by Amy Mah
The boys were the only good part of being here, as no one around her was particularly interested in education (including the teacher, who was now picking his nose and carefully wiping his fingers on the notes he was studying).
Muris flicked though the student notes he had been given and inwardly groaned as he saw that he had a celebrity with this new group. He so hated full-blooded kids trying to make a name for themselves before they even knew how to wipe their own butts without a maid to offer a hand. He also hated this assignment; so he had killed a fellow guard, so what? No one would have said anything if he was a full-blood. The idiot had almost gotten the small, elite group killed in a meeting with members from another nest, and worse, he had made them run away. So Muris took matters into his own hands and killed him, but no! It was the council’s job to do that, not a lowly grunt like him.
He had turned the group around and laid an ambush; they had killed all that were chasing them. Therefore, he was being punished with a promotion and a 50-year assignment to teach the younglings how to survive in the big, bad world! Huh! As if he cared!
Turnlings had to know their place, and that was like the maid with his butt in the air to take whatever a full-blood wanted to stick his way. Well, not him; he had earned the rare right to live in the nest, and the nest accepted him. So he was a full-blood in all but specie, but that was not popular with the full-bloods. He could still see the smile on his officer’s face when they gave him the so-called promotion to military liaison.
He reluctantly got up from the chair he was sprawled over, and as he stood in front of a very uneven line of young vampires who were trying to look cool and nonchalant, he sighed, scratched his groin and spoke.
“So, what have we here? This is it, eh? This is what they send me?”
No one spoke, so he scratched his groin again and continued.
“So, you have all completed your first hunt and killed and eaten your first prey. And is that supposed to impress me and make me think you have all grown up! Next, they will be giving out medals on how well you can wipe your own butts!
“You are vampires! What makes you think that feeding yourself is such a big deal? And one of you here, whom I will not embarrass by naming names, will I, Hugo Bloodleach? Took three attempts to make a first kill, and you only succeeded the third time when the prey died of a heart attack!”
He waited for the sniggering to die away before he continued.
“As if any of you would last five minutes out in the real world without a maid to look after you! Now, what is the point in trying to teach you anything about being a real vampire when all you males will do is get placed in some office job? And as to you females: I can already smell the excitement half of you are showing on being so close to males. It makes me sick having to teach you living skills when all you are looking forward to doing in life is raising your tail to as many males as you can before Mommy and Daddy find a mate for you to start breeding with!”
“Well, any female here I catch raising her tail during my class had better have a doctor’s certificate saying she is in heat, or I will stick a training pole so far up her butt it will knock her fangs out.”
One of the boys laughed and made a rude comment. He looked older, perhaps 17 (not that looks and ages meant anything as one of the girls looked 12 at most). Amy did not see Muris move, but he must have, and it must have been fast, as the boy who had spoken was now lying on the ground, groaning.
“I should point out that speaking in class is not permitted.”
As he walked up and down with a look of disgust on his face, he stopped in front of Amy.
“But I see we have a celebrity in our group: someone who thinks she is already an adult and perhaps also thinks that just because she has lived in the outside world and killed a few vampires, it makes her special. Perhaps too good to need help from a lowly turnling teacher that gave up counting his vampire kills after it went into the hundreds. What have you to say, Miss Pinkbat?”
Amy froze as he stared at her and wished she had gone to the bathroom earlier.
“I was saying that everyone has had their first hunt and official kill, but Miss Pinkbat thought that was a bit too easy, so she went and had a massacre, which made the headlines in 15 major newspapers and all the TV news channels, forcing the council to do a media cleaning job. Do you have anything to say about this showing off?”
Amy swallowed as all eyes were upon her and softly answered.
“Sir? Err…it was an accident. I didn’t mean to kill so many; I just sort of slipped off the roof. And they started shooting when I bit one of them. It then got a little out of hand. Besides, they mostly killed each other, and I did rescue a cat.”
Muris either smiled or snarled; she could not quite work out which (not that it mattered, as they both meant the same thing).
“Yes, well that is all right, then. So, the Massacre of 27th and 3rd was just an accident, as were the deaths of 57 humans and a drug baron, but then so long as the cat was safe, then that was good night out?”
Amy could feel the skin on her face burn. and she knew she was going to die of embarrassment unless he killed her first by marking her out as a target to all the other students in the room.
“Well, let’s see if we can at least teach you to not fall off roofs in the future. We wouldn’t want you failing to save another cat, now would we?”
He continued his inspection, then as he started to clean wax from his right ear, he addressed everyone in the standard teacher way of raising his voice as if he were trying to wake up those at the back of the class.
“I think some warm up exercises would be a good start today, and to make it fun, we will play a game of Coward and Runt. The rules are simple; you are all to run around the hall until I tell you the game has finished.”
He changed fingers and started on his other ear as he examined the wax from the first ear.
