Vampires, on the face of it, seemed eminently possible. I just needed to wrap my mind around it. Not that I needed to think so hard. The proof was right in front of me.
As though on cue, Headmaster Fournier dropped Mimi’s broken body onto the stone. “Whose is this?” His eyes danced over us, stopping just over my shoulder.
I couldn’t help but turn.
His gaze had locked on Ronan. I hadn’t realized he’d been standing just behind me. “Ronan,” he snapped.
Was Ronan in trouble? Would he be next on the menu? I bit my cheek so hard, I tasted blood. Please, not Ronan. Anyone but Ronan. It wasn’t like I trusted him—if anything, I was furious with him for getting me into this—but after the headmaster’s demonstration, Ronan definitely seemed the lesser of two evils.
Plus, he was human. At least partly. Or I hoped he was. Ronan stepped forward and the crowd parted, avoiding him like the plague. “Yes, Headmaster?”
“Is this yours?” Using his foot, Headmaster Fournier nudged Mimi onto her back. Her eyes were still open, staring blindly, the vivid blue irises so light against that milky coffee complexion bearing the outlines of two teardrops forever stenciled on her cheek.
Her parka slid open to reveal her mutilated belly. Gasps washed over the crowd.
Ronan lowered his head. “Yes, Headmaster. ”
“I told you, no facial tattoos. ” Tilting his head, the vampire coolly assessed Mimi’s face. “They are so . . . déclassé. ” His eyes snapped back to Ronan. “Clear it away. Make certain it gets put to use. ”
Horror stole the breath from my lungs, wondering what that had meant.
“At once, Headmaster. ”
Two guys who seemed to be Ronan’s peers joined him on the stage. They whisked away the body and swabbed the blood from the platform in a matter of moments.
Like that, Mimi was gone.
All eyes went back to the headmaster, none of us brave enough to utter a sound. He gave us a paternal smile, and it made my skin crawl. “Where was I before our little . . . object lesson?”
Paternal indeed. Just how old was Claude Fournier?
He scanned the crowd, lingering on some girls longer than others. “Such lovelies this year,” he exclaimed. “And I see I have your attention now. You are a very special group, you know. Very privileged. You, among all others, have been chosen. You, among all others, have the chance to join us. ”
I chafed my hands along my arms. Is he going to make us vampires?
“No, no, sweets. ” He chuckled, and at first I panicked, thinking he’d read my mind. But then I saw the wide-eyed terror writ clear on the other girls’ faces and realized that everyone had jumped to the same conclusion.
“You will not be vampires,” he assured us. “Never that. To be Vampire is a man’s destiny. But we cannot survive without you, my fair ones. You see, only you have the opportunity to be a part of an elite group. A group that ensures the survival of the coven. This group is known as the Watchers. And to be Watcher is a woman’s fortune. ”
He said that last bit as though it was the greatest honor girls like us could ever attain. My thoughts turned grim. It was once considered an honor to be a sacrificial lamb, too.
“Despite our powers, those of a vampiric nature cannot travel everywhere. We cannot be everything. And so we create Watchers. To represent. To defend. And sometimes to kill. The Watcher is the agent of our will. She is an extension of our power. ”
I dredged every girls’ face in that crowd from my memory. I wondered what kind of gifts they had that’d been spectacular enough to catch a vampire’s eye.
Why had I been chosen? I was quite smart, yes, but so were lots of other people in the world. Though Ronan had mentioned I was one of the few geniuses who came with an abusive father. So was I here because my father had beaten me up? My specialty was that I knew how to take a punch? It appeared that spending my formative years getting smacked around by my dad may have earned me the privilege of getting smacked around by a bunch of vampires. The thought sent cold dread twining through my belly.
And just how many vampires were there? Ronan had mentioned the old ones, plural. Old. Well, duh. I steeled myself, thinking of the verbal flogging I’d give him next time we met. Him and that stupid Proust tattoo.
“But not all of you will ascend. ” The headmaster’s voice dripped with mock regret, and I tuned back in, and fast, imagining that the girls who failed weren’t exactly put on a Carnival Cruise back home.
“Look around you,” he commanded.
I felt the crowd around me shift. And I felt eyes on me, even as I stared right back. These girls had backbone. They looked defiant, angry even. Where in the world had they found this many girls resilient enough to withstand such a place?
The girls were tough. And the other unifying characteristic? Every last one of them was as lovely as the headmaster had said.
But why? Why was everyone so attractive? They were selecting and making what? Secret Agent Barbies?