Vamps (13 page)

C
ally exited the locker room and hurried to Coach Knorrig's office, only to find the door locked. She went back out into the grotto and looked around the stony landscape, hoping to catch sight of the coach. From where she stood, the floor of the grotto resembled a forest full of petrified trees.

“Hello? Coach?”

Cally cocked her head, hoping to catch a response, but all she heard was her own voice echoing through the cavern. As she turned toward Ruthven's side of the grotto, she saw somebody moving between the rock formations.

“Coach! Wait up!” she shouted. Cally hurried toward the figure threading its way through the ground-level labyrinth.

Suddenly a dark figure stepped out from behind a
large rock directly into her path. Cally gave a tiny cry of surprise and fell backward, landing on her butt.

“Owww!”

“I'm
dreadfully
sorry! Please, allow me to help you up,” the shadowy figure said with a slight, masculine lisp. He extended a hand with fingers nearly twice as long as normal. Cally looked up past the stranger's hand and saw a very tall, gaunt young man dressed in the charcoal slacks, burgundy blazer, and red-and-black tie of a Ruthven's student. The youth's dirty-blond hair was combed back away from his high broad forehead in a pronounced widow's peak, which not only accented his arched eyebrows and pointed ears, but his aquiline nose, large deep-set eyes, and wide, sensual mouth as well. Despite his outré appearance, he exuded a gentility Cally was unaccustomed to in boys her own age.

“I'm sorry if I scared you. I tend to do that.” Smiling apologetically, he helped her off the ground.

“I wouldn't say that you scared me—startled is more like it.” Cally chuckled as she brushed herself off.

“Yeah, I kinda do that too.” He sighed.

“I'm trying to find Coach Knorrig,” Cally explained.

“Oh! When I heard someone calling for Coach, I thought they might be trying to find Coach Munn. I'm his student assistant.”

“No, I'm looking for Coach Knorrig. Do you know where she is?” Cally asked hopefully.

“She left to run an errand. Last I saw her, she was
headed down the emergency exit,” he said, motioning toward the eastern end of the grotto.

“Emergency exit?” Cally frowned.

“The schools came up with the idea for it after the Great Fire. It's a secret tunnel that goes under the East River and comes up at Mill Rock Island, out in the East River's Hell Gate.”

“What about this Coach Munn you mentioned—is he still around?” Cally asked hopefully.

“Afraid not,” he replied.

“Great!” Cally muttered, rolling her eyes in consternation.

“Perhaps I can be of some help? I
am
a teaching assistant, after all.”

“Well, there's this girl in my class…turns out she's, uh, kind of stuck.”

“Stuck?” he echoed, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

“Yeah—between shapes.”

“I
see.
”

“That's the thing, though. She doesn't
want
anyone to see. I was barely able to talk her into letting me go fetch Coach Knorrig.”

“Still, I think I can help her out.”

“Could you? That would be great!”

“Where is she?”

“She's hiding in the locker room. Come on, I'll show you!”

The smile on his face suddenly disappeared. “The
locker room? You mean the
girls'
locker room?”

“Yeah, where else?”

“It's just that I could get—you know—if anyone saw me go in there…” he stammered.

“She's the only one in the locker room. No one else is there. And you said both Coach Knorrig and Coach Munn are gone, so who's left to see you go in?”

“Okay, you've persuaded me,” he said with a grin.

“Thanks. My name's Cally, by the way.”

“My name's Xander,” he replied. “It's my pleasure. And my friends call me Exo.”

 

“Hello? Bette?”

“Who's that?!” Bette squeaked anxiously from her hiding place in the toilet stall.

“Relax, it's just me,” Cally replied “Are you decent?”

“Decent?!?
I look like a bat from the neck up!”

“The reason I'm asking is because I've got a guy with me.”

“A
guy
?!?” Bette's voice momentarily disappeared into the ultrasonic register. “I thought you were going to get Coach Knorrig!”

