Because this is assault.
What am I doing?
I let the man go. He runs without a second thought.
“Ah,” the rust-orange man holds out his arms, like he’s inviting the intruders forward, “hunters.”
“Vampires.” There are ten people crowding the alley at both ends, a blockade of flesh and blood. The woman who spoke smells tangy, like a mango. The man at her side, his Color blue-gray like concrete, smells like a steak. My eyes rove over more, glancing at each of their Colors. I can’t stop salivating, but at the same time, my stomach clenches.
Their scents are a lie. They’re rotten, as bad as the stinking dumpster, deceiving at first with fresh food wafting outside Elysian Fields’ open front doors.
“Move in,” the woman says.
“Now you’ll have to wait.” The rust-orange man turns to me. “Their blood is full of vervain. Drink that and you’ll keel over. Listen and learn well. Many vampires don’t until it’s too late.”
How? There’s clearly something wrong with their scents.
Vampires.
She said vampires. He said vampires.
I’m not a vampire.
I wipe my chin, but more drool follows. There’s so much of it that it’s like I’ve taken a big swig of water and just can’t swallow it away. It keeps refilling and refilling.
I’m so thirsty.
A familiar pulse drums in my ears. This time, it’s coming for the rust-orange man. His blood is okay. It’s not particularly delicious-smelling, but I can drink it. My stomach can take it. My fingers curl, my knees bend, and I jump for his neck, that specific bright blotch of orange.
Skin, soft skin giving way for my fangs.
Crack.
My face meets concrete and my right canine breaks in half. Numbness buzzes in my gums. What just happened?
“That one’s a thirsty new blood,” the woman says. “This’ll be easy.” A pistol cocks. I think that’s the sound of a pistol cocking.
BANG.
I instinctively cover my head with my hands. After the ringing leaves my ears, something wet hits the asphalt with an unceremonious splat. I dare to look up, tilting my face forward to see red liquid racing toward me. The blue-gray coming from the man fades to nothing, leaving only his body. I can see him like everyone else does now: eyes wide, the whites impossibly large, blood oozing from his lips, his chest. Someone new stands behind him, wearing white, their Color a pea green.
“There are more of them!” the woman shouts and fires her gun.
Too many people, vampires or who knows what, come together in a cluster of angry paint blots. They grapple, tear away, and the sound of rushing water floods my ears.
I start army crawling. Drool mixed with my own blood spatters the asphalt as I go, and I don’t look back. If I can just make it far enough, I’ll be out of the alley, and I’ll run. I’ll go to the police.
I’ll find someone who doesn’t have that poison in their blood, and I’ll drink.
I wince.
Police? blood? Which one—
Something hard hits the back of my head. It’s a sharp smack. And the last thing I think is I must be dying, because the world melts away into nothing, and I don’t wake up from the nightmare.
CHAPTER 3
Lub-dub.
A heart beating. Honey-sweet, a bit of spice, the burn of mint, things that shouldn’t mix but do. Something I want to taste.
A soft groan rouses me. It’s my groan. It came from me.
I’m not dead?
My head.
I press my fingers to my temples and grind my forehead against icy stones. It’s so cold my skin burns, and I wonder if the motion is taking off layer after layer, but I don’t stop.
My mouth is bone-dry. I broke a tooth, didn’t I? I stick a finger inside my mouth and poke my canines. Other than being way longer and sharper than I remember, nothing’s out of place.
I sit back on my butt and try to cross my legs; the skinny jeans I’m wearing make it impossible. Metal bars stare at me. Did I go to jail? This doesn’t look like any jail cell I’ve ever seen—not that I’ve seen one in person.
Gray and black stones make up the floor, walls, and ceiling inside and outside of my cell. It’s old in a medieval sort of way. Castle-like with all those mounted torches. Neglected, too. Cracks line many areas and plants peek through. I can see them better than I see people, but their Colors are still present. They’re mostly an earthy brown that moves as slowly as syrup.
