The Vampire and the Ink of Doom (Dreadful Vampire Mysteries Book 1) Page 6

  “It had a lot of attitude but one punch took it out.”

  “Not surprised,” Granny said. “It was probably getting ready to fall apart anyway. Ink demons are one of those one-and-done spells. It gets summoned, takes out its target, and then fades away. Those Romans did love their assassinations.”

  “Why did Anthony’s crucifix burn it,” Pita asked.

  Granny chuckled. “Because whoever created it is an idiot. They must’ve thought crosses really worked on vampires so the demon was forced to have that as a weakness.”

  “Why would someone go through all that trouble just to take out a librarian,” I asked.

  “Listen to her,” I heard Granny saying to the others, “Poor girl thinks I’m a mind reader or something.”

  “Sorry, Granny. You’ve been a lot of help. If a wizard or witch is needed to do something like this, I know just the person to talk to about it.

  After I promised Paige and Pita – again – that I wouldn’t do anything reckless, I hung up, fired up the Vespa, and headed to Witch Hazel’s.

  Chapter 11

  The curly-haired witch noticed me as soon as I stepped inside her tent. She said something to the customer she was helping, pointed to one of her assistants behind the cash register, and then headed straight towards me like a guided missile, the easy smile she had been wearing moments ago now gone without a trace. “What are you doing here?” she whisper-shouted. “You’re going to scare my customers.”

  “Only if you make them think you’ve lost your mind by tossing another garlic bomb at me.”

  Her cheeks turned as red as her hair. “Yeah, sorry about that. Guess I over-reacted.” Her eyes dropped down to my ink-stained hand. “Pen explode?”

  I held it up for her to get a closer look. “That’s actually why I’m here. Ever heard of an Atramentum Daemonium?”

  “An Ink Demon? Only the basics. It’s very old-school… even by witch standards.”

  “Well, someone made something old new again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The librarian.”

  Hazel gasped. “Mr. Sheldon was killed by an Ink Demon?”

  “The assistant librarian found a book filled with blank pages. And then a freaky vampire thing attacked me when I was leaving. It exploded into a cloud of ink when I hit it.”

  I thought about telling her how an untied shoe might have accidentally saved my life. Decided at the last second not to.

  “Well…” A look of concern crossed Hazel’s face.

  “What?”

  “Hazel,” a customer excitedly called from two aisles over. “I think someone might have lost a book while they were shopping. It looks like a children’s book.”

  Hazel and I looked over at the customer. In her hands was a brightly-colored, powder-blue book with a clown on the cover. “Don’t open —” we both started to shout, but it was too late. She flipped open the book.

  A bright light exploded from the pages and hurricane-force winds began blowing through the tent, knocking the woman down. As the lights flickered on and off, I saw the words lift from the pages and form a cloud in the air over the book.

  “This isn’t good,” Hazel shouted, her words whisked away by the wind almost as soon as she said them.

  “I figured that out,” I shouted back. “What do we do?”

  Hazel didn’t answer. Instead, she stared at the book, eyes wide, her already pale skin turning so white that her freckles almost seemed to glow. The swirling funnel of ink began to take shape. I glanced at the cover again and swore. This was not going to be fun.

  The black ink began to sparkle in a wide variety of colors — like sunlight hitting an oil slick — and then my worst nightmare began to take shape in front of me. A bright red over-sized shoe stepped out from the spinning cyclone of ink. Above the shoe, a rainbow-striped pant leg, which was soon joined by its twin. The ink twisted and coiled upon itself, congealing into a solid shape.

  The rainbow pants ran up to a bright orange belt, a blood-red vest with big silver buttons over a blindingly-white shirt, a black and purple polka-dotted bow tie, and a face painted in white grease paint with tufts of neon-green hair on either side. Two solid black eyes stared at me, unblinking.

  “Well,” I muttered, trying hard not to hyperventilate, “this sucks.”

  The demonic clown from Hell smiled, revealing razor-sharp teeth that would’ve been more fitting for a shark’s mouth. It looked down at the woman lying at its feet, and the grin grew wider. The woman screamed.

