Blood and Victory Academy

Blood and Victory Academy II

I eyed the both of them like they were insane. “I’m not really catching up with you, guys,” I sighed. “Vampires don’t exist so what was my mother hunting? Maybe she was hunting rabbits and such so the proper term is not a vampire hunter,”

“Vampires do exist,” Kelly emphasized each word like I was a little child being lectured upon. She turned her attention to Christopher, “Mr. Jones, can you please explain everything to her? Maybe she thinks we’re joking,”

“I do think you’re joking,” I rolled my eyes. “Vampires are just mythical creatures that don’t exist,”

“They exist, Ash,” Christopher, or Mr. Jones, disagreed. “This school is exclusive for vampire hunters only. We don’t accept people who just want to be vampire hunters. We only accept people who already have the vampire hunter blood running in their veins,”

“So…” I cleared my throat. “…you’re saying that…the older people from my family are vampire hunters? Even your mother, Kelly? And you’re also saying that I need to be a vampire hunter too?”

“Ms. Anderson’s mother is Ellie’s younger sister, correct?” I nodded at what Christopher had asked. “Both of your mothers came from the Schneider family…and the Schneiders are considered as one of the three greatest families in the world of vampire hunting,”

Christopher was right when he mentioned my mother’s maiden name, Schneider. I still did not want to believe of what I was hearing. My mother was a legendary vampire hunter and my family on my mother’s side was one of the three greatest families in the world of vampire hunting. Who would believe such thing? Who would believe that I came from a family where they killed those creatures that did not exist?

And for Pete’s sake...Christopher was also saying that this school was exclusive for people who were born to be vampire hunters.

“I know that this is a lot to take in,” Kelly rubbed my back. “I didn’t think it was real too when they first told me about it,”

“Your father…” Christopher continued talking, “…he’s a vampire hunter too. This academy is the reason why they met,” the tone in Christopher’s voice sounded bitter. I got the hunch earlier that he had a crush on my mother…but being bitter to my biological father about that? I thought that was too immature of him. If my mother turned down this good looking man in front of me…could it be that my father looked better than him? Well…probably. “Both of your mothers and both of your fathers were good friends of mine back when I was still studying here,”

“And your group of friends was like the popular ones around here, right?” Kelly grinned.

“Why are they popular?” I asked.

“Their group contained two Schneiders and one Jones,” Kelly explained. “Jones is also one of the three greatest families in the world of vampire hunting,”

I did not know if I was supposed to be surprised or amazed. I still could not comprehend that I was going to be a vampire hunter.

I also did not want to ask about my father. I did not want to know of what happened to him and where he was now. I did not need another thought to think upon because all of this craziness was a lot to take in for an eighteen-year-old girl like me.

“So, you’re one of the greatest vampire hunters here, then?” I asked Christopher.

“They consider me as one,” he shrugged. “But nothing could beat your mother. You should be proud, Ash. Your mother is pretty bad-ass,”

“Whatever,” I rolled my eyes. “Do I have a choice on this?”

“Not quite,” Christopher said flatly. “Personally, I think that you could even out what your mother did for the world if you put effort in it. Your cousin, Kelly, will help you through your training and I will also have another student to guide you until you graduate from this academy,”

“I don’t need a tutor,” I responded. “I can do this by myself…except for studying. If it’s just physical defence, I could say that I could beat everyone in here,” I did not know why I sounded so proud of myself when I still did not know what would happen to me here in this academy. At the back of my mind, I wanted to remain my image as the notorious girl in high school…but was it possible for me to do that here?

“That’s what I thought at first too,” Kelly chuckled. “But trust me when I say that this world is different from the one we lived in before.”

***

“What could be so hard?” I tried to sound optimistic. “I could probably vent out all my frustrations to a vampire while I’m killing one, right?” I did not actually believe a single word that I was saying since I still thought that vampires were just mythical creatures that did not exist. “Oh…do they sparkle like those vampires in Twilight?”

“No,” Kelly shook her head. We were currently walking our way to our room.

“Do they fear garlic?”

“No,”

“Umm…” I thought of things about vampires that I watched from movies, “Holy water?”

“No,”

“Sunlight?”

“Sunlight weakens them so I guess you got one right,” Kelly sighed. “They are also not vulnerable to anything that contains the world ‘holy’. They can go inside a church, they can wear necklaces with a cross on them and they can have anything that is Catholic, really,”

“Then other than sunlight…what could kill them?” I wondered. If I was really going to be a vampire hunter, it was better for me to know the basics of being one but…how could I be a vampire hunter when I did not believe in vampires myself?

“Setting them on fire, beheading them, and…” she trailed off but continued two seconds later, “…driving a stake into their hearts,”

“Wow…” I stopped walking and stared at her in awe. “I can do all that?”

