“It’s called Zipping, Dirtbag. Well, I zipped, and you came along for the ride.”
“Well, don’t ever fucking zip me again —"
Chuckles sounded around us, and a woman exclaimed, “Language.”
Lifting my head, I looked around to find that we were at the back of a crowd of about one hundred students, most of whom were much younger than us. They all gathered in a chapel-like space with a large apse. Instead of religious iconography, graphic paintings of graveyards and battles between armies of what looked like humans and demons filled the hall. Large metal sigils hung from above like hundreds of oddly placed ornaments. If they were religious symbols, they weren’t any that I’d seen before. The students sat in rows, all leading up to a raised platform where an empty table and podium waited. Creaking and shuffling sounds echoed around the space, and I could only guess how loud my exclamation had been.
There was a loud clunking sound, and I spun to see a woman closing the big wooden doors behind us.
“You want to explain how you just zipped — or whatever — and how no one seemed to notice?” I whispered.
“No one noticed because they were all turned that way. And surprise; I have magical powers because I’m an Elite, just like you and everyone else on our floor. Amazing,” he deadpanned before he gestured in a broad sweep to the row of chairs. “Can we sit down, now? I’m the one who has to do this orientation shit for the second time.”
“I’m not an Elite,” I said.
“Yes, you are.” He widened his eyes at me and waved his hands to the closest row. “For the love of all that’s good in this world, can you just sit your ass down so I can, too.”
I sucked on a tooth. Now that I was in the space, my only choice was to run out of here and have Mitch zip me back in or to sit down and look for an opportunity to slip out during the orientation assembly.
Gritting my teeth, I headed into the row and asked a wide-eyed kid if the seat beside him was taken. The kid sat alone and looked all of twelve as he stared over at me, his cheeks darkening by the second, and after twenty seconds with no answer, I left two seats beside him and settled into a plastic chair.
“Poor kid’s never seen boobs before,” Mitch said as he took the seat next to me. His arm and shoulder were so muscular that he immediately pushed into my side and didn’t seem to have a problem with that whatsoever.
I moved over one seat and put my hand down when he tried to come over closer. “You stink like second-day booze breath, and I want to breathe, okay?”
“And here I thought we were getting along.” He lifted his brows. “You really can’t put the bitch act away for one day.”
“Takes a bitch to know a bitch.” I wafted my hand through the air as his sour, old beer breath filled my senses. It was a scent all too familiar, and it was not helping with my anxiety.
“Hi,” a chipper sounding voice came from my other side, and I looked over to see two girls about my age heading down our aisle. Both girls were in full makeup and nice dresses. There was a flirtatious light in both of the girls’ eyes as they grinned wide.
“We saw that you guys looked like you might be transfers, like us, and wanted to come to introduce ourselves,” the one closest to us said, definitely only talking to Mitch. She was an athletic chick with thick blond hair. She started to sit in the seat next to Mitch, saying, “Can we join —”
“Fuck off and go take your seat in the front,” Mitch growled.
The blond actually stumbled back a step and into the chairs of the next row. “Wha — what?”
“Hi, I’m January, and I am not with this guy,” I said, pointing to Mitch. “You two are welcome to sit over here by me.”
“Yes, she is with me,” Mitch grumbled as he put his knees up on the chair in front of him.
“We have absolutely no association, and you’re welcome to take any seat you want. You can even take this seat between us.” I patted the chair between Mitch and me.
“Do it, and you’ll regret it for the remainder of your stay at Blackburn,” Mitch replied, his voice turning bored now. “I said, go away.”
The girls’ frightened gazes darted between us like they had no clue what to do, and then they turned around and rushed down the row.
I harrumphed and scooted to the edge of my seat. “And, you call me a salty bitch? You’re the bitch, Mitch.”
“Keep talking, Dirtbag. I’m collecting all these little insults in my brain, and I’ll pay you back for each one when my brother and cousin stop protecting you.”
