Screams were coming from somewhere in the house as we left the basement and, weapons in hand we went towards the kitchen.

The door swung open and several startled members of staff looked our way, fear plain on their faces at they spied our weapons.

“Get out!” Daz shouted at one young woman who looked barely older than me. She fled and the others went with her, out the way we had come. He turned back to us and grinned a manic grin before rushing towards the door set into the opposite wall.

Lightning flashed and ash rained down around us in the foyer. Burnt bones tumbled down the stairs that led to the second floor and Jonah rushed past them without even bothering to look at them as electricity crackled over his fingers and a charge filled the air.

An elegantly dressed woman in a beautiful gown ran as best she could on tall heels towards us. Her eyes widened and mouth formed an ‘O’ of surprise as she threw her arms in the air and fire spread through her body from the silver headed bolt that had entered the centre of her back. Battle was joined.

A snarling vampire leapt at me and I fell back, barely avoiding the inch long nails that extended from the ends of his fingers. He swiped at me again as I pushed myself backward across the pale marble floor, knives forgotten in my hands.

Roaring flame engulfed him and Daz cackled as he watched the fire billowing from his outthrust hand. As the ash fell I caught a glimpse of the large reception room and the fighting that was going on in there.

Patrik picked up a woman by the scruff of her neck and flung her bodily into the wall. She hit it with a sickening thud and crashed to the floor but rebounded to her feet in an instant and leapt at him.

Jo traded blows with a dark skinned man in a blood-stained white shirt. He had a long knife in his hand that he wielded like a sword. She used her agility and strength to good effect, dodging and deflecting his blows before striking back with her own.

As I pushed myself to my feet, I caught sight of the bodies on the floor. Sightless eyes staring at me, faces fixed in grimaces of fear. Either staff or victims, they had died and judging by the bolt sticking out of the chest of one, it wasn’t the vampires that had killed them.

My friends, if that is what they were, didn’t seem to care about collateral damage and I scanned the faces of the dead, hoping that I wouldn’t see that elfin visage that I knew so well. With a gasp of relief, I couldn’t find her and so headed for the stairs.

I was done with the fighting. With the slaughter. It wasn’t for me, that indiscriminate killing. I just wanted to get my friend and get the hell out of there. I took the stairs two at a time, breath coming in gasps as I pressed one hand to my stomach. The more energy I used, the more it hurt and I wondered if it would ever stop.

The top floor was carpeted in cream that was discoloured by several patches of ash and scorch marks that matched those along the walls. I guessed they’d been made by Jonah and I swore softly as I glanced through open doors as I passed.

More scattered bones and ash and then in one, a girl. Young, maybe nineteen with big round eyes widened in fear. Her clothes were on the floor and she crouched beside the bed, gaze fixed on the bones there.

“It’s okay,” I said to her quietly as I stepped into the room. I picked up her dress and held it out to her as she flinched away. “They won’t hurt you anymore.”

“He killed him!” she cried and I glanced at the bed, at the bones there.

“To save you…”

“From what! He’d never hurt me.”

My gaze fell to the marks on her arm, the old and new scars made by teeth and she snatched the dress from my hand.

“It was my choice,” she said defiantly. “He looked after me and you bastards killed him!”

“I’m sorry,” I said as I backed away.

It was all wrong. She should have been grateful to be saved and not angry. Jonah said the girls had been taken in by force and they’d clearly captured Evie so they were monsters. I kept telling myself that as I moved towards the next room but doubt was beginning to set in.

Jonah practically flew through the open doorway to my right and crashed into the wall as I approached. He slid down to the carpet, hand gripping the knife that was stuck in his stomach, fingers slick with blood as he tried to pull it free.

“Help!” he called as he saw me. I reached out to grab him but stopped. She was there, in the room. Evie. And beyond her, Anahella, with blood around her mouth and running down her chin.

I gripped my knives tightly as I ran into the room, barely seeing the stacked canvases of half-finished paintings, the easels and paints. I just saw my friend, naked and still, lying on the floor.

“What have you done?” I demanded as Anahella grinned at me. There was blood around Evie’s mouth and from a bite mark on her inner thigh.

“Given her a gift,” the vampire replied and raised one hand to me as I surged forward. “Ah ha, hold young Shadowborn.”

“I’ll kill you,” I said and hoped that I’d have the strength to do so.

“Hold.” Was her simple reply and I stopped as though I’d hit a brick wall. Her eyes met mine and her smile widened as she saw that I was completely within her power. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t move.

“Why?” I asked as I shifted my gaze to my friend, lying there so pale and still.

“You ask why?” Anahella said as anger filled her voice. “You dare to ask that after invading my home. Killing my family!”

