Vamplayers (5 page)

This guy is cool-cool. Adult cool, movie star cool, rich cool, don’t-care-anymore cool.

He’s not looking to impress friends or score another chick or carve another notch on his belt or hook up or break up. He looks like he’s been there done that three thousand times before.

This kind of cool is not one thing you can point to and say, “See that right there? That’s what I mean.”

It’s two dozen things.

Like the way smoke curls out of his thin, pink lips and into his streamlined, almost royal nostrils. Like the way he lazily reaches out and whisks a snaking tendril of sleek auburn hair off the girl’s cheek. Like the way he laughs, not rushed, nowhere to be but right here right now with this girl, smoking this cigarette.

Like the way he stands tall while she moves around, slouching, cocking her head, jutting out her breasts then reeling them in, as if she’s still trying to read his signals when he’s already had hers figured out for weeks, even if they’ve just met. Like the way he leans against the short stone wall as if it was built just for him. Like the way his eyes stay focused on her even when a squirrel scampers past and she points excitedly and laughs, her hand covering her mouth.

In short, he’s not just high school cool. He’s vampire cool.

I try to alert Cara to a potential Vamplayer sighting, but she’s listening intently to something Headmistress Holly is saying.

By the time I peer out the window again, the girl is gone. I look left, right, curious where she’s gone and why and how they ended it and if they kissed or fought or if she simply walked away while he barely raised a hand in good-bye (if that).

The boy isn’t gone.

He’s staring at me, smoke curling around his nostrils as he opens his mouth to give me a wide smile that says,
Well, hello there. Hmm, how long have you been standing there? Hey, you don’t look all that bad yourself.

Great. It’s like the master bedroom in the Simulation House all over again. Five minutes on the job, and I’m already tipping my hand.

I move away from the window and give my full attention to the headmistress, trying to shake the too-cool-for-school guy out of my brain and concentrate.

“… late in the year for one, let alone three, students to apply. You’ll understand my concern, Dr. Haskins.”

“Of course.” She has heard it all before and, thanks to these joint admission sessions, so have we. “I understand completely. As I explained on the phone, these girls are excellent students, wonderful friends, and will make a fine addition to Nightshade. Unfortunately, one of my girls was a little too friendly at her last school, if you know what I mean.”

My name is not mentioned, but the way Dr. Haskins barely looks at me, Headmistress Holly’s gaze following, the implication is clear: at this school, it’s my turn to play extra slutty.

I choke on a gasp.

“I’ve spoken with all three girls,” she concludes, “and they assure me you will have no trouble from any of them. If you do, by all means, please alert me immediately and I’ll rectify the situation posthaste.”

“Outstanding,” Headmistress Holly says, using another one of those headmistress words. “As you may or may not know, relations between Nightshade and the local townsfolk have recently become somewhat strained.”

“Is that right?” Dr. Haskins says, fishing.

Headmistress Holly opens her mouth, looks at us girls, tightens her lips, then says, “You know how townsfolk are, certainly. They see this ornate architecture, the stained glass, the gargoyles. They hear our chapel bells every Sunday, and they can’t help but spread gossip about our students and their various activities during off hours. I assure you it’s all unwarranted, and I mention it only so your girls can be aware that they must be on their best behavior and, of course, avoid being extra friendly.”

She looks at me again, this time not so subtly.

“Of course.” Dr. Haskins glances at her sleek Cartier watch resting on her elegant wrist.

The headmistress gets the hint and stands to signal the end of the meeting. “You do know that this late in the year, if one of your girls”—again with the eye roll in my direction—”were to get too friendly, as you so delicately put it, there would be no refund for the semester upon her dismissal.”

“Of course,” Dr. Haskins says, shaking Headmistress Holly’s right hand. “Now, girls, I must run, but rest assured I leave you in capable hands here at Nightshade. Headmistress, thanks so much for your time in meeting us today. I assume you will help the girls get settled?”

“Of course,” she says with a smile that doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “And I assume you can show yourself out?”

We stand as Dr. Haskins exits, her heels clacking down the hallway.

When we turn from the door, Headmistress Holly stands just to our right, three room keys and a map in her outstretched hands. “Ladies,” she says, her voice a tad more frosty than it was during her dealings with Dr. Haskins (not that we’re exactly surprised), “I’ve circled your rooms on this map, and here are your keys. Your first task will be finding your own rooms and getting settled. Your second will be making it to dinner on time, promptly at six thirty. And your third will be showing up to your first classes tomorrow morning, no excuses. You’ll find your schedules in your suite plus everything else you need. I hope you enjoy your … stay at Nightshade Conservatory for Exceptional Boys and Girls”—she looks squarely at me—”no matter how long or brief it might be.

“Good day, girls, and remember: here at Nightshade, you aren’t merely fellow students; you’re partners in learning.

“And never forget: if you need anything, my door is always open—from eleven till three Tuesdays and Thursdays, that is.”

She smiles as we file past her.

I turn to wave our good-byes.

The heavy wooden door slams promptly in my face.

Alice and Cara are already steaming ahead, studying the map in Alice’s hand.

This is definitely my last high school as a Sister. I don’t care what it takes.

Chapter 5

I
don’t understand why she threw me under the bus this time.” I dump my single bag on the sterile claw-foot couch in the middle of our new dorm suite.

Cara and Alice are snickering as they check out the rooms, which look tiny and austere, perhaps because of all the dark wood flooring and creepy, gothic wainscoting along the entirety of the fourteen-foot ceilings.

Alice leans in her doorway, her long legs looking even longer in her skinny jeans. A big jeweled belt rests cockeyed on her model-narrow waist. “I, for one, am glad I won’t be playing the role of super tramp this assignment.”

