Stuff: Bwahaha! I felt so good with my brilliant cliffie. Here is the next part to Ignatius coming. I'm going to try to update regularly. Like, every 7-9 days. If that doesn't happen, someone send me a pissed off pm to kick my butt. Mmkay?

Chapter 12

"My name is Ignatius." The tone in which he said this sounded like I should know exactly who he is and at the sound of his name be quaking in my ugly navy sports-y type shorts. Unfortunately, I had no clue.

"That's…great. Why are you here?" Now my tone was aloof, condescending, the kind that Joseph always used when speaking to anyone but me. It probably pissed him off, judging from his eyes narrowing. Oh, Sweet Jesus, why do these types of things always happen to me and only me? I bet no one else has had crazy psycho vampires after their sorry butts.

"It doesn't concern you yet. But it will." He glanced at Snow, peacefully snoring and drooling on the pavement, the fat-man-at-McDonald's look on his face again. Great. Now the psycho vampire wants to eat my sanity-challenged class mate. I shifted my weight slightly. Maybe, with my awesome, kick-ass vampire fighting skills, I could push him into the buttery, lovely, burning, painful sunlight.

Where he could burn and die in painful fits of fiery agony.

Bad imagery.

I coughed slightly and sifted my weight, waiting for him to do that burst-into-action thingy that bad guys always do in movies after they're done staring at the lovely, wonderful, self-sacrificing heroine. He didn't. And I didn't do the whole good-guy-basically-explodes-in-a-fit-of-justice-bringing-and-throws-pointy-things-at-the-bad-guy thing either. My vampire-ass-whipping style is a little classier.

I let my mind spread, until-in poetic form- my awesome psychicness was stretched like a too-tight piano string, ready to vibrate in a hugely loud manor at the slightest bit of dust. In non-Shakespearean terms, I would have split second vision of what Mr. Scary-Vampire-Thing-Named-Ignatius would do before he actually did it.

Or maybe I could use my superpowers and he could just run away disturbed.

Hmm, interesting technique.

I'll have to think about it.

There was a yank underneath my belly button, and I felt my muscles lock before I was looking at myself standing off to Ignatius like an awesome Matrix character, and Ignatius staring at me. It was black and white-ish as I took a step forward, not feeling the pavement beneath me and not making any noise. Ignatius went into that annoying superfast vampire speed as he flashed towards my back, snarling like a rabid Doberman as he reached for Snow. A yank behind my belly button and I was back in my body, staring at Ignatius again.

I turned around and moved to the side quickly, throwing up my forearms. Ignatius's blows made my entire body jar unpleasantly and I gasped slightly. He snarled again, and there was another vision. He would kick me in the ribs and hook his legs under my knees, bringing me down. I skipped out of the way, flashing behind him and aiming a roundhouse kick at his head. Gott in Himmel, I was fighting rather dirtily. Flashes of visions went behind my eyelids, confusing me.

Oh, god dammit.

Now Ignatius can't make up his mind.

Or is he doing it on purpose?!

Bastard.

I gasped as he slammed me against the wall of the school. This would feel dirty if it wasn't for the fact that he was cursing in that weirdy vampire language Joseph never taught me. Abruptly, Ignatius began muttering in English.

"He said not to kill the Pravus, he never said anything about not hurting it…" He reached into his back pocket and withdrew a rather tiny, non-threatening looking knife. But I knew how dangerous psychopaths could be with pointy things. I had one in my house once a month.

"Ack! Let's think about this, shall we?! We wouldn't want you to do anything you regret! You may have some mistakes, but I can see in your eyes that you're not a killer!" At this point, I was copying some crap cops show when the innocent virgin convinced the serial killer not to hurt her. The look on Vampy's showed that he was, in fact, a killer, and that there was no way that he'd regret what he was going to do to me. I looked at Snow.

