by Ramy Vance
Only one of the girls broke away from a cluster of her peers to help out by giving Deirdre a plot of soil that had fallen out of the wheelbarrow. She was a mousy little thing with amber hair and thick black glasses. She scurried away the second Deirdre said, “Thank you.” Deirdre looked hurt.
“They’ll get used to you,” I said. “And as soon as some more Others show up, you won’t be the only freak show on display here.”
“Freak?” she asked. “What is this ‘freak’ you speak of?”
“You know—stranger, non-human, different. Freak.”
“I see,” she said, and lifted the handles of her wheelbarrow again. “We are freaks.”
“ ‘We’? ” I said, slightly offended.
“Me because I’m an Other. You because you help Others.”
I sighed. “That’s me, human freak at your service.”
AFTER HELPING Deirdre get the Astroturf out of our room, we swept up in silence. She was pretty upset, having lost all her earth and grass, but she seemed to accept that this new GoneGod World had different rules. That said, I was pretty sure I’d come home one day to her having stuffed her mattress with freshly dug dirt, but at least I got most of it out of the room for now. Small victories.
Tomorrow, I’d figure out a way to get her to give up her broadsword. After that, we’d move on to the smaller stuff, like wearing clothes and how most of nature belonged outside.
Baby steps, Kat. Baby steps.
It was late—almost midnight—and my first class started early. Best get some sleep so I could be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for my first day of classes.
VAMPIRES, OTHERS, PROFESSORS AND FOOTBALL PLAYERS
F IRST CLASS BLUES—
WHEN I WAS DEAD, all I wanted was to be alive. Now that I was human again, all I wanted to do was die. Or shrivel up and disappear. I’d never been so embarrassed in my human or vampiric life.
It all started when I walked into Professor Hayes’s class and some smart aleck decided to open the drapes without any warning. Light streamed through the window and I, of course, freaked out, jumping back to avoid the sun’s rays and right into Justin Truly’s arms.
I may have only been scoping out the campus for a week, but you couldn’t be at this college and not have heard about Justin.
Sophomore, McConnell Hall president, straight-A student and all-around hunk—and here I was in his arms, freaking out (did I mention I was freaking out?). And why? Because I was afraid of a little bit of natural light. Oh, the horror. The HORROR!
I knew I was a three-hundred-year-old vampire and that I should have been way cooler than I was, but I was also a nineteen-year-old girl with almost zero experience with human boys. The hormonal, boy-obsessed teenager that I never got to be was coming out with a vengeance.
“Are you OK?” Justin asked.
“Yeah. Old habits die hard, I guess.”
“Old habits?” He lifted a curious eyebrow in my direction, and my heart skipped a beat.
“Yeah …” I said, but to be honest, his question hadn’t penetrated my brain. He was cute before, but that eyebrow lift … that eyebrow lift just upgraded him from cute to irresistible.
But then I remembered where I was. More important, I remembered who I was. A normal human girl and not some three-hundred-year-old vampire. Well, ex-vampire. “Ahh, I mean … I was daydreaming and … the sudden appearance of the light startled me and … well, I’m a jumper.”
Justin continued his oh-so-incredibly-cute curious-eyebrow trick. “I see. First-day jitters, huh?” He ran a hand through his thick, lush black locks and I just about died—again.
Girl, I thought to myself. Get a grip. Seriously … you’ve eaten guys cuter than him.
“I’m working on it. But like I said—”
“Old habits. Yeah, I got it.” He gave me a wry smile and extended his hand. “I’m Justin.”
“I know,” I said, staring down at his perfectly formed fingers, as if Jesus Christ Himself were offering me a drink from the Holy Grail.
“And you are …?”
I looked up again. “Me?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, you.”
I shook his hand. “Ahh, Kat. Katrina. Kat.”
“Kat. I see you are aptly named.”
I gave him a curious look of my own, sans the eyebrow trick. Harder than it looked.
