Carmilla Read online

  “Careful, Hollis, I’ll make you a midnight snack,” he warns.

  Carmilla corrects him. “Knock it off, dumbass. We don’t eat targets. Plus, I’m sure you’re in some hot water over the missing airhead. Do you want to be known as the guy who lost two of them?”

  My mouth drops open. I’m a target.

  “It might be worth it just to screw with you,” he snarls at her. He leans in to nip my neck, but before his teeth can pierce my skin, Carmilla backhands him, and he flies through the air. Guess he shouldn’t have untied her.

  “You’re going to regret that, kitty.”

  She takes another shot at him. “I never regret anything, little brother. You know that.”

  Little brother? Suddenly everything is clearer.

  Will steps toward Carmilla, but just her hiss sends him packing. Next thing I know, he’s halfway down the hallway, licking his wounds, and I’m alone with the other vampire. I’m rattled, to say the least, but it seems like she’s on my side. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Hey, Carm. Thanks for not letting him bite me and all. Which is really nice of you … given the fact that I —”

  Before I can finish, she lunges at me, tackling me to the ground. I feel sharp incisors cutting through my skin. “Oh my God!” I scream. She keeps sucking, holding me down. I manage to wrestle myself out from under her but I see blood dripping on my pajamas.

  “You bit me!” She broke the skin. I grab the side of my neck. Blood is on my fingers. I think I’m going to faint.

  “Calm down, you’re not dead,” Carmilla says drily. She takes one of the T-shirts on her bed and wipes my neck.

  I remember every vampire movie I’ve ever seen, every book I’ve ever read. What happens after the first bite? “Oh my God, I’m a vampire,” I cry.

  Carmilla tries to reassure me. “It doesn’t work that way, cupcake. I’m the only vampire in this relationship.”

  “You used me like a juice box and now I don’t get an explanation?”

  She flips her hair back. “I’m a vampire, Hollis. I’m out of fuel. I’m pissed off and I need my strength to stop Will from ratting me out to our mother. He’s a little bitch and she will tear me limb from limb if she finds out.” She starts packing her duffel bag, tossing random stuff in.

  “So you’re just going to run away?” I ask.

  “You heard what I said about my mother, right? Hell, yes, I’m fleeing. She is the devil.”

  I know full well that’s the end of me. My voice is very small now. “Then they’ll just come after me and kill me?”

  “Sorry, cutie, you really never had much of a chance anyway. Nothing personal.”

  I whip my head around to face her. “Bull. It’s totally personal. Will, your brother — nice touch — wants to kill me just to piss you off. Right now, it’s your word against his. If you run, you’re automatically guilty. And I’m, like, dead.” It’s a long shot, but I try to appeal to her sensitive side. The other night I thought she cared …

  She thinks it over. “So you’re implying that my best chance is to stay here and figure out how to justify protecting you?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” I admit. Fingers crossed. Carmilla stops tossing things into her bag, plops down on the bed. “I have nothing even resembling a plan. So all right. I’m in. But don’t think I’ve forgotten the last two weeks of my captivity,” she warns. “I’m still pissed.”

  I can’t believe her nerve. “You’re pissed? You’ve done nothing but lie to me and you bit me.”

  “You tied me up and not for fun.”

  I blush. “You still have your sense of humor, I see.”

  “I’m taking a shower. Feel free to join me. I won’t bite. Again,” she adds, cackling, trying to get a rise out of me.

  Carmilla disappears into the bathroom while I have a mini meltdown. A pack of vampires wants to kidnap me, and the only thing stopping them is my not-quite-as-evil vampire roommate. So that’s not too complicated. Crap, I have a women’s studies midterm in three hours. If the vampires don’t kill me, my father will.

  I’m so dead.

  • TWELVE •

  That sound you heard was me bombing my women’s studies midterm. Pretty sure I just failed a test for the first time in my life. I can hear my father’s lecture playing on Repeat in my head. He’s not going to care that my attention has been wandering. You know, due to a vampire living in my room.

