New Blood_Adrift in a Vampire War Read online

  New Blood

  Adrift in a Vampire War

  Alex Dire

  A Night School Story

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Night School Preview

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: First Day

  Chapter 2: Student Teacher

  Chapter 3: Classroom Management

  A note from the author

  1

  Richie had only died a week ago and was already about to die again. This time for good.

  The pile of bodies on top of him pressed his chest and lungs, making breathing impossible. Even if he could get a breath, the piece of wood lodged in his stomach would have made it almost too painful.

  Richie pressed his hands against the cold street, pushing his face off the pavement. Pressure eased on the stake in his gut and blood flowed around the edges. It took most of his strength to force himself through the bodies and out into the night air.

  He flopped onto his back doing his best to get oxygen into his lungs. But breathing forced his muscles to contract around the stake, rubbing, tearing. Lifting his head, he glanced around the city street, such carnage. Tall derelict brick buildings made the narrow street seem like a tunnel. Bodies littered the road. Tommy, Darien, Sheila, all of them dead. Richie had hidden under their bodies during the fight. And so he lived. He was not sad to be rid of them.

  At the start of the fight, there had been a faint glow on the horizon. Now the sun would rise any second, and with it, all this would burn away in a flash, including Richie, finishing the job the partisans had failed to do. The war was barely a week old and already vampires had organized into paramilitary mobs, killing everyone not on their side. Richie had never had a chance to join a side.

  He rolled off the pile of remains and bumped against the curb of the street. A putrid smell filled his nose, sewage. Glancing along the curb, he saw a sewer grate. He reached for it but curled back in on himself when the stake rubbed inside his wound, each splinter tearing at his flesh. The orange sky warned of impending sunrise, of death by fire.

  Richie grasped the stake. Just touching it sent agony through his bones and blood. He twitched, gripping its carved ivory handle. The brightening sky stung his eyes. He yanked and screamed. The wood tore through muscle and skin, scraping its way out of Richie's gut. His vision went dark, and he nearly lost consciousness. Richie's face tightened into its center in a terrible wince, and he clasped the wound to stem the blood. But the moment passed and his face relaxed. The blood slowed. His skin itched as it began to mend itself.

  He removed his hand from the gash in his stomach and reached for the sewer grate again, but his blood-slickened fingers slipped.

  With his other arm, he thrust the end of the stake through a space in the grate and pulled, dragging himself closer. So tired. So hungry. Pull.

  His eyes were now over the grate. Nothing but darkness down there. It would do. He crawled to the opening, relieved at avoiding yet another foe, the sun. Before he could bask for a moment in his relief, his arms began to smolder. He turned to see a point of light, the tip of the sun rise above the horizon. The moisture on his eyes evaporated and his vision blurred.

  Richie pulled with fury at the grates of the sewer, trying to heave himself to the back and through the opening. He managed his head through, but his shoulder stuck. I’m too big. I won’t fit. The sun cast its warmth on his back. I’m going to burn here.

  Flame erupted on the skin of his lower back where his shirt had pulled up. A scream belched involuntarily from his throat. He heaved, pushing at his shoulder, trying to squeeze it through. Something popped. Intense pain. He slid through. Then he was falling.

  The last thing Richie remembered from his human life was Shakespeare. He’d been hunched over his desk, with his tutor, Mr. Bernard, at his side. He had always been at Richie's side these last four years of High School...two nights per week.

  Mr. Bernard had asked if Hamlet was faking his insanity. Richie flipped through pages, searching for answers. “Time's almost up.”

  “Wait. Don't go. I'll find it. I'll find it.”

  Mr. Bernard placed a hand on Richie's shoulder. “I know you will.”

  None of Richie's real teachers ever believed in him that much.

  That was when the doorbell rang. He hadn’t thought anything of it at first. Then the footsteps up the stairs and a knock on his bedroom door got his attention.

  “Hello?” said Richie.

