Vamps (10 page)

“Did I
not
tell you not to wear your hair braided like that when we have shifting? It's not
my
fault you don't pay attention, Mauvais.”

Melinda sighed in resignation while the other girls in the class formed a semicircle around her.

“You ready?” Coach Knorrig asked, her thumb on the stopwatch's timer button. Melinda nodded. “Go!”

Melinda's eyes rolled back in her head, revealing their whites, as her body began to spasm like a landed fish. There was a wet popping sound as the bones in her body dislocated themselves and began to slide about underneath her skin. The palms of her hands darkened and swelled into pads, and retractable claws sprang from her nail beds. As Melinda threw her head back and opened her mouth as far as it could go, huge
yellow fangs slid from her gums. Her ears grew longer and pointier as they migrated to the top of her head, and the roar of a big cat sprang from her throat.

There was a sound like someone hitting a bag of half-rotten oranges with a baseball bat and her nose and brow ridge abruptly bowed outward, as if something was trying to punch its way out from inside her skull. She pulled her lips back in a snarl as the bridge of her nose elongated and widened itself. Whiskers shot out from her muzzle. At the same time the hair atop her head writhed with a life of its own, sending the beadwork shooting out in every direction. Her hair spread down her spine and across her shoulders like a fast-growing vine until it covered her entire body. Finally, no longer able to stand upright, she dropped onto all fours, a deep, guttural sound halfway between a purr and a growl rumbling in her transformed chest.

“And—time!” Coach Knorrig called as she hit the stop button. “Twenty-eight point five-seven seconds.” She pulled a ballpoint pen out from behind her ear and jotted down something on the clipboard.

What crouched in the center of the semicircle was not exactly a panther but more of an approximation of such a beast. At first glance it looked like a jungle cat, but as Cally looked closer, she could see that the snarling animal not only lacked a tail, it also had thumbs in place of dewclaws.

“Was my time good?” Melinda asked hopefully
when she'd morphed back into her humanoid form.

“Not bad, but you need to do better,” Coach Knorrig replied. “Now pick up the beads.”

“It's going to take me forever to get these things woven back in!” Melinda moaned as she knelt to pick up the scattered pieces of turquoise.

“Cry me a river, Mauvais,” Coach Knorrig growled. “Maybe next time you'll listen to me when I tell you not to do something. Okay, Monture: you're next.”

“Huh? Who? Me?” Cally gazed around, a confused look on her face.

“Yes, you. Go take your place.”

“I-I don't know if I can do this, Coach—”

“Of
course
you can!” The coach scowled. “It's just a matter of wanting it.”

“No, that's not what I meant,” Cally replied, her cheeks turning red. “It's just that at my old school, shifting was a fourth-year subject.”

“Really? That late?” Coach Knorrig frowned. “Where did you go to school?” she asked, flipping through the papers on her clipboard. “Académie Cauchemar in Paris? The Glamis School in Scotland?”

“Varney Hall.”

“What!”
Coach Knorrig nearly dropped her clipboard. “The headmistress didn't say you were a New Blood.” She motioned to Cally, who took a cautious step forward. “Look, kid, this is an intermediary class. All the other girls passed introductory shapeshifting last
year. Until I talk with the headmistress and find out what is going on here, I don't want you working out with the rest of the class. The last thing you need is to end up crippled for life because you can't turn your shank back into a shin or retract your finger bones properly—assuming you're capable of shapeshifting in the first place.”

“Does this mean I'm excused from class?” Cally asked hopefully.

“You wish.” Coach Knorrig snorted. “It means you're running laps. Starting now.”

 

As Cally passed the stalagmite shaped like a melted Statue of Liberty for the twenty-fifth time, a dark figure separated itself from the shadows above her head and swooped down, its black wings spread wide and its fang-filled mouth yawning open.

Seconds before the creature touched down, it shimmered like a desert mirage and Coach Knorrig stood before her, still dressed in her sweats. “That's enough for tonight, Monture. Go hit the showers.”

“That was amazing, Coach.” Cally gasped as she caught her breath. “I didn't even see you change.”

“That's the whole point, kiddo. Everyone starts out slow, but once you learn the ropes, you can pull it off in the blink of an eye. I spoke to Madame Nerezza about your situation. I need to have an idea of what you can
and can't do physically. You're to report down here after school tonight so I can work up a proper assessment of your abilities.”

“Sure, Coach. Thanks.”

“Oh, by the way, Monture—why didn't you correct me when I called you a New Blood?”

“Beg pardon?” Cally asked, uncertain as to what the older woman meant.

