I opened my eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling for a long time. Maybe everything happening to me these days was just a nightmare? And now I’d finally woken up and was looking at the ceiling of my bedroom that I had never left? Come to think of it, the longest and the most realistic dream in human history sounded no more fantastic than a story about a teenage vampire who ran away from home, robbed a drug dealer’s lair, and killed her best friend. So why not? This ceiling was just like the one in my room! It was also plain white.
But no matter how long I stared at it, sooner or later I’d have to look the other way and find out if it was a dream or reality. I turned my head. There was a big digital alarm clock on the bedside table. Its display was showing 2 p.m. That wasn’t my alarm clock and wasn’t my bedside table. And the walls there weren’t mine. And the WWF panda t-shirt that I was wearing wasn’t mine either. I turned my head back and fixed my eyes on the ceiling again. I don’t want to get up! I don’t want to deal with what happened yesterday and with what I have to do now and with what is going to happen to me and to all this goddamn world! I don’t want to! I don’t want to and I won’t! I’ll just stay here and continue staring at the ceiling!
However, examining the awfully white ceiling was an extremely tiring thing. I got out of bed and decided to look around the apartment. Whatever my uncle did, he definitely had money. And lots of it! A living room the size of the whole first floor of our house looked like a picture from some trendy interior design magazine, that my mother liked reading so much. Leather sofas, a snow-white high pile carpet, a glass table, bookshelves up to the ceiling, and a really giant TV.
There was a shiny chrome-plated kitchen in the corner separated by a bar counter made of a whole piece of some hugely expensive marble. I came up to the fridge and opened its door. There was nothing in it. That made sense. Why did a vampire need food? Although not exactly nothing. There were two dozen of small bottles. The labels had images of raspberry on them and words, written in some Asian language. Perhaps, it was some kind of elite Japanese soda, a whim of the rich. I looked across the room and saw a computer table with five monitors. I came closer to this computer art installation. There were three keyboards on the table – two regular ones and some tricky one with lots of unknown symbols and function keys.
I pressed Enter on the one that was closer to the edge of the table. All monitors got back to life at once and showed the ‘Enter password’ message on their screens. I was about to reach out for the second keyboard to press something else, but at that moment I was stopped by a call, “I wouldn’t do that.”
I instantly put my hands behind my back pretending like I didn’t do anything. Uncle Mike came up to the table and started entering passwords one after another.
“Five different passwords? Isn’t it too complicated for protecting your Facebook messages?” I asked, surprised. “Oh! And that’s still not all!”
Uncle took a bunch of keys out of his pocket and pulled out the upper drawer. There was a small device with a keyhole in it. Uncle inserted the key, turned it, and pressed “Enter”.
“There we go! If someone, by some magical chance, enters all five passwords correctly but doesn’t use this key, special software will wipe all the hard drives,” he explained.
“You download tons of pirated movies? Is that the reason for all the security?” I tried to joke.
“Something like that. There’s a lot of information on vampires like me and you, and that data must not end up in the wrong hands. Hence such serious protection. And also partly because it’s fun. Makes me feel like James Bond.”
“Are you some kind of a hacker?”
Uncle Mike answered with an enigmatic smile.
“That’s so cool! Show me something. Let’s break into the Pentagon right now!”
“We’ll have the time for that later. Right now you probably have plenty of much more important questions. Let’s go to the kitchen, we’ll have breakfast and discuss the situation.”
We walked into the kitchen, and I sat down at the table. Uncle Mike took two bottles of that strange Japanese soda out of the fridge and handed me one.
“Don’t you have cornflakes or something? I haven’t had normal food since I ran away, and I really feel like gulping down something from my past life. Or you don’t eat human food at all, like a real vampire?”
“Sure I do, for pleasure, but I’ve just run out of everything right now. In theory, our scientists say…”
I looked at my uncle in surprise.
