Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,25
be my first call.”
“If you touch a single living human before graduation, my word is null and void.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine.”
“How will you get blood?”
“The same way I have for the last year and a half. Blood banks.”
We only have one blood bank in Sweetwater. She’ll have to be discreet.
“Senior year,” she says again. “That’s all I want.”
There’s so much to consider. Mom. Aunt Gemma. The blood supply. Other vampires passing through. But Alma’s words ring in my ears. My humanity was violently stolen from me. I’m continuing on, the only way I know how. If a slayer had been around to save Alma, she’d be a normal high school senior right now and none the wiser. Like Peach. Or Landry.
I let go of her throat and pull away the stake. Her whole body sags against my car. My fist tightens around the stake as I hold out my other hand to shake on it. This is going to be a shit show.
Alma takes my hand, but instead of shaking on our deal, she pulls me to her, our lips so close I can taste her cherry lip gloss. “I’d rather kiss on it.”
My lips brush hers, and within seconds, I’m using my hips to pin her to my car for completely different reasons than I did just moments ago. Her hands grip my waist, using my cheer skirt to pull me even closer.
Inside me, endorphins sound off like pop rocks in a bottle of Coke, like a perfectly timed cheer on a crisp night. Turns out kissing a vampire can feel just as good as slaying one.
THE SLAYER Or When We Say Vampire, You Say Slayer!
Zoraida Córdova & Natalie C. Parker
Like the vampire, the vampire slayer has seen many iterations over time, from Van Helsing to Buffy Summers to Blade. While there are many ways to kill a vampire, the slayer is the vampire’s human counterpart, the balance to its supernatural strength, speed, and senses. The slayer, whether supernaturally chosen or not, has learned the vampire’s secrets and knows how to stand in their way or stake them dead, whichever the case may be. They aren’t always cheerleaders, but they do tend to be thin (or vibrantly muscled!), cisgender, able-bodied people. In Julie’s story, we travel to high school, where a fat slayer girl meets her match in more ways than one. And it’s that beautiful tension between vampire and slayer that makes their relationship to die for!
Which chosen one are you? Vampire or slayer?
THE BOY AND THE BELL
Heidi Heilig
It is a gusty night, dark and chill, with the wind rustling so loud in the leaves that Will nearly misses the delicate chime of the bell.
An incongruous sound in the graveyard—at least so late at night. Under the bright light of day, the church bells toll high noon or to call the parishioners to worship … or to announce the arrival of a new occupant of the boneyards. But this sound is not the deep brass tone of the carillon. This is smaller, almost petulant. The sound of a servant’s summons—a sound that would have made Will jump in a past life.
But that’s all over now.
So he stops instead, standing deliberately still in the deep shadows among the trees edging one side of the yard. It isn’t easy. Though his body is still, he can’t slow his heart. The longer he waits, the higher the risk of being caught—caught and caught out, with his shovel and his barrow and the calluses on his hands. It is especially dangerous tonight, as the burial is so fresh—relatives might have stationed guards to run off body snatchers like himself. But he’d rather face recrimination by an angry citizen—or even a beating from a grieving relative—than respond to the bell.
Ting a ling ding, ting a ling, ting a ling. The smell of the turned earth is so strong it’s like a clod of mud lodged in his throat, and the chill of the churchyard wind slips icy fingers through the worn patches of his jacket. But when he hears the bell, a part of him is back in the big house on Cherry Street. The rustle of the leaves sounds too much like the swish of his old skirts as he runs, and on the wind he can almost hear the high, thin sound of Mrs. Esther calling his name—his old name. A name he’ll never answer to again.
Will’s racing heart is not only due to fear of discovery.