Life as a Teenage Vampire

by Amanda Meuwissen

  “What if that Alec guy shows up?”

  “Then he’ll probably want to help take care of the hunters.”

  “Oh god, there are vampire hunters after me.” Emery turned to the wall and pressed his forehead against the marbled tiles. “I have fangs, a statement to give to the police, vampire hunters probably already looking for me, and a test in Psych on Monday. How is this anyone’s life?”

  “Currently it’s your life.” When Emery grumbled in response, Connor reached out with his Terminator hand to squeeze his friend’s shoulder. “We’ll figure it out, Em.”

  “How? I can’t even go in the sun.”

  Connor thought a moment, then turned his gentle presence on Emery’s shoulder into a tight grip on his arm. He whirled him around and yanked him out of the bathroom, back across the hallway. He refused to be slowed down by his lurching stomach or the dizziness clawing at his vision, and didn’t stop, despite a few harried protests from Emery, until they were back in front of the window where he thrust his friend into the sunlight as before.

  Emery shot up his hands, looking ready to stumble away, only to slowly lower them and blink blearily into the light.

  “It’s not as bad,” he said, amazed. “But it was awful that last time. I felt like I was on fire. It’s not even as bad as this morning.” He leaned cautiously closer to the glass, as if expecting all of that to change at a moment’s notice.

  “I figured,” Connor said, arms crossed in victory. “You just needed to feed.”

  “Please don’t use that word.” Emery looked at him with a grimace.

  “Okay. You just needed to eat me, then.”

  “Let’s stick with feed.”

  Connor grinned, and when their eyes met, they tumbled into laughter.

  “Come on,” Connor said, reaching to squeeze Emery’s shoulder once more.

  He hated that Emery had gone through something so terrible, hated that there would likely be worse to wade through in the future, but he also kind of liked that it gave him an excuse to touch Emery more. He knew that was pathetic, but he enjoyed every moment of it anyway.

  “I’m starving.”

  Chapter 6

  I was a vampire. I had been one for twenty-four hours, and I still didn’t believe it.

  When I went to the police station that afternoon, the lie that I’d had a panic attack when the killers showed up, and then passed out when Mr. Leonard put me in the closet, fooled Tim just as Connor had predicted. No, I hadn’t gotten a look at any of them. If I had, they would have seen me go in the closet; they would have found me.

  I wondered how long it would take ‘them’ to find me now.

  No one was going to put my name in the papers, but there had been a statement that a ‘local teen’ was found alive. That was probably all it would take for the hunters to stick around and start looking, and enough people knew it was me—probably everyone at school—that it might only be a matter of days before they figured out where I lived. I really hoped Mr. Leonard wasn’t wrong about his friend Alec coming here—his maker. Which meant Mr. Leonard was my maker. Or had been…

  Connor and I figured out quite a few things about what I could do, though none of it made me feel better. I could eat, and everything tasted like I remembered it, I just didn’t feel full by any of it. I could probably eat and eat forever; my body just seemed to absorb it. Connor made a big deal over the fact that I hadn’t used the bathroom since we left school the day before, and we realized that I really must be using everything for energy, so I guess that was a weird plus.

  Silver had no effect.

  “That’s werewolves anyway,” Connor had said. “I don’t know who started the idea of it working on vampires.”

  The jar of garlic he made me smell was potent, but the sting it left in my nose only seemed to be caused by enhanced-senses, not an aversion to the plant. We didn’t test having me eat any though, just in case. We didn’t bother with some of the sillier myths either, like crossing running water, needing to sleep in the earth or a coffin. I’d already slept plenty.

  We also knew I could—like Mr. Leonard had done to me—glamour someone to let me bite them. At least that’s the word Connor used. I hated that part, because it had made me, and now Connor, stop fighting. It scared me even more than I’d admitted to him that I might have killed my best friend if I hadn’t snapped to my senses.

  Connor’s parents made him stay home after I got back from the police station, since I needed my rest, apparently, though I think it was more that Mom and Dad wanted some time alone with me. We watched one of my dad’s favorite movies, Murder by Death, which we all agreed was the exact right kind of inappropriate, and I laughed like always at the ridiculous whodunit plotline, at ease if only because not once did I feel like biting either of them.

  Connor and I talked into the night over our walkies, planning to spend Sunday figuring out more of my abilities. The thought of going back to school on Monday terrified me, but when my parents offered to let me stay home for as long as I needed, that sounded worse.

  “Hungry yet?” were the first words out of Connor’s mouth when we met in my backyard Sunday morning. It was brisk out, but I didn’t feel cold anymore. And direct light from the sun didn’t make me feel hot, though the glare did bother me a little.

  “Not hungry. So at least I don’t need to feed every day…so far.”

  We’d decided on my yard because first, my parents were still a little over-protective, even about me going next door, and second, our yard had a higher fence with very low risk of anyone seeing what we were doing.

  I frowned at Connor as he proceeded to drop his baseball bag on the damp, cold ground, and pulled out his catcher’s gear. There had been some weird regulations argument about whether it was okay for his mitt to actually be attached to his arm—because of course he’d made a prosthetic for that purpose—but he’d bowed out before his parents could raise any fuss. He preferred robotics and backstage to sports anyway, but he still kept his gear for fun.

