“C’mon.” Sam took another step.
“You wanna go into a fire cave without sneakers?” asked Ronan.
“Like sneakers would matter if we stepped in lava.”
Ronan chuckled. “Yeah, but the rock near lava is gonna be too hot to walk on.”
“Okay, fine.” Sam looked at Blix. “Would you please grab my sneakers from downstairs? This gate might close if we all leave the room.”
Blix gave a thumbs-up and disappeared.
“I left mine home.” Ronan sighed. “Guess I’ll wait here.”
Sam leaned back, looking at the door to the hall. “Klepto, you here?”
The kitten appeared in the doorway amid a flash of purple light. “Mew.”
“Can you please do us a huge favor and grab Ronan’s sneakers? He left them home.”
Klepto nodded, then vanished.
Blix appeared, holding Sam’s sneakers, which he held out.
“Thanks, man.”
“No problem.” Blix grinned.
“Your mom’s gonna yell at us for having shoes on in the house.”
Sam pointed at the opening in the closet floor. “I’m not technically in the house. This is another dimensional reality. Doesn’t count for Mom’s rule.”
Klepto reappeared in a flash, one sneaker in her mouth. She dropped it in front of Ronan and disappeared again.
“Dude, your sister’s cat is awesome.” Ronan sat on the rug and pulled his left sneaker on.
“Yeah. Totally.”
“Can’t believe you haven’t told Darryl or Jordan about all this stuff.”
Sam raised one hand. “I can’t. You know we can’t. Only told you for two reasons. One, your big bro is dating Sarah. You guys are basically family now. Two, I trust you not to tell anyone. Sarah will get in a buttload of trouble if anyone finds out.”
Klepto reappeared with Ronan’s other shoe, which she dropped. “Mew!”
Sam scooped the kitten up and hugged her. “Thank you!”
“Mew.” Klepto purred for a few seconds, then disappeared.
“C’mon. Hurry up. Sophia’s about to run in here and tell us not to go.” Sam stood, jumped into the hole, and slid down the stone ramp into the cave.
Blix glided after, pulling up at the last second to land on Sam’s left shoulder, curling his tail across his back for balance.
Ronan followed less confidently, stumbling to a halt beside him. The closet door closed, seemingly on its own, but the portal remained open. All the items on the closet floor appeared to be floating on a glass plate above the hole. Knowing Sophia would panic and whine at him to come back out, Sam darted off down the cave before she opened the door. If she didn’t see him, she couldn’t guilt him into turning back.
“Sam?” called Ronan uneasily in the distance. Seconds later, the scuff of running sneakers hurried up behind him. “Why are you afraid of Sophia?”
“’Cause. The kitten’s her familiar. Whatever Klepto sees or hears, Sophia knows about. If she found us before we went in, she’d threaten to tell Mom if we went in.” Sam grinned. “She’s not going to follow us inside.”
Ronan looked around at a giant cavern of charred rock. Horn-like protrusions stuck out of the walls everywhere. “Umm. Maybe going in here is something she should tell on us about.”
“Nah. It’s safe.” Sam resumed walking down the cave, which continued straight into the distance as far as he could see without turns or branches.
“Dude… We are definitely not in Narnia.” Ronan jogged up alongside him. “This place looks like a map in Diablo.”
Blix laughed. “It’s a demi-realm.”
Ronan glanced at the imp. “What did he say?”
“He said we’re in a demi-realm.” Sam traced his fingers along the wall on his right. Warm, not hot. The air smelled kinda like the oil-fired furnace in Grandpa Sheridan’s basement.
“Demi-realm?” Ronan scrunched up his nose. “What’s that mean?”
Blix extended his little arms out to either side. “An in-between realm. It’s a personal reality. The one who cured Ronan lives here.”
“Oh.” Sam nodded, feeling a measure safer. “Should we be here?”
Ronan kept glancing sideways at them as he walked. “What’s he saying?”
“This isn’t Hell or even a real world. Think video game. We clipped off the map and we’re in the grey area under it. The being who cure-poisoned you lives here.” Sam patted him on the arm. “Chill.”
“I can’t chill. It’s too hot here.” Ronan gave a weak laugh.
