FicWad

Chapter One:

The puncture marks were deep, the flesh torn. The crimson blood had spilled all over the wound, running down the pale skin of my neck, making it look messier then it really was.
The thick poison was seeping through my veins, travelling at a painfully slow speed. Soon it would reach my heart, stopping it dead. It was burning its way through my body, slowly killing any and every human part of me.
The pain was unlike anything I had ever felt, my skin was burning, I felt like I was on fire, slowly melting apart with every passing second. My head pounded, my ears rang. I couldn’t even hear myself screaming, but I knew I was. It was so painful that I was being held down by two sets of arms, so distraught that I was fighting against my restraints, screaming so loudly my throat was dry; the sound felt like it was tearing apart my flesh just to get out.
That pain was nothing compared to the venomous liquid searing through my veins, burning me from the inside out, slowly destroying me, slowly taking away my life.
I was screaming so loudly I ran out of voice, I was in so much pain I had drawn blood from biting on my lips. My hands were bloody and sore from clawing at my skin, from pushing against my captors, from trying to escape. The poison was destroying my insides, and I was destroying myself on the outside.
All of my attempts to escape were futile. They had won, I was going to die, or worse, I was going to become one of them. I was going to become the very thing I despised more than anything.
All the fighting I had done, my entire life, it was all wasted because of this very moment. I was about to become the very thing we hunted.

*

I sat bolt upright in bed, my head spinning, my body covered in beads of sweat. I ran my hands over my arms trying to extinguish the lingering feelings of the fire cursing through my veins.
It was a dream. It was only a dream. It all starts with a dream; everything always starts with a dream, a vision, a nightmare.
I ran my hands over my neck, feeling for any sign of the blood that had been trickling down it moments before, searching for the cuts, the puncture marks, the evidence. It was clean, there was no blood, no puncture marks, nothing.
It was a nightmare. It wasn’t real. It didn’t happen; there was no tangible evidence of me having even been touched.
I took several deep breaths, I needed to calm down, and I needed to clear the images out of my head. I needed to get rid of the feeling of the poison running through me, the poison slowly killing me, extinguishing everything human about me. It all felt so real, and the feelings were still lingering over me. I couldn’t shake it, I couldn’t shake my fear. My heart still raced, it felt like it was trying to rip free of my chest.
I ran a hand through my damp hair, trying to calm myself. My dreams were always filled with scary things, my nightmares always vivid, but they were never like this. They were never this real; they never felt like this, I could still feel the hands pinning me down. The scariest part of it all was that my dreams always meant something, I always dreamed things that were about to happen, or that were already happening. I was more than familiar with the feeling of ‘déjà vu’ or even ‘premonitions’. I didn’t consider myself psychic, more just intuitive.
I couldn’t shake the thoughts of that happening to me from my head. I had fought my whole life to stop that from happening to anyone, the thought of it happening to me made me feel sick. It made my stomach churn, and my mouth go dry. I was never going to become one of them; I will never let that happen to me, never. I would never become a vampire.
Vampires were the most filthy and evil things to roam this earth, they killed anyone and everyone. They had no morals, no ethics; they were simply evil creatures, damned for all eternity.
They killed for fun; they hunted humans for sport and enjoyment. They didn’t care for anything other than their own existence.
I had spent my entire life hunting and killing them, I had grown up loathing them. It was almost programmed into me to hate them. I was brought up to believe that anything that was supernatural was evil and should be destroyed. Kill first, ask questions later. This life isn’t a normal one, especially for an 18 year old girl, but it’s my life and my destiny, I was called to live this life. I was one of the chosen few that had to live this life to protect everyone else. No one knows that while they sleep we roam the streets, protecting them and their dreams. While they sleep peacefully, unaware, we stop anything and everything from trying to harm them. We are the angels of the night, guarding them. We don’t get any praise or thanks, we get nothing. They can never know what we do, humanity and life as they know it would end if they ever found out.
We are the protectors of the whole human race; we are the protectors of the good. We keep the creatures too evil for hell at bay.
I have seen more things in my life that you would never even know existed. I’ve seen things that would make you afraid to close your eyes again; I’ve done things that you couldn’t even dream about.
Why? Why do I do all this?
That’s simple. I do this because I was chosen; I do this because I am a protector, because I am an Infernal Guard, the slayer of the damned and the saviour of the innocent.
For centuries evil has plagued the earth, for centuries and you would have never known it. You would have never known it because of us, because we keep it from destroying your lives, we keep it from seeping into your life and destroying you. We’ve kept it out of history; we’ve kept it from your sights. We keep you safe. We do all this for you.
I am one of the select few that are chosen to do this, one of the few who give their lives to protect the human race. I don’t know a life outside this, this is what I do, and this is who I am. This is what I was born to do. I am a protector of the innocent and a slayer of the damned. I know nothing else, I can dream of a life without this, but I don’t know how to live it. I’ve never known anything else.
This life is all I can remember, this lifestyle is all I know. I am trained to kill, I am trained to protect. My schooling didn’t consist of learning different mathematical equations, or writing poems, my schooling consisted of being trained how to fight, being taught history of evils you couldn’t even imagine, reading ancient stories. I know the history you know; only I know it better, I know more about it, and I know the truth.
I know all the same stories you do, all the same fairytales, myths and legends, but I know them better, I know the real stories, and I’ve seen more of them than you’ll ever know. The Brothers Grimm are the closest anyone from the outside will ever come to knowing the real stories.
I know how to fight better than anyone you will ever know, I am stronger than you would think. Trained in combat by masters of the art, I can kill people with one hand. I know how to use weapons you didn’t even think existed.
We don’t use guns; guns are useless for what we fight. They are effective if you want to kill a human, a person with a heartbeat, but when you are trying to kill the undead they are useless. Shoot a vampire and nothing will happen, it would be like a scratch, healed within minutes. Sure, you might slow them down for a few minutes, but in the long run they are useless.
The only way to effectively kill a vampire, in the quickest way, is to either chop of their head or strike him through the heart. Either way, when you are finished you have to burn the remains. If you fail to burn the remains then you probably failed to really kill the beast anyway. There are stories of people who forget to burn the bodies, forget to clean up their mess, most of those people go missing or wind up dead, and the vampire winds up killing more innocent people. They are sick bastards like that; they will exact their revenge in the most creative of ways.
A vampire is hard enough to deal with, but a vengeful vampire is even worse. They have eternity to plot their revenge.

