My little Marked: Secrets are magicby Chloe The GreatChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 1Just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse I saw the dead colt standing next to my locker. Lyra was talking nonstop in her usual L-babble, and she didn't even notice him. At first. Actually now that I think about it, no one else noticed him until he spoke, which is, tragically, more evidence of my freakish inability to fit in. "No, but Twilight, I swear to Celestia Mackentosh didn't get that drunk after the game. You really shouldn't be so hard on him." "Yeah," I said absently. "Sure." Then I coughed. Again. I felt like crap. I must be coming down with what Mr.Wise, my more-than-slightly-insane AP biology teacher, called the Teenage Plague. If I died, would it get me out of my geometry test tomorrow? One could only hope. "Twilight, please. Are you even listening? I think he only had like four-I dunno-maybe six ciders, and maybe like three shots. But that's totally beside the point. He probably wouldn't even have had hardly any if your stupid parents hadn't made you go home right after the game." We shared a long suffering look, in total agreement about the latest injustice committed against me by my mom and the Step-Loser she'd married three really long years ago. Then, after barely half a break, L was back with the babbling. "Plus he was celebrating. I mean we beat Phillydelphia!" L shook my shoulder and put her face close to mine. "Hello! Your boyfriend-" "My almost-boyfriend", I corrected her, trying my best not to cough on her. "Whatever. Mackentosh is our quarterback so of course he's going to celebrate. It's been like a million years since Canterlot beat Phillydelphia." "Sixteen." I'm crappy at math, but L's math impairment makes me look like a genuis. "Again, whatever. The point is, he was happy. You should give the boy a break." "The point is that he was wasted for like the fifth time this week. I'm sorry, but I don't want to go out with a guy whose main focus in life has changed from trying to play college football to trying to chug a six-pack without puking. Not to mention the fact that he's going to get fat from all that beer." I had to pause to cough. I was feeling a little dizzy and forced myself to take slow, deep breaths when the coughing fit was over. Not that L-babble noticed. "Eww! Mackentosh, fat! Not a visual I want." I managed to ignore another urge to cough. "And kissing him is like sucking on alcohol-soaked hooves." Lyra scrunched up her face. "Okay, sick. Too bad he's so hot." I rolled my eyes, not bothering to try to hide my annoyance at her typical shallowness. You're so grumpy when you're sick. Anyway, you have no idea how lost-puppy-like Mackentosh looked after you ignored him at lunch. He couldn't even..." Then I saw him. The dead colt. Okay, I realized pretty quick that he wasn't technically "dead". He was undead. Or un-pony. Whatever. Scientists said one thing, ponies said another, but the end result was the same. There was no mistaking what he was and even if i hadn't felt the power and darkness that radiated from him, there was no frikin' way I could miss his Mark, the sapphire-blue crescent moon on his forehead and the additional tattooing of entwining knot work that framed his equally blue eyes. He was a vampony, and worse. He was a Tracker. Well, crap! He was standing by my locker. "Twilight, you're so not listening to me!" Then the vampony spoke and his ceremonial words slicked across the space between us, dangerous and seductive, like blood mixed with chocolate. "Twilight Sparkle! Luna has chosen thee; thy death will be thy birth. Luna calls to thee; hearken to Her sweet voice. Your destiny awaits you at the house of Luna!" He lifted one long, white hoof and pointed at me. As my forehead exploded in pain Lyra opened her mouth and screamed. When the bright splotches finally cleared from my eyes I looked up to see Lyra's colorless face staring down at me. As usual, I said the first ridiculous thing that came to mind. "Lyra, your eyes are popping out of your head like a fish." "He marked you. Oh, Twilight! You have the outline of that thing on your forehead!" Then she pressed a shaking hoof against her white mouth, unsuccessfully trying to hold back a sob. I sat up and coughed. I had a killer headache, and I rubbed at the spot between my eyebrows. It stung as if a wasp had bit me and radiated pain down around my eyes, all the way across my cheekbones. I felt like I might puke. "Twilight!" Lyra was really crying now and had to speak between wet little hiccups. "Oh. My. Celestia. That colt was a Tracker!" "Lyra." I blinked hard, trying to clear the pain from my head. "Stop crying. You know I hate it when you cry." I reached out to attempt a comforting pat on her shoulders. And she automatically cringed, and moved away from me. I couldn't believe it. She actually cringed, like she was afraid of me. She must have seen the hurt in my eyes because she instantly started a string of breathless L-babble. Oh, Celestia, Twilight! What are you going to do? You can't go to that place. You can't be one of those things. This can't be happening! Who am I supposed to go to all of our football games with?" I noticed she didn't move one step closer to me. I clamped down on the sick, hurt feeling inside that threatened to make me burst into tears. I should be; I'd had three years to get good at it. "It's okay. I'll figure this out. It's probably some...some bizarre mistake," I lied. I wasn't really talking; I was just making words come out of my mouth. Still grimacing at the pain in my head, I stood up. Looking around I felt a small measure of relief that Lyra and I were the only ones in the math hall, and then I had to choke back what I knew was hysterical laughter. Had I not been totally psycho about the geometry test from Hell scheduled for tomorrow, and harun back to my locker to get my book so I could attempt to obsessively (and pointlessly) study tonight, the Tracker would have found me standing outside in front of the school with the majority of the 1,300 phillies who went to Canterlot Private School waiting for what my stupid Barbie-clone sister liked to smugly call "the big yellow carriages." I have a car, but standing around with the less fortunate who have to ride the buses is a time-honored tradition, not to mention an excellent way to check out who's hitting on who. As it was, there was only one other philly in the math hall---a tall thin dork with messed-up teeth, which I could, unfortunately, see too much of because he was standing there with his mouth flapping open staring at me like I'd just given birth to a litter of flying pigs. I coughed again, this time a really wet, disgusting cough. The dork made a squeaky little sound and scuttled down the hall to Mrs. Day's room clutching a flat board to his bony chest. Guess the chess club had changed it's meeting time to Mondays after school. Do vamponies play chess? Were there vampony dorks? How about Barbie-like vampony cheerleaders? Did any vamponies play in the band? Were there vampony Emos with their colt-wearing-mare's-pants weirdness and those freaky goth phillies who didn't like to bathe much? Was I going to turn into a Goth philly? Or worse, an Emo? I didn't particularly like wearing black, at least not exclusively, and I wasn't feeling a sudden and unfortunate aversion to soap and water, nor did I have an obsessive desire to change my hairstyle and wear too much eyeliner. All this whirled through my mind while I felt another little hysterical bubble of laughter try to escape from my throat, and was almost thankful when it came out as a cough instead. "Twilight? Are you okay?" Lyra's voice sounded too high, like someone was pinching her, and she'd taken another step away from me. I sighed and felt my first sliver of anger. It wasn't like I'd asked for this. Lyra and I had been friends since third grade, and now she was looking at me like I had turned into a monster. "Lyra, it's just me. The same me I was two seconds ago and two hours ago and two days ago." I made a frustrated gesture toward my throbbing head. "This doesn't change who I am!" Lyra's eyes teared up again, but, thankfully, her cell phone started singing Dj-PON3's "bass cannon". Automatically, she glanced at the caller ID. I could tell by her rabbit-in-the-headlights expression that it was her girlfriend, Bon-Bon. "Go on," I said in a flat, tired voice. "Ride home with her." Her look of relief was like a slap in my face. "Call me later?" she threw over her shoulder as she beat a hasty retreat out the side door. I watched her rush across the east lawn to the parking lot. I could see that she had her cell phone smashed to her ear and was talking in animated little bursts to Bon-Bon. I'm sure she was already telling him I was turning into a monster. The problem, of course, was that turning into a monster was vampony, which equals a monster in just about any human's mind. Choice Number 2: My body rejects the Change and I die. Forever. So the good news is that I wouldn't have to take the geometry test tomorrow. The bad news was that I'd have to move into the House of Luna, a private boarding school in Canterlot's Midtown, known by all my friends as the Vampony Finishing School, where I would spend the next four years going through bizarre and unnameable physical changes, as well as a total and permanent life shake-up. And that's only if the whole process didn't kill me. Great. I didn't want to do either. I just wanted to attempt to be normal, despite the burden of my mega-conservative parents, my troll-like younger brother, and my oh-so-perfect older sister. I wanted to pass geometry. I wanted to keep my grades up so that I could get accepted into the veterinary college in Phillydelphia and get out of Private School, Canterlot. But most of all, I wanted to fit in--at least at school. Home had