Section 2
THE ACADEMY
Lucette fumed. She had only been at the school for a week, but so far her classes, beyond the regular school stuff such as math and history, had been more like charm school than slayer school. Grooming? Flirting? What was the point? The only “point” she cared about was the one she could drive through a vampire’s heart.
“Now, class,” Miss Eleanor began. A statuesque woman with light blonde hair and way too much makeup, the teacher stuck out a hip and set her hand on it. “Flirting is crucial to our cause and it’s the best tool to lure vampires into our traps. The creatures are very amorous and have little self-control, making your beauty a lethal weapon.”
Lucette clenched her jaw and her fists.
Miss Eleanor swept a hand out in a broad gesture.“Girls, it’s your duty as a slayer to use your feminine wiles against these horrible animals.”
Lucette pounded a fist into her thigh, then lifted it and accidentally hit the underside of her desk. The sharp sound reverberated throughout the room.
“Lucy,” Miss Eleanor said sternly, “if you insist on disrupting class, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the room.” She wrinkled her heavily powdered nose.
“Feminine wiles?” Lucette murmured to herself. “Ridiculous.”
“If you’d like to ask a question, please stand,” Miss Eleanor said, and the entire class turned back to stare at Lucette.
She shot to her feet. “I didn’t register in the academy to use feminine wiles.” The phrase itself was stupid. “I came here to learn to be a slayer—to kill vampires. When do we get our stakes?”
The other girls, all much shorter, curvier, and prettier, burst into laughter, covering their mouths with their hands, as though doing so negated their rudeness.
A girl with curly blonde hair said, “She’d have more luck attacking vampires than luring them.” She leaned toward her brunette friend across the aisle and whispered, “Flat as a board!” The two giggled. They’d established their roles as teacher’s pets when they easily mastered mascara application in grooming class.
“And those eyebrows!” the brunette said, her ringlets bouncing. “She’s like a wild animal!”
“Now, girls,” Miss Eleanor said to her pets, “Lucy may not be as mature as you, but she could be quite striking. That bone structure—”
Lucette pounded her fist on the desktop. “Who cares how I look?” She had realized years ago that she was no beauty, in spite of how her parents insisted she’d grow into her strong features someday. “I came here to learn how to fight! How to slay! How to defend myself.” She couldn’t tell her teacher why it was so important, but she wanted to—desperately.
“Lucy.” Her teacher’s voice was sharp. “We leave the slaying to the boys. It’s not our job. Not only is it highly undignified and unfeminine, but ladies lack the strength and agility to slay vampires—not to mention the courage of spirit.” She shook her head as if Lucette were a child learning the most basic lesson. “Vampires can sense emotions. They feed off your fear.”
“Boys don’t get scared?”
Miss Eleanor sighed. “Boys learn to mask their fear.”
“And girls don’t get scared when they’re acting all sexy to lure vampires into traps?” Eventually her teacher would admit to the holes in her logic.
“Lust is a powerful force, Lucy. It clouds a vampire’s judgment. They don’t have higher reasoning powers to help them overcome their animal instincts, as we humans do.”
“How do you know? Have you ever met a vampire?” Lucette sensed it might not be smart to admit that she had met one—not right now, anyway. “And why do we need to flirt to draw the vampires into traps? I mean, if vampires are so thirsty for human blood, isn’t the fact we’ve got it running through our veins enough to lure them?”
Miss Eleanor’s cheeks reddened and she smoothed her skirt with her hands. “Lucy, if you’re not here to learn, you can leave my class right now. I will not tolerate this insubordination. You girls are training to play vital roles in the slayer army, and if you want to stay, you must learn to follow orders.”
A member of the slayer army? Ha! Lucette narrowed her eyes. This school wasn’t training the girls to be slayers—it was training them to be bait.
Her mother was going to hear about this.
The next Friday night, Lucette glared at her father as she sat opposite him in his office waiting for the scolding she knew was coming. How could he have expected her to be nice to those boys?
She shifted her glare down to her dress—the lace, the frills, and the way-too-low neckline—and crossed her arms over her chest, disgusted by the hideous pink nightmare with its itchy crinoline. Girls with small breasts and no hips shouldn’t wear dresses cut like this. She felt humiliated. Tonight had been worse than her classes at the academy. And those had gotten harder to bear since she’d learned her mother wouldn’t interfere with the school’s curriculum, claiming it would threaten Lucette’s secret identity.
“Lucette,” her father said, “stop fidgeting. When you sit still, you look lovely in that dress.”
