Chapter 1 – The Founding
Summer rose, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, trembling. The creature at her feet was motionless, face down on the floor, the body still undergoing sudden spasms as the brain tugged at the remaining functioning bodily strings. She withdrew her hand from her lips and saw the blood smeared across.
"This way! Kill her!" a torch was lit in the alleyway behind her and she turned, only to see the threatening shadows of villagers with pitchforks and knives thrash the air with their weapons in the hope that the murderer was just around the next corner. Summer gulped and looked around, trying to find a way to escape. The cobbled street was narrow and the houses were falling apart in their disrepair. The town was dying in its age; many years rot and mould clinging to the walls of the long abandoned houses. The stench that pivoted on the winds suggested that the river cut its path not far beyond the rooftops of this ancient housing estate. Summer's pulse was vibrating loosely and her heart knocked against her ribs as if bone couldn't cage it.
The dead man beneath her seemed to be screaming in terror, eyes bulging – but of course no sound escaped his throat. Summer grabbed the pipe on her left, raising the hem of her dress so she wouldn't trip. Her hair swung in the way of her face. She mounted the pipe and began to climb, daring herself to look down to see if anyone had seen her. No one had, and now that the civilians had rounded the corner and had discovered the corpse they're determination to catch her grew. They turned and growled, dozens with burning torches, with flames that licked the air and writhed like tentacles, spitting embers out over the furious crowd. Summer heaved herself up to the roof of the derelict building and sighed, waiting for the bounty hunters to leave and follow another path.
The clatter of many feet across cobbles sounded beneath her and she forced herself to lie flat against the rooftop. If she was really quiet and no one spotted her she just might get out alive. As the dying echoes of the crowd ended she sat up and took a peek over the side of the roof, where a thin wall had made her invisible from the world below, which she also had to pull herself over in silence. They'd taken the man away, blood still running across the paving below. Summer was so close to being sick she felt the acid burning in her throat, tickling her tonsils and make her cough. The taste was foul and she stood up, only to crouch over and get a few polluted breath's of Swindon's factorised air supply, gas from the nearby industry building mounting the immense pressure on her lungs. Raising herself once more, she leaned on a nearby chimney pot and sucked in a few well-deserved breaths, the shock of nearly being caught sweeping over her head. She smiled, glad to be free and to have gotten away without any harm done to her. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and she froze, all of her senses targeting an aura behind her that sent off waves of confidence, bravery and malice. She turned to face the young man with the slicked back brown locks and green eyes.
"BloodAngel? My name is Tom, and you had better do what I say, otherwise you are going to go to sleep for a long, long time." He grinned, evilly, withdrawing the crossbow from a holster on his side. Summer's eyes wouldn't leave the immensely sharp stake of wood it was armed with. Her smile was wiped away from her face and she became very frightened.
"I didn't kill anyone... You must believe me. I am innocent!" Tom cocked his head onto one side and frowned.
"You're not from England, are you?" he inquired, aiming the pistol at her yet his hand was away from the trigger. Summer raised her hands in a surrendering manner and shook her head.
"You sound... what is that? French?" Tom wondered, his hands itching with the desire to touch the smoothness of the trigger... to shoot something. Summer nodded. Her father was French, her mother English – she'd live in England all her life but the accent she'd received from her father hadn't died from her way of speaking. Tom looked Summer up and down and saw the blood smears across her dress.
"Listen, I belong to a secret organisation and you MUST do as I say. I cannot leave without you. We have heard many great (and gruesome) tales about you, BloodAngel. How you saved the city of London when their crime rate was at its peak. How you saved the civilians of Bristol when a train went runaway and nearly drove into the heart of the town. You are a heroine, Miss Angel, a true wonder. I just ponder why the townspeople of Swine Down are condemning you on suspicion of murder, I heard you drink for pleasure but you've never killed anyone except, well... murderers or highly wanted. What has changed Miss Angel?" Tom asked. Summer sighed and turned to look over at the sunset, the sky so dark with pollution that it seemed night already.
"I have killed someone, for the wrong reasons. I was in a frenzy – dying of thirst. I cannot explain what the bloodlust feels like; it takes over your body... your soul. The people of Swine Down didn't give me a chance to properly explain my coming, and now they are ready to burn me at the stake as a witch – which I certainly am not. If they dunked me in water I'd certainly drown just like any common vermin that has the misfortune to be recognised as a maiden or warlock of the craft... Oh, and by the way, BloodAngel is no more, she died in the chase." Summer motioned to the floor and rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over one another and watching the fading sun ripple on the horizon before sinking like a biscuit into tea, the gravity too great for it to have a few more chances to grip onto shape, collapsing under the strength and brutality. Tom began to grin.
"Miss Summer Helen Carter, do you really expect me to believe that you have given up because of one rowdy accusation? I have a mission for you. To protect a new organisation named: The Night World." Summer acknowledged him. In aura sense she could tell he was no human, nor vampire for that matter. The sun fell below the reaches of the pink sky and blackness swamped the stratosphere, bringing night to the world.
"What are you? Master..."
"Thomas Wolf," Tom smiled, the cross bow falling unattended back into it's sling at his side. He had no intention to hurt her no longer. He gazed into the distance and for a while neither of them spoke.
"It's a full moon tonight," he began. Summer turned to him, curious.
"You still haven't answered my question, Thomas." She flicked the waves of her hair away from her eyes. Tom was wearing the most peculiar expression. He seemed to be waiting for something, ready to embrace it but fight it at the same time, as if he hated it but had gotten used to it. A change of some sort...
