~Part 1 Chap 6~
“Are you going to do what the rat said?” Skelacat asked, her voice rich with obvious disgust.
“I don’t see why not,” Devin replied, writing down what she’d learned in History class that day into a notebook, “It’s a simple enough request.”
“You can get killed, besides, you don’t know what you’re getting into!”
“That’s where you come in, you’re my guardian right? Well guard me then, but really, I wont get hurt. I’ll just take the key once she goes past my door.”
Skelacat sighed and laid near the door, “If I didn’t have faith in you I would stop you.”
Devin rolled her eyes and continued working on her writing. Half an hour later she put the notebook into her backpack and walked over to the door and stood listening for the soft steps of Lucile.
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She awoke to Skelacat’s claws. Holding back her yelp she listened to the door and sure enough, Lucile’s soft footsteps sounded from the other side.
“It’s a good thing tomorrow’s Saturday,” she muttered, fighting back a yawn and pulling Skelacat’s claws from her knee.
The footsteps stopped before her door and she could hear Lucile’s fingers tap lightly against the door.
“She’s listening for you,” Skelacat whispered.
Devin was one again startled by the small cat’s abilities, sure that she would never know all that she could do. There was no noise from the other side as Lucile listened in. Devin was afraid to even breathe and her heart beat so fast in her chest that she was afraid that Lucile could hear it. Soon, she heard fingers scrabbling again, and the doorknob began to turn slowly. She bit her lip, she could lunge and lock it but Lucile would hear that and could burst the door down, or she could let her open the door and pray that she wont see her. She looked over at the doorknob, contemplating it, and watched as the lock turned. Looking down at Skelacat, she saw her staring at the doorknob with sort of a smile.
“You didn’t think you were the only one who knew magic did you?” Skelacat smiled, “I just only use it when I need to, to conserve my energy.”
Devin smiled and rolled her eyes before turning back to the door. Lucile seemed satisfied, and had started to walk away. She immediately unlocked the door and bolted out, making a mad dash for the key in her back but was knocked to the wall when Lucile turned in defense.
Lucile’s painted eyes flashed as she summed up the situation, then her hands morphed into blade-like points. She motioned for Devin to get back into her room and Devin shook her head, the silver scythe materializing in her hands. Lucile’s sad eyes watched her, waiting for her to make the first move.
“Skelacat, can you make a soundproof bubble?” She whispered, keeping her eyes on Lucile.
“Yes, why?”
“I don’t want teachers coming to her aid, or students coming to mine.”
Skelacat was silent but the air around her shimmered and the air felt thicker. She glanced down to see Skelacat watching her with Lavender eyes, awaiting to see what would happen.
“Wish me luck.”
“Break a leg,” Skelacat smiled.
She decided not to tell her that was only for showbiz and lunged forward anyways. The sound of metal striking wood rang through the air around her and echoed back to her ears to confuse her. They met each others blades, striking and retreating, each others match. Devin lunged towards her face but only nicked a piece of web-like hair. Lucile looked at her quizzically, then exhaled a smoky substance, clouding Devin’s vision.
She thought she saw Lucile a few times, but when she struck the smoke just swirled more. More and more figures a appeared before her and she backed up, unsure which were real and which weren’t. Suddenly the noises stopped echoing into her ears and a shriek erupted from behind her. She immediately swung around and her scythe struck wood. The smoke dissipated, no longer held by the bubble.
Lucile’s calm face appeared next to hers, but she wasn’t looking at her, but behind her. She risked a glance over her shoulder to see Skelacat, washing her face a bit too innocently. Looking back to Lucile, she focused her attention on the current battle and ducked under her and grabbed her long hair. Instead of it holding Lucile and stopping her from moving, Devin’s plan backfired as chunks of white hair fell out in her hand.
Lucile grinned until her wooden face cracked, what once looked sweet and sad now looked crazy and bloodthirsty. Her head twisted backwards to face Devin and her body followed snapping so fast her bladed hands almost chopped Devin in half. While jumping back to avoid being killed, Lucile’s hand caught her scythe, flinging it just out of reach.
