by Avin Vang
“What?”
“I can’t take that look right now,” Ali muttered as she rolled over on the bed and covered her head.
“Well, I’m not going to a strange club when there’s been a vampire murdered just outside of town,” Carrie said as she sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why can’t you just watch a movie with me? Or we could play card games, right? That could be cool.”
“Yeah, cards…okay,” Ali’s voice was muffled by the pillow over her head. Carrie patted Ali’s leg and left to take her shower.
“We’re going to have a blast!” Carrie shouted through the bathroom door.
The water started and Ali rolled over to look at the clock. It was midnight, and she didn’t need to go out. “I will be fine, a few hands of cards and then bed,” Ali told the clock. She grabbed the large, awkward remote for the TV. She was about to turn on the older model electronic when Ali heard moaning coming through the walls.
“Matthias!” Raven and Matthias were in the other room, but the walls were very thin. Ali turned on the TV and turned the volume to ‘max.’ There was nothing on in English. All of the stations were playing things in Romanian. It made sense, they were in Romania after all. It didn’t help Ali distract herself from the party and the fact that she wanted to get out to the club.
Ali flipped through channel after channel, until a news item caught her attention. “That’s our fire,” Ali laughed to herself as she watched the fire burning by the side of the mountain road. They were off to a great start. She just wished Helga had been more transparent about their mission here in Sinaia. Ali truly felt lost here.
“Your turn!” Carrie shouted as she rushed to shut off the TV. “Why was that up so loud? Oh, God,” Carrie said as the sounds from the other room started to filter through. “Okay,” Carrie grumbled as she turned the TV back on.
Ali got into the shower. The pressure left a lot to be desired, but it felt so good to be under the hot water. She had been waiting for it all day, and there it was finally flowing down her body. She felt clean for the first time all day, and it felt good. The hot water was cooling off fast, and Ali knew that she had to be quick. “Please, let the hot water hold!” she begged the shower head.
Ali made it out of the shower as the final traces of heat left the shower’s flow. She got dressed and headed back out into the very beige room. “Are you ready to play?” Ali said as she entered the room, but there was no response.
Carrie was sleeping hard. Her mouth wide open, Carrie was snoring loudly. It was just barely audible over the blaring TV, but Ali knew that she would hear nothing but snoring if she turned the TV down. The neighbors were still likely going at it anyway. There was no way that Ali was getting to sleep.
Ali headed out the door, not even worrying about a costume. She was ready to have fun and needed a distraction from the trip, from the judgey friends, and from everything. “I don’t have to drink,” Ali said to herself as she walked down the street. The motel manager had given her the directions and it was less than a ten-minute walk.
“Where are you headed?”
“Good fucking lord!” Ali screamed as she jumped back, and saw that it was Anatolie standing beside her. She slapped him hard on the shoulder and then punched him in the gut. It hurt, but it made her feel better for a second. “Why would you do that? You’re such a creep!”
“Sorry, I just wanted to know what you had planned for the evening,” Anatolie seemed taken aback by the reaction from Ali, but she was not about to apologize for reacting violently to a creepy approach. There was just something about the guy that rubbed her the wrong way.
Anatolie was tall, dark, and handsome, but he had this attitude about him that was off-putting. Ali didn’t know what it was that bothered her so much. Was it the way he casually dismissed her after tossing a coffee on her, or maybe it was the way he ignored her in the car? She just had a very strong reaction to almost everything that he did.
“I am heading to a club—“
“The shed?” Anatolie snapped. “You’re headed to a tin shed in the middle of a small town infested by vampires?”
“Is that a problem?”
“If you don’t want to be someone’s supper, it really is,” the vampire growled in frustration. “Aren’t you diurnal? Go to sleep.”
“I don’t really sleep that much anyway, but I certainly don’t have a bed time, okay Daddy.” Ali started to walk away and then she spun around quickly. “Or is it a curfew? Do you think you’re in charge of this little mission? I can guarantee you that you’re not.”
“I didn’t say anything like that,” Anatolie looked up to the sky as he finished his thought. He turned back to Ali, brooding over her lack of obedience. “I will take you to the…‘club,’ and I will show you how crazy it is to be out this late. Then will you come back to the motel with me?”
