“What do we do?” Chris asked softly.
Luther turned toward him, the normally soft lines in his face hard and fierce. “We run.”
There was a moment of stunned, breathless silence, before Cassie and Chris exploded at the same time. “What!?”
Luther nodded briskly, he folded his hands behind his back as he started to pace the confines of his kitchen. “None of you are ready to face an Elder. You haven’t had enough training; you do not know the full scope of this creature’s abilities. No one fully knows what an Elder is capable of. You cannot go up against that.”
“The three of us…”
“Are not enough,” he interrupted Chris sharply. “Your powers and abilities are nothing compared to what this creature may be able to do.”
Cassie’s head spun, her extremities went numb. She felt as if she could slide off the kitchen island and become a limp pool of body parts on the floor. There was nothing left to her. “How can you be so sure that this is even an Elder?” Chris asked softly.
Luther heaved a large sigh as he continued his relentless pacing. “I cannot. The biggest clue I have is the lack of evidence that the police have. This monster is killing for the pleasure, and power, of it. He is not turning them; he is leaving their bodies behind with no blood, when he leaves them behind, but he also leaves no hint of his mark upon them, which is something that new vamps tend not to do. The lack of blood at the crime scene is stumping police, but they are not digging too deeply into it. Probably because they don’t want to know. Also, most new vampires do not survive their first month.”
“What? Why not?” Cassie gasped in shock, breaking free of her paralysis.
Luther rolled his eyes as he shook his head. “You never listen to me,” he muttered. “Most new vampires are killed in their first month.”
“Why? How?” Chris demanded fiercely.
Luther shot him a fierce, disapproving look. “Either by Hunter’s, especially when there were more of you, or by other vampire’s.” Cassie stared at him in stunned silence, her mind spun with the revelation. Luther shoved his glasses back up his nose and returned to pacing. “Older vampires don’t want a lot of newbie’s around. They do not want the human population to know that vampires are real, and young vampires tend to be careless about the conditions they leave their victims in, and the amount of bodies they leave behind. They tend to raise questions that the Elders don’t want raised. Also, hunting and killing another vampire is more power than a human, and more thrilling for them. I imagine that they thoroughly enjoy it.”
Cassie inhaled sharply; she found the brutal picture he was painting extremely disturbing. They fought amongst themselves in search of a more thrilling kill, and more power? She knew that they were monsters, awful, horrendous, and despicable, but this was far beyond her scope of disgust and hatred for them. Nausea twisted in her already sour stomach.
“How come we didn’t hear about this fact before now?” Chris demanded.
Luther stopped pacing; folding his arms firmly over his chest he glared at him. “Because you and Cassie didn’t want to learn about the lore, and the behavior of vampires, you just wanted to learn to fight.”
Cassie had the grace to look chagrined, Chris did not. Melissa stood silently to the side; she already knew what Luther was talking about. Having grown up in the life, Melissa had been taught everything as a child. She also firmly believed that if she was going to know the future, then she needed to have a tight grip on the past. And Melissa was very much about the future and the things that were revealed to her. However, Cassie had resented her heritage as it was; she did not want to learn more about it. And Chris, well if it didn’t involve food, girls, and action then he wanted nothing to do with it.
“Well it’s all boring crap,” Chris muttered defensively.
Luther’s jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed slightly. “Well you just learned something new, and important, from that boring crap!” Luther snapped. Chris finally had the grace to look discomfited as he ducked his head. “So that is why I believe that we are dealing with an Elder now.”
“The thing in the woods,” Cassie said softly, looking wildly at Melissa and Chris. “That’s what was out there tonight, and at the beach the other day.”
“How could it have been at the beach? It was daylight,” Chris argued.
Cassie shook her head, hopping off the counter as she began to pace rapidly. “It was overcast though, probably cloudy enough for them to come out at that point of the day.”
“What are you talking about?” Luther demanded fiercely. Melissa quickly filled him in on what had happened the other day, and the strange feeling they had all experienced again tonight. Luther’s face was grave and thoughtful, his eyes distant as he studied the far wall. “We may never know exactly what an Elder is capable of. The scope of their powers may be far beyond anything we can even imagine.”
Cassie’s stomach rolled over again, and she was very fearful that she was going to throw up her strawberry shake before this night was over. “If it is watching you, then it’s likely that this creature knows what you truly are. It is also likely that the three of you may have drawn it here. It may have sensed your powers, and abilities, and it also may have noticed the deaths of its brethren do to you. That’s why we must leave. It will hunt you until it destroys you.”
Cassie abruptly stopped pacing; she nearly tripped over her own feet as she stared at him in disbelief. Melissa slid limply off the island; she rested her hand against it as her legs buckled slightly. Chris took a step forward, his eyes turbulent, yet blazing with a fiery determination.
“No,” Cassie said softly, swallowing heavily as she tried to wet her parched throat. “No, I am not leaving,” she managed more firmly.
Luther looked at her in surprise, his eyes blinked rapidly behind his Lennon style glasses. “What do you mean no? You don’t understand Cassie…”
“I understand that you think this thing will kill us, and you may be right. I also understand that we may have led this thing here; I will not abandon the town, and the people I have known since childhood, to this monster. It may kill us, but we are also the only defense that they have against it. I will not leave them to be slaughtered because of us.”
“Neither will I,” Chris said firmly.
Melissa wet her lips nervously before straightening her slender shoulders. “We can’t Luther. Cassie’s right, this thing may be far more powerful than us, but we are the only defense here. We can’t abandon them; it would be like leading the lambs to the slaughter.”