Welcome to BAD BLOOD! ^_^ I hope you like it. It's a re-write of an old vampire story I wrote a year ago, and decided that I might try to ressurect it. Well, I'm not going to waste time here. Enjoy!

"There is a smile of love,

And there is a smile of deceit

And there is a smile of smiles

In which these two smiles meet" –William Blake

Prologue

"Tell me where it is."

He muttered. She tightly closed her eyes.

He shook her harder

"If you don't tell me, I'm gonna kill you."

Mom.

She started crying, but that only made him tighten his grip on her throat. She coughed and gagged… and he smiled.

It was a quarter past three in the morning. I shouldn't even have been there. I was supposed to be curled up in my bed asleep like good girls do on school nights. But instead I sat on my knees in front of my parents' bedroom door, peeking in through a crack in the door. I was surprised that they didn't see me. With my hair as white as it is, you'd think the light would've caught their attention. But somehow, it didn't.

I looked over at my father and something leaped inside me.

He was deathly pale, and his eyes were nearly bulging out of his head as he looked upon my mother with horror streaming through the natural creases in his face. He was slumped over against the bed, struggling through heavy, shallow breaths.

I felt my eyes sting with tears at the sight of him.

"Are you going to tell me or not?"

Even with tears in her eyes and her smooth, milky face turned pink and scrunched up, she shook her head.

The man threw my mother down hard and she hit the ground with a loud thump. She howled in pain as he stepped over her and to my father, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. The two other men in the room stepped around him to my mother and picked her up, and I knew she wouldn't get away.

"Are you going to tell me where it is, Arthur?" Asked the man holding my father up.

My father looked the man straight in the eye and shook his head.

The man growled, flashing a pair of sharpened, pearly-white teeth and spat onto the floor.

"Tell me where it is or I'll destroy your wife's pretty little face!"

I looked over at my mother, who was shaking her head at my father. He was looking at her too, and in that brief moment, he turned back to the man holding him up and shook his head. He cursed very loudly and said that he'd never tell. But the thing that really set the man off was when my father spat a big glob of blood into his eye.

The man brought a hand up and wiped away the goo, then did something I hardly expected.

He opened his mouth and licked it right off his fingers.

I was dumbstruck. I'd never seen anybody do such a thing, and it made my stomach turn. There had been a moment when my mind fumbled around the idea of running and calling the police. I could see the phone in my mind, sitting on the end table beside the stairs next to the vase of orchids that my mother had picked from the garden a few days before.

The man tore into my father's neck, using his teeth to dig through his jugular and spray blood all around the room like some sort of macabre fountain. Mother screamed— a high, stabbing scream that made my blood run cold. I heard the two other men howl in laughter, and my father cry out in pain— and then, he just stopped.

Licking his lips, the man dropped my father to the floor and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Smearing the blood across his face.

To the other men, he said, "Do what you want with the woman. Kill her, rape her, I don't care."

One of the henchmen— who had a sandy kind of blond tone to his hair— had a suggestion. "Let's rape her! You know how I love mortal women." He brought his tongue to her throat and licked her, making her crane her neck and whimper. But the other henchman— whose hair was so dark that it would've blended in with the shadows on the wall, had it not been for the overturned lamp still glowing— had other ideas.

"Dumbass! We don't have time to rape and eat her! Hunters are probably on their way right now!"

"He's right," Said the man who still had my father's blood on his face. "Just kill her and get it over with. We'll find you a whore later."

While the blond henchman looked disappointed, he quickly regained himself when he saw the dark-haired henchman bite down on one of my mother's breasts and come back with a big piece of flesh in his mouth.

She screamed and thrashed around as much as she could— but it was useless. The minute that the blond henchman tore into her neck and came out with blood streaking down his face and a big chunk of larynx between his big, sharpened teeth, it was all over.

