[Kay]: 505.Stories.Mirror, Mirror.Chapter Two

All throughout the day I couldn’t shake that feeling that someone was watching me. I kept looking over my shoulder, and each time I entered a classroom I found myself overcome with shudders. I could barely even remember the dream that started these sensations, but each step made me remember May-lea. She was everywhere with me, and I found myself growing to loathe her memory.

As I walked around my dorm that day, the telephone rang. I jumped, skittish. Picking the phone up hesitantly, I said into it, “Hello?”

“Jeez, you sound like a ghost’s been scaring you all day,” was the reply. I sighed; it was Sipht.

“Sipht, have you been getting… strange feelings?” I asked, wondering if I was the only one. “Have any strange dreams?”

“Hey, dreams? Hmmm… Now that you mention it…” I held my breath. The distant phone voice continued, “I had the most wonderful one! I pierced my lip with a safety pin, and it didn’t hurt in the least! Yeah, sure, in real life I wouldn’t have put it dead-center on the lower lip, but it was still really-”

“Never mind,” I snapped.

“No need to get so terse with me,” she said, not in the least disturbed. “I need you over here.”

“Huh?” I asked. “Why?”

“You’ll like the surprise,” she said, and then hung up.

I scowled at the telephone. Picking up my study guide, in the unlikely event that this misadventure will result in a lot of free time, I headed out the door.

She wasn’t waiting for me when I arrived. Puzzled, I headed into the driveway of her apartment building, more than a little bitter about Sipht owning an apartment.

Starting, I suddenly realized that I had no idea which apartment in this complex Sipht was privileged enough to own. I stood there, helpless, waiting for a hole to open up under me or lightening to strike me dead or something to prove that if there was a God, He was kind and caring.

I didn’t wait for long, as a window above my head slid open. “YO! Bullseye!” I looked up, expectant. Sipht had nicknamed me Bullseye in honor of my real name, Mark. “We’re waiting! It’s Apartment 9!”

I nodded, and looked about for the door, finding it within a space of three seconds and almost up to it before I realized: “We?”

Sipht had opened up the door. “Yeah, come on up.” I walked up to the second story-compared to my dorm room, this was a mansion-and entered her room.

It was blue, very blue, and everywhere were pictures of cherry blossoms. She plopped down onto her bed amid piles and smokestacks of notes, never toppling one. And two very unlikely people were sitting in the middle of the room.

I nodded at them, very shocked but struggling to keep a calm stature. “Hello again,” I said to May-lea and Zhin. “How are… you?”

May-lea nodded her response and Zhin shrugged. They didn’t seem so forbidding and foreign surrounded by so much blue. Zhin’s eyes didn’t pierce, and May-lea’s hair seemed a bit more dull. However, her beauty wasn’t truly damaged-and I began to laugh at myself for doubting her as being an evil person.

I looked over at Sipht, as if expecting answers. “Yeah, you’ve met May-lea and Z,” she said. “Um… I call him Z because I don’t like going through a person’s full name. However, shorting May-lea’s name to May is just wrong. Nobody should be named after a month.”

“Well, maybe they shouldn’t have given the months human names,” I said, giving Sipht another look, saying, ‘Gee, I’m sorry, I meant to ask what are they doing here.’

“They didn’t, not at first,” May-lea said. Her voice, however, didn’t lose an ounce of power in this blue haven. “Then kings began to steal the names of the months to give to their favorite daughters. The gods of the months were very jealous and stole the daughters away to keep their names. In revolt, the kings began issuing the names to their soldiers and peasants. It all resulted in catastrophic disease sent by the injured gods.” She tucked a pencil behind her ear while lowering her eyes.

“Um, yeah,” Sipht barreled on. “I’m taking advantage of my enemy’s weakness by studying with them. Thus, I shall craftily instill random incorrect tidbits of information while they aid me in my memorization.”

While May-lea’s tinkering laughter filled the room I leaned over to Sipht, giving her another look, raising an eyebrow.

“You, on the other hand, having already taken this course, shall sit down and monitor the situation, providing entertainment as well as serving to check our information versus her’s,” Zhin said, interpreting this look for himself. He looked over at Sipht, who nodded.

“Although hell would freeze over before I became enough entertainment to make you laugh?” I said to Zhin. His eyes, at least, were smiling as he leaned toward me, seeming to fill up the room. However, this did not seem like a good thing.

“Hell has been frosty for quite a long time,” he said, his voice sending a chill up my spine that did not go away.

He blinked languidly and once again diminished into the background. I blinked and, due to inattention, was hit by a book from Sipht. “I read this a while back,” she said blandly. “To entertain yourself.”

From then on, the air was filled with cross-references and trick questions. I certainly couldn’t remember the course being this hard. Every once in a while, Sipht glanced over at me to see if I was paying attention, and the fifth time she did that, I pointedly opened the book and settled down. She nodded at that.

