The next day, the placement tests began.

"Name?"

"Zachary Amsterdam."

"Room number?"

"Six-oh-two."

"Human?"

"Yes."

"What language do you want to take the test in?"

"English."

"All right, here." The proctor, a very tall pointy-eared young man who could have been an older student or a young teacher, handed Zach a thick packet. Freshman Placement Examination - Mathematics, it said. "Start at the beginning and go as far as you can. If you don't know how to solve a problem, skip it, but if you have to skip ten in a row you're probably not going to get the ones after that, either. Cheating will only get you into a course you can't pass, so don't. You have as much time as you need."

That was a double-edged sword, because Zach had seven more tests to do in the next two days. His time and energy were at a premium, especially since he was still jet-lagged.

Everyone was still jet-lagged, most of them more so than Zach. Scott's roommate had dropped off during dinner last night. These tests were starting to seem pretty cruel.

"Thank you," Zach said, and sat down with his test. As the proctor had implied, it started easy, with arithmetic and fractions. Every so often another student would come in, and go through the same question-and-answer sequence and listen to the same spiel. As Zach worked his way into the geometry, he looked up and realized the student just getting his test was Scott's roommate, the starkin who Zach had last seen falling asleep off his dinner chair. Allo, or something. No, Aro. He recognized Zach, and gave him a little wave as he sat down at the next desk.

Zach could tell when someone was about to finish. He could hear the rustling of a turned page as whoever it was skipped a question. Then another, and another, faster and more frustrated, and finally they decided they'd gone as far as they could and turned their test in. At first, Zach thought the starkin was crashing out early, because he seemed to be turning pages too fast. But as Zach glanced over, he saw the kid writing steadily, in the strange squared-off symbols of his own language.

It never occurred to Zach that he was doing well until he noticed kids who'd come in after him leaving first. In this test, finishing fast was a bad thing - it meant you couldn't do much of the material. Zach had been ahead of most human kids his age, but even if other races learned math the same way, he hadn't expected to be above average in a school that drew students from the whole multiverse. As Zach was doing what he could of the trigonometry and solid geometry, the proctor was the only one in the room who'd been there when he arrived.

Finally Zach had done everything he knew how to do. He looked ahead in the pamplet, just in case there was something he knew later on, but the later sections all looked like calculus. With a sigh, he gave up and stood up. Aro was right behind him. They dropped their tests on the proctor's desk, one two, and the two of them left the classroom together.

"I hate logarithms," Zach muttered.

The starkin stumbled. "You know logs?"

"Not really. Just enough to waste time on the questions, not enough to get them right." The kid scuffed his sandals on the tiles. "What?"

"I couldn't even try the log questions. That's where I had to give up."

"You got up till there? That's fast! You were in there half the time I was."

"Of course I'm fast, Zach. I've got a computer in my head. Once I understand math, I can do it fast right away. I thought I learned fast, too, because of it. But I got beat on the science test, I got beat on the math test." Holy crap, he'd finished two tests already. It was barely ten o'clock. "If this isn't the stuff I'm good at, what is?"

"You are good at it, though."

"You're better," Aro said, "and you have mind powers."

Zach gave him a look. "Can't you fly?"

The other boy laughed. "Well, I can crash." The thought seemed to cheer him up, though. "Speaking of crashing, you want to try the athletics test?"

"Ugh," Zach said. "I was going to do the physical tests tomorrow. Those, and the arcana and planar studies tests - I don't even know what those names mean."

"You shouldn't do all your good tests on one day, though. That means you have to do at least one of them tired. You should do something you're bad at each day."

Zach thought about that. "But the athletics test will actually make me tired. That one at least should go last."

Aro shrugged. "Okay. I'll see you later, then. Scott was going to do the athletics today, and I want to see what all the angels and drakes and stuff can do." He went through a door marked Stairs. Come to think of it, Zach still hadn't had a good look at the stairs in this tower. He'd been teleporting up and down. He'd seen them from a distance in the first floor lobby, where they'd been three sets of spiral staircases, turning widely around each other. But that was just to look cool, Zach was sure. They wouldn't do it that way all the way up.

