Becoming

New Blog for Personal Whatnots (Follow me through NaNo 2009!)

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:38:00 +0000

Wow, I can't believe it's almost been a year since I last updated Becoming. I'm sure you're all pretty mad at me.

I feel like Becoming kind of changed from when I started it to when I stopped writing. When I started writing it, it was just a shoddy rewrite of the junk I had before. However, when I got into the second and third books and started playing around with points of view and different plot elements, I felt like the story had grown and the first book just didn't cut it anymore. I tried my hardest to push myself to at least finish Becoming but I just didn't have the heart to do so anymore.

When I quit writing Becoming, it was at a total of over 90,000 words. That's a lot of work, and I'm not going to just throw that away. This November, I will be participating in NaNoWriMo 2009. It will be my first year participating and I need all the support I can get. I am out of school and out of excuses. I started a new blog about my writing to replace the old Insight into my Life blog.

I still haven't exactly decided what I am going to write for NaNo, but I have been tossing around ideas for a complete and total Becoming rewrite. If I do that, rest assured that I WILL finish it this time.

Check out my new blog here and please show your support.

Thank you
-Arielle <3

Happy Thanksgiving!

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:48:00 +0000

Hi readers, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, if you celebrate the holiday.

I wish I could present to you on this day the gift of my writing, but I cannot give that. This time is incredibly busy, and I am terribly behind on Becoming. Part of it is due to my studies, part is due to my laziness, and part is due to a slight bit of writer's block. Of course, I know where the story is going, but I'm a little stumped on the moving action.

As I don't want to force myself to write because then I won't be happy with it, I am going to be bringing the chapters late.

I hope to have two to three chapters posted within the next two weeks, but we'll see how that goes. I hope to get some alone time with my computer over the next few weeks. I ask all of you to stay with me, please don't give up on Becoming. Support my story and I will continue to work on it.

Thank you and happy holidays.

-Arielle

Chapter Eleven - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:54:00 +0000

I awoke to a faint knocking. I thought to myself that Alex must have forgotten his key. I checked the clock, only an hour had passed. He’d given up on his search for Chesed quickly. Maybe he realized how futile it was.

Groggily, I sat up, and realized I had no clothes on. I looked around for something to cover myself with when I answered the door. I pulled a small blanket off the bed, it would do. After I let Alex in, I’d make him go into the bathroom until I got dressed. I wrapped it around my body and went for the door. I stumbled over an ottoman, stubbing my toe and cursing Alex for coming back at all.

I yanked open the door, preparing to give Alex a piece of my mind, but it wasn’t Alex. The man standing in front of my door, looking the same as he did those few decades ago, with his long, black hair and eyes just as dark, was Draven.

My mouth gaped open, staring at the vampire. Why was he here all the sudden? What should I do? Part of me wanted to slam the door in his face, another part of me wanted to jump on him and smother him in kisses.

Draven looked almost as startled as I did, but why would he be surprised? He was the one showing up at my hotel room. His eyes flicked down to the necklace hanging dangerously close to my cleavage. “Isis, you,” He paused for a moment, “Did you just now drink the blood I gave you?”

“Well not just now, but about an hour ago,” This wasn’t exactly the conversation I’d fantasized about.

He nodded as he reached his hand toward me. I flinched involuntarily, but he only took the golden pendant in his fingers, his cool skin brushing against mine ever so slightly. I suppressed the involuntary shudder that tried to run its way through my body. “Did you realize what exactly I’d given you?” He looked into my blue eyes with his own nearly black ones.

I shook my head and he answered the question for me, “Not only did I leave you a present under the lid of the vial, but I gave you my blood, which would allow me to find you if you drank it. However, when all this time passed, I figured it hadn’t worked, you’d lost the necklace, or something else had happened. But instead, you just waited a long time to drink it.”

I shrugged; I hadn’t known what drinking his blood would do. I just figured it would do what the rest of vampire blood did. Make me powerful. But then again, the only vampire blood I ever drank came from dead vampires. Maybe for living vampires, if you drank their blood, they could track you down. I stowed that thought away for future thought and experimentation.

“May I come in?” He asked, looking around the empty hallway. I hesitated, but finally agreed. I didn’t want an innocent to come walking by and listen in on our conversation.

He came in and sat down on the bed while I wondered exactly what he was doing here. “Um,” I said nervously, “I’m going to go get dressed.” I wrapped the blanket tighter around myself as I gathered some clothes to take with me into the bathroom.

I was overly aware of his eyes on me as I moved about the room. I edged into the bathroom, trying not to meet his eyes, locking the door behind me. I sighed and leaned against the door. What was I doing letting that vampire in my hotel room? I must have not been thinking clearly.

I quickly slid into jeans and a t-shirt and went back into the room. Draven was still sitting on my bed, sitting utterly, unnaturally still. It just reminded me more that he wasn’t human; he was a vampire, an abomination.

He looked up when I cleared my throat, the life returning to his body. “Why are you here?” I asked. I should have grabbed my knife, just in case. I had one sitting in the drawer of the nightstand, but it wasn’t exactly easy or covert access.

“I was looking for someone else, but I picked up on you instead, when you drank my blood.”

Looking for someone else? Another long lost love probably. I pushed the jealous thoughts out of my head. “So now what?”

“You’re even more lonely that before,” He said in a know-it-all tone.

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious,” I said with bitterness on the edge of my voice.

He shrugged, “You drank my blood, you’re wearing my gift after all these years, and you let me in. Don’t get mad at me now.”

I sighed, he was right; I was getting mad when just a little while before I was wishing he was around. My wish came true, didn’t it? Maybe I should enjoy his presence.

Or maybe he could lead me to Chesed.

The thoughts raced through my head. If anyone knew where Chesed was, Draven would. But would he take me? Could I kill Chesed alone? Maybe Draven would even help me kill him.

“You’re thinking too hard about something,” He said, smiling. “Come and sit down, tell me what you’re thinking.”

Well, I had to be nice to him if I was going to get him to help me. I hesitantly sat on the bed as far away from him as I could without it seeming that way. In reality, I was only about a foot away from him. Even this close, I could feel his power and the way it compelled me to come closer, to touch him, to make any kind of physical contact.

“You know where Chesed is, right?” I blurted, trying to keep my hands to myself.

He frowned slightly, “All business.” He paused and then said, “Yes, I know where he is.”

“Would you take me to him?”

“You think you can take him all by yourself? That would be suicide.” He leaned closer to me, his power nearly drowning me. He was much stronger than before.

“You could help me,” I said, my voice becoming breathy. I didn’t like my voice like that.

He laughed, the sound tickling along my skin and breaking through my control. My hand moved on its own, stroking his arm. His skin was cool to the touch. “Who is trying to seduce whom?” He teased.

I pursed my lips together in a hard line of defiance, my hand still on his arm. He touched my cheek with his hand before gently kissing me. Even in my state, I was ready for it, wanting it, needing it. His kiss tugged at my whole body, making me want him even more. It was all my control to keep from ripping off his or my clothes.

He didn’t need to come up for breath, but I did after what felt like eternity. I gasped for air as he moved his hands to expertly undo the bra that I’d just put on. I stopped him, though and he looked slightly disappointed.

“What if Alex comes back?” I asked.

“What? Will he get jealous?”

I laughed at the thought. “No, Alex and I are not compatible in that sense. We work together well, but that’s about it. I’m just afraid of what he’ll say or do if a vampire is in the room and we’re doing…” My sentence trailed off.

“Doing what?” He asked, amusement in his voice.

“Doing whatever,” I said, blushing.

He kissed me again before saying, “He’s a big boy, he’ll understand. You’ve been deprived for so long, Isis. You need this.” I let him push me onto my back on the bed. He climbed on top of me and kissed me again, his hair falling onto my face, tickling my skin. He pressed himself onto me, but not crushing me. Just so I could feel him as we kissed. While I was catching my breath, he kissed me in other places, licking my ears and kissing my neck and my collar bone. He went back to kissing my lips again before moving back to my neck, almost nuzzling it with his lips and nose, breathing in the scents of my skin and the blood underneath.

“No biting,” I said, that breathiness was still there, worsened by the vampire on top of me, not to mention my hormones.

“Not even a nibble?” He asked. “I’ll let you have more of my blood.”

I paused, thinking about how much I actually trusted Draven. If he wanted, he could drain me dry and I would enjoy it until I died. Or, he could kill me and make it painful. Or he could simply just take a little bit, like he was implying. I sighed, “Just a nibble. But I get my nibble as well.”

He grinned, the points of his fangs gleaming in the hotel lamps. He wasted no time as he brought his mouth down to my neck again. I cried out as he sank those fangs into the skin of my neck. At first, in pain, but then in pleasure. I’d never experienced the pleasure of a vampire bite, the only ones I’d ever received were in the heat of battle. Those weren’t meant to cause pleasure, only pain. Draven’s power only magnified the sensation. He was true to his word, though I wished he wouldn’t have been. He only took a small amount of blood, but even that felt amazing. When he stopped, I begged him to continue in-between gasps for air, but he wouldn’t. He licked at the wound until the bleeding stopped, and then bit into his own wrist, allowing me to suck at the wound.

The blood was even better fresh than it had been from the vial. It wasn’t warm, but that didn’t matter. I drank down as much as he would let me, gorging myself on his blood and power. He seemed to enjoy it as much as he enjoyed drinking my blood, as evidenced by the subtle moans that slipped from his lips and the look on his face.

It didn’t take long before the wound on his wrist healed itself and the blood flow stopped. We both lay on the bed next to each other, no words exchanged about what had passed. The experience had been incredible, and though tired, my body wanted more. I cuddled into his body, slightly warmer now after drinking some of my blood. I’d never seen myself as the type to cuddle, but I wanted closer contact with him. The closer I was, the better I felt.

Draven took the hint and wrapped his arms around me, embracing me. I hugged him back and we both didn’t let go. He kissed my forehead and I found myself crying weakly. Why was I crying? Maybe something inside me clicked, making me realize that Amory was truly no more, and I was finally beginning to move on. I realized that I should have moved on even before he died, because he was never mine to have.

He held me as I mourned the loss and welcomed the future. Draven asked no questions, only offering comfort, which is what I needed. I fell asleep in his arms, not worrying about silly things like trust and betrayal, knives and killing. Did I trust Draven? Probably not. But he gave me something no one else could.

The ability to move on.

-----

A/N: Sorry it was late, I feel like I'm running behind on everything lately. Maybe I'll get some writing time to get ahead during Thanksgiving...I doubt it. :( I've also thought of some new ideas for the rewrite of book one, so I'm going to start work on that. I also have a test Thursday, so expect some lateness again this week. >.<

I hope this chapter wasn't overly graphic for everyone. I tried to keep everything toned down and it turned into bloodsharing instead of sex, which I guess for those two is just as good if not better. This is my first time writing something like this scene, so it was difficult for me to do. Give me input on what to do to make it better, etc.

Chapter Ten - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:05:00 +0000

“Isis,” Alex’s voice came from far away, even though he was right beside me. I wasn’t thinking about the present, though. I was just thinking about the past. I was thinking about how stupid I was to let Amory fight Chesed alone, how easily Chesed got away after that, how we should have at least tried to pursue him. Now we were alone. Amory was dead, Earric was probably dead, Raze was off somewhere, and Chesed had moved on. We had no leads. Was it hopeless? Should we just give up?

“Isis,” He repeated again, touching my arm. Why was he still helping me? He knew Amory the least of our group, yet he still wanted to stay and avenge his death. He didn’t owe Amory anything.

I looked up at him and he asked, “What should we do now?”

I sighed, why did I have to have all the answers? “I don’t know, Raze. I just don’t know where to start. He could be anywhere. This is the same problem Amory had.”

“Well, it’s hard for me to be helpful when you just sulk,” He said, a hint of pouting in his voice.

“You want to help? Just…go look for Chesed if you want to help. Go see if you can find him. It’s a worthless try, but if you want to be helpful, you can just go for it.” Yeah, it was harsh, but his comment to me hadn’t been all that sensitive either. Alex had a habit of grating on my nerves.

I went to take a shower, the hot water instantly making me feel a little better, taking the edge off the defeated feeling inside. I wrapped the white bath towel around myself and went back into the main room.

Alex was gone, and so was the car. I sighed and sank into my bed, the flowery scent of the bedding making me sleepy. I could just lie on that bed forever, curled up in a warm meadow of blankets and not think about vampires or blood or death. A part of me longed to have had that normal life, however boring it might have been.

My eyes caught on the necklace laying on the nightstand; the one Draven had given me so many years ago. My hand crept over to it, rolling the cool glass vial of blood and its golden chain in between my fingers. How long had I had this? Decades, at least. And I hadn’t seen Draven since then. He’d offered me his love, but was it all just some game he was playing for Chesed? I had to think the latter, since I hadn’t seen him in so long.

I looked at the blood inside the vial, still looking as fresh as it did back when he left it to me. It was time to stop carrying around worthless momentos and move on. Amory was dead; Draven never came to find me. It was all in the past, and I needed to move on the to the present, and then to the future. I undid the cap on the vial, breathing in the scent of his blood. It even smelled fresh. It was time to get rid of this particular keepsake.

“Cheers,” I said to no one as I tipped the vial back and drank down the liquid. It tasted better than anything I’d ever drank. I wondered if vampire blood was like wine, the longer it aged the better it tasted. Or maybe Draven’s was particularly tasty.

I licked the last few drops of blood from the vial and set it on the nightstand. The necklace, with its gold chain, held another surprise for me. The bottom of the vial’s former cap was studded with large diamonds, and without the glass on it, the pendant hung from the chain round and golden, just like a normal necklace.

I sighed when I looked at it. I’d been carrying thousands of dollars worth of diamonds right under my nose and I’d never even noticed. We could have been staying in much nicer places if I’d found and sold those diamonds off.

But Draven gave the necklace to me, and I wondered about the significance of the item. I hung it back around my neck for safekeeping as I began to feel the blood coursing through my veins like I’d chugged a case of Red Bull. I felt better about my situation. I could still find Chesed, and this necklace might help if I had any financial troubles. I hated the thought of selling Draven’s gift to me, but oh well. He was a vampire. A vampire that made empty promises. So long ago, he’d told me to remember his offer if I got lonely, but how was I supposed to find him? He was just as elusive as Chesed, maybe even more so.

Though the blood gave me energy and power, I felt tired. I curled up in the bed, covering myself in the flowery blankets, wearing nothing but Draven’s necklace. Maybe Alex would come back with good news, if he came back at all. Maybe if I found Chesed, I would also find Draven, or at least get some information about where he was. It was almost time to move on.

*****

The hardest part of getting out of that place was waiting Raze out. He didn’t have a very long attention span, but he was watching me all the time, despite my threats to break his bones. I could only assume that he was more afraid of Chesed than he was of me.

I went into the main part of our downtown warehouse, which I’d made into a garage. The above ground part wasn’t being used for anything else, so what did it matter? I set about to tinkering with one of my bikes, while Raze sat on a workbench and stared off into space. He glanced at me from time to time for the first few hours, and then got restless, pacing the room and thinking hard.

Finally, he left. I waited for a few minutes, but from the sounds of his footfalls, he was definitely going downstairs toward Chesed’s chambers. I rolled my bike out of the garage, doing my best to be perfectly quiet. I wheeled it down the block a little bit more before climbing on and revving it to life.

It was time to find the hunters. Chesed was on the verge of escalating his plans to prove the existence of vampires to humans. He was under the impression that humans, especially the young, were infatuated with vampires and the idea of vampires. He was under the impression that if humans knew vampires existed, that we wouldn’t have to hide in the shadows anymore. He wanted vampires to become tourist attractions, things that the humans would flock to see.

I was disgusted by it. We weren’t pets to be fondled by the humans. We were monsters, creatures of the night, murderers. It was a bad idea.

My main objective was to find Earric. She was the only one powerful enough to destroy Chesed, and my best bet. I would have to teach her a bit, mostly what I learned from Chesed myself, about finding hidden powers. Chesed and myself had our own powers, and I was sure she had her own as well. After coaching her and training her, we would finally be able to take down Chesed.

As I drove, using my power to try to find the young vampire, I happened upon something else, something much more worth investigating.

It started as a signal, almost a radar-like pinging in my mind, but as I followed that signal, it became stronger, it was almost a pull in that direction, I felt the urge to follow it.

But what could it be? I racked my brain trying to figure it out. What was this call inside my mind? I followed it, the only thing I could do. I had to find out.

-----

A/N: This is the bonus chapter I promised. The ending is a little weak, but I'm considering picking up on this storyline Thursday before going back to Az and Earric or Raze and Chesed. We'll see. :)

Anyway, hope you like it.

Chapter Nine - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:00:00 +0000

I awoke to the smell of a clean pillow, the feel of warm sheets, and the vision of Isis’ face in mine. It startled me at first, but when I realized who it was, I rolled over on my side and tried to snooze a bit longer.

She shoved me, “Get up, Alex.”

I moaned into my lilac-scented sheets, “A little longer.” I’d only been asleep for a few hours. Today we would be doing some daytime reconnaissance, when the vampires were safely tucked away in their coffins or holes or whatever.

She shoved some coffee under my nose, the smell instantly perking me up. I knew better than to keep trying to sleep. Isis would be nice at first, with the bribing, but then she’d just pour ice in my bed if I didn’t get up. I preferred the coffee.

I drank the coffee black and then stretched and got out of bed. I took a quick shower and brushed my teeth, getting dressed in a clean shirt and a pair of jeans I’d worn a few times since their last washing. We were in need of a laundry day, but we just hadn’t had the time. The hotel we were in was much nicer than the last one, but still cheap enough for us to be able to stretch our money. We’d get more, especially if we found more vampires.

I followed Isis downstairs into our little blue car and she got in the driver’s side, forcing me to take passenger once again. I decided not to complain, though. I didn’t even know where we were going.

While Isis drove, I spent my time looking out the window with nothing better to do. I wondered where Earric was, and if she was alive. I hoped she was alive, and I hoped to get to see her again. I entertained daydreams during the drive, eventually sinking back into my seat and taking a little nap. The coffee hadn’t helped combat the sleepiness at all.

I woke up when Isis slowed the car down, gasping. I opened my eyes and rubbed the bleariness out of them, surveying the scene.

We were at what seemed like an old church, maybe even old enough to be a historic landmark, but it was now burned to the ground, only charred bits of the foundation and debris left. Isis pulled into the gravel area in front of the building and got out. I followed, unable to look away from the burned church.

“Was this Chesed’s base?” I asked Isis carefully, overturning a charred piece of wood.

Isis nodded, “Earric told me this is where she went to be changed from human to vampire. She said she met Chesed here, and he seemed to be living here.”

I picked up a piece of wood and smelled it. “It was arson, I can still smell the gasoline. It also seems like it happened quite recently, within the last few days.”

“We were just a little too late,” She said sadly. “Now he’s moved on, and it’ll be even harder to track him down.

“We’ll find him,” I said as I snagged the car keys out of her hand. She glared at me, but then climbed into the passenger seat. I managed to figure out how to get back to the hotel and drove us while she stared out the window and cried silently.

*****

When Chesed gave me my job, I thought it’d be at least a little interesting. The way Chesed acted when he gave me the job was that Draven was bein’ bad, and it was up to me to find out exactly what he was doin’ and let Chesed know so he could stop him.

But Draven wasn’t bein’ bad. He wasn’t really doin’ nothin’ ‘cept just sit around and play with his bikes. It was borin’ to just sit around and hope Draven would do something.

I left Draven alone and went to find Chesed. The old vampire wasn’t doin’ nothin’ anyway. I’d talk to Chesed, tell him Draven wasn’t up to nothin’ after all and tell him I didn’t need to look after him no more. Then maybe I’d get to do some fun stuff.

We were in a different place now, since we couldn’t stay at that old church no more. This new place was what I’d call, “Hidden in plain sight.” It was an abandoned building in the bad part of town. Most windows were broken, grafitti everywhere, and lotsa rats. It used to be part of a sugar factory, but it was long since closed down. Chesed actually owned the place, but purposely kept it lookin’ bad. What do vampires need with shiny new buildings anyway? We were in the building’s basement, though I stayed in a small room above ground durin’ the day. The room used to be a break room, but it was better than sleepin’ underground. Somethin’ about it just made me uncomfortable.

Chesed was in his room, lookin’ through some files. He turned to look at me when I walked in and smiled, hidin’ his fangs so he looked like a normal person.

“Hello Raze, how is your watch going?”

“He ain’t doin’ nothin’. I don’t think I need to watch him anymore.” I was losin’ some of my confidence, bein’ so close to Chesed and feelin’ his power. I tried to stand up straight though and look him in the eyes.

He frowned, not a good sign. “You only have been watching him for a few days, Raze. Do you think he’s just going to go do something right away? That’s why you need to watch him so closely, because he might try to betray me at any second. He could be doing it right now and you wouldn’t know because you’re in here with me.”

I shook my head, “Nah, he’s just tinkerin’ with one of his bikes. He’s been doin’ that all evenin’ long. Isn’t there somethin’ else I could do for ya? Or maybe you could help me out, give me some more power?”

He laughed and then went back to his papers. I took that as a no and headed back out the door, goin’ down the hallway. I stopped when he called my name. I turned around and jogged back to the door, “Yeah?” Maybe he remembered somethin’ I could do for him. Somethin’ actually fun.

“What do humans think about vampires?” He asked me. It was a strange question, but the conversation got more weird later.

“Well, they don’t really believe in vampires, so I guess they don’t think much of ‘em.” I shrugged.

