by Mari Mancusi
The changeling starts to laugh, an evil cackle that sends chills through my bones. “You figured it out,” she crows excitedly. “Took you long enough, by the way.”
“Why are you doing this?” I manage to ask with effort. “And where did you take my sister?” I feel like such an idiot. How could I have not known? My twin sister—the one person I’m closest to in the entire world—and I couldn’t even recognize the difference between her and an evil changeling. Wasting all this time, thinking nothing was wrong while poor, sweet Sunny has been floundering captive in fairyland, probably desperately wondering when someone would come rescue her.
“Your fool of a father thought he could hide you away and keep you safe.” The changeling snorts. “But we have spies everywhere. With the right ... donation ... even Slayer Inc. operatives can be bought.” She grins, as if proud. Hell, she probably is. She played me like a freaking fool. “Then it was just a matter of time. You idiots made it easy, actually, by running away into the woods in the middle of the night, away from the protection of the guards. All we had to do was launch an attack, steal Sunny away, and have me step into her place instead.”
“So where’s Sunny now?” I demand. “God help you if you touched a hair on her head!”
The changeling yawns. “Puh-leeze.” She snorts. “You’ve been listening to your parents too long. We’re not uncivilized beasts, you know. Your sister will be treated like the royal princess she is. Transformed into a fairy and crowned queen. I can promise you, no harm will come to her.”
“Right. Just like no harm came to the former queen, my grandmother, when you had her under your protection.”
A flash of guilt crosses the changeling’s face but then she waves a hand dismissively. “In any case,” she continues. “None of this is your concern. Now that Slayer Inc. has delivered us a queen, we must pay what we owe to them in turn.” She gives me a knowing look.
I shudder, guessing Slayer Inc. doesn’t exactly take Amex for this kind of thing. “And that payment is ... ?”
The changeling smiles. “Why, you, of course. You’re very valuable, you know. The first-ever vampiric Sidhe. They’re completely thrilled.”
I stare at her, horror slamming into my gut. “You told them,” I whisper hoarsely, suddenly realizing that anything Corbin might have figured out is nothing compared to what my sister’s changeling has already done.
The changeling opens her mouth, but a sudden, commanding knock on the door is really all the answer I need.
“Sorry to Rayne on your parade.” The changeling smirks. She blows me a kiss as the guardians push the door open, sending me flying to the floor. My palms skid against the hardwood, giving me one hell of a splinter. But I’m pretty sure that’s going to be the least of my problems soon.
“Bye-bye,” the changeling chirps, heading for the door. “I’ll give your sister your regards back at fairyland.”
I turn to the guardians, ready to fight. But before I can even scramble to my feet, they throw a silver net over my head. I know it’s real silver, too, since the metal fillings singe my skin—making it sizzle and smoke. Helpless, I fall to the ground, writhing in pain, knowing there’s nothing I can do. They’ve got me and they’ve got me good. And a moment later, I find myself swimming into blackness.
18
When I wake, I’m in four-points restraints—lying on my back with wrists and ankles cuffed to some sort of rollaway bed. Lifting my head, I strain to take in the room, desperate to figure out where the hell they’ve taken me. It appears to be some kind of mad scientist laboratory, complete with beakers and test tubes—their yellow and green concoctions boiling madly over red-flamed Bunsen burners, threatening to bubble over at any second.
Definitely not a part of Riverdale I’ve seen before. If I’m still at Riverdale at all.
After a brief scan of the room, my straining neck pangs in protest and reluctantly I settle my head back down on the bed, my gaze reverting to the dark, high-beamed ceiling draped in cobwebs. Large spiders seem to grin wickedly at me as they go about their work, as if laughing at my current predicament.
I suck in a breath, hoping to calm my jangled nerves. Questions come, fast and furious, with no answers naturally following their query. Where am I? Why am I here? To be honest, I figured I’d be taken to some sort of Riverdale jail to await trial. Or that they’d simply stake me in the heart and be done with it.
