Shade chapter One

They say what doesn’t kill you inevitably makes you stronger.

Well, I’m a vampire running for my life with my lover and our four closest friends, so I don’t really know if that applies to me. I mean, yeah, I was human...once. But I’m not anymore and that’s what matters. Now I’m just your average statistic, the only thing unusual is that I have bright red hair. And, you’ve got to admit, how many vampires do you know with red hair?

But anyway, I was the typical little college girl without a sorority that didn’t want to be a blonde clone and I fell in love with the wrong guy. His name was Helix and he turned out to be a vampire. Well, too much alcohol, and you know what they say about sex and college. By the next morning I had my own pair of fangs.

After that it got pretty clichéd, you know the whole hide-from-the-mortals routine for twelve years, yeah?

And, of course, that’s when hell broke loose.

Some damned idiot of a vampire thought it would be interesting to see how the general human population would react to vampires of the twenty-second century. Turns out they treated twenty-second century vampires much the same as they treated eighteenth century vampires. And neither of us really liked being hunted.

And Helix and I weren’t even slick enough to outrun the hunters on our own. Dax, his Rara, Lesta, and her Aries, friends so close that they were our family, had gotten pulled into it with us and now we were all running down the Las Vegas strip trying to look natural.

It was extremely tiring after so long and I was in absolutely no condition for running. Not to mention the neon headache I was getting from the city lights.

“Helix!” I gasped, attempting to squeeze his hand and stay on my burning legs at the same time, “I can’t!”

The ache, which had started in my feet, had very quickly rushed up through my knees chest until my entire body hurt. I literally felt like I was about to collapse into a me-puddle. Not to mention the humans around us in their state of ignorant bliss were in more and more danger from my wild thirst as the seconds shot past.

Helix stopped running and I saw Lesta in front of us stop and turn around, wondering what was wrong. She didn’t get her answer; Helix motioned urgently for them to go on without us. After all she knew the way as well as Helix did and his expression instantly banned any and all forms of argument.

Before I could say another word, Helix grabbed my arm and pulled me across a street to a darkened construction site for what was probably the next casino. However, now it was dark and deserted, all construction workers had gone off to their mistresses or their card-counting or whatever the hell it is construction workers go off to do and it was the perfect place for two vampires to drop the facade.

Helix grabbed me by the shoulders and the air flew out of my chest in a sudden gasp as Helix forced my up against a wide piece of iron in the site.

“Why, Shade?” He demanded through gritted teeth, glaring viciously at me, “Damn it, why do you do this to yourself?”

I shrunk down under his gaze and he sighed exasperatedly. His eyes softened slightly but not for long.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a soft voice, more of a squeak really.

“No, you’re not,” He answered harshly as he scanned his fingerprint on the plastic case on his belt, “If you were then we wouldn’t have gone through this fifty times."

He pulled out a needle, syringe, and a vial of clear liquid which I knew from experience to be Holy Water. He’d already fit the needle into the syringe before he spoke again.

“Exactly how short are you?” He asked angrily and he shook me slightly when I hesitated in answering.

“I...a-about two pints.” I stammered in answer and he rolled his eyes.

“Might as well just give you the whole vial again, you think?” He asked rhetorically and I knew better than to nod.

But, even if I had, he wouldn’t have seen. His attention was solely on the syringe and vial in his hand and I watched, entranced, as he tilted his forced the needle into his wrist and filled the syringe half-way with his blood. He then mixed it into the vial of Holy Water and glared at me while he did.

“You know why I call you Shade?” He asked, tearing his beautiful, angry eyes away from mine just long enough to throw a quick glance at the vial.

I shook my head.

“Because when the sun comes up and we’re all safe from it, you’re going to be the one that had to do ‘one more thing’ or was ‘in too much of a hurry’ and you’ll be stuck out in the shade all day just trying to survive.” He paused and put his hand on my cheek almost tenderly before continuing, “Oh god, you know I love you, but you’re going to be the perfect target and there won’t be anything any of us will be able to do about it.”

