As Marcozia lifted his stake into the air to strike the killing blow, Denika tried to fire another magical blast at the vampire, but it deflected it back as easily as it had done before, though at least this time Denika was able to evade the return blast too.

Denika continued to fire different kinds of spells at the vampire, but none were effective against Marcozia. The vampire didn’t just block them with his own knowledge of magics, but through fusing energy of the Book of Khastran to him temporarily.

“Pathetic. You call yourself a Witch?” The vampire sneered at her. “You’d be the type to get burned at the stake because you were too stupid to realise you could just fly away on a broom!”

Whilst the vampire was taunting her however, the Circus Master pulled at the rug that Marcozia was standing on knocking the vampire flat on his face.

Using the strongest magics she could conjur, Denika engulfed the vampire in an energy beam. It would be strong enough to vaporise a human in a matter of seconds, but Marcozia’s vampiric constitution allowed him to survive longer. He fought hard against the beam, but its power was too strong and he collapsed to the floor, apparently beaten. The vampire let out a scream to alert his minions.

Four different breeds of vampire came crashing through the doors. A female vampire with red hair, and green slimy tentacles emerging from various parts of her body. A small vampire with green skin, horns on its head, four eyes, and six arms. A vampire with blue skin, black eyes like a shark, yellow fangs, and long arms that ended with three clawed fingers. Finally the last Vampire was a large, skinny, deathly pale, blonde creature with spindly arms and completely black eyes. Its mouth was twisted into a hideous grin.

The tentacled vampire was actually Kelly the worker from Ferguson’s old Mill who had now completed her transformation.

Kelly shot one of her tentacles at Denika, who was forced to place a magical shield around herself for protection. Unfortunately as a result she had to abandon her spell around Marcozia. Marcozia’s flesh was badly burned from her spell and in rage he jumped at Denika tearing through her magical barrier with his strength and sending her crashing to the ground below. The Circus Master ran to help her, but as he did, Kelly reached out and wrapped her tentacle around his leg, pulling the vandal towards the other three vampires, who started to scratch, punch and kick the Circus Master furiously.

Marcozia slowly tried to choke the life out of Denika. He wanted to savour her death after what she had put him through. It had been a long time since anyone, apart from his maker, had been able to hurt him.

With her last ounce of strength Denika managed to summon up a small blast using magic created from her adopted universe that threw Marcozia across the room.

Marcozia however instantly jumped back up and ran at Denika. Too weak to summon up powerful magics, and knowing that Marcozia would most likely dodge her attacks, Denika fired a magical blast into the ceiling causing rubble to fall between her and the vampire.

Getting her strength back, Denika then flew into the air and fired another blast at the ceiling above the vampire, burying him under a mass of rubble, after which she then flew towards the vampires attacking the Circus Master. She fired an energy blast at the blue clawed vampire, which clearly was not as strong as Marcozia and it was vaporized relatively quickly.

The other monsters then turned their attention to the witch and started attacking her, though Denika was able to evade their attacks, and whilst they were distracted, the Circus Master headed for his hat containing the weapons.

Kelly was soon able to get a lucky hit at Denika however and smacked her to the upper balcony, before scaling the side of the building with her tentacles in pursuit.

The Circus Master pulled a copper knife from his hat and plunged it into the blonde vampire’s heart from behind. (He had encountered this breed in the future and knew their weaknesses.)

The smaller green vampire shoved its hand through the vandal’s stomach, but the Circus Master finished him by putting his hat over the green vampires head and pulling it down. The hat’s magical security system fired various anti vampire and demon repellents into the monsters head causing the green vampire to slump to the floor in agony. Of all the weapons that had been fired into the monsters head, the Circus Master could see that the iron knife had hurt him the most, and so he pulled it out and shoved it straight through the beasts heart.

Kelly meanwhile had managed to ensnare Denika. Clinging to the roof by two of her tentacles, she wrapped one tentacle around Denika’s waist, one around her neck and four around her arms and legs. The only reason Denika was still alive was because the monster couldn’t decide whether it wanted to crush the life out of her, or tear her into five pieces.

Before it could make the grisly decision, the Circus Master jumped up to the ceiling to attack the vampire, but Kelly effortlessly batted him away with another tentacle.

Whilst the Circus Master was on the floor, Kelly reached one tentacle down and wrapped it around his legs and started to bash vandal against the roof and walls of the Church. The Circus Master however held onto his hat and threw two knives into the long arms the monster used to hold onto the roof, severing them.

Kelly fell to the ground, dropping Denika who then flew out of reach. The Circus Master threw several more knives into Kelly from his hat, distracting her long enough for Denika to catch Kelly in an energy blast, similar to the one she had used on Marcozia. Whilst caught in the blast, the vampire reached one tentacle out and managed wrap it around Denika’s throat. The Circus Master however jumped across, and again severed the tentacle, this time using his own claws! Within a matter of seconds Kelly was vaporised into nothing.

The two had not known Kelly in life, but they had ultimately done her a bigger favour than anyone who had. They had spared her from an eternity as that monster and put her down before she got a chance to harm her loved ones.

“Quick get them out of here now” the Circus Master said about Marcozia’s prisoners who had remained to terrified to do anything during the ordeal. The Circus Master went for the book of the vampires meanwhile which placed in his hat.

Denika wrapped an energy bubble around herself and the three people Marcozia had held prisoner who she then flew out of the church, with the Circus Master following her.

Marcozia meanwhile pulled himself out of the rubble, roaring and hissing. He ran towards the doors of the church, only to see Denika conjuring up a massive energy blast in front. In panic he ran back through the church. Denika’s blast however brought the entire church down, though Marcozia was still able to escape just in time by jumping out the back window. The blast still scorched the vampire and threw him several feet through the air.

“Cursed Witch!” he screamed in pain and anger.

Meanwhile still lost in the factory, Ashlei who had managed to evade her demonic brother again, thought she could hear the Strange Boy clawing at the two giant front doors for a few minutes before it stopped.

“Strange Boy.” Strange Boy” She screamed, only to be met with her monstrous brother’s cackle. “Why are you hiding.” Ashlei shouted whilst holding her crowbar up. “Then your pain would be over” Brian taunted in response.

Ashlei backed into a wall. She could barely see anything in the pitch black, but she could at least make sure that he couldn’t jump her from behind this way.

“You fucking coward. Fight me!” she screamed in panic, only to be greeted by the sound of her Demonic brother laughing again.” He soon emerged from the darkness, most of his burn wounds having healed.

“Don’t feel bad sis. I’m going to make your death a lot more memorable than Tom’s”

Suddenly as Brian prepared to strike, he was jumped from behind by the Strange Boy. The Jiang Shi hadn’t managed to break his way into the door, but he had been able to pinpoint Ashlei by scent and had managed to make his way in through a window above.

In a one on one fight Brian had no chance, even against the child Jiang Shi, one of the strongest breeds. In just a few moments, the Strange Boy was able to break Brian’s legs and pin his body to the ground.

The Strange Boy pulled out a copper knife and prepared to strike it into the Vampires heart.

“STOP” Ashlei shouted to both vampires surprise.

“Let me do it” she said.

After a few seconds of hesitation where The Strange Boy almost seemed to growl in anger, the Jiang Shi handed Ashlei the copper knife. The Strange Boy’s behaviour was always hard to predict, but he seemed to understand on some small level why Ashlei felt she should do this herself.

Ashlei still hesitated for a few minutes. The Strange Boy didn’t react one way or the other. He just stood there as always with no expression.

“Please Ashlei. Don’t fail me again like you always did.” Brian whimpered. Even when begging for its life a vampire couldn’t help but be cruel.

After waiting for a few minutes Ashlei finally plunged the knife straight through the vampires heart. Just before Brian crumbled into nothing, Ashlei said. “I’m doing this for Brian. The real Brian.”

After killing the twisted demonic caricature of her brother Ashlei simply sat in silence. The danger was over, for her now anyway, but she started to wonder why she had even fought so hard for life. Where could she possibly go from here. The Strange Boy as always didn’t speak or acknowledge anything had happened, but he still didn’t leave her side.

Carlene, Florence and Keptis meanwhile had managed to make their way to what looked like an old prison where the vampires kept most of the humans for food, or to be turned into new Alpha’s. (Though they also kept people in cages underneath other old buildings when the prison was full.)

The three had evaded the horde of pursuing vampires by jumping from the tops of buildings (with Florence carrying Keptis.) and jumping down a back alley before sneaking in through a nearby house, after which they then slipped out through a window.

The vampires were running through the streets tearing up buildings to try and find their enemies, whilst the three time travellers, keeping out of sight crept in through a back window of the prison.

Inside there were very few people. Most had either been turned into monsters or dragged off to be tortured and killed by the vampires. The prison was dark and dank and limbs and entrails were scattered around the place.

Whilst Carlene and Keptis searched the nearby area for any vampires, Florence approached the first prisoner they could see, a young man cowering in a near by cell, covered in blood.

Suddenly the ground beneath Florence’s feet began to shake and she was knocked over as something big began to emerge out of the floor.

It was a giant snail’s shell. Carlene shouted at Florence to get out of there. She knew this breed of vampire from her time only too well.

Before Florence could even get up however, the upper body of a hideous, green, slimy bald, fanged man came out of the shell and grabbed Florence. The monster didn’t even speak. It was completely animalistic.

Carlene tried to attack the Snail vampire, but it smacked her across the room and through the doors of a nearby cell.

Keptis tried to attack the vampire next with his flaming saw, but the monster deflected the saw onto its shell which it bounced off of!

Florence however reached for one of the poles from the cell door that Carlene had been thrown through and stabbed it into the vampires eye. Whilst the Vampire screamed, Keptis sawed its hand off with his saw. Carlene then jumped on the Vampires upper body and held it down, allowing Keptis to saw the monsters head clean off.

“Snail Vampires were always my least favourite.” Carlene said with revulsion as she wiped the stinging slime from its back off her hands.

The two vampires and the Martian next freed all of the captives with Keptis easily slicing his way through the metal bars.

When they reached the bottom floor however, dozens of vampires came bursting in through the walls from different corners. The three time travellers were completely surrounded, but they made sure to put the prisoners in middle behind them. Fortunately help soon arrived in the form of Denika, who came crashing through from above in a magical bubble along with the Circus Master and Marcozia’s prisoners.

The witch expanded the bubble to be large enough to scoop up the other three time travellers and the rest of the prisoners after which she then flew back through the sky.

Several winged vampires started to attack the bubble, though most of them simply bounced off of it. Still each time they struck the bubble, Denika was clearly hurt.

One particularly bold vampire managed to jump its way through the bubble just like Marcozia had done, but Keptis disposed of it with his flaming saw.

“There are other prisoners, we need to find them” Carlene said.

The Circus Folk would trace the very few remaining prisoners there were, using Carlene, Florence and the Circus Masters’ advanced sense of smell. They’d break into each run down building, either dispose of, or keep the vampire guards distracted whilst Denika would take the prisoners and the Circus Folk themselves to safety. Unfortunately the stress of carrying so many people, soon began to weigh heavily on Denika. She almost couldn’t bare it.

“Down there” Carlene shouted, pointing at what looked like a small park. “The last of them is in there.”

In the centre of the park were a few people hung upside down from trees, all women, and they all looked as though they had been beaten and scratched.

Denika lowered them to an area just outside the trees. She was forced to temporarily release the bubble when she landed, she was so exhausted. It was a struggle just to stay awake.

Eight vampires instantly came jumping down from the trees as the Circus Folk approached the hostages. They were of the same breed as each other and looked relatively human, albeit with reddish skin. They were incredibly fast and agile. Carlene, Keptis, the Circus Master and Florence all battled the vampires whilst Denika recuperated and prepared for her next trip. Physically the vampires were very weak, and quite easy for the experienced hunters to overpower in a straight fight, but their speed made them a pain.

Whilst the Circus folk were distracted however, the horde caught up with the time travellers and started to attack their prisoners. One of the winged vampires grabbed a prisoner, a young girl, and threw her to the rest of the mob of blood thirsty monsters who then tore her apart.

Denika was too weak to even fight back. Seeing what was happening, Carlene picked up the Circus Masters hat and jumped in front of Denika and the prisoners who all huddled together. She started to throw various knives at the vampires. As there were so many different breeds, some vampires were not affected, though she did manage to slay over a dozen or so of the monsters. There were far too many of them however and they soon cornered Carlene and the prisoners up against a few trees.

Denika managed to muster up her strength just in time and send a wave to blast the vampires back, before placing the bubble around herself, her team mates and the old and new prisoners, who Keptis, Florence and the Circus Master had managed to bring down from the trees.

“We, we have to get out of here.” Denika said weakly as they hovered to sky. “I can’t hold on much longer. We’ve scoured the entire village, Carlene said she can’t smell any more survivors.”

“Yes.” Said the Circus Master. “If only we’d arrived earlier. We’ll need to fly round the village one more time however.” He continued.

“Why!” Denika said barely able to speak she was in so much pain from the struggle.

“We need to burn it down that’s why.” The Circus Master replied as he reached into his hat for several of Denika’s flame bottles. There were eight in total which he threw all over the village. The flames soon spread around the entire area. Among the vampires Carlene caught sight of in the panic was the young urchin boy. Even now she wanted to help him, but thankfully she knew better than to fall for that again.

In a matter of minutes the entire village went up in flames and Denika only just made it out before finally fainting in mid flight. She and all of the others she was carrying fell from about 20 feet in the air.

One of the prisoners even broke their leg in the fall, but Florence still managed to catch Denika before she hit the ground, though she couldn’t rouse her.

“Denika, Denika please say something” Florence screamed. She had been pushed too far, not just in carrying the prisoners, but also in levelling the building and conjuring the magics from her world.

The sound of the vampires screaming in the flames was deafening, but not all of the bloodsuckers were consumed in the fire.

Four large grey vampires came marching out of the fire with one of them carrying Marcozia and another the urchin boy above the flames.

Marcozia instantly jumped at the Circus Master, whilst the grey vampires went for the others. Carlene tried to punch one of the monsters but it simply grabbed her arm which it then broke before throwing her back towards the flames, though Florence caught her in time.

Keptis’ flaming saw was no use. It simply bounced off of the vampires and when he tried to fight them in hand to hand combat they easily dominated the Martian.

Marcozia meanwhile after overpowering the Circus Master had stolen the Vandals hat from him. Whenever the Circus Master tried to get it back, Marcoza would easily dodge his attacks and strike him to the floor.

“Without this box of tricks you’re nothing! Tell you what, get on your knees and beg and I’ll give them back and you can try and save your friends.” Marcozia taunted.

The Circus Master looked around at Florence and Carlene being hopelessly overpowered by just one of the grey vampires, whilst the other three toyed with Keptis.

“Well do we have a deal.”

The Circus Master got down on his knees much to Marcozia’s delight.

“I honestly thought you’d have more dignity than that, then again you are a vandal.”

“Let me debase myself further” The Circus Master said enthusiastically as he reached his claws into his stomach and ripped it open. Marcozia couldn’t stop laughing, but the Circus Master quickly threw his guts into the vampires eyes. Whilst Marcozia was blinded for just a few seconds, the Circus Master, attacked the vampire and slashed him repeatedly, tearing Marcozia’s guts out, and slashed one of his hands off as well as clawed one of his eyes out, before grabbing the hat.

The Circus Master threw two gold knives to Carlene and Florence. Carlene slashed the grey vampire that was holding both her and Florence by the throat before burying her knife into its chest, killing it instantly.

Florence meanwhile jumped onto the back of one of the grey vampires attacking Keptis’ and stabbed it through the heart, before flipping over to face the other two. She managed to stab another of the monsters before it could even react, whilst with the final monster she easily dodged its attack, slashed at its kneecaps, then its chest, and its throat, before finally stabbing it through the heart.

In the confusion Marcozia grabbed Keptis whilst Florence was busy with the vampires and held him by the throat.

“Give me the book” he snarled at the Circus Master.

The Circus Master reached into his hat, but rather than the book, he threw a stake to Keptis who caught it and stabbed Marcozia in the shin, before punching him in the face.

Whilst the vampire was dazed and weakened from the pain, the Circus Master jumped him and lifted Marcozia above his head before throwing him into the flames of the village.

Marcozia screamed and actually managed to make his way out of the flames, by a kick in the chest from The Circus Master sent him hurling back and in a few more seconds the screaming stopped.

The Circus Master went to check on Denika, whilst the rest of the Circus Folk stood guard over the flames to make sure none of the other vampires could escape. Up above Carlene, Keptis and Florence could see one of the winged vampires attempt to fly above the burning village, but its body had already gone up and though it did managed to fly out of the village it soon collapsed into a nearby tree causing it go up in flames too.

After a few minutes Denika started to wake up, though she was still incredibly weak.

“Thank god for a minute you had me worried.” The Circus Master said as he picked her up over his shoulder, whilst the rest of the Circus folk rallied the confused survivors together.

The vampires base of operations was destroyed and the book was now in the Circus Folk’s possession. Sadly not all of the vampires perished in the flames. The Urchin had escaped in the fight with the grey vampires. Furthermore the Circus Folk and Carlene had encountered many of the new breeds in the village in the far future. Clearly some of them would escape the flames and infect others, or at the very least they had infected others around London already.

There was nothing the Circus Folk could do to stop that however. Vampires would always continue to exist, and indeed London would continue to have a huge vampire problem in particular for the next 200 years, which the Circus Folk knew began with this event.They knew they could never change that, but they had succeeded in their mission in preserving the timeline at least, and preventing the vampires from being able to spread out across Europe.

It would be several more months before the Circus Folk could leave Victorian England however. They had to make sure that the over 40 people they rescued from the vampires did not share anything they had learned about the supernatural to preserve the timeline. They also had to make sure that the families of those who didn’t make it, such as Kelly were informed which was always the hardest part of the mission. It took them a long time to track down all the people who had been abducted and turned by the monsters.

The Circus folk also had to make sure that any of the surviving vampires didn’t regroup and finally they had to find somewhere to bury the book. The Circus Master couldn’t destroy it, even if he wanted to. Not only was it indestructable, but it would be discovered again at a later date according to the timeline, so he made sure to bury it in the place it wouldn’t be found for decades, before its horrors were to be unleashed upon mankind again.

During this time Carlene not only helped the Circus Folk in their numerous grim tasks, but she also looked after the two surviving children. Carlene had been the one who found Ashlei in the factory after they returned to the Circus from the village. Ashlei didn’t even have to tell Carlene what had happened. She couldn’t bring herself to say it. As soon as Carlene arrived in the factory, Ashlei collapsed into her arms sobbing.

Ashlei always felt she could be herself around Carlene more than anyone. Even with her brothers she had always had to be the strong one, but with Carlene she could be honest with how she really felt. Even then however Ashlei still found it hard to talk about what happened with Tom and Brian. She simply didn’t want to admit it happened.

Fortunately for Daniel meanwhile, Carlene had managed to catch the infection in time, though he still went through hell for a few days until he was sure he wasn’t infected. It was only due to Carlene’s support that both children were able to make it through what would be the darkest periods in their lives. The general public didn’t disturb Carlene. They knew after that demon child’s massacre that she was not responsible, even then though they had seen her battle the demon in front of them, some Londoners still had to be held back by the police from attacking Carlene’s house.

Finally after two months. The Circus Folk were ready to go. Carlene met the Circus Master one last time outside of their Circus. The others it seems didn’t care enough to say goodbye in person.

“So where are you going now?” Carlene asked the Circus Master.

“We go where the timeline needs us. It could be anywhere on any planet, at any point in it’s history. The supernatural exist all over the universe.”

“So eh” Carlene said awkwardly. “Why does it look like a Circus?”

“It was built by Vandals. When they ruled over Europe, this was the product of all the thousands of years worth of magics they had access to. They built it as their ultimate weapon, to spread their evil across time and space. I stole it from them, and later with help from someone, who helped me disguise it as something you’d never expect to be an ultimate weapon.”

“A Circus?”

“Yes exactly. To be fair we had to make do with what we had, as the mix of different magics already made it bright and colourful. Most of the time it’s not a problem that it looks like a Circus. There are so many weird spaceship designs out there, but if we do land somewhere like here? It makes a perfect disguise.”

“Interesting, so do you reckon you’ll ever come round these parts again.”

“If you want to come along Carlene, you just have to ask.”

“What makes you think I want too?”

“Like Marcozia said. You’re not sure where you fit in. Too much of a human for monster town, too much of a monster for human town. You just helped to save this city from being overrun by bloodsucking demons, yet they still run away from you in the street. Even if you don’t exactly see eye to eye with everyone here, I reckon you’ll probably fit in with us more than anyone else.”

“I’ve never been much of a team player.”

“I don’t know about that? I’ve read about your time in the Highlands, that saw you sent here? Then there’s the family you had here when you first arrived. You also seemed to work quite well with us.”

“How do you know so much about me?”

“Let’s just say I had a peek into the Circus Folk’s future and well it might be of interest to you.”

“You’re saying I join you.”

“Well I can’t say for sure, timeline and all that, but if you’ll just take the hint!” The vandal said with frustration. “They seem to keep going over that beehive of yours.”

“Well maybe that’s one possible future.” Carlene replied.

“Not it isn’t. Trust me on this. You can never, ever, under any circumstances change history. Do you understand. It’s why I don’t generally like to tell people their future.”

“What happens if I change history?”

“You become an anomaly and the Guardians will take you to the Abyss.”

“The what?”

“An endless void of nothingness, where you never age, never die.”

“I don’t understand? Didn’t you change history now? For all you know vampires were supposed to take over London.” Carlene enquired.

“No we didn’t. We just made history, specifically the history you come from in the future. There is a difference between making history and changing it. You could go backwards in time and be the reason your grandparents met, which results in your birth, creating your own history that way. However if you were to go back and kill your grandparents before your father or mothers birth, you’d be creating a paradox. You’d never exist and then your grandparents would never die, and then you’d be alive again, and then you’d kill them and so on and so on. In order to stop these paradoxes from trapping people, even whole worlds in time loops, the Guardians will take whoever is responsible for the change to the Abyss out of time and space.”

“How can you possibly know that you are making history?” Carlene asked.

“I can tell when we are the right course, all time travellers can. If you start to deviate you feel pain. Also in The Circus, in the fountain, which is at the centre of our vessel, we experience images of the timeline that will happen if we don’t create it. If you fail to make your own history the Guardian’s will come for you too. The version of history we just averted we saw a vision of in the Fountain. The vampires would have kept growing under the leadership of Marcozia before trying to seize London. This would have led to the supernatural being exposed in the late 19th century, leading to vampires all over the world siding with Marcozia and well, let’s just say the resulting war would have been far worse and killed more people than both world wars combined, before the return of Khastran. “

“So you’re telling me then I have to come with you or I’ll get thrown into a black hole forever?” Carlene asked.

“Well when you put it that way yes. I thought it would be better if I came at it from the whole, you’ll fit in better with us angle.” The Circus Master said sheepishly.

“Well I suppose you were right about that darling. I don’t like this time. It’s horrible. No wonder the vampires thrived in this city. The corruption, poverty, the greed.” Carlene said with regret.

“It’s the same in every period in human history. Vampires, vandals, demons they’re always waiting in the shadows preying on the weaknesses of humans for their own ends.”

“Well maybe I can find somewhere out in the universe where that’s not the case. Awright I’ll join you, though remember it’s mostly because I don’t have a choice.” Carlene said

“I know, I don’t either remember.” The Circus Master reminded her.

“You better let the others know.”

“I already told them. I lost the coin toss for being the one to tell you you had to come with us. You’ve taken it well though. Not everyone does when they’re told they have to join us.”

“What do you do if someone doesn’t want to join, but you need them to for the timeline?”

The Circus Master didn’t answer her and simply told Carlene to get her things ready.

Carlene returned to her mansion to let the children know she would be leaving, which would be no easy task. Carlene didn’t want to leave either, but even without the changes to the timeline, Carlene felt it would be better for the children in the long run. Her presence here would just make Ashlei and Daniel targets for both the supernatural and the easily frightened citizens of London.

Carlene intended to leave her house and wealth to the two children, but it sadly it wasn’t enough. For Ashlei anyway. Daniel was upset but he understood Carlene’s reasons. Ashlei simply couldn’t bare to lose someone again.

“I’m sorry darling”. Carlene said softly. ” Call it fate or destiny or whatever, but my place is with them.”

“In my entire life Carlene, you’ve been the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mother. Now I’m going to lose you too. I don’t think I can.” Ashlei sobbed.

Carlene hugged Ashlei. “I wish it could be different Ashlei.”

“Take me with you.” Ashlei said through the tears.

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“You just want to abandon me like everyone else.”

“You wouldn’t be safe Ashlei.”

“You can protect me. Please, just ask them.”

Carlene thought about it for a second. Deep down she wanted Ashlei to come with her too. She had grown extremely fond of the young girl. Still she’d never forgive herself if anything happened to her. Carlene decided to let Ashlei ask the Circus Master, believing that he would tell her that she couldn’t come to preserve the timeline. It was cowardly of her to want to unload this burden onto the Circus Master, but at least she felt that Ashlei would accept it more coming from him.

Daniel meanwhile was adamant about not going with them. Whilst he was sad to see both Ashlei and Carlene go, he had had his fill of adventure and monsters for one lifetime. Somehow Ashlei and Daniel both knew this would be the last time they would see one another and wished each other luck.

“Goodbye Ashlei. I hope you can find peace wherever you go.” Daniel said as she and Carlene left.

“You too Daniel. I’m sorry I said I’d always be there for you.”

“It’s okay I understand. You and Carlene have already done more for me than my actual family. I hope we meet again someday, but if we don’t just know that I’m glad I met you. Both of you, thank you for everything.”

When Carlene and Ashlei arrived at the Circus, the others except for the Circus Master were surprised to see Ashlei.

“You’re not thinking of bringing her along too?” Denika said in disbelief.

“Please let me come with you. I’ve got nothing back here.” she said as she clutched onto Carlene.

The Circus Master was silent for a few seconds before letting out a big smile.

“Of course you can come with us.”

The rest of the Circus Folk were shocked.

“Are you taking the piss?” Denika said

“I don’t make the rules up. You should know that by now. Do you remember in the year 1949 when we took care of that skirmish between the Goblins and the Monsters, the old man who made sure I took his diary with me? Take a look” The Circus Master said as he took the diary out of the book case and tossed it to Denika.

Denika flicked through the book for a few seconds before handing it round the others.

“Well that settles that then.” Denika said somewhat embarrassed.

“I can’t say that a young child with no fighting skills is an ideal choice of companion, but like I said I don’t make the rules up. Miss McKay I hope you do us proud” The Circus Master beamed.

Ashlei hugged Carlene who was still unsure about the whole situation. At the very least she didn’t have to break Ashlei’s heart, but she wasn’t sure what kind of a life they could give the young girl.

The Circus Master meanwhile tossed a coin into the fountain which then turned green, before the Circus vanished in a puff of purple smoke, to another time and place.

Whilst Daniel had had his fill of the supernatural, he would go on to use his wealth to fund research into the occult. He lived a long and very happy life thanks to Carlene’s wealth and he never forgot who was responsible for it. Many years later he would repay the favour to Carlene and Ashlei in 1949 when he met a younger version of the Circus Master and gave him his diary, which he assured the vandal would come in handy one day for both of them.

To Be Continued

Florence awoke in a smelly, dark, wet cellar behind several bars.

On the outside of her cage she could see blood stained all over the floor and the furniture, which consisted of a few chairs and a table. She tried to break the bars with her vampire strength, but they were too strong for her.

She soon noticed a young girl, crying and hiding at the far end of the cage. As she went to comfort her she could see the girl, who was no older than 14, was covered in cuts and bruises.

“There were 12 of us.” She whimpered to Florence. “I’ve been here for two weeks, and each time they take one us outside, I can hear their screaming above. It lasts for hours each time. The last time was different however. They took two of us, a young girl and a boy, and they.”

“They what.” Florence said as she tried to comfort the poor girl.

“They read from some book, and they, they turned him into a monster. They then made me watch as he tore her to bits! They’ve left me here for two days. I don’t know when they’re coming for me but.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” Florence said as she hugged the poor girl.

“Oh really? You couldn’t even protect yourself. Would you be in our cage otherwise?”

It was the Alpha vampire that Florence had fought in the hospital. Some parts of its face were still badly burned, and once again Florence felt there was a depressing sense of familiarity to the beasts face.

The siren pushed the girl behind her and stood her ground against the monster.

“I’m not going to beg, as I know that’ll only make it worse, can I just ask you who were before you became this?” Florence said defiantly.

The monster smiled. “I believe you once knew me as the butcher of Ivory.”

“Malstrom” Florence said.

“I don’t understand? They hanged you years ago?” She continued.

“The book can also bring back the dead it seems. They’re picking the best and brightest for their new army.” Malstrom replied.

“Even by their standards I wouldn’t have thought they’d want you. Surely even vampires know you’re pathetic.” Florence said back.

“They don’t judge me unlike you bitches. You all thought I killed that girl, you lot threw the noose around my neck without ever even knowing the truth.”

“What do you mean.” The siren asked.

“That girl they supposedly caught me for killing. I didn’t do it.” Malstrom explained.

“You’re lying”

“Why would I lie now? Its not like you or anyone else can hurt me. I can take what I want, but I assure you, I did not kill that girl.”

“So what you’re saying you were just some poor misunderstood guy that we all formed a lynch mob against. Blamed for killing his parents, his wife and his patients?”

“Oh no I killed all of them” Malstrom said in an extremely casual way. “But the last one, that slut from the brothel, I was innocent of! She was killed by one of the vampires here. He was a supposedly decent family man who didn’t want his wife to know. Not that it matters now I suppose as he ate her yesterday. I enjoyed turning him. Still he used his connections to frame me for it. I was hung for his crime, something I didn’t even commit. Worse it also tarnished my reputation. Now people think I was just a random killer picking off people at random. The patients I killed, had brought it on themselves. Smokers with gunked up lungs, fat people who ate too much, alcoholics. I was just clearing the deck and I always made sure their deaths were humane. Now I’m forever immortalised as a heartless killer.”

“Well” Florence continued. “If it makes you feel any better I’ll make you pay for the things you have actually done.”

The vampire smiled. “Oh really? There’s a reason I’ve singled you out Florence. I know you helped testify against me when you were a little girl. Yes the master knows all about you lot. The Circus freaks. I told you I am no random butcher. You testified against me and helped to send me down to supposedly protect the people of London from me? Even though I’d saved far more people than I killed. For that reason if you can beat me here, I’ll let the little brat go.”

The young girl clung to Florence.

“He’s the worst of them all.” The girl said as she held onto the siren.

Florence wasn’t sure what to do. She knew she couldn’t take him in a fair fight. Still maybe she could trick the demon and buy the girl enough time to get free.

The giant vampire opened the door with its tentacles and then battered Florence to the back of the cage as she tried to fight, before wrapping its tentacle around her feet and pulling her out of the cage. The monster then threw Florence to the other side of the room before punching her into a wall. When it tried to make another move against her however, Florence jumped over its head and picked up the table behind it Malstrom and smashed it over the Alpha’s head, before using one of the planks from the broken table, to repeatedly hit the Alpha over the head again and again.

“Run now” Florence shouted to the young girl, who instantly obliged. The Alpha however batted Florence away, and wrapped its tentacle around the young girl and lifted her into the air.

“You lose I’m afraid.” Malstrom taunted. Florence however jumped onto the Alpha’s back and dug her claws into its still burnt flesh. Her actions hurt both of them as its boiling blood burnt Florence’s fingers.

The Alpha however simply swung the young girl back into Florence knocking her off. It then threw Florence back into the cage and locked the door.

Florence tried to pull the bars down, but it was no use. She was forced to watch as the Alpha wrapped its tentacles around the young girl and started to slowly crush her to death.

Meanwhile back at the Tent, Carlene had brought Ashlei and Daniel there, not wanting to risk the threat of Brian returning. It’s magics were a lot more powerful than those that protected Carlene’s mansion and could prevent any vampire or anyone else from entering. Carlene was also worried what the angry villagers would do after all of the commotion involving Brian.

