Chapter 21 (Maybe not lost completely.)

I hadn't left Mr. Crepsley's room in over 2 weeks, Zak tried to move me a few times telling me this wasn't good for me but I pushed him away. I pushed everyone away; I wanted to be alone in this room, in his room, in my father's room.

"Darren… Darren look at me." I could tell by the voice it was Seba, I just buried my face into Mr. Crepsley's cloak even more.

"Darren we are all worried about you, it is not right to lock yourself up like this, Larten would not want you to do this to yourself."

"Well I'll never find out know will I. I'll never find out if he would be happy at how much I've grown, and what I've learnt. I'll never know now will I." I looked up at Seba with my hurting eyes but had to look away quickly, he outfit was too much like Mr. Crepsley's use to be.

"Darren you need to eat, you need to feed, and you have not taken blood for 2 weeks."

"I KNOW WHAT I HAVNT DONE!" I locked my eyes onto Seba's and refused to look away. "I WILL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN; I WILL NEVER GET TO SAY GOODBYE… I'll never be able to hug him, to tell him how proud I was he picked me as his assistant. So don't lecture me on what I haven't done." I looked away feeling I had made my point. Seba couldn't reply, how could he? He turned and walked away leaving me to my thought.

I must of nodded off because the next think I knew I was being shaken, I opened my eyes slowly and saw Zak he had a smile on his face, I was about to clobber him for smiling at a time like this but he started talking before I could explode.

"Darren I don't think his dead, there talking in the halls of princes, hurry up." He grabbed my arm and dragged me to the halls before I could even register what was happening. We stood listening to the conversation going on in the halls.

"What do you mean, explain yourself?" Paris demanded

"Sir, I believe they could have just been taken by the vampaneze. We know from experience that they have some device that blocks out mental links, maybe there using it sir." I tried to picture a face for the voice but it didn't ring any bells. "Where was there last known location before we lost them?"

"There last location was a small village, 27 kilometres east. It looks like they were on their way back." I could feel my heart beat faster and faster. If Mr. Crepsley was alive I was going to find him. I was planning my escape when a section on the conversation caught my interest.

"What about the boy, should we tell him?" the unfamiliar vampire asked

"No, I don't want to raise the boys hopes for them to be broken again if it turns out he is dead, Darren is not to know is that understood?" Paris addressed the halls. A mutter was all I could work at as an answer.

"Darren do you know what this means?" Zak turned to talk to me but noticed I was already halfway down the corridor heading back to my room. When he arrived at my room I had already packed my backpack and was stuffing the last of my belongings into it including Mr. Crepsley's cloak.

"You're going to check it out aren't you?" Zak lent up against my door frame and folded his arms across his chest.

"If there is even a 1% chance his alive I'm going for it and don't think about trying to stop me because I'm not in the mood for games." I put my arms though the straps of my backpack and headed for the door but Zak didn't move.

"I'm not going to stop you at all, I'll admit I don't have this kind of connection with my maker but you where young when blooded and might see him as your father, and I wouldn't dream of stopping you searching for him, that's why I'm coming with you."

I looked on in amazement as he reviled a hidden backpack behind him as he put a thick woolly jacket on over his top. He put his backpack on and moved out of the doorway so I could lead the way. "Thanks" I said as I passed him. He slapped me on the shoulder as I walked by and smiled then we were off. "So what about that menu change then?" He nudged me in the side and we both laughed. "I'll see what I can do."

We had to keep to the shadows while we made our way down to the exit tunnels. We took out time making sure we wouldn't be seen by anyone. We managed to reach the lower tunnels without any fuss but things where running to smoothly, something was bound to go wrong.

"Darren, Zak where are you going." We both shot round in a flash to come face to face with Paris. We couldn't talk. "Looks like you're off on a little adventure. Oh my mistake it looks like you're off on a hunting trip, Zak that's very thoughtful of you taking Darren hunting to take his mind off current events." Zak and I looked at each other confused but Paris just winked, smiled, handed me a map, turned and walked off towards the main halls.

I smiled and looked at the map, Zak however was still in a state of shock, but he just laughed it off and studied the map with me. Paris had marked off where the mounting was where Mr. Crepsley's last location was and circled parts of the map writing next to them features to look out for like a waterfall or oddly shaped rocks. I put the map in my pocket and we set off.

"According to the map the "gold running" waterfall should just be over there." It was Zak's turn to navigate, last time he got us lost and the time before that he took us back to the mountain. I was hoping to the vampire gods that he would get it right this time.

I pushed aside a few branches and to my amazement there was nothing there but a wide open field. I pinched the bridge of my nose trying to stay calm. The longer we wasted on poor map skills the less likely it was that we would find Mr. Crepsley or any of the other hunters again.

"What the hell! This can't be right I followed it to the letter, this map is wrong." He walked out into the middle of the field and threw the map on the floor.