I laughed so hard, it echoed around the apse, and half of the students turned to look at me. Covering my mouth, I attempted to quell my laughter as the students turned back to the front.
“You are a freak,” Mitch said as he folded his arms over his chest, but he was giving me a wary look.
“Oh, Mitch, you have just encouraged me to insult you every other second. You’re going to remember every single one? Your brain is going to explode.”
He glowered, but I could swear he was fighting a smile for a second. I could have imagined it, because all mirth instantly fell away from his features as he whispered, “Shut up, the assembly is starting, and I want to get this crap over with. My brother says that this year, he provided some sort of special event, and I’m hoping it will make this shit a little less boring.”
I had a feeling that any event that Sebastian Holter thought special was something that I could go a lifetime without witnessing.
CHAPTER FIVE
Shushing sounds rippled through the crowd, as a procession of people entered the stage. I half expected the group to be dressed in clerical robes, but they wore khakis and purple collared shirts. The shape and size of the building felt like church, but the atmosphere felt closer to summer camp in a haunted house.
A large man who was probably in his sixties stomped to the podium and gazed around the apse with a grin on his face. I recognized the man as the school’s archivist whom I’d nicknamed Mustache due to the white whiskers that ate up half his face. “Welcome new students of Blackburn Academy,” he said with a smile. “I am Professor Titus, head librarian and archivist at Blackburn Academy. You’ll soon know me only as …” he paused to put a finger to his lips and said, “shhh.”
Titters rose through the room. I shoved my hands under my thighs and bounced my legs. This whole event felt so disconcertingly normal, and yet my heart raced like demons might jump out at me at any moment.
Mustache’s eyes smiled as he gazed out at the students. He looked like a stereotypical grandfather, but he’d smiled at me that way while three professors held me down in the Character Trial and forced me to answer their questions.
“I was tasked with the immense honor of introducing you to your new headmaster, Principal Chambers, and revealing to you the sacred mission of this school.” Professor Titus pointed to the center of the table where the Principal sat. When I first met the woman, she reminded me of Mary Poppins. She appeared a little stern while concealing secret smiles and matronly affection.
As she’d also been giving off that vibe while people held me down, the resemblance had been almost creepy. Cheers echoed around the apse, and the principal waved warmly at the crowd.
“This is the only time this crowd is going to clap for her and mean it.” Mitch met my gaze and chuckled like we were in on some sort of snide joke at the principal’s expense.
Mitch was a weird one.
As far as I’d observed it, there were two kinds of true-blue bullies in this world. There was the kind that would bring a knife to a fistfight, and there was the kind that would beat the crap out of you and then ask you to come and sit with them if you put up a good fight. Both were dangerous and reprehensible in my book, but one was far more deadly than the other. I wasn’t really sure about Mitch, but I was getting the feeling that he was the second kind of bully.
I hoped he was.
“But first, I have the pleasure of introducing you to Professor Sharp, who will be taking your oat
hs of secrecy.” Mustache stepped back, and Professor Sharp, a teacher with choppy, purple hair, stepped up to the dark-wood podium.
Professor Sharp was by far the youngest person on the stage, perhaps in her mid to late twenties. Unlike almost everyone here, she was petite and willowy. She had a sharp, beak-like nose, sculpted magenta brows, and plump lips. She was the third teacher who’d questioned me during my trial. Of the group, she was the one who I’d felt was most on my side during that interview.
“All right, I’m Professor Sharp. I run one of the elective departments here at Blackburn. One second …” she paused to adjust the microphone to her height. The last time I’d talked to the woman, she was chewing gum and talking a mile a minute. This time, she seemed to be talking intentionally slower. “Many of you already know this, but the school feels that it needs to reiterate this over and over again until you get it completely. Blackburn is going to ask you to keep everything you learn here today a secret. The only people you can ever discuss that secret with is other Blackburn students, the staff, the alumni, and the members of the Hawthorn Group. We are so serious about these oaths that we’re going to ask you to swear it on your life, meaning, if you’re beginning to tell someone, a buzzing will start in your ears. And if you ignore the buzzing and break your oath anyway, you will die.”
