Nightlight (13 page)

“Have you, uh, seen any movies lately?”

“Why would you ask that?” Josh said, calmly wrapping a tourniquet around Jim’s leg. It was now bulging with blood. Delicious, nutritious blood.

“Well, you know … it’s just one of those questions you ask werewolves. Every werewolf likes movies, right?” My dad chuckled knowingly.

“That’s a pretty bold generalization to make, Mr. G. Can you hold still for a second?” Josh pulled a syringe from his pocket and began to extract blood from Jim’s leg.

“I’m not being prejudiced! Believe me, some of my best friends are werewolves.”

“Well, frankly,
I’m
more of a television guy. Have you ever seen
True Blood?
It’s about vampires. It’s entertaining, but not very realistic. I mean, a synthetic blood that satisfies vampires? Come on! You need the real thing. Preferably from a teenage girl. All right, Belle—you ready?”

“Yep!” I stood up, showing off the smooth pleats in my cast. I began to spin around gracefully, but once I started it was hard to stop. I felt like a figure skater—both in my grace and my desire to throw up.

Josh finally grabbed my shoulders to stop me. “Stop, Belle. That will do.”

I smiled back at him and looked deep into his giant soulless vampire pupils. He glanced coldly into mine.

“Now I know why they call you Belle,” he said softly. “Did you know Belle means beautiful in Spanish?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of Fr—”

“Shhhh,” said Josh, effectively shushing me, “Let Josh do the talking from now on.”

He was so charming.

“I’ll have your stupid daughter back by midnight,
Mr. G,” he said. “You can have this back.” He threw the syringe of blood back at him, “I think I’m all set.”

“You wanna come over for the Seahawks game on Sunday?” Jim asked. Jim was lonely. He really didn’t have a lot of friends besides that wheelchair guy.

“I’m all set, Mr. G. Football games are usually during the day, and you know…” he said, sheepishly gesturing towards his skin and making sparkle motions with his hands.

“I don’t understand. My other werewolf friend watches football all the time.”

“Okay, bye Dad!” I called.

Josh steered me out the door towards his black limousine. Before he shoved me in, he looked me up and down. “Hey Belle, do you know what your volume is?”

“What?” I replied, trying to think if a sphere or a cylinder were a better representation of my body type.

“Like how much blood you have in your body.”

“I … I don’t know. First I’d have to figure out what my radius is, Josh.” I had decided that cylinder worked best because of the flat surface of my skull.

On our way to the prom, Josh insisted on giving me a driving lesson. He propped his feet up on the dashboard and shouted “Gas!” or “Break!” at me as I manned the pedals below the driver’s seat. He was such a controlling driver—not once did he let me improvise. I couldn’t even control the radio from where I sat cramped on the ground. Josh blared his techno vampire songs. None of them were Schubert.

Since the theme was a Fancy Venetian Masquerade, you would think the prom would be better decorated—there were a couple of black streamers and one overly inflated black balloon. But then I told myself to be more open-minded. Most craft and party stores close before sundown. If a vampire went in daylight, he would look like he was stealing a lot of glitter by rubbing it all over his body. What a mess that would be, legally.

“I hope you don’t find the costumes boring,” Josh said apologetically, as we walked through the gymnasium to get to the photographer. “The prom committee picked a pretty unimaginative theme in terms of costumes this year. Looks like everyone decided to be human—there’s a huge human-romance-novel phenomenon going on in the vampire world right now. You should have seen the costumes for the last few prom themes: Pimps and their Street Ho’s; CEOs and their Office Ho’s; GI Joes and their Combat Ho’s; Gardeners and their Garden Hoes; Firemen and their Fire Hose … If you ask me, a ‘masquerade’ theme isn’t flattering for anyone’s features, nor does it define the appropriate gender roles very clearly.”

“It’s brilliant,” I said, but a little part of me wished I had Edwart by my side instead of this breathtakingly beautiful vampire. Someone who would always be there to look more awkward than me.

Josh and I paused to take a prom photo. It came out beautifully, even though it looked like my date was just a bunch of clothes hanging in the air. Still, the light caught the silken fibers of his suspended tie magnificently.

