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  School for Vampires

  Book 1 – Junior Year

  by Quinn Conlan

  “Knowledge kills” – Lucian Amarnov

  Chapter One

  My turning is still a blur. One moment I was a normal 16-year-old, lying on my bed watching Gossip Girl. The next moment, I’m on a night train pulling out of Union Station and bound for New York. My father, Gregor, is standing on the platform, waving goodbye. I feel hot and cold all over. Weak yet strong. Hungry like I’ve never known. Sitting next to me is a large, surly-looking woman whose right arm is gripped tight around my wrist. She doesn’t look at me, just stares straight ahead. I don’t know what’s happened to me, but somehow I know that everything has changed. Somehow I know that I won’t be seeing my father’s face for a long time. He holds his hand up and stares at me as the train rumbles into life. I see a single tear roll down his cheek. I remember being shocked. I’d never seen dad cry before. And then, as the train picks up speed and clears the city, I remember my unusually strong, stony-faced escort putting two large, dark red tablets in my mouth and ordering me to swallow. In a boozy, fevered drawl, I ask her, “where are you taking me?” She doesn’t look at me, but replies matter-of-factly, “to learn.” And then everything fades to black.

  When I was a little girl, dad was fond of cheesy sayings about life. It was always some version of “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Sometimes he laid it on with a trowel, like whenever I had a run in with cranky old Mrs Tippet from the neighboring farm. “Blake my dear,” he’d start hooting like a wise old barn owl, “first impressions can be misleading.” My first and only impression of Mrs Tippet was that she was a mean, miserly old sod who was only happy when a plague of mice had made a banquet of our wheat crops. Dad would persist, saying, “everyone has hidden depths Blake,” or, “mean old sods are mean for a reason.” I would always roll my eyes and tell dad to cut back on the cheese. It was one of many little rituals we shared, and because it had always just been the two of us out there in the middle of nowhere, those rituals meant a lot.

  Right now, I’m kinda hoping all that cheese has matured. I’m standing on a platform at Grand Central Station in New York, lost in a sea of strangers. It’s 3 in the morning, and I’m scared, tired and seeing potential Mrs Tippets in all directions. The train ride was a blur. I slipped in and out of trancelike dreams involving strange flying beasts and ancient men with dark red eyes. Whenever I came to, I realized the surly woman by my side was still gripping my arm tight and staring straight ahead. She didn’t speak the entire trip. I was left to try and make sense of what was happening, which wasn’t easy given the mythical worlds I kept slipping off into. As the train rattled furiously through the night, I knew I’d never felt like this before. I knew my neck was incredibly sore. I knew that every time I went to touch it, little miss surly boots would slap my hand away. It was the only time she’d make eye contact with me. I searched her, looking for signs of what was going on. It seemed, at those moments, as if she was searching me too. God knows what she found. When those two large, red tablets I was made to swallow kicked in, I felt this sudden, full-bodied jolt. It was like a star had exploded inside me. It was unbelievable. My companion didn’t turn her head, but she must have known something had happened because she tightened her grip considerably. After that, it was one long, mythical trance all the way to New York.

  I take a deep breath. I whisper to myself, “Mrs Tippet has a heart of gold.” I say it a few times, hoping it will have an effect. I see trains pulling up on neighboring platforms and similarly nervous and groggy kids stepping off. Many have minders, some have come alone. I assume all these teenagers are here for the same vague reason as me. To learn. My silent, stoic companion’s hand does not move from my left arm. Suddenly, I find myself being yanked towards the tail end of the platform. I notice others following suit. I anxiously look around for my luggage, then realize I have no idea if I’ve brought any. I didn’t see any suitcases being unloaded from the trains. Without looking at me, my escort says, in what I’m starting to detect is a Russian accent, “it’s taken care of.” Then she grips me even harder and picks up the pace.

  Beyond the chaos of this scene, it becomes clear to me that something frantic is going on. The minders seem rushed and restless. A fear creeps over me. I can see what I’m sure is a similar fear in the wide-eyed young faces gathering pace around me. We are all being pulled towards the very end of the platform, beyond the bright overhead lights. As we draw near, I see those in front jumping onto the tracks behind one of the trains. In no time, me and bossy boots are following suit.

