Midnight Secrets

by Rita Stradling

  “I’m Professor Whitney,” she said, her voice deep and resonant. The professor crossed the distance and shook my hand firmly as her dark brown eyes assessed me. “You come on in and sit down over here. I’ll hook you up to the lie detector machine.”

  Professor Whitney led me to the table across from the other two professors and had me lift my arms. She wrapped cords around my chest, then gave me a small half dome circle with finger grooves. I slipped my hand onto it, pressing my pointer and middle finger onto sensors. The large professor shot me a straight-lipped smile as she strapped my hand in.

  I expected the professor to move back to the table, but instead, she stepped around my back. The other two professors stood, rounding the long table to stand at my sides.

  Susie hadn’t described this part, and I felt my heart picking up its pace as they surrounded me on three sides. Strong hands settled on my shoulders, and I spun around. “What’s going on?”

  The larger of the two men grabbed a chair and pulled it up beside me. He took a seat, so close that he was blocking me in entirely on my left side.

  “This is making me uncomfortable,” I said, my throat suddenly dry again. I went to stand, but Professor Whitney’s hands gripped my shoulders and pressed down.

  “Calm down, January,” Professor Whitney said.

  “No. Screw this.” I went to pull the sensor off my hand when the other guy grabbed my wrist and pinned it to the table.

  “Calm down,” the big man repeated before he covered my hand that was strapped to the sensor.

  Fuck this. I was not calming down.

  I kicked the table legs under me and tried to push off, but the three professors didn’t even seem to notice.

  A door opened on the other side of the room, and two men and two women in suits walked in. My eyes immediately fixed on Mr. Roberts, who came in last. He looked as neat as always in a gray suit and tie. He regarded me with a pleasant smile and a nod.

  “Hello, January,” he said as he took a seat at the table while the others did the same. “You’re sitting here with me, the CEO of the Hawthorn Group, Blackburn Academy’s Principal, Blackburn Academy’s head of Mystical Arts, and Blackburn Academy’s archivist, and we’re all here to see you, my dear.”

  “Let me go,” I growled. I couldn’t take my eyes off of his jovial expression.

  “There’s no cause for alarm, sweetheart. We just have a unique situation here on our hands, and all of us are here to address it.”

  A hot tear streamed down my cheek. What the fuck had I just gotten myself into? Why had I pushed back against all of Justin’s attempts to keep me away from his school and family? What kind of place was Blackburn?

  George Roberts was introducing the two women and men at the table beside him, but there was a buzzing in my ears, and I couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the one familiar face in the room.

  “Let’s start this character interview now,” Mr. Roberts said as he pulled a tablet before him. He lifted the screen and pointed it toward me. “If you’re lying, it will show up on here.”

  “I would like to leave now,” I said very clearly.

  “You see, darling.” He pointed to the screen which displayed the words “true” in green. He pulled his glasses off and set them to the side before leaning in toward me. “How did you die, my dear?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Shivers wracked through my body, and tears dripped onto my cheeks.

  “Please answer the question. We would like you to tell us how you died,” the woman beside Mr. Roberts said. She was beautiful, with short dark hair cropped around her heart-shaped face. She looked a little like a dark-haired Mary Poppins and had a motherly quality to her like you’d expect her to start singing a ditty at any second. Under the circumstances, she seemed all the more terrifying.

  I clenched my jaw and stared up at the group.

  “She doesn’t need to answer,” said the third founder at the table. This man had to be in his sixties. He also had a muscular frame, but much of it had gone to fat. A bushy, white mustache covered his upper lip, matching his full head of white hair. He wore suspenders and had hooked a thumb through one of them. With his other hand, he slid a paper across the table.

  At the top, there was a photo of me. The picture was from my bare shoulders up to the top of my blond head. I was pale and pasty, bloodless. Dead. The paper below it said that my name was Jane Doe and I was a teenager of unknown age. My cause of death was blunt force trauma from a vehicle hitting my chest. There was a lot more information, but, through my tears, the words were gray and blurry. I blacked out the fact I was dead for a full day. I had erased it. But it happened in this world. There were people who saw my dead body.

  Someone cleaned me and took my picture.

  George tilted his head, regarding me sternly. “Now, we’re going to need you to answer our questions, January, and this one is critical. Did you kill anyone between the time you woke from the dead and when my son found you? We would understand if you did, but we need to know.”

  “I have never killed anyone, ever.”

  Mr. Roberts looked down at his screen, nodded, and then showed it around to the people in the room. It read true. He then leaned an elbow on the table. “All right, sweetheart. Thank you for telling us the truth. We just need a little more information from you. Did my son tell you he was there to kill you?”

  “What?” The room spun, and hot tears burned down my cheeks.

  “Did Justin Roberts tell you that he was on an assignment to kill you, sweetheart?” The motherly woman beside him said. She had a light accent, English, maybe somewhere else in the UK, I couldn’t tell.

