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  Vicky continued to stroke the side of my head, as Andy fixed me with a serious stare. Vicky's stroke turned into a kind of scalp massage, like the kind I got when Shannon took me to a fru-fru salon, and some relocated So-Cal chick with perfect tits would rub shampoo into my hair for five minutes hoping for a sweet-ass tip. I was still shaking and sobbing, but it was quieting, and as total silence fell, Vicky moved away from me and to the refreshment table, and started moving her hands with what looked, from out of the corner of my very sleepy eyes, like great speed.

  The air changed, everything shifted further into strangeness, and cold shot through me. I recognized it immediately. It was the cold I had felt that night amongst the construction ruins, and several times more in my own bedroom. Yet, I wasn't afraid.

  Andy looked directly into my eyes. "You are certain you want me to proceed?"

  I was convinced, at that moment, that I would die if he didn't. The thought of him not "proceeding" actually filled me with a temporary dread.

  "Yes," I managed, sounding weak. But my thoughts were screaming, You've brought me to the brink of agonizing realizations and now you're just playing, you're just wasting fucking time! Do whatever it is you think you can do for me!

  "Do not make me act in haste, Kyle. Things will be much more unpleasant than they need to be if that happens."

  For the first time, despite my weakness, I thrashed against him. "I don't care, hurry up with this... this...Please..." I was fading. "Don't make me wait anymore."

  I was being bratty, really outta control, Emo-whiny style, and he actually looked angry, but sorry for me, too.

  "Fine then, Kyle Ryan. Enjoy!"

  "Not so fast, Andrew!" I heard Vicky shout toward him. "I won't have time to finish."

  "Work faster, then! He's ready for the transformation now. So I have to act now."

  "Fine. On with it." She continued her moving about.

  Then Andrew went, it looked, as if to kiss me. I didn't care; it didn't surprise me in the least, though I didn't understand how that was going to help me in any way, and snoggin' it up with a dude was about the furthest thing from my mind, to be sure. But just as his lips were about to brush mine, he dodged and moved downward, his mouth violently meeting my neck, and before I had the chance to feel the pain of his bite, I was being sucked dry, drained, with alarming swiftness, of all my blood. And as soon as this had happened, it was like everything in him shifted and went into reverse, and he began to fill me, so it seemed, with something like liquid ice. Somewhere in the dust and mist of the weirdness around me, Vicky was working with some kind of fury at the refreshment table. At best, this was a strange distraction from everything that had my head in such a haze, all the sadness and gloom; at worst, it was freezing agony, and just before the pain became too much, Vicky whispered, "You're immortal now, not quite one of us, but immortal. When you wake, you'll be oh so thirsty, for blood." Then I noticed what she'd been working with, as I saw her pour a vial of liquid onto a cloth. She put it in my right hand, and placed it against my cheek. "For protection, and a bit of temporary guidance," she said. And with that, I blacked out.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING

  The first the thing I felt, apart from total confusion and fairly thorough disorientation, was, ironically, a great sense of calm and awareness. All around me the scents were strong, the stars vibrant, and the leaves, backlit by the moon, I could make out in every fine detail. Whatever had happened to me, I was clearer, focused, and very tired. I was also hungry. No, thirsty, and yet I couldn't pinpoint the craving. I was also clutching the rag Vicky had pressed against me, still damp against my right cheek.

  I was in the gully (the ditch, if I'm being honest and unpretentious) at the base of the sloping backyard of my house. I spent about five seconds wondering how I got here, and then decided to be not-too-amazed that two supernatural wondercreatures knew exactly where I lived, and could get me there without rousing me with great ease. I looked around, slowly, and tried to hook into the center of my brain, and the center of gravity. Fainting or puking at this point would be not only unpleasant, but a total waste of time that could be spent really assessing my situation.

  I stood up, and was like bitch-slapped by a wave of nausea and dizziness. Instincts swift and sharp, I thrust the damp rag up to my nose, not even knowing why. But I inhaled with as much force as I could, and the beautiful scents that were embedded in the wet cloth traveled through me: musk, sweat, incense, and for sure... blood. The immediate effect was that everything seemed right again. The world returned to normal, my nausea passed. And my thirst increased. It had been the smell of the blood. Really? Had that actually happened back there in that over-decorated Green Room in that crappy auditorium? My mind was incredibly clear, my memory spot-on, and all I could answer myself was: Yes.