“You know, old habits and all. You always land on your feet.”
“Feet?” I asked. “Oh, I get it. Because I’m a jumper. And a cat. Kat.”
“Bingo,” he said, shooting his pointy finger my way.
What did that mean? Did he just shoot me dead? Figuratively speaking, of course. Or was the finger a good thing? Like he was acknowledging me in some kind of affirmative, kudos kind of way?
Being human is so hard.
Before I could think of anything to say back, I was saved by a stern, loud voice that cried out, “Will everyone take your seats? Now, please.”
The class was starting. Phew.
Justin gave me an after you gesture and I took the nearest seat, which was way up in the auditorium, hoping he would sit next to me. But the sophomore football player didn’t, opting instead to walk down the steps to the front row.
A dark-skinned boy a few rows in front of me gave me a thumbs-up and said in a deep foreign accent I recognized to be from West Africa (where was that? Ghana?), “Smooth, girl. Very smooth.”
Yeah, smooth like sandpaper. So much for having a great first day.
PROFESSOR HAYES SLAMMED two folders down on the table. “Why did the gods leave?”
Of all the questions I expected to be asked on my first day during my first class, this wasn’t one of them. Especially because no one knew why the gods had left. Their GrandExodus happened four years ago, and scholars, philosophers, theologians and scientists alike debated what had prompted them to go. The truth was, no one knew why they left and no one would ever know.
“We’re not gods, and therefore god logic is not something we’re capable of,” I muttered to myself. Sadly, far more audibly than I’d meant to.
There was a chuckle in the room.
Professor Hayes pointed in my direction and said, “Yes, a very good answer, but incomplete.”
Crap, I was speaking to myself out loud again. It was something I did a lot. I don’t mean to, but I guess after years of being a lone hunter and creature of the night, you get used to talking to yourself. And as for being embarrassed about it, that was new, too. Back in those days, I’d simply rip out the throats of anyone who dared laugh at me.
Talking out loud and no jumping at light … two old habits I really needed get under control. Why can’t I be trying to quit smoking? At least there’s a patch for that, I thought (in my head, thankfully).
Professor Hayes smiled at me, his pudgy chipmunk cheeks squishing his eyes, making him look like the Santa Claus version of Clint Eastwood.
I stared back, not daring to say—or think—anything.
“You, in the back row,” Professor Hayes said. “What is your name?”
“Ahh … me?” I started, but before I could get my name out, a voice in the front row said, “Katrina. Kat for short. Careful, Professor Hayes—she’s a jumper.”
Justin Truly.
The auditorium chattered with muffled giggles.
Professor Hayes shot Justin a look before returning his gaze on me. “Katrina …?” He dragged out my name like I was supposed to complete it or something.
Oh, yeah—complete it. “Darling,” I said. “Katrina Darling.”
“Miss Darling,” the professor said. “Your answer is absolutely right. We don’t know. All we do know is that the gods did exist—once—and that three days from now will mark the four-year anniversary of their departure. We also know they did not take it upon themselves to explain their behavior, instead leaving with a simple message of …?”
He raised his hands like an orchestra conductor, and at his cue, the class sang out in harmony, “Thank you for beli
eving in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck.”
The gods’ last message to the world, and something every living creature heard at exactly the same time. I’d never forget where I was when I heard that voice in my head. How could I? That was the precise moment I reverted back to human. Vampire no more.
It was a strange transition, to say the least, and abrupt as all hell. I was turned when I was fifteen, and I’d spent the last three hundred years as a teenager trapped in an immortal body. An immortal body that needed blood to survive.
When the gods left, I happened to be drinking from the neck of my—ahem—my latest victim: a vicar I found wandering the fields alone at night in a Scottish meadow near the town of Oban. I was halfway through with him when the gods’ message rang in my head. In an instant, my fangs retracted. Unfortunately for both me and the vicar, I had bitten deep enough that my front and bottom teeth gripped flesh, and as said fangs retracted, a substantial squirt of his blood shot up into my mouth and down my throat.
