13Which reminds me. A BIG BIG BIG thanks to Plien (or should I say , inside joke), particularly for the fight scene. Couldn't have done it without her.
Thanks to anyone who reviewed. It's always great to know people are reading it. It also means that I feel I have to write more.
Anyways, enjoy. Here it is.
********* The vampire was certainly not what Eleri had expected. Which made him no less terrifying. He, or rather, it, was not a traditional vampire. In the right conditions, with the right clothes and a pair of dark sunglasses, he could pass for normal. Nearly. Right now, though, he was anything but normal.
For a start, there was the cloak, although that was probably just for effect. It was long, black and fell about him like a - well, a dress. But it had none of the comical effect a dress might have. It was to black, to deep, almost as if one could be sucked into it, and she had the feeling that it covered something more terrible than anything she had ever seen before. The hood was the same, big, utterly black, and covering the entirety of the vampire's face.
The vampire pushed back his hood, revealing his face, and Eleri gasped. This was more horrible than anything she'd seen before, more terrible than any of the horrible things that happened to animals in the farmyard. The skin was pale, paler than that of corpses. So pale, in fact, that you felt you could see through it, right into the vampire's mouth, and his sharp teeth. He grinned, and displayed a set of normal, white teeth. Seconds later, they were replaced by a second set, which seemed to grow out of his gums, and these were sharp and pointed. His hair was white. Not grey, or silver, white. Pure white. There was no colour whatsoever in it, it was utterly unnatural.
But it was his eyes that were the worst. The outside was normal, white, although there were red lines running through it. They were blue in colour and must have been nice eyes when he had been alive. The pupils, though; they were like a photo gone wrong, bright red. They seemed to pierce into her, to see the veins. If she had been in the mood, she might have joked and called it 'x-ray vision', but she was in no mood to do this. They were horrible.
"I'm very hungry, little girls. Come and let me take my dinner."
The voice was like nails on a blackboard. It raked through her body and made her wince. That was definitely a voice she didn't like.
She managed to turn her head to glance at Dee. The other girl was cradling her hand behind her back, her eyes slightly clouded over, like they had been when she was giving Eleri her demonstration. The vampire also noticed this, and was about to move towards Dee.
Eleri knew she needed to give Dee some extra time somehow, she was the only one around that had some experience with fighting vampires, and so their only hope. In a moment of panic, and not knowing what else she could possibly do, Eleri opened her mouth and screamed.
The vampire spun round to look at her. Dee, however, remained concentrated. Now the vampire seemed to loose interest in Dee, and moved towards Eleri instead. Behind her, vaguely, she could hear voices calling, but she didn't pay attention to them.
"What did you do that for? You stupid girl. Now your pain will have to be much more, as punishment. Maybe we'll do what we did to your mummy to you as well."
Eleri made a small growling sound deep in her throat, like one of the farm dogs when he was about to attack a wolf or another predator, and nearly leapt for the vampire.
She managed to restrain herself, and said calmly;
"How do you know my mother?"
The vampire laughed menacingly, a horrible, high-pitched sound, and continued his approach. Eleri started backing away, until she couldn't. A tree was blocking her path.
"I heard about it, some others were bragging about it. I wish it had been there it sounds like they had fun."
Eleri turned almost as pale as the vampire, he was talking about her mother as if she was just a toy! She couldn't control herself any longer and with a shout she threw herself at the vampire. It had expected that and hit her hard in the face.
"Aah, this one has a bit of a temper. I should educate you a little, but I don't have the time."
Eleri struggled but couldn't get away from his iron grip. The horrible smell the vampire had was all she could think about. It was sickeningly sweet, like sugary perfume mixed with rotting flesh. She would have blanched, if her throat hadn't been so dry with fear.
He slowly lowered his fangs pulling her head back by her hair so he could bite her neck. With a final wriggle, she used her last strength to get up her arm to protect her face. At the same moment Dee released her fireball, the vampire turned to see what the gentle swish sound was and made a thin horizontal cut on the back of her forearm. Immediately a flash of pain spread through her entire body. She fell down to the ground with a gasp, looking up just in time to see Dee's fireball hit the vampire.
