

Decayed World

Vampire Apocalypse

By

A. Blackwelder

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © A. Blackwelder 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Edited by Eloquent Enraptures

Copy edited by Ashley Egan, and Katherine Pine

Cover art by Eloquent Enraptures 2012

Graphic art by Angel Villacis Cusme

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

***

For more information on Ami and her books, please visit her website:

<http://www.amiblackwelder.blogspot.com/>

If you enjoy Decayed World, try She Speaks to Angels by A. Blackwelder

***

Big Thank you to my Peeps!

Alpha & Beta-Readers: Anne Clark, Kim Ingram-Deister, Linda Bass, Stacy Palacios, Natalie Cleary, Leilani Lopez, Latia, Terri Matlock, Michelle Luker, Halley Winchester, Ao Bibliophile, Ethan Jones, Silva.
Table of Contents

GLOSSARY

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

## Dedicated to my FANGED FANS!
Summary

Aura and Mark have to fight to stay alive in this vampire apocalypse set in the future. Having both come from families murdered by vampires, they have only each other until Aura finds a group of scientists hiding underground. Together, they forge a union that leads them to dark secrets and survival.
GLOSSARY

Born Vamps: Vamps born with the mutated vamp gene.

Cavern Vamps: Younger vamps typically living in the caverns.

Century Vampires: The general term used for all vamps born or turned during the period between 2025-2125, when they began breeding.

Coven: The general term for all vampires who submit to the vampire king.

Sanctuary Vamps: Vampires who protect the king and live among him in luxury. Made up of mature vamps and chosen young vamps. The prince and all royal blood.

Turned Vamps: Vampires who have been turned from human to vampire by the process of being bitten by a vampire and then released. The poisonous venom then surges through the human's veins, transforming him.

Vamp Repellant: A fluid used to keep vampires from smelling humans.

Vamp Suppressant: A serum used to suppress the vampire venom within a human.
Chapter 1

"Move your ass Mark!" Aura shouted from the mouth of the cave, where the rocks ended and the forest began–well, what was left of the forest after the constant brush-fires of a world gone awry.

"Just one more bomb. Those bastards are going to have a real awakening." Mark slammed his last homemade explosive against the cave wall. Searching the walls with his vigilant eyes one last time, he took note of the wrinkled skin hanging from the ceiling.

Like bats, the human vampires hung with feet clinging to the crevices. Their decrepit arms criss-crossed their chests, rejuvenating themselves. Well, that was what the humans called it, but how did they stick to the cave ceilings? Some humans speculated that vampire blood secreted some kind of sap through the pores of their skin. Others figured it was just pure evil that held them there.

"Let's go!" Aura shouted. Mark had a way of pushing himself to the edge. Aura wanted to make sure he didn't fall over it.

"One minute!" Mark yelled, staring at the cave walls. Aura watched his dark copper-brown, wavy hair move like the tide over his face as he just stood there.

Standing on the border between the outside world and the dark cavern, Mark wanted nothing more than to watch those blood-thirsty beasts burst all over the damp walls. Here inside this cave before midnight they looked like the monsters they were, the creatures that sucked the life from his sister Laura, the vamps that decapitated his parents. Vampires didn't appear beautiful until they turned and grew fangs at midnight. Then the deathly hallow their human bodies had become grew into something almost celestial and hypnotic-like, with unparalleled strength surging through their veins.

"We are running out of time! The vamps will be hunting soon!" Aura urged.

But Mark stood frozen, green eyes fixed on the bloodsuckers, his memory spinning. Aura dug her fingers and nails into his shoulders and spun him around to face her. "We're going now!" Aura's face filled with a hot red color, and after she shook him once he returned to her.

"I'm here, I'm going." He lunged away from the cave and grabbed Aura's palm in his. Racing across the fire beaten terrain, they had never moved faster. Wind hit their faces in a rush and their feet sunk into the soggy mud with each step forward.

Pop, Pop, Pop...Within seconds the cave imploded and went ablaze.

Bits of vamp flesh burned as it spattered across the barren forest. An arm limb nearly hit Mark in the head. The entire mission took nearly an hour to complete, the explosion just under a minute. The cave became rubble and debris shot everywhere.

"Won't be seeing those bloodsuckers again." Mark sounded proud, beads of sweat dripping down his cheeks.

"We still have to make it back to O-Tech-1." O-Tech-1 was code name for the basement of the abandoned church in Manhattan.

Aura tightened her grip on Mark's hand. "And you know a few of those mature vamps will be out hunting. Six to midnight is still not safe." Aura emphasized that point often. Mark may not mind missions from dusk to dark. Most vamps still needed rejuvenation then, but Aura didn't trust the dark. Vamp or no, the dark could be dangerous.

Besides she smelled the scent of something...someone following them for miles now. Someone familiar.
Chapter 2

"We'd better shake whatever is behind us before O-Tech-1. We don't want to lead him...it to our hideout." Aura slowed to a stop and bent down next to a tree. Only one of a few that they passed. Tying her shoelaces over her torn sneakers, Mark leaned over her with one hand on the tree trunk and one hand on her shoulder.

He whispered, "Someone behind us?" Aura nodded. "Ready for a fight?" Chills rushed down his spine as he glanced at Aura; she always appeared so fragile to him. Small bones, thin cheeks, tiny feet. He worried one day a vampire would get the better of her. Yet as dainty as she appeared on the outside, in the two years they had known each other, ran side-by-side together chasing and fleeing from vamps, Aura never once fought like she had a delicate bone in her body. Instead she fought like a warrior, feisty and brutal. As soft as she could be with him, she never once showed the bloodsuckers any mercy. She could be hard when she needed to be, and she needed to be now.

Twin vampires dove like vultures over the tree as they landed on Mark and Aura. Meeting their prey with such precision, they could have been gymnasts.

Two lean, but strong, pale bodies fought with Mark and Aura in the dark under a sliver of moon. Aura didn't have time to admire Mark's robust frame, chiseled features and rounded arms. She had to keep focused on the bloodsucker trying to rip off her head. Vamps enjoyed that, sometimes more than sucking blood.

Mark dug his hand into his back pocket and pulled out a sharp switchblade. The click of the blade unlatching diverted both Aura and her enemy's attention for a quick second, then they resumed fighting. Rolling over the mud. Digging nails into each other. Aura's beast opened his mouth and intense fangs spread over Aura's stoic expression. She didn't wear her feelings. She had become brilliant at hiding them over the years.

The hiss accompanying the tooth-to-chin fangs forced Aura to push her hand onto the creature's nose. She had to keep the fangs from entering her chalk-white skin, from squirting its venom inside her veins, from draining all of her blood. Saliva dripped from the monster's fangs and slid down Aura's reddening cheeks before the putrid smelling fluid slipped over her lips. She spit to keep it away from her.

Gagging, Aura spat upon the vamp just before he slapped her across the face. Leaving a hand print on her cheek, the saliva slid down her chin and onto the ground beneath her. Her back pressed against the soil hard. The vamp didn't give her an inch to move. His two legs teetered on either side of her, his knees kicked into her ribs. His arms braced him above her as his fangs dripped of desire–desire for her blood, for her death.

Aura could smell this desire as much as she could smell his rotting flesh. He might have looked pristine, but the decaying human form underneath the perfect vampire skin she knew to be an illusion. She had seen too many of these things not to know better.

"You're not taking me you bloodsucker!" Aura kicked her legs, her knees hitting his back.

Hissing, the creature forced more saliva to drip from its fangs.

From six in the morning until six at night, these creatures of the darkness kept hidden within their human host. Only from six at night to six in the morning did these creatures reveal their true monstrous forms, where the beast finally clawed its way out.

"Damn you!" Aura clawed her nails into his face, ripping skin from his cheek. He moaned in anguish as venom slid down the sides of his chin. He jerked away from her.

"No, Damn You!"

She dodged as he threw his fangs toward her chest.

"AHHHH!" Aura shouted, kicking repeatedly, as she finally threw the vamp off of her. Jumping to her feet, she spun around in a well-trained roundhouse kick and knocked her foot hard into the creature's chin. Slamming him backward, the vamp hit his back into the tree.

Glancing up, she saw Mark and his opponent both in a choke hold. Each had their strong hands around the other's open neck, Mark thrusting left and his enemy thrusting right. Mark stepped forward and his creature stepped backward, a deadly tango.

"Look out!" Aura shouted to Mark as her vamp lunged for him from behind. Busy with the twin, Mark momentarily jerked his head around toward the oncoming vamp savage. The opening allowed his vampire to dive fangs at Mark's open neck. Aura sprinted.

Clawing her hands over her vamps back, Aura yanked him backward. Stumbling, the vampire fell upon the soil. Aura hit her foot over his neck, and twisted. Crunch. The red eyes dimmed until they finally died.

But as Aura stared into the red-eyes she couldn't help but be drawn back into her past, into a life she wasn't sure she wanted returned, but also a life she felt she lost too soon.

Her mother stood over her five-year-old frame, crying and yelling. She could never decide which. Life was only ever a torture or a fight for Aura's mother—for everyone. Growing up with a father didn't help. She often wondered what her father looked like—blue eyes like hers? Maybe she'd never know.

When her mother's sobs and screams finally ceased, Aura found herself in a pool of her own pee, too terrified to move.
Chapter 3

Myths of these night creatures circulated since 2042 when the first recorded human was killed and the culprit found to be a teenage vamp. The biggest myth, about keeping their identity secret, became laughable now. These vampires had only one rule: there were no rules. They wanted the Earth for their own and did anything to acquire it. Humans became expendable as food, and the human population dwindled year after year.

Hiss. Hiss. The remaining vamp pressed his fangs inches from Mark's neck before Aura jumped at the vampire's side with a kick. Hitting the beast away from Mark freed him long enough to step away from the attack. Aura lunged at the savage again with long fingernails aimed at his eyes.

"Damn Aura, I got this one!" Mark shouted, his shirt in a vamp-ripped tatter.

But she didn't hear him, or perhaps just didn't pay attention. Still with a stoic expression, nothing revealing fear or hate, Aura pierced her nails into the vamp's dark blood-red eyes and blinded him. The savage squirmed with flaying arms for seconds, before following his sense of smell toward human blood.

His nose twitched in the direction of Aura while Mark baited the vamp. Picking up his switchblade that he dropped in his fight, he used it to break skin on his forearm and played with the draining blood with his pinky finger. Blood Tease. The vamp couldn't resist, his nose jerking from Aura and aiming directly for Mark.

Aura had the perfect position, a vamp blinded and entranced by blood. The vamp back turned to her. Her merciless foot hammered into his back and knocked the vamp to his stomach. Then her foot twisted over his neck in a loud crack. His red eyes turned pale like his skin.

"Two dead. Only a world left to go," Mark joked with a wink.

Aura waved at him to hurry. "We have to get going. We are not safe until we've hit O-Tech-1."

"Not safe anywhere anymore. The entire world is plagued by these things," Mark added. His face grew serious as he followed Aura home.

Following her became his life-line. A reason to live, a reason to fight. Before he found Aura, he wished he'd died a thousand times and attempted suicide several more. Leaping into vamp battles, he always figured it'd be his last, but it never was. Fate had other plans, he guessed. Still, that didn't sooth the guilt of losing his family, the tormenting images that played with his mind every night as he tried to sleep. He could never rid himself of them, not unless he ended his own life. Aura made sure he didn't.
Chapter 4

"Mark! Hurry up!" Aura couldn't shake the feeling that they were still being followed.

"Wait up!" Mark shouted from behind her. Her form looked so frail, and yet so strong. Her back arched, curved like a branch as her head swayed side to side. Tiny feet glided her across the moist soil. Grass patches appeared sporadically. Burnt trees reminded them they lived in the land of the dead.

Mark scurried across the ground like a jackrabbit, but still not fast enough to catch up to Aura. With her tiny frame, she could duck and jump through the burnt foliage faster than he could. Her hair bobbed up and down with each jagged move. In ripped pants, he would be sure to brag about the fight later. He always felt proud of his vamp ventures whenever he won, and he wasn't dead. Yet.

"Why are you moving so fast?!" Mark yelled, heaving just a bit, but he wouldn't let Aura see him tired. Hell, if she could do it so could he.

"Have to keep moving. Can't let the vamps catch us. Not home yet." She said these words like a mantra, one she knew too well.

A dark moon hung above and a charcoaled environment surrounded them. Owls could be heard in the distance giving a whoo-whoo. Crickets could be heard rubbing their legs together as frogs croaked. Nothing but the sounds of nature; Aura and Mark.

Her tight pants clung to her sprinting legs; she could be a gymnast. Diving under a low branch, she did a somersault until she reached the other side and then jumped. Knees bent slightly, her feet hit the ground with a thud. She moved again. Even the wind couldn't keep up with her.

"Slow down A!" Mark called to her. A for Aura. He used that choice letter whenever he really wanted her attention.

"You speed up." Aura jerked her head back for a second only to tell him those three words. Then, she raced forward.

Aura stopped in the middle of the degrading forest. Mark stumbled toward her with an open jaw.

"What?" He breathed heavy as he stood still in front of her. Finally, a rest. He almost didn't want to ask.

Her nose twitched left and the right. She licked her crimson lips and then stared at Mark. "Don't you smell him?"

"Who? Another one?"

"Yes." She tossed her head around as her nose twitched again. "I can smell him, as well as I smell you. Someone, something familiar."

"I don't smell anything. But you are usually right about these things. I'm going to trust your instincts on this one."

Frozen in memory, Aura's stare oscillated between Mark and some unknown distance. "Let's go." Mark yanked her back to the present and pushed her forward.

Aura resumed the lead position, just like always. As the faster of the two of them she was able to tell when one of those things was close before Mark could detect it. Mark loved her for that. She had a kind of sixth-sense.
Chapter 5

As Aura jumped over broken branches on the ground, Mark tripped and fell, his face inches from the dirt. With hands pressed into the soil, he surveyed his area quickly. Suddenly, a dark shadow lurking behind a bush leapt on top of him. It appeared flying through the air, but with such grace. Could have been angelic–if it had not been a beast.

Hitting Mark's back, the dark shadow clawed at the human skin before fixing his attention to the brave young woman approaching him. Aura stood fixed in her stance, her eyes set on the enemy. In seconds, the shadow crawled out of the darkness of the night.When a hint of light from moon shone over him, Aura could finally see his vamp features. Two fangs protruded from its mouth. Drips of saliva met with his chin before he spoke.

"I've been looking for you." The vamp said.

Those five words spun Aura on her axis. Her world circled out of control. Its scent pushed into her nostrils and triggered memories she had long forgotten, long repressed. As she battled with the past, Mark shook his back and then flung over, tumbling the lone vamp to the ground beside him.

"Got this!" Mark assured and threw his heavy foot onto the vamp's bare chest. In only a pair of jeans, the lone vamp growled and hissed before tossing back and forth. Loosening Mark's hold, the vamp's fangs aimed for Mark's neck, a favorite spot of vamps, before the fangs hit his skin though. Aura kicked the monster in his side, and with a loud ARGH the beast lost his focus and spun his head toward Aura.

"I'll forgive you for that, because you don't know what you do!" The vampire's expression twisted in pain, as Mark jumped to his feet. Standing beside Aura, it growled like a grizzly bear. Its mouth opened so wide neither could see anything but its fangs.

Nudging Aura, Mark wanted to get out of there. He'd never seen the likes of a vamp quite like this one. Somehow it seemed stronger and more determined than the others, and he doubted if either he or Aura would be able kill the beast.

"Let's go!"

Aura shook her head, breaking the fix she had on the night creature. A fix of curiosity? A fix on the kill? A fix on her memory? She couldn't be sure, but she trusted Mark, and if he wanted to run she would run too.

Grabbing her arm, Mark rushed forward, past a few twisted trees and even a swarm of bees. She stayed at his side with ease. Side by side, the two of them fled, neither sure if they would make it to O-Tech-1 before they met up with that lone vamp again.

Both could hear the pounding thud-thud-thud of the vamp's feet behind them. The wet ground kept covert runs near impossible, but now they both were glad for the moisture, it would assure them both of the whereabouts of that vampire.

"How are we going to get to O-Tech-1 without it following us inside?" Mark yelled in his run, breaths taken between each word.

"Just follow my lead. I'll figure something out." Aura darted right and headed toward the Hudson River.

"The Hudson?" Mark questioned with a quirked brow. But Aura kept quiet. No time for chit-chat.

Mark glanced back once and saw the lean legs of the vampire closing in on the two of them. It would be jumping them in minutes if something wasn't done...and soon

Chapter 6

Crash! "This way!" Aura screamed with a turned head. The sight of the vampire on top of Mark had jolted and unnerved her. She could die at the fangs of a vamp, but she wouldn't let those bastards take Mark, the one man loyal to her. Bumping into him in the woods two years ago gave her something to hope for again. Not everyone had fallen victim to either becoming a vampire or a vampire's dinner.

Mark was different from anyone Aura had ever met. Copper-black hair reminded her of the moon at twilight, light trying to fight through the darkness. Mossy-green eyes reminded her of the forests that once existed before all the destruction. He had scars—physical and emotional, like her. She remembered when he first told her about his family. Sitting on their sofa in their bunker, AKA: O-Tech-1, he finally opened up. It took him a whole year of knowing her. He didn't trust easily; neither did she.

In the middle of the night when the savage lurked far away outside the facility, he told her his story. Mother and Father had been resting in their bed when the vampires attacked. Time: twelve midnight. The most frequent time for human deaths, when the vampires are most active and alive. They heard the monsters coming, and Mark stood in the closet paralyzed and watched the whole thing. He was only ten. Mother hid him in there and warned him to not come out for anything. She made him repeat it. 'For Anything!'

He couldn't break his promise.

His parents died fast. At that time at least it seemed the vampires had some sense of mercy. They'd kill fast and before drinking blood. Nowadays, they do neither, as if all the humanity they once had—when they once turned—has vanished. Five years later the demons lost any of the qualities they once possessed when human. Years later, they chased his older sister—who was at a friend's house the night of their parent's murder—down an empty alley and surrounded her. Tearing off her limbs one by one, Mark hung off a wall hook helpless, which the largest vamps had swung him onto. The vamp wanted him to watch, sadistic things. When the murder ended, they left Mark there, just hanging. He imagined they wanted to kill him too, but after the call of what sounded like an eerie horn, they all dispersed. Their leader calling them, perhaps? Mark never knew. The timing saved his life, but the deaths of his family changed him forever.

"Over here Mark!" Aura waved him to the Hudson River. The water sped through the riverbank in chaotic waves.

As the vampire dove at Mark, Mark leapt into Aura's arms and she pulled him as she flung herself into the river. Swooshing down the river at high speeds, the two bodies bobbed as they grew further and further away from the night demon.

With gulps of water in and out of his mouth, Mark spoke. "Why'd we do that?"

"Vamps can't smell us in water. We can lose him this way."

"How'd you learn that?"

She shrugged as water lapped over her shoulder. She always knew things she shouldn't. Things other humans didn't know. Mark tingled with goosebumps from the coldness of the river as they washed ashore on the other side, many blocks from where they started.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mark saw the dark shadow in the distance racing along the side of the Hudson. They weren't clear yet. "We'd better get going. That thing is catching up to us fast." Mark pointed.

Aura's fingernails scratched into the side of the bank as she pulled herself up. Drips of water slid down her thighs. Her hair sat drenched over her back. Mark smiled, staring at her soaked body, her wet clothes emphasizing her feminine curves underneath. Her crystal blue eyes never looked more beautiful.

"Come on." Aura's lips curled, longing for a kiss. But kisses came far and few between in these apocalyptic times. "Up the tree."
Chapter 7

Aura motioned with her eyes at the tree to their left and the low branch gave ample opportunity for Mark to climb. In a minute, both of them scaled the trunk and found a spot to hide. A twig stuck into Mark's side, but he kept his mouth shut. The vamp would be by soon.

Searching the ground for the two humans, the vampire walked along the Hudson on the other side of the bank within Mark's and Aura's vantage point. Pacing back and forth, he searched for footprints and then for a way to cross the river. His eyes turned bright-red as he focused on the other side of the bank.

Leaping, he landed onto the other side of the river in one movement. Thud! Mark's eyes widened. He'd never seen a vamp jump that far before. The vamp paced in front of the tree, noticing the footprints leading into the grass and vanishing. The grass acted like a mat against human feet. Aura hoped the vamp would consider that they just ran off into the woods. God forbid it look up and examine the tree.

Keeping quiet, Aura bit her lip. Her instinct was to fight, to tear that thing into shreds, but she had to be careful with this one. Something about him was too familiar, too dangerous. She had to know more about him before taking him on herself.

Mark had to sneeze and held his nose with his fingers. Aura's eyes opened big on him and her lips pursed. Shaking her head she conveyed her emphatic desire for Mark to keep quiet with a wrinkled forehead. How could they defeat a vampire with this kind of power?

The vampire thrust back and forth under the tree, carefully smelling the air for any whiff of direction to go, but the air remained empty of scent. Without clear aim, the vamp took off north and finally disappeared in the distance of the night.

"That was close." Mark whispered.

"Too close."

"What was that? Couldn't be just a vampire, could it?" Mark questioned as he slid down the trunk, one leg on the bark and the other rubbing against Aura. She felt warm. Comfortable.

