Fan Fiction ❯ The Vampire Hunter ❯ Chapter 5

Chapter V

Blake could feel Gabrielle's presence even before he'd turned onto his own driveway. When he saw the strange car parked in front of his home, he knew something was up. Gabrielle didn't own a car. She preferred to move under her own power. She'd never completely embraced the newer technologies, choosing to remain somewhat outdated instead.

He couldn't understand her. He knew she was more powerful than she let on and he thought it was a complete waste on her. If he had her power, there would be nothing to get in his way. He had plans, though. He just needed a little more time and a few more allies.

He'd already gathered a pretty formidable group around him. Getting the Fourth and Fifth Orders to push for extermination had been a stroke of genius on his part. The others in the Third Order had come around to his way of thinking, believing they were doing so of their own free will, completely oblivious to his manipulations.

But if Gabrielle was here, then he knew she must suspect something. She almost never exercised her power as First Born. She seemed to be content to let the world chart its own course and kept to herself. He wouldn't let her start interfering now.

Blake entered his home and walked into the foyer. He found Gabrielle there with a tall dark-haired woman. He stopped and stared at the woman. He knew that face. She was one of the main reasons he wanted the VHA destroyed in the first place.

"What is that human scum doing here?" he snarled at Gabrielle.

Gabrielle looked to her companion. She'd known sooner or later Clark would end up being recognized. Now that it had happened, she wasn't really sure how to handle it.

"I wanted to talk to you about your decision to go after the VHA members."

"You've shown a Hunter where I live. And not just any Hunter. Her. You know this means her death," Blake said and took a step forward.

"No," Gabrielle said the word quietly, but the look in her eyes stopped Blake where he stood.

It took but a moment for Blake to understand what was happening. Their quiet leader had turned traitor and joined up with the infamous Vampire Hunter. He suddenly realized he was slightly outnumbered.

"You traitorous bitch," he hissed and then ran.

Gabrielle was after him in a split second, but Blake was fast. He was essentially Second Order because of the blood of his Master. It was a peculiar effect that the First Order had learned about the hard way.

The first time a human drank the blood of a vampire, if it was enough, the human was changed at the cellular level into a vampire, too. The same occurred through conception, only the change took place at the moment of fertilization. But once that change was wrought, if a vampire drank the blood of a stronger vampire, the strength was passed on almost completely intact. Most of the First Order had been wiped out by their offspring after sharing their blood post-conversion.

The Second Order had been wiped out for a completely different reason, but before Blake's Master had died, he'd chosen to boost his offspring's strength with his own. In one sense, Blake was close to First Order because his Master had tasted the blood of his own Master. But there was a little lost during the transfers, and Blake was nowhere near as old as Gabrielle or her siblings would have been, so Blake's power remained far below that of a true First Order vampire.

Even so, Gabrielle had to use all of her strength to catch up with Blake. It all happened in less than three seconds, but for the two immortals, it felt like an hour.

Gabrielle caught Blake on the shoulder and ripped down his back with her extended fingernails. Blake whipped around and backhanded her. She spun with the hit and came back with her own slap across his face, raking her nails through his skin.

He gave out a cry and his hand went to his face and came away with blood. He saw the red in the dim light of the half moon and his eyes widened. Then they narrowed at Gabrielle and he swung at her. She ducked, but his foot came up and caught her in the head. If they had been mortals, the blow would have knocked Gabrielle out. As it was, she lost track of things for a nanosecond and Blake pulled her up by her hair and grabbed her face.

Gabrielle pushed away with all her strength and it was enough to put some distance between them. Then Gabrielle saw the drops of blood on Blake's fingernails and her hand went to her cheek where she felt four long scratches. Her eyes widened in horror as he brought the fingers to his lips. He sucked them dry and convulsed in sheer pleasure.

The power that Blake felt running through him was beyond anything he'd ever experienced before and he let out a raucous scream. Gabrielle had definitely been holding out on them. He realized Gabrielle could no more be just a First Order than he was just a Third Order. The realization gave him new insight into their species' history.

"So, what exactly happened to the Father? That was never made clear to me," Blake taunted her.

Gabrielle looked down and then brought her gaze back up to stare directly into Blake's laughing eyes. "I killed him. Then I killed what remained of the First and Second Orders. And eventually, I will kill you. My father's intentions were good, but he refused to follow through with them. I'm here to make sure they're carried out."

Blake laughed at her. "Oh, I think those plans have definitely changed, my dear," he said and then disappeared.

Gabrielle followed his movements, but she knew she wouldn't have been able to catch up with him in time if she'd tried to chase him. The transfer of power was almost instantaneous and Blake was now nearly as powerful as she was. However, he was still subject to the same restrictions she was, namely the coming dawn, and he wouldn't know how to push the limits on those for a while yet.

Gabrielle turned around and headed back to Blake's house at a more normal rate. Halfway there, she met up with Clark running to catch up with her.

