Chapter 14
Cally exited the locker room and hurried to Coach Knorrig's offi ce, only to fi nd the door locked. She went back out into the grotto and looked around the stony landscape, hoping to catch sight of the coach. From where she stood, the fl oor of the grotto resembled a forest full of petrifi ed trees.
"Hello? Coach?"
Cally cocked her head, hoping to catch a response, but all she heard was her own voice echoing through the cavern. As she turned toward Ruthven's side of the grotto, she saw somebody moving between the rock formations.
"Coach! Wait up!" she shouted. Cally hurried toward the fi gure threading its way through the ground-level labyrinth.
Suddenly a dark fi gure stepped out from behind a large rock directly into her path. Cally gave a tiny cry of surprise and fell backward, landing on her butt.
"Owww!"
"I'm dreadfully sorry! Please, allow me to help you up," the shadowy fi gure said with a slight, masculine lisp. He extended a hand with fi ngers nearly twice as long as normal. Cally looked up past the stranger's hand and saw a very tall, gaunt young man dressed in the charcoal slacks, burgundy blazer, and red-and-black tie of a Ruthven's student. The youth's dirty-blond hair was combed back away from his high broad forehead in a pronounced widow's peak, which not only accented his arched eyebrows and pointed ears, but his aquiline nose, large deep-set eyes, and wide, sensual mouth as well. Despite his outre appearance, he exuded a gentility Cally was unaccustomed to in boys her own age.
"I'm sorry if I scared you. I tend to do that." Smiling apologetically, he helped her off the ground.
"I wouldn't say that you scared me - startled is more like it." Cally chuckled as she brushed herself off.
"Yeah, I kinda do that too." He sighed.
"I'm trying to fi nd Coach Knorrig," Cally explained.
"Oh! When I heard someone calling for Coach, I thought they might be trying to fi nd Coach Munn. I'm his student assistant."
"No, I'm looking for Coach Knorrig. Do you know where she is?" Cally asked hopefully.
"She left to run an errand. Last I saw her, she was headed down the emergency exit," he said, motioning toward the eastern end of the grotto.
"Emergency exit?" Cally frowned.
"The schools came up with the idea for it after the Great Fire. It's a secret tunnel that goes under the East River and comes up at Mill Rock Island, out in the East River's Hell Gate."
"What about this Coach Munn you mentioned - is he still around?" Cally asked hopefully.
"Afraid not," he replied.
"Great!" Cally muttered, rolling her eyes in consternation.
"Perhaps I can be of some help? I am a teaching assistant, after all."
"Well, there's this girl in my class . . . turns out she's, uh, kind of stuck."
"Stuck?" he echoed, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
"Yeah - between shapes."
"I see. "
"That's the thing, though. She doesn't want anyone to see. I was barely able to talk her into letting me go fetch Coach Knorrig."
"Still, I think I can help her out."
"Could you? That would be great!"
"Where is she?"
"She's hiding in the locker room. Come on, I'll show you!"
The smile on his face suddenly disappeared. "The locker room? You mean the girls' locker room?"
"Yeah, where else?"
"It's just that I could get - you know - if anyone saw me go in there . . ." he stammered.
"She's the only one in the locker room. No one else is there. And you said both Coach Knorrig and Coach Munn are gone, so who's left to see you go in?"
"Okay, you've persuaded me," he said with a grin.
"Thanks. My name's Cally, by the way."
"My name's Xander," he replied. "It's my pleasure. And my friends call me Exo."
"Hello? Bette?"
"Who's that?!" Bette squeaked anxiously from her hiding place in the toilet stall.
"Relax, it's just me," Cally replied "Are you decent?"
"Decent?!? I look like a bat from the neck up!"
"The reason I'm asking is because I've got a guy with me."
"A guy?!?" Bette's voice momentarily disappeared into the ultrasonic register. "I thought you were going to get Coach Knorrig!"
"The coach went out to lunch, I guess. But I found someone who says he might be able to help you," Cally explained.
"Forget it! If I don't want the other girls to see me like this, I sure don't want a man looking at me!"
"Let me talk to her," Xander whispered to Cally. He stepped up to the locked toilet stall, leaning against it so that his mouth was as close to the door as possible.
"Hello - Bette, is it? I know you're upset right now and embarrassed," he said, talking in a calm voice as if he was trying to pacify a skittish animal. "But it's nothing to be ashamed of. Getting stuck every now and then is perfectly natural. Believe me, you have nothing to be worried about. You can show yourself to me."
"You promise you won't laugh?" Bette asked.
