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  “The converted wine cellar is where we practice crime scene mitigation.” Leah opened up the door to a small room. A hexagonal shelving system lined the walls, and every slot boasted a bottle of water.

  “What’s with all the Evian?” I asked

  “It’s not Evian; it’s holy water.” Leah grinned. “This is the largest stockpile on the west coast. Not only can it burn vampires, it’s also handy for covering up crime scenes so that slayers don’t get charged with ‘murder.’” She put ‘murder’ in air quotes and shuddered.

  I took a closer look at the room. In addition to the holy water, there were also boxes of rubber gloves, a table with microscopes, and tweezers.

  “Check this out.” Leah flipped a switch and a blacklight turned on. My T-shirt glowed along with the laces of my running shoes.

  “What’s the blacklight for?” I asked.

  “Blood detection. I’m really excited for that class, but it’s only for second-years.” She turned off the switch and we walked down another hallway. “This is Van’s room here,” said Leah. “Next door is the guest room for visiting scholars. Each weekend we have a new teacher who flies in for a two-day seminar. This weekend it’s Dudley Barnum, the fastest whip in the west. He should be arriving any minute.”

  Whips? My mind replayed the night of my mother’s death. Van’s foot kicking through the door and his long metal watch chain catching Mom after she had reanimated to life and tried to quench her thirst for blood.

  “I’m horrible with whips,” Leah confessed, “but first-years work on basic self-defense moves. It’s the second-years who focus on technique and finesse.”

  The last place we reached was the kitchen with its long wooden table and twenty chairs. There were two guys in jeans and aprons loading the dishwasher and wiping down counters. Hip hop music played in the background.

  “Hey, guys, I’d like you to meet Kate Canus.” Leah pushed me forward. “She’s a prospective first-year. Kate, this is Bao and James.”

  “Two of the second-years, right?” I asked.

  “That’s us.” Bao grinned, slapping James with a dishtowel. Bao had a ripped physique and James wore his shoulder length red hair in a ponytail.

  “You asked for it, loser.” James laughed and shot him with a stream of water from the sink.

  “If you guys keep fooling around, you’re going to be on KP duty forever.” Leah frowned. “Look at all the water you’re getting on the floor.”

  “So?” Bao shrugged his shoulders. “If we’re on KP duty, then that means we don’t have to clean the bathrooms.”

  “That’s so unfair!” Leah crossed her arms. “And you didn’t say hi to Kate yet.”

  “Sorry, Kate.” James smiled, and dimples popped out. “Nice to meet you.”

  “I heard you got stuck rooming with Gretchen.” Bao grimaced. “Good luck with that.”

  “Speaking of which,” said James, “isn’t it time for us to turn on the dishwasher?”

  Bao looked at the clock on the oven. “It’s 7:15 on the dot. She should just be getting in the shower right now.”

  “Perfect.” James slammed the dishwasher shut. “Let’s steal the hot water.” He pushed a few buttons and turned it on.

  Gretchen’s shrieks in the upstairs bathroom echoed across the house.

  Chapter 12

  Everyone turned up for the movie except for Gretchen, who by the sound of things, was now running herself a bath. The media room smelled like salty popcorn dripping with melted butter. The room was terraced into four sections, with five leather armchairs complete with cup holders on every level. Dark curtains blanketed the windows, blocking out light from the street.

  “Come sit by me.” Cassandra waved to Leah and me. “I saved you two seats.”

  “Thanks.” I scooted past Max and Kellogg and took my place next to Cassandra. Leah sat down too. “I haven’t seen this movie in ages,” I said.

  “Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” Cassandra shook her head. “I wish I could say the same thing. I’ve watched this so many times, I could repeat it word-for-word. Mom hates this movie so much, she loves it.”

  “Natalie hates it?” I raised my eyebrows.

  “Yeah, because it’s so inaccurate,” said Cassandra. “The TV show is pure fiction too, but at least it’s not campy.” Cassandra shuddered. “There’s nothing I hate more than campy paranormal romance.” She stuck out her tongue and pretended to barf.