“You can’t,” she flicked my forehead. I remembered that she used to do it to me all the time back when we were kids. “Not until you train and prove yourself that you are capable of doing it,”

“Have you already killed a vampire?”

“…Not yet. I’m still not good enough to go to a next mission. As of now, I’m placed in Class Five,” she admitted as she looked down on the ground. I remembered that there were five classes here and Class Five as the lowest whilst Class One as the highest. “I, of course, feel quite pressured considering the fact that I’m a daughter of Elaine Schneider. You should get used to all the attention since you’re a Schneider too and the daughter of a legend to add up to that. If you’re not good enough, the other students wouldn’t acknowledge your existence…like me,”

I still could not get quite used to hearing that my mother, Elizabeth Miller, was a legend.

“Are they bullying you?” I asked, quite frustrated. Why didn’t they acknowledge Kelly’s presence as a Schneider? It was not like you were born quite great at vampire hunting that easily, right? Maybe Kelly was already trying her best and they were just being douches.

“Don’t be so mad,” Kelly chuckled like it was no big deal. Why did she let the other students tower over her? If I was in her place, I would have made sure to make their lives a living hell. “I’m quite used to it,”

“I’ll kill them,”

“Don’t,” she used her left hand to grab my right hand. Her gesture was not enough to calm me down but I gave in since I knew that she would be angry if I pursued the issue. “I’m fine, Ash. You should worry more about yourself since you just came here,”

“Bu—“

“No buts,” she cut me off. She was older than me and I knew that her words were authority. I respected my cousin that much. “Let’s go to our room, shall we?”

***

It was already lunch time. Kelly was excused for the whole day to tend to me. We went to the cafeteria after unpacking my bags in our room. Our room was just your typical boarding room with two single beds and brown walls. I was happy to say that it was too spacious for the both of us. We also had each vintage-looking closet for our clothes and one bathroom.

The room was great, really, but what I hated about it was how we had curfew and we had a ‘lights off’ policy at eleven o’ clock in the evening. I always slept at two o’clock in the morning and it did not occur to me that I needed to adjust my sleeping time just because I transferred here in Blood and Victory Academy.

To make a long ranting short, what if I didn’t want to sleep that early?

“This place is huge,” I commented as I admired my surroundings. The cafeteria looked like a restaurant from a five-star hotel. It did not look like a cafeteria at all. The workers wore a uniform that consisted of a white long-sleeved top underneath a maroon vest, a black pencil skirt over a black pair of stockings, and two-inch black stilettos. I also noticed that the workers looked like they were just in their early thirties’.

Kelly sat on one available chair so I copied her example. “That’s no surprise since this school makes a lot of money,” she told me like it was nothing. “Vampires are rich and everytime we kill one, we get to take all their money,”

“What?!” I exclaimed. I did not even care if everybody inside the cafeteria turned to look at me. “We rob the vampires after we kill them?!” two sets of lunch sets were placed in front of us by a worker. The worker had blonde hair that was tied into a neat bun and her blue eyes sparkled just like Kelly’s. I could have sworn that this worker would have passed as a model.

“That’s normal, right?” she shrugged. “It would be a waste if we don’t take the money. Did you not ever wonder why you and your mother have the money even though she was not working?” Now that Kelly mentioned it, the thought was kind of intriguing. She was right when she said that my mother was not working anymore and we still had food on the table with a spacious house to live in. I thought that maybe she just used her savings account or something. “Since your mother is a legend, she has a lot of money. I wouldn’t actually be surprised if she’s a billionaire considering that she killed successful vampires that some were even famous in the underground mafia community,”

My mother was like that?

My mother was a billionaire?

I was now getting closer to believing what Kelly was saying since I was having second thoughts of my own. “Do you know how many vampires my mother had killed?” I asked her. I wanted to know the answer since I was curious about my mother too. The mother that I grew up with looked like she was always stressed of something and I knew that majority of the things that she was stressing upon was me. I did not even put effort into knowing my mother that deeply. I did not know why I was now having regrets for not bonding that much with my mother.

Maybe I regretted not spending my time with her.

“She retired early but I think that she killed…1,278 vampires on her own?” Kelly racked her brain. “I knew that I heard that it was of that number,”

“What?!” I exclaimed once again. My mother killed more than a thousand vampires?! What the hell was mother? At any moment now, I knew that my jaw would reach the floor.

I could not imagine my mother being a vampire hunter.

She was a good cook so my imagination limited her only as a chef.

“It’s true,” Kelly added. “You better be ready of the criticisms of the other students. They think that you’re like your mother so you better stand your ground if ever you are compared to the legendary Elizabeth Miller,”

“Being compared to my mother?” I scoffed playfully but deep inside, I knew that I was nervous. My mother was famous around here and how the hell was I going to outstand the name that she built up all by herself? “What’s so bad about that?”