It was not as precise as the one she had made before, nor as big. At least, it didn't seem to be either, but that could just have been the fact that this one was trying to burn up a vampire rather than a blade of grass. It hit him just bellow the shoulder blade, and he howled in pain. When his eyes turned back to Eleri, they were even more terrible than before. He lunged towards her, teeth bared, claws outstretched, and suddenly vanished.
Eleri was astonished, until she noticed a fine, grey cloud drift down over the grass. Ashes. She looked up, and saw Martin and Alex standing by the clearing entrance. They hurried over, and she knew she was going to be O.K. She let her head fall back on the ground, and gave a sigh of relief. Her arm was still throbbing and she could feel a curious coldness creeping up it.
Dee, shook her head, "I don't believe it. How did he get here?"
Martin shrugged and put a hand on her shoulder, he then spotted Eleri and ran over to her. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, except for my arm, I'm glad you to came in time though."
Then they noticed her arm, Martin looked horrified, and said quickly, "we have to get you to Sharon, NOW. Lets go, can you walk?"
"Yes, of course, but I might feel a little dizzy. Can't she come here. Does she really have to come? It's only a cut."
"We have to get you back, and there might be more vampires here, come on lets go."
Alex moved towards her, and helped her stand. She pulled away from him, and heard him mutter;
"Well, I guess you believe in vampires now."
She glared at him, and he was rather taken aback. "Yes, I do. I'd be stupid if I didn't, don't you think."
Shannon greeted them with a worried frown. "Dee, what happened." she caught sight of Eleri. "Oh my goodness. Bring her in quick. What happened?"
"Vampires." Dee gasped, and Martin could see she was on the brink of tears. He helped Alex lay Eleri down on the tattered sofa in Shannon's office, and moved to her, slipping an arm comfortingly around her shoulder. She smiled at him gratefully.
"One vampire." He told Shannon, "we got there just in time to stop him finishing off Eleri."
Dee let out a strangled sob and buried her face in Martin's shoulder. He stroked her hair, trying to calm her down, and glanced worriedly at the sofa.
"Will she be alright?"
Shannon nodded and said, "yes, yes, of course," in a reassuring tone, but her eyes showed how worried she was. She shook herself, and tore her eyes off Eleri. "Go find me Ms Merryhearth, then take Dee up to her room. Alex, fetch me some warm water please, now."
They scattered, hurrying to do the tasks assigned them. Once they had all left, Eleri turned to Shannon. Her head was throbbing, and the cold sensation in her arm was growing. It was if she was freezing from inside.
Trying to ignore it, she asked, "who's Ms Merryhearth? And why is my arm so cold?"
Shannon smiled at her. "Ms Merryhearth is the school nurse, and one of us. I would not be allowed to teach students to fight vampires without a well- trained River Elf on hand. Children have a habit of getting in trouble." Eleri wanted to protest that they were not 'children', but she felt as if she didn't have the strength. Shannon smiled at her again, as if she knew what she was thinking. "Your arm is cold because that is what vampire bites do. They have a sort of poison in their teeth. In a human it remains dormant until the person is on the very brink of death. Then it wakens and spreads through their body in a flash, freezing them instantly, although not visibly. Three weeks later, the person 'wakes' again, if it can be called an awakening, and becomes a vampire him- or her-self. "In us, it cannot remain dormant, because of the fire in our blood. Instead, it tries to freeze the water that calms the fire, the water from our river-stones." She motioned to Eleri's necklace. "When the water freezes, it expands. Basic chemistry. From then on, it's rather like frostbite, only on the inside. When we die, the fire unfreezes the water, so no trace is left. Dying is agony, though."
Eleri looked paler than she had when confronting the vampire, if that was possible. That was what had happened to her mother? It . More than horrible. Her mother had always hated being cold. "Is there a cure?" her voice only managed a small croak, threatening to choke itself, and Alex entered, accompanied by the nurse. Shannon sat by Eleri's head and kept talking.
