Gavriel drove us to house, a safe house I assumed, because where else would he take us? An unsafe house?

He parked in the drive way, and we stepped out of the car, a blue fiat as we had had to abandon the black Maserati and then the silver BMW we picked up after.

He left the car swiftly, cutting the engine sharply and taking the key out. He walked into the house and I sat in the car waiting for his say-so.

He returned five minutes later, holding a note in his hand.

"There's a mortal guy - his name's Edgar - who owns this house. He's away for a week so we can use this house to lie low, but we'll have to be gone by the end of the week." He said. I wondered what was going to happen after a week went by. "You can get out of the car." He said, and I left the car. My body felt limp and tired and I didn't understand why. "You'll be tired. There's a guest room. Lock yourself in and drink this."

He handed me a small vial containing, from what I could smell, blood. "Why do I need to lock myself in a room to drink blood?" I asked. I was curious. Why did I have to lock myself in a room to drink blood?

"Because I dont want a drunk vampire running around. You don't know this place and it's getting dark, so if you're drunk you'll probably end up walking into the woods, getting lost, then stumbling onto a pack of vampires and getting yourself murdered."

Oh. I blinked. That's actually a pretty good reason. "Where's the room?" I asked.

"I'll show you." He said, and I followed him into the house. He led me to a small room, and I followed.

He led me up a pair of rickety stairs, and across a decrepit hallway. The house smelt of lots of different vampires, some old scents from a long time ago, and some newer scents from under a year ago. I guess just being a vampire and in a space leaves a scent trail, unless you hide your scent.

The door had a secure lock, and so did the window. The door and window was made of iron which made my head ring when I went through it, but once I was in the middle of the room the ringing stopped.

Apart from the door and window, there was a bed up against a wall, and a rug on the floor. There was no other furniture, just those few pieces. I walked over to the window, and as the ringing started in my ears I guessed the edges surrounding the window were made of iron. As I neared the window I could see out, and I got a view of the forest. I couldn't see far, 10 metres maybe, before my view was obscured by the multitude of trees of different varieties. I looked at the window frame, and saw it was indeed made of a rusting metal, probably iron from the increasing ringing noise in my ear, starting to give me a headache. I moved away from the window, feeling Gavriel's eyes on me.

"What do you want?" I snapped. I wanted him to leave, so I could drink the blood in peace, and feel he happiness and peace that blood brought with it when I drank it. I wanted to descend back into a drunken state where nothing mattered.

I walked into the middle of the room. Gavriel was still staring at me. That was annoying me. Why could he answer my question and leave me alone?

"What do you want?" I said again. He really was testing my patience. But then again, he was a vampire. Why shouldn't he test my patience to teach me who's in control?

"Most vampires can't enter this room." He said in a matter of fact tone of voice.

"So?" I answered. How did this affect me?

I stopped and paused in my thoughts to smell for any other vampires scents. There was a suspicious lack of scents that had covered the rest of the house. There were no scents in here, making this room odd.

"It means you are different. Stronger. Most vampires couldn't even reach were I am. Even though I am a metre away, most vampires couldn't reach here. The door has too much iron in it for vampires to be able to go near it. What is so different about you?" He asked, thinking out loud.

"Maybe it was the fact I drank vampire blood as my first blood, or I'm weaker no than a full strength vampire."

"It's neither of those things, as I've seen strong vampires who can't get closer than me to this room, and I've seen vampires who drunk vampire blood as their first blood to ever consume as a vampire who can't get closer than me as well." He said. He really was stumped. "Maybe it's a combination of the two, or you have to have a strong will or be stubborn to get in, I'm not sure." 'I'm not sure' was probably the closest a vampire would ever get to saying 'i don't know'. Vampires hated not knowing anything, and most humans did too, I guess. "Well, I'll lock the door before you drink the blood. I don't need a drunk vampire on the loose." He said, and shut the door. I clutched the vial of blood in my hand as I heard the key turn in the lock. I heard him wait outside the door for a few seconds. I stayed perfectly still. If he wanted to play this game, the least I could do was join in.

He eventually moved away when he realised he was getting no where and walked away, footsteps creaking on the old stairs.

I opened my hand and looked at the vial of blood. It was small, and looked to contain about 500ml of blood. I sniffed at the vial. Vampire blood, I suspected. Taken a week, just over a week ago. Different pattern to anyone who's scent had been in the house. I uncorked the vial and sniffed again. Definitely vampire blood. And taken quite recently, about a week, just over a week ago. I still didn't know which vampire it had been taken from. Probably wasn't wise to drink from it, but it was blood and I needed something to rejuvenate me.

