FicWad

Chapter One- The Calling
"Aiden, duck!"
The attacker looked momentarily confused as Aiden bent over and rolled to the side of the alley way, and two gun shots rang out. The noise of battle turned to silence as everyone regained their composure.
"Addy I keep telling you it's not in our nature to use weapons like that! We prefer hand to hand combat." Vancha March got to his feet and removed his sword from a motionless, crumpled heap on the ground. Adrielle lowered the gun and smiled.
"I know. But I am not a vampire, am I?" she strode over to the dead man lying at Aiden's feet and rolled his body over using her foot.
"I have no objection to Adrielle using a gun if it's gonna save my butt," Aiden said as she brushed herself down.
Vancha frowned, also dusting himself.
"A, you shouldn't need your butt saving, and B, I don't like your dismissive attitude."
Aiden was about to deliver a cutting reply when Adrielle held up her hand, signalling for them to be quiet. No-one spoke for a few minutes, the two vampires straining their sensitive ears for any sounds.
"Did you hear that?" Adrielle re-cocked her gun and raised it, ready to shoot into the darkness of the allyway.
"We gotta get out of here, now." Aiden picked up her knife, a present from Vancha, and climbed the wall at the end of the backstreet. She stood there for a minute, staring into the fog that concealed the entrance.
"Guys, I'm serious."
Adrielle nodded and secured her gun to the back of her trousers where she could get to it quickly.
"Vancha?" she hauled herself up onto the wall alongside Aiden and prepared to jump down the other side. When the two of them realised that Vancha was not following them, Aiden looked back over the wall.
"Vancha!"
"Just coming!" Aiden watched as he took something from the dead man's coat and made for the wall. Just as he was about to vault up on to it, he yelled out in pain.
"What is it?" Adrielle turned around, but the wall was blocking her view. Aiden had jumped back over it so fast that Adrielle hadn't even heard it. Shortly after, she re-appeared, holding Vancha up and helping him to clamber over the wall.
"Are you ok? What happened?"
There was some kind of puncture wound in Vancha's side which was bleeding severely. He held his hand over it but it wasn't doing much good. His face had turned white and he was finding it hard to walk. Aiden supported him as much as she could but the older vampire was almost twice her size.
"Adrielle, they're following us!"
She helped Vancha to sit against a wall and ripped off her sweater, tying it around his side. He gasped as she pulled it tight, and looked to the wall. Adrielle stood their side of it, and was firing the gun into the ally, aiming as best she could in the fog.
"Addy leave it! We gotta go!"
The gunfire stopped and the two girls helped Vancha to stand up. Leaving their foes behind, the three of them hobbled as best they could back towards their current hideout. This happened to be Adrielle's old flat, which was at the top of a small apartment block. They stood at the bottom of the lift shaft, Vancha now in severe pain.
"Come on!" Aiden said through gritted teeth as Vancha swayed on his already unstable feet. Finally her impatience got the better of her and she kicked the lift doors. They opened with a grating sound and the lift appeared- one passenger inside.
Aiden looked up and her face fell. Adrielle smiled nervously, realising that the lift passenger was her landlady.
"You got company staying with you? Cos you know that's not allowed."
Adrielle followed the woman's gaze to Vancha whom she and Aiden were now propping up. He was covered in his own blood and was groaning.
"Who him? Nah, just some....drunken disorderly I found....on the street. Felt sorry for him."
"What's he doing 'ere then?" the woman stood with her hands on her hips, her husky voice demanding awkward answers. She lit a cigarette and waited for an answer. Adrielle shrugged.
"Oh for fuck's sake!" Aiden stepped forwards and threw a relatively hard punch at the landlady, knocking her out cold.
"Can we please get him upstairs now?"
Adrielle smiled again as the two of them practically dragged Vancha into the lift and pressed the buttons for the top floor. It wasn't long before he was lying on his bed, rolling around in pain.
"Now will you tell me what happened?" Adrielle began to bustle around the flat, soaking a towel with cold water and handing it to Aiden. She placed it across Vancha's forehead and told him to lie still.
"I turned around and all I saw was an arrow flying towards Vancha out of the fog. I didn't see who fired it or where from, all I know is, it hit him."
Adrielle sat down on a chair and watched as Aiden did her work.
"You can fix it though, right?" she said hopefully.
Aiden nodded. As second head sorceress to the Vampire clan she quite often had the job of using her talents to cure or nurse sick vampires back to health. She removed the arrow and handed it to Adrielle, quickly slamming her other hand over the wound with a tea towel.
"Wash this and examine it. It might tell us something about who was chasing us and shooting at Vancha."
Adrielle nodded and took the arrow to the sink. It was dripping with blood and broken in the middle, but there was something strangely familiar about it.
"My...pocket..." Vancha was now peaceful as a result of Aiden's work, but found it hard to speak. Aiden took his hand to let him know she was listening.
"Your pocket, Vancha?" she said softly.
Adrielle left the arrow and went to Vancha's jacket, which he had disguarded as he had fallen onto his bed. She searched the pockets until she felt something in one of them. She closed her hand around it and drew it out of the pocket. Opening her hand, she gasped.
Aiden looked around.
"What is it?"
Adrielle hid her hand behind her back and took a breath.
"Nothing. How's Vancha? Will he be ok?"
Aiden let the matter drop, but fully intended to dig further into it later. She knew Adrielle, and something had shaken her.
