Fang Girl Read online

  “Well, why didn’t you say so!” I yelled. They both jumped, twisting in my direction. I waved my hands in exasperation. “I’ve been going nuts trying to work out how I got vamped in a car crash, and now you tell me I was in the hospital?” My parents were staring at me. “Hospital,” I repeated as patiently as I could. “Where there’s blood. And needles.”

  Dad’s eyebrows shot up. “You think you got vampirism in the hospital, like an infection?”

  “It would make sense, right? All my sire would have to do is sneak in and drip some blood down my throat.”

  “The question is,” said Mum, “why?”

  Our eyes all went to the mobile phone, sitting innocently on top of The Lust of the Vampire. It continued to not ring.

  “How long until 5:08?” Mum asked.

  “Hours still,” I replied with a sigh. I’d tried calling back anyway, but had only got voice mail.

  “Well,” Dad said, turning back to Buffy. “At least it gives us time to research vampires.”

  “Zombies,” corrected Zack, wandering into the room with Toast in his arms. I aimed a glare at him, which he totally ignored as usual. “I’m telling you, we’re looking in the wrong place. We need to rent Day of the Dead and My Name Is Legend.”

  “Actually, I thought of a way to test that hypothesis,” Mum said, tipping the books off her lap as she stood. I twitched as they hit the floor in a jumbled heap, fighting off a weird desire to pick them up and stack them neatly. She started hunting among the piles of books on the crowded coffee table. “I need you to do something for me, Xanthe.”

  I eyed her warily. “What?”

  She flashed a wry grin at me, brandishing aloft a sterile lancet. “I vant to suck your bloooood.”

  “What? No!” I jumped out of my chair as she advanced on me.

  “Come on,” she cajoled, chasing me round the sofa. “For science!”

  “Your mother knows what she’s doing,” said Dad with what I felt was unwarranted optimism. “She just needs a few drops, that’s all.”

  “Well … all right.” I submitted to the needle, looking away squeamishly as it stabbed into my skin—though, actually, I didn’t even feel it. In a few seconds, it was all done. “What are you going to do, take that into the university and get a colleague to run tests on it?”

  “No,” Mum said over her shoulder as she swept out of the room. “I’m going to perform animal experiments.”

  Zack and I looked at each other. Then, with a cry of “Not the bunny!” we pelted after her. We got tangled up with each other in the doorway; by the time we burst into the kitchen, my mother was standing by the table with a calm expression and a clean needle.

  “Marmalade!” Zack snatched the rabbit up and clutched it to his chest, probably causing it more distress than Mum had. “Mum, how could you try to turn my bunny into a zombie?”

  “Vampire,” I snarled. “And, yeah!”

  “I haven’t touched the rabbit,” Mum said. “That would probably have required more blood. I thought it was best to start small.” She moved to one side.

  The goldfish lurked sullenly at the bottom of the tank, looking distinctly peeved.

  “You mean,” I said, “if this works, I’m going to be the sire to a vampire goldfish?” I shook my head in despair. “Thanks, Mum. You do realize you’ve probably ruined my undead social life?”

  “I’ve decided what to name the fish.” Zack was hunched over, peering through the glass in fascination. “Braaaaaaains.”

  After he’d fled to his room to avoid a painful demise, I turned back to Mum. She was staring bleary-eyed at the coffee machine, waiting for it to percolate. “Mum, you’ve had, like, six cups tonight already. You know that stuff’s not good for you.” Or the rest of us. Mum got more focused and less practical with each caffeine hit.

  “I need it.” She rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “Your father and I have been awake since the middle of last night.”

  “Go to bed, then.” I cut across her as she started to protest. “Look, I’m a solitary creature of darkness, remember? I need you to watch over things during the day—you can’t do that and stay awake all night too.” I herded her out. “I’ll wake you up if my sire calls. Or if a howling mob brandishing torches storms the house.”

  As my parents got ready for bed, I wandered around, turning off lights and double-checking that all the windows and doors were locked. Still no sign of vampire hunters. I fetched myself a snack of—sigh—raw ground beef, resisting the urge to check all the windows again. I had to find something to take my mind off the possible assassins closing in on me, but what did a vampire do all night?