“The fun side is that who ever is in the lead will be the coward running away, and that person will be punished. The same goes for the last person, who will be the runt. So I want you all running around the hall trying hard not to lead the group or trail it. Simple! And as to the other rules, I will tell you those as the game goes on.”
Wiping his waxy fingers down his trousers, he now picked up a long wooden baton and looked back at them.
“Let us make it more fun, shall we? At the end of the hall, you will see two baskets; they contain female nightdresses and male cloaks, which you will all wear.”
At the blank looks he sighed. “That is, be you male or female, I want you all to be wearing both a nightdress and a cloak. Males will remove their jackets and pants so that the nightdress will fit. So off you go, and I want you running around the room widdershins”
Everyone slowly moved across the hall, hoping that someone in the group knew what the heck direction widdershins was. Amy froze as he issued another command.
“Not you, Miss Pinkbat. I want to have a word with you in private, so stand by my chair and wait.”
Amy now watched a group of very badly dressed teenage transvestites start running and then slowing down as the ones in the front decreased their speed so as not to lead, and the ones at the back sped up. It would have been very difficult under normal circumstances, but in long nightdresses and extra large cloaks, it was almost impossible.
Muris jogged along with them and shouted for them to speed up as it was more of a maelstrom than a race due to the way everyone wanted to be in the middle.
At one point a boy tripped and discovered he was instantly at the rear of the group. He was not there long as Muris appeared beside him and slammed him into the wall with such force that it took him some time to stand up. The group was now halfway around the hall, so Muris pointed out he was now leading the group and slammed his wooden baton into the boy’s stomach. The boy, still doubled up from the blow, ran towards the group that was heading towards him and forced his way into the center.
Muris left the untidy crowd of runners and
walked back to where Amy stood at attention.
“So, Miss Amelia Pinkbat, your parents that think you need some survival techniques, or perhaps from what I have read up on you, just lessons on trying not to kill everything you meet?”
Amy decided that it was not wise to comment.
“Living a feral life out in the wilds of a human city, preying on high school girls until you came to the attention of the council. They kindly tried to tame you, only to discover you picking fights with females from other nests and then helping start a cold war between us and another nest due to you attacking and killing males from that nest!”
Still looking straight ahead, Amy knew the routine from the time she had been sent to the principal’s office when at the human school.
“Well, let’s make this very clear. You will not get any special treatment from me, and if there is any killing to be done, you will have to take your turn with the other students. Don’t get me wrong; there is nothing wrong in killing those that are weaker than you. It is just that I do not wish you to be showing off in class. If the blood lust gets too strong, do what I do and wander along to the tournaments. Pick on someone so that they challenge you, then go into the ring and kill them. It is all legal, and you will feel so much better afterwards.”
The only response Amy could think of was to thank him and tell him that she would remember his advice.
“Good. Now that the pep talk is over, let’s take a look at you. Extend your right hand, and show me your claws.”
She followed his instructions.
“Well, nothing that special, but clean and sharp, which is more than I can say for lots of others I have seen. Now for your fangs: show me what you have.”
Amy hesitated and looked around before saying in a hushed voice, “But sir, I can’t. My aunt says it is rude to show a male one’s fangs.”
She instinctively sprang backwards and dropped to a crouching attack or defend position with all claws and fangs fully extended, ready to strike, as Muris’s baton almost removed her head. Amy was more surprised at her own automatic survival technique than at the fact her teacher had just tried to kill her.
“I am your teacher, so you will humor me. If it helps, just think of it as a test, as I wish to see what is so special about you.”
Amy found that she could hardly stop from hissing, and her fangs now refused to withdraw. When she had time, she would have to work this out. This was not her inner vamp; this was her in full vampire mode, ready and wanting to kill something, which come to think about it was not unlike the human survival techniques she would have used in her old life back in the human high school (well, apart from the claws, fangs and hissing, that is).
“Good reflexes: now that they are fully extended, bite firmly down on this as hard as you can.”
He placed his baton near her face, and Amy knew she would prefer to bite his hand rather than any old smelly piece of wood. But she needed to bite something, and if she was lucky she could get a finger at the same time. So she bit deeply into it only to see Muris yank it into the air so that her feet were now dangling a few feet off the ground as he held the baton high with a single hand.
“Yes, so that must be the reason why you are special: a wonderful twin set of fangs along with multiple sets of incisors on a firm jaw line. It is such a pity that you are female, as you would be excellent in the military. But I can see why the council would want you safe in the nest and not running about wild killing everything in sight. As I said, I do not believe in favoritism, but you will be pleased to know I will mark you up as prime breeding stock.”
This was not the sort of thing Amy wanted to hear at anytime in her life: not on the first day at school, and certainly not from some ex-military grunt. She was not some breeding machine; she had brains and by the looks of it, far more than he did. The game of Cowards and Runts looked like the sort of thing the ninjas would be set in Naruto, and she had seen all the episodes at least 100 times. The answer to the game was obvious, so she decided to speak out.