become hopeless, so all I was left with were my friends and my friends and my life away from my family. Now that was being taken away from me, too. I rubbed my forehead and then messed with my hair until it semi-covered my eyes, and, with any luck, the mark that had appeared above them. Keeping my head ducked down, like I was fascinated with the goo that had somehow formed in my saddlebag, I hurried toward the door that led to the student parking lot. But I stopped short of going outside. Through the side-by-side windows in the institutional-looking-doors I could see Mackentosh. Mares flocking around him, posing and flipping their hair, while guys revved ridiculously big pickup trucks and tried (but mostly failed) to look cool. Doesn't it figure that I would choose that to be attracted to? No, to be fair to myself I should remember that Mackentoshused to be incredibly sweet, and even now he had his moments. Mostly when he bothered to be sober. High-pitched girl giggles flitted to me from the parking lot. Great. Diamond Tiara, the biggest ho in school, was pretending to smack Mackentosh. Even from where I was standing it was obvious she thought hitting him was some kind of mating ritual. As usual, clueless Mackentosh was just standing there grinning. Well, hell, my day just wasn't getting any better. And there sat my robin's egg-blue 1966 VW Bug right in the middle of all of them. No. I couldn't go out there. I couldn't walk into the middle of all them with this thing on my forehead. I'd never be able to be part of them again. I already knew too well what they'd do. I remembered the last philly a Tracker had Chosen at CPS. It happened at the beginning of the school year last year. The Tracker had come before school started and had targeted the philly as he was walking to his first hour. I didn't see the Tracker, but I did see the philly afterward, for just a second, after he dropped his books and ran out of the building, his new Mark glowing on his too white cheeks. I never forgot how crowded the halls had been that morning, and how everypony had backed away from him like he had the plague as he rushed to escape out the front doors of the school. I had been one of those ponies who had backed out of his way and stared, even though I'd felt really sorry for him. I just hadn't wanted to be labeled as that-one girl-who's-friends-with-those-freaks. Sort of ironic now, isn't it? Instead of going to my car I headed for the nearest restroom, which was, thankfully, empty. There were three stalls--yes, I double-checked each for feet. On one wall were two sinks, over which hung two medium-sized mirrors. Across from the sinks the opposite wall was covered with a huge mirror that had a ledge below it for holding brushes and makeup and whatnot. I put my purse and my geometry book on the ledge, took a deep breath, and in one motion lifted my head and brushed back my mane. It was like staring into the face of a familiar stranger. You know, that person you see in the crowd and swear you know, but you really don't? Now she was me--the familiar stranger. She had my eyes. They were the same dark purple that could never decide whether it wanted to be purple or a dark violet, but my eyes had never been that big and round. Or had they? She had my hair--long and straight and almost as dark purple as my grandma's had been before hers had begun to turn silver. The stranger had my high cheekbones, short snout, and small chibi mouth-more features from my grandma and her Celestial ancestors. But my face had never been that pale. I'd always been purple-ish, much darker skinned than anypony else in my family. But maybe it wasn't that my skin was suddenly so lavender...maybe it just looked pale in comparison to the dark blue outline of the crescent moon that was perfectly positioned in the middle of my forehead. Or maybe it was the horrid fluorescent lighting. I hoped it was the lighting. I stared at the exotic-looking tattoo. Mixed with my strong Celestial features it seemed to brand me with a mark of wildness...as if I belonged to ancient times when the world was bigger...more barbaric. From this day on my life would never be the same. And for a moment--just an instant--I forgot about the horror of not belonging and felt a shocking burst of pleasure, while deep inside of me the blood of my grandmother's ponies rejoiced. Chapter 2When I figured that enough time had passed for everyone to have left school, I flopped my mane back over my forehead and left the bathroom, hurrying to the doors that led to the student parking lot. Everything seemed all clear--there was just some random philly wearing those seriously unattractive gang wanna-be baggy pants cutting across the far end of the lot. Keeping his pants from falling down as he walked was taking all his concentration; he wouldn't even notice me. I gritted my teeth against the throbbing pain in my head and bolted out the door, heading straight for my little Bug. The moment I stepped outside the sun began to batter me. I mean, it wasn't a particularly sunny day; there were plenty of those big, puffy clouds that looked so pretty in pictures floating around the sky, semi-blocking the sun. But that didn't matter. I had to squint my eyes painfully and hold my hoof up as a make-believe sun block against even that intermittent light. I guess it was because I was focusing so hard on the pain the ordinary sunlight was causing me that I didn't notice the truck until it squealed to a stop in front of me. "Hey Twi! Didn't you get my message?" Oh crap crap crap! It was Mackentosh. I glanced up, looking at him from underneath my hoof. He was sitting on the open tailgate of his friend Caramel's pickup truck. Over his shoulder I could see into the cab of the truck where Caramel and his brother, Braeburn, were doing what they were usually doing--wrestling around and arguing over Celestia only knows what stupid colt thing. Thankfully, they were ignoring me. I glanced back at Mackentosh and sighed. He had a cider in his hand and a goofy grin on his face. Momentarily forgetting that I'd just been Marked and was destined to become an outcast blood-sucking monster, I scowled at Mackentosh. "You're drinking at school! Are you crazy?" His little boy grin got bigger. "Yes I am crazy, 'bout you, baby!" I shook my head while I turned my back to him, opening the creaky door to my Bug and shoving my books and backpack into the passenger's seat. "Why aren't you guys at football practice?" I said, still keeping my face angled away from him. "Didn't you hear? We got the day off 'cause of the flank-kicking we gave Phillydelphia on Friday!" Caramel and Braeburn, who must have been kinda paying attention to Mackentosh and me after all, did a couple of very Country "Whoo-hoo!" and "Yeah!" yells from inside the truck. "Oh. Uh. No. I musta missed the announcement. I've been busy today. You know, big geometry test tomorrow." I tried to sound normal and nonchalant. Then I coughed and added, "Plus, I'm getting a crappy cold." "Twi, really. Are you pissed or somethin'? Like, did Lyra say some shit about the party? You know I didn't really cheat on you." Huh? Lyra had not said one solitary word about Mackentosh cheating on me. Like a moron, I forgot (okay, temporarily) about my new Mark. My head snapped around so I could glare at him. "What did you do, Mackentosh?" "Twi, me? You know I wouldn't..." but his innocent act and his excuses faded into an unattractive open-mouthed look of shock when he caught sight of my Mark. "What the--" he started to say, but I cut him off. "Shh!" I jerked my head in the direction of the still clueless Caramel and Braeburn, who were now singing at the top of their tonedeaf lungs to the latest Apple strudel CD. Mackentosh's eyes were still in the direction of the still wide and shocked, but he lowered his voice. "Is that some kinda makeup thing you're doing for drama class?" "No," I whispered. "It's not." "But you can't be Marked. We're going out." "We are not going out!" And just like that my semi-reprieve from coughing ended. I particularly doubled over, hacking a seriously nasty, phlegmy cough. "Hey, Twi! Caramel called from the cab. "You gotta lay off those cigarettes." "Yeah, you sound like you're gonna cough up a lung or somethin'," Braeburn said. "Dude! Leave her alone. You know she don't smoke. She's a vampony." Great. Wonderful. Mackentosh, with his usual total and complete lack of anything resembling good sense, thought he was actually standing up for me as he yelled at his friends, who instantly stuck their heads out of the open windows and gawked at me like I was a science experiment. "Well, shit. Twilight's a fucking freak!" Braeburn said. Braeburn's insensitive words made the anger that had been simmering somewhere inside of my chest ever since Lyra had cringed from me bubble up and boil over. Ignoring the pain the sun caused me, I stared straight at Braeburn, meeting his eyes. "Shut the hell up! I've had a really bad day and I do not need this crap from you." I paused to look from the now wide-eyed and silent Braeburn to Caramel and added, "Or you." And as I kept eye contact with Caramel I realized something---something that shocked and weirdly excited me: Caramel looked scared. Really scared. I glared back at Braeburn. He looked scared, too. Then I felt it. A tingling sensation that crawled over my skin and my new Mark burn. Power. I felt power. "Twi? What the fuck?" Mackentosh's voice broke my attention and pulled my gaze from the brothers. "We're outta here!" Caramel said, throwing the truck into gear and stepping on the gas. The pickup lurched forward, causing Mackentosh to lose his balance and slide, with a windmill of arms and flying cider, onto the blacktop of the parking lot. Automatically, I rushed forward. "Are you okay?" Mackentosh was on his hooves and knees, and I belt down to help him up. Then I smelled it. Something smelled