Out for Blood

  I ducked a stake, then a fist. I kicked my boot into a chin, threw a stake with hard-won accuracy. We trained for years to be able to do that. I was grinning as I came out of a lightning spin. I was covered in ashes—I even had to shake them out of my hair. And the air stank, positively putrid with rot.

  But at least this was simple.

  I knew who the bad guys were and I knew how to dispatch them. It wasn’t politics or assassination attempts or abductions.

  In short, it was the best night I’d had all bloody month.

  The fight was short and brutal. One of them got away but since neither Kieran nor I were bitten or dead, I counted it a success.

  Kieran cradled his injured arm gingerly. “Bastard nearly broke it again,” he said.

  “Bastard’s under your boots now,” I told him cheerfully. I’d learned long ago you had to block out the rush of regrets that followed the adrenaline dip after a fight. Otherwise the loop of thoughts could pull you under. Did you just kill someone? Or was it a monster, plain and simple? Did that make you a monster? Was it murder if you were defending yourself? Was it a war and were we just soldiers trying to survive?

  I preferred the adrenaline rush.

  Kieran frowned, looking around. Then he checked the GPS on his phone. “We’re near the school.”

  “Yeah?” I was grateful for the distraction. “I don’t suppose they wear uniforms? Mini kilts? Knee-high socks?”

  Kieran half smiled. “Is that all you think about?”

  “If I’m lucky,” I answered grimly as we started to walk. The wind off the mountains was cold and fresh, cleaning out the stench of Hel-Blar from my nostrils. I inhaled deeply. I didn’t breathe exactly. My body didn’t require it, but it was an ingrained habit. And inhaling helped us recognize and catalog scents. I still wasn’t sure how the whole vampirism thing worked. Uncle Geoffrey called it biology, Isabeau called it magic. I just knew I was faster, stronger, and virtually immortal.

  It didn’t suck.

  Well, so to speak.

  Just around the time I could smell the warmth of many human bodies gathered in close quarters, I smelled something else.

  The first was seductive and actually made my stomach growl, the way humans might feel after smelling a grilled cheese sandwich. The second made my head spin.

  Blood.

  So much blood, my fangs elongated past their usual battle-length. My gums ached. My throat ached. My veins ached. Hunger slid through me, weakening me like poison. And there was only one antidote.

  Blood.

  Kieran grimaced. “Do you smell that?”

  I nodded and tried not to drool on myself. I had to clear my throat before I could speak properly. “Animal,” I said. “And … something else.”

  “What, like hunters?”

  I tracked the aroma, licking my lips only slightly.

  Then we saw them.

  “Not exactly,” I said, hunger fading. The bloodlust still had my nostrils twitching but I wasn’t thinking about a liquid supper anymore.

  Animals hung from the trees and lay in a pool of clotting blood on the edge of the woods, their scent leaking into the field. There were three rabbits, a badger, two raccoons, and a small heap of mice.

  “What the hell?” Kieran asked, disgusted and confused. “Who did this? And why? They’re not drained.”

  “Not a vampire then,” I said through my clenched teeth. “We don’t waste blood.” Because you never knew when your next meal might be. “Give me those nose plugs.”

  He handed a pair over. I shoved them in and waited for the red haze to stop licking at my every sense.

  “Whoever did that added human blood to the mix.” The lights of the school were gold, glimmering like honey. “Which means there’ll be more Hel-Blar around here before you know it.”

  Kieran went pale, paler than any vampire.

  “I have to check on Hunter,” he said, breaking into a run.

  I didn’t want to admit how cold I got, or how fast I followed him, until the trees were a blur of green around me and I left him behind altogether.

  Chapter 7

  •

  Hunter

  Jenna found me after dinner. I was crossing the lawn, wondering where Chloe was. She hadn’t been in the dining room and she was already up and out by the time I woke up. She’d also been awake way later than me, tapping away at her computers. She was determined to break the school Web codes that controlled schedules, private files, and surveillance cameras. The latter might be useful actually. But she also wanted to be a martial arts expert, crack shot sniper, and kickboxing queen.

