Hello etc.
Another chapter...
Song: Time Bomb by All Time Low
Dedicated to EvaKjartans96 for helping me get mostly over my writersblock (again)
Other than that; Enjoy!
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Recap:
Ch. 25 – The Technicolor Phase Xander debates with himself, the British doorman (Davy), the guild’s leader (Payton) and the clan’s leader (Benjamin) about what to do about Eliza. He wants to leave, but just as he is about to go, Eliza bursts in and tells him that she loves him.
Xander’s POV:
I was in my room. Eliza was sitting next to me. She loved me. I loved her. What was there to stop us from being happy? Well there was the fact that she was dating my best friend. That is to say that he had gone off to the center of vamp action to try to get her back, and she had been trying to get back to him. So yeah, that was a problem. But I didn’t like to focus on the problems. I stood up and took Eliza’s hand.
“Do you want to date me? You aren’t actually dating Joel, I mean, you did break up and you never got back together again, not really…” I asked shyly. Wow, me shy, that was weird. Instead of answering she stood up and kissed me.
Her lips felt so right against my lips, her fresh, minty breath flowing into my mouth. My whole body tingled and I shut my eyes. When I opened them Eliza was standing over me, and the ceiling was behind her, or over her. Yeah. I was lying on the floor like a dropped piece of delicious chocolate cake.
“What happened? And where’s my cake?” I asked the Eliza standing over me.
“I kissed you, then you fainted, and your cake isn’t made yet, but we could go to a bakery, or I could go make a cake, or we could make one together.” She suggested. I nodded and got up from the floor. I grabbed her hand and pulled her with me as we flew down the stairs, well, I say fly, but I mean jumped very far with our inhuman powers.
“Hey Davy Jones! This is my new girlfriend Eliza, at least I think she’s my girlfriend, are you my girlfriend? Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s my girlfriend. If not I’m about to bake cakes with the wrong girl. And I mean actually bake cakes, not the whole having a bun in the oven baking… Haha, that made sense, sort of. So anyway, Eliza, this is Davy, our British doorman and guard, He’s not really called Davy Jones though, that’s just a cool nickname I have for him. Dav-Dav, yeah, I know you hate that name, that’s why I use it. Dav-Dav, this is Eliza. You met her once before, remember? She was the vamp that uh, didn’t kill Joel? She fought to the death and won, but then she didn’t really kill him… And I snuck her into the castle, and we talked to you… I called her Vampira, and she had a thingy over her head. She’s a vamp-“ Eliza put a beautiful and soft hand over my mouth. Was she trying to stop me from talking? I guess that might be smart…
“She’s a vampire?” Davy the mannequin said.
“Yeah, the one who not killed Joel.” I nodded vigorously.
“Ignore him. Please. Xander, we were going to bake cake, yeah?” Eliza said. Oh! Cake! I want cake! I WANT CAKE!!!
“Cake.” I squeaked.
“Bye Xander! Good luck Vampira.” Davy Davyson called after us as I sprinted to the kitchen, towing Eliza behind me.
“Cake bake time!” I shouted as we burst into the crowded kitchen. It got un-crowded quickly. Haha! That always worked. I jumped over to the fridge and opened it. There were no eggs! I started pouting and grumbling. Eliza leant over my shoulder and saw the terrible sight of the missing eggs.
“We have eggs at my place…” Eliza uttered the most wonderful words I could have imagined right then. Apart from ‘Do you want some chocolate?’ So I reached into my secret cupboard and grabbed some chocolate and gave a bar of it to Eliza.
We walked happily to her castle. We, mostly I, talked about everything and nothing while we ate our chocolate. When we reached Eliza’s castle, I walked up and knocked on the door. Eliza shoved past me and opened it. I was now standing face to face with Benjamin. I smiled and waved at him, he took a hold of Eliza’s arm and pulled her inside.
Eliza’s POV:
“So?” Benjamin asked me expectantly. I just looked at him blankly, I had no idea what he was talking about. “How did it go?”
“What do you mean?” I asked him cautiously.
“With Xander. How did it go with Xander?” He asked, looking rather unlike the most respected and dangerous vampire in the world, but more like an exited dog waiting for praise from his master. I couldn’t help but smile at him.
“It went very well. We’re a couple now, aren’t we Rosebud?” Xander said from the now open door. I smiled back at him as Benjamin shouted something along the lines of ‘Hah! I knew it, you two kids are so alike I knew it! Ahahahaha! I won the bet!’
“What bet?” I asked him suspiciously.
“The one with-“
“EGGS!” Xander interrupted as he opened the fridge and found eggs, to his great excitement. We went into the kitchen and started to make brownies. Xander managed to spill all the coco powder and get the entire kitchen dirty. We put the cake in the oven and started to clean up in silence.
“Watcha’ thinkin’ ‘bout?” Xander asked me nonchalantly. I looked at him.