  If I were asked to tell the complete and total effed-up truth as I knew it in my own brain right at that moment, I would have said that Andrew Vandridge and Victoria Vixon had hypnotized me, broken me down, and transformed me into a vampire.

  I laughed a little to myself, because the first thing that occurred to me was that a large number of their fan base wouldn't find that odd at all. Most "Twynners" were already convinced the entire band was a vampire coven anyway. Hell, they all looked and dressed the part. And after tonight, well, I guess I knew. I was in on the secret. Boy was I in on it. Damn. Then my grin turned into a mild grimace-and-twitch of panic, as I tried to fully soak in the enormity and total weirdness of what had happened. And I couldn't. I simply couldn't.

  I was a vampire. A fucking vampire! And, in some sick, twisted, preternatural way, I was carrying Andrew Vandridge's genes in my new vampiric genetic code.

  My emotions were firing in several directions at once, like red fireworks celebrating some Halloween revelation.

  With a ridiculous pang of Emo jealousy, I wondered if I was the only one who knew. I was pretty damn sure I'd be jealous of anybody else who was um, family? But I didn't have time for jealousy now, too exhausting. I had time for mild panic, complete confusion, staggering disbelief, but damn... Jealousy. That was just so much fail at a time like this.

  I looked to my house, and thought about sleep.

  Oh shit!, my internal alarm screamed. I had never called Shannon to come pick me up.

  I whipped the cell phone out of my pocket, like a sharpshooters from one of those westerns the old folks channels show at 1 am, and dialed Josh.

  "KYLE! Ohmigod, tell me everything, tell me all about Andy and Vicky and wait... what the hell are you doing back so early? What did ya do, like, say ’hi bye’ and leave? Damn."

  "Slow down. What do you mean? I was there like forever, in fact I was calling to ask you if Shannon knew you were already home."

  "Oh, no man. I haven't talked to her. Why?"

  "Because I totally forgot to call her in the... midst of everything that happened, and..."

  "Whoa, so there was an 'everything that happened'? Hell yeah! Except, I still don't understand how..."

  "Yeah, hold on, what do you mean? Lemme check something out." Thank God my cell displayed time while I was mid-call, unlike the last POS phone I had. And, what the hell? It was 11:30! Damn, Shannon would barely be missing me. How could that be, though. The time I spent in the backstage area felt like hours. Those sneaky, wonderful vamps had pulled a total time-emotion warp on me. And a little more, besides. Okay, a lot more, but I couldn't think about that now.

  "Hello?!” he finally said.

  "Yeah yeah, sorry man. Look, I see what you mean, you must have just gotten home like..."

  "Minutes ago, yeah! So, I'm really looking forward to hearing how much of a time you got to have with those two in like, thirty minutes, I mean, well, hell, I just wanna hear everything..."

  "Totally my friend, and soon, but, I've got some improvising to do with Jackie, okay?"

  "Well not really, for all she knows, I just dropped you off a little late, we went to go get fast food or some shit."
<
br />   "Yeah yeah, but that sis-o-mine can smell BS from across an ocean, so, I'm going to have to be convincing. I'll call you in the morning, I promise.”

  "You so better!"

  "Goodnight, Josh,” I closed the connection. I wasn't trying to be a dick, I just had to get this over with... other things besides Shannon's possible suspicions were starting to take a hold of me, and if I'm being honest, scare the crap outta me.

  I was suffering from bloodthirst, pure and simple.

  I opened the back door, and whatever horror movie Shannon was watching was obviously reaching some kind of predictable climax, judging from the shrill screams coming out of the living room, and the sound of Shannon's laughter accompanying them.

  I walked in, figuring it was okay to interrupt. "Shannon?"

  She shut off the system and jumped up.

  "Kiddo! Well hey, how'd it all go down?!" She stopped for a second after hugging me. "Actually, is everything cool, you're home kinda earlier than I expected."

