The night I was turned…
Before I could relive the horrors of that night, my memories were interrupted dramatically, by my door, with a tremendous crash, flying across the room, and my dad and uncle storming in. Noticing me on the floor, my dad rushes over to me, while my uncle kneels to examine Tina, brushing her brown curls aside, a surprised look soon appearing on his face after realizing what I had done.
“You okay Alessandra?” my dad asks, lifting me up to a sitting position and drawing my attention back to him.
“Yeah, I think so, didn’t know I had it in me,” I said, looking over at my friend, I could already see the burns the cross had left begin to heal and disappear.
“I couldn’t leave her like that dad, I just couldn’t.”
“What’s done is done,” my uncle says gravely. “that’s one less vampire roaming the city and a new warrior for us to teach. If the vampires have located you, we need to leave now.”
My uncle collects Tina’s body in his arms and stands, while my dad helps me to rise to my shaky feet.
“Your brother is outside watching the perimeter, meet us there when you have collected your things,” my uncle says before taking Tina through the gaping hole that is now my front entrance, and out to the parking lot, where I can see my brother, Tristan, standing by my uncle’s white van.
As I watch my brother and uncle carefully place Tina in the back of the van, I realize my dad has barely said a word the entire time, and though he was known for being a man of few words, the silence was strange, even for him.
“Dad?” I ask carefully, searching his face for a sign of what he is thinking. My dad was tall and built stocky, with short ash brown hair and dark blue eyes, and even though he looked like he was in his 30’s, with a short beard covering his tanned face, he was well into his second century of life. Being a living vampire had its perks, if you fed regularly, most Soulassassin’s lived to be well into their 6th century.
“We need to talk, but not here. Get your things, you have 5 minutes” he says before following my uncle to the van.
That left me standing in my now trashed unit, but before I could start feeling sorry for myself, I jog up to my room and begin throwing things in a green duffel bag I keep under my bed, just for occasions like this. Being a hunter, a Soulassassin, meant a lot of moving around so I was used to this by now, but it still made me sad to leave a place I had called home for the last 2 years.
Having finished in my bedroom, I run to my bathroom to collect the last of my things, when I see my disheveled face in the mirror above my sink. My short blonde hair that curled to my shoulders looked like a birds nest, and my dark blue eyes were circled by bruised looking skin, that looked even darker compared to how pale I currently was. No wonder my family were worried, I looked like death! And felt even worse I thought as I quickly tied my blonde hair back in a messy ponytail, revealing the full brown undercut I had, before grabbing the last of my things.
Just as I finished zipping up my bag, I hear a gunshot outside, and my dad yelling “We have company!” before more gunshots get fired into the night. I sprint outside and immediately stop dead in my tracks. Where the hell did all these vamps come from? I didn’t have long to take in the scene of battle before two young vampires charged towards me, one disintegrating into ash just before he reached me, thanks to my brother’s handy aim with a crossbow. Not that I would tell him that, wouldn’t want to inflate his ego.
“Hey, he was mine” I call out, as I whip my stake out of my hidden arm sheath and stab the newbie vampire in the chest. As the vampire disintegrates, I look over to see my brother dust another vamp with a grin on his face, before looking over with the same dark blue eyes as mine, to poke his tongue out at me. You couldn’t tell there was a 17-year age difference between us, having been turned into vampires, then Solassassin’s at technically the same age of 21. But, even after almost 70 years, we still bickered like children, as my dad would say exasperated. Speaking of the man himself, my dad jogged over, his face bright with excitement.
“We got one kid's, an old too by the looks of him, come give us a hand” he jogged back over to my uncle, who was tying up a very pissed off male vampire. He was old, I thought as I felt his undead presence wash over me. It’s a strange thing to describe, the ‘sensing’ of other undead creatures, but it was like the older the vampire got, the more potent their essence became. As I watched my dad pin the vamp down, so my uncle had an easier time tying the holy water drenched ropes around the male’s wrists and ankles, I noted the uncanny resemblance the vampire had to Spike, a character from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Now, how’s that for irony?
My hysterics had caught everyone’s attention apparently, as even the spike look-alike had paused in his struggles to stare at me like I was insane.
“Sorry, just couldn’t help but notice the Billy Idol wannabe and thought of that old TV show I used to watch,” I say as I turn to collect the duffel bag that I had dropped earlier.
“You mean the Spike look-a-like here?” my brother comments with a grin “yeah, I noticed too” chuckling and shaking his head at the vampire, who has now resumed his cursing and struggle to get free. It’s a total cliché, I know, but to this day I still loved that show.
As I smile to myself, my dad and uncle muscle the vampire over to the van while my brother trots over to me. Taking my bag and slinging it over his shoulder, he wraps his other arm over my shoulders in that brotherly way he always does. I smile up at him, and reach my free hand up to muss his short blonde hair, dishevelling it further, and sending vampire dust everywhere, much to his disdain.
“Are you ever going to stop treating me like a kid, shorty” he groans at me, as he tries and swats my hand away half-heartedly. We both knew he really didn’t mind my big sister habits, but it was the usual banter between us. Not that I looked big next to him. Tristan, along with my dad and uncle Ayden, were all built strong like soldiers and topped over 6 feet tall, but even then, my brother was taller again, at 6’4. Hence my nickname shorty. Though apparently above average in height, I was only 5’6 and absolutely hating it, I wore heeled boots often to try and compensate.
“You know you love it bub” I quip back, as he hugs me tighter to his side, and we walk over to the van.
“Let’s get back to base you two” my dad calls out from the passenger window “you know how your mother worries when we are late” he finishes, as he types out a message on his phone, probably to my grandmother to tell her we were all okay. I jump in the back, my brother tossing my bag onto the floor under our seats, before jumping in and sliding the door closed behind him.
As we drive off, I cast one final look at my unit, before the van tears off out of the parking lot, and into the night.
“You okay?” My brother asks.
“Yeah” is the only reply I can muster as my thoughts turn to what was going to come next. I had broken a big rule in re-ensouling Tina, and my Grandmother was going to be pissed.
Thanks for reading! Look out for my next chapter part 1 on Monday and tomorrow's post will be some more illustrations of my characters :) #loveyourguts!
