Catharine was jolted out of her sleep from what at first seemed like a horrible noise from her nightmares. Heart pounding close to her chest she was confused and panicked as it continued to awaken her.
With the sun still up, all she could hear was a loud shrill scream. It was so much louder than any human's and not being able to sleep through such noise she had to know what was happening.
Out from her bed and down the hall she was surprised to hear breaks of human speech for pleads to stop. Her immediate response was to race down the stairs.
Though once down the second-floor hall to the library her body began to tremble. It was when she passed by the windows near Desmond's office did her body collapse.
Shaking, she felt her skin blazing in a stinging sensation with her face feeling hot and as if she were being hung upside down. She herself began to scream on the floor the sensation of pain bursting through her becoming more intense. "Help!" she now pleaded.
It was when Nicholas peered in the door at the end of the hall, did the pain and screaming cease. She laid still her vision blurry from her own tears covering her eyes as Nicholas ran over to her grasping her into his arms. "Damn it!" he shouted. "I'm so sorry."
She wondered why he was apologizing and when Desmond stepped forward to them the alpha said, "Good, you have quite a range on your ability." He was smiling paying no mind to either of them on the floor. "Those who love pain the most have wider ranges."
Nicholas didn't answer, but instead took her up into his arms bridal style and picked her up. She knew his intentions were to walk her back upstairs, but she tapped her hand on his shoulder and said, "I'm good, you can put me down."
With scrunched eyebrows he asked, "are you sure?" and when she replied an 'I'm fine' and he had set her on her feet. "Do you need anything?" he pushed.
Desmond intercepted, "She said she's fine." Then he turned to her. "Aren't you?" Catharine nodded and then he reached out his hand and gently slide his cold knuckles down her cheek. "That's my tough kitty-cat."
He was no longer concerned with prodding her for reactions, his new focus was on Nicholas who seemed to endure most of Desmond's torment. She rolled her eyes to Nicholas trying to focus him on not saying anything.
Instead, he looked away and back to the library saying, "I should practice more now. Make sure you stay out of the hallway." He walked away leaving Desmond and Catharine next to each other.
A growl escaped Desmond's throat before whispering to Catharine, "he doesn't have the control he needs to harness his ability, so I'd be careful around him." When she nodded as a reply he continued, "Go get Daniel in the basement to come collect the girl."
"I was hoping to just go back to bed," she admitted.
He shook his head, dark curls of his hair waving around his horns. "You're going to keep hearing screams today. You might as well stay up."
She wasn't too happy with what he said and she wondered if she even had the mental strength to hear any more of the cries for help. "Fine. Let me get dressed first," she answered.
Rubbing her fingers to her forehead she walked away to her room. After only a few hours of sleep she was exhausted and even dizzy as she strained to keep her eyes open.
Once dressed and groomed she then began to pick up the room. She wanted to take as long as possible to go to the basement. She even hoped she'd take too long and that perhaps Desmond would send Nicholas instead.
Picking her clothes up and tossing them in the hamper, making her bed and then as she started to clear her side table she picked her book up that had been laying flat tepee style. She was too tired the night before to find a bookmark and had just laid it on the side for later.
She opened the side drawer trying to find something to shove into its place so that she could put it away till she went to read it again.Then she noticed a familiar photo that sat on the edge and when she picked it up she examined it closer. It was the photo of the woman's face that had greeted her when she had first awoken in the dark room of the manor. A time that seemed so long ago, but hardly been a month.
She had taken it with her when switching rooms. She was attached to the picture as if trying to keep the memory of humanity close to her.
Now looking at it the faces looked familiar especially the eyes. The woman holding the two children looked very similar to Xara. And those eyes of the children were so recognizable.
What were the chances she'd met the children in this photo and if that was the case who was this woman and why was this photo in Desmond's manor.
As she stuffed the photo into her pocket she then left her room, her stomach heavy and her heart racing. And when she had gotten to the back kitchen door and outside did she feel she'd have a panic attack.
The sun blared down on the house and trees around her were bare. The wind blew harshly and the cold bit her face and to get out of the weather she needed to either go back inside or into the basement.
Her fist knocked on the door three times and she listened closely as the wind roared. With no reply, she wondered if the wind was too loud and if she couldn't hear. Again she knocked but only twice with no answer. Finally, it had come to her opening the door and descending down the stairs where everything was becoming increasingly noisier.
