Part 6
Drake didn't understand what was the matter with him. Ever since the first day that he had seen her Ivory Blessingway had been in his mind ever since. He barely heard a word anyone else said to him. What the hell was wrong with him?
Elle was pissed at him, she glared and snapped at everyone. What was so special about Ivory, anyway? It was a good question no one really knew the answer to.
So she was someone new, quite pretty...so what?
There were lots of other pretty girls in town. And Night Girls too. Take Elle for example, beautiful, perfect, strong...bad. Who could want more?
And yet it was mysterious Ivory he obsessed over.
He sat in a dark car outside her house. He could see her silhouette in one of the windows. Why was he so drawn to this girl?
~Who are you Ivory?~ he thought.
* * *
Ivory frowned, parting the curtain slightly. She could see the dark car that had been sitting outside for the past several hours. Since the night was dark and the glass of the car windows was tinted, she couldn't actually see who was in the car.
She turned away from the window, trying to ignore it, but it was hard. Why should someone be watching her?
"Whose car is that outside?"
Ivory turned to see Chantal leaning in the doorway, twisting a strand of raven hair.
"I don't know," she admitted.
Chantal frowned and went to look herself. "Should we be worried?"
Ivory just shrugged helplessly. "I don't know that either."
Chantal rolled her eyes, looking rather irritated, which made Ivory feel even more stupid. She couldn't explain what was going on to herself, let alone to anyone else. Chantal sighed and left. Ivory glanced out the window one more time, only to see that the car was gone.
She turned away, confused and a little scared.
What was going on?
* * *
Chantal watched the car speed away as she stepped outside. She didn't catch the licence plate. It couldn't be...they didn't even know yet... Did they?
* * *
Part 7
It was Friday night. The air was crisp and cool, stars twinkled brightly in the sky. The loud sound of music was blasting from Elle Nightshade's mansion.
Alina frowned as she, Tala and Venus hung around in the gardens, wondering how they could get in.
The place was crawling with Night People, they seemed to be everywhere.
A lot of them Alina didn't recognise, they must be from near by towns. There were one or two other Daybreakers dotted around the mansion, so far, none of them had seen Ivory.
"Well this was a great idea," Venus snorted, sighing heavily.
Tala flushed. "Well do you have a better idea?" she snapped.
Alina sighed. "Knock it off." Personally, she thought the whole evening would be a bust, and even if something did happen she doubted they could do anything about it, but she didn't feel like getting into an argument.
Ivory seemed to be somewhere in between the Daybreakers and the Night World. She seemed much more comfortable with Tala, than she did with Elle and Sherry.
But then why was she coming to the party?
"She hasn't shown up yet, and with any luck, she won't," Tala said hopefully.
The receiver transmission in Alina's ear buzzed. "She's just arrived," the witch stationed by the door informed her.
"Damn," Alina hissed. "Follow her." She turned to Tala. "No such luck. She's just arrived."
"Oh." Tala sounded disappointed. "What are you doing?"
"Contacts are following her," Alina said. There was nothing else they could do except wait and see what happened.
* * *
Part 8
Ivory felt extremely out of place walking into Elle's huge hilltop mansion. She felt small and unsure of herself.
Everyone there had a sense of...*darkness* about them. There was almost like an aura that was frightening.
"Ivory, you made it."
Ivory turned around and almost gulped at the sight of Elle coming from a side room. Elle was dressed in a slinky tight black leather dress that showed off how slender she was, plus all her curves. Her perfect lips were emphasised by black lipstick, her eye-make up sparkly. Her gold hair rippled down her back.
Something about her was extremely eerie.
Ivory managed a weak smile. "Yeah," was all she could say.
"Well go look around, there's food and booze somewhere." Hips swaying Elle sauntered off into another room.
Ivory was beginning to understand why Alina had warned her to keep away. She was getting a pricking feeling at the back of her neck as she wandered into one of the rooms. She felt as if she'd been dropped into a Gothic horror movie.
She was surrounded by people with weird coloured hair, leather, studs, piercings, tattoos of all shapes, designs. Some strange...some *scary*. Who would want a dead body tattooed on your living one? She suppressed a shudder. The glitter seemed a little out of place.
Eyes reflected out the darkness as she made her way to a bar set up in the corner of the room. The shadows and music were strange and twisting. Singers were screaming incomprehensibly at the microphone. Drums throbbed and pounded.
