Children of the Night, You're Grounded: Vampire Primes Short Story

by Susan Sizemore

  Children of the Night, You're Grounded

  Vampire Primes

  by

  Susan Sizemore

  The old cemetery had the look of a horror movie set. Which was as it should be, Ariadne thought. The moon was full overhead, with high clouds scuttling across its face. The Spanish-style church in the background was abandoned and rundown, with dark, gaping broken windows. A scattering of gnarled old trees thrust skeletal fingers of branches into the air. Many of the headstones were fallen, most of the rest were crooked.

  "Brin says it's the perfect place to go ghost hunting," Ariadne told her twin sister Cheetah after they jumped over the rusting shoulder-high iron fence to get into the place. "She took a class from that local ghost hunting group, the SDPES."

  Cheetah's actual name was Celeste, but who could blame someone named Celeste for taking what at least she thought was a cool nickname because she was on the track team? Ariadne wasn't all that thrilled with her own so old-fashioned it was from the Bronze Age name, but didn't feel it necessary to tart it up or change it.

  Cheetah took a few steps into the cemetery. Dead leaves crackled under her feet. The wind gave an obligingly mournful howl. She turned around slowly, arms out, eyes closed. "What does a ghost feel like?" She asked when she opened her eyes.

  Ariadne shrugged. "I guess that's what we're here to find out."

  Cheetah snorted.

  All right, the real reason they'd sneaked out of their great grandmother's high security mansion in La Jolla had been because of an ongoing war with the old lady about their social lives. If they didn't fight the system they wouldn't have social lives. And they were also here to see a couple of boys invited on this supernatural excuse to hookup gathering their friend Brin had organized. Actually, Brin's motives were pure and deeply nerdy. She'd claimed to have read how-to ebooks on ghost hunting and to watch television shows on the subject, and there was that class she'd taken. Apparently there were techniques and equipment and protocols for searching for evidence of disembodied spirits.

  Ariadne had asked around about the existence of ghosts, but no adult she knew had ever encountered spirits of dead mortals. "Which doesn't mean such entities don't exist," Uncle Kiril told her. "But what reason do we have to deal with ghosts? Dating werewolves is bad enough." Which had been a jab at cousin Sid.

  "I wonder why ghosts would be here?" Ariadne asked.

  Cheetah walked to the nearest group of headstones. "I wonder why people bury their dead in the first place. Why leave evidence behind?"

  Ariadne pointed a finger at her twin. "Remember not to talk like that around the others."

  "I'm not stupid!"

  "I'll be careful too," Ariadne promised.

  Of course they would. They lived their lives in the outside world being careful. But that was the price you paid for living in the outside world. Their cousin Sid had taught them carefully about the traps they had to face. It was worth it.

  Cheetah read out names and dates on the headstones. "They were all so young," she said when she was done.

  "One of them was ninety-eight," Ariadne said. "That's really old for a mortal."

  "The poor things."

  "Unless they end up with one of us."

  "They won't end up with either of us, even if we want them to," Cheetah said. "I hate being a female."

  "Yeah."

  "Anybody here yet," Brin's voice called from beyond the fence before they could get into a good pout.

  Ariadne was glad, because complaining about their hard life really was a waste of time. Plot, scheme, plan, act, that was the way to go. Although, being spoiled princesses it was easy for them to fall into the habit of wanting everything right now and expecting it to be given to them. Foot stamping tantrums could become a real art form. As well as being a total cliche. Which was why it was best to find other ways to get your way.

  Ariadne went back to the fence and made her way along it to find Brin at the gate.

  "It's locked," Brin said. "I didn't think it would be locked. How'd you get in?"

  "We climbed over the fence."

  It hadn't occurred to them to try the gate. Perhaps being so accustomed to sneaking out of their own home was too much of a habit. Ariadne didn't think this was a bad thing. You couldn't really trust anything in the outside world. As much fun as it was, nothing in the outside world was to be fully trusted or taken for granted when you were out on your own. Cousin Sid again.

  Brin looked the old metal bars up and down dubiously. "Climb? In the dark? It's awfully high."