"It's not wrong it's just a confusing map that's all. Come on pick it up and pass it here, we need to find out where we are." I held out my hand and in which Zak thrust the map at me. I lay it open on the floor and studied it for a while. I retraced my steps from the last correct point we were at. "Alright look, we are here" I pointed to our location on the map. "And the closest thing we need to find is here." I pointed to the "lion" shaped rock. "Paris didn't say we had to go to every one of these so I think we should just find the Lion and carry on from there."

Zak kicked a small pebble and walked off in a huff muttering "Fine." I shook my head at his children's moment and continued on our way. We reached the Lion shaped rock 3 hours after our little diversion. We decided along the way it would be better for the both of us if I stayed in charge of the map, while Zak climbed up tall trees to look at our surrounds seeing if he could see our destinations.

"How much further do we have until we reach the village?" Zak asked rubbing his saw feet.

"Well lion here is the last but 1 marker, next thing we have to look out for is a sign that says "Village this way" do you really think there is a sign out here saying that?" I handed the map over to Zak so he could see it for himself.

"Ha-ha Waw that's just funny, well I don't think Paris would put something on here that isn't real." He stood up and dusted himself down. "Come on it don't look like it's going to be that far away, if we get a move on we should be able to get there just a little after dawn."

"Ye hopefully." I suddenly started feeling very nervous and scared; having Zak with me throughout the trip has kept my mind off my ultimate goal. I was so close to finding out if Mr. Crepsley really was dead or alive, part of me didn't want to now but I had to find out for my own sanity I had to.

"Hay Zak, what happens if there not alive, what if his truly dead, what if there all dead?"

Zak turned to face me slowly; he did not look impressed in the slightest. "Don't ever talk like that again. I came with you because of the determination you had to find him alive. Don't start questioning yourself. Do you believe his alive?"

"Ye but…"

"No; yes or no. Do you believe his alive?"

"Yes"

"Then we carry on searching until we find him and the rest alive or until you say you don't believe it anymore." With that Zak gave me one last hard look and walked off towards the village.

The village was a little run down thing in the middle of nowhere. The perfect place to take people you didn't want finding. The few villagers we walked passed gave us odd looks I turned slightly and whispered to Zak "I'm guessing they don't get many visitors."

"No I don't think so, maybe we should grab some food and camp out in the forests surrounding this so called village." Zak looked over his shoulder and noticed the villages following us. I noticed to but carried on regardless.

"We don't want your kind here." An elderly man walked out from the crowd carrying a pitch fork. I had to stop myself from giggling; he looked like one of those farmers you always see in "Dracula" movies or "Frankenstein"

"What do you mean 'our kind'?" I turned to meet the old man's stare.

"We aren't stupid; we know full well what you are. We already have a vampaneze problem we don't need a vampire one to."

"Well for your information old man that's exactly why we're here." Zak walked as close to the old man as he dared and continued. "You see my associate and I are here to rid you of vampaneze problem, once we are done we will leave and you'll never see our faces again." The old man gave him a weary look mulling over Zak's story.

"If you're here to get rid of them, then I guess I can put you up for a few nights, but I'm warning you if you even attempt biting someone I'll throw you out in the sunlight." Zak looked at me shocked, we both managed to hold back our laughter; they really did believe the stories.

"I promise if we try you can tie us to posts and let us burn in the sunlight." I put my hand on my heart and tried to sound as serious as possible. The old man agreed and we followed him to our temporary loggings.

The old man's house looked like something out of a scary movie. It looked older then the whole village, if I believed in ghosts I would 100% say this house was haunted, but my vampire mind wouldn't let me believe in such things and to be honest I'm glad. The man showed us straight to the attic. No grand tour, no "this is where the bathroom is;" nothing.

"You can stay up here." These where the old man's only words before he turned around and walked off back down the stairs. Zak and I looked around the room. I would have thanked the man but he was gone far too quickly. "I get the feeling he didn't like us very much." I said thinking out loud.

"You're telling me. Looks like we are going to have to stay in until the sun goes completely down, don't want to go bursting into flames now do we." At that we couldn't hold back, we fell on the floor laughing our heads off, tears where rolling down our cheeks, our sides where killing and we couldn't breathe. I couldn't remember the last time I had laughed this much.

Once we had calmed down we got out the map and studied it closely. "I think the only use this map had left is to get us home. We are going to have to talk to the villages to see where the vampaneze are." I ran a hand through my hair; I knew talking to the villagers was going to be easier said than done.

Zak yarned and looked around; he found 2 sleeping bags and lobbed one at me. "It's about time we got some sleep; we can start our questioning tomorrow night."

I nodded and climbed into my sleeping bag. Obviously checking for spiders or anything else that might be lurking in there before I got in. I snuggled down and within no time at all I had fallen into a deep sleep, dreaming about rescuing everyone and seeing Mr. Crepsley again.