“The coach went out to lunch, I guess. But I found someone who says he might be able to help you,” Cally explained.

“Forget it! If I don't want the other girls to see me
like this, I sure don't want a
man
looking at me!”

“Let me talk to her,” Xander whispered to Cally. He stepped up to the locked toilet stall, leaning against it so that his mouth was as close to the door as possible. “Hello—Bette, is it? I know you're upset right now and embarrassed,” he said, talking in a calm voice as if he was trying to pacify a skittish animal. “But it's nothing to be ashamed of. Getting stuck every now and then is perfectly natural. Believe me, you have nothing to be worried about. You can show yourself to me.”

“You
promise
you won't laugh?” Bette asked.

“I promise,” he replied solemnly.

“Or scream?”

“Believe me when I tell you it doesn't make
any
difference to me
what
you look like,” Xander said with a small laugh.

“I don't know about that,” Bette said doubtfully. “I look
really
hideous.”

“Would it make you feel any better if I told you I'm an Orlock?”

There was the sound of a bolt being thrown back and the toilet stall door opened just enough for Xander to see a tiny, blood-red eye surrounded by dark gray fur staring back at him.

“The count's son?”

“One of them, anyway,” he replied.

“Well, I guess it's okay, then.” Bette opened the door
the rest of the way and stepped outside so he could get a better look.

Xander studied her for a long moment, his arms folded so that his left hand cupped his right elbow while he tapped the side of his nose with an overlong index finger.

“Is it bad?” Bette squeaked fearfully, clutching her red ribbons to her chest.

“No, not at all. You just need a little push in the right direction so you can finish the transformation, that's all. There's something called a reversal potion that will solve your problem. Unfortunately, Coach Munn keeps his supply under lock and key. However, I've been studying the formula in my potions class, and I think I can safely replicate it.”

“That's great!” Cally said excitedly. “See, Bette? I told you everything would be all right! All Exo has to do is go whip up a batch of reversal potion and bring it back here so you can drink it!”

“Yeahhhh. About that,” Xander said uneasily as he rubbed the back of his neck. “The reversal potion actually has a very short half-life and requires a special binding agent in order for it to be bottled and transported. The problem is that the only person who has access to the binding agent is Professor Frid. By the time I make the potion, put it in a vial, and bring it back from the lab at my school, it will be useless. In order for it to work, it must be consumed within a
minute or two of being concocted.”

“So that means—?”

“We have to smuggle her into Ruthven's.”

“What—?”
Bette's voice made both Cally and Xander wince. “Are you
crazy
? Bathory students caught on the Ruthven campus without a chaperone are automatically expelled! The same goes for Ruthven students coming onto Bathory property! As a matter of fact, if someone walked in on us right now, we'd
all
be tossed out!”

“Would you rather I go and report your condition to Madame Nerezza?” Cally asked.

“No,” Bette admitted.

“Then Xander has to smuggle you into the boys' school—and out again.”

Bette's mutated upper lip began to quiver and tears welled in her beady red eyes. “I'm
scared
, Cally! I'm not used to doing stuff without Bella.”

“If it'll make you feel better, I'll go with you.”

“You will? Oh, thank you, Cally!” Bette squeaked, throwing her arms around the other girl's neck. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! But aren't you afraid of getting into trouble?”

“The way things are going, I seriously doubt I'm going to be attending Bathory Academy much longer anyway.” Cally shrugged. “The way I look at it, what do I have to lose?”

 

“Wow, so this is what it's like in the boys' school,” Bette whispered in awe as they hurried along the corridor that connected the grotto to Ruthven's School for Boys. Where the corridor leading to the grotto on Bathory Academy's side had been fashioned of natural rock and boasted a barrel-vaulted ceiling, Ruthven's resembled the enclosed walkway of a Gothic monastery.