“I do not.” She slumped back. “I look freaky enough in my normal clothes, but this dress is frilly—and pink! I hate pink!” She grabbed a handful of the offending fabric and tugged.
“Well, I think it quite becomes you,” he said. “And from what I saw and heard, all the boys you met tonight agreed with me.” He set his face into what looked like a forced smile. “Every last one of them has asked me for permission to court you.”
She clenched her fists and fought the urge to shout, still barely believing her father had paraded her in front of all those boys as if she were some prize to be won. “Dad, I’m only thirteen.”
Her father leaned forward from his chair. “Don’t you like boys?”
“No. No, I don’t. They’re smelly and pimply and boring.” And the ones at her school could train to be real slayers, while she couldn’t. It wasn’t fair and she planned to take out her frustration on every single member of the male gender.
“Lucette, you’re becoming a young lady.” Her father’s strong dark eyebrows pushed together and his forehead wrinkled. “Most girls your age would be happy to have their father’s permission to date boys.”
“Well, I’m not most girls, am I?” No, most girls her age didn’t have huge curses hanging over their heads. Most girls her age actually looked like girls. Most girls her age weren’t enrolled at the Slayer Academy.
“What’s the problem, Lucette?” Her father’s concern had turned to irritation. “Why are you so upset that I introduced you to a few nice boys?”
“You can’t force me to date against my will.” Especially since these so-called dates would involve chaperones and guards, and the boys would probably be frisked for sharp objects and scrutinized for splinters before they’d be allowed near her. Her father would probably insist the boys wear gloves, too, in case one broke a nail or had a callus. It was beyond humiliating.
Her father’s expression turned serious. “Lucette, it’s vital you find true love.”
“Why? So I can give you an heir to your throne?” Really, she was only thirteen!
He rose from his chair as if he planned to discipline her, but then his face softened. “Didn’t your mother tell you that true love is the only way the vampire queen’s curse can be lifted?”
That was why her father wanted her to date boys? To fall in love? Like that would happen. She let out a disdainful laugh.
“Take this seriously, Lucette.” Her father cleared his throat.“The fairies made three alterations to the original curse. One to keep you safe until you turn sixteen, one to prevent the vampire queen from entering Xandra, and another to lift the curse when you prove you’ve found true love.”
“But I’m thirteen!” Lucette’s mind felt muddy. She wasn’t exactly a little girl anymore, and wanted her father to treat her like a grown-up most of the time, but not about this. She wasn’t ready for love.
Her father tapped his fingers on his huge marble-topped desk. “Maybe you’re not old enough to attend charm school then, either.”
“What?” Lucette’s heart rate tripled.“That’s not fair.” Even if training to be a female slayer wasn’t what she hoped for, at least there she had a chance to get close to the weapons.
He frowned. “The fairies paid a high price for altering your curse. You can’t take them for granted.”
She nodded, and a little bit of the muddiness cleared. “What price?”
He sat down and gripped the carved arms of his chair, as if he might crush them. “The vampire queen was very angry that the fairies helped you.” He paused, looked at her, then continued. “So she punished them—brutally.”
Lucette felt a lump form in her throat, and a sense of guilt overcame her as she thought of the price others had paid to help her. “Punished them how?”
He shook his head.“Don’t worry about that. It’s better if you focus on preventing the curse. Finger safety and finding true love are the keys.”
Lucette sat silent for a moment. She didn’t think her father was wrong; it was smart to prevent the curse. But she also thought her mother was right, that she should be prepared in case the curse did fall. Her father was in denial if he thought he could protect her from every danger, or if he thought she’d ever find love. She wished she were interested in boys, but she wasn’t. Not like that.
“Did you say the fairies’ magic says I have to prove I’ve found love?” she asked, and he nodded.
“How do you prove that?”
He ran his fingers over his chin, and Lucette wondered if he knew the answer, but then he cleared his throat. “If your love is true, proving it will be easy.”
“Did you and Mom have”—she took a deep breath to calm her nerves—“true love?”
Her father looked as if he’d been struck by lightning, then his eyes turned glassy. “Lucette, your mother is the most beautiful and quick-witted woman I’ve ever met. And the way she used to look at me . . .” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I love your mother. I do. Very much. But perhaps she was too young when we wed. Perhaps she wishes she’d had more time on her own first.” He looked away, and Lucette could feel waves of sadness drifting from him.
She rounded his desk and sat on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his velvet jacket. “Don’t be sad, Daddy.”
It was clear he loved her mother, or at least he had before the curse ruined everything, before she’druined everything. Lucette had to make up for that. From now on, she’d try harder to please her parents and make them happy.