“You mean the one where all the kids get off the train—”
“Except he doesn’t look like Santa,” Brunette Thing One interrupted.
I followed her line of sight. The most beautiful man I’d ever seen was stepping onto the massive platform I’d spotted in the shadow of the standing stones. The throngs of girls had obstructed my view, with only the sight of his shoulders and chest rising above the crowd to tell us any sort of stage was even there.
“Hel-lo,” Thing Two purred. “He can stuff my stocking anytime.”
“Ick,” I heard myself grunt.
They spun on me, and the shorter of the two snarled, “Shut it.”
I held her stare for a moment, then turned to face the stage full-on. It appeared that many of these girls’ so-called gifts were bitchiness and spite.
Though I did have to hand it to them—this was one pretty extraordinarily perfect guy. Chin squared off just right, a naughty glint in his eyes, and a head of tousled hair featuring about a hundred shades of gold, he reminded me of a pale California dude. Early twenties, I guessed.
I found myself smiling at him. I imagined I wasn’t the only one. I stepped closer.
He beamed back at the crowd, and the sensation was of a gentle heat radiating over us. “Hello, lovelies.”
My hand flew to my belly. His voice seared me through, sexy and deep, with the hint of a barely there French accent.
And I wasn’t the only one affected, either. An awed hiss swept over the crowd. He chuckled, obviously used to this sort of adoration.
“My name is Claude Fournier”—his accent grew thick when pronouncing his name, and I just about swooned—“but you shall call me Headmaster Fournier.”
Headmaster? He was the youngest headmaster I’d ever seen. Or I guessed he would be, if I’d ever seen a headmaster before.
He began to stroll the few steps back and forth along the length of the platform. “We use many formal terms of address, and you will soon learn all of them. Tradition, you see, is the cornerstone on our isle, and though many of you might find our manners . . . passé”—he gave a little flourish with his hand—“if you embrace the old ways, you will soon find yourself a muchimproved young lady.”
Young lady? Something was wrong here. My smile faltered, and by the hum of murmured comments around me, I imagined I wasn’t the only one chafing at Mister Old-Fashioned. I wondered how such a hot guy came to be so stodgy. Maybe it was an affectation to distract people from the fact that he was the youngest headmaster on the planet.
“Our old ways, you see, are quite old.” He gave us a wicked, pouting smile that made my instincts jangle in warning. “We live by a code. Only those who abide by our principles succeed. Our standards are high; our expectations, higher. But a few will exceed expectations. They are the girls who shall flourish.”
What sort of bizarro finishing school was this? I forced myself to focus on his words, not his looks. All this talk of manners and traditions—something was amiss.
Oh, crap. Was this some sort of wacked-out reform school my stepmother had masterminded? I’d heard nightmare stories of boot camps for bad kids. I studied the girls to my left and right. They all had that same hard edge that I’d seen in Mimi and Lilac. Something cold and defensive in their eyes.
I shivered. Did I have that flat-eyed stare? Did I look like a bad girl?
“You see”—he paused dramatically, and the ambient whispering stopped as all eyes returned to him—“we are Vampire.”
You could’ve heard a pin drop.
I looked around, searching for a camera crew. I’d known the guy was too hot to be normal. Headmaster, my ass. He was an actor. Ashton Kutcher was going to pop out any minute, letting us know we’d been punk’d.
And yet, some primal instinct in the back of my mind warned me to be very, very careful. I held still, expectantly, and I watched.
The chatter exploded again, but this time a broad laugh pealed above the din. I stood on my tiptoes to see. It was Mimi.
Headmaster Fournier grew still as stone and just as cold. His eyes swept the crowd—dancing over me for one chilling moment—and then rested on Mimi. “Do I amuse you?”
“Yeah,” she said in that tone of bored outrage that bad girls have perfected through the ages.
“Then please”—he stretched his hand out, beckoning—“come join me. . . .” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her name.
“Mimi.” She’d thrust her jaw out, holding her mouth open on the word as though too annoyed even to shut it.
“Girls, make way for your fellow student.” He spoke in an indulgent tone of voice that scared me more than the word vampire had. It was the sound of an adult ready to give someone a good lesson.
Everyone had enough sense to clear a path for her, and almost comically fast. Mimi, though, wasn’t so bright. Her hackles were up like a pit bull on the offensive, looking ready to tell this guy a thing or two. Sneering, she strode to the platform. It was smooth and level, like a gigantic granite tabletop.
