Sweet Blood of Mine (10 page)

Somehow, I made it home although I almost plowed into the mailbox. I got out and staggered up to the door. I half expected to see a crazed vampire streaking down the road after me. Thankfuly, no. I barely remembered locking the front door behind me and then shoving furniture locking the front door behind me and then shoving furniture against it. Shoving more furniture in front of my bedroom door. Then the hardwood floor greeted my face.

I woke up, panting, my heart thudding in my ears.

A baby's screams sounded from somewhere outside my room. I climbed down from my bed and grabbed the plastic sword Daddy had given me. My palms sweated. I tightened my grip and stepped into the dark halway. Wails echoed down the long corridor. In one direction lay darkness. In the other, bright light. I turned for the light. I looked at the picture-lined wals. I couldn't make out the faces of the people. The harder I peered, the blurrier the images became.

The baby screamed. I didn't know if it was terror or hunger, or if it had simply pooped in its diapers, but I ran. My padded pajama feet made little noise as I ran for the light. But the light only seemed to move further away.

The faster I tried to run, the harder it was to move.

"I'm coming!" I shouted, my voice sounding tiny.

"I'l save you!" I brandished my toy sword, ready to meet any threat.

A dark shadow passed over the light and blocked the center of the doorway. A tal hat perched atop the figure's head and a long walking cane rested in one hand. I stumbled, tripped, and went to my knees as dark dread gripped my heart and squeezed. The very air seemed to frost in my lungs.

The figure held out its hands. A woman screamed in agony.

"No!" I yeled. "Stop it!" But I couldn't move. I couldn't make him go away. I was only—

My cel phone rang and I jerked awake. My ears hurt. My head hurt. Every part of me was in raw agony. I pushed myself off the floor, puled the phone from my pocket, and stared with bleary eyes at the screen. It was Crye. I answered.

"Your appointment is at ten AM.," she said in a voice entirely too chipper. "Don't be late!"

"Isn't it a school day?"

"Teachers' work day. Don't you remember the announcement?"

"Oh. Okay. I'l see you soon." I pushed myself up onto my knees.
What a nightmare
. It had to have been a nightmare. Vampires did not exist. Hot girls that approached sweaty smely fat kids after a workout also did not exist. I was even surer of that. And what was with the pregnant woman and the screaming baby? Maybe Stacey had slipped me some heroin.

Besides the agony from yesterday's workout, I felt pretty normal. I stood up. A wave of dizziness almost took me back down and my foot throbbed. I staggered into the bathroom to get ready. I couldn't believe I had a hair styling appointment today. Simply thinking of "my hair" and "style"

in the same sentence was a new concept for me. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had it cut.

As I showered, images of Stacey with her amber eyes and fangs flashed through my mind.
Not real, not
real, not real
. I got out of the shower and regarded my long wet mop of a hairdo in the mirror. Then I noticed hand-shaped bruises the color of rotten blueberries on my biceps. I looked at my foot. A nasty greenish bruise covered my toes. Last night had happened. Stacey realy did exist. Maybe if I went about business as usual, I'd forget about the whole thing and never have to face a hot vampire woman again.

Besides, today I would start the transformation that would leave me a different man—an improved man. A non-feasted-upon-by-vampires man. An undercurrent of apprehension gripped my nerves, but I ignored it. That was the stale old me talking, the version that would be making love to his hand for the rest of his life if I didn't change. It seemed almost funny I was more afraid of getting a haircut seemed almost funny I was more afraid of getting a haircut than the petrifying night before. The human mind is apparently capable of blanking out those things too terrible to behold.

After removing the furniture blocking my bedroom door and the front door, I looked for Dad in the usual places—the couch and his bedroom—but he was nowhere to be found. I wondered if I'd locked him out of the house with my furniture blockade, but it appeared he'd never returned home last night. Oddly enough, his car was stil in the driveway, so I took it and found the salon in East Atlanta Vilage, a neighborhood stil struggling between trendy and gangster. A cute girl in jeans and a tight pink T-shirt sat at the reception area. I stared at myself in the mirror on the wal behind her so I wouldn't stare at her realy nice breasts. They weren't huge, but the tight fabric of her shirt gave them the extra oomph to make me a fan for life.

