Vamplayers

by Rusty Fischer

  “Is that what he told you?” Zander says as if I’m the most clueless chick on the planet.

  Who knows? Maybe he has a point.

  “Man, that’s a new one. No, he’s suburban as they come. But don’t feel bad. Smarter girls have fallen for his Euro-trash shtick.”

  “What?” I gasp, truly horrified.

  “Let me guess,” Grover says, and now it’s a game for him—for both of them. “The reason you couldn’t hang with us for the first feature of our all-night Zombie Fest was that Tristan ‘Pennsylvania’ Winters asked you for a picnic. Am I right?”

  Oh, God.

  “With his picnic basket, I bet,” Zander says, the ball spinning crookedly on his finger.

  No.

  “Full of all kinds of imported meats and cheeses.” It can’t be.

  “What is it, Grover? Blood sausage and head cheese?”

  It just can’t be.

  “Blood cheese,” Grover corrects, wagging a finger at him. “That’s even grosser than head cheese.”

  ”No, it’s not!”

  “Yes, Lily, it is. Please. And then, what, blood wine to seal the deal?” Zander says knowingly.

  “How? What? How do you guys know all this?”

  Zander lets the ball drop to the court, fiddling with it under his feet as he strikes a soccer stance. “We work in the kitchen, remember? Who do you think orders that crap for him?”

  “Yeah,” Grover says, “those flat-screen TVs and limited edition X-wing models don’t come cheap, you know.”

  “I-I-I don’t understand.”

  “It’s simple,” Zander explains, sitting on the basketball, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He looks up at me, half bemused, half superior. “Tristan can’t order the stuff and have it shipped directly to his room. It’s considered contraband. If Headmistress Holly finds out, well, she could have him shipped home to Pennsylvania. He has us order it through the kitchen, even pays us up front. When it comes, we stow it in the walk-in cooler and let him know about it. When he shows up to retrieve it, he pays us fifty dollars each for our troubles. Girl, he’s been running that scam since sophomore year.”

  Grover shakes his head.

  Zander stands, the ball shooting out from under him, rolling into the murk.

  Both boys ignore it.

  Game over, I suppose, in more ways than one.

  “We expected more from you,” Grover says. “You being a woman of excellent taste and all.”

  Zander nods, long arms crossed.

  “Taste?” says a voice from the darkness. Bianca steps from the shadows, clutching Zander’s basketball between two pale hands.

  She tosses it at him so hard it takes everything he has to catch it, making a sickening thwack.

  I catch him shaking his hands loose to lessen the pain.

  “This girl has about as much taste as that basketball,” she says.

  From either side of her, Cara and Alice step out from the shadows, cackling like robots: Bianca’s personal version of canned laughter.

  “Hey,” Grover says, rousing himself to stand and join us at the fringes of the tiny basketball court, “where’d you guys come from?”

  No one responds.

  I don’t think he expected an answer.

  Panic grips me as I consider the situation. In an almost perfect triangulation, the girls have managed to trap us without my even realizing they were doing it.

  Cara blocks the woods. We can’t escape that way.

  Alice blocks the only door into the school. We can’t run there.

  Bianca paces around the perimeter of the basketball court, hissing like a banshee, baring her eight-inch fangs.

  “W-w-what are those?” Grover clings to Zander.

  “L-l-lily,” Zander sputters. “It’s still too early for Halloween. Tell your girl to lose her costume before she freaks someone out.”

  “Too late.” Grover’s voice quivers.

  The girls patrol their appointed posts, pacing like tigers in their invisible cages.

  “I’ll explain later,” I say to the boys, whose arms cluster around my neck like pearl necklaces. “Whatever I do, just follow me. Zander, hand me the ball.”

  He does, his hands trembling.

  The ball is big and fat in my fingers. “Speaking of taste,” I say, aiming, “choke on this.” I launch it with every fiber of my vampire being. It sails through the dark with sickening speed. For once, it lands true, lodging in Bianca’s extra-long, extra-dangling fangs, where it sticks, like a double shot of taffy, leaving her looking like a sad, deflating jack-o’-lantern as she tries to shake it loose.

