Vampires Burning Moonlight

Burning Moonlight

**Acknowledgements**

To all of my friends and family, who have no idea that they have been written into these pages

**Chapter 1**

3…2…1... . Finally! The sun had at last disappeared behind the horizon, and we were at last free. We had been stuck in this cramped, smelly old house for five days now without being allowed to go hunting because the local police had found one of Max's meals and were on red alert. The confined space was getting to all of us, even Kristie who had been like us since before most people's grandparent were born, and there forth had most control over herself. The rest of us were all under two years old in this life time, still stuck with low self control and fiery tempers. Even my brother and I who had been part of this new life for about a year and a half still couldn't go a week without hunting and not completely loosing it. Sofia and her younger brother Max have been with us for just over a year, and the Twins, Melisa and Iris just joined us about three months ago. Kristie told us that she likes to get siblings to change because we are less likely to kill each other in those first few weeks when we can't keep it together for even a few minutes. I don't know if I entirely believe that because we have all tried to rip the other one up at least once in the beginning.

Even though I'm really hungry, or I guess thirsty in this case, I still wait for Sofia before leaving, I normally go with my older brother Peter, but today he is going with Max to keep an eye on him, he normally goes with Kristie, but today she told us that she would like to be alone, so Peter got stuck with him. Max maybe the smallest and the youngest physically but he is also the swiftest and when he loses control, Peter is the only one that can get a hold on him.

It only takes Sofia a few seconds to get to the front yard where I was waiting, but even that is almost too much, I can almost feel the out of control monster that I was those first few blurry weeks coming out, and if we didn't find some unlucky, unnoticed people soon, I would be the one needing restraining. Sofia leaps quietly to my side and said," You ready Leigh?" "Ya, let's get moving" I replied, I was still trying to keep a grip on myself, as we leapt over the stone wall that encircled the house that we have been staying in, and start to climb the wall of the large industrial building that was across the street. Once we get to the top we start to run at full speed over the rooftops, no one can see us up here, so there is no need to "act like a human". We soon get to a deserted park where there are two hobos sleeping on a park bench, we both inhale deeply as so to cached their sent, and that is the last thing I remember until a few minutes later I find myself on the grassy field of the park holding the bloodless body of the homeless man that was on the bench. I look around until I find Sofia, who is a few yards away, still lost in her feeding frenzy trance with her teeth at the neck of the other transient man; she always was a slow eater.

I decide to start digging the pit that these two will end up buried in, it doesn't take me long to carve a decent hole in the soft earth, deep enough that a dog or any other animal won't be able to smell them and try to dig them up, by this time Sofia has finished and has dragged the two corpses over to the ditch and stands waiting for me to finish up. When the hole is done to my satisfaction we push in the bodies and start shoveling dirt on top of them, all in all it took us about 5 minutes, not are best record, but not bad. We step back to admire are handy work, we had placed the grass back in such a way that you couldn't really tell that it had ever been disturbed, even with are eagle eyes. I check my watch, we still have hours before the sun's up and we had to be back to the house "So what do you want to do for the rest of the night?" I ask "Well", she said as she looks down at her torn, dirt and blood covered shirt, mine wasn't much better," We should pick up some less conspicuous cloths before we do anything else." "True" I replied, shoplifting it is!

Since we're not paying for it, we decide to break into one of the expensive designer boutiques on Main Street. Once we are inside, and have checked that we haven't set off any alarms, and the shades are down, we get to work. We both find a pair of jeans with some long French designer's name printed on the label, and a shirt and jacket that are probably worth more than the house we are currently living in, but won't really stick out on the streets. I also grab a cloth tote bag that was hanging on a chair, that the casher probably left behind and stuff it with extra things for latter, it's good to have backup because you don't always know when you will be able to get to a store again. I check the time again, and we still have a few hours before the sun goes up, but we should probably head back just in case, better be safe than sorry. We check that we didn't leave any noticeable signs that we were here, and then we snuck out the back door, dumping are dirty clothes in the dumpster out back on the way, and then headed for the rooftops.

It's sad about the sun, but we really can't risk being seen, the sun doesn't hurt us, but when it's ray's make contact with are skin it reviles us for what we really are. In the dark we look pretty much as we did when we were human, a little paler perhaps, and are canine teeth are a little sharper than most people's, but not to the point where anyone would notice. In the sun though, are skin turns snow white, are eye's become blood red, are fangs grow out, and among other finer details that transform, until we look like we walked straight out of a Dracula movie. Like I said, we really can't risk it, unless of course we want to be hunted down by the vampire emperor's minions and killed.

The vampire world is divided into seven regions by-the-way, one on each continent, and each has its own ruling clan that can impose its own laws that they think will keep the rest of us inconspicuous, and then there is the Vampire emperor, who rules all the vampires, and whatever he says goes. This is why we have to watch it, because about five years ago vampires started to get popular in human society (books, movies, T.V. shows, ex.), people started to become more aware of vampire's possible existence, to prevent any young vampires that were still not under control from giving away the secret, he posed a law saying that there can't be any more new vampires created, and any violators would be imprisoned, and their creations killed. Kristie didn't like this ruling, she belied that you should be able to have young vampires in your clan if you wanted, or needed them for protection from other clans, and so to prove her point that she didn't really care what anyone else said, even if it was the law, she started her search for possible clan members. And a few months later she found my brother and I in California and decided that she saw whatever she was looking for in a possible candidate and kidnapped us from are high school and changed us. She did the same thing with Sofia and Max, and then the Twins, they were all from California as well.