“You’ll be safer in here.” Carlene said to Ashlei who didn’t respond at all. Carlene had taken

Daniel who was still out cold, was secured in Denika’s magical chains at the corner. They still didn’t know if he was going to change into a vampire or not, so they had to be sure. The Strange Boy was also left behind to protect Ashlei if Daniel did change, and somehow managed to escape the chains.

Carlene tried to comfort Ashlei assuring her that they wouldn’t be long in dealing with the vampires (even if she didn’t believe it.)

Ashlei however still didn’t respond. Carlene didn’t know if the young girl was going to stay put or not, but sadly she didn’t have time to focus on Ashlei. The vampires needed to be stopped.

Outside Denika had created a magic bubble that would encase all of the Circus Folk (except for the Strange Boy who was left on guard) and allow them to travel much quicker to Lourouse. They reached the village in about five mins thanks to Denika’s magics, which would have taken four times longer otherwise. They were still cutting it fine to the limit the vampires had given them, but Denika had needed all the time she could to try and master the magics in Carlene’s beehive.

When they arrived at the village it was seemingly deserted. It also stunk so badly they could smell it from miles away. It was in fact the stench of the vampires themselves. Most vampire breeds had an absolutely foul stench, so when that many congregated together, it was almost a toxic wasteland.

Many of the buildings had crumbled to bits, or at least looked worn down, though there was still a gigantic church right in the middle of the wretched place that looked more or less intact.

Denika took the Circus folk down into a square right in the middle of the town.

The Circus Master stood in front of the others calling out to the vampires. A few minutes passed before vampires from various different breeds started to emerge from all the corners of the square.

There were at least five different types of vampires, all utterly grotesque. They included three blue skinned vampires, with plated skin, green eyes and no hair. Two yellow skinned vampires with long flowing red hair and red eyes. Two vampires with huge bat like wings, hideous snout like faces and long flowing black hair. Three vampires each with eight tentacles, flailing around and large rock like heads. And finally a woman who had a greenish hue to her skin, massive blue hair, and large claws. She looked the most human of all the monsters there, but there was something cruel about her that went beyond even being a vampire.

The monsters all had blood dripping from their fangs, as they hissed and snarled at the Circus Folk who huddled together in fear except for the Circus Master who stood his ground.

“Even just looking at you is enough to make me sick vandal.” Said a strange figure who emerged from behind the two winged vampires.

Unlike all the other vampires he looked almost completely human, though he was still incredibly thin and pale. Carlene instantly recognised him as Marcozia.

“I still can’t believe it’s true” Carlene said.

“Well if it isn’t the traitor.” Marcozia sneered.

“Oh so suddenly you’re a born again vampire? Unbelievable. I remember when you used to give me shit for being a vampire. It was all, a vampire can never change, I’ll always be a monster no matter what. Yet now I’m a traitor?”

Marcozia laughed. “Well you see that’s the thing, vampires, hunters, vandals, demons. They’re all just trying to survive. They’ll delude themselves into thinking that they have the moral high ground, but ultimately everyone just roots for the team they are a part of. When I was a human, I was on their side and wanted to kill every vampire. Now that I’m a vampire? I’ll be just as dogmatic against my former team. You on the other hand Carlene? You’re an idiot. You still cling to the memory of what you once were and fight for a side that wants to kill you. I’ve never realised just how sad you were until now.”

The vampires words stung Carlene. She didn’t doubt that what she was doing was right, but Marcozia’s words did remind her of how no matter what good deeds she did the overwhelming majority of people would only ever see her as a vampire.

Marcozia continued. “You do know that I’m not going to release your friend, right?”

“A vampire that doesn’t keep his word? Shocking!” Keptis said from the back.

The vampires moved closer to the Circus folk, whilst the Circus Master still stood his ground.

“I admire your courage. I didn’t think either vampires or vandals were capable of it.” Marcozia said.

The Circus Master responded by bowing in a mocking fashion and dropping his large top hat on the ground, upside down. Two of the yellow vampires looked into the hat out of curiosity and saw nothing. Suddenly however the Circus Master reached into the hat and pulled out two silver blades, both coated in holy water and started slashing at the two vampires. Their wounds both sizzled, though he wasn’t sure if it was the holy water or the silver that had hurt them.

The Circus Master then picked the hat back up and started throwing weapons to the other Circus Folk, including Keptis’ flaming chainsaw.

Keptis managed to slice the head off of one of the blue vampires as it attacked him, whilst Denika blasted the winged vampire several feet backwards with her magic. Carlene meanwhile had been given an axe which she used to hack at the vampires. She cut one of the winged beasts legs off and sliced the arm off of the blue vampire.

Unfortunately however the yellow skinned vampires flame red hair was able to stretch out and envelope both the Circus Master and the Carlene from behind.

The hair was so strong that neither could break free. Denika who was hovering about 20 feet in the air above blasted the yellow vampire that had ensnared Carlene and the Circus Master. Unfortunately another yellow vampire used its hair to smack Denika in the chest, sending her flying across the village. The Circus Master however managed to catch the yellow vampire that had attacked him and Carlene, whilst it was off guard and stabbed it through the heart with a copper knife, killing it instantly. The Circus Master knew this breed in the far future.

The other yellow vampire that had overpowered Denika tried to ensnare The Circus Master, but Carlene tackled it from behind. Before the vampire could defend itself, The Circus Master tossed one his knives to Carlene who stabbed it through the vampires heart.

Keptis meanwhile fought off the tentacled vampires. He sliced off a few of the monsters tentacles with his flaming saw, but there were so many arms attacking him, that they eventually knocked the saw out of Keptis’ hand. One of the vampires then wrapped its tentacles around Keptis’ throat and brought him to his knees. The monster prepared to strike another through the last Martian’s chest, but the Circus Master stabbed one of his silver blades into the monsters long arm, and then helped Keptis up, though not before Keptis was able to grab his flaming saw.

The Circus Master jumped over twenty feet in the air onto one of the few remaining buildings with Keptis in tow, whilst Carlene and the vampires followed them.

Meanwhile back at the tent Ashlei hadn’t moved for ages. She couldn’t muster up the energy for anything. Not that there was anything to do mind you. Daniel hadn’t woken up. He occasionally groaned, but he was still completely out of it.

Suddenly the torturous silence was interrupted by an all too familiar voice. It was Brian.

“Ashlei, Ashlei please, help me. That thing its gone now, I don’t know for how long, please!”

“What, what’s going on” Daniel grumbled as he started to come round, but as soon as he looked down at the stump where his arm had once been it all came screaming back.

“Oh god Ashlei, I’m, I” suddenly he noticed Brian’s voice calling from outside.

“He’s here he found us” Daniel said as he struggled in the chains

“Relax he can’t get in here” Ashlei said somewhat coldly.

The Strange Boy was still standing outside the tent. He hadn’t moved however despite Brian calling to Ashlei.

“Why am I chained up? Is this, the Circus? Where’s the vampire? The Circus Master? The witch, the” Daniel asked before Ashlei interrupted him.

“They chained you up” Ashlei said as she searched through a chest.

“What? Why?”

“They said you were infected by my brother. They’re not sure on whether you’ll turn into one of those vampires or not. You’ll have to wait a couple more hours to see if you’re in the clear.”

“What!” Daniel shouted in anguish. “No, oh god please tell me I won’t become one of those things, please Ashlei.”

“I’m sorry” Ashlei said almost with no emotion which disturbed Daniel.

“I have to see my brother now.”

“What you can’t go out there. It’s not your brother anymore. Ashlei, please I need your help. Ashlei!” She continued to ignore him as she marched outside to confront her inhuman brother.

As soon as she stepped outside Ashlei could see Brian was lying, as he came into view. Not that she expected her brother to be himself mind you, but it was still a shock to hear her brother’s voice come from the hideous abomination. The Strange Boy instantly hopped towards Brian, but Ashlei held him back.

Brian started to cackle. “I can’t believe you fell for that. You never were too bright were you sis?”

Ashlei tried to keep her cool. “I know this thing isn’t who Brian really was.” she said whilst trying to hold back her tears.

“You’re right. It’s the product of your failure. You were supposed to look out for me, for both of your little brothers and look what happened. If those monsters had just killed me, you could have mourned for a few seconds and then forgotten me like everybody else. Instead they’ve immortalised your selfishness and cowardice for all time.”

“I swear I never meant to leave you, I” She held back the tears. “No I know you’re not him, but I do want the real Brian, if he’s in there, to know that I’m sorry.”

“Sorry” the vampire laughed. “Is that all you can say for letting me become this.”

“No I meant sorry for what I’m about to do.” Ashlei pulled out a small bottle of holy water that she had taken from the chest in the Circus and threw it over Brian whose flesh began to burn and sizzle just like before. Again the Strange Boy attempted to intervene and finish him, but Ashlei held the little boy back. She was determined to finish Brian herself.

As the vampire fell to the floor writhing in agony, Ashlei made a move towards the monster with a wooden stake. She stabbed it through his heart. Nothing happened however and Brian grabbed Ashlei by the throat and threw her in the opposite direction from the Circus.

Brian laughed as the holy water burned his flesh.

“You should have done your research Sis” he taunted as he pulled the stake from his chest.

The Strange Boy meanwhile jumped Brian from behind. The Jiang Shi’s strength was greater than Brian’s breed, but nevertheless Brian was able using his superior body weight to push the Strange Boy back into the Tent.

Brian then caught up with Ashlei and held her by the neck, stopping The Strange Boy in his tracks.

“Try to follow me and I’ll rip her to pieces.” Brian continued as he headed to a nearby abandoned factory.

Once they reached it Brian shut the two gigantic, reinforced steel doors behind him and threw Ashlei to the floor in front of him.

“Let’s have some fun” the monster said to Ashlei who tried to flee ahead into the darkness of the factory.

She evaded her brother for a few more minutes, but unfortunately she soon became lost. No one had set foot here for quite a long time, though the stench of misery and death was still everywhere. All she’d found in the way of weapons where a few crowbars, but nothing that would be particularly useful against a vampire.

“Oh god Circus Folk where are you” she said bitterly whilst clutching her crowbar. “They said that creepy boy was supposed to protect us!”

Just then Ashlei heard a sound of glass breaking in the distance. “He’s here oh god.”

It was so dark and cluttered ahead, her vile brother could be around any corner.

“I was right” Brian’s voice came piercing through the darkness. “This is fun.”

Ashlei couldn’t believe she had got herself into this situation. She should never have tried to take on a vampire on her own and just let the Strange Boy deal with Brian. Ironically it had been because of her love for Brian. She was determined to be the one to free him from this nightmare.

“No” she thought, pulling herself together. “I’m not going to die in here, not by that thing wearing my brothers corpse.”

Ashlei ran through the dark room ahead, not even sure where she was going, until she suddenly heard another screeching sound.

“He’s just toying with me. I need to get out of here now.” As she turned the corner however she suddenly bumped straight into Brian.

Brian batted the crowbar out of her hand and easily restrained Ashlei, but as the monster prepared to sink his fangs into Ashlei’s neck, she managed to pull one arm free and punched her brother in his burn wounds, which threw him for a few seconds.

Ashlei then picked up her crowbar and stabbed it straight into her brothers forehead ramming him into a nearby wall. The vampire however in response pushed Ashlei with all of its strength which sent her about ten feet across the room, after which it then pulled the crowbar out of it’s forehead.

Brian threw the crowbar at Ashlei, who only managed to just avoid it. Ashlei then picked the crowbar up again and hit her brother over the hit with it, as he attacked her. She knocked Brian to the ground and repeatedly hit him over the head, smashing his brains in. The monster however simply got up, hissing and slabbering at its former sister. Knowing she’d never be able to fight him off or even hurt him, Ashlei again tried to flee.

Back in the village, the Circus Master (who was carrying Keptis) and Carlene had barely kept ahead from the horde of vampires by jumping from roof top to roof top, (or rather what was left of each roof top in most cases.) None of the three time travellers were really sure where they were going, they just wanted to get a bit of a distance between themselves and the demonic horde and find Denika as soon as possible.

Since they fled the square, literally hundreds of vampires had started to emerge from practically every building and corner of the village,.

Carlene however quickly stopped on the latest building they had landed on. It was mostly intact, compared to the other buildings in the village.

“Carlene, what are you doing? Come on!” The Circus Master shouted.

“Hang on I think I’m picking up a scent. It’s Florence, she’s down there.” Carlene replied.

Suddenly two new type of vampires jumped onto the roof. They both had three heads, all long and serpent like, and six arms, whilst their skin was thick, armour plated and yellow.

“Go find her, I’ll hold these things off. Go now” The Circus Master said. Keptis and Carlene jumped down to an alley between the two buildings whilst more and more vampires jumped or flew onto the roof to attack the Circus Master.

The Circus Master pulled out a long sword from his hat, that’s blade was made of fire just like Keptis saw. The vampires all attempted to dogpile on the Circus Master but his sword prevented any of them from getting close. Arms and tentacles and even the odd head from the attacking vampires went flying all over the roof, as the Circus Master swung his sword back and forth.

“She’s in there, in the basement I can pick up her scent, only just. Come on” Carlene said.

Two vampires however had picked up Carlene and Keptis scent and descended on either side of the alley. They were both tall and incredibly thin to the point where they were practically skeletons, whilst their faces were rotten and decaying. The monsters were both far stronger than their light frames suggested however, with the vampire who attacked Carlene easily overpowering her, whilst the other vampire managed to hold back Keptis’ flaming saw by the handle and toss it out of his hand.

Carlene in response bit the vampire that pinned her in the throat, shocking it for a minute before she punched it in the stomach, the face and then flipped it over her shoulder onto the other vampire that was attacking Keptis.

Whilst the two vampires were down Keptis used his saw to slice one of the vampires heads off. The other vampire however jumped to its feet and struck Keptis before he could attack, knocking him to the ground. Carlene attempted to fight the monster again, but this time it was too fast for her and delivered a flurry of punches to her stomach and face. Keptis however went for the monsters legs whilst he was on the ground and sliced one of them off, before taking the monsters head off when its body fell to the ground.

Using her vampiric strength, Carlene then punched a hole in the wall, leading to the cellar in the house, which she and Keptis fled through before more vampires could pick up their scent.

In the cellar the two time travellers saw the remains of a young girl, literally ripped in half, just by the cage where Florence sat looking completely broken.

“Florence” Keptis whispered. “We’re here.”

“You have to get out of here it’s” before the Siren could finish her warning, a massive tentacle suddenly came bursting out of the ground and grabbed Carlene by the neck, before smashing her into a nearby wall. When the tentacle attempted to grab Keptis however, he sliced it in half with his saw.

The creature the tentacle belonged to, the hideous Alpha vampire Malstrom, then burst out of the ground screaming in anger.

Keptis stabbed his saw into the monsters’s chest, which caused the Alpha to fall to its knees in pain. However its blood soon splashed onto Keptis’ arms, burning him horribly.

Keptis dropped the saw and fell backwards, whilst Malstrom’s tentacles slowly wrapped themselves around the Martian.

Florence again struggled to try and break the bars, but it was no use.

On the roof top, the Circus Master had managed to hold off the vampires, with the roof now being covered in nothing but vampire body parts and entrails. Still however the relentless monsters kept attacking and eventually one of the abominations was actually able to stop the Circus Master’s sword dead in its tracks.

It was a large completely grey skinned vampire. It must have stood over seven feet tall and it had piercing yellow eyes and very long fangs. The bloodsucker actually managed to hold onto the flaming blade itself, which it then snapped in half.

The Circus Master reached for his hat, but the giant creature thumped the vandal in the chest sending him flying towards the edge of the building as well as breaking all of his ribs. (Such a punch would have caused a normal persons entire chest to collapse.)

The monster then picked up the hat and reached into it, but this proved to be a mistake. Just like Carlene’s beehive, there was a booby trap system in the hat which fired various weapons into the vampires hand.

Only one of the knives harmed the monster. A gold knife which became embedded in its hand. The Circus Master then jumped forward and reached for the hat, but the vampire pulled the gold knife out of its hand and stabbed the Circus Master in the heart, before getting him in a head lock. The Circus Master clawed in vain at the monsters arm, but the beasts hold around his neck grew tighter.

The Circus Master tried to dig his talons deep into the grey vampires arm, but it barely made a mark. The vampire literally laughed at the Circus Masters attempts to hurt him, as did the other five vampires who gathered round to laugh at the Circus Masters plight.

As all seemed lost, a blue light enveloped the large grey vampire from behind and though it struggled, the light pulled it away off of the roof.

Another blue light blasted the five vampires in front of the Circus Master backwards off of the roof. The Circus Master then looked up to see Denika hovering above the building.

“Denika! Here I was trying to rescue you!” The Circus Master laughed as he went for his hat.

The witch scooped the Circus Master up with her magic as more vampires began to crawl up the building, and the two then flew over the village encased in a magical bubble.

“Where are we going?” The Circus Master asked.

“Marcozia. I followed him to the ruins of church. That’s where he’s keeping the book. I could sense it. We have to get there now. I think he’s going to turn someone else into a new Alpha.”

“Well we should go back for Carlene, Florence and Keptis” The Circus Master responded.

“No time I’m afraid, if we don’t move now some other poor soul will become one of those monsters.”

Back in the basement, Carlene had managed to get the drop on Malstrom just as he was about to crush the life out of Keptis like he had done to the young girl.

She jumped on the vampires back and repeatedly hit him over the head with a piece of concrete that had come off the wall, ironically when Malstrom had slammed Carlene into it.

The Alpha threw Carlene off again, but this time she landed on her feet.

Malstorm roared in anger at Carlene and tried to impale her with one of his tentacles, but Carlene’s reflexes were too fast and she kept dodging the monsters strikes. Carlene was able to trick the Alpha by landing in front of the cage where Florence was imprisoned. When the Alpha tried to impale her, Carlene jumped up to and clung to the ceiling causing the Alpha to hit the bars instead. The Alpha’s strength knocked the bars down instantly. Though Florence was also knocked down too, the siren was unharmed and instantly jumped back up and picked up one of the bars which she then used to repeatedly hit Malstrom in the face.

Florence was overcome with such rage towards the Alpha that she caught him off guard, and as he tried to fight back, Carlene started to hit the monster from behind with another slab. Carlene went for the monsters legs, whilst Florence went for his head over and over.

Malstrom however managed to wrap one tentacle around the pole and pulled it from Florence’s hand and then smashed it into Carlene’s face before confronting Florence.

Florence still didn’t give up and jumped at Malstrom, delivering a flurry of punches to the vampires face, though it quickly overpowered Florence.

Malstrom then held Florence by the neck with one hand and lifted her up against the wall. Keptis however used his flaming saw to slice off the arm Malstrom was using to hold Florence up. Some of his blood splashed on Florence, giving her minor burns, but not enough to deter her.

Keptis struck his saw into Malstroms back, but he was still so weak from the burns he didn’t have any strength to sink it in deep, and Malstrom struck the Martian to the ground with a tentacle. Florence however kicked the monster with both feet in the back, knocking him over and then rammed Keptis saw deeper into the Alpha’s neck. Malstrom tried to pull himself up, but Carlene using the pole, Malstrom had hit her with, impaled the former doctor through the back and to the ground.

Florence sawed the monsters head clean off. Even though its blood splashed onto her hands and burned them, Florence was so overcome with rage, she fought through the pain until she killed the monster.

“Hopefully you’ll stay dead this time.” Florence muttered bitterly as she started to feel the pain from her burns, whilst Carlene helped Keptis up. “I’m okay” he said to Carlene somewhat proudly.

“Trust me, I lived on a planet full of those things out there. I’ve been through worse. Thank you anyway.” The martian insisted

“No, thank you” Florence said as she tossed the martian’s saw back to him.

“We need to get back to the Circus Master, he’s alone up there.” Carlene said.

When the threesome made it back to the roof however they saw it was deserted.

“He’s gone? He wouldn’t leave us.” Florence said with worry.

“I can’t smell any vandal blood here.” Carlene tried to reassure her.

Suddenly the horde below noticed the three time travellers on the roof and started to scale the building.

“We need to get out of here, now.” Keptis shouted as he powered up his flaming saw.

“We need to find their prisoners. They keep humans to lock up as food for the new recruits” Florence responded.

“How are we supposed to find them?” Keptis replied.

“You forget, we’re vampires, we could easily pick up the scent of any humans that are left” Carlene said.

Three vampires, consisting of one Octopoid Vampire, and two yellow vampires soon emerged over the side of the building.

“We need to go now” Carlene said as she jumped onto another building, carrying Keptis with her.

The Circus Master and Denika meanwhile had reached the Church. Through the broken window, the two could see Marcozia holding the Book of Khastran itself that created each new breed of vampire, with two young men and a young woman sat close by, tied up.

“You make me laugh.” Marcozia said, mockingly to the young woman.

“We both know who you really are, yet here you’re pretending to be vulnerable and weak. Trust me. You’ll love being one of us.”

Denika fired a magical blast at the book, knocking it out of the vampire’s hands and across the room.

“Not very smart, leaving yourself, one average vampire to guard your book.” Denika taunted the former hunter before blasting an energy beam at Marcozia.

Marcozia however managed to deflect Denika’s beam back at her and sent the witch flying backwards to the other end of the Church.

“I’m not an ordinary vampire. I was once like you. I spent my whole life fighting the supernatural remember.”

The Circus Master pulled a copper blade out of his hat. He knew Marcozia’s breed of vampire and their weaknesses well. They weren’t among the strongest, but Marcozia seemed confident that he could beat the Circus Master even unarmed.

The Circus Master tried to slash Marcozia in the face, but the monster was too quick and kicked the knife out of the Vandals hand. With another kick he knocked the hat off of the Circus Masters head.

When the Circus Master tried to reach for his hat, Marcozia, stabbed the vandal with his own knife and then flipped him over his shoulder.

The Circus Master jumped to his feet and unsheathed his claws. Every one of his strikes however missed Marcozia, who delivered several blows to the Circus Master’s face and stomach, before throwing the vandal to the other end of the room, through some debris.

Before the Circus Master could pull himself up, Marcozia jumped on him from across the room, and held the vandal down whilst he pummelled his enemy into submission.

“Whether I’m a human or a vampire, I still love killing vandals.” The former hunter said as he lifted a stake from the rubble and prepared to strike his helpless enemy.

To Be Continued

Richards was restrained with magical chains right by the fountain of the Circus. Despite the vampires greater immunity to magic, these chains were forged by some of the most powerful spells found at the very edge of the universe itself.

The Circus Master meanwhile was preparing a truth spell that would force Richards to talk, but it would take a few minutes. The others sat impatiently by Richards who had already awoken from Denika’s spell.

“What are you going to do to me you freaks.” He asked.

“Kill you eventually, but right now the boss is just whipping something up to make you talk.” Carlene said bluntly.

“It doesn’t matter if you kill me, there are more like me waiting in the wings.”

“Yeah we know darling, that’s why we want you to talk so we can kill them too” Carlene replied.

Keptis meanwhile looked somewhat worried.

“We should have heard back from Florence by now. I wouldn’t have thought it would have taken that long to take down a child vampire.”

“You didn’t see what the little bugger was capable of” Carlene replied. “I have a new digestive system because of him.”

“Well” The Circus Master interrupted. “In a few minutes we’ll know just how many of those things are loose in London.”

Richards tried to struggle to break free again, but it was no use. He then started laughing.

“What’s so funny, or is it a side affect of the magic? That can happen sometimes.” Denika said.

“Just that you lot combined had trouble bringing me in. I shudder to think how you’ll cope with the others.” Richard taunted.

On the other side of London, Florence had continued to track the demon to a more remote area. Much like Carlene, Florence had an advanced sense of smell, which allowed her to pick up the demon child’s scent. She carried a large bag containing various vampire repellents with her.

The trail ended at a nearby hospital. The Siren had been there frequently as a little girl and had the most unpleasant memories of a particular Doctor named Malstrom, a famous quack who had a pathological hatred of woman. According to some rumours he had murdered his mother and father, both of whom he allegedly poisoned. His first wife also died under mysterious circumstances too, but it would be for the murder of several of his patients that he was finally arrested and hanged.

Florence broke down the two rotten front doors of the hospital. Oh how she wished she had just let Carlene follow the boy now. This would be a very unpleasant trip down memory lane.

The hospital had been abandoned not long after the scandal about Malstrom. Very few people ever went there again, and eventually it shut down. It hadn’t been demolished, but rather was simply left to rot right in this run down area of the city.

The whole place stunk of urine and vomit that had been allowed to congeal over the years, as well as rats that ran everywhere along the mouldy floors.

Even with the repulsive odors, Florence could still pick up the vampires scent. He was clearly trying to conceal himself in among these horrible smells. As she made her way to the upper levels however, Florence was suddenly able to make out more strange, distinct smells. The scent of more vampires. There were clearly dozens more in the hospital, maybe even another Alpha. The little boy had actually led her into a trap. Florence slowly backed away towards the stair case she had just come up, hopeful that the vampires weren’t aware she was there yet.

Unfortunately however a figure suddenly came emerging from the door closest to the stairs. As it wandered out of the darkness it revealed a hideous, bright green, slimy face. The monster had no hair, whilst its skin looked rotting and pungent. Its nails were long, almost as long as the Circus Masters unsheathed, whilst its eyes were completely round and red with a black iris. The creature also had a forked tongue that slithered out of its mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

The monster attacked Florence, but before she could fight back the young urchin vampire that she had chased in the first place managed to sneak up on the Siren while she was distracted and grabbed her by the back leg. When Florence turned around to try and push the vampire child off, the larger slimy, vampire grabbed Florence in a bear hug from behind. Its slimy skin was burning to the touch, and the slime actually ate through her clothes and flesh! The monster then dragged Florence backwards into a room filled with corpses of its previous victims before throwing her to the floor.

Florence landed right in front of the body of an old man, most of whom’s skin had been ripped off along with both of his arms. His guts had also been torn out and were smeared all over the nearby wall. Rats had already begun to feast on his mangled innards.

The green vampire, roaring and hissing grabbed onto Florence’s feet and pulled her back towards it. The siren however managed to pry herself out of the beasts grasp, and kicked the monster several times in the chest and face, sending it backwards.

As she got up to stand her ground, she heard more roars and hisses from vampires coming down the halls. There seemed to be dozens of them from the sounds of things. In fact almost every room in this hallway was filled with at least one vampire. “I shouldn’t have gone on ahead alone” Florence said to herself, as she desperately tried to think of a way out.

When the vampires came in, they started firing globs of slime from their hands at her, which ate through the walls and floor of the hospital. Florence dodged their attacks, though one bit of acid splashed on her arm. It was only a tiny bit, but it still melted right through to her bone before it quickly healed.

Florence was able to trick the vampires into using their acid to burn a hole in the floor which she then escaped through.

Below she fell onto the corpse of a young woman lying an old bed. The woman was not one of the vampires victims. She appeared to have been dead for a few years, and had died quite peacefully in her sleep. Sadly however it seems she had just been forgotten about when the hospital shut down. One of the vampires soon fired more acid at Florence from above, though once again she was able to dodge it, with the acid eating through the dead woman’s face and the bed.

Florence then opened her bag and threw a bottle of holy water at the vampire. It did nothing. Next she lifted out a stake and managed to ram it through the first vampire that descended from the ceilings heart. It killed the beast instantly. Unfortunately however the stake melted inside the vampire, and Florence only had another two stakes in her bag.

“Oh dear this isn’t going well is it?” She said to herself in panic. Another one of the vampires jumped down from the hole in the roof and blocked the door to the hall in front of her. Avoiding its acid attacks, Florence pulled out a cross which caused the vampire to back down a little at first, until it fired a blotch of acid at her cross, which melted it and burned her hand.

In desperation, Florence next lifted out a bottle of condensed magical flames. These weapons were created by Denika, though they were somewhat unpredictable and at close quarters the flames could sometimes consume everything in the nearby area. Denika had meant to try and find a way to perfect it, but she had never managed to get around to it, not just because the circus folk were constantly on the run, but because Denika often took on far too many projects at once.

Florence fled to the other end of the room and before the vampire could follow her, the Siren emptied the bottle of fire onto the beast causing it to go up instantly. The other vampires above backed off a little bit, allowing Florence to flee the room, running past the burning vampire as the flames consumed him completely.

In the filth ridden hall, Florence saw a window at the other end which led outside. She would have to jump about four stories out of the window to reach the ground, but that would be no problem for her vampiric constitution. Once she had escaped through the window, Florence intended to use her six remaining flame bottles to burn the hospital to the ground from outside. The Siren could tell that there were no remaining humans in the area. Even with the pungent odors of sick, urine, rats, blood and the vampires themselves, she would still be able to pick up their scent if there were any people.

As Florence prepared to leave, she felt the roof and the walls around her shaking. There was something on the floor above, something a lot larger and more powerful than the vampires chasing her. It was the Alpha, unquestionably. Florence headed to the window, throwing one of her bottles of condensed flames at the door behind her as she ran, which held the vampires back.

After jumping to the ground below. Florence threw three of her remaining bottles at the hospital. She threw two at the upper levels the vampires had been chasing her on, and another at the door below.

The building went up very quickly, and though some of the vampires made their way to the windows, Florence held her cross up, causing them to double back into the flames. Some of the vampires tried to fire acid at her from above, but Florence avoided their attacks even more easily this time, whilst still holding the cross up.

Suddenly just as the vampires seemed beaten, a gigantic figure came crashing through the walls of the building, covered in flames.

The monster must have been about seven feet tall. Its skin was green and slimy just like the other vampires, except it had long tentacles coming from the palms of its hands. Its eyes were also black like a shark.

This was clearly the Alpha, and Florence was now going to have to face it alone.

The alpha reached one tentacle out and wrapped it around Florence’s left leg as she tried to evade the other. It pulled her back and started swinging the siren around before throwing her back into the inferno she had created.

Florence however managed to jump out of the flames just in time and tore a large flaming two by four out of the rubble as she fled.

Florence used it to hit the Alpha several times in the face, but the superior vampire batted it away. As Florence continued to evade the monsters strikes, she noticed a sense of familiarity in its face.

She didn’t have time to figure it out now however. In between the beasts strikes, Florence made a dive for her bag of weapons, but as she tried to grab it, one of the vampires that had managed to escape the hospital surprised her from behind. It held her in place for its “father”, but Florence was able to swing around with the vampire still holding onto her, causing the Alpha to hit it with its tentacle instead. Florence then rammed the lesser vampire into the Alpha, knocking them both back before she dived for the weapons bag.

Florence threw the bottle at the Alpha who not knowing what it was, managed to knock it out of reach, but it still broke when it hit the ground, which unleashed the flames on the Alpha anyway.

As the Alpha struggled in the flames, another lesser vampire managed to escape the inferno and started to attack Florence. This creature struck Florence’s weapons bag with an acid attack, but Florence pulled a stake and a silver blade out of her bag before it all melted, and then threw the stake straight into one of the lesser vampires hearts.

Evading the other vampire minions acid attacks, Florence then sliced its arm off with her blade. Sadly however the blade melted from the monsters acidic slime, but Florence thinking quickly picked up the flaming two by four from the wreckage of the hospital and drove it through the vampires heart when it tried to attack her.

The Alpha meanwhile, unable to put the flames out collapsed onto the floor in pain.

It still wasn’t completely dead however, but Florence, using what was left of the two by four prepared to stake the vampire through the heart.

Just as Florence was about to strike the killing blow, she was struck from behind by one of the vampires. It was ironically the urchin that Florence had chased to the hospital in the first place. The child demon hit Florence with a led pipe, hard enough to knock her to the floor, and when she tried to get up, the Alpha seizing its chance, jumped up and struck her in the face, knocking Florence out cold.

The Alpha then put the flames around itself out.

“You’re going to pay for this bitch” the Alpha said as its charred flesh started to repair itself.

Meanwhile back at the Circus, the magic had begun to affect Richards. Despite his best attempts to fight them, they were simply too strong.

“Curse you! I swear, I will make you all pay for this.” He shouted.

“I thought you were confident your master could tear us apart? Anyway can please tell us who created you and where are they?” The Circus Master said in an annoyingly smug tone. Even Denika found it hard to take.

