Vampires Don’t Sparkle!

Mia Archer

Beymer Books

Contents

The Story So Far…

1. School Lunch

2. Saved by the Bell

3. Rescue

4. Geekpire

5. Chase

6. Sneaking Away

7. Vampire Hunter

8. Dead Girl

9. Living Dead Girl

10. Stacy the Vampire Slayer

11. The Other Side

12. Angry Girlfriend

13. Out of Town

14. On Our Own

15. Armed and Dangerous

16. Band Geeks

17. Vampires

18. Dead Girl

19. Undead Girl

20. Deception

21. After School

22. Blood Ritual

23. Waking Up Dead

24. Local PD

25. Geekpire

26. Vampire Disposal

27. Geekpire

28. Cheer Chase

29. Girl on Girl

30. Lovers’ Lane

31. Head Cheerleader

32. Exorcising the Demon

33. Still Sucking

34. Yearbook

35. Pep Rally

36. Dead Again

37. Vampire Killer

38. Head Vampire

39. All In Your Head

40. Back to School

41. New Students

42. Full Moon

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Also by Mia Archer

Vampires Don’t Sparkle!

By Mia Archer

Copyright 2019 Mia Archer

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Individuals pictured on the cover are models and used for illustrative purposes only.

First digital edition electronically published by Beymer Books, August 2019

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The Story So Far…

What you have on your ereader is the sequel to A Date With Death. “A sequel?” you might be asking yourself right now. “Why would I read a sequel if I haven’t read the first one?”

The good news is this book works as a standalone or as a sequel! I’ve written the Gwen Reaper series so that each entry stands on its own, but with some plot threads that go from book to book.

If you haven’t read A Date With Death and would like to give it a try, click here to give it a read!

If you just want the basics so you’re up to speed for this book then keep reading!

Gwen is a grim reaper. The family business is ferrying recently deceased souls to the other side. She didn’t want to go into the family business, but it’s not like fate gave her much choice.

In A Date With Death she went toe-to-toe with a former friend turned necromancer who was trying to take over the school by stealing people’s souls and turning them into zombies. Along the way she fell in love with the girl of her dreams, Stacy, and ended up saving the day and the school.

There you go! Nice and quick. Now on to the new story!

1

School Lunch

“I’m not sure what I think of this whole yoga pants thing,” Arnold said.

I looked up at him and hit him with a warning glare. Not that it did much. It didn’t help that Stacy turned to look where he was looking and saw a girl walking past wearing, sure enough, a pair of yoga pants that looked like it wouldn’t exactly be cutting mustard when it came to the school dress code.

Not that anyone was stopping her. I didn’t know the girl, but I could see why she would be a distraction. I also thought it was weird I’d never seen that girl before. She had dark hair down to her shoulders and looked pretty fair skinned, and when she turned to look at me she smiled a thin little smile that said she knew what I was doing.

I blushed and looked away. I also noticed that Stacy didn’t do the same, so I reached over and smacked her.

She blinked a couple of times and looked at me. Then it was her turn to blush as she realized what I’d caught her doing.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “There was something about that girl.”

“I’m going to forget I heard you say that,” I said with a sniff.

“Whatever you goof,” she said, leaning in for a kiss. “You know you’re the only one for me.”

I turned to look at everyone else around the table. The living people around the table, that is. Not that they thought it was all that weird to see me having conversations with people they couldn’t see.

After everything that happened at homecoming that cat was sort of out of the bag. Oops. There was no going back. They knew there was something up with me.

The fact that one of the coaches had totally been taping the game that night and that recording had totally caught a girl in black robes with a scythe leaping over a crowd of zombies to do battle with a necromancer, and that video had somehow leaked to the Internet when some enterprising student realized what they had, probably didn’t help.

I did like some of the remixes people had done with the video though. I was particularly fond of one that used music from some old cartoon called Metalocalypse or something weird.

“Right,” I said, clearing my throat. “Sorry about that.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Zach said with a shrug. He turned to have a look at the girl as well. She had the kind of figure that was built for distraction. Then he turned back to me and grinned.

“Can’t say I blame you for being distracted by something as hot as that.”

“Would you please not do that when I’m sitting right here?”

I turned to look at Tiffany. Who was sitting across the table from Lisa. That’d been an interesting interaction. The two couldn’t stand each other, and it’d been a fun little dance the first couple of times it became apparent Zach and Tiffany were a thing to see how far Nicole could get from her while sitting at the same table.

They couldn’t stand to sit next to one another, but at the same time sitting across from each other meant they were as far as they could get from each other with the limits of what the table offered, while at the same time they could see each other by looking across the thing.

“Chill out baby,” Zach said, sliding a hand around her. A hand, I might add, that moved down and copped a quick feel before he moved it back up fast enough that he probably thought no one would notice.

At least he wasn’t hitting on me anymore. Puke.

“So anyway,” Stacy said. “We were talking about the pep rally coming up?”

There was a collective groan from the living people at the table.

“Come on you guys,” Stacy said. “We have to make sure this is perfect. The basketball team went on to regionals last year, and I think we have a really good chance of something even more major happening this year!”

That only brought more rolling eyes and groans from around the table. It’s not that basketball was something they didn’t care about so much as basketball was one of those things that people only pretended to care about so they could hang out in the bleachers and talk to their friends and socialize and gossip and do whatever else it was people did in the student section I never hung out in because I didn’t care about all that crap.

At least I hadn’t cared about it before me and Stacy became an item. These days I at least pretended to care because the hot girl I was dating cared about it.

I think there was more to the awkwardness though. Like the fact that any time we started talking about sports it naturally had people thinking about homecoming and what everyone wanted to pretend hadn’t happened there. The weird looks I was getting from everyone around the table was proof enough of that.

I sighed. It was time for me to play the good girlfriend, as much as I hated to do this. I plastered a smile on my face that definitely felt forced and put my arm around Stacy.

“I’m totally onboard with figuring out what we’re going to do with this pep rally thing,” I said. “So what’s the plan Stacy?”

I turned to her. She wasn’t talking. Her mouth went a mile a minute when she was talking to me about her plans when we were on our own, and I figured the verbal diarrhea would’ve been forthcoming, but she was staring across the room.

I frowned. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

No, scratch that. Not exactly the best phrasing since she could totally see ghosts after her own time spent on the other side thanks to a necromancer who tried to become popular by killing everyone in the school and raising them as zombies.

She looked like she’d seen something that worried her, and a ghost wasn’t something that worried her all that much now that she could see them.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered, leaning in close.

Everyone else at the table was suddenly pretending they couldn’t see us. Which was pretty much what they did whenever they thought there was something going on that had anything to do with the paranormal.

That or they were glad to have an excuse to not talk about this big pep rally that would hail the conquering heroes who hadn’t even conquered anything yet considering they had yet to actually win a game.

“Seriously babe,” I whispered when Stacy didn’t say anything. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s him,” she hissed.

“Who?” I asked.

She hit me with a look that said I was being an idiot. I was more than willing to admit that I could be an idiot, but I wasn’t sure I deserved that look.

“Him,” she said. “Tall, dark, and sparkly?”

My eyes went wide as I realized what she was talking about. It took all my self control not to whip my head around and have a look at the dude who’d been trying to put the moves on my girl.

So I took a fry off my tray. Tried to act totally casual and everything as I chewed on it and turned to look across the cafeteria in the same direction Stacy had been staring.

It was hard to miss the dude. If it weren’t for the pale skin then the faint sparkling he gave off would’ve been a sure tipoff that there was something slightly off about the guy. Even then I might’ve thought he was just a dude who was very secure with himself and the liberal application of glitter lotion if it weren’t for the hair.

He looked like he was trying to cosplay the hottest trend of a decade ago, but there was a feeling I got from the dude as I looked at him. I wasn’t sure if it was a real thing or my imagination, but there was something about him that screamed “vampire!”

That was the thing about supernatural creatures. They didn’t always look like what people expected them to look like. Mostly because if there was anyone who ever had an encounter with a supernatural creature it was usually short lived and usually resulted in whatever mortal was having that encounter running straight into their mortality.

I was different though. I was a reaper. I was an avatar of Death on this world, tasked with ferrying the spirits of the recently deceased to the other side.

Only I’d discovered there was more to it than that when I’d taken on a childhood acquaintance who turned into a necromancer and tried to take over the school. I’d discovered that we also took on supernatural things that tried to cause too many unnatural deaths, and I was itching for a fight with this particular vampire who’d been hitting on Stacy in biology class over the past week.

I tried to tell myself it wasn’t jealousy that he’d been moving in on my girl, but honestly. I was kidding myself if I thought that’s not what it was.

Only there was something about this guy that seemed a little off. A little wrong, even for the image of a vampire.

“Is he reading a D&D book?” I asked, squinting to try and get a better look.

“A what?” Stacy asked.

I opened my mouth to explain what D&D was, then decided better of it. That was something I knew about because Graham had always been going on about it, and the fact that king dork and former necromancer Graham had been my chief source for all things D&D told me everything I needed to know about how the conversation would go if I brought it up with my girlfriend Ms. Popularity.

“Never mind,” I said. “He’s just reading something I totally wouldn’t expect to see in the hands of an undead Casanova.”

“An undead what?” she asked, sounding more and more excited. “Is that like a special breed of vampire or something? Does he have special powers?”

I rolled my eyes, but I was careful to do it while I was facing away from Stacy.

“Something like that,” I muttered, not pulling my attention away from the dude.

“You’re sure he’s the guy?” I asked.

“Positive,” Stacy said.

“Great, then we’re going to do something about this guy,” I said, though I had no idea what the hell I was going to do about a vampire.

I still barely had any idea what I’d done to fight off a necromancer, and I’d never gotten any lessons in fighting vampires from my dad or any of the other reapers. Then again I hadn’t had any lessons in fighting necromancers and I’d stumbled my way through that well enough.

“I thought you’d never say something,” Stacy said, reaching into her purse and pulling out a stake. “Lets…”

“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed.

She looked at me and blinked, stake still firmly in hand. She looked down at the weapon and then back to me. She blinked a few more times, clearly confused.

“I mean, I thought that would be pretty obvious right? You said we need to take care of a vampire, and…”

“Put that thing away and stop acting crazy!” I said, wondering where she even got a stake like that. “We have to be cool about this.”

“Like hell I’m going to be cool about this,” she growled. “That asshole was sniffing at me like I was a Twinkie or something, and I’m going to show him what we think of creepers who suck the blood of the living around here!”

“That’s really not a…”

I sighed. Looked at everyone else around the table for support, but I should’ve known there wouldn’t be any support from any of them. No, they were all pointedly looking away from me. Like they all had better things to do than get in the middle of something that was so obviously supernatural. When I turned back Stacy was gone. Damn it!

Other people at other tables were looking at us like we were crazy, they’d clearly heard mention of the V word, but they turned away when they saw me looking at them.

They all knew who was in that video that’d leaked to the Internet, even if no one was actually willing to come up to me and say anything about it.

I sighed. I had to stop Stacy before she did something stupid like kill a guy who wasn’t actually a vampire and just enjoyed putting a little product and sparkly body lotion on from time to time.

So I stood and moved to follow her. I just hoped I got to her before she decided to find out whether or not the guy was a vampire by ramming a stake through his heart.

2

Saved by the Bell

Thankfully we were saved by the bell. Or rather the dude who may or may not be a vampire was saved by a bell. And it’s not like he was saved by a bell either. Not really.

No, it was more like a tone that sounded over the intercom to let everyone know that it was time to leave the lunch room.

Which meant that before Stacy could get to the guy who may or may not be a vampire, the jury was still very much out on that, people were standing up all around her and getting in her way so she couldn’t get to the vampire.

The maybe vampire. The potential vampire? The maybesforatu? Whatever. The glittery dude who might be a bloodsucker. Yeah, that sounded right.

“Damn it!” Stacy said.

“I see him making his way to the exit,” Arnold said, hovering close to Stacy. Where “close” was defined as beside her and back just enough that he could get a good look at her ass while he was kissing it. Or maybe he was looking down her shirt. It was hard to tell sometimes.

I rolled my eyes as I got up to him and flicked at him with a little tendril of death magic. He grabbed his own ass and let out a little wail that had a few people passing through the area looking around in discomfort. As though they’d heard an unpleasant reminder that there was another side waiting for them when they expired and didn’t care for the reminder.

Then they saw me moving through the crowd near them and they suddenly had other places to be. I was getting that a lot lately, and I still wasn’t sure if it was frustrating or useful.

More useful now, because they got out of my way which made it easier to get to Stacy before she did something monumentally stupid that we were both going to regret.

“I don’t need you encouraging her,” I said to Arnold.

“Whatever,” he said. “You’ll excuse me if I’m more interested in helping out the hot chick who used to be a ghost. Solidarity.”

I growled and wrapped him in tendrils of death magic. That would keep him for a little while. It would eventually dissipate, but he wouldn’t be able to move for a little while.

I figured it was the least he deserved for making life difficult for me.

“Stacy!” I shouted, trying to catch up with her and knowing it wasn’t going to do any good even as I did.

She was moving through the crowd with a purpose. There were three entrances to the cafeteria on this side, and there was only one entrance the guy could be going for.

I stopped moving through the crowd when I saw that girl from earlier walking through. She locked eyes with me and blushed for a moment before she continued moving the way she’d came. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about her, but there was something that drew me to her.

I shook my head and looked around. The crowd had completely changed in the time it took for that dark-haired beauty to walk past me. It was enough to make me wonder what the hell it was about her that distracted me like that. Sure her look was a little retro, but it’s not like that was a weird thing these days.

Maybe it was that I didn’t recognize her. The school was small enough that everyone knew everyone else. I’d heard of schools that were so big that you saw someone you’d never seen before every day, but this place definitely wasn’t like that.

Whatever. I needed to find Stacy. She was going to kill that guy, and the last thing I needed was her murdering someone in the middle of a crowd at school. That would mean enough witnesses that it’d be difficult to cover it up if it turned out the guy was a vampire.

Not to mention I still wasn’t sure if the guy was a vampire. That would be an even bigger mess if she stabbed some poor bastard who didn’t have fangs.

I made it out into the hallway and the crowd was a lot thinner out here than I would’ve figured. Staring at that girl really must’ve done a number on me if I was losing track of time.

Stacy stood in the hall staring off into the distance. She was also still carrying that stake in her hand which made her look just a little weird. She was getting looks from people going around her, but when they realized I was approaching they suddenly had places to be.

I looked around for the guy with the glitter lotion. Was it possible he was around here somewhere and he was the reason she was staring off in the distance like that?

“Stacy?” I said, waving my hand in front of her. “Come on Stacy, what the heck’s wrong with you?”

I was starting to lean more and more towards the guy being a vampire if he could do something like this. Sure I wasn’t sure if mesmerizing people was actually something vampires could do, but something happened to her to get her from going from murder mode to standing here staring like an idiot.

“Stacy!” I shouted. Still nothing. So I reached out and smacked her with a touch of my magic. Just across the face. Just enough to get her attention.

That finally got her to blink and her eyes focused on me.

“Gwen?” she asked. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I said, some of the irritation I felt creeping into my voice. “You can’t go running around with a stake in your hand! That’s the kind of thing that’ll get you kicked out of school if a teacher sees you!”

I looked around. As though mentioning a teacher was enough to bring one of them around I saw Mr. Lee, the assistant principal, looking at us. He looked away when I made eye contact, though I’d seen him looking at that stake.

Huh. Maybe there was something useful about my new reputation if it could get us out of trouble.

“We need to get out of here before you get in trouble,” I said.

“But what about the vampire?” she asked. “We have to stop him! He must’ve done something to me! One moment I was chasing him and the next it was like…”

I shivered and tried not to think about how close what she was saying felt to what’d happened to me when that girl walked in front of me. Did she have something to do with it too?

“We’re going to be late to class,” I said. “You can hunt vampires later when we’re not supposed to be learning stuff.”

She still had a far off look in her eyes. Like she was looking at something but not quite understanding what she was looking at. Then she looked at me and her expression firmed up.

“No,” she said.

“No?” I asked. “I mean class is going to start. That’s pretty much a given.”

“Maybe it is,” she said. “But I’m not going back to class. Not when that vampire is still out there. If he did this to me then he could do it to someone else, and I’m not going to have someone’s death on my head. He went this way.”

And once more, before I could do anything to stop her, not that there really was anything I could do to stop her, she was moving down the hallway again and completely ignoring me as I chased after her.

At least Mr. Lee kept right on ignoring Stacy even though she was stalking down a hall carrying a very sharp implement that could do some damage. Which was sort of the point, but it wasn’t something I could see a school administrator with a perpetual stick up his ass approving of.

“Stacy,” I hissed, catching up to her. “This is a really bad idea. We don’t know what we’re going up against. We don’t even…”

Only once more Stacy was ignoring me. I wasn’t sure exactly when I’d developed the power of invisibility along with all the reaper magic I had going for me, and I wondered if there was some way I could use this strange new power.

“I’m pretty sure he went this way,” she said. “We need to catch that bastard before he finds some poor girl and sucks her dry!”

Stacy was about to round the corner, which didn’t seem like a good idea considering there was potentially a vampire on the other side of that corner, when she stopped. Like she stopped so suddenly that I very nearly ran into her.

“What the hell Stacy?” I hissed, but she rounded on me and put her hands to her lips.

Okay then. She wanted me to be quiet. She got down close to the ground and peered around the corner. I could hear voices around that corner, and wondered what she was looking at. So I peered around the corner myself.

I figured if I couldn’t convince her that this was a ridiculously stupid idea then at least I could make sure she didn’t do something that would put her in danger.

Only when I peered around that corner I got one heck of a surprise. There was a group of a couple of guys and a couple of girls facing down the sparkly dude. I didn’t recognize any of the dudes or one of the chicks, but I did know at least one of them.

That girl. The one who’d been in the lunch room. The one who’d been such a distraction that I let Stacy get away. And I suddenly got the bad feeling that we’d walked into something here that was a lot bigger than one vampire getting his sparkle on to creep on high school girls.

“What the heck is going on there?” I hissed, hopefully low enough that they wouldn’t hear us creeping on them from our hiding place.

“I’m not sure, but I don’t like it,” Stacy said.

Her tone worried me. That was the kind of tone she got when she was about to do something that got both of us in trouble. Sure I could appreciate that it was because she didn’t like the obvious sight of someone getting bullied in our school, a school that she saw as hers since she was one of the more popular people and she was also one of the rare people who took that duty seriously.

Still, I wasn’t sure if we wanted to mess with anyone who could obviously push around a vampire. Like the big guy in a letter jacket that looked really old was doing now.

“Oh no he didn’t,” Stacy growled. “That shit does not happen in my school.”

And before I could stop her she was around the corner and advancing on these new kids who I was pretty sure were all vampires, leaving me back here scrambling to stop her before she became a snack for these teenage daywalking bloodsuckers.

3

Rescue

“Hey! What the heck do you think you’re doing?” Stacy shouted.

I turned and looked down the hall. Mr. Lee was still standing there looking at us, and it looked like he’d rather be anywhere but where she was now.

Students weren’t the only ones who’d heard the rumors about me. It bugged me that the teachers were buying that stuff hook, line, and sinker, but it’s not like it could annoy me all that much considering most of the rumors that’d been going around about me were one hundred percent true.

Right now he looked like he was trying to decide whether or not it was worth getting involved in a fight I was involved in. Finally he sighed, rolled his eyes, and made his way down the hall towards us.

That made me feel a little better. Sort of. If these things were vampires then they were probably trying to keep a low profile. That was how they worked.

Vampires were creatures of the shadows these days. Sure there might’ve been a time when they lived in castles and lorded it over their food, but those days had ended when humanity started advancing up the tech tree and developing the kind of weapons that could give supernatural creatures a really bad time if they revealed themselves to the world.

Humanity had hunted just about every apex predator they came across to extinction, or to the brink of extinction. To the point that the only place those things existed these days were mostly in places humans didn’t want to live in huge numbers or places humans had set aside specifically for the apex predators to live.

A lot of the smart supernatural apex predators had seen the writing on the wall a long time ago and decided anonymity and working in the shadows was better business than letting the world know they existed and being hunted by food with guided missiles and atomic weapons.

I’d like to see people continuing to enjoy hamburgers if cows developed the ability to precisely kill them from halfway around the world by pushing a button.

Only those ancient apex predators could still be dangerous striking from the shadows, and right now Stacy was advancing on the things. I wasn’t sure Mr. Lee was going to get there in time to save her cute ass. Which meant it was my ass that was in the lurch trying to save her instead.

Which was pretty much business as usual. We were back to the way things were when I was trying to save her from Graham the necromancer.

I advanced on the vampires as Stacy gave them a piece of her mind. A really big piece of her mind, too. She didn’t sound happy. She also didn’t sound appropriately terrified like she should’ve.

“…honestly, what do you think you’re doing pushing someone around like that?” she asked, hands on her hips as she looked at each of them in turn.

I looked at the girl from the cafeteria. The one who’d turned so many heads. She looked at me and blushed, then looked away. At least this time it didn’t seem like there was going to be any of that hypnotic nonsense.

The big guy seemed more amused than anything. He laughed, a deep laugh that came from the center of a massive chest, and shook his head.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “The guy is a nerd. You should be happy we’re taking care of him for you.”

“I’m not happy about it at all,” Stacy said. “I know you might be new here and all, but bullying is not cool!”

The group of probably-vampires exchanged glances. There was a brief beat where they seemed to be trying to decide if Stacy was serious, then they all burst into laughter.

“Are you serious?” the big guy asked. Seriously, the dude was built like a tank. Like he looked like he would already be tough to take on in a fight even if he didn’t have vampire strength.

Only the laughter died down as they looked at Stacy and realized that yeah, she was totally serious. I couldn’t help but admire her as she stood up to the guy, but I also couldn’t help but feel a touch of panic as she reached behind her and put her hand on the stake she’d tucked into her back pocket.

“I don’t know who you think you are coming to my school and acting like this,” Stacy said. “But you…”

“Now you listen here,” the big guy said. “This might be your school now, but you have no idea what things were like when…”

“What seems to be the problem here?”

For a surprise everyone turned to look at Mr. Lee. He was using his principal voice. I guess that was something that worked on the brains of a bunch of forever-teenager bloodsuckers. Or maybe the fact that they were stuck with teenager brains made them more amenable to listening to an adult using the principal voice even if there was no reason for a group of teenage vampires to listen to a principal.

Talk about an unfortunate age to be stuck at for all of eternity.

“This is none of your concern,” the big guy said, though he sounded a touch nervous. Maybe there was something to my teen brain principal voice theory after all.

His attitude only seemed to irritate Mr. Lee. He brought himself up to his full height, looking for all the world like a cat trying to puff itself up so it would look bigger. Or a snake raising up so it would look more threatening to the stupid idiot that dared bother something with fangs.

Poor Mr. Lee had no idea he was threatening something with fangs right now.

“What did you say to me young man?” he asked. “I will not stand for students talking to me like that!”

“Um, it might be a good idea for you to let me handle this,” I said, hoping to keep the poor assistant principal from getting sucked dry before he knew what was happening.

Mr. Lee looked to me. I could see the wheels turning in his head. No doubt he was thinking about all the nastiness that’d gone down around homecoming, and thinking that he’d rather be anywhere but around the weird stuff that happened when I was around.

It was a feeling I could sympathize with, because I was feeling the same way right at that moment.

“Right,” he said, shrinking back. “I think I’ll just be going now, if you don’t mind.”

“Good idea,” the big one said.

Mr. Lee turned and more or less ran as fast as his cheap discount dress shoes would carry him back the way he’d come.

“You asshole!” Stacy said.

I looked to my girlfriend and wondered if she’d lost it. Seriously. Then again she’d never seemed to care about risk of bodily harm or death. Not after she’d already been killed by a necromancer and brought back a few times.

"What are you going to do about it?" the big one asked.

Stacy reached up and looked like she was going to actually pull up her sleeves like she was getting ready for a fight. Even though she was in a tank top that skirted the dress code that didn’t actually have sleeves to pull up, which she realized when her hands went to her surprisingly toned biceps.

Cheerleader muscles, don’t knock’em. It's not like she was roided out or anything, but she was tough. I was well aware of just how strong she was. I’d found that out the hard way a couple of times.

I didn't think she’d necessarily be able to take a vampire in a fight, but I also knew that wasn't necessarily going to stop her from trying to take a vampire in a fight.

"Now Stacy…" I said.

The vampire girl interrupted me. She was pretty. Then again I doubted a vampire would go around picking someone ugly to turn into an eternal immortal companion. No, if everything I'd heard was anything to go on then bloodsuckers were just as shallow as the rest of humanity. Maybe more shallow, considering they used the whole seduction thing to try and lure in their prey.

An ugly vampire was a dead vampire since they couldn’t lure in prey as effectively in the modern world.

"Shut up," the girl snapped, dropping that whole mystery girl routine. "You might think you're the big thing right now, but I'll show you exactly what you are."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Stacy growled, and then her voice went lower for the next bit. "And who the hell do you think you are wearing a cheer pin? Maybe you were on the squad back in the fifties when you waved your pom-pomps around, but you’re nothing now you bloodsucking bitch.”

I glanced at her and sure enough, there on her shoulder was a cheer pin that looked sort of like the one Stacy wore on her letter jacket. This pin was scuffed and dinged, it clearly had more mileage on it than Stacy’s, but it was a cheer pin.

Which made sense, I guess. If this girl really was a vampire, and I was pretty sure she was, then she naturally would’ve gotten some use out of any clothes she had from back when she'd been turned.

"You might think you’re hot shit right now," the girl said. “But we're going to show you what it means to really run this school. When he reveals himself…”

When he reveals himself? That sounded appropriately ominous. I was wondering who he was and about to ask about it, but the cat fight brewing got out in front of any attempts I might make at playing detective.

She smiled. The kind of cruel smile I’d expect from a vampire who'd been stuck as a teenager for the past few decades and had never really moved past being a hormone-fueled bitch, for all that she could be older than my parents. She threw herself at Stacy, almost faster than I could blink, her hands at Stacy's neck.

Stacy didn't so much as blink. No, she did exactly what I'd expect of her given our time together. Which is to do something stupid that ran the risk of pissing off the scary undead monster threatening to crush her windpipe. She reached out and grabbed the cheer pin on the scary vampire’s shirt and ripped it off. The vampire stared at her, wide-eyed and in disbelief, and then the fangs came out.

Oh yeah. It just hit the fan.

4

Geekpire

It was weird. There were so many pieces of entertainment over the past thirty or so years that had gone to great trouble to try and make vampires terrifying to a modern audience through the use of prosthetics and masks. You had them "vamping out," to look more like monsters and less like people wearing Halloween fangs.

I suppose it was a statement on how used to horror society had gotten. All those years of being trained to see special effects monstrosities made people bored with the same boring old monsters. Like Bela Lugosi in a cloak hissing at someone was enough to make people crap their pants back in the black-and-white days, but that certainly wouldn't cut it today.

Which made it all the more ridiculous that the vampire girl getting pissed off and baring her fangs at Stacy looked like… Well she looked like a person who had a set of very realistic looking fangs she’d gotten from a Halloween store. There wasn't any other change to her face. She didn't suddenly get real ugly or anything. She was the same pretty girl.

Plus fangs.

I'm sure there was someone out there who was into that, but I wasn't. Especially considering she'd wrapped her hands around Stacy's neck and was lifting her up. Stacy moved her own hands to the girl's wrists and held on so she wasn't getting choked out, but I knew that even with her strength the vampire would be able to outlast her.

"Stop it," I said, finally starting to get annoyed with all of this.

None of them listened to me. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that none of them were listening to me. There’d been an unfortunate precedent of supernatural creatures and regular humans not listening to me lately.

I was used to it, but it didn’t mean I had to like it. Especially when the bitch who currently wasn’t listening to me was the bitch who was doing her best to choke out my girlfriend.

Darkness gathered around me. Oh yeah. This was happening. I’d gotten good and pissed off and now it was time to break out some of the death magic.

“I said stop it,” I said.

I surprised even myself that time around. I’d never heard my voice change like that before, but sure enough it sounded like I was speaking with all the power and horror of a creature from the other side.

I blinked and looked down. Mostly to make sure it was still me standing there. Black robes had appeared around me, and my scythe appeared out of nowhere as well which meant I was getting good and pissed off.

Good. Maybe that would show these fucking vampires how fucking serious I was.

“Fuck off,” the vampire girl said.

She was still concentrating on Gwen. She hadn’t even bothered to look at me. So she had no idea what was standing beside her.

The same wasn’t true of her bloodsucking buddies though. They looked at me and started to back away, their eyes wide. The big one leaned forward and elbowed the girl.

“Leave me alone,” the girl growled. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something here?”

“Um, I think you want to not be in the middle of something Veronica,” the guy said.

“Come on Bruce,” she said, smiling a cruel smile as the darkness surrounding me started to gather around her. She still didn’t notice the angry tendrils of death magic surrounding her. I guess she was just that oblivious about her surroundings.

Also, Bruce? Talk about an old school name. If this weren’t so serious I’d probably have some fun asking him if he had any plans to menace tourists at Amity beach or go out at night and beat people up wearing bat pajamas.

This was serious though. I had to keep my amusement at the old timey names on these teenage vampires in check. Long enough to save Stacy, at least.

“I said let her go,” I said, and this time there was no mistaking that there was something weird going on with my voice. Like I’d put it through a voice changer or something. It actually sounded kind of cool, but the girl still didn’t take the hint.

So I slapped her across the back with a tendril of death magic. That got a reaction out of her! I guess that magic worked about the same on the undead as it did on ghosts and necromancers. Basically anything that sort of walked the line between life and death was susceptible to it, and the closer the supernatural creature was to that line the more effective it was.

Which, of course, meant that vampires in particular were in for some real trouble.

The vampire, Veronica, threw her head back and let out a terrible scream. Like she was feeling the kind of hurt she hand’t had to deal with since… Well probably since she became a vampire. She obviously hadn’t been staked in the time between becoming a vampire and now, so clearly she hadn’t had to deal with much in the way of pain.

I felt something weird, too, when I touched her with that magic. As though there was something in there that wanted to lash out at me. A darkness that clawed at me through that magical connection. It surprised me so much that I yanked back, and that thing seemed to come with me.

That terrified me so much, the idea of unleashing some dark spirit without realizing what I was doing because I really still didn’t know what I was doing with all this, that I severed the connection.

That didn’t stop Veronica from screaming in pain, but it did cause whatever that thing was to sink back down inside her to wherever it’d been lurking within her soul to begin with.

Okay. Talk about freaky. Like really fucking freaky. I stumbled back just a bit, but none of the vampires seemed to notice.

Which was probably a good thing. They looked nice and intimidated. Intimidated was good. Intimidated meant they were going to leave us the fuck alone.

Veronica released Stacy. Stacy took a couple of steps back, and I was there to catch her and keep her from falling. Plus I really didn’t mind any excuse to get up close and personal with my girlfriend. Even if it was something ridiculous like saving her from a fight she’d picked with a bunch of scary vampires.

“Holy shit,” the big one, Bruce, said.

Veronica stared at me in astonishment. She finally saw the dark magic roiling around me for the first time. Her eyes went wide.

“You can’t be here,” she said. “He’s going to…”

“Forget what he’s going to do,” Bruce said, grabbing her by the shoulder. “We need to get out of here, now. No way we’re going up against a reaper!”

“What?” I said, unable to resist just a little smile. “You guys don’t want to stay and play with us? I thought you were going to try and push us around some more? Maybe bite my neck?”

I turned to Stacy. She was shaking her head and smiling. Doing the whole thing where she was trying not to look like she was amused by what I was pulling, but clearly it was getting a laugh.

When I turned back the vampires were gone. Well all but one of them were gone. Which was a damn shame.

I hated it in movies when monsters did that whole thing where they were able to disappear in a puff of nothing. Like the sort of cheesy effect you’d see in an old Star Trek or something where they clearly spliced the footage together, and didn’t always do a good job of it, between a room where William Shatner was standing being all handsome and an empty shot of that same room minus the smoldering Shatner.

I would’ve really liked to see how the vampires disappeared. Like did they turn into myst or something? Maybe a big scary wolf? Basically any of the super powers you had to work your ass off to get in Symphony of the Night?

Alas. It didn't look like any of those vampires were going to be revealing their bloodsucking secrets to me any time soon. More's the pity. If I knew how they were escaping then I might be able to figure out a good way to catch them.

Stacy looked at me and put a hand to her neck and felt where the vampire bitch had been suffocating her.

"Thanks," she said.

I rolled my eyes. "You're an idiot."

She smiled a thin smile and wrapped me in a hug. Then she really got my attention when she planted a kiss firmly on my lips. I was always a fan of kissing Stacy.

"I might be an idiot, but that's only because I know I have you around to protect me!"

"Whatever," I said, trying to hide the blush. After all, there was still that one vampire just hanging out there, and the last thing I wanted was to look like a lovesick idiot in front of the scary monster.

Well, honestly he was a not-so-scary monster. Like pathetically not scary. It looked like someone accidentally bit a nerd once upon a time and now he was stuck like that forever, which seemed like a pretty shitty situation.

Normally nerds could grow up and get programming jobs where they made enough money to live a good life, or maybe they got in shape like the weakling from an old Charles Atlas ad, but he was stuck perpetually being an awkward teenager getting beat up by vampire bullies. Talk about a living hell.

"Um, so what the hell are you?" the guy asked, looking a little nervous about being around me.

My eyes narrowed. I wasn't particularly happy to still have a vampire standing around, even if so far it looked like he was a vampire who wasn't in league with those other assholes.

"I think the more important question is who the hell are you," I said. "And what the hell are all those bloodsucking bastards doing in my school?"

The guy looked between me and Stacy. Sighed. Muttered something under his breath. For a moment I thought he might try to turn into mist or something and get the hell away from us just like the others, but then he shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I guess I kind of deserved that. Thank you for saving me."

Well then. Not exactly what I was expecting, but it was a start. An apologizing vampire was better than a vampire who was trying to kill us, after all.

5

Chase

Stacy took a step forward. Like she was actually considering getting closer to the bloodsucking bastard. Sure he might be a bloodsucking bastard who, so far, hadn't threatened us, but that didn't change the fact that he was a bloodsucking bastard.

I didn’t need my girlfriend getting any closer to something that wanted to turn her into a snack than she had to. Especially considering this dude had been hitting on her in her biology class.

I put a hand on her shoulder. Stopped her before she could get any closer. She looked at me, clearly irritated.

"What are you doing?” she asked.

"I'm not sure you want to get near that guy," I said.

"What?" she asked. "Why wouldn't I want to go near him? He obviously needs our help."

I eyed him. That apology had been a start, to be sure, but I still couldn't be totally sure this guy was on the up and up.

"What if that's what they want us to think?" I asked. "What if they left this guy behind so he could make us feel bad for him and then suck you dry the moment we let our guard down?”

The guy held his hands up. His eyes were wide. Clearly he didn't like the idea of being on my bad side.

"Now hold on," he said. "I'm not doing anything like that. I don't even like sucking blood! It's just that…"

"Can it for a minute," I said. "You've sucked the blood of other people, right?"

He frowned, and that was all the answer I needed. I got even more exasperated and held my scythe out just under his neck. I wasn't sure if that could actually do anything against a vampire, but from the way he went cross eyed it was scaring him.

I’d take it.

"Talk, or else," I growled.

"I don't think he can talk Gwen," Stacy said.

"What?"

"I don't think he can talk. You just told him to can it. He's following orders. Being pretty literal about it, too, but he's just following orders."

I growled again. This was getting frustrating. And on top of all that I was late for class. Just fucking great.

"You can talk if you're answering my questions," I said.

"Do you have to be so mean to the poor guy?" Stacy asked. “It’s bad enough he was getting bullied by those vampires. Now we’re doing it?”

“Have you lost it?” I asked. "He's a vampire. An undead bloodsucking creature of the night who’d kill you for a snack! This isn't some sparkly dude who wants to seduce you."

"And I wouldn't be into a dude trying to seduce me anyway," Stacy said. "All I'm saying is you're being a little hard on him and…"

The faint hint of breeze was the only hint that something had changed. I turned back to the vampire, only there was no vampire there. I let out a couple of choice curses about the chastity of that vampire's mother, and then sprinted down the hall. I heard Stacy sprinting behind me, which wasn't something I needed.

It was bad enough that I was hunting a bunch of bloodsucking bastards. I really didn't need my very mortal girlfriend whose veins pumped with a delicious snack for these sons of bitches following behind me.

Only I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop her even if I did tell her to stay back. It's not like she’d listen.

I skidded to a halt at the end of the hall. I looked around, but there was no vampire to be seen. Not the big burly one. Not the Veronica bitch. And not that geeky one who'd been getting pushed around by the other vampires. It was as though they’d never existed.

I growled. I kept right on sprinting, and that's when we ran into none other than Mr. Lee, who looked even less happy to see us again. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was displeased about finding students out in the hall without a pass when it wasn’t a passing period or if it was because he was well aware of the weird things that happened around me.

"And what are you girls doing out here?" he asked.

I bit back a couple of choice phrases about how he'd turned tail and ran when he saw those vampires. After all, he was a human going up against vampires. It was the kind of creature of the night situation that I could totally understand freaking someone out if they were mortal.

Still. I didn't have time for this. Not when there were still vampires lurking, and I needed to find them and stop them. I didn't know what their plan was, but I knew they were up to something in my school and I didn't like it!

I let Graham pull his necromancer bullshit right under my nose, and I wasn’t going to let that happen in this school again.

"Kind of on urgent business," I said.

Mr. Lee looked at Stacy and then to me. He looked me up and down, seemed to be seeing the black robes and scythe for the first time, and we were far enough from Halloween that it sure as hell wasn't something I got from a costume store or something.

No, if I was on urgent business then it wasn’t the kind of shit a mortal like Lee wanted anything to do with.

His eyes went wide and then he shook her head. Muttered something about how he didn't get paid nearly enough to deal with anything like this.

“Back to class, now,” he said.

“But…”

“Do you want a detention, young lady?” he asked, his voice sharp despite the robes and the scythe. Weird. Usually the mortals were more intimidated by that. Even those vampires had been intimidated.

“Fine,” I said.

I turned and walked in the opposite direction, Stacy following behind me. She didn’t say anything until we’d rounded a corner.

“You folded awfully fast there,” she said.

“I’m not actually following that prick’s orders,” I said.

“Oh,” Stacy said, a grin lighting up her face. “That’s more like it!”

I sighed. I should’ve told her she wasn’t coming with me, but I knew it’d be useless to try and stop her. Besides, I didn’t think we were actually going to be running into any more bloodsuckers any time soon.

"Come on," I said to Stacy. "He's probably long gone by now, but we have to try.”

We did a complete circuit of the school, careful to avoid Mr. Lee, but there was no sign of any bloodsuckers.

"I'm not feeling anything," Stacy said.

I rolled my eyes. "What do you mean? It's not like you have some sixth sense or something. Or if you do, it's way off. That was a vampire you just let loose!"

"I let loose?" she said, some heat coming to her voice. "I didn't do anything to let him loose. You're the one who looked away!"

"Because I was trying to protect you from the bloodsucking vampire!"

"I don't need protection from creatures of the night," Stacy growled.

"Oh yeah?" I said. "Because the whole experience we had with the necromancer? When you got turned into a ghost multiple times? That would seem to say otherwise, wouldn't it?"

Stacy's nostrils flared. I knew I'd crossed a line. She didn't like being reminded of being turned into a ghost. It messed with this idea in her mind that if more crazy supernatural creatures came along then we would make like the Scooby gang and discover the monsters, then do the whole Ghostbusters thing and take them out. Only this was real life. This wasn’t some story where everything necessarily turned out happy in the end because the writers had to pull something out of their ass to give the story a happy ending by the thirty minute mark with time in between for commercials.

"You could die Stacy," I said. "Or you could be turned into a vampire. You're exactly the kind of hottie someone turning people into eternally young vampires would want in their collection, and I do mean collection. Vampires are very hierarchical and big on collecting pretties. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life in the thrall of some overweight bloodsucker born in the fifteenth century with all the ideas about women’s lib that come from being from that time?”

"But you don't understand," she said. "I have you to protect me. I'm not worried as long as you're there. Your the embodiment of death itself!"

At least she didn't say that I was death itself. That was something that’d taken some clearing up. Stacy hadn't ever actually met the big guy, and I’d been very careful about explaining to her that I wasn't the big guy so much as I was an avatar of his will in the mortal realm.

"That might be true," I said. "And I'm flattered that you have that confidence in me. Really I am. But that doesn't change the fact that they could get to you while I'm not around, and that thought terrifies me."

"Fine," Stacy said. "If I promise I won't go running after scary creatures of the night when you're not around will that make you feel better?" she asked.

"It will, but…"

My eyes narrowed. It occurred to me that she'd just made it one of those weird half promises where I felt like I wasn't going to like the end results.

"What exactly do you mean when you say you promise not to go after creatures of the night when I'm not around?" I asked.

“Simple," Stacy said. "You have to make a promise to me as well."

"Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this promise?"

She grinned. Did a little thing where she stood up on her tippy toes and pushed her hands behind her back. Which had the added effect of pushing out two very prominent pieces of her anatomy that I was a big fan of. My eyes went down there without thinking, and I felt myself getting into that weird headspace where I was willing to do just about anything the pretty cheerleader asked me to do.

Which was a dangerous headspace for me to be in. Dangerous for her, that is. She really didn't understand just how dangerous this was going to be.

"You have to promise you’ll let me come along whenever you’re hunting scary creatures of the night. That's not so hard, is it?"

I sighed. Rolled my eyes. And when I was done rolling them I came back down to see her lips moving towards mine. Pressing against me. Her mouth opened and then for a brief moment we were pretty much making out in the middle of the school hallway.

It was a good thing those school hallways were mostly deserted. That was definitely the kind of thing teachers frowned upon.

When she pulled back from the kiss she was smiling an almost too-sweet smile.

"So what do you say?" she asked. "Do we have a deal?"

I looked her up and down. Thought about that kiss and how good it felt. I weighed my options. In the end there was one thing that had me agreeing to her conditions. The knowledge that no matter what I said, there was always the option to simply give her the slip and go out looking for vampires without telling her that's what I was doing.

If she didn’t know I was going out into the world looking for bloodsucking undead creatures of the night then she couldn't demand to come with me, and she wouldn't get into any trouble. Yeah, the logic of that was elegant. I’d get those kisses, she’d be happy, and I’d be secure in the knowledge that she was safe because she wouldn't be anywhere near me while I was hunting vampires.

Or any other scary creatures of the night, for that matter. We’d already had to deal with necromancers and vampires, so who knew what would be the next horror to come down the line?

So I grinned and lied through my teeth.

"You know what, you wore me down. You can come along with me the next time I'm hunting vampires."

"And every other time too," she said. "Vampires and any other monsters. I don't want you lawyering me out of this!"

“Of course not,” I said with a smile as I leaned in and kissed her again. “Now come on. We should get back to class. I don’t think we’re going to find any vampires out here today.”

Tonight after school was a totally different story, of course, but she didn’t have to know that since she’d be busy at cheerleading practice and far from me and my vampire hunt.

6

Sneaking Away

“Hey! Crowd! Here’s what we want!”

I tuned out the sound of cheerleaders telling the imaginary crowd what they wanted. There was still something about the whole cheerleader thing that struck me as faintly creepy. Like there was some sort of mind control going on or something, for all that they were fun to look at.

Especially during practice when they were all wearing tight shirts and even more impossibly tight shorts. Can you say yum?

I had to pull myself away from that wonderful sight though. As much as I hated pulling myself away from that sight.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Arnold asked, watching me stand and make my way towards the exit.

“I’ve got something to do,” I said.

Arnold floated in front of me wearing a faded Rush 2112 t-shirt that I’d always thought looked pretty awesome. Though it wasn’t pure black like it would’ve been in the real world since he was a floating ghost who looked more like the Force ghosts you see in Star Wars, or something out of Ghostbusters.

“Anything we can help with?” Jake asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m hunting vampires.”

“Vampires?” Luke asked, floating in front of me.

I glanced out onto the gym floor. Stacy wasn’t looking at me. She was busy spotting some girl who was flying in the air, but I knew it wasn’t going to be long before she turned and looked at me. She was always glancing up into the bleachers to make sure I was watching her do the impressive things she did out there on the gym floor.

It seriously was impressive. Tossing girls through the air and catching them before gravity seriously maimed them? That was pretty awesome.

“Man, cheerleading is way more intense than it was back when we were in school,” Jake muttered.

“Right,” I said, remembering what I was doing. “I need to go do something important and I don’t need you three hovering around me letting Stacy know I’m up to something.”

“Oh yeah?” Luke asked, floating around me and doing the exact opposite of what I wanted him to do. “Sounds like a good time. Can we come along?”

“No you can’t…”

I glanced out to the gym floor again. They were almost done doing whatever the heck it was they were doing. I figured that meant I didn’t have much longer before Stacy looked up here.

If she just didn’t see me in the bleachers she might not think anything of it. If she saw me by the exit surrounded by the geek ghost crew then she’d definitely think something was up.

“Fine,” I hissed. “You guys can come with me, but you have to promise not to say anything to Stacy. Got it?”

“Promise on our hopes that they actually fix the new Star Wars movies with the next release,” Arnold said, holding up his hand like he was taking an oath or something.

I rolled my eyes. That’d been another change that’d happened between the good old days when I thought I was the only one who could see these guys and now. My dad had taken to coming to the high school to hang out with them and have movie marathons featuring all the stuff they’d missed over the years.

Lord of the Rings had really blown their minds. I guess before the movies came along the best the geek world had were some old animated movies that had way too many songs for my comfort. Then again when I actually read the books there’d been way too many songs too, so whatever. Not that I said that around these guys. I didn’t want them going all Poltergeist on me because I insulted their nerd Jesus.

“Come on guys,” I said.

I breathed a sigh of relief when we got out to the hall. I turned and glanced into the gym one last time, but Stacy was still concentrating on stunting. I figured it’d be a few more minutes before she realized I was gone.

Plenty of time for me to do some vampire hunting.

“So what are we looking for?” Jake asked.

“And why are you reaping out?”

I looked down as darkness surrounded me and replaced my normal school clothes with the black robes and scythe. I figured if I was going to go looking for those vampire assholes, I had a sure feeling they were somewhere here in the school, then I wanted to make sure I was wearing an outfit that made it clear I was the hunter and not the hunted.

“We’re going after vampires today boys,” I said. “I didn’t have a convenient whip, so I figured this would have to do.”

They hit me with blank stares. I stared right back at them, then remembered an important detail about their untimely demise.

“Right,” I muttered. “You all died in the early ‘80s so you have no idea what Castlevania even is.”

“Caslewhatya?” Arnold asked.

“It’s an old school video game that came out about seven years after you guys kicked the bucket,” I said. “Because your deaths are officially older than old school.”

“Huh,” Jake said. “Damn shame we can’t interact with the mortal world to play some of those new games.”

“Yeah, something like that,” I said.

The idea of a bunch of geeks reaching from beyond the grave to play video games on modern consoles sounded like the sort of premise you’d find in a cheap direct to Amazon movie that had mostly one and two star reviews griping about the production quality.

“So do you have any idea where the bloodsuckers are?” Jake asked.

“I’m pretty sure they’re hiding in the school,” I said. “But I have no idea where they are. There was a girl named Veronica, and a dude by the name of…”

“Veronica?” Arnold said, frowning. “She wouldn’t happen to be an impossibly hot girl with dark hair that went down past her shoulders and a pair of tits that…”

Arnold stopped and did the ghost equivalent of a blush, which meant his cheeks turned a deeper blue than the rest of him and his glow muted just a bit.

“Don’t worry Arnold,” I said with a grin. “That does sound like the girl, and I was appreciating what you’re reminiscing about. Do you know her or something?”

As far as I knew there wasn’t a way for ghosts to communicate with the land of the living, but vampires were also in a sort of weird in between space where they weren’t quite among the living and they weren’t quite among the dead.

They didn’t sparkle though. Vampires don’t fucking sparkle.

