Blood and Beasts

by L. M. Miller

  “Good memory,” she commented as they finally entered a large banquet hall where students were eating at long tables, enjoying cafeteria food, if that were possible.

  She scanned the tables. Not many people were drinking giant goblets of blood. Everybody was eating pancakes or eggs or toast and was sipping drinks like orange juice or water or milk. She was going to stand out more than she already did. She saw a few people nudging each other, pointing or just flat out staring. Uneasily, she followed Phin to the line, which was not too long.

  He sensed her uneasiness. Even if he had not fed on her, he could easily have detected her wary movements and suspicious glances at the other students, all signs of her discomfort. He sighed inwardly, hoping she would not be able to sense that. He had omitted the little factor that she would be a bit connected to him too after the whole blood drawing event. Better she did not realize that… He eyed her as she nervously stood there, staring at the other students belligerently. He opted to help her out.

  “Why don’t we just grab your food on the go, and I’ll show you to the Guth… Sir Guthrie’s room?” He suggested, and he could feel and sense the gratitude that swamped her.

  “Sounds good to me,” she stated before just staring at him, waiting for him to show her where the blood was.

  He walked forward suavely and went up to one of the three lunch ladies, sisters obviously, ugly sisters at that. Phin caught her thoughts but hoped to the Night that none of the witch sisters had. You do not offend those who make your food. Hazel, the middle sister, was usually the most telepathic of the three, but she seemed simply jovial today. New students always got a good lashing and a horrid serving of food their first week of school when they thought bad thoughts about their lunch ladies. He smiled at Hazel, approaching her first. Her frizzy, yellow hair stuck out every which way as she smiled broadly at him, missing quite a few teeth. Her pale-blue eyes were almost too blue, milky-looking. He hid his feelings well.

  “Hello, Hazel. You’re looking ravishing this morning,” he grinned at her, and she smiled back, batting her stubby lashes at him.

  “Don’t believe a word he says, Haze. He’s a vampire. Lookin’ ravishin’ probably ain’t the best thing fer ya, if ya know what I mean,” muttered her older sister, the hideous Myrtle.

  Myrtle was bitter, coldhearted, and did not care in the least bit for pleasantries, children, or freshly made cookies. She did her job strictly for the paycheck, hating everybody and anybody in her mud-brown eyes’ line of sight. Hazel was the most hopeful of the three as Heather was a bit… slow. He glanced sideways as the youngest sister dazedly slopped scrambled eggs on one poor boy’s plate after he had clearly asked for pancakes. He turned his attention back to Hazel though, blinking his pale eyes at her.

  “Hazel, do you think you could scrounge up a pint of blood for my little fledgling here?” He asked, nodding his head towards the stalwart-looking Seph, although he felt the tendrils of apprehension simply pulsating off of her.

  “Yea, I think I can find you one. You drinkin’ a whole pint? You don’t look that hungry,” she gazed curiously at his eyes.

  “It’s for the little fledgling, remember?” He reminded her, and she laughed to herself, a hair-raising, skin-crawling, scratchy-sounding laugh that made Seph’s skin itch as it prickled all over her.

  “Oh yea,” she bent over and scrambled through a fridge, pulling out a pint of blood.

  Seph looked at it uneasily. It did not look exactly… appetizing. Maybe she wasn’t really a vampire… Maybe she just bit Nate in the heat of the moment and… She sighed. People did not drink other people’s blood in the heat of the moment. She was a vampire, but that bottled stuff did not look good. The lunch lady, Hazel, poured it into an amber-tinted mug for her, a beer mug, and passed it over. She took it grudgingly, staring down into its thick contents that didn’t cause a single growl to rise from her stomach. It looked cold. It was cold. Phin took it from her hands.

  “Iced blood, Hazel? C’mon… You can microwave it for us, can’t you?” He asked nicely, and the girl laughed again.

  “Oh, I must have forgot,” she said, taking the mug from his hands and putting it in the microwave directly behind her.