“What if they knew we existed, though? What do you think they would do?”

I thought about my encounters with humans over the last few years. I hadn’t had much interaction, but I’d had enough, especially since Amory had made us go to all those schools. “I suppose some would think it was really cool, others wouldn’t care, and others would hate it. Just like with everything else. They’d all have to learn to accept you guys though, since you could kill them if they didn’t.”

He nodded and asked me, “Do you think the people that like us would outweigh the people that would hate us?”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously. I didn’t like where this conversation was goin.’

Chesed picked up his papers and began to organize them into some neat stacks. After a minute, he said, “Ever since I was made a vampire, I wondered how life would be if humans knew we existed. Not just in the story or fairy tale sense, but as real creatures. What would they do? How would they act? Would they accept us or shun us? Would they treat us like humans, or kill us on sight? We are in an age of acceptance, a time of change. I think it’s time that humans learn about us, the true vampires.”

I stood and gaped at Chesed, my mouth open and my eyes wide. Was he really plannin’ on revealin’ vampires to the world? It was a terrible idea! Vampires would surely be hunted down and killed. No one in their right minds would allow blood-sucking creatures to exist if they knew about them. Chesed had no right to expose the vampires to the world just out of his own curiosity. I wasn’t a vampire, though, and it wasn’t my decision to make. If Chesed wanted to doom his own people, that was fine by me. I’d just have to stock up on blood beforehand.

Dawn was approachin’ in a few hours, so I said my gooddays to Chesed and headed back to check on Draven.

When I got to the garage, there was a problem. Draven’s bike was gone, and so was he.

-----

A/N: There's going to be another chapter posted before Sunday. When before Sunday, I have no clue, but it will be posted. :P

Also, some fun facts about Becoming. The entire story, all three parts that have been posted, comes out to about 140 pages in Microsoft Word. (Size 12 font, single spaced, Times New Roman) As for the word count, Becoming has passed 86,000 words.

I'm kinda proud of myself. That's a lot of writing.

Chapter Eight - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:35:00 +0000

The city was alive. Alive in a way it never was back before I became a vampire. Every human I passed, brushed up against, smelled, I could taste their blood, roll it over my tongue, practically drink it without even touching them. I hadn’t realized I was so hungry until their warm bodies surrounded me, until their sweet scents were on my lips. It took all my control to keep from grabbing a random person and drinking their blood right there on the sidewalk, in front of all those people. The look in my eyes must have scared some of them, because a few backed away from me after chancing a glance at my face. I could feel the muscles in my face tightening with effort as I tried to keep my expression blank.

I forced my way through the streets, finally escaping the crowds. They were all dressed up like they were going to a rock concert or something, all in black t-shirts emblazoned with random band names, hair spiked in mohawks and other strange hairdos. I felt a disconnect from these people. I was only a new, young vampire, but I already felt like I was another species separate from the humans. I was so different from them.

I felt another vampire other than myself. He was nearby, but not in the crowd, so I moved on.

I pressed myself against a building, melting into the shadows. The air here was fresher, not in the ecological sense, but in a different way. There were fewer humans around, so the air didn’t carry the smell of life, the smell of blood as heavy as it was back on the sidewalk.

I rounded a corner, following my senses. I could feel the vampire’s power, similarly to how I could feel Chesed’s. It was weaker, much weaker, but it was there.

A few blocks away from the main streets, in darkness and shadows, the vampire was there, feeding on a lonely human. The vampire hadn’t been careful enough to choose a victim that wouldn’t be missed. Instead, he had chosen one of the concertgoers, a girl maybe just out of high school, her bleached-blonde hair cut short and spiked with green glittery gel. She was wearing a tight-fitting black t-shirt sporting her support for Metallica with no bra underneath, the letters stretched out over her cleavage. Her black skirt was short enough for me to be able to see the thong that matched her hair. By the time I got there, her eyes were already glazed over and dead, the vampire wiping blood off his mouth.

When he dropped the girl’s lifeless body, I was able to get a better look at him. His clothing was covered in blood, but not the girl’s. The kill had been clean. Not only were they bloodsoaked, but also they were torn in places. The skin around his wrists and ankles was blackened and burned. The skin should have healed, unless it had been damaged with silver. I looked up at his face and hardly recognized him through the mangled features. The bones of his face had been broken and re-healed repeatedly, but they hadn’t been set properly, so the healing wasn’t perfect. His face was slightly misshapen. The bones would have to be broken once more if he wanted look normal again.

“Az?” I asked carefully. He had to know that I was the equivalent to a wanted criminal. Would my own brother turn me in? His blue gaze stared me down behind his swollen features.

“Earric,” He said quietly.

“What happened to you?” The last time I’d seen him, everything was fine. Was he in trouble? Did he escape from some vampire hunters after being tortured? He stumbled over the dead body to me and hugged me, almost as if he needed to touch me in order to confirm that I was real.

“I’ll be alright, are you okay? We were all worried about you.” There was blood on my shirt, but I ignored it, even though the vampire part of me craved it, wanted to lick it off his face, suck every drop from the fabric. He stood up and tried his best to compose himself, but there wasn’t much he could do about his appearance.

“I’m fine, but I can’t really say much.” I was trying my best to be cautious. Sure, he was my brother, but he could also be the enemy.

“Why not? Mom and dad don’t know where you are, Chesed’s got a witch-hunt going on for you, and most of us already thought you were dead. Just tell me what’s going on, sis.”

Az had always been nosey, and maybe he was truly worried about me, but I didn’t want to tell him anything. I did need something from him, though, so if he truly wanted something in return, I could give him some information, things I already knew Chesed knew.

“Az, I know this is an odd request, but could manage to spare a little bit of your blood?”

* * * * *

She was my ticket back into Chesed’s favor. Right now, I was an outlaw, just like her, but she didn’t know it. If Chesed or his people caught me alive, they would know that Draven didn’t kill me. They would know that something was going on and both Draven and I would be dead or worse. However, if I brought Chesed the object of his fanatical desire, if I brought him Earric, my sins would be absolved. I would be back in his favor. He might even let me take Draven’s place at his side, since Draven would be inevitably punished for letting me go. I never liked the vampire anyway, even if he did save me.

Earric had already betrayed her own race, I had given her the best education I could, and if she was too stupid to make the right decisions, maybe she did deserve to die. From what I learned from her, she’d been living with some vampire hunters. They let her live and she became their little pet vampire, living off their blood. While it did make her more powerful – I could feel it just standing next to her – she also now felt that killing humans was a bad thing. I gave her a bit of my blood. She never said that I couldn’t kill humans, so I could replenish in a few nights

She was being cautious, but I knew if I stayed with her for a few days, I could get some information from her. I was her favorite brother, I’d always doted on her and helped her when she was in trouble or needed something. She’d eventually crack and confide in me. Until then, I just needed to stay out of Chesed’s sights.

Earric brought me back to a farm outside of Dallas, where she was staying in a smelly tool shed. It wasn’t comfortable or safe, but it was the best either of us could do. As I quietly huddled under a blue tarp next to her, waiting for dawn pretending to be vulnerable and worn, I thought about Draven and why he let me go. Why would he take such a risk? He told me to find Earric, but was I supposed to accomplish when I found her? Were we all pawns in some game Draven was playing with us? I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and focused on how I would get Earric to trust me, how I would get her back to Chesed without realizing. She was my last hope.

-----
A/N: Firstly, I apologize for the lateness. I should be able to get some writing done this weekend and if I do, I'll post a bonus chapter on Monday or Tuesday. I'm not sure about this chapter, I know it's kind of short, and Az's PoV part needs more, so it will probably be revised soon. Anyway, let me know what you guys think, and have a Happy Halloween!

Chapter Seven - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:00:00 +0000

When I awoke at nightfall, I found myself conflicted. I essentially had two choices. I could go on a search for Isis and Alex, or I could go after Chesed alone. Draven told me to find Isis and Alex and then wait for him, but I really didn’t know where to begin. Chesed would be so much easier to find, since I could sense him, and it seemed as if he couldn’t sense me.

I left the dirty shed and went on into the city. My shelter seemed safe enough, and I would probably return to it before dawn, but I wouldn’t take the risk of staying there longer than a few days. I would hopefully find my friends before then, or maybe find Chesed.

The nights were cold now, but I didn’t really feel it. Well, I felt the cold, but it didn’t bother me like it would have back when I was alive.

I had nothing with me. No money, no sustenance, no change of clothes, no safe place to stay. No friends.

After spending several weeks with the hunters, drinking human blood seemed wrong, evil. I didn’t want to take an innocent life if I didn’t have to. But there was still the inevitable. I was going to get hungry.

As I was traveling into Dallas, wondering and fretting about what I should do, I came to a realization. I’d been living off of Isis and Alex’s blood, but they had similar blood to my own, to a vampire’s. So why not just hunt down other vampires and take their blood?

I cringed inwardly at the thought of killing my own kind. Surely they weren’t all evil? But they still took human lives, and they would have to be destroyed eventually. If not by me then by the vampire hunters. It was all I could think of to do. The more I thought about it, the better idea it seemed.

I grinned as I ran, feeling my fangs brush against my lips as I thought about the blood I would be consuming soon enough. I was going hunting.

* * * * *

Chesed was obsessed, but I didn’t know why. Maybe Earric bugged him deep down. Maybe he knew she was more powerful than him. Something about her bothered him so much that he just had to find her.

I looked down at the poor vampire, his arms and legs bound with silver chains. This was no way to treat a devoted follower. This vampire was only guilty by association to Earric. He knew nothing, but Chesed was convinced that he did.

“Where is she?” Chesed asked for the hundredth time as he hit the vampire across the face. I heard bones crack. Blood coated both Chesed and his victim. He would heal, but it would take longer as he kept losing blood.

“I told you, I really don’t know.” The vampire was crying, the pathetic creature. “I would have told you a long time ago if I knew where she was.”

“Chesed,” I said softly, “He’s telling the truth.”

“He only thinks he’s telling the truth. I just have to beat the real information out of him. He trained the girl, he’s her closest family member, and they lived together. He has to know where she would go, what she would do, where she would stay.”

Raze was sitting behind me. He had been following me around like a lonely puppy for the whole evening. I don’t know why he was suddenly intrigued by me, but it was already starting to get annoying. If he continued to follow me around, I would have to hurt him so he couldn’t pursue me. I didn’t need a shadow, especially one so close to Chesed. Raze seemed to be enjoying the torture session, as I imagined he would. He was the type to get off on hurting others, which was why he enjoyed hunting vampires so much. That, and the power.

I left the room and Raze followed, though he looked as if he really wanted to stay and watch. “Why are you following me, Raze?” I asked without even turning to look back at him.

I heard him pause, the shuffling of his feet stopping. “I’m not really followin’ ya. I just hadta go grab somethin’.”

His statement made me laugh, “Well just in case you are following me, just know that I’m not past breaking your legs. They will heal, but it will still be excruciatingly painful.”

He took in a sharp breath that sounded like a small gasp and hurried past me toward the room he was temporarily staying in. He had one of the few aboveground rooms, since they had windows, however cracked and broken they were. Once Chesed was done interrogating our prisoner, we were going to burn this old church to the ground. We already had a new place picked out, but Chesed wanted to finish a few projects before we moved on.

I took my moment of peace from Raze to go to my own chamber, which was underground, gathering up a few items, such as the knife I had confiscated from Earric and some old books, aged and thin, valuables that I’d held onto over the years. All these items fit nicely into the inner pockets of my jacket, something that I wore for appearance rather than function. Cold and heat didn’t bother me like it did so long ago when I was alive.

I heard a rustling and turned to see Raze shuffling past my door, coming, going, or spying, I couldn’t tell. I would have to keep a closer eye out for Chesed’s new pet. I had a feeling Chesed was using him to keep an eye on me, to keep me from betraying him. It would take a lot more than a little punk with some vampire blood in him to stop me. I just didn’t want Chesed to know about it until it would be too late for him to retaliate.

I went back to the room Chesed and his hostage were in. It was an aboveground room, Chesed liked to chain vampires up in here sometimes just so they would burn to death when the sun rose, a terrible fate. Raze appeared a few moments later, as I suspected he would. The room smelled of blood, fear, and past death. “If we don’t leave now, we will have to stay another night. Otherwise, we won’t finish and make it to our new resting place before dawn.”

Chesed looked down at the broken vampire with disgust. “Fine, he is not going to tell me anything useful anyway. Dispose of him while I finish gathering what I need. Then, we leave.”

Chesed left the room, but Raze stayed, watching me. “What are ya gonna do with him?” He asked.

“Chesed wants me to kill him, so I’ll kill him.” I looked down at the pitiful creature and wondered how I was going to get him out of this.

“Can I have his blood?” He asked, coming closer.

I turned to look at him, “Haven’t had enough of Chesed’s?”

“I could always use more,” Raze licked his lips.

I sighed and looked away, my hand wishing to break his face. I smiled inwardly at the though. Raze seemed the type to not take pain easily. He liked to cause pain, but if someone were to hurt him, he would probably cry about it even after it healed. “Raze, do you think you could do me a favor while I take care of this for Chesed?”

He looked at me suspiciously, “Depends on the favor.”

I pulled a large key ring out of my jacket pocket, “Can you go move my bikes to the woods beside the building for me? We’re going to be burning the place down and I would like to not have to buy new ones. Plus, I won’t be able to move them all tonight, so throw that brown tarp we have over them so they’ll stay out of sight, okay?” I tossed the heavy bundle of keys to him and he caught it, looking sour. We didn’t have an actual garage to keep bikes and cars, but we had a large carport attached to the side of the church. It would catch fire once we burned the church down. “What, are you going to be an ass about it and not help me out?”

He sighed and left the room, “I’ll be back real quick.” It sounded more like a threat than a statement.

I turned my attention once more to the vampire in front of me. He was crying weakly, lying on his side, curled up in the fetal position. I crouched down to assess his condition, but he shrank away from my touch. “You have no need to fear me, I’m going to get you out of here.”

“You said you were going to kill me,” He said softly. He opened his eyes and looked at me, “You’re Draven, you’re Chesed’s lapdog. You won’t help me. You’ll just hurt me even more.”

I laughed, “Chesed only wishes me to be his lapdog. I can’t do much for you; I can only help you escape from this place. What you do from there is up to you. Now we need to hurry, before Raze or Chesed himself gets back.” I carefully undid his shackles and helped him up. Chesed had done a number on the vampire, but it was mostly localized to the head and face. He had deep, nasty-looking burns where the silver had dug into his wrists and ankles. He would have the scars forever.

I carried him out into the hallway, happy to see that Raze wasn’t back from his task yet. The place was deserted. We made our way out of the hallway and into the main part of the church. The room’s hollow interior echoed with my footsteps as I tried my best to sneak out. The vampire in my arms didn’t move, he didn’t breathe, he didn’t say a word, but as I glanced down at him I still saw blood-tinged tears leaking from his eyes. I could have used my power to help him, to see into his mind and soothe him, help him feel better, but I didn’t want to take the risk that Chesed might sense it, and I didn’t want to use any energy I might need for later.

I made it out the back door and set the vampire down, watching him as he stood, wobbly on his hurting ankles. “This is as far as I can take you,” I whispered. He nodded, not asking any questions. He knew better. “Go find someone to drink from and you’ll feel better, go find shelter. Maybe you’ll find your sister, she should be somewhere in the city. Most importantly, don’t get caught again. If you do, I’ll kill you myself.”

I went back inside as he left as fast as he could, hobbling away. I hoped he would live, I hoped he would be okay, but he wasn’t my problem anymore.

I was back in the room, burning some clothes and blankets when Raze came back. I put so much lighter fluid on it, it was already mostly burned, a pile of ash. I had the window open to let the acrid smoke out. He looked suspicious, but said nothing as he gave me back my keys. I left the room and Raze followed. We met Chesed outside.

“Ready?” He asked me as I walked out.

I nodded wordlessly as I went down the stairs and climbed onto my black Ducati, one of my favorite bikes. I would let Chesed and Raze have their fun burning down the building, I was content just watching.

-----

A/N: Hmm so comments about this chapter...I've noticed that the chapters are getting longer, I guess that should make you guys happy. More content! My Draven fan club should be happy, since most of this chapter is narrated by Draven. The next chapter will continue from this a bit longer. And for a time framing, all this is happening on the same night as Isis and Alex's little hunt.

To the anonymous person that commented yesterday, thanks for catching my errors, I proofread the chapters, but sometimes stuff escapes me. I need to find a dedicated proofreader, the only problem is that I procrastinate most of the time so lately I haven't had chapters ready for posting. I just finish them, read them a few times, then post them. Maybe one day I'll get ahead...

Chapter Six - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:00:00 +0000

We got up a little after sunset and began to get ready. The bottom of the shower was black and grimy, so I wore flip-flops the whole time. I didn’t trust the stained towels, so I used my own, thankful that I had brought two along, one for me and one for Alex. We would have to go to a Laundromat in a few days. We didn’t have that many changes of clothes.

I dried my hair in the towel and then wrapped it around myself, peering into the dingy mirror. We didn’t have a blow-dryer or any product for me to use in my hair, so all I would be able to do was comb it and hope for the best. I ignored the roaches as I brushed my teeth. I’d lived in worse conditions.

“All yours,” I told Alex as I walked out of the bathroom. He didn’t have any flip-flops, but he was a guy. He’d live. He took his towel and his outfit for the night into the bathroom with him. I would get dressed while he cleaned up. He would wear all black that evening. Black pants and a black shirt so he could blend in with the darkness. I chose something a little more…

“Why did you bring that?” He asked me when he stepped out of the bathroom. I was standing in front of the cracked floor-to-ceiling mirror that was hung crookedly on one wall, adjusting my outfit so it would be provocative but not too revealing.

“I figured we might need it,” I said as I applied the blood-red lipstick and enough makeup to make myself look rosy-cheeked and appetizing. Actually, the outfit had still been in the trunk from the last time we went hunting, but I liked Alex to think that I planned ahead.

My skirt was black leather and so short I unconsciously kept pulling it down, wishing I had more material. My legs, longer than normal with the tiny skirt, were covered in a spider web of fishnet stockings, ending in three-inch spike-heeled knee-high black leather boots, a great place – and the only place – to hide my knife.

Alex helped me lace up the top, which was essentially just a black leather bustier with a corset back. He cinched it tight enough so it wouldn’t slip, but loose enough that I could still breathe and move. My necklace from Draven hung around my neck, the end of the small vial dipping into my cleavage. I just wore my hair down, carefully combing through it and allowing it to air-dry, the silvery-white strands flowing down my back and over my shoulders. I practiced smiling in front of the mirror, trying to look cheerful.

“How do I look?” I asked, doing a quick turn for Alex.

“Like a Goth whore, but a happy one,” He said, peeking and then looking away quickly.

I laughed, “Good.” I threw him the keys, not wanting to drive in the heels. I could barely walk in them.

“Where are we going?” He grabbed his own knife. We had the rest of our supplies in the trunk of the car.

“A nightclub. Any will suffice, this city should be crawling with vampires. Drop me off and find somewhere to park, and then follow me on foot. I’ll send you signals whenever I can.”

We drove until we found a particularly busy nightclub. Alex stopped to let me out and I gave him a little wave, feeling empowered and flirty in the outfit.

Skipping the line, the bouncer let me in right away. I kissed the muscled man on the cheek and slipped inside.

The music pulsed and throbbed as I wound my way through the crowd. I had an objective, and though I didn’t know what the vampire looked like, I could feel him somewhere in the living mass of people.

I ignored the casual groping, smiled in the general direction of shouts and catcalls, and ended up with a drink in my hand, casually pretending to sip at it.

I finally found the vampire, after pushing my way to what seemed like the very core of the crowd. He was a tall man with loosely-curled brown hair. He was handsome, as they almost always are. He was seated on a couch with several girls around him, all sipping colorful drinks and giggling. He was smiling as well, showing careful restraint around so many living, breathing humans.

He looked up at me when I walked up to the group, his brown eyes curious, then his gaze broke from mine as his eyes roved over my body. Hopefully, I would be of some interest to him, since my body was playing the part as bait. He needed to look at me and see something tasty, something he couldn’t get just anywhere.

Sure enough, he stood up and walked a few steps away from the girls and towards me. The girls gave me evil looks behind his back as I shook his hand. He introduced himself as William-call-me-Will and I introduced myself as Marie, a name I often used in situations like these.

We wandered away from the group of girls while I tried my best to be flirty and elusive. I was out of practice, but I knew he was intrigued. I hid my power as best I could, but I also allowed him to see the slightest trickle. Enough so he would know that I was not entirely human, but not to where he would know what I was. I also wanted him to think that, whatever I was, I did know I was different from a normal human. I could have had magic in my lineage, fairy or witch ancestors that passed just the slightest hint of power on to me, enough to make my blood extra-tasty and refreshing.

Hours passed. He bought me several drinks, which I sipped so my breath would taste like alcohol, and disposed of when he wasn’t looking. We danced and chatted, both pretending to be normal humans among humans. I pretended to be drunk as the hours wore on, tripping and stumbling in my ridiculous boots. My feet were sore and my face ached from smiling and giggling so much.

“I’m getting pretty tired,” I told him. “Maybe I should go.” I had to yell it over the thrumming of the fast music, but I knew he could have heard it even if I whispered.

“Already?” He looked sad.

“You could come with me,” I said, grinning.

He smiled and led me out the door. Just what he wanted to hear.

The night air was cool and refreshing after all the smoke and sweaty bodies inside.

