Vampire High School (Book 1: Gregor Academy)

by Lachelle Miller

  With an almost full tank of gas, and Dave’s forty bucks, I headed for the freeway.

  We were going to play hooky for a day, and damn the world.

  ~ ~ ~

  I found Cami by the lake, on the same pier my dad used to fish off of. Same water Alan and me sunk my parents’ dismembered bodies into. I could feel their ghosts looking up at me from deep below.

  Nobody else was around. Alan apparently had just dumped her there and shot off into the night. Honestly- I was just glad that he hadn’t hurt her. You would have thought I’d loved to find her dead but it was (strangely enough) just the opposite.

  As it was Cami was zoned the heck out, looking out over the rippling moon on the silvery water like she was mesmerized by it. Or maybe it was Alan’s sweat that had her all goofy.

  Her elbows were up on the railing. Her head was kinda cocked to one side. There was a cool breeze and, even though her arms were bare, Cami didn’t seem to notice the cold. Seriously- she might as well have been sleepwalking again.

  Anyway—I started walking toward her, super slow. Can’t explain it but the whole atmosphere was just creepy. The air was heavy, thick with the smells of water and blood. I had to really discipline myself not to let my appetite get the better of me; after all, there was a walk-up buffet just obliviously waiting for me. And she smelled awesome.

  Cami never acknowledged me at all. When I was close enough- like within arm’s length- I found the bloody marks on her neck. I brushed her hair back and saw that Alan had bit her deep; from her pale complexion I’d guess he’d drained her nearly dry.

  But, he left her alive. Without changing her.

  “Cami?”

  Blinking slow, she turned her face. The moon was high overhead, round and bright. By the glow I could easily see the broken blood vessels in her face and eyes. Even her lips looked shriveled, cracked. He’d either gone too far or not far enough; Cami was right on the edge between dead human and living vampire.

  She answered me, only my name. Her voice was gritty and breathy, “Mandy…”

  “I’m right here,” I put my arm around her waist and led her to the closest bench. Cami leaned on me hard; I was practically carrying her.

  I meant to lay her down gently, but she just kind of slumped over- the way you do when you’re on the toilet and think you might chuck. Any second, she’d be gone.

  Without Alan’s sweat to mess with my head, my thoughts and feelings were all my own then. A person I’d been best friends with since Kindergarten was fading out like a dying candle and I had no choice but to feel it. Didn’t matter that she’d betrayed me; I cared by default.

  I lowered myself down to see her face better, “Cami… you’re going to be alright.”

  Yeah. It was a lie. But, what would you have said in that situation?

  She coughed out a reply, “Dead… I’m dead.”

  “You’re still such a freaking drama queen.”

  I smiled and it kind of broke my heart when she smiled back. It wasn’t Cami’s usual smile either; it was really genuine.

  Her next words just about killed me where I stood, “I’m…so… sorry…”

  I totally lost it then. Once she saw me crying she knew for sure it was over. Before I knew it- I was holding her in my arms, rocking her like a baby and both of us were bawling.

  I heard Alan come up but my mind was on other things.

  “Ah- isn’t that sweet? Best friends reunited. I’m all choked up; glad I could be of service.”

  Cami’s face was buried in my neck. She was slipping away faster now.

  I turned to face Alan, “Why’d you do this to her? To get back at me?”

  He was spiteful and mocking, “You like to flatter yourself, Mandy Cross. I mean- Cami’s fucking hot… just ask Craig if you don’t believe me.”

  I knew he was mad at me for the Jackson thing, but he was just being hurtful then. If he was trying to get a rise out of me, it worked.

  “Screw you!” I shouted, clutching Cami like a teddy bear.

  “You have the balls to say that to me? After the way you stabbed me in the back?”

  “That wasn’t my fault! I didn’t want to go with Jackson; he made me! And… just in case you were wondering… I told him to go to hell, Alan. I want nothing to do with him or his retarded family.”

  Alan become super still just then, looking me up and down like scanning me for lies or something. I could tell he didn’t trust what I was saying.

