Curse Of Darkness: Enter The Darkness ~Chapters One - Fourteen ~By Steven Gilby

Chapter One


I was only in high school when I found out that my best friend, my only friend, was a vampire. Maybe it would be easier if I just started at the beginning and told you the whole story.
Let's begin with our names stuff. I've always believed in "ladies first" so I will introduce my friend first. Her name is Rebecca Strate, she told me a nickname for her was Razz, and she is seventeen, at least that's what she told me. She is five feet seven inches tall with black hair and light brown eyes and pale pink lips and she on no account wore make-up. No scars, average length fingernails and she cherished night and everything without light, darkness, not evil darkness, but dark darkness. She lived with foster parents because her real parents were deceased. She wasn't cast off like most.
As for me, my name is Steven Gilby and I have dark brown hair and pine green eyes I'm six foot even and I live with my parents as an only child. I don't have any scars either and I collect knives and I own an authentic sword used back in the days of the Samurai. My knife collection extends to redneck knives and fancy letter openers, switch blades, pocket knives, and butterfly knives. Razz and I were the best of friends and we both liked wearing the color black. We weren't Goth or anything like that, we just found black to our appeal. We both knew other kids at out school, but we never were friends with any of them. We either thought everyone else was a spoiled rich kid, jock, prep, or all of the above.
It was a Saturday when I found out. That doesn't really seem like the way I should put it. I was told, by her. It was really hard to believe at first but she managed to prove it. We had been walking through town like we always did on the weekends, just walking down streets. It was a lovely night. It had just rained and the clouds had disappeared so everything was so clear and the moon shone brighter than ever. The air smelled of freshly poured rain and I thought it was the best night in months. We had been walking down the longest street where we lived, Aransas Pass, Texas, called Highland Avenue and we were talking about movies and had come across the subject of famous horror icons like Frankenstein and his Creature, Dracula and the Wolf-man. I was telling her that I liked Dracula the best because I loved movies about vampires. She stopped walking at that statement and looked at me. I caught up with her and asked what was wrong.
"What if I told you that Dracula and vampires didn't just exist in the movies?"
I made a pondering look for a moment and answered, "I'd say they were in comic books and anime too."
I laughed but she stayed still.
"I'm not bullshitting. I am a vampire."
I gave a smug laugh and blew off the comment, "Yeah, right. And I'm the queen of…Spain."
"Well QUEEN, I'm surprised you didn't say England."
"England is overused. And there is no earthly way you can be a vampire. If you are then how come you can be in the sunlight, and I know you better than anyone and I know that you love garlic. And…and I've even been to church with you. We both drink the wine which is mixed with holy water and I've seen you hold a cross. And you're not pale. And another thing-"
She stopped me, "Ok, first of all, nothing is true about vampires except that they need blood to survive. Sunlight, garlic, holy water, crosses, wooden stakes, none of it is true."
I looked at her and thought of something to say for a few seconds.
"Prove to me that you are a vampire. If you can prove it then I'll believe you. If not then I will head home and forget any of this ever happened. And you better be able to prove it because nights like this only come once in a blue moon."
"How can I prove it to you? What can I do so we won't waste this night?"
I thought for only a few seconds before I thought of something, two things actually. The first was just a joke.
"Vampires are, at least from what I've seen in movies and read in books, erotic. Be erotic."
"Strippers are erotic. Something else."
"Yeah, I know. It was just a joke. Don't take it to heart. If you have one that is."
"I beg your pardon?!" she looked at me with wide, angry eyes.
"Sorry. That was a tad on the mean side. I apologize. The other thing I had for you to do is pretty simple if you can answer me this one question."
"What is it," Razz looked at me with a questionable glare.
"Can vampires heal fast? Like Wolverine from X-Men?"
"Yes, why," she looked at me for a second, both of us quiet. "Oh, I see. You got a knife?"
I always carried a knife with me. The one I had with me that night was my butterfly knife. Yeah, yeah, it's illegal, but I don't care.
She did that fancy flippy trick with it and pressed the blade against her palm.
"Do you want to watch me do this," she asked.
"No. I want to see you do it to your wrist."
"I can't. Not here."
I gave her a puzzled look as well as a look that said "I knew you were shitting me!"
"Why not?"
"Even though a vampire can survive after a greater blood loss than would take to kill a human I still have a chance of bleeding to death."
"Well then just stab yourself somewhere."
"Ok, but let's get off the street first. I don't think we need to make some guys night by making him witness someone stabbing herself."
I agreed and we went to a decently lit area where there wasn't much of a chance anyone would see. In the quiet distance I could hear faint footsteps. Razz put her arm in the path of a beam of light just big enough to light up her arm and slices her wrist deep. Blood oozed out and dripped to the ground. She looked around, turning her head a few times before she faced in the direction of the footsteps. Blood continued to drip from her arm into the dirt. It smelled awful. I hate the smell. There was a man walking near by smoking a cigarette. Razz started to stagger as she walked toward the man. She politely asked him for a cigarette and he obliged her with her pick from the pack. She reached up with her bloody arm and the man shrieked but not loud or long enough to be heard by anyone. Razz pounced on him and bit into his neck and sucked his body dry of blood.
I walked up in fright and asked if she was alright.
"I'm fine. We need to put him somewhere," she pointed to the middle of the street, "Open that manhole. We'll put him there."
"Oh shit. No way, Razz. NO WAY! I will not be an accessory to murder." I stood back, away from the corpse that lay at me feet, and the freak that was my best friend.
She looked at me and tried to make the situation comedic. "It's not murder. It's dinner."
I couldn't help but at least crack a smile. Nevertheless I didn't want to do it, and I didn't. Razz opened the manhole and threw the man's body down in the sewer.
"Now do you believe me?"
I sank to the ground, nearly crying, still smelling blood, looking at Razz's arm covered in it and I nodded my head.
For the rest of the night we were silent to each other. Not a word was said between us until we got home and we said goodnight to each other. I couldn't even bring myself to give her a hug like I used to.
Sunday flew by with neither of us seeing each other (family stuff on Sunday's like church and house cleaning.) On Monday morning when we had school I met with Razz at the back of the school. I walked up to her smoking a cigarette and said good morning. She was zoned, didn't even hear me. I waved my hand in front of her face but still nothing. I brushed my fingers along the wet grass and flicked dew in her face; that worked. She shook her head clear and said hi. It was almost like I had forgotten all about Saturday. I just tried not to think about it.
"You shouldn't smoke those," there was a short pause; "They'll kill you."
I replied sharply, "Well then you better bite me."
"Be careful, I might suck you dry on the spot!"
That scared me a bit because she showed a little fang in that response.
Just then two other students walked up, they were somewhat known as bullies. Their names were James Watson and Robert Isaac.
"Hey Razzy," James said with an evil grin.
"Call me Razzy again and I swear I'll kill you where you stand," Razz's eyes were dark, cold and unfeeling. She meant it.
"Always trying to be Miss Badass, huh? You never could just be yourself. Trying to show off a little bit of your ancestor, are you," Robert questioned.
"I'm nothing like my 'ancestor' and you know it. I feel degraded just being related to him!"
Razz was getting very pissed off. Probably for them mentioning her ancestor, whoever that was…or is. Badass, huh? Dracula, maybe? But that guy is only in fairy tales and what-not. Right? Well it wasn't like I could put in my two cents. Even though there were three people it was pretty much an A and B conversation so I had to C my way out of it. It's not like I could have done anything about it anyway.
The bell rang for the days classes to start and James and Robert went inside while Razz stood there, still angry.
"Who were they talking about," I asked, grabbing her shoulder and turning her toward me.
"No one that you need to be concerned with, trust me. But I will tell you one thing. James is a werewolf and Robert is a vampire. Stay away from them when you are alone, got it?"
I nodded my head and we went inside to our separate classes. My teachers lectures became Charlie Brown talk to my ears.
It's kind of odd how we became friends, Razz and me. We never had a single class together in our entire three and a half years of high school. We were just outcasts in the lunchroom, so one day I sat by her and we started talking and we got to know each other. I met her foster parents and I was very understanding about what happened to her real parents. She never told me what happened to them and I respected that. Painful memories are hard to talk about. She had also met my parents and for some reason they seemed to think that we were going out. I tell them that it isn't like that but they don't listen. I swear it seems like my dad is going to walk up to me and give me a four-pack of condoms or something.
The whole day at school I could barely work on my papers and things. I was thinking about Razz being a vampire and James and Robert…I just couldn't think strait. When school was over I left the campus and started walking home as fast as I could. James and Robert were close behind me.
"What has Razz been telling you?"
"If it's anything of importance you'll be the first one to know, alright?"
James ran in front of me, faster than a normal person would have. "You have a real knack for being a smartass."
I smiled and walked around him thinking of it as a compliment. Robert wrapped his arm around my neck, choking me, and James came in front of me and punched me in the stomach a couple times. When Robert let me go I fell to the ground on my hands and knees and then I moved one of my hands to my stomach. That hurt like a son of a bitch I thought. Razz came running up and shooed them away. I stood up partially grabbing my stomach and Razz rushed to my side to help me up the rest of the way.
"What were you doing? I told you to stay away from them!"
"I was trying. They followed me and I just tried to walk away and not let them bother me but you know how much of a smartass I am. I think I might have pissed them off just a little bit."
"I'll say. Let's just get you home. Tomorrow we will have things to talk about."
"Like your ancestor," I knew who it was, but I didn't want to just blurt it out.
"If you like, yes."
"Well if it bothers you then I'll drop it like a hot potato."
She walked me home and I explained to my parents that I was hit a little too hard in gym class with a dodge ball. Sounds stupid, I know, but they bought it.
Razz had long since left the house and I had already eaten dinner. Leftover pot roast, delicious, seriously. I was sitting up in my room messing with my knife collection, sharpening and testing how sharp they really were, but not on me, on paper. I had gone through all my knives and daggers and I started on my sword, the only one I had. A traditional Samurai sword. It cost me two-hundred fifty bucks, so I kept it clean and scratch free and I kept it shaper than any of my knives or daggers. I even spent the money to get a sensei to teach me how to use it. There was an inscription on the sword as well. It read "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility." I'm just kidding. It said "He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you."
For hours at a time I thought about what that meant. Couldn't think of a damn thing. Oh well. My mom came in my room while I was sharpening my sword and asked if I was still going to practice tonight seeing as how that "dodge ball" seemed to hit me pretty hard.
"Yeah, I'm still going. I can't miss it once or I won't move up from green belt."
"Ok. Just don't push yourself to hard, you hear?"
"Gotcha!"
She tossed me the keys to the car that the three of us shared for our tasks and I sheathed my sword and put it under some floorboards I had managed to lift off the floor a few years back and went downstairs and got my things for practice. I didn't just practice any style of martial arts. I studied how to use a sword, second best in my class next to Razz. She was a first degree black belt already, but I could keep up with her in style and technique.
I drove up to the front of Razz's house and honked the horn. As she left through the front door I heard her mom say, "Why can't he come up to the door like a normal person?" I was lazy, that's why. She got in the old mustang that my parents bought and we went to practice. Our sensei was an old Japanese-American man, about sixty-seven years old but very limber and agile, like that old guy from The Karate Kid. He was a better fighter even than Razz and me put together. For an hour and a half we trained with him. We could either call him sensei or we could call him by his first name, Mike. Me and Razz knew him very well. Usually in our class we are taught to hone our skills with a sword, to make it an extension of not just out arm but of our soul. But today was different. Today was a grading period and I could try to get my next belt. My Red belt; just one more after this and I get black. The things I have to do are tests of my skill, skills like reflex and strength. I had requested to our sensei that I do this test in solitude with him other than in front of a large audience like usual. Somehow I feel as though I will do better when it is just me and my teacher rather than me, my teacher, and a hundred strangers looking at me. He agreed to my request and the other students left the room, all except for Razz. I didn't mind her being there since we were friends. She can critique my style and stuff I thought.
I put on my body armor and robes and put the wooden sword that we get for training in the correct place in my belt on my left side and waited for the test to begin. It would go like this: First, he would do a series of punches and kicks and I would have to block them. Second, we would spar with just our hands and feet. And third, we would spar with wooden swords and I would have to win to advance.
The first test would be the easy part, as all tests with more than one part are. We bowed to each other and got into out stances. His was something out of "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" and mine was a stance I learned from when I took Dragon Cloud Kenpo when I was much younger. Basically I had a fist next to my head and my other hand would be stretched straight out like I was about to catch a ball. I was taught that if a punch is thrown you can block it with one hand and quickly punch with the other.
He started out with a high kick to the left side of my face which I quickly ducked and came back up and found myself on the receiving end of the roundhouse he followed it with. It nailed me right above my ear and I stumbled around for a minute before he threw a punch to my stomach that I luckily spun out of the way of. I wasn't used to fighting like this. I could only block and dodge. No hitting for me. But lucky for me the kick he hit me with was the bottom of hit foot and not his heel or the top of his foot.
After a few minutes of punching and kicking the test was over and the only mistake I made was getting hit by that roundhouse. But now it was time for my kind of fighting. The kind where I get to hit back. Razz just stood out of our way like before with her arm crossed watching my every move. She's like a freaking hawk.
Sensei gave the word to start. I made the opening move without a moment of hesitation. I went strait for his stomach as I turned my body sideways and kicked outward. He caught my foot and swung me around nearly face planting me opposite of where I started. I got up and shook off what had just happened and went for him again. All I really had to do was land one good hit and I would pass. Punch, kick, chop, didn't matter as long as I hit him somewhere, anywhere.
The match went on and on as neither I nor Sensei could land a hit on one another. This is getting aggravating I thought.
He swung a right hook towards me and I ducked it and tried to trip him, but he jumped over my foot and my leg slid by under him as he fell back to the mat. I stayed on the floor and as he hit the mat I slid my leg backwards and he tripped. I stood up and swung fast but hit him lightly on his chest. I passed that one. Two for me, none for Sensei. But everyone knows the last round is always worth double, so if I lost this one, I didn't get the belt.
I got my wooden sword ready as did Sensei. We started and he came at me strong with a downward slash that I rolled out of the way of like nothing. When I got back to my feet I slashed backwards at him, and seeing as how I was behind him I thought I might get the element of surprise. But no, he back flipped over my sword and I sat there on one knee in awe as he landed in front and to the right of me. My awe couldn't last long or I would be dead. We exchanged slashes and blocks for a while before he made a stab at me. He caught my left leg, my thigh to be exact, at the top near my hip bone. He then started to spin his sword in circles and I was flabbergasted at how to block that without getting hurt more. I did the only thing I could think of at the moment. I thrusted my wooden sword in the middle of this swirling vortex of wood and wind. He easily blocked it, knocking my sword away form me, swung around in a full three-hundred sixty degree circle and landed the tip of his sword right in my lung, and would have almost pierced my heart if it were a real sword. I picked up my sword in defeat.
"That was a fatal blow," he said with a slight smile.
"Tell me something I don't know," I sighed and dropped, almost threw my sword on the red mat, "I have no idea how to block or counter something like that Sensei."
"Solutions present themselves only when you understand what the problem was."
I let out a "pfft" and said, "The problem is that I died and I will never figure out how to do anything about that kind of move," I picked up my sword and put it in my belt.
"Well when you think you have it, tell me and I shall promote you then," he looked over at Razz, "Razz, would you like to try for your next level?"
She looked at him, smiled, and waved her hands, "Oh, no thank you. I'm fine as I am now. Maybe next time."
Sensei nodded and Razz and I both left the dojo. As we left Sensei yelled to me, "Work on your temper as well. You'll never figure anything out if you can not control your emotions."
When we got to Razz's house I stopped her as she was getting out of the car.
"You didn't have to do that, you know?"
"Do what?"
I gave her the look that said "I know you know what I'm talking about."
"Really, I don't know what you're talking about.
I gave her that look again, "Why didn't you try for the next level of black belt? You're a first degree, why not go for second?"
I had already partially known the answer to that question. She felt bad for me so she didn't try for her next belt. Not that she needed to, she was ahead of everyone else by at least three belts.
"I have no good reason. But you know you do have a bad temper at times, and you need to concentrate harder on the things you want if you want to achieve them. Tell you what, we can go to the usual spot at the edge of town and I can teach you some new moves and we can work on your temper and concentration with some meditation, ok?"
I nodded my head and she smiled then got out of the car. I drove home and went to bed after telling my parents about what had happened at practice. They said I would do better next time and I walked up to my room and drifted into dreamland after turning on some music to help me relax, jazz to be exact, and I floated away on the soothing sounds of trumpets and other brass instruments into the land of my dreams. If I had a dream I don't remember it.



