Avery

The revenant had on a dirty brown leather jacket and black pants, meaning he either wasn't part of our territory or he didn't prepare to show up today. All vampires wear suits and appropriate attire in this building, to lower suspicion.

I underestimated the revenants. They may look like they're dying, they may look like zombies, but they were just as powerful as the rest of us. The revenant became nothing but a blur as he attacked.

He went after the biggest guard first, sinking his teeth into his neck and tearing at his skin with his claws. The guard yelled in pain and threw the revenant off of him. He covered his neck and his body trembled. Maybe it was just the shock of being bitten... Or maybe the revenant had different venom?

One of the other guards came forward and stepped in front of him. He stretched out his arms and purple tendrils of smoke emanated from his skin.

Oddly, he attempted to fight the revenant head on, like a boxer. When it lunged at him he swung with his right fist and knocked out back.
He ran towards it, trying to make sure it had no chance to recover, but it was still too fast.
It hissed like a snake and darted towards the left wall, leaped off of it, and attacked from his side. The other guards all started humming something, casting some type of spell, when as soon as it tried to sink it's teeth in his arm, his arm disappeared. Completely.

In a small purple fog, his arm vanished. It caught the revenant completely by surprise. He rammed into the guard's side, who picked him up by his neck and held him tight. All of the guards were pretty big, and even though none of them were vampires, they all possessed incredible strength. I wasn't sure if there was a spell for that, or if they hit the gym during their free time. The revenant tried to struggle, but the more he struggled the tighter the guard held onto his neck.

"We apprehended him, Miss Barnes." The guard said,
Raising the revenant slightly higher.
I looked past them, at the door. There were a bunch of vampires snooping, trying to see the incident.

This won't look good for us. I realized.
"Okay... Um..." I stopped for a second. Damn, I didn't even bother to remember the guards' names!
"For now, detain the revenant until we-"

"IGNITE!" shouted the guard.
His left arm reappeared the same time his right arm lit ablaze. The fire spread and consumed the revenant, who screamed and writhed in agony.
The guard was unfazed by the flame, and showed no mercy. He kept a stranglehold on the revenant, who had started begging and pleading for it's life.

There were some vampires and revenants watching, and they must have sympathized with the creature, because some sprang forward to free him.
The other guards didn't give them a chance.
One threw balls of fire, burning the vampires and revenants in the front, making them retreat.
Another drew a line of fire in front of them that grew taller the closer they got.

I wasn't sure how long this disaster would last, when finally, the revenant went limp. The flames extinguished, and the guard dropped it to the floor.
"It's dead, Miss Barnes."

Great. Just great. I let out a deep breath. "Gabriel, control the crowd."
Gabriel's eyes glowed a translucent blue, and he raised his hand. The line of fire extinguished, and all of vampires froze.

But the revenants didn't.
They looked at the vampires and then at each other.
Gabriel mumbled something, and the intercom came on. A woman's voice spoke.

"Excuse us, but due to security, we need all revenants to exit the building. You all will be notified when you can reenter. The guards will escort you to the doors. Please do not attempt anything irrational."

My guards moved forward to escort the revenants, and Gabriel controlled the vampires like puppets, moving them out of the way. Two of the guards didn't move, the guard that killed the revenant, and the one that was bitten.

Gabriel

Controlling the vampires was simple enough.
Containing the revenants was a whole other problem. I could sense the anger in their minds, and I didn't dare make eye contact with them.
"This is a bunch of crap!" screamed one guy.
"You saw that? They think we're monsters. They've already made us outcasts. I bet they see us as zombies. Just dying freaks! They want to get rid of us, to kill all of us. We can't let that happen! They aren't getting away with this. We'll end this ourselves!"

While some of the guards began to escort the revenants out, I bent down to help the bitten one.
"Hey, I don't know any healing magic, but I can reverse the effects on your body back to the time before you got bitten. It's not a strong spell, and it fades, but it should last long enough till they come back and do real work."

I looked into his eyes and was surprised to see a milky gray. His eyes were really watery and his pupils were gone.

