Vampire U (5 page)

One of Vic's hands had moved back down, and his fingers disappeared into the black triangle of silk that concealed Morgan's sparse tuft of pubic hair.  "Mmm," she cooed.  "Just like that."  She gasped in surprise as he did something with his hand, and her back arched, pushing her breasts out even further in a display of feminine beauty that would have made any man weep for joy.  Even now, I felt a pang of jealousy.

Vic certainly seemed to be enjoying himself.  He wore only a pair of boxer briefs, and his thick, muscular body pressed against Morgan's slender back, his crotch nestled against the swell of her tight buttocks.  He kissed her shoulder, and she shuddered and stiffened in his arms.  His lips moved upward, and his tongue traced the graceful curve above her collarbone until his mouth found her neck.  At the same time, his hand moved faster in her panties.

"Ooh yeah," Morgan said, panting now.

Vic's hand tightened on her heaving breast, pinching her nipple between thumb and finger.  Beads of sweat glistened like tiny pearls on her tanned cleavage.  As though hypnotized, my eyes followed one gleaming droplet as it rolled down her flat stomach and disappeared in the divot of her navel.

Morgan's gasps came with each breath now, on the verge of climax.  I knew she would never forgive me if I interrupted.  But as I started to back away, Vic looked straight at me through the crack in the door and our eyes met.

Panic froze me; I didn't know whether to run or remain motionless.  Perhaps it was just a coincidence that he'd looked up.  Maybe he couldn't see me in the darkened hallway.

But then Vic smiled, the triumphant, feral grin of a wolf guarding a fresh kill.  I felt a sudden jolt of surprise as vivid images flashed through my mind.  Images of me pushing the door open and walking in, peeling off my dress and climbing up onto the mattress with Morgan and Vic, of letting Vic take us both, of sharing his powerful weightlifter's body with my roommate.  Of touching Morgan while Vic watched, kissing her soft Texan lips and feeling those big, perfect round breasts pressed against my own chest as Vic's hands touched us both...

With a start, I realized that I'd pushed the door halfway open and had one foot in the bedroom.  Laughter danced like silent fire in Vic's eyes.  Then the reality of what I was doing hit me like a hammer, and I shrank back into the hallway, praying that Morgan hadn't seen me.  She hadn't; her eyes were still closed, and her body writhed against Vic, just moments from explosive orgasm.

Vic still watched me though, and now I saw something else in his wide grin.  His teeth were too long.  Too sharp.  His mouth opened wide as his hand pressed harder against Morgan's crotch.  As I watched, he put his mouth against the side of Morgan's neck and bit down.

Morgan's scream gave no hint of pain; it was the sound of unbelievable ecstasy.  She thrashed in Vic's arms, but he held her tight, his mouth sealed against her neck.  I could see his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as though he was chugging a beer.  I stared in horror, scarcely able to comprehend what I was seeing, but as I watched, the aroused flush faded from Morgan's ruddy cheeks, and the tan from her naked chest.  Her body grew pale as I watched, as though some vital part of her essence was being drained.

And still she screamed in the throes of a bliss that my virgin body could barely understand.  But as it faded into trembling spasms, she began to slump forward in Vic's arms.  His lips came away red and glistening, and where he had kissed her, two ugly black holes marred the pure white skin of Morgan's neck.

Terror overcame me, and I turned and ran.

Tears glistened on my cheeks as I bolted down the hallway.  My brain gibbered, unable to make sense of what I'd just seen.  I was just tired.  There had been something in the wine.  The lights were too dim for me to have seen what I thought I saw.

Bullshit.

My roommate, the sweet prom queen from Dallas, had just been bitten by a fucking vampire.

I found a broad staircase of polished wood and almost tripped in my haste to get down.  On the ground floor, the pulsing music sounded like heaven.  I hurried into a spacious den where a dozen couples danced beneath pulsing red and purple lights.  The bass sounded like a heartbeat, the music pumping with deep, rich lifeblood.

