Dark Spark: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 2)

by Ahava Trivedi

  There was the muscular figure of a man who stood out to me because the street outside the academy was empty, although I could instantly tell that it wasn’t him calling me. I didn’t know him but sensed he was human and was watching me from what he probably thought was a safe distance. Had he known vampires at all, he’d have known that there was no such thing as safety or distance if he bumped into the wrong one.

  I assumed the stranger to be a supe tourist. Someone who had heard about a vampire-infested academy in the heart of the Big Easy. But he took no pictures. Just kept standing there, neither advancing nor backing away once he knew I’d seen him. Something about him made me uncomfortable. What did he really want?

  “I’m so glad you came,” said a voice, just a few feet from me. It was Sophie-Anne.

  “You,” I said, trying to cover up that she’d made me jump. My urgency ceased as I realized she was the one that had been reaching out to me. “What do you want?” I asked.

  “You have no idea how happy it makes me that you used your vampire instincts so well,” said Sophie-Anne beaming with excitement.

  “Do you know him?” I asked, ignoring her and turning again to peer across the street in the darkness. The figure was gone.

  “Know who?” said Sophie-Anne, “I haven’t been standing here long, just a few minutes.” She gazed around obliviously before turning back to me.

  “You need to pay more attention to your surroundings,” I said, still feeling unnerved. And that I was criticizing the awareness of a full-blooded Sanguine, made me feel I’d been around Duquette too much.

  “Noted,” replied Sophie-Anne with a slight smile. In the night, her skin had a pearlescent quality. Her eyes gleamed in the night as I took her in. Her beautifully ringleted hair fell past her shoulders with a volume that made her free and wild. Unlike my hair which was haphazard by comparison, not curly and not straight. I self-consciously tamed a strand, tucking it behind my ear. “You look so much like your father,” she said staring with equal intensity at me.

  “Thanks,” I said, without thinking. I broke my gaze and looked away. It was all so awkward. And yet, there was a definite part of me that wanted to know more. “Do you want to go for a walk?” I asked.

  “I’d love to,” answered Sophie-Anne. She took my arm and steered us up Ursulines Avenue. The night was cool but I hardy felt it. As we walked further away from Bloodline Academy, the sounds of music and impassioned conversations emanated from the restaurants and bars. Everything was still very much open for those wanting to party it up all night whether or not they were generally nocturnal.

  “There are so many parts of my life that are a complete blank,” I said. It was something I’d felt all my life and yet I hadn’t known it – not fully – until now.

  “I’m here now,” said Sophie-Anne in an assuring voice that had the opposite effect.

  “But are you?” I said, louder than I meant to, “Can I walk into the academy and say to my profs, newsflash you self-serving freaks: my mom, who left me to fend for myself as a baby is now here, so I’m not as lonely as you thought?” I freed my arm from hers.

  “I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you,” tried Sophie-Anne.

  “You don’t have to. It’s as hard today. Even harder. The principal – who as you’ve told me is a close relative of yours – wants me to turn or rather, kill my best friend. They’re calling it loyalty.”

  “I feared this,” said Sophie-Anne, sadly. “It’s always been this way, loyalty above all else.

  What do you need me to do?”

  “What can you do?” I asked, surprised by her offer. We hit Bourbon Street and continued walking, though the volume of noise had gone up substantially, as it was crammed.

  “I can strive to protect your friend,” said Sophie-Anne, “if she’s the one Aramastus has his sights on, then she’s in danger.”

  Despite the jubilant crowds of tourists and the self-absorbed werewolves we’d passed, I felt on edge. Maybe it was nothing more than my imagination but I’d felt watched again. It was reminiscent of the time I’d been new at Bloodline Academy. Only these weren’t vamp students. The few pairs of eyes I’d caught staring at us, had definitely not belonged to vampires.

  “I don’t think she’s the one in danger,” I confided.

  “Then who is?”

  “I’m not sure. Possibly me. Possibly my friends who study with me. Possibly even my boyfriend. And there’s something else,” I said, letting my guard down.