“I mean it’d be impossible to miss her,” Arnold said. “Didn’t go to school with her, but you bet your ass we notice when there’s a new hottie in this small school.”

I rolled my eyes, but the cheering coming to an end behind me got me moving. No more cheering meant Stacy would be looking for me, which meant it was a good time to get the hell out of there before Stacy came looking for me.

My escape would be all for naught if she could just step out of the gym and see me still standing here like an idiot.

“Come on,” I said. “You can tell me about it while we’re walking.”

“Floating,” Jake said, pointing down.

I glanced down and rolled my eyes. I was floating. That was something I could do now, apparently, though it was really only something that ever happened when I forgot myself.

The fact that the video from that football game had gone viral with the “floating reaper chick” had been bad enough, even if the whole thing did look pretty fucking awesome. That video was also taken on an old camera that used some sort of real analog tape to record because the school had never bothered upgrading their equipment, and the last thing I wanted was to be caught in full HD on someone’s phone video where they’d actually be able to recognize me.

“Walking, floating, what the fuck ever,” I said. “We need to find these assholes, and we need to find them before something bad happens to someone who’s still among the living.”

“Um, are you sure that’s the only reason you’re so intent on finding these guys?” Jake asked. “I mean you’re usually not this intense about this stuff.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “The last time we were doing this we were chasing down a necromancer and I was pretty fucking intent about catching him.”

“Yeah, but there’s something different about you now,” Luke said.

“Like last time around you were Ripley from Alien, and this time around you’re Ripley from Aliens climbing into that robot thing ready to kick ass,” Arnold said.

“Or Sarah Connor. You were totally scared Sarah Connor when you were taking on the necromancer, but now you’re badass Sarah Connor taking on a T-1000 all by your lonesome,” Jake intoned.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. I was going to have to have some words with my dad about the crash course in geek cinema he’d given these guys. It’s not like I could begrudge him spending time with his friends, but their preoccupation with all that pop culture that was being shoveled into their spectral minds was more than a little annoying.

Also? They totally had a point. When we’d been fighting a necromancer I’d been terrified. Necromancers were the things that went bump in the night for reapers because they had the ability to fight us. I’d grown up terrified of them because it’d been a necromancer who killed my mom so long ago.

I also had no idea whether or not I could take on a necromancer. This was different though. Those vampires were afraid of me, and they’d made it pretty clear they were afraid of me.

“Yeah, well maybe this time around I’m the hunter and not the hunted,” I said. “Those assholes all should’ve died a long time ago, and that means it’s time for me to get out there and set things right before they turn someone else or kill someone.”

“Yeah, I still don’t think that’s it,” Jake said.

“Fine!” I snapped. “I also don’t want those vampires chasing after Stacy! They always go after the hot ones, and Stacy is about as hot as you get at this school!”

“You’ve got that right,” Arnold said. “It’s a pity you don’t let us go into the locker rooms anymore.”

I glared at him and snapped him with a little bit of death magic. He yelped and rubbed at his ass where I got him good. Sort of the supernatural equivalent of snapping someone with a towel. Something I was sure he’d been familiar with in life and didn’t care to be reminded of in death.

“Plus she insists on coming along when I’m hunting these scary monster things that should terrify her, but she’s never scared,” I growled.

“Sounds like girlfriend material to me,” Jake said. “Especially considering your line of work.”

“Would you guys please just make yourselves useful? You can float through walls.”

“So?” Arnold asked.

“So float through walls and find those damned vampires for me!”

They hit me with mock salutes, but at least they all disappeared into the walls on their search. I figured four of us searching was better than one. Especially when nobody in our vampire search party was in any danger of being killed or turned by those bloodsucking bastards.

7

Vampire Hunter

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” I whispered as I floated through the hallways.

Someone rounded the corner ahead of me. For a brief heart stopping moment I thought it might be one of the vampires. It’s not like there were many people running around this place at this time of day.

But when the person rounded the corner it was just Mr. Lee. He jumped when he saw me coming towards him, and then looked me up and down. His mouth turned down in a frown, but then he really took in what was happening.

Like I was floating in the air. I had flowing dark robes all around me. I had a scythe in my hand. Basically I was the picture of that grainy football camera recording the school had disavowed all knowledge of, saying the whole thing was obviously a prank and had nothing to do with the mass hallucination on that football field or the alleged death of one of the school’s students at the hands of a deranged homecoming crowd.

He took all of that in, and then wisely held his hands up and backed around the corner. Clearly he wanted nothing to do with whatever was going on here.

The poor bastard was probably thinking of all the press conferences and statements he’d have to make if something did happen here again. Poor guy. I could feel for the administration and all the covering up they had to do here in the wake of Graham and his necromancy.

I floated around the corner, but Mr. Lee was nowhere to be found. He must’ve disappeared into one of the many doors that led through the center of the building where the library and most of the administration offices were.

“Where are you, you bloodsucking bastards,” I growled.

“Right here!” a voice said from behind me.

I whirled around and had tendrils of black mist wrapping around the source of that noise before I realized it was just Jake floating there looking very surprised that I’d wrapped him in the kind of magic that was usually a precursor to dragging someone to the other side.

From the way his eyes went wide he didn’t like the idea of being dragged to the other side.

I sighed and let him go.

“You really scared me,” I said. “You should know better than to sneak up on me like that!”

“Sorry,” Jake said. “But there’s something in the cafeteria I think you really need to see.”

I sighed. From his tone I didn’t think it was something I was going to like, but what could you do? I also didn’t have the luxury of being able to float through walls like Jake could, so I had to go around the school the old fashioned way.

Well, mostly the old fashioned way. I still had the ability to float which meant I was moving a hell of a lot faster than usual.

“Okay boys,” I said, seeing the three stooges hanging out in front of the cafeteria and not going in, which seemed ominous. “What do we have here?”

“I was going to say nothing good,” Jake said. “But I always hate it when people do that in the movies so I’m just going to come out and tell you that…”

“Dead chick in there,” Arnold said. “Two puncture marks in her neck like Christopher Lee was getting hot and heavy with her.”

“Saruman?” I asked.

Arnold sighed. “Yes. Saruman. Though I really think he would’ve made a better Gandalf and…”

“Whatever,” I said. “I know he was the vampire dude to you guys. I would’ve gone with Bela Lugosi, but whatever.”

“You mean the really old dude?” Jake asked. “Christopher Lee was so much better!”

“Both of them are really dead old dudes at this point,” I said.

“Whatever,” Jake said. “Are you going to go in there and check out the dead chick, or are we going to float around out here talking about old dead dudes who played vampires long before we were dead?”

I floated through the cafeteria doors. I really didn’t want to float through those doors and see what was waiting for me on the other side, but then again that pretty much described the life of a reaper.

Or maybe it was the death of a reaper? The undeath? I’d never really stopped to think about where we fell on the sliding scale of supernatural creatures.

Sure enough there was a dead girl in the middle of the cafeteria. She was resting on one of the lunch tables like someone had held her down there and made a meal out of her.

I got the feeling someone was trying to send a message with the way they positioned the girl. Like she was a meal for them, and they wanted to let the world know the humans were just meals by doing this in the cafeteria.

Maybe that was meant to be a message for the humans who would no doubt find her in the morning, but then again maybe it was supposed to be a message for me. There were vampires here in the school and I’d better get used to it.

Well I wasn’t going to get used to it. I was going to track down those bloodsucking sons of bitches and make them pay for what they’d done to the girl.

I floated a little closer and my breath caught. For a moment I’d been terrified the girl was Stacy, but no. The girl looked an awful lot like Stacy. I was pretty sure she was a sophomore I’d seen around the halls a few times. Basically the girl who would become Stacy in a couple of years when she was a senior ruling the school.

At least she would’ve been the girl who ruled the school as a senior if she ever got to her senior year. Given that she was lying dead on a lunch room table with no chance of being revived and no chance of becoming a vampire I was willing to bet that her chances weren’t all that great at this point.

Which was a damn shame. All the more so because I was pretty sure those fucking vampires were deliberately sending me a message by killing a girl who looked so much like Stacy. Like I could totally see that Veronica bitch going after someone else who would rule the school someday in the far future if she thought it would send me a message.

“You bloodsucking bastards,” I growled. I clenched my fist around my scythe and wished I had one of them standing in front of me right now so I could cut them to pieces.

Again I wasn’t sure if that would even do any good against a bloodsucking bastard, but it would’ve been therapeutic for me!

“Oh my gawd. Are you, like, supposed to be the girl from that video or something? Wait until I get a video of you!”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Of all the things I didn’t need right now, this was probably at the top of that list of things I really didn’t need. Of all the bullshit to deal with while I was supposed to be hunting vampires, business was the last thing on my mind.

Except there was business right behind me. At least I was pretty sure it was a healthy dose of business from the way she was talking in that traditional valley girl accent that all popular girls seemed to use at some point even though we were about as far from California as you could get.

I wheeled around and sure enough there was the girl floating there in her spectral form. No one had come along to retrieve her, because why would they? I was here and I was available to work, so why would someone like dad come along?

I was surprised this girl hadn’t been pinging my sense that there was an untethered recently departed spirit hanging out nearby. Usually I could sense them better than this. Of course I’d been distracted by the whole vampire hunt thing, but still.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Oh my gawd. Are you, like, talking to me?” she asked, sounding like me talking to her was the equivalent of a mortal sin. Which it probably was in her popular girl view of the world.

I sighed. I tried to put my hand to my head to rub at the bridge of my nose where I felt the beginnings of a headache forming, but I couldn’t do it because my scythe was there getting in the way.

It wasn’t a good idea to go rubbing at the bridge of my nose if I didn’t want to put that blade through my face. Though considering the evening I was having right about now a blade to the face might’ve been a nice change of pace to telling a young girl who was just on the verge of fun stuff like getting her driver’s license that nothing like that was going to happen.

“Yes I’m, like, talking to you,” I said, then decided to tone it down just a little. This girl had just died, after all, and in my experience that was usually the sort of traumatic experience spirits didn’t want to acknowledge.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. I know you’re probably going through a difficult time here, and I’m here to help you even if…”

“Why would I be going through a difficult time?” the girl asked. “I just met a cute guy and…”

I realized I’d been blocking the girl’s view of her body. Which might also be blocking her coming to terms with what was happening. I sighed and floated to the side so she could see the damage.

The girl stared for a long uncomprehending moment at the pile of clothes, flesh, and bone that had been her body until just a short while ago. The body probably wasn’t even cold yet.

Though I doubted there’d be any blood pooling in the bottom like you usually got with a body that’d been lying like that after being deceased. No, it was difficult for blood to pool in a body when something had come along and removed all of that pooled blood to make the body dead in the first place.

“What is that?” the girl asked. “Is this supposed to be some sort of Halloween joke or something? Because that is not cool.”

She floated over to get a closer look at her body. Though she didn’t seem to register that she was floating rather than walking. She hovered over the body staring.

I’d seen this all before, of course. Before I realized I was going into the family business of reaping I’d had an odd habit of being around people when they passed on.

It turns out that being a reaper makes someone predisposed to be around people when they’re about to expire. Which was something I was used to now, but it’d been really freaky for a little girl who didn’t know why all these people kept dying in front of her.

Not to mention my own habit of frequently dying due to inattention.

“That’s you,” I said, trying to sound comforting and not knowing if I was doing a good job of it. It was always difficult to tell someone that they’d moved on to their eternal reward. “I’m afraid you were attacked by a vampire, and it looks like they did what vampires do.”

“No,” the girl said, shaking her head. She turned to me, and spectral tears streamed down her face. “No! I don’t believe it!”

8

Dead Girl

“Afraid it’s true,” a voice said from behind me.

Normally I would’ve been irritated at Jake, Arnold, and Luke getting involved with something like this, but this was one case where I was more than happy to have help. Maybe seeing other ghosts would make it easier for the girl to accept that something terrible had, in fact, happened to her.

“Who are you?” the girl asked. “And why are you guys dressed like rejects from an ‘80s movie?”

“Because they are from the ‘80s,” I said. “Or I guess they’re from the late ‘70s really, but they died in the early ‘80s which might as well be the late ‘70s so whatever.”

“Very beginning of the decade, but still,” Arnold said, floating up and giving her a little wave accompanied by a goofy grin.

I rolled my eyes. The last thing I needed was these chuckleheads acting all weird because there was a girl who’d just been turned to a ghost and she happened to be a hottie. I mean she was a hottie, but still.

“Easy boys,” I said.

A touch of irritation came to my voice as I said it. I knew on the one hand I needed to break this girl’s new situation to her easy, but on the other hand there was a part of me that wanted to take her to the other side and be done with it so I could get on with my vampire search, damn it.

“You guys are ghosts,” she said.

“Look down,” Jake said, crossing his arms and winking at me.

The girl looked down. Gasped as she realized, seemingly for the first time, that she was just as ghostly as the guys hovering in front of her. Though really the fact that she could suddenly see a bunch of ghosts hovering in front of her should’ve been her first tip off that something was seriously wrong here.

Her eyes went wide and she bolted. At least she tried to bolt. It was something I’d seen plenty when my dad was dealing with someone who’d been recently deceased.

The point was she was going to run for it, and that would mean a pain in the ass trying to track her down and stop her from running. Time I didn’t have since there were bloodsuckers out there somewhere in the school, and those bloodsuckers had already made it quite obvious they were willing and able to take students out.

The only thing that was probably saving other students from getting taken out along with this girl was most students had cleared out of here, and the ones who hadn’t cleared out were in the middle of practices like with Stacy and the cheerleaders.

Though those practices would be letting out soon, and I didn’t want some straggler who had a parent picking them up late to suddenly find themselves relieved of their blood because they were sticking around a school that’d become a vampire den.

“I don’t have time for this,” I growled. I lashed out with a bit of death magic. A tendril of darkness shot out and wrapped around her leg before she could get very far, and I yanked her back like an angler reeling in a big fish.

The girl flew back so fast that she went right past me. Her eyes were wide the whole time, like she was having trouble believing this was actually happening on top of the whole dying young thing.

I could sympathize, but I was in a hurry.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said when she bounced back. “But you’re dead, and there’s not much we can do about that.”

“Wait,” the girl cried out. “What the hell are you doing to me? You can’t do this!”

“Can you tell me anything about what happened to you?” I asked. “Like a description of the person who did this to you?”

“Why the hell would I want to do anything like that?” she said. “You’re just going to do that creepy thing you’re…”

Her eyes went wide as she trailed off. She seemed to really be taking me in, really taking me in, for the first time since all this nonsense started.

“You’re her, aren’t you?” she breathed. “The one who did the flying thing over the crowd at homecoming? You’re the dead girl!”

It was an odd change. Usually when the recently deceased learn they’re among the recently deceased they get upset to discover that there’s someone waiting to take them to the other side, but this girl was reacting like it was some amazing thing and…

“You’ve heard of me?” I asked.

“Well duh,” she said. “I mean everyone’s heard about you, but I must’ve watched that video like a thousand times. The way you leapt over that crowd and you had your scythe going and everything? Fucking awesome!”

Then she went quiet as she seemed to realize what was going on here, and why I was waiting for her.

“I suppose that means you’re here to pull me to the other side, doesn’t it?”

“Something like that,” I said. “Unfortunately you were bit by a vampire, and when they drain you of your blood and don’t turn you into a bloodsucker yourself it means…”

I trailed off. She really wasn’t taking this as seriously as I’d hoped she would. I mean usually when someone had died they went through all the phases of grief, and usually in my experience there was a heavy emphasis on the whole bargaining part of things.

This girl was acting different though. She was weaving back and forth and seemed to be having trouble with this. Which I could understand given the whole sheer overwhelming emotional weight of finding out she was dead and about to move on, but it still would’ve been nice if she could pay attention for like thirty seconds and tell me something about the bloodsuckers that killed her.

“Are you even paying attention to this?” I asked. “I mean I know you’re dead and all, and that’s very sad, but maybe you could actually try to…”

“I don’t feel so good,” she said.

“What do you mean you don’t feel so good?” I asked, now well and truly exasperated. I threw my hands up in frustration. “You’re dead! You’re pining for the fjords! How could you possibly feel anything?”

She looked at me and she was still weaving back and forth. Almost like she was drunk. Almost, but again there was something off. Darkness moved in around her, and I had to look around to make sure there wasn’t something weird going on here. Had I used my death magic and I hadn’t even realized it because I was that frustrated?

Only no. That wasn’t it. There was a darkness all around her, but I wasn’t the one doing it. Which was damned peculiar.

Then I saw it.

It was difficult to describe the thing. Like a twisted amalgamation of Gollum and a werewolf, at least when it came to the claws. I shook my head and blinked a couple of times to make sure I was actually seeing what I thought I saw, and sure enough the thing was still there crawling across the floor towards the girl.

That darkness seemed to be coming from it. Which didn’t strike me as the greatest thing in the world. I was pretty fucking sure there weren’t supposed to be creatures like that slinking through the cafeteria after school was over, and the fact that there was one hanging around where a girl had just been killed by a bunch of fucking vampires didn’t strike me as a coincidence.

“What the hell is that thing?” Arnold asked, floating in such a way that I was between him and whatever the hell that thing was.

“I have no clue,” I said. “Doesn’t look like anything pleasant, but…”

I was cut off mid sentence by the thing letting out an unearthly wail, more of a screech than anything, and launching itself through the air with a speed that astonished me and had me stumbling back to get away from the damn thing before it hit me.

Only the thing didn’t attack me. No, it latched onto this sophomore girl who let out a screech of her own as she fell forward with this monster on top of her.

I stared. It was seriously like something out of a monster movie, only as far as I knew there wasn’t anything out there that preyed on the spirits of the dead like that. Like seriously. The closest thing ghosts had to stories about things that went bump in the night were ghosts who’d died after 1984 and made jokes about Bill Murray or Dan Aykroyd coming for them.

“Do something!” Jake said.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“Something to stop that thing that’s attacking ghosts!” Luke said. “Come on! You’re the one who’s supposed to protect us!”

“I’m supposed to take you to the other side when you’ve died, and I’m doing a piss poor job of that with you three. I have no idea what the hell this thing is!”

The creature bit into the girl’s neck. She shrieked, again the sort of sound that didn’t seem like it should be coming from a girl who was already dead, and then she went limp and stopped struggling.

I took a couple of steps back. I wasn’t proud of taking a couple of steps back, but that was some seriously freaky shit that I was not prepared to handle.

“What the ever loving fuck is going on?” Arnold said, fear touching his voice.

“We need to get the fuck out of here, is what’s going on!” Jake said.

I looked over my shoulder just in time to see the three of them beating a retreat from the cafeteria as fast as they could float away. Not that I could blame them for wanting to get the hell out of there.

After all, they’d been dead for awhile now. In that time they’d no doubt grown accustomed to the idea that there wasn’t much out there that could realistically threaten them. It was hard to threaten something that was already dead, after all.

This thing was different though. And as I watched it rose. Seemed to drag the girl’s spirit back towards her body. It was sort of like what it’d looked like when spirits were going back into their bodies after they’d been freed from Graham’s necromancer staff, but it was all off.

The spirits getting away from Graham had been eager to go back to their bodies. This was more like the girl had been knocked unconscious and now she was being dragged back to her body whether or not she wanted it.

Then it was done. The creature and the girl’s spirit were back in her body, which rose and seemed to jerk and shake a couple of times. Like there was something in there that was getting used to controlling a human body.

Then that body turned on me, its eyes glowing a dark and dull red. The girl smiled, and there was a change about her. She was sporting a new set of fangs that descended as she stared at me, and then she leapt at me.

Motherfucker. I guess she had been turned into a vampire after all!

9

Living Dead Girl

The girl reached at me with her claws. She actually had fucking claws that came out as she swiped at me. Now there was something you didn’t see every day.

“Listen,” I said. “Maybe we can talk about this? I know you just recently occupied this girl, but if you let her go now then I promise I’ll go easy on you.”

The girl hissed. Okay then. I guess the spirit that’d taken up residence in her body wasn’t interested in getting kicked out.

“Seriously!” I shouted as I floated back to avoid another set of claws coming at me. “If you keep this up then I will be forced to thrash you!”

She leapt through the air and I brought up my scythe. I didn’t slash at her, I wasn’t sure whether or not that would hurt the girl who was now back in her body or not, and I didn’t want to damage her body too much on the off chance there might be a way to save her now that she’d been revived by this evil vampire spirit thingy.

I did send her flying across the room though. She landed against the conveyer belt they used to bring used food trays back into the cafeteria to be washed off. The thing buckled under the force of her hit, and then the whole thing collapsed under her.

I winced. The lunch ladies, and the couple of guys who worked in the cafeteria, were not going to be happy about that. I just hoped they didn’t go back and review the footage from the cameras, because if all that nonsense about vampires not showing up on film was anything to go on then it was going to look like I was throwing around a whole lot of nothing in here and trashing the place.

The last thing I needed was to be blamed for destruction of property on top of everything else, damn it.

“What are you?” the girl asked.

Her voice didn’t sound quite the same as when she’d been dealing with the reality of her death moments ago as a spirit. No, there was something raspy about her voice. Again, like there was a spirit in there somewhere that was getting used to operating the biological machinery of a human body again after a long time not getting a chance at that.

“I’m a reaper,” I said. “And I’m about to kick your ass.”

The vampire’s eyes went wide, and then she did something that really surprised me. She turned tail and tried to run. Okay then. I guess whatever spirit was in her had heard about what a reaper could do to them. Well I figured that meant it was time for me to do my thing and make this fucker regret that it’d ever thought of invading this girl’s body.

I lashed out with my death magic. Tendrils of darkness wrapped around her and I yanked her back. Again this was the kind of thing that was going to look really freaky if the whole “vampires don’t show up on cameras” thing actually was true and not just something invented by Bram Stoker to sell copies.

The girl flew through tables and chairs that’d been left in place by students earlier in the day. Or maybe it was the janitors cleaning things up.

If they hadn’t already come through here then they were in for one hell of a surprise. I almost felt sorry for them, but I was more interested in getting this vampire girl under control before she went out there and did something stupid.

Where “something stupid” was either trying to attack someone who was still in the school after hours, or maybe running out into the sunlight and getting herself killed.

“Not so fast,” I growled.

“Let me go!” the girl hissed, her eyes going wide as she started pleading. “I promise I won’t hurt anyone! It’s been so long!”

“Yeah, well maybe you should’ve thought of that before you possessed a girl in front of a reaper,” I said.

That really made no sense when I thought about it. I mean it’s not like this thing probably had a choice where it came into the world, but whatever.

“You won’t stop us!” the thing hissed. “We will take over this school first, and after that the world!”

I rolled my eyes.

“What?” the thing hissed.

“I was just thinking. Like, what the fuck is it with you evil creatures of the night and taking over the world?”

“Um, we have to take over the world so we can take our rightful place as the rulers of this planet and have the cattle respect us as they once did?”

I rolled my eyes again. “Calling the humans cattle. Now there’s an edgy vampire idea. Is the teenager’s head you’re occupying rubbing off on you, or are you really that cliched with your thinking?”

“Fuck you, reaper!” the girl spat in a voice that sounded like Linda Blair and Kevin Conroy had an unholy baby and it grew up to go into a voiceover career.

“Tempting, but not into possessed girls,” I said.

I threw the thing across the room for good measure. I really hoped that wouldn’t hurt the poor girl if it turned out she was still in there and there was a way to resuscitate her after the whole vampire possession thing had been taken care of, but this fucker annoyed me.

“Y’know if I were a vampire I’d probably do my best to stay in the shadows. Taking over the world doesn’t seem like the best idea in a modern world where humans have all sorts of fun technological ways to reduce you to dust. Like I seriously doubt it’s going to matter if you get staked to the heart when you’re getting atomized by a bunker buster slamming down on whatever building you’re trying to take over,” I growled.

“Fuck you!” the thing shrieked. “We will take our place as rightful rulers of this world, and…”

I slapped the girl across the face a few times. This was a very Evil Dead kind of moment we were having here, and the talkative demons had always been annoying. Thankfully here I had the upper hand. Well, more of an upper hand than Ashley Williams ever had in those films. Wink and a nudge.

Sort of. I still had to figure out more about this whole plan to try and take over the world, because the only person I trusted with that kind of responsibility was a genetically modified lab mouse, and I didn’t see any of them in this room.

“So do you want to tell me a little more about your plan to take over the world?” I asked. “Or am I going to have to rough you up a little bit before you start telling me the good stuff?”

Surprisingly the girl actually looked at me like she was a normal person for a moment. Her face went from being twisted with the whole vampire rage thing to staring at me like she was a genuine human. Or at the very least like there was a genuine human in there who was doing her best to break free.

“Not falling for it,” I said.

The vampire face was back. It wasn’t anything as pronounced as some of the shit that modern effects had come up with to make vampires look horrifying in an era where Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee in a pair of fake fangs wouldn’t do enough to terrify audiences. It was more like she had one hell of a nasty case of bitch face, complete with the fangs.

Still, it would’ve been unsettling if I was mortal.

“What the fuck is going on in here?”

Talk about unsettling. That voice chilled me to the bone. It was the last voice I wanted to hear. I turned in surprise to see none other than Stacy standing at the entrance to the cafeteria. She was flanked by Arnold, Jake, and Luke who were giving me looks that clearly said they were sorry, but it’s not like there was much they could do to stop her considering she was in the living world and they were in the spirit realm.

“I thought you promised you were going to bring me with you if you want vampire hunting!” she said, stalking across the cafeteria and glaring daggers at me.

Stacy glaring daggers was a problem, because it suddenly had me faltering. It sort of blew my concentration to smithereens, and that was enough to interrupt the magic I’d been using to hold the vampire in place.

I wasn’t quite mortal. I wasn’t in much danger from a vampire on the warpath. It was a different story entirely for Stacy though. So I was less than amused when that vampire let out a horrifying shriek and threw itself across the room at Stacy with a speed that astonished me.

A moment later they were on the ground rolling around struggling, and I was racing to catch up and trying to figure out which hot blonde I was supposed to be hitting to save my girlfriend!

10

Stacy the Vampire Slayer

I looked between the two girls, but in the darkness in the cafeteria it was difficult to tell which was which as they rolled around the floor. They were both pretty blonde girls, but I couldn’t exactly see the fangs when they were fighting.

“Lights, damn it!” I shouted, not sure who I was even talking to.

“How are we supposed to turn the lights on?” Arnold asked. “We’re fucking ghosts!”

I growled. Of course they wouldn’t be able to turn the lights on. They were fucking ghosts. The man did have a point.

“Okay,” I growled. “This is not cool.”

I floated over to the edge of the room and flipped a couple of switches. The light came on and I was treated to a firsthand view of my girlfriend getting attacked by a fucking vampire. Exactly the nightmare scenario I’d been trying to avoid when this whole thing got started.

Only when I looked I realized that wasn’t exactly what was happening. One pretty blonde was on top of the other, but it wasn’t the vampire on top of Stacy clawing at her like I’d expected.

No, Stacy was on top of the girl and she was holding the vampire down with one muscled arm while repeatedly bashing the vamp in the face with her fist with the other arm.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

“Holy shit is right,” Jake said, floating up next to me. “I mean I’ve got like the most confused boner in the world right now!”

“Seriously?” I asked, glaring at him.

“Well I mean I guess I don’t know if I would call it a boner considering I don’t have any blood in my body to…”

“Would you please shut up before I pull you to the other side and let you see what kind of eternal reward is waiting for you?” I growled.

“Shutting up now,” he said.

I floated over to where Stacy was beating the ever loving crap out of the vampire girl. I’d always known my girlfriend was freaky strong, but I guess I’d never figured that freaky strength would extend to her being able to beat the ever loving shit out of a vampire.

Sure the vampire had it coming, but they were supposed to be stronger than humans. Not like Superman strong like you saw in the movies, but still pretty strong.

The vampire, meanwhile, was hissing and spitting and trying its best to bite her, but Stacy seemed to have a natural ability to hit the thing wherever those fangs weren’t. Like the vamp was seriously sporting a look that seemed to say “Is this really fucking happening to me after I spent so many years waiting for my chance to raise hell in the mortal world?”

It had to be a hell of an indignity. Resurrected into the mortal world only to have its ass handed to it by a pretty cheerleader. It would’ve seemed ridiculous and cliched if I wasn’t seeing it happen right before my very eyes.

“Um, Stacy?” I said. “I think she’s had enough.”

Stacy looked up at me, her hand still balled in a fist that she looked more than ready to use. Her chest was heaving, and I’m not going to lie. In that moment I sort of understood what Jake was talking about when he said he had the world’s most confused boner.

I mean sure I couldn’t get boners, but looking at her straddling a vampire with her fist out breathing heavily like she was ready to kick any vampire ass that dared come her way, well it was pretty fucking hot.

“I’ve got this, Stacy,” I said, wrapping the vampire in tendrils of death magic once more now that I could tell which pretty blonde was which. I pulled the girl up and walked around her, inspecting her and trying to ignore the way Stacy had suddenly turned that seething anger from the vampire she’d been beating the shit out of to yours truly instead.

That wasn’t a pleasant look, and I found myself worrying she might take a swing at me next.

“So what the hell am I supposed to do with you?” I asked.

“You can let me go so I can finish off this bitch,” the vampire hissed.

I slapped her across the face with a tendril of my death magic. The slap echoed through the cafeteria, it was a little more intense than I’d intended, but it seemed like the vampire could take a beating.

“You just got the shit kicked out of you by that bitch,” I said. “And if you don’t watch your mouth I’m going to let her have another go at you.”

Besides, it’d been really hot watching her kick the shit out of the vampire. I was surprised to look deep inside myself and realize there was a part of me that maybe wanted to see a repeat performance.

I was going to have to be careful not to let what I very much wanted affect how I was doing my job.

“Y’know we could probably splinter one of the chairs in the library or something,” Stacy said, still looking between me and the vampire as though she was having trouble deciding which one of us she wanted to glare at more.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“They’re all made of wood,” she said “If we’re going to find a stake to ram through this thing’s heart then we’re going to need something like that. I could also go down to the wood shop. Maybe we could make something with one of the belt sanders or something?”

I stared at my girlfriend. I was having trouble believing this was the same Stacy I’d been making out with so often lately, but then again it wasn’t much of a surprise at all. She was obsessed with the paranormal, and apparently now that we were dealing with bloodsucking vampires that obsession extended to killing any supernatural creatures she happened to come across.

“We’re not going to do anything like that,” I said.

“Why not?” she asked. “She’s a vampire. She said it herself. If we let her go she’s going to attack someone else.”

I hit my girlfriend with an irritated glance. This was another reason why I hadn’t wanted her along for this particular ride. This whole bloodlust thing she had going for her wasn’t a good look.

“This girl was a person with a soul,” I said. “I’m sorry, but it’s kind of hard to so cavalierly talk about staking someone when I was just having a conversation with her ghost who refused to believe she was dead.”

Stacy’s glare was all on me now. Clearly she thought I was being soft on the bloodsucking monster. Hell, she might be right on that point, but it didn’t change the fact that there had to be a better way to take care of this, damn it.

“Look,” I said. “I know you’re pissed off that I didn’t call you when I was coming out here to hunt vampires, and I’m sorry. But this is dangerous. The fact that the vampire was able to come after you like she did should show you how dangerous it is.”

Stacy stood there with her arms crossed staring at me. It was the kind of look that said she didn’t like what I was saying.

“Yeah, well are you forgetting the part where the vampire attacked me and I proceeded to beat the shit out of her?” Stacy finally asked, her voice dripping with acid. “Because I’m not forgetting that part. It was pretty awesome.”

“It was pretty awesome,” I said, not really thinking about what I was saying before it came out. “Shit. I didn’t mean to say that.”

Stacy smiled a triumphant smile. “So we’re agreed you’re going to let me come along when you do more vampire hunting?”

“I’m not agreeing to anything,” I said. “What I’m going to do is take care of this.”

I reached out and touched the vampire girl on the shoulder. And I immediately felt something weird. Well, more weird than touching a girl who’d so recently become a bloodthirsty bloodsucker. It was almost an echo of what’d happened when I touched the staff Graham the necromancer had been using to suck people’s souls out of their body.

I stumbled back at what I felt roiling inside the girl. Her soul was in there, but she was sitting in her own body looking out and screaming in gibbering terror wondering what the hell had been done to her. Meanwhile there was also a malevolent spirit in there, the essence of vampire, that was feasting on her soul even as it delighted in torturing her by giving her a view of the outside world she couldn’t control as the vampire spirit navigated the world using the girl’s body.

I stumbled back. The feeling was too much for me. The terror that poor girl felt broke my heart, and I had to do something to save her.

“What’s wrong?” Stacy asked, concern breaking through her anger.

“She’s still in there,” I said. “That vampire is torturing her, but she’s still in there and someone needs to help her!”

I grimaced. I knew what I had to do to take care of this. I didn’t like it, but I knew what I had to do.

“This is going to suck,” I said. “And I’m going to need you to back off. Listen to me for once.”

Stacy held my gaze for a long moment, but finally she nodded and took a step back. Good. She could listen from time to time, for all that she seemed to love creating headaches for me by doing the exact opposite of what I needed her to do when I was hunting deadly creatures of the night.

I reached out with my magic in the same way I would when I was taking on a necromancer waving around his staff of death, or whatever the fuck that thing had been. Graham had spent most of his post-pubescent life hoping I’d grab his staff, and he’d learned, too late, that he should’ve been more specific about what he was wishing for.

I touched the girl again. Admittedly it was a lot more pleasant touching her than it was grabbing Graham’s necromancer staff, but I tried not to look like I was too interested in the pretty vampire girl standing in front of me.

After all, Stacy was right there, and she might not take kindly to me acting too interested in saving the pretty sophomore girl.

As soon as I touched her she lashed out, but I held her in place with my magic as I grabbed the vampire spirit within her in the same way I would’ve grabbed the soul of someone stuck in a necromancer’s staff, and I yanked. It took a couple of tries, but finally the thing went flying out of her and slammed into a wall on the other side of the room.

The girl blinked a couple of times and looked genuinely surprised before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell back. Thankfully Stacy was there to catch her, because I had bigger undead to fry.

I turned to face the vampire spirit, that strange Gollum-like thing with the claws, and held out my scythe. It was go time, bitches, and I was going to take this thing out before it could hurt anyone else.

11

The Other Side

“No!” the thing shrieked. “I’m not going back! I’m not…”

I lashed out and caught the thing. The more I’d used my death magic the more I’d come to the realization that it was sort of like Ghostbusters, only instead of holding something in place so I could put it in a ghost trap and deliver it to a custom-built ecto containment unit, I was trapping creatures on the other side of the veil so I could take them to the other side and throw them through the portal to whatever eternal reward was waiting for them.

That was the thing about being a reaper. I never saw what that eternal reward was, and I wasn’t sure that I ever would. The gate just sat there, a big hunk of rock surrounded by a bunch of rocks that looked like something out of the end of Star Trek V, but whatever.

I advanced on the thing and held out my scythe. The thing hissed and spit at me, but the horror show wasn’t doing the thing a damn bit of good. Vampires might be terrifying creatures of the night as far as humans were concerned, but this thing couldn’t hurt me.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me,” I said, letting my scythe come to rest just under the thing’s neck.

It stared at me and licked its lips with a long tongue that looked like it would be more at home on Jabba the Hutt as he ogled Carrie Fisher than on some weird vampire creature.

“It’s not fair,” the thing whimpered.

“Life isn’t fair,” I said. “Though I guess in your case it’s more like undeath isn’t fair.”

I wrapped more tendrils around him and shifted them ever so slightly. It was a trick I’d done without even realizing what I was doing the first couple of times I’d used this magic, though I’d long since gotten used to it. In a blink we were on the other side.

Other reapers were there around me immediately. Which was different. Usually if I came to the other side with a soul they let me toss it into the steady stream of souls passing through rocks jutting into the air on either side of the stream.

The stream of death. All the people on the planet who were moving towards their eternal reward. It was a thick stream, and as I looked at all the souls of all the people who’d died in the last few seconds it was hard to imagine that there were still more people being born than there were people dying out there in the world.

“Stand back,” one of the reapers said, holding its scythe out.

There was a flash of light and the vampire hissed, then it doubled over and started whimpering as it balled itself up in the fetal position, looking for all the world like someone had just tried putting a filthy elf rope on it.

A hand touched my shoulder. I looked up to see the big guy, Death himself, looking down at the thing from the darkness of his hood.

“Well then Gwen,” he said, his voice deep and booming. Like it seriously rattled the stone columns clawing into the air around us. Which was an act he was putting on for the creature, but the fact that he was even putting on an act spoke volumes. “It would seem that you are full of surprises.”

“Thanks, I think?” I said. “I mean it was a pain in the ass getting that thing out of the girl, but I managed it and I think she’s going to live.”

Death turned his attention from the vampire spirit to me, and I got the impression I’d just said something that had the potential for getting me in serious trouble. Then it hit me that I’d just talked about doing something that saved a life rather than ferrying that life to the other side, and I wasn’t sure how he would take me doing something like that.

Might be bad for business keeping people among the living, and all that.

“You fought this spirit out of a vampire that had already taken hold?” he asked, pulling his hood back and revealing a man with white hair who, despite that white hair, had the kind of lined face that was difficult to put an age to. Like if it weren’t for that white hair he could’ve been in his mid twenties, or he could’ve been in his sixties.

It seemed appropriate that it would be difficult to put an age on the embodiment of all death and decay in the world.

“Is that bad?” I asked. “I mean the thing had just jumped into her, and when I put my hand on her I could feel it in there torturing her soul and I thought about the necromancer and his staff that was full of people’s souls and how easy it was to get them out when…”

I trailed off. There was something about the way Death was staring at me that said I’d gone and done something really weird.

“You pulled a vampire spirit out of someone’s body after it had already latched onto their soul,” he said, smiling and shaking his head as he looked down at the thing.

The pitiful creature looked up and seemed to focus on Death for the first time. The thing also seemed to know exactly who it was looking at, because it let out the kind of unearthly wail that only comes from something that knows Death is nearby and stalking them at every turn.

“Well yeah?” I said. “I mean what else was I supposed to do? Run a stake through her heart or something?”

The sad look he gave me told me I wouldn’t be the first reaper who’d come to that conclusion. It was a little embarrassing to realize that maybe the solution Stacy had come up with was the solution I was supposed to be using.

Even if it seemed unfair.

“Why would I kill the poor girl for good if I could yank the vampire out?”

“That’s the thing,” he said. “These spirits can be dangerous, and they can cause serious trouble if you’re not careful about how you handle them.”

“Like they’re a danger to us?” I asked, a chill running through me as I realized maybe this thing had been more of a danger to me than I’d originally thought. I guess I’d just assumed from the way the other vampires had shied away from me that they were more afraid of me than I was of them. It was disquieting to realize I might’ve put myself in danger because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing here.

“Not quite that,” he said. “But you of all people should appreciate that there are dangers to the people around you in this job.”

I thought of my mom. Thought of how a necromancer had taken her life once upon a time. Then I thought of Stacy on top of the vampire hitting her repeatedly with punches and smiled.

“Y’know that’s constantly on my mind,” I said. “Unfortunately the mortals I have hanging around me don’t seem to care about the fact that there are scary creatures of the night that might want to turn them into a snack.”

That was good for a small snort from Death. Which was more of an amused reaction than I’d ever seen anyone get from him before. Sure I hadn’t spent much time around the guy, so it’s not like I knew whether or not he was the kind to yuck it up on the regular, but still. It was the first time I’d seen him anything other than totally serious, and it was a little weird.

“Either way,” he said. “What you did was impressive. There aren’t many people who would attempt what you did.”

“Does it make it any less awesome if I tell you the only reason I did it was because I had no idea what the hell I was doing?”

His smile only grew broader. “If anything that only makes it more impressive. I know your father has been busy, but maybe it’s time we did something about that.”

“Right,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of suddenly spending more time with dear old dad learning about this stuff. For all that I complained about not getting much in the way of training, I figured I’d done pretty well for myself.

“Now come on Gwen,” Death said. “You have something you need to take care of.”

“Right,” I said.

I knew the drill. I’d already done this once before with Graham when he refused to go on to his eternal reward. Not that I was all that surprised that a necromancer, someone who chose a magic branch that by necessity involved a bunch of trying to cheat death, wouldn’t be all that happy about finding themselves going towards that big portal that meant he was finally approaching his eternal reward.

Whatever the hell it was.

I grabbed the vampire spirit and floated up over the river of souls. The thing tried to get away from me, but the real bitch about being here on our side was there wasn’t much the thing could do when I was on my turf.

“You’re going to go to the other side,” I said. “And go back to wherever it was you were waiting in the first place.”

“That’s not where I’m going!” the thing wailed.

I looked down at it and frowned. The creature seemed genuinely terrified. Then I shrugged. After all, it’s not like that was my problem that the thing was going on to its eternal reward. I didn’t really give a fuck if it was afraid of what was waiting for it on the other side because the number one rule of this profession was you didn’t ask questions about what was on the other side.

The thing’s pulling and tugging only grew more frantic as we got closer to the gate, and I tightened my grip. There was no way this thing was getting away from me. Not on my home turf, thank you very much!

The thing was downright terrified as we reached the big gate. It scrambled and tried to claw at me, but it wasn’t doing jack shit with those claws. I smiled as I held the thing up and stared at it one last time.

“I don’t know if you’re going back to where you were waiting before or what,” I said. “But if you do meet some of your buddies on the other side who are still waiting for their big shot, you make sure to tell them I’m going to be waiting for them. Got it?”

The thing went quiet. It turned and looked at the gate. The thing was turning an odd red color the closer I got to the thing, and I almost thought I could hear the howls of the damned on the other side.

“Seeya later,” I said, and tossed the thing with all my strength.

It slammed into the gate and a mini lightning storm surrounded it, though that didn’t seem to affect any of the people streaming through to their eternal reward down below.

I clapped my hands together and turned. Death nodded. The other reapers had gone back to their stations atop the giant pillars of rock that clawed at the sky where they could keep an eye on things and make sure none of the souls destined for the other side tried to make an escape.

“Welp, time to head back and deal with an angry girlfriend,” I muttered.

Darkness surrounded me, and I stepped through to the other side, though I was almost as reluctant to head back to the real world as that vampire spirit had been to go wherever the hell it was going.

12

Angry Girlfriend

I stepped out of the darkness and into the bright fluorescent light of the cafeteria. Stacy was right there waiting for me with her arms crossed looking none too happy.

Damn.

“Would it kill you to actually keep your word and bring me along with you when you’re going out hunting vampires?” Stacy said.

“Sorry,” I said, then turned my attention to the girl sitting next to Stacy at one of the cafeteria tables. “Um, hi.”

“Don’t worry,” Stacy said. “I’ve already explained to Courtney here exactly what happened.”

“Courtney,” I said, rolling the name around in my mouth a couple of times. I was bad with remembering names, and it helped to repeat a new name a few times.

“Thanks for your help,” she said.

I squinted. It almost looked like she was holding something up against her face. Then I smiled when I realized exactly what it was. An ice pack they must’ve grabbed from the massive walk-in fridge in the cafeteria.

“Stacy really beat the shit out of you, didn’t she?” I asked.

Courtney blushed and Stacy looked away, like she was ashamed of what she’d done or something.

“I mean it’s not like I blame her,” Courtney said, looking at Stacy with a smile. “I could see everything that was going on, but it was like I was watching and there was nothing I could do about it. Talk about a trippy experience!”

“You’ve got that right,” I said. “What you just suffered from was a bit of vampiric possession.”

I walked over and spun one of the hard plastic chairs that seem to pop up at high schools around the country over so I could sit with the back facing my front. I leaned over it onto the table, but stopped mid motion when I realized Stacy was giving me one hell of a case of stinkeye.

“Don’t think you’re out of the woods yet missy,” Stacy said, wagging a finger at me. “But we do have more important things to go over right now.”

“More important things?” I asked.

“Well yeah,” Stacy said. “You might’ve been trying to get rid of me earlier, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to investigate now that I have the chance!”

I groaned. Inwardly. Stacy already looked pissed off enough that I didn’t want to risk pissing her off any more. Still, the fact that she was insisting on going through with this whole Scooby gang thing was going to be a source of endless frustration for me. I could already tell.

“So can you tell me exactly what happened before you wound up like this?” Stacy asked, pointing to the two little bite marks on the girl’s neck.

I stared at Courtney while she gathered her thoughts and clearly remembered some very unpleasant things. I squinted at those two bite marks in her neck and wondered what the hell had happened that she was able to still, y’know, live and breath despite the fact that she’d been recently exsanguinated.

It made no fucking sense. She shouldn’t have enough blood to still be alive after getting that vampire spirit ripped out of her, and yet here she was.

“Um, do you mind if I try something before you go all Columbo on her?” I asked.

“All what?” Stacy asked.

“It’s on Netflix,” I said. “We’ll have to watch it sometime. And actually watch it.”

“As though we’re going to be doing anything but actually watching Netflix for a good long while after what you pulled today,” Stacy sniffed, giving me a glare that let me know just how deep I was in the doghouse.

Damn.

“Listen, Stacy,” I started.

“Don’t you listen, Stacy me,” she said, advancing on me.

I was suddenly reminded of how she’d been on top of a vampire beating the shit out of the undead scary creature just a few minutes ago. Not the kind of thing that made me feel all safe and secure now that she was coming at me.

I didn’t think she’d try to beat me up the same as she would a vampire who was coming at her, but at the same time I took a step back just to be sure.

“You told me you were going to take me with you whenever you went looking for vampires,” she said.

“So you mean that thing that attacked me really was a vampire?” Courtney asked. “Like this isn’t a joke? That guy with the fangs really was the real deal?”

I looked over Stacy’s shoulder. There was a part of me that very much wanted to talk to this girl and figure out what the hell had happened to her. I needed to know how these vampires were approaching people. If I could figure out how they were approaching people then there was a good chance I could figure out how to do…

Something. I wasn’t sure what that something was. I just knew that I had to know more about the bloodsuckers. Maybe she knew something that would point me to their lair or something.

“You said you were going to take me with you, and the first thing you do the first chance you get to go looking for vampires is leave me behind at practice,” she said, poking me in the chest and causing me to take a step back.

I looked down to the spot where she’d just poked me, then looked up at her and arched an eyebrow.

“Don’t hit me like that,” I said.

“Or what?” she said. “It was a little poke to your chest. And don’t try to change the subject here. You’re the one who just broke a promise, and if you think I’m going to let you get off easy after you did that then you have another thing coming!”

“Fuck, that guy really was a vampire!”

Courtney didn’t look like she was having a good time now that she was coming to the realization that her vampire encounter had very much been a real thing with a real bloodsucking creature of the night.

“And if this is what you’re going to keep doing, well… I don’t know!”

Stacy started spluttering after that. Like she was trying her best to come up with some threat that might get my attention, but she was having a little bit of trouble coming up with something that actually made sense. Finally she crossed her arms and settled with glaring at me.

Which wasn’t fun, but at least she wasn’t yelling at me anymore. To be honest I was more than a little worried. We’d never had a real fight before, but this felt like it had all the makings of something that could potentially be a relationship ending event.

Not what I wanted to deal with on top of a bunch of vampires invading the school, damn it.

I looked over her shoulder again. I really needed to…

“Motherfucker,” I hissed.

Stacy’s eyes went wide as she stared at me.

“What the hell did you just say to me?” she asked.

“Not you,” I said. “The girl! She’s gone! You were so busy griping at me that you let the girl get away!”

Stacy sniffed. “Well maybe you should’ve thought of that before you decided to betray my trust. Maybe if you’d let me come along with you in the first place none of this ever would’ve happened.”

I sighed and shook my head.

“Look,” I said. “What I do? It’s dangerous. There’s a good chance that if you’d been wandering around pretending you were some unholy combination of the Scooby gang and the Ghostbusters then you’d be dead right now, because you would’ve been the one who ran into the vampires and you would’ve been the one who was possessed by that evil spirit I just had to drag to the other side!”

Now it was her turn to take a step back. I hadn’t poked her in the chest, but I guess what I’d said was getting through to her.

