Fangs for Freaks

by Serena Robar

  “Do I need a reason to hang at the mall with my best friend?” I said brightly.

  Piper was instantly suspicious. I guess I said it a little too brightly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean ‘What’s wrong?’. Can’t we get together outside the House for a little girl time at the mall without something being wrong?”

  Piper just stared at me.

  “Yeah, okay. Well, I was wondering if you’d made any progress on deciphering that stupid prophesy yet?” I hated to sound needy but I was kind of getting tired of being jumped every time I strolled around the park looking to find a little midnight snack.

  “Were you attacked again?” Piper asked, concern replacing her normal sarcastic tone.

  “Ah shucks, Piper. Are you worried about me?” I fluttered my eyelashes at her flirtatiously. Piper snorted.

  “I know how to stop the attacks,” she said deadpan, her face filled with earnest.

  “Really?” I said, leaning forward, excited she’d finally uncovered the truth about the prophesy. “How?”

  “Quit dressing like a streetwalker.”

  I blinked once. Twice. Not sure if I heard her correctly. She laughed at my expression, no longer able to hold a straight face.

  “Oh, hardy-har-har,” my voice dripped acid.

  “Don’t you think if I’d found the true meaning of the prophesy, I would have called you right away?” she questioned after her laughter died down.

  “Yeah, I’m just getting tired of playing dodge the stake, and last night, well”—I shook my head in remembrance—“I was dodging a sword. A freakin’ sword, Piper. I mean who walks around campus waving a sword and doesn’t get busted by campus security?”

  Piper sat up straighter and demanded, “Did you tell Thomas?”

  I nibbled on my lower lip wondering how to answer that one. “I would have told Thomas,” I ventured slowly, “but he has a lot going on right now with all the rogue vampires attacking people and stuff.”

  Thomas was my Vampire Investigator boyfriend and a full-blood. He’d helped me when I was first changed and we’d grown pretty close in the last year. Yet lately, well, I didn’t want to burden Piper about Thomas’s weird loner behavior lately. I mean, he was working his cute butt off nightly trying to keep the public safe from vampires who were freaking out about some stupid prophesy that thought I was going to destroy their existence. Puh-lease, like I would if I could.

  “It’s Thomas’s job to protect the people and get the bad vampires. He can handle it. He would want to know, Colby.”

  She was right, of course. He would want to know, but I really didn’t want to add to his workload. He was even having nightmares when he slept and they were really unnerving. I didn’t even like to cuddle next to him when he slept anymore because they bothered me so much, and once, well, once he’d swung out as though he were fighting some unknown foe and knocked me right out of the bed. When I woke him he didn’t remember a thing. He claimed he wasn’t having them anymore, but the dark circles under his eyes told me another story. He wanted to protect me as much as I wanted to protect him. Boy, did we have control issues or what?

  “Yeah, I know. I plan to tell him, I just hoped I could add good news with the bad, like, I was attacked with a sword last night but Piper figured out the prophesy so hey, there won’t be anymore pin-the-sword-through-the-Colby night games.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” Piper said rolling her corn dog around in the mustard, trying to gob on even more, if that was even possible.

  “You’re gonna get a stomachache,” I warned as she took a bite.

  “You’re just jealous because I can eat real food,” she gloated.

  “You know a real friend wouldn’t rub that in and probably wouldn’t even eat in front of me,” I pouted prettily.

  She took another bite and chewed with her mouth open, showing me everything I was missing.

  “Ew, gross!”

  She smacked her lips after swallowing and smiled smugly.

  “Fine, next time I’m hungry, I’ll feed in front of you.” It was an empty threat. I wasn’t about to let Piper watch me suck down a pint of O negative from some unsuspecting victim. Piper had a very weak stomach.

  Ignoring me, she asked, “How is Aunt Chloe doing as your housemother?”

  I rolled my eyes in answer. Aunt Chloe was actually my great, great aunt but everyone just called her Aunt Chloe. She used to be a nurse during WWII and the Korean War. She was feisty and opinionated and was currently acting as Psi Phi House sorority mother.

  “It’s only temporary. A big façade actually. I can’t believe the administration threatened to revoke our sorority status because we didn’t have a live-in housemother. Sheesh. I’m glad Aunt Chloe is helping us out but I think she misses her friends at Providence Point and candidly, she is getting downright bossy.”

  Aunt Chloe normally lived in an upper-scale retirement community on the Eastside, but when I needed a housemother ASAP, she packed her bags and moved in. All without my consent, might I add. In theory, it was a good fit. She knew I was Undead and knew that all the girls at Psi Phi House were half-bloods as well. She wasn’t even squeamish about sleeping in the same room where we found a murdered half-blood hidden in a trunk last year.

  “Pish posh,” she’d said when I objected to her sleeping in that room. “There isn’t a day gone by I don’t see an ambulance picking up a body somewhere in Providence Point. People die, Colby. That’s part of the cycle. Nothing to be scared of.” And that was basically Aunt Chloe in a nutshell. She was one tough, ol’ bird.

