“You’re reading a history textbook in a cemetery,” he said as his eyebrow arched up while he looked at her. The air was brisk with a chill that blew around the grave markers, crypts, and foliage that had not received any attention for longer than either of them knew.
He wore a blue thermal shirt with long sleeves and bright red stitching around the neck, sleeves, and bottom hem. His hands rolled up inside the sleeves protecting them from the night air. It also shielded the light sweat that built up on the inside of his palms, and the tiny nervous shake he tried so hard to conceal.
“Some of us actually do the assigned reading,” she replied, not breaking her pale, ice blue eyes away from the pages of the ancient world history textbook in her lap.
She perched on the top of an old marble grave marker, her chin length honey-blonde bob tucked behind one ear as she held the book with both hands. A light breeze blew through the cemetery and jostled the pages around as she tried to read and the minimal light made it that much more difficult.
Under his feet, the freshly packed brown dirt formed a nearly perfect rectangle and housed a wooden, dark color lacquered box. He stood there watching her read as he banged the wooden dowel that was chiseled down to a point at one end in his hand against his other. The strap of the brown cloth bag he had slung over his shoulder was tight against his skin and a bit uncomfortable, but it held some of the most important items he would need for the night.
“You need some weapons in case things don’t go…” he paused as he thought of the best way to word the sentence, “as I planned.”
He reached into the bag and pulled out a wooden cross made from a light wood with a rough texture and not a drop of paint or finish on the outside. Leaning forward, he set it on the page she was reading. It slid down the paper and rested next to her hand. Her gaze rolled up to his face as she said, “you said it always goes as planned, Eli.”
“Just put it in your pocket,” Elliott replied as he gestured down to the cross.
She rolled her eyes around their sockets and picked up the weapon. She pulled open one side of her jean jacket and slipped it into the inside pocket as she balanced the textbook on her knees. Her short legs barely reached the ground; the tips of her black and white checkered sneakers grazed the tough and moist ground by half an inch.
“Tell me again why we are waiting for this guy to rise? I’m pretty sure that’s someone else’s job,” she said. She may have been knowledgeable in all things the occult, but when it came to applying it to the real world, Violet wasn’t all that great.
“There hasn’t been a slayer in Havermill for like, a century Violet,” he replied. The city boasted nine cemeteries and a wide variety of supernatural forces. While it did not house a Hellmouth, it was still a haven for all things evil and soulless. There were a couple of demon bars, some establishments where vampires and humans exchanged various bodily fluids, and an assortment of creepy crawlies filling the cities sewers.
Amidst the sounds of the wind crackling through the tree branches, the soft sound of an aging, creaky metal gate echoed through the cemetery. Elliott turned over his shoulder to glance in the direction of the sound and Violet brought her eyes away from the textbook to the vast graveyard behind Elliott’s back. They were both well aware of the possibility that they were not alone in the cemetery, but neither of them truly expected to run into anyone, or anything, else.
After their eyes scanned the cemetery for a moment or two, the harsh sound of metal scraping against metal, like a door being forced closed, rang loud and clear and bounced off the stone grave makers and cement crypts as it bellowed through the cemetery. Snapping the textbook closed, Violet slid off the gravestone she sat upon; the fibers of her faded wash jeans snapping against the roughed up top of the stone. Neither of them knew what quite to expect or to say after hearing the sounds of someone else possibly roaming the cemetery.
YOU ARE READING
Dylan the Vampire Slayer
ParanormalWhen 17-year-old Dylan Hennessy found out she was a Potential, her world was overcome by vampires and demons. She was forced to learn, and quickly, all there was to know about the mystical, the magical, and all the evil entities she never knew exis...
