Camrille XV

You really thought you'd get rid off me, didn't you? Well, you were wrong.

here's camrille, part 15 (read, I need to get a life soon)

The rain was pouring down on her head but she didn’t care. Thunder and lightening roller overhead and made the whole scene rather cliché. We were out hunting, for sport. I had just, rather recently, been introduced to this. It had been deemed too dangerous for me. Not because of the humans but because of what might find me when I left the safety of the coven. Dancing rather delicately around the subject I had reminded father that I had survived two assassination attempts by either killing or rendering my opponent unconscious. I had also managed a host of other supernatural stuff myself and in the end he’d given permission for Emilio to take me game hunting. I had been aiming for just some more time outside of the coven but this was great, even though it was just for one night at each occasion and despite being part of my ‘education’. Education to become a leader of the undead, no wonder the curriculum was so odd.


Many years ago when hunting the normal way had become too precarious some vampire or other had come up with the idea of a ‘game hunt’. I think he intended the pun. The idea was that you hunted in pairs and each pair was equipped with a small, engraved silver needle. One of the pair would then attach the needle to a ‘victim’ and it was the other one’s job to remove it. All this without being noticed, of course. The engravings on each needle was to insure that you returned with the right needle. It sounds rather simple, but it isn’t. The first vampire often chose to place the needle in the most difficult place he or she could manage, this did fetching it again much harder.


This night I’d taken most of my entourage with me to play. Emilio and me had already finished our game. Emilio had picked my planted needle up depressing easily despite me thinking it was clever to fasten it in the ‘victims’ hair, rather than his clothes. When the time came for me to fetch Emilio’s planted needle… well, lets just say that I couldn’t even find it the first time I tried.


It hadn’t been a complete disaster, at least according to Emilio who said that I had been better this time than last. I don’t know if he said it to be nice or because it really was the truth. I had been lucky that my prey had had a long way to walk, and no available cabs, so that I’d had time for a second try. Emilio had, in some untold way, succeeded in fastening his needle on the inside of the hood the man had pulled over his head. I was just glad he hadn’t hid it in the man’s underwear or something. I really wouldn’t put it past him.


The rain had been pouring down the entire night, though thunder had started only recently. It was odd how many people who were about at this time of night, or it would have been, some 20 years ago. Society had changed, more and more jobs were flex-timed and when the younger generation started working they chose to do so late. It also helped that most major cities had reduced tax for those who did chose to work this late. They did most everything to lighten the load on roads and commutes. Too many people lived on this over-crowed planet. Making them live in shifts lessened the burdens some.


We were currently standing on top of some high building looking down on the chaos below. Even with our keen eyesight most that could be distinguished were cars lots of umbrellas. Black umbrellas. What is it with people in large cities and black umbrellas? Isn’t the rain darkening enough? But there, what was that? A single red umbrella made its way through the veritable sea of black ones. Since the umbrellas are larger than the people underneath it kept bouncing into other umbrellas though never enough to throw it out of it’s path. I was almost startled when I felt two strong hands clamp down over my shoulders.


“What caught your attention to the point where you forgot I was here?” Emilio’s voice asked close to my ear.


“A red umbrella.” I answered truthfully. I had turned my head enough to see him almost freeze in place for a couple of seconds trying to process what I’d said. In the end he just shook his head.


“It’s getting late, or perhaps early. We need to get back before the sun rises.” That was true, we had both Styx and another youngster, who wanted to become a guard, with us and they would not survive dawn.


“Go, see if you can find them. The others should return shortly, I’m in no danger.” I told him. He snorted, and I knew that I was never quite safe. I doubted that I’d be in any grave danger here, though. He did leave, cookie-point to him, without arguing however.


The rain stopped abruptly but thunder still rolled over the city, I could hear the windowpanes of the building I was standing on rattling in their frames. The only thing missing was I wearing a cape.


I felt great, in an ‘on top of the world’ kind of way. I was better than these humans, in every way, and they didn’t even know what kind of threat I was…could be. This time I wasn’t so deeply immersed in my thoughts that I didn’t hear someone approaching. I turned around to see a rather flustered Styx coming towards me.


“Lady… there was an accident. Clay’s in the hospital.” What was one of my vampires, one of my guards at that, doing in a human hospital. And when we’re still holding that thought, what could have injured him that much so that he was unable to get away from the paramedics? All the thoughts running around in my brain condensed into one word.


“What?”


“Clay’s in the hospital. A human shot him in the chest with a shotgun. A spectator called the ambulance which came almost before I’d gotten chance to. There was no way I could get him out of there while he was unconscious. I’m sorry Lady.”


“It’s not your fault, Styx. What hospital was he taken to?”


“The Memorial.”


“Lets go then.” I said and turned to leave. “And see if you can contact father, tell him what’s happened.”


“As you whish Lady.” I heard faintly as I sped away from him, though I knew that he’d keep up.


Luckily the hospital wasn’t situated too far from the large building I’d been perched on. I waited a couple of seconds to give Styx a chance to catch up before moving into the hospital. Moving with every last scrap of skill I’d learnt over the last years I moved into the hospital where no visitor should have been allowed to go. That Styx managed to follow me the whole way possibly proved that my precautions were unnecessary but I didn’t want to chance it.


Clay looked paler than usual as he lay between the white hospital linens. I knew that it was only partially because of the blood loss he’d no doubt suffered from the shot. He was hooked up to several odd machines and the peeping was really annoying. I was by no means a doctor but what I saw on those screens were contradictory. It would seem as if Clay was alive while he wasn’t. By the puzzled look on the doctors’ and nurses’ faces I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed this.


Not one but two bags of blood had been hung above Clay’s head with thin tubes leading the precious fluid into this body. Too bad it wouldn’t do him any good in the for it was given to him. He did need blood but vampires can’t handle getting human blood directly into our bloodstream, we need our bodies to change it first, purify it.


“When did you last feed boy?” I asked Styx who’d been hovering behind me.


“Um… three days ago, Lady.” I sighed.


“You have to take better care of yourself, Styx. I thought you’d understood that by now.” I said with a rather pointed glare. He just ducked his head in acknowledgement or because he was ashamed, I didn’t care which as I’d focused on Clay again.


Clay needed blood, preferably of the vampire kind and Styx couldn’t supply it as it were. That left me. I was a bit apprehensive, the last time someone drank from me was during my initiation when father’d used it as a part of my awakening. I’d promised myself that I’d give that to Emilio but the opportunity had never come up and he’d never pressed for it. Now I’d have to do it with Clay, to save his life. There isn’t a nobler statement but I couldn’t help but to feel a bit uneasy about the whole thing.


My guard had lost so much blood he wasn’t conscious anymore, which would make the whole thing more difficult. I threw off my long coat and opened the cuff on my green shirt. This was going to be very awkward.


Looking a bit forlornly at my wrist I sighed and bit down hard. It hurt, a lot. Sure, my fangs are sharp but biting isn’t the neatest way to pierce a vein. I quickly guided my bleeding arm to Clay’s mouth. Vampire saliva would hold the cuts open for a little while, I hoped it would be enough time for Clay to bite down on his own. I coaxed his mouth open with the hand of my undamaged arm and fed him my bleeding wrist. At first it didn’t seem to make any difference but soon I could feel his fangs digging into my wrist when he thought that my blood didn’t flow fast enough.


Getting my blood sucked was a really odd feeling. It felt very wrong but at the same time I think the wrongness came partly from knowing that I needed the fluid, that Clay worked so diligently to get out of me, to live. I had started to feel fain when he finally opened his eyes. The look in his eyes when he realised who’s arm he was drinking from would have been hilarious if it wasn’t for the situation we were in.


“Don’t you dare stop. You need it and you know it.” I hissed and he obediently resumed feeding although I think it was only partly because of my order, his need to feed had to be great. Suddenly I had a bag of blood thrust into my face. I glanced at Styx who nervously smiled back. I reached out for the bag with my unoccupied hand.


I grimaced pretty badly, this stuff really was bad and the plastic bag didn’t really make it better. It did make me feel a bit better though. I also noticed that Styx had pulled most everything hospital related off and out of Clay. I should have thought of it before feeding him. When I’d emptied the bag I was currently nursing I was given another. Styx quietly buzzed around in the room doing seeming important things. I looked back down on Clay who’d started to look a great deal better.


A fain gasp was heard from the doorway. One of the hospital’s nurses was standing there looking very surprised. At the same time Father with entourage stepped inside the room, she kind of followed the stream. I bowed as much as I was able since Clay hadn’t relinquished my arm and I was wedge between the wall, the bed and some of the numerous equipment the room was littered with. Someone, I don’t know who, pulled the sheets back to revealed the now healed body of Clay. When I tugged at my arm he gently let it go but he couldn’t seem to resist a couple of complementary licks.


Emilio waltzed up to me and offered me his neck. I wasn’t starving in any way but I was hungry. I looked the little nurse deep into her eyes, showed off my fangs and bit into my ‘boyfriend’s’ neck. The next sound that was heard was the dull thump of a body hitting the floor in a dead faint.


“I’m not pleased.” Father said and while I hadn’t expected him to be I hadn’t expected him to voice his displeasure. “But we need to get out of here, fast. Can you move?” The question was aimed at Clay who had, by now, relinquished my arm to its rightful owner. Said, i.e. me, owner stood and held it, soothingly.


“I can, my Lord, but I don’t know how well.” For Clay to admit that he might not be in tip-top shape really said something about how bad he was. None of the guards would easily admit to injury or a temporary disability.


“Someone help him, we’re leaving now.” Our lord and master told us. We obeyed and hurried to do his bidding. Truth to be told, I don’t think that anyone of us fancied being stuck in the hospital for longer than absolutely necessary. Behind us we left a rumpled and slightly bloodied bed, a host of equipment that by now didn’t know right from left and a very confused, if still unconscious, nurse. The humans would think the whole thing was odd, especially since they’ve already noticed that something was off with the missing patient but they’d survive.


We made it back to the coven right in time, as weak as Clay had been he’d barely been able to move by his own, two other guards had been ‘forced’ to help him. We’d picked up one pair of my hunting guards on the way back but I trusted the others to find their own way, if they weren’t already here.


Emilio had been waiting just inside the gates of the coven, apparently he’d headed back to the coven when he couldn’t find me where he’d left me. Smart man, that. I think he would have hugged me if father hadn’t returned with me. Instead he kneeled and bowed before rising.


“Alexis and Styx are going to come with me; the rest of you may leave.” Father said and stalked downwards, aiming for his office. Once there he let us in and shut the door himself. He definitely wasn’t happy with us.


“Tell me how something like this could happen.” I didn’t say anything because I hadn’t been there when it happened. That put all the weight of telling on Styx shoulders but it had been him there, not me.


“We hunted and Clay showed me how to do it properly, he was very nice. I’d just managed to place my needle on this one woman and Clay want to retrieve it. Before he ever reached her some guy stepped out of an alley and put a round in him and then he fled the scene. I hurried over but I didn’t get there in time to prevent the paramedics to take him away. I found out what hospital he was taken to and went looking for Lady Alexis. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything myself, my Lord.” Styx told the story with a bit of waver in his voice, almost as if questioning himself about the truth. I think it was because he felt a bit uneasy in father’s presence, he wouldn’t dare to lie.


“And what have you to add to this, Alexis?”


“Styx came to me and told me what’d happened. I asked him to see if he could contact you, in turn, through the mind-link. We left for the hospital and when we got there, I realised that Clay needed blood to heal and not in the way he was being given it. I forced him to drink blood from me since it had been to long since Styx last fed to make him a suitable donor. While Clay fed from me, Styx handed me some of the bagged blood that was in the room, it kept me from loosing too much to Clay. Who only regained consciousness just before you arrived, Father.” I said and both Styx and I stood, rather nervously, waiting for what was going to happen, what father would say next.


“This should not have come to pass, no part of it, in fact. Most of it seems to be an unfortunate streak of bad luck and equally bad planning. I don’t like it but you did handle it as well as the circumstances allowed. I met with Emilio, earlier, who explained what you were doing alone, Alexis. I know you didn’t give him any choice but you should have either trusted the others to get back by themselves or gone with him.”


“Yes master.” I said and bowed my head. It wasn’t the first time he’d told me off for trying to worm out of the constant presence of my guards. I had promised myself to behave in that respect but it wasn’t working out very good. Sometimes I needed to be truly alone.


“Boy, you need to feed more regularly, I think my daughter has already told you this and I also think that she’ll punish you for it. Now, leave.” Father said and pointed at the door. Styx didn’t need to be told twice to obey that particular command. He looked rather relived as he closed the door. Father once again turned his attention to me.


“Clay would have survived the extra minutes it took us to get to the hospital, you shouldn’t have fed him yourself.”


“I didn’t know you would get there so soon, master, if I had I might have put of the feeding giving him only bagged blood.”


“True, but it doesn’t change the facts. I trust you to punish the boy, and to do it well, you, on the other hand, are another question entirely.” I did have the decency to look regretful, if not ashamed. “Since nothing I’ve done so far has changed your habit of trying to get rid of your guards we’re going to try something new. Tomorrow evening you are to report to General Evelyn and you’ll be on guard duty for a month. If I feel that you haven’t learned your lesson after that time I’m going to extend it. Understood?”


“I understand and will obey, master.”


“Stop calling me that!”


“As you wish, my Lord.” I answered, partly puzzled and partly because I knew it would annoy him at least a little.


“You know very well what I mean.”


“Yes Father.” I said, obediently, but I couldn’t keep the humour out of my voice.


“Just leave before that boy of yours decides to tear down the door and come looking for you.” He straightened up and pointed at said door, I bowed and left, more intent on finding Emilio than Styx, truth to be told, but rather happy to be out of there. Not that I disliked father in any way but he does have a bit of a temper.


Emilio found me and promptly put me down. Hard. Stone floors aren’t always a good thing. He bent over me, keeping me in one place.


“Don’t ever do that again?”


“Do what?” I asked, confused.


“Disappear on me like that.” Somehow, he managed to turn my body over without relinquishing his grip. And he kissed me, long and hard and needy. I kissed back with equal fervour. The floors of the coven’s corridors aren’t a good place for any show of intimacy, or any shows at all, and he soon let me up.


“You know I can’t promise anything like that.” I answered the question he’d almost forgotten he’d asked.


“I know. I just whished it was so.” His voice was wistful and his eyes were pleading, begging me to understand. I did, I knew exactly what he felt but I couldn’t do anything about it.


“Me too, Emilio, me too.” I said, and it was true. I didn’t want most of what I had now. I did want Emilio, of course, but I could have survived without the burdens of leadership the name of Dracula put on me. Plus, of course, the added title of Ryttir. I really didn’t like that. I didn’t mind doing it, most of the time, but sometimes there were… uncomfortable choices to make and they were called uncomfortable for a reason.


He led the way to our rooms. I needed this to be an early night if I was to be prepared to meet Evelyn in the evening. Considering the early hour it was now I ought to jump straight into bed, without the benefit of my bodypillow, aka Emilio.


“I need to get to bed early.”


“Why?” Emilio asked, he’d apparently not heard of father’s new way of punishing me.


“I have to report for duty with General Evelyn tomorrow evening. Father decided to punish me by making me be a part of the Guard for a month. Or longer if he feels I haven’t learned my lesson.” Emilio had the balls to start laughing at me. It took several minutes for him to calm down.


“Our Lord must really despair, never has any punishment like that been handed out. And, on top of that, to his own daughter.” He fell over laughing again. I had made my way to the bed and threw the first available object on him. Too bad it was a pillow and wouldn’t have hurt him even if it had hit. When he continued to chuckle I hid under the comforter, clothes and all.


Turning over I realised that I would never be able to go to sleep while still wearing my knives. One by one I picked them off, with their sheaths, and pushed them out of the bed. I still refused to put any part of me outside of it. I still couldn’t get relaxed enough to fall asleep, though.