  I know it won’t last long.

  Cara and Alice approach, cutting our time even shorter.

  I see the light shining in my fourth-story room and shout, “Climb!”

  Chapter 25

  The wall is made of rough-hewn stone, with plenty of jutting crags and hidden handholds. The boys struggle with each foothold like it’s their first, legs shaking, feet slipping above me, pushing pebble dust and shoelaces into my eyes.

  Both legs firmly planted, I try to hoist Grover’s warm, double-wide rear up to the next handhold. “Reach, Grover. You have to help me! This is serious.”

  “I know this is serious,” he shouts.

  Eight feet below me the girls circle, smiling like feral cats watching mice scamper out of a drainpipe.

  “This is seriously hard for a man my size.”

  “Okay, well, if these girls grab you, you’re going to be about half your size without even trying.”

  “How could they do that?” Zander is nearly to the second-floor landing. “They’re way down—”

  Now, just as I’ve been expecting this whole time, Alice and Cara float up until their momentum runs out and they cling effortlessly to the stone wall.

  “Uh, Lily, why can your girlfriends fly?”

  “They’re not flying.” I grunt, literally shoving Grover onto the second-floor landing.

  Grover wheezes, back against the wall, belly trembling. He leans over as far as the thin ledge will allow, gasping for breath.

  Zander climbs for the third. He’s getting the hang of this, a natural with his long arms and legs, muscles hard and limber from years spent washing dishes and carting bus trays and peeling endless, towering boxes of lettuce.

  Inside a random window in our path, a young couple shed clothes like snakes shed their skin, oblivious of us.

  “Not flying? Uh, could have fooled me.” Zander nearly loses his footing.

  I hiss at Cara and Alice, but I’m no match for their double-long fangs and wicked-dense claws.

  They linger at the periphery, slashing at Grover’s shirt but not touching his skin, tugging on Zander’s shoes but only halfheartedly. It’s like they’re toying with us, making a game of this.

  Zander continues to climb even as Alice reaches ever so playfully for his T-shirt, his soft human skin.

  Grover whimpers as Cara’s claws slice like butter through a back belt loop.

  At least she manages the impossible, urging him to the next foothold without my help.

  The sound of breathing is heavy, the scent of human fear and perspiration filling the air like a heady, not unpleasant perfume.

  I snatch at Cara’s feet, but she scrambles out of reach, hissing at me with those lethal-looking fangs, her face a stranger’s, a mask of animal, vampiric, immortal rage.

  Alice swoops to defend her.

  I swat at her long, graceful thighs, almost losing my balance. I cling to the wall with only my feet for leverage.

  My Sisters dangle, laughing, hissing, enjoying this, one keeping me occupied while the other harasses Grover or Zander or both.

  We’re almost there: the third floor behind us, the fourth out of reach.

  What are they waiting for?

  They could slice us to bits anytime they choose.

  So why aren’t they?

  Alice and Cara hover, harassing the boys, but
where is their ringleader, the Head Witch in Charge?

  I look down, but she is no longer standing on the ground.

  I look left. Not there.

  I look right. Not there either.

  I sense a presence and turn just in time to see Bianca floating behind me.

  “Climb!” I urge, voice hoarse with panic. I’m eager to get to the relative safety of my room as quickly as possible. (Yeah, like glass and walls and doors will stop them.)

  Bianca is near but not near, there but not there. Like the other two, she toys with me, hissing in my ear, moving out of range when I swat at her. Flitting into view, then out of range, like a giant hummingbird.

  With fangs.

  And claws.

  On crack.

  Grover’s sweat drips onto my forehead, and I groan, shoving him up to the next foothold, then one more.

  My own fangs are out now, my claws scraping against his sneakers, slicing the double cuffs of his (very) relaxed fit jeans. If he’s surprised by my strength, he doesn’t let on. He simply scrambles, whimpering, as I heft him up, up, higher and higher.

