by Avin Vang
Carrie was sitting far off on her own. She was too upset to even share a taxi with Ali and Raven. She was beside herself with anger. “She’s never felt, well, anything,” Ali tried to explain why her friend was so mad. “Carrie just isn’t in touch with her feelings. She can’t let go and just be in the moment.”
Raven felt sorry for Carrie, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with the anger coming from the highly logical student. As they started to section off the dig site, Carrie and Raven used stakes and string to mark off the ground. Carrie tugged a little harder on the string than Raven felt was necessary.
“That hurt,” Raven tried to keep the anger out of her voice.
“Then you should enjoy it,” Carrie snarled. “You’re all into this passion and pain stuff now right.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know,” Carrie glared at the marks on her friend’s neck. “You want your guy to hurt you, and you picked the perfect guy for that.” Raven knew that Carrie was right about that. She had fallen for the absolute worst match possible. Knowing the truth didn’t make it any easier to hear.
“Well,” Raven said as she gave the string a hard tug in response. “At least I can feel.”
“I felt that!” Carrie snapped as she tugged the string back hard. She almost took Raven off her feet. Raven was surprised by the strength of the suddenly fiery, and very petite Carrie. “I’m sorry that I want you to be safe. The whole reason I’m even here is to keep you safe…”
“Well! Then I guess you failed pretty hard!” Raven realized she was yelling, but only after Ali tapped her on the shoulder. Raven turned to see that all 30 of the other members of the dig team were staring at her. Except for Jenna, who was making kissy faces at the back of her garden trowel.
“Roommate squabble,” Ali called out. “Everyone back to work.” She waved her hands at the crowd and people got back to work. “Will you two stop being freaks, please?”
“I am not being a freak,” Carrie whispered. People were still looking over at the girls. They were trying to be more discreet about it, but the girls could feel their eyes on them. “I want Raven to know that she is doing the wrong thing, and I want to know what she intends to do about it.”
“And then you’ll shut up, and stop trying to give me rope burn?” Raven looked at the red lines on her hand as she uttered the words. The string was small and sharp when it was pulled tight. She couldn’t take any more tugging.
Carrie didn’t say anything at first, pretending to be too busy placing a stake to hear Raven. Finally, Ali hit Carrie’s shoulder with a trowel. “Fine,” Carrie muttered the words under her breath.
“I’m going to talk to him,” Raven sighed. “I’m mad, and I feel betrayed. He lied to me and slept with me, and that makes me feel horrible and wrong, but…”
“If there is a ‘but’ I will lose my mind,” Carrie mumbled to herself as she shook her head from side to side.
“There is a ‘but’,” Raven said. She wanted to just say that she was done with the vampire, but something inside of her was not ready to let go. “He didn’t kill me…”
“Oh, well then, let’s make sure you give him another chance at it,” Carrie grumbled as she tied off her string to the stake.
“He knows the prophecy,” Raven tried to explain herself. “He knows who I am. Why wouldn’t he just kill me?”
“He’s a vampire,” Carrie laughed. “He could kill anyone at any time. He didn’t kill you because he isn’t worried about killing you just yet. He wants you to lead him to the ring, and then he is going to kill you, take the ring, and beat the prophecy.”
This concept threw Raven for a loop. She hadn’t known that was a possibility. Could people really beat the prophecy? She also hadn’t considered the fact that Matthias was just biding his time. Maybe he didn’t really care about her at all. The vampire had been on the Earth for hundreds of years; he had likely learned a thing or two about lying. Raven suddenly felt very foolish and she couldn’t stand to be around Carrie for another second.
Raven took her stakes and moved to another section. She looked around for a space that was open. All of the areas that needed stakes had already been marked with spray paint. She found a spot and started hammering her stakes into the ground.
“You have marks like mine,” Jenna said as she sat down on the ground right beside Raven. The blonde seemed like an airhead, but Raven had heard that she was an award-winning scholar. Dr. Foster had talked to Raven about an amazing paper Jenna had sent him in the dig application. It wasn’t a requirement, but Jenna was very proud of it, and Dr. Foster was very impressed.