A few rustling sound were heard but I diligently ignored them. I felt someone, I guessed it was Emilio, tugging at the comforter but I refused to relinquish my grip. Despite that, he somehow crawled his way into the bed and lay close, very close. It was first there, in his arms, I could finally find peace.


My first day with the guard had just proven what I knew from before; anyone that entered the guard, of their own free will, was absolutely out of their minds. I ached, while this wasn’t exactly anything new, I had, after all, been training rather hard for the major part of my life, I had never been this sore. I could barely walk upright, the hand on the wall guiding me was just a precaution… sure… who was I trying to kid? It wasn’t made better by the fact that the other guards, those who weren’t on duty, had trained just as hard, if not harder, and they didn’t even limp. Evelyn had promised, after telling Merquise to take ‘really good care of me’ that in a week I was to do eight hours of guard duty on top of the eight hours of training.


I know that I’d promised myself that I needed to practice with the older vampires to have a chance to fight if, when, push came to shove but this was ridiculous. I hadn’t had a snowball’s chance in h*ll of even landing one punch, on any of my opponents. By the end of the session I almost hadn’t been able to raise my arms. I had wanted to stop but Merquise just told me to suck it up and that my enemies would never stop because I was tired. He was right, of course, but it didn’t prevent me from thinking that he was a closet sadist.


Emilio seemed to think that something was really funny about me almost crawling inside our rooms. I didn’t find it that amusing. Styx worried hovering was almost as bad, though, and I wasn’t really clear on what I wanted, or needed. Except for pain relief. My pitiful floundering did end with Emilio asking one of the humans to come to our rooms. I must confess that I have no idea who I fed from, I kept my eyes firmly closed the whole time. My eyelids hurt, dammit.


Emilio sent the human away and about the same time, someone else stepped into the room. I forced my head around the quart of a turn that was needed for me too see who it was and opened my eyes. It was father. I fell into an awkward kneeling bow. Yes, fell, it hurt too much trying to control the descent.


“You may rise, Alexis, there’s no need to be so formal.”


“Eh, I don’t think I can.” I answered. I knew I wouldn’t be able to without help. Father gestured for Emilio to help me. I accepted the help though the rising was painful even with the help.


“I take it your first day with the guard was eventful.” Father said, he almost, almost laughed.


“Not as much eventful as painful, Father.”


“Good. I do hope you learn your lesson from this Alexis.”


“I have, Father, I have.”


“That doesn’t mean your punishment will end, though.”


“I know, Father.”


“Have you punished your servant yet?”


“Not yet, Father, I haven’t had time. I was planning on asking Emilio to help me with it tonight.”


“I’ll take care of it, then. I have something that needs to be done.”


“As you whish, Father.” He rose and left with Styx in tow. I briefly wondered what he had in mind for Styx but I hurt too much to really care. My own punishment were plenty at this point.


“How was your second day with the guard?” Emilio asked from where he was sitting… in a warm room, in a cosy chair, and with a good book. I could have gotten mad at him but I was too tired to. Instead I just slumped all over him.


“I take it your second day was as exhausting as the first?” He said and I could feel that he was about to start laughing where I lay sprawled all over him. I managed to make an agreeing noise. It turned into a humming once Emilio had started stoking my back. The scene would have been perfect if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew I had to go back to Merquise’s not-so-tender mercies tomorrow, and the day after that and the day after that.


“Can you move?” His tone was more gentle than his words gave credit for. I made some kind of disagreeing noise in return. He managed to scoop me up, from the odd position he’d been in earlier, and carry me to bed. I was quite convinced that I would have been better off where I had been. Moving hurt even though it was another person doing the actual moving.


Emilio dumped me on the bed, where the covers had already been drawn back, and left. There were some odd tinkling and a request.


“Take your clothes off.”


“I’m too tired, Emilio.” Was it possible that he could have missed that I wasn’t up for anything tonight? That maybe he had to wait until I was in a better mood?


“I won’t allow you to sleep in your clothes again, take them off.” He said, and that did make an awful lot of sense, when he put it that way. He still wasn’t coming this way, though.


I wormed myself out of my clothing, easier said that done, that. It would probably have taken less time and hurt a lot less if I’d just risen and done it but I’ve never been one to take the easy way out. Emilio finally returned. He put a warm towel over my hips. Who warms towels and better yet, how do you do it? He seated himself over my back and poured something hot and slippery on my shoulders. He then proceeded to give me the best massage I’ve ever had.


“Do you know what they do with angels that escape from heaven?” I asked him in a sleepy murmur.


“No.” He answered a bit confused.


“They chain them up. You should be perfectly aware that as soon as I can move again I’m going to chain you to the bed and I’ll keep you as my little boytoy forever and ever.” A soft laughter was heard in response and an equally soft kiss placed in the middle of my back.

“You do that, but I’ll let you know, I won’t accept anything less than a collar made from solid gold.”


“You know I love you, right?” There wasn’t any verbal response to my question but Emilio laid down and pulled me closer to him. I fell asleep like that. Happy, content and where I wanted to remain for the rest of my unnaturally long life. I knew it wasn’t to be, though, but I ignored everything else for a while.


The rest of the first week proved to be just as hard as the first two days had been. I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t quite as tired, wasn’t hurting just as much, the last day but it was probably just me trying to fool myself because I knew I had one day of free time to look forward to. I think Merquise tried every trick in the book, and then some, to get me to hate him and he succeeded, very much so. He beat me, both literally and metaphorically speaking. He let other people do the same, the taunted me, bullied me, pushed all of my buttons and then some. And yet, at the end of the day, no matter how much I despised him, I couldn’t help but to respect him, and the others, for what they did to keep me and the coven safe. It was their job, of course, but it seemed as if to them it was much more. Maybe it was, maybe guarding father and me really was an honour, I’d never quite understand that though. Well, guarding father, yes, but guarding me? Never.


It was funny, though, how tight of a group they were. It was understandable, they had to be able to trust each other when needed but also, many of the guards have been a part of the guard for many, many years. When I asked if it was hard to let outsiders in I got a curious response. The number of guards were more or less constant, if they needed another it would mean that someone else had died. If the new guards behaved they were accepted fairly quickly but it might take some time before the other guards trusted the new one entirely. I’d also asked them how they felt about me coming and ruining everything, at least, that was what it felt like when I was a part of the training sessions. They’d looked at me with good humour in their eyes and said that it was always an honour to serve the royal family, no matter if the service might be to teach the little lady about guarding. It had made me feel a little bit better but not much.


My free day went without a hitch, I stayed mostly in bed, refusing to move, and had Styx and Emilio to wait upon me. I don’t know why they agreed to it but they did, and I was immensely glad. The latter part of the evening I took ‘my’ men down to the pens, and yes I left the bed in the room, and we had a great time. I was just a little bit nervous about what lay ahead.

I did my duty as one of the guards outside, and inside, the pens. Yes, go me. During the first forty minutes I had to answer the question ‘what are ‘you’ doing here?’ 43 times, I had to break up a fight between two humans who started arguing over who, exactly, I was, five times I had restrain myself from whacking my fellow guard and I had to take care of two reports of thefts. The reports were false, they just wanted to see me. Gah. The rest of the day wasn’t any better. Four more reports of theft were reported, of which two were real. After the first hour I just looked pleadingly at Chris, who I was partnered with, until hr gave in and with a roll of his eyes went to check on it. I didn’t want to escape my duties but Chris also saw that the humans made an awful lot of racket just because I was here and covered up for me. I hoped that the ‘new-shiny-we-got-to-break-it’ mentality would soon end, or I’d be forced to drive someone else insane.


I don’t know why but Emilio continued to treat me as if I was a fairytale princess and he but my servant. By week two I’d started looking at him oddly. What had I done to deserve this and how do I make it stop? I mean, I hadn’t done anything to deserve this, had I? I kept expecting the other shoe to drop. The fourth day I came back to our rooms to find a fire in the hearth, some food on the table, Styx away and Emilio dressed in only his silk pj-bottoms I had to question it.


“Why?” I asked, confused and maybe a bit frightened.


“Why what?” He asked, looking at me as if I’d grown another couple of limbs.


“Why this? Why do you do this? I feel as if I’m missing something.”


“Don’t you like it?” Ha looked a bit hurt and I really felt bad for making him hurt when he’d been so very nice to me. I had known that questioning it wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done but I couldn’t let it continue like this either.


“Of course I like it, but maybe not every day.”


“No?” I felt even more bad when looking at his put out expression. Damn me.


“Misunderstand me right, please Emilio. I like what you do but you’ve been so exceedingly nice these last weeks I can’t help but to think that’s something’s wrong or that this is some kind of bribe or…” I was officially rambling while willing him to understand.


“I never intended such a thing.” Emilio said, almost horrified.


“I know but still…”


“Why would you think something like that?”


“Because you’ve been too nice. You’re normally very nice but these last weeks haven’t been normal by any stretch of imagination.”


“I just tried to be nice.” He said, face falling. I could feel my face doing the same thing.


“I know, love, just don’t try so hard the next time. It was just too artificial to be true.”


“All I wanted was to make you comfortable, I know some of what you’re going through.”


“I really appreciate the backrubs, and I won’t say no to one in the future, but the rest, this.” I made a gesture indicating at the food and the fire and the down turned bed. “It’s just too much. To come home to this one night was great, to have it happening four times is just freaky.”


“What ‘do’ you want?”


“I want for you to do what you want, what you feel good doing. You haven’t argued with me once, in a fortnight and that’s strange because usually we can’t go a day without at least arguing about something. Arguing isn’t bad, well, if it’s a bad kind of arguing it is, but I want you to disagree with me, tell me what you want and think. Please.”


“I hadn’t realised that.” Emilio answered, I was still begging that he’d understand that I wasn’t angry with him as much as… scared? “I don’t mind doing all this for you but if you think it’s too much I’ll stop.”


“You’re doing it again!” I interrupted him.


“What?”


“Just agreeing with everything I say.”


“I do not.” He said, affronted.


“Thank you.” I said and hugged him. He didn’t look happy.


“What?” He asked.


“You disagreed with me.” He held me at arms length while raising an eyebrow and looking imploringly at me. He suddenly jerked me closer and hugged me tight.


“I’m sorry.” He whispered. I didn’t have time to open my mouth and as what he was sorry for, I kind of feared it was for disagreeing, before he spoke again. “I didn’t mean for it to become like this.” I just held him tighter, not really sure what to say. I didn’t take long before standing like that got uncomfortable and I had to do or say something.


“Why don’t you give me a full body massage?” I broke free from the embrace and pulled him towards the bed. “And we can see what happens next.”


“But…”


“No more excuses about me being too tired or to sore for sex. I want it, dammit. I’m a vampire, I can survive a little ‘abuse’ from time to time.” He stopped for a second when I said that last sentence but he quickly recovered and almost pulled me into bed.


“We’ll see about that later, but first, I’m going to give you a massage, as you call it, and then I’ll collect my reward.”


“That’s my Emilio.” The night continued to be very interesting indeed.

I just spent an hour catching up to Camrille, it was great, especially the duel.

More!

Hey myn, when are you gonna write some more? Can't wait.

The rest of my punishment went by in a blur of pain, annoyance and exhaustion with cuddly bits and pieces fitted in-between. It had been a very trying month and I didn’t want to repeat it in a hurry but it had also been interesting. I hadn’t really thought much about how much work it was to be a guard and even more so for the commanders. Everything had to be fitted around a schedule father and me continuously broke and changed. We did lots of stuff without prior warning and if we did manage to warn them there wasn’t time enough to make up for the changes anyways. The strange thing was, when I realised how much trouble we caused I expected to hear at least a couple of grumblings about it but I never did. I don’t know if it was because they were used to it or because they didn’t want to talk in front of me or if it was simply so that they were loyal enough for it not to matter. The latter option was kind of scary.


The situation with Emilio got much better, he continued to spoil me in small ways but didn’t treat me as a delicate piece of glass anymore. It was very relieving since he’d started to act more like himself when he calmed down. Emilio was the guy I’d fallen in love with, I didn’t want him changed. Well, except maybe for his habit of putting his underwear in the oddest of places, including my underwear drawer.


I bounced through the door, as much as I was able, I’d just finished my last day of punishment. I moved easier now then at the beginning but I was nowhere near as fit as I’d needed to be if I was to pass a day like that without getting sore in odd places. Were you aware that your thumbs could hurt?


I’d barely had time to clear the door before getting pounced by an excited Emilio.


“What?” I said confused. I hadn’t seen him this up in a long time.


“We’re going outside!” He didn’t seem inclined to explain further but he did push me towards the wardrobe where I kept my clothes.


“And?” I prompted.


“The Rector Lamia came by and said he wanted to see you as soon as you came off. He mentioned something about going outside on a mission.” Emilio had let go of my arm and I stood docilely and watched as he rummaged through my clothes. A pair of flying pants landed on my shoulder.


“Emilio, you’re not making an awful lot of sense right now.” I complained but started taking the clothes I was wearing off. I couldn’t dispute that I needed the change and I definitely didn’t want to go and see my father in these rumpled and dirty excuses for clothes. My shirt even had a rip. I hadn’t noticed it before taking it off, though.


“Other than informing you that your Father was here I don’t need to make sense. It’s a well earned privilege.


“I don’t know about earned.” I said. “But it is often practiced.” I’d started dressing. In the back of my mind there was this little horrible scene being played in which Emilio dragged me across the coven while I was hopping along on one leg with the other stuck halfway down the leg of my pants. Dressing was obviously the better option.


“Hurry!” He said impatiently, already waiting by the door.


“What’s the rush?” I knew that father didn’t take well to dallying but this was extreme, even for Emilio.


“You’ll see.” He said with a smile and motioned me through the door I’d just entered five minutes ago. The guards posted at my door, Clay and a man called Tim, who I’d just recently gotten to know, didn’t look the least bit surprised to see me exiting so soon after arriving but I’m sure they were. I’d gotten better at reading their inexpressive faces lately. At least Emilio was well behaved enough not to pull me down the corridor.


Father’s guars let us in at once and soon we were kneeling before our lord. I noticed that he had a new rug, it was a darker shade of green than the old one and it was also softer to kneel on. I wonder why he’d had the other one exchanged. And just maybe I should have been paying attention to what father was saying because it looked as if he was expecting an answer.


“I’m sorry Father, can you repeat that?” I managed what goes for a vampiric blush. I hadn’t eaten yet to day and I had been pushed hard, I knew there was barely a hint of pink gracing my cheeks.


“What was so interesting that I couldn’t hold your attention?”


“Your new rug, Father.” He looked at bit apprehensive but didn’t comment.


“I just noted that I’d expected it to take a little longer for you to get here.”


“Oh, Emilio was a bit excited. He didn’t even have time to tell me what this is all about.” I said, face as neutral as I could make it. I didn’t know if there was something behind Emilio not telling me, that something being father, or if there was another reason.


“I asked to see you because I have a mission for you, Alexis, though Emilio and your usual host of guars will, of course, be accompanying you. A new school has opened for slayers. I want to keep an eye on it, or more specifically, I want you to keep an eye on it.”


“Um, I don’t mean to criticise you, Father, but won’t that be a bit dangerous?”


“If I remember correctly you’ve already been a part of the slayer organisation once before?” Father said and I had a sudden inclining of where this was heading.


“You think they will be stupid enough to hire me again, Father?” I hoped this wasn’t what he wanted. Last time I hadn’t had any idea that they were slayers until that ‘mission’ where I had been called in as a knife fight expert. It hadn’t been my intention to be hired by them, in fact I had tried to stay away from it but it hadn’t worked.


“I know they are. It’ll possibly be harder this time since you’re going to become an active member but I don’t doubt your ability to pull this off.”