"I don't know." She didn't want to say what she felt about the vamp. She couldn't be sure what she felt, what she knew.

Jumping down the tree, she met Mark at his side and the two took off south in the direction of their hideaway.

"How did you find this place again?" Mark probed. He didn't know as much as he would have liked about his comrade Aura. She kept more secrets than she revealed.

"Been there three years." Aura answered short. Mark added the time in his mind, one more year than she knew him. "Some friends lived underground and they showed me around town. The Catholic Church had been attacked by vamps. The members never returned, leaving an abandoned building for anyone to find refuge."

Aura raced out of the grass and onto broken pavement.

"Almost there." Mark sighed with relief. Seeing what had become his home for the past two years made him feel at ease, as if somehow everything would be fine...someday.

"And then I did." Aura winked as she turned a corner and Mark followed at her side.

Dry now, they looked like the living dead. Mud caked onto their kneecaps and elbows. Scrapes and bruises began to show under the few street lights still working. Ripped clothes needed to be changed; tangled hair, brushed. As they approached O-Tech-1, the automatic bells rang twelve times.
Chapter 8

Slipping inside the building, Mark sealed the door behind them with a steel bar across the door and releases a deep sigh of breath. O-Tech-1 gave them a chance to live, not that he wanted to before he meat Aura. Aura used her bucket filled with god-knows-what to pour, with a sponge, some unknown fluid around the edges of the door and windows. The smell stank like rotting eggs, but it kept the vamps out.

Mark asked once how she discovered it. Aura told him about the friends she met three years ago underground. A rebellious band of scientists. They found a chemical that washed away human scent and emanated a stink to repel vamps, much like repellent used to keep mosquitoes away.

For three years it worked for her. She just turned twenty-one, and lived three years with friends. Before that she lived on her own, since her mother died when she was just ten. She lived in the sewer and abandoned buildings to avoid them—the vamps. They were everywhere by then, had been since she was born.

"Come on back, we're safe now." Mark laid his palm over her shoulder from behind her. The corridor near the front door to the chapel area reeked of that fluid from the bucket and Mark wanted to get as far away from the door as possible. He hated the sound of vamp roaming the city at night, the scratches on the walls, screeches echoing in the streets.

"Yeah, I'll be right there." Aura poured the fluid by the last wooden window and then followed Mark into the large room. Marble walls surrounded them with a few colorfully stained glass windows spread throughout the chapel, windows that no longer existed because of the wood jammed over them. Previous owners didn't keep the vamps out very well and when Aura arrived three years ago, two of the windows had been smashed open. She sealed them up right away.

Plopping onto the beige sofa against one wall, Mark threw his neck back and sighed. His eyes met the ceiling with a single chandelier. Aura weaved through the chapel benches and then slipped in beside him.

"I know. It's always a relief to get back here." Her crystal-blue eyes reminded Mark of ocean waves at night under the darkness of this room. Their whispers hit the walls and bounced around the empty chapel.

Curling into himself, Mark rubbed his dirt-clad knees and hit his sneakers against the floor. Clumps of soil fell out of the grooves. "I'm going to fill our bags." He headed to the bench on the other wall, across from the sofa, and pulled out two backpacks from underneath.

"Are they empty?" Aura pulled her long, straggly hair behind her ears.

"Just about. Our last trip to the decayed world used up nearly all our goods."

When Mark said decayed he meant it in every sense of the word. The entire world was dying because of the vampires. The vamps declared war on the humans, a battle they were winning. No one was even sure just how vamps were created or born, they just started springing up—everywhere. At first they only destroyed electricity, computers, and transportation. But then they killed the military, soldiers and police enforcement. Bloodbaths everywhere. Some vampires died, but mostly human casualties. Civilians sensed they would be next.

Mark carried both bags across the chapel floor toward the front where a statue of Jesus on the cross stood. He took a moment to breathe and closed his eyes as he remembered going to church with his mother. It had been daylight and the church was empty. His mother rubbed her crucifix so much that indentations started to crease her hands. He knelt on one knee and said a silent prayer. Mark understood the plight before him.

Humans meant one thing: food.

Blood-farms, as humans called them, started forming in 2072, or thirty years after the first vamp sighting. Thirty years later in 2102, the blood-farms started again. Each time the vamps farmed humans, they would go out with nets and catch thousands. This happened everywhere in the world. Imprisoned humans would be taken to what the elite vamps called sanctuaries, and their bodies stored in near freezing temperatures for later consumption. The next blood-farming would begin in 2132. Humans knew what would be coming, thousands would be missing, lives stripped by darkness, coldness, and then death. Human retaliation became futile. Most remaining humans hid to survive. If they didn't hide, the roaming vampires would snatch them at night to never be seen again. Defeating the vampires didn't seem like much of an option.

When Mark rose from his prayer he walked behind the statue where he rustled with a large cardboard box. Pulling out a few batteries, he replaced the old batteries in two flashlights and returned them to the backpacks. Then, he emptied a bottle of liquid into two spray cans and placed the sprayers into the two bags. "Hate that smell." His nose twitched.

"Yeah, but it keeps the vamps away." Aura uncrossed her legs and flung her head back, her dark hair draping over the sofa arm.

Mark threw a few match boxes and knives into the bags and then shook his head. "Damn it."

"What?"

"We're just about out of everything. This is it."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope." Mark flung the back packs over his shoulder and strolled through the benches until he reached Aura. Tossing the bags next to the sofa, he lifted his empty hands to her and stared into her in a way that told her he had something important to say.

"Again, what?" Her eyes batted a bit agitated. She didn't like surprises.
Chapter 9

"I just...I just wanted to say I would have never survived if not for you. I mean, you have given me a reason to stay alive. You've made me want to fight these bastards."

Aura's face softened. Mark didn't get all gushy often, but their situation weighed on him. Few humans remained. They would soon be without supplies. Food would not last much longer. Something would have to change.

"You've given me a reason too." And he had, more than he would ever know. Mark slipped his leg beside her, knee in the crease of the sofa. His expression drew closer and closer until she felt his breath on her white skin and then he fixed his eyes on hers.

"I mean it." Mark didn't blink. His mossy eyes looked more brown in the lack of light. "I was at my wits end when I bumped into you in the forest two years ago. If I had not found you, I'd—" His gaze met with the floor in hints of shame, "—I'd be lying at the bottom of the Hudson. I thought about drowning myself for a long time after my sister was killed."

Resting her hand on his legs, Aura rubbed them while she spoke. "I never told you this, anyone this."

Mark's ears perked.

"Five years ago, I lost everything." Aura took a deep breath as a single tear dropped from her eyelid. "The vampires found my family. We hid in a cabin in the woods. We'd been safe for awhile and thought maybe we'd make it and then a group of them attacked us at midnight. We were all sleeping. My mother's screams tore me from my bed and down the hall. I stopped at her door just as they ripped off Mom's head. I could do nothing but stand still, frozen. Useless. Then, my brother tugged at me from behind and pulled me away from the gruesome scene, but I could never forget the images."

Mark couldn't take his eyes away from her.

"I found myself standing in the middle of the kitchen somehow, with a knife in my hands as another vampire dug its claws into my brother's shoulders from behind him. The vampire dragged him away from me. All I remember are his petrified screams as it pulled him outside the house. It was so dark. So cold. I was so alone."

Her head fell to her chest and then Mark stroked her cheek with his pinky. "You did everything you could. You were just a child."

"I try to tell myself that, but they died. I lived. Why?"

"What about your father?"

"He left when I was very young, too young to remember him. God only knows where he is now, dead somewhere. Vamps surely devoured him, wherever he ended up."

"You never saw your brother again?"

"No."

"What was his name?"

"Alexander." Aura glanced at the floor. "I made a grave for Mom in the morning and an empty grave for Alexander. I figured I'd never find his body. I placed crosses at the head of each grave and set stones around them."

"Where?"

"In the backyard of our house."

"Is the house still there?"

"I've never been back to know."
Chapter 10

Aura curled up against Mark as a chilly breeze rushed past them. Mark's arm hairs stood on end. "What did you do after they took your brother?"

"I remember standing in the kitchen in shock before a stray cat knocked into the kitchen window and startled me. The house grew so quiet. Mom lay in a pool of blood in her bedroom and Alexander had vanished. I kept waiting, thinking they'd come back for me...but they never did." Aura wiped the tears in her reddening eyes. "By morning, I buried Mom and decided to leave the house. I never looked back."

"I'm so sorry." Mark's sincere expression kept Aura close. True friends were near impossible to find these days. She'd never opened up to anyone. No one hung around long enough. A best friend one day would throw you to the vamps the next to save her own life. Many friends simply disappeared or died.

"Not your fault. Anyway, I'm sure you've lost your share of loved ones." Aura batted her lashes until the tears dried and then toughened her disposition with a backward roll of shoulders and a puff of the chest. She didn't like feeling vulnerable.

"Still, every loss is one too many." Mark rubbed her shoulder before caressing her neck.

"Yes, too many."

"What are we going to do tomorrow?"

"I'd like to visit the underground band."

"The scientists?" Mark's eyes widened. "We haven't seen them in months."

"Need more repellant to keep the vamps out, you said." Aura comments.

"Yep." Mark replied.

Aura looked scared. She never looked scared.

Mark continued. "Figures. We're out of everything."

"Not everything." Aura's soft lips puckered on Mark's chin. Course stubble met her cheek as she brushed up along his cheekbone. Her plump lips kissed his heavy eyes and then his chapped lips. Mark needed a moment of solace and closed his eyes as his fingers found her supple breasts. The thin bra strap needed only a tug to loosen. Her gentle hands moved over his chiseled chest and lingered there. She enjoyed playing with his dark chest hairs. When his toned leg swung over her womanly shape, she finally closed her eyes. Staying alive meant staying fit. Minutes became hours as the heat of two bodies colliding kept them warm.

Afterward, they fell asleep in each other's arms. Mark lay his back against the sofa while Aura lay in his welcoming chest. His arms cradled her and she never felt safer. Her blouse hung over the sofa's arm and Mark's pants decorated the floor. The room sat silent for hours.

At about two in the morning, deafening screeches of vamps reverberated around the stained glass windows. Jerking upward, both Aura and Mark scanned the room before eyeing the windows and then each other.

"Are they inside?" Mark whispered.

"No, I don't think so." Aura shook her head. "On the street."

Claws scratched the exterior wall of the church while human screams tortured Mark's eardrums. More death. Mark didn't know what was worse, the screams of victims or the harsh, meaningless noise from the vamps.

"Too close." He grabbed the shotgun lying behind the sofa and set it on the sofa arm. Then cocked it. Nightmares invaded his space, the kind he could never free himself from entirely. Instead of sleeping, his mind dwelled on the bloody images of his family when they were murdered by vamps. He tried not too, but the night hours always drew them up close and center.

Chapter 11

Aura shivered and Mark focused his barrel at the stained glass windows, following the deafening cries of the monsters. First window, the one with the angel; then the one with the cross; then finally the one with the disciples. The gorgeous design couldn't be seen, of course, behind all the wood nailed to the walls and windows, but Mark knew the church inside and out.

"I won't let them come in," Mark reassured her and Aura closed her eyes. She could see the bloody fangs at her mother's throat as the past circled in her mind. If she could have only saved her? If she'd only been strong enough?

Eeeechchch! The vibrating voices of the vamps reverberated against the church walls on the street. A loud thud against the wall and then a human scream crawled inside her ears like death. Aura opened her eyes in an instant, leaving the past behind, she had to stay in the present.

"Stay close to me," Mark assured her and tugged on Aura's shoulder to pull her behind him. After all, he had the shotgun. The screams slowly faded and then so did the screeches from the monsters. Suddenly, only silence remained. Yet maybe the silence was worse? At least with the noise they knew where to find the vampires. Now, the vamps could be anywhere.

Lowering his shotgun, Mark drew Aura close into his chest, his beating heart throbbing into her ear, her sweat smelling like the sweetest perfume. Mark would always be there for her. He held her tight as they cuddled in the night, trying to ignore the nightmare minutes ago. A nightmare that at any moment could break through their bolted doors.

Mark felt Aura's body temperature drop. She grew colder every minute. Shivering, her lips appeared purple before Mark decided to wrap her in the thick blanket from beside the sofa.

"You're freezing Aura." Mark commented as he tossed the blanket over her.

"I'm just scared with the vampires so close." She shrugged.

"No, they're close every other day. Besides, you don't get scared. You're sick, Aura. Something is wrong."

"It's nothing. We'll see the scientists tomorrow and I'll get medicine then. I'll be fine. Go back to sleep."

"Can't sleep through all this." Mark grunted as Aura pulled the blanket over her shoulders. Pacing, Mark had a hundred thoughts racing through his mind. Where would they get more supplies? More food? More weapons? How would he keep Aura safe? How sick was she? Could he even trust the underground band of scientists? He'd only met them a couple times and Simpson rubbed him the wrong way. The red-headed freckled man seemed to be hiding something and Mark hated secrets.

"Sleep. You need your rest." Aura peeked out from under her blanket. With sleep weighing on her eyelids, Aura's lips purpled darker.

"You go ahead. You need it. I can't. I have to keep watch." Mark shook off the tension growing in his arms and then clutched the gun. Walking to the sofa, he sat on the edge and patted Aura's legs. "I have to keep watch." His eyes became mesmerized over the boarded up windows. Who had the monsters killed? Would the bloodless body be there in the morning? These questions entered Mark's mind every week, because no matter where they hid, he could never get away from the torment; monsters had become the world.

When he was just five, he remembered his parents throwing him and his sister into the back of a station wagon, one of few still working. They family hauled it across state to another location, because where they hid had become too overrun with vamps. Humans couldn't stay in one place too long, not if they wanted to survive.
Chapter 12

Flinging herself up from the sofa, Aura's body felt saturated with sweat. Searching the room, she didn't see Mark. Combing her long, dark hair with her fingers, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail and tied it with the rubber band from her pocket. She dabbed her damp neck with the blanket. "I went into a fever last night," She spoke to herself and rolled up her arm sleeves. Her skin looked deathly pale, like chalk. "God, I have to get to Simpson soon."

Folding up the blanket, Aura tossed it beside the sofa and then followed her nose. Smelled like fresh eggs in the kitchen. Swinging the kitchen door open, she saw Mark standing over the stove. Two burners didn't work and one heated too fast. The last burner worked well enough. With a pan on the stove and several eggs inside of it, Aura leaned over Mark's shoulder and took in a deep whiff.

"God, that smells great."

"It better. It's the last of the eggs."

"Damn, my favorite breakfast gone."

"We'll figure something out." Mark mixed the eggs with the broken wooden spatula and then scooped some up for each plate. After turning off the stove, he turned around to serve but then froze. "You don't look good, Aura." She grabbed the plate from his hands and scarfed down the eggs. "I mean you really look sick." Her face resembled the color of egg shells and her eyes shone orange-red. Her hands trembled.

"I'm fine. We're going to the scientists today. They'll fix me up something."

"But..."

"Hurry up and eat. I don't want to miss them."

Six am to six pm: moderately safe for all humans. The sun rose in the distance as Aura and Mark stepped onto the streets. A few bloodless human bodies lay decapitated on the sidewalks. One lay near the church door. Aura walked over it without looking down; she couldn't afford to care. Though dawn and threads of sunlight bled over the city, there still sat a thick mist low to the ground that never quite disappeared...ever. It was like the Earth felt the pangs of the vampires and, since their arrival, it had never been quite the same.

"Why the beheadings?" Mark shook his head as he followed Aura at her side. He only needed to keep up, but she could move fast.

"Once they suck the blood from the body, they like to keep the head."

"But why?" Mark asked in a rhetorical way. No one really knew.

"The brains. They like to eat the brains."

"Disgusting. How do you know this?"

"I've seen it." Aura's skin tingled and her head ducked low.

"Sorry," Mark consoled. "No one should ever have to witness something like that."

Aura stayed silent with her focus on the scientists.

Buildings used to be pristine and the town boisterous with the noise of bustling people and traffic jams. But now, since the time of the vampires, the city sat dead. Buildings looked rundown; doors and windows barely hung properly or sat broken. Cars remained motionless on the streets and parking lots for years, untouched. Many trucks had fumes spiraling out of them or hoods turned up. Gas stations didn't have fuel and most vehicles couldn't be gassed up even if they functioned.

Wherever Aura and Mark traveled, the ominous world would always be there. They could never get away from it. Adapt and survive is the best they could hope for, but at least they had each other. That was more than most humans had nowadays.
Chapter 13

Most of the city stayed quiet, even though the sun rose over the horizon, which meant the vampires would be tucked away in their caverns. Noise was a luxury humans could not afford anymore. No one wanted to take the risk. The few humans who still survived made the most of the sunlight hours before six at night hit. Some gathered goods. Others socialized in dusty corners of the streets. Many just wanted to be outside and feel the fresh air because for twelve hours straight every night they were generally stuck inside whatever shelter they had formed...that is, unless one of the vamps found them.

"Isn't it somewhere around here?" Mark questioned as they skirted around the bend.

"Just up here." Aura pointed to a subway station.

Ducking into the station, they darted down the steps and followed the yellow lines up to where the subway tracks began. The subway tunnel continued for miles, but they could only see the first couple of blocks where the subway train would take off and eventually disappear.

"Too bad these things aren't operational anymore," Mark commented and batted a few flies away from his face.

"They just need some juice and someone to operate them." Aura sounded optimistic though her appearance had gone from white to some kind of custard coloring.

"We need to get you to the Underground and fast. You look like you're gonna faint." Mark worried and placed his hand over her cheek. "You're so cold."

"I feel cold, but we're almost there." Aura pointed down the tracks and hopped over the safety bar in one sure leap. "Come on."

Mark leapt over the bar with one hand on the metal and followed along. Aura's ponytail swayed back and forth as she raced up the subway tracks. The dark tunnel had few lights and the tracks offered many chances to get one's foot caught underneath. Mark had to stay close to not miss the turnoff. About five minutes later, Aura sprung right and jumped onto the pavement. A thick door with a bolt sat a few feet from the tracks.

Knocking twice, she paused. Then she knocked twice again. That was the signal which meant a comrade waited at the door, not an enemy. Within a few minutes the door swung open and a short blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman in blue jeans and Tee-shirt stood at the entryway.

"Aura!" She shouted with excitement. "I wondered when I'd see you next." Aura smiled and, if her skin did not appear so anemic, she might have beamed.

Mark nodded. "Carla."

"Mark," Carla said shortly with a returning nod.

Carla pushed outside the door and yanked a spray can off from the hook on her leather belt. "You used the main entrance, right?"

"Yes," Aura answered and Carla quickly sprayed the door and knob before jumping onto the tracks to spray up and down the tunnel."

"Vamp repellant?" Mark asked with curiously twisted brows.

"Yeah." Carla said and jumped back onto the pavement. Then she waved them both inside the room with a hand gesture.
Chapter 14

"How long are you two staying?" Carla asked as she turned to Aura.

"Not too long, but we need supplies if you have them. More of the vampire repellant, and..."

"Yeah, I see." Carla put her hand to Aura's forehead. "Getting sick." She glanced to Mark before guiding the two down the white walled hallway.

"I guess this subway supply room has come in handy," Mark suggested.

"Yeah," Carla's voice bounced off the walls. "No one misses it and it's nicely tucked away from all the human activity. Good for keeping human smells away. We don't want to attract vampires down here, no offense." She craned her neck to see Mark agree with a nod.

"None taken."

"That's why we are so particular with whom we allow down here. If vampires ever found out about it, where could we hide?" Mark nodded and Carla continued to talk as they turned the corner and headed into a main room. "Too many humans make that mistake, you know, letting all kinds of people in their space. They become reckless. That's why so many of them are killed."

Mark looked around the main room. A table in the center. A broken light dangling from the ceiling. A vending machine still full of treats in one corner. A water dispenser at least half-full in another corner. A few plastic chairs flanked against walls, and a desk in a corner. Two doors sat on either side of the back wall.

"We're here!" Carla declared, as if she was the general who won the Alamo.

"Where is everyone else?" Mark questioned as his left brow arched in concern.

"Simpson and Roger are in the back room working on some stuff."

"And Tammy?" Mark distinctly remembered a lanky woman on the verge of anorexia with brown hair to her ankles and a cigarette in her left hand.

"She didn't make it. She went out one day and never came back." Carla's gaze met with the black and white checkered floor.

"Too bad." Mark wiped his forehead. "It's hot in here."

"The air conditioner doesn't work and ventilation isn't the best down here," Carla answered and then rushed up to Aura.

"So, you need to see Simpson urgently." Carla patted Aura's shoulder. Knocking on the door, Carla waited only a minute. Then a red-haired man with freckles over his nose and a white lab coat around his body peeked through the crack in the door.

"Aura needs you now," Carla said and suddenly a hairy finger reached out from behind the door and gestured for Aura to come to him. "Go." Carla waved to Aura. Then Aura disappeared behind the door, which clicked shut behind her.

"How long will she be in there?" Mark's forehead wrinkled and his lips tightened.

"As long as she needs to be. Simpson doesn't like working around others. Don't worry, he'll take care of her."

"Yeah, I know. He always does."
Chapter 15

The broken clock on the wall showed twelve, but the real time was nine. They had left the church at six thirty and arrived at the subway at seven. Mark had been sitting in the main room for over an hour when the door cracked open.

