AN: Merry Christmas, all

So the lion fell in love with the lamb.

And then the lamb shot him.

Most of all, Mike's gathering was to allay the fears of the weaker, to reassure them that the people in charge actually intended to do something. Finally, the tediousness was done, and I remained seated as the meeting broke up and the others slowly filed out, after deferring respectfully to Mike, the old man, and the little girl.

Yours truly, Chuck, Jessie, Mike, the man and the girl remained.

I was about to meet the real Fawkes council.

"Greetings, Ella." Said the little girl formally, sounding like every demonic child in every scary movie I had ever seen. She gave a graceful little curtsey. "I am Inez Blackstone. And this is my associate, Spencer Harrington."

The old man's chest puffed up as soon as she mentioned his name, and I knew immediately that he was one of those people who were inordinately proud of themselves for doing not that much at all. While Inez wore a plain white dress with ballet flats, Spencer's outfit was more turn-of-the-century. Black and silver embroidered frock coat over a ruffled shirt, black pants with silver trim, and shiny, shiny boots. With his snowy white hair, too-skinny frame and bulging eyes, he might as well have been wearing a sign around his neck saying I'm A Vampire.

"Pleasure to meet you." Despite his ancient and somewhat stooped frame, the voice that came out of that withered husk was surprisingly rich and resonant. "You have already met the doctor and his wife."

Jessie shot me a little grin and a wave. My dad stood behind my chair, towering over me protectively.

"Yeah, we've met." So far, my emotions had undergone a roller coaster ride through caution, anxiousness, anxiety, and amazement. Right now, I was settled on suspicion.

"What am I doing here?"

"As I said, at this moment in time, it is far too dangerous for a feral to be about town." Spencer stated.

"Oh." A pause. "What's a feral?"

Spencer Harrington looked at me like I was stupid, and blinked.

"A feral is used much in the same context when dealing with animals; it is one of our kind who has struck out on their own, away from the influence of their sire." Inez said.

I must have continued to look somewhat confused, as Spencer felt obliged to elaborate, obviously running on the idea that I was a bit simple.

"The sire is that who makes us. It is the sire that is responsible for our frame of mind when we awake again."

My blank look remained firmly fixed in place. Spencer looked down his nose at me, tapping his chin.

"You are aware of your sire, aren't you, Ella?" Inez asked me seriously.

I fidgeted uncomfortably in my seat. "Well, um..." I stammered. "I kind of got really drunk at this party..."

Suddenly I was met with a room full of disapproving glares, all except Inez, who was contemplating something.

"Oh, come on! Like you lot never had a few beers as teenagers! Is it a crime?"

"Yes, actually." Chuck said archly, his face stern, ever the police chief. "You were seventeen, and underage, and-"

I almost choked on his hypocrisy. "Do as I say and not as I do, eh, Father?" I said icily. After all, my very existence was the result of young people, alcohol, and too many hormones.

Inez was staring at me with those unnerving eyes. "Curious." She murmured. "I have never before heard of a sire abandoning their fledgling."

I just looked at her blankly, the notion of vampire family values going over my head.

"Abandoned to wake alone after the turning, unsure of how to act or what to do next, left to discover your abilities to yourself. It is no wonder-" Her eyes raked over me again. "It is no wonder why you are... different."

"Why am I here?" I repeated slowly, wondering if anyone would just give me a damn answer.

"We need your spirit." Spencer said grandly. "That feisty little spark inside you that gives you the strength that has abandoned the rest of us. We need your street smarts, your attitude, and your determination." He leaned over me, hands gripping the arms of my chair so I could not escape.

"We need you because you can pass as a human."

I squirmed past Spencer and his hypnotic, bulging eyes, and stood apart from them all, hands on my hips. "What about him?" I indicated Chuck with a nod of my head. "Nothing passes for human better than a human."

"He is not applicable for this mission." Inez said curtly. Chuck looked down at his shoes.

"Excuse me, what?" I was definitely getting conscripted for something.

"The doctor has brought it to our attention that you have become close to Eddie Collins."