I involuntarily jumped away from him, and he looked at me in shock.
"What? What's wrong?"
I regained my composure and tried to play it off.
"Nothing, nothing. I used a lot of magic on those  people, and it backfires on me sometimes. You probably wouldn't understand, it's a completely different type of magic."

"Ah, I see."
After I used my magic on him, his eyes cleared up and his pupils returned.
I looked at him, maybe for too long, before finally saying, "All good."
He stared back at me strangely rose to his feet.

"Thanks."

He went to catch up with the other guards, repairing the wall, door, and floor as he left.

I looked over to Avery. She seemed deep in thought, and angry.
"I did not give you the orders to kill it!" She snapped. The guard turned around, ignoring the revenant's​ charred body.
"This revenant could've ​been a rogue. A spy. If it wanted to live it wouldn't have attacked in the first place."

The way he said It got stuck in my head. I thought it was cruel how the vampires treated the revenants. They didn't even use pronouns for these creatures. Didn't even say their names anymore. I wanted to say something about it in the beginning, but I wasn't in the place to do so. That, and the fact Avery's personality was completely different back then. It was more like her father's. She used to be brutal, sadistic, and ruthless, but now she's-

"Gabriel, pay attention!" She snapped.

"Huh?" I answered.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking too much."

"Well, listen. Because of this guy," she pointed towards the guard, "We now have a huge situation. There is a huge rift between the revenants and us now."

"Well, obviously. But you can't blame the guard. Vampires and revenants both have been attacking each other, physically and verbally.
They even have been convening in secret, plotting against each other. In fact, I don't think this guy worked alone," I said, motioning towards the dead revenant. She glared at it's body, then at the guard who committed the deed.

"I think your guards ​did a great job," I said, trying to ease some of the tension.
The guard broke into a smile.

"Thank you sir."

"Your welcome, but you guys creeped me out when I first entered. I also thought at least some of you would have been vampires too, but all seven of you are mages... Where did you find them Avery?"

Avery straightened her hair. "I told the other territories I needed assistance with finding a cure."

The guard frowned. "That's not what I was told."
She looked at him and rolled her eyes. "That's because I wasn't done talking. Anyways," she said with emphasis, "When that didn't work, I asked for protection. The territories knew the Midwest was coming after us and, since no one likes them, they each sent a guard to serve. Does that match up with what you were told, sir?"

He chose to ignore her attitude. "Yes ma'am."
"Hold on." I raised my finger.
"We are the West, and the Midwest obviously wouldn't help us, so that leaves Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest. How did you get seven?"

"I can answer that," said the guard. I'm from the Southeast, where my brother is the Head vampire."

"You're related to Trinidad?" I asked.
"Yeah. I brought one of my friends that I learned magic with, the Northeast brought three, and there's another guy that came from the North Pole or something. He's always hot, he even passes out a lot. Most of the time he has a cloud of cold weather surrounding him. He didn't use it earlier because he didn't want to blow our cover."

"I sensed you as soon as I came in. All of you guys failed."
He smiled at that until he heard Avery giggle. His face dropped back to a frown again.

"They told us... When we were about to leave, they told us Pratt was the most malevolent vampire alive. Then they said his daughter was just as evil. But from what I am seeing," he looked directly at Avery. "They must have mixed up the territories."

Avery looked indignant. "I am Pratt's daughter. And I would be just like him, but... It's the disease thing."
She looked down, avoiding our gazes.
"She unbuttoned the top of her shirt and slightly pulled it back. Part of her skin, close to her neck and shoulder, looked rotten and decayed, just like the revenants."

The guard looked shocked. She caught his expression and scoffed.
"I bet you want to back away from me, don't you?"

Realizing he had offended her, he shook his head and smiled.
"That's not it. I just strangled a revenant and burned it to death. If that didn't disgust me, that little blemish won't either."

She smiled too, and then everything was quiet for a few seconds. I didn't like this new Avery. She was too nice, it felt fake. If this was how she was before she became a vampire, the blood she drank must of had demons in it.

