The Delacours

eighteen.

                Val, Chris, Ray, and I met Odette in a big open field. Odette was bringing the vampires that other jurisdictions had sent over. There were over fifty of them that showed up. A lot of them I had never seen before.

As all the vampires got closer to us in the field, I saw Val cross her arms over her chest.

"This should be fun..." she said sarcastically, as she shook her head. The vampires grouped up in front of us. "I hope you don't expect this to be easy!" Val yelled out. "I also hope you know why you're here! A lot of you might not make it through this fight, if you even make it through this training..." Val snapped her fingers and all of us fell to the floor, grabbing our heads. It stopped just as quickly as it started. I had to take a deep breath before I could stand back up. "If you thought that was too much, then leave now." Ten vampires weeded themselves out. Val did a lap around all of us vampires.

"Sweetie, what are we doing here?" a tall, dark haired vampire said. I turned around to shoot a look at him. "Oh, I'm sorry. Is she spoken for?" Both Chris and I went to either side of her.

"I wouldn't try that again," Chris said quietly.

"Can I continue, or are you two just gonna intimidate everyone?" Val said. Chris and I backed off. "Thank you. Now, I know I'm hot, and just slightly irresistible, but if any one of you try something funny, I assure you, you won't be doing it again. We're here to train you to kill the Elite fae."

"And how do you expect us to be able to do that?"

"How many of you have actually killed?" About five vampires other than me raised our hands. "Great..." The day was spent with Val throwing magic at us, trying to get us to attack her. It took Ray, Chris, and I awhile to take her seriously, but eventually I started to get angry. She kept hemorrhaging our brains, and throwing magic at us that could really kill us if she wanted it to. She started to get slower after a few hours. I walked to her side.

"Maybe you should take a break? We can continue this tomorrow," I said. She stopped firing off magic at the vampires.

"...No." She continued. They were stronger than before.

"Val, relax. We've been at this for hours. You're tired, these vampires need a break. I know we have to be ready, but we still have time..."

"No!" I felt my head sear and my vision blur. I was sent to the ground. I could see the other vampires doing the same.

"Val!" I yelled out. "Val, please!" She finally focused on me. My nose was starting to bleed and I could hardly keep my eyes open. The pain went away. Val kneeled down in front of me and grabbed my face.

"...I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're right. We should go home." The vampires all headed back to Odette's now empty home, while we went home. Aria was sitting on the couch, watching TV. When we came home she shut the TV off.

"Hey, how'd it go?" she asked. Then she saw my face, the blood dried from my nose. "Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah, Val just went a little hard on the training, but we're okay," Ray said. He gave her a kiss and headed for a shower.

The next week was full of training. We were tired but it was necessary. The fae attack was a little more than a month away. We came home one day, expecting to see Aria on the couch watching TV as usual, but she wasn't. There was a weird smell that got stronger the further into the house we got.