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Arjun shrugs again. “It’s not your tenure.”
“Come on,” Lyle says, his eyes traveling to Dean Shea, who’s booming with laughter with his old tenured professors near a wall of leather books. “Let’s be real. If more people leave Classics at this rate, funding will dry up on us. It’s not like the president wants the world to know that new hires crap out in the first two years of tenure track. Bad look.”
“Maybe we just need harder workers across the board.”
But something tickles at me. “You said they don’t even answer your emails?”
“Sometimes I even get bounce backs that their emails don’t exist in the Preston server anymore.”
“Odd.” I fake a sip of wine and breathe deep, conversation and shitty music drifting away as I focus. The metallic edge on the air sharpens. I want to believe it’s old. But it’s not. It’s similarly not soft-sweet menstrual blood. It’s not a small enough scent to be a cut from shaving. No, it’s darker, deeper, mixed with soil and rot.
I’m not the kind of feeder who slurps blood from a victim—it’s tantalizing, but not fulfilling. I’m cleaner. I prefer the purest sip of energy—not enough to kill, not unless they deserve it. But there are others …
No. I don’t tangle with other undead. I don’t want to know. But territory is territory. If there’s another draugr, succubus, vampire … I need to know immediately before I step on any very, very sharp toes. I’ve survived as long as I have by knowing my boundaries, and everyone else’s, too.
I turn to Arjun to ask if he’s ever heard of these dropouts turning up dead in some field somewhere, but Dean Shea is gathering everyone to sit down for dinner. The music gets turned up to a screaming whine of classical strings that grates at my nerves.
We’re led from the stuffy library into a dining room with creaking wooden floors. Here, the rot is even worse. I’m surprised my heels don’t sink into the floor. The squealing of rats in the walls intensifies, and I wonder how everyone around me doesn’t hear them.
Arjun pulls my chair out, then sits next to me, his hand dropping to my knee. He smells like bourbon, his glass nearly empty. My smile hardens as I look at him, and I wonder for what must be the thousandth time how men don’t notice when I’m fed up with their bullshit. His fingers squeeze my leg hard and I pull away.
“Later,” I hiss. He only grins.
Dean Shea stands at the center of the table, his age-spotted forehead lit by buzzing LEDs. “It’s such a pleasure to have you all for another Dean’s Dinner.” He brushes his hand toward me. “I said I would make a proper introduction of our newest tenure track, and I’m so glad Arjun brought her here. This is Marcella. Her specialty is Nordic sagas, and from what Arjun tells me, she is designing quite the provocative course for the spring semester. Blood and Sex, is that right?”
I press my back molars together so hard they hurt, but I only offer him a demure smile. “Yes.”
“Well, that’s sure to attract some of the undergrads back from Psychology, wouldn’t you say?”
There’s a hush of polite laughter, old and creaking as the floorboards beneath my feet. The ancient tenured professors already seated across from me stare. And to be honest, even though I’m used to the male gaze, this one rankles. Because I can see Therese out of the corner of my eye, not even looking at me. She’s studying her gilded plate and golden forks and knives, her heart beating oh so fast.
“I hope some of our more … lackluster … professors can learn from you. Here’s to new ideas for this old department. Welcome, Marcella.”
A chorus of “hear hear” travels dully across the table, as wilted as the salad placed in front of me. I pick at the pomegranate seeds dotted around the plate. I didn’t want to make myself a target so early. It’s one thing to dazzle, another to garner the hatred of the department instead of the envy. A shitty place to play from, but play I will.
“Dean Shea,” I say, “I mean, John.” I meet his eyes across the table, making sure I sparkle for him. “I’m wondering if you could enlighten me on a small subject that I was discussing with a few of my colleagues.”
“The beauty speaks,” says one of the old men to his right. “Let’s hear if the brain matches.”
There’s a kerfuffle of laughter that turns my insides acid, but I only keep my eyes on Dean Shea.
“Of course, Marcella.”
Our salads are whisked away, replaced by bloody steak. He shovels a hunk of undercooked meat into his mouth, and I fight a gag as a trickle of red slips over the side of his lips.
“Well, I have heard perhaps there is a … an employment problem at Preston? In Classics?”
Dean Shea places his fork down, wipes at his mouth so the napkin comes away rusty red. “This is not polite dinner conversation, I think, Marcella.”
I bat my lashes at him. “But I think it is, don’t you? I’m in the lions’ den now, so to speak”—I turn my glimmering smile on the nodding men to his sides—“and I’d love to know what kind of challenges Classics faces—”
Dean Shea holds up a finger and I fight the impulse to bite it off at the knuckle. “Now, I said not at dinner, didn’t I?”
Conversation around us falls into stasis, a dull hum of interest festooned in alcohol and good-ol’-boy nepotism. I want to fight him. I want to push back hard. But I haven’t toed my way into this position by being hasty. Now is the time to acquiesce, to apologize.
So I do, my lips twitching with annoyance as I push down a sneer. “Yes, of course. My apologies.”
“Well, that’s alright.” Dean Shea grins at me, a string of tendon hanging between two stained teeth.
