Loyalty.
It was immensely cruel in it's irony. Quite like the creature it originated in. Vampirical loyalty was unavoidable in most to all cases of bites. There were only a few acute circumstances that dodged the inhumanity that accompanied turning into a vampire.
a. The vampire responsible dies.
b. The individual turning into a vampire possessed extraordinary strength of character.
He loved Erin, he really did, and he felt terrible for the struggle she'd been suffering but she hadn't been strong enough. Erin had never been that strong of a person, her strength came from her belief and trust in other people and Jonno now recognised that that had been broken when Vlad had betrayed her.
c. The vampire who turned them falls in love with their half fang.
Apparently Mir loved Erin again.
Jonno now understood why she was so desperate to rid herself of Mir, any vampire, any person see-sawing between love and hatred like that was bound to lose their mind. But he couldn't help her – not when they were so close to peace.
There was no way either of the vampires could escape the inevitable bloodshed and Jonno could only hope that Erin didn't suffer further.
At the sound of a nearby scream Jonno flattened himself against the wall. Stake in hand, black treacle sky up above, he crept along the alleyway until he was nearest the source of the noise.
"Stop struggling dear, it'll only make this harder." A rich female voice, one that could only belong to a vampire rang out from around the corner he was crouched behind. There was muffled shrieks, as if the vampire was covering her victim's mouth. Jonno leaned around for the briefest of moments to get a snapshot of what was going on.
The vampire had a knife, not fangs. That was a positive sign.
Then Jonno realised just how backwards this kind of thinking sounded.
The vampire had her hands wrapped around a young woman's collar, dragging up a dark wrist towards the knife blade. He could hear the sounds of more struggling.
"If you keep this up then I am going to get bored and kill you because it's easier."
"I wouldn't do that." Jonno stepped into the view of the street lamp, varnished stake shining under the yellow glow. The vampire hissed sharply, bearing fangs and tightening the grip on the breather to bone-breaking strength.
"Slayer." She lowered her centre of gravity, an obvious sign of a vampire preparing to leap. "I don't have time for one of you."
Jonno shrugged. "I'm not here to get into a fight. If she survives, and doesn't turn, then you're free to go." He gestured at the girl in her arms who's eyes immediately widened at his words. She began to struggle again, louder.
"Hmm. I like the sound of that offer." The vampire purred. With one swift shhrrk! blood was dripping from the girls wrist and the vampire pressed her mouth to the bleeding cut, eyes remaining smugly on Jonno's the entire time. The slayer did his best to avoid making eye contact while still checking that the girl was still alive.
When she wobbled, and looked like she was about to collapse the vampire released her.
"There you go slayer." The barely-conscious body was dumped in his arms. "Alive," Then she disappeared into the shadows, leaving Jonno clutching a pale and bloodless form.
Once the first survivor of the night's vampire-attacks was slumped, safetly in the backseat of an ambulance, eyes glassy and skin grey. They were alive, but Jonno wasn't sure this was what he wanted. If peace meant the guild was reduced to nothing more than observers, glorified janitors who cleaned up the mess the vampires left then the entire force's moral would plummet. As Olivia had said, slayers were as set in their ways as their enemies were.
Gripping his stake tighter, Jonno turned away from the high street and back into stygian labyrinth of alleyways, unlit and unforgiving.
There was no shortage of undead tonight. The no-kill order seemed to be acting more as an incentive to feed regardless of obstacles, even Jonno had been forced to deter some vampires from helping themselves to his plasma when they caught him by surprise.
Whether good or bad, the no-kill order had been well received. For the first time in a year, the biggest vamp hotspot in Lancashire wasn't littered with bodies. It was only early morning, when pale blue peaked at the edge of the sky that Jonno met a vampire who was a real threat.
He'd long dispensed with the stealth but it didn't matter anyway, the vampire was too focussed on pressing his victim to a wall, drawing out a long knife and pressing it to the throat of a young man.
Jonno wasn't close enough, on the far side of a long alleyway, the boy would bleed out before he could ever throw his stake far enough.
The slayer broke into a sprint, boots drumming loud enough on concrete to alert even the most unobservant bystander to his presence. The vampire, turned, his grip on the breather gone and spun a full one-eighty. But it wasn't Jonno he was reacting to.
A shadow of black clothing pinned the bigger vampire to the same wall the victim had been pinned to moments before. Mir's pale face glowed in the dark. "I can't tell if you're deliberately disobeying me or that your grasp of human biology is so poor that you think that a human will survive having their throat slit."
Jonno froze as the vampire's voice rang out, a rough cadence that he still struggled to associate with Vlad's face. He slipped the stake back into his waistband, out of sight but still keeping a grip on the deadly wood.
Neither vampire seemed to have noticed him and the bigger one of the two was mumbling something too low for Jonno to hear. Mir didn't seem to like it.
"Really? I'd much prefer it if I took this from you," He snagged the knife, silver glittering in the beginnings of daylight. "And then I sent you back to your hole without a meal, I think that would be a good lesson."
Another mumble.
"I don't care." Red eyes flashed in the dark. "Scram."
Without another word Mir released his grip on the vampire's jacket and he vanished. The Chosen One turned to look at Jonno. "You look like shit."
The slayer who'd been lingering, almost unconsciously waiting to talk to him was suddenly without words. What could he possibly say anyway? Jonno swallowed. He settled on a biting response. "Surprisingly that's what happens when your face is smacked repeatedly against a desk."
"Hmm," Mir chuckled. "Well Erin doesn't tend to be gentle." He fiddled with the knife he'd stolen from the other vampire, pressing it into his skin and running a finger across the blade. "So, are we going to fight? Or is Olivia lurking somewhere around here so she can have a sensible conversation. After all," He made a gesture of open arms. "I fulfilled my side of the bargain, as you can see."
"Olivia isn't in Lancashire anymore." There was a shrrrkk! as Mir readied the knife but Jonno threw his hands up in surrender. "But I'm not here to fight!"
Reluctantly the vampire lowered the knife. "What are you doing here then?"
"We heard about the no-kill order."
"You like?" Mir was watching him carefully, stiff, with the coiled muscles of a predator.
"It seems to be working." He drummed on the buckle of his belt.
The vampire's eyes were intense and unblinking. "It would work better if the slayers weren't trying to kill us."
"Mir, I don't know if we-"
"Don't bring our personal history into this!" He snarled.
Jonno's eyes widened. How did Mir know that was what he was about to say? "But it has to be discussed! Most times that the treaty ended it was because of one of us," He knew he was just as guilty as Mir. "One of us throws a temper tantrum and ends the peace out of spite." The treaty wasn't just for them personally and despite both of them wanting peace, they hadn't treated the bridge between their two races with the caution it deserved. "It's more than just us too involved in this."
Mir considered Jonno's words. "You make a point." A smirk curled across his face. "Does that mean you're on-board with peace?"
"I think so."
The vampire glanced at the sky. The sun had begun to rise, splitting the alleyway they were stood in. A thin slit of day separated them but both were still trapped in shadow. "Nice talk, Jonno. If all goes well, I'll see you soon." seperate
He made to disappear into the remaining shadows but the slayer darted forward. "Wait!" Mir looked at him and Jonno suddenly struggled to vocalise. "You should- you need to watch out for Erin," He finally managed.
For a second Mir didn't look as confident as he had seemed before. The Chosen One's gaze drooped and he shifted on his feet. Then, as he prepared to launch himself away from the alley, he nodded. "I know."