  I trek from the test to my room. I’ll just see how many peanut butter cookies I can eat in one sitting, I decide. That’ll help. “I can’t believe this,” I groan as I settle onto my bed.

  “What are you whining about now?” my unconcerned roommate asks.

  I jump. “I didn’t see you. You sure are quiet for a vampire.”

  “We’re stealth,” she says, smirking.

  “I think I failed my women’s studies midterm.” I hate even putting those words out to the universe.

  Carmilla flops down dangerously close to me. “Big deal. You’re dating the TA. It’s not like she’s going to let you tank.”

  “I wouldn’t call it dating,” I say.

  “Well, she thinks you are, so just toss it out to her.”

  We’re nose to nose. “You mean ask her to … Oh, no way. An A is a sacred trust.”

  “Well, if I were your TA, you wouldn’t even have to ask,” she drops suggestively.

  I resist the urge to reach for her because, well, she might bite me, but I really want to. “That’s really considerate. Unethical but considerate.”

  “Are you complimenting me, cupcake?” She’s making me blush.

  “Maybe I am.”

  “It looks good on you.” She takes my wrist in her soft hand. “Where’s the bracelet I gave you? I thought you said you liked it.”

  I reach under my bed to find it. Carmilla fastens it around my wrist, lightly running her finger down my arm. What is her obsession with this thing?

  “What exactly does it do?” I ask.

  “It wards off unwanted guests. It gives off a scent only detectable by vampires. Like if one is stalking you and catches wind of it, they would move away from you and move on to someone else. Some chemical reaction. So they claim. Well worth it to keep you safe from unwelcome vampires. Unlike myself.”

  She really does have some humanity under those fangs. “That’s handy. Any word from the dean or Will? Or should I call them your mother and brother?” That’s so bizarre I’m not sure I can do it.

  Carmilla thumbs through a magazine. “Radio silence, which isn’t bad. We’re still breathing. A definite plus.”

  That doesn’t exactly calm me down, but the sight of Carm lying across the bed with the sunlight hitting her face just so … does. I’d swear she was an angel if I didn’t know she was a bloodthirsty demon. Yep, I’m thinking those kinds of thoughts about a vampire.

  A really beautiful, sexy vampire.

  Then LaFontaine and Perry burst through the door, attached at the hip. They see Carmilla sprawled next to me on the bed and their mouths drop at the same time.

  “At what point in this century did people give up on knocking?” Carmilla asks.

  “It’s this room,” I say.

  LaFontaine freaks, dancing around. “The vamp is loose, Laura. It. Is. Free. Run. Where’s all the garlic?”

  Perry races out the door. “I’ll get help.” All of this turmoil has been hardest for her. Her tidy, neat world is no longer.

  “Hold up!” I yell. “Calm down. I untied her. She’s on our side.” They don’t need to know that it was actually Will who freed her. Or that he’s her brother. Or that the dean is her mother and wants me dead. That’s way too much of an information dump.

  LaFontaine rolls her eyes. “How do you know she didn’t pod-person you? Maybe she’s just spewing vampire speak?”

  Carmilla
clears her throat. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Then maybe you should tell us just how it does work. Enlighten us, why don’t you? What happens to all the girls you take?”

  Carmilla gets serious. “I honestly don’t know what happens once they go to my mother.”

  “I’m not following. Your mother?” LaFontaine asks.

  Carmilla eyeballs me. “Do you want to tell them or should I?”

  So much for keeping a secret. “The dean is Carmilla’s mother.”

  That nearly knocks LaFontaine over.

  “That is beyond the weird of Silas. So the dean, your mom, is a killer who is kidnapping girls.”

  Carm nods.

  “And you’ve been helping her?” LaFontaine gets in her face.

  I interrupt. “Her mother … the dean, has been playing this game for the last several hundred years.”

  “Game?” LaFontaine asks.

  “She makes Carmilla trick girls, then she drugs them or something. Carm doesn’t know what happens to them after that.”

