Team Human (22 page)

CHAPTER FORTY

Team Human

S
chool on Monday was weird. Anna wasn't there, obviously. But news of what had happened had somehow spread. It hadn't come from me or Cathy. Yet everyone seemed to know. I didn't answer any of their questions. I really didn't want to talk about it.

Kaplan was acting principal in Principal Saunders's absence. Who knew when or if she'd be coming back? He called Cathy and me into his office first thing to see if we were okay and to assure us that we could take a few days off if we needed to. We both said we were all right.

I wasn't sure if that was true. We were both quieter than usual. I couldn't stop thinking about Anna and her zombie dad, and Cathy determined to become a vampire, and what a horrible mess everything was. I was relieved Francis wasn't at school. I didn't think I could stand to see him on the day after I had finally accepted I was losing my best friend.

I was already calculating how long Cathy had left before she stopped being Cathy and became … whatever it was she wound up being. At best it would be Vampire Cathy. I could not imagine being BFFs with Vampire Cathy. Though I would try, because I had promised. Because she was Cathy, and I couldn't stand the thought of losing her.

All day I was on the verge of tears. I am not much of a crier, but there they were, like pins behind my eyes.

I found myself thinking several times during the day that maybe I should have stayed home. My concentration was not fabulous. But none of my teachers said anything about it. I guess Kaplan had spoken to them.

Even Ty could see that Cathy and I were not our usual selves. He gave us very fast hugs, mumbled that he was sorry and did we think Anna would like him to visit? Sure, we said. Though neither of us had any idea what Anna wanted right then. Other than to have her father back and to never have anything to do with vampires again.

During study period, unable to concentrate on a single chapter of anything, I checked my phone. There was a text from Kit.

 

Can you come over this evening? Having meeting with my shade. Need you.

 

I texted back
Yes
even though I'd been thinking about whether I should stop seeing Kit. The thought of his transition was too painful. I was really going to miss him.

But I owed him an explanation. Might as well get that over and done with. Besides which, maybe he would make me laugh?

He was really good at that. And I could really use a laugh.

I let Coach know I would skip fencing practice. She was very understanding. Everyone was. I'd actually been looking forward to practice: I was very much in the mood to stab people. Sadly, when I was in that mood, I fenced horribly, all technique out the window. Wild stabbing is typically not good saber technique.

Camille opened the door before I'd even knocked. I'd have to get used to superexcellent vampire hearing.

I couldn't help thinking that once Cathy transitioned, I'd never be able to surprise her again.

“Come in, my dear,” Camille said in her austere way, shutting the door behind me.

The endearment surprised me. I wondered if she felt sorry for me after what had happened.

I walked into a room full of vampires. It would be a lie if I didn't mention that my first instinct was to run a million miles away.

Turns out their teeth really do gleam, and when you see that many of them together, that gleam is very bright indeed. And terrifying.

Marie-Therese waved in an airy I-am-queen kind of way. I tried not to think about what Kit had said about her voting to eat him and waved back. Minty was contemplating her remarkably long nails and remarking that she was missing out on her bridge party for this.

Francis nodded at me gravely, an action I mirrored back at him, though possibly my nod was even graver than his. Albert was looking at Kit, who was sitting by himself, facing the rest of his shade. I smiled at him, and Kit returned the smile, even if his smile was shaky.

And who could blame him, when his family meetings looked like this? I'd be intimidated too.

The treacherous pinpricks returned behind my eyes. I was going to miss him.

I shuffled into the chair Camille indicated next to her.

I wondered what Kit could possibly have to tell them, and why he had wanted me here.

“Right,” Kit said, clearing his throat. “You're all here. So, um, I have something I want to say to all of you.”

“We rather gathered that,” Francis said dryly.

I was sorry I was sitting out of kicking range of Francis, but Kit lifted his chin at the words.

“Right then, thank you, Francis.” He swallowed. “I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and obviously, you're the ones it most concerns. You're my shade. So I—I have to let you know. I had to tell you, as soon as I was sure.”

