Here's the next part. Not exactly how I had planned it, but almost…

Well, at least it's indeed longer than the last one. (Not that that would be very hard, anyway…^^) It takes place about three years after the first chapter.

Chapter II: Dark Clouds

By Kia

The sky was dark and grey. It didn't rain yet, but far off in the distance the low growling of thunder could be heard. The air was thick, warm and still.

Meriah frowned as she looked out of the window once again. She didn't want to admit it but she was worried. Her children had left to play outside some time ago and though she had told them not to go too far away, though they had promised they would always return when the sky started to darken like this they had not returned yet.

Once again the young woman told herself that there was no reason to worry. Raziel always took his job as a big brother quite serious, he would watch over his little sister. They probably only lost track of time and would come running back by any second.

But then again, Raziel also was only six years old...

A hand touched her shoulder, making her jump.

"Don't worry!" Gurm smiled reassuringly at her. She hadn't even noticed his presence. "I'll go search for them if you want me to. It won't take long."

Meriah closed her eyes and leaned against him, but not even his strong arms could make the bad feeling go away that had taken her when she first had noticed the dark clouds far away at the horizon.

"Please," she whispered.

A quick kiss was placed on her cheek. Gurm looked at her and didn't seem concerned at all.

"We'll be right back!" he promised, and left.

***

"Analie, we have to go home!" Raziel sighed as his little sister ran off again to hide inside a bush. She didn't want to go home yet, not when playing outside was so much more fun.

Contrary to so many other children her age she wasn't scared of thunder and lightning but enjoyed them greatly.

Raziel didn't enjoy it at all. He felt nervous and uneasy  because of the nearing thunder, the darkness of the sky and the terrifying sureality that lay in the tensed calmness of the world before the storm. If he had been alone, without his little sister to get in danger, he surely would have enjoyed it as well, but he wasn't alone, and he didn't. Other than Analie he knew that lightnings were dangerous, his parents had told him so. They should always return home at the quietest growling of thunder his mother had ordered and the memory of her words made him even more nervous. Because he knew that she would get angry and he knew that it was dangerous and he wanted to protect his sister and she didn't let him!

"Analie, please come out there," he called into the bush. A tiny voice answered:

"But, Razi! The squizzy lights are so cool! I want to see them! Please!"

"You can see them through the window as well, you know that!"

"But! It's not the same!"

Raziel sighed. He knew he could have taken the little girl out of her hideout by force but then the sharp thorns of the bush could have hurt her and he didn't want that.

New tactic.

"Do you want Mama to cry, Analie? Because, if you don't come home with me, she'll certainly do so."

Silence.

"Really?"

"Yes, believe me!"

For two seconds nothing happened. Then the bush started to rustle and a little girl crawled out of it. She got to her feet and after another second of hesitation she took her brothers offered hand.

"Okay. Let's go then, Razi."

Raziel breathed an unheard sigh of relief. He ruffled Analie's brown hair to show that he wasn't angry and quickly lead her around the rocks lying around on the barren fields that were their playground and to the path that lead back home.

Another thunder ripped through the silence of the air. Raziel stopped dead in his steps.

Between the rocks stood a person. A tall man with longish black hair and worn out clothes. He stood with his back half turned to them, staring at the dark sky though narrowed yellow eyes. Instead of normal hands he had large, three-fingered claws.

A vampire.

Although Raziel had never before seen one he had heard enough about them to recognise it at once. Not good.

Yet, he found himself unable to turn his eyes from the creature.

From her place behind him Analie couldn't see anything of it, but she could tell that something was wrong.

"What, Razi?" she whispered.

Raziel gave her a sign to be quiet. She tried to look around him but he quickly shoved her backwards and kneeled down behind the nearest rock.

Apparently the vampire hadn't seen them yet, so maybe they had a slight chance of getting away alive. And who knew, maybe it just wasn't hungry…

On the other hand, wasn't it so that they simply killed every human that crossed their path?

