At First Bite (5 page)

“I’m sure you do,” Sasha says, sounding amused. Does she think she’s better than me or something? I’m about to snap at her when my tray starts to slide out of my grip. I extend my arms to catch it, and my satchel falls, landing at Marc’s feet.

“I’ll get it,” he says, bending over. Horrified, I realize that the bag is half unzipped and he might see my Sanga! mini-cooler. Not that he’d know what it was. Still, I slam my tray on the table and dive forward.

“Give — it — to me,” I say through gritted teeth, yanking on the bag’s handle. Marc looks at me like I’m crazy. I yank harder and win the tug-of-war. Then I turn and head for the cafeteria doors without glancing back.

As soon as I’m outside, I breathe easier. I look up and down the empty hall, wondering where to seek shelter and drink my Sanga! Maybe the library?

But before I can move, I hear a bloodcurdling scream rip through the school.

I don’t think, I just run, right toward where the scream came from. I round a corner and see a small crowd gathered in front of the janitor’s closet. Two young-looking girls — probably sixth graders — are sobbing, and a few teachers are murmuring together.

Then I see Nurse Murray. It’s clear she was the one who screamed. Her mouth is open in an
O
of shock, and her face is ghost white. She is pointing to the floor, where the silver-haired janitor I’d seen earlier is lying.

His legs are inside the closet, among the mops and brooms and cleaning supplies. He’s staring up at the ceiling, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. He’s alive; I can see his chest rising and falling with
breath. But there’s a terrible wound on his neck: Two bloody punctures, like those made by fangs.

My stomach lurches, and I reach out to grab the arm of the girl standing nearest to me.

“What happened?” I ask her, my voice coming out strangled.

“We don’t know,” she whimpers. “Someone tried to hurt Mr. Bernal!”

“I — I found him,” Nurse Murray finally croaks out. By now a larger crowd has gathered, and her eyes dart from person to person. “I was having tomato soup for lunch and I spilled it all over my desk. I came to the janitor’s closet for some sponges, and when I opened the door, he — he fell out! All frozen like this.”

Cries ripple through the crowd, and the two sobbing girls hug each other. I can’t tear my eyes away from Mr. Bernal’s wound. It looks … familiar.

I remember the night I became full-fledged, when I had to follow the older vampires on a hunt through Central Park. By the light of the full moon, I watched them swoop down on little birds and squirrels, leaving the animals with the same kind of puncture marks in their necks. Unlike Mr. Bernal, the small
animals didn’t survive. The vampires had drained their blood.

Now my own blood runs cold. Mr. Bernal’s attack can’t possibly mean what I’m thinking. Can it?

“Excuse me, coming through!” calls an imposing voice, and I turn to see a tall, gray-haired woman parting the crowd. I recognize her from the school website: It’s the principal, Ms. Anderson. A few more teachers, including Mr. Harker, trail behind her.

“What’s going on here? Do we need to call an ambulance?” Ms. Anderson demands. “You’re the new nurse, aren’t you?” she asks Nurse Murray in a bossy tone.

Nurse Murray blinks, as if remembering that she is, in fact, a medical professional. She kneels beside the janitor and puts her fingers to his wrist, taking his pulse. Then she gently taps his shoulder and says, “Sir? Sir? Can you talk to us?”

We all hold our breath as Mr. Bernal slowly lifts his head.

“There was a b —, a b —” he stammers, raspy-voiced. His face is ashen and he seems too weak to say more. Nurse Murray pats his arm in an encouraging way. Closing his eyes, the janitor forces the word out. “Bat,” he says. “There was a bat.”

My knees buckle, and the hallway spins. There are more murmurs around me, but this time they sound hollow and distant.
A bat.

“It came flying right at me as I was stepping out of the closet,” Mr. Bernal continues, sitting up and looking frantic. “I felt it latch on to my neck and I fell backward…. That’s the last thing I remember.” He puts his hand to his throat and then stares in horror at the blood on his fingers.

“Ew! There are bats in the school?” someone shrieks. I glance over my shoulder and see that it’s Paige, flanked by Wendy, Carmen, and others from the popular table.

“Yeah, can we call an exterminator?” Wendy demands.

“Exterminators are for bugs, not flying mammals,” Sasha snaps. She’s standing on the fringes of the crowd with Marc and Gordon.

“A bat?” Nurse Murray asks Mr. Bernal, sounding doubtful. She takes a pen flashlight from the pocket of her scrubs and shines it into his eyes. “Are you sure you didn’t just fall and cut your neck on a cleaning tool?” she offers.