They were all watching him, with those clear, unblinking eyes, a ring of natural predators.

Kit looked scared out of his mind.

“I'm not going to transition,” he said.

There was an immediate stir, a hissing and several voices raised in exclamation. Kit was breathing hard, his eyes wide and showing a lot of white, but he managed to get enough breath to speak over the noise.

“Not immediately,” he said. “I'm not saying I won't ever transition, but I am saying—that I want to wait and see. I'm not saying that I definitely will transition, either. I've been realizing lately,” he said, glancing at me and then away, “that there's a lot I don't know about being human. As in pretty much everything. There are so many human things I've never done. Never thought about, even. I don't think I can become a vampire unless I've lived as a human first. I need to know what I'm giving up before I take the risk of dying or worse. Before I do something I can't take back.”

He didn't look at me again, but I knew we were both thinking of Dr. Saunders.

“Old age,” Minty said in a crisp, cold voice. “Becoming a vampire means giving up old age. I for one was not sad to miss that little part of human experience. Skin losing its elasticity, sagging toward the ground, teeth falling out—”

“Pain,” Albert agreed in a sonorous voice. “Searing, agonizing pain. When you get hit by a bus, young man, you will not be able to merely push the bus aside and continue on your way, you will
suffer
.”

I barely heard the litany of objections. I was staring at Kit. He was shaking as he listened to them.

Albert stood up. “Of course, vampires can suffer too,” he said, eyeing Kit coldly. “We can suffer disappointment.”

Kit flinched back as if Albert had hit him.

Albert left the room, Minty beside him, murmuring something about ingratitude.

I sneaked a look at Camille. She was sitting very stiffly in her chair. Her profile looked like something carved out of ice.

I wondered if she was disappointed in Kit too.

I'd been wrong again. Kit hadn't been looking at them as a ring of predators, but still and always as his family, having something huge and life-altering to tell them, hoping it wouldn't change how they felt about him.

“You seemed perfectly happy to become a vampire before,” Marie-Therese murmured. “As we always planned.”

“I know,” Kit said. “I wanted you all to be glad you took me in. I wanted to be like you. I did. I still do. But I don't know how to be sure about it anymore. I couldn't do it now. I'd always wonder.”

“What you missed?” Marie-Therese asked, with an arch look at me.

I glared at her.

“Laughter,” Francis said. I turned to look at him. “He would miss laughter. I think we all know that. You laugh all the time, Kit. You are very human,” Francis said with a minuscule smile. “It is nothing to be ashamed of.”

I almost fell off my chair.
Francis
was encouraging Kit to stay human? I swear, if he had been sitting closer I would have hugged him.

“Thank you,” Kit said after a moment. “Thank you all, actually. You did take me in. I'll always be grateful. I'm sorry if you're disappointed in me, but you'll always be my shade, and I love you. And I have something more to say. Maybe one day I will change, but right now,” he said, glancing at me again, “I really want to give this being human thing a shot. I want the full human experience. So I've enrolled at Craunston High. I'll be a junior.”

Francis stiffened, clearly outraged by this slight against Kit's obviously superior homeschooling. A few other vampires looked indignant as well, reminding me of parents looking at unfair report cards.

Kit's mouth twisted, wry and hopeful.

“They said we were too far into the year for me to start as a senior. Even though they were impressed by my test results on account of my
excellent
tutoring. Apparently the extra year gives me a better shot at getting into a good college. I've missed a lot of extracurricular things, you see. Though I hear my waltzing will be great for college applications.” He smiled properly, and Francis managed to smile back.

The mention of waltzing seemed to signal the end of the meeting. A couple of other vampires left, shutting doors emphatically, giving Kit looks that made his shoulders hunch. A couple more stepped up to him and whispered to him seriously, like he'd decided to pass up Yale and go backpacking around the Amazon, all “think about your future, young man,” and that wasn't so bad. That was how family behaved.