“She seems much less remarkable in person,” Dr. Foster had grumbled. Raven thought about that as she watched the decidedly unremarkable girl sit in the grass and stare up at the sky. Everyone else was busy getting the site ready.
“Are you going to help?” Raven snapped. She stopped and looked Jenna in the eyes, but there was nothing coming back. Jenna was off somewhere else. “Are you okay?”
“Matthias says he drank too much of my blood,” Jenna laughed at the end of the sentence. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Who drinks blood? Is he a vampire?” Jenna fell over as she made fangs on her face with her index fingers.
“Matthias did this to you?”
“He says so,” Jenna giggled as she pushed herself back up to sitting. “I have no idea what’s going on. He says all will be fine in a few days. I just have to stop…no, no, no, he…he just has to stop drinking my blood.”
“Does he do anything else to you?”
“He won’t touch me,” Jenna shrugged. “I keep trying. I said to him, ‘Hey let’s do it!’ But he won’t do it, and I’m like super hot, look at this!” Jenna laid out on the ground and propped her head up on her hand. She started making kissy faces at Raven. The drunk-looking girl was trying desperately to wink, but every time ended in a very dramatic blink. “Hot, right?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Raven said as she helped Jenna back up to sitting. “Do you think you can help me put these stakes into the ground?” Raven felt bonded to Jenna in a strange way. They had been bitten by the same vampire. Raven assumed there had to be rules about taking care of each other in a situation like this.
“I need a hammer,” Jenna announced as she lined up the stake. Raven hadn’t thought this through.
They spent the rest of the day placing stakes and getting things ready for the dig. As the day was coming to a close, Dr. Foster thanked everyone for their hard work and collected all the tools. “Everything has to stay locked up for the night,” the archaeology professor explained. “The worst thing is trying to get work done when all of the materials have been misplaced.”
Raven returned most of the unused stakes to the storage bin. She had stuffed one into the back of her pants. She had a date with a vampire later, and she wasn’t sure how it was going to go. Carrie and Ali were waiting by the car they had called to drive them back to town.
“Are we okay?” Carrie asked.
“Yeah,” Raven lied. She wasn’t over it by a long shot, but she was prepared to get into the car and relax on the way home. It had been a long day, and she was too tired to fight.
“Are you still going to see Matthias tonight?” Ali asked the question, but Carrie was thinking it too. Raven didn’t have to say anything. She only breathed and let her shoulders sink a bit, but that was enough to answer the question.
“Okay, I won’t say anything about it,” Carrie sighed. “I have given you all the information you need to make the right decision and that is all I can do. I’m just going to give you one last thing.” Carrie pulled a stake out from behind her back.
“Hey,” Ali laughed as she pulled a stake out. “I was going to do that.”
“Well, no one had to worry,” Raven chuckled as she pulled her own stake out. “Great minds.”
They all laughed as they piled into the car ready to do battle with the ancient vampire.
Chapter 8
Matthias
“She seems nice,” Jenna mumbled as Matthias came into the room. He was already dressed and ready to leave, but he got a weird feeling when he heard those words. Jenna’s ramblings were becoming a fairly commonplace occurrence in his life, but these words seemed important.
“Who?” Matthias walked right in front of Jenna. He wanted her full attention. She did a double take when she saw how close he was standing. “Who seems nice, Jenna?”
“Oh, lots of people,” Jenna’s voice seemed as hollow as her eyes. “Many, many, many, many, many…”
“Thank you, Jenna.”
“People,” Jenna finished her thought, but Matthias was already heading to the window. “And Raven, the girl, with the marks like mine on her neck. We talked a lot about you today.”
A sinking feeling of distress gripped Matthias. This was exactly what he was afraid of. He popped his head out the window, and the fire escape was empty. He flew up to look in the window, but the room looked dark. All of the girls seemed to be gone.