The changeling’s words suddenly ring through my ears. You’re very valuable, you know, she’d said. But valuable for what? That, as Hamlet would say, is the question.
“Awake, are we?”
A man with wild salt-and-pepper hair and thick bifocals steps into view. He’s wearing the traditional white coat, probably acquired from some mad scientist uniform shop, and has the requisite crazy-man look on his face to boot.
I swallow hard. I’ve seen enough movies to know this is so not good.
“Hello, Rayne,” he says in a screechy voice. “It’s great to finally meet you. I’m Dr. Franken.”
I grimace. Dr. Franken? As in Frankenstein? Man, this place gets more cliché by the second. I mean, come on. If I’m going to die anyway, is it so much to ask for a little originality?
Dr. Franken holds out a hand, as if to shake mine in greeting, then seems to remember that I’m tied up at the moment. He cackles. Mad scientist humor. Awesomeness.
“Where am I?” I manage to choke out, trying to sound fierce, but succeeding only in sounding scared and helpless. “Release me at once!” I try again, without much more success.
He chuckles. “All in good time, my dear,” he says, wheeling over a small metal table to the side of my bed. He picks up a syringe the size of a freaking turkey baster and connects it to a clear plastic tube. “But first I’m going to need a sample of your blood, if you don’t mind.”
“Actually, I do mind. I appreciate you asking.”
“Your objection is duly noted,” he replies. Taking a length of rubber off the table, he proceeds to tie it around my forearm. “It makes me wonder, though. Do you think Corbin minded when you took all that blood from him without asking?”
Corbin’s name stabs like a dagger to my heart and my mind proceeds to treat me to a disturbing flashback of his glazed eyes, torn neck—blood spilling down and soaking his shirt collar. I wonder wildly what an interesting laundry detergent commercial something like that would make.
New Tide with bleaching action! Perfect for getting rid of those pesky bloodstains!
I shake my head, my stomach rolling with nausea. Maybe I deserve all of this. Hell, maybe I deserve worse. ’Cause let’s be honest here; I haven’t exactly been a class act recently.
“What do you plan to do with my blood?” I ask weakly, wondering if he plans to take only a little or completely drain me dry. I know in some TV shows vampire blood becomes a powerful black market drug, but I don’t think it works that way in real life.
In real life, the only use for vampire blood is to make more vampires. But why would Slayer Inc. want MORE vampires? Isn’t their whole mission in life to get rid of them?
“Why, I wish to study it, of course,” he says brightly as he jabs the needle into my arm. I wince and force myself to watch as the thick, dark liquid drains from my body, down the tube, and into a plastic blood bag. “And hopefully someday make more of you.”
Wait, what? My eyes fly from the syringe to his face. “Make more of me?” I repeat. “I mean, I know I’m awesome and all. But isn’t one Rayne McDonald enough?”
“Oh, you yourself are much more than enough,” Dr. Franken replies, thankfully removing the needle and placing a cotton swab over the wound, binding it with white tape. “But your blood, on the other hand ...”
“My blood?”
“But of course. The blood of the very first vamshee.” He grins. “It’s practically priceless.”
I do a double take. “Vamshee? Are you kidding me?”
“Do you like that?” he asks. “I came up with the term myself
. It’s a combination of vampire and Sidhe. Kind of like banshee, which is loosely translated to mean female fairy. So thusly, vamshee means vampire fairy.”
I roll my eyes. “No offense or anything,” I say, “but that’s pretty lame.”
He stops laughing and sets his face to a scowl. Way to piss off the mad scientist, Rayne. “In any case, the name really doesn’t matter,” he says, waving a hand dismissively. “What matters is what we can make of it. A creature with the powers of a vampire and the powers of the fey folk, all mashed together in one delicious chain of brand-new DNA. A hybrid creature with unimaginable potential.”
“But ...” I struggle to understand. “Why would Slayer Inc. need a ... fairy vampire?” (I’m so not using his stupid term.)
He looks down at me in surprise. “Why, my dear, they don’t need a fairy vampire. They need an army of them.”