"We used to think the only way to cure a vampire's bite was to take off the River-stone and hope the fire would do that itself. It didn't always work, of course. Once the fire has started itself up without control, it is very hard to stop. Oh, the person wouldn't die of the vampire's bite. They burned themselves up instead, but sometimes it did work. No one has ever survived a vampire bite without treatment. That's still the only way to cure a full power vampire bite, though. "You were only grazed, so it's a little different. I think you have already understood that River Elf biology is a little different from human biology. Well, in the case of your graze, only a little poison has gone in. The poison will creep up to your shoulder, then stop. There is not enough of it to move any further, and it cannot mutate, so it will not get any further. If nothing is done about it, the arm will eventually turn black, like frostbite, and will need to be cut off." She smiled reassuringly. "That isn't your case, of course. We have managed to catch it in time. Ms Merryhearth will put a syringe in your arm, like an intravenous. Through this, she will send some of her own fire, which will melt the water in your arm and destroy the poison. It will only be a small amount, and perfectly controlled, so it can do you no harm. Once that's done, we'll just have to wrap your arm up in warm cloth and change it every four hours for the next week or so, to make sure all the poison is gone. Most people will simply think you have sprained your wrist. The technique was made possible by the biologist on one of our 'special teams'. I have noticed that you seem interested in biology, at least your biology teacher thinks so. Maybe you will be one of those special biologists one day."
Ms Merryhearth stood up and nodded to Shannon. "There we go," The headmistress told Eleri, "It's done. I will see that Ms Merryhearth gives Dee instructions on how to change the bandage, and we can expect you back in class first thing tomorrow. No excuses. Now run along before she starts panicking."
Shannon turned to Ms Merryhearth and began talking fast in a low voice. Eleri noticed that Alex had already left the room, and decided to do as Shannon had told her. Walking up the hall towards the dorms, she seemed bewildered at what had happened- and how fast. She hadn't even noticed it was happening. Shannon had made it sound bad, but she had felt nothing. Maybe Shannon had been doing that to distract her. She smiled to herself, and hurried up the stairs.
Shannon was frowning. "I'll have to start the classes sooner than I expected. Oh dear. I get the feeling that this will not be a wonderful year."
Ms Merryhearth nodded, "I have never had to treat a student quite so early. She's lucky, though. It could have been worse." The young woman smiled, "You still do that act then, explaining what is going on, scaring them stiff."
"It distracts them." Shannon defended herself, but she had an amused smile on. It vanished quickly, though, and she seemed to slip back into worrying.
"That was Alwen's daughter, wasn't it." Ms Merryhearth asked.
Shannon nodded, and said, "The girl's lucky, very lucky. To think the same thing that happened to Alwen could happen to her."
The two women shivered slightly, and went back to their talk.
Dee led the others out of the room, and they walked in silence towards the hall. Each was lost in thought. Dee wished she had been able to react faster, feeling guilty about Eleri. If only she could have done something. Martin was glad he had got there in time. Alex remembered hearing Eleri's scream, and wondered how he had known it was her. And kept hearing those words, 'Maybe we'll do what we did to your mummy to you as well'. What exactly had they done to her mother? She hadn't asked Shannon, she wasn't even sure she wanted to know, but still, she was curious.
Stop it she told herself. Curiosity killed the cat remember. It's better not to know, at least for the moment. If it was anything to do with that freezing thing Shannon was talking about, I don't want to know. I definitely don't want to know, and I don't think I ever will.
They reached the hall, and sat down to eat. There was a subdued silence over the group, vaguely uneasy, and some of the other students noticed it. Eventually, one of the older girls came over and sat down next to Dee.
"What's going on? You four are awfully quiet."
They all looked up. Dee gave the girl a half-hearted smile. "Nina, this is Eleri. She's one of us." Nina smiled at Eleri then turned her gaze back to Dee. The younger girl, swallowed, took a deep breath, and then spoke again, "We just had a run in with one of them."