Lucile stepped forward slowly, waving her blade menacingly and then dropped forward, as though experiencing again when her strings were cut. Skelacat tentatively stepped over Lucile’s limp body with the key in her mouth, attempting to untangle her paws from the wispy hair. Devin looked down at her own hands, dropping the spider web-like hair and shuddered.
Skelacat leaped forward and handed her the key. Suddenly a large dog bolted from around the corner towards them, nearly colliding with them. The large dog was, upon closer inspection, in fact a wolf; marked unnatural by the red ears and tail contrasting with the black fur. The wolf backed up and inspected them, looking first from Devin to Skelacat and back again. It paced as though considering something of great importance, like whether or not they’d be tasty.
Devin glanced over at her scythe, but all thoughts of retrieval fled from her when the wolf growled sharply. She finally sat on the ground, waiting to see what would happen. After what felt like forever, the wolf stopped pacing, it’s red ears twitching to catch the noises of the sleeping students. It stood over Lucile and sniffed her briefly, then immediately jumped back, rubbing it’s nose as though stung.
After it had recovered, it turned back to them and stood on its hind legs. Fur was sucked back into skin and there was the sickening sound of crunching bones and sloshing organs. The snout shrunk and the red ears moved farther down it’s head, the tail shrunk and was sucked back into the body. The transformation took place in less then thirty seconds, and it mesmerized her.
In front of her stood a boy, about sixteen or seventeen years of age, dressed in tattered clothing. He smiled and looked down his nose at her as he walked up. Sharp teeth glinted and his black hair shone, the blood red section in front of his left eye as startling a contrast as the wolf’s ears and tail had been to the black body. His icy eyes were pupil less, but there was no way he was blind, for he saw her and Skelacat clearly.
He moved with remarkable speed and grace; not making so much as a whisper as he walked. He stood in front of her and looked her over before speaking.
“There’s a reason you’re not supposed to be out after midnight,” he murmured.
His voice was smooth, like water flowing over rocks worn smooth by age; comforting like a parent speaking to their child, and warm like a log fire on a snowy day. She felt rooted to the spot, unable to speak or move. She wanted him to keep talking, to just lose herself in his voice and leave the problems of life behind.
“You beat Lucile, no one’s been able to do that before.”
She snapped out of the trance, “Yes, well, I had help and she was hard, I’m going to need to keep training if I ever expect to beat harder people, or, not people?”
He chuckled, “Are you going after Sydel?”
“Who?”
“I suppose you wouldn’t know. I’ll tell you all I know if you free me?” he offered.
“Free you? How do I know you’re not trapped because you’re a mass murderer, or rapist, or homicidal maniac, or something?”
He looked around, “Do you honestly believe they’d trap a homicidal maniac in a school?”
“He has a point there, Devin,” Skelacat admitted, “Besides, I don’t think he wishes you ill.”
“I don’t, and I’ll be indebted to you,” He kissed her hand and smiled, making her feel comforted.
“What would I need to do?”
“That’s the only thing, you’d have to give up your freedom for a small amount of time, until sunrise at the latest. Because I don’t want you to turn around and curse someone to the same fate I’ve had.”
She disliked the idea of giving up her freedom, even for a few hours, and was hesitant to trust him. “Would Skelacat be able to kill you and free me if you don’t keep your word?”
Skelacat struck him and three deep gashes appeared in his leg though his tattered pants, “Yes,” Skelacat turned to her, “I think it would be safe.”
The boy grimaced, and used his shirt to staunch the black blood that seeped through the gashes, tying it around the cuts before standing back up.
She nodded to Skelacat and turned to him, “Fine, I’ll help you.”
He smiled and leaned forward, his lips brushing against hers and ground rose to meet her. The last thing she remembered was being caught just before hitting the floor.