Even the hopeless romantic in me couldn't resist the lure of female anatomy.

She smiled at me. "Hey Justin. Be just a few minutes."

I was surprised the receptionist knew me on sight.

It certainly boosted my ego a bit. After al, she didn't seem to have fangs. But when I opened my mouth to hit on her, nothing came out. My vocal cords locked up. The large mirror behind the desk showed me just how stupid I looked with my mouth hanging open. The girl raised an eyebrow.

"Don't be nervous. I told Mom you needed al the help you could get."

Recognition dawned on my sluggish brain. My eyes widened. "Crye?" Without the piercings, makeup, or Goth clothing she looked normal. Pretty cute, in fact. "I didn't realize it was you." I grimaced.
Nice job, idiot.

She smiled and shook her head. "Mom won't let me wear my Goth clothes here. Too many people wouldn't understand."

"Wel, she's the boss," I said lamely trying to recover.

A tal brunette with an imperious gaze, long legs, and epic cleavage—yes, I'm obsessed with boobs—came to the front. She pursed her lips and stared at me. "You were right, dear. This one needs serious work." She spun on her heel and hooked a finger over her shoulder at me.

"This way."

"Ooh this is gonna be fun," Crye said, her violet eyes sparkling. I stared at her eyes, wondering why she was stil wearing her colored contacts without her Goth garb. "Better hurry," she said. "Mom's impatient."

I hurried back to the chair where her mom waited, towel in hand. The place was ful of women in chairs and mostly male stylists molding hair and chatting away. A cross between ammonia and roses scented the air, no doubt a toxic cloud from hair chemicals.

"Thanks for doing this, Ms., um…"

"Cal me Leia."

"Thanks, Leia." It felt strange caling someone's mom by her first name. And she looked so young too. She and Crye could almost be sisters. I forced my eyes from her cleavage and sat in the chair. Leia spent the next several minutes washing my hair, then shooed me over to a salon chair. I took a seat and stared at the mirror. My hands trembled as I thought about the irrevocable change I was about to commit. It wasn't too late to get up and run.

Leia's hand clamped onto my shoulder.

Now it was too late.

Her hand on my shoulder reminded me

uncomfortably of Stacey. My neck felt very warm where she'd licked it, like that hot ice stuff athletes slather on their sore muscles. I hoped it wasn't infected. I stared at the right side of my neck in the mirror. It looked redder than the moon-white skin around it.

Leia left for a moment then returned with a spray Leia left for a moment then returned with a spray bottle. She stood behind me and appraised my hair with an arched eyebrow. Movies depict major lifestyle changes as quick and easy with a montage set to an upbeat pop tune.

In real life, they're a lot more traumatic, time consuming, and boring. That, and it takes a lot longer than one Lady Gaga song to get the job done.

"Elyssa seems to think you'd look better with spiky hair," Leia said after staring at my mop.

"Elyssa?" My eyes met hers and I realized with a start that her eyes were violet just like Crye's.

"My daughter. I suppose you know her by that ridiculous Goth name."

"Crye?"

As if on cue, Crye appeared at my shoulder and looked me over appraisingly. "Dye his hair black and go with long spikes."

Leia pursed her lips and stared for a moment. "Do you want him to look good or maniacal?"

"Both."

"Um, can we go more for the good look?" I asked.

Crye grabbed my shoulder. "Just go with it, you big scaredy-cat."

"I don't want to look stupid," I said. I almost said

"freakish" but I didn't want to hurt Crye's feelings.

Leia raised an eyebrow. "Let's begin, shal we? I have a ful schedule today."

