Chapter 5: The Russian Gregorians

    

     As I entered the small town of Tyumen, I felt a strong opposition to my presence. I was an outsider, and the locals thought I should just mind my own business and leave.

     I turned the next corner into the darkness of the alley, looking both ways, making sure, in all senses, that I was alone. Finding that I was, I let a shiver of heat run down my back, changing me. Slowly I crept forward, paws making no sound on the packed ground as I went forward to find out what I could about the cult of ole Rasputin.

     I crept from door to door, hall to hall, and alley to alley, searching for some tidbit, some piece of information. I needed to find them, quickly, before someone decided to shoot me. It always happened.

     As I left the last alley, a shooting pain raced through my entire being. I felt myself slipping into that middle ground between light and dark that comes when you have a wound so grievous, you can’t even register it.

     I sank into the medium darkness, shying away from the light that I knew would be just as bad as the truer darkness that lay beside that darkness I drifted under.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

     I woke to a circle of faces, their expressions ranging from simply being unwelcoming to downright hatred. As they looked on I shifted back to a human, trading retractable claws and fur for clothes and a voice. There was a collective gasp as the cold heat of the experience rolled down my back, they’d apparently had no idea that I would be able to do that so easily.

    The leader spoke, his voice only slightly trembling out of shock.

    “Why are you here?”

     I looked him straight in his dark brown eyes, a show of dominance, “I just wanted ask a few questions, I mean geez, you just about did me in there. There was absolutely no reason to bash me over the head that hard. And, um, how did you know to, you know,...bean me in the first place?”

     The tall dark one on the left smiled, his glass bottle green eyes sparkling in the dim lighting. “That’s easy, why would anyone hit someone over the head when they come strolling into a new town like they own it? It was obvious you wanted something, so I tailed you.” He was still grinning.

      I looked at him incredulously, then I started giggling. Uncontrollably. Everyone else cracked up. He’d unintentionally made a really great pun. Finally he joined in, realizing what he’d said. The tension broke, the weak link of mistrust replaced by the stronger chain of humor.

      The leader looked at me again, warmly this time. “So, young miscreant," I looked contritely down at the floor, I thought I had heard a smile, but his face didn't show it, "Would you like to stay for dinner?”

      Just that simple question, the beginning of many such quests of mine, thrust me even deeper into the maze of that conundrum named Dracula.

Author's Note

I'm trying to make my characters have more individual character. Make their words help you visualize them. Suggestions?

Reviews

[Hot-N-Cold_17]

I think that you are doing that quiet well I would try to give just a little more detail if I were you but that is all that I would say but keep writing I like it.