Camille kept her seat until she was the only vampire left in the room. Then and only then did she rise and glide over to Kit, graceful as a swan. She put her hands on both his shoulders.

I crossed my fingers and wished as hard as I could for her to understand.

“You have made me very happy today,” said Camille in her cool, emotionless voice. She stood looking up into her son's face. “But there is nothing new in that, is there? No matter what you decide, no matter how long you live or I do, you will remain the great joy of my life.”

I realized she had known what Kit was going to say all along. Of course she had. She was his mom.

And me? What was I?

I was beaming. I could have danced the whole way home. Instead I walked hand in hand with Kit.

“I'm so glad,” I told him again.

“I didn't do it for you,” he said. “I mean,” he added hastily, “you were a big part of my decision. You showed me what I'd been missing. That there was more to humanity than what I'd seen through the eyes of my shade. Camille and Francis kept telling me that, but it took meeting you, and hearing you laugh, to make me see. Thank you.”

He squeezed my hand as he said it, and I stopped and turned to face him. It was not long after dusk, so the streets of the Shade were mostly empty.

“I'm glad,” I said, looking up at his eyes and wishing once again that I was as tall as my sister or even my little brother. I went up onto my tiptoes, he leaned down, and we kissed.

Kit's breath on my face was warm, so were his lips, and his arms holding me tight. I could feel the heat of his body pressed to mine, smell the oh-so-human smell of him, feel both our hearts beating faster, the blood racing through our veins.

I pulled away briefly. “Welcome to Team Human,” I said.

Kit laughed. It was a glorious sound.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Crossing the Bridge

I
had passed by the New Whitby Center for Transition a hundred times without ever thinking much about it. It was like any other government building, big and irrelevant and the subject of grown-up discussions.

I vaguely remembered Mom and Dad talking about it when it was built, a few years back. Saying that it was an awful lot of money to spend when not so many people transition these days, and how the New Whitby council always listened too much to Geoffrey Travers, just because he'd been on the council for a hundred twenty-five years.

Then Mom made a joke about how no other vampire would accept the position, and Dad said that he thought Travers had been wearing the same waistcoat for at least a hundred of those years. The conversation had moved on to other things.

The new building, a Rubik's cube of steel framework and smoked glass, had risen on the south bank of the Bathory River.

Cathy would have preferred to become a vampire in the arms of Francis's shade, in their beautiful old house. (She wouldn't have wanted to transition in Kit's room, which had a drum kit and posters taped to every available surface, including the mirror, and was the opposite of beautiful.) She would have worn an elegant white dress and the lights would have been down low, if she'd had it her way.

But Cathy had already been given enough exceptions by being allowed to transition young. The media would have a field day with a seventeen-year-old girl who was transitioned in any way that wasn't completely by the book, especially a seventeen-year-old girl who had been involved in the Saunders zombie case.

Especially if the transition was unsuccessful.

I didn't want to think about that.

The transition room was a bit like a hospital room and a bit like a prison: The walls were so thick, it was like we were all in a huge white concrete bathtub. One of the walls was reinforced sliding glass opening onto a balcony almost as big as the room itself.

The transitioning expert assigned to us was a red-haired vampire. Vampire pallor on top of normal redhead pallor meant her skin almost glowed, and her hair looked scarlet in contrast.

I'd been thinking about the thing I didn't want to think about and so totally missed her name. I was mentally calling her Dr. Vampire.

“You may experience a feeling of claustrophobia,” said Dr. Vampire to Cathy in that good, professional voice: infinitely kind and totally distant. “You may become distressed because you perceive temperatures differently. We find that in some cases the transitionee will want to go outside immediately. With the balcony we can relocate you to the cool open air instantly if you so desire.”

Cathy nodded, her eyes huge and nervous.

It made me think of the way she'd looked on our very first day of kindergarten, small and serious and anxious to get this right.

Except that it didn't remind me of that, not really: I only imagined it did. I didn't really remember our first day of school.

