by Avin Vang
“Impressive,” Matthias laughed. “But can you handle the speed?” Matthias charged at Zdeno and went right for his throat.
The vampire was surprised to find himself on his back. Zdeno’s jaws were around his midsection and he was being thrashed heavily against the ground. Another hard slam drove the vampire through a tombstone. The noise was going to draw a crowd. Matthias knew that more wolves would be the end of him.
Turning over, Matthias could feel his skin ripping in the wolf’s mouth. Matthias drove his finger through the big wolf’s eye. Zdeno let go and reeled backwards. Matthias couldn’t stop to check his stomach. He had to charge forward. He ran, but Zdeno was already ready to defend.
Matthias was on the ground again with two huge paws pinning him down. Snarling jaws came for his head, but he managed to roll out of the way. Zdeno was hot on his heels and Matthias had to move quickly. He could hear the other wolves.
Matthias flew up onto Zdeno’s back. The wolf twisted and turned, but there was nothing he could do to get the vampire off of him. Matthias couldn’t get his arms around his neck. Wrapping his legs tightly around the wolf’s neck, Matthias started to chop at Zdeno’s head with both hands.
Zdeno howled as the blows broke through his skull. The big wolf had been at a full run and he rolled to a stop. Matthias could hear cracking inside as the wolf rolled over on top of him. His brother was dead, but he was not making it out of the graveyard alive. Wolves were coming from all over the town. Matthias pushed Zdeno off of him and staggered to his feet.
“You may have won after all,” Matthias murmured exhaustedly, patting his brother’s shoulder. The wolf was slowly changing back into the chubby old man. Matthias took one last look and then tried to find a place to hide. Wounded from the fight however, he couldn’t move quicklyenough to get away.
“Dad!” Roman was in the graveyard.
Matthias got low and crawled along the grass. He was trying to hide behind the grave markers, but he needed to find something more permanent.
“You will pay for this!” Roman screamed, and his call was joined by the howling of wolves. There were at least fifteen wolves approaching the cemetery. Matthias had grown up with wolves and he knew how to count their howls. He was in big trouble.
He saw the fresh grave as he was crawling through the stones. He took a quick look around and made sure he could get there in time. It was going to be close. He could dig a hole very quickly and the loose dirt would make it easier, also hiding the fact that he had disturbed the dirt at all. It was his only chance.
“Everyone spread out!” Roman was screaming as the graveyard filled with hostile wolves. Mournful cries filled the air. Their alpha had been killed and they wanted to exact their revenge. They were not going to forget this insult. Roman was calling out challenges to Matthias.
“Single combat if you’re man enough!” Roman screamed. Matthias would’ve gladly taken up the offer if he wasn’t so badly injured. “You coward! Single combat!” Matthias could feel the pain in Roman’s voice. The vampire had killed one enemy for life only to gain another.
The freshly dug dirt moved easily under his fingers. Matthias moved quickly, trying to be careful with the dirt as well. He couldn’t kick up too much dust or it would be a dead giveaway that he was there. He took one last quick look around and then started to bury himself.
As soon as he was under the ground Matthias breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t take in air, because he didn’t breathe anymore. Not in nearly 600 years anyway, but he had spent many years pretending to breathe so that people didn’t know he was a vampire. The act was hard to give up. Matthias had been pretending to breathe for so long that he even did it when he was alone.
He could feel the wolves walking all around him. They came very close to finding him on several occasions. The vibrations in the ground were easy enough to sense. Matthias would’ve put up a good fight, but he knew that if they found him that was it for him.
The only thing that gave him comfort was knowing that Raven was leaving. It had been well over an hour, and she would already be out of town. Matthias would fly out of town as soon as night fell the next night. They would find each other, he was sure of that. Matthias waited for the sun to rise, and his body to die for another day.
Chapter 11
Raven
“Just so we’re clear here, he’s fucking dead.”
“He was dead to begin with.” Ali burped as she finished, not noticing that Carrie was glaring into the back of the drunk girl’s head. Raven was having trouble focusing on either one of them. She was too worried about Matthias to worry about what her friends were saying.
“We need to get out of here,” Carrie said, but this time she took hold of Raven and shook hard. “We can’t wait any longer. The sun is coming up. If he was still alive he would be here.”
“You don’t know that.” These were the first words that Raven had spoken in hours. She had promised Matthias she would leave, but that’s when she thought he was going to show up. It was so easy to promise something, but it was hard to leave knowing that her lover was in trouble.
“I do,” Carrie shook her head vigorously. “I can say it with near one hundred percent certainty. He is a vampire and the sun is coming up. I can say in no uncertain terms that he is not going to be able to help us for the next 12 hours. We need to get out of the city now.”
Carrie had already been filling their backpacks and placing supplies near the door. She had been ready to head to the train station after the first hour passed. “You promised,” she kept reminding Raven.
Raven barely noticed her friend’s actions. She stared out of the window and waited for Matthias to appear. But the time had come. She had made a promise, after all. Raven turned from the window and headed to the door.