"Mark!" A round man with a baseball cap over dark hair and even darker eyes bounced up to the table where he waited. "How have you been?

"I've been good, Roger, but I'm worried about Aura. She seems real sick. I'm not sure what she has. She's shaking and her lips, look..."

Roger plopped down next to Mark and threw his arms over the aluminum table. "Don't be concerned. Simpson is almost done with her. She just needed medication. She is already feeling much better."

"What was it?" Mark's eyes widened and the crease in his forehead lightened.

"The common flu."

"The flu?" Mark sat back in the chair, biting his lip. "Should I be treated?"

"No, no. You should be fine, unless you've been feeling lightheaded? Weak?"

Mark shook his head and eyed the door. "So how much longer?"

"Not too long. Try thinking of something else."

Turning his head to the vending machine, Mark stood. "Why isn't the food gone yet? I'd think after living here for a few years you guys would have devoured everything."

"We try to find food daily and use the machines for emergencies only." Roger looked up and winked at Carla who sat on the counter top against the right wall. A sink and broken fridge sat to her left.

Roger's baggy attire made him approachable. Mark liked that about Roger, he felt could tell him anything. Of the three scientists he felt closest to Roger and yet...he couldn't place his finger on it, but something felt odd. Perhaps it was just a scientist thing.

"Where do you find food? 'Cuz we're running out and in need of not only food, but bandages, knives, knapsacks, rope, anything really." Mark's voice scratched in desperation.

Carla slid off the countertop and opened the cupboard. Flinging a backpack across the room, the item landed on the table in front of Mark. "You can have it. I don't need it."

"Thanks." Mark searched it and found it empty. With a disappointed expression, he looked over to the door again and waited for Aura.

"Give him more." Roger fixed the tip of his cap. "Stop teasing the lad."

Mark looked over at Carla just as she opened a drawer and pulled out a jar of peanut butter and a couple knives. After tossing the jar to Mark, which he caught with one hand, Carla placed the knives next to bag.

"Are you sure?" Mark asked

"No problem. We have plenty," Carla clarified before scouring the cupboard again. "Here," she tossed a bag of rice cakes, a loaf of bread, and a bag of beef jerky, "take these."

"This is too much." Mark faked politeness but he had no issue with taking all he could.

"No, it's not. It'll barely make it half-way through the month." Carla's words stung of reality. "Don't think twice about it. Just keep Aura safe." Her stern expression said she meant it.

"I will."

Suddenly, the door clicked open.

Chapter 16

A cream-colored Aura stepped out of the back room and glided to the table to sit across from Mark. Mark's heavy eyes softened at the sight of her with so much vibrancy. Her graceful movements revealed the woman he had known for the past two years. She seemed like herself again. Color and all.

"How are you feeling?" Mark's deep tone graced Aura's ears.

"I'm feeling much better. I guess I just caught a bug and couldn't shake it."

"What did he give you?"

"Penicillin and an hour of sleep?" Aura shrugged her shoulders in a laugh.

"Well, whatever it was it seemed to have worked. I'd like to thank him."

"Maybe later?" Aura fidgeted in her seat. "He seems real busy right now."

"What's he doing?" Mark's eyes met with Aura and then with Roger. Carla wiggled her legs over the countertop.

"Not sure, some kind of superior vamp repellant or something," Aura answered fast and then swung a miniature duffel bag over the table. "By the way, Simpson gave us some more of the repellant to use."

"How long will it last?"

"A few months. Then, we have to come back for more. He can only make so much at a time." Aura shot Roger a look. Mark couldn't quite make out what the look meant. Something between desperation and a secret?

"Good thing Aura knows all of you," Mark commented, "or I don't know how we'd survive."

"Yeah," Roger recollected with a soft tone, "it was just one year before she met you that we ran into her. Feels like forever ago."

"Good thing we ran into her when we did," Carla tossed her hair, "she was at the end of her rope when I first saw her."

"End of her rope?" Mark's brows quirked and his head directed toward the countertops.

"Sure thing. Disheveled appearance. Dirty to the core. Living on the streets for a couple years. Scratches over her arms, and legs. Shoot, I had to keep her in the bath for days just to get the girl clean."

"Carla, that's enough." Roger protested and wrapped his arm around Aura. "She is safe and sound now. No need for her to recall those hard days."

"That's a place I never want to be again." Aura closed her eyes and a tingle rushed up her spine before she opened her eyes and saw Mark's looking at her.

"Well, if it is up to me you will never have to be." Mark reassured her and they met hands in the center of the table. "You're warm again."

"Instead of ice cold you mean?" Aura smirked.

"Yeah," Mark caressed her hand under his. Carla made a gag-me sign with her forefinger down her throat. Jumping off the counter, she headed to the door and disappeared with Simpson.

"Don't mind her." Roger added, "She's been that way ever since her hubby was killed three years ago...ever since we've been down here."

Mark hardly knew Carla, and in that moment realized she had pain too. Probably saw her husband killed in front of her, like most people did, like he saw his loved ones killed in front of him. Memories like that change a person, sometimes for the better—stronger, but sometimes for the worse. He hadn't decided yet just how the changes effect Carla, or anyone in The Underground for that matter.
Chapter 17

Aura pushed her chair back. "Excuse me." She then headed to the door to join Carla.

"How'd it happen?" Mark's curiosity spun. He knew his story and Aura's story, or at least the few bits she told him, but he didn't know much about these three scientists.

Roger played with the Red Sox emblem on his cap and answered, "Carla studied biology at an underground university alongside her husband Brice. When vamps finally found it, the university closed down, but she wasn't detoured. Her and her husband worked on various chemical agents to use against the vampires. Many of the agents seemed to work. Some burned their skin. Some just kept them at bay. But eventually one got too close and killed Brice. Later, Simpson found her and brought her to the Underground."

"Simpson founded The Underground?" Mark asked for clarity. Aura had never gone into the details. She liked to keep to herself mostly.

"They've lived together for three years." Roger concluded.

"The same as Aura."

"Yeah, that is why they are such good friends. They found this place at the same time and have felt like sisters ever since."

"So we have Carla to thank for the vamp repellant."

"Basically."

"What about you?" Mark stood and walked over to the water vendor. Kicking the side, as he had seen Roger do upon their last visit, a bottle of water tumbled out of the machine. Sucking down the water, Mark heard Roger continue.

"I found Simpson two years ago. About the same time Aura met you."

"How?, I mean what happened?" Mark sat across from Roger without taking his eyes off of him.

"I worked with a team of secluded scientists in New Jersey. We developed explosives that gave us all hope we'd finally defeat the vamps. We'd been at it for years before a bomb went off and destroyed the building and most of my coworkers. The whole thing was hush-hush, you know, to avoid the attention vamps. But after the explosion, those blood-suckers were on us like bees to honey. I fled to my parents; figured I'd work out my next step there, but they were dead. I was an only child, so I just took off. I had nothing to stay for anymore. I guess, much like Aura. I wouldn't have found this place on my own. I never took the subway. Except one day Carla spotted me roaming the streets and took me under her wing."

"So you've got no one either, I mean, except for this group?" Mark rubbed his eyes. Story after story started to sound the same. The more he spoke to those surviving, the less unique the stories became. One survivor after another had to leave behind painful memories or be swallowed by them whole.

"And Simpson?"

"Ah, the man of the hour...or two hours, how long have you been down here now?"

"That sounds about right." Mark chuckled.

"From what I've gathered Simpson has been down here for years. I'm not exactly sure how long, I've never actually asked him. Well, you've met him. He's the kind of skunk that likes to keep to himself."

Mark knew in that moment, that Simpson was a big question-mark, one he had to resolve soon, because their lives could depend on it.
Chapter 18

Aura and Carla swung out of the back room with the door tightly sealing behind them. Whatever Simpson did kept him busy. Heading to the vending machine, Carla hit the button for a Rolo chocolate candy.

"I used to devour these all the time," Carla confessed, "before the vamps destroyed everything. Now, I have to ration them. Damn bastards."

"Maybe we should get going. I don't want to overstay our welcome," Mark suggested as he stood.

"At least stay for lunch. It'll be twelve in no time. Besides, I've got some explosives I'd like to give you before you go," Roger encouraged.

"Alright." Mark found his seat again. "Wouldn't want to leave without those. You don't have to twist my arm," He joked.

"Good, because you are going to need everything you can get to keep Aura safe."

"Sure." Mark nodded and Carla slapped some beef jerky sandwiches together. Tossing them over the aluminum table like saucers, she sat next to Roger.

"Not fine dining, but the dried meat will give you high protein and the bread, carbs to burn," Carla said like a nutritionist.

"We've already stolen a bag of your jerky. Sure you can spare it?' Mark wanted to be conservative.

Roger chuckled under his hand, "We've got bags and bags of stuff. Please, take some."

Mark smiled and took a bite of his sandwich. "Isn't Simpson going to eat?"

"He forgets to eat," Aura admitted. "I'll give him his sandwich." Exiting the table, Aura knocked once before entering the back room. Mark could only vaguely make out the conversation before the door slammed shut.

"For you," Aura said.

"Thanks." Simpson's low voice met with the cracking of two glass containers. "Damn it!"

The door slammed.

"So, do you think he'll make it?" Mark asked and both Carla and Roger gave a confused expression. "Simpson, do you think he'll make the repellant extra strong?"

"Not without my help," Carla added, "but he can be so stubborn."

"Well, he's improving more than just repellent," Roger retorted.

"Oh, I know," Carla defended, "the mad scientist to the rescue." Mark detected a hint of jealousy from Carla. He'd figured scientists could be competitive just like any bunch of people.

After finishing the sandwich, Roger walked up to the other door, the one no one had gone into yet, and came out with a handful of explosives. Clay squares with wires and fuses. Mark admired the craftsmanship.

"You're parting with three?"

"Take 'em, you might need 'em. I can always make more. Besides, we've got a few guns and knives tucked away in here," Roger confirmed.

Placing the bombs into his backpack, Mark nodded and then finished the last bite of his sandwich before the back door swung open,

"Time to go." Aura jerked toward Mark in a hurry.
Chapter 19

Stepping onto the subway tracks, Carla sprayed the area with her vamp repellent before saying her goodbyes and sealing the door.

"Take care Aura." Carla hugged.

"You too," Aura answered.

"Come back soon. Don't make it months like this time."

"I'll try." The two waved and the door closed.

"She sure knows how to make repellant a practical art." Mark chuckled.

"You gotta when your life is at stake," Aura added.

"It's one o'clock. We've only got about four hours before we should head back to O-Tech-1."

"Or we could have some fun and stay out late," Aura teased.

"Last time we did that we had a mature vamp hot on our trail. Best we stay under the radar for a while." Mark's jaws tensed. He loved her jokes, but that could get them killed.

"Roger just gave us three explosives."

"Then we'd better get going so we can blow up a vamp cave and make it back to safety before dark."

"Alright, sounds like a fair compromise." Aura batted her lashes and the spark in her crystal-blues lit up. She was back to herself. Whatever Simpson gave her seemed to work. Mark threw her one of the knives he had and they moved.

"You look much healthier. I hope Simpson gave you some of the medicine to take later. I don't want that flu coming back."

"He did and I will take it before bed as instructed." Aura rose her hand to the corner of her brow in a salute fashion.

"Good, 'cuz this world doesn't need any more casualties." Mark winked and Aura smirked before the two of them darted off in the direction of a known vamp cavern.

Trekking across the city streets, they finally reached the grassy meadow where the Hudson River swished along the city line. Sniffing, Aura could still smell the last vamp that tracked her. His strong scent burst through the air like a skunk's stench.

"There is one vamp cave directly to our right just blocks ahead of us." Mark patted the explosives in his bag.

"I know the one." Aura added curtly.

Within thirty minutes the two of them stood outside the cavern. A large, crude grey stone with winding internal pathways. Stepping inside, the dank and cold space washed over them. Vampires hung from their feet attached on the ceiling. The similarity to bats sent goosebumps up and down Mark's arms.

"Do we have enough explosives?" Aura scratched her head, loosening her ponytail.

"Yes, from the size of these, one should be enough," Mark said with excitement.

"Good, then we can hit more caves before dark." Aura ducked to avoid hitting a long vampire's head.

"They seem so peaceful in the daytime." Mark planted the explosive in the center of the cave. Fixing the wires and preparing the fuse he finished, "not at all like the hell they become at night."

"Yeah." Aura wrapped her arms around herself shuddering as her heart sank.
Chapter 20

Fixing the bomb, Mark raced out of the cave as he yanked Aura's sleeve. Tumbling after him, Aura caught up and the two of them made it out of the cave just as the first pop sounded. Pop, pop, BOOM! The rocks crashed in an avalanche from inside and out until the entire cave collapsed on itself. Nothing could get out with the blockade of heavy rocks on the entrance, if anything still survived. The only thing that remained was a distinct smell of charcoaled vampire skin.

"Yee Haw!" Mark shouted. "It is not often us humans get to relish anything anymore."

"All right cowboy, let's get to the next cavern." Aura pushed him from behind as the two took off into the woods.

Around three, the two finally arrived at another cave known to harbor vampires in the day. Bumping into it once when the two searched for berries to eat, they vowed to return when they had more explosives. The gods smiled down upon them today.

Inching up to the cave, Mark kept his knapsack close to his body, tucked underneath his arm. Peaking inside, he wanted to survey the view first. They had only been to the cave once before, not like the last vamp cave which they had become familiar with over time.

"What are you doing? go in." Aura pushed.

"Wait, I want to make sure it's still safe."

"It's not yet four in the afternoon. Nothing is going to be up yet," Aura reassured with a pat on his bottom.

"Unless mature vamps are inside, and still, you can never be too careful with these things." Mark ducked his head into the cavern and snuck across the ground. Crispy skin hit his head as he passed. He winced and lowered his head further. "The last thing I want to do is come skin-to-skin with these disgusting creatures. Keep your head low Aura," Mark warned.

Cobwebs sat all over the walls and the cave looked like it harbored ten of the monsters. All asleep, except the one he hit. Craning his neck back to see Aura, he noticed the vamp squint his eyes open before closing them again.

"Damn."

"What?"

"We're going to have trouble."

"A live one?" Aura said nonchalant.

Nodding his chin in its direction, Aura nodded in confirmation. In one quick motion, Aura pulled her knife out from her back pocket and scraped the blade across its neck. Crimson blood dripped to the dirt. In the middle of its squeal, Mark planted the second bomb in the center and prepared the fuse. Just as the other vamps opened their eyes like new born babies in need of more sleep, Aura grabbed Mark's hand and the two darted out of the cave. Pop, pop, pop...

Crumbling in seconds, the dying screeches of those bloodsuckers never sounded sweeter to Mark's ears. It must have been about five by the time they returned to the first cave and then about six when they finally landed on the street that would lead them to O-Tech-1.

"We did good today," Mark gloated, but Aura froze in her steps. Her hairs stood on end and her nose twitched with a distinct scent. Mark lifted his head and saw in the distance an army of mature vampires numbering about twenty with one leader standing tall in the front.

"Good God! What is that?"

"It's him. The lone vamp. He's found us."

Chapter 21

Gripping their knives tight in hand, Aura and Mark took one look at each other.

"You ready?" Mark questioned with a hard expression. His jawline tightened and his chest squared in his stance.

"Don't have a choice." Aura swung her head back in the di-rection of the night monsters, her ponytail loosening further. Crystal-blue eyes caught the attention of the leader and the vamps fixed their stares on Aura for several seconds, a few sec-onds too long for Mark.

"Looks like he has it bad for you," Mark joked.

"I guess I'd better show him a good time then." Aura winked and her upper lip curled in humor.

When Aura took a step forward, two vampires from the gang approached them. There was nothing beautiful about these mon-sters. Ripped clothes and dirtied chins of Aura and Mark con-trasted with the porcelain perfection of the vamp skin. But blood dripped from the fangs of vamps who recently killed. A more robust vampire hissed, his movements reminiscent of a freight train, making a straight line to its target. Mark waited until both creatures were an arm's length away.

"What you waiting for, an invitation?" Mark teased as he cir-cled the knife in his left hand. A twitch in his left eye revealed his disgust when he lunged forward with the knife blade aimed at the bloodsucker's eyes.

When Mark almost reached the point of impact a bloodied vamp grabbed Mark's arm with a tight squeeze. Quickly, Mark threw a punch with his right fist and hit it on the nose. More blood gushed into the vamp's mouth. The creature held Mark's arm like a vise. Mark kicked its shins until it buckled, its knees hitting the ground. Twisting his own arm, he gained leverage and finally yanked his wrist out of the bloodsucker's tight hold.

The creature hissed, its fangs protruding out of the mouth like a starved, crazed predator. Mark waited for it to jump, its toes twisted underneath itself, and he threw an uppercut. His right fist hit the vamp's chest and then under its chin. Mark tightened his fingers around the vamp's throat as he struggled to pin it to the ground. The knife in his left hand swiftly stabbed the creature's right temple, and with a dry bellow the vampire fell backward dead.

"You still there, honey?" Mark turned his head to glance at Aura briefly before fixing his eyes on the monstrosity yards from him.

"Piece of cake, but he really should have taken me out to dinner first."

Aura immediately kicked her robust assailant. Her right foot slammed into the vampire's chin with such force that she knocked it back a couple feet. Dark blood drained from its gums and the monster was left without a few canines. Her left foot instantly followed and nailed the vamp between the legs.

During the creature's agonizing scream, Aura ran like a bull into its chest and thrust the knife into its undead heart. She twisted the blade upward until the knife reached the vamp's thick neck and then, with one long strike, she sliced off its head. Not completely, but enough to leave it dangling, the vampire fell over itself lifeless.

Seconds later, a team of four vampires hustled toward Aura and Mark. Two broke off and aimed for Mark, while the other two aimed for Aura.
Chapter 22

"What do you think, Dear?" Mark eyed the two tall vamps charging his way.

"A team effort?" Aura winked and Mark chuckled behind his eyes. Keeping their humor helped them stay alive.

"One!" Mark shouted as his two blood-suckers closed the distance between them, "two," Aura's vamps stood only a few feet away, "three."

Aura stretched her hand to Mark, and in an instant, he grabbed her and they spun, one leg each on the ground and the other two legs up like a helicopter blade circling in motion. They turned and turned, their air-bound feet crashing into the vam-pires as the monsters hurdled at them.

Aura's foot smashed into the tallest vamp's cheek and sent him spinning. Mark's sole slammed into another vamp's face and left a shoe mark. Then Aura's foot hit the nape of the neck of the third vampire and left it gasping. Lastly, Mark's foot hurtled to-wards the chest of the last one standing, but as his foot sailed toward it the vampire grabbed his leg and twisted him.

The turn pulled Mark out of Aura's embrace and their hands broke their seal as his grounded leg bent and his knee hit the floor. An eerie laughter echoed from the leader and across the street as vamps watched in pleasure.

Suddenly, the other three vampires surrounded Aura and Mark. As Mark struggled with being pinned, his body twisting and turning for freedom, Aura lunged at the two tallest vam-pires. With her legs kicking high off the ground and her fists above her, the knife blade reflected under the silver moonlight.

Using her feet to kick each vamp's chest as she landed on top of them, she rushed a stab into one bloodsucker's heart. Blood squirted all over her face as she finally sliced its neck. The squeal sent the other into some kind of frenzy. Or maybe it was the blood? Kicking its legs from underneath her, it failed to escape. It dove towards her, its fangs aimed at her supple neck and she pulled backwards, returning quickly to twist its neck until it cracked.

Craning her head back, she eyed Mark. Pinned to the ground by one vampire, the other taunting him with protruding fangs headed for his large chest.

"Need any help, honey?" Aura teased while she approached the fanged vampire from behind.

"I...think...I've...got...this." He struggled to free himself, each word exploding out of his mouth from the effort. Mark twisted underneath the hold of the vamp, but his arms sat between the hard street and the strong hands of the hanging vampire. The vamp sat on Mark's legs and chest, hissing. The vampire opened its mouth wide and drool cascaded down its sharp teeth and over Mark's face.

"You sure babe?" Aura teased as she ensured Mark's survival. Kicking the fanged vampire taunting Mark, behind its head, she pulled it backward and leaned in with her knife to slice its neck open in one smooth motion. The dead vamp collapsed behind Mark, but he didn't much notice with the mouth of a vampire hanging over him.

"I've got it." He thrust his backside up and kicked with his leg, loosening the vamp's hold. In the quick second between the vamp bouncing into the air and returning on top of Mark. Mark turned his entire body and ferociously searched for his knife, which lay several groping inches away from him on the street.
Chapter 23

When his fingers finally gripped the end of the knife, the vampire landed firmly on Mark's side. Mark turned his hand, his body, in the vampire's direction and stabbed repeatedly. Squeal-ing, the bloodsucker moved back in reaction and Mark jumped to his feet in one fluid motion. He'd gotten used to the motions. Without hesitation and without giving the vampire a moment to think, Mark thrust the blade into its chest and then sliced its neck open.

Blood and entrails decorated the city's streets and a cold si-lence filled the air. Maybe thirty yards separated the other stand-ing vampires from Mark and Aura. No other humans could be seen, not that any would be likely to help—it was every man for himself in this decayed world. Mark watched the vamp gang in the distance. They seemed so systematic, so organized. Fourteen still remained. Aura's nose twitched in the direction of the lead-er, and then the silence was interrupted by a chilling command.

