Vampire University (Book One in the Vampire University Series) (15 page)

"Smart, huh? You sound interested to me."

"Shut up."

"Right. Well, setting your romantic life aside for a moment, I need to talk about me."

"Don't you always?"

"Of course. So, I think I'm going to drop out."

"Drop out? We haven't even started yet."

"Yeah, well, the whole plan was to chill, game the system, meet some hotties..."

"That was your plan," interrupted Joseph. "I thought I might actually learn something."

"Of course you did. We are talking about me, though, remember? I just... This changes everything. You know that."

"I do know that. But where does that leave me?"

"You can still do the learning thing. You're still a vampire. You have everything you need to get by. Me, on the other hand..."

"I don't have everything. I need you. You owe it to me at the very least. My whole life got turned upside down because of you and now we're all each other has."

"Don't be so melodramatic," said Eric.

"Me, melodramatic? You're the one giving up on everything after one minor setback."

"Minor setback? It's my life that just got turned upside down. And I'm not giving up on everything, just school."

"Okay, fair. You've just had a big life-changer. But I'm still here for you, right? Maybe we won't always need each other, but for now we do. You're not going anywhere."

"Oh, so that's it, then?"

"Yup," said Joseph. "Come on, you have not even gone to a single class, yet. At least try it."

"Okay fine. I'll try one class. But only for you."

"The whole semester."

"Nuh uh. One class. That's all you're getting from me."

"We'll see."

-14-

Back at their room, Hannah laid out all the supplies on her desk, leaving the frog in the beaker. She carried it over to their mini-fridge and opened the door.

"You are not putting a frog in the refrigerator," insisted Taylor.

"Where else am I going to put it? You want the whole room to smell?"

"It beats having a fridge that smells like frog, doesn't it?"

"Formaldehyde," said Hannah.

"What?"

"Formaldehyde. The fridge is going to smell like formaldehyde, not frog. If we don't put it in the refrigerator, then the whole room is going to smell like frog. Take your pick!"

"Neither?"

"Nope," Hannah said and apparently the matter, in her mind, was closed. "So are you ready to head back out to the library?"

"One second," said Taylor. "No offense, but... I mean, you said that I could choose whether or not to see a glamour, right? Could you show me? It's just that, well..."

"It's just that you're creeped out by my eyes. You don't have to beat around the bush. It's not like I haven't noticed that you refuse to make eye contact with me. Believe me, that's as uncomfortable for me as my appearance is for you."

"I'm sorry," said Taylor, but Hannah waved her hand in the air dismissively.

"You apologize too much," said Hannah.

"I'm sorry," Taylor said again and then quickly realized it. "Oh crap. I'm sorry, I... I mean, I'm... not sorry?"

"Nor should you be," replied Hannah and patted her on the shoulder reassuringly. "Now let's get you un-creeped out. Close your eyes."

Taylor hesitated a second before doing as she was instructed.

"Okay," said Hannah. "Glamours work like any illusion. Think of those pictures that can be two things. Like the young woman and the old woman, or the two faces and a vase. You familiar?"

"With the vase one, yeah. It's two identical silhouettes of faces looking at each other."

"Exactly," said Hannah. "And if you're looking at the faces, you see faces, but if you concentrate on the space between you see a vase, right?"

"Right."

"But you only can see one or the other at a time. Your mind doesn't see two faces and a vase, it sees one or the other and you can choose. You following still?"

"I guess. But those are two real images. We're taking real and fake here, aren't we?"

"Exactly. But it's still a choice you make.  When you don't consciously choose, your mind takes the lazy route. If you don't know there's a glamour, then it is easiest for the mind to just play along, right?"

"I guess."

"You guess right! But if you do know there's a glamour, then it is easiest for the mind to see what is really there, right?"

"Okay, sure," Taylor said.

"So, the trick to seeing a glamour when you know it's an illusion is like choosing to see the vase when you know it's two faces. You just have to frame your point of view around what you want to see and then your brain will follow along!"

"So why are my eyes closed, again?"

"Oh, right. I was going to have you visualize my eyes the way they appeared before you saw through the glamour. It's still there, you just have to choose to see it."

"Okay, I'm visualizing, but I don't know how to choose that image over the real one."

"That's all you do to choose. Just visualize. Now open your eyes!"

Taylor opened her eyes while trying her hardest to imagine a pair of normal brown-eyes looking back at her. Her shoulders slumped in defeat, however, when she saw the same solid black eyes she had seen before.

"Ah, didn't quite take, did it?" Hannah asked.

"No," replied Taylor.

"It can be a little tricky at first, but keep at it and you'll get it. Just keep looking into my eyes and think brown and white. Brown and white!"

Taylor did as she was told and stared intently at Hannah's eyes. Brown and white, she told herself. Brown and white. After what felt like several minutes she gave up and turned away. There had been no change, despite her efforts.

"Huh," said Hannah, frowning. "Well keep at it. You'll get it eventually. Here, I'll give you something to practice with."

Hannah went across the room and shuffled through her desk drawer until she found what she was looking for. She turned around and held it out triumphantly.

"Ta da!" she exclaimed, holding a perfect red rose just beginning to bloom.

"You keep flowers in your desk drawer?" asked Taylor.

"Of course not. It's a pencil," Hannah said, handing it to Taylor.

