Fangs for Freaks

by Serena Robar

  Carl took me aside to view the photos. I e-mailed them to him from the phone as well, but he didn’t recognize them.

  “So, it’s started already,” he murmured softly, careful to keep his tone hushed.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I am,” he admitted, then clarified his position. “I’m not surprised someone would attack you—”

  I snorted out a thanks but he continued, “I’m surprised it happened so soon. No one knows the House is occupied yet, Colby. The Tribunal’s official position has always been that Psi Phi won’t be inhabited by half-bloods for another two weeks.”

  “So what are you telling me?”

  “I think we have a leak somewhere in the system,” he said somberly.

  “A leak? You mean a spy?” I whispered fiercely, looking around.

  He nodded. “Either someone in our department is leaking information or one of the girls is not who she appears to be.”

  “Do you really think it could be one of them?” I was incredulous to say the least. I mean, did Carl ever bother to speak to any of the girls? They didn’t seem the type.

  “No, it’s got to be someone in the department, Carl. I can’t believe it’s someone in the House.”

  “Are you saying that because you can’t believe one of your own would turn against you?” he enjoyed mocking my naïveté.

  “No, I mean none of them are smart enough to be a spy. Think about it, Carl. Tina wants to be a vegan vampire, for goodness’ sake. Each candidate is as unlikely as the next.”

  Carl found himself nodding in agreement. It did seem unlikely. “We have to contact Thomas immediately,” he said.

  I knew he was right, of course. Thomas was senior in charge and needed to know about this threat. However, I was the one who’d averted disaster and saved the half-bloods. Surely that counted for something?

  “Fine, go ahead and call him. I’ll go downstairs and hang with my sisters. Maybe I’ll learn a little more about their circumstances and get a better idea who’s who down there.”

  I turned to leave but Carl stopped me by placing a hand on my shoulder.

  “Colby, you did well tonight.”

  I was shocked by his praise. Did Carl just compliment my Protector skills? I nodded, afraid I would cry if I tried to verbally respond. If only Thomas could see me the way Carl did, as a competent Protector instead of a weak half-blood sidekick. I straightened my shoulders and shook it off. This was no time to bemoan my relationship with Thomas. I had a spy to catch.

  Being a half-blood, I had many abilities that the average vampire didn’t have, such as being able to go out in the sunshine, as long as I didn’t overdo the sun exposure and wore a very high SPF. I discovered that several of my new housemates did not possess this mutated ability. For instance, Angie and Lucy were anti-sun. Ileana seemed happy to remain inside and awake during the day but didn’t mention if it was personal preference or basic survival.

  I had incredible strength, but only at night. None of the other girls claimed such ability. For the most part, I seemed to have more vampire attributes than my sorority sisters. They couldn’t hear any better than a regular person and certainly couldn’t distinguish odors the way I could.

  “What about eye color, did any of you change eye color when it happened?” We were all hanging out in the basement, talking about the day we became Undead.

  “My eyes have always been green, but I think they might be a deeper green now. I can’t be sure. It’s hard to remember,” Ileana confessed.

  “Hard to remember?” Angie questioned. “It’s not like it happened a hundred years ago.” And the group laughed.

  Ileana smiled tightly in response, becoming silent once more when everyone else seemed to let information flow freely.

  “Well, as you all know, my eyes are yellow now. They used to be gray. I have colored contacts my mom helped me pick out so I can go out without drawing too much attention.”

  “Your mom helped you pick them out?” Lucy asked, incredulously.

  “Sure, she’s pretty cool with the whole Undead thing.”

  The group was astounded that not only was I still in contact with my family, but they knew all about my vampire traits.

  “My mama thinks I’m el diablo, the devil,” Angie admitted softly, wiping a tear from her eye. “She told me to leave and never return, like I did something wrong, but it wasn’t my fault.” Her voice cracked but she pulled her composure together and said more forcefully, “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “Of course it wasn’t,” Sage rushed to assure her. “We didn’t ask to be different, to be Undead.”

