She turned the hot water on to boiling proportions and stepped in. Her bruises had healed, but her muscles were achy and sore. Grabbing her loofa, she lathered up in the Coconut scrub before deciding to wash the sweat and grime from her wavy, shoulder length hair. Massaging the herbal Essence into her hair, she closed her eyes remembering how this brand of shampoo had been her mother’s favorite. She pictured her mother, washing her hair in the kitchen sink, muscles completely relaxed as her senses indulged in the fruity scent of the popular shampoo brand. Then, she would blow dry her hair, looking every bit like Pam Grier with her fro’ before she placed a hot comb to it, to straighten out the kinks and coils. It was in moments like this that she missed her mother more than anything in the world. She had no idea what happened to her aunt Francis. When her mother was killed, she was not permitted by The Vatican to come to her funeral. All contact to surviving family members came to an end and the life she once knew was over when her mother’s ashes were emptied onto the hallowed ground of a local church.
Look at me mama, she thought to herself. I am strong now. If you were alive I could protect you. I should have protected you… One tear led to another and soon, she was standing beneath the head of the shower, Herbal Essence fused with tears rinsing down the drain. She stood underneath the flow of hot water, until her soul cried itself empty. She sniffled, rinsed her face once more and prepared to step out, when that familiar erotic presence made itself known in the dark corners of her mind. She threw up mental blocks, shielding herself but the intruder already had his foot in the door. She cut off the water, wrapped a towel around her and there she saw his image, a transparent projection of him standing in the middle of the bathroom.
“Get away from me,” she growled, gripping her towel.
The vampire smiled, his green eyes lit with lust. “You are exquisite,” He whispered. “Come to me! Put down your barriers slayer or-“
“Or else what?” She demanded, wishing she could put a stake in his cursed heart and be done with it.
The vampire didn’t bother to respond verbally. He attacked her mind, sending her every sexual visual he owned into her mind, bringing her to her knees.
“Stop!” She groaned, fighting the urge to remove her towel and put an end to her own misery.
“Now you know what I suffer,” He murmured. “But let us not suffer any longer.”
Her towel came off and the entity was on top of her, struggling to break the invisible barrier that prevented him from manifesting in the flesh, when something within her snapped.
No. He would not take her against her will.
The bathroom door burst open at the same time as her eyes came a lit with bright silver and when her eyes met the master vampire’s, the entity unleashed a bone chilling scream. Eve shot a series of silver tipped arrows into the hologram image only to look away in horror as he disappeared with blackened eye sockets. Sanaya remained trembling on the floor. The other Guardians rushed in, followed by Maya while Sanaya sobbed.
“He tried to…” She could not bring herself to finish the sentence as Eve wrapped her in her towel. “I don’t know what happened. He was on top of me. I-“
Maya barreled into her friend’s arms, sobbing with her. “He didn’t take it did he?” She asked repeatedly, referring to her virginity.
“No…but I was afraid if I didn’t fight harder that he would.”
“Your eyes,” Eve began. “You did good. Your eyes burned silver and blinded him. He’s gone now…”
Tatsu in her fury flung a ginsu knife into the wall. “We couldn’t get to you. He sealed you in!”
Maya and Eve helped Sanaya get dressed, while Lois called Archer, and before she tied her damp hair up, Archer, Congo Asim and a number of other male Guardians came storming in, including one everyone would least expect.
“How the fuck did that bitch get in here?” Archer shouted, pushing past his team members. “Where is he?”
“Gone. It was a projected image of himself. He was testing our barriers and he was somewhat successful,” Eve explained calmly. “Her eyes burned silver and blinded him and sent him on his way.”
“I’m more concerned about how he got past three Guardians and an assassin,” Congo commented, studying the angry faces that glared at him.
“He had her sealed in. We couldn’t get to her,” Tatsu snapped. “Eve is not a full blooded vampire and even with all of our strengths, he was still too strong.”
“Son of a bitch,” Archer murmured.
“She is no longer safe here. The room has been compromised…”
Sanaya emerged from the bedroom, her eyes red rimmed and tear stained when she noticed the only person in the room that seemed to matter. While everyone else was talking, he approached her and took her for an embrace.
Everyone stopped talking.
“Are you alright?” King asked, wiping away residual tears that had yet to fully shed.
“Who the hell let him in here?” Archer fumed.
“He is my charge,” Congo shrugged. “Where I go, he goes.”
“This is not the goddamn Love Hotel!”
“Archer,” Eve scolded. “Please…”
King held onto her despite Archer’s threatening looks, and then once again, the voice in her head became a maddening, incessant plea to leave the campus. The voice sliced through her, prickling her skin and sending an electric current combo of pleasure fused with pain. She dropped to her knees clutching her head. King was on the ground with her, calling her. Chaos erupted around her.
“Aaaaaaaahhhhh! He’s in my head!” She screamed. King pulled her into him, cradling her against his body.
“Sanaya, focus on me,” King told her. “Focus on me.”
