The agents called me in for orientation at the end of the year. I was to report to duty early in the morning.
Mom didn't have to make any excuses to Dad. He had checked out of Hotel Sky an hour earlier.
Mom sat sipping a diet soda, reading the newspaper at the kitchen table. The ice cubes in her drink cracked against the glass every time she lifted and sipped.
I'd barely taken three bites of my oatmeal.
Mom looked at my bowl. "Is that all you're eating?"
"I'm not hungry."
Mom frowned. "You're going to get hungry if you don't finish your food."
No I wouldn't. Not with my stomach full of knots.
Mom folded up her newspaper. She sounded resigned. "The agents said to bring a change of clothes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
At least they weren't making me wear camo. Then again, they could have hundreds of pushups and jumping jacks in store. Maybe I would be drenched in sweat by the end of the day.
I stared out the window as we headed downtown toward Elmendorf Air Force Base. Each passing street brought us closer to certain doom. A beige sedan pulled into our lane right in front of us and, instinctively, I threw my right foot forward and pressed it into the mat. My mom pumped the brake and grumbled at the driver.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
I liked the tone of her voice. It was firm and assertive. She never took her eye off the road.
"Yes," I all but whispered.
We drove down the Glenn Highway a short distance before my mom took an exit right and crossed the bridge over the highway to the gated entrance leading into Elmendorf.
The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach returned as we approached the line of cars at the gate. I wasn't aware the feeling had gone until it came back worse than before.
"What if we turned around?" I asked suddenly. "Tell the agents I'm ill. Tell them I'm not ready yet."
"Aurora, you're going to have to get this over with at some point. I think it's best you complete orientation before the new semester starts. You'll feel better once it's done."
We were currently fourth in line. The lead vehicle, a truck, didn't appear to be going anywhere. A young military man leaned outside the booth, took something from the driver, and disappeared back inside.
"Don't worry," Mom said. "I know you'll do fine."
The military man's head reappeared right before the gate went up, and the truck drove forward. The next vehicle went right in.
Now only one car stood between me and captivity.
I turned to Mom. "Talk to them! Tell them I'll pay them back for the operation. I don't care if it takes me my entire life. I'll get their money back."
"They don't want money," Mom said. "I tried that. I would have paid any price to get you back. But we can't buy organs...the government can. We're lucky. The agents chose you. They wanted you to live."
Melcher and Crist didn't want me to live so much as serve. Why did my mom have to try and glorify this?
The car in front of us sped through the open gate. Mom drove forward, right up to the gates of hell.
"Hello," she said with a bright smile. "I'm Dana Sky, and this my daughter Aurora. We have an appointment with Agent Melcher."
The young military man showed no emotion. "IDs."
Mom and I dug out our wallets and pulled our driver's licenses out of their tight compartments. The man glanced at our cards, turned to a walkie-talkie, and spoke into it. "The VH recruit is here. Over."
Static ensued followed by scratchy words saying, "Send them in. Over."
The young man handed Mom our IDs. He tilted his head toward a black sedan waiting just through the gate. "That black sedan is your escort. Follow him."
The gate lifted and we drove onto the base.
My mom and I didn't speak as she followed the vehicle in front of us. The black sedan tuned on its right blinker. Mom did the same. We followed it down a wooded road. If my internal compass was any good, we were now traveling north, adjacent to the now-hidden Glenn Highway.
"Is this where you came to pick me up before?" I didn't recognize anything, but I was in a fog the last time I left here.
"Yes."
We followed the sedan down a quiet road. A parking lot emerged through the trees, leading directly to a building that looked like a bunker with no windows.
The sedan pulled into a parking spot. Mom took the one beside it.
I turned to my mom. "Will you wait for me?"
I'd seen Mom grab the Nora Roberts novel she was reading. That was a good sign.
"I don't know. I need to ask how long orientation lasts."
Agent Crist stepped out of the passenger seat of the sedan. Agent Melcher joined her, and they waited for my mom and me to step out. The agents were dressed in their matching gray suits and wool military coats that fell above their knees.
"Good morning, Mrs. Sky. Good morning, Aurora," Agent Melcher said. "No need to come inside, Mrs. Sky. I'll call you when Aurora is finished."
"When will that be?"
"It could take a few days."
"A few days!" my mom and I said at the same time.
