Free Immortal With a Kiss by Jacqueline Lepore Page A

Saint Thomas Aquinas.”
    Margaret went absolutely purple. “This book is an utter waste of time,” she said in a tone so dismissive it set my teeth on edge. “Such stories are for those who cannot think for themselves. I am not one of those. I am different. We all are.” She looked to Vanessa, who smiled serenely back at her. I heard snickers from Lilliana and Therese. I knew exactly whom she meant by “we” and so did every other girl in the room.
    That was when I noticed Eustacia. She alone appeared frightened. Not wary or excited like the others, but truly terrified. Perhaps I had gone too far, I suddenly thought. I ought to tread carefully. It was my first day, for goodness sake. “As much as I would like to pursue this line of debate, we must move on,” I said breezily, seeming to dismiss the topic with a flick of my wrist. “I thought the best way for me to get to know you all would be to have you write me a theme on your favorite subject.”
    There were shocked faces, and then groans. From Margaret, a glare that made me grateful that looks could not indeed kill. But I ignored all of this, donning an expression of sublime equanimity I did not feel as I sat at my desk.
    I had to collect myself, concentrate on processing the strange interchange with Margaret. While the class worked, I pretended to be writing, but kept glancing covertly at the five girls. How likely was it that this vampire—whatever its dealing with these particular girls—was the same one that had taken my mother?
    But this did not make any sense. Laura had not been made strigoii vii while a student at Blackbriar. It was years later, after she’d married my father, a year or so before I was born.
    As I had learned in my long hours of research in Denmark, vampires favored certain hunting grounds, and lived a nomadic existence traveling among them. Most of the local people never realized what it was that had come to their quiet worlds. They believed in pestilence, or plague. Some blamed innocents in accusations of witchcraft. If awareness of the monsters did arise, it died out in subsequent generations, becoming scarce-believed legends and superstitions.
    But the vampire would return, safe under the cloak of faded memory and rationality. Therefore, it was entirely possible that the vampire whose reeking presence I could sense on these girls had been here back when my mother was a student. I resolved to find some local histories to see if I could unearth an accounting of past tragedies.
    Yet, I was bothered by my theory. I knew the timing was not right, none of it. Even if my mother had been touched somehow as these girls were, why would her symptoms not emerge until more than five years after she had left Blackbriar? And would a vampire return within living memory of the locals? I had thought that was never done.
    After the girls had handed in their themes, I ate a quick lunch and went for a walk. It always helped me to stride briskly when I was working out a particular problem. It was cold, however, much more so than I’d thought, and I soon became chilled. I refused to go back inside. I am afraid I was in something of a state, confused, and a little lonely. I would have given anything to have had Sebastian with me.
    And Valerian. I walked faster, my breath coming in puffs of clean, white steam. Was he hunting Marius across the continent, into the jungles of Africa, or the sweeping Persian desert? Or was he sitting in a London parlor, sipping tea and flipping the pages of a book? I longed for his friendship, and the particular feeling his companionship gave to me. My little infatuation with Lord Robert Suddington had not altered that.
    But I was alone. That was the heart of it. I should have been used to it, for I had a long acquaintance with the solitary state. Alone, even as a child. Motherless, odd, suspicious lest I manifest the madness of my mother. I, Emma, seemed destined ever to be alone.

Chapter Six
    A guilty conscience is the