Chapter 2

Experts say that when somebody experiences something traumatic, there is a series of psychological phases that the individual goes through. For instance, after the initial shock comes the denial. Believe me, finding out you're a vampire definitely qualifies as something traumatic. And that was definitely the psychological phase I moved into after the initial shock.

I woke up late the next morning as was usual for a Saturday. I had kindly asked Elizabeth to leave during the night, and she had gracefully accepted—though not without another cunning, crooked smile at me, and another promise to see me again—so I was alone except for the snoring Larry. I made up my mind to give Elizabeth and the events that occurred last night as little thought as possible. As much as I had expected what Elizabeth had told me, the whole vampire concept did have a few holes, didn't it? I certainly didn't feel like the undead; I still breathed, and my heart was still beating, and I didn't feel compelled to find a coffin to sleep in while I waited for the sun to go down. When I looked in the mirror, I still saw my reflection, and when I touched Larry's crucifix or stuck my hand in water, nothing particularly nasty happened to me, so I couldn't have really been a vampire, right?

Still, I couldn't deny the fact that I felt ... different. I don't think it's something I could really explain in words. It seemed as if my senses were heightened somewhat, like I was feeling the world like I never had before. Like I could feel the world breathing around me. I know, your head's probably spinning to understand that. I didn't really understand it either. But at the time, I made a stance and declared to myself that it didn't mean anything.

It was about half-past ten, and I felt interested in a little human contact. Aside from Larry, of course, who as far as I was concerned was more garden slug than human. I picked up the phone and dialed Alicia's room.

Someone picked up after the third ring. "Hello?" It wasn't Alicia. It was her roommate, Julie.

"Uh, hi, is Alicia there?"

"I think she's over at the library right now, but if you want I can ... oh wait, here she is!"

Some shuffling ensued, and Alicia's voice began flowing. "Hello?"

"Alicia! It's Vincent."

"Vincent, what is it?"

I stopped for a minute. "Now that you mention it, I don't really know. I just felt like talking to you."

"Well, maybe that's a good thing, because I actually have something to tell you."

"What's that?"

Her answer was utterly laced with innuendo. "I broke up with Bobby."

I said nothing for a moment. That didn't mean, however, that she and I weren't communicating. I could practically hear her thinking "Come and take me" over the silence. "So what do you want to do about it?" I finally asked.

"I don't know yet. For right now, we'll just stick to the study date plan ... unless you want to go do something now?"

I almost said yes. Then I stopped myself, and looked over to the closed blinds. I could see the daylight through them very clearly, and it definitely scared me. "Well, maybe some other time. I've got some stuff to take care of, but I'll definitely see you at six."

"Okay, I'll see you then! Bye!"

"Bye." I hung up, feeling rather uncomfortable. I looked towards that window again. We already established that the whole vampire bit is crap, right? Why was I so scared of the sun? Was it just because I had a bad experience with it yesterday? Yeah, that had to be it. Not once did I ask myself why I'd had that bad experience in the first place. All I knew was that the sun was shining and I had no intention of going out in it.

Following a quick cup of coffee—which, if I may say, tasted a little differently than usual; not necessarily better or worse, just different—and a shower, I decided to kill some time by sitting down with some video games for a few hours. A little bit of Grand Theft Auto proved all I needed to get my mind off of the issue of what I was now. After keeping this up for about an hour or so—I'm not entirely sure how long it really was, since I'd gotten rather absorbed in it which was really the general intent in the first place—Larry finally woke up.

"Morning, Larry," I said bluntly, not bothering to spare a look at the arising lummox. I didn't need to see him to know he was awake; I just needed to be aware that the snoring had stopped.

"Hey, mornin' Vince," he groaned. "Up bright and early to steal a few virtual cars, huh? Gotta get up for somethin', might as well be that."

I managed to pass most of the day comfortably, but ultimately, six o' clock began approaching. I prepared to leave with my books when I happened to spare another glance at the window. It wouldn't be out much longer, but for the time being going outside still meant stepping into the sun. I couldn't exactly tell Alicia I was late on account of that, now could I? If I was to go see her, steps had to be taken.

At last, I bit my lip (metaphorically, I mean) and took that hesitant step outside. It was a little uncomfortable, and I stayed in the shade as much as possible, but when I didn't start frying up, I concluded that the sun block and sun glasses I was wearing were doing their job nicely. No, wait a minute, the reason I'm not burning up is because I'm not a goddamn vampire! I had to remind myself of that. I breathed a little easier now, and continued on to the library.

Not surprisingly, Alicia was there first. She looked up at me as I approached and smiled. "I wasn't entirely sure you'd make it," she beamed.