Anyway, all the written tests were all on this floor, the 25th, so there was no excuse to use the stairs now. Deciding Aro's advice was probably good, Zach found the room whose paper sign said (in fifteen languages) Planar Studies Placement Exam.

The room inside looked odd, somehow. It took Zach a few seconds to realize why. It was a classroom much like the last one, with an older proctor and a bunch of freshmen getting their tests. But like one of those hidden 3-D pictures, the strange part suddenly popped out: almost everyone in the room had wings or a tail. As Zach came in, the one human present tossed her test on the proctor's desk and stalked out, looking frustrated.

Suddenly nervous, Zach went up to the proctor's desk. The person ahead of him was just getting his test; when that boy turned around to find a seat, Zach realized it was Souten. Zach opened his mouth to say something, but Souten walked by without seeming to notice him.

"Name?"

"What? Oh." The proctor. Right. This one was a silver-winged angel woman, as young as the math proctor had been. "Zachary Amsterdam."

"Room number?"

"Six-oh-two."

"Race?"

"Human."

"Language?"

"English."

"Is this your first written test?"

"No, I just finished the math one."

"Okay. Same rules. Here's your test."

Freshman Placement Examination - Planar Studies. Zach sat down and opened the booklet. 1) Name the eight planeswalking races.

Oh. Apparently "planar studies" meant all the stuff about the multiverse that Zach had tried to learn back home, but couldn't find. Well, he'd at least picked up the basics since he got here. He wrote: Humans, starkin, angels, demons, the ones he knew personally. He paused, and remembered what Kira had said, and added, faerie, drakes, proteans. That made seven. He was missing one. He thought about everyone he'd met at Babel, trying to catch the missing race. Aro was starkin, Rakesh was a demon and so was Mizah, Kira was an angel, Souten was. . . something.

Actually, Souten looked human. But he didn't have psi, and he didn't know what a cat was, so he had to be something else. Angels and demons had wings, starkin had implants, faerie and drakes had pointy ears and tails. (Unless that was the other way around, but Zach didn't think so.) Proteans were shapeshifters, and if they could look like whatever they wanted they probably wouldn't want to look as tired and sick as Souten.

But Zach just couldn't remember anyone, including Souten, saying what the eighth race was. He left the eighth name off and went to the next question.

2) Name the eight home planes of the planeswalking races. Hadn't Nomo listed them in her orientation speech? Yeah. Zach was pretty sure he remembered most of them. He had to guess on the spelling.

3) Name and briefly describe the unique gifts of the planeswalking races. Uh-oh. Zach knew about psi, of course, and he'd picked up a few bits and pieces, but he left most of the big space blank.

4) Define "multiverse." That one was on Wikipedia. Zach managed what he was pretty sure was a decent answer.

5) Define "magic." No clue. Zach wrote down a guess.

6) What is the special property of the drakes home plane? Zach stared. He didn't even know what to guess. He looked at the following questions. Every one seemed to have a name or term Zach didn't know: Bartaby, the Golden Road, the Mind of Time, Yggdrasil.

So that was it. Five questions answered out of fifty, and half of that probably wrong. Zach tried to tell himself it was just a placement test, and that apparently none of the other humans knew any more than him. But the obvious fact was, this placement test was going to place Zach Amsterdam at the bottom. He felt very discouraged as he handed in his mostly-blank test and left the room.

"Rough one, huh?" There was a boy sitting against the wall across the hallway. He looked human, except that his hair was a dark, sooty red. He was from the mystery race, Zach guessed - the same race as Souten. "I flunked it, too."

Zach shrugged and managed a smile. "I don't think anyone on my whole plane knows that stuff. It's probably the same with you."

"I guess so. . ." the boy said absently, looking up at Zach. Looking very intently at him.

Zach tried not to blush. "Um, are you okay?"

The kid shook himself. "Huh?"

"You were staring at me."