At the moment Hannah said "pencil" the image of the rose transformed into an ordinary yellow pencil. Taylor took it gingerly, as if it were a fragile thing and let it sit in her open palm. She pushed it lightly with her finger, rolling it gently back and forth in her palm. It was just an ordinary pencil.

"So there you go," said Hannah. "A pencil with a rose glamour on it. So we don't have to suffer through staring contests while you practice, you can use that!"

"Thanks. And I'm sorry, I'll figure it out so that you're not uncomfortable."

"There you go apologizing again. Now are you ready to go to the library?"

"We have two days until our next class. I know you're all eager beaver, but can't it wait? I still have a lot of questions and I'm really curious what kind of science you have planned with dead frogs and a syringe."

"Well, the syringe is to get a blood sample."

"From the frog? They drain those things out before they, you know, store them."

"Not the frog, silly. From you!"

"Yeah, no."

"Oh don't worry, it will be totally safe. It's a brand new needle. You can't catch anything from it."

"I'm not worried about disease. I'm worried about my college roommate jabbing me with sharp objects."

"You should be used to that by now," replied Hannah.

"Used to what? Being jabbed with sharp objects? Not exactly."

"Well, I wouldn't use the word 'jabbed' anyway. More like a delicate prick!"

"That's if you can find the vein on the first attempt. I don't suppose you were a nurse sometime in that last century."

"Not exactly. But I'm super good at finding the vein. I've had plenty of practice. Vampire, remember?"

"That is... surprisingly not that comforting," said Taylor.

"Well, would you feel better if I did it the traditional way?"

"Traditional way?"

"You know, fangs?" said Hannah curling the top of her lip back to show her pointed fangs.

"That is even less comforting. Why do you need my blood in the first place?"

"Well, I don't need it, first of all. I have no plans of drinking my roommate's blood if that's what you were thinking."

"You know, you'd think that would've occurred to me, but I hadn't thought of that. And, for the record, still not comforting. Whose blood do you plan on drinking?"

Hannah waved her hand dismissively in the air.

"Not important," she said. "I can assure you that it will be nobody anywhere near here, unlike some dumb boys who shall not be named. And no one will be harmed, so let's not focus on the unpleasant business of sustenance, shall we?"

"Right," said Taylor.

"So anyway. Vampires have sort of a healing property. Like I said before, it is what gives us immortality and it can also repair minor injuries in others. That's why you never hear about vampire bites."

"So when Joseph tried to heal Eric, he was doing what exactly?"

"Bleeding on him. He bit him to break the skin, but it was more about getting blood into him than the other way around. I know, I know, gross, right? It's a whole thing we do. We bite our lips, let our mouths fill with blood and then... well, you get the idea."

"Ew. So back to me. You think my blood did what exactly?"

"Well I think it's a fairly safe bet that your blood made Eric human. I think maybe that you healed the vampire right out of him."

"That doesn't make any sense. If my blood can heal away vampire... uh... ness."

"Vampirism," offered Hannah.

"Okay sure, vampirism, then why wouldn't vampirism just be, I don't know, self-curing?"

"Well that's just not how it works. But you seem to be something special."

"Gee thanks," replied Taylor.

"You're welcome! You don't appear to be a vampire in any kind of way, but your father was a vampire and clearly you inherited something from him. I think your blood may have some of the properties of a vampire, but possibly elevated."

"Like super healing?"

"Basically."

Taylor was intrigued enough by the idea that she felt her objections waning.

"So how much blood were you thinking?" Taylor asked.

"Just a syringe. Like I said, I'm not trying to start a food bank or anything."

"Okay, fine. Can your vampire powers make it not hurt?"

"Well normally I could just enthrall you and that would pretty much cover it, but you're apparently immune. Lucky you!"

"Yeah, lucky me," said Taylor, feeling less lucky at the moment. "Okay fine, but let's do it quickly."

"Yay science!" said Hannah, bouncing up and down and clapping her hands excitedly. "Okay, one sec."

Hannah wasted no time in getting out the syringe and ripped open the packaging a little too eagerly for Taylor's liking.

"Okay, give me your arm," Hannah said to Taylor.

Taylor obliged.

Hannah leaned down and started sniffing near Taylor's elbow.

"Um, what are you doing?" asked Taylor, shifting uncomfortably.

"Looking for the vein. Now hold still," Hannah replied, placing a firm grip on Taylor's forearm to steady it."

"You can smell it?"

"Well obviously we don't have X-ray vision."

"Obviously. So what does a vein smell like?"

"Like blood, obviously."

"Obviously," said Taylor.

"Okay here goes. You should just feel a prick."

Hannah pushed the needle into Taylor's arm and Taylor looked away as she felt the prick of her flesh. The sight of her own blood made her queasy, so she made a point of not looking back down at it.

"All done!" Hannah announced after a few moments.

Taylor looked down and got a glimpse of the syringe full of thick dark blood and felt her stomach turn. She looked away again.

"Yeah, you're definitely not a vampire, all right," said Hannah. "Or at least if you were, you'd be a very hungry one. You're going to have to get a little more used to the sight of blood."

"Am I now? Whatever my blood does, I'm not trying to make a habit of bleeding on things."

"That's a very wise course of action, I would say," said Hannah, nodding. "I'd very much like for you to not go around bleeding on things as well."

"Glad we're in agreement on that one."

"Hmm... that's weird," said Hannah, putting her face close to Taylor's elbow.

"What is? What's wrong?"