  It is pitch black now. I pull in close to this woman I hardly know, and whose nails are now officially causing me pain. She moves through the darkness with incredible purpose. Clearly, she knows the way. I hear all the shoes tapping furiously against the train tracks. The sound echoes down a never-ending tunnel. It is so dark, I can’t see beyond the sleeper immediately in front of me. We are moving so fast now, it takes all my concentration not to fall onto the tracks. At one point, I have a small slip and my escort lifts me into the air with astonishing ease, setting me on my feet again. Strong doesn’t come close to describing this woman.

  Finally, after what seems like the longest descent into darkness, I see a dim light in the distance. It flickers. As we draw closer, I hear fewer and fewer echoing footsteps. The light seems to be shining up from the ground. I start to hear faint screams, which plunge my heart into a fresh terror. Again, my companion senses my fear, and takes her hand from my arm and places it around my shoulder. Suddenly, I can see a few feet in front of me, and it is an astonishing sight. An elderly female escort, much older than mine, wraps her arms tightly around a terrified looking girl who can’t be more than 13 years old, and the two of them disappear down a hole! I realize this hole is the source of the flickering light. I hear a muffled scream, which must be coming from the little girl’s mouth pressed firm against the old lady’s chest. The handful of people immediately in front of me follow suit, leaping into the unknown. Those teenagers who have come alone have the hardest time of all. They have no one to guide them, and instead, are simply pushed by the nearest escort from behind. Those screams aren’t muffled. When our time comes, I peer down the hole but can’t see anything. I am enveloped by my thankfully heavy-set escort and I free fall to my new life. I don’t scream. I don’t know why.

  I brace myself for a hard landing but it never comes. Even though we’d fallen straight downwards at a tremendous speed, it suddenly occurs to me that we are hardly moving at all. In fact, it seems as if we’re almost flying. When we do finally touch down, it is the gentlest landing, like two snowflakes brushing the earth. My heavy-set minder has unexpected reserves of elegance, it would seem.

  I am released from her grip and I immediately look around to work out where on earth we are. Or where under the earth we are. The first thing I see is a large candle, set in a groove of the wall. The flickering light. I then realize that we are standing on a wooden platform, surrounded by about 20 other late-night plungers. I take in the smell. Putrid. Beyond putrid. The air has stopped. Something heavy and out of date has replaced it. Thick, gooey moisture drips from up above. An impossibly large rat scampers past the candle and I startle at the sight of it.

  I cannot see beyond my immediate surrounds, but I sense that we are in yet another tunnel. Yippee. It occurs to me that the platform we are on is getting kinda full. We are pressed up against each other like stale sardines. More and more bodies float down from the manhole, and right when I’m convinced we’ve reached capacity, a god-awful groan pierces my ears. Something slow and ancient creeps into life. We begin to move. I look down at the candle-lit edges of our wooden platform and realize that we are on s
ome sort of primitive, hand-drawn train! Like those ones you see in your dad’s old Westerns. I can’t see the front of our train, but I imagine that two people are pushing and pulling on a huge metal lever, propelling us along the tracks.

  I look back towards the manhole. I see the next ancient wooden platform pull up and start receiving its passengers. I try to make out the drivers, and indeed I do see two figures hovering over the primitive controls. They seem to have the dimensions of children, yet they are hunched over like old people. I watch as more and more people float downwards. The wind from a particularly large minder’s descent blows out the sole candle lighting this scene. Suddenly, another one of those hunched-over children scampers from the shadows. They relight the candle with one in their shielded hands, and then scamper back. They make a strange sound as they move, sort of like a pained, panicked groan. I shudder.

  I turn again to face the front and feel the stale, wet, heavy atmosphere all around me. My hair is damp and I’m badly in need of a bath. I look down at my white dress to assess the state of it, and it’s then that I realize someone is holding onto me. A girl. Without a minder. I stare at her face and am amazed at how young she looks. She is tiny too. She looks up at me. I feel a sudden, strong desire to protect her. “I’m Kitty,” she says, in a tiny voice I have to strain to hear over the creaks and groans of our old-school transport.