  “What’s that for?” I asked.

  “I figured we should start with strength, speed, and agility today,” Connor said with the same professor voice he used when doing experiments on a new arm. “This is the best gear I have for extra padding.”

  “I’m not going to hit you,” I said, watching him put the gear on regardless of my protests.

  “What else are you gonna hit? I think your folks would notice a dent in the fence.”

  I stared down at my hands. “I can’t be that strong.”

  “We’ll start simple and find out.” He grinned at me, moving to the center of the backyard.

  Mom was out judging one of the high school Speech meets today, which she always volunteered for, and I’d insisted that she not cancel. I’d have joined my school team again if senior year hadn’t been so busy. Anyway, I knew how much she loved it—having been in Speech herself in high school—and I think she needed a distraction from all this even more than I did.

  Dad was inside cleaning the house, though there was a new tactics role-playing game he wanted to show me, so as long as he was either cleaning or playing that, he shouldn’t look in the backyard until we went in. I hoped.

  “What happened to bringing me Swedish Fish and Mortal Kombat?” I scowled.

  “I figured the fish would be in poor taste since you don’t need to eat anymore, but Mortal Kombat…” he pointed to the side pocket of his bag, “is your reward once we’re done.”

  I looked around for any possible sign of peeping eyes as I squared off in front of Connor, and he—in full catcher’s gear, sans mask and mitt—got in a ready stance like a Sumo wrestler.

  “What are you expecting me to do, exactly?”

  “Come at me as fast as you can,” he said. “Don’t think about hitting or anything, just charge
me.”

  He was enjoying this a little too much. I looked from his grin to his bright red prosthetic. It was the most resilient one he had, as indestructible as he could make it, but that just made me think, “What if I break your arm? Or your other arm? Or any other bones, for that matter?”

  Connor stood up straight as if he hadn’t considered actual injury, but then settled into his ready position again. “Okay, maybe not as fast as you can. Don’t try to break me. And if you do, well…I am due for a broken bone. Rynn broke her arm before she was two.”

  “Your sister is not an example I want you to follow.” Rynn was pursuing a theater major in college, but actually wanted to get into stunt driving. She was a tall, gorgeous, blonde beast.

  “Then go easy,” Connor said.

  He must have forgotten how many years I’d been Defensive Tackle for the football team. I squared my shoulders, aimed for the center of his chest, and charged. The next moment, I was standing where Connor had been, and he was halfway to the fence flat on his back.

  “Sweet!” He jumped up before I could call out in concern, and rushed forward to meet me. “Dude, I barely even saw you move. You were like The Flash—for real. And…ow,” he rubbed his chest protector as if that would sooth the bruises forming beneath, “that was going easy for you? I wonder what going full pelt would be like…”

  I stumbled back a step. “I knocked you like fifteen feet without trying. I am not doing that again.”

  “I didn’t say we would.” He gripped my shoulder with his gloved right hand. He’d been doing that a lot lately, which I assumed was to make me think he wasn’t afraid, though I couldn’t understand how that was true. I’d bitten him, hurt him…

  I shook his hand away. “I don’t think we should do this anymore.”

  “Em.” He followed every step I took backward, a glower darkening his honey eyes. “Would you rather not know what you’re capable of and accidently tear a door off its hinges at school? When you know your limits, you know how to pull back from them.” He stopped advancing on me and held out his gloved hand. “Shake it, just like you would normally.”

  “What?”

  “This is the control—you doing something with normal, average strength. When you see that you can do that without going too far, then you’ll feel better about trying things that go past the control. It’s science, dude. Sort of.”

  I stared at the offered hand. I’d done normal physical activities last night. Helped Mom make dinner, helped Dad with the dishes, taken a shower, kissed Mom and Dad goodnight. None of those actions had seemed out of my control. But now I was scared of crushing Connor’s fingers. We’d crushed one of his prosthetic hands testing the resistance once. These he would feel.

  “You’re not going to hurt me,” he said, and advanced another step.

  I took a breath, took his hand, squeezed with the normal pressure I was used to giving, and we shook.

  “No different than usual,” Connor said.

  “Because we shake hands so often,” I muttered.

  He smacked me in the chest with the hand I’d just shaken, and I could feel that he did so pretty hard, but it didn’t even slightly push me back. His eyes widened. “Whoa, maybe we should practice me trying to charge you next. You’re like a concrete wall.”

  He pressed his palm flat to my chest and pushed as hard as he could—I could tell by the strain on his face. I hadn’t really been trying to remain immobile when he first smacked me, but now I gave it some effort. It was actually kind of funny how much it looked like he was struggling to move me.

  “Must be all that Aikido paying off,” I said.

  Connor laughed. He gave up pushing and smacked me again. “See, knew you could still joke about this. Come on, let’s try something else.” He danced excitedly over to his bag. “I want to see how good your reflexes are.”

