Midnight Academy. Born at midnight
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– Not spiders. Transformation is Percy's special gift. Each vampire has his own special gift, but not all of them reveal it right away. For example, it hasn’t shown up for me yet.
Smiling with slight sadness, the guy quickly returned to our main topic:
– In addition to vampires, Midnighters also include werewolves, witches and hunters.
Having caught on to the most important word, I fidgeted on the bench with impatience.
– Hunters? Everything about the rest is more or less clear. Witches can cast spells, werewolves turn into animals, and hunters? Who is this anyway?
Nirel sighed heavily.
– Those for whom our existence does not allow us to live in peace. They consider us monsters and are trying in every possible way to rid the world of our presence. But don't get scared ahead of time. Let's just say that no one has seen them on this side of the border for a long time – since they crossed into the human world, so there is nothing interesting about them. Maybe they degenerated a long time ago.
Hearing the last phrase, with which the guy probably wanted to cheer me up, I smiled wryly. Because now I knew for sure that one annoying hunter still existed in the human world. Mom herself told me about this today, and I just didn’t know what to do with this information now.
How dangerous were they? Have they really degenerated or are they still hiding to hunt down vampires one by one? And my mother? Is she a vampire, a witch or a werewolf?
– Nirel, if I’m still a Midnighter, then who am I? Vampire or witch?
“Vampire,” he answered without a shadow of doubt.
– Why did you decide that? – I became stubborn.
It's not that I want to be a witch. In principle, I would prefer to remain a purebred person, but if I have to choose…
– Because Madame Pelisay named you Salaman Dragon. Your family is the oldest and largest among all vampire families.
– So I have many relatives? – I was puzzled.
Accustomed to the fact that my only family member was my mother, I did not expect such a catch. On the one hand, this news made me immensely happy, because I always wanted to have grandparents, brothers and sisters, and all these noisy, cheerful holidays when large families gather and give many, many gifts. But on the other hand…
Relatives could end up with foulbrood.
The third-year student brought me down to earth again:
– Not sure. Dragon is the common name of the genus, but from the first Dragon, according to history, many branches came. If I'm not mistaken, he had fourteen sons. There were also daughters, but each got married and received a new clan name. It’s better to ask your mother about your relatives when the opportunity arises.
“If it turns up,” I sighed, remembering how I had been waiting for answers for eighteen years, and how I still haven’t received some.
But I still had some clue. Madame Pelisay said that I am Dragon on my father's side. I wonder if he's still alive? And if so, why have I never seen him? Even if their relationship with his mother was truly accidental and for one night, had he really not been overcome by curiosity over all the years to find out who was born to him?
Or did his mother simply not tell him that she was pregnant?
– Listen, but it turns out that vampires can have children? – this fact perhaps struck me most of all.
This is the complete opposite of what was described in books and films!
Fun sparkled in Nirel's eyes.
– Naturally. We need to reproduce somehow. Any questions?
– But of course!
Sitting more comfortably, I turned my whole body to the guy.
– When we entered the library, it was daytime, but we left here at night. What's going on here? Are time zones different?
In response, he rolled his eyes, as if I had said complete nonsense. But I decided not to be offended, because it’s interesting.
– You could also say time zones. It is immediately obvious that you are one of the Coming Ones. It's always night on the Dark Side, Sally. All day long and at any time – and this has been the case for more than two centuries. It was the witches who cast witchcraft because those who were born exactly at midnight – at the junction between the days – do not feel well in the light of day. But vampires react to the sun more sharply than others. Our concentration decreases, drowsiness, loss of strength, and vulnerability appear. We are weakening before our eyes. And, by the way, about the eyes: they are sensitive to the sun. I heard that our people on the other side wear dark glasses or special hard lenses.
Lenses… I almost jumped on the spot with realization, because the guy told the absolute truth. Since childhood, my eyes would water and hurt terribly just by looking at the sun. I didn’t even remember when I first put on lenses: I was too small, but since then I haven’t gone outside without them.
The first thing I did in the morning was wash my face and insert my lenses. But even with them, our windows were always covered with thick curtains.
Nirel was right about everything. Even though these lenses were made of hard matter. They felt somewhere between glass and plastic.
Twitching, I wanted to show him the lenses, peacefully waiting in the wings in the pocket of my overalls, but I stopped myself in time. If I wanted everyone around me to consider me an ordinary person and let me go on all four sides in peace, then I shouldn’t show off my features.
Because any of these features already made me a vampire, and therefore a prisoner of the Midnighter Academy.
Since my guide turned out to be so talkative, chewing his lower lip, I nevertheless decided to ask a frank question:
– Nirel, are we monsters?
Thoughts about hunters haunted me. It’s not for nothing that they decided to exterminate vampires? Maybe there was something in history for which toothless vegetarians still felt ashamed?
– Sally, do I look like a monster? – they asked me unexpectedly softly, but quite seriously.
I defiantly looked him up and down.
– You? You are not.
– And you don't. So we are not monsters. Your mother said it right: we maintain balance in the human world. We help those who are on the verge of disaster, you know?