by Dylan Keefer
Clayton decided to tell the truth. "Hello. My name is Clayton. I came across some tracks, and they lead me here." He put the knife back in its sheath, making Prue flinch. He probably moved too fast. "Relax, I'm just disarming myself." She must feel uncomfortable, standing there with her biggest secret out in the open. Especially since she didn't know he had a bigger one.
CHAPTER NINE
The man was tall and broad-shouldered, and his posture relaxed as soon as he saw her face. He knew her, and he didn’t react to the fangs. He seemed to be around his middle thirties, so he couldn’t possibly know her. But then Prue looked to be in her twenties but was four hundred years old. Was he even human? His dark brown hair was messy and slightly curly at the edges, and his dark eyes bore directly into her. He was clean-shaven and wore an old leather jacket that he probably had had for years, while the rest of his clothes were ordinary and inconspicuous. Prue studied his face intently, hoping that it would jog something in her, but nothing. Not that she wanted to have a headache right here in front of him. He didn’t seem familiar to her, but he definitely knew her.
“Sorry.” Prue felt weird that she apologized. He was too calm. She didn’t expect him to disarm himself, but then if he was to be believed, he tracked the thing that did this, so he must be used to non-human things. She hoped he wasn’t a vampire hunter, and that the thing wasn’t Charlotte. She had sensed her presence here. She came forward and then something she saw made her freeze.
There was a crossbow on his back. And a pack of wooden arrows. She rewound her memories in her head and remembered the arrow that hit the vampire she threw through the window. They were the same.
“You! The window!” she forgot all nervousness and yelled at him, pointing with a finger. He moved back, but he didn’t seem scared. He smiled.
It made Prue stop, and blush. Why she was blushing, she had no idea. Maybe because the man’s relaxed smile made him even more attractive. What was his name? Oh, Clayton. She hadn’t heard that name before. She shook her head to focus on the problem at hand. She would deal with that later.
“You are smart. Yeah, that was my arrow.” Clayton relaxed. “So I take it that you’re tracking whatever this thing is?”
“I hope not," Prue said, then stopped. Did she want to tell him what happened to Charlotte? Could she even trust that this man is who he said he was? Something in her stomach told her she could, but could she trust her instincts when they have deceived her all the time? Her instincts didn’t warn her that Milo would hate her now. The only thing they have never deceived her about was that fight. And the fact she needed to protect her friends. Alright, Prue admitted, she might have been a bit biased. “I’m tracking a friend.” She had actually been tracking Charlotte for hours. This feeling wasn’t very reliable unless you were very close.
“A vampire?”
“A new one.” Prue hurried to say; somehow she saw that as an excuse. New means inexperienced means not doing this on purpose. The blur appeared again. Prue stumbled back from its intensity. Her vision tunneled, but it was erratic, unfocused. Her knees cut down, and she couldn’t keep herself from falling. The string tightened again.
Something caught her. She looked up and saw that Clayton had her arm placed around his shoulders and was supporting her. She wondered how fast he moved. It was certainly faster than a human, and she didn’t know if she fell at a human rate. It made her feel better about him.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Follow.” Prue straightened up and followed the feeling, thinking that he could help. Now that she expected to feel it, it was easier. She wanted to run toward it, but Clayton still had his hand on her lower back, as if he was scared that she’d fall again. She didn’t want the hand to move.
“You can run.” Clayton interrupted her thoughts. “I can keep up if you give me your hand.”
Prue gave him her hand and let loose. She not once felt like she needed to slow down, and his grip didn’t change. He didn’t seem to worry about her at all, and he ran with a concentrated expression, as he trusted her to lead him well.
Any thoughts about Clayton that might have snuck up on her evaporated as soon as she got to the place her feeling carried her to.
There was a cow lying on its back amongst the trees. Its legs twitched. Prue could see Charlotte's form as she was head deep in the cow's abdomen. She wasn't moving much; it was hard to tell.
“Charlotte?” Prue stepped forward, automatically shielding Clayton.
Charlotte shot up. She was growling, and there was blood all over her face and hair. Her fangs dug into the flesh of the cow, and she looked as if she was about to shoot up and run at them.
Prue didn't want to hurt Charlotte, but she knew she needed to put her down. She didn't do that before, and now Charlotte was out in the open. But Prue didn't know how much strength to use. She didn't want to kill her. But then any vampire she had fought with before had been able to handle her punches with ease.
Charlotte bolted out and toward Prue. Just before Prue could do anything, she saw Clayton aim and fire something.
Two prongs hit Charlotte in the chest, and she convulsed and collapsed.
"She's alive. It's an electrical charge meant to take her down." Clayton said. The thing in his hand looked like a gun, but there were wires coming out of its end, connected to the prongs in Charlotte's chest. "Nonlethal, especially for a vampire."
Clayton walked forward to Charlotte. “She’ll wake soon though.”
“I have something to knock her out with.” Prue pulled out the syringe. She walked over and stuck the needle in the vein, just like she had seen Charlotte do when they were in the morgue. She could feel the drug working on her. Prue looked at Clayton. She didn’t want him to leave. “Will you help me bring her home?”
