Full Title: Evil Smells Like Coconut-Lime
    The remaining weeks of summer flew by. I didn’t go back to the Godard’s once—I admit to being more than a little afraid. Of course I had known that vampires were dangerous (honestly, who didn’t?) but I hadn’t really realized just how dangerous until that day, seeing two ready to rip each other’s throats out. Raa’zeek was… well, a little upset that I had gone to see them.
    “Does Mistress not know what could have happened? Mistress could have been killed!” he had huffed, boney tail lashing back and forth like an angry kitten.
    “Keep your voice down!” I whispered, putting my hand to his mouth. “You’ll wake up Gina… Besides, Vincent’s the only one who would have hurt me and there were three other much older vampires there.”
    “Mistress could have at least brought Raa’zeek…” He’d grumbled, giving in.
    I actually hadn’t seen much of Gina. She’d gotten a job, so she wasn’t at home all day, and on weekends she was either with her boyfriend or sleeping. Gina had been sleeping a lot, actually. I figured she was just working too hard. Well, it turned out that was only one way of putting it. I received an unexpected visit the last day of summer break that raised a lot more questions than it answered. Cliché, I know.
    “Stella!” I heard Gina call up the stairs. “You have a visitor!”
I put down the stack of paper I had been organizing in my new binder in preparation for school and started down the stairs curiously. I didn’t know anyone here; who in the world would be visiting me? Gina sounded mildly excited, too. Unless…
    To my intense relief, it was Arabella who stood in the doorway in a royal blue linen dress tied with a green bow and matching blue sandals. I couldn’t help but smile as I invited her in and the three of us settled down in the cozy, red floral chairs of the living room. Arabella swung her legs, little feet no where near the ground.
    “So what’re you doing here?” I asked. I was surprised that Gina seemed to know her, and I intended to ask her about it the moment Arabella left.
    “I just wanted to see you!” she replied with a fairy laugh. “You haven’t been to see us in a long time. And…” The smiled faded from her face and she squirmed slightly in the chair. “And I wanted to say sorry for Vince. He’s not usually like that. Daddy was really mad at him.”
    “I could tell…” I mumbled. Arabella laughed.
    “It’s been a long time since Mommy died, but it’s like he just can’t move on. I can sort of understand; Mommy was the one who found him, after all—” She stopped suddenly, sunny eyes wide. My own eyes narrowed in confusion.
    “Arabella?” She swallowed and stared down at the carpet, speaking softly and sounding again much older than she looked.
    “We’re not supposed to talk about it. It could be bad if others found out about it. Let’s just say that vampires tended to lie a lot to your family. The records they have aren’t all right. I’m sorry, that’s all I can really say…” She looked up at us and smiled sheepishly as she bounced to her feet. “Sorry to turn everything so gloomy.”
    I smiled at her as warmly as I could manage and stood to give her a hug. She reached her little arms up to wrap them around my waist and buried her face against my stomach. When she looked up, her eyes were once again those of a child and she grinned up at me. We walked her to the door and just as she was leaving, she seemed to remember something. She half turned and said with a mischievous smirk,
    “Oh, and you should know that the people here know what we are. Just so you aren’t caught unaware.” And faster than we could, er… politely inquire, she was gone. And not “going down the street” gone but just flat out gone. Closing the door, I turned to Gina, who was wearing an identical speechless expression.
    “Everyone knows?” she asked, her voice breathy. I was about to reply when it hit me.
    “You know?” I stared at her, the answer already forming in my mind. It wasn’t the answer I was expecting. She stuttered a bit and struggled for words. I stepped forward and, with a feeling of dread and something I couldn’t quite name, I moved her wavy hair a little off of her neck.
    There, half healed, were two tiny, perfect little wounds.



    Gina was dating a vampire. Gina was dating a vampire. Gina was dating a vampire. No matter how many times I said it, even after a night to think on it, I couldn’t believe it. And to make it worse, she was dating the head honcho, Alexandre himself. That was why he hadn’t been there the day I met Vincent. I wasn’t dumb enough to say that things couldn’t get any worse; we had enough rain as it was. It shouldn’t have been so bad, but my family killed vampires. It just didn’t seem right to have someone who was basically a member of my family dating a vamp.
    I was starting to give myself a headache, so I switched trains of thought. Arabella had said that the vampires had tended to lie to my family. Made sense, really. No one in their right mind would divulge their secrets to the enemy. So I couldn’t rely on any of the information in those huge books since I had no way of knowing what was true or not.
    I took a final bite of my waffle and threw the paper plate away. Downing the rest of my chocolate milk, I went through my mental list to make sure I had everything; I did this every day, all school year. The last thing I wanted to do was have to call home because I’d forgotten something. When I was sure everything was in place, I laced up my Converse, said goodbye to Gina, pulled on my jacket, grabbed my pack, and away I went. I’d finally finished my forty hours of adult-supervised driving and gotten my license, leaving me able to drive our paint-free old car to the edge of town where the school lurked. Yes, schools lurk.