“I’ll agree to anything right now, if it means that you’ll shut up.” Ali walked on, and she smiled as she heard Anatolie cursing in Romanian.
“You realize that I have my wand on me, right?” Ali said. She was looking straight ahead. She didn’t even turn to the vampire as he came up alongside her. “No vampire is going to hurt me with this in my pocket…uh…where did it go?”
“You mean this?” Anatolie held up the wand for Ali to see.
Ali growled and swung her fist wildly as she went for the wand. Anatolie pulled the wand away and caught Ali in his arms. She was trying to get away, but he had her pinned. “Give it back!” Ali struggled to get free for another second, and then she let her arms and legs go limp. “I give up.”
“I should just take you back to the motel like this,” Anatolie said as he looked back at the short distance it would take to get to the motel. “It would be a lot easier for me.”
“And then I would get out and go later,” Ali pouted. It was hard to sound like a fully developed adult when someone was carrying you like a fussy toddler. “Just take me to the shed, and let me see it for myself.”
“Fine, but then we head back to the room,” Anatolie used his firmest voice, and Ali agreed to the terms. She wasn’t going to do it, but she needed Anatolie to take her there, and once they were there, she would think of a reason to stay. “Good, I appreciate you seeing this my way.”
They got to the shed, and Ali was surprised to see that it was a tin shed. The music had seemed very loud until the club came into view, and then it made perfect sense. The thin walls let all of the sound through. It was a theme that had been haunting Ali all night.
“It seems fine,” Ali sighed as they got into the club. “There’s music playing and people are dancing. What is so wrong about this place?”
“That.”
Ali followed Anatolie’s finger as he pointed over to a huge group of vampires on the dance floor. They were dancing and pretending to drink, but they were definitely hunting. Ali had watched millions of nature documentaries, and she knew the behaviors they were exhibiting.
“What are they going to do with them?” Ali asked as she watched a woman being led off the dance floor and out a back door. “She looks really drunk.”
“She’s been hypnotized,” Anatolie explained. “She doesn’t know what’s going on, and she won’t remember a thing.”
“That’s nice, I guess,” Ali shrugged as she watched the girl disappear behind the tin door. They were headed outside. Ali thought that was a bad plan, but then again if the girl wasn’t going to scream then the outside offered many secluded places to feed.
“In case you need it.” Ali felt Anatolie slide her wand back into her back pocket. “Be a little quicker with it next time.”
“Thanks,” Ali rolled her eyes as she started heading further into the club.
“Where are you going?” Anatolie grabbed her arm and stopped Ali dead in her tracks. “We need to leave. That girl won’t feel any pain, but she may not live through the night. Controlling hunger is a dangerous game. You have to truly care about the life to stop the thirst from taking over.”
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“I want to hit the bar,” Ali said and then she heard it. It was Carrie’s voice. It was clear as day, and twice as judgey as the real Carrie had sounded. “I can’t, can I? No I can’t,” Ali answered her own question and then, as Anatolie tried to process the statement, she moved out to the dance floor.
“What are you doing?” Anatolie took Ali by the arms, and tried to lead her off the floor, but she screamed and everyone looked.
“Dance with me,” Ali teased as she started to shake and move. As soon as Anatolie let her go, he moved off the dance floor. Ali was disappointed that she didn’t get to see the man dance. The other vampires all seemed to dance. There was something about the way they moved.
Ali decided it would be for the best if she took precautions. She touched her wand, leaving it in the pocket, and put a protection spell on herself. She wanted to be ready in case the vampires got her wand. This way they wouldn’t be able to hypnotize her. She could feel the spell work right away. It was as if someone had flipped a switch and suddenly the vampires couldn’t dance.
Their movements had looked smooth and graceful, and yet it was all magic. Their hypnotization powers were making it seem as though they were good dancers. The dancing had seemed like a siren’s call only a moment before.
Ali started to laugh as one made his way over to her. “How are you doing tonight?” The vampire was thrusting his hips at Ali, but he was well off the beat. He didn’t seem to notice, smiling and pointing at Ali. “I want to dance with you, do you want to dance outside?”