As I stared at the first page, I realized that my purpose was not entirely to be an expert reference, but rather to serve as backup-again. She wasn’t comfortable being in the same room as them alone. I didn’t blame her.

“Are you going to read, or is the first page just that interesting?” May-lea said, her husky voice causing me to blush as much as the fact that she caught me. Sipht glared. At me.

May-lea didn’t even look up.

I sighed and looked at the first page. Some guy named “Stanley Andersman III” felt it was okay to leave the title off of the cover entirely. The only thing on the cover of the book was a smudge of what looked to be dried blood, although it was a picture, and a rose. A small sentence acknowledged that this book was a reprint, translated from the terribly spelled English it had been written in. The first paragraph, however, gripped me.

“I write this from a tall, dark tower in a tall, dark building. I don’t know if I shall ever leave this place alive, or, if I do eventually depart, I shall be so dead I shall not die until the sun rises on another millennia. Now, this does not any longer seem like such a difficult task to perform for a man who sees the face of death every day, sometimes laughing when death has a sense of humor. Such a face shall not ever be mistaken for a human again: the face of a vampire shall never be slighted ever again. The rumors, the lies, the legends shall never gain merit as long as people are able to read.”

I cast a sharp glance at Sipht, who looked up at me through her eyebrows. The solemnity of her gaze alone made me certain: this book was not simply for pleasure. Her gaze shifted over to the two, and I almost burst out laughing. But it would have been chilled laughter. Something in her eyes-this was to take seriously. But how could I?
I continued reading. The book was thin. As thin as a skeleton.

“I need not even to look back to know that this book shall seem as abstract and full of lies as any other story about hobgoblins and fairies. However, what I say is true, and it is up to you to trust me.

This needs to be known. I was on a trip, a trip to meet my Italian fiancée, who is probably in desolation, or mayhaps engaged once more. My trip began three weeks ago in the city of London and ended in the countryside of France. To this day, I have no idea where I am. All I know is that there is no civilization to be found for thirty miles, roughly.

I was in my carriage. It was broad daylight, but wolves were on the prowl. They followed the carriage like a nurse. They almost served as an escort.

It was about time for supper when they forced my transport to be ‘escorted’ off the road. The horse was attacked on one side by six of the terrors. My driver began screaming in unintelligible French-I only managed to catch the dreaded word, ‘demon’. He had no idea.

Through nips and barks but no wounding bites, the horse crashed through trees and bushes toward nothing. We broke into open meadow with three wheels and much of the roof to my carriage gone. Our horse galloped in a straight line, heeding only the sounds of the wolves behind us. Finally, the carriage flipped over. The carriage lay in ruins, my head was throbbing, and the horse was dead due to massive trauma, the fault of the speed we had been going. The driver was bloody and moaning.

The last thing I saw was a large building, a French castle. Its mere size was a surprise in itself, as neither of us had noticed a castle, even though it would have been plainly visible over the treetops. But then everything went black.

When I woke up, the house was clothed in darkness. I bolted upright, the sudden movement sparing my head no pain. The horse was stripped down to bone-the work of hungry wolves. Wondering how the driver and I were spared, I went over to check on his condition.

What I saw was no corpse-he was dead all right, but his remains could not be classified in the mere category of ‘corpse’. He was ‘le wraith’-meaning the same thing in English. He was a ghost, insubstantial. His skin cleaved to his bones. Do you understand? He was reduced to nothing. There was nothing about his person that suggested a struggle, but the nature of his death, and the fear forever etched into his skull-like face, gave me more than enough evidence to show that he had been alive whilst his life drained away.

I looked for a wound, but there was none. This was strange, as he was as dry as bone, which should have been marked by an exit wound. Also because, last I saw of him, his wounds had been substantial-but only shocking, not fatal.

Clutching myself, I made for the castle. Wolves howled in the distance. I broke into a run, even when knowing full well the horse would keep them satiated for another day or two, even three. Clutching onto the Gothic frame of the door, out of breath, I pounded heavily upon the wood.

An answer, hope beyond hope yet dread beyond dread, came almost immediately. It was a girl. Pale she was-pale as a ghost, with hair of ebony and eyes that contained a mystical deepness etched with brown and purple. She captured me in a way that I had never been captured before. Filled with a soul-wrenching fear, I walked inside as though beckoned by an invisible force. The door closed behind me.

Since then, I have been a prisoner. The mansion was a blur-ancient artifacts, paintings, tapestries, all superfluous-and stairs. Many, many stairs are carved into my memory, stairs that led to my permanent detainment.

There are two of them. The girl I’ve mentioned, and a man. He has lion-gold eyes and brown hair. The girl can force me into yielding my secrets with a smile and the man can pierce my soul with a glance. Between them, I cannot hide a thing.

