The Writers' Circle

This version of the story won a competition on writing.com, and was the inspiration for an extended novel version that is currently resting awaiting a final edit. I'd like to post the current version of the first chapter in a few days for comparison purposes, and I'd really like to hear your feedback:
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"Boots!" Libby yelled as I slammed the front door a little too hard in my haste to be rid of the day's business.

"Yeah, yeah," I shrugged as I kicked off first one foot then the other, which went skittering across her lovingly polished mahogany floor and into the pristine white paintwork of the stairs, leaving a thick, sticky black trail in it's wake. Shit.

Libby's face appeared at the kitchen door briefly. She pursed her lips and her brow crumpled in a brief frown, before she disappeared into the connected garage and returned with rag in had, retrieved from the stockpile of old clothes, bedding and other scraps of material whose useful life had ended and now waited for their turn at just such a job as this.

"And you can clean that up, Max" the disgust was evident in her voice as she threw the rag at  me and headed back to the kitchen, saying accusingly over her shoulder as she went, "and I don't know why you can't just come in the garage. It's not like you'd wake him, the way he sleeps."

I stifled a silent laugh. Typical Libby, as if the worst thing about living with a vampire were the sleeping arrangements. Then I dutifully set to scrubbing the sickly sweet black tar, working quickly and holding my breath to avoid getting the scent caught up my nose.

I finished wiping the last of the gunk and followed Libby through to the kitchen, heading out the back to dump the rag in the trash before returning to wash my hands. I watched her deftly piling food on a plate, and placing the plate on a tray with cutlery. Her shoulder length, wavy brown hair was heavily peppered with grey now, and the downy hair on her cheeks was thickening, giving her dark olive complexion a silky white bloom. The stiletto heels which had been her pride and joy had only recently given way to wedged, somewhat lower heels, but they were still elegant and immaculate. The simple slacks and pullover she wore showed that her figure remained one that a woman half her age would be proud of.

We moved into the dining room, and sat at the table, me with the tray in front of me. She would have already eaten. Family meals did not feature heavily in our lifestyle, and although she would never say it, I knew it was one of the things my mother missed.

"So where is he anyway?" I asked casually, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, and the tension in her shoulders registered, I knew something was wrong.

"Oh, just popped out to run a couple of errands." her voice was tight, shrill. Oh no.

"You don't think he's..." I still couldn't talk about this with her, a human, "I mean did he look? Has he gone," I paused, choosing the words carefully, "hunting?"

"No, no. I'm sure he'll be back any minute, you'll see."

But as I pushed the chair back with a scraping sound as I stood, and dashed back into the hall, my food untouched, the fear was evident on her face. Even if it hadn't been, I could see Howard in her mind's eye, thin and drawn, tired and worn down.

"Damn it mother, I told you not to let him out all this week, didn't I?" That wasn't fair, it wasn't as if she could have actually stopped him anyway, and now if anything happened she would blame herself forever. Well, as long as she lived anyway.

"Maxine, don't call me that." Her voice was flat and weary. I felt for her, how awful it must be to have to live without those human labels. It always had to be Libby and Howard, never Mum and Dad; it raised too many eyebrows, what with their different genetic make-up and all, the different rates of ageing. She was beginning to look old enough to be his mother. The ambiguity allowed us to stay together, at least.

"Sorry. And I'm sorry Libby it's not your fault, I know that," I said as I pulled on the boots so recently discarded, not caring now about the scuff marks Libby would have to clear up herself this time. "It's just he really shouldn't be out there tonight."

"How bad can it be?" Libby tried to make light of the situation, to reassure herself, more than me. "It's the last night tonight after all, right?"

"Exactly." I shot the reply back a little harder than I'd meant to, and felt her flinch inwardly as well as outwardly. "The last night of a zero tolerance policy raid on the city, which means all the covens have been dealt with, the fraternity broken and the prowlers will be doing one last sweep of the city. It's the one night they'll be actively looking for him. The worst possible night for him to be out there." Then, added as an afterthought. "He is supposed to be dead, after all, remember, not un-dead."

Her fear was palpable now, and for a second I was concerned her heart might give out, but a brief check told me there were no problems there, she still had the constitution of a thirty year old, probably from all those years dancing all hours.

I tooled up ready to leave the house, donning the garb of my trade. The diminutive but deadly crossbow and garlic tipped bolts. The silver bullets and gun, and of course the garrote. Though I don't know why we bothered, really, we usually just ripped the suckers to shreds anyway.