  “I’m Blake,” I reply, with a smile. She smiles back, and clings a little tighter to my dress. We pass another candle wedged into the wall. The wind from our movement blows it out, and again there scampers one of those doubled over shadow creatures. Quick as a pained flash, they relight the candle and begin their return to the margins of the rail track. For a moment, they look up and I make eye contact with them. I’ve never seen anything like it. They seem impossibly old, yet like children. Their eyes seem to harbor malice but also innocence. They are no more than four feet tall and their body seems to be at strange angles, with arms too long and loping near their knees, and a back so gnarled it’s a miracle they are even upright. My escort violently pulls at me and gestures for me to look away. I see then that Kitty too has cast eyes on this strange candle keeper. We exchange glances. It feels good to have someone to share all this strangeness with.

  Suddenly, I am curious about Kitty. I wonder if she knows more than me about where we are going. She can’t possibly know any less. I test the waters. “Hey Kitty, do you know where we’re going?” She seems a little perplexed.

  “To learn,” she replies. Oh boy. She’s drunk the Kool-Aid too.

  “To learn what!?” I ask, somewhat irritated. That’s when she says it. My first encounter with the truth.

  “How to be a vampire, silly.”

  Vampire. There it is. Delivered to me on some ridiculous, primitive, open air caboose rattling through a dank, dead tunnel in the middle of the night. Vampire. As soon as I hear the word, it goes right through me. The quiet, secret parts of me rumble up and tell me it’s true. My mind races. The painful neck. The weird thirst. Those dark red tablets. So I’m a vampire. Or, at least, some kind of trainee vampire.

  I think of my dad. What role did he play in my turning? Who exactly is this buxom, strong as an ox matron by my side? What exactly do we have to learn? My escort’s arm suddenly finds its way back around my shoulder. She must have sensed that my mind had just collapsed with a million questions. Sure enough, she leans in, and in a soothing voice I never would have predicted, she whispers, “there’s time.”

  It helps. It more than helps. It calms me right down and gives me a feeling of strength. I feel like a wise, loving mother has just set my mind at ease. I look down at Kitty. Her dark, shoulder-length hair is pulled back in a ponytail. I glance at her neck and see two red dots. Bite marks. Unmistakable. So it’s true. I’m on a 200 year old, open-air train with a bunch of freshly minted vampires, screeching towards my new fate.

  I decide to stare straight ahead into the darkness and meet that fate head on. It comes soon enough. The dank, narrow tunnel finally reaches its end and we are delivered into a large, open cavern, with a high roof and buildings along the edges. People are everywhere. The train comes to an abrupt halt near the center of the open space, and I see a huddle of teenagers standing on a basic, wooden platform. We join them. People teem all around us. Many stop and stare, and yet again I am pulled in close to my minder. I look briefly into some of the curious eyes, and I do not like what I see. A glint. A fire. Or sometimes a deathly blankness. I assume I am surrounded by wall-to-wall vampires. It takes a lot of effort to keep reminding myself that I am, apparently, now one of them. I feel like fresh meat.

  Before too long, another carriage limps from the darkness and rolls to a stop. And then another. Similar huddles of teenagers and escorts disembark and join us in our expanding, terrified throng. In the end, we must be about sixty strong, yet still we are dwarfed by the surrounding masses. People come and go from every direction, chatting, yelling, carrying parcels. A vast array of fashions are on display. Some are dressed in haute couture, some in little better than rags. I notice they are mostly adults, and I wonder if there are any other teenagers down here in this weird sort of marketplace. Or children for that matter? I don’t see any. Nor do I see any more of those doubled over candle folk.

  The buildings down here are made from wood. It feels like an underground version of one of those old Western towns. Indeed, there are plenty of people wearing clothes that wouldn’t have been out of place 100 years ago. Or more. It feels wild. I look up at the high ceiling and wonder if we are still below the subway. It’s then that I see how people make their way down. Manholes. Lots of them. I watch as people fall through and float effortlessly to the ground. It’s quite a sight. The other newbies are equally transfixed. It seems like a constant stream of people are falling through the manholes. I wonder how on earth they get back up?

