Ok, I know in the book it says that Sarah doesn't meet up w/ Nikolas until the following tuesday, but let's just pretend it's tuesday okay? It works for the story. So this is the day that Sarah meets up w/ Nikolas,(gasp) Kristopher's twin. Oh yeah, so the Halloween dance already happened.
************Althea's POV************************
I opened my eyes to find myself staring at a very familiar ceiling. I half expected to find myself being torn apart by vampires. I slowly sat upright and become aware that I had just been sprawled on the floor. 'Was that me?' I thought. 'Me that stabbed THE Kaleo, me that just successfully orbed?' Orbing was very, very hard for me. 'Why did I try to orb? I can't even orb from upstairs to downstairs without landing on my head!' which explained the pain coming from my butt and back. My landing must not have been as good as my orbing. I was in shock, but I slapped myself out of it soon enough. Speaking of, where exactly did I orb myself to? Then I saw a drawing on the wall to my right. It was a crude picture of a rabbit drawn in yellow crayon. 'Hey, I drew that,' I realized. "Oh shit! I'm back in L.A.!"
I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen. "Please don't let the phone be disconnected, pleeeez!" I picked up the receiver and heard the standard dial tone. "Phew," I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I remembered. I don't know the new telephone number. Well this was just great and dandy! "Okay think, think. Who knows the new telephone number? Okay, there's mom, Matt, dad...oh DUH! Just call for dad. But then I'd get in a whole buncha trouble for 'the danger I've put myself in!'" I mocked my father's voice. "Maybe I could just orb back. Of course I might end up orbing myself back to the bash. Nope, bad idea." But no way was I gonna get grounded for this *tiny* mishap in my opinion. After I reflected on the situation, I decided that orbing back may not be such a bad idea. Maybe I was on a lucky streak. "Here goes nothing." I closed my eyes and concentrated really hard on going back to Acton.
I opened my eyes to find myself staring at very unfamiliar ceiling with my butt really starting to throb from another *graceful* landing. 'Well at least it's not my head' I thought. Once again I sat up and looked around me. I was in a room with lightly colored walls with the auras of vampires and werewolves washing over me. I knew immediately where I was just from the smell of the place. It was just like the one in L.A. "Single Earth," I muttered to myself.
'Well, might as well get out of here and back to the house,' I thought to myself. I got up and opened the door to find a young blonde woman right in my face with her hand curled around the doorknob. She looked kinda familiar. "Who are you?" she asked me. Then I was sort of at a miniature crossroads: Tell her who and what I am or just lie and slip out unnoticed. Oh what the hell, the truth can't hurt right? "I'm Althea. I sorta got here by accident. Which way is the exit?" She kinda looked at me funny but continued to just show me the way out. I think she forgot what she was going to the room for. When we got to the exit/entrance she called out to me, "I didn't get your last name." I turned my head and told her, "It's Tzinis." Her face suddenly became stone. She recognized my name of course. "I knew your cousin Theodora," I whispered with my back turned. I knew she could hear me perfectly since the night was so still, but I doubted if she was listening. "Oh," she said softly. I didn't sense any malice from her, only loss. I knew I wasn't the best comforter in the world, so I split. I ran all the way home.
I walked inside to a silent house. My parents were either asleep or gone. I crept upstairs to my bedroom, and flopped down on my bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I woke up that morning thankfully to the room I was expecting to be in. I looked at my clock and it was already 7:00 a.m. I had overslept. I jumped out of bed, bumped my head, and just couldn't get up this morning. My whole body ached. First from the scratches of the vampires at the bash and then from all the hard landings. Orbing took a lot out of you. I so did not want to go to school today. My mother then came into my room, "Hurry up or you're gonna be late!" "Mom, I feel really lousy." I was really gonna have to work for her to let me stay home from school. Hmm, what happened to my no lying policy? "We all feel lousy sometimes," she retorted. "But Mom, I fought Kaleo at a bash last night, and it really hurts now." That got her attention. "You WHAT?!? How? What happened?" Now she was sitting on my bed. "I came across this bash okay? And I went inside and Kaleo came up to me and started talkin trash and I don't know what came over me, it must have been my Triste instincts y'know, but I just stabbed him right in the heart. Then I poured some HW on it and tried to run out. But then all these vampires were running after me and I was fightin them off left and right." By this point I was really getting into the story, even if I did embellish a little. But then she asked, "How did you get away?" Uh oh. What do I say? If I told her about my "traveling experience" , she would make me train all day for the next year! I just wanted to heal today and rest. "Um, I managed to run away." Oh how lame did that sound? She looked kinda suspicious, but I guess she believed it. "Okay well I've got to get to work, but we'll talk more about this when I get home." That sounded like a threat. "So can I stay home and heal just for today?" I pleaded with my sad puppy-dog eyes. "Fine, but only for today." Yes! Score! I stayed in bed moaning and groaning now and then until I was sure she had left and wasn't coming back, at least until she got off work.