“Father…”


“You will leave next week to go to Brighton. You’ll spend one day in the Wycliffe coven before continuing towards your goal. Everything about that visit has been arranged. That young servant of yours will be taken care off since it’d be to dangerous to allow him to go with you. I’ll contact you when I want reports.”


“As you wish, Father.”


“Just one more thing, Alexis. You’ve handled your punishment very well.”


“Thank you Father.” We left and it was lucky Emilio had come with me because if I hadn’t had him to steer me I would have walked into a wall or two. I was deep in thought trying to figure out how to solve this upcoming mission. So many things could go so very horribly wrong.

Grrrrreat! Thanks Sofia.

I was standing in front of the house that would be ours for the time being. It was large, to the point of being grand, and I’m not even sure that the word ‘house’ did it justice. It was old, worn, but not in a bad way, it was more of a ‘lived-in’ feeling. Decorations covered most of the outside and the garden was wild enough to appeal to me. It was perfect. Too bad I only lived here for the mission.


“Don’t you like it, lady?” Basil asked. Basil was a guide the Wycliffe coven had sent to show us the house.


“I do.” I answered. I couldn’t understand why he thought I didn't. Wasn’t the stunned expression enough?


“Come.” Emilio said while he started pulling me towards the doors. The insides lived up to my expectations, most things had been kept looking ‘antique’ though they were well kept and some of it wasn’t as old as it pretended to be. It didn’t matter, though, Emilio had suddenly found a competitor for my affection.


The room in which we finally stopped was gorgeous and disturbingly similar to our rooms in the coven. The smirk on Emilio’s face hinted that that wasn’t completely unexpected, at least not from his side. As I didn’t really know what to make of it I hit him lightly on the arm before heading off to explore a bit. The only thing that concerned me was that the room faced east and with the huge windows, lots of sunlight would happen. Theoretically I knew I was safe, convincing myself that I actually was, is harder. Is it a phobia to be frightened of something that really can kill you?


Subtly trying to spy on a whole neighbourhood is easier said than done. Especially when I knew that one mistake would most likely mean that all of us would be killed. Since we couldn’t take too many walks I also made a point of training with both Emilio and some of the guards. Before my month with the guard I had thought that I had finally been doing some progress in fighting and that I had been close to defeating Emilio. I was proved very wrong when he noticed that the time spent with the guards, fighting, had improved me some and he stepped training up. Would it never end? Though the only way of getting better at fighting is to fight opponents better than you, I wanted the satisfaction of winning at least some of the time. Losing grows tedious, fast.


“Gah!” I voiced my displeasure as I threw myself down at the bed. The bed really was to soft because I bounced twice before settling on the deep-blue comforter.


“Now what has invoked the wrath of our fearsome lady?” Emilio asked with one hand on his chest and the other on his forehead in what appeared to be a ‘dramatic pose’.


“I am only ever fighting Styx again.” I told the pillow my head was resting on. I had to splutter a bit, though, fabric does not taste good.


“What?” Emilio abandoned the pose in favour for a confused expression.


“I am tired of losing all the time! I haven’t won one fight since I arrived to the coven. Am I really that bad?” I had learnt my lesson, this time I turned my head and spoke to Emilio instead of the pillow. I can learn from mistakes. Emilio neared the bed and sat down on the floor, folding his arms on the bed he rested his head on them.


“Alexis, you haven’t fought anyone less than a hundred years older than you since you arrived. That can have something to do with it. You aren’t bad, you’re actually doing very well for someone your age, but a hundred years is a lot of experience to beat.”


“Then why haven’t I been allowed to spar with someone even remotely close to my age?” I asked. Emilio reached a hand out and petted one of mine.


“Usually that would be the case, unfortunately, being your father’s heir means that that is something you can’t afford.” Emilio sighed and looked down before once more looking into my eyes. “If nothing else, your duel with Fernando proved it. You will be challenged again and next time I don’t think your opponent will be so easily tricked.”


“I don’t want this, I never asked to be special!” I answered, knowing that what Emilio had said was the truth.


“But you are so deal with it.”


“Bastard.” I mumbled.


“Ah, but I’m ‘your’ bastard as it is.” He gently pulled my hand until he could place a soft kiss upon it. “You must understand that your father, and the rest of us, are trying our best to see to it that you’ll survive. Whether or not you wanted to be heir or not.”


“So this ‘punishment’ was just a cover for intense training?” I asked.


“I think it was both. Two birds with one stone and all that. Your father never does anything without at least half a dozen of reasons. That’s something you’ll also have to learn. You’ve gotten better since you became Ryttir, though.”


“Please don’t remind me.”


“Oh, I will, and so will everyone else until you accept it.” That earned him another bastard, which he ignored, as if he hadn’t heard it. I knew he had, though. “Why is it so hard for you? Most people go to great lengths to ensure that they are special and if that special includes having power over others, then so much better.”


“I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else, especially not many people… or weres… or vampires. It scares me that they think I’m worth putting their faith, and their lives, in my hands. And even worse, the fact that I have guards that are willing to die to protect me. I haven’t done anything to deserve that kind of treatment. My life can’t be worth more than theirs, can it?”


“Alexis, you are special to us. You do deserve those things, you’ve proven yourself time and time again, despite being as young as you are. I apologise for forgetting that sometimes, it’s easier to see you as someone older, you certainly are powerful enough. And, if the guards hadn’t liked you they wouldn’t have come up with a nickname for you, ‘little lady’.” I cuffed him over the head for that but gently, mind you. I knew that what he was saying was right but it would take some time to change that ‘knew’ to a ‘believed’. It wasn’t long before someone called us downstairs to report their new findings. I had a suspicion that this mission would be long, drawn-out affair.

Yay! More Camrille.

The findings, as they were, were nothing. Nothing at all. Which is really suspicious in itself, no neighbourhood is ever as ‘clean’ as this one appeared. The question was, how to find out where the school of slayers were without them knowing and then how to approach them? I honestly thought that if I managed to get recruited again, killing all of the slayers would be doing humanity a great service. As soon as we had something to work from I would have to contact father and see if he had any directives for me. He hadn’t really said much before we left. It was also my first mission in the human world. The only thing that was even remotely close was the meeting with the other supernatural creatures but this wasn’t the same.


I had to play my part as human convincingly enough not to get caught by the very people who were hunting us and I hadn’t been human for almost 25 years now. It’s plenty of time to have forgotten what it’s like. I knew I had shed parts of my humanity, I sometimes saw humans as nothing but food and violence didn’t bother me as much now as it had when I was younger. I didn’t know if this was a result of the biological parts of being a vampire or if it was the culture. Vampires did tend to have a more… open relationship to violence, all kinds of it. I didn’t mourn my lost innocence, I knew that if I had mourned it it wouldn’t have been lost. It did, however, feel a bit odd to be thinking about it.


“Now what are you thinking about?” Emilio asked me. He’d found me sitting unusually quiet at the kitchen table.


“Humanity, vampirism and whether or not they’re mutually exclusive.” I continued to stare out the window. The sun had risen a couple of hours earlier though the layout of the house was such that the light wouldn’t touch this room until much later. The window showed a part of the lovely garden. I wasn’t seeing much of it, though.


“And what got you thinking those heavy thoughts this early in the morning?”


“The mission, what else?” I asked, looking at him. He’d been practicing with the guards again, I should have been too but had taken the day off. His shirt bore marks of a sharp sword; the rip was uncomfortably close to his neck. I stood up and approached him.
“You need to be more careful, your clothing account is growing as large as mine.” I told him while examining the cut in the fabric. Underneath it I could see the pale pink line of a healing gash, it couldn’t have been deep but someone had cut my man.


“It isn’t possible to ruin as much clothing as you do.” He replied.


“Ha, ha. Very funny. Who was it?”


“Does it matter?”


“Of course it does. I have to scare whomever it was a bit.” The last bit was said with a hint of a smile… and not the good kind of smile either.


“A bit?” The raised eyebrow asked me to elaborate.


“I can’t very well punish him for besting you in a fight…well, I could but I won’t. What I can do is to act like it.”


“You’re starting to take after your father.” Emilio said.


“That’s a scary thought. Though it won’t get you out of confessing. I want the name.”


“It was Clay.” He said with a sigh.


“Me?” Said Clay who just strode through the door.


“I was just inquiring who had been reckless enough to hurt my man.” I sauntered towards Clay who was now starting to back up. Unfortunately, for him, Steven stood behind him and effectively cut off his escape. He’d obviously heard what I’d said.


“Nu-uh, stay and face whatever little lady seems fit to dish out.” Steven said with a smirk. They say that some people smile in the face of danger; it’s even easier to smile when someone else is facing the danger.


“What would be a fitting punishment for harming what’s mine?” I pretended to think it over. “I know, you owe us dinner tonight.” I just heard a groan from where Clay stood. The others seemed rather pleased. Clay is a very good cook but he managed to wiggle his way out of cooking more often than not.


“If we’ve solved this can we head towards the bed?” Emilio asked.


“No we can’t. I know it’s wrong since we usually are nocturnal but we need not to be now. We can’t afford to have anything like that give us away.” Strangely enough none of them disagreed or even grumbled at my statement. I had expected more resistance.


“You look surprised.” Emilio commented.


“Suspicious is more like it.” I answered. “Why aren’t you complaining or something?”


“Because you said what we wanted you to say.” Clay simply replied.


“And why didn’t you just tell me what you wanted?”


“Because we wanted you do realise it yourself.” Came the answer from Clay though I would bet on that any of them could have supplied it.


“So you decide what needs to be done and then you wait for me to realise it too? Isn’t that more than just a little bit odd?”


“Not very, little lady, we need you to be able to know this stuff, and practice it yourself. It wouldn’t do for you to follow orders from people like us.” Once again it was Clay who had spoken.


“I really do hate it when you bring things like this up. I still do feel that it’s wrong that I shouldn’t listen to those who have more expertise than me. I do understand the reasons but I still appreciate some help.”


“Don’t worry, lady. We will tell you when you’ve done something wrong.” Steven had taken over the talking.


“That’s just the point, I want the help before I’ve erred.”


“Get used to it.” Emilio supplied. “This is the way it have to be and the way it will be.” I just sighed. It was strange how they could tell me again and again that I was the one in charge and still they made more than half of the decisions. I think that some of them were orders from father but I was pretty sure that not all of them were. All of it was hideously unfair. I briefly thought about hiding under the bed but I quickly discarded the thought, they’d never let me live it down.

I am almost there Mynona. I have read from Camrille I to part way through Camrille XIII in the last two weeks. I'm only 80 pages through THUD because of this Mynona, and I blame you.

Camrille has really developed into a top read for me with so many sub plots and new character develpoments going on. When I do catch up you'll have to double your speed to give me my fix.

Great stuff Myn and I can't wait to read XIV and XV. :cooler:

A month went past without anything more noticeable than my birthday passing by. It wasn’t celebrated because of two things; one, vampire’s tend to celebrate the date of the turning instead of the date of birth and two, I hadn’t told anyone when my birthday was. I was now 50 years old and I still looked like 20 something. To know that you won’t age and to really see it are two different things. I spent a few minutes that morning trying to find any trace of aging but I couldn’t.


Two days later we were out for a stroll, by we I mean William, Emilio and me. And we managed to get utterly and totally lost. None of us had really been paying attention to where we were going and pretty soon we were in unknown territory. Suburban unknown territory, it was frightening. I realised pretty soon that we’d have to ask for directions to be able to get back to the house and I knew that neither of the men would. They were already wound up about being lost and were currently wasting a lot of energy on being on guard. They always did that if something even remotely stressful came up. Must be a male thing.


I realised something else when trying to get a hold of someone to ask, not many people are home or out walking at 2pm. Except us. It took another quarter of an hour before a likely prospect came into sight. I hadn’t been prepared to knock on someone’s door to get the directions, I had just been looking for someone who we’re out walking or something. This prospect was out on her front lawn for some reason or other. I didn’t care, she was there and it looked as if it was her home. In other words, it was likely that she would know the directions we needed to get back.


“Um, excuse me?” I said and the woman turned around. She seemed to be about two inches taller than me, fake blond hair, brown nondescript eyes and she wore a pink set of soft trousers and short, very short top. She looked to be about 40-ish.


“Yes?”


“Can you give us the directions for 53, Twillight street?”


“It’s easy. Take two lefts, continue straight for about a mile and you’ll find yourself near it.”


“Oh. Thanks.” I said.


“Why would you want directions to an abandoned house?” She asked, shading her eyes from the sun while peering at us inquisitively.


“It’s not abandoned anymore. We moved in there last month.”


“And you managed to get lost?”


“Um… yes.” I answered with a small voice, looking properly ashamed. I do know how to act when the situation requires it.


“And those two are?”


“Oh, this is my fiancé, Emilio, and William, a mutual friend of ours.” I answered.


“Aren’t you a bit young to own a house?” Ok, so this lady was being far too nosey for her own good.


“A relative of mine owned it and had it restored so when Emilio and me were looking for someplace to live he offered it. I know that it’s uncommon for young couples to own houses but it seemed like a better idea than not having anything at all. It’s very hard to get someplace to live, nowadays.” I offered the last as a distraction. I did not want to go into names of relatives because I had just remembered that I had no idea whose name was on the ownership papers for the house. I decided to check that up as soon as we got back. If the woman would stop asking so much.


“Yes, I know, it’s a shame really. My Bertie and I had to wait for five years to get this house. It’s outrageous.” It looked as if she had wanted to say more but a car pulled into the driveway and I guessed that it was ‘her’ Bertie. I waved happily at him while making my escape, hoping that he’d take the cue and ask his wife, or whatever, who I was thus stalling her chance to call us back. We removed ourselves quickly from the scene.


That evening I got several of my guards to smile when retelling the story of our adventure into the suburbs. Clay looked like he wanted to admonish William about getting lost but he never did. I think that the fact that none of us had paid attention had something to do with that, though we did promise to do better from now on.


The whole mess brought one good thing, though. Suddenly everyone knew everything about me and the two men I lived with. All my guards we’re suddenly called William since the description of us must have contained him as ‘the blond man’. I found it funny but none of the guards did. We also got a lot of visitors, neighbours that wanted to welcome us to the neighbourhood and one older man who told us to take better care of our garden because it was a disgrace to the entire street. We didn’t quite understand that but from that moment on the guards took turns at gardening. I know for a fact that they did know what they were doing most of the time.


We were also, suddenly, in the loop. We got information about neighbourhood parties, cleaning days, rules, competitions, more cleaning and so on and so forth. We didn’t join in everything but I made a habit of showing up rather often. I needed these people to become more used to seeing us, accepting us as normal. If we slipped up a bit later it would be less noticeable if we had been sorted into the ‘safe’ category already. It was also our best shot at trying to find the slayer school. None of us had seen anything that looked like it could have been what we were looking for but it was supposed to be here so we would continue looking.


Five months later I received a letter from father. It was written on thick white paper and written in really curly writing that looked really fancy but also made it really hard to read. I gathered my ‘men’ in the kitchen and we sat down to read it.

Ah, curse your cliffhanger endings!

Good stuff, but undoubtably needs more!

[i:03c75c2501]Greetings Daughter,
When this letter finds you Malcolm, Valin and her escort will be on their way. Malcolm is one of my informants, I do not think you have met him yet, and he has some interesting information for you. Your seer simply came to my office and demanded that she would join him on his trip. I was not in a position to say no. You need to teach her some manners, she can be very vocal when she feels like it.
Father[/i:03c75c2501]

“Does anyone know this ‘Malcolm’?” I asked. I didn’t fancy letting an unknown vampire into my house, no matter if he was father’s informant or not.


“I do.” Clay, William and Marcus said.


“And…” I said, wanting them to explain further.


