In The Dark Of The Night

In the dark of the night a purple storm wreaked havoc. Azalae watched mournfully from her attic window.
What a dreadful night to be stuck in the Aunts attic. She thought. You never know what might be in here. She turned to her book.

Sixteen year old Azalae lived with her mother's two elder sisters, Martine and Martha. They hated her and at every thing she did wrong they shut her up in her room, the attic. She rarely stayed put though, they no control over what she did anymore. Though her mother was dead and unfortunately her father was too, she had given up thinking about them, they were gone and she had never really known them. There was nothing for her to spill her grief over.

A scuffle in one corner made Azalae look up. Nothing seemed different except that the window was open. Standing up she went to close the gaping escae to the night. As she closed it her eyes caught a glimpse of the moon. It was full, beautiful and yet.... Fear crept into her blue eyes. She was very supersitious these days, the books she read into were full of the creatures of the dark and the moon ws just one thing that set her teeth on edge. Slowly her hand crept to the silver cross about her neck just as something cold grabbed her arm. She squealed.

"Get off!" Her yell would never be heard,"Help!" Her cry would never be answeared.

"Let her go Lanakon." A pale young man had appeared by the window. The thing behind her hissed.
Vampires. She thought and she screamed again.

"Lanakon." the man's voice was sad but stern.

The hand let her go with another hiss. The man nodded at her before siezing the other and flying away.

Azalae nearly fainted. That vampire, the one who had most deffinately saved her was so gorgeous. His hypnotic green eyes and midnight dark hair falling across his drawn, youthful face. That accented voice... Was it possible to love a vampire? Was it possible to fall in love at first sight? She sighed and flopped suddenly exhausted on to her matress bed.

*********************

Many things happened in the following week. Her exams were apon her and her twenty year old brother was supposed to be visiting. Excitment almost made her forget about the vampires but she could not forget Him, that one face, those emerald orbs that burnt into her very dreams.

"Please come to night." she whispered from her window."Please come."

Her room was gloomy as usual. Her hopes all but gone when a violent fluttering filled the air. Her vampire was back. As he turned from bat to man she saw that it was not her call that had brought him to her window but whatever it was that had given him the ugly slash across his face.

"Help me like I did you." He whispered in his lulling voice,"Please keep me a secret in this pleasent room for tonight." She did not hear the slight sarcasm as he took in her space.

"Sure." She was hypnotised,"I'm Azalae."

"I am Forknar, though you can call me Lorenzo, it's my real name. I am around 423 years old before you ask."

"Wow. You're beautiful." Had she just said that? "For your age." she added hastily.

"Why thank you Lady Azalae."

"I'm no lady."

"You are to me."

Did he feel the same way as she did. Was it possible for him to want her like she did him. He looked so sad in the dark, now she looked harder.
So mournfully beautiful.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

"I do not remember. It is such a long time to live you know... It was in the North, where there was always snow..." His gaze became distant, as if trying to remember.

"I guess." She felt a strange pang in her chest as he looked at her. She felt a frost down her back.

"Oi GIRL!!!" Came the voice of Martha, "You're brother's on the phone!!! Get your arse down here now!!!"

Azalae flinched at the sound of her aunts voice. She shut her eyes, "Coming!" she added quietly,"Bitch."
She vaguely waved her arms to show the vampire he was welcome to make himself at home before dashing to the door. It was still locked. With her anger rising and her frustration gathering to the surface she swung her foot round in a ferousious speed and the door splintered under her foot before she knocked the rest through and she was able to storm her way down stairs.
Her brothers voice was just as she remembered it. Except now it had a slight tremor held within. As he spoke her face paled. The news he was telling her was worse than he could have given anyone else.

The room was quite and she made her way forlornly to where the window was now closed. She sat on the sill. Tears streaking her cheeks. She would never see her brother again if she did not reach him soon. If she was there maybe he would live.

"Something the matter?" Asked the vampire from beind her.

"I... My brother... He won't... He's going to..." Azalae for the first time in her life was speechless. She could not bring the word Death into her sentence.

"Die?"

She burst into tears, nodding, shoulders shaking, "This isn't fair!" she screamed, to no one inparticular. "Why him?!" Her fingers clenched and unclenched, her body tensing and quivering like the bow string ready to be leased, "If I could just GET there!" She pushed the windows open again, the force from her touch sending cracks through the glass. Damn her own strength... Jake had the same strength... Why had it not been enough? She wanted to scream. He was not going to make it... He was going to die... Her brother, her Jake was going to die because of a manic monster that had attacked him from no where. He lost so much blood, he had lost his arm, he had been kept awake simply through the help of his friends even as he had spoke to her... She had heard his ragged breaths, heard the cries of those around him keeping him conscious even as he threatened to fade away on the phone.

***

The Vampire was watching her as her anger rose and sadness flooded over the pale, drained face. Footsteps caught his attention and he slid into the shadows, invisible.

Two women appeared in the door, both tall and hook nosed. Identicle, eyes for eyes, shadow for shadow, sneer for sneer.
"So, what'd he want?" asked one of them, bored and condesending.

Azalae turned, racing to her feet. Her eyes were burning with icy blue fires. Lorenzo knew that even if she was mortal she would be a considerable force to reckon with.

"Is he still cumin' tommorow?"

"Obviously not, the brat's crying!"
The pair laughed.

"Shut up!" the girl had become as cold and rigid as a knife, he could feel her longing to reach out and ripped them to shreds, "He's not coming because we'll be going to his funeral!"

"The faggot's dead?"
They laughed and Azalae charged.

She was screaming, her self - control lost. How dare they! He was dying and all they could do was laugh, call him names. She had hold of Martine's wrists, banging them into the floor even as the other woman tried to pull her off.

Lorenzo could not stand there any longer, just doing nothing but watch as the young, wild creature that had taken over from the girl he remembered before, attacked the real monsters. He stepped out into the dim light and hissed, the shadows contorted his face. The women howled and pulled each other from the room, trying desperately to shut the splintered door. Azalae crouched on the floor, like an animal waiting to pounce.

"I've got to get to him. They don't care, they'll have complete right to everything if he..."

"You do have to get to your brother... Don't you." Lorenzo had heard her mumbling and as she made to face him he saw the change that had befallen the girl. Somewhere in her ancestry lay the blood of a Sorceress, the sisters of the Vampires, the mothers of the Creatures of the Night.

"I'll take you to him. If you'll tell me where to go." The vampire looked at her once again normal face and was surprised to feel a strange flutter in his chest, from the cavity that he had beleived completely devoid of anything. Something about her hurt, something about her power... Something about her made everything go strange, he still did not know why he had come to her when he could have gone to milions of other, safer places after the fight with Lanakon, but he had come here... To her...