CHAPTER 4
Ashe was curled up next to Peter on a sofa in the student center. Thick flurries of snow danced outside the window and the sky was heavy with grey clouds. Ashe thought she could feel a charge in the air, like before a thunderstorm. The weather reports had been warning of a blizzard and it looked like it was finally on its way.
Peter’s phone went off at the same time as Ashe’s, making her jump. Both their screens lit up with the same alert. The message from administration was brief, almost cryptic. Ashe read it aloud while Peter continued making notes in the margins of the book he was reading.
“We would like to inform students about a severe weather warning for the state, beginning at 3:00pm this afternoon. As of now, cancellation of afternoon classes are still at the discretion of the professors, but it is highly advised that students refrain from attending classes if they live off campus. We will update the student body as more information comes in from the national weather service.”
Peter closed his book. “Don’t you have Sharp’s class this afternoon?” he asked.
Professor Sharp’s class or Professor Wheatley’s class; Ashe wasn’t sure. She hoped it was the former. “Yeah,” she replied. “But it ends at 3:00 so I’ll be fine.”
Peter’s brows furrowed in that worried way Ashe had seen all too often lately. “I think you should take the afternoon off. Even if the blizzard hasn’t blown in by then, the snow’s already coming down pretty heavily. We can go now, since I don’t have any more classes.”
Ashe shook her head. “I don’t know if Professor Wheatley will be teaching, but if he is I can’t afford to be absent. He already hates me enough as it is and there’s no doubt he’ll notice I’m gone. It would be the perfect opportunity for him to give a pop quiz.”
“What will you do if you get snowed in here?” Peter asked.
Ashe looked out the window. The snow didn’t seem to be getting any worse and there wasn’t even the hint of wind to indicate the coming storm. She figured she had at least a few hours before the roads became too dangerous to get home on. “I won’t,” she reassured him.
“I’ll wait for you right here,” Peter said, looking like he wanted to protest her decision, but having enough respect for her not to.
Ashe leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “I promise I’ll come back here right after class,” she replied.
Peter gave her another look of worry, but didn’t say anything further. Ashe settled back into the crook of his arm and he took up his book once again. The inconsistency of having a class taught by two professors was making Ashe uncomfortable about her grade. She understood that Peter was worried about the weather, but she needed to do everything she could to ensure that she would be able to graduate in the spring. If the snow really did become a problem, the administration would cancel classes, but until then Ashe would stay on campus. She would not be scared off by a little snow.
Attendance was the worst it had been since the start of the semester. Ashe was among a small handful of students who hadn’t taken the weather warning as an excuse to skip classes. The snow was coming down in sheets now and beyond the auditorium windows Ashe could only see white. Professor Wheatley was droning on about folk beliefs in the early American colonies, every once in a while turning laboriously to the chalkboard behind him to write out a term that Ashe knew wouldn’t be on any test. It was almost as if the professor was purposely trying to mislead the students, just so he could berate them when they failed to meet his expectations. Ashe had to remind herself that this was still Professor Sharp’s class and ultimately it would be his decision who passed and who failed.
The lights flickered and a murmur passed among the students through the lecture hall. A few stopped taking notes and looked around, as if wondering whether or not to take the momentary loss of power as a sign that class was cancelled. Professor Wheatley only paused for a moment to look up at the lights, and when they didn’t flicker again, he resumed his lecture as if nothing had happened. Ashe wondered if the power had faltered at the student center as well and if Peter was now sitting there worried about Ashe being able to get back home in time. She looked at the clock. There were only fifteen minutes of class left. As long as she hurried, she would be just fine.
Class ended with no further incident and it seemed that even Professor Wheatley was eager to get out of the building as he did not bother to give them so much as a reading assignment for the next class. Maybe it was the lack of attendance that had him apathetic or the growing ridge of snow along the window sills outside, but he swiftly packed up his things as the auditorium emptied. Ashe hurried too, she was glad to have escaped another dreaded pop quiz.
As Ashe was getting up from her seat, Professor Sharp poked his head inside the open door. He looked haggard and anxious about something. The dark circles had returned with a vengeance and there was an odd mania to his eyes that indicated to Ashe he hadn’t been sleeping again. He gave a curt greeting to Professor Wheatley.
To Ashe, he said, “Miss Linfield, can I see you in my office for a minute?”
Ashe glanced out the windows then back at the professor. She knew she should be getting home, but the look in the professor’s eyes made her wonder if something was wrong. “Yeah,” she replied. “As long as it is quick; I need to get home before the storm hits.”
