow my head in thanks to someone, but this woman has literal power, not merely some title. And she just saved my ass. And I do regard her as a dear—if intimidating—friend.
She covers her mouth to mute a faint laugh.
“What should I do?”
“Stay alert.” Aurélie nods once. “I will look into what’s going on.”
“Okay. What about the other guy? He didn’t fly after me. And that one could
’ve clawed the crap out of me, but didn’t.”
“Yes. You should know by now that not all abilities are universal. Only about a third of us can fly. Not having claws is much rarer. Some even lack any ability to mentally influence mortals.”
“Beasts.”
She smiles. “Yes. That is sadly common among them, though they have some influence over animals.” Her expression lights up. “Since you are here…” She gestures at the sofa. “Allow me to freshen up.”
I do have homework, but there’s no way it would be right to refuse her invitation. “Of course.”
Socializing with Aurélie is kinda like the grown-up version of playing with dolls.
Only, we become the dolls, sitting there talking and sipping blood from wine glasses. Except for the enormous television and electric lights, it’s basically like going back in time and acting like young women did centuries ago. Yeah, I had to put on a gown. The jeans-and-T-shirt ensemble fell far below her standard for mundanity. What can I say, the woman has a thing for fancy. After a surprisingly pleasant few hours of conversation, she graciously suggests she has other matters that may need her attention. Basically, that’s her saying she’s taken up enough of my time to start feeling guilty about it and I can leave without telling me I have to. It’s all based on some strange system of elaborate social rules that I can’t even fathom. Had my response been something to the effect of expressing dismay that such a lovely evening had to end, she would’ve let me stay longer.
Right before I change back to my normal clothes, she drops the costume drama stuff and gives me a sincere, protective hug while assuring me she’ll do whatever she can to stop the ‘LA problem’ from seeping into Seattle.
There are likely elder vampires in every major city. Question being, do they talk to each other at all? Though, from what Glim said regarding the particular group that has a problem with me, it sounds unlikely they’d care much about an old vampire up in a big building telling them what to do. Maybe their gang has an old-ish vampire, perhaps not an elder, running it. I really hope whoever is in charge of that group isn’t as old as Aurélie.
Another thing that scares me? She’s a charming, social creature who’s content to spend her extremely long life painting and collecting haunted dolls. I highly doubt she participates in physical fights very often. After watching her rip that guy apart in seconds, I do not want to get on the bad side of a Fury her age. Aurélie’s nearly 400 years old. Best I can recall, the oldest Fury around here is Arthur Wolent. He’s a mere 180 or so. Not sure how much difference 220 years makes, but my desire to find out is quite small.
I fly home dwelling on feeling pretty damn weak as an Innocent.
Honestly, it doesn’t really bother me to be underpowered compared to other vamps. All I want is to be left alone, out of the political BS. But hey, the powers that Aurélie has out of my reach—all that charm stuff—doesn’t affect her speed and strength. Maybe I will eventually become a total badass like that when I’m ‘grown up’ as a vampire.
Ugh. I just got done being a child, and I’m right back to being one… in vampire terms.
That guy didn’t throw me around because I’m an Innocent.
It’s because I’m only five months old.
That’s gotta be a violation of some fair play law somewhere, right?
As if. I have the distinct impression ‘fair’ is a four-letter word to most vampires.
17
A Little Bit Heated
Biology class Tuesday night is a tedious slog of lecture.
Professor Connolly is perhaps one of the top four teachers I’ve ever had in terms of being funny and making topics interesting. But even he can’t save this material. At least he joked about this being the worst night of the whole class right up front. If Professor Kendall, my English lit teacher, read this lesson plan, I think he’d be able to make a vampire sleep at night.
Though, maybe I’m having focus issues because I’m so on edge. My stress levels are insane right now over worrying that more LA vampires are going to come after me at any minute, Sophia potentially having a magical accident, Sam’s demon thing, Sierra’s increasing fascination with swords… and random crap going missing from the house. I’m also worrying about what the heck Dalton got involved in as well as Ashley. She’s not handling her rotten luck at dating well, and it scares me that she might rush into a relationship with a total jackass just to convince herself she’s in love.
If I get much guiltier about stealing Hunter’s normal life, it might be tempting to play vampire matchmaker and put them together… but no. For one thing, I do love Hunter. For another, I’ve seen that movie. Forcing two people together always ends in tears.
At least no vampires try to kidnap me straight out of my classroom.