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She groaned and opened her eyes, feeling more tired then she had ever in her life, as though she’d slept forever but also as though she had never slept a wink in her life. Devin imagined that this was probably how people felt when coming out of a coma. She tried to get up and then noticed a weight on her waist, an arm; looking to her side, she stifled a scream. She was looking strait in the face of a boy with black hair and a shock of red over the left eye. He laid next to her as though about to whisper a secret in her ear. She ran down a list in her head, clothing, good; I don’t remember last night, bad; no hangover, good; don’t know this person, bad.
“Skelacat?” She whimpered.
Skelacat looked over at her, “Don’t worry, you performed a spell that drained all your energy and he followed me and carried you to your room. He didn’t have a place to go so he stayed here.”
She nodded, knowing she could believe Skelacat, and began to get up when the door slammed open.
“Hey Devin!” Jackie shouted excitedly as she burst into the room and then paused, her face dropping from happiness, to shock, to embarrassment. She started to shut the door and exit slowly, “Oh…sorry-”
“No Jackie! It‘s not-” Devin screamed, trying to explain but crashed to the floor in a tangled mess of sheets instead as the door clicked shut. “Ouch, Dammit!”
She groaned, she’d never be able to convince her that nothing happened. Once she thinks something is right then she wont be swayed. She was lifted off the ground and put on her bed.
“Oh thanks,” She murmured, her head was pounding and she had an extreme lack of energy, overall, she felt ill.
“No problem,” the same voice from last night murmured and she felt him sit next to her, “How do you feel? I wasn’t sure if you were strong enough to survive.”
“Terrible, wait!” She jumped up and pointed at him, immediately regretting it. She held her head and waited for the room to stop spinning. He grabbed her and led her back to the bed and sat her back down, allowing her to lean against him for support.
“Who are you? What are you?” She asked, making a cross with her fingers, then realizing the futility of it and dropped her hands back into her lap.
“My name is Loren, I am a vampire.” He stood up bowed to her, “And a thousand thanks for freeing me.”
“Oh, well then. I’m Devin, and as far as I know I’m human. So you’re a vampire? Are you going to feed, and if so, on whom?”
“I don’t need to eat, not in Middle-Realm, but if I did then I’d imagine I’d eat you.”
She groaned, “Is that some kind of vampire pick-up line?”
Before he could reply, the door burst open and Jackie pointed towards them, “See! I told you!”
Chad and Jasper emerged in the doorway behind her thin figure, along with their guardians. She looked at them, dazed, and watched Jackie walk in and sit on a chair, Jasper’s eyes fill with what could only be pure hatred and him lean against the doorframe, and Chad take a place against the wall in front of them.
“So you have fun?” Jackie asked.
“Nothing happened!” Devin screamed, then clutched her pounding head. “Skelacat, can you please tell them?”
“Nothing happened,” Skelacat assured the crowd.
“If nothing happened, then who is this and why is he here?” Jasper asked, glaring at Loren, none of his anger had seemed to have dissipated and the air was thick with it.
“And why is he shirtless?” Jackie asked, staring at him, “I wish Chad would be shirtless a bit more often.”
“Hello, Jackie! I’m still here!” Chad told her, and she shrugged, not caring whether he was there or not.
“I’m Loren, I’d been trapped here by Sydel and your lovely friend Devin just freed me last night with a spell, draining her of her strength. So I carried her back to her room and stayed here because I had no where else to go. I don’t have my shirt on because I needed to use it to stop my leg from bleeding after she shredded up my flesh,” he answered, pointing to Skelacat.
“It was only a few little scratches, I didn’t, quote, ‘shred your flesh’,” Skelacat corrected.
“Yeah, about that, if you’re a vampire then how did you bleed?”
“What? Oh, you mean that old superstition that vampires don’t have blood? If you don’t have any blood then your dead, not undead, there’s no way a body can move.”
“Why is everybody yelling?” Devin asked, holding her head, despite the calm voices of her companions.