Mr. Bernal shakes his head. “I know what I saw,” he insists.

“Maybe we
should
call an ambulance,” I hear Mr. Harker say to the principal. He spins a finger next to his head and mouths the words
nervous breakdown.
Principal Anderson nods, looking somber, and she whispers, “We’ve been on him to retire for years now.”

They think that Mr. Bernal is crazy. They think he imagined the bat entirely.

But I know better.

“Okay, everyone, show’s over! Break it up and get to class,” Ms. Anderson shouts, clapping her hands.

On cue, the bell rings and people scurry in all directions, still buzzing over the incident. I should hurry to history, but I remain rooted to the spot, my thoughts churning.

I’m certain that Mr. Bernal was attacked by a vampire. Arabella said there are Dark Ones — vampires who feast on human blood — here in Los Angeles. True, this vampire could have snuck into the building. But what if he or she came from inside the school?

I study the thinning crowd. Is there another vampire at Santa Monica Academy besides me? A Dark One, no less?

Suddenly, my sharp vision catches something I hadn’t seen before: a tiny spot of red near Nurse
Murray’s mouth. Sweet, caring Nurse Murray? I watch her carefully as she helps Mr. Bernal to his feet. She’d said she’d had tomato soup for lunch, but she could have been lying. She was the one to find the janitor, after all. And she’s new to the school: People don’t know much about her.

But when I was in her office earlier, she’d seemed perfectly normal. If anything, I was the one acting weird.

And then I think of something that chills me to the bone.

After I fell in the bathroom, there was a period of time that I can’t quite recall. For all I know, I could have shifted back to bat form.
I could have flown over to the janitor’s closet and attacked Mr. Bernal.

What if I’m a Dark One and I don’t even know it?

“You are so not a Dark One,” Arabella tells me on the phone that evening. “Would you relax?”

“But how are you so sure?” I ask, flopping down on my air mattress. I can’t wait for my real furniture to arrive.

After Mr. Bernal’s attack, the rest of the day had passed uneventfully. Classes at S.M.A. were similar
to classes back in New York, except that gym was devoted to yoga, and science had a special unit on the dangers of plastic surgery. Sasha was in my math class, Marc was in history, and Paige was in English, but I didn’t interact with anyone. The fact that I’d made it through the afternoon with no new injuries felt like a victory.

“Trust me,” Arabella replies, typing as she talks. New York is three hours ahead of LA, but Arabella is often at her office late at night. “Dark Ones tend to get sick if they go too long without human blood, and you haven’t had so much as a sniffle since I met you. Plus, you’re a softy inside, Ashlee. You wouldn’t set out to harm anyone.”

“I’m not a softy!” I argue, applying aloe gel to my neon pink arms. “In New York, my friends always did what I said.”

It’s true. Eve and Mallory used to follow my lead, no questions asked. I sigh, remembering the good old days.

Arabella snorts. “Those sound like healthy friendships,” she says sarcastically, and I frown. “Anyway, it’s good you called me with this update. I’ll e-mail the Los Angeles Council and tell them to be on alert for any more signs of Dark Ones.”

In every city there is a Council made up of older, important vampires who meet regularly to discuss — well, I’m not sure. Vampire matters, I suppose. Like the decision to make Sanga! accessible worldwide. It might be kind of cool to be on the Council someday.

“Okay,” I say, setting down the tube of aloe gel. “I’ll keep you posted, too.”

“Oh, hang on,” Arabella tells me. I hear her shout to someone else, “There are no seats at the Dolce and Gabbana show?” She groans. “Ash? I’m sorry, but I need to —”

“I know, Fashion Week,” I grumble. For the first time ever, I kind of resent fashion. “Listen,” I add quickly. “What can I do to avoid bat-shifting out of nowhere?” I massage the welt on my forehead.

“You’ll get the hang of it, I promise,” Arabella says. “Stay calm, read the Handbook, and practice. I’ll call soon.” And with a click, she’s gone.

Still feeling rattled, I walk over to my desk. I’m too jittery to read the Handbook or do homework, so I check my e-mail. I wrote to Eve and Mallory as soon as I got home from school, filling them in on my
amazing
day. I made no mention of being socially scorned, or clonking my head, or seeing fang marks
on the janitor. There’s no need for them to know those details.

But neither of my friends has written back.