“Lilly?” I was snapped from my thoughts by a whispered voice shattering the silence. “Lilly are you awake?”

“Yes Marty” I replied, letting my body relax, letting myself breathe again. “I’m awake.”

“I thought I heard something” he said into the darkness, the need for whispering now gone. He flicked on the light at the wall, bathing the room with bright light. I let my eyes painfully focus and adjust to the new brightness of their surroundings. “A bad dream?” he asked.
Marty was always fishing for information from me. I was one of the only Infernal’s to get premonition like dreams, therefore he was always interested to hear about my nights dreams. Or at least as far as I knew I was the only one. Information is a tricky thing to come by unless you know the right people. Not many people talk about that kind of thing.
They didn’t always come true, my dreams, but more often than not they were a clue about something. They were always a starting point, or in some cases, an ending point.

“Something like that” I nodded, getting up out of my small bed and pulling on a jumper. I wasn’t in any hurry to replay this dream to him; I didn’t want him to get worried, or to start trying to get any big ideas about protecting me.
Marty was human, pure and simple. He wasn’t an Infernal Guard, nor was he a Guide to any Guards. He was simply a human who was caught up in our world. If it was my choice, I would have never let him get so involved in our world, but someone else did. He was 25, and he looked every bit his age. Years of pouring over books, staying indoors and worrying about friends had taken a toll on his appearance.
He was taken into our care after the brutal murder of his parents, which of course, the Guards had tried to stop. He was seven years old, the sole human survivor of the whole night. With no family left, and no idea about what he had just witnessed, Marty was distraught. He latched onto the only person he thought he could trust, he clung to one of the Guard’s there that night.
Ever since then he has been part of our world, studying everything we do. He wasn’t in any way physically strong like us, but he was smart, and he knew every myth, legend and book in our archive. He was, in many ways, important to us, as we were to him. We were his family now.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked me, his pale skin glowing in the light of the room.

“Not right now” I shrugged, I didn’t want to talk about it ever if I could have my way. “What’s the time?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“It’s a little after 5” he replied. “The sun’s set to go down at 6:39 tonight” he added.
The thing I loved most about Marty was the fact that he was like a brother to me, we had grown up here together, and we knew each other inside out. He was the closest thing to real family that I would ever have, everyone here was.

