by Mari Mancusi
“Oh, thanks a lot, Rayne.” Now we need to bring up the circumference of my hips as well? This night is getting better and better.
“Right,” Magnus says. “No diseases. Well, at least that’s something. But still. An unauthorized bite! Do you know how badly Lucifent is going to kill—er, kick my arse? I mean in this day in age no one turns someone into a vampire against their will. It’s simply not kosher and an absolute lawsuit waiting to happen.”
“I can sue you? Cool.” I rummage around in my purse for a pen, wanting to write this down. “Under what? Medical malpractice? Assault with a deadly fang?” I look up. “How much you think the courts would award me for that?”
Rayne frowns. “Sunny, stop being a bitch. Can’t you see poor Magnus is freaking out here?”
“I need to stop being a bitch? For Magnus’s sake?” I stare at her, unbelieving. “Uh, hello? He’s the guy who walked up and bit me for absolutely no reason whatsoever.”
“I had a reason,” Magnus remarks, more than a bit sulkily. “I just thought you were Rayne. A bloody bad case of mistaken identity, that was.”
“Look guys,” I continue. “I don’t know what kind of sick little games you Goth kids like to play, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think I want to know. So run along and hang out in graveyards, wish you were dead, whatever floats your little Gothic boat. But I am so out of here.” I turn to my sister. “Rayne, find your own way home. I’m no longer in the mood to get down and dirty on the dance floor.”
I turn and hightail it for the car. But Rayne comes up behind me and grabs me by the shoulder, whirling me around. Her eyes are wide and fearful and her powdered face is even whiter than normal. (And that’s saying something!)
“Sunny, listen to me,” she cries. “This isn’t a game. Magnus is a vampire. And if he’s bitten you, then you’re going to become a vampire, too. You’ve got to take this seriously.”
I roll my eyes. “Rayne, sweetie. My dearly deluded twin. I know this may come as a great shock to you, but there are no such things as vampires.”
“I used to think that, too. But there are. And Magnus is definitely one of them,” Rayne insists. “Mag, show her.”
I huff and grudgingly turn around. This oughta be good. “Yeah, Mag, show me.”
Magnus lets out a deep, overexaggerated sigh. As if he’s weary of the world demanding he prove his creature of the night shtick. I’m sure he gets it a lot.
“Fine,” he grumbles, reaching into his bag for a pocket-knife. “Do you want to do the honors?” he asks, flicking the blade open and offering it to me.
“I think I’ve been honored enough for one day, dude.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll do it,” Rayne butts in excitedly.
“What exactly are we doing?” I ask, as Magnus hands the knife over to my eager twin.
“Stabbing him, of course,” Rayne says matter-of-factly.
Of course.
As Magnus lifts his shirt to expose his stomach (and his washboard abs, I can’t help but notice) I wonder how they’ve set up this trick. Retractable blade? Blood packet embedded in the tip?
“You know what? I think I’d like to do it after all,” I announce. This way I can better figure it out. Then I can denounce them and get on with my night.
Rayne shrugs and hands me the knife. I run my fingertip lightly over the blade. Ouch! A small bubble of blood bursts from the cut. It really is sharp. Hmm.
I hear a soft moan and look up. Magnus is staring at my finger as if I’m a gourmet dessert and he’s a Survivor cast-away who’s eaten nothing but rice for the last month. I’ve never seen such lust in someone’s eyes and it’s kind of unnerving.
“Do you mind, um, wiping your finger?” he says in a breathy, panicked voice.
“Why, does it bug you?” I ask, waving the finger in question in the air. “Do you want to suck it or something?”
“Sunny, don’t tease the vampire,” Rayne scolds.
You know, I do have to admit, Magnus has got this vampire act down pat. I think I even see a little drool at the corner of his mouth as he stares, entranced by my bloodied finger, following it with his eyes as a dog would follow a treat.
“Okay, sorry,” I say breezily. I slowly bring my finger to my mouth and make a great show of licking the blood away.
Magnus gasps and looks for a moment like he’s going to pass out.
“Now that’s just mean,” Rayne rebukes. “Really, Sunny.”