The moment my terror would allow another emotion, shame rushed in.  I'd abandoned Morgan without a thought, turning to run like a coward.  My shame kept trying to rationalize what I'd seen, but the memory of his teeth and those awful wounds on her neck hung in my mind like rotten fruit on a tree.  
There's no such thing as vampires,
 my mind insisted.  Fine.  Maybe Vic just 
thought
 he was a vampire.  But why would Morgan go along?  She wanted to bed a Beta, and she sure as hell hadn't been a virgin when she got to college, but that didn't mean she would just let the first frat boy she saw bite her neck and drink her blood.

One thought screamed in my head - Morgan was in danger.  I had to find a phone and call the police.  I cursed myself for letting Vic take mine at the gate.

I thought I would feel safe in the crowd, but everywhere I turned, Betas stared at me over their partners' shoulders as though sensing my panic.  Were they all like Vic, whatever he was?  If so, Morgan wasn't the only one in danger.

Several thoughts crashed together in my head at once like drunks careening into an intersection.  Vic's long teeth sinking into Morgan's neck.  The pale, needy women on the dance floor.  Mander.

I balled my hands into tight fists to stop the shaking and took deep, deliberate breaths.  With great difficulty, I forced a smile onto my face and let my body move with the music as I worked my way across the room.

Surely the Betas had a phone somewhere, but I could feel them watching me, as if they 
knew
 what I was thinking.

"There you are!"  An arm swept around my waist, and a jolt of terror trapped the scream in my lungs as someone pulled me against his chest.  I looked up and saw Mander.  My whole body tried to lurch away from him, a reflex of terror and revulsion, but he held me with a grip as strong and unyielding as steel.

"Let go of me!" I hissed as I struggled against his grip.

His hands slid down to the tight curve of my ass, and he gave it a hard squeeze that cut off my words.  "Be calm," he said, just loud enough to be heard over the music.  "Don't panic."

"My roommate, she's..."

"Fine," he said.  "Morgan's fine.  But we need to finish our discussion."

"She's 
not
 fine!" I hissed.  "The guy from the gate, Vic... he..."

"I know what he did," Mander assured me.  A wave of calm swept over me, calm I knew I shouldn't feel, as though something outside myself was projecting it on me.

It felt like a heavy net cast over my mind, weighing me down.  I struggled to resist it, and my anger flared, sudden and harsh.  "Why did you leave me?  Where did you go?"

"Soon," he said.  "But right now you need to relax.  Can you do that?  Just... be cool, as they say. "

My thoughts ricocheted through my head like stray bullets, but Mander locked his dark eyes on mine, and I felt that pull again, solid and constant.  Instead of resisting, I let it take me like the tide and pull me toward him.  My terror subsided to a dull buzz.

"Good," Mander said.  His hands were still on my ass, and I became aware of the closeness of our bodies.  Mander danced with a sinuous grace that made me feel awkward and clumsy, but the strength in his arms pulled me along to the beat of the music.  He bent his head to my neck, and I stiffened at the memory of Vic's gleaming teeth plunging into Morgan's neck.

I remembered Mander's desire on the staircase, the way he'd seemed on the verge of losing a tightly held control, and how for a moment, I'd wanted him to lose it.

Now I prayed that he wouldn't.

I swayed in his arms like a puppet on strings, letting him move me.  Mander's face pressed against mine, his skin too cool for the desire that radiated from his body with the intensity of a furnace fan.  I felt utterly helpless as I waited for the plunging sting of sharp, long teeth, but he only pressed his lips against my skin in a gentle, probing kiss.  Air stirred against my neck as he savored the taste and scent of my flesh.

Gradually, I relaxed.  Surrendered.  I don't know how long we danced, but in Mander's arms, suddenly nothing seemed urgent anymore.  Morgan would be fine.  I would be fine.  Everything would be fine.

"You want to get out of here?" Mander asked.  Something big and hard brushed against my belly.  This wasn't the request of an innocent schoolboy.

"Y... yes..." I said, hating the vulnerability in my voice.  Somewhere in this massive house, Morgan was alone with Vic.  She had been kind to me; I couldn't leave her like this.

Mander took my hand and led me through the dancers.  They parted to make a path, oblivious women with glazed eyes in the arms of Betas who leered at me like lions waiting for a panicked gazelle to bolt away from the herd.  Mander's fingers tightened around my own, and he moved faster, not quite hurrying, but I had no choice but to follow him or fall.

