The Archives Book 2: Blood Diary

Best of Friends

 “I will accompany Ruby, to make sure she is safe…” Yuuzel said, glaring at the already grim-looking band of hunters.

    I rolled my eyes at Yuu going all ‘I’ll protect you’ again. It was cute in the beginning but now it’s starting to get on my nerves. It’s not like I was the Ruby who didn’t know about the existence of vampires being real and it’s not like I won’t be able to protect myself out there.

“Captain, they’ve arrived” One of the hunters hoarsely whispered towards Fred, who immediately greeted another batch of hunters wearing the same insignia that they carried on their vests. And one of them happens to be my mother.

“Ruby…” she said, holding my hands in hers. “I wish I could have kept all of these away from you. But your stubborn father’s reputation haunted us beyond the grave. And now…” she began to sob.

“It’s ok mom. I already know everything now… about dad, about the AVS...and about Errzabeth. I’ll make it out of this alive you’ll see.”

“Oh Ruby, that’s what your father said when he – he…” mom averted her gaze and focused on the lump at my side pocket. “What’s that?” she said, pointing at it.

    I dove a hand inside the side pocket and brought out the white rosary Sub gave me.

“Rikki” she said, throwing him a sharp stare to which he grinned sheepishly.

“It did save us last night…won’t you overlook it and consider it as a lucky step towards Ruby’s anointment into AVS?” Sub said, placing two hands on hips, confidently.

“Wait. No. I didn’t say I wanted to join AVS” I said, raising both palms in the air. “I just want to help catch Errzabeth, that’s all. Although I’m still not entirely sure how I’m supposed to.”

“We have no amount of data saying that Errzabeth has finally come to Meluna, but we do have ample information saying that there’s a head vampire, a direct descent of hers probably working under her orders whose pulling the strings on the other minions. We could try and lure him out.” Sub explained.

    So it’s a top vamp this time. Wonder how that’ll work out for us.

“Rikki’s right. But during the stakeout I want to be part of the night guards.” Mom said, side stepping in between me and Frederick.

“We already have four top hunters who were especially trained for stealth and maximum night invisibility. They are equipped to be non-traceable by means of cloaking and remarkable speed.” Frederick said gesturing towards the batch of hunters he came with.

“These guys could practically kill a fly without it ever knowing they were coming near. Yohanna, Marko, Olive, Vincent and I, shall be on night guard.”

“I already told you, I’ll be accompanying Ruby…no offense to your impeccable team.” Yuuzel stood at my back.

“Rejomart…You should trust them to do what is their duty and obligation in this joint task. The girl will be fine…They already have their topmost hunters on the case.” Amber said, brushing her hand on his arm.

“Roseline, let me protect Ruby. I won’t let what happened to Dan be repeated this time too.” He looked earnestly at my mom.

   Wait. He knew about dad? And he didn’t tell me?

   Mom nodded tersely and looked towards Frederick and the rest of the night guards.

“I’ll have to stay as intelligence commander then. A number of four can only be the maximum number per unit to ensure stealth – which is what we badly need to rely on during this entire operation…Now, do what you normally would do and leave the rest to us.” Frederick finally said, closing the deal. Looks like the game is on.

….

 Friday.

     I was tasked to carry out my usual daily routine and roam around the city park later this afternoon in an attempt to lure out one of Errzabeth’s minions. It has been a total of three days since the meeting in the Archives and not one single development has been made. Sub tells me it could be that they have already discovered our plan or deduced that the higher ups have taken action because of Farah’s death. It was becoming even more morbid these days since they made me swear to never lose the earpiece and the rosary. Mom also made me carry a small kit and made a leather belt I strapped around my skirt, hidden under my white uniform. There were a couple of vials, a small silver pistol and the tracking device designed as an ear ring. 

    People were steadily storming into the park. The sky was coal black now and I’ve been allowed for not more than 12 midnight so as to not raise up to much suspicions. But I had not the faintest feeling of being followed by anything tonight either.

‘Ruby, try and sit still in one of the benches.’ The earpiece beeped. It was Frederick.

    He and mom had stood clear out of the stake out and resigned themselves as the heads instead. Sub was also on his usual routines, pretending to be on duty after midnight. I plopped myself on the wooden bench and resigned into reading my terribly neglected pocketbook.

....Sigh….

    I guess the head vamp wasn’t in any mood to show tonight also. THIS was getting boring.

“Oh ma- Rubes? What’re you doing here?”

   I looked up to find Ivy standing in the middle of the walkway.

 ‘Ruby…!’ the earpiece beeped. I plucked it out of my earlobe and shoved the thing into the small belt bag under my uniform.

   Walking towards Ivy, I find that I actually missed the cheerleader bitc*. She is after all my bestfriend…

“Ives? What’s up? Haven’t seen you in so long.”

“Yeah me neither…” she smiled back.

    And we sat on the bench together.

“You reading again?” she asked, pounding a finger on the cover of my pocketbook.

“Yeah. It’s sort’a my thing, y’know…Sooo…how come you haven’t been coming to school lately? Were you sick?”

“And if I were, would you be concerned at all?” she spat with more than a hint of guilt-stirring bitterness.

“Sorry” I said. I was too much into capturing the head vamp Errzabeth sent to kidnap me to even ask about my friend’s welfare “I was … in a lot of things and…I wanted to visit you but you wouldn’t answer any of my calls or texts. I could’ve visited y’know, if you’ve had the decency to tell me where your house is.” I rolled my eyes over her.

    Ivy snorted out a laugh.

“You’d probably be surprised” she replied, but more to herself. “How about I show you now? That is, if you’re still not under your mom’s probation.”

“Yeah, no…we’re good…she already lifted that stupid curfew up.” Ow – she could’ve heard that. Stinkin’ tracking device!

“Ok then, shall we?” Ivy stood up and offered me her hand.

    We giggled as a familiar sort of excitement coursed through us. I guess the stake out can wait. There haven’t been any abnormal activities as of the late three days. So I confidently hopped and skipped with Ivy towards the main road and the intersection. It was more than half an hour’s walk. But if it was the two of us, we could just as easily prance around the city, in malls or at the park without a care in the world for days – and that was an understatement.

“Com’on Ruby! Can’t you walk any slower? The freakin’ snail’s gaining on us!” she exclaimed.

“Freakin snail’s got turbo jets…I hardly call that even…”

     We laughed hysterically as the said snail sped up towards a lone rock on the walkway. It looked like it had understood our previous conversation and was now showing off for an even more ego boost.

“Let’s go?” Ivy said, pulling on my arm.

“Sure” I grinned back.

     Maybe tonight won’t be deathly morbid as the other nights after all…