All I knew was that I'd been there on her first day of school. It had been my first day of school too. I was not going with her on this journey.

I was terrified I didn't have enough memories of Cathy. There had been years' and years' worth, but I couldn't remember what color her dress had been on that first day or where our families had taken us on our first vacation together. What had been the name of that band we were going to form? I'd forgotten too much.

Today could be the last day. These might be all the memories of Cathy I would ever have. They weren't enough.

Valerie Beauvier was sitting in a chair, staring at Cathy with tears in her eyes. It made me furious to see Cathy's mom giving herself tragic airs, when she'd signed off on the papers. When all of this was her fault.

I curled my hands into fists, my nails biting into my palms, and told myself to stop blaming other people.

This was Cathy's decision. She wasn't being forced like Dr. Saunders. She wanted this, and I had to find a way to respect that.

Somehow.

Kit and Camille were here, both standing by the wall. Kit looked awkward. I wondered if it was because he didn't know Cathy very well or if he was thinking about how this could have been his transition. Cathy said she was glad to have members of what would (if all went well) be her shade with her.

I suspected she wanted Kit there for me, for moral support. In case …

I wasn't going to think about it.

Francis was sitting by Cathy's bedside, her hands in both of his. He was wearing a black silk shirt that made his hair look silver and her hospital gown look paler.

He'd dressed for the transitioning.

I could almost hate him for that, but Cathy had wanted a tableau as well. Scene setting must be a couple's hobby for them, like some people play tennis doubles.

“My darling,” said Francis, “if you need more time, I will understand. We don't have to do this today.”

His voice was the usual Francis voice, cool and composed, but Cathy smiled as if she heard something else in it. She reached out and rested her palm against his cheek.

“This is no time for nerves, beloved.”

Francis bowed his head and stood up, walking over to the glass doors and through to the balcony.

“So, Cathy,” Kit said, “when you have your first drink of blood, do you want to have it in a champagne glass to celebrate?”

Dr. Vampire gave Kit a tolerant look. “She will be given it in the regulation packet.”

“I'll sneak you a straw,” Kit said. “And maybe a pink umbrella.”

Cathy smiled, and I was glad that somebody could be there to make her smile a little, help her relax, but I couldn't do it. I bolted out onto the balcony.

Oh, excellent. Special alone time with Francis.

The balcony had a high, reinforced glass wall, taller than my head. New Whitby at night was spread out before me, a glittering carpet with a pattern I knew by heart. There was the Shade, and there was my neighborhood, and there was our school.

Down below our feet, the Bathory River ran, moonlight and movement changing it every moment. First silver, then darkness.

“When I asked her if she might consider becoming a vampire,” Francis said, “I did not give her a date. I would have been happy to wait until she completed university, until she had—” He swallowed. “She is so young. We have been together for such a very short time.” He straightened a little, which was when I noticed he had been the Francis version of slumped before. “But it's her decision.”

I'd been all ready to yell at him for putting that option in front of her, my romantic Cathy, but him saying that made me close my mouth.

It was her decision. Francis hadn't wanted to push her into it.

I couldn't act like he was my friend. I couldn't act like I had any sort of positive feelings toward him at all. I couldn't even say that I wouldn't blame him if something went wrong.

But he stood here staring out into the night, and I thought there was a chance he was feeling a little of the same desperate fear as me.

“We both love her,” I said, and put my hand on his arm.

Francis didn't draw away, not until Cathy murmured our names. Then we both left the balcony and went back to her bed. I took her mom's place by Cathy's side, and Valerie Beauvier went over to her chair to weep again. Kit put an awkward, comforting hand on her shoulder. Camille looked disturbed by the excessive human display of emotion, but Kit stood by Ms. Beauvier and Camille stood by him.

I made an effort and met Cathy's eyes. She was crying too, silent tears that slipped down her cheeks and sparkled on her lashes.