Soon we were out on the patio.  The wild crowd had diminished to a few couples.  The house loomed behind me, full of dark bedrooms and darker secrets.  I tried not to think about where all the young women I'd seen before had gone.

"Keep going," Mander hissed.  He pulled me across the wide lawn to the parking area and led me to my battered Civic without hesitating.  "Go home," he said as he yanked open the door.  "And don't let anyone into your dorm.  Not tonight."

"But Morgan," I said.  "My roommate...   I saw..."

"She's fine," Mander said.  He glanced back toward the house, and I sensed something close to fear in him for the first time.  "I shouldn't have asked you come.  I should have found another way, but I thought...  never mind."  He shook his head.

I dug in my heels and pulled at his arm.  "Mander, stop!  Please...  what is going on?"  My voice betrayed my distress, and Mander's face softened somewhat.

He turned and pulled me close, glancing nervously over my shoulder as he leaned in once more.  "Just go."

I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could speak, Mander's lips pressed against mine in a hard, passionate kiss.  I struggled against him for a heartbeat, but his tongue slipped between my teeth and sent a powerful sensation rolling through my body.  His mouth pulled at me, as though tasting my very essence.  A sharp tingle of pleasure raced through my body as the kiss burst through the confusing cloud of my emotions.  I leaned into him, returning his passion with my own.  My arms slipped around his slim waist and pulled him tight, craving more.

With Mander's lips against mine, my fear seemed to float away, a distant, abstract thing.  I felt adrift on an ocean of calm, and I knew that Morgan would be alright.  That we both would.  When Mander finally pulled away, he left me breathless with want, but that feeling of calm lingered on.

"There you are," someone said behind me.  Mander let me go, and I reluctantly fell away as he looked over my shoulder.

"Alex," he said.  "She was just leaving."

Dizzy and gasping for breath, I turned and saw the big Beta several feet away.  The fists clenched tightly at his sides betrayed the mask of his amiable smile.

"Leaving?  You strike out again, bro?"  Alex shook his head in mock sympathy.  "Maybe she just needs to meet the right man."  He sauntered toward me and tucked a finger under my chin.  Beside me, Mander stiffened, but he didn't move.  Alex's finger felt cold, but when he pulled my face up toward his, I couldn't look away.

"What do you say, baby?  You want to come back to the house and let me show you what a real man can do?"

I felt the world 
bend
 around me, and my mind seemed to take a vacation again.  A yearning lust tightened my thighs with a twinge of needfulness.  Fantasies flashed through my mind, lurid and graphic, Alex's broad chest pressed against my breasts, my slender fingers clawing at his broad shoulders as his hips moved between my legs.

I felt adrift on a churning night sea, and Alex's will moved beneath the surface like a hungry leviathan, circling me closer and closer.  Soon his jaws would open and...

Something else appeared in the void of my mind, a warm glow in the darkness that drew me close, held me steady, and bathed the fog of my emotions in brilliant light.  Mander's face filled my mind, and I stepped back from Alex.  "No thanks," I said, my voice only a hoarse whisper.

"I told you," Mander said, his tone as hard as iron.  "She's with me."

Alex laughed.  "But for how long?  You're soft, Mander.  You think you can take one like her?"

Like me?
  I wondered what he meant, but Mander ushered me gently toward my car.

"Leave her alone," he said, and I heard violence in his voice, still and tense as a coiled viper.  He opened my door and pushed me down into the seat.

Questions clattered around my mind like dice in a cup.  "Mander, what about Morgan?  And what did he mean..."

"Go," he commanded, and his voice seemed to echo in my head, not just a suggestion, but an imperative I couldn't ignore.  He slammed my door and turned back to Alex.  My shaking hand managed to find the ignition on the third try, and I left Beta House without Morgan, leaving her fate in Mander's hands and wondering if I'd made a mistake that I would regret for the rest of my life.

I didn't remember crawling into my bed, but I slept poorly, tossing and turning on the thin dormitory mattress with my silk nightie clinging to my skin in the humid night air.