  “I completely agree.” Leah looked around. “Hey, where’s the popcorn?”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” Al carried a gigantic silver platter laden with concession products and was working his way up the room, level-by-level.

  “Second-years go first,” said Bao as he helped himself to a giant cup of popcorn.

  “Don’t eat all the Junior Mints!” Leah pleaded. She turned and looked at me. “Do you like Junior Mints room temperature or frozen?”

  “Neither.” I shook my head. “I’m allergic to chocolate.”

  “Allergic to chocolate?” Leah gasped. “That’s horrible!”

  “What happens to you?” Cassandra asked. “Anaphylactic shock?”

  “Maybe.” I tugged my collar. “It’s never gotten that far. If I eat chocolate—or grapes—I break out in hives within a few minutes. When I was little, my mom always kept an EpiPen in her purse for me, just in case, but Benadryl usually does the job. I’ve never bothered to get a pen of my own since they’re so expensive and both grapes and chocolate are easy to avoid.”

  “Did I just hear you say you can’t eat chocolate?” asked Al, a mournful expression on his face. He spun the platter and offered me a box of Red Vines instead. “How about licorice?”

  “That’d be great. Thanks.” I helped myself to snacks. There was a can of Diet Coke next to my seat already. I popped it open right as Natalie strode up to the front of the room and stood in front of the screen.

  “Thank you all for coming.” Her braid was undone, and her long, wavy hair reached all the way to her waist, just like Cassandra’s. “Hollywood loves to exploit vampiric history to make money, but nine times out of ten, they get it wrong. Ridiculous myths, harmful stereotypes, factual inaccuracies…” She shook her head. “My mother always told me that the less the outside world knew about vampires the better, but sometimes I’m not so sure.” Natalie looked out into the audience. “Show of hands. How many people have seen the original 1992 movie version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”

  I raised my hand, along with most of the group. Max slumped in the seat next to me, his hands in his lap. “What?” he asked. “We didn’t own a TV. My mom said it interfered with my homeschooling.”

  “I was homeschooled too,” said Cassandra. “But that never stopped me from watching television.”

  “That’s fine if you’ve never seen the movie,” said Natalie. “You can watch it tonight with a fresh perspective. See if you can pick out the myriad of details that make this movie not only poorly plotted and borderline ridiculous, but also—”

  Cassandra interrupted. “Uh-oh. I’ve heard this rant before.”

  “As I was saying.” Natalie gave her daughter a sharp look. “This movie perpetuates harmful and downright sexist stereotypes about slayers and spreads mistruths about what we do.”

  “Here we go.” Cassandra sighed.

  “Number one.” Natalie held up her index finger. “There’s no such thing as a hairy mole that indicates secret slayer potential.” She scoffed. “The very idea. I mean, come on, Hollywood, you can do better.”

  “You tell ’em, sweetheart,” called Al from the back row.

  “Number two,” Natalie continued. “Men can be every bit as good at slaying as women. Some of the best slayers I’ve known have been men, including my brother, Jared Helsing.”

  “What did I miss?” Van asked as he came into the room.

  “Nothing,” grumbled Cassandra. “Your timing is awful.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Max. “I think this is fascinating.”<
br />
  “Number three.” Natalie paced back and forth in front of the screen. “There’s no such thing as a watcher. Don’t expect Merrick or Rupert Giles to pop up and offer you fatherly advice.”

  “You’re mixing up the movie with the TV series,” complained Cassandra. “Mom, you’re better than this.”

  “And finally,” said Natalie, completely ignoring Cassandra’s continued heckling. “Vampires don’t have oddly-misshapen ears, although some of them can fly, depending on how the vampiritis expresses itself in their DNA.”

  “Flying vampires?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “I thought that part was fiction too.”

  “I wish it were,” said Natalie in a grim tone. “But there are several vampiric abilities that do occasionally occur, such as transfiguration into bats, flight, and…” Natalie paused, her eyes darting to Cassandra and then quickly looking away. “Shadowizing.”

  “And invisibility,” Cassandra mumbled. “Don’t forget that part.”

  “No,” said Natalie. “I’ll never forget.”

  I wasn’t sure what that was about, but now didn’t seem like an appropriate time to ask.

