“He might still be somewhere around here,” Yarra said, through the corner of her lips quietly.
The bus depot was packed, and the denseness of its people contributed to quite the hullaballoo. Clinging to a different backpack that Nainoru had given them, Avice still kept looking around despite no familiar scent reaching him. No harm in being wary. His hand gave Yarra’s a small, comforting squeeze.
“Any visions?”
Yarra nodded and leant against him for support. Taking a deep breath like she always did, she closed her eyes. Her mind was clear today, effaced by all the fatigue from the harrowing experiences of last night and the rest that had followed.
The images came flooding into her mind as they often did. Multiple images of multiple situations coursing through her mind like photographs flitting around a sealed but windy room. Yarra struggled to pinpoint her vision to something more recent. Some were of her walking by the coastal area, others were of her talking to people that she did not know. There was even a vision of her, much older than she currently was, making love to a man who wasn’t Avice. She had learned that there were many possibilities, and these images did not necessarily mandate her future. And so she forced that one in particular out of her mind.
After searching for what seemed like minutes, she found a vision of the two of them taking a bus ride to the airport. As an observer, she saw it from a third point of view, standing in the bus’s aisle. She saw her future self and Avice seated at the rear of the bus, cuddling with each other and looking as relaxed as it was possible for them to be in their current situation. Looking around, none of the other passengers seemed to rouse her suspicion.
She was about to exit the vision when the bus stopped in a terrible lurch. Seeing that she was merely standing out of space-time of this event, Yarra was unaffected by the bus’s sudden inertia. The Yarra and Avice in the vision however, were thrown forward slightly. Some even groaned in pain, having hit their forehead on the leather seats in front of them.
All of the passengers on the bus muttered in annoyance, while some tried to peer out of the window.
Yarra walked to the front of the bus. Seeing as how she was unaffected by the tangible things in the vision as always, she walked right through the windscreen and landed softly on the floor. She was not surprised to see the reason for their sudden stop. Three people stood in front of the bus. One of them was the pony-tailed guy who had attacked them. The other two were members of the Keepers of the Blade who had once been appointed to ensure her security during their war with the Bloodlust vampires.
The pony-tailed man had a large sword in his hand. His other two companions, both men in their early forties and physically fit, each carrying a large flail.
“We know you are in there!” The pony-tailed man shouted at the bus. Of course, they could not see Yarra who was there discerning the future.
Deciding that she had seen enough, Yarra exited the vision.
When she was back in the bus depot, Avice held on to her body, just in case she flinched and fell from the fleeting disorientation of viewing a vision then going back to reality.
“Well?” he asked.
Yarra massaged her temples. “If we take this bus…,” she pointed to the one now coming into the depot, “…we will be ambushed by three vampires. One of them is the guy from last night. The two others were part of my security team back at university.”
Avice scratched his chin, a habit he often had when he considering a situation. “Mark and Domlen. Those two meatheads are probably in the area too.”
“You aren’t considering actually going on the bus, are you?” Yarra asked in surprise. “They might have others nearby.”
“It is a risk we are going to have to take, baby,” he said.
Hearing the word ‘baby’ made her start. She had not thought about their love-making session last night, until now. Instinctively, her hand went to her belly, touching it, trying to feel any signs of the life forming within her fecund body. She had not told Avice about her vision, not that detail of it. Now was probably not a good time. They had a mission to do first, to get to the airport.
She knew that Avice was confident about tackling the three men by himself. She had seen him ward off the Bloodlust vampires during their war, and he had proven himself time and time again to be more than just an able fighter. There were rumors prior to their escape that Alicia Selleck was going to choose him to be her successor.
“I need to tell my mother that although we are running, we aren’t afraid.” Avice admitted. “But I can’t do it without you.”
Yarra nodded weakly. She had no choice then, but to acquiesce. The bus made its way to the waiting area, where people pushed one another to get in, to try and pick the ‘best’ seats. True to her prediction, when Avice and she got on, there were two empty seats at the end of the bus. Gulping, she knew then that what she had seen in her head would come true. Avice hoisted his backpack up into the overhead compartment. Sitting at the back at least gave them an advantage of doing things that the others in the front couldn’t see.
He took the time and opportunity to remove two small blades from the side pockets of his bag, which he deftly inserted into the inner folds of his jacket.
“If your prediction does come true…,” he began.
“Not ‘if’ Avice.” Yarra corrected him. “When it comes true…”
“Right. When it comes true, I want you to stay in the bus. Don’t risk coming out. They might try to take you hostage.”
She nodded and leant against his shoulder once he had sat down properly. How many more battles would they have to go through before it was finally over? Subconsciously, her hand ran to her flat stomach once more, and gave it a slight squeeze. Though she could not feel it yet, she knew that a small life, the product of the love between her and Avice, was slowly but surely forming within her.
