"Dum inter homines sumus, colamus humanitatem. As long as we are among humans, let us be humane."

Seneca

Book I

Emma

The Beginning

1:53 PM, Wednesday, October the fifth.

Seven minutes 'til the animals were let out.

Donald Hanson sat in his expensive high-backed leather chair. He swiveled around a few times, then sharpened his pencils, and did other things that were all signs of restlessness.

He knew he had needed a break; too much work was coloring his hair gray more than he would like. But this, sitting idle for six hours was painful.

Hanson-Lane High School had been in his family for generations. His father had been the principal, his father's father had been principal, and so on. His great great grandfather, Daniel Hanson had started the school with a colleague, straight out of college. Rebecca Lane had died of cholera the morning of the opening. He thought that the name should be changed, but it was tradition to honor the co-founder. Each principal had the opportunity to change the name, but never did, because every principal since had been a Hanson.

Principal Hanson looked down at his lunch. A tofu burger, plain yogurt, and that horrible tasting juice that they tried to pass off as apple…

"Diet" was the one word he had dreaded ever since marrying his wife. He knew the day would come. He huffed.

I hate my life..., he thought.

He was sitting there thinking about ways to make his feisty wife see the light (of fast food goodness) when, the intercom came to life.

"Sir?" The usual fireworks in her young voice weren't there

He depressed the button. "Yes Jennifer?" Because of her unusual depressed voice, he took on his unusual eager voice.

"You have visitors."

He sighed and leaned back. "Jennifer, I thought I told you that I wasn't receiving visitors at all today."

"Yes sir, but they keep insisting that it's urgent. They said you'd understand…"

"I never set up any meetings for today," he checked his schedule, "send them away."

"Y-yes sir…"

He sighed again, rubbing his face. He couldn't honestly say that he was displeased of the interruption to his perfect day.

He sighed and put his arm over his face. It was o--

"One of those days?" The voice that finished his thought had an extreme sense of calm that he didn't think anyone could achieve. It made him think of a loving mother hen.

Startled, he looked up. When did they come in?

Definitely not a mother hen.

Six people stood in the room. The one who had spoken was closest to him. Her blonde hair was more golden, like maidens in the old stories, than true blonde. Her pale skin almost shined, and her brown eyes stared back at him. His mouth was hanging open, to say she was exquisitely beautiful would be an understatement. In fact all the people in the room, excluding himself, were beautiful, and not to mention weird.

They stood in couples. To his right was a tall man, with short light brown hair, and vivid green eyes. His skin was just a bit darker than the others, like a tan. His companion's hair was, however, black but it was long and wavy. She, on the other hand, had vivid blue eyes.

The pair to his left was comprised of a man with medium length blonde hair, that hung past his ears. He had normal blue eyes. He was shorter than the other two men, but tall nonetheless. The woman or rather young adult, she looked very young, had curly dark brown hair. Herr eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. She also had papery pale skin, but there was a distinct olive color to it. Perhaps she was Italian.

The most startling person in the room, stood just beside the woman who had spoken, who was standing right in front of the principal's desk. The man was the tallest of the three, easily 6'3". His long, thin, silvery, pure white hair hung loose, it came almost to his elbows. His skin was pale and ashy. He had brown eyes as well.

He stared straight at the principal, who realized just how big the world really was by that gaze.

Principal Hanson, not one to be scared easily, wiped the sweat from his forehead, gulped, and sat up. He folded his clammy hands on his desk. The corners of the blonde haired man's mouth turned up in a slight smile.

The middle aged principal looked at them all.

"…Oh for god's sake, get it over with."

They did.

The blonde man's companion removed her glasses, revealing gleaming red eyes. The two in front of his desk blinked. He thought they were crying, but it was actually their contacts dissolving. Slowly he could see their true eye color. The woman also had red eyes. But the man, his eyes were the most extraordinary things the principal had ever seen. At first glance, they might look violet, or red, but really they were magenta. A vivid electric magenta, mixed with a hint of red.

"Dr. Hanson." The white haired man's voice surprised him, in being quieter, even than the woman's. "I believe you called."

Dr. Hanson had believed many things.

He thought back to that night. It was dark, an empty street, a payphone, and him. He had believed the voice on the other side was a light hearted war veteran who was serious about his work. He had believed that they wouldn't be prompt. He had believed that they would be late, as all his other appointments were. He had believed that they would be normal, like Home Land Security, the Marines, or the freaking Men in Black. But not this.

"You said 1:54," the man said. Dr. Hanson looked at the digital clock sitting on the corner of his desk. 1:54.

Aunt Helen had said that she could get him help. He had told her his problem at school. She said she could get him help. He should have known…

"Ah. Yes." He got up and went to shake the man's hand. He wasn't going to look like a sissy. He offered his hand.

The white haired man hesitated. Dr. Hanson raised an eyebrow, secretly triumphant at winning this test of manhood. The man sighed, and took his hand. Dr. Hanson flinched. Ice cold. Even as he looked, Dr. Hanson's hand started to lose color, and turn blue with numbness. Shivering, he withdrew.

