I reuploaded this as I forgot to put a warning.
Warnings: Rude language i.e swearing.
Erin was long gone by the time Ingrid and the Count cruised through the courtyard. There was a splat of blood on the floor where the eldest Dracula child had hurled the renegade half fang but it was obvious Erin had now fled.
Ingrid hoped the bitch would get herself toasted in the morning sun.
She was strangely enraged by the attack on her brother, as if his death was not something she'd been plotting for months. It was the audacity of it, to rip her prize from under her feet in a short moment while she played the long game.
She would retrieve her brother, undead and kicking, then wait for the perfect moment to strike.
For a long time, Vlad could no longer find reality. It was simply a fog floating, swirling around just out of reach. It thickened and thinned, sometimes he glimpsed images but he could never quite reach it.
His skeleton had become one with the earth; a weight Vlad could not comprehend pulling him down, and down and down and down-
His head was resting on a floor of cold, so was the rest of him. He felt weighted, like an anvil was pressed onto his side keeping him paralysed. Someone had taken his unused lungs and stuffed them full of rocks, someone was pulling him down.
His eyes flicked open and he blinked as his vision displayed a silver saturated cell. It was dark but no match for vampire eyes that gobbled up light like blood. This cell had none of the extreme measures that the other did – it was like the slayers had just haphazardly slung him in there like he wasn't worth the effort. This was slightly insulting for Vlad but then he was reminded by the stinging on every inch of his flesh and the cool liquid that could only be stolen life draining out his veins.
He had no idea of why every single inch of him bled from small circular holes in his skin or why it didn't heal and found he had no energy to rise from the floor.
He forced his scarlet arms to a position where he could push himself up but his upper limbs lost all their strength and he smacked his head on the floor awkwardly when he dropped like a stone.
His head stung more than a blow like that should have.
"Pathetic." The only slayer that could've possibly conspired with Erin smirked at Vlad's helplessness. With a stony glare that only a Dracula could pull off Vlad turned his head. Jonno stood at the foot of his cell looking far too pleased with himself, like he'd beaten the Chosen One.
Vlad hoped he really hadn't. The pain in his limbs suggested otherwise.
"There's one of me, it took a guild to take me down." It was pretty fair justification of it but also petty that he felt the need to in this situation. Jonno's lips twitched very slightly.
"Doesn't change the fact you're in here."
"You were consorting with vampires, isn't that against your twisted code of honour?" Both slayer and vampire stared one another down angrily. "Erin? You had to bring her in to catch me." Vlad scowled. "I bet you turned on her after – I bet her ashes are in one of your pots as a trophy!"
"No." The slayer answered, quieter than before. "I cut her loose- I keep my promises, unlike you!"
Vlad found that the undeniable guilt, proof that he was wrong, kept him from talking.
"Was Ingrid even worth destroying the treaty over?!"
This question Vlad had asked himself a lot lately, there was the voice that told him she was family but slowly he was realising that all family did was let you down in the end. He was a rat in Renfield's soups, the heat gently turned up so he didn't even realise it was killing him. He glanced up at the slayer.
"I don't know."
Jonno was surprised by the raw emotion in Vlad's tone and when they met eyes again the vampire spotted flecks of pity within seething rage. "That's the problem – you can't see past your family." For a single golden moment they both shared in the pain of family, both loving and losing.
Then they remembered who they were. "At least one Dracula is paying the price this time." Jonno said bitterly.
They stared at each other for a few minutes. Vlad wondered how they'd gone from uneasy friends to hesitant enemies. To be honest he should've know there would be fall out, a slayer and vampire friends? Erin and Vlad's romance left a trail of bodies – friendship was guaranteed to do the same.
Their moment of eye contact ended as Jonno shook his head in disappointment and left the cell.
Vlad was left to contemplate how things had gone so horribly downhill and wonder what the hell the slayers had done to him to leave him so powerless. He was already exhausted by the slightest physical exertion and he had barely moved.
"Vlad!" Ingrid hissed from the ceiling. It was by pure luck they hadn't been caught yet but if her damn brother didn't wake up soon the Draculas, all three of them, were sure to be slain. "Vlad!" She growled, louder than before.
Her brother still didn't move prompting Ingrid to believe something was seriously wrong.
After a final hiss of "Vlad!" Ingrid decided to aggressively nudge at his mind.
She received no contact, but she had obviously breached his defences. She wasn't sure what was more worrying: the fact she'd broken through his mental defences or he hadn't stopped her. Either way it was obvious he was in no shape to escape by himself so she had to do something about it. She gave the area at quick scan with cool, calm eyes before dropping to the floor with a metallic thunk.
She gave Vlad one last nudge with her foot to see if he would wake up before grasping him by the legs and slinging the unconscious vampire over her shoulder.
It was a nice power trip to be doing the rescuing. She knew that Vlad had carried her from attacks before and she was sick of her brother assuming she needed rescuing. How dare he try and save her if she was trying to kill him? She huffed and roughly shifted Vlad on her shoulder in an attempt to cause him pain of some sort. "Cover me!" She hissed at her father, who was still clinging to the ceiling. "
He gave Vlad a final concerned look (he'd never give her a look like that) before dropping to join her and slip through the door first.