“What’s with Ms. Hangover?” Chad asked, jabbing a thumb towards Devin.
“An unfortunate side effect of the spell, I’m afraid,” Skelacat explained, rubbing against her legs, “she should be fine tomorrow, albeit a bit tired.”
Devin stood up, eager to prove her wrong, and began to walk towards the door but instead found the floor rising to greet her. Once again she was caught, this time by Jasper instead of Loren, even though he stood halfway in the middle of trying to get her. Jasper looked over at him, with a bit of a smug grin on his face.
She leaned against him, “So what your telling us Loren, is that everything we know about vampires is a lie?”
“Not everything, there’s always some truth to myths.”
“Do you want to get something to eat sometime?” Jackie asked Loren.
“Um, no thanks, even if I did eat.”
“Oh right,” Jackie shrugged and walked over to latch onto Chad.
“So what’s your story?” Chad asked, trying to get out of Jackie’s “Death-hug”.
“My story…I suppose I should start at the beginning. I was born September 9th, in the year of 1503, though I was transformed at the age of sixteen. Me and my family lived in the country, my family consisted of me, my father, my older brother, and my unborn sister. One night my older brother who’s seventeen went out to chop firewood. Night fell and he still wasn’t back, we began to worry and we sent out a search party when he didn’t return in the morning. He wasn’t found, but the searchers found the ax and brought that back to us.
My parents were fearful of letting me out but one night my mother needed medicine for her pains. I left with a lantern and went to town, the whole time there I felt like I was being watched but saw nothing. The doctor was also a priest and he gave me a bottle for my mother and I left. Soon after leaving town I felt like I was being watched again but saw nothing until the mist began to creep up. Through the mist I saw my brother, he seemed sad and his hair had changed like mine, only the red was over his right eye. He tried to speak but couldn’t for some reason, then another light came my way and the mist crept away as though shunning it. It was the doctor, he gave me the wrong bottle and wanted to give me the right one. I explained what had happened for I thought I was ill with grief. The doctor pulled a bottle of holy water out of his pocket and handed it to me, telling me to be very careful with it and not lose it. He turned and limped back to town, and I continued home.
I told my parents what had happened and they wailed about me being crazy. I considered that I was becoming crazy with grief. I had been very close to my brother, despite the year apart we were practically twins and never fought, but decided I wasn’t crazy.
About a week later we needed some more fire wood and I went out to chop it, my mother was in pain and needed my father there for her. I went into the woods and after walking for a while I came across a fallen tree. I began to chop it and didn’t notice when the sun went down. Soon enough mist began to creep up and I saw my brother again. This time I yelled at him to leave me alone, that I didn’t want to be crazy. He looked like he’d cry, it was weird, he was always strong and this unnerved me.
I couldn’t remember what happened next, I just remember waking up and he was sitting on the fallen tree, weeping. Then the horizon began to lighten and he looked up, grabbed me and ran with me to a cave, I was still groggy at this time and didn’t know exactly what was going on. He told me that he was sorry, that he couldn’t face his fate alone. He begged me to forgive him. Then he explained how he’d been changed into a vampire and he didn’t take it well, he killed the original vampire with a fallen branch after he’d explained everything to him. The only reason he’d been changed was because there weren’t many vampires left and they wanted to make a comeback.
My brother was completely broken and couldn’t imagine living this curse alone so he changed me. I didn’t take it well either but accepted it. For about a week we lived nearby the cave, living off squirrels and other small animals. Then I wanted to tell my parents what had happened so I went to the house and looked through the window, my parents were weeping. I opened the door and walked in, my parents faces held a look of hope right before-” He sighed and strode over to the window and looked out.
“Before?” She prodded him onwards, imagining each scene as he described it.
“I-I snapped. I lost all control and . My mother, my father, my unborn sister. I wept, and wept, and wept until I couldn’t cry anymore. I finally left and ran to my brother, telling him what happened. I went to see the doctor the next night and there were signs of a hunt that night, to start soon. I explained everything to the doctor and he gave me a bottle of oil and told me to put a dab of oil on my forehead and jump into the river. The oil would counteract the water and when we came up then we’d be safe.