"I am Don Han—oh, but you already knew that."

"Yes we did." the blonde man said, with a smirk.

His companion slapped him on the chest and he faked a look of pain. Then she turned to the principal, and smiled. She looked the most normal of the lot. Not just physical features, just the subconscious feel you got when you saw her made you think that she was okay. "Don't mind Leander, he's just cranky. He had to eat a poor copy off of Cap'n Crunch this morning." She laughed.

Leander rolled his eyes, but Dr. Hanson welcomed this new sense of friendliness. He smiled back.

The white haired one spoke up, he gestured to the brown haired man and the woman beside him. "That is Sebastian and Emily." Sebastian shook his hand, and gave a small smile, but Emily couldn't even make that much. She just nodded.

Then the white haired man, obviously the leader--Dr. Hanson had gathered that much at least—turned in Leander's direction. "You've already been introduced to Leander," who just looked at the principal evenly, "and that is Samantha." She smiled and took the hand. She squeezed before she let go, telling him everything was okay.

Then the leader gestured to the angelic woman beside him. "This is my wife Shiloh." She shook his hand and smiled as well. "And I am Hadrian." He started to smile, but spotted the look of growing fear on the principal's face and stopped.

Dr. Hanson reseated himself, and gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. "Please."

Sebastian stayed by Emily's side, and held her hand; she still wore that pained look. Shiloh wrapped an arm around Hadrian's waist, and remained standing. Only Leander came up, to Dr. Hanson's loathing, sat down, and propped his feet up on the desk. The principal decided to see if some of his authority would work.

"Kindly remove your feet from my face."

"Oopsies, sorry pops." He removed them. Samantha wore an annoyed look. She yanked Leander up from the chair and led him outside.

There were a few awkward moments of silence between the remaining five people in the room, until the argument outside ended.

The door opened and Samantha came back in, leading a depressed Leander. He put his hands in his pockets and mumbled. "Sorry."

Dr. Hanson resisted the urge to rub it in, "Thank you." He leaned forward, and turned to address everyone. "Now, there have been some disappearances around my school. And by some, I mean one. When something goes missing twice may be forgivable, but not when it's someone. One of my freshman disappeared of the grounds a month ago. Now, I have done all I can to keep the parents, their lawyers, and the faculty at bay. I've assured them that there won't be any more disappearances. Despite that, attendance is low anyway. It seems that parents aren't taking chances, and are pulling their kids anyway. I can't have that. If one more goes missing, I'm finished."

Sebastian spoke for the first time. "What do you want us to do?"

"I want you to guard the campus on school hours. The woods around the campus are thick and dense enough for you to stand there without scaring any of the students. I don't want them to know I've employed vampires to secure the school. If any of them told parents, well I could kiss retirement goodbye. Not because they would be afraid of their kids coming home with bite marks, and looking a little pale, of course. But, you can imagine…I'd be shipped off to the farm.

"What makes you think we can do anything about disappearing kiddies?" Leander said, inspecting his nails.

"When the first kid was abducted, there were…strange circumstances."

"Oh goodie, I love clues." Leander mocked.

"Hush!" Hadrian said, raising his voice. Needless to say he hushed.

"No clues, try blood, a trail of blood leading out of the campus, and through the trees."

"That doesn't seem unusual in abductions, albeit violent ones, but still. A trail of blood doesn't really say much." Samantha finished, and began to twirl a loose strand of hair.

"So the fact that there were at least 10 liters of the stuff mucking up the grass doesn't," he made air quotes, "'say much?'" A smug grin slipped onto his face.

Samantha's jaw dropped and even Leander looked surprised.

Sebastian looked thoughtful. "The human body only contains about 5.6 liters of blood. And that's a fully grown adult; a freshman would have probably at least 5 liters."

"Yes," Dr. Hanson said, "At first Crime Scene thought it was from two victims. But the blood trail could only have been made by one person bleeding, besides the fact that the same exact DNA was found in all the blood. Which means…" he trailed off, expecting someone to finish.

Hadrian did. "It wasn't from the child."

"Exactly my point, so, okay, maybe if there was less blood it might have been a human. But from that amount…there's just no way. No human has that much blood."

"We will investigate," Hadrian said.

"Good." Dr. Hanson sat back and crossed his arms.

"We'll be here tomorrow. 8 AM."

He nodded.

They filed out. But Hadrian stopped.

"Oh and Dr. Hanson…" The tall vampire turned to stare at him.

"Perhaps it's best you don't venture out into the woods. Nature walks wouldn't be healthy under these circumstances."

Dr. Hanson's eyes widened. "You've been watching me?!"

"Pleasant evening," he chided, then closed the door behind him.

Doctor Donald Hanson stared at the exact place the door for the remainder for the last three minutes of the day.

When this was over, he was definitely going send in his resignation--he looked at his cold lunch as the bell rang, and sounds of havoc outside floated in--and have him a nice hot cheeseburger on the way home.