amazing--hot and sweet and delicious. Was Mackentosh wearing a new cologne? One of those weird pheromone things that are supposed to mares like a big genetically engineered bug zapper? I didn't realize how close I was to him until he stood up straight and out bodies were almost pressed together. He looked down at me, a question in his eyes. I didn't back away from him. I should have. I would have before...but not now. Not today. "Twi?" he said softly, his voice deep and husky. "You smell really good," I couldn't stop myself from saying. My heart was pounding so loud that I could hear it's echo in my throbbing temples. "Twi, I've really missed you. We need to get back together. You know I really love you." He reached up to touch my face and both of us noticed the blood that smeared the palm of his hand. "Ah, shit. I guess I---" his voice closed off when he glanced at my face. I could only imagine what I must look like, with my face all white, my new Mark blazingly outlined in sapphire blue, and my eyes staring at the blood on his hand. I couldn't move; I couldn't look away. "I want..." I whispered. "I want..." What did I want? I couldn't put it into words. No, that wasn't it. I wouldn't put it into words. Wouldn't say aloud the overwhelming surge of white-hot desire that was trying to drown me. And it wasn't because Mackentosh was standing so near. He'd been close to me before. Hell, we'd been making out for a year, but he'd never made me feel like this--nothing ever like this. I bit my lip and moaned. The pickup truck squealed to a halt, fishtailing beside us. Braeburn jumped out and grabbed Mackentosh around the waist, and jerked him backward into the cab of the truck. "Knock it off! I'm talking to Twilight!" Mackentosh tried to struggle against Braeburn, but the philly was Canterlot's senior linebacker, and truly ginormous. Caramel reached around them and slammed the door to the pickup truck. "Leave him alone, you freak!" Braeburn yelled at me as Caramel floored the truck and this time they really did speed off. I got into my Bug. My hands were shaking so hard I had to try three times before I got the engine started. "Just get home. Just get home." I said the words over and over between wrenching coughs as I drove. I wouldn't think about what had just happened. I couldn't think about what just happened. The drive home took fifteen minutes, but it seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Too soon I was sitting in the driveway, trying to get ready for the scene I knew, sure as lightning follows thunder, was waiting inside for me. Why had I been so eager to get here? I suppose I hadn't technically been all that eager. I suppose I'd just been escaping from what had happened in the parking lot with Mackentosh. No! I wasn't going to think about that now. And, anyway, there was probably some kind of rational explanation for everything, a rational and simple explanation. Caramel and Braeburn were retards---totally immature beer-brains. I hadn't used a creepy new power to intimidate them. They'd just been freaked that I'd been Marked. that was it. I mean, ponies were scared of vamponies. "But I'm not a vampony!" I said. Then coughed while I remember how hypnotically beautiful Mackentosh's blood had been, and the rush of desire I'd felt for it. Not Mackentosh, but Mackentosh's blood. No! No! No! Blood was not beautiful or desirable. I must be in shock. That's it. That had to be it. I was in shock and not thinking clearly. Okay...okay...absently, I touched my forehead. It had stopped burning, but it felt different. I coughed for the zillionth time. Fine. I wouldn't think about Mackentosh, but I couldn't deny it any more. I felt different. My skin was ultrasensitive. My chest hurt, and even though I had my cool DjPON3 sunglasses on, my eyes kept tearing up painfully. "I'm dying..." I moaned, and then promptly clamped my lips shut. I might actually be dying. I glanced up at the big brick house that, after three years, still didn't seem like home. "Get it over with. Just get it over with." At least my sister wouldn't be home yet--cheerleading practice. Hopefully, the troll would be totally hypnotized by his new Canterlot guards: Black Hawk Down video game (um...ew). I might have Mom to myself. Maybe she would understand...maybe she would know what to do... Ah hell! I was sixteen years old, but I suddenly realized that I wanted nothing as much as I wanted my mom. "Please let her understand," I whispered a simple prayer to whatever god or goddess might be listening to me. As usual, I went in through the garage. I walked down the hall to my room and dumped my geometry book and saddlebag on my bed. Then I took a deep breath and headed, a little shakily, to find my mom. She was in the family room, curled up on the edge of the couch, sipping a cup of coffee and reading Dandelion Soup for a Mare's Soul. She looked so normal, so much like she used to look. Except that she used to read exotic romances and actually wear makeup. Both were things her new husband didn't allow (what a turd). "Mom?" "Hum?" She didn't look up at me. I swallowed hard. "Mama." I used to call her, back in the days before she married Thunderlane. "I need your help." I don't know whether it was the unexpected use of "Mama" or if something in my voice touched an old piece of mom-intuition she still had somewhere inside her, but the eyes she lifted immediately from the book were soft and filled with concern. "What is it, baby--" she began, and then her words seemed to freeze on her lips as her eyes found the Mark on my forehead. "Oh, Celestia! What have you done now?" My heart started to hurt again. "Mom, I didn't do anything. This is something that happened to me, not because of me. It's not my fault." Oh, please, no!" She wailed as if I hadn't said a word. "What is your father going to say?" I wanted to scream how the hell would any of us know what my father was going to say, we haven't seen or heard from him for fourteen years! But I knew it wouldn't do any good, and it always just made her made when I reminded her that Thunderlane was not my "real" father. So I tried a different tactic--one I'd given up on three years ago. "Mama, please. Can't you just not tell him? At least for a day or two? Just keep it between the two of us until we...I don't know...get used to it or something." I held my breath. "But what would he say? You can't even cover up that thing up with makeup." Her lips curled weirdly as she gave the crescent moon a nervous glance. "Mom, I didn't mean that I'd stay here while we got used to it. I have to go; you know that." I had to pause while a huge cough made my shoulders shake. "The Tracker Marked me. I have to move to the House of Luna or I'm just going to get sicker and sicker." And then die, I tried tell her with my eyes. I couldn't actually say the words. "I just want a couple of days before I have to deal with..." I broke off so I didn't have to say his name, this time purposefully making myself cough, which wasn't hard. "What would I tell your father?" I felt a rush of fear at the panic in her voice. Wasn't she the mom? Wasn't she supposed to have the answers instead of the questions? "Just...just tell him that I'm spending the next couple days at Lyra's house because we have a biology project due." I watched my mom's eyes change. The concern faded from them and was replaced by a hardness that I recognized all too well. "So what you're saying is that you want me to lie to him." "No, Mom. What I'm saying is that I want you, to be my mama. To help me pack and to drive with me to this new school because I'm scared and sick and I don't know if I can do this all by myself!" I finished in a rush, breathing hard and coughing into my hoof. "I wasn't aware that I had stopped being your mom," she said coldly. She made me feel even more tired than Lyra had. I sighed, "I think that's the problem, Mom. You don't care enough to be aware of it. You haven't cared about anything but Thunderlane since you married him." Her eyes narrowed at me. "I don't know how you can be so selfish. Don't you realize what he's done for us? Because of him I don't have that awful job at the quilt shop. Because of him we don't have to worry about bits and we have this big, beautiful house. Because of him we have security and a bright future." I'd heard these words so often I could have recited them with her. It was at that point in our non-conversations that I usually apologized and went back to my room. But today I couldn't apologize. Today I was different. Everything was different. "No, Mother. The truth is that because of him you haven't paid any attention to your phillies for three years. Did you know that your oldest daughter has turned into a sneaky, spoiled slut who's screwed half of the football team? Do you know what nasty, bloody video games Shining Armour keeps hidden from you? No, of course you don't! The two of them act happy and pretend to like Thunderlane and the whole damn make-believe family thing, so you smile at them and pray for them and let them do whatever? I'm so sick of my life that I'm glad the Tracker Marked me! They call that vampony school the House of Luna, but it can't be any darker than this perfect home!" Before I could cry or scream I whirled around and stalked back to my bedroom, slamming the door behind me. I hope they all drown. Through the too thin walls I could hear her making a hysterical call to Thunderlane. There was no doubt that he'd rush home to deal with me. The Problem. Instead of sitting on the bed and crying like I was tempted to, I emptied the school crap out my saddlebag. Like I'd need it where I was going? They probably don't even have normal classes. They probably have classes like Ripping Ponies Throats Out 101 and...and...Intro to How to See in the Dark. Whatever. No matter what my mom did or didn't do, I couldn't stay here. I had to leave. So what did