Chapter 15
When Bathory Academy was originally founded, there was no such thing as a school cafeteria. But as Victor Todd's blood-banking scheme grew more and more accepted by the population, that eventually changed. Now there was a large room set aside for the students and faculty to take their meals, fi lled with tables and chairs straight out of Ikea. At the back of the cafeteria was a large, triple-door blood bank refrigerator set into the wall.
As Lilith stepped to the head of the line, she had an unobstructed view of the racks of stainless steel drawers stocked with plastic bags full of human blood. The undead servant in cafeteria whites smiled in greeting and asked, "What will it be tonight, dearie?"
"I think I still have some of my private stock banked on reserve," Lilith replied.
"Indeed you do, Miss Todd." The lunch lady opened one of the doors of the refrigerator and reached inside a drawer, withdrawing a blood bag, which she then placed on a plastic cafeteria tray. On the front of the bag was a label marked with a large AB- along with the HemoGlobe corporate logo: a single drop of bright red blood superimposed over a world silhouetted in white.
Lilith took her tray and sat down at the nearest available table. Within a minute or two all her friends had joined her. After all, no matter where she sat, it was the popular table.
"Have you seen Annabelle Usher tonight?" Carmen asked as she sat down opposite Lilith, the corner of her mouth pulled into a smirk. She nodded in the direction of a short, pale girl with a round face and dark hair cut in a blunt bob, with what looked like a pair of upside-down U s drawn in place of eyebrows. "She's such an utter spod! And look at how dingy her clothes are - doesn't she have more than one skirt and blouse to wear to school?"
Lilith shook her head in disgust. "If a legacy student's family is so hard up they can't provide a dresser for their child, she has no business attending Bathory."
She paused and looked around the room. "Speaking of which, where's the newbie?"
"You mean Cally?" Bianca Mortimer asked, missing the point as usual. "I haven't seen her since fl ight class.
Why? Do you want to talk to her?"
"Did I mention she had the gall to try and lay some pathetic 'why can't we all just get along' speech on me last night? I told her to kiss my ass."
"Lilith's right," Carmen agreed. "We've got enough half-bloods and legacies ruining things for the rest of us here - we don't need a New Blood making things worse."
"I think you're making a mistake," Melinda said suddenly.
The chatter at the table fell abruptly quiet as the other girls turned to stare at Lilith, who was glaring at Melinda like an angry eagle. When she fi nally spoke, her voice was surprisingly calm.
"What was that?"
"I just think maybe you shouldn't be in such a hurry to make an enemy out of her, that's all," Melinda replied cautiously. "She's not some mousy little spod. You've seen what she can do."
"Are you saying I should be scared of her?" Lilith asked, her eyes narrowing into slits.
"No, of course not, Lili," Melinda replied with a nervous laugh.
"I'm not surprised you're taking up for that slut, Melly," Lilith said, venom dripping from every word.
"Everyone knows how cozy you are with the Maledetto twins. I guess you want to add the newbie to your collection of lonely girls."
"What are you trying to get at, Lilith?" Melinda growled.
"Oh, come off it, Melly!" Lilith sneered. "Of all the girls at this table, you're the only one who's never had a boyfriend. I wonder why, hmmm? You're too taken by the newbie to see the truth. There's something wrong about her, seriously wrong. I knew it from the fi rst moment I saw her! Looking at her sets my fangs on edge."
"You're just jealous," Melinda shot back.
"Jealous?" Lilith barked a humorless laugh. "What's there to be jealous of? She's a weak-blooded loser who can't even shapeshift!"
"She put down the Van Helsing who killed Tanith single-handed," Melinda replied. "That's more than any of us have ever done - including you. I wouldn't call her a weak-blooded loser."
The other girls seated at the table took a collective breath in anticipation of the explosion they knew was sure to follow. Instead Lilith pushed back her chair and, without saying another word, got up from the table and stalked out.
Carmen turned and glowered at Melinda. "Have you gone psycho, talking to her like that?" she snapped.