“Can you walk me to my car?” I asked him, purposely stumbling over the cracks in the sidewalk.

“You’re too drunk to drive,” Will said, his face a picture of concern.

“Well, you can drive or something, or we can take a cab, but I really need to get something out of my car,” I said stubbornly. I could feel Alex nearby. I just had to get the vampire out of the open.

He agreed to walk me to my car and I led him down the sidewalk in the direction of a parking garage. I scanned the area for somewhere dark and out of the way. No one was really out at this time; they had either left already or were still enjoying themselves inside.

“Where did you park?” He asked after a few minutes of walking.

I pointed into the darkness ahead of us. “Just a bit further.”

A few minutes more and I finally made my move. We were far enough away from the nightclub that no one would walk out and see us, and the businesses we were standing in front of were all closed for the night.

I “tripped,” crying out as I fell to the ground. Will stopped and kneeled down next to me.

“Are you alright?” He asked as he helped me up.

Then I began my final act. I bit my lip and forced tears out of my eyes. I let him help me up to standing before my right ankle gave out. I cried in pain and slumped into his arms. “No, I’m not alright,” I cried into his chest as he held me. “I think it’s sprained.”

There weren’t any benches nearby, so I let him help me lean against the wall of a building, in the shadows. “Your ankle?” He asked. I tried my best to look pathetic as I nodded, tears still streaming out of my eyes.

He began to take off my boot when he encountered a problem.

“Uh oh,” I whispered as he discovered the knife, its silver blade gleaming in the moonlight.

“Who are you?” He asked suspiciously as I jerked my leg away from him, grabbing the knife and kicking off the boot, attempting to stand up on one leg still in the boots and one foot only in the hose. “What, you think you’re some kind of vigilante? Luring me out here and trying to get me to let my guard down?” He backed up, bumping into Alex, who had appeared out of the darkness and was holding his own weapon.

“It worked,” I said as he turned, trying to figure out what to do. He was a young vampire. Young and stupid.

Alex ultimately killed Will. It was a clean wound, so we would get a high yield of blood from him. He drained the vampire as I undid my other boot, pulled it off, and slid out of the stockings, trying my best to do it gracefully in the short skirt. We checked the vampire’s pockets and found around five-hundred dollars in cash. That was nearly quadruple what we had. It was a good night for us. We dragged the body back out of the way and set it on fire, then went back to the car, which was parked up the road, carrying it in two half-full one gallon milk jugs.

“Now what?” He asked me as we loaded the car back up with the supplies.

“First, we find a better place to stay, somewhere roach-free, then we find Chesed, and we kill him.”

I made it sound so simple.

-----

A/N It feels like I just posted...I guess it's because I did on like Sunday. Yay, this chapter is on time! This chapter really doesn't have too much to do with the plot, but it develops nicely into a way of showing that, despite their differences, Isis and Alex can still function and work together. Plus, they were running low on blood, and needed to get that out of the way before they could move on. I also liked making Isis a little slutty. Maybe she can wear that outfit for Draven sometime. I kind of wanted to make it Draven she found in the nightclub instead of just some random vampire, but I thought it would move the story along too fast. Mostly because Raze would probably be with him and I don't want the hunters to know about Raze yet.

My next post might be coming from my new MacBook! I should be getting it within the next 30 hours. :D

Anyway, tell me what you think. I was a little worried about this chapter, so I want honest feedback! Should it stay in the story?

Chapter Five - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:18:00 +0000

Previous Chapter

Dallas. All tall buildings, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and enough vampires to keep us alive for years.

Isis and I made it into the city while it was still dark. It was still early in the morning, in that time right before the morning traffic starts to hit, when it’s still dark out and you’re wondering why you’re not sleeping.

“Tonight?” I asked her, referring to our need to replenish our supplies of vampire blood. I was still uneasy in the awkward silence that had predominated pretty much the entire trip. It was always awkward with Isis, which was why I always tried to avoid situations where I was alone with her. Isis and I just didn’t mesh together well.

“No, not tonight,” Her tone implying that I was stupid to even ask. “Tonight we find somewhere safe to stay. We also need to start planning our assault on Chesed, so you need to be thinking about that.”

I sighed and sank back into the seat, truly wondering what my role in this still was. Did I have an obligation to die for Amory? Is that what he would have wanted? I didn’t know him well enough to know what he would have wanted, plus he had kept to himself too much. All I really knew was that he wished to see Chesed dead.

Maybe Chesed was already dead. I entertained that idea as Isis tried to find us a cheap motel where we could stay. We didn’t have much cash, but there was bound to be something we could afford for a few nights.

I pretended to be planning our next moves, but I was really fantasizing about Earric killing Chesed, imagining his bloody corpse with Earric standing over it, blood coating her body and drenching her knife as she relished in her kill.

I really hoped she was still alive.

We finally found a disgusting motel for just twenty bucks a night. Isis got our key and we made our way to the room, wondering what we would find. Isis carried our small pile of clothes and a bag of toiletries while I carried the cooler. When we went in the room, all I could smell was urine and roaches. It was definitely a bad place to stay, but we didn’t have much of a choice. A big sign on the inside of the door said, “NO REFUNDS.” This would be our home for the next few days.

The small refrigerator was stale and sticky with spilled alcohol, but I unloaded the full vials into it anyway. We would need more ice for the cooler before we moved on. Maybe the motel had an ice machine, but I doubted it.

There was only one bed, and I was happy enough to allow Isis to sleep on it. The stains and cigarette burns in the blankets weren’t comforting. After pulling back the comforter and checking the sheets, Isis decided to use her own blanket she’d brought with, stripping the mattress of all the linens, dumping them on the floor, and cocooning herself in the clean fabric. I would sleep on the small couch, thought I knew I would wake up sore. I wouldn’t share the bed with Isis. The couch was hard, and the material on the cushions was scratchy. I was also taller than the couch was long, so my legs awkwardly hung over one side. I almost just went to the car to sleep, but it would be light soon and the room had thick, heavy curtains.

Before I went to bed, I closed the curtains and hung a do-not-disturb sign on the doorknob. I told Isis goodnight, but she was already snoring. I curled myself up into a ball on the couch and closed my eyes, trying to sleep, pushing thoughts of life and death out of my head.

* * * *

Dawn was approaching.

I tried not to panic as I scoured the countryside for a place to spend the day. I wouldn’t make it to Dallas, I had misjudged the time I needed to travel there. Hotels and motels were out of the question, since I had no money. I couldn’t go to any of the vampire safe-houses, because Chesed probably had people watching them, or someone might recognize me there.

I had to find someplace dark, someplace where I wouldn’t be disturbed during the day. If someone exposed me to full daylight while I was asleep, it would be agonizing, and I would surely die.

I racked my brain as I tried to find a place to stay. Short of digging a hole and burying myself in it, I had no idea. And even that was a plan full of problems.

A farm is where I ended up that early morning. It was a large and prosperous farm outside Dallas. I didn’t know what I was looking for, or if I’d even find somewhere to hide, but I had no other options.

I flitted around sleeping livestock and found myself by a large barn. Next to it was a tool shed, a rusty metal portable building that had probably been there for ages. I checked the ground around it and smelled the air and the doors. No one had been over here in weeks, maybe more time.

It had a rusty padlock that I broke easily. I opened the door and stepped inside. It was a junk shed, really. The items in it were so old and rusted that they needed to just be thrown away. It smelled strongly of gasoline, paint thinner, and fertilizer, but I didn’t care. The sun was just under the horizon and it was already sapping my energy. I closed the door of the shed and pulled a blue tarp over myself, praying that the shed was light-tight, and if it wasn’t, that the tarp didn’t have any holes. I passed out under the tarp, hoping no one would notice the broken lock or decide to clean out their shed that day.

* * * * *

“Raze,” Chesed said to me. I liked when he said my name. The way he said it made me feel important. Not like whenever Amory said it. Whenever Amory said my name, he always sounded annoyed.

I turned to look at him and did a little bow to acknowledge him. Vampires were all into that respect crap, and since Chesed was basically the vampire President, I wanted to show him the respect he deserved.

“You didn’t warn your friends about us, did you?” His blue eyes were nearly glowin’ when he asked me this.

“Why would I warn ‘em?” I asked. Stupid Earric probably felt him comin’. I wondered if he knew that. I wondered why he didn’t just do it with her like she could with him.

“He could just be using you for your power,” Draven said. I hadn’t even noticed he was there before he talked.

I glared at him, “Isn’t that what you’re doin’?”

He shrugged, “Chesed knows that though. Those without power but a want for power always seek out those more powerful than them.” I rolled my eyes at him.

Chesed looked us both over and then pointed at me, like he wanted me to follow him. He took me into the other room and told Draven to go find somethin’ to do. Draven bowed deeply to Chesed and disappeared, faster than I could see.

Chesed sat me down on a stone table and said, “I have given you only a taste of my power. Do you want more?”

I thought about how much stronger I felt once Chesed gave me his blood and his power. It was addicting, that feelin’, and it’d gone away after only a few hours. My body craved it. I nodded after a moment of reflection. Was he gonna give me more right now?

“I gave you the first taste because I want you to work for me. I think you can be invaluable to me in a myriad of ways. But for the rest of my power, you must do something for me. Your first payment to me did not work out the way we planned, but I am merciful. Instead of calling you a spy or traitor, instead of killing you, I will give you another task.”

I forgot to breathe as he talked. For the first time I realized that the night coulda gone a lot worse. I coulda been dead. I took a deep breath and asked, “What do you want me to do?”

He smiled, showin’ off the points of his canines, “I need you to keep an eye on Draven for me.”

“Why? He’s like your right-hand man!” Plus, I didn’t wanna stalk a vampire.

“He’s gotten to that position because he is ruthless, cunning, and has a strong sense of survival. He will not stay around if there is no reason to, and he won’t mind stirring up a bit of trouble before he takes his leave. I will send you two out together, I will give you assignments and tasks to do together, and I will try to keep you two together but away from me as much as possible. Hopefully then he will divulge his secrets to you or you might be able to catch him in the act of subversion.”

I nodded, it seemed easy enough, even though I would have to be spendin’ a lot of time with the vampire. It coulda been worse though…I coulda been dead.

Next Chapter

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A/N: Finally got it done, only a few days late. >.<

Hope it's not too terrible.

Chapter Four - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:30:00 +0000

Previous Chapter

Smarting from Draven’s rough handling, I immediately left the area. My pride was more hurt than my body, which was already repairing the minor scrapes, but I couldn’t kill Chesed since Draven confiscated my weapon. Plus, if Draven had defeated me so easily, I didn’t stand a chance against Chesed in my current state. I should have realized that when Isis and Alex were trying to tell me, but I was too stubborn. I cursed myself for staying, now I was alone, mostly defenseless, and also without the easily available blood Alex and Isis had been supplying me.

I hadn’t truly expected Chesed to be alone, but the hope had still been there. I was surprised to see Draven back with him; rumor had it that he was up near Canada doing research. Chesed must have called him back. Draven was famous among the vampires, though when you’re the oldest vampire, you’re bound to be famous. He was the only vampire older than Chesed, but he chose to serve under the younger vampire rather than over him. And if those actions weren’t confusing enough, his current actions bewildered me even more. Why was he betraying Chesed? Was it all some elaborate trap, or was he truly on my side? Was he tired of Chesed’s regime? Did he have ambitions for power himself? My mind spun with difficult and unanswered questions. I wondered if I would really see him again. I wondered what he would have me do then. Could I, should I trust him?

And Raze! I cringed inwardly as I thought of his betrayal. He was the last person I expected to see there, especially after all his self-righteous rants about my vampirism. Then he went and joined up with the most evil of vampires, the little bastard. I couldn’t even figure out why he would go to Chesed. He didn’t have anything to offer the vampire, except our location. But that didn’t make any sense at all. Chesed should have been able to sense me just like I could sense him because of our bond. He made me. That was how it worked.

But it was Draven that found me in the woods, not Chesed. Chesed should have been able to feel my presence when we were so close together. I was able to feel him, a strange throbbing in my head that increased when he got closer. When he was nearby it was almost like a headache that wouldn’t go away, thought it didn’t hurt, it was just there, a pressure in my mind. If he didn’t feel that too, then what did it mean? Or maybe he felt it and sent Draven over to investigate, to throw me off.

I was so confused.

I ran, not really knowing where to go. I just knew I had to vacate the area. If Draven really was betraying Chesed, they would still want to investigate the woods surrounding the house. I had to be far enough away that he wouldn’t give chase.

I knew Isis and Alex would head for a big city, somewhere that would make it harder for them to be found, and also somewhere with an abundance of vampires. I noticed the dwindling supply of vampire blood while they were packing. They would have to restock soon.

I would go to Dallas, since that was the most likely place they would go to, but where in Dallas would I go? I had a good amount of travel time before daylight, and though I would be running rather than driving, I would still make it with time to search for a safe place to sleep away the sunlight. As I ran, I missed my car. A few weeks earlier, Isis made me ditch it. She said it was too conspicuous, the shiny expensive car too easy to look for. But it was comfortable and fast, and the only gift I really had left from my parents since I abandoned them. It was hard to part with it, but Isis was right. In the battle of material possessions versus the lives of my friends and myself, I would have to pick living. Even if it was such a nice car.

I wondered how hard it would be to find Isis and Alex in a city as large as Dallas, if they were even there. It would be dangerous to search for them as well, because they most likely thought I was dead, and Isis was the kind of person to kill first and ask questions later, especially when she thought lives were in danger. If a vampire was stalking them, it was good as dead, even if the vampire was me.

* * * * *

After searching the rundown shack and the area around it, we left. There was nothing, no one there. Draven found traces of a vampire in the woods. Earric, most likely. He was a good tracker, one of my best, but he couldn’t follow the trail.

His useful abilities were not the main reason I kept him close, however. I kept him near me because I didn’t trust him. When things got dangerous or risky, I would always call him back to me so I could keep a closer watch on him. He always seemed like he was planning something, plotting something in that clever mind. But he wanted power from me, he wanted my instruction, and as long as I had something to offer him, he would stay at my beck and call.

Though I knew Draven’s nature, I never actually thought he would betray me. Honestly, that idea never crossed my mind. He was sneaky and he was smart, but he only acted out to make his life more interesting. He wouldn’t betray me because he knew that I was stronger than him, faster than him, and I could kill him if he did, just like I killed Amory.

I gave Raze the privilege of driving us back to the church. Now that the hunters knew we were after them, we would have to abandon the old church we had inhabited for five decades. Earric knew where it was, and the hunters knew it as well, since Raze was able to find it so easily. I had other places to go, though. Other places they did not know about, other places would not find so easily. Even if they found us, they would never get in alive.

Not that I planned on hiding. I would find them all and destroy them, with Draven and Raze helping. After that, I would dispose of them both and then I would finally be able to do what I had been waiting to do for centuries.

Next Chapter

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A/N: I apologize for several things tonight. First, I apologize for the lateness of this chapter. It should have been posted this morning, but I have been so busy lately that when I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I don't feel like thinking, much less writing.

Second, I apologize for this chapter. It's rough, it's short, and it has no dialogue. This chapter serves a few purposes, though. It is to move the story along, to transition from one part to another. It also serves to show you the states of mind for Earric as well as Chesed. Earric is confused and conflicted, she's lonely, and she's upset with Raze. I wanted to show a bit of Chesed's arrogance and to also show everyone what he thinks of Draven. This is the first chapter that uses Chesed's point of view, even though he is in all three books. Just a bit of trivia for you guys.

I promise to have the next chapter on time!

Also, a Happy Birthday to Dillon/Stompey/Draven (Whoever you are today). Don't be lonely. ^.^

I'm going to head out now to get some much-needed rest. TGIF! (Almost :P)

Chapter Three - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:38:00 +0000

Previous Chapter

“He’s coming,” Earric said, interrupting the conversation I was having with Alex. Her voice was flat and empty, her eyes betrayed her fear. It was two days since Raze’s defection from our group. We’d slowly been gathering up our things, preparing to find a new place to move to, reluctant to leave our little shack. It was cramped with four people, now three, but it was homey.

We all knew what she meant; who she meant.

“We need to leave,” I said. I was the leader of our group now, if it could be called a group anymore. It was just the three of us, two hunters and a vampire. “We can’t fight him here and now.”

Earric glared at me when I said this. We couldn’t fight him mostly because she wasn’t ready yet. She wasn’t strong enough and she still lacked experience. Still, she wanted to stay. She wanted Chesed gone.

“We will kill him, Earric. But we want to get out of this ordeal alive, and if we go into it unprepared as we are, we will die.”

“I don’t care if I die killing Chesed. I have nothing more to exist for. I’ve shunned my own people and I’m an enemy of the Council, namely the head of all vampires. Everyone’s probably been instructed to kill me on sight or bring me to Chesed.” She crossed her arms as she said this, giving me her best pathetic look. She probably would have actually pouted if I let her go on long enough.

I sighed and sat down on the couch next to her, putting my hand on her bare shoulder in a friendly gesture. Her skin was cold, like all vampires’ skin. It was still hard to believe she wasn’t human anymore, unless you got close enough to feel her power, unless you looked close enough to see the subtle changes the blood in her had caused. Her skin was flawless now, her dark hair shinier and healthier looking. She was paler now and thinner, but it looked good on her.

“If you rush into this,” I said quietly, “And if you die and Chesed lives, then you condemn us as well. We need you.” I knew I sounded like I was begging her, and I really was. It wasn’t time yet, I just knew it.

She looked down, her face betraying a myriad of emotions. She was too young to suppress those expressions like the older vampires could.

“When is he going to get here?” Alex asked impatiently.

Earric looked up at him and then squished up her face in concentration. “I’m not sure, this is all too new to me,” She admitted. “Soon enough. You should go if you aren’t going to stay and fight.”

“You aren’t actually staying?” Alex asked incredulously. I was thinking the same thing, but he was quicker to voice it.

“I have to,” She said, stubbornness oozing from her tone of voice. “I can’t run away.”

Frustrated with the young vampire, I finally gave up. We didn’t have time for this. “Come on, Alex. If she wants to die, it’s her decision. But we won’t die too.” I began to gather what I could. Important things first, irreplaceable things like the blood, weapons, and our small amount of money.

Alex helped me load everything into the car, grabbing all the clothes and toiletries he could manage. We couldn’t take the bigger furnishings. The couch and table had to stay, as did the fridge we normally kept the blood in and the other appliances. The furniture and appliances were cheap, gleaned from garage sales and thrift markets, some we had to fix on our own. It wasn’t too much of a loss, and I had no emotional attachment to any of it. Still, I felt bad about leaving the little shack behind. Amory and I spent a lot of time there, even though it was mostly business when I would have preferred it be more pleasure-related things.

The vials containing the blood went into a cooler, along with the empty ones. There were more empty than full; we needed to replenish soon. We would stop along the way for some ice to put in the cooler and keep the vials cool. We didn’t trust the vials to be completely airtight, and we wanted to make sure the blood would keep, not daring to risk losing any of our precious sustenance. The ice wasn’t technically needed, but it would help to keep our peace of mind.

I took one last glance around the small building before Alex and I left. We couldn’t go back to our house in town because the vampires were probably scouting it out, watching it. They knew we were there all along, thanks to our naive Earric. We would head closer to Dallas, where the vampire population was higher and where we would be more likely to encounter Chesed. With Earric’s certain death in her choosing to stay, we would have to possibly recruit more hunters to aid us. I sighed at the thought of it. We were spending even more of our lives trying to solve Amory’s problems. Would it be easier to just let nature take its course?

Alex said goodbye to the vampire, giving her a long hug and whispering something into her ear. He spoke so low that I couldn’t hear, but I really didn’t want to hear it. She was as good as dead if she stayed behind. In my mind, she was written off.

I got into the driver’s seat and turned on our beat-up, blue Nissan. At least it ran, though for how long it would continue to do so we had no idea. Alex turned the radio onto his favorite local hard rock station and relaxed into his seat, thrumming his fingers on the console as we began our drive.

* * * * *

Chesed had given Raze his own blood. An experiment in power, he said. I didn’t like it. Raze was just using him, though I was too, in a way. He was letting the little hunter become too powerful for his own good. It would only come to bite him in the ass.

Two nights after Raze came to Chesed for the last time, we struck. Before Raze came to us, we knew an approximate range of the location of the vampire hunters’ little hideout, and with some digging we would have found it on our own. Raze knew where it was, he knew the codes to the alarms and the combinations to the locks, he knew where everything was. It made the job easier. Chesed should have been able to use his blood-bond with Earric to find her, but he said it didn’t work. She was either shielding herself, or she had enough power that it naturally shielded her from him. Another one of Chesed’s experiments gone awry.

Chesed and Raze rode in the front seats of Chesed’s car, a black Honda Civic he used when he wanted to keep a low profile. I sat in the back seat with the passenger side window rolled down, letting the wind blow through my hair. He wouldn’t let me come on one of my bikes. He said they were too loud.

Raze led us right to their hideaway, a pathetic-looking house, not even a house. It was a shack. Their base of operations, something they protected and lived in was something I could have knocked over with a good kick. We didn’t even need Raze to let us in; we could have easily just ripped the door off its hinges.

As we got out of the car, Raze said, “It don’t look like much, but everythin’s reinforced. We didn’t want no one passin’ through to know what it really was.” It made sense, but it still looked like shit.

Raze went up to the front door pulled out a key, unlocking three heavy deadbolts. I noticed that the door was solid metal, as well as the frame. I suspected the entire building was either a thick metal under that worn, ugly paneling, or it was solid concrete reinforced with steel. Raze opened it and peered inside. “It’s empty,” He said.

