There Are No Such Things As Vampires part 1

Some time ago, when I was not quite finished with my previous story, I asked if anyone had any opinions or requests for my next story.  I only received three replies, two of which asked for a mystery.  Well, I will try to be obliging, but if you don't like my next story, remember that I gave you all a chance...

Chapter One
I get a new case

Regardless of what contemporary authors may say or write, vampires do not exist.  Many other 'monsters,' as we have chosen to call ourselves, such as werewolves, dragons, and fae exist, but not vampires.  They never have.  Personally, I think the reason for humans thinking them up might have been us gargoyles.  After all, we typically sleep during the day, and roam at night.  Many of us have fangs.  Our strength and speed are by far superior to that of humans (no offense).  While we are asleep, our skin turns to stone (and even when we're awake, it's pretty darn tough).  But we don't drink blood.  And we have wings.  Many of us have tails.  Our skin is warm, unlike the alleged cold of the undead.  And we commonly have a short layer of fur.  Other than that, we're almost exactly like vampires.

Sorry, I should introduce myself.  My name is Tristan Wormwood, and I am a gargoyle.  I am also a private investigator.  My job is to solve private cases, and also, if the police need my help, to track down any monsters that are making our presence in the world known to the human population, and thus endangering our existence. 

You see, for some strange reason, humans tend not to like us.  It could be that we don't look like them, most of the time.  It could be that most of us could kill them in about 1001 nasty ways.  It could even be that they want to experiment on us to find out why we do what we do.  But whatever the reason, they've had a history of trying to kill us, or stuff us, or dissect us, etc.  So many centuries ago, we set up little pockets in reality-special communities where monsters live, but humans can’t go.  And we decided that it's best for all if we keep our existence hidden.  So nowadays, if some numbskull werewolf gets drunk one full moon and goes on a rampage, or a mummy begins randomly putting curses on people, the MCPD (Monster Control Police Department) has to find them and clean up the mess.

Being a detective gets me into the craziest scrapes.  However, the one I would have to say was one of the wildest occurred in the early months of 2012, and nearly jeopardized all life as we know it!  And yes, I am fully aware of how cliche that sounds.

It was a cold morning in March, in the town of Styxburg, Idaho.  It's a hideout place for monsters, protected by about 50,000 spells, so only monsters know where it is.  It's somewhere north of Boise, and my home.  Rains a lot, but I like rain.  Anyway, it was 9:30 a.m, the time when most gargoyles are asleep.  However, since most of my clients are diurnal, I've had to adjust.  I was just thinking of getting myself a toasted bagel and a glass of milk (I hate coffee), when the door to my office crashed open, and before I knew it, I had a case.

Acknowledgments

In the back of most books, you will find a short thing thanking all the people who helped the author with the story.  So, I figured I might as well do that here.

 Unequivocal appreciation to my magnificent older sister, Amber, for giving me the idea of writing a story on my blog.
Praise to my stupendous older brother, Court, for taking the time to be a ghost writer for some of my chapters.
Many expressions of gratitude to my fantastic mother, for nagging me to complete it.
And thanks to anyone else who might have helped out somehow.

Freegans Ending

Epilogue
Cara

And that is how we made it home.  Everyone, even people who didn't know us particularly well, was overjoyed to see us.  The celebrations and joy lasted for days, if not weeks.  As Madiza had expected, Mom and Dad were more than willing to take her and Ben in.  A couple of years later, they married, and moved into a home next door, so we still got to see them every day.

Ben and Madiza now have twins, a boy and girl, named Samuel and Ivy.  For two-year-olds, they are incredibly smart.  They learn at twice the speed of other children, and are very good thinkers.  Madiza explained that we can thank Project 112 for this, too.  Apparently, it was set that the new intelligence would be hereditary, so that there would be no need for school ever again.  Speaking of Madiza, she has improved a lot. Granted, she still mutters to herself, and can be found scrawling on scraps of paper at odd hours of the day, and cackles a lot.  She will never fully get over the brain damage done by the government.  But we can have semi-normal conversations now, and since she goes out in the sun more often, her skin has lost that ghastly whiteness.

Ben is still silent and kind, but  that's to be expected.  Lucy, soon after we were rescued, finally got over her crush on him.  Now that we were heroes, there were plenty of young men around to attract her attention.  She has become rather close to Paris too; they like to flirt and gossip together.

And as for me and Matt?  Well, when we were eighteen, we joined up with the Resistance!  After all, this war isn't going to win itself, and one liberation of prisoners isn't going to change things any time soon.  If you don't mind the fact that you're risking your life virtually every minute of the day, it's quite fun.  And we get to visit the hide-out on our days off.

Considering all that we've gone through, I'd say our lives have turned out pretty good.  Hopefully it will last.

Freegans part 61

Matt
There was a long, awkward silence.  When Cara finally spoke, it was in a strangled tone, as if she had a mouthful of marbles.
"How-how do you know?"
"I remember you!" said Madiza brightly.  "I can remember, when I was young, playing with my little cousin Cara.  Well, you weren't that little.  Just a year younger than me.  But to me that was very little.  And you look just like her, only older.  I even checked your hand, and it has the same scar on it from when you were two and cut it on a sharp rock!"

