Blood Hunter (The Grandor Descendant Series) (12 page)

Immediately she accepted his hand, her head too dizzy to pull the boy’s face into focus at first.   

“I didn’t see you there,” he said. “Are you ok? Looks like you have been in the wars… sorry to add insult to injury.”

When she could finally pull the features of the boy in front of her into view, two startling light blue eyes stared back at her, and she blinked a few times as she gathered her thoughts.   

“That’s ok, I mean… I’m ok. Wait what… wars?”

Confidently the boy reached down and placed a gentle finger near the band-aid she had placed earlier over the cut on her forehead.

“Yea wars, looks like you have a battle injury. I’m Chris,” he added, reaching out a hand.

As Ari shook his hand, she couldn’t help but notice how cute Chris was. There was no other word for it. He wore a brown baseball hat that only partly hid shaggy dark hair, and which matched the faint trace of stubble that formed around his chin, side burns and upper lip. His nose and lips were small, contrasting with his thick eyebrows, which threw his piercing light blue eyes into even greater focus. She continued to shake his hand a little longer than normal, her eyes falling on the intricate tattoos that wound up his left arm.

“And you are?” asked Chris, raising an eyebrow as he glanced down at his hand, still being shaken by Ari.

“Ari,” she replied, quickly dropping his hand.

“Haven’t seen you around before?”     

“Yea I just moved in; guess I’m starting Uni late,” she said.   

“Are you going to the dance tonight?”

At this Ari was reminded that she was meant to be meeting the coven now.

She took a few steps towards the stairs and said, “Yea, actually I have to go; I’m meeting some friends now.”

As she raced away she heard Chris yell out after her, “Well, I will see you later on?”  

Ari didn’t turn back around but shouted back, “Yea.”

Chapter 6- Single and Good to Go

“What took you so long?” Clyde asked with a touch of annoyance, when Ari arrived outside of Omega Halls, out of breath and her cheeks rosy.

Ari didn’t answer right away, she was too busy looking for Ragon amongst the coven members, but still he was nowhere to be seen. Before she could ask where he was however, her eyes fell on Clyde and she burst into laughter.  

“What?” Clyde asked, tapping his foot on the ground and crossing his arms impatiently.

“You’re looking very, err… green!” she said, trying to muffle her laughter.

This was a serious understatement. He was wearing a pair of green cargo pants, with many large square pockets and a light green long sleeved shirt that had three buttons near the neck line. To top it all off, he had written the word g
reen
across his shirt in spray-on paint. He clearly wanted to make a statement- single and good to go.

“I like to make a good first impression,” he said, brushing a hand through his hair.

“Has anyone heard from Ragon,” asked Ari, watching with disappointment as everyone shook their heads.

“Shall we?” asked Patrick, moving flamboyantly in front of them. “Our first school outing! I’m so excited.”          

“Don’t worry,” Thomas whispered, catching up to Ari as the group walked towards the campus club, “I am sure that Ragon will meet us there. He is probably just getting the lay of the land.”

Ari sighed but continued walking. Though Thomas had been meaning to comfort her, he had done the opposite. The fact that it had been him to reassure her, instead of Sandra, was further reason for Ari to be worried about her friend.

The walk to the Campus Club was a relatively short one, albeit colourful, what with the many students that were dressed in various shades of green, orange and red. A few of the groups of people they passed were carrying cans of pre-mixed drinks, or else smoking cigarettes and laughing with each other; Ari caught snippets of conversation and thought that all in all, the university so far appeared relatively normal. That was if you didn’t take into consideration that a proportion of these people were in fact vampires. Just looking around at them however, Ari couldn’t tell the vampires from the mortals.

“ID?” said the girl on the club door, when Ari went to walk through with the others.

Ari faltered and rummaged in her jeans pocket for her passport; why was she the only one to get carded out of the group? She was just about to ask this when she noticed Sandra walk past the girl, unsheathe her fangs, then continue walking through the doors.

“First-aid is at the rear of the building; there is an attendee there at all times,” the girl on the door said in a low whisper.