Hands. Various sets of hands were on her but all she could hear was the maddening call and King’s voice gaining momentum in her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut and cried out again.
“Focus on me,” She heard King repeat. She felt King’s presence enter her mind.
Noooo! Get out of here! He will kill you…she pleaded to him mentally.
Yes, tell him… the vampire taunted.
“Focus on me,” King whispered to her again and this time, she saw him standing directly next to her. She reached up to touch his face and the instant his brown eyes melted into hers, everything went black…
Chapter Seventeen
Sanaya came awake to the relaxing sounds of heavy breathing, and an even heavier arm draped across her back. She stirs, slowly becoming mentally aware that she is not alone in the room. She carefully shifts so as not to disturb whoever it was that has taken refuge in what was supposed to be her bed. She opens her eyes, and all of her senses awaken at once, alerting her to every energy signature and every scent of every individual crammed in the moderately sized bedroom that was supposed to be for her and Maya only. She gasps when she realizes that the arm once draped across her back belonged to none other than King! What was he doing in her bed? And, why would the Guardians allow it-especially Archer? She pushed a loose strand of hair from her face and studied the sleeping young, fiery man that destiny brought to her life. He slept now on his side, one arm above his head, his thick long locks blanketing his shoulders. He reminded her of a sleeping lion, nestled in the tall grass of the Serengeti. Gentle snores and deep breathes were his harmony.
She scooted over just a bit to give herself some space when she accidently bumped into a perfectly manicured foot. Maya! Her best friend was burrowed underneath a mountain of blankets, sleeping soundly. What happened? Scanning the room she noticed Congo, still strapped with a multiple Bowie knifes on his left leg holster and a Glock held firmly in his grip, while he leaned against the wall, his head nodding to the side while he dozed. Lois was sprawled out on her stomach on the floor, a stake tucked into her back. Sanaya could also sense the presence of several more Guardians nearby, and she could only imagine how many there were patrolling the halls and scaling the rooftops.
She centered her thoughts on the series of
events leading up to this moment, and the last thing she remembered was the psychic attack from Ronan and then King stepping in encouraging her to focus on him. She glanced at him once more. Had he not been there, she could only imagine what would have happened. She remembered what else happened: the bathroom, Ronan on top of her…she could feel his strength, but not all of him physically. He wasn’t tangible. Something blocked him from manifesting fully into corporeal form. The erotic sensations he threw off were intensely real, and she managed to get him off before…
Shaking her head, she leaned back into the cool comfort of the sheets, finding herself to be perfectly content between the two people she cared about most on the planet at this time. She could not recall everything that happened after the moment King mind locked with her, but she did know one thing: it felt great to be surrounded by people who actually had her back.
King was up at first light as were the other Guardians. Sanaya, apparently was a very hard sleeper and he reasoned that it might have something to do with the changes Eve explained were taking place in her body. He kissed her gently on the top of her tussled hair, and said silent prayer of thanks that Congo allowed him to follow when she was attacked by the master vampire. The poor girl was strong, but had not reached the stage where she could mentally safeguard herself from a vampire’s telepathy and was still vulnerable. Fortunately for him, he’d honed that skill years ago when he started noticing that things were changing in his old neighborhood in Atlanta. Vampires had come ‘a’ callin’; the youth started disappearing and violent crimes increased. He was the only kid on the block that understood what was up, and had the skills to defend himself. A female vampire rolled up on him when he was fifteen and out in the late hours hustling for some extra cash and he sensed her pull. The female was all that and then some, possessing that exotic look where identifying her race offered a challenge. He barely escaped with his life but each encounter made him stronger, and gave him the opportunity to survive both the streets and the supernatural threat that was destroying more lives than drugs and violence combined.
That was why he could get inside her mind and block the master’s attempts. She needed a distraction. Besides, whenever she was around him, she became an open book. He hated leaving her, but Congo advised that his girl needed rest so that she could continue with their training. He could dig it. Besides, he needed some space to think. Plan. He needed more answers about master vampires, their abilities and what exactly she was up against. Memories of his recently abandoned life flooded his senses.
Standing on the corner of the high school he barely attended under the cover of night, he waited for the mysterious dealer to make an appearance. He already knew the deal on that fucker, and based on the number of bodies that has been disappearing since he came into town, King did not need to his heightened senses to tell him that the dealer was vampire. The plan? Exchange the package for money and be gone. The dealer’s minions were vampire too, while a few of them were demons utilizing glamor to appear human. Armed with a couple of Glocks, silver chains and a couple of knives he blessed with holy water. Before his parents were murdered, they taught him and his brother well. And even though they were probably rolling around in their graves, this was survival. He still needed to eat; he had a girlfriend at home he needed to take care of; plus, he wanted to get away from the very streets he ran. A part of him wanted a better life. His girlfriend and her mother deserved a better life even though at times they could not see it for themselves. As a matter of fact, he’d asked her several times what her thoughts were on moving out of Atlanta once he saved up enough money. At the time, she tossed a thick dookie braid over her shoulder and waved her colorfully manicured hand and dismissed him as she continued reading one of her gossip magazines.
