Duo wasn't sure whether or not he was happy about Thomas attending school now. It was a big risk for everyone in the castle and it made Duo feel like he was just abandoning the child for the day. Thomas didn't seem to feel that way at all though, so Duo never said anything that might guilt the young boy into just staying in the castle. In reality Thomas actually seemed quite happy getting the chance to go somewhere unsupervised which was another thing that scared Duo.

"Remember Thomas, you promised no matter what happens you won't tell anyone we're vampires. You swore to me you wouldn't, so make sure to keep that promise. If you tell you're going to have a lot worse happen than just being sent to your room." Duo didn't want to scare his foster son (as he now called him), but there was no other way to really get the point across to Thomas. "Now you go ahead and go enjoy your first day of school."

The half-vampire had taken Thomas to the edge of town, but didn't feel like going any farther. Duo didn't have much to worry about Thomas skipping or getting kidnapped or something like that. He was street-wise and knew how to escape just about any situation; just like Duo always had. But unlike Duo, Thomas was really eager to go to school.

When Duo was a child he'd actually hated school so much that he'd refused to go when he was about nine years old. In a way he regrets it, but honestly it's not like he missed all that much back then. He probably just would've been constantly bullied anyway.

"I'll see you later Dad!" Thomas kissed Duo on the cheek before running into town and turning the corner where Duo could no longer see him. In reality Duo had never expected it to be so hard to watch your own 'child' go off on there own. Since he'd only had Thomas for a short time and it was already so hard on him... Duo couldn't imagine what parents must feel like when raising their children for sixteen or more years.

After reminding himself school would be over around sunset Duo was about to head back to the castle when he felt a strange presence. Instead he started to walk out into the forest that surrounds the town and tried to look casual about it. As he was walking at first he started to think he was just becoming paranoid like Heero. So he relaxed a bit, but after a while the half-vampire felt a presence again that was not familiar or weak.

It was a strong aura stronger than Duo's, but not even close to being stronger than Heero. He tried to not let it show that he felt a lump rising in his throat and his stomach felt like it was about to explode. There was no mistaking it or denying it now. Duo was being stalked just like a mouse unable to see its predator, the cat, when it is about to pounce.

Yet the mouse didn't have reflexes anywhere close to Duo's. Years of living on the streets along with his vampire powers helped him react as someone jumped out to grab him.

At first Duo had thought he'd outsmarted the attacker and was about to flit, but out nowhere someone punched him directly in the face. He fell into a tree to try to recover his balance, but right away he was hit again in the stomach this time. He crumpled to the ground holding his stomach in pain, and finally his attacker was standing still.

Whoever it was, they were standing over him as if they'd already won, but Duo wasn't that weak. He pretended for another second that he was going to surrender before using his leg to knock the attacker on his ass. Duo jumped on top of the person and found him to be... the vampire that had come to the castle the day before.

He was grinning with obvious triumph, but Duo didn't know why. Duo was the one on top, meaning he'd won, so why did this man seem to think that he'd won?

"You must be the partner of that vampire Heero... you're the one I've been looking for." The vampire said with a little mocking in his voice, and then somehow managed to use his pinned hand to throw dirt in Duo's eyes.

Just as the strange vampire had expected Duo lost his grip and so the half-vampire was thrown into another tree. This time Duo was knocked unconscious and didn't get up to fight back once again.

"I guess I expected more of a challenge from you, but then again you are still part human." The vampire picked Duo up and threw him over his shoulder before flitting off.

----

Thomas was so glad to finally be back with his old friends again. Well in truth his only friend that still bothered to talk to him after the incident two years ago was Julia. She was the only one of all the children who still liked him, and even though Thomas didn't want to admit it he really liked Julia. Perhaps it's because she was not only really pretty, but kind and smart too.

A girl like her came only once in a lifetime, and even though Thomas knew he's only a child he at least understood that he shouldn't ever let her go. As he ran up to the school he stared at all the children he'd never even met before. Most likely their parents didn't want them to hang around orphans just like Julia's.

For the first time ever he was going to school and he could proudly proclaim he has a real family. Not that he'd forgotten his promise about keeping their secret, but there was nothing wrong with telling everyone how awesome his father is. Almost like before all the other children gave him weird looks obviously wondering why he was here.

Yet they couldn't kick him out this time.

