"The Dark Stranger" © VeGirl 2014

"Aoleon, what are you talking about?" I stand there looking at the girl as if she has lost her wits completely.

"Did you really think that I came to this godforsaken place to find love?" Her tone has completely changed now. "I was assigned to befriend you to take you both out," she snarls.

"Get in line!" Vincent says bitterly.

I look between the both of them with my mouth opening and closing. How could I have been so utterly, utterly stupid?

"Why?"

"We are facing a change in regime and the two of you are threatening our way."

Ire rise in me like it would in a volcano and I felt that pop that had made Damian fall backwards with force; the same one now puts Aoleon on her back on the ground.

"What in God's name...?" Surprised she scrambled to her feet. "What was that?"

"Did you think I would come freely?"

"Who are you to come here and threaten us?" Vincent doesn't have the cocky humour shining between his words as I have. "Get out of here or I will personally gladly kill you," he snarls.

I take a step forward. "Aoleon, I thought you were my friend! How could you just pretend to be?"

Her face that uses to have a naive friendliness has changed. Her upper lip curls disdainful. "You think you are so important; purebreed." Her eyes have an icy glare. "And you speak of equality...?"

In this duel at dawn I am unaware of Vincent who discretely is talking in a phone until Aoleon catches him.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling the security team, of course."

"I thought cellphones didn't work in here." I turn surprised at him.

"This isn't a cell." He holds it up. "It's more of a walky talky."

"Oh..."

He shakes his head slightly to rid himself of the distraction. "Anyway, you can't come in her and threaten us, we have enough on our mind!"

"You think your inconsequensal life here is of any meaning?" Aoleon almost spit out with an additional laugh. "There are more important things at stake here."

Suddenly people burst out of the old monastery to assist us and while they file out and surround us, something pop's like I have done for defence. Aoleon has suddenly disappeared.

"Where the fuck did she go?" I call out while stumbling forward to the spot right in front of me from where she has evaporated. "How did she do that?"

Everybody looks just as surprised as I and Vincent are.

"I noticed her wander around the house as if she was looking for something, but I couldn't figure out what," a man calls out.

"I saw her wander off along this road." He points to the road leading out of there. "When I called for her she pretended she was lost."

"Pretended?" someone else asks.

A cacophony of voices calls out different things they have observed while others start to worry what is going on. It is impossible to separate the different observations or clues as to what has been going on.

"Hey!" I call for attention to no avail. "Hey listen! We have to assign someone to gather information, okay?" I manage to get them to listen and surprisingly efficiently we have some kind of observation central and a security centre organised.

"Are you two okay?" The girl who I had left Aoleon with comes up to Vincent and me with concern written all over her. "I never saw anything weird with her."

"Well she managed to fool me pretty hard." My tone of voice reveals all the bitterness, betrayal and bad conscience for putting everybody in danger. "I never saw it coming."

"Well, I suppose we aren't safe here either." Vincent says with a sigh. "Perhaps we should just get back to real life and face our demons?"

I take a deep calming breath. It doesn't work.

"First, I'll conferee with Esme about the..." I wave my hand about. "...evaporation..." I rake a hand through my hair. "Have any of you ever heard of that?"

The girl shakes her head and looks over at the spot where Aoleon vanished. "Sorry, never," she sighs. "I have certainly wished for the ground to swallow me in the past, but I've never actually seen it happen."

I glue my surprised eyes on her while thinking about several scenarios in highschool where I too had wished for this specific ability. "Yeah I know what you mean." I sigh. "Okay, where do we start with this last fuck-up in our lives?" I turn towards Vincent who looks intently deep in thoughts. "Vin?"

He snaps out of his thoughts. "Yeah, I'll just..." He points his thumb towards the brand new central of commands where around thirty people are standing, and he walks over there.

"How many people are living here, anyway?" I ask curious and wondering why I don't already know this. "And what do they do here?"

The girl exhale half a laughter and smiles. "This is almost everybody and most of us have jobs in the real world while this is our vacation spot."

"Neat." I nod while thinking about it. Thoughts flicker to all the crisis we stand before and a wave of nausea flush through me. Fatigue is threatening to take over me. "I thought we would be safe here." I sigh and realise I won't be able to solve this either.

"Are you okay?"

I look up at the troubled girl. "I'm just tired." I smile at her.

"You don't look so good." She puts an arm supportingly around me. "You are very pale."

I pucker my brows at her and that is all I have time for before Vincent is grabbing hold of me. "Sam?"

"I don't know what..." My knees buckle and not in the good way.

Vincent sweeps me up in his arms and place me carefully in the car. "They are keeping a look-out for Aoleon; you and I am getting out of here."