I need to take with me? My two favorite pairs of jeans, besides what I had on. A couple of black T-shirts. I mean, what else do vamponies wear? Plus, they are slimming. I almost passed on my cute aqua-colored sparkly cami, but all that black was bound to make me more depressed...so I included it. Then I stuffed tons of bras and thongs and hair and makeup things into the side pouch. I almost left my stuffed animal, Smarty Phants (couldn't say pants when I was two), on my pillow, but...well...vampony or not I didn't think I could sleep very well without him. So I tucked him gently into the damn saddlebag. Then I heard the knock on my door, and its voice called me of my room. "What?" I yelled, then I convulsed in a bout of nasty coughing. "Twilight. Your mother and I need to speak with you." Great. Clearly they didn't drown. I patted Smarty Phants. "Smarty, this sucks." I squared my shoulders, coughed again, and went out to face the enemy. Chapter 3 At first glance my step-loser, Thunderlane, appears to be an okay colt, even normal. (Yes, that's really his name--and, sadly, it is also now my mom's last name. She's Mrs.Lane. Can you believe it?) When he and my mom started dating I actually overheard some of my mom's friends calling him "handsome" and "charming". At first. Of course now Mom has a whole new group of friends, one Mr.Handsome and Charming thinks are more appropriate than the group of fun single mares she used to hang out with. I never liked him. Really. I'm not just saying that because I can't stand him now. From the first day I met him I saw only one thing-a fake. He fakes being a nice colt. He fakes being a good husband. He even fakes being a good father. He looks like every other dad-age guy. He has dark hair, bulk legs, and is getting a gut. His eyes are like his soul, a washed-out, cold, yellowish color. I walked out into the family room to find him standing by the couch. My mother was crumpled near the end of it, clutching his hoof. Her eyes were already red and watery. Great. She was going to play Hurt Hysterical Mother. It's an act she does well. Thunderlane had begun to attempt to skewer me with his eyes, but my Mark distracted him. His face twisted in disgust. "Get thee behind me, Satan!" he quoted in what I like to think of as his sermon voice. I sighed. "It's not Satan. It's just me." "Now is not the time for sarcasm, Twilight," Mom said. "I'll handle this, hon," the step-loser said, patting her shoulder absently before he turned his attention back to me. "I told you that your bad behavior and your attitude problem would catch up with you. I'm not even surprised it happened this soon." I shook my head. I expected this. I really expected this, and still it was a shock. Equastria knew that there was nothing anypony could do to bring on the Change. The whole "if you get Marked by a vampony you'll die and become one" thing is strictly fiction. Scientists have been trying to figure out what causes the sequence of physical events that lead to vamponyism for years, hoping that if they figure it out they could cure it, or at the very least invent a vaccine to fight against it. So far, no such luck. But now Thunderlane, my step-loser, had suddenly discovered that bad teenage behavior---specifically my bad behavior, which mostly consisted of an occasional lie, some pissed off thoughts and smartass comments directed primarily against my parents and maybe some semi-harmless lust for Fancy Pants (sad to say he likes older mares)---actually brought about this physical reaction in my body. Well, hell! Who knew? "This wasn't something I caused," I finally managed to say. "This wasn't done because of me. It was done to me. Every scientist n Equastria agrees with that." "Scientists are not all-knowing. They are not stallions of Celestia." I just stared at him. He was an Elder of the Ponies of Faith, a position he was oh, so proud of. It was one of the reasons Mom had been attracted to him, and on a strictly logical level I could understand why. Being an Elder meant that a stallion was successful. He had the right job. A nice house. The perfect family. He was supposed to do the right things and believe right away. On paper he should have been a great choice for her new husband and our father. Too bad the paper wouldn't have shown the full story. And now, predictably, he was going to play the Elder card and throw Celestia in my face. I would bet my cool new flats that it irritated Celestia as much as it annoyed me. I tried again. "We studied this in AP biology. It's a physiological reaction that takes place in some teenagers' bodies as their hormone levels rise." I paused, thinking really hard and totally proud of myself for remembering something I learned last semester. "In certain ponies the hormones trigger something-or-other in a...a..." I thought harder and remembered: "a Junk DNA strand, which starts the whole Change." I smiled, not really at Thunderlane, but because I was thrilled by my ability to recall stuff from a unit we'd been done with for months. I knew the smile was a mistake when I saw a familiar clenching of his jaw. "Celestia's knowledge surpasses science, and it's blasphemous for you to say to otherwise, young filly." "I never said scientists are smarter than Celestia!" I threw my hooves up and tried to stifle a cough. "I'm just trying to explain this thing to you." "I don't need to have anything explained to me by a sixteen-year-old." Well, he was wearing those really bad pants and that awful shirt. Clearly he did need some things explained to him by a teenager, but I didn't think it was the right time to mention his unfortunate and obvious fashion impairment. "But Thunderlane, honey, what are we going to do about her? What will the neighbors say?" Her face paled even more and she stifled a little sob. "What will ponies say at Meeting on Sunday?" He narrowed his eyes when I opened my mouth to answer, and interrupted before I could speak. "We are going to do what any good family should do. We are going to give this to Celestia." They were sending me to a convent? Unfortunately, I had to deal with another round of coughing, so he kept right on talking. "We are also going to call Dr.Turner. He'll know what to do to calm this situation." Wonderful. Fabulous. He's calling in our family shrink, the Incredibly Expressionless Stallion. Perfect. "Velvet, call Dr.Turner's emergency number, and then I think it would be wise to activate the prayer phone tree. Make sure the other Elders know they are to gather here." My mom nodded and started to get up, but the words the words that burst from my mouth made her flop back on the couch. "What! Your answer is to call shrink who is totally clueless about teenagers and get all those uptight Elders over here? Like they would even begin to try ad understand? No! Don't you get it? I have to leave. Tonight." I coughed, a really gut-wrenching sound that hurt my chest. "See! This will just get worse if I don't get around the..." I hesitated. Why was it so hard to say "vamponies"? Because it sounded so foreign--so final--and, part of me admitted, so fantastic. "I have to get to the House of Luna." Mom jumped up, and for a second I thought she was actually going to save me. Then Thunderlane put his arm around around her shoulder possessively. She looked up at him and when she looked back at me her eyes almost seemed sorry, but her words, typically, reflected only what Thunderlane would want her to say. "Twilight, surely it wouldn't hurt anything if you spent just tonight at home?" "Of course it wouldn't," Thunderlane said to her. "I'm sure Dr.Turner will see the need for a house visit. With him here she'll be perfectly fine." He patted her shoulder, pretended to be caring, but instead of sweet he sounded slimy. I looked from him to mom. They weren't going to let me leave. Not tonight, and maybe not ever, or at least not until I had to be hauled out by the paramedics. I suddenly understood that it wasn't about this Mark and the fact that my life had been totally changed. It was about control. If they let me go, somehow they lose. In mom's case, I liked to think that she was afraid of losing me. I knew that Thunderlane didn't want to lose. He didn't want to lose his precious authority and the illusion that we were the perfect little family. As mom had said, what would the neighbors think--what will ponies think at Meeting on Sunday? Thunderlane had to preserve the illusion, and if that meant allowing me to get really, really sick, well then, that was a price he was willing to pay. I wasn't willing to pay it, though. I guess it was time I took things into my own hooves (after all, they are well manicured). "Fine," I said. "Call Dr.Turner. Start the prayer phone tree. But do you mind if I go lay down until everyone gets here?" I coughed again for good measure. "Of course not, honey," Mom said, looking obviously relieved. "A little rest will probably make you feel better." Then she moved away from Thunderlane's possessive arm. She smiled then hugged me. "Would you like me to get you some NyQuill?" "No, I'll be fine," I said,clinging to her for just a second, wishing so damn hard that it was three years ago and she was still mine--still on my side. Then I took a deep breath breath and stepped back. "I'll be fine," I repeated. She looked at me and nodded, telling me she was sorry the only way she could, with her eyes. I turned away from her and started to retreat to my bedroom. To my back the step-loser said, "And why don't you do us all a favor and see if you can find some powder or something to cover up that thing on your forehead?" I didn't even pause. I just kept walking. And I wouldn't cry. I'm going to remember this, I told myself sternly.I'm going to remember how awful they made me feel today. So when I'm scared and alone and whatever else is going to happen to me starts to happen, I'm going to remember that nothing could be as bad as being stuck here. Nothing.