“Now you’re coming at me like I’m some sort of monster for trying to keep you safe from literal monsters, and I’m not having it. There’s scary shit out there that can end your life. Scary shit out there has ended your life, and it’s only through luck that you managed to get that life back!”

“Luck and you,” Stacy said, reaching out as though she wanted to take my hand.

I looked down at that hand she was offering. I had the feeling that was her way of making a peace offering, but I was so pissed off about her getting mad at me in the first place, about her acting like I was some idiot for not wanting her out here chasing monsters, that I didn’t take it. No, I stared at that hand, and then turned and walked towards the exit.

“Harsh,” Jake said.

I reached out with a tendril of death magic and slapped him across the ass. Usually that would’ve been good for a smartass comment, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood for a smartass anything right now. No, he kept right on staring at me, but he wisely kept his thoughts to himself.

“You need to get out of here,” I said, pausing at the exit. “Like now. There are still vampires running around the place. I’m going home, and there won’t be anyone around to pull your cute ass out of trouble if you run into them.”

Stacy didn’t say anything, and I didn’t try to get her to come with me. She was a big girl, and in the mood I was in I figured she could make her own mistakes, damn it. It would serve her right if she got chowed down on by a vampire trying to turn her over to their side.

13

Out of Town

I stepped through the front door and immediately knew something was wrong. The place felt strangely empty. I stepped into the kitchen and looked around, but mom wasn’t in her usual spot pretending to make dinner that she couldn’t ever actually prepare because of the whole ghost thing.

“Dad?” I called out. “You in here?”

No answer. I looked in the living room, and then went up the stairs. I checked his room to make sure he hadn’t taken a nap, but there was no sign of him there either.

Finally I went down to the other end of the house. To his study. It wasn’t a room I’d ever seen before, but from the noises I’d heard coming from the other side of that door I figured it was probably a good thing I’d never seen them before.

Like right now. There was definitely someting going on in there. I hated to do it, but I really needed to talk to him about everything that’d happened tonight.

I figured if anyone had a good perspective on what it was like to be dating a mortal who was putting themselves in danger by association then it would be him, though admittedly it hadn’t worked out all that well for him.

All the more reason for me to keep Stacy out of trouble, damn it. I wasn’t going to have her suffer the same fate as my mother, and I certainly wasn’t going to have it be my fault because those vampires figured they could get at me by going through my girlfriend.

I raised my hand and was about to knock when Dad pulled it open. He blinked a couple of times in surprise as he saw me standing out there, then smiled.

“Gwen!” he said. “What brings you here?”

“Um, I live here?” I said, looking around to make sure there wasn’t some other Gwen he was talking to for some reason.

“Well yeah,” he said. “But you usually never come down here.”

“Usually because you’re the one telling me not to bother you while you’re in your study, but I’ve got a problem,” I said.

“Well come in then,” he said. “Because I’m afraid I’ve got some news for you too, and it’s not necessarily the good kind.”

A chill ran through me at those words. Given his profession, bad news could mean some very bad stuff had gone down. I hated to think about what might’ve happened that he was actually forgetting himself and inviting me into his study, but at the same time there’s no way I was passing up this opportunity!

I stepped through the open door, wondering what I was going to find on the other side. Given all the strange noises I’d heard through that door over the years I wasn’t sure what to expect. Gargoyles? The souls of the damned being held in little crystal balls? Ghosts floating around in the tiny space? A room that was bigger on the inside?

The actual reality was a hell of a lot more boring than anything my mind had come up with over the years.

“This is your office?” I asked.

“Sure is,” dad said. “You like it?”

I looked around the small room. There was a closet on one end of the room that’d been given over to a couple of filing cabinets. He had a small desk in the corner on the opposite side of those filing cabinets, and his laptop was out with a spreadsheet up.

It struck me as odd that an avatar of death on the mortal plane would use spreadsheets to track his work, but here we were. I looked around at the walls that were the same plain white that we had in the rest of the house and tried to reconcile that with the more Addams Family inspired visions I'd grown up imagining.

“You were maybe expecting something else?” he asked.

“Well yeah,” I said. “I mean the noises I’ve heard coming from this room over the years…”

He laughed and shook his head. “I have had to bring some temporary visitors through here over the years, but I can assure you that I can do that just as well from a boring modern looking home office as I can from a place that takes all its design cues from the Munsters.”

“Okay then,” I said. “Guess I should’ve seen that one coming. What are you doing in here anyway?”

“Getting ready to head out for a little while,” he said, his face suddenly grim.

“What?” I said. “Like you’re going on a trip or something?”

He reached out and he was suddenly floating there in his robes with his scythe in his hand. “I'm afraid so. Duty calls.”

“Seriously?” I said. “You’re seriously leaving? Now?”

“There’s some nasty business going on in Starlight City,” he said. “Lots of people dying. Alien invasion. The usual kind of stuff that happens over there.”

I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes. “Seriously? Why is it every time that place has a huge emergency you have to fly off there and help out? It’s so weird. Heroes. Villains. Like it doesn’t even belong in our world!”

“You mean the same way necromancers and vampires and other supernatural creatures don’t belong in your world?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

I held his gaze for a moment. I knew he was trying to make a point here, but it didn’t make me any less irritated that he was leaving when I was in the middle of something. It was like when he’d been captured by Graham the necromancer right when I was dealing with all the trouble that comes from having a necromancer suddenly showing up in the neighborhood an causing trouble.

Sure that hadn’t been all his fault. Part of that had simply been that Graham had gotten the drop on him in a fight, but still. It didn’t make me any less annoyed that he was voluntarily leaving now.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s kind of an all hands on deck thing. City under attack. Lots of people dying. You could at least tell me about what’s bothering you though.”

I growled. If heroes and villains made no sense in my world, well the arrival of a bunch of space aliens really didn’t make sense. What was next? Some massive alien civilization that ruled the galaxies around here coming down to earth to cause trouble and the only person who could save us was a plucky earth girl who was abducted years ago?

Talk about the kind of hack premise that wouldn't even cut it in the new Star Wars movies.

Whatever. I could forget about that for now. I had some very real problems right in front of me.

“Vampires,” I said. “It’s vampires.”

“Vampires?” he said, his eyebrows shooting up. “I mean I know I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating honey. If you could take out a necromancer all on your own, well I think vampires aren’t going to be much trouble for you.”

“Yeah, but that’s not all,” I said with a sigh. “I’m also having trouble with Stacy, and I thought maybe you could help out.”

Dad frowned. Actually there was a look of mild to moderate panic that flitted across his face. Like he’d rather be doing anything but having this conversation.

“Listen honey,” he said. “I’m probably not the best one to ask about situations like this. It’s been forever since I was dating, and it was in a world well before texting and all that stuff you kids are doing these days, and on top of all of that I haven’t even thought of going on a date in years because of…”

He trailed off and choked up just a little. I was sure from the far off look in his eyes that he was thinking about that fateful night so long ago when something terrible had happened to mom. When a necromancer had visited our house and killed her.

I was starting to think the only thing that’d protected me that night was that I was destined to go into the family business. I hadn’t talked about it with my dad, stories of that night were clearly still pretty painful for him, but I had my suspicions.

“That’s the thing,” I said. “The reason I’m so worried about this is because Stacy keeps trying to get in the middle of me trying to catch these vampires. I keep thinking about what happened the last time around with Graham killing her a couple of times, how lucky I was that she made it out in one piece at the end, and how horrible it would be if something happened to her!”

That was enough to get a more sympathetic look from dad. A pained look, to be sure, as he was no doubt reliving those painful memories of mom dying all over again, but at least I had his attention now.

He slumped into his chair, and it groaned under the weight. It’s not like he was all that heavy. It’s just that the office chair was that cheap. Which was yet another example of something that didn’t seem like the kind of thing that should be in a reaper’s lair, but whatever.

“I was afraid something like this might happen,” he said. “You’d think she would’ve learned her lesson the last time around.”

“Yeah, you’d think,” I said. “But it turns out she can be pretty determined when she sees something she wants, and she really wants to hunt vampires. She had a hell of a run-in with one tonight.”

My dad hit me with a sharp look. "What kind of trouble did you have with a vampire?"

I laughed. Clearly he was imagining the kind of thing I’d been horrified would happen when Stacy first expressed an unhealthy interest in helping me fight the forces of the undead who were currently infesting our high school.

"You're not going to believe this," I said. "But she actually climbed on top of a vampire and started beating the shit out of her."

"You mean the vampire started beating the shit out of Stacy?” Dad asked. “Did the vampire bite her? It’s very important that you tell me if something like that happened.”

"You’d think," I said. "But I meant what I said. She rolled around the cafeteria for maybe half a minute before she was on top of the vampire beating the shit out of her. Like straight up hitting her over and over again with full on punches. I had to pull her off the vampire to keep that girl from getting hurt too much."

My dad frowned. "She shouldn't have been able to do that. Humans just don't…"

"Yeah, well you know Stacy and how determined she gets."

"I suppose," he said, though he sounded like he doubted that her being determined would be enough for her to take on a vampire and win.

"So you can see my problem. She's the kind of girl who’d jump on a vampire and start beating the shit out of them. She doesn't care about risk to life and limb!"

My dad sighed. "I wish I had answers for you honey. I wish I could tell you something that would make this all better, but…"

His eyes moved down. I knew he was staring at the kitchen. To the spot where my mom usually spent most of her time puttering around the kitchen acting like she was preparing meals even though she couldn’t touch the physical world.

Being killed and then staying in the world of the living had done a number on her. That was for sure. There were times when I thought it’d be a mercy for dad to send her to the other side, but I’d never brought that up with him.

"I never could bring myself to take her to the other side, you know," he said.

I blinked. Sure on the one hand I knew he was talking about my mom, but on the other hand it was so weird to hear him openly talking about her like that. Especially when we'd gone so long without him mentioning it in any way, shape, or form. It’d always been a taboo subject in our house.

"I know," I said. "I never really blamed you for that, you know. I'd have trouble doing the same thing. Hell, I did have trouble when Stacy got killed."

He smiled. Patted me on the shoulder.

"I suppose you did. Maybe that's something that runs in the family."

"Yeah, well you seem to have trouble bringing people you like to the other side," I said. "I mean there were years when I thought the only reason I kept surviving was because I was getting the family treatment or something."

My dad rolled his eyes. "No. Believe me. It almost would've been easier if I just let you go to the other side to teach you a lesson.”

"Hey!" I said. "You're talking about letting your daughter die for good here!"

"Except I always knew you could never die for good. I think that's how you survived that night with the necromancer, though it's a good thing he didn't know what he had that night. Things could’ve been very bad if he realized he had a reaper who couldn’t defend herself.”

I shivered as I thought about what Graham had done to my dad. How he’d locked him inside a massive obelisk of crystal designed for holding the spirits of the recently deceased, or people who'd had the souls sucked out of them without technically going through the whole dying part first.

That obelisk containing my dad had been almost as powerful as an obelisk Graham filled with the souls of everybody in a football stadium. Sure it was just a high school football stadium, but there were a bunch of people gathered for a homecoming game. Not one of the usual pitiful showings our football team had because they weren't all that great.

"You know. You never did tell me what I'm supposed to do about this whole vampire thing. I have a girlfriend who’s obsessed with going out and putting herself in situations where she's going to get killed by supernatural creatures, and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to save her.”

"And I'm not sure what I'm supposed to tell you," my dad said. "Unfortunately that's more of a relationship thing than a reaper thing.”

I sighed. "I was afraid you were going to say something like that. I don't suppose you have any relationship advice you’d want to give out? Maybe have a father and daughter moment?”

He looked down again. Straight at the kitchen.

I mean it’s not like she spent all her time in the kitchen. I’m not trying to paint a picture of domestic slavery or anything like that. It’s just that with my dad doing his thing she’d always been the one who took point on the whole child rearing thing.

"I'm really not the person to give that kind of advice," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Because I made the choice to let the woman I loved go into harm's way long ago because I was selfish, and you know how that ended."

I sighed. It was weird, but my dad had sort of made my decision for me.

Sure on the one hand I knew there were risks involved with letting Stacy have what she wanted. She’d already been caught up in some of those risks. She'd been killed by a necromancer several times already, and every time she'd gone right back into the fight without caring that she was risking her life and immortal soul.

Basically I figured she’d already proved there was nothing I was going to be able to do to stop her. It was that, more than anything, that finally decided me.

"You look like you've come to a decision," my dad said.

"Maybe I have," I said.

"Well it's good to see that you're able to make decisions like that," he said. "Especially since you're going to be running things while I'm out."

I turned to him. My eyes went wide. I looked around his small study that didn’t look at all like the arcane altar to the dead I'd always imagined when I was younger hearing the screams of the damned coming from the place.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"From the big guy himself. I just got word right before you knocked on my door. He's impressed enough with you that he thinks you can hold down the fort while I'm helping take on the higher volume in Starlight City."

I thought about what was involved in doing something like that.

“So you mean every time some little old lady dies in a nursing home?”

“You’re going to have to be there,” he said.

“And accidents and stuff like that?”

“You’re also going to have to take that on,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s no getting around it. If you’re the one taking point then you’re the one who has to be there when people are passing on.”

I sighed. “I really don’t need this on top of hunting a bunch of vampires.”

“I know,” he said. “But I’m sure you’re going to do a great job. The good news is this town is small enough that it’s not like you have that many people dying on a given day.”

“But there’s always going to be someone,” I said, thinking about what was going to be involved in that and realizing that it wasn’t going to be fun.

I’d seen people who’d just died before, and it was never pretty. They were always unwilling to admit that they’d gone to the great beyond. They were always fighting the inevitable. Even the old folks who knew they were close to the end usually didn’t want to go.

Though you did get the occasional nice old church lady who was sure enough about where she was going when all was said and done that she didn’t mind going along with you so she could see all her old friends and pets.

“Any idea how long you’re going to be in Starlight City?” I asked.

“No idea, I’m afraid,” he said. “At least until things calm down a bit there, though there’s always the chance it could get worse if things start spreading beyond the city limits.”

“Great,” I growled.

“I’m sure you’ll do great,” he said. “You’ve already taken on a necromancer and taken out one vampire spirit. That’s the kind of thing most reapers would never dream of doing.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, dad,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“No problem,” he said with a grin that told me he was deliberately missing the sarcasm in my statement. Which, to be honest, was a pretty good strategy for dealing with a frustrated teenager.

This was not going to be fun. Running the whole city on my own. Damn it. I wasn’t ready for this, but it looked like I didn’t have much choice.

14

On Our Own

I hesitated at Stacy’s door. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do this, but at the same time it was something that had to be done. I’d come to a decision, after all.

So I knocked on the door before I could really think about what I was doing. After all, there was no time like the present to take care of unpleasant business.

The most unpleasant thing about all of this was going to be the “I told you so” smug look on her face.

A moment later the door opened and Stacy’s dad was blinking at me.

“Gwen?” he asked. “Isn’t it a little late for you to be out here?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I really need to talk to Stacy. Is she around?”

His face screwed up in even more confusion. Immediately I was worried. That was the kind of look I got when Stacy had done something that frustrated me, and I figured seeing it on her father’s face could only mean she’d done something to frustrate him as well.

“Um, she said she was over at your house tonight,” he said. “So do you want to tell me where you think she is now? Because if she’s not with you then she’s in deep trouble.”

There must’ve been something about the way the blood drained from my face that told him something was seriously wrong here.

“Gwen?” he asked. “Is there something you need to tell me? Is Stacy in trouble?”

“Um, no,” I said, though I wasn’t doing a very good job of covering up my panic from the skeptical look he gave me. “I just remembered I was supposed to meet her at a swim meet tonight.”

That was a lie, of course. The swim team was something I’d given up this year. Mostly because I’d been so freaked out in the aftermath of everything that happened with Graham that I hadn’t been in a very sporting mood when the season started, and then it was too late.

Which had felt like a shame once I got out of my Graham-induced funk, but now I was wondering if it was a blessing in disguise considering I’d have trouble worrying about the swim team and hunting vampires.

“A swim meet,” he said, his voice flat and telling me exactly what he thought of my flimsy excuse. “So you’re saying if I pull up the athletic schedule I’m going to see that the swim team is having a meet tonight, and that’s where she went?”

Shit. I didn’t think that through. Lies like that must’ve been so much easier back in an era before everyone had a little computer in their pocket they could consult to double check whether or not the teenager in front of them was lying through their teeth.

Though most of society’s stubborn refusal to use that ability to tap into the sum total of mankind’s knowledge at a moment’s notice never ceased to amaze me.

“Uh, yeah?” I said, my voice faint because I knew I was screwed, and I really wanted to get to the school because I had a feeling Stacy was putting herself in danger out there.

His fingers darted across his phone screen, then his eyes darted back and forth as he no doubt stared at the athletic schedule. Finally he grunted and looked up at me.

“Well you two have fun out there tonight,” he said. “I gotta say, I didn’t believe you at first. The next time Stacy decides to go out make sure she lets you know what the plans are so you don’t freak me out like that again.”

He smiled. I barely managed to avoid letting out a sigh of relief. I’d just gotten a little reprieve here, after all, and the last thing I needed was to let him know I was lying through my teeth.

I waited until he’d closed the door before I flew. No need to take a car when I could do the whole flying thing. Which was usually only the kind of thing you saw in Starlight City, but I had no intention of going anywhere near that mess until they’d taken care of business, and even then it seemed like it’d be nothing but work for any poor reaper who decided to hang out their shingle there.

I flew over the town and looked down at the twinkling lights. It was late enough in the year that it got dark early, and the whole place seemed so peaceful as I floated over it.

Like you’d have no idea that there were vampires down there who were doing their best to take over the high school, and maybe the world. The motherfuckers.

I landed outside the school in a nice out of the way spot. Sure it involved landing in a stand of trees that upperclassmen had their lunch in during the day, and snuck away to create more future work for reapers decades down the line after school was out, but I figured that was better than landing in a place where…

Rustling caught my attention. I looked around and wondered if there was a vampire out here waiting for me. Could they sniff me out? I’d heard they could sniff out specific humans, but I was hardly human.

Even if they could sniff me out, would they really come out here and try to start a fight with me when they had to know that wasn’t going to go well for them?

Then again I figured it could be a cute little bunny rabbit or something like that hanging out after hours and freaking out the poor reaper who was already on edge. I frowned as I stared into the darkness. Then finally I heard whispering.

My robes appeared around me, my scythe at my side, as I moved in closer to that whispering and wondered what I was going to find. Maybe the vampires were out here scouting a place where they could take people and have their meal in peace. Maybe the place was used for the exact same purposes at night as it was used for during the day now that there were vampires in town, only with a lot more bloodsucking and a lot less sucking down greasy food that couldn’t be good for our long term health.

I moved closer and pushed some of the branches to the side. Stared into the darkness. Then I was promptly blinded by a bright light.

I held my scythe up and was on the verge of bringing it down on someone when a scream told me I wasn’t dealing with vampires. At least I was pretty sure vampires wouldn’t scream like that, for all that they’d seemed pretty afraid of me.

“What the fuck?” someone shouted.

I blinked a couple of times and finally moved my scythe up so it was blocking that light. Light, I might add, that was attached to an LED on the back of a cellphone. Not the kind of technology I’d expect a bunch of bloodsucking vampire sons of bitches to be wielding.

I was given to understand they mostly got sort of frozen in whatever time they came from. Sort of like humans did, but on a far longer time scale considering some of them could date back hundreds or even thousands of years.

“Turn that thing away from me!” I hissed.

“It’s her!” someone whispered. “The girl from the homecoming game, and she’s coming for us!”

The light finally turned away and I found myself staring at Steve Reynolds, captain of the football team, with his pants around his ankles. Next to him was a pretty junior girl with dark hair who was on the cheerleading squad. I thought her name was, oddly enough, Phyllis, which seemed totally out of place in this day and age.

Her eyes narrowed as she saw me. Oh yeah. I’d seen her around because she was one of the girls who Stacy didn’t really get along with. Something about her knowing she was going to be in Stacy’s captain position the next year, and so she tried her best to lord it over everyone this year even though she wasn’t the captain yet.

I didn’t have time for that kind of drama though. Not when Stacy was out there somewhere and there was a good chance she could be getting devoured by vampires even as I was wasting my time with these two yahoos.

“Would you two get the fuck out of here?” I asked.

“Why should I do anything you say?” Phyllis asked.

I frowned and thought about lowering my scythe at her. I didn’t care for the unspoken “bitch” in what she’d said, and I figured having a little bit of sharp metal in her face might encourage her to be a little nicer to people who could pull her to the other side.

But I didn’t do it, no matter how satisfying that might be. Not when I was pretty sure that would get me in trouble when I brought her to the other side. I’d never heard of a reaper going rogue, but if it did happen I didn’t imagine the consequences would be all that pretty.

For the reaper, that is.

“There are vampires out here,” I said, speaking slowly so she could understand me. “So unless you want the last thing you see when you’re getting ready to suck Steve’s dick here is a vampire moving in to suck the blood straight from your neck, I’d suggest you get the fuck out of here and stop giving me shit.”

Her eyes went wide. Steve’s did too, for that matter. Like he went from looking pissed off that I’d clearly prevented him from getting his dick sucked, seriously why the fuck were they out here on a chilly night like this doing something like that when I knew Steve had that ridiculous Mustang he was always revving when he got to school, to preventing him from getting his blood sucked.

Maybe. There was still the drive home, after all, but I got the feeling that the vampires were operating inside the high school if they were operating at all tonight.

“Um, thanks?” Steve said.

“What the fuck ever,” I said. “Get the fuck out of here. I have work to do.”

Both their eyes went wide that time. Yeah, they’d seen the same videos everyone else had, and they knew who’d been flying over that crowd. They also clearly had no more desire to be around me while I was working than Mr. Lee had.

I stalked off through the night towards the school, muttering under my breath the entire fucking way. So much for trying to land in an out of the way spot so I wouldn’t have to worry about people seeing me landing or flying or doing my necromancer thing. So much for keeping everything about the vampires on the down low.

I couldn’t believe I’d said anything. I’d just been so pissed off at the way she was talking to me that I’d needed to say something to get her attention, and the damned vampires were the first thing that came spilling out.

Which meant it wasn’t going to be long before everyone around here knew there were vampires running around. Which meant there was probably going to be a fucking panic sooner rather than later. Which meant the cops were going to get involved and be good and pissed off that the veil between the natural and the supernatural was being peeled back and panicking all the kids at the high school.

Again.

Which meant I was doing one hell of a bang up job while my dad was out of town. Honestly. Of all the times for him to decide he needed to go off to the other side of the country, this was quite possibly the worst.

I sighed. There was nothing for it. Things were going to play out the way they were going to play out, and there wasn’t much I could do about it but see where the ride took me.

I stepped into the school and listened. It’s not like I expected to hear the vampires doing their thing, but at the same time I figured there was always a possibility they would obligingly be that stupid.

More than that, though, I was terrified I was going to hear the sounds of Stacy in the middle of a fight. Or, worse, the sounds of Stacy screaming, and those screams getting fainter and fainter as the blood was drained and there was nothing left of her.

Though I could even go one worse than that. I could imagine her screams getting fainter and fainter until it was replaced with a snarl as her body was taken over by a vampire. Ugh.

I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t going to let that happen, damn it, and if those vampire motherfuckers thought they were going to drain my girlfriend then they had another thing coming!

I floated down the halls, and the sounds of cheering in the distance drew me towards the pool. There was a little staircase that ran to an area overlooking the pool that was mostly used for storage, it’d been bleachers once upon a time before the school realized that all the heat and humidity from the pool tended to rise and make anyone sitting there even more miserable than someone sitting in the bleachers on the ground level, and I figured that’d be a good spot to have a look around without being seen.

Assuming no one was up there making out, which was another use they got out of that storage area, but whatever. I figured anyone trying to find a secluded spot for making out with vampires roaming the school were asking for trouble, but if they wanted to volunteer themselves as bait then I was more than happy to roll with it.

15

Armed and Dangerous

I crept up the stairs leading to the swim meet. Sure I didn’t think it was strictly necessary to be creeping up the stairs like this. There was enough noise coming from the swim meet down below that I wasn’t all that worried that someone would be able to hear me.

Still. We were talking about vampires, after all, and if there was one thing that all the movies and books agreed on, it was that vampires had the kinds of powers that would make them more at home in a comic book about superheroes than in a horror novel. Maybe they had super hearing.

Sure I was pretty sure some of that was just stuff creeping into vampire stories from the comic books, but you could never be sure. I didn’t want to be caught off guard, even if I wasn’t all that worried about them actually being able to do anything to me.

I didn’t even bother touching my feet to the concrete floor below me. No, I was careful to float with every step, which meant it wasn’t strictly taking steps at all, but whatever.

I didn’t want them to hear my robes flapping in the breeze either.

I finally reached the top step and peered over the top step. I found myself staring at…

A whole lot of nothing.

“Great job Gwen,” I said, standing and stepping into the room. “You’re jumping at a bunch of gym equipment that’s been up here gathering dust since the ancient ‘90s.”

Great. I sneezed as I leaned against a rolled up old mat and sent some of the dust flying.

At least I didn’t have to worry about anyone hearing that sneeze and coming up here to investigate. No, people were cheering as the unmistakeable sound of people swimming back and forth for carried up to the place people used to sit to watch those swim meets. I missed being down there, but tried not to think about it.

Besides, I had a more immediate disappointment to deal with. I’d figured this would be the perfect spot for a bunch of bloodsuckers who were looking to scope out a meal to hang out, but I’d been wrong, but the only things keeping me company up here were the dust bunnies.

“Motherfucker,” I growled. “If this isn’t where they are then…”

A hand closing around my mouth was my first indication that things weren’t all as they seemed up here. Unfortunately that hand closed around my mouth with enough force that I couldn’t do anything to stop it right away. Whoever that hand belonged to was strong.

Like a vampire. I tried to break free, but nothing happened. I was on the verge of really giving this asshole a shove that would send them flying out into the pool down below, but thankfully at the last moment a voice hissing in my ear stopped me from doing something I’d seriously regret.

Because I recognized that voice. I guess I’d been right about Stacy coming to the high school to see a swim meet.

“What are you doing up here in your robes?” she asked.

I mumbled something, and her hand disappeared as she realized I wasn't going to do much talking with her hand covering my mouth.

“You have some explaining to do!”

“Okay Ricky,” I growled, turning around to get a good look at her.

“Who?” she asked.

“Old joke. You wouldn’t understand if you never watched Nick at Nite back in the day. And what the hell are you doing dressed up like this?”

I looked her up and down, and I have to admit that what I saw on display there was definitely kinda hot. I mean I’d always had a thing for strong girls who were also femme, and she was pulling that off in spades tonight. Like she had a real Sarah Connor thing going for her.

We’re talking the second movie, not the first one. The last movie they ever made in that franchise, as far as I’m concerned.

“What?” she asked.

I looked her up and down, and this time my inspection of my girlfriend had absolutely nothing to do with how hot she looked and everything to do with the ridiculous getup she was wearing.

She had a bandolier slung over her shoulder that had stakes in it. It looked like she’d sewn the thing herself so she could get as many stakes as possible in there, and it made her look sort of like a cross between Buffy and Mr. Worf. She had squirt guns attached to a tool belt running all around her waist. She had a cross around her neck, as well as a necklace made out of…

“Is that garlic?” I asked.

“Well yeah,” she said. “If vampires are real then it stands to reason that some of the stuff we’re supposed to use to fight them is also real. I’m bringing along everything to make sure I’m not caught with my pants down!”

I licked my lips. She was looking so good that I wouldn’t mind catching her with her pants down right about now. Even though there was another part of me that was screaming that was a terrible idea considering we were in an open area and anyone down there at the swim meet who looked up would be able to see us and what we were doing.

That would’ve been a hell of a show, and the kind of thing that would have me the talk of the school all over again. One scandal was enough for me, thank you very much. Especially when I was pretty sure that was hardly going to be the only scandal I was a part of before I graduated considering all the crap that’d been going down at the school since I discovered I was a reaper.

“You’re lucky I have a thing for Buffy and strong women,” I said. “Otherwise I’d be telling you to…”

“To what?” she asked.

I let out a low growl. I didn’t want to get into what I was and wasn’t going to let her do right now. I wanted to tell her that I had every intention of letting her in on this little vampire hunting game, that I’d come to that decision earlier after having a chat with my dad, but there was something about seeing her out here dressed in that ridiculous getup obviously hunting vampires whether or not I told her it was safe that had me more than a little pissed off.

So I decided to keep my big mouth shut. For the moment.

“Come on,” I said. “There are vampires lurking, and we need to find them.”

“So you’re not going to try and stop me?” she asked, suddenly sounding hopeful. Maybe she’d been expecting a fight. Hardly surprising, considering how our last conversation ended.

“Yeah, well I figure it’s the only way I’m going to be able to keep an eye on you,” I said. “The last thing I need is you going around the school dressed like that. You’re more likely to have someone call in a school shooter than you are to find a vampire.”

“Whatever,” she said. “They can’t stop me for having some squirt guns at my side. I’d like to see them try.”

“Come on,” I said.

“You’re not even going to ask about the crowd down there?”

I paused on the edge of heading down the stairs. Turned to look at her. I arched an eyebrow.

“What about the crowd down there?”

“Aren’t you going to look and see if any of the vampires are down there?” she said. “Seems to me that might be where they were hanging out waiting to snack on someone.”

I crossed my arms and stared at her. “Okay. So you’ve been up here watching. Are there any vampires down there? Or were you waiting up here because you thought the same thing I did? That if there was anyplace a vampire would be hanging out tonight it was in a nice quiet spot where they could scope out a victim without being seen?”

She blushed and looked away. “Fine. Let’s go out see if they’re anywhere else in the school then.”

“I thought you’d say something like that,” I said.

I didn’t bother to float down the stairs this time around. What was the point? It’s not like I was going to run into any vampires, and if I did then I was going to give them a piece of my mind and a piece of my scythe, because I was in that kind of mood after seeing Stacy skulking around this place after she’d promised she wouldn’t go anywhere without me.

Sure I’d also sort of promised her that I’d take her with me, but to be fair I had been going to her house to get her and she’d gone off on her own. Yeah, the more I thought about it the more good and pissed off I got.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said, glancing around and trying to think about where I would go if I was a teenage vampire returning to high school.

So…" I said. "If you were a vampire, where the hell would you be hanging out?"

"That's a good question," Stacy said. "I've been thinking about it, and…"

She trailed off as we both got our answer without any searching at all. I could still hear the distinct sounds of a swim meet going on behind us. That was a lot louder than I would’ve thought, though a lot of that was probably because it was in a room that echoed like a motherfucker. I'd never heard one of those meets from the outside, and listening hit me with another song of regret.

That noise wasn’t enough to drown out the scream though.

“I guess that’s our answer,” Stacy said.

“I guess so,” I said. “Son of a bitch!”

“We need to find her and stop those bastards!” Stacy said, grabbing a stake and holding it out in front of her.

I would’ve laughed if I hadn’t seen the way she beat the shit out of the last vampire that dared go up against her. If she’d had a stake the last time around then that girl might not still be around.

The current screaming sounded like it was happening on the other side of the school, and that had to be a loud scream indeed if it was this loud even though it was far away.

"Motherfucker,” I growled. "They went after someone in another part of the school where we wouldn't be looking!"

"Clever bloodsuckers," Stacy said.

"Too clever by far," I said, thinking about the girl in the cafeteria. They would’ve gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for the meddling reaper who came along and ruined their fun.

"Come on!" I said. "We need to get to the scene of the crime and try to catch them before they get away!"

If I was going to come across some poor girl who was being transformed into a vampire then I had every intention of actually catching the vampires who were trying to transform her into a fucking vampire in the act so I could drag each and every one of them to the other side kicking and screaming!

As we took off I glanced at Stacy. Those vampires better hope I got to them first, because if Stacy got there first then they were going to be little piles of ash before I could even think about sending them on to their eternal reward.

16

Band Geeks

“Are you sure we shouldn't check the cafeteria first?" Stacy said.

"Why would we check the cafeteria first?" I asked.

"Well that's where they attacked last time," she said. “Aren’t killers supposed to return to the scene of the crime or something?”

“You’re thinking about serial killers, not vampires,” I said.

“Aren’t vampires serial killers? They have to kill more than three people to get their food. At least if they’re any good and last long enough,” she said.

"Yeah, but just because that's where they attacked last time doesn't mean it's going to be the same this time,” I said. “We’re talking Draculas, not Buffalo Bill! Now come on so we can find the source of that scream!”

“I think it came from down by the cafeteria,” Stacy said, then held a hand up to stop my protest before I could get started. “Probably the band room past the cafeteria. That’d be a reasonable place for those bloodsuckers to look for someone after hours anyway. Band geeks hang out and practice after school all the time."

"And how would you know that?" I asked.

"Because I'm here after school for cheerleading practice all the time, and there's always a sound like a dying cat in heat coming from that room."

I skidded to a halt at the vivid picture she’d just painted and grinned. That grin very quickly turned to a snicker. That snicker very rapidly turned to an outright laugh. I leaned against some lockers, because otherwise I was going to lose it.

Stacy started laughing too. It was nice to have something to cut the tension.

"Thanks," I said. "I had no idea how much I needed that."

"Don't mention it," she said. "But seriously. It sounds like they're killing someone in there on the regular. If someone was being attacked by a vampire it’d be the perfect crime. No one would know the difference!"

That was good for another round of giggling. Giggling that only came to a stop when I heard another shriek echoing through the hallway.

“That definitely sounds like it’s coming from the band and choir hallway,” Stacy said.

Stacy hit me with a look that crept very close to "I told you so," without actually saying it. Not that she needed to actually come out and say it. Not when it was so obvious she’d been right.

"Come on," I said. "And yes. You were totally right.”

"As long as you can admit when you're wrong from time to time," she said, blowing me a kiss.

Then she really surprised me by jumping on me. Some of those stakes in her bandolier pressed up against me. It would've been uncomfortable, but she was pressing her lips against mine and opening her mouth, and holy shit we were making out in the middle of the halls!

I was pretty sure there were a lot of people who did this sort of thing and didn’t get caught, but all I could think about was the last people who were caught and had gotten in school suspension for nearly a week. It’d been all over the school almost before it happened.

Not that I was too worried. Something told me any teacher who saw me in my current getup would decide they didn’t want anything to do with whatever we were doing.

I mean it’s not like I was complaining about making out in the halls with Stacy, but it was still a bit of a surprise to be making out in the halls with Stacy. Especially when I started to get a little bit of tongue action.

I moved my hands down and was about to give her butt a nice squeeze, I figured why not have a little fun if that's what she was obviously after, but my hand brushed against one of the squirt guns at her side and I remembered there was serious shit going on here.

Right. Vampires to catch. Making out with my girlfriend was something I could do anytime. Rescuing someone from a band of bloodsucking vampires was something I could only do right here and right now.

As much fun as it would be to keep making out, there was more important stuff going on here tonight.

Stacy made a disappointed noise when I pulled away. I patted her on the cheek and leaned in to kiss her again. It took every ounce of my self-control to stop from turning that into yet another make out session, but somehow I managed.

That make out session was tempting, but it being tempting was precisely why I shouldn't be doing it.

"Later," I said.

"You bet your ass later," she replied.

"And I'm going to need you to go ahead and wear that bandolier and do the whole Lara Croft vampire hunter thing you have going for you too."

A grin split her face. There was a twinkle in her eye that said she was going to enjoy the fuck out of wearing her outfit when we were making out later. I shivered thinking about it, but another scream pulled me back to reality.

I rolled my eyes. Why did some terrified person being hunted by fucking vampires have to keep ruining my chances at having a moment with my girlfriend? Though honestly I’d just discovered another reason why it was a bad idea to have Stacy along on these things, and this time it didn’t have anything to do with worries about her getting attacked by vampires.

"Damn it," I growled. "We're coming! Hold your horses!"

"To be fair," Stacy said. "If someone is getting murdered by a bunch of bloodsucking vampires then they’re probably not stopping to think about how rude it is that they’re interrupting our make out session."

"So inconsiderate," I said.

We sped down the halls towards the band room. I had my scythe out at my side, and then an idea hit me as I realized I was running the old fashioned way rather than taking advantage of my awesome “death incarnate” abilities. So I jumped in the air and floated ahead of Stacy. I could float far faster than she could ever hope to run, after all.

"Hey!" she said. "No fair!"

I threw my head back and laughed as I floated my way down the hall. And then turned to shout after her.

"I said I'd let you come along on these vampire hunting expeditions! I never said I’d let you get there first!"

Stacy flipped a very rude gesture my way. A gesture that was also a suggestion for something very interesting we could get up to later that night when we continued the fun that’d been so rudely interrupted by the person maybe getting murdered by vampires.

She could flip me off all she wanted. This was a good compromise between keeping my word and keeping her safe. I could get in there ahead of her, assess the situation and figure out if it was dangerous, then take care of that danger well before she arrived on the scene. She could help with the cleanup.

I had a feeling I was going to hear about this genius plan later, but at least she’d be safe.

"I'm going to get you for this!" Stacy said.

“I’d like to see you try!” I shouted over my shoulder.

I went into the band hallway at full speed. Though I paused to get my bearings. That scream had been loud enough that I thought it might’ve been out in the hallway. Only I didn't see any bloodsuckers standing around some poor band kid.

Honestly I was a little surprised that those bloodsuckers would be going after a band kid in the first place. I wasn't so shallow that I didn’t realize there were some definite hotties in the band, but those vampires seemed like the kind of assholes who came from a time back before they realized geek could be sexy. Or that the band geeks were way more freaky, on average, than any other group but the drama kids.

Only there was nobody in the hallway. Though there was another scream which was very helpful in triangulating exactly where shit was going down. The scream came from one of several doors that I was pretty sure led to the large band room. I couldn't be completely sure because I wasn't in band myself, but still.

I flew through the nearest doors in my full fury. Darkness was all around me, tendrils shooting out as I prepared to grab those vampire fuckers and let them know what kind of consequences there were if they decided to fuck with somebody in my school, thank you very much!

I held my scythe out in front of me, my robes billowing in a nonexistent wind, and even my voice sounded just a little fucked up. Think Cate Blanchett when she was going all Silmarillion-era Galadriel on Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring.

"You vampire scum are going to… Pay?"

The girl up on the stage looked up at me. She’d been staring at someone holding a knife up and screaming at the top of her lungs, but a slasher attacking a girl in what looked like an ancient tub that’d been salvaged from a dumpster somewhere in town was the last thing I expected.

Not to mention it was pretty clear I wasn’t in the band room. Right. Because band, choir, and drama were all in the same hallway. This was the drama room, complete with a little stage down at the bottom of a series of raised semicircular rows where classes could do their performing thing.

Clearly I’d walked in on a performance of some sort, my guess would be the drama club was doing a production of Psycho, and when she looked at me the screaming started all over again.

There definitely weren't any vampires in the room. Lots of confused drama kids, sure, but no vampires.

“Um, sorry for interrupting?” I said.

The girl stared at me and screamed all over again. Okay. That was probably deserved, but whatever. It wasn’t every day you had someone in a grim reaper costume that wasn't a costume bursting into the room looking like she meant to kill everyone.

Sure they weren’t exactly vampire scum, and sure reapers didn't actually kill people so much as find people who were already dead and ferry them to the great beyond, but that girl didn’t know I wasn’t after her.

“Can you please explain to me what you’re doing here?”

I turned to see Mr. Bosworth, the drama teacher, staring at me with something between curiosity and annoyance.

“Sorry,” I said. “I heard the screaming, and…”

“You’re the girl from the football game, right?” he asked, standing and walking towards me.

It was at about that time that Stacy burst through the door behind me. Her chest was heaving, which was a welcome distraction, and she shot a look that was pure daggers at me as she looked around the room.

“Oh shit,” she said. “The drama room. I totally forgot this was down here.”

“Please,” Mr. Bosworth said, gesturing expansively to the room. “Stay for a moment. It would be interesting to see your take on our delightful show.”

“What the fuck?” the girl down on the stage asked. “Do you see what she’s dressed like? She’s the freak from Homecoming!”

“Yeah,” I said, seeing some of the other stares I was getting that ranged from hostile to terrified to curious. “I think it might be a good idea for me to get the hell out of here before I piss someone off.”

Mr. Bosworth looked disappointed, he had the sort of hippie look that was common to drama teachers all around the world despite the fact that he would’ve been born in the ‘80s and was way too young to have ever been a true hippie, and the last thing I needed was to have a chat about the nature of death with one of those types.

It was an occupational hazard of being a reaper, to hear my dad tell it, and I didn’t want to get in the middle of that when I was in the middle of trying to figure out where the hell those vampires were!

“Wait, so this whole thing was the drama club doing their thing?” Stacy asked, looking around the room.

“Looks like it,” I said.

“Wow. This is about as bad as a cop shooting a bunch of people doing Julius Caesar in the park,” she said with a grin.

I snorted. Bonding over Leslie Nielson movies had been one of the more fun things we did together that didn’t involve sucking face at every opportunity, and I was proud of her that she was starting to pepper our conversations with little references like that.

“Yeah, well we should get going,” I said, then turned to the rest of the room. “And all of you should probably go out of this place. It’s kind of dangerous around here right now.”

“Because of the vampires?” someone shouted.

That got them all muttering all over again. I rolled my eyes. I suppose everyone had a right to know there were vampires hanging around this place causing trouble, but I also knew that the rumor was going to spread faster than wildfire and it wasn’t going to be pretty once it got out there that there were bloodsuckers haunting the high school.

Especially when it came from the creepy reaper girl who’d already messed up Homecoming.

“Let’s go,” I growled at Stacy. “There’s nothing for us to do here.”

“Agreed,” Stacy said. “Besides, didn’t you say you had something you wanted me to do in this bandolier?”

I blushed even though no one out there had any way of knowing what she was talking about. Knowing they had no way of knowing what she was talking about didn’t make it any less embarrassing that she was bringing that up.

And I was also just a little excited at what she was promising.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing her by the shoulder and pulling her out the door.

17

Vampires

“So much for our big night of vampire hunting,” Stacy groused.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“I mean I expected that to be a lot cooler than it actually was. Like we were supposed to walk in just in time to save that girl from getting the blood sucked out through her neck, y’know?”

“I know,” I said.

“Like I was supposed to have a quip and everything about how I might be a cheerleader, but I could still kick some ass, and then they laugh and I start kicking ass and they realize too late how much trouble they’re in!”

I rolled my eyes. “You do realize you’re spending entirely too much time watching old Buffy reruns if that’s your idea of how vampire hunting goes, right?”

“Whatever,” Stacy said. “That show was awesome.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

She slapped my shoulder. “What’s with that tone?”

“What’s with that tone is you know exactly why you’re watching old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and it’s not for the cool plot or anything.”

“Whatever,” she said. “You know you’re watching it for that too.”

“At least I’m willing to admit that I’m watching the cool show because ‘90s Sarah Michelle Gellar was yummy.”

“Have you seen some of her latest stuff?” Stacy asked. “Today Sarah Michelle Gellar is yummy too!”

“Not gonna argue with you on that score,” I said. “And y’know Eliza…”

I trailed off. We’d been walking through the halls for the duration of this back and forth about which nineties stars we found to be super cute, but there was something out in the parking lot that made me forget all about this fun conversation.

“What the fuck are they doing out here?” Stacy asked, grabbing one of the stakes out of her bandolier and then pulling up one of her squirt guns for good measure.

I glanced down at that squirt gun, and then up to her. She looked just a little ridiculous carrying around one of those pressurized kids guns that could shoot water like thirty feet if they were good and pumped up. It might be effective for shooting water long distances, but the thing was also bright pink which took away from the intimidation factor just a little bit.

“What the hell do you have in those squirt guns anyway?” I asked.

“Holy water, duh,” she said. “I had the padre down at the local Catholic church bless some of them for me. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have some kind of ranged weapon against these fuckers.”

I blinked a couple of times as I stared at the squirt gun in her hands. The idea that she’d even thought of it was ridiculous, but then again…

“You totally stole that idea from The Lost Boys, didn’t you?”

“Maybe,” she said. “What’s it to you?”

“We really need to have a serious conversation sometime about where you’re picking up your vampire slaying techniques.”

“Whatever,” she said. “If it works then it works. Now let’s go give those vampire fuckers a piece of our mind!”

She was already stalking across the parking lot before I could do much of anything to stop her. Not that I thought I’d be able to do much of anything to stop her to begin with, but whatever. My girlfriend was kind of an unstoppable force when it came to fighting the forces of evil threatening this high school, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t hot watching her stalking across the parking lot towards those vampires in her tight tanktop and short shorts and a bandolier of stakes and bright pink holy water filled squirt guns at her side.

Ridiculous? Totally. Hot? Definitely. So I floated after her, because I figured she’d need some backup if it turned out that holy water and those stakes weren’t up to the task of taking out these vampire assholes.

Those vampire assholes were gathered around a bright pink Cadillac that looked like something straight out of the prop department for that old Stephen King movie about that car that came to life and started trying to kill people for some reason. Which made sense considering they came from another time, literally. One of them was probably the original owner of that thing from back in the day when a high school kid could work summers and afford to buy their own car.

On the flip side, those cars had also been terrible death traps. My dad had told me all about some of the scenes he’d come across where everyone in an accident had bit the big one because they were in cars that were designed like tanks, which meant the squishy teenagers inside the things were the things that crumpled rather than the crumple zones in the car like in modern design.

It’d never occurred to me until recently that part of the reason why he told me those stories was because of an accident he’d been involved in once upon a time with some of his friends who still hung around the high school in ghost form. The three spectral stooges were floating above us having a look at the vampires in their car.

“Pretty sweet car if you’re into the vintage look,” Arnold said.

“And that vampire chick is pretty hot too,” Jake said.

“It’s also pretty hot how your girlfriend looks like she’s going to kill all of them,” Luke said. “That whole vampire killer thing she has going for her is really neat.”

“Yeah, it is pretty neat, isn’t it?” I said, getting lost in the moment.

Oh yeah, there was definitely something dreamy about watching my girl stalking across the parking lot towards a group of vampires who seemed to be chatting up a guy I sort of recognized. I thought he was dating a girl on the swim team or something, though something told me that girl wouldn’t be all that happy about her boyfriend being out here in the parking lot and not in the pool cheering her on if that was the case.

The vampires noticed Stacy just before she got close enough that she could do something about them. I cursed and then floated after her.

They didn’t seem all that concerned seeing Stacy coming for them. If anything a couple of the vampire dudes in their old letter jackets looked intrigued seeing a pretty girl stalking towards them, and that was good for a touch of jealousy from yours truly thank you very much.

Then they saw me floating along behind her. Seeing an insanely hot cheerleader coming at them doing her best Sarah Michelle Gellar impression wasn’t enough to get them to get the hell out of Dodge, mostly because I was pretty sure most of them had been turned into vampires decades before Sarah Michelle Gellar killing vampires was a pop culture thing, but seeing a reaper coming up behind that sexy cheerleader with her scythe out ready to give them the business apparently was terrifying enough to set them scrambling.

That Veronica bitch shoved the guy who’d been chatting her up to the side. He stumbled back and barely managed to catch himself before eating some asphalt. Then he turned and blinked a couple of times. Like he was trying to figure out if he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing as Stacy and I moved across the parking lot towards him.

“They’re going to get away!” Stacy shouted, breaking into a run.

“Man, your girlfriend is crazy,” Arnold said.

“Seriously crazy,” Luke said. “She’s really charging all those draculas like that?”

“She is crazy,” I said. “And she needs help.”

I wasn’t thinking about what those vampires might do to her so much as I was thinking about what a ton of good old fashioned American made steel and chrome from back in the day when seat belts had been optional would do to Stacy if they managed to slam into her with that thing.

“Stacy!” I shouted. “You need to be careful!”

I knew it was pointless to shout something like that at her even as the words left my mouth. After all, she was going to get those vampires if it killed her. I was just really worried that it was actually going to kill her.

Only they peeled out of the parking lot before she could do a damn thing. Leaving behind the smell of burnt rubber, and a very pissed off Stacy standing there twirling a stake in her hand and looking very dangerous.

Like I was glad I was pretty sure I couldn’t technically die as I saw her twirling that thing, because I had a pretty good idea that she was itching to use it on someone.