"What are you going to do?" She asked, though I imagined it was pretty obvious. 

"I'm going to find the humorless bleeding bastards," I shrugged the habitual shrug, and barked a harsh laugh, not particularly amused at the accuracy of the observation, on all points, but needing to psyche myself up for the night ahead. I didn't relish the prospect of pulling a double and spending the night putting myself between a bunch of the most vicious, blood thirsty predators on the face of the Earth and my father, a vampire.

I headed back into the city at a fast jog, transferring to the rooftops as soon as the buildings became close enough and high enough and the traffic heavy enough to make movement up there easier. I cursed Howard's stupidity, risking everything for a feed tonight of all nights, risking not just his own life, but ours as well.  Our living arrangements were not exactly sanctioned by any of our species. In fact each of them would cheerfully put some or all of us all down if it came to light.  The humans would probably mob us and torch the house. Some things just never change. Or if the authorities were involved, Libby would be institutionalized, whilst Howard would be put to death immediately and I'd probably be put into some government research program. 

The vampires, the most understanding of the three given the circumstances, would kill me instantly, and probably feast on Libby, but I wasn't sure how they would treat Howard. Somehow I doubted they would kill him, though they might shun him for a century or two. Weird lot, vampires. With all eternity to deal with things, they seemed to cling to the "never say never" principle with religious piety, reluctant to finish off an enemy who might one day come in handy against a worse one. Superstitious if you asked me, not that anyone ever did of course, unaware as they were of my unique perspective, and all.

Which, given the simple, brutal and final response my lot would have if they ever found out, was probably just as well. The organisation would not suffer a traitor to live. Their official line was that vampire extermination was the only acceptable outcome of the war between us and them, even though it patently meant the end of our race as well. 

We were all sterile, without exception, as most hybrids are. Nature's little way of saying "I might abhor a vacuum, but, not that much." And whilst we undoubtedly aged much more slowly than our human mothers, it seemed pretty obvious to me at least that we were not immortal, like our fathers. Sam, the oldest of us known to me, was over three hundred years old, and looked as if he were in his sixties. My father, on the other hand, who was a good hundred years older, looked more like he was in his late forties, only ten years older than he had been when he died. I had aged normally until I hit puberty then things had slowed down dramatically. Already well into my forties, I looked like a tall, athletic teenager, and would probably have difficulty being served alcohol in a respectable establishment for a few decades yet. By my reckoning, a vampire killed in his late teens and surviving to die of unnatural old age could hope to live around four thousand years, whereas his half human offspring would be lucky to see his five hundredth birthday.

I was musing on this disparity when I reached the 'soup kitchen' as Howard chose to call it, and dropped to the floor silently beside an ambulance, almost landing on top of Vinnie, leaning glumly against it.

"Hey Maxi," Vinnie barely raised his head in greeting, getting the nonchalance down pat now, despite his natural good humored enthusiasm.

"Hey Vinnie," I up-nodded in return, our habitual greeting, grown out of the fact that usually when we met there was a need to silently communicate the direction of the prey. We had learned to pay close attention to each other's body language, and Vinnie was on edge. His deceptively youthful, piercing blue eyes darting from place to place, his square jaw clenching and grinding, and the body built muscles in his arms and chest straining at the simple white T-shirt he wore beneath the plain khaki shirt, open and flapping above his chinos.

"Any action?" I asked casually scanning the area for any evidence of misplaced blood, and simultaneously skimming the minds of the humans present, but detecting no abnormal levels of fear.

"Nah," Vinnie was bored, clearly, being stuck with sentry duty not a good fit for his action man mentality. "Couple of skank new bloods earlier on, nothing since though." 

Vinnie's head tilted to one side, a delayed thought process finally registering. 
"Here, Maxi, you pulling a double?"

"Kinda," I admitted, aware that if I didn't get moving soon, Vinnie was likely to try and dump guard duty on me and head off into the fray. "I'm just going to  do a fly-by some of the most likely haunts, get this thing put to bed so we can move on up to Birmingham. I hear there's a real infestation up there this year."

"Really?"  Vinnie's enthusiasm for the job disturbed me. It went beyond the thrill of the hunt, the physical challenge of killing barehanded, into a realm of need and thirst and desire for revenge that I simply could not fathom. I had once told him that if he couldn't control his rage and his thirst then he was nothing more than a vampire with a pulse, but he hadn't understood.

"Really." I wanted him focused on the next big job, distracted; just in case Howard happened by here later. Fortunately, that was easily done; I could see him salivating already.

