Vamps by Nancy A. Collins Page B

and find out what her classes would be.
    Cally looked around, suddenly aware of how empty the building felt. Although there were supposed to be at least seventy students attending the school, there were no voices buzzing behind the closed doors of the classrooms or rattling of lockers in the hallways. The only sound she heard was the rapid clicking of fingernails on a computer keyboard, coming from the office on her right.
    She walked in and saw a middle-aged woman dressed in a gray jacket and skirt, her long dark hair piled atopher head and held in place by several strategically placed sharpened pencils. She was seated behind a desk, entering data into a computer. On seeing Cally, the school secretary stopped, her fingers frozen in mid-keystroke.
    â€œWhat are you doing aboveground?” the secretary asked sternly.
    â€œI—I’m sorry,” Cally stammered, startled by the woman’s severity. “I’m a new student—I was told to report to the school secretary when I got here….”
    â€œYou’re the New Blood,” the secretary said, her upper lip wrinkling as if she smelled something foul. “And you’re late.”
    â€œI realize that,” Cally said. “I had to take the subway to get here and it took longer than I thought….”
    â€œTardiness is not tolerated at Bathory Academy. Nor is non-regulation clothing, jewelry, or accessories,” the secretary said tartly as she eyed Cally’s unusual hairstyle and the colorful bangles on her wrist. “While such outlandish personal fashion statements might be acceptable at a place like Varney Hall, they are frowned upon here. You would do well to remember that, Miss Monture.”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” Cally replied quietly.
    The secretary got up, walked briskly to a filing cabinet, and pulled out a manila folder. She strode over to a tabletop photocopy machine and slapped a piece of paper from the folder onto the glass. Her bodylanguage made it clear that being forced to attend to a New Blood was almost too galling to bear.
    â€œHere’s your class schedule,” the older woman said, literally shoving the photocopied paper into Cally’s face. “You are to report immediately to the grotto for assembly. Is that understood?”
    â€œI guess so.”
    â€œThen go join the others,” she said curtly, slamming the door shut behind her.
    â€œThanks a lot, bitch,” Cally muttered under her breath as she stood in the hallway, frowning at her class schedule.
    It was printed in chthonic script, the written language of the Founders, which looked like a cross between Chinese, Sumerian, and chicken scratch. She’d learned the simplified version of the language at Varney Hall but wasn’t familiar with the more formal version preferred by the Old Bloods. It was going to take a little deciphering on her part to figure out exactly when, where, and what her classes would be. To make matters worse, Cally had no clue where to find the grotto.
    She looked around, desperately hoping to catch sight of a student or faculty member, but the first floor of the school was deserted, save for an undead servant dressed in janitor’s grays slowly pushing a broom down the hall.
    Since her family didn’t have servants, Cally hadn’tgrown up surrounded by the undead like most of her New Blood friends. The undead tended to creep her out. It wasn’t that they scared her or anything; it was just that she didn’t know where to look or what to say whenever they were around. It seemed super-weird to be waited on hand and foot by people you—or at least someone in your family—had essentially murdered.
    She walked up to the caretaker sweeping the floor and politely coughed into her fist. “Excuse me…?”
    The janitor kept pushing his broom along the floor.
    â€œHello?” Cally said, a little louder than before, this time tapping him on the shoulder.
    The man