Waxing Darkness
By Jose Luis Solórzano
Copyright 2012 Jose Luis Solórzano
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ISBN 978-1-4658-0029-9
For Chelsea, who has always been my inspiration to do great things such as this novel.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think i know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
- Robert Frost
Chapter One: Accidents
To find where it starts,
it was the meeting of them.
Fate’s cruel game is played.
One thing Luis Medina liked about the library was that it was quiet. No one seemed to mind him as he browsed through the shelves or reading small inserts from novels at his leisure. He would see the occasional summer school college student struggling to find a book that he or she desperately needed to find.
One thing that Luis hated about the library was that it had no air condition and it was the end of the month of June. His black hair was dripping sweat into his meek, brown eyes. The summer heat in El Paso, Texas was brutal throughout the entire day. Luis reflected on the days when he was a kid and still lived in Los Angeles, California, where he was able to visit the beach when it was hot outside and play in the cold, ocean water.
El Paso was nowhere near an ocean. El Paso, on the other hand, did have gangs, drug dealers on every street corner, bootleggers, and the occasional shooting ever few feet.
Today made it a week that Luis had been living in this heavily populated Northeastern Texas town. His mother, a short Mexican woman named Lupe, spent the past week unpacking boxes to make sure that the new house would fit her definition of perfect. Lupe’s husband, a tall, blond Caucasian man named Joseph Medina found work as a defense attorney at a local law firm. Luis’s older sister, a blonde, brown-eyed, busty girl named Ashley was probably spending her day sleeping.
For the past few days, Luis had decided to take refuge in the public library three blocks away from where his house was located. It was a much more enjoyable experience to him than helping his mom unpack or dealing with his older sister. To Luis, this was the best place in the world to be at.
There were some times where a group of teenagers would sit across from him, quietly gossiping about their cliques and circles. Luis would sometimes decide to pretend to read his book and listen in to what they were talking about, but he never once made any kind of communication with the others around him. Making friends didn’t come easy to Luis, but that made moving away that much easier for him. There were people who would work with him for his determination and intellect, but there was nobody that Luis could really call his “friend” in Los Angeles.
Midway through the afternoon, Luis decided that he wanted to go back to the house, mostly because he was getting hungry and ran out of pocket snacks. With a five-hundred page book in his hand, he was ready to check out and return home. There was a small line of people in front of him, most of them being parents who were checking out picture books and loud animated movies for their noisy children.
A few seconds passed, and Luis felt someone bump right into his back, causing him to release his book from his arms and fall to the floor. Frantically, Luis turned around to pick up the fallen book, but it was already being handed to him by the person who bumped into him. It was a young girl, who looked to be the same age as Luis, although slightly taller than he was. She had long brown hair and her blue eyes were hidden by a pair of oval glasses. Luis couldn't help but stare at the girl as he clutched onto the book. What specifically caught his eye was the girl’s smile. The brown haired girl’s smile didn’t seem forced or plastered on, but completely natural. To him, it seemed a bit exciting, but also scary.
“Thank you,” Luis told the girl as he placed the book under his arm.
The girl simply nodded before she began picking up her own books, which were a variety of small paperbacks. Without hesitation, Luis aided the girl in picking up the books, mostly to find out why she was carrying so many.
“Err, you don’t have to do that,” The blue-eyed girl told Luis.
“It’s fine,” Luis told her without making eye contact. He flipped through one of the books briefly. On every single page were illustrations, actions, and bubbled dialogue. It was just a simple comic book to Luis. “Interesting.” Luis muttered to himself.
“It’s called a ‘manga’,” The girl told Luis in a slightly nervous voice. “It’s from Japan, but it’s been translated into English. You read it from right-to-left so the original art isn’t altered; see?”
The girl grabbed the book out of Luis’s hand and flipped it around to see the cover. It was all backwards, like she had said, and it was something that Luis found somewhat interesting. The two of them finished picking up the rest of the books and returned to their places in line. It wasn’t even ten seconds later when the young girl tapped Luis on the shoulder.
“You’re new around here, aren’t you,” The girl asked him with wide eyes.
“Uh, yeah,” Luis answered in an uneven voice. The girl didn’t stand out too much, but Luis clearly noticed that she was cute in her own right. He also wasn’t good with one-on-one conversations with others in general. His throat felt as if it had turned into sand paper. “We moved here a week ago from Los Angeles,” Luis informed her.
“Hollywood? Seriously?!” The girl’s voice had grown much louder, almost as if she were surprised. Embarrassed, she hid her face under her stack of books. In a low whisper, she asked, “Why did you move to El Paso?”
Luis had the urge to say that it wasn’t his choice to move here, but he didn’t absolutely hate El Paso. Luis was just upset that his parents cared more for his older sister than they did about him.
“My sister was accepted to the University here,” Luis informed the girl. “My parents thought that it would be best if we moved down here with her. There was no way they could have supported the two of us in two separate states, and they did NOT want her to give up on college.”
“Still, it sounds a bit unfair for you,” The girl commented as Luis reached the front of the check-out line. “What about school, and all of your friends?”
“I, um, really didn’t have any friends over there. You wouldn’t exactly call me a social person. And, I’m a pretty good student. If my credits transfer okay from my old school, I should be able to graduate in the spring.”
“Same here.” The girl’s tone grew a bit more, but cautious of not yelling again. Luis had moved aside for the girl to check out her volumes of manga. “Which school are you going to be attending?”
“I’m not sure. Whatever’s close to by our house I guess. I don’t live too far from here.”