“Tough break,” Arnold said, floating up next to her.

“Tough break my ass,” Stacy said. “We could’ve got’em.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You can run pretty fast, but you’re not going to be able to outrun a car.”

“Whatever,” she said, sighing. “We need to get after them. I’m parked on the other end of the lot, but we might be able to…”

Her thoughts of engaging in a hot pursuit with a bunch of vampires driving a car that looked like it’d gone out of style at around the same time Kennedy was meeting his fate from the grassy knoll came to a halt as I heard the distinct sound of a scream coming from the school.

I floated for a moment, unsure of what to do. On the one hand we could chase after those fucking vampires and figure out where the hell they were hiding. There was a chance we might be able to catch them, or at the very least figure out what abandoned old warehouse they were hiding in.

But there was someone screaming, and something told me this time it wasn’t a bunch of people doing Shakespeare in the Park or anything like that.

“Damn it,” Stacy growled.

Then I felt it. A feeling I’d known a couple of times growing up, but it was always something that was really uncomfortable and not at all welcome. It was the feeling that someone was either about to die, or they’d recently passed.

Only this time the feeling was a little different. This time I also had the feeling that I needed to go to whoever was recently deceased. That there was something pulling me towards them. Like the fact that I was now the reaper on duty for this town.

Damn it.

“Come on!” Stacy said, turning to me and looking at me like she wasn’t sure what the hell the holdup was. “There might be someone in trouble in there!”

The screams were getting louder. Like we’re talking there were a lot of people who were freaking the fuck out in there.

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Let’s get in there and see what the fuck is going on.”

“Wait a second,” Stacy said. “You’re not trying to stop me from going in there?”

“There’s no point,” I said. “The vampires just escaped in their ancient boat from the fifties, and I already know that whoever is in there is good and dead. There’s nothing to worry about if you’re not the person who got killed while we were fucking around in the band hallway.”

“Oh,” Stacy said, looking from the screaming in the school to the spot where those vampires had been hanging out. “Oh shit.”

18

Dead Girl

“I mean maybe it’s not all that bad,” Stacy said. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe the girl died without a bunch of vampires being involved? Swimming is like a seriously dangerous sport where you’re moving through a bunch of water and stuff. It’s not safe like cheerleading.”

“Yeah,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Because a sport where you’re regularly tossed twenty feet in the air by a bunch of high school kids who’ve been practicing that move for all of a few hours before they try it is really safer than something humans have been doing since befor they were humans.”

“Well you don’t have to be a jerk about it,” Stacy said. “I’m just saying it’s a swim meet and people drown in pools. It’s possible it’s not even our fault whoever it is died!”

And there we had it. She was starting to discover the flip side of this job. The part where you second guessed everything you did, and wondered if you were maybe somehow to blame for the bad stuff that happened because you didn’t get on the scene fast enough.

“We’ll see,” I said.

A crowd streamed out of the pool entrance. That made it a little more difficult to get through the place at first.

“Excuse me,” Stacy said. “Could you people please get the fuck out of our way? We’re kind of in the middle of something important here and…”

“Hold on a second Stacy,” I said. “I’ve got this.”

I was feeling the pull harder than ever now. There was definitely someone expired on the other side of those doors, and the pull was getting stronger and stronger.

I held my hand out. The robes had disappeared, but I figured it was time to break them out again. A moment later flowing black robes surrounded me, and I held out a scythe.

A couple of parents who looked seriously freaked out as they herded their still half-naked son out in his Speedos, he looked like a freshman who hadn’t been on the team last year, took one look at me standing there with robes flowing in a wind that clearly didn’t exist and decided they were going to go around me. Then all the people coming through that entrance behind them also made the same decision.

A lot of people came to that same conclusion as they stepped out of the pool and saw me standing there in my robes. I even heard a couple of people mention something about homecoming.

At least that mess was worth something, even though I was pretty sure this was going to start even more rumors I could’ve done without.

“That’s useful,” Stacy said.

“Yeah, and everyone is going to be talking about the freak girl in the black robes for the next few months,” I said. “Just when they stopped going on about that crap, too. I’m never going to hear the end of this.”

“Yeah, but you should look on the bright side,” Stacy said.

“What bright side could there possibly be to something like that?” I asked. “Everyone in school thinks I’m a weirdo. I know I’m not supposed to care about that sort of thing, but…”

“But you’re already dating the hottest girl in school and I think it’s totally hot that you have the whole reaper thing going for you,” Stacy said as we stepped into the humidity of the pool. I took a deep breath. Damn I missed this.

“So who else are you trying to impress?” Stacy finished.

“Huh,” I said. “I guess when you put it that way you have a good point.”

We moved down the length of the pool, but the more I looked around the more I realized there weren’t any telltale signs of someone who’d recently expired. It was something I’d learned to pick up on considering how many recently expired people I’d run into over the years.

I was used to it, and I didn’t see the usual crowds of people screaming. Then I looked up to the storage area where I’d found Stacy waiting for the vampires earlier.

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” I growled.

“What’s wrong?” Stacy asked.

“Look up there,” I said.

“What are you…” Stacy looked up, and she realized the same thing. “Son of a bitch!”

“Yup,” I said. “They doubled around and hit the spot we were staking out when we were busy chasing some screaming in the drama hall.”

“Motherfucker,” Stacy growled. “I was up there in that fucking hot room for an hour and a half waiting for them to come along! Then we went after that scream and…”

“And nothing,” I said, feeling sad and pissed and a lot of other things. “We have to get up there and do something about this. You remember what happened the last time someone got bit by a vampire.”

“Yeah,” Stacy said. “Let’s get up there.”

I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her against me. It felt good having Stacy pressing against me, though it also made me feel just a little guilty. If I hadn’t been canoodling with her down in the drama hall then there was a good chance the poor soul who bit it up there would’ve still been alive.

There were gasps from the few people up there when we floated over the railing. I guess someone floating through the humid air wasn’t the kind of thing they usually saw at a swim meet. Though again I heard some people talking to each other about homecoming. Those turned and got the hell out of the pool when they realized shit might be going down that was similar to what the rumors said went down at the homecoming game.

“I’m never going to get used to people freaking out like that,” I said.

“You shouldn’t get used to it,” Stacy said. “You should totally own it. I keep telling you what you’re doing here is fucking awesome, and I figure someday you’re going to believe me.”

“Whatever,” I said, blushing even as I said a little nod of thanks to any higher power who might be listening that the hottest girl in school was also totally into the supernatural.

Though there were times when I wondered if she would’ve been as into me if it weren’t for the whole supernatural thing. Then again she had talked about having a thing for me for a long time before she discovered the whole supernatural thing. Either way there wasn’t time to scratch that thought right now.

“What the hell is she doing here?” someone screeched from the stairs.

I looked over to see a woman standing there with tears streaming down her face. I frowned. From the way she was reacting that was clearly the mother, or someone who was close to the person who bit the big one. Some parents at the top steps were trying to keep her away, but that wasn’t stopping her from trying to get through.

I tried to ignore the woman, but it was still difficult to block out the screams of a woman who’d just discovered her son or daughter might not be coming home.

Parents parted around me as I walked over and looked down at the victim.

“Danielle,” Stacy said. “I had math class with her.”

“I know her,” I said, sighing.

“You did?”

“She managed the swim team, though I have no idea what she’d be doing up here when there was a meet going on down below.”

I pressed my lips together. Thought about the vampires roaming the halls. Some of the vampire dudes would’ve been considered hot if you were into the gentlemen, and I had a pretty good idea of what they’d done to lure poor Danielle up here.

“They promised her a little bit of fun and so she did what any girl who’s fallen for a guy does. She snuck away because sneaking around makes it fun,” I said.

I leaned down over her and pulled her head up. Sure enough there were two red spots there where someone had drained her.

More commotion from the stairs pulled my attention away. I looked up and saw a couple of cops and EMTs making their way through the crowd. When the cops got a good look at me they nodded.

“Nothing much to be done here,” I muttered to the EMT dude who knelt beside Danielle. I didn’t want to be so loud that the mother freaking out on the stairs would hear.

“How do you figure?”

I hit the emergency services dude with a flat stare. He blushed and looked away after taking in the robes and the scythe and everything. It should’ve been pretty fucking obvious how I knew about the two puncture marks.

That didn’t stop him from doing his thing, though it wasn’t long before he sighed and shook his head. That was good for a wail from mommy dearest, and I tried to tune it out.

“Right,” I said. “So if we don’t have any other observations I’m going to need all of you to take a step back.”

I stood and looked behind me. To where someone was hiding behind an old set of bleachers left over from when this had been a spot for watching swim meets and not a storage area.

“You can come out now dear,” I said. “I don’t know what you heard about me, but I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Who’s she talking to?” the EMT who’d already asked a stupid question asked.

“Shut up,” one of the cops, an older looking dude who looked like he’d been on the force for awhile and had seen some shit, said.

“She’s talking to the girl who was killed,” Stacy said, also staring into the bleachers where there was someone down on her knees rocking back and forth with a faint glow around her that said she was no longer among the living.

I was pretty sure that ghost was Danielle. I’d been up here a few times before, and I’d never seen a ghost up here. I was well aware of the usual hauntings around here since those hauntings loved showing themselves to me thanks to the whole reaper thing.

“What are you talking about?” the woman who was being held back by the cops screeched. “What have you done to my baby? My baby can’t be dead! Danielle!”

Her shrieking was starting to sound otherworldly. Not the kind of thing I liked to hear. The cops and EMTs didn’t look like they liked hearing it either, but it was something they were used to. An unpleasant part of the job.

“I know this is going to sound weird,” I said, getting down in front of the bleachers. “But we might be able to get you back in your body. You have to trust me though.”

The girl looked up at me, spectral tears streaming down her ghostly cheeks, but she didn’t move. I sighed. I didn’t have time for this. Any moment now a vampire spirit would be coming to occupy her body, and the last thing I needed was a fight in front of all these nice people who could get hurt.

The hiss that came from behind me told me it was a little too late for that though. I wheeled around and stared at a version of Danielle who looked very similar to the Danielle I’d seen walking the halls, only her hands were claws and she was holding that EMT who’d been asking all the stupid questions by the neck.

Meanwhile Danielle’s mom was screaming and crying tears of joy that her baby was back, despite all the evidence that her baby was clearly in a “sometimes dead is bettah” scenario.

“Motherfucker,” I growled. “Can’t I have just one easy day on this job?”

19

Undead Girl

Stacy hefted one of her stakes and ran at vampire Danielle before I could stop her.

I figured there wasn’t going to be much chance that I was going to stop her before she reached Danielle, so the least I could do was try and make this a little easy for her. I whipped out a tendril of the old death magic and swept Danielle’s feet.

The EMT she’d been strangling fell back and tumbled towards the people at the stairs. He hit them like a bowling ball running into a bunch of pins, and from there all of them, including Danielle’s screaming mother, went tumbling down.

I really hoped I wasn’t going to get the old death ping from one of them. Old people falling down stairs was a hell of a lot more dangerous than most people realized. All it took was someone landing wrong on their neck and that’s all she wrote.

I had other problems right now though. Like the way vampire Danielle had recovered from her little trip and was scrambling to her feet. She jumped at the wall, only Stacy was on her holding on for dear life. Or maybe she was holding on for dear undeath considering what she was holding onto.

Either way, riding a vampire who was climbing the walls like a cockroach didn’t seem like the best idea for Stacy’s long term survival. Especially all the way up here on the second floor.

“Stacy!” I called out. “You really need to be more careful!”

“Then get out here and save my ass!” she shouted back.

She sounded more excited than terrified. Not that I was all that surprised that she sounded more excited than terrified. No, this was exactly the kind of crazy thing she loved, and at this point I wasn’t even going to try and act surprised that she was loving treating a vampire crawling the walls as a bucking bronco.

The vampire leapt out over the pool and then grabbed onto the ceiling up above. She hissed and tried to get rid of Stacy, but Stacy held on with a determination that was impressive as the thing scuttled around the ceiling trying its best to get rid of my girlfriend and not doing a very good job of it.

“Damn,” one of the cops muttered. “This is way better than the fights they had on the old Buffy show.”

I shook my head. That was enough to bring me out of the funk that’d been brought on by the hotness of watching my girlfriend doing her vampire hunter thing.

“Yeah, and she’s hotter than Sarah Michelle Gellar in her prime too.”

“Gross,” I said. “She could be your daughter, dude. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to get out there and save my girlfriend.”

I put extra emphasis on the girlfriend part, and the cop had the good grace to blush at least.

“You sure she needs the help?” the cop asked.

I followed his gaze. Sure enough there was Stacy flying all over the place and looking absolutely amazing hanging over the pool with a death grip on the vampire. Though I wasn’t sure exactly what the hell she was doing.

She took one of the squirt guns at her side and flipped open the little cap that kept the water in. Then she dropped the thing into the water down below.

The vampire, meanwhile, still didn’t seem happy. The former Danielle was bucking this way and that and trying to get rid of Stacy, but Stacy held on tenaciously.

No, she was doing more than that. She was grabbing at the vampire’s claws. Like she was trying to get the thing to let go or something.

“Stacy!” I shouted. “Are you crazy?”

I’d let this go on for entirely too long. Sure it was impressive watching Stacy doing her thing, but that didn’t mean I wanted my girlfriend to die in a fall. So I ran and leapt through the air in the hopes of catching her.

Only I knew even as I flew out over the pool that I was going to be too late. Stacy managed to pry one of the vampire’s clawed hands out of the ceiling. The vamp fell, and the force of that fall was enough for the thing’s momentum to pull the other claws out.

Stacy and the vampire both went tumbling down towards the pool. The ceiling was pretty high in here, and I dove for Stacy even as I knew that I wasn’t going to get to her in time.

There was a splash as the vampire slammed into the water, shrieking the entire time.

I had visions of Stacy breaking something as she slammed into the water. At least she was over the deep end, but that wasn’t much comfort. Only at the last moment she tucked herself in and slammed into the water doing the ultimate cannonball that caused water to splash almost as high as the ceiling.

That was going to sting her ass, to be sure, but at least she wasn’t going to do the ultimate killer belly flop and she wasn’t going to dive all the way to the bottom and slam her neck against the bottom.

Something really weird started happening after she landed. The water around her started to bubble and boil. I continued my dive, only she came up gasping for air before I could slam into that water and rescue her.

From the way she started swimming for the edge it didn’t seem like she was going to need much rescuing, but then something exploded out of the pool.

The vampire girl looked more like something out of the nightmares of some makeup designer for a zombie movie than the kind of thing you expected to see on the vampire end of the spectrum.

“What the ever loving fuck is that?” I shouted.

The thing still had its claws and fangs, and that was the only thing I really cared about. Because it looked like it was getting ready to sink those claws and fangs into my girlfriend, and like hell was I going to let something like that happen!

Stacy, meanwhile, turned around when she heard me screaming about whatever the fuck had just come out of the water. Though it’s not like it was all that big a mystery what was coming out of the water. Not when a vampire had just gone in there.

I just wished I knew what was causing the thing to go all melty and zombiesque all of a sudden.

Stacy stared at the thing and blinked a couple of times, water streaming down around her as she stared in terror. Only as the vampire swam for her something weird happened. It was as though with every passing second more and more of the thing melted away. By the time it reached out to Stacy and tried to hit her with one of the claws, those claws were disintegrating so fast that they were gone before they could hit her.

Stacy continued staring, her eyes wide, then she looked up at me before turning and swimming for the edge.

“What the hell happened there?” I asked.

Stacy pulled herself out of the pool and sat there on the edge, though when she saw some of the steam rising off of the pool, particularly where Danielle the former vampire had been, she pulled her legs out of the water.

“I was banking on diffusion to do some of the work for me there,” Stacy said, breathing hard as she looked down at the pool.

“Diffusion?” I asked. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’ll admit it’s a danger relying on scientific principles when we’re dealing with something that’s clearly supernatural, but I was kinda hoping the holy water’s vampire vaporizing properties would diffuse through the water fast enough that it would be enough to kill that bitch, and it turns out I was sort of right.”

I stared at her for a long moment. I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing, even as it totally made sense.

“You dropped the holy water into the pool and that made the whole pool blessed water,” I said, dumbfounded. “Which means that when the girl was dropped in there she was surrounded by holy water which is literally like lava or acid or something for vampires.”

“Well I was hoping that was the case,” Stacy said. “Besides, it wasn’t all diffusion. I also got myself ordained by an online church before I got here and I blessed the water when I hit. Maybe that did it.”

“Damn,” I said. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

“Why would you ever worry about that?” she asked.

“I’m not,” I said. “But so far no one has been able to find a weakness for reapers, other than necromancers, and I’d really rather not find out what you could come up with.”

“Well you’ve got nothing to worry about,” she said, scrambling to her feet and looking oh so sexy standing there dripping wet.

That dip in the pool had also made certain parts of her outfit a little see through, and that wasn’t getting any complaints from me! Of course she was still wearing a bra and underwear which preserved her modesty, but still.

The moment was ruined, of course, by a scream. I looked over to the pool entrance to see Danielle’s mom staring at the pool that had held her daughter up until a moment ago.

Now it was fizzling and sizzling and there was steam rising from the water making the pool look like some idiot had just dropped a gremlin in there just in time for the third act, but there was no vampire in there. Danielle was well and truly done for.

“I might’ve been able to save her if we’d waited,” I said.

“Yeah, well tell that to the people she was about to attack,” Stacy said. “By the time she was scrambling across the ceiling I was thinking about saving my ass more than I was thinking about how we could bring her in.”

“But that’s the thing Stacy,” I said, some irritation creeping into my voice. “If you would’ve left it to me I could’ve caught her or something. I could’ve killed the vampire spirit that’d possessed her.”

“That’s what you think,” Stacy said, a bit of irritation coming to her voice as well. “You’ve been doing such a good job of taking out the vampires so far, after all.”

“I don’t think I like your tone of voice, Stacy,” I said.

Honestly it was a little difficult to stay mad at her. Sure on the one hand she was being infuriating, but at the same time she was just so damn hot and that was distracting me. I knew I kept letting her get away with stuff because I was distracted by the sexy, but I wasn’t going to let it keep happening.

“That girl could’ve been saved,” I said. “Maybe. We at least needed to take the chance, but now we’re never going to get that chance because you melted her.”

Stacy drew herself up to her full height. Which was about the same height as yours truly. She took a couple of deep breaths like she was getting ready to really lay into me.

Then she wheeled around and stormed out of the pool, holding a hand out behind her and making a very rude gesture that suggested doing something we’d done a couple of times before, sure, but something told me she wasn’t coming onto me with that gesture this time around.

Well shit. This evening had gone to shit pretty fucking fast, leaving me standing alone with a screaming incoherent mother staring down at the pool her daughter had just melted in.

Just fucking great.

20

Deception

I was waiting for Stacy at the front entrance the next morning, but she didn’t show. Which was weird. I would’ve figured she would’ve been there at the usual spot. Sure we’d had one hell of an argument the night before, but that didn’t mean we were going to stay mad at each other.

At least we hadn’t stayed mad at each other before.

“Trouble in paradise?” Luke asked, floating down next to me and dodging the ‘90s skater dude who was forever reenacting the moment when his skating ability hadn’t been enough to save him from a traumatic neck injury that ended his life.

“Something like that,” I said. “Stacy is usually here waiting for me.”

“Maybe she already went into the school,” Luke said.

“Did you see her go in?” I asked.

“Well no,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean she isn’t in there. Just that I didn’t see her go in there.”

“Yeah, but don’t tell me you weren’t keeping an eye out for her,” I said. “I’ve seen the way you stare at her ass when she shows up for school, and I know you wouldn’t miss an opportunity to sneak a peek.”

“I could ask Arnold and Jake if they saw anything at any of the other entrances,” he said. “They’d be keeping an eye out too.”

I rolled my eyes and frowned as I looked at all the people streaming in. It worried me that Stacy wasn’t out here. It didn’t help that she’d been ignoring my texts ever since that argument in the pool.

I knew she was probably just still pissed off, but that didn’t make me feel any better about her not answering my texts. It really didn’t make me feel better about her not being here this morning.

“Something tells me she’s not showing up,” Luke said.

“Damn it,” I said, then turned and headed back into the school.

I didn’t like that she wasn’t showing up. I didn’t like that she could be out there and something could’ve gone terribly wrong.

Sure it was a hell of a lot more likely that it was something simpler. That she’d simply decided she was going to make me pay by leaving me hanging, but that didn’t make me feel any better about her potentially lying drained in a ditch somewhere out there because she ran into those vampire assholes and I wasn’t there to save her.

I was ready to burst by the time I got to lunch. If she wasn’t there at lunch then I was going to go find her.

At least I didn’t have the familiar pinging that told me someone had died somewhere in town. That was a small mercy that I was on duty and would know the moment something bad happened.

It wasn’t much comfort, though. It was sort of like when you know you’re going to get a phone call that’s bad news, and the last thing you want is to get that call even as you anticipate it because you want to get it over with.

I stalked into the lunch room, and that’s when I realized there was something really off. Everyone was looking at me, but they were giving me weird sidelong lingering looks.

Like the looks I got after the homecoming debacle. Sort of like a bunch of people would look at a freak the night after, say, a girl was melted to nothing in the pool because she’d been turned into a vampire.

Come to think of it things had been quiet all day long. I didn’t bother going through the motions of getting my lunch today, though. No, I went straight to our table and sat with my arms crossed staring at everyone around me as though challenging them to come over and say something, anything, about anything that’d happened the night before.

Funnily enough nobody said so much as boo to me. Just like no one actually had the guts to come out and say anything after homecoming.

Bunch of wimps, all of them.

“Hey, so I checked with Jake and Arnold and neither one of them saw her this morning,” Luke said, his head rising up from under the table in a move that would’ve been creepy if I wasn’t used to the dead doing their thing at school.

I bit back a few choice words that would’ve gotten the attention of a couple of teachers who were always hovering around the edge of the lunch room looking bored. The lunch room was always a cut rate Lord of the Flies where everyone towed the line between misbehaving just to the edge of actually making any of the teachers get off their asses and do something about it.

I figured I didn’t need to go to the office or get a detention on top of everything else I had to worry about right about now.

“Something wrong?” Zach asked, swooping in and putting his tray down right where Luke’s head was. Luke shook his head like he was trying to clear it of the school pizza and fries, not exactly a healthy meal on Zach’s part, that’d just traveled through his head.

“Just waiting on Stacy,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Huh, haven’t seen her today,” Zach said.

I didn’t bother to ask him whether or not he was looking for her. I knew enough about how the mind of the teenage male worked to know that he’d probably been keeping an eye out for her because he enjoyed watching her walking the hallways. The male gaze would be enough that he was a reliable source about whether or not Stacy was here.

“Fucking great,” I growled. “Where the hell is she?”

“Where the hell is who?” Nicole asked, sliding into her usual seat.

“She’s worried about Stacy for some reason,” Zach said, talking around the fries he was stuffing in his mouth.

"You mean you have no idea where she is?" Nicole asked. “That’s weird. I thought the two of you were inseparable.”

"That's exactly what I mean," I said. "I haven't seen her at all today. Usually she’s waiting for me at the front entrance.”

"There's something going on here," Nicole said. “Spill.”

"Why would you think there's something going on here?" I asked, suddenly not wanting to pursue this line of questioning.

“Because Stacy missing a day of school isn’t the end of the world. Does this have anything to do with… The kind of stuff that happened around homecoming?" Nicole asked.

Now Zach was leaning forward. He seemed very interested. Interested and maybe just a little terrified.

Which was fair. The last time a bunch of weird stuff started going down he'd been right in the middle of it. Where "right in the middle of it," meant he'd had his soul sucked out by a necromancer who was trying his best to take over the school in a ridiculous attempt to be popular.

"Is there something I should be worried about?" Zach asked. "Like should I get the hell out of here or something?"

He hit the cafeteria with the kind of glance that said he didn't care for the idea of being around here if more supernatural stuff was going down. I couldn't blame him given his previous brush with the supernatural, but I also didn't have time to make him feel better about his chances in this latest supernatural dust up.

"There are a bunch of vampires hiding out somewhere," I said. “Haven’t found them yet, but I’m pretty sure they’re nesting somewhere in the school.”

"Vampires?" he asked. "Like bloodsucking sparkling vampires who don’t like garlic or Christian iconography?”

"Vampires don't sparkle!" I snapped.

"Well of course they don't," Nicole said. "Because they’re…"

She stopped. Looked at me. I knew what she was about to say. Vampires didn’t sparkle because they weren’t real. Only if I was sitting here telling them vampires were real and roaming the halls of our high school, well there was a good chance vampires were real and they were roaming the halls of our high school sucking the blood of anyone stupid enough to get caught in their fanged crosshairs.

"Does this have anything to do with what happened to Danielle last night?" she asked.

“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth.

"So like, she was a vampire?"

"She was attacked by a vampire," I said. "And then that idiot Stacy decided she was going to go after her even though it would've been better if she'd just waited around and…"

I stopped. Took a moment to read the mood at the table. It didn't look like either of them were in the mood to hear about anything having to do with vampires or an evil vampire spirit invading someone's body. So I sighed and shut my mouth.

"A vampire killed her, yes," I said.

"I wondered why they canceled practice tonight," Zach said.

"They canceled practice tonight?" Greg asked as he placed his tray down.

School pizza. The cafeteria offered healthier food for student athletes, but clearly he hadn't availed himself of that option today. Coach would have a heart attack if he could see it, but he worked in another building so it's not like he could keep tabs on his swimmers at lunchtime.

"Gwen here was just telling us about how Danielle was a vampire, and that's why they’re draining the pool. She probably got vampire juice all over the pool when she dropped in there."

"Weird," Greg said, picking up his pizza and taking a bite seemingly without a care in the world. "I never knew chlorine could kill vampires. It can sure as hell mess up a suit over time, but killing bloodsuckers?"

"Yeah, who knew?" Nicole asked.

"Damn it," Zach said. "I don't want to be around the school if there are vampires here! I already had to deal with this supernatural shit once, and I'm not doing it again!"

"Come on," Nicole said, waving a breadstick at him. "You're not really thinking this through.”

"I'm not?" he asked.

"Totally not," Nicole said. "Vampires can't come out during the day. Everyone knows that."

"But what if they’re like those sparkly vampires?" he asked. "That guy with the goofy Farrah Fawcett hair could come out during the day. He went to a high school, which was kind of creepy now that you think about it considering how old he was…”

"Don't be ridiculous," Nicole said. "Vampires don't sparkle."

"How do you know that?" he asked.

“Because Gwen just said they don’t sparkle,” she said, using an impeccable bit of logic that appealed to me. "I figure if she's saying something about the supernatural then it's true. Right?"

She looked to me for confirmation. I didn't want to give up anything more about the supernatural than I had to, mostly because there were huge holes in my own knowledge that might potentially get them killed if they took me at my word, so I shrugged.

Besides, I figured if Zach thought he wasn't in any danger during the daytime that might make it easier for him to go through life. It's not like he was going to be able to escape school, after all. I didn't think the office would see "potential vampire infestation" as a legitimate excuse for skipping.

Though honestly, who knew? Considering all the craziness that went down in this town, I guess it wouldn't be all that out of the ordinary if the schools were in on some of the craziness in addition to the local constabulary.

"I'm going to have to stop by the supermarket when I get out of school today," Zach said.

"What are you talking about?" Nicole asked.

"I have to get some garlic!" he said. Then he got an even more concerned look. "Do you think I need to get like the real thing? Like actual cloves of garlic? Or would I be able to get some of the minced stuff or powder or something?”

Nicole turned to me as though she expected me to actually have an answer for that ridiculously stupid question.

"I'm not talking to you guys about this," I said. "If you want to know anything about vampires then go watch The Lost Boys or something."

"You know for a creature of the supernatural yourself, you're not being all that helpful about telling us what we should or shouldn't be worried about,” Greg said.

"Because you don't need to be worried at all," I said.

"How do you know?" Nicole asked.

I was in an awkward spot. I didn't want to explain to my friends that part of the problem was vampires were only going to go after the most attractive people in the school to add to their coven, and everyone else was going to be so much food.

The fact of the matter was the people sitting at this table, with maybe Stacy as the exception when she actually sat here, probably wouldn’t meet the standards of a bunch of undead bloodsuckers trying to add pretties to their coven.

Sure there was the possibility some of them might end up as food, but that was a remote possibility since I didn’t see those vampires sticking around for longer than it took to add a new pretty.

The danger of being turned into a human Twinkie were pretty remote, basically.

"Look," I said. "Just stay away from school after dark. They mostly come at night, mostly, and if you're home safe and sound you don't have to worry about anything."

Zach looked at me as though he was having trouble believing it, but Nicole let out an almost imperceptible sigh. Like she’d actually been worried about the whole vampire thing, for all that she was trying to act like it wasn’t a big deal.

I shook my head and tried to concentrate on my food and not on their stupid questions. Idiots. All of them. And I still had no idea where Stacy was.

21

After School

"Do you really think you're going to find her out here?" Luke asked.

"I have no idea what I'm going to find," I said. "But I know that I have to look for her somewhere. She’s out there, and I'm worried."

Anyone suddenly not showing up when there were vampires working the school was bad. The person not showing up being my girlfriend who’d had contact with the vampires? Well that made me want to go on a rampage and ferret out every undead bloodsucker I could find.

“Maybe you'll get home and there’ll be a message on your answering machine or something," Arnold said. “Don’t you all have answering machines here in the future?”

I rolled my eyes. "How many times do I have to explain the concept of a cell phone and texting to you guys?"

"At least one more time," Luke said. "Sorry. But the idea of you carrying around a little communicator like Captain Kirk is wild."

"Because it's not a little communicator like Captain Kirk," I said. "I've explained this to you before. They don't flip up anymore. That kind of cell phone design is like nearly twenty years old."

"I always told you those were communicators," Arnold said, a triumphant note to his voice.

"And you were totally right," Jake said. "Good for you. Now please shut up."

"Whatever," Arnold said. "You're just mad that you lost a bet."

"What are you guys talking about?" I asked, checking my directions as I reached a cross hall. I was also checking to see if there were any vampires in that cross hall, but the coast was clear.

"I was sure people were using those things to communicate with each other," Arnold said. "It's the only thing that made sense. The way they held them up to their heads and spoke into them. These guys thought I was crazy. They said there's no way phones could work without a cord like that."

"You guys," I growled.

"What?" Jake asked.

"I keep forgetting you're from a time before anyone even knew what the Internet was. Let alone from a time when everyone had the Internet on their phones.”

"I wish we had the Internet back in the day," Arnold said with a wistful sigh.

Wistful sighs always sounded odd coming from ghosts considering they couldn't breathe. Or rather that they didn't have to breathe. They were still more than capable of making human sounds that were focused around breathing though.

"Why's that?" I asked, and then realized where this conversation was going even before I finished asking, and regretted asking.

"Well duh,” Jake said. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to steal porn rags from your dad's nightstand?"

"I found it some in a hollow tree in the woods back behind my house," Arnold said. “They were a little soggy, but they got the job done. Sure the pages were stuck together which was kind of gross, but the sogginess from the moisture helped with that oddly enough.”

“I could’ve lived a happy life not hearing that,” I muttered.

“We had access to bulletin boards you could dial into,” Luke said. “But even then the only good stuff you could get was stories and ASCII porn.”

“ASCII porn?” I said.

“Yeah, pictures that are put together by using text. Sort of like a mosaic with type,” Luke said.

“And you actually jerked it to that back in the ‘80s?”

They all stared at me with the sort of grin that said that was a question I would’ve been better off never asking in the first place. I rolled my eyes.

"Would you guys please shut the fuck up?" I growled, trying and not doing a very good job of purging those images from my mind. That was a bit of unspoken ‘80s history that was going to be stuck with me forever, damn it.

"What?" Arnold asked.

"Just shut up," I said. "You might treat me like one of the guys, but there are some things I don't need to know about you."

"Whatever," Arnold groused.

“Shut up," I said, coming up to the gym. "I need to be able to think."

I couldn’t see in there, but I could hear the sound of cheer practice going on and I knew if Stacy was in the building then she was in there. Though I was almost afraid to look. I’d gone the whole schoolday without seeing her, but that could be her avoiding me. She wouldn’t avoid practice.

"What makes you think you're going to be able to do much thinking with what's going on in there?" Jake asked, sticking his head through the wall to get his own look at cheer practice. He pulled back out with a goofy grin. "Oh yeah. There's some good stuff going on in there as always!”

“I need to get a look at this!” Arnold said, starting to wiggle his eyebrows as he moved to stick his own head through the wall.

I reached out with tendril of the old death magic and slapped him a couple of times in his ass which hadn’t gone through the wall yet. He yelled and tried to float away, but I wrapped tendrils of darkness around him and pulled him close.

I felt a strange pulsing as that magic surrounded him. It was the same thing that happened every time I had a spirit that needed to go to the other side in my clutches, but it was somehow more insistent now when I definitely didn’t want to be pushing Arnold to the other side.

Almost like taking over for my dad had been enough to make that magic stronger. More insistent on doing what it was intended for no matter what I wanted it to do. I fought the urge to pull him to the other side, and finally those tendrils let him go.

"Holy shit Gwen," he said, rubbing at the spot where the tendrils had wrapped around him, for all that ghosts couldn’t actually feel pain. "What the hell was that?"

"That was me getting pissed off,” I said, not mentioning the bit about having some control issues ever since taking over for dear old dad. “Remember that the next time you decide to make an off-color joke, got it?"

"Got it," he said. "Damn."

He glared at me, but I knew he wouldn’t stay mad for long. After all, aside from my father and the other two of the three stooges, I was the only other person he could talk to. Well, me and Stacy. Assuming I found her.

I figured if she was in the gym then Jake would've said something when he stuck his head through the wall. He was fond of looking at her, after all, and he wouldn't have been able to resist making some sort of crack.

"I really wish she was in there," I growled. "I don't know why I'm even bothering to come out here to her practice. If she wasn’t anywhere to be found today then why would she come to practice at the end of the day?”

"What are you talking about?" Jake asked. "Of course she's in there!"

I stopped in the process of turning and walking away. My eyes went wide. I whirled back around to face Jake.

"She's in there?" I asked. "Don't mess with me on this, or I swear…"

More tendrils of death magic rose up all around me. The meaning was clear. If he’d decided to mess with me then it was going to go very poorly for him.

"I swear!” he said. "She’s totally in there doing the whole cheer thing. The new chick in there is pretty hot too."

A cold chill ran down my spine. The new chick. The cheerleading squad had tryouts in the spring, Stacy had gone on about it and how weird it was going to be that she wasn’t doing the trying out this year since we were graduating, but we weren't close to Spring. If there was a new chick in there cheering then she was either an alternate who'd been called up, or it was somebody who'd figured out another way to weasel her way onto the squad without having to go through tryouts.

Or at least she hadn't gone through tryouts in this decade.

I peered around the gym entrance. ure enough, there was Stacy looking beautiful as she did her thing. But more important than that was the other girl. The vampire from before. The one who'd been beating up on that geeky vampire.

Veronica.

"What the fuck is she doing in there?" I growled.

“You talking about Stacy?" Luke asked, pushing more of his body in and making an exaggerated motion with his head. Up and down to let me know exactly what he was doing with regards to my girlfriend’s body.

I couldn't help but let out a thin smile at that display. He could eat his heart out. It's not like he had a chance of getting with her considering his current deceased state of being, and it's not like he would've had a chance with her were he still alive. He would’ve been way too old at this point to get with a teenage girl if he was still alive. At least not a teenage girl of Stacy's caliber. Not unless he invested heavily in some Apple stock or something back in the early ‘90s when it wasn’t worth shit and then held onto it until it wasn’t.

Though of course no amount of money would’ve gotten him what he wanted from her considering she was into the ladies. She was all mine, thank you very much. At least she’d been all mine, but it was up for debate now whether or not that was still the case.

"Stop leering," I said. "And I'm not talking about Stacy. I'm talking about that vampire bitch!"

"Which one is the vampire bitch?” Luke asked.

“Since when can vampires come out and play in the middle of the day?” Arnold asked.

“Since I told you to shut up,” I said. “And she’s the one with the dark hair near the front! Veronica? Remember?”

“Oh, her,” Luke said. “She looks different dressed in modern clothes.”

“She is kind of hard to miss now that you’ve pointed her out though,” Jake said.

"You bet your ass she's hard to miss!" Arnold said. "I wish we had girls like that back when we were in school!"

"Wait a second," Jake said, his eyes narrowing as he peered at her. “Y’know I couldn’t quite see it before because she was in those weird modern clothes, but now that she’s in her exercise outfit…”

"What?" Luke asked.

"I'm pretty sure we did have a girl like that back when we were in school," Jake said.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Luke asked.

"I'm talking about that girl looks awfully familiar. I think she wasn't maybe a senior when we were freshmen? Never caught her name, but the school was big enough back then when there were still jobs and stuff around here that it was possible for a lowly freshman to not catch the name of a senior hottie.”

"That would put her as a cheerleader back in the late ‘70s then," I said.

"Makes sense if she's a bloodsucker, right?" Jake asked. “Cursed to walk the earth as an insanely hot chick for the last forty years or so.”

“Cursed to watch what George Lucas did to Star Wars from the beginning without aging,” Arnold groused.

“Something tells me she’s not the kind of girl who cares what George did to Star Wars, boys. Hot popular girls who cared about Star Wars didn’t exist back then,” I said.

“Tell me about it,” Arnold groused. “You’re so lucky to live when you do.”

"I guess," I said. “At least I know when she comes from, though I don’t know how the hell that’s going to help.”

Vampires could come from pretty much any era. It was difficult to pin down exactly when they came from because, in typical Buffy fashion, they all tended to wear modern styles. A vampire who didn't keep up with the times was a vampire who tended to draw the attention of vampire hunters, so they mostly tried to blend in the interest of not getting a quick dusting.

At least that was the case if some of the stuff I’d read in some of my dad's books he gave me to make me feel better about the existence of undead creatures in this world was anything to go on.

“Was Veronica her name back then?” Jake asked. "I feel like I should remember her name, but it wasn’t Veronica.”

"It's probably harder for you to remember her name because you didn’t need to know her name to jerk off to her back then,” Arnold said with a giggle.

"Shut up man," Jake said. "Gwen just got done telling you not to pull that shit anymore!"

Arnold looked at me like he was afraid I was going to hit him with some more magic. I didn’t, but only because I was afraid I’d lose control and pull him to the other side on accident.

I rolled my eyes. “You guys are fucking impossible. You know that, right?”

“Fuck, Gwen,” Luke said, having never taken his eyes off of what was going on in there. “You might want to have a look at this.”

22

Blood Ritual

“What’s going on in there?”

“I don’t know if I should puke or be turned on right now,” Luke said.

That was good for an arched eyebrow from yours truly. That level of confusion from a ghost who couldn’t puke or be turned on, technically speaking, was alarming. I peered around the door again, but pulled back when I realized one of the cheerleaders was looking right at me.

I wasn’t sure if she saw me, but I did feel that strange feeling in the center of my gut that I used to get when I was playing hide and seek with some of the neighborhood kids and I felt like one of them was getting close to me. I had a feeling that was a tamer cousin to the feeling ancient humans got when they were being hunted by something big and nasty, and I was getting that feeling big time right about now.

For all that the vampires out there couldn’t really hurt me. They could hurt Stacy, though, and that meant I had to be careful if I didn’t want her getting hurt.

“I’m going up to the second level,” I said. “They won’t be able to see me up there.”

“You say so,” Luke said.

I floated over to the stairs and dashed my way up. I passed a junior dude I recognized walking around with a freshman girl making out on the stairs. They both turned and looked at me with wide eyes, but I was so focused on getting up to see what the fuck was going on in that practice gym that I didn’t even bother to stop and chastise them about the stupidity of making out in a stairwell when teachers and vampires were no doubt roaming around.

They could worry about getting their blood sucked out of their necks rather than their tongues sucked out of their faces. I had bigger issues.

I reached the top of the gym. The place was designed so there was a big circle that ran around the entire gym. Hallways on either end with bleachers running lengthwise. Concessions and other stuff went in those hallways during games, and pretty much nothing happened in those halls during a school day since they were useless for gym classes.

They were useful to allow me to sneak around up here though. I peered down into the gym from on high, and what I saw down there took my breath away.

The cheerleaders were lined up facing the strange vampire girl who’d been such a bitch to that first vampire bastard. All of them were staring at her with a mixture of anticipation and worry.

There was also a group of cheerleaders standing on either side of the girls who were lined up. Including the head coach who was staring at all of them with a thin and not at all pleasant smile on her face.

Something was going terribly wrong here. The only problem was I had no idea what the fuck that something wrong was.

“What did you…”

Then I got my answer. The girl at the front of the line, a pretty young sophomore I’m pretty sure was named Amy, stepped towards Veronica. Then she tried to bolt, only Veronica was too fast for her. Her hand shot out and grabbed poor Amy by the arm, and that was that.

Not that Amy didn’t still try to get away. She screamed at the top of her lungs. She pulled and yanked at Veronica’s unyielding hand.

“That’s what I was talking about,” Luke said. “They’re doing something with the cheerleaders.”

“That is not cool!” Arnold said, pulling up the sleeves on his spectral shirt like he was seriously considering going down there and getting into a fight. Not that he was going to be able to do much good down there.

That became pretty obvious as he swooped down and moved through Veronica. The only effect he had was she paused and looked around. Like she could sense he was there, but wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on or why she got a sudden chill.

Interesting. So vampires could sense ghosts, but they couldn’t actually see then.

Then she shrugged. Leaned down and sank her fangs into poor Amy’s neck. Amy twitched a couple of times, but the moment the fangs made contact with her neck was the moment her active struggling stopped.

I saw red. I couldn’t fucking believe this was happening in my fucking school. It’d been bad enough when they killed Danielle, but now they were going after the entire fucking cheerleading squad?

That wasn’t even the most horrifying thing, though. No, the most horrifying thing was that Stacy stood next to that vampire bitch the entire time she was doing this, and she didn’t seem to give a flying fuck that she was watching all her friends on the squad, girls she was supposed to be protecting if all that stuff she was always spouting about safety was anything to go on, getting fanged by this other vampire bitch and she wasn’t doing a damn fucking thing to stop it!

Which could mean only one thing.

“Um, why aren’t you going down there and trying to stop the scary vampire from killing the nice cheerleaders?” Arnold asked.

“Hold on,” I hissed. “I need to see something for sure.”

Then it happened. Stacy smiled. It was the same beautiful smile I’d known for so long. The same smile I saw so many times just before she leaned in to kiss me with those inviting lips.

Only there was something horrifying behind those inviting lips now. A set of fangs that looked exactly like the fangs the older vampire cheerleader was sporting, with the main difference being it didn’t look like Stacy had enjoyed a snack recently, whereas the other cheerleader’s mouth was covered in blood.

“Motherfucker!” I screeched.

That screech sounded weird. Off. Wrong. There was something inhuman about it and the lights in the gym dimmed as that screech filled the room. The cheerleaders who’d been lined up down there all nice and neat waiting to go to their certain dooms scattered under the sound, like they’d been looking for any excuse they could to get the hell out of there.

It was too late for Amy, she was on the gym floor twitching as she bled out and waited for a vampire spirit to enter her body, but it wasn’t too late for those other girls at least.

Maybe not. Stacy darted for one, and Veronica went for another one. Some of the vampire cheerleaders that’d been hanging out behind Veronica also started going after the girls who were trying to escape, but those vamps didn’t get very far.

No, I vaulted over the edge of the railing and flew straight down at them with my scythe out. I was going to take care of this, damn it, and I was going to take care of it now.

I’d originally intended to go after Veronica. I figured that’d be the best way to take care of everything in one fell swoop. Assuming these vampires operated under Lost Boys rules, which was far from a sure thing. The only problem was all the other vampires went from chasing the cheerleaders to forming a circle around Veronica at a call from her.

Damn. They were disciplined on top of everything else. Which seemed a little odd. If someone had just turned me into a bloodsucking undead creature of the night then you bet your ass I wouldn’t be caught undead doing anything approaching their bidding.

Only there they were lining up ready to fight the big scary reaper that was going after the vampire who’d just given them life. Or maybe it was unlife. What the fuck ever it was.

I could at least do a little something. I caught a vampire spirit slinking across the room looking like it was trying its best to jump into Amy without me noticing. Well I’d see about that!

I was a lot better at this now than I’d been the first couple of times I went up against, say, my first necromancer. I lashed out with a couple of tendrils of magic and knocked over the first line of newly turned cheerleaders who were doing their best to defend Veronica.

The front row went down and then the others behind them also came tumbling down right behind them. I grinned as I floated over the coach as she tried to grab at me, claws and fangs out, and gingerly stepped over her head as I landed in front of Veronica.

“You’re in a whole heap of trouble now,” I said.

“Am I?” she asked, her eyes darting to the side.

“You are,” I said, reaching out and slamming my fist against something that was coming at me from that direction. Only the vampire girl merely smirked as I felt a crunch with my scythe making contact with whoever had been trying to sneak up on me. Accompanied by a scream.

From a voice who sounded all too familiar.

I turned to see Stacy land on the ground holding her side. She glared up at me, and for a moment she didn’t look like the enthralled vampire she’d been a moment ago. Maybe getting hit was enough to break through that vampire mind control thing the main chick was doing.

“What the fuck Gwen?” she cried out.

“Stacy!” I said, hardly believing I’d been so preoccupied with the whole vengeful reaper thing that I’d lashed out and hurt my girlfriend. Even if she was my girlfriend who’d been turned into a vampire.

If this was how things went every time we ran up against something supernatural with her being captured by said supernatural creature then I really hated to think what her razor bill would be if a werewolf came to town.

“That fucking hurts!” she said.

“I…”

Something hit me in the side. I didn’t see what it was, but as I flew through the air I had a pretty good idea that I knew exactly who it was. I’d allowed myself to get distracted, and that distraction was enough to let Veronica get in a sucker punch.

The bitch.

As I sailed through the air I had time to see Stacy smile and wink at me as she stood up like there was nothing wrong with her. She’d been faking it the whole time! It was both infuriating and a relief to know she’d been faking her injury.

Then I landed and things went a little dark for a little while.

23

Waking Up Dead

“Gwen? You going to be okay there?”

I blinked a couple of times and turned back around. I didn’t want to wake up if my body was going to hurt like this. It would be much easier to go back to sleep for a little while longer.

“Come on Gwen,” that voice said. “You’re seriously going to go down for the count now? There’s some serious shit going down here!”

I groaned and waved a hand at that pesky voice that insisted on bothering me. Couldn’t they tell I was a little busy here, damn it?

“Gwen! Stacy is going to get killed!”

That was enough to get me to sit straight up. I had a brief flash of the gym flashing past me, then I was going through the roof. Like I was literally going past the rafters at the top of the gym and then out into the sky above.

Only there was something off about the skies above. Everything was a little washed out. Like all the color had gone out of the world and I was staring at something that wasn’t quite right.

“Motherfucker,” I growled.

“Took you long enough to figure it out?”

I turned to see Arnold sticking his head out of the gym. I’d been up here once, a couple of years ago. A few people from the swim team, back when I hadn’t been a reaper and could actually have fun with my friends, had snuck up here one night to have a look around.

I’d almost slipped off the edge, which would’ve been bad. Slipping off the edge and falling in front of all my friends on the team was the kind of thing that would’ve been a little difficult to cover up.

Then again I’d also been pancaked by a school bus and my dad had managed to cover that up, so what did I know?

“That hard landing totally killed me, didn’t it?”

“I mean I’m not exactly a doctor or anything,” Arnold said, ducking his head back down into the gym where he was presumably getting a good look at my body lying broken on the gym floor. His head popped back up. “But yeah, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance you just bit the big one down there and now your spirit has sort of left your body for a little while.”

I growled and dove back into the gym. A bunch of cheerleaders were gathered around my body like they were genuinely sad I’d bit the big one. One of them was shouting something about calling an ambulance. Of course when the ambulance workers got a good look at who they were working on they’d know it’d been a pointless call and a waste of their time, but I had no intention of still being around here when the authorities arrived.