Nina looked shocked. "What, here? did Shannon say?"
"Nothing really. hurt. She sent us away."
Nina glanced at Eleri's arm and winced, then stood up. "I'd better go tell the others. I suppose this means we'll be confined to the grounds for a while." She walked back over to her group of friends, and started talking in a low voice. Several of them looked over at the four sitting round the table, and then looked quickly back at Nina. Soon they were discussing it in hushed voices.
Eleri turned to Dee, "are they all."
Dee nodded. "Yup, all of them. Nina, who you just met, is the oldest, most experienced. She's met quite a few vampires already. And destroyed them." She saw Eleri's puzzled look, "oh, normally they're a lot harder to beat than that one we met. I reckon he was a new vampire - just died - and rather too eager. Besides, he wasn't being careful enough."
Eleri was about to say that she thought he hadn't exactly been easy to defeat when Shannon entered the room. She stood at the end of the hall, where she could be seen by everyone, and cleared her throat. The room fell quiet, all faces turned towards her.
"I have a few short announcements to make before you go to bed. First, special classes will be starting again on Monday. All those concerned will be contacted. Secondly, town visits are cancelled this weekend." there was an outburst of groans, quickly stifled by a glare from the headmistress. "Due to problems with the buses. And no, nobody is to drive. I'm not having anyone getting in trouble with no teachers around. Third, and last, the river and forest are out-of-bounds. There have been reports of dangerous animals in the area, and it is our responsibility to ensure your safety. That is all. Good evening."
She sat down at the teacher's table, and left the students to discuss the announcements among themselves. Some were angry; some didn't care, but most were just confused. The only people who did seem to grasp the situation, as far as Eleri could tell, were Nina and her group, and the four of them. Herself, she wasn't sure what the 'special classes' were, but she had a fairly good idea. As if reading her mind, Martin sighed.
"I guess that means we'll have even less time next week. She doesn't usually start so soon. Then, with what's happening. I suppose it's just as well we start soon. Anyway, Dee and Eleri both need to learn the basics."
Dee hit his arm, and he pretended to wince. "Okay, okay. So Dee already knows the basics."
Thankfully, the atmosphere lightened slightly from then on, and Eleri was able to settle back and listen to Dee and Martin's playful banter.
The weekend was spent sitting around in the school. Lisa arrived on Saturday, and on Monday special classes started. The five sixteen year olds where joined by eight older students and three younger ones. Shannon greeted them all, she then separated them into groups. The older, more experienced, students went to one side and began discussing what they had done last year. The newer students were sat around two desks, and Shannon introduced the course to them.
"As you all know by now, you are River Elves and it will be your job in the future to protect mankind from vampires - the living dead. I know that might sound a little dramatic, but it is basically what happens. There's no better way to describe it. We will have some visitors later this week who will tell you exactly what happens. For now, it is important that you learn to control your powers, and, as with any skill, that means starting with the basics."
The next hour or so was spent explaining in detail the process of summoning fire out of ones arteries, drawing diagrams but doing no practical work. Dee, who was included in the lower group, moaned that she had already done the basics, and was told that she would just have to review them. Finally, the lesson was over, and they filed out of the classroom. It was already late, they only had an hour or so before dinner. Eleri dragged Dee to the common room, with the excuse that they needed to finish maths homework; Alex and Martin went outside to see if they could find something to occupy them and Lisa headed for the library.
In the common room, Eleri sat Dee down in a quite corner. "So, who's this special team Shannon mentioned?"
Dee just stared at her. "Why should I know? I've only been here half a term longer than you. I guess it's one of the travelling research team thingys. My Grandma's told me a bit about them, but not much."
"Go on then, spill."
Dee looked at her for a couple of seconds more, then sighed. "Honestly, all I know is that they travel around, doing research in their own fields and fighting vampires. I guess they occasionally teach classes in the more remote parts they visit, but that's all."
