Vampire University (Book One in the Vampire University Series) (19 page)

"What do you take me for? A Bond villain? I'm not going to announce my plans."

"You're not going to do anything with your plans," said Joseph, rising up from the table.

He had a gun in his hand and it was pointed directly at the Dean.

"Joseph, what are you...?" said Hannah.

"Yes Joseph, what are you doing with a firearm on campus? Naughty naughty, little boy.  Those aren't allowed," said Alistair. "And besides, it won't do you much good in any case."

As he said this, the stone spread from his hands down his arm. His other hand changed too, and the effect spread until it reached his face, hardening his features into a grotesque statue of a man. His eyes were the only part of him that were not stone now and these were a soulless solid black. The effect was chilling.

Joseph lowered the gun.

"Ideas, Hannah?" Joseph asked.

"I... I... don't know," she stammered.

"Of course not. Not so clever now are you, little angel?" the dean taunted her. "I don't really need you anyway. What's one less forsaken in the world, eh?"

He reached out and grabbed Hannah by the neck and lifted her up. She kicked the air trying to struggle free.

"Don't struggle now, little angel. I might just have to pop this precious little head of yours right off. All I have to do is squeeze," said Alistair.

With this, Hannah let herself go limp.

"Don't hurt her, Dean. We'll come with you," said Taylor.

"My name is Alistair, strange child. And of course you will come with me. That doesn't mean I won't hurt her, of course. You don't really have a say in the matter one way or another."

"Don't I?" said Taylor, angry that her friend was being put in danger and feeling emboldened by her fury. "How do you know what I can do? You have no idea, do you?"

The dean frowned slightly. Had she shaken his confidence? Taylor wondered. But what could she do? All she knew how to do was create illusions and she barely knew how to do that. Still, she had to try. She slowly turned her head to the side so that he was in the corner of her vision and tried to concentrate. The effect came quickly this time. Perhaps her anger helped her focus? What could she do? she wondered. She needed help. A distraction, perhaps? If only someone could come to their aid.

With this thought a figure s
tarted to materialize behind
the dean. That's it, she thought. She imagined that figure was her and the fuzzy outline sharpened an exact copy of her. Perfect, she thought. But she could do more, right? So she imagined another. And another. And more until there was a whole crowd of Taylors behind Alistair.

"You might want to turn around," said Tom to Alistair.

"What do you take me for? I'm not taking instructions from you, elf."

"How about us?" said the group of Taylors from behind him, all in unison. "Can you take on all of us?"

He turned towards the voices and took a step back.

"I... am not fooled by your illusions, strange child," he said, but his voice betrayed his uncertainty.

"Aren't you?" they all said in unison. "We think that you are."

Whatever kept him from being able to read her, whatever kept Eric's thrall from working on her, she hoped that it would keep him from being able to see through her glamours. Given the uncertainty in his voice, she was beginning to think that she was right. She imagined even more copies of her, until there were dozens. She didn't know the limit of her abilities, but she was going to test them now.

"Maybe I can't," said Alistair. "But what are you going to do? Bore me to death with imitations of yourself? You can't hurt me in this form, little girl."

"Can't I?" said Taylor. "You seem awfully confident for knowing so little about me. Now let my friend go."

"My only leverage against you. I do not think so, Taylor."

"Let her go or we will break you," said the crowd of Taylors.

"Break you. Break you," they chanted in unison, closing in on him.

He backed away from them as they got closer and he released Hannah. She scrambled back to the table, clasping her neck and breathing heavily.

"What can we do?" Taylor whispered to Hannah.

"We've just got to escape. He's right. We can't hurt him. But we can't leave a whole crowd of you behind. If he drops his glamour then everyone will see dozens of you. You've got to remove yours first."

"And then what? He strangles us all to death? Can I turn him human? Like Eric?"

Hannah's eyes brightened.

"Taylor, you're a genius. If we could just get back to the dorms and get that syringe..."

"What's at the dorms?" said Tom, interrupting. "I can get there fast."

"In our room, in my desk drawer, a syringe filled with blood," said Hannah. "If we can get that..."

"Say no more," said Tom and he suddenly vanished.

"What the?" said Taylor
as she
felt something brush past her legs.

She looked down to see a cat running towards the exit.

"Was that...?" she began.

"I think so," said Hannah. "Leprechauns were, er... are, I guess, shape-shifters."

"Why a syringe? Can't I just... I don't know, give myself a paper cut or something?" Taylor whispered.

"We've got to get it in him and his only vulnerable spots are his eyes. I thought a syringe would do the trick," said Hannah.

"Hannah, YOU are the genius."

"We're assuming it does the same thing to gargoyles that it does to vampires. Here's hoping."

"What are you planning, girl?" said Alistair, bringing their attention back to him.

"What do you think I am?" the Taylors replied in unison. "A Bond villain?"

"Very clever, girl. I'd like you if you weren't such a liability."

"Such a shame," they replied.

Taylor felt something brush up against her leg. It was the cat again, back and holding a syringe in his mouth.

"You're fast," whispered Taylor.

"Meow," the cat replied and dropped it at her feet.

"Now here goes," said Taylor gripping it tightly in her hand.

She imagined the group of her
doppelgangers
closing in on Alistair and as they did he began to turn frantically.

"What are you..." he said. "Don't think you can... Just wait until I..."

"What?" they said. "Are you afraid?"

"Not as afraid as you will be when I get my hands on you."

"No," they all said still in unison and took a step closer encircling him in a crowd of illusions. "I am not afraid. You will not touch me."