I pulled away and promptly—elegantly, prettily even—threw up.
Only moments earlier, the taste of blood had been something I’d craved. Now it was something I detested.
I would later find out that when they left, the gods took most of their magic with them. And me being a creature made from that very magic, I became a magicless, boring human again.
Wiping away the blood from my mouth, I thought, “What the hell just happened?” Evidently I’d spoken this thought aloud, as per usual, because the old vicar was nodding at my question vigorously, also experiencing his own existential crisis. His face was painted with fear and his vestments were painted with his own blood, which still streamed from his neck. But the fear on his face wasn’t of me—it was fear of whatever that message was. In some odd comradery, we walked into town together, not speaking, not really acknowledging each other’s existence.
As we passed an old pub, its TV blaring, we glimpsed images from the local news with the big bright letters that confirmed we weren’t the only ones who had heard the message. In fact, everyone in the world heard it. The gods were gone. What we’d heard was true and my own newly grown human canines were proof of that.
But them leaving and me turning human wasn’t the strangest thing to happen that night. Not by a long shot.
No, the strangest thing was the appearance of the Others. Seems that when the gods left, they closed all their domains, forcing mythical creatures of all religions, fables and fairy tales down to Earth. Centaurs, dragons, mermaids, nasnas, encantado—you name them—all fell down. Fairy tales raining from the sky.
And to think—prior to that day, I’d thought I was the biggest and baddest monster to roam this Earthly plane. Sometimes my arrogance astounds me.
“That’s right,” Professor Hayes continued. “Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. Not enough for what? To sustain them? To nurture them? To hold their interest? We’ll never know. All we do know is that whatever we once gave them, whatever it was that had kept them here for millennia, was no longer enough. Or perhaps it had never been, and it took them that long to realize it.”
Professor Hayes adjusted his glasses and let out a heavy sigh. “Will the Others in this classroom please stand up?”
A dust of pixies, an oni demon, a raiju, three fairies, two angels, an Incan apu and a gargoyle all stood up. I considered standing myself, but I wasn’t an Other. Not anymore, at least. My current human status—and my desire to not embarrass myself in front of Justin Truly again—compelled me to remain in my seat.
But if I’m honest with myself, that wasn’t the only reason I stayed seated. Truth was, I was ashamed of my past. When I think about all my victims—my human victims—I just want to rip out my own throat and watch myself bleed to death.
Morbid, I know. I’m working on that, too.
Besides, I used to be a freaking demon. Surely that counts for something in explaining my past … umm … indiscretions.
“Others,” Professor Hayes said to those standing in the auditorium, “I welcome you to my class. As your professor, I speak for everyone here when I say that I am proud to be part of the only university on this good green Earth that accepts Others as students.” He eyed those who were still seated. “For any humans who don’t approve, or who distrust them, this is what I say to you—they live among us now. Deal with it. Intolerance, hatred, fear—these happen outside of these hallowed halls. Those destructive ideologies have no place here. Do you understand?”
The auditorium was silent.
“I said, do you understand?”
A mismatched chorus of weak yeses could be heard in the lecture room. Not the most resounding acknowledgment of Professor Hayes’s ultimatum, but it would have to do. It had only been four years. Change takes time.
“Very good,” Professor Hayes said, motioning for the Others to take their seats again. “Let’s get started. History is not going to teach itself.”
THE REST of the class went pretty much like you’d expect a history class to go. Dates, events … yadda, yadda, yadda. Given that this class focused on the Industrial Era and I’d actually lived through that, I was surprised by how inaccurate so much of the history was. I flipped through the textbook, reading about the rise of machines that forced farmers out of the fields and into cities to find work, about overpopulation and pollution that made day-to-day life miserable.
That’s not what I remembered.
I remembered people having more time to think, to dance, to sing. To play. Social classes were beginning to break down and, for the first time ever, the common man had a chance to do more than carry on with whatever menial profession his father had been in.