Melcher grinned. "That all depends on Aurora."
I turned to my mother with pleading eyes. She hesitated.
"My daughter needs more time."
Relief washed through me. I wanted to throw my arms around my mom in that moment and kiss her cheeks. Only the scowl on Agent Crist's face stopped me.
"She just started her kickboxing and tae kwon do lessons. Couldn't you let her finish senior year first?" Mom asked hopefully.
Crist's eyebrows lowered as her upper lip rose. "The time for negotiations is over, Mrs. Sky. I thought you understood the terms."
Mom looked from me to Agent Crist and frowned. "I just don't see why Aurora has to get started so soon."
Melcher took a step forward. "Don't worry about a thing, Mrs. Sky. We'll call you the moment Aurora is finished. The sooner we start, the sooner she can go home."
Mom frowned then turned and gave me a quick hug. "You'll be fine, sweetie, and as soon as you're done I'll be here to pick you up."
The moment Mom released me she hurried back to the car and pulled away. The pit in my stomach expanded as her car disappeared from sight.
Melcher smiled at me as though I were a child. "Let's go, Aurora. You'll feel better once you understand what's expected of you."
If Melcher was the doting dad, then Agent Crist was the wicked stepmother who couldn't stand to see Melcher's attention directed away from her. I could feel the burn of her frown even on my back.
I followed them through a sliding door into the lobby of the building. A young woman in camouflage pants and a matching jacket sat at a front desk. She nodded at Agents Melcher and Crist with the same detached look as the man at the gate.
"This is our base of operation," Melcher said. "On the right we have our own private hospital and surgeons, which you've already seen. It's small, but it's the state's best. On the left are our administrative offices, where we'll go first. Then in back, we have our training facilities and several holding cells."
What? Were they going to lock me up if I didn't do as I was told?
I followed the agents down a glaring hallway. There were no pictures on the walls. We reached a set of double doors, and Crist swiped a keycard to open them. There was another reception desk manned by yet another drone. The soldier looked at the agents briefly, never sparing me a glance.
Melcher led me into an office with two desks and shut the door.
There were no photographs on either desk; no pictures on the walls; no decor of any kind unless you counted the wooden cross nailed to the wall. It formed a triangle with Crist and Melcher when they sat down.
"Have a seat," Melcher said.
I selected the chair in front of him. It was either that or fry under Crist's direct glare.
Melcher rested his elbows on his desk and leaned forward.
"Let's get right down to it. Our unit is rather peculiar. We specialize in the identification and elimination of demonic forces." Melcher paused to smile. "Don't worry, we won't ask you to do both. We have undercover informants specially trained to weed out these unholy threats."
At the moment, the only threat I sensed was that of Agents Melcher and Crist.
"You have been recruited for a very special role in the fight against terror, Aurora."
Maybe if I stared at Melcher hard enough he'd come right out and say what he meant.
"What is a VH recruit?" I asked, remembering what the guy at the front gate had said.
"Vampire Hunter," Crist said.
I started laughing so hard I had to grip the arms of my chair to keep from falling to the floor. The agents won points for creativity, I'd give them that. Great way to break the ice. Now we could move onto the real reason I was there.
As my giggles subsided, I noticed Melcher and Crist weren't laughing.
"You heard right," Melcher said. "You've been recruited by your government to eliminate the reanimated dead."
"Vampires," Crist clarified in a harsh voice.
I looked from agent to agent. "Is this some kind of joke?"
Melcher frowned. "The demonic plague is no joke."
Since when did the military start allowing fanatics to run their own special units? Now that I was trapped on base, playing along seemed like the best idea until Mom picked me up and got me the hell out of that madhouse once and for all.
"And how exactly do I eliminate vampires?" I asked.
"That's the beauty of it," Melcher said. "Your body is now a weapon - your blood. As I mentioned briefly before, a team of government scientists recently discovered a combination of organisms that, when mixed with AB negative blood cells, are lethal when consumed by the undead. From there, they found a way to safely inject these organisms into hosts, such as yourself. When your blood cells are transferred from you to the infected, it sends them into a state of temporary paralysis."
Crist looked me in the eyes. "By transferred, he means when one of them bites you."
Right, 'cause that's what vampires were all about. Biting people. It definitely concerned me that people like Melcher and Crist had access to automatic weapons.