I tried to look properly ashamed, and I didn’t have to try hard as I would have been blushing with shame if there had been any extra blood in my body to do so.

He studied me silently for a moment and I expected a full lecture but he only spoke three words.

“Move your hair.”

I tilted my head to the left and pulled my shoulder length hair to the side.

We’d done this more than I wanted to count: I’d nearly pass out on an escape, Helix would give me Holy Water, steroids, and blood to keep me going until we got somewhere safe, and then he’d give me his blood straight if he was up to it. And, after that many times, I still winced every time the needle slipped into my neck because, somehow, it still hurt.

I clenched my fists as the Holy Water coursed through my bloodstream painfully. Helix pulled the needle from my neck, dropped it on the ground, and then crushed both the syringe and vial beneath his feet to hide the evidence as it ravaged my body.

It hit my head first, that was the whole reason Holy Water was popular among vampires. It did funny things to our heads. And, right now, the funny thing it was doing was making my blood cells go psychotically hyper and heightening my senses to the point of near intoxication.

Helix let me go and I slid down a few inches before managing to stop and hold myself up. Meanwhile, Helix stood in front of me with his arms crossed, looking for all the world like an angry statue until he spoke.

“Is it in yet?” He demanded and I was slow in answering.

A moment passed, and then another, and finally I nodded as I struggled dizzily to get to my feet. Helix, impatient as usual at a time like his, reached down and yanked me up by my hand. When he did, much to his displeasure, I merely stood there looking round with a blank expression on my face as all the things I could now see due to stronger sight flew through my head.

“Well, come on!” He urged, giving my arm a sharp pull.

“Oh yeah."

He rolled his eyes and we moved slowly toward the edges of the shadows around the construction site. I heard Helix mutter something about me being high and then he was quiet.

I looked out along the street, all of it lit up by the casinos. I saw humans and young vampires, younger than me, both glowing underneath neon signs in shades that made me think of roses and martinis.

But, wherever we looked, the hunters in their darkened LED glasses and their cropped hair could not be seen at all.

I silently cheered as I followed Helix out of the safety of the shadows and back onto the street. Hunters or no hunters, I still felt like there was a laser sight trained on my head, it was a very disorienting feeling. Disorienting or not, I kept going and, together, we ran past Vegas’s own architectural monsters: MGM Grand, Casino Royale, Riviera, all the casinos that were big in the twenty first century still drew the sinful, the greedy, the promiscuous, and the immortal.

“Where are we going?” I asked Helix, I’d not specifically asked him before and so he’d never told me.

“The Stratosphere,” He answered, his eyes flying around searching for any sign of danger, “Look, baby, you can see the tower from here. When they rebuilt it in ‘69, they built three stories into the ground. A few million Franklins and those three stories became vHaven, and that would be where we’re going.”

vHaven.

Yeah, tonight was evidentially not my night. vHaven, hell, if I wanted to die, I’d go make fun of miss lead hunter Mariska Benson to her face. She’d give me a quick death at least. I wouldn’t go to a club like vHaven if I suddenly turned suicidal. Seriously, there was dumb and then there was stupid as hell. And for someone as young as me to go to vHaven alone surpassed stupid as hell. The only reason I hadn’t turned around and run away yet was because Helix was with me. And anyone that sought to bug me while I was with him, doubtless there was someone, would probably be seriously injured and made an example of.

The Stratosphere tower loomed over me as we approached it. I’d seen old pictures of the place, there was this giant hotel and casino and the tower was beside it, but when they both burned down only the tower was rebuilt. However, since the tower was now almost twice as wide and almost two hundred stories, there was no real need for any other building.

We followed a crowd of humans in the door and Helix caught the eye of the doorman, a vampire perfectly disguised as a human. Both of them nodded and looked at each other as though sizing one another up, but we walked in uninterrupted.

Helix steered me to the third elevator, the one farthest from the door and we entered it alone. The moment to door snapped shut, Helix looked up at the ceiling.

“vHaven, please.” He told it and the elevator slid down very rapidly and stopped within two seconds.

“vHaven, first floor.” The elevator replied smugly, and we stepped out.