“Empty as in no one is home, or empty as in nothing there?” Chesed asked.

I used this moment to utilize my own special senses and abilities. I opened up my mind and scoured the surrounding area. The three of us were not alone, off to my right, a few meters into the woods, there was a vampire. The vampire was watching us, but also being cautious. I just hoped that Chesed didn’t notice.

“Draven,” Chesed nodded at me then looked toward the shack. I complied with his request and went inside.

The inside of the shack contained old, stained furniture. The walls were solid concrete, shiny metal covering the windows from the inside. I inhaled deeply, tested the air, and went back outside to report to Chesed, “They left about an hour ago. They either sensed or knew that we were coming, or just happened to leave right before we arrived.”

Chesed’s face was expressionless as he leaned up against the car, closing his eyes and thinking. He looked back at me, still standing in the door frame. “Do you sense anyone nearby?”

I paused for a moment as if I was actually trying to detect someone, and then I said blandly, “No, they’re all gone.”

Chesed shook his head, “I could have sworn…” He closed his eyes again, “I think there is a vampire near.”

I kept my face empty, “I cannot sense anyone, but if it would please you, I could have a look around.”

He nodded and went into the shack to have a look himself. Once I was sure he wasn’t watching me, I made a beeline for the vampire. It was a girl, a new vampire. She was hiding behind a tree and clutching a silver-edged knife.

“You must be Earric, Chesed’s little rogue offspring,” I said coldly, approaching her with caution. I may have had the advantage on her by several hundred years, but it didn’t mean I should take her lightly. She was extremely powerful for a fledgling.

She looked at me curiously, and then nodded. “Who are you?” She asked carefully.

“I go by the name of Draven these days.” I smiled, trying to show her I meant no harm.

“Draven, Chesed’s pet. Tell me, why are you so much older than him but you come to his every beck and call?”

She was well-versed in her vampire history, and she was trying to provoke me, “That is something I can tell you at a later date, but you must go now. Do not stay behind and do something foolish.”

“I have to kill Chesed,” She said, adjusting her grip on the knife.

I sighed, feeling her anger and sadness. “Chesed will die soon, Earric. You may even be the one to kill him. However, tonight is not the night for that. Do you understand?” I asked her as I edged myself closer.

“I will not keep putting this off,” She whispered, her voice almost a growl. Earric adjusted her grip on the knife yet again and I seized that moment to attack, focusing all my strength and speed into grabbing her wrist and squeezing, causing her to drop the weapon. When she was disarmed, I clapped my hand over her mouth to keep her from making a noise and I shoved her roughly against a tree.

The bark dug into her face as I told her, “You will wait, young one. Patience is a virtue afforded to all vampires. Wait until you see me again, and then we will destroy Chesed. If you do not agree, I will kill you now and do it myself when the time is right.”

She made a sound behind my hand and I took it off so she could answer me, “I'll wait,” She said reluctantly, her voice filled with the fear I could feel emanating from her. She was just a scared little child.

I let her go and picked up the knife, “I will hold onto this until I see you again. Now go, before Chesed comes out and sees us. Go meet back up with your vampire hunter friends, they will keep you safe.”

“When will you come?” She asked, brushing off her clothes and rubbing the sore spots on her body that had been pressed into the rough bark of the tree.

“Hopefully soon,” I told her before I walked back to the shack to tell Chesed I’d come up empty. She went in the opposite direction, but before we completely parted ways, I told her with a smile, “Tell Isis I said hello.”

Next Chapter

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A/N: Sorry this is so late, it's been an extremely busy week. Also, my computer bluescreened halfway through this draft and I lost a good portion of it so I had to rewrite a bit. The book is moving along, though I don't know exactly where yet. Scary, yes. Just bear with me. I'll get ahead sooner or later so I have a bit of vision to where I'm going. Well, I do have a vision, it's just not completely fleshed out yet. I'm trying not to force the story too much, I'm trying to write only when I feel like it or really need to reach a deadline. (Deadlines help me.)

Also, I'd like to direct everyone's attention to a little thing I need help with. If anyone has any short story ideas or prompts they'd like to suggest to me, I'll take them. I want to exercise my creativity a bit with some short stories, but I lack the inspiration. More information is here! Bharat has already sent me a good prompt that I am working on and will post on my miscellaneous blog as soon as I finish. Anyway, enjoy the new chapter and let me know what you think!

Chapter Two - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Previous Chapter

I was waitin’; it felt like I’d been waitin’ my entire life. My whole life was just waitin’ on other people to get their own crap together so I could get on with my own stuff.

And now, alone on the side of an empty road that went through the woods about two miles from Amory’s old stupid little shack, I was still waitin’. Waitin’ for my real life to start.

I heard the sound of a motorcycle off in the distance. Finally, finally he was here. Finally, I could get started on my own life. Finally, I could get power I deserved. I put my jacket back on and bundled up my clothes a little neater. I shoulda grabbed a bag. Oh well.

The motorcycle pulled up next to me and I looked at the figure on the bike. Draven still looked the same, pale skin and long black hair, a few piercings and some old tattoos from back when he was human. He’d gotten another new bike, the rich bastard. He had one for every occasion. This one was a Harley, with a big seat so he could carry a passenger. All his bikes had one thing in common; they were all black. The vampires were always lookin’ for fast things to ride, since their lives were so long and slow. This was my fourth or fifth time meetin’ up with him, and it would finally be my last.

I climbed on the back and held onto the seat rather than holdin’ onto him or his leather jacket. I wasn’t gonna put my arms around a dude no matter how fast he drove. I’d rather fall off and crack my head open.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Draven asked me, his European accent pullin’ at my chest in an odd way. Was he tryin’ to seduce me or somethin’? Stupid vampire.

“Just take me to Chesed,” I said, puttin’ my clothes in my lap and hopin’ they wouldn’t blow away. Oh well, I could always get new ones.

*****

We drove in relative silence for the few hours it took to get to Dallas. I say relative, because it is somewhat hard for it to truly be silent when you are driving a motorcycle. The combination of the roar of the engine and the one-hundred mile-per-hour-plus winds made enough noise. Even though Raze was sitting behind me, it didn’t really feel like it. Not in the normal way, at least. But I could sense him back there, in the way that I could sense everyone. He was anxious, giddy, and slightly scared. I could have used some of my power to make him feel a little better, but I didn’t really like him all that much, and I needed to focus my energy on driving. One wrong move when you’re going that fast is all it takes to get hurt. He had refused to touch me; he was afraid to for some reason. Maybe he thought that putting his arms around me would invite other things that he did not want. People always thought that vampires were bisexual at the least, dim-witted humans.

I pulled my motorcycle into the empty gravel lot in front of the church, our headquarters, and parked it. My other rides were in storage, but I had chosen this one for function tonight rather than speed. Raze got off first, his hair a tangled mess. I laughed, because mine probably looked even worse than his did, but I did not care. I love the wind in my hair, which is one of the reasons I keep it long. He gave me an odd look when I laughed, then ignored it, approaching the wooden double doors.

One door swung outward and Chesed stood in the doorway. The first time Raze came to the church about a week-and-a-half ago, we did not know what he wanted. We thought he had come to attempt to kill us. The young vampire that let him in was still being punished for that mistake.

Chesed had thought it was funny when he walked in the room and Raze was just standing there.

“Weak little hunter, you’re here to kill me, when your master could not do the job?”

Raze glared at him, “He wasn’t my master and no, I don’t wanna kill you. I don’t get nothin’ if you die. No, I want somethin’ else. If you give me what I want, I’ll tell you what my friends are plannin’.”

“Why does it matter to me what they are planning? They won’t kill me.” One of Chesed’s downfalls was his arrogance. It pervaded his speech and his actions, and only got worse as he got older.

Raze looked frightened for a moment, and then recollected himself. “I know where they’ve holed themselves up, I know the combinations to the locks, I know it all.”

Before Chesed could respond, I motioned to him that I wanted to talk. Chesed made Raze sit down, and we went off into another room, speaking quickly and quietly, so even powerful ears couldn’t hear us.

“What is the meaning of this?” He asked impatiently. I knew he was referring to my interrupting his conversation with Raze.

“We-you should take his offer,” I said, correcting myself quickly. Even after all these years, I still did not like being one of Chesed’s underlings. I was older than him, but he was the leader and technically in charge of all us vampires.

I know he caught my slip-up, but he let it slide, “Why is that? He does not have anything worthwhile to offer me. With Amory out of the way, those hunters are just waiting to die.”

“Raze is strong, but stubborn. If he joins us that is one less hunter you have to worry about. You can always kill him later, and it is much better to have an ally than an enemy. He may come in handy, especially in confusing the enemy. We want to make this as easy as possible.”

Chesed sighed but agreed with me. I was becoming tired of having to work with him and spend time convincing him on every issue. I reminded myself that it was only for a little while longer, and then I would be free of this nonsense.

We returned to the main room, where Raze was sitting in one of the few pews left in the church. “What do you want in return for your information?” Chesed asked him.

Raze’s eyes lit up at Chesed’s words. “So you’re lettin’ me join ya?”

“You want to join us?” I asked, speaking out of turn. It was just something I hadn’t quite expected.

Raze looked at me for a second then back at Chesed. “Well, I don’t wanna be a vampire, but I do wanna join your group for a bit. Chesed, you know power, and that’s what I want. I wanna be even stronger and more powerful than Amory, and I know that you know how to develop it and make it somethin’ more than just raw energy.”

Chesed nodded slowly, he always loved to experiment with power, and this was a great opportunity for him. A chance to work with a vampire hunter’s power. I could see his eyes lighting up and he grinned, “I will teach you. I will even supply you with donated blood so you will not have to kill my brethren for your sustenance.”

After their conversation, Chesed and Raze had made their plans. Raze was to gather as much information about what the vampire hunters were planning, their strengths and weaknesses, and try to drive them apart as much as possible. He would give us status updates every few days, and then I would pick him up for the last time in ten days so that he could join us for good.

Upon this arrival, Raze greeted Chesed like they were old friends. I stood behind Chesed, like the minion I was supposed to be.

“How did your exit go?”

Raze laughed and told him what had happened, about how angry they were and his fight with Earric. When he mentioned Isis yelling at him, I looked up. The movement caught his eye and he smiled mischievously at me, “Ya know, she still wears that necklace you left her. The one with your blood in it.”

I tried my best to keep my face motionless while thoughts raced through my mind. So she still had it after all these years. And she wore it! Something akin to triumph must have leaked into my expression, because a feeling of satisfaction radiated off Raze in waves.

I walked off while Raze went back to conversing with Chesed. They went inside and the door swung shut behind them. I sat on the concrete steps of the church and lost myself in reflection. I had not seen Isis since the first night I had met her. Our first meeting was emotional for the both of us. I had been sent to seduce and kill her, but upon meeting her, upon feeling her innermost hurts and desires, I developed feelings for her in the span of minutes. In the short extent of our meeting, an emotion akin to love had bubbled up inside me, and as hard as I tried to quell the feeling over the years, it had remained somewhere in that pit of my motionless heart.

After Chesed had found out that I had developed true feelings for her, he pushed me away, finding odd jobs for me throughout the country, only helping me to develop my power when he felt like it. I complied because I had to. I had been alone for too long before joining Chesed, and now that he had organized the vampires, I could not just sink back into the shadows. But since he had lost Earric to the side of the hunters after killing Amory and he now had this small faction of rebels to deal with, he needed my help, even if he would not admit it.

I sat on the church steps until near dawn, losing myself in thoughts and emotions. Raze came out just as the sun thinking about peering over the horizon.

“Isn’t it your bedtime?” He asked me, feeling quite pleased with himself. He was buzzing with energy; Chesed must have given him some vintage blood.

I did not trust Raze, but I knew that with him around, Chesed would pay less attention to me. “Almost,” I said quietly. “I’m older than the rest of the vampires here. I can stay up longer.” I was glad he did not know where I slept.

I watched dawn come as long as I could stand it and then I got up, heading inside. Raze followed me, but I glared at him when we got inside. He took the hint and went back to his pew. I went to the door that led down to the basement and opened it, going downstairs into the darkness. I felt Raze’s curiosity behind me and I grated my teeth as I descended. Once I was asleep, he would begin to explore. I was thankful for my private room with the heavy padlocks. Something inside me secretly hoped that Chesed had forgotten to lock his own door. I laid myself to rest for the day, my twisted vision of Raze staking Chesed still clear in my mind.

Next Chapter

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A/N: I'm not quite sure about this chapter or the direction the book is going in so far. I like how it sounds, but I don't know if it will work out how I want it to work out. I guess we'll just have to see. This is actually all I have written as of this moment, so bear with me over the next few weeks. I'll let you guys know if I make any changes to previous chapters. It never actually comes out and says it, but Draven is speaking here in the second part of this chapter.

Also, a few people I spoke with where a little confused. Becoming the Monster (Book One) is set in the present. Becoming the Hunter (Book Two) is set in the past, and is a prequel to Becoming the Monster. Becoming the Avenger (Book Three) picks up where Becoming the Monster leaves off, back in the present, a few weeks after Amory's death. ^.^

Chapter One - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Previous Chapter

Raze was upset. Not just upset but raving mad. His green eyes flared and noticed for the first time that his red hair was shaggy and messy, longer than I had ever seen him keep it. It was obvious that he was through with us. Isis and I knew it was coming, we always knew there would be a time he would leave, especially if something ever happened to Amory.

We just hadn’t imagined he would be so heartless.

“Amory’s gone, I don’t owe you guys nothin’ anymore.” He said, gathering up his stuff. He didn’t have much, mostly just clothes. It was starting to get colder now; he would at least need a light jacket, maybe some long-sleeved shirts. He grabbed a few vials of vampire blood from the back, but we didn’t complain. He had worked to get them as hard as we did.

“You’re not going to help us kill Chesed,” Isis said, making it a statement rather than a question. Her expression was pretty classic, she looked like she was in shock, but she had to have seen it coming.

“Chesed isn’t my problem. Chesed was Amory’s problem. He spent two hundred years tryin’ to kill that vampire, and look what it got him. Nothin’! It got him absolutely nothin’ and I’m not gonna waste my life like he did. He had his chance to have a life, all he had to do was give up on that stupid vampire and let stuff happen naturally. He coulda had you, he coulda had that vampire over there on the couch, he coulda had whatever he wanted, but instead he picked a doomed fate and it got him exactly where he knew it would get him.”

Earric scoffed at him from the couch. It was still odd seeing her as a vampire; she was prettier now and more confident in herself, but it unnerved me. I had never known someone when they were alive and then after they were dead. I could feel her power, something akin to ours but also Chesed’s. I could smell the vampire scent on her, that smell of dust and decay, soil and mold. I would get used to it. She was a decent vampire, I even donated a bit of blood to her. Raze had refused, though. I knew he would.

“Chesed is everyone’s problem, Raze. He is organizing the vampires and slowly taking out the vampire hunters. Amory was the oldest and most powerful one, and once he kills you guys, there isn’t much left. If you split off from the group, it will just make it much easier for Chesed to pick us off,” Earric said.

“Don’t act like you’re one of us,” He growled, and I groaned. We’d been having this argument for the last two weeks as we’d been trying to decide how to carry on without Amory. “You’re a vampire. You’re a blood-sucking monster and you’ll always be a killer. You aren’t one of us.”

“You’ve killed more people than I have!” She argued.

“They weren’t people, they were vampires!” He shook the little vials of blood, trying to prove his point. “They’re evil, murderous, blood-sucking vampires: Just. Like. You!” He threw one of the vials at her and she caught it before it could hit her and shatter. “Your kind kills innocent people because of selfishness and greed. When I kill a vampire, I save countless lives!” He threw another vial and she caught it in her other hand.

“So you’re in it for saving lives, now, are you? It’s not because all you want is power and you’ll stop at nothing to have it?”

“So what if I want power? You have power, but Amory always limited me, he never let me get too strong. It’s time I go off on my own and get what I’ve been waiting over half a century to do.” He threw the last vial at her with more force and it hit dead in her chest, shattering all over her shirt, splattering glass and blood all over her. She looked down at the blood and then up at him, eyes full of hate.

“Stop this argument, and stop wasting blood!” Isis yelled at Raze. “If you want to go, then fine. Go. We don’t need your drama anyway, but quit wasting our hard-earned sustenance.” She grabbed the unbroken vials from Earric and put them in Raze’s hands, glaring at him, daring him to leave. Earric got up and went to the bathroom to change her shirt and wash off the blood. Thankfully, the vials were small, and the spill was mostly contained to her shirt.

I saw a flash of gold under Isis’ shirt as she argued with Raze. I noticed now that Amory was dead, she’d begun wearing her necklace again, a small bit of blood in a tiny capsule on a gold chain. It was Draven’s blood, a vampire we hadn’t seen in several decades, back the same night I became a vampire hunter. She never drank the blood, though when I asked her about it, she said she would use it if there ever was an emergency.

Raze glared back at her, then at Earric and then me. She was leaned up against the doorframe of the bathroom, wearing a thin, white tank top. I could see her black bra under the material, but I quickly looked away. Raze was my friend, but so was Amory, and to a lesser degree, Isis. She still didn’t really like me all too much, but I was staying to kill Chesed. He needed to die, Earric was right. It was for our own survival.

The look he gave me turned to almost pleading. Did he want me to go with him? Well, I wasn’t. I had my own goals after Chesed was dead, and they didn’t involve Raze’s power-hungry plans. I shrugged at him and he looked away, defeated.

Raze took the two unbroken vials and stuck them in his jacket pocket. “I’m done here, then,” He said to us. “I hope you don’t waste too much time trying to fulfill Amory’s wasteful dreams.”

“I’ll take as much time as it needs, even if I die.” Isis said. Earric nodded as well.
He just shook his head and picked up the bundle of clothing. He didn’t have his own car or anything. Maybe he was planning to hitchhike, or maybe steal someone’s car. Raze was pretty unpredictable sometimes.

When he left the shack, we all sighed with relief. It was time for him to go, even if we would miss his off-color humor and erratic behavior. Isis was right, we didn’t need his drama.

“Nothing good will come of this,” Earric sighed. I hoped she was wrong. I hoped that Raze would go off and kill vampires. Maybe he’d get killed in the process. I hoped we would never see him again.

I hoped a lot of things.

Next Chapter

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A/N: And so begins my foray into the unknown. I'm not quite sure how this book is going to go, but have confidence and me and I will produce results. I know the ending, I just gotta get there coherently. As always, any input helps. I really enjoy Alex's voice in this chapter, Notice that he's already ogling Earric. This book is going to use many perspectives, not just Earric, Alex, Isis, and Raze, but also Draven and possibly Chesed. I haven't hashed out a rewrite for Book One yet, but I think I'm going to do multiple perspectives in it as well. I really think with a story like Becoming, it's really useful to get the mindset of all the characters in order to develop them better.

For e-mail subscribers: if you got this chapter but you didn't get the Prologue, please visit the site and read the prologue. It's really short, but provides a slight bit of perspective into the time frame and Isis' state of mind.

Prologue - Becoming the Avenger

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:00:00 +0000

I was pretty torn up about Amory’s death. We all were; some more than others. Earric and I loved him, Alex had come to idolize him, and Raze missed having someone to complain about.

It was odd, though. After Amory’s passing, after we buried him and came back to our little safe-house, I felt a sort of release. I loved him, I always would, but I almost felt like I was free. The object of my desire and affection for nearly a century was gone and I could pick up the pieces and move on.

After we killed Chesed.

Next Chapter

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A/N: Very short prologue. I considered not even doing a prologue, but I decided it was needed. The reason I did it this way was mostly to orient the story. This is taking place back in the present, a few weeks after Amory's death. I don't have a solid plan or outline for this book, and I'm doing it all from scratch. Bear with me for a bit as I work to solidify Becoming the Avenger. I will let everyone know if I make any edits to the chapters. Chapter One will be at 9 AM CST! For those of you getting e-mail updates, if you don't get Chapter One, come the to website around 9AM and it'll be up, or you might get the chapter tomorrow.

Epilogue/Gathering of Thoughts - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:00:00 +0000

I never told Amory how much I loved him, even though I had promised myself I would. I suspected that he knew and I suspected the feelings were on his side too; his duty just prevented him from responding to those feelings like he should. I decided to myself that Amory had some sort of power over me, though I knew that it was unintentional. I knew that if anything ever happened to Amory, I would grieve and miss his presence, I would remember him forever, but I would also eventually move on and find someone else. Until then, I would continue to stay with Amory and hope for the best, hope that we would destroy Chesed and then we would move on together.

I kept Draven’s offer in the back of my mind. He was the first person who had ever shown me any hint of attention and affection in all my years. I kept his gifts, often wearing the small vial of blood, especially when we would travel long distances, just in case I needed the extra blood and power in a pinch. From his gift, we learned that vampire blood behaves differently from normal human blood. His blood stayed sealed in that glass vial for years, never clotting, congealing, or coagulating. We experimented with vampire blood and found that we could apply this to our own practices. We could store blood for longer periods of time without worrying about it going bad. We could hunt several vampires at a time and then store the extra and live off it for months, nothing going to waste. Draven had actually helped us, even though he probably never intended it that way.

