The Blood Whore

Confrontations

Dalia appeared outside the bathroom just as Cooper was coming out. The hallway was illuminated by candles in a hanging chandelier, the position of the chandelier cast Dalia’s pale face into shadow. All Cooper could really see of her was the gleam of her icy blue eyes.

Cooper swallowed hard, but tried to keep calm. She didn’t think Dalia would hurt her; instead she tried to joke around. “How long have you guys lived here? I swear there’s more than a century’s worth of dust in that room!”

Dalia smiled down at her, the girl had strong spirit. “We’ve only been here about two or three decades. I think your judgements a little off.” She smiled not unkindly. She took Cooper’s arm and began leading her down the hall, and Cooper couldn’t help but think of Aiden. Will I think of him every time someone takes me by the arm, or the hand?

“Is there a storm going on outside? I thought I heard thunder a moment ago.”

Dalia turned rather serious as she shook her head, the candlelight gleaming along her blonde hair. “Cooper, you need to listen to me. You seem nice as far as humans go, but you have to be aware of certain things.”

“Oh?” Cooper didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t a conversation like this.

“Aiden and I’ve been friends since Wesley changed him, and well… up until you he’s always hated humans.”

“Oh.” There was nothing else Cooper could say as she pulled her hair over her one shoulder, covering the hickey-like bruise on her neck.

“I don’t know what it is, and… I feel like I’m betraying him by telling you this…” Dalia muttered, tugging at her lace gloves.

The awkwardness was almost choking Cooper, “If you don’t think you should tell me, you don’t have to.” You’ve already given me a lot more to think about than I had before.

“No. I think it’s important.” Dalia took a deep breath. “I don’t think he’s realized it either, but what you say really affects him. I suppose you have every reason to hate him, but he’s a really good guy, not just a good vampire, and he doesn’t deserve more pain than he’s already going through.”

Cooper didn’t know how she felt, as she leaned against the door to her room. She remembered Aiden standing in the room, looking down at his feet with his eyes obscured by his dark hair. “You think I’m actually a jerk?” He’d said, and his voice rang through her head. She guessed she did affect how he felt.

“I don’t want to forget what he’s done to me.” She whispered in pain as shoved open the door. It was some sort of integral part of her.

“Cooper…” Dalia started, following her into the room, at the exact same time they heard Aiden shriek from out the window. They both looked up suddenly, and it gave Dalia just enough time to shove Cooper out of the way and block the fist that came flying towards her.

Cooper crashed into the corner of the room from the force, and smacked her head off the wall. She blinked at the scene in front of her.

There were snarls emanating from a whirlwind of blonde and red spinning through the room. Cooper pushed herself up against the wall. There was an occasional splash of blood, and if it weren’t for the bright hair colors she wouldn’t be able to tell who was Dalia and who was the attacker.

Her survival instincts, dull as they obviously were, kicked in and she knew she had to get out of that room. She heard a far off crash as she crawled towards the door.

She looked over her shoulder quickly to check the fight and make sure it was staying far away from her. She didn’t even get a look a look at the whirlwind of fighting because her eyes locked on to the equally panicked one’s by the window. She froze when she saw Aiden and as he stared at her for a moment she knew he was frozen too.

There was a cry from Nadeline somewhere in the house that drowned out all other noise, and that broke the spell on Cooper and Aiden. Suddenly they were assaulted by all their senses: the blur of the fighting, the growling from Dalia’s fighting and the distant fights in other rooms of the mansion, heavy breathing.

“Go!” Aiden yelled at her, and she wasted no time in getting to her feet and bursting out the door. She didn’t want to run into any other skirmishes but she didn’t like being on the second floor, there were no escape routes. Deciding to brave it she ran down the hallway, the mansion was louder than it’d been since she got there. There was a large thud from somewhere and she felt the floor shake below her and squinted at the swinging of the chandelier.

Get out, get out! Her instincts gave her no other advice. She skidded to a halt as she rounded on the stairs, down below she saw Wesley and Louis in a low crouch hissing at an unseen foe.

She hadn’t been stopped a full second, just past George’s door, when she heard Aiden’s voice scream her name. She twisted around to see Aiden grab a tan being with dark hair and fling it to the floor. She scrambled backwards at the sight, and screamed when the door to George’s room flew into the hallway along with a snarling mass of vampire.

They’re vampires, the attackers have to be vampires. Cooper was about to try and race down the stairs away from the scene when the woman Aiden had flung to the floor pounced in her direction. Cooper tried to jump out of the way of the shadow flying at her but tripped over her feet and fell over the banister.

“No!”

Cooper flailed in panic as she fell, her terror making time appear to slow. As she descended she saw a tableau of Aiden bursting towards her along with an ever-so familiar woman reaching over the banister in attempt to catch her.

She saw Nadeline rip the blonde hair of her assailant back as she turned to watch Cooper fall. The wooden railing of the stairs broke her fall. Her back crashed right into it. She barely felt it shatter, but when the wooden spire of the stairs pushed through her chest she couldn’t help but scream from the pure agony.

Everything seemed to freeze as she lay there breathing heavily. There were still the screams of everyone around her, but they were faded. Cooper wasn’t even sure if she’d screamed at her own misfortune.

As everything around her buzzed with life, she tried to pull herself up but was stopped by the ripping agony tearing through her torso. That time she was positive she screamed. As she flopped back against the steps she looked toward her chest and couldn’t stop the choking as she saw the bloodied splintered wooden post that forced itself through the right side of her chest.

The blood caught her eye, and the dripping liquid from the top of the post made her want to gag. Blood…so much….so much blood.

She struggled to hold on to consciousness, but she knew she was fading fast. She stared up at the wooden ceiling above her trying to regulate her breathing. I don’t want to die, she thought terrified.

As the edges of her vision started to blur she started to notice her surroundings again. The last thing she saw before she fell into an unconscious state was Aiden’s face. It was twisted with rage and accompanied with a loud thump beside her. It was the shaking force of his landing that pushed her over the edge and into a perilous slumber.