Clark took one look at Gabrielle's face and her blood ran cold in its rage. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"He got four drops of my blood. He's almost my equal now, but he doesn't have the experience to go with the power. I still have the advantage, but it's a lot less than before."

"Come on, it'll be light soon. We need to get you under cover."

The scratches were completely healed by the time they got to Clark's car. They pulled out onto the road and, though Clark couldn't see it yet, Gabrielle was already feeling the strain of the coming sunlight. She pulled out the body bag and slid inside. She zipped it up completely and Clark reached over to fasten the Velcro flap over the zipper. She started laughing when she glanced over at the writhing body bag sitting in the passenger seat next to her.

"What?" Gabrielle asked, her voice slightly muffled through the bag. Clark could hear the teasing grin in Gabrielle's question and laughed more.

"I have a squirming body bag in the passenger seat of my car with the leader of the vampires inside it. I happen to be the dreaded Dana Clark. You don't find that amusing?"

Gabrielle giggled. "This really is crazy, isn't it?" she said a little more soberly.

"Yeah, I guess it is." Clark's jovial mood turned serious again. "So, do we stick with Plan A or move on to Plan B?" she asked.

"I don't know what Plan B is, but I think we need to continue as though nothing's changed. Otherwise, Blake could end up recruiting them. I don't think he'll take the chance of passing on his newfound powers, he won't want anyone else to be able to stand up to him, but going against him and a group of Third Orders wouldn't be my first choice."

"Alright, Plan A it is then."

Clark pointed the car in the right direction and they ended up at their next destination in only an hour. The sun had risen past the horizon and was shining brightly down on their part of the world when Clark pulled up at the small house.

She was surprised at the size of the place. It didn't look like it could have more than three bedrooms. But according to Gabrielle's descriptions, the cellar had been dug down several stories and widened out to encompass the entire perimeter of the space beneath the front and back yards.

Clark got out of the car and came around to Gabrielle's side. She picked up the body bag with Gabrielle inside it and went to the front door. One of the servants answered and stared at her and the bag.

Recognition of whose body bag Clark was carrying registered on the servant's face and she moved aside to let Clark in. Clark noticed that all of the windows were completely covered over. There was no way any sunlight was going to get into this house.

As soon as the door was closed, the servant motioned for Clark to follow her and she was led down two flights of stairs into the real dwelling of this particular vampire.

"You may rest her body here," the servant told Clark and pointed to a low bed in one of the rooms that lined the hallway they were in. Clark put the bag down on the bed and then followed the servant back up the stairs.

Once they were in the kitchen, the servant spoke with a little less stiffness.

"So, the Mistress has finally taken a servant. Do you have any idea how lucky you are?"

Clark grinned. "Well, the job definitely has its perks," she said.

The servant grinned back. "Oh, I'm sure it does."

~\/^^^\/~

Gabrielle listened for the servant to lead Clark away and then unzipped the bag. She pulled the Velcro apart and then wiggled out of the bag. She stood up and got her bearings and then went straight for Michelle's room.

Michelle was sleeping on her bed. Gabrielle was a little surprised to find Shiri in bed with her. Shiri and Michelle had been lovers since their time in Israel, but had always slept separately. Gabrielle wondered what had caused such a change after nearly three millennia.

This posed a possible problem, though. She had hopes that she could dissuade Michelle from her decision to side with the others in the Third Order. She'd even asked Clark not to kill the servant, until she was sure, one way or the other, about Michelle's allegiance. But now, if she couldn't persuade both vampires to change their minds, she would have to take both of them on at the same time.

Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders. She had to do this no matter what the outcome and she knew Clark would be there to help, if worse came to worst. She reached down and shook Michelle's shoulder. The vampire's eyes flew open and immediately focused on Gabrielle. She looked around.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. Gabrielle very rarely made house calls and almost never during the day.

"I wanted to talk to you about going to war against the VHA."

"You've changed your mind?" Michelle was now very confused. She would never have guessed the First Born would choose war. Not in a million years.

"No, I've come to ask you to change your mind," Gabrielle said.

Shiri was now wide awake and staring at Gabrielle as if she had two heads.

"Why would she do that? The humans have been trying to exterminate us for centuries. Now that we have greater numbers, it's only right that we should return the favor," Shiri reasoned.

Gabrielle could see that Michelle didn't really buy that theory, but she also wasn't inclined to watch their kind be hunted anymore.

"They only started hunting us because of a misunderstanding. And instead of trying to fix that mistake, my siblings, and even I in my own way, decided to cultivate it. It's time we let the past go."

"What does any of that matter? We're demons. I knew that when I asked to be taken. So did Michelle. We accepted it as the price we would pay for immortality."

"No, we're not demons. That's part of the mistake." Gabrielle took a deep breath. She had let the myth continue for far too long. "My father was not from Hell or any other underworld. He was a traveler from the stars. He wanted to help humans and that's why I was conceived. But the interbreeding caused unforeseen side effects. A need for human blood. Intolerance to sunlight. After the last of my siblings was born, my father gave up hope of creating a guardian race that would protect humans and instead chose to live as humans saw him; a god.

