Fangs for Freaks (2 page)

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Authors: Serena Robar

Tags: #Vampires, #Fiction, #Horror, #Best friends, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #School & Education, #Friendship, #Fantasy & Magic, #Horror stories, #Universities and colleges

BOOK: Fangs for Freaks
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I held up a hand to stop him. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m sorry. It’s just today is the day I meet my new sorority sisters and I’m really nervous.”
“Oh, well then, that’s fine. I’m sure no one will be out to get you today, then.”
“Ha, ha,” I retorted sarcastically.
“Today of all days you need to be most aware.”
It took my Aunt Chloe exactly twelve minutes to tell Cyrus what I really was and persuade him to train me. Cyrus had believed her immediately, even though I walked around during the day and didn’t have real fangs. I guess it was the incident about his grandmother that did it. I’d insisted on taking Bits to her doctor because she smelled different that day. My super sniffer detected a change in her normal lavender scent. It was a move that saved her life. Bits was on the verge of a heart attack, but thanks to me, she ended up with a bypass and a new lease on life.
He seemed to accept that I was a mutant Undead with limited vampiric powers who needed steel fangs to bite my victims because I had had my canine teeth removed for braces when I was twelve. I mean, it makes perfect sense, right? HA! It was my life and
I
had a hard time believing it most of the time.
“I wish you would let me teach you defense with weapons,” he complained.
We were back to that old argument. I think he knew how close I was to caving on that one.
In the evenings, Thomas, my Vampire Investigator boyfriend, trained with me and we used swords. Actually, it would be fairer to say Thomas used the swords and I just did my best to avoid being beheaded and/or shish kebabed. Thomas wouldn’t train me using a sword yet; he didn’t think I was quite ready. Well, his actual words were something along the lines of “you’ll poke your eye out” but the gist was the same.
I sighed heavily. “No, just help me avoid the stick.”
He gave me his patented “you are one crazy chick” look and dropped the subject.
“Are you going to visit Bits today?” I asked.
“Already did. I have to leave tonight for a mission. I won’t be back until Monday.”
“You’re leaving me?” I said in surprise.
“Yeah, I do have paying customers who need my services, you know. Don’t worry, Thomas won’t leave you alone this weekend. You should be fine.”
“You know, I don’t need Thomas’s protection to be just fine. I can take care of myself.”
“Oh really? Check out your shirt.”
I glanced down to see a white chalk mark dead center in my chest. When I looked back at Cyrus, he held out the “wooden stake” for me to examine. It was really a large stick of chalk.
“Oh,” I said in surprise, realizing if he was really out to get me, he could have killed me right then.
“You were saying?”
His constant superior ways and arrogance were always annoying, but today he was particularly obnoxious.
“Bite me,” I replied in my snarkiest tone. Yes, I am the queen of maturity when provoked.
“That’s your department,” he said dryly and turned to walk away. Looking back over his shoulder, he added, “Be safe and don’t hesitate to finish the job.”
I watched him leave, his body tightly wound, ready to spring if the situation warranted it.
“He’s so weird,” commented a voice from behind, effectively scaring the daylights out of me.
“Aargh! Don’t
do
that! You could’ve given me a heart attack!” I squealed, grabbing my chest for dramatic effect.
“The day your heart starts beating … I’ll be the one having a heart attack.”
Piper Prescott was my best friend and occasional arch nemesis. She wore her hair straight to the shoulders, jet-black with burgundy ends. Her nose was pierced, her skin a shade of alabaster rarely found on another living being and she always, always spoke her mind. We were direct opposites in so many ways but I wouldn’t trade our friendship for all the Kate Spade bags in Macy’s. Well, usually I felt that way.
“Dude, you are so funny, I forgot to laugh.”
We moved to tidy up the recycling that Cyrus had scattered and walked into Piper’s house to wash our hands.
“So, today’s the big day, huh?” she asked after folding up the dish towel.
“Yep, tonight I meet the rest of the house. I can’t believe it. You’re gonna be there, right?” I was nervous about meeting them but proud of my accomplishment at the same time. I’d spent the last year of my life preparing for the moment I would meet the first half-bloods allowed to exist in vampire history. All because of me.
I knew that the Tribunal was sending me at least three new girls, if not more. One from as far away as Europe.
“Oh, I’ll be there.” Piper smirked. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Do you have to be so negative?” I asked her. Piper was of the opinion that a bunch of girls with nothing in common except being Undead and forced to live together was a recipe for catastrophe.
She opened the fridge and took out a Mountain Dew. “I’m just saying this thing has disaster written all over it.”
She tried to open the can but couldn’t get her finger under the tab.
“Oh here, give it to me.” I used my manicured nail to pop open her soda. “Are you still biting your nails?” I started to lecture, and then gasped when I noticed two of her cuticles had been chewed to the point of bleeding. “Piper! Your poor fingers. You’ve got to stop that!”
Piper put her hands over her ears and started to sing, “La la la la, I can’t hear you, la la la.”
“Oh fine.” Piper usually resisted my suggestions for self-improvement. She’d always bitten her nails. Since kindergarten, when she was bored or stressed, she nibbled at them. I guess having a best friend who was a half-vampire that no Undead liked was a bit of a stressor.
I returned her drink and brought the conversation back to my meeting. “And tonight doesn’t have disaster written all over it. These girls are lucky to be alive and I bet they are just as excited to meet me as I am to meet them. After all, I
saved
them. Because of me, they get a second chance. You’ll see.”
We plopped down on a comfy couch in her living room, enjoying the air-conditioning for a moment.
