Chapter 5 - Red-eyed friend

I jumped on the dustbin and Louis did the same. I grasped the window and, suddenly, I heard echoing shots from further.
"Damn it!" The unknown man pulled us inside from the window. The shots silenced. Footsteps.
They were under the window...

We were crouched down. The unknown man adviced us silently to lay agaist the wall, that the vampire hunters wouldn't notice us. We followed his advice.

For a moment - and another - we only waited. It was silent. The messy-haired man was motionless - and so were we. Everyone listened carefully, to notice each possible noise, until we heard someone saying in the street loudly:

"We mustn't let those vampires escape in the next time." I heard how the given up vampire hunters had started to leave. Louis looked curiously at the older man, but I didn't dare to make any movement before the street had quieten down compeletely. The third man didn't make a single move either.

After a little while, I noticed that he was stirring up. He leaned away from the wall, but didn't rise up. He looked at us in the dark, and I noticed, that his hair was merely red, his iris and... lips? It seemed that his lips were full of blood-red cuts. The sight gave me cold shivers. His skin was also very different; it looked dark in the dusk, but I could see a purple nuance on it. But that tone wasn't strong. A couple of vampaneze's clean-cut eyes looked at us. There were a dark scar going near his other eye.

"Hey... You must be one of those others." The man said quietly. I heard a little surprised tone in his voice.

"Humans' friends."

"Yes... We are vampires", I answered him in a whisper, and I looked at the vampaneze carefully. He leaned towards me, seeking for safety, and I sensed his fear once again.

"And you're a vampaneze, aren't you?"

"Is it so visible?" The man asked and his voice sounded frightened, but then he laughed in a romp and nodded.

"You're right!"

"Your friend seems to fear me." He said unexpectedly while he looked curiously at Louis. I had a strange feeling, I'd have liked to go between him and Louis - just in a case of danger - but I couldn't.

"What's your name, kid?"

Louis opened his mouth to answer, but he silenced in confusion.

"Eh ?"

"His name is Louis, and he's over eighteen years old soon", I answered instead of Louis.

"For me he's still a kid." The Vampaneze smiled to us apologeticly, "And even a half-blooded! Poor boy! He has just started to discover this world of darkness..."

He shook his head: he looked very gloomy.

"You can call me simply Vyente. Otherwise I could have already ejected you two away from here a long time ago, but now a different situation. I heard your desperate squeaks under the window, and I thought, that I shouldn't leave a beautiful creatures of the night - like you - alone in a trouble." The vampaneze that intoduced himself as Vyente grinned. Louis grinmaced botheredly and he glanced me. I shroughed my shoulders to him.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Mr Vyente", I said calmly when I rose up. Vyente looked at me with a curious expression on his face and I noticed that he had a faint smile on his red-coloured lips. His eyes were open, but they were far from cute eyes. He wasn't very old, but he wasn't very young either. I imagined that he were over thirty years old in humans' years, but it was hard guessing his real age. However, he was older than me. He had dressed to an brown coat and under it there was a white collar-shirt. He would have looked like human, without his red eyes, lips, and the strange skin colour, of course.

Vyente rose up to close the curtains in front of the broken window, and Louis hurried to me.

"I hope you'll get on here well. Because I have a feeling, that you won't be able to leave very soon", Vyente spoke with a well-worded voice, and he turned to us, "I'm afraid that the vampire hunters won't give up very easily." He quietened his voice worriedly and referred to the sofa in the corner of the room. It was on the red, dusty Persian rug.

"Please. Feel yourself comfortable."

And so we did; Vyente made up a card-game to the floor of the living-room. We relaxed in a circle on the soft Persian tug and played the cards, which rules Vyente didn't accurately know, but he said, that the rules isn't the main point, but it that we had fun.

"I wish I could say same of the real life", Vyente added when he gave me the heart six and heart king. I bringed them down with heart ten and trump. We were with Louis mainly concentrated to listen Vyente's speaking; he didn't have lack of topics. Louis didn't talk as much as I did. He looked tired and wanted to come back to our hotel.

