Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Chapter 3

CHELSEA

"-- And every morning we have roll call, and if you can't get your blood-sucking arse out of your cozy little bed, I will bite off your toes until you either get up or can't."

The cheerful, encouraging instruction was being delivered by a person whose looks unmatched her gruesome words. She looked too young to even be in high school, her head reaching to Chelsea's chest and her face still rounded with baby fat. But the child's gravity was eerie. Her clothes, too, were of a different time. She wore an ankle-length dress over scuffed boots, topped by a pristine pinafore. That was the most worrisome part. The garment was entirely too well-put-together and clean. From what little Chelsea had seen of the place, there was no rhyme or reason for the child to being wearing such unstressed garments.

After Chelsea's quivering body had slumped to the ground in the other room, she had ignored her surroundings until she had been deposited in this cell. The guards, whose faces she could not recall, had unceremoniously dumped her body at the feet of Heidi Arbor. Her new roommate... or cell-mate.

The youth was pretty, of course. Chelsea had never heard of an ugly vamp. Her skin was porcelain, with rosy apple cheeks. She had wavy, dark brown hair that reached to her waist. A lot like the first vampire, Mary. Maybe it was a trend for the blood-suckers to keep their hair long.

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Chelsea was up. Ignoring the child's look of surprise, she slipped to the mirror on one of the walls. Call it vanity, if you would, but an insatiable curiosity had overtaken Chelsea. She held her breath and prepared to look.

"I wouldn't, if I was you," came the formerly hard voice of Heidi. Now her tones held a hint of sympathy and... was it pity?

Chelsea paused, her face next to the mirror. All she had to do was shift her body sideways and her reflection would be revealed, but the unexpected kindness in Heidi's voice had her worried.

"Why?"

The younger girl turned away, crossing the room to the lower bunk chained to the wall. Gracefully, she sank into the mattress. Then she began to speak.

"You know how old I was when I was changed, Hamilton?"

Chelsea had no idea why Heidi was talking about this. She didn't even know the girl. Chelsea told her that.

Her eyes closed, Heidi laughed dryly. It was an odd sound to hear from an immature throat.

"You really know nothing, don't you? Well, anyway, I was thirteen. Just thirteen. It was twelve days after my birthday. I hardly remember my life before the night I was attacked. I remember the Lapse, the first time we wake up with all our new senses and then we lose them for a while, and I remember... "

Heidi's eyes shot open. Her eyes were bright green and penetrating. They bored into Chelsea's soul, and she shivered.

"I have been thirteen for almost three hundred years, and I have not forgotten the first time I saw my face after I was bitten. I didn't listen to the old ones, I was too hasty."

Chelsea gulped, then wished she hadn't.

"Why?" She asked again.

Heidi voice was soft. If not for the tell-tale, grating tones that marked her as vampire, she probably would have been a very good shrink.

"Scientifically, we should be dead. Our hearts have stopped, our bloods does not flow. That's why our skin is so hard, like a shield; if we were scratched as a new vampire, even a little, you would die of blood loss, because you have no way of clotting or producing new resources.