  “What?” asked Sophie-Anne coming closer to me and bending down slightly to meet my height.

  “Do you know about the Dark Spark?” I said. Her eyes widened.

  “How do you know about it?” said Sophie-Anne, answering my question. She stopped walking and before I could say anything, she gestured for me to be quiet, looking around. “Okay,” she said, urging me to tell her.

  “If you really want to help, I want you to answer my question before I answer yours.”

  “Alright,” she said, exhaling out some tension, “The Dark Spark signified great power and became a tool of great danger. All I know is that it gave Elizabeth Bathory an immense amount of power when she was alive but because of what she did with her power, a Crystal Witch named Esmeralda cursed it so it would kill any vampire that touches it, in an instant.”

  “Have you ever seen it?” I asked.

  “No!” said Sophie-Anne, astounded. “Your grandmother, Lena Bathory passed down the story to me when I was a girl. After I met your father, I cut off quite completely from my side of the family. I wasn’t a particularly involved member of the clan to begin with.”

  “Unlike your brother,” I said. Not for shock value or to be a drama queen but because I wanted to know more.

  “He was always a very dark one,” said Sophie-Anne bitterly. “He joined the Dark Legion at an early age. Not uncommon for a Bathory. But there was something that went above and beyond callous inside of him.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked clearing my throat.

  “I didn’t stick around to find out. We were the ones on the run,” said Sophie-Anne, gesturing at herself and me. It had never struck me that my childhood had been spent running away. Shunned, yes but not a fugitive. “Did you never wonder why you didn’t stay in any one place too long, when you were growing up?” asked Sophie-Anne, gently.

  “No,” was all I could muster. I knew she was right. All my stays in various foster houses and even countries had been fairly brief. “How did you do it?”

  “I tracked you in each place. I watched the humans closely, carefully. And when I got news of a threat in the area, I moved you on – basic compulsion. They saw me, heeded my instructions but never remembered any of it.”

  “But what about Lorna and Babette?”

  “That wasn’t planned, as such. I knew that if they adopted you, the rules of the game would change completely.”

  “Wait, did you ask them to adopt me?” I croaked out. With each answer I was finally getting, the world I’d thought I knew, existed less and less.

  “Not exactly. I couldn’t very well have walked up to them and said, please adopt my daughter, she’s an excellent Crystal Witch with a lot of promise but she’s also a vampire.”

  “They would have said no,” I said it for her, “just like they eventually did.”

  “I laid out a path filled with signs for them,” said Sophie-Anne ignoring my comment, “I felt an affinity with them because Cassander was from the Quartz line of magic too.”

  “Well, it’s too bad that compulsion didn’t work on them as they didn’t hesitate for a second to give me up,” I said, my abandonment issues coming up once again, like a monster breaking the waves, always waiting and ready to pounce.

  “They couldn’t help it. Once St. Erzsebet’s Academy got wind of your existence, resisting your admission there would have been akin to marking you and your coven as a target.”

  “Nadasdy,” I said.

  “The Academy,” corr
ected Sophie-Anne. “There is some very old and dark magic that resides within the walls of St. Erzsebet’s. It’s not about a single professor or even the principal picking you as a student but the school itself.”

  “I had no idea,” I said.

  “Please, take these,” said Sophie-Anne. She reached into her handbag and pulled out the photo of Cassander Quartz and the crystal that she’d shown me the first time I’d met her.

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking at both objects and truly not knowing how I was supposed to feel.

  “They belong to you now,” said Sophie-Anne holding them out for me. “Please be careful. And if you ever need me, just call out for me and I’ll be there. I’m tired of hiding in the shadows.”

  I nodded and we parted ways. I got the feeling that I’d have to look out for Sophie-Anne when we did meet up. Something told me her brother – my uncle – was still out there and he was hunting her.

  Chapter 21

  “This is good news! Isn’t it?” said Natalie as the three of us made our way back from Devin’s class. It had been increasingly focussed on how the Blood Countess had been tragically robbed of her reign but there was never a mention of the Dark Spark. I wondered if my other classmates knew and it was a hidden part of vampire history? Not talked about but taken for granted.

