• Chapter one: Mission

    As night began, a light breeze came through the city of London, followed by an expected drizzle of rain. People bustled through the streets, the rain leaving a crisp, fresh smell to the air. Three people in particular stood out among the many others, their skin as pale as death, each of them with beautiful, sparkling, sapphire blue eyes. Two males, then a female in between them. The man on the right looked to be in his mid-twenties, he had golden brown hair that was pulled back into a short ponytail, and a square jaw. He had the body-builder type of body, and he was over six feet tall, so he easily intimidated many who laid eyes on him. The boy on the left looked to be seventeen, with reddish brown hair, and a slightly gaunt face. He was skinny, but had enough muscle on him to not look anorexic, and was about five foot, nine inches tall. The girl looked to be nineteen, had straight black hair that went a few inches below her shoulders, and her face looked as if it were carved by angels. She was skinny, with an hourglass shape to her small body, and was five feet even, give or take a half an inch. All three of them were wearing the same thing: a long-sleeved black leather coat that buttoned down until it hit just above the groin(below that point the fabric whipped around freely in the howling wind), black shirts, black pants, and black leather combat boots. During the occasional few seconds where the wind didn't hit the three, it could be visible that the coat hung two inches above the ground.

    A few passersby looked at them curiously upon noticing that the three beautiful creatures had no umbrellas, but instinct told them to stay away.

    The younger boy's eyes darted around constantly, in an almost paranoid way, and his hands fidgeted every so often. The female glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

    "Ace, calm down, this isn't our first mission, after all," she spoke in such a soft tone only her two companions would be able to hear her.

    Ace looked at her for a split second, before letting his eyes dart around again.

    "Yes, but it is my first first class mission!" he replied quickly.

    "Which is why we must remain calm, and not appear so tense about it," the girl replied sharply, and Ace let out a warning hiss at her, bearing his fangs slightly.

    "Ace, calm yourself and put away your fangs, Amethyst, shut your own mouth, the Layaks may be listening!" the tall man growled, and his two companions fell silent.

    After another minute of walking through the rain, they came to rest at a coffee shop.

    Amethyst glanced around the recent renovated shop, a cup of coffee in her hands, then she looked back at the other two, saying, "I don't smell any Layaks, Adrian."

    Adrian huffed, his arms crossed over his broad chest, and hissed quietly. "Have you forgotten what they are capable of? They can hide their scent, now!"

    Amethyst's soft expression turned viciously rigid.

    "You know that I will never forget what they are capable of," she hissed in a dangerously acid tone, standing up. She strode out of the shop and into the rain yet again, leaving behind Ace and Adrian without hesitation. Ace gave one chuckle.

    "You're an idiot, bringing that up, Adrian," he said, standing up as well.

    Adrian gave him an incredulous look.

    "Me? She's the one who brought it up!" Adrian said gruffly as they left the shop. He looked around. "D.amn, where'd she go?" he growled, and Ace shook his head.

    "It's best to let her cool down a bit before you try to even talk to her, you know how she gets."

    Amethyst took long, angry strides, her boots making a heavy thud with each step she took. She blocked out the memories, and eventually the emotions that followed, and, when she was sure no one could be watching, she quickly climbed up the wall of a building then hopped onto the rooftop. The rain had stopped, and she got a perfect view of the city. Her now smoldering golden eyes darted from one point of the city to another, and she eventually closed them, listening intently for any...disturbances. The usual noise was all she heard. For the first five seconds.

    A few unfortunately familiar voices abruptly caught her attention. She hissed, baring her fangs, at what she was hearing.

    "Look, I don't want trouble—" one unfamiliar voice was speaking, until it was interrupted by the sound of flesh meeting flesh, a slap to the face.

    "Easy, don't kill the fool!" a rough voice barked.

    "Braden, you're forgetting, we have to find out where those bloody Lampirs are hiding out!" another rough voice said in a hurried manner.

    "Who says we can't make some money while we look for them?!" the last voice, possibly five years younger than the two others, snarled.

    "The bloody hell are you three going on ab—" the first voice spoke up again, a little too loudly.

    There was a crack, one of the Layaks had just punched the first guy in the jaw.

    Amethyst opened her eyes, calculating the exact distance between her and them, then jumped from the building, landing gracefully on her feet as if she had only jumped three feet, instead of three stories, to the ground. She darted across the street, disappeared around the corner, cut through an alleyway, then abruptly stopped. She looked around the corner, and saw three unusually large men and one normal sized teenage boy, most likely eighteen or nineteen. Her eyes turned black in hatred and rage toward the three, then faded to a dark navy blue when she saw the smaller boy's face.

    She shook her head then turned her attention back to the Layaks. The tallest was attempting to talk the middle-sized one, by the name of Braden, out of apparently mugging the human boy, who had a busted lip and bleeding nose along with a bruise on his jaw.

    "We're not here for money, and you'd best not draw too much attention to us, you bloody idiot!"

    The smallest of the three was restraining the human from escaping, which didn't seem to be very difficult, due to the boy's small stature. Well, small compared to the Layak holding him.

    "We need to keep our disguises in good shape, don't we?!"