"He'll be ok, but that doesn't change the fact that someone, or something is trying to hunt us down. We can't run forever Adrielle. We have to sort this out."
Adrielle sighed, exhausted from the evenings events. The trouble was, every evening was becoming the same, and now people were getting hurt.
"I'm gonna take a shower. Then we should eat something I guess." Aiden nodded, watching her friend walk heavily towards the bathroom of the dingy flat. Vancha groaned in his sleep, but his wound had stopped bleeding and was already closing up. Aiden was glad now that she had studied under Evanna. But how had things got to this? One thing was for sure- something had to be done.
In the bathroom, Adrielle sat on the edge of the bath, wrapped in a towel. It was raining outside and the heavy drops were deafening, beating against the window and the roof. She was grateful. That way she couldn't hear herself think, and wouldn't have to face the truths and reality that kept hacking away at her. She shivered. It was cold outside anyway, but the heating had broken down and the landlady refused to do anything about it. Now it would be impossible to ask her. It was alright for Aiden and Vancha- they were vampires and the cold did little to affect them. But to a human it was not pleasant. Adrielle walked over to the wash basin and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was tired and drawn, and there were dark circles around her eyes. How was it that Aiden always looked good? She had to deal with the same crap, but somehow she always looked ok. Vampire thing again probably. She had offered to blood Adrielle, but the human was not yet ready. She wondered if she ever would be. As she made her way through into her room she closed her curtains on the night outside. The street lamps had all gone out. Once dressed Adrielle felt mildly better. She went to her dressing table to find a hair brush, and dug out her hair dryer from her to drawer. As she plugged it in her eyes averted to the flat surface covered with various objects belonging to her. One of them she did not recognize and it made her blood run cold. She dropped the hair dryer and reached out towards it. A single red rose, shimmering at the tips of the petals. She picked it up and gasped as the shimmer spread to her fingertips. He knew. He knew where she was and he had been there. Only one person could have left it. It was the same everytime. A crimson rose with shimmering tipped petals. Steve.
"Addy, you ok?" Aiden knew there was something up. The letter she had taken from Vancha's pocket had not gone un-noticed. She took it from her jeans pocket, unfolding it and laying it next to the rose. All three of them knew now. Aiden would have found out anyway, being vampire.
"Adrielle?" Vancha's voice boomed. He was awake. She took deep breath and opened the door.
"We need to talk."
The three of them sat down together on the shabby sofa, each cradling a mug of hot tea.
"You feel ok Vanch?"
"Fan bloody tastic." The vampire sat back and sighed.
"Those guys, they were....."
"Steve."
There was a moment's pause.
"He found you again?" Aiden looked worrie.
"No one else leaves me roses in my bedroom."
Aiden frowned.
"How do you know It wasn't someone's sick idea of a joke?" she said hopefully.
Adrielle got up and fetched the rose. She threw it at Aiden.
"Look at the petals. When we were in school, Steve and I used to 'go out.' We were only like...6, but he always said normal rose wasn't pretty enough for me so he got some glue and glittered the petals with gold glitter." Aiden studied her friend's face. She was remembering.
Vancha coughed, holding is side.
"That's kinda sweet, for an evil twat like him."
Adrielle smiled and sat down. Aiden laid hand on her arm. The two of them had been through a lot with Darren and Steve, and knew they had to be strong.
"And then there's this little matter." Vancha waved the letter. It was from Vampire Mountain, summoning them there.
"Do we go?"
"Think of the circumstances under which it was delivered. We can't trust them!" Adrielle got up and walked to the window, holding her rose.
"It's genuine. It's marked by Kurda at the bottom."
There was a pause as Vancha checked the letter.
"She's right. We go. Leave tomorrow."
Aiden snorted.
"Fuck off. I'm not going back there. No way."
Adrielle wheeled around to face her.
"I know you're scared Aiden, I am too. But we have to go."
"But...." Aiden searched for an excuse. The vampiress was usually hard as nails on the outside, and would rather suffer than let emotion show, but she couldn't hide it this time. She was terrified.
"Aiden! Darren will not hurt you with us there. I swear I won't let him. But we have to go. I will go to Vampire Mountain, and I will bow to Darren, but I will never treat him with respect that he doesn't deserve. " Aiden nodded, tired.
"What about Steve?"
Adrielle swallowed.
"He wants something. Sooner or later he'll come out of the woodwork and we'll find out what."
"And you think it will be later?" Vancha spoke up.
Adrielle nodded.
"He doesn't have the balls to come out now."
"Guess again sweetcheeks."
All three of them froze at the sound of the Vampaneze Lord's voice.
"Surround them boys."
Roughly 20 vampaneze entered the flat and surrounded the sofa, pointing stakes and guns.
"You got your flower then Addy?" Steve sauntered towards the sofa.
"Don't you dare call me that you son of a bitch." Adrielle threw the rose at Steve and stood up, glaring at him defiantly. Steve clucked is tongue.
"Now now, sticks and stones." He smiled and nodded at a man behind him. Adrielle felt something sharp pierce her skin at the top of her left arm, and the world turned slowly black. The last thing she saw was the smug face of her childhood sweetheart, holding the glittering rose.
And there you have it. I have lots ideas for this story- if indeed anyone is interested. Got to go now, very sleepy you see. Please review- good and bad comments welcome. I like to know I'm heading in the right direction......
Afternote: this story is for my best buddy Kit- I know we really enjoyed the Darren Shan Saga and wanted to switch places with some of the characters. Better than life at Alcatraz...I mean school......
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