Blood Feud Chapter 3

Chapter 3.

Brianne trudged through the cold snow, wrapping her coat around her with her left hand and dragging her suitcase with her right. There was a strong wind blowing in her face and her hair swirled around behind her. ‘Just another mile to go.’ She thought. The streets were filled with a deadly silence and the only light was coming from the full moon. No one was about. The lockdown the authorities had put on the city had frightened most into their homes and no one had the guts to stir and sneak out after curfew. Most of the rich townhouses had their lights out and had retired for the night, but there were a still a few windows glowing. She wished she was one of them, warm, safe and ignorant of the vampire world. ‘Those humans are lucky. They don’t have to deal with the undead every day.’ She muttered under her breath. The snow was still falling and her black hair was now very nearly white. Her eyes had frozen open and she stared into the road ahead of her.
She didn’t have far to go now until she was back at her parent’s house. She hated going back. There were too many painful memories left behind and she was probably the one family member that felt them most. Seventeen years ago on a hot summer’s night, her mother Josephine had been walking her and Will home from their aunt’s house. Brianne had been six years old when they were attacked by a vampire. Her mother tried to defend them best she could, but ended up getting bitten. It cost her, her life. She could see her mothers colour drain out of her, her eyes turn a misty grey as she lay on the ground. For some reason, the vampire had fled and she hadn’t seen him since. She could picture his face in her mind – youthful but ugly looking, unmerciful and cold hearted. Brianne had never understood the fact that only her mother died that night, not her or her brother – defenceless children four and six years old… A faint light in the distance brought her back to her senses and she noticed that it was drawing closer to her.

‘Damn! The Watch!’ she cried, dipping into a darkened alleyway. Hopefully they wouldn’t find her.

She held the suitcase against the wall and held her breath as the watch passed. She saw the trigger of his handgun shine in the light as he stopped to look up the alley. He flashed his light and it just skimmed past her, then turned and walked off and she let out a sigh of relief. The streets weren’t safe - from the vampires or the authorities and she had to get home. She edged along the wall and peered around the corner. She waited until he was out of sight and she made a run for it. Six months previous, the British Government had urged each council to enforce a mass curfew on the counties they controlled. There had been hundreds of unexplained deaths during the night and no evidence was able to present itself to the police. The dead were mainly women in the twenties and thirties and this outbreak had the government worried. As each night-time curfew was put in place, special members of the police force were put on patrol in the major cities and towns. They were the Watchmen, ruthless and as merciless as the Vampires themselves. They’d sooner shoot you than report you to the Officials, and so only the brave and stupid ventured out into the night.
Brianne ran through the snow along streets and alleyways, down main roads and down dirt paths. The snow was still falling heavily so she’d have no problem with covering her tracks. Any footprints would be long gone. After running for twenty minutes with the suitcase she stopped at the corner of a wall. She flung the case against it and sat down. Why were they after her? What was the secret? Where was her father? This last question was forever circling in her mind. He’d been working on a cure for vampire bites in his laboratory seven years before and was kidnapped. No one knew who did it, or why more importantly. She didn’t even know if he was alive. She got up and grabbed her case and started to walk along the path. She stopped five minutes later outside a large house. It hadn’t changed in the seven years she’d been away. The garden in which she spent the first few years of her life happily playing with her siblings and parents was neat and tidy and she could still see the white bricks her family home was made of. Brianne blinked a few tears away then noticed that there was a light on in one of the rooms downstairs. Hesitantly, she walked up to the front door and knocked on it three times and waited. The door opened and a young girl of twenty years appeared.

‘Bri…you’re safe…’she cried.
Brianne dropped the suitcase and flung her arms around her sister’s neck.
‘Aurelia…I’ve missed you so much. Yes I’m safe, for now. The watch nearly caught me.’ She replied.
Aurelia put her arm around her sister and pulled her inside.
‘Come on,’ she said, closing the door, ‘we have a lot to talk about.’
-ﻬ-
Brianne walked into the living room and stopped dead in the doorway. Nothing in the house had changed. Everything was the same, from the soft warm colours on the walls to the artefacts and furniture. Even more the same were the three faces smiling at her as she entered the room. Will was sitting in a chair by the fire looking at her and then she spotted her two older brothers – James and Trey. They looked like they had both seen a ghost, but managed to stumble out of their chairs and suffocate their long lost sister in a tight embrace. Trey was the first to speak after they’d let go.

