Disclaimer: I don't own the Saga of Darren Shan. Because you really thought that I did, just wanted to clear that up. The OC's are all mine, though.
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The sky threatened storms, but the sun was still peeking around the grey clouds just enough to slightly flush the exposed skin of the black-clad man dashing half-heartedly away from two other men.
He was already bloodied and tired—the two had ambushed him and chased him all the way through a dense, lush forest out into the godforsaken sandy plains of what could only be the desolate outskirts of the state of Alabama—and was actually considering stopping and letting them finish him, as depression wasn't easy on anyone, not even a vampire.
Still, to fall without a fight would be disgraceful. His mentor never would have permitted it—even if he had jokingly mentioned such a thing, she would have scowled and demanded that he sit down and slash his stomach like a real samurai, if he wanted so badly to die. He owed it to her, at least, to stop turning tail and running away, he figured, and so pulled into a hault just before more forest, which was toughly and miraculously growing in the sand, as if the trees felt obligated to box in the plains.
He turned over-dramatically to the Vampire Hunters chasing him, sighing with false exasperation as they slowed down, letting them examine his scowling features. For a vampire, he had a strangely little amount of scars, though there was a fairly prominent crescent-shaped line marring his right cheek, but his golden eyes played right into the inhuman theme, even inspiring a small pause out of his attackers as they closed in.
"Time's up, you monster," one hunter growled as he regained his courage, pulling a gun out of his long overcoat and aiming it at the vampire's head.
Right, courage. Courage has always looked like a .45, he pondered to himself, sighing. Still, the aim says that he intends to kill me as quickly and mercifully as possible, so I can only grant him the same.
In less time than it took for a tear to fall from a small, round cheek to the ground, the vampire had pulled a katana from somewhere within his long black cloak and slashed his opponent into two gory halves, unhappily noting that he was fast enough to do so, but apparently not fast enough to avoid the bloodspatter. His face and cloak were immediately dampened by crimson spray.
The other Vampire Hunter's eyes expanded to a gruesome size as his comrade's gun clattered to the ground, and he took off running as demons were playfully nipping at his heels. The vampire felt no need to follow him and kill him like his partner, happy to avoid any further confrontation, being the lazy failure that he was. In fact, he was barely interested in the small girl he knew was standing behind him, paralyzed in fear. He could smell her sweet, young blood.
"You…saw everything, child?" he asked her, without turning around.
He easily sensed that she was trembling and breathing very heavily, but just as he was ready to abandon her, she finally managed to stammer, "Uh…uh-huh."
Deathly silence followed, as he scowled internally at the fact that she had replied after all. Walking away without a conversation, he knew, would have been less troubling.
"I am…truly sorry you had to witness that," he finally sighed, sheathing his sword with a small metallic "click" and turning towards the girl.
She was small, dressed in a blue-green tank top with a yellow flower in the center and baggy silver shorts, and a particularly fresh, nasty scrape on her cheek. The injury was full of dirt and a hideous red-pink color that, even to him, looked to be painfully sore. Plain brown hair shaggily hung in her face, but not enough so that he couldn't see that her bright turquoise eyes were brimmed with frightened tears, and that a few had already made the journey down her cheeks. Also, it seemed he hadn't absorbed all of the Hunter's blood after all, as her face was flecked with a tiny bit of telltale red liquid.
When he walked past her without a second glance, though, she made a small, strangled sound that betrayed her surprise to him. "S-so…you're not gonna hurt me?" she asked, turning to watch him saunter away.
"Don't be stupid, child," he snapped. "You haven't done anything."
With that, he continued his earlier path into the forests, his cloak wrapped against him. He knew that the child was still following him. He could still smell that warm blood that was smeared on her left cheek. But, he never turned to face her, never turned to tell her to go home. He assumed she wasn't so stubborn that she couldn't do that on her own.
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A/N-Sorry about the short chapter. Hopefully the next one will be up soon.