"Hey," I called down to him from the roof gently, "watch your chops." It wasn't an idle comment; he was after all in full view of the passing public, however distracted they might be by their own immediate problems.

I headed into the heart of the city, and considered the implications of the emphasis Vinnie had placed on the word 'you.' I was not the most gung-ho of our troop, to be fair. In fact with the possible exception of Nell, the gang's only other female member; I probably had the lowest kill count on record. But Nell was tiny and weak, her father by all counts had been a newly turned teenager, and she'd inherited more neuroses from her mother than talents. She was fast though, and good at getting into tight spaces, kind of like a mix between a cat burglar and a pet ferret. I didn't have much time for Nell, she was too scatty and unpredictable for my liking, and she dressed like something out of a comic book, all black leather and silver zips and buckles.

Apparently Sam had found Nell just after she'd killed her vampire father, back in the days when it was just him and Dillon. Somehow bringing Nell on board had made it official, and the organisation had been born. Sam did the training in the physical fighting, and Dillon helped the new recruits find their human talents. I guessed Nell provided the necessary financial backing.

Sam was a brute of a man, in more ways than one. Had he been simply a vampire he would have been terrifying. Given the extra strength and cunning of a slayer, he was, quite simply, the most fearsome thing on two legs on the planet. Not just because of his size. In his relaxed state he was a bulky 6ft 6in, with a huge barrel chest and arms bigger than most men's thighs. He made Vinnie look like a toy soldier, while he was the real deal. On him, the black leather, zips and buckles didn't look out of place, they just looked like there weren't enough of them. But it wasn't his size or his ferocity that made Sam so scary, it was his philosophy. 

"Vampires are evil." He'd told me when they'd recruited me. "Vampires must die. They must be extinct. We are the only ones naturally equipped to provide that service. They gave us the tools with which to destroy them, and we are honor and duty bound to do just that. Our mothers give us the ability to stand daylight and to disavow the thirst. We have a choice. We make that choice."

This had all sounded like a pretty reasonable philosophy until I realised which choice he had actually made, and that had turned my stomach. I had been wary of him ever since.

I scanned the red light district, not expecting to find Howard there, but doing the habitual round I would do in any city, not just my home town. Then, as I hopped over the alleyways where the drunk and homeless took shelter, my mind turned to Dillon.

Dillon was every inch the gentleman. He spoke softly and wore tailored clothes. Not suits, at least not on a hunt, but none of the leather favored by Sam and Nell, the chinos or army pants Vinnie wore, or the jeans I myself and Jax seemed to fall into. Proper clothes that he could drop off the roof in and wander into a nearby restaurant in without looking out of place. Dillon had showed me how to find the human traits my mother's blood had endowed me with, my ability to see into things and people, and to hone and enhance those abilities and put them to good use. If I was, as Dillon had once told me, the most human of us, I imagined Dillon was the most vampiric.

I wound my way round the city to the last likely place I might find Howard, landing softly on the rooftop and glancing around, taking in the feel of the place. I tensed and realised that things were all wrong as I heard all the wrong noises coming from all the wrong places. A soft, plop and scrape behind me, followed a few seconds later by two more. That would be Nell, followed by Jax and Dillon, and, yes, there it was, the slightly louder clatter as Vinnie followed. Sam would never be able to make the jump from the outer wall to the inner buildings though. No other living thing could, that was kind of the point, wasn't it?

Then I sensed the presence of the unnatural. Damn. He was here. Of course he was, I realised with a start, and I should have known and come here first. The papers had been full of the news, the serial killer attacked in prison by another prisoner, the multiple stab wounds that left him fighting for his life. Just the sort of meal Howard wouldn't be able to resist.

"Good call." Nell purred as she drew in beside me.

"Yeah," Jax's lilting voice made everything sound like the opening line to a song, "I'd never have though of it. Nice one Maxi."

Great. I'd led them straight to him in my attempt to protect him. Idiot.

"Let's go then," Vinnie, eager as ever, made the first move, gliding effortlessly from one rooftop to another, followed by Nell, then Jax.

"Watch your back," was all that Dillon said as he moved past me and after the others, and then unbelievably, he winked. Startled, I scrambled to catch the quickly disappearing troop.

I risked a glance across at Jax, as we dropped from the roof into the dark covered corridor outside the infirmary, and caught a sideways glare from him which he quickly averted. Jax and I had never been on the best of terms, he seemed to have a giant chip on his shoulder, which I suppose I could understand. Having to kill your father on account of his being a monster could do some psychological damage, I guessed, being the only member of the team who hadn't actually gone through with that part of the recruitment process. But there was something about Jax that just seemed to be permanently set to belligerent. I didn't know what his true talents were, and didn't want to.

