Castle Heights: Crown of Thorns

by Sasha McDaniels

  “What do you mean the talk? Is this some kind of joke?” I whispered to Ben.

  “Are you okay, Miss Harris?” Mr. Carlson asked.

  I cleared my throat. “Fine,” I choked out.

  “Good then. So back to the vampire and werewolf truce in Cold War Germany.”

  I listened as Mr. Carlson described how the vampires and werewolves were fighting in Germany. In other places around the world, they fought too, but they took it to the extreme when they built the wall. According to Mr. Carlson, the werewolves sided with the communists in the eastern part of Germany while the vampires sided with the democratic Germans in the west.

  By the time the class bell rung, I was both flabbergasted and intrigued.

  “There are really vampires and werewolves?” I asked Ben.

  “Yep. There are. Now, don’t get wolves confused. There are two kinds. There are the straight werewolves, the lycanthropic kind which is by birth what they are. The lycanthropic wolves have three forms: human, lycan, and full wolf. Then there are the shapeshifter wolves which fall into three camps, wolf shifters who shift only into wolves, the regular shapeshifters who sometimes shift into wolves and pretty much any other animal they’d like, and then there are the vampires who can sometimes shift into lycanthropic and vampiric form. There is only one family of vampires who have this capability, however. They are of the Dracul family.”

  I choked on my spit. The two of us stood in the hallway while Ben explained all this to me as if it was some kind of everyday thing. No big deal. Werewolves and vampires and other supernatural creatures exist, nothing to see here. Carry on.

  “The Dracul family? You mean as in Dracula?” I asked Ben.

  “Yeah, Dracula. Duh!”

  “Ben, are you kidding me?”

  “Wish I was, sweetheart. The one and only Dracula was a resident of Castle Heights. He isn’t anymore, thank goodness. He got ran out of town. Though his house still sits on Sleepy Hollow Lane.”

  “Sleepy Hollow Lane. Seriously?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wow. I bet I won’t find that sort of information on Castle Heights if I search for it on the internet.

  “I bet you won’t,” Ben said. “Let’s go to the office and see if they have your schedule ready,” he said changing the subject.

  “Wait, Ben,” I said. “I grabbed his arm. What am I?”

  “I told you. It’s not for me to say. Ask your mother when we get home.”

  “She won’t tell me.”

  “Ask her one more time,” Ben said. “If she says no, then maybe I’ll consider breaking the blood-sworn oath I made to Jennifer.”

  6

  “You really should be out of high school,” Mrs. Bright said to me as I stood across from her while she sat down. “Have you ever taken the SAT?”

  “No,” I said. “Well, no, not really. I mean, I’ve taken a bunch of practice ones,” I said.

  “And how did you do?”

  “I got a perfect score the last four times I took it.”

  “Sheesh, what are you, some kind of genius?” Ben asked.

  “No,” I said. “I just had a lot of extra time on my hands, so I learned everything I could.”

  “I’ll say,” Mrs. Bright said. “We can put you in Advanced Placement and Honors classes.”

  “Just give her my schedule, Mrs. Bright,” Ben said.

  “That may work for History and English Literature, but she’ll need to take G-Strapped Physics and G-Strapped Calculus.”

  “What’s G-strapped?” I asked Ben.

  “It means gifted,” Ben said. “Only like the top .5 percent of the Castle Heights Senior Class takes G-Strapped courses.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Give me a minute to get your schedule together,” Mrs. Bright told me. “Lunch starts soon. You can go to your next class after that.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Bright,” I said.

  “No, thank you. You’re upping our scores. We’re on our way to number one in US World Weekly’s top high schools in the nation.”

  “Wow, I’m standing next to a genius,” Ben muttered.

  “You are and don’t you ever forget it,” Mrs. Bright said to Ben. “Don’t be jealous, Benjamin. You’re still my favorite.”

  “Oh, gee golly wiz, Mrs. bright. By saying that, you’ve made me the happiest boy in the world.”

  “I bet,” Mrs. Bright said rolling her eyes.

