Marked

by P. C. Cast

  “And for some of us, the end of life,” Erin added gloomily.

  That shut everyone up. When I couldn’t stand the uncomfortable silence anymore I cleared my throat and said, “So what about Erin and Shaunee’s wings?”

  “The wings of Eros, who is the child of Nyx’s seed—”

  “The love god,” Shaunee said, adding a seated gyration of her hips.

  Damien frowned at her and kept talking. “The golden wings of Eros are the fourth formers’ symbol.”

  “ ’Cause we’re the love class,” Erin sang, raising her arms over her head and shimmying her hips.

  “Actually, it’s because we’re supposed to be reminded of Nyx’s capacity to love, and the wings symbolize our continuous movement forward.”

  “What’s the symbol for fifth formers?” I asked.

  “Nyx’s golden chariot pulling a trail of stars,” Damien said.

  “I think it’s the prettiest of the four symbols,” Stevie Rae said. “Those stars sparkle like crazy.”

  “The chariot shows that we continue on Nyx’s journey. The stars represent the magic of the two years that have already passed.”

  “Damien, you are a good little student,” Erin said.

  “I told you we should have gotten him to help us study for the human mythology test,” Shaunee said.

  “I thought I told you we needed his help, and—”

  “Anyway,” Damien shouted over their bickering, “that’s about all there is to the four symbols of the classes. Easy-peasy, really,” he looked pointedly at the now silent Twins. “That is, if you pay attention in class instead of writing notes and staring at guys you think are cute.”

  “You’re really prudey, Damien,” Shaunee said.

  “Especially for a gay boy,” Erin added.

  “Erin, your hair’s looking kinda frizzy today. Not to be mean or anything, but maybe you should think about switching products. You can’t be too careful about those kinds of things. The next thing you know you’ll be getting split ends.”

  Erin’s blue eyes got huge and her hand went automatically to her hair.

  “Oh, no no no. I do not believe you just said that, Damien. You know how crazy she is about her hair.” Shaunee started to puff up like a mocha-colored blowfish.

  Damien, meanwhile, just smiled and returned to his spaghetti—the perfect picture of innocence.

  “Uh, y’all,” Stevie Rae said quickly, standing up and pulling me with her by the elbow. “Zoey looks beat. Y’all remember what it was like when you first got here. We’re going to go back to our room. I have to study for that vamp sociology test, so I probably won’t see you until tomorrow.”

  “Okay, see ya,” Damien said. “Zoey, it was really nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah, welcome to Hell High,” Erin and Shaunee said together before Stevie Rae pulled me out of the room.

  “Thanks. I really am tired,” I told Stevie Rae as we backtracked through a hall that I was happy to recognize as the one that would lead to the main entrance to the central school building. We paused while a sleek, silver-gray cat chased a smaller, harassed-looking tabby across the hall in front of us.

  “Beelzebub! Leave Cammy alone! Damien is going to rip your fur out!”

  Stevie Rae made a grab for the gray cat and missed, but he did stop chasing the tabby and instead streaked back down the hall the way we had just come. Stevie Rae was frowning after him.

  “Shaunee and Erin need to teach that cat of theirs some manners; he’s always up to something.” She glanced at me as we left the building and walked out into the soft, pre-dawn darkness. “That cute little Cameron is Damien’s cat. Beelzebub belongs to Erin and Shaunee; he chose both of them—together. Yep. It’s as strange as it sounds, but after a little while you’ll be like the rest of us and start thinking that they must really be twins.”

  “They seem nice, though.”

  “Oh, they’re great. They bicker a lot, but they’re totally loyal and will never let anyone talk about you.” She grinned. “Okay, they might talk about you, but that’s different, and it won’t be behind your back.”

  “And I really like Damien.”

  “Damien’s sweet, and really smart. I just feel bad for him sometimes, though.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, he had a roommate when he first got here about six months ago, but as soon as the guy found out Damien was gay—hello, it’s not like the boy tries to hide it—he complained to Neferet and said he wasn’t going to room with a fag.”

  I grimaced. I can’t stand homophobes. “And Neferet actually put up with that attitude?”