    So what to my wondering eyes should appear but a sleek black car sitting in the street outside my house, complete with a very large grinning vampire leaning out the window. I blinked for a moment, then grinned back. There was just something about Rubin that made a person do that.
    “Want a lift?” he asked cheerfully.
    “With the price of gas what it is, I’d love one,” I replied. He disappeared into the car and pushed open the passenger door while I swiftly made my way to him. The faint drizzle was threatening to grow into a full blown storm and I really didn’t want to be caught in it. As I climbed in, I realized that it hadn’t even occurred to me that Vincent might be there, too. Luckily for me, he wasn’t. Obviously he had his own car. Thank God.
    Rubin took one look at my attire and seemed to grin even more. I stuck my tongue out at him playfully—I liked my clothes, thanks. My black t-shirt read simply in white letters, “I’m here; what more do you want?” and it was accompanied by my dark, skinny jeans. There was also my ever-present (at school, at least) “Emo makeup” as I so fondly called it. It was simply dark eye-liner, blue eye-shadow, and the basic mascara and blush. Which, for some reason, was sparkly. I thought that was kinda cool.
    Turned out Rubin was a pretty neat guy with a great sense of humor, so the conversation was pleasant on the ride up. When we stopped at a red light before a turn into the side parking lot, seniors and juniors only as Rubin told me with a wink, I looked up at the school. I was faintly surprised that it was normal, made of that odd, reddish-brown brick and two stories tall. Big white letters proclaimed it as “Shadowood High School”. Creative, really. A black winged wolf “leapt” out from behind the letters. Honestly, their mascot should have been a tree or something; there were plenty of those around here. Was it just me, or was I being incredibly cynical? I blamed it on it being Monday and the first day of school. That’s a terrible combination.
    We parked next to another sleek car, this one a bright metallic copper. I didn’t have to guess whose it was.
    “Ostentatious much?” I muttered. Rubin gave a short laugh.
    “Vince likes to stand out, even though Alexandre tells us to keep it down,” he sighed. We began walking up to the school, following the crowd of waterproof jackets. The rain had yet to fulfill its threat, but I knew it would cut loose any minute.
    “Why try blend in if everyone knows what you are?”
    “We’d like to pretend we’re at least somewhat normal,” Rubin answered, nodding to some people in the hall and exchanging quick greetings with others. I felt a bit out of place, kind of like how it feels when you walk into the wrong class and everyone stares at you.
    “Well, homerooms are listed on the walls; you’ll get all the important stuff there. Good luck!” Rubin said, grinning again.
    “I’m gonna need it,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes. He laughed good naturedly before patting me on the back and vanishing into the crowd. Taking a deep breath, I began to force my way through, getting jostled this way and that. I headed towards a group of people gathered around something on the wall. With my brilliant skills of deduction, I assumed it to be homeroom assignments. For once, I was right. A map hung on the wall next to the list, so traced my way from the obnoxious but useful     "You are here” sticker to room 205. It wasn’t too far away.
    But as my luck would have it, as I pushed through the halls towards my destination, I got stuck behind a large group of people surrounding the bane of my summer himself. Vincent was flirting with giggly girls and doing the whole “manly hug” thing with the guys. I rolled my eyes again and turned to walk away, but something stopped me. I took a good look at Vincent and decided this couldn’t be the Vincent I knew.
    This Vincent was smiling and laughing, those beautiful violet eyes bright with excitement. He was joking and complaining about the days he was trapped inside by the sun. He was genuinely enjoying himself. Maybe he wasn’t such a horrible person after all. If I could just figure out why he hated me so much and fix it, he might actually be tolerable.
    I figured I’d leave before he noticed me and I totally ruined his day. Once again I turned to leave, and once again I was stopped by something. One of the girls was idly fondling Vincent’s braided hair. I took a closer look at her, the other girls too. It was very faint, but almost all of the girls proudly bore a distinctive bite mark. I shook my head in disgust and this time I really did walk away.



    I’d made it through half of the day. Homeroom had that tense feeling it always did since no one knew anyone else there usually. Glad something had been the same. We would report there every morning for announcements and attendance and such before going on to classes. English wasn’t going to be fun because I shared the class with Vincent. We had very pointedly sat as far from each other as possible, e.g. me in the front right and he in the back left. My English teacher was bouncy and easy-going, so that might make up for it in time. Math was… math. Need I say more? I’m not bad at it (in fact I’m very good, if my grades have anything to say about it); I just don’t like it. To my surprise, Vincent was in my creative writing class as well. The day had just begun and already I shared two classes with the guy! Hopefully it would stay that way. Wouldn’t know until after lunch, though.