“I promise it will only be a few minutes,” Professor Sharp hurriedly reassured her.
“I think the storm is already here,” Professor Wheatley said in a grave voice. He stepped almost menacingly toward Professor Sharp, as if to shoo him out of the classroom. Ashe wondered if Professor Wheatley harbored resentment against the man he was forced to substitute for. After all, it was pretty clear which of the two the students favored. “Whatever you need can wait, professor. This young lady should be heading home.”
“No, it’s okay,” Ashe said skirting past Professor Wheatley and joining Professor Sharp at the door. “I’ll hurry home right afterwards.”
She spared a look back at Professor Wheatley as she followed the other down the hall. His mouth and brow were set into hard lines that made Ashe think of the depictions of witch hunts he had shown in his lectures. He was one of the townspeople casting the finger of suspicion towards his neighbor, condemning them to burn at the stake. It was an odd image, but one Ashe couldn’t shake no matter how hard she tried. Even stranger, Ashe was almost certain that the look had been meant not for her, but for Professor Sharp.
The inside of Professor Sharp’s office was even messier than before. Papers and books were now strewn across the floor as well as the desk and Ashe had to be careful where she stepped on her way to her seat. Professor Sharp ignored the mess around himself, stepping on the open spines of books as if they hadn’t been there at all.
“Is this about my grades?” Ashe said, trying to ignore the oddness of the professor’s behavior.
Professor Sharp sat at his desk wringing his hands. His eyes kept darting from book to book, but didn’t seem to be really seeing them. “No, I mean yes. I wanted to talk about your performance in my class this semester. Professor Wheatley is worried as well, and I’m thinking that maybe—”
The lights flickered again, this time going out fully for a pregnant second before coming back on with the hum of reawakening electronics.
“I almost forgot; do you want some tea?” the professor asked suddenly.
Ashe had promised Peter she would meet him right after class. It was already ten past three. He would be starting to worry.
“No thank you,” she replied. “I really do have to go soon. What did you want to say about my grades?”
“Oh it’s no bother. I’ve already prepared the pot. Let me go get it from the lounge.”
Ashe tried to protest, but Professor Sharp was already out the door with a speed that Ashe hadn’t thought he was capable of, owing to his haggard appearance.
As she waited for him to return, Ashe set to work clearing a path of empty carpet from the door to the desk. She didn’t want the professor tripping over his books and spilling hot tea all over the place. She made herself busy stacking up books and copied pages of library documents in neat piles on the empty spaces on his bookshelves. One that caught her eye was a scanned page about folk remedies similar to the ones she had seen in his office before. On it, written in the professor’s familiar scrawl, were the words: A cure? The highlighted section detailed a recipe for ridding the body of the vampire’s curse. Ashe stood up slowly, carefully pushing the papers onto the desk as if scared they would explode in her hands.
The door opened and the professor returned, carrying an old-fashioned silver tea tray. He set it on the desk and poured a cup of steaming tea for each of them. Ashe watched his movements carefully: the odd grace of his fingers as he stirred in the sugar and the effort it took him to blow on the surface of the tea to cool it. He gestured towards the remaining teacup, offering it to Ashe.
“Uh, professor?” she said taking the cup timidly as if it might bite her. “I think I should be going now. The snow’s getting pretty bad outside.”
The professor slowly lowered his cup without taking a sip. “It’s been hard, you know, without her. I find I don’t have anyone to talk to these days. Even mundane things like sharing a cup of tea are easy to take for granted until they’re gone.”
Ashe felt a pang of sympathy at the mention of Professor Sharp’s late wife. Things had been hard for him lately. Maybe he was going a little crazy over the grief and maybe she was reading too far into the paper she had found on his floor. Professor Wheatley had warned her about taking everything too literally. Professor Sharp’s note could have meant anything. It didn’t have to mean he was a vampire.
“Sometimes I wish she would have died sooner,” the professor continued. “Now; even more so, it would have spared her so much pain. You have no idea what chemotherapy can do to a person. It’s almost as bad as what happened after.”
The professor’s voice had gained a hard edge that frightened Ashe. She knew she should leave, but something told her that if she tried to, the professor would stop her.
“She had wanted to go out into the country to spend a peaceful last few weeks before the end. But those demons found us instead. They took her and turned me, made me into a monster. They’re keeping her from me; she’s alive, but only barely. They can’t drink her poisoned blood, but they know how to make her hurt, and you’re the key to making all of it stop.”