Carrie started moving Ali toward the door, putting Ali’s backpack on her as she walked. Raven got herself ready and they headed down to the lobby. It didn’t feel real somehow. Raven was sure that this wasn’t the end for Matthias. She knew that he couldn’t be out in the light, but part of her was hoping to see the vampire in the lobby.
“I’ll go and take care of the bill,” Carrie said as she headed to the front desk.
“I can’t believe we’re going,” Ali groaned. “I was having a blast. I mean, I am really having fun in Romania…this is Romania, right?” Ali was looking around like she was suddenly lost.
“Yes, this is Romania,” Raven sighed. There was no emotion in her voice. Raven couldn’t muster the energy needed for a conversation. The weight of her backpack was almost enough to take her to the ground. It was like her body wasn’t ready to do this.
“We’re good to go,” Carrie confirmed as she returned to her friends. She was carrying a bunch of paperwork from the front desk. “We have a coupon for a free one-night stay anywhere in this country.
“You’re not tricking me into coming here again,” Ali laughed to herself as she lurched forward and nearly lost her footing. The other girls straightened Ali up and they all walked out the doors together.
The crisp morning air sent a chill right up Raven’s spine. The empty streets seemed foreboding, as Raven looked up and down them for signs of life. Knowing the wolves might still be looking for her, she took out her wand and cast a confusion spell, hoping that it wasn’t already too late.
“How could I forget that?” Carrie was really disappointed in herself and she continued to berate herself as they walked up the main street of the town. The train station was a ten-minute walk, but with each step feeling like its own small eternity it was going to take a lot longer.
“You don’t need to be so hard on yourself,” Ali said as she patted Carrie on the back. “You couldn’t have seen this coming.”
“You’re just trying to be nice,” Carrie muttered. “I let Raven fall for the wrong guy, I let things get out of hand with the werewolves, and a nice store in the downtown area lost two mannequins and it’s all because of me.”
Raven had been ig
noring her friends, and Carrie was busy beating herself up. Neither one of them had noticed that Ali was busy typing on her phone. When there was finally a lull in the moping, the sound of the key strokes reached their ears.
“What are you doing?” Raven yelled.
“I’m texting Roman,” Ali said with a shrug. “I have to say goodbye.”
“He’s the one we’re sneaking away from!” Carrie stared in furious disbelief.
They looked at each other and then everyone broke into a run. They had to make it to the train station. The wolves knew they were leaving. There was no time to lose. The thump of their backpacks echoed off the stone walls of the buildings that lined the main street. Raven was sure they were going to get caught.
“I didn’t know,” Ali whined.
“How could you not know?” Carrie scoffed at her friend. Ali was charged with Raven’s safe-keeping just as much as Carrie was. Ali had not been pulling her weight on this trip, and of all the things that she had messed up on, this was the worst.
They had the train station in sight as they came over the hill. It was only 200 yards ahead when Roman stepped out onto the street. At first it seemed like he was alone, but as Raven looked around the area she saw other wolves trying to stay hidden along the side of the road. Raven looked to Carrie, who was slowing down. Their hands went to their wands.
“We don’t look like ourselves, do we?” Carrie asked and Raven shook her head ‘no.’ “They may be waiting for someone else.”
“I know your scents,” Roman had really good hearing. He motioned to the other wolves and they all started to move forward toward the witches. The girls moved in closer as the circle got tighter. “Did you really think you could just leave?”
“I was kind of hoping,” Carrie joked in a move that almost surprised everyone. She raised her wand and tossed a bolt of purple lightning at Roman. The wolves all ran for cover, and Carrie led the charge forward.
“Why are we running if you can do that?” Raven asked as she looked back to see the wolves regrouping.
“It’s exhausting,” Carrie shouted without looking back. “Just keep running.”
“I can’t make it,” Ali screamed as she started to heave onto the road.
“Do we wait for her?” Raven wanted to stop, but Carrie grabbed her by the arm.
“They’re after you,” Carrie reminded Raven. “Ali did that to herself. She is always letting people down…always letting me down!”
They ran down the cobblestone street. Raven was relieved to see the wolves run past Ali. She could see that the wolves were getting closer. She tossed a purple beam back at the wolves. “What are you doing?” Carrie screamed.
“I’m trying to help,” Raven answered breathlessly, but she could already feel the weakness setting in.
“We only have a few blasts like that in us,” Carrie explained. “After that you won’t even be able to run. You’ve already wasted a lot of energy on the confusion spells. Just try running faster.”
“What is the plan?” Raven cried as she realized the wolves were going to catch them. “We don’t even have tickets. We can’t make it out of here. This is pointless.”
“That’s not true.” Carrie turned back and let Raven see the tears in her eyes. “You used too much energy on that blast.” Carrie tried to pull Raven along, but Roman was on top of them. His enormous arms sent Carrie flying into the air. He had swatted her like a fly, and she lay unmoving on the ground.
“Carrie!”
“She’s fine,” Roman yelled as he pulled Raven’s arms behind her back and started pulling her off the street. “You thought you could get to the train station, huh?” Roman laughed. “We aren’t afraid of people anymore. They love the werewolves, because we keep the vampires away.”