However, their only language was French. That, and a dialect of German I could not quite place. Through me, they learned the basics of English in little under a week. I am still amazed at their ability to retain information, although their secret, revealed the first day, made the lessons a bit uncomfortable.

After reaching the top floor, I was in a daze. The ground seemed to shake, and I collapsed upon the bed immediately. Upon waking, I discovered my head was bandaged, and the girl peered at me from the shadows. She stood up.

I stared at her for quite some time. “Did…Did you summon the wolves?” I finally asked. Upon her stare, I tried Italian, then French. Receiving an affirmative glance, I nodded. “As much as I feared,” I said. “I have been captured by a demon.”

Her laugh did nothing to reaffirm my suggestion. It was light and airy. When she spoke, my French only part-way covered her response. What I understood was enough. “You [something] of [something] with [something]. I can [something] [something] say: I am a vampire.”

Thus said, I took out my cross about my neck and began to quote The Word at her… Only stopping when I realized she was laughing again. She stood up and crossed the patch of sun provided by the window-the direct sunlight!-and bent over me.

My French again provided only a halfway decent translation. She laughed at my silly superstitions, and told me that, unless I forgot everything I knew about vampires and started over, they’d kill me much faster than planned—

I frowned at the sudden stop. There were only a few more pages to go. I turned the page, wondering if the rest were blank. However, the dialogue continued on the very next sheet.

The interruption not only signaled my execution, but made me realize that the details I have added in this information guide are not only frivolous but time-consuming. The point of this manual was to inform the world about the truth of vampires, not to waste it with mundane opinions and fanciful storytelling.

The lady sat me down two weeks later, much better with her English but still recollecting the time I waved my useless sticks at her. Since then, I have learned that hell reigns on Earth. I have seen children, brought here especially so they could keep me, killed in the very same room. And the lady needed to set me straight!

“Vampires,” she said, “Have a great many trait and weakness, more weakness than strength, trade for immortality.” Her accent was strange in that husky voice. “You need know before die. Nothing shall help you retain life. We keep our weakness far away from prisoners. This is true-truth is always quest.” She thus began listing.

“We no allergic to sun. Our skin is frail to it, yes. More than minute, we get… (Here, I helped her recollect.) Sunburn. But we no turn to ashes.

“We also no affected by religion. Holy water, cross, Bible-nothing hurts. They are object.

“Garlic also only object. Same with stake. Usual fatal wounds do not hurt. We heal within week, month, being one of dead, not truly alive to kill. The only thing that can kill is decapitation. Also, poison gets in system, causes circulation to foul.

“No, we no have reflection. Perhaps it because we no have souls. Although that no probable, no believe in that.

“However, we no age. Is strength. And feeding on person is the source of our life. Thus, the more we starve our self, the more we age. If we no eat…More strength is simply strength. I have more power in right arm than you and you friends, strongest friends. Five. He (she meant her friend) have more.

“One more thing: no know why, but there is object that hurt. Rose and silver. Silver cross work, but it is silver, not cross, that damage. Burns and repels. Rose pierce skin like knife in soft cheese, and cause severe infection. From which we no readily recover.”

With that, she stood up and left. As if she did not say a thing.

I sat there, thinking a while. What sort of omen did this say? To reveal their weaknesses to a prisoner only foreshadowed my own tragic death.

Alas, it has come. They cannot return to the village to retrieve children, and thus, food. The villagers have put up as many wards as they can, for every mythical creature there is. They have included roses, and silver for changelings. I shall be their next meal. Then, they shall travel to a new castle. It is their way of life. I cannot hate them for it, but that does not stop me from condemning. I shall die at sundown. I was told by the girl. The guy would have taken my by surprise, with no explanation, and no concern for my feelings.

He’s more intelligent than she is.

There must be more. There are always more. For now, Mai-yeh and Sin, their names, I know of. My knowledge must serve as your safeguard. The sun is setting.

There was one more page.

On June 17, 1916, over one-hundred years after he had died, the skins upon which the messages were written were found by a troop of explorers charting France. They looked into the house and discovered a trove of ancient artifacts. The villagers knew of the castle, knowing only that it was haunted and refusing to approach it. It was empty, records of any occupancy having been destroyed long before.

This story would have been put down as a fable, written by the occupant of the castle, if the body hadn’t been found.

It was extraordinarily preserved, due to an ancient embalming method of drying the body. The blood was completely drained. The parchment was found in a secret compartment only ten feet away from the body. The neck of the body had been ripped open, serving as a proper vacuum. Thus, the story has been copied until further research can be done-or authorized.

“Hey, Mark,” Sipht said. “We’re done.”

I looked up. May-lea and Zhin were packing up. “Have a good time, kids?” I said, jokingly, hoping that they could not hear my pounding heart.