The bus made its way out of the depot and an announcement came that they would be reaching within half an hour or so. As the bus progressed, Yarra’s apprehension grew. She stole a glance to Avice, who seemed to have his gaze fixated outside the bus. Occasionally, his skin would turn the palest of whites, and he would sniff at the air, reverting back to his usual human form when he did not want to risk any passengers screaming in fright at his pallor.
Just when Yarra thought that perhaps she had been wrong, the bus suddenly made a sharp lurch forward, the brakes squelching horribly and the screeching mechanical sound cutting through the air. It came to a thunderous stop as some of the passengers screamed in fright.
“What’s the big idea!?” a passenger shouted at the bus driver.
Yarra and Avice knew.
“Stay in here,” Avice said, standing up.
Yarra nodded as she watched him make his way towards the front of the bus. Another battle was about to begin…
*****
THE END
BONUS: A FINAL GAME
Introduction
It is said that there are specific and mandatory conditions needed to make a relationship work. A couple, though thoroughly different in their individual behaviors, should share fundamental principles. It is imperative that they support each other through the best and the worst of times. And the third involves the most obvious, but hardest condition of them all – sacrifice.
The nature of precognition made life different, if not all the more difficult for Yarra. For most humans, they go through life knowing that cause will lead to effect.
It was perpetually difficult for her to ascertain the road leading to the effect, when her mind had already played out its multiple possibilities, literally. Her visions provided the destination, but not the means of getting there.
When she had first met Avice in a café across the street from their University, she had a vision that he would one day kill her. But it did not stop her from falling in love with him. It was the sacrifice of the self towards the inevitable that had made their love work. Avice ended up not killing her, as her visions had once predic
ted.
Yarra’s repudiation by Alicia Selleck after the war was over had come as a shock to Avice. He expected his mother to make Yarra a member of the Keepers of the Blades. To further compound the nasty shock, he was ordered to murder his girlfriend; out of fear that her powers may one day become too powerful for the vampires to control.
It led to Avice sacrificing the life he had known, and a sense of blind loyalty towards his mother and clan. Choosing Yarra Davis over blood and tradition, they had run away from the Keepers of the Blades. Alicia Selleck was predictably angry, calling for a permanent end to both of them.
It was during the lovebird’s escape that they sought after an old friend of Avice’s, Nainoru, who was also a former member of the Keepers of the Blades. Through her, they had learnt that it was not the enemy clans that had killed Yarra’s ancestor. Shockingly enough, it was Alicia Selleck who had ordered Nainoru to murder the Oracle after his assistance during the war.
With this knowledge, they had begun travelling to Great Yarmouth. During their ride to the airport, their bus was ambushed by three members of the Keepers of the Blade. Avice ordered Yarra to stay in the bus while he went out to confront them…
Chapter-1
The Confrontation
Yarra sat at the back of the bus, too distraught to move. She looked as the passengers in front of her got out of their seats, some craning their necks to see Avice standing in front of the bus, confronting the three strangers in black leather jackets. They had little idea what was going on, after all, and so there was confusion and speculations abound. She did not have to meticulously study their features to know what was going on, knowing well enough that the man in the middle of the three was their pony-tailed attacker from last night. The two other tall, younger looking guys flanking him were the very same people who had once provided her security when they were still at war.
From where she sat, Yarra could see their attackers holding on to large swords – weapons that looked almost, but not quite, comically out of place in the otherwise very modern setting. They stood menacingly in front of the bus, with Avice being the barricade between them.
The bus driver honked rudely, screaming through the window for the men to get out of the way. Yarra saw many of them whipping their phones out to record the possible fight that was about to transpire.
“What the hell?” a man exclaimed. Although his phone screen was pointed at Avice and the men, it failed to capture their image properly. All that was visible was the road and trees. “How is that even possible?”
Yarra looked at the screen. True to what she had expected, phones, cameras, mirrors and other reflective surfaces were unable to capture a vampire’s profile when they were transformed.
“Look!” a woman screamed out, snapping Yarra’s attention back.
She saw her lover remove two switchblades from his pocket, making the three attackers laugh at the sight of the tiny blades.
“You think you can bring us down with that measly weapon, little boy?” the pony-tailed man taunted, with a shake of his head.
Avice looked at him, thankful that the attacker was without a gun today. He sniffed the air slightly, and came to the conclusion that Mark and Domlen were also without firearms – there was none of the acrid scent of powder about them, or the oil used to keep the guns firing smoothly and polished. The air smelt faintly of leaves, and exhaust smoke from passing vehicles. The switchblade was twirled expertly between his fingers. Although the men in front of him had laughed, he knew that they were hesitant to attack. He was, after all, proficient in weapons and hand-to-hand combat.