“Montwood!” The girl looked Luis directly in the eyes and her small smile slightly widened. “You need to go to Montwood High. That’s where I’ve been going for the past three years. You need to hang out with me and my friends. A week with us, and your anti-social attitude will be a thing of the past; trust me. I’m Luna by the way.”
“I’m Luis.”
Luis didn’t wish for his conversations with Luna to end, not yet. For some reason, it was easy for him to talk to her. There was a warm, welcoming aura around her; maybe it was her smile. The problem was that he couldn’t think of anything to talk about and the two of them were obviously leaving the library.
“Goodbye Luis,” Luna called out to him as the two of them parted ways outside of the library.
“See you later, Luna,” he responded.
Luis liked the fact that someone was paying attention to him and actually listening to him. The walk home had become much more bearable for him; Luis couldn’t even feel the heat of the sun stinging against his skin. Luis admitted to himself why it was so easy for him to talk to Luna. It was a “crush at first sight” kind of feeling, but he was sure that Luna didn’t feel the same way about him. She was the kind of girl he expected to have a boyfriend. That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy his crush.
Even though it was scorching hot during the day, the nights in El Paso were always cool. At the downtown area, everything seemed to be a constant party, that is if you had the right amount of cash on hand. For the right price, you could get stoned, high, drunk, laid, or a combination of it all.
It was well past midnight, but it seemed like any of it was going to slow down. Inside one of the bars was a stout, middle-aged man, who was balding and drinking all of his pain away. All night long, the man drank, smoked, talked to women, and groped at every girl that passed his way.
Unfortunately for this man, he grabbed the wrong girl’s butt. Not only did she strike him hard enough to give him a black eye but her much taller (and much stronger) fiancé threw him out of the bar, which was followed by thunderous applause.
“What the hell,” The man slurred as he stumbled down the dark street. The incident at the bar had been passed around and no other place would allow him inside. This only made the man even more angry and dangerous.
“Hey,” A sweet feminine voice called from behind the man called out. “Tell me, what’s your name?”
The man turned in a very crooked fashion. He saw the girl’s silhouette and smiled. She appeared to be in her early-thirties, tall, slender, and enough of a bust for him to get a good grab.
“Drew, I think,” The man drooled as he approached the beautiful woman. She was much, much, more lovely up close; her black hair was bouncy and she oozed of his favorite scent in the world: fine alcohol. “What’s your name, beautiful?”
The slender woman bent down and kissed the man’s rough cheek. “Follow me into the ally and I’ll tell you, and maybe you’ll get something more.”
Drew followed the beautiful woman straight into the ally. He was planning out his attack; maybe he would bash her over the head and drag the body out to his car. It couldn’t have been parked too far away from where he was, right? Before he could make a reach for her, a second shadow appeared from the darkness. Like the girl, this figure was slender and was wearing a dark coat, but he could easily tell that this wasn’t another young woman.
“What the hell is this crap,” Drew yelled at the girl.
“Oh,” She said in a teasing voice. “I thought it would be a lot more fun with him around.”
“I don’t roll that way!” Drew’s voice grew louder. “Cut the crap right now; I only want you!”
“And what were you going to do to her, huh, Drew,” The young man asked, slowly approaching the short man. In the light, it was clear that the young man’s hair was pure white. His voice was also as smooth as the woman’s. “You were going to knock her out, take her to your house and make her your helpless love slave, right? You are a pathetic excuse for a human being. I know everything that you were thinking and you absolutely sicken me. How’s a small man like you suppose to even carry a woman her size to your car anyway?”
“Shut up!” Drew exclaimed at the young man. How he wished to teach this young one a swift lesson in respect.
Before anything could even happen, the tall woman was now behind Drew and swiftly snapped his neck. Drew was dead before his body could hit the floor.
“Good riddance,” The young man muttered as he kicked the corpse. “Alexis, when’s the old man supposed to get here?”
“You’re the one who can read minds, Drake,” The girl answered. “You tell me: Is he in the area?”
“I can’t read his thoughts,” Drake answered. Drake knew that Alexis was only teasing him. He was only able to read the minds of humans, nothing more.
“Well, I’m going to start dining without him, Alexis told him, giggling. “It was my kill after all.”
Alexis slowly sat down on the gravel floor, not caring about dirtying her scarlet dress that was under her coat. She studied the dead body as if it were some kind of alien creature. Alexis couldn’t believe she was once like Drew, a fragile being who could easily be manipulated.
Now, she was immortal.
Alexis was a vampire.
She was now the dominant being.
“What was this guy’s problem anyway,” Alexis asked Drake as she reached for Drew’s limp arm.
“From what I could tell, this guy was ‘celebrating’ his divorce.” Drake had a very rare power amongst vampires, but he was the only one who saw it as a curse. He had the ability to read anybody’s mind, as long as he could see that person’s face in his mind and they are a reasonable distance away from him. When it was time for him to hunt, Drake used his power to find out a person’s insecurities and exploit them. He would know every single terrible thing that they were thinking at that time. It had to be done in order to not break Alexander’s Code.
“I saw him when he walked inside the bar,” Drake continued as Alexis sipped her O-negative. “He had the look of a scum bag, but I had no idea how bad this guy was. Cheating, raping, and he had a history of arrests for multiple domestic violence charges. I wanted to go in there and just take him out right where he sat. Last week, he got news that his HIV was now beginning to spread.”