Richards spat a horrible yellow slime in the Circus Masters face before continuing. “I was made by Marcozia Agner in the small seaside town of Lourouse. That’s where he is creating all of us. The town was abandoned 100 years ago. We have children all over this country however. You can’t stop us now.”

“Marcozia Agner?” Carlene replied in shock. “I know who that is. He must be lying.”

“I assure you he is not.” The Circus Master said.

“Marcozia is a vampire hunter. He is one of the greatest I’ve ever met. He’s a total prick mind you. Tried to stake me several times. Even after I saved his life one time. Still I find it hard to believe that he would ever allow himself to be turned. Even if he became one, he’d definitely stake himself.”

Richards smiled “You have no idea. He is our leader, our commander. He has united the vampires like none before him.”

“How the hell do you know you’ve only been a vampire for a day?” Denika replied.

“Well that’s what he told me.” Richards said sheepishly.

Carlene still couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“This is not good. A vampire hunter that has turned over to their side. He knows all of their weaknesses and how to overcome them.” Denika continued.

“Well I know Marcozia” Carlene replied “and if there’s one thing” suddenly a noise from outside interrupted Carlene.

It was a young boys voice shouting on the Circus Master to come out. Carlene recognised it as the young urchin vampire.

“That little prick. I thought Florence would have got him by now”. Carlene said.

“She hasn’t and that’s very worrying” the Circus Master said. “Stay in here. This could be a trap, and no use in all of us walking into it.”

“What do you want demon child” the Circus Master said with disdain after he left the Tent.

“Its simple. We have your little siren friend. If you want to see her ever again in one piece, you’ll face us unarmed in the village of Lourouse. If you can beat us without any tricks or weapons, then we’ll let you go.” The boy repeated whilst barely able to contain his laughter.

“Its a fair fight. We knew you wouldn’t just surrender. This way are giving you a fair chance. No weapons on either side” the demon said mockingly.

“Yeah real fair, five of us against what? Hundreds of you monsters?” The Circus Master replied.

“Well your blue friend tried to kill me and I’m just a poor little orphan boy, that’s not exactly fair. You have one hour to agree to our terms. If not we’ll start to send you bits and pieces of the siren. Oh and tell the creepy lady to ditch that beehive as well. Not just because it looks stupid, but we know what it actually is.”

The demon child then jumped through the air and back into the darkness.

“It seems we have no choice.” Keptis said with regret.

“What are you saying” Denika asked.

“If we don’t stop those vampires then they will spread across all of London. There could be millions of them, new breeds, with unknown weaknesses and strengths. In a couple of decades they could take this world. We have to destroy them now and make sure the book stays buried.” She continued

“If we go into that village all geared up, they’ll kill Florence in a second.” Keptis protested.

“So you want us to go in there unarmed? Do you really think those things will keep their word, even if we did somehow managed to overcome them? Florence is dead either way.” Denika argued.

“God I knew you can be a cold bitch, but I didn’t think you’d be this callous after all we’ve been through!” Keptis snapped.

“Do you want this world to end up like your own? You of all people now how quickly vampires can spread.” Denika said back.

The argument started to get more heated at the mention of Mars. Carlene tried to break it up, but the Martian and the Witch both ignored her. The Circus Master meanwhile ignored the petty squabbling as he tried to wrack his brains about what to do.

“I’ve got it.” The vandal shouted. “Carlene, can I see your beehive please.”

The others looked at him, completely puzzled.

“My beehive?”

“Yes, we both know its not just a wig. It’s a weapons chest, bigger on the inside than the outside, am I correct?”

“Well yes, but that little git said we couldn’t bring it. They know what it really is too.”

“Yes but the magics used to create it. We could perhaps duplicate them to create another tiny space to hide dozens of weapons to sneak into the village. Well when I say we, I mean you Denika.”

Carlene lifted her beehive wig off of her head and handed it to Denika. The front of the beehive opened to reveal a massive weapons chest. There must have been well over 100 different knives alone, each designed for a particular breed of vampire or demon.

“Amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Denika said.

“Well I didn’t create it. Everyone was wearing a beehive back in the 60s when I died.”

Denika gave her a look.

“Sorry, I’m not sure how it was created. A friend of mine made it for me. A ghost actually. Her father had access to some of the most powerful magics used by the vandals.”

“Well I can’t promise anything, but I might be able to create some crude replicas.” Denika said as she examined it further.

“You’ve got 20 minutes” the Circus Master said to Denika.

“We’ll need to get back my Mansion darling. I have more advanced models of the eh, beehive. Plus I need to check on the kids.” Carlene said to Denika.

The Circus Master meanwhile went back into the “Tent” to deal with Richards.

“We just have one loose end to tie up first” The Circus Master said as he pulled a silver knife out of his coat.

“You have no idea what’s waiting for you in that village. We are the future!” Richards protested.

“Trust me I’ve seen the future and your kind are just a horrible annoyance as always. It’s horrible enough in the next few decades without having to deal with millions more of your lot running around.” The Circus Master replied as he stabbed the silver knife through Richard’s heart.

Meanwhile back at the mansion, Ashlei was starting to become a bit agitated. More than usual.

“I wonder what’s taking them so long” she complained.

“I’m sure that vampire lady’s got everything under control.” Daniel said as he looked through Carlene’s book collection. Daniel had actually come from quite an upper class family initially, but his parents lost their wealth when he was just a boy, before abandoning him as a load.

Still in the brief time he enjoyed a luxurious life, Daniel had learned how to read and had developed a real appreciation for the arts. He had always been somewhat condescending to the other urchins he came across however, and here was no different.

“Yes of course she does, that’s why there was an angry mob right on our front door.” Ashlei replied.

“Well they’re away now aren’t they?” Daniel said as he flicked through more books.

“I suppose. It’s just well, if something happens to her, or those other circus, eh folk. Then what chance will we or anyone else in this city have of stopping those things.” Ashlei said.

“We can’t think like that. We just have to hope they really do know what they are doing as much as they claim. Frankly though its not the monsters that scare me.” Daniel continued.

“What do you mean?” Ashlei asked

“After this is all over, and the streets are ‘safe’ for us to sleep on again, I can’t see the vampire lady keeping us around.” Daniel replied.

“You don’t think she’ll just dump us back on the streets again?” Ashlei who hadn’t even thought about this up until now asked.

“Why not? No one else cares about us. My own parents dumped me when I became a burden. I don’t expect a vampire that doesn’t even know me to be any better.”

“We got on fine before her, and if need be we can do it again.” Ashlei said proudly.

“You don’t understand. I did have a group of friends. A gang if you will. I was their leader. I was supposed to look out for them, but those monsters. They killed them all. My friends trusted me, but I wasn’t fit for it. Now when I go back I’ll be alone.” Daniel said in a rare moment of self reflection.

Ashlei held Daniel’s hand.

“No you won’t. Whatever happens you have us now. After what we’ve all been through, we have to stick together.”

“Thank you” Daniel said. “That means a lot to me. Maybe you can cope with anything if you have the right people around you.”

“Oh don’t get all sappy” Ashlei responded in an uncharacteristic light tone.

“You never know” she continued. “The vampire might surprise us. She already has. I’d have never thought before today that the creepy lady we always swerved to avoid, would end up showing us more concern and kindness than anyone else.”

Just then Tom came stumbling into the room from the kitchen, looking terrified.

“Tom what’s wrong love” Ashlei asked.

“Brian. He threw me out of the kitchen. I was just getting something to eat, and he screamed at me to get out. He was wild.”

Just as he finished Ashlei, Daniel and Tom could hear the sounds of plates smashing.

“You weren’t locked up in that sewer.” Daniel interrupted. “Trust me. Those monsters, what they did to people. It will stay with him for the rest of his life.”

“I’ll have a talk with him. All this time I’ve just been so glad she got Brian out, I haven’t thought about what it did to him. He needs me more than ever.” Ashlei said.

When Ashlei entered the kitchen, she saw that Brian had made a terrible mess of the place. He had smashed the table in half, broken the chairs, and thrown knives, glasses and plates all around and smashed them.

Brian himself was sitting in a corner, holding a knife and crying. Ashlei ran to him.

“Please, please Brian just put the knife down.”

“Ashlei, I have to do it. It’s inside me, it’s wanting to get out.” Brian tried to thrust the knife into his chest, but Ashlei grabbed his arm. She had to use both of her arms to stop him. Brian’s strength had seemingly increased dramatically.

Brian however with just a shove, sent Ashlei flying to the other end of the room.

Daniel came bursting in having been alerted by the sound and he helped Ashlei up. Unfortunately however Brian thrust the knife into his chest. Ashlei screamed out in anguish and looked away in horror, but little did she know the worst was to come.

The knife didn’t kill Brian. Instead he started to spray a yellow, thick slime from his mouth as his body shook violently before starting to swell. His skin started to turn grey, whilst his hair fell out in large clumps.

The vampires that had captured Brian in the sewer had infected him. Daniel had suspected it for a while. The reason he and Brian had been kept separately from the other prisoners in the vampires sewers was because the monsters were clearly planning on turning them. They hadn’t shared this information with either of course, and when Daniel saw the vampire infecting Brian (just before Carlene had rescued them) he had assumed it was just torturing him. However given how strange Brian had been acting, he had his suspicions, but he didn’t want to believe it. He had also hoped that Carlene would have been able to sense it if anything was wrong. Quite why the vampires had selected Daniel and Brian to turn he had no idea, though he didn’t want to put too much thought into it. Ironically it may have been because Brian had been abandoned. Vampires often liked to turn those with more anger and bitterness into members of their own kind.

“We need to go now. That’s not your brother any more. He’s one of them.” Daniel said.

“No, no, we can help him, we just have to wait for Carlene to come back.” Ashlei protested.

“There’s nothing she can do. We have to lock him in here.”

Brian pulled the knife out of his chest. It was dripping in yellow slime. By this stage he had morphed completely into one of the vampires Carlene had faced in the sewers.

“Lets play a game of tag!” Brian laughed, as slime sprayed from his mouth, before he burst into a fit of heinous cackling.

Daniel pulled Ashlei, who cried and begged Brian to fight the demon’s influence out of the room, and slammed the doors shut.

“What’s wrong” Tom shouted as he jumped up.

Daniel paused for a minute, whilst Ashlei sobbed.

“I’m so sorry Tom, your brother.” Before he could finish, the doors to the kitchen suddenly came crashing down. Brian emerged, still holding the knife and roaring.

“This is all your fault. Both of you. You always treated me as a burden, another mouth to feed. You both left me to get eaten by those things and you were angry when that bitch saved me.”

“Brian please, you know that’s not true. We love you” Ashlei said through sobs as she clutched onto Daniel.

Brian simply ignored his sister however and went for Tom first. Daniel tried to stop him, but Brian stabbed his knife right through Daniel’s arm, causing him to faint from the shock.

Ashlei was forced to leave Daniel as she went to help Tom, but her vampiric brother got to him first.

Brian easily overpowered his brother and held the knife at his throat.

“Please Brian, don’t do this. Just put the knife down. I promise we’ll do everything we can to help you, just please, put the knife down.” Ashlei pleaded.

“Okay fine” Brian said as he dropped his knife.

Both Ashlei and Tom paused for a minute as Brian simply stood beside his brother, grinning, and revealing his new, hideous, fangs. As Tom reached out for Ashlei, Brian suddenly rammed his hand through Tom’s back, pushing it out through his chest. The vampire held Tom’s heart in its hand that stuck out through the other end.

“I said I wouldn’t stab him.” The demon cackled.

Ashlei collapsed into a heap on the floor, hoping any minute she’d wake up from this nightmare.

Brian started to lick his brothers heart, as Tom’s lifeless body collapsed in front of him. Ashlei looked up to see the twisted demonic caricature of her little brother gnawing on Tom’s heart. She knew both her brothers were gone now and she wanted to make the demon that had taken them both pay

“Where are my manners sis.” Brian said as he threw his brothers heart in Ashlei’s face. “We’re always supposed to share aren’t we?”

Brian went for Ashlei next who stumbled back onto the dining table. She picked up a plate and smashed it over the vampires head to no effect. Brian then pinned Ashlei to the table.

“You left me to become this. I hate you!” the monster slabbered as it prepared to sink its fangs into its sisters neck.

In desperation Ashlei grabbed a fork from the table and stabbed it into her brothers eye as he went for her neck. Brian doubled back in pain and whilst he was distracted Ashlei then picked up a chair and smashed it over his head knocking him to the floor.

Ashlei ran to Daniel to try and wake him up, but Brian reached out and grabbed her by the hair. He pulled hard, but Ashlei managed to tear herself out of the demon’s grasp, losing a lot of her hair in the process.

Sadly once again Ashlei was forced to leave Daniel as the vampire got between her and her unconscious new friends body. Fortunately for Daniel the blood sucker seemed to be more focused on its sister now.

She headed up the main staircase with her brother in hot pursuit. At the top the bloodsucker cornered Ashlei against a wall, but thinking fast she grabbed a vase from a nearby table and smashed it over her demon brothers head, which deterred him for only a few seconds that she used to escape.

“Come on I just want to see what your insides taste like!” Brian said with a perverse glee.

Ashlei ran to the nearest door and slammed it shut behind her, but Brian effortlessly started to smashed his arm through the door. In desperation Ashlei pulled a nearby cupboard in front of the door, but the vampire started to smash down the cupboard too. Ashlei searched the room for anything she could find. There had to be something in Carlene’s house to fight off this monster.

She soon spotted a chest by Carlene’s bed. It was a weapons cabinet. Only problem was Ashlei didn’t know how to use any of the weapons, or even if any of them were effective. She picked up a bottle of holy water and started to splash it on Brian just as he was about to enter the room.

Brian’s body caught fire and he quickly retreated. Ashlei waited for a few seconds more before she made it to the door. She looked around only to see no sign of the vampire, except for a few yellow bits of slime.

“Did he melt” Ashlei thought to herself. She looked down the other end of the hall however, where she saw the slime led to a smashed window on the other side.

“He can’t get out into the streets. I have to stop him.” Ashlei thought. Even though he was a monster, she still felt he was her responsibility.

Ashlei got another bottle of holy water as well as a cross from the chest and went towards the window. It led to a balcony outside. Hopefully Brian was still there and she could finish him. When Ashlei crawled through the broken window and onto the balcony, she found her brother curled up in the corner his skin steaming and covered in burns, whimpering in pain.

She slowly unscrewed the bottle of holy water, but Brian noticed her, just as she was about to throw the holy water on her twisted brother. The monster knocked it out of her hand, but Ashlei however still used her cross at the vampire, and though it appeared to have an effect on the monster, it wasn’t enough to deter him.

As the fiend cornered her against a nearby way, he was suddenly distracted by the sound of Carlene’s voice below.

“Ashlei, Brian please answer me.”

Ashlei screamed for help and Brian knowing that he wouldn’t stand a chance against the more experienced vampire killer jumped off the edge of the balcony and through the streets below, vanishing down a dark alley.

Carlene had arrived at the mansion with Denika, who was busy trying to help Daniel, whilst Carlene searched the mansion. Ashlei came running down the steps and collapsed into Carlene’s arms. She was crying so hard she couldn’t even tell Carlene what happened.

Daniel suddenly awoke screaming in pain. Denika pulled the knife out of his arm and prepared to heal his wound, but she couldn’t.

“My magic’s not working. He’s been infected.” Denika said. “The monsters blood was on the blade he was stabbed with. Mixing blood must be how they reproduce.”

“Oh god please no” Daniel whimpered. “Kill me now, I don’t want to end up like Brian.”

Carlene headed upstairs to her weapons chest. She pulled out a machete and a make shift flaming torch she had made from a piece of wood and her lighter. Carlene sliced off Daniel’s arm and used the torch to cauterize the wound. Daniel screamed and passed out a second time, but Carlene didn’t waver. She burnt the wound until the flesh was completely black and crispy.

“I might have got it in time. In 12 hours if you can’t heal him then.” Carlene said unable to finish.

Carlene went back to comfort Ashlei, who was now a completely broken woman.

“I’m so sorry Ashlei, I.” There was nothing Carlene could say. She felt completely responsible for what happened. She had left them without even realising that Brian had been infected by the monsters.

Ashlei couldn’t bring herself to feel any kind of anger to Carlene or anyone else however. All she could feel was just despair.

“Brian, he, he killed Tom. He’s a monster” Ashlei said through tears. “Now he’s out there, as one of those things. I tried to stop him, I tried, but I.”

“I promise you Ashlei, I may have let you down, but I’ll make sure your brother isn’t left in that state. I promise.” Carlene said as she hugged the poor girl.

“They seemed to agree to our terms master.” The Urchin said to Marcozia.

“They’ll try and trick us of course. I don’t blame them. I’d do the same thing. Even if I were still a human. I know how Carlene thinks though. Poor sad creature. Fighting for people who would kill her. Still even if they destroyed this village it doesn’t matter. Enough of my children have made their way into London now. The way this society is going, people will be only too eager to become one of us.”

To Be Continued

Kelly couldn’t take another second. She had been on her feet non stop for about six hours, and she still had another six to go. Even though Kelly had worked in this rotten flower mill for the past eight years and was used to long nights. (She had the scars, as well as a few missing fingers to prove it.) This had been a particularly hard shift.

Things had become a lot more difficult for Kelly overall in the last year as her husband, Christopher had tragically been killed in an accident in this very mill. The two working together had barely scraped enough money for their three children, two girls and a boy, all under 10. Kelly and Christopher were almost like strangers to their children they got to spend so little time with them.

Kelly hated the mill more than any of the other poor souls who were forced to work there. Every day she would come in and be forced to stare at the machine that tore the man she loved to pieces. Sadly she couldn’t leave however as work was scarce elsewhere. At certain points she even contemplated forcing her children to work in the mill she was so desperate. Ultimately however she always thought better of it. Kelly had been forced to work by her own father since she was four years old. She’d never really had time to figure out who she was, or what she wanted in life. Almost all of her days had been spent in a noisy, hot, dangerous factory of some kind, with only a few hours of comfort sprinkled in between. She was determined that her children were going to have more of a chance than she ever did.

“I just hope that rotten Ferguson doesn’t stiff me with some truck wages again” Kelly said bitterly as she took her five minute break to have a smoke.

She had to go outside the factory to smoke. “Heaven forbid my smoking should pollute the already poison air we breath in here”, she thought to herself, but still she had to obey the rules. The higher ups would take any excuse to fine her.

Kelly wasn’t in the best of health, and the 18 cigarettes a day certainly hadn’t helped her. Still it not only got her out of the factory for a short while, but it was the only way she could cope with the stress. If she knew she could get a fag at the end of a six hour shift, it was something to strive for.

This time however was different. For once Kelly would actually regret coming outside.

As she stood by the wall near the door, taking in the fresh air before inhaling nicotine into her lungs, she suddenly felt a drip on her shoulder. “Oh great its going to rain” she thought. “I’ll have to trundle home in the most miserable weather.” She had about an hours walk to get to work.

As she went to wipe it off her shoulder however she saw that the “rain” was red. Kelly dropped her fag and screamed only to see there was more blood on the floor next to her.

“Some poor soul must have had an accident” she thought, but then as she slowly looked up, following a trail of blood up the wall, she saw a flayed, mutilated body, impaled into the building with a large pole. Kelly wasn’t the squeamish type. This was a woman who had seen people, including her husband suffer fatal accidents throughout her entire life. Still this was enough to make her sick on the pavement.

After puking her lungs out, Kelly got a better look at the body. She could see that it was her former miserly employer, John Ferguson! She could tell because of how fat the corpse was more than anything else. Even then however most of his guts had been torn out, along with both of his legs.

Kelly ran back into the factory, coughing and spluttering as she did.

“Someone call the police” she shouted through coughs to her co-workers. Most of them didn’t take notice however as the noise of the machines drowned her out.

As she frantically ran around trying to get their attention, a tall, hideous looking figure suddenly entered the factory.

The creature had white skin, long pointed features, thinning, scraggily hair, and when it smiled, it revealed a mouth full of razor sharp, blood stained teeth.

The monsters chest and hands were completely covered in blood. Kelly was so scared at the sight of the creature she was frozen, but the beast got everyone’s attention soon enough when it let out a roar. All of the workers had the same reaction as Kelly. They all stood in silence at the sight of the monster as it relished in the terror it was provoking.

“Don’t worry” it said. “I am here to elevate some of you at least, from this life of drudgery and pain. Others meanwhile, you will finally be getting what you deserve.”

“I don’t see why we have to wait here” moaned Ashlei.

“I’m sorry darling but its for your own good. You’re just children, there’s no way you can face those monsters.” Carlene said as she prepared to leave the children in her mansion to rejoin the Circus Folk.

Even though Ashlei knew Carlene was right deep down, she still couldn’t help but feel upset at being left out of something important.

Carlene assured the children she would be back soon as she packed her anti vampire weapons into her hair and headed off to the Circus.

They still had a couple of hours of daylight left. Hopefully enough to find at least one of the new vampire breeds and find out who was creating them from it.

As Carlene made her way through the streets of London, with almost everybody staring at her as usual, she thought about whether or not she wanted to go back to her home time.

There were friends waiting for her back in her own time that she still missed every day, and she also missed the anonymity that she had in the 21st century. Also she thought about the children. She couldn’t possibly send them back onto the street, but she didn’t want to adopt them either.

She had grown quite fond of them, and she had always wanted children but she knew it wouldn’t be safe for the kids to stay around her. Carlene actually hoped that the time travellers would take her with them back to her own time and that she could then leave the mansion to the three children. Even then however she wondered if doing so would change history. As horrible as it may seem, maybe the children were destined to die on the streets? Maybe she was destined to never get home and die at some point in the 19th century. The Circus Master had to know who she was for a reason, and knowing her luck it probably wasn’t a good one.

Carlene was interrupted from her anxious thoughts by the scent of blood. It was unmistakable for a vampire. She could pin point it almost exactly. It was down a nearby alley. The perfect place for a vampire to pick off some unsuspecting poor soul. Carlene followed the scent down the alley, being sure to pull a stake from her hair first. Little did Carlene know however a young couple, named Martin and Claire had begun to follow her. After she had been spotted with the children earlier at the circus, there was an outrage within the local community that several children were in the care of a vampire. Martin and Claire just couldn’t take the police’s protection of this apparent beehive topped monster any longer and were resolved to do something about it. They decided to follow Carlene to see if they could catch her out on anything.

When Carlene made her way down the alley she found a young woman lying in a heap on the floor, covered in her own blood, cuts and weeping. Carlene approached her slowly so as not to startle the poor woman.

“Don’t be scared darling I’m here to help” Carlene said as she reached out to help the woman up.

The woman tried to run away but Carlene held her back. As they struggled Carlene saw Martin and Claire behind her. They had tried to hide, but the vampire was too quick for them.

“What are you two wankers doing here? I don’t have time for this crap, bugger off.” Carlene snapped.

“Why so you can kill her like you did those two children.” Martin said whilst shaking with fear.

“I didn’t kill anyone, and if you actually thought I did, two berks like you wouldn’t be following me. You’re just wanting to look brave and cool to your posh little friends, well fuck off.” Carlene said as she restrained the young woman.

“P-please I have to get out of here, those things, they’re, they’re coming.” The woman said she she tried to pull free.

“It’s all right love, I’m not going to hurt you, but I need to know more about these things okay.”

“N-no, you’ll die, just like they did”

“Who?”

“I’ll’ I’ll show you shall I?”

Just then the woman’s skin turned completely white, her finger nails grew into long black talons, he teeth grew into razor sharp fangs and her thick, dark hair turned into thinning grey strips.

She slashed Carlene across the face and punched her into the nearby wall. This vampire’s strength already dwarfed that of Carlene’s breed considerably.

The vampire girl then grabbed Carlene by the back of the head and started to smash her face into the wall several times over.

Martin and Claire both screamed in terror and ran in the opposite direction. Martin however in his haste tripped and fell. Claire didn’t even notice he wasn’t behind her until it was too late.

When Claire turned round she saw the vampire lady who after beating Carlene sensless, had turned her attention to the two humans. She held Martin above her head with both arms, and quick as a flash brought him down on her knee and not only snapped his spine, but broke him in half completely!

Claire was violently sick and began to faint at the gruesome sight, but the monster turned its attention to her. It held her by the throat and slammed Claire into a wall.

Claire kicked as hard as she could but it was hopeless. She screamed out for help. In her desperation she even called out to Carlene, who tried to stake the vampire from behind, only for the monster to shove the stake down into Carlene’s stomach before striking the beehive topped vampire in the face, sending her crashing back to the ground.

When Carlene got back up just a few seconds later she saw that the vampire had already ripped a large part of Claire’s spine out and was licking the blood off of it. Carlene tried to pull another weapon from her beehive, but the vampire lady rammed Claire’s spine right through Carlene’s stomach and pinned her to the wall. She then pulled it up through Carlene, ripping a hole in her, right from her stomach, through her shoulder. The vampire girl then started to beat Carlene to the floor with Claire’s spine.

The vampire girl screamed in frustration as Carlene still didn’t die and she stabbed Claire’s spine into Carlene’s head and pinned her to the ground with it!

She then started stabbing Carlene in her chest over and over with the spine, screaming each time it failed to kill Carlene.

Carlene meanwhile reached into her beehive with her good arm and pulled out a silver knife which she stabbed into the vampire girls shoulder.

The vampire girls flesh began to sizzle and boil. Clearly silver was a weakness. This wasn’t just a random guess on Carlene’s part. This was clearly a new breed of vampire, but it looked similar to other breeds who were vulnerable to silver.

The vampire girl staggered back with the knife still in her shoulder whilst Carlene scrambled to her feet. Carlene’s Vampiric healing powers allowed her to patch up her wounds in a relatively short space of time.

The vampire girl pulled the silver knife from her shoulder, with the wound having turned green, and her arm underneath having turned completely limp.

Both vampires bared their fangs as they screamed in rage at the other. Both were in tremendous pain, but that just pushed them even further.

The vampire girl swung at Carlene with her own silver knife. She was able to match Carlene’s speed and slice her several times across her chest and stomach, but Carlene wasn’t deterred however as silver was not a weakness for her breed, and eventually after taking a few more hits, Carlene managed to kick the blade out of the vampire girls hand. They both went to reach it, but the vampire girl got there first. Carlene jumped on her back however and bit into her hand. Carlene bit so hard she cut through the vampire girls bone and nearly took her hand clean off!

Though the vampire girl still managed to knock her off, Carlene reached for the knife first. She slashed her vampiric enemy several times across the face, throat and stomach. The wounds had a devastating effect on the vampire girl. They all sizzled and boiled and turned green, weakening her to the point where she collapsed backwards onto the floor.

“Please don’t kill me” the vampire, now too weak to fight back pleaded pathetically.

“I’ll help you if you tell me what I want to know” Carlene said holding the knife to the monsters throat.

“Who made you? Where did you come from?”

“Ferguson’s flour mill”. The vampire lady replied, struggling through the pain. “A man came in, he, he used to work there, but he had become a monster. He turned several of us. Said he was elevating us. He sent a few out into London, I was told to find you, the creepy lady and kill her. There are others coming for you.”

Carlene heard all she needed to know and raised her silver knife.

“You said you’d spare me” the vampire lady begged.

“No I said I’d help you, and trust me I am” Carlene replied coldly, as she finished the monster by plunging her silver knife through its heart. The vampire instantly crumbled into nothing but a pile of green dust on the floor.

Carlene took a rest for a few minutes to heal her wounds. “That was a tough bitch” she thought as the bones and muscles in her shoulder nitted back together.

As she popped her knife back into her beehive Carlene looked around at what was left of the poor sods who’d followed her down the alley. As much as she hated herself for it, the sight of their blood was making her hungry.

As she prepared to leave, suddenly Carlene noticed someone else had followed her down the alley. It was a young urchin, ironically the one who Carlene had bought the ticket for the Circus from yesterday. He had seemingly followed Carlene solely in the hopes of making another sale.

“No darling listen to me, see that little green pile of dust there, well” the boy didn’t listen however. He was so scared he ran back down the alley screaming for help.

“Please someone, that creepy lady’s gone beserk. She’s killed two people! Tore em up.”

Carlene managed to catch up to the boy, but as she tried to hold him still and explain, the boy dug his finger into one of her stab wounds that hadn’t closed over yet causing her to let him go.

The boy managed to make it to the end of the alley, and though Carlene caught up with him again, this time his screams alerted people outside. A crowd soon gathered around Carlene and the boy.

“Oh fuck, you know this really isn’t a good time.” She said somewhat nervously, but the little boy spoke up.

“She’s a monster, she tore two people up back there, ripped one in half and tore another’s spine out. Kill her”

Carlene tried to cover his mouth but it was no use. The crowd didn’t need a reason to want to see Carlene dead so they naturally believed the young boy without any proof.

“I really don’t have time for this” Carlene thought. “The police will clear it up. They need me” She let go of the boy and scaled the nearest building in a matter of seconds. The angry crowd tried to follow her on the streets below, but the vampire was too fast for them. Within a matter of minutes Carlene managed to jump across various buildings and out of sight thanks to her vampiric speed.

Little did the crowd really know the boy had in fact deliberately set Carlene up. He too was a vampire of the same breed as the one that Carlene had just fought with. The poor boy had managed to secure a job in the mill, on the night he had managed to sell his last ticket to Carlene. He was among the first Richards had turned into a vampire, as Richards felt that a child would be able to pass undetected more successfully. This breed like many species of vampires had the power to assume human form. Carlene should have noticed the boy was a vampire, but she was too distracted on trying to stop him from shouting, as well as weak from her wounds that she had sadly slipped up this time.

Still she didn’t care. For now she had a bigger concern, to make her way to the Circus and tell them about the Mill.. When Carlene arrived at the Time vessel, some of the Circus Folk were impatient.

“Finally” The Circus Master snapped. “Now we can get down to business of finding these vampires.”

“Yeah sorry about the hold up, I had to you know face a new breed of vampire, watch it kill two people, get stabbed in the stomach and in the head by one of its victims spine’s, and then get blamed for the murders and chased across London. Other than that though I did manage to find out where one of the new Alpha Vampires is. It’s turning people in Ferguson’s Mill.”

“Ferguson’s Mill?” Florence said with a shocked expression? “I know him. I remember from my youth. He disappeared one day. God if the Vampires have turned him then I shudder to think what he’s like now.”

“She said it was one of his employees. He’s promised to elevate them from their humble little existence.”

“Is that how he describes it.” Keptis said with disgust. “Well we need to get there now.” Keptis was holding a most unusual weapon, clearly from the far future. It was a chainsaw that’s saw was made of fire! The Martian had picked it up on the Circus folk’s previous adventure to the magical world of Kastericia. He couldn’t wait to test it out on some vampires.

The others meanwhile were carrying more conventional weapons, save for the Circus Master who had nothing but a cane, the bottom of which seemed to glow red.

“I’m afraid I’m going to need to ask some of you to help me check on my mansion. I left the children there, but there’s probably an angry crowd outside and the vampire said the alpha had sent others for me.” Carlene said with regret.

I’ll go with you.” Florence replied. “The rest of you follow me to that flower mill now.” The Circus Master commanded.

Carlene and Florence quickly made their way to the mansion, jumping back across the rooftops, and generally keeping out of sight, whilst the others made their way to the Mill. (Florence knew the way to the Mill from when she was a little girl and told the Circus Master.)

When they arrived at Carlene’s house, there was a huge crowd descending outside, carrying torches and pitchforks, screaming for Carlene to show herself. A local police officer tried to diffuse the situation, but it was no use. From the crowd’s perspective they were finally going to rid themselves of the monster that had terrorised their local community, and nothing was going to stop them. Carlene could see Ashlei peering out of the window from the rooftop she and Florence had both perched on behind the crowd. Ashlei looked scared, but she was confident that the crowd wouldn’t hurt her and the boys at least.

Florence started singing and within seconds the entire crowd began to calm down. They all slowly turned to face Florence, utterly mesmerised by her voice. All except for one that is. The little street urchin.

Confused as to why everyone had suddenly stopped, he ran in front of the crowd and started screaming.

“What’s the matter with you? The creepy lady lives in there. Lets get her.”