  After successfully catching every ball he threw at me, including several he purposefully threw out of range, he got this gleam in his eyes as he wound up; said, “Now try this,” and turned 180 degrees to chuck the ball at the fence.

  It was as if my body knew how fast to go, how far to travel, just from my desired outcome. I just thought, catch, and I felt the ground move beneath my feet, the air whip around me like a strong wind, this wonderful zing in my chest, and suddenly I stood with the ball Connor had thrown at the fence easily caught in my fist. Somehow, I’d zipped around behind him like a speedster and caught the ball in half a second—effortless. It made me want to take off down the street, see how fast I could really go, if I could race to the end of town and back again without feeling winded, and how fast my time would be while doing it. Connor was rubbing off on me.

  Then I thought of how many ways this power could hurt him.

  “No, no, don’t you dare drop that smile, Emery Mavus,” Connor chided me as he approached. “This is fun. Of course it’s fun. You’re a freaking superpower.”

  I dropped the ball. “I’m a vampire, Connor. A mon—”

  “Don’t say monster.” His face was blank when I looked up, too serious as he poked me in the chest with his red plastic finger. “People can be monsters, Em. But what you are doesn’t make you one automatically. Mr. and Mrs. Leonard weren’t. You don’t really think they were, do you?”

  I guess I didn’t. If they had been killers, there would be evidence of that, but I’d never heard of any weird deaths in our town, or any surrounding towns. Somehow they’d managed to feed without anyone finding out, without hurting anyone.

  “And you’re not,” Connor stressed. “Not unless you choose to be. Don’t make me force that old book on you,” he said with a renewed gleam in his eyes.

  “What old book?” I squinted at him.

  “You remember.” And rather than explain, he started in on the chorus to “O Holy Night,” and I instantly knew what book he meant—The Vampire Who Came For Christmas.

  The villain was brought to tears by that song at the end of the story. We read it in Elementary school. It had been Connor’s, which he’d let me borrow, but when he handed it off to another friend, that person moved before he got it back—lost forever. I got a copy for him as a Christmas gift last year, which he’d gotten endless amusement out of. If only I’d known I was predicating our future.

  “Please stop singing,” I said before he could butcher any more notes, though I couldn’t help grinning at his antics. There was a reason he was in band and not choir.

  “Is there some kind of satanic ritual going on back here?” came Tim’s voice from the back door as he stepped outside to join us, “because that has got to be torture I’m hearing.”

  He was off duty judging by the civilian clothes, but his presence made me flinch. Dad came out behind him.

  Connor spun on his heels to face them without missing a beat at his interrupted wailing. “What’s up? Catch those killers yet, Chief?”

  “Not yet, but we’re taking bets on what day this week we’ll have them in the back of a cruiser. Just like we did when Officer Larson had her twins.” Tim winked at Connor, his more common joking nature undeterred. He’d tried to ease my nerves at the station yesterday with humor, but it hadn’t helped much.

  “Do you need something from me, Tim?” I asked. “I’m sorry I don’t remember more.”

  “You’re fine, son, just wanted to check in on you. All of the evidence is keeping you in the clear as a suspect—not that there was ever any doubt—but I figured you’d want to know we can say it officially now. We noticed some motorcycle tracks out by the house that we’re looking into, and have some other leads I can’t discuss, but I also wanted you to be aware of a bit of a babysitter we’ll be assigning you.”

  “Babysitter?” Connor repeated.

  “Just a single patrol to keep an eye on things for a while,” my dad spoke up. “If it had been just Mallo
ry, it would be different, but after the killers returned for Will, the police want to be sure you aren’t under any additional threat. Just think of it as having a secret admirer for a few days; following closely in an unmarked car with an armed officer inside.” He smirked, trying to make light of this, but his anxiety always showed in his eyes, a telling crinkle of the skin. He was really freaked out.

  “So, like, watching the house? Following me to school?” I asked.

  “And play practice,” Tim said. “But besides that we’d like you to try and stay close to home for a few days. It’s much more likely that the Leonards were the target, and with both of them gone now, you’re in the clear, but seeing as how everyone knows everything about everybody in this town…”

  I nodded. I’d put that together myself, but now it felt even realer, the thought that these hunters—who had taken out two experienced vampires easily—were coming for me next, and some lone cop probably wouldn’t be enough to protect me.

  I struggled to smile but saw the way Dad’s expression fell. He could read me as well as I read him, and my eyes probably looked three shades of panicked.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “It’s a good thing, right? Just a precaution. Probably won’t even matter.”

  I zoned out for whatever else was said before Tim waved goodbye and headed back across the street to his house. Somewhere nearby, some cop would be watching me from now on, so practicing any abilities in the backyard was out for the foreseeable future.

  Dad’s large brown hand came down on my shoulder. “Why don’t we head inside so I can show you boys that new RPG, huh? We can order hot wings for lunch.”

  A little of my terror abated, but only a little. My dad was a big guy, solidly built, stockier than me by quite a bit, and the strongest person I knew—well, before I’d grown superpowers. He’d stop at nothing to protect me and Mom if something bad happened. If the hunters came for me, I wasn’t the only one at risk, and that made me feel like I might throw up.