  We waited for my schedule to come off of the printer. “Set her up a school account tonight, Benjamin,” Mrs. Bright said.

  “On it. Anything else?”

  “Tell your mother that I’ve made some of my famous macaroons if she’d like to come by and have tea with me sometime soon.”

  “I’ll tell her. Except you know how busy she is these days, sitting on the Castle Heights Historical Society Board.”

  “Right, yes. I understand.”

  A strange look came over Mrs. Bright. I wasn’t sure what it meant. It reminded me of the way a cheetah looks at its prey.

  Ben grabbed my schedule before I could. “Uh, huh, I see, yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “Everything is indeed the same except G-Strap. Thank you, Mrs. Bright.”

  Mrs. Bright winked at Ben.

  “Let’s hit the cafeteria, shall we?” Ben asked. He handed me my schedule.

  “I’m hungry,” I said. “I was too nervous to eat that blueberry muffin you gave me in the wagon.”

  “Well, as Mrs. Bright has pointed out, Peking Duck is indeed on the menu. You’ll find it to be a most delightful entree, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure I will,” I said. I had no idea what Peking Duck tasted like.

  We walked to the cafeteria. The cafeteria had wood paneled walls and tables covered with white tablecloths. A giant school insignia that looked like a royal crest hung prominently on one of the walls.

  The cafeteria smelled good.

  “We’re lucky here,” Ben said. “The teachers don’t eat with us. They have their own dining room. Students are assigned to the cafeteria on rotation, to keep an eye on things. We call them lunch monitors.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  “Want to get in line?”

  “Sure.”

  “Over here. I’ll grab you a tray.”

  Ben grabbed lunch trays for the both of us. He handed me one. The tray was made out of wood and had handles. Usually, when I saw school lunch trays on television, they were made from plastic.

  I leaned over and whispered in Ben’s ear. “What do you think happened to the girl they found dead?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you later,” he said.

  “Are there any vampires and werewolves in here now?”

  “Where? In the school or in the cafeteria?”

  “Both,” I said.

  “Actually, yeah, in here and out there.”

  I searched the cafeteria, trying not to be obvious that I was scoping out the place for vampires and werewolves. “I can’t tell who they are,” I admitted.

  “That’s because you’re looking for the wrong tells.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I moved up a little bit in the lunch line. A girl walked past me, carrying her filled lunch tray. I licked my lips.

  “Like the vampires for instance. If you look close, you’ll see that they move differently than a regular human. Watch that lady at the end of the lunch counter, the one serving the mashed potatoes.”

  I trained my eye on the woman. Her hand flung forward, slapping the mashed potatoes on a kid’s tray with the quickness. Then she grabbed a salt shaker swiftly, shook it, and sat it back down so fast I almost missed it.

  “Vampires eat food?” I asked.

  “Yeah, actually, no. The kids just sitting around without food, well, there’s your other tell right there.”

  “I just thought they weren’t hungry.”

  “That’s what everyone thinks when they see a vampire out in public. Not even a raw steak is appetizing to them.”r />
  “What about werewolves?”

  “See the kids with the huge amount of food piled on their trays?”

  I glanced around. “Uh yeah. I hadn’t noticed their food trays, but if the veil hadn’t been lifted in history class, I would have just thought that they were in sports or something and needed the extra calories.”

  “Ever see those kids on the internet who do eating challenges?”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen a couple of those videos.”

  “Well, those guys are werewolves.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep. They’re in the NBA and in football too. They throw harder, run faster, and jump higher than just about any other creature living on this earth.”

  “Wow, how do they keep it so quiet?”

  “They all come from Castle Heights these days. We’re thick as thieves here. Scan the hometowns of just about any field. If you see Castle Heights High School in their background, you’ll know that something’s up.”

  “Would you like a single portion or double portion of duck?” the lunch lady asked me when it was my turn at the lunch counter.

  “A single portion,” I said.