After that Ari handed over her passport; the girl barely glanced at it. She seemed to be more preoccupied with a rubber stamp, pressing it hard into a small container of what Ari could only think must be ink. When the girl was finally satisfied, she grabbed Ari’s arm and turned it around, pressing the stamp hard against Ari’s wrist. Ari looked down at her hand but there was nothing there. Not wanting to hold the line up any longer, Ari shrugged and followed the rest of the coven inside.  

Ari’s first impression of the Pasteur Institute campus club was that it was nothing like any other campus club she had been to. Though the general layout was similar to other campus bars, there were a few choice differences that set it apart dramatically. It looked as if the building had once been used for some sort of academic purpose and overnight someone had decided to turn it into a bar. There were large bookshelves along the walls that held old dusty books, while behind the bar was a school-room blackboard with various drink specials written in chalk. Many students were leaning over the bar, yelling across the music as they pointed to the board furiously, apparently trying to be heard. A few old style student desks with flip lids had been turned into drink tables, while scribbling’s of philosophical work had been written over the white wallpaper, which was also decorated with numerous newspaper articles, highlighting various student achievements or modern day advancements.   

Ari had been in the club for only a minute or two when she noticed Gwen, the head of Cruor halls the coven had met with earlier, staring at her wrist. Ari was just about to ask Clyde what Gwen’s problem was, when she noticed Chris, the boy who she had run into earlier. He was striding towards her, his face breaking into a smile at the sight of her.

“Hey stranger!” said Chris, “Fancy running into you here.”

“As opposed to smashing into me,” Ari said smiling.   

“Yea, sorry about that,” he replied, his eyes raking the band-aid on her forehead.  

“You two know each other?” grumbled Clyde, glaring at Chris.

“Yea…” Ari started to say.

“We’ve crossed paths,” Chris finished for her, winking once at Ari.

“Well isn’t that nice,” said Clyde, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Chris shrugged, turning away from Clyde so as to face Ari again as he asked, “Want a drink? I know you’re new around… I can introduce to some friends from our hall.”

Instantly Ari hesitated. Did she want a drink? Yes. Did she want to make friends? Yes. But she wasn’t too sure if Chris was offering to buy her a drink, or if he was asking her to go and get a drink. She definitely didn’t want to give off the impression that she was single. Still, she was wearing a red top and the traffic light dance was pretty specific about the colour code. There was no mistaking the intentions of the green jumper that Chris wore- single and good to go. Fortunately she was spared answering when there was a soft tapping on her shoulder; she spun around to see Ragon holding two plastic cups in his hand.

“Hello love,” he said, just about to lean in and kiss her.

Before he could do so however, his eyes locked on her forehead and he growled.  

“I’m so sorry,” he said, kissing her just below the band-aid.

Involuntarily Ari’s eyes had closed. She felt Ragon’s icy lips brush against her brow and was immediately whisked away to a vision of the two of them being alone together. When she finally opened her eyes, two things struck her. The first was that she was supposed to be angry at Ragon; the second was that there was a pair of light blue eyes staring at her in disbelief- Chris. Pushing Ragon away, her eyes hardened and she took a sip of the dark liquid in the cup that Ragon had handed her, letting the bourbon swish around in her mouth before swallowing it audibly.

“This is Chris,” Ari said. “He lives in my halls at Omega.” She then turned to Ragon, smiling sarcastically as she added, “Omega, that’s where I’m staying in case you were wondering.” After that she introduced Chris to the coven, naming each of the members before adding, “They are all staying Cruor.”

“Hey,” Chris said politely, though Ari thought there was a definite coolness about his mannerisms that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He glanced obviously towards the bar and added, “Well, I’m gonna grab a drink; Ari do you-”

“-you do that,” Clyde said grumpily, dismissing Chris with a wave of his hand.

Ari watched Chris go with a mixture of guilt and annoyance. Did Clyde have to be so rude to the one person she had almost managed to make friends with? And what was Ragon’s problem? The way he had walked up to her and kissed her in front of Chris; it was as if he were claiming her as his property. AS she thought this, Ari heard Gwen’s words ring shrilly in her mind, ‘
No pets allowed’
, and frowned. She was just about to yell at the pair of them when she felt Ragon reach for her hand. Instinctively she tried shaking him away but his grip was too tight.   

“Wait,” he said, now rubbing furiously at her wrist.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

“Ari… your hand!”