“Well,” Marcus started. “he’s one of your father’s best spies and he has a very good reputation. He was turned about the same time I was and we’ve trained together a couple of times. He’s good and loyal. It’s said that he’s been tortured but didn’t leak any information. I don’t know if that last one is true, though.”


“Do you have anything to add?” I asked the other two. Both shook their heads in negative.


“Ok, I’ll trust he’ll behave then. And we need to prepare somewhere for them to sleep, father didn’t say when they would arrive. Malcolm can sleep with you but Valin and James need a room of their own.”


“I don’t think Malcolm will appreciate sleeping with us ‘regular soldiers’, lady.” Marcus offered.


“I do not care what Malcolm appreciates. This is a house, not a coven, he should appreciate getting somewhere to sleep at all.”


“As you say, lady.” He replied, bowing in apology. I still didn’t like it when people bowed to me but I was getting better at accepting it. That’s when the doorbell sounded. Steven was closest to the door so he moved to open it. That’s when I got one of the biggest scares of all my undead life. On the other side of the door stood professor Sager, my high school Spanish teacher. I can’t tell who was most surprised, both of us froze like statues. I didn’t unfreeze until Clay introduced him as Malcolm.


“You?” I said and it looked like profess… Malcolm wanted to too. Malcolm looked the same as he had almost 35 years earlier, of course. He was a short man with thin brown hair, he was a man that was easily forgotten after you’d seen him, and there was nothing remarkable about him at all, which was possibly one of the main reasons for him being such a successful spy.


“I thought you said you didn’t know Malcolm, lady?” Marcus said.


“I don’t. Or at least I didn’t think so. Or something. I knew that man as Gerhard Sager, high school Spanish teacher.” Said man kneeled in a way others usually reserved for my father.


“I’m honoured to meet you, lady. I didn’t know who you were back when I taught you. I apologise for that.”


“Please stand, there’s nothing to apologise for. I don’t think that father meant you to know.” I said while watching Valin and James enter. They took one look at the kneeling figure before Valin cocked her head and looked at me in a questioning way.


“Seer Valin.” I greeted her. “Steven will show you to your room.” I motioned towards the stairs and Steven left to show them to their room. I turned towards the still kneeling figure on the floor of our hallway.


“I thought I told you stand?”


“I’m sorry lady.” He apologised and this time he did as I bid.


“We mustn’t do anything to attract attention. Lets withdraw to the room in the back, it’s concealed from outside view.”


“As you say.” He said while waiting for me to move. This guy was worse than Raphael. The backroom was furnished to be a comfortable sitting room, or in our case, somewhere to meet and plan. Chairs, sofas and small tables littered the room without making it seem crowded. It could easily seat fifteen people and we did need the room. The windows offered a spectacular view over the now carefully tended gardens. I seated myself between Robin and Caspar who longed in a three-seater sofa in their leopard form. I slowly ran my hand through their luxuriously thick fur. The afternoon sun played with the golden colour and made them look almost on fire. Malcolm looked surprised to hear one of them start purring. I couldn’t tell which one of them it was when they were lying down like this.


“I have to ask,” I started. “did you ever get told what you were doing in a small rural high school? I mean, it couldn’t have been an ordinary assignment, even for you.”


“I was only told to keep an eye out for other vampires in the area, lady. And to dispose of them if they got too near. I can understand why now but I didn’t back then. It’s not my place to question the High Prince, though.”


“True. You were a good teacher by the way.”


“Thank you, lady, but it wasn’t really that I’m here to discuss.”


“I know. I’m still in shock from meeting you, though. I never knew you were a vampire, which was the point of course, though I had a friend who swore you were from mars.” I straightened up where I was sitting and looked straight at Malcolm instead of looking at the weres. “Father mentioned in his letter that you had some important information.”


“Yes, lady. There have been a raid on a safehouse about 20 miles from here, we suspect that the ones responsible are the school of slayers you’re currently trying to infiltrate. No vampire was hurt in the raid but the slayers lost a few of their people. They’re bound to recruit now and it’s your chance to get inside.” At that very instant the door to the room opened and in came Valin, her eyes locked with mine and she proclaimed:


“This is what you have been waiting for.”

[i:03c75c2501][/i:03c75c2501][i:03c75c2501][/i:03c75c2501]

Gah, my arms are really sore from hanging on this cliff. Can you not make the wait so long this time?

The plot is thickening and thickening like poorly tended gravy.

“Good. It’s just that I don’t know what to do with this information. What does the slayers look for in recruits. Or how they do the recruiting, or even where.”


“I thought our Lord said something about you already having been recruited, Lady.” Marcus said. That caused muffled laughter to be heard from the guards that had been with us when this had happened.


“Er… Kind of. We don’t speak much about it, we don’t know if it’s more embarrassing that I didn’t notice that they were slayers or that they didn’t notice me being a vampire.”


“I apologise, it wasn’t my intention to bring up something you didn’t want to speak about, Lady.” If Malcolm continued to speak like this he would drive me crazy.


“Again, there’s nothing to apologise for. But I take it, you don’t know the answers to these questions either.”


“I’m sorry, I don’t, Lady.” I sighed and looked up onto the ceiling. When I looked back down I could see the knowing smiles on the faces on those guards that had been around me long. I think I even saw the cat version of a smile on Caspar’s face, as it now was.


“Please, Malcolm, I’m not my father and I would appreciate not being spoken to as if I were. Anyways, if no one has any ideas we’ll have to wing it and take it from there.”


“I wouldn’t worry if I were you, Lady Alexis. Everything will work out fine, at least to a point.” Valin offered as she was led into the room by James. One of the weres growled at her but stopped once I’d grabbed a hold of the back of his neck.


“Seer Valin is a friend, don’t you dare do that.” I told him. “Or at least I thought she was… until she too decided to drive me crazy by using my title when it isn’t necessary.”


“I just followed in the spirit of things.” Valin said, neither very innocent nor convincing. I glowered at her in response. At this point Malcolm was again on his knees begging my forgiveness.


“Malcolm, stop it.” I told him rather sharply. He did stop speaking by he kept his pose. “I’m not old, as you very well know, and I’m really not comfortable with people behaving like this around me. I know that it is required in certain situations but now is not one of them so can you please stand up and act as a normal person. Please.” I’d added the extra please to try to get my point across. Also, usually one didn’t ask one’s servants nicely. Malcolm looked at the other vampires standing around in the room, I don’t think he got any support until he looked at Emilio who decided to help the, still kneeling, figure out.


“She speaks the truth, she really is uncomfortable with, what she calls, ‘too much’ decorum. Behave properly, but not overly so, and you’ll do fine.” Emilio said. Slowly, oh so slowly, Malcolm raised first his gaze and then his body from the floor. I smiled at him. When I didn’t say anything he moved to seat himself in a straight-backed chair. When I didn’t protest he sat a bit more relaxed.


“If I may, la…” Point to him, he’d tried.


“If you may what, Malcolm.” I tried to speak with a friendly voice.


“Ask you something.” This time Malcolm had managed to quell his urge to speak the honorific altogether.


“Of course.”


“If we weren’t to act suspicious, why do you have two leopards lounging in your house?”


“They claim that they will hear or smell any human approaching and that they’ll have ample time to change, if it was necessary, and I have to say that they have yet to fail. And, they say that they regenerate their blood faster if they’re allowed to change.”


“It appears that it’s all under control then.” He said, carefully.


“I trust them to know these things. I can only know what they tell me, since I’m not a were myself.” I started petting one of them again while the other gracefully slipped down onto the floor and changed back into his fully human form. It turned out to be Caspar. He didn’t say anything, he just seated himself at my feet and I just couldn’t help myself, I put a hand on his head and petted him instead. Malcolm had watched it all with a curious expression.


“You haven’t seen a were change before, have you?” I asked him.


“No, I haven’t even seen a were before. I before last night I hadn’t been in our coven since before you were returned to us.” He answered.


“Well then, you have a few discoveries to make.” I hinted with a smile. Once again he tried to find support amongst the others in the room but none of them seemed keen on helping him out, this time. He looked back at me, puzzlement clearly on his face. I smiled back.


“When was the last time you fed, Malcolm?” It’s generally a pretty rude question but I thought I could get away with it. I wanted some compensation for being the one in charge, after all.


“Four days ago, why?” It was nice to see that he’d lowered his guard, he would never have dared to add the ‘why’ if he had been speaking with my father.


“Why don’t you take Amandus with you to the room and you can find out one of the secrets.” I nudged Amandus forward while I spoke and he stood up without protest. Malcolm looked at me oddly, swept his gaze around the room but still no one would help him out, and left the room. Amandus in tow. A few seconds later we could all hear him asking Amandus the way to the room. It was clear that Amandus didn’t reply with words, we heard the sound of the stairs being mounted instead.


“You know, Alexis, that might have been a positively evil thing to do to our dear master spy.” Emilio commented.


“Call it revenge for lady-ing me that much. Only Raphael is allowed to do that, and that’s under protest I might add.”


“This is why guarding you will never become boring, little lady.” Clay had added that last part to annoy me, I think. Either that or Malcolm had rubbed off on him, I hoped that wasn’t the case.


A few minutes later Amandus swaggered in, a huge smile on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes and two faint marks of fangs on his neck. Thirty seconds later Malcolm wandered in, eyes opened wide and an altogether strange expression on his face. I smiled wile the other guards laughed at Malcolm, he didn’t seem to care though, he seemed to have eyes only for Amandus as he retook his place at my feet and I started petting him gently again.

Ah, another insight into the workings of overling-underling relations. A recurring theme in Camrille, Alexis again finds that someone is cowering to her, when she doesn't believe that she deserves it. After numerous people before him, Marcus learns that Alexis doesn't like being constantly referred to as 'Lady' and eventually suffers the consequences of it, to the great amusement of her retinue who have seen it all before.

Alexis seems to hate it when she is called by her rank, but she uses that rank to order people not to call her by it. It really is a confusing conundrum, she both relishes and fears her role within vampiric society. As a result of that, she passes the confusion down the line to the unlucky underling – Marcus the ex-teacher in this case, possibly some revenge for giving her homework too.

She seems more willing to order the weres though, possibly this will be good training for her and she'll accept the honorifics from the vampires too. Maybe she'll remain stubborn until the day she dies (or the author decides to stop writing, which will probably be the day she dies, because I'll kill her*), but I doubt it, she is slowly growing into the role.

So what is going to happen next, are the vampires finally going to discover something about the slayers? Is Alexis going to shock everyone by demanding to be called “Your Highness”? Is the seer going to predict something useful? Is some person we forgot from a previous episode going to appear? Is Mynona going to post it as soon as possible? We hope so.*


*No pressure on the next chapter, Myn!

Not so long after Malcolm had joined us, he’d told me he’d leave as soon as he knew I was part of the school of slayers, I was standing on our driveway. I was wearing a pair of trousers and a t-shirt, maybe not the best attire for someone a tad bit ‘allergic’ to the sun but I was only going to fetch the mail. Or so I thought.


Suddenly a hand came down on my shoulder. I’d heard the mortal trying to sneak up on me but I hadn’t thought he’d actually try to touch me. It was very fortunate for him that I had my arm shoved into the letter box or he’d gotten more than a surprised gasp from me. Something in the way of a broken nose.


“Hi there!” The man said. It was too deep to be a woman’s voice and indeed, when I turned to look at him it was, indeed, a human male. He had bronze skin and short black hair. He wore black sunglasses, a black t-shirt and black, although faded, jeans. I started to sense a theme.


“Um, hi.” I offered in response. Trying to look as spooked as I felt. I had been working with father for a long time trying to show no expression at all, it was strange to force what usually comes naturally.


“My name’s Sean Cooper. I live over on Sunset Street.” Sunset Street was not very far from here. What concerned me was that I hadn’t seen him on any of the neighbourhood get-togethers, and he hadn’t removed his glasses, how rude.


“I’m Alexis Smith. I live here.” I said. As if he couldn’t see that by himself, unless he thought me some kind of letter-stealing thief. I pulled my hand out of the box, transferred the two envelopes to my left hand and held out my right as if expecting a handshake. He tilted his head down a bit, as if contemplating my strange behaviour. Slowly he drew his hand from his pocket and shook mine, his perplexed look never fading.


“So?” I asked when I thought the silence had gone on for long enough.


“Oh. Yes. Well, I was sent to invite you to visit us.” His right hand found his way to his hair and I perceived the gesture to be one of nervousness.


“Visit whom? Where? Why?” I could see a blond head behind in the window, behind the curtain but I gave the sign for ‘everything’s under control’ and hoped that they’d leave it at that. This was just a conversation, a strange one but still, nothing more.


“Um. This might sound a bit odd but you seem to be a prime example of the kind of people we’d like to see in our society. We wanted to invite you to see what it’s all about and if it really is something for you.”


“And what would that society be? Society for the short?” A raised eyebrow accompanied my questions.


“No, it’s kind of obscure. I don’t want to say something until you go there. It’s kind of the point with the whole thing.” Ok, that man was not making any sense at all.


“I’m not very interested, and I’m not going to go anywhere with you with that bad an explanation. Good day.” I said and started to walk towards the house.


“Wait. Please. I know it doesn’t make much sense but please come. I believe that you will find the time well spent.”


“I’m still not interested.”


“Please. It won’t take long. All you have to do is to show up at this address,” He shoved a small piece of paper at me. “on Monday at six. In the evening.” As I glared at him he quickly removed himself from my sight. I shook my head at the idiocy of some and headed towards the house. The thickness of one of the envelope, and the fact that it seemed to be made from parchment rather than ordinary paper, suggested it was from father. As soon as I cleared the door I was accosted by various members in our dysfunctional little ‘family’.


“What did he want?”


“Who was it?”


“What was he doing here?”


“Why did he keep his sunglasses on?” There was a lot of questions, most of them asked at the same time.


“Don’t worry, it was just some strange human who wanted me to meet with his ‘society’ next week. Here.” I said and passed the small piece paper on. I didn’t think much about it while I tried to decide whether this letter from father was good or bad news. It was Malcolm’s voice which brought me out of my reverie.


“This address is one of those we think might host the School.” That did get my attention along with everyone else’s who were within hearing range. Considering that we hear very well that was anyone in the house not asleep.


“What?” I replied.


“I said that…”


“I heard what you said; it doesn’t mean I believe it, though. You’re saying that the bumbling fool out there was a slayer?”


“I didn’t say anything of the sort, lady. What I sai…”


“Will you lay off with the ‘lady’? And I know that you didn’t say exactly that but it implies that, doesn’t it?”


“If you say so.”


“And if he was he needs to work on his choice of clothes. If he wants to melt in better he should have chosen less black clothes, slayers aren’t supposed to stick out. Are they?”


“I couldn’t say, little lady, it would make them easier to keep an eye on, though.” Clay offered.


“Ha ha, very funny.” I said in turn but I also gave him a small smile. Slayers weren’t supposed to stick out. If they did other humans would take notice and we couldn’t have that, now, could we? It would alert them to the existence of slayers, and by proxy, us, if the humans didn’t decide to try and kill off all slayers first for being a paramilitary organisation. That might have proved entertaining.

Ah, those silly slayers. Easily fooled by a person who can go out in the sun wearing a T-shirt.

Good to see Alexis being a bit thick, not realising that he could be inviting her to a slayer thing. I'm sure she'll have gone up in Malcolm's estimation now.

It was Monday, though I’m not quite sure how that happened, it had been Tuesday only yesterday, hadn’t it? It was only around midday yet, but soon it would become afternoon and then night, and by then I would have met with the slayers. Hopefully. Or with some other freak society, you never know with humans. The thing is, I’d had almost a week to plan what to do tonight and I still hadn’t the slightest idea. The last time I’d joined it had been an accident and I hadn’t even known that they were slayers, this time I knew what was going on and I had to play innocent as well as human. I just had a bad feeling about it all. The others had given me words of advice and cheery comments all day, though that didn’t particularly help. And as usual the advice went against each other, advice always does when it comes from more than one person.


