The evil stench of death permeated the crisp night air, taking away what little the world had left in it. Rain clouds drifted above like lost children trying to find where they belonged, their tears of desolation riding the wind to fall on dying soil. Fog, thick as a jungle, hung in the air concealing and enveloping what depravities were being done in the night.
There was no reason not to kill it; the prey trying to deceive to predator. How mistaken some creatures could be. It lay, writhing beneath unsheathed claws, hissing madly, spraying acidic spittle all over the earth trying to escape its inevitable demise. Such a being did not deserve to waste the earth of its precious oxygen. With a sickening twist of the hideous monster’s neck, it stopped moving, if only temporarily. These fiends were never easy to destroy; there was an art at slaying the undead, a skill, so to speak. If one did not have such ability in doing so, death would approach as quickly as it would recede.
Riley Channing called upon the heavens as lightning arced from dancing cloud to dancing cloud and finally into his palm, having the blue electricity race from each of his fingertips and at last running through his entire being. He smiled humorlessly to himself at the feeling of immense power contacting him, feeling his desire to have more. He had the impression the Gods were laughing at him, taunting him for his weakness at being immortal yet having to stay in this nightmare called Earth; or Purgatory as he called it. Riley directed the lethal energy toward his enemy, the vampire, and incinerated it completely leaving only ashes that blew away in the tendrils of fog. Finally, as if waiting for him to complete his task, the clouds above began to shed tears, raining down on him in relentless amounts. He tilted his head toward the crying sky, letting the rain cleanse away the bloodstains of that of the deceased on his body, along with rinsing the world of its terrible sins. Why couldn’t it always be this clean in the world? Why not rain forever? Purify the earth, and the greedy human beings who corrupt it? Why did monsters such as he have to live in this realm? Why was his race created, to rid humanity of terrible people, or to dominate the planet? Why? No, his race was created as a joke for the Gods, to be toyed with by humanity and to live in this hell for all of eternity. Why? Because his race, too, was evil and tainted, always bloodthirsty and wanting more.
Riley shook his head in a feeble attempt to rid his irrational thinking, but to no avail; he just couldn’t understand why his kind was so malevolent. But then again, that was why the King had made him a Guard, a protector of his people and humans alike. Whenever a rogue disobeyed the rules of the King, a Guard was sent to terminate it. It was simply the way it had always been, no questions asked, unless you, too, wanted to be eradicated. Riley looked down at his hands and stared revoltingly at them. They were his tools of death, his weapons of destruction. His entire body was as skilled and lethal as his mind was. He was a hunter of the damned, a protector of the weak; or at least that's what he wanted to believe. In reality, he knew he was just as sinful as the demons he slaughtered, and he loathed himself for it. Honor and loyalty were the only reasons he had not greeted the sun yet. It was his duty to advocate a sense of justice in his territory. He was an accomplished hunter, with centuries of wisdom and knowledge, practice and training in the art of termination, a feared predator by his race. Yet he lacked something so vital …and he couldn’t place what. He just felt so completely empty, as if numb by all the centuries of killing and carnage, of being cursed and cursed again. He lived in a bleak and barren world and always would be.
He took to the sky, shifting shape into a large owl as he did so, its great wings beating furiously in the night air. The wind carried the scent of prey coming from the east; he flared out his senses and recognized it was three humans, male to be exact. The predator in him growled dangerously, realizing he had not fed this rising. Riley swooped down to land on a tree branch just out of vision from his prey, and swept through their minds. Two of the three were far beyond intoxicated and the third was trying to coax them into going back to his house before something bad happened. Smart human, Riley thought. He was too ravenous to care much if he would be drinking poisoned blood from the alcohol induced humans; his system would reject the contents in it anyway, leaving the blood free of toxins. His eyes began to glow an eerie crimson as he started to lure the human beings into his peripheral vision. He landed on the ground elegantly, shifting back to his original form as he did so.