  As she and Phin flirted for the next minute and a half, Seph scanned the staring students around her in the cafeteria. Not a single person had an amber-tinted beer mug in their hands for breakfast. Far off, she saw a few people sipping from amber glasses. Two were actually drinking from them. One guy had shoulder-length hair, shaggy and dark-brown in color. His skin was olive-colored, and his eyes were hidden in shadows. He was stunning in appearance. The other guy had equally shaggy hair, maybe not quite as long, but it was choppy, in his face, and jet-black. He was Asian, by the looks of it, but taller than average as he stood up to put away his tray. He dressed kind of grungy in baggy black pants and a black T-shirt with some rock band on it. Apparently, the other vampires liked to keep to themselves. The guy with the brown hair turned to talk to a large woman sitting with them, drinking nothing, although Seph was pretty sure that she was a vampire too.

  She was obviously a very tall woman and built strongly. She was brown, but not nearly as dark as Phin. Her brown hair was laced with golden highlights and done in braids, half of which were pulled up on her head, forming a sort of crown. Her eyes were sultry-looking and light-colored at the moment. Her large lips pulled back into a gleaming, white smile as she laughed at something the brown-haired boy had said. Suddenly, the girl… woman… vampire… glanced up and locked eyes with Seph. The young girl shuddered and looked away, catching the woman’s light laughter at her even from the far distance across the dining hall.

  “I see you’ve noticed the others,” Phin said, passing her over the now warm pint of blood. “The girl’s Sarabi,” he nodded at the three as they walked back out to the hallway. “She’s my age, in her sixth year. She’s grown very restless of late,” he murmured, thinking aloud. “She wants to leave more than anything. She has a wanderer’s spirit, that Sarabi. I was hoping that she would settle. I wish us vampires could settle. I feel that I could stay and teach here awhile,” he admitted to her, still thinking out loud as she gradually sipped her pint of blood.

  It was actually not as awful as she had suspected. It was good. Not as good as fresh blood, but she guessed that was because it was fresh, and there was the whole context of how she had taken the blood. She sighed, sipping the blood happily, watching as other students meandered by. She felt much better now.

  “You are very content,” he stated, and she glanced up at him.

  “Yea, I guess so,” she murmured. “I don’t know why, but I just feel like…” she glanced up at him a little nervously. “I dunno… like everything’s all right… Everything is happening as it’s supposed to happen…” she said, a little warily, afraid he was going to say that she sounded stupid or something.

  He stopped walking a moment, and she didn’t notice, walking right past him. When she realized that he was no longer beside her, she hurriedly circled back around. She looked up at him uncertainly. Had she said something that offended him?

  “Sorry?” She asked timidly, although timidity was not usually in her repertoire.

  “No…” he murmured, picking his feet up. “No, don’t apologize. There’s nothing wrong with what you said. It’s just… I wish I could feel that content for no particular reason,” he joked with her as the spiraling marble beneath their feet slowly faded to green as did the walls around them.

  She gave him a suspicious, sideways glance. She knew that was not the real reason he had suddenly stopped, or it was not the only reason, at the very least. He did not think what she had said was wrong or sick or anything, but there was something… else. Whatever it was, he was not about to reveal it. Should she really be able to read this much from Phin? Someone she had just met? Was it a vampire talent? Did it have something to do with the blood thing between them? He would have mentioned that though, surely. Still…

  Before she
knew it, she was tipping the amber mug back, savoring the last few drops of warm blood, which were absolutely delicious. They had paused outside a golden, gilded door. The numbers 001 were posted on the door in large, black, cursive numbers. She stared at the door as a student nudged between them to walk through, clearly wondering why she was just standing there and why she was standing with Phin, the lead vampire at the school.

  “Lead vampire?” She asked, and he gave her a curious, silver-eyed stare.

  “You caught that too? As I suspected…” She had no idea what that meant, and he didn’t embellish on the point, as cryptic as ever. “I’m considered the lead vampire at the school because I teach the vampire class, Vamp Class, since I am the oldest and strongest vampire here. Also, it’s because I’ve been considering staying here, once I graduate, as I told you earlier. Anyway, here’s your first class, History of the Universe,” he caught a look of misgiving cross her face.

