The Vampire Council: Case File:1 (3 page)

              ‘Hey!’ Shouts Jeff as he jumps into the alleyway.

‘Well, well, well. What do we have here? You’re one of us, I can tell, but alas only a rookie. So why don’t you just move on out of here, and I won’t say no more about it.’ Dirk explains as he raises his gun at Jeff.

              ‘It’s not me you should be worried about.’ Jeff slightly shouts as he points behind Dirk. Tessa punches Dirk square in the face, darkness covers her eyes. Dirk falls to the floor and drops his gun. Tessa walks over to it, picks it up, cocks it and aims it at a now empty patch of ground where a beaten Dirk once laid not moments ago. Tessa looks round trying to sense where Dirk has gone, Jeff fails to notice Dirk suddenly appear behind him, dark eyed, pulls out a knife and rams the steel blade deep in Jeff’s back. Tessa quickly turns and points the gun at Dirk.

‘Oh look what I’ve done. I’m a bad vampire killing my own kind.’

‘You’re not going to get away with this Dirk.’ The gun now shaking in her hands.

‘What do you mean
going
I’ve already
gotten
away with it. Ana is the perfect plan. All these random killings like this poor guy here will just be shrugged off as either a rogue vampire killing, a mercenary killing or a vampire hunter killing, no one will suspect a rank A vampire like myself to be behind any of this, including the final conclusion.’

‘I’ll tell the council.’

‘Tell them what Tess? They won’t take notice, I’ve already been trialled and got a not guilty verdict they’re not going to waste their time going through all that again, besides they wouldn’t believe a rogue vampire anyway.’

‘You know why I chose to be rogue.’

‘Because you didn’t want to be under the council’s strict ruling, and also chose not to be part of the Ana programme.’

‘I intend to take you and your programme down.’

‘Then why haven’t you. All this time we’ve been standing here chatting and you’re pointing a gun at me and not once has your finger even slightly twitched on that trigger. Here’s what I suggest, you put the gun down and I walk out of here, whilst you save this dying vampire at my feet.’

Tessa stares into Dirks eyes for a moment, lets out a sigh as she lowers the gun towards the ground. Dirk straightens out his tie and walks off down the street not once looking back.

              ‘Can you hear me?’ Tessa speaks softly as she holds Jeff up under her arm. Jeff makes mErmuring noises to indicate he is still alive, but only just. Tessa pulls the knife out of Jeff’s back, blood covers the gravel around his body, the knife and his clothes. Tessa takes the knife, rolls up a sleeve and proceeds to slowly dig the knife into her wrist cutting along the veins until blood begins to poor out. She throws the knife behind her as she rubs her fresh bleeding cut on Jeff’s mouth. First there is no reaction out of Jeff until his eyes slowly open once again showing empty darkness. He begins to suck on that cut the blood only making him stronger and stronger. He grabs Tessa’s arm holding it close to his mouth as he continues to suck her blood.

‘That’s enough now.’ Tessa worryingly states. Jeff’s grip now only getting tighter and tighter on her arm. ‘Shit. This is your first time feeding isn’t it?’ Asks Tessa knowing full well she wasn’t going to get an answer. Tessa quickly changes into a vampire and punches Jeff repeatedly in the head until he lets go. Jeff now hungrier than ever, slowly gets up and takes in a deep breath. The knife wound on his back is starting to repair itself. ‘I need more.’ Jeff mutters under his breath.

‘No you don’t, you just think you do cause you’re injured. Control the thirst.’ Tessa chimes in with tips.

‘You don’t understand, I need more blood. I can’t survive without more blood.’ Jeff sharply turns facing back into the street when he spots an old man slowly hobbling down the road. Jeff begins a sprint but before he makes it out of the alleyway Tessa grabs him by his collar and throws him with ease down the other end of the alley. ‘Fight it!’ Tessa screams. Jeff runs at Tessa landing a punch to her face, she blocks the next punch heading towards her stomach. Tessa kicks the
back of Jeff’s knees sending him to the ground, keeping hold of his arm she twists it as she stamps then stands on his back. Jeff quickly calms down and becomes human again, by the time he has gotten up and brushed himself down, Tessa had vanished.