“You’re not going to wait for the usual cover up this time around?” Jake asked as I dove past him.

“I thought you always waited for the cover up,” Luke said as I dove past him as well.

Then I was in my body and convulsing. I didn’t even bother closing my eyes to brace myself for the pain. I didn’t have time for bracing myself for how much it was going to hurt when I jumped back into my body.

Even if it did hurt like a motherfucker.

“Son of a bitch!” I screamed out, my voice doing that weird thing where it sounded like the souls of the damned for just a moment.

That sound was enough to get all the worried cheerleaders who’d been gathering in around me to jump back and shriek in terror. One of them ran straight towards the exit, though she was so busy staring at me instead of watching where she was going that she didn’t see the wall coming up to meet her.

I shouldn’t have laughed, but it was too damn funny as her head smacked into the wall and she went down for the count. Besides, it was a welcome distraction from all the pain that coursing through my body.

I moved a hand down to try and push myself up and regretted it. Apparently the bones that had broken in several places in my arm hadn’t quite knitted up yet.

“Motherfucker that hurts like a motherfucker,” I growled as I tried putting weight on it again.

It held, at least. If I could put weight on it then it was fine, even if it did hurt like those aforementioned motherfuckers every time I put that weight on it. Better to hurt just a little and catch up to Stacy and those vampires than to sit here feeling sorry for myself just because a good chunk of the bones in my body had been broken with that unceremonious landing.

“Wait!” one of the cheerleaders said. “Are you seriously going to take off? That hit looked like it was enough to kill you!”

I turned to the girl as my robes started to appear around me and my scythe appeared in my hand. She took a couple of steps back, her eyes going wide as she realized what was going on.

“That was enough to kill me,” I said. “And there are vampires in this school who are going to do their best to kill you and turn you into bloodsucking slaves if you don’t get the hell out of here.”

They all stared at me for a long moment. They had the sort of deer in headlights look that was the sort of thing that got people killed in the modern era because they were too stupid to realize when they were going up against something supremely dangerous that didn’t care about whether or not mankind was the dominant species on this planet.

“That means you need to move your cute asses if you want to make it out of here alive!” I snapped, finally getting a little too frustrated with cheerleaders who were too stupid to save their own damned lives.

If I couldn’t gripe at the cheerleader I wanted to gripe at then at least I could gripe at these cheerleaders.

That was enough to get them moving. I didn’t wait to see if they actually bothered to get out of the gym. I’d done everything I could to warn them about the world of hurt that was coming their way if they were stupid enough to stick around the school, and right now I had something more important to attend to.

Namely finding that vampire chick and killing her ass so I could get my girlfriend back.

I flew through the school halls. A janitor saw me and had the good sense to get the fuck out of the way. There were a couple of students hanging around in the band room looking like they were getting ready to make out, I guess there was no better hall than the abandoned band hall, but they also had the good sense to get the hell out of the way when they saw me swooping through the place.

Finally I broke into the clear evening air. It was starting to get dark, and I saw something familiar at the edge of the parking lot.

That giant boat of a convertible that looked like something straight out of a movie car rental place’s ‘50s garage. With none other than those vampires peeling out, and they had my girlfriend with them.

I growled and took off after them, but they were moving pretty fucking fast. They turned a corner, tires screeching the entire way, and I heard sirens as one of the cops who was always hanging out around the school to generate a little revenue for the city on the backs of parents of young drivers went after them.

I didn’t see what happened, but I did hear the screech and the loud crunch of an obvious car accident, followed very quickly by more screeching tires.

When I rounded the corner I found a police SUV that’d been smashed in the front and was sitting in the middle of the street with its lights still flashing, its siren protesting in a weird faint warble, and smoke rising from the front that had been reduced to a hulk of twisted and mangled metal.

That wasn’t the most interesting thing, of course. No, that prize went to the two very surprised looking cops sitting in the SUV looking at each other like they were trying to figure out if everything that’d just happened had actually just happened.

I floated over to them and tried to pull the door open. Unfortunately it didn’t open right away and so I pulled a little harder. I guess I yanked a little too hard, because the entire door came off.

It was odd. Now that I was closer to the SUV I saw what looked like claw marks on the glass and maybe on the top. Like there’d been something terrifying on top of the SUV trying to get in to snack on the cops.

It honestly looked like there was a cat who’d discovered how to operate can opener technology, and the cops were the delicious tuna on the inside they were going after. Which was a pretty funny mental image, though something told me the cops wouldn’t appreciate it.

“Get down!”

It took me a moment to realize the cop was talking to me. He had a gun pointed at me, which was a first. There were a lot of things that’d killed me over the years, but a gun wasn’t one of them.

I didn’t bother holding my hands up. I rolled my eyes and held the scythe up.

“Come on buddy,” I said. “You know who I am. Can you cut the…”

I was cut off by the loud sound of a shot ringing out and echoing off the buildings all around us. Though that was nothing compared to the pain that went shooting through me. I looked down and saw blood coming out of my robes.

Of course they were black robes so it’s not like I had to worry all that much about staining, but it was still annoying having this asshole trying to fill me with holes! Who the hell did he think he was?

I swayed back and forth a couple of times, trying to hold it together and knowing that I probably wasn’t going to be able to. There’d been a lot of ways I’d been killed over the years, but this was the first time that killing involved bullets.

It was just as I’d always suspected over the years. Getting shot hurt like a motherfucker! I swayed a few more times and then fell over as the world went black all around me.

Again.

My last thought before it was lights out was I was going to give a piece of my mind to whatever asshole on the force thought it was acceptable to shoot an innocent teenage girl who tried rescuing them!

24

Local PD

I blinked a couple of times as a bright light shone down on me. For a confused moment I thought it was the bright light at the end of the tunnel that everyone says they see when they’ve died. There was something funny about the thought of a bright light hitting me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Something about…

Then it all came rushing back to me. Along with the pain of what I imagined were a couple of bullet holes that were quickly knitting themselves up as my body came back to life.

I really hoped it spit that lead out, Wolverine style, when all was said and done.

“Huh,” I sputtered. “Getting shot must not be all that bad if I didn’t even have an out of body with that one.”

That or the pain had been so severe that I’d completely blocked the whole out of body experience. Yeah, I really didn’t want to get shot ever again. That hurt like a motherfucker!

“Holy shit!” someone shouted.

I blinked a couple more times and looked around. I found myself staring at a couple of very confused EMTs as well as a familiar face smiling down at me and not looking nearly as worried as the Chief of Police should be after one of his guys gunned down an innocent girl.

“I am so suing your department,” I said with a smile.

“Then I’m totally releasing the bodycam footage that shows you ripping the door off its hinges with a black cloud all around you and an eerie glow in your eyes,” he said with a grin of his own.

“Glowing eyes?” I asked. “That’s a new one.”

“I’ve seen your dad do it a couple of times,” he said. “Usually when he was really ticked off. So the question is what had you so worked up?”

I coughed a couple of times, and immediately regretted it for all that it was an involuntary reaction to having a tickle in my chest. The problem was that tickle in my chest was caused by a bullet hole that was healing up faster than any wound would ever heal for a normal mortal, and coughing meant it opened up just a touch.

“Man that hurts,” I said.

“Yeah, at least you get to heal up nice and quick,” the Chief said. “It hurts even more when you have to heal the old fashioned way. You’re lucky I got here before they took you to the hospital.”

“Oh God,” I said. “Not those old sawbones with their anesthetic and scalpels.”

The Chief got down on his knees next to me. I pulled myself up. One of the EMTs looked like he was going to protest, but a single look from the Chief was enough to get him to settle down.

“Let the girl get up if she wants to,” he said. “You of all people should know she’ll be fine.”

“Well maybe,” he said. “But this is the first time we’ve seen her get shot.”

The Chief grunted, and the EMT backed off. Then he turned that glare on me. “So do you want to tell me why one of my new SUVs was destroyed by a bunch of idiot teenagers who jumped on the hood and clawed it open? Jenkins is going in for early retirement after everything that happened today, and he’s only a year out of the academy!”

I shook my head. “Maybe if he’s shooting at unarmed teenagers he should be retiring early.”

“That’s not fair and you know it Gwen,” he said. “Though admittedly his introduction to the supernatural was a little more… spectacular than your typical introduction in this town.”

I groaned and closed my eyes. My dad had never told me all that much about what was involved in his work aside from ferrying the souls of the dead to the other side, but I was starting to suspect there was another side of this job he’d never told me about aside from leaving a bunch of books about the supernatural available on the shelves where of course I was going to gravitate towards them because what kid wouldn’t be drawn to that stuff?

“They were vampires,” I said.

The Chief looked off to the side. I turned to find myself facing another cop who looked older, but not as old as the old man. The older guy grumbled as he reached into his wallet and pulled out a couple of twenties then handed them to the Chief.

My eyes narrowed. “You were betting on this?”

The Chief shook his head and chuckled. “Sorry. I’ve been working with your dad on this stuff for so long that I forget you’re new to all of this.”

“Yeah, I am just a little new to all this,” I said. “And a little annoyed, if you haven’t figured that out.”

“If it makes you feel any better the guy who shot you is going to be put on paid administrative leave for a little while,” the Chief said. “Not quite the early retirement he was hoping for, but he’ll get some training on the more supernatural aspects of the job.”

I rolled my eyes at that. “Oh yeah. The greatest punishment a bunch of cops can ever give out.”

The Chief’s eyes narrowed. Then he sighed.

“I can tell we’re getting off on the wrong foot here,” he said. “I’m sorry. When you’re on this job long enough you have to get a sense of humor about this stuff or you lose it. That’s something you’re going to have to learn.”

I sighed too. “Yeah, I’m sorry too. I’m having sort of a bad day right now.”

“You want to talk about it?” he asked. “You never know. We might be able to help you. Cops are able to do things right from time to time.”

He still had that smile on his face, so I figured he was making a little joke at his expense. So I decided to bite my tongue. Like most teens I had a natural distrust of authority figures, and I was still royally pissed considering I just got my ass shot, but the guy seemed like he was genuinely trying to help me so I figured I should take the olive branch and play nice.

“Yeah, well I’ve just discovered that my girlfriend has been turned into a vampire. I’ve been chasing the vampires that turned her into a vampire for like a week now but they get away every time I think I’ve got them cornered. Not to mention a manager on the swim team that I can’t swim on anymore because of the family business got killed last night because my girlfriend was stupid enough to try and take the vampires out on her own which is probably what got her turned into a fucking vampire in the first place.”

I trailed off. Mostly because I was so pissed off that I couldn’t think of much else to say. What else was there to say? I was on my own for the first time ever, and I felt like I’d been thrown into the deep end without ever getting a swimming lesson.

If I didn’t figure out how to stop these vampires then there were going to be a lot more dead kids, and that was something I desperately wanted to avoid if I could.

“Sounds like you have a full plate,” the Chief said. “I’m not going to deny that. Still, it could be worse.”

I glared at him. “How could it possibly be worse?”

He held up his hand and started ticking off his fingers as he went through a litany of things that could still go wrong despite everything that’d happened.

“Well you could’ve gotten shot tonight and not be immune to that sort of damage for one,” he said. “Not to mention you could’ve run up against a bunch of vampires as a regular person and gone missing like some of the other missing persons who’ve been showing up in my office lately. Thanks for giving me that little tidbit of information, by the way, because it’s going to make this a lot easier.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “What are you talking about, people going missing?”

The Chief shrugged. It surprised me just how blase he was about this whole thing considering what it was he was talking about.

“We’ve had the usual stuff going down that happens when there’s something operating around here that shouldn’t be,” he said. “Joggers disappearing in the parks. Kids going missing from the high school. A decrease in the homeless population. The usual stuff.”

I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. I know I’d already been annoyed at how he brushed off all the craziness that was happening, but this was beyond the pale.

“And you’re not doing anything about it?” I asked. “You’re not sending out a press release telling the world that they need to be cautious? What’s your problem?”

He hit me with a level stare. The kind of stare that said I was acting like an idiot. I reminded myself that he’d been on the job a lot longer than I had, so maybe he had some wisdom to impart on me. For all that I thought any wisdom he wanted to impart on me wasn’t going to be wisdom I’d be interested in.

“So what do you want me to do?” he asked. “Go to the local news and tell them people need to be more careful because there are a bunch of teenage vampires straight out of The Lost Boys operating in the area? Do you have any idea how long I’d keep my job after I did something like that?”

“The mayor would fire you for acting crazy?” I asked.

“Fuck no,” he growled. “He’d fire me for setting off a public panic by letting people know vampires were real. People are happier when they think they’re at the top of the food chain.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m not going to tell you how to do your job, but it’d be nice if you told all your people what’s going on so none of them try to shoot me when they see me chasing after the scary undead creatures of the night.”

“I think we can do that,” the Chief said. “I’ll even handle all the covering up this time around since your dad isn’t around to help out with that.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure you’re doing that out of the goodness of your heart and not because one of your boys was stupid enough to take a shot at a teenage girl without verifying she was a danger first.”

“Whatever,” the Chief said with a sigh. “We are going to have to learn how to work together at some point, you know.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “Anyway. I’ve got some vampires to hunt, so if you’ll excuse me.”

“Of course,” the Chief said. “And I’ll try to keep as many people out of the parks as I can. I can’t promise that’s going to stop the vampires from chowing down on the occasional jogger, but I’ll do my best.”

“Thanks,” I said, reaching out to take his hand.

He eyed my hand for a moment, then took it.

“Not like you’re going to be pulling me over to the other side any time soon,” he said with a grin.

“Says you,” I said with a grin of my own that turned the good Chief several different shades of pale. “Just don’t plan your retirement or buy a boat anytime soon and you should be good. Isn’t that what usually kills old cops?”

And with that I floated away. I still had work to do, and once again I had no idea where the hell to find the fucking vampires I was hunting.

25

Geekpire

I floated back towards the school. I’m not sure why. I just knew the vampires had gone back to that school often enough that they’d probably be back there again soon enough, and it’s not like I could cover all the parks in town where joggers might potentially go missing or anything.

I sighed as I rounded the corner into the parking lot. I figured it was going to be a boring night, but then Luke flew up to me with a look that was somewhere between excitement and panic.

I felt a bit of excitement myself. If he was looking that excited then maybe it meant those assholes hadn’t run as far as I thought.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I think I found one of the vampires you’re looking for,” he said. “And he’s beating the shit out of another one!”

A chill ran through me. If one of the vampires was beating another one then that could be Stacy getting the shit kicked out of her. One of the nasty things about being immortal was there was the whole problem of being able to live through some nasty shit that would kill someone else.

Then I thought better of that. If it was Stacy getting the shit kicked out of her sexy undead ass then Luke would’ve said it was Stacy.

“Lead on,” I said.

When we got to the front entrance Jake was waiting there with anticipation written plain on his face.

“Come on!” he said. “They’re down in the band hallway!”

I careened down the halls, flying fast enough to keep up with my ghostly friends, and that was saying something since they were cheating and going through walls. When we reached the band hall that’d been such a nonstarter the night before I heard the clear sounds of a fight.

Of course it was possible that was a fight that was going down between two mortal high school students and not a fight going down between a couple of vampires. It sounded more like one person getting the shit kicked out of them than anything.

Still, I had to check it out. I rounded the corner and came to a stop as I realized I knew the vampires who were getting into it.

One of them turned to look at me, and he recognized me. Unfortunately he was too busy getting the shit kicked out of him to do much of anything. Which included warning the vampire who was beating the shit out of him.

Which might be good for him, considering it looked like he was getting a firsthand introduction to that immortal beatdown thing I’d been worried Stacy would be suffering.

I needed something to lash out at. It didn’t matter that this bloodsucker wasn’t the one who’d presumably turned Stacy. All I cared about was there was an asshole in front of me with fangs, and it was time to kick some vampire ass.

I slammed into the fucker. I didn’t even bother to use the whole death magic thing. No, I wanted to get a little up close and personal with this one.

The vampire grunted as we went tumbling to the ground end over end. I didn’t see what happened to the other one who’d been getting the shit kicked out of him, but I figured he was probably going to be running for the hills considering what’d been going on with the other vampire assholes who ran whenever it seemed like I was getting somewhere.

We slammed into a couple of doors that flew open. I had a view of a long shelf full of trophies that seemed odd for the band, choir, and drama hallway, then we were rolling down some steps that were in the middle of the fucking room for some weird reason.

Not that I cared about my surroundings. No, I was more interested in this fucking vampire and taking out some of the frustration that’d been building over the past couple of days on this bloodsucker.

“That’s right you bloodsucking bastard!” I said, pulling my arm back and slamming it into his face a couple of times for good measure.

The big difference between beating the crap out of a vampire versus beating the crap out of a human was the vampire didn’t get bloodied or bruised or anything like that. Not exactly. Sure I was rearranging his face with every hit, but those hits healed up fast enough that his face was mostly pristine when I hit it again.

Which was just fine with me. That meant I could beat the crap out of him for even longer.

“Why the fuck do you assholes have to…”

I paused as I pulled my fist back again. Because there was something odd about this vampire. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but…

“What decade are you from?” I asked.

The guy coughed and spluttered a couple of times. Then the other vampire was there right next to me, leaning down over the guy. He wheeled his foot back like he was getting ready to give me a kick, and so I reached out and caught his foot before he had a chance to land that hit.

The geeky vampire cried out in surprise as he went tumbling back. His neck landed on the edge of one of these weird semicircular steps, and there was a slight crunch as his body started to twitch.

Ouch. That looked like one of those unfortunate incapacitating spine hits. Whatever. He’d get better, and a convenient upper spine injury meant I didn’t have to worry about a second bloodsucking bastard coming at me while I was trying to have a conversation with this bloodsucking bastard.

I raised my fist again. Held it there so he could get a good look at the world of hurt that was about to pay him a visit if he didn’t talk.

“I’m fucking serious,” I said. “You tell me what the fuck is going on here or you’re going to have a really bad fucking day. Got it? What fucking decade are you from?”

“I think I recognize that guy,” Luke said, floating in. “Yeah, I think I recognize both of these guys! That’s Michael Thomas you’re beating.”

I stared at him for a long moment. Long enough that I hoped it was pretty clear I had no idea who the hell Michael Thomas was.

“Oh, right,” he said. “We’re talking the urban legend of a bunch of kids who went for a joyride out on the country roads and ended up getting killed really messily.”

“Wait, I thought you guys were the ones who got killed while you were joyriding,” I said.

My dad had apparently been the one doing the driving when that happened, or at least he’d been in the car and felt responsible for what’d happened. It didn’t help that considering his unique supernatural origins his friends had become ghosts while he’d continued living his life as though nothing had happened.

I couldn’t imagine what that must feel like living your life knowing you were partially responsible for your friends dying, and on top of that knowing the only reason you’d survived when they didn’t was because you were a reaper.

It was something I’d come close to understanding when my friends had been taken out by Graham the idiot necromancer, but at least I’d been able to save them. Well, all of them but Graham, but he sort of had it coming.

I was worried I was about to suffer the same fate with Stacy now that she’d been turned to a vampire, but I tried not to think about that too much.

“This is the one where the kids were killed when they tried racing a train,” Luke said. “Happened a couple of years before us, but my understanding is a bunch of people have kind of combined the two stories so they’re all the same thing.”

“Yeah, something like that,” I said. “Weird. So you’re saying these two vampires were in that accident?”

“Well honestly considering there are two vampires here from that car accident I’d be willing to bet that racing a train wasn’t the main reason the people in that car died that night.

“Huh,” I said. “That’s an interesting supposition there. They ran into some vampires, and after the fact the bloodsuckers made it look like they were hit by a train. Clever.”

I turned back to the vampire who’d been beating the crap out of the poor bastard who seemed doomed to forever live the life of a geek who got the crap kicked out of him by the asshole bullies who’d picked on him while he was still alive.

Talk about my idea of hell.

“What the fuck are you doing beating up on that guy?” I asked. “And what do you know about Stacy and the other vampires? Why did they steal my girlfriend?”

The vampire laughed. It struck me what was slightly off about him now. Most of the other vampires I’d met looked like extras out of some ‘50s greaser movie, Veronica being the exception even though she was out of time too, but this guy looked like he’d raided the Brady Bunch wardrobe or something with the clothes he was wearing.

If he did come from the late ‘70s then I guess that made sense. He would’ve been in that weird in-between time that wasn’t quite the ‘70s as people imagine it, but also wasn’t quite the ‘80s everyone thought of when that decade came to mind.

“Your girl begged for it,” he said. “She asked the Master to take her, and she squealed like a stuck pig when his fangs sank into her neck!”

I’m not sure what my bloodsucking friend was hoping to accomplish by taunting me like that, but he sure squealed like a stuck pig himself as the death magic I’d been tossing around slammed into his chest.

His eyes went wide and his whole body started to convulse. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Just that I was good and pissed off, and whatever the fuck I was doing here seemed to be hurting him real good so I was going to keep doing it.

I didn’t even really know what I was doing. Just that hitting him with that magic, wrapping him in tendrils of darkness and pressing some of that darkness into him, felt sort of like when I’d been facing down Graham the necromancer and I suddenly discovered there were souls lurking deep inside the glowing staff thingy he was using to steal people’s souls.

Only the soul deep inside this motherfucker was all dark and disgusting. Not at all like the still mostly pristine soul on the last girl I’d saved. No, this soul had been fused with a vampire long enough that it’d done some shit.

I wanted to pull away. I felt dirty just touching it. Only I knew I had to keep going.

Finally something snapped inside the vampire. I yanked, hard, and one of those freaky vampire soul things came flying out of the fucker with a messy explosion of blood and guts and flew across the room.

The vampire stared in astonishment. Sure that might’ve been that he was still trying to regain control of his body after having a good chunk of it ripped to pieces by that throw, but I liked to think he was looking at his body’s former undead occupant and thinking about how good and fucked he was.

The vampire spirit slammed against a wall, and for a wonder it actually caused that wall to rattle and sent a couple of framed bits of music falling to the ground where the glass shattered.

I blinked and looked around, and suddenly everything made a lot more sense. I’d been going to hunt vampires in the band, choir, and drama hallway, and it looked like I’d tumbled into the band room as I was fighting this vampire fucker.

Right. That would also explain the weird tiered stairs running in a semicircle up the room. All the band kids would sit in chairs on that semicircle while they did their thing.

I pulled myself to my feet. Brushed myself off. Stared at the vampire on the ground, but he wasn’t moving. That made sense considering the mess it’d made when I ripped the vampire spirit free. I hadn’t intended to be that violent. I guess I’d just learned a lesson though. I needed to be careful if I was doing vampire spirit removal.

Something to keep in mind with Stacy, but right now I had more immediate problems. Like the very disoriented vampire spirit looking around the room.

Its eyes came to rest on me, and I knew this vampire fucker was seeing its end. The thing stood and tried to get away, but I wrapped it in tendrils of death magic, and a moment later we were on our way to the other side where this thing could be properly disposed of.

26

Vampire Disposal

“Another one?”

Death looked down at the vampire spirit. The thing still had a little bit of fight in it when we first came through to the other side, but all that fight had gone out of it as soon as it realized where it was.

“Another one,” I said. “Turns out my school is crawling with vampires. I ripped this one right out of one of the fuckers. Good to know I can do that, too.”

Death’s lips compressed to a thin line. “You’ll want to be careful about doing that to someone you actually care for.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, thinking about the mess this thing had made coming out of the vampire dude and how I really didn’t want that to happen to Stacy.

“I don’t understand why this one was different,” I said. “The last one got ripped out of that girl without killing her. Well, without killing her again. You know what I mean.”

“Did it?” he asked.

“Well I sort of intercepted it right after it possessed her, but yeah,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” he said. “The longer these things spend in a person’s body, the more difficult it is to remove them without causing some damage. It’s one of the reasons I was so surprised that you pulled it off. No one’s been near a vampire close enough to them turning. You need to be careful.”

I stared at the vampire spirit as it was lifted up and carted towards the great portal to the great whatever the fuck was waiting for things on the other side. Other reapers were handling it this time around. I guess my little back and forth with Death was more important than tossing that thing through the portal personally.

“Fuck,” I said. “So you’re saying I could hurt someone by pulling the vampire out?”

“Sometimes you have to nuke the original vampire from orbit,” he said. “It’s the only way to be sure.”

I eyed him sideways. I was pretty sure he was quoting something there, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. I’m sure one of the three stooges would know. Assuming it was something that’d been out before their untimely death.

“How does that work, anyway?” I asked. “Do you kill the head vampire and they all die off or something?”

“Nothing quite as dramatic as that,” he said with a chuckle. “If you want to get rid of a vampire soul infesting, say, someone you love, then all you have to do is kill the vampire that turned them. Or kill a vampire somewhere down the line that was involved in siring the vampire that killed you. So I suppose killing the head vampire would do it, assuming that head vampire went down the line to the person you’re trying to save. Makes it very easy and very difficult to take care of vampire infections, y’know?”

“Great,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I can’t even track down the vampires who turned Stacy, let alone figure out which one of those assholes was the one who turned her.”

He looked down at me sharply. “Stacy? You mean that nice girl who got attacked by the necromancer?”

“Well yeah,” I said. “She has a habit of running headfirst into supernatural shit. I keep telling her it’s going to get her in trouble someday, but did she listen to me? Hell no. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is having a girlfriend who doesn’t have an appreciation of her own fucking mortality?”

I expected agreement. Instead all I got was silence. I looked up at the big guy and he had an odd look on his face. Like he was thinking something over rather than simply agreeing with me.

“What?” I asked. “What am I missing here?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve never known of someone to survive a necromancer like she did and then get attacked by vampires.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well I’m the lucky one dating a girl who was unlucky enough to get caught up in both. Lucky me, right?”

“Something like that,” Death said.

I stared off at the vampire spirit as it approached the gate. From the wide-eyed look of terror it was giving us as it was dragged off to the inevitable it didn’t like the thought of being pulled off towards that inevitable.

“You should probably get back to the other side,” Death said. “Something tells me there’s something very weird going on over there, and I’d feel better if you were there keeping an eye on things.”

“Of course,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I be there keeping an eye on things? It’s not like I have a life or a girlfriend to worry about or anything.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “I know you’re having some difficulties with this, but if anyone can handle all the craziness happening in that town it’s you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

I wasn’t sure I liked his reference to “all the craziness happening in that town.” That sounded an awful lot like vampires and necromancers and other things that go bump in the night were something I could come to expect on the regular, and that wasn’t a comforting idea.

“You are your father’s daughter,” he said. “And I have confidence that you’ll be able to handle anything that gets thrown at you.”

“That’s not very comforting,” I muttered.

But I let the death magic gather around me as I stepped back into the real world. And found myself staring down at the asshole I’d ripped that vampire spirit out of.

He was still twitching, but he also didn’t look long for this world.

“Did you kill him?” a voice asked from beside me.

I wheeled around and found myself facing the vampire asshole who’d been getting his ass handed to him. I sighed. I wasn’t particularly worried about him causing any trouble, though he had been on the verge of getting his ass handed to him all over again.

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous sneaking up on someone like that?” I asked.

“Sorry,” he said, eyeing the tendrils of death magic that’d materialized around me like someone who was mortal might eye a venomous snake. “But is he dead? I saw what you did.”

There was something to the look in his eyes. Almost as though he was hopeful or something.

“Do you want me to do the same to you?” I asked, lashing out at him with some of that death magic and knocking him on his ass.

He didn’t seem like he was ready for that. Then again I got the feeling this guy wasn’t much for dusting it up with people no matter what. His feet went out from under him and he hit the ground with another loud crack.

“Ow!” he cried out. “That hurts like a motherfucker! Breaking my neck wasn’t enough for you?”

“I’m only getting started,” I said, looming over him with my robes flapping in a nonexistent breeze as I held my scythe up. “I’m one for one tonight with vampire spirits, so let’s see what happens with you.”

He held his hands out. Like that might actually stop me from taking him out.

“Wait!” he said. “I want to help you!”

I paused in the act of bringing the scythe down. I cocked an eyebrow. I was skeptical, but I was also willing to hear this asshole out.

“Go on,” I said.

“He was beating the crap out of me because he knew I was going to try and find you,” the guy said.

I glanced down at the guy twitching on the ground. “Why the hell would he be doing that? He doesn’t even look like he’s from the same time period as the other vampires!”

“That’s the thing,” he said, eyeing my scythe and licking his lips. Which, incidentally, also showed me his fangs which reminded me that I was dealing with a bloodsucker for all that he was a bloodsucker who was talking fast in an attempt to save his ass.

“What’s the thing?” I said, pressing the tip of that scythe against his nose to remind him who he was dealing with here.

“You’re going to be seeing a lot of people from different decades here soon,” he said. “They’re planning a gathering, and they don’t want you around when that happens.”

“A gathering?” I said. “Is this like a vampire reunion or something?”

“Or something,” he said, licking his lips again and going cross-eyed as he stared at the tip of my scythe pressing against his nose.

I pulled the scythe away. Rolled my eyes. Meanwhile the guy down below twitched a final time, and then he went still.

“Man that sucks,” I said. “I thought I was doing him a favor pulling that vampire spirit out!”

“Yeah, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t help me or do me any favors,” the vampire said.

A ghost rose out of the recently departed vampire. He shook himself a couple of times and then turned to focus on me. His eyes turned to pure fury and he launched himself at me, though of course it didn’t do him much good considering he was a ghost and I wasn’t.

“You killed me you bitch!” he said.

“What’s he going on about?” I asked. “And aren’t vampires supposed to turn to dust or something when they die? Why did he turn into a ghost?”

“He turned into a ghost?” the vampire said, looking around the room and rubbing his arms like he was actually afraid of the idea of a ghost floating around the room somewhere.

I rolled my eyes. There was no rhyme or reason for supernatural creatures.

“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. “The guy just turned into a ghost, and now he’s attacking me. Well, he’s trying to attack me. It’s not actually doing much good.”

The guy flew through me a second time. Then a third time. His hands were waving this way and that and he was doing a good job of it. The only problem being he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually hitting me.

“It doesn’t look like anything’s attacking you,” the geeky vampire said. “Like are you sure you aren’t hallucinating or something?”

The guy who’d been a vampire until so very recently flew at me again. This time he flew right at my face and I couldn’t help but flinch away from the shot.

“Yeah, pretty fucking sure this asshole is coming at me,” I finally growled. “And I’m not fucking happy about it!”

“Right,” the geek vampire said, sounding like he wanted to be anywhere but in the room with me at that moment.

And not because I was a reaper who could rip the vampire soul out of him. No, that was the kind of “right” someone got when they thought another person in the room was losing it.

The ghost that’d been a vampire came at me one final time. So I swung my scythe and hit the dude head on.

Sliced right through him, actually. He looked down and his eyes went wide as darkness moved up from that slice and consumed him. It looked like something out of a movie about nanomachines taking over the world and turning people into nano goo or something.

In short it was freaky. Dan Aykroyd eat your heart out, because that was nothing like how taking out ghosts looked in the movies.

“You okay there?” the geek vampire asked.

I wheeled around on him. The other ghost had gone to the other side, but Death had told me I was needed over here. I figured that meant I didn’t necessarily have to be with the asshole when he went to that other side.

That was more a courtesy thing for supernatural creatures and necromantic assholes who’d been causing me trouble.

Besides, I had far more pressing things to worry about right now. Like this geeky vampire, and what he could tell me about what the fuck had happened to Stacy.

So I my scythe at his face again. He looked down and gulped, then held his hands up like this was a stick up or something.

Just fucking great.

27

Geekpire

“I’m telling you that’s him!”

I rolled my eyes. Here I was trying to be suitably intimidating to this vampire who’d been getting bullied by his fellow bloodsucking brethren, and so of course that would be the moment that the three supernatural stooges decided to show up and ruin my fun.

“Um, what are you looking at?” the vampire asked, still holding his hands up and still looking down at my scythe like he was worried it would do some damage.

I was about to do some damage. I was going to give him a piece of my mind with the thing, damn it. Assuming I could get the three stooges to leave me alone long enough for me to concentrate on work.

“What do you guys want?” I asked, turning to Luke, Arnold, and Jake who were floating around the vampire giving him a once over.

“I’m telling you it’s him!” Jake said, swooping in low next to the vampire and causing the bloodsucker to shiver and rub his arms like he could almost feel the ghosts moving in close around him. Which was a pretty typical ghost response.

“You know this guy?” I asked.

“I mean he sort of looks like Jimmy Kent,” Arnold said, pulling back and giving the guy a once over. “I’d swear it was him, but it’s sort of hard to tell y’know?”

“How could it possibly be hard to tell?” I asked.

“Well the fangs are new,” Arnold said. “And he was younger than all of us, but he’s dressing up in some certified geek stuff from the ‘50s.”

“Are you going to maybe tell me what the hell you’re talking about and who you’re talking to?” the vampire who might be Jimmy Kent asked.

“Shut up bloodsucker,” I said. “Or else I’m going to give you the same treatment I just gave your friend.”

“I can assure you that asshole wasn’t my friend,” he said. “Like nothing close to that.”

“Listen, Jimmy,” I said, deciding to stop with all the games and try to figure out if he was who my friends said he was. “We have vampires threatening to invade the school and I really don’t have time for this shit. So either you’re going to tell me something useful that makes me want to keep you alive, or undead, whatever, or we’re going to have a problem and you’re going to get the same treatment your buddy there did.”

“What did you call me?” he asked.

“Jimmy,” I said, pressing the little ruse even further. “Jimmy Kent. That is your name, right?”

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“I told you that was Jimmy!” Arnold said. “Ask him if he still remembers that time he crapped his pants on the old playground in second grade?”

I snickered. I couldn’t help it. Maybe it wasn’t the best response to the situation, but it was just a little funny.

“I thought you said he was younger than you?” I said.

“Well yeah,” Arnold said. “But a kid crapping on the playground is the sort of thing that travels through the whole school.”

“What are you laughing at?” Jimmy asked, suddenly looking wary. Like he’d started subtly making his way towards the exit, and it was only a well timed snap with my death magic that had him staying in place.

“One of my ghostly friends who claims he knew you once upon a time was telling me about the time you crapped your pants in second grade,” I said. “Come to think of it, I remember hearing a story like that when I was in elementary school even though it was like twenty years later or something. That was you?”

“Motherfucker,” he said, glancing around. “Is that you Arnold? Because I’ll fucking bust your ass!”

“I’d like to see him try!” Arnold said, doing a little figure eight in the air around Jimmy. “People in the real world can’t touch ghosts asshole!”

“I think he was talking about busting you in the sense of the 1984 comedy,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Arnold asked.

I sighed. “I’m really going to have to show you guys that movie sometime. It might get you to start playing a little nicer.”

“What movie is she talking about?” Jake asked.

I turned back to Jimmy. “Yes, that is Arnold floating around and telling me all about you.”

Oddly enough, Jimmy looked a little sad for a moment. “I took it hard when those guys bought it. I guess it is kind of nice to know that his spirit lives on somehow, even if it is as a smartass ghost.”

“I’ll show you smartass!” Arnold said, rushing through Jimmy and causing him to shiver just a little.

“Would you please play nice Arnold?” I asked, trying to keep my irritation to a minimum and not sure I was doing a good job of it. “And how the hell would he take it hard if you were older?”

“He was in the same D&D group as us back in the day,” Luke explained. “We were some of the older kids, and he was one of the younger ones kinda hanging around the periphery.”

“Oh,” I said.

“The same D&D gam is probably still going on with new people playing it to this day,” Luke said. “That’s how good high school D&D campaigns work.”

“Okay Jimmy,” I said, turning back to the vampire and refusing to get distracted with tales of high school D&D games. “So it turns out you knew my ghost friends. That just bought you a little bit of time, but not much. You’re going to tell me everything that’s going on here, or I’m going to send you where your vampire friend went, and you’re not going to like it.”

Jimmy glanced around the room like he was still trying to think of a way to get the hell out of here, and then sighed.

“People have been giving me shit for the last four decades,” he said. “I guess it shouldn’t be any different with you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I’m talking about I was turned by a vampire who’s been working this school since it was a little red single room schoolhouse,” Jimmy growled. “Usually the asshole turns people because they’re his pretties and he wants to have them for the rest of his undeath, but do you know why he chose me?”

I looked Jimmy up and down. I mean sure he wasn’t exactly a bad looking dude. He probably would’ve been able to rock the whole geek chic look that’d become so popular lately. But at the same time he wasn’t in danger of anyone ever calling him a pretty or making him functionally immortal because he looked good.

The guy might be cute in a geeky sort of way if you were into dudes, but a model he wasn’t.

“He probably got turned because of AV club,” Arnold muttered.

I glanced at the ghost, but decided to keep his running commentary to myself. After all, this vampire hadn’t been very happy with that commentary so far.

“He turned me because he couldn’t figure out how to use any of the AV equipment, and he was a huge fan of the “talkies.” Do you have any idea how fucking old someone had to be that they still called movies “talkies” even back in the early ‘80s when he turned me?”

I kept my thoughts to myself. I’d run into some old stuff over the years as a result of watching dad do his business, but it seemed like Jimmy had some stuff he was working through and I figured I’d give him the time he needed.

“And it was never anything good, either! The asshole just got around to watching Star Wars last year, we’re talking the original version and not any of the new stuff that’s come out lately, because he has such a long list of movies he needs to catch up on that he’s running on a four decade delay! At this rate I’m never going to get to see the new Star Trek movies, and when I do get to see it fifty years from now all those assholes are going to mock me for liking it!”

“Wait, there are new Star Trek movies you didn’t tell us about it?” Luke asked.

“Seriously,” Arnold said, coming up to float in front of me with his hands at his sides. “If there are Star Trek movies and you’ve been holding out on us then we’re going to haunt you until the day you die!”

I barked out a laugh at that. I couldn’t help myself. “Yeah, well we can watch that if we get through all this.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Jimmy asked.

“What’s going on here is I’m perpetually haunted by three huge dorks who are so behind on the pop culture of the past few decades that they rely on me to drip feed that stuff to them.”

“Oh,” Jimmy said. “Too bad they can’t talk to me. I’d be happy to tell them all about all the cool shit that’s come out lately.”

“I always knew Jimmy was a good guy,” Arnold said. “Even if he did shit himself on the playground. Too bad he can’t see us.”

“I’d like to remind you that he’s a bloodsucking vampire who’s probably killed his fair share of people over the years,” I said.

“Actually not so much,” a feminine voice said from the other end of the room.

Well then. That was wrong. I was the only lady in the room. The corpse of the former vampire definitely wasn’t talking, and he’d been a dude. That wasn’t Jimmy talking, which meant…

I wheeled around and found myself staring at none other than that pretty cheerleader girl that time forgot. Veronica. And standing next to her was none other than Stacy. Behind them in the hall I could see a bunch of vampire cheerleaders who looked like they were ready to kick some ass.

Damn it. I needed to find them, but it would’ve been nice if they could’ve not interrupted me when it felt like I was finally getting some answers.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

“I think the better question is what the hell are you still doing here,” the girl shot back. She glanced at Jimmy. “And why the hell are you talking with this loser?”

She turned to Stacy. “Honestly. What the hell did you ever see in this girl? She’s hanging out with the lamest people.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, feeling just a touch pissed off at all the bullshit I’d endured at this bitch’s hands. “Aren’t you the one who was hanging out with him for decades while you were all doing the whole wannabe Dracula thing?”

“Whatever,” the girl said. She turned to the other cheerleaders in the hall behind her. “You know what to do girls.”

The vampire cheerleaders slowly filed into the room one by one. None of them looked like they had anything good planned for me. Though of course they didn’t have anything good planned for me. They were fucking vampire cheerleaders and this bitch just set them on me.

“Hope you had time to make peace with whatever you believe in,” the girl said. “Because you’re about to die.”

“Y’know I always dreamed I’d die this way, and not in some lame car crash out in the country,” Arnold said with a wistful sigh as he looked at all the pretty girls filling the room.

“Would you shut up?” I growled.

“I’m not going to shut up!” Veronica snapped. “God you’re such a bitch! You don’t tell me what to do!”

“She’s talking to her ghost friend,” Jimmy said. “Arnold, Luke, and Jake?”

The girl laughed. A long and loud laugh. Which had the guys deflating right in front of me. That was an interesting look considering I’d never seen them caring about what someone else thought before.

“You’re hanging out with those losers? They’re still hanging around this place? What are they, ghosts or something?”

“Holy shit, she knows who we are!” Luke said.

“You’re happy about that?” I asked, glaring at them.

“Duh,” Arnold said. “The hot older chick knew who we were!”

Boys. Ugh. I turned back to Veronica and looked between her and Stacy. I was already angry with this girl for turning my girlfriend into a fucking vampire, but it really pissed me off to hear her talking about my friends like that!

“That’s it,” I said. “You’re going down, bitch.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she growled back at me.

So I tried. I lashed out with some of my magic. It slammed into her and she let out an unearthly wail. Like the sound of an evil vampire soul being sucked straight out of her body, though I didn’t have time to really do anything because her asshole minions came at me at right about that moment.

“Run,” I said, turning to Jimmy.

28

Cheer Chase

“Y’know I always dreamed about having a bunch of cheerleaders chasing me through the school,” Jimmy said.

I rolled my eyes. Were they all going to pull this on me? “Not the time or the place for that sort of thing Jimbo.”

“Come on,” he said. “If you’re into girls you can’t tell me you never had that thought!”

I didn’t answer the question. It wasn’t one that I much felt like answering, thank you very much. Not when he was absolutely right that I’d had that thought on a couple of occasions.

It’s not like it was a thought I was going to give voice to when I was surrounded by all the pervy dorks from the school from back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

“Would you just move your ass?” I asked. “I thought vampires were supposed to have super speed or something?”

“Or something,” Jimmy said. “I mean you can go longer and everything, but it’s not like you become Superman or something just because you get bit.”

“Great,” I said. “That means I’ll have no trouble outrunning those girls, and it means you need to pick up the pace if you don’t want me leaving your ass behind!”

“He’s not wrong, you know,” Arnold said, floating in front of me in such a way that he could look behind me at the same time.

“Would you shut up and tell me how we’re doing?” I asked as I skidded around a corner. Well it wasn’t a skid so much as it was floating around the corner, but the end result was more or less the same.

“I’d say you’re doing okay enough,” he said. “I mean they’re still back there chasing you and everything, but do you really need me here telling you how many vampire cheerleaders are chasing after you?”

“It would be helpful, yes,” I growled through gritted teeth. “Telling me if any of them are close to catching us would be even more helpful.

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to the cheerleaders chasing after us. Sure I could turn around and probably end all of them in an instant by hitting them with a bit of the old death magic. The problem was I’d also just established that hitting someone too hard with a bit of the old death magic when they’d already had an evil vampire spirit take up residence in their body meant they might very quickly become an ex person.

I wasn’t sure how long a vampire spirit had to be latched to someone’s soul before removing said vampire spirit also removed that soul’s ability to continue living once the vampire spirit was gone, and I wasn’t taking any chances.

I didn’t exactly feel bad about killing a vampire who’d been out there in the world for decades no doubt doing his or her bloodsucking thing, but I wasn’t all that jazzed about doing the same thing with a bunch of cheerleaders I went to school with who’d just been turned tonight and hadn’t had time to get up to too many nefarious bloodsucking shenanigans.

“I mean I was never a big sports person, but aren’t you supposed to not look at your opponent in a race?”

“Would you shut the fuck up Arnold?” I asked. “Forget I ever asked you to watch my six.”

“Oh I’ll watch your six any day of the week,” he said. “But I don’t think we’re thinking about the same kind of watching right now.”

I reached out with a tendril of death magic and slapped him across the face a couple of times. That got him to disappear into the wall so he wouldn’t have to worry about me hitting him again, and that was just fine with me.

“Where are we even going?” Jimmy asked, panting like he’d just run a marathon.

I eyed him skeptically. “Are you seriously bitching out already?”

“I had asthma back in the day, and it turns out becoming a vampire doesn’t always fix everything that ails you like in the movies.”

“You really are like the worst vampire I think I’ve ever seen,” I said.

“Whatever,” he said. “We need to get away from them before they rip me to pieces!”

“What?” I asked. “Weren’t you the one who just said it’d be awesome to have a bunch of vampire cheerleaders all around you?”

“I said I always thought it’d be awesome to be chased by a bunch of cheerleaders, and I’m learning I should’ve been a lot more specific in what I was wishing for,” he said. “Big fucking difference.”

“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes again for good measure and stopping to listen. “Doesn’t sound like they’re following us anymore. Maybe we lost them.”

“Or maybe they’re moving quietly because that’s what they want us to think,” he said. “You’re walking along minding your own business thinking you’ve escaped and then boom, the attack comes from the cheerleaders you never knew were there.”

I stared at him for a long moment and sighed. “That sounds like you’re quoting something, so out with it.”

“Jurassic Park?” he asked. “Come on. That thing is a classic of modern cinema.”

“And it’s not all that modern considering the movie is nearly thirty years old grandpa,” I said, grabbing him by the arm. “Now come on. We need to get to an entrance so we can make our escape and…”

We rounded the corner and sure enough there were the two cheerleaders I didn’t even know were there. Only it was Veronica and Stacy staring at us. Not any of the vampire horde who’d been chasing us.

I jumped. I’m not ashamed to admit it. They surprised me. It’s possible to be surprised even if you are the living personification of death.

“Told you they’d come around here,” Stacy said, grinning.

I flexed my fist a couple of times around my scythe. I really wanted to reach out and hurt that vampire bitch. So I did just that.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jimmy asked.

“Taking care of business!” I shouted.

I landed on top of Veronica and we went tumbling around and around through the halls. Sure it probably would’ve been a better idea to maybe use some of the old death magic to take her on, but I wanted to hurt this bitch.

So that’s exactly what I did.

We rolled over and over. She punched at me a couple of times and I nearly blacked out with one of those punches as she hit me hard enough to cause some serious damage. That was the bad thing about being a reaper versus being one of the other many supernatural creatures that made their home on this world.

We could take damage in the sense that we could absorb it and then come back from the dead after the fact since we sort of controlled the whole death thing, but that wasn’t quite the same as being able to shrug off the kind of damage a vampire could take.

I slashed at her with my scythe, but it turns out the scythe wasn’t really a good close quarters weapon. I lashed out at her with tendrils of the old death magic, but those tendrils of the old death magic weren’t doing that much good because I couldn’t see where to aim them.

Finally we came to rest and I was on top of her. I didn’t have my scythe, the thing had gone clattering to the floor at some point and then disappeared to wherever it was a reaper’s scythe went when we didn’t need it, so I figured I’d use a good old fashioned knuckle sandwich.

My fist slammed into the girl’s nose a couple of times. I figured if I was going to hit her then I was going to make sure I was hitting her for keeps. There was a crack as the cartilage in her nose snapped, but it started healing as soon as the hit landed.

Which was just fine with me. As with the last vampire, her healing meant I could hit her all over again and smash the bitch’s face to my heart’s content.

“That hurts you bitch!” she cried out, putting her hand up to her nose.

The broken nose looked a little weird. She didn’t have any blood coming out of the thing, but that made sense considering she wouldn’t have much blood running through her veins. At least she wouldn’t have any that wasn’t borrowed from someone else.

All the more reason to take care of her for good. I slammed my fist into her nose one final time, that was really fucking fun to break her nose over and over again, and then stood and wrapped tendrils of death magic around her now that I could see what I was doing.

I wanted to rip that vampire soul out of her and make this as painful as fucking possible.

“Were you the one who did it?” I growled at her.

“Did what?” she asked.

“Were you the one who turned her into a vampire?” I growled.

I held my fist up again, for all that if this fight was going to go anywhere then it wasn’t going to involve my fist making contact with that annoyingly pretty nose. I hated that I was thinking about how pretty this girl was, for all that her sense of style was a few decades out of date, because it got me to thinking about how Stacy might be thinking the same thing now that she was potentially going to spend an immortal life with this girl.

The girl, annoyingly enough for someone who should be terrified considering what I was threatening her with, threw her head back and laughed.

“You really have no idea what’s going on here, do you?” she asked. “Then again I wouldn’t expect much more from a reaper. Your kind never could see past escorting people to the grave. Stick to what you know and keep out of our business.”