  The door flew open and there she stood. Tight black leather clothes. Long, white, flowing hair. Eyes black as a shadow at night. Fastened to her shoulder was a badge. On it was the letter "V" in a circle.

  Mr. Bernard leaped up. “Skeete, what are you doing here?”

  “I told you you’d be wise to choose a side, Norman,” said Skeete. “Now it’s too late. You may be the war’s very first casualty.” She slid a wooden stake from her belt.

  At first, Richie stood and lurched back at the sight of the weapon. Then he thought of his mom and dad watching TV downstairs. If he hurt them... “Where are my parents?” He stepped forward.

  Skeete turned to the eighteen-year-old. "Bonus for me." She leapt at Richie slashing her arm in a wide arc.

  “No!” shouted Mr. Bernard.

  The slice felt cold. Richie hadn't even realized he was injured for a moment. Then a quick warm ooze flowed down his neck. Blackness closed in on his vision. That was all he remembered.

  He awoke with Mr. Bernard in an old warehouse in a derelict district of the city. He told Richie he could never go back to his parents. That he had changed. Richie would have to hide now. There was a war on. He wasn’t ready, and Norman wouldn’t be able to teach him. That was the last Richie saw of Mr. Bernard. He assumed his tutor, his friend was dead. The youth had seen so much carnage in the last week, he couldn’t see how the teacher could have survived. He knew Mr. Bernard would never just abandon him.

  He could almost feel Mr. Bernard as if a piece of him lived on inside Richie somehow. However, he'd been forced to stuff his grief for his friend deep down when the gang came upon him. He'd hidden amongst them, keeping in the background as much as he could as they pillaged their way through the city. Now they were dead and he was falling away from them forever.

  Richie slammed to the floor of the sewer, spattering filth against tunnel walls. The brown, putrid liquid soaked into his clothes. Its odors, rot and feces made him retch. He vomited up what little blood was in his stomach. His lungs coughed with involuntary spasms, trying to gag up sewage.

  After the heaving abated, Richie sat up against the wall of the tunnel. He still clutched the stake. This was a fine carved weapon, not some whittled chunk of wood. Its ivory handle ended in a ball with the now-too-familiar insignia inscribed on it, a V within a circle. For all their viciousness, the Corps. V had a knack for elegant weapons. He slid the stake into his belt.

  Richie pushed himself up. The pain of his wound had subsided some now that the wood was out and healing had begun, but slowly. He needed to feed.

  He glanced up at the grate. The sky had transformed from pink to blue, and the light trickling down grew brighter. Richie needed to stay in the dark. He looked both ways down the tunnel. Each way seemed as good as the other. Perfect for slinking away and hiding. That's all he'd ever wanted anyway, at least since he'd died. He might have already found his way to the sewers if that gang hadn't come upon him. They were scum, leeches taking advantage of the carnage of war, shaking down the weak, the scared.

  He picked a direction and started walking, making his way with slow l
imping steps. Perhaps he’d come across an indigent to feed on. He could already hear the rats. They would do if it came to that. Richie slowed and peaked his head around a corner, taking care not to reveal himself to...whoever. After a while, though, he just plodded on without caution from hall to hall, taking branches at random, getting lost.

  He didn’t even try to remember all his turns. Lost was fine with him. Away from people. Away from war. Away from vampires. It was hard enough to figure out his new world, but a world at war...?

  Richie rounded another corner.

  “Hey!” shouted a raspy voice from somewhere in the dark.

  A moment later a man slammed into Richie’s chest, knocking him to the floor. Slime filled his wound and stung like fire. He crawled on his back, trying to scramble away.

  The man looked Richie over as if inspecting him. He wore a gray jacket, nonmilitary, with the unwelcome encircled V insignia near the left shoulder, a partisan. "Where's your mark?"

  “Mark?”

  “No matter. You ain’t on my side.” The man stepped toward Richie. “You can sort it out with God.”

