Disclaimer: I don't own the whole 'Night World' concept, the credit for that is received by the ever deserving L J Smith. But these characters are mine (excluding a few last names)
Chapter 1:
The alleyway was dark and short. All too quickly the figure took the familiar sharp turn and stopped dead. She was silent, mesmerized by him. His throwback was red with the number 11 emblazoned in silver. Those very colours surrounded him right now, swirling around each other in a dance of their own.
Leaping and twisting to her pulse.
How she had arrived at this moment, she didn't fully remember. She thought it would have been ok; just to follow him, just to make sure that she was right. But now she was frozen, she couldn't move. She was trapped.
And worst of all…he knew.
He turned to face her. He was smiling but it didn't' enhance his looks. It was a cruel smile. One that showed hatred, contempt…and blood lust. She saw the monster unravel inside him, his canines elongating over his lower lip.
Some part of her knew she should be running, far, far away. But instead she stood still as a statue, and watched him draw closer, his irises now completely silver. It was quiet astonishing; she had never seen silver eyes before. It was as though his eyes had a light of their own, illuminating his fine boned features.
In those eyes she saw the lure of the night, beautiful and dangerous. She smelled something so intoxicating it made her want to step closer and drown in it. She also tasted something salty and metallic, something she recognized but also found oddly sweet.
He bared his teeth in what she presumed to be a smile and reality came crashing down.
The boy she had been following out of curiosity was not a mere child, but a monster.
Panic shattered her reverie and she backed away from him. Slowly at first, but this seemed to make no difference to her pursuer. His strides never flattered and his teeth still gleamed. This time she threw all caution and reasoning to the empty air and pelted down the alley way onto the street.
On she ran and ran, stretching her legs further and further. She turned down random corners, the reflections of street lamps on the windows of empty buildings the only things she saw. She sped past every house, leaping into puddles and crashing into gates. But it didn't matter how much noise she made, because everyone was asleep. Warm and comfortable in the twilight hour. She couldn't even scream because all her concentration was on breathing and running.
Faster and faster she ran. She thrashed through trees and hedges, stumbled into back yards and over white picket fences. Her lungs and throat burned as she struggled to breathe, but her face and arms stung just as badly from the lashings of the wind on scratches and scrapes.
From somewhere inside her she found more strength, more speed. She could scarcely see anything now, only darkness and vague shapes whipping past her. It felt as if her body had run a marathon through nations. She may have run for hours, minutes or somehow years and not known the difference.
All she knew was fear.
Fear for herself and fear for those who would face the very same thing in the future. She knew the monster behind her was not a figment of her imagination.
He was very, very real.
Just like she knew that no matter how far or fast she ran, he would always be the soft tapping of trainers behind her. It was this last thought that made her slow to a final stop. She was in a deserted parking lot.
Wonderful, what a dignified place to die.
Because that was what would happened. Whether it would be quick or slow she didn't know, but it was certain she couldn't possibly survive.
Now that she had stopped running, it seemed that her body couldn't handle any oxygen at all. Her torso was heaving uncontrollably and soon she found herself on her knees, her face mere inches from the damp tar.
After what seemed scant minutes of silence, her vision was filled with a white trainer, scratched and smudged. Shortly, a bent knee and long thigh covered by denim followed. She raised her eyes, squinting in the darkness to see the familiar red and silver throw back and well muscled arms. His face was pale in the stark lamp light as he squatted in front of her, but the surprise on it made him more human.
Less threatening but still dangerous.
His power was etched in all his features, from his clear calculating eyes to his soft yet stern mouth.
"I didn't think you were this stupid, but seems I've once more overestimated humans." His conversational tone seemed to be sacrilege against the eerie silence that had descended, but that could also be because his voice sent shivers of a very bad kind down her spine.
With a disappointed sigh he dragged her up by the front of her tee-shirt and slammed her against a brick wall. The impact jolted through her entire being and several minutes afterwards she could still feel the vibrations in her bones.
"Well that jog has left me quite famished. A little snack is in order, don't you think?" His clear cut British accent made her want to burst out laughing; it was so strange coupled with her imminent demise.
