Fang U

by Mia Archer

  Besides, if they knew there were witches out there hunting us then there’d be another problem on top of the difficulties we already had. I didn’t want an entire house of jumpy vampires who thought every woman who walked through the door was a witch sent to destroy them.

  “That’s right,” Brooke said. “Besides, there are worse things than partying all night long!”

  I couldn’t help but grin. her enthusiasm was infectious, if a little out of place. Even if the partying lifestyle had long since worn thin for me.

  Brooke still loved it, though she always had. Vampires retained facets of the personality of whatever age they were turned at no matter how many years they had on them since, though it ultimately evened out with enough time which was probably why the party lifestyle held no great draw for me anymore.

  If Brooke hadn’t been turned she’d be an old woman by now, but that merely meant she was a sixty year old in the body of a teenager. Then again if I hadn’t been turned then I’d be a corpse in the ground instead of a walking undead corpse.

  “I wish I could still enjoy it the same way you do,” I said with a thin smile.

  “You could try to let loose again,” Brooke said.

  I looked around the room as I took a sip from my drink. The refrigerated stuff was never as good as the real thing, fresh and warm from the source, but it would do in a pinch.

  Not that I needed it after my unscheduled meal earlier. I needed to think, though, and drinking always helped me think.

  There was so much to do. So much to prepare for. I had to make sure the sorority was ready for an attack from the witches even as I didn’t let anyone know why I was suddenly so interested in preparing them for an attack from the outside.

  It was a difficult line to walk, but at least it was better than dealing with the pledges.

  The pledges. I hadn’t seen any sign of them since earlier in the subbasement. They should’ve been done with cleaning long ago.

  “Have you seen Diana or any of the other pledges lately?” I asked.

  I glanced out the window. There was a part of me that could scarcely believe they’d be stupid enough to go out and get into any sort of trouble so soon after I’d yelled at them, but I’d learned over the past year that I shouldn’t underestimate their stupidity.

  “No idea where they are,” Brooke said. “Why don’t you let them go off and do whatever they’re doing and not worry about them for a little while?”

  “Yeah,” I said, taking another sip of my drink. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Yet as I looked out the window to a campus night that was already coming to life with people streaming down the sidewalks to the various Greek affiliated houses and house parties that brought the night alive I couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

  The pledges were like children. It was always best when they were making noise. When they went silent was when I should start worrying.

  But I resisted the urge to go looking for them. They wouldn’t be so stupid as to defy me. Not so soon after being chastised. Besides, I had defenses to prepare, and I didn’t much feel like going out after what happened in the library with Lisa.

  I sighed and put the rest of my drink back in the fridge. This was going to be a long night, and I found myself looking forward to it less and less now that I knew there might very well be an army of crazed magic users out there waiting for a chance to kill us all.

  With a woman I was falling for at their head. A woman I couldn’t bring myself to kill even though I knew I should if I wanted to guarantee the continued survival of our house.

  25

  Lisa

  “What’s going on in there?” I asked. “Is that…”

  I trailed off. I didn’t want to give voice to the terrified thoughts running through my head.

  At first I thought it had to be a bad joke. People had been yelling toasts all night long, but this was nothing like those yells.

  There was an undercurrent of terror to these screams. Something bad was happening in there. I thought about the dark horrors lurking out there.

  I thought about what we’d seen earlier in the library. A vampire following me.

  I wondered if they’d found me instead of the other way around. I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t prepared.

  It had to be slayers doing their version of a bad joke. Getting drunk and acting crazy. It couldn’t be Diana or Ivy.

  Kendra was suddenly all business. “You need to get out of here now Lisa.”

  “What are you talking about? What’s happening?”

  “Nothing good,” she said. “I’m going to go check it out.”

  I reached out and grabbed her arm. Felt a little thrill over the terror at what might be lurking in the house. She grabbed my arm and dragged me.

  “You’re hurting me,” I said, trying to pull away.

  “Lisa, please trust me,” she said. “That’s the reason I brought you here tonight.”

  We reached the door from the kitchen out to the back yard and an alley beyond that. People had been going in and out all night grabbing beers from the keg.

  Kendra’s hand had barely touched the door handle when a scream rang out from the other side. In that moment I knew my worst fears were true.

  One of the vampires had found me, and whoever was out there was attacking wasn't playing nice.

  All those thoughts about having my revenge were blown away and replaced with terror that I’d be another terrified memory some other poor witch had to endure before she went on a suicide mission.

  That’s what this was. I’d always known it even if I hadn’t admitted it to myself.

  I peered into the back yard, but the lights flickered and went out leaving the fitful light of some tiki torches. Shadows moved in the darkness, followed by more screams.

  Kendra pulled at my arm again, and I dug in my heels even as I started to shiver. “I said you’re hurting me!”

  I tried to pull away,but she kept up that iron grip.

  “Get away from the window Lisa,” she hissed. “Nothing good is happening back there.”

  “I…”

  Something slammed into the window which cracked under the force of the impact. It was a girl I’d seen come into the kitchen a couple of times to grab beers, only now she was screaming. The screaming ended as the window splattered with blood.

