Blood pounding through my veins and the clock on the wall ticking away, counting the seconds until Ysabeaus arival were the only things I could hear. The lull of people talking faded into the background. My fingers sticky with my own blood.
Our vampires captours, there was five of them that I could count, froze as they could sense something approach the house and all the buzzing talk that was forced into the background stopped immediately. A nock on the door made my body twitch, bringing me back to some form of attention, wanting to react but my muscles not cooperating.
"Who's there." It was one of the male vampires that called out to whomever was behind the door. The head female stopped walking somewhere behind my head. Her boots crunching over the broken glass.
"Wouldn't you like to know." Came a witty reply. A males voice. Then splinters from the door being forced open soon mixed with the glass on the floor. I flinched, wanting to protect myself as much as possible. As the action stopped, I force my eye lids open to try and see who broke open the door. I pushed down my nausea and the buzzing in my head. My blury eyes could just make out the figures of Marcus, Jack, Baldwin, Miriam, and to my surprise, Gallowglass.
Snarls from both parties filled the kitchen, wordless threats expressed through clenched fists and curled upper lips. Cold eyes raking my body up and down, zeroing in on my wounds, making me aware of how much blood I'm loosing in a room of vampires.
"Diana!" Marcus cried, looking at me before glancing around the room, gauging the threat of the creatures holding us captive. Being invaded by other vampires temporarily distracted the men holding Matthew down, as he burst up from the floor, picked me up, and stood with the rest of our family. My new position in his arms hurting me more, but gave me a better view of the action taking place in my kitchen. I lean my head against Matthew's shoulder and watch through hazy eyes. My hands on my wounds, my actions futile.
"Who are you and why are you here." Demanded Marcus. Sounding every bit the grand master that his title would suggest.
"Wouldn't you like to know." Snarked back the female vampire. But she answered his question anyway.
"My name is Genevieve. As to the reason I am here," she paused dramatically, sliding her left hand into her coat pocket and producing a small silver machine, no bigger than a GPS, with a screen and three dials. She waived it around wildly as she spoke. "I have new technology that blocks vampire senses and 'powers' if you will. This dial is made to amplify the surrounding noise and block out creatures with our genetic code. Thats how we snuck in today, the sound stopped us from alerting your mate," she snarled as she spit out the word at me like venom, "that we were ariving."
"It only works on vampires? Not witches or deamons?" Miriam asked.
"Oh no we have a special little something for those lesser species." Genevieve says distastefuly, and turns to look at one of her men. "As you can see, you've already had a demonstration of this beauty. Melvin, show the girl why she wont stop bleeding, this one is one of my personal favourite toys." Her eyes were lit with dark excitement. Melvin unholstered a gun from his wast, making Matthew growl deep in his chest in warning. He kept the gun in his hand and Genevieve gestured to it as she explained was it was. "This may look like a normal gun, but the bullets have a compound in them that slowly leaks out preventing the victim from healing immediately." She sighed, "It doesn't work on vampires unfortunately, our venom counteracts the compound. But its ok, it does wear off though, don't worry yourself about that." Her hand waving in a dismissive way. "Just depends on how fast you bleed out." A flash of teeth and a bark like laugh made its way through the room, as if she just told a joke. But no one was laughing.
"I am here because I want to know about the Book of Life everyone keeps going on about. Want to see it for myself. And you, girl, are my key. I want the knowledge you learned. And I will get it any way I can." My witch fire started flickering weakly in my hands, startling our unwanted guests. The little engergy I had left poured into my fingers, adrenaline back in my veins as my self defence mechanism kicked in, my eyes watching them carefully. Marcus and Jack crouching down, ready to attack at a moments notice.
A moan escaped my lips and the pain intensified as I tried to move. Matthew's eyes flitted down at me, and looked back at Genevieve, not wanting to keep the enemy out of his sight for too long. Not trusting what they'll do.
"I see we've over stayed our welcome boys, I think its time to go." She gripped the GPS looking tool more firmly and snapped her fingers, the men stood up obediently. Her nails ironically painted a deep red, I noticed idly, went to the second dial and turned it all the way.
"It looks like you have two choices, you can either follow us, or try to," Genevieve smiled darkly at our small group. "or you can tend to your witch, who doesn't look like she has long left." Dark eyes glittering dangerously, watching me. My head lulling down, not having enough strength to keep it up anymore. She sighed, as if disappointed, and putthe toy back into her coat pocket. "Lets go boys. We'll be seeing each other soon, Book of Life." With those parting words the party of six ran off at inhuman speeds. Blurring throughthe kitchen and out into the night. Marcus went to follow but only ran at normal speed. He didn't even make it to the door when he stopped and turned around.
"I can't run, or hear their footsteps." Marcus cried out. "No, no, no. They should be far away by now the power should be out of range." He muttered to himself as he turned back into the house.
"Diana," Matthew breathed, cleaning a portion of floor for me to lay on. "Diana look at me darling."
My breath was coming out in harsh puffs now, I can't think straight anymore. Pain overtaking my body.
"We... we need to replenish her blood, and something to stitch her up, something to help stench the bleeding would help too. We need to get the wound closed." Matthew was rambling, but Marcus knelt beside his father, a grave look on his face.
"You heard what she said, she wont stop bleeding until the compund runs it course. There's only one thing that will cancel out the compound Matthew, you know this as well as I do."
"No. Marcus no I'm not doing that to Diana." The only sound coming from my mouth was a gurgling that made the two men beside me wince.
"Matthew you know what has to be done her as well as I do." Matthew looked at me, eyes sad.
"Diana, you've lost too much blood and you're still bleeding out. Our venom can stop that. Do you understand what I'm saying?" My breath hitches as I jerk my head up an down.
"I can't do this. Miriam, can you please?" Matthew looked at her, a silent question in his eyes, blood tears soaking into his dark shirt. She looked at him and then at me, her eyes cautious.
"Do you know what you're asking of me Matthew." Miriam looked conflicted.
"Yes Miriam, please." His voice was a croak at this point. My fingers reaching out for him, his cold hand clasping mine. I manage to turn my head and look at Miriam.
"S'ok. Do it." I manage to slur out, before passing out cold on the floor, Matthew's hand still clutching my hand.