  “You’re saying you’re not one of them, Mandy Cross—the turncoats?”

  Turncoats? I didn’t even freaking know what he was yammering about. All I could do was shake my head and try to get Alan to believe me.

  “You’re my family, Alan. I just want to be with you… I want to be a Blanche vampire.”

  His eyes scanned me again. I don’t think he like me using the term “Blanche vampire”. But, after a second, his stare softened a bit.

  “Okay. Prove it. Prove your loyalty, Mandy Cross.” He demanded.

  I thought at that moment I would have done freaking anything, “How? What do you want me to do?”

  “Make me an offering,” he said, his words just dripping with assumed authority, “bring me your first recruit and lay her at my feet.”

  Alan’s eyes shifted away from me over to Cami. Even as she lay dying in my arms, there was lust in the way he looked at her; but it went way beyond sex. For him it was all about the domination.

  What? She was to be my sacrifice to him? The thing that seals the deal and makes me what I’d just pledged myself to be—one of them. A Blanche.

  Seeing him like that- it was like someone ripped a veil away from Alan McCartney’s face and I was looking at the real him for the first time ever.

  “She’s almost gone. It’s too late.” I told him, fumbling for any excuse.

  “Duh, Mandy Cross. Your veins are pumping with the elixir of eternal life. You don’t have to let your BFF die.”

  I gave up on trying to weasel my way out of it. “I don’t think I can do what you’re asking me…”

  Cami went limp. I cradled her head in the crook of my arm, thinking she was already gone. But no. A faint puff of breath was still passing through her lips.

  “You can if you want. But, you don’t have much time to decide, Mandy Cross.”

  In just a split second all the possibilities flashed through my head. Cami could be saved. But, was it really any salvation at all? Look at what had happened to me in such a short time. If I could change places with her and choose again…

  Alan kept pressing his point, “Didn’t you just say that you wanted to belong with me? If you do this- not only do you get me but you get your bestest friend in the world back.”

  Some part of me wanted that more than anybody could ever begin to imagine. I wasn’t good at being alone. Having Cami back would mean the world.

  “Ask her what she wants, Mandy Cross,” Alan prodded me, “but you better ask quick if you want her to be able to answer.”

  I ignored him and just kept rocking Cami as she shut down more and more.

  Alan scooted up closer and put his face over Cami’s, “Okay then- I’ll ask her… Cami? You can be saved! You can live forever if that’s what you want. Just nod your head…”

  Cami’s eyes opened up. She did more than nod.

  “Save… me…”

  Her voice was stronger than it had been before; she really wanted this. I wondered if Alan was making her do it. One thing for sure- she didn’t know what she was signing up for. Hell- I was only just beginning to grasp it myself.

  “There you have it.” Alan grinned. “Shall you have the honors or shall I?”

  I was freaking out inside, trying to decide the best thing for me versus the best thing for Cami. To be a Blanche or not to be a Blanche.

  Alan didn’t give me much of a chance to reply. He brought his wrist up to his mouth and bit until it drew blood. Then he offered it to Cami.

  She drank like a baby at a bottle
. Even as I held her I could feel her getting stronger. Cami was reviving, turning. She became lighter in my arms, no longer dead weight.

  I watched Cami’s rebirth before my eyes, feeling like I was floating above her. As she sucked down the life from Alan’s veins, his mouth had fallen open and his eyes gone glassy. Then her eyes smiled up at me, glowing amber like something out of a horror movie. She brought her fingers up to my face, caressing my cheek. I remembered the excitement of my change and knew what she was hoping for.

  She would be the perfect recruit, I thought. Cami had the mean, manipulative side to match even Alan’s. All I could think was how she would make his perfect mate.

  I shifted Cami’s head to my lap, watching the strength build in her. Her eyes slowly changed from fiery desire to mocking me.

  That made my decision a bit easier. I held her face between my hands, looked down at her.

  “I love you.”

  Then, with a twist of my hands, Cami’s head snapped off clean.

