The Biotechnology Board of Canada and Other Bloodsuckers (1.6)

My name’s Antoine Marcotte, and my friends are trying to ruin my life again. Nothing new. Put on the smile, the same one I always wear. Chin up. Play nice. Everything will work out.

People tell me I have some kind of… charmed life. That I’m lucky. Sylvia says it all the time. Shay, too. They don’t get it. Her I understand, but I’m shocked even Shay doesn’t. They always know what to say, so how come they don’t realize that all you have to do is listen to people, and say what makes them happy, and not mind what anyone thinks of you. It’s easy. It’s so, so easy.

But it isn’t all rainbows. Why is it that every time Sylvia opens her mouth, I feel like apologizing to someone?

“We know what happened to Maddy. No need to break out the chalk outlines or anything.” she says.

“Is that so?” Fionn O’Hagan—the monster hunter—says, raising a thick, craggy black eyebrow in disbelief. His matted red hair cascades down around his face like a coat of dried blood.

“Uh, sorry.” I say. “She means, we have a theory.”

No hard feelings, of course! We’ve been friends since kindergarten. But she really does need to shut up sometimes. Love you, Sylv.

“Let’s hear it.” Fionn mutters, bored out of his mind.

The paperweight keeping his folders secured to the spare administrative desk is shaped like a sheepdog with its tongue lolling about. I can’t stop looking at it. It’s so cute. Why is it so cute when he’s so scary? He looks like a bureaucrat who has a 9-5 job in Hell. He looks like he only eats wild rabbit. Apparently he’s from Ireland. I thought it was basically paradise over there. Maybe it’s a Finland situation, huge social security net, everyone’s depressed anyway?

“We think the attacker was a person, not a monster. Maybe someone who works at the school. See, the victim, uh, Maddy, she forgot what happened to her, but that only makes sense if—”

Fionn cuts her off.

“Who’s we?”

Sylvia opens her mouth and looks ready to gesture behind her. Oh, god, she’s going to mention the others!

“Uh, us!” I chime in, smiling. “I was the one who did the first aid when it happened, so…”

“Good for you kid, you keep that attitude up. Look. What do you think, someone has been using memory-altering drugs to viciously maim your classmates and get away with it? She was in shock. Short-term memory loss. It’s a good thing it’s just some small-fry monster. If a person, a student, a teacher, had been responsible for an attack like this, that would be a pattern of parabiological violence. I’d be shooting to kill. I hope for everyone’s sake you’re wrong, and that soon you’ll go back to being wrong without the Biotechnology Board breathing down your poor principal’s neck. I don’t want to be here, and soon I won’t be. So, that everything?” he says.

Sylvia’s mouth hangs open.

“But…”

“Then we’re through here. Let me do my job.”

We practically get kicked out into the hallway by the principal’s receptionist. A few people give us weird looks, but nothing much. No one cares. No one believes us. And…

“Sylv, he said he’d be shooting to kill. You almost told him—”

“I know!” she snaps.

“And if someone here is the…” I lower my voice to a whisper. “Vampire, then—”

“I know.” she says.

“Oh, shit.”

“Shit indeed.” she says, defeated.

A long pause ensues as we wander back through the packed hallways to where the others are eating lunch outside, not even knowing that they almost got brought to the attention of Fionn ‘would-shoot-a-child’ O’Hagan. Jet was right. It really isn’t a game after all. I guess being an unregistered Class A is nothing compared to actually hurting someone. You hear the horror stories about rogue superheroes, monster-people, but nobody really believes them. They get adapted into anime series! It’s make-believe!

Why didn’t I ever think of what would happen if a monster hunter, a real monster hunter, started having to hunt people? Am I seriously that sheltered? Écoute-La got killed by the feds right here in Quebec! Everyone knows it!

I feel like apologizing again. Like always, it’s more or less Sylvia’s fault. Like always, no hard feelings.

“Will you promise me I get to handle the next conversation with scary government officials who’d… kidnap our friends if they found out the whole truth?” I ask.

She nods, embarrassed.

All is right in the world. Another day saved by just being normal about things. Now it’s time to relax, eat lunch, and after school we can—

I stop in my tracks. Sylvia glances back at me, worried.

After school we can keep trying to find the vampire. Before Hagan does. Otherwise, someone could get killed.

Oh, god.