"Ah, well." He gave Zach a grin. "You were smiling." Wait, what? "I'm Tovil." He pushed himself to his feet and held out a hand. Zach held out his own automatically, but instead of shaking like Zach was used to, Tovil grabbed his wrist. Zach hesitated, and copied him. Tovil noticed the pause. "What, how do they do it where you come from?"

"Uh, like this." Clumsily, Zach showed him how to shake hands.

"Got it." He grinned again. "I didn't get your name, though."

"Oh, um, I'm Zach." He sounded stupid in his own ears. Slow. Maybe that test had shaken him more than he thought.

"How about we take a walk? Think about something besides our embarrassing failure."

That last part sounded great. "Yeah, sure."

The hallways up here were better lit than on the dormitory floors, and much starker. Instead of wood paneling, the walls were something smooth and cream-colored - painted metal, maybe, or some kind of plastic. It felt like they were walking through a hospital. "I wanted to come to Babel," Tovil said, "but I'm starting to think Babel wants me to go home. Barely anyone seems to speak my language, the ones that do don't really tell me anything, and then the day after we show up, it's 'Hey, now you have to take eight tests in a row that determine everything you do here.' You know?"

"Yeah." Zach noticed they were heading for a familiar door. "The stairs?"

"I figure no one will see us there. I don't think anyone actually uses them - everyone can shadow-walk or teleport or fly."

"I guess. . ." The stairs were, in fact, still a triple spiral all the way up here. They ran in a big tube up the center of the tower - the three staircases around the outside, with six or seven yards of open space in the middle. Everything in here was white, lit by the vague glow of the foreign Babel light bulbs. Everyone was busy taking tests or in class, and so the stairway was empty. Somewhere in the distance, up or down, Zach heard a rhythmic ticking of footsteps, like a clock.

Tovil started down, and Zach followed. "What's shadow-walking?" Zach asked.

"It's how we get around," Tovil said. "Step into a shadow here, show up in another shadow somewhere else."

"Huh. Oh!" Zach said, remembering the test, "that reminds me. . ."

"Yes?"

Suddenly Tovil seemed to be standing very close to him, although at the same time he didn't seem to have moved. His eyes were very dark. Zach heard his own pulse beating in his ears. "I, um. . . I don't remember."

"Oh, well. But like I was saying - this place is so strange. Everyone's a stranger - everyone I used to know is back on Goth." They'd stopped walking downstairs, Zach realized. They were face to face. When had that happened? "I just feel like I need to make a connection, you know? Get close to someone." He was close to Zach right now. Zach felt his back bump into the railing, and only then realized he'd been backing away. Tovil grabbed his wrists lightly, thumbs brushing against the pulse points there. "How about you?"

Zach tried to say something, but he couldn't. He tried to move, but he couldn't do that, either. He wasn't frozen, exactly - it was more like he'd gone slack. Whatever he tried, his will seemed to dissipate before it reached his mouth or his muscles. Tovil stepped very close. "Gotcha," he whispered in Zach's ear, and bent his head down toward Zach's neck. Confused and paralyzed, Zach stayed still.

"For dawn's sake, pervert, just bite him already. Quit playing with your food." Tovil jumped. So did Zach, sort of, though it was a spastic, slow-motion sort of thing. He managed to turn his head, and saw Souten coming down the stairs, apparently on his way to somewhere else.

"Shut up," Tovil hissed. "I almost had him." Still feeling half-asleep, Zach instinctively tried to twist away. The grips on his wrist tightened to the point of pain.

Souten rolled his eyes, still walking casually downstairs toward them. "You did have him. You still have him. If you'd just found an artery and bit down instead of trying to get off, you'd be done by now." Furious, Tovil let go of Zach with one hand and swung a fist backhand at Souten's head. It was a wild swing, but so fast that the hand itself blurred almost to invisibility. Souten dodged back with the same speed. "Whoa, hey! I'm just saying." Tovil was only holding Zach with one hand, now, but it was like steel, more than a match for Zach's still-weak struggling.

"Vampires," Zach mumbled. "Humans, starkin, angels, demons, faerie, drakes, proteans, vampires."

