by Ian Hall
It is a simple concept. Just as when one candle lights another, spreading its flame from wick to wick, so the soul can be separated and yet not extinguished. To drink of one’s life force is to take a piece of what makes them unique, adding their traits to your own. Their soul lives on as surely as the first candle still burns. However, the light is no longer exclusive.
I shoved the journal under Lyman’s nose soon as he opened his eyes the next morning.
“Read,” I commanded, pointing to the passage.
He stood between the beds, standing shakily, read the passage, then waltzed passed me and rolled his eyes. “That dude is such a dick.”
Lyman proceeded to the restroom but I zoomed around the room and cut him off, “How smart was Alan?”
“Not too smart; he fell on a freaking rake, didn’t he?”
I folded my arms. “C’mon, you went to Gregor with him. Was he a good student?”
“Straight A’s,” he twirled his finger in the air, “whoop-de-doo! So was I.”
“And now so am I.”
Lyman pushed past me with a sarcastic grin. “Congratulations… now… do you mind? I need to pee.”
I followed him into the bathroom, not flinching at his warning glare. “What? I’ve seen you pee before.”
“What the hell, Mandy? Can’t you give me two seconds?”
“Two seconds? You’re an epic pee-er; I’d be lucky if you’d be out of here in two hours.”
Resolved to his lack of privacy, Lyman hovered over the bowl and fiddled with the buttons on his pajama bottoms.
Just to be descent, I turned toward the wall. “Remember last night how you got all wound up, wondering if Alan had passed anything onto me by accident?”
The only response I got was the sound of his stream hitting the water.
“Well. I think there’s something to that. All the sudden I’ve got all these book smarts – not that I was ever some knuckle-dragger. But I sure as hell couldn’t pick up on things as easily as I do now.”
“Maybe that’s ‘cause this is your second run-through as a high school senior. Did you ever think that maybe you – even accidentally – learned something the first time around?”
“I’m taking Algebra-2, Lyman, and it’s, like, no sweat. I barely passed Algebra-1 back at Everton.”
The little twit would barely contain a giggle at my expense.
“Oh, shove it; not like you’re some rocket scientist.”
“Yeah – I sure couldn’t handle Algebra-2!”
“Don’t you get it? It’s the Combining! Alan passed traits to me when I drank his blood. For all I know, I passed something on to him, too…”
“Like what – how to apply eyeliner?”
I jabbed my middle finger up at the back of his head.
“It doesn’t matter what he took from me—”
“That’s right; it doesn’t. Alan’s dead now. Honor student and homicidal maniac – and whatever else he was – he’s gone.”
“Except for whatever part of him lives in me.”
“Christ, Mandy! Just because Alan may have passed some information on to you through his subconscious… doesn’t mean his flame lit your wick.” Lyman chuckled. “No matter how bad you wanted him to.”
Apparently Lyman had woken with a bit of an attitude and it had already begun getting on my nerves.
“What’s your problem? Why’re you being so pissy?” Pun intended.
Lyman’s bladder had finally drained. He punched the flusher and turned the knob on the sink so hard, I thought he’d break it off.
“I checked in on Mary-Christine today, got an update on her condition.”
Suddenly all my concerns faded into the background. I’d given very little thought to Mary-Christine, Reynolds, or even Chris/Norman since we’d been on our latest assignment. When we were so far away, it just seemed easier to put them out of my mind. Didn’t look like Lyman had taken the same approach as me to dealing with the distance.
“How’s she doing?”
Lyman turned around, propping up against the sink. Already I could tell it wasn’t good news.
“She hasn’t come out of it, Mandy. Whatever they did to that last batch of rage gas – it has lasting effects. We might never get her back.”
I couldn’t be sure if I was included in Lyman’s use of the word “we.” Mary-Christine and I never had much use for each other. But for Lyman, she’d been his first love, first sex, cherry and all. Unlike me, he couldn’t leave it all back in Chicago. I wondered if he’d drag her along with him for rest his immortal existence.
“You know the worst part?” he continued. “Next week I’m going on assignment into Alucard Medical University.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t have a second of medical experience, I’ve never taken a serious biology class, and I’ve got to convince a bunch of vampires that I’m a vampire, too, even if I can’t do the speed thing. The first time I’m asked to do that, I’m cooked. Gone.” He turned to me, a real serious look on his face. “This is an assignment I may not walk away from, Mandy. My girl’s in a hospital bed. I’m surrounded by vampires. It doesn’t matter how much you profess to be my friend, I’m essentially on my own.”
I shook my head. “That’s how I felt fighting Alan. Now you’ve got a taste of what I had to deal with for the last three months.”
Alucard Medical University
Finding Jackson’s grave proved easy; there were three large stones on top of it. As I let the ladies move the stones, I realized that Mandy had indeed found a fine place for his final rest. Well, maybe final. Nice view, good level, drained ground, the works. They scurried the packed earth away with their superfast fingers, and sure enough, when we got to his body and pulled the shroud to one side, Jackson looked as good as he’d ever had.
Not that I knew him, you understand, but I could tell he wasn’t just bone.
