School for Vampires

by Quinn Conlan

  I tell them I’m surprised at how normal everyone seems. I half-expected to find them all with their fangs out, practicing their hunting skills. They laugh. “Oh please,” says a girl named Tamara, “we get enough of that at Alurian.”

  “Are the other Houses as laid back as this one?” I ask. The group exchanges wry smiles.

  “Yes and no,” says Tamara, “some of them are ok…”

  “The Licks are fond of blowing their own horn and letting the rest of us know how great they are,” says Kate.

  “The Presbies are sweet, if a little on the nerdy side,” says a boy named Kurt.

  “A little?!” Tamara says, “they’re vampire versions of Steven Hawking.” People laugh. I think of Kit. She seemed pretty content about where she’d ended up. Maybe I don’t know her as well as I first thought.

  “The Yids, well they’re pretty much carbon copies of the Licks, only a tiny bit less douchey,” says Tamara. I’m glad to be getting the inside word on the five Houses.

  “And that just leaves the Penties,” says Kate, “who hate the ground we walk under.”

  “Every semester, they pull some stupid, nasty prank on us,” says Kurt.

  “Last year they thought it would be funny if a part of our tunnel caved in,” says Tamara.

  “One term, they snuck into the train tunnel, scraped primordial goo from the wall and tipped it into our baths,” says Kate.

  “It took weeks to get the smell out,” says Kurt.

  “Yeh well I’ve already had my own run in with one of their new star recruits,” I say.

  “Get used to it,” says Tamara.

  As the group continues to chat, Kate looks at me and gestures with a nod of her head to follow her. We get up and head down the tunnel towards the Seniors quarters.

  It’s gorgeous. There are throw rugs on the sofas, beanbags, and well-loved old rugs covering the floor. Vases filled with fake flowers adorn the dressers. I look up and marvel at the intricately created root art, and the murals painted on the underside of the coffins. “Kate, this is amazing,” I say. She smiles.

  “Come check this out.” Kate leads me into the girl’s powder room. The clothes rack is full of gorgeous dresses. I run my hands across the fine fabrics and take in the smells from the perfume bottles on the dressing table.

  “Where did all these dresses come from?” I ask.

  “Backers, mainly,” replies Kate. “Plus the occasional trade.” Her look tells me she wonders if I know what she means.

  “Yeh, I’ve already met Carter,” I tell her.

  “I thought so. He acts fast,” says Kate. “Be careful with that one Blake. But also, don’t deny yourself something if you really want it.” I certainly want the shimmering silver dress I’m currently touching. Kate takes it out and holds it up to me. Again I have to stop myself from searching for a mirror. She likes what she sees. “Looks like a good fit.” My heart skips a beat, as I think about the prospect of actually wearing this gorgeous gown. Not that I’m aware of any looming opportunity to do so.

  Kate’s mention of the Backers makes me curious. So far, they seem like these distant ghosts, watching over us and deciding our fate. “So how does it work with the whole Backers thing?” I ask, as casually as I can. “I mean, I know what the official notes say about them, but I didn’t know they bring us gifts.”

  Kate returns the dress to the hanger, takes my hand, and leads me out into the Mess. We sit on a sofa covered in an old, blue tartan blanket. She looks at me. “There’s a lot to take in Blake. I mean a lot. The situation with the Backers alone is pretty complicated. One way or another, everything we do down here is for them. For Selection. Despite what the Council would have us think, it’s the Backers who run the show. At least when it comes to us kids. But Blake, I don’t want to overwhelm you too soon.”

  “No, I can handle it Kate. I want to know. I need to know.”

  “Yeh, I could tell as soon as I met you that you were a curious one.” She smiles and goes on. “The main thing you need to know right now is that the Backers are already watching you. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some sort of token of their approval shows up at your feet by the end of first semester. It’s rare for Juniors, but it does happen for the best and brightest. And you’re clearly going to be a stand out.” It’s strange hearing these words. I feel so green and unsure at the moment, that it’s impossible to imagine myself standing out in anything.

