by Lari, Simone
They left their embrace and Jude felt her smartphone vibrate insistently. She checked: it was her parents again. They usually did not take any notice of their rebel teenager’s timetable, but they had become less tolerant following the recent events in the city.
She suddenly realized how difficult it would be to explain the situation to her mother and father.
"Was that your parents?" asked Angelique, guessing it from her expression.
"Yeah, I wonder what I can say. Mom, Dad, you know, I was about to die but my boyfriend saved me. Oh, and I forgot, he transformed me into a vampire."
"The fact that you’re immune to the rays of the sun could allow you to continue living with them for a while, until you finish school. Then you can decide what to do" suggested Nina.
"It seems like a good idea, that way you would have time to find a valid justification for leaving home, if that’s what you want to do" Angelique agreed.
Jude looked at her, worried. "You know, I might need some moral support. Will you take me home?" she asked imploringly.
"Certainly" Nina reassured her.
"Let’s be quick, though. The tenth message from my mother has just arrived” Angelique informed them.
The three hugged each other again.
"It’s all very moving, but the couple of destiny doesn’t separate so easily. Where she goes, I go too" intervened Sting.
Jude was to reply, but Christopher broke in: "Instead, you'll stay with us. We cannot allow either of the two factions to capture you, or the druids, and much less our rivals."
Sting retorted cheekily: "Maybe you're right, but who can stop me? You and which..."
Katrina pointed the Beretta at him heart high. "Let’s get this quite clear. You might have acquired some special unusual abilities, but I am still the elder. You must follow my orders if you want to stay in the clan" she argued severely.
"I never particularly liked orders but, simply for the sake of conversation, what would you like me to do?"
The vampire woman looked at both her subordinates.
"Christopher and I cannot follow the girls’ movements in the light of day, but you can. So you will go with her. Try to avoid any contact which is not strictly necessary, and tonight you will return, both of you. On the other hand, Jude is now one of us."
"Reasonable orders. I’ll do that" retorted Sting, pleased.
The three girls, together with Sting, Vans and Gabriel, went to the cars.
"You’ve been too soft with him, he needs some discipline" protested Christopher after the group departed from the chalet.
"If you ask me, I think he’s right" Jared agreed.
"I’ve decided to give him a little rope because, if it’s pulled too tight, there’s the risk that it will break. Do you really want Sting to cross to the enemy’s side and take Jude with him? It is right for them not to separate: it is difficult to separate a vampire from the creature he has just generated. Our enemies will not act in the light of day and if our allies respect the agreements, they won’t go after Sting. And besides, those two know how to defend themselves rather well."
"As far as I can tell, you want to bring the girl in as a third member of the clan" Christopher remarked.
"Do you have any valid reasons why I shouldn’t do so?"
"None" he said tersely.
A part of him was pleased that his friend had found a companion; another, however, was jealous, and not just for that reason.
Ding, dong.
The door of the house opened suddenly.
"Come in!" urged her mother.
She was about to go through the door, with all the others in her wake.
"No! Just you, you’ve spent enough time with your friends."
"Sweetheart, do you want me to take care of your mom? She doesn’t know our powers of persuasion yet, so I could give her a taste..." whispered Sting.
Jude shook her head and pushed her mother aside trying to moderate her strength.
"They’re coming in."
Her father stood up from the sofa with a severe look on his face which she had rarely seen.
"Don’t start now, acting like strict and apprehensive parents, because now it’s too late and I don’t think I need it any longer."
"What do you mean by that? As long as you live in this house, you’ll have to follow a minimum of rules, few as they may be!"
"Wait, mom let me talk."
"First let your mother finish!" the father hammered her.
"The disagreements of the modern family. Two hundred years ago, good belting and the little one was sent to bed without dinner" mumbled Sting.
"Last night, I almost died..." began Jude.
"Sure you want this?" asked Nina.
Her friend nodded.
"What happened to you?" her mother urged her, serious.
"Something you can’t understand if you don’t see this first." She went to the kitchen to get a knife.
"Hey, wait, what are you doing?" her father burst out, worried.
She pulled up a sleeve and passed the blade over her forearm.
The mother put a hand to her mouth and tried to staunch the wound but Jude pulled away from her attentions. She showed the cut that had rapidly begun to heal under the unbelieving eyes of her parents.
"Something happened to me, I’m not the same any longer, but this does not mean that it’s a bad thing."
The pair looked for the nearest thing to cling to so as not to faint.
"Thanks for your support, you can go now" said Jude to her friends.
"Sure?" asked Angelique.
When she confirmed, Sting added: "I’ll stay. If the worst comes to the worst, I can always reset their memory." He winked at the girls.
When they were outside the house Vans said: "You know, my first impression of Sting was that he was a complete idiot. Now that I know him better, my idea has been confirmed, but deep down he’s not all that bad."
Chapter 13 – Unusual Parents
"I don’t think it will be easy for your friends to explain the situation. You are the best placed, your Mother knows about your condition, your world, she’s even part of it" Vans said, as they were arriving at Nina’s house.