An army? “But why ... ?”
“Ah, there she is. Our little vamshee! Captured at last.”
With effort, I twist my head to see Headmistress Roberta step into the room. She closes the heavy metal door behind her and walks over to my bed, looking down at me with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. She picks up what I assume to be my chart off the table and studies it carefully.
“Do you think this is going to work?” she asks, turning to Dr. Franken. “I can’t afford any more failed experiments.”
“Wait—what experiments? What are you trying to do?” I demand awkwardly from my strapped-down position.
“If my calculations are correct, the fey cells will work to stabilize the vampiric ones,” Dr. Franken replies, ignoring me. “So they won’t oxidize and mutate before we can inject them into our test subjects.”
“Excellent,” Headmistress Roberta says, rubbing her hands together gleefully. “And, as a bonus, these vamshee hybrids will be even more powerful than just plain vampires would have been.” She looks down at me. “I really owe you a big thank you, Rayne. Without you, none of this would be possible.”
“None of what? What are you talking about? Why the hell would you want to make vampire fairies?”
“Why, so we can take over the world, of course,” she replies, sounding surprised I didn’t already know.
Take over the ... ? I stare at her in disbelief. “But you’re part of Slayer Inc.! The good guys! You’re supposed to be protecting people from people taking over the world!”
“Please. You think we should be content to live out our entire existence as a police force?” she asks in a haughty voice. “Content to serve and protect all the ungrateful vampires and self-serving fairies out there?” She shakes her head in disgust. “We’re done with that. And once we create our master army of vamshees, we’ll be on the top of the food chain. For the first time ever, we’ll be calling the shots.”
This is so not good. I need to warn the Vampire Consortium—not to mention the American arm of Slayer Inc.—before it’s too late. But how? I mean, let’s be honest here. They’ve told me their evil plan, which, more than likely, means they’re not about to let me walk out of here alive.
Okay, sure, in the movies, that’s usually the bad guys’ big mistake: spilling their whole evil plan, only to have their captive pull a last-minute James Bond-type move and manage to get away just in time. But sadly I’m far from James Bond. And I have no idea how I’d pull off some thrilling movie-esque escape.
I decide it’s best to just keep them talking. At least until I can figure out what I can possibly do. “So this is what Slay School is really about?” I ask, my voice full of disgust. “All these kids training here are just fronts for your ... experiments?” The word makes me shudder.
“Of course not,” Headmistress Roberta replies, looking slightly offended. “Riverdale really does train normal human slayers and has been doing so since before you were born.” She shrugs, then continues. “Most of our Slayers in Training will graduate and be sent on regular assignments, none the wiser to any of this building’s activities. But a chosen few—the best and the brightest—will continue their studies after graduation, becoming part of our Night School program.”
I gasp. Night School. The Alphas. Corbin.
“So let me get this straight,” I say. “You tell all the Alphas they’re entering some kind of top-secret, kick-ass grad school program that will turn them into slayer secret agents with a license to stake. But instead, you plan to turn them into monsters—and use them as pawns in your Slayer Inc. revolution?”
Headmistress Roberta narrows her eyes. “Soldiers, not pawns. And it’s a great honor to be chosen,” she snarls. “These Alphas will be responsible for shaping the future of our world.”
I open my mouth to try to say something noble, like, “You’ll never get away with this!” but since I’m not so confident that’s true and I can’t manage to lie, I’m unable to spit it out. So instead I content myself with saying, “My parents will be back for me!” instead. “They’ll figure out you’re up to no good!” Which could very well be true. Though I’m not sure their timing is going to match up with what I need in order to stay alive.
“Will they?” Roberta asks innocently. “Or will they simply accept the sad, tragic fact that you were slain by an evil fairy, on a mission to kidnap your sister and bring her back to fairyland?”
I let out a frustrated breath, realizing she’s got me there. I mean, sure I’d love to be all like, “No way! My parents will totally see through your evil lies and realize you stole their daughter to aid you in your sinister plot to take over the world!” But really, that doesn’t seem all that realistic.