'Run, crazy goth girl! Run for the HILLS! RUN! RUUUUN! Well, wake up first, but then RUUUN!' I was hoping I would awake some dormant psychic powers to get Snow out of this little kershnuffle unscathed, but apparently I didn't need to.

Ignatius's eyes widened and he let out a yell of pain. The sunlight had reached his legs and he let me fall on my butt as he ran like a madman to the shadows, where the lovely UVA UVB rays couldn't give him skin cancer on steroids.

Man, he really needed a breath mint.

I was hyperventilating slightly as I began to poke Snow again. She woke up like I just electrocuted her, spazzing and smacking my face with her hand. Delightful.

"Oh, my, God, I'm so sorry! I don't know what happened to me there!" She leaned back against the wall next to me and noticed my strange gasping breaths. "Hey, did anything happen? You look tired."

"Err…..you know what? Nothing happened. I'm just tired like you. Speaking of which, try Twinkies. They're the food of the gods. Zeus eats them for breakfast." She laughed. "I'm so not kidding."

That's when Edward ran around the corner, looking like the hero of a really bad spy movie.

A hero in gym shorts.

"Hey, you guys alright?" He ran towards us, the Mad Hatter smile in place. He helped us both up, listening to us covering each other's butts. I didn't want the nurse to check me out of the simple fact that I'm not 100% human, and Snow didn't want anyone to find out about her mysterious illness. Somehow, there was an unspoken agreement that we wouldn't speak of what happened, and I was alright with that.

The only thing that pissed me off was the fact that the spy hero only turned up after the bad guy made his exit, returning to the evil headquarters.

What kind of hero is that?

Wait, didn't Vlad call himself the Pravus?

Whatever the hell that is.

Otis's POV

I sighed, a loud sound in the silence of the dark streets of Stokerton, already taken my fill of blood. Vladimir was acting more and more troubling, like the forceful enslaver he was prophesized to be. It worried me. I still remembered the London president's words, echoing in my mind every time I looked at Vladimir snarling, ripping through blood bags as if he wished the plastic were skin…

"Vladimir Tod is a dangerous variable. Should he show signs of…rebellion against Elysia, it will be your job to…eliminate the variables."

"No! I could never-!"

"If you do not, Otis, others will, and they will not be kind. He will be begging for the end before it happens, were it anyone but you. Besides, you get a benefit. You make sure the Pravus does not come to power, and your record will be cleaned. It will be as if these past couple years would have never happened. We'll ever throw in that human woman as a benefit."

"I-I couldn't."

"Simply think about it. The boy shows no signs of it now, does he? Perhaps he never will."

That small benefit of doubt was slowly disappearing. Vlad was amassing telepathic power at an alarming rate, slowly becoming more powerful than even Vikas predicted. His words were coming out sharper, with a tone that demanded to be followed.

I loved that boy beyond a shadow of a doubt, and would sacrifice myself for him in a moment, but I was slowly growing more fearful of him. Even his daily expressions…

He was changing, and in a way that made everyone uneasy.

More so, because of the Cairo murder, whispers were growing. Whispers about a vampire named Jarha, though he had many pseudonyms. Supposedly reborn around the time of King Tutankhamen, he rejected Elysia, learning powerful and dangerous glyphs and techniques on how to develop a vampire's raw power, glyphs and techniques dated before vampires had joined and formed Elysia. They were made for wars, when vampires would fight against one another in the earliest days of this world.

He was supposedly destroyed years ago, but now the whispers were saying that he was back, more powerful and angrier than ever. And since his goal was well matched to the Pravus prophecy…

My ultimate fear was that he would find a way to seduce Vlad to his side of the battlefield. Because, with vampires going off the grid and leaders turning up slaughters days later, it seemed sides were forming, a line being drawn into the unmarked grounds of vampire society.

And Vlad was the ultimate weapon for both of those sides.