A second later he was back, beckoning her to follow. They couldn't fly out of they like they had to get in as Vlad was certainly in no shape to travel, and all the argentalium exposure had sapped them down to their most basic powers.
The coast was clear. Too clear. On their way in they'd seen very few slayers but this was ridiculous- there was no one there!
Ingrid stayed on high alert in case of ambush, all the time still resting Vlad over her shoulder.
They got back to the school in good time with several hours before daybreak giving them ample time to get Vlad into the throne room.
He looked positively sickly. His skin had taken on an almost greenish tinge and as Ingrid had laid him down she'd realised her entire right side was soaked in his blood. That was another thing; Vlad's skin was not healing and was stained red from his own blood.
Had the slayers been torturing Vlad?
"Oh my goodness!" At the startled cry the majority of the Dracula clan, who'd been crowding Renfield and badgering him about the potion he was making sped into the throne room. It was pretty obvious what the problem was.
Miss McCauley stood by the door looking haunted as she stared at Vlad who resembled someone utterly dead, covered in blood and ghostly pale. The teacher's head shot up as both of them appeared in the room. "What-" her eyes widened as they made their way back to Vlad again –"what on earth is going on!
Ingrid looked to the Count, wondering how he could possibly explain himself away this time and muttered under her breath "great, just great. Another problem."
The headmistress head twisted to look at Ingrid and the vampire remembered how sensitive human senses became when powered by fear. "I'm going to call the police." She said stepping towards the phone they kept on the landing.
"This isn't what it looks like!" The Count protested and Ingrid had the urge to roll her eyes.
Miss McCauley still seemed completely shell-shocked. "Frankly," She stammered, "I don't know what this looks like but someone needs to explain!"
"You don't need to call the police." Ingrid told her, quickly working out how she could dispatch the breather if she ran for the phone.
"But I need to call an ambulance!" She gestured at Vlad with a violently shaking hand. She moved backwards until she was leaning up against the wall.
Ingrid tried to position her palms in a placating manner as she spoke. "Ambulances can't help him." The teacher glanced somewhere Ingrid couldn't see but she assumed it was the phone that Miss McCauley was staring at. "But we can explain what's going on."
The breather fiercely shook her head. "Vlad needs medical attention!" Her breathing accelerated to a pace that was irritating to Ingrid's ears. "If it was an accident then you won't be in trouble!"
"Hang on," Ingrid frowned. "You think we did this?" She glanced at the Count and then realised her mistake as the teacher bolted. She prepared herself to catch the breather but was halted.
"Don't you dare." The Count tightened his grip around her arm. Ingrid could already hear the frantic fiddling to get the phone off its stand.
"What are you doing?!" Ingrid snarled whilst yanking backwards with her arm. "She's going to call police!" She prepared to take a swing at her father and grab the breather when….
"Stop,"
His voice was quiet but everyone froze, and the shuffling from Miss McCauley and the phone stopped too. The Chosen One blinked, overcome by a wave of dizziness. His eyes were unfocussed as they roved over Ingrid and the Count. "She can't call an ambulance," He muttered.
Ingrid huffed. "To her you look like you need one." She listened calmly, still no sound from the breather and the phone.
Vlad tried to move and winced. "It would be nice if it could help." He looked at his arms with concerned eyes. "I'm not healing."
Ingrid glanced at her father and nodded in the direction of Ms McCauley. He rolled his eyes and sauntered away. She looked back to Vlad. "I noticed, it's not argentalium exposure is it?"
"No." Vlad flinched as if recalling a bad memory. "The slayers… They did something, there was needles and-" He shrugged. "I woke up like this." The Chosen One frowned. "Did you…? Who got me out?"
Ingrid's eyebrows deepened. "Who do you think?" She asked him sarcastically and watched him frown in confusion.
"You?"
"Yes, and we now are clear-" her eyes flashed, " that when you are back to full health you are going to annihilate the slayers!"
Vlad blinked owlishly at Ingrid and for a moment she believed he was considering her words. He murmured fuzzily. "What did you say?"
The vampiress sighed. "I'm going to get you some blood."
As she strolled out the room; she couldn't flit because of an unusually persistent argentalium exposure but she heard Vlad weakly say "make sure it's soy."
She nodded faintly in his direction. Ingrid was certain that she could sway him into attacking the slayers with merciless force but he could only do that at full health.
As she headed to the cellar she could hear Ms McCauley's raised voice and her father returning in kind earning her a slight smirk. He would come and ask her to hypnotise the teacher at some point.
Once in the cellar she zoned in on the soy bloods and stalked straight past them, snatching one of her father's finer vintages. Little Soul was a hugely pricy and high quality drink in the vampire world, mainly because of its prime ingredient. It was also an extremely addictive drink due to the same one ingredient.
It was blood, forcefully taken from an innocent child.
I apologise for my long absence, it's been a combination of writers block, end of term blues, summer laziness and lack of motivation but I intend to finish this story and its additional sequel.
Thank you so much for sticking with this story despite the jumpy updates.