“So? That doesn’t mean I can’t be a slayer, does it?” Secretly, I was relieved my name wasn’t in that book. I still didn’t know if slayers were aware of the existence of shifters—or what they would do if they found out.
Natalie pressed her lips together in a thin line. “We don’t usually take recruits from outside our circle of proven families. The fewer people know about vampires, the better.”
“I’ve known about vampires for five years and never told anyone. Who would believe me?” I tapped my foot on the carpet and then stopped because I didn’t want to appear nervous. “Are there other paranormal creatures beside vampires?” I asked, in what I hoped was a casual tone.
“You mean like sasquatches?” Van reached for the album and flipped to the back. “Here’s a picture of my friend Barney.” Van handed me the book so I could see for myself.
The album was heavier than I’d anticipated, the edges of each page painted silver. I stared down at the picture of an enormous creature that looked like a cross between a bear and a giant labradoodle. He wore a dopey grin on his face and held his paws out, thumbs up. A curvy girl with brown hair stood on one side of Barney, and Esma stood on the other.
I took a sharp breath. The idea of sasquatches being real had never occurred to me before. “He looks…friendly,” I said, trying to choose a neutral adjective.
“Sasquatches are usually pretty chill.” Van stared wistfully at the brunette in the picture. “Unless vampires abuse them.”
“What about werewolves?” I asked. That seemed like a safe place to start.
Natalie shrugged. “I’ve never met one, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“I’ve seen so many weird things over the years that nothing would surprise me at this point.” Van tapped the picture. “Do you see this beautiful girl here standing next to Barney? That’s my girlfriend, Morgan Taylor-Jackson. She’s in Oxford right now doing a fellowship for Jane Austen researchers. Morgan’s a Puritan vampire. That means a vampire who’s forsaken human blood and ages like normal.”
My heart felt like a lead balloon. “Puritans? Could my mom have become a Puritan if you had given her the chance to convert instead of slaying her?”
Van looked at Natalie, and Natalie looked at Van. “Perhaps,” said Natalie as delicately as possible. “Research has advanced a lot over the past five years. But at the time of your mother’s infection, I didn’t know about vamproid.”
“Vamproid?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s a serum Puritans take to mitigate their vampiritis—that’s the virus that causes vampirism,” said Van. “Like heroin addicts with methadone, Puritans take vamproid every day to stay sober.”
“My mom would have taken vamproid if she’d had the chance.” I hunched over in my seat. “I would have helped make sure she took it.”
“I’m sorry.” Van’s eyebrows knitted together. “We didn’t know that vamproid existed back then.
“But even if we had,” said Natalie in a clipped tone, “vamproid rarely works. In the course of human history, there have only been eighty-three confirmed Puritans that council has placed on our No Slay list. Most vampires transform into bloodthirsty villains a few minutes after infection.”
It was a lot to take in. Images of Mom’s eyes popping open and her lurching up with a glazed expression, thirsty for blood, replayed in my mind. “I want to be a slayer,” I said hoarsely. “I want to rid the world of vampires so that no girl ever loses her mother again.”
“That, I can appreciate.” Natalie looked across the room to a framed photograph of a woman with a kind expression and gray hair wound into a bun. Natalie’s eyes went misty for a second, but then she shook her head and squared her shoulders. “In answer to your question, the vampire who rampaged through Carlsbad five years ago and caused the death of your mother has been slain.”
“That’s good news,” I said. “I only wish I’d had the opportunity to do it myself.”
Natalie gave me a look of approval. “I’ll need to talk to my brother and get official sanction from the council, but I’m willing to take a bet on you, Kate Canus from Carlsbad. That is assuming you can pass a background check.”
“A background check?” I remembered Janet, my social worker, fingerprinting me when I’d been fifteen years old and logging me into the system as I’d become an official ward of the state of California. “I’ve never been in trouble with the law before.”
“That’s not the type of background check we’re talking about.” Van leaned forward in his chair. “Slayers move all over the country. Sometimes even the world.”
