Fang Girl by Helen Keeble

sight, no sound … nothing.
    Lily had said that there was no way to block the Bloodline, but apparently this vampire could. Which meant that, whoever it was, he or she was more powerful than a ten-thousand-year-old demon goddess. And was connected to me more strongly than even my own childe and sire.
    That thought was enough to keep me fully preoccupied, all the way through to dawn.
    Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who’d been thinking.
    “So, Xanthe,” Mum announced without warning the next evening, over her dinner and our breakfast, “I’ve come to the conclusion that you should turn me into a vampire.”
    Ebon dropped his fork. I stared at her in perfect horror.
    “Both of us,” Dad added. I swiveled to stare horrorstruck at him too. Ebon’s knife clattered against the floor.
    “And me!” Zack chimed in. I was all out of horror. There was not enough horror in the world.
    “No, James,” Mum told him, steel in her voice. “Not you.”
    Ebon had retreated under the table, possibly to retrieve his cutlery, but more likely to hide from the utter insanity of my family. “Are you all deranged?” I inquired as politely as possible.
    “Really, it’s the only sensible solution,” Mum said calmly. She speared a sprout and consumed it without haste before continuing, “We can’t leave you all on your own.”
    “If you all go off and become vampires, I’ll be on my own,” Zack grumbled into his plate. “How come it’sokay for me to be alone but not Janie?”
    “Do you want to be twelve forever?” Dad said to him.
    Zack considered this. “Can I be a vampire when I’m fifteen, then?”
    “Twenty-six,” Mum said. “That’s a good age for a man. Get a degree and start a career, and then we’ll see about biting you.”
    “But Janie—”
    I banged my fork down. “No one’s making anyone a vampire! God! ” I shot a mute appeal at Ebon, who had just emerged, red-faced, from under the table. “There are rules about this sort of thing, surely?”
    “We shall appeal.” Dad nodded his head decisively, looking determined. “We’ll make this Hakon see the need for a special dispensation. I’m sure he’s a reasonable man.”
    Ebon broke into a coughing fit.
    Dad waited patiently until he’d finished. “Well?”
    Ebon looked round at the massed expectant stares. “Oh dear,” he said, and dropped his fork again. “Excuse me.”
    “I’m not making you into vampires,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at them all. “It would be too weird to be my parents’ parent.”
    “That’s easily addressed,” said Mum. “Ebon can do it to us.”
    There was a muffled thump as Ebon hit his head on the underside of the table.
    “He isn’t going to do it to you!” I yelled, wishing that the ground would open up and swallow me—or better yet, my parents. “Nobody’s doing anything to anyone, ever!”
    “Do you want to have to watch us all die?” Mum asked, point-blank.
    That silenced me. Sure, I knew intellectually that my parents would one day get old and not be around anymore—but that sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen until I was old myself. Not while I was still fifteen .
    Thing is, I was going to be fifteen forever.
    Dad was watching my face. “You see the problem, Xanthe,” he said more gently. “How are you going to support yourself—not only now, but in a year, a decade, a century? You’ll still look like a teenager. How would you get a job? Where would you live?”
    On the other hand, the alternative to no parents seemed to be immortal parents. Talk about a rock and a hard place. The thought of living with my family forever was horrifying. “I—look, this is nuts. You can’t all become vampires.” I waved at Ebon, who’d just put his head cautiously over the edge of the table to see if it wassafe to come out yet. “Ebon, you explain it to them.”
    “I, um, I …” Ebon quailed as all eyes turned on him again. “I … have urgent business to attend