Chapter 1Just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse I saw the dead colt standing next to my locker. Lyra was talking nonstop in her usual L-babble, and she didn't even notice him. At first. Actually now that I think about it, no one else noticed him until he spoke, which is, tragically, more evidence of my freakish inability to fit in. "No, but Twilight, I swear to Celestia Mackentosh didn't get that drunk after the game. You really shouldn't be so hard on him." "Yeah," I said absently. "Sure." Then I coughed. Again. I felt like crap. I must be coming down with what Mr.Wise, my more-than-slightly-insane AP biology teacher, called the Teenage Plague. If I died, would it get me out of my geometry test tomorrow? One could only hope. "Twilight, please. Are you even listening? I think he only had like four-I dunno-maybe six ciders, and maybe like three shots. But that's totally beside the point. He probably wouldn't even have had hardly any if your stupid parents hadn't made you go home right after the game." We shared a long suffering look, in total agreement about the latest injustice committed against me by my mom and the Step-Loser she'd married three really long years ago. Then, after barely half a break, L was back with the babbling. "Plus he was celebrating. I mean we beat Phillydelphia!" L shook my shoulder and put her face close to mine. "Hello! Your boyfriend-" "My almost-boyfriend", I corrected her, trying my best not to cough on her. "Whatever. Mackentosh is our quarterback so of course he's going to celebrate. It's been like a million years since Canterlot beat Phillydelphia." "Sixteen." I'm crappy at math, but L's math impairment makes me look like a genuis. "Again, whatever. The point is, he was happy. You should give the boy a break." "The point is that he was wasted for like the fifth time this week. I'm sorry, but I don't want to go out with a guy whose main focus in life has changed from trying to play college football to trying to chug a six-pack without puking. Not to mention the fact that he's going to get fat from all that beer." I had to pause to cough. I was feeling a little dizzy and forced myself to take slow, deep breaths when the coughing fit was over. Not that L-babble noticed. "Eww! Mackentosh, fat! Not a visual I want." I managed to ignore another urge to cough. "And kissing him is like sucking on alcohol-soaked hooves." Lyra scrunched up her face. "Okay, sick. Too bad he's so hot." I rolled my eyes, not bothering to try to hide my annoyance at her typical shallowness. You're so grumpy when you're sick. Anyway, you have no idea how lost-puppy-like Mackentosh looked after you ignored him at lunch. He couldn't even..." Then I saw him. The dead colt. Okay, I realized pretty quick that he wasn't technically "dead". He was undead. Or un-pony. Whatever. Scientists said one thing, ponies said another, but the end result was the same. There was no mistaking what he was and even if i hadn't felt the power and darkness that radiated from him, there was no frikin' way I could miss his Mark, the sapphire-blue crescent moon on his forehead and the additional tattooing of entwining knot work that framed his equally blue eyes. He was a vampony, and worse. He was a Tracker. Well, crap! He was standing by my locker. "Twilight, you're so not listening to me!" Then the vampony spoke and his ceremonial words slicked across the space between us, dangerous and seductive, like blood mixed with chocolate. "Twilight Sparkle! Luna has chosen thee; thy death will be thy birth. Luna calls to thee; hearken to Her sweet voice. Your destiny awaits you at the house of Luna!" He lifted one long, white hoof and pointed at me. As my forehead exploded in pain Lyra opened her mouth and screamed. When the bright splotches finally cleared from my eyes I looked up to see Lyra's colorless face staring down at me. As usual, I said the first ridiculous thing that came to mind. "Lyra, your eyes are popping out of your head like a fish." "He marked you. Oh, Twilight! You have the outline of that thing on your forehead!" Then she pressed a shaking hoof against her white mouth, unsuccessfully trying to hold back a sob. I sat up and coughed. I had a killer headache, and I rubbed at the spot between my eyebrows. It stung as if a wasp had bit me and radiated pain down around my eyes, all the way across my cheekbones. I felt like I might puke. "Twilight!" Lyra was really crying now and had to speak between wet little hiccups. "Oh. My. Celestia. That colt was a Tracker!" "Lyra." I blinked hard, trying to clear the pain from my head. "Stop crying. You know I hate it when you cry." I reached out to attempt a comforting pat on her shoulders. And she automatically cringed, and moved away from me. I couldn't believe it. She actually cringed, like she was afraid of me. She must have seen the hurt in my eyes because she instantly started a string of breathless L-babble. Oh, Celestia, Twilight! What are you going to do? You can't go to that place. You can't be one of those things. This can't be happening! Who am I supposed to go to all of our football games with?" I noticed she didn't move one step closer to me. I clamped down on the sick, hurt feeling inside that threatened to make me burst into tears. I should be; I'd had three years to get good at it. "It's okay. I'll figure this out. It's probably some...some bizarre mistake," I lied. I wasn't really talking; I was just making words come out of my mouth. Still grimacing at the pain in my head, I stood up. Looking around I felt a small measure of relief that Lyra and I were the only ones in the math hall, and then I had to choke back what I knew was hysterical laughter. Had I not been totally psycho about the geometry test from Hell scheduled for tomorrow, and harun back to my locker to get my book so I could attempt to obsessively (and pointlessly) study tonight, the Tracker would have found me standing outside in front of the school with the majority of the 1,300 phillies who went to Canterlot Private School waiting for what my stupid Barbie-clone sister liked to smugly call "the big yellow carriages." I have a car, but standing around with the less fortunate who have to ride the buses is a time-honored tradition, not to mention an excellent way to check out who's hitting on who. As it was, there was only one other philly in the math hall---a tall thin dork with messed-up teeth, which I could, unfortunately, see too much of because he was standing there with his mouth flapping open staring at me like I'd just given birth to a litter of flying pigs. I coughed again, this time a really wet, disgusting cough. The dork made a squeaky little sound and scuttled down the hall to Mrs. Day's room clutching a flat board to his bony chest. Guess the chess club had changed it's meeting time to Mondays after school. Do vamponies play chess? Were there vampony dorks? How about Barbie-like vampony cheerleaders? Did any vamponies play in the band? Were there vampony Emos with their colt-wearing-mare's-pants weirdness and those freaky goth phillies who didn't like to bathe much? Was I going to turn into a Goth philly? Or worse, an Emo? I didn't particularly like wearing black, at least not exclusively, and I wasn't feeling a sudden and unfortunate aversion to soap and water, nor did I have an obsessive desire to change my hairstyle and wear too much eyeliner. All this whirled through my mind while I felt another little hysterical bubble of laughter try to escape from my throat, and was almost thankful when it came out as a cough instead. "Twilight? Are you okay?" Lyra's voice sounded too high, like someone was pinching her, and she'd taken another step away from me. I sighed and felt my first sliver of anger. It wasn't like I'd asked for this. Lyra and I had been friends since third grade, and now she was looking at me like I had turned into a monster. "Lyra, it's just me. The same me I was two seconds ago and two hours ago and two days ago." I made a frustrated gesture toward my throbbing head. "This doesn't change who I am!" Lyra's eyes teared up again, but, thankfully, her cell phone started singing Dj-PON3's "bass cannon". Automatically, she glanced at the caller ID. I could tell by her rabbit-in-the-headlights expression that it was her girlfriend, Bon-Bon. "Go on," I said in a flat, tired voice. "Ride home with her." Her look of relief was like a slap in my face. "Call me later?" she threw over her shoulder as she beat a hasty retreat out the side door. I watched her rush across the east lawn to the parking lot. I could see that she had her cell phone smashed to her ear and was talking in animated little bursts to Bon-Bon. I'm sure she was already telling him I was turning into a monster. The problem, of course, was that turning into a monster was vampony, which equals a monster in just about any human's mind. Choice Number 2: My body rejects the Change and I die. Forever. So the good news is that I wouldn't have to take the geometry test tomorrow. The bad news was that I'd have to move into the House of Luna, a private boarding school in Canterlot's Midtown, known by all my friends as the Vampony Finishing School, where I would spend the next four years going through bizarre and unnameable physical changes, as well as a total and permanent life shake-up. And that's only if the whole process didn't kill me. Great. I didn't want to do either. I just wanted to attempt to be normal, despite the burden of my mega-conservative parents, my troll-like younger brother, and my oh-so-perfect older sister. I wanted to pass geometry. I wanted to keep my grades up so that I could get accepted into the veterinary college in Phillydelphia and get out of Private School, Canterlot. But most of all, I wanted to fit in--at least at school. Home had become hopeless, so all I was left with were my