  As the creature bent towards the woman, I temporarily lost my mind and leaped towards it. I blame the shot of adrenaline getting dumped into my system on an overload of fear. I hated clowns, despised them. But the woman on the ground didn’t look like a fan of the big guy, either, and I figured vampire strength – basically having the strength of twenty people – had to be good for something. I had already taken out one of these things. How hard could it be to do it again?

  My jump put me mere feet from Mr. Tall, Pale, and Ugly. It turned towards me, straightened up to its full height — about eight feet — and glared at me, drool dripping from its fang-filled mouth.

  I buckled my fist and hit it in its bulbous red nose as hard as I could. The nose squeaked. That was it. So much for having the strength of twenty people. Maybe I could mist it to death.

  The clown bared its teeth and growled, reaching for me with claw-tipped hands. I back-pedaled out of reach quickly, glancing around for Hazel, who was nowhere to be found.

  “Great time to work on your disappearing act,” I yelled.

  She reappeared within seconds, dragging a garden hose from the produce section that she used to rinse fruit and vegetables before putting them out for display.

  “What went wrong?” I demanded. “Why didn’t it explode like the thing at the library?”

  “Demon at the library was old. This one is brand-new.” She closed one eye and aimed the water hose carefully, her finger resting on the sprayer’s trigger.

  “Going to give it a bath?” I asked.

  She shot a one-eyed scathing look at me before turning her attention back to the clown. “Ya know, for an immortal vampire, you’re not very bright sometimes.” She squeezed the trigger as the clown reached again for the woman on the ground. “It’s made of ink.”

  As soon as the water touched the clown, it forgot all about its intended victim, squealing as if being burned with acid.

  I knew next to nothing about magic but even I could appreciate the sheer simplicity of this ink demon spell. Unless you were facing the witch in The Wizard of Oz, you wouldn’t normally think of water as a weapon.

  “Back in the day,” Hazel explained, “water was usually a little harder to come by, which is why the Romans invented indoor plumbing. A few magical bad apples got crazy with the ink demon thing and people got sick and tired of it. When people learned water could defeat them, they worked super-fast on having easy access to water.”

  As Hazel continued to spray it, the clown turned to run. She muttered something, waving her free hand in the air and snapping her fingers. The clown-beast fell to the ground, and I couldn’t help but laugh when I noticed the shoestrings of its over-sized shoes were now tied together.

  Hazel kept the water hose aimed at the downed clown while I helped the customer up, guiding her away from what was quickly becoming a mess as the clown transformed into an inky white puddle. The woman stared in shock at the sight and then glanced at me. I offered a weak smile. This would probably go down in history as the most exciting grocery trip ever for her.

  After Hazel gave the traumatized customer over a hundred dollars in store credit, we stared at the puddle of ink on the ground.

  “Is it harmless?” I asked.

  Hazel nodded. “No more enchantment. It’s just ink now.” She looked at me. “You’re not going to like what I have to say, but I’m going to say it anyway. This kind of spell requires knowledge and power… and me and Broomhilda are the only witch
es around here.”

  “Broomhilda’s a witch?”

  Hazel winced. “Oops! Didn’t realize I was outing her.” She sighed. “Anyway, she deals with Earth magic. Works a lot with potions and flowers. The point is, this ink demon stuff isn’t our kind of thing… and since all of this recently started, I think it might be someone new.”

  I had to give her points for trying to be subtle but it was easy to see where this was going. “You mean you think it might be a guest at the Inn.”

  She glanced at me but quickly dropped her gaze back to the puddle. “I don’t mean anything by it, but… does anything seem odd or different there?”

  I held back a grin. Three vampire sisters and a gun-toting vampire granny under one roof. Things were always odd and different at home. I shook my head, and then thought about it for a few seconds. “Actually, we have a poltergeist that’s really bent out of shape over one of our guests.”

  “It might be able to sense the magic,” Hazel said.

  Sweet, slightly dorky Jasper was behind these creatures? It made a weird sort of sense. Nobody would ever suspect him of doing something like this.