"I promise," he replied solemnly.
"Or scream?"
"Believe me when I tell you it doesn't make any difference to me what you look like," Xander said with a small laugh.
"I don't know about that," Bette said doubtfully. "I look really hideous."
"Would it make you feel any better if I told you I'm an Orlock?"
There was the sound of a bolt being thrown back and the toilet stall door opened just enough for Xander to see a tiny, blood-red eye surrounded by dark gray fur staring back at him.
"The count's son?"
"One of them, anyway," he replied.
"Well, I guess it's okay, then." Bette opened the door the rest of the way and stepped outside so he could get a better look.
Xander studied her for a long moment, his arms folded so that his left hand cupped his right elbow while he tapped the side of his nose with an overlong index fi nger.
"Is it bad?" Bette squeaked fearfully, clutching her red ribbons to her chest.
"No, not at all. You just need a little push in the right direction so you can fi nish the transformation, that's all. There's something called a reversal potion that will solve your problem. Unfortunately, Coach Munn keeps his supply under lock and key. However, I've been studying the formula in my potions class, and I think I can safely replicate it."
"That's great!" Cally said excitedly. "See, Bette?
I told you everything would be all right! All Exo has to do is go whip up a batch of reversal potion and bring it back here so you can drink it!"
"Yeahhhh. About that," Xander said uneasily as he rubbed the back of his neck. "The reversal potion actually has a very short half-life and requires a special binding agent in order for it to be bottled and transported. The problem is that the only person who has access to the binding agent is Professor Frid. By the time I make the potion, put it in a vial, and bring it back from the lab at my school, it will be useless. In order for it to work, it must be consumed within a minute or two of being concocted."
"So that means - ?"
"We have to smuggle her into Ruthven's."
"What - ?" Bette's voice made both Cally and Xander wince. "Are you crazy? Bathory students caught on the Ruthven campus without a chaperone are automatically expelled! The same goes for Ruthven students coming onto Bathory property! As a matter of fact, if someone walked in on us right now, we'd all be tossed out!"
"Would you rather I go and report your condition to Madame Nerezza?" Cally asked.
"No," Bette admitted.
"Then Xander has to smuggle you into the boys'school - and out again."
Bette's mutated upper lip began to quiver and tears welled in her beady red eyes. "I'm scared, Cally! I'm not used to doing stuff without Bella."
"If it'll make you feel better, I'll go with you."
"You will? Oh, thank you, Cally!" Bette squeaked, throwing her arms around the other girl's neck. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! But aren't you afraid of getting into trouble?"
"The way things are going, I seriously doubt I'm going to be attending Bathory Academy much longer anyway." Cally shrugged. "The way I look at it, what do I have to lose?"
* * *
"Wow, so this is what it's like in the boys' school," Bette whispered in awe as they hurried along the corridor that connected the grotto to Ruthven's School for Boys. Where the corridor leading to the grotto on Bathory Academy's side had been fashioned of natural rock and boasted a barrel-vaulted ceiling, Ruthven's resembled the enclosed walkway of a Gothic monastery.
"We've got to hurry. The grotto and laboratory are normally deserted during mealtime, but there's still a chance we'll be spotted," Xander explained. He pushed the call button for the elevator. "I could try and cast an obscuration spell around the two of you, but that's only of use against being seen by clots."
"What about the elevator operator?" Cally asked.
"Aren't you worried about him seeing us?"
"What operator?" Xander asked with a puzzled frown as the doors pinged open, revealing a modern push-button elevator.
Like Bathory, the classrooms for Ruthven's School for Boys were situated underground on three subterranean levels, the third of which was the grotto, which it shared with its sister school. The Gothic architectural look was continued on the second level with an impressive ribbed vault ceiling and pointed arch doorways.
"Here we are," Xander whispered over his shoulder as he opened the door to the potions lab. "Luckily, our master chymist, Professor Frid, is a man of very rigid habits. We have a good fi fteen minutes before he returns from lunch."
The fl oor at the center of the room was covered with strange symbols and half-melted candles, and the walls were lined with stone tables. Xander hurried over to a table in the far corner covered in a jumble of vials, fl asks, and tools, including a macabre mortar and pestle fashioned from a human skull and arm bone. He shrugged out of his school blazer and slipped on a stained leather apron. Quickly measuring out liquids and powders from various containers, he poured them into a glass beaker suspended over a small gas fl ame burner, which he then lit.
"Are you absolutely sure this is going to work?"
Bette asked anxiously as she watched him mix black hellebore and powdered mandrake into the madly bubbling mix.