"That’s true, but my father knows nothing about it, much less my little brother, George."
"And what would you like to do? Involve them or leave them out of all this? That’s if we assume that the second hypothesis is really possible."
"I want to tell my father the truth. My mother was wrong to hide everything from him until now, while for my little brother, well, he is still too small to understand, but in due time..."
Vans parked the car.
"Here we are. We’ve arrived." He undid his seatbelt and started to get out, but something aroused his suspicion. "There’s a car in the garden. Wasn’t your father out of town with your brother?"
"Yes, but he’s back. My mother asked him to leave George at my aunt’s for a few more days."
"Hmm, at least I’ll have the chance to meet him."
"No, it’s better if I go in alone. If they see me coming home accompanied by an older boy with an experienced look, he’d be doubly angry."
"Well, let me at least walk you to the door or get out and check the surroundings."
She smiled, looked at him tenderly and then closed his mouth with a passionate kiss.
"I know how to defend myself. Anyway, what could happen to me in daylight?"
"Okay, but I’ll stay out here for a little while, just in case."
The girl made to go, but this time he was the one who pulled her toward him to claim a second contact with her soft lips.
Reluctantly, Nina got out of the car and went to the porch. She turned the key in the lock and went in.
Her father looked down from the upper floor.
"Nina, is that you?"
"Dad? Yes, it’s me."
Descending the staircase, Steven kept his eyes fixed on her; she was surprised to see him calm and smiling.
&nbs
p; "You've spent the night out? Was your mother with you?"
"Some of the time. For the rest I was with friends."
"I understand. The important thing is that you are okay" he went on, running his hand through her hair.
"Daddy, is everything okay?" she asked, suspicion aroused in her.
The sound of the doorbell distracted them from the conversation.
Nina was afraid it was Vans, but when her father found two policemen at the door, she was sorry it wasn’t the hunter.
"Mr Steven Moran?" asked the first, a corpulent middle-aged man with an austere voice.
"Correct, agent. How can I help you?"
"And is she Miss Nina Moran?" asked the second policeman, a young and athletic rookie.
The girl nodded.
"We will have to ask you some questions about the double homicide of Heric Preston and Tony Jannings."
Nina stiffened abruptly.
"I, I, I don’t understand..." she stammered, agitated.
"What do you want from her?" the father stepped in.
"From the information in our possession, your daughter may be an eyewitness of the attack on the two boys" stated the first policeman.
"She’ll have to follow us to the station" stated the second.
"I’m sorry, but my daughter is not going anywhere with you" the man declared, decisively.
The corpulent policeman put his hand on the truncheon.
"Sir, do not put up any resistance, we have a mandate."
"Really? Show me then" he retorted with a mocking tone.
With a fast move, the agent drew out the baton and smashed it onto Steven’s head, while the other pushed Nina roughly inside the house.
The policeman attempted a second blow, but Steven blocked his arm and put the palm of his hand on his head.
Nina looked at her father shocked. The bleeding wound on his forehead healed instantly, and deep lacerations appeared on the policeman’s head.
The man let out a bloodcurdling scream.
The other drew his baton, but with a quick gesture of her hand Nina instinctively tossed him onto the wall.
Not losing heart he grabbed hold of his gun fitted with a silencer and aimed it at her, ready to shoot.
A figure came through the open door. The policeman changed the trajectory of the weapon and fired, one moment before a throwing knife slit his throat.
The bullet buried into the door jamb, a few centimeters from Vans’ face. "Fuck!" he roared.
The other policeman fell to the ground, lifeless.
Vans scrutinized Steven, who returned an inquiring gaze.
"The sorcerer, I presume."
"Yes. And who the hell are you?"
"Your daughter’s boyfriend" he retorted, checking a tattoo that was showing from the collar of the policeman on the ground.
"The crest of a lineage. The other guy will have one too" remarked Steven, looking at the second agent who was choking on his own blood.
"Exactly" confirmed the hunter, "but I can’t say which clan it belongs to."
Having overcome the fear and dejection caused by the attack and the grim deaths, Nina protested animatedly: "Sorry, but I’m here too! Do you want to explain why you called him sorcerer?"
Vans closed the door. "I think the two of you have several things to clarify."
Chapter 14 - Demons Among Us
On the top of the mountain, the wind was whipping the low bushes, and was raising a fine dust from the surface of the ground.
No noise, whether of nature or man, defied the voice of the northerly wind.
"A strange place to meet, don’t you find, Absolon?" began a slender figure, cloaked in the shadows.
The outlines of the body, enveloped in the darkness, danced in the wind like a long dress of light silk. They rippled and swayed in an almost hypnotic way, but Absolon did not notice, intent as he was on maintaining his concentration.
"You can show yourself, Chandra, or perhaps, like your new allies, you have begun to fear sunlight?" he provoked her.
She chuckled and took off her hood. The darkness disappeared as if it had been reabsorbed by her body.