When I left our house at five fifteen I left the house and I had a plan; wing it. I never said it was a good plan. Everyone else in the house, except Valin it seemed, we’re jittery and it was only because of father’s say so that I was allowed out, alone. I can’t even remember when I was alone for more than a handful of minutes the last time. I know that when I was human I enjoyed my privacy and that I almost had to spend time alone, away from everyone else. When did I get this social and why hadn’t I noticed until now? It was true that I sometimes felt captured within the coven but that was mostly because I hadn’t been outside in a while, not that I hadn’t been alone.


I’d decided to walk to the place where the meeting was to happen, mostly because I fancied a walk and it wasn’t really that far, but also because I’ve never trusted public transport and I didn’t trust myself to drive. Was my licence even valid anymore? Technically I’ve been dead for a while now and I don’t want to know what the cops would do if they found a ‘corpse’ driving around in the streets. It could prove troublesome.


All too soon I could see the house of no. 180 Zenith street. It looked like an ordinary house, smaller than the one I occupied at the moment, in fact it was barely larger than the suburban houses in the area where I’d gotten lost a few months ago. It was white-on-red, almost but not quite the colour of the houses from my childhood. Something was off here, you couldn’t hold a slayers’ school in an ordinary house, could you?


Apparently you couldn’t. Well inside the doors it was clear that it was only a front and that the major part of the school was underground. Or so I guessed, I had yet to descend the stairs. There was just the small trouble of the gigantic guard that stood before it, taking up most of the hallway. He was tall, he was wide and most of all, even his muscles had muscles. I knew that I was stronger than this human, but I took an involuntary step back, anyways. I’m not suicidal, you know.


“State your business!” The human’s voice was as large as he was, I had to repress the urge to cover my ears.


“Um… I was invited here.” I said, though I honestly didn’t know exactly what I meant with ‘here’.


“Present your invitation!” This time I winced, wasn’t there a mute button on this thing? I fumbled a bit before offering him the small piece of paper with the address on. It wasn’t an invitation but it was as close to one as I’d gotten. The giant looked pleased though and stepped aside. I offered him a small wave of my hand as I passed him and I headed downstairs.


The stairway and the hallway I ended up in were dark, though I had no problem seeing I had to act the part. I didn’t think that a human would have seen anything in here. I let one of my hands trail along the wall as I slowly moved forward.


“Hello?” I said, not really expecting an answer but the hallway was suddenly eye-wateringly bright and a mechanical voice greeted me in turn.


“Welcome to the school.”


“The school?” I echoed dumbly. So this was the right place after all.


“Here you will meet the challenge of your life.”


“Um, I think I’m in the wrong place.” I said, trying to play the part of confused human.


“You will also meet and make new friends.” Was it just me or did this thing sound as a commercial for a college?


“We welcome you again to the School of Slayers!”


“The what!?! I don’t want to kill anyone! Let me out!” I turned around and made for where the stairs was, only they weren’t there anymore. I looked around frantically, it wouldn’t do to be too calm, I had to appear at least a bit afraid or angry but I was also starting to get anxious. That stairway was the only way out that I knew of and without it, I didn’t have an exit. This was not good.


“Calm down, we’re not going to hurt you.” I recognised that voice, it was Sean Cooper, the black clad man who’d first approached me. He seemed a lot calmer here, inside the school’s… walls. Also, they would want to hurt me pretty bad if they knew who I was. Lucky me they didn’t seem to know.


“Why did that voice talk about killing people?” I asked. “Where’s the exit? What am I doing here?”


“Calm down, for god sake!” He looked like he wanted to shake me. Good for him that he didn't. I did act a bit calmed down, though.


“We’re a school of slayers, we do not kill people. What we do is to save them from the horrors out there, the lamia.”


“The what?” Now my confusion wasn’t an act. I thought the slayers only were after vampires.


“Vampires, lamia is vampiric for vampires.” He said this with a ‘mysterious’ tilt to his voice. I was pondering why he thought it necessary to use ‘vampire’ or a form thereof three times in one sentence and why he thought that lamia was vampiric for vampire. It’s Latin for vampire, that much I can give but vampire in vampiric is ‘Levande’.

"There’s no such thing as vampires!” I looked at him scandalised.


“Believe me, there is.” He answered. “They’re out there, and they feed and kill on us humans. It’s our duty to get rid of them to save mankind from those monsters.” He really did burn for the cause, his eyes was alight with the fanaticism that makes some humans the most dangerous predator there is, they won’t follow logic or listen to reason when they’re in that state.


“But… I’ve never seen a vampire.” Well, that was a partial truth, I’ve never seen ‘a’ vampire, I’ve seen lots and lots of them. “And what could I do, anyways, I’m not very big or very good at fighting?” The door behind me opened again and a rather ‘big’ woman stepped through. She wasn’t long-big, more of the fat-big, actually.


“You’ve gotten yourself a star there, Cooper.” She said with a high, thin voice. The kind that doesn’t think it’s enough with one pathway between your ear and your brain and is hell bent on drilling another. I turned around at the sound of her voice, as if I hadn’t noticed her enter. I tried to look scared and confused though I’m not sure how well I did.


“At least she’s got good reflexes.” She added while looking at me, from feet to head, judging me, and it didn’t look like she liked what she saw.


“I’m confused…” I offered.


“This is Margareth Forshyth, she’s the leader of this school.” Sean introduced her. He didn’t introduce me so I gathered that he hadn’t been alone in his decision to bring me onboard.


“Oh, nice to meet you. Are you the headmaster, then?”


“No, ‘school’ just signifies a group of slayers, it’s not a school, per se.” She said in a patronising kind of way. This woman was really stroking my fur the wrong way.


“Like fish?” I asked.


“What?”


“A school of fish?”


“What…? Anyways, you’ve been chosen to try out for a spot among us. The testing will start right about now.” She raised her hand as a signal and when she did, three people entered the room, one female and two males, all of them armed with knives, guns and what looked like fake vampire teeth. I had to suppress my instinct to go for my own knives and instead I just waited for them to come closer. I think that my aborted motion towards my own knives might have looked suspicious but I hoped it would be seen as a ‘surprised’ movement. I was uncertain how they wanted to me react and I didn’t have a lot of time to choose, I could either kick their asses or I could chicken out. Just as the first male reached me I decided to prod some ankle.


He came at me with the knife raised and his guard high. I backed up half a step, shifted my weight back and positioned myself in a defensive stance, and kicked him in the stomach, a swift kick, more to surprise him than anything. It was a long time since I’d fought with humans and I didn’t know how much strength I could put in the kick without seeming to strong. He hesitated in his rush and brought his guard, and the knife, down but it didn’t matter, the other two had now arrived and I had to keep myself from trying to escape, I wasn’t supposed to react to them flanking me. I did a half-hearted attempt to block the woman’s knife while letting the second man’s hand and arm inside my guard. I ‘reacted’ too late and was soon brought down to the floor, where I proceeded to look frightened. The three persons we’re soon called back by Forshyth and I was left on the floor.


“Tell me, girl, have you had any formal training in fighting, at all?” Forshyth stared down at me. I had a feeling she would never be one of my favourite people, ever.


“I’ve done some martial arts training when I was younger…” And it was true, since then I’d done a lot more though.


“So you’re not completely incompetent then. Leave now, come back tomorrow morning at eight.” She turned and left with my attackers, only Sean was left in the room with me, though now the door was open and the way out was clear.


“But…”


“Come, walk with me and I’ll see if I can answer your questions.” He said and gave me a hand up, I didn’t take it.


“I don’t want to fight anyone.” I said.


“It’s your duty to fight for those who can’t.” I know, I do that already, in my role as Ryttir and as my father’s heir.


“And what do I tell my fiancé?”


“He doesn’t need to know.”


“It’s not like I can hide that I disappear every day, is it?”


“You can tell him you got a job.”


“That won’t work.”


“Why not?” By now we’d almost reached the exit.


“Because I’ve got a job, in my father’s firm, I’ve just gotten a year off before starting to work there.”


“Then say what you wish but you will not tell him about the school, slayers or vampires.” He tried to look menacing when he said this but he came across cute instead… or maybe constipated.


“Ok.” I tried for subdued and hoped my acting skills were better than Sean’s.


“And be on time tomorrow!” He shouted after me as I left the building. I headed towards the house and contemplated what to tell the others. I had found the school, and thus I needed to tell father and I could send Malcolm back to the coven. But how to convince my guards that they couldn’t follow me to the school? They’d accepted today because we weren’t sure they were slayers and because I’d nagged them about it. On top of that, this was my mission and father expected me to go through with it, but why had he saddled me with the guards, he must have known that I wasn’t going to be allowed to bring them. That would definitely have looked odd, even for an alleged ‘rich-man’s-daughter’. No road is ever long enough when you need to think and I was soon back at the house, depressingly soon.

Stupid house with lack of slayers to beat up...

MORE! I demand more pain to the slayers, which means that you have to write more - I'm talking to you Mynona. Move them typing fingers.

My guards didn’t want to let me leave the next morning and I could understand their hesitation. It was a dangerous mission but it was also my mission and mine alone. I did, however, allow them to spy on the building the school was located under to make them feel better and to have some help if things suddenly decided to go pear-shaped. They had to stay far enough back not to reveal themselves, though.


Emilio took things both better and worse than the regular guards. He respected that it was my mission and he was pretty confident in my ability to handle humans if I needed to fight but he also loved me and love isn’t a very forgiving emotion when it comes to putting the object of your attention in danger. Someone once said that “love is a fickle thing” I hadn't appreciated what that meant until now.


The big man was still at the entrance when I came to the building again, or maybe that should be ‘he was there again’. He didn’t look tired so I was hoping for the latter. On the other hand that would mean that the slayers were intelligent enough to know that their guards needed rest and I didn’t think that high of them.


Sean met me at the entrance, wearing all over black again. I was wearing blue jeans, a green shirt and red boots, just to spite them. The day was filled with me being showed around the complex, though from the odd proportions and layout of the rooms I was shown I guessed that there were really more to the school than that which I had seen. I was also introduced to a lot of humans who I, by the end of the day, couldn’t remember. Other than the names there had been a small lecture about vampires, how to spot them and what to do if, and when I did though most of the information was faulty. That did mean that they had no real chance of spotting me. Vampires mostly doesn’t have red glowing eyes or fangs down to our chins nor are we always killing someone. I had to work on not laughing at them a time or two. What I found most curious was that they didn’t say anything about fighting vampires, if I saw one I was to call the school and then leave the area, in fact, there was no talk about fighting or weapons at all. Maybe they didn’t want to scare me off.


That night a dutifully reported to my fiancé and my guards, and of course I composed a letter about my findings to father. The guards laughed dutifully at the stupidity of the humans but nothing I said or did could hunt that fear for me out of their eyes. I was starting to think that allowing them to call me ‘little lady’ had been a mistake and that letting them become close would now ruin everything. That what I had done would make them unable to handle things as well as they could because they’d fear unnecessarily for me. I knew that I wasn’t the oldest or strongest of vampires but I could handle myself, especially against humans. Even well trained ones.


Most of the week flew by in a similar fashion. Sean never asked what I’d told Emilio I was doing when I was away and I never offered the information. I’d asked how he’d gotten in touch with the school but he didn’t answer other than ‘every man has his calling, this one is mine’. I thought it a bit odd but left it at that, maybe it was too personal a reason to tell someone he’d just met. During the week Sean never left my side, he went with me to those misinformed classes, though I knew he must have suffered them when he first was a newbie slayer. He showed me around, introduced me to people but after five days, there still hadn’t been a word about fighting or killing… or should that be ‘slaying for the best of mankind’? The classes had a small flavour of brainwashing to them, nothing obvious but it was a disturbing element there, the ‘for glory speech’ I heard six times an hour and so on. There’s no glory in killing, and trust me, I’ve killed enough to know. Mostly it was just gory. Maybe they’d just misspelled gory and gotten glory. When I mentioned the ‘brainwashing’, it wasn’t really good enough to deserve that title but I didn’t know a better word for it, my guards became even more anxious. I had gotten them to calm down somewhat when Thursday’d passed without anything happening but they were now back to being painfully alert. It was most annoying.


I’d been told that I could only have one day a week off, either Saturday or Sunday, they had, however promised that once I’d graduated from being a ‘newbie’ I would have more to say about when to be in and when to be out. Compensation for doing missions they called it. I think that when you were brainwashed enough to pass as a regular you didn’t want to spend a lot of time outside the school, alternatively, you simply didn’t have a life outside that of the organisation. I spent about twelve hours a day at the school as it was and thanks to being vampire and not requiring a lot of sleep I could spend at least some time with the others.


I’d chosen to take Saturday off because I simply needed time off. I was stressed about the whole thing, mission or no mission, and I was afraid that it was going to start to show. Emilio looked weirdly at me a time or two and I think he suspected that something wasn’t right but he was courteous enough not to call me on it. He wasn’t happy about it, though. I decided that I’d tell him about it, and about my worries and fears, to see if that helped. I hoped it would help the both of us but it might as well go the other way, entirely.

Yay! New Camrille!

More.

I woke up Saturday morning and the weather was absolutely terrible, the rain was coming down, not in droplets as proper rain is supposed to, but in lakes. There hadn’t been much raining going on the last month and the ground was too dry to take any moisture so there was water slouching everywhere. There was a distant roll of thunder with the promise of more, closer. I did what almost no sane being would do, I threw on some clothes and sped out into the rain, not quite dancing but close. Rain in summer is great, even more so now when I didn’t have to care about catching colds. Being stuck inside the coven, which was mostly situated under ground, one tended to miss the sun but I missed all kinds of weather, mostly because the total lack of it underground.


I had about four and a half seconds of utter joy before my lack of thought resulted in a very worried Emilio with two other guards in tow.


“What are you doing?” Emilio asked, looking as if he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the reason.


“Eh… enjoying the weather?” I offered. As if agreeing another roll of thunder was heard, this one much louder, and closer. All three of them now looked thoroughly drowned, I knew I must have looked the same way but I didn’t feel like it, despite feeling my hair plastered to my head.


“This kind of weather is supposed to be enjoyed from inside, I think.” Emilio said and gently steered me towards the door. I pouted at him but it didn’t have any effect. Well inside he gently forced me down into one of the couches and seated himself besides me.


“Now, would you like to tell me why you saw it fit do go dancing in the rain?”


“I felt like it.” I said, well aware that I sounded like an insolent five-year-old.


“You do know that you shouldn’t do everything you feel like, Alexis.”


“I know, Emilio, but I’ve been stuck with those fanatics for five days and I haven’t gotten any chance of doing ‘anything’ I wanted to do. This morning I could do whatever I wanted and I felt like running out into the rain.” There was a big silence only disturbed by the soft sounds of water drops hitting expensive carpet. “Maybe we should dry ourselves up before continuing this conversation.” I offered, looking guiltily at the carpet in question. Emilio sighed and hugged me before heading off to one of the bathrooms. I hurried to occupy the other, throwing a gleeful face at Clay, who was about as we as I was, who’d clearly intended to use that very same bathroom but hadn’t been fast enough to do so.


One towel around my body and one in my hair I declared that tonight we we’re going to have a small party before I ran for cover, and clothes, in my bedroom. In the shower I’d decided that having a small party was just one of the things I wanted to do, and it was one thing that wouldn’t upset the guards… too much. It wasn’t going to be a get-drunk kind of party, more of a have-a-nice-time kind. In all honestly I wasn’t sure if vampires could get drunk, our metabolism isn’t very close to a human’s… or any mammal’s.


