Leandra Sarah Aristilde Senior Year of Mepham High School

August 31 2010

Prologue
“Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death” –Macbeth, Act 5
Scene 6

Once, when I was nine or ten years old, I had the strangest dream.
This was before I had known what I had come to know, what had
become the normalcy of my life. The dream had started off with me
riding in a car with a man and a woman. I was sitting in the passenger
seat while the woman drove the car.
I twisted in my seat to look at the man in the backseat, who had
white chalky skin and slightly glowing ocean-blue eyes. That shocked
me on a few different levels because nobody’s eyes freaking glow.
Another thing that had me wondering was whose those people are. I
had never met them before in my life.
Anyways, we were driving in near darkness but we stopped at a gas
station. I sat in the car while the woman got out; her long blond hair
was tied back in a ponytail. I sat there silently until the man reached
for me and stroked my shoulder; his cool breath touched the back of
my neck.
I was about to yell at him, but I climbed out of the car and stalked out
to where the woman was pumping the gas in the car. The woman
hadn’t noticed me, but I had looked at her. She looks like me, I said to
myself, wondering why we looked the same.
The woman had a nice tanned complexion, with hazel eyes and a
skinny body. She wore simple jeans, with a blue shirt, and sandals. She
was taller than me and her eyes finally flickered up at me when I stood
in front of her.
Her green eyes appraised my brown ones and she said slowly, “Yes,
Liyah?”
I was racking my brain to wonder who this woman was, where I had
seen her before, but I was coming up empty. I stood there stupidly,
before I asked, “Who is that man in the car?”
Her green eyes filled with anger and she said darkly, “Go back in the
car with Ace. There are bad things out here.”
I was utterly confused but I slowly climbed back into the car. I wanted
to ask her what the hell she meant but I knew she wouldn’t give me
any information. Either way, I sat in the car before the man- Ace,
whatever his name is- reached over to me again and wrapped his hand
around my neck. His grip was so tight and hard that I let out a soft
whimper. I wasn’t being choked but I wanted him to get away from me.
 He sniffed my neck and I froze in fear, swallowing down the urge to
run. My body was tensed and I wondered why this man was trying to
kill me or whatever he was trying to do to me. He licked the side of my
neck and I felt something pointy against my neck. A scream was
building in my throat before the woman climbed back into the car. My
eyes flickered to her and I tried to plead silently with my eyes. The
woman looked over at me and then at Nero, who was lapping at my
neck still.
“Ace,” The woman screamed, rage burned in her eyes. “Leave Liyah
alone! She’s not dinner. If your hungry, feed on one of the humans
before we go.”
He let go of my neck and I turned to look at him. His green eyes were
so filled with rage that I shrank away in fear. He gave the woman a
chilling look and then his eyes flickered to mine. I swallowed hard and
looked away, terrified out of my mind. He leaned back and stared out
the window, his green eyes still filled with anger.
My eyes flickered over to a card next to Nero before I snatched it up. I
sat in my seat and opened the card, not prepared for what I saw at all.
“Happy Birthday to the 400 year old vampire. From: Ace and
Dakotah,” was written across the top of the card in dark red blood. I
stared and my brown eyes flickered over to a bandage on my right
wrist. It had been itching and burning for quite a while but I thought it
was a normal cut. Something icy twisted in my stomach and I suddenly
realized whose blood that was.
I ripped over the bandage and I stared at the cut. It looked far worse
than a regular cut. It looked more like a puncture wound with some
debris inside the cut. My stomach clenched and the urge to vomit was
great, but I swallowed hard. The woman- her name was presumably
Dakotah- sighed irritably next to me and stopped at the side of the
road. She snatched the card from me and tossed it in the backseat
next to Ace. She gently grabbed my hand and tugged me towards her.
I was still frozen in shock before she began to pick the debris out with
tweezers.
“These things happen, Liyah.” Dakotah murmured soothingly, while
she put some alcohol on a napkin once all the dirt was out of the
wound.
She pressed the napkin to my wound and I bit my lip to stop from
screaming in pain. It hurt that bad and I wanted to cry, but I didn’t
want to see weak. Her eyes stared me down and I stared back,
mesmerized by how intense she seemed to be.
“Someday, you’ll find out the truth about the silly shallow world you
live in now. It isn’t all made up of humans,” She explained, looking
down at the blood on the napkin and the blood that pumped out of the
wound.
