Chapter 4: Apprehension, Comprehension

Alex and the rest of the Protectors look up Chaos, to find out how he has become so strong

Chapter 4

Apprehension, Comprehension

Books, books and more books.

 

 

Knocking on the door of Biology, I reflected on what I could say: Miss, well guess what? They’re back… No. Umm…Miss! Problem! No! Oh it doesn’t matter, I was never good at breaking things easily to people; it’s just a waste of time.

            ‘Come in,’ said a voice from the other side of the door. I opened it, peering into the classroom at the people in it. Great, just what I needed. They were my classmates. Ashley looked at me, worried. I noticed that she was sitting next to Taylor, and Alyssa was sitting on his other side. Well that was normal, seeing as Taylor was almost as good friends with Alyssa as he was with me. Good, he’ll have told them what happened I thought; I didn’t want to have to explain. On Ashley’s other side was Mike. MIKE!!!! What!!??? Ashley, the boy hater, was surrounded by them! And before she saw me, she looked like she was enjoying herself!!! What’s happening to the world as we know it?! WHAT??!!!

            ‘Is there a particular reason for you to interrupt my lesson, Miss Lycan?’ asked Miss Quatra, her shoulder-length, fair hair straight as a ruler and impeccable, as always.

            ‘Um…’ I hesitated, glancing around the room. ‘It’s something…in the hallway…can I show you? It would make it much easier.’

            ‘Certainly,’ the science teacher said to me, and then turned towards her class. ‘Read chapter 9 and reply to questions 1 to 13 while I’m gone.  No talk will be needed, and I’ll be right in the hallway if someone does make a sound.’

            And with that, she turned on her heel and followed me out of the door. As soon as it was closed behind us I put my hand over her mouth as she screamed, seeing Kaylee frozen on the ground.

            ‘He’s back, more powerful than ever. I need you to warn the staff about the, (here I laughed humourlessly) wolves coming early.’ While I was talking I took my hand off her face.

            ‘So soon?’ Miss Quatra was astounded, then she regained her and nodded, gulping as she looked at the corpse, ‘it can be done. Within two days we’ll be able to camp out for a week in the sports hall if necessary. After all that this school has been through, we’ll be prepared for anything.’

            She seemed so sure of herself, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking, while looking at the icicle at my feet: I hope that you’re prepared enough for this. But we can’t let anyone else end up like this. I had to stop the tears from finding their way to my eyes, so I explained hastily:

            ‘Kaylee only became Protector this morning, so that only her enhanced sight had come. I didn’t even get the time to explain what vampires were capable of before those damned (I spat the word out with such vehement that the teacher took a step back)…bloodsuckers…appeared. There are three of them now, I don’t know how but he (the teachers couldn’t bear to hear Chaos’ real name), apparently has two children now, a boy who doesn’t look like him, and a girl who is definitely his daughter. So Selene (here Miss Quatra gave a little start) and I had our hands full! We couldn’t help her, especially seeing as the bloodsuckers are strong enough for two of us now, at the least. I don’t know exactly how, or why, but they are. So if you actually weigh up the odds, it was 6 to 2, we had no chance -’

            ‘Stop,’ the teacher held up a hand, stopping my endless babble. ‘No one will think it’s your fault, don’t worry. You two tried your very best -’

            ‘- which wasn’t good enough.’ I interrupted her.

            ‘- even though I was a little scared about Selene,’ she continued as if nothing had happened. ‘I thought that face to face with human blood (she pointed to my cheek, which was covered in congealed blood), she would crack. Yet she proved to be harder than I thought. That is good news.’

            ‘Ha! Good news? Selene’s extremely upset. Kaylee was really close to her; of course she was going to take her anger out on the one’s that murdered her best friend!’ I said, a little hysterically.

            Just then, the bell rang. We both looked up in alarm, it was lunch break. Students would be pouring out of class any minute now.

            ‘I’ll…take care…of Kaylee, while you go and see to Selene and get a bite to eat. You, yes both of you, should be distraught. Now run along, and wipe your face.’ The teacher took charge, calming me down.

            I dutifully trudged down the hall to the bathroom to get Selene, and face the tantrum of a superhuman creature.

*************

 

            As I got to the cafeteria, alone because Selene had run off somewhere for some “alone time”, I felt my heart get heavier and heavier. I had never let someone get killed like that before. Sure it’s ok on the battlefield but this was murder. Sure I had read about it but it didn’t seem real then. Now…I sighed, pulled the door open and walked across the room to where the trays were. Holding up my plate as the dinner lady in the hairnet wiped a greasy hand on her already messy apron; I looked around for my friends. The hand took the ladle, plunged it into a green-orange gloop and then proceeded to dump it onto my plate. Spotting Ashley, I hurriedly thanked the woman for the horrible, unidentifiable sludge, (who grunted in return), and hastened over to my friends’ table.