I’d insisted to go along with the group that we’re going shopping for the food, as a treat I’d decided that all of us should eat ‘real’ food tonight, alongside the weres. Though before going outside I’d have to pass the door but that could prove difficult since there was someone standing in the way.


“Seer Valin.” I greeted her.


“Lady Alexis, what a surprise to run into you at this place.” Valin said with a crooked smile on her lips. Either she was planning something or she’d seen something amusing. I just hoped it wasn’t me. When I looked around I couldn’t see James, her guardian, who was supposed to follow her everywhere.


“Yes, because it’s so very unusual for people who live in a house to actually inhabit it.” I had no idea where this conversation was going and, as always with Valin, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I knew that seeing the future couldn’t be an easy burden to bear but did she have to talk in riddles and stuff. Wasn’t that just clichés?


“Not as usual as you might think. But that’s not why I’m here, I’d set the table for a few more tonight, if I were you. You’re going to have a few unexpected guests.” Well, that was more straightforward than Valin usually was.


“Um, how many unexpected guest, exactly. And are they, technically, still unexpected if I know they’re coming?”


“Since you’re about to give yourself a headache, six. And to your second question I’d like to answer; Secluva.” Valin stated very self-assured and started moving down the hall, away from the door she’d previously occupied. I looked oddly at her for about five seconds. Those five seconds lasted because I had yet to figure out how to eye-ball someone who couldn’t see.


The preparations done and over with the party was soon on the way. Maybe it was more of a celebration than a party but we’d decided to go with the latter because it was easier to say. It was rare for us to all meet at once, despite living in a not very large house. Someone was always doing something and even though you live under the same room still doesn’t mean that each and every one of us didn’t have her, or his, own life. For tonight, all those lives came together at one point, and we had a great time while doing so. The food was good, home cooked (thanks to a couple of weres) and not overly elaborate. Simple yet delicious. I’d first thought that Valin and James wouldn’t show, they had been invited, but about a quarter after the party ‘officially’ started they came down the stairs. Valin claimed that they just wanted to be fashionably late but there was a red tinge around James’ ears that told another story. A story for another time and place. We welcomed them down and the party started for a second time.


A quarter to midnight the doorbell rang. I managed to get really surprised despite Valin’s warning earlier, and it took a second or two before I managed to get my thoughts in line. I gestured for Steven to open the door. The others we’re a bit suspicious but I figured Valin would have warned me if there had been someone dangerous. It was, and wasn’t. I hurriedly went to one knee as father strode in the door.


“This was unexpected.” He said and moved aside to let his four guards in and to close the doors. We didn’t want to attract the neighbours attention but I didn’t dare not to kneel to father either. Some of the guards kneeled with me, some didn’t, those ‘on duty’ didn’t, there was the little crux about the hardships of defending others while you were on your knees.


“Welcome Father.” I said and he motioned for us to get up.


“I don’t suppose you have place for another one?” He said, mockingly.


“Of course we have, Father, we’re having dessert, why don’t you join us.” I said and he did look surprised, or as surprised as father ever gets, when he saw that we, indeed, had a spot left for him.


“You’ve got more than one spare setting here, Lady.” Merquise said, he was one of those who’d arrived with father.


“Please join us.” I told them and after a brief look at our High Prince, he and the others seated themselves. Eating and talking started up again, though a bit strained, everyone was a bit weary of father, even I was, truth to be told.

I'm so far on the edge of my seat that I've nearly fallen offfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Right, back up now, but I urgently need the next bit!

“It seems as if you we’re expecting someone.” Father told me in a tone that clearly stated that it was a question I had to answer to his satisfaction.


“Yes, we were. And now you’re here.”


“Who told I was coming?” There was a cowered silence that spread along the table. None of the others, with the exception of Valin, knew why I’d asked for another six settings at the table.


“No one said that you, specifically, were coming. Seer Valin just told me to expect six more people for the party.” That startled him a little, at least. The tension around the table lessened and some form of conversation slowly started again. Clay was talking to Merquise about something Evelyn had decreed just before we left. Steven was trying to engage Amandus in a conversation while Marcus was doing faces at him over the table while trying not to be seen by father or Steven. When the mood lightened in the room so did mine.


“Alexis, you are aware of the fact that my entourage is only four people, five including me.”


“Yes Father, I am.”


“So who’s the sixth person?”


“I don’t know, Father. One of the downsides with talking to seers is that they tell you enough to give you a headache but not enough to be specific. If you then ask them for more they’ll sprout some gibberish about the fog of the present that clouds the future.” I said it with a light tone, well aware that both Valin and James could hear me. Valin answered by saluting me with her glass, James looked as if he wanted to shoot me with his gun. I’m not sure if he was serious or not.


“You’re saying that we’re going to get visited by another person but you don’t know who?” He looked at me with absolutely no expression what so ever on his face. I thought I’d gotten better at reading father but still he could hide anything from me if he wanted. Further down the table I could hear Steven berating Marcus for doing faces, apparently Steven’d finally caught on to what Marcus’d been doing.


“Yes, Father, that’s what I’m saying.” I looked back at him with as little expression as I could manage. The lines in father’s face softened to what counted as a smile with him.


“I must confess that life since you were born has yet to be dull.” He picked up a spoon and started on dessert, blueberry pie with vanilla ice-cream. I’d wanted to go with chocolate cake but I had been outvoted.


More conversations started up, the mood was almost back where we’d been before the disruption. I talked to father, partly because I wanted to and partly because that way I kept him occupied which let the others relax a bit. Emilio was sitting on my other side but he seemed happy to be talking to James. His hand resting on my thigh said that he hadn’t forgotten about me.


“Why are you here Father?” I asked.


“Can’t I visit my only daughter?” Father did something very rude when he answered a question with another question but I wasn’t going to call him on that.


“Of course you can, and she’s delighted to have you, but I didn’t expect you, Father. Also, is it so wise to leave the coven unattended?”


“They can handle themselves for a day or two. If something happens they’ve probably brought it upon themselves and they can live with it until I come back. They’re all adults and should act that way, even if I know they usually don’t.” I smiled at father understanding exactly what he meant but on the other hand, he had brought it upon himself. If he insisted on being the absolute power he should have realised that people would start to depend on him more and more, until some of them seemed unable to even tie their shoes without help. Most wasn’t that bad but there was one or two that was. I’d decided to do almost anything not to end up in that position, I had my hands full just living my life, I didn’t have any time to spare to live others’ as well.


“Remember what happened last time you went AWOL, Father?” He almost grimaced.


“I’ll let you know that this time I didn’t go AWOL, as you might think, this time I told Evelyn where I was going.” I smiled at him while he tried to look contrite. It was nice that he could relax this much with me despite all the other people. I guess he figured that after living with me for a while the guards and the weres didn’t have a very high opinion of us Dracula as they ought to. Either way I had a good time and started to include Emilio in the conversation as often as I could. He happily obliged, we hadn’t seen much of each other since Monday and though some people find it nice to be away from the people they live with I missed Emilio. We hadn’t had much more time than just sleeping in the same bed. They’d kept me 14 hours a day at the slayers’ school and the rest of my time awake was spent relaying details of what had happened during those 14 hours. The doorbell rang again and the whole room went quiet, we all noticed, about the same time, that whomever it was outside, he or she was human.


Clay moved to the door without having to be told to, a short glance in the direction of me and father yielded no negative response and he opened the door. Outside in all his black clad glory, or lack thereof, stood Sean. I don’t know who was most surprised, those of us who knew who it was or Sean, who had thought he’d find me and perhaps Emilio, but instead he’d walked in on a 20 something people having a party. Yes, there were balloons.

Okay folks..

Please note that I've done something I haven't since... march, I updated twice in one day, so go back to the second to last of the story entires to continue where you left off. Hope you enjoy it

Dear Sir/Madam

I have long been a patron of your product, from the early days to the present. It has been a great joy to have access to this service you provide, whatever it has brung. It is therefore with regret that I have to write in this complaint, for you have permanently damaged the outer of my chair. It has not been able to withstand of the pressure I put on it whilst reading your story. Quite frankly I am appalled that you would treat your loyal patrons in this manner, do you not realise that without us readers your words are merely a random collection of letters? You really need to get your act together, I will no longer subscribe if you continue this behaviour. IT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!

The only way I feel you could make this up to us, is if you write at least one piece per day for the rest of the month. That would be satisfactory compensation if you would be so kind.


Yours Sincerely,
Electric_Man

P.S. Please don't hurt me

”Hello Sean!” I said, possibly a bit more forceful than needed. Sean stood in the doorway looking thoroughly confused, my guards were tensing up, which made father and his guards tense up, I think that my reports had gotten through to father and in that case he should know who it was that stood before us. I was quite hoping that father’d take the lead.


“Um… I didn’t know you we’re having a party. Are you celebrating anything in particular?” Sean asked.


“No, I just felt that I hadn’t seen some of my friends for a while and thought that having a party would be a good idea.” I said, trying to mentally force Sean to ignore the fact that the men outnumbered the females 3 to 1. Unfortunately it didn’t seem as if he would.


“Where are our manners?” Father said. “Please, do come in.” A bit nervously the slayer came inside the hallway and closed the door.


“It wasn’t my intention to crash your party like this.” Sean offered as an apology. He looked around at all the people but didn’t seem to realise that he was surrounded by the enemy, so to speak.


“You couldn’t have known that we were hosting a party, but what are you doing here, Sean? Is there anything wrong?” I took him gently by the hand and led him to the only empty seat left, the one next to my father but on the other side from me. Despite the others having relaxed in father’s company they hadn’t wanted to sit next to him. The guards looked at me a bit fearfully, would I really seat a known slayer next to the Rector Lamia of the vampires, but I acted as if I didn’t notice their concerned glances and they let it go. Merquise was, after all, sitting the left side of the slayer.


“Have some pie, Sean.” I said and father dutifully passed the slayer some pie and the canister of ice-cream. Sean accepted them and started eating in an automatic fashion. I don’t think that this evening was going as planned.


“I was just here to look up on you, you know. So that nothing was the matter and that you were settling in ok and so on.” Sean said between bites. Father shook his head gently, I think he’d been snooping around in the poor mortal’s mind and found out that the real reason was something else. It didn’t look as if he wanted to say what out loud, though. Truth to be told, I didn’t believe what Sean said, it was quite an odd reason for coming over in the middle of the night.


“Oh, well, as you can see we are all okay. You’re welcome to stay if you want to.”


“Yes, very welcome.” Amandus said with a faint trace of purring in his voice. By the look of things Amandus had already finished his dessert but he was aiming for a second. He was more or less draped over Sean and his chair. The were had been wearing a pair of almost indecently tight jeans and a button down shirt but the shirt was open and so was the button on the jeans. I’d never seen Amandus behave like this before. It was amusing, though. Especially since Sean didn’t seem to know how he was supposed to react. It seemed as if he didn’t appreciate the attention but all the same he couldn’t very well appear to be a bad guest and make a scene. So he tried to bear it but it was funny as h*ll to watch.


“Um…who are all these people?” Sean asked while trying to move his body away from Amandus’ hands. It was obvious that he mostly meant Amandus, and why a nice innocent girl like me would know someone like him.


“My fiancé, my friends and…” I suddenly stumbled, father looked to be about two years older than me so I couldn’t call him father but what to call him?


“…Alucard, I’m Alexis’ brother.” Father introduced himself. Between my father acting my brother, a were trying to crawl inside his skin and a group of vampires this slayer was going to go insane. What an interesting idea.


“Oh, Alexis never mentioned a brother.” Sean said, sounding a bit suspicious.


“I’ve barely known you for a week, Sean, what did you expect? You didn’t think I’d tell you all my dirty little secrets, did you?” My comment wrought a false sounding laugh from Sean which was accompanied by more sincere laughing from Emilio and father. Telling the slayer all my secrets would really have been a good idea… sure. Sean did look a bit embarrassed but I wasn’t sure if that was because of what I said or because of having a very friendly were in his lap.


“Amandus please give Sean a break.” I asked the were. Sean did look relieved when Amandus backed off. “We don’t want to come across as overly friendly, yet, do we?”


“You’re right, Alexis, friendly is enough.” I dutifully smiled at Amandus response, in a way it was fitting. I knew that cats love to play but who would have thought that wereleopards liked to play with humans?


The party moved on though we were a bit more subdued, everyone, except Sean, was very careful about not behaving as anything else than human. There was an odd scene or two when Clay and Steven decided that they’d had enough of it and started whispering to each other in a conspiractory fashion asking questions like ‘is this human enough?’ and so on while doing silly things. They kept it away from Sean, though. Otherwise they would not only get yelled at by me but looked at by father and he can really look you down, if you know what you mean. He doesn’t even have to say anything, though he usually does. Sean didn’t stay with us for very long, with some lingering glances in Amandus’ direction he left us to our own devices, with a small hint to me to not get into school tomorrow hungover.

The party slowly wound down and I suddenly found myself alone with father in a small room we mostly used as office for whoever needed anything done where he or she wouldn’t be bothered. It was mostly I that got stuck in there, or the poor sod I’d ordered to do it for the day. If they wanted to hear the story they could spend the time writing it down too.

“Alexis… daughter.” Father seemed more flustered than I’d ever seen him, not that that says a lot. “I came here for a reason. Tomas, your adoptive father,” He cringed at the word. “died this week.” I didn’t know what to say. Father’d never been particularly fond of my adoptive parents, I think he was a bit jealous, and he hadn’t allowed me any contact with them. But still… he’d come all the way here to tell me this in person.

I didn’t know what to do. I’d loved Tomas dearly and now he wasn’t anymore. I’d always known that I’d outlive him, especially since I became I vampire but still. I was grateful that father’d told me but at the same time I was sad, and worried. Would I still be able to pull the mission off. I needed a hug but there was no huggy person around. There was only one person, father.

I hugged him, I needed the hugging too badly not to. To my great surprise he hugged me back. I stepped closer to him and leaned on him, burying my face in his camrille-green shirt.

“Thank you.” I told his chest. He’s much taller than me. Makes me wonder how short my real mother must have been.

“Whatever for?” He asked me. Standing as close as I was, I could feel him saying it, too.

“For telling me. I know you didn’t approve of them.” I didn’t have to make it clear whom I meant by ‘them’.

“How could I? I was forced to give my daughter away. They got my daughter; they got to see her grow up. I didn’t.” I’d never before thought of that. I’d known why I was given up to live with humans, mortals. It was believed that any child reared in the… slightly immoral aura of a coven would end up psychopathic. I understood that line of thought, and agreed, but how horrible it must have felt to have a child, a very rare thing amongst us, indeed, and to have to give it away. I felt him stiffen and I reluctantly let him go, I’d hold on to him for too long. He was, alongside being my father, the High Prince and the Rector Lamia. I backed away one step, then two.

“Again, thank you.” I said, trying to get over the fact that my dad had died. I was vampire, dammit, one puny death shouldn’t effect me so.

“I try.” He started. “I am your father, but I’m also so many other things.” He looked as if he was at loss about what to say.

“I know. I’m also trying.” I answered back. “Trying to be your daughter. The Daughter of Vlad Dracula, Heir to Camrille. I’m mostly hoping I don’t screw up to bad.” I added the last part with a wry grin.

“You’re not. You’re doing good.” I don’t think he had any idea what it meant for me to be told that. I had to resist the urge to hug him again.

“Enough father-daughter bonding for one night?” I asked. “Can we go back to being our usual selves now?”

“Of course, Alexis.” He turned to the door. “Do you want me to ask Emilio to come in?”

“No it’s not necessary, Father.” I also moved towards the door. “But… what was the real reason for Sean to come here?” Curious as I was, I just had to know and I knew that father knew.

“As he said, he wanted to check up on you. Had there not been a party he would have asked you to come to the school, for some made up reason or other, it was to be a loyalty test, of sorts. They want you to be loyal only to them, making you come to them at an odd time of day, and on your day off, would have made your loyalty to them stronger, or so they think.”