"After the First Succession, my father's origins were lost. Even my father seemed to forget who he was. He deluded himself into thinking he really was a god. With most of my siblings dead, killed by their own creations, and my father a megalomaniac, I decided I had to carry out at least part of my father's original plan." She paused.

"What did you do?" asked Michelle.

Both she and Shiri were listening in rapt attention. Neither of them would have admitted it, but they were both feeling glimmerings of hope that they were not doomed to eternal damnation for the choice they had made so many years ago.

"I attacked my father and killed him. Through careful study, I learned that there were certain plants and minerals that could cause degeneration in our kind, leaving one unable to heal from injury. I destroyed most of the Second Order, and what was left of the First, this way and drained the rest to add to my own power."

Michelle and Shiri remembered when their Master had disappeared. At the time, they had been fledglings and too confused to really dwell on her absence. Later, life simply kept them too busy to think much about it. The mists of time had swallowed up reality and left myths in its place that neither of them had ever bothered to question.

Gabrielle could see that both vampires were speechless with the revelations she had just given them. Maybe there was hope that her father's original intentions would finally be made real.

"We are a mix between humans and a race not of this world. We've been given gifts. Unfortunately, in our adolescence, we chose to abuse them. I don't blame you or the humans for your hatred of one another. It's partly my fault for keeping our true origins a secret for so long."

"Why did you? Why not tell us who the Father really was?" Shiri asked. Now that the information was starting to sink in, anger at being lied to was beginning to rise within her.

"It.. Honestly, it's hard to explain what I was thinking back then. I never chose to pass on my Gift. If I had, I would have told that person everything, I know I would have."

She thought about Clark and knew that she would tell Clark everything and anything before letting her make that kind of decision.

"And in some respects, I didn't want to interfere with the choices my siblings and their offspring made in regards to their children. But, after I'd destroyed my father and the others, I decided letting humans think they were going to Hell, if they became one of us, would keep them from trying. I wanted to protect humans as my father had intended, even if it was to protect them from us. It never occurred to me that such a consequence would merely bring those who already believed they were evil to our ranks.

"When I came back from my seclusion and saw the changes in human society, saw the changes within our own people, I realized my mistake. By then, I thought it was too late and decided to remain as separate from you and the others as possible. I knew what would happen if one of you were to gain my powers with the false history all of you believed. Unfortunately, that's now happened."

Gabrielle wasn't sure why she'd decided to tell them everything, but the looks on their faces at this latest news confirmed her gut instinct. These two had chosen what they thought was damnation in order to remain with each other for all eternity. They'd chosen Hell because of love.

"Who?" asked Michelle.

"Blake."

"Oh no," Shiri breathed out. "When?"

"An hour or so ago."

Michelle and Shiri looked at each other. Gabrielle could see the two piecing together all the information she'd given them so far. Shiri looked back at her.

"You were doing it again. You came here to..." Shiri trailed off and Michelle picked up the thread.

"You were going to kill us, if we didn't side with you."

"Yes. I still will, if you choose to join with Blake. He's stolen my power and I can't let him live. Anyone who tries to stop me will not be tolerated. Even if I agreed that humans were as bad as the others have made them out to be, I still wouldn't advocate their mass slaughter. For one thing, we need them in order to survive."

Michelle nodded and Shiri continued to stare at her.

"So, where does this leave us?" Shiri asked.

"It's up to you," Gabrielle replied.

"Would you even believe us, if we said we wanted to help you?" Michelle asked.

"Do you?"

"I still hate the humans for trying to hunt us to extinction, but I agree with you that Blake can't be allowed to have that kind of power. I knew you were stronger than you appeared to be, but I've always trusted you with that power. I don't trust Blake. If you'll let me, I'll fight on your side," Shiri promised. Gabrielle studied her eyes and decided she was telling the truth.

Michelle nodded her agreement. "I go where she goes," she said.

Gabrielle accepted that and stood. "Get dressed, we need to get going."

"Where to?" asked Shiri.

"There's two left on the list that I need to visit before Blake does, though I doubt he's doing much more than sleeping right now. He doesn't have a servant to help him anymore."

Michelle glanced at Shiri.

"And you do?" she asked.

"Um, well, she's not my servant. She's just helping me."

Shiri grinned at the slight flush that came over Gabrielle's features. After all this time, it seemed fitting that Gabrielle had finally found someone. Sure, she'd had many lovers throughout her lifetime, but Shiri was positive Gabrielle had never had any emotional ties to any of them. It was simply a pleasure she took before killing certain prey.

"Do you plan to make her one of us?" Michelle asked.

"No," came the soft, but blunt reply.

Shiri shook her head at her lover to tell her to back off. Whatever the problem was, there were much more pressing matters that needed their attention.