Something is jabbing my butt.
I shift onto my knees and grab my phone. I totally forgot about it. I’m surprised it didn’t fall out after… whatever happened.
Did I get caught in the middle of some turf war between two rival gangs? Maybe the vampires were just pretending to be vampires. Maybe they were on some new hallucinogen. Did the rust-orange man stick me with it?
I rub my neck, but I don’t feel any punctures.
Unlocking my phone with my thumb, I tap the screen to find I have no service. My phone is as useless as the loose stones in my cell. I guess I could throw them at something.
I wonder if Mom is worried about me.
My stomach growls, and I start to salivate again. I’m like a waterfall. I swallow and swallow, but it doesn’t help much. Something smells like… chai? Pumpkin pie?
What is that? I keep catching a whiff of it. I thought I was dreaming it, but it’s definitely there.
I replace my phone and get to my feet. I grasp the metal bars to pull myself up, but it lasts less than a second. The metal burns.
“Shit!” I shake out my hands and carefully look through the gaps.
Nothing but more of the same, except for a few stray rainbow Colors in the shapes of butterflies flitting down the dark corridor. And a statue-still dreamy chartreuse silhouette in the shape of a dog as tall as a pony. I don’t usually see animal Colors this clearly. It should be more like the plants, but I can’t make out the dog’s flesh-and-blood appearance at all. If I squint, I think I can see two spots of bright red: its eyes.
And that good smell… It’s coming from the dog.
I hold my phone out to the dog and take a picture. The light isn’t great, but now I can see what it looks like. Short pitch-black fur, the same pointed ears I could make out from its silhouette, eyes as red as blood. No. They’re too bright. Stop-light red.
Finally, the water leak in my mouth stops flowing. Instead, my stomach cramps, those hunger pangs where your stomach feels as hollow as a gutted pumpkin. If I took a selfie, I wouldn’t be surprised to find my cheeks gaunt and sallow.
I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.
I wonder if the black and red berries growing on these plants are edible. They make me think about all the berries that are poisonous, though. The red ones especially. What if I accidentally ingested berries from a deadly nightshade? I’ve heard they taste sweet.
“Hi, dog,” I say.
It doesn’t react.
“You’re not guarding me and secretly holding the key to my cell in your mouth or something, sort of like the dog in that one Pirates of the Caribbean movie, are you?”
Still nothing.
I tilt my head to the right and catch a square of light. It isn’t flickering, so I don’t think it’s coming from the torches. When I look back at the dog, I notice a wood chair mostly hidden by the dog’s softly swirling chartreuse silhouette. A key ring is half-dangling off the edge of the seat.
“So you are guarding me, and you do have the keys,” I say and sigh. “What do I have to do? Offer you a leg? An arm?”
I’ve never had the chance to interact with animals much, and I feel like an idiot doing it now, talking like it can understand me… But it’s somehow easier than talking to people. God, I think I’m so in shock I can’t even panic properly. Or this is part of that aloofness people always mention when referring to me. Even Mom says I’ve got nerves of steel.
That’s funny.
My stomach makes a ho
rrible rumble and starts munching on itself. I clutch my middle and drop to my knees. Then I flop onto my side and curl up in the fetal position. I should move again, onto my stomach. Something. I’m going to be sick. Acid’s crawling up my esophagus. The last thing I need is vomit all over my already-cold and damp clothes.
My blood has been replaced by lava again.
Click, click, click.
I shift so my face is toward the bars again. The dog’s leaving for the stairs. It casts a long, ghastly shadow before it completely disappears.
Guess I’ll just stay here, then.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to regulate my breathing. If I don’t, I really think I’ll puke.
Shuddering breath after shuddering breath, I kind of manage to get a steady rhythm going. It’d be great if I could get this pain under control so I can think straight.
Too bad school never taught me what to do if you find yourself locked inside a semi-decrepit dungeon.