Baring his fangs, Avice’s skin glowed an almost pale white. Behind him, he knew that the passengers in the bus would have noticed something odd – that his body just refused to be seen by their cameras and video-capturing devices. He needed to get the three attackers out of the way so then the bus would move.
Another loud, almost rude honk startled him.
“Move out of the way, idiots!” The bus driver screamed again, from his relatively safe, guarded position. “I have a schedule to keep!”
Avice bent forward, poised to attack. The slight bending of his knees made the ambushers take a step backward.
“Listen, I don’t want to hurt you guys,” Avice admitted. “It isn’t in my way to attack my clan members.”
“Former clan members,” Mark corrected sharply, seething through clenched teeth. “You ran away with that bitch, Avice.”
“You are no longer a member of the Keepers of the Blades,” Domlen added.
The pony-tailed man smiled widely. “See, little Avice? This is what happens when you don’t listen to mommy. She sends us to get rid of you, and that slut.”
That did it. Avice had tried to hold back and reason with them. But he knew that if he spared their lives now, they would carry word to his mother sooner or later. The best way to deal with any possible evidence was to completely eliminate it.
Using the wind as leverage, Avice lunged forward.
Those in the bus gave out a collective gasp when they saw Avice’s body vanishing into thin air. Following that, the three men too, seem to evaporate into nothingness.
“Finally!” the bus driver said with finality. He did not seem to care about the extraordinary thing that had taken place in front of him. All he knew, was that the road was now clear. With another small crank of the gear, the bus continued to move on as though nothing had happened.
“Where did they go?”
Yarra knew. What the passengers could not see was that a fight was happening just outside the bus, too fast for the mortal eye to follow. Yarra’s human capabilities could not catch the exact scene, but after a year of being with Avice, she had learnt to use her surroundings to see what actually was happening – or a hint of it. As the bus continued down the road, she looked to the side of the bus, overlooking a large field, and there, odd flashes formed and vanished. Some were linear, and others like a crescent or wave, swelling and vanishing into obscurity before anyone could see them in any more detail.
The clang of metals and swishes of knives, blades and swords was barely heard. She knew that Avice was fighting the three men in the field, although she did not know who was winning.
Heart thumping, she closed her eyes and focused all of her mental energy on invoking a vision. In her mind, she saw the fight going on in discernible speed.
Avice had kicked at Mark, causing the tall, white-haired man to fall onto the ground with a yell. Grabbing at his large sword, Avice twirled it in his hands with ease, not at all affected by its large hilt and disproportionate blade.
“I’m sorry… brother,” Avice said, swishing the sword towards Mark’s neck, instantly decapitating him.
Domlen gave out a yell of fury. Rushing towards Avice, he proceeded to swing his sword wildly, which Avice parried nonchalantly.
“You would kill your own clan member?” Domlen yelled out.
“It was you who said that I was a former member, remember?” Avice retorted, punching Domlen in the chest.
The man staggered backwards, stepping onto a pile of mud. For a moment, he was caught off guard, trying to remove his right foot from the congealed soil. Before he knew it, Avice had plunged the sword into his chest. No blood came oozing out from the vampire. All Domlen did was hold on to the blade embedded deep into his chest, as he coughed and let out a leer.
“Alicia will kill you for this. She will torture that slut and make you watch,” Domlen said with grim satisfaction, before falling to the ground in a silent heap.
Avice looked at the bodies of his former clan members. All that remained was the pony-tailed man who now had a look of fear in his eyes. It was clear that he was just a messenger, and was not exactly trained in the art of battle. His legs shook as he tried to stand his ground against Avice, despite what he had just witnessed.
“M… mercy, Avice, please.”
The last thing Yarra saw in her vision was Avice rushing towards the man in breakneck speed.
And then all was gone after that.
Yarra kept her eyes closed as the vision evaporated away in her mind. She did not flinch when a cold, clammy hand gripped at her wrist. When she opened her eyes, Avice was sitting next to her with a subdued look on his face.
“H… how did you get in?” Yarra whispered sharply, looking at the other passengers. None of them had noticed nor even cared that Avice had somehow rematerialized within a moving bus.
“You do know that we can fly and move through partially permeable objects, don’t you?” He smiled, pointing at a small crack in the window just two seats away.
Yarra gave out a small laugh. Vampires were gifted with different abilities, each unique to the individual; very rare was it for one to have all possible. For Avice, he was blessed with the power of flight, combat, healing factors, and relative invisibility. He could also render his skin fully permeable to lightwaves, making him invisible in the process.
Love Beyond the wall (A Rizer Pack Shifter Series Book 1) Page 48