My heart began to race as fist Nell then Vinnie reached the door and paused. Nell nodded almost imperceptibly in my direction and Vinnie dipped his head in reluctant agreement.

"OK Max," He grumbled in a low, gruff tone, barely more than a growl. "Your turn."

I thought they must all be able to hear the dull thud in my chest by now, as I slowly reached for the handle, then paused for a moment to look up at the security camera, and then back to the intercom beside the door.

"Don't worry there's no night vision here." Jax intoned, more than a hint of a challenge in his voice.

"No, I know." My hesitation wasn't just for what would be on the other side of the door; I wasn't very good at multi-tasking like this. The security cameras, as Jax had pointed out, didn't pose much of a threat, since we'd only show up under infra red light anyway, a trait we'd all inherited from our fathers, and this system didn't have any. But the intercom system was wired up to the door, and would sound the alarm when it was opened, which was where my unique talent came in. As the least violent member of the troop, and with a knack for, shall we say, influencing electrical circuits, they were relying on me to disable the alarm. I'd done it a thousand times, so they knew it was a cinch, but tonight they'd think I was dragging my heels unless I gave them a good excuse.

"It's a new system is all, will take a couple of seconds to get round the fail safe."

I couldn't be sure if they'd bought it, but it had given me a couple of seconds to do what I needed. I could have just accessed their minds to see, but I didn't want to know what they were thinking so much that I would to give myself away like that.

But that was what had given me the idea. I'd always been able to read minds, in a nebulous, empathic kind of way, but it was only when I'd started training that I'd begun to discover the extent of that ability. I'd learned that I could read the surface thoughts of any human, and track a vampire by intent as well as scent and the fear in the surrounding humans' minds. I'd also learned that others like me would always be able to tell when I was in their minds, and some, like Dillon, were even able to establish a tenuous two way link. But until tonight I'd only ever listened to the thoughts of another person, never tried to open lines of communication. Somehow it all seemed a bit too much like mind control.

"OK," I said after the briefest pause, turning the handle and pushing the door open before us, "we're in. Do your stuff."

I gestured for Vinnie to lead the way, as he always did, but he hung back.

"No, no, after you." He said, in a comical imitation of the manners of his youth.

"Why thank you, kind sir." I played along, stepping lightly into the room and turning toward the familiar and yet horrifying scene.

The human was still hooked up to the drip, and all the monitors continued to indicate that he was alive and stable. Heavily sedated perhaps, but stable nonetheless. Which of course was completely untrue, he had bled out by now, probably suffered a massive coronary too, which would make the autopsy a little complicated, but probably wouldn't raise any real suspicion. In fact, if we hadn't just barged in here, and caught him red handed, so to speak, it probably would have been a pretty uneventful night for Howard. As it was, his precautions were a wasted effort; this was going to get messy.

For a moment he didn't look like my father. Sure he was wearing the same old faded, slightly worn olive green corduroys, the same camel colored wool knit cardigan with dark brown leather patches, and his spectacles were tucked into the implausibly placed breast pocket, poking studiously out, in front of the gentleman's hankie, which was now a bright red, instead of its usual pristine white. But his blond hair, usually flopping amiably over his right eye, was matted and plastered to his forehead. His chin was dribbling blood, and the whole of the front of his body was spattered with it.

None of which was responsible for the sudden rush of rage I was unexpectedly fighting hard to contain. No, that was down to the set of his face. Howard's usually genial, avuncular features were twisted and contorted into the mask of a monster, a monster I was genetically programmed, trained and only too willing to obliterate from the face of the Earth. A monster, I realised with a sense of dread, I had never before been able to relate to my father.

"Steady Maxi," Howard's voice was as calm and clear as ever in my head, going some way to pulling me back towards reason, "you should be glad you can't look in a mirror right now yourself." he chuckled. "If you think this is bad, just remember what you are."

He was right, of course, my instincts had taken over, and the monster within me was on display too now, fangs, claws and all. We began the usual dance, the dance all cornered vampires began, though they must have known it was hopeless, just as surely as a doomed human knew there was no hope of escaping the inevitable.

The others had fanned out behind me, moving away from the door just enough to leave a plausible opening, an opening most vampires would try to exploit, only to be piled on from all sides by hungry and furious prowlers, but not this one. Though I could see his eyes darting desperately to the door, and could feel his terror rising, Howard remained at the other end of the room.