            I sat down in an empty seat, in between Taylor and Alyssa, and plunked my tray on top of the already unsteady pile of untouched plates.

            ‘So??’ asked Ashley.

            ‘So what?’ I replied, not looking up from my fingers, intent on shredding the napkin that the cook had foisted upon me.

            ‘You know,’ she looked around. ‘Was Chaos there? How’s Selene doing after what happened before? You did you come into biology? You looked so upset, if I didn’t know you better; I would say that you were on the verge of crying. What could be that bad so soon? It’s not as if anyone’s died or anything...’ she insisted light-heartedly

‘Well done, you guessed it. You must be psychic or something,’ I said sarcastically, angrily fighting against tears for the second time that day.

Don’t cry; don’t cry, don’t cry! You never cry, I chanted systematically under my breath.

            ‘Come on, please just tell us what’s up?’ pleaded Taylor uncomprehendingly.

            ‘Ashley just told you.’ I said flatly, carefully hiding all emotion from my voice.

            The atmosphere, which was light and happy two seconds ago, just plummeted into silence, sobering up the air extremely quickly. Ashley opened her mouth in confusion, then closed it, comprehension dawning on her face. A similar expression of shock was creeping its way over Alyssa. Taylor looked as if the sun had just gone behind a dark cloud.

            ‘What? Who?’ He finally managed to choke out two words. The others looked at me in silence, waiting on my response.

            ‘Kaylee,’ I replied quietly. A wave of grief passed through me and I buried my face in his shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry but I couldn’t do anything; Chaos is stronger than he’s ever been before, only after a day, and there are two others now, and Kaylee didn’t even know vampires existed before this morning, and she became a Protector too but not for long so she was defenceless, and me and Selene tried but…’

            ‘Hey, no one’s blaming you,’ Alyssa reassured me as Taylor put his arms around me comfortingly.

            ‘Yeah, like, we couldn’t have done any better if we were in your place,’ added Ashley brokenly, tears streaming down her cheeks. Though I was misty-eyed, years of experience held mine in check.

            Our table was silent in the middle of the noisy, happy, school cafeteria. No one spoke for a long time, for any words spoken would have no meaning in our moment of grief. Alyssa was patting Ashley on the back and Taylor offered her a tissue. At least we were together to comfort each other.

‘Alex,’ Taylor ventured. ‘We understand if you want to cry, anyone would in your shoes.’

            ‘I can’t,’ I replied sadly, and it was true that either my stubborn nature, or the fact that it felt like everything would fall to pieces, never to piece them back together again made me swallow my tears and I stood up. ‘We need to do something about this now! We can’t have time to mope, we’ll do whatever we can to hurt the bloodsuckers, and we’ll do it all in Kaylee’s name!’

‘You’re right,’ said Taylor, before adding a little hesitantly. ‘Um…you guys? I think we’ll have to stop lessons too. And another thing, I know that it’s usually if he’s been here for over a week, but I think that we should all pretend to go camping in a couple of days to prepare things,’ he made a face at the lie before continuing: ‘We should really get to the library, and check out what Alex told us.’

He looked at me, ‘is that ok with you?’

            ‘Yeah,’ I nodded, hardening my grief into hate, something that would drive me to work harder against Chaos, this time to get rid of him once and for all. ‘If we’re ever going to get them back for kill-…if we’re ever going to get them back from what they did, we’ll need to know. This fight with Chaos has gone on for too long.’

            Taylor looked anxious. ‘I wish we knew if Selene’s okay, I feel really sorry for her. I mean, none of us apart from you really know…knew her. But Kaylee and Selene were like that.’ He intertwined two of his fingers.

            ‘Well, the library’s open now,’ Alyssa said looking at her watch. I noticed that the canteen was already half empty. ‘It’s one, I propose that we go straight away to the library and read anything we can. Alex, do you still have your key?’ I nodded. ‘Good, I’ll make copies for us three.’

Everyone gave her a weird look.

‘What? I have my ways,’ she said shrugging. ‘I know most of the library sections (surprise; surprise!) and there’s a whole row of shelves at the back full of vampire and werewolf mythology. I don’t think anyone else goes there because it’s one of the locked sections.’

