Braced to Bite Read online

  Once I had my willing victim standing obediently in the shadows with his buddy playing lookout, I was at a loss on how to continue. After all, every vampire movie I ever saw represented nightstalkers in a ruthless, cruel way, toying with their prey, and then devouring them with relish.

  In reality, it was a fairly unexciting yet necessary transaction, much like going to the cash machine. I would get sustenance and he would lose a cup of blood, none the wiser. Seemed almost anticlimatic.

  I told him to look to the side and show me his neck. He obeyed instantly. I went on tiptoe, barely able to reach, and giggled. Then I giggled some more. My giggling turned into full-fledged hysterical laughter. It must have been the most ridiculous sight to any passerby. A tiny blonde vampire with headgear standing on tiptoes to reach her linebacker prey who was docilely baring his neck to be dinner.

  When I finally got hold of myself, I couldn’t help noticing the heat radiating from his neck and put my mouth to the pulsing vein. I tentatively bit. My victim stiffened, but did not struggle. The first flow of warm blood flooded my mouth and I opened my throat to drink. It was the sweetest nectar I ever tasted and instantly, I felt alive again. Well, not truly alive but the closest to it since I became Undead. I wish I could have drunk forever but I felt full very quickly so I licked his neck and the wound instantly sealed.

  “Uh, shank you,” I said very formally, my meal still standing, looking much like a deer in headlights.

  I directed my speech to both of them. “You and your buddy need to go shtraight home. You won’t remember any of thish but you will be polite to all ladiesh you meet in the park and let them pash. Got it?”

  They both nodded dumbly, still staring with unfocused eyes.

  I wasn’t sure how to continue so I gave a sort of royal wave with my hand and said, “Be gone.”

  When I was alone or at least thought I was alone the scent of chocolate chip cookies lingered faintly in the fall evening air.

  I removed my headgear, wiping it on my jeans to try and remove any traces of leftover blood. I hated the lisp thing. All words with “s” and “v” came out totally lame. Dropping the gear in its box, I methodically placed it back in my bag. Thomas stood next to me. I chose to ignore him and he chose to let me.

  I was so conflicted and confused, and felt terribly vulnerable. So this was it. The rest of my life I would be slinking around dark alleys and deserted parks looking for would-be hooligans or confirmed felons to feed upon so I could survive. I fought down a sob, hiccupping instead. I was the most pathetic vampire—no, scratch that, half-blood vampire to ever stalk a skate park.

  Thomas gently put his arm around me and I sort of melted against him. He turned to hold me, stroking my hair and crooning an old Irish lullabye while I clung to him, sobbing dry tears.

  “I hate this! I miss cheeseburgers and milkshakes. I mean, I never ate them because I have to be the top of the pyramid, but if I would have known the last piece of cheesecake I ever had was truly the last piece of cheesecake I would have eaten more than one crummy bite!”

  Thomas mumbled something into my hair.

  “What?”

  “I miss Mallomars.”

  I hiccupped and giggled at the same time. We held each other another moment. Then I said, “You know, I used to suggest going for ice cream after the game and I’d watch everyone else order and when it was my turn I wouldn’t indulge. I would just buy bottled water. That way I could watch everyone else eat their ice cream and I’d think to myself I was so much more disciplined than they were.

  “What a twit I was. Now what I wouldn’t give to go back and order the biggest brownie nut sundae and inhale the whole thing.”

  “Eating isn’t the only thing that is different now, Colby. I don’t want to upset you further, but being immortal is … difficult. You will outlive your parents, friends, loved ones, etcetera. Not everyone adjusts.”

  “It doesn’t have to be so hard. I mean, I’ve met you and surely I’ll meet others I get along with. Then it won’t be so lonely, right?” I pleaded.

  “Colby, there are no other half-bloods. You are alone. I don’t want to frighten you, but you must be told. I’m not sure if you heard the murmurs in the tavern, but vampires do not acknowledge or socialize with half-bloods. In their eyes, you should all be destroyed. They won’t allow you to intermix with them.”

