Blood Countess

Spring Break

"Life imprisonment is an undetermined sentence when you think about it. These days a lot of people who get life imprisonment can serve anywhere between ten and twenty years. In severe cases twenty years or more. So if we were to think about it - in the case of the Blood Countess; a woman who not only murdered her victims but twisted and destroyed their very souls. With a minimum sentence of twenty-five years per victim; a fair sentence of imprisonment would be sixteen thousand two hundred and fifty years..." the young Professor told his class as his green marker swirled expertly across the shining surface of the whiteboard behind him.

"Fair enough?" he asked, turning to his class.

Every seat in the lecture hall was full and the Professor stood in the very centre of the floor below looking up at three hundred eyes expectantly. A full room without a note of sound and the ever-increasing scent of tension. He seemed to be watching them expectantly, with something else playing behind his increasingly knowing smirk. No one raised their hands to answer his question until he sighed loudly running his hand through the wavy length of dark hair that usually drove the younger of his female (and male)  student body crazy.

"Did any of you actually read the text?" the Professor said now his smirk becoming a rueful smile. He wasn't that much older than his students, and at times accused by his colleagues as being too soft on them. But his pupils loved him and usually performed well enough to keep him in a job. "I know the holidays are impending people, but the dreadful thing about that - in each of your eyes, I suppose – is that the following term is only two weeks after, and this is our new subject,"

He looked about the room, his eyes connecting with the flickers of mirth throughout the hall. He knew every one of the three hundred young adults in front of him, were on the verge of open rebellion, the semester had been long and arduous and there was scarcely an hour until holidays have begun.

He received no verbal response to his threats though and he turned back toward the whiteboard with a green marker in hand, "Perhaps I shouldn't have given you the textbook early, I could have made you wait two weeks so you got it exactly when everyone else did, but I thought you might appreciate the head start,"

"It's not that we don't appreciate it, sir," Liza said from where she sat inconspicuously in the centre of the gathered students, "But its almost Spring break, and most of us are thinking about... well... other things..."

"Melanoma perhaps?" he asked recognising that Liza was not supposed to be in this class. He'd noticed how everyone was showing quite a bit more skin since the days had grown warmer. Winter had been bitterly cold and the University's new green policy meant the heating was used sparingly. The entire student body knew it was just an excuse to save money.

"We appreciate your confidence in us," Liza smiled, the others around her smirking in kind, "Someone definitely bathed in coconut oil this morning and has somewhere in mind to fully utilise it's browning capabilities," there was a ripple of laughter through the classroom and more than a few guilty expressions popping up here and there.

"Any other place than here, of course, I know," the Professor sighed heavily and raised his hands in supplication, "You have completed this semesters course work, so technically I suppose you are free to go-" there was the thunderous sound of seats being pushed back as two hundred and ninety-nine students moved to get up, "One moment!" he shouted and all sound hesitated.

He moved back over to his desk while every suspended body watched him with bated breath. He picked up his own copy of the course text and held it up to them, "I guarantee you this though, anyone who hasn't read the entire course text by the end of the holidays will regret not doing so," his eyes moved about the classroom catching each set quickly, "If that is clear, you may go,"