The three men walked, as if in a trance, to where he patiently waited for his victims. He smiled pleasantly at his prey. The sober man glided up to Riley first, jovial, and willingly bent his head to the side, offering his neck to the greedy vampire. Riley gladly took the submission and sank his teeth in deep, drinking the contents voraciously. Power that was lost from his struggle with the rogue surged back into him as he kept drinking until he felt the man stagger from the loss of blood. He helped the human to the ground, leaning him against the trunk of a tree, before he continued with the rest of his meal. He drank his full with the other two humans and helped them to the ground as well. Riley destroyed the memories of what had happened, and implanted new ones of the three being mugged in the park for when they awoke.
'Vampire hunters' or so they claimed, lived in the area, which was why Riley was assigned to live in this region. Sick men fascinated with supernatural creatures such as him. They experimented with chemicals, hoping to one day rid the world of his race. Already, he had saved one of his kind from the terrors being done in their laboratories. But mostly, the victims were humans, humans that supposedly went out only at night, were never seen eating, and therefore, were 'suspicious' and taken in for experimentation; horrible research tests conducted to see if the victims were in fact, vampires. And every time they turned out to be human, which was almost always the case, they were killed to keep quiet. Such a diseased world…
The soft click of her new digital camera echoed in the dark interior of the cavern. The picture was perfect, a unique look at life in darkness. Now all she needed to do was carefully get out the way she came in, and leave this enchanted place. No doubt, she was going to come back; there was something special about it. Something she couldn’t quite place, but she knew it was important. So much beauty existed in the world and she intended to get every inch of it on her camera.
Sienna Miller locked the door behind her as she gave a final sigh of relief to be home. Her small apartment in Portland was smashed in between two larger complexes on either side. But she liked the old world class her building had; the homey feel it gave off. It was why she had bought it in the first place instead of the other more modern apartments; that and this was extremely cheaper than anywhere else that was safe, in Port Angeles. Kane meowed his greeting as she stepped into the kitchen to pour him some fresh water and food. She had found this frisky feline one night about a year ago meowing and scratching at her door to escape the frigid winter; Sienna hadn’t kicked him out yet.
She looked at the clock and mentally kicked herself for not getting home sooner; she shouldn’t have been at the reserve for so long, it had already gotten dark. She had to pick up little Vanessa from her friend's house in thirty minutes for her neighbor, Barbara. It wasn’t as if she was forced to do this; Barbara was a good friend, almost like a mother to her, and Vanessa was just ungodly adorable. She usually watched Nessa on the weekends, but Barbara finally had a date with someone descent, something that hadn’t happened in over four years since Nessa's dad passed away, and Sienna wasn’t exactly up on the 'social ladder' so to speak, so she had time. She called Barbara for directions to the house Nessa was staying at, and left with her favorite jacket, the kind that was beyond washing, and her beloved camera.
She had to get home early tonight; the first day of her senior year of high school was tomorrow, and she had a summer reading to do that she hadn’t even started on yet. Damn. Her car started with a dull roar as it sputtered out some sort of grayish black smoke she knew she should have someone look at, and left her tiny house smooshed between larger, more extravagant buildings. She was surprised to find out that the house was very close to the reserve she had been to earlier today. It was just a twenty-minute drive, but the city landscape gave way and the country soon enveloped her; trees were more abundant, highlighted by the liquid moonlight while the roads were scarcely lit. How did Vanessa come to know this friend? Did she meet her at school? Then again, she shouldn’t have been the least bit surprised considering Vanessa went to an all girls’ private school. Barbara only wanted the best for her child...even if it did cost an arm and a leg. The houses she caught glimpses of were ridiculous! They didn’t even fit into the category of a house; maybe mansion, but even that was an understatement. The 'houses' were gorgeous, beautifully intricate designs crawling all over the exteriors, winding staircases outside and château looking balconies. She suddenly felt very self-conscious of her and her 12 year old, little Volvo.
She soon found the right driveway to turn into, and followed the winding road toward the grand palace that was called a house. As she got out of the car, she noticed how her breath was coming out in small puffs in the crisp, night air. Winter here was wonderful. It just seemed so much cleaner, so much fresher when winter emerged.
