Night School
Authors: Mari Mancusi
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Family, #Sisters, #Boarding schools, #Juvenile Fiction, #Young adult fiction, #Schools, #People & Places, #Vampires, #Twins, #Siblings, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Girls & Women, #War Stories, #Military & Wars, #Fairies, #Switzerland, #War
Table of Contents
Praise for the Blood Coven Vampire Novels
“Dark, delicious, and full of surprises, the Blood Coven series is like vampire candy. Readers will devour every bite!”
—Heather Brewer,
New York Times
bestselling author
Bad Blood
“A vampire book so worth reading, with dark humor, distinctive voice, and a protagonist clever enough to get herself out of trouble ... A great ride.”
—Ellen Hopkins,
New York Times
bestselling author
Girls That Growl
“An amusing teenage vampire tale starring a fascinating high school student ... Young adults will enjoy growling alongside of this vampire slayer who has no time left for homework.”
—Midwest Book Review
“A fast-paced and entertaining read.”
—LoveVampires
“A refreshing new vampire story,
Girls That Growl
is different from all of those other vampire stories ... a very original plot.”
—Flamingnet
Stake That
“A fast-paced story line ... both humorous and hip ... A top read!”
—LoveVampires
“Rayne is a fascinating protagonist ... readers will want to stake out Mari Mancusi’s fun homage to Buffy.”
—
The Best Reviews
Boys That Bite
“A wonderfully original blend of vampire/love/adventure drama which teens will find refreshingly different.”
—
Midwest Book Review
“Liberal doses of humor keep things interesting ... and the surprise ending will leave readers bloodthirsty for the next installment of the twins’ misadventures with the undead. A ghoulishly fun read.”
—School Library Journal
“A tongue-in-cheek young teen tale starring two distinct, likable twins, the vampire between them, and a coven of terrific support characters who bring humor and suspense to the mix ... Filled with humor and action ... insightfully fun.”
—The Best Reviews
Berkley titles by Mari Mancusi
NIGHT SCHOOL
BAD BLOOD
GIRLS THAT GROWL
STAKE THAT
BOYS THAT BITE
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2011 by Marianne Mancusi Beach.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without
permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the
author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / January 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
eISBN : 978-1-101-47834-9
[1. Fairies—Fiction. 2. Vampires—Fiction. 3. Twins—Fiction. 4. Sisters—Fiction.
5. Boarding schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction. 7. War—Fiction. 8. Switzerland—
Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M312178Ni 2011
[Fic]—dc22 2010029806
To my Blood Coven Vampires in Training
Hugs, kisses, and vampire blood!
www.bloodcovenvampires.com
My Story Thus Far ...
A rgh! I can’t even say that without feeling sick to my stomach! I can’t be a fairy princess—I’m the antithesis of a fairy princess. Fairy princesses—in their pink, gossamer gowns and filmy, ethereal (and probably pink) wings—should fear me as a deadly creature of the night. A vampire. Not to mention a vampire slayer. (Long story, don’t ask.) My clothes are black, my hair is black, hell, my soul might even be black at this point.
Not pink, for God’s sake. Never pink!
But I’m getting ahead of myself here. For those of you just joining us, it’s been a long, strange trip so far. Starting with the day, last spring, when I was still just your typical high school Goth girl with a thing for vampires. Team Edward and all that, LOLz. Except I took it one step further—I met up with a real vampire coven and signed up to become one of them. (It’s really easier than you might expect, as long as you don’t mind all the homework.) The certification takes three months of classroom time and then they do a bunch of background checks—sampling your DNA and running your blood. It’s all very high-tech and sophisticated these days. After all, no one wants to give a diseased mass-murderer, who can’t spell, e-t-e-r-n-a-l l-i-f-e, right?
Needless to say, I was approved. But on the night of my selected undead birthday—the dumb-ass vamp, Magnus, who was chosen to become my immortal beloved accidentally bit my identical twin sister, Sunny, instead! (Yes, yes, we’re Sunshine and Rayne. Hippie parents—or so we’d always thought.) Of course my oh-so-innocent, field-hockey playing, drama-loving, (up until this point) normal-as-can-be twin sister had no idea vampires even existed. And let’s just say she was so not pleased about being told she’d be turning into one of them by the end of the week. So she and my intended had to go on this big adventure to England to find the Holy Grail and reverse the transformation all before prom. During the process, go figure, they fell in love. (Which was fine by me. Magnus is a bit of a tool and so not the type I want to spend eternity with. I need someone way more dark and brooding.)
Six months later, they’re still together—though recently things have become a little dicey after Magnus, who’s now master of the Blood Coven, almost found himself a new blood mate to help him rule. Fortunately for Sunny, that didn’t work out so well for him in the end. And now he swears the two of them will be together forever and no other vampire or mortal will come between them. (I’ll believe that when I see it.)
But anyway, back to me. At this point, I’m still human, still blood-mate-less and if that weren’t enough, one day our drama teacher calls me in to tell me that I’m the next vampire slayer. (Yes, just like on that
Buffy
show.) Can you believe it? The girl voted most likely to go vamp—finds out she’s destined to kill them for a living? And I couldn’t even say no—seeing as they oh-so-sweetly informed me that I was injected with some kind of nano-virus when I was born that they can activate at any second if I decide to go AWOL.
Luckily, the gig involves slaying baddie vamps only. And certainly not anyone from the upstanding Blood Coven itself. Which is a total relief, considering staking your twin sister’s BF in cold blood is a good way to get you blacklisted from any and all future family reunions.
In any case, during my first mission as slayer, I hooked up with Jareth, the Blood Coven General and Magnus’s right-hand vamp. At first he was kind of a pain in the neck, if you excuse the pun, but in the end, I discovered he was simply misunderstood. Kind of like me. He saved my life, too; the evil vampire I was commissioned to slay managed to inject me with a deadly blood virus (yes, everyone and their mother is out to poison me these days) and I was fading fast. Until Jareth bit me, that is. The good news? I’m finally the vampire I always wanted to be. The bad news? Because of the blood virus, I’m powerless as a little lamb. Sigh. At least I got one benefit the other vamps don’t have—I can go out in the sun. Which totally helps me when I’m on slayer missions like saving our town from werewolf cheerleaders ...
But forget about them. We’ve got bigger problems now. Like our estranged parents telling us they’re actually not ex-hippies who escaped from a commune to live a more yuppified life, but magical fairies who escaped from a mystical Irish island, to live a more ... mortal one. And now, it seems, the other fairies back home have tracked Sunny and me down. And want us to return to them.
We never saw it coming.