*****

I was mad that Amory didn’t let me go when I brought him Maleah’s body. I killed the bitch, shouldn’t that be enough? Well, not to him I guess. Then, instead of rewardin’ me for it, he punished me by makin’ me train Alex. Well, at least the kid didn’t complain too much. I’d help him, the little do-gooder. He’d die soon enough, that’s what always happened to those kids that thought they were savin’ the world. I just knew one thing, once Amory was gone or once Chesed was gone, I was gone too. I didn’t want nothin’ to do with these people, but I would also repay my debt to Amory so he didn’t try to hunt me down and kill me.

*****

I was happy that Amory put Raze in charge of my training. I didn’t know exactly what that entailed, but I was just glad Isis wasn’t doing it. She scared me; she acted like I shouldn’t even be there.

I was told that we had a goal in mind. Amory, who led the group, had a longtime enemy named Chesed. Our main objective was to find and kill him. After that, Amory told us he didn’t care what we did. Our debt to him would be paid and we could go our separate ways. I really didn’t know what I would do. Maybe I’d travel, even go overseas, killing vampires. Hopefully I’d find a nice vampire hunter girl to go around with too. Just not Isis.

*****

That night we picked up Alex, the night when Chesed was just testing his newfound powers, the night when he could have killed me but he didn’t, the night where he took some of my blood and probably gained even more power, that night made me realize something. Even though I’ve lived for over two hundred years, I’m not immortal. My life can be just as fleeting as a normal human’s. Though I shared most of my knowledge about vampires and vampire hunting with Isis, Raze, and Alex, there was always more to share, always more to find out. I decided to put all of my knowledge into a book and continue to add to it as time passed. I didn’t know what happen to that book, but I would write it and keep it safe, letting no one else know about it until they needed to. Maybe it would be of some use later on.

I knew that with the addition of Alex to our group, I was done looking for members, done building my army. Even though Raze was the one who found him, I knew he belonged with us. He helped to balance out Raze and Raze helped him in his own way, even though neither of them even realized it. With Alex around, Raze was a little calmer, and Raze brought out a little bit of himself in Alex as well, giving him more confidence. I came to think of this group as my family, and I was their father. Even though Isis loved me in a way that wasn’t like a daughter, and I felt similar feelings, I knew that it just wouldn’t work out. I wanted nothing more to just forget about Chesed and just go off with Isis and live and be happy, but I couldn’t. I felt terrible that I would eventually leave them behind, leave them to their own devices, but I knew that everything would work out. I hoped that, if something ever happened to me, they would just move on and forget about my vendetta against Chesed. Chesed was powerful, but vampires were vampires. Eventually, someone would overthrow him, turn against him, and kill him off. Then there would be a new head vampire. The only reason I hunted Chesed was because I wanted to be the one to kill him. I wanted to make him suffer for what he did to my parents. I wanted to watch the life ebb out of him. I wanted to do that to him. I didn’t want some random vampire to do it for me. I hoped I would finally get my chance to avenge my parents, it was all I lived for anymore.

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A/N: So I decided to do a collection of final thoughts from the four characters at the end of Becoming the Hunter. I think it's pretty easy to figure out who is talking, and I think that it kind of wraps up the end a little nicer than it would have if just one person would have been speaking.

I know I promised the prologue of book three, Becoming the Avenger today as well, but I haven't written it yet. I left my flash drive at home that had this epilogue on it, and I had to re-write it again, though I think this second version was better. Up until today, I was hitting a little bit of writer's block on Avenger, but a friend helped me to do some brainstorming. I knew where I wanted to end up, I just had to figure out how to get there and make a book out of it. The brainstorming helped though, and I'm going to work on the story over the weekend. I hope to have the prologue posted on Monday with chapter five of Bitten, but if it isn't finished by then I will post the prologue and chapter one on Thursday. As always, continue to check out Bitten (new chapter today as well!). I'm posting that one twice a week and I'm excited about the response I've been getting for it.

Chapter Twenty-Five - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:15:00 +0000

Go Back to Chapter Twenty-Four

Raze was such an idiot for doing what he did. He just made another vampire hunter without Amory’s permission! Not only was that just wrong, but it was also stupid and selfish. What if Alex was some crazy axe-murderer and Raze just gave him superhuman strength and reflexes? We didn’t know this kid at all! Amory had tracked us down, he had researched our backgrounds, he had chosen us for what we were and what we could do for him. Alex was a nobody, a loser. On top of that, Raze claimed it was an accident! Accident, please! You don’t just make someone a vampire hunter on accident.

-Isis

I woke up with the worst headache I’d ever had. It took a moment for me to regain my bearings as I slowly sat up, fighting back a wave of nausea.

I looked around, the parking lot lights hurting my eyes and making me wince. I was alone.

I turned around and saw the red Mustang still sitting in its parking spot. Diana was inside, slumped against the steering wheel. I slowly got to my feet and walked over to the car, stumbling and falling against the hood. For the first time, I noticed a pain at my neck. I reached up and felt two slowly healing punctures. The bastard drank my blood!

I opened the car door and Diana spilled out onto the asphalt, dead. The fluorescent lights shone on the bite marks wounds on her neck. There must have been another vampire; Chesed wouldn’t have been able to drink from the both of us. I sniffed the air and smelled a lingering odor of exhaust and burned gasoline. The other vampire must have come, finished off Diana, and left with Chesed.

I heard footsteps behind me and slowly turned around. If anyone saw me standing there with a dead girl on the ground in front of me, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight. I could probably incapacitate anyone and escape if need be, but I couldn’t erase their memory.

“Amory!” Isis waved to me from across the parking lot, her hair shining white under the lights. She was with Raze, who was carrying something slung over his shoulder, and another small kid. He looked about fifteen or sixteen, if that.

I stepped in front of the body, attempting to hide it from the stranger. Isis looked happy to see me, but when she got closer, her face looked like she’d been crying. Raze also looked pleased, or maybe the expression was closer to hopeful. The short kid with his curly black hair looked excited and distracted, like someone who’d had too much coffee and wasn’t used to the caffeine.

Isis hugged me when she got close enough. Normally, I discouraged her displays of affection, but tonight, I didn’t mind. I hugged her back and felt her shaking as she cried into my chest. I could smell vampire on her, but she didn’t look injured or as if she’d been in a fight. What was going on?

“He’s gone already,” I heard the boy say. Isis pulled away from me, wiping at her face. My shirt was wet, but it would dry fast enough. We all turned to look at him and he blushed. “I heard that vampire Isis was dealing with drive his motorcycle over here. He must have left, though.”

“Who is this kid?” I asked Raze, pointing at the curly-headed boy. “And is that a body you’re carrying?”

“Is that a body on the ground?” He pointed to Diana’s body behind me.

“I’m Alex,” The boy said, sticking out his hand. I paused, and then shook it. I could feel his power. It was weak, but he was definitely a vampire hunter, a new one.

“Who did this?” I addressed both Isis and Raze. Isis looked over at Raze, her eyes saying, “I told you so.”

“I had to do it,” Raze said. “I was dyin’ and he was under Chesed’s control. I gave him some of my power and he helped me. He’s a good kid.”

“You don’t even know him!” Isis hissed, but I shushed her.

“Alex,” I said. He turned to look at me. “I’m Amory. I’m the leader of this little group.”

He nodded.

“Do you know what exactly we do?”

He paused, and then nodded again.

“So you’re willing to risk your life every single day for as long as you exist, for no reward, no acknowledgement, and no reason whatsoever?”

“I want to make a difference,” He mumbled, looking down at his football cleats.

I sighed, so he was one of those people who thought being a vampire hunter was all about saving the world.

“You want to kill all the vampires in the world?”

He looked up, “If that’s possible.”

“Do you know what happens with a vampire hunter stops drinking vampire blood?” I saw Isis cringe out of the corner of my eye.

He shook his head and his eyes went back down to his shoes.

“First, you go crazy. You might even kill a few humans; the need for self-preservation is so strong. But you do go crazy, then you die a slow death, so slow that you’ll probably kill yourself before you let the starvation finish you off. Even if you killed all the vampires in the world, even if you managed to destroy all the monsters, you would still die. So,” I pulled his chin up and stared into his brown eyes, “Are you prepared to die for what is right?”

A hardened look crossed Alex’s his eyes. “Yes,” He said without pause. “I’ve been weak all my life. I have sat around and watched everything and everyone pass me by. I want to do something different. I want to be different. I want to join you.”

I looked up at Raze and he said, “Plus, it’s too late anyway.” He dumped the body he’d been carrying onto the ground in front of me. Strands of blonde hair matted together with dried blood splayed across the asphalt. I scanned the blue, bloodstained lace and looked into the dead eyes.

“Maleah. You killed her?”

“He helped,” Raze pointed at Alex, who scowled at him. Raze sighed, “Okay, maybe he did a little more than just help.”

“I killed her while she was trying to kill Raze,” Alex said proudly.

“You’d still be one of Chesed’s puppets if it wasn’t for me givin’ you my power,” Raze growled.

“Teamwork.” I said, “Sounds like you two work together pretty well,” I winked at Alex.

“I don’t really wanna work with anyone,” Raze said. “I’m done. I’m tired of bein’ someone else’s soldier.”

“Chesed’s not dead,” I said, outraged at Raze’s audacity. “You stay until he dies.”

“But I killed–” Another glare from Alex, “We killed his sister, shouldn’t that count for somethin’?”

I shook my head. Raze was always scheming ways to get away from me. The only reason he didn’t leave of his own accord was because he knew that I would hunt him down and kill him. “You know our deal. I’m happy that you killed Maleah. She was an abomination that needed to die. However, you know what the terms of our deal are, and you will abide by those terms or you will die.”

Alex sighed, “All I’ve heard since we got here is talk about death. Is that all this is about?”

I looked at Alex and then back to Raze. “The new kid is your responsibility.”

“Mine?!” He groaned. I ignored him and went over to the Mustang, picking up Diana’s body. When I did, a piece of paper fell to the ground. Isis walked past me and picked it up, reading the short paragraph written on it. She gasped.

“What is it?” I asked her, shifting the weight of the body to one shoulder. We had to go soon, we’d been lucky so far that no one had seen us, but we were pushing our luck.

“It’s a note to me, from Draven.” She said quietly.

“Who is Draven?” I asked, feeling a hint of jealousy. I pushed it away; I didn’t have a need for such feelings.

“One of Chesed’s vampires. I had a bit of an encounter with him.” She blushed and the jealousy came back. I looked away so she wouldn’t be able to look into my eyes and see what I was feeling.

“What’s the letter say?” Raze asked, picking up Maleah’s body.

She blushed again before reading aloud, “Keep the handkerchief, beautiful, and the present I left around the dead girl’s neck. Some things to remember me by. Remember my offer if you ever get lonely. Draven.”

Raze began to laugh, “Amory’s got competition!”

This time it was my turn to blush. Isis was so red that she hid her face behind the piece of paper. Raze just cackled away while Alex looked slightly confused. I shifted Diana’s weight again and noticed a necklace, a gold chain with a pendant hanging off of it. Alex came over and took off the necklace, spilling the chain and pendant into Isis’ hands.

The pendant looked like a small glass vial, attached to the chain with more gold. Inside the glass vial was a dark substance. She opened the vial and we could all smell the contents.

“It’s blood, Draven’s blood,” Isis said, putting the lid back on and shuddering. Still, to my disappointment, she put on the necklace and tucked the note into her back pocket where I noticed a bit of fabric poking out.

I ignored note, the gifts, and the conflicting feelings inside me. Part of me wanted to kill that vampire, to put him in his place. Another part of me wanted to take Isis into my arms and tell her that she didn’t need to worry about whatever the vampire offered her, because I would take care of her. But I had a job, I had a mission. This encounter with Chesed told me that we needed to plan more, we needed to train more, and we needed to kill Chesed before he became even more powerful. If I survived that, I would worry about my other feelings.

“Let’s go,” I said, walking off into the night with Diana’s body slung over my shoulder. We still had to clean up the night’s mess, and then we would begin to plan our next encounter with Chesed.

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A/N: This is sort of the end of this book, but not quite! Next week comes the Epilogue and the Prologue to the third and final book of Becoming. Stay tuned! Also, please go read Bitten HERE. Chapter Two of it is being posted today as well. The first chapters are fairly short, so it should be a quick read.

Chapter Twenty-Four - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:01:00 +0000

Go Back to Chapter Twenty-Three

Raze and I headed over to the basketball team’s practice courts, apparently going to meet up with one of his friends. My new senses, heightened by the vampire blood I drank, made the night buzz with activity that I had never noticed before. I could hear and see almost everything. I could even smell better, it was so amazing. I wondered if my senses of taste and touch were also heightened, but I couldn’t test those as easily and immediately as my other senses.

The humid air blew through the grass and though it was dark, I could see it in a stunning clarity I had never possessed before. It was like going your whole life without glasses then finally getting a prescription, except on a much grander scale. The darkness had stolen the color from my vision, but I could still see things better than I had ever seen them, even if it would have been full daylight.

The sound of the wind blowing through the grass and the trees, even the sounds of Raze’s voice and my own had taken on a different clarity. The sounds hadn’t actually changed, they were just clearer now, and I could differentiate sounds better. I could hear the leaves of the trees rustling against each other and the individual branches creaking as the air moved and made the trees dance. As for smells, the aroma of the grass was so pungent, it was as if I were lying facedown in freshly cut clippings.

I could still taste a tingle the little girl’s blood in my mouth. Maleah, Raze had called her. He told me she had been a terrible and dangerous vampire, but it still didn’t make me feel better about killing her. I don’t know why I even killed her, really. I guess it was to save Raze, even though I hardly even knew him. She had been choking Raze, holding him down, killing him. He would have died if I hadn’t killed her. Plus, she had been creepy as hell.

I could smell her blood too, from where she was slung over Raze’s shoulder. She had another smell, I guess it was a vampire smell, it wasn’t too pleasant, it smelled like old death, like when you come upon a cat or a squirrel or something that’s been dead for a long time, so long that it doesn’t even have that nasty decomposing smell anymore, it just smells like mildew and dust.

I felt stronger too. I hadn’t really been able to test out my new strength, but just from how I could walk, from the power in my legs, I knew that I was plenty stronger that I was before. I would get a chance to test it out eventually. I was excited about this change of fate. I had always been small and weak. I finally had the chance to do something worthwhile, to make a difference in the world. As a vampire hunter, I could save countless lives and gain strength for myself at the same time. Moreover, I finally had a chance to prove myself. I finally had a chance to show everyone that, given the right tools, I could do the job. I could actually make a difference.

As we approached the courts, I saw a girl off in the distance standing in front of some guy, her back to us The most noticeable feature of the girl was her hair, silver in the dim light, pulled up into a messy ponytail. I hoped to get a better look at her later, since I couldn’t see everything I wanted to in the lack of light. It was still better than it would have been only a little bit earlier. Earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to see anything in this darkness.

The man she was standing in front of was a few inches taller than she was, and wild-looking with long, shaggy hair. I couldn’t see much of him, but I could tell that he was wearing dark clothing and he was fairly muscular.

He saw us first, looking up and making a face. Raze began running up to them and I struggled to follow, not able to run as fast as him yet. I may have been stronger than a normal human, but compared to Raze, I was still as weak as ever. The girl turned to look at us and then moved away from the guy quickly, looking upset.

I heard Raze yell to the girl, calling her “Isis,” as he ran over, “What’s going on? I felt your signal for help.” The guy with the long hair began to slowly move away from her, heading over towards a motorcycle that was parked under one of the basketball goals. He slid on a black leather jacket and climbed onto the bike.

Isis was trying to stammer out some intelligible words as the guy fired the bike to life. He blew her a kiss, and then turned the bike around, doing a donut on the asphalt before leaving.

“Are we going to go after him?” I asked as Raze dropped Maleah’s body and went over to the girl. She was bawling now, and he was holding her. I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. I stood off to the side as I listened to the sound of the motorcycle heading off. It seemed to be going back towards the front of the school.

“What did that guy do to you?” I heard Raze ask Isis, concern in his voice.

She took a few deep breaths and began coughing. In between coughing fits, she said, “He was one of Chesed’s vampires…but he didn’t hurt me, at least…not physically.”

“Not all pain is physical,” He said, his voice serious.

She wiped her tears away with a handkerchief, nodding in agreement. “Who’s he?” She asked, pointing at me.

“Oh, that’s Alex,” Raze said, gesturing for me to come over. I walked over to them and stood a few feet away, nodding at her in acknowledgement. Up close, she looked awful. Her nose was red and running, and her face was all splotchy. The vampire must have really screwed up her emotions, because she looked like she had been crying for hours. “He’s our newest recruit.”

Her face suddenly changed from one kind of upset to a different kind, a more angry kind. She began to yell at Raze, her tears forgotten, “You can’t just recruit someone! He’s probably got a family, people who will miss him, he probably doesn’t even know what he’s getting himself into! How can you do that to someone?”

I didn’t say anything, but I thought about her words. Sure, I had a family; they would probably miss me, too. But I wouldn’t really miss them. I had four siblings, and I was the middle child. My parents were too busy to even pay much attention to me. As long as I wasn’t making trouble, they didn’t really even care. My dad didn’t even really know me. He didn’t know what I liked to do, he didn’t know what kind of music I listened to or if I was dating any girls. He forced me onto the football team so I could “man up,” as he called it, and they had to take me since the school was so tiny. I was just a backup, mainly. I would only replace someone if his replacement got injured. My parents had never been to even one of my games. Maybe then they would realize that I was miserable sitting there on the bench. Sure, Isis was right. They would miss me and all, but they had other kids. I was eighteen already, they were just waiting for me to graduate, and then they would kick me out. They would probably think I just finally gave up on school and left, joined the military or something.

As for knowing what I was getting myself into, I really didn’t know, but I also didn’t care. This was a chance for me to be something other than the smallest kid on the football team, the kid that got beat up and bullied. I wanted strength, I wanted power, I wanted my chance.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Raze raised his arms protectively in front of him as I was lost in thought, “I didn’t make him one of us on purpose. It was an accident, but what’s done is done, he’s one of us now, and Amory’s just gonna have to accept that.”

“How do you accidentally make someone a vampire hunter?” Her voice sounded shrill, it hurt my newly sensitive ears and I resisted the urge to cover them.

He scratched his head, his hair normally orange in the light, but in the darkness it was just a shade of gray lightly tinted with a reddish color. “Well, it’s kinda hard to explain.”

She just shook her head and stood up, tucking the handkerchief into the back pocket of her jeans. She got up and looked me over, clearly not impressed. Who could blame her, though? I’m not the most imposing person, not tall, not muscular, and not all that handsome.

“Let’s go find Amory,” She said to us. She began walking off towards the front of the school, in the same direction the motorcycle had gone.

Go On to Chapter Twenty-Five

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A/N: This is the bonus chapter for the week (sorry that it's kind of short). As you can tell, it's the first one from Alex's POV. This chapter seems like a little bit of a repeat of events, but I wanted to get all the timelines back together, and I also wanted to do a little bit of Alex's background, so we can see where he's coming from and what he wants to gain from becoming a hunter. Alex hasn't really gotten much attention until now, and I wanted him to get a chance to describe things from his POV. I also realized that I didn't have a chapter about how it feels to become a vampire hunter, so this is also a window into that aspect of the story. The next chapter of Becoming won't be posted until next Thursday, the 28th of August, but don't forget to check out Bitten on Monday, August 25th for the very first chapter!

Chapter Twenty-Three - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Go Back to Chapter Twenty-Two

Draven peeled off his leather jacket, prominent muscles rippling under his tight black t-shirt. He carefully draped it over the seat of his bike, and then turned to face me.

“You’re not using any weapons?” I asked him.

He laughed, “I’m trying to give you a chance, here, girl. You don’t want me to use a weapon. My body is enough for this,” He cracked his knuckles as he spoke.

I looked down at my feeble knife, my handicap. I didn’t have a vampire’s sharp teeth. I had strength, but it was nothing compared to his. The vampire was being nice; he was being merciful this early in the fight. He was giving me a fighting chance.

The night was silent, save for the sound of the crickets chirping, a light breeze playing with my ponytail, still annoying me. During the ride, some pieces of hair had fallen out of the thin band that Janet had used to tie up my hair. The pieces irritated me, flying into my face, into my mouth and over my eyes. I hastily brushed them behind my ears, hoping my hair would stay out of the way as I fought.

Draven walked up to me while I fidgeted with my hair, coming too close for comfort. Even though he was only a few inches taller than I was, when he was up close, it seemed like a foot. I gripped the hilt of the knife until my fingers were numb, my knuckles white, ready to strike him the instant he tried to attack.

But he didn’t try to attack. No, it was quite the opposite. I noticed how careful he was being, trying not to make any sudden actions. His movements were graceful, slow, and cautious. I was like a poisonous viper, ready to strike, and he was trying to keep from being bitten.

Even though he was moving slowly, I still didn’t see it coming until his lips touched mine. I’d never kissed a vampire. Actually, I had never really kissed anyone, not for real at least. I’d kissed a few guys, but I really didn’t count those as real kisses. More like pecks on the lips that made you blush and think, “Oh, how cute.” This kiss, though, was filled with something more. It was filled with passion, and even though I didn’t feel anything towards Draven, it still stirred something inside me. I could only refer to it as lust, because that’s what I was feeling towards him. I didn’t love Draven. Hell, I didn’t even know the guy, but the lust I was feeling, the need that was inside me, it wanted to be satisfied. That need for physical fulfillment was aching to keep going with Draven, pushing me forward.

Startled by all these new sensations, I sent out my power, calling for help. I wasn’t really in danger, at least not at that second, but his actions had shocked me so much that I accidently sent out that pulse to Amory and Raze. Draven didn’t notice it though, or pretended not to if he did, and he kept kissing me.