“Nerezza says you're here on a legacy grant,” the coach said meaningfully. When Cally didn't respond, Knorrig sighed and shook her head. “That makes you Old Blood, Monture,” she explained.

“Only on one side, ma'am,” Cally said quietly.

“Oh!” the coach exclaimed, her eyes widening slightly. “So you're a half-blood, eh? Well, the Maledetto twins have a New Blood parent, and they're among my better students.”

As she made her way back to the locker room, Cally spotted Lilith Todd walking by herself. Seeing her chance, Cally hurried to catch up.

“Lilith—?”

The blonde turned around, but the moment she saw Cally, her features became hard and her blue eyes flashed pure, undiluted hate. “What do you want, newbie?” she snarled.

“Just to talk, that's all,” Cally replied. “Look, I realize we didn't get off on the best foot the other night. I
got carried away, but I didn't really mean anything by it, honest. And I'm sorry about your friend. I mean that. But there's no point in there being bad blood between us now that we're attending school together. So what do you say?” she asked as she extended an open hand to Lilith. “No hard feelings?”

Lilith glowered as if Cally's hand were full of fresh manure. “I don't know what kind of game you're trying to play with me, bitch—but I'm not falling for it.”

“Game? What game?” Cally asked. Despite her original desire to mend fences, she could feel herself getting mad. “I'm just trying to be nice here….”

“
Nice
is for losers, Monture.” Lilith's face was contorted in disgust. “It beats me how you managed to talk Madame Nerezza into allowing you into Bathory in the first place, but staying around is only going to make things hard on you.
Very
hard.

“You got off easy the other night because you caught me by surprise with that stormgathering trick of yours. I won't let you do that again. If you know what's good for you, you'll leave this school right this minute and stay clear of me for the rest of your miserable, so-called life. Because if I ever run across you again in your lowlife hipster gear—anywhere outside of this lousy school—I swear I'll kill you.”

“Is that a threat, Todd?”

“It's a
prediction
, Monture,” Lilith replied coldly.
“And another thing: stay away from my friends! The next time I catch you so much as
looking
at one of them, I'll rip your eyes out of their sockets and feed them to you.”

S
crivening was Cally's last class of the night. She eyed the double row of antique lift-top desks with builtin inkwells. She knew she'd miss her friends, but she didn't expect to miss Varney's modern feel. Bathory was so retro it was like walking into a time warp, right down to the sputtering gaslight fixtures that were the only light in the winding subterranean halls.

As Cally moved to take a seat at the front of the room, Carmen Duivel stepped around her and quickly sat down at the desk.

“This is
my
seat, newbie.” Carmen smirked. “I always sit here.”

Cally sighed and moved to the next desk over, only to have Melinda Mauvais block her attempt to sit down.

“Sorry,” Melinda said, trying not to look at Cally's
face as she spoke. “This seat's taken.”

Cally had already experienced this childish strategy in both her beast mastery and mesmerism classes. She took a seat in the back of the class and hoped the instructor wouldn't spend the entire period staring at her like she was some kind of repulsive bug.

“Young ladies, please open your desks and remove your scrivening kits,” Madame Geraint announced as she stepped in front of the blackboard. The scrivening instructor was a thin woman with exceptionally well-formed hands. Her fingers moved with an otherworldly grace, like seaweed floating in a gentle current.

Cally opened the top of her desk and found a black lacquer stationery box. Its lid was decorated with a mother-of-pearl inlay depicting the Bathory Academy seal: a capital Gothic script
B
framed by wolfsbane and deadly nightshade. Inside, the box held several sheets of vellum parchment, a flat stone paperweight, and a six-inch scrivener's talon fashioned of ebony.

Madame Geraint used a wooden pointer and tapped a chart showing what looked like a cross between a Chinese ideogram and a line drawing by a drunken Picasso.

“Tonight you will be practicing how to properly write the chthonic word for
blood
. In the true tongue it would be called thusly.” She cleared her throat, then issued a rapid series of ultra-high-frequency clicks and chirps. “Note the accent on the last syllable.
Depending on the context, the word for blood can be used to describe life, food, or family, making it the most important word in our vocabulary. Talons up, ladies! And—commence!”

Cally removed a sheet of vellum from the stationery box, carefully placing the paperweight at the bottom of the page. Luckily, she had taken scrivening at Varney, so she wasn't completely lost. Still, mastering a scrivener's talon was difficult even for an Old Blood, so she had to pay extra attention to what she was doing at all times.

She picked up the talon, using her thumb to hold it correctly against her right index finger, which she then bent to match the curvature of the instrument, and dipped the talon's nib in the glass jar of ink set within the inkwell. Cally carefully tapped off the excess ink before placing the nib onto the parchment.