Taylor was still staring at me, his eyes still full of concern. I returned his gaze, trying to seem all right, even though I wasn’t. Suddenly he looked alarmed and surprised, even though nothing had happened.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked him in an undertone, as the others put everything in a neat pile on the table.

He hesitated, started to say something, and then changed mid-phrase:

‘I thought I saw �" no nothing, nothing happened.’

            I gave him a strange look, but he seemed fine, and he probably wouldn’t want to talk about it. Plus, I didn’t really want a conversation with the image of a frozen Kaylee still in my head. So I stood up and together we all walked towards the door, our minds full of vengeance. To the library!

*************

 

            Alyssa was right, the library was open, but the Chauveau was nowhere in sight. Good, I won’t be able to yell at her again; if only the library had been open Kaylee might still have been here, I thought with contempt. The five of us walked in, and Ashley, Taylor and I all followed Alyssa, her reddish brown hair swaying across her back. Once we got to the locked part about vampire/werewolf legends, she stopped and I put the key in the lock. All eyes were on this little piece of metal that was turning slowly, slowly. Then we heard a faint click; I passed the key to Aly, who disappeared off to make duplicates of it. Ashley and Taylor looked for books on one side, and in the middle, while I went down to the end of the bookcase. Browsing under vampires - talents, I found a promising book. I blew all the dust that had settled on it for at least over a century and sat down in my favourite squishy armchair. I barely read the first few pages when I found that it was useless for us. The pile of books grew and grew until I thought I found the right one. The title of this tome was a night in the light of the moon.

I flipped it open to the index:

 

Lunar Vampires, origins…………………………….p5

The lunar portals……………………………………p19

How to ward off vampires…………………….p50

How to recognize them………………………….p109

Vampire traits………………………………………p140

Full moons……………………………………………p184

The thirteenth gateway…………………….p213

Sworn enemies………………………………………p258

Reproduction………………………………………...p300

History……………………………………………………p356

 

       At this point I stopped reading, already knowing where I was going to go. I carefully opened the tome to page 213.

 

The thirteenth gateway

 

          A lunar vampire enters a gateway every winter, as soon as they deem the air cold enough to equal to that of their realm. Wherever they walk, they have to keep a bit of their realm with them to be able to go back if ever needed.

 

So that explains how Chaos always escaped. Every time! I had puzzled over this every year but never figured out where he went; he always disappeared without a trace and no matter how hard we looked, we couldn’t find him anywhere. We could have scoured the whole of the U.S and we still wouldn’t find him, I thought. How ironic this is all getting. I turned my attention back to the book:

 

            Any human bitten by this sort of vampire, only becomes the same type if bitten again by one of the lunar vampires, otherwise stays as the lowest rank (new vampire). The lunar vampire is restricted to winter appearances for if they stayed when it becomes hotter, it would be with dire consequences. The vampire would suffer terrible agony, carried to the spot where the sun touched them for the first time. Then they would be rooted to this place and would either burn or melt slowly for weeks on end, depending on the strength of the light.

            However, on the thirteenth appearance of the lunar vampire, in certain conditions, he would become a member of the superior type: the crescent vampire. The conditions are:

-          The lunar vampire must enter through the portal at twilight on the 13^th month of the year in its realm, therefore at sunrise in the 5^th month in the 5^th realm.

-          He must enter accompanied with a member of his immediate kin (creator, wife, children, siblings that are also vampires).

-          It must be his 13^th admission.

-          He must be a fully grown, powerful lunar vampire.

 

       I slowly shut the book with a thump. Chaos must be a crescent vampire. That would explain the change in his strength and abilities. I put the book back in its shelf and ran over to the others.

            ‘Taylor! Ashley! Help me look for crescent vampires!’

            ‘Got it,’ rejoined Taylor, going to the front of his book. He started to read aloud:

          ‘The crescent vampire, a higher class of being than the lunar vampire, is an extraordinary creature with many abilities. (He skipped a few pages) The talents of a crescent vampire are listed here below:

-          The crescent vampire is able to defy gravity to a certain extent, for example, he can scale walls and sheer cliffs, like a human can climb up a tree. He can also jump from high buildings without hurting himself and land light as a feather.

-          He has double the strength and speed he had when he was initially a lunar vampire.

-          Instead of aging every 10 years as a human does for one, the crescent vampire stuck in life, he is “immortal”.

-          Some crescent vampires have the power to hypnotize man and sense fear.’

 

‘So what, they’re like, indestructible?’ interrupted Ashley incredulously.