I laugh. They’re so serious about all of this. “Okay, okay,” I say. “The big bad bloody finger is gone. Let’s get back to stabbing.”
Magnus, seeming to recover somewhat, lifts up his shirt again. Wow, I wonder how many sit-ups he has to do to attain that kind of bod? Too bad he’s such a loser. If he could get a personality transplant or something, he’d be the perfect catch.
I examine the knife again. How does it retract? I don’t feel any springs . . .
“Just hurry up and do it,” he says. “We don’t have all night.”
“Right. Wouldn’t want you to get caught in the morning sun and get all dusted and stuff,” I say with a snort. “Fine. Here we go.” I pull the knife back, then jam it into his stomach as hard as I can.
“Agh!” He screams in pain and buckles over, the knife still sticking out of his abdomen, dark blood seeping from the wound.
“Uh, um . . .” Wow. That looks really real. How’d they get all that blood to come out of the knife? And how does the blade stick in his stomach like that, if it’s retractable?
And uh, why is he acting like it really, really hurts for that matter?
“Uh . . .”
I glance over at Rayne, who’s watching the scene with cool eyes. What the hell is going on here?
I look back at Magnus. He’s fallen to his knees, clutching his stomach, an expression of agony on his face. His hands are almost purple with blood and he’s still moaning in pain.
Fear clutches my heart with an icy grip. Did I screw up? Did the blade not retract when it was supposed to?
Did I really just stab a guy in the stomach?
“Are you okay?” I ask worriedly. Dumb question, really. The puddle of blood kind of gives it away.
In response, Magnus falls from his knees to the pavement—in the fetal position, clutching his stomach.
Panicking, I scramble down to my knees and try to turn him over so I can examine the wound. It’s positively gushing blood. I’d be totally grossed out if I weren’t so scared.
“Oh my God, I think he’s really hurt,” I shriek, turning to locate my twin. “Rayne! Call 911. He needs an ambulance!”
I turn back to Magnus, searching for a way to stop the bleeding. Should I take the knife out or leave it in? My breath comes in short gasps, along with choking sobs as my life flashes before my eyes.
I, Sunshine McDonald, have just stabbed someone in the stomach. And now he could die. And I’ll be responsible. They’re going to charge me with murder. Toss me in jail and throw away the key. Do they have the death penalty in New Hampshire? Oh my God. Why did I volunteer to take the knife? What possessed me to stab a deluded teenager who thinks he’s a vampire in the stomach? Stupid, Sunny. Truly stupid.
Tears streak down my cheeks as I crouch beside Magnus. “Are you okay?” I ask, sobbing. “Can you hear me?” I lean in closer. “Do you see any white light? If so, I’m begging you, do not walk into it. I’ve got so much—er . . . I mean you’ve got so much to live for.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Suddenly Magnus opens his eyes, sits up, and starts laughing hysterically. “I’m already dead!”
I watch in horror as he grabs the knife and easily slides it out of the wound. Then, incredibly, the gash starts shrinking, before my very eyes. I watch, mesmerized, as an invisible thread seems to sew the skin back together until nothing but a tiny scar remains.
“Oh my God! You’re really a . . .” I leap back, horrified. “Oh my God!”
“Sorry,” he says, chuckling. “Had to get you back for t
hat bloody finger thing.”
I whirl around to find Rayne. She’s also cracking up so hard she’s practically crying. Like this is the funniest thing she’s seen since Shrek 2.
“Oh man!” She laughs. “You should have seen your face, Sunny. That was classic!”
I stare at her, then at Magnus. I cannot believe this. I simply cannot believe this. “You . . . I mean . . . I thought . . .” Wow, I’ve completely lost my ability to talk. I may have to spend the rest of my life as a mute. Walk around with a tablet, writing down everything I used to be able to say, before I was struck dumb by a vampire pulling a knife from his own stomach.
“Sorry,” Magnus says, scrambling to his feet. He puts the bloodied knife back into his bag without wiping it. “But you said you wanted proof.”
I feel like I’m going to throw up. “So you’re really . . .”
“. . . a vampire?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “Yes.”
“And that means . . .” My stomach is churning at this point. Like I’m on a storm-tossed ship. Or the Superman ride at Six Flags.