I gape, about to say something snarky about how Alice couldn’t look
less
like a tramp at the moment, but think better of it.

“Oh, give her time,” Cara says to me from her own doorway. “Besides, Dr. Haskins did you a favor.”

“A favor? By setting me up as a tramp? How so?”

“Think of it, girl. Now the Vamplayer will come looking for you, not the other way around.”

I picture the tall boy in the alcove, his hand brushing away the redhead’s curls, his confident stance, his cool eyes peering up at me as if he knew I’d been watching him all along. I shrug, unconvinced. “You know that’s not how it usually works.”

“Not usually,” says Alice, “but at least she tried.”

I sigh and retreat to my room to freshen up for dinner.

Mine is small but bright. Afternoon light filters through three gabled windows dominating most of each wall. A steel-framed bed is under the middle one, two bare wooden nightstands on either side, a matching dresser across from the foot of the bed.

Under another window is a simple desk, a rickety wooden chair shoved in as far as it will go. On the desk my schedule is wedged under the brass stand of an ancient lamp. I ignore it for now and look behind me to see if the other girls are watching.

The coast is clear.

As I do the first day of every assignment, I take my one-use, one-number pager and hide it beneath my nightstand. Crumpling up a clean sock and using it for cover, I shove both way in the back, where they’re not readily visible from the front door or anywhere in the room but directly in front of it and then only while you’re lying flat on the floor.

Next I change into simple black jeans and a gauzy black blouse over a silver tank top. I slip into charcoal shoes with enough heel to get me an inch higher but comfortable enough to walk the entire grounds of Nightshade before dinner if necessary.

When it’s my turn in the communal bathroom, I freshen up with some lip gloss and a touch of Cara’s perfume while my Sisters wait impatiently at the front door.

“So?” Alice says like a kid waiting to open presents Christmas morning. “Same drill as always? We’ll split up and make the rounds, sit together at dinner, and see where we fit.”

Cara and I look at each other. “I know where you’ll fit best,” she says to Alice as we walk out the door and into the hallway. “Right in some jock’s arms.”

“Or two,” I say, “if he has a friend.”

Chapter 6

I
know I’m supposed to be doing recon right now and scouting the school for potential Vamplayers, but I skip the quad and the lawn and the gym and the track field, where kids normally congregate, and make a beeline for the cafeteria instead.

I know we still have a couple hours until dinner, but I’m a little famished from the long trip out— and not just for the red stuff.

It’s a little known fact that most vampires are absolute sugar fiends. Like, crack addict-style sugar fiends. Some of us down sodas by the six-pack. Others literally rip open three or four sugar packets in a fast-food restaurant and glide into a blissful sugar coma as the granules dissolve on our greedy tongues.

They say this one girl at the Academy—I forget her name—went two full weeks, a record, without ingesting a single drop of blood by streamlining a case of Pixy Stix she’d ordered online.

My weakness, now and always, is candy. Chocolate preferably, bars of chocolate specifically, chocolate kisses in a pinch, chocolate squares if I’m desperate. But really, anything with straight-up sugar will do.

Yes, I know, we don’t really digest our food so much as absorb it. And there’s the rub: between feedings of blood consommé and braised blood clots and the occasional live vein during the holidays, there’s nothing like a quick sugar high to rehydrate your cells and keep you humming along in Vamplayer-detecting mode.

This is what I hate about academies and conservatories and prep schools and the like: assigned meal times.

Public schools are much better when it comes to enabling sugar addicts to get their fix. I mean, between the vending machines, candy bar fund-raisers, the parking lots smack-dab in the middle of two convenience stores and three gas stations, a Sister never wants for sugar when she’s assigned to a public school.

But academies, especially conservatories, are so rigid. No quick sugar fixes unless you cozy up to the kitchen staff and persuade them to break you off a nibble of baking chocolate or, if necessary, a marsh-mallow or a macaroon.

I hear clanging dishes down a distant hall and know I’m finally heading in the right direction.
Bring the map next time, Lily!

I peel off toward the sound, walking what feel like miles and miles of empty, twenty-foot-high hallways lined on one side with vast stained glass windows and on the other with stone.

I pass a few kids, mostly girls with long thin legs and swinging short skirts. I give them a casual nod, get none in return, and fantasize about sinking my fangs into their stupid chichi throats to teach them a lesson about common civility.
Down, girl, down.

The clinking grows louder and louder, and I enter through two giant doors that lead to a sprawling, if empty, cafeteria.

It seems to stretch, like the rest of the school, for miles. It’s as if the Jolly Green Giant designed it for himself but had to sell it at a loss during the recession.

I count at least three dozen tables with at least a dozen chairs at each. They are clean and smell of bleach, and some still even look damp.

My flats are soft and silent on the tiled cafeteria floor as I pass through the sea of empty tables and shoved-in chairs.

I hear hissing steam, laughter, clinking plates, and rattling silverware and know I’m in the right place. I can almost taste the bittersweet chocolate or maybe even a squirt of chocolate syrup or perhaps just the last of the maraschino cherry juice at the bottom of a jar.

I’m so eager my fangs quiver, and I nearly barge straight into the kitchen proper.

Then I hear this and pause: “There’s no way Luke Skywalker could beat Captain Kirk in a fair fight.”

Oh boy, this ought to be good.

I stand just outside the red swinging double doors, complete with grimy portholes at the top center like you see on cruise ships, and listen in.

A hearty baritone voice says, “Define fair fight, Zander.”

“What always constitutes a fair fight, Grover?” the other asks, his voice clipped and masculine, less melodic. “Identical weapons, identical uniforms.”