Several students looked around, clearly bewildered by the strange statement, but many just watched on, not seeming to get how fucked up what she just said was.
The whole thing was screwed all to hell. Yes, Blackburn was speaking openly about it, but no one here truly understood that oath-breaking would literally suffocate you.
Anger surged in me, and I sat up, and called out, “You’ll die. You will die if you break the oath.”
One hundred sets of eyes fixed on me.
Professor Sharp leaned into the microphone. “Yes, Miss Moore, I am telling the truth about oath-breaking.” This got everyone to turn back to the front. Purple Hair straightened her microphone and nodded. “That’s why you all have this last chance to leave Blackburn Academy.” When no one moved, Professor Sharp scanned through the crowd with her gaze. “No one? Okay. This is going to be very simple. After I’m finished asking a question, you will say ‘I swear it on my life.’” She arched her magenta brows. “Ready?”
“No,” I whispered, but all around me, people were calling out, “Yes.”
Mitch leaned in. “No point in trying to talk sense into them. They didn’t get in here because they liked to think for themselves.”
Purple Hair called out in a loud voice, “Do you swear that you will not communicate, by any means, that which you will learn today in this assembly to anyone outside of the Blackburn student body, staff, or any member of the Hawthorn Group until your day of graduation.”
“I swear on my life,” every member of the assembly said in unison.
I clenched my jaw and stayed quiet, but Professor Sharp lifted a hand and called out, “Someone didn’t take their oath.”
Mitch reached over, pinched my jaw, and pushed it up and down. I shoved his hand away as my heartbeat slammed into my ribcage. There was no getting out of this. I knew that. Under my breath, I whispered, “I swear it on my life.”
“Thank you.” Professor Sharp nodded before returning to the table at the back of the stage.
“That was it?” I couldn’t help whispering in surprise. It was so simple. I’d expected the words to hold a physical weight in my body. I expected sparks to fly or a green mist to flow through the room. Instead, the oath felt like nothing at all.
I kept finding myself questioning if the subtle magic I’d been witnessing was real. It had all seemed so justifiably mundane. Zipping was the flashiest magic I’d seen, and even with that, I kept wondering if it had actually happened or if I imagined the whole thing. No one else seemed to witness it.
“Watch,” Mitch said as a rather evil-looking grin spread over his lips. “The good part is about to start, Dirtbag.”
Seeing Mitch Holter’s happiness sent my heart stampeding again, and I turned back to the center of the room where three massive soldiers in black tactical gear carried a short, balding middle-aged man. The frail man looked fast asleep, if not dead.
The soldiers moved him into the center of the dais and set him on the floor, laying him out. A buzz rose around the room as all of the teachers’ expressions grew grim.
One of the men in tactical gear crossed over to Principal Chambers. They huddled together before she headed to the microphone and cleared her throat. “Welcome students. I am Principal Chambers, your headmaster at Blackburn Academy. This is the part of the orientation where I would usually show you a short slideshow we’ve prepared, but I have just been informed that we are fortunate enough to have a live demonstration. Thanks to the Hawthorn Group, you will be the first year ever to receive this honor.”
The professors glanced among themselves and then held up their hands and clapped.
The audience politely applauded, but it was lackluster at best. Something was not right about this situation and this prone man, and we all knew it. There was a hum in the air that sounded like an electrical current. The hair on my arms stood on end as the applause died down.
“I know that this will be hard for you to believe, but the world, as you know it, is not all there is. In this secret world, there are demons, animal shifters, fairies, gods, and monsters. But, the most dangerous creature to humankind is the one that stalks us in the night and preys on us as its only food source, the nightstalkers. We are the sabbatianoí, born on a Saturday with the ability to see nightstalkers while they are in their mist form.” She paused to look around at the gathered crowd. “Yes, I’m talking about the creature commonly called vampires.”