  God. Richie doubted that. What God would allow his children to become like this? He’d find out soon enough as he died here, in the belly of the earth, defenseless, at the point of a wooden stake. Wait. Not defenseless. Richie moved his hand to his waist and drew the ivory handled weapon. At least he’d go out with a fight.

  2

  Richie scrambled backward and managed to get to his feet. The stranger stood for a moment, watching. What was he waiting for?

  The wooden weapon trembled in Richie’s hand.

  The man relaxed his posture, and his stake hand dropped to his side. “Oh. You’re one of us. Why didn’t you say so?”

  Say so? Richie remained stiff, ready to spring or block or something. He was no fighter.

  “I almost killed you,” said the man.

  “What?” Richie was quite aware of the man's intent. He wasn't so sure why he was still alive.

  The man flipped his stake around, displaying its hilt side. It was smooth, carved ivory with the Corps. V insignia etched into it. He pointed to Richie's hand with the hilt. Richie glanced down and realized he held an identical weapon.

  “You should wear your uniform. Hard to tell one partisan from another these days.”

  “Oh.” Richie relaxed. He would live, for now. “I…uh…lost it.”

  “Looks like quite a fight you had.”

  “Hmm?” Wincing, Richie covered the gash as the pain of his slowly healing wound overcame the receding adrenaline rush. “Yeah.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be healing well. You hungry?”

  Richie nodded.

  “Here, sit. I could use a rest myself.”

  Richie sat on a small ledge that lined the side of the tunnel. The open wound in his stomach still made movement difficult.

  “I’m Kane.” He walked back a few paces to where he’d dropped a pack. As he lifted it, sludge streamed off in lines of liquid filth. Returning to Richie, he unzipped it and reached inside, pulling out a small plastic bottle.”

  “Richie.”

  “Good to see a friendly face, Richie.” Kane tilted the bottle into a hand. Two red horse pills spilled out into his palm. “Take these.”

  What kind of weird medicine was this? A trick? Poison? Richie decided that this was too elaborate to be an assassination attempt given that Kane could have taken him out pretty easily moments ago. “Vitamins?”

  Kane wrinkled his brow. “How old are you?”

  Richie couldn’t think fast enough to lie. “Seventeen.”

  “And you've never seen blood pellets? Your maker must be some kind of slacker."

  “He died.” Richie took the pellets.

  “Chew them. They’ll work faster.”

  Richie popped the pills into his mouth and chewed. As his teeth ground them and they dissolved in his saliva his taste buds exploded to life. It wasn’t like fresh blood, but it felt so good in his current state. He swallowed and savored the flavor that coated the inside of his mouth. “Thanks.”

  Richie had never seen a partisan exhibit kindness before. Perhaps that was because his gang had no allegiance to either side. They’d certainly killed without regard to party affiliation. Or age. Or anything. The horror’s he’d been part of...

  Mostly he'd held back and watched, but sometimes they forced him. He remembered the gang breaking into an apartment. There were three wounded men, badly burned, covered with stake wounds. The gang's leader, Melinda, tied them up with silver, then had the whole group ransack the place. They acquired many weapons and a stash of money. That wasn't enough, though, Melinda had a silver knife, a letter opener, really. She flayed one of them with it. Richie had puked several times during the ordeal. Then she locked another tied up victim onto the fire escape. He watched as the sun rose, and he smoked and then burst into flames until there was nothing but ash that slipped through the grates.

  The third one she left for Richie. She gave him a stake. It was too small to penetrate all the way to the heart. Richie had protested that it was too short, anything to get out of the grisly task she’d assigned.

  “Dig” was her response. When Richie had hesitated, she’d stabbed him in the shoulder with it. The pain was indescribable. He’d have done anything to get that piece of wood out of him. It turned out he did. The sounds of the man’s screams and the tearing of flesh and muscle. It was almost too much for Richie to remember, gouging over and over, digging his way to the man’s heart. Finally piercing it. Then the death scream. Richie nearly covered his ears at the memory.