I was gasping for air. Horrified at the scene before me. I knew I was breathing too loud, I knew it, but I couldn't bring myself to stop. They heard me; I knew they did, because they looked toward the door—

A dark haired man with a cigarette poking out from between his teeth came crashing in through the window and stabbed the black haired henchman in the back with a sharpened knife, making him fall to his knees and burst into a pile of ash before he even knew what was going on. This caught the attention of the others in the room, who stepped away.

In one swift motion, the man pushed back one side of his trench coat and pulled out a Colt Python revolver with a barrel modified to look like a white cross. It even had two appendages on the top and bottom of the barren up near the hammer that were smooth and curved near the top. I didn't know much about guns back then, so all I thought was that it looked neat.

Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah!

The sound of the bullets exploding from the gun made me jump and cover my eyes.

Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah!

"You bastard!" said one of the men. I wasn't sure which exactly.

Every time I heard the cross-shaped gun fire off another round, I would feel the sharp pierce of terror in my chest—as if I was the one being shot— and I would absent-mindedly squeak from surprise. I wanted to look, but something about the gunshots kept my hands over my eyes.

But then— nothing.

I moved my hands out of the way and opened my eyes. The man with the cross-shaped gun was the only one left, and he stood in the middle of three piles of ash. I brought my eyes to his face, and saw that he, too, was looking me right in the eyes.

I felt something rough and warm grab my wrist and pull me into the dark hallway.

There was no time to waste in a terrified daze. I hurried to pick myself up. The moment I turned myself around, I knew who was holding my wrist.

Geoffrey, my family's butler.

He pulled me through the dark until we reached the library, where bright beams of light were shining through the tall neo-gothic windows. He opened one of the secret doors behind a bookcase, opening up an entrance to a labyrinth. It wasn't deep, but it was safe. I could hear Klaus's loud, echoing cry from somewhere in the dark.

Geoffrey let go of my wrist and I pushed my back against the cold stone wall, where the rough gravel of the bricks brushed against me as I let myself fall into a sitting position on the ground.

My brother didn't cry much longer, and when he stopped, Geoffrey put him back in his baby seat so he could get some sleep. At the same time, he tried to convince me to get some sleep, but I refused.

After a while I tried to forget about it, it was hard to sort out emotions when the death scene of your parents plays in front of your mind, in a way that nearly made me cry.

Hours went by, but it felt like days. We stayed below in the labyrinth, constricted by the tight darkness. I don't think I ever fell asleep that night, and if I did I don't remember. I do, however, remember Geoffrey putting his hand on my shoulder.

"I'm going to see if the monsters are gone. Watch your brother, Lady Alice." He said, and I could hear his footsteps walking away shortly after.

I could hear Klaus's soft breathing in the dark. He was obviously fast asleep in his seat, oblivious to his surroundings. If Geoffrey did come back and we lived, Klaus would grow up never knowing our parents. I, at least, would have their memory. He would have nothing.

Before too much longer, Geoffrey came back and told us it was alright to come out. He picked Klaus' baby seat up by the handle and I followed behind as he took us back up to the library. The way the room was lit up by the bright morning sun, you'd think nothing bad had ever happened. We didn't get much further than the staircase in the main room before my eyes glazed over, as if I'd been crying. I went blind when Geoffrey picked up the phone to call the police.

I wasn't too panicked because I knew it wouldn't last forever. That wasn't the first time I was out in the sunlight and went blind because of it, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. I just needed to put on my black tinted sunglasses, and after a while I'd get my sight back— as long as I kept the sunglasses on until after sunset. That's how it's been my whole life, and it's something I've gotten used to.

Geoffrey had taken me to go get my sunglasses and my vision had almost completely returned by the time the police arrived at the mansion. They ordered us to stay downstairs while a parade of men in police uniforms came and went from the mansion. To comfort me, Geoffrey asked me to play with Klaus. I did as he said, and as I looked down at my baby brother, I suddenly felt a pain well up inside my chest. My poor, poor baby brother…

I let his little hand curl around mine, and he smiled up at me with those big blue eyes. I looked up from him for only a second when I heard something other than footsteps coming down the stairs. They were bringing my parents down on stretchers, white sheets drawn over their bodies to hide them. I took in a breath and looked at Klaus, who was still smiling.