Images of her life still hadn't flashed in front of her, and neither could she see any light at the end of a long tunnel. A dream like peace had settled over her and only half of her was focused on what this monster was doing, the other half contemplating the many issues of a teenager.
Like being chased down by a vampire, for example. Not exactly normal.
This time she really did laugh out loud. Her life had been painstakingly normal, but she had liked it, it had been safe. On the fringes of her daily thoughts she had known that something like this would occur. Something so wild and dangerous that she couldn't even imagine it. She had known it as surely as the back of her hand.
And now that the moment had arrived, she could do nothing. She felt strangely hollow, like she was… unfulfilled.
"This is so…wrong" she said in a hoarse whisper.
"Oh, but it feels so right" drawled the vampire huskily.
His soft lips descended upon her neck and he nuzzled there. He let out a faint sigh and suddenly his grip on her tee-shirt tightened, exposing the lower half of her stomach to the cold wind. But of course, she noticed none of this, all she felt was the scraping of what felt like blades across her collar bone. Her heart began to thump. Slowly, but strongly it hit the inside of her chest like it would break free any second. Her breathing increased. Short rapid breaths that left a thin veil of mist over the vampire's midnight hair.
Dizzily she realised her arms were free. In the recesses of her mind she registered that this was a very stupid thing for her attacker to have done, but she exploited this advantage as subtly as possible.
Reaching her arms up as far as they would go, she felt along the brittle bricks of the building wall for some sort of weapon-anything, that would get this wretched thing off her.
As she felt the pin-points of his teeth begin to indent her skin, she began searching desperately. Please, she prayed silently to a god she had never believed in. Please, please let me find something…
Oh, he was making this painfully slow.
She could feel her nerves sizzling and stinging as he applied the smallest of pressure very slowly. This was a new form of torture. One would never think it would hurt this much. This simple pressure, almost like an injection. But those fangs were no normal syringes.
Panic and pain began to take hold once more and she knew that all her suffering was…thrilling, to this creature. He had not started on the main course yet, still savoring the appetizer. He was feeding off her emotions.
Finally her fingers brushed over something rough, but rickety and attached to the building itself. She ran her hand up along the object and realised it was a pipe. Without her mind fully registering her find, she fastened a strong grip onto the hand size cylinder and pulled.
It came away surprisingly easy, the momentum carrying on until her hand and the broken piece of the drain pipe connected with the vampire's head.
A familiar mist seeped in, coming out of the depths of the night to blur reality. Or what was thought to be reality. Then, came the real, present, rational thoughts.
A dream, the usual dream.
At least it's only a dream, and you're not re-living it.
Finally as she started to feel her soft feather pillow cushioning her head, and the mists of sleep and dreams began to recede, something that had never happened before occurred.
Something that had not happened over half a year ago.
The vampire seized the girl that was still pinned up against the brick wall, and all she could see was his eyes. Eyes that were now a swirling burgundy.
"Now you have no chance." He purred, his teeth seeming to lengthen even more.
"Don't run, don't hide. I will find you." A dark promise.
A promise that stabbed five hundred knives into her heart. Tearing the flesh away slowly until she saw there was no heart to pierce.
Breeze struggled for breath as she sat up gasping, wringing the bed sheets in panic. Clutching them to her chest desperately she took in her surroundings and sighed in relief, distinguishing her familiar bedroom basking in the moon light. Looking down at her tangled sheets she let out a small laugh. It was only a dream, the dream. No, the nightmare. She wasn't really being hunted. She wasn't having her heart shredded to pieces. That memory gone wrong was just a creation of her wandering mind. Yes, that was it.
Breeze Photeinos was fine.
She let herself fall back onto her pillow, smiling slightly as she reveled in the smoothness of her sheets and softness of the mattress beneath her. Before her long lashes fell lazily across her face in dark crescents, Breeze glanced at the glaring red numbers of her digital alarm. 1:59 AM. Once again a small smile spread itself hesitantly across her eerily glowing complexion.
"Well, happy birthday to me." She whispered into the night.
