//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: Murder on the Mind 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

	Cheerilee arrived home early that morning, shaken up after finding Note's empty grave.  The Princess needed to know about this, and Cheerilee was going to have to work extra hard to track the young pony down.  She had no idea what might have happened to him, but it certainly seemed that Note had climbed out of the coffin under his own power.
Most ponies would have thought such a thing impossible.  Cheerilee considered that.  Note was dead, she'd been there when it happened.  The mare decided that as soon as she found him, she'd ask about it.
Opening her front door, Cheerilee noticed something was wrong.  There was a faint smell in the air of soil and dried blood, and a more pervasive chemical odor.  She stood still, listening hard.  Somepony shifted quietly in the next room.
Cheerilee carefully walked forward, searching each room.  She found Note lying on the floor in front of Luna’s mirror, examining his teeth.  Pearly white fangs protruded from his upper jaw with faint traces of blood around the gums.  He'd washed off since exiting his grave, but apparently hadn't had soap to use.  Faint traces of dirt still clung to his coat.
In as calm a voice as she could muster, the schoolteacher asked, “Why are you in my house?”
“I wanted to ask you to join us,” explained the young pony.  “Mr. Crosscut probably won’t approve, but I don’t want you two fighting.”
“I was trying to stop him from killing any more ponies,” said Cheerilee, fighting to keep emotion out of her voice.  "I'm not going to make friends with him."
“Yeah, he wasn’t happy with you interfering with his business.”  Note got up, pushing the mirror away.
“His business is ponycide?”  This time Cheerilee couldn’t keep a straight face.
Note looked annoyed.  “Crosscut’s business is opportunity.  Lately, his focus has been on real estate.  If there’s a prospective deal, he’ll find a way to make it work.”
“By killing whoever owns a piece of property if they refuse to sell?” asked Cheerilee.  That explained why each murder always seemed to coincide with a sudden change of ownership or status.
Note shrugged.  “Some ponies need more persuasion than others.”
“None of this seems wrong to you?” demanded the mare.  “You’re suddenly okay with murder?”
The young pony seemed to falter a little.  “Well, what else are vampires supposed to do?  I can’t exactly go back to my old life.  Not that I’d want to.  I was a nopony without any friends.”
“And you think hiding your identity in the shadows is going to give you more of a social life?” questioned Cheerilee.  She shook her head.  “Note, you really don’t know the can of spaghetti you’ve opened.”
“That’s what I have Crosscut for,” said the colt defensively.  
“How did you come to know him, anyway?” asked Cheerilee.  “How long?”
“About a week,” admitted Note.  “He came up to me one day and asked for help uncovering you.  He told me you were a fraud and gave me the school records to prove it.  Later, he told me what you were.  After you abandoned me in the park, he came back and was able to change me before brain death set in.”
So that was it.  Cheerilee had never considered putting another pony through her ordeal, and therefore had never thought much about the process involved to create a new vampire.  She asked, "So you just waited out the funeral from inside the coffin?"
Note made a face.  "The worst part was embalming.  I had to just play dead.  Crosscut says the formaldehyde should work its way out of my system soon."
Well, that explained the unpleasant chemical smell.  Note had been prepared just like a dead body, which technically he was.
“You did all this for Crosscut?” asked Cheerilee.  “None of it seemed strange?  I would have thought a random stranger asking you to help take down your high school teacher would be suspicious.”
“Unlike you, he's never lied to me!” Note shot back.
Cheerilee shrugged.  “Unlike him, I’ve never killed anypony who was innocent.”
The two of them stared at each other for several seconds before Note turned away.  “I should go.”
As he started to walk away, Cheerilee called, “I assume you heard about Golden Ring.  Tell Crosscut that I won't let him kill my whole class."
Note stopped.  “Crosscut didn’t kill her.”
Cheerilee waited a beat.  “You?”
“I didn’t mean to.  I just wanted to talk to her.  She always thought I was such a geek.  I thought maybe she would think I was cool now.  She got scared, though, and I tried to stop her from screaming and running away.”  Still not facing Cheerilee, Note shrugged and took another step towards the door.
“Note...come back.”  At Cheerilee’s words, the young pony turned around.
“What?” he said.
Cheerilee’s head hung low.  Her voice was almost a whisper, but her words were clear.  “You’ve murdered somepony, Note.  It’s not something that you can take back.  You didn’t kill her for any good reason.  You aren’t sorry about it, and you’ll probably do it again."
Note snorted.  "Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?  What vampire feels bad about drinking blood?"
The schoolteacher raised her head and locked eyes with her former student.  "You're looking at one.  I do what I have to do, but I don't kill needlessly.  Nothing says you have to be a monster, Note."
The young stallion sneered.  "I'm not.  I'm the top of the food chain and you're just a teacher who is too scared to embrace what she really is.  I'm going to go find a nice dinner.  It's going to be nice and bloody, and you'll join me if you have the guts."
Cheerilee took a step forward, glaring at him.  Her lips pulled back automatically to reveal her fangs.  "I'm not going to let you do that."
Seconds passed.  Note made the first move.