Page 74 of Cloak of the Vampire
Tansy took off her shoes, closed her eyes, and moved.
“She’s in,” Zoey whispered to Bryce a row behind where I was sitting on my own. “I overheard Sanu from the Archives talking to Margarita. There is a reason she was on the waiting list for one year only. Our Lord has his eyes on her.”
“But why?” Jakob, who was sitting next to them, asked in a hiss. “Yes, she can dance, but she’s not Gifted.”
“I remember Abe telling us that it’s very rare, but sometimes, after you are given the Imprint and become a vampire, you might be able to develop a Gift as the years go on if you started as a Common.” Zoey’s voice was extremely excited about that.
“Really?” Bryce murmured, surprised. “I forgot all about that. I mean, it makes sense, even if it’s rare; after all, vampire Lords become Sacred only after centuries of honing their vampiric powers or something, so turning from Common to Gifted isn’t that far fetched ...”
“She has potential,” Jakob interjected softly. “This Auction is sold from the start. She’s staying, while most of us won’t.”
I tuned out of their conversation and returned my eyes to Tansy’s dance. She had fluid movements, her hair like a crown around her head, and she seriously had potential, as Jakob said. I knew extraordinarily little about dancing, but even I knew a star when I saw it.
Margarita stopped Tansy after a couple of minutes and scribbled something down. “Is dancing all you can do?”
Tansy gave a single nod.
The Lieutenant sighed. “Fine. Then your performance is set. Next will be Zoey Rittman!”
Zoey took the stage, and Margarita read out Zoey’s hobbies—apparently, she’d listed a lot of them—before Margarita eventually said, “Logan mentioned you’re doing exceptionally well in gym class. Why don’t you show some of the movements Logan has taught you?”
Zoey’s cheeks flushed at the compliment, and she nodded. She then started an offensive sequence Logan taught us a couple of weeks ago, which included many complicated movements. She executed them all quickly and accurately, though, and while I’d been vaguely aware of her talent in this area before, I was fully observing it now.
When she was done, Margarita gave her a disgusted look yet said in a saccharine voice, “Logan is never wrong. Magnus?”
“I think you should go with it,” Magnus advised in an indifferent tone. “It might show our Lord you’re worth buying and that you might be a good addition to the Troop.”
Zoey grinned. “Then I’m going with it.”
“Good,” Margarita said, her face returning to a bored look. “Next, Bryce Sullivan.”
One by one, the newcomers showed off what they could do best. Most were below average, but some surprised everyone with their hidden talents. Everyone went with flashy, exciting routines that would draw the eye, which was the right thing to do; in an event where you were practically fighting others for attention, the flashier your performance, the better your chances were to be noticed.
This was why I knew what I had to do—for better or worse. So when Margarita called my name, I went to the stage with an idea in mind.
The idea was solidified when Margarita sneered at me. “Ah, the talentless noob,” she said, her voice taking on a nasty tone she hadn’t used with anyone else. “So. What’s it going to be? Striptease?”
Murmurs spread through my classmates like wildfire. I could feel their gazes on me. They were probably wondering why Margarita was picking on me.
I expected it, though. Margarita had hated me since the start, and she showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Yet I refused to stoop to her level. “I’m going to paint.”
Margarita, Magnus, and the third woman looked at me as though I was nuts. “Paint?” Margarita repeated, as if she’d never heard the word before.
My hands curled to fists at my sides. “You don’t think I can?”
“This is stupid.” Margarita rolled her eyes. “I doubt you’re good enough to capture the audience’s attention.”
“I don’t care,” I said, my blood boiling as I kept my smile intact. “Give me the canvas and let me show you what I can do.”
Margarita smirked then. “You know, I’m going to enjoy this. Your future humiliation will beextremelysatisfying.” Her smirk turned nasty. “Get the noob some canvas and paints.”
Minutes later, I was seated on a stool before a medium-size canvas with a brush in my hand and a palette full of oil colors. Margarita, whose sharklike grin made my blood boil, said, “You have five minutes. Start!”
It took everything in me to keep my hatred hidden as I sank the brush in pink and quickly painted the whole canvas. I let only one thought remain in my head as I took a red color and drew all over, marring the paint with my fingers on some parts in a certain way. Propelled by the hot sting of her words, I then shadowed it all with grays and blacks, until it was dead clear what I wanted to show with the painting.
“Time!” Margarita trilled triumphantly.
