GLITTER & GORE Chapter 1
A Sparkly Skin Condition
I was in the middle of an alchemy breakthrough when Amy slammed her laptop on my work table, ruining the crystallization process and knocking half my liquids on the basement floor. My mother would throw a hissy fit if she discovered the ruined carpet, but right now I was the one ready to raise hell.
My eyes cut to Amy like two blades, but as usual with her, they didn’t slice. She offered a wincing smile before clapping her hands in excitement.
“Nova Nova Nova! It’s tiiiiiime!” she sang at a high enough pitch to rattle my unharmed liquid vials. “We can finally see if we passed our first semester.”
“It’s barely been twenty-four hours,” I grumbled, crouching to pick up the broken glass and ignoring how a few shards sliced my palms. I hadn’t given school a thought since we finished our exams and left campus to return to our hometown yesterday. All my brain power now fixated on my alchemy research, more important than my stupid psychology degree.
“I know, but if we didn’t pass, we need to start applying to new schools immediately.” She plopped onto the stool across from mine, her pastel purple nails clacking against her keyboard. For once she’d actually dressed down, wearing a blush pink t-shirt under black overalls with metal chains for straps. Not one spiky bracelet or gaudy ring in sight. I might’ve complimented the outfit if I weren’t so pissed about the mess she’d made.
“We obviously passed,” I droned, dumping glass onto the table. She flinched when a little bloody piece bounced onto her laptop but resumed her enthusiasm as soon as she flicked it away.
“Sure, but which one of us got a higher GPA?” She arched one dark eyebrow, knowing she’d snared me. I couldn’t turn down a competition.
“Fine, but you’re scrubbing the black sulfur from the carpet after.”
“Loser scrubs the carpet.”
I pursed my lips but didn’t affirm that deal, knowing her intelligence rivaled mine and she was better at playing by the rules. Usually with exam questions, I found a way to subvert the professor’s authority on the subject and turn it into a philosophical debate.
“What’s your password?” she asked.
“I-H-A-T-E-A-M-Y, all caps.”
“Ha, ha, funny.” Her blue eyes rolled but then quickly narrowed on me. “Wait…is it really?”
I rounded the table, face impassive. “Yes.”
She typed it in, and when my online dashboard popped up, she scowled. “Ugh, bitch.”
A small smirk inched on my lips as I watched her position our results on either side of the screen. Biting her lip and practically closing her eyes, she scrolled down until we could see our grades, and then she squealed loud enough to test the foundation of my parents’ house.
“Three point nine! Oh my god, oh my god! And you got…”
“Three point eight nine,” I read with an aggrieved sigh. “Fuck. I knew I bombed that chemistry final. I keep mixing up what’s real and what’s better than real.”
My eyes slid accusingly to my hodgepodge of alchemy equipment, though really I was peeved that school was distracting me from my true passion. The world wouldn’t take my discoveries seriously if I didn’t have some kind of degree, though, so I had to suck it up and put my dreams on hold for a few years.
“Ha-ha-ha!” Amy pointed tauntingly at me until her nurturing nature took over. “Hey, are you okay? You know I’m just–”
“Yeah, I know. I’m fine. Good job.”
Trying to smile like a normal person must have given me away, because she crossed her arms and fixed me with a mothering glare. “You know you did a good job too, right? Like, nearly perfect.”
“Sure. C’s get degrees and all that. It’s probably more efficient to slack and pass anyway. Then I can put more focus on…other things.”
“Right, your mad scientist shit.” She shot a disparaging look at my experiments but then actually winced. “Sorry for knocking stuff over when I got here. I was just…over-excited. I didn’t sleep at all last night and drank three cups of coffee before running over here.”
“I can tell,” I said, snorting as she bounced on the stool. “It’s for the best, anyway. I don’t think what I was doing would’ve worked. I’m not in the right mindset. I should’ve meditated before working.”
“Ooh, right, you need to connect to the divine.”
Her mocking tone didn’t bother me, nor did anyone else’s. I’d known magic was real for as long as I could remember, and real life events only confirmed it. Amy had thought I was psychotic when we became friends in middle school, and the only reason she now believed was because I believed. Still, I had to appreciate her undying support, even if she liked to poke fun at me.
“Something feels amiss today,” I admitted, mostly to myself. I surveyed my experiments, picking apart my mistakes, wondering how the hell I would ever manage to create the Powder of Projection.
Amy hummed in agreement, twirling a finger through her black to pink hair, a mirror to my short bob, only mine had green tips.
“I also thought something was amiss when I saw you finally put on the sparkly eyeshadow I gave you, but I didn’t want to say anything and scare you into washing it off.”
