Chapter 3

It had been a month since I had witnessed the slaughter of my family and friends, and I had not spent the time idly. I was already working with a new group of slayers who had found a huge nest of some of the most powerful vampires, and we were busy installing our new UV cage that would trap the parasites in the house before we burnt the building to the ground.

I hadn't seen Vlad since the attack, but I had been receiving reports on his activity and it was not looking good. The numbers of his group had been increasing steadily for a few weeks now as well as an increase of their human slaves. All his activity pointed towards a massive attack on the slayers, and I'm not sure we would survive this time.

His wasn't the only group expanding in size. The nest we had discovered had almost doubled in size over the past month and so had four other similar nests just in England. Slayer numbers had been decreasing rapidly ever since the attack and we didn't have the numbers to cope with the growing vamp population.

But tonight was different to most nights at the abandoned school we had found the parasites in; the high council was visiting to bless the marriage of one of the oldest vampires we know of. This meant the place was literally flooded with vampires, and it gave us the perfect opportunity to wipe out some of their most powerful leaders.

I dropped down from the watch tower and landed almost silently next to the girl who had started this operation. I didn't know her name, she had approached me one day asking for help with her latest mission and we had agreed to keep the whole thing anonymous for our own protection.

She leaned over to me and whispered in order to avoid being heard by any nearby vamps.

"There are more guards than usual patrolling tonight, but they seem distracted by the ceremony going on inside. You will have to be extra careful tonight when you move in to burn down the house."

I nodded and pulled down my hood, all but obscuring my face as I started to move around to the other side of the school. I had to get close enough to the place to burn it but I didn't want to get caught inside the barrier when all the vamps came out to see what was going on.

Behind me I heard my companions moving towards the edge of the forest where we had placed the generator for the UV cage and hidden plenty of garlic gas and stakes to kill any vamps who survive the fire.

Five minutes later I was in position it the edge of the school next to a huge wood pile we had soaked in petrol and placed up against what was left of the old wooden school house which had been converted into an assembly hall at one time and then a coffin room.

I checked my watch and counted down the last 20 seconds before the cage blazed out across the night sky. I threw my lighter down on the wood pile and within second the whole thing was a roaring mass of flames and was slowly starting to eat its way into the wall behind it.

I smiled and turned to run towards the edge of the cage and barely made it through when the vamps reached me. Of course they were stuck inside the cage and all I had to do was throw a couple of garlic gas canisters behind them and they were soon dust.

I laughed and started jogging towards the others to watch the show when suddenly a hand grabbed me and started pulling me towards the cage. I screamed as loud as I could as I grabbed a stake and tried to stab the vamp behind me as he pushed me towards a frenzy of angry vampires wanting my blood.

I caught the hand with my stake and the vampire hissed and dropped me. I spun round and went to finish the job… and then I froze. The vampire was Vlad.

I didn't believe it was possible but he was more handsome than I remembered him. He was still looking at me with that look of hatred but he froze too when he saw my face. I still had my back turned to the other vamps so I pushed my hood back a bit so he could see my face without allowing the others to see anything about me they would be able to use to hunt me down later.

He reached out to me and stroked my face, then pulled my closer by my waist. I looked up into his eyes and he looked as surprised and confused as I was at what he was doing. Then he leaned down gently and pressed his lips to mine, tangling his hand in my hair to keep me in place as the intensity of our kissing increased.

He pulled back panting, before he collapsed in my arms.