A Thousand Years

Chapter Ten: Drunks and Disappearances

As I awoke the following evening and exited my room, it was to find the rest of my small clan in very good spirits. Even Turel and Melchiah got along with everyone, laughing and talking animatedly. We sparred with one another, honing our skills and teasing each other, tossing insults and jeers with lighthearted playfulness. Around midnight, we departed in two seperate groups to go hunting. Turel led Rahab and Melchiah while Dumah and Zephon went with me. We always hunted in seperate villages.

Zephon shushed us as we traveled over the rooftops, and pointed to the local tavern. "I believe we owe ourselves a bit of a treat."

Dumah and I glanced at each other, before blinking at Zephon in confusion. "...Zephon" Dumah spoke up"we're vampires... We can't consume alcohol."

"WE can't, technically" Zephon replied with a grin"but THEY can." He motioned to a drunken man staggering out of the bar. "Come on, you guys can't tell me that in ten years neither of you have fed off of a drunk. You can get drunk too from the alcohol in their blood"

"You mean to say you ENJOY feeding from drunkards and getting in the same state as them" I asked, appalled. Surely getting drunk would be dangerous, for with one's mind clouded, how could one fight effectively?

"You only get drunk if you feed off of several drunks. I've tested it. There are roughly, what, two pints of blood in the human body? Depending on the alcohol level in the blood, you can feed on up to two drunks without getting wasted. Three or more is asking for trouble, but one doesn't need to feed from more than one human a night anyway." Zephon shrugged and grinned. "Think of it this way, it's a really nice way to relieve stress when your arm gets tired from whacking off."

Dumah's jaw dropped, and I don't think I could have blushed any harder. I wasn't new to masturbating by any means... None of us were... It was a common thing. But it's one thing to do it and entirely another to chat about it... And about one's arm getting tired of 'whacking', plainly stating just how much he... Aah! I didn't need that kind of mental image!

Zephon was having a great time laughing at us, his eyes tearing up as he sat back, clutching his stomach. Ever the clown, was Zephon. Finally, he got over his mirth as we got over our shock and embarrassment, to go down from the rooftops and feed on a trio of drunks happily staggering out into the night.

It's one thing to feed off of the adrenaline-pumped blood of a powerful warrior.

It's quite another to feed off of the alcohol-laced blood of a drunk.

While the former is exciting and energy-filled, healing wounds and strengthening the body, the latter is extremely calming, and very sweet. I felt a purr rumbling up from my throat, eyes half-lidded in pleasure as I finished off the drunk and set his body down. Zephon was amused at my antics. "Purring like a kitten with cream. I told you it was a treat."

"Oh, my" Dumah mused contentedly as he finished off his meal. "...I do believe I like that -very- much..."

"Good grief" Zephon snickered. "Raziel's the kitten with the cream and Dumah's having a joygasm."

Dumah coughed as I burst into helpless snickers, trying to contain my mirth as the three of us began to head back to the clan.

But all was not well, as we found out later that night. Rahab and Turel had returned home with Melchiah nowhere to be found. At Kain's demand, Turel offandedly replied that he and Melchiah had gotten into an argument and Melchiah had stormed off on his own. Things calmed down, until dawn began to approach, and there was still no sign of Melchiah.

Kain paced nervously, growling under his breath. He moved up to the cliff overlooking the forest and gazed around tensely, but there was still no sign of him. With fifteen minutes to go, Kain finally took off toward the village that Turel and Rahab had visited, with the rest of us waiting tensely. Melchiah was an annoying little shit, but he was still our brother, and he was still important to our cause.

Dawn came, and the five of us lingered in the shadows with baited breath. The hours began to pass, and one by one we began to drop off to sleep right there in the hallway. Rahab and Zephon sat against the wall learning on each other, Dumah leaning against the wall with his arms folded and his head nodding with weariness. Turel and I were the only ones actively awake. I was lingering close to the entrance, just before the beams of light filtering down through the roots of the trees... It stung my eyes just to look at the light, but it was tolerable. Turel was pacing further up the tunnel.

Finally, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching. I recognized the sound of Kain's long, graceful stride... But I heard no second pair of footsteps. Turel had stopped pacing, and Dumah had snapped back into awareness.

Kain walked in, looking frustrated as he shoved a root out of the way.

"You couldn't find him.." I ventured hesitantly, hoping this was the case...

"Or did the little fool go and get himself fried" Turel growled lowly.

Kain shook his head. "I couldn't find him. I figure he spent too much time out and had to find some dark, secluded place to stay the day. That is the best case scenario. Worst case, he was killed, captured by vampire hunters, or caught out in the sunlight somewhere... If the last were true, there would be a large burn mark somewhere, but I looked all over the village and the land and villages around it. I couldn't find a trace of him." He roughly pulled Zephon and Rahab to their feet, waking them and giving them a gentle shove toward their room, where they obediently and dazedly staggered.

"...So what will we do" I asked.

He sighed heavily. "We wait for sundown."

A/N: CLIFFHANGER! XD I'm a cruel bitch, but it will give me a push to write more, because I despise cliffhangers and people that write cliffhangers and never update the story. ...Heck, I don't like it when anyone doesn't regularly update a story, and yet I do it myself. Hypocritical much? .;; But I really am sorry for that, and I'll keep writing for as long as I can.

It was really hard writing that fun scene between Raziel, Dumah, and Zephon, because they're in such a good mood, and I'm horribly depressed. The past couple of weeks, nothing has gone right... Crazy people at work, a screaming fight with my mom (and I've never had one of those before), her threatening to give my dogs away to the ASPCA because I didn't have time before work to let them out to potty or I'd be late and she's too lazy to do it herself, my girlfriend's computer spazzing out and breaking down on her so I can't talk to her (online relationships are so hard...), college homework, spending too much and going in the hole on my checking account (three times by the time I got the notice, which adds up to a 75 charge...), one of my dogs running away this morning and leading me around in a merry chase down the block and around houses in frigid, frosty North Dakota weather at six thirty in the morning in my nightgown, and my girlfriend considering not going back on the computer even when it gets fixed since she spends too much time on it anyway (and we don't communicate in any other way) ...

Sorry about that.

Also, just another side note about the alcohol thingy... If anyone is offended by them getting drunk, please don't rant or rave to me. Personally, I despise alcohol and drunks too. I've never touched a drop, and I never will. But it makes for silliness and story material.

Anyway, I'll update again soon!