If Gavin was here, he would know what to do.
He swallowed a lump in his throat. Gavin was not there and they had no choice but to face the three of them.
They were clearly outnumbered and he would need an infinite amount of luck to down the trio. Considering how he struggled with Richmond alone, it seemed like a monumental task that was impossible to achieve. However, he was willing to try for Madison’s safety.
The two men sneered at them and one pounced at Easton. Madison backed away to the wall and searched for any weapon she could use. There was a wooden stick by the corner but it would do no damage against their large bodies.
While she was distracted, Richmond encased her in his arms, her back against his chest and a hand on her neck while the other was on her waist. It rendered her motionless and she struggled in his hold while he grasped her tighter until Madison was sure that his grip would leave marks.
Easton tussled with the men. One was holding him back while the other was landing punches on his stomach. Easton gained leverage and swung his foot back before lunging it forcefully towards the man in front of him, who stumbled back at the sudden attack. He elbowed the one who was holding him, who caved and knelt while he gasped for breath.
Easton’s eyes were sore and bruises decorated his handsome face. Madison felt useless. She might have a vampire blood but she was weak lest she change fully. Tears ran down her eyes though she fought them back. Easton needed her and she needed to stay strong for him.
The man who fell on the floor recovered and aimed a kick on Easton’s face. He yelped in pain and Madison could only watch. It created a large welt on his cheek and Madison forced her eyes shut, not wanting to see him hurt anymore. She did not last for long for when he shouted again, she opened her eyes and saw how the two men shifted in hitting him and stepping on his hands, which made him scream in agony.
When they paused to catch their breath, Easton took his chance and kicked their feet so they would fall down. There would be no other opportunity to kill them. Easton, despite his lacking strength, reached for one of the man’s neck and twisted it. The sound of the bones cracking was deafening and Madison was stunned and she stood there gaping at the man who lay lifeless on the floor and blooding pooling around him.
Easton did not waste any more time and grabbed the other man, who began to thrash in his hold in panic. But Easton was fuming. He remembered how his brother was treated the same way, how he was not given a chance to fight, how he was killed mercilessly. And at that thought, he ended the life of the man in his hands.
“Fucker.” Richmond drew something from his back. Madison eyed it, terrified upon seeing the horrendous thing again. It was a stake and Richmond obviously intended for it to be through Easton’s body by the end of the day.
Richmond released her and pushed her down. Her knees felt weak and wobbly. Glancing at Easton, he was completely drained and if Richmond challenged him, he was sure to lose.
She braced her hands on her knees and forced herself to stand up. Richmond strode towards Easton’s back and raised the stake, ready to lunge it through the vampire’s body.
Her eyes darkened and she felt adrenaline rushing through her body. Her vision got clearer, her hearing got better and she could feel energy coursing through her.
She jumped at Richmond and held him back with a hand on his neck. He looked at her, terrified and suddenly reminiscent of her attack before.
There was a sudden urge and Madison wanted to fulfill it. Not having control with her actions anymore, she aimed for his neck and bit him. The rusty taste of blood should have been awful but she craved more of it, feasting on Richmond’s blood like she had not eaten for months.
It went on for minutes and she kept her lips attached to his neck, conflicted whether she was doing the right thing or not.
The red liquid flowed down her throat and she could not stop herself. She ignored Easton’s calls of her name. Her eyes were dilated and she continued to quench her thirst until there was nothing left.
She pulled back and brushed a hand on her mouth. When she saw the blood, that was when it dawned on her what she had done.
Chapter-10
It wasn’t Supposed to be You or Me
She helped Easton stand up and rested his hand around her shoulders for support. She spat on the ground, terrified of the red color mixed with her saliva.
The ground was soft from the recent drizzle but they trudged on until they reached the area where they kept Easton’s car hidden. She helped him in and fished the keys from his pockets and sped away with no destination in mind.
She never looked back at the house, determined to not remember how she left it.
***
Easton drifted in and out of consciousness and he was shaken with the large rocks that they were driving along.
They were going fast and the car bounced against the rough road. Madison kept her focus on driving, trying to whisk away the image of Richmond, deathly pale, eyes wide open, and lips parted in shock. It was a moment that would haunt her forever.
She had always opposed violence, opting to talk things out instead of lashing at the other. Violence could only cause unnecessary hurting but now, she just killed a man she knew. She could not imagine how horrified her aunt would be if she knew that her niece killed Richmond.
She would probably disclaim her and treat her as a stranger.
The blood in her tongue was still there. She rolled down the window and tried spitting it all but the tang clung to the roof of her mouth. It was making her stomach churn.
