The Vampire's Friends

Blinked twice when opened eyes, I found another morning. And, yes, still alive. This damned life of mine just keep finding another day.

Sunlight rays slipped through the white long curtain. It might still the same morning sunlight as usual, but not in my eyes. I could see the lights formed certain lines, following some pattern. My vampire eyes could see there was something like sparkling crystal alongside those lines. Shining and shimmering like gold.

I lapped out from the bed and walked toward the big window, pulled its curtain to one side. I found the window's handler and pushed to open it. It was much brighter outside that I squinted my eyes. Morning breeze grazed my face, brought along the scent of dew on the leaves. It probably came from the forest ahead me. But there was another scent that attracted me to open the window. It was a very familiar scent. Lavender.

Inhaled another breath, I tried to track where the lavender's scent came from. And it didn't take long. My senses were nothing like before. Just like how I could see with more clarity than before, apparently my nose could smell from distant away. By estimation, the lavender was around that hill on the left side of forest, about three kilometers from this house. I didn't even want to imagine how could I estimate it.

My whole body was freaking odd. As if it was entirely turned to another species. Well, I guess, not 'as if', it really 'did', exactly like what Zero said. I could feel it too. My body was gradually turning into vampire.

Shutting down the thought, I forced another breath inside my lungs. Inhaled deeply as if I was hungry for some air. My gaze fell on the scenery ahead.

White fog covering most of the forest, left only the top of trees that look like thousand of swords turned to the sky. They looked like knights stood in lines wearing uniform. It seemed the forest was formed by a single kind of plant, conifer. It was the same family as pine. But it was so much bigger. I never saw this kind of plant before.

My eyes widened in awe when I spotted a shadow of giant tree that stood so arrogantly above the fog layer. It was so far away that human eyes might not be able to notice. But I knew the name of that giant tree, and on the same time realizing the reason why I couldn't recognize the name of these conifer trees. It was so simple, because this was the first time I ever see them.

The forest name was Redwood. And the giant tree over there was the legendary tree that had lived for thousand years, the giant sequoia. It had the scientific name of Sequoiadendron giganteum. With height more than 80 meters, diameter more than 10 meters, it was said to have lived for more than two thousand years. The big trunk was beautiful red in color.

I knew that the giant tree was extremely rare. Actually, there was only one place on the whole earth where we could find it. It was Sierra Nevada. In other words, this place was in California.

I smirked in realization of the irony. I had been trying to avoid being nomads, refused the idea to move to another county. My stubbornness even cost me my parents life. Yet, now I fond myself on a different county. It seemed that life really tried to joke me.

From voices on air, I could hear Karen was preparing some breakfast in kitchen. While the vampire Zero sounded asleep on a sofa at the room outside the one I used. I noticed that we were in a big house like a mansion, right on the side of Sierra Nevada Mountains. There were no one else nearby. It seemed Zero lived alone here.

Now that my brain finally started to taste on some oxygen, the gears inside my mind started to roll. As they did, my memory began to recover. I recalled the pale vampire that looked like an old man with wrinkled face and V shaped chin. He chased after Karen and I as we escaped the city and hide in a forest. Yet, the vampire caught us up.

By the time he got us cornered, he asked me a question about something that sound like 'blood descendant'. I didn't give it much thought before since he made clear of the fact that he was after someone. And I was sure he was coming for me because Karen said so. But on second thought, there was no reason for him to target me. Whatever the blood descendant mean, it must be someone special. And that couldn't possibly be me. I was not special.

At that second another possibility flashed inside my head. 'What if we had presumed wrongly?'

Karen said she could foresee future. And in 'the future' she saw me being attacked by the vampire. If she really foresaw that scene when my blood being sucked, then it was more than plausible that she was the real target. I just happen to volunteered myself because we misunderstand about who the target was.

But Karen was the real target!

Shit! As soon as this realization hit me, I jumped on my feet and head outside the room. I had to tell her. She was the one being targeted. It was possible that the vampire would come back for her once he realized it. We needed to go somewhere safe. Besides, who could guess what Zero was planning when he brought us here. He might want the very same thing as the vampire who attacked us. He might plan to suck Karen's blood!

I went down stair to the first floor. And I saw Karen was standing behind the door, receiving some packet delivered by postman. She closed the door after the man left. I rushed to her, grabbed her arm.

"I need to talk to you."

Karen seemed a bit puzzled, but she nodded and walked into a room near the stair. I followed her quietly, didn't want to make noise that might wake up a sleeping vampire on second floor.

"What is it?"

I closed the door behind my back, gave a quick scan on the room. It seemed Karen treat this room as hers. I found a pot of primrose near window.

"We need to leave this place, as soon as possible."

"Leave?"

"Yes, leave. Karen, it's not safe here. We must not trust that guy called Zero. He is a vampire!"

