Suck It Up and Die Read Online Free PDF

wardrobe from tight dresses and curve-flaunting Under Armour to the floaty, multilayered style of bohemian chic: the Olsen twins in pastels. Her posture had gone from head high, shoulders back, to stooped. Morning figured she wanted to look shorter, more demure. She had softened her voice, and while she used to speak in complete sentences, she now flitted from thought to thought like a hummingbird allergic to nectar. Even though Morning didn’t trust a girl who changed that much, he had a theory as to why she had.
    Rachel had scanned the mortal landscape and seen the fear many Lifers still had of vampires, even though the vast majority had become harmless Leaguers. She observed the disarming effect Morning’s wimpy vamp had on Lifers, and took a lesson. She was going to take nonthreatening to a new level. She would kill the last vestiges of vampirophobia with kooky kindness. So she cast off her warrior-princess armor and donned the flowy pastels of fairy queen. She waved a wand and,
poof
, Joan of Arc became Lady Gaga without the glitz. As a free spirit oozing loopy optimism and self-empowerment, she offered a new incarnation ofthe fangless vampire. By taking harmless to new heights, Rachel was the last vampire anyone could imagine doing something as icky as drinking blood. And if she actually popped fangs, not to worry; she would collapse in a fit of blushing giggles.
    Rachel had not performed this makeover alone, or been able to launch
The Shadow
on her own, because of the restrictions facing Leaguers. Her Lifer partner in wild success was Penny Dredful, owner of Diamond Sky PR, which had performed its own transformation to Diamond Sky Productions. While Penny’s company’s name had changed, her daughter’s name had not:
Portia
Dredful.
    Morning wasn’t the only Leaguer who had watched Rachel’s meteoric rise to fame with misgivings. Luther Birnam was concerned for different reasons. When
The Shadow
started to become a runaway hit, he had posted a blog on the IVL website that was For Leaguers Only (FLO).

LURKING IN THE SHADOW

    As your president, I am not a dictator. I do not tell Leaguers what they can or cannot do. My role has always been as a guide leading Leaguers out of the dark wood of our past, the
selva obscura
, and into the light of freedom. As your guide, it is my duty to tell you when you have wandered off that path and veered back toward the dark wood.
    I have only seen
The Shadow
once. For those of you who have not seen it, here’s how it works.
    The season began with a group of Leaguer vampires brought together by the host, Rachel Capilarus. In each episode these contestants are given the same category, such as a job title, a workplace, or an industry. Each Leaguer is given three days and followed by a camera crew as he or she gets permission to shadow a worker in the selected category and learns about the worker’s goals so the vampire can then CD into something that helps the worker and/or company succeed.
    At the end of an episode, Rachel judges the efforts of the various “shadows.” The least successful one is presented with a wooden stake and eliminated from the show. During the season, shadows will be eliminated until only one remains. Whoever becomes “top shadow” will win a trophy, fame, andthe opportunity to be recruited by a corporation so the company can profit from his or her CDing skills.
    While
The Shadow
and these CDing Leaguers have yet to break the letter of the law (using their skills to compete directly against Lifers in business and sports for their own profit), they are breaking the
spirit
of the law. Worse,
The Shadow
is sending a terrible message to Lifers:
We want to exploit our CDing skills and glorify our differences with Lifers; we are vampires first, responsible citizens second
. This is
not
the message we should be sending as we fight for passage of the Vampire Rights Act.
    For this reason, I am asking all Leaguers to boycott
The Shadow
. I ask you to not