As we walked towards the punch bowl, I couldn’t help but think that Josh was ashamed to have me as his date. Maybe it was the way he kept mouthing “She’s not with me,” at passersby. I don’t know. I have trouble understanding boys’ signals sometimes. As the saying goes, boys are from Mars and girls are from a completely normal planet.

When all of the vampires broke into a choreographed dance, I sank deeper into a feeling of alienation. When did they all find time to practice together? The zombie-style dance was actually pretty good, but I think many of the moves were heavily influenced by a certain video by a certain immortalized King of Pop—“Black or White.”

I stood by the punch table as the vampires danced through the last verse. There were four bowls labeled, “AB positive,” “O negative,” “AB negative,” and “Grab Bag.”

“I’ll have an AB positive,” I told Josh when he returned from the dance floor. “What’s it made of? Apples and Bananas?”

“It’s made of blood, Belle. You know this is blood, right?”

“Oh, of course. I was just joking,” I replied, sipping from my cup in horror. I was really going to have to commit to this.

As I nursed my blood cup, Josh introduced me to his friends, Levi and Zeke. They gawked at my costume.

“What are you staring at?” I asked defensively. “At least
I
have a costume.”

“Whoa!” said Levi. “Say that again!”

“Say what again?”

“Ha! Did you hear that Zeke? She sounds
sooo
human.”

“Hello,” said Zeke in a deep, even voice. “My name is Human Guy.”

A group of vampires gathered around us, laughing.

“Oooh, let me try let me try!” said one. “Hello. My name is Human Guy.”

They all laughed again.

“Hello,” said Levi. “I am a Human person.”

“Why do humans say it like that?” Zeke said. “Humans always say it like that!”

“Nobody says that!” I told them, but this only made them laugh harder.

“Hello,” said Josh. “My name is Mr. Human Guy.” They were weeping with laughter.

“Josh,”
I whispered ferociously. “Aren’t you going to
defend
me?”

“Come on, Belle—you know how you sound. It’s not your fault,” he added quickly. “It’s an inherent flaw within your species. I know you can’t help it and will never be able to correct it.” He held my cast-covered chin in his hand and petted my cast-covered hair. “Be proud of who you are, Belle. Don’t apologize for your differences. Your quirky, defective differences.”

Just then, someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Belle!” cried a familiar voice. I spun around to see none other than Lucy!

“Lucy, what are you doing here?”

She laughed maniacally. “Belle, I bought over a dozen
prom dresses because you couldn’t tell me which one was best. I mean, these dresses aren’t just going to wear themselves! This is my fifth prom this week.”

“But—you don’t even like vampires! I like vampires. This is
my
thing. Who even invited you?”

“Levi invited me.” She lowered her voice and spoke directly in my ear. “Belle Goose if you ruin my chance at being prom queen tonight I will make sure that you live long enough to witness the passing of your loved ones.” She smiled and trotted away to join Levi on the dance floor.

“Come on, Belle,” said Josh. “This is my favorite song—let’s dance!”

“I really don’t want to dance.”

“Dance with me
, Belle,” he growled.

“Seriously Josh? To Green Day? They’ve been around
forever.”

“Wrong,” he barked. “They’ve only been around for the past twenty proms.”

“What? Twenty proms!”

“Yeah, this is my eighty-sixth prom. I’m immortal, remember?”

“Yeah, I know that, I guess I just never … really … thought this out.” Again, I pined for Edwart. Edwart, who would never let it slip that he’d been to eighty-six proms because he had no idea who Green Day was.

“Dance,” Josh commanded.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” I warned.

“Just
once,”
he ordered.

“Seriously, Josh—I’ve never danced without unwittingly causing a political uprising.”

“One
dance,”
he decreed, pulling me onto the dance floor and manipulating me like a puppet using the pulleys that were still attached to my full-body cast.

“Okay okay—I’ll do
one
dance.” I did my ironic tap-dance. It’s a complicated routine, but onlookers will mistake your clumsiness for irony if you raise your eyebrows enough.

As predicted, when I finished there was a revolution.

A mob of outraged vampires swarmed the dance floor, frantically trying to stop the tap-dancing that had now gotten out of control. One hundred tap-dancing vampires were shoving and kicking each other in attempts to complete the routine. I slipped away to the wall unharmed as a couple tap-dancers, aggravated by the oppressive handling of the mob, violently overhauled the speakers, cutting the music. The gym filled with the din of the crowd’s antics. One vampire dove onto the punch table like it was a Slip’n Slide while his friends poured the contents of the bowls onto themselves and splashed around. Another vampire, offended by the splashing, tossed his blood punch into a splasher’s eyes and threw a superfluous punch. This polarized the vampires into two teams: pro-splashers and anti-splashers.

