Page 23 of Slayer

The air was warm, the sun was shining, and I took in a deep breath, letting the light and heat steady me.

“Not quite like the books,” Celia said as we headed straight through the winding pathway to the north end of campus, gravel crunching softly under our boots. “There are three types of vampires. Drinkers, they are your book-type vampire as they only feed on blood. They’re the ones with red eyes. Then you have drainers. These are an elite type of vampire that feeds on emotions and memories. Blue eyes for them. Blood is optional. Then at the top tier, you have sires. They have silver eyes and can turn anyone into a vampire as well as compel them mentally to do their bidding. As you can imagine with the gift of compulsion and the ability to turn someone with a single bite, a sire can turn a hundred humans into vampires in one night.”

I stopped walking, my feet planting to the stone path, mouth open.

“We met one of them. Asher and I. He didn’t compel us though.”

Celia grinned, clearly pleased. “Because you’re hunters. We aren’t fully human. Not really. We were born with a genetic anomaly. We can withstand the compulsion of a sire, and drainers can’t feed off our emotions.”

Whoa. That was a leg up.

“So we can only be drunk from or bitten?”

Celia nodded. “See, you’re a quick study. You’ll fit in in no time.”

We reached a small gray stone building at the far end of campus that had a sign that read, Hall of Records: DNA, Ancestry, and Miscellaneous Files, the letters etched neatly into the stone.

Celia stepped inside, and I expected floor-to-ceiling books but instead was surprised with modern empty glass walls and a stout woman sitting behind a computer, the quiet hum of electronics filling the room.

“Hello, Celia.” The woman greeted us with a genuine smile. She had a short cropped brown bob, olive skin tone, and round cheeks.

“Hey, Jane, I’m going to need another loaf of sourdough. Derek and I finished that last one off in two days,” Celia said easily.

Jane smiled, cheeks going pink. “You got it.”

“Jane is my sourdough dealer. Best bread inside Veil Haven,” Celia told me but loud enough for Jane to hear.

“Oh, stop. You’re sweet. To what do I owe the pleasure? You never come in here.” Jane wore tortoiseshell glasses and had bright red nails with a smattering of freckles across her nose. Her coffee cup had a cat on it, which reminded me of Linda, steam curling lazily from the lid.

A small pang hit my chest as I thought of Linda and Rae and the entire freaking world I just left behind when I followed three strangers into a portal.

Real smart, Stella.

“Well, I have a suspected legacy here. She’s a lost-born.” Celia gestured to me. “And I need to prove DNA.”

Jane brightened, sitting up straighter. “Oh, a legacy? Well, that should be easy.” She stood and walked over to some cabinets at the back wall. When she opened one, she removed a cotton swab and some gloves. “You don’t meet many lost-borns now days. Especially her age.”

I peered at Celia with alarm, my stomach tightening as I watched Jane put on the gloves.

“Don’t worry. No pokes. We don’t keep blood DNA samples for obvious reasons. In fact, we spend a lot of our life trying to never pierce our skin in any way.”

“Because of the vampires?” I asked.

“You got it, kid. So this is a cheek swab. Every hunter gives one at birth, and the records are kept here in case we ever need them to prove ID. Like now.”

Jane walked over with the gloves on her hands and the swab pinched between her fingers, stopping just in front of me. Celia directed me to sign a basic one-page consent form, which I did.

“Who is the suspected family?” Jane asked.

“Sinclair,” Celia said proudly.

Jane seemed to stumble for a second, her eyes going a little wide, but then she recovered, her fingers tightening briefly around the edge of the desk. For the first time, she looked at me, eyes going from my hair to my nose to my lips and back to my eyes, slow and deliberate.

“Oh” was all she said.

Oh no. Was my birth mom’s family bad? Weird? Disgustingly rich so that no one liked them? I wanted to ask her opinion on them but thought better of it in front of Celia, my questions piling up in my throat.

“Open up,” Jane instructed.