“Naw. Just warm.”
Ronan whistled.
“What?” Sam punted a little rock out of his way, watching it skitter down the cave.
“It’s more than ‘warm.’ Feels like the middle of August… in California. I’m already sweating. And…” Ronan gestured around. “How are we even able to see? This is a cave and there are no lights.”
“Uhh, magic?” asked Sam, chuckling. “We’re in some other plane. I don’t think they have electricity here, so they gotta get their light from something else. Be glad gravity is pointing in the normal direction.”
Ronan fanned himself.
They explored a network of caves, chambers of varying sizes, and all manner of awesome rock formations. Some rooms even had frozen ‘rivers’ of shiny black rock, maybe cooled lava. Eventually, they found their way to the edge of a massive three-story-high chamber. Dozens of rounded, lumpy columns like molten black candle wax stretched off ahead and to the right. Not far away on the left, the stony floor ended at a cliff overlooking a vast field of grey silt under a crimson sky striated in black clouds. Miles away to the right, a bubbling black lake so vast it might be an ocean stretched off as far as he could see. The chamber continued straight ahead for about three football fields before reaching a wall where a small rounded tunnel led deeper into the strange world.
“Wow… this is… so weird,” whispered Ronan. The normally timid boy walked toward the cliff, but didn’t get too close. “Sam, check it out. We’re up high.”
Sam hurried over to stand next to him.
The ceiling extended only about ten feet past the edge of the floor, forming a roof overhead, making him feel as though they stood on the balcony of a bizarre castle. Straight down past a hundred or more feet of inky-black stone, a huge lava river ran along the base of whatever mountain or structure they inhabited. Several dark islands broke up the glowing orange flow. The magma river extended left and right to the horizon, as did the black wall.
Sam felt a bit like a bug sitting in a long crack on the side of a house.
“That’s lava…” Ronan leaned forward and spat over the edge.
Sam leaned a little too, in order to watch the tiny white dot fall to oblivion.
“Aww. Didn’t see anything.”
“Too far,” said Sam.
“So, this guy who lives here… is he a demon?” whispered Ronan.
Blix nodded.
“Yeah.” Sam poked the imp in the stomach. “But he’s like you.”
Blix tilted his head.
“Technically a demon, but cool. Not mean.”
Grinning, Blix gave a double thumbs-up.
A blast of blackish-crimson smoke erupted from the ground right behind them.
“Exactly why I helped you,” said a booming deep voice.
Sam whirled, as did Ronan.
A strange man stood an arm’s length away, as tall as a pro basketball player. Long horns sprouted from either side of his bald head, stretching straight up two feet in a gradual reward curve to smooth points. Dark crimson skin and a black goatee definitely added to the ‘demonic’ look. Five skulls of varying size adorned a heavy black leather belt, the largest in the center, growing progressively smaller to either side. His skirt of golden chain mail armor gave off a faint clinking as he moved. He had the legs of a giant goat, each hoof larger than Dad’s head. Shiny black bracers on each forearm bore glowing red runes in an indecipherable language. Two gre
at dragon-like wings sprouted from his back, hanging like folded up umbrellas close to his body.
Ronan backpedaled. “That’s—aaaaaah!”
The demon’s glowing yellow eyes went wide—in concern.
Sam spun, jaw hanging open at the sight of his friend falling backward off the cliff.
“Oops,” said the demon in an impossibly deep voice. “Perhaps appearing suddenly in a blast of smoke might have been unwise.”
Blix shot off his shoulder like a missile. Sam rushed to the cliff edge, staring helplessly as the imp intercepted the falling boy, clinging to his back and acting like a parachute… or a set of clip-on wings too small to allow flying. The tiny imp managed to get Ronan oriented upright before steering him to a crash landing on a football-shaped island in the midst of the lava river about twice the size of Mom’s GMC Yukon. Despite the great height, the landing didn’t look too much worse than taking a spill off a bike.
Sam cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Ro!”
Blix babbled frantically, explaining Ronan hadn’t been hurt, but the landing knocked the wind out of him and he couldn’t talk.
“Whew.” Sam slouched. “Ro, you okay?”