On the sensual and delicate features of her face, vivid red lips were evident, as warm and shining as her long thick mane of hair burning with tiny crackling flames.
The two creatures met each other’s gaze. Her deep red eyes looked deeply into his clear and transparent ones. For a moment, Chandra felt the urge to sink her fingers in the long black hair that surrounded Absolon’s perfect face.
"I have always thought that you were a wonderful creature. I regret that you side with the forces of evil" he confessed, anticipating Chandra’s thoughts.
She laughed quietly.
"I could say the same of you. But in the end, what meaning do the ephemeral words such as good and evil have for beings like us?"
"It is precisely for beings like us that they should have a universal and incontrovertible meaning."
"I hope you haven’t called me here to enter into a philosophical discussion. You know how much certain things bore me."
"I called you because I am guilty of having compromised the balance" he admitted. "I have violated my role as adviser, just as I have violated my neutrality, siding openly with the faction of the human beings."
"You know that this justifies me, indeed, in a certain sense it forces me to rebalance the equilibrium?"
"Vampires, witches and creatures of the night are already powerful enough without your help. What’s more, if they should get the upper hand...?”
"What would it matter if they were to prevail? Isn’t man perhaps one of the meanest, destructive and power-hungry creatures in the entire universe? Would it be a shame perhaps to eradicate him from this earth?"
"Man is not only darkness, he is also light. Humans are capable of rising up from their ephemeral lives, from their mere personal interests and from earthly desires. They know the value of sacrifice, the importance of love and friendship. They deserve to be saved, and I am certain that they will be if they remain united."
"Hmm, I have heard that some female has been saved thanks to your help."
The daemon spirit looked attentively at Absolon. Her response was slow in arriving.
"Just showing yourself to me costs you a considerable effort of concentration, doesn’t it? You have fought, you snatched a witch from the threshold of death and you have used your powers to contact me and attract me to you. You need to recover a lot of energy if you intend to go into the field again."
"In reality, I intend to dissuade you from doing so."
The wind rose above their sudden silence, screaming menacingly and whipping their tense faces.
"I have to rebalance things and I will do so in the way and when I consider it most appropriate" she sanctioned, bluntly.
"If I have the strength to do so, know that I shall oppose you."
"You will not have it, and if things remain so, it is only because of your pity toward the woman you saved. You should have acted differently, but now it is not your turn to move. Now it is up to me."
She put the hood back on her head and the darkness advanced around her. She snapped her slender fingers, with long fingernails painted in red, and disappeared.
Chapter 15 - Sleepless Night
The door of the room opened slowly. Nina saw a tenuous ray of light penetrate into the bedroom.
She experienced a feeling of anxiety and sat up quickly on the bed. She turned on the bedside lamp, ready to throw herself at any enemy that might appear in the light of its forty watts.
"Vans!" she exclaimed surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"Sshh, keep your voice down, your parents are asleep and I thought it was the right time for us, to be together" he explained removing his overcoat.
She blushed and her heart began to beat violently.
"But what are you saying? I don’t think..."
He approached and closed her mouth with two fingers, then slipped them between he
r soft lips.
She almost did not realize how he had become completely naked in front of her in the space of a few moments.
Vans took off her pajamas off her. She giggled nervously, afraid that the moment of ardor would be spoiled with the childish decoration of pink hearts on her nightwear.
The hunter removed her bra. Nina quickly cupped her hands over her breasts, but he loosened her intertwined fingers and, overcoming her modesty, put his mouth on her nipples.
She felt a shiver run through her body from her neck to the belly.
At that moment, the window burst open. A chill wind lashed her naked back. Nina spun around, hiding her breasts again with crossed arms.
Christopher came in and closed the jambs.
"Get out of here immediately!" she shouted, turning to look at Vans in astonishment.
To her surprise, she saw that the young man was not outraged and angry as she would have expected.
Christopher approached, dropped the long dark raincoat and quickly unbuttoned his shirt, remaining bare-chested in front of her.
"What… what on earth are you thinking?" asked Nina, seeking Vans’ support.
The vampire threw a quick look of understanding at the hunter, and the pair exchanged a silent nod of consent.
Nina stared at Vans again.
"If you want to as well, it’s okay with me" he revealed.
Before she could utter a word, Christopher embraced her. She stood there paralyzed until he pulled away and, gently but firmly, opened her arms to look at her breasts.
"What are you doing? This is not right, we cannot..."
Her protests disappeared as Vans tenderly kissed her on the head and neck, and the delicate, almost ethereal, touch of the vampire, who fondled her breasts and then descended to her belly.
Nina began to feel an intense heat grow inside her. She half-closed her eyes and a mouth began to kiss her, while a second licked her breasts. She did not know who was one or the other, but at that moment it did not matter.
Suddenly, she felt something hot and sticky slide over her face and more still over her breasts and belly. She noticed a ferrous taste in her mouth and then opened her eyes and tried to pull away.