“Family?”

“Yes! My children one and all. I made each and every one of them and they’re dying. I can feel every death! And for what reason?”

“Because you’re the monsters!” I said.

“We killed no humans,” she retorted. “We took no more blood than was needed, that was given freely.”

“But the club…”

“Where you attacked us!”

She reached for a towel that had been draped over the back of a chair and wiped at her face. Clearing away as much of the blood as she could before she let the towel fall to the floor and stood tall, staring down her nose at me.

“Your kind come,” she said. “They kill my children and disrupt our lives. We just want to live in peace.”

“No,” I said as I futilely tried to shake my head in denial. “You made me do things at the club.”

“Pah!” she spat. “I only removed your inhibitions. You did nothing you didn’t want to do.”

“You took my friend.”

“I captured one of the group that had attacked me,” she replied as she smoothed down the front of her midnight black evening gown.

“You bit her,” I said though I didn’t want to believe it. “You’ve turned her into one of you.”

“A fitting fate for your vile kind.”

She shook out her hair and once again, brushed off the front of her gown as though trying to make herself presentable. To face her end with dignity, even grace. Her eyes met mine once more and whatever power she held over me was gone.

“You’ve murdered all those I loved, finish your evil task,” she said with such quiet dignity that I sagged.

“But you’re the bad guy,” I said and wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. “One of your kind killed my parents. You turned my friend… you’re monsters!”

“Foolish little girl,” Anahella said so softly I could barely hear her. “Do you really think the world is so simple?”

She shook her head and a faint smile curved the corners of her mouth. “Good and evil… it’s all just a matter of perception. We feed on humans and grow our families and you hunt us for it. Our only crime was to exist and you dare to call us evil as you slaughter my family.”

I looked up and met her gaze as she said that and her smile widened.

“Your friends lied to you,” she said as I strode towards her. “Bitter little humans fuelled by hatred. They had no reason to hunt us other than because they could. Do you really think they care about saving people?”

“Maybe not,” I replied as I wiped away the tears. My whole world had just collapsed around me. Everything I thought I was doing was a lie and I was at fault. “But you turned my friend into one of you.”

My blade slid between her ribs as easily as a hot knife through butter. Her eyes widened just slightly as an exhalation of breath left her mouth and the fire raged beneath her skin. Ash fell to the ground and I let my arm drop.

The dagger I’d used to kill her had been the one with the bat headed pommel and that seemed oddly appropriate for some reason.

“Dammit!” Jo shouted as she stormed into the room. “That was my kill.”

“You lied to me,” I said without looking at her as I knelt down beside my friend.

“What’re you talking about?”

“We’re the monsters.” I slid the blades back into the sheaths behind my back then lifted Evie into my embrace. Her skin was cold to the touch and her breath, so shallow as to be almost non-existent.

“Lena?” Patrik said and I looked up to him as he peered down at me, a fresh cut on his cheek. “Your friend is hurt?”

“Bitten,” I said.

“Turned,” Jo almost snarled as her face twisted in disgust. “Kill her now and be done with it.”

“No,” I said and looked directly into her eyes. There was no kindness there, no compassion for me, for my friend. Nothing but hatred and I wondered how I’d missed it before.

“Then I’ll do it,” she replied and I shrugged. All fight had gone from me and I knew that without Evie, without that one person who had shown me any sort of read friendship since my parents had been killed, I had no reason to live anyway.

“Nei,” Patrik said. “Jo, don’t do this.”

“One less vamp to kill later,” she replied as she readied her knife.

“You’ll need to kill me too,” I told her. Why not? I had nothing left. Everything had been taken from me. First my parents and now my friend. The only person I loved in the messed up, cruel joke of a world.

“Fine,” she said as she stalked forward.

No, something inside of me said. A refusal to back down, to give up on my friend, to give up on us! I’d been lied to, betrayed and used. Anger filled me. No, rage did. Beyond anything I’d felt before, a storm of righteous fury that demanded an answer.

The shadows in the room lengthened as the lights flickered and dimmed. A smile formed on Jo’s face as she laughed out loud.

“Don’t be a fool!” she said. “Use your power and you’ll kill yourself.”

“I don’t care. You’re not having her!”

She was right though. I could feel it in my gut, in the way that my arms trembled as I held her. Everything I’d had I’d used earlier, to shadow walk with Barry. A storm raged inside of me but no shadows covered my skin, no power came at my call… but something did.

An old darkness that I’d borne for thirteen years. Caught in a cage of scarred flesh, it wanted, no demanded, to be used. An ocean of oily black power that seemed to stain my soul just by looking at it.

As Jo raised her knife towards me, I reached for that power and the world went black.