Chapter 1 "Now listen closely Samantha. This is real important. I need for to you to behave for the babysitter while I go out for a little while, ok?" Danielle Monroe warned her little sister. She was dressed up in an expensive business suit that she had borrowed from her best friend. "If I get this job, our lives will turn around and everything will be better. But I need to know that I don't have to worry about you. Can you do that for me? Please?"

The eight year old looked up at her older sister. "Yes Danni. Don't worry. I'll be good, I promise." she said with a child like sincerity.

"I know you will Sam." Danni smiled. She looked at her watch. Ten minutes until six. The babysitter should be here any minute. "Sam, why don't you go brush your teeth, that way you don't have to worry about it later."

"Ok." The little girl walked across the room to the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

Danni had been taking care of Sam ever since their parents were murdered just before the girl's fourth birthday. Danni had already been legal and took full guardianship of her little sister. She heard Sam turn the faucet on and a knock at the door simultaneously.

She sighed and opened the door to the let the teenager in. "Good evening Amanda. How are you?"

"Hey Danni. Sam brushing her teeth?" Amanda said.

"Yes."

"I'm fine. Thanks for asking. How about you? You nervous?"

Danni gave a little chuckle. "More than anything. I hope it doesn't show up during the interview."

"I doubt that's the problem you'll have, if you have one at all." Amanda pointed out.

Danni nodded in acquiescence. "Unfortunately, I think I agree with you but I'm hoping this suit will help out with that."

"You look very professional."

Danni smiled. She could always count on Amanda to speak her mind. Sam came out of the bathroom and ran into Amanda's extended arms.

"Mandy!" the child said as the girl swooped her up and hugged her.

"Hey little one. How're you?"

"Danni's gonna get a job."

The girl gave an overdramatic gasp. "She is?"

"Yeah! And then we can move and get a nicer home. Another leak sprung up in the kitchen."

"Samantha!" Danni's voice came out sharper than she had meant it to be.

Sam shied. "Oops. I wasn't supposed to tell you that."

Amanda smiled. "Never mind that. Danni, if you don't leave, you'll be late." she cautioned.

Danni sighed. "I know." She opened the hall closet and looked at her reflection in the mirror one last time.

The suit did add some years to her but not much. Danni was twenty-three but didn't look much older than Amanda who was sixteen. She remembered also that her mother looked young for her age and guessed that it was a familial trait. Her auburn hair, normally past her shoulders, was pulled up into a tight bun. She had used little makeup, for she had naturally good-looking skin, and, with the gray business suit, she looked at least twenty. Maybe. She used eyeliner and mascara to bring out her green eyes and a natural looking eye shadow to make them stand out. In truth, there was only one blemish on her entire body. A slight scar formed a crescent moon shape on her forehead, a little to the right from the center. She used concealer and base to try and cover up the mark. She received the affect the night her parents died.

She had just come home from school and noticed the door wide open. She ran inside, searching for her parents and for Sam when she found her mom and dad on the floor on the living room, dead. Her mom was on her stomach, her head turned at an odd angle and her dad was lying across the coffee table, hands tied behind his back. A single gunshot in the back of the head stained him with blood. Terror shot through her and she fought her initial response to collapse and cry as she ran up the stairs into Samantha's bedroom. The attacker had made it there first and was leaning over her sister in her bed when she rushed at him, using a lamp as a club. She hit him two good times, breaking the light bulb, before he pushed her to the ground. She landed face first in broken glass, and was cut on the forehead.

Blood cascaded down her face in a crimson waterfall but she picked up the shards and threw them at him, hitting him in the face and eyes. His hands flew to his face and he screamed in pain, stumbled out of the house, leaving the girls alone.

Danni wiped most of the blood off, smearing it over her nose and cheeks, and checked on her sister, praying to God that that monster hadn't hurt her. Samantha was lying huddled under the covers and Danni took her in her arms, rocking her back and forth, and crying silently in her golden hair as Samantha clung to her.

That night, she assumed full guardianship of her sister, quit school, got a job, and found a place for them to live. She put the money she had saved up for college as a down payment for the rattrap they lived in now and worked endless nights ever since then as a waitress at the local diner about three blocks away.

The people at Meg's Diner became the girls' family. Meg, the owner, acted just like a mother to them and Dave, Meg's husband and cook, was like a second father. Sarah, another waitress, was Danni's best friend and the two acted like sisters. It was her suit that Danni borrowed now.

She shook the thoughts from her head and practiced a confident smile in the mirror before turning around and holding her arms out in a look-at-me gesture. Amanda smiled and gave an approving nod. Danni grabbed Sam from her, kissed her on the cheek, and then gave her back.

