HURRAH! This is my very first fan fiction for my favorite book series of all time! Enjoy! And please review :)
Summary:When Mr. Tiny unleashes a dark mystical creature, Darren and Steve are forced to set aside their differences and work together to stop it from leading both clans to their dooms. But what has this creature got to say to them?
The War of the Scars is now coming to an end. Though with perhaps only a few minutes left into the battle, the results are still uncertain as ever. Steve Leonard stood towering over Darren Shan, who was currently checking on his heavily wounded friend Vancha March. Darren's eyes flashed with an emotion a mixture of anger and fear, anger because of the heavy sword that was now pierced through Vancha's chest, and fear of future events to be unfolded when he realized that he was all on his own now. No Vancha, no Harkat, no Mr. Crepsley, no anyone. Just him, the disgruntled Gannen Harst, and his lord Steve. As uncertain as the results may be, Darren will have to face all of it all on his own. The Purge was not helping him at the least.
"Do it, Steve! Kill the boy!" Gannen exclaimed, arms flailing in anticipation and confusion of why Steve was still standing there with the ever-present smirk on his face.
"Now, now, Gannen," he chanted, his voice laced with so many unpleasantries that Darren had no words for, "let's not be too rash. After all, Darren is still my friend."
"I am not your friend!" Darren spat at him with all his might as a different kind of anger flared up in him. This anger was not anger with Steve nor with anyone else, but it was anger with himself. He knew he shouldn't have befriended Steve. He knew he was always up to no good and now look where that got him, almost two decades later.
"Shut up, you useless mongrel!" he spat back, the mischief in his eyes now replaced with fury. They glared at each other for a few more seconds, but were interrupted by a sudden brush of cold wind. Normally, they would have mistaken this for any other kind of wind, but this wind was colder than any kind of cold wind they'd ever felt before. This cold wind brought stings to their noses in an instant. It pierced their rough skin. It dried out their eyeballs. And all Darren could recall after that was a huge BANG! ...and then silence.
Darren felt his headache badly (even more so with his Purge), groaned, then sat up. He opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. The place was like nothing he'd ever seen before. The cold wind long gone, he stood up and stared up the night sky. It was black, not the dark blue night sky he normally saw, but pitch black with no stars. Heavy snow seemed to fall from it, but the ground remained warm and dry, and so did Darren. He tried to reach up to touch some of the snow, but it was as if he were a ghost. His hand had swung right through the white fluff, not disturbing it in any way. In his broken state, he turned his head to see Steve Leonard looking at him with the most odd expression he'd seen him wear.
Over the course of their ex-friendship, Darren and Steve had learned what seemed to be telepathy. They could look at each other's eyes and instantly knew what they were trying to say. When normally, Darren would have thought the moment to be perfect to kill Steve, he looked in his eyes that probably mirrored his own. Right now, they were saying 'Where are we?' and Darren shrugged in reply.
Footsteps were heard, even though neither of them moved. They both had their ears perked up in anticipation and curiosity of the whole scene. The footsteps were getting nearer until they could see what it was. And there, standing about fifteen away from them, was what looked like a woman wearing a long, white dress. She was tall, about seven feet, and was devastatingly beautiful with her sandy brown-colored hair that went down to her waist and fresh, thin, pink lips. But it was her eyes that were the most captivating. They were white, almost transparent, than you can see your reflection in them in Technicolor. She stared down at the two with the most solemn expression on her face.
"Boys," she said suddenly. And the moment she opened her mouth, the icy cold wind came back, nearly knocking the two boys out of balance. They only nodded in reply.
"I am afraid I must interrupt your fighting for a while and let me introduce myself," she continued to speak. The two had walked backwards, away from her, to keep from getting hit by the cold wind that seemed to be her breath.
"Who are you?" Steve suddenly retorted, putting on a brave facade, "What—what are you? The War of the Scars would've come to an end if you hadn't butt—"
"SILENCE!" her lips said softly, yet the loud voice and knocking wind had said otherwise, "Let me speak," she said, much softer now.
Darren shot Steve a worried glance, only to find that Steve was doing the same thing to him. This creature—whatever she was—was like nothing they had ever seen before. They both had faced a swarm of vampires, vampaneze, vampets, and vampirites alike, and also circus freaks with incredible powers, but the aura they received from this creature told them that they should be scared.
"I am Nathalia," the way she had said her name, it was when the cold wind from her breath was the sweetest and most calm, which made the boys want her to say her name more, "and I am a vampire, just like you,"
"You're a vampire?" Darren asked incredulously, "But you're—you're... elegant and... and clean! And how come I never saw you in Vampire Mountain?"