Fantastic.

"That was not idle talk, Miss Swain. We intend to... remove the Collins family." Inez's eyes were cold. "And you will be instrumental in that downfall."

Mike stepped back in. "In short, Ella, the last of us here were fanged in the eighties, and, quite frankly, time has changed since then. Because of your recent turning, and your minimal exposure to other vampires due to your environment, you are the only one of us who can convincingly pass as normal."

"Why me?"

"Because of your relationship with Eddie Collins."

"It's not a relationship." I said, but Mike carried on as though he hadn't heard me.

"For years we have tried to get one of our people under the Collins' guard, but all our agents have been neutralised. But somehow you have already become accepted. You can get close to the family, pinpoint their weak spots, pass on their tactics."

"You want me to... be your spy."

Mike nodded. "Gain the family's trust." Inez said. "Get yourself as physically and emotionally close to the Collins boy as possible, and then-"

The little girl made a savage slashing motion across her throat.

I gulped.

The next day Chuck dropped me at school, mainly so we could talk. Or rather, he talked.

I felt like I had fallen into a badly written supernatural drama as he described how the vampires and townsfolk of Fawkes had lived peacefully beside each other for over two hundred years. From the information he'd managed to glean from vamps of the same antiquity, originally there had been a pretty big bloodbath between the vampire settles and the local tribe of skinwalkers, over rights to the land.

A lot of innocent townsfolk had been caught up in the middle, when news of the skirmish caught the attention of a drover, one Tobias Harker. Apparently Toby wasn't a hunter in the strictest sense, but rather used his brain to stop the war, drawing up a treaty that flatly stated that if another supernaturally-related homicide occurred in the town from that day forth, Toby was coming back and he was bringing some mates with him to wipe everybody out.

From that day, there was always at least one vampire hunter in town.

And then people began disappearing. Since no one had heard from the skinwalkers for decades, there was only one conclusion: the vampire hunters were slaying again unprovoked, and all bets were off.

I stared through the window, leaning on my forearm, letting his words wash over me. A feeling of guilt smacked me upside the head as I saw Eddie's truck parked in his usual spot, the first time he'd been in for a fortnight.

Chuck wordlessly dropped me at the gate. Backpack slung over one shoulder, I casually strode over to the truck.

Eddie was kneeling on the driver's seat, pinning the ceiling upholstery back into place with a red stapler. His hair wasn't quite so great today and his cheeks were hollower, but all that did was make me realise how amazing his cheekbones were. The boy had got a double dose of good genes.

So engrossed was he in his work that he didn't hear me approach.

"Hi." I said.

Eddie jumped, smacking his forehead on the truck's ceiling. I heard a muffled curse as the flap of upholstery he had been stapling up fell back to the dash.

"Oops. Sorry."

Eddie looked down at me, a hand on his forehead.

"How come whenever I see you, my head ends up ringing?"

"Maybe you're stunned by my charm and grace?" I offered smoothly. He smiled at me, and I wondered if he knew exactly how devastating those dimples could be when aimed in the right place. I smiled back, but inside my common sense was locked in a death match with my conscience.

In one fluid movement, Eddie was out of the truck and standing before me.

"Hi."

Looking into his dark blue eyes, a thought struck me. What if his own overtures of friendship was his way of reeling me in, so his family could make short work of the Fawkes vampires? Who was the bad guy in this equation?

"Ella?"

I shook my head, chasing out the ghosts. "Sorry. Spaced out for a minute there. It's been a weird couple of days."

"That it has." Eddie agreed wearily, and I believed it. He looked at me curiously for what felt like forever.

"You want to get out of here?" He asked tentatively, looking at me from beneath his long lashes.

"Edward Collins, what makes you think I'm that kind of girl?" I exclaimed jokingly. I hesitated. "Where do you suggest?"

Eddie just grinned at me.

Because nothing in Fawkes was particularly far away from anything else in Fawkes, we walked, chatting idly. Eddie lead me to a beautiful strand of ghost gums, and I could hear water gurgling somewhere in the background. It was beautiful.

