Fang Girl Read online

“It’s really me, Dad. Um, I don’t know how to break this to you gently, but I seem to be a vampire.”

  “Okay,” said Dad quite calmly. I guessed that he’d gone into shock. “I’m going to come and pick you up. Where are you?”

  “At my grave, where else?”

  “I’m coming right over.”

  “Gre—no, wait!” Crap, how could I have forgotten? “Dad, listen, you can’t come! I probably have bloodlust!”

  “What?” he said, utterly bewildered.

  “I’m a brand-new vampire, remember? I might flip out and eat you if I smell your tasty blood.”

  A pause. “Should I phone for a taxi?”

  “I don’t want to eat a taxi driver either!” Accidentally eating my own dad on my first night as a vampire would be a spectacularly gothic start to my undead career, but I really didn’t need to cope with that much angst straight off. “Anyway, I can run over to you. I’ve got amazing vampire superpowers now, of course. I don’t need a lift.” But that didn’t solve the bloodlust problem. I frowned, thinking … and it hit me.

  “Hey, Dad? Can you put Zack back on?” There were some things that you couldn’t ask a parent, and this was one of them. “Hi, Zack. I need you to look something up for me.”

  Chapter 3

  When your parents move around as much as mine do, you get a hands-on practical in Darwinian theory: adapt or die. I’d never attended the same school for more than two years at a time, as my mum chased research grants around the country, so I’d had to get used to being the perpetual newcomer. There’re only two ways to survive that, and I’d long ago learned which one was preferable—shut up, keep your eyes open, and blend in like a chameleon on speed.

  Starting at a new school was like diving down into a vast coral reef, with thousands of different creatures going about their business in an intricate network of relationships. The trick was not to make a splash when you entered, to approach without attracting too much attention. That way you could study the situation, see who went where and what they ate and how they interacted. If you did it right, you could fit yourself right in, and all the life would carry on around you with barely a ripple.

  If you did it wrong, of course, you got sharks.

  Lorraine was a shark. The skinny, mean sort that makes everything else on the reef creep around in terror, because you could never tell if she was going to ignore you or bite your head off. I’d managed to piss her off on my very first day—three different teachers had made Lorraine sit next to me instead of her best friend, which from my point of view was about as helpful as your diving instructors handing you a couple of raw steaks before pushing you into the water. After that, it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d bought Lorraine a naked boy toy and her own Porsche; she hated me, and the rest of the school avoided me like the freshly bleeding sacrificial goat I was.

  Which was why I was clinging to the wall outside her window, trying to break into her bedroom. I reckoned that if I did turn out to have bloodlust, I’d be doing the world a favor.

  I’d been worried about mystic barriers blocking my way—I had no idea how to convince Lorraine to invite me in, seeing as how I wasn’t a brooding stud-muffin in a leather coat—but it turned out that I should have been more concerned about the double glazing. The window was slightly open, but locked in position. I squeezed my hand through the gap, my wrist twisting as I scrabbled for the catch. My fingernails brushed the plastic; I stretched as far as I could, flattening myself as if I could slip my whole body sideways through the crack.

  And somehow I did. One second I was straining to reach the handle; there was a weird sensation like a whole-body sneeze, and then I found myself teetering on the sill on the other side of the window. I nearly face-planted straight onto Lorraine’s sleeping form. Grabbing the wall for support, I cast a wild glance backward. Sure enough, the window was still only cracked open two inches.

  Ah. So my secret vampire power was teleportation. Win!

  Lorraine was curled into a tight ball under her purple satin duvet. Without her makeup, she looked pale and weirdly young, like a little sister version of herself. She did not, I had to admit, seem at all delicious. I stared at her neck until my eyes started to water, but it did not become a luscious, peach-skinned column, or an inviting white satin veil over sensual red delights. It was, well, a neck. No more enthralling than I would have found it when alive. I leaned in close, until my face was only centimeters from her skin. Feeling a little dumb, I opened my mouth, trying to work out how to extend any retractable fangs I might be hiding. Closer … closer …

  “MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!” announced the mobile phone from my pocket.