“Of course, but I think we should clean this up first.” Clayton pointed to the cow. “I wonder where she got it from. And the man back there.”
“Do you think she did that?” Prue asked.
"Either she did, or there are two creatures hunting here. I don't know which is worse honestly. We can figure it out if we find out the timing." Clayton was so calm that Prue calmed down as well.
“Thanks for your help by the way," Prue added.
“I haven’t done anything yet," Clayton smirked.
“No, I mean when you saved me from the vampire.”
“If I remember right, you threw her out of a window. I didn’t save you, I just assisted.” Clayton tied Charlotte’s hands with some chains he had in his backpack and then got to work.
CHAPTER TEN
The clean-up was fast. Clayton gathered any evidence he needed to figure out if Charlotte had killed the man, and then they put both bodies together and buried them. Smoke would alert people, and you can’t just assume everything would burn fully, you would have to stick around. This way the ground would take care of the evidence, and since Clayton had told her he erased the other tracks, no one would find them. The man would just be chalked up as a missing person.
Prue stared at the ground where the hole used to be. Clayton made it look as if the ground had never been disturbed, and it only made it look eerier to her. She hoped the human didn’t have anyone that would miss him. And then she realized she hoped the man had a horrible life. And it made her feel worse about herself.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. Clayton stood next to her. He squeezed and gave her a faint reassuring smile. “You’re thinking about the man aren’t you?”
“How did you know?” Prue asked.
“Because that is what I’d be thinking too. If this had happened when I was younger.”
“I’m older than you.” Prue looked at Clayton.
“Yes, by a lot I imagine.” Clayton smiled. “But that doesn’t help when you can’t remember most of it. Experience wise, you’re barely six months old. It gets better when you realize that you don’t need to dwell on things you can’t fix.”
“You know I can’t remember? How?” P
rue asked, partly to make sure she didn’t think about the man. Partly because now she had a name and she felt more comfortable asking questions.
“The hunter told me. The one Charlotte killed.” Clayton stepped closer. “I was ready to kill him if you didn’t, but you were in the way, so I couldn’t fire.”
“Why would you kill him?”
“Because he had killed too many good people. Not every non-human creature is bad. Some just want to live their life and not get in the way. Hunters usually only hunt those that have killed already, but he was going after anyone. And he was my problem because I helped him develop his skills.”
“You’re a hunter?” Prue asked. She remembered the tattoos on the man's body and how it hurt to touch him, and it didn’t happen with Clayton. He didn’t seem to have any actually.
“No, but I was raised by one. I’ll tell you about it sometime. We should bring Charlotte home before she wakes up.” Clayton picked up the unconscious Charlotte and draped her over his shoulder. “Lead the way.”
Prue took one step, then stopped. “How fast do I go?” She asked. After all of the running before, she didn’t want to go slower than necessary.
"Pretty fast, if we want to get out of here without anyone seeing us with an unconscious, bloody girl." Clayton grabbed Prue's hand, and Prue bolted, with him following close behind.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They stopped at a house. It looked like it had belonged to one family for generations. Everything inside was a mess that had just been put under control. Clayton could see signs of an attack everywhere, even if someone had gone through a lot of trouble to clean it up.
Four men were in the darkened living room. Clayton knew most of them. Milo, Charlotte’s cousin, who had barely gotten out of the last attack here alive, sat on the couch. The next one was Rick, whose arm was bandaged up, along with another cop Clayton didn’t know the name of. Then it was Charlotte’s boyfriend, Philip. He was mad.
“We found her," Prue said. As a response to the surprised faces, Prue introduced everyone.
"Clayton, this is Milo, Rick, John, and Philip." She pointed at everyone. "This is Clayton; he helped us with the vampire that attacked us in the Davenport house."
“I don’t remember any help.” Milo murmured.
“I was in the bushes in the next yard over.” Clayton patted his crossbow. “Decided to help speed things up.”
“Why?” Philip glared. Prue seemed ready to defend him, but Clayton stopped her by gently touching her arm. He then explained as calmly as possible. “Your girlfriend saved my skin once by making sure an old student of mine didn’t kill an innocent person.”
“What innocent person?” Philip asked while Rick seemed to understand.
“Prue.” Clayton pointed at Prue.
“The guy in the alley, the one that was pretending to be a cop.” Rick elaborated. “I knew it was weird that he got his skull caved in.”
Before Philip or Milo could ask anything, Prue shifted Charlotte’s weight a bit.
“We should put her someplace safe before she wakes up. She will probably be pissed,” Clayton said.
The solution wound up being a bedroom. Clayton refused to remove the shackles from Charlotte’s ankles and wrists, going as far as attaching them to the wall.
"We can always unlock them, but I think she ran enough for now." Clayton walked over, measured something and then started peeling off the foil from a window.
“What are you doing?” Prue, Milo, and Philip all said together. Milo seemed uncomfortable, and Philip glared at Prue.
“I’m removing a small piece of foil so that there is a sunlight border in this room. That way if she breaks through the sun would act as a shock collar.