I took a hesitant mouthful of blood, and immediately i was drunk on the sweet, intoxicating liquid I had in my hands. I took another mouthful, caring about less and less the more blood that went down my throat. I took another mouthful, and saw I had drained half the vial. I giggled. Somehow, it was funny. I don't know how, it just was. I corked the vial again, my hands shaking from the laughter that was gripping me. I gently put the bottle of blood on the floor, and found myself not caring about the world, and laughing, laughing because the world was so ridiculous. I couldn't understand why I hadn't wanted to be a vampire, being a vampire just for the drunken state of peaceful mind I was in now was worth it. I didn't care about anything. Instead everything was hilarious. The whole idea of not becoming a vampire was hilarious, so hilarious I had to laugh harder. My ribs ached from how hard I was giggling and snickering, so I tried to calm myself down, but instead ended up laughing all the harder for it.

I eventually passed out from lack of breath.

Someone was shaking me, trying to wake me from the hazy oblivion I was slumbering in. 'Go away.' I tried to say, but it came out as a mumble even I couldn't understand.

A voice came clear, cutting through the oblivion I currently resided in, and waking me, bringing me back to the ordinary life of reality.

"You need to wake Kelly." The voice said. I tried to ignore it, but failed. Miserably, needless to say. The voice just cut my dreamlike stupor in half.

"So?" I mumbled, trying unsuccessfully to regain the state of darkness I had previously been in.

"They have found us, and we have ten minutes to get out of here before they catch up with us."

I sat up in the bed, seeing the blurred figure of Gavriel standing over me. The figure immediately snapped out of the blur and I saw everything clearly once I realised exactly how much danger I was now in.

"How did they find us?" I said, the words slurring on my tongue.

"I don't know. I have a few ideas, but I'll have to tell you them in the car. Let's get going." He turned and walked away. I stood up and followed him, grabbing the half filled vial of blood as I left. We sat in the car and he raced down a different route, winding through the forest. Half a dozen times we almost ended up in trees, but his driving which was endangering us saved us at the last minute, with dozens of sharp twists and turns I'm pretty sure this car was not meant to do.

We found another car on the outskirts of a city,and immediately switched cars. We could not afford to waste time searching for another car, not with the council hot on our tail.

Night fell, and Gavriel still wanted to make up more time. We had switched cars half a dozen times, but still Gavriel was not happy.

I fell asleep looking over the dark surroundings. Everything was dark now, it was impossible to see. Every so often a distant light would flash up, and remind us we were on the outskirts of a city.

Eventually Gavriel was shaking me awake. He had found another car and wanted to move. I was groggy as I stood up, and sleep draped over me. We left the old car at the side of the road, and hurried to the new car. Instead of getting in the front like I had done with all the other cars, I sat in the back, lying down and relaxing so I could fall asleep. I could tell Gavriel was intrigued, but once he realised I wanted to sleep he shouldn't be.

The next morning

I woke up and the car wasn't moving. Sunlight was streaming in through the windows and felt harsh on my skin, but I could ignore it.

All of my limbs ached as I sat up. I wondered why we had stopped in the middle of a forest, my thoughts first fluttering to being caught, and then immediately being dismissed. If we were caught then we would have been taken from the car, wouldn't we?

My thoughts then rushed to crashing, but we hadn't crashed. Surely I would have woken up?

I looked at the front and saw a bone tired Gavriel sleeping. Even vampires needed sleep I guess.

I lay back down and closed my eyes, but I heard Gavriel groaning as he woke.

He had a few seconds of silence before he said. "Kelly? Do you want to stretch your legs?" He probably could hear my heartbeat.

"Yes." I said, groaning as every one of my limbs was woken by my brain, each and every limb protesting. But my brain wanted to get up, and go run.

I returned from the run half an hour later, to find Gavriel doing a check over the car. When I asked why, he ignored me until he had finished his check.

He stood up and gazed his eye over the car. I briefly wondered what he thought of the car.

"I heard something hit the car last night. It could have been a stick, or something like a tracking device." He said, still looking at the car.

"And?" I said. "What did you find?" I asked impatiently. If anyone could track us, I wanted to know, and now, so a plan could be formulated.

"Well, all evidence suggests it was a stick, but a tracking device wouldn't be made to look or sound like a tracking device." He said. I was confused, wondering where he was going with the conversation.

"So?" I asked, trying to clear the confusion from my mind. "What does that mean? How does it affect us?"

"I don't know." He admitted. For a vampire he was admitting he had been admitting he hadn't known a lot of stuff recently. "We'll continue as usual, but past that it shouldn't affect us too much." He said, and climbed back into the car.

I entered the car from the other front door and sat next to him as we drove on in silence.