“You seem awfully confident they are going to be happy with this arrangement. If I recall, you weren’t all that thrilled with being attacked and turned into a vampire. What if the Tribunal told you that now you had to move across the country and learn the vampire ways?” Piper made it sound like vampires were part of the Dark Side or something.
“Of course I wasn’t happy but I would rather be sent to Psi Phi House than be ‘relieved of my Undead status.’ And I’d be pretty darn thrilled to meet the person who was responsible for me getting a second chance to live as well.”
Piper looked at me unconvinced and took a sip of her drink, so I gave up and changed the subject.
“Where’s your mom?”
“She’s still at work. We only have a couple of days left until we go to Europe. Even though she is dragging us on a work thing, I’m kind of excited. I miss England,” she added wistfully.
Piper’d spent a summer with her family roaming the European countryside and loved it. She was kind of a gypsy at heart.
“You’ll still be on e-mail, right? I know your cell phone won’t work over there, but you’ll still have Internet access, right?”
“Quit being so nervous. You’ll be fine,” Piper reassured me.
“Yeah, I know.” I started to nibble on the cuticle of my thumb.
“I saw that Thomas was over last night. Is he finally putting out?” Piper asked.
“Piper! What kind of question is that?” I gasped, feigning outrage.
“So that would be a no, then.”
I debated playing the offended victim but frankly, I needed some advice on this one. “What’s wrong with me? We’re in constant physical contact. He wrestles with me at training and I’m all, yeah baby come and get it, but he’s been a perfect gentleman. It’s starting to tick me off.”
Thomas and I met eight months ago when he arrived at my house the night after I was attacked and turned into one of the Undead. He was a Vampire Investigator and it was his job to take care of any unlicensed vampires, like myself. And not “take care of ” in the good sort of way. But Thomas fell for me and I have to admit, I fell for him as well. At least, as soon as I determined he wasn’t going to stake me on our next date.
So it seemed natural once I attained my license that we should continue seeing each other. Except, I was given a stupid job with the Tribunal as half-blood Protector, which meant Thomas and I worked together now. He always takes his job way too seriously—instead of moonlit kisses and walks in the park we spent our free time training so I could be better
at my job
.
In the last eight months we rarely went on official “dates” but he did hold my hand on the way to the training center and we exchanged a fair amount of kisses, but not much beyond that. Which was driving me insane!
“I sense a little frustration coming from the Blanchard household,” Piper remarked dryly.
I scrunched up my nose, holding my thumb and forefinger up, about an inch apart. “Little bit.”
“So why not just ask him what the deal is?”
“It’s not that simple. He’s old-fashioned and obsessed with training me. Like, totally obsessed. It’s on his mind constantly. The other day I was in my knit bikini. You know, the purple one? It’s totally scandalous!
“Anyway, I’m all prancin’ around trying to get his mind off of training and he goes and gives me his sweatshirt to wear, so I won’t get cold in the drafty warehouse we work out in. Ohmigod, he doesn’t even ask why the hell I’m wearing a purple knit bikini to practice or anything, just covers me up and is all business. I must truly disgust him.” I finished my tirade with a wail of self-pity.
“Wow.”
I punch the sofa cushion next to me.
“Yeah, wow.”
“You must look pretty bad in that bikini.”
“Piper!”
She laughed at me. Did I mention Piper can be my arch nemesis
while
she is being my best friend?
“Okay, okay. First of all. Let’s think a little, shall we? It’s the middle of freakin’ August and he gives you a sweatshirt to cover up with so you won’t get cold? Hello? It’s like, seventy degrees at night. He wanted you covered up because he obviously didn’t trust himself to keep it in his pants if he had access to all that naked skin.” I hadn’t thought of it in those terms before and perked up at the thought of Thomas fearing he would lose control around me.
Piper continued her assessment. “Second, Thomas cares for you a lot. He’s been training you hard so you can protect yourself. He doesn’t want to lose you. And finally, maybe he’s gay?”
I threw the pillow at Piper’s head. No guy who kisses a girl like Thomas does could be gay. End of story.
“The last one must be it,” I jokingly agreed with her, not completely convinced but feeling much better about things.
After a moment of companionable silence, Piper said “Colby?”
“Yeah?”
“Quit chewing on your nails.”
Brat.
Two
O
nce dusk made an appearance, Piper and I headed over to my new home. The sorority house was located at the end of Greek Rowe, just a couple of blocks from Puget Sound University. Though PSU was a smaller college, it boasted three other sororities and four frats.
I’d spent the summer with the interior decorator hired by the Tribunal. She was a perfectly respectable vampire who bordered on uptight. At first, she seemed to dislike me as much as other vampires but after working together on the house plans, she warmed up. Well, warmed as much as an Undead can. The only point we disagreed on was the amount of pink in the house. Shades of pink were the house colors so I really thought it needed to make a statement.
Piper parked in the designated “President’s Space,” which I’m not ashamed to admit gave me a thrill. We hopped out of the car and I insisted we wait for Thomas on the sunporch before entering.
“Why are we waiting for tall, dead and handsome? Didn’t you at least let
him
see the house before now?” Piper whined.
“No, I wanted all of us to see it together. I want both of your reactions at the same time. I worked really hard on the color scheme, furniture, spaces. All of it.”
“Fine,” Piper huffed, plopping down in a wicker rocking chair. “You mind telling me what vampires are going to be enjoying the sunporch? Because it is, ya know, a
sun
porch?”
“Just because you would sit on the porch during the day doesn’t mean everyone else has to. Besides, the girls might be able to be out during the day, like me.”
“Might? As in you don’t know?”
I squirmed a bit at her line of questioning. I really didn’t want to admit I knew practically nothing about any of the people arriving this evening, especially to Piper. “Well, I don’t have all their vampire attributes committed to memory.”

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