by Elle Klass
“What started it? Like, how does someone become a Slayer?”
Alison flipped backwards in the book. “Hold on, here it is. The society of Slayers came together in 1385 in Spain. The Bloodseekers were created through the magic of a dying sorceress in the late eleventh century, in an effort to achieve immortality. In order to live, she needed the blood of others. She was the first, and made more and more in her likeness. The ability to skate by death cost them. Their finger nails became claws under a full moon, their teeth daggers, and they burst into flame in the sun’s light. Their eyes no longer saw daylight, but heat from living things. During the new moon when the sky holds no light they are the strongest and most deceptive. These nocturnal creatures lived in the night, seeking and feeding on the blood of others, and grew stronger by number. An opposition group of seven formed and, through the use of a magic spell on seven different stones, one for each color of visible light, the Slayers were born. Their journals and stones can only pass on through a direct descendant, one who can read the journal and see the glow of the amulet.”
Vicky’s eyes grew huge, and her mouth gaped. “Oh my…” She raked her fingers through her hair and held it back in a hand ponytail. “This is soo interesting!”
“It says that when the Slayers are separated they have to find one another and destroy the Bloodseekers…” At that moment a blinding white light swept over Alison’s room. The full moon’s light muted by the brilliance. She’d read enough of the book to know Rodham just activated the amulet. A blank screen on her phone stared back at her, and she guessed the burst caused a disruption that disconnected the call. She dropped it on her bed, ran to the living room and skidded towards the front door, then pushed it open and rushed to Rodham’s.
Chapter 7
Rodham
Rodham, Rodham…
He pulled the pillow over his head to drown the amulet’s call, but the voice was inside his head. No matter what he did, he couldn’t ignore it. Tired of the battle and sure the amulet was his, he opened the closet door, knocked the blankets off the box then picked it up. Light radiated outside the seams.
Put it around your neck.
In a hurry, he opened the box and stared at the glowing amulet, now Rodham, now! He grabbed the chain and lifted it above his head. As soon as the amulet touched his flesh, a brilliant white light encompassed his body and shot out at every angle. His body lifted off the ground and spun, his muscles prickled and exploded beneath his skin. Emerald flames erupted from his body, lapping the room and penetrating the window screen.
Two sets of eyes stared at him from outside, one set amber, the other a surreal green. The amber set ducked as fire blazed over her head, the other set belonging to a creature were engulfed as it burned, turning it into a pile of ash, then the flames curled inside Rodham.
In a panic, seeing Alison nearly become a vampire meal, he rushed towards the window to pop out the screen, it was cool to the touch and unsinged. Alison sat on the grass, her head turned towards the pile of ash.
“Are you hurt?” Concern filtered through his voice.
She turned her head and lifted her eyes towards him. “I never saw… I didn’t hear it.”
He pulled the screen up then dropped it beside the apartment. “Take my hand.”
Still in a daze, she grabbed his hand as he gently pulled her up, draping her arms around his neck as he slid her inside his apartment and sat her on his bed.
Alison
Suddenly aware of the danger she’d put herself into, her heartbeat quickened to a steady thrumming as blood pumped like a racecar through her body. She dropped to the grass, staring at the ash pile as the flames curled inside Rodham.
Alison remained in a daze as Rodham pulled her through the window and set her on his bed. His scent aroused her senses, jerking her out of the stupor. “You saved my life.”
“The amulet saved you.”
“I was talking with Vicky when white light burst through my room - that’s when I came outside.” She took in his new, greener appearance and placed her hand on the amulet hanging from his neck. “The amulet isn’t glowing any more, but you are.”
He stepped towards the mirror. “I look like an oversized green elf!”
A beautiful oversized green elf.
“I heard that.”
Her eyes shifted towards the carpeted floor. “You’re telepathic, that’s going to take a little getting used to.” Not thinking dirty thoughts about Rodham would be a challenge for Alison.
He walked towards her. “Dirty thoughts. What kind of dirty thoughts?” A coy smile on his face.
“It’s rude to poke around in people’s minds.” Her body at ease and feeling a bit flirtatious, she smiled demurely.
“I hear streams of thought, not just yours, and I don’t know how to control it so, unless you want to share your dirty thoughts with me, don’t think them.”
His muscles exploding more than usual, she swiped the thought from her mind and used all her energy to concentrate on more important things. “You need the book. It will teach you. I’ve just spent the last few hours reading it and I’m not halfway done. Every emerald amulet Slayer’s experiences make up that book. It’s a journal.”
“It called to me from the closet. I couldn’t ignore it. You touched it too, and you can see it, but it’s my amulet. That’s why it didn’t do anything when you touched it.”
She nodded, listening to him put the puzzle pieces in place. They chatted for the next hour and she relayed all the information she’d learned from reading the journal. She touched his emerald head. “Our biggest problem is what are we going to do with your green hair?”
“It’s late, I’ll come up with a solution in the morning.” They tiptoed through his apartment so as to not wake his parents. He slowly opened the front door and walked her across the hall in case any more creatures were hidden outside in the blanket of night.