She didn't know anyone and didn't like the way they were looking at her. The hell with this. She was leaving. She turned and had to control herself not to run out the room. Not paying attention she almost ran into Sherry and Drake.
"Leaving so soon?" Sherry asked with a smile.
"Party's hardly started," Drake added. His gaze as his ran over Ivory was almost...hungry.
"I..." Ivory was feeling way out of her league, but could hardly do anything about it.
"Let's go meet some people," Sherry said cheerfully, taking her by the arm in an iron like grip and leading her round the room, introducing her to various people.
As she moved around someone watching from the sidelines caught Ivory's eyes. The girl caught her eye because she looked...ordinary. She didn't have the strange looks that most of the others did.
She turned to ask Sherry who the girl was, but she was gone before Ivory could even open her mouth. She blinked in confusion. Sherry glanced at her. "What?"
Ivory shook her head. "I don't know. I thought I saw - " She glanced back where she'd seen the girl.
Sherry looked too. Drake glanced over. Ivory watched them exchange glances. "Sometimes we get the nobodies trying to crash," Sherry answered dismissively. She grabbed Drake's arm and pulled him off, presumably to go find the uninvited guest.
Ivory decided to check out upstairs. It was quieter there; the screaming sounds of downstairs were much fainter. She felt relieved and much better out of the crowds of creepy people.
"Haven't seen you before."
The deep voice behind her startled her. Ivory turned to see a tall guy, dark skinned and muscular, black eyes gleaming, a leering grin on his face.
"No, I'm new," she said. Her pulse was pounding in her throat.
The guy looked pleased. "Oh good. No one'll miss you then."
Ivory blinked. "Huh?"
The next thing she knew the guy had opened his mouth. Ivory screamed. His teeth were changing, canines lengthening curving into delicate points - not teeth anymore, but *fangs.*
Before she could run he grabbed her in an iron like grip, yanking back her hair and digging those fangs into her flesh. Ivory struggled, feeling blood spill, and at the same time a strange heat welling up inside her.
The next thing she knew the entire vision was obscured by a flash of blue. When it cleared Ivory blinked. The guy - the vampire - was gone.
Elle, Sherry and Drake were running in her direction, then stopping dead and looking at her in utter surprise.
Ivory stared back at them. "What the *hell* was that?"
* * *
Part 9
Alina paced up and down, waiting for something to happen. She was sick of standing around doing nothing. So far nothing had happened. She turned to suggest they find Ivory and get her out the party, give up and go home, when a flash of bright blue suddenly obscured her vision.
"My God, *blue fire*," Venus whispered.
"It came from the mansion," Tala said, and headed off in that direction.
Alina reached out to brag her arm. "No, we can't."
Tala looked at her, irritated, yellow eyes flashing. "Why not? There's a *Wild Power* in that mansion. We can't let the bad guys get their hands on them!" she snapped.
"She ahs a point," Venus added.
"There's too many of them," Alina hissed. "And only about five of us. There's no way we could take them all on."
"So what are we supposed to do? Sit around and wait for them to win?" Tala snorted.
Alina could understand her frustration. She didn't like the idea of doing nothing anymore than anyone else did.
"Well my first guess is we just run in and see where we go from there," Tala said haughtily, and was off before anyone could stop her.
Alina sighed heavily. This was *not* going to be fun. Venus looked at her. "What now?"
"We go after her," Alina said with another sigh.
She headed off in the direction of the mansion. Well, it would be interesting once they got inside.
* * *
Drake, Elle and Sherry starred at Ivory in utter disbelief. Drake had known there was something about the girl the minute he'd laid eyes on her. He had never expected she would turn out to be a Wild Power. She was just standing there, staring at them in as much disbelief as they were staring at her. She obviously didn't have a clue what was going on.
Shouting from downstairs suddenly interrupted, followed by a series of crashes, yelling and swearing.
"Shit," Elle muttered. "The damned Daybreakers are here." She turned to face Drake and Sherry. "Get her the hell out of here."
Before Ivory could protest or do anything Sherry had picked her up and was running down the hall. Ivory shrieked. Drake was amused and headed after Sherry as she jumped out a window, crashing through the glass, ignoring Ivory's screaming.