"Why are you frowning?" Sofia asked softly, she has always been a good, kind friend, I guess she had been watching me for a while now, " No reason really" I responded, trying to lose the depressed look that I always get when thing about my previous life, we were almost back to the house now, just a few more miles. I could see just a hint of gray on the horizon that meant that morning was approaching, even though we would make it with plenty of time, it still worried me, I hoped that the other hunting groups were already at the house, we were making relatively good time though, and were hoping over the fence within a minute or so. We quietly made are way to the windowless living room where everyone had already, thankfully, had gathered. Sofia went directly to her favorite reading chair and started on her latest novel, but I stayed by the door, looking at every one in turn, as I always did after a hunting trip for some reason that I can't even explain to myself. It's still strange to me how everyone is so young, since we will be like this forever. A person can only be changed into a vampire when they are under 25, but most of us are changed when we were are high school age, like Peter, Sofia, the Twins, and I were. Max was only in the Third grade when he was changed, so he is one of the youngest vampires out there, but what he lacks in age he makes up in being quick and energetic.

There are two sofas, and a few arm chairs in the room, Peter and Max have taken the sofa closest to the TV so they can play some game on the Xbox, one of the chairs Sofia is in, and the other sofa has Kristie and the Twins on it. So that leaves me to one of the vacant arm Chairs, so I grab one and pull it over to the sofa where the Twins are so that I could have someone to talk to for the night since Sofia will probably not put that book down until she's done with it. I slump into the thick seat cushions, glad that we didn't make a nuisance of ourselves on this hunting trip, after a minute I glance over at the twins and Kristie. Melisa and Iris aren't identical twins, but close, they have long, dark brown hair, they are on the short side, about five foot and since they are still new, and aren't fully focused yet, it's hard to tell what they are like, but they seem to have kind personalities, "So, do you guys have a nice night?" I asked, make it simple, that's the key with young vamps "It was ok, we found some drugies in an ally at the edge of Huston" Iris replied " Good, thanks for finding someone that no one will miss. Sofia and I found some bums in a park, then went "shopping" for some new close" "O…That sounds nice" Melisa answered, looking down at her filthy sneakers. This is when I realized that they were both still wearing the dirty, torn jeans and t-shirts that they arrived here in, I shot Kristie a dirty look, it was unfair for them to have to wear these rags when the rest of us could just get new things whenever we wanted, just because they were new. Then I remembered that it had been the same way for Peter and me, I was wearing the same tank-top and shorts that I had on that day of school that Kristie had snagged us for five months before I was allowed to hunt by myself and get some new ones. Even then I only found some ones cloths that they had hung up to dry, but I remember how nice it was to have something clean and not ripped in a hundred places. I puffed into my cheeks and looked down at my new clean cloths and then turned and look at them "come here, fallow me", I told them and started to walk to the kitchen. I heard them fallowing slowly behind me, like they were worried that I was going to attack them, well I don't blame them, Sofia and Max were still new when they came and the four of them were constantly attacking each other, Peter and I even got in the mix of things a few times, Kristie was just about at the end of her leash then. "Where do you think you are going? You know that you can't go outside !" ,Kristie yelled at me from behind, I closed my eyes, trying to keep it together, Kristie was a good substitute mom most of the time, but really how stupid does she think I am! And why doesn't she realize that the new vamps needed something new to wear! "I wasn't going to, Sofia and I got some extra stuff today and I was going to see if any of it fit" I replied as calm as I could. I continued into the kitchen without a backwards glance at Kristie and with the Twins at my heals. I grabbed the tote bag off the counter were we had tossed it and peered inside. I pulled out two pairs of short and a couple of tops and tossed it to them "they will be big, but its better then what you got, and leave your shoes here", I said as they headed into the unused bedrooms down the hall. I dumped the two pairs of torn dirty shoes in the sink and started to rinse them off. By the time that the Twins were back the shoes actually had a whitish coloring and the holes were not as big a problem as I though. The cloths fit them better than I thought they would too, and they looked happy to ditch the rags, even though they were my age, they still has that childish, simple pleasure thing going on, I just gave them a quick smile and then went back to my chair in the living room, I picked up a book that was in the stack by the door and settled in to read for the rest of the day.