I open my door and peer out into the dark hallway. Mom is having dinner with some people from the studio, and Dylan, believe it or not, is hanging out with friends. Yes,
friends.
Who actually sound like they could be cool. As we walked home from school, he told me that he’d met some guys in homeroom who were Rock Band champions, and they’d invited him to go skateboarding. He’d been grinning like an idiot, and all I could think about were those eighth-grade girls in the bathroom, saying he was gorgeous. It had taken all my self-control not to sucker-punch my brother.

The empty house feels a little eerie tonight, and it makes me think of
At First Bite
being filmed here, years and years ago. I realize that if I want to be wardrobe master for the play, I need to know more about the actual story. So, grabbing a fresh Sanga!, I head downstairs to the living room TV. Luckily, Dylan took care of hooking up our Wii, so I can access our Netflix streaming account. I select the movie, then settle back on a folding chair to watch.

The movie is old, like black-and-white old, and it takes place in what is supposed to be 1789 Transylvania. But I can tell it’s Los Angeles (they didn’t do a very good job hiding the palm trees). The main character is a blond peasant girl named Vera who works as a maid for a wealthy, mysterious, dark-haired guy named Vladimir. His “castle” is, of course, our house. I even recognize my own bedroom (where Vera sleeps), which sends a shiver down my back. Vera keeps seeing and hearing strange things, like funny shadows on the walls and screams in the night. But at the same time she’s also falling in love with the charming Vladimir.

It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that Vladimir is a vampire, and I smile at all the clichés. He sleeps during the day (in a bed that looks conveniently like a coffin) and trembles at the sight of garlic (true fact: I love garlic and always put a ton on my pizza). Spooky, over-the-top music plays whenever he appears, but love-struck Vera doesn’t get the message. One night, she even sees a swarm of bats — clearly puppets pulled by strings — flying toward her. She dramatically faints, but when she comes to, she brushes off her lace apron and goes back to kneading dough.

Sipping my Sanga!, I shake my head.
Being
a vampire is a whole lot scarier than a movie about one could ever be. A movie can’t capture the uncertainty I feel every day, wondering when my teeth might turn into fangs. A movie can’t re-create the terror I felt that afternoon, seeing Mr. Bernal’s neck wound and knowing what I was capable of.

Still, I find myself holding my breath when Vera finds Vladimir in the (our) living room, biting the neck of a prissy society girl named Mila. Vladimir whirls around to Vera, his fangs bared and bloody, as Mila drops dead. Understandably, Vera freaks out, but he tells her he loves her and wants to make her a vampire, too. Vera agrees, and he bites her neck just long enough to transform her (there’s no initiation ceremony). The movie ends with them both as bats, flying off happily toward a crescent moon.

As the credits are rolling, I hear the front door creak open. I shriek, jumping to my feet and knocking over my empty cup of Sanga!

I guess I was more scared than I realized.

“It’s just us,” Mom laughs. She walks in with Dylan, who is still smiling in that self-satisfied way. “Your brother called me from his friend’s house, so I gave him a lift home,” she explains. “What were you watching?”

“Nothing,” I answer, too quickly. I scoop up my cup, then hold it behind my back as I shut off the TV.

I glance around the living room, almost expecting to see Vladimir and Vera embracing, with Mila’s bloodless corpse sprawled on the floor behind them. I can’t believe it. Somehow the movie, with all its cheesiness and fakeness, actually had an effect on me, a real-life vampire! I bet non-vampires watching it would get even more sucked in. No wonder Mr. Harker said it was “really thrilling.”

Mom waves Dylan and me upstairs, clucking about homework and bedtime. I return to my room, but my thoughts are elsewhere. I imagine Vera in here, wearing a silken dressing gown. Maybe in the play, her signature color can be green, so the gown should have green accents on the sleeves. My heart pounds with excitement and inspiration. For the first time that night, I’m not worrying about Dark Ones, or bat-shifting, or my sorry social status. I don’t even check my e-mail to see if Eve or Mallory have written back.

Instead, I log in to my Santa Monica Academy e-mail account and compose what I hope is a professional-sounding message:

Nervously, I hit
SEND
, certain I won’t hear from him until tomorrow. But as I’m about to log off, I get a response.

Yes!
Grinning, I slap my laptop shut and crawl onto my air mattress, bone-tired but content. The long, hard day catches up with me, and my eyes close. As the ocean moans outside, I drift off, dreaming of espadrilles, tomato soup, and crescent moons.