“Bloodthirsty little maniac aren’t you?” Carlene said as she descended from the roof, getting the boys attention. “I wonder why you’re the only one not affected? Maybe you’re more of a rock and roll kind of a boy. It won’t be invented for another 70 years or so, but still.”

Carlene could see the boy wasn’t human now, and felt like kicking herself for not noticing it.

“I didn’t kill those two in the alley, it was a monster just like this boy here” Carlene shouted to the crowd.

Realising his ruse was up, the boy morphed into his vampire form and killed a young woman standing at the front of the crowd. He stuck his hand right through her stomach and pulled her long intestine out. He then used it like a lasso to trip Carlene up when she ran to try and stop him.

The crowd started to scatter. The siren’s hold over them was very weak.. Older and more powerful sirens could influence people to kill others, hurt themselves, or even walk over a cliff if they wanted. Florence’s power in comparison however was very basic.

As the crowd ran, the boy killed the police officer who bravely attempted to restrain him. He tore the officers arm off and impaled him with it! He then jumped on another old woman’s back, and grabbed her head by either side and pulled until he tore her head in half. He then pounced on another young, teenage girl who was fleeing in the crowd and pinned her to the ground. The girls mother tried to pull him off, but the boy sunk his fangs into the girls neck.

Carlene however was able to grab the boy and hoist him in the air. The boy however despite his size, was still several times stronger than either Carlene or Florence and managed to escape Carlene by head butting her. He then sunk his fangs into her arm, and bit right through her bone! Carlene screamed in pain as she tried to shake him off.

Florence tried to pulled the boy off Carlene’s arm, but his grip was too tight,. Still Florence didn’t give up and the boy in response slashed her across the face, knocking the siren off her feet.

Whilst Florence was on the ground, the boy then jumped on top of her and stuck his hand in her mouth.

“Lets see how well ya sing without one of these ya bitch.” He cackled as he tried to pull her tongue out. Florence bit down on the Vampires hand to try and deter it, but the boy just smiled as it dug its claws harder into Florence’s tongue.

Whilst the boy was distracted with Florence, Carlene reached into her beehive for a bottle of holy water. She threw it on the boy. It didn’t hurt him as much as it had the vampires in the underground, but it still produced minor burns and smoke. Enough for Florence to push the demonic child off.

The boy crawled along the floor to get away from the two women. (By this stage the entire crowd had fled the area in panic.) Carlene lifted out a silver blade from her hair, and prepared to stab the monster through the heart. Just as she raised the knife however, the boy morphed back into his human form.

Carlene hesitated for a moment. She knew it wasn’t a child at all. It was a demon wearing the corpse of an innocent child. Still she couldn’t help but see it as a boy, and as she tried to work up the courage, the monster seized it’s chance and jumped up, sticking its claws right through her stomach. It pulled Carlene’s intestines and guts out, and smeared them in her face.

By the time Carlene had pulled her guts away from her face, the monster child had scaled a nearby building and made its way across several roofs.

Florence helped Carlene up.

“Man those things are vicious” Carlene said as she threw her old guts to the ground.

“I’ll follow him. He can’t have gone too far. You need to get to the factory.” Florence said as she wiped her blood from her mouth.

“We need to stay together, that thing is one vicious little bastard, and he could have made more like him for all you know”. Carlene protested.

“I can handle it. You need to help the others at the Mill. If I run into the the locals again, I can always use my voice. Now go”.

Carlene saw that she was right that Florence wouldn’t have to worry about the crowd and headed off to the factory. She was relieved somewhat. She didn’t want to have to stake the child vampire. “Poor blighter” she thought as she made her way across the rooftops. “I’ll find what ever turned that boy into a monster and make the bugger wish he’d stayed dead.”

“No offence to Florence or that cockney vampire girl, but just when you think vampires can’t repulse you anymore” Denika said as she stared up at what was left of the mangled and flayed corpse of John Ferguson.

“Well I guess this is the right place at least” Keptis replied as he fired up his flaming chainsaw.

“Remember, we have to take the leader alive. He knows where these new vampires are being created.” The Circus Master said as the four time travellers entered the Satanic Mill.

There were bits and pieces of people scattered all over the dank mill, and the walls were literally dripping with blood. The Circus Master used his stick to light the way ahead.

Many of the victims had clearly not even been killed for their blood. Denika could see the top half of a young man, no older than 18 stuffed into a large machine. His face was twisted into an expression of the most unbelievable agony. At the back of the room meanwhile was another victim, nailed to the wall, with long strips of skin having been ripped off, and his guts splattered about in front of him.

In one of the corners, Denika could also see the body of a young girl, no older than 13 or 14 with her jugular torn out. It was too much, even for someone like Denika who had seen her home world invaded and she had to take a minute to regain her composure. Much like Carlene, Denika had a real love for children. She was always the most rational and no nonsense member of the team, but there were times when it got too much for her.

Unfortunately however little did Denika know, the young girl was not dead. None of the Circus Folk noticed the girl slowly rise from the blood and entrail stained floor.

The Circus Master was too busy investigating another body that he suspected may rise soon, whilst both Keptis and the Strange Boy had gone on ahead.

The undead girl slowly crept towards Denika, with the witch only noticing when it was too late.

The beast knocked Denika to the floor, laughing at Denika’s apparent helplessness. The Circus Master turned around, but as he did, the body he had been investigating did rise and restrained him.

The monster threw the Circus Master onto one of the large machines, similar to a threshing machine on a farm. and jumped on top of him. The Circus Master’s strength was no match for this brute either.

As the teenager held Denika down, and prepared to strike, Denika started to chant a basic deflector spell. It was all she would have time for. She just had to hope that this particular breed of vampire was vulnerable to magics. Not all of them were.

The magic threw the vampire about four feet through the air. If it had been an ordinary human it would have not only thrown them farther, but also through any nearby solid object and rendered them helpless for a few minutes.

The vampire however instantly got up and hissed in rage at Denika, whose hands and eyes both started to glow bright blue. The vampire was curious for a few moments, before lunging at her anyway. Denika fired a blue beam from her hands, which cut a hole straight through the vampire. Sadly it did little to deter it, but Denika was able to evade the monster’s subsequent attack by floating to about ten feet in the air.

Denika would then attempt to fire another energy beam at the monster, this time aiming for its neck, but the vampire was too quick. It not only dodged her attack but jumped ten feet in the air and managed to grab onto Denika.

Denika tried to knock the vampire off using the deflector spell, but the vampire dug its claws deep into her shoulder and held on. As the vampire made its way for Denika’s throat, Denika used her powers to fly head first into one of the large machines below. Once again this did little to hurt the vampire, but the collision (which she made sure the vampire took the brunt of) was enough to distract it long enough for Denika to get out of its grip.

Denika then using her magic lifted up a massive pole with her mind and impaled the vampire with it through the chest into the machine.

The vampire held onto the pole and tried to pull it out, and Denika did her best to try and stop the vampire with her mental powers, but the vampire’s strength was too great and it managed to rip the pole out which it then used to beat Denika. It struck her in the face, the stomach and her right leg. In the process it broke her jaw, her ribs and her leg, before it stabbed the pole right through her left hand.

The vampire cackled like a hyena at Denika’s pain and after it pulled the pole out of her hand it started to lick her blood off of it with a perverse ecstasy.

Denika fought the pain and made the pole fly out of the vampires hands and go right through its foot. Whilst the vampire was distracted Denika hobbled to safety and quickly performed a healing spell which fixed her broken leg, ribs and jaw instantly as well as repairing her hand.

Now a good distance away from the vampire, Denika fired more magical blasts from her hands, but the vampire was quick enough to dodge them again. The vampire moved so fast her magical blasts constantly missed, but as the monster taunted Denika, it unknowingly stood in front of a broken down machine, which Denika noticed.

Denika fired her magical blast at the vampire, and it dodged her again, but this time her magic hit the machine and triggered an explosion which threw the vampire across the room.

Whilst it was vulnerable Denika fired her magical rays at the monsters legs and arms, severing them. Now unable to defend itself, Denika finished the monster off with a silver sharp through its heart.

The Circus Master meanwhile was still wrestling with his vampire. It tried to shove his head into the gears of machine below, but the Circus Master was able to use the claws on his right hand to disembowel the vampire, but it did little to deter it, with the vampire even laughing at the vandals attempts to hurt it at first, but the Circus Master thinking quickly, grabbed one of the monsters intestines and threw it into the gears of the machine which pulled the vampire into it. The vampire clogged the machine and started to tear it apart from the inside.

Whilst it made its way through the machine, it lost its arm in the process, and its face and body were badly mangled too.

The monster roared in anger at the Circus Master, who tipped his top hat in a mocking way before the vampire tried to attack him again.

The Circus Master dodged its attacks and went for his cane which he used to set fire to the vampire, whilst Denika hovered towards the Circus Master. “That beehived vampire was right when she said these guys were tough.”

“Her name is Carlene, Denika, but you’re right, lets find the others.”

Keptis and the Strange Boy meanwhile had made their way to the other end of the factory. They had been following the sound of screaming. Along the way they had encountered more bits and pieces of other unfortunate workers, as well as smashed machinery.

At the far end of the room, Keptis saw four vampires bending down over a young girl, covered in blood and cuts, screaming in agony. He and the Strange Boy ran to aid her, but unfortunately they weren’t fast enough.

Two of the vampires grabbed her legs, whilst another two grabbed her arms. They both pulled at either end until they ripped her in two. Keptis froze for a second at the gruesome sight before him. “Denika’s right just when you think these freaks can’t repulse you anymore.”

The Strange Boy jumped through the air, managing to land right on the nearest vampire by the woman’s severed legs, and knocking it into the other. The Strange Boy was actually stronger than even this breed of vampire, with the Jiang Shi being among the strongest of all vampires. He was able to hold the monster he landed on to the ground, but the other vampire however grabbed the Strange Boy and hoisted him into the air, but the Strange Boy flipped backwards out of the vampires grasp and landed on the blood suckers upper back. He then grabbed hold of its head from either side and pulled so hard, he ripped it clean off. The child vampire then threw the severed head at the other larger vampire, before pouncing on him.

This vampire however managed to swat The Strange Boy backwards through a nearby window and out onto the streets.

Keptis meanwhile attacked the other two vampires with his chainsaw. He managed to saw one of the vampires arms off as it raised it to strike him, whilst the other jumped onto a nearby wall and scaled it in a matter of seconds onto the ceiling.

The martian then decapitated the vampire whose arm he had sliced off, but the vampire on the ceiling was able to jump him from behind and knock the chainsaw out of his hand. Keptis tried to struggle free from the vampires grip but it was no use. The monster then started bashing Keptis’ face off of a nearby cotton machine, breaking his nose in the process.

Through the ordeal Keptis was able to pull a knife that’s blade was made from lightening out of a holster in his shin and stabbed it into the vampires kneecap. The vampire was jolted by the brief flash of pain enough for Keptis to get free from its grasp. Keptis then instantly reached for his flaming chainsaw.

As he tried to strike however the vampire managed to pull the knife from its knee and used it to deflect the chainsaw’s flaming blade.

The vampire who was considerably faster than Keptis, was able to slash the Martians arm causing him to drop the saw. Before Keptis could even make a move for the saw, the other vampire that had knocked the Strange Boy out of the window grabbed Keptis from behind and held him in place.

“Flay him” the vampire said as it dug its claws into Keptis’ arms. Just then however a blue light suddenly severed the vampire holding the knife’s arm. Keptis looked up to see Denika hovering in the sky, her hands and eyes shinning blue, and below her the Circus Master whose bright, garish clothes pierced the darkness of the factory just as much as the flame that he fired from his cane, which burnt the vampire that had been holding the knife to a crisp.

Seizing his chance, Keptis headbutted the vampire from behind and got free. Grabbing his chainsaw from the floor, he took both of the monsters arms off before slicing its head clean off its shoulders.

Carlene and the Strange boy came bursting in through a window a few seconds later, with Carlene brandishing a long silver blade. Carlene had seen the Boy outside and helped him back up,

Carlene looked around to see the last vampire’s corpse slowly melt away into nothing.

“Well I guess I came in the nick of time” Carlene said jokingly to the others.

“It seems you did. I’m glad I don’t have to track down all my major enemies. Now I can kill them all in one place.” A voice from the distance said.

Carlene and the rest of the Circus Folk turned round to see a large figure emerge from the shadows. It was Richards, the Alpha vampire of this breed.

“You killed some of my children. It doesn’t matter though. More of my children are already loose in this miserable city. They will make more and more and soon London will belong to us.”

The Circus Master didn’t even let him finish his rant. He fired his cane at the monster, though this time the cane didn’t shoot fire, but instead a large beam of electricity that wrapped itself around the vampire. Richards simply grabbed hold of the electrical beam undeterred however and used it to pull the Circus Master about ten feet towards him, before breaking through the beam and punching the Circus Master in the face.

Denika responded by flying into the air and shooting at Richards, who much to her surprise was able to block her beams with the palm of his hands, before blasting them back at her, which sent Denika flying outside of a nearby window.

Carlene then jumped through the air to try and catch Denika before she fell outside.

Whilst Richards was distracted by Denika, Keptis rammed his chainsaw into the monsters chest, but Richards simply smiled at the Martian and said, mockingly “Is that supposed to hurt.”

The vampire then held onto the chainsaw with both hands and not only pulled it out of his chest, but hit Keptis in the face with the butt of the weapon. The Circus Master then tried to fire his cane at the monster again, but Richards dodged the blast and sliced The Circus Masters cane in half using Keptis’ flaming chainsaw.

Richards then tried to attack the Circus Master with the weapon, but the Circus Master was able to dodge Richard’s attacks, though he wasn’t able to offer any counter blows of his own.

Denika (who had been prevented from falling by Carlene) returned and blasted the chainsaw out of Richards hands, before getting a second hit on the vampire as he turned around, knocking him a few feet across the room. Carlene then threw a silver knife from her hair into Richards leg as he tried to get up.

The silver didn’t hurt Richard as much as it had his children, but Carlene could see that it had caused him pain, and the wound hadn’t instantly healed, unlike those made by the chainsaw.

The Circus Master started to strike Richards repeatedly with his claws, whilst the Strange Boy sneaked up on Richards and jumped on his back. Richards struggled to throw the little vampire off, allowing the Circus Master to pull Carlene’s knife from Richard’s leg and slash the vampire across the chest several times, before stabbing him in the stomach with it.

In pain and desperation, Richards was able to throw the Strange Boy off his back and into the Circus Master. Carlene however was next to join the fight with another silver knife she had pulled out of her hair. She slashed at the monster and managed to hit Richards a few more times in his face, but Richards now overcome with rage managed to hit the weapon out of Carlene’s hand, and land another hit in her stomach. He then grabbed Carlene by the throat and lifted her into the air.

“I always hated you, you creepy bitch.” Richard spat as he prepared to tear her head off. Fortunately the Circus Master jumped Richards from behind causing him drop Carlene. The Circus Master was able to stab Richard two more times with Carlene’s knife, including in his spine, before Richards shook him off. Whilst Richards was distracted by the Circus Master, the Strange Boy grabbed Richards by the back leg and pulled him down to the ground.

Carlene and the Circus Master jumped on Richard’s back, holding him down before he could get up. Keptis meanwhile using his flaming chainsaw sliced both of Richards legs off.

Denika who had been hovering in the air, waiting for a moment to strike arrived in front of Richards and began to chant in a strange language. Richards became more desperate and tried to push the two time travellers off, but the Strange Boy then jumped onto the vampires back as well, firmly holding him in place.

Eventually Denika’s magic took effect on the monster and Richards passed out.

“It’s a sleeping spell. It’ll only work on him for a bit. but we got him” Denika said whilst panting. It had taken quite a lot out of her just to put the vampire out for that short a space of time.

“Now we can find out who is creating these monsters.” The Circus Master said as he hoisted Richards unconscious body over his shoulders.

Kelly suddenly awoke in what looked like an old abandoned church. The last thing she remembered was the hideous monster attacking her. She’d tried to defend herself, but the monster had knocked her out before she could even raise her fists.

As Kelly looked around, dazed and in pain, she could see three more people beside her in chains, all beaten and covered in cuts.

“I’m sorry you’ve been made to feel uncomfortable. Our people are not known for their hospitality. Still I’ll make sure that we look after our own.” A mysterious voice said.

Kelly looked up to see that it came from a well dressed man with a relatively normal appearance compared to the creature that had brought her here. His skin was still deathly pale and his eyes were bright red however. When he smiled, Kelly could see he had fangs.

“What do you want from me?” Kelly asked.

“One of my new children selected you. You should be grateful. All of you. From what I’ve been told you’ve all lived lives of such hardship, pain and loss. Now you’ll finally be able to get back at the people responsible for your pain.”

He started to read aloud from a book. All of the others screamed and begged at him to stop. Kelly wasn’t sure why at first, but in a matter of seconds she started to feel a tremendous pain surge through her body.

Worse than that, she could feel herself beginning to slip away. The love she had for her children, that had driven her through such trying times was replaced by anger. Anger at the little bastards for making her waste her life. Soon new violent twisted urges towards her co-workers and friends that at first terrified her began to emerge. In a few more minutes however she started to embrace them. She practically didn’t even remember her children’s names. All she cared about was in satisfying her newfound bloodlust.

As she looked around Kelly could see the others slowly turn into hideous monsters as the strange man continued to read from the book.

To Be Continued

John Ferguson couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten so much, and considering he wasn’t what you’d call a light eater that was really saying a lot.

Ferguson was a gluttonous man in virtually all aspects of his life. Food, wine, women and especially wealth. He was notorious for his meanness and firing his employees for the most trivial issues.

Not surprisingly he was hated by all his employees and the local community alike, but he didn’t care. All Ferguson cared about was maintaining his own selfish, hedonistic lifestyle. Sadly for John Ferguson however, a lifetime of selfishness was about to catch up to him.

The miser often walked home alone and tonight was no exception. He hated having to waste money on a carriage, and he felt assured that due to his influence, no one would dare try and attack him in the dark.

This night however would be different.

Ferguson spotted what looked like a shambling figure in the very distance, headed in his direction. “Probably a beggar” he thought to himself and instinctively turned away. It soon became apparent however that the “beggar” was following him.

“Oh great” he thought “I’ll have to actually push him away with my cane again. Why don’t these people learn?”

Ferguson approached the beggar confidently. “Look sir, I don’t know who you are, and you clearly don’t know who I am or else you wouldn’t be bothering me. I’ve just had a big meal, and I’d like to get home and”

The beggar who still did his best to conceal his face behind a ragged hood interrupted Ferguson “Don’t worry I wouldn’t expect any show of humanity from you. Unfortunately for you” the figure said as he raised his head, pulled his rags back, and revealed his hideous, monstrous face to a petrified Ferguson. “You can now expect the same from me.”

The figures skin was white and rock hard. Its features were long and pointed, whilst its mouth was filled with razor sharp teeth. Like all vampires, its upper canines however were the longest. Its claws were tar black and long, whilst its hair was thinning and scraggly looking.

As John slowly backed away from the monster in terror, he thought that he could actually recognise the beast for a moment before his fear overcame him. Ferguson raised his cane to the stranger in a pitiful attempt to defend himself. The monster however simply batted the cane from his hand.

“Listen, whatever you are. If you harm me there will be consequences I can assure you. I’m not some useless beggar, or jumped up harlet like the usual idiots that get picked off in these streets. People would actually care if I went missing.”

The monster interrupted Ferguson’s egocentric pleas. It spoke in a hideous, screeching hissing voice.

“Oh they’ll notice you’re gone, but only out of relief you’re finally gone. Come now, look closely at this face. The last you will ever see. Don’t you recognise me? Or do all the people whose lives you destroy just blur together into one inconsequential mess.”

Ferguson looked more closely at the aberration. There was indeed a creeping sense of familiarity in the demonic visage.

It finally hit John when the monster raised its right arm from out of the robes it was wearing. John could clearly see that it had a stump where its right hand should be. “Of course! You’re that Richards bastard aren’t you? Is this your latest pathetic little prank to try and get back at me for your failure of a life?” Even in the face of certain death, Ferguson’s arrogance knew no bounds.

Richards had once worked in Ferguson’s mill, but due to the greedy tycoon’s constant cutting corners, Richards had lost an arm in one of Ferguson’s filthy machines. After the accident he was deemed unfit for work, and unable to get another job. Tragically Richard’s daughter later died of rickets whilst his wife drank herself to death in grief.

Richards had always blamed Ferguson for what happened and eventually he even tried to attack him in the street. Even with one hand Richards had managed to overpower Ferguson, but the police apprehended him and Ferguson through his connections was able to make sure that Richards would be in prison for life. Ferguson didn’t know how Richards had escaped, but he rather stupidly started to think that he wasn’t really a monster. He was sure this was just Richards trying to scare him and remained defiant.

“It’s not my fault you were so incompetent you had an accident, or that you were unable to provide for your own family. It’s tragic what became of them, but that is your concern. This sad little attempt to scare me with that clown make up is not going to work. Now either you let me pass, or I’ll make sure they bloody well hang you this time.”

Richards was still unscared however, and simply let out a devilish smile before slashing the man he hated more than any other across the face.

Ferguson wasn’t used to pain, and the sudden shock alone was enough to completely startle him.

As he stared down at the pavement and saw his own blood drip onto it, Ferguson had a sudden realisation of the danger he was in and shouted out for help as he darted down the street as fast he could. There was no one around however, and even if there was no one could save him from the fury of the undead monster that wanted his blood.

Just when Ferguson thought he had escaped his undead tormentor, Richards suddenly jumped down in front of him. He hadn’t been chasing Ferguson at all. Richards had simply waited until the Mill owner was a good distance away, and then leaped in front of him. The vampire must have jumped over 40 feet in the air, and could clearly see through the fog no problem.

Ferguson knew that he didn’t have a chance of escape and so he now tried to bargain with the monster.

“Look Richards maybe we can come to some kind of arrangement. I can pull some strings, get you a lighter sentence.”

Richards wasn’t listening however. Instead he grabbed Ferguson’s right arm and bit right through his skin, veins, muscle and even bone. With his teeth alone he ripped Ferguson’s hand clean off. Ferguson passed out from the pain and blood loss within seconds, but the vampire wasn’t through torturing the miser yet.

Richards dug its claws into Ferguson’s back and lifted him up off the ground with one hand in a fantastic demonstration of superior vampire strength.

Ferguson was a massive man. Richards in comparison looked tiny, yet here he was, balancing Ferguson above his head on one finger. If anyone else had been around it would have looked both a horrifying and comical sight to them.

Richards threw Ferguson about six feet through the air to the other side of the road. Ferguson landed head first, and for a second Richards was scared that he had finished his enemy too soon. When the vampire went to examine him however he saw that unfortunately for Ferguson, the tycoon was still breathing!

The blood sucker ran one of its massive claws along the bottom of Ferguson’s stomach and started to disembowel him slowly. Ferguson awoke from the pain only to see his former, Demonic employee holding his intestines in its clawed hand as it started to lick them. The last sight Ferguson saw was Richards bearing down on him, hissing his blood soaked fangs, and spitting Ferguson’s own blood over his face.

“Come on love, any longer and we’ll be late” Carlene shouted to Brian as she stood by the door with Ashlei, Tom and Daniel. She heard no response for a few minutes and started to worry before Brian came staggering out of the bathroom, looking like a badly made up bed.

“Sorry Miss vampire, I, I don’t know what came over me.” Brian mumbled.

“Love, call me Carlene remember. Oh dear you look a right state darling. Here let me help you get ready.”

Ashlei sighed. “I don’t see why we’re bothering going to this Circus. You said you saw the blue woman in the sewers? So tell the authorities and they’ll arrest her. Problem solved.”

Carlene frowned. “I told you the authorities often aren’t able to deal with this sort of thing love. Besides all she did in the sewers was help me. Your little brother might not even be ere if it wasn’t for that blue siren. I need answers and I’m going to find them myself. I would have thought you’d have wanted to go to the Circus anyway? It’s a day out.”

“I hate it. Big bright, flashy colours to distract idiots from how horrible their lives are” Ashlei said bitterly.

“Well if it makes you feel any better it’s not exactly my scene either, but like I said there’s something odd with this Circus and I want to find out.” Carlene replied firmly.

Whilst the two were talking, Daniel sat absorbed in the morning paper. He had noticed that there was one more reported disappearance from last night, that of the local mill owner, John Ferguson.

Ashlei smirked when she heard John had vanished. “Miserable old bastard” she said. “You wouldn’t have to be a vampire to want to tear his neck out.” “Ashlei!” Carlene said sharply. “I don’t care who this man was, don’t ever talk that way about someone. Trust me when I say this. No deserves to die at the hands of a vampire.” The young urchin bowed her head somewhat. “I’m sorry, but he was the most mean spirited man I’ve ever come across. He kicked me one time when I tried to ask to him for some food.”

“She’s right though” Daniel interrupted. “There’s no shortage of ordinary people that would want to see John dead, but according to this” he handed the paper to Carlene. “William Richards, who had previously been arrested for an attempt on Ferguson’s life was broken out of prison the other day. The police don’t know how, but one witness, a drunken beggar claims to have seen a giant bat like creature rip the walls off of the prison.”

“If only I knew where that bloody fool had kept that book? I never fitted in with that lot. Van Helsing, and his cronies. I mean to be fair I am kind of a monster, but still. Working with them was a nightmare.” Carlene said as she went to check on Brian, who came out of the bathroom dressed in a small penguin suit, looking a lot more energetic than before. Carlene had made sure they all had a good meal, a couple of hours rest and clean clothes to change into before going to the Circus. Naturally they had to look presentable to go to the Circus, but she couldn’t stand to see the children in those filthy rags for another second anyway.

They were sadly forced to walk there however as even the local carriage drivers were scared of Carlane. When they finally arrived many heads turned towards the vampire. They often did, but this time the fact that she arrived with four children/teenagers shocked people all the more.

One gentleman in the audience felt so appalled that these children were with a vampire of all creatures, that he had to interject.

“Please I don’t know what you want, but those are children.” He said in a scared, but still somewhat confident tone. Just then Brian surprisingly came to Carlene’s defence before any of the others could. “Go away you stupid sod. This woman here saved our lives whilst you were sitting on your arse, moaning about too many children playing across the road!”

The man backed down. Carlene patted Brian on the back, whilst Ashlei looked on in concern. She had never seen Brian react that way. He was normally such a calm, gentle, quiet little boy. It seemed the experience in the sewers had changed him somewhat.

The Circus of Tzas opened with the usual parade of animals doing tricks. The Ring Leader or Circus Master as he called himself was a huge colourful character on stage. He must have been roughly six foot five inches tall, with an enormous build, though he was still incredibly thin overall. His frock coat was bright red with gold decorations running down the lapels, whilst his hair was long, jet black and curly. Atop his head sat a tiny, but very long bright blue top hat. He also had thick, bright green gloves and yellow, stripped trousers, whilst his face was very long and deathly pale, though at certain points during his act his skin appeared to turn blue as some kind of trick. His eyes meanwhile looked as though they were locked into a permanent scowl, whilst there was a constant, somewhat unsettling smile on his face. His voice was incredibly deep and booming, At times it didn’t even sound human. Many children in the audience appeared to find him quite scary at times, particularly those in the front row. Carlene took an instant disliking to the Circus Master. Why, she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He didn’t seem evil, but she just didn’t like him. Despite his unsettling nature he was a very upbeat and energetic performer all around.

Everyone seemed entertained by the Circus’ various antics. Even Ashlei, despite her dour, persona began to warm to some of the animal tricks. Right from the start Carlene however could see there was a lot wrong with this act. The Circus animals weren’t real. They were magical illusions. Carlene could only tell thanks to her heightened vampire senses.

She could smell the magic off of them. The Circus Master himself didn’t seem human either. Even before his face changing trick, there was something about him that didn’t seem right. Carlene had been around enough vampires, demons and other unnatural creatures in her long life to know when one was trying to pass as a human.

She felt the same way about one of the later acts, a small Chinese child called “The Strange Boy”. He was deathly pale in appearance, and didn’t say a word the entire time. Even the boy’s expressions seemed completely blank.

Nevertheless the boy didn’t have to say anything. He amazed the crowd through displays of almost impossible strength. He crushed several large blocks of stone with his bare hands, and he lifted another performer, a seven foot tall, bear of a man called Keptis (who dressed in strange armour covering his face) above his head no problem.

A young black woman (already a most unusual sight in Victorian England) named Denika also performed various tricks which were clearly the work of magic. She conjured up images of the most fantastic creatures and beasts that both terrified and amazed the crowd.

Finally the blue Siren, who Carlene had seen the night before performed a closing song. The Circus Master introduced her as Florence Faith. Just as in the Underground, Carlene was the only one not completely enchanted by the strange blue skinned, flame haired songstress. Even Ashlei was utterly mesmerised.

Carlene knew the Siren’s song was magic, and that it could entrance anyone (according to the legends) but she still couldn’t help but feel a little bit jealous. In all her years as a singer, she had never won over a crowd to that extent.

When the Circus was finished, Carlene waited behind. She wanted to speak with the performers herself. The three children waited with her. Ashlei meanwhile had calmed down a little after hearing the Sirens song and was a bit more laid back than before.

Carlene assured them that they would be safe. In spite of the fact that they weren’t human, Carlene did not think that the Circus folk whoever they were, were actually evil.

She waited just outside the main tent, having managed to sneak her way in there without making a sound.There were two tents it seemed, one where the show was performed and a smaller one for their temporary living quarters whilst they were on the road.

Keeping hidden behind two barrels, Carlene saw the Circus Master standing outside the smaller tent holding what looked like a strange sphere. All round him where the various animals and performers. One by one the performers walked past him into the tent. Denika, The Strange Boy, Keptis, and finally, Florence Faith.

The Circus Master then uttered a strange sounding chant and the Circus animals vanished into nothing but a puff of smoke, before the Circus Master joined the others.

“By god you were right” said Daniel in an exasperated tone. “These fellows aren’t human.”

“Neither am I” Carlene replied as she moved closer to the tent to inspect it.

Before Carlene could get a good look at it, Denika suddenly emerged from the Tent.

“Well, well looks like the vampires know we’re here.” She said.

Before Carlene could reach for any magic repellent’s in her beehive, Denika ensnared her in a magical tractor beam and pulled Carlene into the tent.

The inside of the tent looked nothing like a Circus. Its floor, walls and ceiling were all made of solid grey stone. At the far end of the Tent meanwhile was a large living area. There were 3 recliner chairs, and a massive couch perched in front of what looked like a television set, as well as a 21st century video game system above the television. Behind the living quarters were several bunk beds.

“How can they possibly have all this in the 19th century” Carlene thought.

As she looked around the room she saw on the far right side what looked like a work area where there was a strange glowing device. In the centre of the room, just behind where Carlene had been placed meanwhile was a large fountain, with green water.

All of the walls were decorated with various paintings from what looked like different eras, whilst on the left side of the room was a book case over 20 feet tall.

“Well done Denika, I’ll just get a truth spell ready.” Keptis who emerged from behind the fountain alongside the Strange Boy and Florence said.

Carlene tried to turn around to defend herself, but she couldn’t move to fight or even run away.

“That won’t be necessary. At least I don’t think it will. Carlene Philips I presume?” The Circus Master said as he emerged from the work place.

“What is going on? Who are you? How do you know my name?” Carlene asked in confusion.

“It’s okay” Florence interrupted. “This is the woman I met in the sewers yesterday. She helped save those children. At least I think.”

“She’s a vampire.” Denika said.

“And so am I, and so is the Strange Boy? Is there something wrong with that?” Florence replied.

Just then, Daniel, Tom, Brian and Ashlei came charging in through the tent doors, which still looked like cloth on the inside rather than stone.

“Get away from her you freaks” Ashlei who was ahead of the three boys and wielding a pipe shouted.

“Relax young lady. We’re not here to hurt any of you, I just need to know why you’re here.” The Circus Master said to the four urchins.

Carlene spoke up. “I’m here about the book of Khastran.”

All of the Circus Folk gave Carlene a look, except for the Strange Boy who continued to stare into space.