  I put on my "dazed fanboy" face. "Hello?! I met Alphatwyn! Everything was only amazing! They just kinda shuffled everybody away really fast."

  "Well, where's Josh, he didn't wanna hang out post-transcendental experience?"

  "Ah, no, he kinda was just exhausted by the whole thing and wanted some sleep."

  She thought for a second, pausing, making me way uncomfortable. "That doesn't sound like him at all. I thought after a night like this the two of you would be bouncing off the walls for hours here at the house, talking til four am and annoying the crap outta me."

  "Yeah, I know,” I shifted weight from one foot to another, the thirst growing inside me, "he's just... uber sleepy. Ya know, dream fulfilled, exhaustion sets in? Heh."

  And with that, her BS detector went off. She gave me a strange look. Her mood changed.

  "Huh. Right. Well. Yeah. Why don't you just tell me about everything in the morning?"

  "Um, okay. It was really amazing though, and..."

  "Right, Kyle. Happy birthday, again. I hope you enjoyed everything. Really. Why don't you go get some sleep yourself? You look like crap." She turned and headed off to her room.

  "Shannon?"

  "Goodnight, Kyle!"

  Ouch. What the hell? I mean even if I was lying about Josh, I was still home early (somehow), so what could she be suspecting? Could she actually detect my bloodthirst? No.

  Screw it. I needed to move on to the next task at hand, fast, with or without Shannon's approval.

  I plodded off to my room.

  When I shut the door behind me, I had just enough time to maximize the window and turn up the volume on my fave internet radio station before a cramp wracked me and I fell to my bed, clutching my stomach. I knew, of course, it had nothing to do with nausea, stress, exhaustion, or bad fast food. It was pure thirst. I took the cloth out of my pocket and buried my face in it, inhaling with as much force as I had. The cramps dissolved, the slight mania that had crept to the surface of my thoughts calmed, but the thirst remained, and in fact was only further increased by the smell the cloth held. I wondered whose blood Vicky had put in the concoction that was still embedded in the soft fibers. Didn't matter really, smelling the damn thing only made me more insane with blood lust. But it focused me as well. It sharpened my already heightened senses. The cloth, I finally understood, wasn't just to keep nausea and misery temporarily at bay, it was a mechanism used to prep me for my first hunt. My head shot up, and I stared like a supernatural hawk out my window. I detected a hundred-thousand things outside, could smell probably more, but one smell in particular was more heady, a bit stronger, than all the others.

  I threw the window open and forced my vision to hone in, seeing things more clearly than I ever had. And then I spotted it. It would be hard to catch, maybe. I somehow knew that my speed and agility would be magnified to two or three times what it was, maybe more. Everything about me was exaggerated, positively I should clarify, and so why not my speed and strength? Surely a young... vampire...would need superhuman maneuverability to hunt his prey.

  Oh God. My "prey"? I knew what I was going after this time, but would it ever have to be more? Would I ever have to feed on a human? Would I ever want to even? And who? Well, of course...

  I could just see it.

  "Hey Josh, could ya come over for a little bit? Oh and bring some Band-Aids, I just have a bit of a blood jones I need to take care of!"

  But as I stood there at the window, and went internal, and really tried to feel out the hunger, it told me that small creatures would certainly suffice, for now at least. Ironic, too, because I was such an animal lover. I'd never hunted, never killed anything more significant than a roach, and loved pretty much all animals equally. But right now, in the midst of this intense hunger-thirst, I didn't give a shit that I was about to take a four-legged creature’s life, even if it was a rat. Actually, that should have thoroughly disgusted me, but no, as I watched the little thing scamper in all kinds of crazy directions through the brush near the gully, I was only more insane with appetite. With the need to kill and slurp.

  I leapt from my floor, skirting the window ledge, and landed outside all in one graceful bound. Very superhero-like. Very sexy. I had a flash of a thought that the move would have probably impressed Jackie. And though that touched me, though it caused a slight, sharp pang, it was nothing quite like what I'd felt before. It wasn't like Jackie didn't matter anymore, it was just that I saw her, and the relationship we'd had, in the greater scheme of everything, of all existence. I didn't care about her any less, I just had a better handle on my emotions.