  When Dad poked his head into my room to check on me, I was sitting at my desk, spooning raw ground beef with one hand while I flicked through my favorite websites on my laptop. Well, there was only so much melancholic lounging a girl could do.

  Dad peered over my shoulder. “You’re Googling your own obituaries?”

  “I meant to look for vampire hunter organizations, but I got distracted. This is awesome!” I eagerly scrolled down the forum thread. “Look, Fang-Girls.net held an online fan auction in my memory—see, ‘The JaneX Memorial Fund.’ They’re raising loads for charity! And look at all these tributes on my profile page!”

  I yanked my fingers back as Dad firmly shut the laptop lid. “This can’t be psychologically healthy, Baby Jane. Why don’t you go and read a nice wholesome vampire novel instead?”

  “I don’t need to research vampires, Dad. I’ve been reading about them all my life.” I looked out at the dark garden. Apart from the breeze ruffling the leaves of the big oak tree outside my window, all was still. I stared hard into the shadowed branches. Just the place for a stalker to lurk, clutching a stake and a cross....

  “You sure you’re going to be okay by yourself?” Dad said, breaking my train of thought. “I could stay up.”

  “You look deader than I do, Dad.” I shooed him away, opening the lid of my laptop again. “Go to bed.”

  He cast me a stern backward glance from the doorway. “No more morbid Googling, Xanthe Jane. Promise?”

  “Yeah, whatever.” Making sure he could see the screen, I pulled up the BBC News website. The state of the world hadn’t changed much while I’d been dead. Blah, blah, riots somewhere, economy crashing, political scandal, blah, blah, blah. I clicked randomly through headlines without reading, and after a second I heard my dad’s footsteps moving down the hall. My hearing sharpened as I concentrated; I could hear the rustle of the sheets being pulled back, and the creak of the springs as my parents got into bed. Straining my senses to the utmost, I could even catch the soft sound of their breathing. I waited until they’d both slipped into a deep, easy rhythm.

  Then, of course, I went straight back to Fang-Girls.net.

  I’d never thought of myself as a Big Name Fan or anything, but literally hundreds of people had posted messages about how great I’d been as a moderator, and how insightful my commentaries had always been, and how much fun I’d been in the role-playing chatroom, and what a tragedy it was that I’d never finish my epic, multi-fandom, crossover crackfic saga (though there were not, in my opinion, nearly enough comments expressing this latter regret). With the number of times my family had moved, I’d always found it easier to maintain friendships online than in person; I’d never even met most of these people, but I’d still been a part of their lives. And they’d missed me when I went away.

  For a while, at least.

  People may have been sad about my accident, but … fandom went on. My smug glow evaporated as I realized just how much it had gone on in my absence. Four months was like a year, in internet terms. While I’d been in my coma, whole flamewars had broken out and died down again; at least three new fangroups had formed, mainly over characters I’d never even heard of; several prominent bloggers had flounced off the site over some imagined insult, only to come creeping back again a couple of weeks later. There were masses of squee over a trailer for a new vamp
ire film; twenty-eight of my favorite fanfic authors had new stories up; there had been six vampire-related conventions in various parts of the world, dutifully blogged about by hundreds of fans; new pictures, new book announcements, new reviews, new arguments, all new, new, new....

  It was a good thing I was an immortal vampire (not a zombie), because it was going to take me at least two years to catch up with all the gossip. My fingers automatically hovered over the keyboard … then hesitated. Normally—if I’d been on holiday or something—I would simply post asking people to let me know the juiciest happenings, but I could hardly do that now. Sure, I could make a new account, a new user name … but then it wouldn’t feel like being me. I was dead to all these people. All my friends.

  Great. Now my mood was hovering dangerously close to angst. I determinedly clicked over to the fanfic forum. Nothing like some imaginary angsty vampires to distract you from your problems, even when you’re a real, angsty vampire.