For a moment Raziel considered hiding somewhere between the rocks and hope it would just go away. With one hand he covered Analie's mouth while he carefully peeked abound the stone again to see what the creature was doing.

The vampire still stood where it was before but it now moved, turned around slowly, a strange expression on his in a perverted way human face. Despite his fear Raziel watched in fascination how the monster in human disguise moved and moved, until it was facing their direction.

It stopped.

The air growled again, louder now.

Even though Raziel was sure that it could not see them in the their spot between the rocks the creature seemed to stare directly at him.

And them it began to walk.

"Oh, shit!" he whispered.

***

The sky was black now – just plain black with dark clouds, occasionally lit up by lightning. The thunder followed shortly after, very loud now, very close.

Still there was no rain. Meriah sighed in forced calmness and, somehow, she wished it would finally start. If it started to rain now her children would get wet and maybe they would catch a cold, but at least the silence would be broken and all of the world would seem a little less threatening, a little more real. Maybe it would make her wake up from this nightmare.

Meriah sighed once more, looked out of the window and waited.

***

Raziel was hoping for rain too. Rain was water and water was bad for vampires, wasn't it? So then the creature would disappear or die, or whatever, and they could go home.

But as heavy with rain as the clouds above them were, the water didn't come down and their running feet only met dusty, dry earth.

Then it hit him! Water!

"Analie," he gasped. "Run to the river!"

"I can't…" the little girl he was dragging along by the hand answered and the tears in her voice told him that she was scared to death.

God, he was scared to death! A quick glance over his shoulder: The vampire was nowhere to be seen. But he could feel that it was still there, behind them.

In spite of his fears the boy risked a stop to pick up his exhausted sister. She clung to him for dear life, slowing him down even more.

But the river was so close already, Raziel could hear it, smell it, and once they passed the large, dirty brown rocks up there he knew he would see it, running through the dusty landscape, four or five meters below.

When they reached the place they had so often played at the boy simply held his sister even closer and jumped, fell toward the water with the first heavy drops of rain that finally found their way down to earth.

The world spun and for a second Raziel thought he saw something move between the rocks above them. The everything disappeared and was replaced by the wet, suffocating safety of water.

***

Time passed. The rain had finally started but it didn't help at all, only made her nervous even more when neither her children nor her husband had returned. Suddenly Meriah wished Grum would be with her, or she would be with him, searching her kids herself. But she could not leave now, no, she had to stay home in case they returned. So she could only wait.

Half an hour after the first drops of rain had hit the roof of the house, a hard knock on the door tore her out of her thoughts. Meriah run to the door, relieved and worried at the same time. When she opened it she saw Grum's friend Kurin out there, wet with rain. In his arms he carried her crying daughter, her son standing behind him, looking down to the ground as if ashamed.

All she was told for now was that Kurin had fished the kids out of the river into which they had jumped after meeting a creature that maybe, probably, by the look of it could have, eventually, been a vampire. Those words made Meriah shiver but she managed to stay calm and push the possible consequences out of her thoughts. For now she was just happy to have her children back, about everything else she could worry once her husband was back to support her.

Kurin left shortly after, to find Grum and tell him that his children were back home. When they returned they should talk about this incident and decide what to do, he had said when he left. He had done it with this 'I-could-have-told-you-so' look Meriah had always secretly feared she'd see someday.

And still the bad feeling wouldn't leave. She had thought that it would disappear once Raziel and Analie were back safe and though the relieve of seeing them had covered it up at first it came back every time her eyes met the closed door.

Maybe it was just because of the storm, and the thunder. Maybe it was just because she already knew that nothing would ever be again like it was before.

Maybe she was simply scared of the future.

She tried to distract herself by getting her children dry and keeping Raziel from running out to search for his father. Hours later she put Analie to bed and after her son slept as well she finally started to cry.

The door remained closed the entire night.

-tbc-

July 04, 2003

Yay, finished on my 20th bithday! ^^ Congratulations, me! ^_^