Chapter Four

Three days has passed since Daryl spent his first night in Four Stone Manor. Daryl finds his secret power whilst out hunting with Felix and an unwanted visitor is caught snooping around the gardens.

It had been three days since my first night in Four Stone Manor and I’d practically forgotten about my family and friends thinking that Arcturus, Tamsin, Felix and Eve were all I needed.

Arcturus had been training me to control my transformations so that I could change when I wanted to, rather than when nature wanted me to. It was a long and painful task, but I think I was getting the hang of it. To be honest it was more intense than being in the army, and afterwards I was so weak, but more training had to be done.

Felix had been taking me out on a night hunting for blood so we could remain strong. It was strange to think that a nice guy could easily kill someone and not feel guilty for killing them. He tried to explain that when you’re in your vampiric state, all of your human emotions are overtaken by those of a vampire. It made sense however it was still disgusting to watch. The first night we went on the prowl, he showed me how to do it. The lunging, the tilting of the head, the biting and the feeding. He made it look so easy. The second night was my turn, my time to shine. I was determined to get it right first time, in honesty I wanted to impress him more than anything.

We hid in the shadows waiting for our prey to arrive. Felix had warned me of the differences between biting to kill and biting to transform. Tonight we were biting to kill.

A podgy middle-aged man stumbled down the alley where we were hiding, he was drunk and was singing to himself, falling over rubbish bags. Felix pointed towards him signalling for me to attack.

‘This is going to be easy’ I thought to myself. I tried to concentrate on changing. I could feel my eyes expanding, my fangs growing and the determination welling up inside of me.

‘Remember what Arcturus was saying, keep going you’re nearly there’ whispered Felix encouragingly. I did it, I changed in to my vampiric state. But there was no time to stand around being impressed with myself. I launched myself in front of the drunken man, hissing at him as he screamed.

‘GET BACK! GET BACK!’ I threw myself at his body, aiming for his neck I opened my mouth wide, my fangs poised to piecing his leathery skin. I wasn’t quick enough, not even for a drunken, middle-aged man. He punched me to the ground and pinned me down holding  a broken glass bottle at my face. I could feel the drunk man’s fear as he raised the bottle above his head, ready to strike me. I was panicking, Felix was panicking and changed into his jaguar and was bounding towards us. Before he got to the man and I battling on the ground, I’d changed once more into the famous black smoke, I moved behind the man faster than he could blink and held him up so Felix could attack. I could feel the anger inside of Felix as he ripped the man to pieces. The alley was a wash of sound, the man’s screams and Felix’s roar echoed. The drunken man was trying with all of his might to break free, but it was useless. I held him upright effortlessly and Felix’s claws ripped through his body like a butcher’s knife. Then he stopped. I dropped the body to the floor and turned back into my original self, Felix to turned back. We stared at the body, the mass of organs and the buckets of blood were all over the alley.

I flung my arms around Felix and buried my head within his robe.

‘How...did you do that?’ He questioned. I let go and took a few steps back.

‘Do what?’ I replied, puzzled by what he meant. As far as I was aware I failed.

‘Moved that fast. I’ve never seen someone do that, I was ready to pounce and get him off you’ I knew what he meant. He seemed impressed, I smiled shyly at him before we both started laughing. I didn’t know what was funny, we’d just killed an innocent man and here we were, laughing like nothing had happened. The laughter suddenly stopped when we heard sirens coming from all directions.

‘We’d better get back’ he said, looking around anxiously. We ran back to Four Stone Manor, being a vampire gave you practically unlimited stamina. We ran and ran until we crossed the threshold and bolted the door. Eve shot down the stairs like a bullet and stood in front of us, ready for an argument.

‘WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?’ She screamed at Felix.

‘Hunting, Eve, you should have seen it, Daz can move at high speed’ Felix sounded impressed with himself more than me. He stood tall in front of Eve

‘I don’t care’ Felix lowered himself to her.

‘There are sirens going off all round town and YOU TWO are running off to practise his running’ She was angry, very angry. Now I knew for certain that she didn’t like me. She emphasised “his” and glared at me. She lowered herself physically to my level, I wasn’t much smaller than Felix but I guess she just wanted to get in my face to demoralize me.

‘Just because you have more power that the rest of us, doesn’t mean you’re better than us’ She whispered in her usual evil manner. She stood back up and walked off back up the stairs and disappeared. Felix looked at me and began to silently laugh.

‘Take it she hasn’t fed in a long time’ he joked. We laughed some more until I began to yawn.

‘Think I’m going to go to bed now, been a long day’ I declared.

‘Ok, sleep tight, don’t let the vampires bite’ We laughed some more as I began to walk up the stairs.

Suddenly the door flung open, taking the bolt clean off, and a small rugged figure was thrown through the door followed by Tamsin who slammed the door shut on her way in.

‘You disgusting little creature, how dare you trespass on my property’ She flung him once more into the already cracked mirror on the wall. The figure fell to the floor in a rain of glass. Arcturus and Eve bolted down the stairs and grabbed Tamsin by both arms. Felix ran to the figure and lifted him to his feet, restraining him. I didn’t know what to do, I just stood on the stairs and watched as Tamsin hissed at the dishevelled creature.

‘WHAT’S ALL THIS?’ Interrupted Arcturus.

‘HE’S A SLAVE OF DRAYTON, HE’S A SLAVE OF DRAYTON’. Tamsin screamed, she looked possessed as she screamed.