friends and my friends and my life away from my family. Now that was being taken away from me, too. I rubbed my forehead and then messed with my hair until it semi-covered my eyes, and, with any luck, the mark that had appeared above them. Keeping my head ducked down, like I was fascinated with the goo that had somehow formed in my saddlebag, I hurried toward the door that led to the student parking lot. But I stopped short of going outside. Through the side-by-side windows in the institutional-looking-doors I could see Mackentosh. Mares flocking around him, posing and flipping their hair, while guys revved ridiculously big pickup trucks and tried (but mostly failed) to look cool. Doesn't it figure that I would choose that to be attracted to? No, to be fair to myself I should remember that Mackentoshused to be incredibly sweet, and even now he had his moments. Mostly when he bothered to be sober. High-pitched girl giggles flitted to me from the parking lot. Great. Diamond Tiara, the biggest ho in school, was pretending to smack Mackentosh. Even from where I was standing it was obvious she thought hitting him was some kind of mating ritual. As usual, clueless Mackentosh was just standing there grinning. Well, hell, my day just wasn't getting any better. And there sat my robin's egg-blue 1966 VW Bug right in the middle of all of them. No. I couldn't go out there. I couldn't walk into the middle of all them with this thing on my forehead. I'd never be able to be part of them again. I already knew too well what they'd do. I remembered the last philly a Tracker had Chosen at CPS. It happened at the beginning of the school year last year. The Tracker had come before school started and had targeted the philly as he was walking to his first hour. I didn't see the Tracker, but I did see the philly afterward, for just a second, after he dropped his books and ran out of the building, his new Mark glowing on his too white cheeks. I never forgot how crowded the halls had been that morning, and how everypony had backed away from him like he had the plague as he rushed to escape out the front doors of the school. I had been one of those ponies who had backed out of his way and stared, even though I'd felt really sorry for him. I just hadn't wanted to be labeled as that-one girl-who's-friends-with-those-freaks. Sort of ironic now, isn't it? Instead of going to my car I headed for the nearest restroom, which was, thankfully, empty. There were three stalls--yes, I double-checked each for feet. On one wall were two sinks, over which hung two medium-sized mirrors. Across from the sinks the opposite wall was covered with a huge mirror that had a ledge below it for holding brushes and makeup and whatnot. I put my purse and my geometry book on the ledge, took a deep breath, and in one motion lifted my head and brushed back my mane. It was like staring into the face of a familiar stranger. You know, that person you see in the crowd and swear you know, but you really don't? Now she was me--the familiar stranger. She had my eyes. They were the same dark purple that could never decide whether it wanted to be purple or a dark violet, but my eyes had never been that big and round. Or had they? She had my hair--long and straight and almost as dark purple as my grandma's had been before hers had begun to turn silver. The stranger had my high cheekbones, short snout, and small chibi mouth-more features from my grandma and her Celestial ancestors. But my face had never been that pale. I'd always been purple-ish, much darker skinned than anypony else in my family. But maybe it wasn't that my skin was suddenly so lavender...maybe it just looked pale in comparison to the dark blue outline of the crescent moon that was perfectly positioned in the middle of my forehead. Or maybe it was the horrid fluorescent lighting. I hoped it was the lighting. I stared at the exotic-looking tattoo. Mixed with my strong Celestial features it seemed to brand me with a mark of wildness...as if I belonged to ancient times when the world was bigger...more barbaric. From this day on my life would never be the same. And for a moment--just an instant--I forgot about the horror of not belonging and felt a shocking burst of pleasure, while deep inside of me the blood of my grandmother's ponies rejoiced.
Chapter 2When I figured that enough time had passed for everyone to have left school, I flopped my mane back over my forehead and left the bathroom, hurrying to the doors that led to the student parking lot. Everything seemed all clear--there was just some random philly wearing those seriously unattractive gang wanna-be baggy pants cutting across the far end of the lot. Keeping his pants from falling down as he walked was taking all his concentration; he wouldn't even notice me. I gritted my teeth against the throbbing pain in my head and bolted out the door, heading straight for my little Bug. The moment I stepped outside the sun began to batter me. I mean, it wasn't a particularly sunny day; there were plenty of those big, puffy clouds that looked so pretty in pictures floating around the sky, semi-blocking the sun. But that didn't matter. I had to squint my eyes painfully and hold my hoof up as a make-believe sun block against even that intermittent light. I guess it was because I was focusing so hard on the pain the ordinary sunlight was causing me that I didn't notice the truck until it squealed to a stop in front of me. "Hey Twi! Didn't you get my message?" Oh crap crap crap! It was Mackentosh. I glanced up, looking at him from underneath my hoof. He was sitting on the open tailgate of his friend Caramel's pickup truck. Over his shoulder I could see into the cab of the truck where Caramel and his brother, Braeburn, were doing what they were usually doing--wrestling around and arguing over Celestia only knows what stupid colt thing. Thankfully, they were ignoring me. I glanced back at Mackentosh and sighed. He had a cider in his hand and a goofy grin on his face. Momentarily forgetting that I'd just been Marked and was destined to become an outcast blood-sucking monster, I scowled at Mackentosh. "You're drinking at school! Are you crazy?" His little boy grin got bigger. "Yes I am crazy, 'bout you, baby!" I shook my head while I turned my back to him, opening the creaky door to my Bug and shoving my books and backpack into the passenger's seat. "Why aren't you guys at football practice?" I said, still keeping my face angled away from him. "Didn't you hear? We got the day off 'cause of the flank-kicking we gave Phillydelphia on Friday!" Caramel and Braeburn, who must have been kinda paying attention to Mackentosh and me after all, did a couple of very Country "Whoo-hoo!" and "Yeah!" yells from inside the truck. "Oh. Uh. No. I musta missed the announcement. I've been busy today. You know, big geometry test tomorrow." I tried to sound normal and nonchalant. Then I coughed and added, "Plus, I'm getting a crappy cold." "Twi, really. Are you pissed or somethin'? Like, did Lyra say some shit about the party? You know I didn't really cheat on you." Huh? Lyra had not said one solitary word about Mackentosh cheating on me. Like a moron, I forgot (okay, temporarily) about my new Mark. My head snapped around so I could glare at him. "What did you do, Mackentosh?" "Twi, me? You know I wouldn't..." but his innocent act and his excuses faded into an unattractive open-mouthed look of shock when he caught sight of my Mark. "What the--" he started to say, but I cut him off. "Shh!" I jerked my head in the direction of the still clueless Caramel and Braeburn, who were now singing at the top of their tonedeaf lungs to the latest Apple strudel CD. Mackentosh's eyes were still in the direction of the still wide and shocked, but he lowered his voice. "Is that some kinda makeup thing you're doing for drama class?" "No," I whispered. "It's not." "But you can't be Marked. We're going out." "We are not going out!" And just like that my semi-reprieve from coughing ended. I particularly doubled over, hacking a seriously nasty, phlegmy cough. "Hey, Twi! Caramel called from the cab. "You gotta lay off those cigarettes." "Yeah, you sound like you're gonna cough up a lung or somethin'," Braeburn said. "Dude! Leave her alone. You know she don't smoke. She's a vampony." Great. Wonderful. Mackentosh, with his usual total and complete lack of anything resembling good sense, thought he was actually standing up for me as he yelled at his friends, who instantly stuck their heads out of the open windows and gawked at me like I was a science experiment. "Well, shit. Twilight's a fucking freak!" Braeburn said. Braeburn's insensitive words made the anger that had been simmering somewhere inside of my chest ever since Lyra had cringed from me bubble up and boil over. Ignoring the pain the sun caused me, I stared straight at Braeburn, meeting his eyes. "Shut the hell up! I've had a really bad day and I do not need this crap from you." I paused to look from the now wide-eyed and silent Braeburn to Caramel and added, "Or you." And as I kept eye contact with Caramel I realized something---something that shocked and weirdly excited me: Caramel looked scared. Really scared. I glared back at Braeburn. He looked scared, too. Then I felt it. A tingling sensation that crawled over my skin and my new Mark burn. Power. I felt power. "Twi? What the fuck?" Mackentosh's voice broke my attention and pulled my gaze from the brothers. "We're outta here!" Caramel said, throwing the truck into gear and stepping on the gas. The pickup lurched forward, causing Mackentosh to lose his balance and slide, with a windmill of arms and flying cider, onto the blacktop of the parking lot. Automatically, I rushed forward. "Are you okay?" Mackentosh was on his hooves and knees, and I belt down to help him up. Then I smelled it. Something smelled amazing--hot and sweet and delicious. Was Mackentosh