  I looked at the fallen book lying next to the puddle. “Any idea who left that here?”

  Hazel shook her head. “Not a clue. It could’ve been anyone.”

  “I don’t suppose you might have noticed a short, little pudgy guy with curly red hair that’s a bit thin on the top.”

  She smiled. “Jasper? He’s sweet. Yeah, he was here earlier.” She looked at me. “You don’t think it’s Jasper, do you? He doesn’t seem like the type to hurt a fly.”

  I shrugged. “He seems harmless, but he’s also the one that poltergeist hates.”

  Hazel gasped suddenly, her eyes growing wide with alarm. “Oh no.”

  I looked around frantically, wondering if another ink demon had appeared. “What?”

  “He’s a writer.”

  “What?”

  “Jasper’s a writer. I asked him how he was enjoying his stay in town and he said it was a lot different than he expected and that he’d be leaving soon because his article was almost finished.”

  “What article?”

  Hazel shrugged. “I didn’t want to be nosy.”

  I stared at her.

  She sighed, rolling her eyes. “Fine. I was nosy, but all he said was that he had come here for a special writing project and it was almost done. He wouldn’t give any details.”

  Dammit! I should’ve just let Granny shoot him.

  “So how does this work?” I asked, holding the book up as if displaying it on an infomercial. “Does someone put the whammy on an existing story or do we have a word-slinging witch writing stories just to kill people?”

  Hazel grinned. “Word-slinging witch.” She chuckled. “That’s funny.”

  The smile and the chuckle both died quick deaths when she noticed me glaring at her. I’m pretty sure my eyes might have flashed a bit of crimson. Not my fault. It’s just a vampire thing.

  She shrugged. “Someone could’ve written an entire book… or they could’ve just written a few paragraphs describing the clown.”

  “A few paragraphs?” I asked, stunned. “It was a pretty big clown.”

  Hazel shook her head. “Doesn’t work that way. You don’t need more ink to create bigger demons. You just need a little ink… and a whole lot of magic to hold it together.”

  “A whole lot of magic,” I said softly, concerned. “So there’s a big, bad witch with major mojo who doesn’t mind killing people staying at the Inn… with my sisters.” I spun on my heel and started to my Vespa… and then tripped over my untied shoelace. I spun back and snarled at Hazel. “If you don’t take that stupid hex off of me —”

  “Sorry,” Hazel said. “Forgot all about it.” She waved her hand, mumbled something that sort of sounded like Latin, and snapped her fingers. My shoestring disappeared in a flash of light and a puff of smoke. “Oops! Sorry… again.”

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten, trying really hard to think happy thoughts about the little witch. She had just defeated a killer clown made of ink so she did have that going for her. I sighed, shook my head, and headed to my scooter, dragging my foot slightly because now my stupid shoe wanted to slip off.

  Chapter 12

  I cranked the mighty Vespa — don’t laugh; you’ll hurt its feelings — and called home to warn my family.

  “So we have a killer under our roof?” Paige asked, dismay in her voice. “Tell me again why it was such a wonderful idea to open a bed and breakfast?”

  “Not now, Paige. Just tell the others and keep an eye out for anything weird.”

  “We’re three vampire sisters running a B & B in fake Transylvania. Everything is weird.”

  I sighed. “I know. Just do your best.”

  I ended the call, shoved the phone in my pocket, and took off for the Inn. Vampires have a reputation of being tough for a reason. We’re not the easiest things to kill… but it can be done. If this maniac managed to hurt one of my sisters, no amount of ink or magic in the whole world would save them.

  As I sped down the road, I took a quick peek at the Sheriff’s office as I drove by. He was in there, pondering a case that was way out of his league.

  For just a second, I thought about stopping by, finding some way to let him know he didn’t have to waste any more time on it... but how do you tell someone – especially a guy – to kick back and take it easy because something is out of their league? He’d probably become more determined to find answers, and get himself killed in the process.