I stood there, stunned, as Draven pressed his tight chest against my own, exploring my mouth with his tongue. I didn’t know whether to punch him in the face or kiss him back. I felt heat wash through my body, up to my cheeks. Inside my chest, I felt something akin to anxiety. I wanted this, but not from Draven. I wanted it from Amory. It just felt wrong, the cold, hard ring adorning his lips dug into my own, and his skin was icy, and harder than it should have been. I could feel him being cautious as he ate at my mouth, trying not to nick me with his own sharp teeth.

He wrapped his arms around me, and I let him hold me. He was cold, but solid. Suddenly, as if they were just dissolving inside me, all the carefully built walls in my mind broke down. I was no longer prepared to fight. Emotion filled me and my eyes welled up with tears. I begged them not to fall, but they did anyway, running down my cheeks. If this was how Draven wanted to kill me, I was done for. I was in no condition to fight anymore.

Draven carefully kissed away the tears, such a kind, human gesture. I dropped the knife and pulled him closer, hugging him against me as I kissed him back, careful not to cut my tongue on his razor-sharp canines. If I spilt any blood into his mouth, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

At that thought, I froze, remembering what I was doing. I was making out with a vampire. One of Chesed’s pet vampires, to be exact. I pulled away from his mouth, breathing heavily. Even though Draven wasn’t finished, he reluctantly let go and dropped his arms to his sides, absolutely still. Then he grinned, those teeth of his making me shudder. No longer touching him, I regained some of my judgment and snatched up my knife again, backing up a few steps.

“I guess you didn’t like it,” He said, his voice thicker and a little lower than it had been the last time he had spoke. He ran his fingers through his hair, letting it settle around his shoulders.

I wiped the new tears out of my face, the useless things, “Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but it was completely uncalled for.”

“Do you want to know the other reason why Chesed chose me to fight you?” He asked, taking a step closer to me. I took another step back, wary to get near him again. He stopped moving and looked at me, waiting for my response. It wasn’t just for his blood? I shook my head, not trusting my voice, and he continued, “Some vampires, very few, have special abilities. Chesed has the ability to bind normal humans to himself, to make them little slaves, to influence their free will.”

I stood there and looked at him, trying not to show any emotion on my face. I was mostly in shock. Why hadn’t Amory told us vampires could do that? Did he even know? I wondered how many people Chesed could bind to himself. Could he only bind one person at a time, or could he bind a whole bunch? Did he have part of the school under his control? That could have explained the odd behavior some of the students were exhibiting. I wondered if any of my new “friends” were bound to him.

“I also have a special ability. Can you guess what it is?”

I thought for a second. It had something to do with the reason he kissed me. He hadn’t read my mind, because I had no desire to kiss him, or to have any type of romantic or physical relationship with him.

“You somehow…knew…that I desired someone to return my feelings. You can sense what I want?”

“Very observant, Isis. I can sense certain things from people. From what Chesed told me, combined with I learned from you while you were touching me on the bike, I could tell that you are a very deprived girl.”

I glared at him. I wouldn’t say that I was deprived. Amory had other things to worry about; there would always be time for me after he killed Chesed.

“There’s one thing that you want the most, and you can’t have it. You want Amory, but he is only focused on trying to kill Chesed. What will he do if he ever kills Chesed? Do you really think he’ll turn to you afterwards and everyone will be happy?”

That anxiety returned to my chest, and this time it was worse. What if Draven was right? Was I wasting my time with Amory? Would I always follow him around like a lost puppy, hoping he would eventually throw me a treat or a pat on the head?

My voice was shaky as I said, “I just have to trust him and follow him. He saved me; he’s the only person keeping me sane anymore.”

“He doesn’t have to be,” Draven said softly, giving me kind eyes. He held out his hand to me and I looked at it stupidly. He was only a few feet away from me, it would be so easy to just walk over to him and take his hand. “You can join me and Chesed, you can join the vampires. You can’t be a normal human anymore, but you can be a vampire. Right now, you live a precarious existence, trying to balance power and insanity, but if you became a vampire, you wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore. You’d only have power, you wouldn’t be living from little vials of stolen blood, trying to pace your meals in-between vampire killings.”

How did he know so much? Chesed and his people had been doing quite a bit of spying if they knew all this. I continued to stare at his hand, weighing everything in my mind. Joining Chesed would mean giving up on Amory forever. It would also mean killing humans in order to survive. If I stayed with Amory, I had no idea how much longer I’d even be alive. I also had no guarantee that he would ever even return my feelings. I didn’t have the time to waste on unwanted feelings.

“He knows that you love him, Isis,” He said. The words made more tears moisten my eyes. They ran down my cheeks and fell into the darkness. I sniffed, and he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, tossing it to me. I wiped my eyes and nose and clutched it. The cloth smelled like vampire, but it didn’t bother me as it had before. Why was a vampire even carrying a handkerchief? “Yet, he strings you along, almost like he’s teasing you. You don’t deserve that kind of treatment.”

I nodded quietly, his words made so much sense. Why had I never thought of it before? Why was I still even with Amory? The hand was still there, and I took a step forward, slowly reaching out to him.

As my fingertips touched his, I felt a tingle of excitement run through my body, warmth welling up into my chest replacing that feeling of anxiety. He smiled at me kindly, and I thought of how his lips had felt against mine. The kiss hadn’t been so bad, it had even been enjoyable. I licked my lips, wondering if I should kiss him again, wondering if we could explore each other’s bodies.

He looked up and behind me and groaned. I turned my head to look as well and my blood ran cold.

It was Raze and another boy, some small and skinny stranger, coming towards us. Raze had something small slung over his shoulder and both of them were covered in blood. I quickly pulled my hand away from Draven’s and stepped away, not wanting Raze to see me close to the vampire.

“Isis!” He yelled as he jogged closer, the scrawny kid struggling to keep up, “What’s going on? I felt your call for help.”

“I-I…” I stammered, trying to keep my emotions from showing. I must have looked awful, though. I was thankful for the lack of light; it would hide the puffiness of my face and the redness of my eyes. I hated crying.

I looked over at Draven, but he was already on his bike, jacket pulled on. He fired up the engine and blew me a kiss, driving off.

I heard the kid that I didn’t know say something, but I couldn’t even understand what he was saying. I dropped to my knees, still holding Draven’s handkerchief. What had I almost done? Had I really almost betrayed my friends and given up on Amory? I had almost agreed to become a vampire, the very thing that I hated. My mind, my emotions, they felt so confused.

Draven’s power was more devious than he let on; he had done more than just see what I desired. He had manipulated my feelings, he had toyed with my insecurities, and he had nearly persuaded me to give everything up for him. He was a very dangerous vampire.

I was tired of crying, but nonetheless, the tears came again, turning into sobs as Raze dropped what he was carrying and went to his knees in front of me, hugging me, holding me. He was warm and solid, he felt so much more real than Draven had felt. The vampire had just been a statue, dead and cold. I held onto Raze and he felt so alive and, for the first time since I’d known him, comforting.

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A/N: This chapter was kind of hard to write. At times, I feel like Isis is way too confused, and I also feel like she ended up crying too much. However, we learn more about Draven, the mysterious vampire, and we get to see Raze's softer side! Keep reading, I posted two chapters this morning, since I got two reviews (even though they were bad ones, refer to the top of the page for more information about that), and a lot of comments.

Go on to Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Two - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Go Back to Chapter Twenty-One

I don’t know how the little girl managed to do it, since she was about a quarter of my size, but before I knew it, she was on top of me, holdin’ me to the ground, ready to deal the killin’ blow. I tried to struggle, I tried to kick and punch her, but she had me freakin’ pinned to the ground. My mind was confused, I couldn’t understand how she was doin’ it. I shoulda been able to kill this kid, easy.

“I don’t…get it,” I choked out, she had me down by the throat. We’d moved down to the field so we could fight easier. All it’d really gotten me was some more mud and grass stains to compliment the ones I’d gotten durin’ practice. The fight hadn’t really even been a fight, she’d overpowered me so quickly.

“I’m stronger than you, there’s nothing else to get,” She was enjoyin’ it. I couldn’t strangle her, since she was already dead, but I was alive. I needed to breathe, though. I could still be suffocated. She was somehow usin’ her power to make herself so strong that her tiny size didn’t matter. I still didn’t really understand how it worked. The point was that it did work, and I was dyin’.

I helplessly fumbled for my knife, but it was long gone. When she’d come after me, I’d tried to stab her, but she knocked my knife away. I didn’t know where it was anymore, it could’ve gone anywhere.

I cursed, usin’ up some of my precious air. This was not the way to die, gettin’ choked to death by a little girl. She’d probably drink my blood when I got close to blackin’ out, I wouldn’t be able to defend myself by then. Feebly, I tried sendin’ out a pulse of power. I hadn’t done it before mostly because it was the easy way out. I’d wanted to fight this bitch myself. Maybe if I brought Amory her head, my debt would be repaid and he’d let me go free. Now, I was askin’ for him to save me. Dammit, I was gonna owe him for the rest of my existence. Maybe Isis would come, and then it would be even more embarrassin’.

“Die already!” She hissed, puttin’ more pressure on my neck. She was about to snap it, then she wouldn’t have to worry at all. The little kid in her was becomin’ impatient. I think she was enjoyin’ watchin’ me suffer, though. Were my eyes buggin’ out? Was I turnin’ blue? My face felt hot, my lungs were burnin’.

I felt Isis’ power from far away, it was so faint. She wasn’t comin’ for me, she seemed like she was in trouble too. She wasn’t gonna save me, I could just hang that up.

I looked over at Alex, he was frozen, just standin’ there like a big dumb idiot. His eyes had this glazed-over look. Where was his energy from earlier?

“Alex!” I managed to say, “Help me…what’s wrong…with you?”

He didn’t even look at me; he just stared off into the distance.

Maleah grinned, “He’s not going to help you, he’s bound to Chesed for as long as he lives. Chesed can bind any normal human to him if he so wishes.”

“Normal?” I couldn’t speak more than a word at a time anymore.

“Yes, powerless humans. They’re so weak, just like you.” I noticed that she had blood on the front of her blue, lacy monstrosity of a dress, I wondered where that had come from. Was it from when she bit my arm earlier, or had she hurt me more and I didn’t even notice? It was odd what I was noticin’ in my final moments of life, my brain all confused by the lack of air.

I’ve got power, I thought to myself. I couldn’t talk anymore. I didn’t have the air in my lungs to say anything. That power’s goin’ to waste, though. It’s a shame. She’s just too much for me. But what if…what if I passed on that little bit I’ve got left? Maybe someone else could use it. My brain was movin’ so slow, I didn’t really even know what I meant when I thought it.

Maybe Alex can do somethin’ with it.

I reached out with one arm, tryin’ to reach for Alex.

“It’s no use, stupid. He’s not going to help you.”

No, but I’m gonna help him. I’d never tried givin’ up some power, but I knew from Amory that it could be done. He’d told me before that normal humans could get power from us hunters and other vampires if they spent a lot of time with ‘em. He’d told me about how power liked to spread out, how it liked to go from people who had a lot in ‘em to people who didn’t have much. Hopefully, my power’d like Alex. He didn’t seem very strong.

I focused on him, feelin’ kind of stupid. I didn’t know what I was doin’. From what I knew, no one’d ever even tried to do this. I just imagined all the strength in me going towards him. I could feel the last little bit of my life leavin’ me, I just hoped I was sendin’ it to the right place.

I saw movement outta the corner of my eye, but I was too far gone to understand it. The last thing I thought before I blacked out was how embarrasin’ it was to be killed by a little girl…

* * * * *

I woke up with blood in my mouth, stabbin’ pains in my chest over and over again, and rough lips on my own. The skin around ‘em was scratchy, like a dude that hadn’t shaved in a couple of days was kissin’ me.

I opened my eyes and all I saw was blurry shapes through the red-tinted haze. Was there blood all over my face? I reached up to wipe off my face, coughin’ on the blood. The lips went away and so did the pains. I realized the person with the lips was causin’ that pain, restartin’ my heartbeat, breathin’ air into my lungs. I took deep breaths after I’d coughed out all the blood and saliva onto the cool, damp grass. I kept coughing until my body began fightin’ me. I rolled over onto my stomach and pushed myself up a little bit with my arms. I started dry heavin’ from all the coughin’ but not throwin’ anythin’ up.

“You alright, Raze?” It was Alex, awake from his stupor.

“Was this blood mine or someone else’s?” I said, my voice was scratchy and my throat was dry. I really coulda used somethin’ to drink.

“The girl’s…” He trailed off.

I slowly sat up and looked around. A few feet away from me was a tiny body still dressed in that damn blue lacy outfit that was slowly turnin’ purple, stained with blood. A knife, my knife was stickin’ out of her back.

I slowly wiped all his spit off my mouth, lifesavin’ or not, and walked over to her body.

“You killed her?” I asked as I pulled out the knife and slowly began lickin’ the blood off. It’d help my throat feel better in no time.

He winced, “She was choking you, there was a knife at my feet, it was instinct, I didn’t know what to do-”

I interrupted him, “Kid, it’s fine. You saved my life.”

“But I killed a little girl, I feel awful,” I noticed for the first time that he had tears runnin’ down his blood-spotted face. He looked pretty awful.

“Like I said before, kid. This wasn’t no little girl. She was a vampire, a very old and very powerful one.” I began examinin’ the body, but it was a mess, most of the blood had soaked into her clothes and there wasn’t much left. Still, I needed it. I’d given most of my power to Alex, which is what musta woken him up from Chesed’s spell. With my power in him, he wasn’t just a normal human, and Chesed couldn’t control him anymore. He musta caught her by surprise, she wasn’t expectin’ him to be any kind of threat.

I sighed, realizin’ what I’d done to him,“Y’know, you can’t just go back to bein’ a normal human anymore, kid. I hate what I did to ya, but I think you’re gonna be stuck with me for a while.”

He gave me a confused look, “What do you mean, I can’t just go back to being normal? Are you saying I’m not normal anymore?”

“I gave you a little gift, I gave you some of my power, and now that you’ve had some of a vampire hunter’s power, you gotta keep gettin’ more power.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” He crossed his arms and looked at me.

“I didn’t make the rules, I just know ‘em. Now, you killed this vampire. We’ll share the blood. I need some too so that I can heal up. My throat’s killin’ me, and I got a major headache. Nothin’ a little vampire blood can’t cure, though.”

“You’re going to drink her blood?” He looked like he was gonna barf.

“It’s what we do, it gives us our power, it gives us our strength.”

“You didn’t seem so strong, that vampire almost killed you. If it wouldn’t have been for me, you would be dead now!”

“Okay, smartass, do you want to join us or not? I can just leave you here to go crazy once my power in you wears off if you want. No skin off my back.” I ripped open her dress a little more where the wound was so that it didn’t keep soakin’ in. We’d get a little bit outta her. She was so old that it was like concentrated orange juice or somethin’. A little’d go a long way.

He looked a little green, but he walked over beside me.

“Go get one of those water cups we were usin’ durin’ practice,” I told him. He ran over and grabbed one. It’d been used already, but it would do the job.

I began to bleed out what was left in her into the small cup, once it was filled, I handed it to him.

He made a face at me, clearly grossed out by the blood.

“Drink it, it’s not so bad.”

He just shuddered as he took the cup from my hands. His own hands were shakin’, makin’ the top of the thick liquid slosh a little bit.

“Just hold your nose and chug it, like you’re takin’ medicine.” I offered, tryin’ to help.

He pinched his nose with two fingers and tilted the cup back, tryin’ to drink the blood as fast as he could. I saw him gag, and I hoped he wouldn’t throw it up. We didn’t have much to waste. He handed the cup back to me, coughin’ a little bit. “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” He chuckled, smilin’ at me. His lips and teeth were stained with blood, so it looked pretty gruesome.

“You’ll learn to like it. You’ll crave it, even.” I told him as I drained a cup for myself. There was barely enough to fill it. She’d lost so much blood outta that big ol’ wound. I wondered how long it had taken Alex to resuscitate me. I figured it wasn’t even him that really brought me back to life. When he’d stabbed her while she was on top of me, some of her blood had gotten into my mouth. That’s probably what had given me the energy to come back alive. Still, I’m sure Alex’s CPR had helped.

When the body was empty of blood and we’d both had our shares, I picked it up and slung it over my shoulder. I didn’t have nothin’ to use to start a fire and get rid of it, and I kinda wanted to show her body to Amory. I was still hopin’ he’d call it even since I’d killed Chesed’s sister. Well, Alex’d really killed her but I’d still helped. And if Chesed was still around, I wanted to see the look on his face when he saw the dead little blonde.

I figured I’d tend to Isis first, since I’d felt her send out a cry for help. It felt like it came from the other side of the school, over by where the practice courts were for the basketball team.

“Let’s go,” I said to Alex. He was kinda drunk from the blood by now; it was startin’ to go through his system. He’d feel pretty high for a bit, the whole world would seem more alive to him as his senses adjusted. He got up fluidly, and then overcorrected, almost fallin’ over. The vampire blood in him was givin’ him more strength than he’d ever had in his life.

“This is so cool,” He said, lookin’ around at the night with new eyes. “I can see everything!”

“Yeah, it is cool, but we gotta go help Isis now. She might be in trouble.” I began headin’ that way.

“Sure, sure. Let’s go help her,” He smiled. He’d make a good hunter; he already was enjoyin’ the power. He’d probably be one of those kids that wanted to kill the vampires to make the world a better place and all that bull. All it was for me was power, and that’s all it’d ever be. The good samaritan hunters never got nowhere, they always got killed young.

We headed together over towards the courts, but somethin’ was eatin’ at the back of my mind. I had a feelin’ that Alex would wanna tell Isis and Amory all about what happened.

“Kid?” I said as we were walkin’.

“Yeah?” He was gazin’ off into the distance, tryin’ out his night-vision.

“I don’t care if you tell my friends about what happened, but can you leave somethin’ out?”

“Yeah, what?” He looked up at me.

“Don’t tell ‘em that we kissed,” I growled, “Or I’ll kill ya.”

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A/N: I really liked this chapter, it was probably one of my favorites to write in a long time. Even though it's on the long side (compared to most of the other chapters), I think it reads well. I hope you all enjoy it, I need some positive encouragement right about now. >.<

Go on to Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-One - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Go back to Chapter Twenty

After cheerleading practice, I’d hoped to be rid of the girls. They all thought I was so special, and they all wanted me to spend time with them after practice. They wanted to do my hair and go shopping; they didn’t care about much else other than appearances.

I walked down the front steps of the school, hoping they’d go their separate ways or at least away from me, but they continued to follow me, jabbering on about unimportant girly things. I hated cheerleaders. As I walked down the stairs, I saw someone waiting, sitting on a black motorcycle on the sidewalk at the bottom of the stairs.

“Who’s that weirdo?” Janet asked no one in particular.

“I don’t know, but he’s kind of cute,” Samantha said behind me.

The man sitting on the motorcycle looked up at us, at me in particular, as if he expected me, as if he’d been waiting there for me all along. He was dressed in dark clothing, with dark hair that went to his shoulders, dark eyes, and pale skin. The humid darkness of the night accentuated his look, his skin pale and almost glowing in the soft moonlight against his shadowy features. He was wearing dark jeans and a black leather jacket, a similar outfit to the one I’d picked out for Amory to wear to school that day, but no helmet or other protective gear.

“Cute in a scary, bad-boy way,” Janet giggled. It seemed they’d already forgotten about Amory, just like animals, forgetting their old prey as soon as new movement catches their eyes.

“He’s looking at you, Isis. Do you know him?” Samantha asked.

“No.” I said as I continued down the steps towards him. Samantha and Janet stood back, cautious.

“Hello, Isis,” The mysterious man said. Up closer, I could see more details. His right eyebrow and bottom lip were pierced. I thought of how that might hurt while he was riding his motorcycle, the wind catching on the small metal rings. He had a thin mustache and what looked like the beginnings of stubble that could quickly and easily grow into a shaggy beard. He had tattoos on his arms, but I couldn’t really make them out.

“Who are you?” I said quietly, so Janet and Samantha couldn’t hear. “Why are you here?”

“My name is Draven,” He said in a lightly accented voice. I couldn’t place the accent, but it was from some European country. He smiled just for me, showing off the fangs that let me know he was a vampire.

“Chesed sent you?” I asked cautiously.

“Indeed, he did,” Draven said.

I cursed after his response. Raze was right, we’d walked right into Chesed’s trap. But I couldn’t fight a vampire with half the cheerleading squad watching. Was that his goal? Would he drain all the cheerleaders after he killed me?

I wouldn’t let him. “Are you here for a fight?” I asked him.

“Unless you want to surrender right now, but then it would be terribly boring,” His formal speech seemed out of place against his biker exterior.

I licked my lips, thinking of any way to move the fight away from the girls. “If you take me somewhere else to fight, I promise you that I’ll make it an exciting one.”

He grinned at me, his entire demeanor relaxing, “Alright blondie, hop on the back here and let’s go find somewhere for just the two of us.” He winked at me then up at the gaggle of cheerleaders still standing about midway up the stairs. I couldn’t make out what they were saying because they were all furiously whispering at the same time.

I climbed on the back and wrapped my arms around his body. I didn’t really want to get that close to the vampire, but I also didn’t want to fall off. I probably wouldn’t die, but it would hurt like a bitch, and take a few days to heal. I breathed in the scent of leather, but below that smell was something else, the pungent aroma of vampire. The stale scent of death, something that should be long dead but was still roaming the earth. Amory was probably as old or even older than this vampire, but he didn’t smell like this. Only vampires do. I’d never asked him why, there were a lot of things I’d never asked him. It made me feel a little hollow, thinking that I might never get to ask now.