“They can’t have close personal connections that tie them down,” explained Natalie. “It complicates things.”
“You just said you had a girlfriend.” I pointed to Van.
“That’s different.” He crossed his forearms. “Morgan’s a Puritan. But for ordinary slayers, the job is their life and they can’t let relationships get in the way.”
“That wouldn’t be a problem for me.” I lifted my chin. “I have nobody.”
“A lone wolf.” Natalie rapped her fingernails on the table. “This might work.”
I winced inwardly. Natalie didn’t know how accurate her statement was, and I didn’t want her to ever find out.
Chapter 6
Two weeks later, on November 1st, I still hadn’t received an official acceptance offer from Slayer Academy. The background check must have been taking forever. I checked my phone for messages and kept a close eye on my email as well, but there was nothing from Van or Natalie Xander to raise my hopes. As if that weren’t depressing enough, things between Lacey and me had gone from bad to worse. At least the four hours I spent working at Barktacular were peaceful.
“Can you believe it, Charlie?” I scratched behind a dalmatian’s ears. “This is the tenth week of school and Lacey still hasn’t washed her clothes. She just keeps buying new ones and stuffs all the dirty things in her closet.”
Sounds heavenly, barked Charlie. I love curling up in Dr. Simone’s dirty laundry, especially after she’s gone for a run.
“Only you would say that.” I nuzzled my face against his shoulder.
Or me, barked an elderly poodle named Melvin. He was fourteen pounds of fluff and adoration. Laundry makes great poodle nests.
I sighed. My shift at doggie daycare was the highlight of my day and I was eternally grateful that Mr. Sherwood, Barktacular’s owner, had hired me. He paid above minimum wage and offered a flexible schedule that worked around my classes at UCSD. Plus, the clientele was awesome. Not every dog could understand human, but the ones who did gravitated toward me. They knew all my secrets and never squealed.
If the dirty laundry really bothers you that bad, I have the perfect solution, barked Charlie. Hose the clothes down. Humans hate the smell of piss.
“That’s an interesting way of handling roommate drama,” I said diplomatically. “I’ll think about it.”
The buzzer at the front door rang, signaling there was a customer up front. It was 8 p.m. and most people had already picked up their dogs by now. Charlie and Melvin were the last pooches left.
Someone’s at the front door, barked Melvin. Maybe it’s an old lady.
It’s not an old lady. Charlie rolled his eyes. What is it with you and old ladies? It’s probably Professor Radcliffe, ready to take you home.
“Stay here.” I pointed my finger at them. “I’ll be right back.”
The front showroom of Barktacular smelled like fur and dog food samples. In addition to every color of leash in the rainbow, there were also bins of rawhide bones, chew toys, and stacks of dog beds. I didn’t know how normal people processed the aroma, but for me, it was overwhelming. It was like trying to watch all the news stations at once and make sense of what the anchors were saying. Information overload to the extreme.
“Can I help you?” I shut the door to the romper room behind me and took my place behind the cash register. When I saw who was on the ot
her side of the checkout stand, I froze.
“Hey, Kate.” Joshua held up a bag of Subway sandwiches. “I noticed you missed dinner and thought you might be hungry.”
“That’s really nice of you.” I gnawed my lower lip while I tried to figure out what to say. Since that night at the Mount Soledad Memorial, Joshua had asked me out three more times. Each time I’d said no and blown him off with an excuse about homework, my commitments at the school newspaper, or Barktacular. But now he had me cornered—and I hated being cornered.
“I actually can’t hang out right now because I’m on the clock until nine,” I said. “Mr. Sherwood doesn’t like me to socialize when I’m at work.”
Just then, the doorbell rang again, and Melvin’s owner walked in.
“I’m ready for my poodle,” said Professor Radcliffe. He wore chocolate brown trousers and a tweed jacket with patches at the elbows.
“I’ll be right back.” I grabbed Melvin’s leash and harness off the hook and returned a minute later with Melvin in tow, tugging at the leash and waving his tail like a propeller. “How’s your research grant coming along?” I asked the professor. “Have you finished your proposal?”
