Vampire Hunters -- Chapter 1

Seth cursed as the vampires charged. I shot one in the heart as she was in my face abruptly, and Seth slashed around blindly, striking one down.
I smiled and then screamed as I felt a sharp pain on my elbow, than something wet trickling down my arm.
Crap, it was blood. I shot the vampire who had bitten me on the forehead (the vampire bit my elbow, I shot it on the forehead), then yanked the arrow out as he slumped to the ground. Great - I had a huge target on my forehead right now."Seth, I got bitten," I shrieked as I was suddenly barraged by vampires. Seth was behind them, striking them on the head.
"Oh, that’s just great.” Seth called back sarcastically, “I'll have one more vampire to kill sooner or later.”
He didn't believe me. More and more vampires were falling.
Sweat was pouring down my face as a fire started in my elbow, and then burned hotter and hotter.
It was agony, but I kept fighting. At last, there were only two vampires left. They both charged after me, crazy with desire for my blood, and I shot one just as its jaws opened to drink it. Seth struck the other one down.
I could barely stand. The fire was spreading slowly - so I guessed there hadn't been much venom that the vampire had injected into my system - but that made the pain worse, inching by slowly. Seth saw the blood and choked. "Oh my God," he stammered. "We got to get you to Hayden, and quick."
"Great idea. I'm sure if you believed me at first, we could've done this faster. Seth, any second now my eyes will turn scarlet and you'll have to fight me. We got to go." I whispered sternly. Seth just grabbed my elbow, blocked the flow with a piece of a white shirt he had taken from a vampire - the shirt piece turned bloody within seconds.
After minutes of walking through the corridors, we finally got outside. Hayden was out on the doorstep. She looked relieved at the sight of Seth and me supposedly safe, but her eyes inched down to my elbow.
"She got bitten by an immortal bastard," Seth explained harshly.
"Oh, I thought this would happen," Hayden said in a worried tone, and she took out a bottle from a pouch at her side. I didn't like the looks of the potion inside it. It was light lavender. She popped open the cork and turned the bottle over my wound and let two drops fall out onto the blood.
Satisfied, Hayden put the potion back into her rugged pouch after screwing the cork back in.
At first, the fire was even worse. I screamed so loudly that Hayden squeezed her eyes shut and put her fingers in her ears while Seth covered his ears, dropping me so that I landed on my back - he had been supporting me stand while Hayden had applied the cure. Then the pain went just to my elbow, and disappeared after throbbing a few seconds.
"It works," Hayden said cheerfully. "Does the Vampirocilin work too?"
"The what?" Seth asked.
"The Vampirocilin . . . the poison," Hayden explained this like she was talking to three-year-olds. "Does it work?"
"Yeah," I answered, rolling my eyes - now that Hayden had vanquished the venom, I was absolutely fine. We were lucky we had Hayden as a skilled chemist. "We murdered the leeches. But, technically, you're not a murderer if you murder something that doesn't have a heartbeat, right?"
"Speaking of leeches," Seth said dryly, "The one who wanted to kill me was Melanie, we freed the castle from them and we can use it for the headquarters."
"Melanie?" Hayden repeated after clapping in delight.
"Melanie," I confirmed. Hayden looked down at me right then, and offered her hand to pull me up from the ground.
When I was standing, Hayden whistled three piercing calls. A loud bark was heard ten seconds later. A large, black, furry dog appeared over the horizon, its tail wagging.
"Everyone, this is Coal." Hayden introduced when the dog got close enough. "Coal, this is Katie and Seth."
Coal dipped his head in greeting. I looked at Hayden in awe as Coal said, "Seth, Katie - hello. How goes your day?"
"Are you freaking serious?" Seth asked Hayden, who shrugged.
"I needed someone to talk to."
"So you made a letting-animals-talk brew?" I asked incredulously.
"Sort of," Hayden said sheepishly.
"Hayden, you amaze me," I said dubiously.
"Whatever. By the way, London and Paris just got taken over. The world should know what they're up against by now." Hayden said after a silence. "The Americas are the only ones who haven't been invaded yet."
"Not London?" I disagreed. Hayden looked at me in disgust.
"Katie, get used to it. Vampires have invaded our world. Every day more and more countries fall under the influence of the predators of the night. If some of the vampires never thought about taking over the world, we wouldn't be in this situation. We're a tiny band of vampire hunters. We aren't going to succeed unless the entire race of humanity that's left gets the poison and teams up." Seth said, wrinkling his nose.
Like me, Hayden had wanted to hunt down the vampires after they had killed every single person in her family except her, for whatever reason. Seth, he just wanted to kill the vampires because they were taking over our world – and for the fun of it, which I disapproved of.
"I know they have, but can't they, well . . . stop?" I asked hopefully.
"You know they won't." Coal answered.
"You know what? Hayden, could you check how many vampires there are in London? It's closest from here," I said. It was not a request. Hayden nodded, and then went into her cabin - we had been walking toward it unconsciously while we were talking. She came out with two large bottles that were a disgusting color and a neutral expression on her face.
"There are seven vampires in London. I'm thinking they can't afford any more vampires; there are only so many humans. Oh, yes, instead of killing these vampires, this potion is called Humpolaria - pronounced Hum - polar - ee- a, Katie - and it changes the vampire back into humans. Very complicated Vampirocilin was - this was much easier. It changes dead vampires back, too." She added, smiling, handing one to Seth and one to me.
Seth widened his eyes and started running toward the castle. I laughed.
"We're invading London," I said randomly after a silent pause of looking at the silhouette of Seth disappearing in the palace.
"You should have no problem doing that, right?" Hayden asked.
I couldn't answer that.
I wasn't so confident.