"Steady," I warned him mentally, and caught the glance of mixed awe and pride as my father almost let his guard down, "don't get between me and them or you're history." Then, as Jax sidled further round to the left, almost level with me, I almost screamed out loud "Get back! You're giving them too much leeway, you need to keep them tight," but he wasn't listening any more, the terror had hold of him now and his feral instincts were taking over. Jax and Vinnie were past me, seeing that he wasn't going to make a run for it, they were moving in for the kill.

I was momentarily frozen in horror as I stared at Vinnie, his already muscular bulk distorted by the adrenaline into a bizarrely sinuous killing machine. The muscles on his neck were so taught they made him look hunched, the thread on his arms pulsing with the normally sluggish blood now coursing though swollen veins, singing in response to the proximity of his prey. A quick glance across to Jax's relatively unexcited state, the fangs and jaws barely extended, as if reluctant to show themselves in such superior company, told me what I needed to know of their plan.

"Dad, listen to me now. The big one is going to make a move for you, and he's hungry, you understand?" I didn't have time to check for a response, or even a sign of recognition, "He's the only one here who shares Sam's taste for raw meat, so whatever you do you keep out of his way, you hear me?" The slight pause in Howard's dance was enough to reassure me he'd understood, it was time to make our move. "OK, I'm coming for you, watch yourself."

And I leapt across the space between us in an instant, too quickly even for Nell's lighting reflexes to anticipate, feigning a lunge for my father, the vampire's neck. He in turn extended from his crouch and swiped his razor sharp fingernails across my face, failing to draw blood but leaving a stinging trail. I fought the surge of hatred, then, as we clung to each other in a bitter sweet hug, each growling and snarling, snapping and twisting in a ferocious embrace. I could feel the cool touch of his skin, so easily broken by my own diamond strength nails, feel the stench of human blood filling my nostrils, and feel them flare as they caught the sickly sweet perfume of his tar, his breath against my neck and face as he strained every muscle to snap his fangs a hair's breadth from my jugular vein. 

The others were closing in behind me now, Vinnie and Jax on either side, Nell and Dillon completing the formation, the points of a 'w' behind me. As Vinnie tensed and prepared to lunge, I turned slightly into him, turning my back on the second most dangerous creature I had ever met, and pulled my father in tight to me, then threw him away from me into Jax, who had been preparing to do the most distasteful thing any of us could contemplate, and turn against one of his own, only to be set upon by a howling, desperate and, to him in his half aroused state, deadly, vampire.

But for now I had to put Howard and Jax out of my mind. I had to put everything but continuing to breathe and figure out a way to prevent the hulking brute I had deliberately thwarted in his attempt to feed out of my mind, if I was going to get out of here alive. I wasn't sure how Nell and Dillon would react; I suspected Nell would move to aid the suddenly endangered Jax, and Dillon? Well, Dillon would just have to make his own decisions. For now the only thing that mattered to me was getting free of the death grip Vinnie had on me, crushing the life out of me as I kicked and flailed uselessly in the air, my feet looking for a purchase on something, anything to get me some leverage.

I could feel the air being forced out of me, and the strain in my temples as the blood rushed to my face. The muscles in my jaw were paralyzed, and I was losing the battle. I expected a rush of panic, but instead I felt a calm, almost detached sense of peace. 'I'm suffocating,' I told myself 'the muscles in my neck need to relax,' and as the thought ran through me, so did a wave of pure relaxation, rippling down my body from head to toe. Vinnie's grip had not released, and yet I could breathe as easily as if he were holding me tenderly, as a lover might. 

My feet touched the bed, and in a second I had all the leverage I needed. I tensed then straightened my legs, and we flew across the room and slammed into the wall, which gave slightly under the pressure. Vinnie's arms flew open and I landed softly on two feet, leaning forward onto one hand and rolling, coming up with my back to the bed and facing a winded and bewildered foe. He staggered forward, then caught his balance and ran at me with a spine chilling roar, arms outstretched in a grotesque parody of a toddler running to his mummy, his arms slapping together above my head as I ducked and spun on my heel, coming up behind him and kicking him squarely in the small of his back.

He dropped instantly, and writhed in pain. 

Kidneys forced to filter that much poison from a human system could simply not take that kind of shock, and Vinnie was suddenly no threat to anyone. For a brief second I almost pitied him, curled up in agony that way, but there was no going back now. I raised my left foot backwards, preparing to swing, and made the connection. Even amongst the searing stabs of pain, Vinnie sensed me, and began pleading, "No Maxi, no, please no. Please don't, oh God please don't."

