Sixteen Going on Undead (10 page)

“To become a vampire, enough of your blood has to be drained away. You do not have to suck a vampire’s blood in return. That’s something different.”

I wondered what that meant. Lorcan had been feeding me his blood. “S-So your father became a vampire?” I asked.

“No. He died without a drop of blood left in his system. Everyone doesn’t turn. I’ve asked myself many times why he didn’t turn. I’ve never found the answer, and no one has been able to tell me.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter, but I knew it did. “I on the other hand did turn.”

My eyes widened. “The vampire attacked you too?”

Lorcan strolled over to the window. A glimmer on the horizon showed the daylight was coming. “Not him. Another member of his coven, whom he called when he realized
there
would be a witness to what he had done. Vampires don’t allow humans to know of their existence. That’s a given, right?”

I went over and stood in front of him. A few minutes ago I thought he was going to bite me, but I knew now that he wanted to nail it into my head about how I could be turned, and that I was wanted for something else, something he wasn’t ready to tell me. I couldn’t live with that, nor could I ignore it pretending that everything was going to be fine. If I wanted to live, I better learn to fight back. If I had that power he mentioned, I better develop it to protect myself from all the over vampires in
Lorcan’s
coven, and possibly from him as well.

“I got my revenge eventually.”

My throat went dry, but he didn’t explain what he meant.

“I have to go. Stay inside at night unless I am with you.” He climbed on the windowsill.

“Will I see you again?” That sounded so lame. I tried to give the impression that I didn’t care one way or the other, but it fell flat, evidenced by the laughter in his eyes.

“You want me, little girl?”

I rolled my eyes. “Who you calling little girl?”

“Technically, I’m too old for you. I would be thirty-eight had I lived.”

“Technically, you’re a freak of nature, but I’m not holding that against you.”

He winced. “Are you always so cruel to your friends?”

I laughed. “Ask Ronnie.”

He seemed about to say something at the mention of Ronnie, but changed his mind. He turned his back to me. “I must go before the sun rises. I’ll come back tomorrow night.”

I craved to see him, but I couldn’t let myself get caught up with him. “I need rest. I didn’t get it tonight, and unfortunately, I have to find another job.”

He stepped off the sill, but this time he didn’t fall. He just hung there in the air facing me. That was a sweet trick, but I wasn’t going to admit it to him. His expression told me he’d already read it in my mind. I resisted smacking him.

“I will get you whatever you need. You don’t need a job, and I’ll see you tomorrow night.” Before I could tell him what to kiss, he was gone.

Chapter Six

I was in the shower after the sun
came
up, washing the grime off my body while I thought about what I knew. I was someone special. “Okay, that doesn’t sound conceited at all, Tanesha,” I told myself, my voice echoing in the narrow space.

Never mind how stupid it sounded, someone believed it. I was special, not a vampire, definitely not dead since I had leaned half way out the window when the solar rays came beaming down, with my bare arms exposed in their path. Nothing. Not even a sizzle. I laughed at that. Although, I did notice that my eyes were more sensitive to the light, and I hadn’t tested it, but I thought my vision was clearer, better than it was.

I still needed to learn how to kill a vampire. Using human strength wasn’t going to cut it. I doubted I was “the chosen one” with enhanced abilities to rid the world of evil. I laughed at that thought. Yeah, right. This was not TV.

What else did I know, I wondered as I ran my soapy
loofah
over my skin. I stopped at the lower right side of my belly and froze. “Vampires heal fast and leave no scars.” I dropped the sponge and stared down at myself. The scar from when I had surgery to remove my appendix was gone. I searched the left side even though I knew that was stupid. My brown skin was smooth and baby soft. Finding it missing, I sank down to the floor and cried my eyes out while the water ran over my head. I had forgotten to put on my shower cap. I would have to wash my hair and blow it out or sit under my mother’s dryer, but I didn’t care. All this time, one theory I had was that this was a great big joke, and Ronnie would yell “gotcha” after a while. But Ronnie couldn’t remove a scar.

I was changing, and changing fast. I had to put a stop to it. Lorcan, as much as I wanted to be with him, was turning me, making me like him. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to be a vampire and live off of people’s blood. I didn’t want to have to remember my last meal because I could no longer eat real food, or be trapped in the dark because the sun would cook me. He didn’t have a right to do this to me! No right at all, and I was going to fight back, no matter what.

* * * *

I went back to the library, bringing Ronnie along since he refused to leave my side.

“What are we here for again?” he complained.

“Well, we had to leave last time because you couldn’t stop drooling over that girl, whatever her name was.”

He pretended not to remember, but I knew he was picturing her right then. His eyes glazed over a second before he shook it off. “Please. She wasn’t all that.” He sucked his teeth for emphasis.

“Whatever.” I turned away from him and stomped over to the information desk. This time I was determined to get some info on vampires. Urban legends or old myths would work and not fiction. I figured there had to be some reference books that could point me in the right direction. After that, I was going to check out a couple of kickboxing classes. If I found something good and cheap, I was going to call my dad and beg for money to pay for it. If he knew it wouldn’t be for more clothes and shoes, maybe he would be willing. A girl could hope. What I wasn’t going to do was hold my breath waiting for Lorcan to take of whatever I needed.

