The Bleeding Daylight

Chapter One: All Hallow’s Eve

They surely don't make vampires like they used to.

This one, for instance, standing in front of Bianca St. Claire at the door of his kitchen, did not have terrifying surface-scratching nails. He was not moon-white pale with veins showing under his skin. His lips were the opposite of thin and devoid of color, and his deep-blue, almost purple eyes nursed no dark circles.

Indeed, he seemed tediously regular for his kind: short nails, French-vanilla skin, and eyes as bright as anyone's who has had a good night's sleep. Bia squinted and focused on his full and cherry-crimson lips and perfect white teeth. There were certainly no visible fangs.

He moved closer, just far enough to get into the kitchen. Bia held her breath. Until then, he had been lounging against the wall on the threshold between kitchen and living room, a safe four meters away.

"Shall we turn the lights on?" The sun had gone down completely, plunging the room into darkness. Not that it had been bright before dusk anyway. Velvet-thick dark drapes covered the windows everywhere.

Treading carefully, probably not to spook her with sudden movements, he flipped the switch on. "Now. This is better, isn't it?"

Granted, he was ridiculously handsome and embarrassingly sexy like in movies and TV shows (Bia had to remind herself that thinking about sex was so wrong under the circumstances). But this whole sensual and attractive trope came much later in the vampire lore timeline. If memory served, it was in the Seventies. Apparently, that decade was also when vampires became all emotional, whining about eternal life and how it sucked. Pun intended.

At least, back then, they still had to hide from the sun. Most fundamentally, they were dangerous. Then, they became nice —that was a travesty —and hopelessly in love with teenagers. And people were supposed to root for them... Had anyone considered that they were one-hundred-year-old creeps, no matter how young they looked?

Well, improper or not, young adults and vampires had been hooking up even before they were the heroes of their own stories. Vampire buffs would blame the Eighties when films of frightening nights and lost boys were a hit. Bia would certainly not fall for that trap even though this particular vampire was an "inhumanly beautiful" walking-cliché.

"Wait. What?" Bia scrambled out of her thoughts, suddenly hyper-aware of her situation. Her clammy palm over the kitchen marble counter. Hitting her head on a rock in the river Ravines the night before. Waking up in a strange room. Wearing a pink sparkly T-shirt she never owned. And right there, his weird revelation. "What did you say you were?"

"I know you're a big fan of vampire books—"

"I'm not that big of a fan."

He bit back a grin, creating a little dimple on his chin.

"Good. So, you will not be disappointed to find out they’re all nonsense." He studied the effect of his words on her face. "What you think you know is very likely wrong."

Cheeky. They came in sarcastic these days. Maybe he wasn't your garden-variety vampire. Maybe Bia was dealing with a new trope altogether.

A random thought occurred to her: the Butterfly Effect.

"A small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state," or for those less scientifically inclined, "a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane in Texas."

At least, that was what her new teacher, Ms. Gomez, had explained on the first day of school, Bia's Senior year, last September. The woman erupted into a tangent about chaos theory during Math class.

A tiny little butterfly decision, seemingly inconsequential — one of the millions a person makes in life— put this vampire on her path.

Undeniably, that is when this story began. Six months earlier. Halloween weekend of 2004. Had Bia chosen to stay in the city instead of going to Cottage Country, this night would have turned out very differently.

#

It was an ordinary, pumpkin-vanilla-latte-smelling late afternoon – the Thursday before Halloween. Bia and Val had been leaning against the outside wall of a coffee shop, waiting for their friend India to finish ukulele rehearsal. At that very moment, Bia was lost in thought. She sighed while contemplating the meaning of life...okay...maybe not that deep... High school was as good as it was going to get, and life was unremarkable. As far as she was concerned, everything was just right.

A Monarch butterfly landed on the back of her hand, and she wiggled her fingers. The butterfly flew away, soaring, flapping its yellow and black wings, and disappearing amid the concrete between houses crammed together in the high-density neighborhood around their school.

She closed her eyes, lifted her face, and soaked up the fall sun warming her skin. Yeah, everything was just right.

The smell of freshly-made coffee spilled out of the store when a customer walked out, causing Bia to open her eyes and stare across the street at the Eighteen century Lillydale Collegiate Institute. Only the odd person moved about. To think that their school had started with one-room erected on pastureland. Bia never forgot that tidbit of information she had read on a plaque inside the building's bright and open atrium, which was a Nineties addition.

"We still have a while to go." Bia turned her attention to Val, whose eyes were glued on the gym door instead of the main entrance where India would emerge from.

"Uh-huh." Her friend nodded distractedly.

"Say again why you wanted to come so early?" A light breeze tousled around Bia's cascading mushroom-brown curls, and she brushed her infuriating hair off her face. "Who are we really waiting for?"

"Nobody." Val straightened up and took a couple of steps to her left so she could see past a bus that had stopped in front of them, blocking her view of the gym. Eventually, the vehicle moved, screeching when it made the corner.

"That's bull." Bia dug in her bag and pulled an elastic band. "Valentina Palomino, who are you looking for?"

With her book between her knees, Bia struggled to pull her hair back. Her canvas messenger bag moved every time she lifted her arms. She loved that bag—she had gotten it at the man's session of a department store—but right then, it was getting in her way.

"Full name? Wow, I must've done something wrong. Chill. I was just hoping to —" Val glanced at her friend, and catching Bia's struggle with the elastic band, she shook her head. "Oh child, what are you doing?"