Eventually, his friend stood, dusted himself off, and waved both arms as if he signaled an aircraft for help. “Yeah!”
Grinning, Sam pointed down at him. “It’s over, Ro. I have the high ground!”
“Not funny!” shouted Ronan. “Get me outta here.”
15
Undetermined Origin
It’s not often people leave a happy dream behind for a nightmare.
Okay, sometimes it happens, but usually not because the person woke up. No, I’m not referring to my unlife as a nightmare. It’s the combined weight of a bunch of schoolwork plus studying plus multiple unknown supernatural entities trying to kill me and my family—or at least stir up some shit with the elders.
According to my iPhone, it’s 2:39 p.m. Roughly average for me insofar as wake up time goes. Haven’t had my ass kicked recently, and the day must be reasonably overcast. Strong sunlight days tend to keep me zonked a little longer, even in a windowless basement room.
I lay there in bed staring at the ceiling and trying to make some sense of everything going on. Talking to Aurélie helped ease my mind. Stupid of me to assume she’d go off like a bomb merely from hearing me tell her someone attacked us. A vampire doesn’t make it to her age without a certain degree of care in everything. Even someone like her who has no lust for power and does her best to avoid getting in the way of other vampires’ plans needs to tread with caution. If another elder is unhinged enough, they could completely misinterpret her actions and get pissed.
Real talk time. If Stefano or Paolo genuinely wanted my family dead, they wouldn’t send a pack of mind-controlled mortals with Walmart zombies. It’s naïve of me to think men in their position wouldn’t be able to arrange ‘accidents’ or set up a hit man to redirect blame away from themselves. Since neither of my parents are involved in anything shady, it would be highly suspicious for someone to show up out of the blue and bomb our house. Girl Scout cookie sales are competitive, but the girls aren’t cutthroat enough to hire bored military contractors to rough up the competition. So, no one’s going to blame the Littles for having angered the local underboss and brought the wrath of organized cookie sales down on their heads.
Still, men like Stefano or Paolo would play the long game. They’d set Mom or Dad up for some conflict the mortal authorities would link to the attack and package everything neatly so society as a whole never suspected the existence of the paranormal. Vampires adore setting up complicated schemes. Look at JFK. All this time and it’s still unclear what happened exactly. Humans cannot keep secrets so perfectly. Every person involved in a conspiracy is a potential leak. The more people involved, the greater the odds someone’s going to slip up and say something. Once more than three people are involved in a project, the chances of secrets being kept are lower than one percent. Professor Heath didn’t tell me the what or why of it, merely implied vampires had been involved in orchestrating the assassination. Jimmy Hoffa, too… whoever he was. And some Black Dahlia thing.
Not totally sure if Professor Heath pulled my leg, but he basically said every high-profile murder where people never figured out what happened involved vampires or something similar. By ‘something similar,’ he likely means mystics. Mind-control powers make it easy to get away with crimes. Having the literal ability to warp reality is even worse.
Fortunately, the number of people on Earth who can do magic powerful enough to be worried about can be counted on one hand… or so believes Darren Anderson. He’s not lying. If the information isn’t true, he doesn’t know.
Anyway… thinking about all this Mafia and vampire conspiracy stuff makes me feel better. It seems less and less likely for this to really be the work of Stefano, Paolo, or Eleanor St. Ives. None of them would be so sloppy. Well, maybe Eleanor, but in her case, it wouldn’t be sloppiness but ‘efficiency.’ She’d take the fastest, most direct route to achieve what she wanted, lacking the patience or finesse to fully obfuscate her involvement.
I mean, the last time she genuinely messed with me, she sent some of her hipster minions to rough me up, making no secret of where they came from. So, if a pair of vampires jumped me in the parking garage and said they worked for Eleanor, I’d be inclined to believe them.
Sure, the remote-control corpses had her name somewhat on them, but there exists the larger problem of her not having the ability to create such bizarre ‘weapons.’ Sierra described one of the not-zombies as leaking formaldehyde. Maybe it hadn’t been actual formaldehyde but some ‘sciency’ serum she made paranormal to animate a corpse? Nah… the other one she cut didn’t bleed, nor did it release chemicals. I’m thinking someone stole the bodies from a funeral home, one post-embalming, one perhaps in the middle of it. I don’t really know how the process works. Do they drain all the blood first, then pump a body full of chemicals or do they just start pumping chemicals in and stop when the outflow stops being blood?