Chapter Two



The next day when I woke up from my deep slumber I was enticed by the smell of a delicious smelling breakfast. Sausage, bacon, eggs with cheese, toast, and pancakes all cooked up and ready for me to eat and still warm. I was more than happy to sit down and enjoy this great feast. My mother and I engaged in idle chit-chat about everyday things like politics and the government (I don't know why. I didn't like to talk about either but I knew a great deal about them.) Also we talked about the bible on occasion, but that was a subject I felt uncomfortable talking about and didn't know much about.
I quickly gulped down my eggs and sausage and bacon and started on my pancakes with a slab of butter and a heavy dose of maple syrup.
"Orange juice?"
I looked up at her with a look of surprise. She knew I loved orange juice but I couldn't tell if she was just joking or if she was serious.
"You're kidding right? Get me a big glass, please."
She got me the biggest cup we had from the clean dishes that had just finished getting clean in the dishwasher and poured me a nice big glass of ice cold O.J. I took the glass and chugged it down and wolfed down the rest of my breakfast and took off for school. The good thing about today is that my dad didn't have to work today and my mom doesn't work so it's all good. I sped out of the driveway and got to school. When I got there there was a crowd of people surrounding the front door and no one was allowed in. The principal was in front of the door making a speech. I made my way to the front to catch these words, "James Watson is dead. He was murdered last night. Since this has hit the community so hard we have decided to cancel school for today and tomorrow."
Hearing that I ran to the car and turned the key just as Razz walked up to the driver's side.
"Steven, what's going on?"
"Get in and I'll tell you. We need to get out of here."
She ran around and got in and I sped off to a secluded place where we were always alone. There was just something about a field full of dandelions and buttercups that just makes you tell all to a person you trust, even if it's something that you wouldn't normally tell them. When we got there I took the key out of the car and looked at Razz.
"James is dead."
She looked down, making very sure that she wouldn't look into my eyes, "I know."
"Did you do it?"
"Jesus Christ, Steven, I thought you had more sense than that. I would never kill James."
"You need to let me in on everything you know."
She looked dead into my eyes as if they were locked that way, "I am a small time bounty hunter. I work with a man named Eddie. Every few months he drinks a small amount of my blood to temporarily stop his aging."
"How long does it stop for?"
"A few years. He is one hundred thirty-five years old now and looks like he's still in his forties. He makes the blades and other weapons I use to hunt and kill vampires and werewolves that tip the scales."
I gave her a questioned look.
"The scales are a delicate balance of the good and evil vampires on this planet. When there are more bad than good then a Hunter is called in to get rid of it. I'm the one called on the most for the small jobs; I've never done any of the jobs that earn me major recognition or cash."
I understood what she was saying, but it's not every day you find out your best friend is a vampire who hunts other vampires.
"So these 'scales'. They aren't, um," I had to struggle to find the right words to use, "The vampires and werewolves you kill. No one keeps track of these vampires do they?
"There is an Order of very old vampires. They are the ones who keep track. No one ever sees them; no one even knows where they are. But it's not like they count all the good and bad and tell people to kill the bad ones to keep it equal. It's more like they want us to kill the vampires that get out of hand.
I thought for a second. You got to be really fucking old to be called a "very old" vampire.
"How old are you?"
"Come this December I will be two hundred seventy-seven years old."
"Wow!"
"Yup. Now come on. We need to get to Eddie's to see what he can tell us, but first we need to go to where James was killed."
"But what about the cops? Won't there be cops there?"
"I don't know. What time is it?"
I looked down at my watch, "Ten thirty."
"They'll be on lunch break."
"But it's only-"
"Trust me. They always take an early lunch. All I need is some grass or a footprint."
I nodded then turned the car on. Whatever I thought. We drove strait to the scene. Wouldn't you know it, no cops.
The scene was covered in still moist blood and dew from the early morning hours. The smell was horrible. The body was taken away long ago. In some of the blood and clean grass there were scuff marks where there had obviously been a struggle. And the cherry on top was the yellow tape that surrounded the whole crime scene. I kind of figured they would put cops on guard here twenty-four seven until it was all cleaned up or whatever. But hey, who am I to complain?
Razz jumped out of the car and ran under the yellow tape and took some bloody grass from the ground and gave it a sniff.
"It's a werewolf alright," she yelled at me.
She ran back to the car and put the grass in the ash tray.
"Your phone is a camera phone, right?"
"Yeah, you need to use it?"
"Uh huh, going to take pictures and give them to Eddie, see what he thinks of all this."
As she was walking away I thought about something and said, "They're a little small on the camera. Wouldn't he need to see large copies?"
Razz yelled back, "You'd be surprised at how many gadgets he has."
I shrugged Razz finished taking the pictures on my phone and got back in the car. I never get any calls on the thing anyway. At least it was used for something good.
She gave me directions to Eddie's house and I drove there as fast as I could without getting pulled over. He lived in an old two story house on the outskirts of town where no one goes unless it's the fourth of July or New Years and they go out to pop firecrackers and shoot off bottle rockets.
The steps were cracked and covered in green mold and the wood that made up the porch was so creaky that it almost sounded like it would break. The house itself was old, enough said there. Dusty windows and broken shutters covered the face of the house.
When we went up to the door Razz banged on the door and it fell over with a loud crash and dust flew up from underneath it. Eddie came running up not knowing it was us. He has a German accent with light brown hair and blue eyes to go with his five foot nine inch tall body. His clothes were as if he hadn't changed them in days, smelly and covered in what looked like food and machine oil. The inside of the house was simple enough: a living room right when you walk in, the door neatly concealed to the right (if you're on the inside and looking at the front door). A small doorway led into the kitchen to the left, and if you kept going strait ahead through the living room there was a staircase that, if you were going up, would have you facing to the right, but when you were at the top would have you facing towards the front of the house. In the kitchen there was a side door with a small window with a tattered curtain covering it. And to the right of the living room there was a door, always closed, that lead into a small bathroom that nobody ever used. Upstairs there was a bathroom with shower and two bedrooms, one master bedroom with a walk-in closet and the other was just a small room with an even smaller closet, both full of electronic toys that Eddie had apparently never finished working on or put in here to work on later and forgot about them. Going beyond the stairs on the first floor there was a rather large room full of books and magazines, the study I suppose you could call it. Books on everything vampire and werewolf and all the bullshit holy artifacts that would supposedly kill a vampire of werewolf.
"Yes, vat do you vant? Oh, Rass, eet's you. Vat do I owe this most humble visit?"
"James Watson was murdered and we need to know who it was. Think you can give us a hint?"
She handed him the grass and my camera phone and he went down to the basement and for a minute and came back up without those things.
"Za pictures need time to upload and za grass ees in a scanner," he looked at me, "Ah, who is your friend?"
"This is Steven. He knows pretty much everything."
"I will need a blood sample," the machines in the basement beeped, "Ah, I vill be back. Help yourself to anysing in za fridge. Rass, take za blood vee need."
I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and looked to see if there was anything I fancied to drink. I grabbed a bottle of red wine and opened it.
"What are you doing," Razz asked.
"I'm smelling the cork."
"Do you know how to tell good wine from that?"
"Not a damn clue, but it smells really good."
I tossed the cork in the trash and went into the living room and sat on the old green recliner. Rocking back and forth I sipped on the wine. Razz opened a drawer on the desk next to me and pulled out a large syringe and some alcohol and a cotton swab. I jumped up when I saw it.
"WOAH! What the hell do you think you're going to do with that?"
"I'm going to take some of your blood."
"Not with that thing you're not."
"Relax," she took a cigarette from a pack on the desk, "Smoke this and drink that while I do it and you won't feel a thing."
Cigarette and alcohol, perfect combination. Razz dug the needle in my arm as I took a drink from the bottle.
"Shit!"
"Don't be a baby. It didn't hurt a bit."
"So says you. I didn't even get to light the cigarette."
She tossed me a lighter and I lit up. It might have been a little late, but hey, a cigarette's a cigarette.
Eddie came back up with pictures in his hand and a paper that probably came out of a machine when the grass was done.
"Zees vas no accident."
"What do you mean," I asked.
"Vat do you sink it means you stupid boy? Zees murder was staged. By looking at enlarged pictured of zee scene I noticed that zee blood was not in a splash or drip pattern. It vas poured in zee grass and smeared all around and zey even stirred up zee grass and dirt to make eet look real," he looked at Razz, "How was the body?"
"From what I heard the face was unrecognizable. They think he was shot or something of the manner."
"Ah, yes. A body with no face. Very easy to come by if you are a werewolf."
"But who around here is a werewolf? I thought Razz said that they were both vampires."
"Well then we have an immigrant wolf in town."
"You mean from another country," I questioned.
"No," Razz started, "A werewolf from another town. Most towns have clans of werewolves, sometimes the whole state is one clan. There isn't one here, we're too small. So that means we have am immigrant in town. And he needs to be dealt with. This is where I come in."
Eddie ran down in the basement and came back up a few seconds later with a sword and a crossbow. Razz looked at me, "Come back for me later tonight and I should know where we need to go."
"Rass, tonight ees a full moon so be careful."
She looked at him and gave a slight smile, "I'm more than capable of handling this without any help."
"Well, I guess I'll be seeing you later tonight then?"
"Bye," she said as she tossed me my phone.
I got in my car and went home. As I sat in my room and pondered about what would happen tonight. A vampire was bad enough; I didn't want to meet a werewolf, at least not yet. I lay on my bed as I thought of all these things. Vampires, werewolves, and what would happen if I were to become one of these creatures that mankind wouldn't even think twice about being real and if so would kill without a second thought.
After a while I had fallen asleep; the dream I had seemed as real as life itself. It started out with me running, just running down a street, in and out of streetlights, a beast running after me jumping into the lights every now and then just to let me know the terror that was chasing me was real. A bright flash of light and I saw myself on the ground covered in blood, my shirt torn to shreds. As I lay there, dying I suppose, I looked up into the sky and saw a full moon, and then I closed my eyes and there was darkness.
My phone rang and scared me awake. I was covered in sweat and I started to shiver as I realized my room was freezing. I clicked the talk button on the phone and said "hello" in a hoarse tone then I cleared my throat. It was Razz, she wanted me to get her from Eddie's and that she would tell me the rest when I got there. The ride was fast seeing as how I was alone. I didn't even bother to get out of the car when I pulled up to the house. It didn't really matter anyway because Razz was waiting on the doorstep with a black duffle bag and she was all dressed up in black, not leather though. No leather what-so-ever. (I wonder why they always choose black. I suppose it's better than pink or white, especially in the dark.) She opened the door on the back seat passenger side and tossed the bag in it then came and sat in the front seat.
"Go to Kay Street. It'll be the fifth house down," her voice was very calm and she didn't look at me, just out the windshield, nearly emotionless. I guess she was in a deep state of concentration. Nothing seemed to bother her.
No music, no words, no nothing, just silence as we drove to the house on Kay Street. The house we had made our way to was old, like Eddie's house, but the steps weren't all moldy and cracked, partially because the steps were wooden, and the porch was very small. From inside the car I noticed the front door was slightly ajar.
Razz reached back and grabbed the bag and opened it. There were various items in it: several throwing knives, a sword, katana of course (it was a capacious bag), a small crossbow with numerous arrows, and two daggers, decently lengthened. I was handed the crossbow and asked if I knew how to use it. I said that it wasn't a main priority for me to shoot a crossbow but I would guess I was a pretty decent shot with it. Razz took the sword and put the throwing knives in little holsters around her waist and one of the daggers in a leg holster. The other one she gave to me.
"What am I going to use this for?"
"An emergency."
I had never seen her like this before. She was dead serious (no pun intended).
She got out of the car and I a few seconds after her. As we were walking up to the house she fell to one knee and started to groan. I ran up to her to see if she was going to be alright, but when I got close she just told me to stay back in a harshly hoarse voice. When she finally stood up her eyes were very dark, black almost, and they were severely bloodshot. I asked if she was alright and she said she was fine. I looked up into the sky and noticed the full moon.
"Does the moon do something to vampires, too?"
She looked at me, fangs at full length, "Yes. It gives us a small amount of power, but werewolves are still stronger than us by at least three fold."
I didn't say anything to that. What exactly can you say to a person with fangs and black eyes? Exactly, nothing.
Carefully we walked up to the front door, Razz noticed it was cracked open; seemed to me like we were expected. She pushed the door open with the handle of her sword and slowly started to walk in and look all over the place. Her sword was pointed downwards so that she would have a decent advantage over whoever she was going to fight if there was indeed going to be a fight here. I prayed that nothing bad was going to happen.
She got to the stairs and told me to wait here and look around down here a little. The steps slightly creaked as she gently walked on them. I started walking away from her towards another room, but I didn't bother to check the closet next to the stairs for two reasons: it was to dark to see anything, and who would hide in a closet, especially a vampire? I mean come on!



Chapter Three



That was my mistake. As soon as I got to the doorway to the next room I heard a door creak open by the stairs. I was frozen with fear because I knew that it wasn't Razz, she was upstairs. I closed my eyes and started to turn around very slowly. As I turned around I heard a growl from a creature that stood behind me. At that point I didn't think it was a vampire. I knew what it was, but I didn't want to see it face to face. With a creature like this I wasn't so much afraid of being scratched, I was more afraid of being eaten more than anything else.
When I was all the way around I stood there staring at this mammoth of a beast with teeth like razors and eyes like nothing I'd ever seen. Its eyes were like black pools to which there was no depth.
I stood there with the crossbow at my side not able to move another muscle. It started to walk closer to me and I started to lift the crossbow very carefully. When it was at a good height I fired and a shot landed in its leg. He screeched out in pain for a short moment. Razz came running down the stairs and saw what stood in front of me. I dropped the bow and reached in my pockets for the keys to the car. When I got them I blindly searched for the key that went to the car. My hands were shaking wildly at this point. I looked at the wide open door to see how close I was to being in the clear and instead I saw a figure. The light caught his face for a moment and I screamed out "Robert!"
Robert was here and without even thinking about it I tossed the keys at Razz and ran around the beast. With a fifty-fifty chance of being right I ducked hoping he would slash across. Whew! Just my luck, it took out the stairs and I started hauling ass as far away from here as I could. Razz had already left and started chasing after Robert. I thought she would have taken the car to chase him but she didn't. Here I was running down the street from a mammoth of a beast with intent to kill me and probably eat me for all I knew. I ran as fast as I could down the street, running in and out of streetlights. The beast was still after me jumping into every streetlight that was in its way, tearing some out of the ground. After running for what seemed like forever I made my way to the park. It was always a nice spot to go to with a crystal clear lake and nice trees everywhere and a huge field next to the lake. I took out the dagger from my pocket; I think I sliced my pocket when I took it out too. When I reached the field I turned around to face my adversary, but there was nothing there. I looked around carefully making sure not to skip over a single tree or even the lake. Nothing at all. I rested my arms thinking it was all a hallucination, a dream, a fantasy that I dreamed up. Just when I thought it was over I heard a loud thud behind me and before I could turn around a sharp pain rushed through my back and I fell to the ground. I managed to turn over to see that this beast, this creature that had been chasing me, was real and had really intended to kill me. I saw a claw come down over my face and everything went blurry for only a few seconds, and then there was darkness. I passed out from pain and had not yet lost enough blood to die.
Next thing I knew I'm looking at Razz and she herself had blood on her, on her neck actually, but the wound had already closed up. I looked into her eyes and didn't say a word, but I stood up even with the incredible pain that was rushing through my body and I started to walk towards the lake. The most beautiful place in the entire town and I wanted to see it one last time. Yes, I knew I was going to die, and I did. Just before I could see the whole lake, I fell over and died right there. All was dark, and I feared the worst. Being dead was bad, but which place was I going. Was I taking the express elevator up or was I going to take the freight elevator strait down? To be quite honest I didn't go to either or those places.
I woke up in a strange room on a green fabric sofa with a steaming bowl of red goop on a coffee table no more than three feet away. I wondered at the time what I was doing in a place like this. It wasn't my vision of heaven, nor was this anything I thought hell would be like. I tried to move and there was an incredible pain all over my back and a few spots on my face. When I felt my face I felt stitches, and I assumed it that was the same with my back but I ran my hand across my back as best as I could just to make sure.
Razz walked in shortly after I woke up. She came in and sat down on the floor between the coffee table and me on the couch, her legs tucked under the little wooden table.
"Razz," it hurt to talk, I grabbed my throat but continued to talk, "What happened to me?"
She took a deep breath and let it out like she just blew a burden out of her body through her lungs. "You need to rest more. I will tell you all in time."
With those words I rested my head on the soft arm of the ugly sofa and closed my eyes.
"Zose stitches vill need to come out soon."
"Let him rest more. He needs more time to heal; he is, after all, one of us now."
Whatever else they started talking about I couldn't tell you if my life depended on it, but I did end up falling asleep again.
The next time I awoke the bowl was still in front of me, but it wasn't steaming anymore, and Razz was gone. I sat up as carefully as I could but no matter how slow I went it would hurt all the way up, I just chose to go slow because it wouldn't hurt as bad. I let out a few small screams and when I was fully sat up Razz walked back in with Eddie, and he was holding a pair of scissors and needle-nosed pliers.
I inquired as to what he would be using them for and he said he was going to take out the stitches in my back and face. I laid on my stomach on a table in another room while Eddie cut and pulled out the stitches, the walk there was very painful of course, but Razz was talking to me the whole time I was receiving this minor surgery. She told me that I had died in the park that night and that it had also been nearly a month since then. My mom suffered from depression and killed herself with a toaster in the bathtub a week after and my dad couldn't live without my mom so he had killed himself in the garage, sitting in the driver's seat and suffocated himself with carbon dioxide from the car. All of our things were auctioned off along with the house and even the car my dad had killed himself in. I swear some people have no decency. The whole time this was being told to me Eddie was pulling wire out of my back and for some strange reason I could barely feel it. It was the fact that the wires were in my body, puncturing nerves, which made it hurt when I walked and sitting up.
My parents are dead? Oh my God! No, not my parents. Anyone but them. I started to breathe hard and my eyes watered a lot but I didn't cry, just became very teary-eyes. Mostly because I hate it when people see me cry.
"What am I," I said with little breath and a hoarse voice.
"You are," she paused for a moment seeming like she didn't want to tell me what I was.
"A vampire?"
Her eyes started to water as she said "yes".
"Turn over, eet's time to do your face."
I sat up on the cold metal table with nothing on but some pants and socks. Eddie proceeded to pull the strings out of my face. I flinched every time because, to me, it feels really weird when someone pulls a perfectly smooth piece of string from right above my eye. I let him finish with my face before I decided to ask about my funeral.
"Well, you had a closed casket of course. There isn't really much to tell about your funeral. Your whole family was there, everyone was crying. I was there. I tried my best to look as sad as them, but it was kind of hard seeing as how I knew you weren't dead. Well, technically you were for about a week, that's when you finally woke up, at least for the first time. You woke up several times in the last month but you never stayed awake."
"Ok, enough about me dying; what's with the stitches? I thought vampires could heal things like this."
"Yes, but if it's a really bad, uh, scratch, like you had, then it wont heal on its own. Eddie had to stitch you up so it could start healing then the vampirism would take over from there."
I shook my head and laid back down on the table. After only a few seconds I fell asleep. An unfamiliar voice said, "Well, at least he stayed awake long enough for the stitches to come out."
When I woke up again I looked around and I noticed I was in a bed, a very comfortable one I might add, and I was alone. I called Razz's name and she came in only a few seconds later.
"Yes, what is it," her voice was soft, gentle and caring.
I told her I was hungry, but I didn't know what I wanted to eat. She told me she had the perfect thing and a couple minutes later she came up with the steaming bowl I had seen earlier. It was on a tray with a glass of what looked like red Kool-Aid. When she set the bowl down in front of me I took a deep whiff of the goop and became sick to my stomach.
"What is this slop," I protested to the consumption of such a vile smelling dish. Razz suggested that I just try it and not worry about the smell and look. I did as she said and dipped my finger in the thick red goop that sat in front of me and tasted it. To my surprise it was very appetizing, so I picked up the bowl, disregarding the smell, and drank it down. When I finished I wiped my mouth and set the bowl down on the bed next to me.
It was then that it occurred to me that I had forgotten to ask her if she had gotten Robert, so I did. The answer was no and she also told me that the werewolf that had killed me was still in town.
"My sword," I said.
"It was auctioned off after your parents died."
"No. I always had a special place for it in my room. We need to go get it."
"You do understand that your house was bought in the auction and a man lives there with his wife and two kids, a son and daughter, right?"
"I don't care. My sword is still in that house. I hollowed out a part of my floor and put it there in case of any emergency. Never really thought it would really come in handy. It was really just one of those 'just in case' things, you know?"
"I get you. But how are we going to go about getting your sword back?"
"First, we'll go to my old house," I stopped there.
"Then?"
"I don't know. I was just going to play it by ear from there."
We both laughed a little, the best thing to happen since I died…sort of.
"We'll go and get it tomorrow, ok?"
Razz looked down at me with s smile, "Sure. What time?"
"Sometime around three o'clock sound good?"
She nodded her head a few times and told me to get some sleep, so I did. I practically fell asleep where I was, but I made my way to the couch and nodded off.
We had no car except Eddie's 1989 Buick P.O.S. (for those of you who don't know what a P.O.S. is, it stands for "piece of shit") so we got in and drove to the house of my human days.
When we got there I stepped out of the car and just stared at it. The house that was once an off white color was now pale yellow with new shutters and shrubs all around the perimeter of the house. The roof was reshingled and there was a new front door. It seemed a lot of work had been done to this house, I had wondered how it looked on the inside. I hope they didn't put carpet in my old room.
Razz followed closely behind me as I walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. An old man who was half bald and had a full, thick beard answered the door with a smile. His hair was a medium brown color with hazel eyes. He looked as big as a bear but as gentle as a kitten.
He looked down at us and asked what we had wanted in a kind voice, the smile still on his face. He was like the ghost of Christmas Present. I spoke up explaining to him that we were travelers wandering the country and that all our money had been stolen and we needed something to eat. He looked at us pleasantly and invited us in. His wife was sitting on the couch reading a book and there was a golden retriever sitting on the carpet in front of her. She was a pleasant woman with hair like golden wheat and eyes as blue as the deep Atlantic Ocean and her skin was very fair.
The renovations to the house were amazing. There was no carpet in the house anymore; it was all one big wooden floor, thankfully. Fresh new wallpaper had made the house look so cheery and happy, better than my parents had ever thought of making it. From upstairs came two kids, a boy and a girl.
"These are my kids. My daughter's name is Alicia, she's fifteen, and this young man's name is Joey, he's sixteen. While I fix you two a plate why don't you tell us a little about yourselves?"
"Well, my sister here is much older than she looks, she's twenty-seven. Me, I'm only nineteen. We started to travel after I finished high school. We've been to so many places, many of them very beautiful," I looked over to Razz. "Sis, why don't you tell them more? I need to use the restroom. Could you point me to the direction to it, please?"
"Sure," the man's wife said, "The downstairs one is broken so you'll have to use the one upstairs."
I shook my head and walked towards the steps. Halfway up I remembered that I wasn't supposed to know the layout of this house.
"Where is it again?"
His wife looked up from her book and said, "Down the hall to your left and it will be the second door on your right."
I shook my head again and went upstairs and to the left. I peeked down the stairs to make sure the coast was clear. When I saw my chance I darted across the hall into my old room. The door was already open so I had no trouble getting in without being heard. I looked around and tried to remember where the compartment was. Death seemed to take away some of my memory, but I found it with little trouble. There was only one problem; there was a very large, very old wooden dresser on top of it. I started to push it out of the way but it made a lot of noise while it moved across the wooden floor. All this time I was thinking to myself, Why did they have to put in wooden floors?"
Carefully looking around I noticed a small blanket on the floor near the door. I picked it up and carefully put it under two of the legs of the dresser. Then, at the other side, the side without anything under the legs but wooden floor, I slightly picked up that end and slid it across the floor with little noise. The compartment was exposed and all I could do for a moment was stare at it. I then thought, Ok, enough staring; now I have got to get this thing out of here without being seen."
Then it hit me. I got the sword out and picked up another blanket, from the kid's bed, and wrapped the sword in it. Then I walked over to the window and, after opening it, I tossed the sword, wrapped in the blanket, out the window into the bushes. There wasn't much sound seeing as how the bushes broke the fall. After that I carefully moved the dresser back and went back downstairs. Everyone was looking at me after I came down. I figured they knew what I was doing. The man smiled and said, "Man that must have been one hell of bathroom break. You were up there for five minutes."
I smiled at him and then looked at Razz and pointed at her and said, "It's all her cooking, I had nothing to do with it."
She gave me a scornful look as the man brought two plates of roast beef with mashed potatoes and carrots and brown gravy. We were also given a medium sized cup of chocolate milk. As I got mine I politely asked if I could have ice in mine (ice makes it really cold, and that's how I like it, but some think that ice and milk is a despicable combination.) He obliged me with three very large ice cubes, setting them gently in the cup as to not splash the milk everywhere. We finished our meal with little conversation, and afterwards the man asked us if we wanted to stay for a little while longer. We told him that we had to be going because our trip was very long and we needed to keep going. He walked us to the door but did not go outside with us; good thing too because I had to go over to the bushes to get my sword. The door closed behind us and I ran over to get my sword wrapped in a blanket. After that I ran to the car and jumped in the passenger side and Razz drove off.
When we got back to Eddie's place he took the sword from me and took it down to the basement. I'm guessing he keeps everything in the basement because he always goes down there. I've never been down there myself but I think I will one day. When he came back up he said that it will be at least six hours before the diamond sharpens the blade to near perfection.
"In the mean time why don't we go get a little something for dessert," Razz said. I nodded my head and smiled at her and we drove off to the local ice cream shop. When we got in Razz looked at the woman behind the counter and called out her name, which is Betty, and said to get two of the usual. She nodded her head and went into the back and came out about three minutes later with a plate of red colored pie. When I tasted it I realized it was cheesecake, but there was something about it, something weird in the background.
"What is that taste?"
Razz looked at me with cheesecake in her mouth and muttered the word cheesecake. I told her there was something in the background of the creamy pie.
"Oh! That's blood. It adds a little somethin' somethin', know what I mean?"
"Yeah, it just tastes a little weird to me."
We sat there and enjoyed the luscious and creamy pie with an ice cold glass of milk.
"How many places in this town are vampire run?"
"Not many," she started, "Most are werewolf owned and operated, vampires don't own much, but vampires own the best places. You wouldn't believe how many places in the United Stated, much less the world, are owned and operated by werewolves and vampires."
I shrugged my shoulders and enjoyed the rest of my cheesecake with my milk and afterward I had a cup of coffee, regular coffee with regular cream and regular sugar. There wasn't much talking. We made idle chit-chat about the things we used to do.
"You've been a vampire since God knows when. I just became a vampire and I gave up my entire life, everyone I knew, that wasn't very many people anyway, my family, my 'normal' future, I gave it all up for this. Can you please tell me what I gave up my life for, what I gave up my soul for?"
"You gave up everything, not when you became a vampire, but when you found out I was a vampire and that there were more of me and there were also werewolves out in this world of ours. You gave it all up because both of us know that deep down inside your pathetic little soul you desperately wanted these things to be real because you had a meager little human life with an insignificant existence. Just another lost soul in the abyssal world."
I interrupted her and yelled out, "It was not insignificant! And, yes, I did want these things to be real. I have always wanted the chance to live life like the movies. Things like this would be too much for some people to handle and I have been told that things like this would be too much for anyone to handle. But I always told them that I could handle it like a rational hum-…person."
I got up and walked out and started to walk. To where I did not know but I just wanted to get away from people, from everyone around me. Razz was running after me and caught up with me. She kept calling my name but I wouldn't respond to her voice, I just kept walking at a fast pace. She called me by my full name one time, Steven Patrick Gilby. I had told her my full name a few times, I'm surprised she remembered.
I turned to her and looked her dead in her eyes (if you want to take that as a joke you can). As I was about to speak my speech ceased and I fell to the ground, my insides aching tremendously.
"Oh, God. How long has it been since you had the soup?"
She picked me up and dragged me down the street to a butcher shop, Mick's Meats, the sign read. When we got inside she looked at George and said she had a live one and needed something for him. Razz sat me down in a chair in a back room and George came in with jumper cables and a battery.
"No, not that stuff, he needs blood. He's a friend of mine. Give him at least three pints."
He left and came back with a bucket like object with a lid, a needle, a tube, and three little plastic containers of blood. He connected the needle and the tube and stuck the needle into my wrist. Then he poured the blood into the bucket and connected the other end of the tube to the side of the bucket really close to the bottom. The lid then went on and he started pumping a handle on the lid.
"Don't worry, mate. We'll have you all fixed up in no time at all. See this pump here? It raises the pressure in the bucket and pumps the blood into the tube and into your body. I've found this does it just right. If the blood gets into your body too fast you could go into shock and die, again. If it doesn't get in fast enough, well, you get the picture don't you, mate?"
I sat there while the blood was being pumped into my arm, and I could feel it throughout my body. It was cold. As it ran through me, making me cold, I closed so I could try to go to sleep. My eyes were closed and I could feel myself drifting into a dream when all of a sudden I was slapped in the face. Following that was a splash of extremely cold water on my face.
"Don't drift away on us now. If you die again I'm sure Razz here will be pretty upset."
In a low, barely audible voice I said, "I want to sleep."
"I know you do, mate, but we can't let you sleep until we get all this blood in you. You need to be awake so you heart is pumping. When a vampire sleeps the heart stops and blood ceases to flow. The brain is still active but the rest of the body shuts down, so you need to stay awake, you hear?"
I nodded my head with what little strength I had and struggled to keep myself awake until the blood was in me. I had never felt the desire to sleep this much before. It was tearing at my soul. I had to stay awake to live but my brain was telling me that to stay alive I needed to sleep.
When all the blood was in me the needle was taken out of my arm and I didn't feel like sleeping anymore. I thanked Mick and then I looked at Razz, longing to say something, anything, but words were stuck in the back of my throat. Nothing was said and I walked out. I heard Razz say "damnit" and she followed me out. I wasn't walking very fast so she caught up easily.
"Hey. Wait up."
I stopped walking and let her catch up to me.
"I'm sorry, ok?"
"It's not that. I've only been a vampire for a few hours. I just need some time to think about things and figure out just what the hell I got myself into."
"Ok. Just come back to Eddie's when you're done. You sword will be ready when you get back. I'll see you later."
We stared at each other for a few moments and then she leaned in and took a step and wrapped her arms around me. For a few seconds we hugged and then she let go and began to walk away. I felt like saying something then, and I even knew exactly what I wanted to say, but I held back from even stuttering out one word. I just watched her walk away. I stood there for only a few minutes before deciding to go back into the meat place to get a cup of blood to have on my walk. Mick filled up a black water bottle with a mix of cow, pig, and lamb blood and I went on my way. I just walked down the street, no particular place to go, just walking and sipping on the blood in the bottle. As my walk commenced I thought about what I had told Razz, That thought was "Just what in the hell did I get myself into?"
Werewolves and vampires. Both were real, no war, nothing to spark a war between the two species, at least not that I knew of. But there was something about the werewolf that I saw. Something that didn't seem right. Something that didn't seem normal, at least not for the werewolves I've ever seen in movies and things. Truth is none of the movies were right in the "what werewolves look like" department. Truth is, that was my first werewolf, and I had no idea if others looked different. I would have to ask Razz when I got back to Eddie's.
My walk lasted as long as the blood in the bottle which, seeing as how I wasn't very thirsty lasted a pretty long time. I hailed a cab back to Eddie's since I had walked so far in the opposite direction of his place. When I walked in I saw Eddie tinkering with some things on the kitchen table: small gadgets and microchips and a computer tower that had been disassembled.
"What's with all the stuff on the table Eddie?"
"Eet ees for a very important experiment. So shoo, do not bother me."
Razz was sitting on a long faded green couch in the living room reading a book and drinking some red wine that was in a regular drinking glass, the bottle sat idly on the small wooden table next to the couch. She looked up at me and then back down at her book. After a few minutes she picked up a bookmark that was sitting in her lap and placed it in the book and closed it, gulped down the last bit of her wine, and stood up and walked over to me, next to me actually, and whispered in my ear, "Eddie is tinkering with some more of his unfinished toys. I'm going to bed, and I suggest you do the same. We start tomorrow. There are things you need to know."
I nodded my head and sat down on the couch after she had walked by me and up the stairs. I looked over at the wine bottle and after a few seconds of staring I picked it up and started drinking what was left. Up until this point I had never seen myself as an alcoholic, but now I realized that I really was quite a heavy drinker but I was never drunk. I had gotten drunk once and done some stupid things so I swore off being drunk, but not drinking.
After I finished the bottle off I went into the kitchen to ask Eddie where I would be sleeping tonight.
"On ze couch," he told me
"That thing?"
"Yes! You haff a problem vith eet?"
"Yeah, it looks like you just nailed some wood together, threw some fabric over it, and stapled it all on. It doesn't even look like it had padding."
He snuffed and started tinkering with another toy with a screwdriver for a few seconds before telling me to get over it. As I walked away I mocked him a little by saying, "Sleep on ze couch. Eet's fine."
"Vat vas zat," he yelled.
I screamed back that it was "nosink" and laughed to myself quietly and went to lie on the couch and try to sleep. Surprisingly it was easy once I got into the right position.
The next morning when I woke up I went strait to the bathroom upstairs to wash my face, take a piss and a shower. I walked up the stairs still half asleep and walked down the hall to the bathroom at the end. I lightly knocked on the door to make sure no one was in and I went inside when I didn't get a reply. Slowly I opened the door and it creaked as it was pushed open. With my eyes still half closed and sensitive to any light I put my hand above my eyes and went to click on the lights. Already on? I wonder if they ever turn them off. I went strait to the toilet first and unzipped my pants and let all my fluid out. After that I went to the sink and washed my hands and face. After I dried my face I took off my shirt and went for the shower, but when I turned around there was Razz naked in the tub with music blasting in her ears and her eyes closed just sitting in a bubble bath. I let out a quick "whoa!" and quickly put my shirt back on. She apparently heard me and quickly, as I put on my shirt, she got out of the tub and put on a towel. By this time I was fully awake, mainly due to the view I had. I started to apologize and leave when Razz said it was ok, that this kind of thing happens. I still left the bathroom and went downstairs.
Later when she came down, her hair wrapped in a towel, she said, "Don't act like you've never seen a naked woman before."
I shrugged it off and tried to make a joke of it, "Can you really be considered a woman? You're like two hundred years old. You're ancient. I mean you're older than that fossil that fell asleep in the kitchen."
She smiled big. Humor helps people get over a lot of things.
We could hear Eddie yawn really big and then do that clapping sound with his mouth like they do in cartoons to get a cheap laugh out of people.
"So what are we going to do today?"
Razz looked at me and took the towel off her head, "We are going to teach you some things. It'll be just like school, only better."
"Better how? Teachers tried to make school better for years and they make failed attempts at humor."
"I will teach you some things I have learned over the years. How to use my sword in ways Sensei never would have taught us. I will teach you how to take down a werewolf if you are unarmed."
"Um, werewolf? I'm sorry, why would I want to take on a werewolf bare-handed?"
"It's a precaution. One of those 'just in case' things."
"Ok. Let's get to it."
We went out back of Eddie's house with our swords, the ground was soggy, muddy, and full of small holes that were easy to trip on. I don't know how I was supposed to learn anything on terrain like this, so I asked Razz what I would learn by fighting on such an uneven plain.
"You never know where you will be fighting and it is best to be ready for anything. Now get ready, I will not go easy on you just because you are new. There is blood inside if you feel you are losing too much."
"Losing to much," I screamed questionably.
"You can only die by losing blood. Other than that you'll be fine."
I looked at her like she was insane, "You're going to be stabbing and cutting me?!"
She looked at me with all the seriousness in her soul, "Yes."
I shrugged my shoulders still very much worried that this was going to hurt immensely and said En Guarde. I was also thinking to myself This is going to hurt like a bitch man. I hope she was just joking about all that blood business . She wasn't kidding. Deep in the back of my mind I knew that she would hold nothing back from me and that this would hurt really, really bad. Gulp.
Jesus Christ. We started going at it and I fought with all I had, but me being me, I had to make it flashy and it lasted about three seconds before I ended up with a sword in my stomach. I went a few seconds without breathing, just staring at what had just happened. After that I tried to breathe in but no air would enter my lungs so I tried to breathe out and all that came from my mouth was a spray of blood. Pain rushed through my body and I saw myself on the ground that night in the park with that monster on top of me, slashing at my torso, cutting me to pieces, ending my life. I could smell his fur, like a wet dog, and the bloody grass. A beast on top of me, not caring for anything, cold, heartless.
She took her sword out of my body and asked me what I did wrong.
"I tried to make it flashy. I've always had a thing for being fancy and doing cool moves."
She glared at me, "Well don't . Staying alive doesn't mean being flashy with your sword. You still need to learn that it is an extension of, not just your body, but of your soul and very being. Without knowing how to do that you will end up dead. Now would you like to start again?"
I nodded my head and got ready. She stood there waiting for me to make the first move. I close my eyes just for a couple seconds and tried to visualize what I would do, it didn't work. But I did get concentrated enough to fight.
Out blades clanged and I could almost anticipate her every move. That it until her blade ended up inside my gut again.
"I can't do this, Razz. I'm not as good as you are. I'll never be as good as you are."
I said all that with her sword still in my stomach. She got a little peeved at me and twisted the blade and I let out a shriek.
"JESUS CHRIST! What the hell is wrong with you!? That fucking hurts!"
She yanked the blade out of me and told me to come inside to replenish my blood. I drank a little, the smell and taste made me very uneasy.
"If you're done we will go back out there and meditate for fifteen minutes and then we will start again," she was all business. What was so bad in this world that she had to be like this?
I sighed and followed her outside and when we got out there I asked her that question. What is so bad in this world that we have to do this?
She looked at me with a cold, bitter look, "There are vampires, werewolves, and Rogues in this world. Vampires and werewolves do live in the same house, same clan, in some areas. In others they are sworn enemies and will never see that not all of them are as bad as they think they are. Rogues are the worst. They are mostly human but take in a vampire or werewolf on occasion, but they only use them for certain things. Once they have outlived their usefulness they are executed. Werewolves will be shot, sometimes tortured because the sick bastards want to hear them scream. Vampires will be starved and then have their throats cut. They get starved because without blood a vampire becomes weak and can't defend his or her self. The throat cutting ensures that they will get a good laugh out of the death. The sound they make, the sound of the blood hitting the ground. I've seen these things for myself."
I almost wanted to cry. "How? When?"
Razz walked up to me and looked me dead in the eyes. "I was once part of a rogue group. We picked up a drifter and he did those things. He made almost everyone in the group a monster. I hid my vampirism from everyone. Those of us who didn't become a twisted monster revolted against the others. Almost all of them died. I faked my own death and left the rogues and became freelance. I never knew what became of the ones who survived. But after I 'died' I made sure that none of those monsters lived to see another day. I sucked all of them dry, and burned their corpses."
My eyes widened and I nodded my head a few times and said, "Intense. Well with that on my mind I think I should be able to meditate very nicely. I'll be thinking about what you just told me for the next three months thank you very much. Please don't get so mad at me that you think of drinking my blood 'till I have nothing left in me."
"I could never get mad at you, at least not that mad."
I let out a sigh of relief, "That good."
She started to walk outside and turned around pointing one finger up, that "I just remembered something" finger.
"Speaking of drinking blood. Don't be going out and killing people. Eddie has a good enough supply of blood for the both of us. So don't go around killing people. Get it?"
"Got it!"
"Good! Now let's go back outside and meditate for a few minutes and then we can try it again."
I nodded my head. I don't know why though, she had her back to me. There was really no point. But I guess it was just one of those things.
We went outside and sat in the grass and meditated for about thirty seconds before Eddie ran outside yelling at Razz. Not mad yelling. That "this is important" kind of yelling.



