Free Vampire Books: Vampire Bite – Chapter 12

Alfie steps in front of me so I’m between the wall and his enormous body.  I see him stick his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and fiddle with his phone.

I pull out my gun as they get closer, and the nearest vampire laughs – I think I recognise him from one of the photos Alfie showed me – the young one who was snogging someone outside a bar.

“Ohh, the ickle girly thinks she can protect herself,” he taunts.

“Don’t think she’s got a chance myself,” the other vampire says, folding his arms and looking me up and down.

I narrow my eyes at him and point the gun towards his chest.

“Don’t do anything yet,” Alfie whispers at me, and then to them he says, “Didn’t know you bloodsuckers could stand each other’s company?”

“Times change,” says the older vampire.  He has straight dark hair falling in his eyes, and the cutest nose, but this look is tainted by the expression of distaste on his mouth as he looks at Alfie.

“Let the girl go,” Alfie says, “and I’ll fight you alone.”

“Ha!” says the young one, “That’s not going to happen.  She looks tasty.”  He winks at me, and it’s so sleazy I want to chuck up, but I keep the gun pointing directly at him.

Alfie subtly moves so he’s more between me and the vampire I’m not pointing the gun at.  I desperately want to ask him what to do, but I don’t want to ruin any plan he has, and bloody hell, I hope he does have one – this situation is not looking good.  My heart is pounding so loudly I feel like my chest is going to explode.

“This isn’t a fair fight,” Alfie says.  “Let’s meet again when it’s two of us against two of you.”

“We don’t share your moral code Wolf, we just want you gone.”

Someone else steps into the alleyway, someone who looks so much like Alfie I’m sure it must be his brother.

“Now,” Alfie says to me, and lunges towards the older vampire.

The younger one tears towards me and I shoot.  I catch him square in the chest and he stops, looking down, and then back into my eyes with his lip turning up into a snarl.  From behind him I see Alfie’s brother running in, and the vampire looks from my gun to the approaching wolf and legs it, past Alfie who is wrestling the older vampire on the ground, and out of view.

“You alright?” the Alfie-like guy says.

I nod, and he rushes to Alfie’s aid.  I stand back, away from the action, but with my back to the wall and my gun raised in case any other vampires should decide to join us.  The vampire is no match for Alfie and his brother, I watch as he tries to get away and Alfie’s brother gets him in a grip from behind.

“This isn’t fair!” the vampire whines.

“I thought you had no moral code,” Alfie retorts.

I hear sirens approaching at the same time as Alfie raises the stake and drives it into the vampire’s chest.  They jump back as the vampire starts to smoke and then turns to dust before my eyes.  The sirens are getting loud, so I stick the gun back into the holster and cover it with my coat.

Alfie runs to me, “On my back,” he says urgently, turning his back to me and crouching down.

I climb on and he hooks his arms around my legs, then the two of them are running, me clutching onto Alfie for my life – he’s running so fast! – away from the approaching sirens.  They don’t stop until we get to my flat. 

Alfie puts me down, I stumble and he grabs my arm to keep me steady.

“Get us in quick,” says Alfie.

I fumble for my keys and then, with shaky hands, manage to unlock the door.  Alfie practically pushes me inside, and when we’re all in he shuts the door behind us.  He exchanges a dark look with his brother, ushers me upstairs, and then when we’re inside my flat he pulls me to him and holds me tightly against his chest.

“If anything had happened to you…”

“I’m ok, Alfie!” I say.  Although my heart’s still going like a wild thing.

He lets me go and I step back.

“That was too close,” he says.  “This is my brother, Sammy, in case you hadn’t figured.”

“Hi,” I say.

“Before we talk I better ring Mic,” he says, pulling out his phone and touching the screen.  He walks off towards the kitchen.

I look at Sammy, and he mouths, “Hi.”  Seeing him in the light of my flat I can now spot subtle differences between him and Alfie – his hair is curly too, but it’s a shade lighter.  His eyes have the same amber rings, but his jaw is narrower and he’s a couple of inches shorter, and leaner.  I think he must be younger than Alfie – maybe eighteen.

“Do you want to sit down?” I whisper, so as not to interrupt Alfie’s phone conversation.