            ‘No wait, there’s another page on weaknesses,’ Taylor skipped a few more pages, cleared his throat, and began again:

 

            ‘Much as they would like to call themselves invincible, crescent vampires have all the weaknesses of all vampires, plus some special ones, which are all noted below:

-          Unlike other vampires, crescent vampire is unable to cross any threshold without being first invited into.

-          They are also unable to withstand direct, bright sunlight, without being burnt &/or blinded.  

-          A crescent vampire cannot tolerate fire of any sort, consequences being the same as that of sunlight (see above)

-          A vampire is unable to see him/herself in a mirror, because they have no reflection whatsoever, for to have a reflection is to have a soul.

 

‘What are you all peering at?’ asked Alyssa from behind our backs, making us all jump.

            ‘Holy grannies’ panties! Aly, you scared me! Thanks,’ Ashley said, taking the key that was proffered to her. She stood up, stretching. ‘Oh, my legs are killing me! Oh, look outside! It’s going to get dark soon! We’ve spent hours here!’

            ‘One minute, Alyssa,’ Taylor stopped us all in our tracks. ‘Where the heck did you manage to copy keys?’

            ‘Oh,’ Alyssa laughed. ‘I just got Mike to get the thing he made in techno last year. You know, you put the key in the machine, and it works a bit like a photocopier? That one.’

            ‘Aaaahh,’ we all replied in unison.

            ‘One more thing,’ I reminded them. ‘Remember the first time we faced Chaos?’ They all nodded, it wasn’t an experience you could quickly forget.

‘Well, remember we went camping in the oak woods because it was the only place that wasn’t touched by vampires? We were desperate, we were still human and the supernatural beings were way more powerful than us. Something freaky happened in there and we came out Protectors. I think we should do the same thing for this time. I know it’ll calm me down after what happened today, and anyway vampires are super scared of oak… And also, I really, really don’t want to see them soon, guys. We can make all the stakes then, we need new ones after I wrecked them all,’ I took a breath, looking a bit sheepish. ‘Sorry about that by the way. Anyhow, I have a feeling our old ones wouldn’t have made the cut.’

            ‘Yeah, we should. And according to the book, crescent vampires take a couple of weeks to completely recover from what you did to that Eva-thingy,’ added Ashley. (I had told them what had happened on the way to the library.)

            ‘Okay, that sounds like a good plan. Well, it sounds like a plan. But seeing as I don’t have a better one right now, I’ll go with it,’ said Alyssa. ‘See you tomorrow at, say… 9 o’clock?’

            We all agreed, then put all the books away as quickly as we could, hastily said our goodbyes - I reminded them all to skip school for the next few days, and to bring sleeping bags for the camp out in the woods -  and ran home. When we got to Taylor’s, we saw an orange and green note stuck to the fridge door:

 

Sorry I couldn’t stay for dinner,

But I was invited to stay at Aunty Janet’s

For a couple of days. Your aunt isn’t feeling

Too well so I’m going for moral support.

 I figured that

You wouldn’t want to miss school

Since you haven’t got back yet.

Studying in the library again?

Anyway, there’s lasagna in the

Microwave if you get hungry.

Love you both xxx

 

       There was a pause as we both read this extremely long note pinned onto the fridge with a magnet.

            ‘I guess now I know what to do if I need to wake her up out of a particularly disturbing fantasy. I hope she’s okay on her own for a while,’ Taylor sighed, breaking the silence as I set the microwave for a couple of minutes. He made an attempt at a joke. ‘Oh well, I suppose that means she’s not going to be able to be a target for Mister Dead Guy who never leaves us alone!’

            ‘Hey, talking about M.D.G (our nickname for him last year), can I sleep in your room tonight?’ I asked a little embarrassed.

            ‘Why, are you scared? Poor little Alex gonna be all alone?’ He laughed as he leant back on the countertop. ‘You never, ever, get scared. What’s up?’

            ‘The ceiling,’ I joked. ‘Okay, that was lame sorry. It’s just, I dunno, this time it’s different and I don’t want people to end up like Kaylee. Plus, you fall asleep so quickly, I’ll probably do the same just to stop myself from hearing you snore.’

            ‘Hey I don’t snore! Ok you can sleep in my room; one condition though,’ he smiled. ‘We’re watching a film that I’ll pick out.’

            ‘Deal,’ I replied as the microwave pinged. ‘Now let’s eat, I’m hungry.’

*************

 

            Later on, after some action film that we had already seen a billion times before, contrary to what I said, I tossed and turned in bed that night wondering what Chaos was doing. Then eventually Taylor’s deep breathing started making me feel sleepy. Before I knew it, I was asleep.