The alley was a lot more dark and dingy than I had remembered, which just made me even more eager to get out of there. It felt oddly isolated from the rest of the busy street beyond, which I did not like one bit.

I was never a big fan of isolated, unlike Fi. She probably would have enjoyed this, I thought to myself as I gingerly picked up each page of the book between my finger and thumb. (To avoid getting any dirt from the ground under my nails, of course.) She probably would have loved the atmosphere, the fact that there was nobody in sight. If she had been here, she probably would have come out with some comment about a murderer lurking just around the corner waiting to cut me up into tiny pieces, and then laughed and said something like "I wish, nothing exciting ever happens here."

Then I would have rolled my eyes, leant against the wall, (because of course if she was helping me, she would be the one to pick up the pages from the icky ground) and calmly told her that if her idea of exciting was murderers, she needed to be murdered herself.

Shaking myself from my thoughts, I looked down at the stack of pages in my hand, satisfied that I had collected them all.

Now, I wondered, what to do with them? As I scanned the alley, I spotted the cover of the book wedged in a doorway, as if it had been shoved there by an eager postman, and I knew what to do. I would go over there, collect that cover, and I would arrange all those pages in order, and I would go back into our school and place it back in our locker, and be done with it all.

No more vampires, no more stupid secret societies containing bowler-hatted men (if that was even a word.) I thought as I dislodged the final piece of "Cirque du Freak" from underneath the door. No more meaningful dreams, and definitely not another mention of Fi faking her death, that was for certain, I told myself sternly as I cautiously flicked at a wrapper or something that seemed to be stuck over the author's name.

I was going to get on with my life, and start being me again. Stop this ridiculous topsy-turvy cycle of reality and madness that seemed to be hitting me lately, I was-

I was practically-

I was practically insane-was my final thought as I realised what I had been holding-then the world blurred around me and I fell suddenly backwards, catching myself before I hit the ground.

Had I just nearly fainted? I wondered. I didn't even know that was a thing. I thought there was just either fainting, or not fainting, not some weird state of near collapse which I seemed to be in. What the hell just happened to me?

And then I looked at the wrapper-or rather-the ticket-and it all clicked into place.

Cirque du Freak-Admit One. 04/03/11.

The date of Fi's death.

Either I was going insane-or the world around me was.

And there was only one way to find out.

Pushing open the rotting wood of the door that I had nearly collapsed against, I stepped inside cautiously, shining my phone around me as a makeshift torch.

Because somehow-in the back of my potentially insane mind, I knew that this decrepit old building had to be the place she 'died.'

It just had to be.

And somehow-with the help of my potentially insane mind- I was going to find out how and why Fi 'died'.

I just had to.

Meanwhile-In a secret location

Edgar Caldwell stared at the screen of his brand new GPS tracking device, that his mother had got him for his birthday, but which he had modified slightly for the optimum needs of H.A.V.S.

"The mark has entered Location 2.1" he called. "I repeat, the mark has entered Location 2.1!"

Location 2.1 stood for two things.

The 2 meant "Secondary Source", meaning they had reason to believe a vampire had been residing or hunting there, but no specific proof. And the 1-well, that was because it was only the first secondary source they had found that year.

At this, the three other members of H.A.V.S that were currently in the office paused whatever they were doing and crowded around Edgar's GPS device, although making sure not to cause Edgar's bowler hat to fall off in the process.

"We're going to need everybody working on this!" Edgar told them. "Get Paul out of Indonesia straight away-and tell Brendan his cruise is going to have to be cut short-we need all the help we can get, I can feel it! And Rory? Rory?"

Edgar Caldwell's son sat away from the others, in what the team referred to as 'the comfy chair', simply because all of the other chairs were so uncomfortable, eyes firmly glued to his phone.

It was stupid, he thought, how he was expected to sit around doing nothing in case his dad needed him for a mission-which never was the case. In all his sixteen years he had never once been 'needed for a mission', and he suspected that was the way it would always be.

But he loved his dad, and so he put up with his lame hat and his crazy ideas about vampires, and his even crazier vampire obsessed colleagues.

However today was different.

"Rory!" Edgar shouted finally. "Come over here and listen."

Rory sauntered over, uninterested.

"I need you to get close to this girl." Edgar showed Rory a picture of Sinead. "Get as fast as you can down to Location 2.1 and pretend to be on her side. This is crucial."

"Can I take the bike?" Rory asked casually. It was worth it, if he was allowed to take the HAVS yellow motorbike out for a spin. Even if it was yellow, he decided.

"Rory. In moments of crisis, always take the bike. And remember-you don't know me, but you know all about vampires. Oh-and your name is not Rory Caldwell."

Smiling to himself, the newly named Rory Lavigne strolled out of the secret base and hopped onto the blindingly yellow bike, telling himself that he was going to take this first mission by storm as he sped off towards Location 2.1.

Yes, i named him after Doctor Who Rory :P and i was listening to Avril Lavigne at the time of writing this xD

Please review! :)