"I'm positive!" he said, giving her a reassuring wink.
"We Orlocks have a knack for such things, you know."
Suddenly the lab door opened and slammed shut.
"Someone's here!" Xander whispered, a look of dread on his face. "Quick! Hide!"
Cally nodded her understanding and grabbed Bette by the hand, dragging her along behind her as she ducked under a nearby table.
"Hey - Exo! Is that you?"
Xander turned to see his cousin Jules ambling toward him, a surprised look on his handsome face.
"Yeah, it's me," Xander replied, nervously rubbing his palms against his lab apron.
"What are you doing here?" Jules asked.
"I was about to ask you the same thing."
"I forgot my formula workbook," Jules explained, holding up a battered leather volume bound with metal clasps. "My dad's still holding that trip to Vail over my head if I don't get my grades up. Why are you here?"
"Just putting in a little extra-credit work, that's all."
"You're such a spod, Orlock." Jules chuckled.
"Well, it's not like I can get by on my good looks, like some people I know," Xander said with a crooked smile.
"So . . . you wanna come hang after school? Sergei's having a bunch of the guys over. His parents are out in the Hamptons."
"I don't think so," Xander said. "That's not really my scene. Like you said, I'm a spod. Besides, I get the feeling Lilith's uncomfortable with me hanging around."
"I haven't told Lilith about the party yet," Jules said, looking down at his shoes.
"Are you going to?"
"I dunno. Maybe." He shrugged. "It's just that she's been acting so strange lately, you know? Ever since Tanith got, you know, she's done nothing but obsess about that girl at her school, the New Blood."
"Lilith and Tanith were friends, Jules," Xander said pointedly. "She probably misses her. Maybe fi xating on the New Blood takes her mind off it."
"Yeah, I guess so," Jules admitted halfheartedly. "I just wish she'd be more like her old self again."
"If that's the case, why don't you try and do something to get her mind off Tanith?" Xander suggested.
"Something romantic."
"That's not a bad idea," Jules said as he rubbed his chin. "For someone who's never been on a date, you sure seem to understand women."
"My mom has all these subscriptions to Cosmo and stuff like that," Xander said with a laugh. "I read them when my dad's not looking."
"I better be going," Jules said. "Thanks for the suggestion, Cuz! I think it might actually work!"
"Later," Xander called out as his cousin exited the room.
"Who was that?" Cally whispered as she climbed out from under the lab table.
"My cousin Jules."
"Your cousin?" Cally exclaimed, unable to hide her surprise.
"Couldn't you tell from the family resemblance?"
Xander said dryly.
"I didn't mean it like that, Exo."
"That's okay." Xander sighed as he returned to his work on the potion. "I'm used to it. Jules is a babe magnet and I'm a babe anti- magnet. I know it, you know it, and the whole world knows it."
"You shouldn't talk that way about yourself," Cally chided, placing her hand on his arm.
Xander paused to flash her a sad smile. "You're a very sweet girl, Cally, but there's no point in deluding myself. The Orlocks might be one of the oldest, richest, and most powerful families in the world - but if there's one thing we're not, it's easy on the eyes. Hell, most of us can barely pass for human. I know that I'll never be handsome, and I've come to accept that. I'm comfortable with myself, which is more than a lot of people - vampires included - can say. Now watch out; when I add the fi nal ingredient to the potion, it's gonna fi zz like Diet Coke and Mentos."
Xander picked up an unmarked vial and tapped a small measure of powder into the bubbling beaker. The mixture began to foam wildly while changing every color of the spectrum. When it got to lavender, Exo snatched the dripping beaker from the burner, poured out the liquid into a glass, and handed it to Bette.
"Drink it quickly, before it stops bubbling."
Bette sniffed the mixture apprehensively with her upturned bat's nose. "It smells like unwashed gym socks."
"I didn't say it would smell good," Xander replied testily. "I just said it would work."
Summoning her courage, Bette closed her eyes and knocked back the contents of the beaker in one gulp. "Ugh! It tastes even nastier than it smells!" she said with a grimace as she wiped the residue from her mouth.
"I didn't say anything about it tasting good, either,"
Xander reminded her. "How do you feel?"
"Okay, I guess," Bette said as the fur receded from her face and her features returned to their former appearance. "It's kind of weird, though. It's like someone's massaging my face from the inside out."
"I can't believe it!" Cally gasped. "It really worked!"
"Of course it did," Xander said, a hint of pride in his voice. "But you two need to get out of here. The midnight meal will be over any minute now. That means the halls are gonna be full of students and faculty headed back to their classrooms."
