by Diana Graves
Mom came out of her room wearing a tight gold t-shirt, brown and gold striped capris, and strappy brown sandals.
“I never got the chance to ask you what your instructor said about your vampirism,” Mom said.
“Uh, I’m changing slowly,” I said without taking my eyes from the computer monitor. I was staring at my profile on Facebook; no messages, no comments, no surprise. I had sixty-five friends, half of them were family, I knew three from school, one used to be my best friend, and the rest were strangers that added me to boost their numbers…Pathetic. “My, uh empathic abilities are heightened.”
“Well, that’s nice,” she said. I looked back at her. If she wondered what the fight at her shop was all about, it didn’t show on her face.
“Have you ever felt someone’s emotions in your head?” I asked her, “Or has anybody else in our family?”
“No, not to my knowledge,” she said.
“No?” She didn’t answer me. She was fidgeting with her hair in the gaudy mirror that hung by the door. She heard me, I was sure of it. I waited a moment longer before I shrugged and turned back to the monitor. Someone posted a picture of their new familiar, a big black raven named, Cleo. I “liked” it.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Fauna and I have tickets for the theater,” she said. “The opera, Faust is playing.”
A thought occurred to me. “I know I’m grounded, and for good reason, but I do need to leave tonight.”
Mom stopped and gave me the look moms give when they think their kids are being stupid. That one look said you got to be out of your ever-loving mind. My mom gave it to me quite frequently, actually.
“Class,” I sighed. She didn’t say anything for a long time, and for a moment I thought she was going to ignore me again. Ignoring me seemed to be her favorite pastime lately.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this after what you did last night, but I’m probably not going to be home till after ten.” She shook her head. “Not much of a punishment is it?” she said more to herself than me. She untied my house key from her key chain and tossed it on the sofa. “Your punishment ends at nine thirty, and not because you earned it, but because you need this class. However,” Mom said after hiking her purse higher on her shoulder. “I want you to come directly home after class.”
“No problem. It’s not exactly like I have much of a social life anyway.”
W
HO, WHAT, WHAT
ONE CAN LEARN a hell of a lot from the internet. Using my favorite search engine, I discovered that the University of Washington was the only college in the country to have an entire department dedicated to studying vampires. Most of the department’s focus was on vampire history and world cultures. However, back in the late 1800’s, before vampires had rights, they began experimenting on them. Every vampire in Washington was forced to donate blood to the cause, even master vampires. This was during a time when most of the vampires in America were slaves or outlaws, and the UW could get away with doing whatever they wanted to vampires, and no one cared.
The experiments were immensely popular, making front page news once a week. And, the newspapers weren’t shy about showing graphic images of vampires being cut open alive! I could tell the poor vamps were alive, well, not dead-dead at least. One vamp was gagged and lying on his back with his abdomen cut open. His eyes were full of anger. Every muscle in his body was tense. Another vampire, a woman was strapped to a chair, also gagged. The top of her skull was missing, and a man in white was fiddling about in her brain with shiny knives. Her face was contorted in pain. Being hard to kill was sometimes a very bad thing. The articles reminded me of something I learned in college. Early scientists used to do similar experiments on living animals. They thought one had to have a soul in order to feel pain. Since they believed animals had no souls, they interpreted the animal’s cries as simply a biological reaction—like flipping a switch. Cut a vein, hear a yelp. Slice an organ open, see the dog squirm. It made me sick!
Thankfully, the project was abandoned after the first year when a young student was accidently infected with the virus. A press release said the infection occurred when artery spray hit the young man smack in the face. His parents had him executed before he even showed the first signs of infection. They had him killed by a vampire hunter and then sued the school for negligence. That sort of thing wouldn’t fly these days. Vampires were legal citizens, and killing one without just cause, even if they want to be killed, was murder.
As grossly immoral and terrible as the experiments were, a great deal was learned about the internal anatomy of vampires. In the UW archives I found an excerpt from a paper written by a student:
“Vampire blood is dark red, almost black, and the cells are crowded and deformed. When the disease is introduced into a living host, it quickly spreads throughout the body through the circulatory system. It violates every organ, changing their purpose or consuming them entirely. The stomach develops a smooth, thick inner wall that no longer produces acid. The small intestine is shortened and redirected to the heart, where it does somewhat the same job as a human heart. The lower bowls are seemingly recycled by the body, as is excess fatty tissue. This gives the vampire a leaner appearance. The lungs are in good working condition. Though, they seem to have the capacity to hold a great deal of oxygen, allowing the vampire to hold his breath for an extended period of time. Their bones are denser, heavier and stronger. The disease seems to affects the host’s ability to produce heme, a key element in hemoglobin. This causes a severe case of Porphyria, normally a genetic malady. Porphyria has many symptoms, but vampires only suffer from one, sensitivity to light. The light sensitivity is amplified to a deadly degree, causing the vampires to burn through and through.”