“Someone has found it from wherever Van Helsing left it and is using it to create new vampire species around London. I had a run in with one, as did your friend here in the underground.” Carlene explained before the Circus Master cut her off.

” We’ve only been here for a couple of days, but at my last count there’s about 15 new breeds created in the last few months or so.” The Circus Master interrupted.

“Fifteen? But that’s not possible?” Carlene gasped. “I would have known.”

“Whoever is doing this has a clear plan. They want to create an army of vampires. They’re keeping them hidden until the time is right, only turning the best people into vampires. Or should I say the worst.” The Circus Master explained.

“How did you track them down” Carlene asked.

“Well we knew they were here from the start. We were told to track them down.”

“By who?”

“It would take too long to explain, and besides I have some questions I would like to ask of you young lady.” The Circus Master said. “How did you come to know about the Book of Khastran?”

“It would take too long to explain” Carlene said sarcastically.

“From the looks of things it seems neither of us belongs to this time.” Carlene continued as she glanced round at the television set in the corner.

“What do you mean” Denika asked.

“Well I’m just saying I know that technology at the back won’t be around for about 100 years at least.”

Before Denika could respond, Carlene suddenly felt herself able to move again. The Circus Master had disabled Denika’s spell.

“Sorry, about that Denika, I think we need to establish trust with this young woman if we are going to get anywhere?” The Circus Master said.

“Who is she?” Denika asked angrily.

“She’s a vampire, but don’t worry she really is one of the few nice ones alongside our friend Florence. She was thrust through time by powerful magics and now fights evil on the streets of London. Am I right?”

“Pretty much, how do you know all that?”

“Well let’s just say you’re right. We’re not of this time either. Unlike you however we’re not trapped. We can move freely through time and space, though everywhere we go, we have a mission to complete.”

“A mission from who?” Carlene said with interest.

“Time itself. Let’s just say you can travel through time, and you can make your own history, but you can’t change it in any way. Once you do, you become an anomaly. You also can’t fail to make your own history either, which is what we are doing now. We are creating the future you come from Carlene, a future where vampires didn’t overrun London, or maybe even the earth in the 19th century.

Carlene took a minute or so to take this all in. Even for the type of life she had led, a time travelling magic circus seemed a bit much. She wondered what it must have been like for the children!

“So what’s your stories then. I mean you seem to know everything about me, it’s only polite I know a bit more about you.” Carlene said somewhat nervously to the Circus Folk.

“I quite agree” the Circus Master responded in a somewhat chipper tone. “Well we are all going to be working together.”

“Working together” Denika interrupted?

“Yes” The Circus Master said as he looked round at the rest of the Circus Folk who were somewhat confused at first but soon realised what he meant.

“My name is Ron Baker.” The Circus Master said. “You can call me Circus Master though, everybody does.”

“Why? that not a little bit pretentious?” Carlene asked.

“Well yes, but I have a greater connection with the magics that power this vessel than any one else. Let’s just say that it chose me. I also prefer not to think about my past as a human. I am a vandal.

“Oh I get it, now I know why I didn’t like you. No offence.” Carlene said.

“None taken, it’s instinctive.”

“What on earth is a vandal.” Tom asked.

“Vandals are the cousins of vampires love.” Carlene said. “They are undead Demons who can turn people into members of their own kind just like vampires, and there are also hundreds of different breeds too. The vandals however feed on souls using their claws.”

The Circus Master unsheathed his claws which each were about 6 inches long to show the children.

“We stab them into our victim’s chests and slowly drain their lives away. And that’s if they’re lucky.” The Circus Master said before retracting his claws.

“We were created by a demon of the same race as Khastran, but our father was a sworn enemy of Khastran, so vampires and vandals have always hated each other, even just on instinct.” He continued.

“I don’t get it though” Carlene asked. “If you were such a bad bloke before you became a vandal, how come you’re ere helping people?”

“Well its a long story, but all you need to know now is that I’m one of the nice vandals, same way you’re one of the nice vampires.”

“So” Carlene continued after a few seconds of awkward silence. “What about the rest of you, eh.”

The rest of the Circus Folk didn’t seem eager to share much with Carlene. It wasn’t that they distrusted her specifically, but they clearly weren’t used to sharing much about their lives.

“My name is Florence Faith.” The Siren said in an extremely posh, refined voice. It was literally the polar opposite to Carlene’s accent.

“I was born, not far from here actually. I was the last survivor of the Titanic. The sirens who sunk the vessel, turned me just before I went down with the ship. Like you and the Circus Master, it took a long time for me to come to terms with what I am, though to be honest I still don’t think I have, but at least I’m not a danger to anyone anymore. Well anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

Denika was the next to speak, but she was very cagey about her past. She simply told Carlene that when she was from the 21st century originally, but that she had been abducted by creatures from another realm of existence where she had learned her magic. She didn’t seem to trust Carlene, and the vampire didn’t blame her. She didn’t really trust any of them much either.

Keptis was the next to talk.

“I come from Mars, the red planet.” He said as he took off his helmet and revealed his more inhuman face. His skin was completely green, whilst his features from the humans perspective looked more exaggerated and monstrous, but thankfully they were not scared. After what they’d seen in the sewers, Keptis’ form looked rather mild.

“Amazing. A real life Martian. I always thought there was something in those stories about Martian canals.” Daniel said.

“There are no canals on Mars, at least not anymore.” Keptis said with regret.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean too.” Daniel tried to apologise.

“It’s okay. I’d just rather not talk too much about it. All you need to know is I’m not of this earth, but I’ve come to appreciate some of its people.” The Martian said whilst looking at Florence, who seemed to almost blush.

“So… what about im.” Carlene said whilst pointing at the Strange Boy who stood motionless at the side.

“None of us are quite sure.” The Circus Master replied.

“He is a Jiang Shi, one of the most powerful breed of vampire.” Denika interrupted.

“I’ve fought with the Jiang Shi myself. They’re strong buggers.” Carlene replied.

“Yes they are, and that’s why we’re lucky to have one on the team.” The Circus Master said as he patted the little vampire affectionately on the head.

“Why’s he not killing you though? Jiang Shi are savage vampires. They’re among the most bloodthirsty?” Carlene asked.

“Like I said we don’t know. There were many legends and stories about the Strange Boy when we first found him prowling the Chinese countryside. Some say he was a prince who had been infected by the Jiang Shi virus, but a wizard was able to preserve his human soul. Another stated that he was the soul of a boy who was placed into the body of the Jiang Shi that killed him. Others stated he was cursed to help people. We don’t know, but like I said, we’re glad he’s on our side.” The Circus Master said.

Carlene looked at the Strange Boy for a few more seconds. There didn’t seem to be anything under the boy’s face, not even a hint of sadness despite the awful state he was in.

“Anyway” The Circus Master interrupted. That’s enough about us. Carlene I think we have some work to do. Tell us all you know about Van Helsing and where he might have placed the book.”

“Alright darling, but first I just need to get these kids home.”

“Good idea, apart from the Strange Boy, this is no place for children.” The Circus Master said as he returned to the strange, glowing device at the corner.

Carlene took the children to the side.

“You don’t trust these weirdo’s do you” Ashlei said quietly.

“I don’t know love. They are definitely not of this time, I know that, but whether they’re working towards a better future for us who knows. I don’t like that this guy knows so much about me. He must have met me in the future or something. Maybe he even killed me? Either way though they seem to be the best bet for finding out who created these vampires. It’s important that whatever happens you lot stay out of it.”

“How can you expect us to do that? Those things took my brother.” Ashlei said.

“Suddenly you care.” Brian said under his breath, though Ashlei still heard him.

“Brian!” Tom shouted. “How can you speak to her like that.”

“It’s okay.” Ashlei who was still feeling guilty at having left the boy said.

“Now, now you lot I don’t want any squabbling. I want you to stay back in my mansion until this is over. If you really want to prove you care about each other, that’s what you’ll do.” Carlene said firmly.

“All right fine” Ashlei replied with great reluctance.

“I’m going to walk you all home too. No point in taking chances with these vampires running around.”

The Circus Folk meanwhile had gathered in the workshop area of the Tent.

“I don’t know why you trust this vampire so much. No offence Florence.” Denika, who began working on some device said.

“You know why. Time says I have too, though I’m afraid I can’t reveal too much, but this is one of those rare instances where we know our own future. We have to play this very safe.”

“Well I don’t have the best experience with vampires, apart from a few exceptions.” Keptis said, again looking at Florence. “But I trust your judgement, Ro, I mean Circus Master.”

“It’s not my judgement remember. We are going to need Carlene’s help to stop the vision we saw of London being overrun by those bloodsuckers.”

To Be Continued.

“Roll up, roll up, roll up. Come get tickets to see the Circus of Tzas.” The young boy shouted whilst pestering as many adults as he could to buy some tickets. Only one responded to him however, and it was really out of pity more than anything else. She certainly wasn’t going to see a Circus of all things, but she couldn’t leave the little urchin to go hungry.

The young urchin was somewhat intimidated by the sight of this strange lady, who he knew from reputation. She was quite unlike anyone else in all of London. Dressed completely in dark, yet fancy clothing, whilst her skin was whiter than snow. Her nose was enormous meanwhile, whilst her eyes were a piercing green. Finally her hair was styled into a towering beehive. The lady was also smoking too which the young boy thought was most unlady like. When she smiled, the boy could see what appeared to be sharp teeth, though only for a few seconds.

Despite her somewhat elegant if unusual appearance. When she spoke it was in an extremely gutteral, thick cockney accent.

“Awright Darling, ere have one on me.” she said in a friendly tone as she handed him some money. After a few seconds hesitation the boy accepted before running away. He may have been scared of this eccentric lady, but this was more money than he’d ever been given before. He shouted thank you at her as he ran away. Almost too intimidated to even look back.

The lady in question, Carlene, had built up quite a reputation in the local area. Despite being here for over six decades since 1824. (Where she had apparently appeared out of nowhere.) She seemingly hadn’t aged a day and still had the appearance of a woman in her 20s. Furthermore any time there was something weird happening Carlene was always there and over the years a number of her closest associates had been of a somewhat strange nature to say the least. In fact at one point the group she hung around with were even known as the Freakish Family. Even her local, the Rose and Crown was a bar that most regular people tended to shun, with some speculating it was a monster pub. At the very least there were a number of strange occurrences near or in the bar. Still despite the fact that many suspected her of witchcraft or worse. Carlene had the full protection of the police force.

The truth was Carlene didn’t belong in this city, or even this time. She had been pulled from her own era of 2007, by a supernatural force and thrust into the early 19th century. She had never really adapted well to this era, though to be fair even in her own time Carlene had never really fitted in.

Carlene was a vampire, specifically of the breed known as the Heklox. Unlike almost all other members of her kind however, Carlene had learned to control her blood lust many years ago (or rather many decades in the future.)

Over the years Carlene had helped the police defeat many dangerous adversaries and monsters, but even they still didn’t entirely trust her either. Nevertheless the vampire was too useful to them as she had a greater knowledge of the paranormal than anyone else in the city. Carlene often had a similar relationship with the authorities wherever she stayed for any given period of time. Even with the protection of the police however people in the local area still would still bother Carlene. They’d throw things through the vampire’s windows, or refuse to serve her in resturant, hence why the Rose and Crown had remained her local for several decades in a row now.

Carlene had just been to the police station to help them crack an important case. It involved the zombified corpse of the former criminal mastermind, and evil wizard Doctor Masterik. She had been fighting Masterik for several years, having even foiled an attempt by the wizard to condemn all of England to a horrific curse. She had actually killed him in a previous battle too, but unfortunately the criminals servants had found a way using his own black arts to revive him.

The vampire was sure she had seen the last of him this time however. “Even that bugger couldn’t put himself together again after that.” Carlene thought as she walked home through the foggy streets of Victorian London.

After that ordeal, Carlene just wanted to get home, have a cold glass of cow blood, and then have a long days sleep after the night she had. (Her kind unlike most breeds of vampire would not be destroyed in the sunlight, but she still slept during the day anyway.) However when the beehive topped vampire reached her house she found two children sitting anxiously on the steps.

One of them was a girl about 16 or 17 years old, whilst the other was a boy who couldn’t have been older than 12.

“Awright is there something I can do to help you both?” Carlene said, wondering if she was going to have get her windows fixed again.

“Please you have to help us” the little boy mumbled through tears as his sister hugged him tight.

“Now, now darling don’t cry” Carlene said as she comforted the boy.

The sister spoke more firmly with Carlene.

“Look I know who you are. You’re, you’re not human are you mam? Normally when we see you in the street we give you a wide berth like everybody else, but please, our little brother, he was…. He was taken, by something. I don’t know what, but it wasn’t human. It snatched him and it went into the underground. I looked but I couldn’t”. She had to stop there to regain her composure. Carlene put her hand on the young girls shoulder much to the urchin’s surprise before she continued.

“Please I know you don’t care about us, no one does, but I need your help. I’m begging you” the young girl broke down and got on her knees.

“You’re right darling I may not be human, but I do still care. Of course I’ll help you both. You can stay at my house for as long as you need and I’ll search for your brother right away, but I’m going to need some more information about this creature that took your little brother. Okay love?”

The girl was shocked by Carlene’s answer. She had heard rumours about her being a demon, and had always thought she looked quite creepy. She had only gone to this strange lady in black because she felt the police wouldn’t know how to deal with the monsters. Still the girl thought she would have to bargain with Carlene or even blackmail her by revealing that she was a demon to the police (as if they didn’t already know) but to her surprise Carlene was extremely gentle and sympathetic.

“What’s your name darling.” Carlene asked.

“Ashlei, Ashlei McKay”.

“Awright Ashlei, let’s get you and your little brother inside, can I ask what your name is young man?”

The little boy was still too upset to properly speak and so Ashlei told Carlene her little brother’s name. “He’s called Tom” Ashlei said softly.

“Well don’t worry Tom, I promise I’ll find out what happened to your brother okay. Let’s just get you somewhere warm first.”

Carlene took them inside and told them both to remain here until she got back. She assured the two children that they would be safe. Carlene had placed various protection spells around the house for demons, though she couldn’t guarantee that the villagers wouldn’t attack the house, she felt sure they would never harm the children however.

The vampire still had some questions about the creature that had attacked them. She didn’t push too hard as she could see how difficult it was for Ashlei to even acknowledge what had happened.

“We were sleeping in Paddington, where we always sleep, next to the tube station. It’s a good place to beg. So many people come and go, you’re bound to hit on one who’s generous. We were all huddled together as usual when suddenly it came, I don’t even know what it was.”

“It’s okay love, I understand, but please I need more information on the creature. Was it a vampire? A demon?”

“I don’t know” Ashlei snapped through tears. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It ripped through the gates of the underground. It was strong, strong and huge. Its skin was slimy, white, and the stench that came from it. I was almost sick. It looked bloated, but it moved so fast. It cornered us before I could even wake the boys. We’d have all been dead if it wasn’t for some poor old bugger that distracted it.”

Ashlei continued “He was an old drunk who used to wander round the neighbourhood at night. Sometimes he’d shout at us to give him the money we’d been given by strangers. I’d generally just ignore him. He was never violent or threatening though. To tell you the truth I pitied the poor bugger. I sometimes gave him any spare change I had. He wouldn’t get it from anyone else that’s for sure. The idiot probably thought it was someone giving us money instead of him again and he ran towards that thing to plead. It tore him to pieces. There was nothing we could have done. We ran as far as we could down the street, but the monster chased us. Eventually me and Tom managed to lose him, but when I turned around I saw that my youngest brother, Brian was gone. I thought he was right behind us, I was too busy running to even look out for him…” Ashlei stopped trying to make excuses. “I left him. I was a coward and left the person I should have been looking out for the most.”

Ashlei collapsed into Carlene’s arms.

“Don’t worry I promise I’ll find that creature” she said.

Tom spoke up “Do you know what it was?”

“No, but from your sisters description it sounds like a vampire.”

“You mean like you” Tom replied somewhat nervously.

“No, nothing at all like me love. I am a vampire yes, but there are hundreds of different breeds of vampire. They’re all monstrous, except for me. I’m a one in a million vampire, but from the sounds of things though this could be a whole new breed. I should be able to track it. I can’t imagine it’s got that far and even in a place as big as the London underground, a vampires stench still stands out.”

Carlene fetched her various anti vampire weapons and placed them inside her beehive before leaving. The cockney vampire had always worn a beehive, even when she was human. It was in fashion when she was alive in the 60s, but she had kept wearing it in the decades after and before, which often made her stand out from the crowd.

It was still dark outside, though there was probably only half an hour or so of night left. Carlene hoped that this vampire was vulnerable to sunlight.

The beehive topped vampire’s house was not far from the tube station where the three children had been attacked. She was able to get there in about 10 minutes. The beggar’s corpse lay by the stairs leading down to the gates that had been torn open just as Ashlei had described.

The body was mutilated beyond all recognition and his guts had been ripped out. One leg had even been ripped clean off and scattered across to the other side of the road. Carlene placed her dark fur coat over the mangled body as a sign of respect.

“Poor sod” Carlene said to herself “I wonder if there’s anyone out there that’ll even know the right name to put on your grave stone.”

Carlene tread slowly down the stairs into the underground. She could pick up a very faint sent of something unnatural. Vampires of her breed had an incredibly enhanced sense of smell. Ironically Carlene had always been picked on for having a huge nose growing up. (During her days as a singer in the 60s, many critics had also made unflattering comments about her big nose too. Granted that was a couple of noses ago, as her kind had the power when brought back to alter their physical appearance, though only slightly. Carlene had sadly experienced more than a few deaths since her first. Her nose however was always exceptionally large regardless of how different the rest of her face was. Maybe deep down it was what she wanted as she had become defiant to the idea of changing it for anyone.) At any rate Carlene traced the scent down the railway, with the stench getting stronger the deeper she went. It eventually led the beehive topped vampire to tiny drops of yellow slime on parts of the rail. Many vampire breeds, particularly the stronger types dripped slime. In the dark Carlene could also see what looked like a large hole by the side of the railway track.

It looked big enough for two people to slip through, whilst on the other side was a long tunnel, filled with water, ankle deep.

Carlene walked slowly through the water, which appeared to come from a pipe in the left hand side of the wall. She constantly searched around for any sight of the monster or its possible victims, and she soon started to pick up the scent of human blood as well, the deeper she got.

Finally when she reached the end of the tunnel the cockney vampire saw that it led to a small waterfall within a huge cavern. In the middle of the cavern was a massive pile of mangled body parts. All that was left of the vampires previous victims. Just behind the mountain of human remains however Carlene could also see two people chained to a wall. One of them was an a teenager aged about 18 years old, whilst the other was a small boy who couldn’t have been older than nine. The older boy was struggling in his chains, whilst the younger boy was just crying. Ten feet or so to the right of them was another tunnel.

“Why had they both been spared” Carlene thought? Using her vampire agility and strength, she jumped from the top of the waterfall to right in front of the boys. The vampire must have leaped over 80 feet in one jump!

The two boys recoiled in horror at the sight of Carlene when she landed in front of them without making a single sound.

“I knew it” the elder boy said in terror. “I knew you was in on it. We’ve always thought you were creepy. I bet that thing’s your pet or your son or something”

Carlene rolled her eyes. She didn’t have time to bother to explain her full life story to them, and hoped the two boys would see she wasn’t there to hurt them by her actions.

As Carlene went to try and rip the chains off the wall however, she heard a thumping noise. It was coming from the tunnel to the right of the boys. The beehived vampire instantly jumped onto the wall above the tunnel, which her supernatural powers allowed her to stick too.

She waited patiently for the monster to emerge. The boys kept quiet as they weren’t sure what she was doing and didn’t think anyone could help them anyway.

The monster slowly crept out of the tunnel. Ashlei wasn’t lying in her description. The abomination must have stood about eight feet tall. It had to crouch when walking down the tunnel. Its skin was completely white, whilst there were horrible, yellow, wet patches all over its body. Its hands were also dripping with yellow slime too, whilst its claws ended in rotting, but very sharp talons. The monster’s eyes were bright green meanwhile with a red pupil, whilst its hair was white, thinning and scraggly.

The monsters mouth was filled with long razor sharp fangs like any vampire, whilst a putrid green slime slobbered from its mouth and down its chest.

Its entire body was bloated, but its stomach in particular was massive, whilst tiny green and yellow warts and spots littered its bulky frame.

As the repulsive brute moved towards the two boys, smiling with sadistic delight. Carlene reached into her beehive for a weapon. Her beehive had become more than just a fashion choice over the years. It was in fact a magical weapons chest, bigger on the inside than the outside, and created by the strongest magics. Carlene pulled out a long wooden stake, a common weakness of many vampire breeds (including her own) and jumped on the bloated vampires back with a tremendous speed. The beast, completely taken by surprise tried to shake her off, but Carlene dug her claws deep into its flesh. The monster was every bit as disgusting to touch as it was to look at. Its skin was ice cold, so much it was almost burning! Carlene probably couldn’t have pulled her hand away even if she wanted without some force the slime was so thick.

Carlene rammed the stake straight into the monsters back and pushed it with all her strength through the layers of fat and into its heart. The monster didn’t even react.

She then reached into her beehive for a silver sharp, but the monster responded by ramming backwards into a nearby wall. Such an act would have crushed an ordinary human into nothing but paste, but Carlene’s vampiric constitution allowed her to survive. It was still a most unpleasant experience however as the vampires slimy, warty fat filled her mouth!

The monster would ram her again and again a few more times, but Carlene after having become practically embedded in its back used all of her strength to pull herself off of the monster.

She then ran towards the waterfall and immersed herself in it. The slime that covered her body from the monsters back was painful as well as revolting. It stung all over her body.

If it had been the sewers, Carlene would still have dumped herself in the sewage to get the slime off!

She then pulled out a gun from her beehive loaded with silver bullets and fired three shots into the monsters heart. Again it did little to deter it, with the monster simply twitching for a few seconds before laughing. Carlene then pulled out an axe from her beehive. It was made from Bronsicate, a metal forged by the gods themselves, and was capable of piercing the skin of just about any creature on earth.

With one swing of her blade she took the bloated beasts hand clean off. Within seconds however it completely regrew its hand. Carlene was more than a little shocked. She’d rarely seen a vampire with that kind of healing capability before. It must be a very old, or perhaps even an alpha vampire.

The monster charged at Carlene. It was fast, faster than any human could possibly be, but fortunately Carlene was faster. She went for the monsters stumpy leg next with her axe which took it clean off. Though the leg regrew again, the monster still stumbled to the ground, allowing Carlene to strike the vampire in the back of the neck.

Unfortunately however before she could fully part the beasts head from its shoulders, the bloated vampire managed to grab the axe, whilst it was in its neck!

With its other hand the monster then threw Carlene about ten feet across the room, whilst it was still clutching her axe.

The vampires strength absolutely dwarfed Carlene’s. It would probably take about 30 of Carlene’s breed to arm wrestle this vampire.

“Oh bollocks” Carlene said to herself when the creature came charging at her, wielding her own axe. She fished through her beehive again but before she could pull anything out the monster reached Carlene, swinging her own axe. She managed to dodge it in time with her still greater speed allowing her to continue to dodge the vampires attacks afterwards, but only just, and she wasn’t able to pull anything out of the portable weapons chest on her head in the meantime.

The larger vampire was getting visibly frustrated. It wasn’t used to an enemy that could evade its attacks. Carlene meanwhile tried to keep the monster away from the children. She lured it back towards the waterfall, and her chance came when it briefly stuck its axe in the wall. It was only for a moment, but that was all the smaller more agile vampire needed to flip back 20 feet in the air and stick to the wall next to the waterfall.

This vampire didn’t look like a jumper so Carlene could safely test which of the weapons in her beehive would work on the monster from up here. First Carlene threw a gold dagger straight into its throat which did nothing. Then she shot it several times using a gun loaded with iron bullets. Then she dropped a magical bomb on the monster, only dangerous to supernatural creatures (but not whoever uses it.) The bomb created a massive blue explosion which enveloped the entire room. When the blast faded however, the bloated vampire stood there perfectly fine.

“You pathetic coward, stop throwing trinkets at me, because you are afraid of a fair fight! Come down and face me!” The vampire shouted or slabberred rather.

“I hardly think a bloke who picks fights with old beggars and children can call anyone a coward love”. Carlene responded.

The monster started throwing things at Carlene. It threw back her gold dagger, and ripped out slabs of concrete from the ground itself which it hurled at Carlene who effortlessly dodged the monsters clumsy throws. Eventually however the beast made a mistake and threw Carlene’s axe at the beehived vampire which she caught instantly.

Carlene then jumped towards the two boys again and using her axe broke their chains. “Get behind me boys”. They still didn’t trust Carlene, but they could see she was at least, the lesser of two evils compared to that monster.

The larger vampire circled Carlene and the boys, waiting for the right moment to strike. As Carlene reached into her beehive for another weapon, the vampire grew impatient and tried to attack her first, but it proved to be a mistake. Once again Carlene sliced the creatures hands off, and whilst it was regrowing them, Carlene pulled a bottle of holy water from her beehive and threw it in the monsters face.

This time there was a reaction. The colossal vampire sank to its knees as its flesh began to sizzle. She then threw another bottle which caused its chest to briefly catch fire.

Carlene walked calmly towards the bloated vampire knowing it wouldn’t put up much of a fight now, and raised her axe to part its head from its shoulders.

Just as she was about to strike, however she was suddenly distracted by the two boys screams. She spun round and to her horror, stood another vampire similar to the beast she had just fought, holding the two boys in the air by the back of their necks.

This vampire was much smaller than the previous one, and it was a female.

“Drop the axe NOW, and take that stupid thing off your head.” The vampire had clearly been watching from the tunnel, waiting for the right moment to strike.

“But it’s my actual hair”

“Really?” the monster said, somewhat surprised.

“Yeah look I’ll show you” Carlene replied as she reached into her hair and threw two smoke bombs in the monsters direction. The gas startled the vampire enough to make her drop the two boys allowing Carlene (who could see through the gas clearly) to grab them. With the two monsters blocking the way to the waterfall, Carlene was forced to run down the tunnel with the two boys.

At the end of the tunnel was a small room which led to three different tunnels. A figure began to emerge from down the left one.

Carlene kept the boys behind her whilst she went to confront it. The figure looked like an ordinary man. He certainly wasn’t one of those hideous monsters, but he didn’t look well at all.

“Don’t be afraid. Everyone might think I’m a bit creepy darling, but I’m here to help. Just let me”

The man interrupted Carlene shouting at her “Please get away. Those things they” he suddenly coughed up a hideous, steaming yellow liquid from his mouth as he clutched his sides and sank to his knees in agony.

The same yellow liquid began to burst out of other parts of his body including the palms of his hands. His arms, legs, torso and face all began to swell too. He screamed, but there was nothing Carlene could do except try and put him out of his misery.

These creatures had infected him and there was no way to reverse the process of becoming a vampire. It was better he died now. Carlene pulled a sword out of her beehive, but just as she prepared to strike, she was distracted by a singing voice coming from the other end of the tunnel. She turned round to see a strange blue skinned woman slowly walking towards her.

The blue lady had flame red hair, and was dressed in a long flowing white dress. She was incredibly beautiful and her voice seemed to have an effect on both of the two boys and the man changing into a vampire, who seemed to forget the pain he was in as he wandered closer to this strange woman. Carlene had to hold the boys back meanwhile. “I don’t get what all the fuss is about.” “Her voice is nice, but it’s kind of limited. I doubt she could sing anything by Sinatra or Billie.” She thought to herself.

Carlene watched as the blue Siren lured the young man near to her. She didn’t know why but Carlene didn’t think that the creature was evil. Maybe she was falling under its hypnotic spell without realising.

When the man came close to the Siren however, she stabbed him through the heart with a strange knife. Carlene instantly ran towards the Siren, with its victim falling into her arms.

The man began to change back into a human after being stabbed in the heart. At first Carlene felt like attacking the Siren but then she realised that it had only done what she herself was about to do a few seconds earlier. Carlene pulled the knife out of the victims heart. The blade was made of copper, obviously a weakness of this breed of vampire. The Siren snatched it back out of Carlene’s hand.

“That’s alright I’ve got my own” Carlene said as she ruffled through her beehive. She was sure she had a copper weapon of some kind in there. Copper was a common weakness among certain breeds.

The Siren suddenly pushed Carlene down as she ran towards the two boys. The two giant vampires had made their way down the tunnel. Carlene quickly jumped back up and joined the Siren, pulling a silver sword out instead as it was all she could reach in time.

The Siren slashed at the face of the female vampire who reached out to grab the boys. Carlene meanwhile went for the larger male. She swung her sword at the slimy giant but it managed to dodge her attacks before grabbing the blade, which it then pulled out of Carlene’s hand. Carlene however instantly jumped onto the creature’s chest and using her full body weight knocked it back into a wall, causing it to drop the sword. She then delivered a flurry of punches to the monsters face before it batted her back across the room.

The Siren meanwhile had been overcome by her vampire. She wasn’t anywhere near as skilled a fighter as Carlene. The Siren had dropped her knife in the fight just before she was pinned to the ground. The two boys stood cowering in the back. There was nothing either could have done, and if they had tried to interfere they’d probably just have made things worse.

Carlene attacked the female vampire. She pulled it off of the Siren, though the female vampire however instantly shook Carlene off. Still Carlene’s distraction allowed the Siren to pick up her copper knife and stab the female in the heart. The female vampire then crumbled into nothing but a pile of ash on the floor in a matter of seconds.

Carlene and the Siren stood in front of the two boys, both brandishing weapons. The male vampire didn’t look scared however.

Several more of its kind soon came trundling down the three corridors. About ten in total. Carlene headed for the two boys whilst the Siren jumped into the crowd of monsters in the middle tunnel. Carlene called at her to stop, but within a few seconds the monsters were on top of the Siren. Carlene tried to help the Siren. She lifted a bottle of holy water from her hair and splashed it over several of the vampires, scattering some of them. Carlene could see fleetingly through the mess of vampires that the Siren had managed to escape thanks to her actions down the middle tunnel, with some of the vampires pursuing her.

Carlene didn’t know if the Siren could escape that way, but sadly she didn’t have time to worry about her mysterious blue ally. She had to think of the boys who were completely defenceless against the monsters. Grabbing the two boys, one under each arm, she darted back down the corridor to the room with the waterfall, with most of the vampires in hot pursuit.

Fortunately Carlene could outrun the larger vampires no problem and once she reached the waterfall she was able to jump to the top with her vampiric strength. She soon reached the other end of the tunnel above, back onto the railway, with the monsters right on her tail having managed to climb up with their claws. Carlene however was ready for them. She lifted a bottle of holy water out of her hair and poured it into the ankle deep water which filled the tunnel. (Only once she was free on the other end, as holy water was lethal to Carlene’s breed of vampire as well.)

The water in the tunnel instantly began to glow yellow and burned the vampires feet. Some of the blood suckers fell face down into the water from the pain where they quickly dissolved. Others tried to run, but the holy water burned their feet away into nothing and they fell into the water too. Only a few, including the original vampire Carlene had faced (who she was sure had to be the alpha, as he was the largest and strongest) were able to make their way to the end of the tunnel.

Only the alpha had the strength to hurl himself from the top of the waterfall to the other end of the cavern below. The other vampires, too weak from the pain, and their feet having virtually been eaten away, simply fell down the waterfall which burnt them away to nothing.

The alpha meanwhile couldn’t stand once it reached the cavern below. Its feet were burnt to a crisp!

Carlene told the two boys to wait behind whilst she crawled along the roof of the tunnel, avoiding the holy water. She told the two boys that if any creatures come up the railway line they were to jump into the holy water where they would be safe. She didn’t like to leave them, but she had to make sure there was no one else in the vampires clutches. .

When Carlene made her way into the cavern, she could see the former alpha lying on the floor, clutching what was left of its feet, and screaming in absolute agony.

It would be an easy kill now, but Carlene almost felt pity for the beast. She would make it quick.