No wonder Melcher was always smiling. He had a lot of funny ideas in his head. It made me smile, too.
"So are we talking storybook vampires with fangs and claws, only come out in the night, hold the garlic, please?" I asked with a smirk.
"Not exactly," Melcher answered, missing my sarcasm. "They have every appearance of being human, but they're not. They're infected by disease and they feed on healthy humans."
"Ohhhh," I said, thinking I finally got it. "You mean sick people who have escaped quarantine. You've made me immune so I can hunt them down and bring them back in?"
Crist huffed. "No, he means vampires!"
Melcher continued speaking as though there'd been no interruption. "What you need to understand about the undead is that their disease is what keeps them in their reanimated state. Disease is the trigger. Rabies, plague, porphyria - we can trace plague vampires all the way back to outbreaks in sixteenth century Italy."
"Are you saying that people who caught the plague never died?"
Sounded more like zombies than vampires to me.
Melcher sucked in a breath and released it quickly. "No, thank goodness. Only individuals with type AB negative blood are at risk."
I shot up in my chair. "I'm type AB negative! And you injected me with a virus."
Shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Why hadn't I been able to see myself clearly in the mirror since the accident? And why was everything so loud? I swear I'd developed a heightened sense of hearing. But I felt cold, chilled. Vampires loved the cold. I hated the cold. I was panicking. That's all. This was all just a hazing.
I took a calming breath, determined to play along and not get laughed at when Melcher admitted it was all a ruse and they'd been observing my reactions from the very start.
"So now I'm a vampire?"
I should have earned points for asking with a straight face.
"We have an antidote to prevent that from happening," Melcher said. "That's what your monthly injection is for."
A smile tugged at my lips. "And you're saying that if I don't take the antidote every month I'll turn into a vampire?"
Melcher frowned for the first time. "If you stop taking the antidote, you'll die and there will be no heaven to welcome you on the other side."
I matched his frown. Maybe it was just me, but I didn't like people telling me I was going to hell.
"Are there any side effects to having 'vampire blood'?" I asked, thinking about the distortion in the mirror. At least I had a reflection, even if it wasn't clear. That was a good sign, right?
Melcher looked me up and down. "You might notice some sensitivity at first, but your injections will eventually take care of any...discomforts you may experience. Do you have any specific concerns?"
I pressed my lips together, not in the mood to share with Mr. Self-Righteous.
Instead I asked, "Do you really expect me to believe this?"
Melcher looked at Crist. She nodded, and they stood in unison. I turned my head to follow their movements to the door.
"We understand your denial," Melcher said. "In fact, every new operative goes through it. That's why we've found it best to follow up this introduction with a live demonstration. Follow me."
Right then, getting out of that room sounded good.
I followed the agents out the double doors and back down the way we'd come.
We entered the lobby and turned down another hall leading to the back of the complex, away from freedom. I wondered if the woman at the front desk would come to my aid if I called out for help.
Melcher placed a hand on my back as though sensing my hesitation and pushed me gently forward. I walked faster just to get his hand off me.
When we reached the end of the hall, Crist led us through a set of swinging double doors into a second, shorter hallway. Midway down the hall, she used her key card to unlock a metal door. She held it open, and I followed Melcher into a small, stark room. A long metal table faced a two-way mirror overlooking a brightly lit room.
I peered through the glass, expecting to see whatever creature or thing the agents wanted to show me, but the room was empty except for a metal table in the center.
Maybe they meant to stick me in there and interrogate me.
Crist stood against the door, propping it open. I followed Melcher back into the hall where he stopped in front of room number two and swiped his keycard. A metallic click unlocked the door. Melcher held it open.
He sounded way too serious when he next spoke. "You are about to meet your first vampire, Aurora. I'll warn you, he's no Edward Cullen. I wish there was a way to make this easier on you, but the first experience is always traumatic. To see how your blood infects the creature you will need to let him feed on you. Let me stress that it will come as a shock, but there's nothing to fear. Your blood will protect you."
I didn't realize my feet were making a run for it until Crist grabbed me by the arm. "This way, Aurora."
She released my arm long enough to shove me forward.
I spun around in time to see the door close, trapping me inside. It was the same brightly lit room I'd seen through the window. When I looked at the glass, the other room was gone, replaced by a featureless reflection.