“What are the most common vampire myths?” I asked back.
“Stake through the heart?” He suggested.
“False. Well, it creates a massive blood loss, but it doesn’t kill us. The only way to kill us is to sever our heads from our body and burn us. At least she got that right…”
“Who?”
“Stephanie Meyer.” I said with a slight dislike.
“Don’t worry. The less people know about you, the better. If they think you die from a stake through the heart, then good for you, they can’t kill you.” Xander tried to reason with me.
“Yeah, but if authors and filmmakers are going to make us into monsters, then they should have the decency to make us into cool monsters. Not some bloodsucking atheist that can’t go out into the sun.”
“Did you just call your entire clan a bunch bloodsucking atheists that can’t go out into the sun?” Xander said incredulously. I rolled my eyes at him and sighed at the fact that that was all he had taken away from my complaint.
“But don’t you think it’s stupid. Make the ultimate monster, and then it turns out that, no on second thought, they’re lame. It’s downgrading!” I complained loudly.
“Oh, come on! Laugh at the stupidity of humans, don’t complain about the way their childish minds see you.” Xander tried to persuade me, it didn’t work.
“But don’t you think some of the things they say about us are just plain stupid?” I asked, still trying to convince him.
“Well, the whole burn in the sun, or sparkle, thing is pretty stupid. I mean, you may not be alive, but if you put a corpse in the sunlight, it doesn’t shrivel up and burn to cinders. And it won’t exactly sparkle either.”
“See! Why would we do any of those things?” I asked him in a ‘Hah! I was right’ manner. “Any others?”
“Crucifixes?” Xander suggested.
“Ah, I love looking at them, the intricate structure and what not… and no, they do not burn us.” I replied in a stuck up, snobby voice.
“Churches?” He urged me on.
“Same story.” I said with a smile.
“If I were to give my beloved a silver necklace would she wear it?” He said, looking at me lovingly.
“Yes. It doesn’t burn us, it actually looks extra good on us…” I said, feeling a little shy.
“Garlic then? Love it or hate it?”
“Ohh… I love garlic bread. But seriously, who likes raw garlic all on it’s own?”
“Good point. Can you enter a house uninvited?”
“No.”
“Why not?” He said, a little stumped.
“It’s rude. I am physically able to, but morally, I shouldn’t.” I explained.
“Oh! Can you turn into a bat, or a wolf, oh, or a puff of smoke?” Xander looked like he was a four year old who was about to pee his pants from being so exited.
“No, Anarel can, he’s taught me some, but it doesn’t come with being a vampire… Unfortunately.”
“Darn, but you do have good senses, right. Like eyesight, earsight, mindsight…”
“Yes. It’s like getting glasses, but without needing the glasses… Before you get the glasses you think that you can see just as well as everyone else, you don’t know what to compare your eyesight to… But then you get the glasses and you realize how little you could see before you got the glasses. Really nobody knows what the human, dead or not, is capable of. There may be some other being with even better eyesight than vampires… Who knows? And as for all the other senses, they improve greatly too.”
“Wow. So how about pretty? Are you extra pretty? Yes. But do you go for the most beautiful prey?” Xander had picked up a spatula and was using it as a microphone, interviewing me.
“Depends on the vampire. What with some of us trying to be more moral when we eat, and some of us, pretty much only me, don’t have to drink blood. I can, but I don’t have to.”
“Oh, OK then. While we’re on the theme of blood, do you have blood?” He looked at me curiously.
“No, only right after we eat, but we digest it, it doesn’t go to our veins. Our tears have traces of blood in them, but they’re mostly just salty water. It’s not like in Mel Brooks’ Dracula (dead and loving it), we don’t spout out blood when we die, we just die…”
“Do you have pretty nails? Anne Rice says that one of the few ways to tell whether someone is a vampire is by their nails…” He asked, trying to study my hands.
“We have strong nails, but they look the same as human’s nails. We still have to use nail polish…” I said with a hint of bitterness in my voice. If humans think nail polish stinks, how do they think it smells for vampires, who have a heightened sense of smell?
“What about teeth? How do they work?” Xander said, now studying my mouth. Still using the spatula as a microphone.
“Well, they don’t pop out, and they don’t grow much. The incisor teeth do grow a tiny bit, and become slightly sharper when we’re about to bite, but they don’t change much, humans wouldn’t even notice it. Of course, most humans who are that close to a feeding vampire, are most likely being fed upon.” I said with a slight chuckle. Xander reached out to touch my arm.
“Yes, you are cold. And pale… So do you all originate from Transylvania? And do you show signs of having eaten? And-” I cut him off.
“No, we originate from the country we were born in, and that differs from each vampire… As for the signs of having eaten, no, not other than body language.”
“I read that you’re really greedy, is that true? And do you have souls?”