"Fight!" He shouted, his strong frame noticeably different from the other, smaller vampires. His deep sand-paper voice stretched across the street in a reverberation.

Four more vampires darted forward. No vamp appeared to have a mind of its own. The leader commanded them all without dissension. What an army the vamps would have made for the US government.

"Damn bastards just keep on coming." Mark raked his fingers through his hair, nervous. Sweat clung to his fingernails.

"He thinks it's a game," Aura commented.

"What?" His brows twisted.

"Why do you think he only sends a few at a time," Aura whispered, "he could have ended this a while ago."

"Well if it'ss a game he wants, a game he'll get," Mark huffed and readied his form for fighting: fists in front.

"Incoming!" Aura shouted and four vamps tumbled over them like a herd of cattle, the speed catching them off guard. Mark could never get used to the inhuman momentum of vamps. The first groups walked as if on a country stroll, but these moved like time mattered. Tension surged in the air. Something felt momentous, as if this fight would lay it all on the line.

Aura tossed her knife into the eye of one vampire and it lost its balance as Mark stabbed another in the stomach. He aimed for the neck, but the bloody bastard dodged his maneuver. Without a minute to lose, Aura pulled the knife out of the eye and sliced the neck open, smirking at it's dangling head.

"Three to go!"

The smell of the blood put the other three into a fit of rage and pleasure. Tasting the blood of the dead, one vampire gave in and licked the lifeless vampire. Instantly, Aura slammed her blade into the back of its neck. Crack!

"Two down!" Aura teased.

Mark pulled the knife from his vamp's stomach, and then he thrust the blade into its heart and eye viciously. Blood drained all over his pants as the vampire's fangs scraped Mark's cheek, leaving a sure line on his face. In the middle of a half-hiss-half-squeal, its head tossed and Mark hit the knife into its temple un-til it finally fell dead.

"One to go!" Mark shouted proud. But in the midst of his own fight, he didn't see the last vampire grab hold of Aura. Kicking and screaming, Aura got Mark's attention and he finally looked up, but only to see her disappear behind the leader in the midst of the vampire gang.
Chapter 24

Mark let out a scream he had never himself heard before. A mix of agony and defeat, yet with a tinge of bloodlust for re-venge. He kept his eyes on Aura and only took them off to look at the leader.

"Let her go!" Mark pleaded. His words hit ears made of stone.

The leader's raven colored hair and coal vacuous eyes hid be-hind his sinister laughter. The laugh carried itself across the lone-ly streets which had become vacant of anything human. It pierced Mark's ears and entered his body like a poison to the blood stream. He shivered, not from a fever, but a sudden urge to kill anything in his way.

"I've been searching for her for years. Do you really think I'll give her up now?"the leader retorted as several vampires sub-dued her thrashing movements. She kicked and flailed about, but nothing could break the hold of the four strong vampires grip-ping her.

"Let her go, I swear I'll find you and kill you!" Mark de-clared like a sure soldier.

"Don't worry, you won't miss her for long. You'll be dead soon," he ended on another eerie laugh and then six vampires marched for Mark at the wave of the leader's hand. As vamps closed in on Mark, the other four that held Aura turned and fol-lowed obediently behind the leader. With each step, they drew further and further away from Mark until only their silhouettes remained.

"AURA!" Mark yelled at the top of his lungs, but within sec-onds his demands only met with sharp teeth.

Three vampires circled Mark from the left, and three from the right. Fangs protruded from each mouth, leaving little to the im-agination. Each step vamps took appeared orchestrated. These bloodsuckers moved like a maniacal band of order. The average human had no chance against them, but Mark had skills and training that Aura had only enhanced.

Aura. Her name stayed close to Mark's mind as he aimed his knife at the six monsters. How in God's name would he get out of this one? His mind raced with strategies and possibilities. Suddenly, pointy and drippy fangs dove for Mark's neck; he lunged backward. Hissing, two of the vamps from each semicir-cle played with him.

One dove for his feet, while the other dove for his head. Landing on top of Mark, the top vampire thrashed its head back and forth as its fangs inched closer to Mark's chest. The vamp at his feet kept him still, but Mark wouldn't give up. Tightening the knife in his hand, he twisted the blade into the vamp's arm enough to make him move and Mark kicked the other in the face. Not enough to kill either, but enough to give him time to scamper off the road and back to his feet.

The eyes of the vampires grew a deep-red, as if they knew the moment of Mark's death was imminent, and they could actu-ally taste his human blood in their desperate mouths. Mark stood motionless for only a second with a thousand thoughts compet-ing for space in his mind, and then he settled on one single thought. Noticing Aura's knapsack on the ground, he grabbed it tight before whipping his body around and fleeing the scene. He threw it over his shoulder as his legs raced across the pavement. He felt, more than heard, the pounding of twelve feet close be-hind him. The sound of their stomping only got closer and closer the more Mark ran, until he hit the woods near the Hudson Riv-er. Huffing, he turned momentarily only to see three vamps sev-eral yards from his back.

Fidgeting with the knapsack, Mark's hands rummaged through the bag as sweat dripped from his forehead, and his eye twitch got worse. The other three vampires laughed as Mark's face lost color and his hands began to shake. As the three closer vampires moved toward him for the kill, Mark closed his eyes as if in prayer.
Chapter 25

The timing couldn't have been more perfect. Mark's fingers fiddled with the wires and fuses on his last explosive inside the bag just before one of the vampires lunged for him. Mark heard the pop-pop-pop of the fuse as he dropped the bag and hurdled for the river. Within a few seconds, the bomb exploded and the impact flung Mark into the air. He landed face first in the water. When his head surfaced, he wiped his eyes and saw the six vam-pires fragmented into pieces. Body parts flew into trees and landed on the sidewalk. Blood seeped out of the limp limbs and covered leaves.

Mark swam for the other side of the shore, and after he pulled himself up along the edge, he sat with knees up and threw his face into his hands. "Aura," he cried. God only knew where she'd been taken, if they hadn't killed her already. How could he possibly find her?

The moonlight trickled across his legs and over the edge of the river. Then, songbirds sang and somehow the darkness didn't feel as heavy, as deep. Mark's calloused and wet fingers rubbed his forehead, and then he took in a hard breath and stood. His knees almost gave way underneath him from weakness. The fight and the loss took so much out of him, but he had to be strong. He had to get to O-Tech-1. Midnight would be coming and soon the city would be crawling with those blood-varmints, adults and babes alike—the newborns could even be worse, more viscous in their blood thirst. He wouldn't stand a chance then, and he had to be alive to fight—if not for himself, than at least for Aura. She was out there, somewhere, and he would find her. He might be her only hope.

Swimming across the Hudson again, Mark dried off as he raced under the darkening sky. Droplets dripped from his skin and hit the ground, and what didn't roll off of him eventually evaporated. However he still felt damp when he entered O-Tech-1. Sneezing, he rushed to the blanket beside the sofa and snug-gled his head in the warmth. The lingering scent only reminded him of Aura.

He rolled her knapsack off his shoulder to the floor, and then wrapped himself up in the comforting blanket. He didn't have many clothes to change into and these would just have to do for a few days. Unzipping the bag, he poked around the bottles. Some had a clear white fluid and others had a pink. Vamp repel-lent was clear, so he pulled out a corresponding bottle.

Pouring the bottle's fluid into the jug of water near the front entrance, he stirred it with the nearby wooden spoon which Aura often used. White crust stained the wood handle, but it would have to do. He couldn't be picky. At least he had more of the formula. God only knew what Simpson put in the bottle, but it worked.

Washing the windows and doors down with the repellent eased Mark's mind a bit and he stopped rubbing his jaws and nose temporarily. Tension had built up inside of him between fighting all night and losing his best friend, his lover. Aura had been the closest person to him since his family. She meant every-thing, and she circled his mind now. He couldn't, he wouldn't lose her. He had to find Aura and soon.

Collapsing onto the sofa, Mark closed his eyes and tried to fight away the common nightmares of vampires murdering him in his sleep. It took several hours, but he finally managed. He looked forward to the nine hours of sleep he had left. In the morning he would have to face his greatest enemies, and he had no idea how to find them.

Chapter 26

He sensed when six am rolled around, as most humans had grown accustomed to by now. Thank goodness for his stop at The Underground yesterday. Breakfast wouldn't be the problem he thought it would. The eggs he served Aura last morning had been the last food in the pantry, but now he had other supplies.

Heading to his backpack, he pulled out a few sticks of beef jerky and desperately ripped off the wrappers. Hunger pangs shot threw his stomach in a growl. The dried meat went down fast, but didn't fill him up much. Tearing his teeth into the rice cakes, he almost gagged. "Humans eat this stuff?" His revolted expression said otherwise, but he had to get something into his stomach. To top off the skimpy meal he threw some peanut but-ter on two pieces of bread and scarfed the amateurish sandwich down in five seconds flat. At least the peanut butter tasted de-cent. Stomach growls soothed.

Rummaging through Aura's bag, he fixed his eyes on the pink bottles and twiddled them between his fingers. "What did you bring back with you, Aura?" Unsure if the formula might be something she would need, perhaps the penicillin Simpson pro-vided for her flu, Mark concluded he'd better take the whole bag along with him.

"No more explosives," he said as he reorganized his bag, "some food," he continued, to himself, as he folded the bag in half and tucked it into Aura's sack, "vamp repellent, and whatev-er the hell those pink bottles are. I almost have everything I need." Then he leaned behind the sofa and pulled out the shot-gun. He tied a string around the gun and strung it around two loops on his pants. Then he patted the knife in his pocket. "Now, I'm ready."

He headed to the front door and peaked out the crack where a slab of wood didn't cover the entire window before opening the door. He didn't need unwanted humans finding O-Tech-1 and making it their own. He would find Aura and return her here, to their home.

Sliding out of the thick, oak church door, Mark spun left and right to ensure no one saw him. Then, he tightened the knapsack on his back and aimed for the end of the street. Skirting around the corner, a beat-up truck sat dead on the side of the road and a few roaches crawled out of the eyes of the hollow passenger. Practically a greyed skeleton now, Mark couldn't make out whether the victim had once been male or female.

Mark scratched his head in thought, "How do I figure this out? They could be anywhere." Wandering up the street, he stumbled over the sidewalk and flung his head skyward. The broken neon lights read SUBWAY. An arrow pointed down to the stairs that he had taken several times before with Aura to The Underground. "Maybe they could help me?," he thought aloud and sprung to the first stair.

Skipping two steps at a time, he landed on the platform in no time and raced to the ledge. With one hand securely on the metal bar to keep his balance, he threw his legs over and plopped onto the other side, not as smoothly as his better half. Landing on the tracks was second nature to him now, but without Aura to lead he had to keep his eyes open for the exit. He didn't want to get lost down there in the dark. Come night, it could become a very precarious place to stay without locked doors.

Scurrying over the path, his shoes stayed deliberately high so as to avoid sticking underneath any of the tracks and getting stuck. He'd heard stories of humans in panic faced with vamps, and how'd they'd freeze up, or get stuck by something. He re-solved this would never happen to him. He'd die fighting. He paced himself, and kept track of speed and time. Generally, five minutes following Aura got him to The Underground. When he felt sure he passed the door, he leapt onto the platform and stood at the entrance. Knocking twice, he waited and then knocked two more times. Just like Aura.

The door slowly opened with peeking blue eyes.
Chapter 27

When the door opened enough for Mark to see inside, he saw Carla's blonde ringlets bouncing on the other side. This would be difficult. He could barely bring himself to say the words without a lump forming in his throat. How could he tell Carla, the woman who practically had become a sister to Aura, that she was gone? Yet, he had to. He just had to spit it out.

"What's up?" Carla's blue eyes investigated Mark's stress lines and concerned demeanor.

"It's Aura. They've got her."

"Who? The vamps?" The last word sounded hysterical.

"Yes, some leader of the vamps tracked us down and snatched her last night on the street in front of the church."

"God! Come in, come in!" She waved Mark inside and gripped his arm as she tugged him down the hall to the back room. "Simpson has to know!"

Slamming her fist on the back door, Simpson's red hair even-tually popped out from behind the inch of open space. "What?" His voice grated in grumpiness.

"Aura is gone. The vamps have her!"

"No, no." His head shook in disbelief. In distress. Skirting around the door and sliding into one of the chairs at the table, Simpson's sky blue eyes met with Mark's. "When? How?"

Mark rubbed his forehead. His back muscles tensed and his mouth pinched as he answered, "Last night twenty ambushed us near the church. They came with a leader. He seemed to have come just for her."

"Damn! I told that girl to stay with us. She insisted on stay-ing at O-Tech-1." Simpson swapped a loose plate with his hand, knocking it to the floor with a crash. With Simpson so close, Mark noticed the freckles on his angled nose. Roger slipped out of the back room, overhearing the conversation, and sat adjacent to Simpson and just listened. Carla paced in front of the counter-top until eventually she stopped and sat.

Mark knew Aura well, and knew she did not like to cower when she could fight. She met Simpson before himself, but Mark gathered from conversations that Aura was determined to not hide underground like the scientists. A point that surely bothered Simpson.

"What are we going to do?!" Mark shouted, not so much at Simpson but at himself. He shouldn't have been so careless as to let Aura disappear like that. What if he never saw her again? No, he couldn't think like that. Not now. She needed him to be strong. He had to be fully present if he had half-a-hope at getting her back.

"Carla and I are going to join you," Simpson said, pulling off his white lab coat. "We'll take explosives, more food, water, knives." He eyed Mark with a stern expression. "Do you still have the bag Aura left with?"

"Yes." Mark patted the knapsack over his shoulders. "I've folded mine into hers."

"Good, because we'll need to give her more medicine once we find her so that she doesn't become very sick and...I don't have much of the vamp repellent left until I make more and we'll need it as we enter their sanctuary, if we are ever going to stay alive."

"Their sanctuary? You know where they took her?"

"Yes, I'm afraid I do."

"How? Where?"

"I bumped into it awhile ago, before I found this Under-ground. The 'where' you leave up to me. I'll get you there."

Mark stared at Simpson for a moment incredulously. Could Simpson have the answers he needed? He didn't know for sure, but Aura didn't have much time left, and after all, she had known Simpson for three years. Three long, loyal years. She trusted Simpson implicitly. Perhaps he could too? He had to, he had no other way to the sanctuary.
Chapter 28

"What do you expect me to do?" Roger demanded with a huff as he straightened the cap on his head.

"You're staying here. Keep watch on The Underground. Don't let anyone in, but the team. I mean it." His lips straight-ened into one line.

"But why can't I go? I've not been in an actual battle in years."

"Exactly why," Simpson retorted, "you're not in shape. We need all the advantages we can get." Simpson wasn't very tact-ful, but what he lacked in emotional savviness, he made up for in book smarts.

"Sure," Roger conceded and just watched as Carla threw items into the sack on her shoulders. Simpson kept reminding her of what she needed.

"Don't forget the knives. Did you get the bags of jerky? You know how I love the jerky."

"I got everything." Her face tightened in irritation and then she clenched her teeth. Simpson could be such a micro-manager.

"Come on, we have to get going. She can't have much time!" Mark shouted. Simpson and Carla jumped behind him and then Simpson stopped Mark with a tug to his shoulder.

"Put this on first," Simpson said shortly and emptied a few drops of the repellent into Mark's palms. "Rub it over your skin. Helps hide your human scent."

"What about you two?" Curiosity quirked Mark's brows.

"We've got some on already. We went out earlier," Carla clar-ified.

They followed the tracks to the main platform. When they finally reached the top of the stairs and met with the street they were greeted by a torrential rain, like the sky wept for Aura as well.

"Where do we head now?" Mark searched the street. A few humans clad in soiled clothing stood on the other side under a roof and watched in curiosity. Desperate faces told a too familiar story. A lone elderly man mumbled under his breath as he scur-ried passed by on the sidewalk. He seemed not to have noticed Mark or his team of two, at all.

"Be patient and just follow me," Simpson retorted with an unnerved and harder edge to his tone. Taking the lead, Simpson's beige pants and vest made for Mark's entire view. This man would become his world. Only he knew where to find Aura, and Mark wouldn't take his eyes off of him.

Carla bumped Mark from behind to gain his undivided atten-tion, "He's a scientist of few words. You get used to it."

"He can find Aura. That's all I care about."

"At least Roger shares the lab with me," she answered as if not giving much note to what Mark said. "That Underground would become a real bore, real fast, if I hadn't anyone to talk to down there."

Mark nodded, but he only thought of Aura.

The thunder cracked the sky open and the dark blue lit up like an explosive. Rain still saturated the streets and soon the three were sopping wet. Sneezing, Mark wiped his nose on his sleeve and then coughed into his hand.

"Catching cold?" Carla commented.

"Nothing I can't handle." Mark's chest tightened in worry. He couldn't get sick now. Not now. As he followed behind Simp-son, he felt his pulse quicken. Each step forward took him a step closer to Aura, a step closer to the monsters he would have to face again. There would be many of them this time. He would be entering their home, not just another cavern. But he wouldn't give up on Aura—not ever.
Chapter 29

If Mark hadn't detected Simpson's little disregard for strag-glers, he was sure of it now as he struggled to keep up with the scientist's agile pace. Faster than Aura, Simpson had a real talent for keeping his eyes ahead as if nothing distracted him. Carla meandered behind Mark, sometimes skirting far left or right. Everything interested her. A run-down gas station, a stray dog, a disheveled couple against a building, the fish in the Hudson.

After they hit the Hudson, Simpson followed the river line north for miles. They passed the first cavern Aura and Mark blew up the night before, and then the second one. Both still in sham-bles and still smelling distinctly of charred flesh and bone. The rain finally started to ease as vultures circled above, having a frenzy with whatever they could find. If any animal benefited from the mayhem of the vampires, surely the vulture would be at the top of the list. Decaying human flesh could be found almost every other day. Dead bodies became too frequent to count.

"What are we going to do when six hits?!" Mark shouted to Simpson as he walked, the third in line. He heard mumbling and then tapped Carla on the shoulder. "I couldn't make him out, what'd he say?"

"Don't worry about it. Simpson's always got a plan." Carla tossed her head back around and her blonde bob bounced with her.

"Don't worry? Aura's gone and I'm not the type of guy to stand on the sidelines. I need to know the plan. What are we do-ing? Mature vamps will track us and when midnight hits we'll be an all-you-can-eat human buffet for every vamp out there." A vein throbbed in Mark's neck, his legs felt heavy, his boots thick.

Turning around and stopping Mark in his step, Carla threw her hands over his shoulders. "Simpson's got it under control. That is why he brought extra vamp repellent. We'll make camp before dark and spray the fluid all around the site and on our skin. Again," she huffed, "we'll hide high in the trees. Vamps always hunt humans on ground. They won't look up." Mark squinted his eyes in disbelief. "Seriously, that's the plan?"

"It'll work. Trust us." Carla spun around and double-timed it until she caught up to Simpson.

"Trust us!" Mark mumbled under his breath. "Like I haven't heard that one before."

They moved for hours, and when the sun slowly descended Simpson finally slowed and Mark grunted to himself, "About time, doesn't this guy ever take a break?"

"What?" Carla's blue eyes widened in naiveté when she turned to face him. Her face had streaks of remnant rain, but looked angelic under the orange reflective rays of descending sun.

"Nothing." Mark marched up to Simpson. "So, is this where we'll set up camp?"

Simpson nodded and placed his backpack on the moist soil. The ground felt mushy, but a feeling of satisfaction rolled over Mark's expression, because they'd managed to get much closer to Aura today and soon he'd be with her again. As Mark gazed into the distance wondering how much further they had to travel, Simpson rushed into Mark's personal space and then pushed up his sleeves.

"Hey?" Mark responded. Without a word, Simpson poured a few drops of the repellent on Mark's skin.

"Rub it in well. Do your legs and face too." Simpson finished with a swat of the fluid on Mark's cheekbone. "Vamps will be everywhere tonight."

That comment left a chill rushing up Mark's backside.
Chapter 30

Dark storm clouds rolled over the woods and thunder crashed as lightening lit up the sky. Though the rain abated and six hadn't yet rolled 'round, the ever-present mist in combination with dark clouds, gave the illusion of a midnight sky. A feeling of urgency coursed through Mark.

"We'd better hurry." Mark flung his knapsack over the high branch of a Cottonwood tree and grabbed a lower limb with his calloused palms before swinging like an acrobat into the tree's foliage of cover. "Good?"

"Just keep your legs tucked into the branch. We don't want any limbs dangling." Carla craned her neck skyward and her lashes batted against the dying sunlight as she spoke.

"Got it." Simpson tossed up a bottle of vamp repellent before walking away and Mark caught it with one hand.

"Rub down your tree," Simpson said like a commanding gen-eral. Then Simpson sprinkled fluid all around Mark's Cotton-wood before situating on his own tree, adjacent to Mark. Carla got comfortable beside Mark on a tree branch much lower than his own.

"The night will be long. Twelve hours. Just rest your eyes. Stay calm. Whatever you do, don't leave the tree...unless Simp-son and I jump first." Carla set some ground rules and Mark nodded. What else could he do? He had to trust Simpson. "Oh, and don't make any noise. They can't smell you, but they can still hear you."

