Oracle (Book I)

Blood Drinker

Blinking, Caprice awakened in bed the next morning bathed in sunlight.

Last night, Nezzle had helped her get through her assignments and read ahead for the next two days. Her mind was stillweighty from everything it had soaked up like a heavy sponge. Memorizing spells and charms and figuring out sans wand and sans incantatem equivalents. Basic potion ingredients and readings on gardening and harvesting methods. Learning stars, planets, and constellations. Learning that bittles are indeed like invisible fleas that feed on magic and blettle nests really do favor rounds of humpy grass. All of this at the same time she was learning reading the written word. Caprice could sleep  for a week straight and still wake up exhausted.

Today, the schedule's odd...first lesson is Magikorigyn... Mind muddled with thoughts of getting the day started, she rose off the bed but was stopped by a straddling weight. Caprice cried out.

Eyes closed, fangs bared, Bossa hissed and pressed Caprice back into the bed.

Over in her canopy, a moaning Nezzle turned over in the sheets and fumbled around until her hand landed on a small thick book. "Wake up, Bohs," she mumbled in a sleepy, croaky voice. She chucked the book at the back of Bossa's head.

"OW!" Bossa's eyes popped open, a glowing scarlet delicately sheened in gold. Grasping her head, she hastily dismounted Caprice and scooted back onto her side of the bed.

Sitting up, Caprice clutched at her heart and backed up against the headboard. After a moment, she found her voice, saying, "You're a blood drinker."

Bossa wouldn't look at her, rubbing her head where the book had hit her. "I'm sorry. I should've told you. Sometimes I get a little peckish."

"You're not a witch?"

"Half and half, you could say. My mama's a witch. My father's a vampire. Think I got more vampire in me though... But it doesn't really work like that among our kind. You can be both or either, all or anything..." Bossa dared a quick anxious glance at her and Caprice glimpsed eyes that were almost back to their usual russet. "Wanna change rooms now?"

She thought about it. "No. But, um, do you have to, er, 'feed' right now? I don't know much about vampires. There've been a few in the village from time to time... We're not protected from them, so...all I know is that they drink blood."

Bossa chuckled. "What kind of vampires have you met exactly?" There were lines under her eyes but even in broad daylight she looked almost perfectly healthy. No fresh blood wet her bandages and she was even glowing a little.

"Well..." Caprice shuddered.

After a few stories that recounted her parents pulling out Grandma Zyeer's amulets and wards and she and her brothers hiding in the woods at night when vampire denizens arrived in the village, she felt assured if somewhat queasy from the memories. Bossa isn't like that, she thought.

Bristling, lip poked out, Bossa bolted up from the bed and spun on her.

"Hey! Is that what you think all vampires are? Don't liken me to some common, pasty, night-strolling vampi! I am a daywalker! This beautiful brown skin does not catch fire when sunlight touches it. I eat food and imbibe the same liquids you do with one exception: I drink blood as well."

"Oh right." Caprice drew up her legs, laid her cheek on knees, and smiled then. "Sorry. But that's all I knew till now."

"Humph," Bossa stuck her chin in the air. "You have a lot to learn then."

"Don't be a brat, Bossa," Nezzle said. "Get your head out your butt. If you'd told her from the beginning, none of this would've happened."

"Go back to sleep, Nez!"

Nezzle mumbled in reply, "Gladly but with all your racket and trouble-making..."

Caprice laughed as she got up and stretched in her new nightgown. "Will you be all right without blood for now?" It briefly occurred to her that Bossa had to drink from somebody. Wondering what she wanted to wear today, she went around the end of the bed to get the giving pen out of her bag.

"I'll be fine for now. Sorry, again. For trying to drink you."

"Its alright." She didn't have any idea of what else to say.

As Nezzle was pulling herself out of a tangle of sheets, a message orb bulleted out of the wall by the closed door. It spiraled so quickly around Caprice she almost couldn't catch it. After a second of watching it zip around like a fly, she touched the orb; it turned into another silver letter. She opened it but handed it to Nezzle as she climbed from bed.

Brushing at her loosely coiled locs that were sticking up this way and that, Nezzle took the letter and read through bleary eyes that swiftly shifted from line to line.

"You got bumped to intermediate encha. Advanced Potions, too. Your new courses start next week."

Two thoughts assailed Caprice at once. "Wait...I won't have to see Karrigan as much anymore!" She bounced up and down on the spot.

"Congratulations!" Bossa laughed.

Filled with a sparkling happiness and relief, Caprice said, "I didn't think I did anything all that impressive at the placement test but...oh, never mind the reason! I must've done something right. Thierry was talking about celebrating yesterday and we should all do just that!"

"There'll be plenty of celebrating at the Oracle Ballaire."

"The what?" Caprice blinked.

Nezzle and Bossa explained at the same time.

"It's a ball, more of a social—"

"—party thing in the Grand Hall so people can see the new students."

Nezzle retrieved the book she'd thrown at Bossa, dusting it off and holding it in her arms. "I guess we forgot to tell you. Sorry about that. It was on the placement examination notice. There will be drinks and food, welcome speeches—"

"And lots of teachers eyeing you like they know you didn't do your homework." Bossa grinned. "But the real party, my friend, doesn't start until the formalities are over and we leave the ballroom floor."