“So that’s what I taste,” Alexis added. She then stood up and pulled out a stack of blood bags. “Alexander won’t mind if I started ‘making inventory’ now, would he?”
“Speak of the devil.” Drake pointed down to the opening of the alleyway.
The figure that Drake was pointing at wasn’t at all taller than them. He did stand with great pride, but it wasn’t out of ignorance. He had lived over the span of one-hundred-and-fifty years he had earned the right to stand with so much pride.
“About time Alexander,” Alexis said.
All three of them were wearing the matching dark leather coats, but the one referred to as Alexander was the only one who was wearing the hood over his face. He moved at lightning speed to where the dead body lied. His red eyes seemed to glow, taking in everything that happened. It was Drake who filled him in on how they caught their prey.
“Good work,” was all that Alexander could say to them.
Alexander lived with a strict moral code. Even though he was a vampire, he still cared about the well fair of the human race. However, his vampire instinct to feast on the blood of humans to continue living his life was much more overpowering. For that reason, Alexander made a moral compromise with his instincts and his morals, swearing that he couldn’t just kill anyone he wanted. Innocent blood was always much sweeter than the other kind of blood they could have obtained, the blood of those who made the world a terrible place to be, those who deserved to die.
When he transformed Drake into what he was, Drake agreed to follow the Code, at first. Alexander didn’t share the same skill as Drake, so he couldn’t have known about how terrible a human’s mind can be. Slowly, Drake began to hate every human being on the planet, innocent or guilty.
“That’s all the blood I can get from this guy,” Alexis commented, placing the blood bags under her coat.
“Excellent,” Alexander proclaimed, slowly walking out of the alley. “I’ll use one of these cars to make it seem like it was all an accident.”
Drake easily picked up Drew’s corpse and followed his fearless leader. He watched as Alexander focused on a black suburban a few feet away from them and placed it in the middle of the street.
Smash, Alexander though as he focused on the large car in front of him.
It was like an invisible hammer was pounding against the grill of the car. Drake dropped the body in front of the car while Alexis released two blood bags around the corpse. The only way a vampire can live peacefully was in secrecy. They needed it to look like his death was a simple accident of a night of heavy drinking that had gone horribly wrong. It was good that Alexander was able to manipulate things with only a single thought. In an instant, a wire snapped inside the car and caused a series of sparks. The car was no covered with amazing flames.
“That’ll do it,” Alexander told his followers.
At once, Drake and Alexis pulled their dark hoods over their heads. Although it wasn’t the sun, the fire was enough to make their skin start to boil. Drake and Alexis followed their master down the alleyway, not wishing to be seen by any on looking spectators. Underneath each of their hoods, the only thing visible was a vampire’s eyes. Bloody red irises shined straight through the darkness, and nothing more.
Chapter Two: Surprises
The pieces are still.
The storm is about to strike.
The knight makes first move.
The scorching summer weeks passed by quickly for Luis Medina. He was excited to have someone that he could actually refer to as a friend. Luis and Luna spent much of their vacation in the library and she was a big help in his enrollment to Montwood High School. For the first time at all that year, Luis wasn’t wishing he could skip over the rest of his high school experience.
In mid-August, school began on a cloudy morning.
“Hurry your ass up, Luis,” Ashley, Luis’s sister, yelled from the outside of the bathroom door.
Two seconds later, the door opened, revealing a fully dressed Luis. He had no specific fashion or purposeful coordination when it came to appearance. His hair still seemed wet and messy, and exhaustion was flowing through his body.
“Why’re you in such of a hurry anyway,” Luis groaned as he passed by his sister. “You still have another week to go before your classes at the University start.”
Ashley slammed the door in her brother’s face without saying a word to him. Slightly annoyed, Luis returned to his room to finish up getting ready for his own classes. He was sitting down on his bed, which tempted him to want to lie back down and sleep the entire day away. The idea was quickly tossed out of his mind when Luis noticed exactly what time it was. Luna had informed him that it would be best for him to arrive about an hour before school officially started.
His father had already left for work, his mother was still asleep and his sister was occupied in the shower, leaving Luis feeling alone. Luis was used to not talking to anyone before he left to school, but he had gotten used to his new friend’s caring attitude towards him.
Luis’s walk to school wasn’t too bad; August weather was indeed much nicer and much more enjoyable than it was in the middle of summer. To pass the time, he hummed along to the song that was currently playing on his iPod. Luis wasn’t someone who would casually blast his music through his headphones. To him, listening to his music was a completely happy, private experience.
When Luis reached the school campus, he understood exactly why Luna warned him to come to school early. A complete sea of students crowded the outside of the school building, some of them acting more frantic than others. Luis knew that he didn’t have too much to worry about because he had completed everything that needed to be done at pre-registration a few weeks before. The only thing that he needed to do was pick up his school schedule.
Luis broke through the crowd without too much effort. There were a few incidents where he almost tripped over someone else, but he would grab onto someone else’s bag before he even hit the floor. After that, there was another large group of people he had to go by. After fifteen minutes of waiting, he finally was able to grab his senior schedule.
Before Luis could even breathe, he was met by a familiar, friendly face. Luna had attacked him from behind in a playful manor, acting like a child who wanted a piggy-back ride. The first thing Luis noticed was that Luna had now added pink highlights to her long hair. It would only be something that would work with her kind of attitude.
“When did you get those highlights,” Luis asked as Luna climbed off of him.
She let out a small belly laugh. “Last night. It took me forever to convince my dad to let me get them.”
“That’s so cool,” Luis commented, and he indeed meant it. Luna’s free spirit was something Luis very much admired.