The vampire stared at Ali. She could feel a slight tingling in her ears, and then she turned away, and she could feel him invading her mind from behind. He was trying to search for information, but she wasn’t giving him anything.
“Who…what are you?” The vampire sounded shocked and upset. He backed away, and his unrhythmic movements lost any sense of timing. It was like he was fighting to keep his balance more than dancing. “Why?” That was the last thing he said as he went back to his friends.
Ali was feeling pretty good about herself as she watched the vampires talk about her. They all looked very upset, but she felt protected. She couldn’t be hypnotized, and therefore she couldn’t be hurt. The vampires would move on to an easier target. Ali was so sure about this that she turned her back on the vampires and just kept dancing.
A girl from the village was dancing next to Ali. They danced and swayed to the beat of the song. Ali was impressed by the girl’s moves and they moved closer together. The girl tapped her friends on the shoulder and they all moved together around Ali.
This was something that Ali missed about being home. Carrie was her best friend. They shared secrets, and they talked about their futures. Carrie and Ali were the only ones until very recently who knew about witchcraft. Raven had just discovered her powers when she met Matthias.
Carrie was not one of the friends that Ali took when she went out clubbing. Carrie wasn’t a dancer, or a partier, or someone who went out at night really. Carrie was born 80 years old, and that’s where she stayed. She had hard candies in her purse. Ali missed her clubbing friends, and as the women danced around her she realized just how much she missed those friends.
“We need to go now,” Anatolie was grabbing her arm and pulling Ali out of the circle.
“Why are you doing this?” Ali yelled. “I’m going to scream!” Ali realized she was already screaming when the young vampire let go and disappeared. She looked around to see that there were about a thousand eyes on her. Ali waved to the crowd, and that’s when she noticed the vampires were moving on her.
The girls dancing around her had all moved on, and the crowded dance floor was dispersing as the vampires closed in. Ali hadn’t really noticed. The music was pumping and she was feeling the groove. Ali had always danced more with her heart than any other part of her body. When she was feeling the song, the rest of the world seemed to disappear.
“We need to go,” Anatolie’s hand clamped down on Ali’s shoulder, jolting her out of her dance trance. She opened her eyes and spun on the vampire with rage in her eyes. “There’s no time for this!” Anatolie didn’t care that she was upset. They needed to leave.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Ali yelled.
“You need to—“
“You heard her, pal,” a stocky, bald man in a flowery, button-up shirt barked at Anatolie. The younger vampire knew that he was way outnumbered and there was nothing he could do to stop these guys.
Ali realized too late that Anatolie was trying to help her. “Hi,” Ali waved as the man moved in closer. Ali went to grab for Anatolie’s hand, but he had walked off. Ali was a bit hurt, but really she understood why he did it. This was her fault and she deserved to be abandoned. Ali put her hand on her wand, but she didn’t have enough space to use her wand right there.
“I want you to come with me,” the stocky man said. He was staring into Ali’s eyes, and she realized that he was trying to hypnotize her. She was supposed to be hypnotized.
“Oh, yes, I will go with you,” Ali was doing a terrible acting job, but the man kept staring. He wasn’t giving up until Ali broke. Ali dropped her head and tried again. Instead of speaking, she just looked up with a blank expression on her face.
“You see, I told you people cannot resist it,” the stocky man laughed as he took his prize out into the parking lot and started leading her to a woodlot at the back of the lot. The trees were short and scrubby-looking, but they provided a lot of cover.
Ali wanted to grab her wand, but there were three vampires following behind them. They were keeping an eye on the two of them. Ali figured she could handle either the stocky man, or his three friends, but not both.
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About the Author
Avin Vang was born and raised in California, United States, with her big brother and grandmother and their dog. She has studied English Literature in college and after a short period of time she was teaching at school as a philologist, she has moved her career to what she always loved: becoming an author!
Her greatest interest lies in the era of Paranormal and Gothic. Avin shares her love and knowledge of these periods with many readers in her newsletter.
In addition to this she has also written her first paranormal novel, The Prophecy, which is available for free on her website.
Avin is a lover of romance, fantasy, action and mystery infused stories with twists you don’t see coming!
When she has time to herself, Avin enjoys going to the cinema, exercising and watching movies about Paranormal and Gothic romance.
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