Alistair turned to his right and Taylor willed the crowd of her doubles to fill in to that side.

"I am not at your mercy. I am not at anybody's mercy. I decide, not you. Not anybody. Not ever again," they continued.

Alistair turned to his left, but they had already surrounded him on this side as well. He stepped back and then pivoted on his heel, directly into a syringe pointed at his eye.

Taylor did not hesitate as she plunged it in and felt it give way easily. Looking away from the grotesque sight of his eye filling up with blood, she pushed it all the way in and then let go. He stumbled back a step and then ripped it out of his face.

"What have you...?" he began and then fell back another step.

"What... have... you..."

Each word came slower and slower and his entire body slowed down with it, as if time were decelerating around him until he became perfectly still. He looked exactly like a statue.

"His glamour is fading, Taylor. Hurry, your copies!" said Hannah.

"Oh right," said Taylor and began to imagine their forms fading back into nothing.

One by one they vanished leaving Alistair standing alone perfectly suspended mid-step.

"What happened to him?" she asked and hesitated a moment before gingerly placing a finger on his elbow.

At her slightest touch, the arm fell off from the stone body and fell to the floor. As it hit the ground, it shattered into millions of tiny pieces. The rest of him began to shatter and fall to the ground as well, until nothing was left but an unrecognizable pile of stone and dust.

"What exactly happened there?" said Tom, suddenly standing with them again in human form.

"I think, um," said Hannah, "I think that her blood sort of amplifies the effect of the blood of the person it encounters. It's like the stone part of him went out of control and took over the living part of him."

"Yeah, that made so sense," said Tom. "In any case, maybe we should get out of here? And can we keep a lid on the whole leprechaun thing?"

"Same with the blood, please," added Taylor.

"I don't really know what happened there, anyway. Hella creepy, though. 'Specially that
Children of the Corn
bit," said Tom with a shiver.

"Speaking of keeping a lid on things," said Hannah, "we need to put a lid on your brother, Joseph. I thought you took care of that?"

"I, uh... guess I missed a spot?" Joseph replied, sheepishly.

"Well, we're going to take care of that right now. Where is he?" said Hannah.

"How would I know?" replied Joseph. "Back at the dorms, maybe?"

"Well let's go find him then," said Hannah and all three of them followed her out the door.

-17-

When they arrived at the boys' dorm room, all of Eric's things were gone. All that was left of him was his cellphone sitting on top of a note addressed to Joseph.

"I'm sorry, little bro," Joseph read aloud. "I screwed up. I'll be in touch. I just need to clear my head and I can't do it here. I love you."

Joseph crumpled it up and threw it on the floor.

"Guess we'll have to find him," said Hannah. "Do you know where he would have gone, Joseph?"

"What? I... no. I don't think he'd really leave, honestly."

"Well he's gotta be close, right? If we split up and canvas the city..."

"Are you kidding me?" interrupted Joseph. "The four of us are going to find one person in the middle of a city? We don't even know that he's still on the island. He could be on a train halfway to Florida by now."

"Or perhaps he's just out cooling off?" suggested Tom.

"Yeah, perhaps," said Joseph, glumly. "I sure hope so. I can't believe he left his phone."

"Okay, fine," said Hannah. "We'll wait for him to turn up. In the meantime, we could all probably use a little break."

"Hold on," said Taylor. "Not so fast. I think you need to tell me what's going on, Hannah."

"With?" Hannah asked.

"Well, for example, you said I'd never meet a gargoyle and one just tried to do God knows what with me and you said leprechauns were extinct, er... no offense, Tom."

"None taken," he replied.

"Right, so what is going on? It seems entirely likely that keeping me in the dark is going to get me killed. So fess up."

Tom spoke up as Hannah was about to reply.

"Look, Taylor. I don't know much about gargoyles, but there are no leprechauns but me. She didn't lie to you about that. And I need you guys to keep a lid on it. Like you, I'm kind of... unique... and I don't want to draw attention."

"Okay, fair enough, but gargoyles?" asked Taylor.

"Guardians. Technically they're guardians," said Hannah. "Each of the cursed races has one and only one. You see, once a person is cursed, they cannot have children. So even though the forsaken are generally much more powerful than their uncursed brothers, they need to preserve their uncursed race to continue on. Otherwise, they'd die off."

"I'm not sure I'm following," said Taylor.

"Okay, take humans. When humans are cursed they become vampires. But if all humans were cursed and everyone was a vampire, then eventually they'd die off. This is what happened to leprechauns, or at least, what everyone believes happened," she said, nodding at Tom. "So the guardians stand up for the little guy, so to speak. They maintain balance."

"So... shouldn't he be on our side, then? He didn't seem like much of a protector to me."

"Oh, they are on no one's side but their own. Alistair, especially. They must maintain balance. If the race they protect dies off, then so do they. But they are hardly creatures of good. They are as self-interested as any. You're kind of a loophole, honestly, Taylor. Your blood tips the balance. Which is why we need to keep you inconspicuous."

"But he's gone now, right? I mean, I... Oh God, I killed someone," said Taylor, the realization suddenly sinking in.

"If only. Gargoyles don't ever really die. At least not permanently. He'll reincarnate somewhere, but it will be a long time before he's old enough to bother you again. But he's not the only one."

"But you said I'd never encounter a gargoyle. Though I guess Alistair disproved that."

"Well, it seemed unlikely. There's only eight in the entire world. Effectively now there are seven."