"Neither was I," I said on a whim. She gave me an odd look, which left me wishing I hadn't said that.

I sat down with her, and we broke out the books. As the time went on, I began to get the feeling neither of us was really paying much attention to the books. We went through notes out loud, which I couldn't repeat here if I tried. Hell, I couldn't have repeated them two seconds after we read them. Her lips spoke the words we had written; all I saw was her lips moving. After having kept this up for about an hour or so and accomplishing very close to nothing, I suppose Alicia began looking for something to blame on our apparent lack of progress. Well anyway, that's one possible reason for what she ultimately said: "Do you want to take this into my dorm room?"

I looked at her a moment, then shrugged. "Sure," I said, "why not."

We packed the stuff up and proceeded to relocate. Every step of the way, we walked side-by-side, our hands each floating around the vicinity of touching, which happened through the occasional accidental bump. We did our best to keep our eyes ahead of us, but every now and then we would turn our gazes momentarily to each other.

When we reached her dorm room, she informed me that Julie was going out to a movie, so we had the room to ourselves. We spread the books out on her bed and attempted to continue our studying. If anything, it was going worse than before. Neither of us could stop looking at each other. The tension in the room was such that I could almost bite into it. At one point, we were both staring at each other for what must have been at least a full minute. We snapped out of it at about the same time, and tried to get back to the studying, using a book that we both reached for at the same time. Our fingers practically interlocked.

The powder keg finally blew.

We lunged for each other simultaneously, one mouth vigorously attacking the other, hands going wild for anything and everything they could grab onto. We both began hurriedly pushing the books and papers off the bed and proceeded with attacking each other's clothes. Within moments I had tossed her blouse to the floor and was reaching behind her to unfasten her bra. It dropped off to the side, and in the next moment I had my face buried in her supple tits. I ran my lips and tongue in lazy circles around her stiffening nipples. I felt her hands on the back of my head, and a long, slow breath exuded from her mouth.

She reached her hands down my back and began lifting my shirt up off of me. I reluctantly separated my face from her chest as she lifted it from my body, then began working to slide off her pants. Once her last article of clothing had been discarded, I grabbed hold of her hips and hoisted her lower section up, propping her legs on my shoulders, and poising my face to comfortably get at her tasty, juicy snatch, which I proceeded to devour with fervor. I heard her mewling softly as her hips began alternately moving up and down.

When I was ready to move on to something else, I lowered her back down. As soon as she was able to, she leapt over to me and began hurriedly undoing my pants. She worked it just enough so that she could pull my throbbing rod free, and eagerly wrapped her lips and tongue around it, moaning hungrily as she bobbed her head about. She kept her eyes tight shut, focusing solely on my stiff member, jerking her head up and down and from side to side, periodically disengaging her lips and switching to the tongue which danced merrily about.

When she finally popped off of it and raised herself up to look at me, I leaned in and began feverishly kissing her again. I slid my pants the rest of the way off, then took hold of her and threw her down on her back. I knelt over her and slowly slid my way into her. There was a sharp intake of breath as she threw her head back and closed her eyes. Sharp cries of delight began pouring from her mouth as I pounded away at her. My hands held onto her sides, which she responded to by placing her hands on top of mine, and continued keeping them there as I ran my hands up her body to ultimately cupping them over her breasts. She raised her head up and looked me straight in the eyes. I saw her lips mouth my name, then her eyes fluttered shut again and she dropped her head back, moaning "Oh yesssssssss..."

All at once she bounded up from her lying position, threw her arms around my neck and locked lips with me, still moaning on every exhale of breath. We sat up entwined with each other, bobbing our bodies up and down. After keeping her tongue held inside my mouth for at least a minute, her mouth slid smoothly off to the side onto my cheek. She continued kissing the side of my face, running her mouth further and further along, ultimately taking my earlobe in her teeth. I began doing similarly with her, applying my lips to the side of her face, bringing my kisses further and further down her, coming down to her neck. Within a few more seconds we both came almost together, and—I don't really need to tell you what I did next, do I?

Didn't think so.

With her orgasm coursing through her, Alicia's hot, tasty blood pumped heavily into my mouth for a few seconds or so before my eyes snapped open as I realized what I was doing. I instantly released her, and she collapsed onto the bed, seemingly oblivious to the two little wounds in her neck. I hurriedly began gathering up my clothes. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" began pouring from me. She gave me a look that seemed to say "For what?" but for some reason she didn't bother asking me out loud. As I hurriedly dressed myself I continued "I'm sorry, I ... I have to go."