  Tina piped up and stated, “I did.” Effectively shocking the group.

  “You did?” Lucy gasped.

  “Yeah, I was hanging out at Cookie’s a lot and I met this guy who surfed at night, which was way cool. Anyway, we started dating and I found out he was a vampire and I remember wishing in my head, ya know, that I could be like that. When I woke up, I was different, like a vampire but not.”

  I caught Sage’s attention. She looked away quickly and I knew there was more to that story than Tina was revealing or even knew herself.

  “What about you, Lucy?” I changed the subject and directed my question to the meekest one of the group. “What happened to you?”

  “Oh, I guess it was my fault, really. I was walking home from work. I was trying to earn more money for college by working two jobs, you know.” We nodded in agreement. Who didn’t want more money? “Anyway, I worked at Starbucks during the day and took evening shifts at Dairy Queen. So I was walking home after the night shift, because I didn’t have a car and we lived really close to the DQ. Anyway, this guy asked if I wanted a ride home and since he came into Starbucks all the time, I thought he would be safe, you know? I thought I knew him. But I guess I really didn’t. Know him, that is.”

  We all stared at her, caught up in the story she was telling. It could have been any of us. Lucy wasn’t frivolous or stupid. If anything, she was the most cautious of us all. She thought she knew this guy because she saw him at work all the time and he seemed so nice. It sounded like something I might do.

  “What about you, Colby?” Ileana asked.

  “How does one become the Protector of half-blood vampires and start a revolution?” Lucy added.

  I was surprised she knew I’d started a revolution. It didn’t seem like something the vampire guards would tell her while she rotted in a cell, but then, she could have easily picked up bits and pieces of the story around the House.

  The girls all moved forward, eager to hear my tale. This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for since they first arrived. My moment to shine and finally accept the accolades I so richly deserved but when I started my story I realized it wasn’t so unusual or unique. It was much like their stories, it just happened to me first. So I told them a revised-on-the-fly version instead.

  “Well, actually the story of becoming Undead is not very exciting. I was stupid and walked home alone after a school game and was attacked by a rogue vampire. The real story lies with the victim before me, Jill Schneider. Now Jill was attacked a week before me and after that was visited by two very hot Vampire Investigators.”

  The group giggled and Angie blurted out “Carl, right?”

  I nodded in her direction and Ileana added, in a singsong voice, “Thom-as.” Which caused another round of laughter.

  I winked at the group and continued, “So, Jill was taken in front of the Vampire Tribunal for the crime of being Undead without a license and she convinced two of the three leaders that she should exist and have a license.”

  “No,” blurted Lucy, then she clapped a hand over her mouth.

  I nodded in her direction. “She absolutely did.”

  Angie looked confused. “Why did she need a license? What was her crime?”

  Tina interjected, “It wasn’t her fault she was Undead, was it? She didn’t ask to be a vampire, right?”

  “Hmm, how to say this
?” I thought aloud. “Once upon a time …” The group groaned but I silenced them with a look. “Vampires were a savage and primal species. The older the vampire, the more paranoid and crazy they became. They couldn’t trust anyone because they thought everybody was out to get them. Eventually, blood wars between clans started to kill off the population and vampires wouldn’t create more vampires because they were worried anyone they created would kill them. They were dying at an enormous rate.

  “So, a few ancient vampires who still had most of their marbles decided the only way to save their kind was to create a more civilized ruling body—”

  “The Tribunal!” Tina interjected and I nodded in agreement.

  “Called the Tribunal. The three most powerful vampires would rule together. They required licenses to create new vampires and blood wars. You couldn’t just go killing your vampire neighbor ’cause you felt like it. Investigators were hired to enforce the laws. Slowly, vampire populations started to stabilize. Other countries took notice and established their own Tribunals. The regulation of vampire creation is crucial because any vampire too many generations removed from the original bloodlines can not become sires. If they did, the half-bloods that were created were instantly killed. The Tribunal wanted only pure vampires to keep the race strong.”