“Not as good as you,” May-lea said. “Good book?”

“Yes,” I said. “Very good.”

“Maybe I borrow it?” May-lea asked.

“Sorry,” Sipht said before I could say anything. “I have to get it back by tomorrow.”

“To who?”

“My uncle.” Sipht looked at me. “Yo, freak. We haven’t played together for a while. Stick around.”

May-lea shoved one more book into her backpack and walked out of the room without so much as a farewell. Zhin raised one hand as he left.

I waited until I could hear their car start up before rounding off on Sipht. “And so you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” I said.

Sipht tossed her blue hair at me. “Don’t even pretend that you didn’t get the similarities as well,” she snapped. I fell silent.

She stood, taking the book in her hand. “This was the only copy ever published. Nobody wanted it until my grandfather found it and bought it for thirteen dollars, three cents. He’s a book collector. Since then, it’s been read three times and has been rotting in his bookshelf. I remembered it and brought it out the day I met May-lea and Z.” She looked at me, seriously. “You can really overlook the names? May-yeh and Sin? It’s due to their previous thick accents. The l was a y and the z became an s. He was English. You’ve got to see it.”

I looked away, uncertain. I heard Sipht sigh, then felt a tug on my arm. “Okay, then, lover-boy,” she said. “Take a look at this.”

She turned on her computer and logged on to the web. “I hacked into some London government databases and looked up information on Stan Andersman III,” she said. “There were only two in that century, and one died at age 12 from tuberculosis. The other was declared missing during a trip to Italy. He was declared officially a missing person June, 1916. This isn’t a hoax. The book was really written, and the body was really found.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “If that’s all true, what’s stopping you from believing that his story is true?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that vampires aren’t real?” I said.

Sipht sighed again. “I thought you’d say that,” she said. “So I did some more hacking.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” I asked as she typed.

“It’s legal until you get caught,” she said.

“Have you ever gotten caught?”

“Here it is!” she said, triumphantly. A flashing warning sign jumped up for about a second before she disabled it to reveal the bold letters, FBI.

“Yup, illegal,” I sighed.

“Hey, check it out,” she said. “The FBI has a whole section devoted to vamps.” Clicking a few times with her mouse, a website jumped up. “Would the government devote time to it if it wasn’t real?”

“Is this a rhetorical question?” I asked, watching the list of articles pop up. “Oh, choose that one.”

“Do you need to tell me?” she said, picking it. Official print outlined the death of Stanley Andersman III. Several pictures were included. When Sipht opened them, I could barely keep my eyes on them.

The first was of a twisted body. It was labeled near the bottom, ‘Stanley Andersman III.’ The body was a skeleton covered thinly by flesh. The mouth twisted open in horror.

I covered my mouth with the back of my hand. Somehow, the picture was so grotesque without even trying that you’d feel like you needed to throw up. Quickly, so I knew she felt the same, Sipht clicked on one of the room where he had been found. One other was of Stanley before he left for his doomed trip, and the last was of the castle.

“There weren’t too many pictures,” Sipht murmured. “Even though this was one of the clearer cases, there should be at least a hundred more. They only logged these three onto their database-if they took any more, they’re in a vault, rotting somewhere.”

“If only they knew it’d come back to haunt us,” I said.

“Ha!” Sipht shouted. “So you do believe me!”

Instantly, I was defensive. “I never said that!” I told her. “You… just have the benefit of the doubt.”

“I love democracy,” she said with a big smile. “Innocent ‘till proven guilty. I have a plan to get around to the ‘proving guilty’ part. Meet me back here at around 9. They mentioned they were going to see a movie that started at 9:30.”

I left and was in my bed before I realized: why the movie…? What were we doing?

I was about to be told in a very sudden manner.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Upon arrival at her apartment, I noticed something strange. Out of all the lights, hers was the only one not on. Nervous, I approached the door-only to have a hand drag me into a nearby bush.

“Top-secret mission!” she whispered into my ear, as we were crammed together among spiderwebs, twigs, and branches. “We shall-”

I stood up, and she cut off her own sentence with a protest. “Sipht,” I said, “did you ever stop to consider that nobody cares what we do outside of your own apartment?”

Sipht gave a heavy sigh, as if my statement caused a large chunk of rainbow to fall to earth, wiping out all life. “Taking away the only fun part of tonight,” she said, standing up. “Every party needs a pooper, party pooper.”

I gave a start at her outfit. Over tight pleather pants and a black tube-top, she had worn a tan detective jacket. On her head she had set an imitation Sherlock Holmes hat at a precarious tilt, and in her hand she held a very colorful bubble pipe.