Now he wasn't able to be thrown on the street and told he was nothing but trash. Those kids had no choice but to respect him now that he had a father that could kick their asses and all their fathers' as well. Although they didn't know it yet, he wouldn't hesitate if someone tried to call him out for a fight.

Julia smiled and nearly knocked him into the dirt by flinging herself at him. "Oh Thomas! I'm so glad you kept your promise! I was so afraid that you would tell... not that I don't trust you Thomas. But when you left I knew it would probably be hard for you to go through all this trouble... just because of me..."

"Don't cry Julie! All that matters is that we can hang out all day together now." Thomas was led by the hand over to a small wooden bench where Julia sat down and waited for Thomas to do the same. "So what's school like? I know you've been coming here for a few years now, but this will be my first year ever!"

Her smile was sweet as she looked over at the schoolhouse, and it made Thomas wonder why she looked so dreamy. Thomas poked her in the side to wake her up from the daze, and she jumped since she's so ticklish. "Why'd you do that?!"

She really hated it when people did that.

"Julie, you were staring off into space like someone had stolen your brain or something." Thomas smiled, but then when he walked out Thomas understood what Julie had been hoping to see. Unfortunately Thomas was made into a fool as he remained staring at the boy just hoping his eyes deceived him.

"That boy Rudolf is the only reason I ever want to go to school... besides you of course! Now that you're here we can hang out all the time too!" Obviously Rudolf wasn't unaware of Julia's feelings as he walked up to her with a smile that made Thomas grit his teeth.

He looked over at Thomas for a brief moment, but the foster child was able to see right through his soft azure eyes. He was pure evil on the inside, but how could he make Julia see that?

----

The town had become quite lively after the mysterious murder of a young woman, but Quatre wasn't sure whether he was glad for the people being stirred up or not. Now people were passing around rumors that they wanted to hire the famous vampire hunters. With that bit of news floating around Quatre's ears perked up while taking a calm stroll in the night air.

A couple of men were just talking about how they'd heard the vampire hunters' had an area nearby where you could hire the two of them. The only problem was that Quatre wasn't close enough to hear what town the men were talking about. As he began to move closer he suddenly noticed the many police parading up and down the streets. One officer stopped the guys' conversation and told them to head home in case the killer was looking for new victims tonight.

If only they knew... Quatre decided not to take his chances in case anyone recognized him as the killer. Getting into trouble with the police was not how he intended to spend the rest of the townspeople's lives. Instead he ran up to the two men and tried to play innocent with them.

"Excuse me; I heard your conversation about the vampire hunters... I was wondering where they are now." Quatre did his best not to let his vampire instincts take over at the sight of easy victims. "If you tell me I can go and get them to come here."

"They're in the next town to the east, but good luck kid. Now the police on alert and patrolling the streets like crazy. Most likely they won't let you leave town until sunrise because they're worried about more victims popping up." One of the men used his thumb to gesture over his shoulder at the officers. "You'd better get inside for sure... and easy victim like you could get killed tonight if you don't watch your back!"

All Quatre could think was, 'If they only knew...'

These people were trying to protect him while unknowingly giving him just the information he was looking for. It made Quatre wonder what he looked like now. Being a vampire he had no reflection in mirrors, and the only time he'd taken photos was when he was younger. Back then he looked so innocent and naïve from the true horrors of the world, and Quatre didn't deny being that way.

As a young and very spoiled child Quatre had only looked forward to the finer things in life everyday. Or so he thought. When in reality he was only looking forward to being more spoiled from the presents Daddy got him, the great desserts the chef was obligated to make, and being treated the nicest since he was the youngest of the family. Back then he was also considered the next heir for everything his father owned.

That was another thing he truly looked forward to when he was growing up. It's quite a horrible thought to want to hurry up and inherit everything, but that's what the blonde vampire had wanted as a human. Fortunately as he grew older he began to lose some of the avarice and selfish mannerisms, and started to mature into a person who cared about more than his own future.

It was about two years after he'd made that change that he'd been kidnapped by Heero to the castle where he'd started his life over again. Quatre had wanted that chance for some time, but he'd never imagined ending up like this. A creature of the night forever doomed to seek out the blood of young innocents… Yet whenever he saw Duo that cruel image was taken away from Quatre's sight as he now saw vampires in a different light.