**Chapter 2**

We were all happy to be out of the house by the end of the day, even though none of us really needed to hunt, we were all still short tempered with each other from being locked inside for all those days. Sofia and I decide we would take the twins with us when we leave for the night, Kristie didn't like the idea, but after we promised that we wouldn't to let them massacre anyone in plain sight she gave in. We decided that we needed something normal to do, something that we would have done at home if we hadn't been "honored" with becoming part of Kristie's clan. We thought about it and the thing that all of us missed most, as stupid as it may sound, was going to the movies. So we pick pocketed a group of people leaving an office building and then made a beeline for the nearest movie theater. When we got there we bought tickets for some chick flick that had just come out, as we made our way into the darkened theater Sofia and I each grabbed one twins by their arm, it was going to be hard enough for us to be this close to humans for this long, and we were both over a year older than them, and we promised Kristie we wouldn't let them kill anyone, why did we promise that! We decided that we should all sit in the back so we would be the farthest from the main population of the humans, and the closest to the door if we needed to make a quick escape. We found four seats in the back corner of the theater, and fortunately the smell of buttered popcorn masked the scent of the fifty or so humans that we seated around us. The movie started, and it was fun to watch it through our own personal HD eyes, the plot line its self was pretty cheesy, but it didn't really matter to us because it was more just going to the movies that we were happy about, and not sitting in Kristie's dark little house trying to not kill each other. The Twins were surprisingly good the entire time, not once did they try to kill someone, I was impressed! I think that they were probably holding their breath most of the time, but still, I don't think I could have done it at three months in this life, it was hard enough now. When we were leaving I took a credit card out of some lady's wallet so we could go shopping latter, I need some more books and more songs in my Mp3 player, and we all need more cloths. We walked the few blocks to the nearest mall and got to work, we only had a few hours before everything closed, and then we would have to brake in to the stores that we wanted stuff from. About five house latter we emerged from the mall with arms full of bags, that lady will NOT be happy when she sees that credit card bill this month. We were all in high spirits, this was the first night in a long time that we really had any fun, Kristie keep a pretty tight leash on us most of the time. I raced up to the mouth of an ally and called over my shoulder at the others, "Come on we're burning moonlight" and then I took off into the darkened ally with Sofia and the Twins flanking me. It was nice to run like this, we were so use to going slow, and staying still, it was nice to use our full strength, which we normally only used during hunting trips, and the occasional brawl with each other. We kept going down this ally, doing flips, trying to show off to one another (I have a pretty wicked back flip myself), until we reached a dead end, and that's when we saw them. They must have seen us from the start, but we didn't see them, I guess we were too busy acting like a bunch of idiots to look ten feet in front of us.

There were seven of them, three females, and four males, the magic number in the vampire world, seven continents of power, seven people in a clan, you have to be bitten seven times to become a vampire, seven objects of power( I'll get into that latter) and of course seven members in a guard. They were all wearing simple, blood red clothing, the color of the emperor, all the clans of power have a trade mark color that they, and their guard wears, and the emperor's had always been that deep, red color of fresh blood. The other tip off from where they were from was that they all had his crest tattooed on their left forearm, it was of two bats flying off in opposite directions encased with in a circle, with the individual in question's name written in latten at the bottom (all older vampires have their name there, I have no idea why). They weren't moving, just watching, their eye's never wavered from where we were frozen in place, they seemed to be calculating how long it would take to bring us to our knees, begging for mercy. The vampire that was closest to us, a tall dark haired, in his late teens then spoke to us, in a low, monotone voice, "There is no point in running from us, that will just give us all the more reason to kill you" he gave the smallest of smiles then while he pulled back the hood of the long cloke he was wearing, like the idea pleased him greatly, since I was the oldest in our group in both sense of the term, I stepped in front of Sofia and spoke, " We weren't planning on it" I said with the calmest voice I could muster," but I for one would like to know what we are being accused of that would deserve such a brutal consequence". He looked slightly taken aback, like he wasn't use to his pray talking back to him, "Well" he said with a slightly questioning tone, "For being part of, and being, a clan of young vampires" "You have no proof" I replied with a stern tone, Sofia and the Twins had been still as stone the entire time, like they were still processing that they could be chased down and decapitated at any moment by these creepy guard members, that by the way is the only way that we can be killed, decapitation. "Well actually, we do" said a small red headed girl in the back who look about are age, she was holding a large folder that she had just pulled out of a cloth bag with several papers jammed into it, which she was currently rifling through. She apparently found what she was looking for because she was pulling out one of the documents," You are, um… Leaigh, correct?" she asked a little uncertainly, even though it looked like she knew full and well that it was me "it's pronounced Lee, but its spelled Leigh" I said "well anyway" she continued," Born December, 1995 and reported missing a little over one and a half years ago at the age of fifteen" she said with a matter of fact tone, as she replaced the document. The dark haired boy that had spoke earlier then turned to us and said, "We have document like that for all of you, we have proof that you were all human at the most a couple years ago, and there forth in violation of the law". Kristie had warned us that this might be a problem, and had there forth informed us of a few loop holes in the law( which would be helpful to us, not her), "The law states" I began with my most confident lawyer voice(which is quite good if I do say so myself)," That the creator in question can take full responsibility of their actions, with no blame given to their creations, and be given a proper trial at the location of the emperor's choosing" "We know", said a tall blond girl around Peter's age who was perched on the edge of the dumpster, that was at the end of the ally, her long skirt flowing to her ankles," We arrested your creator, Kristie is it? earlier tonight, and she informed us that she would indeed be taking full responsibility for your creation. We just came to inform you of the deadline for you appear before the court" she said," You have seven days (of cores) to find and give proof that your creator was not in violation of the law and or, should not be punished" and with that they all leaped onto the roof of the warehouse that made up the west half of the ally and took off into the night.

We just stood there like that for the longest time, listening to the sound of the emperor's guard retreating into the darkness. Sofia was the one that thawed first, she wasn't that great at handling thing while they were happening, but she got over them the fastest," We need to get back to the house, that way when the boys get back we can tell them what happened, and think of a game plan after that" she told us with a matter-of-fact voice, and since the rest of us couldn't think of anything better to do, so we started on the long run home. I hadn't realized that we had wandered this far from the house, it took us about twenty minutes to get back, and by then the sky was starting to lighten up at the edges. "Leigh, what are we going to do?" Iris asked calmly as we were walking in the back door into the dimly lit kitchen, both of the twins had kept silent since the guard showed up, and it was nice to hear that they were recover a little," We're going to find Kristie, and talk her out of this mess" I replied with as much confidence I could muster. The boys weren't back yet but I could hear their rowdy footsteps about five minutes away, in the mean time we sprawled out on the couches and chairs in the living room. It felt really good to just to sit in that over stuffed arm chair, even though I wasn't physically tired, it was still really comfortable.

