Chapter 6: Mr. Tiny
"Try more hard. You have to be aware to your surroundings. "
Darren was out of breath.
For hours now he practiced with Gillian "dodge". They were on a moonlit meadow near the Camp of the Cirque du Freak.
Darren should awaken his half-vampiristic instincts and Gillian "helped" by merging with the night again and again and prey on him.
That was one of her special skills: she could wrap darkness and shadows around her like a scarf and practically become invisible.
She was also silent as a cat on velvet paws and Darren had no chance to guess from which direction she would come next.
He knew that she was enjoying it to be superior to him, so she chooses among all the exercises that they could make, always something like this.
He did his best.
In other exercises, he was quite good allready. For example, he had learned how to "flit".
To move with the supernatural speed of a vampire was a heady experience, and Darren was never tired to move, even for short distances. At first he often collided with objects or people until he had learned how to brake in time.
Now to flit was his only chance to escape Gillian's fist, which she mercilessly used every time when he failed avoiding her.
Gillian also was able to flitt easily and often she foresaw which direction he would take, and overtook him. Darren had bruises all over from Gillian's fast hard punches.
And now he also had pain in his side.
"I'll give it trouble. I need a break."
"Break?" Gillian crossed her arms. "In combat your enemy will not give you a break."
"Which opponents? As if vampires would fight all the time. "
Darren was already several weeks at the Cirque, and he had accompanied the vampire Larten Crepsley, when he had been out on the hunt for blood.
Most times he obtained blood from animals; rabbits, rats, stray dogs or once even from a goat.
But sometimes he got hold of human blood.
He never fought, he always had drugged his victims and drank from them, without them noticing anything.
The vampire had also wanted Darren to drink human blood, but Darren had refused until now.
However, he had had to drink animal blood.
And he had seen Gillian drinking blood, too.
She was without a doubt "more vampire" like him, although she surely that she had been turned on the same way into half-vampire, as he did: by sharing a small amount of blood with the vampire through their fingertips.
But he didn`t knew exactly.
He assumed that her increased forces and her uncanny ability to rally the darkness around her, came from the fact, that she have been longer a half vampire, as he did.
However, she had never talked about it.
Darren knew almost nothing about the student of the master vampire.
"No, not all the time. Not any more. Well, we have done enough for now." Gillian sighed and sat down at a tree and looked up at the moon.
"In the past they fought... everything had been more difficult. And as a Master Vampire Crepsley often had to defend himself against attackers. During the war."
Darren sat down beside her. "How long have you been with him?"
Gillian did not answer and looked at him thoughtfully, as if she considered how much she wanted to tell him.
Darren already came to the conclusion that he ventured out too far, and had asked something too personal.
But then she looked down and said: "In October, it´s going to be fifteen years."
Darren was speechless.
Fifteen years?
And she still had not been turned into a vampire?
Will his own training take as long as, too?
"What is it? What are you staring at? " Her voice sounded irritated.
"I do`nt stare. I ... "
"You wonder how old I am."
That`s not what Darren thought about.
Not now, but in the past he did, it was difficult to estimate how old she was. Twenty? Twenty-five? But when she did spent fifteen years with the vampire, then ...
"I was twenty-two when I met him." She looked at Darren.
"You ...", he quickly calculated in his head. "You do not look like ..."
"Half-vampires are aging slower."
She smiled. "You'll look like a fourteen-year old for quite a while."
Gillian got up and dusted off her skirt.
"I'm sixteen!"
"But you do not look like" She laughed, but he knew she only wanted to tease him.
Darren stood up, too. "Painful for you, that someone who looks like a fourteen-year old can flit more fast than you."
Gillian grinned, and went on. "Oh, yeah? Who is first at the oak? "
Darren nodded.
He concentrated, and tensed all his muscles.
But Gillian suddenly put her hand on his arm and held him back.
"What?" He asked, alarmed.
She paused and gestured with a frown on the forest edge.
Darren listened.
Now he heard it, too.
Someone came.
Nervous, they waited until a figure appeared at the forest edge.
Darren muscles relaxed again.
It was only Evra Von.
But Gillian remained tense. Evra came with rapid steps toward her and Gillian asked: "What happened?"
Evra was out of breath. "Mr Tall sends me. You shall immediately go to Mr Crepsleys tent. A car is on the way here. "
Gillian threw a questioning glance to Evra.
"The car belongs to Mr Tiny."