“We've got to hurry. The grotto and laboratory are normally deserted during mealtime, but there's still a chance we'll be spotted,” Xander explained. He pushed the call button for the elevator. “I could try and cast an obscuration spell around the two of you, but that's only of use against being seen by clots.”

“What about the elevator operator?” Cally asked. “Aren't you worried about him seeing us?”

“What operator?” Xander asked with a puzzled frown as the doors pinged open, revealing a modern push-button elevator.

 

Like Bathory, the classrooms for Ruthven's School for Boys were situated underground on three subterranean levels, the third of which was the grotto, which it shared with its sister school. The Gothic architectural look was continued on the second level with an impressive ribbed vault ceiling and pointed arch doorways.

“Here we are,” Xander whispered over his shoulder as he opened the door to the potions lab. “Luckily, our master chymist, Professor Frid, is a man of very
rigid habits. We have a good fifteen minutes before he returns from lunch.”

The floor at the center of the room was covered with strange symbols and half-melted candles, and the walls were lined with stone tables. Xander hurried over to a table in the far corner covered in a jumble of vials, flasks, and tools, including a macabre mortar and pestle fashioned from a human skull and arm bone. He shrugged out of his school blazer and slipped on a stained leather apron. Quickly measuring out liquids and powders from various containers, he poured them into a glass beaker suspended over a small gas flame burner, which he then lit.

“Are you absolutely sure this is going to work?” Bette asked anxiously as she watched him mix black hellebore and powdered mandrake into the madly bubbling mix.

“I'm positive!” he said, giving her a reassuring wink. “We Orlocks have a knack for such things, you know.”

Suddenly the lab door opened and slammed shut.

“Someone's here!” Xander whispered, a look of dread on his face. “Quick! Hide!”

Cally nodded her understanding and grabbed Bette by the hand, dragging her along behind her as she ducked under a nearby table.

“Hey—Exo! Is that you?”

Xander turned to see his cousin Jules ambling toward him, a surprised look on his handsome face.

“Yeah, it's me,” Xander replied, nervously rubbing his palms against his lab apron.

“What are you doing here?” Jules asked.

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“I forgot my formula workbook,” Jules explained, holding up a battered leather volume bound with metal clasps. “My dad's still holding that trip to Vail over my head if I don't get my grades up. Why are
you
here?”

“Just putting in a little extra-credit work, that's all.”

“You're such a spod, Orlock.” Jules chuckled.

“Well, it's not like I can get by on my good looks, like some people I know,” Xander said with a crooked smile.

“So…you wanna come hang after school? Sergei's having a bunch of the guys over. His parents are out in the Hamptons.”

“I don't think so,” Xander said. “That's not really my scene. Like you said, I'm a spod. Besides, I get the feeling Lilith's uncomfortable with me hanging around.”

“I haven't told Lilith about the party yet,” Jules said, looking down at his shoes.

“Are you going to?”

“I dunno. Maybe.” He shrugged. “It's just that she's been acting so strange lately, you know? Ever since Tanith got, you know, she's done nothing but obsess about that girl at her school, the New Blood.”

“Lilith and Tanith were friends, Jules,” Xander said pointedly. “She probably misses her. Maybe fixating
on the New Blood takes her mind off it.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jules admitted halfheartedly. “I just wish she'd be more like her old self again.”

“If that's the case, why don't you try and do something to get her mind off Tanith?” Xander suggested. “Something romantic.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Jules said as he rubbed his chin. “For someone who's never been on a date, you sure seem to understand women.”

“My mom has all these subscriptions to
Cosmo
and stuff like that,” Xander said with a laugh. “I read them when my dad's not looking.”

“I better be going,” Jules said. “Thanks for the suggestion, Cuz! I think it might actually work!”

“Later,” Xander called out as his cousin exited the room.

“Who was
that
?” Cally whispered as she climbed out from under the lab table.

“My cousin Jules.”

“Your
cousin
?” Cally exclaimed, unable to hide her surprise.

“Couldn't you tell from the family resemblance?” Xander said dryly.