"Thank you, Exo," Bette said sincerely. "I won't forget what you did for me. C'mon, Cally - let's go!"
As Cally moved to follow her schoolmate out the door, she suddenly turned back and planted a quick kiss on the side of Xander's cheek. "Thanks for everything, Exo," she whispered in his pointed ear. "You're a great guy, you know that?"
Xander stood there, his mouth hanging open like a fi sh, one hand cupped over his kissed cheek as if it had just been slapped as he watched Cally hurry out the door and down the hall.
"Orlock, you're such a spod," he groaned.
* * *
Jules de Laval stood in the students' second-fl oor lavatory, staring down into the sink while he washed his hands. Exo was right about what he needed to do. Then again, Xander had always been the smart one in the family.
If he wanted to get Lilith back to her old self, he needed to keep her mind off the New Blood girl. But how? He remembered what Exo had said about Aunt Juliana's fashion magazines. His own mother had several subscriptions as well, which got him thinking. Maybe he would place a call between classes and get one of the servants to look through his mother's magazines and fi nd something romantic for him to do. He was deciding to make that his plan of action for the night when he stepped out of the restroom and instantly collided with someone running down the hall.
Jules staggered backward and was about to curse whoever it was for being a clumsy bastard when he realized he was staring not at a fellow Ruthven's student but at a girl.
He stood there in surprise, not simply because Bathory Academy students were forbidden inside Ruthven's, but because the girl standing before him was the New Blood from the park, up close and beautiful. With her glittering green eyes, moonfl ower-white skin, and short, strangely cut hair, the girl standing before him was the exact opposite of Lilith and all the other pampered Old Blood girls he had ever known. The red terry-cloth gym suit fi t her in all the right places, hugging her boobs and her taut, toned ass, showing off her long, well-shaped legs. Jules looked past the beauty standing before him and saw, farther down the corridor, Bette Maledetto, dressed in full Bathory uniform. She was leaning out of the elevator, motioning to the New Blood as she kept the doors of the car from closing.
"What in the name of the Founders - ?" he managed to sputter.
The girl in the gym suit lifted a fi nger to her lips.
"Please don't say anything!" she pleaded. "If we get in trouble, your cousin does too!"
"How did you get in here? And how do you know who my cousin is?"
"Because Exo smuggled us into the alchemy lab. We were hiding in there when you came to get your homework," she explained.
"I knew Exo was up to something!" Jules said. "I just didn't think it involved, you know, girls."
Jules looked around to make sure no one else was in the hall before grabbing the girl's hand. His heart began to beat faster as he felt her smooth skin beneath his fi ngers.
"Tell Bette to follow us," he whispered. "Using the elevator to get back to the grotto is too dangerous now. There's an old stairway on this fl oor that leads to where you need to go. Not many students know about it, and it's rarely used anymore. It should be safe."
Cally turned and waved for Bette to hurry. Jules led them down a hallway off the main corridor to a small wooden door fi tted with a brass handle. The door creaked open easily, revealing a set of tightly winding stairs that led downward into darkness.
"Thank you for helping us." Cally smiled. "I think we can take it from here."
Jules shook his head. "No, it's safer if I go with you," he said. "I can run interference if someone's down there."
As Cally and Bette stepped inside the stairway after him, the door closed behind them on its own. They followed the stairs down, pushing their way through cobwebs. After a few minutes they arrived at another narrow door.
"This opens onto a section of the grotto roughly a couple of hundred yards from the Ruthven's entrance tunnel," Jules explained. "I'll go fi rst to make sure the coast is clear."
He stepped out and looked around for signs of students or faculty but saw none. He reopened the door and signaled for the girls to join him.
"Once again, thank you for your help," the girl in the gym suit said, teasing him with a smile. "It was very gallant of you."
"It was nothing, Miss . . . ?" he said, responding to her fl irting tone.
"Cally."
Jules stepped forward and took Cally's hands in his, bowing slightly at the waist as his lips brushed lightly against the curve of her fi ngers. "Enchante, Cally." Jules smiled.
"The pleasure is mutual, monsieur," she replied, affecting an exaggerated curtsy. Delighted with their play, Jules and Cally started laughing, but when they heard Bette giggle, Cally blushed. "We better be going," she said, letting go of his hands.
"Au revoir." Jules smiled.
Jules paused to watch the girls dash back to their side of the grotto. He told himself he was only making sure they got back safely, but in reality he just wanted to admire Cally's butt.