Mark wanted to roll his eyes. He fought the vamps with Aura all the time. He managed to stay alive just fine—he didn't need advice from Carla. Still, he didn't want to be rude. If not for the two of them, who knew how he'd get to Aura. He couldn't do it on his own.

An owl who-whooed and fireflies flew past Mark, who was cradled against a few full-leafed branches. The moon cast an om-inous shadow, a mix of blackness over the thick ground mist. Mark felt very alone, even though Carla and Simpson sat just a tree or two away. When a scratchy hiss sounded a few yards be-hind him he felt his legs tighten and heart palpitate. He hadn't a battle to focus on, only his body and movements.

The vampire finally came into view as it passed underneath Mark. He kept his eyes locked on the bloodsucker's stagger. It must have been wounded earlier, because it had a limp in the left leg. Suddenly, three more vamps appeared behind the first and Mark caught his breath. His back shifted up along the trunk of the tree in a deep, quiet breath, and when the first vamp turned around and sniffed in the center of the circle of trees, Mark tightened his grip on the shotgun. His fingers over the trigger.

Lifting the barrel of the gun and easing the aim over a few twigs to hold it in place, Mark placed the other hand at the gun's handle. His green eyes grew intense as he watched the fanged creatures circle in confusion. With his other hand now moved to the trigger, Mark prepared himself for four shots.

As Mark carefully inched forward, he felt a pebble hit his head. Looking to the next tree, he saw Carla shake her head. She lipped, "Don't!" Though Mark couldn't hear her, he felt the ex-clamation point like the rock to his head. Mark shrugged and then relaxed his hands, but remained watchful on the movements below and left one hand on the trigger just in case.

When the vampires scattered, Carla whispered in a heated voice, "You'll alert other vamps with that gun! They didn't see us. Just be patient. The night will end soon enough." Mark fidg-eted. Chastised by a girl! He'd grown accustomed to fighting, not hiding. It felt like the longest night of his life.

Chapter 31

Just when he'd finally fallen asleep, Mark heard a rustle in the bushes a few yards in front of him. His heavy lids peeled open and blinked a few times before his focus fixed on a jackrabbit dashing in his direction. A lone vampire dove for the kill and landed squarely on top of the meal-to-be. Just below Mark, the vampire ripped into the rabbit, its fangs sucking every last ounce of blood. Mark wanted to gag, but turned away and closed his eyes.

After the vampire roamed further into the woods, Mark tried to sleep. His mind raced with what the bloodsuckers could be doing to Aura. A pet? A meal for their king? Shaking his head, he wanted to keep clear. Going there would only infuriate him and make him a desperate man. He needed to be careful, not careless. "She's fine," he repeated to himself over and over again in his own mind. He had to believe that, or he would go mad.

Morning birds signaled that the sun was about to rise and Mark stretched his arms. When he lowered his shotgun back to his pants, he swiveled over the branch and climbed down the trunk slowly—his eyes on the forest the whole time. Hitting the ground, he saw two vampires with broken necks below Carla's tree. His eyes immediately shot over to Simpson who stood by his designated tree.

"Mornin'." Simpson nodded and then organized his knap-sack.

"What happened last night?" Mark's voice quivered. He could've been dinner.

"Carla and I took care of it."

"You took care of it?" Mark's brows twisted in unrecogniza-ble contortions.

Carla jumped out of her tree and landed with a thud beside Mark. "Yep, we took care of it. Those two figured us out and tried to be sly. While we slept they slithered up my tree and yours." Carla eyed Mark.

"God." Mark's faced dropped and he nearly turned white.

"No worries. I couldn't sleep much and saw them coming. I guess Simpson did too. We jumped them and put a new spin on surprise attack."

"I guess so." Mark surveyed the damage. "And that was it?"

"The rest of the night wasn't too bad. A lone vamp here, a group of vamps there. No others figured us out so we left them alone."

"I could've helped." Mark felt left out of some secret club. "I have knives, a shotgun."

"Would have been too much of a hassle to wake you and wait for you to figure out what was going on. We had it. Never mind." Carla combed her fingers through her hair since she lacked a brush. Mark never felt more useless.

"Still, next time let me know. A pebble to the head is all I would have needed," Mark half-joked in a serious tone while Simpson threw his pack over his shoulders and approached the other two.

"Let's get going." He liked to keep it short. Few details. Simpson rubbed his lips together when he thought and usually kept his chin high and thoughts to himself. Mark could see his pronounced jawline and angled nose, even in the distance. One of Simpson's distinct features.

"Sure, but aren't we gonna eat first?" Mark tightened the straps of his knapsack around his shoulders.

Carla interjected, "Simpson forgets to eat. Anyway, eat while we walk." Carla pushed a beef jerky into Simpson's mouth. "Here, breakfast."

Then she shoved a beef jerky into her own mouth. Mark wadded up a couple balls of bread, followed the 'starvation' diet with a finger full of peanut butter. Who knew when they'd eat again.
Chapter 32

The grey clouds followed the three the entire way to the sanctuary. Mist stayed low to the ground and occasional light-ning cracked the dark sky, shooting across like a blazing bullet. Except for the sporadic glimpses of sunlight, someone could mis-take the dawn for dusk. Mark grew familiar with this new world, a world where few humans traversed and vampires ruled. A world where the night never seemed too far away.

"Will this take all day?" Mark asked from the back of the line. He and Aura had always discussed everything, they under-stood each other so well that words weren't always necessary. Simpson couldn't be more opposite. He hoarded details in his head, never caring to share. And Mark couldn't read him.

Carla craned her neck as she stayed walking, "Probably. I've heard Simpson talk about the sanctuary before and it sounded pretty far."

"How'd he find it anyway?"

"He said he used to do his work nearby and after his col-leagues were killed he ran off and bumped into it."

"Really? What kind of work?"

"Chemistry, biology, zoology—he's a real science geek."

"You don't say." Mark smirked.

"He doesn't talk about it much. Sounded like he spent some good years by that sanctuary though."

"So his past is as much a mystery to you as it is to me," Mark commented and Carla rose her brows and shrugged.

"He mentioned it once years ago and he sounded pretty torn up about that period in his life. Some real hard times I guess."

"He ever says anything else?"

"About what?"

"Anything. Where he grew up? His parents? Family? How he found The Underground?"

"I stopped asking him so many questions when he stopped giving me any answers, but I do know his wife was murdered by the vampires. She had been one of the other scientists working with him."

"But he got away?"

"Guess so...he's still alive, ain't he?"

Mark's mind played with scenarios of how that day must have been for Simpson as the hours passed...The vamps circling his wife, helpless to defend her did he choose to escape out the back door? Or maybe he struggled with saving her life before fleeing in the nick of time? Maybe he's consumed with guilt? Vengeance?

As Mark entertained himself, the sky only deepened in colors of purple, grey, black, and dark blue. Like a tumultuous sea about to swallow the world whole, the clouds in the sky moved like angry waves in crackles and pops, followed by a brightly lit sky, signaling another heavy rainstorm. Mark looked around the woods; the trees appeared the same for miles. How could Simp-son tell where he was going? It felt like they'd wandered in cir-cles countless times. He sensed six PM soon approaching and his arm hairs stood on end. They've been walking all day, and they needed cover.

"We're almost there," Carla whispered back to Mark who squinted at the mountainous structure in the distance. Could that be the sanctuary? Columns weaved in and out of the thick rock. Arches stood at the entrance. One arch didn't even look fully formed. Twisted dead trees curved over the top of the entrance and a stone stairwell circled out of the left side and onto the woods. Rocks embedded into a vamp-made structure, something between a castle and a rock formation, and just thirty minutes farther.

Mark's pace quickened and he sped past Carla. As he passed the lead, Simpson yanked his arm. "Not tonight."

Mark paused, his toughened exterior rankled. "You mean we've come all this way and we're going to give the vamps an-other night to torture Aura?" he growled.

Carla jumped in between the spat. "It's too dangerous now!"

"Cowards!" Mark fumed, he couldn't break the image of Au-ra's body being ripped to shreds.

Carla placed her palm on Mark's shoulder. "You know you'll get yourself killed if you go now. No way you can get past all those wild vamps! They'll eat you alive! Then what? Then who will be here for Aura! Think Mark! We do it our way or not at all!"

Mark gritted his teeth as he watched Simpson prepare the rest spot for the night. Vamp repellent highlighted each rest tree and the nearby grass. Then, Simpson tossed Mark another bottle. "Lather up!"
Chapter 33

Mark knew the routine, but he held tight onto his shotgun all the same. By six in the morning, he'd managed to sleep a total of about three hours. He'd killed on less. As they gathered over the grass mound surrounding the trees, Mark eyed the sanctuary like a moth to a flame. The group stank and they all needed long, hot baths. Mark resorted to brushing his teeth with twigs each night and morning, but he desperately needed his cleaning agents at the church to smell human again. Between the sweat, dirt, and repellent his own mother wouldn't recognize him.

"Let's go," Mark said without hesitation. The thirty minute walk turned into more of a sprint for the finish line. This would be it. No turning back now. Do or die.

At the stairwell of the sanctuary, Simpson signaled to Carla with a wave of his hand and she darted up the stairs. Cobwebs sat in corners and the stone steps felt cold to the touch. Without a railing, she had to keep her palms to the walls or the stairs.

Simpson let Mark go next. Making it to the top of the stairs, Carla could turn left or right. Simpson whispered, "Left," in Mark's ear and Mark gently nudged Carla in the correct direc-tion. The hallway grew terribly chilly and a gust of wind blew past. The mountain walls looked hard, archaic and bare. They reached the end of the hall where a thick door made of mahoga-ny wood stood.

"Go inside," Simpson encouraged.

"How do you know where to go?" Mark glanced at the scien-tist with a suspicious glare.

"Been here before. Mature vamps left and young vamps right," Simpson said flickering his eyes away from Mark and to the door, the task at hand.

The door squeaked open and the room appeared pitch black. Carla froze in her steps before turning to Simpson.

"Now what?" Her teeth chattered.

"Just a room to keep humans out. Nothing inside. Vamps like it dark. The next room gets interesting."

Padding across the floor with no way to see, Mark kept his hand on Carla's back. He didn't want to lose her. She moved faster than he would have, leading him all the way to the other side, where they found another thick door. Carla quickly turned the knob. After a crackle, the door squeaked open. On the other side sat a large room with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The lights apparently didn't work. Stone boxes started from the wall at the door and squared off the entire room. They walked into the empty center, and Mark felt a shiver rush up his spine as he realized what the boxes were, and curiously walked over to the coffins. An etched engraving sat on top of each one that stated: nolite peragere. Something in Latin that Mark suspected meant "Do Not Disturb".

"It is where the elders sleep." Simpson said matter-of-factly.

"Is it now?" Mark's mind turned with ideas. "We'll just have to make an extra stop in this room before we leave. You brought extra explosives didn't you?"

Simpson nodded and kept his head low. He didn't seem too thrilled about the idea.

At the end of this room, sat yet another mahogany door and Mark decided to take the lead. He could feel Aura getting closer. When he slid the door open, a gush of freezing air rushed past him as he entered a grey tinted space. Chills rushed up his arms and spine. The air temperature must have been close to zero, and the smell was nauseating. A cross between raw meat and an ice slushy.
Chapter 34

"Do I go in?" Mark hesitated, unsure if he even wanted to know what had become of Aura if she was in there.

"Yes." Simpson pushed ahead, "Till the next door."

"What is this room?" Mark's eyes searched the ceiling and the walls. Like the room before, each wall had been layered with rec-tangular boxes, but these boxes had ice shavings along the out-side and ice crystals formed above him. When Mark reached his hands over one of the lids, Simpson grabbed his wrist.

"Are you ready for that?" They met eyes and Mark knew ex-actly what Simpson meant. They all heard the rumors. This room had to be one of many Blood-Farms.

"Yeah," Mark said shortly and slid the heavy lid, the grinding sound letting him know the boxes had been designed of stone also. A human face emerged: a blonde haired woman who was about thirty years old. Blue eyes and Caucasian. Specks of ice crested her lashes and sealed her lids shut. Some crystals formed in the grooves of her mouth and brow lines.

Mark jerked back startled. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. Carla nudged him toward the door to the next room. "She's gone. Come on. We came for Aura."

"But she could be in here? We have to look in each one." Mark panicked.

"No, they wouldn't go through all the trouble to just throw her in here," Carla commented. She nudged him again.

When he finally arrived at the end door, Simpson had been standing beside waiting for Mark.

"Which way?" Mark asked.

"Left. Always left. Left will lead you to the highest vampire and it is there where we will find Aura. He sounded so sure and also like he knew so much more about her then he did—and maybe he did? After all, Aura had spent time in The Under-ground before she ever met Mark. Aura did speak about Carla like they had been sisters for years.

"We're here for Aura," Carla said again and broke Mark's fix-ation on the Blood-Farm. He moved forward.

Aura...her name sat on Mark's tongue like something forbid-den. He couldn't wait to see her again, to hold her as he did in the church. Securing the lead, Mark followed the corridor to the left with eager anticipation. Sure, he should be scared. Vampires lurked in hidden corners, but Aura meant more to him than his own life. If he had to die to save her, he would.

He passed several doors on Simpson's command and at the end of the hall he saw it. A cave-like room with vampires copi-ously hanging from the ceilings. Not newborns, and not young ones; mature vamps. He had never seen so many in one spot. If Mark made a sound, they would awaken and they would attack, of that he was certain. They didn't need the six to twelve sleep like the young ones did; they rested for luxury.

Carla held her finger to her lips and passed Mark. Simpson stayed at Mark's side. With prudent decisions they moved un-derneath the web of bat-like creatures. The leathery skin too tight to be human. Some vamps involuntarily twitched their eyelids and lips in their deep sleep state. Something like a cat's dream.

Halfway through the cave room, Mark felt a sneeze surfacing from his cold. He held his breath and then his nose. Simpson pointed forward. They just had a bit more distance to cover and they'd be in the clear. Carla's eyes grew big when she stared at Mark. She must have seen the sneeze coming. Lunging to his res-cue, Carla's hand slipped over his nose a second too late.

"ACHOO!"

The silence that followed never felt more poignant. The vamp ahead of them, behind them, to the side, and then the other side...one by one opened their beet-red eyes. The dead expres-sions came to life in an instant with fangs, hisses, curled lips, and drool. They dropped from the ceiling and scattered across the cold hard concrete like rabid animals, or drug addicts in search of their next fix.

Knifing the vamp in front of him, Mark cut its neck and rushed up to the next door. Simpson and Carla stood inches from Mark, pushing, as an army of vampires circled them from behind. When the door barged open, Mark's face beamed, but his mouth fell open. There stood Aura in a silvery tunic with black boots and hair pinned up like a porcelain doll. Her lips, a crimson hue, and her brows, a brown shade darker.

"Aura!" Mark cried without a second thought.

Her tiny frame looked so fragile from so far away, and when she turned her head her crystal-blue eyes lit up the room. He saw anguish in her eyes, eyes ringed with pain and swelled . She looked like she had spent the last few days crying. Mark had been so enthralled to see her it took him a few seconds before he noticed the vampire who stole her from him standing right beside her. All in black, his left arm hung around her like property, his palm fixed on her left shoulder.

The room was regal. Though a block of rock like the rest of the sanctuary, it had been decked with gold beads in the ceiling and walls. Stone stairs led down into the room, on the other side, and a fiery trail had been set ablaze around the circular floor. An older vampire with a long beard, crooked red eyes, hooked nose, and coal colored hair stood before Aura and the vampire thief. His equally ebony attire made Aura stand out that much more. She clearly didn't belong there. Like a princess among de-bauched commoners.

As Mark's hands trembled to touch her, he felt the cold, leathery hands and sharp claw-like nails of the vampires grip him from behind. Yanked forward, he stumbled backward alongside Carla and Simpson. Dragged to the front, he locked eyes with Aura as he met the older vampire, likely the king, face to face. Suddenly, he felt a vamp kick the back of his knees and he buck-led face first to the hard ground in a thud.
Chapter 35

Mark's two hands clawed forward to pull himself up, to strangle the vampire king, his hand even reached for his dangling shotgun, but he could only budge a few inches. On either side of Carla and Simpson, vamps twisted their arms from behind them, their holds were strong. The stone black eyes of the vampire king lowered as his dark mane and moist skin drew closer to Mark.

Only several feet away from the king now, Mark gritted his teeth in protest to whatever diabolical plans this demon spawn had orchestrated. The leathery king laughed. A hissy guffaw filled the room and left Mark with a knot in the pit of his stom-ach.

"What do you want with us? With Aura?" Mark demanded, each word hard against his throat as his chin scratched the rough ground under him.

"You don't know?" The king laughed again, if one could call it a laugh. More of a sinister sound like hyenas make. Turning to Aura's captor, the king continued in sarcastic sympathy. "The poor human doesn't have a clue does he, Alexander?"

"Doesn't seem to." Alexander sounded full of himself as he yanked the shotgun from Mark and tossed into a far corner. Mark's mind dizzied with the reality unfolding before him. Alex-ander? Aura's brother! Craning his neck to one side, he caught a better view of Aura.

"Your precious Aura belongs to us." The king signaled to the vamp securing Mark to the ground and it yanked him up in one swoop, tossing him like a ragdoll to his feet. Forcing his head in Aura's direction, Mark couldn't take his eyes off of her. Alexan-der wasn't dead! What did he want with Aura?

She begged the king as she stood before him with only Alex-ander to her side. "Please, let me go. Let me take the medicine from Simpson." Her voiced cracked, "I must take it." Her soft-blue eyes hardened into a black storm, and then her body began to shake. Her lips turned purple-cold as sweat poured down her scalp and along her cheekbone.

"What have you done to her?" Mark kicked his legs forward, squirming for escape. "Aura! Aura!" he cried.

"You naive human." The king snapped in detestation, "We have done nothing to Aura, but allow her true colors to show." He gleamed as if the sight of Mark's distress and confusion brought him more pleasure than Aura's captivity.

"Please." Aura stretched her hand toward Simpson who stood only yards from her with his hands and body immobilized by a few vampires. Simpson's freckled skin never looked more reassuring to Mark. Simpson had something Aura needed. The penicillin? Alexander slapped her hand back to her side just as mini-seizures rolled up and down her arms and legs, her body moving like waves. Her eyes rolled back into her head before surfacing again. Mark's heart pulsated with fear. What was be-coming of her? Mark reached out to her, his arms stretching to her, in her time of need, but something felt different with Aura. He couldn't set his mind on what.

"Simpson, just toss it to her!" Mark implored with desperate eyes and then Mark heard the ominous voice of the king.

"It's too late." Simpson shook his head, his expression dread-ful.

"Too late? Toss it to her!" Mark yelled

"There is no repressing it now, my dear Aura." The king walked up slowly to his new pet and placed his long thin fore-finger over her hollowed cheek. "I've waited a long time for you to come back to me. You were born to be a vampire and a vam-pire you will be." His words felt like death on Mark's ears as he jerked his head toward Aura and thought. What?

Aura lifted her head, and her once perfect complexion drained to a chalk-white under the dark hair draping around her face. Her pupils zoomed in on Mark and pleaded for compassion, before the dark color flushed beet-red and dripping fangs sprout-ed from the sides of her mouth. The red-glow of her eyes hung on Mark's skin as Aura's expressions finally emptied, and Mark felt his connection with her slowly dying.

Chapter 36

"Aura!" Mark cried again, but the red hues only deepened in her eyes until they were the color of blood. Something inside of her disconnected and all emotions washed from her face. She hissed as her fangs struck like a cobra in front of her, biting at nothing there. Her brother, Alexander, looked proud, his eyes beaming in brilliant dark colors.

In the midst of a cackle, Alexander rolled his harsh words, "She is not Aura anymore..."

"What did you do to her?" Mark demanded an answer.

"If she ever really was..." Alexander finished and Mark flinched before jerking his arms. He fought with a kick of his legs and a twist of his body, but he couldn't break the hold the vamps had on him. One mature vamp could hold a human down, he was no match for three.

"Simmer down Mark." Carla tried to placate him, even as the vamp holding Aura tugged at Carla's wrists.

"Carla's right," Simpson added, "you are not helping yourself by fighting now."

"Simmer down? This bloodthirsty king kidnapped Alexander as a baby, leaving Aura to think he was dead, only to turn him into one of...one of those things! And now he's doing the same thing to Aura!" Spit sputtered from his foaming mouth.

"You don't understand, Mark." Simpson stood still, the still-est of the three captives. The room grew dark and cold with each passing minute and only the flames lit on sticks around the room offered any warmth for Mark at all.

Mark's gaze fixed on Simpson. He had answers. Always more answers than he told Mark, but Mark couldn't wait any longer. "What?"

"Alexander and Aura haven't been turned," Simpson ex-plained, "They were born vampires."

Alexander stepped away from Aura briefly and padded over to Mark, "You see little human, my family could smell my blood-line. They knew I belonged to them. They had come to my home that night by accident, not realizing what they had stumbled up-on." Alexander played with his pinky over Mark's cheekbone. The finger nail dug into his skin like a claw. A single blood drop dripped from the cut and slid slowly to Mark's neck. Alexander watched the blood with a desperate tongue as he continued, "Mother hid us well. Unfortunately, the vamps left too soon and without my sister. A mistake they will not be making again."

