Vampire Career: Turning Vampire, #1

By Phoebe Matthews

A begining vampire... A gnawing hunger... A friendly guy... Disaster just a heartbeat away. An offbeat urban fantasy novel from Phoebe Matthews, winner of the EPPIE for Best Fantasy of the Year. Vampire Career is the first title in the Turning Vampire series.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phoebe Matthews
• Release date: Mar 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524238070

Phoebe Matthews

Phoebe Matthews is currently writing three urban fantasy series. Her novels have been published by Avon, Dark Quest, Dell, Holt, LostLoves, Putnam, Silhouette, and Scholastic.

Book preview

Vampire Career

Turning Vampire, Book 1

Phoebe Matthews

LostLoves Books

Second edition

Copyright © 2015, Phoebe Matthews

Design Copyright © 2015 LostLoves Books

Paperbacks published by DarkQuest Books

All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher. All persons, places, and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.

SERIES

Vampire Career

Vampire Disaster

Vampire Escape

Vampire Lust

––––––––

Vampire Career

Chapter 1

Vampire was never my career choice.

I was born with a severe heart defect and spent my childhood in hospital beds and waiting rooms, surrounded by dull green corridor walls and the smell of disinfectant. What the specialists told my parents is unknown to me.  They tried to protect me from the truth, always saying that after the next treatment I would be a normal girl. When I reached my teens, my parents took me on tours of college campuses near our Seattle home and encouraged me to think about a career.

On my sixteenth birthday they gave me a snazzy little sport car.  I had always been too frail to walk more than a block or two. The car allowed me to drive myself to school and around town.  I think that was the year that I began to believe that I could be independent.

What is it about getting behind the wheel of a car and having all that control?  Making quick decisions.  Shall I go to the library or shall I stop at the beauty parlor and get my hair cut?

Maybe those decisions seem trivial to people who have made them all their lives.  They weren't trivial to me.  I had always been too frail to use public transportation, or to walk any distance by myself. Until the day I had my own car, my parents drove me everywhere.

With my own car I was free to change my destination without asking the driver if that would be convenient.  Free to change my mind.  Free to think I was a girl who had a future to plan.  College.  Yes.  All at once, I believed it was in my future. And, maybe a boyfriend?

The boyfriend wish was a secret I hardly dared admit to myself. The boys at school were polite to me.  They held doors and sometimes asked me about assignments.  I was an A student.  I was also frail, so weak that after walking short distances, my posture sagged and I limped.  My hair and complexion were as faded as I felt. Most of the time, the other students really didn't see me as they hurried by to join their friends.

I knew I was daydreaming when I thought about having a boyfriend. It wasn't going to happen.  But I daydreamed, anyway. TV shows featuring teen romances were my favorites, watched whenever I had the TV to myself.  As for novels, I loved them all, from Regency romances to the modern Young Adult collection at the library.

When I graduated from high school, I was still not well.  But at eighteen I was an adult.  That didn't mean much to me as I wasn't waiting for the day I could declare my independence.  My family was functional, consisting of myself and my two parents who loved me.

Apparently, my age meant something to others.

A specialist made that clear when he looked me in the eyes and said, Georgia, you might live for another year.  Possibly two.  I think you are old enough to make your own decision about what you want to do with that time.  If your dream has always been to see Paris or to lie on a beach in Hawaii, you should do it now.

That was the day I grew up.  I thanked him for his advice. Then I drove my little car out to a mall, found a space in a far corner and cried for an hour.  I was so angry at my parents, I wept myself sick.  Why had they lied?  Why had they let me hope?  Hadn't they known?

And then I realized that they had always put my happiness in front of their own.  They had given up their own dreams for me, never taking the chance of leaving me in anyone else's care.  And that's when I quit crying, grew up, and did exactly what the specialist suggested. I made my own decision.

Naturally, I had read the latest novels and seen movies about vampires and so when I made my choice, I knew where to look.  Within a hundred miles of my home in Seattle was a place made famous by rumors of vampires.  After thinking through all the future choices open to me, I picked the only one that might actually be possible.

At eighteen, I was off to college.

The college I chose was a small one on the Olympic Peninsula, closer to the ocean than to Seattle. It wasn't a college my parents had taken me to see, or even thought to suggest.  What they had in mind, I realized, was something close to home so that they could reach me quickly.

Considering my choice, I needed to distance myself from them.

I did computer searches to locate a studio apartment for rent within easy driving distance of the campus.  I made all the arrangements on-line.

And then I told my parents, The sea air gives me energy.  I always feel better when we visit the ocean beaches.  I will miss you, but I need to try being on my own.

I don't like you living so far away, my mother said.

It's time for me to grow up, Mom.