“And what will happen now, Father, when the test never even got a chance to start?”

“They’ll try again, at another time. They really hadn’t planned on this party.” There was a hint of a smile in his voice and expression. “But we plan on you being out of here before they get a second chance to this kind of idiotic ideas.”

“Oh. That’s nice to hear. I honestly don’t know if I can do this much longer, Father, It’s just so… frustrating.”

“We should soon have enough information to withdraw you from the school.” He said and motioned at the door. At my nod he opened it, our little talk was officially over.

I got approximately two steps out of the room before a contrite looking Amandus came over to me.

“I wanted to apologise for my behaviour earlier. It’s just… it’s too close to the full moon and he was scared. He smelled scared and that just smells so good.” Amandus got something dreamy in his eyes. I knew that humans being scared made their blood taste better but my nose wasn’t good enough to smell when they were. The were’s obviously was.

“It was a bad thing you did, we wanted to act normal… or at least what the humans consider normal, you could have endangered us by behaving like that. I thought you had better control than that, even close to the full moon.” I looked at him sternly, or at least as sternly as I could, while I talked.”

“I’m sorry.” He meekly replied, looking properly chaisted.

“But I do wonder why he was so scared.” I looked at Amandus expectantly. “I do hope this never happens again, or anything like it.” I watched him walk away, there was a rustle behind me and I snapped around.

“You’re your father’s daughter alright.” Father said before moving further down the hall. Maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t just screwing everything up.

I am very much enjoying the response to my letter, keep it up!

I thought Amandus was putting the moves on Sean!

Anyways, I want to see what happens so power to your elbow!

When we’d all gotten into bed early that morning, there wasn’t many hours left before I had to get up again. I didn’t need as much sleep as a regular human but I was going to be tired, even if I fed a bit more than usual. Two hours of sleep was not going to enough. I’d survive, but the chance of me making mistakes would increase. The kind of mistakes that would give me away as something else than human. On the other hand, some of the guards hadn’t gotten any sleep and were still on duty so I guess I wasn’t the one worst off.

The day started without a hitch, if you don’t count the racoon incident, that was just embarrassing. Who’d ever thought that a racoon could make a vampire princess think she was being attacked? At least there wasn’t any damage done to humans or private property but the racoon would never be the same again. He wouldn’t be again, full stop. I was glad no one had seen me charging around in the neighbours’ hedges.

Well in the school things went smoothly, there were the usual propaganda lectures and one lecture on supernatural beings, though this time they didn’t manage to get even one fact correct. I didn’t laugh, I’d gotten plenty of training in that by now. It was what happened that afternoon that was worrisome. They’d thought me ready for some combat training.

The school had an enormous training hall on what I think was the bottommost floor. The walls we’re covered with spaced out wooden planks, in between them I could see some kind of fabric, possibly there to reduce echoes. The floor was the green rubber of school-PE halls everywhere. They’re utter crap to practice any kind of martial arts on, either the rubber-plastic mat is too soft and your shoes or feet will get stuck, or it will be to hard and you’ll act much like Bambi did on ice. There was nothing adorning the walls but chains, I assumed for suspension for sandbags and such likes, hung from the ceiling.

I stood and felt small, very small indeed, in the middle of this big hall. I was alone and a bit lost. I’d just been told to enter a door, not knowing what was behind it, and ended up here. I don’t like this kind of surprises.

Three doors I hadn’t seen before opened, they must have been disguised as walls, and out marched, yes marched, Forshyth and five others. Two men and three women. I was liking this less by the second.

“Margareth Forshyth, isn’t it?” I asked. I knew very well what her name was, or at least under what name she’d introduced herself. I didn’t recognise any of the others, though.

“I’m impressed that you remember, you weren’t at your best the last time we met.” She smiled graciously at me while she spoke as if she were doing me a favour in talking to someone as lowly as me. Despite my frequent denial about my status as a royal of the Camrille sect I didn’t fancy being treated as dogshit stuck under someone’s boot either.

“When we last met I’d just been told that there were things like vampires. And if I remember correctly, after we met you made some people attack me. That tends to impress.” I did not like this lady, and I doubted I ever would.

“Very true. Today we’re going to re-enact that.” With a small wave of her dainty hand, how did this person ever get to head her own school of slayers, she made them attack me. I had been… kind of… expecting it and this time I didn’t twitch. I did dodge the swing from the first person a bit too quickly, though, then I forced myself to be hit by the follow up by the second attacker but it hit badly, a kick to my torso but my previous dodge had left my body turned and the kick impacted with my side instead. I had no time but I needed to decide whether to crumple from the kick or not. Had it been sufficiently hard to down a human? I did decide that it had and hoped that my brief hesitation would be passed off as chock. With one arm around my torso I held my left side protectively while I slowly slide to the floor, trying to draw a breath but not quite succeeding. Not that I needed to breath but I thought it an Oscar-worthy performance, or at least a Grammy.

“Not doing good, are we.” I really hated that lady.

“It was a long time since I did anything like this, and it wasn’t as if I ever practiced against several opponents.” I hoped I sounded winded while I tried to regain my feet. Even as a human I had never been able to stay down unless really injured, having people standing around me while I was in a bad position was just too threatening and very uncomfortable.

“Besides, what’s with attacking me every time you see me?” I added. I was now standing more or less straight. I couldn’t even feel the hit any longer but had to act as if I did. This was nothing to what my practice usually looked like nowadays, not to speak about the month I spent with the guard.

“You’ve got potential.” Forshyth spoke while circling me, as if looking at a dog she wanted to buy, or perhaps to eat. I’d seen vampires look at hunted prey with less malice in their eyes than she had right now. This time she didn’t motion for her henchmen to attack, she did it herself.

Instinct brought my arm up to block the punch to my face while I twisted my body just so to cover up for the action. Again I’d moved with slightly faster than a human would, especially an untrained human. I hurriedly continued the turn by bringing my other arm up, a big no-no in fighting but something an untrained person would do. For some reason Margareth saw the movement as threatening and actually went to block it before she noticed that I was blocking, not attacking. She smiled her sickly sweet smile once again.

“Yes, you’re definitely the kind of person we want here.”

That Forshyth really is a bit of an unpleasant bitch with suspicious motives... what they are, though, is a tad baffling.

We need to find out...let's have the next excellent installment!

“What kind of person do you want?” I asked, not really sure if I wanted an answer. Margareth was seriously freaking me out and she’d gone from ‘strange’ to ‘insane’ on my scale. This was not good. Even though I was faster and stronger than regular humans I didn’t like the fact that I was stuck underground in a building full of hostiles and my guards were outside. If something happened I didn’t think I’d be able to get out of here, they we’re just too many.


“You’re attractive, smart, female and soon you’re also going to be a great fighter, all that’s needed to become a good lure.”


“A good what?!?” I questioned, I must have misheard.


“A lure, we use young attractive females to lure vampires. We then follow them to their lairs and kill them off. It’s not as if the vampires come here by their own free will.” She said with a small, and very fake, laugh. I stared at her, almost wanting to tell her that that’d already happened, maybe that’d give her a shock… or a heart attack.


“But that sounds awfully dangerous.” I said. And it must be, being a lone human with a bunch of vampires when they understand that they’ve been found couldn’t be easy. I was willing to bet that not a lot of lures survived for more than a year.


“That’s why we only let the best of us do that.” Again she smiled that sickly smile that disturbed me so.


“I’m not sure I’m ever going to be that good.” I said, trying to stall. It was obvious that she had more plans for me but I was sure I didn’t want to know them.


“Don’t worry, it will work out all right. But we don’t allow members to chicken out, the training and the facilities aren’t free, you know, we all have to contribute to the cause.” I really didn’t like what she said. I also saw the ‘lure’ as an easy way to get rid of people she didn’t like, or that didn’t ‘fit’ in said organisation. I didn’t like this one bit and I was still being watched by Margareth and the other five people who she’d brought in.


“So, Fanny here’s going to practice unarmed combat with you and Stig is going to help you a bit with daggers. Soon Xander will also help you with guns, but not yet for a while.” Fanny looked remarkably like father’s general, Evelyn, except she had blond hair instead of the vampire’s reddish. Stig was really tall but also very, very thin, almost to the point where he looked starved. A mop of brown hair crowned a face with large glasses and a five o’clock shadow. His clothes also indicated that personal hygiene wasn’t on top of his list of priorities. The second man, Xander, was the shortest man I’ve ever seen. He was shorter than me, and though I’m about normal length for a female, he was really short for a man. Black-haired and blue-eyed, he looked far too innocent to be involved with people like Margareth Forshyth.


“How much training have you gotten in unarmed combat and what kind?” Fanny asked me while the others started to leave, only Stig was left leaning against the wall looking at me intently.


“I fooled around with karate when I was younger.” I was trying for vague, I hadn’t practiced pure karate since my turning, and the training I’d gotten since then wasn’t really…clean. On top of that, I knew I’d screw up and when I did I didn’t want the mistakes to be too noticeable.


“What style and for how long? Shotokan? Goyu-ryu? What grade did you get?” Dammit, she was on to me.


“Kyokushin.” I finally admitted. It isn’t a very common style but it’s good to use when you want to scare people from other styles. They are being told stories about how nasty Kyokushin training is, most of it is untrue… most of it. “I practiced for five years, approximately and I got 2nd kyu.” I said, unwillingly. All of that wasn’t true but it was close enough.


“Hn, you’ve got some basics done then. But why did it take so long to get to 2nd kyu?”


“Our shihan believed that we should really know our stuff to be able to get our next grade; there were no cutting corners in out club.”


“Anyways, too much talking, too little fighting. Show me what you’ve got.” With that she took a high fighting-stance, her guard was way too low and mostly all over the place, she was also bouncing around, much like a rabbit on speed. She probably had Taekwon-do or Shotokan as primary style. Myself, I placed my feet readily on the floor, shifted to get my balance as low as possible and kept a semi-high guard, one hand for the head, the other for my chest. I’d been taught to go with both hands in head-height but I didn’t want to seem too focused, too intent.


She tried to wait me out, but the last twenty plus years I’ve been the lightweight, in years and experience so my best bet had been to wait the opponent out. Also, Fanny had a greater reach than me, another good reason to wait for her, especially since I wasn’t sure of how good she was. Fanny aimed a kick, high, I blocked it easily while noting that she dropped her guard completely while doing so. I continued to circle her slowly, steady, while she was still jumping as an exited kangaroo. Again came her foot, again I blocked, both hands to keep her foot from penetrating my guards. She’d put more weight and power behind this second try. As they say, third time is the charm, this time she did the little double step that’s so very revealing for someone who knows what to look for, and when the kick came, no doubt even harder this time, I raised my hands as if to block it but when the leg connected to my forearm I lifted it slightly and, by her own power alone, shoved the leg over my head and down the other side. I swift kick to the back of her knees and she was down. I didn’t follow up like I would have if practicing with my guards, or even in the club way back when I’d been a human, still. I just stood there, arms down, waiting for her to rise again. It took a while.


“You’re better than I thought. Where did you learn that?” She asked, curious. But I saw someone else that was curious too, Stig wasn’t relaxing quite as much anymore.


“It was a favourite in my club.” I stated, not really wanting to go into detail. This move wouldn’t work against most vampires, or even anyone who had control over themselves while fighting, and I didn’t fancy trying to teach it to Fanny.


“Who came up with it?”


“I don’t know.” I answered, trying to project my distaste of the subject and it seemed to work.


“Lets continue, we have another hour to fill before I leave you with Stig.”

The rest of the hour was very trying, of my patience if nothing else. I downplayed my abilities as far as I dared, hoping that the time when I took Fanny down would be considered lucky. Fanny, I think, fell for it, but I didn’t see Stig relax again, and he did look far too interested to have been properly fooled. When the time came Fanny left, but not before I had time to thank her according to the various rules most martial artists prefer.


“Have you ever handled bladed weapons before?” Stig asked me as he moved away from the wall, carrying a small suitcase.


“No, not for other things than cooking, I never saw reason for it.”


“We live in dangerous times, my friend, criminals roam the streets and a person of your persuasion would do good to remember that and be armed.” His smile was overly friendly, as was him calling me ‘my friend’. I really do not like people who make assumptions like that.


“Well, I’ve yet to meet one of these alleged criminals, though you are free to repeat the question after I’ve met one.” Not entirely true, well honestly, not true at all but… what would life be if not for a few white lies? Especially if you are undercover in an organisation who hates you and everyone of your kind.


“I will ask you again after I’ve taught you. I’ve noticed that many people change opinion after having been trained.”


“Um. Yeah. Do that.” I answered and watched him disinterestedly while he opened the suitcase. It contained a set of knives, for fighting of course, but they were smaller and lighter than what I was used to and their balance were off, it was somewhat in front of where I was used to it being. After he had presented me with one he started to show me how to hold it, how to draw it, how to move it.


It was the most boring lesson, ever, and I know what I’m talking about, I’ve had some pretty bad ones with Raphael but none as bad as this. Not even when Raphael discussed the difference in status between a vampire’s sire and his, or her, teacher when the vampire in question rose in status. I had nearly fallen asleep then, until Raphael in a last attempt to get me interested used Emilio and me as an example, and I was even closer to falling asleep now. I had to act as if I didn’t, though. I copied his movements and did what he said, though clumsier and with less finesse than I’m capable of, of course. Anything else would have been disastrous.


“Well, now. Do you feel up to sparring? Just something slow and simple, of course.” He asked, looking quite pleased with himself.


“No… I don’t think so.” I said, trying to sound insecure. “I really haven’t learned that much and these things are really sharp, you know. Someone might get hurt.” And someone probably would, and it wouldn’t be me.


“Oh come on, please. I promise you that it’s easier than you presume.” Stig said encouragingly. “You did manage to best Fanny once, didn’t you?” He continued and assumed some kind of starting or duelling position. He attacked shortly thereafter. I thought, knew, that the only safe course of action was not to use the knife I had in my hand. I stepped to the side, instead, barely avoiding his slash. The next one had me ducking, again I barely escaped it. I thought I felt the knife run through my hair, and though I could have moved much faster than I did, I had to keep the cover. The third slash started low but aimed high and while I turned my body away from it I faked a stumble and fell over. Being on the ground while your opponent is still alive is about the worst place you can be, I fought my instincts on this one, though, the cover had to be kept.


“This was disappointing, I thought you were made of tougher stuff than that. Ah well, we can’t always get what we want.” He did not extend a hand to help me up, nor did he put his knife away. I sorely felt like putting my knife in him. I crawled to my feet making sure to get away from Stig at the same time. I really hoped this mission would be over soon.


“I’m sorry but I’m just not comfortable with things such as these.” I said and held out the knife. When Stig made no move to retrieve it I carefully plotted my way around him and put the knife down on the suitcase it had come from. I didn’t want to open it since that would leave me too open for another attack, and while I did not really fear for my life, not now anyways, there were so many other things that could go wrong.


“I will make a fighter out of you, yet. You will need it.” He still stood with the knife in his hand, not making a move to put it away. It was very unnerving.


“I don’t know if I want to be a fighter.” I replied. And in truth, I didn’t. I knew I had to be, to survive the society in which I lived, but I didn’t have to like it, or want it. I was rather pleased that I could defend myself, though, and I seldom dislike learning new things.


“You will, it’s inevitable. All slayers are, because that is what being a slayer is all about.”


“Are you a slayer?” I asked, mostly to pass time, and to get him to relax. I was not going to turn my back to him while he was still holding a weapon.


“No I am not.”


“You’re not? Then what are you doing here?”


“I’m hired as a ‘consultant’ you might say. I train slayers in fighting though I’m not one myself.”