"You know how to pick 'em dumb, pervert," Souten said. "I'll give you that much." Gee, thanks, Zach thought. Pretending not to know him was one thing, but Souten didn't have to be insulting.

The stairs ran in three separate spirals. Zach looked across the gap at another staircase, summoned his slowly returning concentration, and 'ported. Suddenly there were six yards of empty air between him and the vampire - both vampires.

Tovil's grip closed on nothing. "You rat-sucking dog-spawn," he snarled at Souten, "I had him." Or at least, those were the closest English equivalents to his words - the vampire world probably didn't have actual rats or dogs.

"Hey, it's not my fault. You're the one who went too slow." He sounded like he didn't really care whether Tovil sucked Zach's blood or not.

"Have you tried hunting here? It's not like we can just jump out from the shadows and say 'blah' and make them faint." Tovil took a step forward. "Actually, I bet you are hunting. I bet it's easy to get them alone after you save their butts from me, you stinking poacher." Oh. Well, that sounded disturbingly plausible.

"Poacher?" Souten shouted. "You're crazy! I don't need your sloppy seconds, perv."

"Yeah? Let's see who eats better." And then they were fighting.

No, Zach realized, only Tovil was fighting. Souten was just dodging, skipping back up the stairs without swinging back. Zach couldn't see most of the moves, except for the final kick at Souten's knees. Souten jumped over it and landed on the railing. The kick hit the tread of a stair, and broke the tile. "Why are we wasting blood fighting each other?" Souten asked. Tovil lunged at him, and he stepped backwards and fell.

Zach gasped and lurched forward, but Souten didn't fall far. He caught the next turn of the triple spiral, grabbing the rail and flipping himself up onto the stairs. He started running down, three steps at a time, and on the third stride Tovil jumped right down and landed straight in front of him. Souten only froze for a moment, a brief hesitation of surprise, but it was enough. Tovil grabbed his head and slammed it into the wall. Zach heard the crunch clearly, from a story up and across the room. Souten dropped like a sack of rocks and rolled down four or five steps before stopping. He left a spatter of blood on the wall, and scattered drops on the stairs.

"Wimp," Tovil spat. He turned and looked up at Zach, who was now paralyzed without any help from him, staring at Souten's limp body. Almost casually, Tovil jumped up onto the staircase Zach was on, and strode up toward him. "Go on, Zach, try to run. I can play that game, too."

Zach did try, but despite the words, he felt the clammy, soggy paralysis soak into him again. His heart pounded fast in his ears. He stumbled, struggled to climb even one step. He heard voices from somewhere, but he couldn't look away from Tovil to see where they were coming from.

No, wait. This paralysis wasn't just nerves, or confusion, or even terror, this was the vampire's gift. This was being done to him. Stubbornly, Zach tried to fight it. His muscles still wouldn't work, but he mustered up the concentration for a short-range 'port - past Tovil, and a quarter turn down the stairs.

Tovil looked confused for a split second, and then spun around. This time he came so fast Zach almost wet his pants. Instead, he held out a hand, like he was shoving, and teeked the vampire's feet out from under him. Tovil tumbled into the outer wall, and then on down the stairs. With all that momentum, he went a long way before he managed to stop. He staggered to his feet, and turned around. He looked oddly calm. "I think I'm going to. . .

"Etheney vati ro." That was Souten. He'd gotten up - despite a broken skull? - and smeared his own bloodstain on the wall into a rough circle. The words weren't his usual language - they sounded similar, but older, stranger. Zach didn't manage to 'path the translation until Tovil fell to his knees and started vomiting fire. "Burn, thou deathly blood."

"What the - hurk!" Tovil retched again, and a second, smaller stream of flaming gore spattered the stairs. It spread and dripped down the steps like burning gasoline, and smelled like hot metal. "What did you do to me?" But Souten had done it - shouldn't Tovil know what the vampire gift could do? Had that been something else? Had that been magic? Zach had almost seen. . .