I carefully got out of bed and went downstairs to the potions cabinet. I took some ginger, eye of carp, etc. and made a healing mixture. I lit some incense, performed a spell, and all was well. I felt much better. An hour had already passed and by this time it was 8:00. I watched some television and finished my homework from the night before. 'What to do now?' I pondered. I had an itch to go back to that house. It was two hours away, but I was feeling up to it. 'I wonder if I should try to orb?' Well, driving was out of the question, it would take way too long. Besides, I already knew the territory so to speak. I had orbed from there before. "What the hell," I said to myself. I went down to the basement and stocked up on weapons. I had two daggers in the calf of both my black leather boots, my Triste blade tucked securely on the right side of my red leather pants, the HW solution in my pocket, and a small but deadly dagger about 2.5 inches long tucked in the middle of my brassiere. Of course that was for emergencies. It couldn't even be seen under my red and black striped tank. The final touch was my crossbow. It had been in my family for generations. I mean, you can never be too prepared for a fight. Of course, who was I planning to fight when I got there? I guess I'd find out as soon as I orbed. I closed my eyes, pictured the house, and focused all of my being on that location.
Suddenly I felt like I was on the Dungeon Drop, like I was just falling upside down through a bottomless pit. When I could breathe again, I opened my eyes to find myself in a yin-yang. Actually as I looked around me, it wasn't really a yin yang. It was a room painted all in black and white. The carpet was plush black. The walls were white but for abstract designs that had been painted onto them black. (©Shattered Mirror pg.105) A vase of white roses lay on a black coffee table on the side of the room. Their green leaves were the only bit of color in the entire room. I saw that the door was open, and that I was standing upright. WhooHoo for me! I handled my orbing for once! But getting back to reality, I did recognize the place, and decided to check to see who was outside in case of an ambush. I saw two vampiresses laying down on the ground unconscious. 'Looks like someone's beat me to the prize,' I realized. Then I really put on my guard and felt the house with my aura.
No one was on the first floor, but there was someone on the second floor. I raced up the stairs and checked behind the third door on my left. A woman lay inside on a bed. She was awake and staring at the ceiling. She had dark skin with a few bandages on, but the scars on her arms were obvious. A rose on her shoulder with an ivy on her wrist. "Nikolas," I breathed. She spoke to me I think, but she never moved her head or eyes. "He's playing with her," she said in an eerie childish voice. It was then I noticed the faint bangs and crashes coming from somewhere above us. I moved toward, hoping to help her, but it was then I saw her other arm. A teardrop with the name Kristopher carved on it. "Kristopher?" I murmured, perplexed. It was then she turned toward me with vacant brown eyes, "He's in love with that witch. Nikolas is playing with her." What was she talking about? What witch? It couldn't be me because Christopher barely gave me a second glance. I mean, the only one he ever swooned over was...was....oh my God. Sarah! Was she a witch? How could I not know? But it made sense. The knives and the solitude attitude. It was then that this woman saw my crossbow. She glared at me and I felt her malice and anger and hatred wash over me. She wasn't a vampire, but she sure didn't like witches. She pounced on me. I fell with her on top of me trying to scratch my eyes out. I was completely unprepared for this, but I found my footing and threw her off of me. I threw a burst of aura at her and she collapsed, unconscious. I picked up my crossbow off the floor just as I heard another bang coming from above me. There was a fight going on upstairs and I was willing to bet this woman's life that it was Nikolas and Sarah.
I raced up the next few flight of stairs until I reached the top floor. I could sense a very strong and dark vampiric aura now. It made me want to puke. But there was another aura as well. A magical aura, a witch. I walked toward an open door, the source of all this commotion. I peeked in and choked down a gasp at what I saw. Sarah pinned against the wall with her wrists held above her head. I couldn't see who was holding her wrist, but I already knew who it was. None other than the famed Nikolas. I aimed my crossbow and fired straight at his rib cage. His heart was not in my aim range. They both never saw it coming. "Arrrgggghhhh!!!" Nikolas let out a yell like a wild beast. He let go of Sarah's wrists and she took the opportunity to kick him where it hurts. She grabbed her fallen knife off the floor and backed away. Why wasn't she running away, getting out of the house? She looked like she was ready to fight him off. This girl was either insane or a masochist.
Nikolas pulled out the arrow from his chest with one clean move. He glanced at the doorway looking for the source of his pain and locked eyes with me.
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I wrote this in a rush, so it may suck and I may edit it later. Whatever. Enjoy. Thanks for the reviews by the way! -Zidovudine911