“Oh, yeah, we have our own scientists. We have all sorts of things… In theory, a vampire’s organism can absorb calories from regular food, only in us that process is much less efficient than in humans. A vampire would have to eat a hundred human meals just to stay alive. We also need special substances that are only found in the blood. It’s like vitamins with humans.”
I was listening to my uncle, turning the soda bottle in my hands.
“Drink! You need to restore your strength,” he said.
I unstoppered the bottle and brought it to my lips. Instead of soda, it turned out to be some rather thick pink liquid, salty and sweet at the same time.
“What do you think?” Uncle asked.
I gave him a thumbs-up and drained the bottle in a few gulps.
“Now wait for the aftertaste.”
True enough, I felt raspberry notes on my tongue.
“What is this? This stuff is great!”
“It’s our hallmark drink. We call it Bloodberry. It’s a blood substitute – partly synthetic, partly animal blood. And raspberry, well, that’s just for fun.”
I looked at the empty bottle of Bloodberry, then at my uncle, and finally asked the question that had been bothering me all the while, but one I was afraid to ask.
“Uncle Mike…”
“Just Mike, forget uncle.”
“Okay, Mike… So… You don’t kill people?”
“There, the ten-thousand-dollar question,” He smiled, kindly and genially. “And if I say that I do, are you going to kill me too?”
Seeing my tense expression, Mike realized I was not in the mood for jokes.
“No, Sammy, I don’t kill people. Neither do my vampire friends. We are vegetarian vampires, you might say. Or daytime vampires, as we call ourselves. And the human-eating vampires are the nighttimers. As for us, we only consume this fine beverage you’ve just sampled.”
“Do they have a whole vampire industry in Japan, with factories for making Bloodberry?” I stared at the label. “Or is this written in Chinese?”
“It’s in Japanese alright, but the liquid is a domestic product. This bright label with squiggles is just for show, I put it together myself in Photoshop. We produce Bloodberry ourselves right here in Breeksby, and the formula is our own too.”
Mike opened his bottle and took a few sips. “All right, the most important question is off the table. Let’s sort out our current problems.”
“But I still have tons of questions about vampirism and everything that has to do with it.”
“Don’t you worry, we’ll get back to that subject. I’m even going to introduce you to some experts who know much more about vampires than I do, and they’ll be happy to satisfy your curiosity.”
“You will introduce me to other vampires?”
“Certainly! You must find your place in your new social group, after all. But now there’s an urgent issue before us.”
I looked at him questioningly.
“Your mom.”
“Damn!” I slapped my forehead. “How could I forget?! She must have gone crazy by now! But I couldn’t stay! I just had to go! Damn, damn, damn!”
“Calm down. I understand. It was the right thing to do. Foolish, of course, but right on the whole. Yesterday I talked to your father and told him you are okay. He knows.”
“Knows? Knows what!? That I’m a vampire?”
Mike flashed a sly smile.
“Sammy, I know you’ve been under an awful lot of stress, but now that the worst has passed, start using your head. You’re a smart girl. Think: you are a vampire and me, your uncle, too. What does that tell you?”
“No-o! No! It can’t be! Dad’s a vampire too? I don’t believe it!”
“Yes and no. You see, Sam, vampirism, like many genetic traits – some experts say, it’s an illness in our case – gets passed down from generation to generation. But not everyone is bound to get it. You, me, your grandfather, your great-great-grandfather, and others in our line were vampires, but many others were not. I am, but your dad isn’t. He only carries the vampire gene and you got it from him. But your father knows about all this stuff. When you ran away, he understood what happened immediately. He called me because, unlike him, I mingle with the appropriate crowd, and asked me to find you, which I eventually did. But your mother knows nothing about any of this, and, I think, you will concur with my and your dad’s opinion that she is better off not knowing.”
Mike looked at me, expecting a reaction. I nodded.