I waited patiently for the riot to subside, sipping my blood punch in a folding chair in the corner, too bored to even say I told you so (but not too bored to broadcast it over the PA system).

I saw Lucy being pummeled as she tried to escape the surging masses.

“Watch out!” I shouted, but it was too late. Someone had grabbed her by the dress, loosening a carefully fixed safety pin on her sleeve.

“Ouch!” she said, examining the prick on her arm. A drop of blood oozed out.

The vampires stopped rioting. They all got really quiet and started to lick their lips, closing in on Lucy. I started to lick my lips, too, because it’s one of those subconscious, contagious things like sneezing, but then I stopped because it just isn’t worth it if you forgot to bring ChapStick.

The drop trickled down her arm and onto the floor. Three vampires lunged for it at once. Another drop trickled down. Three more vampires dove to the floor. That’s when her hemophilia kicked in. The blood started spurting from her arm like water from a fire hydrant. The vampires held their faces up and opened their mouths to catch the blood, some twirling around and playing in the crimson torrents like kids on a hot summer day.

“Prick her!” Lucy cried, pointing at me. “She’s human too! Prick her!”

A few vampires glanced my way. I smiled and waved at them generously. I was their Il Duce, the face of the revolution.

“Get her!” The vampires cried. Suddenly, I was the most popular girl at the prom. The crowd mobilized over to my chair and hoisted me up on their shoulders. They started
chanting enthusiastically, saying, “Go humans! More human blood! Bring her to the stage! More human blood! Prick her arm! More human blood!”

Despite my newfound popularity, I was still quite surprised when they announced over the loudspeaker, “And tonight’s Prom King and Queen are … Joshua Vampyre and Belle Goose!”

Four vampires set me down on the stage next to Josh before settling back into the audience with a crazed, hungry glint in their eyes.

“I can’t believe I’m Prom Queen!” I whispered excitedly to Josh.

“I know,” he said, wrapping his arm around me. “I can’t believe you’re Prom Queen either. To me, you’ll always be my Prom Minion.”

I frowned. Suddenly, nothing seemed right. Lucy, trying to escape from a dozen hungry vampires; Josh’s domineering yet somehow not romantic attitude towards me; our being crowned prom King and Queen when it obviously should have been given to a different couple—one that had shown more courage—the gay vampire dancing with his boyfriend in the corner. Despite the disapproving glances, they weren’t going to let anyone else define their love.

The entire gymnasium was cheering us on. Lucy was pointing at the air above my head, screaming something. I looked up where she was pointing to gaze at my tiara. I gasped. Angelica’s ominous epileptic message resounded in my brain:
I SEE A ROOM IN CHAPTER TEN. A ROOM
FULL OF VAMPIRES. IN THE CORNER OF THE ROOM IS A METAL FOLDING CHAIR … BEWARE OF THE CROWN
.

I ducked in time to narrowly miss the falling fifty-pound dumbbell with a spiky tiara attached. I jumped off the stage.

“Seize her!” Josh cried oppressively.

I turned to face him. “I’ve had enough of your authoritative commands, Joshua. I’m tired of vampires.”

I ran out of the gymnasium into the clear, cool night air, feeling lost and friendless because, let’s face it—talking to Jim is like talking to a wall. I had no one to turn to—neither vampire nor human.
God, I need a werewolf friend
, I thought as I walked towards the parking lot.

Then, something funny happened. My vision tunneled, and all I could see was a white, pasty light, glowing on the horizon. I stopped at the top of the stairs leading to the parking lot and steadied myself with the railing. The light continued to glow as pale as ever, but now two green lights were added towards the top, and then a goofy, metal-gridded smile.
Edwart
. I was seeing Edwart. All of my anxiety and confusion washed away as I realized what I had to do.

First, though, I would need to get down these stairs without hurting myself. With Edwart shining like a beacon in my mind, I gazed coolly at the fatal obstacle course lying before me on the steps. I had never felt calmer in my life.