Excerpt: Night School: Vampire Hunter by Michelle Cornwell-Jordan

Prologue
He smelled her before he saw her, that sweet, spicy aroma that appealed to those of his kind. His tongue tingled at the thought of the warm blood flowing down his throat. He moved as the anticipation of his next meal caused him to draw near. The uncontrollable thirst beat at him as he watched the girl, alone, walk towards her car in the empty parking lot. He chuckled to himself. He had heard many of the Day Walkers’ stories speaking of how unsettling and creepy, he believed their exact words were, Ame Academy’s parking lot was after dark. This was especially true of the Day Walkers’ lot, which was the furthest one from the school, made so to prohibit after hour attendance, unless of course you attended night school. But they came, those foolish Day Walkers who wanted the thrill, the rush, to say that they had dared to break the rule.

He chuckled again as he moved closer. So they came and usually there were no occurrences. But every once in a while, the school would have to report a disappearance, sadly, a tragedy where one of Kincaid, Texas’s most hallowed young ones would meet with an unexpected and violent end.

He watched the girl as she walked towards a silver/black PT Cruiser convertible. She swiftly pulled from her jeans pocket a set of keys, and he saw what looked to be a small charm decorated with a skull emblem. The skull had a large pink bow. He smiled; this one had backbone, and he liked a little fire in his meal. Hunger drove him, made him a little more reckless than usual, and he forgot to notice small details such as the set of the girl’s shoulders, which were determined and ready. Even as she opened the door, placing her bag into the back seat, she showed no fear. But he didn’t see these insignificant details. It had been too long since he had hunted. Having to exist off that vile concoction of Phoenix blood, which supposedly had all the nutrients of the real thing for his kind to exist! Ha! It couldn’t take the place of the heady feeling he got from the hunt, the sinking of teeth into tender skin and drinking that life force that couldn’t be replaced; that was what they, his kind, were really meant to be, predators.

It was time. He moved closer as the girl stood with her back to him, leaning half-way in the car. He moved up with preternatural speed.

He said, "Hello, didn’t anyone ever tell you a lovely girl like yourself shouldn’t walk out here alone?" He laughed as he grabbed her, twisting her to face him, looking forward to the fear in her eyes. "There are scary things in the night!" But he stopped and his red eyes widened. No! he thought to himself, not her! Not the slayer!

The girl, facing him fully now, smiled with her dark eyes shining.

"Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with your food?" she said, a wicked smile crossing her angelic face. So lost in her eyes, the vampire didn’t see the stake coming towards his heart.

Mind Speak

(A blog dealing with the crap that is my life)

Blog post#1

Okay, so this is the first post in my diary. Ms. Griffin says that this will help me to own all the negative emotions I have been suppressing since the incident. That’s what she calls the event that changed my life. First, I probably need to introduce myself, Ms. Griffin says (yeah, she says a lot of things…) that speaking formally as if I am talking to strangers, introducing them to myself, my life, and eventually the events surrounding my "problem" will help me have the distance to deal with all the details without the emotional baggage… (Whatever), anyway, here goes...

My name is Dasheen Bellamy, but everyone always calls me Angel. I am 15 years old, have one brother, Jordan, who’s 12 years old and we are both students and residents of Ame Academy. Actually, I’m staging a mini-rebellion. Ms. Griffin was opposed to the blog format, believing the old fashioned method of pen, pencil, and leather-bound journal would be better for me…keep me in reality, I suppose. I will do what she says to a point, for my sake and that of my little brother Jordan. I will do whatever is needed to keep us together.

That’s why I see Ms. Griffin three days out of the week for 50 minutes each time since coming to Ame Academy, but I will still have to hold on to a part of the old me, even if it’s as silly as how I journal. I was a blogger back at my old school, and that’s who I am now. So bite me, Griffin! Oh, well (now I feel a small twinge of guilt…Dad and Jocelyn would be disappointed with me for speaking that way). But I guess it doesn’t really matter, does it? Dad and Jocelyn aren’t here, are they? Well, not since I killed them…

Post #2

Guess, I left that last post a little dramatic, didn’t I? I didn’t actually kill Jocelyn and Dad; at least I don’t think I did. It all began a year ago, the night of my 15th birthday, October 31st (yep, I know, there are just TONS of implications that can be suggested with my being born on that day! Trust me, I have heard them all: devil, spawn, witch etc.). Especially after I began having the visions, like I said; the first came on my birthday. We were all finishing up Jocelyn’s to-die-for Black Forest cake, a sinful concoction of cherries, kirsch( cherry water) and devil deep chocolate! Hey Squirrel... (That’s my way of saying I have a little back history to add); Jocelyn Hernandez, is or was like a mother to me and Jordan.