As I drifted on the edge of waking, images of Beta House rolled through my head: pale, writhing couples, pumping music, and a predator's venom-green eyes staring at me from the darkness behind Morgan's naked, perfect body.

A dream came to me in the quiet hours before dawn, a dream so sharp and clear that it clung to my mind with all the clarity of memory.  In it, I slipped out of bed and padded across the small room to the door, drawn as though by thousands of voices whispering in my head.  Despite the earlier heat, the air felt chill, and gooseflesh dappled my skin.  The tips of my breasts pressed against the silk nightie, swollen and hard, and my breath formed thin clouds that dissipated like phantoms.  When I touched the doorknob, I sensed someone - or something - lurked just beyond the door, a presence full of dark malice.  Its eagerness grew palpable as I began to turn the knob.

I knew hungry jaws waited for me on the other side, and my mind recoiled at the certainty that I would be devoured if the door opened.  And still the knob turned, as though my hand belonged to a puppet on strings.  I struggled against that same strange feeling that I'd felt at Beta House, that my will wasn't my own.  Terrified by the prospect of becoming a prisoner in my own mind, I lashed out violently with my will. 

Yet the knob still turned.  Finally, the mechanism clicked, and I watched my hand pull at the door.  I felt the presence beyond the door tense, ready to pounce, and I screamed silently in the black cavern of my head.

The deadbolt caught, and the door only budged the smallest fraction of an inch.  Something heavy crashed against it from the outside, shaking the door in its frame.  A guttural growl followed, and I snapped out of the trance that had brought me to the door.

I lurched back, but there was nowhere to run.  I was trapped here with deathly terror just a few feet away.  I couldn't think, and instinct took over.  Like a small child, I crawled back into bed and pulled the sheet over my head as I curled into a small ball, gibbering with panic as something heavy and strong smashed against the door.  But the old wood held.  The ancient buildings of Romanus University are solidly constructed, even in dreams.

With my eyes shut tight in the darkness, prayer poured from my trembling lips.  "Pleaseletitgoawayohpleaseohgodmakeitstop..."

And as suddenly as it began, the banging stopped.  The evil presence outside didn't fade; it disappeared in a rush.  But the terror of the dream remained, vivid and fresh as the memory of a foul odor.

***

When I woke, bright daylight streamed through the windows, but my terror felt as new and bright as blood welling up from a deep cut.  I thrashed in a wild panic, kicking the covers to the floor.  At some point, I'd torn off my nightie, and I lay naked and exposed on my mattress, cringing in the surety that rough hands would seize me.  When nothing happened, the paralyzing dread faded as my rumbling stomach informed me that it was well past noon.  I staggered to my feet and saw Morgan across the room, curled into a ball on her bed.

An immense rush of relief cleansed the tight knot of guilt and shame in my belly.  How could I have left her?

Next to the fresh wound of my dream, the memory of Vic's sharp teeth in Morgan's neck seemed fuzzy and insubstantial now, especially with sunlight pouring into the room like warm honey.  Had I imagined the whole thing?

Hoping that Morgan wouldn't wake, I crept across the room and brushed aside the blonde hair that lay across her neck.  There were no puncture wounds, only smooth and unbroken skin.  I started to laugh at myself.  Had I really thought that there were vampires?

And then I noticed Morgan's skin tone.  The deep tan of a Texas summer had faded overnight, replaced by an unhealthy pallor.  I could see the veins beneath her skin, thick and blue.

It's just the light,
 I told myself.  But I knew better.

The staccato gunshot of a knock on the door sent a surprised scream bursting from my lungs as I remembered the menacing presence of my dream, but I felt none of that now.  It had seemed so real.  
It was real,
 my mind insisted.  
As real as what you saw at Beta...

No.  I pushed that thought away.  A bunch of frat boys had drugged my wine with shrooms or something.  Logic and reason demanded a better explanation than what my heart told me.  I'd experienced a powerful hallucination, and Mander had sent me home.  Nothing else made sense.

I went to the door and put one timid eye against the peephole, then let out a delirious little laugh.  Lara Bauer, the third floor residential assistant stood outside, hands on hips as though ready for combat.  She raised one fleshy fist to pound again, but I swung the door open.  She seemed disappointed that she didn't get the chance for a second knock.