Mark shivered. "But Aura is not a vampire. She has never been one as long as I have known her." Mark's brows curled into crooked angles as he lowered his head and tried to keep the cold breath of Alexander off his skin, but shook with chills.

Again Alexander cackled, "Foolish human. She's been keep-ing secrets from you." He hit Mark's chin with his fist, extending his neck. "And if it were up to me, you'd not live long enough to learn all of her secrets, but Father wants to have a bit of fun with you before you die."
Chapter 37

Father? Mark's eyes darted from Alexander, whose tongue licked the blood from Mark's neck, and to Aura, then to the vampire king. Father! His face twisted in unrecognizable contor-tions as his silent words screamed, no.

Simpson offered some solace at least in understanding. "Yes Mark, the vampire king is Aura's father, Alexander's father. He mated with a human and after she gave birth to the children she discovered who...or what, he really was. She disappeared and the king couldn't find her for years."

The vampire king interrupted, "Until my little vampire sol-diers stumbled upon her home. Too bad they missed my daugh-ter. I had been searching for her for far too long. But she kept herself well hidden, she must've gotten that from her mother." The leathery face jarred backward as it gazed at Aura. She looked darker somehow, more hollow, than Mark had ever seen her. It was the face of his nightmares, the ones he never let him-self remember.

Simpson added, "The king is ancient and will die soon. Un-like in the story books, vamps do have expiration dates. And the king needs his progeny vamps to take over the coven when he dies."

"I see." Mark's eyes twitched as he looked at the king, his hands ached from wanting to strangle the monster. Father or not, he couldn't—wouldn't—let these bloodsuckers take Aura from him. "But that still doesn't explain how she kept her vampire blood quiet all these years." Then he looked at Simpson before saying, "or how you know so much?" He wanted answers, but the king flapped his hand in exhaustion with the subject.

"Enough talk! Is it not time for some entertainment?" The king commanded and his vamp subordinates yanked Simpson and Carla backward toward the right wall.

"What's going on?" Mark struggled to free his wrists from the tightened hold as Alexander grabbed the reins on his captivity.

"Oh, Mark, I am bored.You are going to entertain me. Too bad Aura won't ever remember what happened to you."

Mark's expression grew grave when Alexander slammed him up against the left wall, holding him there with a hard palm around his throat. A few sharp fingernails scratched into Mark's neck, drawing blood to the surface. Then the floor began to move. Like waves on an ocean, the slabs of concrete descended over each other, one by one, until the center of the floor opened up and revealed an arena of sorts.

"What are you going to do?" Mark shuddered, and then all eyes turned to the king.

The king's hand waved to Aura as a satisfied smirk sat on his rubbery face. "We're going to let Aura play with you." With a single nod, Alexander pushed Mark over the edge and he slipped ten feet, landing on his hands and knees. His cage reminded him of the stories of the gladiators from the far past He was trapped in a thirty foot arena with stone walls all around him. No way out.

Then, scratchy claws sliding across concrete alerted Mark's attention above and he lifted his head and jumped quickly to his feet. Aura stood barefoot on the ledge, her toenails and finger-nails like talons of an eagle protruding from her hands and feet. Fangs pushed out of her mouth and Mark jerked backward, stumbling over himself. The sight of her leathery skin made him almost paralyzed. Nothing about this creature resembled Aura at all. Her tender eyes...gone. Soft skin...gone. Personality...gone.

All that remained mirrored the world she had sworn to de-stroy with Mark two years ago when she first met him, the world of the vampires. Keeping a paranoid watch on Aura, her knees bent and palms stretched out straight before she dove into the pit with Mark.
Chapter 38

Landing on her feet with a thud, she didn't flinch or stumble as did Mark. She appeared as vigilant and visceral as a rabid an-imal ready to kill: hands up, legs firm, and prepared to attack. As if he had been slapped in the face, Mark finally awoke from his daze and saw from his peripherals Simpson, Carla, Alexander and the vampire king all standing around the pit looking down at him. To where could he retreat?

With only the sounds of the vampires cackling, Mark stepped backward. But with each step Mark took back, Aura moved forward with more assurance. Mark could see it now, the vam-pire she had been, so long denying. All this time, he hadn't no-ticed it, or tried not to, Yet now, with her before him, staring at him like he had become her dinner, he could finally see the mon-ster within her. Her mother's treatment of her, something she had mentioned on the couch, long ago, gurgled up in his brain. Her mother calling Aura a monster finally made sense.

As he took another step backward, he recalled the many times they raced through the forests and he struggled to keep up with her; now he could see the vampire blood circulating in her legs. When Aura would leap from the ground to a higher branch, or manage to take two vamps in a fight when he struggled with one; now he saw the vampire hidden deep within her. Simpson spoke the truth, and as Mark perceived this, his mind swirled around one crazy truth.

All this time, he had fallen in love with a vampire.

As he realized all of this: That Aura is a vampire. That he loved her. That she now tried to kill him. He took another step back and hit the stone wall. Dead end.

"Aura." He cried to her to try to bring her back to her senses. She took another step forward. Each movement graceful, like a wicked ballerina. Her chalk white skin hovered over Mark. Sharp points on her fangs poked his chin as her nostrils breathed in the aroma of his fragrant fresh blood. A slurry sound permeated from her mouth, her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

"A live kill for my daughter who has finally come home to me," the vampire king announced as he watched in sadistic pleasure.

"Fight her Mark!" Carla shouted. "She is not Aura anymore. She won't hesitate to kill you!"

Carla's words echoed into Mark's ears. He could intellectual-ly understand what Carla said, agreed with what she said, but emotionally his heart hadn't caught up to the events just yet. A part of him still hoped Aura wold return to him.

"Aura!" He cried out one last time in the hopes that the Aura he knew still existed somewhere deep inside of this monster, and that she would conquer the beast.

The Aura-monster's tongue slurped the blood on Mark's neck and a teeth-chattering sound emanated from her mouth. The frenzy began and her blood-red eyes rolled back into her head as if in a delirium. The points of the fangs aimed for his neck. Her dark, lengthy hair draped over her face and tickled his cheeks.

"MARK!" Simpson yelled in unison with Carla as the vam-pires hit their hands on the ledge of the pit in some kind of clap-ping frenzy. The clamor resonated in Mark's head and all the memories with Aura vanished. He looked up at her and into her eyes and saw nothing. Dead eyes.

"You're not Aura." Mark pushed his fists into her chest and knocked her backward a few inches. In her momentary imbal-ance, Mark ducked and fled from the wall. He darted to the cen-ter of the ring. "You are not Aura," he repeated to himself as if he had to keep that one single thought in his mind in order to fight her to the death. Only one of them could walk away alive.
Chapter 39

Aura moved in swift motions left and right; her intense glare hung over Mark. Every time Mark said her name, she paused. It was as if the name awoke a memory deep within, an identity fighting to be free.

"You're not Aura," Mark repeated and swung his fists, pre-pared to hit her again if she attacked.

Her head oscillated from side to side, like a cobra. As he watched in horror, her grace disintegrated. Movements became more erratic, as if two beings inside fought for attention, her head hitting the wall as if trying to dislodge the monster. Fangs protruded and saliva spouted out of her mouth and onto Mark's arms.

Lunging forward, the monster growled as it landed inches from him. Alexander hit his hands against the pit's ledge, his face turned to the excitement as he yelled. "Kill him!"

The monster jerked her head in Alexander's direction, her eyes darkening into a frenzy. With a renewed energy, she charged at Mark and knocked him point-blank in the chest. Tumbling backward, Mark hit the back of his head on the dirt ground, his back and legs suffering a few more bruises.

"You're not Aura." Mark stiffened his fists and curled his toes under to jump to his feet. The name made her flit her eyes and pause in the attack before she shook her head and lunged at him again. Hitting him as he jumped up, they collided and both fell sideways, landing over each other. His leg curled over hers and her arm fixed on his shoulder. She hissed and her breath washed over his face.

"She is not Aura." Mark whispered and tightened his fist as he slammed into her stomach. A deep groan escaped her mouth. Was it caused by his fist or his words? Was it physical pain or psychological torment? If he wasn't focused so hard on staying alive, the confusion in her eyes would have broken him. Some-thing inside of her knew that name. That name...who belonged to that name?

Her hiss lessened, but her nostrils flared. She licked his neck. Mark wanted to give into the sensation, the feel of his lover... and yet, in the back of his mind, he knew it was a dangerous en-counter. His hairs stood on end as Aura batted her lashes. A hint of herself reflected in those dead-red eyes and Mark bent his hands over her shoulders to shake her back to life.

"Aura! Aura!" Her long hair thrashed about as the color of her eyes faded from red to grey. "It's Mark. It's Me."

That name, his name...something about his name felt good.

"KILL HIM!" The vampire king shouted, his scratchy voice reverberating over the pit. Aura's grey eyes darkened to black, her father's voice commanding the monster's birth. "Kill the hu-man! Prove your worth to the coven!"

Mark stared down the monster within Aura and pleaded in a silent conversation. He didn't know what he looked at anymore. A vampire? His long time companion? She seemed to be both, but as she hissed and her fangs struck his shoulder, he felt Aura fading and the monster returning.

"AURA!" He yelled.

She shook violently in manic rage as he crashed his fist into the side of her head. Half of her fixated on the taste of his blood, while the other half fought to save him. Yet a few drops of the toxic vampire venom exuded from her fangs and shot through his system before Aura finally emerged. Drops that surged through Mark's veins, poisoning everything the fluid touched.

Her dead eyes flitted as they became hers again. Her skin color returned. She slowly pulled her fangs out of him and closed her mouth. He wouldn't die today. Her leathery skin sof-tened and she awoke, as if out of a dream, and saw the one per-son she thought she would never see again... "Mark?"

Mark instantly noticed the change. "Aura?"

She was so close to him, she felt his breath on her. They stared deep into each other's eyes, oblivious to the vampires above who were pacing in distress.
Chapter 40

"Aura?" He stared into her crystal-blues and rubbed his pinky down her cheek. "Is that really you?"

"With a few extras" She showed her fangs and the sight made Mark jump back a few inches.

"Damn, vamp girl."

He wanted to watch Aura to make sure she remained Aura, but Simpson and Carla had been yanked away from the pit's ledge and their invisibility concerned him. He could only see their arms flail about as a few vampires pushed and pulled.

"Carla?" Mark shouted for her attention, his eyes skyward and neck craned back, but he could only hear rustling, a crash into a wall and hissing.

"We have to hurry. I sense Simpson and Carla are in danger and I don't know how long I can resist the monster inside of me. It could return any minute."

Tension lines formed over Mark's forehead as he searched for an escape. "We have to get out of this pit."

"The lowest point is here." Aura pointed to where the vam-pire king once watched. "I will push you up."

"And you?" Mark worried.

"I'm a vampire, remember? I'll be just fine."

"Right." Mark raced to the lower stone wall and Aura put her hands together. Mark laid his foot into her hands and she pushed him. When his fingers grasped the ledge, he tugged until he yanked himself over the edge. As he stood, Aura landed beside him.

The dark cave looked like hell. Fire blazed around the walls, a few trails freed from the torches, danced across the cave's ceil-ing. The vampire king stood in the back of the room with a semi-circle of vampire guards defending him from attack, while Alex-ander commanded bands of vampires at Simpson and Carla.

Mark had never seen them fight. He had heard stories from Aura, a few from Roger. They fought with more precision and agility than he could have ever imagined for two mere scientists.

Simpson broke the arm of the vampire flying mid-air over him as Carla kicked her attacking vampire in the groin. Then they each cracked the vampires' necks in unison, synchronized per-fectly. Another set of vampires lunged at the two scientists and Simpson ducked while one flew past him. He grabbed the fin-gers of the other as it tried to stick his neck with its claws.

Carla laughed as she kicked her two attacking vamps in the stomach, as if nothing made her more satisfied. Mature or not, they seemed utterly inexperienced when compared to Carla. With a hiss, the wounded vamps crawled for Carla as she kicked them in the mouth and then broke one of their necks. As she reached for the neck of the last one, Aura jumped into the mid-dle of the fight.

Chapter 41

"Need some assistance?" Aura asked regaining her humor as well as the color of her cheeks.

"About time you came to your senses." Carla shook her head with a half grin.

"You know how difficult the struggle is when the monster is fully awake in your blood," Aura defended.

"Yes, I do." Carla winked. "It can be a bitch." She cracked the neck of the last one.

Alexander sent another wave of vampire soldiers toward them with a simple signal of his fingers. Within minutes, at least ten more mature vamps from the other room swarmed across the king's cave and surrounded Simpson, Carla and Aura. Mark stood on the outside of the attack, near the edge of the pit, and readied his position. Human or not, he still had good fight left in him.

"Kill them all, but leave Aura for me!" The vampire king commanded, and soon vamps flew across the room like trapeze artists. Some stayed on the ground and approached in a slow march, but all had their eyes pointed at the three unwanted in-truders.

Where Mark once felt safe, he now felt vulnerable. Separated from Aura, Carla, and Simpson, he would have to fend for him-self. When he saw the vampires piling into the king's cave, Mark raced over to where Aura stood.

"You ready?" Aura teased

"Bring it on." Mark retorted and the four positioned them-selves with their backs to each other.

"You know we might not get out of this alive!" Aura shouted over all the hissing.

"Well if I'm going to die, it might as well be with you," Mark answered, and though they couldn't see each other, they both felt the sure grin plastered over each of their faces.

As the vampires crowded forward, the group of four pushed backward allowing Mark and Simpson a full line of sight to the vampire king cowering behind his guards and back wall. Mark felt Simpson drawn toward the aging monarch.

"Simpson, the battle is over here." Mark yelled.

"I've spent most of my life preparing for this moment—I don't think I'll ever get another shot at that bloodless bastard."

This could be the longest conversation Mark had ever had with the scientist. Before Mark could realize what was happen-ing, Simpson darted up toward the other side of the room. He slammed into the first vampire, and as its fangs fell into Simp-son's neck, he somehow managed to tighten his hands around the monster's neck and...crack. The fangs left a mark, but Simpson didn't appear deterred. Two side vamps jumped on top of Mark and he tossed and turned with them for several minutes with un-canny ease.

As Simpson wrestled with his attack on the King, Carla and Aura had their own monsters with which to contend. When a flock of vamps lunged at them from the ground and the air, Aura revealed her fangs. Hissing, she flung her fists around, knocking several of them down before one bit Carla on the arm.

"Damn! That's going to sting!" Carla bounced her blonde bob as she swung in a round-house kick and slammed the vampire who left the mark. Its chest sunk in during the hit and then Carla stomped on top of it until its neck twisted dead.

Aura bit into several of the vampires as they drew close. Her mouth whipped back and forth like a rabid dog. Mark watched horrified as the blood awoke her inner beast and the smell intoxi-cated her, leaving her in a half-frenzied state. Would she ever be the same ass-kicking human Aura again?

"Aura?" Carla called, and then shook her from behind. "Au-ra!"

Mark could see the monster awakening, the siren call of the blood too much for his lover.
Chapter 42

"Simpson!" Mark cried out as the two side vamps twisted Simpson's arms back holding him down on the floor. He tried to escape by wriggling like a worm, but the strength of the king's guards surmounted that of the mere mature vampires. Simpson was a good fighter, but had not been accustomed to fighting such powerful vamps.

"Get out of here while you still can!" Simpson shouted to Mark as his face lost color. Like Aura, Simpson's eyes faded to a stone black and his skin became rubbery. The stress of the fight released something inside of him and all of a sudden the truth hit Mark. Simpson and Aura both belonged to the vampire coven. That was his secret. That was how he knew where the sanctuary had been situated. Simpson didn't escape the attack on his col-leagues that day so long ago, he failed to survive it. Why did he work in the lab and The Underground all those years?...And Car-la? What was she? A vamp too? Were they both born or turned? Mark had too many questions, but too much loyalty to ever leave now.

"Not without you!" Mark shouted in return. Simpson had been there for him when he needed him to find Aura, and now in their desperate hour, he couldn't just flee. He wouldn't be a cow-ard. Mark raced up to Simpson and swung his fist into one of the guarding vamp's cheek. Blood splattered out of its mouth, but it laughed as it released Simpson to fight this intrusive human.

With only one vampire pinning him to the floor, Simpson tossed his own body. Taking advantage of the inch between him and the vamp holding him, Simpson kicked his leg into its shins and then twisted his own wrists to break free. Finally releasing himself, Simpson swung his fists at the vamp's chest just as a set of fangs pierced Simpson's shoulder bone. Simpson tightened his hold around the vamp's neck and then cracked it.

Mark flipped over to his back, when the other vamp spun him with brute force. Coughing his own blood, Mark felt the kick of a vampire guard in his groin and then gut, like a ton of bricks. Nothing hurt more! Jumping onto Mark's chest, the vampire stomped and a loud crunch resounded from underneath Mark—maybe a broken rib?

Simpson eyed Mark, and Mark saw out of his peripherals the torn expression on Simpson's face. Mark knew what Simpson wanted to do, had to do. As blood drained from Mark's nose and gums, and the remaining vampire guards fixed their eyes in Mark's direction, Mark knew this might be the only chance Simpson would have.

"Go! Do it! Go!" Simpson nodded at Mark's words and then he darted toward the vampire king with agile speed. Cowering at the wall, the king hissed.

"Not so strong without your entourage," Simpson teased. "A once masterful king, weakened year by year. You've become a shriveled and wrinkled dying thing. Have you looked in a mirror lately?" Simpson didn't expect a response. Hovering over the king, Simpson spat into his own hands, as the weapon of choice. The king hissed at the disrespect. At this point in his life, he was built more for giving orders than protecting himself, his fangs were even shorter than mature vamps. Up close, Simpson could see the white spots on his skin, the dying flesh.

As Simpson teased the king with impending doom, Alexan-der watched in the distance. Even near death and in gut-wrenching pain, Mark was intrigued by the conflicting emotions that traveled across the prince's face. On one hand, Alexander should protect the king, his father; however, with his father dead, he would become king. Mark noticed all of this conflict before the king's loud voice echoed throughout the room.

"Your friends will be dead in no time, and then my coven will kill you!" The king threatened.

"Why not just do it yourself? Oh yeah, you're dying," Simp-son said matter-of-factly. "There is no stopping it. I'm only expe-diting the process."

"GUARDS!" The king shouted with an anguished voice. The fixated group of vampires hovering over Mark's blood-soaked body turned in one single motion. All eyes shot up at Simpson, even Aura's.
Chapter 43

"Aura!" Mark turned to his own needs and shouted in pain, his chest ached like more than one bone had broken. Her name wavered softly in the mountain wind and dissipated in the may-hem. Still Mark couldn't rip his eyes from her, even if it meant his death.

The vampire pinning Mark had had his fangs on Mark's neck and he was sure that this time the vamp would drain him of all his blood, until he fell dead, but he guard stopped at the king's distressed call. The vampire king huffed in exasperation and whistled—a buzzing call, familiar to Mark. He remembered the same call when his sister was killed and vamps disappeared to follow the sound. All eyes turned towards their ruler and the vamps headed to the throne to save him.

Alexander shouted, "The king is in danger!" and even the vampires surrounding Carla dropped their immediate fix for the protection of the king. Suddenly, every vamp in the cave ap-proached the throne. Even the adjacent cave awoke fully and many of the mature vampires piled through the doorway. One by one, they exited their sleep chamber and entered the king's cave.

Mark sensed time would run out soon. "Do it now!" Mark shouted at Simpson, breaking his stare on Aura for just a second. "Now!" There would never be another time. The guards swarmed around the throne. Within a micro-second Mark saw something fling over the swarming vampires and then a bag landed beside him. Simpson's bag of supplies. Mark curled the bag into his own on his back.

With nothing to lose, Simpson threw his spit-soaked palms around the king's throat. The king kicked and flailed about, fighting for his life. His skin tone losing its chalk white coloring, replaced by something even paler, as the king struggled for breath. Simpson finally cracked the king's neck, sending a shockwave through the entire cave. Every vampire felt the dis-turbance, the death.

Just moments later, after Simpson let go of the king's neck, its limp leathery body plopped to the ground and its back slid down the wall until its head hung in its lap. Seconds later, a handful of vampire guards landed on top of Simpson. Thud, thud, thud. The sound echoed throughout the cave.

Mark gripped his backpack— something inside Simpson's bag must be vital, but what? Mark raced up to Carla as Aura fixed her eyes on Simpson. No vamp would have their attentions elsewhere for the next few minutes until vengeance was satis-fied, until the king's slayer was killed.

"Carla!" Mark called to her.

"The bag!" Carla shouted to him. "Simpson threw you the bag."

"Yeah!" Mark shrugged.

"We have to inject Aura with the serum."

"Serum?"

"Vamp-repressant serum X01. Developed by Simpson."

Then it all made sense. How Aura stayed human. How Simp-son stayed human. How he would stay human. After all, Aura bit him. The vampire venom surged in his veins. His humanity was doomed. He could sense it getting hotter, stronger, could feel the monster awakening inside of him. He would not be able to suppress it for much longer.
Chapter 44

He yanked the pink bottle out of the bag. "Penicillin my ass." He commented under his brassy breath as he tossed it to Carla.

"The shot. There should be a few shots with needles in there." Carla grabbed the bag frantically. Her hands shook as her eyes blackened.

"Oh God, you're turning too." Mark froze.

