Where Dark Things Wait: Night Creatures Book One

Chapter Seven - A New Home

After she had signed all the paperwork for accommodation, they also went past the finance office to put her on payroll, and the administration office to fill out her employment paperwork and collect her cafeteria card that covered three meals a day. Then Dunstan led her back down stairs. Down two flights this time, to a sub basement floor where most of the creatures of the night lived. He turned down a side corridor, and paused outside a door that read '314'.

"This is you," he announced, handing her a key. "Everything you need, bedding and such, will be in the closet. I'll arrange the rest of your uniform tonight. If you meet me in the gymnasium at 8pm, we can start going through the initial testing."

Kalyna nodded, then looked at the numbers on her door again, and asked, "Just so I can be sure... You aren't planning on turning me into a part human, part demon, part robot, Frankenstein's monster type super soldier, are you?"

Dunstan blinked, looking at her as if she'd grown a second head, and perhaps beginning to wonder about her sanity.

"Pardon? Is that supposed to mean something to me?" he wondered.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer," she explained as she unlocked the door. "Season four. She goes to collage and there's a secret government facility under one of the fraternity houses. Demon fighting soldiers. Only the research wing tried to create a super soldier called Adam out of mixed human and demon body parts. That was called 'the 314 project', and the secret lab was behind room 314. I feel like you should know this. Surely vampires should be aware of pop culture so they can pre-empt human thinking."

"I always preferred Hostile Seventeen to Adam anyway," Dunstan noted, catching her off guard.

Kalyna's jaw dropped, but then she looked at the bleached tips of Dunstan's hair and asked, "You have a leather trench coat don't you? Do you put weetabix in your blood too?"

"That would be horrible," he retorted, reaching around the doorframe and flicking on her light. "I prefer my blood straight from the vein and my weetabix served in a bowl with milk."

"You didn't answer about the leather coat," she pointed out, choosing not to dwell too long on where Dunstan Eorl liked to get his blood.

If anything, he looked a little sheepish at that, and murmured, "In fairness to me, I had my coat before the TV series existed. I can't help the fact I set the trend for vampires in leather coats."

She laughed at that, a genuinely amused chuckle, and when she looked up at Dunstan, his lips twitched too. His full, pierced, fang hiding, and thoroughly tempting lips.

Dropping her gaze, she shook her head, then mused, "I can't believe you know who Hostile Seventeen is."

"As you said, understanding human pop culture helps us to keep a step ahead on those occasions when our worlds do collide," Dunston noted, heaving a shrug. "Right now, our governments agree to work together because there are bigger threats out there which we need to be united against, but we work together on the understanding that our existence is top secret. It isn't advertised to the wider world specifically because panic leads to staking, burnings, and beheading.

"We like to know what humans think they know, so we can prepare should the worst happen. As a result, I've seen every episode of Buffy, Angel, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, and had to endure every Twilight film. I've seen every version of Dracula ever produced, and read both horror stories and trashy vampire romance. I've watched Being Human, and The Strain, and I only drew the line at reading Midnight Sun because I truly couldn't bear the thought of any more sparkly vampire shite.

"I only took the 'Vampire Representations in Nineteenth to Twenty-First Century Popular Culture' course because I thought it would be easy going. We all get the chance to do continued professional development, but when I finished the 'Advanced Demonology' syllabus I wanted something a bit lighter. That was a mistake I'll never make again. I was offered the opportunity to do 'Werewolves in Popular Culture' next, and I chose to study 'Dead Demonic Languages' instead. That's how bad it was. I would rather learn to read sacrificial rites in languages no one speaks than face Teen Wolf."