Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires)

by Donald Wigboldy

  As the two moved down the hallway to his bedroom, Lena moved to sit next to him on the opposite side from Sami. “Nick, is there something going on that I should know about? You have another vampire, who doesn’t seem like a normal vampire, and there have been a number of strange things happening around the campus and Chicago that have even made it onto the news.”

  “I’ve barely had time to see any news lately. What has been said?”

  The dark haired girl pushed a lock of hair resting on her cheek over her ear as if needing it moved to hear better, though she was the one about to speak. “There have been stories of people disappearing in unusual amounts from the west side of the city all the way to the university. The news has even put up some of the missing persons on the television.

  “I thought I saw her face on there even,” Lena stated pointing across him to the little blonde beside him.

  “I made the news?” Sami said in surprise but added with a grin, “Well, I was found and my parents know it, so that’s one down.”

  Tilting her head to size up the girl, the apprentice voran asked, “Isn’t she kind of young for a vampire? Most of those seem to be turned in their twenties for some reason, or at least they look older. Is she still in high school?”

  “Did the news mention an abandoned store on the near west side and any bodies or disturbances there yet?” he asked appearing to have ignored the question.

  At the shake of her head, Nick continued, “A new type of vampire hunter appeared and I made contact with them to the point that they called me for a raid on a nest of vampires there. We found all the vampires dead and drained of their blood as well as their human victims treated the same way. The vampire hunters believe these are a new nasty type of vampires called reapers. They hunt down other vampires as well as humans for their blood.

  “When they kill they leave the drained corpses, or at least these did, which makes them even more dangerous because humans could stumble across them.

  “We attacked the store around noon and found them all dead from the night before. While a few did escape the slaughter through a drain in the floor, Sami was the only one left alive.”

  “Technically, I died,” the girl with the pixie cut said trying to be helpful. “I just managed to absorb or swallow some vampire blood. So what are you then?”

  “Lena’s like me, a voran,” Nick replied offhandedly.

  The brunette frowned as her brown eyes looked at him again. “Wouldn’t she be considered a stray?”

  “I’ve always tried to use my blood to counteract the curse when I could save someone before they turned. Sami hadn’t taken anyone’s blood and even resisted biting me when I told her to. That’s a rare thing. You know most vampires are controlled by their thirst for blood.”

  Again the dark haired college girl looked around Nick and asked, “How old are you anyway?”

  “Fifteen, I was a sophomore, before the jerk kidnapped me on the way home. Go figure, my assignment was done and I never got to turn it in,” the little blonde gave a short laugh.

  Charlotte moved to sit in one of the chairs across from them and added, “Well, telling your teacher it was eaten by a vampire would have been a new excuse.”

  Listening from the kitchen, Logan said, “My werewolf ate it would be funnier actually.”

  Kate laughed politely as the others groaned.

  Shaking the bad jokes off, Lena asked, “So I need to be on the lookout for these reapers as well as strays now?”

  “If you can tell them apart, you run and call me. Do not even think about trying to fight this kind of vampire. I don’t want you fighting any kind, since you’re just not ready. Learn how to fight for a few years before trying to go out on your own.”

  Lena pursed her lips angrily and complained, “I can handle myself.”

  “Yeah, right,” her mentor rebuffed her bravado, “I can pin or throw you as soon as you step into a fight ring. You don’t know anything that will keep you alive in a fair fight between you and a vampire. You can only expect to catch one off guard and with two or more you won’t even have that to save you.”

  Leaning to look down the hall to check for Geni, Nick demanded, “Make an aura blade.”

  Lena’s forehead furrowed as she tried to obey. If she couldn’t call one on demand, the girl knew that he would lecture her more on not being ready. With her right palm up, a small white blade appeared extending for only five inches. As small as it was, she could only call up the one as he added, “Try calling one to your left at the same time.”

  Giving her a minute to try, they kept watch down the hall for Geni. The sole human in the apartment, who wasn’t a voran, his house cleaner had to be kept in the dark about what they all were. While Nick hated lying to people and keeping secrets, that had become his life over a century ago.

  Perspiration formed on the tan skin of her forehead, but she could only raise the one small blade.

  “And that’s why you’re not ready,” he said with a frown, even as her brown eyes met his in disappointment. “If you can’t use your aura blades on command, you certainly can’t do much in a fight. They need to be able to come in an instant and be dependable. Even if I gave you a silver coated sword, you don’t know how to use it.”

  Frowning at him in frustration, Lena said, “How hard can it be? The pointy end goes in them. You’re just looking for excuses to keep me out of harm’s way. I’m not a child.”

  “You are compared to me and since I am the one training you, when you bother to come train that is, I am the one who can tell you when you are ready or not. You only found out you’re a voran a couple of months ago. Don’t be in such a rush. If you train, you’ll have plenty of time to kill vampires. If you live as long as Vivian, you’ll have centuries and become sick of it like she has,” Nick finished with a sigh. While he didn’t relish his position and he had certainly been doing it for quite awhile; the voran knew that keeping vampires from becoming serial killers to be found by humans was a necessary job.