    The human writhed under the Layak's grip, and yelled, "You three are nutters! Let me go!" earning himself a punch in the gut by Braden.

    "Gentlemen, must you always act like savages?" Amethyst spoke up as stepped from out of the shadows, her face hard like stone and expressionless, and the Layaks all growled at her. "Hello again, Braden, Byron, Blake."

    Braden tilted his head to the side with a nasty smirk about his face.

    "Ah, sweet little Amethyst, fancy meeting you here again," Braden spoke, taking a step toward her, "I wonder if your precious Avery would want you to die right here, right now, in the same spot as he?" he clicked his tongue in thought as he spoke, and Amethyst's fists clenched. Her eyes turned a liquid mix of pitch black and smoldering gold, and she hissed menacingly.

    "You filthy Layak, how dare you mention Avery's name in such a way?" she demanded, baring her fangs at Braden.

    Braden's upper lip pulled up, revealing sharp, yellow teeth that could easily rip through Amethyst's flesh. Byron, the tall one, crouched on his hands and feet, threatening to make the transformation that would turn him from his currently tolerable but lethal human form into the ragged, hideous animal form that was even more lethal and uncontrollable.

    Amethyst crouched in a cat-like position, as if ready to pounce, and kept her fangs plenty visible.

    Braden went into the same crouching position, and Blake arched his back, ready to turn as well, but could not, knowing he must keep the human bound.

    "Go ahead, risk your necks, Layaks, you three, of all, know the consequences!" Amethyst threatened, digging her nails into the concrete as if it were loose soil.

    The three of them growled, then straightened back up.

    "I suppose you wish to avenge Avery?" Braden pressed, putting his arms out at his sides as if offering himself as an open target to the small vampire, who growled.

    "Another time," Amethyst replied in an icy tone, carelessly tossing a wad of money to the ground. "Take that, leave the human be, and get out of my sight."

    Blake snarled, and bounded forward. The human made to run off, but Braden grabbed him quickly.

    "And if we don't, mon ami?" Blake spoke in a slight french accent, cupping Amethyst's chin in his hand.

    A hiss came from deep within Amethyst's throat, and as her eyes turned black, she grabbed Blake by the neck. Her teeth bared yet again, she bucked up her left knee to kick him away. Byron charged at her, she kicked Blake into him, then as they collided and stumbled to the ground, she punched Braden hard enough to send him flying into the brick wall behind him, grabbed the human, and jumped onto the roof.

    "What in God's name are you?!" he yelled, his eyes wide, and Amethyst ignored him as she went from roof to roof, block to block. "Tell me what just happened!"

    "Will you be quiet? It's hard enough not to be noticed jumping around while I'm carrying you, so do me a favor!" Amethyst told him quickly, and the boy reluctantly kept quiet. She stopped at the roof of the three story building she had been previously at, and placed him down again.

    He clutched his shoulder, then Amethyst noticed a crimson color bleeding through his shirt, so she sighed, ripping the sleeve off and tearing it into long strips. She ripped off his other sleeve, bunched it up, and gave it to him. He wiped the blood from his face, then she bunched it up a little tighter and pressed it onto the deep cuts on his shoulder. He hissed.

    "Keep the pressure on it while I wrap it up, you've lost too much blood," Amethyst muttered, using one of the extra strips of cloth to wipe his arm free of the crimson liquid. She began wrapping the strips around his shoulder, one by one, and at some point he yelped in pain. She loosened the cloth a bit, mumbling a 'sorry', her eyes fading to their smoldering golden color.

    "What did they call— ow! Call you again?" he asked, gripping onto his knee with his free hand.

    "Amethyst."

    The boy looked at her, noticing her eyes were now a piercing electric blue, and winced again when she tied the final knot on the cloth.

    "You're eyes... I could have swarn they were black when you brought me up here, then a minute ago they looked gold... Now they're blue?"

    "They change color," Amethyst replied in a dull voice. She stared out into the night, gazing up at the moon, a far away look to her eyes.

    "May I ask what you are? You certainly don't seem human."

    Amethyst was silent after the boy had asked that question. She closed her eyes, the image of Avery lying in that alley, his body ripped apart and abandoned by Braden, seeping into her mind. Then, the image of the boy came to her mind. He looked just like her Avery, even down to the color of his eyes before he was turned into a vampire.

    A good ten minutes passed, and he was beginning to nod off to sleep, sitting beside her.

    "Going to sleep when I'm about to answer you?" Amethyst's voice startled him back into full consciousness, and he looked at her with slightly wide eyes. She sighed quietly. "You're right, I'm not human," she started, tucking a few hair behind her ear, "and I haven't been human for three hundred years. I'm a vampire."

    He adjusted his position a bit, then looked at her again.

    "A... vampire?" he repeated, raising his eyebrows.

    Amethyst nodded once, her expression not changing in the slightest.

    "A vampire. That..." his voice trailed off for a few moments. "That explains alot."

    Amethyst nodded in agreement. "I didn't believe it at first, either, when my friends told me that I was a vampire." She looked at him. "By the way, what's your name?" she asked, and the boy gave a half smile.

    "Dan Radcliffe."