One way or another, with or without LaQuanda, he was out of Atlanta.
His crew, which consisted of three other neighborhood hustlers he grew up with waited, positioned in the shadows with guns drawn. Of course, King knew the plan was farfetched, but none of his boys believed in vampires, had never seen one and wouldn’t have a clue what to do should they actually encounter a set of fangs. He could only hope that all of them would make it out of here alive, and as soon as the exchange was made, he would make himself ghost.
Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he brushed his fingers against the Glock he held tucked in his waistband. Sweat dripped from the back of his neck down his back, courtesy of the August humidity, and his white T clung to him like second skin. His nerve endings ignited with fire as the all too familiar scent of sulfur entered his nasal passages. He spit and narrowed his gaze. A limousine pulled up, leaving it impossible for him to see beyond the tinted windows. But he didn’t need to see into the tine to know what he was up against. The limo came to a stop in front of him, and he tensely waited for someone to emerge from the vehicle.
The tinted window slowly rolled down to reveal the dealer behind the deaths. His breathing slowed to deep inhales to attempt to slow down his increasing heart rate. His palms tingled with the temptation to reach for his Glock, but he kept them hanging loosely at his sides. The vampire drug lord sat relaxed against the leather interior. Don is what he called himself, but in the streets, he was known as The Black Death. Jet black hair slicked back to perfection, dark brown eyes with a hint of crimson in the center of his irises; creamy café au lait skin and dressed to the nines in a business suit. Don smiled, revealing a set of ivory fangs which led to a series of events King will never forget.
Two creatures materialized next to King, but he didn’t bristled. He never moved an inch. Unfortunately, Vernon, his best friend since kindergarten shouted, “What the fuck?!” And then all hell broke loose. Cursing, King moved quickly, incapacitating one of the vampire henchmen by wrapping a silver chain around his neck, bringing the six foot entity to his knees in a screaming hiss. Gun shots rang out, and the blood curdling screams of another one of his friends was soon cut short when King heard bones snap. Several more vampires materialized from the limo, surrounding King and it was then he realized that he was going to die tonight or worse…wake up three days later feigning for blood. He would not accept the latter, so yanking out both Glocks, he went Scarface on all of them, spinning around in a circle unleashing round after round. They dematerialized and reappeared in varying spots, with the goal of forcing him to exhaust his ammo.
The package he was carrying had tumbled off into the street. Sirens were closing in and he was still in the middle of a fight for his life. He pulled the trigger as his last round of bullets finally plunged into the neck, face and chest of one of his enemies and then somehow the streetlights went out. He could hear their snarls, Don’s laughter and the subtle movements of something else in the shadows before he was hit in the back of the head and collapsed onto the pavement unconscious.
He awoke to find himself handcuffed on a hospital bed and the watchful stare of Atlanta’s top detective, Allen Gordon. He was facing criminal charges involving possession, conspiracy to distribute and murder. His life was about to go down the toilet in just a matter of hours when Congo, Archer and Tia walked in that day. He remembered being extremely pissed off at them for not finding him sooner and for not being there for his parents when they needed them most. As a matter of fact, he recalled being willing to face his fate with the judge instead of leaving the hospital and police custody with them. And despite his hostile protests, he went with them anyways…
And he was grateful. He found out shortly after his arrival that The Vatican had been searching for him for some time after it was discovered that his parents were murdered. Because he and his brother had no next of kin for the state to look to, they were lost in the system, which was another thing that angered him: had the courts not separated them, his brother may have lived. He would have protected him from the wrong people. He might have chosen a more positive path instead of the streets of darkness where he blossomed in his rage and anger for years. But he was here now, with a second chance to prote
ct someone he cared about…
So, yeah he was definitely asking questions and kicking some ass during training, so the next time he found himself surrounded by a group of vamps, he would have a team with him. Sanaya would not have to fight this battle alone.
Chapter Eighteen
“Forget everything you thought you knew,” Eve began as she circled the young team of potential Guardians. “Last night, some of you witnessed a serious psychic attack conducted by a master level vampire.” She listened to the surprised gasps coming from both Charlie and Lisa who were fortunate enough to not have witnessed the traumatizing event. She stopped in front of Sanaya who kept her eyes focused on the ground, muscles tenses. “It is not your fault Sanaya. We have been trying spoon feed you everything we felt you should know according to the phases typical of a Slayer. But we were wrong. You are not like the previous Slayers. We wanted to give you more time to figure out who and what you are on your own and simply guide you through the process. Again, we were wrong. There is no time.” Her eyes met Archer’s who stood behind the group in the gym. Eve continued to circle the teens, eyeing each one and making mental notes of their weaknesses while Archer continued the speech.
The Vampire Hunter's Academy: The Darkness Page 14