The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires Read Online Free PDF Page A

by grabbing my arm and hefting me to my feet. “Don’t tell me they didn’t conduct the preliminaries with you? You passed the trials, yes?”
    â€œThat must be some serious fungus,” I answered, brushing the bits of grass off my butt as I looked at the faery ring. “I could swear I felt someone touch me.”
    â€œHello! Can’t you hear me? I’m talking here!”
    â€œIt’s amazing, absolutely amazing. I’m going to have to get a sample for the nearest lab to analyze. This could be dangerous if children came across it—who knows what sort of thing they would hallucinate.” I dug through my pockets, hoping for a plastic bag or something I could use to hold a sample of the earth. Unfortunately, I had nothing on me other than a package of gum. “Damn. I’ll just have to wait for Sarah, then pop back to town to get something—”
    â€œAre you deaf?” the woman in front of me shouted, waving her arms in the air. I watched her, amused at the lengths my imagination would go to under the influence of a delusionary drug. She looked quite normal, dressed in a tight pair of green pants and a chunky tan and green sweater. She was frowning, clearly unhappy about something.
    â€œI suppose I could humor my brain,” I said, eyeing her. “At least until Sarah gets here. Hello.”
    â€œWhat is wrong with you?” the woman asked, slapping her hands against her legs. “Didn’t you hear me? We don’t have time for you to stand here and be strange!”
    â€œYou’ll have to forgive me. I’ve evidently been poisoned by hallucinogenic fungus spores. What did you want to know? And…this is silly of me, I know, but could you tell me your name, if you have one?”
    â€œOh, for the love of…they were supposed to meet with you and fill you in when they gave you the summoning spells! Honestly, the incompetence these days, it’s frightful. You’d think they could do something right after having a few millennia to work it out. My name is Hope. Who are you, please?”
    I smiled at the illusion, giving my brain and the fungus full marks for creativity. “I’m Portia Harding, of Sacramento, California, and I’m currently employed by a biomedical firm as a researcher in Atomic Scale Technology. Is there anything else about me you’d like to know? Favorite color? Perfume? Shoe size?”
    The look from her intense blue eyes had me forgetting for a moment that she wasn’t real. “Your shoe size is irrelevant. We don’t have much time at all, and even less now that I have to do everyone else’s jobs and fill you in. I swear, if I ever get back to the Court, I will file a grievance about their slack ways…Where was I? Oh, yes, we don’t have much time. Listen carefully, Portia Harding. What I am about to say to you is going to change your life.”
    â€œOh dear—the fungus isn’t doing some sort of permanent brain damage?” I said, backing away from the circle a bit more. I took a few deep breaths of sweet summer air and tried to calm the worry in my mind. This circle had been here a long time—I couldn’t be the only person to suck the fungus off a blade of grass, could I? If it was truly dangerous, surely the authorities would have done something about it.
    â€œI am a virtue. I am in danger, grave danger, and I cannot stay or all will be destroyed. Do you understand? Everything! Life, existence as we know it, light and dark—it will all be destroyed. Your request came at the perfect time.”
    â€œIndeed.” The results of inhaling the fungus spores paced around me in an agitated way. I wondered how long the delusions would last. “I hate to sound stupid, but what request—”
    â€œThere is no time for lengthy explanations,” she said, snatching up my hand and pressing it between her own. I stared down at them, amazed again at how