“. . . my bite has infected you.” He sighs, serious again. “Unfortunately, also yes.”
I lean over and throw up.
“Ew.” Rayne leaps back to avoid my puke. “Sunny, that’s nasty.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to have offended you,” I say in my most sarcastic tone, wiping my mouth with my sleeve. “I guess I’m not taking the fact that I’ve been accidentally turned into a freaking vampire as well as you hoped?”
Rayne shrugs. “I totally get it, Sun. Still doesn’t mean I enjoy getting splattered by your vomit.”
Rolling my eyes, I turn back to Magnus. “So wait a sec,” I say. “I’m confused. I always thought that in order to become a vampire, you have to drink the blood of a vampire. All you did was bite me.”
“Damn Hollywood and its barbaric misconceptions,” Magnus says wearily. He reaches into his mouth and pulls something out. He holds it up to me. It’s a porcelain fang, half-filled with red liquid. “Through our postmortem surveys, we’ve learned that most people find the whole ‘drinking blood from their sponsor’ part a bit on the disturbing side. Plus,” he adds, “while our skin is remarkably good at healing, slicing open one’s wrist to enable the apprentice to drink can possibly leave scars. And no one wants a scarred vampire.”
He holds out the tooth so I can examine it closer. “So Vampcoven.com created these implants a few years back. Bloody marvelous inventions, really. I just prick my finger, squeeze a few drops of blood into the implant, then inject it into the apprentice.” He shrugs. “We could use a syringe to deliver the injection, of course; probably would be easier and more sanitary, actually. But studies have also found that our apprentices enjoy the old-school romanticism of being bitten on the neck.”
I can’t decide whether I’m more impressed that there are Internet sites that sell blood-injecting gizmos or that these guys ask their victims to fill out feedback forms.
Magnus reaches into his bag and pulls out a small silver case. “Vampcoven.com is the leading manufacturer of vampire supplies. Blood bags, fang sharpeners, body armor, that kind of thing.” He opens the case and inserts the fake fang into its velvet lining.
Man, you really can buy anything on the Web.
“Okay, gotcha,” I say. “But let me ask you this. If I’ve been turned into a vampire, how come I don’t feel like one?”
“How do you know what being a vampire feels like?” Rayne butts in with, unfortunately, a good point.
“Well, I’m not lusting after your blood for one thing,” I say slowly. “And, um,” I reach under my shirt and pull out my cross necklace. Magnus leaps away. “And the cross doesn’t turn me off or burn me or anything.” I think for a moment. “And I definitely could go for a slice of cheese and garlic pizza for breakfast as soon as the sun comes out.”
Actually the last thing does sound kind of yucky, but I’m not going to admit that to them.
“Could you . . . please . . . put that away?” Magnus asks, gasping for breath.
“So I’m wondering,” I say, purposely ignoring him and waving my cross around, watching him dance from side to side to avoid it. “How do we fix this?” I ask.
“F-fix?”
“Yeah. Like stop the transformation. Reverse it. There’s gotta be a way to stop it. Right? Maybe suck the blood from the wound like you’d do for a rattlesnake bite?”
I realize Magnus is trying to say something but can’t seem to form the words. Oh yeah, the cross. I slip it under my tank. The metal seems a bit warm under my skin, but not uncomfortable. Still, not such a good sign.
“Thank you.” Magnus gasps. “Now as I was trying to say, there’s no way to reverse it.”
“Wrong answer.” I reach for my cross.
“Wait!” he cries.
I stop, hand at my throat.
“There . . . might be a way. I’m not sure. I don’t know. But Lucifent might.”
“Who’s this Lucifent guy?”
“My boss. The coven leader. He’s a three-thousand-year-old vampire. If anyone knows, he will.”
I nod. “Okay. Let’s go talk to him.”
“We can’t. Well, not this second anyway. He’s at dinner.”
“Yeah, but this is an emergency. Can’t we just go hit the restaurant he’s at and . . . Oh.” I swallow hard. “That kind of dinner?”
Magnus nods.
“Ew.”
“Sunny, try to keep an open mind here,” Rayne interjects. “Different people have different customs and to ridicule them—”
“So when’s he going to be done with his, um, dinner?”
