Lost Souls. Lisa Jackson
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up to him as she lowered her voice when Kristi passed, but Kristi recognized Lucretia’s friend, Ariel. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, she was holding a bag of books, her glasses were splattered with rain, but even so, she looked as if she were on the verge of tears.
“…I…I just thought you should know, Father Tony,” Ariel said, flipping the hood of her jacket over her head.
Father Tony. The priest Irene Calloway had griped about being too hip. Kristi had seen his name in the school catalogue, where he’d been listed as Father Anthony Mediera. In the All Saints information packet the priest had been smiling and calm, wearing a cassock as he stared into the camera with large eyes. Now those blue eyes were dark and guarded, his jaw set, his thin lips flat in repressed anger.
“Don’t worry,” he said with the hint of an Italian accent, also lowering his voice as Kristi passed. “I’ll handle it. Promise.”
Ariel’s smile was tremulous and adoring, until she spied Kristi. Her expression changed quickly and she hurried away, as if hoping Kristi hadn’t recognized her like she’d obviously recognized Kristi.
Which was fine.
Kristi was late. Whatever Ariel was confessing to Father Tony had nothing to do with her.
She zigzagged behind the religious center and finally, nearly ten minutes late, reached Adam’s Hall, where she took the exterior steps two at a time. Inside the old building she clamored her way to the second floor, where the doors to her classroom were already closed.
Damn, she thought, yanking open the door to a room so quiet she was certain anyone within could hear a pin drop let alone her bold entry.
The windows were draped in thick dark velvet, the rectangular classroom lit by fake candles. A tall man stood at the podium. Her heart nearly stopped as he stared at her with near-black eyes, then glanced at the clock over the door.
She found one of the few empty seats and told herself he wasn’t glaring at her with eyes like embers, dark but threatening to glow red. It was all just a matter of lighting and her own vivid imagination. Because the classroom had been converted to a creep-a-thon, and the image that was cast behind him on the chalkboard from a slide projector plugged into his computer was of Bela Lugosi, dressed as Dracula, in white shirt and cape.
Bela’s picture disappeared, changed to another image, one of a horrible, hissing creature with needle-sharp teeth and blood dripping from his lips.
“Vampires come in all shapes and sizes and have varying powers,” Dr. Grotto said, glancing at the next picture, an old comic book cover with a cartoon image of a lurking vampire creature about to lunge at a fleeing, scantily clad blonde with a figure that would make Barbie envious.
Kristi tried to meld into the other students, but no such luck. Dr. Grotto seemed to single her out, to glower at her as she opened her notepad and laptop computer. Finally, he cleared his throat and glanced down at his notes. “We’ll start the term with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, discuss where he found his inspiration. In cruel Vlad the Impaler, as most people believe? In Romania? Hungary? Transylvania?” he asked, pausing for effect. “Or perhaps in other historical monsters such as Elizabeth of Bathory, the countess who tortured servant girls, then bathed in their blood to protect her own waning beauty? Myth? Legend? Or fact?” Grotto went on about the course itself and what he required. Kristi took notes, but she was more interested in the man than his lecture. He walked catlike from one side of the room to the other, engaging students, seemingly to mesmerize them. Tall and lithe, he embodied his subject matter.
The images kept changing behind him, from campy to cruel. As a trailer for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer appeared behind him, Grotto hit a button on his desk. The overhead lights glowed and the curtains retracted. Buffy and the gang’s image faded and the room transformed into a normal classroom. “Enough of the theatrics,” Grotto said, and the class groaned. “I know, we all like a stage show, but this is a college credit course, so, I trust you have all received a syllabus through your e-mail and you know that you’re to read Bram Stoker’s Dracula by the end of this week. If not, see me after class.
“So, let’s start the discussion…. What do you know of vampires? Are they real? Human? Do they really feast on human blood? Morph into a variety of creatures? Sleep in coffins? Today we’ll discuss what you know about vampires, or think you know.” He smiled then, showing off glistening fangs, only to remove the false caps and set them on the desk. “I said I was done with the theatrics, didn’t I?”
From that second on, Dr. Grotto held everyone’s attention for the rest of the lecture. The class was lively with Grotto asking questions as well as answering some, and it was obvious why the class was one of the most popular at the college.
Dominic Grotto could transform as easily as the mythical creatures he studied. One minute dark and thoughtful, the next animated and witty. He had an easy manner and used the entire front of the classroom as his stage, walking from one side to the other, making notes on the chalkboard, pointing to students to speak their minds.
Kristi recognized several students in the class, a couple of kids who had been in her Shakespeare class with Dr. Emmerson, including Hiram Calloway—was there no getting away from the creep? Again, she spied Lucretia’s spiked-haired friend Trudie, and Mai Kwan, the girl who lived downstairs from Kristi.
Small world, Kristi said to herself, then corrected herself, thinking small campus. With less than three thousand students in the entire school, it wasn’t that surprising that she’d see familiar faces in her classes.
Within seconds, the door opened again and the professor glared as Ariel slipped into the room, grabbing the first empty seat she found near the door. Ariel looked as if she wanted to do nothing more than melt into her seat. Kristi sympathized. Ariel caught Kristi’s glance, but turned her attention to her notepad, flipping it open as the professor continued to speak.
An odd girl, Kristi thought, wondering about Lucretia’s mousy friend. Ariel seemed shy, even needy, the proverbial wallflower who wanted to disappear into the background. Kristi glanced at the girl again, but Ariel had lifted the book up, to hide most of her face.
Was she still crying?
Why? Homesickness? Something else?
Whatever it was, Father Tony had promised to “take care of it,” so Kristi focused all of her attention on the front of the room.
She listened raptly to Dr. Grotto, taking in the man’s appearance. He was tall with thick, expressive eyebrows, a strong jaw, and a nose that looked as if somewhere along the way it had been broken a couple of times. His eyes weren’t red or black, but a deep brown, his lips thin, his body honed, as if he worked out. There was an arrogance about him, but an affability as well, and Lucretia’s words rang through her brain. He’s a wonderful man. Educated. Alive.
As opposed to dead? No…as in animated, Kristi berated herself. All this vampire talk was getting to her. Lucretia was certainly quick to defend Dr. Dominic Grotto, despite her suspicions. She’d acted as if the man were nearly a god, for crying out loud, and then there was the matter of the ring….
Kristi watched the professor’s hands. They were large. Strong looking. Veins apparent when he wrote on the board. But his left hand was bare. No wedding ring. No tan line or indentation suggesting he’d recently removed it. What had Ezma at work said? That Lucretia was rumored to be involved with one of the professors? A big secret? Hmmm.
She studied Dr. Grotto and tried to imagine him with Lucretia. It just didn’t fit. Grotto was smart enough, that much was evident, but he exuded an innate sexuality in his beat-up jeans and casual black sweater. Lucretia was the egghead’s egghead. Not unattractive, just socially a step off, almost snooty in her pseudo-intellectuality, but then, maybe that air of superiority was what had attracted him to her.
Stranger things had been known to happen.
Kristi settled back in her desk chair and scrutinized her new professor.
As Ezma had warned, Grotto was definitely “hot.” Was he involved with the missing coeds?