"V-Vincent, what ... what's wrong?" She still lay crashed out on the bed. She looked like she was trying to raise herself up when she said that but couldn't. Her voice sounded rather weak, too.

"I'm sorry, I just gotta go," I said again and hurried out the door, not bothering to pick up the notes that were mine.

I ran out, down the stairs and out the door into the early evening air and started running back to my own dorm building. In mid-stride, I realized the place I wanted to be wasn't my dorm room. I didn't know where Larry was or when he would be returning if he was out, but in any case he was the last person I wanted to be with one way or another. I quickly chose a different location, one that didn't require me to change directions at all. Also one that no human could get to without a ladder. As I ran closer to the dorm building, I suddenly leapt into the air. I think I made it three stories up before grabbing onto the sill of a window, and I proceeded using the windows to quickly climb up the building to the roof. I don't doubt a few people happened to look out their windows and for a brief flash saw someone climbing up the building, but at the time I couldn't have cared less. The charade was over. Trying to pretend I was still human had almost cost Alicia her life. I needed a few minutes alone to deal with that, and where better to be alone than the roof of the dorm building. I didn't stop to wonder if anyone was watching me, but as nobody started crowding around the building with cops carrying megaphones trying to get me down, I'm assuming anyone who happened to witness this little stunt just regarded it as the result of having smoked one too many joints.

I sat there, in a spot that was never meant for anybody to sit, as thoughts whirled through my head. I suddenly remembered the woman from last night. You know, the one I killed. I could see her empty, lifeless face staring into nothingness, because of me. Because I was thirsty, and she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What scared me the most was how I felt about it. I felt sorry for the poor lady, but I didn't feel plagued by guilt. I needed to feed, and she was the first source of sustenance I came across, so what happened just happened. What did that mean? Was I just a monster now? Was I just going to kill whoever happened to cross my path when I felt thirsty?

"Oh, don't be that way, it's really not so bad."

I didn't even need to turn around. "Hi, Elizabeth."

She took a seat next to me. I didn't bother looking at her. "I told you last night, it's okay to be scared at first. You'll learn to like it, trust me."

"Why, Elizabeth? Why did you do this to me? And please, don't tell me it was because I was perfect."

"I saw a spark in you, Vincent. I saw the person you were, and the kind of vampire you'd make. I knew I wanted to have you with me."

Now I turned my head to look at her. "Well I have people in my life too, you know! Or I should say I did, because I just made a snack of one of them!"

She looked at me solemnly, then broke eye contact as she began thinking of her next words. "I was twelve years old. My big brother was away on a camping trip with his friends, and he'd been gone a few days longer than he should have been. My parents kept trying to call him; they got no answer. Then finally he came home, saying something had happened to him to change him forever. He invited me into his room later that night, told me he wanted to share this experience with his little sister. Then he made me what I am today. He turned our parents, too. We were a newly-made family of vampires."

She paused a moment in her story, as if trying to summon the courage to continue. "I was a kid, Vincent, a twelve-year-old girl with a newfound need for blood. Within a week, I'd killed three of my friends. I isolated myself from the rest of them in order to protect them from me. So don't think I don't know what you're going through."

"Thanks, but that doesn't really help me right now." I let my head hang. "I feel so alone..."

Elizabeth put a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her again, into her luminous golden eyes and luscious smile. She began to stand up as she said, "Come with me. There's something I need to show you."

My curiosity piqued, I humored her and stood up, following her to the edge of the roof. Without a second thought, we both dropped off the edge and landed squarely on our feet and continued on. She led me inside the dorm building, and on the bottom floor into an alcove where a soda vending machine stood out of view from any of the dorm rooms. Taking a quick look around her, she pushed a few of the selection buttons in a specific order, and the machine slid forward and to the left, uncovering a secret door. She turned to me with a sly, scheming smile. "Come on," she ushered as she proceeded in through the hidden passage.

I followed her inside as the machine slid back into place behind me, and went on down a staircase into a place I never knew existed. When we reached the bottom, Elizabeth led me through a long, winding hall, and ultimately stepped up to a steel door at the end and banged the knocker on it. After a few minutes, a slot in the door opened and a voice on the other side said, "The moon shines high..."

" ... And the blood is sweet," she replied.

That said, the slot closed and the door opened. "Hey, Elizabeth!" The sharp-looking black guy on the other side brightened as he saw her face. "Was wondering when you'd come down!" His eyes drifted a moment, as he now noticed me. "New recruit, huh?"

Elizabeth turned her smiling gaze in my direction. "Yeah, this is Vincent."