"And for what? To get in the pants of some New Blood skank?"
"You really don't get it, do you?" Melinda asked, shaking her head in disbelief at her friend's utter cluelessness. "If you'll excuse me, I think I'll go and fi nish having lunch with one of my friends." With that Melinda picked up her tray and moved over to join Bella Maledetto, who was sitting by herself, looking lost and confused without her sister.
Lilith sat on an outcropping fi fty feet above the fl oor of the grotto, her arms wrapped about her legs, her chin resting on her knees as she stared blankly into the darkness that surrounded her. She had to get away from the others, and this was the one place she knew no one would ever think to look for her.
Up to this point in her life, her physical beauty, her father's wealth, and her family's status had provided her with plenty of friends. Indeed, until now she had never had to work at making friends, much less keeping them.
"Friends." That was a laugh. Melinda, Carmen, and the others were like the tiny fi sh that swim alongside great whites, nibbling at the crumbs that fall from their jaws. Still, it was important to have the right kind of friends if she wanted to remain popular. It wouldn't do to have her pilot fi sh swimming after another shark.
How would she know she was beautiful, popular, and desirable if she didn't have a circle of fawning friends eager to pay attention to her and tell her how special she was? Without their adulation, admiration, fear, and respect, how could she be sure she even existed at all?
In less than a week, she had lost two friends, all because of Cally Monture. Tanith was dead because of the New Blood's showboating, and now Melinda was openly siding with the whore, defying her in front of the others. She should have bitch-slapped the little traitor until her ears rang. But what good would it have done? The real threat was Cally, not Melinda. The very thought of the New Blood made Lilith's guts writhe like snakes on a bonfi re. It aggravated her that the others didn't sense the wrongness in Cally. Although Carmen and a couple of the others were quick to rag on the newbie, Lilith knew it was out of a desire to get on her good side, not because they recognized Cally for what she was: a threat. A threat to her, in particular.
There was the sound of voices from the grotto fl oor below, distracting Lilith from her thoughts. She looked down and saw three fi gures standing on the Ruthven side of the cavern. One was a male dressed in a Ruthven's uniform while the other two were female, one in a Bathory Academy uniform, the other in a gym suit. As Lilith watched, the male stepped forward, bowed, and kissed the hands of the girl in the gym suit. With a surge of alarm, Lilith recognized the boy as Jules and the girls as none other than Cally Monture and Bette Maledetto.
How dare she speak to him! Jules was hers! Hers and no one else's!
Anger as hot as fresh-poured steel shot through her entire body, spreading like a fl ood of foul, black, bubbling tar. As she watched the New Blood slut curtsy before her beloved, it was all Lilith could do to keep from swooping down and clawing the fi lthy little whore's eyes out of her head. Her whole body vibrated with suppressed fury, like a bowstring pulled to its limit, as Cally and Bette ran back across the grotto like a pair of mice sprinting through an open meadow. It would be so easy to shapeshift into her winged form and drive her talons deep into the New Blood's back. As satisfying as the sound of Cally's spine snapping would be, Lilith knew it would pale in comparison to the glory of her screams as she slowly tore the fl esh from her body with nothing but tooth and claw. Lilith looked at her hands and saw they were shaking so badly they seemed in danger of falling off her wrists. Doing her best to control her trembling fi ngers, she reached inside the pocket of her blazer and removed her tortoiseshell compact.
All she needed was some reassurance, that was all. Just a little something to help her regain control so she could go back to her classmates and smile and pretend that everything was just fi ne while she plotted out how to get Cally alone so she could kill her. She popped open the lid, expecting to be rewarded as before by the sight of her lovely face shining back at her in all its glory. Instead what greeted her was a monster with blood-red eyes and slavering fangs. Shocked by the sight of her hate-fi lled face, Lilith threw the offending mirror away. The compact tumbled end over end before fi nally smashing to pieces on the stones below.
The mirror was destroyed, but the fi end inside it was still very much alive.