First Semester

by Jace Mitchell

  Claire looked at the door she’d been headed to, then decided against it. She walked over to a leather chair across from Jack’s couch and curled up on it instead. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I don’t think I actually considered what I was getting myself into before I came. I just wanted to get away from home. I wanted to try something new, I guess. To try for a future.”

  Jack blinked in the darkness, quiet for a few seconds. “Maybe that’s true of all of us here. We’re gifted, that’s obvious, but there are other people with gifts too. Yet, they’re at Harvard, ya know?”

  Claire didn’t hear his usual bravado in his voice. Is he actually showing vulnerability?

  “What are you trying to start new with? What kind of future are you looking for?” she asked, unsure exactly where this conversation would go. Most likely nowhere, because he’d shut it down with some kind of joke.

  She saw him shrug in the darkness. “I don’t know.”

  Claire was quiet for a few seconds, thinking that maybe it’d be best if she just went out to the garden. He seemed happy enough here by himself anyway. She decided to say one more thing first.

  “I was proud of how you handled yourself at the club. You did a really good job.”

  “I wanted to get away from my father,” Jack whispered as if Claire hadn’t said anything. “My father and my mother, I suppose, but mainly my father.”

  “You don’t like him?” Claire whispered, not wanting to pry, but not wanting him to think she didn’t care either.

  Jack shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t like him. He’s my dad. I love him, and I guess I do like him, too. In a way. I don’t like the life he had planned out for me, though.”

  Claire’s eyes narrowed. “What life was that?”

  “He’s a neurosurgeon. He’s smart as hell. Smarter than I’ll ever be. My whole life, people have compared me to him and....” His voice trailed off, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “That’s why I talk so much trash, I guess. I mean, I think it’s funny, don’t get me wrong. I like my sense of humor, even if it grates on other people. But I talk a lot of trash because when I was younger, it helped deflect the comparisons. Over time, it just sort of became my personality, I guess.”

  Again he shrugged, although Claire thought he was attempting to pretend this didn’t matter.

  It matters a great deal, to him, and to me. “What did your dad want you to be?” she asked.

  “A doctor like him. He wanted me to go to med school and probably be a neurosurgeon.” Jack pulled his hands out of his pockets to create air quotes for the next sentence. “‘To continue the family legacy.’”

  “You don’t want that, though?”

  Jack looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “Hell. No. When I was growing up, I saw my dad on vacations and every couple of Saturdays. He worked constantly. He had no time for family. When I have a family, I want to be there for them. I want them to know who I am beyond the things I can provide for them.”

  Claire nodded. She understood that well because her own father had been there for her so much.

  Jack turned back to stare at the ceiling. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m going into all of this with you. Just a lot of heavy stuff going on, and...”

  His voice trailed off again.

  “Sometimes it’s nice just to be able to talk to someone,” Claire finished, looking at her feet in the darkness.

  Jack nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s right.” He turned his head to once more. “Hey. Don’t go tell anyone about this stuff, okay? I had a good childhood. I know that. I never wanted for anything, and the last thing I need people thinking is that I’m some rich kid who thinks his life was so hard because Daddy wasn’t around, ya know?”

  She met his gaze. “I won’t tell anyone, Jack. We’re teammates. What you tell me stays with me.”

  “Thanks, Claire,” he responded. He grinned. “Plus, if people know I’m a Jack-ass because of deep-seated parental issues, it’ll take away some of my sting.”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You didn’t say anything about us being hunted.” The vampire stood in the same room as before, when he’d first met these three summoners. David hadn’t been much impressed with them then and was even less so now. He could, without a doubt, open their insides and spill them across this floor in a matter of seconds.

  Yet, he didn’t understand the power they wielded. They had brought him forth, gave him life, some might say. Perhaps they could send him back to the other side, and he didn’t want that. He was enjoying Earth, despite what had just happened.