Downstairs was chaos. People were running around everywhere and it was impossible to tell whether they were Daybreak or Night World. A black limo was waiting conveniently for them outside the mansion. Sherry shoved Ivory inside and dived in herself, Drake headed in after her. The limo shot off into the night.
"We got the Wild Power," Sherry was gloating.
"Lucky us," Drake said with a dry smile.
Sherry stared at him. "What's the matter with you? This girl could determine the fate of *everything*. We got her before the Daybreakers."
What *was* wrong with him? Drake didn't know. He hadn't been able to get Ivory out of his mind since she'd arrived. Sherry was right - they'd got the Wild Power. So why wasn't he happier?
Because he wasn't.
He just wasn't.
* * *
Part 10
Ivory was panicking. She had absolutely no idea what was happening. A guy with sharp teeth had attacked her, she had done some weird sort of blasty thing to save herself, only to find herself actually *kidnapped* by Drake and Sherry.
She had *known* there was something weird about them. Dark and ominous. She didn't know they were actually *insane*. They were talking about some end of the world thing and seemed convinced that she was the key figure.
To Ivory it all sounded like some sci-fi Dungeons and Dragons type thing and it was driving her nuts.
"What the hell is a Wild Power?" she demanded finally, sick of the secrecy.
She watched Drake and Sherry exchanging glances. Drake seemed rather uncomfortable, as if he didn't want to believe what was actually happening, but had no choice to accept it anyway.
Ivory was annoyed. *He* was the one having difficulty believing things? She was the one they had snatched and thrown into something completely beyond her expectations.
Sherry was looking rather smug. "You don't know what you are." It was statement, not a question.
"If I knew, would I be asking?" Ivory snapped. "You're both insane."
Sherry gave Drake a sideways glance. "*He* is, I'm not."
Drake glared at her. "Drop dead," he hissed.
Sherry sighed. "I've been dead for years," she muttered.
Ivory didn't care about the annoying banter, she wanted to know what was going on, and she wanted to know *right now.* How did she do another of blasty things?
Sherry looked at Drake again, who sighed heavily.
"You might as well tell her," e said finally. "She's going to find out sooner or later."
Sherry turned her gaze to Ivory. "It's called the Night World," she said slowly, and started to explain everything.
* * *
Drake didn't understand what was the matter with him. Ever since the first day that he had seen her Ivory Blessingway had been in his mind ever since. He barely heard a word anyone else said to him. What the hell was wrong with him?
Elle was pissed at him, she glared and snapped at everyone. What was so special about Ivory, anyway? It was a good question no one really knew the answer to.
So she was someone new, quite pretty...so what?
There were lots of other pretty girls in town. And Night Girls too. Take Elle for example, beautiful, perfect, strong...bad. Who could want more?
And yet it was mysterious Ivory he obsessed over.
He sat in a dark car outside her house. He could see her silhouette in one of the windows. Why was he so drawn to this girl?
~Who are you Ivory?~ he thought.
* * *
Ivory frowned, parting the curtain slightly. She could see the dark car that had been sitting outside for the past several hours. Since the night was dark and the glass of the car windows was tinted, she couldn't actually see who was in the car.
She turned away from the window, trying to ignore it, but it was hard. Why should someone be watching her?
"Whose car is that outside?"
Ivory turned to see Chantal leaning in the doorway, twisting a strand of raven hair.
"I don't know," she admitted.
Chantal frowned and went to look herself. "Should we be worried?"
Ivory just shrugged helplessly. "I don't know that either."
Chantal rolled her eyes, looking rather irritated, which made Ivory feel even more stupid. She couldn't explain what was going on to herself, let alone to anyone else. Chantal sighed and left. Ivory glanced out the window one more time, only to see that the car was gone.
She turned away, confused and a little scared.
What was going on?
* * *
Chantal watched the car speed away as she stepped outside. She didn't catch the licence plate. It couldn't be...they didn't even know yet... Did they?
* * *
Part 7
It was Friday night. The air was crisp and cool, stars twinkled brightly in the sky. The loud sound of music was blasting from Elle Nightshade's mansion.
Alina frowned as she, Tala and Venus hung around in the gardens, wondering how they could get in.
The place was crawling with Night People, they seemed to be everywhere.
A lot of them Alina didn't recognise, they must be from near by towns. There were one or two other Daybreakers dotted around the mansion, so far, none of them had seen Ivory.
