Book: The First - Part: One - Chapter: 17 - Installment: vii

Hearing the crash behind her, Vala turned from her new charge. There had been another. She had seemed so insignificant. Small. Vala had let her slip her mind. But the little thing was best dealt with.

Vala was weak from her torpor. She was fortunate. It often took many centuries for an injured vampire to regain enough blood to be restored. Anything could happen in that time. Many vampires would be destroyed before their chance to rise again came. She had been fortunate that her feeble escape had escaped the attention of the diligent. She had been fortunate that her time of hibernation and renewal had been mere decades. She was fortunate that the so much blood had been able to be absorbed so quickly by her body. She was fortunate that she could feed so fully upon rising. The better part of three bodies, plus the animal that had initiated her rise. But still she was weak. It took so much energy to appear so strong, when in fact she needed nothing more than to convalesce and repair her long maimed body. Vala had little left for pursuit.

“Kevin. There is one more. Pursue her. I will follow.”

#

The house’s yard was, in practical terms, a wide, shallow ravine. In order to get anywhere, Sarah first would have to scramble up the hill. It was dark. Little light came from the house. She could see the city’s glow at the crest of the hill ahead, and she knew the driveway lay to her right, but she could not see it. To get past the fence, she would have to get to where the driveway met the wall.

Sarah ran up the hill, allowing herself to drift to the right. She wanted to stick to the grass in her bare feet, but the feel of the gravel driveway beneath her would be a welcome sign that she was on the right track.

The wall rose up in front of her out of the peak of the grass hill. She could see it silhouetted against the sky. Far to her right she could see where the break in the wall was. Her rightward progress had not been aggressive enough. Opening the angle of her run, she cut across the face of the hill, the cold November night cutting into her naked flesh.

“Buff…”

She heard Kevin’s voice call out right behind her. She hadn’t heard him approach, and now he was here, practically on top of her. She whirled ‘round, bringing the knife to her chest. As she came about she saw the feeble light of a line of candles in the house wink out – eclipsing - in rapid succession, Kevin was upon her. His figure blocking her line of sight to the house was her only clue as to where his shadowed body was.

She felt his hands upon her shoulders as he pushed her off her feet. Only minutes before they had been in a similar embrace with entirely different intention. Then he was to take her virginity, now he was taking her life. He threw himself upon her as he gnashed at her neck. Sarah thumped onto the ground in a patch of light from the full moon, and Kevin landed on top of her, the knife in her hands piercing his chest. His eyes widened and his teeth retracted. He gasped as if for air and went limp on top of her as the knife sunk to the hilt, his weight pressing her down into the cold grass.

He had called her ‘Buff.’ His words echoed in her head. “I am a vampire and you slay me.”  How prophetic.

It wasn’t so much that Kevin was heavy as that Sarah was frail. Trapped beneath him. She hadn’t forgotten that there was another vampire at large. She had to get out from underneath him if she were to have a hope of escaping the second vampire. She knew the likelihood was slim. She had seen the female vampire kill four people with terrifying economy. But Sarah was still alive, and despite the unlikely odds, she had killed Kevin, the knife as a stake, right into the heart, just like the myths – the realities, she realized – had dictated. She needed to get out from under Kevin and retrieve the knife.

She wriggled her arms out from between them and wedged them between the ground and Kevin’s shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she heaved as hard as she could against his weight. To her surprise, his body gave way as if floating away weightless. To her total dismay, it then drifted sideways revealing the female vampire behind him. She had done the real lifting, not Sarah.

“Stake through the heart,” said the vampire with German accented mock admiration, “Effective, if not very original.”

Sarah’s legs scurried as she desperately tried to crab-walk to where she could get to her feet, but her bare feet slid on the frosty grass. Her hunter tossed Kevin to the ground and was upon her in a flash, lifting Sarah to her monstrous bared fangs. Sarah closed her eyes, awaiting the painful sting of her last moment on earth. In a sense it was an exciting relief. She had always anticipated a slow agonizing death, not a violent – even adventurous one.

But nothing happened. There was no bite. She could hear the vampire sniffing. As suddenly as she had been upon her, Sarah’s attacker let her go. Sarah hit the grass and opened her eyes in surprise, not knowing what to expect.

There was nothing but blackness. The moon shone through the trees in tiny scattered pools, but beyond that, nothing. She sat up. There was no vampire. No Kevin. All was quiet.

     Part Two