  “No, she made it clear that the kid—oh, he changed his name to Thor after he got here”—she shook her head and rolled her eyes—“doesn’t that just figure? Anyway, Neferet let it be known that Thor was way out of line, and she gave Damien the option of moving into another room by himself or staying with Thor. Damien chose to move. I mean, wouldn’t you?”

  I nodded. “Yep. No way would I room with Thor the Homophobe.”

  “That’s what we all think, too. So Damien has been in a room by himself since then.”

  “Aren’t there any other gay kids here?”

  Stevie Rae shrugged. “There’re a few girls who are lesbians and totally out, but even though a couple of them are cool and hang with the rest of us they mostly stick together. They’re way into the religious aspect of Goddess worship and spend most of their time in Nyx’s Temple. And, of course, there are the moronic party girls who think it’s cool to make out with each other, but usually only if some cute guys are watching.”

  I shook my head. “You know, I’ve never understood why girls think making out with each other is the way to catch a boyfriend. You’d think it would be counterproductive.”

  “Like I want a boyfriend who only thinks I’m hot when I’m kissing some girl? Bleck.”

  “What about gay guys?”

  Stevie sighed. “There are a few besides Damien, but they’re mostly too weird and girly for him. I feel bad for him. I think he gets pretty lonely. His parents don’t write or anything.”

  “The whole vampyre thing freaked them out?”

  “No, they didn’t really care about that. Actually, don’t say anything to Damien because it hurts his feelings, but I think they were relieved when he was Marked. They didn’t know what to do with a son who is gay.”

  “Why did they have to do anything? He’s still their son. He just likes guys.”

  “Well, they live in Dallas, and his dad is big into the People of Faith. I think he’s some kind of minister or something—”

  I held up my hand. “Stop. You don’t have to say another word. I totally get it.” And I did. I was way too acquainted with the narrow-minded, “our way is the only right way” ideas of the People of Faith. Even thinking about it made me feel exhausted and depressed.

  Stevie Rae opened the door to the dorm. The living-room area was empty except for a few girls who were watching That ’70s Show reruns. Stevie Rae waved absently at them.

  “Hey, do you want a pop or something to take upstairs with us?”

  I nodded and followed her through the living room and into a smaller room off to the side that had four refrigerators, a big sink, two microwaves, lots of cabinets, and a pretty white wooden table that sat in the middle of it—just like a regular kitchen, only this one was weirdly refrigerator-friendly. Everything was neat and clean. Stevie Rae opened one of the fridges. I peeked over her shoulder to see that it was filled with all kinds of drinks—everything from pop to lots of juices and that fizzy water that tastes nasty.

  “What do you want?”

  “Any brown pop is fine,” I said.

  “This stuff is for all of us,” she said as she handed me two Diet Cokes and grabbed two Frescas for herself. “There’re fruit and veggies and stuff like that in those two fridges, and lean meat for sandwiches in the other one. They’re kept full all the time, but the vamps are pretty obsessed with us eating healthy, so y
ou won’t find bags of chips or Twinkies or stuff like that.”

  “No chocolate?”

  “Yeah, there’s some really expensive chocolate in the cabinets. The vamps say chocolate in moderation is good for us.”

  Okay, so who the hell wants to eat chocolate in moderation? I kept the thought to myself as we walked back through the living room and headed upstairs to our room.

  “So the, uh, vamps”—I kinda stumbled over the word—“are big on healthy eating?”

  “Well, yeah, but I think basically just fledglings eating healthy. I mean, you don’t see fat vamps, but you also don’t see them chewing on celery and carrots and picking at salads. Mostly they eat together in their own dining room, and rumor has it that they eat well.” She glanced at me and lowered her voice. “I heard that they eat a lot of red meat. A lot of rare red meat.”

  “Eeesh,” I said, not liking the bizarre visual image I suddenly got of Neferet gnawing on a bloody steak.

  Stevie Rae shivered, and went on: “Sometimes someone’s mentor will sit with a fledgling at dinner, but they usually have just a glass or two of wine and don’t eat with us.”