  I was crouched, low to the ground, and I made my way in that position down the slight grade that lead to the gully at the bottom of our backyard. Not only was I fast and agile, but I was apparently stealthy as hell, because the rat hadn't even noticed me, had just gone on foraging around, possibly looking for its own late-night snack. I crept, closer and closer, hearing every tick-squeak-rustle the little dude made. When I was within a coupla inches, my salivary glands went apeshit.

  I was in striking distance. I inhaled, tensed, then pounced.

  Everything after that was a few mad seconds of tussle-and-slurp. I gulped every bit of essence that creature had within him and tossed his withered carcass into what little water ran in the gully. No suffering for him. Quick as hell. Well, like, I'm sure he'd been scared, but I tried to even put that to rest as soon as I could. The speed at which I could do things was ridiculous.

  Then I lay on my back, totally euphoric. I felt...amazing. Just me, staring at the stars, in some state of ecstasy that nothing in life had brought me so far. Of course I was newly-eighteen, but... the things I felt at that moment... it was like a combination of post-orgasm and having just downed a hot fudge sundae after a three day fast, mixed with chugging ice-cold water after a long day in the sun. And more. It was beyond all that.

  And if all the details of the earth had stood out before, now there was a clarity to everything that I didn't know eyes could even perceive. The stars doubly bright, the sky stretching above me in amazing layers upon layers of royal blue and black, moving up, up, up, the moon like some mythical creature lighting and watching over the now-wet ground. Best of all, any sense of nausea, confusion, or disorientation was completely gone. And as I lay there, rodent blood caked around my smiling mouth, I couldn't help but let one nagging thought bring me down:

  When would I have to feed again?

  Fuck it.

  I was full now, and I needed to get back in and clean up and... get some sleep. But, I wasn't tired. Damn. Was it true? Would my schedule be all flip-flopped now? Would I be nocturnal? For that matter, could I even go out in the sun at all? Would I have to hide out? What would I do about Shannon, and Josh, and everybody else? Well, okay, most of them only saw me on the weekends at night anyway, but the people closest to me were bound to notice. Duh.

  Crap, now I was full, but pissed.

  Andy and Vicky... No, Andrew and Victoria, the vampires, had
made me into one of their own, but left me with no instructions. No clues on what to expect or how to behave. No textbook on Vamp 101, for sure.

  How was I supposed to get along?

  I climbed back into my room, slid the window shut, and went to the bathroom to clean up. Hours ago I would have been repulsed by the sight of my face, covered in rat gore, but in my new state the sight only made me smile at the ecstasy the creature's blood had induced. Total yum.

  I got in bed, arms crossed behind my head, and finally relaxed as much as I could with a thousand questions pelting my brain.

  One awesome, wicked truth remained, though, that let me relax in a kind of arrogant peace: I was Andy effin' Vain's vampire progeny! Josh always joked that I would be a Scene Legend. What would he think of me being a Scene Immortal?

  ~ * ~

  I stayed in that same position, in bed, not moving, just thinking. I watched the world grow lighter and brighter outside my window, and as I was amazed by the beauty of the backyard in the morning, I realized that the sun was doing nothing harmful to my body. Things seemed brighter, for sure, and more enhanced, but I didn't feel blinded, or more importantly, burned. In fact, the sun streaming in through the window felt fantastic and golden. A bit of that cold had returned in the waning hours of the night, and the rays leaking in bathed me in warmth. I was totally at peace.

  Then there was a knock at the door. Like I said, I was at peace. Damn. My amazingly cool sister, who had stood by me through everything, was for the first time in my life, a source of angst.

  "Kyle?"

  "Yeah, I'm up."

  "Can I come in?" What time was it? I looked to the side. Nine-thirty already. Well damn.

  "Yeah, sure." No worries about being naked this time. Hell, I'd just laid on my bed in the clothes from last night, thinking, smiling, feeling perfect.

  The door opened. Shannon looked tore-up tired. Like, exhausted and depressed, and cranky. I guessed this was going to be part two of the conversation we almost had last night. She looked at me, half-pissed, half-sad, and sat down at the foot of my bed.