  I hurled myself down onto Lorraine as she opened her mouth to scream. “Shut up, shut up!” She went deathly still underneath me, her eyes fixed on my teeth. “I’m not going to …” I paused. It was true: I really didn’t want to hurt her. Even with my nose practically pressed into her skin, she just smelled of kiwi shampoo and tea-tree oil face wash, with a slight undertone of sweaty socks. It would have taken a truly sick vampire to be provoked into an animalistic hunger by that scent.

  Still, I had to be sure.

  Our biology lessons hadn’t included anything as practical as how to locate the jugular vein. Besides which, even if I did manage to find it, chowing down on a major vein sounded like a great way to kill her, or at least make a terrible mess.

  So I bit her ear. She already had four piercings; one more couldn’t hurt.

  Lorraine bucked, writhing against my hand, but I held her down with little effort. Feeling terribly perverted, I sucked on her earlobe. A tiny trickle of blood dripped down my throat. It tasted different from how it had when I’d been alive. Not that I’d gone around drinking blood on a regular basis, but I’d done my share of sucking on scraped fingertips as a kid and never really noticed anything much. But this … this was a rich, salty taste, like bacon. My taste buds were definitely registering it as food—but it wasn’t like an angelic orgasm on my tongue or anything. At least, not more than bacon.

  I didn’t have bloodlust! Great!

  Now what?

  I stared deep into Lorraine’s wide eyes, desperately hoping that I was the sort of vampire that could glamour mortals. “You never saw me,” I whispered, trying to imbue my tone with psychic force. “I’m going to get out of here, and you’re going to go back to sleep, and in the morning you aren’t going to remember a thing. Understand?”

  She nodded vigorous agreement, still muffled by my hand.

  “All right then.” I tensed my muscles in preparation. “One. Two. Three.”

  If I did have psychic powers, I hadn’t managed to activate them, because Lorraine’s scream split the air seconds later. By that time, though, I was already four gardens over. I’d thought I’d been running fast before, but it was nothing compared to what I could do with a little motivation. A tingly heat spread out from my chest to fill my whole body with liquid strength. I shot out down the main road, heading for home.

  I probably would have kept on going until I reached my own doorstep, except that my feet caught fire.

  “Augh!” I beat out the flames, knocking away charred remnants of leather. Friction had entirely eaten away the bottom of my shoes, and my feet were raw lumps of gravel-studded flesh. I should have been in utter agony. But I couldn’t feel anything at all, other than a vague sense of warmth flowing through my veins … and, even as I watched, my skin started to knit back together.

  Superspeed, teleportation, and now superfast healing. I could live with that. Pity about the psychic powers, though. Maybe I’d learn those later.

  “MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!” said the phone again.

  With a sigh, I pulled it out. Sure enough, two new text messages. I spent a couple of minutes navigating menu options until I discovered that the ringtone was set to Gothic Overture, and the message alert to Maniacal Laughter. Evidently, my sire had a terrible sense of humor. Shaking my head, I set the phone to vibrate, then flipped back to new message
s. They were both from the same number as the last call.

  The first message read:

  X—CANT GET RID OF HIM 2NITE :-( U HIDE, I WILL FIND U L8R. XXX, L.

  And the one from just now was:

  X—V V IMPORTANT U DONT CALL BACK TILL AFTER 5:08 AM. DONT TALK TILL THEN & B CAREFUL XXX, L.

  I blinked at them both. “Huh?” I flipped back from one to the other, but no new meaning became apparent. “What’s wrong with phoning now—?”

  The phone vibrated in my hand. A new message flashed up, from the same number as the previous ones.

  BECAUSE U R BEING WATCHED

  Chapter 4

  The moon was balanced on top of the Downs by the time my bare feet touched our house’s paved driveway. The sky was fading like drying paint; not yet dawn, but no longer full night. It made me feel edgy and uncomfortable, though I didn’t know whether it was just my anxiety or a real physical reaction.