As I expected, the two boys showed up about five minutes later, high energy and all. It took them a little while for them to calm down enough for them to realize that something was wrong," Um….. did something happen? Where's Kristie? She is normally home before the rest of us" Peter asked, I sighed and then started to explain to Peter and Max about the guard showing up, and what they told us, and how we have seven days to track down the location where the trial is being held, and if we don't they are going to kill Kristie. By the time I was done they both had grave expressions on, but Peter's had a bit of a guilty look to it "What is it?", I demanded "Well, back when it was just us you, me, and Kristie, she gave me a letter, and told me that if this ever happened, to open it and it would have information in it that would help us find her" He replied with a stony expression, I was shocked, I had no idea to what extent that Kristie had expected, or planned for this to happen. "Well, where is it?" I demanded, Peter walked over to his back pack that he had had with him that day if school, and was now stuffed into the corner of the living room and took out a plain white envelope from the top compartment. I grabbed it out of his hand, and before he could protest, I opened it and started reading.

_Dear Clan,_

_If you are reading this that means that the emperor's guard have found us and taken me_ _into custody, and hopefully you are trying to find the wear a bouts of my trial (but I wouldn't blame you if you weren't). There is some one that can help you; an old friend of mine, her name is Lizzy, of the Australian Clan. You can find her in Sidney, she use to be part of the emperors guard, and knows everything possible about them. She can help you find them, and hopefully give you some ideas on how we can get around the law. Show her your crest, that way she knows that you really are from my clan, she is kind of weary of strangers (understandably)._

_Love you guys always,_

_Kristie _

When I finished with the letter I handed it off to the others to read and looked at are clans crest that was tattooed onto the underside of my left forearm, it is of the sun, encircled with in a triangle. I had never thought that much about it before, all clans had a mark that signified where they were from, instead of vampires having last names we have clan names and crests, like I'm Leigh of the Lone Star clan, because we are located in Texas. Most clan names have something to do with their location, but there are some that don't, it really depends on the clan leader, and what they want. When I looked up every one was staring are me, I just glared back and they eventually dropped their gazes. I looked are Peter, who was stuffing the letter back inside of its envelope, and said," You need to call the air port and get us on the next plain to Australia" he looked a little startled by the idea since the only other phone calls he had ever mad were to pizza hut, and that was back when we were human, but he eventually walked over to the phone in the kitchen and started to rummage for the phone book .I turned back to everyone else and said," Well grab what you need, we are hopefully leaving with is 24 hours.

We didn't pack much, each of us only had a back pack worth of stuff to bring anyway because we just snag cloths when we need them, and we didn't need anything else really. I only brought my journal, which was one of the few things that Kristie had let my retrieve from my house after I had "gone missing", my laptop, a photo album of pictures of my family when I was younger( another one of those few things), and a few books from my favorite author to read on the flight. Everyone else had similar things packed as well, stuff from their past life, books and mp3 players, and in the boy's case, video games. Peter had managed to get us all on the next flight to Sidney, which was scheduled to depart in about five hours from now, and since it takes at the minimum an hour to get to the airport (especially with Peter's nonexistent driving skills), and this was an international flight, we should be leaving soon. I opened the file cabinet that Kristie had all of our forged papers in and pulled out our past ports, birth certificated, and Peter's driver's license and stuffed them in the top flap of my back pack. After we made a quick search of the house to make sure that there wasn't anything important lying around, we all jammed into Kristie's enchant Toyota and headed to the airport. When we got there the plain was boarding, and we had to hurry (at human speed) to catch our flight. When we got up to the gate I handed the ticket checker guy my pass port "Kelly Miller?" he asked with a none caring voice " Yes" I replied as he waved me through, that was the name that was on my papers, Kristie didn't want to us to use our real names because our parents were for the most part still looking for us, and she said it was a good way for them to track us down, so we all just picked random first names, and took Kristie's old last name, Miller. It was a fifteen hour flight to Australia, and there weren't any layovers, so we were going to be stuck on this tight little space with all of these humans for all that time…..I'm not sure that even I will be able to hold out, and besides Peter, everyone else had less self control than me. This is going to be a really long flight isn't it?

**Chapter 3**

Despite all oddes, every one that got on the plane in Texas, got off the plane in Sydney alive, and none the wiser that they had been within spitting distance of six blood thirsty vampires the entire flight. Although when we got off, we all had about as much self control as we did the first few weeks, and were all about to murder that entire airport of people, but despite all odds we did manage to get out of there without killing a single person, I was feeling really proud of myself. When we were out of plain sight we started to run, tours the suburbs, to find some really unlucky family that would let us out of our misery ( by the way, when we're "thirsty" it feels almost like if you had not eaten in a week, that crippling hunger is pretty close to being "thirsty"). It only took us about ten minutes to get to the out edge of the city, but even that short of time was really painful, we soon found a large house that was kind of out of the way that had been split into three or four apartments, and it looked like every one was home, perfect! About an hour latter we were all immerged happily full and ready to track down the Australian clan, and the mysteries Lizzy with it. Before we could leave though we had to cover are tracks, so we soaked most surfaces inside the house with gasoline that we has siphoned from the five cars parked out front and light it aflame, by the time the fire department got here everything inside would be burned to a crisp and they would contribute it to a gas leak of something to that effect, stupid humans.

