When Darkness Calls Ch. 04

Darkness plagued her for days, flowing her in and out of consciousness, taking her to the outside world of reality only giving her glimpses, and then cruelly pulling her back. She saw the angel many times, he always seemed to be just above the darkness. Voices streamed in and out sometimes, different voices, but the one she never seemed to fail hearing was his. A sweet baritone that crawled over her like a caress from the wind, a velvet voice. She longed to open her eyes, longed to see a sprinkle of light, longed to be able to touch and taste just to know that she was still alive. Was this hell? Was she dead?

No. She could feel the numbness going over her body like a thick blanket, can you feel if you're dead? Light's eyes desperately tried to open, tried to climb out of the suffocating darkness, trying to escape the imaginary hands clasping and reaching for her. Then her eyelids slowly came up. It was better in the darkness.

*****

It was two days after he brought the woman into his mansion that the fledglings came home. Dante had been caring for the young woman tediously, and worried most of the time like a mother hen, her condition didn't seem to be recovering. She had frequent spells of consciousness, only coming in and out of them for short periods of time. Each time, she simply drank some of the blood he had in his pantry (meaning animals, which weren't as satisfying as human blood) or cried, she didn't seem to take in her surroundings. It was as if she were in her own little world. Her lovely hazel eyes were vacant, and they didn't seem to focus.

After Dante had gotten the woman settled in and her condition stabilized, he sniffed his way back to her car, hoping to find something to tell him who she was. A purse perhaps? He hadn't found anything and he supposed the punk who had stabbed her took off with her purse. Dante had been continuously scouting Pampa looking for the blue-haired man, hoping he could find and kill him. He felt a strange blazing rage towards the boy and didn't even stop to ask himself why. It was simply his nature to hold grudges.

So all the time she had stayed in his home, nothing had really been accomplished and it would be harder from here on, since his adopted protégées' had come home. Dante tended to take very troublesome vampires, because he loved to have a challenge and see them come out as successful, modern vampires.

They had been on a trip to Italy to speak with one of The Judgment leaders, Jamie McLeish about the out-of-control younger vampires, it was one of the projects he had set out for them. They had been excited about it. He, himself, had discussed it many times (being an elder), and was tired of running off to Italy every couple of months.

The four fledglings were quite young in vampire years, he supposed considered babies. The oldest was Chaos, a twenty-three boy who had been turned only six months ago, and who was his favorite student. The prospect of adventure and a noble title excited all them: Abel, Chaos, Lucrestia, and Alice. He had been like them at a time in his life, well non-life. Dante had been changed prior to the 19th Century, so after a couple of thousand years, you kind of just got tired.

He looked just as he had at the age of twenty-five, the age he was turned. Vampires tended to not change very much after their transformation, their features and talents were simply intensified. So, if nothing else about him was to change, at least his preferences could.

The young woman he had turned hadn't yet taken in the vampiric features, she still had human blood in her system, but in about two days, she would become pale and extremely thirsty. However, she looked beautiful now, so he really couldn't imagine it would really change the intensity so much.

Dante forced his mind off of his musings and watched as the black limo in which his little protégées' had taken drive up the vast and long tree-shrouded drive-way and watched as they all jumped out.

Little Alice jumped out of the front seat with the driver and ran full-speed towards the house. Alice was a bit of an outsider among the other vampires, besides with Fabrian, who he suspected had interest romantically in Alice. She had been found in an alleyway two months ago, with what they thought was another of the out-of-control vampire feastings. It was common for some of them to make mistakes and accidentally turn the humans. Her auburn hair bounced off of shoulder as she ran, and before he knew what she was doing, she launched herself into his arms. The others got out more slowly, their gracefulness portraying their distaste at Alice's behavior.

Cold-eyed, blond-haired Abel looked at her with a speculative gaze, and him with what he presumed was envy. Lucrestia with her nose up in the air and her curly black hair pinned up gracefully, and Chaos with a disinterested and immensely bored gaze in his dark eyes, and his bronze hair hanging in unruly locks.

Alice beamed at him and let go, gracefully stepping from the stairs to grab her suitcase. As the young vampires drew closer, Chaos's eyes sharpened first and then narrowed on Dante.

"You smell different." he said in his usual murmur.

The others gazes sharpened and their nostrils flared, and then their gazes became wide and somewhat confused. Then, they all turned towards the entrance of the house and set their black suitcases down in the hallway.

"Someone is here." Abel said. Dante motioned for them to sit on the plush black sofa that sat in the parlor. They cautiously took a seat and some of them fidgeted, but all of their gazes were trained on him.

"I...have some news." he said in a solemn tone, staring at each one of them. "Two days ago, I was in Pampa hunting." he paused, watching them.

"And....?" said Chaos impatiently.

"And there was a particular incident..."

"Was it about the rouge vampires?" Abel interrupted and everyone tuned to give him a glare worthy of a vampire. Then, they all looked back towards him.

"It was cold that night. I jumped onto the library roof, looking for prey, and I did find prey." he paused again. "And I smelt blood. Beautiful, floral smelling, rich blood, it was the sweetest smell that had every tainted my nostrils. So I followed the trail." he noticed most of the young vampires were listening intently.

"Then I found where the smell originated. The woman...she....was hurt. I...couldn't leave her." he said and felt a burning pain in his chest, ashamed at the words coming so desperately and hard from his dry mouth.

"Oh! Where is she?" Alice asked, a slight sparkle in her eyes. He suspected she wanted a woman friend, since Lucrestia was so indifferent. Alice was the youngest of them all, barely eighteen years old.

"Alice....the woman isn't doing well, I believe the change and stress of the situation has taken a tole on her physically and emotionally." her face fell as he said this, and she stood gracefully up.

"Still...where is she? I would like to see her." she said in a slightly gloomy tone.

"You could just sniff her out, it would be good practice munchkin." Chaos said offhandedly, seemingly in his own world.

Alice jumped up and began sniffing furiously, her talents weren't quite up to par yet. Fabrian laughed at this and Lucrestia sniffled slightly, stood up, and walked upstairs to her room. Alice continued to sniff and followed her way to the woman's current room in the east wing of the house. Abel, Chaos, and Dante followed . All of the young ones had wide eyes as they looked at the woman. He couldn't really blame them, she looked beautiful, but just the same, he stood off to the side watching them.

The woman was knocked out, knocked out because vampires couldn't sleep. The marks from where the knife had hit it's mark were jagged and red. Her hair was spread out on the cotton pillow, and made her look like an angel. Her soft pink lips were parted slightly...

"She's pretty." Alice cooed and brushed a strand of the woman's hair from her face with her fingertips.

"Yeah, Lucrestia isn't going to be too happy about this." Fabrian said and grinned.

"Lucrestia is bitter, she likes nothing." Chaos retorted. All of them were making Dante very nervous. They were very close to the woman's bed. They must of sensed his distress because they left when they got a good look at him.

"Ummm...come on guys, lets go unpack." Chaos said, and pulled the other two out of the room by the scruffs of their neck.

After they were all gone, Dante wandered to the bed, looking at the woman with his head tilted. He reached down and brushed a lock of hair off her head. Her eyes opened.