“Again, it depends on the vampire. Personally I don’t believe in souls, but that too is different from vampire to vampire. It’s like religion, nobody can know for certain that what they believe in is true…”
“So I guess that the same goes for being incarnations of the devil, right?” He asked carefully.
“Yes. Individual as always.”
“What about light? Don’t you mind it or does it hurt your eyes? Wow, you have pretty eyes…” He trailed off.
“I don’t mind it, I can see even better when it’s light, so I guess that myth is busted.” I said.
“Mythbusters! On this episode of Mythbusters, it’s a vampire special. Do vampires sleep, zzz, and do they sleep in coffins, zzz, are they good at everything, woohoo, and do they remember more than humans, uummm, and finally, can you see them in mirrors?” I laughed as Xander made an announcer voice.
“I sleep, but that’s just me, I sleep in a bed, coffins are scary. No other vampire I know of has ever slept. And we aren’t automatically good at everything, we have to practice. But seeing as we can remember more than humans, we remember what we’ve learnt previously, and also we have had more time to practice… And do you really think my hair would look this good if I couldn’t look in the mirror?”
“Why do I smell fire?” Xander said sheepishly. I caught a glimpse of smoke, and turned quickly to see where it was coming from.
“The oven’s on fire…” Was all I could manage to say.
“I knew it felt hot in here.” Xander said as if he had just had a important realization.
“We should put it out.” I stated, dumbfoundedly.
“Oh! Look. A fire blanket!” He grabbed a big piece of cloth and threw it at the fire. Then he yelped and jumped back as a big explosion shot out of the flames and lit up half the kitchen. I grabbed his hand and made for the door.
“FIRE!” I shouted as we sprinted into the hall.
“Our cake! It’s getting ruined. It’s getting burnt.” Xander said emotionally. I tried to keep dragging him towards the door.
“If you don’t leave it, you’ll get burnt, and I won’t let that happen to you.” I yelled as more flames erupted from the kitchen, now spreading through the hall. I felt the other vampires run past me. I knew that none of them would want to risk their lives trying to put out the fire that was now spreading through the entire castle. Vampires didn’t die easily, but when it came to fire, we weren’t going to take any chances.
“Daniel.” Xander whispered so softly I almost didn’t hear it.
“What?” I asked, starting to panic. The fire was spreading, but Xander stood in the middle of the hall, frozen. Then he started sprinting for the stairs. I ran after him and grabbed hold of his arm, stopping him halfway up the stairs.
“You can’t go up there.” I shouted, trying to drag him down again, but he stood his ground.
“I have to.” He whispered, his voice was serious and sad. I had never heard it like that before.
“You’ll die if you go up there.” I begged him, but he ignored me, other than a small whisper.
“Your brother will die if I don’t.” I looked at him, frozen in the middle of the blazing fire. Daniel. I had to save Daniel.
“Get out. I’m faster than you. GO! Save yourself, and I’ll save Daniel.” I told him, trying to shove him down the stairs. But he pushed back up past me, and started walking up the stairs.
“I’m not leaving you.” He said as he took my hand and started pulling me up the stairs, towards Daniel’s room. He knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t let him go alone. Then the smoke descended on us. It was thick and heavy and a barrier that wouldn’t let us see.
“Daniel!?” We both shouted repeatedly. Then we heard a cough.
“Daniel?” I said as I ran over to a shape on the floor. I could barely make out his features through the smoke.
“Eliza…” He whispered hoarsely. I picked him up and started carrying him to the stairs, I could feel someone behind me and knew that Xander was following me.
When we were outside I put Daniel down on the grass and Anarel ran over to us and started doing his magic on Daniel, literally. I looked around just to make sure that Xander had made it out, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. Then I heard him. ‘Eliza. I love you, remember that.’ Even in my head he sounded ill. His voice was raspy and hoarse. I could feel tears well up in my eyes and I ran into the castle, completely blinded. The combination of smoke and tears was numbing my senses.
I sprinted up the stairs and fell over a motionless body at the top of them. I knelt down beside the body and turned the head carefully, it was Xander. I could feel my whole body shuddering with tears. I was unable to do anything. What if he was dead? Xander, my Xander. He couldn’t be dead. I had to get him out of there. I had to do something. But what?
Strong hands pulled me away from Xander’s immobile body, I fought them and started to scream and kick and hit wildly around me. I had to get lose! I had to get to Xander! I had to stay awake. I had to… I had… I…
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on in the wet grass near the edge of the forest surrounding the smoking remains of what used to be my castle, my home. I looked around in a daze. I remembered a fire. Panic. Xander, dead. NO! He couldn’t be, he- I stood up abruptly and fell back down on the grass. Apparently my legs weren’t working, but they had to work. I had to find Xander, save him, I had to…
I stood up, more slowly this time, and walked over to the spot where Anarel was kneeling over a motionless and sooty body. When I got closer I recognized the body. Xander. I fell to my knees and bent over Xander. He was bloody and sooty and burnt. And dead.