CHAPTER 4:

WILL AND KATIE

W
ill looks at Katie as they walk through a cold empty park. He notices how shattered and exhausted she looks. This doesn’t surprise him considering the emotional rollercoaster they had been through during the day. Katie shivers.

‘Knew it wasn’t a good idea to go jumping into the water, you must be freezing by now?’ Asks Will.

‘I am, I’m really starting to regret doing that now.’ Katie cracks a slight smile. Will’s eyes light up as he got to see a side of Katie he had never seen.

‘Here, I’ll tell you what,
let’s stop off in that little hut thing in the park and have a quick rest.’

‘I am knackered but I really should be getting home.’ Katie replies.

‘It’ll only be for five minutes, don’t worry I’ll keep you warm.’ Will winks at Katie as he grabs her hand and runs towards the metal tin can hut with wooden benches inside pulling her closely behind him. ‘We’ll have a quick break here, then I promise I’ll take you home, just wanted to get you out of the cold wind for a bit.’

‘Well in that case I’ll sit with you.’ Katie sits on the wooden bench inside and taps the space next to her encouraging Will to sit next to her. He does so.

‘Here come in close, share my body heat.’ Will says as he raises his arm to usher Katie into his hold.

‘Well they say the best way to do that is to be naked.’ States Katie cheekily as she huddles up close to Will. Will lowers his arm around her and pulls her in close.

‘At least buy me dinner first. You’ve only known me a day.’ Will laughs, his laugh quickly subsides as the thoughts of the day which had been vacant from his mind for the first time today suddenly come rushing back. Katie feels the tension darken and decides to quickly clear the air.

‘You’re right. Given the current circumstances of me being in your arms this
won’t be very formal, but hi, my name is Katie Hollister, nice to meet you.’

‘Ha good point, nice to meet you Katie, my name is William Jenkins.’

Katie smiles, ‘Do you prefer Will or William?’

‘Well my mum’s the only person that calls me William, so I’d say I prefer Will. So how old are you?’

‘I’m twenty one.’ Katie replies.

‘Oh I remember when I was that young.’

Katie has a puzzled look on her face, ‘How old are you then?’

‘Twenty three’ Will chuckles. Katie gives him a sly dig in the stomach with her elbow. They both begin to chuckle out loud. The laughter dwindles and there’s silence between the pair, only the noises of rusting trees and the wind can be heard for a few moments.

‘Why us Will?’ Katie looks up into Will’s eyes.

‘Haven’t the foggiest.’ Will’s heart sinks as he failed to offer Katie a proper answer.

‘Think of all the things we could’ve done with our lives instead we’re now stuck with this.’ Katie sinks down and lays on the bench with her head in Will’s lap looking up at him. Will is suddenly taken back from the forwardness of this girl he had only met today.

‘To be honest I wasn’t really going anywhere, I work in a groceries five minutes from my mum’s house. Yes go ahead and mock I’m twenty three and still living with my mum.’ Will looks away embarrassed.

‘Don’t look embarrassed, I still live with my mum too. Well I have no choice really I kind of look after her.’ Katie suddenly realises what she was saying and quickly avoids the conversation. ‘So anyway, did you have any other plans for life beside the whole grocery thing?’ She asks letting out a small sigh of relief.

‘Funny you should mention that because I was in medical school for a few years.’

Katie turns her head in shock and looks into Will’s eyes.

‘Don’t look too shocked!’ Will states whilst cracking a smile.

‘Oh sorry. So what happened?’ She asks showing real interest in anything Will has to say.

‘Well I thought it would be cool to be a doctor. You know saving lives, being a hero to the patients families, but in the end I just couldn’t keep up. Too much stuff to learn and remember. My brain just couldn’t handle it.’ Will says still with a smile on his face. His smile fades as he notices Katie staring up at him with a saddened expression.

