I quickly exit the burned down mansion, holding my broken arm to my chest with my good one. I walk all the way back to my jeep, the last people walking the streets as the sun set, coloring the sky like blood. The passing people now gawked openly as well as jumped out of my way, glancing in the way I had come. As if they believed I was being followed. I couldn't tell if I was being followed right now and neither could anyone else as they watched me pass. Many of them looking queasy from all the blood from both myself and the monster I was just fighting with.
I get into my truck, slam the door as tears well up in my eyes. I touch my forehead to the steering wheel and sob like a child. I had never been so scared. Never been so humiliated. I had never been so useless. Every part of my body hurt. My right arm was completely broken, at least two of my fingers were broken and a third was dislocated, my shoulder was still bleeding with a giant hole, and my lip was split with a colorful bruise already puffing up around it.
I was getting dizzy. I had lost too much blood. My vision was beginning to get hazy. The thought that this was going to be my last fight, sends a shiver down my spine and a heavy lump in my chest. With my left, unbroken hand, I stick my key into the ignition and start the jeep. As my eyes turn up, the road blurs. There was no way I was going to drive back to the hospital. I had to call an ambulance. I reach with my left hand to my right pocket, and pull out my cell phone. To my soul crushing horror, it was broken, the screen smashed. I try to turn it on, only to gain disappointment.
I lean back, in the driver seat chair, and a small laugh escapes me. After all the warnings I got today, after all the times I had someone tell me not to go alone. I had ignored them. I had ignored all of them and now I was going to die.
My eyes shut, feeling heavy. The sun was going to be down any minute, and I reek of blood. If that blood sucker from before doesnt come back to kill me another will. Maybe if I get lucky a werewolf will smell the blood. At the very least It would be over quickly. Although the chances of that happening was slim. Werewolves rarely ate humans, but when they did, they would rip out the neck first.
The door to my jeep opens and I flinch, opening my eyes, expecting my death to be standing there. Instead a boy no older than fifteen stood there, eyes wide with horror. "Jesus!" He gasps, "You look like shit." He hops into the jeep, shimmying me over to the side enough where he could slide into the seat beside me. "Don't worry, I always clean up after his messes. I'll get you to a hospital, but that's where my charity ends."
For a moment I let it happen. Then my mind processes what he says and my eyes fly open. I look him over. He didn't look like a vampire. His skin was a healthy pink, his eyes didn't glow as they flickered over the darkening road. I realize with a jolt that he was driving, was he even old enough to drive? If he wasn't a vampire, was he a werewolf? Werewolves rarely had anything to do with vampires.
I pull out my last knife, and slide it to his throat, "Who the hell are you?" I ask, pulling myself closer, ready to slit his throat at the slightest movement.
My jeep swerves on the road as he flinches away, "Holly shit!" He gasps, "For god's sake, put that thing away!" His eyes flicker from me to the road and back again, "You're going to make me crash your jeep. I'm bringing you to the hospital."
I press the blade to the skin on his neck, "Why?"
"Because you look like shit and If you die, Fletcher will sulk for the next couple months."
"You do know that blood sucker!" I hiss, "Why shouldn't I kill you right now? What are you? A witch?" He didn't smell like no dog, so the chances that he was a werewolf were slim, but if he was some sort of witch, I would have no way to fight back. I knew no magic and the only weapon I owned that had a spell on it was my Mother's bone sword which I left at the mansion.
"I'm human!" He yells, trying to sink into the driver seats truck, away from my knife, "I swear on my life, that I'm human. I know hunters sometimes kill humans, but if you kill me, then you don't get to the hospital and if you don't get to the hospital, you'll die. You're going to have to rely on me just this once."
"How do you know that blood sucker?"
He bites on his bottom lip, "It's complicated." He states.
I look around, calculating where we were, "We got ten minutes before we get there with your slow-ass driving. Talk."
"If I knew you were going to be like this, I would have shoved you in the back seat." He mutters as I press the blade into his skin a slight red line getting carved into his neck. My eyes widen as I see all the scars on his neck next to the knife.
"I'm a blood slave." He says, eyes glued to the road, "Fletcher's blood slave."
Rage boils within me, "What?" I had heard rumors of the monsters making slaves from people, breeding them, selling them like cattle.
"I'm Fletcher's blood slave." He says again, this time with a bit more confidence behind it, "He feeds from me once every other week or so."
"Come with me." I say, lowering my knife, "We can protect you from it at the college, or maybe even at the Department of Monster Hunting and Slaying. My father has a golden licence, if I tell him, I'm sure he could-"
"I didn't ask for your protection!" He snaps, "I choose to live with Fletcher. Yeah, he bought me, but he's the only father figure I know. I would never betray him like that."
I stare at him, mouth agape, "Look, If you think that that thing isn't going to kill you because it bought you, you're wrong, it would drain you dry first chance it feels like it."
"You think you know everything, don't you?" He says, taking a turn down another road, "He bought me years ago, Fletcher has fed from me many times, if he wanted to kill me he would have done it by now. He's stuck his neck out for me more times than I could count. Almost killed another Royal when that bastard struck me."
Another Royal. The words echo over and over in my head, "Is… Is that thing a Royal?"
The boy flinches, then signs, "Yeah. Fletcher of direct bloodline to The First vampire. He was the last vampire to get blood from The First before it was banished into the underworld by a very powerful witch. He's still hundreds of years old, but he's got the purest, untainted blood from The First."
Even I knew that meant bad news, "How powerful does that make Fletcher?"
He purses his lips. I wait, but he says nothing. "How powerful?" I snap.
