More than Magic: Semester Aboard (24 page)

"The sun's down," he said. "I don't want
anybody leaving the room now. I figure sleeping space is sort of at
a premium in here, so I'm heading back to my room."

"Call me when you get there," Dani said.

"I will."

I opened my mouth to ask where TS was and
snapped it shut as the answer suddenly clicked. The sun was down.
Thomas must have fed from TS already. Even as I realized it Mariana
called to Thomas before he could leave.

"Thomas? Do you need to..." She
hesitated.

Thomas looked incredibly reluctant, but
nodded. He and Mariana went into the bathroom. I understood that he
probably wanted privacy, but I couldn't help but be curious. It
only took a few minutes. Thomas, still not looking very happy about
the situation, said goodnight and quickly left. When Mariana came
out of the bathroom she looked a bit pale, but otherwise fine. Her
hair was wet and I wondered if water healed her like it did with
Dani. It was still early but she went straight to bed. Charlie,
Dani, and I only stayed up for a couple more hours as well. Nobody
had gotten much sleep last night. Even though it was much earlier
than I normally went to bed, it felt like I fell asleep the moment
my head hit the pillow.

Chapter 14

It wasn't until I woke up to the sound of
voices that I realized I had forgotten to set my alarm. It was way
too dark to see who was talking, so I flicked the light on and
heard cries of surprise. I sat up and looked around. Dani was lying
on the couch with an arm flung over his face. TS was blinking
rapidly and Thomas was rubbing his eyes. Charlie was sitting on the
couch laughing. The bathroom door opened and Mariana stuck her head
out.

"What just happened?" she asked.

"Jen just blinded everyone," Charlie said,
still chuckling.

TS smacked him. "Everyone but you and your
bloody heat vision."

Thomas looked at me and to my surprise his
eyes were actually watering. "In the future please warn us before
you do that."

It probably should have occurred to me sooner
that turning on a light in a pitch black room would have blinded
anyone, even regular humans. The fact that they all could see in
the dark probably made the sudden change even worse.

"Sorry," I said, embarrassed.

"No problem," Charlie said with a grin.

Dani groaned. "It's too early for this much
light."

I checked my phone; it was 8:17. We were
already fifteen minutes late for LA History. "Are we skipping class
again?"

"It's Sea Day," Thomas said.

"Oh, yeah." I had forgotten all about Sea
Day. Today was the last day that the ship would be traveling south.
After we docked in Chile tomorrow the ship would turn around and
we'd head north again. The voyage was almost half over. To
celebrate, classes had been cancelled for Sea Day. It was supposed
to be a day full of games, contests, and movies. "Are we going to
miss Sea Day?"

"That's what we've been trying to figure
out," Thomas said.

"I think the biter would risk too much by
even being out and about today," TS said. "If anybody he fed from
sees him there's a chance their memories of the incident will
return. Plus, he's much weaker with the sun up and he didn't strike
me as reckless."

"We should be fine if we stick together,"
Dani said.

"Like I said," Charlie answered, "I'm for it.
He'd have to be incredibly stupid to try anything in broad daylight
in front of a hundred non-magics. Half of us could take him alone
during the day. He wouldn't stand a chance if we run into him and
I'm sure he knows it."

Dani cracked his knuckles. "I hope we do see
him. I owe him a few more broken bones."

"Well, if there are no objections, I say we
get out there and try to enjoy ourselves," Thomas said, standing.
"We'll play it by ear and if anyone gets uncomfortable we head
right back here. And we stay together, no splitting up." He picked
up a bag and held it out. "I want everyone armed."

Dani, Charlie, and TS all reached into the
bag and pulled out stakes. Mariana looked nervous, but pulled one
out as well and tucked it into her purse. Thomas held the bag out
to me. I hesitantly pulled out a stake of my own. In spite of
everything that had happened last night, not to mention over the
past week, it felt slightly absurd to be holding it.

"Am I really supposed to use this?" I
asked.

"If you have to," Thomas said. "Make sure you
have your wand on you too."