I nodded. Crye went back to the front desk. Leia started by lopping off most of my hair with scissors. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing so I didn't whimper. After she cut my hair, she dyed it black with something that reeked like burning tires and barf.

Some time later I stared at the finished product in the mirror. I hardly recognized myself, aside from the pale chubby face and thick glasses which were dead giveaways.

Instead of a nerdy fat kid, I looked like a cool chubby kid.

Leia had cut my hair a little shorter than the six inches Crye wanted, but I was secretly relieved the new 'do wasn't too outlandish.

"Not bad," Crye said when she came over to inspect the new me. "New glasses, new clothes, and you'l almost be respectable."

"I was meaning to ask about that," I said, looking at Leia. No way in hel I'd take fashion advice from Crye.

"Do you have any opinion about what kind of clothes I should buy?"

"I always have an opinion, child," Leia said. "But I have too much to do to chat about clothes." She whisked away to speak with a woman who was waiting in the front lounge.

"I'l help you with clothes," Crye said, glancing at a pink
Hello Kitty
watch on her wrist. "I get out of here in an hour."

"I'm not realy into Goth stuff," I said.

"It's an identity," she said, "not a fashion choice. I would never force that on you."

"Oh, wel that's cool. What kind of clothes do you have in mind?"

"I asked Renaldo to help." She pointed to a young male stylist who was laughing and gesturing in the exaggerated way I'd seen only gay men do.

"You asked a gay guy to help me?"

"Hey, you want fashion advice, gay guys are the best."

"Maybe for picking out curtains," I grumbled.

Renaldo looked to be in his early twenties. He wore a baby-blue button-up shirt tucked into dark jeans that a wild animal must have savaged given the rips in the fabric on the thighs. A dark red tie and blue vest completed the outfit. I had to admit it did look pretty spiffy in a casual sort of way.

His brown hair was short and spiked, kind of like mine, and I wondered what that said about me. Not that it made any I wondered what that said about me. Not that it made any difference since I was officialy a social pariah.

"He's hot and fashionable," Crye said. "Too bad he's not into girls."

"Wow," I said. "Did you just cal a guy 'hot'?

Never expected that from you."

"I am a girl, stupid. And I'm not batting for the other team, if that's what you were thinking."

She wore way too much pink to be a lesbian or a Goth, for that matter. Not that I was an expert on either. I glanced at the approximate location on her nose where she usualy wore a stud, wondering how large a hole those things left, but her skin looked perfect, unbroken. I couldn't spot any holes in her lips either. The studs must have teensy-tiny pointy things on them. For some reason that made me feel better. It'd be a waste to mar such great skin with a bunch of holes.

I folowed her back to the front and took a seat next to a middle-aged woman with a mountain of teased up bangs only a galon of hairspray could hold in place. I looked in the mirror behind Crye's desk and did a double take at the new me. I looked so much better. Then I noticed the red skin on my neck. It looked like a rash.

Surely I wasn't going to turn into a vampire, was I? I would have felt the urge to drink blood if that were the case. I could obviously see myself in a mirror, too. Even so, I was more than a little worried I might burst into flames when the sun hit me. But I didn't know anyone I could ask for advice. Maybe Google could also give me the cure for vampirism. I sat back and Googled furiously on my smartphone until Crye walked over and lightly booted my foot with hers.

"Ready?" she asked.

Renaldo appeared from the back. He looked me up and down, his head shaking the entire time. "He does need work," he said in a decidedly deep and not-gay voice.

"Can you help?" Crye asked, as if I had some severe medical condition that only a miracle drug could cure.

"I'l do my best. Let's head to the mal."

* * * * *

I was glad I'd brought some of my il-gotten cash with me. Several hundred dolars later, I had a nice wardrobe although I felt like a piece of meat. Every time I tried on jeans or slacks, Crye and Renaldo took a critical eye to my posterior to make sure the pants looked fitted. I felt exhausted. Crye and Renaldo only seemed to draw energy from the experience like window-shopping vampires.