Chapter Four



"Rass! Rass! Come here quick!"
She stood up and wiped the dirt from her pants and asked what he wanted.
"We're trying to meditate."
"I know zat, I haff eyes too you know! But zis ees important. Ze head of ze clan here would like to talk to you and zat stupid boy."
I stood up and brushed myself off as Razz did.
"What do you mean? I thought Razz said this town was too small."
Razz was almost as puzzled as I was.
"I thought it was, but I guess someone went and made a clan. Well I wonder why they want to meet with us. I'm wondering how they even knew about you. You just woke up not to long ago; I didn't think anyone would know there was a new vampire this soon. Well let's get a move on. Don't want to be late."
Eddie handed us some directions. Right across the street from the church. There was only one church in town and we were on the complete opposite side of town. But we managed to "borrow" Eddie's car and drove to the old crap shack. I swear this place was so damn old it made Eddie's house look like a freaking condominium. But it was an extremely well build structure. Two stories tall, very wide, and it went as far back as it was wide.
We stepped out of the car at nearly the same time and walked up to the door together and knocked. To answer the door was a bald man with a scar down the right side of his face. I would have to guess he was either a human or a werewolf because I didn't think vampires scarred like that. He wasn't very tall but he was quite muscular in the white tank top he wore and ripped up blue jeans. The only odd thing about him was his shoes. He wore what looked like some of the most expensive shoes I had ever seen. He was also a very clean man with nearly no smell to him. Inside the place we could hear the sounds of laughter and on the back wall behind the door we could see colored lights.
"Are you the two hunters?"
"Hunters? I'm no hun-"
Razz elbowed me.
"Of course," she said, "We're the two hunters."
"You are expected."
That was all the man said. The rest of the time he just walked us to the stairs that led to the second floor. All around us there was laughter and fun. Elaborate paintings of what looked like men who could all have been the leader of this small clan hung all over the wall. Dark red curtains hung from windows and the carpet was a soft dark blue, nearly black. The stair rails were wooden, maybe hand carved. Colored lights that hung from everywhere were flashing all around and the place smelled of perfumes and colognes, sweet smelling and musky concoctions. Men and women dancing to no music at all, it seemed to be in their head. In a back corner I could see a woman snorting cocaine and in another corner I saw a couple making out. Little children ran about laughing and playing as well. Nothing was hidden. Nothing dark about this place. No secrets, no nothing.
As I finished my look see around the room I noticed a man stood at the top of the stairs. Long black hair, strait hair, sat at the top of his head and down past his shoulders. He wore black pants that looked almost too tight to let blood flow. His shirt was black as well, with buttons; the top two unbuttoned exposing his smooth chest. A woman might say he has a face carved by angels. You would guess Razz had never seen someone like him before. She melted as she stared into his perfect blue eyes. I didn't have enough sense to nudge her out of her trance. On his hands he wore rings with huge gems and diamonds surrounded by the silver that wrapped around them and his fingers. A gold chain hung loosely on his wrist looking almost like it would fall off. He smiled as he came down the stairs, not sadistically, but out of kindness. He stretched out his arms at his side and welcomed us into his house.
Razz managed to snap out of the trance she was put in by staring at him.
"Who are you and why did you call us here?"
"My name is Magnus. I am the leader of this house. And I called you here to talk about the werewolf that was seen a little over a month ago."
I yelled out, "If it weren't for that damn dog I would still be human."
I saw some of the people who were previously laughing and having a good time shift in their seats and stare at me and I started to feel uncomfortable.
"I, uh, meant nothing by it. I'm just a little mad at the fact that I'm no longer human. But I'm learning to live with it. So, uh, I'm sorry, I apologize. Don't let an idiot like me spoil the party."
Razz nudged me and whispered, "I think you better shut up now."
"Come," Magnus waved his hand from front to back inviting us upstairs, "Let us go into my chambers. It will be safer to talk there, I think."
We walked up the wide staircase and then to the left into his chamber. Or chambers. Whatever, we went to his room. Yay, a slumber party. Ok, enough jokes. We were in his room, very large and elegant with all the same things the place had on the first floor. The paintings, the curtains, the carpet, everything. It was like the whole house was in one room. He had a bed that was like something out of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Dark red sheets, silk. A white silk cover, see through, covered the whole bed in a blanket of clear white. There was a couple of chairs and a couch, black leather, very comfortable looking. Magnus invited us to sit down so we both sat on the couch, very comfortable indeed. He sat in one of the chairs after moving it a little closer and in front of us. After crossing his legs and intertwining his fingers he asked us about the werewolf. Razz spoke first.
"Look, he's not one of mine or a rogue and it isn't one of the town's people as far as we know. We're dealing with an immigrant."
"Excuse me?"
It was as if he had never heard the word before.
"It's what my little group calls werewolves and vampires that don't belong in this town."
His eyes got wide, not with surprise or anger, but understanding, and he let out a short "Ah" and asked her to continue.
"Well there isn't much to tell about it other than he killed my friend here and I was forced to bite him."
"Well," he interrupted, "Why did you not just let him die and be rid of him?"
"Because he already knew I was a vampire and I did not want to see him die that kind of death. Now if we can get back to the topic at hand, please!"
Score one for Razz! She was getting pretty pissed at him though. I didn't much like his questions either.
"Well what do you suppose we do about this 'immigrant' that has infested out community?"
He uncrossed his legs and spread them putting his folded fingers in between them and leaned forward, his long hair fell by his cheeks.
Razz opened her mouth and took in a short breath and almost spoke but was interrupted by the sound of BANG and then screams.
"Rogues!"
Magnus sprang from his chair and pressed a button on a wall near by. It slid to one side and exposed a small collection of swords and he grabbed one like it didn't matter and told us, too, to pick whichever we liked. I randomly grabbed one; it turned out to be a rapier. And Razz took a few seconds before choosing a ninja katana.
"We must protect my people. This is my castle, I am king, and they are people in which this king loves. Help me vanquish this enemy that has broken into my dwelling."
The three of us walked over to the door and it swung open before we got in arms reach and five men dressed in tatters came at us with swords and crossbows.
"BLEED 'EM DRY!" one of them yelled out. I assumed this was one of those "take no prisoners" situations.
There were two with crossbows. Magnus hurled his sword into the chest of one of them as an arrow landed in the upper part of his chest. As he went to retrieve his weapon the three with swords slashed and thrusted their swords at him. He seemed to float around them like they were mere child's play. He pulled his sword out of the dead man as I stared at him in awe. Razz ran up as stealthily as the people who wielded the weapon she chose and silently took out the other crossbower. They can't be normal vampires I thought as I looked on with wide eyes. Just then I felt a sharp pain in my right arm. I looked around me to find a rogue had come to me and slashed at me. As I bled out I stared at him like he made the biggest mistake of his life. We squared off with our weapons. His, a crudely made broadsword and mine a supposedly well made rapier like you would see in The Three Musketeers. He came at me and I quickly dispatched him like he was nothing. This was the first man I had ever killed. The smell of his blood filled my nose and I fell to my knees and threw up. When I was finished puking I noticed that Razz and Magnus had already killed the other two. The smell of blood was thick in the room and they saw my situation and quickly left the room to help everyone else. After they left I stood up with a weak stomach and went to the top of the stairs. There was blood covering the carpet in puddles as vampires and werewolves both lay dead with what rogues were killed so far. The survivors of the attack were helping in killing what rogues were left.
Another rogue came at me, this time giving me somewhat of a fight. He stabbed me through the stomach and I fell to one knee in pain.
"Looks like I win you fucking leech." He smiles as he lifted his sword. He was going to cut off my head.
I could feel my teeth coming out as I looked up at him and dropped my sword. While I was still on one knee I leapt up and bit down onto his neck as hard as I could. At that very moment blood poured into my mouth and I drank as if I was a dehydrated man crossing the desert. When I drank enough I ripped off some skin from his neck and spit it onto the floor. He stood in front of me grabbing his neck as blood poured from the bite and he spit blood from his mouth.
"My turn."
I took my hand and, as hard as I could, I thrusted my hand, fingers strait out, into his stomach and I made a fist while holding his intestine in my hand. I ripped out what little came with my hand and chewed on it and swallowed. It tasted like a slice of heaven, god-like power. I have the power to give life, and take it all at the same time. The wound he made in my stomach closed and I picked up my borrowed sword and went down the stairs killing anyone who stood in my way, in which there were only two people. When I joined Razz and Magnus in the middle of the first floor they noticed the blood that stained my face and body.
"This one looks like he has a mass of potential in him," Magnus said as he sliced one of them across the chest.
"ROGUES, BACK!"
A booming voice from outside. We heard booming footsteps as a giant of a man walked towards us wielding a giant ax. One blade, one spear head, and one giant rogue to flail it around at us. Yippee!
He stood at least six foot seven inches tall. A big bald black man resembling Michael Clark Duncan (he was in the movie Daredevil as the Kingpin and in The Green Mile as John Coffey). He has metal gauntlets around his wrists and a dirty white shirt. His pants were regular blue jeans, slightly baggy to be able to move more freely than tight jeans, with five or six fashionable tears in them. He had almond colored eyes and a big nose with little ears. His deep voice shook our very souls.
"You abominations who have plagued this Earth will now die!"
"This Earth," I started in question, "Is there another one that we don't know about or something?"
He slowly swung the giant weapon onto his shoulder and chuckled a little, "I see the boy has a sense of humor. I hope it serves you well in the future as you burn in hell."
"Whoa, strait to the point with the burning in hell when we die thing, huh? You guys want to just kill this guy and get it over with?"
To be honest the thought of death still sickened me, but I had calmed down enough to still make jokes and stay serious.
He yelled out as he swung his weapon. It landed pretty close to us, but to make sure he wasn't aiming for any of us we all jumped out of the way.
"Pathetic. You all die here!"
He swung his weapon toward Razz and in an instant I could see something bad happening to her; her head rolling fro her body. I couldn't let that happen. I ran as hard and fast as I could and got in front of the giant ax and my sword broke and the force of the blow pushed me back so hard I fell on my ass near a dead vampire woman who had gotten her head cut off. I did my best to stomach my surroundings as I stood up to join Magnus and Razz in fighting this beast of a man, this giant rogue. I saw the ax thrust forward and it stabbed Razz in the lower right portion of her midsection. Then he started running as to pin her against a wall but Magnus came at him and almost impaled him through his ribs but the giant man dropped his ax and went hand to sword with Magnus. I went to get Razz to see if she was alright.
Magnus swung and he blocked with his gauntlet and grabbed the hand that was tightly wrapped around the handle of the weapon and crushed his fingers. The bones popped and the sword dropped from his hand and he fell to his knees.
"Time to end this one!"
He balled up his hands into one giant fist and smiled big as he thought he was about to kill Magnus. Razz got up with her sword and dove at him, impaling him in his left side. I proceeded to do the same to the right, only with no dive, and with what had become of the blade of the rapier I was using. Blood started dripping from our swords and his mouth as blood rushed into his stomach and up to his mouth.
Magnus then picked up his sword with his better hand and held the tip to his heart on the giant mans sweating skin.
He talked in parts due to his exhaustion, "I think…it's time to…end this one."
His blade pierced the flesh and bone cracked as the blade ripped through him into his heart. The giant man let out his last breath and fell to the ground with a loud thud and a splash as he landed on blood-soaked carpet. Magnus cut off the man's head and picked it up.
"Trophy?" Razz asked.
"I keep what I kill. It has been a custom for my family for many generations."
As soon as we had our backs turned a rogue came from outside and threw a knife in the way of Magnus. Before I could even tell what the hell was going on Magnus had turned around and caught the knife and threw it back, but only landing it in the leg of the sneaky assassin as she fell to one knee.
"Mark my words vampire; if I ever meet you again it will be you who dies by my blade!"
"And mark mine, my lady; if I ever see you again near this house I will bleed you dry like a stuck pig."
Magnus turned around and we went upstairs, Razz, me and Magnus.
"Please, leave us for now. I will call upon you when the time comes."
Razz looked him in his big blue eyes and asked what they were going to do in the meantime.
"We will clean up this house and save who we can. Please, go. We do not require your assistance."
We nodded and walked out. When we got to the car I asked Razz if she could drive and she agreed. On our way home I didn't want to talk about anything but I knew that talking about it would make it better.
"I can't believe I killed someone, more than one. I don't even know what came over me. It was just so invigorating and…"
"What's done is done, there's nothing we can do about it. I've killed many people, men and women. No one ever said being a vampire was cool, people just assume that it is because we have fangs and suck blood and live forever. Just try not to think about it for now. We'll meditate tomorrow, it helps, trust me."
I closed my eyes and kept my mouth shut. I unexpectedly fell asleep. At first there was just darkness, then a bright light. I saw myself standing in a room covered in blood, my hands and blade stained with crimson red. In front of me lay everyone I hold dear, even those who I just met. Razz lay on the floor closest to me, her eyes wide open, staring at me with a look of horror as I had struck her down. No matter where I looked to get away from it all I saw were those eyes. I looked at Mom, at Dad. All I could see were those same eyes staring at me, peering into my very soul ripping it to pieces, tormenting me. I could see Eddie, still alive, standing over by Razz wondering why I had done this. I said nothing as I dove towards him and slashed at him, killing him. His head rolled to my feet. I could not explain, even to myself, why I was doing these things. In front of me I could see Robert laughing and pointing, saying how he thought all this was funny. How he thought all my killing was a joy to him, tickled him. I even tried to kill him, but every time I would even swing my sword at him it would bounce back and cut me. I felt no pain, I just kept trying to kill him and I kept getting cut deeper and deeper until I fell to one knee, the palm of one of my hands stopped my face from slamming into the floor. I looked up at him and tried to ask why but I could not say anything. I could only kill, and I had done so. Robert picked up my sword and laughed some more right before he slashed at me. A bright light shone and I woke up in one of the beds in Eddie's house and I swung my body upwards. I felt my face and looked at my hands to make sure I was only dreaming. My face was covered in sweat and I had that Mr. T sized sweat necklace that forms when you run for miles in the sun.
I got out of bed and found that I was in my underwear. I searched around the room for my pants but I couldn't find them, so I went to the bathroom that was only a few steps away once I reached the hall. I reached my hand out to grab the doorknob and I stopped myself. I remembered what happened last time I came in here without knocking, so I knocked. Nothing. I shrugged and opened the door and walked in and looked at the bathtub to make sure that no one was in here. The tub was empty as was the rest of the bathroom with the exception of me. I went over to the sink and filled it full of water and rinsed off my face and dried it with the towel that hung on the little metal ring that was screwed to the wall next to the mirror. When I finished washing my face I went downstairs to find Razz coming through the front door.
"Finally awake, I see," she said with a smile
I saw she was carrying a couple plastic bags full of something so I asked what it was.
"Well, this one has some clothes for you. The only thing you've been wearing is that button-up shirt and those black dress pants from when you were buried."
She tossed the bag my way and I caught it as it landed against my chest. I set it aside for the time being.
"And this one is breakfast, at least for you. Lunch for the rest of us."
"The rest of us? It's just the three of us."
Magnus walked in through the door almost right after I said it along with an unfamiliar face who was holding another bag, probably with more lunch, yum.
"Magnus, how's it going," I looked at Razz, "Who's the other guy?"
She walked over to him and introduced him as Vincent. He was an average looking guy with hazel eyes and dark brown hair with a bad case of five o'clock shadow. Maybe he wanted to grow a beard. Or maybe he just doesn't care.
"Do any vampires have last names?"
"Only one," Vincent answered.
"Ok, anybody but him?"
Vincent thought hard for only a few moments and said, "Nope. Almost all vampires drop their last name because when you live forever only first names are important."
Then it hit me. He was the voice from earlier, well, earlier as in when I passed out on that table after getting those stitches out of my face.
"I see you realize who I am," He smiles softly.
"Yeah," I started, "You're the guy that was there when I passed out after Eddie pulled out my stitches," I shivered, "Makes me shake just thinking about getting those things taken out again."
Eddie came in from the study that was in the back and told everyone to sit down and eat.
"What's on the menu," I asked.
"Pig entrails." Magnus said calmly without even cracking a smile.
"In that case, I think I'll order some pizza."
Razz started laughing and Magnus started smiling, showing just a hint of fang…creepy.
"Relax, Steven. We're having some good old fashioned Bar-B-Que. Courtesy of Mick's Meats. We cooked it over at Vincent's place."
By this time they all had a plate of food, ribs, brisket, sausage, and BBQ sauce. I was still kind of iffy about eating now, but I was getting rather hungry so I grabbed a plate and piled on the brisket and sausage, ribs and BBQ sauce. There were sides they had picked up at a small store called Angel's Palace. Mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, green beans (yuck), and some cheesecake or cherry pie for afterward. I got some mac and cheese to go with the rest of my food. I'm not a big fan of all that other stuff.
"There's no blood in any of this is there? I just don't want to have that bloody taste to my food."
"No worries," Magnus said, "There is not even a drop of blood in this meal. If any of us wanted blood we would have had to bring it ourselves."
I smiled and started eating, starting with the ribs and mac and cheese.
The whole time we ate we had made idle chit-chat about things in the past, at least they did. I was only eighteen. They were all over one hundred years old. Hard to talk about much when there are a bunch of people who are not just a little older than you but way older than you. It's like a two year old trying to have conversation with an eighty year old man, there just isn't much the two year old can say to make a good conversation.
After we ate we all sat or stood in the living room and drank some wine and had a chat about what we were going to do about the werewolf that was in town that killed me.
"Do you remember anything about the wolf, Steven?"
I couldn't tell who asked that question so when I heard it I looked up from my drink and looked around and said, "What?"
I saw Vincent repeating the question, but I don't think he was the original conjuror of the question. But I looked up at him and told him that I didn't remember much. Truth was that now that I was actually thinking about it I didn't know much of anything about what had happened. They were all vague flashes of memory and inaudible words mixed in with fast moving pictures in my mind. A blur of red, grey, white. Then I saw myself. Lying on the cold ground, dew soaked grass.
Magnus set his cup down on a table and said, "In a time like this there is a poem that my master told me that comes to mind. It goes:
'Darkness consumes those who are willing.
It kills those that give in.
Leaving one without anything.
At times, there is no hope.
And life is all but meaningless.
The corners of your eyes grow darker and darker.
But before the last of your sight leaves.
There is always a light.
A love, A hope, A reason.
Before the last of your sight leaves.
There is always a renewed thought.
Years may pass before it comes.
Time is forever in the dark.
But light is eternity when you allow it to save you.
When you lift your head high.
And say, "I shall not die."'
This poem seems it would help you if you were to remember it as I have. Memorize each and every word and never forget the overall meaning. It shall save your life one day."