  "If you're going to be a leader you have to take chances," Cheetah told Brin.

  "You can do it. I'll help," Ariadne encouraged. She reached through the fence and cupped her hands together. "Put your foot in there. I'll give you a boost up."

  They counted to three, Brin went up, Ariadne caught her and eased her to the ground when she came over.

  "That was easy!" Brin grinned at Ariadne.

  Ariadne only smiled back.

  Cheetah went to the gate and pushed and pulled at it for a while. "It wasn't locked. It was rusted closed," she said when the gate creaked open. Their friends had no idea what sorts of fanged fairy godmothers they had looking out for them.

  Brin pulled small electronic devices out of her backpack and explained what each was for while they waited for the others to show up.

  Ariadne held one of Brin's digital tape recorders poised on her palm. "We're supposed to ask questions and ghosts' answers will be picked up by the recorder?"

  "The spirit might not necessarily answer what you ask," Brin said. "The point is for you to try to communicate. You won't hear what the ghosts says with your ears, but the recorder will pick up the EVP - that means Electronic Voice Phenomenon."

  "I've got pretty good ears," Ariadne said.

  "Not good enough to hear through the gulf between life and death."

  Ariadne looked at the little recorder in her hand, quite unconvinced. "But a digital recorder can?"

  "People can hear ghosts speak sometime, and make other noises. But EVPs provide scientific proof rather than just personal experiences that can't be scientifically verified."

  Ariadne and Cheetah looked at each other, sharing the memory of great grandmother's saying about how science would someday stick its nose in somewhere it shouldn't and it would get bitten off. Which was amusing, until you remembered that great grandmother would have nothing to do with any kind of daylight medicine, and didn't approve of anybody else doing so though she didn't forbid it. Great grandmother was --

  Never mind. The point of being in a graveyard was to live their own lives without regard to the scary old lady.

  Besides, who needed to think about great grandmother or ghosts when the boys - and Cammie Bullock - came in through the gate.

  The problem with Cammie was that she was sweet, smart, funny, generous, and always ended up with any boy Ariadne or Cheetah liked. Mostly because Ariadne and Cheetah always backed off from involvement with high school boys because they hadn't yet been stupid enough to break that rule. And Cammie was always there. And she was beautiful as well as sweet, smart and funny. Beautiful, with big boobs. Come to think of it, with Cammie around it was a wonder Ariadne and Cheetah got any male interest at all - except that boys had erotic fantasies about identical twins, and they would have made Cammie look like a frog if they didn't deliberately try to appear normal. Sometimes normal slipped.

  Ariadne's normal stayed in place, but she was very tempted to show off when Rick Mendes came up to her. Not that the subtle differences would be noticeable to him
as he couldn't see in the dark, and it was very dark in the cemetery.

  When he pulled her behind the thick trunk of a tree and kissed her, it filled her mouth with a pleasant, pulsing ache.

  They made out for a while until Brin stuck her head around the tree trunk. "Come on, it's getting late."

  When they joined the rest of the group, Ariadne was disappointed but not surprised when Rick ended up standing next to Cammie.

  "Why hunt ghosts?" Rick's friend Nathan asked. "Why not hunt zombies? Or vampires?"

  "Zombies don't exist," Cheetah said. "And vampires are out clubbing at this time of night. Why would they be at a cemetery?"

  "Why, indeed?" Ariadne murmured.

  "You can't find fresh blood in a graveyard," Cammie said.

  "Not unless the vampire lured a victim to the site," Brin said. "Like, what if the vampire talked some kids into ghost hunting in a graveyard and -- " She cackled wildly and rubbed her hands together.

  "Would you like to borrow some fangs?" Ariadne asked. Cheetah gave her a quelling look. These sorts of looks usually went the other way.

  Brin went all serious again. "Let's break into teams and get going."

  The teams didn't breakout the way Ariadne and Cheetah hoped. Since they didn't use telepathy on their friends they grudgingly settled for being together, while Brin paired with Nathan, and Cammie hooked up with the oh-so-desirable Rick.