“What about it?” she asked, looking down sceptically.

“It says
Mortal
.”

“What!” Ari exclaimed, narrowing her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“The stamp on the door… it’s an old branding trick. The vamps here must be using a special ink, one that only vampires can see. I have seen it before.”

“Are you being serious?” asked Ari.

“It helps vamps to target humans without any confusion. It can be difficult to distinguish mortals from vampires when the music is so loud that it masks heart beats.”

So that was why Gwen had been staring at her wrist, Ari thought.

“Why didn’t you call me?” asked Ari, when Ragon had finally released her hand; she had already forgotten about being branded as a potential source.

“Ari I’m sorry, it’s just, I was…”  

Ari looked at him longingly, waiting for him to finish his sentence. When it was apparent that he had said all he wanted to, she walked away. I’m sorry; was he being serious? Part of her wanted to turn around and yell at him, but she was too angry. She knew her words would come across as a crazy blur of random attacks. Instead she scanned the room, hoping for a suitable distraction, and her eyes lit up when she saw Sandra.

“Want to get a drink?” Ari asked, smiling broadly at Sandra as she indicated the bar.  

“Sure.”

Happily, Ari followed her to the bar, but was surprised when Sandra moved past it and continued walking to the dance floor. Without so much as a backward glance, Sandra slotted herself between a good looking guy wearing a green hat, and a small mousy girl with a dark green scarf. Ari’s mouth fell open and she glanced around nervously, looking for Thomas; she saw him standing in the corner of the room with the rest of the coven. All but his eyes were covered in shadows as he stared unblinkingly at Sandra.

Turning back to look at Sandra, she saw that she’d now started dancing with the guy in the green hat. What the hell was Sandra doing? Why was she dancing with this guy? It was one thing for Sandra to be sad and moody following the death of her best friend, it was quite another for her to dirty dance with a complete stranger. And why wasn’t Thomas storming over here and berating her? Ari was certain that if the roles had of been reversed, and she was dancing with a stranger while Ragon watched in the background, that he would most definitely have something to say about it. But then again thought Ari, Thomas and Sandra had been together for longer than most couples… centuries longer. Who was she to criticise the ins and outs of their relationship?

Unsure of what to do, Ari hesitated, then moved over to Sandra and the random guy on the dance floor and awkwardly began dancing beside them, though not enthusiastically. After a moment she found the rhythm of the music and began moving in time with it, her hands curling up near her face as she mimed the lyrics and swayed on the spot. She felt awkward dancing next to the pair; her eyes kept darting around the room nervously, afraid of catching Thomas’s eye. And it wasn’t just Thomas’s glare she had to contend with; once or twice she had caught Chris’s gaze. He was sitting outside with a bunch of girls, and Ari had been surprised to see that he looked irritated, or was it disappointed? She wasn’t sure.

The song seemed to last an eternity but when it finally ended, Sandra pulled the guy she had been dancing with over to the bar. Though Sandra had not indicated, Ari followed suit. Sandra eyed each of the bar tenders one by one, finally moving over to a tall guy with styled black hair, whose sleeves were rolled up to his elbows.

“I’ll have another one Paul,” said Sandra, winking at the bartender.

Paul seemed to hesitate but then said, “Alrighty party girl!”

Instantly Sandra’s eyes lit up and she edged closer, leaning over the counter so that she was only inches away from the bartender’s ear, as she whispered something that Ari couldn’t hear. The bar tender grinned at this and moving very quickly, produced a shot glass filled with a thick red liquid, while pocketing a few bills that Sandra had thrust towards him.

“Bottom’s up,” said Sandra, tipping the contents into her mouth.

“Wanna grab a smoke with me?” the boy from the dance floor asked, tapping Sandra lightly on the shoulder so as to recapture her attention.

So caught up with watching Sandra openly order blood from the bar, Ari had entirely forgotten about the random guy they had been dancing with earlier. Sandra however hadn’t lost interest with him. She nodded enthusiastically and the pair walked outside. Still determined to catch Sandra alone, Ari remained close behind. Sandra weaved through the tables and chairs in the courtyard, finally settling on a spot at the very back of the club, well hidden by the overgrown shrubs that almost blanketed the table.