  I tried not to stare too hard as the other lunch lady served me mashed potatoes, but I failed. I saw her eyes flicker with a strange light. The flicker was subtle. One would have to be watching her very closely to see it.

  Ben led me to a lunch table over by a window. There were four kids sitting at the table. Among them were Zoe and Jace.

  I sat down next to Zoe because she seemed pretty friendly.

  “Hey,” she said to me almost immediately. “How’s the first day going?”

  “Not bad,” I said. “It’s a lot to take in though.”

  “Like what do you mean?” Zoe asked.

  “The vampire and werewolf stuff?”

  “You didn’t know?” Zoe asked. “Wow.”

  “Crazy right?” Ben said. He took a bite of his duck, closed his eyes, and groaned. “So good.”

  I cut into my own duck and took a bite. “This is so tasty. Yum. I think I’ll eat all my meals at school now.”

  “Don’t like Jennifer’s cooking?” Jace asked with a snicker.

  “Hey, dude, don’t talk about my mom’s cooking.”

  “I didn’t say anything wrong. I was just agreeing with Reagan that your mother’s cooking is bad.”

  “Not as bad as your mom’s dancing,” Ben said.

  “Hey, don’t talk about my mom’s dancing. It’s wonderful.”

  “Yeah, if all the music is country and the order of the day is off-beat line dancing.”

  “So rude,” Jace said. “Since you’re roasting my mom, how about I go in on your dad?”

  “Don’t touch the pops, Jace. Don’t touch the pops.”

  “Maybe one of you guys can tell me what I am since no one else seems to want to tell me,” I said.

  The table fell silent.

  Then a girl I hadn’t met spoke up. She wore tortoise shell glasses which sat perched forward on her nose. Her hair was tied up in a bun. “Aren’t you Elise’s daughter?” she asked.

  “Zip it!” Ben shouted.

  “But I was just—“ the girl said.

  “Nope, zip it,” Ben repeated.

  “What about you, Zoe?” I asked. “Do you know anything?”

  Zoe made a zipping motion over her tucked lips.

  “What sort of powers do you have?” Jace asked.

  Ben elbowed him.

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it,” I said.

  The doors to the cafeteria burst open. Standing in the doorway were three wolves. They crept in slowly, scanning the room with red eyes. I jerked back and almost fell out of my chair.

  “Cassidy, you got this?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know. Depends on what sort of wolves they are.” Cassidy sprung from her seat.

  “Don’t matter to me,” Jace said, examining his nails. “Can’t do nothing to me.”

  A few kids jumped up on the cafeteria tables. Their clothes ripped as their bodies transformed into lycans.

  The wolves who entered the cafeteria morphed into three guys. Each with dark hair. They held out their hands, making it impossible for the lycans to move.

  “Vampires,” Ben said. “Of the Dracul kind.”

  “Huh?”

  “Dracula’s sons I presume,” Ben went on. “Until now they were just a rumor. Now I see they’re more than that.”

  “What are they doing in Castle Heights?” Zoe asked.

  “Looking for girlfriends I hope,” another girl at the table said.

  “Reagan, meet Vickie Frank. Vickie Frank, meet Reagan,” Ben said.

  “Nice to meet you,” Vickie said. She flicked her red hair off of her shoulder.

  I was starting to see a pattern here. Gray, Frank, Dracul.

  But if these kids were named after some of the people in my favorite stories, who did that make Ben and me?

  “We’re here for the girl,” one of the Dracul brothers said.

  “Which girl?” Cassidy asked. “I mean because there’s a bunch of us.”

  “Her,” one of the Dracul brothers said, pointing somewhere in my vicinity.

  “What’s your last name?” I asked Cassidy. I had to figure things out at least before I got killed by a vampire.

  “Hyde,” Cassidy said.

  I huffed. “And yours, Zoe?”

  “Faust,” Zoe said.

  “Faust from Goethe’s masterpiece?” I asked.

  Zoe gave me a strange look like she didn’t know what I was talking about. I needed to get to the bottom of things. The whole situation was just too unreal.