Raven started to cry as she heard those words. They had kept her vampire away. Roman handed her off to a few of the wolves and they loaded Raven into a van. “What are you going to do to my friends?” Raven asked, but her only answer was a smirk. Roman waved the wolves on, and they closed the doors and drove Raven toward the castle.
Looking out the window in the back of the van, Raven could see the wolves moving Carrie over to where Ali was still on all fours on the ground. The tears in her eyes were making it hard to see, but her friends were both alive when the van turned the corner.
“Where are you taking me?” Silence was the only response.
Chapter 12
Matthias
It was like a switch going off. As the sunlight trailed back off the ground and followed the orb behind the mountains, Matthias emerged from the ground. He took a moment to fix the dirt on the grave. He read the name on the stone and offered his thanks to the person for giving him this one last chance at life.
Matthias had a new lease on life. He should’ve died the night before, but he hadn’t and now he was going to find Raven and they were going to live happily ever after. Matthias had never felt like this in all the years that he had been on Earth, at least not in the ones he could remember. He walked out of the cemetery and down the road toward the hotel.
He had a sneaking suspicion that Raven hadn’t left when she was supposed to. He definitely wasn’t going to leave town until he knew she was safe. Matthias smiled at everyone he met as he walked up the street. They were all staring at him. He had tried to shake all the dirt off, but he still looked like a man who had just crawled out of a fresh grave.
“Where have you been?”
Matthias turned around to see Carrie standing right behind him. Ali was on her back. He only knew them from Raven’s descriptions, but he had seen them through the windows of the hotel. They both looked a little alarmed as they led Matthias up the road to the hotel.
“They have her,” Carrie explained.
“Roman has lost his mind…”
“Someone killed his father,” Carrie interrupted her friend. “You started this and now our friend is going to die. So how do we fix it?”
“What?” Matthias was having a hard time understanding the women who were talking way too fast. He had woken up in such a good mood, it was hard to believe that so much had gone wrong. With the women silenced he took a minute to compose his thoughts. “What did he say?”
“Roman said he’s going to kill her and make you watch,” Ali looked like she was going to puke when she finished talking. She wasn’t drunk, but she was incredibly upset. She didn’t know how to handle the situation. “Roman was such a nice guy.”
“You’ve messed this up for all of us,” Carrie snarled. “Now you can’t even really help. You can’t go in there without a ring, so you just have to sit back and wait for us to save her.”
“How do we do that?” Ali whined. “There are so many of them.”
“Simple,” Matthias said as soon as the whining stopped. “I am going to cause a distraction.”
“You can’t even go there,” Carrie reminded the vampire.
“I can,” Matthias nodded. “It just weakens me. It’s a gradual process. I will be able to fight them for a little while, but you guys will have to move quickly, and get Raven out of there. Is there a way that you can fly?”
“I know a way,” Ali said as she looked over at a hardware store. “We just need to do a little shopping.” The store was closed, but Matthias had a feeling that he knew where this was going. He had seen witches fly on brooms before.
Powerful older witches didn’t need props. The younger a witch was, the more her power relied on outside elements. Raven’s grandmother could just turn herself into a bird, but that was a very rare power amongst witches.
“We’ll meet you at the castle,” Carrie said as she followed Ali to the store.
“No, you guys are heading for the dungeons,” Matthias said as he stayed right with the witches. They had started into a power walk as soon as they saw the store. “I am walking in the front door. I’m going to draw all of the attention to me, and you guys are going to fly Raven out of this town and away from these guys. Get to the castl
e as fast as you can. I am not going to see you again. Tell Raven that I’m sorry.”
Matthias disappeared from the witches’ sight. He was moving as fast as he could. Not that they were going to try and talk him out of it, but Matthias needed to get moving. To give the witches more time to find Raven, he needed to be at his strongest when he reached the castle. The longer the night wore on, the less powerful he became.
Matthias arrived at the front gate and waited for only a minute. There were wolves walking around the turrets and along the walls. They were all looking for the vampire. Matthias turned back to see two dark figures flying from the town and heading toward the castle. “This is it!”
“Yes, it is,” Roman’s voice came from the bushes. Matthias turned too late and the fist that greeted him sent him reeling and rolling out into the open. The grounds around the castle were already drawing his power away from him. Matthias got back to his feet as quickly as he could. He glared at Roman.
“Huuuggh!” Matthias felt all the air forced out of his body. The blow came from behind. It was hard to tell who hit him. He was surrounded. He fought to get his breath back, and charged through one of the wolves to get out in the open.
“What’s the plan?” Roman teased. “You leave, she still dies.”
“I’m not leaving,” Matthias assured the young wolf. “Not without Raven.”
Matthias charged at another wolf and threw him to the ground. He was doing okay as long as he could deal with one wolf at a time. They were starting to move closer together. Matthias tried to focus on the stragglers as much as possible. They were quickly closing the gap, and he was running out of wolves he could fight on their own.
“Don’t let him get around you,” Roman commanded. “Hold onto the bastard!”