  “Sounds a little difficult,” she murmured, and he smiled at her cheerily.

  “It’s really not that hard. Honestly, the hardest thing in the class is staying awake. Here, I’ll take this,” he took her empty pint glass from her. “Good luck,” he added, and they parted ways.

  Time to start her first day at Monster Academy.

  CHAPTER SIX

  She stared at his receding back a moment, dreading her entrance into that classroom, even though class would start in approximately… two minutes, according to her watch. That was, if they started right on time. She suspected that a supernatural school like this would probably start right on time though.

  “If you stare any harder, he might turn around,” a not-too-nice voice nearly growled in her ear.

  She jerked around to see a tall girl in front of her. She had tan skin, back-length, thick, jet-black hair, and wide, golden eyes. Obviously, she was not a vampire, and if she was thinking correctly, werewolves had gold eyes? Francesca did, and her eyes had not been gold before this whole new werewolf thing. She looked smartly up at the girl, who was roughly 5’7, she wagered.

  “You’re the new vampire,” she said, staring directly into Seph’s eyes, which she suspected were a pearl grey right now.

  Seph nodded once, not letting her eyes shift from this girl, a possible enemy, the predator part of her mind ascertained.

  “I’m Ruby. Ruby Singing Crow,” she said curtly, waiting for Seph to respond.

  “Hey, Singing Crow, you wanna move outta the way? I’m kinda tryin’ to get to class,” a stout Asian girl said from beside the tall girl, Ruby.

  Ruby slowly looked over and glowered down at the other girl. The other girl’s shoulder-length, black hair framed her heart-shaped face perfectly as she gave Ruby a curt grin, nearly a grimace.

  “What do you want, Linda?” The taller girl snarled, teeth literally gnashing.

  “Wow… Well, lemme think about this… I want you… to get outta my way, like I said before,” the much shorter Asian girl, Linda, responded fiercely.

  They stared at each other a moment, perhaps prepping for a fight. However, they both quickly decided against that. Linda shoved past the girl with no more ado, and Seph hurried after her before the tall girl could confront her anymore. Seph could be as obstinate as the next person, more so even, but right now, she just wanted to fit in and not get into any fights with any other supernatural creatures, especially on her first day.

  She zeroed in on a seat in the back and rushed over to it. Sliding into the seat resolutely, she took in the rest of the class from her fantastic vantage point. Most of the seats were filled up by now. Ruby was just sauntering in. She seemed to already know where she was going to sit. That was when her eyes fell on Seph. What were the odds that she had taken that mean girl’s self-proclaimed seat, out of all the other seats in the entire classroom? Ruby stalked over to stand directly in front of Seph, gold eyes glaring down at her. Seph cursed under her breath at her horrible luck.

  “What was that, little vampire?” Ruby asked, arms folded aggressively over her chest.

  Seph glared up at the girl. She was not about to get in a fight on her first day, in her first class. She was not about to be a pushover either. Guess she couldn’t have the best of both worlds. However, she kept her silence and her desk determinedly, not saying a thing.

  “You’re in my desk,” she said firmly, and Seph looked away, staring forward. “Did you hear me, bloodsucker? I said you’re in my desk,” she repeated, and Seph continued to ignore her, hoping against hope that the teacher would hurry up and arrive before this turned ugly. “Move,” Ruby growled and shoved Seph hard.

  Now, Seph was strong, especially with her extra vampire strength that she had. However, Ruby was a werewolf, and werewolves were strong also. Therefore, she couldn’t help but stumble out of her seat, not expecting Ruby to actually touch her.

  “That’s what I thought,” Ruby announced, flouncing around to the now open seat.

  Seph saw red at the edges of her vision. Before Ruby could take that seat, Seph pushed her away this time. Ruby lost her balance and hit the floor roughly, rolling over with astonishment. Seph narrowed her eyes at her, standing above her.

  “It’s my seat,” Seph murmured warningly, sitting herself back down at the desk.

  “Why you little-” Ruby started, rising swiftly just as the teacher walked in.