  A shadow appeared from behind the girl and ripped her away.

  “What the hell was that?” I screamed, even as I knew what it was.

  No. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t ready. I’d never been ready.

  The screaming all around us was only getting louder. The kitchen was the only island of sanity in this whole house.

  Kendra turned me to face me. “Lisa. I need you to hide.”

  “Hide? What are you talking about?”

  My voice was frantic. The magic needed to come to me. Kendra should protect me. She was a slayer. Wasn’t that what slayers did damn it?

  My whole body tingled as I thought of that girl screaming against the door. Was that how it ended with Selene? Was that how I was going to end?

  Isn’t that what my mom told me? She’d warned me and I didn’t listen to her because I thought I knew best.

  Kendra pulled on me again. I was too terrified to protest. she opened a door under the sink. The sort of place where normal people would have cleaning supplies, but in this house it was just more booze.

  What a surprise.

  Kendra pulled bottles out and tossed them up on the counter with amazing speed.

  “You need to get in there and stay quiet Lisa,” she said.

  I looked down at the black hole under her sink, not comprehending what she was saying. Something had broken inside me. I was looking at the world around me, but nothing was connecting in my head. I felt as though I was having an out of body experience where I was hovering over the room staring down.

  I was a coward. This wasn’t how I’d imagined this going at all. I was supposed
to confront the vampires. Turn them to dust with magic that had never come to me. I wasn't supposed to hide in terror.

  “Lisa, get under the sink,” Kendra said, her voice firm.

  I was floating. I was giddy and maybe just a little drunk. I needed to do what she said. There was all that screaming, after all.

  It’d be a tight fit, but I was pretty sure I could fit. I climbed under and looked up, some of the fear returning as the door slammed shut and I was plunged into darkness.

  I don’t know how much time passed. I heard more screaming. I didn’t know where Kendra was. A part of me wondered if she’d thrown me down here because she saw me panicking and wanted to make her escape without me dragging her down.

  She wouldn’t do that, would she?

  My breath caught as I heard someone stumble into the room. All my non-sight senses were heightened sitting here in the darkness. I wanted to open the cupboard door a crack and see what was out there, but the terror of what might be waiting for me was too much.

  I knew it was Diana. It had to be Diana. I knew deep in the pit of my stomach that she was the one who’d chased Selene.

  Selene…

  The memory of her last moments ran through my head on repeat. It was as though it was my own memory, and in a way it was thanks to the magic that forced me to relive that horrible moment.

  That horrible moment that was about to happen to me. I tried to control my gasping, but it was difficult.

  “You can run, but you can’t hide,” a cruel voice said with a dismissive laugh.

  That voice chilled me to my core. The image of an open grave flashed through my mind, and I think it was only the lingering liquid courage that kept me from adding my own scream to the symphony already echoing through the house.

  I knew that voice. Diana. She’d found me.

  The island of sanity in the kitchen was gone. There were monsters out there on the hunt, and I was easy prey.

  “What the hell are you?” some girl’s panicked voice shrieked, seemingly right outside my hiding place.

  I felt bad, but I let out a sigh of relief. Maybe Diana was after that girl and not me. Maybe she’d be so preoccupied she wouldn’t bother to look for anyone else.

  “I’m your worst nightmare bitch,” the voice said.

  Something slammed against my hiding place and I screamed. I couldn’t help it. My hands went to my mouth as the scream escaped, and I hoped Diana hadn't heard it.

  “Well now. What was that?” a second voice said. “Did you hear that Diana?”

  “Sounded like a delicate little morsel hiding from us somewhere in here,” Diana said. “I wonder where the little morsel is hiding? She sounds like a pretty morsel. Like the morsel I’ve been looking for all night!”

  “I wonder where it is,” the second voice said. “Not hiding in one of the cupboards, obviously. No dishwasher here. They can’t afford fancy things like that on a college budget. That leaves…”

  I shrieked as my hiding space was filled with light as door was ripped off its hinges and flew across the room.

  A face peered in at me. The girl would’ve been pretty, except for a couple of things that were definitely out of the ordinary. The first was she seemed very pale. Dead pale.

  The second problem was the glowing red eyes. Cruel eyes that looked me up and down as though I was a piece of meat. Literally a piece of meat, and not something she wanted to fuck, though there seemed to be a little of that in her look as well as she licked her lips.

  And that licking her lips brought me to the last thing. The girl had fangs, long and cruel. Fangs that didn’t look like the fake glow in the dark plastic variety you saw around Halloween.

  I was staring at the real thing. A vampire in her full fury not bothering to hide what she was. There was no calling the Coven Mother to save me now.

  “Hello little morsel,” the vampire said. “I’m Elle. A pleasure to meet you.”

  Her hand darted out and I realized Kendra had been gentle compared to this Elle bitch. I felt like my arm was being ripped out of its socket as she yanked me out into the kitchen.

  A terrified girl in a halter top and skirt stared between the two of us, and there was blood trickling down her neck.

