Fangs for Freaks (8 page)

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Authors: Serena Robar

Tags: #Vampires, #Fiction, #Horror, #Best friends, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #School & Education, #Friendship, #Fantasy & Magic, #Horror stories, #Universities and colleges

BOOK: Fangs for Freaks
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“I bet Cookie is a great gal, but you didn’t ask to be turned, did you? Of course not. Don’t you want to go to college? Get a job doing something that interests you and challenges your mind? I’m all for a good party once in a while but really, aren’t you getting a little bored?”
She looked down at her pink toenails and nodded.
I was on a roll. With any luck, I would have the girls packed and ready to grab the first flight back to Seattle before sunset.
Take that, Thomas,
I thought smugly.
“Why don’t you call Tina over here and we can talk a little about Psi Phi House and the new laws. Just so you have a clear understanding of all your options.” She agreed and waved Tina over.
Honestly, at this point I was feeling a bit like an evangelist. I answered their questions and explained the new laws, in layman’s terms. Both girls were absolutely stunning but not the sharpest pencils in the box. They were more concerned with how many parties the sorority would have and the male to female ratio of the college than about assimilation into Vampire society.
Despite her nefarious reasons, in a way, I was grateful Cookie had taken them under her wing. They could have come to a much less appealing existence if the wrong type of vampire found them.
All in all it took less than an hour to convince Tina and Sage to pack up and leave with me on the next flight. I left the Tribunal’s paperwork on the refrigerator so Cookie would eventually find it but it wouldn’t be the first thing she saw. No use tempting fate and risking a confrontation.
Tina was easier to convince with Sage already on board with the idea. She mentioned it would be a good time since she just broke up with her boyfriend and he wasn’t taking it very well. I was a humanitarian on all levels and couldn’t wait to get back to Seattle. Sure, Thomas would be a bit pissed that I’d completed the mission without him—and with such stellar success—but he’d get over it.
I helped load up the car with their luggage. I suggested leaving behind the unnecessary stuff. After all, the beach house was still their home, technically. No reason to get them completely freaked out by saying they could never come back again.
By the time we reached the airport, I had a tiny pinprick of pain throbbing behind my left eye. A sure sign a migraine was coming on. You’d think being Undead would spare me from such things, but two hours in a car with Sage and Tina apparently superseded the dead/Undead boundaries of a common headache.
Tina lamented her failed relationship with Lance contemplated reestablishing her previous vegan lifestyle.
“Don’t you think that may be a bit difficult?” I questioned.
“You’re the one who told me I could live my existence the way I wanted to. That I didn’t have to do what other vampires told me,” she argued.
“But Tina, if you don’t drink blood, you’ll die. That’s kind of the requisite of being a vampire, half-blood or not.”
“But I don’t want to live off of animal by-products,” she wailed to no one in particular. “It’s against everything I believe in.”
Tina patted her shoulder reassuringly and I bit my tongue to keep from saying some pretty unflattering things about her flawed thinking. It was one thing to be a vegan as a living human but living off of blood was a vampire’s only option. She couldn’t just suck carrot juice and go about her life doing the happy dance.
This was just one of many conversations we had and by the time we touched down at Sea-Tac, I had a headache the size of Washington State. Gone was my illusion of a plane ride filled with polite conversation. No one asked me questions about Psi Phi House and or the new laws. I expected a certain reserve between total strangers, you know what I mean? But no. Apparently, Sage and Tina’s lives were an open book. And an open audiobook at that.
Tina filled me in on the details of her tragic breakup with Lance, a vampire surfer no less. “I mean, did he really think I was going to hang out on the beach all night and watch him surf? Hello?! Like I don’t have a life of my own or something?”
They sat on either side of me. Tina regaling me with Lance’s selfishness and Sage parroting everything Tina said back to me. “He thinks he is so cool because he surfs at night,” Tina would say and then Sage would interject, “He totally does.”
I was beginning to think that Cookie had hoodwinked the entire Tribunal by holding out and keeping these two until we came in and took them by force. Thereby ridding herself of the chatty half-bloods forever. All without having to lift a finger. In my mind, Cookie was a friggin’ mastermind genius and I was her duped patsy.
I called Piper as soon as we landed to get a ride but she icily reminded me she was shopping with the others and was unavailable to jump up and do my bidding. Ouch. Piper pissed was not something I wanted to deal with right now. Instead, I called up my dad and he picked us up. We loaded up Mom’s Jag (I have no idea how he managed to talk her into
that
) with all their belongings, which included a rather large stuffed unicorn collection. (I paid fifty bucks for an extra bag so Tina could keep all the fluffy babies Lance had given her, ugh!)
Dad seemed pretty disappointed that both Tina and Sage not only had lovely smiles, but fully functioning fangs as well. I guess when you’re the only orthodontist in town who specialized in fang headgear, it’s a bit disappointing when no one needs your services.
“I’m so thirsty,” Sage announced after her stomach growled. I didn’t care for the way she was eyeing my dad’s neck so I suggested he take us to Dick’s Burgers. Dick’s had been around forever in Seattle and was always hopping. Especially late at night. I was surprised when Sage ordered a chocolate milk shake.
“You can keep that down?” I asked in awe.
“Oh sure. Tina can’t do the milk thing, but I can.”
Neither could I.
“Okay, so how much time do you need?”
“I can take this in the car. We don’t have to wait on me.” She started to saunter back toward my dad, all eyes in the order line watched her every move. Sage was pretty riveting, especially sipping her shake through a straw.
“Don’t you need to …” I nodded toward the crowd. “You know, feed?”
She waved her hand in dismissal. “Oh, gosh no. I’ve been grazing all day. I really just wanted something to drink.”
I shook my head in exasperation. Tina finally joined us after getting the key to a restroom.