  “They let me intermix today,” I pointed out.

  “That was because you were with an Investigator. The laws as they know it dictate that an Investigator will eliminate half-bloods.”

  “Well, I don’t get it. Why would an Investigator take a half-blood he plans to whack into a tavern?”

  “Some Investigators have been known to, uh, toy with half-bloods before eliminating them. It is a practice that is not encouraged, but neither is it condemned.”

  I wasn’t sure what perimeters “toy with” covered, but it sounded bad. Very bad.

  “Thomas, are you toying with me?”

  “Certainly not! That’s an abominable practice left over from the days of savagery,” Thomas replied in disgust.

  Well, I guess that answered that.

  “So, I would be stuck within the human world. That doesn’t sound so bad. I mean, I can do that.”

  “For how long, Colby? Your parents and family will pass on. You will be alone. You will need certain things only the vampire world can give you but you won’t be able to get those things easily, since other vampires won’t allow half-bloods to buy their goods or services.”

  I shivered in his arms. “Why are you telling me all this? You make the future sound bleak and miserable.”

  “We don’t even know if you have a future yet, Colby, but forewarned is forearmed.”

  I looked up into his eyes and asked, “Would you still be around for me? That is, if I’m allowed to … ?”

  Thomas didn’t answer but squeezed me in response. He would stand by me. Right now, in the middle of the night, in Thomas’s arms, an eternity of smelling chocolate chip cookies didn’t seem like such a rough deal, even if other vampires were dissing me.

  “It will be dawn soon. Let me get you home.”

  We walked back toward his car, his arm slung over my shoulder and mine wrapped around his waist. It would have been a perfect night if it wasn’t for the fact that he was a bloodsucking vampire and I was a mutant half-blood who wasn’t allowed to exist. But hey, all couples faced some bumps on their way to true love, right?

  Waking the dead is not easy, or so my mom told me. When 10 A.M. Tuesday morning arrived, I had about four hours of sleep under my belt. Mom tried to rouse me but I don’t remember that. She was in a mood when I finally came around. Apparently, I was surly at best, but what did she expect? Four hours of sleep was tough for the living; imagine what it was like for me.

  I tried to dress for the mall in something bright and cheerful, but my mood had me searching for something dark and soothing. I settled on a soft gray sweater and jeans. I even added a bright pink tank top under the sweater to perk myself up a bit, but it really wasn’t helping. I was tired and grumpy and misery loves company.

  After a lot of eye rolling, deep sighing and backtalk, Mom reached her limit.

  “Listen, young lady, being Undead is not an excuse for being so negative. I am not spending my day with such an unpleasant person. Shape up or go alone.”

  I mumbled an apology and shuffled my feet with a little less attitude. I didn’t want to shop alone. Besides, Mom had all the money.

  We arrived at the mall and went straight to the optical center. I was wearing pink-tinted sunglasses decorated with rhinestones on the rim. I didn’t want to take them off and show the clerk my eye color so my mom did all the talking.

  “We have her prescription on file and need to pick up a pair of opaque blue contacts.”

  “Certainly, I’ll just get the prescription,” the saleswoman said. “Please have a seat over there, where you can try them on to see if they fit comfortably.”

&n
bsp; “Since Colby’s had them fit before, we just need the new color.” Mom leaned closer to the aging saleswoman and added in a whisper, “We’re in kind of a hurry. It’s that time of the month for her.”

  I rolled my eyes behind the sunglasses and deliberately turned my back to them. Mom was getting me out of explaining my yellow eyes but still, embarrassing me was hardly my preferred plan of attack.

  “Of course.” The lady nodded in sympathy, leaving to find my new contacts. She returned with several boxes and asked me which blue I preferred. I picked the one closest to my original eye color, a blue-gray, much to the surprise of my mother. When I had gray eyes, I wanted nothing more than to make them look blue; but now that I had yellow eyes, I wanted nothing more than to look like my original self. Weird, huh?

  After our contacts purchase, we hit the cosmetics counter.