My hand stilled on a beaker as she wiggled her eyebrows at me. “I didn’t…”
Something shimmered in the corner of my eye, and I raced across the basement to the mirror near my bed. My black button up and ripped jeans had gained a few stains since I threw them on this morning, and my messy bun had practically slumped into nonexistence, but none of that surprised me. What surprised me was that I’d barely taken the time to wash my face this morning, and I certainly hadn’t bothered with makeup, yet gold sparkles glittered around my eyes, their sheen seeming to grow toward every corner of my face.
“Oh my god. I-I’m sparkling.”
Amy jumped to my side, joining me in the mirror. I hadn’t thought much of her silver sparkles when she arrived, but now they dripped down her cheeks, spreading across her throat into the edges of her crewneck. “Oh my god, we’re sparkling!”
"No, this is bad." I scraped my nails down my cheeks, but the glitter didn't budge. Most people wouldn't know what the hell this meant, but I listened to all the lore. The whispered tales of young adults disappearing. The "insane" stories told by the few who managed to escape.
Amy, of course, had heard all my ramblings on the subject, yet an exuberant grin still split her face. "What’s so bad about being snatched up by some hunky vampires and brought to their fantasy realm?"
"Literally everything. They’re vicious, you know this. My brother…is probably dead because of them."
Amy's face finally fell. According to the note Hale left with his disappearance two years ago, he'd dropped out of college to go rock climbing in Colorado for the rest of his life, wishing never to speak to any of us again. Everyone, including my parents, swallowed that load of horseshit, but I'd seen the iron gray shimmer of his skin before I went to school that day. The vampires had abducted him and forced him to write that note so no one would come looking for him.
As if the normies could find the portal to the vampire realm. Even I, an unpaid full time paranormal investigator, had failed to track down my brother.
Until now, the skeptical half of my brain had questioned if his note really was legit. After all, spontaneously fleeing across the country to scale dangerous mountains seemed like a Hale thing. But if he possessed coveted magical blood, it made sense that I did too.
"Maybe we'll see him again?" Amy cringed even as she said it.
"As much as I'd love to be reacquainted with his corpse, I have goals that I won't let some thirsty vampires hinder. Don't you want to become a nurse? You can't do that if we let vampires kidnap us."
"Pfft, I'm sure the vampires need nurses."
"They can magically heal themselves. They're like salamanders on steroids."
"Salamanders on steroids? Are you talking about dragons now?"
"No, I meant their healing abilities are—you know, never mind." Turning away from the mirror, I stalked to my dresser and grabbed one of the duffle bags I'd unpacked last night. "I already have an escape plan in place. Incorporating you shouldn’t be too hard as long as you’ll listen to me."
"We can’t just run away!" Amy snatched my bag and threw it across the room, forcing me to glare at her hysterical face. "What about our families? What if the vampires kill them?"
"Parents are supposed to sacrifice their lives for their kids, not the other way around," I reasoned, retrieving the bag.
"But it wouldn’t be the other way around! The options are our families die or we go live with some bloodsuckers. The vampires are probably hot, Nova. What is the big deal?"
I shoved more clothes into my bag, shaking my head. "I will not become someone’s possession. I have more important things to do than let someone steal my life force."
"It’s just a little blood," she argued, though she had deflated slightly.
"I think you underestimate how vital blood is to our survival."
"It’s vital for them too," she said, her compassion so sincere I almost let out a laugh. "That’s why they have to kidnap us. They’re probably as upset about violating us as you are. They’re probably secret softies."
I paused packing to give her a blank look. "That makes it sound even worse."
Her hand wrapped around mine. If this were anyone else, I would've squirmed away as quickly as possible, but for her I acquiesced to the small morsel of human affection.
"You’ve been obsessed with magic for years. Now you have magic in your blood and you’re given the chance to actually go to a magical realm and you want to run away? You can’t escape destiny. You were meant for this."
My jaw shifted as I considered her words. Never had I felt normal in this world. I'd always craved more. Maybe I wasn't suited for a physical adventure, but I yearned for the idea of realities beyond this one, places where the impossible thrived.
Still, if I felt trapped in this mundane existence, I didn't imagine becoming a vampire's subjugated commodity would please me.
"The vampires won’t let me continue my research. They probably won’t even let me have a journal. They’re going to control every aspect of our lives. I don’t give a shit about my body, but my mind? I’m not losing my mind."
Amy released my hand only to cross her arms judgmentally. "You kinda sound like you’re already losing your mind."
I didn't have time to roll my eyes before my mom’s voice called from upstairs, paralyzing me with dread.
"Nova, some boys are here for you!"