  “So this girl convinced two of the most powerful vampires on the Tribunal to give half-bloods a chance?” Sage asked in awe.

  I nodded.

  “Then why are you the Protector and not her? What makes you so special?” Lucy questioned curiously.

  “Jill was killed by our sire because she wanted to take her chance with the Tribunal and not join him to start his own clan. I simply picked up where she left off. I killed our Creator and convinced the third member of the Tribunal that half-bloods deserved a chance. That we were strong.”

  There was more to it of course, but I was hardly about to reveal the inner workings of my deal with the Tribunal and the role of Mr. Holloway in emancipating half-bloods. They knew as much as they needed to know.

  “So you earned a license?” Angie asked.

  “I did indeed.” I put my right hand out for inspection, appreciating the “oohs” and “ahhs” from my fellow sisters.

  “Can I try it on?” Tina asked eagerly.

  Before I could reply Ileana answered in shock, “Of course not! A vampire never removes their license, ever. Only when they are dead does it come off.”

  The group gasped a collected “Ohhh!” and took a closer look at my ring but I wasn’t paying any attention to them. I was staring at Ileana. Our eyes met for an instant, then she broke contact and pretended to make a great show of looking at my ring. How did she know that? Only a vampire would know that—wouldn’t they?

  After our gab session I was no closer to discovering a spy in the house than I was before, with the exception of Ileana, who seemed to know more about vampire politics than any of the others. But did that make her a spy? Who knew what kind of information she had access to in England. Maybe she had full reign of the vampire libraries back there.

  I wandered upstairs after some of the girls decided to go to bed. Whereas I was used to sleeping a few hours at a time, everyone else seemed to prefer a good uninterrupted eight hours (or more).

  I checked my e-mail and surfed the Internet for information about Ileana Romanav. She was mentioned on several royal genealogy sites. I reviewed her noble bloodlines and read brief excerpts pertaining to each generation but didn’t come up with anything solid.

  All I could find out of the ordinary was for the last four generations, the Romanav women married, had a daughter and then lost their mate shortly thereafter in some grisly catastrophe. One lost his head in a carriage accident, another was shot while hunting and a third died from a staph infection originating from a bug bite. Nothing by way of staking or puncture wounds to the neck.

  I decided that since Piper was in England, she could do some checking for me. The Romanavs had several family estates and a few were open to the public for tours. I copied and pasted the ones I wanted Piper to go to and sent them in an e-mail. Hopefully she would have time to visit at least one or two and get any information that might be relevant. If Ileana was a spy, maybe Piper could uncover any local vampire lore surrounding the family.

  After I sent the e-mail to Piper, I read and answered mail from Marci and Rachel. They were both going to college out of state and though we weren’t nearly as close as we used to be, we still kept in touch. They thought I was tremendously cool to be starting a new sorority at PSU and both decided to rush this year at their prospective colleges. I wondered if other houses had similar setups as Psi Phi House but giggled at the thought. I doubted the feeding of its members would be as complicated as ours.

  The bed seemed to beckon me and I changed into shorts and a tank top covered with cartoon fish that said “Sushi” and climbed into bed. I was very tired and knew Thomas would be home any time. I really didn’t want to think about how that was going to go over. Sure we were fighting as a couple but it was the work thing that would make him the most upset.

  I imagined the confrontation with Cookie was anything but pleasant. Suddenly I had a horrible thought. What if Cookie turned her vampire goons on him and he was attacked? Or worse, dead? I left him alone to face her and he could be chained in the basement at this very moment.

  I jumped out of bed and raced downstairs to talk to Carl. I had to make sure Thomas was all right. I was in such a hurry, I practically stepped on Ileana’s maid, sleeping on the floor outside Ileana’s room.