Val stepped closer, determined to help but, helping in Val-style meant slapping Bia's hands out of the way and snatching the elastic band from her fingers. She pulled Bia's hair tight into a ponytail behind her head.

"Ouch."

"Don't move!" Val expertly twisted the band a couple of times around. "And don't complain. I'm doing you a favor. Done."

"Then talk and redeem yourself for this torture." Bia moved her hand over the top of her head, scalp still hurting.

"David had a hockey game yesterday, so he missed Trig. I brought him the homework and some class notes. I was hoping to see him. He has practice every Thursday at this time of the day." She pulled some papers from her backpack and flapped them around in the air. She bit her lip. "I might have done his homework for him too..."

Bia laughed. So, this was about the mild-manner David Wu, who had only joined the school, and the hockey team, that academic year. Apparently, Coach Kubina was not the only one happy about the newcomer from South Korea. Before Bia could fully unpack the news, the gym doors swung open. David, along with two other hockey players, Andrew White and Michael Madsen, lugged their bags and sticks outside, laughing and jesting each other.

Val waved and moved to the curb to cross the street. But it was Andrew who spotted her first. His tall and bulky body swaggered like a bulldog when he crossed the road in their direction. It was surprising that girls found him attractive. His muscles gave him a slight hump, and combined with his hockey-broken nose, his features reminded Bia of the Hunchback of Notre Dame but with none of the kindness.

"Look what we have here, Wu. It's your girlfriend. Is this yesterday's homework? Sweet. I'll take this one, and you can do another one for your boyfriend." Andrew yanked the notes from Val's hand, almost ripping the pages. He laughed, the sound echoing on the mid-day quietness of the street.

Meanwhile, Michael Madsen, the ring leader of those idiots, joined their act. It was easier for Bia to understand why he was popular with the girls, though. His perennially golden skin, heightened by the brown hair with bleached ends, screamed surfer living on a tropical island. And yet, the only surfing one could ever get in Toronto was in the freezing waves of Lake Ontario and only for three warm months of the year. His malicious but charming smile seemed eternally etched on a face of precise, proportionate, and sharply-cut angles. And his over-confidence generally got him access to wherever, whatever, and whoever he wanted. Generally, being the operative word.

Michael didn't join Andrew's taunting but made no move to stop it either. Instead, he dropped his bag on the ground, crossed his arms, chin up, and stared at the affair with a blank, almost bored, expression.

"Sorry, but this is not for you." Val snatched the pages back from Andrew and then moved around him but did not go too far. His large hands grabbed her by the waist.

"Don't turn your back on me, psycho."

That, of course, Bia could not stand ...She leaped in front of Andrew.

"Let her go, you bonehead oaf." She put his hands on his chest and pushed him; his sweaty jersey stuck to her fingers. By no means was Bia a small girl, but she looked like a baby bird close to that massive guy.

Andrew instinctively let go of Val and faced Bia. "You wanna piece of me?"

Val tried to hold his advance by pulling at his backpack, but he let go of it. He dropped his hockey bag and stick, too; they clattered on the ground.

"Come here, and this bonehead oaf will show you how to have some fun, you're frigid bi—"

"Your mouth is bigger than your dick, White." Bia shuddered but held her ground. In one hand, she still gripped a book she could throw at him. She readied her other hand on the strap of her bag in case she needed to swing it at his head. It would be a pity, though, to ruin her favorite bag on that moron. "And your brain is not going to take you far either. You better pray your hockey gets you somewhere. But I hear you suck at that too."

Andrew flinched, distorting his features to find a comeback. Behind him, Michael Madsen snickered, looking at the floor with a smirk, clearly enjoying the fight. Bia pursed her lips in disdain and scowled at him, but he couldn't care less. The bully. He could easily stop that situation but chose not to.

At least David decided to take a stance. He walked towards Bia and Andrew and put a hand on his buddy's shoulder. "C'mon, man. We've gotta go to the game."

"Just a minute. I have a lesson to teach this one."

"Let me teach you one. And I'll dumb it down for you, White." Bia hissed, bile rising in her throat and souring her mouth. "You ever get close to Val or me again, and I'll make your life hell."

With a calm and commanding voice, Michael Madsen did something unexpected. He intervened. "Let's get going, White. You'll make us all late. Plus, I'm afraid that if you stay, St. Claire here will pound you to the ground."

A wrinkle pressured the top of Bia's nose. What a bastard. He thought he was funny. But his order was enough to make Andrew deflate his chest, unfist his hand, and follow his "boss" towards the main street. Before moving too far, Michael stopped before Bia. He scanned her up and down with his arrogant eyes. Then he shook his head and scoffed.

"Stay outta trouble, St. Claire."

She opened her mouth to retort, but Val gave her a nudge. She shushed Bia as soon as Michael turned his back. "Drop it..."

David Wu didn't follow his friends right away. Instead, he glared at Val with big brown puppy eyes. She marched towards him, shoved the notes at his chest without saying a word, then strolled away. Shoulders slumped and knees bent, David had no other option but to leave.

When they disappeared, way down the street, Bia gawked at Val, searching for words to console her friend. But Val raised her hand, demanding silence. And now that. Was Val mad at her?

"I don't wanna talk about this. I'm gonna get something to drink." Val trooped into the coffee shop; the door shrieked closed behind her.

Apparently, Halloween was starting early... All the goblins, ghosts, ghouls, boogiemen, and bullies coming out of their tombs.

........................................................................................................................

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