Her main priority right now would be to nurse Easton back into full health. She fought down the sobs racking her but they still came out, revealing her anguish at herself for what she had done.
It was a mistake she never knew she could commit.
Easton, on the other hand, was losing his grasp on reality. He wanted to comfort Madison but even he was shocked at how the events unfolded.
What also boggled his mind was everything they have learned that day, which surely helped piece all information together.
Now he knew why Atticus died and why Courtney was adamant to break them up. Everything made sense and he berated himself for not figuring it early on.
Easton was a vampire and Madison, apparently, did not just possess vampire blood. She also came from the families of vampire hunters, and relationships between a vampire and a hunter was not just forbidden, it was cursed.
He recalled Atticus breaking things in their home, crying out for a name with longing in his voice. He remembered him warning them to never get close to a vampire hunter, no matter how much they promised no harm.
He remembered him narrating about an urban legend among their kind: that a vampire who tries to turn a hunter into one of his kind will face a gradual, painful death.
Cogs were turning and he could hear her sniffle beside him. He could not move his arm and he could only listen as she cried in anguish.
It was no wonder everyone was against them. Madison’s grandmother was the cause of Atticus’ death. They probably took the risk and dismissed the legend as false. They probably wanted to take the chance to be together for as long as possible. What they were not ready for was when it happened to be true and slowly, Atticus was poisoned and got weaker by the day until he faced his death.
Easton recalled what Madison said last night. That she wanted to be turned because she wanted to be with him. It should not be a problem because Easton wanted the same. He wanted to hold her in his arms forever and take care of her for as long as she would permit.
He felt so strongly for Madison more than he could explain and he wished to spend his future with her. Madison, more than anyone else, knew that.
But such a selfish wish will slap them with the truth -- that him turning her would mean his own death.
*****
THE END
BONUS: A FINAL GAME
Introduction
It is said that there are specific and mandatory con
ditions needed to make a relationship work. A couple, though thoroughly different in their individual behaviors, should share fundamental principles. It is imperative that they support each other through the best and the worst of times. And the third involves the most obvious, but hardest condition of them all – sacrifice.
The nature of precognition made life different, if not all the more difficult for Yarra. For most humans, they go through life knowing that cause will lead to effect.
It was perpetually difficult for her to ascertain the road leading to the effect, when her mind had already played out its multiple possibilities, literally. Her visions provided the destination, but not the means of getting there.
When she had first met Avice in a café across the street from their University, she had a vision that he would one day kill her. But it did not stop her from falling in love with him. It was the sacrifice of the self towards the inevitable that had made their love work. Avice ended up not killing her, as her visions had once predicted.
Yarra’s repudiation by Alicia Selleck after the war was over had come as a shock to Avice. He expected his mother to make Yarra a member of the Keepers of the Blades. To further compound the nasty shock, he was ordered to murder his girlfriend; out of fear that her powers may one day become too powerful for the vampires to control.
It led to Avice sacrificing the life he had known, and a sense of blind loyalty towards his mother and clan. Choosing Yarra Davis over blood and tradition, they had run away from the Keepers of the Blades. Alicia Selleck was predictably angry, calling for a permanent end to both of them.
It was during the lovebird’s escape that they sought after an old friend of Avice’s, Nainoru, who was also a former member of the Keepers of the Blades. Through her, they had learnt that it was not the enemy clans that had killed Yarra’s ancestor. Shockingly enough, it was Alicia Selleck who had ordered Nainoru to murder the Oracle after his assistance during the war.
With this knowledge, they had begun travelling to Great Yarmouth. During their ride to the airport, their bus was ambushed by three members of the Keepers of the Blade. Avice ordered Yarra to stay in the bus while he went out to confront them…
Chapter-1
The Confrontation
Yarra sat at the back of the bus, too distraught to move. She looked as the passengers in front of her got out of their seats, some craning their necks to see Avice standing in front of the bus, confronting the three strangers in black leather jackets. They had little idea what was going on, after all, and so there was confusion and speculations abound. She did not have to meticulously study their features to know what was going on, knowing well enough that the man in the middle of the three was their pony-tailed attacker from last night. The two other tall, younger looking guys flanking him were the very same people who had once provided her security when they were still at war.
From where she sat, Yarra could see their attackers holding on to large swords – weapons that looked almost, but not quite, comically out of place in the otherwise very modern setting. They stood menacingly in front of the bus, with Avice being the barricade between them.
The bus driver honked rudely, screaming through the window for the men to get out of the way. Yarra saw many of them whipping their phones out to record the possible fight that was about to transpire.
“What the hell?” a man exclaimed. Although his phone screen was pointed at Avice and the men, it failed to capture their image properly. All that was visible was the road and trees. “How is that even possible?”