Once the driest lecture in the history of college ends, I hurry out with the crowd, but duck around the building into that little park-like area where Howell Street isn’t an actual street for one block rather than going to the parking garage for takeoff like usual. It takes a few minutes of standing around before I’m sure there’s no one looking at me. The science and math building is like five stories tall, so it gives me a decent amount of cover from view. Especially in the dark. People generally don’t look up, and it’s a bitch to see dark clothing against the night sky.
Someone might see my sneakers floating off, but hopefully, they’ll mistake them for pigeons.
No one jumps into the air and chases me, but they could still be waiting for me to walk to the parking garage. Do the ones back in LA know one of their guys here got destroyed last night? Crap! What if they think I did that? As if I needed more to worry about. Aurélie could probably take on a whole swarm of those guys and still not have to use more than one hand. But me? Winning a fight with one of them would be a real task. If they think I destroyed that guy, it might make them want to retaliate in kind and come after me even worse. Before, they only wanted to kidnap me to get at Dalton. Of course, it’s also possible they might reconsider coming after me out of fear.
My undead instruction hasn’t exactly been textbook. But, from what I’ve picked up, the majority of fights between vampires end without final destruction. It’s almost like a weird form of dueling. If two vampires have a problem and get into a fight, they’ll rip the hell out of each other until one’s clearly the loser. In most cases, the matter is considered resolved in favor of whoever won.
Actual, full-on destruction is usually more work than its worth. Usually when vampires want to kill each other permanently, the winner leaves the loser chained to a something heavy outside so they get a face full of sunlight. Or, as in the case of what I’m sure Aurélie had done to the guy last night, burn the remains before the unfortunate undead wakes back up. We don’t regenerate from being cremated.
Anyway, talking about how to kill vampires over drinks with her last night while wearing a super elaborate gown has to be one of the most surreal things I’ll ever do. She explained that tearing the heart completely out takes longer to recover from than even brain damage, often putting a vampire to sleep for months or years depending on how old they are.
Going straight home feels like both a bad idea and a good idea. Bad if it leads danger to my family, but good that it makes me feel safe. It really shouldn’t though. I’m going to need more than pulling my blanket up over my head to protect myself from a gang of out-of-state vampires. However, I’m still reasonably sure they don’t know where I live. The more time I spend roaming around outside, the greater the chances someone looking for me will find me.
But, hang on… if they have some kind of blood magic to locate me in the first place, it’s stupid of me to assume they don’t know where I live. Being the world’s lamest homebody of a vampire means I spend a ton of time there. Grr.
Great. Now I’ve worked myself up into a ball of worry about my family.
I can just see Dad charging at a vampire with a red tie around his head and a weed-eater in hand. That’s so not gonna work.
Everything looks normal when I fly in over the house.
Nothing’s on fire, no one’s screaming, and there’s no broken glass. Okay, good sign. Something glimmers off to the right. I turn, hanging in midair and gawking at Mr. Neidermayer’s backyard. Thin, pale lines of light crisscross the grass like something out of Mission Impossible. Holy crap. The guy’s installed laser beams to detect people entering his yard.
Blix is gonna set those things off constantly until the guy goes legit nuts.
Hmm. Maybe I should ask him to stop? Yeah, retaliation is going a bit too far at this point. Enough for now. After landing on the deck, I pull my sneakers off as per Mom’s law and head in via the patio door. Things appear under control. Both parents are in the living room watching television. The littles all sound like they’re upstairs. Ronan’s here as well. Wow, it’s about twenty-to-ten. That’s gotta mean he’s either sleeping over or planning to take a mirror home.
I just said ‘take a mirror home’ like that’s something people do as part of everyday life.
Ugh.
“Oi, she’s back,” says Dalton from the living room. “Fanks for the chat. Excuse me a minnit.”
My jaw drops open.
Dalton leap/flies over the sofa back and lands on his feet in view from the kitchen archway. He, too, obeys Mom’s law, showing off a ridiculous pair of black dress socks polka-dotted with tiny, yellow smiley faces. As soon as he sees me staring at him, he flashes a grin and walks over. “Oi, luv. How’s things?”
Were I a normal sort of person, I probably would bite his head off and start screaming. But, I have the distinct character flaw of being too nice. Not quite as bad as Ashley or Sophia, but still. There’s also that Dalton saved my life. It’s really damn difficult to scream at the reason I’m not a ghost.
Ordinary Problems of a College Vampire (Vampire Innocent Book 7) Page 19