  “Kate, I have so many questions. Like, why was I turned? And does my dad know I’m ok? And where the hell did my minder go?” I should stop, since no one could answer all of that in one sitting, but I’m on a roll now. “And what’s the deal with those poor tunnel dwellers? And why are the Helpers so compliant?” As I continue rattling off questions that are crying out for answers, Kate starts to smile. Before long, she’s laughing. I’m suddenly offended, since I felt like I was bearing my soul to her. She sees the crushed look on my face and squeezes my hand.

  “Blake, I’m not laughing at you, I promise. I’m just so happy to have someone in our House who gives a damn about the state of the world.” I feel relieved. “As for that snowball of questions, you’re just going to have to trust me when I tell you now is not the best time to go looking for answers.”

  I’m thrown by her attempts to stop me digging. On the one hand, she praises me for wanting answers, and then she tells me to stop asking questions. My confusion must show on my face. “Blake, I’ll make a deal with you. Keep your head down and keep learning. And at the end of this semester, right after the Backers Day Ball, I’ll sit down with you somewhere nice and private, and answer every one of those questions.” I look into her eyes and I realize I believe her. I don’t know how I’ll go keeping my head down, but she’s telling the truth about our end of semester chat. I suddenly feel very grateful.

  “Thank you Kate,” I say. “But can you at least tell me what the Backers Day Ball is?” She smiles and willingly obliges.

  “Backers Day is the final day of each term. It’s a huge deal. All the Backers from above ground come down and watch us do presentations. The whole school is involved, even first semester Juniors.”

  “God, I’m nervous already.”

  “Well, it’s a pretty intense day. But what gets you through it is what immediately comes after it. The Backers Day Ball. It’s a vampire version of prom night and it’s a lot of fun.” Kate’s face lights up. I’m thrilled to discover we’re allowed some kind of social life down here.

  Kate and I have been chatting for so long, the sunrise horn catches us both by surprise. Kate hasn’t dispensed any pills yet, and neither of us has taken a bath. I can’t say I mind, given the chat I’ve just had.

  Kate kisses me on the cheek and darts off down the tunnel towards the Dispensary. I skip the bath, wolf down my belated Glint, and am safely raised into my coffin a little late but contented. It’s been a hell of a first day. All in all, I’m not feeling too bad.

  Chapter Nine

  The good vibes flee in terror at the sight of Mr Curzon the following day. I’ve got him up first for Vampirricals and I’m petrified. The whole class is. As for Jason, he looks like a lame deer in the headlights.

  Mr Curzon sweeps in and casts his pitch black eyes over the class. They linger for just a moment on Jason. A tiny smirk takes hold of Mr Curzon’s mouth. I don’t like this guy one bit. I make a mental note to try and speak to Jason at some point, and see if I can help him get his bad boy, up yours to authority swagger back.

  I’m learning that angles matter enormously for a vampire. We’ve already had the angle at which a human head must be tilted away from the shoulder seared into our brains. Up next, we have the optimal angle to tilt your coffin during a full moon, so as to reap the apparent bodily benefits. It all sounds like the nerdiest approach to being a vampire ever conceived.

  Mr Curzon draws a circle and an oblong on the blackboard. A moon and a coffin. Secret, late night lovers. He then writes down a bunch of numbers and tells us to work out
where the coffin would have to be if the moon were at each of these points. I roll my eyes. Kit, on the other hand, has the answers figured out before I’ve even sharpened my pencil. She raises her hand and reads out her solutions. Not only are they right, they elicit the first and perhaps only smile we’re likely to see from Mr Curzon.

  I look at Kit in wonder. So she’s some kind of math whiz? I guess that explains her contentment about being amongst the Presbies. She looks a little embarrassed, but I give her a heartfelt pat on the back. I’m impressed. And intimidated, but I try to keep that one to myself.

  When the horn blows, I see Jason make his now customary quick step out of the classroom. I decide to follow him, and thankfully this time he doesn’t go where girls fear to tread. I intercept him at his locker. He doesn’t look too happy to see me. “Jason, can we talk for a sec?”

  “I have to get to Skill Sets Blake.” He’s anxious and jumpy.