She jumped from the ceiling onto the monsters chest. The beast was too weak to fight back, but it spat at Carlene in a final act of defiance, before she calmly took an axe from her beehive and parted the monsters head from its shoulders. Carlene then searched through the entire underground area. She didn’t find any other survivors however, and only one other vampire, which she decapitated with her axe.

In the three rooms at the end of the three tunnels were the chained and mangled corpses of various street urchins. “Poor sods. They were easy meat for these monsters.” Carlene didn’t find any traces of the Siren however. In the middle room, which the Siren had ran too however, she did find a large hole in the ceiling. When she investigated it she saw that the hole led to another part of the London underground. There was seemingly nothing around. It was possible the Siren had escaped this way, but Carlene didn’t have time to investigate. She couldn’t leave the boys any longer.

The two boys had huddled together in the dark, too scared to even move. Neither were sure if they wanted Carlene to return or not. In spite of everything she had done, they still didn’t trust her. Nevertheless the two boys couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when they saw Carlene crawling back down the roof of the tunnel.

“All right boys, let’s get you both home” she said as she descended from the roof.

“I have no home” the elder boy replied.

“You do now. You can stay at my mansion for as long as you need.”

The two were still unsure of Carlene.

“You can trust me” she said with slight frustration. “I did just save your lives. Also do either of you have a sister and a brother.”

The youngest of the two boys suddenly spoke up. “Yes, yes,” he said excitedly. “Ashlei and Tom. I tried to keep up with them, but I”.

“It’s okay” Carlene said. “She and your brother are fine. They sent me here to rescue you. They’re at my house waiting for me to come back. Let’s not keep them anymore shall we?”

Carlene led the two boys back to her home. The elder boy, whose real name was Daniel had been part of a group of children who had survived on the streets for years. In fact he had risen up to become the leader of his gang. They had all been slaughtered by the vampires however. The monsters in their cruelty had saved the leader for last.

By the time Carlene returned home with the two boys, it was light. Ashlei and Tom had sat anxiously by the door the entire time for what felt like hours for the two orphans.

They couldn’t believe Carlene had kept her word and after hugging her little brother so hard she almost crushed him, Ashlei hugged Carlene too. Both of her brothers were somewhat surprised at her reaction. Their sister had always seemed somewhat hard faced and angry on the streets. To see her cry and show outright affection to anyone or anything was almost as unusual a sight for them as the vampires!

“I’m sorry I was wrong about you.” Ashlei said through tears.

“Thanks, but trust me if you saw me when I’m pissed out of my head you wouldn’t be saying that” Carlene joked, though the children weren’t sure if she was joking or not and there was an awkward silence.

“This is not good, not good at all.” Carlene continued as she searched through her beehive for something.

“What are you talking about” asked a confused Daniel?

“Oh sorry darling, I just meant that if there is a new breed of vampire out there then that means the book of Khastran must have fallen into the wrong hands.”

“The book of what?”

“Let me explain. You children clearly don’t know much about vampires. You’re the lucky ones.”

“Yeah we’ve really led a charmed life! Oh right eh sorry about that.” Ashlei said.

“Anyway” Carlene continued. “The first member of any vampire breed has to be created from the book of Khastran, who according to the legends was the first demon ever to exist. He and his race the Kardons, fed on the blood and the souls of their victims, and they came to this world thousands of years ago before being slain in a great war with Gods and Angels. Khastran left behind a book however, bound in his flesh, and inked in his blood. Each page of the book has the power to turn any human into the first of a new breed of vampire. It is said that when Khastran’s children, the vampires, outnumber humanity then he will rise once again. The book was here in London a few years ago. The last I heard Van Helsing hid it somewhere. He didn’t tell me where though. To be fair I don’t think he trusted many people with it, but still it looks like someone’s got it now and is creating new vampires.”

“How many pages are there in the book”. Asked Ashlei, who was clearly petrified. She always tried to appear tough for the sake of her boys, but the thought of there being more creatures like the one that chased her and her brothers being out there, chilled her to the bone.

“Hundreds of thousands I’m afraid.”

Carlene paused for a minute to drink a glass of cow blood, much to the others disgust. ” Relax it’s just cow blood. I’ve been waiting all night for that” she said as she went through her hair looking for something.

“Yes” she said after a few minutes as she pulled out the leaflet the boy had given her for the Circus.

“I wouldn’t have thought you went in for that rubbish” Ashlei said in surprise.

“I don’t love, but I knew I had seen that blue woman before.”

She turned the page around, showing that among the many colourful characters on the leaflet was the blue woman with flame red hair that had helped Carlene and the two boys in the sewers.

“It’s her, the blue lady with the beautiful voice” Brian said in amazement.

“Yes clearly there’s more to this Circus than meets the eye. There was a blue woman in the sewers Ashlei. She helped us. I’m not sure, but I think she was a Siren. I’ve heard vague stories about them, they’re also a bread of vampire apparently. Whatever the case, she was already there before me. She must know more than us about who is creating these new vampires. It’s our only lead.”

“Florence! What were you thinking?” The Circus Master said. “I told you not to go down there on your own.”

You know how she is arrogant, stuck up. She thinks we’re just her sidekicks, here to take her from place to place.” Denika interjected.

“Don’t project your insecurities onto me Denika. It’s not my fault if you’re perceived as sidekick material.” Florence replied.

“This ship wouldn’t even fly without me!” Denika protested.

Fortunately the Circus Master was able to break it up before it led to a fight.

“Please the one advantage we have over those bloodsuckers is the fact that we can work together. Vampires are always such weasely, self serving little backstabbers. Let’s not descend to their level? Now Florence remember I am the leader here. I put this team together. I value your input like everyone else.”

At the back Denika was practically mouthing everything the Circus Master was saying. She was fed up of this crap with Florence every single time.

“Yes well if I has listened to you then those boys would have been ripped apart by those bloodsuckers.” Florence interrupted.

“You mean?”

“Yes my hunch was right. The vampires were nesting in the underground.”

“You took them all out by yourself?” Denika asked.

“Yes I, well okay I was a little out of my depth, but I had help from this strange figure. She was well, a vampire. I could sense it, but at the same time she seemed to be trying to help the children.”

“You sure she wasn’t just fighting with the other bloodsuckers for petty reasons? Like I said vampires are chronic backstabbers.” The Circus Master asked.

“No, no there was something else going on here. I could tell.”

Denika rolled her eyes, whilst the Circus Master seemed genuinely interested in her story.

“What did this supposedly benevolent vampire look like.” The Circus Master asked.

“She was dark haired, quite pretty, dark eyeliner, her hair was up in a kind of wall.”

“A wall?” Denika asked.

“Yeah at one point she pulled some weapons out of it. It was very strange.”

This all seemed very familiar to the Circus Master who instantly went back into the Tent to check his books.

Denika and Florence soon followed.

“Well what is? Why are you acting so weird?”

“I’ll need to check my notes but I think it could be a very important and a very challenging time ahead for us.” The Circus Master said.

To Be Continued

The assassins, despite Fastian’s reservations all descended down the cavern. Below was a dark, long tunnel, which led out into a massive cave, which they soon saw was filled with the remains of humans, demons, beasts and other creatures that had all been butchered, but not by the vampires. By something far worse. A hideous creature that soon made its presence known when it darted out of the tunnel at the other end of the cave. A Reaper!

These bloodsuckers were members of the vampire family of demons, but they were very different to most breeds. Reapers were the result of when several vampires of the Torro breed bite and infect a single human. Torro’s are among the strongest vampires and infect people via a simple bite which also allowed them to be among the most numerous. Clasia belonged to the Torro breed, and they often occupied positions of authority. Most of the time when multiple Torro’s infect a human, the different strands grow into different demons that fight for control over the body, and literally rip the infected human apart from the inside. Not just their body, but soul too. The multiple demons then die shortly afterwards, assuming they haven’t already killed each other. 

A very few times however, the multiple stands of demonic energy are able to somehow form together into a vastly powerful demonic spirit. Essentially a super vampire known as a Reaper. The human soul that would be converted normally is either ripped to pieces or worse it is trapped inside its body in a mangled state, in constant, unspeakable agony, yet unable to move as the Reaper now controls the body. 

Reapers have no higher intelligence. They exist only to hunt and kill and will feed on the blood of anything. Humans, beasts, monsters, demons, magical creatures, and even vampires. In fact some reapers are know to specifically go after regular vampires as their blood makes Reapers stronger. 

This Reaper was created by Clasia and her cohorts. She had always wanted to have a Reaper as a pet, and sacrificed hundreds of slaves in the mine until she created one. Ultimately however this monster proved to be too wild even for the vampires. Due to the unique nature of their birth, Reapers were the only members of the vampire family that even the Emperor could not control completely. Clasia’s Reaper was therefore used as a mere guard dog below, as there was no way it could actually be used on the field. Still Clasia had carried on trying to create more Reapers ever since, killing hundreds more men and women in the process. 

The Reapers did have the power to turn others into members of their own kind. In fact once again they could not only turn humans, but vampires, demons, beasts, and monsters too. This was the main reason Gina wanted the assassins to face the Spinosaurus instead. As dangerous and powerful as the Dinosaur was, the risk of people being infected and more Reapers escaping into Tairos was too great. 

In spite of this the assassins foolishly tried to fight the Reaper. It certainly didn’t look imposing. It was relatively short, slight, bald, pale and deathly thin. Its eyes meanwhile were completely white with no pupil or Iris and its head was constantly moving as it ran on all fours towards the assassins. 

Makos was the first to make a move, thinking he could easily bite this frail looking creature in half, but when he reached out to pick it up, the Reaper let out a high pitched, deafening roar, as its jaws opened up in a three way leech like pattern. The Reapers tongue then lashed out like a whip against the Caradon, slashing it across the face and knocking it to the floor. 

Loressa tried to repel the Reaper with her dark magics, but they had no affect on the Reaper whatsoever. Many species of vampire had a greater immunity to magics than natural creatures and other demons. Even Loressa was forced to use her strongest curses on the lowly vampires above. The Reaper however in another sign of its superiority was almost completely immune. 

Fastian tried to phase through the Reaper, hoping he could solidify his hand inside, but he found that he simply bounced off of the demons skin. Worse when it grabbed onto him, he couldn’t phase again. 

Before any of the other assassins could do anything to help him, the Reaper, opened its three way leech like jaws and bit Fastian on the neck. Just as a vampire would with a human, it drained him dry in under a minute and tossed his still twitching body to the floor.

Makos soon dived underground, hoping he could attack the Reaper from below, but the super vampire simply reached into the ground and pulled the shark man up with one hand and then used him to swat the centaur away as it tried to attack. 

The Reaper then held Makos in place, while it punched out every single one of his giant teeth, after which it picked one of the teeth up and stabbed Makos in the eye with it, bringing the shark creature to its knees. The Reaper then repeatedly stabbed Makos with his own tooth all over before slicing his stomach open with it. 

Loressa wisely fled back down the tunnel and used her magic to levitate herself back up. The centaur still tried to help Makos as foolish as that was, but the reaper slashed it across the chest with Makos tooth. Before it could inflict anymore damage to the centaur, Makos made one last strike against the super vampire. He jumped it from behind and wrapped his toothless jaws around its head. He hoped that he could swallow the Reaper alive. Whilst he was able to get its torso into his mouth, the reaper soon used one of its arms to push Makos upper jaw back so far it snapped. It then continued to push until it ripped the entire upper section of Makos head clean off, before jumping down its throat ripping the rest of the Caradon’s body to pieces from inside. 

Whilst the Reaper was in a frenzy, the centaur wisely galloped down the tunnel. Unfortunately when it reached the end, it couldn’t climb back up the walls that were completely smooth. 

In desperation the centaur let out a roar for help, but no one answered. The Reaper soon came crawling down the tunnel on all fours, roaring with its three way jaws open and its long tongue licking Makos blood away from its mouth. 

The centaur stood its ground, but before the Reaper could pounce on it, Loressa, surprisingly came to the centaurs defence and lifted it safety above. 

Loressa simply didn’t want to face the vampires above alone, though luckily for her however and the centaur, the bloodsuckers attention had been diverted. Gina and Shelly had fought their way through the vampires in the mine with the help of the Al, but eventually as the entire security force descended on them, they too were forced to flee. Gina however knew exactly where to go to. She wanted to leave it long enough until she was sure that the prisoners were out of the mine, and given that no vampires had returned she felt sure that either the prisoners had escaped, or they had been slaughtered. Either way she could now put the next part of her plan into action. 

The center of the mine contained the source of the magic that protected the vampires camp from the outside world. The magic however was bound together by a physical object which if shattered would unravel the spell. However it wouldn’t just simply shut the forcefield down. As the magic unravelled it would pull everything in the mine apart. That level of concentrated magic would be enough to destroy even most vampires. 

Gina felt it was her and Shelly’s only way of escape ironically as knowing what cowards the vampires were, if the forcefield was destroyed they would instinctively flee, rather than fight. It would take the spell a few minutes to completely unravel and destroy the mine. 

When Gina arrived at the mine she saw that not all of the vampires had bought into her plan. Many of them had regrouped and were guarding the forcefield. The vampires were riding on the backs of Raptors and other smaller meat eating Dinosaurs, including the three Allosaurus who had slaughtered Gina’s original platoon and kidnapped her who were at the very back. Gina’s hope that the assassins could hold them off for long enough had been in vain. 

Outside meanwhile Trialex had managed to get the prisoners clear of the camp, but they were soon stopped in their tracks by the vampires pet Triceratops. The same animal that had stopped Gina from escaping all those years ago. It killed several of the prisoners and drove the others back the way. Trialex did his best to try and hold off the animal, but the Dinosaur wasn’t buying into his tricks and charged straight at him, impaling the Venusian on one of its horns before tossing him aside onto the forest floor. The famed assassin had learned the hard way why escape from the vampire camps was damn near impossible.

Back at the camp Gina desperately tried to think of a way past the vampires, but soon she didn’t have too as a distraction came in the form of a gigantic and unexpected rogue Dinosaur. A Gyphosaurus. 

These creatures were close relatives of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Almost as large, these beasts however were completely covered in feathers. Ironically even more so than any modern bird. Their feet and even their snouts were completely covered in long, thick, feathers, though other than that they had the appearance of a normal Tyrannosaurus Rex, albeit slightly smaller. 

This Gryphosaurus was in fact a former vampire commander that Loressa had transformed into a Dinosaur as a distraction. Even though most of the vampires had been drawn to Gina, a few had foolishly remained behind to see if the assassins could have escaped the Reapers cave. Both the centaur and the witch had easily dealt with them, but Loressa had decided to turn the last into a Dinosaur and sent it to the mines. Not to help Gina however. Loressa now simply wanted to escape. The fact was that she was a miserable coward, who had got in way over her head. She knew the only way of escape was through the secret passage in the mine. (The holes in the forcefield that had been already created would have sealed themselves shut by now.) 

The Gryphosaurus first drew the attention of the vampires who had been pursuing Gina, and then when they threatened to overwhelm it, the giant avian predator fled down the same mine she had, drawing the attention of the vampires and dinosaurs guarding the forcefield. 

The three Allosaurus were the first to attack. Though they were the same size as the Gryphosaurus, they were not as strong. Tyrannosaurs were famous for having stockier builds than those of other theropods. With one smack of its tail the Gryphosaurus sent the leader of the Allosaurus pack backwards into the other two, sending them all crashing to the ground. 

Gina couldn’t help but smile at watching the Dinosaur that had helped condemn her to a life time of suffering at the vampires hands, be tossed aside like a child. It was foolish of her of course. The Dinosaurs really had no say in it, being controlled by magics to do the vampires bidding, with the vampires magics also bringing out their most aggressive and brutal traits compared to normal Dinosaurs. Still in this instance Gina let her own petty emotions cloud her mind. 

The vampires riding on the backs of the raptors soon began to circle the Gryphosaurus, and though the Dinosaur managed to knock the lead vampire off its raptor with its tail, and then grab the raptor in its jaws and finally crush the vampire under its foot. The other vampires relentlessly struck their giant adversary with their swords.

Gina and Shelly rode on the back of the Al into the pack of Raptors, knocking over three at the one time with its tail, allowing the Gryphosaurus was to push past the remaining Raptors. It in turn however was soon stopped by the leader of the Allosaurus pack who slashed the Gryphosaurus on the snout with its claws.

Whilst the Allosaurus strength was nowhere near that of a Tyrannosaurus, its speed was several times greater and the Allosaur was able to deliver a number of bites and slashes to the Gryphosaurus before the Tyrannosaur could respond. 

Whilst the two Dinosaurs were fighting it out Gina did her best to try and make her way past the vampires, but unfortunately the bloodsuckers were still too numerous. With the three Allosaurus having surrounded the Gryphosaurus, Gina and Shelly commanded the Al to attack one of the Allosaurus. The Al leaped through the air, ironically in a similar way to how Allosaurus themselves often did when hunting sauropods and clamped its jaws around the Allosaurus’ neck. The larger Dinosaur screamed in pain and tried to shake the Al off, but the more it struggled, the deeper the Al’s teeth went into the Allosaurus’ neck. (This gruesome feature came from the Tyrannosaurs side of the family as their jaws were not only stronger, but virtually inescapable.) 

As the Allosaurus shook violently, both Gina and Shelly fell off the back of the Al and to the ground right in between the leader of the Allosaurus pack and the Gryphosaurus, whose attention was soon taken over by the third Allosaurus. 

The alpha of the pack meanwhile focused all of its attention on Gina and Shelly, who tried to run, though Gina held her back. Shelly wasn’t thinking straight anyway as she more than anyone else should have known you can never outrun an Allosaurus. To be fair you couldn’t exactly fight one either which is what Gina was seemingly planning to do. 

The Dinosaur stared down this small prey for a short while, almost confused as to why it wasn’t running, before letting out a roar. Gina responded by slashing the Dinosaur in the leg and it soon responded with a kick sending Gina crashing to the ground and seemingly knocking her out. Shelly tried to intervene but the Dinosaur with one swing of its head, knocked her back. The Allosaurus then prepared to scoop Gina up with its jaws, but just as they were about to be close around her torso again, Gina sat up and stabbed her sword into the great reptile’s eye. Before it could even react, she pushed the sword straight into its brain, killing it outright. 

Unfortunately however almost all of the vampires had now gathered round Gina, but Shelly bought her the time she needed by tackling one of the vampires that was blocking Gina’s way to the power center. With one strike of her sword Gina smashed the device. 

Once again the blast threw her across the room, though not with quite as much force as the torture device. A testament to how dark the magics used for that vile spell were. 

In a matter of seconds however, magical beams began to fire from the forcefield generator, which vaporised a few of the vampires it struck. 

The Al meanwhile was forced to let go of the larger Allosaurus’ neck by a stray beam, which both Dinosaurs narrowly managed to avoid. The Al then ran towards Shelly and Gina and hoisted them both on its back before fleeing along with the rest of the vampires, and the Allosaurus the Al had attacked. 

The other Allosaurus and the Gryphosaurus however remained behind. Both were so caught up in fighting one another that they didn’t even notice what was going on around them. 

The Allosaurus put up a great fight, delivering a series of brutal slashes to the Gryphosaurus stomach and throat. The Allosaur even tore out the Gryphosaurus’ eye with its claws and bit off one of its arms and even the tip of its tail. 

However it only took one lucky bite from the Gryphosaurus on the Allosaurus’ leg, which not only broke it, but allowed the feathered Dinosaur to pull the Allosaurus on its side and deliver a second, lethal bite to the Allosaurus’ stomach. 

Sadly for the Gryphosaurus however before it could escape, another stray blast of magic from the forcefield hit the ceiling above and buried the feathered Dinosaur under a ton of rubble. The weight of the rocks proved to be too much even for the Dinosaur and as it died, it slowly changed back into the vampire it once was. Transformation spells such as this could still work on some breeds of vampire, but they were never permanent the way they would be on humans. Eventually the curse of Khastran would snap the vampire back to its original form. Still the magic could last for several hours, and the vampire would temporarily lose any supernatural powers it had when it was changed and therefore if it were killed in its new form, it would still die. Ironically in this case, the Dinosaur, which was still a natural creature was killed a lot more easily by the rock fall than the vampire would have been. The bloodsucker regained its memories and persona, mere seconds before it crumbled back to dust. The witch’s curse was as cruel as it was powerful. 

Gina and Shelley however were luckier and escaped from the camp just as it was consumed by the magics in a large pit of blinding yellow light, though at the same time so did the majority of the vampires and the Allosaurus itself. 

Outside of the camp, the centaur had joined in trying to protect the freeing prisoners from the vampires and had even managed to kill a few vamps with its club. Loressa on the other hand had fled the area completely. Using her magics, Loressa flew hundreds of feet through the air and away from the valley. She wasn’t used to losing and the encounter with the Reaper had shaken her confidence to say the least. The centaur also briefly held off the Triceratops when it tried to finish what it started and trample Trialex who had not died from his previous wound, with the Dinosaur’s horn only narrowly missing his organs. The centaur placed the Venusian assassin on its back and used its club to strike at the Triceratops nose repeatedly any time it got near. 

The explosion from the camp however distracted the Triceratops long enough for the centaur to break his club down full force against the Dinosaurs jaw, breaking it. 

The animal however was merely enraged and charged at the centaur with greater determination, now not being put off by any of its attacks. The horse like beast was forced to flee, moving so fast it almost dropped Trialex from its back. This allowed Gina a chance, whilst riding on the back of the Al to impale the Triceratops from the side with one of the vampires spears that she had picked up. With the Als greater strength she drove the spear in deep enough to puncture one of the Triceratops organs and slew the beast. 

Not long after Gina’s triumph however the ground began to shake. It seems she had underestimated the power of the vampires magics, It wasn’t just their camp that was going to be consumed. The entire nearby area, possibly the entire valley was in danger. The light which had engulfed the camp continued to grow larger and larger, destroying several vampires and unfortunately the prisoners closest to it. 

Up ahead meanwhile earthquakes began to rip the valley apart. Gina, the vampires, the prisoners and the Allosaurus all fled as fast as they could, with several of them being swallowed up by unexpected movements in the earth. 

Even in this desperate situation however Gina didn’t forget who her enemies were. She used the Al to trip up several of the vampires as they fled and took down over 30 of the bloodsuckers this way, until the Allosaurus soon turned its attention to her on a vampires command. 

The Al did its best to keep ahead of the Allosaurus, but the larger Dinosaurs greater size allowed it to take greater strides until it caught up to the Al. The Allosaurus bit into the smaller Dinosaurs tail and threw it back towards the ever approaching light, before speeding off into the distance. 

Gina and Shelly both fell off the back of the Al in the process and landed several feet apart. The Al instantly went for Shelly first, and having no time to run back from the ever approaching light, left Gina, despite Shelly pleading with it to stay. Gina was only barely able to keep ahead of the approaching light, and just when all seemed lost the centaur picked her up and carried her on its back along with Trialex.

The centaur and the Tyrannosaurus Al both ran side by side for the next several minutes as the light continued to expand, swallowing up everything in the nearby area. Eventually however the powerful magics began to fade, though not before swallowing up two thirds of the entire valley. When Gina looked back she saw that all that this once thriving jungle teeming with Dinosaurs was now nothing more than a gigantic smoking crater in the ground. Even Gina had never caused such destruction before, but she didn’t regret it as the vampires power in this area needed to be crippled. 

The prisoners and the vampires had been scattered in the resulting explosion and earthquakes, and Gina, Shelly and the centaur would spend the next few days searching for the prisoners and slaying any vampires they came across. 

On the second day they encountered the Allosaurus which had cornered a small group of prisoners in a nearby cave. The beast was too big to get in itself, so it stuck one of its long, claw like arms in there and pulled two of the prisoners out. One who it throttled to death with its claws whilst the other, it played with like a cat playing with a mouse. Knocking its victim down repeatedly whenever he tried to run away, and sometimes letting him run a small distance only to then easily catch up to and block him off. 

Before the Theropod could claim its third victim. Gina and the centaur working together were able to take the giant reptile down. 

Riding on the centaurs back, Gina lured the Dinosaur away from the humans and then proceeded to slash the creatures side several times with the help of the centaur, until the Allosaurus knocked her off with its tail. The centaur however landed a lucky strike with its club against the Allosaurus’ ribs when it went to attack him, which knocked it off its feet, and as it went tumbling over Gina, she held her sword up which went right through the wound on its neck that the Al had made back in the camp. The Dinosaur was killed instantly. Again the beast had no say in serving the vampires, but at the same time there was nothing that could have been done to help it. The black magics that had been injected into the Dinosaur to make it stronger and more vicious could not be reversed. If anything killing it was the more humane option as without a vampire to control it, the Dinosaur would be driven further into madness by the magics in its body. There had been many instances of Dinosaurs such as Spinosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, and Allosaurus that had foolishly been released back into the wild after the vampires who controlled them were slain, only to later become savage monsters killing and hunting anything they came across for no reason at all. 

Still again Gina didn’t see it that way and was simply happy to have taken down one of the Dinosaurs that had captured her. In fact she even cut the Allosaurus’ head off afterwards and planned to mount it on the wall in the cottage, but Shelly who was utterly disgusted with the idea refused. 

Despite the losses of over 50 people, most of the prisoners in the vampires camps had escaped thanks to Gina and the assassins actions. Among those in the vampires camp that had survived, included Aleskia’s wife and children, who Gina and Shelly brought home. 

Aleskia couldn’t believe that Gina had kept her word and genuinely thanked her, though he made it clear he still couldn’t forgive her for her earlier actions. Gina understood. No matter how many lives she could save, it would never bring back those who had died because of her. 

Still at the very least she had gained Aleskia’s trust, and Gina would impart to him all the knowledge of the vampires weaknesses, their magics, their plans, their aims that she had gained access to when she was with the bloodsuckers. 

Aleskia wasn’t the only person she gave the vampires secrets too however. She supplied them to many of the prisoners, including even her former torturer who had also managed to make it out alive. Gina still wanted to rip his throat out, but she knew that if the information came from the man who had tortured her, and was therefore viewed as a hero, the leaders would be more likely to believe it. 

The information in the long run proved vital to beating back the vampires and cost them many more devastating losses. 

As a result of this, Gina’s reputation improved among many of the major cities of Tairos. Never enough for her not to be among the most wanted people in all of them however. There were attempts to rescind her wanted status by the people she had rescued, but they never came to much. 

Gina herself didn’t think she could be forgiven. She just wanted to set right what she had helped create in the years she had aided the vampire horde in becoming stronger. Still over the course of the next century as Gina continued to not only battle the vampire horde, but other threats to Tairos, many came to view her as a hero. In fact some even viewed her as the greatest hero Tairos had ever produced. She was later christened the queen of the forest by her admirers. Ironically however her own home city would be among those that would condemn Gina the most. Even though her actions in destroying Clasia’s camp is what allowed them to finally rebuild to a greater extent than ever before. They never forgave her for the lives she destroyed and were among the most relentless in trying to capture her. All of the claims that both her defenders and enemies threw at Gina were true. She was a murderer, a victim, a hero, and a traitor. However whether or not any of those cancelled out the other, is something that we still debate thousands of years on from the age of Tairos, but at the very least we can have this discussion about Gina, unlike other heroes.

Gina continued to live in Shelly’s cottage along with the Al after the destruction of the camp. The two women, though not exactly close friends after their adventure, nevertheless realized what an effective team they had made. From a practical point of view Shelly had the Al’s loyalty, whilst Gina could teach Shelly how to be a better fighter on her missions. Beyond that however Shelly’s greater empathy had also allowed the two women to make allies such as the centaur, whilst Gina’s greater experience in dealing with the vampires helped to counteract Shelly’s naivety. 

The centaur itself meanwhile left the two women after the camp’s destruction. Feeling its debt to them had been repaid, it would nevertheless continue to aid Gina now and again on other missions too out of friendship, as would Trialex who made a full recovery at the Hooded Claw. 

Finally Clasia had also been among those who had escaped the destruction of the valley, but she was demoted for her failures, to the absolute lowest rank possible in the vampire horde. Had it not been for her years of service, the Emperor would have most surely killed her. 

Clasia soon became obsessed with making Gina suffer for what she had done, and became both Shelly and Gina’s greatest ever enemy. 

However the former vampire queen’s cruel attempts at revenge and also the further adventures that Gina and Shelly and the Al had in the forest of Tairos are stories for another time.

Allies for Gina and Shelly were in short supply. No one would trust Gina, except for possibly one organization. The Hooded Claw.

This guild of assassins was founded by the vampires sworn enemies, the vandals. The vampires and the vandals had been at war with one another since long before the creation of Tairos. Long before recorded history began in fact. The vandals were created by the sworn arch rival of the father of the vampires, Khastran, which is what started their never ending feud. Despite this however the vandals were ironically among the closest relatives to vampires, with their creator being of the same race of demons as Khastran. The vandals actually shared many weaknesses and powers with their vampire enemies, but a key difference between them was that vandals fed on their victims souls with their claws, rather than their blood.

The Hooded Claw despite its name was not just made up of vandals. It also included beasts, monsters, demons of all kind and even human assassins too. Furthermore the Hooded Claw would offer its services to anyone provided they could pay highly enough, though for obvious reasons it did not provide any services to, or employ any vampires.

The money raised from the Hooded Claw’s activities was used to help fund the vandals ever growing empire throughout Tairos, though it was still neither as large or as evil the vampires.

Shelly didn’t think that the Hooded Claw would give Gina the time of day any more than the larger cities, but fortunately the vandals had a way of knowing if someone was telling the truth, that admittedly caused tremendous pain for the person enduring it, but Gina was used to pain by now.

Sure enough as soon as Gina arrived at the guild of the hooded claw alone, she was captured. The head of the guild, the oldest vandal on the planet, had the power to read someone’s soul. Again it wasn’t quite mind reading, but it was an extremely advanced form or soul reading that could tell if someone was lying.

Vandals fed on their victims by stabbing their claws into the victims stomach where they would pull their souls out and consume them in their hands. However if they were careful then a vandal could simply use their claws to read a persons soul. Very few vandals had mastered the power however as it was an extremely delicate process.

It was still the worst agony for the people it was inflicted on, as the vandal was not only cutting into their flesh, but their souls too. Gina luckily survived it more due to the experience of the vandal elder (though she had a feeling that the head of the guild kept it going for longer than necessary just to torment her.)

The vandal agreed to help Gina sneak her way into the camp, though there was much disagreement on how. The vandals wanted to launch a full scale attack against the vampires and even threatened to torture Gina into giving them all the information they needed.

However Gina who had come alone, said that she had left all of the secrets with Shelly and that if anything happened to her, then they would be revealed to all of the cities.

Gina did not want a massive full scale attack as she was afraid it would endanger the prisoners who the vampires would all instantly slaughter if they were overpowered. She also felt that a sneak attack would be more successful as the vampires would never see it coming.

Reluctantly, the vandals leader, not wanting to let a golden opportunity to bring down the vampires go, agreed to send five of the guilds best assassins to help Gina and the others.

They included a monster assassin named Krelgarax, who resembled a humanoid with six arms, a snake like lower body instead of legs, a bald head and a single red eye which looked more like a long strip across its face. His teeth meanwhile were large and overlapping and unlike most monsters who had green skin, his was black, with a red stripe down his back and stomach.

Among his powers aside from advanced strength and near indestructability included the ability to fire acid from his mouth.

Another of the assassins was a Venusian named Trialex, who was one of the most prominent and long lived assassins in the guild. Unlike many of the others however, he had a code of honour and would never take the lives of those he deemed to be innocent.

The third assassin was a witch named Loressa who was famous for casting some particularly vicious curses and punishments to those who she was chosen to assassinate. She was by far the most despicable and loathsome member of the guild, but Gina wasn’t throwing any stones at that point.

The fourth assassin was a vandal named Fastian, who had more spectral powers than other breeds. Just as with vampires there were many different breeds of vandal. Fastian’s breed could form into mist, walk through walls and make their bodies transcendent, though they couldn’t do so indefinitely, and doing so for too long could leave them weak afterwards.

The fifth and final assassin was a Caradon named Makos. A magical creature that was the combination of a Shark and a human being, with extraordinary powers. He was by far the most violent and unpredictable of the assassins.