"What do you mean, their own fields?" Eleri questioned.
Dee shrugged, "oh, you know." Eleri gave her a withering look and shook her head, which made Dee smile, "I mean, biology, physics, fighting techniques, that sort of thing. Same as any group of researchers, really." Eleri was about to ask something else, but Dee shook her head. "Come on, 'Leri, we really should do that maths homework. It is due tomorrow, after all."
Eleri opened her mouth to complain, she then shut it again and pulled out her book
The special team arrived, as promised, later that week. The River Elves had collected in their classroom at lunch, after a special announcement at breakfast, and they had all been excused from their afternoon classes. They waited for Shannon to arrive with the guest, talking excitedly.
Finally, they heard footsteps coming down the corridor, and loud voices. The footsteps stopped outside the door, and a woman's voice warned her companions to be quiet. Then the door opened.
Shannon came in first, followed by a rather motley band. They were a wide variety of nationalities, and very different physically. The only similarity at all was that they all seemed to be about the same age, around 25. There were two women, a tall, dark-haired Asian woman and a shorter woman, who had short brown hair and a friendly, if rather mischievous, grin. The other four were all men, two white-skinned, though one was pale and the other olive coloured. Of the other two, one had a very Indian look, and the other had dark, chocolate brown skin and very white teeth.
Shannon motioned for the class to sit down, then introduced their visitors.
"This is Charlotte Yin-Lee," she motioned to the Asian woman, who nodded gravely, "She's the team leader." She turned to the other woman, "Kirsten Evans, biologist," the woman grinned again, "David French," the brown- skinned man gave an exaggerated bow, "Marco Chenji," the Indian man copied David and gave a comical bow, "John Dupont," the fair-haired man, "and Eduardo De Luca." The last member of the group smiled, then Shannon turned back to Charlotte. "Very well, Miss Yin-Lee, you can start."
Charlotte nodded, "Thank you, Shannon." She glanced round the class. "Right. We're going to separate you into groups. It doesn't matter how advanced you are, we won't be using any fire. You need to know a lot more than just how to use your powers to be part of a skilled team, and believe me, that's where most of you are headed. Now, as you have probably found out by now, each of us has a particular field in which we work. As this is the case, each of us will be teaching you a different thing. Kizzy, " she indicated the other woman, "is our biologist. So she will be teaching you more in depth theory about controlling fire."
"Gee, thanks Charlie. Make it sound boring." Kizzy muttered, and the class grinned.
Charlotte frowned at her, and she held up her hands as if to say sorry, "Eduardo is our martial arts specialist. There's more to fighting vampires than you think, and it helps to be able to fight in a number of ways. Which is why Marco will also be teaching you to fight, though he uses a much style. David knows more about vampire tracking than any of us, and he'll teach you a bit of that. John will teach you how to fit into any culture. Keeping a low profile is important too, and I will teach you a little about the sort of equipment you might be using. Any questions?" No one moved. "Good. Why don't you separate into groups of, umm," she turned to Shannon, "there are only sixteen?" Shannon nodded. " Alright, threes and twos. The less you are, the more you learn, I suppose."
The older River Elves separated into two threes and a two, the younger ones grouped together. That left the sixteen-year-olds. Martin glanced at Dee, and raised his eyebrows. Dee laughed, and nodded.
"I guess that leaves you three," she nudged Alex as he passed, and he scowled at her.
Charlotte waited until they were done, then nodded. "Alright, let's get started. You three," she pointed to Eleri, Lisa and Alex, "with Kizzy. You two with David," she motioned to Martin and Dee. She continued sorting them out until everyone had a teacher, then turned back to Kizzy. "You want the classroom? The rest of us are probably better outside."
Kizzy nodded, and the others all left the room. Then she turned to the group. "Okay then. I suppose we ought to get started."
AN: Ah, another chapter done. Well, what do you think? Hopefully the next chapter will be up soon. Any suggestions are welcome, by the way. I'm always open to constructive comments.