Life as a Teenage Vampire

by Amanda Meuwissen

  “So sorry to interrupt,” Alec said, donning his American accent. The pair was dressed as if they had just moved in next door—suburban casual; Wendy in dark jeans and an emerald blouse; Alec with a violet button down beneath his customary black jacket.

  “We heard about the incident at the school, and wanted to check that everyone was all right,” Wendy said, a softness to her tone that caught me off guard, though at least her accent remained intact. Not that Wendy wasn’t nice, but soft wasn’t the first word that came to mind.

  “When we realized your car was in the driveway, we decided to stop over. My wife recently arrived from Norwich, visiting family,” Alec gestured to Wendy, nearly causing me and Connor to choke. “She had a death in the family as well, and thus we were separated for the respective funerals, sadly. Wendy, this is John and Kay Mavus, and…”

  “Georgia and Paul Daniels,” Georgia said, having answered the door. The entryway had a clear view into the living room. She ushered them inside after shaking both their hands. “You’re Will’s brother, aren’t you? Kay mentioned something.”

  To his credit, Alec never faltered when talking about the Leonards, even when fielding lies. “Indeed. Emery has been so kind as to help me sort through things at the house. Of course I understand now if that might be put on hold after today’s events. I really am so very sorry.” He passed his cool, blue gaze around the room.

  “We were pleased to hear no one had been seriously hurt, though it does unnerve us that no perpetrator has been caught yet,” Wendy said, catching our eyes with a brief glint of steel, as if to say, no, they hadn’t caught him either.

  “George just took lasagna out of the oven,” Paul said, as he rose from the couch and moved to shake their hands as well. He had a standing belief that ‘the more the merrier’ was always true, and often turned simple get-togethers into full-blown shindigs. “Join us for dinner?”

  The table was large enough to accommodate all of us, and somehow, maybe because Alec and Wendy were both eerily good at playing roles outside the truth, it never felt awkward—eating lasagna with my parents, my best friend’s family, and my mentor and vampire hunter bodyguards.

  Once dinner was over, conversation flowing naturally, we ended up in the living room with Wendy while Alec kept our parents busy in the kitchen.

  “We’re not fully empty-handed. I spotted the shooter.”

  “You did?” I nearly shouted, before remembering not to draw attention to us.

  “Saw him, and he saw me,” she confirmed, “heading into a motel. He dodged me and will not return to that same location, but I know his face. He’s memorable. 5’10”, mid-30s, solid build, African-American, blue eyes.” She rattled it all off like an interrogation recap.

  That didn’t fit anyone I knew. The warmer the weather got, the more outsiders came through town, taking time to go out on the lakes, like everywhere in Minnesota. But with fewer tourists this time of year, he wouldn’t be able to blend in easily.

  “Another thing—he missed.” She poked me in the chest where the bolt had struck, right over my heart. “These hunters are skilled, love; he wouldn’t have missed unless he had doubts. We can use that. If I can find him again, he might be willing to talk.”

  “There’s something else,” Connor said, nudging me with his shoulder.

  “Right, uhh…see, when I fed from Connor, we weren’t exactly…alone.”

  “Someone saw you?”

  “Our friends, Aurora and Jules. They’re cool with it—crazy cool actually, they won’t freak out or tell anyone—but we figured you should know.”

  Wendy nodded, her calm expression masking her opinion on this development. “I’ll inform Alec if you aren’t afforded the opportunity to speak with him tonight. He may want to glamour them.”

  “No!” Connor protested. “They’re not a threat. Seriously.”

  “It isn’t my call to make,” she said.

  I squeezed Connor’s arm. “It’s okay. I can talk to Alec later. I just wanted to thank you,” I said to Wendy. “All of this…you hardly even know us and you’ve done so much. I know it’s your duty, the whole code thing, but I really appreciate it. All this danger and chaos, someone out there actually trying to kill me…” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence, so I let the silence say the rest for me.