“Yesterday I told your dad I found you, and he passed the news to your mom that you are alive and well. But that’s all we had by that point; we still needed to come up with some likely explanation of where you’d been and why you can’t come home right now. You do agree it’s too early for you to get back under your parents’ roof, right? First, you should learn to live your new life, find out what a vampire can and can’t do, how to hide your fangs, or whether you ought to get a special toothbrush, that sort of thing.”
He looked at me inquiringly again, and I gave him another nod.
“While you were asleep, me and your dad talked and came up with the following story. Stick to it. If you remember, during your last game you knocked down a girl from the opposite team. So you got scared that you’d hurt her badly and ran off. And you also had a serious fight with Chris.”
“Chris?” I interrupted. “How is he? How do you know we fought? Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. Your parents called him the first thing after your disappearance. He told them about your quarrel before the game.”
I cut in again, “Quarrel? That’s all he said, we had a quarrel?”
“I think so. Was there something else?”
The awful memories rose in me like a tide of nausea. I clenched my teeth and dropped my eyes, ashamed of meeting my uncle’s gaze.
“Sammy, I’m here to help. If there is something I need to know about, you can tell me. I won’t blame you.”
I tried to say something, anything, but the words had vacated my head. And I just sat there with a half-open mouth, staring down at the floor.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it right now. You’ll tell me in your own time.”
I nodded.
“Long story short, you ran away. Wanted to come back the next day, but were too ashamed of what you did. Don’t tell this bit to your mom, no teen would confess that. It’s just extra information for you to better get into character. All this time you’d been living at your friends, the ones your mom doesn’t know. Make up some names. Just to let her understand it wasn’t in some junkie’s hangout. And now the long-awaited finale – how I found you and why you must stay away. Yesterday you and your friends were at someone’s place to party, all of you were drinking and dancing until the neighbors called the police. The cops nabbed a few people, yourself included. The organizer of the party turned out to have no claim on the house. He’d just broken into it and lived there a few days while the owners were vacationing in Barbados. Naturally, you knew nothing about that and don’t really know the guy either, he’s a friend of a friend of a friend, and you yourself don’t associate with such creeps. This is just in case you’re asked. So you’re innocent in all this but the police accused you and the others of breaking and entering, damage to property and so on. However, you were so lucky that the judge turned out to be an old friend of mine, and he agreed to leave your record pristine, if you’d spend a month doing community service – something like picking up garbage or handing out free soup to the homeless. They let you go under my personal responsibility, and you can’t leave town during this month. You will, therefore, stay at my apartment. Your mom is going to come and visit you, of course, but I think I can talk her into giving you another week, on account of you being so ashamed and to spare you the stress of the meeting.”
Mike stopped and took a few more swigs of Bloodberry. “Got it?”
“Um-hum.”
“Your dad should have told your mom this story by now, so I’m going to call your parents now and confirm his words. Then she’ll want to talk to you. Can you sound convincing? Keep it brief and put more guilt into your voice.”
“I’ll try.”
Mike finished his Bloodberry, put it on the table, and patted me on the shoulder.
“I’m off to make the call.”
He walked off. I started rolling the empty bottle back and forth on the tabletop. Mike returned in a few minutes, carrying a phone.
“Ready?”
I shrugged and took the phone. I looked at the screen, swallowed the nervous lump in my throat, and finally raised the phone to my ear.
“Hi, mom…”
Five minutes and twenty-seven seconds later I pressed the end-call button.
“How did it go?” Mike asked.
“Well, Mom started crying right away, but all is well, more or less.”
“That’s great. Now is time for us to talk about how you and I will live together.”
“You mean rules that I have to clean up every Sunday and no playing music loud, that sort of thing?”
“No, rather what you are going to do this next month. For starters, you will resume your education.”
I was about to argue, but Mike intercepted my objection with a raised finger.
“You will study at home. Tomorrow I’ll stop by your school, arrange everything and pick up your textbooks and homework for a year ahead. No slacking! Vampire or not, everyone needs at least a high school diploma.”