  Tables flew and students scattered to the sides of the cafeteria. Even the lycans, who had stood on the tables just moments before, backed down. The three Dracul brothers got closer and closer to me, but I didn’t see them take any steps.

  “Who am I?” I asked Ben. “Please tell me.”

  One of the Dracul boys raised his hand, locking onto my neck without touching it. I felt something happening on my head. The braids on my head were coming undone. It wasn’t long before all of my hair had fallen about my shoulders.

  Then the next thing I knew I was flying out of the window while the vampire held me by my throat. I struggled, but I couldn’t get loose.

  I heard Ben calling my name in the wind. The vampire who was holding me continued to fly through the air in human form, but his brothers shifted into blackbirds, and they flew past my head.

  I lost consciousness sometime after that.

  I awoke in a dark room. I felt relieved, thinking to myself what a crazy dream. Until a guy stepped forward.

  It was one of the Dracul guys from the cafeteria. “Sleep well?” he asked.

  I shot up in the bed. As my eyes adjusted, I realized that I wasn’t in either of my beds back at the Thompson mansion.

  “What do you want with me? Let me go,” I said.

  “One thing at a time. First things first. I’ll tell you what we want with you.”

  “Tell me,” I said, breathlessly.

  “To keep you here.”

  “For what?”

  “For our father.”

  “You mean Dracula?”

  The guy nodded his head. In the darkness, his eyes glowed an electric green.

  “What does your father want with me?”

  “Your blood.”

  I fainted. The mention of Dracula and my blood in the same breath was too much for me.

  Something cold and wet hit my face, waking me up again.

  “So we’ve got ourselves a fainter,” a voice said.

  “Looks like it gentlemen. Which is too bad because this house doesn’t get many visitors who stay conscious,” another voice said.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Dracul Manor,” said the guy who had grabbed my throat in the cafeteria. Candles flickered on seemingly by themselves which meant that it was no longer so dark in the room.

&
nbsp; “I don’t understand what’s happening here. Dracula isn’t a real person.”

  “Well, that’s an offensive thing for you to say about our father,” he replied.

  “I like this one,” another guy said. He was equally handsome. “My name is Alexi.” He stepped forward and tipped his head. “These are my brothers who are too rude to introduce themselves. The guy who so unceremoniously grabbed you by your throat earlier today is Nikolai. The gruff one over there in the corner is Dimitri.”

  I tried to swallow the lump in my throat but it wouldn’t go down.

  They all shared the same jet black hair and heavy eyelashes, but they had different shapes of face, different gaits, different builds, and different eye colors.

  “If Dracula’s your father, who is your mother?” I asked.

  “We each have a different mother. But all three of them have one thing in common. They’re dead.”

  A name sprung into my head—Van Helsing. Was I a Van Helsing?

  I couldn’t resist. “Am I related to Van Helsing?” I asked.

  Alexi sucked in a breath and shook his head. “How dare you mention that name to us,” he said.

  “I’m just trying to figure out who I am,” I told him.

  “Well, don’t you know?” Nikolai asked. He sat down on the end of the bed. I scooted closer to the headboard. “I won’t bite,” he said.

  All three of them laughed.

  “This is the least funny thing ever,” I said.

  “Right. It wouldn’t be so funny to you,” Dimitri said from over in the corner. He was definitely the broodiest brother of the bunch.

  “So am I a Van Helsing or not?”

  “Nope, but your friend is. The one called Ben,” Nikolai answered.

  “We’ll take care of him. Just as soon as our father arrives,” Nikolai said, cracking his knuckles.

  I decided that it was now or never. I stuck up my hand the way I had done once when I was little girl. Afterwards, my mother locked me in a closet for a week to punish me for it.

  Nikolai flew across the room and slammed into the wall. “Ouch,” he said as he came down from the wall. “I know now not to mention Ben or I’ll get my ass kicked.”

  Alexi opened up his mouth and hissed. “Go easy on her,” Alexi said. “Remember what we talked about. The fight isn’t with her or Ben.”