Ace, who had been quiet this whole time, came between us and
stared down at my wound, saliva dripping from his mouth. I wondered
why he was so hungry before pieces clicked together. I swallowed hard
and my hands shook but I only stared at Dakotah, who was looking at
Nero with a warning in her eyes.
“Can’t I have a taste, Dakotah?” Nero asked, while saliva streamed
from his mouth and hit the leather interior of the car.
Dakotah looked at me expectantly and said, “Well, it’s up to you,
Liyah.”
I stared incredulously at her until I stammered out, “A taste of what,
Nero?”
Dakotah didn’t say anything and neither did Nero, who was looking
down at my wound with his mouth open. Now that his mouth was
open, I could see his teeth. Two teeth on the top was sharpened and
pointy, as well as two bottom teeth. That had confirmed what I had
already come to know, but I didn’t want to say anything until I was
absolutely sure.
I slowly looked over at Ace until he finally spoke. “A taste of your
blood.”
That was when I finally understood what Dakotah had meant when
she said that there weren’t only humans in the world that I had lived
in. I leaned in towards Nero, as if I hadn’t understood what he had
meant. My stomach was coiled and my breathing was hard and fast
while my heart thudded loudly in my ears.
I stared at Ace, trying to catch my breath before I asked, “You’re a
vampire?”
He tilted his head to the side a little so his brown hair swept in his
face. He was pretty hot…for a vampire. That word, vampire, was a
shock to me. I honestly didn’t know how to feel when it came to
vampires living amongst humans in the 21st century.
He only nodded and then looked pleadingly over at Dakotah, before
he spoke again. “Just one bite, Dakotah. I won’t drain her dry.”
I swallowed hard before Dakotah sighed softly and then looked at me.
I pulled away from her grip and then looked out the window, trying to
absorb as much information as I could. My first reaction was to laugh it
off, to say that these people were crazy, but I knew that- maybe, just
maybe- that they were right.
“Despite vampires living amongst humans,” Dakotah began, before I
turned around to look at her, “There are other things despite vampires
and humans living on your earth.”
I waited for her to continue before Dakotah and Ace looked over at
each other and snickered. I was confused before she looked over at
me, sadness in her eyes.
“I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but well, you’ll find out soon
enough.” She said before I woke up from sleep.
I sat up in bed, gasping and breathing fast, my heart racing but I
wasn’t sure why. I reached for my lamp on the end table, convinced I
was still in the dark of that car with Ace and Dakotah. When the soft
light came on, I breathed a silent sigh of relief when my eyes scanned
my bedroom. I started to relax and lay back in bed, attempting to write
the dream off but it wouldn’t leave my mind. When I could finally relax,
I started to think about that dream.
Who were they? I asked myself, lying underneath the thick blankets
even though it was summer. Where they real? Did they even exist? I
glanced up at my Spongebob clock that hung on the wall to see that it
was 3:43 A.M. I didn’t even realize how late it was and my body was
yearning for sleep, but my mind wouldn’t shut up and let me sleep.
What did they mean? Was other… beings out there, besides humans? I
began to laugh to myself silently when I realized that I was thinking
about some people in a dream that didn’t even exist in the real world. I
told myself that it was a hoax, just my mind playing tricks on me.
Years and years later, I would come to realize that what Dakotah and
Ace had told me was true, even if they didn’t really exist. That there
weren’t only humans that dwelled on this planet, but the supernatural
lived in secret. I didn’t tell anybody about that dream, not even my
family. I supposed I should have told them that I was truly losing my
mind, but how would they react that their sister and daughter was
losing her mind? I used to assume that my imagination and
unconscious mind was going haywire, that I was truly and turning into
a mentally impaired person before I had found out the truth.
I know better now.

Chapter One

When I was in my third year of college, everybody was so intrigued

by vampires- from television shows, to movies, to books- but I was
sickened. That word, vampire, would stir this cold, hard being inside of
me. The want to eradicate those immoral beings would flare up within
me, wanting to strike out at them and kill them all. Yes, vampires
walked the earth, killing humans and draining their blood. That’s where
I come in. My occupation was a Vampire Slayer, but now that I’m back
in school and work, my shift is a bit tricky. Since I go to school in the
morning and work in the afternoon, I have to work at night. My family
moved to New York when I was about sixteen from Egypt.
We lived in a small town, but the reason we moved was because the
death toll was on the rise. More and more vampires (teenaged
vampires, although I wasn’t sure) took victims around clubs and at
parties, killing stupid teenage girls. Teenage girls weren’t the only ones
to be attacked (although they were preyed on the most). Men, woman,
and even children were attacked by vampires, either by being drained,
turned into a vampire, or left for dead with their throats slit.