  Sir Guthrie walked in to his classroom just in time to see a new vampire hissing warningly at a pissed off werewolf student of his, Ruby something.... She seemed to rule the class with an iron fist. Honestly, he did not care that this new girl was not abiding by student unspoken politics, that she was a vampire, or anything else concerning the lot of them. He cared about his class starting on time and if any fights were about to break out in his class. He was not sure he could stop a strong werewolf and a new vampire from harming each other. Did he even want to?

  “Is there a problem, ladies?” He asked, walking to the back of the classroom beside them.

  “No, Sir Guthrie,” Ruby growled through gritted teeth, eyes never faltering from Seph’s.

  “No, Guth Ma… Sir Guthrie,” Seph stumbled before looking up at him sheepishly.

  Guth Man? The older students called him that. So the new student already knew some of the big kids? She must think she was so tough, picking on the class bully, talking with the older students… Oh… She was a vampire. Of course she had talked to an older student. There were no vampire teachers. He sighed. He just wanted to start class on time.

  “Let’s start class then,” he announced, turning his back on the girls and hobbling his way to the front.

  “This isn’t over, bloodsucker,” Ruby hissed, starting to move past Seph when the vampire suddenly grabbed her wrist.

  Resorting to name calling? Woof woof, she snarled in Ruby’s mind before releasing her.

  The girl stumbled away, confused, and found the last empty seat at the very front of the classroom, in the middle, directly in front of the Guth Man, who spat like crazy apparently. Things could not have turned out better. On the other hand, things could not have turned out worse because she had already made one enemy at this school and zero friends. She tried to focus on what the Guth Man was saying, but the way his voice droned was like leaving the history channel on. She kept nodding off, her forehead nearly smacking the desk one time. She looked to her left and right, hoping that nobody had noticed.

  The short-haired, Asian girl from earlier was staring at her. She was staring at her intently. Why? Did she have something on her face? The girl had dark eyes, but they were brown, not black or grey, meaning that she was not a vampire or a werewolf. So that meant she was a… witch? That would be the only other option. Why was she staring at her? She obviously was not friends with Ruby, or maybe she was and they were just having a bad day today, of all days, but she doubted that.

  The girl… what was her name… Linda… She was fairly pretty. She had full lips, a shallow nose, wider eyes, and arched brows. She wore a black choker around her neck, but it
was plain and simple, unlike Seph’s with its silver chain and charm. Her fingers grazed the crescent moon dangling from her neck. Nate… Was he okay? She was suddenly swamped with feelings of emptiness, relief, and intense longing. She nearly gasped, sitting up straighter in her desk as the emotions washed over her.

  No one was looking at her, save that strange girl. Her heart was pounding, and by pounding, she meant it was going about normal human speed. Had she just felt what Nate was feeling? Phin had mentioned something about that… What had he said? He had told her a lot… Maybe she would ask him during their vampire class. That was so strange, feeling somebody else’s feelings as thought they were her own.

  Her fingers skimmed down her schedule. Vamp class was not until last period. That was a long time from now. Maybe she should just forget about it. It wasn’t a life-threatening matter or anything. It was just… weird. Everything was weird now. She should just forget about it… and she did. The rest of the class Seph zoned in and out as the Guth Man droned on and on about Atlantis, the actual civilization, and the distinct culture it possessed to this very day.

  The bell rang, startling Seph back to reality. She had been preoccupied reading the thoughts of the short, red-haired boy that sat in front of her. He was nervous about having a vampire at his back. She seemed really vicious, especially the way she had handled Ruby. That look in her pale eyes was going to haunt him for a few days. She was pretty though and wearing a short skirt. As his thoughts started to become more and more perverse, as only the minds of teenage boys’ could, she quickly moved out of his thoughts, not wanting to hear anything more and get all angry again. She probably should not be able to read others’ thoughts so easily, but who knew… maybe this was a vampire skill that Phin hadn’t mentioned, and all vampires could do it. Maybe this was not something even stranger about her. That was a cheery thought, a bit optimistic for her taste though. She was going to Monster Academy after attacking her best friend. She had nothing to be particularly cheery about nowadays.