The Nocturnals

Chapter Three: Gamblers, Ravens, Vampires, Oh My!

Eliora throws her backpack over her shoulder, grabbing her gun from its holster.

'Shit... Idiot over there is still paralyzed. I could leave him behind. Saving him twice isn't worth having a partner. What if I can't save him this time? What if I get killed instead?' she thinks, her heart pounding as the whispers grow louder.

'Screw it,' she runs back behind a large shrub growing on the side of the brown gazebo. The clouds overhead darken as if they know the sin Eliora just committed.

She watches through the leaves as the two muscled men walk into the gazebo, their guns loaded and aimed. They scavenge through her bags lying on the ground.

"Hey! Look," the one guy inspects Joshua, "this one has already been paralyzed. You know what this means?"

"That we can take him to Clarissa instead of finding another Tourist?" The guy smiles excitedly. Tourist is an innocent bystander, well, someone who's not a Gambler, not exactly innocent.

The other guy raises his eyebrows, "No, Jake, it means there's another Gambler here. We can't steal from them."

"What?!" 'Jake' exclaims, "We have to! We're low on supplies and look how much food this guy has!"

The other guy punches him down to the floor, "Shut up. Don't let anyone hear us," he straddles the Jake guy, looking around. At this, Eliora ducks behind the Gazebo's edge, "Wait, I just saw something."

Footsteps clack closer and closer to Eliora and her breathing quickens. She flattens herself against the edge, wishing to dissolve or turn invisible. Everything is better than being caught by a Gambler, except maybe, being bitten by a vampire which might happen if the vampire wants a mate. Eliora inwardly shivers at the thought. No. Won't happen. Eliora grabs her gun, cocking it back and crouching to the ground, pointing the pistol up. A gunshot goes off, but it wasn't her gun. The man she saw earlier falls off the edge and right next to her, a river of blood following. Eliora bites her lip in fear.

"Jim!" Jake shouts, but is caught mid-sentence as another gunshot goes off. It sounds like breaking metal, but Eliora knows better. She's heard that sound too many times before. She peeks over the edge of the gazebo to find boots right in front of her face and Jake off to the left, dead. She looks up at a woman in military-camo pants and a tree green shirt. Her long black hair falls behind her in a fishtail braid.

"Sylvia. If it isn't the queen Raven herself. What made you fly to my house?" Eliora stares at her cousin. Sylvia joined the Ravens as soon as the attack of vampires came. A Raven is basically a vampire hunter and a Gambler hunter. They became Ravens because of how the vampire attack happened, well, started at least. A little girl was being raped by a vampire and her mother fought off the vampire, killing it with a broken chair leg. Guess who that mother was? Yeah. Eliora's thirty-six year old cousin, Sylvia. The little girl was killed and the painting she had just created in the morning was a picture of a raven that she had hung up on her bedroom wall, where the fight happened. The vampire Sylvia killed was the head of nine huge vampire clans. Ever since then, the vampires have been taking over the world, from America to China. Eliora's sure there's a missing puzzle piece to the story because the vampires wouldn't just slaughter all these humans for nothing. That vampire couldn't have been that important...

Despite Sylvia's offer to help her up, Eliora climbs up the side of the gazebo by herself, then brushes off her shoulder and puts her pistol in her pocket, "Ellie, I'm happy you're okay."

"No thanks to you and the rest of my family," Eliora crosses her arms.

Sylvia rolls her eyes, "A drama queen as always. Anyways, I'm here to search for supplies. For trade of supplies, I can give you the antidote to the neurolizer."

"Why would I need that?" Eliora glances towards Joshua, but stares down Sylvia with no fear, even if she can kill twenty men single handedly. Sylvia gives her a look of, 'You really don't know?'

"If another situation like that happens again, what about the guy? There's strength in numbers unless the guy's dead weight," Sylvia walks over to him, flicking his shoulder as he just stares ahead vacantly, "Obviously, he will be unless he's cured."

"He only has three hours of this left. It's worth saving my supplies and waiting," Eliora flips her ashen blonde hair over her shoulder.

"It's not worth your life, Ellie," Sylvia acts concerned, a glimmer in her eye.

Eliora shakes her head, "You really think I'm fooled? How do I know it even works? How do I know how many supplies you'll take?"

Sylvia sighs, frustrated, "Can't you just lend your cousin supplies, then?"

"So your 'antidote' isn't real, is it?" Eliora smirks, defiantly.

"No, it's real, you just won't accept it," Sylvia huffs, "Please, Ellie, I really need supplies... You don't know how many hungry people I have to feed."

"You guys should be called Vultures based on how much you scavenge food from people. You came to me a year ago and I still don't have enough supplies to give out without starving myself. Give it a rest," Eliora plops down onto her pool lounger. Sylvia puts her pistol in her backpack with a defeated smile, "Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

Eliora lifts an eyebrow, "Giving me the guilt smile that'll make me feel bad about keeping my supplies to myself. I've been living in hell long enough and know you too well to be fooled by that charade."

Sylvia's smile fades and a crude expression replaces it, "Whatever. I'll just leave then," she turns away, but looks over her shoulder, "but know this, if you don't share the next time I see you, I will bust a cap through your head."

"Bye, Silly Sylvia," Eliora waves without glancing towards her. Sylvia grumbles to herself and leaves, cocking her gun as she does.

Looking at her solar powered watch, Eliora sighs, "Two and a half more hours... What am I going to do with you?" she directs the question at Joshua. She hopes down in her heart that he hadn't seen her betray him.

*

*

Two hours later...

After waiting for two hours and a slight jumpscare by a rat, Joshua begins to wiggle his toes and fingers. Eliora sits down on the rotting wood floor next to him.

"What the hell were you doing talking to a Shifter?" Joshua exclaims, throwing his arms in the air as an exaggeration. His eyes narrow as Eliora sits innocently.

"What are you talking about?" Eliora leans back in her hands, staring at him with cautious eyes.

He gives her a confused look, "Couldn't you see it?"

"Um... No..."

"That woman you were talking with, she's a Shifter. You know, the one with the crude face and black hair?"

"Sylvia? A Shifter?" Eliora raises her eyebrows, fluttering her eyelashes at the oncoming sun.

"Yes. She had a Shifter Symbol on her hand," Joshua says.

Eliora laughs bitterly, "You mean the Queen Raven is a Shifter who is Raven by day, vampire by night? Oh, the irony."