“Where did they go?” Matthias returned and started shaking Jenna. He was the reason that she was like this, and Matthias knew that it was his fault, but in that moment he just needed Jenna to tell him something good.
“I think they went for a drink,” Jenna sighed. “Martin said I couldn’t go. Everyone from the dig is going. The drinking, and social aspects of the dig are just as important really. If these people are going to be my colleagues later, I want them to like me, and respect me.”
“If you want that you need to stay here,” Matthias said the words over his shoulder as he headed for the door.
“That’s what he said!”
The door slammed closed and Matthias actually felt bad for Jenna as he left. He had turned her into this feeble creature, sucked the literal life out of her, and now he was abandoning her. He had done it countless times, and left people in worse condition, but he felt a pang in the area where his heart used to be.
Matthias rushed down the streets to the tavern. There were three in the town, but this one had a selection of beer. It was the tavern where Matthias had first seen Raven. Matthias knew the place was being watched by the pack. Zdeno wouldn’t let his guard down.
Matthias didn’t care, he had to find Raven and make sure that everything was okay. He stormed down the street. He had to fight to keep his speed under control. The streets were too crowded for him to use his true speed. It was okay in some parts of the world, but the people of Romania were used to supernatural creatures and they knew how to get rid of them. Matthias always had to be careful when he came back home.
“Are you heading out on a hot date?” Zdeno was standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Matthias knew that he was surrounded on all sides. His brother was too smart to come alone. “I was really surprised to hear that you’re dating. Haven’t you got that stuff out of your system? We’re almost 600 years old.”
Zdeno looked much closer to that mark than Matthias did. Werewolves aged at a much slower rate than humans, and lived much longer, normally 800 to 1000 years old. Zdeno now had a bit of a paunch and his hair was turning grey. Matthias was the same age as his brother, and yet he looked young and healthy.
“The difference is, you’re actually starting to look your age,” Matthias wasn’t sure why he chose to provoke his brother. He was mainly upset because Zdeno was in his way. Matthias hated that there was anything standing between the vampire and his woman.
“That’s true, but you’ll find that I am only getting stronger,” Zdeno laughed. He looked to the wolves who were closing in around Matthias. “If you turn around we will let you go. I don’t want to kill you, brother.”
“Yes you do,” Matthias sneered.
“Yes I do,” Zdeno laughed again. This time the hearty laugh was followed by a head nod. It was very slight, but it was enough to tip off Matthias. “Don’t kill him. I get to do that.”
Matthias watched as the villagers crossed to the other side of the road to avoid the fight. The wolves clearly weren’t worried about an angry mob. It was one of the benefits of being alive all day long. They were not vulnerable to the same sort of attacks that had chased the vampires from Romania.
Zdeno came at Matthias and hit him in the gut. Matthias was focused on blocking two other punches and he honestly didn’t think that his brother could hurt him. The vampire felt a crunch in his gut as the wolf fist hit hard. They stayed in human form, but their strength was still far beyond that of a normal human.
“I thought you needed to shift to hit like that?” Matthias grunted as he got an arm free and hit Zdeno. The wolf fell back and Matthias saw the moonstone necklace. Wolves would charge the necklaces under the light of the full moon and then wear the stones against their chests. Matthias had watched his adopted father Sylus do this before.
“We are ready for you,” Zdeno said when he saw that Matthias had spotted the moonstone. “I could smell your hand all over the dig, but I hope you know that ring is long gone, and you aren’t getting me out of the castle without it.”
Matthias charged at his brother, but the wolves pulled him down. Matthias felt super-charged fists cracking parts of his back and sides. Zdeno was focusing his blows on the vampire’s head. He felt a few more punches, and then three wolves decided to just hold Matthias down.