"There are many creatures other than vampires and witches, Miss Angel. There are other's like yourself." He smiled. "Ah, the moon, it rises!" he exclaimed, staring up as it circled the sky heavenward. (The moon didn't actually rise; it had always been there, yet the clouds had hidden it from view!) Summer felt odd. Other creatures? They really existed? She hadn't heard any other tales, even from humans... except once in a tavern she'd heard a story...
"They say the man, every full moon, mutates into some kind of being, into an animal form and he runs out into the woods to find his prey. Anyone who went up to the woods when he was alive was ripped to pieces by some kind of rabid wolf, wearing the remains of a villagers clothing. The man would wake up naked in the woods and wouldn't remember a thing, all he knew was that he'd just eaten satisfactorily and the blood around his lips was fresh..."
Tom began to shiver and inhale oddly, screeching hoarsely and high-pitched. He fell to the floor, his spine wriggling beneath his shirt like a coiling snake. He coughed and spluttered, his voice draining every time he tried to speak.
"Miss Angel, I'm sure you'll find I'm able to control this curse upon me," he croaked, his words barely audible over the inhuman wails in between breaths. His hair fell forward over his face and his clothes ripped, his trousers tearing like paper. Summer would've screamed if she hadn't been a vampire, yet the effect of seeing such a change from someone you'd just met... and to have the change replay in her memory like a videotape, to have recognised an old folklore tale that she believed was fiction. To have it played in front of her eyes now and witness the truth... she believed... and this ripped out her guts and through them across the floor. Humans didn't deserve to be sliced like pastrami on rye. Summer, unreachable in her thoughts as they swam before her like fish in the sea, didn't realise that the creature that had once been Tom stood on it's hind legs, growling like a creature that had been called from the dead. She remembered a term the storyteller had used to describe these creatures...
"They call them Werewolves, but personally I think they're Hell's Dogs."
Werewolves... she hadn't realised she'd said out loud until Tom laughed.
"That's right. I'm a werewolf." He held out his forepaw and smiled with his long fangs, saliva dribbling down his chin, hungrily, his yellow cats eyes glaring with an intensity that made even Summer want to turn and run. "My real name is Thomas Sandalwood, not Wolf. I was just playing with you. I am a co-founder of the Night World project, and I want you to join us." Summer flicked her hair.
"Why? I am not a daughter of Hellewise, I am not a Redfern." She questioned, raising her eyebrows, heavenward. Tom smiled.
"But you are a descendant of Maya. I'm sure you know someone by the name of Thierry..." Summer gasped. Thierry? So he'd set up this little rendezvous?
"Thierry's my brother. So he's set up this little organisation?" Thierry was in America, he'd moved there centuries after their mother and father had died. It was after Thierry had bitten his sister and turned her into a vampire, their parents believed the two dead and ahd given up. Thierry and Summer's parents had died thousands of years ago; Thierry was the first made-vampire, Summer the second. Tom grimaced.
"Not exactly. The Night World is an organisation which we are trying to set up worldwide. It will involve witches, vampires, werewolves, shape shifters and super jays. We all deserve to be united in our powers – don't you agree Miss Angel?" Summer put her hands on her hips and she gazed around. Should she forget the insolence of humans and help the Night World... become BloodAngel again? She sighed.
"I think we can bring BloodAngel back. When do I begin?" Tom grinned and as the moon went behind the clouds, not to come back out again, he became human looking once more.
"Now, if that's alright. Let's go, we need to get to America, sooner rather than later."
Authors Notes: Tom is English. Swindon is a real town (I live here!) and it is about 1hr and 30mins away from London. It used to be called Swine Down, apparently (I don't know whether that's true.
'Even Martians deserve to explain their presence before being sliced up like pastrami on rye' is a quote from Butt Ugly Martians: my favourite EVER TV show and the best '...in the entire universe, thank you very much!' ha, another quote from there! I changed the quote to 'even humans don't deserve to be sliced up', etc. I created this story after playing numerous games of BloodRayne on XBOX, and it is based (loosely) on that and, of course, L.J Smith's Night World series, and so credit to her. BloodAngel is kind of like BloodRayne, so forgive me. I hope the Thierry and Summer thing works out because I was getting the parents and Maya and the dates confused. I hope you like this!!! I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense. Reviews please! Hopefully I'll get more reviews in this section than in the Butt Ugly Martians one because nobody reviews those. If any of you L.J Smith readers like Butt Ugly Martians then read my stories PLEASE! Okay I'm done! Bye Bye!
P.S: I own no one in this story except for Summer Helen Carter (do the L.J Smith stories mention Thierry's last name because if they do – I'm sorry) and Thomas Sandalwood. Oh and the insane mob of Swindon citizens, hee hee! This is set about 1920, okay? I don't know when the Night World was founded, so sorry!
I have read: The Vampire Diaries 1: The Awakening, The Vampire Diaries 2: The Struggle, The Vampire Diaries 3: The Fury, The Vampire Diaries 4: The Reunion, The Night World 1: Secret Vampire, The Night World 2: Daughters of Darkness, and, finally, The Night World 3: Enchantress. Soon to be reading N.W 4,5,6,7,8,9 and is there a number 10???
Later guys! Review and recommend, please!!! Thanks, HannahluvsB2D (B2D means B.Bop, 2-T and Do-Wah from Butt Ugly Martians!) I WILL FINISH THIS SOON!