Vampires are just like humans except they're forced to live under stricter conditions. No sunlight, the only food that will really give you nourishment is blood, and they could never see what they looked like unless they had their portrait painted. It's not all that glorious of a lifestyle as people seem to think. Most vampires don't kill random people unless by accident or unless they let the power they've attained take over.

Nobody can deny that there are some undesirable vampires who have no limitations to what they will or won't do. Vampires like this had started to grow in numbers in the last century as Heero told him, but Quatre had yet to actually encounter one. Luckily many of those vampires live closer to London or other more populated areas. The little cities around here were nothing compared to Paris or London.

Most of the rumors Quatre had heard about these power-hungry vampires is they purposely kill people when feeding on them, make many more vampires or servants than necessary, and some of them eve collect small harems of human and sometimes vampires. These were the kind of vampires Quatre hoped to never encounter, and thankfully he hadn't so far.

As he turned the corner he glanced discreetly over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching him. He made a run for the town's gate, but as he approached he could see it was closed. Slowly coming to a halt he started to ponder what options he had in this situation. Since there were no witnesses nearby he could just jump the wall or he could wait until tomorrow morning for the gate to open and be fried by the sun.

Pretty obvious choice.

----

Sally knew she must look dumb to most of the servants doing their work around her. She had been hiding behind just about anything that would get her out of plain view as she silently stalked Hilde. As creepy as the blonde knew she was acting her dream had really shown her what she was feeling inside.

Normal people (or vampires) don't usually dream about people they hardly know like that. It was still unfortunate the dream was eventually ruined by Duo, but Sally was glad to just have had the dream. It made her start to really wonder what her true feelings were, and now she was on a mission to find out.

As the chef moved about her usual business she never seemed to notice she had another shadow constantly on her heels. Sally didn't want to be known as a stalker though, so she was glad for Hilde being so oblivious.

But after a few hours of doing nothing except cooking Sally started to get bored and wanted to talk to Hilde. So she staged it as if the whole thing was just casual and she hadn't just been watching her for hours. Positioning herself outside the door, Sally was about to take a step when all of a sudden she felt pain and then it all went black.

Luckily for Sally she was having the same nice dream again, but then Duo appeared again to ruin her dream. She really despised him for taking her attention away from Hilde, and wanted him out of her dream.

Yet Sally never had the chance to beat Duo up for doing that because she was shook awake by somebody. They were trying hard to get her to wake up, but that was the last thing the blonde wanted at the moment. Eventually she had no choice and opened her eyes to find herself face to face with Hilde. She was startled by the chef and pushed the woman away as she got up.

"What are you doing?" Sally asked with a harsh voice, and regretted it immediately.

The scared look Hilde gave the blonde vampire made her just want to run and hide because of the embarrassment. Obviously the whole reason she'd been following Hilde was just so she could get a chance to discover her feelings, but now she'd pretty much ruined the opportunity. Hilde got up and Sally tried not to look as flustered as she felt, but it was probably wasted effort.

"When I opened the kitchen door I must've hit you and I knocked you unconscious. I was just checking to see if you're alright... but obviously you are! So I'll just clean this mess up." Sally's eyes looked over toward the disaster she'd caused… All the spilled food and blood that would probably cause a permanent stain. "You can go ahead, I'm sorry about all of this..."

Sally bent down and began to help the chef clean it up. Hilde hesitated for a moment, probably stunned at her behavior, but Sally kept her eyes towards the ground. She didn't want to show anything that might arouse suspicion about why she was acting so nice. As the two of them continued to clean up they eventually began to have small talk.

Somehow they had started to talk about how ugly the floor looked without the new stain or with it. Then their conversation continued to take a lot of twists and turns until they ended up talking about Thomas. Everyone in the castle could tell Heero wasn't crazy about having the child run around with Duo, but it would be impossible to get rid of Thomas because Duo liked him so much.

"I wonder why Duo likes Thomas so much when he hardly knows anything about him." Hilde had started to try and scrub off the stain, but so far it wasn't doing any good. "After all the first night they met it was just a coincidence, right?"

The blonde vampire didn't want to give Hilde the wrong impression about Duo, but the truth is the truth. "He only brought they boy here, because he pities him. Duo won't admit it, but he sees himself in Thomas and that made him reach out. Had it been some other child Duo probably wouldn't have brought the child home."