  I could have covered the distance between Lorraine’s house and mine much faster, but I’d spent half the night doubling back on my tracks. I hadn’t seen anyone apart from late-night traffic and a few drunks outside pubs, but nonetheless I’d gone far enough east to hit the outskirts of Brighton, then turned north to range into the hills of the Downs, and finally headed straight south to spend an hour splashing back along the coast, through the sea. If there were any vampire hunters following me, at least I’d given them a good workout.

  Now, at last, I was back in Lancing—home, at least theoretically. The village still felt foreign to me, with its sprawl of low bungalow retirement homes and rigidly identical houses marching from farmland down to the sea. I’d felt out of place enough as a normal, urban teenager here, what with all the retired oldies and farmers. Being dead didn’t improve matters.

  I cast a last glance around as I approached our house. Streetlamps cast empty pools of light on the deserted road. It was hard to imagine vampire hunters lurking amid the recycling bins and neatly tended front gardens, but the skin between my shoulder blades still itched, expecting a bolt from a crossbow at any moment.

  The neighbor’s windows were dark, but lights were on in my own house. I skittered through the shadows toward the welcoming glow, ducking down behind the cover of parked cars. Thanks to my mother’s latest research spin-off and some unexpected royalties from one of my dad’s picture books, we’d finally been able to afford a proper detached house. Its vampire-hiding potential hadn’t been one of its selling points, but it was actually pretty good—set back from the other houses on a larger-than-average corner plot, and entirely surrounded by high, dense bushes. A weight eased off my chest as I passed into their welcome cover.

  I searched my pockets as I headed up the driveway, but my parents had thoughtlessly failed to bury me with my house key. Figured. I tapped on the door.

  My knuckles had barely brushed the painted wood before it slammed open, and Zack barreled into me. “Janie!” he wailed, somewhere between a sob and a delighted shout. My throat suddenly too tight for words, I buried my face in his spiky brown hair and hugged him back. His cry changed into a squeak. “Wow, you’re—really, really strong.”

  “Sorry. Zack!” I held him out at arm’s length to savor the sight of him. Funny how he could look so different to me, when he hadn’t changed a bit. He was still just my scrawny kid brother, barely up to my shoulder. He was wearing a green velvet frock coat over white silk pajamas, accessorized with brocade slippers, a braided leather collar, and black nail varnish.

  There are two ways to cope with being the perpetual new kid at school. Zack had chosen the other one.

  “Xanthe?” said a tremulous, wondering voice. My dad was standing in the hallway, clutching at the banister as though it was the only thing holding him up. He looked more dead than I felt, with huge, dark rings under his eyes and deep lines in his forehead that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen him. For a moment we simply gazed at each other without speaking. Slowly, as if I were some wild animal that might spook if he moved too fast, he unfolded one long arm, his hand shaking, and touched my shoulder. Then I was enfolded in the familiar comfort of his embrace. I could feel the rapid beating of his heart against my cheek. It was all going to be all right. My dad would fix everything.

  “Keith!” my mother’s voice barked, and we both jumped guiltily. I turned in his arms to see her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her short, curly hair bristling like the fur of a frightened cat. Her face held the same gray gauntness as Dad’s, but her brown eyes were as sharp as ever as she strode toward us. “Be careful, she might have internal injuries!” She inspected me from head to toe as though I were a malfunctioning piece of lab equipment that might explode at any moment. “James.” She turned to my brother. “Don’t stand there gawping, run! Call for an ambulance—”

  “No, don’t!” I yelped as Zack obediently pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket. “Mum, I don’t need an ambulance. I’m not sick. I’m a vampire!”

  “Don’t be silly, Xanthe,” she said, though her gaze flickered uncertainly to my mouth. “There’s a—a perfectly rational explanation—”

  Dad cleared his throat. “Janet, she’s cold.”

  “It’s probably shock.” I wasn’t quite sure whether Mum meant me, Dad, or even herself. She took my wrist to check my pulse. “She’s freezing! James, get upstairs and run a hot bath! Keith, quick, we need—”

  “Mum!” I shouted, pulling away from her. “You’re not listening to me!” Of course, she generally hadn’t when I was alive, so I don’t know why I’d expected things to be different just because I was dead. “I’m cold because I’m a vampire. I’m supposed to be cold!”

