How to Train Your Vampire

Brent saw the girl vampire go down. He saw the amount of blood pouring from her wound. He saw the human girl who was so obviously, terribly in love with this vampire grab her and hold her close and start crying.

The part of him that he thought died long ago felt bad. But the bigger part, the part always in control all the time no matter how dire the situation got, was content. He had done his job. Nobody understood his job. Nobody wanted to know the details of his job, but he knew it was necessary. After all: if he didn’t do this, then who would?

So he took his time as he pulled himself together after that hit. (That kid could swing a pipe like a major leaguer.) The ringing in his brain told him the concussion was probably bad. But he’d survived worse.

He started to get up as she heard the kids finally regrouping themselves, assessing who was hurt, and what to do.

He heard the goth girl say something incoherent in her grief and then her friend helped her up, even helped her carry the vampire girl away.

The Brent from before might’ve intervened, but the Brent of now was tired. The Brent of now kind of wished he could make the pain go away. He let himself lie there. His head wound throbbed. He should probably get it looked at. But it wouldn’t kill him.

He heard the twins recuperating. They gathered next to him.

“Should we pursue?” the girl twin asked. She had the same brown hair and blue eyes of her brother. But her face was harsher and looked a few years older than her brother despite them being born within minutes of each other.

He shook his head. The kids were long gone by now. And that was all they were: kids. Surely they wouldn’t get sucked into dealing with more vampires. The creatures weren’t the most common and it wasn’t like they had a facebook group to find each other or to be found by humans. If there was, the hunters would’ve found them by now. 

With a breath and some pained grunting, he sat up. 

“We should recover,” he said, rubbing at the bloody lump on the back of his head. “And then we can go back to hunting the other Bludges.” He let out a breath, trying to focus on the next week’s game plan. They could rest up for a while, they had to. He looked at the twins' faces. They were both exhausted. He was exhausted. How long had they been trying to catch up with the Bludges? It had to be years. They were one of the main objectives for so long… so why had Scarlet Bludge been so easy? Something felt off. Why was Scarlet Bludge so quiet in the asylum? How did she feed without drawing any attention to herself? So many questions…

He blinked and rubbed his eyes. He must be hallucinating, because that looked like the signature red eyeshine of a vampire. But it was just out in the hallway, behind the twins.

He scrambled to his feet, reaching for the spear. His breath filled his lungs, preparing to shout a warning. His fingers touched the wood but the beast knocked the twins down, letting them yell in pain as they smashed into the floor.

“You’re the one,” the voice said lowly.

Brent blinked.

“Blacke,” he concluded. He lifted the spear, already stained with the other Bludge’s blood.

Blacke came to stand before him. His teeth were grinding together. He sneered, more to show off the sharp points of his fangs than anything.

“Bold of you to come here,” Brent told him. He eyed the twins, hoping the vampire wouldn’t notice. They were recovering, but still dazed. They were without vampire tools, only the weapons that would’ve been effective against humans.

There was a silence and then Brent flinched back on instinct. It wasn’t so much that he saw Blacke lunge as much as he saw Blacke vanish for a moment. But when his eyes refocused the tip of the spear was barely a millimeter from the vampire’s jacket.

He kept his nerve. 

“I have a piece of advice to all of you hunters,” Blacke told him. His hand clamped down on the spear.

Brent’s heart started to pound as he realized how outmatched he was. The twins made a scramble for weapons, grabbing the shorter and more discreet hand stakes and even the garlic-mace that did wonders to blind their opponents. But they weren’t experienced like Brent. Their reflexes weren’t sharp enough nor their wisdom keen enough to fight face to face with an experienced vampire. And Brent himself, his head still swimming after that blow from the metal pipe, was feeling his life start to drop away under his feet as the vampire yanked the spear forward. Brent let it go.

“Don’t fuck around with my sister,” Blacke growled. He nimbly turned the spear and threw it forward with all of this might.

Brent didn’t feel the pain first. He felt the impact. He stumbled backward and gasped, just to find himself unable to breath.

His hand fell on the wooden shaft. It impaled him right beneath his ribcage. A slow death, but a certain one. He fell to his knees. The numbness wasn’t going away, but that was a very bad thing.

The twins made a valiant effort to halt the vampire boy as he turned to them. But the girl was simply tossed very hard into the wall with a crunch that indicated multiple broken bones. She fell onto an old bed frame, twisting her arm about in a strange way. The boy was barely able to take a step before Blacke had him by the throat, holding him up so his feet kicked beneath him.

“Hmph,” he said. 

“L–lea–ve h-him,” Brent managed, choking on blood.

He saw Blacke’s face turn, giving him another glint of red eyeshine. 

“I’ll give you a choice,” Blacke said. “My sister needs sustenance. And that’s your fault. If you give me your heart, I’ll let him go, but if not…” 

The twin wheezed as the vampire’s grip tightened. He started the hangman’s dance, shuddering as every part of his body struggled to survive, but none of it had the strength to.

Brent swallowed down the bile in his throat. He was going to die one way or another. That was undeniable. But what price did he have to pay to save the twins' life? And was it worth it?

Blacke waited, unphased by the boy’s struggles for air– for life.

Brent took a deep breath and made his decision.