“But, then… how did you get in contact with the slayers? They don’t strike me as a very open organisation, to tell the truth, I didn’t know about them outside of movies before I got invited here.”


“That’s when contacts is a good thing to have. Now you have to excuse me, I have to leave.” He said, and promptly did, forgetting, or at least not picking up, his suitcase.

It's like the return of an old friend.

You've managed to engross me once more, though I was obviously still semi-hooked as I only needed to skim the previous chapter for it to all come flooding back.

I'm really not sure as to what will happen next, each person in the slayer group seems to have a hidden agenda, not least among that group being Alexis. Please don't make me wait so long to found out what. *pleading face*

I left as soon as I could, ie about the time I found a door. It was not as hard as it might have seemed, but it wasn’t easy either. I used the few minutes alone to get my act together, Stig had unnerved me greatly, he was a very odd person. Ten minutes later and I had met up with Sean and we were heading upwards, and out.


“So how was it?” He asked, enthusiastically, pleased.


“It didn’t go very well, if that’s what you’re asking. It was scary, I don’t like knives, they seems so superfluous, it’s like overkill, you know?” I tried to dramatise what I meant and appeared to feel.


“Trust me, when it comes to vampires, nothing is overkill.” Thanks Sean, but I did know that. “Anyways, I have to stay for a while. Goodbye, see you tomorrow.” With that Sean left me, luckily we were just a hallway from the exit.


It was getting dark when I got outside, it was nearing winter and days were getting shorter. I quite enjoyed it, winter always reminded me of the first time I met Emilio, my father and the rest of the vampiric world. Also because I prefer snow to sunlight, something I did even before turning nocturnal. I had much to think about this evening, though, at least that is the reason I’m going to give for not noticing the human I almost bumped into. I say almost because I managed to avoid him at the last possible moment.


“Hey there, sugar.” He said to me. I looked up, and up. I have no idea how I managed to not see this guy because he was big, tall and fat. I didn’t reply, instead I made as if continuing my journey. There was another human, standing a bit behind the first, stepping into my intended path.


“Aren’t you cute?” The newly arrived one said. I had this really bad feeling about this whole setup and turned around. Sure enough, two other men were now behind me. None of the others were as large as the first one, in fact, they were pretty skinny. One black, one latino and two whites, amongst them the big man. There weren’t anything that would make me associate these guys with each other if it weren’t for their clothes. They wore some kind of street uniform, baggy navy jeans with a piece of blue and white striped cloth for belt, a white, though dirty, shirt and bandanas around necks or head.


“Good catch today, ain’t it? We should come here more often.” Guy number three said, the black one. I was tired, stressed, in no mood for this and a cover to concern myself about. I was at wits end, I couldn’t hurt or kill these men unless it really was me or them, and even then I’d have to be careful.


“What do you want?” I asked. Again, stalling was a good thing.


“You, of course.” The last man said. This really was not good, I couldn’t understand how I’d made this big a mistake, how could I, of all people, have ended up in a badly coordinated muck up like this? The men started closing in even more, making really strange noises. I was stuck in this alley-like piece of road. But wait, what was that? There was some movement further along the road. Great, just what I needed, more witnesses.


There was a great rush of wind and for some reason I was now looking at a pretty well dressed back. I knew that back.


“Get out of here now, Lady, we will take care of this.” William said. The four men were now looking very puzzled. They slowly changed their focus from me to my guard, not that they knew that he was that, but still, he was between the fat guy and me.


“Thank you.” I said, I can be courteous, and moved out of the way. To manage that I had to push one of them to the side but it wouldn’t matter now. My guards had been tense and frustrated because they couldn’t protect me properly during this mission; there was no doubt in my mind that the gang wouldn’t live to see dawn.


The five guards took care of it fast, and efficiently. The four gang members, whatever gang they were part of would surely soon be diminished, were still alive, though not conscious.


“However you dispose of them, they need to be dead and they cannot be found close to here, the mission is perilous as it is.” I said to my guards. Four of them nodded and disappeared with their respective prisoner/victim. William, however, stayed.


“I take it you are going to follow me home now?” I asked.


“Yes lady. How is it that you always manage to get things like this happening to you?”


“Talent. And are you suggesting that things like this never happen when you guard Father?” That got me a weak smile.


“When guarding your father I’ve been attacked by vampires and slayers but never human gangmembers.” I smiled back at him and started walking towards the house we were staying in and William followed, on guard and tense mind you.


When we got to the house Emilio came out to meet us.


“Did anything happen?” He said, obviously worried since he noticed William walking with me instead of just following me from afar.


“Nothing much, just some human idiots who thought I’d make a good victim. And before you ask, no I’m not hurt; my guards took care of it.”


“Why does things like this always happen to you?” William’s smile widened when he heard Emilio ask the same question he had.


“Natural talent.” I answered, again.


“Never let it be said that it is boring to guard our little lady.” Clay said from inside the house and several agreeing noises could be heard.


“But it’s nice to know we are needed.” Someone else said and a few of them laughed and came outside to greet me. I’m convinced that they did it partly because they wanted to be sure I was as unharmed as I claimed to be. I was, after all, their ‘little lady’ and they felt very protective of me, and not just because they were my guards.

Woo, killing of humans!

MORE! *pleading puppy-dog eyes*

This rocks!!

I was catching up with the back story, and some of them seem to cut off in the middle of a sentence. . . .

It is quite possibly just that I'm to thick to spot the Next button, but I assure you I had a good look . . . .

Very good stuff, well done, and more more more please!

You are very correct. Appernatly the board cannot handle longer stories than 10 000 words, and the last few chapters have exceeded that amount and were therefore cut of. I've been talking to mal about it but I don't know how to fix it.

if you want to you can read them at my fictionpress acount though you have to forgive the odd spacing in the first chapter.

Thank you very much!!

*disappears into the stories and loses all hints of a life*

That night it came, when I had reported to father through Clay’s mental link, what we all had been waiting for, permission to go home. Mission over. Except that tiny little thing, we had to make it fit, I wasn’t allowed to just disappear, it had to look natural, according to orders from our High Prince, but how to achieve that?


“We could say you died from a heart attack.” Clay suggested.


“Or you were eaten by your dog.” Another guard said.


“No, a giant snake.”


“Or a radioactive badger… with lasers coming out if its eyes.”


“You became sick and went to the hospital.”


“And died when the ambulance hit a brick wall.”


”You we’re involved in a freak accident containing a bed, some cellophane, three feet of yellow yarn and a rubber duck.”


“No rubber duck, they are scary, use a crowbar, though three wet cats might also work.”


“What if you died in a car crash?”


“No, you went skiing and ended up driving into a tree.”


“Your toilet blew up when you used it.”


“Someone mailed you a bomb.”


“Abducted by aliens.”


“No, used as a living host by aliens, that killed you by slowly digesting your brain.”


“Your favourite ice-cream was poisoned.” Well, one thing was sure, there weren’t a shortage of ideas, just a shortage of usable ideas. It couldn’t just be an accident because an accident would have been noted by either the news or the newspaper, if not both. So those ideas were out, as was the one involving cellophane, never trust thin sheets of plastic, especially not when they are transparent.


So what to do? Death was the best option, since it would also explain my boyfriend and other friends would leave the house and the area. Just disappearing would mean that Emilio would be expected to stay in place and look for me. And the alien thing wouldn’t work either. So what would?


By that morning I, we, still hadn’t come up with anything good. We needed to because I did not fancy going to the slayer’s school again, they were just creepy. I was going to run out of luck some day, and be proven vampire, and I’d rather that wouldn’t be in the middle of an underground complex filled with vampire-haters. When I bemoaned myself for Emilio he just looked at me with that little smile of his.


“Lets prepare and send anyone we don’t need home, first.”


“We don’t need for what?” I asked.


“The plan, of course.” He answered still wearing the infuriating smile. It’s endearing when I’m in the right mood but I wasn’t at the moment. Very much not in the mood, to be honest.


“What plan?”


“It has to be simple and you have to disappear for good. Why not do it simple?”


“Yeah, why not?” I said, only slightly sarcastic.


“Think of it this way, Alexis, in terms of resources, what do we have a lot of?”


“Guards that think they are funny when playing with rubber ducks?”


“No. Think again.”


“People?”


“You are getting closer.”


“Vampires? Stop fooling around, Emilio, and tell me.”


“Exactly, vampires. What better way to go for a slayer?”


“Slayer-to-be, to be exact. But I understand what you are saying. Actually, it’s a very good idea, thanks you Emilio.” I said and started thinking. How to stage this?


“Can I be as bold as to suggest you go talking to your guards again, lady? They will be able to help you with this. Especially since they are going to be part of the plan.”


“Eh.. right. And please stop talking as if Raphael is standing behind me. Um, he is, isn’t he?” I turned around and yes, there was Raphael. That trick never fails.


“Do you want to talk to all of us again, Lady? I am deeply ashamed by the way my fellow guards treated this serious matter and I will accept any punishment you deem fit since I am the oldest and should have kept them in line.” Raphael kneeled and bowed his head, this was just the kind of thing that would set of one of his overly submissive episodes. It needed to be handled carefully so that it wouldn’t get worse, for both our sakes.


“Yes, I will talk to all of you again and I do accept your apology. As punishment you will help with planning but you are going to go with Seer Valin and the weres when they leave, to guard them, and you will not be part of the plan.”


“I understand.” Raphael answered, contrite.


“Good, now rise and follow me, we have a plan to perfect.”


The other guards liked the irony of the whole thing, a vampire impersonating a slayer getting abducted by vampires. It was all very fitting, but only if the vampires doing the kidnapping were them. They wouldn’t want me in the hands of any other vampires that might be out there.


In the end, it was a rather simple plan, but they are best that way, the less things that can go wrong usually means that less things actually do go wrong. Never trust anyone that says that their plans went without a hitch, because that does not happen in this universe. Instead, what is important is that that which goes wrong, is less important. As for example a hat getting blown off a head instead of actually missing and blowing someone’s head off. There were a few variables that could go wrong, of course, but it was only one thing that could prove really fatal, for the plan that is. The one thing the whole plan hinged on was the show or no-show of Sean. He had appeared every morning to walk me to the slayer school, he needed to do it this morning too, if the plan was going to be a success. I have no idea what to do if he wouldn’t show.

[quote:44006b92a2="Mynona"]“Your toilet blew up when you used it.”[/quote:44006b92a2]

Funniest. Disturbing image. Ever.

God I love you Mynona *in a platonic, just for the skill of your writing way*.

I wasn’t really surprised when he did come to pick me up, but I was very relieved. The house had already been packed, anyone not part of the plan had left including a very remorseful Raphael.


“Good morning Alexis.” Sean said, the smile on his face as sunny as the weather.


“Morning Sean.” I answered. I didn’t feel as sunny as he did but it was a close call. Today I could stop this charade, I would never have to see any of the slayers again and I could go home. True, I’d had most of what I’d needed in the house, Emilio and those of the guards I almost considered friends, but still, home is always going to be home, and this mission had been very hard on me, psychologically.


“You seem contemplative today, did something happen?” Sean implored with a curious glance in my direction.


“Nah, it’s nothing. It has just been a while since we had weather such as this.” And that was true, the weather hadn’t been bad, as such, but neither had it been good. It was nice with a bit of sun even though the diamond in the ring on my finger was glowing and my eyes smarted a bit because of the bright light.


“Yeah, nice to be able to enjoy a bit of sun, unlike those pesky vampires.” Yeah, if only he knew. And yes, this was the kind of ‘subtle’ manipulation they’d been doing for the last weeks. No it wasn’t very subtle and I don’t even think it qualifies as manipulation, but still, it was annoying as well as nerve-racking to be constantly talked about like that by people who didn’t know what I was. They were talking about me behind my back in front of my face and I couldn’t do anything about it. I longed to be away from it all and back in the coven.


“Um, yeah.” I said and that pretty much killed the rest of the conversation but I didn’t much care. It wasn’t as if I was going to miss Sean, I was more interested in looking at all the flowers and trees that bloomed this spring morning. Those and the birds and the smell of spring I would miss but it wasn’t as if I couldn’t go outside any-longer. I had been slightly upgraded in father’s eyes, from baby unable to protect herself to a two-year-old, possibly able to run away from danger.


The place of the attack had been decided to be the very same spot I had been attacked at yesterday. It wasn’t as dark this morning as it had been yesterday evening but it still worked. It was narrow, it twisted and turned, which reduced visibility, and of course there was the great ironic value. Though no one would know except us but it didn’t matter, it was great none the less.


When we started our approach on the ‘dreaded’ piece of street I tried to appear innocent, unknowing and unprepared, it’s hard doing not to overdo it. I don’t think Sean noticed because he prattled on about something and I just ‘hmm’ed or nodded or agreed in the right places. I assumed they we’re the right places, it wasn’t as if I was listening but Sean seemed happy enough and kept talking.


You know what? Despite knowing about it, having planned the damn thing myself, they managed to take me completely of guard, well maybe not completely, but enough so that I felt uncomfortable about it. I had no idea what they had done to themselves, and I’m pretty sure I did not want to know, because they really did look like the vampires I’d had described to me in the school of slayers and not very much like the vampires I spent almost every day with. They had the red eyes, papery skin and gaunt look of hunger, or maybe even bloodlust. Their clothes were torn and dirty and looked incredibly old and their hair matted. They hissed and displayed their fangs to their best advantage and they swiped in our direction with hands curled like claws.


I smelled urine, it took a moment or two to stop focusing entirely on my guard-transformed-to-kidnappers to realise that the smell came from Sean. Either my guards we’re putting on the show of their live or the big bad vampire slayer wasn’t as big or bad as he’d liked to think. He’d peed in his pants, I was rather grateful he hadn’t done number two also.


Under much protesting and some piercing yells I was abducted while Sean stood as a statue in his wet trousers. While I hadn’t exactly wanted him to come to my rescue I was rather put out that he hadn’t even tried.


My guards didn’t really abduct me very far, in reality we hid in a nearby building, I wanted to know what Sean, and eventually the slayers would do when they heard about my disappearance. It took a bit of time, the better part of an hour, before we saw any trace of slayers again but they had brought the cavalry, so to speak. Sean was there, of course, along with Forshyth, Fanny, Stig and another man that was alarmingly familiar though I could not place him. There were a few others though, people I had booth seen and not in the school while having lessons and all of them were upset.


“You’re absolutely positive that they were vampires?” Margaret asked Sean.


“Yes, they had the red eyes, the claws and the fangs. There’s no question about it, they were vampires.”


“But… that should not be possible.” Fanny quipped. “Vampires cannot be out during day.”


“I share your worries, child, and I fear that we might have met a new species of vampire here, day-walkers.” Margaret said, launching into a long speech. “At this point in time we do not have time to grieve she who is now lost to us, she is long since dead because of those vampires. Instead we must look forward, prepare ourselves for this new type of vampire, they seem both stronger and more powerful than the usual kind, and the fact that they can stand the light of day makes them even more dangerous. We must fight even harder to protect the innocents and we have to dare to stand up against them and say ‘we are not going to be run over by you, we are worth more than you’. If needed be we’ll have to abandon our current tactic o keeping a low profile and hiding things from the rest of humanity but we will prevail. We will fight back. We will survive!” A weak cheer went up amongst the gathered, though judging by the look on Forshyth’s face, not enough. It was still a matter to consider though, it wouldn’t be good, for our sake, if our existence was to be revealed. I’d have to tell Father about it, it might be nothing but it might also be something very very dangerous.


We headed for home, by then, we had gotten what we wanted and it didn’t look as if any other information was forthcoming. I had been out on this mission for the better part of a year and I was more than ready to go back home.

And that puts an end to Camrille XV. After 28 000 words it deserves a rest. Fear not, I have plot for the next chapter too but if there is anything special you would like to see/read about please ask and I'll see what I can do.