She saw me looking at her outfit and rolled her eyes, as if I was the strange one. “As I was saying,” she said. “We shall infiltrate their house, looking for keys to prove that they are vampires. If we don’t find any, we give up-but if we do, we owe to the world their exposure as the devil’s advocates they are!”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I have a big history midterm to study for,” I calmly informed her. “I barely even read the textbook. I must get on my old schedule of cramming like crazy as soon as possible, so if you’d excuse me…” I turned to go.

Quick as a flash, she was there beside me, tugging at my arm. “Please,” she said, at the same time pleading and being sarcastic. “I just know you’re curious, as well. Even if just a little bit. Are they vampires? Or are they not! After all that happened yesterday, after all you now know, you can’t pass up a chance to have just a small peek.”

I looked down at her coldly. “Watch me.”

She looked up at me around the rim of her hat. “So, I’ll go in there alone-and if they are vampires… And they happen to come home early…” She sighed. “Even if they aren’t, they’d still probably kill me.” Her next sigh seemed to rip out her very soul-it wasn’t doing any emotional damage on mine. “That’s the price we must pay to fulfill our curiosity.”

“Well, curiosity killed the cat,” I said, walking off and jerking my arm out of her hand. “Satisfy it yourself. I’ll visit you on weekends.”

“Mark Andrew Philips!” I stopped dead. There was something in her voice- “I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice. I have an interesting date in history for you to remember-you probably do. November 22, 2001.”

My heart stopped beating. I remembered it. Slowly, I turned. “What do you know about that day?” I whispered.

“Everything you do, which is probably a lot-it’s burned into your memory: it should be.” She pulled out a burned CD from her jacket pocket. “I have copies, young master. Somebody… took evidence. Can you remember it? The camera, waved blatantly in your face. Oh, yes, I have copies. Copies everywhere. Copies in places you didn’t even know could hold copies. Come with me, and not only will I destroy them, I’ll destroy the source and all evidence.” Her eyes narrowed as she smiled mischievously, removing her glasses. “Come over to the dark side of the farce. Join me. For I am your-”

“Blackmailer,” I said, spitting-but also half-admiringly. “Okay, I’ll go along-you keep up your side of the bargain.”

“And the day shall only live in memory,” she swore. “And you can’t record memory to spread about the school.”

I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t have to do it-that, of course, is a lie. With what she had hanging over my head, I did have to do it. Option was out of the window. So, within a couple of minutes, I was in the car, Sipht riding shotgun. Turning down her bubble pipe to accentuate my own spark detective outfit, I turned right at the third stop sign into a dead-end street-an ironic choice of words.

In retrospect, I would have to say that their house was a disappointment. In every single movie with at least a vague theme about vampires, their home is an abandoned, Gothic mansion on a lonely hilltop surrounded by cliffs, spikes, griffins, and much more. At the very least, it might have been raining or back dropped by lightening. There weren’t even strategically placed clouds over the moon. All in all, the two so-called ‘vampires’ barely made an effort.

But those thoughts are in retrospect. Truthfully, at the rate of adrenaline getting pumped into my body at the thought of breaking into suspected vampires’ houses-breaking into a house, for that matter-their pad could have been made of gingerbread and candy, and it would have looked intimidating. As it was, they lived in a very small, rented house.

Getting in was the easy part. Of course, compared to what happened later, swinging over molten lava to get to their window would have been easy. We found a partially-opened window, unlocked, of course, and let ourselves in.

It was 9:45. The house was empty, as predicted. 

In fact, the degree to which the house was empty was astounding. There was barely any furniture-no television set, no kitchen table, no chairs. There was nothing on the walls and barely any furniture in the rooms. I tentatively opened one closet. It proved to be empty save one rat body.

“Ugh!” Sipht dictated, quite elegantly, when I told her.

“No, look closely at it,” I said. “The entire body is shrunken. The skin is pulled back to the bone-like everything else was…”

“Sucked away,” Sipht said. “That’s sick.”

“Would you rather have found a human body?” I asked, attempting to be nonchalant. My trembling hands gave it away, although Sipht didn’t notice.

“No, Mr. Positive,” Sipht said, her lips pulled back in a grimace. She opened her mouth to say more, but at that moment she did actually look sick, and shut it again to prevent unpleasantness. Instead of talking, she pointedly shut the closet door and took my hand. I didn’t notice it was for comfort, rather than dragging me behind, until we were upstairs and looking down a hallway.

I looked at her. Moonlight streamed through the window at the end, and on her skin, she seemed to glow. I also noticed that she looked pale-and not just from the rat. I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. She looked up at me, startled, as if she didn’t know she had grabbed it, and dropped the hand. “We go in there,” she said, pointing to the end room. “We can work our way back.”

The last room was empty, like many of the others, and the one across the way was a bedroom. Instead of a coffin, however, there was a bed, and it did look as if it had been slept in. There was also a dresser full of clothes and a closet with the same. No coffin anywhere, which I think disappointed Sipht again. She removed a skirt, and I could guess it was May-lea’s.