“I just met the nicest guy. He let me feed, right there by his car. So nice of him,” she gushed and waved to a dark-haired fellow standing next to a white Jeep. He looked a bit pale and dazed but otherwise returned her wave with enthusiasm.
“Are all guys in Seattle so nice?” she continued to chatter, making my dad squirm in his seat after we all got back into the car.
“Well, that depends on what you mean by nice. Do all guys offer to open a vein and let you feed in the parking lot of Dick’s? Then I would have to say no. You must have found the exception to the rule.”
She bounced lightly in the backseat, looking out the window and taking in the scenery. “He was just so nice,” she said again and I exchanged a look with my dad. I suspected her “nice” guy had been on something by the way she was suddenly so wired and chatty.
It was one thing to teach the value of clean living but as a vampire, we could only keep our living as clean as the blood we drank. If our meals were high as a kite, then …
There just hadn’t been time for Tina to make sure she was getting clean blood. Now she was loopy. I just hoped her friendly Seattle conquest wasn’t strung out on Ecstasy, because then things would get very interesting at Psi Phi House.
We arrived in record time. My dad practically threw the luggage out of the trunk.
“Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate your help. Want to come inside for some coffee?” I offered, not wanting him to drive home if he was tired.
“No, dear.” He kissed my forehead and moved back toward the driver’s side of the car. “I have an early morning tomorrow. Mom and I will stop by and see how you are doing this weekend. Maybe bring out Aunt Chloe.”
I waved to him and he was off. I looked back at Tina, who was staring up at the sky and softly singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” and Sage, who had removed her sandals and was walking across the front lawn, feeling the dew between her toes. No wonder he opted for escape.
I
wanted to escape. Smart man.
I loaded myself up with their luggage and entered the house. After two more trips, I had all of their stuff in the foyer. I showed the girls to an upstairs bedroom and then explained how they would sleep downstairs. Though Sage and Tina could handle the sun without instant spontaneous combustion, it was easier to have everyone sleeping in the basement behind the secret door. Not that Ileana or her maid cared about my concern for their health. The extra privacy interested them more.
I left them upstairs, putting away their clothes. I noted the only things they seemed to own were shorts, scanty tops and bikinis. It was going to be a mite chilly for them come fall. No one else was home and I wandered around aimlessly, peeking into Ileana’s bedroom to see how much progress she’d made in unpacking. It looked like a totally different room!
She’d moved some of the furniture out, I noted, to make room for her more personal items. Shaking my head, I shut the door. I chose not to deal with her rule-breaking at that moment. I was going to live in denial until I had a better idea of what I wanted to do.
I wandered back downstairs and sank into the fluffy couch in our living room and debated calling Thomas. It did not escape my attention that he hadn’t called my cell phone to yell at me for deserting him, so he must be very angry indeed. I decided to wait on that confrontation as well. I was one big mass of avoidance. That is, until I heard a car pull up to the house.
I rolled off the couch and peeked outside. A small transit van stopped by the sidewalk and my fellow sorority sisters emerged, laden down with bags upon bags of Nordstrom goodies. Lucy was laughing at something Ileana said, while Sophie, Ileana’s maid, struggled with several shoe boxes.
I bit my tongue in annoyance. Ileana hardly needed the Tribunal to buy her new clothes, but I was happy to see Lucy and Angie seemed to have a nice collection of packages. I noticed Carl had joined them, looking bored and stressed at the same time.
How does one do such a thing?
I wondered.
Piper jumped out with a single bag that I suspected held a pair of boots. Piper loved boots. I opened the door to welcome them home.
“Hey all!” I called from the door. Everyone looked up and a few called out a similar greeting. I hopped down the steps and offered my carrying services. Piper loaded me up with bags from the back of the van.
Wow, they really went to town,
I thought, after my second trip from the van to the house.
Once inside, all the girls carried their plunder upstairs to their rooms. I told them I would be up in a moment to see what they got and explained we had two new house sisters upstairs. Once they were out of ear shot, I asked Piper how things went.
She took my arm, steered me toward the back of the house into the housemother’s bedroom, now filled to the brim with Ileana’s packing trunks, and sat me down on the bed.
This did not bode well.
“That bad?” I guessed, watching her pace three feet either way, back and forth next to the bed.
She stopped a moment and looked me in the eye. “Should I start with the shoplifting or the threats to put a cap in Mrs. Durham’s ass?”
“Oh my,” was all I could say.
“We arrived promptly at closing time and met Durham at the concierge desk. After a very long and patronizing speech about the generosity of the Tribunal and the grace of vampires everywhere letting half-bloods exist, she told everyone to pick out exactly two things and meet back at the cash register.”
I started to interrupt but Piper waved me quiet.
“Well, I was hardly going to let her get away with that so I amended her statement and told the girls to pick out whatever they wanted, but they only had an hour to shop. They immediately split but Durham was pissed at me. I assured her that no one could possibly do too much damage in only an hour and she relented. Not at all gracefully, I might add.
“Anyway, she wandered off to get her own stuff and I wanted to pick up a pair of boots I noticed when we arrived. Then I started to hear a commotion across in cosmetics.”
I nodded at her, caught up in the story.
“I hurried over to the MAC counter, where Durham and Angie are
screaming
at each other—I thought they were about to duke it out, right there in front of the lipstick case. It seems Durham didn’t think cosmetics should be included in the shopping spree and Angie, who apparently is very fond of makeup, told her it should be included as part of a wardrobe because who would consider themselves completely dressed without lipstick?
“Anyway, Durham suggests to Angie, who just helped herself to the testers, that she looks like a streetwalker and she was doing her a favor by limiting her makeup accessibility.”
“Oh no,” I gasped.

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