  There is so much to take in. The escorts have moved to the edge of our throng and appear to be standing guard. My own keeper looks incredibly vigilant. Her eyes dart furiously around the square. I’m tucked in close behind her. Kitty is still holding onto my dress. She looks terrified. The confidence she mustered on the train has vanished. I’m secretly glad, since I don’t want to be the only one scared out of my wits.

  I dare to look into the face of a man as he walks past our frightened huddle. He looks very dapper, in an old three-piece suit and a dark, devilish moustache. Our eyes meet. He smiles. I can’t tell if it’s a friendly or sinister smile. Perhaps it’s both. I find it hard to look away. “He likes the look of you,” says Kitty. I hear her words but can’t break my gaze from this exotic, otherworldly man. “Who could blame him,” Kitty goes on, “you’re beautiful.” That snaps me from my trance easily enough.

  I haven’t looked in a mirror since I left home. But right now, I don’t feel beautiful. I feel like I’ve crawled through a sewer. I make a sort of “pfft” sound. “Oh please,” says Kitty, “you’re stunning.” I look down at her, ready to deflect her praise and tell her how ugly I currently feel. When I meet her eyes, I suddenly realize what a kind gesture those words are, at a time like this. My heart melts. I smile warmly and put my arm around her. It’s a trick I learned from my ever-present matron. It’s a moment of connection in the midst of all this madness.

  It doesn’t last long. A booming voice suddenly rises above the chatter and chaos of the square. “Hellooo! Hellooo! Here you are then!” It sounds like a man as old as time itself. We all turn to look and are greeted by a face to match the voice. This is what I imagine Father Time looks like.

  He’s a portly man with glasses, a red face, bushy white beard, and a bald head except for two bright white bushels of hair above the ears. He’s dressed in a suit that looks a little less tailored than many I’ve seen. Actually, scrap the Father Time analogy. He has got to be Santa Claus.

  He is smiling from ear to ear. He bounds over and stands in front of us. He hasn’t come alone. Trailing him are about a dozen people who look like more civili
zed versions of the candle keepers. They too are short and somewhat hunched over, and dressed in drab, coarse clothes. But they aren’t quite so bent out of shape, and seem a bit sharper. They fall in close behind jolly old Saint Nick, whose excitement doesn’t seem to be diminishing any time soon. “Well! Well, well!! Well, well, well!!! Look at you all! My goodness me. So very young. Remarkable! Well then. Best get you somewhere a little less frantic, what say? Yes. Wise enough words for now. On we go then. Helpers!” It’s hard to argue with such a jolly man. We all set off in close pursuit, with the little people surrounding us like a line of guards. I see that they aren’t empty handed. They are holding small jars of clear liquid and seem ready to use them, whatever that actually entails.

  As they help herd us away from the open square, I see that people are quick to move out of the way. Some even recoil at the sight of these pint-sized, jar-carrying guards. With the path cleared, we make our way into one of the wooden buildings that line the edge of the square. The door is closed and bolted behind us, and Santa beckons us all to gather around a large open fire.

  The whole time, Kitty’s hand hasn’t let go of my dress. And my escort hasn’t left my side. Santa stares at us, still beaming from ear to ear. I take in the room. It is a large sort of reception room, sparsely furnished and lined with wooden panels that are mismatched and askew. Framed photos of ancient-looking souls line the walls. I notice that two of the odd little Helpers are standing guard by the front door and the rest have disappeared.

  “Well!” says Santa. His favorite word, it would seem. “Not a bad fire, ey?” It is impressive, although I don’t feel any of its heat. “You’ve no more need for physical warmth mind you, but a fire can still sooth the soul can it not?” Santa says. Ah. Vampires don’t feel the heat. Mental note. “Well then. How were your journeys, hmmm? I know it isn’t always easy at the start. Strange rumblings in strange parts of you. The medication. All those burning questions. I see many of you have come with your minders. Good. Fine. And I suspect some of you know a little more about what’s what than others. Yes?” I look around and see a few nods. Why on earth wasn’t I prepared for any of this? I try to remember the events leading up to my leaving home, but I still can’t get back before sitting on the train watching my dad wave goodbye.