And in the end it was the futile plea to a higher being that hardened my heart and brought my foot down with all the force and ferocity I could muster. I felt the blinding crash of his pain, and I staggered under the weight of it, felt the scream leave my lips in synch with his, but I kept up the link long enough to locate the throbbing  area of his brain, lit up like a beacon for me to find. I could see the waves of pain arcing out and searing the matter nearby, like a circuit board shorting. Now I had the source of his pain, I was able to take a mental step back from him, to sever the link, and to focus my attention on the bright centre of it. My focus fanned the flames, and I breathed life into his agony, frozen above him as he writhed around on the floor, a broken mind in a useless body. 

I loosened my grip on his fogging brain as I saw the fire dim in his eyes and the monstrous swollen muscles in his forehead begin to relax. The fangs started to recede, and the human features reasserted themselves. 

I didn't have time to check whether he was dead or unconscious, though, as Nell landed a deft drop kick to my chest and I fell back a pace or two. I steadied myself and braced for the next impact as she lunged toward me, teeth bared in a snarl I realised was born more in shock and pain than anger, as I realised that both she and Dillon had sat this out so far.

"How could you?" She wailed as her tiny frame, suddenly an iron ball of fury, was all over me, her legs wrapped around my waist, arms flailing uselessly, demonized windmills disturbing nothing but air. I grasped her hands and easily leaned away from the gnashing, grinding teeth at my collar bone, and with barely an effort, pulled her away from me, realizing the desperate agony her attempt to cling on to me were causing her.

"Oh please," I could didn't try to hide the disdain I felt for this pathetic creature right now, "Nell, you fight like a girl." The last word caught itself in my throat and became a feral snarl as I hurled her across the room and out through the window, bars and all. The fall would barely dent her pride, I was fairly sure, but the all encompassing fear she had felt would be enough to drive her away from me, for now at least.

I turned to see how Howard was doing and realised with a mixture of surprise, relief and pride that he was standing over the twitching body of a near lifeless Jax. That sent the first wave of concern through my body since the adrenaline had started to flow. A prowler beaten by one of the prey would not go down well. And to be bested by a vampire who was supposed to be dead, well, that would not be well received either. All of which was of course nothing compared to what I had done, the reality of which was just now beginning to seep through into my conscious mind as I absent-mindedly and belatedly silenced the alarm Nell's unscheduled departure from our little soiree had unleashed.

"Wow," Dillon's voice was as calm and reassuring now as ever, the grin on his face unfathomable under the circumstances, "remind me never to piss you off."

Dillon. What the hell was I going to do about him? My and my father's little secret was out, that much was guaranteed. With Nell still out there, and no doubt running to Sam right now, it was a matter of minutes, hours at the most before I was officially an outcast. No, make that THE outcast, the organisation did not permit renegade hunters to live for long and would turn all of their impressive resources on us until I and all of my family were dead. 

"We should take him out now, while we have the upper hand." Howard's voice in my head was urgent, pleading, and desperate. And he was right, one less now, one less in the long run, when the odds would be stacked undeniably high against us.

But Dillon had watched. He had failed to prevent me from killing Vinnie, which it was now clear I had, in fact, done. And he had failed to help Nell, or Jax. In fact I got the feeling he may have held Nell back, keeping the numbers even. The finger of suspicion would rest on him, and others like me with similar gifts would inevitably learn that he had known Howard was alive, had failed to report my indiscretion, or to take matters into his own hands. His life would be forfeit too.

I knew Dillon couldn't establish the connection, couldn't read a vampire's mind, but I guess it wasn't really necessary; the look on Howard's face was enough.

"You could kill me now, of course," Dillon pushed off the wall he was leaning on, the only indication he was feeling any insecurity at all, the slight adjustment needed to prepare for fight or flight should his reasoning fail, "or we could all go stop Sam killing your mother?"

"Libby!" We both cried in unison, and leapt through the window and across the prison rooftops, back across the wall and toward home without a backward glance.

"There will be consequences, you know," Howard breathed to me as we crashed from one rooftop to another, keeping pace in our shared desire to protect our family.

"Really? You think? You mean, like I'm grounded?" the grim humor had returned now, part of the mental preparation I needed for whatever lay ahead.

"Maxine," He slowed so that we could share a moment on the journey, obviously wanting to impart some sense of finality to this decision, like it was ever a real conscious decision anyway. "If you do this, you break covenant with the organisation. Forever. If you let me finish this alone, you can still come away clean, you and Dillon. I can take this Sam out, and Nell, and you can say I got away from you. You can still have that life, Max."