  “Wild! Hey, Wild!”

  I turned to see Jenna jogging my way, cutting across the grass from the track field. Her red hair was bright as ever, as if she were about to catch fire. We’d been friends since crossbow practice in tenth grade.

  “Hey,” I said. “Have a good summer?”

  “Yeah, pretty good.” She grinned at me. “Heard you got busted already.”

  “York.” York liked her though, so she didn’t have the same issues I had.

  “And you snuck out,” she continued. “I’m so proud.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?” I wondered out loud.

  “Because you’re unfairly gorgeous, blond, smart, athletic, and a straight-A student.” She grimaced. “Wait. Why am I friends with you again?”

  “Give me a break,” I said, then smirked. “And by the way, all my demerits were wiped.” I couldn’t help but gloat just a little even if I couldn’t elaborate that Hart himself had called the headmistress to absolve me. “York was speechless for fully three whole minutes and then he looked like he’d bitten into a rotten egg.”

  “Man, I wish I could have seen that.” York might treat her well, but she was still a loyal friend and didn’t like the way he singled me out all the time.

  “It was pretty sweet,” I admitted. “I should have taken a picture.” I had a miniature camera located in the school pin on my shirt. All graduating students had them. Actually, even Niners had them, but they were expected to acquire them on their own, usually through outright theft. I guess it wasn’t technically theft since the teachers hid them around. In our last year they handed us the newest and highest-quality cameras in our orientation packets.

  “Speaking of your hotness and athleticism,” Jenna said.

  I paused, raised my eyebrows. “What, already?”

  “Come on,” she nudged me, the freckles on her nose and cheeks incongruous against the bloodthirsty gleam in her eye. “You can’t tell me you haven’t missed it.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe a little. But why am I always the bait?”

  “Because of all those disgusting good qualities of yours I just listed.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s true,” she insisted.

  “Please, you could be the bait.” She was just as good a combat student as I was.

  “And deny you the chance to wear something pretty?”

  I couldn’t deny it was an incentive. Grandpa encouraged civilian clothes only for practical, don’t-be-obvious reasons, and he didn’t exactly endorse cute dresses and strappy sandals. And I was better at hand-to-hand combat. Jenna’s expertise was her aim, both with a crossbow and a handgun. We didn’t use regular bullets, of course, since they didn’t do much against a vampire. We used bullet-shaped vials of what we called holy water, basically UV-infused bullets.

  “When?” I asked, giving in just like she knew I would.

  “Saturday night, meet at the van at eleven.”

  “Wait,” I stopped her before she could jog away. It was vaguely inhuman how much she loved to jog. “Did you clear it? York’s just dying for an excuse to bust me again.”

  “Yeah, I got Dailey’s signature.” She waved and picked up her pace, heading back to the track. I continued across the lawns to the dorms. Hart might have gotten me out of detention and demerits, but there was one thing he couldn’t save me from.

  Floor mo
nitor duties. And being Courtney’s assistant.

  I think I preferred demerits.

  I couldn’t put it off any longer. Well, just a little bit longer but only because I wanted to swing by my room and grab an elastic band. It was so muggy and hot, my hair was sticking to the back of my neck.

  When I opened the door, a rubber ball full of pink glitter hurtled toward my head.

  I ducked and it missed my nose, but not by much.

  “What the hell, Chloe?” I said just as she yelled, “Get the hell out!”

  She looked up from her computer, paused. “Oops. Didn’t know it was you.”

  “Who else would it be?” I kicked the ball back inside. It rolled toward her, bumping against her foot. I grabbed an elastic band from my desk and tied my hair back.

  “Your little Niners have been coming by all morning,” she said grimly.

  I winced. “Seriously?”