“I have a question for you,” Luna said in a matter-of-fact sort of voice. “You’ve had my e-mail address and phone number for weeks now. Why haven’t you tried to message me at all?”
Luis was frozen in shock. He had been a bit frightened to call her. To him, it just seemed a bit embarrassing, to call someone that he really liked. Every chance he got to call her, he chickened out at the last minute.
“Give me your phone,” She told him in her playful, demanding voice.
Luis handed her his phone without hesitation. He was at least smart enough to have her number saved in the phone’s memory, if that was what she was looking for. Luna searched the phone’s data until she found her destination.
“Got it!” Luna exclaimed in a victorious tone.
What Luna was specifically looking for was Luis’s phone number. With her light blue eyes, she stared at the ten-digit code and melded it into her own internal memory. Near perfect photographic memory was something Luna gratefully inherited from her mother.
Luna Estrella was the middle child of her family, being the younger sister of the Star Brothers, twins who played on the school’s varsity football team the previous year. Both of them were also enrolled at the local University with football scholarships. For the past three years, she had been known mostly as Rick and Phil’s younger sister.
Although her family was very athletic oriented, Luna could very much care less about sports or activities of those kind. Even her younger sister, Kira, was slowly being transformed into a sports fanatic. In reality, Luna was more of an artistic kind of person, although her body type portrayed her more like a tennis player.
Because of this, Luna and the rest of her family didn’t always see eye-to-eye on most things. Neither her mother nor father believed art was something someone could really be successful at, no matter what. It took a bit of convincing (and begging) for them to allow Luna not to play sports at all during her high school years. She didn’t want to waste her time working on the field, she wanted to have fun and enjoy some normal human experiences. Sports just didn’t interest her as much as art, music, and theater.
Even in her walk, it was very obvious that Luna was care-free kind of girl. She was seventeen years old, but had the spirit of a young, innocent child. Such a notion didn’t mix well with her fellow peers however, making her an outcast by most of the student body. That didn’t matter to Luis though. To him, Luna was a huge breath of fresh air.
The vampire’s hideout wasn’t some kind of hidden castle carved deep into a mountain side or was something that was cut off from the rest of society. On the contrary, Alexander believed that the best hiding spot to sustain his lifestyle was in plain sight, in one of the hottest places in the world. No one would really expect a vampire to live somewhere it was sunny almost all year round. It was the perfect hiding spot.
Dark curtains covered the windows of the studio apartment which were illuminated by soft, florescent lights. The sun was their natural enemy -- get caught in the sun for too long and a vampire’s skin begins to burst into flames and leaves behind only dust and ash. Cremation was the only permanent way to kill off a vampire. Cutting off their limbs wouldn’t help whatsoever; the limbs would mealy reanimate themselves and move on their own accord until they were reattached to the owner.
It was lucky that the trio were the only ones who resided in the entire building. Alexander, who acquired much wealth under different aliases, bought up every single room in the entire complex. The whole building smelt of old, rotting blood and severed human limbs. If a human being were to even move into the building, they would most likely call the proper authorities and the vampires were either doomed or had to move.
Since vampires didn’t have the need to sleep anymore, Alexis occupied her day time by watching the small television that was in one of the rooms on the top floor. Before the three of them officially moved in, Drake had cable installed inside the building to keep an eye on the news of the outside world. It took Alexis no time to take over the television though. She truly was the newest member of their “family”.
Drake, seemingly slightly frustrated, snatched the remote from Alexis’s hand and changed it from a daytime soap opera and to the news.
“Hey; I was watching something,” Alexis complained.
“You’ll get over it,” Drake informed her.
In protest, Alexis left the room as Drake kept his focus on the local news station. The headline at the bottom was clear, written in bold, flashy font. SOLO IS FOUND NOT GUILTY FOR THE DEATH OF DAUGHTER-IN-LAW. A small smile appeared on Drake’s face and his tongue licked one of his fangs.
“Antonio Solo, accused of murdering his son’s wife, as well as the two children she bore, has been found not guilty this morning by a jury of his peers. Many say that much is to blame on the prosecution, focusing more on attacking Solo’s character without acquiring sufficient evidence of his guilt. People are paying credit to his defense attorney...”
While the female reporter commented on the story that was currently unfolding, footage from outside of the court house appeared on the television screen. Antonio Solo, a pudgy man who looked as if he was homeless, was surrounded by people holding up cameras and microphones to get a statement. He and his lawyer were being led by four security guards, leading him to a limousine down the road.
Drake could tell by the look in Solo’s eyes that he was absolutely guilty, without a shadow of a doubt. His crime made him the perfect target for the next feeding attack. Of course, if Solo did die the day of his not-guilty verdict, there may be an investigation by various authorities. The lawyer, Drake thought as he zoomed closely to the screen. He was a clean cut man who chose to defend this scum of the earth and ended up winning the case. This man has no right to be alive in Drake’s eyes!
“Find Alexander,” Drake called out to Alexis. “Tell him I found our next target.”
“I don’t know where he is,” She yelled back, taking a drink from her blood bag. “I’m not sure if he came back before sunrise. Do you think he was with her?”
“No way,” Drake answered, slightly frustrated. “Why the hell would he want to go visit her after she left us?”
Returning to school was an amazing experience for young Luna Estrella. After introducing Luis to her two friends, she felt a small sense of pride within herself. Ever since she first saw Luis in the public library, she had an ingrown instinct to help him out.