Magnus thinks. “I can call his secretary and see. Maybe he’ll have had a cancellation for tomorrow evening, or something. Why don’t you meet me in St. Patrick’s Cemetery tomorrow at 8 P.M.? I’ll be waiting by the big tombstone in the center.”
“Tomorrow?” I exclaim. “But that’s, like, twenty-four hours from now. I’ve got school tomorrow.”
“So go.” Magnus shrugs.
“But won’t the sun, like, fry me or something?”
“Look,” he says with an exasperated sigh. As if I’m the one inconveniencing him. Jeez. “It takes seven days to complete the transformation into a vampire. So you should be fine. Sun shouldn’t bother you too much the first twenty-four hours. Though I would suggest slathering on a little sunscreen, just in case.”
Right. Sunscreen and school. This is going to be fun. Not.
5
Boys That Bite: The Blog
You’d think after this drama and unfortunate circumstance, we’d leave Club Fang immediately. But no! When we go back into the club, so Rayne can grab her coat, she insists on doing the Safety Dance before she leaves, saying it’s her favorite eighties song in the whole wide world and it’d be cruel and unusual punishment for me to drag her away now. Sure, it’s easy for her to shimmy and shake without a care on the dance floor, seeing as she’s not the one slowly morphing into a creature of the night. I mean, selfish much?
I’m silent most of the way home, speaking up only to mention that Rayne’s selecting the vampire hit “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” on her iPod iTrip could be viewed as a tad insensitive, given the circumstances. Of course, she points out that technically Bela was only an actor who played Dracula, not a real vampire. As if that should make me feel better as the chorus chants, “I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead.”
When I first get home, I want nothing more than to crawl into my bed and sleep. But my heavy feather duvet isn’t as comforting as I’d imagined it’d be. I’m wide awake, almost as if I’m hopped up on caffeine. Which is weird, seeing as I didn’t even get to drink that Red Bull Rayne was supposed to bring me.
Since I can’t sleep, and I have a billion questions buzzing through my brain, I decide my best bet is to go bug Rayne. I push her door open a crack to see if she’s sleeping. But she’s at her computer, typing furiously, and looking very pissed off. I shake my head. Man,
she can be such a freak. I don’t know in what Twilight Zone parallel universe we became sisters.
I knock on her door and she calls for me to come in, not looking away from her computer screen. I enter the room and close the door behind me. Luckily, Mom’s out at some save-the-planet benefit dinner, so there’s no one to overhear us. I’m pretty sure anyone eavesdropping on the convo I plan to have would start speed-dialing the Betty Ford Clinic before you could say no-I’m-not-on-drugs-I’m-really-an-undead-creature-of-the-night.
I sit on her bed, marveling how, only hours before, we were joking about what I should wear to Club Fang. If I’d known what repercussions choosing the Bite Me tank would have, I’d have definitely swallowed back my good taste and gone with the fetish outfit instead, sweat-inducing vinyl be damned.
After a few more mouse clicks, Rayne turns from her computer and comes to join me on the bed. She’s wearing a pair of plaid flannel pajamas and has washed the black makeup from her eyes. With the exception of her tongue piercing, she looks almost normal.
“This sucks,” she announces, crossing her legs Indian style.
“You think?” I raise an eyebrow. “’Cause I was totally psyched about the whole thing.”
“Not for you, you tool, for me. I’ve waited freaking years for this night. I’ve researched, networked, been on waiting lists, the works. And now it’s all for nothing.”
“What are you talking about?” I know she’s speaking English, but nothing she says is making any sense. “Researched and networked for what?”
“To become a vampire, of course.”
Of course.
“Why on earth would you want to be a vampire?”
Rayne rolls her eyes, as if to imply I’m the stupidest person on the planet. “Are you kidding me?” she asks incredulously. “Why would I want immortal life? Why would I want riches beyond my wildest imagination? Why would I want ultimate power over mere mortals? You should be asking why anyone on earth wouldn’t want to be a vampire.”
“Yeah, but,” I’m grasping at straws here, “don’t you want to finish high school? Go to college? Get married, have a life?”