  “We didn’t know,” the fat man, Bradley said. He sat in the same place as last time, to the woman’s side, with the scared skinny man on the other. “It doesn’t change anything.”

  “It doesn’t?” David asked. He turned his back to them and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Seems like creating havoc while a group of people is trying to kill us is a bit tough to do. What if it had been me in that club?”

  “We understand your concern,” Bradley answered. “But this was something we thought might happen.”

  David chuckled icily. “You thought that we might get killed?”

  The woman spoke next. She was by far the tougher of the three, if not the leader. “We couldn’t keep ourselves clandestine forever. Sooner or later, government agencies would catch on to us. That’s what is happening. That’s who those people were.”

  “Have you seen the recordings?” the vampire asked. “I have. I went down to the club and managed to convince the owner to let me see the tape from inside the building. The people who did this were little more than kids. Probably still teenagers.”

  He turned around and folded his hands in front of his belt.

  “Teenagers don’t sound like government agencies to me.”

  “You really up to date on Earth’s programs?” Hannah asked. “Understand how they all work, huh?”

  The vampire only smiled and shrugged.

  “Thought not.” The woman pulled a cigarette from her pack and lit it. She took a long drag before speaking again. “Not everyone here on Earth can see you. You know that much, right?”

  David nodded. “I’m up to date on that part.”

  “Well, younger people can. They haven’t lost their ability to believe. That’s why there were teenagers in that club. Most likely, they’re government recruits trained to hunt you down, as well as other creatures from across the veil.” She looked at the tip of her cigarette, the ember bright red. “They’re not a problem. We’ve nearly found him.”

  David knew who they meant, although he wasn’t sure they actually did. Or, that they understood the ramifications of what they were doing. He’d let them find that out on their own, though.

  “Of course, the government was going to fight us,” Bradley told him. His hands were crossed in front of him as before. “That’s never been in question. They don’t know what we’re doing yet, but when they truly figure it out, they’re going to fight us with everything they’ve got. This right now is just the beginning.”

  The frightened man on the end, Matthew, spoke next. “We need you to handle them.”

  David raised an eyebrow. “Handle them? Would you mind explaining that a bit more?” He wondered what the man’s blood would taste like. He imagined sour.

  Matthew’s lips quivered as if he might cry, so the skinny woman picked up the slack. “We’d like you to kill them.”

  The vampire was quiet for a moment, thinking about how he’d gotten himself into this mess. Certainly through no fault of his own, or at least not much fault. He’d been brought to this world and now was basically working for a triumvirate of cowards.

  “If I kill them, do I get my freedom? I’m tired of organizing for you three, and now that vampires know they’re being actively hunted, it’s going to be harder to get them to listen to me. They’ll leave. Go to other parts of this world, parts without so much scrutiny.
I’ll kill these teenagers, but when I’m done, I want out.” He stepped forward, walking closer to the table. “You understand?”

  “When he gets here.” Hannah eyed the vampire with something akin to distaste. “You will do as he says, and you know it. For now, you and your cohort go kill those kids. If you don’t, we’ll ship you right back to where you came from. When you get done, we should be ready to bring him over, and then he can decide whether you’re free or not. Do you understand?”

  David leaned forward on the table, closing his eyes. He felt rage growing inside of him at the insolence of these humans. The sheer arrogance.

  Yet, he didn’t want to go back, and he was kind of looking forward to what would happen when the ultimate vampire finally arrived.

  “Okay,” he responded, opening his eyes. “I’ll take care of them.”

  Hannah watched the vampire leave the room. Matthew opened his mouth to say something, but she raised a bony finger into the air. “Quiet.”

  Slowly she let it down, and no one in the room spoke. A minute or so passed, and Hannah lit a cigarette. Finally, after taking a long drag, she spoke.

  “Now we can speak without any fear of him hearing it. We probably should do that any time they’re around.” She looked at Matthew. “Sometimes I wonder if you have enough brains to make it out of this alive, let alone enough courage. You were about to speak, knowing he could probably hear us.”