  Lucky me, all the effort has loosened his already generous jeans to the point that not only can I see the pattern of his size XXL Green Lantern boxer shorts, but the plumber’s crack they’re supposed to be hiding!

  None the wiser, Zander is nearly to the fourth floor.

  Seeing him, Alice races to block the window to our room.

  I climb to my right.

  Cara tousles Grover’s hair.

  I leap from the wall, pushing Alice into the air along with me.

  She hisses violently, an animal noise, retaliating with a swift swipe of her claws at my ankle. Luckily I chose to wear high-tops to tonight’s basketball game. The canvas and rubber soles tear, but I don’t feel a claw on skin or bone.

  She draws back for another swipe.

  Zander yanks open the window and dives inside my suite.

  Alice is close, ready to leap through, when I kick her out into the night, reach down, and literally pull Grover into the air. He dangles momentarily, like a wrecking ball swaying on the end of a crane.

  Cara grabs his large ankles in a human tug-of-war.

  “Release him.” Bianca’s voice is fierce.

  Cara immediately does.

  I use the momentum to toss Grover through the window.

  He lands with a groan, slamming into the outdated couch and moving it halfway across the room on its rusty claw feet.

  I stand on the landing, guarding the window, ready to do battle until the end, but they just cling to the wall, smiling, laughing.

  “What do you want?” I snap, one leg now inside my room, the other on the landing just in case.

  “Just to be left alone.” Bianca crosses her arms, her long, curved fangs dangling past her chin, saber-toothed tiger-style.

  And she hovers and hovers and hovers some more.

  But … that’s impossible.

  Only one type of vampire can hover that long: a Royal.

  Only one type of vampire has fangs that long: a Royal.

  Born, not made, a descendent of the Originals.

  But it can’t be.

  Unless … unless Tristan is a Royal and when he turned Bianca, she got the lion’s share of his Royal powers.

  And where is he anyway?

  Why is he letting the girls do all the dirty work for him?

  Usually a Vamplayer is more protective of the first girl he turns and rushes in like crazy to defend her if and when we show up.

  But now Tristan’s MIA.

  “Thanks for all your help,” I hiss to Cara and Alice, who barely acknowledge me.

  “Do what she says,” Cara warns, not a trace of concern in her voice. “It’s for the best.”

  “For whom?” I ask, although I already know.

  Alice answers, “For us.”

  “We used to be us,” I say.

  Alice shakes her head. “Not anymore. Now we’re us, and you’re just like them” She points to Zander and Grover huddling in the center of our dorm suite, drenched in sweat, the bottom of Zander’s T-shirt splattered with tiny drops of blood, Grover tugging at the torn belt loops of his already saggy jeans.

  I climb into the room. Both feet on the hardwood floor, both hands on the bottom of the window. “Now what?” I ask, trying not to sound helpless as my mind reels.

  “Don’t wait up,” Bianca says and floats to the ground, Cara and Alice scampering down the walls to join her.

  Chapter 26

  I slam the window shut and lock it tight.

  Grover gets the hint and slams the window nearest him. Zander picks up the chain and locks his window as well.

  I know it won’t do much good if they decide to attack for real this time, but I’ve been trained to do what I can do, and right now this is all I can do.

  But wait. There’s one thing left. One thing the girls haven’t counted on in their plan to corner us in my own dorm suite.

  While the boys try to catch their breath, I run to my bedroom. It’s deathly quiet and dark, but I don’t need a light to see it’s been ransacked since I was last here.

  At some point after I left the suite this morning to brush my teeth and get dressed in the communal bathroom, someone—or several someones—trashed my room.

  Completely.

  My dead heart sinks as I race to my toppled dresser. The drawers have been tossed aside, socks everywhere.

  I get on all fours near my nightstand, feeling underneath for the pager, the red button that goes straight to Dr. Haskins’ line and brings the Saviors running.

  I retrash the room, looking everywhere. It’s not where I left it, not even near where I left it. I look in the closet, rip up a few floorboards, toss open whatever drawers they didn’t, and still I know. Even as I’m looking, I know.

