Blame the Blood

Chapter 5

Alexa

"Diana get away from him!" The vampire was still in the house, eating my strawberry sablé tarts and drinking tea earl grey tea! He can eat human food?

"Alexa honey you look parched, why don't you join us? Paul here was telling me the story of how he learnt the English language." Diana took a dainty sip of her tea.

"No thank you." I pointed my gun at Paul. "I thought I demanded you leave!"

"Turns out I'm actually staying, this chick knows stuff, and you were always going to die of old age anyway. I'm patient." He took a messy slurp of his own tea.

"How do you feel about Mars?"

"Ares? Oh! Yes, Mars. When's the sunset?"

"That's settled then."

My gun was still pointed directly at his chest, but they were both ignoring me. As an experiment I lower my gun, watch them squabble and make nonsense plans. So, it's odd but apparently, I don't exist in their world.

I take a shot at Paul's cup of tea. The cup shattered and its brown liquid poured soaking the ancient Persian rug. 'Rats!' Diana and I share a look.

"Oh, dear. Now you have our attention honey, what's up?"

"Well.."? They pouted at me in annoyance, like a child that should have gone to bed. So, I removed myself from the situation. Weirdos.

I stalked down the hallway. A bloodsucker sure, but my soul told me that shooting someone without provocation whilst they were having tea in your house, was wrong, especially if it hadn't worked the first time.

I had to search the entire house for any signs of Father or his body, but nothing so far. He hadn't packed anything either, but that wasn't too odd. Whenever we travelled we travelled light, sometimes only taking the clothes on our backs and his bowling ball, he was spontaneous like that.

I searched his study next, there were so many monitors blaring, he had left them searching for possible threats to humanity. Yup, he's that dramatic sometimes. It used a lot of power but it was doing more for the planet than it took. He had engineered a very efficient generator in the basement. Everything was in the right place, there was an extra half-empty bottle of Mr Muscle on the floor, but he could be using the chemicals for some experiment somewhere. There was that bowling ball he took way too many places.

Turning back to the monitors I felt the Luddite dread seep in. I had never been very adept at working with technology, and D had worked with it so easily so I'd never had to give them a second thought. When he ever came back I'd ask him to teach me more than the basics. But, that wouldn't help me find him right now.

I struggled all night, coming up with dead ends.

The tire tracks.

His office Mr Muscle.

His bedroom is untouched.

His car again, the blue metallic liquid and a hint of Mr Muscle.

I had to brave the computer. Now, this took me a while, his password, my favourite dessert. Everything else, I asked YouTube. Or more precisely 'DarkYouTub' to find the village CCTV footage.

According to Ali's CCTV father had splashed a blue cleaning product all over himself and then wandered out, but that was all.

I rewatched it. There was footage of him struggling with a big black furry creature at Joe's neck which Father poured some cleaning products on, including the Mr Muscle. Joe was hurt, Father looked to be calling for an ambulance. But then, just walked out.

He was last seen at the shop. The distance between here and there is minuscule. There was nobody to be found or even a trail of blood. There was no scent of fresh blood anywhere in the house or down their lane.

And it all happened, I checked the screen clock, just under 8 hours ago, what could I even do at this point? Involve the police, they would ask uncomfortable questions.

And Diana, she seemed trustworthy and had said father had left of his own fruition. I want to believe her... But, he hadn't even said goodbye.

That was it. Everything in the study reminds me of him! I'm a failure. If I can't save those closest to me what was the point of me?

My room. It's smaller than the study, mostly wooden, with very few things littered about, spartan. I was so used to surviving in the moment, I didn't collect things the same way Father did. I like everything to be perfectly organised. Especially weapons. It was my space, it didn't need to remind me of any other part of my life, when she was there, she was there.

Usually, that was amazing, the clean emptiness, where I can rest. No one bothered me but now I realised the truth.

No one bothers me because I am alone.

There was nothing out on display in my room because I have nothing of my own.

I am just a shell with strength, a weapon, and a weapon that didn't even work.