  Stevie Rae opened the door and with a sigh I sat on my bed and pulled off my shoes. God, I was tired. Rubbing my feet I wondered about why the adult vamps didn’t eat with us, and then I decided I didn’t really want to think about that long. I mean, it brought to mind too many questions like what are they really eating? And what will I have to eat when/if I become an adult vamp? Ugh.

  And, part of my brain whispered that it also made me remember my reaction to Heath’s blood yesterday. Had that been only yesterday? And also my more recent response to the blood of that guy in the hall. No. I definitely didn’t want to think about either of them—at all. So I quickly refocused on the healthy-diet issue.

  “Okay, they don’t particularly care about eating healthy, so what’s the big obsession with us eating healthy?” I asked Stevie Rae.

  She met my eyes, looking worried and more than a little scared.

  “They want us to eat healthy for the same reason they make us exercise every day—so that our bodies are as strong as possible, because if you start getting weak or fat or sick, that’s the first sign that your body is rejecting the Change.”

  “And then you die,” I said quietly.

  “And then you die,” she agreed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I didn’t think I’d sleep. I figured I’d lay there and miss home and think about the bizarre twist my life had taken. Disturbing flashes of the guy in the hall’s eyes drifted through my mind, but I was so tired I couldn’t focus. Even Aphrodite’s psycho hatefulness was something else that seemed sleepily far away. Actually, my last worries before I could remember nothing else were about my forehead. Was it feeling sore again because of the Mark and the cut over my temple—or was it because I was getting a ginormic zit? And would my hair look okay for my first day of vamp school tomorrow? But as I curled up with my comforter and inhaled the familiar smell of down feathers and home, I felt unexpectedly safe and warm . . . and was totally out.

  I didn’t have a nightmare, either. Instead I dreamed about cats. Go figure. Hot boys? No. Cool new vampire powers? Of course not. Just cats. There was one in particular—a small orange tabby who had little tiny paws and a pot belly with a pouch that looked kinda marsupial. She kept yelling at me in an old lady’s voice and asking what had taken me so long to get here. Then her cat voice changed to an annoying buzzing beeping sound and I . . .

  “Zoey, come on! Turn that stupid alarm clock off!”

  “Wha—, huh?” Oh, hell. I hate mornings. My hand flailed about trying to find the off switch of my annoying alarm clock. Have I mentioned that I am totally, completely blind without my contacts? I grabbed my nerdy glasses and peeked at the time. Six thirty P.M., and I was just waking up. Talk about bizarre.

  “Do you want to take a shower first, or do you want me to?” Stevie Rae asked sleepily.

  “I will, if you don’t care.”

  “I don’t . . . ,” She yawned.

  “ ’Kay.”

  “We should hurry, though, ’cause, I don’t know about you, but I have to eat breakfast or I feel like I’m going to starve to death before lunch.”

  “Cereal?” I suddenly perked up. I seriously adore cereal, and have an I ♥ CEREAL shirt somewhere to prove it. I especially love Count Chocula—yet another vampyre irony.

  “Yeah, there’re always lots of those tiny boxes of cereal and bagels and fruit and hard-boiled eggs and stuff.”

  “I’ll hurry.” Suddenly I was starving. “Hey, Stevie Rae, does it matter what I wear?”

  “Nope,” she yawned again. “Just pick one of the sweaters or jackets that show our third former symbol and you’ll be fine.”

  I did hurry, even though I was really nervous about not looking right and I wished I could take hours doing and redoing my hair and makeup. I used Stevie Rae’s makeup mirror while she was in the shower, and decided that under-doing was probably a better choice than over-doing. It was weird how my Mark seemed to change the whole focus of my face. I’ve always had nice eyes—big and round and dark, with lots of lashes. So much that Kayla used to whine about how unfair it was that I had enough lashes for three girls and she only had short little blond ones. (Speaking of . . . I did miss Kayla, especially this morning as I was getting ready to go to a new school without her. Maybe I’d call her later. Or e-mail her. Or . . . I remembered the comment Heath had made about the party, and decided maybe not.) Anyway, the Mark somehow made my eyes look even bigger and darker. I lined them with a smoky black shadow that had little sparkly flecks of silver in it. Not heavily like those loser girls who think that plastering on black eyeliner makes them look cool. Yeah, right. They look like scary raccoons. I smudged the line, added mascara, brushed some bronzing powder over my face, and put on lip gloss (to hide the fact that I’d been nervously picking at my lips).