It was a good time. Not the best, but far better than what preceded it.
Not that I was going to say anything to Professor Hayes. I was a normal human girl in her late teens. Normal human girls in their late teens do not have firsthand experience of the early 1800s.
And to think that I thought this class was going to be a breeze. Now I would have to learn everything they claimed happened and use it to replace everything I knew had actually happened.
Arrgh!
The bell rang and everyone started to pack up and leave. I purposely took my time, hoping Justin Truly would come my way and talk to me. This time I would be more suave. Cool as ice. Act more my age. I’d be the bee’s knees—no, that’s not right. That was human vernacular in the 1920s. This was the new millennium, the GoneGod World. Unfortunately, I had lived through a ton of those eras, each with its own particular and peculiar vernacular—plus, I had a deeeep love for ’80s and ’90s TV—so I wasn’t really hip to modern slang. Yet.
What I did know was that in this era, humans didn’t use words like bee’s knees, groovy or rockn’. And one wasn’t in or down with it anymore.
Modern humans were now saying things like GoneGodDamn! and Empty Heaven. I’d even heard some idiot say Hellelujah! Probably thought he was being clever or something.
That’s what I needed to be—a modern human. But not all of me needed to be modern. I could use some of what I’d learned to lure him in. One thing I learned when stalking prey was that you didn’t wait for Justin to show up. You just happened to be in his path when he did.
I pretended to be engrossed in the class textbook. When he passed, he’d stop and say “Hi,” or maybe something cooler, like “Hey.” I’d lift a casual finger as if to say Give me a minute before looking up as if unaware who had been standing there.
Yeah—that was what a modern human looked like. Calculatedly casual.
Besides, I didn’t need to be too strategic, because—not to sound full of myself—I was cute. Not gorgeous, mind you, but cute. I had a kind of Reese-Witherspoon-in-Legally-Blonde or Sarah-Michelle-Gellar-in-Buffy vibe going for me. I had a cute, confident—yet somehow helpless—aura that I’d cultivated over the centuries of being a vampire.
I had to. It was how I hunted.
During that time, I had
two main shticks to lure in my prey. The first one I called Cute and Helpless, and it went like this: “Oh my, Mister Big-and-Strong, it is dark outside and I’m scared. Do you mind walking me home?” That was good when I wanted a quick meal without all the fuss of my prey screaming and running.
The second technique was reserved for when I was in a playful mood: Cute and Terrified. In that routine, I’d find some dark alley or secluded place and start screaming for dear life. Eventually, some macho guy would come running and, well, let’s just say there was some screaming and running on his part. I’d play cat-and-mouse with him for a bit before, you know … to work up an appetite.
I’ll admit it: I was a real bitch back then. But part of me being human again was atoning for all the bad I did when I was the monster who went bump in the night.
THE OTHER STUDENTS shuffled out of the class, but no Justin. No worries—he had sat in the front of the class, so it made sense it would take him a while to get to me. But when the auditorium went quiet, I dared a glance and saw that everyone was gone. Everyone including Professor Hayes. I was totally alone except for the kid from Africa, who stared at me from two rows down.
Evidently, I wasn’t cute enough for Justin to stop and talk to me.
Disappointed, I packed my stuff and stood up. As I did, the kid—who was totally checking me out, by the way, and not in a cute kind of way, but in a creepy-stalker way—kept his eyes on me. It felt like he was looking through me, rather than at me.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I was human, but I wasn’t helpless. I knew things—like where all the major arteries were and which nerves crippled your prey versus the ones that absolutely paralyzed them. Plus, in my travels, I had studied a variety of martial arts. A lot. I figured I was probably one of only a handful of humans with such a wide range of styles, and I’d had hundreds of years to practice them. But although I knew what I was capable of, my heart still raced when I met his gaze and said in the harshest tone I could muster, “What?”