I slammed a tendril of death magic into her. That changed her smug tune pretty fucking quick. Her head thrown back in laughter quickly became a head being thrown back in pain as I dug around her insides and discovered the vampire spirit lurking in there.

Veronica let out a scream that sounded pretty gnarly. We’re talking the sort of noise Cary Elwes made when he had fifty years of his life sucked away all at once near the end of The Princess Bride.

I grinned. Good. I was very interested in testing the limits of this bitch’s pain threshold, and I wanted to make sure she suffered for the bullshit she was pulling on me and my girlfriend, damn it!

The only problem with that plan? Someone grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me away before I could do any serious damage. The tendrils of magic flew out of the vampire bitch as I went flying across the room and slammed against the wall. Stars danced in front of my eyes and I felt a little twinge of something that usually meant a hit had been hard enough that it would’ve caused some serious damage if I was a mortal.

I looked up. Found myself staring at the most terrifying vampire I could possibly go up against in a fight right about then.

Stacy. She grinned down at me, then pulled her fist back like she was getting ready to land a hell of a punch. A punch that already would’ve been pretty strong when she was mortal, but now it would be backed by vampire strength too.

Motherfucker this was going to hurt.

29

Girl on Girl

“Are you seriously going to hit me?” I asked.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

She glanced between me and Veronica. A flash of jealousy ran through me at that glance. She was looking at our vampire friend with the kind of interest that said she was having fun with this. The kind of interest that said maybe she’d found a replacement for yours truly.

I knew there could be hella drama when it came to teenage dating, but I never thought that drama would involve me getting replaced by a fucking vampire of all things!

“You don’t have to do this Stacy,” I said. “You don’t have to do whatever the thing inside you is telling you to do.”

“You’re right,” she said after a long moment. “I don’t have to do any of this.”

I thought for a moment that maybe I was getting through to her. That maybe she was going to come around. Maybe I’d have one of those moments in the horror movie where the person you thought had been turned to the forces of evil turned around and turned the tables on those forces of evil and started kicking some serious ass or something.

It would’ve been nice, but it wasn’t to be.

“Yeah, I don’t have to do any of this,” she repeated. “But I’m going to do it anyway, so tough shit for you.”

“But why?” I asked, a tear coming to my eyes as I said it.

Hey, this might be the weirdest dramatic breakup that’d ever happened in the history of teen love, but it was my breakup damn it. It was also the first breakup I’d ever gone through.

Which meant it fucking sucked, for all that it was also really fucking weird at the same time.

“Why?” she asked. “Because you never do nice things for me. You never take me up to Lover’s Lane like Vampire girl does.”

“What the hell are you…”

“Yeah, you just never figured it out,” she said with a wink.

It was the kind of wink that almost would’ve had me thinking she meant something with what she was saying. I would’ve thought she was trying to send me a message, but the fist that connected with my face a moment after she said it really communicated exactly how she felt about me.

Also? It turns out I was totally right about the whole vampire thing only adding to her freakish strength. Everything went black around me, and I found myself floating above my body.

“That sucks,” Arnold said, his arms crossed as he watched Stacy walk over to that vampire bitch and get her up.

Stacy was surprisingly rough with the girl, for all that she’d been acting like they were lovers or something.

Weird.

“Shut up, Arnold,” I said.

“No, seriously,” he said. “I know how much it sucks to have someone dump you like that. I’m sorry you had to go through with that.”

I turned and stared at him. Sure it probably wasn’t the nicest thing to stare at him incredulously when he talked about dating someone, but whatever.

“You had a girlfriend?” I asked.

“Yeah, I did,” he said. “Didn’t last very long though. Maybe a week before her mom decided to break us up because I was a junior and she was a freshman. Didn’t make it suck any less when the breakup happened though.”

“Sorry,” I said.

Though it was a little odd thinking about him dating a freshman girl. At this point that girl might be a grandmother considering how often people had kids in this town if they didn’t manage to break free and go off to college.

“What are they doing with Jimmy?” Luke asked.

I blinked. Realized that Jimmy was still very much down there and in the mix, and he didn’t look all that happy about still being down there and stuck in the middle of the fight.

In fact, the vampire girl was in the middle of dragging him away. From the way he was struggling against her he didn’t like he idea of being carted off by a vampire hottie.

Stacy sure as fuck liked the idea of being carted off by a vampire hottie. I hated that this was happening, but that hatred was turning to anger, and to quote a little green guy I’d watched recently while I was showing the prequel trilogy to my ghost friends, that anger was going to turn to suffering.

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the exact quote, but what the fuck ever. The point is it was time for me to get back in my body and make them regret the day they ever decided to fuck with me and my relationship. I was going to take care of these bloodsucking motherfuckers, and I was going to make them regret the day they ever messed with me.

So I dove back into my body. When I came around it hurt like a motherfucker. It felt like the injury was in my neck which was never fun. It was even less fun as I reached up and grabbed my neck then moved it just so to align everything.

I had to hold it there for a long moment. I bit my tongue the entire time. The last thing I needed was for the vampire bitches trying to get away with Jimmy realizing that I was down here and back in action.

Finally everything felt like it was back in working order. The only way to tell was that the pain was gone, which meant everything was good and healed up. I moved my neck around a couple of times to make sure that everything was in good working order, then floated up as a cloud of dark death magic gathered all around me.

I held my hand out as darkness closed in on the hallway. My scythe appeared in my hand and I grinned as I looked at Stacy and the vampire bitch.

Jimmy was the one who noticed me first. He suddenly went limp as he looked at me floating there, and his eyes went wide.

He wasn’t the only one to notice, though. No, as soon as he stopped struggling that was a cue for Stacy and vampire bitch to turn and stare at me. Stacy smiled just a little, no doubt thinking that I wasn’t going to do anything to hurt her, but the reaction from vampire bitch was by far the most interesting.

She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. I thought maybe we were going to have a big fight or something. I could really use a fight that ended with me shoving my scythe through her heart and ending her for good.

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. No sooner had she finished looking surprised than she turned and ran. And we’re talking she was running fast enough that I was going to have trouble catching up to her.

Not that I wanted to take the time to catch up to her. I was more interested in Stacy who stood there staring at me with that unreadable smile on her face.

“See you tonight,” she said with a wink, and then she turned and was running just as fast as vampire bitch. It was a little weird seeing her running that fast, but whatever.

I floated down to Jimmy. He was brushing himself off and turning to look at the ladies who’d just left.

“Man it’s nice watching her run away,” he said.

“Yeah, it totally is,” I said, letting out a wistful sigh as Stacy disappeared around the corner.

Then I realized exactly what he’d said and got annoyed, for all that she was no longer my girlfriend. Not strictly speaking, that is.

“And I’ll remind you that you shouldn’t be staring at her like that,” I said with a sniff. “That ass is for me, thank you very much.”

“That’s not what it sounded like to me,” he said. “Sounded to me like things are over with the two of you.”

“Yeah, well that’s what she thinks,” I said. “But we’ll see what happens when I kill the vampire fucker who did this to her.”

“Huh,” he said. “I’ve heard of jealous lovers killing the new one, but this is probably the first time that’s happened with the undead.”

“Yeah, well there’s a first time for everything,” I said. “And that bitch is going to regret the day she decided to go after my girl.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Well it’s been nice and everything to watch you freaking out about your girlfriend and everything, but if you don’t mind I think I’m going to be…”

He cut off as a tendril of dark death magic wrapped around his leg and knocked him on his ass. I suppose I could’ve done something a little gentler and just kept him from backing away from me, but I honestly wasn’t in the kind of mood where I wanted to be very gentle to any bloodsucking motherfucker who tried to cross me.

“What makes you think you’re getting away that easily?” I asked.

“Um, I was hoping you might do it out of the goodness of your heart?” he asked.

“Yeah, not a chance of that happening,” I said. “You’re coming with me while I go on my vampire hunt tonight, and you don’t get a choice in the matter.”

“Damn it,” he said.

“Don’t feel too bad Jimmy,” Luke said. “You get used to Gwen after awhile. I don’t even think about how she could send me on to my eternal reward these days.”

I rolled my eyes. “You know he can’t hear you.”

“Who can’t hear who?” Jimmy asked.

“You can’t hear Luke talking about how you get used to me after awhile. And if he keeps talking about me like that he’s going to find himself on the business end of getting his ass tossed through the portal that sends you on to your eternal reward.”

Luke held his hands up. “Come on. We don’t have to do anything crazy like that.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Now come on. We have to get up to the town makeout spot.”

“The town still has one of those?” Jimmy asked. “I didn’t think that was still a thing in this day and age.”

“I mean the back seats in a lot of cars aren’t as comfortable as they were back when they were big bench seats, but people still go up there for some privacy. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” I said. “Though I do think they have groups that go up there and hand out condoms these days to make sure everyone has safe sex.”

“Safe what?” Jimmy asked.

I stared at him. “Are you seriously telling me that you’ve been undead for this long and you have no idea what safe sex is?”

“Are you kidding?” Arnold said. “He had no idea what sex was before he was turned into a vampire. What makes you think it got any better for him in the years since?”

I started at the geeky vampire. Thought about what it must’ve been like to be geeky and immortal like that. Never grow up. Never grow old. Never know the touch of a woman because you never move beyond the person you were when you were a geeky awkward kid.

“Man, being a vampire must suck,” I whispered.

“You have no idea,” Jimmy said. “But if you can figure out a way to stop these bastards and maybe make me mortal again I guess I’m onboard with whatever stupid dangerous thing we’re doing tonight.”

“Good,” I said. “Because it’s not like you had much of a choice. Now come on.”

30

Lovers’ Lane

“Would you watch where you’re swinging that thing?” Jimmy asked.

I pulled my scythe in and grinned. Then looked out to all the cars parked around the wooded area that overlooked the town.

It was the kind of thing you’d expect to find in the mountains outside LA or something. The glaciers hadn’t quite made it down to where we lived, though, and that meant the topography hadn’t been flattened quite as much as up north where all the good farmland was. The biggest example was the massive hill in the middle of town with the creepy necromancer mansion, but the local makeout spot was probably the best known among anyone who'd hit puberty and got their drivers’ license.

“Sorry,” I said. “But something tells me you’re not the only one who’s saying something like that tonight.”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. I could see it because there was a faint glow to his eyes. Which had been kinda freaky the first time I saw it. Until I remembered I didn’t have anything to be afraid of when it came to vampires.

“You’re so damn funny,” he growled. “Now come on. We need to get out there and help those people!”

I looked to a minivan that was rocking pretty close to where we were hiding in the trees. Whoever was in there didn’t look like they needed help.

“Something tells me those people are going to be pissed off if we interrupt them,” I said.

“Are you sure about that?” Jimmy asked.

I sighed again. “Would you please just let me do this my own way and…”

I stopped. There was something about the way Jimmy was pointing at the van that had me on edge. There was something about the smug look on his face that had me thinking I was about to be terribly wrong about something.

Not to mention there was something tugging at the limits of my consciousness. My Peter tingle was tingling, to borrow a term of art from another bit of pop culture, and if that reaper Spidey Sense was tingling it meant someone was dying nearby.

It was a vague sense most of the time. There were constantly people dying. That sense got sharper the closer that death was to yours truly though. I’d had to make a quick trip to a nursing home and the hospital before coming out here which had been annoying. Not the least because Jimmy had bitched the entire way.

Only now that feeling was a hell of a lot more intense, and it was a hell of a lot closer than the feeling of someone’s grandma biting the big one all alone in a nursing home where her family could pay to not give a fuck about her.

No, this was death that was far closer. Far more personal. I squinted at one of the cars that was rocking nearby, and as though on cue some blood splattered on the window inside showing that there was something nasty going on in there.

“Son of a bitch!” I growled. “What the fuck is going on in there?”

“I’d think that’s obvious,” Jimmy said. “But you’re the one who knows everything that’s going on here, so who am I to…”

“Shut up and stay here,” I growled. “I don’t want you getting in my way.”

“Oh don’t you worry about that,” he said. “I have no intention of going any closer to one of those death cars than I absolutely have to.”

“Good,” I said.

Though that wasn’t entirely fair. There was a possibility he could be useful, after all. He might make for some good bait, or maybe a distraction to keep whatever was killing people in that car off of me long enough that I didn’t get killed and have to wait around for my body to heal to the point that I could get back into the action.

Not that I thought that was likely, but what the fuck ever.

I moved closer to the car. The thing was rocking, but as I got closer I realized the noises weren’t anything like the kind of moaning that usually happened in cars in this spot. No, there was some bad shit going down in there, and it was the kind of shit that’d involved a crane shot and a car getting its top ripped off at the beginning of The Lost Boys.

I didn’t bother to hide my approach. If there was a vampire in there then I wanted that vampire to see the error of its ways right before I gave it a bit of the business. I looked into the backseat, I could see clearly enough because someone had put a dome light on, and saw a bloody mess that would’ve had me losing my lunch if I hadn’t gotten used to the idea of death at a tender young age because being a future reaper meant people tended to die in front of me quite a bit.

“Gross,” I muttered.

Hey, I might be used to seeing death playing out in front of me on the regular, but it didn’t mean I necessarily had the stomach for the kind of gore you usually only saw in old school horror classics starring Robert Englund.

There were three people in the back seat. The car was a little older, and it had the kind of old school bench seat that made for a perfect car for a couple of teenagers getting hot and heavy. I wondered if the parents gave any thought to that when they got the thing on the cheap rather than going with, say, a Honda where it was a hell of a lot more cramped if teenagers wanted to work on making their parents into grandparents at far too young an age.

Though I doubted what was going on in there right now was going to result in any grandchildren. Talk about the kind of threesome that probably had the guy in there wishing he’d been a hell of a lot more specific about his fantasy scenario when he dreamed of something like this happening.

“Ew that’s disgusting,” I said.

And apparently I said it just a little too loud, because the vampire who was in there assaulting the two teenage lovers who’d just come up here to suck some face without getting their blood sucked out of their necks looked up at me.

I blinked a couple of times just to reassure myself that I wasn’t going crazy here. Because I was staring at none other than one of the cheerleaders who’d been converted to vampirism earlier in the day. She stared at me, then her mouth fell open in a hiss that showed off her fangs.

It also totally showed off all the blood currently dripping from her fanged mandibles of death. Like she clearly wasn’t happy about me interrupting her meal.

I rolled my eyes. Maybe that hissing thing worked on the mortals, but it wasn’t going to do jack or shit to scare me away.

“Could you please step outside?” I asked.

The cheerleader, I recognized her from all the practices I’d attended to provide “moral support” for Stacy that had nothing to do with all the eye candy that was regularly on display while I was providing that moral support, surprised me by stepping out of the car.

The surprise wasn’t that she stepped out of the car. I mean that was a surprise, sure, but mostly it was in the way she did it. Instead of using the door like a normal non-crazy person she burst out of the back window which sent bits of safety glass flying every which way.

Damn.

The girl stood on the trunk and there was a screeching noise as she dug her claws into the thing. Sort of like fingernails on a chalkboard, but a hell of a lot more grating and annoying considering she was digging into whatever metal this old boat of a car straight out of the fever dreams of some Detroit designer was made out of.

I sighed. “Could you please stop with the whole intimidation routine please?”

“Fuck you reaper,” the girl said.

“Candace?” I asked, dredging her name up from a quick intro Stacy had done weeks ago. “That is your name, right? Can I call you Candy?”

“I said fuck you, reaper!”

I reached out and smacked her in the ass with a tendril of the old death magic. She didn’t react the way Stacy usually did when I did that sort of thing, though. No, she hissed at me like she was pissed off that I’d done that instead of wagging her finger at me like I'd been a naughty girl, and launched herself at me.

I pulled out the old scythe and hit her with the top of the thing right in the stomach. Sure I could’ve slashed at her and maybe done some more serious damage, but it’s not like this girl had asked to be turned into a bloodsucking creature of the night. I figured if there was still a chance I could track down the head vampire and make that asshole, or bitch, regret the day they ever started turning teenagers into vampires in my town then it’d be worth it to save this girl.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Danielle. About how she’d never had a chance.

“Do you want to tell me where your leader is?” I asked.

Candace glared at me. Wiped some blood from her mouth. Normally that might have me worried that she’d hurt herself going through that window, in this case it only meant she’d just eaten.

“Not gonna say anything?” I asked. “That’s a damn shame, but I suppose…”

I yelped in surprise as something slammed into me and I went tumbling to the ground. Then something else hit me in the gut and the breath was knocked out of me.

I looked up to see a girl and a boy I recognized from the senior class, both of them with their clothes on at odd angles since they’d clearly been in the process of getting out of those clothes as quickly as they could manage when the vampire cheerleader came at them and ruined their fun, hovering over me and hissing and spitting.

And of course they had their fangs out, because the vampire cheerleader hadn’t been trying to feed. She’d been trying to recruit.

Of fucking course that’s what they were doing out here. Damn it.

"What the hell are you waiting for?" Jimmy hissed from his hiding spot in some bushes by the tree line.

"I don't see you trying to help," I growled back at him.

"They’re fucking vampires!" Jimmy said.

"And you're a fucking vampire!" I said as the cheerleader lifted her hands and brought her claws out.

I winced. This was going to hurt. I'd been attacked by a bear once upon a time on a family trip to the Smoky Mountains. It’d been a hell of a surprise for the rangers working that case to see me rising from the dead.

At least until a more senior Ranger who was used to dealing with reapers showed up and told them they all needed to get the hell out of the way and shut the fuck up if they knew what was good for them and their careers. That man had been quite eloquent when it came to wielding the saltier parts of the English language. I’d learned quite a bit that day, above and beyond the lesson about not getting between a black bear that was easily three times my size at that age and her cubs.

The point is this girl sinking her claws into me was going to hurt. Even if I was going to get better. She reared back like she was getting ready to pounce.

"Stop!"

I slammed my head against the ground a couple of times. I wasn't sure if I was trying to commit suicide using the ground, not a good plan considering it was nice and soft, or if I was just taking out a little bit of frustration regarding my current situation.

Either way, I figured my situation had just gone from bad to worse. I was out of the frying pan and into the fire, to quote a particular turn of phrase. I’d just gone up Shit Creek and my paddle had fallen into the nice brown water. Think of any other phrase for somebody being deep in the shit, and that was me in that moment.

The vampire cheerleader hesitated for a moment. Only for a moment, but that moment was all the Veronica needed to assert her dominance over the situation.

"I said stop!" the voice snapped again.

Candace’s eyes glazed over. Of course. Vampire compulsion. It was a hell of a drug. At least all the stuff I’d read about vampires while going through some of my dad's reading materials agreed vampire compulsion was a hell of a drug.

Assuming it was being used on another vampire, that is. The stuff didn’t work for shit against reapers, and apparently it could be pretty touch and go as to whether or not it worked on humans.

I pulled myself up to stare at Veronica. I even thought I heard Jimmy whimpering from somewhere in the bushes, though it was difficult to tell if that was his whimpering or maybe the gurgling of one of the other vampire victims in one of the other cars that was rocking for reasons completely different from why why they usually rocked up here.

"So you couldn't leave well enough alone," Veronica said. "When are you going to learn you shouldn't be messing with things that don't concern you?"

"You killing a bunch of people who aren't ready to die totally concerns me bitch," I said, holding my hand out and letting my scythe rematerialize there. "So what do you say? Want to see how wrong Blue Oyster Cult was ?"

31

Head Cheerleader

Veronica frowned. Shook her head. She looked confused.

"Who?" She asked.

"Not The Who," I said. "Blue Oyster Cult. You know, Godzilla? Don't Fear the Reaper?"

"I've never heard of them," she said.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" I said. "Didn't you keep up with modern music? I know you’ve got that whole long living and long-suffering undead thing going for you, all that brooding shit doesn't make you nearly as interesting as you think it does, but surely you heard a record from the last forty years?"

"Not really," she said. "Why would I give a fuck about all that crappy new music when I can listen to Bowzer and the Sha Na Na?”

I frowned. “The guy from the Mario games?”

“What’s a Mario game?” she shot back. “I’m talking about music.”

I rolled my eyes. "Oh honey. If you think this Bowser dude is the height of music then I really feel bad for you. Talk about an eternity that really is a living hell! Also, weren't you from like the late seventies? The three ghostly stooges remembered you."

“You grew up here,” she snapped. “The place is always twenty years behind the rest of the world.”

“True that,” I muttered.

We shared a brief smile. It was a moment of brief solidarity between two teenagers who'd had the misfortune of growing up in the middle of nowhere. It was only a moment, though. I did still have to rip that vampire spirit out of her and save my girlfriend, after all.

"I like Sha Na Na,” someone muttered from under the bushes behind me.

I decided to ignore that little quip from Jimmy. After all, I had more important business to take care of. Like making sure this Veronica bitch never hurt anyone ever again.

"Come on," I said. "If we're going to do this then let's fucking do this."

Veronica smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile. It was the kind of mean girl smile I used to get from some of the girls who thought they were hot shit popular bitches back in middle school when everyone was terrible to everyone else, and I relished the opportunity to smack one of those smiles off of a mean girl's face. Even if she was a mean girl who'd first cut her teeth, figuratively speaking, decades before I was born.

I screamed as I threw myself at her. It was an unearthly wail. The kind of wail that probably would've had people turning and looking if it weren't for the fact that there was nobody up here but vampires and people who were so busy getting killed by vampires and turned to the undead that they probably didn't have a lot of time to think about other terrifying supernatural creatures filling the night with their unusual sounds.

At the last moment I jumped and did an old-fashioned Kirk kick. One foot up, and the other out as it slammed into her chest. At least the idea was it would slam into her chest.

Unfortunately that kind of thing relied on having a stuntman who was obliging enough to stand still for Mr. Shatner while the kick landed. I didn't have an obliging stuntman in a rubber monster suit like Shatner used to have back in the day.

Veronica easily stepped to the side. Which meant I went tumbling to the ground behind her and heard a snap as something in my leg broke.

“Motherfucker that hurts!” I shouted.

“Y’know it doesn’t have to hurt,” Veronica said. “You could join us.”

“What, and rule the town as queen bitch and reaper?” I said.

She hit me with another blank look that was yet another reminder that this girl had missed out on a good chunk of pop culture. She probably thought Buck Rogers or Commando Cody were the height of science fiction. Or maybe Leslie Nielsen seducing a very sexy looking Ann Francis.

Then again she didn’t look like the kind of girl who would’ve been into that sort of thing to begin with. Not decades before the slow transformation Star Wars worked on the culture made it cool to be a geek.

“Is that another reference to something that came along after I got turned into a vampire?” she asked. “Because we’ve been over this before. I really didn’t keep up with stuff that came along after I was turned.”

I stopped to consider that. Depending on when she’d been turned, and there was definitely some doubt there since I hadn’t hammered down dates with the three stooges, it was possible Empire had been out when she was turned. Not that I thought she was likely to have gone to see it either way.

“Fuck you,” I said.

“Tempting, but I have better offers right now,” she said, earning a middle finger from me as I realized exactly what she was talking about. “And I’m not even all that bad. You should see some of the really old vampires who’ve been kicking around for a few hundred years. There’s seriously one dude I heard about who refuses to read anything that’s not etched marks in a clay tablet. Says that the new stuff people have come up with on paper is nothing like the classics.”

I paused to think about that. The idea that there was still a vampire out there kicking around from the days when cuneiform had been the newest form of communication was pretty amazing, but it had nothing to do with kicking Veronica’s ass.

So I flew at her again, and this time I made sure I was actually flying instead of throwing myself through the air.

I slashed at her with my scythe. She ducked out of the way like she was Keanu in a movie she didn’t even know existed. I landed and came up ready to throw myself at her.

“You’re really insistent on trying to take me out,” she said. “Are you like this with all vampires, or am I special?”

There was a twinkle to her eye as she said that. I wasn’t sure if she was taunting me, or if she genuinely thought I might be interested a fucking vampire.

Then again now that Stacy had been turned I guess there was at least one vampire I was very interested in. There was no way I’d be interested in her ass though, no matter how good it looked in her out of time clothing choices that were actually starting to come around to being in style again.

“You have something I want,” I growled. “And if it takes killing you to get her back then that’s what I’m going to do.”

I threw myself at her again. Sure I knew I was being remarkably uninventive with my fighting strategies here considering all the options that were available to me, but I was mad enough that I couldn’t bring myself to do much more than throw myself at this bitch over and over again.

She stepped to the side again. Only she was willing and able to change up her strategy a bit. She lashed out this time, and I felt a blinding pain on my backside. Not the kind of thing you wanted to feel while you were in the middle of an intense fight with a vampire.

“I’m afraid if you want to kill me to free your friend then you’re going to have to work harder than that,” she said. “Besides, I think she’s more into me now than she is you.”

Again there was that twinkle in her eyes. She stared down at me with pure fury mixing with that twinkle in her eyes. Meanwhile my mouth went dry. I couldn’t believe she was telling the truth, but there was something about the way she was looking at me that made me think it might be the terrible truth.

“You’re bullshitting,” I said.

“You’d like it if I was bullshitting, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “But she’s going to be mine, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to be into that sort of thing back in the time period you came from,” I said.

Veronica shrugged. “I mean my mom wouldn’t be thrilled if she found out about it, but she’s been dead for a couple of decades and she wouldn’t have been thrilled to find out her daughter was a vampire either. Turns out becoming undead opens your mind to some things.”

“Just not the desire to keep up with pop culture,” I muttered.

“No, not that,” she said. “But I’m more than willing to try new things, and your girlfriend is going to be a very fun toy for me to break in.”

Then she did something I wasn’t expecting. She moved so fast that she was on top of me before I could react. It’d be nice to have reaction time like that, but as far as I could tell that wasn’t part of the supernatural package that came with being a reaper.

She leaned in close. So close that she was practically kissing me. I could feel her breath on me, and it wasn’t so hot.

Like her breath literally wasn’t hot. That was the thing about being a vampire. She didn’t have much in the way of body temperature other than the body temp she stole from other people when she was sucking their blood, so naturally the breath coming out of her wouldn’t be all that warm.

It wasn’t all that hot in the figurative sense as well, though. Like we’re talking apparently being undead and preying on the living gave a girl a pretty nasty case of permanent morning breath. It was like the kind of smell that wafted out of some of the more carnivorous animals’ enclosures at the zoo during feeding time, only with a slightly salty smell to it that seemed only natural considering she was sucking other people’s blood.

“You know it really doesn’t have to be like this,” Veronica said, running a hand down my arm.

I shivered. I told myself that shiver was because there was a fucking vampire on top of me doing her best to play the whole seductive game, but honestly I couldn’t be sure whether that shiver was a response to a predator, or if maybe there was something about this girl that actually interested me.

“How could this be anything but what it is?” I asked, trying to distract her more than anything. Tendrils of dark magic were gathering behind her, and the last thing I needed was for her to see the trap I was setting up for her before it landed.

I figured if I couldn’t beat her in a fair fight then I’d try an unfair fight where I tossed around some magic.

One of the vampire cheerleaders who’d been doing Veronica’s bidding opened her mouth like she was going to warn her, but I flicked her with a tendril of magic that sent her flying into the darkness beyond the little pool of light created by all the cars that were still rocking as vampire cheerleaders invaded them and ruined everyone’s night.

Veronica licked her lips. Then she licked my cheek. Which, honestly, was more creepy than seductive.

“We could be together you know,” she said. “I’ve never been with a reaper before. For all that you’re getting on me for not keeping up with the latest music and movies, I’m not above having a new experience here and there.”

I blinked. “Seriously? That’s your move?”

She blinked right back at me. She seemed downright confused by what was going on here.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You’re going to lick my cheek and act all seductive?” I asked. “That’s how you seduce me? Do you have any idea how creepy and gross that is?”

“I mean it usually works,” she muttered. “Why isn’t it working on you?”

“You might be hot, but you’re crazy,” I said as tendrils of my death magic grabbed her, looking for all the world like a scene straight out of the kind of Japanese cartoon that I’d totally never seen while browsing some of the darker corners of the Internet, thank you very much. “Besides, there’s only one vampire cheerleader I’m into, and I’m very much into the idea of her not being a vampire cheerleader if I can help it.”

I pulled back with the magic and sent her flying back into the darkness. Huh. That was a lot easier when I just used my magic instead of relying on my fists.

I stood and dusted myself off. Put a little weight on the leg that’d snapped while I was doing my ill-advised Jim Kirk impression to see if everything was still in working order there. It felt like it was doing well enough, I suppose. I could put weight on it, and that was something.

“Um, so question,” Jimmy said from behind his hiding spot in the bushes.

“Shoot,” I said, eyeing the darkness around us to see where the attack would come from next.

“If you could just use that magic stuff to take her out then why didn’t you do it from the get go?”

“Because I was pissed off and wanted to hit something, and if you keep asking annoying questions like that you’re going to be the next thing I take my frustrations out on.”

“Point taken,” Jimmy said. “Just pretend I’m not here and I didn’t just ask a stupid question.”

“Won’t be that difficult considering you’ve been pretending you weren’t here ever since we got in the shit,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, a touch of anger in his voice.

Which was a surprise. That was more heat than he’d shown the entire short time I’d known him. I wheeled around on Jimmy, then looked down when I realized he was still very much in hiding behind his bushes.

If there was any justice then he’d get a poison ivy oil on his skin that caused him to constantly get a new rash that healed up just in time to reoccur.

“Think about it,” I said. “You’ve been hiding from these assholes for your whole life, and for your whole undeath. Is that any way for you to lead your life? Or your undeath? Whatever the fuck it is we call it?”

“I’ll lead my undeath however I want, thank you very much,” Jimmy said, sounding a touch annoyed.

“Yeah, well if you want to hide for the rest of your unnatural death then that’s your business,” I said. “But maybe it wouldn’t kill you to actually stand up for yourself from time to time.”

“You have no idea what it’s like,” he said. “Having them treating me like that for decades…”

“I have no idea what it’s like, you’re right,” I said. “But I do know you’re going to have to stand up for yourself at some point if you don’t want to have an eternity of torture at the hands of Veronica and her friends.”

I waited for the response, but it didn’t come. That was weird. I wheeled around, and found that Jimmy had finally come out of his hiding place. Unfortunately for Jimmy he’d come out of his hiding place because Veronica had snuck around us and grabbed him without making any noise that would alert me she was moving in on us.

“What now?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“What now?” she asked. “You’re going to surrender to me if you want your friend here to live.”

I looked between her and Jimmy. He looked appropriately terrified, which is about what I expected from him. Maybe it would be a mercy if he got offed considering the unpleasant unlife he’d been living so far.

“My friend?” I said. “I brought the guy along because I thought he might be some help in fighting off you fucking vampires, but he’s been pretty useless. One less vampire in the world isn’t going to hurt my feelings.”

I watched Jimmy closely as I said that. He was looking more and more pissed off with every word. His eyes narrowed. His body seemed to tense. I almost thought he was going to launch himself at me, but then at the last moment he pulled his arm back and landed an elbow right in the middle of Veronica’s gut.

I’m not sure what she was expecting. Maybe she thought I actually would surrender, but it was clear from the way her eyes went wide that she wasn’t expecting Jimmy to land an elbow in the gut.

He wheeled around and, with the same vampire strength I’d seen Veronica showing off, he slammed his fist into her gut again. That was enough to send her down to her knees where he slammed his knee into her chin, sending her flying back. Then he was on top of her landing hit after hit.

I’d like to say that I stopped the carnage right away. That I stepped in to make sure he didn’t hurt her all that much. I’d like to say that, but unfortunately I can’t.

No, I let him wallop on her for a good little while. I wanted her to feel some of the annoyance she’d been visiting on me lately. I did reach out with some of my death magic and grab his fist when he raised his claws and looked like he was on the verge of pulling a Temple of Doom which I’m pretty sure would’ve been enough to end her permanently since vampire death seemed to center around removing the heart.

“What are you doing?” he growled, turning on me and hitting me with some glowing eyes that utterly failed to intimidate me.

“What I’m doing is stopping you from killing an asset,” I said. “But I’d be much obliged if you would continue holding her down for a moment while I try something.”

“What are you going to try?” he asked.

“We’re going to see if it’s possible to remove that vampire spirit from her without killing her ass,” I said, staring down at her. “Because I suddenly find myself in need of an experimental subject to see if something like that is possible with a vampire who’s been possessed for awhile.”

Veronica’s eyes went wide as she realized what I was about to do. She squirmed and tried to get away from Jimmy, but it would seem he’d finally realized he was a vampire, complete with the strength that went along with, with the practical upshot being there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to get away from him.

“You can’t let her do this!” Veronica said.

“You did sort of kill the last vampire you tried that on,” Jimmy said, suddenly seeming uncertain.

“I did, but I figure I might be able to pull it off. Besides, I figure if it doesn’t work out then it’s not the end of the world. It just means there’s one less vampire for us to worry about. Unless you want to tell me where the head vampire who created all of you is hiding out so I can lift your curse the old fashioned way?”

“Are you talking to me or to Veronica?” Jimmy asked.

“Either one of you, really,” I said. “But Veronica is the only one who’s going to get the experimental treatment if she doesn’t give me the answer I want. You’ve been enough help that you’re not on my shit list anymore.”

“That’s comforting,” Jimmy muttered.

32

Exorcising the Demon

“So do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Jimmy asked.

“Well the first thing that’d be helpful is if I didn’t have all these vampire cheerleaders coming at me while I’m trying to work!” I growled.

As though on cue, one of those freshman girls threw herself at me with her fangs bared. I slapped her back into the woods with a tendril of death magic, and she let out a surprised yelp as she went flying.

“You were right, by the way,” I said. “It’s a hell of a lot easier to take them out my way.”

It was even starting to be a little fun. Sure it’d been fun beating the shit out of Veronica one on one earlier, but it was a lot easier taking them on with my advantage as a reaper rather than trying to fight off all the vampire cheerleaders at once in a physical fight where they had the advantage.

“So how are we going to do this?” Jimmy asked.

“We aren’t going to do anything,” I said. “You’re going to sit there and hold her down, and I’m going to see if there’s a more subtle way of taking out the demon lurking inside her.”

“And you’re hoping that will save your girlfriend?” Jimmy asked.

“I hope it will,” I said. “But I can’t be sure until I’ve tried it.”

I glanced around the clearing. There was another part of this that worried me, though I hadn’t given voice to that thought yet. There was the little problem of Stacy being nowhere to be found. I figured if she was out there somewhere then she should’ve been a part of the attack on all these poor bastards who were looking to do a little necking without having puncture wounds in their neck, but so far there was bupkis.

“I guess there’s nothing for it but to give this a try,” I said with a sigh.

It was a little hard at first with the way Veronica was jerking this way and that and trying to keep away from me, not to mention with the way the other vampires kept throwing themselves at me like they thought they were going to be able to actually stop me or something, but finally I managed to spear her with some of the old death magic.

Her back arched, and a moment later I found myself floating in a strange darkness. Off in the corner was a girl curled up sobbing. She wore a halter top and a set of high waisted shorts that were unfortunately coming back in style. I walked over to her, wondering if this was the real Veronica. The one who’d been trapped inside her mind for the past forty years or so while the demon vampire took control and did terrible things.

It wasn’t until I actually got close to the girl that I realized my mistake. She looked up at me and her eyes glowed. Fangs descended and the demon jumped at me.

A tricky demon. I’d watched enough of the collected works of Bruce Campbell that I probably should’ve expected something like that. Not that expecting it did a damn bit of good for me as I tumbled to what passed for the ground in this strange mental prison.

The thing clawed at me, but I realized something as it clawed at me. The thing wasn’t actually doing anything to hurt me. It also still very much looked like Veronica and not at all like the demon spirit I’d seen the last time I went rummaging around in a vampire’s soul.

There was something to that. My magic gathered around me, and I hit the thing. I didn’t get pulled into a weird place in a sort of vampire soul inception style scenario, but the thing did throw its head back and scream.

This time around the scream was even weirder, though. It was like the sound team for some movie had put together two screams, one belonging to the demon and one belonging to a girl.

Maybe that meant there was still some bit of Veronica lurking in there. I could hope, at least.

I probed around inside the thing’s mind until I found something that felt more human. Something that grabbed ahold of the death magic I’d been tossing around like a lifeline. That’s an imperfect way of describing what was going on, but it’s difficult by definition to describe something that’s supernatural and impossible to describe to mortals.

So I pulled. To keep the mortal analogies going, it was like reeling a fish in. Only I was pretty sure this was a human soul I was pulling towards me. Someone clinging desperately to the lifeline I was throwing to her.

Now there was a funny thought. I was throwing a lifeline of death to a human that’d been merged with the demon soul of a vampire. Talk about your all time contradictions.

“You’re done for, bitch,” I said to the demon as something flew out of it.

The girl was there again. In the ancient outfit. Only this time around she wasn’t curled up on what passed for a floor here sobbing. No, the moment she was out she was running at me.

Damn it. It looked like I’d just doubled the demon power in here. Maybe there wasn’t a good way to take care of these fucking vampires once they got their claws into someone’s soul without killing the poor unfortunate soul hosting them short of killing the vamp that turned them. Assuming movie rules like that actually applied to vampires in the real world.

All the books I’d read from my dad’s library agreed that they did work that way, but I couldn’t be entirely sure that was the case since those books were usually based more on rumor and supposition than cold hard facts. It turns out it was difficult to run scientific studies on supernatural creatures that didn't want to be studied. .

Only it turns out the girl wasn’t going for me. No, she threw herself at the demon thing and started punching the ever loving shit out of it. That demon thing seemed like it’d been knocked for a loop by having the human soul ripped out of it, and it hissed and tried to get away from her but wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

I walked over. Put a hand on Veronica’s shoulder. The real Veronica, and not the Veronica who'd been such an annoying bitch for the past few days.

She wheeled on me and raised a fist when she felt my hand on her shoulder. Her chest heaved and she really was quite pretty, for all that she looked like an extra in the background of a school production of Grease from back when it was new that had a really shitty costuming budget and had to put the characters in contemporary rather than period outfits.

“I’m going to kill this thing,” she said.

“That’s a nice thought,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who can do that. Do you mind?”

She held her fist there and looked between me and the vampire demon spirit thing like she was seriously considering whether or not she was going to go after me if I was going to keep her from going after the thing, then she made a disgusted noise and stood.

“It’s all yours,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“One sec,” she said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I mean, have you ever done this before? Am I going to like rapidly age and die or something when you pull that thing out of me? You sounded like you weren't sure this wouldn't kill me earlier.”

I thought that over. Honestly I didn’t have an answer to that. Nothing I’d ever read had said anything about doing something like separating the demon that turned someone into a vampire from their soul to reverse the vampirism. Death seemed to think this was uncharted territory. Or if someone else had charted this territory before then they hadn’t bothered to leave their charts behind so other reapers who came after them could make use of them.

“I honestly have no idea,” I said. “But do you really want to keep forever young if the price is being a bloodsucking vampire doing this motherfucker’s bidding?”

Her eyes hardened, and I saw that the part of Veronica that never gave up while she was a vampire must’ve been something that came from her, and not something that came from the vampire spirit that’d invaded her and tried to eat her soul.

“No fucking way,” she said. “Do what you have to do.”

“I figured you’d say that,” I said, and I surrounded the demon with death magic and slipped between worlds.

I arrived on the other side and wasn’t at all surprised to see Death right there looking at me like he’d been expecting me.

“Another vampire demon?” he asked.

“Yup,” I said. “Separated this one from the soul of the person it’d infected decades ago, even, so with a little luck she won’t be coming here to the other side hot on the heels of this bitch.”

He blinked. Dude seemed genuinely surprised. Which was different. I wasn’t surprised to see him waiting here for me on the other side, but I was surprised to see him looking at me with clear surprise.

“You did what?” he asked.

“Um, I went into her head and separated the vampire demon thingy from her soul so I could take out the demon without killing her? I figured you would’ve figured that out what with the way you were standing here waiting for me and not all that surprised that I’d showed up.”

“You… I know I keep saying this, but I don’t think anyone has ever done what you’ve just done, Gwen,” he said.

“What, fought off a bunch of vampires at the same time? I mean I know it’s not like we go after the creepy crawlies that go bump in the night all that often, but…”

“No, I’m saying we haven’t had anyone who’s ever managed to pull the demon soul out of a vampire and save the soul of the person the vampire spirit attacked,” he said.

“Look, if I’ve done something wrong here then it’s only because I need to save Stacy,” I said.

He held up a hand and chuckled. It was a surprisingly warm chuckle. There was no voice that sounded like the rasping of bone against bone when he decided to speak, which was a simile that mortals describing death always seemed to love using.

“You’re not in trouble here, Gwen,” he said. “I’m impressed with what you’ve done here. We always just got rid of vampires. Never thought of rehabilitating them.”

“Yeah, well it’s possible,” I said. “And maybe I have a lot more incentive than your typical reaper to rehabilitate the bloodsuckers.”

He cocked his head to the side. “So is there any particular reason why you were so intent on freeing this vampire instead of letting her go to the great beyond?”

My expression hardened as I thought of what that Veronica bitch had done. Sure she was a vampire who couldn’t control herself because there’d been a massive demon creature attached to her soul that was calling the shots and literally pulling the puppet strings, but that didn’t make me any less angry when I thought of what she did to Stacy.

“She turned my girlfriend,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “At least I think she did. So I had to take her out.”

Death put a hand on my shoulder. Again it wasn’t all that cold, for all that every description I’d ever seen of the grim reaper talked about the icy touch of death.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Let’s just hope that whatever you did was enough to break the bond. This is uncharted territory.”

I jumped at that. I guess I’d never thought that doing things this way might invalidate whatever it was that lifted the curse of every vampire that’d been turned by a vampire after they were dusted.

“Fuck,” I hissed. “I didn’t think of that.”

“I think it’s time for you to go back and see what there is to see,” Death said. “And don’t worry about your usual duties in town. I’m going to send some relief to handle the usual stuff. I want you to work on this vampire thing exclusively.”

I sighed.

Death arched an eyebrow. “You don’t like the idea?”

“No I do,” I said. “That was a relieved sigh. It was hard enough going to school and sneaking away to visit nursing homes or work sites with lax safety standards. Add hunting vampires on top of that and it was almost more than I could take.”

“Yeah, well don’t worry about all that other stuff. I’d thought you might take over for you father someday, but the more I see of what you’re doing the more I think that might be a waste of your talents.”

I turned to ask him what that meant, but he wrapped the vampire soul in tendrils of death and floated up to cart the thing over to the big portal. I watched for a moment, then figured it was time for me to get back to the other side.

There were still a bunch of vampires out there, after all, and the last thing I wanted was to come back to my body only to find that some freshman cheerleader had been sucking the blood out of me and I was going to have to wait until my body slowly replaced all of it to get back into action.

I didn’t have the time to sit around and wait for something like that. Not when I had to track down Stacy and see if freeing Veronica’s soul had also been enough to free my girlfriend’s soul. Sort of a package deal.

So I stepped between worlds. Back to the real world and all the trouble waiting for me there. I really hoped none of those troubles included Stacy still sporting a pair of fangs because my new method of vampire elimination didn’t work the way a stake to the heart did.

33

Still Sucking

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

I gotta be honest. The last thing I expected to see when I slipped through the veil between worlds was Jimmy and Veronica rolling around on the grass sucking face like their lives depended on them devouring as much of one another’s tongues as they could.

They stopped when they realized I was back. Veronica sat up and brushed some twigs and leaves off her shirt that had been pulled up enough that I got a good look at the goods.

Nice, but I wasn’t in the mood to see the goods from her.

“Sorry,” Jimmy said as he rearranged his clothes.

His pants were undone and the zipper was down, and it was another one of those situations where I really didn’t want to see the natural conclusion of his pants being in that sate of disarray.

“Get a little distracted, did we?” I asked.

“Well I was holding her down and then you did whatever it is you did and suddenly she’s blinking and her fangs are gone and she’s staring up at me, and the next thing I know she’s pulling me down into a kiss and…”

“Spare me the details,” I said, turning my attention to Veronica. “What’s your excuse?”

“I mean I woke up and he was hovering over me holding me down and it was so hot and I felt blood pumping through my body for the first time in like half a century and…”

I held up a hand. “I was right when I said you need to spare me the details. Thanks for something that’s gonna haunt my nightmares.”

Veronica blushed, and looked down. Though I noticed she also reached out and took Jimmy’s hand. Maybe there was some sort of vampiric magnetism that was working its spell on her now that she was a mortal again, but I couldn’t be sure. If they were happy doing what they were doing then I wasn’t going to mess with that for now.

Though I wondered if Jimmy was in for a disappointment if I managed to take care of whatever vampire had sired him and returned him to normal.

Which reminded me.

“Veronica. Did you sire Stacy?”

“What? Of course not?”

“Motherfucker!” I growled.

On the one hand that was good. It meant the motherfucker who turned her was still out there, so I hadn’t potentially fucked up my surefire ticket to curing her of undeath by changing the rules of the game with how I’d brought Veronica back to mortality.

On the other hand that meant Stacy was still a vampire.

“The Master did that, of course,” she said. “He insists on being the one to turn all the new pretties.”

I shivered. Talk about another bit of nightmare fuel I could’ve done without.

I looked around the clearing. More particularly I looked at all the cars that definitely weren’t rocking now. Well, there was at least one at the other end of the clearing that was still rocking, but that could be because they were at the other end of the clearing and the vampire cheerleaders hadn’t had a chance to get to them to try and turn them before I worked my magic on Veronica. If they were occupied by what people were usually doing up here then I could see them completely ignoring a vampire attack because they were busy getting busy.

I looked at the vampire cheerleaders. They were definitely showing signs that they’d been turned mortal again, and I figured that was a good sign. I guess worrying about breaking the rules was a moot point. My vampire cure worked downstream.

That would’ve been a relief if the bastard who turned Stacy wasn’t still out there somewhere..

I walked over to one of the cheerleaders and prodded her with my foot. She started, and her eyes went wide as she looked up at me. As soon as her eyes locked on mine she started to scramble away, screaming in terror.

“What the hell?” I said.

“Don’t throw me please!” she said. “I’m not a vampire anymore and I don’t want to die!”

“If you’re not a vampire then I’m not going to do anything to you,” I said, but that didn’t stop the girl from continuing to scream and beg me not to hurt her.

Great.

There were other vampire cheerleaders in the clearing, but none of them looked like they were in a position to chat. The people they’d been turning into vampires were also in various stages of twitching as they recovered from their recent brush with undeath.

Some of them were on the ground twitching where they’d fallen while they were trying to get away or join the fight. Others were twitching on top of each other in the backs of their cars doing a close approximation of what they’d been up to before a bunch of vampires interrupted them doing what teenagers do best in the back seats of cars.

“Looks like we took care of most of the trouble here, at least,” I said. “It’s not like any of the people who were being targeted here are going to be turning into bloodsuckers any time soon.”

“Are you so sure about that?”

That voice sent a chill running through me. Usually that chill was because the girl attached to that voice was so damned sexy, but right about now it was sending a chill through me because I was pretty sure that cocky voice meant Stacy was a lot closer than I’d thought.

I turned around. Locked eyes with her. She smiled, revealing the fangs I was expecting.

More people materialized out of the woods behind her. People I recognized from school, and they all looked just a touch disoriented. They also were all sporting fangs and they were looking at Veronica like she was a juicy morsel they wouldn’t mind tasting.

“Don’t touch her,” I said.

“Oh?” Stacy said. “So now you’re turning on me for her? Talk about a fucked up reversal. And here I thought I meant more to you than that.”

“You do mean more to me than that,” I said. “That’s why I did something no reaper has ever done before to try and save your ass. Though it looks like it didn’t work.”

“You have to get the vampire that turned me,” she said. “Maybe if you showed a little more school spirit…”

She turned and motioned to the other vampires. They faded into the trees. She turned one final time and smiled at me.

“Come find me,” she said with a wink.

I reached out with tendrils of death magic. If I’d managed to separate the vampire spirit from Veronica’s soul without killing her then I could do the same thing with Stacy, only she jumped over one tendril and ducked under the other, then disappeared into the forest.

I growled and threw myself at the trees at full speed. The only problem with that being the forest was just thick enough that it’s not like I’d be able to get through them without whacking myself against some wood in its natural state and probably dealing with an unfortunate death for a little while.

