After Midnight

Chapter XI

As we were walking home, I felt another presence. I felt like there was an intruder. I took you by your waist, pulled you closer, and turned around a bit. I saw a running figure. It was a man, wearing a black cape which collar was red. As he was running, he dropped something, so I waited a bit to see if he's going to return to get it back, but I don't think he knew that he dropped it. So I took your hand and we got closer, slowly walking towards the thing that the man dropped on the ground. It was a necklace, with a vial full of blood as the pendant. I immediately recognized that group, so I took the bloody vial and we ran to the house.

We arrived and I asked you to go lock every door and window and close every curtain. Meanwhile I called Liam and asked him to come as fast as possible and to bring a few members of the team with him. And so he did, he told the team members to come armed, and to hide all around the house ready for any sort of attack. And he and I got to talking, I showed him the vial and he immediately knew that it was one certain group. One very certain very powerful and very careful and very sneaky and very undefeated group. They call themselves "The Vampires", or in other words, the enemies of the night. In order to enter The Vampires' team, you have to kill someone and keep their blood always on you, hence comes the blood-filled vial. People have been after them for years, and each team that tried to take The Vampires down ended up dead. But if The Vampires come for you, then you must have something that they want. But what could my team have?

As Liam and I were talking, Katheryn entered the room with something to say. "I saw the same vial on my way home the other day" she said with fear in her voice. So did my team have something that The Vampires want? Or could it be you that they want?

"Oh no" Liam exhaled putting his hand on his forehead.

- "What is it?, I replied

- I think the story had got so much more to it. I don't think that The Vampires want the team, nor do they want the girl. It's not about people, it's about much more than that...

- But what could they possibly want?

- That's for us to discover before it's too late."

Night came and you wanted to go to your house because you were tired. And before even thinking about it I said no. You are not going to your house alone at night and stay the rest of the night completely alone especially when The Vampires are after you. But you pointed out a very good point, your stuff were all the way back there, at your place, and so I said: "we'll get them here tomorrow and you'll move in with me"

- "I am sorry, what? Did you ask me?" you replied.

So I took your hand, pulled you closer to me, looked straight in your eyes and aggressively said: "I don't have to ask you. Tomorrow you are moving in with me. I know you want it." And I walked away.

- "Hey! You do not get to order me around like I am-

I interrupted you and said: "End of discussion. I am going to take a shower."

After I finished, I got to the bedroom and laid out some files that contained information about The Vampires. I started to read about every other team they took down:

First, they took down the "Eagles" because apparently they had an artifact called "the piercing eye". It's an eye-shaped ball made of transparent glass representing an eye that can see through everything. They attacked them at 12:01 a.m.

Second, they took down the "serpents" because they had another artifact called: "the tight grip". It is a snake-shaped cylinder that represents the tight grip of a snake, if you put something in the artifact, it's hard to get it out. They attacked them at 12:10 a.m.

After hearing the name of the artifacts, I remembered a story that Mr. William used to tell me when I was younger. The story talked about a vampire that wanted 3 ingredients to make a time controlling recipe: he needed one pinch of transparency, with one pinch of tightness and lastly one last pinch of thunder.

I connected the dots in my head immediately: the vampire represents The Vampires, one pinch of transparency represents the piercing eye, one pinch of tightness represents the tight grip, but what did the thunder represent? And how did Mr. William know about this story?

While I was thinking, I noticed that all the attacks happened after midnight, so might an attack happen tonight? It's still 10 p.m. but it's a good thing I have my team outside. I got up and went to the living room, and saw you asleep on the couch, so I lifted you up and got you to bed next to me. I was admiring your beauty when I noticed that the clock turned to 12 a.m. I slowly got up to not wake you up and took out my gun from underneath the bed and I put it in the pants of my pajama, just in case something happened.

I stayed up all night, I couldn't sleep, and then the sun got up and there was still no trace of the vampires. I thought it was weird and that my theories were wrong, until I got outside and saw the men from my team all on the ground dead, with a blood-filled vial in the middle of the circle of corpses.