It was her final period of the day, Pre-Calculus, and she was sharing it with Luis. She walked into the classroom, noticing that Luis was already sitting in one of the seats in the front row. The classroom was a dimly lit portable placed a while away from the main school building, and it was also incredibly warm at this time of day. All Luna cared about was to not fall asleep in the middle of the class. As she took a seat to the right of Luis, the bell loudly rang, signaling the start of the final class period.
“Welcome,” said a tall, red haired woman who was wearing large glasses on her face and looked like she was dressed in a lab coat. Even if the students were standing, it seemed that the teacher would tower over all of them. “My name is Ms. Ramirez, your Pre-Calculus teacher for the year. I welcome my students to ask me for help when they need it; there is no such thing as a stupid question; especially in a class this difficult. I stay much later than most other teachers, so that means we have all the time in the world to talk if you’re ever struggling in this class. Will you two,” she said, pointing at Luis and Luna, “please hand out the syllabus to each student?”
“Yes, ma’am,” They both answered, standing up in unison.
“Thank you, Ms. Estrella,” Ramirez whispered.
After pacing around the front of the room, passing out stacks of paper in each row, Ms. Ramirez began with her lesson. Being the first day of class and being the final period, most of the students paid very little attention to what was going on. Some students played with their phones while others simply decided to take a nap in the middle of class. Even Luis wasn’t interested in the first day’s lesson, so he began whispering to Luna behind her teacher’s back.
“She knows you,” He whispered in a curious voice.
“She’s an old, family friend,” Luna replied. “She knows my dad, which is the reason why I’m in this class in the first place.”
“Did they use to date or something,” Luis asked.
Luna began to snicker at the notion. It took all of her energy to not burst out into loud laughter. “No, it was nothing like that. They went to school together, and they were friends. There’s no way that they’d be like that.”
His curiosity peaked; Luis didn’t ask Luna another word about their relationship. She didn’t really feel like going into detail about her relationship was with Ms. Ramirez, especially to Luis. Luna cared about Luis very much, which is why she kept certain aspects of her life a secret. There were some things that no one was allowed to know about.
When Luna got home after finishing school, her head was slightly pounding. Although it was just the first day, some teachers insisted on giving their students homework. One of these classes happened to be Literature, where she had to read through and attempt to comprehend the first few pages of Brave New World. It wasn’t starting out as good of an afternoon as she had hoped.
“Welcome home, Luna,” her mother, Emily Estrella said. “You’re father needs to talk to you about something.”
“Alright,” Luna said, crossing across the living room and into her father’s office.
Luna never had to question her mother when she said that her dad needed to talk to her about anything. There was always only one thing that he would ever want to talk with her about. She honestly couldn’t remember the last time that she had an actual serious one-on-one conversation with her dad that wasn’t about their family responsibility. Luna was deathly afraid of her father.
Victor Estrella was a tall muscular man with bright red hair and dark brown eyes. Luna’s twin brothers could be simply seen as perfect clones of this man, and carried out the same kind of intimidation wherever any of them went. He was sitting in his large, leather chair, facing his small television screen.
All Luna had to do was read the headline and could figure out the rest without either her or her father saying another word. SOLO FOUND NOT GUILTY! WHOLE WORLD SHOCKED!! The Antonio Solo case was a local investigation that caught the attention of virtually everybody in the entire world. Everybody could tell that Antonio Solo was truly guilty of the murders from the very beginning of the trial. However, faulty evidence, lack of warrants, and a bit of hate speech made by the prosecution had created enough reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds to find him not guilty in the court of law. Luna knew something that Antonio Solo didn’t know though. She knew that there were some people in El Paso who could punish him without the interference of criminal justice.
“Do you think the vampires are going to go after him,” Luna asked to break the silence with her father.
“Alexander’s not that foolish to do it now,” Victor told his daughter, still focusing on the television. “Solo’s going to be a pretty protected person for a while, so there’s no way that they would be able to get to him, especially tonight. Still, something doesn’t feel quite right. I’ve noticed it in the air -- something’s changing, and soon.”
Luna had felt it too; something was telling her from the inside of her body to be extra cautious and take light steps everywhere she goes for now on. It was an instinct that she had inherited from her father, and had grown to trust it whenever she felt it. The first time she ever felt this feeling was when she was thirteen years old and she met a man named Alexander with two other followers, who introduced themselves as vampires. That was when her abilities were beginning to blossom inside of her, and she has now learned how to channel them properly.
Luna was a werewolf, and it was her job to make sure that vampires were kept in line. It was all political between vampires, werewolves, and spell casters. Luna’s father was a strong werewolf who passed down his ability to all of his offspring. Emily was a very gifted spell caster, and it appeared that Luna was the only one in the family to have acquired her mother’s unique powers.
“So, what do we do now,” Luna asked her father.
“The only thing we can do is sit and wait,” he answered in an anxious voice. “Alexander’s clan needs to feed soon. As long as they’re still sticking with that Code of theirs, we have nothing to worry about. They haven’t messed up and gotten noticed so far.”
While Victor didn’t think that it was okay to kill another creature to reach one’s own greedy needs, he also knew that vampires had to feed on a human’s blood in order to stay alive. Vampires also had their own reasons to live as well; no one would stay alive just to stay bored for the rest of their existence. With Alexander’s Code, Victor saw it a bit differently than the vampires did. He saw it as taking one person’s wasted life to help someone else extend theirs. Victor and Alexander were mutual men, and met every month, to see that both sides were in check.
