Silly Little Games

Chapter One

I looked down at the pile of ash and with a sigh, carefully brushed it off of the stake, making sure not to catch myself on any splinters. God knows how many vampires could be here, lurking in the shadows. We weren't exactly best friends to say the least. But I just killed somebody, and it felt like murder every time, though I didn't know what murdering someone who was already dead was called. I carefully scraped up the last of the ash into a jar, and then screwed the lid on tight before placing it into my pocket.

I slowly and reluctantly made my way back to the place I called 'home'. It was deep in the middle of nowhere so it would take me around two hours of non-stop walking to get there. Not counting delays, and knowing me I'd run into even more trouble. I kept one hand on my stake and one hand on the jar as I walked. My reflexes were good but I always took precautions, because I still had a lot to learn. It takes 15 years of slaying to know everything; I'd been a slayer for seven years now. I may only be seventeen, but after slayers took me in they slowly taught me the basics, enough to protect yourself and so on. I put my hat back on and shook my hair from my eyes, then trailed out of the alley where I'd killed a monster.

The strong smell of grass filled my nose as I walked down the cobbled path that wound its way to a run down, mansion sized house. I scrambled in my bag for my keys but realised I must've dropped them when I staked the vampire. I looked up at the dawn sky, a burnt amber furnace. I watched some of the larger clouds go by as I sat on the doorstep of the house, cleaning my stake with the bottom of my trench coat. There were dry blood stains on it and because it was wood, it meant it was truly stained into the wood. I sighed and stood up again, knocking slightly on the door and waiting impatiently for someone, anyone to answer.

The door opened and I looked straight into the grey eyes of the person who opened it. "Leila, I didn't expect you back so soon" Donnie sighed, looking me up and down then meeting my gaze once again. He was like the father I never had, and he was getting old now. He was blind in one eye and slowly losing sight in the other, but he was still the kindest and most caring man on the planet. He helps us all here, seeing as around fifty slayers live here. I nodded and walked in, taking my coat off and handing the jar of ashes back to him. He looked at it, then quickly at my stake then up at my face. "You killed" he stated, examining the jar, spinning it around in his hand to look at it better.

"Yeah, some dumb vampire who drank from an innocent girl, she was easy" I replied, placing my stake back into the box by the door, the one that had my name on it of course. I took the jar back and looked into the ash, looking back up at him with a slight confusion in my eyes. "Why are some of the ashes gold?" I asked confused, carefully tipping the ashes out into a pile on the table in the foyer. Half of the normal grey ashes were glinting a gold colour. I sat ain one of the chairs and Donnie sat in the one opposite, taking a magnifying glass from the side of the table. He looked through the ashes and his eyes widened in shock, and he fixed his red tie. It reminded me of blood.

"Well, Leila, looks like you killed vampire royalty" he said still unsure, and soon my question was answered, after searching through endless books of both vampire and slayer history. When staked, royal vampires' ash is gold. A King or Queen's will be pure gold, and a Prince or Princess' will be half gold, half normal. My eyes widened and I ran my hands through my hair. I've probably started a war or something. Hopefully they would never find out, or just assume she was missing. "Anyway, I'll give these to Elliot to have a look at, we both know he's good at his science and history, especially vampire history" he added, trying to reassure me everything was ok. He'd been my adoptive father since I was ten, so he knew when I was worried. He took my hand in his own and bounced it up and down softly. "Everything is going to be ok, you have all of us here to protect you, and you know what our motto is" he smiled, I nodded. It'd been drilled into my head.