Wait a minute. What if this is human trafficking?
How did I get involved in all of this shit when I’ve always kept to myself?
The familiar click of the dog’s claws tapping against stones draws my attention back to the stairs. The dog jumps down the rest of them and trots over to me. The sound continues, more of a clip-clop, after it’s stopped. Another figure emerges from the stairs: a child’s silhouette, vermilion sand cascading through an hourglass shaped like a face.
“What the hell?” I wheeze through the nausea. “What the hell is going on?”
The child crouches down in front of my cell. She’s wearing a frilly gothic dress; the skirt whispers against the stones and blooms like a black rose. Her hair is thick enough I can see it past her Color, tightly curled blond tresses tied up in a black bow. I imagine a porcelain doll’s face with blue or green eyes is what other people see.
“You almost drank someone’s blood,” the girl says. Her voice has that high young tone you’d expect from a kid, but an underlying firmness sets it off balance. She doesn’t sound like any kid I’ve ever heard—not that I have a ton of experience with those either.
“I didn’t,” I say. “Why would I do that? That’s ridiculous. I’m not part of some vampire cult.”
“Ah, but you don’t have to be. You’re a vampire regardless.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are, and you always have been. Your vampire roots simply took a while to find their hold.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I was bitten, I think.” I touch my neck again, but my stomach roars a protest, so I go back to squeezing my middle, my knees digging into my chest.
The girl says, “We found you just in time, so adjusting shouldn’t be too difficult. We’ll get your bloodlust under control immediately.” She pulls out a little glass bottle hidden inside of her skirt. Secret pockets. “Oh, and how rude of me. My name is Madeline. It’s nice to meet you, Nova.”
“How do you know my name?”
“You’re still wearing your name tag. And I visited Elysian Fields last night.”
“Last night,” I repeat.
Wait, I did see this vermilion yesterday. A young girl with her father, I think. He wore so many layers, it was hard to tell, and his Color was… turquoise.
“Yes, yesterday,” she says slowly, like she thinks I can’t understand her. “At the very least, you’ll have to go through Nightshade Academy’s basic classes, so I know you won’t go savage if you decide to rejoin unchanged-human society.”
“I… have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll explain it all at orientation.” She sets the glass bottle down, dark red liquid sloshing around in it, and reaches inside of her puffy skirt again to take out a set of clothes this time. “I’ve got your uniform. Everything is taken care of, so other than attending classes and doing your best, you don’t have to worry about anything.”
“I—school? I just graduated high school, and I’m not going to college.” I grind my teeth and curl up tighter when my stomach rebels with a tight pinching sensation focused on my navel. “I don’t even know you. Let me contact my mom and maybe I’ll listen to what you have to say.”
“Apologies, new blood. Here at Nightshade, contact with the outside world is impossible. Even if I thought it was a good idea, it wouldn’t be easy for me to comply with your request.”
“So you admit I’ve been kidnapped. You’re going to stop with this school and vampire shit, right? So what’s really going on?” I ask that, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know the reality any more than I want to entertain this girl’s fantasy. If someone as young as her is pretending to be an authority figure, and allowed to do it, maybe things aren’t as bad as I thought.
Or they’re worse.
“Rescued,” Madeline says. “We rescued you.”
“From what?! Are you working with the—” I struggle to find a way to describe the rust-orange man in a way others would understand “—the sleazy man in a fancy-ass business suit?”
Madeline’s voice goes flat. “No. Never. That man is a monster of monsters. He tried to ruin you, to make you like him. I’m giving you a choice to be what you want to be, to live the way you want to live. Once your bloodlust is under control and you’ve taken the necessary classes, you can leave Nightshade if you wish, as I said before. You’re to stay here until then for your own safety as well as everyone else’s. That includes your mother’s.”
I’m so thirsty.
My eyes drift to a specific cluster of vermilion sand. A big fat artery in her neck, has to be. She smells okay, sort of like the rust-orange man. Just a taste. A little bit of her blood will make me feel better.