He nods and takes a seat at the table, and I sit down across from him.  Alfie gets off the phone and sits next to me, and puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me to his side.

“Thought we were in for it,” Alfie says.  “Awesome you were so close, bro.”

“How did you know where we were?” I ask Sammy.

“We have a system–” Sammy starts.

“Thank God it worked,” Alfie says.

“–If one of us is in trouble we have a sensor on our phones we can press which alerts Mic.  He got the alert and traced Alfie’s phone to find his location.  He can pull up a map which shows all of our locations – which I guess he did and saw that I was closest – and he gave me a call,” says Sammy.

“Yeah, hoped someone would turn up quick – I was trying to stall by talking to the damn bloodsuckers,” Alfie says.

“It worked,” I say.  “And you got one of them.”

“Yeah, other one was too much of a coward to face you and me,” Sammy says, smiling at me.

“Mic said he’s gonna find everyone’s locations and ring people telling them who to meet up with – that no-one should be on their own hunting from now on – now that the bloodsuckers’ behaviour has changed,” Alfie says.

“Yeah, what’s with that?” Sammy says.

“Mic reckons they might have discovered we traced one of them – the GPS sensor that was planted on one of them has stopped transmitting,” says Alfie.

“He reckons they worked it out even though it was disguised as a key?” I say.

“Yeah, if they’d just chucked out the key it should still be sending a signal,” Alfie says.

“Bugger,” says Sammy.

“Which means they’ve probably abandoned the tunnels and now we have no idea where they’re hiding out in the day, so we’ll have to abandon the plan to ambush them down there.  Now we have no plan,” Alfie says, his shoulders slumping.

“Hey, you do still have a plan – one down tonight – and we killed one the other day.  We’ll get them gradually if not all at once,” I say.

“Yeah, but that takes longer … which means they’ll kill more people in the meantime.  Plus, now they know for sure we’re here they might just move on – then it will take us a while to figure out where….” Alfie says.

Sammy nods, looking depressed.  “Sorry I let that one get away tonight.”

Alfie shakes his head.  “Not your fault.”

They both crash out at mine – Sammy on the sofa and Alfie on a bed made out of cushions on the floor next to him.  At lunchtime a text from Mic wakes Alfie; it’s asking him to ring urgently.  Alfie’s straight on the phone, his forehead creased with concern.

“No!” he says, and I see the colour drain from his face.  He puts the phone down and crumbles to the floor next to the sofa and leans against it.

Sammy sits up and I hurry to Alfie’s side, still in my pyjamas.

“What’s happened?” says Sammy.

A tear runs down Alfie’s cheek.  “Bloodsuckers got Jimmy.”

“What? No!” Sammy says.  “How?”

He shrugs.  “Don’t know, but when Mic rang him last night to get everyone to meet up he couldn’t get through.  Bloodsuckers must have planned it – attacked him around the time they ganged up on us….  So Mic traced him, then went out and found … his neck was ripped apart.”

Sammy is silent, staring at Alfie in shock.  Tears are flooding down Alfie’s cheeks, and my heart feels like it’s being squashed.  If that had happened to Alfie … it would be too awful.  It’s awful anyway, but I don’t want to lose Alfie … it would feel like losing a part of myself.  I sit down by his side and wrap my arm around his chest while leaning my head on his shoulder.  He puts a hand on my arm and absentmindedly strokes it.

It doesn’t seem like the right time to be thinking about such things, but I’m suddenly not sure I do see Alfie as just a friend; I care about him too much.

“We’re going to have a funeral this afternoon,” Alfie says.  “Will you come, Ava?”

“Are you sure?  I didn’t know him, wouldn’t it be weird?”

“No, I’d like you to be there,” Alfie says.

“Ok, I’ll come.”

“Good.”  He kisses the top of my head and I hug him tighter.

Alfie takes his brother back to their camp on his bike, and then returns to pick me up.  Their camp is far busier than I’ve seen it before, which I guess means everyone has come back for the funeral.  There are twenty-two, no … now twenty-one, werewolves.  No-one pays me much attention, they are all either crying or silent, so I stay quiet and stick by Alfie’s side.  I’ve only ever been to one funeral before, and that was for my granny when I was ten, and she had been ill for a long time so I think everyone had come to terms with the fact she was dying before it actually happened.  The atmosphere here is very different – everyone seems to be in shock.

