Magick

Chapter 2

It was dark. Way too dark to be my room. My eyes were wide open, but I couldn’t see a thing. I felt around me to figure out where I was, but couldn’t get hold of anything. Then I touched something. It felt weird. Scaly. I ran my hand up whatever it was, then I touched what felt like skin. Really soft, but wrinkly skin. I looked up and in the darkness I still saw nothing. Then I saw two blood red eyes and an inhuman mouth filled with razor sharp teeth.

I woke up in a cold sweat, shivering. Nightmares were becoming a problem. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and groaned when I saw that it was only 05:30. I decided to get up. I was wide awake anyway. Pulling on a robe, I had a mini heart attack when I found Ty lying underneath it. He followed me as I padded down the stairs and into the living room. A light caught my eye. When I looked out of the living room window, I saw Ms. Carlisle reversing out of her driveway. It could only be her. It was her car. I wondered what she was doing up so early. Maybe she was our local serial killer. I laughed at myself and at the thought of such a sweet lady slitting people’s throats and draining them of blood. I shook off the thought. It wasn’t really any of my business what my neighbours did before the sun came up anyway. Except of course if they’re having really loud sex. Or blowing up stuff. Or murdering my other neighbours. Or doing all of those at the same time. Now that would be entertaining.

I sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. Ty tried jumping onto the couch with me, but I stopped him.

“No. You’re gonna make too much of a mess. Turn into something smaller.”

He let out a quiet little grumble, but with a swish of black smoke, he turned into a little bird and landed on my shoulder. I watched some really boring TV shows and did my homework before it was humanly acceptable for me to have breakfast.

The dead girl was all everyone talked about at school that day. She didn’t even go to our school, but she’d become the most popular topic by dying a horrible death. It kind of made me sick. Maya met me at my locker.

“Did you hear about…?”

“The dead girl?” I cut her off. “Yes. It hasn’t even been news for a whole day and I’m already sick of it.”

I shut my locker. “It’s scary though, right?” she said. “Draining someone of their blood. It’s pretty damn gruesome. Like it’s straight out of a vampire novel.”

Vampire novel, I thought. “Have you seen Dean or Eddie?” I asked her.

“Not yet. Why?”

“You just brought up a very valid concern.”

“What? Vampire novels? I thought that stuff made you want to spew.”

“It does, but I’m not talking about books.” I started walking down the hall and she followed me.

“What do you mean?”

I gave her a meaningful look and it took her a second, but when she caught on, she gasped and nearly sucked in the whole school in the process. A few people gave her weird looks, but we were used to it. After she’d recovered, she leaned in really close.

“You mean vampires are real?” she asked in a whisper.

“Yes. Yes, they are. Now calm down before you have an aneurysm or something.”

She squealed and I did the only thing I could think of to snap her back to reality. I slapped her.

“What the hell?” she asked me, rubbing her sore cheek. Now everyone was looking at us weirdly, some even looked entertained, like they were expecting us to fight or something. I grabbed Maya by the arm and dragged her away from our spectators. When we were relatively out of everyone’s earshot, I spoke.

“This is serious.” I told her. “Vampires are nothing to fangirl over. They’re a bunch of arrogant, bloodthirsty pricks who care about nothing but their own satisfaction.”

“But are they hot?” she asked me with a grin on her face.

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

“Yeah, but are they hot?”

“They have to be to attract idiots like you!” I said exasperatedly.

“So they are hot!” she exclaimed. “Just like in the books! I knew it!”

“Oh no.” I told her, shaking my head. “They’re nothing like those sparkly pansies in the books you read. They’re only attractive while they seem human, but when they get a whiff of blood… God. They’re like great white sharks on legs.”

“Oh.” she said, obviously discouraged. “That doesn’t sound attractive at all.”

“It really isn’t.”

"I does make sense," said Dean when I told him my theory.

I suggested to him and Eddie at lunch that there was a very big possibility that vampires were responsible for the murders. The blood loss, the neck wounds, the remote locations the bodies were dumped at... It couldn't just be a coincidence. 

“I’m assuming the next move would be to confront a vamp about this?” Asked Eddie.

“Yeah,” I said to him. “It’s the best idea I have right now.”

“Shouldn’t you guys just leave this to the authorities?” Asked Maya, sipping on a juicebox next to me.

“If there really is magic involved like we suspect, then no.”

Both Eddie and Dean looked at me with a question in their eyes that made me sigh.

“I guess it’s time we paid a visit to Hugo,” I told them.