  “What about stakes?” Kellogg asked. “Buffy slays with stakes, but we’ve barely focused on that in self-defense class so far.”

  “That’s right.” Natalie nodded. “Wooden stakes are an old-fashioned weapon that definitely work, but modern technology has improved a lot, especially in the past fifty years. Here at Slayer Academy we focus on silver weaponry in year one—daggers, chains, icepicks, and blades. In ancient times, silver defenses were too expensive to deploy on a regular basis, but that was before the invention of silver-titanium blends. However, wooden stakes still have their place, which is why we cover them in year two.” Natalie nodded up to Al, who held the remote control. “Roll it. Movie night has begun.”

  I settled into my chair, munched on popcorn, and licked butter off my fingertips. I tried to remember what I’d been doing this time last week. Probably lying in bed and listening to the police scanner. Now, I was in a room full of people who knew everything about me—almost everything—and welcomed me into their fold. I wasn’t an official student yet, but I hoped to be. If I could belong here, then I would stop feeling so alone.

  The next morning when my alarm went off at 6 a.m. I lurched up in bed and narrowly missed hitting my head on the ceiling. I’d forgotten that I was on the top bunk.

  “Can you turn that thing off?” Gretchen grumbled. “It’s Saturday morning, for crying out loud.”

  “Sorry.” I scrambled down the ladder and rushed to retrieve my phone. As soon as I turned off the alarm, I smiled. There was nothing I loved more than starting off the day with a good run, and today I was doing it in a pack of slayers. Plus, this was my first-time wearing slayer armor: a silver nano-mesh tank top that looked like an ordinary running shirt, albeit a slinky one, but was actually high-quality protection against vampires. When she’d given me my uniform last night, Cassandra had told me that nano-mesh had saved her life on several occasions.

  As soon as I was dressed, I tied my hair back into a ponytail and went down the hall to brush my teeth. Leah stood in front of the door holding her basket of toiletries. She wore a bathrobe knotted at her waist, and her hair flew around her face in a mass of tangles. “I hate morning runs,” she grumbled. “Don’t you?”

  “Um…” I didn’t want to annoy her. Leah had been really nice to me so far. “It’ll feel good once we’re outside in the fresh air.”

  “But it’s misty.” She hung her head. “The only thing I hate more than running up and down Mt. Soledad Road in the sunshine is doing it in the cold.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t mind cool weather. My best time ever for the 10K had happened at the state meet in San Francisco. “How long do you think the wait for the bathroom will be?” I asked. “Maybe I should go downstairs and brush my teeth at the kitchen sink.”

  “Sorry,” said Max as he opened the bathroom door. “You might not want to go in there for a while.”

  “Gross!” Leah screwed up her face as a noxious smell filtered out. “Why didn’t you use the guys’ bathroom?”

  Max grinned. “Your bathroom smells better.”

  No way did I want to brush my teeth in that hellhole now. I trotted off downstairs to the kitchen. While I was there, I helped myself to a slice of peanut butter toast and a banana. I didn’t like to run on an empty stomach, but a full meal was out of the question. By the time I’d deposited my toothbrush and toothpaste back upstairs and slathered on some sunscreen, it was time to go.

  “First-years!” Van shouted. “Meet me on the porch in ten minutes for our training run.”

  I was the first one there, bursting with energy. “How far are we going?” I asked Van as I jogged in place to warm up.

  “Three miles.” He bent down and double-knotted his shoes.

  “Three miles? Is that all?”

  “The hills will make it feel like ten.” Van stood back up. “Trust me.”

  “Whatever you say.” I tried not to sound judgmental, but skepticism crept into my voice. “I run six miles for fun, and ten if I have extra time. Hills, too—La Jolla is full of them.”

  “Yeah, I saw that in your background check.” Van stretched out his hamstrings. “This morning’s training session will probably be way too easy for you, but this isn’t about you as an individual, it’s about you as a team. Slayers always work in pairs. Where’s your roommate?”

  “Gretchen? I don’t know. Getting ready, hopefully.”