Needless to say Shelly was somewhat uncomfortable with the team Gina had assembled and Loressa in particular had fun tormenting Shelly by letting her know of some of the most gruesome curses she had inflicted on her victims over the years.

Makos also quickly got rowdy with the Al, with Gina herself having to separate them.

Perhaps not surprisingly Trialex was the most friendly and understanding towards Gina and her new friends. He knew of Gina’s exploits and even told her that at one point he would have happily collected her head, but much like Shelly he believed that she wanted to and was capable of change.

Whilst the assassins may not have been happy with it, Gina was still the leader of the team due to her greater knowledge of the vampires. Gina knew the exact weak points of the camp and where would be the best place to strike. Ironically in much the same way as she had done to the very first allied camp that she had helped Clasia take down, Gina planned to use magics to counteract the vampires forcefield from within, though she would not bring it all down at once. Not only were the vampires spells too powerful for that, but if that ever happened the vampires first policy would be to slaughter their prisoners to make sure that none of their secrets would get out. Gina instead hoped to weaken the forcefield at certain points from inside to allow the assassins to sneak in.

When Gina arrived at the vampires camp, it was among the few times she saw the vampire queen smile. Gina tried not to let the feelings of genuine affection she had built up towards her phoney “mother” return. It would be so easy for her to fall back into the old habits once she was in the Clasia’s care again, but Gina just kept the memory of people dancing in the streets at the news of her being tortured to death in her head.

The vampire question Gina on what had happened to her, but Gina lied stating that she was washed up in the woods and forced to flee from a pack of Raptors for a few days.

Clasia seemingly bought it, only because she had no idea her magical shock collar didn’t work on Gina anymore.

She took Gina to see the man who had tortured her and gave her “daughter” a chance at revenge. Gina instantly started to beat him viciously. Hurting someone now sadly coming as naturally to Gina as anything else. After a few minutes however she managed to control herself and stopped, much to Clasia’s surprise and disappointment.

“What is wrong?” Clasia asked sincerely.

“I just eh, I’m a bit tired and he went down too easy. Can I have a minute or two to rest and get more creative with how I’m going to hurt him?” Gina said.

Clasia wasn’t buying it. She hadn’t seen that kind of look on Gina’s face for a long while. It almost looked like remorse.

“Just what did happen to you out there Gina? I hope when they had you prisoner they didn’t help you reconnect with your roots?” Clasia asked.

Gina laughed in response.

“The people who tortured me you mean? Who danced in the streets when they thought I was dead?”

“How did you know they celebrated your death if you were out in the woods for all that time?” Clasia asked.

“I heard it from a soldier I ran into who was angry that I wasn’t dead.”

Clasia still wasn’t buying it however.

“Oh Gina. I want to believe you I really do, but if you weren’t lying, you’d be on the floor by now.” Clasia said as she raised the device she has used to activate Gina’s “collar” many times before. Gina still tried to keep up the bluff, but it was no use.

“Don’t insult my intelligence Gina. I don’t know how they did it, but rest assured. I’ll have another one in you in no time.” Clasia said as she lifted up another glowing sphere.

Gina was terrified of being under Clasia control again. So much so she even lifted a knife out and held it to her own stomach.

“I mean it. I’d rather die than go back to being your slave.” Gina said.

“If that were true you would have killed yourself years ago. You don’t expect me to believe that you would ever put someone else above yourself? I suspect that this little display is more down to your wounded pride than anything else. You can’t stand the fact that I’ve always beaten you. Always broken you and now that you think are free, you’re undoubtedly willing to risk goodness knows how many fools who tried to help you get here’s lives with this suicide mission?” Clasia taunted.

With no other options, Gina fled, but Clasia was too fast and soon caught up to and overpowered her former student. Still in the ensuing struggle, Gina was able to land a lucky blow with her knife straight into Clasia’s eye. The vampire doubled back in pain, and Gina then grabbed the glowing orb from her hand which she threw at a nearby wall behind Clasia, breaking it.

The dark magic however created a massive explosion that blew both her and Clasia dozens of feet across the room and soon buried them under masses of rubble. Neither were killed, but both were knocked out and the alarms were soon raised.

Thinking that the vampires had discovered Gina’s ruse, the assassins abandoned her more subtle approach and began to attack the vampires, or rather Makos did.

He made his presence known by bursting out of the ground he had been crawling under, fin first before two vampire guards, who he then dispatched by biting both of their heads off at the same time. Fastian, and Loressa soon came to Makos aid, though not because they wanted to actually help him, just because it gave them a chance to fight.

They made short work of the dozens of vampires that attacked. Loressa turned several of the vampires into bugs and squashed them, though she also turned one vampire into a statue and then another into a hammer which she used to smash the statue before breaking the hammer to pieces. She then turned another vampire into a crucifex which caused his entire body to burn up, though just before it did she used the burning cross to impale three more vampires, causing them to burn up too. Probably her most creative attack however was turning one vampire into a mouse and then another into a hawk that ate him, and then yet another vampire into a Tiger to eat the Hawk, and then another into an Alligator to eat the Tiger, and then another into Grizzly bear who disembowled the Alligator and then finally another into Ceratosaurus who killed the Grizzly and several more vampire soldiers.

Krelegrax and Trialex meanwhile wisely continued a more stealthy approach and made their way towards the mine in the hopes of freeing the prisoners. Krelegrax didn’t actually care one bit about the prisoners, but he was under orders from Gina.

Shelly, the Al and the centaur all searched for Gina. Unlike the others Shelly even if she wouldn’t admit it, was worried about Gina and she used the Al’s keen sense of smell to try and locate the former traitor. Ordinary Tyrannosaurus Rex’s had among the keenest sense of smell of any animal ever to live on the planet.

The Al led them Clasia’s quarters, which were guarded by two white wolvrons. These creatures were the children of two werewolves, born in wolf form. They possessed no humanity and were far stronger than regular werewolves or indeed most species of earthly demon or beast.

There was absolutely no way anyone could hope to sneak past them as their senses were every bit as refined as the Als.

The hybrid Dinosaur shook Shelly off its back and made its presence known to the two wolves with a roar. Both wolvrons then started to circle the little Dinosaur who still stood its ground. Soon the wolves attacked the Dinosaur at the same time, with one going for its neck and the other its tail.

The Al dodged the wolf that went for its neck, though the other wolvron managed to grab its tail. Reacting quickly, the Al delivered a deep bite onto the wolf facing its head’s arm, drawing blood. Its scream briefly distracted the other wolvron to the point where the Al was able to pull its tail free and wrap it around the demonic wolf’s throat. Though even the Al’s tail didn’t have enough strength to break the wolvron’s neck it was still able to choke its enemy to the point where it was knocked out.

The other wolvron meanwhile sunk its fangs into the Als back. With any normal creature, that would have been enough to severe its spinal column in half, but the A’s magical constitution allowed it to persevere, albeit in tremendous agony. Indeed the Dinosaur had never quite felt a force like it, but it continued to bite onto the wolf’s arm and as its bite was so much more powerful than several wolvron’s combined, eventually the white wolf relented and howled in pain, waking up its partner.

The wolvron then used the claws on its other arm to slash at the Dinosaurs face and this time was actually able to make the Dinosaur release its arm, as the reptile was scared of being stabbed in the eye.

The wolvron then tried to further attack the Dinosaur with more scratches to the face, but the Al used its tail to trip the wolvron and then deliver a flurry of quick, but powerful bites to the wolf’s stomach, disemboweling it in no time.

The other wolvron then charged at the Dinosaur, managing to knock it off balance and pin it to the ground, before delivering a series of furious slashes. The Al however though overwhelmed at first by the barrage of attacks soon pushed through them and used its body weight to knock the wolvon on its back, after which it then latched its jaws around the wolf’s head. The wolvron fought as hard as it could, but the pressure of the Al’s jaws was just too great and in seconds it punctured through the wolvrons skull, its brain and eventually it crushed the demonic white wolf’s head completely.

The other wolvron meanwhile despite its injuries was not dead. It literally held its guts in place with the arm the Al had torn into. The wolf almost couldn’t figure out what was happening to it. Normally a wound like this, unless it was made of silver, wouldn’t even register for a wolvron as its healing factor would have repaired it. The jaws of the Al however, aside from being tremendously strong also contained dark magic which could affect the majority of supernatural creatures and ensure that the animals jaws could harm them as easily as it could an ordinary animal.

The wolvron’s loyalty to its vampire mother however overrode everything else and the animal made a last, foolish charge at the Al which responded with another whack of its tail, which sent the Wolvron crashing to the ground, with its arm falling away from its guts which fell out of its stomach in the process.

As it lay there in a pool of its own blood and intestines, the Al finished the Wolvron off by wrapping its tail around its throat and choked the life out of the white beast, before letting out a roar of triumph.

Meanwhile Shelly and the Centaur made their way into Clasia’s room, only to see half a dozen or so vampires desperately pulling several pieces of rubble away from her.

Careful not to alert them Shelly and the centaur headed to where Gina, who they could see poking out from under more rubble a few feet away was and tried to help her out.

Gina came too with Shelly’s help. She was burned down one side of her body, but her constitution allowed her to overcome it. Meanwhile Clasia after coming too, soon pushed all o the rubble off herself and instantly headed for Shelly and the centaur, which raised its club in defense

Clasia however easily knocked the beasts club out of his hand and sent the cyclops crashing to the ground with one strike, before turning her attention to Shelly who she grabbed by the throat.

“What did you do to her? How dare you think you can steal her away from me! Do you have any idea how long I worked on her?” Clasia said, whilst Gina meanwhile picked up the centaurs club and used it to stake two of Clasia’s vampire lackeys from behind whilst they were distracted laughing at Shelly’s plight.

The other vampires turned to face Gina, but fortunately the cyclops jumped on two of them from behind, and gave the other a slash to the face with its claws which sent him tumbling back onto the the club Gina held out.

Gina then staked the other two while they were pinned under the centaurs legs, before going to face Clasia.

Whilst she was still stronger than Gina, Shelly or the centaur, the blast had weakened Clasia to a greater extent as she had been closer to it.

She held her talons to Shelly’s throat telling Gina to let her go or she would kill her.

For a second Gina attempted to call Clasia’s bluff, but as soon as the vampire Queen drew Shelly’s blood with a shallow cut, Gina put her club down.

“How disappointing. I don’t know what they did to you but.” Before Clasia could finish, the Al suddenly came bursting into the room.

As the Dinosaur closed in on the vampire queen she drew more blood from Shelly, only to be interrupted again by more vampire guards coming up from behind the Al, who instantly went for the Dinosaur.

Seizing her chance, Clasia threw Shelly into Gina and ran out of the room as fast as she could, leaving her guards to be slain by both the Al and the centaur.

Gina instantly ran after her, but soon saw the vampire Queen had fled completely when she got outside.

Sadly Gina didn’t have time to chase her. Her first priority was helping the prisoners escape, including even her former torturer. As he lay there curled up, whimpering and helpless, Gina was still tempted to stick a knife in him, but thankfully she didn’t want to give her mother the satisfaction.

Instead she along with Shelly helped him over the Al’s back as they rode away to help the others.

Down in the mines Kreleg and Trialex had succeeded, after easily disposing of a few vampire guards to shut down the force field that was surrounding the mine where the prisoners were trapped.

Unfortunately however dozens more vampire guards soon arrived to detain them. Armed with magical whips that could cut through their victims bones, the vampires tried to push the mob of already cowed and terrified prisoners back. Kreleg and Trialex did their best to fight the vampires off, but they were soon outnumbered and surrounded.

Gina however soon came to their rescue. Riding on the back of the Al, along with Shelly, and wielding a silver sword. (A weakness of many breeds of vampire.) Gina rode past the vampires with the Als incredible speed and sliced several of their heads off. The Al’s lightening fast reflexes also allowed her to dodge the vampires whips, whilst Shelly sprayed holy water on the vampires who weren’t decapitated, causing them to go up in flames.

Whilst the vampires turned their attention towards Gina, Kreleg and Trialex led the prisoners down the passage way Gina had told them about, though not before she gave them her former torturer and told the two assassins to get him to safety with the others. Trialex would carry him down the tunnel until they reached the end, which was a giant underground lake. Unfortunately it was the home of a Spinosaurus that guarded the lair, but Gina still felt that was the safest way out.

The Spinosaurs that was almost 60 feet long soon rose out of the lake, roaring at the top of its lungs. The vampires regularly fed it people they captured in the forest, but sadly the great reptile was seemingly always hungry, due to the dark magics the vampires infected it with that had turned it into a caricature of its former self.

Kreleg was the first to attack the Spinosaurus, spitting acid in the giant Dinosaurs face as it leaned in to bite at them. He managed to hit it in its tongue and near its eye. For the first time in its life, the Spinosaurus actually retreated somewhat, but as Kreleg moved hit the Dinosaur several more times, it began to panic and lunged forward out of the lake. Trialex told Kreleg to stop, but the monster was as arrogant as he was bloodthirsty and kept attacking the Spinosaurus.

The sailbacked Dinosaur fought through the barrage of acid and swiped Kreleg away with one of its claws. Such a blow from the Spinosaurus’ massive claws would have sliced an ordinary human in two, but Kreleg whilst cut was simply thrown across the room.

Unfortunately however Trialex was not quite as durable and was forced to flee from the Spinosaurus. He desperately tried to hurry the prisoners back the way, (with another one of the prisoners carrying Gina’s former torturer) but sadly the Spinosaurus caught up to several at the back. It picked one up in its jaws and swallowed him whole, whilst it sliced a further two in half with its claws and speared another through the torso with its left claw like a fish.

Trialex stabbed the beast in the leg with one of his swords, but its skin was so thick he was only able to make a shallow cut. Still at the very least it distracted the Spinosaurus long enough for the last of the prisoners to make their way back up the tunnel. The Spinosaurus however responded with a kick to Trialex knocking him several feet backwards and breaking his arm in the process.

The Spinosaurus then walked slowly towards it cornered prey. In the three hundred years he had faced demons, vampires, monsters and werewolves, Trialex had never been so terrified as when the 60 foot long reptile stood right in front of him and slowly opened its jaws. Before it could swallow him whole, Kreleg bombarded the beast with another round of acid, this time hitting it in the tail. The Dinosaur spun round screaming and waving its tail frantically in the air. Kreleg whose claw wound had already healed then jumped through the air and landed on the Spinosaurus’ face. It tried to use its claws to pull him off, but Kreleg was too quick for the Dinosaur and slithered on top of its head, after which he wrapped his tail around its throat and used his six arms to pull the Dinosaurs jaws open. He then started to spit his acid down its throat and onto its tongue. Kreleg’s vicious attacks however didn’t last long as the Spinosaurus used one of its claws to slice his tail off, after which it shut its jaws, cutting off all six of his hands in the process, before he slid off its neck and onto the floor. The Spinosaurus then impaled Kreleg through the stomach with one hand and prepared to slice his head off with the other.

Trialex however intervened, throwing a dagger at the Dinosaurs massive sail, which he realized was its only weak point. Sure enough the dagger cut through the sail and seemed to hurt the Dinosaur more so than even the acid. Still it didn’t appear to do it any lasting harm. Once again however the Dinosaurs attention was diverted and it pursued Trialex, who wisely didn’t attempt to fight back like Kreleg had.

Kreleg meanwhile limped over to the small lake the Spinosaurus had come from and puked the acidic substance from his stomach into it, until eventually the lake started to boil.

He then waited a few moments for his hands and his tail to grow back, whilst Trialex constantly attempted to dodge the angry Spinosaurus. At one point the beast managed to corner him against a wall, but he was able to escape by bringing his sword down on one of the acid burns on its snout when it moved forward to bite him.

Once Kreleg had recovered, he fired another round of acid at the Spinosaurus’ tail and made sure to hit the already existing burn marks. The animal charged at him in response, but as it got near the now bubbling lake it stopped. Clearly it was smarter than he thought.

Both Trialex and Kreleg surrounded the Dinosaur from both sides, with the animal ready to strike in case either of them came near. Trialex responded by throwing another one of his daggers at the Dinosaurs sail again, and whilst it was briefly distracted by the pain, Kreleg jumped onto the Dinosaur and wrapped his tail around its throat again, though this time he spat his acid onto its neck, and jumped down before it could reach him with its claws. The animal then tumbled backwards towards the lake, though it still didn’t fall in. A few blasts of acid towards its stomach which was now exposed as it was leaning upright in order to clutch its throat followed by a few more towards its feet, finally sent it tumbling backwards into the lake of acid.

Kreleg quickly slithered backwards towards Trialex and pushed him to safety out of the way of the acid that splashed when the Spinosaurus fell back into it. Fortunately he managed to get the assassin to safety in time, much to Trialex’s surprise

“Well I owed you one.” The monster said, almost hating having to admit that.

Trialex however still thanked his six armed ally and went to fetch the prisoners from down the tunnel.

Unfortunately however the Spinosaurus wasn’t dead yet. It rose out of the boiling water, its sail having completely melted off, its body covered in burns and one of its eyes having melted out of its skull.

The Dinosaur reached out with its single claw which it impaled through Kreleg’s tail, pining him like a worm on a hook. Before Trialex could even respond it then pulled Kreleg back towards it and bit his torso whilst stabbing its other claw into his chest. The Dinosaur then pulled with both of its claws and ripped Kreleg into three pieces, before spitting out his mid section and scooping up his top half in its jaws which it crunched to pieces before finally spitting the mangled remains into the acid bath below.

Much like how the Al felt about the vampires, the Spinosaurus evidently regarded monsters as too toxic to actually eat, but it was still not above using those powerful jaws to crush them to paste!

The giant reptile then lurched awkwardly out of the pool of acid, stepping on the remains of Kreleg’s torso which it crushed into powder. However the Dinosaur only managed to walk a few feet towards Trialex before it collapsed onto the ground.

Trialex had heard about the tremendous power of the Spinosaurus but how the creature could even be alive after a bath in that acid was incredible. He’d seen Kreleg’s acid eat through reinforced steel!

Still it was obvious that even the mighty sail backed predator was finished as it still desperately tried to crawl along the floor. Trialex put the Dinosaur out of its misery with a sword straight between the eyes. It had to stab it in one of Kreleg’s acid burns as that was easier to puncture, but at least within a few seconds the Dinosaur was dead at last.

Trialex then led the prisoners past its corpse and the still twitching remains of Kreleg’s tail which was all that remained of him.

Incredibly and disturbingly enough, Kreleg’s tail was still trying to repair itself and grow into something else. It wouldn’t be able to bring him back however. His people’s healing capabilities were beyond most other creatures to the point where even after death their bodies would still attempt to repair themselves for days afterwards. However once they had actually died that was it.

Trialex didn’t know how to feel. He certainly couldn’t mourn Kreleg. He was a sadistic killer, who had slaughtered scores of innocent people both for profit and his own pleasure. Still he had saved Trialex’s life and so the Venusian gave a simple bow of his head to the acid pool that contained his fellow assassins remains and moved on. The prisoners were out of the mine, but they still had a long way to go.

The centaur meanwhile went to help Makos and the other assassins, who were being overwhelmed by the vampires. Despite their superior powers, there were just too many of the bloodsuckers for the assassins to deal with. The vampires didn’t care how many of their comrades died. They’d happily sacrifice themselves as they knew that failure was not an option for Clasia. Sadly when the centaur arrived he wasn’t able to provide much help either.

His brief attack however did distract the vampires long enough for the assassins to slip by the vampire horde, though they all soon found themselves running for their lives.

Despite his power Makos had been gravely wounded, with one of the vampires managing to strike him in the leg, by ironically hiding in the hole in the ground the shark man himself had made.

The wound would heal very quickly, but none of the other assassins wanted to wait around, so the centaur picked Makos up and placed him over its back, before riding away.

Unfortunately however the assassins soon found vampires coming down almost every corridor they tried to flee down. Fastian meanwhile couldn’t simply phase through the walls as the vampires had come prepared for that and indeed any form of spectral invasion with powerful magics that ran throughout the entire base. Eventually the assassins came to a dead end. However there was a hole in the floor, at the very end of this corridor.

Fastian was hesitant to go down for obvious reasons. What could possibly be so horrible that the vampires couldn’t keep it up here.?

Following the destruction of its weapon and laboratory, Drasgaria had fallen in terms of power and influence. Many of the smaller settlements soon came to other cities, which had finally caught onto Drasgaria’s idea. Without anything else to offer, it soon took a backseat in the alliance. Frequent attacks from Clasia’s death camp further weakened Drasgaria and now the time was right for the bloodsuckers to launch a final attack to destroy the city once and for all.

Surprisingly however the other big cities and civilisations of Tairos came to Drasgaria’s aid. Not so much out of altruism, but more because they didn’t want the vampires to gain access to the unique samples of the Hylexans magic under the city.

An army was soon assembled to face the vampires. It was made up of people and beasts and even demons who all saw the vampires as a mutual threat. Gina naturally was on the side of her captors, riding on the back of a Triceratops. She proved to be a formidable enemy for the alliance, but on the second day of the battle she was overwhelmed by a horde of soldiers from Drasgaria who were all desperate to make the traitor pay, even more than the vampires.

A pet Tyrannosaurus of the alliance (that had been provided by the city of Dynamos) took care of Gina’s Triceratops, whilst several Drasgarian solders overpowered and captured her. They’d torture Gina for the next day back at their camp, whilst the battle raged on. That night however when more of the vampires were able to come out including Clasia herself. (Not all vampire breeds were vulnerable to the sun, but Clasia’s was.) An attack from vampires allowed Gina to escape her torturers. The bloodsuckers had arrived there specifically to rescue her on Clasia’s orders. It was the first time the vampires had ever been known to try and rescue a human. Clasia herself led the rescue attempt and even cut Gina down from where she had been chained. In the resulting fight however Gina was shot with an arrow by one of her former torturers which caused her to fall off the edge of a cliff and into the river below. Clasia actually responded with grief and took Gina’s torturer and apparent killer back to her camp to make his death last for as long as she possibly could.

In the river below meanwhile Gina wasn’t dead, but she was swept away by the current to several miles away from her former home city. She did her best to try and fight against it, but the current and the wounds from both the arrow and the day of brutal torture overwhelmed Gina.

As she was carried further down the stream, she soon came into contact with a young woman named Shelly who was riding on the back of a Dinosaur. Shelly, much like Gina was an outlaw, albeit for more noble reasons. Still she kept out of the battle up ahead, knowing that the humans would turn on her just as quickly as the vampires. Instead Shelly waited by the side of the battle in case there was anyone who needed help, either a soldier or a civilian if the vampires had triumphed. As soon as she heard Gina screaming she rushed to aid her, but unfortunately Shelly’s attempts to pull Gina free with the help of her Dinosaur (that was still only a child) actually distracted Gina and caused her to hit her head on a rock, knocking her out.

Gina’s unconscious body fell face down into the water, and in the time it took Shelly to find and pull her up, she drowned.

Shelly was only able to pull Gina out of the water thanks to tying a rope around her Dinosaur friend who then pulled both of them out. The Dinosaurs advanced speed also allowed it to just keep ahead of the rapids that were pulling Gina down. Shelly subsequently revived Gina with CPR, though Gina almost immediately fainted again after everything she had been through.

Shelly then took Gina to some woods nearby. It was too far and too dangerous for Shelly to try and make her way home, so she took refuge in a small patch of forest and dressed Gina’s wounds, whilst the Dinosaur kept a watch out. The Dinosaur was a creature known as a Tyrannosaurus Al, a hybrid made from two species of therapod Dinosaur merged together with magic. A Tyrannosaurus Rex and an Allosaurus. These creatures had been created by a city known as Dynamos, one of the largest and strongest in Tairos. Dynamos specialised in the breeding and creation of Dinosaurs, which it sold to other cities for all kinds of reasons. Defense, food, pets etc. The city also made its Dinosaurs stronger with magic and in some cases even created new types of Dinosaur, with the Al being the strongest and most notable.

Not only did the Tyrannosaurus Al embody the speed, and agility of an Allosaurus, with the greater strength, durability, intelligence and biting power of a Tyrannosaurus, but the magics that had fused it together also allowed the beast to develop a number of other unique and powerful magical abilities too.

This Al had been stolen by bandits who had attempted to sell it to the witch king Tyresian. Shelly who had worked in Dynamos biggest Dinosaur breeding farm was kidnapped in trying to defend it and taken to the witch king’s domain, the black woods. She managed to escape, but unfortunately during her time in the woods the Tyrannosaurus Al hatched. Al’s would instantly imprint on the first life form they came across, believing them to be their mothers. The leaders of Dynamos always made sure to be the first to witness an Al hatching for this very reason. However when they were in the woods, it first saw Shelly and came to view her as its mother.

Unfortunately when Shelly returned to Dynamos with the Al, it was viewed as defective by the city’s leaders. An Al can not have a loyalty to anyone but the leaders of the city under Dynamos law. Sadly there was no way to undo the Al’s loyalty to its “mother” and so the leaders not only ordered it destroyed. They also had Shelly arrested for taking control of an Al, who were seen as the pride of Dynamos. Fortunately however as soon as the guards tried to take Shelly away, the Dinosaur intervened and attacked the guards, picked Shelly up and fled from the city. Tyrannosaurus Als were larger due to the magic that created them, and despite being an infant, the Al was already the size of a horse.

Shelly and the Al were forced to go on the run for many years from their own city and make a new life out in the forest of Tairos. Despite her own people turning on her however. Shelly never became bitter and hateful like Gina. Instead she came to view it as a gift, that she had been blessed by the loyalty of one of the most ferocious and powerful beasts of Tairos that she could use to offer help to the smaller settlements that were either left out on their own or had become dependent on the larger cities.

Sadly however whilst Shelly’s heart as always was in the right place, she wasn’t the most effective fighter. She had by and large been a spoiled rich girl from one of the most prosperous cities in Tairos and whilst her experience in the black woods had helped bring her out of her comfort bubble to some extent. She was still hopelessly out of her depth when dealing with the vampires and other monsters of Tairos.

Her reputation, other than for stealing the Tyrannosaurus Al was non existent. Still she pressed on, trying to be a hero as she felt it was her destiny, but there were times where she wished she could just go home, where she’d be overwhelmed by the loneliness of it all and there were times she honestly felt like giving up.

Despite the beauty of its woods and oceans, Tairos had a bad habit of crushing the joy and optimism out of even the most pure souls.

When Gina came too the next morning, she initially thought she was being held prisoner again when she saw the Al sleeping by the camp. The traitor slowly prepared to get up, but was still weak and stumbled, waking the Al up. The Dinosaur however simply looked at Gina with curiosity more than anything else before Shelly came back.

“Oh good, glad you’re awake. I was scared you weren’t going to make it last night. What do you remember.” Shelly asked, gently.

Gina felt it had to be a trick. The people from her home city must have captured her again and were trying to get her to betray the vampires.

“I don’t care what you do to me.” Gina snapped back at Shelly.

“I will not betray them. They showed me what this world really is. Vampires, vandals, demons, monsters, beasts, humans none of it matters. They’re all the same. All want to be number 1. You just pick a side. I chose them because they were honest about what they were. They didn’t pretend to be good and virtuous and then abandon me. Let your pet eat me,” Gina spat back.

Shelly had absolutely no idea what Gina was talking about. She was never one to keep up with the news, even before she was forced to go on the run, and she actually had never even heard of Gina, despite her status as the most despised woman in Tairos.

“Please I only want to help you. Don’t you remember last night? You were being washed down the river and you hit your head? I pulled you out with the aid of my friend here.” Shelly said as she patted the head of the Al.

Gradually it all started to come back to Gina, the arrow, the fall, the river and the girl shouting to her before she was knocked out. Still Gina had her suspicions, simply because… why on earth would anyone want to help her? It had to be a trick.

As Shelly went to try and help Gina up, the more experienced warrior tripped Shelly and got her in a neck lock, which caused the Al to roar in warning. Shelly however called on the beast to stop.

“Please believe me I am trying to help you.” Shelly said in a more frustrated than scared voice.

“And I should believe you why?” Gina asked.

“My Dinosaur could have torn your guts out by now for one thing if I wanted it.”

Realising she wasn’t getting anywhere, Gina let Shelly go.

“Trust me” Gina said.

“If you were stupid enough to actually rescue me, you better get going. There are a lot of people that want to kill me, and quite frankly you don’t want to meet the people that want to help me either.” Gina said as she struggled to lean against a tree.

“I know you were involved in the battle up there, but don’t worry. My Al has taken down more than a few vampires in his time. If any of them come looking to finish what they started. I’ll protect you.” Shelly said only to be met with a cruel, mocking laughter from Gina.

“First of all, you don’t look like you could defend yourself from a vampire bat, never mind my mother. Second of all the vampires would be here to save me. They’re my family.”

Shelly was taken aback by this. In fact she thought she must have misheard it at first until Gina confirmed it. She had certainly heard stories about vampire wannabes and traitors, but to actually come across one was a different matter. She couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to serve them. She started to walk away slowly from Gina, almost disgusted with herself that she had gone to such lengths to rescue Gina now. However as Shelly slowly made her get away, the trees close by collapsed.

A small pack of four centaurs, three males and one female soon emerged from the broken woods. These creatures were relatives of the cyclops family of beasts. Centaurs were just as the myths had depicted in some ways. Their upper half was humanoid, whilst below the torso resembled a horse. Their skin from the upper half however was purple and scaly, whilst their teeth were long and sharp and overlapped. The monsters also like most cyclop’s had no speech and simply roared. Much like the Turok Han however, despite their savageness, the beasts were still capable of at least some intelligence and all of them wielded crude weapons. Finally in spite of their somewhat reptillian nature, they did still have hair at the tops of their heads and horse like lower bodies.

Shelly instantly jumped on the back of her Al, and despite her disgust at Gina, she offered to let her come as well. She had seen what the centaurs did to people and as far as she was concerned nobody deserved that. Not even a traitor.

Again Gina thought this must be a trick, but the approaching beasts soon convinced her to hop on the Dinosaurs back.

The centaurs chased the Al and the two humans riding on its back for miles deep into the forest and away from the battle. The centaurs had actually fought on the side of Drasgaria against the vampires, but ultimately the bloodsuckers had managed to overwhelm the alliance and finally claim what was left of this city for themselves.

The centaurs had actually been fleeing from the battle up ahead, but after spotting Gina, they were determined to make her pay. Ironically had Shelly and the Al not left with her, the beasts most likely would have happily let them escape. Shelly knew this however, but she still couldn’t leave Gina alone. She also didn’t want to risk a fight given how weak Gina was. Little did she know however Gina was already recovering thanks to Clasia’s magics.

Eventually however whilst fleeing from the centaurs, the Al ran head first into a pack of eleven vampires who were searching the woods for survivors.

“Gina? You’re still alive.” The leader said mockingly before turning its attention to the Al.

“It’ll make a useful mount. The others kill them, except for the girl” It said whilst looking at Shelly.

“She might be useful in other ways.”

The vampires and the centaurs engaged in an absolutely brutal fight. The centaurs kicked the vampires in the face and chest with their hooves and trampled on several of them, whilst the vampires jumped onto the centaurs backs and started to bite into their throats from behind.

The centaurs put up a good fight and even managed to slay four of the vampires, but unfortunately they were outnumbered and in a few minutes the vampires managed to seemingly kill all of the horse like beasts.

Shelly meanwhile tried to get the Al to safety during the middle of the fight, but a few of the vampires followed her. The Al did its best to swipe them away with its tail, but the vamps were too crafty and one of them knocked Shelly off of the Dinosaurs back by scaling a nearby tree and then jumping on her from behind, whilst the Dinosaur was distracted. When the Al ran to try and save her, the seven remaining vampires swarmed the Dinosaur causing Gina to fall off it.

The leader of the vampires meanwhile started to toy with Shelly who screamed to Gina for help.

“Please I saved you! Twice! You can’t just leave me.” Shelly screamed.

Sadly that is just exactly what Gina was planning on doing, but as the vampire started to “play” with Shelly, it became too much, even for the caricature of a person Gina had become.