"I suspect I'll be out a bit late." she said. "Of course, Amanda, I'll pay you extra for your troubles."

"Really Danni there's no need."

"It's a school night. I'm lucky your mother allowed you out and I know she did because you two need the money. Don't worry. You'll be paid. All right, I'll see you later. Goodnight Sam."

"Goodnight Danni."

Danni blew a kiss at her sister and walked out the door to her beat up, black Nissan. She drove quickly, afraid of being late, but tried not to do five miles over the speed limit for fear of a cop. The last thing she needed was a ticket that she couldn't afford to pay.

Danni tried to control the flip-flops her stomach was doing. She was extremely nervous. Her hands were sweaty and her heart pounded in her throat. She and her could-be future editor were to meet at a restaurant downtown.

Reda Haze was a prominent person in her profession. All of the big time authors had her as an editor and, with a little luck, she would fall in love with Danni's work and agree to take her on as a fledging writer. Danni had dreamed of becoming a writer ever since she was little and was attending college in pursuit of that dream. Even though she had to quit school, she could never bring herself to stop writing. It was only by happenchance that Meg had walked by Danni's laptop and read the piece she was working on. She told Danni how wonderful it was and immediately referenced her to Reda herself, the two having been college roommates.

She parked her car in the back, hoping Reda wouldn't notice the piece of junk she was forced to drive. After doing a once over in the mirror, she grabbed her portfolio, which was stuffed with poems and short stories and part of a book she was working on, and walked in, looking for the woman. She was in the back next to a window, one that overlooked the parking lot Danni had used. She tried hard not to blush. She knew Reda had watched her. She straightened her spine and walked with her head high, fully aware of the heads that followed her, male and female alike. She smiled as she neared Reda and extended her hand.

"Danielle Monroe I presume." Reda said formally. "It's great to meet you."

"Likewise Mrs. Haze."

"Actually, it's Miss now and please, call me Reda." she corrected.

"If you insist and everyone calls me Danni."

Reda smiled. "If you insist." she echoed. She waved her hand at the chair opposite her. "Please, sit down." Danni obliged her. "Well, I must admit, I'm very excited about our meeting. Meg is one of my best friends and is normally a great judge of character. She has said a lot of good things about you Danni."

Danni couldn't resist a slight smile. "Yes, Meg has been close to my sister and I for some years now."

"I hear you work at her diner."

Danni wasn't sure if it was meant to be a question or not. Doubtless, Reda already knew the answer but she didn't know if she wanted her to confirm it or not. Danni nodded her head. "Yes, I began working there about four years ago."

A waiter walked up to the table. "Can I take your order ladies?"

Reda answered first. "Yes, I'd like a coffee and the number 3, sauce on the side, and can I get Parmesan cheese with that instead of American? Thank you."

Danni marveled at her. She was so sure of herself, so confident, and beautiful to boot. The woman was flawless. She had creamy white skin with the slightest dash of freckles on her nose. Her eyes were sapphire blue and her hair the reflection of gold and honey. It was evident she worked out, for her muscles rippled slightly under her skin as she moved and she had curves in all the right places. Danni wondered how she could be divorced.

"And you madam?" he moved on to her.

"Actually, I'll just have a glass of sweet tea and a Chef Salad."

"What type of dressing?"

"Uh…um…Ranch will be fine." she offered a smile.

He took their menus and went to deliver their orders to the chef.

"Now, where were we?" Reda said. She smiled again and Danni noticed that she had the most perfect smile. Her teeth were so white and completely straight.

"Um… I've been working at the diner for four years." Danni reminded her.

"Ah yes. There is one thing I need to ask you. You were going to college but got out the middle of your second year? Why is that exactly?"

Danni's green eyes stared hard into Reda's blue ones. Had Meg not told her? Would she have to tell this woman about that night? Anger swelled up in her and she forced herself to remain calm. As she watched the woman before her, she began to think her questions were more than innocent. That was ridiculous of course, but she suddenly wanted to end the interview, which seemed to become more of an interrogation.

The waiter returned with their drinks. "Your meals will be out momentarily." he advised them.

Reda nodded her head. "If you are uncomfortable answering, you of course do not have to. I just need to be sure that, if I do decide to take you on, you won't just quit on me. You see?"

"I assure you I'm not a quitter." Danni hesitated for a moment before continuing, trying to get a hold of her emotions. "About the time I started working for Meg, my parents were murdered. I have an eight year old sister that I have to provide for and I quit school so I could work and find a place for us to live and used my savings for school as a down payment on our…apartment."

"I see." Her eyes softened. "I'm…sorry for..."

