Chapter Eleven

Danny and Hadley sat in a tree overlooking the gathering of mourners. All were in tears, most of them silently chasing the drops with wrinkled tissue paper. A man and woman made some noise in their weeping. Hadley guessed they were the parents.

A priest stood at the head of the casket with a book, speaking of the afterlife. Hadley tuned it out. She'd heard it all before. More times than she wanted to count. 'Rest in peace,' 'the Lord will greet you,' blah blah blah…

Hadley hated funerals. Not that anyone actually liked to stand in the mud to bury someone, but Hadley loathed them. She knew what laid in waiting for the dead. Rarely ever was it rest.

Danny's heart sat in his gut as he watched them all. He couldn't imagine burying someone he loved. The pain of loss would surely kill him. His brows pushed inward as the painful groans of the woman beside the priest echoed in his ears.

He looked over at Hadley. She wore a grimace of distaste, as if she was looking at something disgusting.

"What's your problem?" he whispered.

Hadley met his eyes, lifting her brows, "What?"

"You're face," he said. "You look annoyed."

Hadley turned back to the funeral. "I hate these things. They're all about laying souls to rest and all that bullshit."

"You don't believe in that?" Danny asked.

"When you've seen what I have, you stop thinking that there is such a thing as peace," Hadley replied. "Besides, the body they're burying for 'eternal resting' is possessed by a demon that drives it to consume the very essence of life from a person. If they knew what was really lying in that glorified shoe box, they wouldn't be standing so close."

Danny blinked at her. "That's not bitter at all."

Hadley rolled her eyes, "What use is putting a body in the ground in a box? It won't fertilize the trees because it's decomposition is encased, and it costs a shit ton of money. A ghost won't need it once they die, and anything that would use it… well, you don't want it."

Danny sighed, "I'll let my parents know I want to be cremated."

"Don't get me wrong, I get the whole 'celebration of life' thing. But at some point, the romanticism of death needs to stop," Hadley said. "Death isn't a pretty thing. It was never supposed to be."

Danny almost missed the flicker of pain through Hadley's disgust. He didn't say anything, but he wondered if she always felt this way.

The mourners lowered the coffin into the ground. Heavy raindrops fell from the cloudy sky. Despite the warmth of the air, they all shivered as they opened their umbrellas. Danny's green eyes pierced through the falling water as the crowd walked away from the lowered coffin.

"Now?" Danny asked.

"Not yet," Hadley said. "We have to make sure they're all gone before we go out there. In my experience, it doesn't go well if you get caught staking the body in a coffin that's just been laid in the ground."

"No one will see me," he replied.

"Thanks to you, we won't even have to open the lid," she said. "I think simply nailing the coffin shut around the staked bastard should do the trick."

"If we're going to stake it anyway, why are we nailing the lid closed?" Danny asked.

"Insurance," Hadley replied.

They disappeared and floated down into the hole. Danny grabbed the wood stake and turned his hand intangible.

"Aim for the heart," Hadley instructed from behind him, her voice close to his ear.

Danny stabbed through, turning off the intangibility once he passed through the coffin lid. He felt his stomach drop as the resistance of the swollen corpse pushed on the stake. He stabbed quickly and released the stake, retracting his hand.

Screams and hisses that sounded inhuman were muffled by the thickness of the coffin. Hadley worked to nail the lid shut as her and Danny's weight prevented it from opening.

Scratching noises accompanied the hisses and screeches inside the wood box as Hadley knocked the final nail in. Danny's breath froze in his throat until the gruesome noises subsided.

"Let's go before an employee comes back with a tractor to fill in the hole," Hadley whispered

Danny shook out of his trance as he felt Hadley's arms around his shoulders. He made them both disappear and flew out of the hole just as the tractor rolled up.

"Do they always scream like that?" Danny asked.

"Wouldn't you if someone woke you up by stabbing a hole in your chest?" Hadley replied sarcastically. "You get used to hearing it."

Danny flew to Vlad's mansion, staying silent. Hadley rested her chin on his shoulder with a sigh.

"Hopefully that was the only one," she said.

"You think there are more?" Danny asked.

"I doubt it," she replied. "Vampires are solitary creatures. I've never witnessed them working together on anything."

"So, we've finished the job," Danny clarified.

"For now," she replied as Danny landed. "More are bound to pop up if there are corpses to support them."

"So you're going to stick around?" Danny asked. "I doubt Tucker could've staked one. And Sam would probably just want pictures with it to show her friends at that creepy bookstore."

Hadley laughed, "Don't underestimate your friends. They may surprise you."

Hadley pulled the cord for the doorbell and a butler answered. As soon as he saw Hadley, he stepped aside, "The Mayor is in his study. He is on the phone with the local Sheriff, so please be patient."

Hadley blew her bangs out of her face when the butler led them through the corridor to Vlad's study. She pushed her braid back over her shoulder as they were being announced.

"Yes," Vlad spoke into the antique white and gold telephone. "Thank you, sheriff."

The butler gestured for Hadley and Danny to enter.

"Miss Reyes, Daniel," Vlad greeted. "Good news, I hope?"

Hadley gave a polite half-smile as they sat before Vlad. "Taken care of."

"Wonderful," he exclaimed leaning back in his chair and folding his hands. "Neatly, I presume?"

"Not a scratch on the coffin," Hadley replied. "It's secured shut, for good measure."

"Excellent," Vlad nodded, "Maybe now the Sheriff will be off my back."

"I would advise that you tell the suits at the morgue to start putting locking mechanisms on coffins and their corpse-fridges," Hadley crossed her ankle over her knee.

"You think we are still at risk?" Vlad asked.

"Absolutely," she answered. "As long as there are fresh dead, there's a risk for vampires."

Vlad nodded tiredly. "I'll send a memo to the funeral homes."

"If anything else pops up, you know where to find me," Hadley rose.

"Miss Reyes," Vlad called. "There is one more thing."

Hadley rested her hands on the back of the chair she had vacated.

"If you plan on staying in Amity park, there is something I need you to do," Vlad's tone was mischievous, though his face was void of expression.

"What?"

"I would like you to attend the Police Academy to become an officer," Vlad said.

Hadley held back no emotion. "You…what?

"If you're going to continue to operate in Amity Park, I would like you on the side of the city," Vlad sat forward, folding his hands over his expensive desk. "The citizens don't trust our forces anymore, and it's an embarrassment how under-prepared they are. I spoke to the Fenton family already. They are on board to share expertise and weaponry."

"You talked to my parents?" Danny's attention was torn from Hadley.

"Just this morning," Vlad answered. "They volunteered you, as well. Jasmine is excused due to her schooling, but, as fate would have it, you graduate in less than a month."

"You have to be shitting me," Hadley bit out. "After the last six years of hiding from the law to protect ignorant people, you want me to work with them? No."

Vlad held his unyielding expression. "I'm sure I can find another whose expertise is akin to your own. Is this your final answer?"

"Let me repeat that," she continued. "Fuck no. As soon as they ran my name and prints, I would be dropped into a cell so fast, you couldn't have time to blink."

Danny looked at her. "What?"

"You would be given a full pardon in exchange for your services, of course," Vlad replied calmly. "It is imperative that Amity Park is prepared for what's coming. A dozen people are buried prematurely in the ground after only two foes. The odds aren't where I would like them to be."

Hadley walked out, "I'm not going to work for a badge!"

Danny followed her out.

"Sleep on it, then," Vlad called confidently. "You have the week to respond."