  "Being twins doesn't make us inseparable, you know," Cheetah tried calling after the other teams as they walked away. Not that anyone paid any attention.

  "Come on," Ariadne said when Cheetah was ignored.

  So they walked around in the dark, which for them was perfectly normal, pausing frequently to ask questions of people who weren't there.

  "Are you here?"

  "How did you die?"

  "What's your name?"

  "Do you believe in vampires?"

  "Cheetah!"

  "Well, I'm not believing in them it they don't--"

  A terrified scream cut across Cheetah's words. She and Ariadne ran toward the sound.

  Cammie was the screamer. And she was doing a very good job of it. So much so that Ariadne was momentarily more annoyed than concerned. She glared at her friend.

  "There better be a ghost involved in this," she murmured angrily.

  Cammie was on her knees in front of a lopsided gravestone. Her hands covered her mouth, though that didn't muffle the sound any. Her eyes were wide and staring at some invisible menace. Worst of all, Rick was kneeling behind her with his hands protectively on her shoulders. The twins came to a halt and shared an annoyed look. Anger shot between them with an almost physical energy. Anger they focused on Cammie.

  "Quiet!" Cheetah yelled.

  "What are you seeing?" Brin asked worriedly.

  Cammie turned into Rick's embrace.

  Damn you, Cammie, Ariadne thought.

  It was so unfair! Cammie got to be all girlie and protected by a strong virile male.

  Mind you, Ariadne knew that if any of their males had laid a protective hand on them the Prime would have had their throat clawed out, but the point was, mortal girls had all the fun.

  It's not the mortal girl's fault, Ariadne reminded herself. There's plenty of them to go around, while there are very few of us. We carry the burden of the survival of our kind.

  "It sucks," she said. They were spoiled rotten princesses, but it still sucked.

  Rick helped Cammie to her feet, and they all clustered around her. Tears shone in her eyes when she looked at them. It was a very fetching effect.

  Not that I am bitter, Ariadne told herself. But her fangs did ache just a little, a sign of annoyance at all Vampire Primes' mortal cousins, though she couldn't help but focus it on poor Cammie who had never done anything to rouse this kind of frustrated anger. Ariadne kept her mouth shut - to hide even a hint of fang as well as to not say anything hurtful. She could think whatever she wanted about how mortals made the rules, had all the fun and needed some comeuppance. Thoughts couldn't hurt. Her claws and fangs and strength could, but she'd been carefully schooled in always keeping her physical reactions under control.

  "What is wrong with you?" Cheetah asked.

  She didn't sound as concerned as maybe she should, and Ariadne was very aware of the emotional blast of anger as strong as her own, aimed at Cammie by her twin. She and her sister shared a look, and each carefully took a step back.

  "I saw a ghost!" Cammie proclaimed. "It was a black shadow hovering over that grave. I swear I saw it. It swirled like greasy smoke, and its eyes and mouth were black hollows. It was awful!"

  "Of course it was," Rick soothed. He was running his hands up and down her arms comfortingly. And if his fingers brushed the sides of Cammie's well-developed breasts now and then, well it was up to her to say if she minded, wasn't it?

  Ariadne fought to keep her frown from turning into a snarl. She liked mortals, she reminded herself. She liked all the kids she was with. Maybe it was the ghost trying to get to her, cause trouble? Ghosts didn't have to be harmless. In fact, they weren't supposed to be benevolent in mortal mythology, were they? Ghosts were evil. They haunted people and tried to drive them mad.

  Go away, ghost, she thought, in a firm, telepathic way. I'm not a people. Pick on your own kind.

  Yeah! Cheetah thought, just as loudly and firmly. It's the mortals you want to mess with, you stupid ghost.

  "It was your imagination," Nathan said.

  Cammie shook her head. "No! I saw..."

  "But did you record it?" Brin asked.

  "I was using the recorder on my phone, but I panicked when it came toward me," Cammie said. "That's when I dropped my phone -- My phone!"