  I was settling down to the latest installment of my favorite long-running fanfic novel (thirty-four chapters, and still going strong) when there was a bing. I nearly fell off my chair in my haste to grab the phone—but it was still dark. My laptop beeped again. A chat window had popped up.

  Superluminal: JaneX

  Superluminal: I see you

  “Crap!” Leaping out of my chair, I flung the window open. The garden lay calm and deserted under the stars, and the tree was still devoid of anything but shadows. Sanity seeped back through my panic. I sat down at my desk again, staring at the name in the chat window.

  I knew of Superluminal—probably everyone on Fang-Girls.net did—but my interactions with her (if she was a her) had been limited to downloading her vids. She was famous online for her fantastic vidding, mixing DVD clips and music seamlessly to make vampire-themed music videos that you’d swear could have come out of major record studios. She was also notoriously reclusive. Unlike most fans, she never commented on other people’s work, never hung out in the forums.

  So what was she doing messaging a dead girl?

  The laptop binged.

  Superluminal had sent me a URL, apparently to a blog. My eye went to the browser window in the background, still open to one of the Fang-Girls.net forums, and fell on one of the headings in the sidebar: FANS ONLINE NOW.

  “Oh, crap!” I’d forgotten that my settings automatically logged me into the site. There at the top of the list was my internet name: JANEX. Which, thanks to the outpouring of grief over my death, had now been linked to my real name.

  Fang-Girls.net was the central fan-run site for all things fanged. The ideal hangout for vampire-obsessed fangirls … or vampire hunters.

  I thought fast.

  JaneX: Hello!!! A/S/L?

  Superluminal: ??

  JaneX: Im 18 blonde model! who lieks to party!! If u wanna watch me and my sexxy freinds, CLICK HERE NOW!!!!

  [Superluminal has gone Offline]

  I sat back with a sigh. Hopefully, Superluminal, whether a real fan or a hunter, was now thinking my account had been hacked by a spambot. Out of curiosity, I clicked the link she’d sent me. It was a blog, by someone who really loved the color purple. Squinting past the clashing typography, I read the title of the latest entry:

  VAMPIRE IN SUSSEX???

  “Oh, craaaaaap,” I said for a third time with three times as much feeling. I scrolled down, my unbeating heart sinking with each click. Yep. Lorraine had a blog, and she’d used it to tell the world—or at least, her friendlist—about the really weird thing that had happened to her last night. And she’d said how much her mysterious assailant had looked like one Xanthe Jane Greene....

  “Well, great,” I muttered. “I’m sure the Elder vampires are going to love this....”

  The phone buzzed, vibrating across the desk like a deranged mechanical spider. I caught it as it hurled itself off the edge, nearly putting it to my ear upside down in my haste. “Hello? Hello?” As I spoke, I glanced at the clock.

  5:09 A.M.

  “Xanthe darling,” purred my sire. “You shouldn’t worry about what they think.”

  Chapter 7

  Once was coincidence, but twice … “You’ve got some kind of psychic bond to me, right?” I said.

  There was a tiny pause from the other end of the line, filled with the background rumble of a car engine. “Goodness,” said my sire eventually. “And I had a nice, soothing speech prepared to break it to you gently.”

  “Well, you’re my sire. I was kinda, um, expecting there to be a connection of some kind. You know, my blood is your blood and all that stuff. It always is, you know?” Was I babbling? Oh God, I was babbling. I wanted to seem cool, poised, but just listening to her voice made my stomach flutter as if I were about to take an exam.

  Oh.

  Uh-oh.

  “This isn’t going to be a master-slave sort of thing, is it?” I asked without much hope.

  She laughed—a rich, throaty sound that would have set my pulse racing, if I’d had one. “Poor darling. I certainly hope not. In any event, I do indeed have a connection to you, like all vampires have to their descendants. It’s called the Bloodline. It means I can see what you see and hear what you hear.”

  “Uh.” I was really glad I hadn’t yet visited my favorite fan-art forum, which tended to feature a lot of drawings of hot, shirtless vampires. “Exactly how much?”

  “Everything, I’m afraid. And I can feel where you are, as well. Which, by the way, is a terrible place for you to be. Honestly, Xanthe—your parents’ house? What sort of a hiding place is that?”