She didn’t at all need help finding the front door. Small lights lit the way for her like some enchanted forest…it felt fake to her for some reason, as if this were some weird ploy. Sienna’s imagination was terribly overdone. Ever since she was little, she would have all of these stories inside her mind, running at full blast. When her mother was still alive, she would tell Sienna all of these wonderful fantasy stories about fairies and love and all of that mushy stuff. Her favorite story, though, was the one how her parents met and fell in love. It was her most cherished fairy tale…
She hadn’t realized that her feet had stopped and her fist collided with the front door of an extremely large mansion. Her nostalgic thoughts were ripped away as the front door opened. She came face to face with a very handsome couple holding each other lovingly. A man with naturally tanned skin and dark, almost black hair, stood about six feet tall, much taller than, Sienna could only imagine, his wife. She was a lovely woman, with a kind aura. She had about the same color hair as her husband and chocolate brown eyes that shined happiness whenever she gazed up at her beloved. They were beautiful, ethereally so.
Vanessa ran up and almost knocked Sienna on the ground from her colossal hug. "Hey, Nessa. Did you have fun?" Sienna asked, her tone warming considerably at the young child's bouncy personality.
"It was a lot of fun! I had a lot of fun!" Nessa bounced around her as she spoke of her time at her friend's.
Sienna looked up at the couple and smiled genuinely. "Hi, I'm Sienna Miller. I'm Vanessa's babysitter. Nice to meet you." While Sienna spoke with the young couple, Vanessa and her playmate, Sean, a young girl her age that resembled her beautiful parents, were running around outside, close to the house.
The woman smiled kindly at her. "It is very nice to meet you, Sienna. My name is Isabella Manolito, and this is my husband, Aiden. Why don’t you come inside for a moment while Vanessa gathers her things?" Isabella suggested.
She nodded and called Vanessa in the house to go and get her things, while Isabella called her daughter into the house and help Vanessa.
"Thank you so very much for having Vanessa over today. Her mother and I appreciate it greatly. I hope she wasn’t too much of a nutcase for you." She sat down in their grand living room in an unbelievably comfortable chair that felt like a little slice of Paradise. A chandelier hung above her as thousands of tiny little crystals glittered off the walls. The theme seemed to be gold, for the walls were painted a beautiful creamy gold. The winding staircase was seemed a little darker than the walls but still fit in wonderfully, with intricate designs carved into the wood.
The woman laughed and smiled at Sienna with kind eyes. "Of course not; she was a complete treasure. We loved having her. She's welcomed any time."
Sienna breathed a sigh of relief; she knew Nessa to sometimes be…a little seven year old. She inwardly laughed at herself; she was being overly self-conscious of herself in front of these people. "You have the most beautiful home I have ever seen, Mr. and Mrs. Manolito." Sienna commented. She had wanted to say that since they opened up their door, but that would have seemed a little desperate. And it was so true; there was such a mysterious air about it. She wanted to see more.
Aiden flashed a genuine smile, while Isabella full out laughed. That was somewhat confusing…Sienna glanced from husband to wife and back wondering what was so amusing. "Oh, child, I wish I could say 'thank you, don't I know it,' but I cannot take credit for what it is not mine." Still confused, she waited for the young woman to continue. "This house belongs to the young master, Riley Channing. We are his personal caretakers. We take care of the house and anything he needs from us and in return, he lets us live here. I guess you could say, I am a maid and Aiden is a butler." She giggled as she said the last part, looking over at her beloved husband. Sienna cautiously looked over at Sean; Isabella caught the glance over to her daughter and understood what the young girl was thinking. "Young master takes wonderful care of her. He only expects the child to have a fun time and a real childhood. He practically made us put her in a private school. But we thank him greatly. Our families go back many centuries, so we consider the young master to be our son, as well." Isabella sighed sweetly and Aiden came to her and embraced her as if they were the only two people in the whole world. Sienna smiled to herself; these two were truly and madly in love.
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