Yarra looked at the screen. True to what she had expected, phones, cameras, mirrors and other reflective surfaces were unable to capture a vampire’s profile when they were transformed.
“Look!” a woman screamed out, snapping Yarra’s attention back.
She saw her lover remove two switchblades from his pocket, making the three attackers laugh at the sight of the tiny blades.
“You think you can bring us down with that measly weapon, little boy?” the pony-tailed man taunted, with a shake of his head.
Avice looked at him, thankful that the attacker was without a gun today. He sniffed the air slightly, and came to the conclusion that Mark and Domlen were also without firearms – there was none of the acrid scent of powder about them, or the oil used to keep the guns firing smoothly and polished. The air smelt faintly of leaves, and exhaust smoke from passing vehicles. The switchblade was twirled expertly between his fingers. Although the men in front of him had laughed, he knew that they were hesitant to attack. He was, after all, proficient in weapons and hand-to-hand combat.
Baring his fangs, Avice’s skin glowed an almost pale white. Behind him, he knew that the passengers in the bus would have noticed something odd – that his body just refused to be seen by their cameras and video-capturing devices. He needed to get the three attackers out of the way so then the bus would move.
Another loud, almost rude honk startled him.
“Move out of the way, idiots!” The bus driver screamed again, from his relatively safe, guarded position. “I have a schedule to keep!”
Avice bent forward, poised to attack. The slight bending of his knees made the ambushers take a step backward.
“Listen, I don’t want to hurt you guys,” Avice admitted. “It isn’t in my way to attack my clan members.”
“Former clan members,” Mark corrected sharply, seething through clenched teeth. “You ran away with that bitch, Avice.”
“You are no longer a member of the Keepers of the Blades,” Domlen added.
The pony-tailed man smiled widely. “See, little Avice? This is what happens when you don’t listen to mommy. She sends us to get rid of you, and that slut.”
That did it. Avice had tried to hold back and reason with them. But he knew that if he spared their lives now, they would carry word to his mother sooner or later. The best way to deal with any possible evidence was to completely eliminate it.
Using the wind as leverage, Avice lunged forward.
Those in the bus gave out a collective gasp when they saw Avice’s body vanishing into thin air. Following that, the three men too, seem to evaporate into nothingness.
“Finally!” the bus driver said with finality. He did not seem to care about the extraordinary thing that had taken place in front of him. All he knew, was that the road was now clear. With another small crank of the gear, the bus continued to move on as though nothing had happened.
“Where did they go?”
Yarra knew. What the passengers could not see was that a fight was happening just outside the bus, too fast for the mortal eye to follow. Yarra’s human capabilities could not catch the exact scene, but after a year of being with Avice, she had learnt to use her surroundings to see what actually was happening – or a hint of it. As the bus continued down the road, she looked to the side of the bus, overlooking a large field, and there, odd flashes formed and vanished. Some were linear, and others like a crescent or wave, swelling and vanishing into obscurity before anyone could see them in any more detail.
The clang of metals and swishes of knives, blades and swords was barely heard. She knew that Avice was fighting the three men in the field, although she did not know who was winning.
Heart thumping, she closed her eyes and focused all of her mental energy on invoking a vision. In her mind, she saw the fight going on in discernible speed.
Avice had kicked at Mark, causing the tall, white-haired man to fall onto the ground with a yell. Grabbing at his large sword, Avice twirled it in his hands with ease, not at all affected by its large hilt and disproportionate blade.
“I’m sorry… brother,” Avice said, swishing the sword towards Mark’s neck, instantly decapitating him.
Domlen gave out a yell of fury. Rushing towards Avice, he proceeded to swing his sword wildly, which Avice parried nonchalantly.
“You would kill your own clan member?” Domlen yelled out.
“It was you who said that I was a former member, remember?” Avice re
torted, punching Domlen in the chest.
The man staggered backwards, stepping onto a pile of mud. For a moment, he was caught off guard, trying to remove his right foot from the congealed soil. Before he knew it, Avice had plunged the sword into his chest. No blood came oozing out from the vampire. All Domlen did was hold on to the blade embedded deep into his chest, as he coughed and let out a leer.
“Alicia will kill you for this. She will torture that slut and make you watch,” Domlen said with grim satisfaction, before falling to the ground in a silent heap.
Avice looked at the bodies of his former clan members. All that remained was the pony-tailed man who now had a look of fear in his eyes. It was clear that he was just a messenger, and was not exactly trained in the art of battle. His legs shook as he tried to stand his ground against Avice, despite what he had just witnessed.
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