Chapter Five



I thought about what it meant. Even in a time where the outlook is bleak and there is almost no chance of winning or survival, I should never give up and always try to win. At least that's what I thought.

"I shall. I was also looking forward to coming back to your home to teach me a little of your sword technique. That is, if it would be alright with you."

He picked up his cup and took a sip from it and then said that it would be a splendid idea and that Razz should come as well.

"We shall be over tomorrow," Rass said, "as for the rest of the evening, we have to go over some things and dig up some dirt on what has become of our immigrant werewolf. There has only been one killing."

"Me." I said.

"Yes and there have been no other killings or sightings. We'll have to ask around and see what we can dig up on this beast."

"Hey, hey now!" Vincent said. "Beast is a little extreme. Besides, I'm one of those beasts as you so elegantly put it."

Razz made that "oops, sorry, I didn't mean it" face and said, "Sorry, Vincent."

"It's alright. I'll call some of my people to see if they know anything."

I began to stand up and go to the bathroom because I felt like my bladder was going to explode from all the stuff I had been drinking. I got to my feet and took only a few steps and fell to my knees with an immense pain in my stomach and ribs. It felt like the bones were breaking, the muscles were being stretched beyond their limit; my organs were being torn apart.

Razz called for Eddie and he came running in to see what the problem was.

"Get him downstairs and I vill see vat ees wrong vit him."

Magnus and Vincent carried me to the basement where they laid me on a cold metal slab of a table. I was in so much pain I couldn't really notice anyone else except Razz. She was looking at me with worry, like I was about to die on that cold slab.

"I'll be fine, Razz."

I had managed to squeeze out those words before Eddie stuck me with two needles. One was something he injected into me, probably a painkiller, the other took my blood. I wonder why he wanted to analyze my blood.

There must've been something else in that needle than just painkillers because I felt as high as a kite and I was getting very sleepy. Before I nodded off I had managed to give Razz a reassuring smile, more like a grin really, I was too tired to smile.

I woke up with my arms and legs strapped down a different table, a table with cloth and leather straps. The room wasn't the same as Eddie's basement either. I had been moved somewhere else.

"Razz," I didn't say it loud enough, "Razz!" That one was loud enough.

She came running down the stairs and asked what was wrong. She also kept her distance.

"Why am I strapped to this thing? Where am I? Where's Eddie?"

"Careful. The straps are for protection."

"What do I need protection for?"

She walked a little closer, cautiously. "They're for our protection. Eddie is analyzing your blood right now to see if he can help you."

I looked around the room really fast and made myself a little dizzy, "Help me with what?"

She moved even closer this time. I could move my arms just enough to touch her but I stayed still. "You…are dying, Steven."

My insides churned with disbelief but my mind knew she was telling the truth. It was like a dream or a scene from a movie. The "hero" is diagnosed with some incurable disease and dies at the end unless some super smart scientist comes up with a miracle cure which doesn't always happen. I wonder how the end of my movie will end.

"What's wrong with me, Razz?"

A distant voice called for Razz after I asked.

"I…I have to go for now. I'll be back later. It seems I couldn't save you. Even in death you are dying."

A tear ran down her face. She held back as hard as she could but one broke through and ran down her cheek and escaped onto the dirty floor.

After she left I gave myself one last look around the room, slowly. A few TV monitors with some high-tech equipment to run them. A couple small tool boxes scattered around the room with surgical tools stuffed into them. I looked at my straps and saw that they were covered in dried blood and some fresh blood. Mine? I hope not. It was humid and I could hear a pipe dripping. I pretty much guessed I was in a basement. Rats could be heard, but only a few, crawling on the old steel piping close to the ceiling. There were spots of the floor covered in dirt and a part with no dirt but a huge red spot with a drain in the middle and a trail leading to this thing I was tied to. On the wall were some pictures of vampires and werewolves with lines drawn on certain spots. Weak points, maybe?

I gave one last look down at my straps and saw the fresh blood again and noticed the smell of blood was in the air. It didn't even make me nauseated. It was actually a pleasant smell to me now. I didn't much like the humidity though. That's something you never get used to.

After my look around the room I sat there doing, what else, nothing. There isn't much you can do strapped to something so tight you can barely move. As I sat there listening to nothing I heard talking. It was faint but I could still make it out, at least most of it. I couldn't tell who was talking but I heard things like "He doesn't have much time" and "I'll see what I can do for him for now" and "I don't want him to die". That last one was Razz, no doubt about it. I didn't think she cared about me that much. What am I thinking? She made me a vampire just so I wouldn't die. Looks like that didn't turn out as well as she had hoped.

Razz came back in only seconds after I heard those few things holding some papers. She set them down on a metal table next to one of those tool boxes. I was hoping she wouldn't have to use any of those tools; at least not on me.

"I honestly didn't think you cared for me that much."

She looked up at me like I knew something I wasn't supposed to. "What?"

"I heard you and the others in that room over there just a minute ago. 'I don't want him to die.' Weren't those your words?"

"Yes, but…"

"But what?" I didn't know what she meant. They were talking rather loud.

"We were two rooms away from you. Those walls are thick and we had the door closed. It must be a side affect."

"Side affect of what?"

"You're dying."

"Yes I know that already! Just tell me what the hell is happening to me!"

I don't think I had ever yelled like this at Razz or anyone for that matter. I tried to calm myself down. It worked a little.

"You are both vampire and werewolf. They are struggling for superiority over your body and they are destroying your cells and each other. At the rate its going right now you will be dead in a few weeks."

More tears. Only this time she wasn't holding them in. Tear after tear ran down her face and I felt helpless to console her.

"Unstrap me."

She just stood there crying.

"Razz, please. I'm not dangerous."

My voice was calm, smooth, and best of all, comforting, at least to Razz.

She walked over with a face full of tears and let me down. As soon as my feet hit the floor I grabbed her and hugged her. I refused to let go. She rested her head on my shoulder and cried her eyes out.

"I don't want you to die again. I wouldn't be able to handle it." She cried out those words with some effort. All I could do was hold her tighter and tell her I wasn't going anywhere.

The others (Magnus and Vincent) came in and saw us and stood there for a few seconds before quietly leaving us by ourselves.

I gave Razz a gentle kiss on her forehead. She looked up at me with teary eyes and asked what it was for.

I gave her a soft smile, "It was so you will know that I am not going anywhere."

I leaned forward to give her another kiss on her forehead but she put one finger to my mouth and wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the lips. She sort of sucked on my lower lip before slipping her tongue into my mouth. I wrapped my arms around her and returned the favor. I nearly flew back, my lower back hitting a small table with one of those tool boxes on it. Razz swiped her hand and it fell to the floor with a crash as tools flew from the open tool box.

"You think anyone will come to see what that noise was?" O asked breathing hard.

"Not a chance." She bit my lower lip making it bleed a little and she sucked on it. A dab of red blood was sitting on her lips. I kissed her back, biting her lip as she did mine and the taste of blood was like an aphrodisiac. She lifted my dirty grey shirt off my body and threw it to the dirt covered floor and I took off her black shirt afterwards and cupped her breasts in my hands. One of her hands grabbed my crotch and she unbuttoned and unzipped my pants. I wasn't wearing a belt so they just fell to the floor and made a small thud from the knife I had in my pocket.

She took off her own pants, nearly skin tight jeans, as I undid her bra and threw it near my shirt. I turned us around and lifted her up onto the table and kicked my pants away as we spun around. Black bra and black panties is very sexy for a vampire if I may say so myself, and I do.

I licked one of her nipples as she leaned back and moaned. I kissed up her chest to her neck and squeezed her breasts. Her fingernails scratched along my back making red marks but not drawing blood. Deep breaths filled the room as we finished stripping ourselves of what little clothing we had left. She had the runway shave like most actresses in the movies do. Popular style I suppose.

She pulled he toward her and my penis rubbed up against her inner thigh.

"What are you waiting for?" she said, out of breath.

I playfully smiled and did what she wanted. A warm feeling came over my whole body as we motioned together. Her head arched back and she closed her eyes and screamed with pleasure. I, myself, moaned but tried to be quiet for some reason. Maybe I feared someone was watching us.

After a few minutes I didn't care who was watching. I was having the time of my afterlife since the day I died and lost everything, except Razz.

A minute or two went by before she playfully pushed me off and she went to her knees. Her teeth sank into my thigh, vampire foreplay I suppose. I smiled with pleasure as it went in her mouth and my head arched back and I closed my eyes. I grabbed the top of her head to give her a smooth movement and she went with it. Her black hair was silky as I ran my fingers through it and she lightly scraped her teeth along my penis.

She kissed her way back up to my neck where she bit and kissed the blood as it slowly ran out from the two bite holes. I kissed her where ever my mouth reached which was near her ear in her hair a little bit as she licked the blood from my neck. When she was done she kissed my lips and turned her head to her left so I could do the same. I bit down and did as she had done but for maybe 30 seconds longer. When I was done we still had some blood on our lips and kissed it away. More blood. Very sexy.

"Finished?" she asked.

I took a deep breath and told her yes.

"We need to go see Magnus and the others, so let's get dressed and meet then upstairs."

I nodded and started getting dressed. All I could do was smile at this entire situation. I remembered that when she first saw Magnus she melted into his eyes but she had never looked at me in any way to even hint that she wanted what just happened, but I was glad it did happen.

"That was fun." I still smiled as I said it. I couldn't help it. It made me happy. She was smiling just the same as me.

We kept straight faces as we walked up the stairs from the basement we were in. Magnus and Vincent greeted us at the door with Eddie behind them. He was messing with some electric equipment and a few tapes. There was an elaborately designed carpet on a large part of the wooden floor. A large black leather couch with a two-seater and a recliner, black leather also, sat in a circle around Eddie. There was a small coffee table between the two-seater and the large couch with a small wooden lamp on it, but it was off.

"Ah, finally. You kids come here, I haf somesink to show you bose."



Chapter Six



"What is it?" Razz asked. She almost ran ahead of me to see what was new.
He put a tape inside what looked like an oversized VCR and something popped up on the screen. Little organisms, some turning black and withering away, others just sitting where they were.
"Am I supposed to know what I'm looking at?" I asked and leaned both hands onto the table near Razz. I could smell her hair, a fragrant shampoo of some kind of flower.
Razz looked up at me, "This is your blood."
Ok, I thought, My blood? Why is it turning black? Maybe I should ask.
"Why…is it turning black?"
Eddie looked up from the screen and told me about what was happening to my body. Apparently I had werewolf and vampire DNA inside me and their nature is to fight for superiority over the body of the host. Now since there were two different types of DNA fighting for superiority it seems that neither one nor the other will win to be superior. Instead, they will fight each other inside my body but they seem to be equal so they end up killed each other, but at the same time they are taking over uninfected cells so in time all my cells will be either vampire or werewolf but also in even more time the two will not be able to coincide with my body and end up destroying each other and inevitably killing me in the process. But I'm sure they aren't doing it on purpose. Riiight.
I watched as the little red things on the screen killed each other.
"So?" I said.
"Eddie is going to try and make a serum to suppress it for now. It might take a little while to make, but he should have it done in a few days."
I nodded my head. What could I say? My body was killing itself and there is no way to stop it. How long do I have? If I was told I forgot.
"You haf maybe sree veeks before it starts to seriously alter your body. After zat you vill die slowly and painfully as you organs disintegrate inside your body."
"Wonderful." I reluctantly smiled. "I'm just going to go get some fresh air." I looked for what looked like the front door and walked outside. When I reached the door I heard the words "I heard you two down there" and I quickly turned to see who said it. I looked at the faces of the three other people in the room besides Razz and me. I saw Vincent had a smile on his face as he looked at me. Not a gay smile, but an "I said it" smile.
"Don't tell Vincent." I said as I walked out.
When I got outside I saw that we were in a residential neighborhood. Joy, oh joy. Colored houses of pastel blue, green, and beige. Cars, trucks, mini-vans and motorcycles sat in scattered driveways while a few little kids, to young for school, played outside. I wondered what part of town this is. I didn't remember it from when I was alive. Maybe we were in another town.
Razz followed me outside shortly after. Crap, I thought, I can't do it in front of her. I was planning on killing myself to get it out of the way and skip the pain of disintegrating organs and go straight to the dying part.
She got close; it was a comfortable close though. I never liked it when people moved close to me but she made lots of things feel better.
"We think it happened if it was on top of you and dripped saliva into your wounds."
I took a deep breath and it made me notice the weather. It was a fair temperature outside with a few dark grey clouds. I think it would be nice if it rained, it would go along with things very nicely. Find out something bad and BOOM, it starts raining and thundering and lightning, can't have one without the other.
"How did that happen back there?" she asked.
"How did what happen?" I lied, but not to her face. I don't think I could ever do that. Truth is, I don't know how the hell it happened either.
I turned and looked at her. Her face was pale. "When was the last time you had some blood?"
She touched her cheek like she could feel the paleness. "I had some in the basement if you don't remember." She smiled slightly which made me let out a small laugh.
There were a few moments of silence, comfortable silence.
"Why?" I asked.
A tear ran down her face and her lower lip quivered. She nearly jumped into my arms and started crying and put her head on my chest. Our arms wrapped around each other, holding tight, making sure not to let go.
"You were my first human friend that I felt normal around. You made me feel like I was human again. We could always talk about anything. Every time I saw you you made me feel more human inside. Then I decided to tell you about me, about the other side of the world. I dragged you into this world. I…I-"
She lost the words. I put my hand on the side of her head and held her ear to my heart. A heartbeat was always soothing to listen to. We just stood there on the porch of that house and she cried her eyes out. I could feel my shirt getting wet from her tears. A small spot of wet on my chest. I didn't mind. In a way I think I had always had a crush on her. We did lots of things together, but we mainly walked around town and talked about everything. You name it we probably talked about it (don't get all perverted with it though).
"Come inside. We have something else to show you."
Razz looked up at me and said we should go see and that I might not like what I saw.
Eddie had the same equipment set up from earlier.
"More home videos?" I asked.
"This ain't America's Funniest Home Video's, kid."
I looked over at Vincent, "Please don't call me 'kid', I hate that crap."
"My apologies."
I nodded at him, one of those "it's ok, just don't let it happen again" nods. Eddie popped in another tape and pressed play. It was me when we were still back at Eddie's place; it was in black and white. I was knocked out from the meds on that table. Razz was standing far from everyone, very left of the camera. Vincent and Magnus were on either side of me and Eddie was holding another needle.
"How much shit did you pump into me, Eddie?"
"Just vatch you stupit boy."
I shut up and watched the tape. Magnus and Vincent held my arms while Eddie put the needle in the upper part of my right arm. I had no knowledge of anything that was going on now. I moved closer to the screen. I saw my body start to convulse. There had been no sound up until now, everything was pin-drop silent. Magnus and Vincent struggled to hold me down while Eddie looked for another liquid to shoot me up with. Razz was still standing at the far left as I growled and snarled.
I noticed something and moved forward and asked what it was. My arms darkened and in no time at all I had tossed Magnus and Vincent away from me and transformed into a werewolf. I stood up from the table and looked around and I saw my eyes got fixed on Eddie. Razz still stood at the far left as Eddie quickly stuck a needle in my side that was completely full of a dark liquid. I calmed down a little but I was still on a warpath. I reached and grabbed Eddie by the throat and pushed him back. Whatever that stuff was it made me weak. Razz moved from her position at the far left of the screen and walked by a table and picked up what I think was a pipe. No telling what it was coming from Eddie's basement. She calmly walked over and swung the pipe and hit me in the head dead center and I was out cold. As I lie on the floor I slowly went back to a human. I hate that all my clothes tore off. Razz threw a blanket over my body and Vincent wrapped me in it while he picked me up.
Wow. I'm a werewolf. But I'm also a vampire. This sucks.
"So what now?" I asked.
"Now," Magnus started, "Now we look around town and find any leads as to the whereabouts of Robert. I'm sure you can help us with that Razz."
"Yes. I should."
Razz has been pretty quiet ever since I died. It's not like we can't do all the things we used to do. Al we really did outside of school is walk around and go to our sword style classes. I wonder what's so different now that I'm a vampire. I mean I'm just the same as I ever was only now I drink blood and I want to kill something. After I kill that werewolf I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll think about it later.
"Where do we go now, Razz?"
"I am going to find Robert. You are staying here with the others."
All I did was nod. I didn't feel like arguing right now. I just found out I was dying, and I'm already dead. I could see it like a headline. "DEAD MAN DYING!" Never thought I'd hear that.