Hopelessness wells up inside of me. Is this really the end? After all I’ve been through—evil vampires, werewolves, fairies—will my last moments really be spent lying on this uncomfortable bed as my blood is harvested to create a supernatural army of über slayers?
I totally take back what I said about wanting an original, creative demise ...
Suddenly a commotion by the door interrupts my thoughts of death. I turn to see what’s going on. Two attendants are wheeling in a second bed. I gasp as I catch sight of a shock of black hair.
It couldn’t be. Could it?
“Corbin?” I whisper, my voice hoarse with horror.
He moans fitfully and I realize he’s unconscious and bound in the same magical ropes that knocked me down earlier. I turn my head to locate Headmistress Roberta, my eyes wide. “What have you done to him?” I whisper.
“Don’t worry,” the headmistress says, thanking the orderlies who wheeled him in. “He’ll wake shortly. Though I imagine he’s going to be a tad testy with you, now that we’ve confirmed you were the one who bit him ...”
Testy doesn’t even begin to describe how Corbin must feel. Knowing that I mercilessly sucked the blood from his veins without asking permission.
“Let him go!” I beg. “You’ve got me. I’m who you wanted. He’s innocent.”
“My dear, I don’t think you understand,” Headmistress Roberta coos, walking over to Corbin and brushing a lock of hair from his eyes. “We need him for the experiment.”
I swallow hard, praying she doesn’t mean what I think she means. But of course she does.
“Once we’ve analyzed your DNA and mixed up a little blood cocktail, we’re going to give your boy here a transfusion.” She looks down at Corbin with a proud smile. “He will become our Adam. First in the line of an all-new, all-powerful vamshee race able to slay any otherworld creatures who dare get in their way.” She looks up, her face fierce with pride. “No one will ever laugh at Slayer Inc. again.”
“But ... but ...” I can barely find the words. “Can’t you experiment on someone besides Corbin? He hates vampires. His parents were killed by one!”
“My dear, why do you think we chose him?” Headmistress Roberta asks, shooting me a patronizing look. “The anger and rage inside of him will make for an excellent vamshee. And if he has the sudden undying urge to kill vampires once we’ve turned him? Well, that’s kind of the whole point o
f a slayer, isn’t it?”
I imagine poor Corbin, waking up and discovering he’s been turned into the one thing he hates more than anything in the world. It’ll kill him, for sure.
“You’re a monster!” I cry, my voice choked with tears.
Headmistress Roberta rolls her eyes. “Monster?” she repeats with a chuckle. “Please. Have you looked in the mirror lately?” She turns to Dr. Franken. “How long before you’ll have a clean sample?”
He looks up from his microscope. “It’s going to have to congeal awhile before we can start working with it. Come back tomorrow morning and we should be ready for the injection.”
“Very well,” she says. “I will be back.” She looks down at me and smiles her sick grin. “’Til we meet again, my little vamshee.”
Ugh. I really wish people would stop using that term.
19
After she leaves, Dr. Franken injects me with some kind of sedative and I’m knocked out almost instantly. When I awake, I find myself in some kind of windowless room. I’m on the ground, my back against a cold stone wall, and my arms and legs are bound with silver shackles, which have burned ugly red circles around my wrists and ankles.
My stomach heaves and I turn my head just in time to escape throwing up in my lap. Whatever they injected me with is doing a number on my insides; I feel nauseous and hungry and really weak from all the blood loss. So not good.
I blink a few times, trying to adjust my vampire eyes to the darkness. They fall upon a dark mass at the opposite end of the room. I take a tentative sniff and my nose recognizes the familiar hint of vanilla and sandalwood.
“Corbin?” I query. “Is that you?”
I hear an affirming groan and watch the mass shift—head rising, eyes opening, face recognizing.
“Rayne?” he cries, his voice filled with panic.
I nod. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“Where am I?” he asks. His wrists strain against his bindings, his arm muscles contracting. “Why am I chained up?”