‘I can’t believe it’s really you…Where have you been all these years?’ he asked, still in disbelief.
‘Oh you know, had my own apartment in the heart of Bakerswitch not a mile from here. I told Will to tell you that I wouldn’t be coming home for some time, but I never imagined that he’d tell you I was dead!’ she cried, letting out a bitter laugh and casting a glace towards Will.
‘Sorry Bri, but I thought it was for the best. You didn’t want to be found so if they thought you were dead they wouldn’t come looking for you.’ He replied sheepishly.
She walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I forgive you. They might not, but I do.’ She said, looking at the rest of her family.
‘I don’t care what he said, the main thing is that you are both alive and home. You are staying, aren’t you Bri?’ asked James, speaking for the first time.
Brianne took her coat off, placed it on the arm of the chair and sat down. She shifted about awkwardly. ‘I don’t really know. You know the reasons as to why I left, and those reasons still stand. I didn’t plan on coming home tonight, but I was attacked in the only place I thought was safe and now that is gone…’ she said.
‘Wait, you were attacked? By who?’ asked Will.
Brianne sighed and gave in. ‘Not long after you had left, I reached my floor – the top floor but one and I noticed that my usually warm landing was ice cold and my door was open. My apartment has been ransacked, windows wide open, tables overturned, bedding and furniture slashed. Obviously I armed myself and approached the room with caution, searching every room, but then the door slammed shut and this woman, this…I don’t know how to describe her, Siren like, beautiful but with an aura of danger about her approached me. The minute the moonlight hit her face I knew she was a vampire, and she had recently had a meal. Blood was dripping from her fangs and she had a knife in her hand,’ she said, handing Aurelia the knife, ‘and she told me that she had been searching for me, and she mentioned something about me being a weapon that her master was after. She lunged at her and I shot at her. The bullets didn’t even touch her, but she fled by jumping out of the window, where she dropped that. Oh and she also left this too.’ said Brianne, handing Aurelia the piece of cloth. Serena must have caught her dress on the window frame.
While her brothers pressed for more details, Aurelia studied the knife. As soon as she saw the name engraved on the blade she turned white.
‘The name, I know. It rings a bell but I can’t place it.’ said Brianne, noticing her sister’s rapid change in colour.
‘This knife is no ordinary knife Bri. It was an athame used centuries and centuries ago by the named vampire – Siegfried Balfour. He was one of the first vampire lords and…’she said, getting up out of her chair and crossing the room to a bookcase, where she pulled a book out and flicked through it till she found the page she was looking for. She handed it to Brianne who read the text in front of her.
‘Siegfried Balfour, One of the oldest masters of vampirism wrote the Ancient Tome of Demonic Rituals shortly before he was vanquished. This tome has acted as the very heart of this equally ancient race and contains many rituals – now myth, which died out with many of the pure blood vampires. The book disappeared shortly before the end of the 19th Century and hasn’t been seen since.’ finished Brianne. The colour drained from her cheeks as well.
‘Recognise it now?’ asked Aurelia.
‘The day our father went missing, he was studying this book. He’d put it somewhere, so you two couldn’t find it,’ said James, pointing at Brianne and Aurelia, ‘because he knew you used to read it when he wasn’t around. He had a feeling that something bad was going to happen and he hid it.’
‘We used to read that book every day – sometimes just for fun, but usually to try and find out ways to protect ourselves. We never imagined that it would amount to something so valuable. That must have been what they were looking for, the night he was kidnapped, and…possibly tonight? They must think that I have it. That’s why she came looking for me, I’m a weapon. The book must be pretty powerful. So…where is it?’ asked Brianne. She yawned.
Aurelia cleared her throat. ‘I’ve hidden it.’ she whispered.
‘You have it? Where?’ asked Brianne, suddenly becoming very alive.
‘I’ll get it in the morning. Right now you need to sleep.’ replied her sister.

Brianne got up. ‘Are you sure? Ok. If you need me, you know where I am.’ She replied. She grabbed her case and dragged it up the stairs to her room at the bottom right of the landing. It had been the biggest and brightest room but when she left, she’d replaced the cheeriness with black and deep reds, in mourning for her father. As she pushed open the door she noticed that it was still the same and she switched on a lamp. Everything was exactly how she had left it and she was just about to collapse on her bed when she spotted something new. For a moment she couldn’t breathe and then she approached closer to the sleeping man in her bed. She lightly stroked his black, scruffy hair and ran her fingers down his arm and across his chest lovingly. She couldn’t believe her eyes and ran out of the room without disturbing him. Aurelia was just approaching her room when Brianne ran into her.

‘You never told me that Jonathon was here.’ She said. Jonathon had been Brianne’s best friend since they were little and he too believed her to be dead. They used to spend every waking minute of the day together, but when she left he moved in to help Aurelia search for her. He didn’t know anything about the vampires, and didn’t believe in them.
‘I was just about to. Do you want another room instead?’ asked Aurelia.
‘No, I’ll work something out.’ replied Brianne. She kissed her sister goodnight and crept back into the room. He was still asleep thankfully so she proceeded to undress, and after folding her clothes, she lounged on the sofa next to the bed. Amazed to see him, she drifted off to sleep, thinking about everything that had happened, with the many questions still spinning in her head.