“Sir, they are playing the game wrong.”
He looked at her in the same way she would have done if Tarqwin had said it was my turn to sleep on the bed (not that it wasn’t always his turn anyway).
“The game shows you cannot be in front unless you are strong to take the pain of leadership, and you should not be at the back as you are not protecting your nestmates. The answer is that they should be running in groups to show they can work together; you need to run around in groups of three. That way, no one person will be first or last. As the leader, you will need to take advice from others near you at times, and groups of three are also the best number to break away from the main group to attack or defend the main group on whatever task it is set to perform. The game is in fact a military strategy exercise, sir.”
Watching him closely, she knew she saw a flicker of a smile on his lips as he ignored what she had said but added, “Yes, you will breed fine males for the nest, and I will look forward to training them.”
Amy thought that her idea of showing that a female also had brains went as well as a stone bat would fly, so she tried to blend back into the class in case he wanted her to go and get a doctor’s note to start practicing having children.
The following exercises were on climbing walls by digging ones claws deep into the stone and pulling oneself up.
The last exercise of the day was practicing hanging from ones claws, and to Amy it felt like it was lasting a lifetime. Her top half was hot due to the school uniform, nightdress and cloak, which got in the way so much that she now knew she would never be jealous of what a boy had that was different from hers if it meant having six feet of black material strangling you by a chain around ones neck.
Her bottom half was cold due to the constant male wind from the ventilation shafts that blew around the rooms. All the females called it a male wind as its only purpose in life was to get under their skirts.
Presently, Muris was standing under her skirts. He looked up, and her position above him meant he had a very clear view of places she preferred him not to have a clear view of.
“Amelia Pinkbat, if you think people will steal your underwear, than don’t leave them around to be stolen. If you are that worried about knowing they are yours, then write your name on them.”
Amy locked her knees together and drew them up to try and hide her aunt’s latest idea in personalised underwear. Amy knew that black panties were both sexy and cool, but she so wished her aunt would not sew lots of little pink bats on them.
Muris now stopped under another girl, looked up and sighed.
“Mortia Leach, we all know you are a girl, so please keep your legs together. And yes, I know there are no rules saying that you have to wear undergarments, but I am sure there must be one on personal grooming. So if you insist on needing so much ventilation, get your maid to give your personal rainforest a trim; you look like a cat with its throat cut.”
Amy wanted to practice reducing her body density as she did when climbing to make herself lighter so that her fingers would not ache so much, but she changed her mind (as did all the other students) when Muris discovered that one of the boys was trying out this technique. That boy ended up hanging from his claws on his feet with heavy weights strapped around his arms; luckily, he was wearing underwear.
Amy thought that the teacher’s suggestion that hanging from the ceiling would make everyone taller was crap; the best she could get out of it would be to grow arms like a monkey’s.
Muris was now standing under one of the guys. His hands were on his hips, and from the growl in his voice, it was clear that he was not happy.
“WTF do you think you are playing at, Octavius Blood? I said remove jackets and pants; I did not say anything about removing your underwear. Get down and go and put on a pair of long johns. I do not care if they have pretty cute bats on them like our Miss Pinkbat’s, but you will wear something. I do not believe in males going about commando as it looks very untidy and would give
females a target to bite. Besides, you must be cold, as that can’t possibly be a normal size for a boy of your age. Stop sniggering, the rest of you. I am sure he can’t help it, and not everyone is cut out for having a family.”
Clary
After several weeks, Amy had worked out that the reason vampires were very good at everything was the number of times they redid the same task over and over and over again ad nauseum. Time was not a major problem in a vampire school; things took ten times longer to finish than she thought they should, which was a worry as it could mean high school would last 10 times longer than in the human world (meaning 40 years of running around the room day after day). She was even considering putting her own name down for the breeding program just for the change of exercise positions it would involve.
Amy expected various other stuff was happening in different parts of the school, and she even thought there was a vague possibility that books were involved, but not with her teacher. His speciality was the military, so that is what he did by treating the whole school thing as if it were boot camp.
True, you could still get hurt if he got bored and lashed out at someone, but some stuff got monotonous, like the running around the hall, which was now executed safely in groups of three, just as she had worked out weeks ago.
She had discovered that the best way to cross a ceiling without showing the world what you had for breakfast was to firmly keep ones knees together and tuck your legs up till your feet rested on your butt. It had also got her extra points for style, as the way the nightdress blew about under her made it look like she was flying when viewed from below, whereas in fact she was only going across hand-over-hand: an easy task if you were allowed to reduce the body weight. Most of the others used both their hand and foot claws, but she decided that reminding the class that she wore black panties with little pink bats on them was not a good social move.
Some things had changed over the weeks, and one was the wish to kill everyone. Working together meant you had to speak to each other, and after a while you did it when changing. The girls stayed longer in the locker room before and after school to talk to classmates they would have tried to kill only a few weeks earlier.