  “Are you like former MI6 or something, with all these covert ops skills?” Connor asked, his jovial curiosity helping to break the tension.

  A sly, teasing smile spread across her face. “Too many Bond films, Mr. Daniels? I’m not special ops, though I did serve.”

  “I guess I just figured, the whole vampire hunter, mysterious badass thing had to mean you either did some serious Mission Impossible stuff at some point, or…ya know,” he shrugged, but his eyes betrayed a look I knew well, one that promised he was going to push someone’s buttons and hope it didn’t blow up in his face, “…survived a vampire massacre and lost your entire family?”

  “Connor,” I hissed.

  Wendy surprised us both by laughing. “Too many movies is right. No, boys, no tragic backstory quite like the one you’re thinking. Quite the opposite in some respects. I was a member of The Royal Marines, spent some time in the Middle East. Imagine my surprise encountering vampires for the first time in the desert.”

  “Vampires in the desert?” Connor repeated. “That’s gotta suck.”

  “Not as much as you might think, when you work out the details. You’re expected to be bundled up against sun and sand out there. One day, a pair of them helped me save a family from a collapsed building. I wouldn’t have believed what they were if I hadn’t seen their speed, their strength. The situation didn’t allow for subterfuge on their part, but they took the risk to do the right thing. So I backed them. Kept their secret.

  “Another town over I made the mistake of approaching the next vampire I found, assuming he’d be the same—gentle, not a monster. I was wrong. He killed several civilians and a few soldiers before I took him down. There are good vampires, and there are bad, just like people.

  “You’re familiar with the phenomenon where once something is brought to your attention, you see it everywhere?” she asked.

  We both nodded.

  “Once I knew what to look for, vampires were easy to spot, good and bad, everywhere I went. How could I rightly ignore something so few people had any knowledge of? Seemed more fitting to put my military skills to use on a more personal front. So I left the Marines.”

  “Why come to the States, though?” I asked. “Do we have more vampires than other places?”

  “Not more. The answer is actually much simpler. My family lives here now.”

  “You have family?” Connor asked incredulously.

  She folded her arms with a humored eyebrow raise, more relaxed than I’d yet seen her—maybe the blouse helped. “No tragic backstory, remember? I’ve seen death, like many soldiers, and some at the hands of vampires, yes, but my family is doing quite well. My parents live in Florida. My brother attended university at Grinnell in Iowa. He married an American. She’s lovely. Makes it easy to traverse the countryside, visiting them when I can. They think I run private security. Though if it ever seemed necessary to tell them the truth, I wouldn’t hesitate.

  “I do what I do, Emery,” she focused on me, “because I don’t like to see the wrong people die, or anyone die for the wrong reasons. Human or vampire, that doesn’t matter. People are people.”

  The Leonards being murdered, meeting that other vampire who seemed so psychotic and uncaring about anyone she hurt, getting shot at and nearly killed today; all of it made it difficult to remember that there were good things in my life too, good people.

  “Thanks,” I said, though it seemed an inadequate response to someone trying to save my life.

  “I suppose we should be heading
home and stop imposing on these fine folks, right, dear?” Alec exited the kitchen with our parents following.

  I hated lying to them all, but I thought Wendy had it right. If it was ever necessary, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell them the truth. I knew they’d understand, be accepting, especially if Aurora and Jules could be, but for now, I didn’t want them to worry any more than they had to.

  My parents and I headed home when Alec and Wendy left. As soon as I got up to my room, I turned on my computer and Skyped in Connor, Jules, and Aurora. Alec texted me the moment Wendy told him about the girls discovering I was a vampire, and Skyped in as well. Jules made an appreciative comment about modern vampires having Skype on their phones, and Aurora mentioned having seen Alec near the school.

  “Might want to tone down the creepy vibe if you don’t want the cops picking you up.”

  “Creepy?” Alec scoffed.

  “Insulting you already? She must like you, Fright Night,” Connor said.