“I love you, Mel,” she said. “You're my best friend. It won't matter if I live to be a thousand years old, or—” Cathy stopped. “It won't matter,” she went on, softer now. “You'll always be the best.”

“You're pretty okay too,” I whispered back. “I mean, not perfect, but I'd give you a solid B.”

Cathy smiled through her tears. “You know I always make A's.”

I stooped down and kissed her on one wet cheek. “I love you,” I murmured, in her ear so nobody else could hear, and then because it was her decision, I stepped back from the bed.

Francis took out a linen handkerchief from his breast pocket—of course he did, classic Francis—and began to tenderly dry her tears, but Cathy checked him and took it gently from his hand.

She dried her own tears, carefully, taking her time.

No matter what happened next, how well things went, this was the last time Cathy would ever cry.

“Are you ready to begin the procedure, Ms. Beauvier?” asked Dr. Vampire. For a second I thought she was speaking to Cathy's mom, but then Cathy nodded. “And you, Mr. Duvarney?”

Francis nodded.

Dr. Vampire cast a discreet glance at the Zombie Disposal Unit, lined at the back of the room with their nets and weapons.

She said, “You may begin.”

I backed up, into the open door. I felt the night air run down the back of my shirt and shuddered.

Francis took Cathy's face between his palms and looked at her for a long moment. Then he let her go.

Cathy tilted her head back, baring her throat, and Francis brushed a long strand of dark hair from her neck.

He sat there on the bed, looking at her neck, and I saw his fangs.

His teeth glittered, sharp and thin as stiletto knives. Francis the soft-spoken, Francis the perfect gentleman, crouched over my best friend like a hungry animal.

Cathy lay trusting and still in his arms.

I backed up another step. I couldn't run to her, I couldn't tear her away. It was her decision.

Francis bit in.

I only saw it for an instant, those sharp teeth breaking her skin, the swift scarlet welling of blood, and the way Cathy's body jerked in a spasm of pain.

I whirled around and looked out at the city. I couldn't bear it.

New Whitby glittered. The river rushed by. And my best friend was dying behind me.

I took deep, shaky breaths, and I heard someone approaching. Kit's arms went around my waist and he said, in my ear: “Hold on.”

He was warm and solid at my back. I tried to fix my blurry eyesight on something, and looked at the Remembrance Bridge, a wide stone bridge with columns on either end, bearing the names of humans and vampires who had died in World War I.

I fixed my eyes on the bridge, solid and real. The river had been running under it for a hundred years. I wasn't going to cry.

I took in one more deep breath and pulled gently away from Kit.

I looked through the open door.

Cathy lay so still on the bed. There was blood on her mouth, blood on her neck, blood on the sheets.

She looked dead.

The ZDU moved to surround Cathy's bed, making sure no human was too close to her. Francis stood at the foot of the bed.

I held on to the glass door and thought, with a conviction I hadn't been able to muster before, Yes, her decision, yes, be a vampire. Don't laugh, don't cry, don't ever see the sun again.

It wouldn't have been my choice, but it wasn't my choice.

Please let her get what she wants, I thought.

It didn't matter if I agreed or disagreed with my best friend. What mattered was keeping my best friend.

I could see her, past the guards. Her chest did not rise and fall. It wouldn't ever again.

If she didn't move, she was dead.

If she did move—I thought of Dr. Saunders and knew there were worse things.

She moved. I grabbed Kit's hand and held it hard.

I saw her eyes open.

I saw her head move and lift. I couldn't see well enough with all those bodies in the way; I couldn't tell.

Then I heard her. Clear as a bell in that clinical white room, with the doctor and the guards around her, Cathy said: “Francis.”

I turned around again, this time because I was crying. The lights of New Whitby blurred, forming a new pattern, and I cried and cried because I was so happy.

Then Cathy said, “Mel,” and I turned to look at her.

She was watching me. She looked like Cathy and yet not like Cathy, eyes a little too brilliant in a face that was a little too pale. She looked like a new Cathy.

She held out her hand to me, and I crossed the room to her bed.