wearing a new cologne? One of those weird pheromone things that are supposed to mares like a big genetically engineered bug zapper? I didn't realize how close I was to him until he stood up straight and out bodies were almost pressed together. He looked down at me, a question in his eyes. I didn't back away from him. I should have. I would have before...but not now. Not today. "Twi?" he said softly, his voice deep and husky. "You smell really good," I couldn't stop myself from saying. My heart was pounding so loud that I could hear it's echo in my throbbing temples. "Twi, I've really missed you. We need to get back together. You know I really love you." He reached up to touch my face and both of us noticed the blood that smeared the palm of his hand. "Ah, shit. I guess I---" his voice closed off when he glanced at my face. I could only imagine what I must look like, with my face all white, my new Mark blazingly outlined in sapphire blue, and my eyes staring at the blood on his hand. I couldn't move; I couldn't look away. "I want..." I whispered. "I want..." What did I want? I couldn't put it into words. No, that wasn't it. I wouldn't put it into words. Wouldn't say aloud the overwhelming surge of white-hot desire that was trying to drown me. And it wasn't because Mackentosh was standing so near. He'd been close to me before. Hell, we'd been making out for a year, but he'd never made me feel like this--nothing ever like this. I bit my lip and moaned. The pickup truck squealed to a halt, fishtailing beside us. Braeburn jumped out and grabbed Mackentosh around the waist, and jerked him backward into the cab of the truck. "Knock it off! I'm talking to Twilight!" Mackentosh tried to struggle against Braeburn, but the philly was Canterlot's senior linebacker, and truly ginormous. Caramel reached around them and slammed the door to the pickup truck. "Leave him alone, you freak!" Braeburn yelled at me as Caramel floored the truck and this time they really did speed off. I got into my Bug. My hands were shaking so hard I had to try three times before I got the engine started. "Just get home. Just get home." I said the words over and over between wrenching coughs as I drove. I wouldn't think about what had just happened. I couldn't think about what just happened. The drive home took fifteen minutes, but it seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Too soon I was sitting in the driveway, trying to get ready for the scene I knew, sure as lightning follows thunder, was waiting inside for me. Why had I been so eager to get here? I suppose I hadn't technically been all that eager. I suppose I'd just been escaping from what had happened in the parking lot with Mackentosh. No! I wasn't going to think about that now. And, anyway, there was probably some kind of rational explanation for everything, a rational and simple explanation. Caramel and Braeburn were retards---totally immature beer-brains. I hadn't used a creepy new power to intimidate them. They'd just been freaked that I'd been Marked. that was it. I mean, ponies were scared of vamponies. "But I'm not a vampony!" I said. Then coughed while I remember how hypnotically beautiful Mackentosh's blood had been, and the rush of desire I'd felt for it. Not Mackentosh, but Mackentosh's blood. No! No! No! Blood was not beautiful or desirable. I must be in shock. That's it. That had to be it. I was in shock and not thinking clearly. Okay...okay...absently, I touched my forehead. It had stopped burning, but it felt different. I coughed for the zillionth time. Fine. I wouldn't think about Mackentosh, but I couldn't deny it any more. I felt different. My skin was ultrasensitive. My chest hurt, and even though I had my cool DjPON3 sunglasses on, my eyes kept tearing up painfully. "I'm dying..." I moaned, and then promptly clamped my lips shut. I might actually be dying. I glanced up at the big brick house that, after three years, still didn't seem like home. "Get it over with. Just get it over with." At least my sister wouldn't be home yet--cheerleading practice. Hopefully, the troll would be totally hypnotized by his new Canterlot guards: Black Hawk Down video game (um...ew). I might have Mom to myself. Maybe she would understand...maybe she would know what to do... Ah hell! I was sixteen years old, but I suddenly realized that I wanted nothing as much as I wanted my mom. "Please let her understand," I whispered a simple prayer to whatever god or goddess might be listening to me. As usual, I went in through the garage. I walked down the hall to my room and dumped my geometry book and saddlebag on my bed. Then I took a deep breath and headed, a little shakily, to find my mom. She was in the family room, curled up on the edge of the couch, sipping a cup of coffee and reading Dandelion Soup for a Mare's Soul. She looked so normal, so much like she used to look. Except that she used to read exotic romances and actually wear makeup. Both were things her new husband didn't allow (what a turd). "Mom?" "Hum?" She didn't look up at me. I swallowed hard. "Mama." I used to call her, back in the days before she married Thunderlane. "I need your help." I don't know whether it was the unexpected use of "Mama" or if something in my voice touched an old piece of mom-intuition she still had somewhere inside her, but the eyes she lifted immediately from the book were soft and filled with concern. "What is it, baby--" she began, and then her words seemed to freeze on her lips as her eyes found the Mark on my forehead. "Oh, Celestia! What have you done now?" My heart started to hurt again. "Mom, I didn't do anything. This is something that happened to me, not because of me. It's not my fault." Oh, please, no!" She wailed as if I hadn't said a word. "What is your father going to say?" I wanted to scream how the hell would any of us know what my father was going to say, we haven't seen or heard from him for fourteen years! But I knew it wouldn't do any good, and it always just made her made when I reminded her that Thunderlane was not my "real" father. So I tried a different tactic--one I'd given up on three years ago. "Mama, please. Can't you just not tell him? At least for a day or two? Just keep it between the two of us until we...I don't know...get used to it or something." I held my breath. "But what would he say? You can't even cover up that thing up with makeup." Her lips curled weirdly as she gave the crescent moon a nervous glance. "Mom, I didn't mean that I'd stay here while we got used to it. I have to go; you know that." I had to pause while a huge cough made my shoulders shake. "The Tracker Marked me. I have to move to the House of Luna or I'm just going to get sicker and sicker." And then die, I tried tell her with my eyes. I couldn't actually say the words. "I just want a couple of days before I have to deal with..." I broke off so I didn't have to say his name, this time purposefully making myself cough, which wasn't hard. "What would I tell your father?" I felt a rush of fear at the panic in her voice. Wasn't she the mom? Wasn't she supposed to have the answers instead of the questions? "Just...just tell him that I'm spending the next couple days at Lyra's house because we have a biology project due." I watched my mom's eyes change. The concern faded from them and was replaced by a hardness that I recognized all too well. "So what you're saying is that you want me to lie to him." "No, Mom. What I'm saying is that I want you, to be my mama. To help me pack and to drive with me to this new school because I'm scared and sick and I don't know if I can do this all by myself!" I finished in a rush, breathing hard and coughing into my hoof. "I wasn't aware that I had stopped being your mom," she said coldly. She made me feel even more tired than Lyra had. I sighed, "I think that's the problem, Mom. You don't care enough to be aware of it. You haven't cared about anything but Thunderlane since you married him." Her eyes narrowed at me. "I don't know how you can be so selfish. Don't you realize what he's done for us? Because of him I don't have that awful job at the quilt shop. Because of him we don't have to worry about bits and we have this big, beautiful house. Because of him we have security and a bright future." I'd heard these words so often I could have recited them with her. It was at that point in our non-conversations that I usually apologized and went back to my room. But today I couldn't apologize. Today I was different. Everything was different. "No, Mother. The truth is that because of him you haven't paid any attention to your phillies for three years. Did you know that your oldest daughter has turned into a sneaky, spoiled slut who's screwed half of the football team? Do you know what nasty, bloody video games Shining Armour keeps hidden from you? No, of course you don't! The two of them act happy and pretend to like Thunderlane and the whole damn make-believe family thing, so you smile at them and pray for them and let them do whatever? I'm so sick of my life that I'm glad the Tracker Marked me! They call that vampony school the House of Luna, but it can't be any darker than this perfect home!" Before I could cry or scream I whirled around and stalked back to my bedroom, slamming the door behind me. I hope they all drown. Through the too thin walls I could hear her making a hysterical call to Thunderlane. There was no doubt that he'd rush home to deal with me. The Problem. Instead of sitting on the bed and crying like I was tempted to, I emptied the school crap out my saddlebag. Like I'd need it where I was going? They probably don't even have normal classes. They probably have classes like Ripping Ponies Throats Out 101 and...and...Intro to How to See in the Dark. Whatever. No matter what my mom did or didn't do, I couldn't stay here. I had to leave. So what did I need to take with me? My two favorite pairs of jeans, besides what I had on. A couple of black T-shirts. I mean, what else do vamponies wear? Plus, they are slimming. I almost passed on my cute aqua-colored sparkly cami, but all that black was bound to make me more depressed...so I included it. Then I stuffed tons of bras and thongs and hair and makeup things into the side pouch. I almost left my stuffed animal, Smarty Phants (couldn't say pants when I was two), on my pillow, but...well...vampony or not I didn't think I could sleep very well without him. So I tucked him gently into the damn saddlebag. Then I heard the knock on my door, and its voice called me of my room. "What?" I yelled, then I convulsed in a bout of nasty coughing. "Twilight. Your mother and I need to speak with you." Great. Clearly they didn't drown. I patted Smarty Phants. "Smarty, this sucks." I squared my shoulders, coughed again, and went out to face the enemy.