The voices around the edges of the fight were gathering into a steady chant. Zach didn't know the word, but he could read the translation: "Havoc! Havoc! Havoc!" just the way a crowd of human kids would shout "Fight!" Apparently some things were the same in every universe. The crowd was hanging over the railings above and below and across, dozens of students now.

"All right, that's enough! Disciplinary Committee, break it up!"

"Break what up?" Zach muttered. Tovil was still spitting blood, Souten was too far away to hit anyone, and sure as anything Zach wasn't going to wade in and start throwing punches.

"There's one every year. I'm surprised it wasn't yesterday." It was an upperclassman boy, very pale, with pink hair and pointy ears. Zach was pretty sure he was a faerie. "You." He pointed without looking with the short stick in his hand, right at Souten. "Get up here. Whoops!" Tovil was trying to get up. Again without looking, the upperclassman knocked him on the shoulders with his stick. It looked like barely a tap, but the vampire collapsed to his knees again. "Stay down, Prince Charming, you are not yet in my league. Given that your first hunt at Babel has degenerated into havoc and hacking up flaming blood, you will very possibly never be in my league." Zach thought he was speaking in the vampires' language. Souten and Tovil seemed to understand, anyway. "My name is Puck Clioddyn," he went on, "and I represent the Disciplinary Committee of your friendly local Student Council." Slowly, Souten climbed over the rail, and dropped to a seat on the steps. He had blood in his hair, but otherwise showed no sign of having had a broken skull two minutes ago.

"For your information, my three eager little froshies, and for the information of any other little froshies listening: when you are having an altercation, and a crowd forms around you and starts shouting 'havoc,' you are done. You will stop whatever it is you're doing and walk away in different directions. We are not safe, boring little kids here. If you are fighting where bystanders can see, you are fighting where bystanders can get hurt. That is not the way we do things at the Babel Academy. Do you all understand me?"

Zach and the two vampires nodded. "Excellent! That was quick and easy. Well, then, I'll just be on my - oh?" Zach had raised his hand. "What a polite little froshie! What do you want?"

"He attacked me," Zach said, pointing at Tovil, "and tried to suck my blood. Isn't he going to get punished?"

"Aha. You request a disciplinary hearing?"

"Uh, I guess." Tovil emitted a contemptuous little snort, and Souten suddenly looked nervous.

"Well, I'd planned to let this one slide, since you're all so new, but since you ask so nicely, I am required by council bylaws to grant your request." Puck pulled a little mirror out of somewhere, and tapped it against the wall. It went pinnng. Then he put it up to his face and spoke into it. "This is Puck, on patrol duty. We've had a little incident, and one of the participants has asked for a hearing. I need the on-calls to make lesser quorum. We're on Stairway B, just above the 24th floor."

Zach heard voices come back out of the mirror: "Coming." "Yes, fine, on my way."

Puck put the mirror away. "And now we wait. Little froshie spectators, I suggest you stay away from your tests a little longer - this will be educational." As they waited, Zach scanned the crowd. A lot of them did seem to be freshmen, drawn out of the testing rooms by the bangs and shouting. Zach jumped when he spotted Clara in the crowd. She gave him a nervous little wave.

It was actually only a minute or two before the other two Disciplinary Committee members showed up. Neither one used the stairs. The angel girl flew right up the middle. (It was the first time Zach had seen an angel or demon actually fly - she had a surprisingly wide wingspan.) The other one was a boy, with golden skin, white hair, and a tail, who floated down like there was an invisible elevator between the stairs. He was a drake, Zach was pretty sure.

"All right, Puck," the angel said, landing on the stairs. She looked like the oldest of the three. "I think I'll chair this."

"Nope," Puck said. "It's me."

"Ugh," the drake groaned. "Just let Raline do it, Puck, please."

"Can't make me!" Puck said brightly. "I got elected on fifty-two votes, and neither of you broke forty-five. You can both suck my shillelagh." He waved his stick as if to demonstrate, though Zach doubted that was the one he'd meant. "So! In the name of the student body of Babel Academy, blah blah et cetera, lesser quorum present, meeting to order, committee will use the Gothic language, any objections no one okay, charges of assault, havoc, theft of power, so on so forth, time for testimony. Someone's gotta go first, and I piiiiick. . . you. Prince Charming. State your name and room number, and tell us what happened."