‘I caught him sneaking around the gardens Arc’ She simmered down quickly as she returned to her human state. Arcturus, Eve and Felix were stunned. Silence fell until Arcturus ordered.

‘Take him to the dining room and make sure he doesn’t leave. Eve you go with Felix. Daryl can you fetch some water for our guest’ I just wanted to go to sleep, but curiosity got the better of me. I ran to the kitchen, got some water and ran into the dining room. I never got a proper look of this room before. It was almost the same as my bedroom, it’s walls were red and a huge fire flickered light across the drawn velvet curtains. I handed the water over to Arcturus.

The figure was definitely nothing to look at, he was youngish with scars across his face. His face and hands were smeared with mud and his fingernails were black. His hair was greasy and hanging down his face like rats tails. The clothes he wore were unclean, ragged and torn.

‘What are you doing here?’ Asked Arcturus as he passed the water to the man. He gulped the entire cup and stared deep into the eyes of Arcturus.

‘Arcturus, leader of freedom within the four orders’ His voice was creepy as he addressed Arcturus.

‘I come with a message from Lord Drayton’

‘What message?’ Questioned Arcturus. I couldn’t help but stare at the man as he moved his hair away from his face. He lifted his bony finger and pointed in my direction, he didn’t look, just pointed.

‘He knows you have a new one’ the man laughed to himself and tried to rise up from the chair. Felix pushed him back down by his shoulders. I could see in Eve’s eyes that she was geared up to attack and kill. The man pulled out a worn scroll and unravelled it. The man read aloud, clearing his throat before he started.

‘Arcturus of freedom. It has come to our attention that you are harbouring and training a new soul for which I understand is even stronger than yourself. I, Lord Drayton of supremacy and leader of the four orders order you to turn this new soul over to the four orders immediately.’

‘This is preposterous’ interrupted Arcturus.

‘There’s no way he can have him’ The man cleared his throat once more and began to read aloud.

‘Your freedom fighters have caused enough problems. Due to this I have no regrets in killing them. I wish to challenge your new soul for which I’m sure no physical exertion will be needed. Upon me winning the battle will make me rise again. If I lose you will control the four orders. Failure to turn over the soul to the four orders will result in your demise. Lord Drayton of supremacy.’ Arcturus, Eve, Tamsin and Felix looked scared. I was scared, I thought I knew everything about vampires and it turns out I’ve only just got the tip of the ice berg. What was the four orders? And why is Arcturus fighting for freedom.

The man was giggling to himself in the chair whilst being held down by Felix.

‘I’ve heard enough’ Eve pulled out her dagger and launched herself towards the man. He shook free of Felix and ran over the table towards the door in a rat like fashion.

‘STOP HIM!’ Screamed Tamsin. My heart was pounding faster and faster, I had to help. I pulled a sword away from the wall and ran towards the door in a trail of black smoke at high speed. He had just put his hand on the door handle and that’s when I swung the sword and pierced the shiny metallic blade through his back.

The room fell still, I could feel the glare of everyone in the room staring at me in disbelief. I pulled the sword from his back and allowed him to fall slowly against the door, leaving a trail of blood. I stood there holding the sword clenched in one fist towards the floor. Blood dripping down it like water. I just stood there and looked  at his body, I didn’t feel anything, no guilt, no pain, no hatred for myself. I turned around to face everyone and rested the blade over my shoulder. Everyone looked at me in disbelief, I could see the hint of a smile from Arcturus, Tamsin and Felix. The only hint I got from Eve was that of pure evil. Looking at me like she was going to kill me. She placed her dagger back in her robe and walked off, knocking my shoulder and she vanished through the door.

I looked down at the floor and saw the open scroll and the words “I WILL RISE AGAIN!” at the bottom.

Reviews

[Aarontastic]

Tbh, this is only the second chapter I read of your story; I read the prologue and it seemed interesting, but I'm super tired so I just skipped all the way to this one =p So it's not like I've read the whole thing yet, but I still feel like I get the general gist of how the it's unfolding.

I like the plot of the book (it helps that I really love vampire), and there are a lot of things I like about your writing style: I like the dialogue quite a bit especially, and some of the narrations of the action scenes. In this chapter, the fight scene with the drunk dude and the main character stands out.

There are some things about it I thought could be a little bit improved though, firstly there are a bunch of little grammatical errors which aren't really a big deal, but they can be a bit distracting when they keep popping up.

The other thing that sort of bugged me a bit was the 'pacing' of the story, and by that I mean that sometimes the different scenes seemed to blend together because they all happen so quickly, and sometimes that precludes you from expanding on interesting topics. For example, at the very beginning of this chapter, Daryl was recalling how much his family and friends and whole 'past life' seemed to be slipping into the background, and I sort of felt like hearing more about that. Same with when they killed/ate the drunk guy; I wanted to hear more about (presumably) the first time Daryl had participated in killing somebody and how he felt about it. Then again, maybe it's just not your style to talk about that kind of stuff, but I just think it would give your characters more emotional depth and make the story more engaging.

Anyway, I like reading your story a lot as it is already so I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it + the sequel =]

[Vanessa Rico]

Cliff hanger! Ugh I am in suspense mode right now! I want to find out what happens next!! Like all of your works, it is well-written and grabs your attention and doesnt let go! Keep me posted on your next chapter!