Bettany gritted here teeth as she attempted to take in the curling calligraphy artifact she held in her hands. Her creepily beautiful 8th grade American history teacher prowled about the room, breathing down the necks of her least favorite students. Bettany groaned, knowing it was only a matter of minutes until Mrs. Clark swept by to chastise Bettany on her poor reading skills.
But it wasn't Bettany's fault. She was a dyslexic, and if you think it doesn't get worse than that, you're wrong. She had ADHD too, and she had lost count of how many times she had received detention for 'continual fidgeting.' She got teased for her disabilities all the time, and she hated it. Her ADHD only made it worse; she always wanted to pick a fight with them, and that only gave the teachers more reasons to get on her case at every possible opportunity. She tried to focus. If she didn't bring her grades up, or at least try to, she was going to get kicked out of yet another school. Just thinking about her father and step-mother's expression when she brought home the last expulsion letter was enough to make her feel slightly nauseous.
"Well, well," said a voice behind Bettany. She groaned under her breath. "Daydreaming again, I see. This won't do, now will it? Why don't you and I have a little talk out in the hallway?" Mrs. Clark spoke in sickly sweet tones, like the way her perfume smelled, but Bettany knew she was in serious trouble. Bettany stood up and gulped. A few of the students looked her way and sniggered. She glared at them, but it was half-hearted.
Mrs. Clark held the door open for Bettany and they stepped out into the deserted hallway. That struck Bettany as slightly odd, because there was usually a patrolman wondering about, but they were empty. It gave Bettany a slightly eerie feeling, and her spine tingled with apprehension. The got the feeling something bad was coming, or was about to happen, but she didn't know why.
Her history teacher turned towards her, smiling slightly. It was a cold, malicious smile that made Bettany feel sick to her stomach. "You've been a bad girl Bettany. Not doing your homework, fidgeting non-stop, and daydreaming while you should be studying the letters I passed out. You are going to fail your exams. And do you know what that means, little girrrl?" Bettany nodded, ashamed. "That's right. Your pretty little behind will be kicked out of yet another school. My my, my parents would be dreadfully ashamed… No doubt about that…" Bettany looked up, a witty retaliation about to spew forth from her mouth. But she stopped. Mrs. Clark looked… different. She was changing right before Bettany's eyes.
Mrs. Clark was not beautiful anymore. Her hair was not flowing locks of brown. It had transformed into a pile of flames. Bettany was amazed. Why wasn't her whole body being engulfed in the flames? Then Bettany noticed the legs. One was some brown metal; bronze, Bettany assumed. The other was not even human, it was some animal. Bettany thought it was donkey, or goat possibly. Bettany looked back into her teacher's face to ask what the heck was going on, but the site that met Bettany's eyes made her stop cold.
Mrs. Clark was not human. This was obvious. The color had drained from her face, and the dancing flames atop her head made her skin look paper white. Her teeth had been replaced with fangs, and her eyes were blood red. Bettany stammered uselessly for a moment, until she got enough wits together to get out one word of shock. "Vampire!" she said. "Y-you're a vampire! I think…" Bettany glanced down at the legs, and the thing that had once been Mrs. Clark hissed.
"Foolish girl," she said, in a voice that definitely wasn't her usual sickly sweet tones. "I am an empousia. Those silly vampire legends spawned off of me! My mother, Hecate, is one of the greatest of all." She sniffed proudly. "Though some would disagree, my race is special and great. We are taken for granted much too often." Her bitter expression changed to one of glee as she took in Bettany, quivering with fear before her. "But oh, how proud they'll all be of me when I bring your limp body forth to the place of Olympus!"
Wait. Bettany had heard these names before. Empousai, Hecate, Olympus… Bettany wasn't stupid, she was just dyslexic, so sometimes people thought she was. "Wait, all those things you're talking about. Those are all stuff that has to do with the ancient Greek stuff. But that's all myths. Right?" Bettany remembered the time earlier this year when they had went on a field trip to a museum, and they had studies a statue of the ancient Greek God Apollo. There had been words in Greek inscribed around the bottom edges, and Bettany could read them. She didn't say anything about it to anyone, not even her father, because it scared her. And they would just think she was some freak, or it was her dyslexia or something.
Bettany shook herself out of her reflection. She came to just in time to see Mrs. Clark lunge straight at her throat. Out of nowhere, her friend Thad appeared. Thad was crippled, so he always walked with a slight limp, but he had this uncanny ability to run like the wind. "Bettany!" he yelled, and tossed her something very small. It sailed through the air and she caught it, only to find out it was a tiny keychain, a miniscule representation of a bow and arrow. She rolled her eyes.
"This is no time for gifts!" She yelled back to him, lunging as the empousia tried to strike her once more. "Twirl it around your finger," Thad said, and Bettany did so, not at all expecting what happened to happen. The keychain quickly expanded into a full size bow and canister of 12 arrows. Bettany gaped, but was brought quickly to her senses as the empousia lunged so closely that Bettany felt her goat leg fur tickle Bettany's own legs. She shook her head to clear it, and notched an arrow into the bow. Archery had always been a strong suit for her, at camp and in gym class. She shot an arrow straight into the empousia's heart would be, if she had one, but Bettany doubted that.
Bettany knew that she was spot-on before the arrow even made contact. When it did, Mrs. Clark burst into flames. Bettany fell backwards. She turned to Thad. He looked a little ashamed.
"I think I have a little explaining to do. Come with me," he said, and Bettany stood and followed him.