"No I won't." Carla poked the pink fluid bottle with the nee-dle, and filled it to the brim. A few drops spattered onto the floor before Carla stabbed her own arm with the needle. In sec-onds the color of her eyes returned to their natural tone.

She looked up at Mark. "You'll need it too." She stabbed him in the arm for a vein, and then Carla readied the shot for Aura. "Your girlfriend's next." They both turned in the direction of Simpson and then stood astonished. Mark's mouth fell open.

As the vampires dispersed from the throne, only bits and pieces of Simpson remained. Mark hadn't heard Simpson once shout out in pain, but staring at his broken body now, Mark could shout in agony for him. Then, as if on cue, all the hungry vampires who devoured Simpson's marrow turned to Mark and Carla. Blood slid down stained vamp fangs and cheeks as they focused on their next prey. The mingled human and vamp blood became the most tempting in the cave. And revenge was always sweet.

"We have to get to Aura!" Mark yelled to Carla.

But how? Aura moved in zombie-like fashion toward the throne, pulled by the scent of Simpson's blood. Mark searched for an opening, a way to get to her.

"This way!" Mark spied a way. Vampires lurked on the far ceilings and some came toward them from the right side. A few still lingered in the back near the sleeping cave. The left side near the open pit still had a clear path to the throne, to Aura.

"We have to move fast!" Carla shouted just as a reminder. Who knew how long the left side would remain untainted by vampires? Darting toward the throne, Mark didn't take his eyes off Aura, off his Aura. He just wanted her back. All of her. He didn't want to have to share her with this...this monster of a world. They didn't deserve her—someone of such beauty and goodness. He couldn't and wouldn't let this world take her from him and turn her into something she had never wanted to be.

As Mark sped past the pit, two vamps lunged and toppled over him, crashing him to the ground. They spun with him in somersault motions until Mark jerked back and forth to throw them off him. One set of fangs dug into Mark's neck while an-other set dug into his calf.

Screaming didn't help. The razor sharp edges of the teeth could have been from a shark they hurt so badly. Carla kicked from behind Mark and hit the chin of the vamp on his leg. The bottom jaw met with a crashing bang to the top jaw and a fang popped out of its mouth. Then, Carla kicked his chest, her brute force stronger than any human.

As Carla straddled the vampire and readied herself to break its bones, Mark tightened his hand around the vampire sucking his neck. He possessed a strength he had not seen before. Some-thing in his blood felt different. Controlled, but different. Grip-ping his palm around the vamp's own neck, Mark yanked its bloodthirsty mouth from his own neck and flung the head back-ward. Then, with one quick stab of his fingers into its eye sock-ets, Mark blinded it. As it flailed about, it only took a couple seconds before it stumbled over the pit's edge and hit dirt.

Whamp.
Chapter 45

Stumbling to his feet, Mark raced behind Carla as they skirt-ed past the pit ledge and up toward the throne. Vampires from all around advanced, and Mark and Aura knew they only had seconds...a single minute at the most.

As Mark approached with Carla, he shook at the sight of Au-ra—not her, but the monster within her. Aura stared, enraptured at Simpson's ripped arm. Only a few fingers and the length to his wrist remained. The blood swilled freshly from the bone.

She shoved her face into Simpson's severed hand. Blood oozed from the corners of her mouth. A good friend lay in pieces and she ―this beast― couldn't keep from eating him.

Mark knew she would regret it, grieve it, and maybe never forgive it, once she returned to her senses. Once she became Au-ra again. He had to rescue her from all of this and not just for himself, but for Aura too. He jumped up onto the throne with Carla and guarded them both while Carla yanked the needle from the bag and pushed the point toward Aura's arm.

He kept his fists high and legs spread apart. He would be the only defense Carla had as she concentrated on getting the serum into Aura's bloodstream. Aura glanced up from the meal she de-voured and with dead-red eyes, her head jerked to Carla. Quick-er than a breath, Carla slammed the needle into Aura's arm and injected the pink formula.

Aura went down in a couple seconds flat. Her body con-vulsed.

"What's happening?!" Mark yelled as a semicircle of vamps encroached him.

"Aura was a full vampire before the injection. She has to transform back into her human self. It will be a bit."

"A bit?" Mark's brows quirked. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know. Simpson knew about this stuff. I've never in-jected a full vamp before."

"Damn it, what do we do?" Mark stared at Carla. Blood caked her blonde locks.

"Fight until she wakes up and we get the hell out of here!"Carla turned from Aura's seizing body and faced the mass-es coming for her.

Alexander stood in the background, commanding his troops. Mark could see the twisted expression of excitement the prince got out of watching the three of them fight for their lives. He didn't want to hurt Aura, for sure, but more than that Alexander seemed to enjoy prolonging the agony of war for as long as pos-sible in watching Mark and Carla show off their skills, as he tore them apart one by one. Maybe he underestimated his enemies at times. Sometimes even let them get away with more than any vamp on his own would have done, but for Mark and Carla get-ting out of the sanctuary would only solve half their problem, considering that the rest of their world was dominated by vam-pires and the Sanctuary Vamps would stay on their tails as they tried to make it back home.

The prince moved more of his subjects in slow motion as if the longer the anticipation took, the more demented pleasure he received. "It is only a matter of time Mark, and you will be like Simpson. Dead."

"I'm afraid you're mistaken. It's you who will soon become dead like your father." Mark's chest puffed and his confidence intensified. "And Aura will join us, her real family."

"You'll never take her from me." Alexander's bravado clashed with the anguish in his timbre. Red vein-lines beat in his eyes since his father, the king, died. When Mark mentioned Au-ra's name, those same veins beat stronger. "And you will never get out of here alive!" Alexander signaled with his hand for sub-ordinates to attack, and a handful of the mature vampires marched toward Mark.

Carla stood at his side, watching the tsunami of monsters. "Don't be scared. We can do this." Carla grabbed Mark's hand and squeezed. Her hands shivered. "And even if we don't, it was one hell of a night."

"We'll survive," Mark said with surety and released her hand to ball his own into fists. His knees bent slightly and he kept his eyes vigilant. With one last look at Aura convulsing on the floor, he knew he had to stay strong, if only for her.

Chapter 46

The thump of Aura's body against the floor echoed in Mark's eardrum. How much longer would her seizing last? Good thing she had vampire blood surging through her, for as a mere human her body would have given up long ago. He turned, his ears at-tacked by the cacophony of sound from the vampires. Some scoured the walls, their talons scratching rock. Others marched, the rhythmic pounding of hundreds of maddened vamps hitting the floors. Both made it hard to focus on any one single vampire, but Mark had to focus on the attack. Aura would have to make it out of the convulsions all on her own.

"What do we do?" Mark's right brow arched as he glanced at Carla. Blood stained his knuckles and neck. Two sure fang holes showed above the neckline.

"Don't die."

Nodding, Mark turned back around to the approaching vamps. A set of twins with white blond hair to their waists ap-peared before him as if they glided over the air. Crystal-blues reminded him of Aura, but the deadness told him they only wanted a kill. Both were males.

"Come on bloodsuckers, give me all you got." Mark bared his teeth, though only flat human incisors protruded. The twins laughed in hysteria at the sight of naive Mark.

"You have no idea how powerful we are, do you human?"

"The name is Mark."

"You'll be dead before we remember," One twin retorted.

Carla interjected, with a foot in front of Mark, "They are more of the king's spawn, second to the throne after Alexander."

Mark shrugged. "So, that makes them, what, pubescent royal-ty? I know you have a lot of growing up to do boys, let me tell you, puberty sucks..." He balled his fists.

"Be careful," Carla whispered and tightened her own fists beside Mark.

The twins hissed; blood dripped off of edgy fangs. Within seconds, one of the twins widened his mouth and released an icy cold fog over Mark and Carla. Coughing, the two backed up as Mark scratched his skin.

"It stings." His hands rubbed all over his arms and legs.

"You are more vulnerable to it. You have more human blood in you still." Carla answered as she blew the fog around her away.

"What is it?"

"Vampire magic. Only the king's descendants have it."

The fog near Mark blinded him, while the sinister laughter of the twins hit his ears. The sound scratched like nails to a chalk-board. He covered his ears with his palms. He shook his head and tried to roll away from the fog, but wherever he went the fog followed.

"Can't shake it." Mark shuddered as he spoke. Carla slapped his cheek and his eyes shot open. Then Carla spat in each eye. "What are you doing?!" Mark shouted.

"Rub the spit in your eyes. It will protect them from the fog. Vampires are immune to the magic and it only affects me a bit."

When Mark opened his eyes again he could actually see. The twins oscillated between Carla and Mark just feet away. They drew closer with every passing second, their fangs hung in des-perate desire for blood.

"Stay in the game Mark. We have to even out the playing field," Carla commented as she broke from Mark's side and aimed straight for the twin closest to her.

She pirouetted into battle like a crazed ballerina, her body a bizarre cross between a human and a vampire. Her skin color and appearance clearly denoted human, but Mark could see now the vampire that lurked just underneath the guise. The strength, agili-ty, speed. In watching Carla he began to see and understand Au-ra more clearly.
Chapter 47

As Carla tumbled over the first twin, she knocked her fist in-to its mouth. Blood splattered both from the twin's cracking gums and from Carla's cracked knuckles. Rolling onto the floor, Mark could see the power the twin had over Carla. Even with all her hidden strength she couldn't keep the twin from pinning her body to the ground. Gripping its palms over her wrists, she lay as if in handcuffs and then the twin's knee gutted her stomach. The scream shattered Mark's attention on the approaching second twin.

He darted to Carla's side, ignoring the searing pin-pricks that covered his skin. He resisted, and instead he used his hands to grab the vamp from behind. Kicking the vamp twin in the back, Mark then forced his body backward and pulled the twin from Carla. Mark flung it aside and it rolled over the floor, hissing like a snake.

Carla held her stomach with both hands unable to hide the pain from her face. She didn't have seconds to regain her strength, she had to act immediately. Mark stood firm with one twin clawing its way off the floor and another twin flying through the air aimed at him. One hand with fingernails as long as nails stretched forward with one leg tucked underneath its flexed body.

Its abyssal mouth opened and Mark could see the cold fog emitting. Jumping backward, goosebumps flushed over his arms, and he felt the urge to scratch intensify. He wouldn't be able to see again and his body would suffer a blood-longing so intense he might not be able to resist it enough to fight.

As he struggled with what to do next, he saw Carla out of the corner of his eye race forward with something in her hand, something shiny. When the twin finally landed on top of Mark, Mark fell backward but kept his arms stretched and his palms braced against the monster's shoulder blades. He had to keep it at arm's length and keep its fangs out of his blood veins. He couldn't be sure what more venom would do to him—royal ven-om at that.

The cold air festered on its tongue and suddenly spilled over Mark's face. He felt like he'd entered a cloud of bees. Suddenly, he felt the stark prick of fangs, from another vamp, enter his back shoulder. The other twin had emerged.

With blood thirsty vampires on either side of him, Mark tossed and turned. He couldn't see and he stung everywhere. It became harder and harder to distinguish the fang's bite from the fog's hold. He screamed in agony when a second pair of fangs entered his chest. He could feel his heart pumping, the fangs de-vouring him.

Rubbing his eyes, he couldn't make out too much. White cloudy mist? Sharp teeth? Two silhouettes of vampires with stark white hair hanging over him? He couldn't be sure of anything he saw, like some bad dream. Then he saw a shiny point of some-thing bobbing up and down as if in the hands of someone run-ning. The shiny point drew closer and closer until he saw it pierce inside the back of one twin. Then just as quickly into the second twin.

Mark shut his eyes for rest. The unmerciful sting wouldn't quit. Pushing his eyes open, he saw blond hair dash between the two vampires and a fist hit one cheek and then the next. As the weight of the twins on his body fell to the side, he felt a hand wrap around his own and yank him to his feet. Still in a daze from the lack of blood, his skin still stinging and his eyes sore, Mark managed to gaze at the floor before the rescuing hand pulled him back toward the throne. The twins convulsed as saliva drained from the corners of their mouths. Not dead yet, but mere humans now; at least for a month.

"No!" Mark could hear the screech of Alexander. "You will die for this!"

"Come on, Mark. Aura's awake!" He heard Carla shout and turned all his attention to the back of the room where she once lay.
Chapter 48

"What'd you do to the twins?" Mark coughed as Carla spit in his eyes again. The sting began to fade as he drew further from the twins and Carla's spit helped soothe his eyes.

"The pink serum we used on Aura."

"Will we have enough for Aura later?" Mark worried as the magical fog acted like an invisible barrier between the mass of vampires and the throne. The barrier could not easily be penetrat-ed by either human or vamp, and now with his vision clearing up Mark could better see the multitude of vamps growing there, but the white cloudy substance still marked a line between two sides.

"Not much. Between you, me, Simpson, Aura and the twins...we are running out. We've only got one bottle left." She yanked Mark to Aura's body. Aura twitched, but her bright eyes shone like diamonds.

"How long does the serum last?" Mark dropped to Aura's side and lifted her head.

"A month in the beginning and then the dosage gradually must get stronger. It's like our blood becomes immune the longer we use it." Carla's forehead wrinkled and she lifted Aura on one side as Mark took the other side. "Simpson was working on an answer before he died, but never found it."

Mark looked up and noticed a huddle of vampires around the fallen twins. Alexander's competition must have been important to the coven, and Mark could see that human deaths would prove a release for vamp pent-up vengeance—as if the dead king didn't already add fuel to the fire. Mark, Aura, and Carla would return to their vampire forms soon enough, but Mark couldn't be sure how much of that Alexander actually understood. He didn't really seem to understand how Aura maintained her humanity for so long.

"You will die today!" Alexander's voice resonated over the crowding vampires, but his words only further burned anger in-side of Aura. Her eyes widened and legs kicked. She still limped as if she needed aid in walking, but the human fervor returned. Cream coloring etched her skin tone and her will emerged, push-ing forward.

"This way. There is another way out!" Aura reassured with whispered breaths. Mark couldn't be sure if she whispered be-cause she didn't want her vamp brother to hear or because she didn't have the strength to speak louder, but in the moment it didn't really matter. They just had to get out of there.

Alexander waved his hands to command half the vampires in the room to assist the twins and the other half to chase after the escaping trio. Mark looked back once to survey the opposition and then turned forward. He didn't want to take his eyes off Au-ra. Carla had never turned a full vampire, then human, before; Mark wanted to make sure there would be no side effects.

"How do we get out of here?" Carla panicked. "I don't like uncertainties."

"This way. Not far." Aura took two short breaths between each two-worded sentence. She still needed more strength. Mark kept his athletic arm underneath Aura's shoulder, keeping her on her toes. Carla pushed ahead, with her arm underneath Aura's other side.

The cave turned into a tunnel with dim lighting. As a full-blooded human Mark wouldn't be able to see much, but now with controlled vampire venom surging through his bloodstream, he saw better than he ever had. The tunnel forked.

"Now where?" Mark asked.

"Right. Always right to get out." Aura coughed and a tremor coursed through her arms.

"You alright?" Mark fretted.

"I don't know. Simpson usually gives me the serum while I'm still human, so hard to tell.
Chapter 49

Mark nodded, unsure if anything would ever be alright again. Aura still had tremors from the serum, she'd learned her missing father really had been the vampire king and that her brother wanted her to stay a vampire to be a part his coven. Simpson, the only human-vampire with the knowledge of creating the repress serum, lay dead in the vampire's sanctuary, making the trio's hu-man future questionable in a month's time. Now they headed out of the cave with half the mature vamps chasing after them. Noth-ing about their prospects looked positive.

"We have to make it to The Underground. It's the only shot we've got!" Carla shouted while skirting around the corner. "A few more bottles of suppressant and repellent serum. A hideout. Food, water, and Roger to help." They headed right and then made another right. Three right turns at every fork and they fi-nally found the mountain daylight. The sun met with the trees in the distance and the rays of light shot over their bodies like a healing touch.

"Move!" Aura yelled and somehow her human strength grew under the grace of the sun. She unlatched her arms from Carla and Mark and dove straight ahead for the sunlight. "It'll keep us safe from them."

Mark heard the rush of vampires close behind as he popped out of the hole of the cave, and raced behind Aura and Carla. Turning his head, he saw two mature vamps hit the sunlight, and their skin sizzled before burning them whole. The rest of the bunch hovered underneath the darkness of the sanctuary and didn't dare cross the line between lightness and darkness.

Flipping back around, Mark raced up beside Aura. "They can't follow us!" he said optimistically.

"Not yet anyway," Aura corrected, "but they soon will. The sun only has a few more hours of light and then it'll drop behind the trees and they'll chase after us."

"And track us," Carla added.

"Do we have anymore of that serum?" Aura tapped the bag on Carla's shoulder as she slowed her pace. Carla swung the bag in front of her while still running.

"A bottle or two, but we have about a two day's journey back to The Underground."

"We'll have to use it sparingly then!" Aura shouted at Carla as they now jogged side by side. Mark kept close behind Aura. He hadn't noticed any tremors since she hit sunlight. Something in the rays exaggerated her human qualities.

"Keep running until the sun goes down," Carla added, "and then we'll keep high in the trees and use the repellent. It kept the vamps away from us when we went toward the sanctuary."

"If I forget to say it later, thank you guys for saving my ass." Aura craned her head to recognize her friends and then a single tear slid down her cheek. "And I'm so sorry about Simpson."

"Not your fault, Aura, Not your fault," Carla assured and threw her hand over Aura's back. "Simpson knew the risks. We all did. He would have wanted you freed at any costs. You know how much he cared about you. Like his own daughter. Be-sides, Simpson died killing the vampire king, the heathen that killed his wife."

Wiping the tears, Aura sniffled a few times.

Hours passed, until the sun fell behind the trees. The three stopped. After they sprayed the trees and nearby area, Aura walked up to Mark. "Cover yourself well. We don't want them smelling your human blood."

Carla glanced over at her. "You know, he's one of us now." Aura darted her eyes to Mark and her nostrils flared as her eyes fixed on the two fang marks on his neck. The transition finally dawned on her.

"How? When?" Her mind rattled, "Was it me?"
Chapter 50

Mark held her hands, "It wasn't your fault. You were a mon-ster. It wasn't you."

"A part of me knows. A part of me remembers and should have done better." She scolded herself.

"A part of you was too weak to do anything. The monster was stronger than your human side. You couldn't do anything about it. Don't blame yourself. Your brother and father brought you to the Sanctuary, and kept you from Simpson and his serum. They're to blame, not you." Mark's hands warmed at Aura's touch and then Carla popped between them.

"I hate to break this up, but night is here and the vamps can still smell the slight stench of our human blood. They can proba-bly smell Mark the best since he is the youngest turned. Spray yourselves just to be sure and stay in the trees. High in the trees. Alexander might have mercy on Aura. Hell, he wants her to join his coven, but he'll in no way spare me or Mark."

Aura nodded and sprayed her skin and then helped Mark cover his own. Disappearing in the trees, darkness reminded the trio that danger lurked everywhere. Sanctuary vampires would be tracking them and random vampires would also be prowling the woods for fresh meat.

The first six hours of night is the hardest. Sanctuary vamps would be following their trail if Mark had been careless enough to leave any. Being the youngest turned he didn't have any real sense of the vampire blood stirring inside of him, but Aura and Carla had been vamps long enough to know how to hide from other vampires. How to hide their scent, their tracks, their human side.

With one leg flung against the tree trunk and the other se-cured on the lower branch, Aura watched the ground below with diligence. She wouldn't let any danger in her camp tonight. Guilt weighed on her in the deep pit of her stomach. Her chest tight-ened, and though she felt hunger, she didn't have an appetite.

Resting her eyes momentarily, she could now see herself, yet not herself—some kind of monster—that bit Mark in the neck. She wanted to pull out of him, drag herself away from there, but she couldn't. Some force pulled her fangs to his skin, his sweet supple skin. A force stronger than herself, and she never wanted to experience that again.

She remembered that sensation of having no control, of rip-ping into the flesh of humans, and drinking their blood. She had been a beast once, after her mother was killed and she was left alone, before Simpson found her and fixed her. She would not go back there again.

Shaking her head, she looked at the tree where he sat. He looked so fragile, partially human. If not for the recollection of the bite, and the fang marks in his neck, she'd have no proof of the vampire-blood surging through his veins. Swells of watery-red stained her eyes. Even if no vampires would be lurking the forests tonight, she couldn't sleep with all the nightmares surfing her mind. Memories of biting Mark and of...mother. She never felt emptier inside than in that moment.

7:25. One and half hours had passed. No vampires, yet. Maybe they wouldn't find them? Aura watched the trees to her left and right. Mark shut his eyes a few times. He needed rest. Not the place to get any though. Carla remained vigilant. She held onto her knapsack with a tight squeeze, and kept her body curled up close to the thick branch where she sat. As each minute ticked, Aura's mind faded further into the past, a past she shared with Mark on the sofa once long ago. Though her eyes stayed open, the forest morphed into some kind of kitchen where she saw her mother standing.

"You're a monster just like your father. I know it. I see it in you." The dark haired woman yanked Aura off the kitchen floor, dropped her liquor bottle, and dragged her wailing daughter to the bathroom. Then tossed her into a warm tub. "Scrub it out of you. Scrub it out of you." She repeated more to herself. "That's what we'll do." Her eyes appeared vacant as her hands held a course scrub brush that she rubbed over Aura. Back and forth, back and forth. Aura's skin reddened like a tomato.