Whatever.
Doesn’t matter where the bodies came from.
The more I think about it, the more it feels like someone is trying to play us. Could also be multiple unrelated antagonists, but too coincidental. Also, whoever it is knows enough about me and the vampires in the area to understand which names to drop in hopes of setting off a war. My next thought both comforts and worries me in equal measure. Someone going to all this trouble would have to know the elders wouldn’t immediately start mashing each other’s faces in the moment I went crying to mommy about Stefano’s friends being mean to me. It doesn’t make any sense for someone to even do this. Are they incompetent, testing us, or intending this to seem ridiculous to us in the moment, but on top of what comes next, turns into ‘proof?’
Grr.
I have hours of daylight left before it’s time to worry. I head out into the basement, hook a left, and go to the mini bathroom for a quick shower. Once I’m dried off and dressed, it’s time for homework and research.
Minutes after I start studying, the Littles get home from school. Murmured conversation between them and Dad goes on for a few minutes before Sam thunders up the stairs. The girls follow, making far less noise.
Everything sounds ordinary, so I stay focused on killing the homework beast to get it out of my way. You did this to yourself. College is tedious—at the moment due to my paranormal worries—and pointless, due to my paranormal existence. No, not gonna quit. I’m allowed to be frustrated. If I didn’t have a ‘secret admirer’ out there, this work wouldn’t bother me at all. After my dream of being stuck in a cubicle farm surrounded by deadlines, I’m seriously rethinking the computer programming major. Meaning, I am now definitely committed to changing it. Just don’t know to what yet. Not a big deal since I’m still in my first year. Credits from this class should count for electives or something on a different academic path.
I’m soon serenad
ed by random explosions from the PlayStation in the living room. No idea if Sierra’s already done her homework, has none, or is putting it off until later. She has a habit of working on it during slow classes, so it’s mostly done before she’s even out of school. Totally defeats the point of homework, which is, of course, to suck the joy out of children’s lives. Can’t go allowing them to actually be kids and have fun. Nope. They’ve gotta be trained for the workaday world where eighty percent of their awake time is spent grinding away on some tedious task simply to continue to exist in society.
Yeah, being a vampire is cool. I found a trapdoor out of the rat race. Cost a little more than a lottery ticket, but no complaints.
An hour or so later, the superhero voices occasionally shouting trademarked catch phrases in Sam’s bedroom loud enough for me to hear over Sierra’s Call of Duty in the living room stop. Probably paused the game to grab a snack. Maybe he’s switching games or doing homework.
I keep studying.
“Klepto?” calls Sam.
Huh. Odd. The boy doesn’t usually invoke the stealth attack kitten. Fortunately, Sam is Sam, so I don’t worry at all he’s abusing the critter to steal a new video game or do something nefarious. Maybe something in his bedroom moved and he’s wondering if the cat did it.
By the time the smell of cooking food makes it down here, I’ve about had my limit. My brain absolutely needs a break from studying. Between the stress of school and the stress of Vampy McDerpface out there, I’m taking a night off no matter who I have to mind control. Okay, it’s a Wednesday and I still have classes to go to, which I’ll deal with. But after I’m out, it’s Hunter time.
Decision made, I close the books, pack my comp sci and calc books up for later, then head upstairs.
Dad’s cooking. Despite the running joke about my father’s efforts over a stove being somewhere between necromancy and a CIA project of questionable ethical standing, he’s not bad at it. Problem is when he gets near a grill. He thinks ‘char’ is another food group. Mom’s at the kitchen table typing away on her laptop. Personal laptop, so she’s either emailing the grandparents or doing budget type stuff for the house. I creep down the hall to check the living room. Sierra’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the sofa while shooting people in Call of Duty. Klepto orbits her head like a tiny, fuzzy blimp. Floating kitten. Yeah, my house is totally normal. Sophia’s reclining on the couch nearby, reading her Kindle.
Vampire Innocent | Book 11 | How To Stop A Vampire War In Six Easy Steps Page 13
