Page 3 of The Vampire and the Case of the Perilous Poltergeist

I grimaced: it was from my mum. I hesitated, as I had with the other thirty-plus messages she’d sent me. and in the end decided against opening it like the others. As far as I knew Mum had kept my secrets from Dad, but there was so much in my headspace right now that I didn’t have room for her.

I was still processing all the hard truths about my life and the lies they’d told me, and I was still unsure about the amount of contact I wanted with her but right now the answer was a resounding zero. I was here at the academy to learn, to gain the skills for the life that I wanted, and Mum had no place here. Maybe I’d open some of her messages when I was home.

Home: there was that damned word again.

I pulled up the last message before I got too emotional. Thank all that was holy that it was from Connor; it was like he knew I needed him even when we were miles apart. I smiled and opened it.

‘Oooh, that’s a Connor message, I know that dreamy face,’ Sidnee teased. I threw her a flat look and she laughed.

I read it quickly.I miss you, Doe. Counting the moments.

I smiled, though the smile faded when I realised I’d used most of my fifteen-minute break calling Gunnar and dithering about whether or not to read my mum’s message. Disappointment gnawed me because there was no time left to call Connor. I’d probably just fall apart if I heard his voice for only a moment or two – it would be as cruel as giving a thirsty man only two drops of water.

Sighing, I typed a message. I aimed for some levity so he wouldn’t know how much I was struggling without him.I miss you so much. And baths. I really miss baths.

I got an instant reply; he’d probably been watching his phone waiting for a response.You can borrow mine any time. I adore it when you’re wet.

Some interesting places heated and a pillow hit me in a face. ‘Absolutely no dirty talking while I’m here!’ Sidnee said firmly.

I rolled my eyes. ‘But you’re always here,’ I complained. ‘Dorms are so shitty.’

‘You’re not wrong. Dibs on the toilet!’ She shot off the bed and ran into the bathroom. I stowed my phone and chased her.Luckily Margi was elsewhere, so we actually got the privilege of both going at the same time. Score.

‘Sig and Gunnar send love,’ I said as we soaped our hands. Sidnee paused and I saw her eyes tear up in the mirror. ‘Shit! Sorry,’ I mumbled.

‘It’s okay.’ She offered me a wobbly smile. ‘I wasn’t prepared for how much I’d miss them, you know?’ She groaned. ‘I even miss Stan and his terrible jokes.’

‘And Thomas?’ I teased.

She gave a happy sigh and a private smile tugged her lips. ‘Yes, I absolutely miss Thomas.’ Those two seemed to be moving at a painfully slow pace, but I guessed that with all Sidnee’s traumas with her ex, Chris, Thomas wanted to make sure she had her head screwed on properly before they started something.

I thought his glacial pace might be a mistake. Sidnee was beautiful and she’d had no end of admiring glances from the other recruits. If he wasn’t careful, someone else would take action before he did.

Chapter 3

The schedule at the academy was brutal. We started at 4.30am, which wasn’t too bad for me because it was dark, but then the sun came up. When it was at its height, I had to fight vampire-induced daylight exhaustion all day long. That sucked because I finally got my mojo back when it was lights out at 10pm.

The last few weeks had been a battle with my very nature to function. It was fair to say I wasn’t showing the academy my finest parts – though I doubted they’d appreciate my fine derrière anyway!

Everything would change when we had our ‘graves’ week’, a full week of being nocturnal. It was designed to teach us low-light skills, which was pretty essential considering Alaska had a polar night that lasted more than two months in some places. I couldn’t wait; when that started, I was going to kick so much arse.

Sidnee and I slipped into our seats moments before the class began and I opened my heavy law tome. I’d already read the section for today’s lesson and, with my eidetic memory, I was pretty confident that I was well-prepared for whatever they threw at us.

We had one of the guest instructors today, Lieutenant Polk. He was a law professor who’d decided a career change was in order, thrown in a life of academia and become a state trooper. He was pushing fifty and had a receding hairline and paunch to go with it. To be honest, he looked like he’d be more suited to a cerebral life rather than running down criminals, but good on him for following his dreams.

Polk was visiting from Fairbanks and we’d had two classes with him already. He wasn’t my favourite teacher because his voice droned and I struggled to focus, especially in the morning when the sun was really dragging at me and bed was calling to me repeatedly like the strumpet she was.

Polk started his lecture. Sidnee was already desperately taking notes. I took out my own notebook so I wouldn’t stand out too much, but it was mostly full of doodles. I pretty much only took notes if something came to mind that I wanted to ask a question about or if I wanted to note a reference to a book in the library.

Theodore Thorsen looked over at my non-existent notes and sneered. I gave him a tight smile, friendly but aloof; I was trying to be the bigger person though I still couldn’t make myself call him Theodore. ‘Theodore’ was an upper-class British man with a trust fund, a ramshackle castle and a rigidly determined path to his future. Thorsen was a total twat and I couldn’t call him anything but that or by his surname. It wasn’t likely we’d ever be on first-name terms.

I was sure that he and I would have it out before our time here was done. The fun thing was that he didn’t know that he was going to lose because peds didn’t have a chance against mostsupernats; whether he liked it or not, I was the alpha predator in this scenario. His ignorance was kind of fun. I wondered idly whether a lion ever felt smug before it pounced on a gazelle. Probably. I smiled at Thorsen.Just call me Leona.

The class roared with laughter. I had tuned out of the lecture so I turned to Sidnee, my eyebrows raised in question. ‘Polk made a joke about the academy poltergeist stealing Jones’s notebook,’ she whispered.

I looked at Jones, who was behind me and two spaces to the right. I liked him; he was a nice guy, if on the shy side. He was in his early twenties like me, tall, lanky and utterly scatter-brained. I had no idea if the academy actually had a poltergeist but I was pretty sure Jones had mislaid his notebook. Again. ‘Let’s help him find it at break,’ I whispered.

Sidnee smiled and gave me a discreet thumbs up.

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