  Realizing that she was getting nowhere with Nick and knowing that he was probably right even if she didn’t want to hear it, Lena looked over to Charlotte and asked, “Well since we’re here, would you mind helping me out for a bit? The professor and my tutor try, but I am getting tired of bothering them every time I get stuck.”

  “I’d be glad to do what I can,” the woman replied looking a little surprised by the idea. “Just remember I haven’t been in college for five years and didn’t get to finish before dropping out.”

  Sami stood up with her empty bowl adjusting the back of her shorts before walking over to the kitchen as Lena and Charlotte began to separate the books and papers for each class. After placing the bowl in the sink, she asked, “So you’re in college? What is your major?”

  “I major in acting with two minors in business, so my parents would stop worrying about what I was doing with my life,” the older girl stated looking a little put out with her minors. Two of the books with her were accounting and marketing.

  Sighing at the taller girl with her long brunette hair tumbling past her shoulders, the smaller blonde shook her head saying, “I’m not sure what I would do in college, especially now. You’re lucky you get to do what you want.”

  Lena wanted to say that the younger girl didn’t know what she was talking about, but realizing the limitations of the girl to the night side of the clock, she realized Sami might be limited to online colleges and figuring out a career around that. Being a vampire, especially one so young, meant a major change to her life, not just from the need for blood.

  “Well if Charlotte or someone could explain accounting to me so that I can pass the final exams, I’ll consider myself lucky. This stuff has my head spinning from trying to decipher it by myself. Credit, debit, debit, credit, left side, right side, blah!” complained the dark haired girl as she tried to find where she had left off the previous night.

  Sami made a face and said, “I had a class that had that mixed in with other bu
siness learning. It is not fun. You had to take that?”

  “It fit in best with my schedule and minors,” Lena sighed with regret. “I just need to pass it so I don’t have to make up the class or pick another next semester.”

  Nick only half paid attention to the discussion of Lena’s studies, though he watched as Sami quickly inserted herself into Lena’s world. If the novice voran planned to learn to be a vampire hunter, then she and the new vampire might have a similar relationship to Marek and him. Building the friendship now, might mean centuries of helping each other out in a world that might never be ready to hear the truth about vampires and werewolves.

  It was interesting to think of another generation that might become vampire hunters to protect the world from a threat that it only guessed at in the movies and in books.

  When Geni finished in the far rooms to see the three women all talking together and getting along as they tried help Lena, Nick noticed a look of jealousy. “If you want to help them for a bit, that’s up to you, Geni.”

  The blonde started at being caught and she smiled at her boss, “No, that’s ok, Nicky, I’ll finish the living room first.”

  Seeing her friend mingling with the others and being the only one working in the apartment, Geni said, “So how much longer are you going to need me? You have enough people around to clean the place in a few minutes, if everyone pitched in anyway.”

  He chuckled at the observation and replied, “Good luck getting that to happen. I just hope that we don’t make it too messy for you that you want to quit.”

  She quickly shook her head and said, “Nah, I like this job and my boss.”

  “You two only have a few more weeks before school’s done for the semester, are you going to want to work here this summer?” the man asked as he realized that she didn’t live in the city. Making a commute from the suburbs might not be in her plans.

  A questioning look popped into her eyes, but after a moment she shook her saying, “I don’t mind the drive to do this three times a week. You pay me well enough to cover the gas.”

  The girl smiled letting him know that it was true. Nick knew he paid better than an average part time job would, and keeping her through the summer meant he didn’t have to find someone else to hide the craziness from at least until the girl decided she no longer wanted the job. It was one less thing to worry about at least.

  Sami suddenly came over nearly skipping to hop onto the couch next to him. Her bright, shining smile appeared innocent and, though he had never been a father before, Nick had a feeling that she wanted something. “So Lena says you were teaching her some martial arts to defend herself, can I come along some time? It sounds fun.”

  Geni looked interested in the idea as well and Nick wondered what all had been said. “Ask Lena if she thought it was fun. She was pretty mad at me the first time especially. If you don’t mind being thrown onto a mat along with throwing other people, then I don’t have a problem with it.”

  Clapping her hands happily, the little blond turned to look at the women behind the counter and said, “He said yes!”

  Both Charlotte and Lena looked a little less enthused having been through the training, though admittedly Charlotte’s turn had been when she was half out of her mind from her body being in heat. They did give thumbs up and half hearted smiles in response though.

  “When can we go?” Sami asked with her big green eyes blinking at him teasingly.

  “How about in a few weeks? Lena will be done with her classes in three weeks, I believe, so if she can finish catching up maybe we can do like a summer course at night.”

  While Sami looked a little disappointed at having to wait, she suddenly perked up and asked, “Do I get the summer off from home school then?”

  Geni looked confused and asked, “You’re going to home school, Sami?”

  Nick shook his head and said, “Charlotte is. We still need to see what it will take to get Sami credit for this grade, since she nearly finished.”

  Another thought suddenly crossed Geni’s face and the blonde haired girl’s hand paused in her dusting of the entertainment center, “I thought she was too sick to go to school, why is she trying to learning martial arts if she’s so sick?”