  At this shout almost everyone started scrambling on the ground looking for the lost cell phone. Ariadne and Cheetah stepped farther back into the shadows. Sharing their telepathic powers came as naturally as breathing to the twins. They joined mental forces to have a psychic look around the area. Looking for a greasy black shadow creature with hollow eyes and mouth.

  Anything? Cheetah thought at Ariadne after a moment.

  Maybe. A shadow? Boiling darkness? Something--

  "What the hell are you kids doing here!" an angry male voice shouted from out of the darkness.

  A bolt of fear jolted through Ariadne, going through her open telepathic senses like a lightning bolt.

  Cammie screamed again.

  This brought Ariadne back to the real world, but not before she turned the shockwave of raw emotions at her friend. Cheetah hit Ariadne on the shoulder to get her full attention.

  She saw a man running toward them, shouting and swearing at them. Cemetery caretaker, she wondered? Not that it mattered. They were busted.

  The friends, mortal and vampire, scattered and ran. Every being for themselves. Being swifter than the others, Ariadne and Cheetah were soon away from the graveyard and running for home.

  "You asleep, Ari?" Cheetah asked. She sounded worried.

  Ariadne looked up from the ereader she was lying on her bed reading. The only light in the room came from the reader's screen. Her twin stood in the doorway on Ariadne's side of the bathroom. They didn't share a bedroom, but the bathroom between their two rooms connected them. Ariadne had heard the loud groan from the other room before Cheetah's appearance, but hadn't stopped reading to investigate.

  "Bad dream?"

  "Vampires do not have bad dreams," Cheetah declared with a proud lift of her chin. She came to sit on the side of Ariadne's bed. "At least it didn't feel like a nightmare. There was this shadow hovering over me. What are you reading?"

  "New Zoe and Doc story."

  "Too many mortal heroines in those books for my taste." Cheetah took a shaky breath. "There was also a voice, like whispering wind. Threatening. Threatening a vampire. Ha."

  Cheetah was trying to sound flippant and unconcerned, but something had scared her all right. Nervous energy radiated from her like invisible flames.

  "Shadow and a
voice, huh?" Ariadne reluctantly put down the reader. It was a good book. The latest science fiction novel from the anonymous Vampire Book Club author.

  The clock on the smartphone resting on the nightstand said it was four in the morning. Still dark outside. It was the normal time for a vampire to be up and active, but they did try to live on mortal time during the school year. Their first classes were at nine, which would be a perfectly good time to be getting to bed.

  "Maybe the ghost came home with us," Cheetah said. "Wouldn't that be weird?"

  Ariadne moved from the center of the bed, making room. "All right, you can sleep with me," she said.

  "I never said I wanted to -- all right." Cheetah pulled back the covers and got in beside Ariadne on the queen size mattress. "Thanks."

  Cheetah was asleep within seconds. Ariadne stayed awake, psychically searching for something out of the ordinary in all the telepathic energy zinging around the Clan Wolf Citadel.

  Was that something dark and ghostly hovering...?

  Or did she simply fall asleep and dream a ghost materialized in her room? And made an ugly sound something like laughter from a black, hollow mouth.

  Laurent Wolf's current profession was that of a missing persons investigator. He was quite good at it, although without the nose for finding people sported by the werewolves at the Bleythin Agency, he had his ways.

  He'd been a lot of things in his life. Some of which he'd hated, and some he'd enjoyed. Much of what he'd done, good and ill, mostly ill, in his long life had been performed in an effort to stay alive. Times had been rough at times, but he'd always proved to be rougher.

  He wasn't investigating a lost person right now. In fact, he'd found exactly who he was looking for and was following her along a San Diego sidewalk crowded with tourists and office workers in the morning coolness. She'd been following him for weeks, so stalking her in turn seemed only fair.

  Not stalking, he told himself. He didn't get to do fun stuff like that anymore.

  Having changed his evil ways could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but the rewards were worth it. The wife, the child, the mother and sister and being a part of Clan Wolf, the daylight drugs, all these things made him a supremely happy and contented Vampire Prime. The woman walking ahead of him could destroy all that.