I threw my head back and laughed then, not the harsh bark, but a genuine guffaw of amusement. Dillon threw a bemused look back over his shoulder, but shrugged the typical hunter shrug and picked up his pace, no doubt intending to scout out the area before we reached home, not that Howard or I needed any kind of briefing this time.

"What?" was all Howard said as I wiped the tears from my eyes and leveled my gaze back at him, a smile on my face for the first time tonight.

"Dad, really, you think?" I laughed again, a gentler laugh this time, as I reminded him of the one slight flaw in his otherwise wonderfully insane plan, "what am I going to say, I didn't know you survived our first encounter? I mean, come on, Howard, we live in the same house!"

We both laughed then, a moment of shared glee tinged with hysteria. Neither of us wanted to turn our attention to the task in hand just yet. But as the silence descended between us, broken only by the occasional scrape of feet or claws on roof tiles, chimneys and TV aerials, both of our thoughts turned towards home, and the vulnerable heart of our odd little family.

"He won't have killed her, don't worry," I wasn't as sure as I sounded, but I didn't think Sam would be interested in killing a mere human without an audience, and once Nell had arrived with the bad news, I reckoned he'd want to keep her alive, as bait and leverage against us.

We plopped down beside Dillon, who was waiting in the bushes at the back of the house. He pushed his chin up towards the garage.

"They're in there." He whispered, though I was sure both Sam and Nell would be able to sense Howard's presence, and would anticipate mine.

"So," Howard looked expectantly from me to Dillon and back again, "what's the plan?"

"Kill," Dillon answered quietly, his voice as calm as ever, "or be killed, generally. Of course," he added with just the merest hint of a smile, "being killed is not widely considered a viable option."

And with another wink, Dillon dashed across the lawn, and pressed his back to the garage wall. Not one to be left behind, Howard rushed to join him, whilst I circuited the garage and landed on its roof in a single graceful bound. Feeling the irony of mounting an assault on my own home, I kicked out the long thin high window and dropped noiselessly onto the glass as Howard and Dillon vaulted in through the bigger, square window at the back.

Sam was just disappearing down the stairs into the basement, his arm casually locked around Libby's neck, dragging her behind him. Nell froze at the head of the stairs, like a rabbit mesmerized by a snake. Her head snapped from side to side, from Howard and Dillon to me, and past us to the two windows.

"Decisions decisions, Nell," I let the derision creep into my voice. I couldn't understand how she had lasted so long, to be honest, her father must have been a really weak vampire for her to have finished him off herself, though I now suspected that that had been a story all along and it had been Sam who had done that deed. Come to think of it I never had seen Nell take her prey down single handedly, she had always had help from that quarter. The question was, would her fear win out, or would she feel compelled to stay with Sam, her protector.

"He can't help you this time, Nell," I figured it couldn't hurt to try and tip the scales a little, "bigger fish to fry, and all that." I shrugged, to show the nonchalance we all wore so habitually. It was our badge of pride, our shared joke, the stoicism of accepting whatever shit life could throw at you, which came from the certainty of knowing, whatever it was, it was nothing compared to what we could throw back.

Not surprisingly, Nell couldn't share my nonchalance this time, and bolted past Dillon and Howard with little more than a backward hiss as she disappeared away from me through a window for the second time tonight, this time of her own volition.

"And then there was one." Howard nodded towards the basement where Sam lay in wait with whatever trap he had conjured up.

"Don't underestimate him, Howard." Surprisingly, it was Dillon who issued the warning, before I had the chance, and Dillon who led the way down the stairs.

I crossed the space at high speed, even for me, reaching the top of the stairs before my father, and blocking his path. We shared a brief, intense moment of unspoken love, before I broke the silence with a horse whisper. "Keep your head in there," I murmured, "she's going to need you."

I started the slow descent, but he grabbed my hand and gave it a quick squeeze, saying, "and I'm going to need you," before letting go and taking the first step himself.

Dillon had stopped a half dozen steps from the bottom and was looking into the gloom. None of us would have trouble with the lack of light down here, except Libby, and she was trembling with her eyes closed anyway, too petrified to want to see anything that might happen now. I felt a stab of pity for her, then a more forceful surge of anger rising for Sam.