"Well this was a great idea," Venus snorted, sighing heavily.
Tala flushed. "Well do you have a better idea?" she snapped.
Alina sighed. "Knock it off." Personally, she thought the whole evening would be a bust, and even if something did happen she doubted they could do anything about it, but she didn't feel like getting into an argument.
Ivory seemed to be somewhere in between the Daybreakers and the Night World. She seemed much more comfortable with Tala, than she did with Elle and Sherry.
But then why was she coming to the party?
"She hasn't shown up yet, and with any luck, she won't," Tala said hopefully.
The receiver transmission in Alina's ear buzzed. "She's just arrived," the witch stationed by the door informed her.
"Damn," Alina hissed. "Follow her." She turned to Tala. "No such luck. She's just arrived."
"Oh." Tala sounded disappointed. "What are you doing?"
"Contacts are following her," Alina said. There was nothing else they could do except wait and see what happened.
* * *
Part 8
Ivory felt extremely out of place walking into Elle's huge hilltop mansion. She felt small and unsure of herself.
Everyone there had a sense of...*darkness* about them. There was almost like an aura that was frightening.
"Ivory, you made it."
Ivory turned around and almost gulped at the sight of Elle coming from a side room. Elle was dressed in a slinky tight black leather dress that showed off how slender she was, plus all her curves. Her perfect lips were emphasised by black lipstick, her eye-make up sparkly. Her gold hair rippled down her back.
Something about her was extremely eerie.
Ivory managed a weak smile. "Yeah," was all she could say.
"Well go look around, there's food and booze somewhere." Hips swaying Elle sauntered off into another room.
Ivory was beginning to understand why Alina had warned her to keep away. She was getting a pricking feeling at the back of her neck as she wandered into one of the rooms. She felt as if she'd been dropped into a Gothic horror movie.
She was surrounded by people with weird coloured hair, leather, studs, piercings, tattoos of all shapes, designs. Some strange...some *scary*. Who would want a dead body tattooed on your living one? She suppressed a shudder. The glitter seemed a little out of place.
Eyes reflected out the darkness as she made her way to a bar set up in the corner of the room. The shadows and music were strange and twisting. Singers were screaming incomprehensibly at the microphone. Drums throbbed and pounded.
She didn't know anyone and didn't like the way they were looking at her. The hell with this. She was leaving. She turned and had to control herself not to run out the room. Not paying attention she almost ran into Sherry and Drake.
"Leaving so soon?" Sherry asked with a smile.
"Party's hardly started," Drake added. His gaze as his ran over Ivory was almost...hungry.
"I..." Ivory was feeling way out of her league, but could hardly do anything about it.
"Let's go meet some people," Sherry said cheerfully, taking her by the arm in an iron like grip and leading her round the room, introducing her to various people.
As she moved around someone watching from the sidelines caught Ivory's eyes. The girl caught her eye because she looked...ordinary. She didn't have the strange looks that most of the others did.
She turned to ask Sherry who the girl was, but she was gone before Ivory could even open her mouth. She blinked in confusion. Sherry glanced at her. "What?"
Ivory shook her head. "I don't know. I thought I saw - " She glanced back where she'd seen the girl.
Sherry looked too. Drake glanced over. Ivory watched them exchange glances. "Sometimes we get the nobodies trying to crash," Sherry answered dismissively. She grabbed Drake's arm and pulled him off, presumably to go find the uninvited guest.
Ivory decided to check out upstairs. It was quieter there; the screaming sounds of downstairs were much fainter. She felt relieved and much better out of the crowds of creepy people.
"Haven't seen you before."
The deep voice behind her startled her. Ivory turned to see a tall guy, dark skinned and muscular, black eyes gleaming, a leering grin on his face.
"No, I'm new," she said. Her pulse was pounding in her throat.
The guy looked pleased. "Oh good. No one'll miss you then."
Ivory blinked. "Huh?"
The next thing she knew the guy had opened his mouth. Ivory screamed. His teeth were changing, canines lengthening curving into delicate points - not teeth anymore, but *fangs.*
Before she could run he grabbed her in an iron like grip, yanking back her hair and digging those fangs into her flesh. Ivory struggled, feeling blood spill, and at the same time a strange heat welling up inside her.
The next thing she knew the entire vision was obscured by a flash of blue. When it cleared Ivory blinked. The guy - the vampire - was gone.