Yes, but is it time for us to grow up? Dad teased.  How are we going to get along without you to tell us what to do?

Neither of them had the heart to say, Georgia, you need to stay near us because you are dying. Perhaps they were still lying to themselves, believing that the doctors were wrong and I would make a miraculous recovery.

In the end, they agreed to my choice.

Their only request was that I wear one of those electronic locket gadgets that can summon a local emergency service with a touch.  No doubt they expected a phone call any minute to inform them I was in a hospital ER or in a morgue.  But like the doctor, they wanted me to have as much happiness as I could find.  Unlike the doctor, they kept up the pretense to me and to themselves that I would have a long life.

Georgie, darling, we'll go with you and help you settle in, my mother said.

With both cars packed, my mother drove me in my car, and Dad followed in his car.  We drove from the city skyline of tall buildings to the country skyline of mountaintops and forests.

When we reached the Olympic Peninsula, we entered another world.  At first, the road ran straight and inland, with glimpses of the water in the distance beyond communities of low houses.  Then it curved toward the sea and cut so near it, we could smell the saltwater.  On the other side of us, the Olympic Mountains rose sharply above their forested slopes to touch the sky with their snow-tipped peaks.

Dark firs towered above us, casting long shadows across the road.  Fog drifted through the branches, pale, shimmering and carrying the clean scents of fir and sea.

If I hadn't been so afraid of what I had to do, I would have hugged myself for joy at the beauty of it.

We found the apartment building easily.  My parents were relieved to see that it was on a pleasant street with neat front gardens and convenient parking.  The apartment itself was small and clean. Of course my mother busied herself adding bright linens while my father checked the plumbing and appliances to be sure everything worked.  Then they looked up phone numbers for a housecleaning service and a laundry that did pickup and pointed them out to me.

I can keep one room clean, I protested.

You'll have enough to do with college studies, Mom said.  Let someone else clean the kitchen and bath for you.  And don't try to do any lifting by yourself.  That's what laundries are for.

If your money runs low, phone me, Dad said.  My bank can do an electronic transfer the same day.

After they hung up my clothes and shelved my books, they lingered, hugging me.  I fought back tears.  I would never see them again.  I knew that.  They suspected it, but for different reasons than mine.

We can drive over any time you want company, my mother said.

I know, I told her.  And I would like that.  But, Mom, you've always been with me, doing everything for me.  I have to learn to handle my own problems.

We're so proud of you, Georgie, Dad said.  Promise us you won't overdo it.  If you feel the least bit tired, you phone.

Every day of my life I'd felt tired. I said, If I need you, I'll phone.  I promise.  And I'll email and tell you all about my classes.

It's not as though I had choices. Well, I did, of a sort.  I could choose to die or I could choose to not die.

After they hugged me goodbye and reluctantly left me, I drove to the campus to meet with the counselor. I told her, I have a heart condition that leaves me with very little energy.

She flipped through my folder and nodded.  She had my medical records, dummied down to the level I had always been given.  Inoperable condition kept under control with prescriptions and regular treatments.  Nowhere on that record would anyone have written: Will probably drop dead within the year.

I've picked a light schedule of classes four mornings a week.  I hope that's all right.  If that goes well, I can add more hours next semester.

Very wise plan to pace yourself, she said. By next semester you'll know how much you can handle.

Yes, that's what I thought. And also, sometimes I need therapy for my back. This way, I can make medical appointments on Fridays and Saturdays.

I can see you have thought this through carefully, Georgia.  Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you.

She had already done everything I needed from her.  She'd approved a schedule that set me free.

As I walked out of her office and into the long hallway toward the exit, I passed a young man.  He wouldn't notice me.  No one ever did.  But I noticed him.

He was standing on a ladder reaching up to a ceiling light fixture with a screwdriver in his hand, his head tilted back so that all I could see of his face was the bottom of his chin.  Hanging around his hips and dragging down his jeans was a belt heavy with an assortment of tools.  His reach pulled his tee shirt up and left a wide stretch of tan skin bare, from his navel to his ribs.

Staring is rude, of course, and I wasn't thinking.  I simply stopped and stared.  That body could have been on the cover of one of my paperback romance books.

That's when I heard him laugh.  He had a low, friendly laugh.  I should have kept walking.  Instead, I continued looking up as he bent his face down toward me and I saw that he was laughing at me.

Hi.  You okay? he asked.

As usual, I felt weak.  Or maybe I felt even weaker than usual.  He had the loveliest brown eyes, that warm color of brown sugar.  Yes, of course.

You almost bumped into my ladder.

Did I?  I'm sorry.

Again, he flashed that grin at me.  Not your fault.  I'm the one with the ladder blocking traffic.

Embarrassed, I nodded and walked past the ladder and