Techno music throbbed and the floor shook under my feet. Lights flashed everywhere turning my skin red and green and every other color to the beat of the music.

I could smell the alcohol and the blood, both of them mixed with other things we like to poison ourselves with: black powder, cocain, among other things Helix wouldn’t let me touch.

Most of the vampires here were gangs or worse. The fact that this place was kept secret meant that nothing would be reported, so there were few if any rules. In other words, if you came in, you had to prove you were strong enough to stay.

I didn’t recognize the song that was playing, but the beat was building to something huge. The Vegas gangs, the ruthless killers that were enemies to the death at any other time, all leapt onto the dance floor as one and met in a high, crazed dance that no human, no immortal could ever choreograph.

Despite my fear, I wanted to join them. Music was a large part of me. Like Lesta, I was the type who still liked to plaster a Musisphere to my face and let it play as loud as possible, its music literally running through my whole body.

But Helix held me tightly; I was young and no where near strong enough to win survival here.

He led me around the gyrating dancers as their song climaxed. The entire room jumped and screamed and lost control as the DJ carried them deeper.

As the song reached its peak, I became distracted and, suddenly, I was jerked in the opposite direction, away from Helix. The song got louder, sufficiently muffling any screams I would have had if I wasn’t neck deep in music and surprise.

I was pulled into the fray, feet moved around to admit me, arms linked with mine, fingers reached for my soft places, blood boiled around me until I thought of nothing but the blood and the beat and I reached up towards Heaven along with everyone else.

“Oh hell no!”

I was pulled back down to earth so suddenly my senses mixed and I saw music and heard light. Something huge hit me. Blood splattered on my face. Hands gripped my arms too tightly.

I struggled against them, clawing and scratching, but it was pointless.

“Shade?”

I froze, like a deer caught in headlights.

“It’s me!”

I lifted my eyes and I saw Helix, I fell into his chest and he squeezed me tightly, more protectively than he ever had.

Suddenly he pulled me around as the music crackled and the hover speakers died. Helix held me with my back against his chest. His switchblade, dripping blood, was pressed flat against my thigh as he held me. It dripped blood that ran down my leg and to the floor.

Everyone in the club stared at me; their eyes, in every shade of vampiric silver, reached every inch of me as I swallowed blinding terror.

“She belongs to me!” He thundered, gripping the switchblade tightly, “No one touches her but with my permission or they will die!”

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.

Without another word, Helix pulled me around and we went, as we’d originally intended, towards the bar as though nothing had happened. But it was a front and we both knew it. I was terrified, shocked into silence. Helix was too angry for kind words; those would come for me later.

“The last group that came in,” Helix said, rounding on the bartender, “Where are they?”

The poor bartender was no less shocked than I was and no more able to speak.

“I don’t have time for this!” Helix hissed and the bartender threw a very pointed, very frightened glance at the switchblade.

“You’ll get a closer look if you don’t answer me.” Helix threatened.

The bartender nodded shakily.

“I...umm, I mean, t-they’re...”He stammered and, at Helix’s resulting glare, managed to speak normally, “No need for the blade, s-sir, really. They’re this floor, in room seven. just that way.”

Sir. I laughed, Helix didn’t get a title very often unless it was Ancient, and he didn’t trust many people enough to tell them that he was old enough to have earned that title. Clearly whatever Helix had done had been enough to give him a title on the spot.

Helix nodded curtly, the bartender bowed, and Helix closed the switchblade before putting it back in his coat where I knew for a fact he had several other knives. Then we both went down the hall the bartender had pointed to.

The music started up again at our departure, the speakers flying through the air again and, true to their name, hovering specifically over larger groups until they were swatted away or called somewhere else. But, even though the music was there, the energy was not. It all seemed to have gotten sucked away into the bloody mass on the floor that had tried to take me away.

I couldn’t get away fast enough.

My eyes paid no attention at all to anything as Helix led me down the hall; I didn’t count the rooms as we passed by them. But I jumped when Helix knocked on the door of what must have been room seven.