Chapter Seven



I watched as Razz walked out the front door to look for Robert. I lowered my head and walked around until I found myself in the kitchen.
"Vincent! You got anything to drink?"
"Help yourself, my friend!"
I opened the fridge and found some orange juice, milk, a gallon of water, leftover food, and a bottle of tequila. Just my luck. Tequila or orange juice? I could make a tequila sunrise. But I don't like mixed drinks.
I reached in and grabbed the square glass bottle and spun off the cap and threw it in the trash. If I was drinking then I was finishing the bottle. It was already half gone anyway. I walked into the living room and sat on the couch and drank for maybe five minutes, almost finishing the bottle, before I decided I didn't want to stay here to wait for Razz.
I got up off the couch and looked around for Vincent. I heard from Magnus that he was in the basement cleaning up our mess.
When I got down there I saw him cleaning blood off the straps that had held me to that table.
"Hey, Vincent." I almost crept up. I don't know why.
"It's on the table. Razz is going to look for Robert at the High School. He's still alive remember. So is she. You on the other hand. You are dead and should not be seen at the school in your condition." He was saying all this without even looking at me. Just cleaning the straps and all. He had already picked up the tools Razz pushed onto the floor. I saw a couple of them in the trash. Oops. I guess we broke a couple. "Take the knife on the table. You'll need some kind of protection if worse comes to worse."
"Why this dinky little knife? I'd rather have my sword if it comes to that."
He stood up and stared at me then dropped the cloth onto the floor. As he walked over towards me I backed up just a little. He grabbed that dinky little knife and nearly slammed it into my chest. It was like I was being given an order. No sword, just the knife. Sir, yes, sir!, I thought to myself.
"A sword is too big to carry. This can be easily concealed in your pocket and, though it may not kill Robert if it comes to it, it can most definitely slow him down if you use it. Right in the heart. That'll slow him down considerably."
I stuffed the knife into the dirty jeans I was wearing and left. As I started walking down the street I suddenly remembered where I was. This place wasn't very far from the school. Not even a five minute walk. I picked up the pace and started jogging. I reached the school a minute or two later a little out of breath. I walked in through the front door and kept my head down. Classes were still in. I couldn't remember what time this particular class let out but I walked around the school until the bell rang. It wasn't the end of the day, just a switch in classes. Five minutes between classes to go to your locker, go to the bathroom, and get to your next class.
The school itself wasn't very big. It was almost like a square that branched off into different electives and classes. When you walk in you have the office in the front, of course. There was no carpet anywhere in the school anymore. They had taken it out last year. Only a few classrooms have carpet anymore.
If you keep going straight past the office you'll pass the doors to the gym. There were two sets, one near the office and the other near the new cafeteria that was finished last year. It took them forever, but student sure had a fun time making fun of it. They called it a half-eteria and a prison lunch room. That last one was very accurate to how it looked.
Past the doors were only a few classrooms. Spanish, history and another history class. Between the doors were lockers of a dark purple, one of the schools colors. Purple and yellow, but they call it gold. What do they know? They had painted them the year before also. They used to be orange.
There isn't much past the cafeteria. Only a couple bathrooms by the two pairs of double doors and outside was the student parking lot, the field house where they held Government and Economics classes(only two classrooms) and stuff for the jocks, and the football field.
If you turn right at the cafeteria you'll be going down a hall full of lockers and a trophy display case that was long and full of all the old trophies on the left. Hardly anything new from the sports teams but the NJROTC was bringing in a good bunch of awards. Just past all that were the boys and girls bathrooms that were built with the school.
Half way down the hall the English Hall was on the right and went in a straight line through the school near the office. You would get to it faster if you turned right at the office and went past the counselors' offices. It was right there. The English had between six and ten classrooms.
Continuing past the English Hall and trophies was the corner wing of the school. "Vocational" was the sign that hung at the entrance. Computer labs, computer science, art, criminal justice, shop, two geography classes, one American history class, cooking class, sewing. It was the hall for almost all the extra curricular classes. It went straight back to a set of doors that led outside to the front of the school near the teachers parking lot. There were two small branched halls from that. One of them was the Criminal Justice, Geography, and History classes and it was right at the beginning of the hall. It curved off to the left. Another hall was also to the left. NJROTC (Naval Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps) was down a short hall and through a heave wooden door. They had a while wing to themselves.
Going to the right once more you will find the doors to the teacher parking lot, they're on the left. It's also where the students get dropped off and picked up everyday by the school buses, unless it's raining like someone placed a waterfall over the whole town.
On the right are the doors to the library. You can see it from the cafeteria. Glass windows surround it as walls from the halls. It goes down into the ground about seven feet. It's full of books that absolutely no one wants to read and one of the biggest.
Continuing on we have the math/science hall at the near end of this side of the square school. It was a straight hall like most the rest of the school but it had one hall that branched off of it to the right. Criminal Justice liked to use this hall for Building Search when they held their competition in the winter.
There were three science classes and three math classes all mixed together. There was a small extension to the hall that had a set of double doors that led into the teacher parking lot. It was a bright blue hall for Health Science, Special Education, a behavior unit for misbehaved students, and the class they use for ISS (In School Suspension).
Health Science had two rooms. One classroom and one with a hospital bed and all that kind of stuff, even a dummy, and I'm not talking about the student who volunteers.
Taking the last right and heading back to the office we have the storage rooms, one for books and one for teacher stuff. The other end of the English hall was just past those store rooms. Then the counselors' offices and back to the office.
I walked around the school and didn't see either Robert or Razz. I wonder where they went.
A bell rang and student burst from the classrooms like a broken dam that let out all its water. I couldn't let anyone see me, at least not anyone who remembered me. How many people is that, I wonder? Nevertheless I had to hide myself. The bathroom! I bolted into the bathroom and felt like if I slammed into it any harder I would have broken a bone in my arm.
When I ran in I looked around for a stall to go into. I ran in and locked the door and stood on the toilet so no one would see me.
As I stood there on the toilet I heard two guys walk in talking about death.
"Hey, you remember that kid who died a little while back?"
The other replied in question, "That Steven kid?"
"Who? I was talking about James. He was cool. Who the hell are you talking about?"
A toilet flushed and the other replied, "He was just some nerd kid who died in some kind of car accident or something."
"Whatever. Let's get to class before we get detention. I got football practice after school and Coach McGraw will be pissed if I don't show up."
The other toilet flushed and they walked out without any more words. Nice to know I'm remembered.
After they left and the bell for class to start rang I got out and started walking around some more. I walked all over the school, peering into classrooms through the tall narrow windows. Nothing. Robert wasn't anywhere to be seen or found.
I started making my way to the football field so I could sit in the stands. I saw a couple figures walking around the track. People walk and run that thing all the time. It's not just for school. I thought nothing of them and continued walking through the parking lot to sit in the bleachers. There were some birds in a small flock in one area of the parking lot but I didn't feel like bothering them. Cars and trucks of all sizes, shapes, makes and models were in this parking lot. I saw a dune buggy that a guy I knew drove to school. To bad I couldn't say "Hi" to old acquaintances. What would they think? Dude, I thought you were dead. What would I say to that? Oh, yeah, I was for a little while but I'm good now. I'm not technically dead anymore.
I swung the gate open and headed for the closest seat I could find. I always wondered why the fence to the stadium had barbed wire on it. Eh, who cares. It's just one of those things.
I sat down on the wooden seat in the stands and put my forearms on my thighs and help my hands together and looked at the ground. Every time I do this people thing I'm about to cry or something. It's just how I think. Now if I could only find something to think about. I never could find something to think about. Images popped into my head. None of them were true. Just pictures my mind made up. I thought about what would happen if Razz died. Her lying on the cold hard ground covered in blood, eyes still open, staring at me. It scared me so much I had to look up just to see daylight and the reality I'm in now where Razz is still alive. At the curved part of the track I noticed those two people out of the corner of my eyes. I looked over at them and it surprised me. Razz and Robert were walking around the track talking. I still had that knife that Vincent gave me. I could try to kill him right here right now. Oh was it tempting. Instead I put my head back down and watched them walk by. Razz had been walking on Robert's left so he was busy looking at her. She looked up in the bleachers and saw me. I waved my hands in that "I'm not here" motion. She ignored me and kept walking with him.
I stood up and got out the little knife I had been given and walked slowly and as quietly as I could behind them. I was contemplating on yelling his name so he turned around before I stabbed him. I was no coward. I would stab him in the front.
I backed off a little and when they were far enough away I started going a little faster than a jog but slower than a run. I yelled his name as I got close and he turned around and I swung my arm for his chest, I didn't care if I hit his heart or now, I just wanted to stab him, hurt him.
Razz moved in front of him and I tried to slow myself and stop but the knife went straight into the upper part of her back. Why? Why was she protecting him? It's his fault I am like I am now. I saw him at that house with that werewolf.
I stared at what I did. I couldn't believe it. I stabbed my best friend.
Blood wet her shirt and ran down her back and she fell over. A small puddle of red blood pooled and it started to soak into her sleeves and pants. All I could do was stare as Robert picked her up and started to jog away with her. I ran after him.
"Robert, this way. There's a safe haven less than five minutes that way."
He didn't know I was pointing at Vincent's house but he nodded and we ran with Razz in Robert's arms. I decided to kill him later.



Chapter Eight



We both ran as fast as we could to Vincent's place where we nearly busted down the door just to open it.
By now Razz's clothes were soaked in a mass amount of blood. I didn't think someone could bleed that much from a small knife like that. But then again, I'd never cut myself worse than a paper cut all my life.
"Vat in ze hell do you sink you are doink?!"
"We need blood," Robert yelled.
"We do not have any here at the moment, and we are thirty minutes away from the nearest blood depository."
"Then what do you propose we do, Magnus?"
He shrugged and walked away. I don't blame him. This is my problem, maybe ours, but I'm the one who stabbed Razz, not Robert. Her face was losing its color.
We hadn't pulled the knife out for fear of even more blood loss even faster than with the knife in, but we didn't really have time for that anymore. I pulled the knife out of her back. It made a small gooey sound and more blood came out. At this point I did the only thing I could think of. I put the blade to my wrist and sliced as deep as I could. Ouch! It hurt really bad, but if this saves Razz then I could overlook the pain.
Blood ran thick from my wrist as I put it up to her mouth. She grabbed my arm as hard as she could, but it wasn't all that hard.
She drank my blood and healed the wound. She had still lost a lot of blood and we needed to get her somewhere to get blood.
"Where's Mick's Meats at?" I screamed.
"About five minutes driving from here." Vincent said that as he came out of the basement. He was calm. I noticed that about him whenever I saw him. Every time we met he seemed to be so mellow, so laid back. It didn't seem natural.
Me and Robert picked up Razz and carried her to Vincent's blue four-door Chevy truck. It was a really nice blue, too. Darker than sky blue, but lighter than regular blue. I'm not really a car person so I don't think I could tell you the year and model or make or whatever you say after you say "That's a Chevy 'blank'" ya know?
Me and Robert sat in the bed with Razz laying in-between us. Vincent drove, of course, while Magnus and Eddie stayed back at the house. Magnus would have come but he thought Eddie might need some help with the tests he was going to run while we were gone.
Vincent told us to hold on as the truck rumbled and sped down the road.
In less than two minutes I could see Mick's butcher shop. Vincent came to a screeching halt in front of the place and me and Robert carried Razz inside as fast as we could.
"Mick!" I yelled.
"G'day, mate. What's this now," he took a look at what, or rather who we were bringing in, "Razz? I'll get the stuff, mate!"
Mick went back to get the stuff he used on me before to use on Razz now. I knew how this worked so I didn't bother staying to watch him pump her with blood. Robert had stayed in that room only a few seconds longer than I before following me out. He followed me outside where Vincent was waiting at the door.
"Hey," he said, I ignored him, "Hey! Don't walk away when I'm talking to you. Its because of you we're in this predicament."
Vincent saw where this was going and said he was going to go check on how Mick was doing with Razz.
"What do you want me to say, huh? You want me to say what I did? I know what the fuck I did, ok! I stabbed Razz. I stabbed her right in the back because for some reason she wouldn't let me kill you. Now why is that, I wonder?"
He got angry and paced in a circle one time before saying anything. "I swear if anything happens to my sister I will kill you where you stand, got it?"
Sister?! That's about as shocking as a surprise kick in the balls without the pain. She's related to him?! I decided to wait until we got back to Eddie's to talk about this. I wonder when we were actually going back to Eddie's place.
Cars seemed to endlessly drive by, that smog smell gets really nasty after a while, but I didn't want to go back inside.
"Your sister?!"
"What? She didn't tell you after you died?"
"No. What little I can remember is that you were at that house with the werewolf that killed me the night I died. I thought you had something to do with James' death so me and Razz looked into it."
He looked at me with a somewhat surprised look. "They sent Razz to look into James' murder?"
I looked at him like he was stupid. How could he not know it was Razz?
"Who the hell did you think it was, Robert?"
"Well, like you said, it was night. I couldn't see who was chasing after me. What I was wondering was why you were with a hunter."
"What's a hunter?"
"You need to be schooled on our little world before you just jump in with the big dogs and think you can fight."
Big dogs, huh? If I'm dealing with the big dogs I better be on my guard. I still don't know what kind of shit I've been dealing with since I died.
"A hunter is a vampire or werewolf who hunts their own kind and the other. Humans are rogues, werewolves and vampires are hunters."
"So Razz is…" A hunter? I don't know why I couldn't finish the sentence. She has her reasons for doing it. I mean there's "the balance" or whatever kind of bullshit she fed me.
"Apparently!"
"So what about the balance?"
"What?" He didn't know what I was talking about. After a few moments he smiled big. "The balance is a load of crap that Razz says to humans. I don't think she has had the chance to tell you why she does it."
I did wonder why, but I wasn't going to ask him for the answer. I still wanted to kill him, although the feeling had dissipated a little since I ended up stabbing Razz instead. But still, the feeling to ask him was strong.
"I can tell you want to ask me. But I can also tell that you do not want me to tell you," He turned around and started to walk away, "Very well, then. Ask Razz."
He's getting away you dumass , I thought. It was my body against itself. The other side had a very convincing argument. But what about Razz? Razz will be fine! You've waited how long to kill him and now you won't because of Razz ? It's more complicated than that, OK? OH GOD, WOULD THEY JUST SHUT UP!?
"'Ey, mate," I jumped. I didn't even hear him come outside. He laughed a little at me. "Don't be so jumpy, mate. It's Razz. She's all better now if you want to see her. She's asking for ya if that helps any."
I nodded and without words I walked inside to see Razz. I stopped about six feet from where she was. She was sitting in an old wooden chair with fabric and padding for a semi-comfortable seat; it was the same chair I was put in when I needed blood. Her head was down so her hair covered most of her face; there was that link of visible face down the middle where her hair was parted. The smell of blood and butchered meat and coolness in the air hit hard after smelling smog and feeling the warmth outside.
Vincent was standing by Razz almost like a body guard. Mick was by the door. His size almost made him good enough to be a bouncer. I never really noticed him before. Last time I was here I could barely stay awake and after I was all better I just walked out without really looking at him. I was concentrated on the door. I got a good look at him this time. Short beard, blue eyes, dark tan. Large build, but like I said, not big enough to be a bouncer. His shirt fit loosely over his body. Maybe he shops at a big and tall store. Can't get clothes that big at any Wal-Mart I've been to.
Razz looked up at me, her face had color again. I smiled and walked closer to her.
"Hey, Mick." Vincent whispered.
Mick didn't bother following his lead. He almost yelled out "Yeah, mate?"
"Let me show you my truck. I think you'd like it."
This time he followed his lead. "Yeah, mate. Right behind ya."
I knelt down in front of Razz and looked into her eyes and she looked into mine. Gateway to the soul. Those words were never truer.