Hilde was quiet for a moment and the only sound that echoed down the empty corridor was the scrubbing. Her pace started to slow down and she looked up from the floor. "I don't think that's true Sally… Duo has a big heart and no matter who came to him, I have the feeling he wouldn't have left them there. It's not so much pity… more like an understanding of what they're going through."

That made Sally stop when she realized what the chef was doing. She was making excuses for Duo… The blonde tried not to imagine the worse as she tried to rationalize why Hilde would do that for Duo. The obvious reason was that she was just a good friend and didn't want to hear people talk badly about her friends. Another possible reason could be that Hilde is in- no... Hilde can't have those kinds of feelings for an idiot like Duo.

Neither of them said anything else for the rest of the time they sat there scrubbing the floor. Eventually Sally started to notice it was getting late in the afternoon and saw a servant close by. She ordered them to continue trying to clean up the mess, and told Hilde to just let the servant do the work.

"I am a servant Master Sally, so I should continue to work as well."

Hilde made sure Sally heard the word master, but the blonde paid that no mind. "Then go do your job as the chef."

Reluctantly the chef left the servant alone in the corridor with Sally as she went back to the kitchen. Sadly, whatever moment the two of them had just had was now ruined completely. It made Sally want to turn time back and have a redo instead of accepting this outcome. Reality really did suck sometimes…

Instead of dwelling on that fact, Sally decided to go check the castle of anything that needs to get done. Chores, perhaps finding some broken windows or something… anything to keep her mind off of how horribly she'd just ruined the only chance she'd ever get.

As she patrolled the castle she began to wonder what Duo was doing in town for so long. Most likely taking advantage of the freedom he was getting, and was exploring the newer parts of the town. Sally had always wanted to go back to the town to see how things had changed from when she had been there. Her kidnapping had been five years ago, and back when Zechs was the possible partner for Heero.

That was the time when she had become legendary as the only woman to be allowed as an officer of the law in that town. People had always been so against women enforcing the law because they've always considered women too fragile and dainty. Sally had been the first woman accepted and made her status legendary as she shot through the ranks to become the chief of that branch of police. Then they had decided to kick her out because they claimed she was too weak to have such a position of power.

After that she became a bounty hunter of sorts that would team up with police to hunt down criminals, and never once did she fail at obtaining her target. Her life had been good for the short while she lived the bounty hunter lifestyle, and then one night she was out on a manhunt when someone abducted her. She had later discovered this was Zechs who had been hoping to kiss up to Master Heero by finding more servants. Yet Heero hadn't wanted any at that time so she ended up being thrown in the basement for a long time.

Then one day she was saved by the man who had abducted her before, and she tried not to let the irony of the situation make her laugh.

Without realizing it, Sally had gotten so lost in her memories she'd wound up in front of Master Heero's room. The vampire was in a deep sleep, and knowing this made Sally feel the need to burst in and demand why. Her entire life had basically been ruined by Zechs and Heero all those years ago, and instead of letting her go back to her lifestyle she'd ended up a hostage in the basement of the castle. She could've gone back to living a normal life had it not been for him!

Her hand was shaking violently as it waited for her mind to command it to open the door and attack Heero. Yet she took a deep breath and forced herself to let go of the door. There was no point in attacking Heero... whether she wanted to admit it or not he helped her life as well as destroyed it. Were it not for him she probably would've had a few good years as a bounty hunter before she became too old to do it anymore and probably would've died alone and unhappy.

So without really intending to Heero had most likely saved Sally from the fate of most humans in these recent years. Especially lately since people now have started to be getting rapidly sick in these areas, and inflation was forcing more and more into poverty. Perhaps these recent fears of a new plague weren't totally impossible as Sally had previously expected. For the past few years she'd heard hints of people in neighboring countries rapidly getting sick with the same symptoms and dying within a couple of weeks if not days.

Yet when it first began to happen she discarded the information as nothing more than a rumor, and since nothing happened to any of the people in her little hometown... that's all she'd assumed it to be.

----

Hello again readers! I'm back from my hiatus! Sorry if it was too long of a wait, but I would like to say I did manage to complete my NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 word novel! Now that I've done that I promise to focus my writing on this series (for the most part).

So I'm hoping this was a good chapter (I had to go back and read everything to figure out where I'd left off) and I'm hoping everyone is satisfied with it. Expect another chapter soon!

Please R & R!

Shari Maxwell