Distantly, I wondered if Mimi wasn’t justified in her reaction. Maybe I should be doing something other than just standing there. I mean, the guy just told us they were vampires.
The in-flight refreshment. I frowned, remembering the buzz it’d made me feel. Mimi had thrown it all up, but had the rest of us been drugged into obedience? Was I still drugged now? Should I be outraged, too?
I thought of Ronan. Did this mean he thought he was a vampire? I recalled his features. He hadn’t seemed particularly pale, and I definitely would’ve noticed fangs.
If I could’ve smirked without attracting attention, I would have. What sort of Goth freak world had I landed in? I peered at Fournier, trying to sneak a peek at his teeth, wondering if these guys actually went so far as to file them into points.
But then a dreadful sort of uncertainty niggled at the back of my mind as I remembered the very real feeling I got when Ronan looked at me, when he touched me. It was like he’d hypnotized me, and though I didn’t believe in magic, he sure did seem to have some sort of crazy hypno-hoodoo up his sleeves.
Mimi reached the stone, and Fournier took her hand, guiding her up the last steps and onto the stage. When he spoke again, it was gently and only to her. It felt like we were spying on an intimate moment. “As I was saying, we are Vampire.”
She pulled her hand from his and scanned the crowd, shaking her head in disgust. “I seen some effed-up shit in Miami, pero esta casa de putas? Count me out, man.”
The next part happened so fast, at first my brain didn’t register what my eyes were seeing. And even when I got what I saw, it took me a few heartbeats to get it get it. I stared, frozen from the inside out.
Mimi hung limply in the headmaster’s arms. Because he’d just shredded her belly up the middle.
He grinned at us with bloody lips, and I spotted one inhumanly long, razor-sharp tooth as it caught on the corner of his mouth.
A few heartbeats of silence, and then the girls began to scream.
Not me, though. I’d weathered casual cruelty before. It was random and merciless, and I knew not to court it. I forced my breath to draw in, then out. I imagined myself being as inconspicuous as possible.
Eyja nœturinnar. It was an island of darkness. And Ronan was right. I would fit in here.
Because if I didn’t, I’d die.
CHAPTER EIGHT
So, okayyy. Vampires.
I stomped my boots, urging the blood to flow in my feet. The temperature had continued to drop, and just standing there outside wasn’t helping matters.
Were there other vampires hiding in the crowd? I looked around, feeling in equal parts the absurdity and the horror. Never would I ever have thought I’d be considering their existence. I mean, really—vampires?
But if the scene with Mimi had been any indication, it seemed there was a good chance that exist they did. I supposed in a universe that fostered everything from black holes to hostile, mutating bacteria, vampires actually seemed like a pretty pedestrian phenomenon.
I wondered how many of the myths were true. Could vampires be killed? Were they undead? Could something really live forever?
I remembered the strain of 250-million-year-old bacteria that was found in a cavern in New Mexico. And then I thought of the extinct things—the dead things—that have simply been coaxed back to life, thanks to DNA technology.
Vampires, on the face of it, seemed eminently possible. I just needed to wrap my mind around it. Not that I needed to think so hard. The proof was right in front of me.
As though on cue, Headmaster Fournier dropped Mimi’s broken body onto the stone. “Whose is this?” His eyes danced over us, stopping just over my shoulder.
I couldn’t help but turn.
His gaze had locked on Ronan. I hadn’t realized he’d been standing just behind me. “Ronan,” he snapped.
Was Ronan in trouble? Would he be next on the menu? I bit my cheek so hard, I tasted blood. Please, not Ronan. Anyone but Ronan. It wasn’t like I trusted him—if anything, I was furious with him for getting me into this—but after the headmaster’s demonstration, Ronan definitely seemed the lesser of two evils.
Plus, he was human. At least partly. Or I hoped he was. Ronan stepped forward and the crowd parted, avoiding him like the plague. “Yes, Headmaster?”
“Is this yours?” Using his foot, Headmaster Fournier nudged Mimi onto her back. Her eyes were still open, staring blindly, the vivid blue irises so light against that milky coffee complexion bearing the outlines of two teardrops forever stenciled on her cheek.
Her parka slid open to reveal her mutilated belly. Gasps washed over the crowd.
Ronan lowered his head. “Yes, Headmaster.”
“I told you, no facial tattoos.” Tilting his head, the vampire coolly assessed Mimi’s face. “They are so . . . déclassé.” His eyes snapped back to Ronan. “Clear it away. Make certain it gets put to use.”
Horror stole the breath from my lungs, wondering what that had meant.
“At once, Headmaster.”