Chapter Nine



"Where's Robert?"
I looked away from her eyes. "He just up and walked away."
She nodded. Something she might have expected him to do? They are related after all.
"Let's just go back to Vincent's for a bit. After that we need to go back to Eddie's for some things. Then we hunt down Robert."
For being related I sure didn't think she would say "hunt" down Robert. Track him down maybe, but not hunt. But I guess it wasn't so bad. I just hoped I was the one to kill him. I still think it's his fault I'm like this, that I'm dying even after I died. But I guess as long as I kill Robert before my DNA war comes to a complete stalemate everything will be alright.
I helped Razz stand up with her left arm over my shoulders and I put my right arm around her, just below her right breast to give her some support. We walked outside where Vincent and Mick were out there just standing. Vincent noticed us and he turned to Mick and said, "Yeah, so if you just clean the intake valve every three to six months with some boiling water your old heap should be good as new." He was so noticeable. I knew he just wanted to give me and Razz some alone time, but he didn't have to say that. I nearly laughed when he said it, though, but all I did was grin. All Mick did was nod and he went back into his store after saying goodbye to me and Razz.
I helped Razz into the front passenger seat. She asked where I would be sitting to which I responded I would be sitting in the bed like I was when we brought her here.
"But there's blood all back there."
"I'll be fine. A little blood never killed anyone."
She sort of glared at me, "It almost killed me."
I almost smiled, "Yes but that blood was leaving your body and you did survive so case in point."
She told me nothing and I left her there and jumped into the bed of the truck. The ride back to Vincent's house was nice. I like it when the wind blows in my face. It's soothing on any kind of day.
At Vincent's house we saw through a window that Eddie was still there with Magnus doing tests on the blood they took from me earlier while I was asleep.
I jumped out of the bed of the truck with wet blood on my pants from when Razz was back there bleeding all over the place. I didn't mind. What's a bit of blood between friends?
Razz started getting out and I went over to help her.
"I'm fine. I can make it into the house without being carried."
I realized I was babying her. I didn't mean to it was just because of what I did. It wasn't entirely my fault though. She moved in front of it. But I guess she had good reasons. I mean how would it look if I, someone who is supposed to be dead, was at the scene of a murder alive with a bloody knife and Robert laying at my feet at a school? Well there is no murder scene and Robert's body isn't lying at me feet. But now things are different. Now we will be hunting him down. Killing usually comes within the boundaries of hunting. I will kill him, make no mistake about that!
I seemed to have been lost in my mind thinking about when I would kill Robert for a while because the next thing I heard was "Come on, Steven. We need to go back to Eddie's for some things."
I snapped out of my "Kill Robert" state and followed her outside to Eddie's car which was parked on the curb in front of the house, whereas Vincent parked his truck in the driveway (it was his house after all).
Razz had a couple black duffle bags, empty of course, all the stuff was at Eddie's place.
I opened the door for shotgun and sat down. I never liked sitting in the back. For some reason or another I seemed to get carsick in the back seat.
Eddie came running out of the house as Razz got in the passenger seat after putting the empty bags in the trunk. "You better not get vun scratch on my car or I vill kill you!"
Razz just seemed to smile at that as she revved the engine and sped off swerving by parked cars. I swear some people had to many cars in their driveways. Three and four cars, one for each person, and on extra "just in case". Some people just need two cars. One for Mom and Dad and one for the kid or kids. They can fight over who uses it.
Anyway, we drove back to Eddie's place. When we got there I went and grabbed one of the bags out of the trunk as did Razz. We walked up to the front door but it was locked. Razz lifted up one of the boards from the porch and it had a little compartment with a key. That puts new meaning to "the key is under the mat".
She unlocked the door and pushed it open and it fell over like when I first met Eddie. Dust flew up just like before, too.
Razz didn't mind it and walked in and straight to the basement and opened the old, creeky wooden door and walked down. I followed a few seconds after she went down and turned on the light. I looked around and saw all the machines and gadgets and things and thought it was amazing that he knows how to use all these things.
It was just a small square basement with a couple closet doors. The stairs were on the very right, but that's if you're facing the direction the stairs go down in. The closets were right next to each other on the left wall. Cabinets filled with a crap load of different knives and bullet shells and unfired bullets, shotgun shells that were green and red, fired and unfired, tens of different sharpening stones and many other things like grenades and a lot of things that I couldn't recognize.
I saw all those bullets and shells but I didn't see a single gun of any kind. I turned to Razz who just put a few knives in her bag and was looking at a good sword to use.
"Razz?"
She answered me without even looking away, "Yeah, what is it?"
I pointed to all the bullets and things like she could see, force of habit for anyone I suppose, and said, "What's with all the bullets and shells if there aren't any guns to put them in?"
She picked out a sword and carefully placed it in the bag then looked at me. "Eddie doesn't just do things for me. He makes guns and ammunition for other hunters that are vampire or werewolf but never for a human hunter."
"Why not human hunters?"
"Humans kill us for money, plain and simple. A vampire or werewolf hunter hunts for a reason, whether it be for revenge or for justification of some kind of existence that they think needs justified by killing who they think are the evil vamps and wolves."
That answers that. My next question would be to ask where my sword was.
"Where is my sword? I haven't seen it for some time now."
She walked over to the left closet door and opened it and pulled out my sword. There was something on the sheath that I couldn't make out from where I was.
"What's up with it? It's different."
"I told Eddie how much you like all that Samurai stuff so he made this special belt that wraps around so your sword sits at your side like one of the great Samurai warriors of the old days. It's also easy to remove. It snaps on tightly but all you have to do it pull at where it's snapped and it will, of course, unsnap and come off. I suggest you take it off if we get into any skirmishes. You'll be able to move faster without it."
"Sweet!" I grabbed like a little kid who just saw his parents holding a gift he really wanted. MINE!
I snapped it on, very comfortable fit. I swung out the blade form the sheath and swung it around a bit to get a feel for it. I hadn't used it in a while.
Razz opened one of the glass cabinets and took out a metal block a couple inches thick.
"Here!" She tossed it in the air and I watched it go up as far as it would go before I swung my sword. The blade was facing the floor at the time I started my swing so I made something like a backwards C but kept going up with the blade as it faced upwards now and sort of made a lowercase B in the air. I met with some resistance and I didn't cut through the stupid thing, but it did bounce up in the air and Razz threw a ninja star at it. She's good! She hit in the cut I made with my sword. It was only about a centimeter deep and she hit a star right in it. I thought that was cool. Sometimes I wish life had slow motion instant replay.
"That's like something you'd see in a movie or something. That was cool! But I thought you tossed that thing to me to show me I could cut through it."
She walked over and picked up the block and tossed it away into a pile of junk that was inside a large cardboard box while I sheathed my sword a little disappointed.
I unsnapped my sword from my waist and set it inside my bag and zipped it up.
"No knives or daggers?" Razz asked.
"I see no need."
She walked over to a section of one of the cabinets and opened it and took out three knives: a switchblade, a butterfly, and a regular pocket knife.
"Can I trade the pocket knife for another butterfly?"
She tossed it back in and pulled out another butterfly knife. I didn't put them in my bad. I put one butterfly knife in my pockets to my slightly baggy jeans. I thought about where I could put the switchblade. It needed to be somewhere where I could get at it fast. A switchblade is an emergency knife, you're supposed to have fast access to it and the blade comes out fast so when you're in a jam its like "WHAM BAM BOOM!" and you got 'em.
"Do you have something I could put this in that would strap to my ankle or somewhere easily accessible?"
Razz looked around before she found an old leather thing that looked like it was made back in the 1800's or something. She tossed it to me and it was limp in my hand, probably from lots of use in the past. It was like a small belt with a pocket that had a snap cover to keep the knife in. I put it around my right leg and tightened it enough so it wouldn't fall off but not as tight as to cut off circulation to my foot. The knife settled in the little holder quite nicely and the cover fit snugly over the top and snapped in place. I had placed it down so I could pull it out and push the button and have at it instead of pulling it out and flipping it over and being killed before I could even hit the button.
I didn't even need a bag. I put the knives in my pockets and things and my sword was too big to even put in a bag.
We walked out to Eddie's car and set out stuff in the trunk. I didn't see what Razz had gotten. All I knew is that she got herself a sword and maybe a knife or a dagger.
We got in the car and she drove back to Vincent's place.
At Vincent's place we saw Magnus and Vincent outside on his front deck talking about something. Vincent was wearing a shoulder strap, but I couldn't see a gun if he had on in it. Magnus was sitting there waiting for us to show up I suppose.
Razz and I got out of the car and Magnus walked up to us, calmly, like he does with everything.
"Razz, Steven, I must inform you that I cannot join you in this fight."
"Why not?" I asked.
He looked at me and then back to Razz but talked to both of us, "I have a house to run. It would be hard to run it if I was dead. I regret not being able to join you but my people need me."
"We understand." Razz said and she gave him a hug.
"See ya later, Magnus." I said.
He bowed his head slightly and he started walking away.
Vincent ran off the porch and caught up to him. They said some things I couldn't hear and then they jumped into Vincent's truck and drove off.
"I guess he's going to give him a lift to his place."
We almost ignored them and walked inside to see Eddie was inside drinking from a giant bottle of Jack and blowing on one of those party tongues that makes that annoying sound after they roll out. He was happy about something.



Chapter Ten



Razz looked at him questionably before saying, "What're you dancing all over the place for? And exactly how much of that was gone before you starting drinking it?"
In slurred words and uneasy steps he walked over and said, "I found out…a way to keep this stupit boy alive for…a leetle longer unteel I can find a…cure."
"Well don't keep it a secret you old fart, tell us, I'm dying here!"
He ran around like he forgot where things were. I don't blame him; if I drank that much Jack I would forget my own name, but after searching around he found a little vile filled with a black liquid. I think it was a liquid anyway; it might be a gel, but most likely it's a liquid.
Razz walked up and took it and looked closely at it. "What is it?" she asked without looking away from the dark mysterious life-giving concoction.
Eddie managed to put down the bottle and that stupid party toy and grabbed it back. It was almost like when she grabbed it it sobered him up fast. Maybe he thought she would break it. I wouldn't know; I haven't known him that long.
He cautiously set the vile in a small padded box. "This serum just suppresses the DNA in your body, all of it, no matter what it is. It makes them stop fighting over superiority for your body thus making them not kill each other as fast. Side effects may, and most likely include drowsiness, headache, and other bodily aching. The amount of pain is unknown, though. You might feel a stinging sensation, or the pain could literally paralyze you for a period of time."
Fucking side effects! There's always side effects.
"Well give me some of it! Don't just leave me standing here!"
He picked up the vile and questionable looked at it and then at me.
"What it is this time?" I asked.
"Zees formula…It suppresses you DNA but…"
"But what?" Razz asked for me.
"But you have to take it intravenously and orally to suppress all your DNA."
Yummy, I hope it's cherry flavored!
While I sat down on the couch wondering what that goo would taste like, Eddie loaded up a needle with some of it. Half of it was in the needle, the other half for my ever so anxious consumption. Come ooon CHERRY!
He wasted no time and shot me up with that junk. Afterwards, Razz handed me the rest that was in what I thought of as a little glass cup. I took it from her slowly and put it up to my nose and took a sniff. No smell. I dipped my finger in and gave it a taste. It was really bitter and made me cringe.
"Bottom's up, guys!" I said uneasily as I tilted it upside down and it poured into my mouth. I nearly gagged with the bitterness that took over my taste buds, but I managed to swallow all of it. EW!
"How do you feel?"
I looked up at Eddie, "I just took it, old man. Give it time to kick in."
In the mean time I stood up and went for the kitchen. Vincent had a pretty nice house. One story, two bathrooms, nice space to do whatever in. If you want a walk through then I'll give you the layout.
At the front of the house you have a nicely made wooden porch with a white steel insulated door with an eyehole so you can see who just rang the doorbell.
The inside was quite unique. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all in the front. The kitchen and dining room on the right with the kitchen in the front. Its counters made up the boundaries for it as the island sat in the middle, rectangular in shape, with a pot rack hanging pots and pans of all shapes, sizes, and colors. The living room on the left, which was moved around to compensate for the equipment that Eddie was using, used to look normal. One long couch and a small love seat, formed into an "L" with a small table at each end of the "L" and one that made a sort of connecting joint so the "L" could turn into a "J" if need be. A fireplace sat in the corner but looked like it had not been lit in years. I see no point. What good is a fire to enjoy with no one to enjoy it with?
Going straight up through the middle of the house was a hall that had two rooms on each side with the giant master bedroom with a big bathroom. The first door on the right was an office used for…office stuff.
Next to it was a decently sized guest room with a nice king sized bed, small workspace with computer, and a closet, most likely empty. I wonder if he had guests often; at least guests that stayed the night.
On the other side of the hall was the bathroom with two sinks made of marble and a stand-in glass shower, and, of course, a toilet of white porcelain. Next to the bathroom was a room that was always locked. I don't think I could ever ask him what was in it, but he might show us…someday.
Right next to that door right next to the wall in the hall was the door that went into the basement. You already know what's down there.
Then there's Vincent's room. His room went from one side of the house to the other. Giant room. Big walk-in closet, giant bed like the one Magnus had in his room only Vincent had black all over his. His bathroom was covered in dark red tile, dark red grout, dark red everything. I wonder if it was to cover up anything that happened in there. Dirty jobs!
Like I said earlier; a very nice house indeed!
I had walked my way into the kitchen and now I was searching through his refrigerator for something will alcohol. Sadly, all he has was old milk, orange juice, and blood in a few twelve ounce water bottles. Damnit!
Seeing as how he had no alcohol that I could wash down my goo with I just chose to take the carton of orange juice out of the fridge and just drink from it. It was near full but I just needed to drink something that wasn't…goo.
"Nice to see you like to use a glass!"
I nearly choked when Vincent surprised me. When you get scared you breathe in a bit and make a high pitch sound. I breathed in but didn't make the sound as I was drinking, but I did almost suck orange juice down into my lungs. At least I wont die…I hope.
I set the carton down on the counter and wiped off the juice I spit on my face during the surprise.
"I just wanted to get the bitter taste out of my mouth. That goop Eddie made was really disgusting!"
He looked at Eddie and then back at me and asked if it worked.
Eddie spoke up for me, "Vee don't know yet Vincent! He only just took eet. No tellink how long eet vill take to start vorking."
"Do you feel anything yet, Steven?"
I opened my mouth and all of a sudden my vision got blurry and my body almost felt like Jell-O. I fell over on the floor as everyone ran to my aid. Vincent put his arms under mind and lifted me up and then draped one arm over him and he walked me to the couch. I tried squinting my eyes, making them wide, blinking several times and rubbing them but it was all still fuzzy. I tried moving one of my arms and it moved like I had been laying on it wrong and it went numb but I could feel everything still. My arm just flopped like a fish out of water so I just leaned over and made myself fall into a laying position on the couch. I started to get exponentially tired. In a matter of maybe thirty seconds I felt like I hadn't slept in a couple days. My eyes got really heavy and when I tried to move again I felt sore. This gives new meaning to fast acting medicine. That stuff started working, gave me the drowsiness, and knocked me out within, maybe, three minutes at most. No aching as of yet, though I did fall asleep. I have no idea how long I was out.
When I woke up I was in a bed, I had no shirt, and it was freezing cold in the room I was in. There was no one else in the room with me but I wouldn't be surprised if Razz was standing outside the door waiting for me to wake up. I decided to test my theory by calling her name. I wouldn't mind a little more alone time with her anyway. Being with just her makes me feel at peace and one with myself. She has a soothing presence. Her being with me even makes me forget that I'm dying. It's intoxicating.
I called her name and in almost no time at all she swung the door open and ran to my side. Eddie and Vincent were outside the door as well. Don't they have anything better to do?
I asked if they could leave us along for a little bit. Vincent nodded and then winked at me. It's not like we were going to have sex again.
They left as I requested and Razz came and sat on the bed next to me. I was sitting up with my legs stretched out so I was a human "L". Would you like me to spell my name?
"Razz…"
She didn't say anything but she nearly jumped forward and wrapped her arms around me. This was the best feeling I have felt in a while. I mean, sure, sex is good, but it's just sex. Being close; being this close, it's just like a dream come true. Was I actually in love?

"I love you!" A faint whisper in my ear. Was it my imagination or had Razz actually said it?
I love you, too! I said it in my head first. She held me tighter and I managed to squeeze out those words. My voice was hoarse, probably from that stuff Eddie gave me, but I said it nonetheless.
I held her a little tighter. Love runs deeper than any ocean. It is sharper than any blade can ever be. I hate to sound like a Saturday morning cartoon but no matter how hard you laugh at it the words "Love can conquer anything" are true. Now that doesn't mean I'll spit out this monolog about love to every bad person I meet, I'm only saying that it is mostly true.
I kissed Razz on the cheek softly. She moved so that our faces were close to one another. She leaned in really close to me and tilted her head to one side. Our lips pressed together and, I don't know about her, I closed my eyes. My right hand was on her cheek like I was holding her head up while my left hand was lightly placed on her waist. After a few seconds my right hand slid from her cheek and I ran my fingers through her hair and it met up with my other hand at the opposite side of her body. She had a nice figure with the perfect curves. Her lips were soft, like miniature pillow that I was kissing. Every few seconds or so some tongue would slip out from one of us or both but I didn't mind and I didn't think she did either. This, in essence, was our first true kiss. It was like a little taste of heaven. No time to breathe in through my mouth, it was busy. Breathing through your nose is the only way to take in air. Deep breathes in and then slowly let it out or hold it like you were swimming.
Her hands were on my head and she was playing with my hair, which had grown out since I died. It was about eight inches long but I got used to it and decided to keep it, maybe even grow it longer. It just felt so good with her hands in my hair and our lips together. Magic!
She stopped and just looked into my eyes as I opened them and looked at hers. As short lived as it was, it was still magical.
She looked deep into my eyes, not saying a word but smiling big. She was finally happy. Happier, anyway. The subject of me dying even after I died and became an immortal vampire wasn't very happy news to her. Now that there's a chance that Eddie could save me, things started to look up.
"Feeling better I see." Razz said with an even bigger smile.
I smiled, showing teeth, and said I was feeling much better.
"Where's Eddie?"
She told me he and Vincent probably went to work on things a little more.
I got up from the bed and Razz stood up and helped me as I might still be a little woozy from that junk Eddie gave me earlier.
I thanked her for helping me. My steps were a little uneasy and my balance was a little off but with Razz's help I managed to get to the door with only a few slips here and there.
We walked together to the front of the house where Eddie and Vincent were sitting in different places. Eddie was on the love seat and Vincent was at the other end of the "L" shape on the couch that sat as the long part of the "L".
They both stood up when we walked in. Eddie walked over towards us while Vincent went to the kitchen and started looking through the refrigerator, for what, I have no idea.
"Zee side effects are worse than anticipated. Vee vill need some sort of countermeasure for zees results."
I shook my head and told him it would be alright.
"Even so, I vill need to take a blood sample for analysis just to see how it affected your blood."
I swallowed hard. "It isn't going to be a big needle is it?"
He shook his head and it made me calm down a bit. I don't like the feel of a tiny needle going into a vein on my arm. It just isn't a natural feeling for me. Gives me the creeps.
Eddie already had a tiny needle ready with a tube connected to it with a thing that you would connect those little tubes to like if you were getting blood drawn at the doctor.
He swabbed my arm with alcohol, put a tube in the thing, and stuck the needles in a vein in my right arm. OW!
Two vials of my blood were taken. Blood looks cool in those little jar things. Its dark red and more watery than ooze-like.
Now that I got my blood taken by the mad scientist I had no idea what was next; so I looked over to Razz and asked her what was next. She said we had to go by Mick's place to get some blood in case we run low.
"What about the blood that's in Vincent's fridge?"
"That's my blood, kid."
"You can get more from Mick later or something, can't you?
"No, I mean that it's mine as in it's from my body. It's quite literally my blood. It's used for helping out with Eddie's little science projects like when we were dealing with your blood. We didn't have enough of your blood to test out all the possible angles on so we mixed some of that blood with yours and let it sit for ten minutes until golden brown and testable in a tube."
"Golden brown?" I asked.
"That was a joke. A joke is something you laugh at; or have you forgotten?"
I didn't have a response to that because, truth is, I don't remember when the last time I laughed was. Even if I did laugh it was usually short lived.
"Steven," it was Razz, "We need to go to Mick's so let's get going."
I nodded and we left. We were taking Eddie's car again because I don't think Vincent would let us take his car, and our stuff was already in Eddie's car. So Razz and I get in the car and head over to Mick's place for some blood.
We drove up to the curb and got out and walked in. Everything was as it should be; only there was no Mick. Razz and I both called out his name but there was no answer. We looked around the place for him. Not many places to look in a butcher shop, just the front and the freezer in the back. Nothing.
"Where is he, Razz?"
She didn't know. It didn't look like he had been taken by force. Maybe he went with a friend to go somewhere. Yeah, that's it. He went somewhere with an old buddy of his that just came into town.
The phone rang. It was and old pale blue phone with push buttons and a thing that hooks onto the back of the receiver so you can rest it on your shoulder and write something down if need be.
It rang a few times before Razz told me to pick it up. I slowly lifted the phone up and put it to my ear and said hello. I did not recognize the voice. It was a man though. He told me to give the phone to Razz. It was a short conversation. Just a "Yeah?" and then a few interrupted sentences and she slammed down the phone.
"God damnit!"
I asked what was wrong and where Mick was. She only said one word. Rogues!
"I have no idea where we're going to even start looking for them. Rogues are hard to track."
The phone rang again and Razz picked it up and yelled into it, "What?!"
A few seconds of silence and then she said we'd be right there.
"Grab some blood and get in the car. We're going to see Magnus!"
I went to the back and looked for a second and found a small refrigerator. I opened it and saw the blood in little clear plastic pouches. I grabbed all I could carry and went outside and put them in the back seat of the car and quickly got in the front seat.
Razz sped over to Magnus's place. When we got there she got out and walked quickly up to the door. That kind of fast walk that doesn't mean you're in a hurry but that you're pissed off about something.
She didn't even knock. She kicked the door open and kept on going to find Magnus. I was barely out of the car by the time she got to the door. I ran up and apologized for her behavior and followed her upstairs. She busted into Magnus's room and yelled out, "Where is he, Magnus?!"
Magnus was sitting on the end of his bed, apparently waiting for us to show up.
"I do not know. But I have someone who does, but you must promise to keep your anger to yourself or I fear you might not get anything out of this one."
She took a deep breath and said, "Fine!"
Magnus stood up off his bed and walked over to a closet and opened the door and grabbed something that was inside. It was a person! A person in tattered clothes and a mask that only showed the eyes. Her hands were bound behind her.
"Do you recognize this person, Razz?"
She looked at the person closely and said no.
"Well you should," he pulled off the mask, "She was with the rogues that attacked my house."
Razz walked up to her and grabbed her by the throat, "If you don't tell me where Mick is I swear to God I will kill you right here, right now!"
I went over and grabbed Razz. "Calm down. That won't get you anywhere, Razz," I looked at the rogue, "Where is Mick. If you cooperate then I won't unleash Razz again. If you do not cooperate then I'll let her loose on you, and trust me, it won't be pretty."
Magnus set the woman down on his bed.
"Please be gentle with this one. She is…rather new in our culture."
Razz's eyes got wide. I had no idea what he meant.
"What do you mean by new?"
He stood near her and then bent over and pulled back her pant leg near the bottom.
"Like you she has been forced to live as one of us. She, like you, was bitten by the werewolf we have been looking for for quite some time now. Even though I swore the next time we met she would die I will not kill her. She came to my house for sanctuary and I cannot turn away one in need. Now please show her the compassion and kindness I have."
I had no business in this so I let Razz talk. She walked up to the rogue woman and kneeled down by her. "Please! Tell me where Mick is. Whether you like to admit it or not you are one of us now and there is no going back to the other rogues."
"I'll tell you," she said, "On one condition."
"What is that?" Magnus asked.
"I wish to talk to him!"
She was looking at me.
“Why me?”
“Because you are the one who has been rumored to have been bitten by a werewolf and a vampire and are still alive. There is considerable talk of how you are still alive.”
“Yeah, well we can talk about that later. Right now we need to know where Mick is. Remember, I’m holding the leash here!”
She took a deep breath. I could tell she was feeling uneasy about this whole situation. She was a hunter of our kind and now she would have to join the kind she had hunted for so long.
“Look, I know it’s going to be hard to be one of us-”
She interrupted me, “What do you mean ‘one of you’? I’ve been a werewolf for most of my life. I came to this place because the small group I was out on reconnaissance with was attacked by a werewolf. It was unlike any werewolf I had ever seen. It was gigantic, bigger than any wolf I’ve ever seen in my life. It tore through us like we were chew toys. I got away by crawling into the sewer but it got my leg as I was trying to squeeze through the drainage ditch on the side of the road.”
Imagine that. Someone like Razz; a werewolf hunting and killing werewolves and vampires just like Razz, but Razz is a vampire.
She went on to say that Mick had already been taken to their base and that the only reason he wasn’t torn apart by that thing was because they were coming back to collect a fee from their anonymous tip.
I asked her to tell us where Mick was after hearing her story.
“They’re outside of town about 2 miles north of the storage facility; straight into the forest. Now if you’re done with me I would like to go see someone.”
She got her hands around to her front by going under her legs and pulled out a small knife from inside her outfit and cut the ropes and stood up. Razz walked up quickly to her and pushed her back down onto the bed.
“You go nowhere until we get Mick back.”
“I see,” she stood up again but didn’t move, “I am sorry if he is already dead. I knew him also. He gave me meat to suppress the hunger. He is my uncle.”
I nodded and then looked over at Razz. She was almost furious. Mick was as much of a father to her as Eddie was. Losing either one would be devastating.
“Come on, Razz. Let’s get Mick back.”
She didn’t say anything. I started out of the room and she followed me a second or two later. She was in to much of a rage to drive so half way down the stairs I asked her for the keys. She didn’t even hesitate and tossed them my way. I stumbled catching them and almost dropped them.
I took the shortest routs I knew to get to the storage facility. It may sound like a huge place where drug deals go down and where bad people hang out, but it’s just a place for people to put the extra things they have in their houses when they run out of room, like a garage that holds only junk and that’s far from your house.
There was silence as we drove there. When we got there she got out fast and started running north into the forest. I ran after her after getting only our swords from the trunk of the car. I was far behind. The swords were heavy as I ran but they seem so light when you’re just standing there.
A long run and many deep breathes later Razz stopped and hid behind a tree. I ducked down into the long grass near the tree and asked why she stopped.
“Lookouts!” she whispered.
She pointed to the three lookout posts that were in the trees.
“How do you expect us to get by?”
She grabbed the handle of her sword and unsheathed it, not caring about the sheath. “Like this!”
She quickly and quietly made her way under a tree that had a lookout in it. I unsheathed my sword and decided to make my way to one of the others. As I was going from tree to tree I though to myself, Why didn’t I bring the small knives?
Too late to think about that now. We were already here and we needed to take action. There were two rogues placed at each lookout making six altogether. I got to the post on the left, one post in the middle. Too bad we don’t have a third person.
Razz was making her way as slowly as possible up the tree ladder to sneak up on the guards and I did the same. As I made my way to the top I could help but think “What if they killed me?” Gulp!
I got to the top and just peered over the top to see them walking by. I watched them for a little while and noticed a pattern. Every now and then they would have to stop and look through binoculars. Duh, they were lookouts! I waited for them to look through their binoculars before I made my move. I climbed up the rest of the way and grabbed one by the mouth to cover up any noise he might make and I broke his neck. It took a little doing because I didn’t know how hard to twist. I think I just gave him whiplash the first try with my “movie neck break impersonation”.
After I heard the crack of his spine I let him down to the floor easy and worked my way to the next one. I unsheathed my sword quietly and said “Over here!” and when he came around the tree into sight I stabbed him in the stomach and pulled the blade up as hard as I could. It didn’t go very far, though, but he fell to the floor of the lookout with a thud and then blood started pooling around his body. I looked around the lookout for anything I could use to take out the other post. To my surprise I found a crossbow with four arrows and one already in the bow. I positioned myself so I could see the other two people and fired one shot. It missed horribly and alerted them. They saw where I was and started shooting back. Two arrows flew by and landed in the tree. I shot another arrow after wrestling with it to load it into place. It managed to hit one of them in the chest, but I’m sure it was just a lucky shot. As I struggled to put in another arrow another shot missed me by a mile and landed above me. No doubt it was from the guy I just shot. After and one more arrow zipped through the wind and landed in my left side. I dropped the crossbow and gripped the arrow and my side as if it would help the pain go away. A final arrow flew through the air and skimmed my head. I thought I had been hit in the brain with an arrow and fell over and blacked out.
When I came to I saw Razz. She was fine, not a scratch on her. I got up a little too fast and my head spun.
“Easy! You were hit with an arrow, probably poisonous.”
I grabbed my head, “What the hell is the point in having a poisonous arrow for a vampire?”
She laughed a little, “It’s mainly for werewolves.”
I nodded and she helped me up. She told me there was a lift used for supplied that I would be carried down in seeing as how I might not be well enough to climb down a fifty foot ladder.
She lowers me down with the lift and now I'm sitting here waiting for Razz to get down the ladder so we can go deeper into the forest. I say to myself that I just hope there aren’t anymore lookouts. I really am afraid of dying. Even though I've contemplated killing myself I just can't see myself sitting in a box burried in the ground rotting away. Eternal sleep. Eternal darkness.
After a somewhat brisk jog through the tall grass and dead leaves we found a small cabin. It didn’t look like there was anyone in it but we still approached it cautiously in case of any unwanted surprises.
Razz opened the door and we looked inside. There was nothing there. It was just a small cabin in the middle of the forest. It was like any other log cabin, it had a couple small chairs, a couch, a table, small fire place and some pictures hanging on the wall, small carpets spread out throughout the place.
“Well where the hell are the rogues? And where Mick?!”
“Well maybe-”
I always get interrupted. A small part of the floor by the fireplace came up and we could hear talking. We hid behind whatever was close. Razz was behind the couch and I was behind a small chair that barely hid me from sight.
There were two rogues that came up from the floor.
“Hey, did you hear about Tara?”
“Yeah, she was bitten by that werewolf that attacked her group when they went to pick up our reward for catching the vampire we have down there.”
“Too bad. She was kinda hot. But I guess if we see her again we would have to kill her. She is one of them now, after all.”
“Oh well. She may have been hot but she was a real bitch most of the time. The only time she wasn’t was when she was with that guy.”
They both sat down, one on the couch and one in the other chair that was across from it. This would be easy if we could just stab them through the chairs but my guy was in another chair.
“Do you think she knew about him?”
“What? That he was the leader of all the werewolves in all the states that sit on the Gulf of Mexico? I’m sure she did. Love blind the senses to what is right and what is inhuman.”
I don’t think Razz could take anymore of it. She shoved her sword through the couch and through the rogue that was sitting in it. The other rogue stood up when I stood up from behind the chair. He tried running but I threw my sword and it stuck in his lower back and he fell over and bled out for only a few seconds before he died.
I went and pulled my sword out of him, “Well I’ll be damned. I thought that only worked in the movies.”
“Swords aren’t made for throwing, Steven. It’s inaccurate.”
I ripped off some cloth from the dead rogues short to wipe the blood off my sword. “I know. I was aiming for his upper back to make it go through his chest like in the movies.”
She shook her head and said I watched too many movies.