I raised the stake and felt not just silly,
but awkward. "So, I just..." I made a stabbing motion. "In the
heart?"

"Both hands." Thomas made sure I was holding
it correctly and then, to my surprise, pressed the tip of the stake
against his chest. "Right here, as hard as you can. It's better to
angle it down a bit, it gives you more momentum."

He angled the stake and adjusted my hands a
little. I felt a tiny, tiny stab of disappointment when he removed
his hands and realized in horror that I was starting to like him.
Really like him. I lowered my gaze like I was studying the
stake.

"Got it," I said, hoping I wasn't blushing or
anything embarrassing like that. Of all the people to have a crush
on, why on earth had I picked Thomas? A vampire, seriously?

"You want to stake him hard enough to hit the
middle heart. If he doesn't drop then the stake didn't go in deep
enough. If that happens, run. If he goes down, and you're sure
you've got another shot, drive the stake in deep enough to hit all
three." Thomas didn't seem to notice my jaw had dropped. "That will
kill him as quickly and...well, as painlessly as getting staked can
be. Anything less than all three hearts is just needless
suffering." He paused and looked at me curiously. "You ok?"

"Did you just say
three
hearts?"

"Oh," he chuckled weakly. "Yeah. We have
three."

"Three..."

"Well, one is more of a stomach than a
heart," Thomas added. "That's the middle one. It holds all of the
blood we consume which, back to my original point, is why you have
to get the stake deep enough to pierce it. Anything less and we
have enough blood stored to heal."

A lot of what I thought I knew about vampires
had turned out to be fiction, but at least some of it had a ring of
truth. I was pretty sure I had never heard anything about vampires
having more than one heart. I reached out curiously and paused with
my hand a few inches from Thomas’ chest.

"Go for it," he said.

I rested my palm right where the stake had
been and waited. There was something odd about his heartbeat. I
couldn't really discern three separate heartbeats like I had
imagined, but even if I hadn't known he had more than one heart I
would have been able to tell that there was something different.
No, I had never read anything about vampires with multiple hearts.
In fact, most didn't even have a heartbeat. I studied Thomas. I
hadn't thought about it before, but weren't vampires usually
portrayed as dead?

"So, you aren't dead?" As soon as the words
were out of my mouth I realized I could probably have phrased the
question better.

Thomas’ jaw dropped and he looked absolutely
mortified. Charlie clapped both hands over his mouth, Mariana and
TS both started shaking with silent laughter, and Dani threw back
his head and laughed hysterically.

"W-what? No!"

"I believe the term they prefer is unde-"
Dani began.

"If you finish that sentence you're going
through a wall," Thomas snarled. He turned back to me, still
looking a bit shocked. "You didn't actually think I was
dead
this entire time, did you?"

"I didn't really think about it," I admitted.
"I mean...I guess I read too much."

"Yeah." Thomas put both hands on my shoulders
and looked me straight in the eye. I put a little too much thought
into whether his eyes were more green or more gray, and gave myself
a mental kick. "Let me be clear on this. I am not dead." He shot a
glare at Dani. "I'm not
undead
either."

"And he doesn't sleep in a coffin," Dani
added.

Thomas rolled his eyes. "Why did I think
being stuck on a boat with you was a good idea?"

"It's a sh-" Dani didn't finish. Thomas
lunged at him and the two scrambled around the room until Dani made
it to the bathroom and slammed the door. "Safe!" he yelled from the
bathroom.

"I might kill him someday." I was glad to see
that Thomas looked more amused that irritated.

"He'd deserve it," Charlie said.

As I watched Thomas the idea of just how hard
this must have been for him struck me. We were probably just
children to him. Being a vampire was obviously hard enough, but I
hadn't taken into account what it must be like to be immortal on
top of it. Unless he was with other vampires, assuming there were
other good vampires, he'd look out of place hanging out with anyone
close to his age. He was stuck spending time with college students.
It seemed like he was good friends with everyone, but how long
could that last? In another ten years he'd look out of place with
us too. He could probably only really stay friends with other
people for a few short years.