“So I’m going to study on my own? No teachers? I’m not a genius!”
“You already know that our kind is stronger and faster than humans, right? Well, you’ll be surprised, but we are more intelligent too. Our brain works faster, and our memory can store much more. You can handle it. Besides, in the Order, we have a great teacher who will help you with any homework, if necessary. She can also answer all your questions about the nature of the vampiric condition.”
“In the Order? You’ve got a knights’ sewing circle there or something? Like the Templars or whatever they were called in the Indiana Jones movies?”
“Something like that. As I told you, there are many vampires in the world, some bad, some good, like me and you. The majority of daytime vampires live perfectly ordinary lives. They have jobs, families, mortgage, and so on. But like any other social group, vampires have their own organizations. What for workers are trade unions, the same thing the Order of the Night Guardians is for daytime vampires.”
“That’s a cool name. Do you have a secret handshake?” I tried to joke.
“Sure, and a coat of arms, an anthem, and a hallmark,” Mike smiled. “We do have some kind of an ancient emblem and a code written in Latin, but we don’t care so much about outward attributes. We aren’t the Catholic Church, you know. The important part is the nature of our Order, what we do, not how cool we look.”
“What does your Order do, then?”
“Many things. We manufacture Bloodberry, maintain contact between daytime vampires, develop special substances and drugs vampires need, the kind you can’t pick up at a pharmacy. For example, we have a special sunscreen, long-lasting. Apply it once and you can walk in the sun like a regular human for a week. We also find and train young vampires like yourself. Believe me, you aren’t the first kid to wake up and discover a pair of big fangs. Most of them are just as confused and don’t know where to go and usually do something stupid. You are far from being the worst case.”
“You train them? So I’m going to study something else besides school?”
“Oh yes, lots of things! Like how to control your strength or keep your fangs from showing. You’ll like it! Our course of study covers even martial arts and other cool stuff.”
“Like karate and judo?”
“Like everything. You are a vampire, and vampires are the best at martial arts because they make use of both the body and the brain. It takes a human years to perfect one fighting style, but you can master jujitsu on the Olympics level in a couple of months. Our coach is second to none. Rumor has it, he’s mastered every single martial art in the world.”
“And how long did that take him?”
“I don’t know for sure, he’s not a big talker. But he’s old. It’s rumors again, because I know practically nothing about his personal life… but they say he fought in World War II.”
“So he’s an ancient wise man like Yoda or Mr. Miyagi?”
“Oh, right! I forgot!” Mike slapped himself on the head. “You don’t know this either. We, vampires, are not only stronger, faster, and smarter than humans, we also age much slower.”
“Age slower? I thought we were totally immortal unless it’s a silver bullet in the heart or somebody chops your head off.”
“No, that’s a false belief that resulted exactly from the fact that we live much longer than ordinary humans. Imagine: you’re a simple medieval peasant and you remember your grandfather telling you about a terrible vampire who lived in a castle on a rock, and then you see him with your own eyes and not old-looking either. Well, you’re going to think he’s immortal. Galapagos turtles must have seemed immortal to some people too.”
“What turtles?”
“Big ones that live on the islands out in the Pacific Ocean. They weigh about nine hundred pounds and live to be two centuries old.”
“Do we get to outlive one?”
“Most likely! Average vampires like you and me live for about two hundred – two hundred and fifty years. I once knew a four centuries-old guy. Though he might have been lying. Anyway, back to the Mr. Miyagi comparison – our coach is in very good shape.”
“And he’s going to teach me some cool kicks?”
“Sure, if you behave.”
“When do we start?”
“In about twenty-three minutes.”
“Twenty-three? Why so exact?”
“Twenty to drive to the Order’s headquarters and three minutes for you to get dressed.”
Uncle raised his hand with the watch on it to his face and gave me a questioning look. “Well, what are you waiting for? The time is running!”
I jumped from the chair and streaked to my room.
ns 18.68.5.80da2