At her door, which she’d forgotten to lock in her rush, she turned towards Rodham and twisted her lips. “Wait here.” She scanned the breezeway searching for vampires. “On second thought, come inside.” She skipped to her bedroom and brought him the journal, placing it in his palm. “This is yours, and thank you.”
He nodded and shuffled his feet in response, unsure how to accept gratitude that didn’t belong to him but to the amulet. Rodham left without further comment.
Alison lay in her bed, exhausted, yet thousands of thoughts streamed through her mind. Which Slayer am I? How will I know? How did the Slayers get separated? When sleep finally took her overactive mind she dreamed of vampires.
The following day, she went to Rodham’s with the answer to his hair dilemma. He opened the door before she knocked. Creepy.
“I stayed in my room until my parents left for work so they wouldn’t see. The razor is ready. I’m ready. Shave it.” He couldn’t help it, but the mind reading thing was getting on her nerves. She dismissed it and followed him into his bathroom. He took a seat on the toilet.
“Are you positive?” she asked, running her hands over the soft curls, streaked with green that covered his head.
“Do it.”
“OK.” She turned on the razor and ran it across his head. His curls fell on the floor surrounding him, changing from green to brown as they drifted to the tile floor. Ten minutes later, his head was smooth and void of hair. A vanity mirror lay on the countertop. She placed it in front of his face.
He turned his head to the left, then the right. “Not bad. At least my head doesn’t have dents.”
“You’re welcome. How much did you read?”
He stood, walked into the living room, dropped onto the couch and perched his feet on the coffee table. “Quite a bit. It says when a Slayer first touches their amulet a white light signals all other Slayers.”
“The radiation burst hangs up phone calls too,” she said as her phone vibrated, remembering her dropped call with Vicky. Alison pulled it from her pocket.
“Hey Vick.”
&nbs
p; “Hey Alison I tried calling you back several times. What the heck?” Alison placed the phone on the coffee table in front of her and Rodham. “Oh girl. You don’t lie, what a hottie!” That’s Vicky, she’s not shy.
His dimple depressed in his cheek as his lips curled. “I try.” He smoothed his shirt, puffing out his extra buff chest.
As gorgeous as he is, we have more important things to talk about, thought Alison, trying not to look and think dirty thoughts. “Rodham, this is Vicky my bestie in Virginia. I was talking with her last night when your light disconnected our call. I told her about the book, and the Slayers, and the vampires. The book calls them Bloodseekers.”
“That light was Rodham?!”
He leaned towards her. “You saw it?”
“I saw a bright light when our call got cut short. I thought it was a radiation burst.” All three sets of their eyes glanced back and forth to each other.
Alison remembered how Vicky couldn’t see the book yet she saw the burst. Puzzled, she asked, “How? I mean, no one here noticed it but me and Rodham. You couldn’t see the print in the book?”
“I… I… don’t know, but I saw something, maybe it came through the phone. Phones use microwaves right? So maybe it was our connection,” Vicky responded, stumbling over her words.
Her explanation made a certain amount of sense to Alison. “Look into his eyes, what do you see?”
Vicky squinted and studied his face. “I see brown, no, there’s green in there too.”
“You don’t see them glowing?”
“Glowing, no. Should I?”
“No. According to the book, when a new Slayer is born their burst of white light sends a message to all other Slayers. So I thought, maybe…” Alison realized maybe shaving Rodham’s hair was an overreaction.
“I’m a Slayer,” Vicky finished Alison’s words.
She turned to Rodham. “Can you hear Vicky’s thoughts?”
He squeezed his eyes closed in concentration and sat still for several seconds. On the edge of suspense, Alison held her breath, realizing it, she exhaled.
“Alison’s thoughts are strong and I hear streams of other thoughts but I’m not sure if I hear yours. There’s too many,” he said, defeat written across his face.
Wanting to change the subject, and excited over their or Rodham’s first slaying, Alison jumped in. “After our phones disconnected I ran to Rodham’s window. I didn’t think about the vampires, and I crouched below his window. Green flames jumped from his body, skipping over my head and fried a vampire standing right behind me! I didn’t even know he was there, now he’s a pile of ash!”
“No way! That is too cool!” responded Vicky, excited over her friend’s experience.
“Right! Listen Vick, we gotta go. If he’s going to be any use killing more vampires and helping me find my amulet then we need to work on his telepathy.”
Vicky puckered her lips and blew a kiss. “I love you! Call me later. This stuff is too good.”
While she hung up with Vicky, Rodham grabbed the Slayer book from his room. He flipped through several pages to a spot he dog-eared. It was titled, Controlling Telepathy. They spent the rest of the afternoon practicing the exercises until he could disseminate more thoughts than Alison’s. He still needed work at not peeking into her head, although he liked being inside her head.
The twosome sat on his patio as the sun set, trails of color drifted across the sky and the street lights flickered on. A blue car turned into the parking lot. Alison glanced at the emerald amulet hung over his shirt. Reading her thoughts, knowing the blue car contained the vampires, he dropped it beneath his shirt, hiding it in time.
The vampires, or Bloodseekers or whatever they were, stepped out of the blue vehicle. Their eyes drifted towards Rodham, then Alison. Frozen in place, chills spiked up and down Alison’s spine. They swept past them in slow motion and rounded the corner towards their apartment.