  “I think so,” I smiled. She was talking about my meeting with Sophie-Anne. “It’s just so weird!” I said, louder as we reached our dorm. I handed Natalie the photo of Cassander Quartz, my late father.

  “You look just like him!” announced Natalie, holding the picture up and taking a better look.

  “Can I see?” asked Valenthia. Natalie passed her the photo and she looked at it, surveying me with a satisfied nod.

  “All these years I was a lost, insignificant orphan. And now, I technically have a mom!”

  “You just called her your mom!” Natalie and Valenthia screamed together. I hid my face in my hands. It felt good but embarrassing. I still hadn’t dealt with it, far from – and yet there was something exciting about it. Weirdly re-assuring.

  “Can you imagine? You could spend spring break with her!” said Natalie.

  “Maybe,” I nodded. I couldn’t wait to share the news with Safi properly. I hadn’t yet done so because I’d been paranoid that she’d also pick up on the rest of my ancestry. And I was ashamed to be a Bathory. We went into our room and straight to the fridge.

  “I’m starving,” said Natalie.

  “Me too!” agreed Valenthia and I.

  “I don’t care what lover-boy – by which I mean Moldark – says, Devin bores me to death. The past is past, why dwell on it?” said Natalie.

  “Stop it!” I protested. That reminded me, I had to check in on Ulric. There was no time to message Safi as tonight was the night that Moldark and I were supposed to discuss our combat skills – or compare notes, as he’d put it – but I had time for a bottle of blood and to connect into Ulric’s mind before I left. “Just give me a minute.”

  I sat down on my bed and focussed my mind. I gasped as I picked up on Ulric fighting. Then I felt a small amount of victory and pride coming from him. He’d been commended for learning a new strategy and fighting form. He felt happy. Part of his new pack, the Silver Shadows. Like he was becoming part of Superno. He felt a rush of acceptance. Like he belonged in a way he’d never felt before. I smiled, basking in the feeling. I knew there and then that getting him admitted to Superno had been the best and only thing to do.

  “Here,” said Valenthia, emptying her bag on my bed, “I picked these up from the common room.” She handed Natalie a bottle of blood and opened one up for herself.

  “Hey! Where’s mine?” I asked, seeing she’d only brought two.

  “You need to save your appetite for the blood bar,” scolded Natalie.

  “I need to be well-fed to be relaxed,” I said walking right into it. “Not that I’m not relaxed right now.”

  “Of course not,” smirked Valenthia. “Those places are the rage. He’s probably paid an arm and a leg to get two spots – and that too, at night. He must really like you.”

  “Totally,” nodded Natalie, exchanging looks with Valenthia.

  “Or he just really likes himself and is taking me there to show off,” I tried.

  “You better get going or you’ll be late!” said Natalie, shooing me off my own bed.

  “Wait, you’re not going in that, are you?” Valenthia raised an eyebrow.

  “No!” I said, with no real idea what one was meant to wear to a blood bar, “But I’m not dressing up or anything.”

  Valenthia sprung up and threw open my wardrobe and dresser so fast that it felt like she was raiding the room. “These jeans,” she said, after she’d rooted to the bottom of one of my drawers. Then she went through another one and dug out a black t-shirt. “Too loose, we want him to enjoy your curves.”

  “No, we don’t!” I said, grabbing the jeans and top.

  “Nothing impressive in terms of jackets,” Valenthia said, continuing to go through my clothes. “I know Natalie has a short, cute leather one she could lend you for tonight.” She looked to Natalie.

  “Sure! I’ll go get it!” said Natalie and disappeared into her bedroom.

  “You should wear your hair up tonight!” said Valenthia.

  “Ooh, great idea!” Natalie squealed, returning with the jacket. I had to admit, it was cute.

  “Guys, I’m fine! It’s not a date!” I said taking the jacket from Natalie and thanking her. I went and changed in the bathroom and headed out before I invited any other remarks from my friends.