To the girls, my situation probably looked bad. A few of them even yelled at me, trying to convince me not to get on. I had just told them I didn’t know the guy, now I was getting onto his motorcycle, wrapping my arms around him like we were closer than friends. Plus, with the recent deaths and killings, they probably feared for my life.

Jane called down, “Get off of there, Isis! You aren’t even wearing a helmet. You’ll get killed and then we’ll never make the championships!”

I sighed into the leather that was tight across Draven’s back. Silly girls, only thinking of themselves. Even back in the dance room, they had been too busy being focused on themselves to notice that I shouldn’t have been able to pull off the moves I did. Still, I couldn’t let them get hurt. Most of them were nice, in their own ways.

“Don’t worry, everyone,” I called up to them as Draven started up the bike, the loud engine rattling my eardrums along with my entire body. I had to shout over the growl of the engine, “He’s an old friend; I just didn’t recognize him at first! I’ll see you all tomorrow!” I waved with one arm and held onto him with the other. I tried to keep myself from showing fear. Not only was I alone, on a bike with a dangerous vampire that I didn’t know, but he was taking me to some unknown destination so I could basically fight him to the death.

The wind whipped at my hair and I was suddenly thankful for the previously annoying ponytail. At least it wasn’t blowing in my face. I repositioned myself slightly, so that I wasn’t pressing my chest against Draven’s back, but I was still holding onto him. I didn’t want the vampire to be getting any ideas up there.

Draven was going well over the speed limit, an annoying habit of vampires. Their lives were measured in decades rather than years, so when they could make something go fast it excited them. Admittedly, it was an exhilarating ride. We were going so fast I could barely catch my breath. A wreck at these speeds would kill normal humans. It might even kill someone like me. Just that thought made my heart beat faster, adrenaline rushed through my veins.

The ride wasn’t long, it didn’t need to be. He took us in a big loop and we ended up at the school’s outdoor basketball practice courts. He drove the bike up the little ramp at the curb then onto one of the courts, parking it underneath one of the goals. This area wasn’t lit up at all during the night, and my visibility was low. The vampire would be at an advantage. My night vision was almost as good as a vampire’s, but he would still be able to see a little better than me. He left the motorcycle’s headlight on, shining its feeble light across the court. It was better than nothing.

I pulled my silver-edged knife out of my ankle sheath. Raze and Amory had similar sheaths and Raze had a similar knife. They’d been gifts from Amory and we always carried them. Vampires could smell gunpowder, so it made it harder to carry more efficient weapons like guns. Plus, if we were caught with guns it would spell trouble. We were supposed to be portraying high school students, minors. Guns were too risky. I knew Raze would still prefer to use one, or maybe a crossbow with silver-tipped arrows. I liked using the knife though. Nothing like spilling a vampire’s blood all over your hands, the warm, delicious liquid just gushing out. The mere thought made me salivate. Amory was the only one keeping me sane anymore; otherwise I might have stabbed the vampire while we were riding. It probably wouldn’t have been the smartest thing to do considering we were going well over the speed limit.

Draven looked at me as I unsheathed the blade, his dark brown eyes completely in shadow. In the light, or lack of light, it looked like he didn’t even have eyes, just black pits in the darkness.

“Anxious to fight, are we?” He asked.

“Might as well do this. The sooner I dispose of you, the sooner I can get to Amory and Raze. From what I’ve heard about how Chesed does things, you’re probably not the only vampire around.” I readied myself to fight, stretching my arms and legs as I talked to Draven.

He shrugged, “Guess you’ve heard right. Your friends should be pretty busy right about now.”

I gritted my teeth, I was tired of talking. I wanted to get this done with so I could help Amory and Raze. No reason to send out a pulse of power to ask them for help if they had their own opponents to worry about. It would just worry them, and waste my energy. Still, the vampire could be lying to me. How did I know for sure if Raze and Amory were fighting? I hadn’t felt any signals from them. At least one of them would have probably sent out some kind of warning or call for help, unless they didn’t even get a chance to before their opponents overwhelmed them. I shuddered and pushed that thought aside. Raze and Amory were strong, I had to trust that they could live through this.

I took a deep breath and centered myself, trying to find that fine line in my consciousness that let me border sanity and madness. This was the place I always went to for fighting. It allowed me to kill recklessly, without any abandon, but I could always go back. If I retained a slight bit of control in the back of my mind, I could keep myself from truly going insane. Most of the time, I used Amory as my anchor. I kept a thought of him at the back of my mind, and it always helped me regain my sanity after fighting a vampire. Why would I even let myself go like this while I fought? I’d wondered it myself, but I eventually realized that if I went to that fighting place in my mind, I was faster, I was stronger, and I was harder to kill. It was a risk I was willing to take in order to increase my odds of survivability.

I sized up my opponent in a new way. Before, I’d been looking at Draven in the way a human looks at other humans. I looked at his hair and eye color, his clothing, his piercings and tattoos. Now, I was measuring him up against myself, trying to decide how the fight would go. He wasn’t much taller than me, but then again, I’m taller than most girls. He probably outweighed me by a good fifty pounds at least. I could smell his power; I could taste it on my tongue as it flowed around him and outward towards me, like an invisible aura. He was powerful, and he was old. He was so powerful that I hadn’t even noticed his power before he showed it to me. He’d been able to hide it that well.

I already felt defeated. I knew I couldn’t win this fight. Draven was incredibly powerful. This wasn’t a fight for a single hunter alone.

Draven must have noticed something in my eyes, “I’m disappointed, Isis. This isn’t like you.”

“Don’t act like you know me,” I eyed him suspiciously.

“Chesed told me a great deal about you. I guess he’s been keeping up with you, doing a little bit of spying and research. He told me you’re a good fighter, never passing up a chance for power and blood. He thought you’d find my blood incredibly enticing. I’m almost as old as Chesed, probably the oldest vampire you’ve ever come across.”

So Chesed had chosen Draven for me. He thought I wouldn’t be able to pass up a fight with Draven for the chance of a valuable prize if I could manage to defeat him.

I sighed. I really didn’t have much of a choice; it’s not like this was a fight I could just back out of. Maybe my insanity would win out over Draven’s power. I’d have to try.

Draven must have seen the look of resolve in my eyes, because he smiled, the points of his fangs only showing slightly. “That’s more like it,” He almost purred the words. He was getting excited.

I focused my mind on the task at hand. I found the mindset I was looking for and pushed all the worry and all the human feelings out of my head, except for one. I kept a little bit of love in there. Even if my love for Amory was unrequited, it was still back there, keeping me from going completely mad. He’d never realize that he was my anchor, the only person that could keep me in the rational world.

That evening, my only regret was that I hadn’t truly told Amory my feelings for him. I vowed to myself that if I came out of this alive, I would tell him everything.

---------

A/N: I really didn't feel like making an entirely separate post discussing this chapter, because I don't have much to say about it. I kind of felt like the ending of this chapter was a little awkward. Also, this chapter is probably one of the longer ones I've written, hope it doesn't drag on too much. We have an entirely new character introduction in this chapter! Isis and Raze are both entering their own respective fight scenes in the next two chapters, so they should be filled with lots of action! I should probably get to writing those. >.<

Edit: I took out the last paragraph, it was kind of blah to me, so I feel it's better without it.

Go on to Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Go Back to Chapter Nineteen

About halfway through football practice, once the sun went down, I noticed a small girl sittin’ in the bleachers. She just sat there, all alone, watchin’ us. The bright lights they were usin’ to light the field made the thick curls of her blonde hair shine in the darkness like some sorta beacon or lighthouse or somethin’. She looked around nine or ten, too young to be out there by herself, but there she was. She was wearin’ a little light blue dress, all frilly and puffy and girly, with little black shiny shoes. I couldn’t have been the only one who noticed her, but no one else said nothin’ about it. They were too busy worryin’ about gettin’ ready for the first game of the season.

I wasn’t too great at football. I didn’t really know all the rules and stuff, but Alex helped me out durin’ practice. He’d throw me the ball and tell me what to do, where to stand, and which way to run. With him helpin’ me, I was able to at least pretend like I knew what I was doin’. Since I was stronger and faster than everyone else, I did pretty well for my first day. The coach seemed impressed. After practice, he told me that I was on the team, and I’d be startin’ in the first game. I hopefully would be gone by then, so I wouldn’t really haveta play. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the game, it just wasn’t my thing. I didn’t like all the rules and stuff.

After practice was over and after the coach talked to me, Alex came up to me. “You were awesome today, Raze.”

“Yeah, thanks for helpin’ me.” I looked down at him, his black curls matted down by a combination sweat and the helmet that he’d been wearin’ all durin’ practice.

“You were running all over the field, you don’t even look tired or hurt,” He grinned.

I began to head over to the bleachers where the girl was still sittin’. I knew she was waitin’ for me. “I’ve got good stamina,” I said to him offhandedly, hopin’ he’d go away.

“Is that your sister?” He asked me when he saw the girl.

“No, I don’t know her,” I kept walkin’ over to her. She’d stood up, climbin’ down to meet me, her little dress bouncin’ as she walked.

“You must be one of Chesed’s friends,” I said to her as she walked up to me. She was so tiny that I squatted down so I could look at her right in her pretty little perfect face. My green eyes met her blue ones as I stared her down.

“That I am,” She said, her voice was annoyin’ and high, talkin’ like an adult rather than a little kid. I could feel her power; she was definitely a vampire, an old one too. My mouth watered at the thought of how good her blood must be, how good it must feel to drink and gain her power.

“I guess Amory was right about Chesed layin’ a trap. I can’t believe he led us into it like this,” I said. I needed a cigarette real bad, this stuff was too stressful.

“Chesed’s always been smarter than Amory,” She said, grinnin’ and flashin’ her fangs at me.

“Whoah,” Alex said behind me. I was hopin’ he’d gone away, but I guess he wanted to stay to see the show. Stupid kid, he was gonna get himself killed and I didn’t feel like stickin’ my neck out to help scrawny brainless people like him. “That little kid has fangs.”

“Go away, Alex. This ain’t for you to see.”

“No way man, I can be here if I want,” He said stubbornly. His voice sounded all curious. Great, I had an audience.

I glared at him before lookin’ back at the girl, “I ain’t helpin’ ya if ya get in trouble, just to letcha know.”

“I can stick up for myself,” He said, all defensive-like.

I said to the little girl, “I s’ppose you’re here to kill me?”

“I’m only supposed to kill you if you refuse my proposal,” She said, brushin’ back those bouncy yellow curls outta her face. They were annoyin’ me and they weren’t even mine.

I laughed, “You’re proposin’? I think you’re a little too young for me.”

She made a face at me that reminded me of Janet’s from earlier in the day. “Not that kind of proposal. Chesed thinks that you can be valuable. He wants to know if you want to join us.”

“Don’t do it man, this girl is really creepy,” Alex whispered behind me.

“Just shut up, kid. This ain’t none of your business,” I snapped at him. The girl also glared at him. If he kept it up, she’d kill him. I stood up so I towered over her. “Chesed wants to make me a vampire? How come?”

“Same reasons that Amory sought you out. You’re strong, and we’re always looking for strong people to turn. Amory got to you first, but we can give you even more power than you have now. More power than you’ve ever dreamed. All you have to do is follow Chesed.”

“I don’t follow no one. I’m only followin’ Amory for a bit ‘cause I owe him. Once I’ve repaid him, then I’m off to hunt vampires alone. That way I can get as much power as I want and have nobody to order me ‘round.”

“Do you really think Amory will just let you leave him?”

“If he don’t let me leave, then I’ll kill him,” I shrugged, ignorin’ Alex’s gasp behind me.

“You can’t kill him.” She was really startin’ to get on my nerves.

“How do you know?” I growled, tryin’ to seem more fierce.

“Amory must battle my brother. It’s his destiny.” She smiled like she knew the future, arrogant little kid. I fought back urges to reach out and strangle her. It was so temptin’, even though vampires don’t need to breathe. I just wanted to watch her struggle.

“Oh, so you’re that little girl vampire Amory told us about. Maria or somethin’ like that.” Amory told me and Isis once about how he couldn’t kill the girl and then he’d later found out that she was Chesed’s sister.

“My name is Maleah.” She said through gritted teeth. I guess I struck a nerve.

“Well, I’m not gonna join you and Chesed, so you can just leave me alone about that. If it’s a fight ya want though, I’ll put up a good one. Amory might not like hurtin’ a little girl, but I don’t really mind. Vampire’s a vampire to me, you all bleed the same. Even though you won’t have as much. Shame though, I bet your blood is rich and tasty, as old as you are.”

She made a disgusted look at me, “You aren’t getting anything from me. I’ll rip your head off.”

“Then do it, fight me,” I grinned. I was gonna enjoy this. I pulled a small, silver-edged knife from an ankle sheath. Amory made us all carry knives like this. I wanted to use guns and silver bullets, but Amory said they were too messy, and they were harder to conceal. The knife would work, though. She was just a little vampire.

“You’re going to kill a little girl?” Alex said behind me.

“This ain’t no little girl, kid. This bitch is older than you and me put together, and I ain’t as old as you think I am. Ain’t that right, hag?”

She growled at me and made the first move. She might have been older than dirt, but she had a temper like a little kid. Easy to provoke. She leaped onto me, baring her little fangs, which might have been funny-lookin’ if my life wasn’t in danger.

Alex shouted in surprise, because I knew what it looked like to him. I might have seen her comin’, but to him it probably looked like magic. Standin’ there lookin’ all cute one second, then turned into a monster, tryin’ to latch herself onto my neck, tryin’ to rip out my veins and arteries and bleed me to death, messin’ up her cute little dress.

She was stronger and faster than she looked, the little brat. I wasn’t able to keep her from biting me, but I was able to keep her off my neck. She sank her fangs into my left arm as I brought it up to protect my more vital parts. It hurt, ‘cause she didn’t just dig those little fangs into my arm, she had all her teeth in my flesh. I couldn’t just yank her off, ‘cause she might take some of my skin with her. I’d heal faster than a normal human, but it’d still take a while to heal back a missin’ chunk of my arm. At least it wasn’t my dominant arm she was suckin’ on.

I swiped at her with my knife, but she saw it comin’ and let go, dodgin’ out of the way. I didn’t mind too much, at least I had my arm back.

“Oh man, that looks bad,” Alex said. I looked down at it for a few seconds. She’d done a good number on me, a bloody ring of bite marks on my arm.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I told him, tryin’ not to move my arm too much. It’d start healin’ soon, the blood had already stopped comin’ out.

She grinned at me, her teeth all stained with my blood. “Who’s a hag?” She asked in that little kid voice.

I laughed, Alex givin’ me a confused look. “This ain’t over yet, bitch.”

“You’re right,” She giggled at my cliché words and replied, “I’m just getting started.”

My own Comments on this Chapter

Chapter Nineteen - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Go Back to Chapter Eighteen

Raze told the coach he’d played football before, but I don’t think he’d ever even watched it, much less played. He could pop back up from a hard hit even with no protection, and he could run the ball, but he couldn’t throw, he couldn’t catch, and he really didn’t even know the rules. He had the strength and the reflexes, but he’d need a lot more than that. I wanted what he seemed to have so naturally, such speed and power. I’ve been small and scrawny all my life. My dad put me in football hoping it would “make a man of me,” but all it did was put me on the bench while the other guys made fun of me, a perpetual loser. I was more or less a water boy, bringing the other players towels and refreshments, never getting my moment of glory, never getting to score a single point, never getting to make the winning touchdown pass. For once, I’d like to know how to it felt to be strong enough to do something. To make a difference. To make something of myself.

-Alex

After the first night of drama club practice, Diana begged me to walk her to her car. I wanted to refuse, but she looked so weak, so defenseless. Her blood would be on my hands if something happened to her, so I felt like I had to walk her to her car.

“Thanks for doing this, Amory. I know it’s your first day and you have to get to your family too, but I really just don’t like being out here alone in the dark anymore. Not since the attacks. I know I should probably start ending rehearsals sooner, before dark, but I’m afraid that if we don’t get in enough practice time then we won’t be ready for our performance! That would be so terrible; I would die of embarrassment if the play was horrible.”

“It’s fine, Diana. Which way is your car?” I was hoping to get this done with quickly so I could get to Raze and Isis.

“Oh, over here.” She led me through the mostly empty parking lot, over to where her red Mustang was parked. She hadn’t told me much about her family, but the new car said she came from money.

I waited for her to get in before I left her. I wanted to make sure she was safely out of the parking lot before I went to meet up with Isis and Raze. Diana didn’t seem to want to get in yet, though. She had a different plan.

She shoved me against the car roughly, forcing her lips over mine. She kissed me like if she didn’t kiss me she would die. She kissed me as if life itself was inside the kiss, and she was drinking me down. I wasn’t a kisser. I didn’t have romantic relationships with others and I didn’t kiss people. I pushed against her, struggling, but even with my own supernatural strength, she held me, kept me from pushing her off.

I was able to pry her from my mouth, but she still held me. “Diana, what are you doing?” I looked into her eyes but they weren’t her eyes anymore. They were blank, cold eyes. Lifeless eyes. “Diana?” What was wrong with her?

“Don’t worry about her, she’ll be okay. She was merely there to keep you from running off to your little friends,” A voice said from the darkness. The voice made my blood run cold, adrenaline washed through my body like a wave. Chesed’s voice would do that to me.

I’d been careless. I should have known he was there, I just hadn’t expected any vampires to show up so soon. I’d underestimated Chesed. I was always underestimating him.

Chesed stepped into the circle of light cast by the streetlamps in the parking lot. He looked the same as always, time hadn’t changed either of us.

“This is your doing,” I said, still trying to force Diana off me. She was like a zombie now, and she wasn’t budging.

He laughed, “You know, I could kill you right now and you wouldn’t be able to stop me.”

I glared at him.

“I guess I should explain. Over the years we’ve been apart, I noticed I was developing an interesting power. No other vampire I’ve ever met has this power, which makes me believe that we older and more powerful vampires can gain additional abilities, things that other vampires may never be able to do. If I bind a human to myself, I can control what that human does. I can control how they act, how they move, and how they speak. I can literally speak through that person. I can give them power as well, which is how she can hold you down. I can bind however many humans I want to myself, I haven’t really found a limit. The only limits are time, and that they must be human. If they have any other power it conflicts with my own. I tried binding a fellow vampire to myself and he went a little crazy.” He grinned at the memory, flashing his white fangs.

“How many…” My sentence trailed off. I didn’t know how to ask, and I was also afraid of the answer.

“I’ve bound about half the school to me. When I’m not trying to control them, they just act as they always do, and I can also subtly influence their actions without taking over them completely.” He was acting as if we were kids again and he’d found something out that he couldn’t wait to tell me. The excited look on his face made him look even younger. It made me feel old, weathered, and numb.

“Can you get her off me? It’s not like I’m going to run or anything,” I said, shoving against her. His power through her body made her as strong as a vampire. I could have pushed her away if I forced it; I knew I could match Chesed’s strength. However, she was an innocent, she was a helpless victim. I didn’t want to hurt her if I could help it.

A few seconds after I asked, Diana moved off of me. He had her open the car door and get inside, just sitting in the car, not even starting it. “Let her go, let her leave this place.”

“I can’t let her go. Once I’ve bound someone, it’s permanent.”

I cursed and looked through the window at the helpless girl, her eyes so empty and devoid of life. “Don’t worry Diana,” I whispered to her, “I’ll kill him and save you. You and the rest of the school.”

“Big words coming from a lowly vampire hunter that can’t even save his parents from one fledgling vampire,” Chesed said behind me. I turned, preparing myself for a fight.

“Why did you bind so many children to you? What was the purpose?” I crouched, preparing myself for any sudden movements on his part.

“I wanted to see you,” He said simply, holding out his hands in a friendly gesture. “I also wanted to test how my new power has progressed. I figured I’d continue to bind humans to myself and kill the few that resisted. The deaths would attract you and your hunter friends, and then when you arrived, I’d see if you could detect anything in the humans I’d bound to myself. You couldn’t, could you?” He grinned.

I didn’t answer the question because he already knew the answer. At that moment, I felt Isis’ power spike as well as Raze’s. Were they fighting vampires as well? I asked through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the pleas from Isis and Raze, “Did you come alone?”

He smiled and I already knew his answer, just by looking upon that knowing expression, “No, I didn’t come alone. You have two friends, so I brought two friends as well. They should be busy with your little hunters right about now, though.”

I cursed again, angry with myself. We’d walked into his trap, we’d split ourselves up on purpose, we’d underestimated Chesed and his foresight. It was all my fault. Chesed wouldn’t bring amateurs, he’d bring seasoned hunters. Isis and Raze didn’t have a chance.

“I’m not here to kill you, Amory. I was just doing a little test to see how detectable my newfound talent was. I seem to have passed it. I’m also testing your little soldiers against my own. We’ll get to see how well you’ve trained them.”

“You may not be here to kill me, but I came here to kill you. I had a feeling that this place would lead me to you, and I am prepared to finally avenge the deaths of my mother and father.” I pulled my knife out slowly and prepared myself to attack.

Chesed looked at me with sad eyes, “It’s not time for us to do battle yet.”

“Don’t tell me you believe in all that fate and destiny crap,” I spat.