Rodham
The amulet secure around his neck, its power coursing through his body, he saw them for what they were. Their faces looking more alien than human, long oval spheres with vibrant eyes set deep into their sockets, long finger-like, razor-sharp claws, and elf-pointed ears.
He opened his mind to allow their thoughts in, but they didn’t come to him like humans’. So he closed his eyes briefly to concentrate, something was there, but it was fuzzy.
Chapter 8
Alison
Alison finally got a decent night’s rest as the vampires remained quiet. In fact, she heard nothing from their apartment, although the eerie quiet made her wonder what evils they were plotting. Her mom bustled through the house as Alison readied herself for school. At sixteen she was capable of getting ready without her, but her mother wouldn’t have it. Alison’s first day at a new school, everything had to be perfect and organized in her world.
“Al, I made breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day. Eat.”
Not hungry, but not wanting to listen to her mother’s nutrition speech, she ate the orange slices, nibbled at the eggs and ripped her toast, stuffing a bite into her mouth. The thought of her only child going to school, brought out her overactive mother-nurse instincts. Alison imagined the stress her first day of kindergarten had brought her mother. She knew her mother well. Thus, once she made it home in the afternoon, fed her the details of day one, she’d calm and after a week she’d be getting herself ready for school alone.
Pouring her metal thermos-cup with steaming hot coffee, Alison’s mother said, “Your Gran called yesterday. I’m picking her up from the airport tomorrow. I have to work, so you’ll have her all to yourself for a few days.” Gran, her mother’s mom, was the coolest grandmother on earth. She and Alison had a tight bond and unspoken language. Simple glances between them said more than words.
“Really! I love Gran. How long is she staying?” Alison said, excited enough she stuffed another torn piece of toast in her mouth.
“You know Gran, spur of the moment, and who knows. She comes and goes on a whim.” Gran was a free spirit and full of energy. At seventy, she acted like twenty.
“She’ll be here when I get home tomorrow?”
Her mother nodded and kissed her cheek. Alison grabbed her empty backpack and scooted out the door. She walked past Rodham’s apartment and realized somehow she’d avoided introducing him to her mom. In fact, she’d skated past telling her anything about him. That wouldn’t last much longer. At some point she’d pry it out of her.
Rodham’s shiny green Charger was parked outside his apartment. It wasn’t a lime green or the ugly olive green car makers used in the past but a shiny emerald. The same color as his eyes and the amulet. She wondered if the amulet hadn’t spoken to him when he purchased the car. Coincidence? She gazed towards her silver Corolla. Silver wasn’t even a Slayer color. She chalked up his green car to coincidence.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear Rodham sneak up behind her until her body was floating off the ground, held in his firm grasp. She recognized his scent as soon as his fingers touched her waist, subduing her immediate fear. “Good morning to you, too.”
He set her down and spun her around to face him. “Why don’t we ride together?”
Ride with him. Now that would make an awesome first impression at school. “Sure.”
His emerald eyes beamed towards Alison, his active mind once again reading her thoughts. “Don’t worry about being the new kid, I know everyone.”
Reading my mind again. He couldn’t yet help it, she reminded herself. The bond between them was extra strong.
She climbed into his car and texted her mom, hoping she wouldn’t need to explain later: Riding to school with neighbor. Her finger hovered over the send button. If she didn’t send the message, her mother would wonder why her car was in the lot still. She pushed the send button and watched as the message status changed to sent.
When they arrived at school, expensive cars and well-dressed students cluttered the parking lot. Alison looked at her
own clothes, a pair of jeans, probably last year’s style as they’d bought them at the St. Augustine outlet mall, and a mauve geometric cotton blouse also bought at the outlets.
Don’t be intimidated. Their parents have money but there’s other kids here like us. Instead of speaking it, Rodham planted the thought in her head.
The message took her by surprise. Implanting thoughts was more powerful than listening in on private thoughts. How did you do that? she asked through her head, knowing full-well that he was listening.
I’ve been practicing. He turned towards her, smiling wide with pride at his new ability.
Alison thought of all the ways planting subliminal messages might help them with the vampires, although, at this point, neither knew if his mind reading ability stretched to them.
She glanced at Rodham in his denim shorts cut just below the knee and simple blue T-shirt. The sleeves tight around his swelling biceps, and doubted his clothes were designer label.
They maneuvered through the parking and he telepathically asked her to take out her schedule. She found the talking in her head thing cool but a little creepy at the same time.
He gave her a quick tour of the school, walked her past all her classes. She knew she wouldn’t remember them all - the school was huge, much larger than her high school in Virginia - but was thankful for his help and his company. Until meeting Rodham, she imagined her first day very differently, more like her twisting the map all directions to figure out where on it she was and the path she’d take to the next class. And she certainly hadn’t expected any friendships.
Every couple minutes, they stopped as Rodham clutched hands with a buddy or returned a hug from a girl. He introduced Alison to more students than she’d known throughout her entire school career.
“What’s up with the shiny head?” came a male voice from behind them.