Growls, gurgles, and other unearthly sounds rumbled in the basement. Her hands clasped over her lips to stop herself from screaming as her eyes looked over the beasts the rattled in cages, one held down covered and squirming in a pool of black tar.
Then there was the sight that truly made her gag.
Held to a chain from it's back was a female vampire with no arms. She howled her eyes black and veins in her face throbbing from the deprivation of the blood that sustained her. It was withering away and was so skinny it might as well have been a skeleton.
The vampire snapped its face at her and she turned up the stairs. She wasn't even half way up when her body heaved and the vomit burst through her mouth and nose. Dizzy she held her hands to the stairs closing her eyes shut the monstrous noises only making things worse.
Suddenly she was pulled back up and back outside. Never before had she'd been so happy to be in the cold. She lunged again before her body finally stopped shaking and she peered over to see Daniel standing over her. "You know curiosity killed the cat," was all he said with a smirk.
When she stood to her feet she pushed him aside blaming him for the horrors she'd just seen, though as she began her way back to her room she knew there was only one person in the house that could turn people into monsters.
Once returning to her bed and took refuge under her covers. Whether Nicholas had continued his practice, she had slept through the day.
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Xavier shuffled through a pile of papers and then slammed them to the table in front of him. From within the living room the TV was on, but the only light on was the kitchen light. Two women sat on the couch watching the news as they talked to each other.
"Should have called us sooner," he could hear a female voice in the living room call to him.
These two women he had called to help take down the vampires and find his brother and sister were long lost friends. Lo and Fee were just two best friends who loved to hunt and he and his siblings had met them once on an investigation. Every once in awhile, they'd give each other calls if they need help.
"I think we're going to need more people," Fee said from next to her friend.
It was Lo who got up and walked into the kitchen and stood behind Xavier peering at the papers. She pushed back her black hair and then picked up a photo on the table. "Why are you obsessed with finding out who this girl is?"
"I told you she may know where my sister is," he said and then snatched the photo back from her hand. "It's just weird the only thing that ties a name to Catharine Hopkins is this lease she signed with her boyfriend and the Facebook account. Other than that she's a ghost."
"Then forget about it," she said.
He grumbled and stood as he started into the living room where Fee began, "Oh, my God, you have to see this."
They all sat down and the camera was panned down the city. "Tonight, it seems that monsters aren't just a rumor." The camera focuses in on a shot of a building, monsters of all different deformities crawling around. Fire blazed in much of the scene, but it was the screams in the background that were tied to no faces making everything too real and eerie to be on the news.
Then it shifts to the sky, where under the moonlight you can see black dots and even some red light dash through the darkness. "Police have no idea what is happening, but urging everyone to stay inside," the newscaster says.
Xavier's eyes raised and when he looked away from the screen he looked over his new team's faces. Both the girls sat in awe as they stared at the screen and Fee whispered, "We're definitely going to need more hunters."
Finally, as the segment had come to a close they looked at him and Lo had asked, "What are these things?"
"I haven't seen these things till both my brother and sister went missing. I honestly believe the two are tied. The last time I'd seen my sister and that girl Catharine they were with horned beasts."
"Well," began the raven haired friend. "From the video it's nothing we've seen and I've done research backward and forwards. Are they tied with the vampires?"
Xavier shook his head and then went into the kitchen before he called back, "I haven't seen vampires in a week. I checked out the next front trying to find Xara, the place was burned to the ground."
When he returned back into the living room with a beer in his hands, Fee had taken it and brought it to her mouth to drink. "Perhaps rival monsters?" she questioned allowed.
Lo shook her head and shrugged. "How do ya figure?"
"Dante's Blood is what they're calling it." She walked over to her bag lifting out her laptop. "I've been looking it up. People claim this black pill is giving people supernatural powers beyond Mary's Blood. I gotta show you this."
Once booted up she typed away and then turned the screen around. They watched in anticipation as a young man held up a capsule pill to the camera and then said. "I've taken form about three times now. It's the best feeling in the world. I suggest if you can get your hands on this stuff you try it."
From there he popped the pill into his mouth and transformed into a beast so gruesome none of them could stomach to watch the video any longer. "Stop," Lo said in disgust as she pushed it away. "Oh, my God, I didn't think they were going to be that horrifying."
Fee's face went soft as she looked at both of them. "What's really horrifying, is people want to do this."
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