The next room was another bedroom. This was even sparser than the other one-from that alone, I could tell it was Zhin’s. Even with the lack of possessions, I had to drag Sipht out of there. “You have no shame,” I felt like informing her. She merely shrugged-a bad sign.

The next room was more interesting. There was a very heavy, metal desk, on which were a rope, a single piece of paper, and multiple pens.

But what captured our attention was the mirror. It was exactly opposite the desk and obviously very old. The frame had Celtic designs all over it, carved in wood-hand crafted, if I had my guess. It was intricate beyond belief.

We were so caught up in looking at it, we didn’t notice the noises even very stealthy people make while walking normally.

We whirled at the sound of a voice. “Trespassers, eh? Forgot your books? Didn’t expect our movie to be sold out?” Zhin stood there, in full glory, his face twisted in rage. May-lea leaned up against the doorframe behind him, her own eyes cold, watching us both, as if to make sure we didn’t do anything.

Zhin stormed up to us. Cringing, we flinched away, to be shoved aside. He knelt beside the mirror, inspecting it for marks.

“They didn’t touch it, Zhin,” May-lea said in that deep voice.

He stood up. “So why are they here?” Not getting an answer from her, he spun around, his hand grabbing the first person it came to-Sipht.

He wrapped that hand around her throat and lifted her from the ground. I marveled at that power-but I wasn’t speechless enough to just stand there and watch. Starting forward, I was casually restrained by May-lea, who appeared from nowhere as if transported by a ghost. Even in her small frame I could feel the immeasurable strength, and a ragged cry tore from my throat, mingling with the choking sounds coming from Sipht.

They really were vampires.  Everything about it now screamed with it-and I had never been more relieved of anything than I was when I realized that Sipht might have done this alone.

Instead of merely snapping her throat, however, Zhin forced out a question, repeating what he just said. “Why are you here?”

Sipht tried to speak, but was unable. Zhin lowered her until she found her footing, and released her enough to allow breathing-but just barely. “Vampires,” she choked out, her hands clawing uselessly at his.

Our captor’s faces tightened. “That was quick,” May-lea quietly said from behind me.

Zhin didn’t take it so easily. “Why the hell do you never leave us alone!” he roared, his grip intensifying again. Sipht’s eyes were wide open, her mouth working silently, and I screamed for him to stop. “Were you curious?” Zhin continued. “Would you like to see vampires in their full flesh form? Or were you just scared that soon enough, people would stay inside with strips of bandaging about their throats?”

With that, he walked over to the mirror, Sipht in tow and me helpless to stop him. “I’ll show you vampires. I’ll show you vampires like you’ve never seen!”

With that, he raised his arm, Sipht in it, and threw her at the mirror, screaming a word.

There was a flash that forced me to close my eyes. When I opened them again, I could see a strange scene: Sipht, holding onto her captor’s hand, and stuck in the mirror from her waist down. The mirror was a sight to see: blue, swirling, and full of bright lights that looked like stars. Zhin’s eyes were now the ones to be wide-open, and he fought to regain his hand from her grip. He toppled forward just as she lost her hold on him. He stopped a bare inch from the mirror-and Sipht was nowhere to be seen.

I barely noticed May-lea had loosened her grip on me when I broke from her hold and rushed Zhin. I pushed him as hard as I could, using every ounce of strength my body possessed. To my surprise, and his as well, he actually fell. He had been off-balance enough before I shoved him in, and now he, too, was sucked into the mirror.

There was another flash and the mirror was back to normal.

I fully intended to follow them in, but only got a bruise for my trouble. The mirror was solid again-and no amount of me, throwing myself against it, would change that.

“The speaker of the word is gone inside, now,” May-lea droned from behind me. She had seated herself at the desk and was watching me with no little amusement. “Once he passes through, the only way he can come back is to wait for the portal to open during the eclipse. Either that, or he finds the exit, but that’s never been done.”

“P-portal?” I stammered. I walked over and slammed my fists down on the desk in front of her. She jumped, and for that pleasure I got two sore hands-the desk was even heavier than it looked. “We have to get her out!”

“You can’t. There’s a secret password for this club.” She smiled, and her fangs glistened in the room. The room was dark, for no one had turned on the light, and moonlight streamed in. I looked behind me at the mirror, the ‘club’ doorway-and got a chill when I saw only myself reflected back at me.

“You mean the word Zhin said before he disappeared?” I asked, staring at where May-lea should be sitting.

“Yes,” she said, causing me to jump and face her. She had gotten up, and was dusting herself off. “But you shouldn’t bother attempting it. There’s no way you can pronounce it, in the first place; in the second place, it only works if you live off of blood.”

I shook my head. “So you have to say it.”