  “What brings you into the sewer?” said Kane.

  Richie looked down at his knees.

  “I suppose we all end up here one time or another.”

  “War,” said Richie.

  “Ahhh…” Kane spat to the side. “Fuckin’ war. You know I owned a dance studio before this all started.”

  Richie looked up at the stranger. He'd never thought of a vampire as anything but a savage creature, except for Mr. Bernard. All these partisans and gangs and soldiers must have had regular occupations to blend in so well. They must have been almost like people, like Mr. Bernard.

  “All gone now. What a difference a week makes.”

  Richie had no memory of what it was like to be a vampire before the war. He and the war arrived to the vampire world at practically the same moment.

  He removed his hand from his wound. The sting had gone away. He pulled his shirt up and wiped away his blood. It was raw and pink, a vast improvement. He put a hand on the ledge to push himself up.

  “Not yet, brother,” said Kane. “Too soon. Let the pellets do their work.”

  Richie sat back down. It felt so good to rest, as did the new strength that seeped back into his whole body from within.

  “What were you in real life?” said Kane.

  Richie felt he should lie but he’d never been good at that, too much improvisation. “I was a student.”

  “Ah," said Kane. "That's the new thing nowadays. Let me guess. Computer science. Lots of demand for code monkeys. What were you before? Let's see seventeen. What was big then. Let me guess." Kane scratched his chin. "By the looks of you, you were young when you changed, so a…an administrative assistant?" Kane belched a rough laugh that ended in a growly cough.

  “No, I was a high school student.”

  “High school! Why go back there?" Kane's eyes widened. "Ahhh. Seventeen. I get it. You're a Nymph. How old are you really? One or two?"

  “Nymph? I don’t understand”

  “How long have you been a vampire?”

  “Oh.” Richie had almost forgotten, felt human again. “One—”

  “One year! You’re barely one of us!”

  “One week.”

  Kane leaned back. One of his eyebrows slowly raised above the other, and he squinted skeptically. “I’ve never met a partisan that young.” He stood back up and rested his hand on the stake in his belt. “T
ell me again how you lost your mark?”

  Richie wished he had lied, knew how to lie. How hard could it be? He'd learned to kill. Never again, though. He'd lost so much, thrust into this underworld. Lost so much to war. "War," he whispered.

  “And how did you come to our side?” said Kane.

  “War is hell…brother. ‘Our side’ came to me,” said Richie.

  Kane's face relaxed. "Fuckin' right it is." He sat back down. "Well, you ended up on the right side, anyway." Putting is head in his hands, Kane smoothed back his hair. "I'd give almost anything to go back. Most of my friends…my creator…all gone."

  “I have no friends,” said Richie.

  “I hate this war. The only thing I hate more are those Vampire Republic scum that forced it on us.” Kane’s lips tightened. “I’d kill every God damned one of them if I could.”

  Kane stared into the filth and muck that moved like lava along the floor of the tunnel. His eyes focused to infinity.

  Breaking his trance, he stood with a start. “Well, you’ve got a friend, now.” He looked both ways down the tunnel. “You’re lucky I found you first. If they’d seen that stake of yours, they’d have killed you on the spot.”

  Richie nodded. He was glad he'd had that stake to do the talking for him. He was a mess in a fight and couldn't lie to save his skin.

  “I’ve been around quite a bit longer than one week. I can keep you safe down here for the time being.”

  “Thank you.” A dance instructor. A teacher, like Mr. Bernard. Richie allowed himself to hope that he could make a friend.

  “You're quite welcome." Kane adjusted his backpack. "Let's go, then."

  Richie stood. He braced himself for the pain in his gut but was relieved when it never came. He rubbed his hand over the wound. It had become smooth, nearly healed. "Where are we off to?"