“It was time to get up anyway then” I replied, walking with him into the small kitchen. We all lived in a small house in the middle of town. We lived in a small town, where no one asked any questions. I attended the local high school, Marty worked at the local hardware store. We tried to make ourselves look as normal as possible, despite our anything but ordinary activities.
There were 6 people in total who lived in this house. Marty, myself, three other Guards; Tom, Phillip and Jessie, and our Guide; Isaac. I was the youngest in the house, and also the only female. It wasn’t unusual though, females were not normally called into this life. I was one of the few, if not the sole one. I hadn’t heard of any living ones in a long time. Women are the people who bring life into this world, but in this line of work they are not usually the ones who take it. Well, if you could even call it life.
Tom and Phillip were twins, and Jessie was their younger cousin. It wasn’t unusual for a family to have multiple members called up, it was pretty common. The Infernal Guard’s bloodline can be traced back to essentially come from three separate bloodlines, and only these three bloodlines. People outside these bloodlines were never called, they were never chosen, and they went about their lives oblivious to everything. This was embedded in our blood and our history. Every family has its secrets. You’d be surprised what we know about the other major bloodlines of the world, royal families, tycoons; we can trace them all back to their origins. Some not as glamorous as they would have you believe.
Most people who are chosen are orphans, like myself, but there are a rare few who actually still have living parents. Generally their parents know about the whole thing, they are generally part of the small order that works to keep everything secret and works towards keeping everything supplied and everyone housed. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to function; we wouldn’t be able to operate. I guess they are like our officials, leading us, providing us with information of other units, the outside world, anything and everything we need to know.
Marty put the kettle on and I sat down at the small table in the kitchen. Spread all over it was various newspapers, and books. Any hint of anything suspicious in the news and we would investigate it. Any hint of anything suspicious coming from our police contacts and we would investigate. We never took any chances. Do it right the first time and you minimize anything else going wrong, take no chances.
One of the benefits from living in a small town is that strange news travels fast. If anything out of the ordinary happens, it always gets around. We follow strange news anywhere.

“Hot chocolate or coffee?” he asked me. I scrunched up my nose at the thought of coffee; it was something I didn’t really like. I only ever drank it because I needed to be awake during the day, but I’d usually settle for any form of energy drink over coffee. Hell, give me a shot of adrenaline over coffee.

“Hot chocolate” I answered, letting my eyes skim over the papers in front of me.

“How was school today?” he asked me. I groaned, school was the bane of my existence. I had been trained from a young age, so my school with the Guard’s had almost finished, but my regular life schooling was still going. I was in my senior year. I only went to school to keep up the charade that we lived a normal life, to keep our existence secret. It was all just an act.
In truth, I didn’t pay attention in class and barely made any effort in any classes. I didn’t need to pay any attention. The things they were trying to teach me were of no value when I was out there saving the world. If I lived a normal life they might have come as some use to me, but I don’t.
I found the whole ritual of me attending school pathetic, everyone else found it amusing. They all loved the fact that I had to spend the majority of my days in a classroom while they got to sleep, train or do anything other than pretend they were learning. I had to complete homework while they got to play around with new weapons and toys. I hated school, so I guess in pretending to be a normal teenager, I fit in rather well. If only they knew the real horrors of the world.
Socially I was an outcast, not that it at all bothered me. The few friends I did have at school were nice enough, and they didn’t ask any questions as to why I would miss random days of school every now and then. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t popular at school, my school life was really not all that important to me. I cherished the few friends that I had, but it was safer for them if I didn’t get too involved in their lives and in turn they in mine. They accepted that I wasn’t the ‘sleepover’ kind of friend.

“It was long” I replied. I hated having to get up at 7 almost every morning to go to school and not getting home til 3. It made staying up late like I do really rather hard. That was the reason behind my afternoon nap. When you have to be up at 7 but really can’t go to bed until the sun goes down there really isn’t much time for sleep. The boys were lucky in the fact that they got to sleep during the day, I however had to attend classes and make it seem like we were normal people. Although, I managed to adapt to the lack of sleep rather well, I guess that was another plus to being genetically made to fight evil. Your body could function for days without sleep.
The idea behind our unusual situation was that Isaac was my father, and the boys were all my brothers. Although we all didn’t really look that much alike, the fact that we all acted alike made the lie believable.
“It was long and boring Marty, I really can’t wait to be done with it. They keep telling these muted down versions of history, sometimes I wonder what they would do if they knew the truth” I added, skimming my hand over the hard leather bound book on the table. Truth is, we all have a very strong idea of what would happen if they knew.
“You know they’ll never know Lil” he replied. “They can’t know.”
It was true, they couldn’t know the truth, and they wouldn’t know how to handle it. It would be like telling the world that their worst nightmare was true. They were better off thinking that terrorism was their biggest threat.
That’s why we worked so hard at keeping things a secret. Can you imagine what would happen if it all got out? If people were suddenly aware that all the things they had read about in stories, all the evils they conjure up in the darkest pits of their minds was all true?
The world would erupt into chaos. People would no longer be able to function. Fear grips people in different ways, some people would try to fight, others would try to become vampires, and others would hide. Ultimately, they would all die. Normal humans aren’t equipped to deal with the sorts of things that I’ve seen. We were bred for this; we were made to defend them.
The vampires also try to keep a lid on things. They also seem to have a hierarchy under which they operate. It seems even the most evil people can have rules to live by. They are in no way as careful as we are, but they are not going around proclaiming to the world exactly who and what they are. In some ways life might be easier for them, but the fun would be taken out of it. Life is a game to them, and having everyone in on the game would not be as fun. Hunting is a sport and we are all but pawns in their existence. Or so they think.

