by VJ Erickson
***
Eric approached the dean cautiously. Eric had been flippant the last time they had met, but he had felt much more confident then and in command of his encounters. Now he remembered what it felt like to be intimidated by authority. It was not a feeling he had ever enjoyed, but the combination of his newfound vulnerability and the dean's dour personality made this feel especially unpleasant.
"Hurry up, young man," said the dean. "Just because I'm immortal doesn't mean that I have more hours in the day than any of you children. Your excruciatingly languid pace is wasting the time that I do have."
Eric hesitated. He hadn't realized that the dean was immortal. When Eric was a vampire himself, he was quick to pick out that trait in others, but he hadn't seen anything unusual about the dean when they had first met.
Eric looked at the dean's eyes and concentrated, trying to see past what he assumed must be a glamour. That was much easier to do when he was a vampire, but he knew it was possible for humans to do, and he thought that if any human would have a knack, certainly he would. There was no glamour that he could detect, however. As far as Eric could tell, the dean's eyes were normal.
"Oh stop squinting and get over here, you halfwit," the dean said, disrupting his concentration. "There's no glamour, if that's what you're looking for."
If the dean wasn't using a glamour, Eric wondered how he even knew about them. The dean did say he was immortal, but Eric wasn't aware of any immortals that didn't bear the curse, and he didn't know of any accursed that didn't have the mark of the black eyes. Then again, he didn't know many vampires that announced themselves as immortal to humans, either. Eric obeyed the dean, but he approached with an even more elevated sense of caution.
"Would you just hurry up? I've met you twice now, and you've already nearly drained every ounce of patience I have in me."
Eric had hoped the dean didn't remember their first encounter, but he now realized that it was neither forgotten nor forgiven. He didn't waste any more time in approaching the dean.
"Finally. So you're human," the dean said, appraising Eric from head to toe.
Eric didn't know what to say to this. Was it even a question?
"But you shouldn't be," the dean continued.
Eric agreed on that point, but he still didn't know what to say.
"Well?" said the dean.
"Sir?"
"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?"
"About... being human?"
"You are either too stupid to infer my point, or you think I am too stupid to make it. Either way is... irritating."
"I'm sorry, I don't..."
"Enough!" the dean shouted and knocked over the podium next to him.
Eric took a startled step backwards.
"Oh, you mean instead of a vampire?" Eric said, deciding to get to the point.
"And what else would I mean?"
"I..."
"Don't answer that. You're already wasting enough of my time. How did you undo the curse?"
"I didn't. I... I mean, I didn't undo it."
"No, you didn't. I can see that you're not lying. But it has been undone. How?"
"I don't... I don't know."
"You're lying!" the dean shouted while kicking the podium across the room, sending it airborne.
It fell to the ground with a loud crack. Eric noticed that it flew quite a distance for being kicked by a middle-aged professor. Vampires did not possess enhanced strength, so far as Eric knew, but this man seemed to be much stronger than his appearance would suggest.
"Well, I mean, I don't exactly know," Eric said.
"Yes, yes, you are too dim to comprehend the method of the change, but surely you know the mechanism of the delivery?"
"The mechanism of... what?"
"I'm asking you WHO did this, you mortal sack of waste."
"Oh. I... I mean, I don't know anything, uh... sir."
The dean punched the blackboard next to him, and a crack ran down the center.
"You're lying again."
The dean seemed quite certain he knew when Eric was telling the truth or not, and Eric had to admit that he had been deadly accurate so far. Also appearing to be deadly accurate were the dean's unnaturally strong arms and legs. Eric took a step backwards and scanned the room, making note of the nearest exits.
"You really are exhausting, you know that?" the dean said. "If you don't tell me now, I'm going to crack your skull like I did this board."
Eric backed away another step and said, "It was a... a girl. I don't know her name, though."
"A lie." The dean smiled. "It was that girl, wasn't it? Taylor Bain."
"What? No... It wasn't her."
"Enough. You're still lying, but it is of no matter. At least you've done well enough to lie with specificity. Saves me time. Do you know what she did?"
"I..."
"And before you lie to me one more time, might I suggest to you that your odds of leaving this room with limbs intact are greatly increased by telling me the truth."
"I... well, I mean, I don't know exactly what happened and I mean it, but..."
The dean's hands clenched into a fist.
"But uh... um..." Eric continued "...it happened when I tasted her blood. I mean, it happened right after that. So I guess her blood..."
"Enough," said the dean, holding his hand up to silence Eric. "That will suffice without your inane guesses. You've done well, boy. Or as well as you are capable of, given your limited faculties."
Eric was about to respond, but the dean pushed past him towards the exit. The dean gave what appeared to be a careless nudge, but Eric went flying into the seats with a thud. He barely had time to pull his arm out from being wedged between the seats before he heard the door slam.
Great, he thought. He should warn Taylor. But of what? That the dean was a super-strength-having lie detector who may or may not be after her? She was already hardly inclined to listen to him, much less believe something like that, and he didn't blame her. Maybe she would listen to Joseph, though.
He pulled out his cellphone and hit the speed dial for his brother's cell. Joseph didn't pick up, and it went to voicemail. Feeling helpless and human, Eric fell back into the seats.