"You're really good on playing cards, Louis", our new friend said when he losed after me. He agglomerated the cards in the middle of the rug.

"Luck of learner", he answered reticently, "It depends on what cards you get."

Vyente made a smile.

"True, true. And I notice, that you have got a good cards when you born to this world." Vampaneze glanced me strangely, nor I didn't understand, what it meant.

"You must be talking about about the world of darkness thing... right?"

"About this world of darkness, kid, this. You're there. You're a vampire, Louis."

"Sure. Thanks, Vyente." Louis smiled a bit and I saw how he rose up and stretched his neck.

"Excuse me, but is here any WC:s?" He asked suddenly when he turned to me and the vampaneze.

"Yes, surely", Vyente sneered and pointed the corridor in the end of the living-room, "The first door in the right."

"Thanks", Louis said turning, and walked to the dark corridor with a calm steps. I looked after my assistant thinking, when would it be possible to go back our home. So much as I knew Louis, I had a feeling, that he didn't get along here very well. Louis seemed to fear Vyente because of Vyente's vampanezy. I personally liked him, was he whatever he was. And as I said earlier, he could have been considered as a human.

"What're you thinking so thoughtfully, Kurdy?"

I turned my head to Vyente, and I saw that he had lied down to the rug his hands crossed on his chest.

"I... Eh. Kurdy ?" I groaned confusingly and vampaneze just smiled keeping his eyes closed easily.

"Sounds cute, eh, Kurdy?"

"...Whatever." I murmured, laying to the floor like Vyente did.

"I think Louis doesn't like being here", I said quietly.

"I noticed that."

"And, I thought, when we'll be able to come back home again." After my worlds, I didn't hear Vyente's answer, and after a moment I turned round to see him.

"Home?" He asked finally, voice full of wonder.

"Yes. We live temporarily in a hotel of Santa Monica", I explained smiling, "There have to be some place to call a home, even if it wasn't really our home." The vampaneze studied me a moment with his red, clear-cut eyes, till an understanding smile appeared on his face.

"It makes sense", he pointed out, till - after a moment of thinking - he continued:

"I'm not sure about when it's worth to leave here, but I could recommend you two to go through the sewers on underground to your hotel - I'm sure there are some sewers leading you there. It's a good and safe way to travel to place to place. And also; we vampanezes know the serwers of our lockalities like our own pockets. You don't think that with this phiz", he pointed his face grinning, "Could show up in a night among the humans."

"So, I could come to guide you", he suggested when he rose up to sit, "The journey could flow quiker.You would get lost easily in the sewers alone. So, what you think?"

I thought it a moment. Vyente seemed to be knowing what he was doing. He started a bit by bit to receive my trust and I thought, that what bad is about it that a vampaneze helps vampires? At least I didn't see anything wrong on that.

"That sounds great", I answered to him smiling and the smile catched to him too.

Red haired man stood up eagerly and he walked to the drawer in nearby. I watched him curiously and soon he came back with a wine bottle on his other hand and on the other hand he was holding three glasses.

"What're going to do with those?" I asked. Vyente smiled me foolishly when he sat down beside me and put the glasses to the floor.

"They're for drinkig, silly." He opened a cork of the bottle and pured a red trink to glasses.

"I know, but..." I silenced and studied the wine that flowed trickling to the last glass. I licked my lips, and looked at Vyente.

"Indeed. That's not wine."

"Indeed!" Vyente laughed. Then he smiled shaking the bottle, "It's blood."

"Ingenious", I chuckled, till I saw my friend becoming serious.

"First we have to ask Louis, is he ready to get down to the sewers", he glanced the corridor, and then I comprehend, how long Louis had been away. I took a frightened breath.

"He --" My voice sounded breathless. Vyente nodded seriously.

"Exactly. He should have came back already. I was just thinking that too", he said with a deeb voice and his red eyes turned to me, "You should go to check is he allright."

"Oh... Yes..." I whispered incoherrently and I rose up quickly, crawling. I could't believe that I had forgot Louis, and I wished deeply that nothing bad had happened to him. I glanced Vyente once more, and then I started to half-run to the dark corridor. To find the first door in the right.