I can’t control my own thoughts.
“You drugged me,” I say. “Somebody drugged me.”
“No, but I can see how you might feel that way. Thirst, hunger cripples the best of us.” She thrusts the clothes through an opening between cell bars, careful not to touch the bars herself. “Take these before I drop them and they get soiled.”
“Drop them,” I grit out.
She does and says, “This is what you really want.” She slides the glass bottle across the ground. It screams with the stones, high-pitched and goosebumps-inducing. “Drink it. You’ll feel better. Then get dressed in your uniform. I’ll be back for you in a few minutes, and then I’ll take you to orientation.”
She retreats to the stairs, the dog as tall as her on her heels, vermilion and chartreuse.
CHAPTER 4
I stare at the uniform I’ve unraveled once I can bring myself to move. A plaid pleated skirt with a royal-purple base, a stiff monogrammed long-sleeved shirt with an even stiffer collar, a similarly monogrammed black blazer, a black tie—the outfit almost complements my Converse, actually. If this doesn’t scream prep school, I don’t know what does. The school crest seems pretty typical too, in a weird Harry Potter kind of way; it’s a shield with black dragons for symmetry. Black and royal purple are obviously the school colors. Maybe white, too.
After glancing around the room and seeing no Colors, except for the soft brown coming from the plants, I decide I’m alone and strip. It feels good to get out of my clothes—tight pants in particular. I don’t know how I collected so much grime crawling on the asphalt. Guess that alley behind Elysian Fields was beyond filthy.
I tug at the skirt and assess its length; it reaches just above my knees. Skirts aren’t really something I’d choose to wear, but I’ll play along for now. I’m getting out of here as soon as I find out where here is. My fingers catch on a slit in the skirt and slip through. Hey, at least it has pockets. I put my useless phone inside.
My stomach hasn’t improved much, but I’m standing, so that has to mean something. I touch my neck again, trying to find the punctures that should be there. The rust-orange man injected me with something. It probably wasn’t his teeth at all. Maybe he had something in his mouth? Like a syringe. That’s more disturbing than him biting me.
The g
lass bottle Madeline left sits untouched near one of the burning metal bars. The liquid looks sort of like a red wine. I take the bottle and hold it out between the bars while being careful not to touch them. As I flick my wrist, its contents slosh around, catching on the firelight.
Drinking unlabeled and unsealed drinks from strangers? Hard no.
I hold my breath, unscrew the metallic cap, walk to the biggest plant, and dump the liquid onto the musty dirt. At once, it hits my nose, potent, rich like a prime steak. I salivate like a starved and nearly rabid animal. I drop to my hands and knees, an inch away from trying to lick up whatever’s left, but the soil is thirsty too. It’s all gone. But I still smell it.
My stomach is ready to tear a hole in itself. My fingers dig into the wet dirt, and I hold squishy handfuls of it. I’m so close to putting them in my mouth. It’s touching my lips—
No.
I force my hands back, pat down the dirt, and cover up the smell with earth and moss.
“No way, Nova,” I whisper, because talking out loud seems to help. “They’re probably trying to poison you, or give you more of the shit the rust-orange man injected you with.”
It takes an insane amount of effort to get back on my feet. I brush away the dirt on my knees, but I can’t do much about it. My skin is stained. My palms, too.
“Someone get me out of here!” I say through the bars. I want to grab them, to shake them, but I’ve already learned my lesson there. They must be electrified.
I tilt my head, trying to get a better angle on the staircase. It doesn’t help. Then a familiar shadow appears: a bow on top of precise curls, a dress with fifty layers or more, and familiar vermilion.
“I see you’re eager for orientation,” Madeline says.
“I’m eager to get out of this cell,” I say. “You don’t act like a kid, but you look like one. How old are you? This is all an elaborate joke, a prank, right?”
Nightshade Academy Episode 1: Awakened Vampire Page 2