  Which made sense. Vampires and all that. I was surprised at how well I was taking this. I’d gone right past panic into detachment. Not good, but then again being surrounded by a bunch of angry bloodsuckers was already pretty high up on the “not good” scale.

  Another girl was pulled into the room kicking and screaming and I felt relief followed by a chill when I realized it was Amber. She was putting up a damn good fight, but she was no match for their strength.

  I glanced around the room wondering if there was something I could improvise to use as a stake, but the closest I found was a wooden spoon hanging over the sink.

  I suppose that would hurt more if I managed to stake one of these assholes in the heart with it, but it probably wouldn’t work. Damn.

  I tried to concentrate on a spell. Any spell. I begged the magic to come to me, but as always it wasn’t listening. I called and it ignored me. I felt that detachment grow stronger. Like I was floating in a cloudy haze.

  Darkness pushed in around me in that haze. I was lost.

  My mom was right. I was a child being thrown into a wolf hunt, and the wolves were all around me licking their chops.

  “You killed him!” Amber shrieked. “I can’t believe it! You killed him!”

  They placed her in a row with me and the other girl and the fight went out of her. She sobbed into her hands.

  I wondered what she’d seen. Obviously some serious shit had gone down or she wouldn’t have fallen apart like that. I wondered if Kendra was lying dead bleeding out somewhere in the house. Or maybe she’d been bled out for a snack.

  So much for being protected by a great and powerful slayer.

  “These three will do,” Diana, said. “We don’t have time to grab any more. They’ll regroup soon enough.”

  Amber’s head snapped up and her eyes went wide as Diana spoke. Recognition and confusion warred on her face as she realized who was leading the group of bloodsuckers, but she didn’t say anything.

  Diana turned and stared at me. Licked her lips. “Let’s get moving. We have to do this nice and quiet. No witnesses.”

  I shivered. Yeah, no doubt what she planned on doing with us now. The bitch.

  I looked at the vampires standing around us with their fangs out. Looked to the girl standing with the holes in her neck looking shell-shocked.

  This was real. No more playing around. No more flirting with Ivy. This was the danger I’d been worried about. The danger that could kill me.

  Too bad I’d never be able to report it to anyone.

  Elle moved towards me and then her eyes were all I could see. The world spun around me and it had nothing to do with the booze.

  “You’re going to go to sleep now, my pretty little morsel,” she said.

  The world went hazy as darkness pressed at the edge of my mind. It was like there was a cloud moving in and I wanted to do what she said. I wanted to go to sleep. I wanted to please her.

  Yet there was still a part of me that fought. I was terrified that if I gave into that seductive desire to go to sleep then there was a chance I’d never wake up.

  So I fought. I somehow pushed back against that cloud threatening to smother my mind. The vampire blinked and took a step back as though someone had hit her physically.

  “Diana, there’s something wrong with this one,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?” Diana said, coming over to stand next to us. “You’re a fucking idiot, Elle. I told you not to drink too much before we came out here. You know it gives you performance issues.”

  “Fuck you Diana,” Elle said.

  “Yeah? Fuck you too. Watch how it’s done.”

  Diana’s eyes filled my vision. They glowed with a fitful flame. “You want to go to sleep now, bitch, or else.”

/>   Well then. That was more ominous and threatening. It was also way stronger than whatever I got hit with from that Elle bitch. My body shook and I wobbled and fell forward.

  A part worried that it would hurt when I slammed into the hard tile, but the world thankfully went black around me before I hit.

  26

  Lisa

  “Lisa…”

  The voice drifted across a dark and formless void. I couldn’t recognize it. I barely recognized that it was calling to me.

  This had the feel of magic, but it was like no magic I’d ever heard described. It was powerful. It made me shake in terror almost as much as the thought of the vampires.

  Vampires. Why was I thinking about vampires?

  “Lisa!”

  The voice sounded familiar. Like it belonged to someone I should know. Someone I’d just met.

  It was feminine. What did feminine mean? A girl. Right. I was a girl. I wasn’t just a spirit floating in the void.

  Something crackled off in the distance. A pulsing cloud of light that shot off bolts of angry red lightning. I looked around and realized maybe this void wasn’t as formless as I’d thought. That pulsing cloud surrounded me on all sides.

  I frowned. That didn’t seem right. I don’t know how, but I reached out and pushed at that cloud in the distance.

  That cloud could’ve been a few feet or light years away like some nebula viewed through a powerful telescope.

  Not that I had any concept of what a nebula or a telescope was. The comparison just sort of made sense to me even though they were words drifting across the surface of my consciousness with no true meaning attached to them.

  Weird.

  “Lisa! Don’t die Lisa!”

  Huh. Death. Was I dead? If I was then this didn’t seem anything like what they told me heaven would look like. For a moment I was seized with the chilling possibility that I’d gone to the other place.

  I’d never believed in either one, seeing the reality of magic and how the world truly worked would do that to you, but there was nothing like finding yourself floating in a dark void with strange voices shouting at you to make someone into a believer.