The word on the web was that UW’s current vamp project was making the vampire community a bit nervous. The project’s goal was to manipulate their blood in order to cure diseases. One question that kept appearing in vamp blogs was, “where are they getting the vamp blood?” Like Mato said the other day, no vamp would voluntarily give their blood so that it could be injected into another person due to the psychic connection between vamp and the infected. One theory was that the students were using the old vamp blood that UW collected in the late 1800s. That made sense to me. They were playing with the blood of vampires from over a hundred years ago, blood no vampire in their right mind would have given up freely today.
Even though every major news outlet had an article on the project, no new discoveries had been made public yet. CNN had a picture of the five UW students working on the project. Mato’s five suspects.
I recognized one of the names of the students as Mark Press, the tan kid from the news the other night. I Googled Mark and his name brought up a lot of results. Some results were obviously not him, but others proved fruitful. There were a lot of news articles and blogs, both about him in relation to the UW project and his billionaire father, Henry Press. The Press family came from old money, but my interests weren’t in his lineage, but in his mind. I wanted to know who he was, and if he was capable of such reckless greed. I wanted something with personal information that would give me a glimpse into who Mark really was, and I found his Myspace page. Perfect.
His self-made profile gave the impression that he was just a confident, wealthy college boy, but his blogs painted quite a different picture of him. He ranted on and on about insignificant incidences that he saw as major insults. For example, a week ago a woman he didn’t know gave him a look he perceived as judgmental. He berated her for four pages, all caps. His next entry was two days later. He had pursued the woman, Emily. He wooed her, bedded her and then he destroyed her via an unyielding and brutal verbal assault in public. He seemed to think that the things he reported about himself in his blogs were normal and acceptable behavior. Like, duh, everyone follows the person that cuts them off home and confronts him as he carries his crying child into their house, not leaving until the cops are called. What an ass. At least he kn
ew he was not a God…just god-like. He wrote things like, “Mutts (normal people) could never appreciate my overpowering brilliance. They look at me with envy, and distain, but I’m used to it. It’s to be expected really. You can’t look like this, think like this and expect to be treated like anything less than a star, a god.”
Whoa, way whoa! He definitely suffered from delusions of grandeur. I thought back on the interview I saw him in and he did seem a tad arrogant.
He was obsessed with the UW project. He called it, “Project Salvation.” He wrote about it like it was already finished, and he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize or whatever. He made wild claims. Like that he found the cure for every illness known to man. Every great breakthrough was due to his genius. Face palm, this guy was a douche! I only had a bachelor degree in psychology, but even I recognized narcissistic personality disorder when presented with a shining example.
I did searches on the other team members as well, but after a couple hours of staring at their Facebooks, Yahoo blogs, and Myspace pages, I found that while some of them were set to private or friends only, those that weren’t didn’t scream dangerous, greedy, loony the way Mark did. They were just normal college students.
I printed out excerpts from Mark’s blogs and wrote a short evaluation of Mark. It wasn’t exactly proof, per se, but it might push Mato into digging deeper without EI’s help or permission, if he wasn’t already. I looked up the number to Darkness police department and dialed it on my cell.
“Hello, this is the Darkness Police Department. I’m Officer Chapman. How can I help you?” said a man.
I looked outside. The computer said it was six-thirty at night, but in June six-thirty meant Mato wouldn’t be up for a while.
“Hi, this is Raina Kirkland. I have some information I would like Sheriff Mato to look over. Could someone put it on his desk if I fax it over?” I asked, trying to make myself sound older, more mature.
“Sure ma’am,” said Officer Chapman. “Do you need our fax number?”
I had their website up on my monitor. “Nope, I’m staring at it right now, thanks though.”
“All right, we’ll be waiting for your fax. Have a nice day,” he said before hanging up. I faxed everything. Emailing everything would have been easier for me, but it’s been my experience that the older vampires aren’t usually tech-literate.
PARTY TIME
IT WAS DARK by the time I got to the Bastion, and vamps were everywhere. Most of them were dressed provocatively in lots of leather, silk, chains. There was a lot of exposed skin. I walked by one couple arguing in the lobby, a male vampire in ass-less chaps and his human lover. The human was scared and angry. The human’s thoughts barged into my mind so loud and fast I couldn’t stop them, “I hate this place! I hate it! He betrayed me. Why?! For him? I can’t take this.”
“Alistair is tearing us apart!” the woman yelled. “Why can’t you see that?”
“He’s my master. You can’t understand what that means,” the vampire roared.
“Yeah, I understand. It means that you’re his fucking slave!”
The vampire had nothing to say to that. He just stormed off. She screamed in frustration before she, too, stormed off. I had to physically shake myself to rid myself of their strong emotions. They clung to me like a spider’s webbing. If my empathic abilities were going to be that strong I really had to start watching where I was walking.
When I came to the classroom there was a note tacked to the door.
“Class Delayed, One Hour,” I read aloud.
“Hello, Raina,” said Charley from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Damn vampires, such show offs.
“That’s not nice,” said Charley, reading my thoughts presumably. I shook my head. I guess mind reading was the most common skill gained from the infection.
I sighed, “Where are you?”
I didn’t feel like being played with. I was more than a little disappointed about the delay. I hoped it wouldn’t eat into Damon’s after-class time. I wanted to ask him if he’d come up with any answers to what’s happening to me. Damn it.