  “Well, make sure she gets her butt down here in two minutes. You’re in charge of helping her complete all three miles, even if you have to drag her.”

  “But that’s not fair! I’ve seen Gretchen run, and she’s horrible.”

  “A slayer’s only as strong as their partner.”

  “Gretchen’s not my part—” I started to say but bit my tongue when I saw the stern look Van gave me. “Okay.” I nodded. “I’ll go get her.”

  I charged up the stairs at top speed and almost careened into Cassandra on her way down. “Have you seen Gretchen?” I asked.

  “Nope.” Cassandra grinned, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “But she’s your problem now, not mine, so you better hurry up.”

  “Thanks a lot.” I smiled despite myself. Knocking on our bedroom door, I opened it without waiting for a reply. Gretchen was still in bed, covers pulled over her head. “Wake up!” I said. “You’re going to be late for our run.”

  “Go away,” Gretchen groaned. “I hate running.”

  I grabbed the edge of Gretchen’s comforter and used a trick one of my foster parents had taught me. “Freeze out!” I called as I yanked the covers away.

  “Dammit!” Gretchen scrambled, trying to find the quilt. “What did you do that for?”

  I was already rustling in the top drawer of her dresser, hunting for her socks, sports bra, and nano-mesh. “It’s time to get dressed.” I tossed the clothing on her lap. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”

  “Nobody’s waiting for me. No one even wants me to be here.” Gretchen squeezed her eyes shut and crunched up her pillow.

  “That’s not true.” I floundered, trying to think of something to say that would encourage Gretchen to move. “Except for Cassandra, that is. Don’t give her the opportunity to complain about you making the group late. Come on.” I looked at my phone to check the time. “You’ve got one minute to throw some clothes on and get down there.”

  “Oh, all right.” Gretchen scowled. “Cassandra thinks she’s better than everyone just because her family runs this place. But she’s not.” Gretchen took off her pajamas, not bothering to turn around. I looked away discreetly. “Cassandra’s nobody special. In fact, I’m surprised she’s not in Munich right now answering to the Slayer Council. Cassandra knew her Puritan boyfriend fell off the wagon, and she didn’t say anything. I could never date a blood-addict, but apparently Cassandra isn’t so choosy.”

  “Cassandra�
�s ex-boyfriend is a blood addict?”

  “Yeah.” Gretchen stuffed her feet into her sneakers and tied them quickly. “And he’s back in rehab.”

  Chapter 13

  While we were on our morning run and I was cheering for Gretchen to keep jogging, the second-year students got private, one-on-one lessons with Dudley Barnum, a vampire slayer and two-time first place winner of the Australian Whip Cracker Championship. Slayer Academy had flown him out for this special weekend of instruction. When the first-years came back from our three-miler, it was our turn. We lined up in the two-story, five-car garage that had been converted into a home gym complete with punching bags and wall-to-wall mirrors.

  “Tie back your hair,” said Cassandra as she handed me a fistful of bobby pins. “Trust me on this one. It’s not worth the risk of being scalped.”

  “Thanks.” I grabbed the pins and stuffed them in my mouth as I coiled my sweaty hair into a bun. My shower time wasn’t until later this afternoon. I reeked from the morning run, but nobody seemed to mind.

  “G-day, ladies and gents.” Dudley cracked the whip. Gretchen jumped as the leather broke the sound barrier. “Welcome to Whips 101.” He had tanned skin, a hefty amount of stubble, and golden-brown eyes the same color as his cowboy boots. “Today we study the most flexible weapon in a slayer’s arsenal.” Dudley spun the whip around his head and flicked it out with a roaring snap.

  Max, who was standing too close, lurched back, and the rest of us did too, just to be safe. It was impossible to tell where the whip was coming from, or where it would land next.

  “Whips have been around for over 3,000 years,” said Dudley. “They date back to ancient China and Egypt. They’re the first example of manmade technology to break the sound barrier.” He lowered his arms, and the whip—which moments ago had seemed like a living thing as it had moved and crackled in the air, fell silent. Dudley pointed the handle at a row of leather straps hanging off the wall. “You’ve got the choice between bullwhips or stock whips.”