We went headed back to the main city and rented a hotel room, it would be light soon and I really didn't want to be caught out in the day light the first day we were without Kristie's guidance, man THAT would be embarrassing! After we made sure that all of the blinds were securely closed, I decided to take a quick power nap. Vampires really only need to sleep about once a month (some don't even sleep that much), but I find it peaceful to just let your mind go blank for a few hours. We are also at our most powerful after we've slept, and since I wasn't sure what to expect tomorrow, I thought that it might be a good idea to be rested up. When I woke up I checked the digital clock on the night stand, it was two in the afternoon, groaning and rubbing my eyes, I propped myself up on my arm and look around to see what the others were up to. Peter and Max were playing some game on an Xbox that was plugged in to the TV by a bunch of cables (I don't even want to know where they got it), Sofia was flipping through a magazine, and the twins were playing Twister (again, I don't want to know where they got it). So by the looks of things nothing interesting or important happened during the few hours that I was out, so I pulled my hair back with a rubber band and went to show off my mad twister skills to Iris and Melissa.

When the sun finally went down my joints ached from all the bending, but what the hay, it was fun! We checked out of the hotel, paying with that lady's credit card that we had taken from the movies (for some reason she still hadn't canceled it), and decided to split up to look for the Australian clan and or Lizzy. I waited by the hotel and watched as the others disappear over roof tops or through allies, and once every one was out of sight I leapt onto the roof of the hotel and started to run north over tops of the various hotel and weir house buildings. After I had been running for about an hour, and was about to double back, something hit me from behind, hard. I when sprawling and did a major face plant on the concrete; who ever or whatever it was, was now on my back pinning my hands together and pulling my head back by my hair. I was then pulled roughly to my feet and slammed into the wall of the air-conditioning unit, by this time I was almost in tears from fright and pain, why was this happening to me? "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" said the person holding me down as they griped my hair and hands harder, it was a girls voice, with a heavy Australian accent "Leigh" I gasped," and I…" but I was cut off, "Your full name" the voice said as my head was bashed up against the mettle siding, leaving a dent (riiggght, I keep forgetting about the haul "state your clan as part of your name" thing) "Leigh of the lone star clan, and I came here to find a Vampire by the name of Lizzy of the Australian clan" I whimpered, I dearly hoped that I wasn't going to get my head slammed up against the wall again, because believe it or not vampires can be knocked out. "I'm Lizzy, what do you want and who sent you" the voice said threateningly "I need help, and Kristie, my creator, sent me to find you" I said with a little more confidence "Prove it" Lizzy said, but with a slight less bitter tone "let me go so I can" I replied as I was realest.

I spun around and faced Lizzy for the first time, she was about my height, but looked older, most likely seventeen or eighteen when she was changed, long brown hair, and trademark pale skin. Before she could tackle me again I pulled up my left shirt sleeve to revile my clan crest and the row of seven, silvery, crescent shaped, bite marks. She examined the crest for a moment and them said," I believe that you are from my friend Kristie's clan, but why did she sent you, is she here in Australia as well?" "No, she was taken into custody two days ago for creating me and the rest of my clan; she left us a note saying that you would be able to help us find the location of the trial, and help us find a way around the law. She said that you were once part of the emperor's guard and knew everything about it, and would be able to help us" I replied. Lizzy looked sad, she must have been good friends with Kristie "Kristie over estimates my abilities, but never the less, I will try to help your clan, now summon them, I want to speak to them" she started to walk to the edge of the roof. "Wait" I called," What do you mean "summon" them?" she looked perplexed," Call them with your mind, of corse" she answer as if this was the most obvious thing in the world "Excuse me?" I answered with a blank stare. "How old are you to this life? Has Kristie taught you nothing?" "Over a year" I said," and not nothing, she taught us how to hunt, and to control our selves, I mean, what else is there?" I said indigently she shook her head sadly "Much" she said," Much, where were you going to meet them, I guess we can go and wait there until they all show up" "Um…the hotel that we stayed at today, we were going to meet( I checked my watch) in an hour" I replied "Fine, I will fallow you" she said not caringly. I didn't really want to have her behind me where I could get jumped again, but I also didn't want to anger her, so I turned the way that I had come and sett of at a sprint back towards the hotel, and my unsuspecting clan.

It took us more time than I thought, and by the time we got there every one else was waiting, and looking agitated for making them wait for me. When they saw me Peter started to say something like," Let's go inside be for we get chased out of town by a mob with pitch forks for being caught out in the sun light", but then they realized that I wasn't alone. They all looked stunned and slightly frightened, Max looked like he was about to bolt, so before any of them could a.)attack, which was what Peter looked like he was going to do(bad idea) or b.) run for their lives, which looked like what the rest of them were going to do (my preferred chose if I was in their position) I said," Wait, it's ok, this is Lizzy!" they still looked on their guard, but they relaxed a little "Great! So…what now?" Iris asked, always the opomistake one "uh….." I replied lamely, I didn't know, I hadn't gotten that far, but thank fully, Lizzy saved me "I will take you all back to my clan's home base, and then I will tell you what I know". No one else could think of a better plan, that, or they were just too scared to speak up, so with Lizzy leading the way, we headed to the location of the rest of the Australian clan.