It was also very secluded.

"This is amazing."

"I come here to think." Eddie was watching my reaction, hands in his pockets. His face was grim as I turned back to him. My own smile faded.

"So," I said archly. "You take a lot of girls behind the bushes?"

Eddie's answering smile was mysterious, and a little naughty. "Only the pretty ones." He confessed.

"You superficial bastard." I exclaimed. "I guess I shouldn't fear being molested, then."

"You're better looking than you give yourself credit for. If we walked into a room together, you would be the one people looked at first."

"Only because the entire female student body would be breathing a collective sigh of relief that you're not gay." I stuck my tongue out. He smiled helplessly and followed me further into the bush. I couldn't tell which one of us was being the idiot.

"I suppose." I began. "I suppose I still think of myself the way I used to be." I kicked out at a stone. "I used to be... ordinary, y'know? Now I'm-"

"Individual?" Eddie offered.

"I'm not fourteen, Eddie. I know that 'individual' is just a nice way of saying really frickin' weird." My eyes narrowed. "And you know, you'd be right."

I watched as Eddie's body tensed, his eyes wary, suddenly regretting his idea to bring me here and not tell anyone about it.

I could smell his fear, and a bizarre thrill went up my spine.

"I realise now, I'm the world's best predator." I smiled then, showing perhaps too many teeth. I still couldn't understand why Eddie didn't run.

"Everything about me invites you in. My voice, my face, my body, subtly influencing your subconsciousness to go with me to somewhere in the shadows where there's no witnesses. Men." I laughed sourly. "I'm a walking aphrodisiac to you."

Eddie wasn't moving, and I despaired at the fact that he apparently cared so little for his own existence.

"You should run." Springing back on my heels, I jumped. With the ease of a seasoned gymnast, my hands curled around a overhanging branch which would have had to be the same width as my waist, and I ripped it from the ancient gum tree with a massive crack, before landing in a crouch. My own agility startled me.

"You'd probably get a little further than anyone else."

Spinning on the balls of my feet, I readied the branch javelin-like in my grip, before releasing the missile. It shattered against another great tree, which shook and trembled, its trunk somewhat battered and splintered.

My momentary rush of adrenaline gone, I stood staring at the dent in the tree. For some reason, tears crept into the corners of my eyes.

"You should run." I whispered.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to be running from." I knew he must have come up behind me, because I felt his breath on the back of my neck.

"You must be very unobservant."

"You could have left me to die, but you didn't."

"Maybe I just wanted to eat you later." I dismissed, folding my arms.

"You're different."

"I'm really not."

Eddie didn't say anything for a long time, but he didn't leave.

"When I was eight," He began softly. "Before I lived here, me and my parents were walking back to the car after going to see a movie. We were jumped from behind heading into the parking lot, and I saw my dad... I must have been too small for its taste or something, because it let me go." His voice cracked.

"I ran all the way to Carl and Esme's. The next day my mum walked into their house, only it wasn't my mum anymore." He heaved a massive sigh, his voice becoming even softer. "She tried to kill me, and Carl grabbed one of Esme's kitchen knives and..." Eddie trailed off, shuddering at memories that were still entirely still too fresh.

I turned to look into those amazing blue eyes. Eddie was hot, intelligent, and occasionally we shared a bit of harmless flirting, but I don't think I had any real feelings for him until that exact moment.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because since meeting you, I don't know what to think anymore."

We'd somehow become closer without realising it. "I could accidentally kill you any time." I breathed.

"Of course, that's assuming that I didn't have the drop on you all along." Eddie's breath fanned my face. He smelled spicy. I could hear his blood singing to me, and it scared the hell out of me how much my instincts were screaming at me to take a bite out of his throat. I could see in Eddie's eyes that this was as much a test for him as it was for me.

Still, the fifteen-year-old virgin in me squealed with glee when he leaned in and kissed me.

Standing there, his arms around me, suddenly it was so much harder knowing that I had to betray him.