"Don't worry about it." Danni held up her hand, effectively stopping her from continuing on with the awkward scene. She brought out her portfolio. "I brought this, incase you wanted to see some of my work." Reda held out her hand and Danni gave it to her.

The waiter returned with their food and Danni ate her salad and watched Reda as she read her work. She noticed that Reda was extremely expressive. Emotions ranging all over the map were shown explicitly in her blue eyes and on her pretty face. But even better was the fact that it was Danni's work that created those emotions. Sadness. Disgust. Happiness. They were all a result of what she read and Danni smiled inwardly, eating a tomato.

At last, Reda put her work aside and began to eat. Danni waited patiently as the woman ate, trying to remain calm and collected, or at least appear that way. She could hear her heart beating so loudly, she worried it would burst from her chest. Even worse, she worried that Reda might hear it, although it was a completely ridiculous thought.

Reda finished her last bit of meal and set her plate aside, folding her hands in front of her on the table, giving great thought about the woman in front of her. Danielle Monroe had great and promising talent. If she had been able to finish college, Reda suspected she would've been an even better writer. She had raw talent; she just needed some direction to make that talent even better. She looked about nineteen or twenty but Meg had told her that Danni was twenty-three. She suspected that if she let her hair loose and was in jeans and a t-shirt, she would look like a teenager. Reda smiled, this was the woman she had been looking for. She could barely hide her excitement.

"Well, Danni, I hope you'll have a lot of free days and nights because I think that, with you and me as a team, you'll be a great writer."

"Really?" Danni gave her a huge smile, unable to hide her exhilaration.

"Really. Welcome aboard." Reda gave her a slight smile, hiding her own enthusiasm.

"Oh my God! Thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to me! Thank you!"

The women were about to discuss her career opportunities when an evil feeling pulsated through Danni. She gasped and clutched her chest, the evil so overwhelming she thought she was going to be sick right there in front of Reda. She looked at Reda and was surprised to see she noticed it too, although it didn't make her sick. She looked at Danni.

"You can feel that?" she asked.

"Yes. What is it?" Danni asked, her hand covering her mouth.

"Something terrible. Something more evil than anyone can imagine." Reda answered in a whisper. She looked at the girl in front of her and tried to smile. "You are immune to him. You are one of us."

"What? What do you mean immune?"

"Can you not hear the whisper? It's in the back of your mind. He calls us to him. The women in this restaurant. The men. The children. Watch them leave."

As if on cue, chairs began to scrape the wood floor, pushing back from the table and the people were nearly running out of the building to whatever was calling them. Danni noted that their eyes were wide and unblinking, as if they were in a trance. She turned to Reda.

"Who is doing this?" she asked.

Reda just stared at her, unwilling to answer her question. She couldn't get Danni involved yet. She wasn't ready. She was too innocent. A great desire to wrap her arms around the woman and protect her from the evil just outside was overwhelming and she shook her head to get rid of it.

Danni stared at, her eyes tearing up. The evil feeling inside her began to beat at her mind, the whisper becoming louder. He called to her, demanded she walk to him, commanded her to leave Reda and join him. She slapped her hands to her ears, trying to get rid of the whisper but it continued and began to echo inside her very being. An image of Samantha fought its way into her mind and fear shot through her like an arrow.

"Oh God! Sam!" She bolted from the table and ran outside, ignoring the zombies under this evil thing's command and ran to her car, praying that Samantha was unscathed.

Reda watched her leave and watched her drive away from the window inside the restaurant. She watched the Nissan speed away and sighed.

"And so it begins. Your life, Danielle Monroe, is forever changed. Hurry to your sister. You'll come back." she said.

A man materialized beside her. Reda turned and smiled.

"Good evening Reda." he said.

"It isn't exactly great Mateo. Nikolai's evil has tainted this place. He is feeding in a blood orgy." she said.

"I know. What about the girl? I can see you hold great affection for her already and you barely know her."

"She is strong. And she sensed the evil. In fact, I thought she would be sick on me. It affected her greatly."

"She can be changed?"

"Yes. But I don't think she'll change willingly." Reda warned.

"She has to. We can't change her if she fights the process." he argued.

"She's been through a great deal Mateo. She told me about her parents' murder with a seemingly emotionless attitude-she was very matter-of-fact about it-but when I searched her mind the emotion was so overwhelming. I thought my heart would burst."

He stared at her. "Can she handle it?"

"She can. But she'll fight it. You'll have to get close to her. She has a little sister, Samantha. Use her to get close to Danielle. Samantha is her world."

He smirked. "Why don't you get close to her?"