Chapter 3 At first glance my step-loser, Thunderlane, appears to be an okay colt, even normal. (Yes, that's really his name--and, sadly, it is also now my mom's last name. She's Mrs.Lane. Can you believe it?) When he and my mom started dating I actually overheard some of my mom's friends calling him "handsome" and "charming". At first. Of course now Mom has a whole new group of friends, one Mr.Handsome and Charming thinks are more appropriate than the group of fun single mares she used to hang out with. I never liked him. Really. I'm not just saying that because I can't stand him now. From the first day I met him I saw only one thing-a fake. He fakes being a nice colt. He fakes being a good husband. He even fakes being a good father. He looks like every other dad-age guy. He has dark hair, bulk legs, and is getting a gut. His eyes are like his soul, a washed-out, cold, yellowish color. I walked out into the family room to find him standing by the couch. My mother was crumpled near the end of it, clutching his hoof. Her eyes were already red and watery. Great. She was going to play Hurt Hysterical Mother. It's an act she does well. Thunderlane had begun to attempt to skewer me with his eyes, but my Mark distracted him. His face twisted in disgust. "Get thee behind me, Satan!" he quoted in what I like to think of as his sermon voice. I sighed. "It's not Satan. It's just me." "Now is not the time for sarcasm, Twilight," Mom said. "I'll handle this, hon," the step-loser said, patting her shoulder absently before he turned his attention back to me. "I told you that your bad behavior and your attitude problem would catch up with you. I'm not even surprised it happened this soon." I shook my head. I expected this. I really expected this, and still it was a shock. Equastria knew that there was nothing anypony could do to bring on the Change. The whole "if you get Marked by a vampony you'll die and become one" thing is strictly fiction. Scientists have been trying to figure out what causes the sequence of physical events that lead to vamponyism for years, hoping that if they figure it out they could cure it, or at the very least invent a vaccine to fight against it. So far, no such luck. But now Thunderlane, my step-loser, had suddenly discovered that bad teenage behavior---specifically my bad behavior, which mostly consisted of an occasional lie, some pissed off thoughts and smartass comments directed primarily against my parents and maybe some semi-harmless lust for Fancy Pants (sad to say he likes older mares)---actually brought about this physical reaction in my body. Well, hell! Who knew? "This wasn't something I caused," I finally managed to say. "This wasn't done because of me. It was done to me. Every scientist n Equastria agrees with that." "Scientists are not all-knowing. They are not stallions of Celestia." I just stared at him. He was an Elder of the Ponies of Faith, a position he was oh, so proud of. It was one of the reasons Mom had been attracted to him, and on a strictly logical level I could understand why. Being an Elder meant that a stallion was successful. He had the right job. A nice house. The perfect family. He was supposed to do the right things and believe right away. On paper he should have been a great choice for her new husband and our father. Too bad the paper wouldn't have shown the full story. And now, predictably, he was going to play the Elder card and throw Celestia in my face. I would bet my cool new flats that it irritated Celestia as much as it annoyed me. I tried again. "We studied this in AP biology. It's a physiological reaction that takes place in some teenagers' bodies as their hormone levels rise." I paused, thinking really hard and totally proud of myself for remembering something I learned last semester. "In certain ponies the hormones trigger something-or-other in a...a..." I thought harder and remembered: "a Junk DNA strand, which starts the whole Change." I smiled, not really at Thunderlane, but because I was thrilled by my ability to recall stuff from a unit we'd been done with for months. I knew the smile was a mistake when I saw a familiar clenching of his jaw. "Celestia's knowledge surpasses science, and it's blasphemous for you to say to otherwise, young filly." "I never said scientists are smarter than Celestia!" I threw my hooves up and tried to stifle a cough. "I'm just trying to explain this thing to you." "I don't need to have anything explained to me by a sixteen-year-old." Well, he was wearing those really bad pants and that awful shirt. Clearly he did need some things explained to him by a teenager, but I didn't think it was the right time to mention his unfortunate and obvious fashion impairment. "But Thunderlane, honey, what are we going to do about her? What will the neighbors say?" Her face paled even more and she stifled a little sob. "What will ponies say at Meeting on Sunday?" He narrowed his eyes when I opened my mouth to answer, and interrupted before I could speak. "We are going to do what any good family should do. We are going to give this to Celestia." They were sending me to a convent? Unfortunately, I had to deal with another round of coughing, so he kept right on talking. "We are also going to call Dr.Turner. He'll know what to do to calm this situation." Wonderful. Fabulous. He's calling in our family shrink, the Incredibly Expressionless Stallion. Perfect. "Velvet, call Dr.Turner's emergency number, and then I think it would be wise to activate the prayer phone tree. Make sure the other Elders know they are to gather here." My mom nodded and started to get up, but the words the words that burst from my mouth made her flop back on the couch. "What! Your answer is to call shrink who is totally clueless about teenagers and get all those uptight Elders over here? Like they would even begin to try ad understand? No! Don't you get it? I have to leave. Tonight." I coughed, a really gut-wrenching sound that hurt my chest. "See! This will just get worse if I don't get around the..." I hesitated. Why was it so hard to say "vamponies"? Because it sounded so foreign--so final--and, part of me admitted, so fantastic. "I have to get to the House of Luna." Mom jumped up, and for a second I thought she was actually going to save me. Then Thunderlane put his arm around around her shoulder possessively. She looked up at him and when she looked back at me her eyes almost seemed sorry, but her words, typically, reflected only what Thunderlane would want her to say. "Twilight, surely it wouldn't hurt anything if you spent just tonight at home?" "Of course it wouldn't," Thunderlane said to her. "I'm sure Dr.Turner will see the need for a house visit. With him here she'll be perfectly fine." He patted her shoulder, pretended to be caring, but instead of sweet he sounded slimy. I looked from him to mom. They weren't going to let me leave. Not tonight, and maybe not ever, or at least not until I had to be hauled out by the paramedics. I suddenly understood that it wasn't about this Mark and the fact that my life had been totally changed. It was about control. If they let me go, somehow they lose. In mom's case, I liked to think that she was afraid of losing me. I knew that Thunderlane didn't want to lose. He didn't want to lose his precious authority and the illusion that we were the perfect little family. As mom had said, what would the neighbors think--what will ponies think at Meeting on Sunday? Thunderlane had to preserve the illusion, and if that meant allowing me to get really, really sick, well then, that was a price he was willing to pay. I wasn't willing to pay it, though. I guess it was time I took things into my own hooves (after all, they are well manicured). "Fine," I said. "Call Dr.Turner. Start the prayer phone tree. But do you mind if I go lay down until everyone gets here?" I coughed again for good measure. "Of course not, honey," Mom said, looking obviously relieved. "A little rest will probably make you feel better." Then she moved away from Thunderlane's possessive arm. She smiled then hugged me. "Would you like me to get you some NyQuill?" "No, I'll be fine," I said,clinging to her for just a second, wishing so damn hard that it was three years ago and she was still mine--still on my side. Then I took a deep breath breath and stepped back. "I'll be fine," I repeated. She looked at me and nodded, telling me she was sorry the only way she could, with her eyes. I turned away from her and started to retreat to my bedroom. To my back the step-loser said, "And why don't you do us all a favor and see if you can find some powder or something to cover up that thing on your forehead?" I didn't even pause. I just kept walking. And I wouldn't cry. I'm going to remember this, I told myself sternly.I'm going to remember how awful they made me feel today. So when I'm scared and alone and whatever else is going to happen to me starts to happen, I'm going to remember that nothing could be as bad as being stuck here. Nothing.