  I was checking out new colors when the M.A.C. gal, decked out in all black, suggested a sunscreen so I could avoid another sunburn. I stared at her like she was crazy, but Mom gasped when she looked at me under the bright lights of the store. She handed me a mirror. Sure enough, I looked like I had basked on the beaches of Mexico all day. It was sunny outside, but if this was the result of a walk through the parking lot and fluorescent indoor lighting, I had to rethink my desire to be out during the day.

  We picked up the highest SPF available from another line and I stocked up on new M.A.C. loose powder and concealer. I even picked up a softer pink blush and lip gloss. I think Mom’s generosity was firmly rooted in pity for my fried skin.

  As we window-shopped, I made a mental battle plan to secure my date for Homecoming. I thought of my upcoming Tribunal appointment and briefly wondered if it would be fair to snare Aidan as a date if I couldn’t manage to secure a license. It might be pretty traumatic for him to learn his Homecoming date was dead when he arrived to pick me up, corsage in hand.

  Shaking off the feelings of uncertainty, I chanted a positive affirmation instead: I was going to get a license and get Aidan as a Homecoming date. Period. End of story.

  We left the mall and I could barely keep my eyes open in the car. It was obviously going to be very hard to stay awake during the day. I was beginning to get nervous about going to school again.

  Piper showed up at our door right when we arrived home, so I figured she’d been looking out her window, waiting for our return.

  I opened the door to her knocking and nodded a greeting. She was lugging a heavy backpack and dropped it unceremoniously on the floor just inside the door.

  “Dude, what is up with all the AP classes? Do you always have this much homework?”

  She pulled out a paper with my class assignments. I briefly scanned the page and nodded in approval.

  “Yep, this is pretty standard.” I picked up the bag and was surprised it felt so heavy. Didn’t I have superhuman strength now that I was a vampire?

  “This is heavy,” I said in surprise.

  “Yeah, I know. Try lugging it home from school.”

  “No, I mean this is heavy for me. And it shouldn’t be. Remember? Last night I was shoving couches through walls, now a book bag is heavy?”

  Piper’s eyes widened in understanding.

  “Oh yeah, that is weird. Maybe you’re only strong at night. You know, during prime sucking time?”

  I let the sucking comment pass but acknowledged she had a point. Maybe because of my half-blood status, I wasn’t always superhuman. Maybe I was only a vampire at night. Sort of like a superhero with a secret identity. I liked the idea of being a mild-mannered cheerleader during the day and a superstrong badass vampire at night.

  “I am so tired.” I groaned as I half-carried, half-dragged the book bag into the formal living room.

  “You can’t go to sleep now, or you’ll never be able to get up tomorrow. You have to acclimate yourself to being up during the day and sleeping at night.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. So, how was school today?” Or more importantly, what’s everyone saying about me? I thought.

  “Well, everyone was talking about you, of course.” She sat down on the bottom stair of the staircase.

  “Yeah, did Aidan say anything?”

  She looked at me in surprise. “How would I know? It’s not like he and I eat lunch together or anything.”

  She had a good point. Piper and I didn’t hang with the same crowd, so she could hardly know what Aidan thought of my disappearance.

  “Sorry. Guess I wasn’t thinking.”

  She continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “Well, all your teachers were very worried about you and Mrs. Gillman wanted me to double-check if you were still going to make it to your university appointment.”

  Mrs. Gillman, our school counselor, had secured an interview with one of the board members of Puget Sound University to see which of three applicants would be getting the full-ride scholarship offered this year. I was up against Tim Jones and Pam Lauer. I wasn’t too worried about Tim because he didn’t have many extracurricular activities, but Pam and I were pretty evenly matched. I wondered briefly if I could use my half-blood status as an affirmative action bonus to get the edge over her.

  I shook the thought away and said, “Hey, I got new contacts and makeup. Want to see?”

  I went up the stairs to my room, not waiting for an answer. After a short moment, I heard her follow.