She laughed lightly; the same laugh that had chilled me earlier. “I don’t have to do anything,” she said. “Sipht is in no danger from Zhin himself, although I wouldn’t trust the rest of the world in there. I don’t have any deep personal connection with the girl. Whatever will be, will be.”

I shook my head. “You can’t say that. She…” I faltered, trying to persuade her. “I can leave right now, and tell the world that you’re a vampire!”

That laugh. “No, you can’t, and I can see that you know this.” She took me by the arm, her eyes twinkling as she led me out of the room and downstairs. “However, I might have a proposition for you.”

“What?”

“I can help you after the dance.”

I halted. There was a college dance happening on Friday night, two days from now. “So, when the dance is over, we’ll meet here?” It wasn’t the timing I wanted, but it would have to do. I couldn’t believe she’d be so selfish as to want to stay here until her little date was finished.

“No. We meet at the dance, and come back here.”

That made me pause again. “So what you’re attempting to say is, we go to the dance together, after which you’ll help me?”

“I’m not attempting to say anything. It is you who is attempting to understand.” We were at the front door, and she gave me a light push onto her doormat. “The dance is formal. Pick me up at seven. I trust you’ll be in the proper attire.” The door closed.

I stood there, unbelieving. Then, I slowly walked to my car. It was too much to believe.

What else could I do? Without May-lea, Sipht was stuck in the mirror, with or without my willingness to help. I would just have to do what May-lea wanted, so I could get to Sipht as quickly as possible.

But two days? Could she survive that long?

I sat at the steering wheel for a while, then punched it out of anger. The horn blared once across the night, and I swore I heard May-lea’s tinkly laughter. Starting it up, I drove the car off and to home.

When I got to my dorm and lay in bed, I suddenly realized how tired I was before I blacked out completely.

The dream I had that night was strangely familiar. May-lea ran toward me, but I began to run toward her in return. She stopped, and I stopped. When she ran away, I also turn and ran-into Sipht.

She stood, looking at me with wide-open eyes. Her glasses were gone, and her hair was tussled.

I saw her mouth working, but no sound reached my ears. She said the same thing over and over again, and after a while I could make it out-“I want to go home.”

Her big eyes filled with tears; for some reason, all I could do was shake my head, “No no no.” She didn’t understand-I would try and reason with her, tell her that I couldn’t, that there was no way for me to try, but all I could do was shake my head. Finally I shook it so vigorously that she scattered into a million tiny pieces, replaced with a black void where she had just a moment before stood.

And then I was alone.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

I paid attention to none of my classes. I went, because if I didn’t, my friends would check up on me-and I didn’t want to be bothered like that. So I went, and ignored, and hoped Sipht could hold on.

The true torture was in not knowing. I hadn’t even had a glimpse of what the world behind the mirror looked like. What she could be going through, I hadn’t the faintest idea. And it was killing me.

I hardly ate, either. Even my roommate noticed-a big, burly guy who rarely slept in his bed and more rarely noticed that I was alive. I spent all my free time laying in bed and staring at the ceiling, waiting for Friday to come so I could go and rescue my friend. Finally I had an entourage milling about my bed, people I barely knew, coaxing me to eat or to do my homework, or to finally work on that group project. I succumbed, and for a half a day, my life appeared normal. I was blank inside, with my mind running that tape of Sipht being sucked into the mirror, but to the untrained eye I was functioning perfectly fine.

Finally Friday came. I arrived at May-lea’s house a half-hour early. She gave me a look of apprehension, but the look in her eye told me she understood that it had taken nearly all I had not to camp out on her doorstep and wait it out longer.

“You look terrible,” she said, getting into the car when she was ready.

“You’re keeping my friend in some sort of unknown danger, making me wait two days until I could save her, and what? You’re expecting that I’d be bright and chipper? Am I supposed to roll down my window to let all the woodland creatures into the car to sing and play? What?” My hands were shaking, my heart was pounding, and all I could hear from May-lea was complete and utter silence. I was so nervous that the car seemed to thump in tune to my pulse.

Finally, she spoke. “This is too bad,” she said. Her voice actually seemed to be regretful. “When I saw you, I thought you were more laid back. I really did want to get to know you.”

“First lesson of the day: don’t blackmail someone and expect them to be a ray of sunshine when you talk with them.”

“Pull over.” I did, dreading what would come next. I knew something was wrong-I regretted all that I said, wishing she wouldn’t call it off.

“Oh, crap, he’s nervous again.” I braked, waiting for the news. Instead, a gentle hand traced down the side of my cheek.

“Please relax,” she said, turning my face so she could look into my eyes. “I want to have fun before I have to go back with you.”