The police could never catch who had murdered the people,
obviously, even when the body was left at the crime scene. It was
usually up to the Vampire Slayers to murder the vampires and when
we didn’t catch them, a new body would pop up somewhere. That
always made us feel bad, especially when there was no body at the
crime scene, just signs of a struggle and blood. When there was no
body, we all knew what had happened: a human was turned into a
vampire. Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we tried harder to catch
the leeches on our next night on the job.
“Liyah. Earth to Liyah,” Somebody said, which made me jump about
ten feet.
My mud brown eyes- which were focused on my physics homework-
flickered up at my best friend since I was a baby: Jeff. He grinned and
sat across from me at the table that I was sitting at, doing my
homework until I had to go to work.
“You okay?” Jeff asked me, while I worked on my homework and
sipped my daily cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts.
My mind was a jumbled mess. Working at the local hospital was no
small feat, especially when it opens your eyes to other problems
besides vampires and vampire slayers at war with each other. I was
glad that I only worked three nights a week while I slept the other four
nights. Even vampire slayers aren’t invincible, even though our
superiors seem to think that.
I shrugged and took a long swig of my coffee, before I studied Jeff.
Most girls thought he was the hottest piece of ass ever: muscular body,
dark tanned skin, hard abs, emerald green eyes, but what every girl
really loved about him was his tattoo and his hair. His tattoo spanned
the length of one side of his body and his left arm. It was a beautiful
intricate tribal tattoo of complicated swirls. His hair was long, just went
past his shoulders, and black. Jeff was pretty hot, but it’s not like I had
times for boys in the dangerous life I was in: Killing off vampires in an
attempt to make the world a better place for humans in general. I had
my foot in both worlds, to my father’s chagrin.
We sat in the back of the cafeteria, away from the humans, and
chatted mostly about work for tonight. Jeff sipped orange juice, looking
out one of the windows, while he surveyed the area with his watchful
eyes. It was an unnecessary gesture, seeing as how vampires can only
come out at night. I let out a yawn and ran a hand through my thick,
long black hair. I was tired and last night wasn’t a good night for me. I
had been out the entire night with two other vampire slayers, scoping
the area around a junior high school and an elementary school. We had
faced off with three vampires and killed two of them, but the last one
had run off. I went home with cuts and bruises and a few slash marks
on my neck and arms. I had to wear a long sleeved shirt to cover up
the cuts and bruises because I knew some nosy human would suspect
that I was being beaten or something.
I checked my phone to see the time and got up, grabbing my Ed
Hardy silver tote bag and my empty coffee cup. Jeff looked up at me,
confused at first, but he sighed and asked, “This is your last class of
the day, right?”
I nodded and went over to the garbage can to throw out my garbage.
Jeff followed me and then we walked out of the cafeteria, chatting
about work, school, and such. When I was sixteen, I always thought
that when I was older, I would have a house, a husband who loved me,
and children. Now that I’m twenty one, those thoughts were nothing
more than a fantasy. Deep inside though, I sometimes yearned for that
normalcy and wished desperately that I could be just a normal human
woman with normal human problems.
I immediately cast those thoughts away. I never loved my life as
much as I loved it now, but man, it was so hard sometimes I was
usually juggling the life of a vampire slayer, helping my mom with the
bills, still living with my family, working part time, going to school full
time to become a nurse, and attempting to be a normal woman.
Outside, the rays of the sun warmed my tanned skin and I welcomed
the sun and its protection. I breathed in deep and walked across
campus with Jeff, catching up on the school’s gossip. When I was close
to my class, I parted ways with Jeff- who was on his way to become an
engineer- and jogged to my class. I slid in my seat and took out my
blue pen and started to take notes while my professor talked.
I didn’t really mind going to college to become a nurse. My mother
was a nurse and ever since I was sixteen, that’s what I had wanted to
be. My father was a real estate agent, but somehow knew about the
underground vampire scene. He threw me into this life, claiming that
one day; I’d have to defend the world. He was right, but on the other
hand, he wanted to protect me but I wasn’t having my father’s life put
in jeopardy. I couldn’t do that, no matter how close I had come to
death.
My father took me to a remote Academy in the city- which was free-
that trained budding vampire slayer’s to certified one’s. It was around
the time when I was sixteen that he took me into the city. I didn’t know
that he was actually talking me to an academy, so I stayed silent in the
car while he drove. When we walked into the building, I had looked
around at the numerous teenagers. The building was a run-down
factory on the outside, but inside, it looked like a normal school.