  “Yes.” She speared me with a look. “It’s annoying. I didn’t like Niners when I was one. They’re either needy or macho or both.”

  “I’ll fix it,” I promised, holding up a hand to curtail a long rant. She had that look on her face. She got her temper from her father, who was one of those temperamental chefs who threw pasta and entire chickens when a meal didn’t go as planned. His assistants quit on a regular basis. I’d seen grizzly old vampire hunters with fewer battle scars.

  “I’m staking the next pimply faced thirteen-year-old who knocks on that door,” she told me.

  “I’ll go right now,” I said. “Have another vitamin.”

  “Ha-ha,” she grumbled, turning her attention back to her keyboard. I hurried out before she remembered I was there. Spencer was coming out of the small kitchen, a cup of coffee in his hand. He wore a chunk of turquoise on a braided hemp necklace.

  “Did she throw stuff at you?” he asked, nodding toward my door.

  “Rubber ball. You?”

  “Xena action figure.”

  “That’s never a good sign.”

  “I know. She loves that thing.” He frowned. “She’s all stressed out. I’ve never seen her like this.”

  “She’ll calm down. York spooked her with that drill. She’s afraid she’s going to fail the year.”

  “Like she couldn’t break into his computer and change her grades if she wanted to.”

  “Yeah, but her mom’s on her case too.”

  “That woman is terrifyingly efficient. I like your grandpa better, even if he could snap my neck without breaking a sweat.”

  “Yeah, he’s the best,” I said proudly.

  Spencer snorted noncommittally, then threw his arm across my torso to stop me so abruptly that I stumbled.

  “Ooof. What is wrong with you?”

  “Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

  “And why are you staring at my boobs, perv?”

  “Is that the medallion you told us about? From the coronation.”

  I glanced down. The silver pendant on its long chain had fallen out of my shirt.

  Spencer looked positively greedy. “Can I see it?”

  For some reason I didn’t want to take it off. I held it up but kept it around my neck. “It’s not magic, Spencer, just a symbol.”

  “That’s half of what magic is,” he said. “Symbology.” He ran his finger over the insignias. “I’d love to do some tests on this.”

  I batted his hand away. “Forget it. It’ll come back melted or smelling like cheese.”

  “One time,” he muttered. “One time I misread a spell and I’ll never live it down.”

  “You smelled like cheese for a month.”

  “Believe me, I remember. I still can’t eat grilled cheese sandwiches.”

  Satisfied that he was distracted from trying to steal my necklace, I looked up the long staircase and squared my shoulders. “Here goes nothing.”

  “You’ll do fine.” He snorted. “And pretty much no matter what you’ll do, you’ll be better than Courtney.”

  That was comforting, at least.

  Still, there seemed to be fewer stairs than usual. I reached the top floor distressingly fast. It smelled like popcorn. The common room looked the same, but there were plants in the windows. That was new. Homey.

  “Courtney put those there,” Lia said, when she saw me looking at them. She looked more cheerful today, less like she was about to have a panic attack. She still looked really young though. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” I said back. “You okay?”

  She looked embarrassed. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I totally lost it yesterday.”

  “It happens to all of us,” I assured her.

  “I bet it’s never happened to you.”

  She was right. But that was only because I’d been five years old when Grandpa had started my training. When I’d thought there were monsters under the bed, he taught me how to do a proper sweep to get rid of them.

  “So are you settled in?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Pretty much.”

  “And you know not to use the last shower stall in the back?”

  Her eyes widened. “Why not? It’s the cleanest one.”

  “Let me put it this way: magic gone wonky plus a cranky ghost makes for ice-cold water. Or sometimes blood instead of water.”

  “Okay. Gross.”

  “Yeah, that’s why no one ever uses it. But they never put that stuff in the orientation manual.”

  She shivered.

  “Don’t let it get to you.” I smiled. “By this time next month you’ll know every corner of this place.” I went toward the bulletin board, smiling at the two girls sprawled on the couch watching television. “Also, don’t eat the meatloaf.”