Cara looked down at her hands, and Madiza pointed to the left one.  There was indeed a scar, on the knuckle of her index finger.
"I wondered how it got there," Cara murmured.  Suddenly, her head snapped up, and she stared straight at Madiza.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME BEFORE?!"
"You didn't ask," was the mild reply.
Cara stood up.  For a moment, I thought she was about to hit Madiza, and I started to intercede.  To everyone's surprise, she hugged her instead!  I felt my jaw drop, and saw that Lucy's had too.  In all the years we had known her, Cara had never, never hugged anyone.  However, I guessed she was willing to make an exception for her own flesh and blood.  After stiffening in shock for a moment, Madiza hugged her back.

When she finally pulled away, Cara asked eagerly, "Who were my parents?"
"Logan and Sylvia McTavish."
"McTavish?!" we all gasped at once.  I asked, "As in-?"
"That's right, as in Angus McTavish.  He had a younger brother, Logan, who was lost during the attack by the consumerists that led McTavish to become the leader of the Freegans and take us to safety."
"So- is Mr. McTavish your father?" Lucy wanted to know.
"No."  Madiza shook her head and grinned her pointy-toothed grin.  We all looked at each other.
Finally, Ben used his hands to sign something at her.  I surmised that it was a question, because she said, "Angus McTavish also had a younger sister, Deirdre McTavish Hatter."

"H-  So your last name really is Hatter!" Cara exclaimed.
Madiza cackled with delight.  "Yes! Hee hee hee hee!"
We all had a good laugh over that.  It wasn't that funny, but it was a good way for us to work off stress.  After so much time being under pressure, and facing death, we were (hopefully) safe.  We needed an opportunity to laugh.  Everyone else was busy treating wounds, steering the sub, etc.  They were ignoring us.  I saw the Ox at the controls, Deep Thought tapping away at the computer system, Kestrel sitting by Max ( I got the impression there was something between them).  And then I realized that not everyone was ignoring us.  Sitting a few feet away, giving us one of the most wobegone expressions ever, was Paris.

Madiza suddenly noticed her old friend.  She stood up, and headed over to her.  Paris stood up too.  I noticed that they were about the same height, though Madiza's shaggier hair made her look a little taller.
"Ivy-Ivy, I am so, so sorry," Paris whispered.  "Can you ever forgive me?"
Madiza didn't say anything.  She stood there, practically nose to nose with Paris, staring her intensely in the face.  We watched with baited breath, wondering what she would do.
Suddenly, Madiza lifted a finger, and shaking it at the other girl, said five words in a stern voice: "Don't let it happen again!"
Then she smiled, and, taking Paris's hand, pulled her over to join our group.

Freegans part 60

Ben
"What do we do?" cried out one of the members of the Resistance to the Ox. "There's no way we can outrun them!"
"We won't have to!" he called back. "Deep Thought! Can you plug in sequence 82X into the computer system?" Deep Thought gave us one of his crazy grins, and sprinted to the keyboard, where he began tapping feverishly away.
"Everyone, as soon as it goes dark, you need to be very still and quiet!" the Ox said. "It's a matter of life and death!"
What's sequence 82X? I signed to Madiza.
It activates the cloaking device on the submarine, she replied. It's a special modification the Resistance made for this particular vessel, in case of such an event as this. Once it's turned on, it will make the submarine seem to disappear to the people chasing us. But we need to stay quiet, because any movement or noise will show up on their radar. I wondered how she had learned this. Sensing my confusion, she said aloud, "He told me," and pointed at Deep Thought.

Without warning, there was a flash of light, and then the cabin went dark. The only lights came from the computer system.
What happened? I signed to Madiza.
Cloaking device activated, she answered, and covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. It was then I noticed that Cara, Matt, and Lucy were huddled next to us. I guess the fact that it was dark made us feel a need to join together. It was odd that after so much time being locked up, I had become used so quickly to having friends again. Granted, we were joined together in an escape from certain death, but still. I hoped fervently that we were not also about to become dead.

The whole submarine had gone silent. We were afraid even of breathing, not sure if the enemy's radar would be able to pick that up. I was sure that every time my heart beat, it was detected. My eyes flicked from face to face of my comrades, and I could see that they felt the same. Only Madiza seemed unperturbed. She was grinning, and her hand was twitching slightly. I gently put my own over it, wanting her to stop. She complied, and suddenly laced her fingers through my own. I let her.

Hours seemed to pass, though it was only a minute or two. I could hear ragged breathing from the rest of the crew, and slight rustlings, and a few shushing noises. Finally, Deep Thought whispered, "They've gone past us. The cloaking was successful." I breathed again. The lights came back on, and we all gave each other looks of pure relief.
"...So, what now?" asked Cara.
"Now," said the Ox, "we take you children home. I think it is far past time."
"Me too!" Lucy agreed.
"Yay!" Madiza cheered. Everyone chuckled at that.

However, I felt troubled. Where was home for me? The government had told my family I was dead when they failed to fix me, and even created a clone corpse of me for them to take home. Where could I go? Madiza, at least, belonged with the Freegans. But I was sort of an intruder. I looked down at my disguise, frowning.
"Don't worry, Ben-ben!" exclaimed Madiza. "I'm sure my cousin will allow us to stay with her!" I looked up, and frowned.
"Your-what?" asked Matt. Everyone else looked as confused as I did.
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" She looked straight at Cara. "You're my cousin!"