We all gather in the woods near to the camp, by a deep grave which has already been dug.  Four large men come towards us carrying Jimmy’s body – it’s wrapped in white sheets so we can’t see his face, or his injuries, and the crowd moves apart to let them walk through and then they slowly lower him into the grave.  Everyone is crying, including me – I can’t help but get caught up in everyone’s emotion, and seeing Alfie so sad is heartbreaking. 

Two young girls come forward and scatter wild flowers into the grave, then run back to their parents in tears, and then everyone comes forwards, one at a time, and throws a spade-full of earth over Jimmy’s body, while whispering words I can’t hear to Jimmy, or his spirit, or God – I’m not sure what they believe.

After this we all go back to Mic’s cabin, which is the largest of everyone’s, for drinks, although after a toast to Jimmy everyone switches from alcohol to tea, so they aren’t affected for the evening’s hunt ahead.  It’s a serious affair with people talking in quiet voices about everything they can think of about Jimmy.  I stick with Alfie, and find myself shedding tears repeatedly.  No-one wants to go hunting when night comes, and to be safe Mic divides everyone up into threes and fours, depending on experience, and makes sure everyone is patrolling near to another team in case backups are needed. 

I’m with Alfie, of course, and Sammy, and Alfie’s older brother, Mathew.  I would guess Mathew is about thirty-five – he doesn’t look as much like Alfie as Sammy does as he’s much shorter, but he still seems very large as his muscles are double the size of Alfie’s, and he has very short hair and a beard.  Mic has decided having patrols along the river is a good idea again, and this is the area he’s given us. 

Walking along the river in such a big group feels like it’s a less effective strategy as it will be pretty hard for anyone not to notice us coming.  I can see why they normally go out hunting alone – even if it is more dangerous.  When I point this out we decide to split up, but to still stay within each other’s sight.  I stay with Alfie, Sammy walks about thirty metres ahead of us, and Mathew about thirty metres behind.  This is an advantage as it makes it less tempting to talk, too, which would definitely give us away, and I feel more comfortable just walking along beside Alfie in silence as I’m used to that now.

Regardless of this strategy we have an uneventful night, which is a relief after the last couple of nights – although I would have preferred it if we’d managed to take a vampire down.  When dawn arrives Mathew checks in with Mic and finds out that no-one had any run-ins with vampires at all.  A teenage boy was killed though, so it’s not like they’ve gone into hiding – it seems like they’re getting more aware of our presence and better at hiding themselves – which doesn’t strike me as a good thing.

After the sun has risen Alfie and I split off from the rest of the group and Alfie walks back towards my place with me; as we get nearer the sun looks beautiful rising above the water. 

“Why don’t we sit here for a bit?” I say, pointing at the wall by the water’s edge.

Alfie nods, and follows me; I sit on the edge of the path, my legs dangling over the water, Alfie sits close by, lightly touching my side.  I lean my head on his shoulder and watch the reflections on the water, and try to stifle a yawn.

“It’s been a long night, huh?” Alfie says.

“Hmmm, yeah, sleepy.  It’s nice being out here though, ’tis so beautiful.”

“It is that.”  Alfie pauses for a moment, but he draws a breath, then hesitates, like he’s about to say something else but doesn’t know how.

I lift my head off his shoulder and look at him.  “What is it?”

He looks into my eyes, and I look back at his – with their beautiful amber rings.  His pupils are reflecting the light from the morning sun.  I find myself leaning towards him, at the same time as he’s leaning towards me and our faces are getting very close – I can feel his warm breath on my cool skin.

“Ava…” he whispers.

“Yes?” I whisper back, without getting further away.  My heart is thudding hard.

“You said you didn’t want this….”

I remember how I felt when we found out Jimmy got killed … the idea of losing Alfie … how it made my heart contract painfully.

“I think I’m changing my mind,” I say, smiling bashfully.

His face splits into a wide grin, the first time I’ve seen him smile properly for a couple of days.  “That’s good news,” he says, and chuckles quietly.