  Alan roared as if I’d shot him. I pushed Cami’s headless body off my lap, ran for the railing and tossed her head into the river. It floated instead of sinking. So, Everton would have a homicide on its hands but at least it wouldn’t have another one of Alan Freaking McCartney’s followers to deal with.

  I sure as hell wasn’t going to be one of them.

  When I turned around again, I expected a fight. I expected to lose. Instead what I got was… nothing.

  Alan was already gone.

  He really was pissing me off.

  ~ ~ ~

  When we got home that evening, mom was kinda frantic. “Where the hell have you been?”

  Mary-Christine and I had got our stories straight, grandma had died and she wanted time away. It was my duty.

  It got mom off my case for a bit, but I was grounded for the rest of the day. I shrugged my shoulders and went to my room. I’d spent so little time there, I was actually going to enjoy just hanging out.

  After a while, I heard dad’s voice downstairs, heard a little argument, probably over me, and then nothing. Then a bit later lame voices coming up the stairs.

  Someone knocked at my bedroom door. “Lyman, can I come in?”

  I stood and did a quick check for porn and stuff. “Eh- sure, Dad.” I was a little bewildered, but dad was followed by another man, a stranger.

  “This is Ed Phillips.” Dad said, and we shook hands. “Ed’s from work. He’s here for dinner. He’s a bit of a guitar nut.”

  “What do you have?” Ed asked, looking at the Fender case.

  “It’s a Tele.”

  “Cool. What kind?”

  I felt so out of my depth. “It’s a white one.”

  “Do you mind?” he took a step closer to the case.

  “No not at all.”

  He had the case open in seconds, and his eyes lit up like flashlights. “Nice.” He checked the condition of the body, straight neck, then his eyes fell on the serial number. “Your dad said you got this from a friend?”

  “Yeah, a dead one.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew it sounded bad.

  “He must have been a good one. If the parts inside are originals, this could be worth a few grand.”

  My eyebrows must have gone into my hairline. A few grand? “How do you know?”

  He sat on the bed and got a screwdriver from his inside suit pocket.

  He carefully lifted the plastic bit with the knobs off, and pulled it from the guitar as far as the wires would allow.

  “These look original, man. You’ve got a good one here.”

  He went to replace it, but I saw writing inside, and asked for it back as it was.

  Alan McCartney 1715 Swansea, Seattle.

  Another address was there too, but it had been scratched out, as if he’d moved or something.

  He carefully put the screws into the cavity of the guitar, then we all went downstairs for dinner.

  Needless to say, the guitar was the talk of the evening, but all I could think of were warm things about Alan.

  He’d left me a valuable guitar. Maybe he’d actually, genuinely liked me.

  Over the course of dinner, the value went from five to maybe ten grand. I was talking new car. Mom said better college. I shut up; there was no arguing with Mom about college.

  So next day, I told Mary, and presumably she told her dad, because when I brought her home from Karate that evening, he called me inside.

  “Mary told me about the guitar.”

  “Yeah, it’s cool. Worth something too.”

  “The addresses inside?”

  “Yes, there’s two. One in Seattle, one scratched off.”

  Dave looked pensively from Mary-Christine to me. “Lyman, we need those addresses.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, when vampires are displaced for any reason, they sometimes return to old haunts and settle down. As long as a reasonable time has passed since they left, of course. They can even pass themselves off as their own kids, that kind of thing. It saves them re-learning a new area. We’ve caught a few vampires like that.”

  So Dave wanted me to give him details of where my best friend had moved to, so he could go and kill him.

  “Sure.” I said. “I’ll bring the guitar over tomorrow.” As I said it, I knew that I’d officially taken a side.

  “On the Dorothy Squires family; the sentence will be passed at the weekend. Do you still want to come?”

  I looked at Mary-Christine, and her perky smile, and weighed the pros and cons. On one hand I could spend a weekend with her, we’d get to fly again, we’d sleep together, albeit in separate beds, and we’d eat like kings. On the other, I’d watch three vampires get killed in front of my eyes.