Tovil looked a little dazed - it seemed to take him a couple seconds to realize he was supposed to talk. "I'm Tovil na Tanray, I'm in room 421." He glared at Zach and then at Puck. "There's ninety-some vampires going here, hunting can't be against the rules if we leave the prey alive. Can it?" Puck didn't answer, just raised an eyebrow slightly. The other two committee members looked irritated and bored. "I got the human alone, and I had him almost completely tranced. He had no idea what was going on. Then he came along," he pointed at Souten, "and gave it away. The human snapped out of it, and got free. I think the whole thing was a trick to get the human's trust - he's a bedawned poacher. So I took a swing at him, knocked him into the wall, and went back for the human. Before I got him, the poacher hit me from behind with that weird fire thing. That's when you showed up."

"Short and sweet," Puck said. He pointed at Souten. "Now you. Are you a poacher?"

"No!"

"So who are you?"
Souten took a deep breath. "Souten se va Arontaine, room 725. I'd just finished my planar studies test, and I was on heading down the stairs. Tovil here was cuddled up to the human kid - I couldn't tell whether he wanted to suck his blood or his, um. Or give him a hickey." Souten was still pretending they were strangers. Zach started scanning, wondering how much of this story was true. "So I called Tovil a perv, and he took a swing at me. The human got away. I guess Tovil blamed me. Maybe I shouldn't have said what I did, but it was disgusting, and I didn't start the fight - I didn't even fight back until he broke my head against the wall." He sounded callous and irritated, but under a psychic scan he seemed very nervous - maybe even afraid - and a little ashamed. Not one word was an actual lie, but he was definitely hiding things. Could this whole thing be a trick - trying to protect Zach without admitting they knew each other?

Puck tossed his shillelagh from hand to hand. "You weren't hunting?"

"No. I fed yesterday, I'm good." Still no lie. Even the friendly vampires, if there were such a thing, had to drink blood. Zach shuddered.

"All right. Last but not least, you." Zach took a breath, gave his name and room number, and described what he could remember of the encounter with Tovil and the following fight. With his psychic senses open, Zach felt everyone watching him. Souten, especially, was watching more closely than he wanted to let on. He was. . . concerned? Worried? Despite the distraction, Zach managed to stammer his way through the story.

"Okay," Puck said. "I'm satisfied. Does the rest of the committee have any questions?" The rest of the committee was staring flatly at him. "Was it something I said?"

"This is the dumbest hearing I've ever been to, Puck," the drake said. "You're supposed to let the first havoc of the year off with a warning."

"We're demonstrating the process, Po. All the cute little froshies are watching." The drake rolled his eyes. "In the matter of theft of power, by Tovil na Tanray against Zachary Amsterdam, how do we find?"

The angel ruffled her wings. "We can't convict a vamp for hunting, Puck, there'd be hell to pay. Nay."

Po the drake shrugged. "Especially since he didn't actually bite. Nay."

"The charge fails." Zach's shoulders slumped. What kind of school was it where you didn't get in trouble for sucking other students' blood out? "In the matter of assault, by Tovil na Tanray against Souten se va Arontaine, how do we find?"

"Provoked. Nay."

"He swung first. And second, and third. Aye."

Puck eyed Souten for a few seconds. "Nay. You knew what you were doing." Souten twitched slightly. "The charge fails. In the matter of poaching, that is, theft of power by trickery, by Souten se va Arontaine against Tovil na Tanray."

"Complete fabrication. Nay."

"No evidence. Nay."

"The charge fails. In the matter of havoc, by Tovil na Tanray, Souten se va Arontaine, and Zachary Amsterdam."

"Nay to all three. Tanray tried to make it private, and the other two weren't trying to fight."

"Aye, to all three. I know we shouldn't be here for this, Raline, but you're stretching. They fought and people saw."