When my dad and I walked into the office, a nurse took me to a plain
looking room. She gently explained to me that there were supernatural
beings that stalked humans, attempting to kill them and drain their
blood. She then told me what they were called: Vampires. The nurse
then told me to lie down on the table in the room and handed me a
hospital gown. She then left the room and I hurriedly undressed and
laid on the table, a mixture of shock and embarrassment running
through me.
After a few minutes, the nurse came back into the room with a cute
doctor who looked to be in his mid twenties with sandy brown hair. I
laid there, embarrassed that I was basically naked in front of the cute
doctor. Overall, I was still baffled that vampires had actually existed.
The dream that I had when I was around ten years old came back to
me that day…
He smiled down at me and said soothingly, “Hello, Liyah. Your dad
has told us all about you and well, this may sting a bit but don’t be
alarmed. I’m sure Nurse Jackie has told you all about vampires.”
The way he said vampires, it was like he had vomited a little in his
mouth. I was confused about what was going to sting… until the nurse
besides him produced a syringe with a strange liquid that was so dark
red it looked brown. I was scared, but the nurse gently explained to me
that the liquid was vampiric genes. The doctor wiped my upper arm
with a wet napkin that smelled like alcohol and held my shoulders
firmly. I was scared and confused still, but tensed my body when I saw
that needle coming towards me. When the needle plunged into my
skin, I flinched and closed my eyes.
When I opened my eyes again, I felt incrementally stronger. I could
actually feel my bones toughening under my tanned skin, could smell
more scents, could see differently, stronger. I looked around slowly and
looked down at a pen on the table. I reached for it and wrapped my
hand around it, tighter and tighter with ease, until I felt it crush in my
hand. I opened my hand to see splinters of the pen and the black ink
stained my skin. I looked up at the nurses, my heightened senses
working, but I smiled. I knew I had a new lease on my life now. By the
time I had graduated from the Academy, I was twenty years old and
almost as fast as a vampire. When I was at the Academy, I had trained
every day with the seniors and teachers.
I came back to my senses when my professor snapped at me that
class was over. In a daze, I looked around to see that everybody else
but me had left the classroom. Hastily, I shoved my books and such in
my bag and walked out of the classroom. I walked down the stairs,
rummaging through my bag to get my car keys. I began to think again
while I passed humans that were chattering about nondescript things,
like parties and having sex. I shook my head and sighed softly, walking
across campus to the parking lot. I knew that ever since that day at the
Academy, where my superiors had injected me with vampiric genes,
that I was no longer a “normal” human. I was stronger than the
average man and faster than a marathon runner. Hell, I knew that I
was no longer a human girl, so why act like one? The only thing that
stayed true in my new world was: Keep your mouth shut about the
supernatural.
 I never told anybody about vampires and vampire slayers, not even
Caleb and Dexter, my two older brothers’. Even though I never told
anybody about the supernatural, I sometimes displayed my strength,
speed, and enhanced senses. It wasn’t really my fault, though,
because I didn’t really mean to flaunt my new skills. It was usually
when some poor human was on the brink of death or something.
I climbed into my midnight black Hummer and texted Jeff where he
was. Then, I drove to the hospital but not before getting some fast food
at McDonald’s. The rest of the day passed uneventfully, until my shift
was over. I was just about to go out the back door when a coworker of
mine called out to me from behind. I turned and smiled at Marcia, a
single mother of two.
“Hey, Liyah,” She said cheerfully, while we walked out the backdoor
together after we had gathered our things up.
I smiled and nodded politely to her. I always liked Marcia, because
she was so sweet and caring. I babysat her kids all the time because
she needed a babysitter since money was tight.
“What are you doing tonight?” Marcia asked, while we walked
towards the parking lot.
I shrugged and said, “Probably going to go out tonight.” I didn’t
elaborate much, because I had work tonight.
Marcia smiled and ran a hand through her short brown hair. She
looked extremely exhausted and tired. Having two kids around and
paying bills would probably stress any human out. I walked Marcia to
her car and realized she hadn’t said anything until we came to stop at
her car.
“You have two jobs, Liyah?” Marcia asked, unlocking her car and
putting her things in the backseat.
I leaned against her car and ignored her question. “Is there
something you need from me, Marcia?”
I could see the panic and fear flitter up in her blue eyes.