"He's one of The Ten and he's in the Vampire Council. With a simple command he could get even powerful vampires killed. Even among The Ten, he's feared."
My jaw drops. That explained a lot, actually. Despite all my training to be as fast and as strong as a vampire, even after gaining the upper hand, I still had lost. A small laugh escapes me, and the boy turns a glance to me with worry in his eyes. "Isaiah was right, it was a Noble. I didn't believe him, and I almost got myself killed."
"Fletcher would never have hurt you if you didn't start the fight. Gotta say though, good job using your surroundings." He flashes me a smile, "But in all seriousness, If he was any other Royal, you would have been his dinner. Don't pick a fight with him again."
"I don't have a death wish." I say, "But I can't promise I won't still go after that blood sucker. I have questions and If I don't like the answers, I'll be back with some friends and I'll kill it then."
He sighs, "What're your questions, I'll see if I can answer them."
"It said something about warning us. Warning us about what?" I lean back, feeling the adrenaline from before fade. Suddenly I was tired, in pain and so very cold. I had lost too much blood from my shoulder wound, and my arm ached terribly from the break. Luckily it felt like a clean break. It would heal quickly.
My eyes slide shut again, and my arm that held the knife to the boy's neck fell into my lap. "Damn, Fletcher did a number on you. Don't fall asleep, you may not awaken again." He shakes me with one hand, "Open your eyes. Come on, don't you dare die on me."
My eyes flutter open, "As if I'd die this easily. Shut up and drive. Answer my question."
"Fletcher is trying to find someone who's word means something. No one will believe him when he tells them that there's a tear in the vail."
"Tear in the vail?" I ask, as my eyes slide shut again.
He groans, "Wake up!" He shakes me, "Damn it, Fletcher should have taken you to the hospital, I barely know how to drive!"
"If Fletcher had been the one to come, I would have killed it."
"Him." The boy says angrily, "It wouldn't be the first time he had brought a human to the hospital."
"Answer the question." I remind him.
"Then stay awake!" He barks back. "The vail is what splits this world from the underworld. A group of twelve witches many years ago performed a ritual to close a wall around what we now call the underworld. Fletcher says that a long time ago they had to perform a re-sealing spell almost every year, on halloween night, when it was weakest. But when witches began to get hunted, the rituals were done less and less. Less witches means it was harder to keep the vail shut. Recently, the vail has been very thin, barely able to keep all the nasties of the underworld where they belong. A couple months ago a group of hunters found the witch's circle when they were trying to strengthen the vale." he glances down at me, "You're people killed almost all of the girls trying to save you. The two left over from the raid…" He looks back at the road, "They ripped open the vail on purpose as some sort of revenge."
My mind was far too battered to put together all this nonsense. I hadn't heard anything about a vail. Nothing about any of this. But, there were a couple hunters with silver licences that were bragging that they had taken out a large group of witches a couple months ago. The time did line up with his story.
"If that's true," I say, trying to think through the pain and haze in my mind, "What type of things are going to be coming to this world? Our world?"
His green eyes filled with fear, "Fletcher said there were things that would come out that even he couldn't beat on his own."
"How much time do we have?" I ask.
He shakes his head, "Werewolves and witches are already fleeing north. The vampire council along with The Ten are trying to contain it last I heard. But, they were also talking about… Directing them all up north…" His face was full of fear and worry.
"Doing what?" I gasp, "Those monsters!"
"Oh, come on!" He snaps at me, "You people hunt them, good or bad, you kill them all!"
"They're monsters! They drink our blood! They kill us! They kill our livestock! They're evil! I can't believe you would defend those things!"
He takes a deep breath, "You may know how to kill vampires, but you sure know nothing about them."
I scoff, "I know I can kill them with anything that was once living. Wood, bone, Ivory, hell, even fossils can be used to kill them."
"Did you know that they can last about three days without blood and after that they go through something similar to withdrawal symptoms? Less than six hours after that, the pain is so bad, that they wouldn't know their name even if it was written on the back of their hand? Another eight to twelve hours after that, they go comatose or even die."
I didn't know that. They always looked like crazy, stupid monsters to me. They were beings that fed on the blood of live humans. They were monsters.
"Did you know that right after a feeding, they're like any other person for a day or two? Laughing, crying, making jokes, giggling over boys. They are so similar to us."
"You're being deceived." I say, stopping him before he could continue. "You're young, foolish, easily deceived."
"You're wrong!" he shouts, pulling into the hospital parking lot. He turns to look at me, taking in a deep breath, "Fletcher bought me from a werewolf who bread humans. When he bought me, I was five." The boy parks the car, "He said to me the night he bought me that breeders disgusted him, and that he was working on making it a law not to treat us like animals." He closes his eyes, and leans back, "I can still remember how angry he got when my last master struck me. He broke his hand. He never once hit me. He never once treated me as any less than him. He never fed off me without my consent."
A moment passes in the parking lot, as he just sits there, thinking back. Finally, he says, "Were here. And there's no way you can convince me that Fletcher or Ivy or Zeno or Cecil or anyone else that I trust is evil. No way."
He stares at me for a moment before sighing. He exits, goes around the front of the car and helps me down. He was gentle, and cradled my broken arm as if it were made of glass. But, he was also strong and healthy as he lets me lean heavily on him. Not at all what I would expect a blood slave to look like. My gaze gets pulled to the thin scarlet line on his neck, "I'm sorry." I whisper.
He turns to me, a look of shock on his face, "For what?" he asks almost in disbelief.
I laugh softly, "For hurting your neck."
He stares at me for a second before taking his own turn to laugh. "Here I thought you were sorry for attacking Fletcher. But don't worry about it. I'll just ask Fletcher to fix it."