"I believe, in this case," Puck said, "that I must consider the intention behind the rule forbidding havoc." He postured like a Roman making a speech. Both his colleagues rolled their eyes. "On the one hand, it is meant to protect bystanders, and the only attack in that fight dangerous to passers-by was that atrociously clumsy Balefire Curse. On the other hand, the rule is also meant to encourage students to mind their own business."

"Puck," the drake growled, "you never mind your own business."

"Indeed. I am famous for it. But you, Souten se va Arontaine, are, like your little rival, not yet in my league. I vote aye to Arontaine and nay to the others. Amsterdam, Tanray, you're cleared. Arontaine, the charge of havoc is sustained against you."

"Wait a minute," Zach said, "you're punishing him?" He wasn't quite sure what Souten had been trying to do, but he definitely hadn't been trying to bite Zach, or starting any fights.

Puck shrugged. "Welcome to Babel. I'd love to discuss it some more, but I fear I'm the only one. Any request for appeal would certainly be voted down seven to one in full committee. Now for sentencing." Puck rubbed his hands together gleefully. "I think we can come up with something sufficiently interesting for you. . . "

The two other council members interrupted him in unison: "Nay."

"Aw. I never get to have any fun. All right, the standard sentence for havoc is a fifty-two hour seal on your gift. All in favor?"

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Nay," Puck said, "but no one listens to me, so the boring sentence it is. In the interest of not irritating the faculty, sentence is suspended until after the placement tests are over. Don't try to find us, we'll find you. Meeting adjourned."

"Thank you," Po said. "Finally." The drake floated away, and the angel dove back toward the dorm floors.

"Oh, by the way," Puck added, "to make up for the wasted time, I'll be discussing this little tiff of yours with the martial arts examiners. The three of you will all be placed at the third level, I'm sure. If you think you can go higher, feel free to try, but otherwise you can skip the test."

"Whoa, wait," Zach said, "martial arts? I can't fight!"

"You've still got all your blood, right? You can't be that bad. Anyway, I'm still on patrol. See you!" He actually used the stairs. The crowd above parted for him, and started to disperse.

Tovil got to his feet and poked Zach in the chest. "You'd have given it up without a peep. You know it." It might have meant his blood, or. . . well, or not. Judging by Tovil's smirk, the ambiguity was on purpose. Zach swallowed. "See you around." He shouldered past. When Zach turned around, he'd vanished. Zach looked around for Souten, but he was gone, too.

Suddenly Clara was beside him. She'd 'ported through the crowd. "Zach! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just. . . oh, man." His knees wobbled, and he sat down on the stairs. "What have I gotten myself into? What am I doing here?"

--:--

A Helpful Excerpt from the Planeswalker's Gazetteer

Blood, The - The gift of the vampire race. Rather than eating food, vampires sustain themselves by drinking blood. They live off life energy produced by other creatures rather than chemical nutrition. Therefore, vampires must feed directly from a living being.

As a vampire accumulates blood, it grants other benefits besides simple sustenance. It enhances the vampire's physical capabilities - in particular, vampires have a phenomenal ability to recover from wounds. The blood also provides heightened senses, including an especially acute sense of smell, and the ability to influence emotions. This last, often described as a "predator aura," is more visceral than a human's telepathy or a faerie's geas. A vampire's aura does not affect the brain, but rather the hormones, and it can only produce emotions with a strong biochemical component such as terror, rage, or a strength-sapping trance. Vampires also have powers over shadow; among them, the ability to fade into the darkness for stealthy hunting; and shadow-walking, the ability to enter a shadow and emerge instantly from a shadow in another place, or even another plane. Any use of a vampire's gift expends stored blood. If the vampire runs short of blood, he is weakened and eventually disabled.

The great downside of the blood is a vulnerability to ultraviolet light. The sunlight of most inhabitable worlds will severely burn a vampire. In cases of extreme exposure, the vampire has been known to actually catch on fire. Vampires therefore tend to be strictly nocturnal unless. . .