Amazingly enough, I did relax. Her hypnotic gaze did it again. I pulled onto the road and arrived at the party, completely loose. I was even more use than I’d usually be under the circumstances-me, taking a very pretty woman out with me to a formal dance. You could say that was what saved me. The whole thing seemed like a dream-and without that reality, I was kept away from becoming too caught up. If it hadn’t been for that, I would have begun to enjoy myself-and maybe even forget about Sipht.

That couldn’t happen. So I continued to stay in her company, and watch her flirt with other guys, and talk with some girls, and fetch her drinks when she ran out. More than calm: really, I was wary; my gaze was more like that of a hawk.

A slow song came up, and yet again, she turned her attention to me. Grabbing my wrist like a bird grabbing at food, she dragged me onto the dance floor and began to dance with me.

I could feel heat creeping up the back of my neck. She was standing close-very close. Once again, May-lea held me with her hypnotic gaze, and I could not force myself to tear my eyes away. Finally, I gathered up all my willpower and leaned forward, my mouth dropping near her ear. She smiled, but it quickly dropped into a frown.

“How much longer?” I asked, the words falling out of my mouth like rocks. She looked at me with that frown, it having grown in disbelief. “I mean… Sipht could be in danger. Should we be spending all night at this place?”

For a moment, May-lea’s eyes took on a quality like stone, and suddenly she tore from my arms and raced from the room. Many of her friends glared at me, and I felt their gaze uncomfortably as I followed her outside, knowing that she was my gateway to Sipht.

I found her near an on-campus, slow-moving river, standing in the middle of a bridge. She was hunched in her formal clothes, still as death, looking at the river. I noticed vaguely that the river failed to notice her, for as I approached, I could see that the nearly still water was void of her reflection.

I stood behind her a while, unnerved by the sight of my reflection through hers, uncomfortable with the silence but reluctant, even unwilling, to do anything about it. She broke it, however.

“So, the valiant knight comes riding up on his white horse, trumpets blaring, demanding to save the day,” she said bitterly. I noticed her voice was huskier than usual.

“Listen, I’m sorry,” I complained. “I can’t… I can’t just go to some dance and expect to have fun while my friend could be in danger. You can’t expect me to do that-I know you can’t.”

“Oh, no?” May-lea said, a touch of sarcasm in her voice, straightening up and turning around. Even as she attempted a threatening stance, she leaned against the railing and seemed to slouch. I saw her face was flushed, and she refused to make eye contact.

“I know you’re immortal, but for us, life is short,” I retorted, recognizing aloud for the first time that she was a vampire. “Even-”

“Oh, spare me the speeches!” she said, her voice falling just short of a shout. She swung her head to glare directly into my eyes, her hypnotic gaze gone forever, entrancing me now with visions of fire. “Life is long! The longest thing you’ll ever have! What, you going to have something longer?” She looked away again. “I told you before, your friend, she is no pushover. She’s probably okay.”

“No!” May-lea looked up at the force of my shout. I fought to control myself. “I can’t let this issue rest on probabilities. Corrective action is the only measure. I feel something similar to dread, and I can’t believe a word when you say she is okay. If she is not, then I could never forgive you-or myself. If she is, then my arrival will simply mark when she could come home that much sooner.” I took a deep breath, and lowered myself onto a knee. “Please, May-lea,” I said, my voice pleading. “Please help me save her. I’m begging you.”

Her eyes softened, then glazed over. “I noticed,” she commented in a far-off voice. “Let’s go.”

The time it took to return to her house seemed only a moment, but I raced out of the car and upstairs. May-lea was waiting, calm, in direct contrast to my heaving chest and hammering heart. She looked at me, then the mirror, which gave off a wicked gleam. “We are to go into the realm of the vampires,” she said, looking at her nothing inside the mirror. “Being a mirror, it’s suitable. Our nothing place inside our nothing reflections. This is where we vampires go when we grow weary of slaughtering for our meal, or just tired of our lives among mortals. Of course, the number of vampires is few, and the number that retires into this realm is even smaller. Thus, it is mostly inhabited by strange places and stranger things.”

She had been transformed in the few moments into a creature strange and small, apprehensive of her only retreat away from a place where she was always different. May-lea glanced over at me and gripped my hand with fingers that felt lifeless. “If you let go during entry, even for an instant, we shall be separated, and you will face the mystery alone.” The word ‘alone’ echoed hollowly in my ears, and my thoughts cast back to Sipht. Of course, she would be alone.

May-lea only said one more word until our story truly started, a word that I will never be able to pronounce or even think about clearly.

The mirror became infused with blue, and once more stars shone from its swirling depths. I tugged at her arm. “Wait!” I said. “You said that the person who says the word can’t return once they enter, and the exit’s impossible to find. Or we can wait for the eclipse, but-”

May-lea shrugged. “So we find the exit.”

She flung herself into the portal. Once again in my life, as it seems to be a reoccurring theme, I was just the carry-on luggage.