  I sat down at my vanity and popped the lenses in with practiced ease. I made a little grimace in the mirror. They looked completely fake to me, but much better than the sunglasses alternative.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  She stood behind me, looking into the mirror.

  “They look okay. Not completely normal, but the best you’re going to get, I guess. Hey, wait a minute. I can see your reflection!”

  “Well, duh, why wouldn’t you?”

  “I was doing some research about vampires on the Web and it said you couldn’t see a vampire’s reflection.”

  Ah, the wise words of Demonic Angel were coming back to bite me in the butt, yet again.

  “Listen, not everything you read about vampires on the Web is true.”

  “Well of course not, but that fact is also in all the movies. So why wouldn’t it be true?”

  She made a good point. After all, I thought everything I saw in movies about vampires was true too until I actually became one.

  “How come you have a sunburn? Was it that sunny outside today?”

  “Oh sure, you believe the reflection thing but don’t bat an eyelid about vampires going out during the day. I received this while walking from our car to the mall and maybe the fluorescent lights inside too.”

  She whistled low. “You’re gonna need a pretty strong SPF. What did you get?”

  “I picked up a 45 for my face and body. I hope it doesn’t clog my pores.”

  “Look, I have a prescription SPF 60 from my dermatologist. I’ll bring that over. It won’t clog your pores. Just use the 45 on your body, but maybe you should wear a lot of layers of clothes that cover more skin.”

  She looked pointedly at my sweater, which had long since slipped off my shoulder to reveal the tank-top strap and a lot of clavicle.

  “Fine, I’ll cover up more. Thanks for the sunscreen. I’m so glad I have bronzing powder to give me a little color. I hate the pale look.” I glanced at Piper, her alabaster skin looking even paler against her jet-black-with-burgundy-undertones hair. “No offense.”

  She just snorted at me and started pacing around the room like a caged animal. After a couple of minutes playing with my new makeup and watching her pick up, examine and replace half of my things I exploded. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m bored, okay? Watching you put on makeup is not my idea of a good time,” Piper said.

  I was surprised. Rachel, Marci and I could put on makeup and chat about fashion for hours without getting bored.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, just not this. Have you eate
n today?” she asked out of the blue.

  “No, I fed last night. Why do you … Hey! I get it now. I’m not a token freak show that’s going to entertain you with my dark vampire feats, ya know. Is that why you’re here? Because now that I’m a nightstalker I’m interesting enough to hang with but when I was just a cheerleader you didn’t want to be friends anymore?”

  Wow. Where did that come from?

  “No, that’s not why I asked! I just, just …” She stumbled over what she wanted to say. “I just didn’t want to be your next meal, okay?”

  I blinked at her in surprise. Was Piper afraid of me?

  “And I never stopped being friends with you because you became a cheerleader. You stopped being friends with me.” Her tone resonated with hurt and resentment. Was I really the one who severed our friendship when I became a cheerleader?

  “I’m not going to feed on you, Piper. Not today, not ever. I promise.” As for the other issue, I just didn’t know where to start.

  “It used to be so much easier, when we were little,” she said softly.

  I thought back to all the times we played games, watched hours of television and entertained ourselves with make-believe. Once we hit middle school, we drifted apart. We didn’t hang out during school and stopped running over to each other’s house after hours.

  “Yeah, I know. But I gotta say, Piper, I’m glad you’re here with me now. I mean, I don’t know what I would do without someone to talk to about this whole thing.”

  And I meant it. I don’t think Marci and Rachel would ever begin to understand what had happened to me, but Piper seemed to accept me. Even if she was a little freaked out.

  “I’m sorry I said I was afraid you were going to feed on me. I know you wouldn’t really do that. I guess there’s so much about being a vampire I don’t know or understand that I was starting to freak out. I mean, here you are acting like you always do, playing with your makeup and hair, but you aren’t supposed to be you anymore. You’re a vampire. It’s just weird you don’t act anything like a vampire is supposed to act like, you know?”

  “Yeah, tell me about it. Shouldn’t I want to wear black and stalk innocent victims and sleep in a coffin and stuff?”