  LaFontaine turns to Carmilla. “So you just serve them up like pizzas?”

  When she puts it that way, it does sound preposterous. Carmilla gives it right back. “Gee, Mom, wanna share the ancient secrets of your vampire cult with me? You don’t? Oh, if I keep asking, you’ll tear my head off and hand it to me. Whatever it is that she does to them, their blood is undrinkable after it happens. That’s all that I know.”

  LaFontaine thinks that over. “If it’s affecting their blood chemistry, it might be physically affecting their brains.”

  “Makes total sense to me,” says Carmilla.

  “I wonder if the sludge on the notes left behind with the abductions can help us,” LaFontaine says. “Maybe it’s the key. I need to get to the lab and rush the results.”

  “Will that help us get Betty back?” I question. I still want to help her, even if my new roommate is not what she seemed at first.

  Carmilla sighs. “Hollis, there is no getting her or any of them back. Have I been unclear? The only thing left to do is to stay out of my mother’s way. There’s no scenario in which we cross her.”

  I hold up my wrist, with the bracelet dangling. “But you’ve been saving girls.”

  “No. I’ve just been screwing with Mommy dearest and her band of minions to annoy her.”

  I’m stunned, completely taken aback. “After all that she did, your revenge is to be annoying? You’ve got to be kidding me. I thought you were a centuries-old badass.”

  “There’s a reason I lived to be centuries old. When it comes to my mother, I pick my battles. She has a pedigree of evil unlike any other.”

  Carmilla must see my expression of disbelief, because now she gets up in my face. “You are no match for her. You are a teenager whose only real skill is snooping around in other people’s business.”

  I’m so close that I feel the breeze of her breath with every word. I almost feel her heartbeat.

  “But you’re a world-class killer vampire. I know what you can do if you really want to.”

  She thinks about that, even half grins. Then she gets all flustered. “That … that has nothing to do with it. Guess what, right now, you have a better chance of taking me down than I’ve ever had against my mother. She is the queen of all things wicked.”

  Before I can answer, Perry returns with help. Danny rushes through the door wielding a stake. She dives at Carmilla. “Get away from her!” Like I need her to protect me or something.

  I maneuver myself between them, holding my hand up to Danny to stop. “It isn’t what it looks like, Danny! No!”

  Before I can separate them, Danny and Carmilla attack each other. Or actually Carmilla swoops over Danny, dropping her in a nanosecond, holding her head on the desk. From the corner of her smothered mouth, Danny manages, “I won’t let you hurt her.”

  “She isn’t the one in trouble. I’ve been very patient with all your antics,” Carmilla hisses at Danny, still applying pressure to her neck. “I’m trying to remember why I haven’t just killed you yet.”

  I wedge myself between them. “Danny’s sorry, aren’t you?” I say. I poke her. She wiggles her head up and down, and Carmilla relents.

  “I’m just trying to protect you,” Danny tells me.

  “I’ve got this,” I say.

  “It doesn’t look like it. And I don’t know why you have to post all these crazy videos that rile everyone up. It’s just too much — you’re playing with fire, and it’s dangerous.”

  Perry and LaFontaine back off, and Carmilla almost seems to be enjoying our angry exchange.

  “It’s important that the truth come out,” I tell Danny. “To be clear, I don’t need a babysitter or another dad. I get that you’re brave and I really like you, but we aren’t exactly a couple.”

  Danny looks at Carmilla. “Is this because of her?”

  I look at Carmilla, too. Like I can actually keep my eyes off her. “No, it’s because of me. And you. Needing different things.” I sound lame, I know it, but I have to be honest with Danny. I do care about her and if Carmilla wasn’t in the picture, things might be different. But she is and I can’t do anything about it. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. I fell for a vampire.

  The sadness in Danny’s eyes eats at me. “Sure, Laura. I’ll back off.” She heads to the door with some final words for Carmilla. “If anything happens to her, I’m coming back for you with a stake.”