Chapter Eleven

All I did was shrug my shoulders and as she walked by and down into the passage. As we went farther down it got darker and more humid. In the distance we could see lights like it was a mine, one light every so far. So far there was just this one path that went on forever. The walls were lined with wood planks to keep the dirt from collapsing, but one small explosion could change that fast. The ceiling was only as tall as a person. A large werewolf would have trouble getting through this hallway.
Finally, after a long walk in the damp darkness we reached a heavy rusted metal door. Behind it we could hear screams and other sounds, possibly tools and machines. Razz banged on the door hard with her fist four times. A woman opened the door and asked what we wanted.
She was blonde with blue eyes and wore tatters like the rest of them. Popular look maybe? I couldn’t see any kind of weapon on her, but I doubt she didn’t have one hidden somewhere in those curves under those rags.
“We’re here for the vampire.”
“Take a look around, honey. We got lots of ‘em.” She opened the door the rest of the way and inside was just a room with many more doors, sounds coming from most of them, but not all of them sounded like torture. There was plenty of light in this room, lights hung everywhere, like the kind you hang on you cars parts when you fix it up at night. The doors in this room were also metal and rusted.
“How many rogues occupy one hideout like this, Razz?”
“Anywhere between fifteen and forty depending on how big this place is.”
The woman closed the door and walked up next to me, “Just take a look behind the doors to see if your vampire is behind it. Living quarters are to the left over there, but the rest are holding rooms.”
We walked closer to the doors standing almost in the middle of them. The door on the very left was out.
“Want to just go in order, Razz?”
She looked at me but didn’t say anything. She walked over to a random door and I jogged up to her as she grabbed the handle and opened it. The room was dark and a smell came from the darkness that made me gag. I covered my face and stepped back from the room. I nearly fell to my knees and started coughing. Razz just stood there like there was no hideous odor in the air. “Light!” she yelled and the blonde woman brought a light that was off.
Razz held the light into the darkness and pressed the button and light filled the room. It was covered in dried blood and dirt. Bloody rusty tools sat on a table. Scalpels and saws and all other sorts of surgical items that were also covered in blood. It was like a scene from a horror film. A dead body was slumped in a chair. No eyes, they were in a jar on the table, and its face was cut up. Fingers lay on the ground near the feet which were partially sawed off. The toes were smashed and the stomach was cut wide open exposing internal organs that had started drying up and shriveling. The mouth was wide open, tongue still in it, but some teeth missing. Cuts all over the body and a gash on the neck with grains of sand and possibly salt in them. This was one of the worst kinds of torture anyone can endure.
“That’s horrible!” I ran as far as I could from the room and started coughing and throwing up. That image will stick in my mind forever! How can anyone look at it and not care that it actually used to be a person, a living thing deserving of a life. This made me wonder what was going to happen to Mick.
Razz walked over to me and asked if I was going to be alright.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be alright after seeing that! How could anyone be alright after seeing something like that?”
“Don’t worry. Everything will be ok. I promise.”
Not every promise was kept. I just hoped this was would be.
One of the doors opened and a few rogues came out of it talking about a werewolf. That took care of one more room for us.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll let you choose the next door. I’ve no luck with guessing.”
I nodded, wiped my mouth and stood up. Another door opened and five rogues came out talking about some vampire they was just given to them by an unknown source. That sounded exactly like the room we needed to be in. We ran to the room and swung open the door. Mick was in it along with two rogues who were just standing over him watching him bleed from cuts and stabs.
“Mick!” Razz yelled.
The rogues turned around and asked what we were doing here.
“That there,” Razz pointed with her sword, “is our vampire!”
They laughed and said that he was theirs and that they were going to bleed him dry slowly while he screams for mercy like the pathetic creature he is.
Razz just couldn’t take that. It made her very mad and I wasn’t going to be holding the leash when she went rabid. She ran her sword straight through the neck of one of the rogues and the other one tried attacking her but she took him out just as easy by slashing him from his right shoulder to his left leg with a splash of blood.
I jumped over the two dead bodies and grabbed Mick and lifted him up.
“Thanks, mate. Glad ya came for me.”
Blood was coming out of his mouth and he had already lost a lot of blood as it is.
Razz came over and helped me lift him up and we carried him out to the room with the blonde woman.
“You can’t take him out of here!”
She pressed a button on the wall that was connected to a wire that led into where the rogues stayed. There was a fire alarm bell and rogues started coming through the door. Razz and I carried Mick as fast as we could past the woman and into the long hall. I don’t know how many there were but we were being chased by a gang of rogues. A few shots rang out.
“Rogues use guns?!”
“Sometimes! Just keep running!”
The whole time we were running Mick was slipping away. We needed to give him blood ASAP!
More shots and Mick moaned. He had been hit by a bullet in his back. The rest seemed to just hit the wall and zoom by.
As we neared the exit we started to run faster and push ourselves to the limit of what our legs could go. We dragged ourselves up the stairs and closed the hatch and Razz grabbed a knife from one of the dead rogues and put it in the lock as a small barricade.
“That’ll hold them for a minute or two. We need to get the blood from the car!”
“Razz…”
“What is it, Mick? You need to hold on! We have some blood. You can still make it!”
“Razz…Don’t worry about me. You need to…worry about…Robert.”
I was holding the door closed just in case, pushing down on it with my hands. They were banging on it and pushing it but so far the knife was holding.
“Why Robert?”
“As noble as…his intentions are…He’s got help…from…Him.”
I looked back at them, “Who’s Him?”
“You have to…show him the…right way, Razz. Show him…what needs to be done…in order to do the right thing.”
He let out a breath and his body went limp. Razz’s lower lip started to quiver and her eyes started to tear. “Mick? Mick?! Wake up, Mick! MICK!”
She leaned over his body and cried hard. I left the passage on the floor as it was and went to Razz and hugged her. “There’s nothing we can do now, Razz. He’s gone.” I started to tear as I cradled Razz. “He’s gone, Razz. We can’t do anything for him now.”
She started breathing hard. She had an evil look in her eyes like she wanted to kill anything, everything.
She stood up and I stood up with her and told her that it was pointless to fight all those rogues.
“They killed Mick! Now I’m going to return the favor!” She gripped her sword with a death grip and moved the knife from the door. It flew up and she threw the knife at the first person she saw. It landed in his forehead and he fell over. She slashed and stabbed her way down the stairs and I followed shortly after. I stepped over the dead rogues and caught up with her down the passage. She was backing them into the room at the end of the passage. There weren’t many left now. She had killed a lot of them, maybe twenty or so in less than one minute.
The door at the end boomed open and there were gunshots and screams. I ran as fast as I could and got there while there will still rogues left and Razz was still alive. I don’t want to lose her and I didn’t think she could take on that many in an open space like that by herself.
I ran in and we stood back to back with our swords at the ready, waiting for anything.
The rogues started to reload their guns and we saw the opportunity and attacked! I used my sword and hit the gun into the air and then stabbed the rogue in the stomach. He dropped to the ground along with his machine gun. I picked his gun up and looked at it for a second, figuring out how to use it. Another rogue came at me and with a knife and I parried it and aimed the gun at him and pulled the trigger and held it for a second. It works! I thought to myself.
I made a shot at a few rogues with it and they all fell in a hail of gunfire. I’ll bet its how they wanted to die anyway! One left now! Razz was still taking care of the rogues in her section of the room. This last rogue was a swordsman like me and Razz. We only sword fought for a few seconds before the end of my sword ended up in his chest.
I looked over to see Razz. She had taken a gun like I had and stabbed the last of the rogues with her sword, but she didn’t stop there. She walked into him with her blade and backed him into a wall and started firing a machine gun into his chest. Blood sprayed as the rogue went limp, but she just kept shooting until the clip was empty, and even then she kept pulling it like it would magically start spraying more bullets.
I set my sword on the ground and walked up to her. She was breathing hard. Her arm became swung down and she dropped the gun on the ground and let go of her sword and she nearly collapsed onto the floor. I ran over to her and hugged her again and cradled her in my arms. They all deserved their fates!

Chapter Twelve

We sat amongst the death and blood and torture for a few minutes. Razz cried the whole time. I don’t know what I felt. I didn’t know Mick much at all, but I still knew him a little. He was nice. His size made him look intimidating but he was like a giant teddy bear like lots of big people like him are. Does it make me heartless to not be sad?
Sometimes the worst things happen to some of the best people.
Razz looked up at me with bloodshot and teary eyes. “We should go now.”
All I could do was nod. Nothing I could say would make her feel any different than she does now. Only time can change her now.
We took our time and left taking Mick’s body with us. I carried him over my shoulder, even though he was really heavy, it was the least I could do. Razz opened the back seat door to the car when we got there and just swiped her hand across the seat and knocked everything onto the floor and I set Mick’s body down as easy as I could. Razz went around to the other side and set his hands on his chest and I tucked his legs into the car so they wouldn’t be hit by the door. Making him comfortable like all he was doing was sleeping. Anyone would do that.
Razz was too broken to drive so I drove back to Magnus’s. I told Razz to wait in the car for a minute. She just nodded at me looking like she was going to start crying again but she manages to hold it back.
I banged on the door almost as hard as I could with my fist and didn’t stop until someone came to the door. I pushed it open and knocked the man who answered it onto the floor and I nearly ran upstairs. Magnus came out of his room and met me almost at his door.
“If you are looking for the girl she is no longer here.”
I grabbed his shirt and heard it rip slightly. His eyes sloped down, he didn’t like that. “Where is she?!”
“If you value what life you have left in you then you will release me at once!” It was a near whisper, only the two of us could hear it and maybe if there were people close by they would have heard it as well.
“Mick is dead and so are the rogues! I want to know where she is!” I let go of his shirt and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. All these things are just a little to much to handle right now, you know?”
“I understand. And I am sorry for threatening your life. Now, let us go into my study, I will send someone for Razz.”
I nodded. “She’s still outside in the car. I’ll go get her myself.”
Magnus nodded and walked down the stairs and then to the left of them and disappeared behind a door. I just stood there for a minute collecting my thought, and the rest of me for that matter. In a matter of what only seems like a few days I think I’ve seem more blood than any damn person who does autopsies. I’ve killed more people than I would have liked to have killed. I didn’t want to kill anyone, ever. Werewolves and vampires being real when I thought they were just fictional beings in the minds of people who were long dead. I felt like I was in the fucking Matrix or something! I am the chosen one! Not!
The air around me started to get thick and it became hard to breath, like I was in a room filled with smoke. I ran down the stairs and swung the door open fast and ran outside and as soon as I got to the sidewalk I fell to my knees and started coughing and nearly threw up from everything around me that was spinning.
“Steven!” It was the first thing I heard. I looked up and saw Razz kneeling next to me with her hand on my back. “Are you alright?”
I took a couple deep breathes and said I would be fine. The air outside was refreshing and cool. It was nearly night time, the sun was down but there was still some blue left in the sky and dark clouds were flying at us and it looked like it might rain later.
“Could you tell Magnus that I would like to talk outside if it isn’t too much of an inconvenience for him, please, Razz?”
She nodded with a soft smile and I told her that he was in his study.
A minute or two later both of them came back outside and I was still on the ground breathing in the refreshing air and hoping that it would rain. The sound of the droplets landing on leaves and windows is such a soothing and enticing noise.
I stood up and looked at Magnus, still wondering if he was still a bit angry about me grabbing his short and nearly ripping it off his body.
“Bring Mick. We will give him a proper burial. Eddie and Vincent are on their way.”
I went into the back seat and grabbed Mick carefully and carried him over my shoulder like before. The three of us, four if you count Mick, went through the house towards the back. Everyone stared, but not in disgust or anger but with sadness. Mick was a well known supplier of blood and all kinds of meats for every vampire and werewolf in town. He was the only butcher within a fifty mile radius; butcher shops aren’t that popular these days.
The back yard was large and beautiful. Flowers grew everywhere and there was green grass which was rare to see since most people never take care of their property. There were trees spread over the land, small and large. A path of stone steps laid into the dirt as a trail lead to a large patch of green grass with a coffin being held up on four legs so that it was almost at waist level and many mounds of dirt with crosses near a high stone fence. In the middle of the green patch was a deep hole with a mound of dirt that was dug up.
“Set him in the coffin.” Magnus said as he opened the lid to the wooden box.
I laid Mick in gently and rested his arms on his stomach as Razz helped with his feet. Magnus reached into his pocket and pulled out a large golden cross on a heavy metal chain and elaborately decorated with jewels and silver. He bunched up the chain in his hand under the cross and placed it on Mick’s chest and held his hand over it for a few seconds. The back door opened and people poured out with flowers of all kinds and other mementos to place with him as he laid on the white lace pillow and cotton interior. There were six men dressed in robes with hoods and held very large candles with giant flames shooting up to the sky and every other direction from the occasional gusts of wind that blew the leaves of flowers and trees and the robes. The robed men stood on the opposite side of the coffin as the rest of us with their heads slightly bowed.
Eddie and Vincent showed up after everyone seemed to be in place. Razz, Vincent, Eddie, Magnus, and I all stood closest to the coffin with everyone else keeping their distance as to not crowd us and make us feel uncomfortable. The six men in robes started to chant something in low voices. I don’t think I would have been able to understand them even if they said it loudly.
After a minute of the chanting Magnus nodded at the robed men and they stopped and he walked in front of the coffin and turned around to face all of us. He stood there for a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, “Darkness consumes those who are willing. It kills those that give in. Leaving one without anything. At times, there is no hope. And life is all but meaningless. The corners of your eyes grow darker and darker.
But before the last of your sight leaves. There is always a light, a love, a hope, a reason. Before the last of your sight leaves. There is always a renewed thought. Years may pass before it comes, but time is forever in the dark. But light is eternity when you allow it to save you. When you lift your head high and say, ‘I shall not die.’ Mick shall not die, but instead live on through all of us. His memory, his hope, his dreams, and most important of all, his family. Rest in peace, Mick.”
The men in robes set their candles on the ground and went to the coffin, three on each side, and they lifted it up and laid it into the grave. They didn’t have all the equipment so the grave wasn’t as deep as in a cemetery. They set the coffin in the hold as Magnus had everyone get into a line. Razz was first, then Eddie, Vincent, myself, and then the people. I assumed Magnus would be last, but there’s no rush.
Razz walked up to the coffin as one of the men in robes scooped up a shovel full of dirt and held it out to her and another man closed the coffin and started chanting again. She grabbed a small bit of dirt and placed it onto the coffin and packed it on. Eddie did the same and set his bit of earth on top of where Razz placed hers. Vincent placed his next to theirs and mine on top of his. When there was no more dirt in the shovel he, of course, shoveled up more. By the end of it all there was a large pile of dirt on top of the coffin. I didn’t quite understand why they did it. Respect maybe, burry him a little themselves to show love.
Magnus was the only one left. He walked up and scooped up dirt from the mound next to the coffin with both hands and laid it on top loosely on top of everyone else’s, spread out over the entire top of the coffin. He whispered, “Go with God, my friend.” Funny, I never thought of Magnus as a religious figure.
The man with the shovel started scooping up the earth and carefully setting it on top of the coffin until it was completely buried beneath the earth and there was a mound like the rest. The other five men left and came back in only a few seconds with a large stone statue of an angel with folded wings and hands together as if it were praying on a large piece of wood with ropes tied to it. They were moving quickly but carefully as to not move to fast and make the statue fall over.
In a couple minutes they had the statue in place. The six candles that were still burning bright were set on the ground in front of it; they would stay there until they melted away and burned out.
Nobody cried. Razz already shed her tears. “Now we may talk. But only after everybody leaves. Wait over by the back door.”
I nodded and walked over by the back door and sat in a lawn chair and waited for everyone to go inside.
“You coming inside, Steven?” Vincent asked.
“Not now. I need to talk to Magnus about something. Tell Razz to wait for me, ok?”
He said he would and walked inside with the rest of them as Magnus walked up to me holding two umbrellas. “Walk with me. My garden is small but I think this talk will be short.”
I took the umbrella from him and we started walking into the garden again, slowly.
“What is it you would like to know?”
“Who did that woman go and see?”
“She went to see a friend of hers. The Alpha Male of the werewolves in all the states on the Gulf of Mexico. He resides somewhere in this state, but I do not know where. You might want to ask around. When the rest of our conversation is over I will tell you where you can start.”
It started raining and we opened our umbrellas. I waited a few seconds because I liked to get hit with the start of a nice rain.
“Ok. Other than where do I start, this conversation is over.”
He smiled at me and waved his arm to lead me into the part of the garden we were just in. The mounds of dirt were smaller and muddy now, and the candles on Mick’s grave were put out. He pointed over to a tree that had good protection fro the rain. When we got under it he folded his umbrella, as did I.
“I know what is going on,” he started, “I am well informed as to everything that happens in my town.”
“Your town?”
“Yes. I am the leader of this house thus making this my town. I have many informants that keep me up to date with things that have been happening. The werewolf that has been here for some time now is unwanted but I have recently found out that he is not an immigrant werewolf.”
“What do you mean? Who could it be? Someone who is new?”
He shook his head. “Does the name James Watson mean anything to you?”
James? He was dead. A werewolf got him…right? “Yeah, he was supposed to have been killed by a werewolf. It happened before I was killed.”
He half smiled. “He and Robert set that up. James is like you, Steven. He is half vampire and half werewolf, but unlike yourself he was werewolf first and was bitten by a vampire.”
I gave him a questionable look. “But I was bitten by a vampire and I was…drooled on. I was both at the same time.”
“Yes, but you became a vampire first. It was all a matter of chance and you got vampire.”
We stood under the tree in silence for a few seconds.
“I never knew you were the religious type.” I said.
He gave me a questioned look. “What do you mean?”
“I pointed over at Mick’s grave, “During the funeral. You said ‘Go with God’. I didn’t know you were religious.”
“He smiled gently, “I am not. I am a believer. I believe in God and Jesus, but it extends no farther than that.”
“So in other words you have no faith.”
“I have plenty of faith in you and Razz.”
I shook my head. “I mean religious faith. Faith in miracles and all that.”
He pondered this for a moment. “I suppose you are right. I do not believe in Devine Assistance from angels.”
I nodded slowly. “I’ve always thought that there was a Jesus and a God, but they do nothing to help us. There’s no such thing as the Devil making bad things happen. People make things happen. If you believe hard enough in something you can make it happen. The bigger the something is the bigger your belief must be. Most people don’t believe enough in what needs to happen so they end up becoming bitter and hateful.”
“Yes. People are capable of doing evil things. Satan influences no one, you influence yourself.”
A flash of lightning streaked across the sky and branched off like a tree without leaves. Thunder boomed a second later.
“I believe our conversation is now over. You can start looking for the Alpha Male by checking with George at the gun shop downtown. He will tell you what you need to know.”
More lightning and thunder.
“Thanks, Magnus. If you find out anything then keep me informed. I don’t have a cell phone anymore but I’m sure you’ll think of some way for us to keep in touch.”
He smiled once more. “As soon as you walk inside one of my people will give you a phone. Do not worry about what the number to it is. My number is on speed dial number one. Just hold down one for a second or two and it will dial my number. Call any time if you need anything.”
I walked off with umbrella in hand but at my side and I was getting soaked by the rain. Tears of the angels!