I close my eyes thinking how my whole life has totally collapsed. Barely aware of how, we end up outside Esme's house. "I'll stay here..." I say tiredly and Vincent heads inside.

Shortly thereafter Esme opens my cardoor to check on me. "How're you doing?"

"I'm just tired that my life seems to fuck up like this." Now ever tears well up in my eyes. "Aoleon know where our house is here and if I have put Vincent at risk we have to get out of here."

"Vincent said that she just disappeared."

"Yeah, who does that?"

"It sounds like witchcraft, but I should have felt something if it was." She looks troubled.

In the corner of my eye I notice Vincent coming towards our car deep in conversation with Damian.

"What are you doing here; it's daytime..."

"My Momba fixed that..." he slides an arm around Esme's waist and kisses her temple.

"Fixed?"

"Yeah, with some SPF fourthousand cream or something." He frowns as if he doesn't know what she has actually done.

"It's just a trick, if he disobey me he'll just... poof!" She illustrated the thing very graphic.

I smiled weakly at them.

"My house is still protected, right?" Vincent checked with Esme.

"As far as I know it is working. I would have got a feeling if there were some kind of disturbance."

"Then we better head back there. That is somewhere Aoleon haven't been."

"I never showed your house on Google-earth either," I say weakly and lean my head back on the backrest.

"Good girl," Vincent says appreciatively and I smile with my eyes still closed. "We better get going."

"We'll be right behind; I just have to tie some knots together," Esme says and the silence is profound. "Figurative knots," she clears and the guys snicker.

"See you later." Vincent gets inside the car and we head back to his house.

With his arm around me he leads me to the bed where he put a blanket around me. "Are you sure you're okay?"

I smile as an answer. 'I just need to rest' I send to him, grateful to not have to answer. Vincent kiss my forehead before he get out of there and darkness engulf me.

* * *

I wake up with voices whispered in a room close by and I yawn wide and stretch tired muscles. Hunger is making my stomach churn, but the need to pee is worse so I take care of that before I get downstairs to the others.

"She's coming!" I heard rustling in the kitchen and Vincent sticks his head out through the doorway to the kitchen.

"Hi baby, have you slept well?"

"Yes..." I say hesitant. "What's going on?"

He stepped towards me and hugged me warm. "Are you feeling better?"

"Yes, but hungry." I relax in his arms.

"You had us worried there..." He leads me into the kitchen where a bunch of people is sitting around the table.

A growling noise erupts and my eyes darts to the edge of the table in search for a dog, but a man abruptly gets up. "I better get out."

I raise my brows surprised as a sudden commotion takes place around the kitchen and I am suddenly wedged between the counter and Vincent, while Damian is covering my side.

"What's going on?" I say sharply.

"Sorry honey, I better go as well." Another of the men darts for the door. "You smell mouth-watering," he press out while he passes me.

"Vampires?" I squeal.

"Yes, we didn't know you would show up now, otherwise we would have gone outside," Damian explains.

"You've invited vampires into our home?"

"First of all, it is my house." Vincent smiles. "Secondly; they are reporting the successful capture of the rogue vampires that has been hunting us."

"They're captured?"

"Yes, they are up for trial," Damian explains.

"They have been prosecuted by our board and it looks like a conviction." The remaining man by the table informs me.

I gape. "So the danger's over?" I am close to tears again.

"Are you okay?" Vincent has his arms around me.

"I'm hungry," I say.

"No wonder, you were out for thirtysix hours."

"What?"

"Yes, you've been sleeping the sleep of the dead." Damian smirks at me.

"Here," Esme interrupts and offers me a blt-sandwich and my mouth waters instantly. "Especially made for you." She smiles and wink one eye.

My stomach rumbles as an answer. "Yes please." I take it and sit down by our kitchen table. "Please don't let me disturb," I say with a mouth full of ciabatta, bacon, lettuce and tomato. I gesture with my hand for them to proceed, instantly distracted from my thoughts.

"Well, I'm not sure there is so much more to say..." He is momentarily distracted by my loud moans. As soon as I realise that, I freeze and looks apologetic while snickers erupts around me. "...so I think we'll be off before it dawns again." He looks out the window. "But we'll be in touch."

"Sure man, thanks for stopping by." Damian follow the guy to the door before he returns to the kitchen where the three of us sit by the table enjoying breakfast. "It looks like it is one of our own who has betrayed us by creating rogues and sending them on our own family."

A silence follows that statement.

"Loving family..." I mumble, thinking of my own. "My family arranged for me to get raped..."

"My father seduced my mother and then left us. That was the best thing he did for us," Esme mutters. "But he at least gave me a long life, being an angel and all."

"You're an angel too?"

"No, he was," she answer Damian's curious question with a smirk. "I'm a witch."

He smile is contagious. "...and a wicked one..." Damian smirks.

.