"Well, when everyone is ready, we should go
enjoy the festivities," Thomas said. He banged a fist on the
bathroom door. "Get out here so other people can use the
bathroom."

Dani poked his head out. "Truce?"

"Yeah, truce."

When we were all ready we stepped out into
the hall. There were only a couple of people as far as we could see
in either direction.

"If it's like this in the dining hall we're
coming back," TS said.

Dani nodded. "Sounds good to me."

But the dining hall was packed. The cooks had
gone all out with every sort of breakfast food imaginable. There
were balloons tied to every chair and music filled the air. People
who were awake enough to play around were on makeshift bowling
lanes, using oranges and saltshakers. Everyone loaded their plates
up with food and we found a table in a corner. I was sure it wasn't
an accident that Mariana, TS, and I ended up by the wall with the
others between the door and us. Aside from a few nervous glances
now and again, breakfast was fun. Everyone around us was laughing
and talking and it was easy to almost forget about the vampire. Of
course I couldn't entirely forget, especially when we stood and I
could feel the weight of the stake in my purse. On the way out we
found a stack of programs listing what activities were going on and
started flipping through it.

"Bunch of raffles on Five," Mariana said. "It
could be fun to enter some."

"Oh, Tom!" Dani cried. "They're playing your
favorite movie! If we hurry we can see the sparkly meadow
scene!"

Thomas looked so disgusted I was half-worried
he'd literally throw up. He tried to smack Dani with his program,
but Dani laughed and dodged it. "You. Are. Such. A. Moron!" Thomas
growled with each attempted whack.

"I think that was more than three strikes,
DiMaggio," Dani said when Thomas stopped trying to hit him.

It seemed like Thomas had been letting Dani
dodge, because this time he caught Dani right on the head with a
good, hard
thwack
, before Dani even had time to react.

"Let's go to the raffle." Thomas turned away,
leaving Dani rubbing the top of his head and wincing.

"Thomas?" I asked as we walked. "Does
anything happen if you go out in the sun?"

I thought I had phrased it in a much better
way than I had asked if he was dead, but he looked just as
horrified. "This is your fault," he said to Dani. He followed it
with another painful sounding whack from the program. "Nothing
happens. The bursting into flames and other nonsense is all
Hollywood."

He kept walking and I hung back a little
until I was walking next to Charlie.

"You ok?" he whispered.

I shrugged, painfully aware that I was
blushing. "I keep asking really stupid questions."

Charlie shook his head. "They aren't stupid.
There's a lot you don't know about magics and...well, you read too
much." He smiled and I could tell he was joking. "There's a lot you
have to unlearn and there's no harm in asking questions."

It wasn't just that. Even if my questions
weren't stupid I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed. I'd
learned so much and yet I kept finding that I hardly knew anything.
Even if they had stopped keeping secrets I was constantly finding
out things that were supposedly "common knowledge." I voiced my
thoughts to Charlie who put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"That's part of why you can't let stupid
questions worry you. Asking questions is the best way to learn. And
I, for one, would rather you ask, no matter how silly you think it
is. It's either that or go around believing false information."

Dani dropped his elbow down on my other
shoulder. "You know what you're doing, Jen?"

I shook my head.

"I think you're learning another
language."

"What?"

"No, Dan," Charlie groaned. "You have awful
metaphors."

"No, no, hear me out on this one. Before you
met us, you had no idea that magics existed and now you have to
learn about an entirely new world. We're teaching you, right?"

I nodded.

"So, we're like the native speakers! And
nobody can learn a new language in a few days. We
can
teach
you, but it's impossible to sit down and just teach somebody an
entire language in one go. You have to go slowly, just like you're
doing. We can lay out the basics, but you have to learn new
vocabulary as the situation calls for it. And I know all this
'common knowledge' stuff is driving you crazy and I feel bad every
time I have say that. But that's like...hmm...it's like grammatical
rules. Nobody ever taught us some of them, we just grew up knowing
them, so it doesn't occur to us to teach them to you."