Read An Unattractive Vampire for Free Online Page A

natural state of death. 4 The vampire’s consciousness, their being, remains within the husk of its body, aware and waiting for night. In the meantime, it plots, summons visions, reads omens, replays events, and, in general, thinks. One might ask how this is any different from sleeping, at which point, the vampire would rub its neck, mutter something incoherent, and then rip your throat out.
    Yulric Bile’s not-sleep was filled with not-dreams: memories of the past, visions of the future, and the glowing yellow eyes of a great metal beast speeding toward him. Also, knocking. It had begun faintly but, over the course of his rest, grew louder and louder. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
    BANG!
    Yulric Bile awoke from death to find an eight-year-old boy shooting him in the head.
    “That’s not supposed to happen,” remarked the child, reloading.
    Yulric shook with surprise and rage. If his outrage bothered the freckle-faced child, it didn’t show. The boy merely climbed out of his grave on a small stepladder and walked away. How could. A child. Do that. To
him
? The enraged vampire leapt out of the hole in the cellar, letting out a fierce and terrible shriek.
    “Mmmmmmmmmmm! Mmmmmmm
 . . .
mmmmmm?”
    His lips had been sown together. He raised a finger to his mouth and carefully cut the thin metal wire. He spun to face the child as it was rummaging through a bag. “Ytheh oo ee oy . . . ?”
    Salt poured from his mouth. Yulric froze in confusion. There were many herbs, weeds, and random objects to which his kind had an aversion. Some were common, others downright peculiar. 5 Salt, however, had never been one of them.
    The child turned back to face the puzzled vampire. In one hand, it held a magical dagger, which moved on its own, and wrapped around the other was a small green serpent. Yulric smiled and matched the child’s aggressive posture, letting his nails grow to clawlike lengths. The boy yelled, the vampire hissed, and they both leapt into battle.
    • •
    “Simon!”
    The combatants froze as they turned toward Amanda. Amanda, who was filled with fear and rage and about to commit bloody, vicious murder. Amanda, who had just found her eight-year-old brother trying to kill the creature from last night with an electric turkey carver and a rubber snake.
    “Put him down!” she ordered.
    Yulric was halfway through a defiant roar when his gaze fell to her neckline and the searing pain in his head forced him to hiss and retreat.
    Amanda, unused to that particular response when a man caught sight of her breasts, looked down to where her mother’s gold cross hung around her neck. “Fine,” she hissed.
    Pulling the necklace over her head, she advanced. Yulric dodged and flailed as best he could in the contained space, but she eventually trapped him in a corner.
    “I
said
. Put. Him. Down,” growled Amanda. Reluctantly, he lowered the boy to the ground while giving Amanda a glare that was known to wilt flowers, a glare that was mirrored in the younger face two feet beneath his and several inches to his left. Neither the vampire’s nor the eight-year-old’s gaze fazed Amanda. She was immune. She was a caregiver.
    “Over here.
Now
!” she commanded. They both started forward. “Not you. Him.”
    The boy marched to where his sister waited, leaving the vampire standing alone among the knickknacks, bicycles, and boxed-up Christmas ornaments.
    “What did I say about this place?” she asked, reciting lines from the parents’ handbook chapter entitled “When Your Child Breaks the Rules.”
    Simon’s young mind paused. It had recently discovered sarcasm, and several cheeky answers were considered before he decided to stick to the script.
    “Don’t go into the cellar,” he intoned.
    “Why?” she continued.
    Simon nodded toward the recently dug hole in the floor. “Because you didn’t want me to know what you were doing.”
    Amanda’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t about to let him undermine her authority