“I know” I nodded. “It’s just I am sick of hearing these watered down versions of stories. I mean...I hate having to hear about things that aren’t true or that never happened. And what’s worse is that no one else has any idea.”

“You’ll be done soon Lil, then you can forget all about it” he soothed, bringing over two steaming mugs. One contained coffee and one hot chocolate, both their aroma’s filled the air. It was a comforting smell to wake up to.

“Are the boys all sleeping?” I asked into my mug, letting the hot steam warm my face.

“Yeah” Marty nodded in response, pulling a paper in front of him. “I don’t know what you did to them last night, but they are all exhausted.”

“I didn’t do anything” I smiled into my mug.
In truth, last night we ran training drills. Things had been slow of late, which of course was unnerving. It was like the calm before the storm.
When things died down we ran lots of training drills to keep each other prepared. Last night it was my turn to be the ‘bad guy’, and the boys hate it when it is my turn. I always make them work hard. To say that I am better than them is wrong, I am not, we all have our own weaknesses and strengths. I am definitely the fastest, by a long shot.

“Sure you didn’t do anything” mumbled Marty. I just kept smiling into my mug, the image of Phillip getting hit in the face and falling flat on his ass just kept flashing through my head. I always make sure to leave bruises and marks, not that they lasted long.

“Oh good afternoon Lily” smiled Isaac walking into the kitchen. He was older than all of us, probably in his mid 50’s. I never asked his age, and he never gave out that information. He was guarded with personal information. You didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell. He was our Guide, Phillip, Tom, Jessie’s and mine. His job was just that, to guide us, sort of like a mentor. He trained us, kept us in shape, kept us connected to the rest of the Guard’s around the world, and he researched the things going on in the area. He was kind of like a very fancy babysitter.
Marty and Isaac together made a perfect team, they both fed off each other. Isaac was the Guard that saved Marty, and between them was a bond that none of us could understand. We didn’t go through what they went through that night, and they are both reluctant to talk about it. I never pressed for details, they were both smart, if I needed to know something, they would tell me. They would never keep information from us.
The great thing about Isaac, despite his greying hair and failing eyesight, he was once a Guard. Not many Guard’s get the chance to retire, but when they do, they become Guides. Who better to train and guide the new recruits then the people who have been there right? That was the basic idea anyway.
Isaac was once a very well respected and successful Guard; well he was respected in the right circles. The puzzling thing to me was that he gave it all up, just stopped. He didn’t even become a Guide straight away; he disappeared for years taking Marty with him. Around the time I was chosen he returned. He became my Guide, and later on, after I began my training and learning, the boys joined us. Usually a guide only has one or two charges, but Isaac has all of us. No one questioned his request though, they just let the old man have what he wants.
He never talked about what he did when he disappeared, and neither did Marty.
Marty was there the whole time, in the background watching, helping. Ever since then we have been one big family. We were all fighting for the same thing, so we never questioned it.

“Good afternoon Isaac” I smiled. In many ways, he was my father figure. Sometimes I felt like I clung to him as a father because I never had one. I’d never get to know anything about my father. That was policy. No one ever did. We were all orphans for a reason.

“How was school?” he asked me. I rolled my eyes.

“Boring” laughed Marty. “She doesn’t like the human version of history” he chuckled. Isaac just chucked at me, he ran his hand through his hair and proceeded to get himself a drink. It was another running joke about my great dislike of the way that the normal people taught things.

“So what are we doing tonight?” I asked. “More training?”

“After what you put the boys through last night?” laughed Isaac. “I don’t think so. Tonight we will patrol as normal.”
I just mumbled an agreement. Patrolling was boring; it means there was no guaranteed action. For someone like me, who was trained to fight, trained to kill, a night where none of those events take place is a boring one. Patrolling didn’t satisfy that itch for action, it didn’t give us that rush of adrenaline. It would be something similar to a soldier being trigger happy, itching for action, only I guess I knew what I was doing.
While most people love going to work and having nothing to do, I hated it. When we had nothing to do it made me uneasy. It made me feel like something was coming, or worse, that something was wrong.