  Then I stared at myself.

  Thankfully my hair was acting right, and even my weird widow’s peak wasn’t sticking all up crazily like it did sometimes. I still looked . . . umm . . . different, but the same. The effect my Mark had on my face hadn’t faded. It made everything that was ethnic about my features stand out: the darkness of my eyes, my high Cherokee cheekbones, my proud, straight nose, and even the olive color of my skin that was like my grandma’s. The sapphire Mark of the Goddess seemed to have flipped a switch and spotlighted those features; it had freed the Cherokee girl within me and allowed her to shine.

  “Your hair looks great,” Stevie Rae said as she came into the room toweling dry her short hair. “I wish mine would act right when it’s long. It doesn’t. It just frizzes out and looks like a horse’s tail.”

  “I like your short hair,” I said, moving out of her way and grabbing my cute sparkly black ballet flats.

  “Yeah, well, it makes me a freak here. Everybody has long hair.”

  “I noticed, but I don’t really get it.”

  “It’s one of the things that happens while we’re going through the Change. Vamps’ hair grows abnormally fast, just like their fingernails.”

  I tried not to shudder as I remembered Aphrodite’s fingernail slashing through jeans and skin.

  Thankfully, Stevie Rae was oblivious to my thoughts, and kept on talking.

  “You’ll see. After a while you won’t have to look at their symbols to know what year they are. Anyway, you’ll learn all about that kind of stuff in Vamp Sociology class. Oh! That reminds me.” She rifled through some papers on her desk until she found what she was looking for and handed it to me. “Here’s your schedule. We have third hour and fifth hour together. And check out the list of electives you have for second hour. You can choose from any of them.”

  My name was at the top of the schedule, printed in bold letters, ZOEY REDBIRD, ENTERING THIRD FORMER, as well as the date, which was five (?!) days before the Tracker had Marked me.

  1st hour—Vampyre Sociology 101. Rm. 215. Pro
f. Neferet

  2nd hour—Drama 101. Performing Arts Center. Prof. Nolan

  or

  Sketching 101. Rm. 312. Prof. Doner

  or

  Intro to Music. Rm. 314. Prof. Vento

  3rd hour—Lit 101. Rm. 214. Prof. Penthesilea

  4th hour—Fencing. Gymnasium. Prof. D. Lankford

  LUNCH BREAK

  5th hour—Spanish 101. Rm. 216. Prof. Garmy

  6th hour—Intro to Equestrian Studies. Field House. Prof. Lenobia

  “No geometry?” I blurted, totally overwhelmed by the schedule, but trying to keep a positive attitude.

  “No, thankfully. Next semester we’ll have to take economics, though. But that couldn’t be as bad.”

  “Fencing? Intro to Equestrian Studies?”

  “I told you they like to keep us in shape. Fencing’s okay, even though it’s hard. I’m not very good at it, but you do get paired with upperclassmen a lot—kind of like peer instructors, and I’m just sayin’, some of those boys are just plain hot! I’m not taking the horse class this semester—they put me in Tae Kwan Do. And I have to tell ya, I love it!”

  “Really?” I said doubtfully. Wonder what the horse class would be like?

  “Yep. Which elective are you going to pick?”

  I glanced back down the list. “Which one are you taking?”

  “Intro to Music. Professor Vento is cool, and I, uh . . .” Stevie Rae grinned and blushed. “I want to be a country music star. I mean, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, and Shania Twain are all vamps—and that’s just three of them. Heck, Garth Brooks grew up right here in Oklahoma and you know he’s the biggest vamp of them all. So I don’t see why I can’t be one, too.”

  “Makes perfect sense to me,” I said. Why not?

  “You want to take music with me?”

  “That’d be fun if I could sing or play anything resembling an instrument. I can’t.”

  “Oh, well, maybe not then.”

  “Actually, I was thinking about the drama class. I was in drama at SIHS, and I liked it okay. Do you know anything about Prof. Nolan?”