Heofon Academy- Chapter One

Running as fast as I could, I rounded the corner into the alley; nearly toppling over in my stupid fuck-me heels; my friend Tina’s terminology. I flicked them off and continued running, my bare feet pounding the dirty ground, my throat was raw from pulling in as much oxygen as I could get; I was not one for running, at school I avoided sport like it was the plague. I spotted a large bin, behind a bar and dived behind it, pressing my hand to my mouth trying to muffle my breathing.

I struggled to keep the miniscule amount of food in my stomach at the smell of rotten veg being emitted from the open bin. Luckily I didn’t eat a lot in the restaurant as my date didn’t seem like a big eater, only moving his rare steak around the plate and tasting a small amount of the bloody juice with his fork. Yuck.

I crouched behind the bin for what felt like hours silently praying that the tall, dark and handsome psycho didn’t find me. How could someone I thought was so cute turn out to be so violent? I took a quick moment to put my fingers to my neck to see whether he had done much damage. He had drawn blood! What sort of weirdo gets off on biting their date? He must have some serious issues; I wasn’t sticking around to find out.

I knew going on a blind date was a huge mistake, but my best friend Tina had once again talked me into something disastrous. She had been the outgoing one in our duo, always dating different guys, the real life and soul of a party. With her straight blonde hair and dazzling blue eyes, she was like a catalogue model and she knew it. She had got me dressed up for tonight, in a dress of hers, which I'm sure I had seen her wear as a top; red, cut extremely low in the front and riding so high up my legs I was self conscious pulling it down all night. My red heels, I bought on a sudden impulse while shopping last week, they had cost a fortune and were now lost in the alley somewhere. She had even got my normally uncontrollable curly auburn hair straightened out. What a waste for a date who wants to kill me.

After what seemed like a safe amount of time I decided to try and take a peek around the bin- to make sure the way was clear for me to make a dash back to the centre of town, to grab a taxi home. As I was about to peer around I heard the noise of a trainer scuffing the floor. I was so frightened I dropped the F-bomb, alerting him to my location.

‘I can smell your blood.’ He spoke calmly and clearly as if he had followed me at a leisurely pace. What sort of weirdo claims to smell your blood? If he had put on a Transylvanian accent I would have been in hysterics. Unfortunately, nothing was funny about this situation.

‘Just go away! I’ve called the police, they will be here at any moment!’

‘You’re lying, I have your bag. Come out, and I won’t hurt you.’

‘You bit me! You’re seriously messed up, leave me alone!’ I stepped out from behind the bin feeling brave due to the two glasses of wine I had drunk starting to take effect; I don’t normally drink, it was really going to my head.

He was standing about two car lengths away and even though I knew he wasn’t all there mentally, his physical appearance still took my breath away. His name was Rafe and he was tall with incredible muscles visible under his tight blue shirt. His dark hair was swept over his forehead above his piercing blue eyes. He still gave me goose bumps but not in a good way anymore.

Within a blink of the eye he was right in my face staring into my eyes, I couldn’t move due to the shock.

‘You’re not going to scream or run. I’m going to feed from you and as you ran and have made this hard for me, I'm not going to stop until I've drained you dry,’ He said with such confidence as if I would follow his every command.

He didn’t try and restrain me. For some reason he thought he could control me with his voice; he was more deluded than I thought. I waited until he dipped his head towards my neck and then ducked down under his arm and took off again at a sprint. He was so shocked that he didn’t follow straight away, giving me a chance to gain a couple of feet. Unfortunately, he was fast, really fast and had caught my arm within seconds.

‘I compelled you! How did you run?’ It wasn’t really a question, he looked confused and angry. Really angry.

I knew I was going to die, but I owed it to myself to fight anyway. I gouged my nails into his arm enough to draw blood. He let go and I stumbled towards the ground and he let out a bitter laugh. I landed on top of an old broken bar stool, winding myself. As he crouched down over me, I did the only thing I could think of, I took one of the broken legs and jabbed it with all my force at him. He stumbled backwards and I saw the leg was protruding from his chest, he fell to the ground and lay there still.

I scrambled up trying not to gag and approached his lifeless body slowly and nudged him with my foot. Nope, he was dead; I headed down the alley, slightly swaying as I walked and found my discarded shoes. I was fuming that I didn’t know where my handbag had ended up in the struggle, shouldn’t have been my first thought after killing a man but I'm going to blame shock for my wayward thoughts.

As I reached the end of the alley, a group of men and women came striding around the corner dressed all in black and looked to be heavily armed. I thought I was hallucinating at first until one of the men spoke to me.

‘What’s your name? Are you hurt?’

I tried to tug the hem of my dress down self consciously, making the scooped neck line dip even lower; once again I cursed my outfit choice.

‘Amelia, umm Mia Harris,’ I mumbled, finding it hard to remember my own name.

‘Are you hurt Miss Harris?’ his voice was silky smooth and helped to calm my nerves.

‘No I'm okay. He nicked my neck is all, and it’s already stopped bleeding.’ I dabbed my fingers to my neck to check. I didn’t mention the bruises his fingers had imprinted in my arm, it didn’t seem important in the scheme of things.