So I flew over the trees. Only looking down into the forest from above, especially in the middle of the night, and trying to find someone was impossible.

I growled in frustration and lashed out at the trees with some death magic. Leaves fell off of them here and there, but that was all I accomplished. I certainly didn’t hit any vampires in hiding.

I clearly wasn’t going to do any more good here than I’d done every other time I’d tried to hunt a vampire recently, so I reluctantly turned around and headed back into the clearing.

On the bright side it looked like the cheerleaders who’d been turned earlier were recovering nicely. Most of them were up and about, though they were also rubbing their heads like they had one hell of a hangover.

I didn’t have much of an idea of what a hangover felt like considering I’d never touched booze, but I knew a lot of the more popular girls on the cheerleading squad, even the freshmen, were no stranger to hitting the sauce at parties so this was probably something that wasn’t all that unfamiliar to them.

Some of the couples who’d been attacked were also recovering. At least the ones Stacy hadn’t made off with while I was busy fighting Veronica. Some of them were running as fast as they could for the trees, which didn’t strike me as the best idea considering there’d been vampires lurking in those trees not so long ago.

One girl was sitting rocking and sobbing against the giant boat of a car she’d been making out with her boyfriend in before they were interrupted by creatures of the night. I didn’t see a boyfriend there comforting her, so I could only assume he was one of those vampires out among the trees.

“You really don’t want to go into those trees right now!” I called out.

A couple of them stopped and turned to stare at me. Which wasn’t a good thing. As soon as they realized the reaper girl from the homecoming video was calling and telling them not to go into the forest that was the first thing they turned and did.

I sighed and muttered a few choice words under my breath. If they wanted to be idiots and go into a forest infested with vampires then that was their business. I’d done my duty tonight, and the last thing I was doing was going into a dark and scary forest to save their asses a second time.

“They’re gone,” Veronica said. “You don’t need to worry about anyone else being turned tonight. I was supposed to distract you while Stacy grabbed as many new foot soldiers as possible if you showed up, and I guess she did her job.”

I wheeled around on her. Stalked across the clearing to where she sat with Jimmy wrapping protective arms around her. I got down on my knees and jabbed a finger at her chest, and that finger might’ve been loaded with a touch of the old death magic that hit her straight on over her heart.

“Why aren’t they in the trees? What the hell is going on here tonight? Why do you need foot soldiers when all you’ve been going on about up ’til now is talking about your stupid Master and his pretties?”

“They’re going to be at the pep rally,” she said with an enigmatic smile.

“A pep rally?” I asked.

Okay then. Talk about the last thing I was expecting to hear. Still, if she was in the mood to talk then I was going to let her talk. This was the most information I’d gotten about the vampires and what they were up to in a good long while, after all.

Maybe bringing her back to the mortal coil had its advantages. Now that she’d gained a pulse she also had a good reason to switch to the side that wasn’t going to look at her like she was a particularly delicious snack. Maybe. I still didn’t trust her all that much.

“The pep rally to end all pep rallies,” she said. “Your girlfriend is going to be there, along with every other vampire who’s ever been turned at our school.”

“That sounds ominous,” I said. “How many vampires have been turned from our school over the years?”

“A lot more than you might think,” she said. “How good are you at breaking into things?”

“I mean not at all,” I said. “But we might be able to get Jimmy here to break something with his vampire strength if it’s super necessary, why?”

Veronica glanced down at her watch. It looked like the thing hadn’t been updated in half a century. I was more impressed that it was even still around if it was the watch she’d been wearing when she was turned.

“We have a little time before the pep rally starts,” she said. “We might as well go to the library so I can show you something you might find very interesting.”

“Wait. How do I know you’re not going to double cross me? Like we show up at the library and there are a bunch of vampire punk ass book jockeys waiting for me or something?”

“I guess you don’t know until we get there,” she said. “But you just turned me into a mortal. What incentive do I possibly have to want to be turned back into a vampire after something like that?”

“Maybe you liked being a vampire? Maybe you liked the idea of being immortal?” I said, really thinking out loud more than anything.

“You were there in my head,” she said. “You saw what that thing was doing to me, and I don’t want to go back to that.”

She had a point. I’d literally seen her soul laid bare before me, and that soul didn’t seem like it was all that keen on having a bloodsucking soul taking over again. I’d quite literally looked into the depths of her soul to see the truth of her words.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s hit the library and then I guess we’re going to a pep rally that’s going down in the early hours of the morning?”

“The early hours of the morning is the middle of the day if you’re a bloodsucker,” Veronica said with a shrug.

34

Yearbook

“I’m still not sure about this,” Jimmy said, looking up at the quiet stone facade of the Carnegie library that sat just off the town’s downtown area. “I mean I always loved this place when I was growing up. Breaking something here feels sacrilegious.”

“Yeah, but this is the only place we’re going to find what I’m looking for in one place. Unless you want to go breaking into a bunch of old people’s houses and stealing their shit,” Veronica said.

“Seriously. This is the only way we’re going to get at whatever it is Veronica is trying to show us, so let’s do it.”

Still Jimmy hesitated. I rolled my eyes. This was just fucking great. He became a man of action back in the clearing when it meant he got to make out with his vampire lady friend, but now he was going back to his old dorky self?

“Couldn’t you do it for me?” Veronica asked, staring at him in the dark and batting her eyelashes.

The quiet night was filled with the faint tinkle of glass breaking as Jimmy shoved his hand through. It made a hell of a mess, too.

It turns out shoving your fist and hand through a window, even a small window attached to a side door leading into the old library, wasn’t quite as easy in the real world as in the movies. I knew because I’d bled out once going through a window I didn’t realize was there in one of my many unfortunate deaths before I came to the realization that I was a reaper.

We all held our breath. Waited to see if the place had an alarm, but nothing happened.

“Good,” Veronica said. “Guess they never decided to upgrade the security.”

“What was the security back when you were living around here?” I asked.

“None at all,” she said with a smile. “Now let’s go. We don’t have long before the pep rally starts.”

“Couldn’t you just tell me what you’re trying to get across here?” I said. “If there’s something terrifying going on down at the high school then I’d rather be there than fucking around here.”

“Nope,” Veronica said. “We’re doing this first, then the high school.”

We stepped into the library. There were a few lights on. Just enough to see by, thankfully. The last thing I wanted was to go turning lights on that might signal to anyone up late and watching that there were people doing a bit of breaking and entering in the town library.

Sure I’d probably be able to talk my way out of it if they involved the Chief, but I didn’t have the time to wait for him to show up right now if there seriously was about to be a scary vampire pep rally going down at the high school.

“Here we are,” Veronica said, moving to a section that was all about local history.

Mostly it was books that’d been self-published by local “historians” who were typically older people writing about how great the town had been when they were young and how shitty it’d gotten since they got older. I’d gone through them before because I was a dork like that, and it was a theme with those books whether they were written in 1909 when there was a gas boom going on around here but there were signs that the gas might be on its way out and the jobs right along with it or 1959 when there was a manufacturing boom going on but already there were signs that the cheap factory jobs might not stick around forever.

Veronica pulled out a few different books. I looked at them and was just a touch surprised.

“Yearbooks?” I asked. “That’s what we came here for? Yearbooks? Couldn’t we just go to the high school and get these from the library there?”

“We could,” Veronica said. “But then you’d be in the school when there were a bunch of vampires gathering and we can’t have that.”

Tendrils of dark death were gathering around me before I could think about what I was doing. Veronica looked at those tendrils of magic and seemed surprisingly unintimidated by them. It was a huge change from when she’d been a bloodsucking vampire.

“If you think you’re going to scare me away with that stuff then you have another think coming,” she said. “I just woke up from a forty year nightmare and I can remember every terrible thing I ever did while I was a bloodsucker. Next to being stuck with those memories, killing me would almost be a mercy.”

I pulled the tendrils back. Talk about your all time things I wasn’t expecting to hear from the girl who’d been my nemesis up until maybe an hour ago.

“Right,” I said, blushing just a bit. “So if you’re regretting everything that happened while you were a bloodsucking freak, why the hell are you trying to keep me away from the school while the vampires are gathering over there?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’d think that’s obvious enough from what you just pulled with me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“It means every time you have a problem with something supernatural you jump at it without thinking about whether or not attacking something is a good idea.”

“Whatever,” I grunted, crossing my arms. I really didn’t like her assessment of how I handled things. Mostly because it’d been true since Stacy got turned into a bloodsucker.

“The last thing I need is for you to go into that school with your magic blazing, trying your best to take out all the vampires before the big guy even has a chance to show himself. It’s rare that asshole actually shows his true form, and you don’t want him to go into hiding for a few decades,” she said.

“He’d really disappear for that long?” I asked.

“Yup. He’s had centuries to wait. A decade is a blink of an eye to him, and if someone like you comes along and tries giving him trouble then he might even disappear from the school entirely and never return,” Veronica said. “He doesn’t like reapers.”

“Fine,” I finally said. “So we need to kill some time while we’re waiting for all the bloodsuckers to show up. You clearly brought me out here for a reason, so what is it?”

“This,” Veronica said, pointing to a series of yearbooks she’d been getting out and putting down on the wood tables. “Take a look at this. The big asshole might be willing to go into hiding for a few decades at a time and pick off some pretties around the edges, but he’s not all that great at coming up with a new look when he does come out of hiding to do some serious collecting.”

I looked at the books and realized she’d opened all of them to the faculty page. Which wasn’t what I’d expected, but I figured I should give them another look anyway.

“The faculty?” I said. “You’re saying a bloodsucker has eternal life and they figured the best thing they could do with that eternal life was forever reliving high school as a teacher?”

“Teacher, administrator,” Veronica said with a shrug. “I suppose reliving your high school years as a teacher is better than reliving them as the students. I tried the whole going back to school thing a couple of times, and it turns out school pretty much sucks in all the same ways no matter what decade you’re in, even if some of the fashions change.”

“How would that even work?” I asked. “I thought bloodsuckers turned to dust or something when they were exposed to the sun?”

“Well yeah, but it turns out that’s more of a guideline than an actual rule. You can stay inside and not worry about the sun getting you. Put on enough SPF and you might be able to make it for a few minutes. Wear hoodies and cover yourself and you last even longer, there are lots of ways to get around if you know what you’re doing and avoid windows,” Veronica said.

“And a giant hunk of concrete that was built back when the world was more worried about students having to pull a duck and cover when the nukes started dropping is the perfect place to make a career like that while also having access to a bunch of gullible idiots you can slowly add to your undead army,” I muttered.

I’d heard some of the other reapers talking about how glad they were cooler heads had prevailed and the bombs hadn’t ended up dropping after all. Not because they were worried about the end of civilization as we know it like most people were when they thought about nuclear war so much as because none of them relished the idea of the overtime they’d have to put in tracking down hundreds of millions of souls and moving them to the other side.

I looked from page to page, and the identity of the head vampire seriously surprised me.

“Assistant Principal Lee?” I asked.

“It’s always the ones you least expect,” Veronica said. “Like I said, he comes out and assumes an identity every few decades to go collecting. I think he also does a circuit of a few different schools in the area so he’s alway staggering who might see him, but that’s only a guess since I’ve seen some vamps from other schools over the years. Either way, the social media era and facial recognition is about to seriously fuck with his MO. He wouldn’t shut up about it. I’m pretty sure that’s why he’s finally making a move.”

I shook my head. “The guy isn’t anything like I’d expect from a vampire. I mean I’m sure I’ve seen him outside and…”

I thought. Really thought about all the times I’d seen him around the school. Thought about how he’d been the one to conveniently show up when I was fighting off a bunch of bloodsuckers, for that matter.

I guess he never had been near a window or anything like that all those times.

“That motherfucker,” I said. “But wouldn’t someone look at these yearbooks and figure out what was going on? It’s pretty obvious when you look at these side by side and figure it out.”

“Well yeah, but have you ever heard of someone who was so nerdy that they went looking at a bunch of yearbooks that don’t feature them? Decades apart? Most people don’t even look at their own yearbooks,” Veronica said. “The only ones who look at these are librarians, and even they probably aren’t going through all of them.”

“I guess you’ve got a point there,” I said.

“Not to mention there have been plenty of bloodsuckers caught on camera over the years, some have even gotten pretty famous in the modern era, and everyone thinks it’s just a big joke or something because mortals don’t want to think about things like vampires actually being real and knocking them down a couple of pegs on the food chain. Though to hear this asshole talk it sounds like facial recognition algorithms are about to really start fucking with that and making people confront some uncomfortable realities about the supernatural.”

I thought about a couple of times I’d seen things like that on the Internet. There were always way more people in those threads making fun of people for believing in bullshit like vampires than there were people willing to admit they believed in vampires.

“Okay, point made,” I said. “Also, these names he’s picking are ridiculous.”

“They are?” Veronica asked.

“Mr. Schreck? Mr. Lugosi? Mr. Lee? Those last two are way too on point,” I said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. “Come on. Those are all movies from before your time!”

“I mean it’s not like I’m going to sit around and watch old movies either,” she said with a shrug.

“When this is all over, and if we survive, we’re going to make sure to sit down and catch you up on all the pop culture stuff you’ve clearly been missing out on for the past few years,” I said.

“If we survive,” she said, staring off in the distance towards the school. “Considering everything I’m having to deal with remembering right now I’m not sure I want to.”

“Come on Veronica,” Jimmy said, putting an arm around her. “It can’t be all that bad, can it?”

“You have no idea, Jimmy,” she said. “You never did any of that stuff because you were always on the outs. I don’t want to think about some of the things I’ve done.”

“Well you can start to make it better tonight,” I said, looking at a clock on the wall. “Because we’re going to go out there, kick some bloodsucking ass, and save my girlfriend.”

That earned me a sharp look from Veronica. Maybe she’d been serious when she talked about wanting Stacy all to herself, but it wasn’t happening.

“Do we have to?” Jimmy asked.

“You found your balls out there in the clearing,” Veronica said, patting him on the cheek. “You don’t want to lose them now.”

“Damn it,” Jimmy said.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “With a little luck you’ll be human before the night is through.”

Jimmy looked to me, and then to Veronica. He seemed to be thinking the same thing I’d been thinking earlier from the way he deflated. Maybe he didn’t want to lose any of that vampire magnetism, but that was tough shit for him.

I was going to get Stacy back if it killed every bloodsucking bastard who may or may not be gathering in the gym right now to have the world’s creepiest pep rally, and Jimmy’s continuing ability to maintain an advantage with a girl like Veronica who probably wouldn’t give him the time of day otherwise was pretty far down on my priority list.

35

Pep Rally

“And when we go out there into the world what are we going to do?” the voice boomed over the PA system.

“Rustle some cattle!” the crowd shouted back in the sort of enthusiastic chant that was usually reserved for high school students talking about how they were going to beat the other team in some pseudo-warlike situation.

Nothing about this war sounded fake, though. The people in that gym were planning some shit, and I was the one who was going to have to do something about it.

“What the hell are they talking about?” I asked.

Veronica hit me with a look that said I was being an idiot. “Come on. Rustle some cattle? I’m sure you can figure that one out when we’re talking vampires and humans. That’s like one of the oldest cliches in the book.”

“Okay yeah,” I said. “Maybe I deserved that one.”

“I’d say you deserved that one more than a little,” Jimmy muttered, hitting Veronica with a smile and earning a smile right back from her.

I rolled my eyes. “Y’know this was a lot easier when you were afraid to so much as look at me because you thought I was going to do something to you.”

“You said you wanted me to help out,” he said. “Well this is my way of helping out.”

“You taking Veronica’s side on everything because you think it’s going to help you get into her pants when your vampire magnetism wears off is not my idea of helping out,” I groused.

“Hey!” Jimmy shouted.

“Would the two of you can it?” Veronica said. “Lee is getting to the good part.”

“And I can tell you when this is all said and done, we’re all going to be back at this wonderful school that made us what we are. We’re going to be back to what we were, because the whole town is going to be getting up at night to do their business and there’s not a damn thing they’ll be able to do to stop us!” the voice boomed through the PA system. “And the authorities are so busy in Starlight City that there’s nothing they can do to stop us!”

I rolled my eyes. “Is this guy serious?”

“He sounds pretty serious to me,” Veronica said. “The big guy was always pretty serious about trying to take over the world and make it a better place for vampires.”

“Yeah, but what the fuck does he think is going to happen when the world suddenly realizes there’s an entire town that’s been taken over by vampires? It’s not like that’s the sort of thing that the authorities are going to let slide,” I said.

“It worked in ’Salem’s Lot,” Jimmy muttered.

“Yes, but this isn’t a Stephen King novel where the bad guys win because he’s trying to prove a point about the scary dark things in the world pushing back against the technological advances of the twentieth century as a sort of reverse Dracula!” I snapped.

They both stared at me blankly. I growled and rolled my eyes.

“The point is I’m the authority in this town when it comes to supernatural things, and I’m not going to let them get away with this. It isn’t happening on my watch. I don’t care if the rest of the world is in a tizzy because of whatever’s threatening to take over the world in Starlight City this week. Night Terror can worry about that crap. This is my territory.”

“Whatever you say Sheriff Gwen,” Veronica said, trying to stifle a giggle and not doing a good job of it, which I was pretty sure was totally intentional.

“This is just what I need,” I said. “Not only has my girlfriend been turned into a bloodsucking monster, but now I have to deal with the two sarcastic bloodsucking Wonder Twins on top of it.”

I crept forward. There were no vampires in the halls out here. Not even someone running the concession stands. I’d been to my fair share of games since basketball season started. Mostly because I was interested in watching the cheerleaders in general and one cheerleader in particular, and not necessarily because I was all that interested in watching the basketball team get the hardwood wiped with their losing record asses.

We reached the end of the second floor hall and I peered around the edge into the gym, trying to move slow so I wouldn’t be seen. I blinked at the sheer volume of asses filling those uncomfortable bleachers.

“Holy shit,” I said, turning back around and pressing against the wall.

“What’s wrong?” Veronica asked.

“They’ve filled an entire school’s worth of vampires in there!” I hissed. “I’ve never seen the gym that full before!”

“Well yeah,” Veronica said. “What part of them having a massive vampire pep rally did you not understand?”

“Probably the part where you made it sound like the whole gym was going to be full of vampires!” I said. “That’s a whole gym. Full of vampires! How are we supposed to get around that?”

“I thought you were going to come up with something,” Veronica said. “Look, if you’re going to have this kind of trouble defeating them then maybe I should just go down there and have them turn me into a vampire again, because I’m not going to be turned into a snack thank you very much.”

“You really think they’re going to take you back when you’ve been turned?” Jimmy asked.

I looked between the two of them. Jimmy was clearly still thinking in terms of whether or not he was going to be able to get his dick wet at some point. He had the sort of look that said he wasn’t interested in her becoming a bloodsucking monstrosity again, and I’m sure he had his own reasons for thinking that way.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “I’ll figure out a way to take care of this.”

“Y’know if you were really interested in being a vampire again then I could sire you,” Jimmy said, his voice taking on a speculative quality that I didn’t care for. “That way you wouldn’t have to worry about getting in the middle of a feeding frenzy with all the vampires down there or anything.”

“You could do that,” she said, then she pressed up against him and hit him with a light peck on the cheek. “Though of course if you were my sire that’d mean you’d have certain duties to fulfill.”

“As would you,” Jimmy said.

I turned away. They could have their weird little flirtation if that’s what they wanted, but that didn’t mean I had to watch it.

“Come on Gwen,” I muttered. “You took out a fucking necromancer, so you can take out some bloodsuckers. It’s just a matter of figuring out how the heck to do it.”

“Wait a second,” Veronica said. “What was that you just said?”

“That I need to figure out a way to do this?” I said.

“No, before that,” she said.

“That I took out a necromancer?” I said.

“You took out a necromancer?” she said.

“Did I stutter?” I asked, letting all the irritation I was feeling at our current predicament flow through me. “Yes I took out a necromancer. What’s the big deal?”

Veronica glanced to Jimmy, and then back to me. Then she took a step towards me. It was a small thing, but it was still something.

“Sorry Jimmy,” she said. “But my money’s on her.”

“Seriously?” I said.

“Necromancers are bad news,” she said. “If you took one out then I’m following you wherever you go.”

I thought about make a reference to having her axe, but decided she probably wasn’t the type to read Lord of the Rings when she was a teenager the first time around, let alone actually watch the movies during her eternal teenage years in between.

So I focused on the job ahead of us instead.

“Okay, so there are way more people out there than can be accounted for by a bunch of horny people at the lovers’ lane getting attacked by vampires,” I said. “How long have you been pulling that move, anyway?”

“Actually tonight was the first time I’ve run that play since we came back,” Veronica said. “It’s a good one and it usually works, but this time around I only did it because we had an influx of pretty girls who’d be able to distract people long enough to pull it off.”

“Right,” I said. I glanced around the corner again.

The vamps were in the middle of some inane cheer. The kind of thing that wouldn’t have been out of place in any pep rally ever. I sighed. If anything it was even more annoying when it was coming from a bunch of bloodsucking sons of bitches.

Most of the students out there looked like they were between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, which made sense if they’d all been turned while they were in high school. The poor bastards. I imagined there were a hell of a lot of unfortunate stories behind each and every vampire out there.

Sure some of them looked a little older than others, but mostly that was because every vampire out there was dressed in the attire of whatever decade they’d come from. I guess Veronica wasn’t the only bloodsucker out there who didn’t keep up with the times.

There was one other thing that was creepy. They were all beautiful. Like it was clear whatever vampire was turning these students was going for the local small town hotties, the best of the best, and would accept no less.

And down at the bottom was the asshole himself, Assistant Principal Lee doing his thing. Leading all the students in that inane cheer about how they were going to take care of all the humans in this town, and then the world.

Not if I had anything to do with it, damn it.

“Okay, so here’s the plan. I’m going to fly down there and take out Assistant Principal Lee, and we’re going to hope that’ll be enough to take care of all the vampires in here. He’s the one who’s done most of the turning over the years, right?” I asked.

“I mean he’s the one who got me,” Veronica said. “Stacy too, but I can’t guarantee he’s the one who got everyone out there. Though it mostly flows down, so if you take him out then that’ll take out all the vampires he’s turned over the years, and all the vampires they’ve turned over the years. I think.”

“So basically taking him out should be good enough to take out all the vampires in that gym,” I said.

“I guess?” Veronica said. “I honestly never paid much attention to how those rules worked. We’ve never had someone come along hunting or killing anyone to the point I had to worry.”

“Right,” I said, death magic gathering around me as I looked down at the scene in the gym.

It wasn’t a pleasant scene. It was the kind of scene that would’ve terrified any mortal unfortunate enough to look down on it. Luckily for me, and unluckily for any of the bloodsuckers down there doing the whole ra ra sis boom bah thing talking about how they were going to take over the fucking world, I was here and I was far from mortal.

It was probably a good thing I was trying to take care of them. If they got too big for their britches they’d attract all the wrong kind of attention, and my understanding of how Night Terror worked would involve a bunch of vampires getting vaporized instead of being transformed into their old human selves.

“What are you going to do?” Veronica asked.

“I figured I’d do a straight shot at the asshole,” I said. “I mean it’s not like there’s anything he can do to stop me when I get down there.”

“There might not be anything he can do about it,” a familiar voice said from behind us. A voice that had me squeezing my eyes shut and wondering what the hell I’d done to deserve this. “But you bet your cute ass I’m going to do something about it. The Master gets so annoyed when people interrupt his speeches.”

I wheeled around and found myself facing none other than the jock who’d been at Veronica’s beck and call. Though from the group of vampires gathered around him it looked like he was the one calling the shots now.

“What the hell are you doing here Corey?” Veronica asked. “You know you’re not supposed to be pulling shit like this. I give the orders around here.”

I turned to eye her. I had to give her props for her confidence. If I found myself confronted by a vampire and I’d been turned into a mortal then I probably would’ve been terrified that said vampire was about to send me to a one way visit to one of the local reapers, but she held herself like she was still in charge of things.

I got the feeling she must’ve been a real bitch back when she was still among the living the first time around, but I’d take it if it meant getting these vampires off our backs long enough for me to do what needed to be done down there.

Corey sniffed the air a couple of times and then smiled. It was a smile that showed off his fangs, and it was also the kind of smile that said things weren’t going to go well for Veronica and her bluff. Though to her credit she didn’t so much as take a step back under that fanged gaze.

“You’re trying to talk a big game Veronica,” Corey said. “But I can smell you. I know what’s happened, and that means you’re not in charge anymore. You’re not pushing me around ever again!”

His voice got louder and louder. Loud enough that some of the vampires in the gym proper were turning to look at us. The most annoying thing about those looks was none of them seemed worried about what was going on in here. No, they saw our merry band of vampire hunters and it was clear they didn’t consider us a threat.

“Fuck this,” I said.

I lashed out with tendrils of magic that swept under the vampire assholes. Their eyes went wide with surprise as they were knocked on their asses. Maybe they thought they’d have an advantage since there were a bunch of them and there was only one of me, but they had another think coming.

The only problem being the moment I swept the feet was also the moment all those vampires who could see us from the gym started looking pissed off. Their fangs came out and suddenly an entire corner of the gym was pouring in to give us some trouble.

Damn it. All I wanted was to take out their head vampire so everyone in here was turned back into humans. Why did they have to keep fighting me on this? It was like they wanted to stay vampires or something!

Then again if they all had vampire demons latching onto their eternal souls then it was entirely possible they did think they wanted to stay vampires forever. Which was just fucking great.

Before I knew it I was surrounded by a sea of hissing vampires. They all stared at me like they were ready to do some damage, but then someone was moving through the crowd pushing them aside. Finally Corey appeared, and he had Veronica in front of him with one clawed finger against her neck.

Oops. I guess I sort of lost track of her in the melee.

“Make a single move and I kill her,” he said.

“You son of a bitch Corey!” Veronica growled. “How the fuck can you do this to me after all we’ve been through?”

“I can do this to you because of all we’ve been through, you bitch!” he growled. “Now shut the fuck up or I’m going to kill you because I can! Or maybe I’ll even sire you. Can you be made into a vampire again? That’d be rich if you were the one who had to submit to me instead of the other way around, wouldn’t it?”

From the way Veronica’s eyes went wide and she was suddenly looking at me like she expected me to get her out of this, that wasn’t a pleasant future she was seeing. The only trouble being I wasn’t feeling particularly inclined to save her ass.

I pushed out with some death magic. The vampires all around were pushed back a couple of steps. Huh. Now that was interesting. Up to this point I’d been using tendrils of the old death magic to do precision strikes, but that was a wall of the stuff that pushed them back.

I didn’t know I had it in me. Then again I’d been discovering all sorts of novel uses for my powers lately.

“Do something like that again and I swear I’ll kill her,” Corey said.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“What?” Corey asked, clearly confused.

“What?” Veronica asked, though it was more a shriek than anything.

“Go ahead and kill her,” I said, waving a hand. “I don’t give a fuck! Do you have any idea how annoying this bitch is?”

“I mean, yeah?” he said. “You think you have it bad, try dealing with her constantly for the past four decades.”

“Y’know we might be on opposite sides of this little fight right now,” I said. “But you genuinely have my sympathy for having to put up with her for all those years.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Veronica growled. “I’m right fucking here!”

“I mean you have to admit that you’re kinda annoying and bossy,” I said, then turned to Corey. “Kill her or turn her into a vampire again. I don’t give a fuck. There’s only one cheerleader I’m interested in, and it isn’t this one for all that she’s tagging along.”

Veronica glared at me, but I couldn’t feel all that bad. I was telling the truth when I said she was an annoyance. She’d been a thorn in my side for too long. Sure we’d sort of been getting along tonight, but one night of sort of getting along wasn’t going to make up for all the frustration she’d called me.

“Aren’t you supposed to not want people to get hurt or something?” Corey asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“I’m a reaper,” I said. “Not some superhero from a Marvel movie or something. I facilitate death. Why the hell do you think I’d be upset at her getting a free trip to the other side? Shit, I’ll take her myself.”

“For the record I’d like to have a little more say in this!” Veronica growled.

“Oh fuck all this,” Corey said. “Would you please kill this reaper? We’ll be able to bring her to the Master if she’s dead. He might have to wait for her to come around again, but it’s not a big deal.”

The vampires moved in around me, and it struck me that there was a flaw in my plan. Maybe I couldn’t be killed permanently, but they could kill me temporarily, and it looked like they were about to do just that. I tried to lash out at as many of them as I could, but unfortunately there were too many of them for me to take on all at once.

And so I felt bones breaking and other parts of me snapping and making noises that a body definitely wasn’t supposed to make as they moved in around me and the world went dark.

36

Dead Again

I was treated to the unpleasant sight of a bunch of vampires ripping into me as I stared down at my body. Like they were really getting into it, and that Corey asshole didn’t seem all that inclined to tell the motherfuckers to stop.

“That looks like it’s gonna hurt when you get back into your body,” Arnold said.

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “They’re vampires. I figured the worse they’d do was be sad at me or sparkle at me or something. That seems to be what they do in most movies.”

“They don’t look very sad,” Jake said. “They look pretty happy about ripping into you.”

“Who knew vampires could pull the whole werewolf thing?” I said.

Finally Corey held up a hand and they stopped. He also shoved Veronica to one of the other vampires who grabbed her. I figured there might still be a chance that Jimmy could save her, but then he was pushed to the front of the vampire crowd as well.

“The night isn’t going all that well for you, all things considered,” Arnold said.

“Thanks for the reminder,” I growled.

“I mean you’d think you’d be better than this at this whole vampire hunting thing,” Jake said, doing a little twirl over the bloodsuckers.

“Again, not a conversation I really need to be having right now,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth and not doing a very good job of it.

“Have you ever considered maybe fighting off something else?” Arnold asked. “Werewolves might be more your speed.”

“Would you guys please shut up?” I snapped. “This is going to hurt like a motherfucker when I jump back in my body, and I’m trying to psych myself up for it.”

“You know it’s not nice for you to mention that you can go back in your body,” Luke said.

I wheeled on the three ghosts who were not helping this situation by reminding me of how spectacularly I’d failed. How much I’d been failing ever since this whole fucked up situation started. I wrapped the three of them in clouds of death magic, and they actually started to fade away to the other side. Their eyes went wide, and they definitely didn’t look like the happy haunts they usually were.

“Anyone else want to make a smartass comment about my vampire fighting technique?” I asked, staring at each of them in turn.

“I think we’re good,” Arnold said, sounding like he was choking for all that he couldn’t draw breath in his deceased state.

“Good,” I growled. “Because if one more person tries to point out all the trouble I’m having…”

I let go and sighed. It wasn’t right to take out my frustrations on these guys, for all that they sort of deserved it for all the crap they were giving me, damn it. I figured I was about to do a hell of a lot of penance for what I’d just put them through, though. I hadn’t been lying when I said it was going to be a huge pain to jump back in my body.

Well, this was going to hurt whether or not I was doing it now or five minutes from now, and it’s not like the old body was going to start doing its Wolverine thing until my soul was back in there.

So I jumped back into my body. I wasn’t ever sure what it looked like when I did this, but I always liked to think it was similar to Bill and Ted jumping into people’s bodies as they possessed them in Bogus Journey. A movie that was so close to how the whole death thing actually worked that it almost made me wonder if some reaper had gone off the reservation and told some screenwriter about our world.

Pain flared in my body. I would’ve screamed, but I was so broken from the beating I’d taken that it was impossible for me to get out more than a whimper. Which was probably a good thing, because right about now I was trying to pull a stealth death thing.

I hoped they were carrying me to the head asshole to show they’d taken care of business. And if they weren’t carrying me to the head asshole then at the very least I was going to make those fuckers regret ever manhandling me by the time we arrived wherever the hell we were going.

I didn’t even have to work all that hard at keeping my eyes shut. No, keeping my eyes shut blocked out the light and helped to fight back the world of pain was running through me as my body did its best Hugh Jackman and recovered from the damage.

I hoped it wouldn’t take long. Usually I healed up pretty fast once I reinhabited my body, but there were no hard and fast rules about how long it took.

Vampires had started cheering all around me again. I guess the brief interruption from coming out to capture me was over. They were chanting something about how they were going to drain every human in town or something.

It’d be good to avoid that. On top of being bad for the humans, it’d probably have Death royally pissed off at me for not being able to handle this. Not to mention it’d be a bunch of extra work for me since the other reapers would make me pitch in once it became clear I was the one responsible for everything.

The vampires jostled me which wasn’t doing wonders for the whole healing situation. I didn’t dare move, though. I was terrified that if I did then it would just let them know I was back among the living, for certain definitions of being among the living, and that would invite another beatdown I could do without.

Finally they threw me to the ground. Pain flared. I whimpered, but thankfully, for certain definitions of thankfully, it seemed that whatever parts of me were responsible for making noise were still broken enough that I couldn’t get more than one of those whimpers out.

That was good. Sort of. I think. For certain definitions of good.

“What do we have here?” a new voice said.

I knew that voice anywhere. Assistant Principal Lee. The asshole was probably gloating over my defeat, but for a surprise I heard him hiss.

I really wished I could see the show. He sounded really pissed off, and after everything I’d been through I really could’ve done with seeing a vampire getting royally pissed off thanks to something I’d done right about now.

“What are you thinking bringing her down here?” he hissed.

There was a meaty sound, followed by some screams and then the sound of something slamming into something hard with a lot of force. Followed by some glass breaking. I had no idea what the hell was going on out there on the other side of my eyelids, but I wanted to see it now more than ever.

There was a pause. Followed by something slamming down on my leg and causing even more pain to flare through me.

“I know you’re awake,” Lee said. “So why don’t you drop the act. You might fool my children, but you’re not going to fool me.”

Well then. I guess we had a vampire who actually knew a little something about how the supernatural world worked. Damn it. Just my fucking luck.

I opened my eyes. If he knew I was playing possum then there was no point in continuing the charade, after all. Besides, I really wanted to see the look on his asshole fanged face.

“Well hey there Lee,” I said, which earned me an irritated frown from the good assistant principal.

Whatever. I figured if he was going to reveal himself to be a bloodsucking creature of the night who was trying to turn the school on our town in a bid to take over the world then I didn’t need to stand on the typical ceremony that went between teacher and student.

“Get up,” he said.

I tried to scramble to my feet, but there was something in one of my arms that was still broken enough that it was difficult for me to get up without pain shooting from my arm through my neck and then down to my legs.

Son of a bitch. What kind of injury did I have that the pain was going all the way from my head to my legs? Something must’ve really gotten screwed up in the wiring.

“Pull her up, please,” he said, waving his hand in irritation.

Clawed vampire hands wrapped around me and pulled me up. I knew they were clawed because whatever asshole owned those claws was none too gentle about digging into me with them. I bit back a couple of choice phrases and turned to glare at none other than Corey.

He grinned an unpleasant grin. Though it was off just a bit thanks to one hell of a bruise covering half his face in the shape of a hand. That explained the meaty sound I’d heard a moment ago, though he was healing up nicely.

I could also see Veronica and Jimmy not too far behind Corey, but I didn’t care about any of them.

Stacy was standing right there. She was beautiful, as always. I’d never not be attracted to that girl. Even standing there smiling at me with fangs in her mouth that made it clear she’d been going through some shit lately.

“You need to show the appropriate respect to the Master,” Corey said.

“Man, y’all really have this whole kinky vampire BDSM thing going, don’t you?” I asked.

That earned me a slap from Corey. Stars danced in front of my eyes and I had a moment to reflect on the dangers of pissing off a bunch of bloodsuckers who weren’t in the mood to be taunted. I got the feeling vampires typically didn’t get all that much lip from people considering they were basically apex ambush predators hiding in the shadows attacking people who thought said apex ambush predators were scary stories from books and movies.

“You’ll shut up when you’re talking to the Master,” he said.

I’d always thought the whole dumb jock thing was a stereotype made up by nerds who got picked on and then went to Hollywood to write movies where they got some small measure of revenge by writing mean things about those dumb jocks, but now that I was getting to meet a dumb jock from a different era I was wondering if there wasn’t some truth to the old stereotype that was less true in modern times.

“So which is it supposed to be?” I asked. “Do I need to shut up, or am I going to talk to him? Because I can’t do both at the same time, y’know.”

Corey’s mouth moved like he was trying to think of a response, and then he held his hand back and balled it up in a fist. I prepared myself for the worst. His vampire friends had already done a number on me, after all, and I was well aware of how much it would hurt if he clocked me with all his vampire strength behind that punch.

“Wait a moment, Corey,” Lee said from behind us.

I sighed. It was nice to know I wasn’t going to be picking myself up off the ground. Not yet, at least. I turned back to look at Lee who stood there looking every bit the boring school administrator.

I guess people didn’t change all that much when they were turned into a vampire. They just became an immortal bloodsucking version of whatever they’d been in real life, and somehow the thought of becoming an immortal school principal forced to forever walk the earth dealing with punk kids seemed like the kind of eternal punishment that not even a bloodsucking vampire son of a bitch truly deserved.

“Thanks for the save,” I said with a grin I wasn’t really feeling, but I was hoping smiling would make them realize they weren’t intimidating me in the same way that some of the “cattle” would be intimidated.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m saving you,” he said. “I’m merely delaying the pain while I find out why it is the reapers are interested in my gathering. I’d think someone in your line of work wouldn’t mind me creating work for you.”

His eyes bored into mine. Those were the eyes of a guy who was used to taking no shit from teenagers, and he was interrogating me with all the expertise of a man who’d been getting high school students to admit to whatever it was they’d done wrong for years.

At least I had an easy response. I looked to Stacy who stood there staring at me with her fangs out, smiling like she was looking forward to whatever the vampire motherfuckers were about to do to me. Then I looked back to Lee, anger filling me as I thought of him enslaving my girlfriend and forcing her into the creepy Master thing he had going with a bunch of high school kids which was usually the kind of thing that landed teachers on a list of some sort when they were caught.

If I had any say in it then Assistant Principal Lee would merely land in a pile of dust on the gym floor when this was all said and done.

“You took something very dear to me,” I said. “And I’m not going to rest until I get her back. I don’t care if I have to kill every bloodsucker in this gym to do it. Well, kill them again. You know what I mean.”

37

Vampire Killer

“You know you’re not the first spurned lover to come to me after your lady love was turned into a vampire,” Lee said, a thin smile playing across his face. “There’s a reason why that was the subject of Dracula. Tale as old as time among vampires.”

“Yeah, except in this tale as old as time there’s a beast who wants to exsanguinate the leading lady. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in the Disney version,” I said.

“The what?” Lee asked.

“The Disney version of Beauty and the Beast?” I asked. “Lots of Stockholm syndrome masquerading as love? They were sort of moving from princesses who needed a man to solve all their problems to women who could actually do stuff and the transition was awkward.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Right. Vampire who doesn’t keep up on pop culture,” I grumbled.

“Whatever. The fact is you simply have no way of winning here today,” Lee said. “Mr. Thomas?”

More blinding pain bloomed in my side. I glanced down to see five claws in there. I looked up and sure enough there was the jock Corey asshole staring at me with an unpleasant grin. It was the kind of grin that said he was enjoying the fuck out of this, and he was going to go right on enjoying it until I was out of commission again.

I had to give it to Assistant Principal Lee. Torturing a reaper so said reaper was stuck in her body but unable to do anything to manipulate the real world was an interesting choice. I wondered if it was the kind of thing the big guy knew about, or if this was an example of me finding yet another wrinkle in the whole reaper thing that hadn’t been discovered yet because no one on the other side had bothered to think about something like that happening.

“You know I was almost going to give you your friend back,” Assistant Principal Lee said. “I always thought the two of you made a cute couple walking around the halls making those puppy love eyes at one another.”

“You were almost going to give her back to me?” I spat, and some blood came up with that spit.

I figured it wasn’t anything good that blood was coming up with the spit. I mean sure it’s not like I was actually going to die as a result of that blood coming up, not permanently at least, but at the same time it meant I was getting closer to death’s door, the figurative door and not the literal Death’s door I stepped through on the regular, which wasn’t good if I wanted to stay in the fight.

“So what are you going to do now?” I asked.

“I’m going to continue with my plans,” Lee said. “I have things I need to attend to, and I’m going to leave you over to Mr. Thomas here. Mr. Thomas and his new lady love, now that you’ve been annoying enough to take away Veronica.”

Assistant Principal Lee looked at me and, for a moment, he actually looked like he was sad. Though there was an undercurrent of menace to his sadness that also made me think he didn’t regret it all that much at all.

“A fair trade,” he said. “You take away one of mine and I take away one of yours. Veronica has been with me for quite a few decades, after all, and I am going to miss her particularly devious and ruthless way of dealing with the world around her.”

He glanced at Veronica and, for a moment, it looked like he was genuinely sad that he’d been losing her. It wasn’t even the creepy sort of look you’d expect from an older dude who was creeping on a teenage girl.

No, that was the look of a father who’d lost a daughter. Like we’re talking the crazy religious types who said their children were dead to them because they disagreed with their lifestyle choices and not the ones who lost their kids to a visit from one of my coworkers.

Lee shook his head, and then he disappeared into the crowd. No doubt to deal with the administrative side of managing the vampire invasion that was about to hit this town.

Meanwhile the jock asshole, Mr. Corey Thomas, threw his head back and laughed. It was the sort of villainous laugh that I usually only saw when I was watching the news from Starlight City, and I figured it couldn’t mean anything good that this prick was throwing his head back and laughing like that now.

“This is going to be fun,” he said. “I think I’m going to take care of you first, and then when that’s done I’m going to take care of Veronica.”

“Like hell you are!” Jimmy shouted.

It would’ve been admirable the way Jimmy was trying to break free from his vampire captors. The only problem was there were enough vampires surrounding him that they were able to hold him back without much trouble.

Not to mention Jimmy didn’t seem like the type who’d been all that strong to begin with back when he was a mere mortal. Sure he was getting a little bit of a boost because he had the whole vampire strength thing going for him, but that vampire strength was only good when he was dealing with mere mortals.

When he was fighting against other vampires? Forget about it.

“Don’t you worry Veronica,” Corey said. “I’ll be sure to make it nice and slow. I’ll even have some help, won’t I?”

I wondered what fresh hell was about to be visited on me as he turned to the side with a grin that was not at all pleasant. That was the kind of fanged grin that promised there were all sorts of unpleasant things that were about to come my way, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Come along darling,” Corey said. “We don’t want to keep your old flame waiting, do we?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Of course if he was going to pull an asshole move, it would be taunting me with Stacy. The guy clearly didn’t have enough brains to have an imagination. Stacy stepped out from the crowd of bloodsucking vampire bastards and gave me that same nasty fanged smile she’d hit me with earlier.

Because she was working for the enemy now. We’re not even talking back when Graham the necromancer had been using his magic to try and get her to do his bidding. No, she was well and truly under the influence of this vampire asshole, because that’s how it worked with vampires and their whole siring and line of succession bullshit.

“Seriously?” I said, turning to the jock. “This is the best you can come up with?”

His grin faltered. Like he wasn’t sure what to make of this sudden act of defiance from yours truly. Again I got the feeling that vampires really weren’t used to people threatening to take them on even when it seemed like they were on the losing side.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, then seemed to recover just a bit. “You can try to distract me all you want, but it’s not going to change this. She’s mine now, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

“She’s not even into dudes!” I said. “Honestly. Are you going to be that much of a prick?”

“Whatever,” he said. “Girl on girl is a little naughty, but I can work with that.”

“Oh my God,” I said. “Are you seriously going to be one of those dudebro assholes who thinks girls getting with other girls is only something that should gratify straight dudes?”

Corey’s face screwed up in clear confusion. He looked from me to Stacy, and then to Veronica who gave a little shrug that seemed to say she had no idea what the hell I was talking about either.

“I mean what else is the point?” he finally said, turning back to me.

I shook my head and choked a couple of times as I tried to get out exactly how wrong this ancient dudebro from before the dawn of time was about the way the world worked. I was used to hearing this bullshit from old people, but it was a little weird hearing it from an old people who still looked like a teenager.

“I don’t give a fuck what you have to say,” the guy said. “So save your breath.”

“Sounds about right for an old dude who thinks it should be his way or the highway,” I muttered.

“What the fuck?” he growled. “I’ve had enough of your bullshit. I’m going to take care of you, but I think it’s going to be more fun to have my new pet take care of business. We’re going to make sure you’re so bleeding and broken that you’re not going to be able to do a damn thing to stop the Master’s plan!”

I rolled my eyes. Sure it seemed like they were about to introduce me to a world of hurt and it’s not like I was looking forward to that. Not exactly.

At the same time it was just so damned cheesy. It was enough to make me wonder if there were some ancient black and white movie serial or something where the bad guys acted like this and Corey was simply picking up on what they did in those movies from back when he’d been young.

“Take care of her, my pet,” Corey said.

Stacy stepped forward. Her eyes were glazed over. Meanwhile the vampires all throughout the gym had started letting out a chant that sounded like something you’d hear at a pep rally, except they were chanting about how much they wanted to see my blood and not about how much they’d like us to defeat whatever the fuck other team was supposed to teach us an early lesson in ill-advised hairless monkey tribalism.

Stacy moved up so she was standing next to Corey. She smiled as she looked at me and ran a hand along his shoulder, and then down along his back.

“Oh yeah,” he said, practically purring. “That’s the good fucking stuff. Show her how much you’re into me baby.”

“You know it,” she said.

Stacy turned to me, and for a brief moment that glazed look in her eyes disappeared. For that brief moment she looked surprisingly coherent. Like she was all there. Which confused me. If she was fawning all over this asshole then that had to mean she was under whatever mind control compulsion vampire bullshit he was using on her, but there she was and she seemed like she was totally with it.

She pulled her hand back and away from him. Punched it forward, and then her fist, and jock dude’s heart, punched through the dudebro’s front looking for all the world like a reenactment of John Hurt’s worst day ever on the job.

He stared down in astonishment. Then he turned to Stacy like he couldn’t quite understand what the hell was going on here.

“I figured the least you deserve after that whole ridiculous display is a little bit of Temple of Doom treatment,” Stacy said, winking at the dude as he continued to stare between the two of us with a bit of confusion and horror mixing together on that big beefy face of his.

“What the, what are you… Temple of Doom?”

The room went quiet all around us. All the cheering for my blood was over. Which was pretty fucking funny, if you asked me. I still wasn’t sure what the hell was going on here, I still wasn’t sure how the hell this had happened, but if it was happening and my ass might be getting saved then I wasn’t going to knock it.

“Fucking vampires,” Stacy said, echoing a sentiment I’d been feeling pretty regularly since this whole fucked up situation started. “Y’all really need to be better about keeping up with pop culture. You missed some great stuff.”

She pulled her hand back out and crushed the dude’s heart. He made another noise and then his body turned to dust that fell into a pile on the floor. I stared at it, and then up to Stacy.

“How?” I asked.

“Turns out I was never under their control,” she said. “Good thing too, because that would’ve been an awkward wrinkle in my whole plan to get captured and infiltrate their ranks, y’know?”

I shook my head. That sounded like the kind of stupid thing Stacy would do. And I couldn’t help but think it was partly my fault she’d felt the need to do it at all. After all, I was the idiot who couldn’t actually track down the fucking vampires in the first place. I was the idiot who let her out of my sight so she could go and do something stupid like this, for that matter.

“We are so going to have a conversation about this,” I said.

Though the shrieking that was coming down from the bleachers all around us as an entire gym’s worth of vampires cried out for our blood would seem to indicate we were going to have some trouble surviving for the next five minutes, let along long enough for us to have a conversation about this.

“Vampires first,” Stacy said. “Take care of everything else later.”

“Right,” I said, holding my hand out and letting my scythe materialize around me as my robes appeared and fluttered in that strange wind that was never actually there. “That doesn’t mean we’re not having this conversation though.”

“Yes mother,” Stacy said.

I didn’t get to let loose with a quip. No, vampires started pressing in around us and Stacy went to work laying into them with a surprising amount of vampire strength. Jimmy started doing the same, but I could tell we were going to be overwhelmed pretty damn quick considering there were two of them, plus Veronica hiding in the middle, and a whole fucking gym of the bloodsuckers pressing in on us.