  “What lovely friends you have, Emery,” Alec oozed sarcasm, though he promised not to glamour the girls to forget.

  Aurora insisted on being kept in the loop about the hunters, and as payment for being part of The Scooby Gang—Connor’s word choice, because he could not stop with the Buffy references after Wendy’s arrival—she and Jules promised to let us know if they noticed anything strange, anyone out of the ordinary, especially anyone meeting the description of the hunter Connor encountered or the one Wendy had seen.

  The problem was, all we could do, once again, was wait. We had to go to school, follow curfew, keep tabs on each other, while only Wendy and Alec could search for the hunters and keep an eye on things at a distance. The cops had kicked things up a notch, but as much respect as I had for Tim and his officers, the hunters had already proven they were better.

  We signed off and I rose from my computer desk, only for the walkie talkie on the charger to crackle. Everything I’d felt at the school, the surge of longing, of wanting more from Connor than just blood, suddenly came back to me like a repressed memory.

  This was Connor. He didn’t even date. Maybe didn’t want to. I couldn’t spring something like this on him with everything else going on. I didn’t understand it myself. Of course I loved Connor. He was my best friend, like a brother—well, obviously not too much like a brother if I was thinking about how nice it felt to have him in my arms. But what if it was only the blood, and I was tricking myself into thinking I wanted more? I needed to sort through how I felt before I told him anything.

  “Em? You there?”

  “Yeah, man. What’s up? Something you didn’t want to say with the others listening in?”

  “No, just…well. Sort of? Are you okay? With everything that happened, I barely even got to ask. That bolt had to hurt.”

  I smiled into the walkie. Where was the line drawn between loving someone so much you never wanted to spend a day without them, and having those same thoughts while also wanting to kiss them? “I’m fine, Connor. It hurt, yeah, a lot. Maybe the worst pain I’ve ever felt, including Swine Flu, and you remember how much that sucked.”

  “Misery,” Connor agreed.

  “But you fixed it. You…saved me.” Somehow he’d carried me into the choir room, and I still didn’t know how he’d found the strength. “It’s a good thing you enjoy being bitten, or I’d feel bad,” I laughed, trying to shrug it off and gauge how he responded.

  He laughed too—nervously? Embarrassed that that was true? “Fine, fine, call me a masochist. But if you need it, and I enjoy offering, seems we have the perfect symbiotic relationship.”

  My stomach fluttered. I could move faster than light, punch through a wall if I wanted, and tear open someone’s throat with my teeth, but I still got butterflies. Over Connor.

  Shit.

  “Lucky me,” I said, trying to laugh again, to not let any telling emotion into my words. “Thanks. Really. I couldn’t do this without you.” And I didn’t want to. Ever.

  “Yeah, Em, any time. Always.”

  I scratched my neck, searching for something to change the subject to. “How does Alec act so normal around our parents anyway? It’s weird, right?”

  “Who says that’s the acting part?” Connor chuckled. “He’s got layers, dude. I bet we’d never guess some of the things we don’t know about him.”

  Or each other, I thought, which was silly because there wasn’t anything we didn’t know about each other, nothing we’d ever kept from each other, other than this. Me. Right now. Not knowing how to tell him that being close, physically, in ways we’d never been before, had shifted my entire perception of him.

  “Emery!” my mother’s voice called from the hallway.

  “I uhh…I need to go, Connor. See you bright and early?”

  “Sure, Em. Later.”

  Mom entered my room just as I replaced the walkie on the charger.

  “Everything okay?” I turned to her.

  “I was just heading to bed. I’m opening tomorrow at the station again, so I need to get a good night’s sleep.” She pulled me in, hugging me tighter than usual, and kissed my cheek when she pulled away. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Mom.”

  “You know why I tell you that every night before bed?”

  I tilted my head at her. “Because it’s true?”

