Lycan Blood (Alex Vane: Demon Stalker #1)

Blood and Ectoplasm

Author's Note: This is just a series I thought I would try writing for fun about a girl who hunts demons. I would just like to say that I haven't read any other stories by authors on here about this topic so I apologise if there are any similarities. They are completely by accident. I have also not seen any episodes of Supernatural, although I have seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Again, any similarities are due purely to chance. I am planning to use demon mythology later on so it could be that similarities are due to the fact that it's actually in mythology. Anyway, I hope you enjoy

~

Just once I would like to have a day which didn’t end with me covered in blood.

Letting out a sigh, I wiped the red and purple liquid off my sword, wincing as the globules clung to my skin. The blood isn’t actually the worst part really. It’s a pain to get out of your clothes sure, but at least it’s relatively normal to get blood on your clothes sometimes. What I really hate is the essence stuff. Ectoplasm. Thick, supernatural jelly which can be all colours of the rainbow and that sticks to you with an equally-supernatural stubbornness. I’m not a novice-I know that ectoplasm represents the demon’s soul, and that each colour has a unique meaning related to what that demon was like in life. For example, if it’s blue then that means they were sad in life or whatever. But I’m not a Soul Reader. I’m a Demon Stalker. All ectoplasm represents to me is a god awful mess.

You have no idea how much I hate my title either. ‘Demon Stalker’. Not ‘hunter’, not ‘fighter’, not any other word which sounds cool and interesting. ‘Stalker’. Like I choose to follow demons around or something. Like it isn’t my destiny.

Boy this job sucks.

Having cleaned my sword, I waited for another few minutes. Sometimes it pays to be patient in this job. You can’t just walk away after killing one monster, expecting that to be it. On the best nights there is just one demon to kill. On the worst it can be a whole swarm. But either way, it usually ends the same way. I stab them with my sword, they explode in a shower of blood and goo, I go home and try to get a few hours of sleep before school. Same old, same old.

I learnt a long time ago that the focus of my life was always going to be the monster-slaying. At first I was foolishly optimistic. I thought I could have it all-school, friends, a family. Family was the first thing to go. I fought my first demon when I was eight, one year before I learnt about my destiny. I only survived due to pure instinct and a handy steak knife. My parents were not so lucky. They managed to survive until I was twelve years old before a banshee took them down.

As for school, that never had a fighting chance. I still go of course-the law applies to everyone, even sixteen year old Demon Stalkers. But most nights I only get a few hours sleep and that doesn’t leave a whole lot of energy left for concentration. I scrape by, barely. Things like Maths and Physics just don’t seem to really matter when every night might be your last.

Friends. The final obstacle. Actually, I do have one friend. Jacey Nightingale is perhaps the only person in our school perky enough to even attempt befriending me, let alone never be put off by my constant bad moods. She doesn’t know the truth of course. Apart from me, no one does anymore. It’s hardly the sort of the thing you can slip into everyday conversation. But I’m glad she’s my friend, even if it does make it slightly trickier having to hide things from someone. If she wasn’t then I would literally never talk to anyone, and I’d probably go completely mad. Then again, in this job that would probably be considered a bonus.

Satisfied that the attack was over, at least for tonight, I began the long trek home. Naturally I can’t just take the main streets back and get home within ten minutes. The sword would get some funny looks, even if I wasn’t soaked in blood. No, I have to take the side streets and cut through the forest and the abandoned rail station before I’m even closed to getting home. I’ve always hated the walk back. Not because it’s far (although it is) but because it’s lonely. All I can ever hear is the thud of my thick boots on the ground, echoing in the dark.