At that moment, I made a promise. I was going to take care of him. I would protect him and take care of him— just like mom would've.

v—v

^—^

Our parents were buried on June 22 of that year— just a few days after the attack. I wasn't sure how many days; I'd spent a great deal of them in my room by myself. It was like some sick, twisted dream. But what made it worse was that I couldn't wake up.

But on June 22, I had to get out of my room and stand with Geoffrey, who was holding a big, black umbrella over my head, keeping me dry while it drizzled. The people who attended the funeral made it a point to stop by and offer me their condolences. Those in attendance ranged from people my father worked with to distant relatives who I never even knew existed. But I lived through it, smiling as politely as I could without seeming false or like I didn't care.

Suddenly I felt Geoffrey put his hand on my shoulder. "I need to go inside for a minute. Will you be alright out here by yourself?"

I nodded with that same, faux smile on my face. He nodded back at me, handed me the umbrella, and went inside. Leaving me out there all by myself.

"I'm so sorry to hear about your parents,"

I looked up, but was surprised to see who it was standing in front of me.

The man who killed the vampires.

"Thank you," I said, despite the fact that I recognized him. "For killing the- you know." The man nodded.

"Miss. Bailey, I want to discuss something with you."

"Okay"

"Do you know what killed your parents?"

I nodded.

"Vampires," I answered stiffly, that word tasting like vinegar on my tongue. He nodded.

"And do you remember me?"

"You're the man that killed them,"

He nodded again.

"That's right. I want you to have something very important." He handed me an index card with the name 'Victor David,' printed in elegant letters across the bottom of the card, underneath a coat of arms with the letters BGS written elegantly in front of two swords crossing.

"What's this?"

"Your invitation to join the Black Glove Society, and my name on the card means I'm offering to be your mentor when you become of age."

"Black Glove Society?"

"A secret—club of sorts. They specialize in the supernatural, and train people like me. Vampire Hunters."

"So…if I join this club—I can hunt vampires?" He nodded.

"If you pass through their training academy and get your license, yes." I looked up at him, then down at the card. It was no bigger than a simple calling card that salespeople give, but it was so much more important than its size let on.

"Why are you giving me this?"

"Do you not want it?" He sounded both astonished and insulted. When he held his hand out in front of me, waiting for me to give him back the card. I held onto it. "Do you accept my invitation, Miss. Alice?"

I nodded.

"When…when will you come for me?"

"When the time is right," he was blunt with his answer.

"How will you find me? There's no number or—"

"Don't worry," He warmly said, "When you're old enough, we will find you." He ruffled my hair. I nodded obediently, and when he smiled at me, I saw my father's reflection in his face like a mirror.

When he left, I stood there just watching until Geoffrey came back. I subtly slid the card into the pocket of my dress before lifting my head and giving him a small, empty smile.

I went to my room the minute I got the chance. It was too much. I couldn't handle it as well as I wished I could.

I watched from the glass doors leading out to my balcony as everyone left. Little splatters of rain had made water blots on the glass, and the white stone balcony had been glazed over with water.

"Ah, there you are," I turned around and saw Geoffrey standing in the doorway with his hands behind his back in his natural way. I turned back towards the window "I just put Young Master Klaus down for a nap, and decided to come see about you." I stayed quiet, and he did the same. What was there to say?

But then I started crying.

He brought me into his arms. He put my head against his chest and stroked my hair, doing everything in his power to sooth me.

But I was hardly paying attention to him.

My mind was simply swimming. I thought about my parents, what life would be like without them, and about what the hunter had offered me.

It was so hard, and I felt so bad. I kept seeing my parents being torn apart like animals in their bedroom, where they took a secret to the grave. But just as the pain started to grow, something else happened. It started to cement into hate and build up inside of me. I had the means and the opportunity to get revenge on the monsters that caused this, and god damn it, I was going to.

Right then, I vowed that no vampire will ever walk the streets of London again.