I watched both of them for a minute, then decided to get information.

"What's your name?"

"It's London sir."

"Don't you think you should go assist the other guards with the revenants?"

"Oh crap, you're right, I'm sorry!"
London darted for the door, hurrying to the other guards.

"I'm glad you asked him that." Avery told me.

"Asked him what? About the revenants?"

"No, his name.I don't know any of their names." she admitted.

I laughed.
"How do you command them then?"

"I just say hey, or you, and point in their directions."

I gave her a curious look. "That seems insufficient."

She shrugged. "It's been working so far. But seriously, we can't waste anymore time. What happened to that revenant that didn't kill itself? The one that let the disease completely manifest?"

I thought about it, and that man's image appeared in my mind.
"Well, he's a he, not an it. And his name was Elijah."

"Was? I thought they said he strong-minded, that he'd never kill himself?"

"He is. I mean, was. But he still died."
"Use your magic, I want absolute proof."
I groaned and activated my eyes. Something felt odd when I did it, like I was really tired all of a sudden. It ended as soon as I stopped doing magic, but it was still strange.

"Are you sure that he's dead now, Gabriel?"

"Positive. Although, it wasn't because of the illness. He wandered into a werewolf's trap, and ended up burning to death."

"Crap." She clenched her fists. I knew why she was so upset. They both had a hard enough time trying to keep the revenants from killing themselves to study them, and now, they've probably banded together against us. He was our only chance. Nobody had endured that pain as long as he did. No sensible vampire would want to.

"Give me a report on all of our senior leaders."

"You sure? There aren't many anymore."

She looked at me the way her father used to look at something before he killed it.

"Ok," I answered. "Carter and his camp are still in the Midwest, studying the spread of revenants there. Isaiah became a revenant and killed himself, his junior vampire under him killed herself because she missed him, and the third one, the youngest, essentially committed suicide by walking towards the werewolves in the southwest and letting them kill her."

"I thought his daughter was in his camp?"
"She became traumatized after watching both of them commit suicide. It was probably too traumatic ​for her to do it herself, so she went to the werewolves and... you know."

"That's a shame." said Avery. "Those werewolves... They don't even use their human forms. They completely reject society. They're probably at a point now were they can't even understand languages. They're completely animals. Mindless, rabid, beasts."

"Yea... Let's get off of that subject. Sean has ceased duty, he started contracting the disease and wanted to be with his family before-"

"Is he going to wait out the entire illness?" She asked excitedly.

"Heck no. He said the moment he wakes up and can't recognize himself he's going too blow his head off."

Avery looked disappointed​. "That's a little dramatic if you ask me. It probably won't even kill him."

"I'm sure he'll have fire grenades on standby." I answered sarcastically.

That joke didn't go over as well as I thought it would.

"Avery. How long has it been since you drunk blood?"

She looked at me and sighed.
"Don't worry about it."

"You can't be serious. Curse or no curse, poison or no poison, you're a vampire, and you have to drink blood. I'm surprised you have enough strength to stand up."

"I can't drink blood until we find out exactly what turns vampires into revenants. If the Midwest reaches us before then... well, I have several backup plans. Give me an update on Axel."

"He hasn't contracted the disease, but his junior, Jessica, has. They've been trying to convince her not to commit suicide, but it hasn't been helping much."

"How do you know?" she asked me.
I activated my eyes, just to remind her of what my abilities were.
"Send Axel and his camp after Allen. I'll need him soon. He might be able to control Danielle. I've waited so long for his power, despite the warnings of other territories. He can save us. We'll use him to stop the Midwest and then get rid of all the werewolves​. Then no one could challenge our rule over the sky."

I could see the longing in her eyes. She wasn't just determined to keep the vampires in control of the sky. She feared her own life was ending, and everything was spinning out of control.

"I tried to understand you, but I just don't. How will you get Allen under control? If I can't control revenants, don't you think a beast like him would be even harder?"

Avery gave me an evil smirk.
"Just monitor them closely, pay attention to everything, and report back to me."