  “Clearly, he didn’t,” the woman at the end said, talking at an incredible speed as she chewed gum. She was the youngest at the table as well as the smallest. Her hair was a bright shade of purple. I didn’t know how I missed her until this moment. “He didn’t tell you, did he?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  Mr. Roberts checked the screen before showing it to his companions. Nodding, Mr. Roberts turned back to me. “How often did my son feed you blood, sweetheart?”

  “I’m not answering that. I’m not answering any more of your questions.”

  The hands around my shoulders clenched and I hissed in a breath.

  “Careful with her now. She’s going to be one of your students.” Mr. Roberts held up his large hands.

  Professor Whitney’s hands loosened. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  He waved it away. “Just be careful with our Miss January. She’s very special to the Hawthorn Group.” After giving me a wink, he added, “I told you that I saw great things from you. But we just need to understand what happened between you and my son. Neither of you are in trouble.”

  Not in trouble? They were literally holding me down and questioning me.

  “We know you had to have received the blood from somewhere,” Mustache man said. “The first time you procured it from the BNP was yesterday. And, yes, we monitor all blood banks and hospitals constantly to see if there are any records deleted or blood missing. The boy is smart. He would have realized that the only way to hide you was to feed you himself.”

  “Why are you asking me questions you know answers to?” I gritted out.

  “Because we made a grave mistake,” The motherly woman said. “One of our star students went from being a leader among his peers to a destructive force at our school, and we now realize that it was our fault. We want to remedy our mistake.”

  “And your mistake was sending Justin to kill me?” I asked.

  They all glanced at each other before the older woman spoke up again. “It’s a complicated situation. Adults within our organization are not bound, as the students are, but it is our policy not to divulge our secrets to the uninitiated. By the end of this conversation, we hope to remedy that.”

  I shook my head. “What if I’ve changed my mind about attending? Are you guys going to let me go when this is all over?”

 
They looked at each other before returning their smiles to me.

  I didn’t think so.

  “We only want to protect you, sweetheart. And, you’re just too much of a risk at my house. It’s risky for my wife and son and also for your mother, Cleo.” Mr. Roberts shook his hand in the air. “I have only ever wanted to help you and your family, dear. Shame on me for not recognizing what you are from the beginning. I told you my boy was smart. But, after a dozen vampires surrounded you in the woods just outside our patrols, it was clear there was a much larger issue going on surrounding you.”

  “Vampires?”

  “Yes, full-blooded vampires are very real,” the matronly woman said as she reached a hand out toward me. “The fact of the matter is, you’re not safe anywhere in the world right now, except at Blackburn Academy. And, one of our beloved students, Justin Roberts, is not safe while you are outside of Blackburn. He has gone to a concerted effort to conceal you and already risked oath-breaking to protect you. At least one vampire was willing to sneak through seven layers of patrols to get to your apartment last night. You need Blackburn Academy, and we need answers. We can’t take a dhampir into our school without knowing that it is absolutely safe for the students there. We are here to help you. We want to protect you, as Justin has been doing since he learned you existed.”

  I looked between them. “What did you just call me?”

  “Principal Chambers called you a dhampir. You are a dhampir; the daughter of a woman and a vampire man. You’re half-human, half-vampire, and more than both. Unlike vampires, you are not bound by night. You can enter any building without permission, and you age as a normal human does,” Purple Hair said rapid-fire from the end of the table. “We don’t even know the full extent of a dhampir’s capabilities —”

  “When is the last time you had contact with your father?” Mr. Roberts cut in, grabbing my attention back.

  “Never, he died while my mother was pregnant.”

  Mr. Roberts showed the proof of my honesty.

  “A dhampir can only be created when a vampire returns to their opposite-sex partner and screws around during his transition into a vampire. There is only a short period of time when it’s possible. Your mother was married to this man at the time of your conception.” Purple Hair said all in one breath before she pushed a photo across the desk, and on it, I saw a horribly familiar face. I had only seen the man for a moment in the woods, but I remembered every single detail. Purple Hair tapped the photo. “We know your father. He’s the violent and brutal leader of the vampires in Brightside and beyond. Dante Mortus.”

  “No,” I whispered, “That’s not my father’s name. His name was Fred Moore.” I had seen a couple of pictures of him, always laughing or drinking. He was slight with blond hair and a real nerdy look. He was nothing like the massive and terrifying vampire in the woods.

  “Vampires forget who they were within a year. You’re basically like a vampire princess, except your father would one hundred percent rip you apart if he found you,” Purple Hair lifted her purple eyebrows. “With proper training, dhampirs are the ultimate vampire-killing machines. He’ll never let you live that long —”

  “Professor, that’s quite enough of that I think,” the older woman snapped, her beautiful expression full of disapproval. “Did Justin Roberts ever tell you why he was hiding your existence from us?”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “Listen here, darling,” Mr. Roberts said, “My son is not in any trouble. What you say will not get him in any trouble. Justin clearly discovered a secret that we’re not proud of, a necessary evil, about our school. He made a choice of conscience. In this case, we know that he made the right choice, and no one here is blaming him or you for it. We’re here to make amends.”

  “You say as three huge-ass people are literally holding me down.” I shook my head. “You’re getting shit all from me. If you want to know answers about Justin, go ask Justin.”