‘Bit ironic that you wanted to be a hero and save lives and now you’re a bad guy who has to take them.’ Katie and Will just look at each other both silent as the grave.

‘That just depends on how you look at it.’ A man’s voice from outside of the hut. Both Will and Katie jump to their feet and run out into the park. As they stop and turn back they notice a figure of a man kneeling on the hut roof.

‘Who are you? And what do you want?’ Will shouts as he positions himself in front of Katie to protect her. The man slowly stands to his feet. He leaps into the air. Will and Katie are stunned, they both believe instantly they are dealing with a vampire. The man lands a meter in front of the two. He’s rugged. His hair cut like he had a military background. His chiselled face covered with scars, a major scar ran from his mouth up to his left ear. He has a built physique covered with a long black jacket only revealing metal studded boots peering from the bottom.

‘The name’s Leofric. And I’m here to kill you.’

CHAPTER 5:

WARRIORS AND LACKEYS

J
eff entered the extravagant entrance to The Ruby Hotel frantically trying to rub the dried blood from his face and around his mouth. He makes his way over the front desk. The young woman behind the desk that the recruits met earlier arises from behind the desk, she quickly fixes her eyes on Jeff making his way over to her. Her eyes widen in shock as she notices the blood around Jeff’s mouth and now healed stab wound. Without any hesitation the young woman hurries around the desk and grabs Jeff by his sleeve and pulls him through a door marked maintenance room. The room is dark and claustrophobic. The young woman flips the light switch revealing wooden shelving on the left hand wall filled with various cleaning products. Just below an inordinate amount of buckets and all different kinds of mops some on the floor others perched against the wall. On the right hand wall a grubby mirror hangs above a dirty sink. Rust, mould, lime scale and cracks cover the sink. Jeff looks at this and horror fills his head at the thought of having to use that sink to wash the blood from his skin.

‘Use the sink and wash the blood from your face and hands sir. What on earth were you thinking just walking in here looking like that?’ Snaps the young woman as she quickly covers her mouth with her hand and retreats back into herself. Jeff looks directly into her eyes, he has to, they stand almost nose to nose due to the cramped conditions. Jeff turns the warm tap. A sputter of dirty brownish water spits from the faucet before the constant stream of clean water begins to flow through into the mouldy bowl and down the drain. Jeff begins with washing his hands; the water runs clean from the faucet but stains a dirty red as blood begins to wash from his hands. Jeff rubs his hands together to speed up the washing process as he begins to fill with disgust as what’s on his hands, he refuses to let himself look in the mirror and see his blood soaked mouth. Sick begins to boil in his stomach as he still tastes the metallic taste of blood in his mouth and around his lips.

‘If you’re going to enter here at any point looking the way you do, please sir use the back entrance as to not be seen by our human customers.’ The young lady states in a more soothing tone.

Jeff raises his head without thinking and catches his face in the mirror, a horror filled his heart, not at what he looked like or what he had done, but the horror was for the fact he didn’t feel anything. Jeff was becoming scared of his own numbness to the situation and not the situation itself. He turns his head slightly to the right as he begins to speak to the young woman.

‘I’m sorry I never caught your name earlier.’ Jeff says through his blood soaked mouth.

‘Oh, well it’s not that important sir.’ The young woman lowers her head and begins to rub her left arm in nervousness. Jeff catches he doing this in the mirror, he becomes puzzled.

‘You didn’t call me sir earlier, you called all three of us by our names, why change now?’ Jeff now turns to face the woman. He scans her up and down and notices she has lost the sharp wittedness she had earlier on in the day when they first met. She hesitates for a moment and just looks into Jeff’s eyes.

‘I’m sorry for the way I acted earlier sir, I should’ve been more polite to you and the others. And I’m dreadfully sorry to have grabbed you like that and pulled you in here.’

Jeff reaches out to hold her arm. Her eyes widen in shock before quickly becoming as black as night as she hisses at Jeff revealing her fangs. Jeff quickly pulls his arm back becoming even more puzzled. The young woman snaps back into a human, ‘I’m so very sorry sir!’ she shouts.