  “I’m thirteen, I’m not an idiot.”

  I laughed. “Okay, then.” I scrawled a note on a piece of paper and tacked it to the board. “Can you do me a favor and spread the word for me? Ask the girls not to bug my roommate or she’ll send viruses to their computers.”

  Lia blanched. “She can do that?”

  “Yup.”

  “Cool.”

  “She’s just as likely to throw something at you though. Anyway, I’ll come up here once a week … say Thursdays after dinner, if anyone needs to talk to me.” Not that I expected they would, since they had Courtney, who was actually supposed to be doing this, and what did I know about this stuff?

  “Are you the new monitor?” one of the girls asked.

  I nodded. “I guess so.”

  “She’s my assistant.” Courtney sneered from the doorway to her room, which was decorated from floor to ceiling in purple. Her hair was in perfect hazel-brown waves to her shoulders, her eyes expertly lined and smudged with silver eye shadow. Her dress was really pretty, with lace layered over silk. I coveted it instantly.

  Which just made me cranky.

  “Courtney,” I said evenly, counting to ten.

  “You’re not the floor monitor,” she said defensively. “You’re my lackey. Your job is to do what I tell you to.”

  “You wouldn’t need an assistant if you’d done your job properly in the first place,” I shot back. Like hell I was going to let her make me her minion.

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Excuse me, but it’s not my fault one of them was too slow. She had to pass the entrance exams like everyone else. She should’ve been fine.”

  “She’s thirteen,” I said softly, since I knew everyone around us was eavesdropping.

  Courtney blinked. “She is?” She frowned and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Whatever,” she added, her cheeks pink. “York says I’m in charge.”

  “He would,” I said under my breath.

  “And if you don’t do your job, I’m supposed to tell him about it.”

  “Fine,” I said through my teeth. “I already posted my hours so chill, already.”

  “My family’s just as good as yours,” she snapped suddenly.

  It was my turn to blink at her. “Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say to that.

  “I
mean it.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  I was so glad we weren’t roommates anymore. I’d rather have Chloe throwing stuff at my head any day. I heard one of the doors creak open. “You, in room 403!” I snapped. “Always check for creaky hinges before you try to listen in on someone. It’s a dead giveaway.” There was a gasp and the door slammed shut, followed by stifled giggles. I rolled my eyes. “So’s that,” I muttered.

  “Look, I don’t need your help,” Courtney insisted hotly.

  “You need some kind of help,” I said, turning on my heel and going back downstairs. I was on the landing when my phone vibrated in my pocket as a text message came through.

  Hel-Blar attack. All 12th-grade students

  to town line rendezvous.

  I took the rest of the steps at a dead run.

  Spencer was already in my room when I got there. Chloe was shoving a stake through one of her belt loops. She looked excited. She never looked excited about drills and outright runs.

  “You got the message?” Spencer flicked me a glance.

  I nodded, reaching for my jacket. I secured the tear-gas pen, altered to hold Hypnos powder, in my cuff. “Hel-Blar on the outskirts of town again?” I asked. “That’s twice in one week.”

  “And enough of them this time to call us all in,” Spencer added grimly as we thundered down the hall. The front door was already open. A cluster of Niners stood on the stairs watching the dorms empty of twelfth-grade students, armed to the teeth.

  Courtney shoved past them, stakes lined up on her designer leather belt. “Hunter,” she smirked at me. “Someone has to stay behind and babysit the girls, as you so kindly pointed out.”

  I did not like where this was going.

  “So you stay,” I replied tersely. “You’re the floor monitor.”

  “You’re my assistant,” she strode past me. “So assist.”

  I grabbed her elbow. “You said you didn’t need help, remember?”

  She shrugged me off. “Let go. You’re the one who was all worried about them.” She jerked her head toward the lane, visible through the open door. “There goes York. Should we ask him?”

  Crap.