  Without batting an eye, the voran replied, “She has anemia, so sometimes she feels well and other times Sami winds up so exhausted you could carry her from the parking garage to my apartment without getting her to wake up.”

  “Or give her a bath and dress her,” he heard Charlotte whisper to Lena. With human hearing, Geni didn’t hear the whisper; but turned her eyes on the little pixie of a blond.

  “Really? I’ve heard of anemia as a blood disease, but never really read up on it.”

  Going along with Nick, the teenage girl lied easily, too easily the voran thought of the innocent looking girl, “Yeah, I’m doing pretty good today, but lately during the day I’ve been dead to the world. I just get exhausted and have to sleep. I missed the entire day yesterday and barely woke up to go visit my parents.”

  Nick was amazed at how close to the truth Sami kept her skirting of the facts that had happened to make her that way. He wondered if she had been holding out on him and just how much trouble the teenager was going to be as he learned how to raise her, even as he and the others taught the girl to deal with being a vampire. He had a feeling being the only daughter and the youngest of her parent’s children might have created someone used to wrapping others around her little finger to get her way. She was cute enough to be able to get away with it too, he guessed.

  Sami added a little more information than he would have liked, however, as she added, “Nicola is a bit anemic also, so she can help me get used to it.”

  Looking a little surprised, Geni asked Nick, “Is that why she sleeps during the day so much? I thought it was because she worked so late at the club.”

  “Both are reasons,” he replied, though in truth he realized that any excuse could be a reason, which made the lie so easy.

  The house cleaner let the matter drop as she moved into the kitchen. Adding to the validity of their lie, by the time Geni had finished the dishes and other cleaning, Sami had fallen asleep watching TV against Nick’s shoulder. Knowing the girl wouldn’t be waking up until the sun disappeared again, he waited until Geni left to pick the little vampire up to bring her to his bedroom. Nicola was already under the sheets sleeping on her side. Depositing Sami on the other side of the bed before covering her, the man looked on the two vampires and shook his head.

  The apartment was definitely different from only a few months earlier. He had been a bachelor and the place had been his to roam without risk of tripping over other people. Now his bed was shared in rotation with three women, two of whom were his girlfriends, though in truth they were bound more like wives to him. His time was no longer his own to do what he wanted.

  Perhaps he had never truly had the luxury of being completely untied to others, since the voran had always had his ties to Marek’s coven, but his apartment had been his refuge.

  Looking on the two blondes lying beside each other looking so peaceful and blissfully unaware of the other vampire at her side, the man realized that it was good to feel wanted as well. He was needed by so many now, when the voran had been somewhat of a loner for so long, that it was still hard to get used to; but he thought maybe that was what made someone who lived centuries want to keep on living.

  Stepping into the main bath, Nick closed the door and made a call to someone he hadn’t talked to since before meeting the wolf pack or kasha. The phone rang and the voice of a woman answered, who sounded like she had been sleeping, even though she was an hour ahead of him in time zones.

  “Hello, Nick?” she assumed from the caller ID.

  “Hey, Vivian, things have been really hectic around here and I was thinking that we hadn’t talked in a couple months. I’m sorry. Time just got away from me again.”

  “You’ve been busy?” the voice asked sounding more alert as she woke to her
friend of over a century, a man she had once hoped would stay with her until she died.

  “You won’t believe how busy,” he started and began to tell his old friend of the werewolves, Lena being a voran, and taking in the werewolves. Nick even told her how he was in love with not just one woman, but two. He told her of Nicola, though the two knew each other from the past, and Charlotte, who was completely new to her.

  Last he told her of Sami, his ward and fledgling vampire.

  “She’s never bitten anyone other than you?” Vivian asked curiously.

  “I had to make her do that or she would have just starved herself to death. I’ve never known a vampire who was able to resist the hunger for blood without being prepared for it like those turned in Marek’s coven. She was probably starving in that room for almost half a day, too weak to move, and she still didn’t want to harm anyone.

  “While she needed a little extra blood from me to keep her fangs in check, Nicola says that those newly changed always do. Still, it’s been surprising and have you ever known a vampire as young as fifteen?”

  “Sounds like you’re in love with this Sami as well,” Vivian chuckled.

  Repulsed by the idea as he considered what she might mean, Nick said, “I would hardly be interested in a little girl, Vivian. That’s disgusting.”

  Barking a quick laugh, the woman chided him, “I didn’t mean it like that, you dummy. I mean that you sound like a proud parent telling of his daughter’s first steps. You’ve only had her with you for a couple days and you are attached to her whole heartedly.”

  “Hmmph,” he grunted more like a sigh. “Yeah, there is just something about her that everyone likes. She seems so sweet and innocent, though I have a feeling that Sami hasn’t truly shown how much of a young teenager she truly is. This girl is going to be trouble for sure,” the man finished with a little laugh thinking Vivian was probably correct. He did feel that protective love and adoration of a father for his child.

  “All girls are trouble to one extent or another, Nicholas. You knew that already, if only because you know me,” his friend replied with a giggle.