I never knew my mother growing up, and well, Jocelyn had been there forever. She was a friend of my mom and dad’s from when they were in college, and my dad says that when my mom left, he was alone with small children and a broken heart and he asked Jocelyn for help. She had just gotten out of a bad marriage (I know, too much information right?). Anyway, she also was heartbroken about her husband and about my mom disappearing, and apparently nothing else was going on, so she stepped right in to help. She eventually moved in and took care of me and Jordan because Dad had a private security company and he traveled a lot for clients. Okay, I know that sounds REALLY convenient, but it isn’t like that. For as long as I can remember, my dad and Jocelyn always acted like best friends; in fact it seemed until Jocelyn and Dad disappeared, that he still missed my mother…Wow, I’m all over the place, good thing this blog is really for my eyes only…

So-o-o…like I said, we had just finished the cake for my birthday and tricksters wanting treats started blowing up the doorbell. Jordan was jumping around like worms were in his pants; as he got older, it became harder and harder for him to deal with the rule…this is Angel’s birthday first; we celebrate THEN go out trick or treating. So he shot up out of his seat saying, "I’ll get it…I’ll get it," running down the short hallway that led to the front door, with Jocelyn’s "no, running in the house!" at his back. We still lived in North Carolina then, Winston Salem to be exact; and I loved our house, all the gleaming wood edgings, and hardwood floors that I sock-skated across on rainy days. The large back yard that I loved seeing filled with burnt orange and bruised banana yellow leaves in the fall, that was home, not Kincaid, Texas. This is prison.

Anyway, I yelled, "You’re still helping with the dishes, twerp!" As I watched his lanky form disappear down the hall, I gave him a hard time but I really don’t believe there is anyone in this world I love as much as Jordan. He’s as tall as I am; really he’s about to sprout taller than me soon at 12 years old! He’s handsome with skin the color of coffee with tons of cream in it; he has short, springy curls that he wears cut short, and he’s slender.

We’re basically opposites. I am more the color of warm cocoa, almost shorter than Jordan, but I guess normal for a girl, and I wear my hair in braids, because well, then I won’t have to deal with my unruly hair. Anyway, wow, this post is SUPER long! I guess, I just like thinking about when we were happy and normal; it changed when Jordan opened that door that night. I remember I was helping Jocelyn pick up dessert plates with left over smudges of chocolate crumbs and cherries.

Dad had received a call and was in his office, and Jocelyn was running back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen, taking dishes to load the dishwasher. I was picking

up the last plate when suddenly extreme nausea hit me. It seemed like my stomach was literally turning inside out. I sorta stumbled, instinctively lunging towards the dining room table, in order to give the dessert plates a safe landing. I began feeling hot and cold, and when I looked around it was as if I had double vision; two tables, two ugly as sin paintings that my next door neighbor Mrs. Partridge had made for us one Christmas, hung on the wall directly in front of me. I wanted to cry out, but it was as if my tongue had grown two sizes too large for my mouth. I felt as if I would choke on my own tongue.

Then things really started getting strange. I could see the door that stood open, where Jordan was standing, digging through the candy bowl, picking the choice pieces for himself, one or two candy bits went in a trickster’s bucket; the other three or four in his pocket. My attention suddenly went to a little girl who stood in the doorway.

She was the height of an eight or nine-year-old; she seemed separate from the childish hum of energy that surrounded her, standing there, staring directly at me. She was bundled in the long sleeves and jacket required in October in North Carolina, the frilly pink plastic skirt of the Halloween costume peeking out from under her furry brown jacket. She also wore a princess mask, the kind with the holes that looked like blank, dead eyes. The blonde curls that framed the white pale mask looked like engorged worms that began moving and squirming, inching their way into the eye holes of the mask. Down…down the worms slithered while the girl stood still, seeming completely oblivious that worms were going to gnaw her eyes out. Soon the stark white mask was streaked with red with rivulets of blood running down it. That’s when I cried out and the world went black.