It took us almost the rest of the night to get there, and when we did, the best way to describe it is, a summer camp. It had log cabins spread around; a flag pole in the middle, and it even had a sign over the entrance that said Camp V. There were many vampires milling about, some were just milling around, but others were in what seemed like classed doing a wide range of things from what looked like combat training, to what seemed to be a cooking class…..Ya, I don't know. When we walked through the grounds few people even bothered to look at us, most didn't even looked curious, like a group of strange vampires showing up at their home was perfectly normal, maybe it was. When we were about half way across the "camp" I asked," What is this place, and who are all of these people?" "This is the Australian vampire academe, this is where we train our young vampires, this is also the permanent location of my clan, which is the clan of power here in Australia, did Kristie fail to mention that I am its leader?" she responded casually. "But you can't have young vampires, it's illegal! That's why Kristie was arrested!" I exclaimed, I couldn't believe that the entire ruling clan here in Australia is braking one of the most highly enforced laws "Well before you start pointing fingers you might take into account that you are breaking the law just by existing, and by law I should kill you now" she said," but to answer your question, that law is really only enforced with the common vampire. Being part of a ruling clan has its… privileges, and one of them is you don't really have to follow most laws, so we set up this academy so that our new vampires, and a few of those that were created by others could learn our ways and be ready to protect Australia if another clan decides to attack us, which happens from time to time. Most vampires stay here for about five years and then either continue to stay as part of our guard, or return to the clan that created them, a few set out on their own as well".

By this time we had reached a large log cabin that had a large number 23 on its door," You will wait here until we call for you, then you can tell me more about who you are and what happened" Lizzy said as she turned and started to walk back toured the center of camp. After she had diapered inside of a brick building on the other side of the grounds, we formulated that there was no immediate danger, and that we might as well do what she said. I wasn't really sure what to expect inside of the cabin, but what we found want it. It was completely furnished with a bunch of swishy arm chairs and sofas, thick white carpet, and a plasma T.V. that took up most of one wall, there was also a few folding cots leaning up agents the wall closest to us (well I guess that's all that's needed considering the little sleep we need), there was also a large bay window that looked out to a pasture with a large herd of horses grazing in it. It looked like the interior of a really sweet game room, not the interior of a cabin in the middle of god knows where, Australia. It took me a minute to realize that we weren't the only ones in the room, there was a girl, about fifteen or sixteen, with shoulder length, strawberry blond hair sitting in a armchair by the expansive bookcase on the far wall, she hadn't looked up when we came in, or moved at all now that I think about it, that it most likely why I hadn't see before now. Everyone else was slowly getting over the initial surprise of seeing the interior of the cabin, and started to look at the stranger sitting in the corner, after everyone was looking at her I decided to break the silence," um…..hello?" I said as I waved my hand once at her, Kristie taught us not to trust other vampires, and I wasn't about to start with this one. She looked up from the thick book she was reading, from here it looked like it was written in latten, "O...hi" she said with a slight Irish accent, "Sorry, I wanted to finish this chapter, I'm Katie" she said as she stuck out her hand, but after no one stepped forward to shake it, she let it drop" So…. Who are you? Where are you guys from?" she asked uneasily, thankfully Sofia stepped forward so I didn't have to," I'm Sofia, this is my brother max, that is Peter and his sister Leigh, and the twins are Iris and Melisa" she said as she pointed to us each in turn" and we are from the Lone Star clan in Texas" Katie looked a little shocked "You mean that you are actually related to one another?" she asked with a surprised voice," and you are ALL from the same clan?" "Um…ya" I said," Why?" "Well, normally when a clan sends a their new creation to this camp to be trained there in only one, maybe two, but never are they related, Izzy said that it is extremely rare for siblings to be changed together, something about there being vampire vemem in a pair of close family members causes them both to die" she replied " Well, we're not here to learn anything, and we weren't sent here either. We came to get help from Lizzy because our clan leader was taken by the emperors guard, and who is this "Izzy" anyway" I said, I was getting board with this conversation " Izzy is Lizzy's younger sister, they are the only other siblings I know of , Izzy is also the main instructor here at camp V" she said," and how can you not be in a student here, I thought that all newly created vampire had to go learn our ways in a place like this?" she replied with a slightly shocked voice. "Well we weren't aware of that, and that is precisely the reason that our leader has been taken into custody, and how did you know that we were young vampires?" I replied, it was getting irritating having to explain our situation over and over again and how could she tell? There were no differences between young vampires and older ones" Your mark, your name hasn't been added yet" she said nonchalantly. "What do you mean added?" I asked, today was just getting weirder and weirder "Don't you know? When you graduate from here, or another institute like this one, they add your name at the bottom of you crest in Latin, that's how the emperor can tell who has been properly trained and who has to be…dealt with" she said with a surprised voice, like this was the most common knowledge in the world. "Oh…, well you don't even have a mark!" I replied lamely " since I will be sent back to my clan, they can't mark me with the Australian mark, and my clan doesn't want to take responsibility for me until I have been trained" I turned my back on her then, done making myself look like a idiot for not knowing anything, and went and plunked myself down into one of the sofas, the others followed suit. Peter soon found the T.V. remote and started to skim through the channels, and I just sat there and looked out the window at the horse pasture thinking about all the thing that Kristie had keep from us, but after about five minutes of just watching the horses romping and running around I got curious, "Um, Katie? Why are all of those horses out there?" I asked "Well that's how we get around; it's uncommon for a vampire to use cars, trains, or other modern transportation. When you graduate from this school you get assigned a horse, you then add some of your blood to the horse's, and this…bonds them to you. The horse will now live as long as you do, but if you die, so will it, but if it dies you will live. It can also run faster than you can, that is why they are such good transportation for us. It is part of our training to learn how to ride, but we don't actually get to go into the pasture until we are ready to get our own horse" she replied with slightly interested tone, I could tell that she was looking forward to when she got her own horse, and could get out of here. I had ridden most of my life before I was changed, and I was looking forward to getting to do so again, and it was an intriguing thought to have a horse that lives forever, but I was soon startled out of my thoughts by a knock at the door. I decided to let Katie get it since this was her home not mine, when she opened the door there was a boy standing there that looked like he was about 12 with short brown hair, he was wearing jeans and a sandy yellow colored T-shirt with the words "Camp V" written in blocky black letters on it, I guess this was the standard uniform for the people that attended classes here. "I'm here to collect the six members of the lone star clan, they are needed in the front office" he said with a calm voice.