Karen's eyes widened at my words. But strangely enough she didn't look like surprised. She sighed a bit, seemed disturbed to find some word to say.

"It can't be that you knew already …"

Karen nodded. "I did. He told me."

"Then why didn't you tell me? No, wait, more importantly, why did you stay as if you trust him?"

"Because I trust him. That man saved us and keep us safe here. If it wasn't for him, I would have lost you."

"That's not a reason to trust him!" My tune went higher involuntarily. To tell the truth, I had been cursing him for coming to our rescue. But that aside,

"Listen, Karen, he might want the same thing as the vampire who attacked us! We can't stay here. Otherwise, he'll suck your blood and kill you!"

"He will never." Karen answered firmly. "I know that he will never put us in danger."

"What? On what base that you can be so certain about a guy we just met?!" Karen's unreasonable trust raged me. "Don't tell me that you know it because you foresee it."

"That's right. I foresaw about him when he came to save us in that cave," said Karen. "I know that you don't believe about my future vision, but for this once, please trust me. That man will never mean harm to you."

There was an unshakable trust in her eyes. It almost sounded like Karen had known Zero for years. Something felt off. Karen was usually timid and listen well to whatever I said. But she had somehow grew trusting someone else more than she normally would. But this wasn't right.

"Karen, listen to me. This isn't about if I trust you or not. Say, I know you foresee future, but you can't see people's heart. He was a stranger and a vampire. Even if he saved us, these facts have not changed. What should we do right now is flee- …"?

My words caught on throat when I heard some footsteps came closer from the front door. There were two men came in. Zero came down to greet them. And from their exchanges I realized that the vampire was not alone. Here came two of his friends.

Those two men that just came put a heavy bag on the floor and sat themselves on the sofas at living room. Just right when I thought that they sounded like close friend, Zero told them that there were two girls lived here now.

"What is it?" Karen asked in low voice. She seemed realized some people just come.

"It looks like Zero didn't live here alone."

Karen followed me to put our ears behind the door and eavesdropping. Zero's friends had very similar voice. They were talking about how they were struggling in some mission for weeks. Protested to Zero that he didn't help at all.

"I can't believe we're still alive …"

"At least, you are." Zero replied indifferently.

One of his friends apparently more talkative than the other one. He was called as Stuart.

"You-!" Stuart sighed. "Say, why didn't you give us a hand back there when you were the one who first realize about the attack? And where on earth did you disappeared so suddenly?"

"I got something to do."

"What was that? Why didn't you tell us? I mean, at the very least you could leave some memo behind so we would know where and what you were after."

Zero remained silent for a couple of second. "Why do I have to do that?"

"Huh?! What do you mean 'why'? Obviously, it's so then we wouldn't be worried."

"Stuart, you're starting sound like a mother again," said the third man.

"I am not a mother, Shane. Call me guardian! Oh, wait. On second thought, I guess I could be a mother for you."

"Better not have any."

Stuart and Shane start some banter for a while, until Zero spoke up.

"So, how about your mission?"

"As I said, it was terrible," said Stuart. "The victims numbered hundreds and local government was having a hard time suppressing rumors and journalist. You know what, the attacker was a big party, more than twenty vampires with a pureblood as its leader. It was a massacre."

"We tracked them to the county's border, but we couldn't get further than that. We never got this much trouble tracking down vampire's location before."

"In other word," Zero interrupted, "they aren't mad vampires. Moreover, they were after some target, right?"

"Did you already know?" Stuart asked.

"Just figured it out."

"You 'figured it out'? You were just laze around here and able to figure it out?"

There was some exasperation in Stuart voice. He was against some terrible enemy and wagered his life. And yet, Zero came to the same conclusion by doing almost nothing.

"I know the leader's name. It's Wolfgang von Blood. He was known as a nasty figure, branded as criminal by the kingdom."

For some reason there was anger lurking behind Zero's voice. And I wasn't the only one to realized it.

"Did you happen to know him personally?"

"No. I only heard about him from rumors."

"Anyway, that's the situation we're at. I'll tell headquarter about that name. Although, there isn't much we can do if he's really a pureblood."

Shane joined the discussion. "But then again, it was strange. Why did a pureblood vampire led a group to attack city? We've scanned the entire area but we couldn't figure out what they were targeting.

"Yeah, that's right. Why did they launch an attack at the middle of Denver?"

I felt like being stroked by thunder for hearing what Stuart said. These people were talking about vampire's attack that killed my parents. Without thinking twice, I opened the door and quickly ran into living room. I could hear Zero was in the middle of saying something,

"Ah, about that …"

Zero stopped when he spotted me. The two other men who were very similar in appearance, looked at me in surprise. But I couldn't care less.

"Tell me! Where was that vampire hiding? Where is the last place you tracked him? Tell me!"