“No, no, no! This is utter guano! Start again with a fresh sheet!”

The class raised its collective head to see who was being reprimanded. Madame Geraint was standing over Carmen Duivel's desk, shaking her head in disapproval.

“Who cares if it's not perfect?” Carmen retorted, her cheeks red with embarrassment for being singled out. “If I want to write anything, I can just type it on my computer. That way if I make any mistakes, I just hit delete instead of having to start a whole new page. Writing this way is stupid, if you ask me.”

A nervous titter ran through the rest of the class.

“Computers!” Madame Geraint snorted derisively. “Keyboards have ruined your generation's ability to hold a talon properly, much less write legibly. Of course, in the earliest days, there was no need for such things as writing instruments. Our ancestors simply dipped their claw tips in ink and wrote directly onto parchment scrolls.

“While we have embraced such technological advances as the printing press and have even developed software that allows us to communicate with one another via the internet, our most important documents are
still
generated by hand. Let me assure you that the ability to read and write chthonic script is far from ‘stupid.' In all the legal documents, religious writings, and genealogical data generated by our people over the millennia, not one word has ever been penned in a language known to humans.
This
is how we protect ourselves from those who would eradicate us from the face of the earth.

“Skilled scriveners are highly prized by the Synod's law keepers, and scrivening plays a major role in electing the Lord Chancellor and other high officials.”

“Well, that's nothing I have to worry about.” Carmen sniffed. “I have no plans on being a civil servant when I graduate.”

“That may very well be, Miss Duivel,” Madame Geraint said with a sigh. “But seeing as your mother
is the one paying your tuition, it is my job to make sure you do not leave this school a functional illiterate. Now start again.”

Carmen scowled but dared not say anything else as she restarted her copying. Madame Geraint watched over her shoulder for a couple of moments before resuming her silent patrol of the classroom, her strangely elegant hands clasped behind her back.

As the bell signaling the end of the school night sounded, Madame Geraint pointed to the front of the room. “Young ladies, please put away your scrivening kits, sign your work sheets, and leave them for me on my desk.”

Cally quickly replaced her scrivening instruments and gathered up her work sheet. As she approached the line of students waiting to drop off their work, Samara Bleak turned to fix her with a withering glare.

“Back of the line, newbie.”

“But there are other people behind me…” Cally protested.

“You heard her, bitch. She said ‘back of the line,'” Carmen snarled, giving Cally's shoulder a sharp shove.

Cally staggered backward, her thigh striking one of the desks.

“You having any trouble, Carmen?” Melinda asked, glaring at Cally.

“No problem. I'm just teaching this newbie her place, that's all.”

Cally wanted more than anything to punch her in the mouth, but that was exactly what they
wanted
her to do. She clenched her fists so tightly the fingernails drew blood from her palms. As much as she loved the idea of grinding Carmen's evil Kewpie-doll face under her heel, she had to restrain herself.

If it was up to her, she would blow off Coach Knorrig and the stupid assessment and walk out the front door and never come back. But doing that meant completely destabilizing her living arrangements, not to mention Sheila. Despite her weaknesses and failings, Sheila was still her mother and it was up to Cally to protect her as best she could. And if that meant having to eat the oldies' shit, then so be it.

As she placed her work sheet atop the others stacked on the desk, Madame Geraint stepped forward, placing her hand on Cally's own. Although the teacher's fingers looked as fragile as stalks of new grass, they were surprisingly supple and strong.

“May I see that, please?” Madame Geraint asked as she picked up Cally's work sheet. She held the page at arm's length, studying it with an intent look on her face, then glanced down at Cally. “It would seem you possess a dab-hand.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yes, child, it is,” Madame Geraint said, smiling with one side of her mouth. “It means your work shows power and control, as well as a certain refinement. I
could tell you had talent while I was supervising the class but did not consider it wise to call attention to you in front of the others.”

“Thank you, ma'am—I guess.”

“I'm certain you are aware there are instructors who resent your being enrolled at Bathory, Miss Monture. I am not one of them. I find such snobbery grossly hypocritical.” Madame Geraint sniffed. “After all, instructors are invariably the last of usurped bloodlines. It's like the old saying: ‘Those who can become New Bloods; those who can't teach.'”

 

Cally changed into her gym suit and stood waiting for her assessment.

“Learning about the history of our kind and how to scriven is all well and good. But if you don't master the ability to shapeshift and fly, you'll never live to see your centenary,” Coach Knorrig stated as she paced back and forth.