“So what now?” I asked, and I could tell that Mandy felt the same way.
“Hold on a minute.” Valérie dialed Howard, and explained the situation.
Well, a few minutes later, we were back in the cars, heading for Flagstaff again. Howard had a GPS location of the grave, and he said he’d look into it. It felt good enough for me, but Mandy seemed a bit upset.
“As long as they don’t screw with him.”
I drove for a bit, then just had to say something. “Mandy, pet, he’s dead you know. They’re not going to reanimate him or anything. They’ll just do some tests. That’s all.”
Mandy had called first dibs on me again, and as soon as we were on the freeway, she insisted on reading from the freaking journal.
“Just listen.” Her tone proved enough to shut me up.
“Blood carries more than just our life-force. The liquid instills us with animation, and without, it we are husks. So when we take blood from the human species, we drain more than their instincts, we inherit parts of their psyche. I play concert piano, I fence at a high level, I finish the most difficult crossword in minutes; none of which I’d learned, trained at, nor tried to gain any proficiency. As a species, we can rise not only to the top of the food chain, but to the ruling class of these fleeting humans.”
“I tell you, Lyman, you’ve got to think of Jackson. You’ve got to dig deep inside yourself, think of what he’d do.”
I tried to put it out of my mind, but it lingered for a while.
We took a detour into Gregor and stopped by my house for a bit, to look at the mail and such, and when I re-packed my bag for the climes of Phoenix, I also picked up Alan’s guitar; the old Fender Telecaster. Not that I thought I could play, but it just looked more student-like. Within an hour of hitting Gregor, we set off south for Phoenix.
I don’t know where they’d got the finances to build the University, but it sure impressed me. Every building had different shapes of shiny tinted glass; thousands of sparkly brown panes at crazy angles, sloping, upright, you name it, it was there. Between every building, like the filling in
a layered cake, lay thick groves of trees, and wide, expansive lawns.
At the main door of the reception building, a tall, older student stood, welcoming everybody, and asking them to step inside. I grinned at the paradox. The most evolved species on the planet couldn’t just walk into a building. Very strange.
Mandy and I walked into the main lobby, and joined a short line at the desk.
“George Walters,” I said to the bored lady behind the counter when it eventually became my turn. I handed over my school papers from Red Roses High.
She studied a screen for a while, then gave me a card. “It’s a temporary matriculation card; you’ll get a replacement soon. Room G47, Starr Building.”
Her eyes moved over my shoulder to Mandy. “Next.”
I stood behind her, but she got a different room number. As she turned, I felt my excitement rise, and nervousness set in with a vengeance.
“G47. You?” As if I didn’t already know.
“C21.”
Mandy grabbed my arm and gave me a little shake. “It’s okay, George, you can do this.”
I smiled at her, keeping up the part, then took a good look at the printed map in my hand. The Starr Building lay on the south side, in the opposite direction from Mandy, so I gave her a little hug, and walked off.
As I made my way across campus, I looked at the rest of the students, expecting to see eager vampires, all desperate for a bloodletting orgy, but was pleasantly surprised to see as many nervous faces as confident ones.
“George Walters,” I said under my breath. “George Walters.”
The high-ceilinged classroom with the number G47 on the open door filled up very slowly. Only twenty seats, in four long rows, each desk set apart in military precision. I chose one near the window, and spent the next half hour looking down at the campus below.
As more students filed in, the class soon buzzed with the undercurrent of whispers. Twenty kids, just like me.
“Hi,” a voice behind me said, and I twisted in my seat. “Remember me?”
I sat open-mouthed for a moment, not quite knowing what to say. “Well, if it isn’t Elena Díaz; small world.”
“Sure is, Carter.”
I swallowed. For a second I struggled to recall the ‘Carter’ part, then I remembered. Carter Weaver had been the name I gave her in New River when I investigated down there, looking for Alan. “Name’s George,” I said. “Sorry for before, I had to keep things on the ‘need-to-know’ basis. George Walters is my real name.”
She looked at me over her desk, her eyes questioning. “Why’d you never say goodbye?”
“Well, things got kinda hectic after we attacked Alan.”
She became suddenly animated. “You were there?” She looked to her neighbor, but she looked busy, reading a book. Elena continued, but her voice had dropped in volume. “I got told all about it, they say it was gruesome.”
I nodded. “It certainly lived up to our expectations.”
“What are you doing here, amongst us beginners?”
Yeah, I’d played the ‘high-up-in-the-organization’ in New River. Now I had to change my story again. “Keeping an eye on the training, you know, for the boss.”
Then the door closed with a bang, and the buzz in the classroom dropped suddenly.
A middle-aged man walked to the front desk and stood, looking at us.
“My name is Mister Houze,” he said. “Houze with a Z.”
Well, if I expected a “welcome vampires all” speech, I didn’t get it. All my nervousness slowly evaporated as he began the register. Oh so very normal college. He sounded all serious, giving us timetables, explaining fire exits and procedures, and a time for each class to go to the matriculation office to get issued with our identity cards.
Turns out we were called C1. Our major would be ‘Serology’ which he wrote in big letters on the blackboard. Yup, he used a blackboard.