  No. Best to just let things go. I’d get to the bottom of this and deal with the problem, Alec would have a new file in his ‘unsolved cases’ folder, and everyone could just get on with their lives.

  Zooming by the park, I saw a teenage girl approach a bench at the front gate. A book sat on the wooden slats. An innocent-looking book. Just as innocent-looking as the clown book at Hazel’s.

  The girl reached for it. Picked it up.

  “No,” I shouted, jumping the little scooter up onto the sidewalk, scraping the bottom of my shiny chrome baby on the curb. Another reason to introduce this ink-slinging magic wielder to a world of hurt.

  I raced towards the girl. She looked up at me, an expression of shock on her face. I sped by like a fast-moving, powder-blue cloud and snatched the book from her hands. One disaster averted. Hopefully, there weren’t any other books laying around, just waiting to be opened by unsuspecting hands.

  Part of me wanted to look around and check to make sure the area was safe, but there wasn’t any time. I sat the book on the footrest, resting my foot on it to make sure it didn’t accidentally fly open, as I bounced back onto the road and continued on home.

  Any hope of things being nice and peaceful at home vanished like a vampire under a noonday sun as I drove up the long driveway. Loud roars, crashing furniture, and a broken window all indicated the Dreadful Inn was living up to its name.

  Driving right up to the front porch steps, I hopped off the Vespa… and accidentally kicked the book off the footrest. It opened as it hit the ground. I swore, bracing myself for whatever supernatural baddie might spring from the pages. The book just sat there. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was just a book. Finally, a stroke of good luck.

  I turned and charged inside, remembering to curl my toes to try to keep my stupid shoe from falling off. I didn’t know what Hazel’s weird thing with shoes was about but wearing boots was starting to seem like a good idea whenever I needed to visit her gaudy orange tent.

  I gasped when I saw the madness inside the house. Pita, Paige, and Granny were wrestling with a huge half-man, half-wolf creature in the middle of the library. Peter Vincent was flying wildly about, yelling ‘Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!’

  As Paige struggled to pin one of the beast’s large paws to the floor, I saw the burn on her forearm. A quick glance up at her neck confirmed what I had suspected. She had lost her protective necklace during the fight.


  It didn’t take a genius to figure out she had been near the window when it was broken, letting the sunlight’s deadly rays touch her. She’d heal, but she’d be pissy until it got better.

  Lying on the floor, near the twisting, struggling bodies, was a book filled with blank pages. “Who opened the stupid book?” I shouted, pointing at it.

  The werewolf’s jaws snapped shut inches from Pita’s face. She punched it in the mouth and razor-sharp teeth flew onto the carpet. “A little busy here,” she shouted, glaring at me. “Want to help?”

  “I did it,” Granny grunted, trying to gouge the wolf’s eyes with her fingers. “It had a hunky man and a wolf on the cover. I thought it was one of those filthy, smutty paranormal romance books I’ve been hearing about.”

  The wolf yelped as Paige twisted its left ankle violently. The loud snap echoed through the room. Like I said, she was going to be pissy for a while. “If you thought it was filthy and smutty, why’d you open it?” she yelled at Granny.

  Granny shrugged. “I wanted to see how nasty it was for myself.” She sank her fangs into the werewolf’s ear. The beast’s howl of pain was deafening. Peter Vincent dove in and attacked the beast’s other ear, chewing on it with his tiny fangs.

  Movement near the bookcase against the far wall drew my attention. Toby, his sister, and his parents cowered against the wall. The adults looked terrified. The kids looked like they wanted to join in. If Toby had worried that not-the-real-Transylvania would be boring, he had probably changed his mind by now.

  Paige swore as the wolf lashed out, slapping her injured arm. This wasn’t going as easy as I’d hoped, and it would just be harder to explain the longer the fight went on. Anthony already had his hands full, standing guard at the door, trying to keep the other guests back. A few were taking pictures, and I was pretty sure I heard someone ask him about taking a selfie. Reginald was halfway up the stairs, watching my sisters fight the werewolf. Too bad he wrote romance instead of horror. This little trip could provide two or three books in that genre.