“Oh, dad; whose patrolling the city tonight,” Luna asked as she slowly walked out of her father’s office.
“Phil and Rick are going to be taking over for a while,” he answered, still keeping his focus on the television. “They have a lot of time on their hands now, and it’ll be easier for them now that they’re in college rather than in high school.”
Luna left her father’s office on that note. The last thing she wanted to do was get into another long winded discussion on her brothers. She did not feel like transforming into her wolf form tonight anyway, although she that the werewolves in this generation resembled large coyotes than actual wolves.
Luna collapsed on her bed as she walked into her room. She didn’t really feel like doing anything tonight, especially useless homework. Her backpack was thrown into an empty corner away from her bed, and that’s how it was going to stay until tomorrow morning. Although she did feel exhausted, those with werewolf blood running through their veins no longer needed the reason to sleep. Luna had figured that this was because a werewolf needed to stay up late into the night to keep an eye on vampires, back when there was more of a racial difference than a political one. Luna reached for her cellphone and noticed that there was one missed message in her inbox. She opened the letter and was slightly surprised to see the name of the sender.
“Luis!” Luna gasped.
She read through the short message he had sent her. “Hey Luna. This may sound really stupid, but I was wondering if you wanted to go out on a date with me tomorrow night?” Luna had to read it over several times to make sure this was real. Her afternoon had suddenly been salvaged.
Chapter Three: Feelings
Leaves begin to change.
Darkness falls across the land.
Emotions rise high.
The sun was about to rise on this now mid-September morning. In the dull darkness, something that resembled a lightly brown furred dog was running as fast as it possibly could. The wind flowed freely through the young creature’s fur as it ran towards its predetermined destination. Before the sun was able to rise above the horizon, to let out the smallest glimmer of light, the large coyote was able to make its way to the backyard of a white, two story house, not even needing to pant or catch its breath.
With the last bit of darkness, the creature seemed to be transforming into something completely different. In a matter of just a few seconds, a young, naked girl was standing up, reaching for the bathrobe that she had placed there earlier in the night. Luna had run city patrol alone this night, seeing mainly what Antonio Solo was up to these days. She knew that he was the lowest of scum a human being can be, and she couldn’t wait for the vampires to just attack him and get it over with.
Waiting by the sliding door was Luna’s mother, wearing teal pajamas and holding a warm mug of green tea. She sipped her tea as her daughter quickly got into the house. Luna entered the laundry room, frantically trying to pick out fresh clothes to wear for the day. It was now the weekend, but she was acting as if it were the middle of a school week.
“Is everything okay, mom,” Luna asked as she made her way to the fridge.
“Just making sure that you’re not over doing anything,” Emily said in a concerned voice. “Your dad thinks that just because your brothers Rick and Phil were able to do this kind of stuff when they were your age that you are able to do it as well. He doesn’t quite understand that you’re a young woman now, and not to mention a spell caster, who hasn’t had as much time at studying that part of her abilities as well.”
“I’m fine mom, really,” Luna urged while pouring herself a small glass of orange juice. “I like patrolling the city at night by myself anyway. It gives me a lot of time to myself where I can just think about stuff.”
These kinds of conversations between Luna and her mother happened regularly ever since Luna started her last year of high school. Luna just figured that her mother was scared that she was going to lose her daughter and she just wanted to hold on to her “little girl” for a while longer. Luna wouldn’t be leaving El Paso for some time though, that’s for sure.
“Alright,” Emily told her daughter, now wanting to change the subject. “So, how’s that boy you just can’t stop talking about -- what’s his name again?”
“Luis,” Luna said with a half-laugh. “He’s fine. I think I’ve almost got that kid out of his little shell. He’s completely terrified of the outside world. Ha-ha.”
Luna had a small number of boyfriends in the past, but no one seemed to want to stay with her for too long. Sometimes, they thought that Luna was just too out there for them to handle. Other times, they caught a glimpse of her brother (or worse, her father) and ran for the hills without looking back. Usually, they were dared to ask her out on a date, which seemed to stop hurting her feelings after the first few times it happened.
Luis was very different from all those other boys. Maybe it was simply due to the fact that the two of them developed a friendship with each other and had their feelings develop from there. It seemed like Luis wasn’t too much into anime or some of the other things she was madly interested in, but Luis at least listed to what she had to say and seemed interested in learning about all of Luna’s favorite things. He liked how weird Luna was, so that made Luna feel more comfortable with herself around him.
“So, has he kissed you yet,” Emily asked, smiling at her daughter.
“MOM!” Luna exclaimed in an appalling voice. “That is none of your business!”
“I’m guessing that’s a ‘no’.” Emily thought out loud.
It wasn’t Luna’s fault that Luis seemed too timid to even hold her hand most of the time. Their first date was at the movies, and whenever their fingers touched in the popcorn box, Luis’s entire arm would go into a sudden spasm. Ever since then, they would meet a lot in the library, mostly for working for school and studying. Nothing special ever happened in their relationship since the date at the movies, but it was very obvious that the two of them had feelings for each other.
“He’s, er...a bit difficult.” Luna answered to her mother.
“As are you,” Emily smartly returned. “Why don’t you make the first move instead of him? There’s no rule book out there that says you can’t. He who strikes first wins, right?”
Luna gave her mother an evil glare, signaling that Emily had once again won the conversation. She slammed down the rest of her juice and climbed upstairs to get ready. Today, she was going to be meeting Luis again.