  “Just give me a minute alright?” I plead. He looks at me and doesn’t bolt, so I press on. “Look, we don’t really know each other, and we didn’t exactly hit it off when we first met, but I’m…worried about you.” I pray this goes over ok. For a moment, he looks touched by my concern, but this quickly gives way to irritation.

  “You’re right Blake. We don’t know each other.” He slams his locker shut and starts to walk off. I make one last attempt at a connection by grabbing his blazer sleeve. He violently yanks his arm away and looks at me with fury. “Leave me alone Blake! Worry about your own damn problems, ok?” He takes off down the corridor and I feel a fool for even trying.

  *

  A dose of Mr Morrison’s cardigan-burning goofiness should distract me nicely. He runs Vampology out of a pretty conventional-looking lab. Think Bunsen burners, beakers and fading posters of the periodic table. The difference is, it’s all about vampire chemistry. When you turn, your body undergoes changes at the molecular level. Suddenly, different chemicals can affect you in new and potent ways. It’s also possible to create brand new chemicals by extracting vampire blood and playing around with it. It’s a somewhat delicate and dangerous art, which makes me think Mr Morrison should be the last vampire on earth going anywhere near it. But apparently, he’s one of the most knowledgeable vampire chemists around. I guess the Glints are good enough proof of that.

  His job is to teach us about how our bodies react to different substances. The vampire medicinal industry is apparently huge. Just like with humans, you can take all manner of pills and potions to change the way you feel. Plus, there’s the rather important matter of those dark red daily tablets. It was decreed long ago, by the powers that be, that student vampires are not ready to hunt and kill. In the early years after this decree, they tried various ways to give sustenance to students, none of which was terribly successful. They tried to bottle drained human blood but it didn’t keep. Blood needs to be drunk whilst it’s still fresh and warm to get the necessary nutrients.

  They tried animals – cats and dogs taken from backyards – but they brought diseases that wreaked havoc on the student vampire population. Finally, when science started to find its feet, they began developing synthetic blood products. There was a lot of trial and error, with sometimes disastrous results.

  Mr Morrison was a part of the team that finally hit on the winning formula, back in the 1960s. Since that time, every student vampire passing through the education system is issued with enough daily medication to keep their hunger at bay and meet all their nutritional requirements. When students graduate, they are deemed ready to be weaned off the meds and onto the real thing.

  The only exception to this watertight rule comes in the form of a once-yearly school excursion to street level. It’s a huge event on the school calendar, and involves students forming groups and hunting and killing an actual human, whilst under the watchful eye of a teacher. Each student in the group has the chance to taste real human blood, and the whole thing is graded, with important implications for Selection. I find myself equal parts nervous and excited about this excursion. Either way, it will feel good to get out of the sewers for a night and see the city.

  Mr Morrison’s laid-back introduction to vampire biochemistry finds quite the counterpoint in the Combat session that follows. Mr Nakamura has us attempting to hurl the next weapon of choice at the wall of dummies. Apparently, up top, a popular little number is something called a blood dart. It’s a sort of syringe that you can throw like a dart to inflict some serious damage. It’s filled with the blood of a dead human, which doesn’t agree so much with vampires. If it finds its way inside you, you’ll go into deep shock. Convulsions will follow and then several days of feeling like you’ve got the worst flu in history.

  Our practice blood darts contain nothing but water and a bit of red food dye. I wait for the suitably cryptic advice for how to throw one of these little puppies. Mr Nakamura doesn’t disappoint. “There is no target. Only intention.” These sparse words result in another round of head-ducking chaos, with blood darts getting lodged in three of the four walls of the Combat Centre, and one even getting stuck in the ceiling. Mr Nakamura looks particularly pleased with this wayward throw, courtesy of a young, skinny boy named Joshua. He puts his hand on Joshua’s shoulder, smiles warmly and says, “good intention.”

  After an uneventful and far too quick free time, I’m back in the mysterious domain of Lily. As we take our places on the floor in front of her, she spots an errant blood dart that must have made its way through from next door.