  “What the heck?” I muttered, awakening Sophie with my clumsiness.

  “Mum?” she asked sleepily.

  “What are you doing sleeping in the hallway?” I demanded, totally confused why she would do such a thing.

  “I have always slept at my lady’s door. It’s my duty.” She seemed to be a little more coherent.

  “It’s your duty? I thought it was your duty to take care of her. How can you do that if you don’t get a good night’s sleep?” I reasoned.

  I wasn’t going to take the “you deserve more” stance like before. This chick was way too brainwashed to think of herself as a separate entity.

  “I can hear her better if I am close at hand,” she stubbornly insisted.

  “Whatever,” I muttered, stepping past her to the stairs. I would worry about that wigged-out relationship later. Right now I had to make sure Thomas was okay.

  Carl was nowhere in sight, which shouldn’t have surprised me because it was almost dawn. It was hard to remember other vampires couldn’t be out in the sun, when I could.

  I debated calling Thomas on the phone and decided against it. I didn’t want to have our first conversation after such a big fight over a phone line. My puppy dog eyes and practiced pouty face would be far more effective in person.

  I opted to call Carl instead.

  “Carl here,” he answered tersely.

  “Hey Carl, it’s me. Did you speak to Thomas yet?” I asked, pacing the living room.

  “Why? Is something wrong?” Carl quickly jumped to the wrong conclusion.

  “No, no. Everything’s fine. I just … just wanted to know if you spoke to Thomas yet. Is he …” I paused and felt like an idiot checking up on him. He was a Tribunal Investigator, for crying out loud. A big boy who could take care of himself. “Is he aware of our situation?”

  Boy, that didn’t sound lame at all. Duh.

  “Is he aware of our situation? Colby, are you sure you’re all right?” Now Carl sounded very concerned.

  I sighed heavily. Why was I so worried? Thomas could take care of himself way better than I could. Now I sounded like a mom obsessing over her little boy. Yuck, that was a really bad analogy and it totally creeped me out. I did not have motherly feelings toward Thomas at all. Blech.

  “I just wanted to make sure he was safe, is all,” I finally admitted.

  Carl paused a moment and replied, “He is safe and will be home tonight.”
r />   “Good.” I couldn’t help feeling relieved.

  “And Colby?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He needed to know you were safe as well.”

  I suppose that was supposed to make me feel all gooey inside but it had the exact opposite reaction. It was okay for me to worry at Thomas because I stranded him in California with no backup. It was not okay for Thomas to call Carl and check that I was safe back home at Psi Phi House. I mean, I managed to free two half-bloods without his help and he still felt the need to call and check up on me in my own House. As though I couldn’t muddle through a couple days without him by my side, overseeing my every move?

  I was upset with Thomas all over again. Yeah, I saw Piper’s point and Carl made a good argument as well, but couldn’t anyone see my side of the story, just this once? I looked out the window and thought I could catch the last remnants of sunrise if I hurried outside. Then maybe I could walk around and try to cool off.

  I unlocked the door and stepped onto the porch. I ducked just in time to dodge the fist that came flying my way.

  Seven

  Without thinking, I reacted by driving my fist into my attacker’s groin. He dropped like a ton of bricks.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he moaned over and over, hands clutching his crotch as he rolled side to side in pain.

  It was a Tribunal Security guard. I turned at the sound of footsteps and found two more security guards racing up the porch with batons in hand.

  They heard their partner wheezing, “My fault, sorry, oh God it hurts,” and figured out the situation.

  “What are you guys doing here?” I demanded.

  “We were told to keep the perimeter secure by Investigator Thomas,” replied one of the guards coming to the aid of his man on the floor.

  “When did that come about?”

  “We started detail this evening.”

  Thomas went so far as to assign a security detail to the house? He trusted my Protector skills so little he brought in a Tribunal Security team to do what he thought I was incapable of doing on my own?