It was now noon and Luis was starting to panic. Every few seconds, he would walk to the front door, hoping for the doorbell to ring just as he passed by it. Luna wasn’t supposed to arrive for another half-hour, but he couldn’t control his patience. Besides a few blind dates that were set up by his parents and their buddies from work, Luna was Luis’s first real girlfriend. He at least hoped that she was his girlfriend -- he wasn’t quite sure what the criteria you had to meet in order to say that you are exclusively dating somebody.
“Mom says for you to calm the hell down or you’re going to have an aneurysm,” Ashley said, grabbing a soda from the fridge.
“Please, Ashley, just stay out of my hair today,” Luis groaned, collapsing his body onto the living room couch.
“Not on your life, kid; there’s no way I’m going to be missing the show.” Ashley let out a squeal of a laugh. “Plus, I’m interested in seeing what kind of a girl you have coming over. How out there did you have to go to find someone who would actually want to go out with you anyway?”
“GET OUT OF HERE NOW!” Luis barked!
The doorbell chimed, causing Luis to jump into the air, his stomach now in knots. He got off the couch and hurried to answer the door. He allowed a sigh of relief when he saw no one else was opening the door. He leveled his breathing and opened up the door for Luna.
“You’re early,” Luis said, his eyes fixated on Luna’s lovely smile.
“Mom had some stuff she needed to do in town today, so she just decided to drop me off a bit early,” Luna answered.
“You don’t have a car,” Luis asked in a curious tone, welcoming her inside.
“No, I, er, failed the test three times.” She let off a small laugh and began to blush.
Luis was a bit surprised to what Luna had said. Although he was walking mostly everywhere, it was only because all the places that he wanted to go to were in walking distance. He had acquired his driver's license before they had left Los Angeles but didn’t have much practice since they moved to El Paso. It was good to have it, in case there was some kind of emergency that called for it. He escorted Luna to the living room, where an array of junk food was spread out and a number of DVD’s lied scatted on the table. This had been a weekend that Luis had been dreaming of for a while, and he wanted it to be just right.
Alexander was going over the preparations throughout his mind over and over again, playing it back in his head like it was a movie. If every detail wasn’t perfectly planned out and in place, then everything he had been working on for the past few weeks would have been absolutely for nothing. He wasn’t going to risk being killed because of a serial murderer.
He even hat to “recruit” a new member of his family in order to make sure that they had enough members to make sure that everything would be done perfectly. On days like today, he would sit alone in his dark room, avoiding any and all distractions.
Somewhere else in the vampire’s hideout, Drake was coming up with his own little plan. He had grown far too tired of playing Alexander’s little minion, pretended to understand what he stood for. Drake had known, even when he was human, that he was a natural born leader. His trust in Alexander’s leadership and grown far too thin for him to follow anymore.
He couldn’t possibly keep this going, Drake thought in his room. He had to know that one day Alexander was going to hit a brick wall. Sorry Alexander, but -- no, wait. I am not sorry, Alexander. You were weak, believing that this little noble act could go on forever. You protected these scum human beings, so that makes you just as guilty as well. You have to go away!
There was a knock at his door, Alexis entering through the doorway without waiting for Drake’s approval. Drake didn’t mind at all though; in fact, it seemed like perfect timing. He needed to make sure that she would be a good companion to him, or if she would have to be killed like he would Alexander. Thus far, his findings were very inconclusive. She wasn’t as straight forward as Drake had hoped she’d be. It wasn’t exactly Alexis that he wanted to have, but it was her strength and abilities that made her valuable.
“What is it, Alexis,” Drake asked in a relaxed voice
“She’s woken up,” Alexis said, her voice sounding eager. She seemed to be like a kid ready to open her presents on Christmas morning.
When a human being is bitten by a vampire, and is, medically speaking, still alive, their body shuts down completely for a short while. The time varies from person to person. In that time, their entire body goes through a series of transformations. As long as there is at least a pint of original blood in the human’s system, they will, in the end, become a vampire. It was Drake who drew the new girl in, just as he had done when he transformed Alexis into what he was.
As the two of them walked over to the room where their new addition had been sleeping, Drake was scheming. There was only one way he was going to discover whether or not Alexis would be to be loyal to him or Alexander.
“Drake, what are you doing?”
Drake was pinning Alexis against the solid wall, staring intensely into her glowing red eyes. He wanted this to be as convincing as possible; it had to work the first time or not at all. Their bodies were forced against each other, one of Drake’s hands placed over Alexis’s cold cheek.
Well, in this form, at least she’s cute.
Drake pressed his lips against hers for a mere second. Alexis felt as if she were sucked into a marvelous euphoria, almost as if she was able to walk into the direct sunlight without the fear of her existence coming to an end. She had feared an end to this kiss with Drake -- it was the only thing that felt real to her at that moment. All Drake could think about was the bloody taste of Alexis’s lips: cancerous.
“That was...unexpected,” Alexis said, shyly. This was a time where Alexis hoped she could blush.
“Let’s go,” Drake told her. “We have to make sure the new girl doesn’t do anything stupid like open the blinds.”
Now much later into the afternoon, Luna was growing very impatient with Luis. It was obvious that he really did like her in a romantic way and she was trying her best to make as many advances as she could on him. Luis seemed to like her so much, that he was obviously afraid that he would do or say something so stupid that she would break up with him before the end of the day. Luna, when she was with Luis, felt (for lack of a better word) human. It was a great kind of feeling and she didn’t want to let him go.