The guy reached over to something I couldn't see, and stepped out of the doorway towards me with a small, tube-shaped gadget in his hand. "Gonna have to run a quick test before I let you in, so if you could just stick your finger here please," he said, holding out the little object and gesturing at the flat end. Hesitantly, I reached a hand out and placed the tip of my finger on the end of the device. I recoiled it when I felt a slight pinprick, and the guy took a look at the little gadget. A tiny spot of blood had appeared on the tip of my finger, which I momentarily placed in my mouth. "All clear, Vincent," he smiled at me, and extended a hand to be shaken, which I cautiously accepted. "I'm Edward. Welcome to the SVA."

"SVA?"

"Come inside," said Elizabeth, "I'll explain."

We entered what appeared to be a somewhat spacious lobby, where a few other people, likely students here from the look of them, were standing around chatting. There were a number of doors along the side walls, as well as a single one in the middle of the far wall. Elizabeth led me into one of the doors on our right, which led into what looked like some kind of bar/lounge, or rec room. There was a bar along one wall where people sat drinking, as well as a number of circular tables where others sat snacking and talking. There were about four pool tables in the room, and a widescreen TV in the corner that was showing a football game at the moment. There looked to be a total of about twenty or thirty people down there.

"This is the SVA, Vincent. Student Vampire Association."

I looked at Elizabeth dumbfounded. "Are you telling me what I think you're telling me?"

"I'm telling you that every single person down here is a vampire."

I took another good look around the room. "You're kidding me! And they're all students here?"

"Vampires are entitled to a decent education too, you know."

I wasn't really sure what to think. All this time I'd been attending this school, concerning myself with little more than my studies, never once suspecting that there were vampires on campus. It was incredible.

Suddenly I noticed Elizabeth looking at me again. I looked back into her golden eyes as she smiled at me and said, "Still feel alone?" I assumed the question was rhetorical.

She turned and stepped up to the bar. Simply because I didn't know what else to do, I followed her. That was when I noticed the drink racks behind the bartender. They didn't look like they had liquor on them. The bottles were red. And the light shining on them was like that of an incubator; I could feel some of the heat from where I was. Each of the bottles was labeled with a particular blood type: A+, B-, you get the idea.

"Hey, Nigel!" Elizabeth called.

The bartender turned, smiled, and stepped over to her. "Hey, Elizabeth, the usual?"

Elizabeth shot a glance at me and said, "Two of 'em. One for the new guy."

Nigel nodded, and turned to the left rack and removed a bottle labeled AB+. He produced two five-inch glasses and proceeded to fill them with the thick red fluid before sliding them over to us. Elizabeth eagerly picked hers up; I picked up mine with slightly less enthusiasm. She raised her glass with a wink at me, and we both downed them. I won't lie to you and say the stuff didn't hit the spot.

"Welcome aboard, buddy," said Nigel.

"Where does all this stuff come from?" I asked as I lowered the glass from my mouth.

"Not all blood banks send their shipments to hospitals, you know," said Nigel with a cocked eyebrow. "We actually own some of them."

"Hey, Nigel," said Elizabeth as she brought her empty glass down, "is Patrick in the office?"

"Last I saw him, that's where he was going."

"Who's Patrick?" I asked.

"Patrick's our leader," said Elizabeth, "and I need to take you to him to get you registered, Vincent."

I set my glass down and shrugged. "Okay..."

"C'mon," she said, taking me by the hand and leading me back out into the lobby. We came shortly to one door labeled "office" in the same wall a little closer to the entrance. Elizabeth knocked a couple times, and opened the door when we heard "It's open."

The guy whom I presumed was Patrick stood in another doorway in the corner of the room. He had dark, shoulder length hair and a pair of commanding brown eyes set into his strong face. He wore a suit that mostly seemed to be made of dark blue silk, with an open-collared dark green shirt. He smiled as Elizabeth entered. "Elizabeth! And who's this?"

I decided to step forward for once. "Hi, I'm Vincent."

"Brand new youngblood, Patrick," Elizabeth beamed.

Patrick stepped forward to shake my hand. "Welcome to the SVA, Vincent." He moved to the desk in the middle of the room and opened a binder which he turned to me. He handed me a blue pen and gestured to the open page. "I need you to sign in here, please." I looked down at the page, and proceeded to place my signature on the first blank space, followed by my dorm room number. Patrick then gestured for me to take a seat, and proceeded to break down the need-to-knows, such as the combination for the secret entrances, which there was one of in every building on campus, and the password I'd heard Elizabeth exchange with Edward at the door. "You're welcome down here any time, day or night; there will always be at least a few of us down here, I can almost guarantee it. We have tunnels running all under the school, so you may get to any building safely without worrying about sun exposure."