‘Okay, Miss Harris, how did the gentleman on the floor end up with a stake protruding from his chest?’ he asked the question with such bluntness and lacking any emotion at all. This is when it dawned on me that I had murdered this man. I had taken his life. I tried to convince myself, it was his life or mine but it still felt awful.

‘Oh god, I killed him! I actually killed someone!’ sobs started to escape in between words, I could no longer hold it together, my whole body was shaking and my knees buckled beneath me. Luckily the guy asking the questions must have anticipated this and caught me before I hit the ground. He supported me by putting my arm around his neck and started towards the street.

‘I'm going to get the young girl in the car; she’s in shock, I’ll see how much she knows.’ He shouted over his shoulder to the group examining the body.

I didn’t hear an answer as I began to lose consciousness. The next moment I remember was being in the back of a dark car, Mr silky voice perched next to me dabbing a wet cloth on my head. In the light I could see he looked very young to be working with the police or whatever this organisation was. He couldn’t have been any older than eighteen. He had crew cut hair, a golden colour with flecks of red and beautiful big brown eyes. In any other circumstances, I would have asked for his number but that didn’t seem appropriate considering.

‘How did a little thing like you not get killed tonight?’ he muttered to himself, not realising I had come to.

‘Just lucky I guess,’ I smiled at him, a nervous smile as an attempt to break the awkward moment.

‘I don’t know how you got away, but he couldn’t have been expecting it, we’ve been after him for months but couldn’t track him fast enough.’

‘I'm not the first he’s tried this with? What a sicko.’

‘Do you think you could answer a couple of questions now? It will be better while it’s still fresh in your mind.’

‘Yeah sure, what do you want to know?’

‘Did he speak to you at all; tell you anything we might find useful?’

‘No, we never really spoke much at dinner as I was nervous, I'm not really one for blind dates normally so I was out of my comfort zone and he seemed content with the silence. When he attacked me he said he would drain me dry, whatever he meant by that, and when I got away he seemed confused and mentioned something about compelling me. I'm not sure what that means, but it obviously didn’t work and took him by shock when I fought back, I guess he’s used to women just giving up when they think there’s no hope of getting away.’

‘Really, he tried to compel you, which is interesting. There are very few people who can resist the compulsion.’ I didn’t know what he meant and I was too exhausted to care at this point.

He continued ‘I can’t believe you managed to stake him that is impressive.’

‘I don’t think killing a man is impressive if you’re trying to catch me out, I didn’t mean to do it I only wanted to get away alive. I'm sorry he had to die.’ I was beginning to wonder if this questioning was to try and get me to admit I intended to kill the guy.

‘You’re not under investigation Mia; you did what you had to do to get out of the situation alive.’ I don’t know when we began being on first name terms considering I didn’t even know his name, bit rude if you ask me.

‘So can I go now? I’d really like to get home,’ I thought it was a long shot, but I really did want to climb into bed and hibernate for four days.

‘Sure, I wanted to check out one more thing, this compulsion has interested me. One moment,’ He took out his mobile phone and dialled a speed dial number.

‘Hi, Jared, can you come to the car I want to try something with the girl,’ I guess this Jared agreed, as he put his phone away. Within a blink of an eye a skinny pale guy was standing outside the car looking in.

‘Mia this is Jared,’ he introduced as we slid out the car. ‘Jared can you compel Mia to do something, please.’

‘What?’ I was taken aback by this comment, but to be honest, how much weirder could this night get.

‘It’s okay Mia this won’t hurt, it’s a test to see if I can compel you,’ Jared stepped towards me and stared directly into my eyes the same way my date had done earlier. ‘Mia, you’re going to stand very still and not move until I tell you that you may do so,’ He then stepped away not breaking eye contact.

‘Okay, now try and move,’

I stepped forward and gave them a little wave feeling rather stupid.

‘I see what you mean Alexei; it’s very strange that I can’t compel her,’ Jared commented. So Alexei was Mr silky voice's name.

‘Why wouldn’t I be able to move? Because you told me not to?’ I was beyond confused at this point; maybe these guys were as mentally fucked up as my psycho date.

The guys looked at each other as if having a silent communication, and then Jared answered.

‘You shouldn’t be able to move because when I compel any human they have to do what I want. Only Nephilim like Alexei can resist it.’

My mind was reeling trying to work out what he was saying. Nephilim? What does that mean? Some sort of cult? My head was spinning again so I perched on the car seat with the door open.

‘So you’re N-eph-il-im,’ I sounded the foreign word out trying to pronounce it correctly, ‘what does that mean? And why do you seem to think you have some sort of mind controlling ability like Rafe thought he had?’

Jared gave Alexei a smug grin and began to open his mouth.

‘Don’t Jared she is confused enough’ Alexei interrupted.

‘For Christ’s sake, tell me what’s going on! This evening can’t get any more fucked up!’ Apparently it could. Alexei gave a dismayed expression and waved a hand at Jared gesturing for him to elaborate.

‘Fine,’ Jared began ‘He is a part angel, Nephilim, while I and Rafe are vampires.’ He said matter of fact the smug grin returning.



At which point I fainted.