Chapter Ten....Scene One, Two & Three

Alistair smiled his appreciation as he walked into the living room. “Nice place you have here.”

“Thank you,” Athena replied. She offered him a seat on one of the large leather sofas. “I know this may not sound like it but I want you to know that I didn’t mean to bite her.”

“I know that. Raven told us everything. She actually asked us not to retaliate and I agreed with her one hundred percent although Tabitha understandably thinks otherwise.”

Athena was loath to admit it but she was fast becoming an admirer of the vampire. He looked to be very in control of his emotions, a calm quietness about him. Most of the vampires she had encountered would have been banging and throwing stuff in her house by now trying to get her to come out, Tabitha included.

“So is it her you’ve come to warn me about?” She asked.

“Not really. We’re actually leaving town at the end of this week. We just couldn’t remain here when Raven—” He struggled to find the right words but only a tired sigh came out. “Anyway I just dropped by only because she begged me to come and check on Eric for her. She just wanted to make sure he was safe.”

Athena had never felt any sympathy for a vampire in her entire life but now, looking at the oddly quiet vampire before her and hearing what he’d just said, she did feel a little pang of sadness. But it was regret. Regret of the danger she’d exposed her sons to. Alistair had said they were moving and he might not believe in vengeance but what about Tabitha? After all, she literally had eternity to plot her revenge.

“If you don’t mind me asking, do your sons know what you are?” Alistair asked.

Shaking her head, Athena said, “No, they don’t. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Of course,” he smiled. “Well since you’re all calm and everything I’ll take it that Eric’s okay?”

“Yes he is.”

“Well then I guess I better be going. Tabitha is an emotional mess at the moment.” At the door, he turned and offered her his hand, a perfectionist’s smile on his face and said, “Thank you for inviting me in”

That sentence sent alarm bells ringing in Athena’s mind.

***

Raven was shivering as her mother covered her with another blanket. Athena’s bite wound had now spread. Her entire forearm was rotting slowly, the skin a repugnant red. She was having memory flashes from when she was a kid, long before she’d been turned.

It was kind of funny actually. She was a vampire, she wasn’t supposed to get sick but here she was. She had a fever, the flu and couldn’t stop that damn shivering. Her parents had thought some blood would help and had even gone to the hospital for the human kind but she had just recently begun coughing it up.

Her mother was distraught, not knowing what to do. She just couldn’t watch her baby die could she? But what else was there to do? There was no known cure for a werewolf bite. Where would she even begin to search? It was all the fault of that werewolf bitch! She wished she had torn her head while she’d had the chance last night instead of telling her where her son was. Raven would still be alive and looking ahead to eternity.

Childhood memories flashed once again in Raven’s mind. She was fast becoming delirious, calling out to her mother in a little child-like voice and talking to her about things that happened ten years ago like they had only occurred yesterday. She coughed up some more blood.

Raven knew she was going to die soon and the only regret she had was that she would never get to feel Eric’s lips on hers.

 ***

Sheriff Charlie Cromwell was not a happy man that morning. As a member of one of the founding families, he took pride in the fact that Sereneville had steadily grown and blossomed over the years. The town’s population was steadily rising and there was an influx of small but eager investors.

Sheriff Cromwell was thirty six years old and just starting to go bald on the top of his square-shaped head. He was a big bulk of a man, but too many of the chocolate covered doughnuts his wife made had him slightly overweight. He was a very cheerful person and always had a kind word for everyone even when writing them up a ticket.

As the sheriff, Cromwell’s satisfaction lay in the fact that crime was almost non-existent in town. There was the very odd break –in, occasional shop lifting—usually done by overzealous teenagers trying to get someone’s attention—but his work mainly consisted of breaking up bar fights and handing out speeding tickets. That was about as dangerous as it got.

The town had never experienced a death before. Not even on the nights the fabled Melissa was rumored to be seen lurking on the lake, supposedly waiting for her next victim. It seemed her “curse” had been lifted, if it had been there at all.

But when he woke up this morning, Sheriff Cromwell had received a very disturbing call. Sereneville had just witnessed its first loss of life in more than a decade. The party at the lake last night had culminated in a gruesome death for two teens that had recklessly gone off alone into the woods. His deputy told him it looked like they had been mauled to death by some kind of wild animal.

Sheriff Cromwell was perplexed. The woods had been clear of any dangerous animals all these years and if they were there, they certainly wouldn’t come so close to town. Where had this “wild animal” come from?

He picked up his hat and dumping the rest of a chocolate doughnut he’d been eating into the trash, headed out to the woods to join his deputy. No sir, he was not a happy man.