"Morning, Lara," I said, trying to be polite.  A vindictive RA could make life hell for her residents, I knew, and Lara Bauer had earned a reputation for rooting out every minor infraction and punishing the offenders.  I didn't want to get on her bad side.

"You girls have some explaining to do," Lara said, talking down to me as though she was ten years older instead of one.

I blinked.  "Uhm... what?"

Lara stabbed a finger at the door I held open, and I turned my head slightly.  The solid old oak looked like a junkie had attacked it with a crowbar.  "This building is over a hundred years old.  It's in the Historical Register.  You girls are here one week and you do this?"

"I...  it wasn't us, Lara.  I don't know..."  But I did know.  My dream rushed back to the front of my mind, and I remembered that awful, rage-filled hammering.

Lara saw my expression change, and she closed in for the kill.  "It wasn't like this when I walked my rounds last night," she said.  "If you were in your room, you must have heard it.  And you didn't report a thing."

"I... Lara, I'm sorry, I don't know what to say..."

But Lara was looking past my shoulder into the room.  "What's wrong with her?" she said.  "Is she sick?"

I turned and saw Morgan lying on her side, staring at us with dull, flat eyes.  Her golden hair lay like a yellowed funeral veil against her pale, expressionless face.  Lara pushed past me and into the room.  "Are you on drugs?" she demanded of Morgan.  "Are you girls keeping 
drugs
 in this room?"

"No!" I cried.  Morgan just grunted and swung to her feet.  She seemed slimmer this morning, although her breasts still filled her t-shirt, full and lush.  Morgan shuffled past the RA as though she didn't exist.

"Hey!" Lara snapped, but Morgan ignored her and turned down the hall toward the bathrooms.

"Morgan?" I called, but got no response.

Lara spun toward me.  "I'm going to write you both up for the door, so don't think you're going to see your security deposit again.  And if you've got drugs in here, I suggest you get them out.  I'm going to petition for a room search, and I promise it won't be the last time!"

I opened my mouth to protest, then snapped it shut.  What could I say that wouldn't make things worse?  Instead, I plopped down on my bed and stared at my hands.  Lara left, but several long minutes passed before Morgan returned.

My roommate didn't even look at me.  She went to the window and lowered the shade, then climbed back into bed and pulled her comforter up over her head.

"Morgan?" I said softly.

"Mmph," she replied from beneath the covers.

When she didn't elaborate, I went over and perched on the edge of her mattress, feeling like a coward for having left her.  The whole thing seemed ridiculous now, like a bad dream.  Surely I couldn't have seen...

"What happened last night?" I asked her.

"Don't remember.  Let me sleep, Dani."  Her voice sounded distant and dreamy, empty of its usual vigor.

I wanted to press her for details, but how could I ask without sounding crazy?  
Excuse me, Morgan, but did a vampire drink your blood while he was fucking you last night?

With a sigh, I went back to my side of the room and powered up my laptop.  For several minutes, I just surfed the web, wasting time scrolling through news sites while my mind drifted, pushed by the gentle wind of memory.

I ran through a mental replay of the Beta party and was surprised to find that the details of the night before had a hazy edge, as though my brain had willed itself to forget what it had seen.  Yet I could recall clearly the own strange mix of emotion and desire I'd felt, alien thoughts planted in my head like the seeds of an unwelcome weed.

I closed my eyes and pictured Mander, and those strange thoughts emerged from my subconscious like stray cats waiting for the kitchen door to open.  I tried to focus on our meeting above the dance floor, where we had gazed down at the dancers.  Mander had showed me the dancers - confident men leading s women as pale and sallow as Morgan had suddenly become.

My eyes shot open; whatever was happening to Morgan had happened to others.  The girls at the party.  Others I'd seen in the journalism and elsewhere on campus.  Mander was right.  Something was strange at Romanus University.  Something wrong.  Something big.