A cold sweat prickled across Ashe’s brow. She had to get out of here and back to Peter. She had to tell him what Professor Sharp truly was.
“Professor? I’m going to be leaving now,” Ashe croaked, half-rising from her chair.
“Sit down and drink your tea,” he snapped suddenly, pounding his fist on his desk.
Ashe nearly cried out but caught herself just in time. She didn’t want to provoke him further. Her hand shook as she brought the cup to her lips. The tea had a sickly sweet smell to it, like the professor had been heavy-handed with the sugar to mask something bitter underneath.
At that moment the lights cut out, sending the whole room into darkness. Ashe threw the still-steaming cup of tea into the professor’s face and ran for the door. The professor roared in rage as the tea blinded him. She turned the handle but the door wouldn’t budge. The professor had locked it behind him when Ashe wasn’t paying attention. She fumbled with the lock and got it open just in time to narrowly miss the professor’s hand grabbing for the back of her sweater. She yanked the door shut behind her and sprinted down the hallway, not caring where she went, only that she got away.
Snow that was almost like hail pounded against the windows as the blizzard outside whipped the wind up into a frenzy. Ashe took turns at random, knowing that the professor was only yards behind her. She was no match for his speed or his ability to smell the pumping blood in her veins. No matter where she went, he would find her.
She turned a blind corner and smashed right into something solid but with a little give. The wind was knocked out of her and she tumbled to the floor. She rolled over in pain and saw the stern face of Professor Wheatley staring down at her.
“Get up,” he said. “We have to go.”
He grabbed her hand and yanked her up with a strength she had not thought possible for a man of his age. But to her relief, his palm was warm in hers. He was not one of them.
He pulled her into a nearby classroom and closed the door behind them.
“We can’t stay here,” Ashe whispered through heaving breaths. “He can smell us. He’ll find us.”
Professor Wheatley put a finger to his lips and took something out of his pocket that looked like a small square of burlap tied into a bundle. He handed it to Ashe, telling her, “Keep this in your pocket. It's nothing special, just a strong mix of herbs. It’ll mask your smell long enough to get us away from here.”
“You knew what he was,” Ashe panted.
The professor shook his head. “I had my theories, but we can talk about it later. Right now we need to get you somewhere safe.”
He moved over to one of the classroom windows and lifted it open. A blast of cold wind blew into the classroom, along with a flurry of snow. Ashe could barely see anything beyond the open window through the snow. She didn’t want to imagine what Peter was thinking right now; he was likely worrying himself sick if he wasn’t out braving the blizzard trying to look for her.
As the professor clumsily climbed out the window, Ashe took out her phone. She wanted to send Peter a message telling him she was okay and that she would be home soon, but she saw with disappointment that she had no signal. The blizzard must have knocked out power citywide, if not further.
“Get the lead out,” Professor Wheatley snapped, having made it successfully over to the other side of the window.
She slid her phone into her pocket and hoisted herself out after him. The snow drifts outside were nearly a foot deep and were only growing deeper the longer they waited. Professor Wheatley set off into the blizzard, in the general direction of what Ashe guessed was the parking lot. Ashe wondered how he expected to be able to drive in all this snow.
Within minutes, Ashe could already feel the cold seeping into her bones. The bottoms of her jeans were clinging wetly to her shivering calves and she couldn’t feel her toes or fingers anymore. Her wool coat was doing little to discourage the snow from finding its way down her back, though she thought she had wrapped her scarf securely enough. The snowflakes must have been melting and dripping down into her clothes from the gaps in her scarf. Professor Wheatley was bundled tightly in a waterproof down jacket, having been on his way out when Ashe had run into him in the hallway.
Finally the dark hulking shapes of cars became visible through the blizzard. Professor Wheatley stopped at a station wagon— the kind often seen outside the city, with ski racks on top— and started clearing the snow off the windshield. Ashe went over to help. Their movements were fast and furtive, as if at any moment Professor Sharp could come leaping out of the whiteness and spirit Ashe away before Professor Wheatley could save her again. Once the windows were cleared, they got in and the professor started the engine.
“Is it safe to drive in this?” Ashe asked, watching nervously out the front windshield as the professor pulled slowly onto the road. It was hard to determine exactly where the road ended and the sidewalk began. For all Ashe knew they were driving across the campus green and would smash right into the student center at any moment.