“Excuse
me,
do you have any books on vampires?” I asked the librarian in a low voice so no one would overhear me. Not that it mattered. Vamps seemed to be eternally in if you asked me.

With a big fake smile, the librarian led me to where they kept a couple books on the subject. I ran a finger over the spines, reading as I went, and came to Vampires: Myths and Folklore. After snapping up the book, I flipped it open to the introduction page while I was half aware that Ronnie had wandered to the end of the aisle where they kept little chairs with small tables attached to them. He pulled out his
Ipod
, popped his buds in his ears, and closed his eyes. I sighed. At least he wouldn’t rush me.

“Vampires are creatures of the night with great strength and power. After living for centuries and watching many of the ones they love die around them, they become emotionless, shunning normal society.”

I considered what I had just read. Maybe Lorcan hadn’t lived long enough because he was hardly emotionless, and for
that matter neither were
the other teenage vampires, Blake and Adrianne. How long had they been vampires?

I tried to remember what that one vamp sounded like in the
park,
the one Lorcan had fought to save me. He had been older, and yeah, definitely frosty. I shivered. So they shunned society? That meant they might not live in a regular house, didn’t it? Or maybe they did, but they didn’t know their neighbors like we did. Shoot, a whole lot of humans don’t know their neighbors. You saw them on the news all the time.
“No, we didn’t know his ass was crazy like that. We didn’t do more than say ‘what’s up’ while passing by in the morning.”

I laughed, and I could have sworn someone else laughed with me. I looked around, but there was no one in my aisle. I went back to reading, skipped over a few pages, until I found something that caught my eye. “Vampires are very strong. They can move almost faster than the human eye can detect, and they have an insatiable lust for blood. There are only three ways to kill one of these creatures—severing his head, leaving him in the sunlight, or making him bleed out without replenishing his blood for an undetermined length of time. The old Hollywood movie myths about needing to put a stake through his heart are nonsense. He can be killed just as well with a kitchen knife if for some reason he can’t replenish his blood.”

Another laugh in my head and a whispered “kitchen knife.” I ignored it.

So if I could somehow hold down a vampire, I could either decapitate the sucker or drain him. Like sitting on him would hold him down. How in the world could anybody kill one of them that way?

“Who are you trying to kill?

“All right, enough is
enough,
” I shouted and ran to the end of the aisle in the opposite direction of Ronnie.” A librarian frowned at me from across the room and tapped a finger to her lips. I was so irritated that I sneered at her. I pitched my voice low. “You better show yourself right now!”

Energy crackled over my fingertips, freaking me out. I shook my hands and ran them over my denim miniskirt, but didn’t dispel the power I felt surging throughout my body. I didn’t see twinkling lights or anything dramatic like that, but I knew I was different if only for a minute.

Nervous, I clung to the nearest bookcase with one hand and threw the other hand out ahead of me. I don’t know what I was planning on doing, but what happened blew my mind. I felt the energy leave my body just like it did when Lorcan was hiding in my room. That time I knew where Lorcan was even though my eyes couldn’t see him. This time I didn’t have a clue. I just knew somebody was here who had jokes, and I was going to make him sorry.

Like I said, the energy or power or whatever you wanted to call it shot out of me, through my arm, and across the floor. I couldn’t see anything, but a cart of books just flew up off the floor and smashed against the wall. When it did, books landed everywhere, and people screamed. But that wasn’t what I was focused on. A shadow uncurled from the floor under a table, separated from the table’s real shadow and darted out of the way just before the cart hit next to it.

I could tell myself that was a coincidence, but it wasn’t likely. Without a second thought, I let go of the bookshelf and took off after the shadow. The more he had to move away from the shadows in the room—and there were few because the library was bright for reading—the more he was visible. I had the feeling he shouldn’t even be trying that trick here where someone would notice.

He moved fast, but he couldn’t get up to what I guessed was vampire
speed
because of so many people around. He was headed to the exit, and I was right on his tail. A familiar chuckle sounded in my head at the same time I realized it was that dumb behind Blake. I was right on him, like he wanted me to catch him. At the front door, I laid a hand on his shoulder just as I heard Ronnie tell me to come back.

Just that quick, Blake threw on a hood, spun around, and had me in his arms. The world around us went out of focus while we moved through the doors and away from the library parking lot. I couldn’t believe how the wind blew against my face, and I couldn’t make out anything around us. I fought to get out of Blake’s hold. “Get your hands off me, Blake. What are you doing?” I shouted through gasps for breath.

His hold tightened. “Come on, we’re going for a little joy ride.”

“Joy ride, my butt. Let me go!”

I elbowed him and ended up hurting myself. Trying to remember how to conjure up that energy flow, I concentrated, and Blake laughed over top my head because I was tucked under his chin, held against his chest. If it was Lorcan, yeah, but Blake was on the boney side, and not comfortable, for real.

I was getting angrier at him for his games. “Put me down, idiot!”