  I made my way out of the academy through the main gates. Moldark had probably taken the tunnels but I still didn’t know them that well and I couldn’t see their appeal. At least once outside the gates of Bloodline Academy, there was fresh air. And on most nights, there was the light of the moon. Underground, it was dark and although the air had a chill to it, there was nothing fresh about it.

  As I walked, I sensed that someone was following me. It was confirmed because when I stopped, whoever it was, stopped too. I focussed on the figure and easily picked up that it was a human man. I turned and began walking towards him, instantly knowing that it was the same person who’d been waiting outside the gates of the academy when I’d gone to see Sophie-Anne.

  “Can I help you?” I asked, loudly enough that a few others in the street, a mix of supes and humans looked at me and then at the man. The stranger began to walk away and as I took quick strides to follow him, he broke into a run. “You do know that if I decide to stream, it’s all over for you, right?” I called behind him, to scare him off. He kept running and within a few seconds he turned a corner and I could no longer see him.

  Feeling cranky and totally done with having to watch myself at every step, I streamed the rest of the way to the blood bar where I was meeting Moldark. I had no idea what to expect but luckily, as I approached the bar, I saw Moldark waiting outside. It was a sleek establishment called ‘Blood Brothers.’

  “You made it,” Moldark smiled. He looked smart in his button-down shirt and navy jeans. I found myself glad that I’d changed out of my academy uniform after all.

  “Yeah, I said I would,” I said, trying to check out the inside of the bar and seeing absolutely nothing through the large tinted windows.

  “This bar is a little more upscale than some of the others. It’s owned by two Sanguine brothers,” Moldark informed me, offering his arm so we could go in.

  “Sweet,” I said. Moldark glanced at me with a slightly crooked smile.

  “Two under the name, Whitlock,” he instructed the hostess, who nodded obligingly and ushered us to follow her. We were seated at a cozy table with a couple of leather chairs.

  “Do you come here often?” I asked, as I took the place in. I’d thought we’d walk into something of a biker bar thanks to the name, which had been hugely misleading. Instead, the décor was something of a gothic-chic that was subtle enough to make the place edgy
but sophisticated.

  “Only if it’s a special occasion,” said Moldark. Crap, he did think it was a date.

  “We should talk about class,” I said, browsing the menu in front of me without really reading it.

  “What do you think?” asked Moldark, picking up his own menu. He completely ignored my comment. If anything, he was amused by my urgency.

  “I don’t know, I haven’t been to a blood bar before.”

  “Oh, in that case, I’m glad I’m your first,” he said with a suggestive smirk. What was going on? He was the most popular vampire in our academy and anyone would be proud to date him. That much was clear by the way all the girls watched him, hung on his every word. And yet, since coming to Bloodline Academy the only one I’d seen him show any interest in, was himself. Maybe he was long-distance with someone. I wouldn’t bring it up. That would be a sure way for him to think I was interested in him like that. Which I wasn’t.

  “How do we order?” I asked. The menu looked quite complicated but one thing I twigged immediately as I read it, was that it was broken out by the different blood groups. I imagined how grossed out Safi would be if she ever saw this. I bet even Ulric would find this intense. “Are there good or bad blood groups?” I asked, trying to hide my anxiety which had nothing to do with the blood.

  “The short answer would be no,” said Moldark, as our eyes met. “It’s not about what’s good or bad but more a matter of personal taste. We can drink any kind we like. At the academy, they give us a mix of them all in each serving.”

  “What do you recommend?” I asked, starting to feel hungry. Especially as Natalie and Valenthia had insisted I came partially starved.

  “How about a selection – like a taster’s menu?” asked Moldark, already gesturing for a waiter to come over.

  “Sure,” I said. Moldark picked about ten different kinds and sent the waiter away.

  “We’ve never really spoken, apart from class stuff,” he said, pulling in closer to listen in the din. Thanks to vampire hearing, he wouldn’t have had to.