  Matthew looked down at the floor. “Sorry.”

  Hannah ignored his apology, only taking a pull on her smoke and then looked toward Bradley. “We’re in a precarious situation.”

  He unfolded his hands and leaned back in his chair. He let out a heavy sigh. “We’ve got to find Dracula soon. We can’t keep this up.”

  “Hush.” Hannah stood and slowly paced toward the closed door. “We can keep it up because we hold the power to send them back across.”

  “We believe we hold the power!” Matthew shouted, his voice shrill and echoing off the ceiling.

  Hannah whipped around, her eyes narrow. “Don’t even think such foolishness. Not for a second. You let that creature who just left here believe we might not be able to send his ass back, and it’s over for us. Do you understand that? Our mission doesn’t end with that two-bit vampire. He’s only the beginning. Even Dracula isn’t the end, and you know it.”

  Matthew’s left leg began shaking, bouncing up and down on the floor.

  “It’s fine,” Bradley assured them. “We’re close to finding him. We’re getting better at this, and I’m sure the other sects are too. The vampires will go take care of the kids, and by the time they’re done, we’ll have him.”

  He stood up from the table and pushed his chair in. His large gut hung over his pants, covered by a Death Becomes Her shirt.

  It was Bradley’s favorite book, Hannah knew. She wasn’t loving what he was doing to the ass of the character on the t-shirt. No wonder the red-eyed woman looked pissed.

  “Even if we kill them.” Matthew’s voice shook as hard as his leg. “They won’t stop. The government will just keep coming.”

  Hannah flicked her cigarette onto the concrete floor. “I don’t know why we ever let you in, Matthew. You’re more pathetic than I imagined possible. Of course, they’ll keep coming until they can’t any longer. But we don’t serve them, do we?”

  Matthew refused to look at her. He kept his eyes on the ground in front of him.

  “No. We don’t. Their little kids running around playing ninja might scare you, but they don’t scare me. I serve things greater than man, and that’s what I’m here to do. Serve them.” She shook her head, a sneer on her face. “I hope they can’t see how you’re speaking now for your sake. I don’t think they’ll be kind in the face of such cowardice.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Faster!”

  Claire’s heart raged inside her chest, and she felt a cramp clawing at her side.

  “Faster!”

  She whirled around and met the oncoming attack with her pole. The combatant was faceless to Claire, just another person trying to beat her to a pulp. She swiped forward with her pole, but the attacker danced backward, causing her to slice through the air as if he’d never been there at all.

  “Behind you!”

  Again Claire turned. A giant figure swiped down at her with massive claws. Claire twirled to her right, but not fast enough, the claws cutting through her shirt and nearly her flesh.

  She swiped up with the pole, hoping to land a kill shot.

  “I got you.”

  The voice was little more than a whisper, but Claire didn’t need it to be any louder to feel the blade in her side. She looked down and saw the knife ready to pierce through her flesh and then kidney.

  “Damn it!” Claire shouted. She threw her pole to the ground and bent over, placing her hands on her knees. She breathed heavy, looking at Dr. Kilgore. “It’s not fair.”

  “Life not fair, girl,” Dr. Kilgore told her in his heavy Russian accent. He was a bald, stout man.

  Claire had a feeling that if he stood in the middle of a road and a Mack truck hit him, the truck would end up with the bad end of the deal. Dr. Kilgore was ridiculously strong thanks to his thick shoulders and chest, and legs like tree trunks, but what had surprised her was the sheer speed of the man.

  He moved like a ghost, as if physical objects didn’t really exist for him. He could just move through them. He was the first person to make her feel slow.

  “I’ve got these weights on my wrists and ankles, and you’ve got five guys helping you. That’s more than unfair. It’s ridiculous.” She gestured with her left hand to the ankle weight strapped on her leg. It was seven pounds, and it made moving hella hard.