For the first time since before she had stabbed what could have been her only true friend to death. Gina fought back. She pulled the vampire off Shelly and punched him several times in the stomach and then in the face. She expected to be overwhelmed with pain for the next hour. The magical device implanted into her by Clasia would normally torture her for hours if she even attempted to defend herself from a vampire. Now however for the first time in a decade it wasn’t working. The reason for that as Gina would later discover was because for just a few seconds she was technically dead when she drowned before Shelly revived her. The magic was only designed to work on the living and once her body stopped functioning, its power permanently vanished. Gina was finally free, and a decades worth of repressed rage was soon unleashed on the undead in that moment. Though the vampire leader had only been overpowered at first because it was caught unawares. Gina’s subsequent attacks were so relentless and brutal, she managed to beat the vampire to a bloody heap on the floor, with the bloodsucker even pathetically curling itself up into a tiny ball to avoid further blows.

The other vampires soon turned their attention towards Gina, who fought back viciously, even scratching one of the vampires eyes. Thanks to their superior strength however the vampires soon overpowered her. Still her distraction gave the Al enough time to swat all six of the vampires with its tail. It then jumped on top of one and completely mauled him with the claws on its feet. As another vampire tried to intervene however the Al caught it in its tail and then proceeded to smash the vampire through a nearby thin tree with it, after which it then impaled the vampire on the broken half of the tree, straight through its heart. The Al then used its tail to wrap it around another vampires throat and squeezed it hard enough to sever the vampires head from its shoulders. It dealt with its final vampire meanwhile by pinning it to the ground with one foot and then wrapped the other around the vamps head, which it squeezed until the vampires head was crushed to pieces. Whilst the Als jaws were its greatest strength, it did not like eating vampires due to their toxic nature. Instinctively Als would always prefer to use other weapons against them.

Gina meanwhile grabbed one of the fallen centaurs clubs and attacked the three remaining vampires. Despite the centaurs superior strength, Gina was more deadly to the vamps as she knew their tricks and skills. She beat all three of them and used the wooden club to stake them, before finally finishing off the vampire she had initially attacked, who had pathetically tried to crawl away from the fight.

With all the bloodsuckers dead, Gina checked on Shelly who was in shock at what this supposed traitor had done.

“Are you some kind of double agent or something?” Shelly asked enthusiastically only for Gina to burst out laughing.

“No, I really am as bad as I said. Worse in fact, but you saved me and I just found out that, well it’s complicated. Come on let’s get out of here before any more of them come looking.”

Suddenly Gina was interrupted by the sound of one of the centaurs groaning. The beast had a massive cut in its torso, but other than that it was okay. When it tried to stand up however it collapsed again and couldn’t even must the strength to lift one of its clubs.

Whilst Gina was all too ready to abandon it, Shelly actually approached the centaur.

“You have got to be kidding me?” Gina asked.

“I helped you didn’t I? If what you said is true, I’d wager he has a lot less blood on his hands.” Shelly responded as she tried to help the animal up.

Shelly wasn’t helping the centaur for entirely altruistic reasons however. According to lore, centaurs despite their utterly savage nature, still had a certain nobility, and would always return favours to those who helped them. Considering how badly Shelly had handled her previous attempts to be a hero, having another supernatural beast in her corner couldn’t help.

Sadly however she didn’t quite have the strength to help the brute up and so Gina intervened.

For the next few hours the foursome marched through the woods. The Al carrying Shelly on its back as always, whilst Gina helped the centaur limp its way through the forest.

Along the way they encountered another pack of vampires, but Gina dealt with them all herself. Getting the others to hide, she lured the vampires away with some calls and then dusted all four of them with her club. She wanted to make sure that no vampire who saw she was still alive and not under their control could return to tell her “mother”. Finally after almost a day of walking, the unlikely companions made their way to Shelly’s home. A small cottage, shielded by magic.

It had been given to her by a witch girl that she, or rather the Al had rescued from a pack of vandals.

Said witch had come from a long and powerful line of wiccas and warlocks who had operated independently from the big cities. They hoped to provide everyone with knowledge and power to repel the vampire horde. Tragically however they were later wiped out by the bloodsuckers (though many suspected that it was actually an unholy alliance of the vampires and some of the leaders of the big cities, who didn’t want the witches and warlocks magics to break the small communities dependence on them.)

Either way their last survivor had been targeted by the vandals, but thanks to Shelly’s actions she had escaped with her life and this house was the witches way of paying Shelly back. The witch was confident that it would keep Shelly hidden from most of the horrors of Tairos, but still warned Shelly to always be on her guard. After all her coven also thought they were safe.

Gina, Shelly, and the centaur recovered at the cottage for the next few weeks. The two women however hardly spoke to one another. Gina wasn’t used to being in debt to anyone, whilst Shelly didn’t really want to know the full details to Gina’s life. She still kept hoping that Gina was a double agent of some kind.

Gina spent most of her time training with the centaur. Ironically the beast developed quite a bit of affection for Gina. It even let her ride on its back a few times.

Shelly meanwhile would go out with the Al on a few rescue missions, mostly to help survivors from the war and nearby villages which were being raided by the victorious vampires. As the weeks rolled on Gina slowly began to rediscover aspects of her personality that she had even forgotten about thanks to Clasia. Even just small pleasures like her love of reading which she rediscovered through Shelly’s own extensive collection, as well as aspects that she thought or rather hoped were gone for good, such as shame and guilt.

The people of Tairos communicated with each other across vast distances through a special kind of magic that could conjure up a large virtual image, similar to a television or the internet. The image was conjured up in a small pot which if the right enchantments were said, could allow anyone access to the magical hub. However the pot had to be made of the correct substance and you had to have the correct form of enchantment and ingredients to access each cities hub, with many of the smaller villages cut off.

Fortunately however Shelly did have access to all the right ingredients and so Gina was able to keep in contact with the outside world to some extent whilst hiding away in Shelly’s cottage. She ironically watched the pot as it was known, far more than Shelly ever did.

What Gina saw however would have the greatest affect on her. First she saw the reports of her death. Her former torturer who had shot her over the edge of a cliff was hailed as a hero by the media. Reports came in from some small villages of people dancing in the streets and even parties celebrating her death. Gina had never seen such glee over someone’s death, even from the vampires. Naturally at first she was furious and even tempted to go back to her “mother” to show her enemies that she was still alive. However as time went on and the numerous reports covering her death began to focus on the atrocities she helped carry out. It all finally began to sink in.

She saw the relatives of those who had perished in the numerous raids and battles she had aided the vampires in talk about their pain and loss. She saw the images of the people of her home city that she had killed when she set off her fathers weapon, on the news for the first time. She learned their names when she searched through the pot. She knew she shouldn’t for her own sake, but soon she couldn’t help herself. Among the most affecting however was an interview she found with Mastia describing how Gina was a greater evil than even the vampires for turning on her own father. She also finally heard from Mastia, how much her father missed her every day, how he tried to find her and finally how if he could see what she had become it would devastate him more than even his wife’s death.

Gina did her best to try and put it out of her mind like she had done so many times before, but now being faced with the reality of her crimes, it began to reach the human side of Gina that the vampires had done their best to destroy. Hatred soon began to burn inside of her for her vile “mother” who had lied to her about her father. The fact that Gina hadn’t instantly gone back to her mother alone was telling, but she kept telling herself it was because she didn’t want to disappoint Clasia at first, but thankfully that poor excuse didn’t last.

Still in spite of this Gina never left the cottage for the entire three weeks. At first it was out of fear, but it soon became more out of shame.

All of that changed however, when Shelly brought home a young man named Aleskia who was bloodied and cut. She and the Al had stumbled upon him being viciously tortured by two vampires. The Al killed both of the bloodsuckers, but once the man came too he soon revealed that he and his family, made up of his wife and two children had been fleeing the city, before they were cornered by a pack of vampires. He had bravely tried to fight the demons, and had managed to stab the leader of their platoon in the eye before he was overpowered. The leader decided to torture him personally, whilst his family were carted off to Clasia’s vampire camp. Shelly took Aleskia back to her cottage simply to help treat his wounds and give him a place to recover, but sadly there was nothing she could do to help his family. Even she wasn’t fool hardy enough to try and break into a vampire camp. No one had ever managed to escape them baring Gina’s father, but most people would rather forget about him at this stage. Aleskia however wouldn’t accept it and begged Shelly to let him use her Al to break into the camps.

Eventually Gina had to intervene, much to Shelly’s shock and horror. Shelly had told Gina to stay out of sight whenever she brought someone back for obvious reasons. Still this time Gina felt compelled to say something. Maybe it was out of genuine remorse for what she had done? Maybe it was out of anger towards the vampires for turning her into this monster, or maybe it was her own ego, not wanting to be seen as the traitor she had become? Or perhaps it was a combination of all those reasons? Whatever the case Gina decided that she would help free this man’s family and all of the other prisoners from the camp that had created her.

Aleskia however wasn’t happy. In fact he thought it was a trick and tried to attack Gina who easily disarmed him. Gina tried to convince him that she was a victim of the vampires as much, and explained the way they had tortured her into murdering her friend. For the first time in over ten years she actually admitted to Clareska’s murder. Incredibly enough that wasn’t even close to being the worst atrocity she had carried out, but it was in her mind the point of no return. Aleskia however didn’t care. His sister had been among those slaughtered when Gina had destroyed her fathers castle and released the Hylexans magic.

There was nothing Gina could say to defend herself to this man. She simply promised that she would free his family and do all she could to help destroy the evil that she had helped to grow stronger over the past ten years.

Shelly meanwhile in contrast to Aleskia had actually felt some sympathy for Gina. Hearing about how she had been dragged from her people and broken by the vampires. Whilst she was still disgusted by Gina’s actions. Unlike almost everyone else in Tairos, she did not hate her and genuinely believed that Gina wanted to change.

Sadly Shelly also didn’t want to take part in Gina’s crusade. Whilst she wasn’t a coward, the vampire camps genuinely terrified her, not just for her sake, but the Al. It was all she had left and she couldn’t bare the thought of it being hurt. A couple of vampires or beasts of vandals were nothing to the Al, but the camp?

Gina however assured Shelly that this wouldn’t be any old attack. She knew the vampires, had access to their magics, knew how they worked, how they functioned. Never had there ever been a traitor in the vampires ranks before. The vampires couldn’t betray each other thanks to the Emperors will and their other human servants were never taken in as deep as Gina had been, thanks to her special relationship with Clasia.

The secrets she could let loose could help set the vampire horde back by centuries. However no city in Tairos would trust her, but by freeing the people of the camp she could perhaps convince them that she was genuine.

For the first time Shelly was forced to face the reality of what her life was, and it was almost too much for her. Aleskia’s grief however finally convinced Shelly to be part of the battle, even if ironically Aleskia himself didn’t trust Gina.

Aleskia was prevented from going on the mission meanwhile by Gina, as he would just end up getting in the way due to his lack of training. He didn’t want to be left out of course, but he soon realized that it would be better for his loved ones if he were.

Some would argue that there is no such thing as a hero. Scratch the surface of any great, inspiring figures life story and you will find the sordid, unsavoury details they’d rather you not know about. From world leaders, to vampire killers, to great artists. All of them are better known for the artificial image built up by their admirers than who they really were. Nobody wants to admit that someone can be both a nasty piece of work and a great writer, that a great war hero also carried out atrocities, or that a champion for the oppressed can still support the other kinds of prejudices of their time.

Perhaps the one exception to this however is Gina, the legendary warrior from the age of Tairos. A woman who became just as notorious as both an ally and enemy to the vile vampire horde. Whose dark past always stayed with her, but who was still able to do great things and prove vital in humanity’s triumph over their vampiric adversaries.

This is the story of how she became ensnared by the undead and how she later not only broke away from them, but became their worst nightmare.

The age of Tairos was both an Eden and a nightmare for humanity. It began 100 years after the earth had been invaded and its surface destroyed by a hostile race of alien monsters known as the Hylexans. These Octopoid like creatures relied on magic rather than science to travel the universe and invade planets. They bombarded our own world with the darkest magics they had gathered on their travels across space. Almost all life on our planet was destroyed or twisted beyond recognition, except for one small island in the most remote place on earth. Point Nemo.

Protected by magics that had been built up over the centuries, the people of Point Nemo would 100 years after the Hylexans bombardment create a spell so powerful it was able to regenerate the entire earth from the Hylexans attack, covering all of the lands in a large beautiful, magical forest. The magic also restored the oceans that had been reduced to sludge by the Hylexans, turning them into golden waters, teeming with life.

This new magical world was christened Tairos and it was populated by the survivors of Point Nemo, though the magic that had brought the world back, would also bring back many of those who were killed in the Hylexan attack, as well as several animals, including even those from before the invasion. Dinosaurs for instance once again walked the earth, or Tairos as it was now known. (Though not all of them were brought back as they once were, leading to an even greater variety of Dinosaurs than before.)

Unfortunately however the vampire, mankind’s greatest and most relentless predator soon infested this new paradise too. Only one vampire had survived the destruction of the earth and it had been horrifically mutated by the Hylexans magics to the point where it was more than just a regular vampire. For 100 years it stalked the barren wastelands of the earth alone, and insane with rage and bloodlust, until the forests covered the land once more. Using the restorative powers in the magics that had brought life to the planet, along with the book of Khastran (from which’s pages all vampire races had been created) the last remaining vampire was able to bring other members of his kind back. More than that however, he was also able to control them mentally to some extent thanks to his mutation from the Hylexan magic. The vampire race became unified like never before as a result, with the vampire who had made all of this possible coming to be known simply as the Emperor. His real name and identity remained a mystery for many centuries to come.

Despite their power and ferocity, the vampires had never been able to form to form a truly united society throughout human history before the Hylexans attack. They had only ever managed to form small settlements and groups, disconnected from each other, due to the fact that they were such selfish, greedy and amoral creatures.

The Emperor however whilst still allowing his followers to think for themselves and control their own actions, could sense whenever one of them would betray him and could stop or even kill them before they tried anything. He couldn’t read their thoughts however. It was more an advanced form of empath reading.

This new vampire army, who became known as the vampire horde, also brought back and recruited many allies of the vampire race from before the attack, such as werewolves, ghouls, and the Turok Han to create the strongest army of demons ever seen in our planets history.

These unholy creatures were sadly more unified than even humanity themselves at this point in its history. After venturing out into the new world they had created, it didn’t take the survivors of Point Nemo long to start the usual infighting over petty differences. It’s sad that the only time we were all truly unified was during our darkest period on Point Nemo.

The survivors of Point Nemo meanwhile later scattered across the world, as would the humans who had been revived by the magic, All forming into different communities.

The vampire horde at first struck at the smaller, more isolated towns and villages to rebuild their forces, though they soon became strong enough to attack the larger cities too.

As always the goal of the vampire race was to exterminate humanity, in order to complete their father and creator, the most evil and powerful of all demons, Khastran’s curse which stated that when his children. The vampires, outnumber humanity, he would live again to take his vengeance on the rest of creation.

Gina was born during a period of Tairos’ history when the larger cities had begun to form alliances with each other. Having finally woken up to the threat the vampire horde represented. Sadly however the alliances were still loose, and many of the larger cities, in an effort to dominate their rivals kept new weapons and spells to themselves.

Gina and her family came from the city of Drasgaria. Her father, whose name was Gragian, was part of an elite group of witches and warlocks, whose goal was to create the ultimate weapon against the vampire horde using small samples of the Hylexans dark magics that had remained buried deep in the earth.

Their base of operations, or lab, was actually the ruins of an old castle, just outside the city. Gragian, was a very accomplished warlock, who had already been part of the war against the vampires for over 100 years before Gina’s birth. (Thanks to the planets new magical nature, the life expectancy of people on Tairos was extended to over 200 years.)

According to the stories he used to tell Gina, Gragian first learned about magic when he was captured by the vampires themselves and placed in one of their death camps. His use of magic ultimately allowed he and his fellow prisoners to escape. Whilst there is no denying that Gragian did free his fellow inmates using magic, it was not where he learned it. In actual fact he had shown both an interest and a talent for the black arts since he was a very young boy. Still this story made his natural talents and skills seem all the more unbelievable and the young Gina (as well as the people of Drasgaria) were happy to buy into it.

Gina’s mother whose name was Taskina meanwhile would have a more significant impact on her, for better and for worse. Taskina, was a great and noble warrior who took part in many prominent battles against the undead. Ironically even though Gragian had played a bigger role in repelling the vampires through the invention of several weapons, Taskina’s exploits always fascinated their daughter more. In all fairness Taskina was actually out there facing the monsters in direct combat, whilst Gragian, other than his time in the camp had been spared the undead’s company up close throughout most of his life.

Whilst they may have competed in trying to impress their daughter, Gragian and Taskina were a genuinely loving couple, and the first five years of their daughters life, despite the ever present threat of the vampires were happy.

Sadly however their peaceful family life fell apart when Taskina was killed by a pack of vicious Turok Han who had overrun a small settlement. Drasgaria made a point of protecting the smaller settlements, not out of any kind of altruism, but because it felt that by gathering all of the smaller villages together, it could build a bigger army.

This village meanwhile had held out from their help, wanting to remain independent, until the vampires brought in the largest group of Turok Han yet against them. The Turok Han were considerably rarer than regular vampires, so much that Taskina had never encountered one of them before. Tragically as a result of this, she and the rest of the soldiers were hopelessly unprepared, overpowered and torn to pieces by the super demons.

Gragian would throw himself into his work after Taskina’s death, becoming more determined than ever to wipe the horde from the face of Tairos. Sadly however this just led to him becoming more distant and at times somewhat colder to his daughter. He didn’t mean too. He genuinely thought that he was doing the best for Gina, by not only avenging her mothers death, but helping to create a world where she wouldn’t have to live in constant fear of the threat of the vampires. At the same time however Gina also came down hard on her father, accusing him of being a coward for not going out there and fighting the vampires himself like Taskina. She also came to idolise her mother to a far greater extent than when she was ever alive. The dead always make for better heroes as they can’t remind you that they are just people.

Gina became determined to follow in her mothers footsteps and become a warrior in the army, though her father was against it after what had happened to his wife. Sadly however this just led to further clashes between them, and by the time she was 17, Gina and her father were no longer on speaking terms.

Gina arguably got ahead in her military career, more because of who her mother had been than anything else. Whilst she did show some potential, everyone was more desperate to work with the daughter of the legendary heroine Taskina. It wasn’t just Gina that had built her mother up into a mythical figure. Taskina along with others killed in the Turok Han attack were held up by Drasgaria as martyrs for the war. It was about the only thing the city could salvage from that crushing defeat.

Sadly however out on the field, Gina’s lack of experience soon caught up with her. Her first few hunts were successful, as they were targeting small vampire outposts along with a team of professionals.

However on her fifth hunt Gina’s team was completely overwhelmed by a pack of vampires riding on the backs of Allosaurus’. Vampires had an affinity for Dinosaurs as their creator, Khastran had created their race when he was possessing the body of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Khastran crashed onto our planet at the end of the age of the Dinosaurs, after his first body had been destroyed. He then possessed the dead body of a Tyrannosaurus (the largest and most ferocious creature on earth) and devastated the surface of our planet, killing off the Dinosaurs, before taking to the stars again.

66 million years later he returned to our world whilst still possessing the Tyrannosaurus and created the vampire race, before his second and final death.

Dinosaurs were among the few creatures vampires didn’t treat with cruelty. In fact some vampire cults even revered Dinosaurs as holy beasts. That said however, they were still not above using the larger and stronger meat eaters such as Tyrannosaurus, Spinosaurus, Giganotosaurus, and Allosaurus as mounts, and using dark magic to make them even stronger as well as more bloodthirsty.

Gina’s team weren’t prepared for Dinosaurs, having been led to believe the vampire faction were low on resources, and almost all of them were torn apart by the great reptiles.

Gina only survived because she tried to flee rather than fight. It’s always a mistake to show any kind of weakness to vampires. If they think they can make you beg and plead for your life, they will extend your suffering for as long as they can. Gina however, who had never been in such a vulnerable position before wasn’t thinking straight and ran as fast as she could.

Unfortunately however, whilst they may have been over 30 feet long, Allosaurus’ were fast and agile and one of the beasts soon scooped Gina up in its jaws and brought her back to its vampire masters. The leader of this vampire faction, Clasia, who also commanded over the nearest vampire death camp wanted to keep Gina alive so she could have some fun with her. At the same time however she also thought Gina might have potential. Vampires preferred to turn those who were already broken, twisted, and bitter people as they always made the most effective members of their kind.

Having already seen her greater anger at the vampires due to her mothers death, and her greater cowardice, coupled with her age and strength. Clasia believed that Gina would make an excellent vampire, but she would have to be groomed first.

Gina was taken back to the camp, where she spent a few weeks doing menial labour with the other prisoners. Those the vampires didn’t either feed on or turn, were put to work in the mines, to harness more magic and resources from the earth to aid the war effort.

Within her first week there Gina was already part of an escape plan. It was actually orchestrated by a double agent of the vampires in the mine, who had been promised death by the bloodsuckers if he did this for them. Clasia wanted to test Gina’s reaction to something to see if she was fit to be one of them.

During her time in the camp Gina had met and befriended a young boy named Clareska, whose village had been the one Gina’s mother had died defending. An obvious manipulation tactic by the vampires, but one that neither Gina nor Clareska were aware of.

Clareska’s entire family had been killed by the Turok Han too, but he had managed to escape into the wilderness, where he lived the life of a nomad for many years until two years ago when the vampires captured him.

In spite of the torture he had been through, he remained hopeful that the vampires would fail, having seen up close how much more desperate they had become.

Clareska was also able to give Gina some comfort by telling her how her mother really died, in a blaze of glory against a bloodthirsty Turok Han. Granted Gina always felt deep down that he was lying, but it was enough to get her through those long and hard nights.

Eventually after a month or so, Gina and her new band of allies. (Some of whom had even bought into the hype of her being Taskina’s daughter.) Put their escape plan into action, but they got as far as the small patch of forest outside the mine, before one of the vampires pet Dinosaurs, a Triceratops stopped them in their tracks.

Gina however, again thanks to the vampires manipulation was able to flee, as the Triceratops turned its attention towards her allies. Clareska was wounded in the process by the reptiles horns. Rather than try and flee like the last time however, Gina did her best to try and distract the Triceratops and at one point she even tried to drag Clareska to safety. The difference was that she had actually had time to bond with Clareska, unlike her fellow soldiers, who she had a strictly professional relationship with. As a result she saw him as a human, rather than just a tool to use against the vampires and found she couldn’t leave him.

It was disappointing to say the least for the vampires. They had become thrilled with the idea of the legendary Taskina’s daughter becoming one of their own and had therefore put greater effort into testing her than they had done with most of the others.

Clasia however didn’t give up and she would orchestrate a few more direct tests. First she tried to lock Gina in a room with a Raptor and unarmed, promising her that she would let Gina go if she gave her a signal to murder another prisoner, she had there, a young man. Gina however called the vampires bluff, knowing that Clasia was going to a lot of effort to try and break her and therefore would most likely not just let her be devoured. After a few minutes she stopped trying to evade the Raptor, forcing the vampire to intervene. Sadly the male prisoner was killed by Clasia anyway.

Clasia would next try to break Gina by showing her that nobody back home cared that she was missing. Even Gina’s own father who seemingly hadn’t insisted on mounting a rescue mission. Gina had simply been presumed dead and the city had moved on. Gina’s father was of course in truth overwhelmed with grief. In fact so much he didn’t return to his work, the only thing that had kept him going during his wife’s death, for three years afterwards. He had genuinely tried to pressure the city into looking for her and even tried to go out himself, but sadly the city didn’t let him, as he was considered too important.

Clasia however kept this detail hidden, which was easy to do as the city didn’t want the knowledge that they had failed the daughter of Taskina to be known. Sadly as the weeks turned into months and Gina was left to rot, Clasia’s lies seemed more real to Gina and slowly began to break her will.

The vampire however grew impatient and soon resorted to more direct, brutal methods. Specifically a form of dark magic, that could keep its victims alive in the most unspeakable agony which she placed inside Gina’s skin through a device. Even the other superiors in her camp were against it, as they felt this form of magic was too unpredictable, and worse if Gina died during the torture, (when most believed she would given her previous resistance.) It would send an even stronger message against the vampires, that the daughter of Taskina had been able to resist their most advanced torture methods and died a hero.

Still Clasia kept on, and Gina managed to hold out for only one day after which she broke. The pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. It cut its way deep into her soul. After the session was over, Gina swore she would do anything she could to resist another bout of torture.

Clasia would first use Gina to infiltrate and destroy a soldiers camp. The device under Gina’s skin which could allow her to activate the black magics whenever she wished, to effectively keep Gina on a leash. Pretending she was an escaped prisoner who was being chased by the vampires, the soldiers took Gina back to their camp, which had been hidden by magics. Unfortunately however Gina was able using a device known as a sencos given to her by the vampires to break the magic defences down from within and allow the bloodsuckers in. All of the soldiers were butchered in the attack. Gina would be used in as bait in a few more traps for soldiers and even small settlements in the coming months. The vampires would always make sure that there were no survivors from any attack involving Gina so that no one could identify her. They did intend to reveal her eventually to break their enemies, but for now she was in some ways, one of their most useful weapons.

Gina tried to resist a few more times, but she would always be broken by Clasia reactivating the magic inside her.

After one year of betraying her own people, Gina was given her final test by Clasia. It was one thing to set people up for slaughter, but now Gina had to prove that she actually had the stomach for direct murder.

The vampires brought Clareska to her. Along with all of the others who had taken part in Gina’s botched escape attempt (including even their own double agent,) Clareska had been subject to torture at the vampires hands for the last year. Even though the vampires themselves orchestrated the escape attempt as a test, they still wanted to send a message to the rest of their prisoners that none of them should even try. The others had eventually been tortured to death, but Clareska had been kept alive just a bit longer on orders of Clasia herself, for this sick game.

Clasia gave Gina a sword and told her that she would be tortured unless she cut the helpless Clareska open. Gina of course refused and Clasia activated the dark magic within her body. For the first time however, Gina actually fought through the pain. She lifted her sword up and tried to strike Clasia, but the magics were too overwhelming and she soon collapsed before she could even bring her sword down.

“Why put yourself through this suffering?” Clasia taunted.

“This pathetic creature will die no matter what? Look at him? He is already dead. Everything he was, has been broken in our dungeons? Put him out of his misery.”

Indeed Clareska didn’t even seem to react that much to the threat, though when he first saw Gina a small smile came over his lips that had quickly been beaten out of him by Clasia.

Unable to cope with the pain anymore, in desperation Gina plunged the sword straight into Clareska’s stomach and sliced him open.

Clasia, who normally tried to maintain a poised, and dignified stance couldn’t help but burst out laughing, stating.

“Now you are truly fit to be one of us.” She taunted.

This final act of torture broke Gina mentally. After this she willingly took part in more traps, and even slaughtered some of the human soldiers themselves. In the subsequent five years she worked for the vampire horde, Gina would be responsible for the deaths of over 500 people, directly and indirectly.

She never expressed any joy in her killings, and certainly not any remorse either. In fact she didn’t express emotions of any kind during the entire time she worked with the vampires. The murder of Clareska had made Gina pretty much dead to everything.

Clasia however continued to take a special interest in Gina. She could have turned her at any point, but she saw Gina as a special project and felt that having her serve them as a human would send a better message. Most disturbingly however Clasia began to see herself as a mother figure to Gina. She would regularly try to convince Gina that unlike her father or mother, she would never abandon her and always put Gina above her work. Sadly after several years, Gina began to see Clasia that way too. Strangely enough the only moments of any kind of emotion Gina ever showed was the odd bit of affection for her “mummy”. Clasia also filled Gina’s head with her own twisted philosophy that the vampires were the true heroes. She argued that both vampires and humanity were capable of great evil (hence why neither could form a cohesive society) but that the vampires were honest and could therefore see what their evil was, and that by exploring it to its full potential now, they would understand and be able to control it one day. Humanity meanwhile by denying their true nature would never understand the darkness inside them and would eventually be consumed by it.

Clasia’s “philosophy” was nothing more than a pathetic attempt to try and justify her own sadism. Even before becoming a vampire Clasia had been a cruel and depraved individual. She had been part of a small, but vicious group of petty criminals prior to the Hylexan invasion. After being brought back in the creation of Tairos, she willingly offered herself up to become a vampire simply to survive. Just as in life, she was nothing more than a lackey at first, but becoming a vampire would unleash Clasia’s more ambitious side, and gradually over the centuries she had risen through the ranks to become one of their most prominent generals, who ran one of their most prominent death camps. The fact that she was allowed to indulge in this sadistic side project with Gina alone, showed how much pull she had in the vampires ranks. Still the vampire queen’s cruel ideology had an effect on the young Gina and helped her sleep at night for the time being.

The only good thing to come from Gina’s time with Clasia was that she was able to learn and master far more advanced fighting techniques from Clasia and the other vampires. Ironically Gina finally became a truly great warrior like she had always wanted, though definitely not in a way she could have imagined. Clasia also fed Gina magics, which whilst not making her a magical creature, still gave her higher than normal healing capabilities and a greater resistance to magic.

After five years of being groomed by them, the vampires would send Gina to deal with the person she now blamed for all of her misfortune. Her own father.

Gragian had finally returned to work, with his and the other scientists decades of research in harnessing the Hylexans magic having seemingly paid off to some extent.

The bomb they had created with the Hylexans magic was still unstable, and there were fears that this much concentrated Hylexan magic unleashed could have the same affect as before. The vampires however had an advantage through Gina who could be used as a spy, due to her connection with Gragian.

Gina agreed, not just to escape the torture they would have inflicted on her, but because she wanted to make the city of Drasgaria suffer for abandoning her.

Using knowledge her father had given her when she was a little girl, and she had come to visit him at his place of work. Gina was able to infiltrate the castle and tried to steal plans for the weapon. Unfortunately however she was spotted on her way out by none other than her own father. (Though some think she did this on purpose, wanting to make her father suffer by knowing how much he had failed his child.)

Gragian instantly recognised her and was so overcome with emotion that he burst into tears. Unfortunately however Gina, thinking it was a trick attacked him and tried to flee. Not wanting to lose his daughter a second time. Gragian summoned the security. With no other choice, Gina was forced to flee back to the main room where she had stolen the plans, where she threatened to set the bomb off. In the tense shootout that followed, the bomb was hit by a stray gun. Gina was still able to escape, though not without losing the plans first. Unfortunately however despite their best attempts the scientists were not able to stop the bomb from going off. Not only was the lab consumed, but a good chunk of Drasgaria was too. Thousands of innocent people were slaughtered in the blast, including Gina’s own father, who stayed behind until the last second to try and shut down the bomb. Only one scientist named Mastia escaped from the destruction. Ironically he had been a friend of Gina’s family and had known her growing up. She even considered him to be something of an uncle. He was in many ways just as heartbroken as her father, but that despair soon turned to anger and rage at Gina for betraying her father and he made sure that all of Drasgaria knew who the traitor was.

Gina soon became the most wanted woman in not only Drasgaria, but all the major cities in Tairos that had formed a loose alliance with it. The leaders of Drasgaria had hoped that the Hylexan weapon could better unite the cities and smaller communities by providing them with a weapon that could make a real dent in the vampire war machine.

Now however not only was the weapon gone, but all of the research it had taken decades to build up had vanished with it. A truly devastating loss for the alliance and humanity in general.

Gina’s reputation soon overshadowed that of both her parents. In fact tragically some of the leaders of the alliance even attempted to denounce her parents, so as to save face. Her mother was rebranded a coward whose successes were all down to other soldiers, whilst her father was even smeared as a traitor who helped Gina sneak her way into the laboratory, much to the protest of Mastia.

Gina had destroyed everything she had ever believed in and was now nothing more than a pawn of the monsters that had in turn destroyed her. Sadly however by this stage she either couldn’t see it, or even cared. In fact the only person she thought had her back was the very same demon that had turned her into this.

Gina would continue to help the vampires in direct battles for the next five or so years. Clasia still didn’t turn her, despite facing pressure from above to do so. She was too fascinated in seeing how far she could push Gina.

Unfortunately for Clasia however, a little over ten years after she had first abducted Gina, her “daughter” would finally find a way to be free of the vampire queen’s demonic grasp.