“While shapeshifting is an ability all of us possess, it is not something you just fall out of bed knowing how to do. When you get right down to it, it's all a question of muscle memory. In order to maximize muscle memory, you have to repeat the transformation process over and over again until it becomes automatic. That means practice, practice, and still more practice.

“I'm not gonna to lie to you—shapeshifting
hurts
, especially when you're new to it. Luckily, the more
you do it, the easier it becomes. However, it is highly dangerous to attempt to shapeshift before you know what you're changing into. Depending on your lineage, it could be any number of things.”

She finally got to the point.

“We need to figure out your totem animal first and work from there. Maybe it's a wolf. Or it could be a big cat, like Mauvais. Although it's not very likely, you might even be one of the rare ones who turns into a king cobra or some other kind of snake. We'll just have to see. Okay, Monture, just do what I tell you, okay? First I want you to close your eyes and clear your mind.”

Cally closed her eyes and tried to relax, taking in a deep breath through her nose and drawing it into her belly.

“That's good. Very good. Now I want you to reach down deep, deep inside your mind,” Coach Knorrig said, her voice taking the tone of a mother urging her child into sleep. “Go down into the darkness. Tell me: what do you see?”

Cally was about to tell Coach Knorrig all she saw was a bunch of purplish blots pulsating behind her eyelids when she realized she was looking at a dense cluster of trees and underbrush.

“I-I see a forest,” she stammered.

“Good. Very, very good,” the coach said encouragingly. “What greets you in the forest?”

Cally's brow furrowed as she concentrated harder, trying to bring the forest behind her eyes into sharper detail. As she moved farther into the edge of the woods, a pair of eyes as red as live coals suddenly blinked into existence in the oil-black darkness between the trunks of the gnarled trees. There was a low growling sound and a gray timber wolf stepped out of the shadows, sniffing the air cautiously.

“I see a wolf,” she said excitedly.

“Excellent,” Coach Knorrig said. “That is your totem, the beast of your family line. It is as much a part of your heritage as the color of your eyes and hair. I want you to try to touch it.”

Cally nodded and took a tentative step forward as she raised her right hand. The wolf sniffed her as it moved toward her in a series of cautious half steps, as if uncertain whether to attack or flee.

“Can you see its energy?”

Although she had not noticed it at first, Cally could now see that the timber wolf was bathed in a strange, greenish glow.

“Yes,” she said, nodding.

“Good, good. Place your hand on the wolf and let its energy flow into you.”

Cally reached out and cautiously stroked the wolf's fur, running her hand along its spine. Even though she knew there was nothing in front of her but empty air, she could feel the warmth of its body underneath
her hand and feel its soft fur between her fingers. Petting the creature triggered an unexpected sense of well-being within her, as if she had returned home after a long trip to find a fire crackling in the hearth and her loved ones gathered to greet her.

The greenish fire that surrounded the wolf wrapped itself around her hand, traveling up her arm like a quick-growing vine. But as it reached her shoulder, she was suddenly gripped by searing pain, as if someone was breaking her bones from the inside out.

Coach Knorrig watched intently as Cally dropped to her knees, grimacing in agony as her right arm began to swell and contort into the foreleg of a wolf.

“C'mon, Monture—you're doing great! Don't be afraid. Take the wolf's power and make it your own!”

Fearful that the animal would slip free of her grip, Cally dug her fingers deep into its fur, only to have the beast turn and snap at her with its fearsome jaws. Even though she knew what she was seeing was not real in the physical sense, she instinctively pulled away as the animal lunged at her. The wolf promptly turned and bounded off into the shadows between the trees, taking with it her sense of well-being.

“No! Wait! Don't go!” Cally cried out, reaching out as if to summon the creature back.

 

The smell of ozone filled the air and Coach Knorrig gasped in shock to find her student's outstretched
arm sheathed in dark energy. The ectoplasm was as black as spilled oil and laced with traceries of scarlet that seemed to pulse like veins and arteries. As Coach Knorrig watched in amazement, black ectoplasm began to drip from the schoolgirl's straining fingertips, sizzling as it struck the cold stone floor of the grotto like beads of water on a hot skillet.

“Open your eyes!” Coach Knorrig yelled. “Monture, open your eyes!”

The moment Cally's eyes flew open, the black ectoplasm disappeared, reabsorbed into her body. Her arm dropped limply to her side as she looked around at her surroundings, slightly dazed.

“I'm sorry, Coach,” she said. “The wolf ran away. Do you want me to try again?”

“That's okay, Monture,” Coach Knorrig replied as she scribbled notes on her clipboard. “I think I've seen enough.”