“Here,” Charley said. He stepped out of shadows, slow and all predator-serious faced. It was cliché, and I had to laugh just a little. His eyes and posture softened a bit. A laugh was obviously not what he expected my reaction to be. Poor guy.
His hair was long and full of braids. He was dressed in all black: a tight black shirt and jeans, and a spiked collar. Without the baggy hoody I could see his tattoos. He walked like a model, every move planned and well executed. His hips rotated slightly as he walked in such a fashion that the length of his legs was very noticeable. He caught me staring and I blushed. He flashed me a confident smirk.
“Is there a law somewhere that says all vampires have to walk like super models?” I asked.
“Not that I know of,” he smiled down at me. It was a charming smile.
“Good, because I can’t pull that off.”
“Pulling isn’t needed. All vampires are graceful.”
“Yeah, they say the same thing about elves, yet here I am—,” I hid my hands in the fabric of my wrap skirt, a nervous gesture.
Charley’s eyes rolled up toward the ceiling and he smiled. “I’m glad class is delayed.” His smile grew wider, revealing perfect white teeth that could do so much damage, damage I had seen and experienced firsthand.
“Okay, well, have fun.” I turned around to get back to the elevator. I was going to wait in my car.
“Hey! Hey!” he called after me. “I want to take you somewhere.” He closed the distance between us, and pushed the button for the elevator.
“Where?” I asked.
“A birthday party.”
The elevator was full of preternaturals. Big shocker that. I gave the elevator attendant a mean look as Charley and I squeezed in. He didn’t pay me any attention. If he remembered me from last night, it didn’t show.
“Top floor, Teddy!” Charley yelled.
“Whose birthday is it?” I asked.
“Someone you know,” was all he said.
“Someone I know, huh?” That did narrow the list. I didn’t know too many people who belonged to the Bastion.
“Yup.” He gave me a sly smirk.
“Any hints?”
“Nope.”
Hmm. Vampires often celebrated the day they were turned into a vampire as their birthday. I only knew a handful of vampires, but Charley might have assumed I knew more than I did. It couldn’t be Seth’s birthday. His was January eleventh, just a couple days after Tristan’s birthday.
The elevator door opened and all the nymphs got off. All the nymphs I hadn’t noticed were there in the first place. Damn, they were good at hiding. I bet they’re highly sought after for spying and whatnot. They could look like normal humans if they chose to, but in their natural form their skin had the rainbow shine of oil. It came in every shade, from pearly white to a rich black.
Stop after stop the elevator emptied until it was only me, Charley and another vampire. She wore black leather from head to toe, a tight leather choker, a studded leather corset, tight leather shorts and thigh high boots. Her skin was like rice paper, probably bleached. The only color on her was her baby blue eyes and red lip stick. I felt like plain-Jane standing next to her. She gave me a joyful smile that didn’t match the anger in her eyes. It was like the top half of her face didn’t agree with the bottom half, an unnerving sight.
She leaned against the wall of the elevator and flicked her small pink tongue against one of her fangs. The fang stood out drastically white against her blood red lips.
I was fidgeting in my purse. I didn’t suppose Charley would let me go pick up a present for the birthday girl or boy first. Of course, what exactly do you give a vampire to celebrate the day they turned…a fresh goat for sentiments sake?
The doors opened for the last time, “We-r-re her-r-re,” said Charlie in an eerie voice that mocked that little girl from the movie, Poltergeist.
The
elevator doors opened to a ballroom. The ceiling was a gilded glass dome, which could have been guessed from the outside. The lighting was painfully unflattering for the amount of nudity and violence. Granted, I’d never been to a vampire birthday party, but somehow this wasn’t what I was expecting; frenzied sex, feedings and violence.
I stepped back. “Take me back, Charley. I don’t want to be here.”
“Come on Raina, you’re going to be a vampire eventually, this is how Bastion Fatal parties.”
“What ever happened to cake and dancing?” I asked. I knew my face was empty of everything but horror, sheer horror.
The she-vamp pushed me out of the elevator and let it close behind us with Charley inside.
“Charley!” I screamed. I tried to get back to the elevator, but the vamp blocked me. Fighting against a vampire was pointless. They’re strong enough to throw a car the length of a football field. I was not going to make this vampire do anything she didn’t want to do.
“If you want dancing, go no farther!” she growled before throwing me into a group of men.
I landed in the arms of a mostly naked man. He smiled down at me, and held onto me tight. It took effort not to scream. I wiggled myself free of his sweaty embrace. The men called after me but I ignored them, and eventually they gave up.
“Damn you, Charley!” I yelled into the crowd.
My eyes couldn’t or wouldn’t focus. It was all a blur, but I could still hear skin slapping skin, metal clashing, crazed laughter, and screams meant for both pain and pleasure. It was loud over the soft harmony of the harps and flutes. With my hands over my ears I stood up to search over the sea of bodies for the elevator. I forced myself to see beyond the carnage and sex. Somehow I had gotten myself lost in the crowed, surrounded by vamps hacking at each other with swords.
I couldn’t believe Seth could be a part of something like this. I mean, he wasn’t exactly the perfect role model but mass orgies, gladiator styled fighting? No way!