  “Yeah, I’m still up for it.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Everton woke up early to the report of a missing teenage girl. You guessed it… the now-headless Cami Richter. The whole town was totally on the move- we’re talking police dogs and the whole enchilada.

  I’d left her decapitated corpse out in the open on the pier. And last I’d looked the head still hadn’t gone under; it was like a freaking buoy or something. Unless Alan had gone back and did something to hide her remains, the good people of Everton were in for a huge shock.

  As for me—I was back to hiding under the bleachers. This time I got spotted. Some big, fat guy (no badge) rooted me out; you know- the way pigs find those truffle things.

  “Hey, girly? What’re doing over there?”

  Like I was in the mood to be called out by some wannabe crime stopper. I hissed at him, fangs bared. The look on his face would have been hilarious if I’d been in any mood for it. He backed way the heck up, tripping over a tree root as he went.

  Any other vampire would have made a snack out the klutzy guy. Not me. Once he was on his butt, I scooted out from under my hiding spot and took off.

  People were everywhere. And I hadn’t eaten. Their smell was making it hard to be nice. But, I did it and even blended in with the throngs of searchers. With all the commotion it was actually easier to hide right out there in the open.

  I kept my head down and broke away from the pack as soon as there was an opening. Downtown, there was an alley between the bakery and this old, vacant beauty shop. To me it was like a ticket out of Dodge and I slipped down it quick as I could.

  I only wish I’d been paying better attention. Mrs. Cole, Jackson’s mom, followed me in.

  Mona Cole was a big lady; my head didn’t reach her shoulders. Her hair was a frizzy-black-fro and she never wore any make-up so her face looked like an eggshell next to the dark mane. She was definitely the super serious type; just like her foster son.

  “Mandy.” Her voice closed in on me like a freaking bear trap. Clench!

  “Mrs. Cole… how are you?”

  Mona Cole grabbed me by the arm and dragged me off between two dumpsters, “tell me you don’t have anything to do with that girl’s disappearance…”

  She was practically
begging me to be innocent. Unfortunately, I couldn’t accommodate. For whatever reason I chose not to lie about it. Like really? I’d just pulled my former best friend’s head off her shoulders and threw it in the river—now I was worrying about lying?

  “I had to do it, Mrs. Cole. Alan was right in the middle of turning her… and this town doesn’t need the kind of trouble those two would bring if they paired up.”

  “How’d you let yourself get mixed up with that vampire trash, you stupid girl?”

  Her fingers were really digging into me. I tried to wriggle out of her clutches but it totally did me like zero good. I’d never seen Mrs. Cole like this. The brief time I stayed in her house, she was all jolly, fat lady with the cookie baking. Now she was mama vampire. Big time.

  “It wasn’t my fault… Alan…”

  “Alan, Alan, Alan,” she twisted her face up so it was all sour looking, “your obsession with that boy is going to get us all killed. And after Jackson stood up for you, we took you in… and you still side with that nasty Amos Blanche wannabe.”

  I was sniveling, “What’re you going to do to me, Mrs. Cole?”

  “It’s not what I’m going to do, Mandy. It’s what you’re going to do.”

  She clenched her hand tighter. It hurt like a mother. I wailed but none of the humans heard me. At least, none of them came to help.

  “You’re going to set this right, girl. You’re going to rid this town of Hannah and Barton… and then you’re going to rid it of you.”

  “I was already going to leave, Mrs. Cole… I was going to leave right now.”

  Okay. That was a total lie. But, what would you have said? Mona Cole had me scared shitless.

  She pushed me up against a brick wall. I heard a crack spider through them and felt bits fall around my feet. I wondered if my skull were broken.

  Her voice was like an effing snake, “First you do exactly what I tell you.”

  Chapter 9. Vampire Executioner.

  Well I took to the corporate vampire bashing like I was born to it. I loved the camaraderie (Mary-Christine), I loved the corporate lifestyle (Hotels and flights), and I loved the new me. On the Friday afternoon, on the way home, I stopped at the hairdresser my mom used to take me to when I was a kid.