Chapter Thirteen

I opened the door and walked inside dripping wet and a woman dressed in a pin striped business suit and long, straight, red hair and glasses handed me a small folding phone. I thanked her and asked where Razz was and she told me she could be found in Magnus’s library to the right of the stairs. Again I showed my gratitude and walked into the library. It was much like Eddie’s. Book shelves loaded with old and new books, a few large chairs and small tables and one large wooden desk, probably oak. Lots of people like wood appliances.
When I walked in everybody that was in there stared at me. Other than Razz, Eddie and Vincent there were a couple of other people in regular dress and one of the men in robes looking through the books.
Razz walked up to me and gave me a hug and I wrapped my arms around her tight and kissed her on her forehead. Nobody said anything about it; not really a time to make jokes and they respected that, and us. It made me respect them all more.
Vincent was leaning up against one of the book shelves while Razz and Eddie sat in large black leather chairs. Eddie was reading a book with dark green leather binding, a journal, maybe?
“We need to go to the gun shop downtown. You know where it is, Razz?”
She smiled at me, lots of that happening around me. Did I look that depressed? “You haven’t been to downtown before?”
“I haven’t been in a long time. I forgot where everything was.”
“Ok,” she started, “But Magnus has asked us all to stay here for the night and start looking tomorrow.”
I nodded; lots of that happening lately, too. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight, Razz.”
She knew how I felt. She looked like she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep for a week.
Vincent stopped leaning on the book shelf and stretched his arms as high as he could and yawned loudly, “Well, I’m tired. I think we all should be going to bed. No sense in staying up all night. We all need some sleep.”
It was silent for a moment. Eddie dog-eared the page he was on in the book he was reading and closed it and walked out of the room. Vincent casually walked by me and Razz, “Goodnight you two.” He winked at us before he left.
“Well, it’s not like it was going to stay a secret, right?” I said.
She smiled softly and kissed me on the cheek and said goodnight and left to go to her room. I didn’t feel tired at all so I walked over to a bookshelf and looked for a book that seemed interesting. One book in particular caught my eye. It was next to an empty space in the shelf, maybe where Eddie took his book from, and was simply titled Dracula. I took it from the shelf and sat down where Eddie previously sat.
I spread open the book and the spine cracked, that’s a cool sound. It had that old library book smell to it which I also enjoyed.
On the inside cover there was a familiar poem,
Darkness consumes those who are willing.
It kills those that give in.
Leaving one without anything.
At times, there is no hope.
And life is all but meaningless.
The corners of your eyes grow darker and darker.
But before the last of your sight leaves.
There is always a light.
A love, A hope, A reason.
Before the last of your sight leaves.
There is always a renewed thought.
Years may pass before it comes.
Time is forever in the dark.
But light is eternity when you allow it to save you.
When you lift your head high.
And say, "I shall not die."
I started to read from the beginning like any normal person would. It was a seemingly boring story about Dracula’s life, so I skipped ahead a small fingerfull of pages to skip all that boring stuff.
I skimmed through the pages, just glancing at words. It was detailed in descriptions of battles and how vampirism was considered a plague by people and how vampires should be the dominant species on Earth. I skipped more pages.
Vampires went into hiding after humans in the 18th and 19th centuries started hunting them in giant gangs, crowds that would overwhelm the vampires and in a matter of minutes the vampires that were be attacked would be rounded up and burned alive, some were beheaded or disemboweled.
Cruel means of execution and torture just to get rid of vampires. They were the first known rogue groups. Skipped more pages. Rogue numbers are dwindling and vampires have found an ally. Werewolves! This new species was first discovered ten years prior to the alliance and was called Lycanthropy. Nobody knows how it started but they proved a useful ally. Although not immortal like vampires, lycanthropes have immense power and have a much higher threshold for pain. This continuing hunt for vampires has turned into a war with the newly formed rogue groups. The humans that are not in rogue groups do not believe in us and think the rogues are a band of lunatics on a wild goose chase.
My chronicle truly begins here, in battle as the leader of Vampires! My followers have constructed a unique suit of armour for me made of average steel but coated with a layer of silver to signify my importance. The whole battlement in itself is far too heavy to wear so I have decided to only wear the chest plate. Also, they have made me a helm to signify my strength. A pure silver helm with elaborate decoration and jewels. I believe soon I will be revered as a God amongst my people.
I skipped more pages.
The Black Forest of Germany is a dangerous place said to be haunted by ghosts and monsters. Our kind does not fear the rumors being monsters ourselves. The rogues are now the ones going into hiding. They still hunt us like wild game but we will soon rid ourselves of this nuisance. Talks have been circulating about one who is half werewolf and half vampire. What would this mean for the future of our two kinds? We must not allow half breeds like this to roam free! All those who are half breeds must be exterminated!
I skimmed through the next few pages. Something about the hunter being the hunted on both accounts, rogues and vampires. The vampires were killing everyone who ended up like I am now while simultaneously being hunted by the rogues and hunting them at the same time. It was somewhat confusing.
I picked up a handful of pages and started using my thumb, letting it up just far enough to let one page pass, and I skimmed through more pages. The fight with the rogues seemed never ending while these werevampires were being hunted and over time they were all gotten rid of. I stopped on one page and continued reading.
My people have made me out to be a God amongst all living creatures. In honor of everything I have done for them they have crafted for me a most magnificent sword made, like my helm and armour, of silver. A handle that felt like chain mail was welded onto it, it was a symbol of the tight grip I had over all situations. At the bottom of the handle was an elegant rose nearly half bloomed, a symbol of the kindness I had toward my people. The top had two curved metal pieces that looked like dancing flames, my passion for fighting. The blade was longer than normal but it would prove useful for me. They all know I am the best swordsman in all the lands.
I will always remain a God to all the vampires!
Armor, a helmet, and a sword and they thought he was a god?
Flipping through the pages I saw little details about battles and more treasures for Dracula, gold and silver and jewels. Rogue leaders were brought to bed before him before he killed them and drank their blood as a sign of his merciless nature. It was nearing the last quarter of the book and I glanced at one page and saw a most familiar name. Magnus!
I went back to the page and read what was written in it.
Magnus, my most trusted friend, has waged a campaign against me to stop my reign over the humans. He feels my means are unjust and I am merely power-hungry. Battle is all I know, my friend. He wished to meet with me and discuss terms of living with the humans. I will meet with him but I will never live side by side with humans as equals. They are nothing but sheep to us. We must prevail as the dominant species!
I turned two pages.
My meeting with Magnus will be later this evening. I will bring five of my best men with me, no doubt he will come alone, the fool! He will pay for his betrayal of our friendship and my new empire! After I kill him I will wipe out the remainder of his forces and then the Reign of Vampires will come to fruition. No one will be able to stop me once Magnus is dead.
The next few pages were of other business he had throughout the day before his meeting with Magnus. I would have gone straight to Magnus and asked what this was all about the second I saw his name but I was curious as to what will happen. I was reading actual events like they were nothing but a tale of fiction.
When I got to the part about the meeting the pages had been smeared in blood and sloppily written.
It was a trap. My best soldier, Vincent, betrayed me as well and allied with Magnus. Together they both killed my men and nearly took my life as well. I write these last words for fear that my time may be drawing to a close on this world. To think it would all end like this!
The rest of the pages were blank but some had blood on them. I had so many questions pop into my head all at once. Dracula is real? Magnus and Vincent betrayed Dracula just so that vampirism could stay hidden along with lycanthropy? Why did they do it? All these questions would be answered in due time, but now I knew I wouldn’t be getting to sleep. I would be talking to Magnus.
I closed the book and stood up and then screamed quietly. Magnus was standing in front of the door to his library and we were the only ones in the room; I never noticed anyone else coming or going.
“I see you found His journal.”
I looked at the book and then tossed it onto the chair I was sitting in. “Yeah. I read some of it. You…and Vincent were-”
“His friends, yes. But he wanted a world crafted in the image of vampires and blood. We could not have that so I convinced Vincent to stay on with him as a spy for me. After quite some time we finally set up a meeting so that I could convince him that his future was tainted with the blood of innocent people who didn’t deserve such a fate.”
I sat back down but forgot the book was there and sat up quickly and moved it out of the way and sat down. Magnus came and moved one of the other chairs closer to me and sat down. We were both calm about this, but I was just a little surprised that Dracula was a real person. It’s not every day that you find out something like that.
“So you set up some kind of negotiation with him?”
He shook his head. “Not quite. I was merely trying to show him that the species could live side by side like humans and animals had for centuries. He didn’t want any part of a future living alongside humans and werewolves. He believed that vampires were the alpha species and that all other life would bow to our kind. So when we met that night he brought four of his strongest men and Vincent. He had no idea that Vincent was a spy until that night.”
He continued on saying that Dracula ordered them to kill Magnus, but Vincent wanted no part in any kind of fight and stood idly while Magnus killed the four soldiers. Dracula was outraged at Vincent’s action, or lack thereof, and attacked Vincent. Dracula was one of the best sword masters of that time but he was going up against two people who nearly rivaled him in swordsmanship and he soon fell to their blades, but managed to escape and wrote one last entry into his journal and then he just seemed to drop off the face of the Earth.
Rogues these days were still old fashioned and used crossbows and swords and axes and other medieval weapons. Most vampires and rogues did share one common thing; they both thought it was honorable to fight with a sword than a gun. Times change, but as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.


Chapter Fourteen

“So is he dead?” I asked.
He sat there silent for a moment before he shook his head. “I am afraid I do not know for sure. When I last saw him he was near death, but he is strong willed and might have survived that night.”
The door to the library opened and Vincent walked in. “Hey, Magnus! I took this from Eddie’s room. He was taking a peek at it.”
He nodded. Everything was floating to the surface.
“How’s it going, Steven? Doing some light reading as well?”
I nodded, “I was just reading about an old friend of yours and Magnus’s.” I lifted up the book to show him.
“How much did you read?”
I shrugged, “Enough.”
He came over and picked up the book and set it and the one Eddie was reading back on the shelf and then he grabbed a wooden chair from the corner of the room near a window, it had stopped raining and I didn’t notice. He set the chair in front of Magnus and me to make a triangle. He sat with his legs open and his hands clenched together and resting between them in a “V” shape while he leaned forward.
“How come no one told me that Dracula was real?”
Vincent put one hand up and Magnus started to say something. “I got this one.”
He closed his legs and leaned back in the chair stretching out a little. “He is not the cool guy that he is portrayed to be in movies and everything. Razz also told us how much you liked vampires when you were a human and we were afraid that if we told you he was real that you would go looking for him or something.”
“Well from what I read in that book I don’t think I would want to meet him at all anymore.”
I started to get tired. Mental exhaustion, most likely.
“Steven,” Magnus started, but he paused for a few seconds. “You already know so much. You know the honor of the sword and you are wiser than even I was at your age. You are not one of the juveniles that pollute the streets with their violence. For that I have much respect for you.”
“Thank you. But I think I’m going to go to sleep. I’m actually getting tired. We can finish this some other time.”
All he did was nod as I stood up. Vincent said goodnight and I left the library. I took two steps before I realized I didn’t know where my room was, so I went back in and asked. Vincent stood up and said he would show me where I would be staying for the night. He took me up the stairs and into Magnus’s room.
“But this is Magnus’s room. Why am I staying here?”
“I don’t really know, but something tells me he won’t be using it tonight. We were going to make some calls, do some things, you know, get you guys ready for your travels.”
I said ok and opened the door and walked in. Vincent closed it for me before I could turn around and grab the door handle.
I walked closer to the bed so I could lie down and try to sleep for a while before the night was gone, but as I got closer I realized that the bed drapes were closed. Was somebody in the bed?
I slowly walked up to the bed and slowly drew back the drapes. Razz was in the bed, asleep, but not under the covers. Her blood stained clothes were piled next to the bed on the floor on the side she was sleeping on. She wore a long white nightshirt with sleeves longer than her arms; it was riding up her body and almost exposed her breasts, and her legs were almost bare with the exception of some black short shorts.
I carefully crawled into the bed, but I didn’t feel like covering up or changing my clothes at the moment. When I was nestled into a spot on the bed I turned over to lie on my side facing Razz. I pulled her shirt down to cover her up some more. She wriggled around for a second to get comfy again. When she stopped moving she opened her eyes and just looked at me.
She whispered out a “Hi” and a smile. I smiled and asked if I disturbed her sleep.
“No,” she whispered, “I was still awake.”
I laughed a little, “Didn’t look that way to me. You were fast asleep.”
We both laid there for moments staring at each other. Even a matter of moments can seem like an eternity, but when that eternity ends in a matter of moments you seem to really grasp how fast time really goes in life.
She scooted closer to me, our bodies touching. I wrapped my arm around her and she nestled in even closer, her head rested on my chest. “Your heartbeat is comforting.”
I gave her a small kiss on top of her head. Her hair wasn’t all that clean but I didn’t really mind much.
We both just lay in the bed that Magnus graciously let us use for the night, Razz in my arms, and we both slowly slipped into the land of dreams. I would protect her from anything, anyone.
The sleep was a nice luxury. I was exhausted, mentally and physically. The fighting and the sadness and just everything that had happened. If I could wish it all away…I wouldn’t.
There was no dream to the sleep I got; only comfort and happiness. Being with Razz like that just seemed to make everything go away. I am at peace with her; a peace that cannot be obtained from being alone. This kind of peace pulls from the happiness from two people and makes them one, their bodies, their souls, and their love.
The next morning when I woke up, Razz had already been up. If she had just woken up she might have been in the shower. If everybody was awake then they might have been waiting for me. Man I have to take a shower, I thought.
I got out of the bed which I noticed was really soft. You could sink into it and get lost for days at a time.
I hadn’t taken anything off from the day before. I slept in bloody clothes and dirty shoes and everything.
There were some fresh clothes sitting in a chair with a little tag that had my name on it. I wondered who got them for me, but I also didn’t care. New clothes, but no new shoes. I’ll just give the ones I was wearing a good scrub.
I picked up the clothes and after looking behind a couple of different doors I found the bathroom. It wasn’t very big, but it was homey. The floor was rough, most likely to help prevent people from slipping as much like if it was a smooth tile floor, but it felt like a foot massage to my feet. The bathtub was connected to the wall and was made of marble that closely matched the cream colored walls.
The lights were soft and gentle on the eyes. The scent of the air was Jasmine, popular, but I think mostly among women. There was a large wooden closet that sat between the sink and the tub, the sink on one wall, the tub on the other, the closet in the corner. I walked over to it and opened it up and saw the wide array of large towels and hand towels. I picked out a regular white towel and another yellow one to put on the floor like a bathmat.
I took off my shirt covered in dried blood and threw it on the floor. Next were my shoes and socks. I went over and took a small hand towel to clean my shoes with, they were a fast clean. Next, after I cleaned my shoes, I took off the rest of my clothes and tossed them by the bloody shirt. The clean clothes that had been set out were sitting on the corner of the counter that held the sink to the wall, it was also a cream colored marble like the tub.
It’s hard to notice things when you have adrenaline and emotion fueling everything you do. My joints ached badly. I was sore from nearly head to toe. A standing shower seems to be out of the question now, I thought, I’ll just take a bath and soak for a bit in some hot water. That would feel good!
I turned the faucet water for the bath almost as hot as it would go, I loved really hot water for bathing. While the tub was filling with water steam filled the bathroom and made it like a warm steam room. It was nice, cleansing. All I would need now is a full body massage for the rest of my body and a mud mask and I would be a woman. But believe it or not, some guys like to do that kind of thing. It isn’t gay; it just makes you feel good.
When the tub was fill enough with steamy hot water I slowly climbed inside the tub and slithered down into the water and rested my body.
After the water started to cool off I decided to wash instead of just sitting in the water forever and turn into a prune.
I washed my body and hair and pulled the plug on the drain and the water started to drain out as I stepped out of the tub and grabbed a towel. It was soft and still had that “fresh from the dryer” smell to it, made me smile. That smell made my morning. Now all I would need was a giant breakfast with as much orange juice as I could drink.
After I dried off I put on the clothes set out for me: a comfortable pair of blue jeans, slightly baggy, but a nice fit at the waist, some underwear and a pair of white socks, and a blue-grey shirt with a breast pocket. I slipped on my shoes and left the bathroom feeling clean, but still a little sore.
Down the stairs there was a man in a black suit with a black undershirt just standing there looking at me. When I got to the bottom he greeted me and asked me to follow him. He led me almost to the front door and turned right. I never noticed a door here before.
There were no vampires or werewolves sitting in the tables and on the couches, too early for them I suppose.
He pushed the door inward and waved his hand in front of him. “After you, sir.”
I gave him a thanking nod and walked in. When I got past the door I saw that there was a table with a nice spread of everything that anyone would have for breakfast. Fresh fruit like strawberries, peaches, apples, bananas, pears, grapes, cherries, raspberries, black berries and blue berries, pancakes and waffles and toast sat stacked high on plates and were still warm, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage, all still hot, and a giant pitcher of orange juice, ice cold. It all sat on a long and wide table. Oh my God, yum!
Everybody was sitting there staring at me while I stared at the spread. From the left end of the table to the right there was Magnus at the head of the table, and then Eddie to his left and Razz to his right. Vincent sat next to Eddie and there was one empty seat next to Razz.
I sat down and we looked at each other and smiled. “Who made this spread?” I asked.
“We all did.” Magnus answered.
“We all thought you needed a little taste of home.” Razz said.
I smiled and remembered the morning of the day I died. My mom had made a big breakfast. Everyone here was the closest thing to family I would get. They were my new family.
I didn’t feel like eating everything here but there was quite a bit of it I did want. I got a couple heaping spoonfuls of eggs and five pieces of bacon and sausage each and two pieces of toast. The glass in front of me already had some orange juice in it. Everything was amazing, and I thanked everyone very much after we all ate.
After everything was cleaned up Razz handed me a bottle with blood in it.
“You haven’t had any blood for a long time. In a short time the body coped with less blood but you still need it every now and then so drink it.”
I opened the bottle and chugged it fast. It didn’t taste all that bad really. Like a kind of salty water, like antacid tabs without the fizz.
After that, Eddie walked up to me with more of that goo.
“No way, old man! You remember what happened last time!”
“Yes, but zat vass only your first time. After zat your body should have coped so zat zees dose wouldn’t have zee adverse side effects. But just to test zis ve vill only be using the needle. It vould vork more efficiently zan just drinking eet.”
I nodded and sat down while he gave me the shot. No matter how many times I get stuck with them I never get used to them.
Just to be sure that I wouldn’t pass out like last time they sat me in a chair and I sat there while they all stared at me. I felt like a lab rat, but after ten minutes of staring I was fine, but I was just a tad sleepier than I was ten minutes ago.
“You seem fine to me. Let’s see how you feel ven you walk around.”
I stood up and walked around a bit. I felt like I stood up to fast but it was that stuff that made me feel like that. My steps seemed like I was almost as light as air, but I looked normal and I told them I felt fine.
“We’ll see you guys later.” Vincent said.
“It’s just going to be me and Razz?” I asked.
“Yes,” Magnus said. “Vincent and I must attend to some things and Eddie will still be working on a way to save your life.”
“Oh. Well I guess we’ll see you guys later this evening or sometime tonight then, right?”
“Most likely.” Vincent said.
Eddie said bye to us and walked out to another room. I guess his supplies were brought here yesterday. Vincent left to the library as Magnus walked us to the front door. When we got to the door he held it open for us. “It looks like I am a part of this now, no turning back. But I knew this might have happened in due time.”
“Thanks, Magnus.” Razz said.
He nodded. “When you see the Alpha Male, tell him I sent you and that I must speak with him. Do not let him say no. We will need his help if we are to beat Robert. You will not just be facing him.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Robert knows many werewolves. He might ask for their aid in helping him with whatever he has planned.” Razz answered and Magnus nodded to confirm that what she said was true.
We said our goodbyes and headed for Eddie’s car. Magnus called to us before we could get in.
“Take my car. That one needs cleaned.”
He tossed Razz a set of keys and Magnus pointed to the car that was his. It was a shiny black car with tinted windows.
Just before I sat in the car I told Razz to wait here and I ran up to Magnus and asked him where our swords were. He told me that Eddie should have them so I ran inside and found Eddie and got our swords and ran back outside and put them in the back seat.
“Just in case.” I told Razz.