His eyes held too much peace; I wanted them to be filled with fear instead. “I do as much as you do, even though you pretend not to. Our lives are both governed by a combined destiny. You still have a couple more people to gather for your army, and I still have time to prepare myself as well. It is not yet time.”

“I don’t care about your fate and your destiny!” I shouted at him, “I care that you killed my family and I want you gone before you can destroy anymore people’s lives!”

He gave me that serene look as I continued to yell at him, to curse him for all he did. I was too busy screaming and crying that I completely forgot about Diana. With motions quicker than any human, she opened the car door, hitting my leg with the metal, denting her new car’s door. As pain shot through my leg and I fell to one knee, she appeared in front of me, quicker than I could blink, and hit me over the head with one of our larger and heavier textbooks; her blank eyes the last thing I saw before I blacked out.

My own comments on this chapter.

Go on to Chapter Twenty

Chapter Eighteen - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Go Back to Chapter Seventeen

I was never the jock type; those meatheads always pissed me off. They thought they were so great ‘cause they could catch a few balls and run around a big field. They got all the chicks and popularity and they really didn’t deserve it. Most of ‘em didn’t have brains or nothin’, no real life skills. But if Amory wanted me to try out for football, I was gonna try out for football. Since I became a vampire hunter, I was faster, stronger, and more agile than any of the pros. This would be easy.

I showed up for practice and the coach, I could already tell he was a real hardass, he looked me over. He was chewin’ on some sunflower seeds and had a whistle ‘round his neck. He spat a few out at my feet then said to me, “You the new kid?”

Tryin’ to make my best impression on him, I nodded and said, “Yessir.”

“You ever play ball?”

“Yessir,” I lied.

“You any good?” He stuck a few more seeds in his mouth and sucked on ‘em a bit before crackin’ into ‘em.

“I think so.”

“Now don’t just go and think that because we’re a small school you automatically get in. You gotta be decent, otherwise you’ll be warmin’ a bench all season.” He spat the empty shells onto the grass and gave me a hard look.

“I’ll try my hardest,” I said through gritted teeth. This asshole was already makin’ me mad. Most people that made me mad ended up gettin’ hurt.

“Go on, get out there and show me what you’re made of.” He pushed me towards the field and blew his whistle to signal the other guys. The high-pitched noise nearly shattered my eardrums. I think he did it on purpose. “Okay guys, this is…new kid, what’s your name?”

“Raze.” I said, lookin’ over the rest of the group. None of ‘em looked too promising; the school probably lost most of their games.

“His name is Raze,” He said to the other guys. “He’s gonna try out for the team over the next few days, so let’s have a little scrimmage. Raze, show me your best hustle out there.”

I nodded and went off with the rest of the team.

“He’s already trying to get you hurt,” A voice behind me said. I turned around and looked to see where the voice was comin’ from, and then I had to look down to see the kid.

“What do ya mean?”

He brushed curls of black hair back from his brown eyes and laughed, “What does everyone else have that you don’t?”

I looked around, “Those white things on their shoulders and those hard things on their heads?”

“Have you ever played football before?” He asked me.

“Of course I have,” I said defensively. “I just don’t remember what that stuff’s called.” Okay, I’ll even admit that sounded weak.

“The white things are shoulder pads and the hard things are helmets. You’ll need both of them if you don’t want to get hurt.”

“Where do I get ‘em?”

The kid looked around then laughed, “Coach should have given you some. If he didn’t, you might want to go ask him for some kind of protection.”

Somethin’ told me the coach didn’t really care if I got hurt. “I’ll be fine, kid. I don’t get hurt too easy.”

He looked me over. Sure, I wasn’t built like one of those pro players, all thick and muscled, but I didn’t need that stuff. The vampire blood runnin’ through my veins easily made up for my lack of form. The look on his face said he didn’t think I’d make it through one scrimmage.

“Don’t worry, kid. I’ll be fine.”

“Alex.”

“Huh?”

“It’s not kid, my name’s Alex.”

* * * * *

Samantha and Janet accosted me as soon as I arrived at cheerleading practice. I had to struggle to keep a cheerful look on my face while they introduced me to the rest of the blondes.

“Have you ever cheered before?” Bridget, the head cheerleader asked me.

I shook my head, annoyed by the bounciness of my hair. Janet had done it before I even realized what she was doing, quickly unbraiding it and yanking it up into a high ponytail.

“What about dance? Gymnastics?”

“When I was little my mom put me in tumbling, but other than that, not really,” I said. I could have lied to them and told them I had previous experience, but once they saw me attempting to cheer, they’d know I lied.

“So why are you even trying out?” She was already being a bitch, one of the reasons I didn’t want to do this in the first place. I wanted to yank her by the ponytail and throw her through one of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors lining the walls of the dance room.

I shrugged, “I’ve always wanted to be a cheerleader,” I said through gritted teeth, forcing another false, drippingly-cheerful smile.

Bridget gave me a condescending smile, as if she heard this all the time. “What do you think you have to bring to our squad?”

“I can guarantee you that I am the strongest girl in this school. Plus, I’m fast, agile, a quick learner, and I’m not a complainer when I get hurt or when things get tough.”

“Maybe she should try out for football, then,” One girl whispered a snarky commend to a friend.

I turned around and found the girl, the shortest one in the room, kind of chubby to be cheerleading, probably also the heaviest girl on the team. “You, the comedian, come over here,” I waited for her to walk over to me before I asked, “What’s your name?”

“Elizabeth,” She smirked, looking up at me.

“Well, Elizabeth, you can be my try-out then.”

Before she could utter the grunt, “Huh?” I’d already picked her up using both hands around her waist and then I hoisted her up into the air. Instinctively, she straightened her legs and I was able to hold her up by one foot with a single hand. She kept her balance as the other girls circled around me, shocked, ready to catch her in case she fell. My arm wasn’t even wobbling, though, and she was able to stay up. She looked a little bit frightened, but also impressed.

I looked over to Bridget and asked, “Does this make up for any lack of experience?”

She nodded quickly, looking fearful for Elizabeth’s health. I reached up with my other arm and grabbed, Elizabeth’s other foot before I pushed up, tossing her into the air. I caught her in my arms when she came down then gently placed her on the ground. She was shaking a little bit when she walked over to her friend, but it seemed to be more from adrenaline rather than fear.

“Wow!” Janet shouted, clapping excitedly. The other girls also began to clap, cheering for me. “Bridget, do you know what this means? With Isis, we can do so much harder and more challenging routines, because we will have her strength! We don’t even need to try to get any guys now!”

“I know, I know Janet. I was just thinking that myself. We have to train Isis in the basics, though, since she’s never cheered before. Isis, are you ready for your crash course in cheerleading?”

I could only think to myself, oh dear God, what have I gotten myself into? Inwardly cursing Amory for giving me this dumb assignment, I nodded, my cheeks sore from smiling so much. I was going to strangle that boy the next time I saw him, love or not.

My Own Comments on this Chapter

Go on to Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Seventeen - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Go back to Chapter Sixteen

Cheerleading!? What was Amory thinking? I hated cheerleaders when I was in high school, those happy little blondes, always hopping up and down in their short skirts, flirting with the boys and flashing their fake smiles. I only did it because he told me to. If it would have been anyone else in the world asking me to do this, I would have refused. Not that I was happy about doing this whole school thing. Amory said it would be easier to protect people if we played potential victims ourselves, but I would have preferred to watch the school from the outside rather than infiltrate it. I didn’t like being in this school with all these people. There were too many girls around Amory, too many to try their hand at seducing him. I saw him in the hallway when we were in-between classes, this pack of rabid hyena whores around him, all trying to get a piece. I was happy when I saw his face, though. He didn’t look happy about all the girls, that’s the only reason I didn’t go up and shove a few off him. I’m okay with it as long as he’s squirming, but if he would have enjoyed it, that would have been completely different. I was having my own problems with the male population. They seemed to think I was playing hard-to-get when I didn’t act interested, and they liked a challenge.

-Isis

I ended up being paired with Samantha, the ditsy blonde, in chemistry. I heard something about an accident earlier in the week causing her to be without a lab partner, but I tried my best to think positive. Samantha was extremely excited about this development, since it meant that she would be working alongside me during class. Several of the other girls in the class seemed angry and upset, jealous that she got me. Maybe they were afraid she’d injure me like she had the other guy. I met Brent before class and he warned me to be careful when I was around Samantha. His eyebrows were just beginning to grow back, and that burn on his nose looked painful.

I mostly just worked while Samantha watched me. I asked if she wanted to do any of the work, but she seemed content with just looking on. Much of it was new to me, but the experiment was simple. It seemed a lot like cooking and I’d done enough cooking in my life to be able to follow the easy instructions.

After chemistry was lunch, where I’d meet up with Isis and Raze to catch up on how their days were going. I caught sight of Isis’ hair amongst the crowd and walked up beside with her. She had several guys around her and she was looking exasperated with them, but when she saw me her eyes lit up. “Amory!” I’m so glad you’re finally here!” She took my arm and looked over at the boys. They took the hint and stalked off, mumbling to each other.

“Isis, you can’t let them think we’re together, we’re supposed to be brother and sister, even if we are adopted.”

“But I can’t get them to go away!” She dropped my arm and sat down at the nearest empty table. I sat across from her while Raze came up behind her and sat down next to her. He didn’t have anyone following him around, but he wasn’t really the kind of guy that girls would flock to. He was too moody, too dark, too scary.

Before I could talk to the two of them, Diana and her posse walked by. I pulled my jacket over my head and tried to hide myself, hoping they hadn’t seen me. Isis and Raze looked at me quizzically. “Don’t look around, just pretend I’m not here,” I whispered to them.

Raze laughed, spying Diana, her hair almost the same color as his. She gave him a look of disgust before she saw me peeking out from under the black leather.

“Peek-a-boo! I see you!” She cried out, hopping into the seat to my right, setting down her tray full of food and pulling off the jacket, messing up my hair. Samantha sat in the seat to the left of me and began to fix my hair. I pulled away and straightened it myself, giving her a dirty look. What was wrong with these girls? Janet reluctantly sat next to Raze, first checking to make sure he hadn’t put something unpleasant in her seat.

“You’re not eating?” Diana asked Isis as she began to eat her salad.

“I did not find the food…appetizing,” Isis said, glaring at Diana. I could tell she wasn’t happy about the presence of any of the girls and it was Diana and the others that she truly found unappetizing.

Diana ignored Isis’ cold tone and began to talk to me, “So I hear you’re all adopted siblings. How do you three get along? You all seem so different.”

Raze piped up suddenly, “Well, you see, we actually have this big love triangle goin’ on. Isis is in love with Amory, I’m absolutely infatuated with Isis, and Amory is head over heels in love with me in the worst – OW!” Isis kicked him under the table and he stopped laughing at his own joke. Janet giggled nervously while Isis looked like she was pondering how else she could hurt Raze without getting caught by one of the teachers monitoring the lunchroom.

“We get along well enough, we’ve known each other for a long time,” I said quickly, trying to smooth over the situation.

The lunch period was thankfully short and time passed quickly. The three girls formally introduced themselves to us. I already knew Diana was the president of the drama club, and we found out that Samantha and Janet were both cheerleaders. I told them that Isis wanted to try out for cheerleading and they told her to come to the dance room after school and they’d let her practice with the team a little bit so they could assess her skills. Isis thanked them, but gave me an especially contemptuous look when they weren’t looking. Apparently, she didn’t like the idea of being a cheerleader, even though she had the hair color and body for it.

Close to the end of lunch, Samantha brought up the recent vampire killings.

“You guys do know about the murders, right?” Samantha asked.

“Murders?” Raze put on a curious face.

“There’ve been four students killed already!” Janet whispered excitedly, as if they weren’t really allowed to be talking about them.

Diana added, “No one knows who’s doing it. They’ve just found the bodies.”

“Bone dry! No blood in them! Like vampires!” Janet said again, her eager whisper turning into a half-shout as she used her fingers to make little fangs.

Samantha shushed Janet and continued the story, “No one likes to talk much about them, since the police investigation is ongoing, but people are scared and rumors are everywhere, of course. They seem to be attacking only at night. Some of the clubs that practice after dark have been letting out before dark because of this, and those that really need to practice are warning people to leave only in groups of three or more. You guys need to be careful around here if you haven’t heard this already. Don’t go out alone.”

I raised an eyebrow at Raze, who hadn’t believed me there were vampires here. This was proof enough. “It’s a good idea,” I said to the girls. “You shouldn’t be out alone after dark anyway.”

“You could take me home and keep me safe,” Diana said, grinning widely as three sets of eyes glowered at her. Thankfully, the bell rang, and I rushed off to my next class.

I tried not to keep a low profile during the rest of the day, even though I felt eyes on me everywhere I went. Janet was in two of my afternoon classes, Calculus and British Literature. I was forced to sit near her in the English class, but there were no seats near her in Calculus, much to her disappointment. She tried a few times to get my attention during classes, but I pretended I didn’t hear her, trying to listen to the dry, monotone teachers. How did children learn from these people? Most of them didn’t even know what they were talking about. I could have been a much better teacher, and I actually knew the material. I’d even lived through some of it.

After school, I went to the auditorium for drama club practice. Of course, the club was mostly female. It seemed that theatre had turned into a more feminine art form over the years. Diana introduced me to the club members. It seemed I didn’t even need to try out in order to join the club. They needed all the testosterone they could get, even if the guys had no talent, otherwise girls would have to start playing male parts in the upcoming plays. The few guys in the club didn’t look happy to see me there, I seemed to be getting too much attention from the girls, which was probably the reason they were there. They wanted the attention.

I hoped Isis and Raze were doing well with their assignments.

My own Comments on this Chapter

Go on to Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Sixteen - Becoming the Hunter

ToastyTreat@me.com (Arielle Fragassi) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:56:00 +0000

Go back to Chapter Fifteen

Vampires! Oh man, I didn’t believe Amory when he first told me about them. I mean, what normal person would? I thought he was on something, I thought he was delusional. I wanted to tell him no way. I wanted to leave, but he seemed like a cool enough guy. Plus, he offered me free stuff, no way I was gonna pass that deal up. He bailed me outta jail too, so I had to thank him somehow. If he wanted me to hang out with him and Isis for a while, I didn’t mind.

-Raze

“Come on, just one?” Raze begged me, his eyes full of longing.

“No, they’re bad for you. They smell bad, and I don’t want you using them.” I took the pack of cigarettes out of his hand.

“You ain’t my dad. I’m old enough to smoke ‘em if I want to.”

“You need to stay healthy. It’s hard to chase down a vampire if you’re coughing up phlegm and tar.” I put the pack in my pocket. I’d throw them away later.

Raze sighed and looked to Isis for help, but she wasn’t really paying attention. She was dressed in her school best. It was our first day of school after all, and she looked stunning. Her light hair was in a long, loose braid down her back and she was wearing a light purple, loose shirt and jeans with wide bell bottoms. She was wearing purple tinted glasses that matched her shirt to complete the outfit. She fit the current style, just like all the other hippies.

“There’s probably not even any vampires ‘round here anyway,” He complained as we began to head to the front doors of the school.

“No, from the news reports lately, there seem to be several around here, targeting students that stay after dark because of sports practices and other activities.” Isis said before I could.

“But that’s not normal vampire behavior,” Raze argued, “They always go after people that won’t be missed. They’re acting like they wanna get caught...or they’re just stupid.”

“Exactly, Raze. With Chesed as the head of all vampires, for them to be bringing attention to themselves would be breaking the rules. Chesed’s laws are punishable by death, and he enjoys torture. The vampires wouldn’t dare cross him. They’d have to be very, very stupid. I’m leaning more towards the idea of this being some kind of trap set up by Chesed himself.”

Raze looked at me, his jaw dropping, “So we’re just gonna walk into his trap?”

“It’s the only way to catch Chesed. If he lays out the bait, we have to take it in order to get close to him. We just have to be on our guard.” Isis said.

“I couldn’t have said it better.” I smiled at her and she gave a rare smile, blushing slightly. “So here’s the plan: we’re all going to join different clubs or sports teams that hold practices until after dark. Isis, you’re going to try to join cheerleading,” She made a face at her assignment, but didn’t say anything. “Raze, the football team is still taking new players to fill out the team. You’ll get to at least attend a few practices before they decide whether or not to keep you. The only other organization that’s still recruiting is the drama club, so I’ll try to join that. Everyone, keep your eyes open and your senses sharp. If the vampires attack you or someone else, do your best to protect them until help arrives. Stay attuned to each other’s power. If you feel it spike, you’ll know if someone is in trouble. This school isn’t that big, you should be able to feel it easily.” The three of us walked into the front office so neither of the two got a chance to reply to me.

“Yes?” The secretary asked, looking bored.

“We’re new here; our dad registered us the other day. It’s our first day, and we were told to come here first.”

“What? You three are related?” We looked nothing alike. Raze with his bright orange hair and green eyes, Isis with her light blue eyes and pale blond hair, and me with my own hair, so dark brown that it was pretty much black, thick and curly. The secretary, though bored, was sharp. She smacked her gum as she waited for an answer.

“Adopted,” I said quietly, trying to make her feel guilty for prodding.

“Oh,” She didn’t look guilty, but she didn’t ask any more questions. She gave us our schedules and passes to our first classes, since we would be a little late. We were all split up for most of the day, since I enrolled us in different grades so we wouldn’t seem suspicious, but we’d meet back up at lunch and then after try-outs and practices.

On the farm, I hadn’t had much of a formal education. We didn’t have fancy schools and teachers back then. It was mostly my mom and another lady from the village that taught us what we needed to know. However, as time passed, I’d learned what I needed to know. Especially when it came to History. I could have written that book. English would be easy too, I’d read all of the books they required back when they were new. Math and science were a little bit tougher, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. I didn’t worry too much about Isis and Raze. They’d both had a formal education, even though Isis spent the end of her high school years in a mental institution and Raze hadn’t really cared about grades when he was in high school. They would both learn a bit, they’d be able to handle it. I split off from them and went to my first class, World History. It was my first day of school, ever.

I’d never really spent much time with girls around my age, even before my parents died. After that, I spent most of my time in solitude, then with Isis. All these girls around me were a bit distracting, with their constant twittering. The teacher introduced me to the class as the new kid and I made up a little story about where I came from and what I liked to do.

From the second I spoke, several girls in a group near the back of the room started whispering and giggling. At first, I thought they were making fun of me. I’d let Isis dress me, since she knew more about the current human culture and styles. She often bought those girl magazines, reading them over and over, filling out silly little quizzes and sighing when she looked at the pictures of normal people living their normal lives. I wasn’t too convinced that the tight jeans, plain t-shirt and leather jacket were what happened to be in style, so I was somewhat self-conscious about how I looked.

The teacher sat me at an empty desk close to the front of the classroom and I tried to concentrate on the class, but the incessant whispering behind me was distracting. Even with my better-than-human hearing, I still couldn’t understand what they were saying, so I just ignored it.

After the bell rang, three girls ambushed me as I was leaving the classroom. They were three of the whisperers, two of them blonde and one a redhead. “Amory, isn’t it?” The redhead asked, grinning widely, her teeth too big for her mouth. She was pretty, but a little too cheerful for me.

“Yes,” I said curtly, hoping a lack of manners would make them go away.

“I’m Diana!” She said, holding out her hand, but I just looked at it, my arms thankfully full of books.

“Nice to meet you, Diana and friends, but I’m going to be late for my next class, so if you’ll excuse me…” I carefully shifted the books into one arm and pulled my schedule out of my back pocket to see where I was off to next.

“Oooh! Let me see!” Diana snatched the paper from my fingers and began to read it, her friends looking over her shoulders.

“Samantha, you dirty bitch, you have him in your chemistry class!” One blonde said to the other.

Samantha, apparently the name of the other blonde replied, “But he’s in your British Literature class and Calculus, Janet.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have a lab partner anymore, after Brent didn’t want to work with you anymore because you mixed those two chemicals and burned off his eyebrows.”

“It was an accident!” She squealed and blushed, looking at me. “Honest, it was an accident.”

“Well, he’s in my theatre class, which is next, so why don’t you two run along and I’ll show him how to get there,” Diana said, giving me back my schedule.

“Aww!” They both cried in unison before they went off to their next classes.

“Come on, Amory,” Diana said, seeming happy that she was now alone with me. Diana led me off to class, chattering on about the school and how much I’d like it here.

“So why theatre?” She asked me as we sat down in the classroom. This one didn’t have assigned seats or desks, just a bunch of chairs arranged in a circle.

I put my books under my chair and shrugged, “I’ve always been interested in it.”

“Are you thinking of joining the drama club? We need more guys, especially good-looking ones. It’s hard to be Juliet when the Romeo you have to kiss is – ugh – well, you don’t want to know.”

What did she mean by good-looking? “Actually, I was thinking of joining. Is the club still recruiting?”

“Well, not officially, but since I’m the President of the club, it doesn’t really matter much does it?” She laughed and I forced out a laugh as well. Diana meant well, and since she was the president of one of the few clubs that did after-dark practices, I needed to be nice to her. “There’s a practice tonight, in the auditorium, if you want to come.”

“I’ll be there,” I promised. Class started after that. The teacher took a few minutes to introduce me just like the other one had done. There were mostly girls in this class, which made me think I’d made a bad decision in taking theatre. As the girls whispered and pointed, I thought I’d much rather have been facing a group of hungry vampires than these girls. At least I knew vampires. I knew how that acted, how they hunted, and more importantly, what they wanted.

My own Comments on this Chapter

Go on to Chapter Seventeen