Suddenly, sunlight streamed into the apse from all directions. I shaded my eyes and peered up to see that windows surrounded us on all sides, and they had simply pulled the shades back.
Several people gasped, and there was a high-pitched scream from the front.
The man lying on the stage was changing. His skin lightened into a pale gray, leathery mask. The skin of his mouth and nose peeled back until there was nothing but holes where a nose should be and a lipless mouth. Protruding from his mouth were thick, needle-sharp fangs. His ears lengthened into long, bat-like points. And, his hands elongated into claws with talons arching down from each finger.
“He cannot wake in the daylight hours, but do not be fooled that he is helpless. Even now he is calling out to his blood servants, the vampire scions, who are half-turned humans he’s enslaved with his blood. They were tasked with guarding his coffin but were captured and imprisoned by the Hawthorn Group. We do not hurt humans. Right now, they are trying to squeeze through their bars to get to their master.”
The creature on the stage withered away by the second, his body losing tissue and mass as his skin shriveled. He looked like the images I’d seen of a mummified corpse, skeletal remains with bits of tissue stretched over the skin. Acid burned my throat again, and I covered my mouth, in case I was going to be sick.
“The vampire isn’t dead,” Principal Chambers said, and to her credit, she didn’t sound at all happy about what was happening on the stage.
Two of the men in tactical gear stepped up, and beside me, Mitch raised his hand and yelled out, “I’ll do it.”
“No. This is my school. I will do it.” Principal Chambers stepped out from behind the podium. She reached down to her boots and pulled a long wooden stake from one and a sheathed knife from the other. “This is a stake carved from the heart of a hawthorn tree,” she called out in a loud voice. She held the stake in one hand and pivoted around to show it to all of us in turn. “It needs to be inserted deep into a vampire’s heart and not removed until he is beheaded.” With a powerful thrust, she stabbed the stake down into the mummified chest of the vampire. “Then, a vampire hunter removes the head.”
I closed my eyes and put a hand over them for good measure, just in case some of the images could
slip past my eyelids.
“Look, Dirtbag, this is all for you. That was one of the dozen who tried to kill you last week. This was one of their leaders. Sebastian showed us this guy at headquarters a few days ago. My brother caught him himself. It’s Sebastian’s little way of saying, I’m God. Be in awe of me.”
I amended my earlier thought about bullies. There were three kinds. There were the bullies who thought everyone needed to prove their worth, the cowards, and there was the third type of bully. Those were the ones who walked up to you in a crowded room and killed you before walking straight out the way they came, knowing they would never see consequences for their actions.
Sebastian Holter, my benevolent benefactor, was the third kind of bully.
CHAPTER SIX
The orientation stretched on for what felt like hours. Everyone in the room sat spellbound, captivated in a morbid trance on the creature dead on the floor. I just felt cold and a little ill, and the moment that we were permitted to leave, I rushed out of there.
“You’re not even going to the orientation lunch?” Mitch said as he easily caught up to me. “It’s a catered seafood buffet. They won’t allow me in there without you.”
“Why do you care? You’re a millionaire. Go buy a restaurant,” I headed along the outside of the building, in the general direction of the grounds of the school where my map said the kennels were. The air felt thick and impossible to inhale deeply, like breathing in boiling soup. Even through the heat, shivers wracked my body, and I felt like I could faint or throw up at any moment, but I wasn’t sure which. “Go away.”
He threw up his hands. “I am hungry. ”
“See this.” I gestured to my face. “This is my ‘I was just traumatized by some fucked up shit, and I could give zero fucks if you’re hungry’ face. You can add this to your payback tally if you want, but I’m not escorting you anywhere, and if you try to grab me again, I’ll kick you in the balls.”
“You could try,” he said, slowly, as if he wasn’t entirely sure I’d fail.
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