Fang Girl by Helen Keeble Read Free Book Online

was still dark. My laptop beeped again. A chat window had popped up.
    Superluminal: JaneX
    Superluminal: I see you
    “Crap!” Leaping out of my chair, I flung the window open. The garden lay calm and deserted under the stars, and the tree was still devoid of anything but shadows. Sanity seeped back through my panic. I sat down at my desk again, staring at the name in the chat window.
    I knew of Superluminal—probably everyone on Fang-Girls.net did—but my interactions with her (if she was a her) had been limited to downloading her vids. She was famous online for her fantastic vidding, mixing DVD clips and music seamlessly to make vampire-themed music videos that you’d swear could have comeout of major record studios. She was also notoriously reclusive. Unlike most fans, she never commented on other people’s work, never hung out in the forums.
    So what was she doing messaging a dead girl?
    The laptop binged.
    Superluminal had sent me a URL, apparently to a blog. My eye went to the browser window in the background, still open to one of the Fang-Girls.net forums, and fell on one of the headings in the sidebar: FANS ONLINE NOW.
    “Oh, crap !” I’d forgotten that my settings automatically logged me into the site. There at the top of the list was my internet name: JANEX. Which, thanks to the outpouring of grief over my death, had now been linked to my real name.
    Fang-Girls.net was the central fan-run site for all things fanged. The ideal hangout for vampire-obsessed fangirls … or vampire hunters.
    I thought fast.
    JaneX: Hello!!! A/S/L?
    Superluminal: ??
    JaneX: Im 18 blonde model! who lieks to party!! If u wanna watch me and my sexxy freinds, CLICK HERE NOW!!!!
    [Superluminal has gone Offline]
    I sat back with a sigh. Hopefully, Superluminal, whether a real fan or a hunter, was now thinking my account had been hacked by a spambot. Out of curiosity, I clicked the link she’d sent me. It was a blog, by someone who really loved the color purple. Squinting past the clashing typography, I read the title of the latest entry:
    VAMPIRE IN SUSSEX???
    “Oh, craaaaaap,” I said for a third time with three times as much feeling. I scrolled down, my unbeating heart sinking with each click. Yep. Lorraine had a blog, and she’d used it to tell the world—or at least, her friendlist—about the really weird thing that had happened to her last night. And she’d said how much her mysterious assailant had looked like one Xanthe Jane Greene....
    “Well, great,” I muttered. “I’m sure the Elder vampires are going to love this....”
    The phone buzzed, vibrating across the desk like a deranged mechanical spider. I caught it as it hurled itself off the edge, nearly putting it to my ear upsidedown in my haste. “Hello? Hello? ” As I spoke, I glanced at the clock.
    5:09 A.M .
    “Xanthe darling,” purred my sire. “You shouldn’t worry about what they think.”

Chapter 7
    O nce was coincidence, but twice … “You’ve got some kind of psychic bond to me, right?” I said.
    There was a tiny pause from the other end of the line, filled with the background rumble of a car engine. “Goodness,” said my sire eventually. “And I had a nice, soothing speech prepared to break it to you gently.”
    “Well, you’re my sire. I was kinda, um, expecting there to be a connection of some kind. You know, my blood is your blood and all that stuff. It always is, you know?” Was I babbling? Oh God, I was babbling. I wanted to seem cool, poised, but just listening to her voice made my stomach flutter as if I were about to take an exam.
    Oh.
    Uh-oh.
    “This isn’t going to be a master-slave sort of thing, is it?” I asked without much hope.
    She laughed—a rich, throaty sound that would have set my pulse racing, if I’d had one. “Poor darling. I certainly hope not. In any event, I do indeed have a connection to you, like all vampires have to their descendants. It’s called the Bloodline. It means I can see what you see and hear