In the dully lit room, Luna’s phone suddenly went off on the couch. Inside the room’s atmosphere, it was quiet, causing the two of them to jump. After both of their hearts skipped a few beats, Luna made her way to the phone. Her eyes widened at the caller ID. Her father would rarely call her for anything.
“Where are you,” Victor immediately asked his daughter.
“I’m at a friend’s house,” She answered quickly. “Mom dropped me off earlier today, remember? What’s going on, dad?”
“Your mother is on her way right now to get you. Be ready for her when she gets there so she doesn’t have to wait for you.” His voice was stern; trying to get Luna to understand what was going on.
“But, dad, I--”
“Do what I say, LUNA!”
The phone line suddenly went dead. Luna slammed her phone shut and swore under her breath.
“What’s going on,” Luis asked as he slowly approached her with a puzzled look on his face. He was afraid that Luna wasn’t allowed to be with him anymore.
Just simply be seeing how worried Luis was, Luna was able to calm down almost instantaneously. She was frustrated mostly because her father wasn’t trying to explain what was going on. She knew that it had something to do with the abnormal half of her life, the piece of her life that none of her friends knew anything about. Maybe a vampire just suddenly went bad, meaning that they would have to exterminate them before they could do any more harm. The bad feeling in the pit of Luna’s stomach had suddenly returned.
“Everything’s fine,” Luna answered in an uneven voice. She hugged him, clutching onto his shoulders. “There’s an emergency with my parents, so I’ll have to leave soon. Thank you Luis for a wonderful day; I really enjoyed myself.”
“But, all we did was just watch movies and eat cold pizza. I feel kind of stupid; I didn’t say a lot to you today.” Luna didn’t like the tone Luis was taking.
“Ha-ha, silly boy. I had a wonderful time with you, even if you think we really did nothing.” Part of her wished that she could do something like this with him every day.
“I had a wonderful day, too.” He tightened around her waist, seemingly happier.
“I’m glad, Luis.” She pulled away from the hug.
Luna acted without thinking once again. Before she knew it, she was kissing Luis, whose breath tasted of cold pepperoni pizza, buttered popcorn, and an array of sodas. The odd taste didn’t matter to Luna though. Nothing else seemed to exist for that moment. There was no vampires, no werewolves, and no more secrets to hide.
No other words were uttered between them.
Chapter Four: Attack
Twilight is now gone.
When the dawn breaks over them,
a new Sun will rise
The high that Luna as on from kissing Luis slowly melted away as Luna got back to her house. No one seemed to want to explain anything to her about why she was forced to leave so early. Being in the dark was not a fun past time for young Luna Estrella. Her temper seemed to be growing by the passing seconds. She wished that she was back at Luis’s place, continuing their mindless fun.
An hour passed by slowly for the Estrella clan. Everyone was off doing their own thing inside the large house. It didn’t seem like anybody but Victor understood what exactly was going on. It made everyone in the house feel uneasy, but there was no way to make Victor talk if he didn’t want to.
There was a sudden knock at the door, which surprised almost everybody in the house. Victor was the only one who got up and walked towards the door.
“We welcome you inside our house,” Luna heard her father say in a slow tone.
From the threshold, four hooded figures appeared in front of the Estrella family. From the four of them, Alexander was the first to remove his covering, his long black hair falling to his sides. This was the first time that Luna had seen Alexander’s bald head, causing her to feel on edge.
“Good evening, Alexander,” Victor said, breaking the uncomfortable silence that was lingering in the cold air.
“The same we give to you, Victor,” Alexander returned. “As you can clearly see, there is a reason why I called for us to visit your family.”
Alexander’s arm gestured to the shortest person in their group. Her body appeared to be shaking, Luna guessing that it was out of fear. In the old days, vampires and werewolves were mortal (and immortal) enemies. Maybe the girl believed that things were like the old days, instead of the civil tolerance of today.
“Might I ask what happened to Erika,” Emily chimed in from the kitchen.
“She left us a long time ago, but I hear that she still resides within the city limits,” Alexis said, taking off her own hood. Drake silently followed suit, seemingly staring off into space.
“We recently had to recruit a new member of our ‘family’ in order for us to succeed in our latest task,” Alexander began to explain. “We’re going to go after Antonio Solo tonight, and we need another young woman to draw him to us. We took out his lawyer a while ago, if you remember the news reports, but we fear that someone may have spotted Alexis and may be on guard if they see her around Solo. Also, our new friend has a very unique power that will prove most useful for our cause.”
“Power,” Luna asked.
“It’s okay,” Drake whispered into the girl’s ear, “you can show it to them.”
Drake gestured to the small girl to remove her dark hood. Her face seemed to be a bit older than Luna’s, but not by too much. Her hair was a light blue, and her eyes were bloody red, just like every vampire that she had laid eyes on. The two girls met perfectly eye to eye in a single moment, and the vampire was whispering something quickly under her breath.
Suddenly, the door burst open with a loud bang! Running into the living room, seemingly out of breath, was a tattered Luis, with his left hand hidden behind his back. He looked as if he had been crying ever since she left his house. No one was making a move towards him. They seemed very distant from the situation, as if they were only observing.
“Luis, what’s wrong,” Luna asked, attempting to calm him down.
“Stay away from me,” Luis ordered her.
Luis then lifted up his left hand from behind his back, revealing a small handgun. He pulled the trigger seven times, aiming at everybody around him, leaving only Luna standing. He then pointed it right at Luna’s heart.
“What the hell are you doing,” Luna cried out. She fell to her knees, ready to beg for her life.
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