  “Bossy? How?” Piper wanted to know.

  “Well, first of all she gave us all household chores and harps on us constantly to get them done. She even made us a chart! She decided it was much too important to trust us to make our own study times so she instituted set Quiet Time study sessions where attendance is mandatory. She claims the girls lack discipline and need to understand the importance of passing their Undead courses. Seems to me everyone understands if they don’t pass the course, they don’t get a vampire license and without that, they are relieved of their Undead status. You know.” I made swift cutting motion across my neck to emphasize my point. “They all get how important the classes are to their existence.”

  “Sounds like she is just trying to help,” Piper noted.

  “Tell that to Sage. She put her on a diet.”

  Piper looked shocked. “How do you put a vampire on a diet? And for that matter, why put her on a diet? You guys stay the same after you die, right?”

  “Only full-bloods apparently. Sage, for some weird reason, is able to consume milk products. And she loves shakes. Has them all the time. She is forever walking to Starbucks and getting a frapuccino after her nightly feeding. Anyway, we all noticed she had to go out and buy new clothes, ’cause her other ones were too tight. Her face was getting rounder and finally Aunt Chloe tells her she is getting fat. I mean right to her face she says, ‘Sage, you’re getting fat. I’m putting you on a diet.’ ”

  Piper made a noise somewhere between a gasp of dismay and a chortle of laughter.

  “I know,” I agreed with the sentiment behind the sound,

  “I couldn’t believe it either. Sage got all flustered and embarrassed but Aunt Chloe didn’t relent. She made Sage a chart as well, to keep count of her daily shake intake.”

  “That’s awful.”

  I shrugged. “I’d rather be on the diet chart than the boy chart.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask what the boy chart is,” Piper said.

  I smirked at her. “Remember last fall when our football team was being affected by a strange illness that was making them all weak and lightheaded?”

  Piper shook her head. “Vaguely.”

  “It seemed the basketball team was struck with the same mysterious illness. The guys were passing out in practice and no one, not the coaches or the team doctors could figure out why. But Aunt Chloe did.”

  “
How?”

  “She hears things right? She listens to the girls talking about their nightly feedings and who is dating who and then announces the boy chart one night. She tells us each time we feed from an athlete, we put their name under our column and no one can feed on the same athlete for at least two weeks. It appeared that several of the girls have a thing for jocks and each of them were hooking up and feeding on the same guys. These guys were literally being sucked dry by Psi Phi House.”

  Piper let out a bark of laughter, then clamped a hand over her mouth when everyone in the food court turned to stare. She shook with the effort to hold it in, but couldn’t seem to stop giggling.

  “Sure, laugh it up. It was pretty shocking for the girls to see their favorite flavor on another girl’s column. I thought Angie was going to stake one of the new girls, Manda, after seeing three of her favorite treats under her name.”

  “Are you on the ho chart?” Piper asked suddenly.

  “It’s called the boy chart,” I corrected primly. “And no, I am not. I have Thomas and I never feed on the same person twice.”

  I didn’t elaborate on the fact that Thomas had such rich blood that I could feed on him and not need to eat for the rest of the day, and vice versa. Anyway, feeding with Thomas was not like feeding on a stranger. It had an entirely different effect on me and I wasn’t about to share that with Piper.

  “Yeah, I bet.” She smirked at me, but I didn’t rise to the bait.

  “So, back to the prophesy. How’s progress?” I felt it was prudent to change the subject or Piper would figure out feeding was a passionate pastime between Thomas and myself. I was relieved when she let it go.

  “Actually, I have some leads that sound promising. I need you to take me to the vampire library. I heard they have several ancient scripts in the back.”

  “They are never going to let you in the library, much less nose around in the private collections,” I told her.

  “Is it because of the whole ‘I breathe therefore I live thing’?” Piper quipped

  “Something like that. Tell me what to look for and I’ll try to see them.”

  “Try? You mean you don’t know if you can look at the private stuff either?”

  “The librarian and I don’t really see eye to eye.” I reluctantly admitted. “I don’t think she likes me.”

  “Imagine that.” Piper said dryly. “A full-blood who doesn’t like the half-blood Protector. Shocker.”

  I nodded. “Hard to believe that I’m not loved and adored by the entire full-blood population, but there you go. I’ll see if Mr. Holloway can get me access.”

  Mr. Holloway was a member of the Vampire Tribunal. He was one of the three head-honcho vampires and I kind of keep a dark secret of his, so he’s willing to do stuff for me.

  “Failing that, I guess we pay a little visit during the day.”

  “You mean break in?” Piper clarified.

  “Geez, when you put it like that is sounds so sordid, Piper,” I complained and she laughed at me.

  “Fine, but I get to be Bonnie. You’re Clyde,” she teased, referring to a couple of famous old-time bad guys.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Charlie’s Angels, but whatever.”

  We were silent a moment when I noticed Piper looking over my shoulder, her mouth forming a small O of surprise. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out my stalker had stepped out of the shadows. And I was so right, he was definitely Piper’s type, if the look on her face was any indication.