Vampires
, a little voice in the back of my head whispered, but I tamped it down.  I wasn't ready to deal with that impossibility yet.  There were too many other explanations that actually made sense.  The memory of Vic's teeth sinking into Morgan's neck surfaced again, and I grimaced.  I'd already seen Morgan's unbroken skin this morning.  My memories couldn't be reliable, which meant that some frat boy had slipped me a roofie.  And if that was the case...

Alarmed, I bolted out of my chair and hurried to the sink to stare in the mirror, fully expecting to see the same unhealthy pallor in my own face that I'd seen in Morgan's.  But I looked normal enough, which was to say rather plain and unremarkable, with fair skin and frizzy hair shooting out from my scalp in every direction.

I wracked my brain, trying to find some pattern.  Only a scattering of girls I'd seen on campus had this strange affliction, but almost every girl dancing at the Equinox Ball did.  Whatever was wrong, the Betas had to be involved.

Morgan rolled over in her sleep and let out a hollow moan like wind blowing over an open grave.  Suddenly, the small dorm room felt oppressive.  I needed out.  I needed to find answers.

My phone lay on the table between our beds.  I didn't remember retrieving it the night before, but Morgan must have.  Whatever was wrong with her, I was grateful that she'd remembered.

I tossed the phone in my bag, then gathered up my laptop and threw on a pair of tights and a ratty old t-shirt.  Morgan didn't even notice when I left.

***

Baton Rouge's bayou air was dank and sweltering, but I felt a chill in my bones as I stepped outside, a cold sensation as though something watched me.  My nervous eyes darted around, but I saw no one.  Even for a Saturday, campus seemed empty.  The unnatural stillness felt dead as I hurried toward the journalism building.

The bright sunlight washed the color out of the big oaks lining the street.  Any other day, the stagnant hot air would have sent me running for the cool shade beneath their spreading branches.  I told myself it was stupid to feel safer in the sunlight, but today I avoided the dark shadows.  Still, the fresh memory of whoever - or whatever - had hammered at my door last night made my shoulder muscles bunch with tension.

I hoped the hunted feeling would pass when I reached the shelter of the hideous beige block that was Romanus University's journalism school, but when I flung open the big steel door, the dim murk inside gave me pause even as a wave of cool air swept out to greet me.  
There's no such thing as vampires,
 I chided myself.  But it took all my courage to go inside.

Florescent light spilled from the door of the 
Scryer's
 office, and as I hurried down the empty hallway, I heard the angry machine-gun clacking of fingers on a keyboard.  I let out a relieved breath that I didn't realize I'd been holding as I stepped inside.  "Hey, Jacob," I said.

Jacob Crabtree jumped in his seat and glared at me for a moment, clearly irritated at the interruption.  Then his eyes widened in recognition.  "Danielle!"  He sprang up out of his seat and hurried across the office.

"Did you go?" he asked.  He poked his head out the door and glanced in either direction, then shut it and twisted the thumb latch.  "What was it like?  Tell me everything."

"I..."  Dumbstruck, I realized that I'd come to the 
Scryer
 on automatic pilot , not really thinking of a destination, just needing to get away from my room and the prospect of facing Morgan's silent accusations when she woke up again.  I hadn't given the slightest thought about what I might tell Jacob.  What I might tell 
anyone.
  But I could tell by the fevered look in Jacob's eyes that he wasn't going to let me out of here until he'd wrung out every juicy morsel.  "Wild," I said.  That much, I remembered, at least.  "Lots of booze.  Lots of girls making out with Beta guys."

Jacob stared at me, waiting for more.  When I didn't speak, he frowned.  "And?"

"And..."  
And I think I saw a vampire drink my roommate's blood.  And another one tried to drink mine.  I only got away because the guy who invited me decided to intervene for reasons I still don't understand.  Oh.  And something like a wild animal clawed at my door last night...

I let out a long sigh.  "I don't know, Jacob.  Nothing makes sense this morning.  I just need some time to think."

He grunted.  "Fine, but I want to hear everything.  That fraternity gets away with too much, and it's time the public knows why."

I didn't think the public was ready for this story.  But when I thought of all the pale, drained girls I'd seen, I knew Jacob was right.  Young women once full of lust and life now wandered the campus like ghosts, and Beta House stood at the heart of it.  I had to do 
something.