Professor Radcliffe smiled, his teeth a gleaming row of white enamel. “It’s almost finished, and I have good news. Another grant came through from the American Heart Association. That means my research project can continue.”
“That’s awesome, professor. Congrats.” I snuck Melvin a treat from the jar my co-worker Maggie kept for her grooming clients. “See you tomorrow.”
Right as Professor Radcliffe and Melvin were leaving, Dr. Simone came in through the door wearing scrubs. “Hi, George. How are you doing?” she asked.
“Fine.” Professor Radcliffe smiled and held the door open wider. “And yourself?”
Melvin sniffed Dr. Simone’s clogs with great interest. She must have just come from surgery. Dr. Simone was a hand surgeon who specialized in trigger finger, carpal tunnel, and tendonitis operations.
“I’ll be better once Charlie and I get home.” Dr. Simone sighed. “It’s been a long day.”
“Don’t I know it.” Professor Radcliffe tugged Melvin’s leash when the poodle tried to jump up. “Down, Melvin.”
“He’s such a cutie.” Dr. Simone reached down to pet him. “If you were a little bit taller, I’d take you for a run.”
“Excuse me?” Professor Radcliffe stood up straighter. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was at least five-foot-eight.
“I meant Melvin.” Dr. Simone laughed. “Unless you go running?” she added casually.
“Oh.” Professor Radcliffe blushed. “Sorry. I’m strictly a walker.” He pointed to his right leg. “One of these days, I need to get my knee replaced.”
“I know some great orthopedic surgeons.” Dr. Simone massaged Melvin’s back and he moaned. “Let me know if you need a referral.” She gave Melvin a final pet and stood up.
“Will do.” Professor Radcliffe tipped an imaginary hat to her and walked out into the night.
“I’ll go get Charlie,” I said. Joshua was still waiting quietly in the showroom, reading the labels on wet dog food and grimacing. I headed back into the romper room to retrieve the dalmatian.
After Charlie and Dr. Simone had left, Joshua held up a bottle of dog shampoo. “Does Furry Glowbright really make dogs have whiter fur?”
“I don’t know,” I lied. The one time I’d experimented in the shower was nobody’s business. “I think it has optical brighteners in it or something.”
“What does that mean?” Joshua put the bottle back on the shelf.
I shrugged. “Who knows? But that’s what it says on the label.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but the sandwiches Joshua carried in that Subway bag smelled delicious. My nose was rarely wrong, and my guess was there was a teriyaki chicken in there, as well as a meatball sub. “Thanks again for bringing me dinner,” I said. “But I still have a bunch of cleaning to do before I can go.”
“I’ll help. What do you want me to do?”
I wasn’t sure what Mr. Sherwood would say about me letting my casual acquaintance from Asian-American Lit roam around his business after hours, but my stomach rumbled, and the meatballs were cooling by the minute. “Can you vacuum the carpet up here in front? I’ll go bleach down the romper room.”
Ten minutes later, the whole place sparkled, and Joshua and I sat on a stack of dog beds big enough to hold a Great Dane. He’d let me choose which sandwich I wanted, and I’d gone for the meatballs without a moment’s hesitation.
Joshua pulled back the wrapper of the chicken teriyaki. “I don’t want to freak you out or anything, but I have an idea.”
A clump of ground beef wedged in my throat, and I coughed hard to force it down. Mom had always told me to slow down while I ate, but it was a lesson I’d never managed to learn. I took another bite. “What?” I asked with a mouthful of food.
“Did I tell you about how my mother works for a bio-tech company in San Francisco?”
I nodded. “You mentioned that the other night.”
“Yeah, well, what I didn’t say was that my mother works for a DNA kit testing company. The ones where you spit in a tube, mail it off, and then they send back your results about your ancestry.”
I crumpled up my sandwich wrapper. “I’ve heard of them.”