  “Jack,” Mr. Kilgore called. “What does the girl sound like to you?”

  “She sounds like a baby,” Jack called from ten feet away. The three of them had been taking turns all afternoon, with the weights on their extremities getting heavier each time they trained.

  “That right. A baby.” Dr. Kilgore smiled broadly, real glee in his eyes. The other trainers were all nameless to Claire. She heard them talk from time to time, but in Russian, never in English. It was clear Kilgore led them.

  “You’re not even a real doctor.” Claire spat on the ground, feeling stupid for saying such a silly thing.

  Dr. Kilgore tucked his blade into the small sheath, not caring at all about her slight. “Me? Da, I am a doctor. I have two Ph.Ds if you must know.”

  “In what?” Marissa asked from the side.

  “Suck-up,” Claire grumbled.

  “First in sports science. I know how your body works and how to get the best from it. Second in psychology. That means I know how your brain works. That is why FBI brought me here.” He looked at Jack. “Your turn, Jack-boy. Come fight us.”

  Jack stepped onto the grass. “It’s ‘Jacky-boy,’ and you guys better be careful with this freakin’ arm. Last time, one of you numbskulls hit it.”

  Dr. Kilgore grinned largely. “Claire, what does he sound like?”

  Claire couldn’t help but match it. “A baby.”

  “That right. Jack-boy sounds like a baby.”

  Claire stepped off the training field. They were using three trainers against her, including Kilgore. He had only sent two against Marissa. Because of Jack’s injury, Kilgore faced him alone.

  “You tired?” Claire asked as she reached the sideline.

  “I’m exhausted,” Marissa answered.

  They’d been out here for six straight hours. First they’d stretched and listened to Jack mouth off about how he was a fine physical specimen and didn’t need to stretch. Then they’d worked on their technique for two hours, which was now solid.

  Build a foundation, Dr. Kilgore had told them.

  Finally they’d gone into action, live fighting mixed with more technique training.

  Claire’s legs were shaking. She’d never been put through this much physical exertion.

  Jack grunt
ed as he fought Kilgore on the grass.

  Claire’s eyes darted to the right. “Wonder what he wants?” She pointed at Dr. Byron.

  It had been seven days since they met with the FBI agents and Dean Pritcham. They spent the first half of each day with Byron and the second with Kilgore. Claire didn’t have a clue what the rest of the class was up to. They hadn’t even seen them.

  Dr. Byron reached Claire and Marissa. He stopped by Claire’s side to watch Jack fight. “I see that Mr. Teams finally has shut his mouth.”

  “Don’t make me come over there,” Jack shouted as he blocked a blow from Kilgore.

  Dr. Byron pointed to Marissa’s wrist. “Ms. Hallor, why are there weights strapped to your legs and arms?”

  “Vampires are faster and stronger than us. It’s to train our muscles to react quicker and get us ready for when we face them again.”

  Dr. Byron nodded and turned back to the action on the grass. “Interesting technique.”

  “Yeah, but not exactly cutting edge,” Claire complained. Her lungs were finally starting to relax and her heart felt like it might remain inside her chest. “I was told we’d be fighting with weapons that even the damn military didn’t have. Instead I’ve got stakes, garlic, and holy water.”

  Marissa grinned, her face beautiful despite the dirt and sweat across it. “You can’t shoot a vampire. It will just heal. We have to fight them with what will work.”

  “You should listen to Ms. Hallor,” Dr. Byron mused. “She might be as quiet as a church mouse, but she’s got brains, unlike you and Mr. Teams out there.”

  Jack made a foolish attempt to bring his stake down on Kilgore’s back. The professor dodged it and swept Jack’s leg, bringing him down to the ground with a thud.

  “Were you bored in class, Dr. Byron?” Claire walked out to the field and picked up the pole she’d thrown in anger. “Or did you just come out here to mock me?”