"SHUSH!" and thus, the cold wind was back, "Let me speak, you foul scum! I am a different kind of vampire. I am a soul vampire. Instead of blood, we suck souls. The reason why you'd never seen me is because I live in this world-a different one from yours. There used to be a lot of my kind... until Mr. Tiny wiped us out and somehow, I managed to survive. You may speak now," she finished with a shrill voice.
Darren tried to speak, but Steve beat him to it. "Wait, if you say Mr. Tiny wiped you out... did he also plan a prophecy to your clan like with us?"
Nathalia nodded. "We had lost. But I survived. However, Mr. Tiny promised me that I would soon die a slow and painful death before he went away. And that was the last time I'd seen him."
"Then," Darren now spoke, "why are we here? What could be so important that Mr. Tiny allowed this to interrupt the War of the Scars?"
Nathalia now smiled sinisterly, giving Darren and Steve a few chills. "Well, I don't know either. But I am terribly hungry," she looked at them with fierce eyes and raised her hands.
Darren and Steve shared an alarmed look and managed to convey their messages in the brief second that their eyes met. Nathalia was going to suck their souls. And that can mean dire consequences to both vampires and vampaneze if ever the wrong person killed either of them. Of course Nathalia couldn't have been informed of this.
Trusting their instincts, they both drew their knives and sword crouched into hunting position as Nathalia tried to grab them into her arms. They ran away from her, but she easily caught up with them with her long legs. Darren felt his headache worsen, but chose to ignore it as he half-blindedly stabbed the menacing creature in the waist with his knife. She screamed in agony, and a cold tornado swept over them and the two were flung to the other side of the road.
Nathalia clutched her wounded waist with a hand as she ran over to the two with a furious look in her eyes.
"Steve! We can't let that monster kill us!" Darren screamed through the strong gusts of cold wind that felt as if they were in the middle of the blizzard, "We have to go back to Mr. Tiny!"
Steve nodded urgently. "I have a plan! But it's gonna take both of us!"
"What other choice do we have? Let's not be enemies for this time,"
"Yeah, like the good old days," fear etched on his face as Nathalia went nearer to them.
They both stood up from the ground and faced her. "Just follow my lead!" Steve chanted and leaped up high to hang on to Nathalia's hair. Another scream of agony was elicited through her, but Steve had managed to climb up and clutch her throat in between his hands to stop her from releasing deadly gusts of wind.
"NOW!" he yelled and Darren ran straight to Nathalia and pierced his knife through her stomach. The screams were stuck in her throat as her face went blue from lack of air, sleek red blood now pouring out of her open stomach. Steve pulled her to the ground and pointed his knife to the tip of her nose, causing her to get cross-eyed staring at it. And then Steve raised the knife a little higher, pointed it to her eye and gauged it out of the socket. He did the same with the other one. Before she could scream again, Darren stabbed her heart with his knife and her body went limp and motionless on the hard ground.
A sigh of relief escaped from both their throats as they looked at each other and smiled.
"I guess we still make a pretty good team, huh Leopard?" Darren told him. Steve let out a little laugh.
"Yeah, we still do. Too bad we have to murder each other," Steve said, earning another laugh from both of them.
"Listen, when we get back there, we resume to our barbaric intellects and finish the War of the Scars once and for all. But for now, let's try to rest,"
"Yes, let's," Steve said softly and no more words were uttered.
A few minutes later, another burst of cold wind swept through them and for a second they were worried that Nathalia was back, but they then began to understand that it was Mr. Tiny taking them back to Earth, to resume the battle for honor, to get back to where they were born, and to meet their doom once and for all. But now, the wind didn't knock them up. And as they floated through mid air, they shared a brief glance, all of their true emotions were held in it, and they reached out their right hands for them to shake. Genuine smiles formed on their faces and their eyes showed much softer emotions.
"Steve," Darren said, "whatever happens in there, I want you to know that I'm glad all this soul vampire crap happened,"
"Me too, Darren, me too," he replied.
And as soon as he finished that sentence, they felt the familiar scene around them. They were once again back on Earth, back where they both were born, and back where they had to kill each other.
"You'll pay for betraying me, Darren! You and your friend Creepy Crepsley!" Steve said, drawing his knife. Darren drew his own knife and got back in the mood. Both their faces seemingly devastated at the thought of their brief reunion ending so soon, but the obvious facts crept back to them and they both instantly knew what to do and how to do it. And the killing went on.
Little did they know, Mr. Desmond Tiny has a soft side. Darren and Steve were his sons and he admitted that it wasn't fair to let them live the rest of their lives in vengeance. So he had set up the whole thing to make sure that they have a brief moment of teamwork to reunite them before their lives ended.
And also, it was a foolproof way of driving the soul vampires into complete extinction. What? They were rude and worthless anyways!
Thank you for reading and I hope you'll tell me what you think in a review! :D