It's the time of year for Christmas carols, cookies, awkward family gatherings and the occasional bloodsport. In the spirit of that, I thought I'd release the excerpt for
Vampirism and You! in time for Christmas revelry/emergency room visits.
I'm rather confident that a vampire family Christmas will involve a lot of bandages...
Well, have a safe and blood-free holiday!
Vampirism and You! - Excerpt
Duncan
brought me to a house. Like most of the houses in this town, it was white, two
storied and slightly dilapidated. There was an attempt at gardening at the
front with potted petunias and floral curtains hung in the downstairs windows
flanking a door covered in peeling green paint.
The upstairs window to the left was open, and
had no curtains. That window, Duncan pointed to.
“You’re going to learn how vampires settle
disputes. This is the home of one of those boys you beat up.”
“Okay. You brought me here why?”
“Tonight, you are going to feed. On him.”
“Ew.”
He gave me one of his patented looks. “Get
your ass on the roof.”
Clearly he wasn’t in the mood for argument.
Getting onto the porch roof was easy and meant I could just step through the
open window without issue. The benefits of my condition were outstanding, I
will admit that.
I crept into the window, grateful that at
least one part of vampire lore was false on this occasion. I was pretty sure
Mr. Football was not going to invite me in, and I hadn’t exactly gotten to
glamouring yet in the book.
The guy’s room was a mess. Sports posters
hanging on the walls with masking tape and gum, a dart board on the back of his
door had the coach’s face attached, and there were dirty clothes all over the
floor. I was being lazy about reading it. I know.
It smelled. Duncan joined me in the room as
soon as I cleared out of the way, surveying everything with a predatory air
that reminded me more of a cat stalking than the spider grace I was used to
from other vampires.
I looked at the sleeping teenager and wrinkled
my nose. “He snores.”
Duncan rolled his eyes. “And I suppose that’s
going to change how he tastes? You did read Chapter Two, didn’t you?”
Well,
I’d skimmed it, surely that counted for something. “Yeah.”
My surrogate sure looked unconvinced. “What’s
first then?”
I had to think about it, which did not further
my cause. “Don’t drink from the jugular unless you’re trying to kill…”
“Very good, and?”
“The wrists, ankles, and shoulder are ideal for
minimal damage.”
“Go on.”
“Lick the skin first to numb -- vampire saliva
contains anesthetic properties -- and make an incision to drink from with your
nail, or bite down.”
“And how much blood do you take?”
“Never more than you need to survive.” I was
not remembering the precise amount, but I would give myself a B for effort
here.
“Which is?”
“Uh -- ” I shrugged.
In the moonlight coming from the window, and
with my super cool night vision, I could see Duncan frown and rub his hand over
his face. “One pint, Louis. Not hard.”
“So it’s just like going to the pub on Sunday.
Except this isn’t beer. It’s blood. Human blood. From a smelly bugger I don’t
really like. I don’t think -- ”
Duncan, I noted, could hit really, really
hard. I managed not to stagger or cry out. You didn’t live your whole life with
vampires without learning to take a hit and now that I was one myself, well,
taking a hit got even easier.
“Feed, now,” he growled. Well, so Duncan’s
patience could wear thin. Good to know.
I leveled a menacing glare at him and then
looked back at the slumbering teenager I was to snack upon. It wasn’t just that
he snored, he also smelled. I wasn’t a neat freak or anything, but three-week-old
pizza? Really? There was this tiny little doubt in the back of my mind too,
that if I did this, there would be no going back.
Which was stupid. There was already no way of
going back. It was done.
He slept deeply, and a hand dangled invitingly
over the edge of the bed. I knelt down and licked the inside of his wrist. I
could taste his sweat, feel the pulse beating against my tongue as I pulled
away.
His sweat tasted like three-week-old
pizza, making me very skeptical of what his blood would taste like.
I took Duncan’s offered knife and whinged a
bit before I cut into the flesh to form a wound the width of my thumbnail and
pressed my lips against it to drink. The blood reminded me of a beer I’d tried
once, strong and a bit sour. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t something I wanted
all the time.
But I drank my pint like a good little vampire
and licked the wound to help it close as the book had said, before rising. I
felt a bit dizzy, like my head was feather light.
Duncan reached out a hand to steady me and
flashed a smile. “Easy does it.”
“He tastes like beer.”
Duncan shrugged. “Everyone tastes different.
Now that you’re fed, we’ll try some lessons from chapter three.”
I hadn’t read past two. Honestly I didn’t know
a thing about the rest of the book beyond the title of the last chapter, as it
was still bothering me. Chapter Twenty, Killing. I had no plans to kill anyone.
I don’t think I had it in me to kill people. But then, I’d just drunk a
sleeping teenage boy’s blood, never thought I’d do that either.
“Ah -- chapter three? Already? I don’t know,
I’m ready to crash.”
“Nonsense. First off, we’ll try ghosting and
then a bit of fog raising in the cemetery.”
“I suppose this is where I should admit to not
having read chapter three.”
Duncan rolled his eyes and grabbed my arm.
With a burst of speed he leapt out the window we’d come through to land on the
lawn outside the house -- dragging me along with him. From there he sped us off
so fast I thought my arm was going to pull loose from the socket.
When we finally stopped, I heaved for breath
and he watched me with arms folded across his broad chest. Oxygenating the
blood was essential to vampire survival. Sure, I could hold my breath for
twenty minutes, but I’d been at this all of a week; human responses were still
ingrained in me.
“That was ghosting.”