“As you probably all know, serology is the study of the properties in blood.”
Well, it looks like the first lecture had begun. He walked around handing out textbooks and Xeroxed notes as he talked. No jokes about vampires, no mentions of ‘taking blood’ by any other means than by needle and ampule.
By the end of the 90-minute class, I’d learned quite a lot, and had a quarter of a textbook to read before my next class with Mister Houze.
Turns out Elena didn’t have any friends from New River in the class, so she just walked in step with me as I got my head around the total lack of vampire mentions.
We headed for our ID cards together, chatting about the class, the blood, the lecturer. It felt totally bizarre. And so abnormally normal.
So Lyma-bean trots off to his room, and I toddle off to mine. What a bunch of losers filed into that room. The smell of vampire felt so strong that I literally breathed a sigh of relief when the lecturer opened the window. I sat too far away from the front to detect his pheromones, but the kids around me emitted enough for everyone.
I will admit to feeling a teensy bit nervous, though. Even with my grey matter’s new lease on life, I wasn’t entirely sure I could cope with the academic side, if there proved to be any.
Seems ‘teacher’ had a name, and he wrote it on big letters on the whiteboard.
Terry Clifford.
“Your first major subject will be physiology,” he began, sitting on his desk. Obviously a Renaissance man teacher. Oh boy. “More specifically the properties of Defense Physiology.” He patted a pile of textbooks at his side. “Need somebody to hand these out, come on, you!” he pointed to a guy in the front row. “Front and center.”
The volume hit my desk with a pretty hearty thud.
“Defense Physiology: A Modern Study from Heart to Hand” By Daniel Fischer. The guy had so many letters after his name, it continued onto another line. I think my head felt heavier immediately.
I had Bald Eagle’s journal in my bag, but resolutely held on to the lecture until the buzzer sounded at noon. As we shuffled out, I exchanged lame, noncommittal comments with my fellow classmates, and shot off to the cafeteria.
There, I got a surprise. Over two hundred kids had crowded into the area, but the cafeteria itself more resembled a high-priced diner than a college eatery; plenty of walking room, nice comfy leather chairs, private booths, the whole works. In time I saw Lyman walk in, a cute Latino girl close in attendance. Man, he doesn’t waste time.
“Anything happening yet?” a voice from my right spun me around, and Finch’s serious expression stood less than two feet away. She scanned the room with some interest.
“Lessons. That’s all,” I replied, trying to follow her gaze.
“Yeah, that’s what Lyman and Valérie are saying, too.” She gave a casual shrug. “Keep at it, see you tonight.”
I nodded as she casually walked off.
By the time we’d been allocated our ‘matriculation’ cards, and attended one more lecture, it had already gone past five o’clock, and I met Lyman at the car. Yup he still had the girl in tow.
“This is Elena,” he said with a fair bit of familiarity. “She’s in my class, from New River.”
I grinned and said hello, but I was thinking, ‘Oh, New River.’ That’s why he had spent so much time down there. Oh, down there; gross.
“And is Elena coming to dinner?”
“No,” she said, turning on Lyman. “I’m living on campus, I’ve got other plans.” Then she slipped Lyman the tongue for a second and rubbed his crotch. “You know where I am.”
Wow, yeah, she had plans, all right!
“Yes, ma’am.” Lyman grinned guiltily when she’d put him down. And in a second, Elena had gone.
“Had a busy day?”
He did the sheepish grin again, and got into the car. “Kinda. You?”
“Nope, just a couple of lectures, nothing more.”
To be honest, the first couple of days of University life were as boring as I could imagine. Then our teacher, Terry Clifford, told us that we’d be off campus t
he next day, and to dress for a seedier part of town to blend in. At last I had something to report to the group.
Then in the short car journey to the hotel, Lyman made his announcement first.
“We’re off to Magdalena tomorrow.”
“That’s in Mexico,” I said, remembering an old map.
“Yeah,” Lyman replied. “We’re doing a blood drive, you know, best prices paid for a pint of blood.”
“Do you know what it’s for?”
“Well, Mister Houze said it was for our experiments, to practice on.”
“But you think different?”
“Well, I have my suspicions. We don’t need that much blood for experiments, not really. There’s only twenty in the class, and we use microscopic amounts.”
I suddenly knew the answer. I grinned, turning on him. “Maybe it’s a food drive.”
“What?”
“We’ve got how many vampires in one place? Two hundred? More? How much blood would they normally need to keep them from rampaging into town? We can’t all feed in Phoenix, there’d be a bloodbath.”
I decided it was time to drop my news. “We’ve been told we’re going to a seedy part of town tomorrow, we’ve got to dress down.”
“Ooh, that sounds ominous.”
“I thought so, too.”
“Any ideas what’s going on?”
“Nope, but whatever it is, it starts tomorrow.”
We told the girls our news, and they nodded. Seems that Valérie’s class had been studying draining blood from cadavers, and the science of the autopsy, and Finch had been calibrating cold lab equipment all day.
Valérie phoned Weeks with the news, then they all settled down for an early night. I lay with Bald Eagle’s journal into the wee hours.