**Chapter 4**

When we stood up, the look of shock on his face almost made me laugh, well I guess we were a little worse for wear compared to everyone we've seen here in their neat, spotless uniforms. My jeans had a big tear on the pain lag, my shirt was covered in dirt, and I had mud and blood clumped in my hair, everyone else wasn't a whole lot better "You can't go see the counsel looking like that, they said that you don't have to be in the office for half an hour, so you time to get you cleaned up, which I highly recommend if you want them to take you seriously, follow me, but quickly!" he said as he walked quickly out the door. We followed him down the row of cabins until we reached a large concrete building "There are showers inside, I will leave new cloths inside for you" the boy said as we were pushed inside of the room. The shower was warm and the shampoo got the grime out quick, when I was done I stepped out into my own private changing aria where there was a pair of jeans and a yellow Camp V shirt, my old stuff was gone, except for my back pack, which hadn't left my sight since we had departed from the Texas airport. When I had dressed and decided I didn't look like a complete idiot, I went t back into the main room where I found the rest of my clan in the same uniform as me; I guess we were ready to meet the rest of Lizzy's clan. When we went outside the same boy that had collected us from Katie's cabin was waiting for us "Are you ready then?" he asked, we nodded and without further ado started to lead us to the building that Lizzy had diapered in earlier that night.

The room that we were led into looked like a doctor's office waiting room; commercial carpeting, plastic folding chairs, reception desk, and to top it off there were a bunch of out of date magazines haphazardly piled on an end table "You will wait here until The Clan is ready for you" the boy said as he closed the door behind himself. With the sound of the door clicking shut, I walked over to one of the chairs and plopped myself down on the cheap folding chair, and as I looked around it became more apparent to me that this was unusual for vampires. With the little experience in this world that I've had, this was by far the most organized I have ever seen vampires live. In my entire existence as a vampire, my clan had lived in abandoned houses, had stolen all of our cloths, and most of us had gone weeks without taking a shower…..what was with these people?

While I was still pondering all of this, Lizzy had walked into the room and said," We would like to speak to you guys now, flow me". I stood and follows Lizzy and the others into a conference room, large oval table, projector board, the hole shot. There were seven vampires sitting at the table (Lizzy had already taken her seat at the head of the table), all of them were wearing their traditional clan colors, and all of them were staring at us curiously. The boy closest to us motioned for us to sit down, and as we were taking our seats, the girl that sat to the left of Lizzy, and also looked remarkably like her, spoke," Hello everyone, I'm Izzy, the Australian clan's second in command" she said cheerfully "My sister Lizzy has informed me that after she…er, caught up to you, that you informed her that you are from our old friend Kristie's clan, and that she has been taken into custody by the emperor for creating the six of you, right?" "ya…" I said uncertainly "You are Lee, right, the one Lizzy spoke too?" she asked, still smiling "Um..ya, I'm Leigh, but its spelled L-E-I-G-H" I replied, a little confused "are you the oldest" she asked "well yes, my brother Peter and I" I replied motioning to Peter with my index finger, who was sitting to my right "Your biological brother? You mean that she changed both of you at the same time?" she asked with a slightly surprised voice. "Well, yes….she did that to all of us" I said," this is Sofia and her brother Max, they are the second oldest, and the Twins are Melissa and Iris, they are the youngest" I said pointing to everyone in turn. They just stared at us for a while, and right when it started to get uncomfortable, Lizzy spoke," How about you tell us what happened since you've lived with Kristie, so we know what we are up agents when we attempt to track down the emperor and his guard" I decided to start from the very beginning.

"The first time I saw Kristie was a little less than two years ago at my school in California. I was in my Spanish class when I got a call slip to come to the front office immediately, and on my way there something hit me in the back of the head. Right before I passed out I saw her standing over me with her arm raised, as if she was about to strike me again if I as so much as gowned, and then the world turned black. I think that she must have drugged me or something because I was kind of in a fog, not really awake, but not really asleep either, for the three day drive to Texas. The only thing that I can really remember about it was that I was in the back of a van tied up, and next to Peter in a similar state. After that the next thing I remember is waking up in a small, dark damp basement with a dirt floor with a fresh row of bite marks on my left arm along with a freshly branded crest. We were left there while the change took place; I remember very little about that time period, as I was in a semi delirious state, so what little I do recall I'm not sure is even real….