“This is where we say goodbye, brother.” Matthias couldn’t see him, but he could hear the stake being pulled out of a pocket. Matthias focused all of his energy. He pushed hard off the ground and started to fly. Matthias turned to the wolf who was still on his back, holding onto the shirt tails.
“This is where you get off,” Matthias growled as he threw a quick punch into the wolf’s face. Matthias waved to Zdeno as he took off, but the wolves were busy running down the street. They were heading to the tavern. Matthias had to get there before they could get to Raven.
Matthias knew that he should leave town. There were going to be people looking for his coffin. With only one hotel in the town it wasn’t going to be hard to find. This could be his last night on Earth, but he needed to find his woman. That was the only thing that mattered to him.
Reaching the tavern first, he quickly scanned the room for Raven and moved briskly towards her. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” Matthias had meant to say hi, but he was hurt. Raven turned and slapped him. Everyone in the tavern turned to look and Matthias just swept her up and headed through the back door, out of the building.
“Where are you taking me, Matthias?” Raven demanded as he set her down. She started fidgeting with something in her back pocket. Matthias took a deep breath and tried to prepare for the coming fight. He could see that she was upset.
“I care about you…”
“You lied to me…”
“You need to listen to me,” Matthias begged. “I have never felt like this before. I have walked the Earth for nearly 600 years, and I have never met anyone like you. I have never cared for a person like I care for you.”
“You lied to me!” Raven snapped. “There is nothing more important than trust. I can’t feel anything back for you, because I can’t trust anything that comes out of your mouth anymore.”
“I am sorry, I did lie, and I…I didn’t know how to deal with the feelings that I was having…” Matthias saw the stake behind Raven’s back. He couldn’t believe she was holding a stake. “What are you doing? Look at this,” Matthias said as he opened his mouth to show that his fangs weren’t even out. “I have never taken any of your blood without your consent.”
“Well, I am withdrawing my consent,” Raven retorted as she pulled the stake out from behind her back. “You are not getting any more of my blood, and if you know anything about the prophecy you’ll listen to me.”
“Fine, kill me.”
“What?”
“Go ahead,” Mattias sighed and put his hands up on his head in a prisoner’s stance. “Just do it quick. It hurts too much knowing that you want to kill me. Just get it over with.”
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Taken aback, Raven paused, a pained expression crossing her face. “I don’t want to do any of this,” Raven moaned. She let the stake fall to her side. “I just don’t want you to kill me.”
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead,” Matthias responded, but he was distracted. He could hear the wolves closing in on them. “I am about to grab you and fly you to a safe location. I will answer all of your questions when we get there. Do you trust me?”
Raven groaned in indecision.
“I need to know,” Matthias urged. “I have risked my life to get here, and I will gladly give my life to protect you, but I need you to trust me.”
“Fine,” Raven said, but as Matthias put his hands around her, her arms shot up. “But this istemporary, like, this exact moment of trust. We are not okay.”
Matthias could hear the wolves moving through the tavern. “Fine!” Matthias took off with Raven wrapped around him. It felt so good to have her pressed against him once again. They flew up into the air and Raven dropped her stake. “Here,” Matthias smirked as he handed the stake back.
“I wasn’t going to stab you,” Raven said, and looking into her eyes, Matthias believed her. “My friends made me do it, sort of.”
“You wanted to let me know that you meant business,” Matthias teased.
“We’re not there, we’re not joking and laughing about this.”
Matthias apologized as he looked for a safe spot to land. The wolves and the villagers would be looking for him. He had to find a place that would keep them both at bay. It wasn’t as easy to spot the villagers as it was in the old days. They didn’t carry torches and pitchforks anymore. The modern mobs were just as angry, but far more discreet.
“Is this a cemetery?” Raven asked as they landed amongst the weathered stones.
“The people won’t follow us here,” Matthias explained.
“Are people after us?”
“The villagers may have seen a few things,” Matthias huffed as he found a stone to sit down on. Now that things had settled down he could feel the pain setting in. The wolves had cracked the hardened organs inside of his body.
