The Vampire's Reflection Read Online Free PDF Page A

dripped its slime from somewhere above, seconds before the bastard slammed the lid of Nikolai’s laptop hard enough over his fingers to cause him to cry out. He pulled back his hands, curling his fingers under his chin, hissing through his teeth. This can’t happen. Not now . Nikolai mustered up whatever courage he had bubbling at the bottom of his stomach, and looked his tormentor square in the eye.
    “What the hell, asshole?” Nikolai tried his hardest to force his voice not to waver.
    Jindrich flew over the side of the desk, grabbing him clear up out of his flimsy plastic seat by the collar of his shirt. “What did you call me, you queer?”
    Nikolai winced into the face of the six-foot-seven-inch goliath. The blood in his knuckles now pounded to the rhythm of his fevered pulse as they continued their dull ache. He gulped thickly, for he knew he had no friends to jump to his rescue. Glancing for a split second at his trashed computer, he knew his final grade was pretty much done for. Dead and buried. He didn’t dare peek at the clock.
    He could only imagine how his father, an alumnus from the same Charles University literature program, would react when he got wind of this. Another failure .
    Nikolai’s blood pooled in his cheeks with both the anger and embarrassment. A plot formed like an angry storm cloud right at the front of his mind. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been more fed up. This was it. Enough was enough.
    “Put me down.” Nikolai’s gaze locked with that of the greasy colossus, but in his peripheral vision, he caught sight of the professor, suddenly too immersed in the latest edition of the Prague Monitor . Probably an excuse to ignore the misconduct going on in the classroom, thereby allowing Nikolai to get pummeled. He’d never seen the professor read the news before. Nikolai would have bet a thousand korun Professor Kotala had a big smile on behind the lip of that newsprint.
    A yellow, crooked grin spread across Jindrich’s reddened face, his fists tightening around navy plaid material of Nikolai’s shirt. “I’ll be happy to put ya down, friend.” Gently, Jindrich set Nikolai’s feet back to the solid Earth. “How’s that? You can repay me by handing over your term paper. The professor has kindly allowed me to give mine in a day late.”
    Nikolai suppressed the desire to roar like a lion in his bully’s face. “Sure, Jindrich. I’ll do that. But not before your lazy ass nails down a real paying job to fix my cracked computer screen—”
    Jindrich’s massive fist collided with Nikolai’s face. Through the ringing in his ears, he swore he heard a chuckle from the far end of the room, the newspaper bouncing slightly. He wiped at his face, checking for blood. It had been the same since they’d been in grade school—since Nikolai and his family first moved west from Moravia—since he’d been the scrawny new kid who, at the seasoned age of ten, had already been given a crappy hand of cards in life.
    But he wasn’t that scrawny kid any longer.
    “I warned you.” Nikolai murmured when he was sure the professor was looking. Without laying his hand on a single surface, he waved his arm toward professor Kotala’s desk and sent it hurtling into the center of Jindrich’s chest, crushing him to the wall. The wood and plaster around the impact cracked half way up to the old ceiling, bits of debris and dust plummeting down around the gargantuan bully on the floor. Nikolai looked toward the professor, who was now standing up from his chair, the newspaper on the floor, his mouth agape.
    Nikolai had always dreamed of doing it—always fantasized about using his powers in public. Finally standing up for himself. Smirking, he turned back toward Jindrich, his eternal schoolyard bully who was still reeling from the impact. “If you tell anyone what you saw here today, I will hunt. You. Down.” Nikolai punctuated each word with a bold jab of his finger. He turned back to the