  She picks it up and smiles. Travis, evidently still smarting from yesterday’s humiliation, takes a swipe. “You know how to throw one of those?” She toys with the blood dart for a moment, before looking up at the smirking Travis. Then, in an astonishingly quick and elegant maneuver, she turns on her heel and flings the blood dart through the air. It travels at an incredible clip across the Skills Centre, through a window, and on into the Combat Centre. Just when it looks as though the blood dart will simply race through the air and lodge itself in the opposite wall, it makes a dramatic 90-degree turn and ends up piercing the heart of an unsuspecting vampire dummy! It’s pretty much the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. The class is speechless, and I imagine with one act, Lily has permanently wiped the smirk off Travis’ face.

  She tells us that we can do that too if we want. We all very much want. But it seems the path to such a showstopper is more of the invisible handsies. I don’t really mind, as it’s another chance to see Kit. She’s just as in awe of Lily as me. We sit there and air tickle one another’s palms til the horn blows.

  Day two is blissfully free of language class, however, that can mean only one thing: a Fables double. From the frying pan, into the fire I guess. Miss Montgomery seems chuffed to have us all to herself for two long hours. One look at Jason, and she senses his defeat. She knows she’s cracked the only troublemaker we had. Which leaves Miss Montgomery to wax lyrical about our species’ earliest years. She takes us right back to day one, in fact. Our own big bang.

  It happened in a small Romanian town called Brasov, in 2000 BC. The human world had been travelling along in its usual blind, rampaging way. Wars, hatreds, indiscretions, hidden desires, all had been building. Dark energy had been storing up in the land for some time, unseen and unknown to the vain humans. When it had grown to such an extent that it could no longer be hidden, the humans did what humans do. They became obsessed with virtue. And the more darkness you have to repress, the more virtuous you become. It’s simple psychological math.

  Brasov became the center of this new obsession with virtue and repression. People were judged, condemned and hanged for the most minor indiscretions. There was a fever in the air. The townsfolk had come to repress so much darkness that it was all they could bear to do: turn on the weak, the needy and the exposed. They pushed all their buried blackness onto those who could not defend themselves.

  One night, the first true night in history, there was a full moon and madness in the air. The sanctimonious, duplicitous townsfolk
needed a sacrifice. They found it in a lovely, gorgeous young woman named Aluria Amarnov, and her young son and daughter. They trumped up the most ridiculous charge, accusing Aluria of revealing the bare skin of her calf through a hole in her stockings. They announced to all who would listen that Aluria had offended the decent, virtuous and hardworking townsfolk. She needed to pay a price. They murdered her and her young children by hacking them to pieces with axes. They strung the bodies up out the front of their house to show the people what happens when you don’t darn your stockings.

  Now, the man of this house, the husband and father, happened to be away at the time. His name was Lucian Amarnov. He was a good man. A strong, handsome, benevolent man. He was a soldier. He had been away with a small band of elite fighters, doing the bidding of the local council of elders, who wanted a neighboring town to fall under their command. Lucian did not believe it was right, but he did it to protect his own town, and to provide for his beloved wife Aluria and their two children. When he returned home this particular night, he dismounted from his horse and saw what the council men had done to his family. They were all gathered around, along with many of the townsfolk. Lucian looked into their faces. He saw how they enjoyed his pain. He saw how his pain, and the pain of his innocent loved ones, allowed the townsfolk to sleep at night. He saw the sacrifice for what it was.

  Lucian fell before the hacked up bodies and cried. He cried the deepest tears a man can cry. The secret tears of the ancient world that had never come to terms with its own creation. The tears that came before God, before all the plants and beasts that cover the land. His mouth was wide open as he howled these secret sorrows, and from the bodies of his beloved, innocent blood began to drip. Lucian drank it up. The townsfolk were horrified by this act of barbarism. They couldn’t stand for it. They began to edge closer to Lucian, in a plot to kill him. They were so confronted by his sorrow, by the depth of his love, and also by the horror of their own actions, that it was all they could do. Hack him to pieces and string him up too. It was the only way the townsfolk could survive this night.