  She chuckled and playfully smacked my shoulder with the back of her hand. “Because when I was a little girl, I realized I didn’t say it nearly enough to your grandparents. And one night, and I don’t even remember what I was watching on TV or if it was a movie, but some character had this speech, this beautiful speech about how if you love someone, you should tell them at every opportunity you get because you never know when you might lose them.”

  “Mom…” She shouldn’t have to worry about losing me, not yet.

  Her smile was like a photo negative; the same image as what it should be, but distorted, wrong. “That night when I went to bed, I kissed them both, told them both ‘I love you’, and hearing each of them say it back, well…you can’t compare anything else to that feeling, and it never gets old, never boring.”

  Her green eyes glistened. If it had been weeks ago, before this mess started, I would have rolled my eyes at her and laughed, called her sentimental. Now the tears were infectious, and I didn’t want her to know how scared I was.

  I hugged her again. “I love you.”

  “I know, honey. Just be safe, okay? Whoever these people, this person…whoever they are, don’t give them any openings to take you away from us.”

  I struggled not to squeeze her too tightly, swallowing back the thickness in my throat. “I won’t. I’ll be careful. Nothing bad’s gonna happen, I promise.”

  After she left, part of me believed those words, believed that Alec and Wendy could protect me, that I could defend myself if need be. But I wasn’t as focused on the danger of the hunters as I should have been. After what Mom had said, all I could think about, lying in bed that night, was Connor.

  Chapter 22

  The next day, school was worse than it had been the morning after Mr. Leonard’s murder. Now there was confirmation I was a target; I’d been shot at. It was like having celebrity status for all the wrong reasons. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about this. I didn’t want to answer questions. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth! I longed for everyone to forget, to go back to talking about the murders, or the bomb threats, instead of how someone out there wanted Emery Mavus dead.

  Michael broke up the largest gathering of rubberneckers when a couple Sophomores tried weaseling information out of me. His charisma could command any crowd, at least long enough for me to duck to my next class. He must have spread the word to leave me alone, because it toned down after that, but not completely.

  I had Connor, Aurora, Jules, Nick, som
eone around me at all times to run interference, but my mind wasn’t attentive for a single lecture or assignment. I might as well have been asleep all day. I didn’t think they’d rescind any of my college acceptance letters if my GPA took a nosedive after constant threat of death and personal trauma—or so I hoped. Though life wasn’t generally that forgiving, and college was the least of my worries.

  It didn’t help that I was unconsciously—and also consciously—avoiding Connor.

  Practice was better. These people knew me. They also knew that we had lost an entire practice and had to skip straight to tech rehearsal so we could still get in two full dress rehearsals before opening night. Michael commanded the school with his smile and status as Student Council President; Aurora commanded backstage with sheer intimidation tactics.

  We started tech at 6PM, hoping to be done by 9:30 so everyone could get home early and have some time to relax before curfew. On show nights, we wouldn’t start until 7:30.

  It was during Act I, waiting outside my door to enter in a few minutes with my pants down, that a strong hand gripped my arm and pulled me between a pair of flats. I spun toward my attacker, fangs bared.

  “Did you just hiss at me?”

  “Alec?”

  “Interesting ensemble for a high school play,” he said, eyeing my plaid boxers and the pants around my ankles with a quirk to his smile. “Also, while it’s lovely you’re on high alert, dear boy, you might want to avoid showing off the goods to anyone who drags you into a dark corner.”

  For a split second I thought he was still talking about my pants being down when he mentioned ‘the goods’ before I remembered to reel in my fangs. “Sorry.”

  “I realize you don’t have much time, so apologies for doing this here, but even someone who can move as silently and as fast as I can should avoid drawing unwanted attention from the police. So listen closely. Things are going to move very quickly from this point on. Two of the hunters have been seen, we have their descriptions, and a failed attempt on your life has the town in hysterics. The hunters can’t risk being found out. They’ll attack within the week, by next week for sure, and when they do, it will be in full force.”