  “A warm, dry one,” I said, wrestling down my instinctive urge to whimper and grovel. “And it’s Jane, actually.”

  Another fractional pause. “Your name is Xanthe Jane Greene … and you prefer Jane?” my sire inquired in the tones of one suddenly suspecting the other person of being a bit Special Needs.

  “If you had to go to my schools, so would you,” I muttered. “Um, sorry for being rude, but who the heck are you?”

  “You may call me Lily. And, my Xanthe, you do not have to concern yourself with being plain Jane anymore.” For the first time, all traces of amusement were gone, her voice as dark and solemn as night itself. “No one is ever going to laugh at you, or belittle you, or order you around, ever again.”

  “Guh” was all I could manage in response to this. Lily’s voice reached straight through my ears and shut down my brain.

  “Oh dear,” Lily said, sounding apologetic. “That came on rather too thick, didn’t it. Sorry, my darling.” The light archness was back, and I found I could move again. “I’ve never sired anyone before now, so all this is as new to me as it is to you.”

  “Um, speaking of which, and not meaning to sound ungrateful … why me?”

  “Darling, I may have fangs, but I’m not a heartless monster. I could hardly let a young girl die, could I? But we haven’t got the leisure to talk history now, I’m afraid. We’re both in terrible danger.”

  “Yeah, I got your text.” I once again scrutinized the garden for any hint of movement. “What’s going on?”

  Lily hissed between her teeth. “I don’t yet know fully myself. I didn’t intend us to get separated, but Hakon sprung a trap on me.”

  “Hakon,” I repeated, my brain conjuring up an image of a huge, scowling Scandinavian. “I’m guessing he’s a vampire hunter.”

  “Hunter?” Lily sounded startled. “Goodness, darling, no. Those buffoons are the least of our worries. Hakon’s a vampire. A very old, very powerful, Scandinavian vampire, who’s spent a thousand years becoming the most feared Elder in Europe.”

  I wasn’t liking this. I wasn’t liking this at all. “And … he’s your enemy?”

  “More like I’m his. My word, he holds a grudge. Let’s just say that I managed to escape from the horrible little feudal system he’s got set up, and he can’t let that sort of challenge to his authority go unpunished.” Lily clicked her tongue in dismissal. “Tell you the whole story over cockt
ails sometime, darling. We’re running out of night, and Hakon’s vampires could be right on your doorstep. You’ve got to get out of there.”

  I stared out my window. Now I was seeing evil vampires lurking in every shadow, rather than zealous hunters. It wasn’t an improvement. “He knows where I am?”

  “Darling, I’m afraid he must, thanks to your naive return to your roost,” Lily said with a touch of asperity. “As well as being an utter prig, Hakon is, very inconveniently, my sire’s sire. Your great-grandsire. Which means he’s got a direct Bloodline to both of us. He can piggyback our senses, and there’s not a thing we can do to stop him.”

  “What?” One of my parents stirred in their bedroom; I cut off my shriek. “You mean more people can stare at me whenever they want?”

  “Only those in your direct line, which means we just have to worry about Hakon at the moment. And not quite whenever he wants—it’s tiring to reach more-distant descendants. I can stay in contact with you near enough indefinitely, as your direct sire, but Hakon, as your great-grandsire, is a bit more limited. He can probably only manage to look through your eyes and ears for about a quarter of any given hour. The catch, unfortunately, is that we can’t tell when he’s peeping in and when he’s not.”

  Oh God. I was never getting undressed ever again.

  “As your distant ancestor, he can’t directly sense your location like I can, but he must have picked up enough clues as to your whereabouts by now,” Lily continued over my appalled silence. “He’s probably been riding along with you intermittently all night—but being so much older than us, he has to return to rest an hour earlier than we do. So now we can arrange our rendezvous without him being any the wiser. Any suggestions?”

  “Uh …” Even though my blood leaped at the thought of meeting Lily in the flesh, growing up on the internet meant I was well trained in never agreeing to private meetings with strangers. “Could you come here?”