"Ah ah aha," Sam wagged his finger from side to side as he adjusted his grip on Libby's neck, stifling the gasp she had taken between sobs as his hold on her loosened briefly. '"ou wouldn't want your mother to come to any harm, now would you, Maxi?" The sneer would have been enough to belie any perceived concern for her welfare, even if I hadn't been fully aware of what Sam had done to his own mother, torturing her and taunting her alongside his father, even though he had known she was an unwilling vessel, a slave to her vampiric master.

I suppressed the shudder that ran down my spine, and stepped down into the depths of the basement, taking a step towards Sam, my mentor, the oldest of our troop.

"That's quite far enough, thank you." Sam's deep throated growl threatened in a way Vinnie's had never managed to, three centuries worth of practice, I guess.

I paused, sensing Dillon and Howard pausing behind me, knowing instinctively that something was off, again. Why would Sam, a seasoned hunter, allow himself to be trapped in the lair like this? Was he so over confident? Of course, he would have expected Jax and Vinnie to be here, and Nell, to have the numbers on his side. But had he counted on Dillon?

As soon as I thought it, I felt the numbness take hold of me. I had counted on Dillon. The fear intensified, as I imagined what the plan must have been. Of course Dillon had known, though I still wasn't sure how. He must have taken that knowledge to Sam, or been caught out in it, it didn't really matter now, did it? Dillon had told Sam about Howard, Libby and me, living cozily together, playing happy families while I joined their murderous little party, cheerfully finishing off every other vampire to cross my path. Sam would obviously have declared me morally bankrupt, a hollow judgment coming from him, but one which carried the weight of law, unfortunately, and then the trap was laid. 

The whole point of cleansing the city had probably been to get at Howard and me.  The coven here hadn't exactly been vicious or over reaching, they certainly hadn't done anything to warrant the unprecedented carnage of the past week. Usually we just travelled the country keeping the peace, ridding the human population of the worst of their nightmares, preventing the balance from tipping over into utter chaos. The zero tolerance policy, I realised had been zero tolerance for me, the stop off here in my home town intended solely to force me to lead them to him, and it had, I realised with abject horror, worked. 

"Oh yes," Dillon's soothing voice was tinged now with a mixture of humor and disdain, "it worked all right. You should have seen her Sam," he added, a wistful note creeping in, "I think you can safely say we've unleashed the demon." 

And at that I knew where the source of my dread was, where the cold ball of fear in the pit of my stomach originated, and it was not in my own mind, any more than the wave of euphoria that had swept over me earlier had stemmed from me. I realised with a stony certainty the extent of Dillon's duplicity, how he had known about Howard and Libby, realised that even now, he was in my head, subtly and lightly, in a way I had not yet mastered, directing my thoughts and emotions.

"Get out, right now, or you're dead." I shot the thought at the stray wisp of consciousness, and was rewarded with the slightest startled movement from behind me, from Dillon. He was obviously surprised to be caught out.

"Steady Max, don't want to lose it all now, do we?'"The voice was as silky in my head as if he had spoken out loud, and I felt an urge rising in me to trust. Dillon was with us after all, this was just another part of the plan, to lull Sam into a false sense of security.

But I was wise to him now, could already tell the influence, and recognise the betrayal inherent in the words. It was me he was trying to lull. I was nothing, they had all always told me, if not a quick study. "Out, Dillon," I projected my focus back into his mind, felt him try to sever the link, and fail, and suddenly I was in his head, could feel his fear, his hatred, and his disappointment. 

"Shame," Dillon's real world voice sounded alien all of a sudden, hearing it through his own ears for the first time, as he spoke his parting words to Sam, "if she hadn't been so," he paused, searching for the right word, "attached to these two, we could have really done something with this one." 

The real shame, I mused briefly as I allowed the adrenaline to come now, feeling the changes in my body, and for the first time welcoming them, looking forward to the bloodbath that would surely follow, was that I hadn't done this long ago, hadn't let loose the demon, as Dillon had so aptly put it, and made the world a safer place for vampires.

Howard, fully mind linked, let a low chuckle escape him and said simply, "that's my girl."

We were back to back in the basement, for all intents and purposes cornered and undone, and yet I knew with absolute certainty that Sam's reign of madness would end here, tonight, that the dawn would see a world devoid of any kind of monster that could look at a vampire and see nothing more than food, the way vampires had once viewed humans.

Drawing all Dillon's strength and channeling it into Howard, before severing the link so that he could never reverse the process, I whispered, the lightest of whispers, that neither Sam nor Dillon would be able to strain to hear, "Ready?"

The reply was as soft, yet resolute "Ready."

And in unison, we sprang.