I lashed out with a bit of the old death magic that slammed into the vampires pressing in all around us. I figured the least I could do was make sure the bloodsucking bastards couldn’t move in on my friends right away, but I could still tell this was going to be a losing battle.

There were too many of them and not enough of us. Especially if I wanted to try and save some of the poor teenagers who’d been turned into bloodsucking bastards against their will.

I honestly wasn’t in a mood to save most of them, but I also figured I needed to be smart about this. I needed a way to take out a bunch of them all at once, and the only way to do that was to go after the head dude.

And pray this whole vampire thing really did work under Lost Boys rules, and that wasn’t just some bullshit that’d gone back and forth between Hollywood and the real world so often that no one knew which was real and which was fake.

Whatever. There was one chance to make this all better, and that ended with my scythe running through a school administrator’s heart. So I shot up into the air and searched through the crowd of vampires for Assistant Principal Lee. It was easy enough to find the prick, which was a relief. If the dude was smart then he would’ve gone to ground the moment he realized his plan wasn’t quite going to plan, but it looked like he was confident enough in his bloodsucking bastards saving the day that he wasn’t bothering to hide.

Which made it that much easier to fly down at him, ready to deliver a bit of the reaper justice that he’d obviously been avoiding for far too many years of his undeath.

38

Head Vampire

I barreled towards Assistant Principal Lee, trailing a cloud of inky darkness behind me as I worked up a good pissed off head of steam heading for the prick.

He looked up and locked eyes with me. His reaction wasn’t anything like what I’d expected. I’d figured an ancient vampire who was hellbent on world domination, or at the very least hellbent on pulling a ‘Salems Lot on this little corner of the world, would’ve been a bit more terrifying when he saw a potential challenger coming for him.

Lee wasn’t anything like that. He didn’t flash the old fangs at me. He didn’t raise his clawed hands in preparation for a hell of a fight with yours truly. He didn’t turn into a bat or fog or a wolf and prepare for a fight.

No, he looked up at me and his eyes went wide as he screamed like a little bitch. Like we’re talking his scream sounded like a little girl screaming at the top of her lungs. Which wasn’t the kind of thing I expected to hear coming from an ancient vampire who’d been acting so tough just moments ago.

I landed in front of him and some of the hardwood cracked under me. I winced. My body still hadn’t quite recovered from the first beatdown I got from these vampire bastards. Plus I figured fixing those boards couldn’t be cheap.

Then again with the way things were going with these bloodsucking bastards the school was going to be lucky if I didn’t burn the gym down around us trying to take care of the vampire bastards infesting it. The real bitch was something like that would probably go on my permanent record with all the stuff about burning the gym down being rendered in loving detail while all the stuff about saving the world from a bunch of bloodsucking bastards would be left out.

Whatever. I could worry about that later. Right now I had a vampire to take care of.

“Mr. Lee,” I said, my voice low and menacing. At least I hoped it was appropriately menacing.

He made a little motion with his fingers. Vampires rushed in, and I pressed out with another wave of death magic that pushed them back. A cloud of darkness moved around and surrounded us like a wall, and no bloodsuckers got through that wall.

“You don’t have to do this, Gwen,” he said, looking around and seeming more than a little worried for the first time.

It was a confusing feeling. Here he was an undead bastard who’d been so confident and full of himself just moments ago, and now he was staring at me like I was the monster or something. Talk about a weird trip.

“You’re threatening to take over the town with your teenage vampire minions,” I said. “I sort of have to do this.”

“You could join us!” he said. “I’d be willing to make you my second! I didn’t mean all that stuff about Corey being my second!”

“Well Corey is a pile of dust right about now, so I’m guessing that’s not going to happen for him regardless of what your plans were,” I said.

Anger flashed in his eyes. For a moment he looked every inch the angry Assistant Principal and not an angry bloodsucking vampire trying to take over the world.

“You are causing quite a bit of disruption here tonight young lady,” he growled. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll cease and desist from all of this immediately and maybe you won’t get in too much trouble.”

I stared at him like he’d sprouted a pair of fangs. Which wasn’t all that difficult considering, y’know, he actually had sprouted a pair of fangs and he was staring at me with the fangs out.

“Are you serious?” I asked. “You really think you can pull the whole ‘business as usual’ schtick and threaten me with getting in trouble?”

“This is the kind of thing that could go on your permanent record young lady,” he said, still playing up the role of the Assistant Principal.

I wasn’t sure if he was doing that because he actually thought it might work, maybe it had with some of the unfortunate teenagers who’d been his victims over the years, or if he was doing it because the role he’d been playing for all these years was, at the end of the day, the last refuge he had when things clearly weren’t going in his favor.

Either way it wasn’t going to be enough to save him.

“I think it’s a little too late for you to try and pull the whole teacher thing to try and get me to not go after you,” I said. “We both know what the fuck you are and what the fuck you were planning, and I can’t let that happen.”

Mr. Lee looked down at me, and there was nothing but scorn in his eyes now. He glanced around the gym, to the throng of vampires who were in his thrall, and then back to me. His face contorted into something very close to rage, and for a moment he actually looked like the monster he was and not like some boring assistant principal who’d maybe had dreams once upon a time that’d long ago died by a thousand paper cuts administered by uncaring teenagers.

“You really think you can defeat me?” he asked. “What gives you the arrogance to think a teenager would ever be capable of doing something like that?”

I cocked my head to the side.

“Are you serious?”

“What?” he asked.

“Are you seriously trying to give me the old “You have no idea how powerful I am and can never defeat me!” villain speech?”

“I…”

I suppose as a tactic it would’ve been a good one if he actually had a leg to stand on, but as it stood… I sighed. Slammed a tendril of the old death magic right into his chest. Right about where his heart would be.

Stacy might’ve done her Temple of Doom moment the old fashioned way by reaching her hand straight through that Corey prick’s chest and giving him the business, but I had access to forces beyond the understanding of mortal man, or undead bloodsucker, to play with.

“That whole speech was nice and all,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you to feel like it wasn’t working or anything. I’m sure it would’ve terrified a mortal, but you’re forgetting one thing: I’m not a normal mortal teenager.”

His eyes went wide as he stared at me, and then he took a step towards me. Now that was interesting. None of the other vampires I’d faced down had done anything like that. What the hell?

I blinked and I was standing in a strange location. Lightning streaked the sky all around me. Angry red lightning, not the cool white stuff streaking through the sky during a thunderstorm which was one of my favorite things ever.

Everything about this place was trippy, too. Floating black islands lazily moved past. Dark clouds boiled overhead, and all around me was a dull purple light.

What the ever loving fuck?

Something big landed in front of me. Like we’re talking it was big enough to shake the ground all around me. Think Godzilla going for a stroll in your local park, if your local park was a strange place filled with floating islands and evil red lightning, and you start to get the idea of what it felt like.

I looked at the thing, and hoo boy was it an ugly motherfucker. It looked sort of like the vampire spirits I’d seen in the other vamps, only this thing was fucking huge.

“Hoo boy are you one ugly motherfucker,” I said. That was the kind of thought that needed to be given voice.

The thing was all black and almost seemed to blend in with its surroundings. Its eyes glowed a bright red, because of course its eyes glowed a bright red. What self-respecting evil creature of the night didn’t have a set of glowing peepers, the better to terrify the normies with my dear?

It leaned forward and bellowed at me. Again comparisons to Godzilla came to mind, though those cheesy old monster movies didn’t capture the smell that was came off of this thing when it opened its mouth and gave me a little bit of the business. We’re talking a very unpleasant smell sensation.

I waved a hand in front of my nose to try and get rid of some of that offending smell.

“You really need to brush your teeth buddy,” I said.

The thing took another step towards me. Again the ground shook around me. We’re talking if I’d had a cup of water in front of me on the dashboard of a hypothetical Land Cruiser I was sitting in these giant steps would’ve knocked it over instead of creating a little ripple in the water to let me know something bad was about to go down.

“I’m guessing this means you have no plans to go quietly?” I said, cocking an eyebrow.

I looked around. If my experience with Veronica was anything to go on then there should’ve been a genuine Assistant Principal Lee soul hanging around here somewhere that was ready to get the fuck away from this giant vampire motherfucker.

Then again that thing was way bigger than any of the other vampire souls I’d come across since this whole thing started. Maybe it ate the old soul or something. Maybe it just…

Something slammed into me and answered that question quite nicely, thank you very much. I went skidding across ground that felt sort of like volcanic rock, only slimy, and then I was falling over the edge.

That was new. There hadn’t been an edge with the others.

I was treated to a view of a roiling lavascape down below the floating islands. Because of course there was a roiling lavascape down there. What self-respecting villainous monster creature didn’t make its lair on, in, over, or otherwise around a boiling lavascape?

I had a moment of panic falling screaming through the air towards that lava far below, hot enough that I could feel it even though we were thousands of feet over the stuff, before I remembered I could totally fly and it’s not like I had to worry about something as mundane as falling.

So I whipped around and came back up to the floating island I’d been on, only the vampire soul was gone. I blinked a couple of times. Where the hell had that thing gone, and what the heck had hit me to knock me over the edge like that?

“You can’t win young lady,” a familiar voice said.

I whipped around and looked at a floating jagged black rock floating by. Standing on the thing was a very boring looking old man who would’ve been able to move through just about any crowd unremarked. The sort of person who’d dedicated their whole quiet and unassuming life to education.

Or the kind of person who’d lived that quiet and unassuming life because they’d discovered it was the perfect cover for the fact that they were a bloodsucking bastard hellbent on world domination via converting some of their students to vampiric slaves over the course of decades.

As plots to try and take over the world went, it seemed a little needlessly complicated. Like it wasn’t as needlessly complicated as, say, building a second Chia earth and luring the world’s population over to it with offers of free T-shirts so they could take over the world, but it was definitely up there.

“Why aren’t you glad I’m here?” I asked. “Veronica was happy to see me.”

“Well that’s the big difference between me and Veronica,” Assistant Principal Lee, or whoever the fuck he was, said. “She doesn’t want to be a vampire, while I’m quite content in my current state. More than content. Happy, you might say.”

Something slammed into me again. I groaned as I flew through the air, but this time I was able to course correct before I went hurtling down towards the scary lava flowing so far below, at least, so I had that going for me.

I whipped around and found myself facing the giant vampire soul kaiju thing that was stomping around the place. The thing leaned forward and bellowed at me again. Again that stinky breath wafted over me, and I waved my hand in front of my face to try and ward off an evil that was far greater than anything as simple as a vampire soul trying to kill me.

Like we’re talking if Godzilla managed to hit King Ghidorah with breath like that instead of the whole nuclear breath then the movie would be over about halfway through.

“Man your breath stinks,” I said.

“You can give this up now, Gwen,” Lee said, floating along on a rock beside me. “You’re overmatched here. I was serious when I said you don’t have a chance to defeat me, for all that you have all the overconfidence I’ve come to expect from the teenagers in my town.”

“Like hell am I giving up that easily,” I said. “What the fuck am I supposed to do, join you and we rule the town as vampire sire and vampire daughter?”

“Well I mean if that’s something you’d be interested in then I’m sure we could move you up the org chart just a little,” he said, sounding genuinely surprised that I’d suggest something like that. “I do have an opening since your girlfriend killed Corey and you took care of Veronica. I’m not sure how it would work with a reaper, but it would be a worthwhile experiment!”

I rolled my eyes. Fucking vampires.

“It’s a quote from Star Wars, asshole,” I said.

He blinked. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t have time for much but reading. I’m not a fan of the new moving pictures. Never have been.”

“Seriously?” I said.

“Someone dragged me to see Nosferatu when it made its way to the states, but I didn’t find it to be a charitable depiction of my life and gave up on the moving pictures after that,” he said.

“Right, well if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go and defeat the scary vampire soul that’s taken up residence in your head and try to save you,” I said.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” he said, and he launched himself at me.

39

All In Your Head

Lee was surprisingly strong. Like way stronger than Veronica had been when I was tooling around inside her head. I found myself flying down towards that creepy lava stuff in the distance just to get away from the bastard for a moment.

I wasn’t sure if that stuff could even kill me in here. This was all in Lee’s head, after all, but I suppose what happened in his head could be pretty dangerous considering I could kill the vampire souls in here.

If this could be dangerous for the vampires then I figured there was a pretty good chance it could be dangerous for yours truly as well.

Something small slammed into me and wrapped its arms around me. That would be Lee. The vampire kaiju wasn’t nearly as delicate.

I pushed at the wiry bastard, but he was surprisingly strong. So I wrapped death magic around him and yanked at him. That was enough to get him away from me, but I could feel him tugging at that death magic.

For the first time since this whole thing started I actually found myself just a little worried. What if he was right on the money? What if he was way stronger than I could handle?

No. There wasn’t a chance of something like that happening. I was going to take care of this, and I was going to take care of it once and for all. I had a whole gym full of bloodsuckers trying to take out my girlfriend and Veronica and Jimmy, and the only way to save them was to take out this guy so I could take out all the others in one fell swoop.

So I shot up. This time I made sure to keep an eye on my surroundings, and so this time I saw the giant vampire soul before it managed to get in a sucker punch. I dodged to the side and turned, wrapping the thing in some death magic.

I floated in the air with tendrils wrapped around the vampire soul and Lee. Both of them struggled against me, and both of them were impossibly strong. I opened my mouth and let out a scream as I wrapped more and more of the stuff around the vampire soul. I figured that was the thing I really needed to take care of. All I had to do was get it…

The world snapped around us. I found myself in a familiar location. Boiling clouds roiled overhead and there was a glow from off in the distance, but this time around it was the familiar boiling clouds of the place all souls went when they were about to be sent on to whatever eternal reward was waiting for them.

The vampire soul was there with me. The thing flew back and landed in the river of souls. Those souls didn’t seem all that concerned about the giant monster that’d landed among them, though. No, they simply flowed around it and continued their steady and inexorable walk towards whatever reward was waiting for them.

I guess it didn’t matter to those souls that there was a giant monster in their midst. They were already dead, after all. What was the point in getting worried about a giant vampire monster creature when it couldn’t actually threaten them?

Which isn’t to say no one seemed worried about what was going on here. Reapers appeared all around the thing and started wrapping it in tendrils of their own death magic, looking for all the world like a bunch of cowboys trying to wrangle a giant monster. Or maybe a scene from Ghostbusters they hadn’t been able to shoot because special effects weren’t quite there back then.

Even then the thing was pulling against them, and actually managing to pull them up. It brought to mind some of those old movies with stop motion dinosaurs pulling on cowboys who were inexplicably there to try and wrangle them since westerns and dinosaurs had been an oddly popular mashup back in the day.

I didn’t care about that, as amusing as it was to watch a bunch of reapers trying to wrangle a kaiju sized vampire spirit. No, I was more concerned with an unassuming soul trying to quietly make its way against the flow of the river of souls.

This asshole was seriously still trying to get away? He was persistent, I’d give him that. I floated after him, but before I could get out over the river of souls something huge and dark appeared and seemed to blot out all the light all around us.

I looked up and saw a massive figure in dark robes standing over the vampire soul. Like we’re talking if that vampire spirit looked like a dinosaur, this new shadow really did look to be the size of a massive kaiju staring down. That also seemed to get the attention of some of the souls in that river, and for the first time ever I saw them starting to bunch up like they were trying to get away from that thing.

I was looking at Death in his full glory. The big man himself, and he wasn’t standing there looking at me with a kind smile. No, he was here on business.

He leaned down over the river of souls and plucked the vampire soul up like it was nothing. Sure the thing was still bellowing and swiping as it was picked up like a kitten being held by the scruff of its neck, but none of that swiping did the thing a damn bit of good.

I figured that was all well and good that the big guy was taking care of the big guy, but I was more worried about Lee’s soul getting away. I’d never heard of someone actually getting away from the river of souls before, many had tried, but I’d also never heard of giant vampire souls taking over someone’s body or someone being so far gone as a bloodsucking bastard that they were pissed off at someone coming along to rescue them from that eternity as a bloodsucking bastard.

So I figured it was time for me to go after the guy. I floated out over the river of souls and looked down. I figured it’s not like it could be all that difficult to track down one mortal soul going against the flow. That sort of thing tended to stick out like a sore thumb, and sure enough it took me all of half a minute to find him.

It was like looking down at a river with a pebble in the middle of it, only in this case it was a river of souls and there was one soul in particular making a break for it. I’d seen souls do that before, of course, there were some people who weren’t all that jazzed about going on to whatever was waiting for them on the other side.

The only difference between those souls and this one was those bastards were usually trying to escape while there were a bunch of reapers on top of the jagged rocks that shot up to either side of the river of souls watching them to make sure nothing like this happened, and at the moment most of those reapers were distracted by Death doing his thing with the giant vampire soul.

If ever there was a time for someone to actually succeed in making a break for it then this was the time.

I looked over my shoulder. Death had the vampire soul in front of the portal and was trying to shove it through, and there were a bunch of other reapers all around the thing still doing their best impression of a bunch of cowboys in the old west trying to rope a giant monster.

I smiled, then dove back into the river of souls. Over here it was easy enough to rope Assistant Principal Lee and bring him up out of the river of souls. On this side he was just a human soul, after all, and I had the home court advantage. He stared beyond me at the portal with a look of pure terror.

Yeah, I guess it would make sense that he’d be one of those souls that wasn’t all that jazzed about what was waiting for him on the other side. I got the feeling that someone who joyfully and willingly embraced the vampire lifestyle was going to a place that was nice and toasty.

Not that I honestly had any idea what was waiting for the mortals on the other side. The only thing I knew for sure was there were some mortals who seemed very much at peace with where they were going when they bit the big gate, and there were other mortals who seemed downright terrified about whatever was waiting for them on that other side.

“You don’t get to escape like that,” I said. “I’m not sure where you think you’re even going. It’s not like there’s anywhere to go.”

“Oh Gwen,” he said, recovering from his terror long enough to shake his head like he was talking to a student he was having to punish for something and didn’t particularly like the idea. “If only you knew.”

I frowned. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. I suppose it was something I could ask the big guy about, but he still looked busy trying to pluck individual fingers from the vampire soul off the edge of the gate. Half of the thing was through the gate, but the top half was still out and it was clinging onto that thing for dear life.

Or maybe it would be more accurate to say it was clinging to the gate for dear undeath, considering what we were talking about.

“I don’t have time for your mind games,” I said.

“What mind games?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

I growled and pulled him towards the portal. He might think he could escape, but there was no way to get out of here unless a reaper was pulling you between the worlds. Sure I’d always sort of arrived at the end of the river of souls, and I’d never really stopped to think about where all the souls were coming from, but whatever.

Right now I was worried about what was in front of me, and that was a vampire bastard who was going to get what was coming to him, damn it.

“You’re going to the other side,” I said.

That got his attention. He started struggling and spitting and hissing and showing me his fangs and lashing out and generally trying to do everything he could to get away from his waiting eternal fate.

Unfortunately for this guy that fate was coming for him whether he liked it or not. It was easy enough to pull him over to the portal where the vampire soul was still struggling. Death was looking pretty annoyed. The fact that there was a giant dark cloud of death magic gathered around the guy was proof enough of that.

“You look like you’re having some trouble there,” I said, looking up at him with a smile.

“Just throw the little one through the portal,” he growled, his voice low and threatening and sounding almost like the Death humanity imagined when they were portraying him in movies.

Well except for the time he was portrayed by William Sadler in that Bill & Ted movie.

Whatever. I tossed Assistant Principal Lee through the portal. His face turned from a mask of rage and hissing and spitting to a mask of pure terror as he turned to see whatever was waiting for him on the other side. It was something I’d seen more than once over here, and it was something that was totally expected with this guy.

I’m gonna be honest. There was a part of me that was more than satisfied to see him looking terrified as he was tossed through the portal. I figured a little bit of terror there at the end was the least he deserved for all the trouble he’d been causing over the years.

I hoped there was a nice eternity of that terror waiting for him, for all that it wasn’t a particularly charitable or nice thought. I was over having nice thoughts for vampires after all the trouble they’d given me.

The change in the vampire soul that’d been attached to Assistant Principal Lee for so long was immediate. It gave up the struggle and went stiff. Death still had to pull its fingers off the gate one by one, but all the fight had gone out of the thing so it was easy enough to do that prying.

Then it was being shoved through the portal as well. The thing flared with bolts of lightning and a deep red glow for a moment, and an interesting thing happened down below where all the other souls that would’ve normally gone through at the same time suddenly ran up against a solid wall which was a new one on me, but then it was all over.

“Well that wasn’t fun at all,” Death said.

I turned to him and blinked. He was back to his normal size.

“Sorry about the trouble there,” I said. “I had no idea they’d be so difficult on this side.”

“No worries,” he said. “Thanks for taking care of the little guy there. I get the feeling the big one wasn’t going through until he was taken care of.”

“The guy seemed like he actually wanted to be a vampire. Like when I went in his head, or wherever the hell it was I fight the vampire souls that’ve taken over, he was happy about it. He fought to try and keep that vampire soul in his body. It wasn’t at all like Veronica, and she’d been trapped there for a good half a century.”

“I think you’ll find that your Assistant Principal was pretty ancient as far as vampires go,” Death said. “He felt… old.”

“Yeah, he was talking about silent movies like they were some new thing he couldn’t wrap his head around,” I said.

“I’m thinking he was way older even than that,” Death said with a laugh and a shake of his head.

“Whatever,” I said. “He’s not going to be able to hurt someone ever again. That’s all I care about.”

“Care to tell me what happened to get to this point?” Death asked. “Because I’m not going to lie. I was just a bit surprised to see you coming over here with something like that.”

“Yeah, well I guess I’m just full of surprises when it comes to fighting off creatures of the night,” I muttered.

“That you are,” he said. “Just like your dear old dad.”

Interesting. I’d have to ask him about that sometime, but right now Death was asking for an after action report, and he wasn’t the kind of guy you kept waiting!

40

Back to School

I stepped through the death magic to the other side. This time the other side was me stepping back into the mortal world, of course, and not to the other side where there were a bunch of souls streaming towards whatever waited for mortals on the other other side.

There were a lot of other sides, now that I thought about it. Right now I was stepping back into the high school gym. Thankfully it was the gym, and not me relocating back to Assistant Principal Lee’s head.

Which was probably a good thing considering there was a pile of dust in front of me that I was pretty sure had been Assistant Principal Lee back before I went in there and started messing shit up.

Reapers stepped through from the other side all throughout the gym. I didn’t think they were strictly necessary, but from some of the screams I heard as I stepped back into the gym maybe I’d been wrong.

I looked at pockets of fighting still going on out there. Sure most people who’d been pressing in on Stacy and Veronica and Jimmy were standing around looking kind of dazed in a variety of fashions from the last seventy years or so, some dudes were even in letter jackets that had years on them from various points in the twentieth and early twenty-first, but there were still some who were fighting.

Not that they’d be fighting for long. Reapers lashed out with darkness and pulled them up out of the crowds where they were causing trouble.

Though there was one group I had to intervene in. A reaper was pulling Stacy up out of the crowd, and she was still kicking and punching at another vampire who was also being lifted out of the crowd.

I smiled. A fighter to the very end. I still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to avoid being compelled, something that was supposed to be a pretty strong deal among the bloodsuckers, but somehow she’d avoided it.

Though right now I needed to save her ass before someone pulled her through to the other side on accident.

“You can leave this one with me,” I said to the reaper who’d surrounded her in tendrils of darkness.

“Are you sure?” the reaper asked.

“I’m sure,” I said, looking at her and grinning.

She’d stopped struggling, at least. She hit me with a smile of her own and winked. It was nice to know the Stacy I knew and loved was still in there. It’d sucked hardcore when I thought I’d lost her.

The reaper let her go and she fell towards the ground, but I was right there to catch her. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her up towards the top of the gym. We floated around and around as I stared into her eyes.

“You were very naughty,” I said.

“Yeah, but I managed to be there to deliver the killing blow at the opportune moment and save your ass,” she said.

“What makes you think my ass needed saving?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. “That was totally all part of the plan.”

She rolled her eyes. “Right. Well you’re welcome either way. I know when you’re in the shit, and you were in the shit there.”

I figured it wasn’t worth arguing. Mostly because she was totally correct, and I didn’t want to give her any ammo in the “I told you so” department. So instead I leaned in and planted a huge kiss on her.

Her eyes went wide, I’d kept mine open so I could see her reaction, but then she wrapped her arms even tighter around me and pressed her lips against mine.

Oh yeah. I’d missed this, for all that I’d only been separated from it for a few days. It was proof that everything had gone back to normal. Sort of. “Normal” for me was anything but compared to other teenagers, but once more it looked like I’d come through on the other side with my ass mostly intact and the bad guys had been defeated, so who was I to complain?

She pulled away from the kiss and searched my eyes.

“Is this the part where you’re going to tell me you’re worried that I’m pissed off at you for going off on your own, and you’d like nothing more than a little bit of forgiveness?” I asked.

“I was hoping we could work out something like that,” she said, biting her lip in a sexy move she knew I liked. It wasn’t fair that she could look at me like that and melt my heart.

She was melting other parts of my body too, for that matter, but I figured in the interest of keeping things PG-13 in front of the crowd of vampires who’d so recently been turned back into mortals I’d settle for letting her melt my heart.

“You’ll have to think of a few interesting ways to earn my forgiveness,” I said. “That’s all there is to it.”

She winked at me and gave me a hug. I felt a couple of ribs crack, and I wrapped a few tendrils of the old death magic around her to make sure she wasn’t squeezing too hard. I placed her gently on an empty spot of the gym floor and floated down in front of her.

She looked at me in confusion. “What are you doing Gwen?”

“You’re squeezing me a little harder than I care for,” I said. “Mind taking a little bit of a break on that? When the heck did you get so strong anyway?”

She looked down and blushed, then pulled away. My chest felt just a little sore, but I figured it wasn’t anything I wouldn’t be able to recover from. I’d been able to recover from a hell of a lot worse than that over the years, after all.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was never that strong before. At least not before we ran into vampires and I sort of volunteered to go undercover as one.”

I rolled my eyes. “Reminding me of the stupid things you’ve done lately in the name of trying to track down supernatural bad guys isn’t exactly endearing you to me. You know that, right?”

“Sorry,” she said with a blush, then she reached out and gave me a slap on the back that had me stumbling forward and then taking flight so it wouldn’t send me rolling on the hardwood gym floor.

“Damn,” I said, coughing a couple of times as my body caught up with having the wind knocked out of it. “You really are dangerous!”

“It’s like I held onto the vampire strength or something,” she said, looking down at her hands. Then she turned to Veronica who’d been standing near us looking like she was doing her best to not be noticed.

“Get over here Veronica,” she said.

“What are you doing?” she asked, eyeing Stacy warily.

“I need you to help me out with a little something,” she said.

“Be careful,” I said. “I can heal up if you hit me a little too hard. Veronica is mortal and doesn’t have the same luxury.

Veronica eyed Stacy with even more apprehension than before. Like the last thing she wanted was to take part in whatever experiment we were doing, but it’s not like she had much of a choice. So she shuffled forward.

“Do your best to knock me over,” Stacy said.

“What?” she asked.

“I want you to give me a shove. With all your strength.”

Veronica looked to me like she thought I was somehow going to save her from the latest craziness Stacy had decided to bring into the world. I gave her a little shrug and shook my head.

“I’ve found that it’s usually best to go along with whatever she’s planning,” I said. “I know it might seem a little crazy, but there’s nothing you can do to fight it. She volunteered to become a vampire to try and stop you guys, after all.”

“Damn it,” Veronica muttered.

She leaned forward and pressed her hands against Stacy. Stacy didn’t budge. Veronica licked her lips and tried again. Gave her a good shove. Then Stacy reached out and gave Veronica a push right back.

It looked like a light push, but it was enough to send the former vampire flying back into the crowd. Luckily Jimmy was right there behind her, and he seemed more than happy to catch her and sweep her off her feet before she could land wrong and seriously hurt herself.

“That’s weird,” Stacy said. “I wonder if the vampire strength only lasts for a little while and then it wears off or something?”

“That’s what you were curious about?” Veronica asked, coughing just a little. I guess Stacy giving her a shove had been enough to knock the wind out of her. “My strength and all the other vampire stuff was gone the moment reaper girl here did whatever the hell it was she did to me,” she said.

“Weird,” Stacy said, looking down at her hands like she was wondering how the heck the whole vampire strength thing had stayed with her when it’d left Veronica.

“Not weird at all,” a familiar voice said.

Veronica and Stacy both shivered as they looked behind me. I turned around in time to see darkness in the vague shape of a coffin forming behind me, and then Death himself strode into the gym and had a look around. For a surprise he smiled, though that smile didn’t seem to do anything to comfort either Stacy or Veronica.

“You’re telling me you have some explanation for all this?” I asked. “After all the time you’ve been spending telling me there’s nothing you can tell me about how vampires operate?”

“I didn’t tell you there’s nothing I can tell you about how vampires operate,” he said. “Merely that what you did pulling a vampire soul away from an entrapped soul isn’t something we’ve ever encountered before, though I’ll admit you were more motivated than anyone else who’s ever taken on a vampire.”

“Okay, so can you maybe explain what this has to do with my girlfriend still having vampire strength after the head vampire was offed?” I asked. “And why there are still vampires hanging around the gym, for that matter?”

Death reached up and scratched his head. It was just a touch disconcerting to have the embodiment of the end of all life looking like he legitimately had no idea what the hell was going on here.

“The only thing I can think is she’s already had one out of body experience where she was dead but not dead for some time when you were dealing with the necromancer,” he said. “I’ve never known of someone who’s been lucky enough to fall victim to a necromancer but then float as a free spirit for any length of time. As for the other vampires, I’d say they weren’t in the line of siring that goes back to your Assistant Principal, and so they’re still able to fight. Well, until we take care of those vampire spirits still in them using your method. You’re going to have to show them how to do that, of course.”

Huh. That sort of made sense. Though it was an uncomfortable thought considering it meant there were still bloodsuckers out there who could cause trouble. It also meant more work teaching them how to take out the vampire spirits lurking within, but it’d be worth it if those bloodsuckers got their lives back.

“So you’re saying that because she’s died once and come back, but she’s a mortal, that’s done screwy things when it comes to supernatural things?” I asked.

“Wait, so is that why I didn’t actually feel the need to follow any of the vampire commands that they gave me? It took me a couple of tries to figure out I was supposed to be doing what they said when they did the whole creepy hypnotic eyes thing, and I figured the whole compulsion thing was just lower vampires going along for the ride because they didn’t want to get hurt.”

“Compulsion is very much a thing with vampires,” Death said, again frowning. “That you didn’t feel compelled to do anything other vampires asked you to do is very… odd.”

He eyed her as though she was an enigma. I worried he might be on the verge of saying she needed to be studied more or something, but then he shrugged and turned to me. Smiled.

“You have a very special girl here,” he said. “I imagine that’s thanks in no small part to how impetuous she is. I’d keep an eye on this one if I were you.”

I turned back to Stacy and Veronica. Veronica was still hanging back and looking at Death like she wanted to be anywhere but where he was, but Stacy was looking at him with new eyes. She actually smiled at the guy! I don’t think I’d ever seen a mortal who was willing to smile at Death, but then again I’d never known of a mortal other than my mom who was willing to date a reaper so what did I know?

“So are you going to tell me who your friend is here?” Stacy asked.

I looked between her and Death. “Right! I’m so sorry! I got so caught up in everything. Ladies, meet Death.”

“Death?” Veronica asked, going almost as pale as she’d been back when she was a vampire.

“None other than,” I said. “The big guy.”

It was a good thing Jimmy was still standing behind Veronica, because her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell back, totally fainting.

“Now that’s the reaction I’m used to getting from mortals,” Death said, looking at Stacy with a bemused expression.

“To be fair she wasn’t mortal until very recently,” I said. “But yeah. I totally get what you mean.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Death said. “It looks like everything is mostly in hand here, so I’ll be returning to work.”

“Nice chatting with you!”

He did that whole disappearing act. Again it was like a coffin made out of pure darkness surrounded him, and a moment later he was gone as he stepped through to the other side. Leaving me all alone on this side with Stacy, Jimmy, and a very unconscious Veronica who Jimmy was fanning with his hands in a vain attempt to get her to return to the land of the living.

41

New Students

“Listen, I’m sure using that kind of language was acceptable when you were last a student here, but we do not talk to other students like that in this day and age!”

I rolled my eyes as I walked past a teacher berating one of the “new” students in the hallway. From the way the guy was dressed he was from the ‘80s, so I could take a guess that the inappropriate language he was using started with an f and brought someone’s sexuality into question rather than starting with an n that would bring the ability of whoever uttered that word to not have the crap kicked out of them into question.

The teacher looked at me and opened her mouth like she was almost considering asking me for help, then she shut her big yap and seemed to think better of it. Which was fine with me. Disciplining students who were literally coming from a different decade wasn’t my idea of a good time.

“These poor teachers are having a hell of a time of it,” Stacy said, watching the altercation. “What word do you think they used that’s not considered kosher these days?”

“I imagine it had something to do with a bundle of sticks, but I really don’t want to know,” I said.

“I’ll never understand why people are so sensitive about that sort of stuff these days,” Veronica said. “I’d think people would just be able to let language roll off them.”

She was looking around us with some of the same disdain that’d been there when she was a vampire. It’d been tempered by being returned to the land of the mortals, but not by much. She still looked down her nose at the world for the most part.

“Shut up you bloodsucking bitch,” I said.

“Hey!” she said. “I’m not a vampire anymore and that’s not…”

She trailed off and her eyes narrowed. For all that she’d been trapped in a time warp for the past few decades, she was still pretty sharp. She stuck her tongue out when she realized what I was doing.

“Point taken,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

“It’s not about people being too sensitive,” Stacy said. “It’s about the person saying that kind of stuff being an asshole and the world is finally calling them out on it, but to that kind of person it looks like the world is suddenly too sensitive or something. It’s asshole deflection at its finest.”

“You say so,” Veronica said.

I shook my head and stepped into a science class that was a little bigger than it’d been before. We’re talking there were maybe five more students in the classroom.

Having an entire gym’s worth of students suddenly added back into the high school population had stretched things just a bit, but this was a school that’d been built back when the baby boom was in full swing and then stayed in use because the school corporation didn’t have the money to build a new building, so doubling the school’s population overnight hadn’t caused too much overcrowding.

No, if anything it’d simply forced the school system to finally start using most of the school rather than shutting down parts of it because there was no one to fill the seats in those parts of the school any longer.

It’d been a little odd to realize that most of the vampires were so stunted that they’d mostly remained the people they were when they’d been converted to vampirism. Something about the vampire soul that attached itself to them taking over at that moment which left them sort of taking a backseat, mentally speaking, for however long they roamed the earth as a bloodsucker.

That also made me feel better about having all of them back in the school. It meant we had a situation where there were a bunch of hostages who were being returned to the world, and not a situation where there were a bunch of bloodsucking monsters minus the bloodsucking part who were suddenly walking around with the general student population.

“Okay, so if you could all settle down please,” Mr. Whitmore, the high school’s ancient and eternal chemistry teacher who wasn’t a vampire despite looking to be about the same age in every yearbook photo he’d taken for decades, said. I knew because I’d hit him with a touch of death magic to make sure I didn’t get pulled into a weird headspace with a nasty vampire spirit after going through yearbooks to be sure there weren’t any other surprises lurking in the faculty. “I’m talking to you Mr. Farthing! I didn’t put up with your nonsense when you were here the first time around, and I’m certainly not going to put up with that nonsense now!”

I looked between the two of them and wondered that there was actually still a teacher working here who could remember all the students from the first time they were here. It’d made the transition a little easier. Especially since Mr. Whitmore hadn’t ever been the kind of teacher to take crap from students.

I shook my head an sat down. Stacy and Veronica took up station around me, and Jimmy silently settled into the seat behind Veronica. She turned and hit him with a smile that he returned with about a thousand times more intensity.

I still wasn’t sure exactly what was going on with the two of them, but I figured it was also something I wasn’t going to get in the middle of. If they wanted to do their thing then they could do their thing.

“Okay. Everyone has had their fun,” Mr. Whitmore said, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Now if you could please bring your eyes to the front we’ll get started!”

I tried to pay attention, I really did, but chemistry wasn’t exactly the most mesmerizing of subjects. Besides, I kept getting distracted by looking around the room at the new students who stood out like sore thumbs because they still insisted on wearing the styles from when they’d been in school.

All the thrift and vintage stores in a fifty mile radius had been raided and completely stripped of all their materials, one of the odd things about being vampires for several decades was that most of them had been able to take advantage of compound interest in a major way while they’d been terrorizing the world.

Most of them still had family hanging around the area as well. Heck, most of them still had parents hanging around. Even the ones from the fifties, like Veronica, tended to have parents who’d married young and got jobs in the factories back in the day so they could start popping out kids. Sure they were ancient by now, but a lot of them were still kicking around and still in the same houses they’d been in when their children were taken from them.

That was another thing that boggled the mind. The sheer number of students who’d disappeared over the years without making anyone suspicious. Though I suppose in the end it amounted to one or two every year which was sad, but not exactly the kind of thing to arouse that much suspicion.

Lee had been very good about making things look like accidents. Luke, Arnold, and Jake were proof enough of that. I shivered to think about some of the stuff I’d learned debriefing the vampires along with the Chief and discovering how deep the whole vampire conspiracy went.

The three spectral stooges might’ve been back among the living right now if it weren’t for the fact that my dad had been with them that fateful night when they went off the road. I couldn’t wait for him to get back from the craziness that was Starlight City so I could tell him he wasn’t as responsible for his friends’ deaths as he’d thought for all these years.

I’m sure that’d be a weight lifted off my dad’s shoulders. He’d been behind the wheel, sure, but it’d been a vampire bastard jumping out in front of their car that’d made everything go wrong. The vamps had hit the wrong car that night. They were looking for some football star and his girlfriend who drove a similar ancient boat of a Delta-88 and ran like the bloodsucking bitches they were when they realized there was a reaper in that car.

My mouth set in a frown at that. That Lee bastard deserved everything he got and then some considering some of the crap he’d been pulling.

“Is this lecture boring you Gwen?” Mr. Whitmore asked.

I knew I wasn’t in all that much trouble because he used my first name. Typically he only resorted to last names when he was about to lay into a student.

“Sorry Mr. Whitmore,” I said, trying to make my voice sound appropriately humbled. “I won’t let it happen again.”

“See to it that you don’t, Gwen,” he said. Then he went on in a quieter voice. “I know you’re probably still a little shaken over everything that happened, but know that we do appreciate everything you’ve done to bring back troublemakers like Mr. Thomas, for all that I thought I was through with his antics decades ago.”

I looked up in surprise at that. Old Mr. Whitmore was positively beaming at me, which wasn’t something that happened all that often. He was one of those tough but fair teachers who’d been on the job for so long that he didn’t take any shit from anybody.

Then I looked around the room. Realized that all the vampires who’d been time displaced were also smiling at me. Which was a surprise considering I’d pulled them away from the eternal life of a vampire, but maybe it was that I’d pulled them away from the eternal tortured life of a bloodsucker that had them smiling at me like that.

Either way it was nice to get some recognition for something I’d done. Recognition that didn’t involve the whole school giving me sidelong glances and acting like I was a freak because of what I was.

“Look at you, the big hero,” Stacy said.

I turned and she winked at me.

“I’ll be sure to give you a hero’s welcome later tonight too,” she said.

She’d been giving me plenty of hero’s welcomes since that night in the gym, but I wasn’t going to knock having another one. I grinned right back at her.

Things might’ve sucked for the past couple of weeks while I was chasing down a bunch of bloodsucking bastards, but on balance everything seemed pretty good now that I’d come through to the other side!

42

Full Moon

Stacy suddenly sat up and looked around. “Did you hear something?”

“You’re probably hearing people in other cars getting it on,” I said. “If the car’s a rockin’ don’t come a knockin’ and all that.”

“No, I seriously think I heard something out there,” she said, staring through the window like she was trying to see something out there. And sounding like something straight out of an ancient black and white B-movie in the process.

Normally I would’ve figured she was jumping at shadows, but I’d seen enough creatures of the night turning up in the flesh lately that I figured I should give her the benefit of the doubt.

I sighed and pulled myself up. She’d been in the middle of doing something that was pretty damn fun, I’m not sure where she learned how to use her tongue like that but I wasn’t complaining, and I figured I’d do just about anything to get her to go back to what she’d been doing!

Even if it meant checking to make sure there wasn’t anything scary lurking at the make out point. I mean we’d taken care of all the vampires so I was pretty sure we were in the clear, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.

I peered out of the back window of my car. It was a little difficult to see anything considering how fogged up the window was. So I reached down to the floor and picked up my shirt then used it to wipe away some of the fog.

“I don’t see anything out there,” I said.

“I’m telling you I heard something out there!”

I peered into the darkness. There was a full moon overhead, so it’s not like it was all that difficult to see everything in the clearing.

Honestly it wasn’t even really necessary for us to come out here to make out. I still had the house all to myself, after all. No, this was more about the experience. Stacy had insisted if we were going to make out then we had to do it the traditional way, and that meant coming all the way out here to the makeout spot that looked out over the town.

It was the highest point of elevation in an area that’d been mostly flattened by glaciers in the last ice age, which meant it was just a little taller than the hill that contained the creepy haunted mansion Graham had been operating out of.

“I’m telling you I don’t see anything out there,” I said. “You’re jumping at shadows.”

Stacy gave a little shiver. “I’m telling you I heard something out there that sounded big. Like a bear or something.”

I rolled my eyes. “There haven’t been bears in this part of the country for more than a century.”

“You don’t know that,” Stacy said. “It could’ve escaped from someone’s private collection or something. People lose their pet bears all the time.”

“I don’t think you can really say that someone is keeping a pet bear,” I said. “And I don’t know what you want me to do. If there really is a bear out there then there’s not a chance I’m going out to check on it. I’ve already been on the business end of Yogi using me as a pic-a-nic basket on at least one occasion and…”

I was cut off by a piercing mournful howl that filled the air. A shiver ran through me, for all that I knew I wasn’t in any danger of permanently dying. Stacy was very much in danger of permanently dying, though, for all that she’d cheated death twice now. I was more worried for her than anything.

Also? I was suddenly in trouble. Because Stacy’s eyes went wide as that howl pierced the darkness, and they weren’t going wide with fear. No, it was clear to me the moment her head switched from “potentially dangerous bear out there somewhere” to “potentially supernatural creature hiding out there somewhere.” She was ready to go out there and cause some trouble.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said.

“Oh yes I do!” she said, scrambling to pull her clothes back on where I’d removed them and get them back in order where I hadn’t quite gotten to taking them off yet.

“That had to be someone fucking around with their stereo and a Halloween sound effect or something,” I said. “That can’t be what you think it is.”

“Well the only way to find out is…”

Screams filled the night. I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a few choice curses. When I opened my eyes I found myself staring at Stacy who suddenly looked even more excited than she’d been just a moment ago.

“Nothing out there, huh?” she asked.

“Maybe it’s someone trying to make their prank seem realistic? Just wait. Someone’s going to start shouting about how it’s just a prank, bro, any moment now,” I said, not really believing it myself.

“Yeah, and maybe there’s something out there we need to take care of!”

“Damn it,” I groused as I started pulling on my own clothes and trying to make it look like I hadn’t just been in the middle of an interrupted heavy petting session with my girlfriend.

Which was kind of pointless considering where we were. Anyone who came up here was naturally doing that sort of thing. It’s not like I’d be fooling anyone.

“Oh come on,” Stacy said, leaning in to kiss me. “You know you’re going to have some fun with this.”

“I don’t know that I’m going to have anything of the sort,” I said. “Usually this stuff means I have to spend a bunch of time chasing after you and trying to keep you from dying.”

“And you’re so good at it!”

Stacy got out of the car first. I called out after her, but then she was gone. Once again I found myself in a situation where there was a potentially dangerous supernatural creature hanging out in the night, and my girlfriend was running towards it instead of away from it because she liked to pretend we were a two-person Scooby gang. For all that the monsters we were facing down weren’t old rich dudes in rubber masks trying to frighten people away for some convoluted reason that usually came down to trying to hide money from people.

I tripped and nearly fell as I got out of the car. The only thing that saved me was that I had the ability to fly, and so it was easy enough for me to float for a couple of feet until I got my balance back.

It’s not like it took all that long to figure out where all the action was either. The screaming made it pretty obvious, and even if there wasn’t the screaming then the growls and the sounds of claws on metal like an oversized can opener were certainly enough to get my attention.

Though in this case the can was a car, and the tasty meat inside the can were a couple of idiots who came out here to make out despite the fact that this place had recently been the victim of a vampire cheerleader attack.

I guess that was proof there was nothing that would prevent teenagers from making poor decisions in the interest of finding a quiet spot to hook up.

Not to mention I was one of the idiots who’d come out here to find a quiet spot to hook up. Sure part of the reason why I was out here looking for a spot to hook up was because my insanely hot girlfriend had insisted on coming out here, and it’s not like I had to worry about the things that went bump in the night.

Besides, when a girl as hot and smart and all around wonderful as Stacy said she wanted to come out to a notorious makeout spot to suck some face, you said yes!

“Holy crap,” Stacy said, looking at a giant hulking shadow that was leaning over one of the cars parked around the clearing.

The thing had reached along the top of the car and, sure enough, was peeling the thing open like it was a can of cat food or something. At least the pop top cans that I was always opening while Mr. Whiskers made my job insanely difficult by moving around under my legs was the closest thing I could compare this to, though this thing was a hell of a lot bigger and more dangerous than Mr. Whiskers.

It also pulsed with a faint glow that drew me to the thing. Not good. A faint glow that drew me to something meant it had an aura of death around it, and this thing reared up on its hind legs looked like it could deal some damage!

More screaming came from the car. The werewolf, because who the fuck was I kidding thinking this thing was anything but considering the way it’d announced itself with a howl and it was up on its hind legs walking around like a man despite the fact that it had a very wolfish face, reached in and pulled something out.

That pulsing of death grew more intense. Shit. Someone was about to bite the big one here. Maybe I didn’t have to do the shit duty of escorting people from the nursing home to the other side, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel an impending death when it was about to happen.

Then the pulsing stopped. I blinked. That was weird. I’d never seen something like that happen before, and yet…

“Hey fuzz face!” Stacy called out.

“What the hell are you doing Stacy?” I muttered.

When I opened my eyes it became perfectly clear what the hell she was doing. She was marching across the clearing towards a werewolf that was looking at her with an expression that was all too human. The thing was fucking confused that something that was supposed to be food was marching up to it like she wasn’t afraid of it.

The reason for her lack of fear became pretty obvious, too. The thing was still staring at her in obvious confusion when she wheeled back with her foot and slammed it in between the creature’s legs.

The werewolf went cross-eyed and sank to its knees. That had the added effect of causing the thing to drop the girl it’d been manhandling. The girl felt around her neck for a moment to make sure she was in one piece, then scrambled into the car she’d just vacated. A moment later it turned on and tore ass out of the clearing, and it only looked a touch ridiculous with its top ripped open.

Someone’s parents were going to be pissed off and relieved when that car got home.

Meanwhile Stacy pulled back with her fist and hit the fucking werewolf right under the chin, a pretty easy target considering its chin was actually the lower part of a long snout, with one hell of a punch that sent the thing flying back and slamming into a tree that crunched with the force of the impact.

All around us horns were honking and lights were coming on as more and more people realized something seriously crazy was going on and they needed to get the heck out of here, and there stood my glorious girlfriend in the middle of all of it staring down the werewolf with righteous fury as she beat the shit out of it.

I sighed. Held out my hand and let my scythe appear in my hands. My robes fluttered around me with a wind that wasn’t there, though the cars full of teenagers trying to make their escape were certainly kicking up some wind.

I guess if we were going to do this then we were going to do this. My girlfriend might be a freakish abomination who still had all the strength of a vampire because she’d been through the supernatural wringer a couple of times around now, but that didn’t mean I was going to leave her without any backup.

Making out could wait. Besides, it was really hot watching her taking on supernatural creatures like that! I figured I might as well learn to embrace it!

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