"Well anyway, once the chance was complete, Peter and I, to say the least, were thirsty. Since there was nothing there for us to quench our thirst on in that dark little pit of hell that we were locked in, we turned upon our each other with all the rage of half crazed animals, which by the way, was pretty much what we were. I think that Kristie must have herded our nock our drag out brawling, because after a few house a couple of unconscious people were pushed through the door, they were finished within seconds. This ritual continued for a few weeks; every few days we would get food tossed trough the door, and we would finish whatever pitiful amount it was quickly ,with quite a bit of fighting involved as well. Besides that though we were left to our own devises, which caused quite a bit of damage to both of us. By the time Kristie finally made an experience, I had a broken arm and a dislocated knee cap, and peter had a cracked cranium.

"When she did take us out, she pulled us out one at a time, when were lest expecting it. Once we has cleared the steel, reinforced door we tried to fight our way to freedom, but she seemed to expect our every move, and quickly has us subdued, and pined to the floor. At this point she told us what we had become, and how we could never go back to our old life, and were stuck being part of her clan forever, and she proved it by pointing out the clan crest now tattooed in black ink on my arm. She then took us out one at a time every other day hunting, and eventually took us together. We were no longer thirsty, and there forth has fewer chances to fight, so didn't have as many injuries. We were just getting to the point where we could go hunting on our own when Kristie show up with Sofia and Max, and then a few months later the Twins, they were treated in the same way that we were.

When I finished Lizzy said," Well it is obvious that you have had little to no training, and Kristie, in some ways, abused you." She said as she consulted her watch," and you only have a little more than three days to, somehow, convince the guard that you are somehow not breaking the law by existing. Please go and wait back in the reception aria, I think that we have some decisions to make about what to do with you." She then promptly turned and stated to talk to Izzy in a low voice so that I couldn't hear anything, so without many other options, we let ourselves out, preparing for the longest wait of our lives.

**Chapter 5**

We had been waiting for at least three hours, and it had to have been close to noon by the time one of the clan members, a older blond boy, lend out of the door and said," we are ready for you, could you please step back inside" We fallowed quickly, and when we got back in the room, though everything looked the same, but the mood had shifted, before everyone seemed to be at ease, but now everyone in the room was on edge. This time the blond boy that had come to get us spoke," Hello, I would like to tell you that we have decide to help you get Kristie back, and to prepare you to confront the emperor's guard. But before we begin you training I would like to tell you about the Kristie that we know, so that you can be prepared for some of the, ir….reasons that they might have to still put her to death." He at that point took his seat next to Izzy, and we retreated back to our side of the table. "My name is Mark, and in many ways Kristie and I were like siblings, we were created by the same person in the same year, and lived as a family for many years, and we were the original Lone Star Clan." He then flipped his arm over so that we could see the inside of his arm, which instead of revealing one crest, it had two branded into its flesh. The first was one identical to ours, with the exception to that his name had already been added to his, and the second belonged to the Australian clan, which was of an unfamiliar animal inside if a diamond. "Kristie then started to get restless and decided that she wanted to travel, that is when she meet the Australian clan, and lived with them for a few years. She then continued on her travels, and this it when we aren't really sure what happened to her, she just sort of vanished off the face of the earth, but somewhere in this time frame she started to challenge the law, she had ideas about having a entire clan made up of siblings, you might have heard that most of the time when sibling s are changed together, they both end up dead, but if you can get them to live, they are more powerful than other vampires, because they have a ability to in a matter of speaking, share their power, tag team if you will, to the point where you would be feeding off each other's power, and abilities. It's not against the law to have siblings and members of a clan, there is just the unspoken rule that if you can get them to live, then you can keep them, but an entire clan of siblings, if trained properly, would be no match for any other. This is another reason why the emperor has taken Kristie, so they can dispose of you before you are every trained.

"I am guessing that she when through many prospective clan member before she found ones that could withstand the change, and I am surprised that she was able to find all of you within a year. Now that you know what situation that you are in I will tell you what our plan is. First, you will spend the rest of today learning how to use certain abilities that all Vampires your age should be able to perform, and we can see if you can try to pick up any of you tag teaming abilities, second you will spend tomorrow getting your name added to you marks, and if you survive, you will then have your horses assigned, we will spend the last day before Kristie's trial traveling to where we believe it will be healed." I sat there in silence for a minute, and then said," What do you mean "survive" having your named added?" I asked, this time Lizzy answered," There is a reason why the emperor thinks that only trained vampires have their named added, if you don't have enough knowledge, and experience the ink won't take, and you will die, and normally we would now risk it, and if you don't won't to, then you are free to let Kristie meet her fate, and stay here to finish training, but if you work hard the rest of the day, and you already have plenty of experience, there is around a 50% chance that you will shrive, anything else? She added as if she had just said 99% instead of 50%. We just sat there stunned, and apparently they took that as an affirmative because Mark then said," Well let's get started then."

I then found myself a few hours later sitting in a room trying to push my mental speech into Sofia's head, and her likewise. We all had been paired up, and we attempting to meddle ourselves into the other persons minds, which wasn't turning out so well. Once and a while I would get whisper of a few words from her, nothing of any meaning, just things like; "can you…" and "why do I…" Izzy, who was supervising us would keep saying things like," You need to have this down in the next hour" and "Kristie is counting on you, try harder!" Ya, thanks, no pressure. We soon ran out of time, and the most any of us were able to do was pus a few sentences into the other persons mind.


End file.