Joshua looked at his hands. “Sometimes people discover who their long-lost parents are. Didn’t you say you don’t know who your father is?”
I gulped down a swig of water. “Yeah. Mom never told me. I don’t know anything about my father’s side of the family.”
Only that they were shifters. I couldn’t tell Joshua about that, of course. But Grandpa had once told me that the reason canine shifters had died out was because the gene pool was polluted. Instead of shifters marrying other shifters, they forged relationships with Statics. He said that the only way canine shifters could survive would be for them to find each other again, but the chances of that happening were slim. I’d never met another shifter besides Mom or Grandpa. Besides, I wasn’t sure I wanted to have children—or puppies someday. I’d rather slay vampires.
“I brought you a kit,” said Joshua. “In case you wanted to try it. It’s in the car.”
“Wow. Thanks.” I crunched a potato chip. I wasn’t used to guys doing nice things for me. Mostly because I usually picked the wrong guys. I looked at Joshua sideways. He was so skinny, I could beat him at arm wrestling. But his brown eyes had a friendly warmth to them that was unassuming. His lopsided smile was kind of cute, too. Maybe I’d been wrong to judge him based on his looks before I’d gotten to know him. Sure, I wasn’t attracted to him, but if I tried harder, perhaps I could feel a spark.
“Can I give you a ride home?” Joshua asked.
“That’d be great.” I nodded. “Thanks.” With a sudden burst of courage, I leaned forward and kissed him. He tasted like chicken teriyaki, and my tongue slipped into his mouth without me meaning for it to. Joshua took that as a sign of encouragement and before I knew what was happening, we were French kissing in the dog bed. I didn’t feel thunder or lightning, but it was pleasant. Safe. Non-threatening. For a girl like me, that was as good as I could hope for.
Chapter 7
An hour later I sat on my bed with the DNA test kit instructions spread out on my comforter. I never would have guessed that spitting into a tube would be so hard. It had been five minutes, and my saliva still hadn’t reached the fill line. I read the directions one more time to see if I really had to reach the dotted line on the vial and then gave it one more try.
“What are you doing over there? Are you spitting?” Lacey wrinkled her nose. “You’re so gross. It’s like you were raised by wolves.”
“Better wolves than swine. Why’d you close the window? It stinks in here.”
“Because it’s sixty degrees outside.” Lacey rolled her eyes. “What do you want us to do, freeze to death?”
I ignored her and kept on spitting.
There—finally! I double-checked the vial. Yup, I’d hit the required mark. Now all I needed to do was mail off my DNA in the postage paid envelope and wait. Joshua told me it usually took between three and eight weeks to get back the results.
Unfortunately, it felt like an equally long time to find out if I’d passed the background search for Slayer Academy. I checked my phone for the millionth time and still didn’t see anything. Couldn’t Natalie have sent me an update or something?
It was 10 p.m., which was too late to go for a run. I wasn’t worried about attackers—I could outrun anyone—but I didn’t want to get hit by a car. Plus, the Italian sub I’d eaten for dinner sat in my stomach like a grease ball.
I put in earbuds and tuned my phone to the local police scanner while I tidied up my side of the room. Listening to law enforcement nab bad guys was relaxing; plus, I sometimes gleaned tips to use for my articles in The Triton. That was how I’d first been on the scene (after the police) when that freshman had narrowly avoided being assaulted a couple of weeks ago.
So far there was nothing interesting happening on the scanner. There was a noise complaint against a frat house and a shoplifter at Whole Foods, but other than that, it was a quiet Thursday night.
I pulled out the top drawer of my dresser and organized my socks. One of my foster moms had been obsessed with Marie Kondo. I’d only stayed in that particular house for five nights because it had been an emergency foster, instead of a long-term placement, but I’d read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up from cover to cover. That had been enough to make me obsessed. It was easy to be grateful for my possessions because I didn’t have many in the first place. Every time I wore out another pair of running shoes, I thanked them for their service before gently placing them in the trash. Brooks sneakers always sparked joy.
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