“What does she need that for?” Milo asked.
Prue took a steady centering breath. “She killed a cow. Ate the insides. And we found a dead body not far from her. We don’t know if that was her as well, but it does seem likely.”
“Or there might be two creatures attacking. I am still not certain that a vampire would go after a cow after feeding on a human.” Clayton added.
“Ugh. What are ya talking about?” Charlotte groaned and shifted. She heard the chain rattle and stared at it. “Did I attack someone again?”
“You ran away," Clayton said. “I thought the chains might be good insurance.”
“Smart.” Charlotte moved a bit. She touched her hair and face and cringed at the sticky blood. “Did I dive into a lake of blood or something?”
“More like a corpse. I’m Clayton.” Clayton shook hands with Charlotte. She cringed at the blood.
“What do you remember?” Prue asked.
“Well, I remember chills.” Charlotte started. “And then pain. I felt like I needed to find a way to get warm and that I would die if I didn’t. And then my vision tunneled, and I ran and ran until the pain stopped and I found something to keep me warm. I remember sitting there for hours as if I was a cat next to a furnace. Then I think something attacked me and I got tazed. I know because I know how that feels.”
“That was me.” Clayton offered.
“And then I have no idea what happened. All I know is that the feeling was so intense, unlike anything I have felt before.”
“That will happen.” Clayton nodded before he heard Prue stumbling. When he looked at her, she was on the floor, holding her head, her fangs growing and her claws digging into her palms.
“A vision," Milo said. Everyone stepped back as if Prue had just revealed vampirism was airborne. Clayton knelt down and, using a lot of force, managed to insert some towels in Prue’s clenched fists, and made the claws separate from her skin. Then he worked on her fangs. It looked like what one would do if they were performing invasive surgery without anesthetic, but at the very least she wasn’t hurting herself. Prue wasn’t moving, but her entire body was clenched.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Charlotte spoke about it, and Prue felt her vision tunnel again. The familiar needles returned. Prue was in a bush trying to be as small as possible, and a looming, growling person was a few steps away from her. The person turned, and Prue recognized the boy from the stake and the ground. He had long fangs, a vivid expression and a pair of glowing yellow eyes now. She buried deeper in the bush but moving even slightly was a mistake. The boy bolted towards her. Prue closed her eyes.
She heard a thump, and then someone groaning. She looked up and saw Serg in front of her, bending the boy's hands backward and breaking his wrists. As the boy tumbled back and bolted toward Serg again, the man threw a bottle at the boy.
As soon as the bottle broke and the liquid touched the boy’s skin, he slumped over in the snow.
“Are you alright?” Serg was worried, his claws and fangs retreating. Prue lifted up and put her hands up as if she was a toddler wanting to be picked up. Serg bundled Prue up and carried her away, cradling her arm, that seemed to be broken.
“Is he going to be okay?” Prue asked.
"No. He is going to get captured and hung probably. But we can't do anything; he killed eight people. I feel like his human self would curse us forever if we saved him."
“Do you think I made a mistake? Begging you to save him?” Prue asked.
“No, you didn’t," Serg said, shifting his grip a bit. Prue was almost as tall as him, and yet he carried her like a baby with ease. “It is always nice to try and save people. You just need to know when your help would be appreciated and when it wouldn’t be.”
The vision dissolved, and Prue felt that she had something in her mouth that felt like leather, and something fluffy in each of her hands. She opened her eyes and saw Clayton over her. She spit out what she found was a leather strap - her fangs must have sliced her lips again and dropped the towels in her hands. She looked at Clayton with confusion. The man shrugged and helped her up. Prue was touched by the fact he had put her head in his lap as to prevent her thrashing around. Whenever she awoke from a vision with Milo, he would be sitting several steps away, and
he'd bring her a glass of water, but he would not do anything else.
“What was that? The guys don’t tell me anything.” Clayton asked, sitting her on the bed next to Charlotte. Everyone else seems to have left.
“Where are the others?” Prue asked.
“I asked them to leave since they didn’t do anything but stand around," Charlotte said.
"Thanks." Prue never thought people leaving her alone would make her feel better, but this was the case now. She thought that waking up with all of those people staring at her would be too much.
“Did I make ya have a vision?” Charlotte asked and stopped Prue from finishing her thought.
“Yes. It was strange.”
“You can remember things?” Clayton asked.
Prue nodded and then started to speak. She told him about the needles, about what she knew about herself, and about how she was haunted by the boy. She told him and Charlotte things it took her weeks to even half-say to Milo. In the end, Charlotte was hugging her.
“I think I did to you what I did to him, or at least that Serg did. I don’t think this running away is supposed to happen," Prue said while her face was buried in Charlotte’s shoulder.
“That doesn’t sound like a mistake on your part," Clayton said. “In fact, that might tell me what the problem is with Charlotte.”
“It might?” Prue let Charlotte go.
“I’ll need to look through some things but yes.” Clayton paused for a moment and then put a hand on Prue’s knee. Her dress was splattered with blood from her own wounds and sticky from Charlotte.
“What?” Prue asked.