Professor Wheatley held the wheel in both hands, his shoulders hunched stiffly forward. “Safer out here than in there,” he said. “Where am I taking you?”
“To my friend’s house,” Ashe said, not yet sure how much she should trust the professor. They passed through an intersection and Ashe saw an office building on the corner that helped her orient herself. “It’s straight past here, take a left on 13th, and I’ll tell you where to turn again when we get closer.”
“By the way, thank you for helping me,” Ashe added after a pause.
The professor only grunted in recognition. “You’re not new to this stuff, are you?” he asked.
Ashe had not known about the existence of vampires until mere months ago, but she had been through quite a lot since then.
“That explains your papers,” Professor Wheatley. “All this time I thought you weren’t taking the class seriously. You always write as if there’s a possibility the folklore is real and can be taken at face value. I tried to get you to be more serious, to dig deeper, but you already were. You know the importance of what I teach, more than most. I’m sorry for giving you a hard time.”
Ashe didn’t know if it was the residual fear from being chased by a vampire leaving her system, or the cold, or her exhaustion, but she felt her eyes stinging with tears at the professor’s words. Under everything he was a good man and she would likely be dead if he hadn’t been there to save her.
“But how did you know about Professor Sharp, or any of this?” Ashe asked as the car rolled slowly along the empty streets. The stop lights at every intersection were dead from the power outage.
“I’ve studied mythology and folklore for all of my adult life,” Professor Wheatley said. “Once you start opening doors, it’s easy to come across information that isn’t meant for your eyes. As for Professor Sharp, he has been chasing after a cure for vampirism ever since he came back from winter break. He has been so single-minded in trying to find the answer that he hasn’t bothered to cover his tracks. At first I thought that his sick wife may have been turned somehow, but recently I started watching the professor more closely and today I got the confirmation I needed to know that the cure he was seeking was for himself.”
Ashe took a moment to take it all in. Professor Sharp had become a vampire and Professor Wheatley had saved her. She thought back to all of those meetings in Professor Sharp’s office that year. He had been a good man, Ashe thought with regret. He had believed in Ashe when no one else had, even introducing her to the young man who had become the most important person to her in this world. Landon had taken all of that and destroyed it; Ashe burned with rage. Landon had known that Ashe wouldn’t have suspected the professor. She had trusted him. She had been blind to all the signs until it was too late.
If only Peter had gone in to see Professor Sharp after the break, he may have picked up on the signs and Ashe wouldn’t have been in danger. But Professor Sharp had also said something about Ashe being a key to end his wife’s suffering. His wife wasn’t dead, and some vampires were keeping her. Ashe had no doubts as to the identity of the vampires in question. Landon’s clan was behind this; she would have to tell Peter. They were no longer safe in the city.
“The house is the dark grey one with the tree out front,” Ashe instructed as they pulled onto Peter’s street.
The car rolled to a natural stop beside what Ashe assumed to be the curb. Professor Wheatley looked at her with the same stern expression as always, though Ashe could perceive a glimmer of compassion behind it. “Don’t stay in one place too long, okay? I’ll do what I can about the professor, but you have to keep moving.”
Ashe nodded.
“You’ll be all right.”
Ashe stepped out of the car and into the blizzard. She ran half-blindly to Peter’s front door. The door was unlocked and she opened it herself, not wanting to wake his family, who she knew was sleeping downstairs. The hallway was dark and the heat wasn’t on, though it wouldn’t have been even if the power had been working. Peter’s family only warmed up the house when Ashe was coming over, as she was the only one who needed it.
Ashe hung her damp coat and scarf on the coat rack by the door and tossed her backpack underneath. Peter wasn’t in the living room or kitchen so Ashe went upstairs. She hoped he wasn’t out in the storm looking for her. Maybe he had been snowed in at the student center. Either way, he would be worrying about her, just as she was worrying about him. She went back to the hallway and dug through her backpack until she found the ruby earrings Peter had given her. She slipped the posts into her earlobes feeling the comforting weight of the jewelry on her ears. She wanted to be close to Peter in any way she could. If only she knew where he was.
Peter didn’t like the idea of Ashe going to class with the coming storm. After she left the student center, he struggled to stay focused on his homework. He shifted restlessly on the sofa, every once in a while looking out at the quad. The wind was picking up and the snow had covered the ground in an even blanket. There wasn’t a soul outside and few remained in the student center. The lights flickered once but remained steady for a while after that. Peter stood up and took a walk around the building to calm his nerves. It was just a storm, he told himself.