    As always, I had packed my lunch. School lunches really weren’t too bad, but I hated the lines. It usually got so bad on pizza days that the lines went across the cafeteria and into the hall.
    I and my plum-colored lunchbox were debating where to sit when a girl I vaguely recognized from math waved me over. It felt nice to be invited instead of sitting on the edge by myself like I usually did until I made some friends. With several muttered “excuse me”s I crossed to other side of the commons/cafeteria to a table by the glass wall and doors of one of the main entrances. The girl was Asian and a bit on the skinny side and her smooth black hair reached just to her shoulders. I noticed she was wearing simply jeans, flip-flops, and a t-shirt of a band I’d never heard of—I liked her already. The other girls were dressed similarly, actually. There were two of them, neither of which I knew. One had frizzy strawberry-blonde hair and thick-rimmed glasses (which she wore rather well, really), and the other had a small, mouse-like nose and light brown hair pulled back into a long ponytail.
    “You can come sit with us… Stella, right?” the girl who had waved me over asked. I nodded and sat in the empty chair to her left so the four of us made a square.
    “My name’s Mia,” she said.
    “I’m April,” the red-head across from me said, closing her book. The mousy one introduced herself as Kate (“Katrina, really, but I like to be called Kate.”).  For once I’d found a group of people I wasn’t nervous around and the conversation flowed easily. I told them about New York and my old school and they told stories of the happenings here. Not once were the vampires mentioned.
    Someone screamed. Conversation halted and all heads turned to the glass door not five feet from our table. A blonde girl in a skirt was running towards the door, looking over her shoulder at something. She screamed again. She slammed into the door which flew open and she collapsed into a sobbing pile on the floor. The glass exploded inwards suddenly, spraying us all with shards, our shouts joining with the girl’s. A thud like something big landing on the roof over the side walk, running feet, and then silence, except for the hysterical crying of the girl and the tinkle of more glass hitting the floor.
    Instantly Vincent was at her side, and the other vampire was already halfway out the shattered door, leaping up onto the roof like only the supernatural can do. We all gathered around the girl and Vincent, and the crowd buzzed with whispers. I had a front row spot. Vincent was holding the girl, shushing her quietly. I remembered her as the girl that was messing with his braid this morning.
    “Lacey, look at me. Look at me,” he urged. His voice was… entrancing. She looked up and their eyes met and she seemed to calm. “It’s alright. You’re safe now. Trust me.”
    All at once Lacey seemed to relax, curling in and leaning her head on Vincent’s shoulder.
    “Can you tell me what happened?” He was still speaking in that calm, firm voice. Lacey took a shuddering breath.
    “We, me and some of my friends… We snuck out to the McDonald’s down the street for lunch, and I had to go to the bathroom, so I told them to go back to school ahead of me since it wasn’t that long of a walk. So, like, I was on my way back and I started to smell something. It was like that cheap coconut-lime lotion the Seven-Eleven’s got now. I didn’t think much of it at first, but it… I just kept smelling it. So I… I looked behind me and there was this guy just, just like, staring at me. He walked through the crowd like wasn’t there. He was following me.” Lacey sniffled a bit and sat up, rubbing her eyes and smearing her make-up, but she stayed in Vincent’s lap. The other girls would be jealous later.
    “And I know they always tell you to stay with a crowd when you think you’re being followed, but the school was like right there, and I mean, I’m top rank in track, no normal person should be able to keep up with me. So when I got out of the crowd I started running, but he was right behind me. He was laughing and just kind of jogging, like he was playing with me or something. And then I got near the school and he started coming closer and closer. He had fangs. He was a vampire, I know he was…” Tears began spilling down her cheeks, and she buried her face in Vincent’s shoulder again. He pulled her back and cupped her face in his hands, looking in her eyes.
    “I know you were scared, Lacey, but I need you to concentrate. Did you get a good look at him? Do you remember what he looks like?” She nodded, and he took his hands away, gently brushing hair out of her eyes.
    “He, um, had like almost white hair, short and kinda spiky. He was wearing this weird coat thing that went to his knees, black leather. Jeans, these absurd cowboy boots… Blue eyes. I remember he had these creepy neon blue eyes. He kept staring at me like I was something to eat.” Lacey shook her blonde head. “He was kinda young looking, but that’s all I remember really.”
    Rubin came back in at that moment, brushing glass off his white shirt.
    “Nothing,” he said. “There was a weird fruity scent, but nothing else.”
    “Coconut-lime?” Vincent offered. Rubin thought a moment then nodded slowly.
    “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
    The younger vampire helped Lacey stand and her friends rushed forward to take the shaking girl from him. He started to say something but stopped and stared intently at something just over my shoulder, taking a step towards us. Everyone followed his gaze to an unbroken section of glass. There were shapes punched out neatly, as if they’d been cut. Letters.

                            I SEE YOU