I ran back to my brother and explained the plan as the villagers began to set fire to the forest. We jumped in the river and when we came up we were here. We lived and traveled around here until we met Sydel,” he shivered as he spoke the name, “She lured my brother over and I tried to save him. She tried to lure me over but failed so instead cursed me to this spot. She later built this school and I was trapped to wandering after midnight.”
He sat down, and buried his head in his hands and looked like he would begin to sob but instead straitened up and continued, “Devin here, performed the complicated spell to free me, she doesn’t remember it because she was under control. It’s better that way because then she can’t curse someone to my fate.”
“Yeah, that sounds like something she’d do,” Chad muttered.
“Believe it or not, I do have a set of rules that I abide by, including not affecting someone’s freewill, and cursing someone,” She told them, then grunted and pulled herself from Jasper’s arms and sat on the floor. She saw Chad roll his eyes and she wanted to punch him but was too weak to.
“What’s your brother’s name? What’s he look like?” Jackie asked from Chad‘s waist.
“Onyx, and the last time I saw him he looked like me, just taller, older, and stronger.”
“What’s with the whole, um, cross thing?” Jasper asked. Tracing an X over his own heart.
“It’s a promise,” Devin murmured.
“Yes, it is!” Loren looked at her, “Your pretty knowledgeable.”
She shrugged, “Lucky guess.”
“Is knowledgeable your big word for the day?” Jackie asked him.
Loren looked at her, unsure how to reply, “Pardon?”
“Forget it.”
“I swore that I would free my brother from Sydel and so I have this as proof. It burns like hell when my brother is nearby.”
“So who’s this Sydel?” Devin asked.
He looked at her as though she had just grown a second head, bunny ears and a alligator tail.
“I’m serious.”
“Oh, She is the unofficial dictator of Middle Realm. She wants to rule Heaven, Hell, Middle Realm, Earth, and every other realm.”
Devin leaned back on the bed and folded her arms under her head, “Well everyone needs their goals.”
“She’s going to use you guys for it. Her army is camouflaged under the ground, buried underground to await her command to rise and aid her in her quest. If the living stay here for more then a year then they can never go back and will therefore die here and be gone forever. She’s found a way around that rule and so her army can return. She has an ability to control minds but only if people agree. She normally gets them to agree by tricking them.”
This made her slightly upset, but she was too tired to be too angry. She glanced out the window, stars were beginning to come out, and she was feeling tired and hungry.
“I think we should eat and get to bed,” Devin yawned, “Before I pass out or Lucile sends us all to Hell.”
“You didn’t hear? Lucile is gone. She’ll be back on Monday, Warabe said she was broken and that they needed to fix her before she could return. So all we have to eat is soup.”
Devin shrugged and used the wall as support as she scrambled to her feet, “Oh yeah, and we need a place for Loren, he can’t just stay with me.”
“I totally agree,” Jasper told her, “Why doesn’t he stay with Chad?”
“No!” Jackie stood in front of him as though he were being attacked, “I am not letting you turn him gay! Then I’ll need to get a sex change operation!” Chad looked as though he’d just been stabbed with a - blade and fed raw meat, “How about he stays in those passages you found? The secret ones?”
“Good idea, anybody got a map?”
Jackie ran next door and got a map of the building. She handed it to Devin and Devin poised her hands to reveal the passages.
“No! Devin!” Skelacat leaped up and grabbed the map in her mouth, “You cant perform any magic! You could die, no spells, no matter how minor until tomorrow,” Skelacat gave the map to Loren, “I’ll do the spells if we absolutely must.”
“Okay, fine, Loren, stay in those passages and try not to be seen, I’m going to bed.”
She ushered them out of her room despite the fact it was only seven, and fell asleep before her head hit the pillow.