  The pager is gone.

  One of them, one of my Sisters, has it.

  They’re the only ones aware of it.

  The ultimate betrayal.

  I literally limp into the living room, sad beyond words, tired beyond definition.

  The boys pepper me with questions.

  “Lily?” Grover asks, arms crossed against his ample chest as if he’s caught a chill. “Why do your friends have fangs? And why can Bianca fly? And how did you push me up four flights of stone wall with your skinny old self?”

  I shake my head, beg forgiveness from Dr. Haskins, and say, “My friends, or should I say ex-friends, have fangs because they’re vampires. Bianca can fly because she’s been turned by a Royal, obviously, and has even more powers than the rest of us. And I can push you up four stories because, well, I’m a vampire too.”

  “Shut up!” He says it as if Zander’s just told him he scored a personal luncheon with George Lucas next weekend.

  What else can I do? We’re in it now. The assignment is ruined. Our cover, my cover, is blown.

  If Bianca hasn’t started turning the innocent, warm-blooded students of Nightshade into vampires yet, she soon will. Now that Cara and Alice have mutinied on my butt and gone all traitor on the mission, these two boys and I are the only thing preventing an all-out infestation.

  And trembling arm in arm, boys are exactly what they look like at the moment.

  “Zander,” I say firmly, shaking my head and drawing out my own fangs as proof. “I’m sorry, but that love nick last night? That came from these.”

  ”What? You said nothing happened last night.” Grover pushes him away, totally missing the point. “You lied to me, bro?”

  “Uh, Grover,” Zander says. “I think Lily being a vampire trumps your hurt feelings, ‘kay?”

  “I think you underestimate the pain of my hurt feelings, brother!”

  “Silence.” I hiss, fangs out and quivering, claws suddenly sharp and long. “Listen, and listen good. I am what’s known as a Sister, of the Sisterhood of Dangerous Girlfriends. My job is to come to schools like Nightshade, rout out the Vamplayer, and stop you all from getting turne
d.”

  “Sisterhood of Damaged What?” Grover trembles.

  “Dangerous Girlfriends.” I sigh, the adrenaline fading, the claws succumbing, the fangs subsiding. “Cara and Alice are Sisters too. Or at least they were until Bianca got to them.”

  “You mean, those girls who tried to attack us out there are your Sisters?”

  I nod. “Well, they used to be. We came here together to find the Vamplayer, but something happened. Either he turned them or he turned Bianca first and she did, but whatever it was, they’ve switched teams and—”

  ”What’s a Vamplayer?” Zander asks, still looking skeptical. And who could blame them? I’ve had decades to absorb this stuff. These two? They’re getting the condensed version in two minutes or less.

  “Just what it sounds like, I’m afraid. He’s part vampire, part player. His job is to seduce impressionable high school girls, turn them into vampires, and unleash them on a school, like rats on a ship, till it becomes totally infested.”

  Grover scratches his head, slumping on the couch, the night’s physical activity too much for his normally sedentary life. “Why does he need impressionable young girls to do all that? Why doesn’t he cut out the middleman and turn them all himself?”

  “He can’t. When a vampire turns someone, he loses some of his power. With every additional person he turns, he loses more power. But the first person he turns has the most power. Every time that person turns someone, he loses more.”

  “So, what?” Grover scratches his belly button. “If you were to turn me, or Zander here, you’d be a little weaker because of it?”

  I nod. “Right. Not much but a little. But if I were to turn this whole school or even this whole floor of kids, I’d be pretty much useless. Why do you think vampires aren’t always turning people left and right? They don’t want to lose all their power. And it’s even worse for a Royal because they have more power to lose.”

  “But if they have more power to lose,” Zander reasons, “then isn’t there more to go around?”

  “You’d think so but no. The more power a vampire has, the more power he gives away each time he turns someone.”

  “That’s why Bianca is like a vampire on steroids?” Zander paces between the couch and coffee table. “Because a Royal turned her?”