  I was still leaning against Dad, his arms around me, and now I felt a shiver pass through him. I twisted to look up at his face, into his clear blue eyes. Artist’s eyes, Dad had, that saw what was there, not what the brain thought should be there. He looked down at me now, and wonder crept across his face. “You’re not breathing,” he said. “And I can’t feel your heartbeat.”

  I squeezed his hand. “It’s going to be all right, Dad.”

  “Hypothermia,” Mum stated. “That’s all it is. It slows the brain down and makes people say nonsense.”

  “Does it give them fangs too?” asked Zack.

  “That will be due to—to—” The gears in Mum’s head jarred to a halt. She struggled for a moment, then shook herself and snapped, “James, do as I said! Do you want your sister to drop dead?”

  “I’m already dead!” In a blur of superspeed, I wriggled out of my dad’s arms and grabbed hold of her shoulders. “Look at me.” I bared my teeth, then lifted her unresisting hand to rest over my still, silent heart. “I’m only breathing in order to talk. I’m a vampire!”

  She stared at me.

  “Um. Sorry,” I added.

  She stood there motionless for a breath more. Then, her hands closing on mine, she said, quite calmly, “James, go and fetch a clean glass. Keith, I’ll need the first aid kit, please.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Mum, I don’t need first aid.”

  “Not for you, for me.” She dropped my hands and bustled up the stairs, abruptly all business. “Quickly!” she shouted over her shoulder as she disappeared.

  We all looked at one another. Dad spread his hands, obviously as lost as I was. A crash drifted down from above, as Mum flung things around the bathroom. Zack shrugged and wandered off toward the kitchen.

  “Baby Jane,” Dad said, and my unbeating heart melted at the old nickname. “Is this … are you …”

  I shook my head. “Honestly, Dad, I have no idea. I’m still trying to figure this out.”

  “Do you think there could be other—you know?” He made a small gesture in the vague direction of my teeth.

  “There must be. I mean, that’s how you become a vamp—” He flinched, and I changed it to “Er, like me, isn’t it? And … well, I didn’t get out of my gr—uh, predicament, by myself. Someone came and dug me out. She said she’s my sire.”
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  He looked confused. “Sire? A woman?”

  Of course, Dad didn’t read vampire novels. “Sire is a word for the parent vampire, Dad. She turned me into one. Anyway, she got chased off, and—”

  “Right,” Mum interrupted, thumping back down the stairs. She had her laptop balanced in one hand and was clutching a pink lady’s razor and a screwdriver in the other. “In there, now.” She shooed us both through into the kitchen, where Zack was still hunting through cupboards. “James, where’s that glass? Good. Now …” She handed the laptop to Dad and started disassembling the razor with the screwdriver.

  “Uh,” Dad said, looking down at the screen. “Honey? This is a Wikipedia article on phlebotomy.”

  “Exactly.” Mum dropped the freed razor blade onto the table and rolled up her sleeve. “Where’s the first aid kit?”

  “Mum, what are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Making dinner,” she replied as though it should be self-evident.

  “Making—EW!” I snatched up the razor, holding it at arm’s length above my head. “Mum, I don’t want to drink your blood!”

  “Honey,” Dad said, scanning the laptop screen in fascinated horror, “I really don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

  Mum put her hands on her hips, regarding us all sternly. “If Xanthe has indeed become a vampire”—she didn’t falter on the word at all—“then she will need to take in sustenance. Our first hypothesis must be that the traditional legends are correct. In which case, she will require fresh human blood.”

  “I’m not going to drink my own mother’s blood!” I yelled. “That’s disgusting!”

  “You can drink my blood if you want,” Zack chimed in. “I’ll even let you bite me.”

  “No biting,” Mum said. “It wouldn’t be sanitary.”

  “What do you think I’ve got, rabies?” I said to her in indignation, then turned to Zack. “And, no!”

  “Why not?” He looked vaguely offended. “I bet my blood is tasty!”