Elle, Sherry and Drake were running in her direction, then stopping dead and looking at her in utter surprise.
Ivory stared back at them. "What the *hell* was that?"
* * *
Part 9
Alina paced up and down, waiting for something to happen. She was sick of standing around doing nothing. So far nothing had happened. She turned to suggest they find Ivory and get her out the party, give up and go home, when a flash of bright blue suddenly obscured her vision.
"My God, *blue fire*," Venus whispered.
"It came from the mansion," Tala said, and headed off in that direction.
Alina reached out to brag her arm. "No, we can't."
Tala looked at her, irritated, yellow eyes flashing. "Why not? There's a *Wild Power* in that mansion. We can't let the bad guys get their hands on them!" she snapped.
"She ahs a point," Venus added.
"There's too many of them," Alina hissed. "And only about five of us. There's no way we could take them all on."
"So what are we supposed to do? Sit around and wait for them to win?" Tala snorted.
Alina could understand her frustration. She didn't like the idea of doing nothing anymore than anyone else did.
"Well my first guess is we just run in and see where we go from there," Tala said haughtily, and was off before anyone could stop her.
Alina sighed heavily. This was *not* going to be fun. Venus looked at her. "What now?"
"We go after her," Alina said with another sigh.
She headed off in the direction of the mansion. Well, it would be interesting once they got inside.
* * *
Drake, Elle and Sherry starred at Ivory in utter disbelief. Drake had known there was something about the girl the minute he'd laid eyes on her. He had never expected she would turn out to be a Wild Power. She was just standing there, staring at them in as much disbelief as they were staring at her. She obviously didn't have a clue what was going on.
Shouting from downstairs suddenly interrupted, followed by a series of crashes, yelling and swearing.
"Shit," Elle muttered. "The damned Daybreakers are here." She turned to face Drake and Sherry. "Get her the hell out of here."
Before Ivory could protest or do anything Sherry had picked her up and was running down the hall. Ivory shrieked. Drake was amused and headed after Sherry as she jumped out a window, crashing through the glass, ignoring Ivory's screaming.
Downstairs was chaos. People were running around everywhere and it was impossible to tell whether they were Daybreak or Night World. A black limo was waiting conveniently for them outside the mansion. Sherry shoved Ivory inside and dived in herself, Drake headed in after her. The limo shot off into the night.
"We got the Wild Power," Sherry was gloating.
"Lucky us," Drake said with a dry smile.
Sherry stared at him. "What's the matter with you? This girl could determine the fate of *everything*. We got her before the Daybreakers."
What *was* wrong with him? Drake didn't know. He hadn't been able to get Ivory out of his mind since she'd arrived. Sherry was right - they'd got the Wild Power. So why wasn't he happier?
Because he wasn't.
He just wasn't.
* * *
Part 10
Ivory was panicking. She had absolutely no idea what was happening. A guy with sharp teeth had attacked her, she had done some weird sort of blasty thing to save herself, only to find herself actually *kidnapped* by Drake and Sherry.
She had *known* there was something weird about them. Dark and ominous. She didn't know they were actually *insane*. They were talking about some end of the world thing and seemed convinced that she was the key figure.
To Ivory it all sounded like some sci-fi Dungeons and Dragons type thing and it was driving her nuts.
"What the hell is a Wild Power?" she demanded finally, sick of the secrecy.
She watched Drake and Sherry exchanging glances. Drake seemed rather uncomfortable, as if he didn't want to believe what was actually happening, but had no choice to accept it anyway.
Ivory was annoyed. *He* was the one having difficulty believing things? She was the one they had snatched and thrown into something completely beyond her expectations.
Sherry was looking rather smug. "You don't know what you are." It was statement, not a question.
"If I knew, would I be asking?" Ivory snapped. "You're both insane."
Sherry gave Drake a sideways glance. "*He* is, I'm not."
Drake glared at her. "Drop dead," he hissed.
Sherry sighed. "I've been dead for years," she muttered.
Ivory didn't care about the annoying banter, she wanted to know what was going on, and she wanted to know *right now.* How did she do another of blasty things?
Sherry looked at Drake again, who sighed heavily.
"You might as well tell her," e said finally. "She's going to find out sooner or later."
Sherry turned her gaze to Ivory. "It's called the Night World," she said slowly, and started to explain everything.
* * *