As he was circling the first floor snack bar, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He thought it might be a message from the administration cancelling classes, but it was a message from Mark instead.
“Call me,” it said, as Mark’s messages always did.
He dialed the number and waited for Mark to pick up. He wondered if Mark had found something new. There had been a lull in communication for a while now as Mark focused on staking out the house Landon’s clan had holed up in. They needed to know what they were up against before they went in for the kill.
The lights flickered a second time just as Mark picked up. Peter glanced at the snack bar’s wall clock: it was just after 3:00pm. Ashe would be coming back any second now. The snow outside was coming down in clumps.
“I’ve been watching the house for three days now and I’ve finally got everything figured out,” Mark shouted over the loud rumble of a car engine in the background. His voice crackled with static, “There are six vampires in the house including Landon. Four seem to be Alilovics—Landon, his father and older brothers. There are two young women with them who don’t seem to be part of the family. There’s no evidence that Landon’s mother or any other female members of his clan are there with them.”
“And their victims?”
“That’s been harder to determine,” Mark replied. “There should be four of them. I haven’t seen any bodies being dragged out, but they may have disposed of some before I started surveillance.”
Peter counted in his head. “Wait, there should be three. There was the old man and the couple who crashed their car. Who’s the fourth?”
“I haven’t had time to call you about the last one. It’s hard to determine when the incident happened, but I think it lines up with Landon’s clan leaving the city. It took a while for the police to find out about this one because the woman lived alone. By the decay of the food left on the counter, they estimated she’d been gone a week before anyone noticed she was missing. There’s no sign of where she could have gone, but her house is only a couple of miles from the one being used by Landon’s clan.”
Peter felt sick thinking of all the victims. He wondered how many of them were still alive. He recalled the blood-draining setup he had found in Landon’s basement. Any one of those victims could have been Ashe. One could still be Ashe, if Peter wasn’t careful. A powerful rage burned beneath his skin. He needed to wipe out Landon’s clan.
“Is that all you wanted to tell me?” Peter asked.
Mark replied, “No, I was leading up to the most important part. Now that we know how many vampires there are, everything’s set for the extermination.”
“You’re going to strike tonight?” Peter asked.
“No, in a couple of hours. We want to catch the clan while most of them are still sleeping. The guys I called in to help us are all here, and with the blizzard coming, the clan will have nowhere to run.”
“You’re going to have to give me more time,” Peter said. He still had to walk Ashe home, and more importantly, hold her one more time before he went to battle. He was no stranger to fighting and he knew Mark and the others were good at their job, but there was always that slim chance of a slip-up. His last encounter with Landon had been close enough. If Ashe hadn’t been there...
“I’m in the city,” Peter said, snapping back to the present. “It will take me a couple of hours at least to get out there and that’s not accounting for the snow.”
“It’s now or never,” Mark warned.
Peter watched the clock out of the corner of his eye. Ashe was running late. “I’ll leave as soon as I can. Just hold on until I can get there.”
“Too late; I’m parked outside,” Mark said casually. “I can see you through the window.”
Peter turned slowly to the wall of wide windows across from the snack bar. He could barely make out the black car parked by the curb; it was the only car on the street without a thick covering of snow on its hood. Puffs of white were coming out of the exhaust pipe.
“I told you. I can’t go now.”
The car outside honked. Peter could hear it through the phone and its echo outside at the same time.
“We’re not going to get out of the city if you don’t get your ass out here,” Mark growled. “We’ve only got one chance at this. You want to keep your loved ones safe, don't you?”
Peter thought about Ashe and what was best for her. He had promised to walk her home, but what was a little snow compared to the larger threat of Landon looming over her head? If he insisted on waiting for Ashe, he might mess up his chance to get rid of Landon’s family.
She was almost twenty minutes late now. Peter couldn’t stall much longer. He had to make a decision. “Okay,” he said into the phone. “I’m coming out.”
He quickly hung up the phone and typed out a message to Ashe, telling her to go home without him. Before he could send it, the lights went out in the student center and his phone lost its signal. The bluish light from his cell phone became the only illumination in the entire room. Peter could almost hear Ashe’s voice in his head telling him to come get her, but he ignored it. He knew that constantly worrying about her like this was unhealthy for him, though the echo of her voice nagged him not to go. He hoped that Ashe wouldn’t waste time trying to find him; her house wasn’t far from campus. She would be okay