  Carmilla dismisses her. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Danny takes my elbow. “I guess I’ll see you in class.”

  The air is heavy, like the silence in the room. And then suddenly an ominous rumbling starts outside the window, followed by a deflating sound like a tire losing air. Carmilla runs to the window. “What the hell?”

  She slams the window shut. I join her as we watch giant mushrooms exploding, sending spores blasting into the windowpanes. Terrified, I grab Carmilla’s arm. In the quad, people are screaming and running aimlessly.

  Perry latches on to LaFontaine, who eyeballs the spores that continue to splat against our window. They just keep coming, one after another. I can’t believe this is happening. I hope the window doesn’t shatter.

  “This is not good,” I say. Understatement of the year.

  “I hate this place,” mutters Carmilla.

  I thought I did, too.

  Until I fell for Carm.

  • THIRTEEN •

  Sleeping at my desk is becoming my new normal. Today, the smell of fresh coffee rouses me. Carmilla sets a steaming hot cup of java in front of me. “Thought you could use this,” she says sweetly.

  “Long night.”

  She wipes dirt off my cheek with the edge of her T-shirt.

  “The Alchemy Club lost control of this underground fungus,” I mumble, still half-asleep. “It owned Twitter last night. I was Snapchatting as it all unfolded.”

  “Of course you were. You record everything. It’s a sickness.”

  So not fair! “Just because you conked out once the initial mushroom blast hit us. I couldn’t sleep with the campus under siege by out-of-control spores. I had to get involved. Help the cause. When I got home, I was glued to social media. I must have fallen asleep …”

  “The Alchemy idiots are such boneheads,” Carmilla mutters.

  I agree. “Anyone breathing that crap in started lurching around like a zombie. It was like The Walking Dead out there.”

  “That part was pretty funny,” she admits.

  She can’t be serious. I have to stop her. “Right up until the zombies tried to burn down the Lustig Theater Building. They didn’t succeed.”

  “Still pretty damn funny.”

  I look at the images on my computer. “Then they attacked anyone who tried to stop them. Like a mass slaughter.”

  “Stil
l …”

  “You can pretend all you want. I know you aren’t this insensitive. You leaped into action as soon as the first mushroom hit. Everyone saw you save me.” I point at the webcam. Carmilla shifts around uncomfortably.

  “I was saving myself from the spores.” She isn’t very convincing. I snuggle up next to her.

  “Sure you were. Those of us who didn’t get covered in that cloud of mushroom dust — thank you, again — spent the evening hacking apart six-foot toadstools and rolling barrels of fungicide into the basement of any building within a half-mile radius of the Lustig.”

  “Just another night at Silas,” she jokes.

  “Didn’t the students try to torch the Lustig in 1904?”

  “You’re so cute when you nerd out over Silas history.”

  I blush. “It was where all of the plays were held.” Now I’m showing off a little bit but she thinks it’s cute.

  “No one likes theater nerds. Never have.”

  The door swings open. Perry and LaFontaine shuffle in, both exhausted, Perry in full denial mode. “That was nutty last night, wasn’t it? Probably some sorority initiation or pledge prank. My hair smells like a portobello sandwich.”

  Carmilla and I share a glance. LaFontaine catches us. “Don’t bother. She just can’t go there.” Perry drops on the bed, holding her head in her hands, and I reach out to rub her back. Poor thing, she’s even more traumatized than the rest of us.

  “Did you see Danny?” says LaFontaine. “She was a force, very Wonder Woman. Ripping those toadstools up with her bare hands. Good thing she’s still on our side in spite of the whole Hollis situation.”

  “I’m standing right here,” I say.

  Carmilla groans at the mention of Danny. She does that whenever Danny’s name comes up now, holding a grudge after the wrongful tying-up fiasco. “Danny’s been prone to acting out of late,” Perry says. “Lots of pent-up aggression. You know.”

  “I think she’s still mad at me,” I admit.

  “Yeah, I’d steer clear for a while,” LaFontaine recommends.