"Mom! You're hurting me!" Aura hissed.

"Just like him! A monster!" The woman's cream colored face never looked more ugly.

Chapter 51

A twig cracked inches from Aura's tree and snapped her mind back to the forest. Her head flashed left and right in micro-seconds. She could see Carla's big eyes widening as her form trailed over the branch to its edge. Carla moved like a cat as Au-ra glanced away from her and to the ground. A shadow emerged from behind a bush and Aura could only make out the shady sil-houette at first until the shape drew closer to her tree.

Her ears fanned outward and flicked in directions, but she kept still. Then a sliver of moonlight stole the darkness away and the full face of the shadow came into her view. A stray sanctuary vamp with long blond hair. Suddenly another popped up beside him. The twins! Though they reeked of vampire stink, their bod-ies remained human, but Aura knew vampire strength still lurked beneath their false mammalian exteriors.

She had seen them fight Mark and Carla as she struggled on the throne trying to regain her human self...with her head turned to one side, she could see from the corner of her eyes both twins striking Mark's neck with fangs, then Carla stabbed them with the needle. The serum turned them human, but human or not, they obviously hunted her now.

"We're close, I can smell it," one twin stated. His nose twitched in the air.

"The others were fools to follow Alexander."

"But he promises vengeance." Saliva spat from the corners of his mouth.

"When? In days. I need my vengeance now." Sniff. Sniff. His nose scratched up against the bark of Mark's tree. Turning his head skyward, his stained-red eyes beat over Mark's form like a hungry lion to an antelope. "Found my dinner. "He licked his lips in slow motion with his tongue as ruby as his eyes.

"Leave some for me," The other retorted and chafed the tree trunk with his elongating claws. Hissing, they both eyed Mark just as he opened his tired eyes. Startled, Mark noticed two mouth's gaping from below at him. Molars, incisors, but no fangs. Ruby eyes and blond hair, he recognized them immediate-ly.

Scrambling to his feet, he pulled himself up with one hand as he balanced his back against the tree trunk. He desperately want-ed to call out to Aura, but maybe they hadn't found her. He did-n't want to put others in danger. Still, he glanced at her tree and noticed her hunched over the side branch ready to pounce, her eyes fixed on the twins. Peering at Carla, Mark saw her blonde bob bounce as she crawled closer to the end of the branch. Mark figured they both sensed the twin's presence. Would they be hiding or fighting?

Mark didn't have time to find out, and so he jumped from his branch and onto the head of one twin. Smashing its head in his landing, Mark straddled him with his legs and quickly tightened his hands around the throat. The twin flung him around like a rider on a bull from long ago when humans were still free, toss-ing back and forth, but Mark hung on tight and with one crack broke its neck.

Immediately, the other twin hissed and lunged onto Mark, his long nails trailing down Mark's chest as he knocked Mark on-to his backside. Aura leaped off her branch and dropped next to Mark with a thud. The beast churned its neck around just quick enough to meet Aura eye to eye before glaring at Mark with a hiss. Without fangs, the thought of flat teeth slicing into his skin sent shivers up and down Mark's spine. Somehow, the image was more gruesome.

"You'll die slowly for the death of my brother!" The remain-ing twin noted and dug his sharp nails into Mark's neck, suffo-cating him. It tightened its hold as the nails dug deeper. Red eyes like a predator at night beat over Mark's face and the con-stant hissing gave way to saliva dripping all over Mark's chin.

Mark's face purpled as his life teetered in the balance. His breaths shortened and his eyes rolled backward into his head. His new vampire blood was not strong enough to protect him from not breathing.
Chapter 52

"Mark!" Carla screamed and lunged onto the twin's back. Her weight dropped the twin to Mark's chest and Mark heaved for more air; his air running out quickly. Clawing her own nails into the twin's sides, Carla yanked several times but the hold on Mark proved too indomitable. If this would be the beast's last act be-fore dying, so be it, the twin would have its vengeance.

Carla instantly released her grip and jumped to Mark's side. She wouldn't be the cause of more air vacating his lungs. She reached for her needles to stab into the twin's neck, but blood jetted from Mark's neck underneath the nails of the twin and as Mark's consciousness faded he could only hear the sinister laugh-ter of the monster above killing him. "It will all be over soon!" As soon as the vamp finished his sentence, Aura kicked its side, her force knocking it off balance and to the ground. Umph!

"Damn things!" Aura booted it again, as the creature hugged its stomach.

"AGH!" The twin screamed.

"Not used to your human weaknesses yet, I see." Aura kicked its chin. The face flung up along with a line of blood. Carla slammed the point of one needle into its back and injected the full amount of serum into its bloodstream.

After the seizing began, the body twisted over the soil like a snake dying under the scorching sun. Sharp sounds of agony like an animal ripped to shreds permeated the nearby forest area. Nei-ther Mark nor Aura had ever heard a sound quite so cruel.

"The serum's so potent its attacking the vamp blood," Carla commented as the three watched in curiosity.

"How do you know?"

"Seen it once before when a lone vamp broke into The Un-derground one year ago. Simpson did it. We didn't know what would happen and examined the body afterwards."

The twin's blond hair grayed and his eyes went black as his skin wrinkled to old age and bones turned to dust.

"So, we have to be especially careful when administering that serum." Mark teased with seriousness in the undertone.

Aura pointed to the bodies. "We best hide the twins before more come 'round."

The three quickly flung the twins over a tree branch and then tossed a few bushes on top of the dead bodies. Disappearing into the trees for the second time that night, midnight finally rolled over the forest. Six hours until sunlight.

Keeping close to Aura, Mark hung in the branch beside her own. "I don't want to leave you alone during the midnight hour. Not after this." But Mark couldn't be sure if he wanted to be close to Aura for her sake, or his own. Maybe both?

"Love the company." Her stark-blue eyes met his like a morn-ing sky. She curled her toes into his warm hands and he mas-saged her ankles as they surveyed the ground below them. By morning the vamps had cleared and they managed to stay alive.
Chapter 53

The next day provided ample time for Mark's curiosity. Rac-ing alongside Carla he couldn't resist asking her some of his questions. Hours passed quickly that way. He wanted to know about the way she attacked those vampires. It made him all the more curious.

"So you never told me much about you. What brought you to The Underground?"

"Simpson. He found me all beat up and abandoned in an al-ley nearby. Vamp Attack. They blew up my lab. Vamps rewired the electricity we finally got going in there. Bastards." She said it like it happened yesterday.

"How'd you escape?"

"I didn't. They bit me. Then the call sounded. You know the one by the king. They just stopped and left me to die, while my blood drained."

"But you survived." Mark looked her up and down, fully un-derstanding this meant she was a turned vamp like himself.

"I crawled as far as I could and then passed out. Simpson found me and healed me. He used the serum he had created to repress his own beast—on me. It worked. I awoke a hu-man...well not fully really. Not really ever again. I felt different, but not like a monster."

"Must have been rough."

"You have no idea." She threw her hands up while running. "No more friends, family; no more work. I had no idea where I'd been taken. You have to remember I awoke after being attacked. For all I knew Simpson could have been the assailant."

"But you stayed."

"He locked the doors. I couldn't get out if I tried, and I tried. I believed he wanted to keep me for dinner."

Mark laughed under his breath. "Sorry, not funny."

"Kinda is." She puffed her lips. "Looking back after every-thing, it really is. I mean after weeks of him feeding me and be-ing nice to me and explaining things again and again I guess I finally gave in and figured, what did I have to lose?"

"And what did you do...I mean before you turned?"

"Fight the bastards the only way I knew how...with science. Biology, my specialty."

"So the two of you...Simpson I mean, made a good team?"

"We solved our share of conundrums. The biggest being the suppressant. Simpson used an old serum on me, but needed to enhance it since it required shooting into our veins weekly. We used mosquito saliva and hormones to fine-tune the serum to last months. We wanted to keep humans alive long enough while we tried to find a cure. When Aura, and then you, came into our lives, we knew the serum would prove vital."

"And Roger? Don't tell me, he's a vamp too."

"No, fully human, but he knows. He's been out of the field awhile now; not sure if he even recalls how to fight anymore. He prefers his desk."

The next night they hid in a similar woody area, but closer to The Underground and O-Tech-1. By midnight the forest still re-mained calm, except for a few random vamps marking territory. Mark shared the tree with Aura again, and Carla climbed into the adjacent one.

"Seems quiet," Carla suggested.

"Maybe we've lost them?" Mark hoped.

"Wouldn't bet on it. You heard the twins. Alexander has plans...somewhere," Aura stated.
Chapter 54

Keeping up with Aura had been tough when he was fully human, but now that Mark had vampire blood surging through his veins, he understood her agility better. They ran all morning until reaching the last cavern Aura and Mark had bombed to-gether. The one near the Hudson River. The one before Mark knew what Aura was.

"Keeping up, I see," Aura jested and winked at Mark as Car-la bounced next to her other side.

"You said this morning we have to get there before sun-down." Mark's chest puffed and he ran with a straighter posture than pre-vamp.

"And even at these speeds we might not get there." Carla wrinkled her forehead and slanted her eyes.

Passing the last cavern, they headed toward the first one Au-ra and Mark hit near the Hudson. "Still looks in shambles," Mark said with ease, unlike when he ran as a human. Pre-vamp words came out in spurts and with short breaths. But now, he felt as if he could run for miles without hesitation.

"Look, the river." Carla pointed and sprinted to the edge. Then she waded in the water until Aura appeared.

"Jump now?" Mark arched a brow as he skirted along the riv-er line. The sun lowered in the horizon.

"NOW!" Aura pushed him and dove in afterward. "The sun is going down soon! We don't want to get caught on the streets with no light!"

Pulling themselves out of the water, they raced down the concrete sidewalks until slipping onto the streets near the Catho-lic Church. They bolted like bullets toward the subway. The Un-derground sat not too far from there, but as Aura stepped onto the first stair leading into the subway, the stormy canopy in the sky covered the last embers of sun rays, and darkness filled eve-rything.

Aura's foot slid on the stair as she recognized the grinning face approaching her from out of the subway. Alexander! A ma-ture vamp only needed to stay out of direct sunlight. Out of the darkness of the subway, Alexander marched with twenty mature vamps from his coven, close behind him. Decked in ripped jeans and torn shirts, they hardly dressed like an army, but looks re-mained deceiving. They must have arrived last night. They had a head start with the first night while the trio had to hide in the trees.

"How?" Aura stumbled over her words.

"I noticed how often you and your lover boy liked to hang 'round these parts."

He must have been spying on her... Strange she hadn't picked out his scent eariler.

"And you forget your first morning had been a brief few hours followed by our twelve hour night. We had the head start." Alexander wiped his mouth with obvious blood he'd sucked out of some random human earlier.

"You killed," Aura said, guilt sitting heavily on her mind. Brother or no, he repulsed her. She couldn't be the one responsi-ble for Mark's death. Alexander came to the subway because of her. Her hairs stood on end as Carla and Mark skidded up be-hind her.

"So few tasty morsels still alive, if any left," Alexander add-ed and Aura's eyes flitted about the streets. A few humans lay decapitated over cars and some lay armless on the street. She hardly saw the bodies anymore. More piled up everyday. No one could afford to really see, not if they wanted to keep their wits about them. But nothing moved. Maybe Alexander had been right? Maybe no more humans remained? What would vamps do for blood then? Hunt animals? Other vamps?

Aura hit Mark on the leg with her hand as she backed up. Al-exander took another step towards her, leaving only two stairs between them. "Get out of here now," Aura whispered to Mark and Carla. "It's me he's come for."

"Not without you." Mark laid his hand on her shoulder, his eyes fixed on Alexander.

Chapter 55

"So sweet to stay for your lover girl, but in the end as I have said, you will be dead. Aura will come home with me. She be-longs to the coven. I'm the rightful king and she the rightful queen." After each sentence, Alexander took another step for-ward and the trio backed up until they were standing firmly on the sidewalk of the street. Around the opposite corner sat the Catholic Church, but nothing much left in there would be of much use to them now.

Aura had to think of a way out of this. Twenty mature vam-pires could easily destroy them with one wave of Alexander's hands, but he liked to delay death, like a game. In the sanctuary or on the streets he behaved the same way, enjoying every last moment of power he had over his subjects, over those who in an instant he could—would—command to be killed.

"Don't do this. You don't have to kill them. You only need me, want me. Take me and be done with it. I promise I'll join your coven if you only let them go," Aura pleaded.

"Let them go," Alexander laughed, "surely you jest. Killing them will be my favorite part." His voice soothed, "And in time Aura your serum will wear off and your vampire will emerge. You will join me." His words sounded so sure, so definitive.

"Never." Aura wept as her feet scrambled backwards.

"You can't fight your destiny, sister." Alexander drew close to her and then raised his hand in the air. When he lowered his hand to give the signal, everything would change. The twenty vampires huddling under the canopy of the subway would be released and the only two people she ever cared about in this world would be dead. And she would be the reason.

The soldier vamps looked hungry; desperate to maul her friends down. The few in the front might not have eaten in days. Their bodies swayed with their arms. Vamp hisses permeated the area. Just as Alexander's hand shot downward and two vampires lunged forward, an explosion sounded underneath the subway. The entire top wall of the subway crumbled on top of eighteen vampires, smashing their skulls.

"What the hell?" Mark shot his eyes around the subway and then focused on Aura. Alexander had his hand on her throat. Mark could read Alexander's leathery lips, see his quiet words: you will come home with me.

Leaping onto the first oncoming vampire, Carla tumbled over the street with it for a few seconds before the second vampire hit Mark in the head with his own thick head. Dizzied, Mark shook before throwing two fists into the vamp's jaw. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Alexander choking Aura. Would he kill her? Didn't he want her alive? Mark worried, unsure of Alexander's changing intentions.

Sliding its leg underneath Mark, Mark tripped and hit his side on the sidewalk. The vampire smirked before charging his feet straight into Mark, kicking and kicking Mark sore and bruised. He could have curled up into a ball. The last vamp at-tack didn't leave him feeling too well, but instead of feeling de-feated, he focused on all he loved in this decayed world—Aura—and how he would never let her die. He had to live to protect her. So, he used his sore foot to trip the vamp. When the vamp hit the ground, Mark rolled over the creature in aches and felt stronger than he ever had. His sweaty palms coiled around its throat and broke the neck with one quick twist.

"Aura!" Mark shouted as the color of her face paled. Carla climbed to Mark's side, her attacker laying dead on the street too. Carla and Mark stared frozen as Alexander lifted Aura's life drained body off the ground with one hand still around her throat. "You won't put up a fight unconscious." Alexander smirked. She looked like a puppet in a master's hand.
Chapter 56

"Aura!" Mark dove at Alexander with Carla just behind him. Mark's nails clawed at his face as Alexander lifted his hand and used an unseen force, like gravity, from his hand to propel Mark backward. Mark hit the ground, his eyes searching forward.

"His gift," Carla spoke under her breath. As she tried to ap-proach, Alexander threw his free hand at her and an invisible force pushed over the sidewalk and smacked her in the face. She stood momentarily dazed before shaking her head back to con-sciousness.

Alexander flung his head backward in shrilly laugh as Aura hung in his other hand. Just then, Mark saw Roger climb out of the side hole of the subway and stab a razor-edged knife into Alexander's neck. Thrusting down, with both his hands still on the knife end, he jarred the knife sideways and severed Alexan-der's head.

The would-be king teetered back and forth on aimless feet for a minute. Releasing Aura from his grip, she fell to the ground. His blood-shot eyes circled until he fell flat on the con-crete. Smog weaved in and out of the crevices of the subway from the collapsed roof. Dust and smoke from the fallen con-crete still flowed over the streets.

"Roger?" Mark climbed to his feet and Carla stood speech-less. "It was you! You fixed the bombs in the subway."

"I heard them come in last night. I snuck out in the morning as they huddled in the dark corners. They can't function in sun-light. After I set the bombs, I stretched the fuse to the tracks by the door, and waited." Carla threw her arms around Roger as Mark raced to Aura.

"How is she?" Carla asked stretching her arms to help lift her.

"She's breathing." Mark rested his finger under her nose and her lashes batted.
Chapter 57

Inside The Underground, Mark laid Aura on the back room table as he sat beside her. Carla paced and Roger fiddled with the drawers before speaking.

Carla scratched her head. "Three years down here and I'm still missing pieces to the suppressant serum. We won't last a month before turning." She shook her head. "How come Simpson couldn't show us the formula when he was alive? The damn vamp-born scientist!"

"Simpson was born vampire?' Mark questioned, but figured as much.

"Yeah," Roger answered. "Many are. Something in the hu-man DNA mutated."

"But he had a wife?" Mark quirked a brow.

Carla interjected, still pacing, "He lived as a vampire for years and fed on humans before he used his own blood in exper-iments to find the serum X01. He wanted to live a human life. Then, he found his wife. They had good years together, before the vamp king found her. He demanded Simpson join the coven, and when Simpson refused, the vamp king killed her."

"Fed on humans?" Mark flinched. That must have been what Carla referred to as his dark years. Then his eyes turned to the sounds of Aura's voice.

"Just like I had to, before Simpson freed me," Aura con-fessed, her irises locked with Mark's stunned expression. Yet he didn't draw away from her. Instead, he curled her into his chest like a baby. He finally understood her fear about returning to her monster, feeding on humans again, making her mother's words true. He never forgot the story she told him on the sofa. It hadn't made sense at the time, but had been etched in his memory for-ever. While he saw the vampire in her, he also saw how hard she fought to keep it at bay. She was nothing like her brother or fa-ther, they were the real monsters.

"I won't let that happen to you Aura. You're not a monster." Mark stroked her hair. "Your mother was wrong." Tears swelled her eyes and she shuddered in his arms.

Roger, who had been straightening Simpson's desk, found a sheet of paper in one of the drawers.

"Simpson wrote the serum instructions here."

Carla jumped to the notes and then glanced at Aura. "I can do this. I can make us more serum." She said sure; she wanted to be sure of nothing more. "This is simple chemistry."

"But your specialty is biology." Mark corrected with doubt.

"You can't study biology without chemistry, besides we have to try. What's the worst that can happen?"

Everyone looked at each other in silence. The silence grew long and then Mark nodded and squeezed Aura. They had to believe the future could be good."We'll be ok. We'll be okay." He rocked her as she slept in his arms.

It only took five more days and three more hours, before the human race became entirely extinct. Century Vamps destroyed all remnants of humanity, but the world remained divided—a world of those born vamp and of those turned. Of monsters and of those repressed. Sanctuary Vamps wanted to unleash the beast and would do anything to rule the Earth, but Suppressed Vamps wanted to live a human life and share the earth in peace.

Simpson may be dead, having sacrificed himself to end the Century Vamps mayhem, but his legacy would live on in The Underground, in those who could suppress the creature within and would fight to the death to put an end to everything vam-pire. Those like Aura, Mark, and Carla; and with Aura, the only true Coven Vamp Queen left—protector of humans and sup-pressed vamps alike—she could make new rules for vamps to live by. Who knew, maybe the earth would return to its former glory once again.

Discussion Questions:

1.What could have happened to Aura if she did not find Simp-son?

2. What were your first impres-sions of Decayed World? Now?

3. Did you trust Aura as the story progressed? Why or why not?

4. Do you think Mark was right in not fighting Aura in the area?

5. What do you think will hap-pened between Aura and Mark?

6. What do you think will happen to the world?

Decayed World is not concluded, and it is up to you to determine what the future will look like.

Thank you for joining Aura and Mark on this apocalyptic journey.
Author Biography:

Her stories range from Tween & YA to Adult. Growing up in Florida, she graduated UCF and in 1997 received her BA in English and additional teaching credentials. Then she packed her bags and travelled overseas to teach in Thailand, Nepal, Tibet, China and Korea. Thailand is considered her second home now. She has always loved writing and wrote poems and short stores since childhood; however, her novels began when she was in Thailand in her early thirties.

Having won the Best Fiction Award from the University of Central Florida (Yes, The Blair Witch Project University), her short fiction From Joy We Come, Unto Joy We Return was pub-lished in the on campus literary magazine Cypress Dome and re-mains to this day in University libraries around the USA.

Later, she achieved the semi-finals in a Laurel Hemingway contest and published a few poems in the Thailand's Expat mag-azine, and an article in the Thailand's People newspaper. Addi-tionally, she has published poetry in Korea's AIM magazine, the American Poetic Monthly magazine and Twisted Dreams Maga-zine.

Thank you to all my supporters, family, friends, and fans for making this novel not just a dream, but a reality.

A special thank you to my alpha-readers, beta-readers and editors!

Without all of your readership, fan support and advice, I would not be able to do what I do. I love writing. It has always been my passion and I am so fortunate to be able to write the stories I love for my readers.

You may also download this novel on Kindle, Nook, and iPad or go to your local bookstore and order a copy. Or go to my main website (http://AmiBlackwelder.blogspot.com) and order an autographed novel for only $7.99 using the email link touch-of-grace@hotmail.com.

M.Black can be found here http://MiaBlackThrillers.blogspot.com and has a planned upcoming line of books in the dystopia and thriller genres that you can check out at her website.

Follow her blog to know when her new books come out!

If you enjoyed this, please try She Speaks to Angels by A. Black-welder.

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