"Otis, wipe the gloom from your face! I found the troublesome vampire in Bathory!" Vikas's voice boomed through the night. I turned, and Vikas, still stubbornly dressed in his furs, was holding a wriggly figure in his large arms. The figure snarled and tried to bite him. "Now, now, little one, be kind."

"Vikas…"

"Yes, yes, of course." He closed his eyes for a moment, and the figure went still, a victim to Vikas's mind control. He was a boy that looked around 17, with wavy dark hair and green eyes the colour of jewels.

"Look, just let me go! I'm sorry, I don't want to kill anyone, I'm just so hungry." His eyes were wide, fearful. The look of a young vampire being caught in something he couldn't be doing.

"We don't want to hurt you." My voice was calm, and I gestured for Vikas to release him, both body and mind. I walked towards him. "What happened that made you so hungry?" He screwed up his face, still looking scared.

"I don't know! I…there was this guy, and he bit me, oh, god, it hurt, and then next thing you know, I wake up and I'm a freaking son of Dracula!" He put his arms around himself. I was shocked.

"The man…didn't stay with you?" Most times, vampires made illegal vampires for lovers, marking them ad theirs as soon as the change was done; to leave a newborn alone around humans was like leaving a hungry wolf in a flock of sheep.

"No, he didn't, you asshole! If he did, I'd be with him! I-I nearly killed my mom. For God's sake, I had to leave! Now I'm here, and, damnit, everyone tastes so good. But I can't stop. I try, but I can't. Please, please don't kill me!" The newborn was flicking his eyes between me and Vikas, desperation and hunger in his eyes.

"We're not going to kill you." I reached out and he flinched, but relaxed when all I did was check the insides of his wrists. Unmarked. I looked to Vikas. Was Jarha-if indeed he was alive- making unmarked vampires to create his own army? Why then, would he leave this one to his own devices?

It didn't matter at the moment. I could give this young one the gift of Elysia. I lifted one of his wrists to my mouth, unthinking.

"What the hell are you doing?" The newborn yanked his wrist away.

"I am giving you your Elysian mark. You will thank me for it once you have it." He stumbled back. I forgot to be slow, explain what all this was. He was like a skittish colt.

"No way in hell! Last time someone bit me, I became a damn vampire!" His eyes were wild, panicked. The eyes of a trapped animal. Vikas reached out to his touch his shoulder, and the newborn reeled back. "Don't touch me!" Raw, uncontrolled telepathic power exploded from the boy, choking me and scraping the inside of my skull. Red washed over my vision. When it cleared, I saw Vikas panting hard. The newborn was gone. I sighed again as I met Vikas's eyes.

Things had just become a lot more complicated.

Edward's POV

I ran back to my crappy flat from Stokerton. Well, apparently I had gotten those damned vampires attention with my minor killing spree. I narrowed my eyes. Getting caught was a rookie mistake. I was distracted by something else, let myself slip up…

Speaking of that, I was going to tear Ignatius another one for touching Aiza.

Fury bubbled up in me. I hated to admit it, but I was letting myself get way to emotionally close to this girl. Charlotte's face flashed behind my eyelids, and guilt washed through me. Aiza could not replace her. Aiza was going to die, just like Charlotte, if Joseph has his way. That sent a bolt of pain through me, but I shoved it away. Just keep yourself emotionless, never get too attached…it hurts less.

The last dissonant chords of 'Check my Brain'-a strangely fitting song-were filtering through the air as I walked in. There was a figure on the couch, and as I got close, it began to clap slowly.

"Even though you got caught, I won't punish you. You covered well, Edward. I don't want to kill anyone, I'm just so hungry. I-I almost killed my mom!" The voice was harsh, mocking, and ended in a laugh. I grit my teeth and repressed a snarl.

"Joseph."

End Notes: This is definitely not the best chapter, but it beefs up the story a bit more. Do you like the semi-cliffie ending? I do. The next chapter will be really short, but the chapter after that will be long. So, tell me what you think, predictions, how I can make it better…ect. with a review!