"Believe me, I would if I thought I had a chance. Unfortunately, our little writer isn't a lesbian. I think you'll have better luck than I will."

"What a great shame for you." Mateo teased.

"Yes. I think so. She's beautiful and our blood hasn't even touched her yet." she sighed. Danni would be on her mind for many nights.

"We should go purge this street from the evil that infests it." Mateo said.

"Yes." Reda sounded distracted and tired at the same time.

The two materialized onto the street outside and killed the vampire that fed from its victims, incinerating the heart so that it could not rise again, and then transformed into ravens and flew off. The thrill of flying overtook them as they soared through the air to their destination.

Danni drove fast, not caring about the speed limit or any cops. If that thing had got to Sam, she didn't know what she would do. Silent tears streamed down her face, tears that hadn't shown themselves in almost four years. She was so used to being the strong one, the one that had to keep things together. If Sam was gone…

She parked the car and ran into the apartment without even turning the car off. She left the door wide open and sprinted for the door.

"Amanda! Sam!" she screamed once she pushed the wooden door open. "Amanda! Samantha!"

Amanda walked to her from the kitchen. "Danni? What's wrong? You look so pale."

"Never mind that now. Where is Sam?" she asked, desperation heavy in her voice.

"I put her to bed almost two hours ago. It's almost eleven o'clock." Amanda said.

Danni ran past her and into Sam's bedroom. She could see her sister sleeping under the blankets, her butterfly nightlight shining, making a halo around her golden hair. Sam, her little angel, was safe. Sam wiggled in her sleep, aware of another presence in the room but unwilling to awaken from her sleep. Danni gave an audible sigh and shut the door quietly, cursing herself for almost waking the sleeping girl. She walked back into the living room with Amanda.

"Did you get the job?" the teenager asked.

"I'm not sure." Danni replied.

"What happened?"

"Well, she said I did. But, something happened tonight Amanda. Something I can't explain and it scared the hell out of me. I just don't know." She shook her head.

Amanda grabbed her hand and rubbed the back of it. "Whatever it was, it's gone now." She let her hand fall. "I should be getting home."

"NO! No, stay the night. I'll take you to school in the morning. I can't let you go out there. Something evil is working its way around the streets. Just trust me, please. I'll call your mother and explain everything. You can have my room tonight and I'll sleep on the couch."

"Well, if you insist. But you might want to turn your car off. Especially if you're going to take me to school tomorrow."

Danni laughed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I have some large t-shirts in the second drawer if you want one to sleep in."

"Thank you. Goodnight Danni."

"Sleep well Amanda."

Danni watched her disappear into her room and then grabbed a pillow and a blanket from the hall closet. It was most certainly a strange night. She picked up her phone and dialed Amanda's phone number. The answering machine picked up. Unsatisfied but seeing no choice, Danni left a message for her mother, explaining that she thought it would be better if Amanda stayed the night since it was so late and that she'd take the girl to her school in the morning before going to work. She hung up the phone and stared out her window. She would have to go back out there whether she wanted to or not. The thought sent a chill up her spine but she swallowed her fear.

Slowly, she turned the doorknob and walked outside to her running car. She was cautious, searching the street around her, making sure that thing hadn't followed her home but that menacing feeling did not overtake her again and she relaxed as much as she could. The sky was dark and cloudy. She couldn't see any stars and she had the suspicious feeling she was being watched.

She sat in the car long enough to turn it off and take the keys out of the ignition before succumbing to the impulse of hurrying back into the shelter of her apartment. That feeling of being watched just wouldn't disappear. The wind picked up and blew her hair all around her face. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled up and stood on end and a cold feeling developed in the pit of her stomach. For no real reason at all, she decided to look up on her roof. There she saw two ravens, watching her. It surprised her to see them because they didn't make a sound and she was pretty sure ravens weren't native to her little Texas town. She stared at them for a long moment before finally heading back in and locking the door behind her.

She walked over to the couch, leaving a lamp on incase Sam were to wake up from a nightmare, and curled up on the couch in the fetal position, silent tears slipping down her face. As she lay her head down on her pillow, a sudden fear gripped her and she trembled from the sheer force of it. The tears came faster and it was getting harder to control her sobs as the emotions came out in a storm and she began to feel completely small and feeble, like there was something larger going on than anyone ever knew and somehow, she and Sam were about to be caught in the middle and that only added to make her feel incoherent and unimportant. But just as quickly as it came, the storm that was raging ebbed and then disappeared all together, a warmth touching her mind and sending her to sleep. It was the first time in almost four years that she was able to fall completely asleep, and dream good dreams. She slept soundly, not noticing the raven perched on her window sleep, watching her slumber.