  “She’s seventeen and from King Street. The girl isn’t going to snitch on her boyfriend,” Purple Hair said as she continued to chew.

  “Well, that’s admirable. How about we will just tell you what we know about Justin’s actions, and you can point out any wrong assumptions we made based on our limited information?” Mustache Man offered with a you can trust me smile on his face. “You were hit by a truck just about a year ago. You woke in a morgue with a note, so you called a hotline in order to get blood. Someone met you, but Justin attacked before you could get that blood. You then revealed yourself in some way to not be a typical vampire.” Mustache paused as if waiting for me to contradict him, but I wasn’t going to confirm or deny shit.

  When I didn’t respond, Mustache continued, “You and Justin left in his vehicle and made a decision to meet up regularly so he could supply blood. At some point, you attracted the attention of the local vampire population, and your life grew endangered. Justin then arranged with one of his school friends, a Miss Charlotte Russell, to conspire to place you at his house where he protected you from the vampires.”

  “Charlotte had nothing to do with any of this,” I said. The girl might be on my shit list right now, but I wasn’t dragging her into this mess.

  George Roberts showed the screen around the room. It read true. “Well, that’s a relief. The fewer students involved in this, the better.”

  Mustache cleared his throat and then kept going, “Justin then made a concerted effort to hide you from discovery from the Hawthorn Group, but he was under certain oaths,” Mustache said. “But Gina Roberts’ divination showed you were going to go to Blackburn Academy.”

  George Roberts held up a hand. “Let me correct that one there, Professor. Gina foresaw my son in a romantic relationship with this young lady at Blackburn. That was why my wife wanted to give her the scholarship.”

  Mustache nodded. “Ah, well. Teen love is a great motivator.” He said the words teen love like it was a myth he didn’t believe in. Mustache cleared his throat again, and I was beginning to think the guy had something stuck in there. “Well, you then enlisted the assistance of a large group of our star students who, on discovering your unique abilities, helped you compete for a scholarship.”

  As he said the words, I realized precisely what this meeting was about. They already knew what Justin did. Justin was the golden son of one of the founding members. He wasn’t on trial for not committing murder. These four wanted to know how many of their students knew I was a dhampir. Would knowing my secret endanger them? The members of the Bad Boys club didn’t enjoy the same advantages and protection Justin did.

  Giving these guys the information could very well be the last thing they want to know before ending my life. They’d sent Justin to kill me in the first place, hadn’t they? They were holding me down here. But I couldn’t refuse to tell them the truth that exonerated my friends just to preserve my own life.

  Taking a deep, steadying breath, I sat straight. “Only Justin knows what I am. I hid it from everyone else.” A tear slipped onto my cheek, and I wanted to wipe it away, but I couldn’t. “I at no time thought that anyone else even suspected that I was a vampire or dhampir. It was a secret between Justin and me.”

  George Roberts held up the screen, showing the truth of my words. Any minute the hands on my shoulders would grab my head or my neck, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to die.

  Damn it. I didn’t want to die. Justin had done so much to keep me alive without me even realizing it, and I had thrown it all away, and blithely walked into my death.

  “Well, that’s good,” Mr. Roberts said, from what felt like far away. “We’re going to ask something of you, January, something that might make your life at Blackburn a little harder. It would be a great favor to us if you complied.”

  I opened my eyes, but the room seemed too bright and hazy through my tears. “What?”

  “Dhampirs are idealized, almost deified in our society. But they are supposed to be extinct,” the older woman said. “If you revealed th
e truth of what you are to the students, it might raise some very uncomfortable questions. Your teachers will know, of course. Justin will know. However, we will need you to conceal what you are from everyone else at the school.”

  I regarded the principal for a full minute as everything fell into place. “You’ve been killing dhampirs. That’s the secret that Justin discovered. That’s the necessary evil that Justin figured out. And now, you know that if you kill me, Justin will reveal what you’ve been doing. That’s why you want to protect me, isn’t it?”

  The principal threw up her hands. “No, of course not.” That was what she said, but I could tell from all of their stale smiles that I had hit the nail in the head. “What happened with you was a grave mistake, and we are ashamed that Justin had to go through that. Your father had an informant at the morgue who would slip notes into the hands of people who miraculously healed post-mortem. He would then kidnap those who rose and called the hotline. We simply discovered the conspiracy and tapped into the phone line. We believed that we were sending our star student on his first ever solo mission after a newly-risen and weak vampire.”

  “Darling, we’re not monsters,” George Roberts said. “We would never even consider killing you.”

  “Look, we’re the good guys,” Purple Hair snapped as she leaned back in her chair. “We do what’s necessary to keep humans safe and unaware of vampires. What happened to you was a big fuck up, and trust me, we paid for it. Justin proved how damaging having one disillusioned student can be. He systematically divided his class and made it impossible for us to send them on missions for a full year. Justin made our lives hell. We can’t risk having an entire student body thinking that we’re sending them to kill their heroes, all right?” She twirled her hand quickly through the air.