“Are you sure about this?” a woman pensively asked her partner who was squatting down in the shadows with his long, black trench coat pooling all about and he looked out over the landscape searching with his black eyes for signs of trouble. Her small voice quivered as she spoke and her hand which clutched a wooden stake badly tottered.
“It’s not up to us to chose what missions we go on, just to make sure we succeed Kieran,” Demetri replied as he turned his dark gaze to look the pale woman in the face. She was young, too young for this latest endeavor of their Queen but they were running out of time and for that matter, vampires as well.  
Her black eyes sparkled under the full moon that loomed above, casting its silvery gaze all over the broken city of fallen steel and splintered glass, the graveyard of a once magnificent metropolis with spires that practically pierced the sky and marble sculptures so refined they looked as if they would come to life and walk the white, cobblestone streets. Their vanity now lay in pieces as if to mock the once great vampires of Asimen by constantly picking the scab of their wounds and never letting them heal.
The man stood from his squatting position and drug the tentative female up. Her blood red lips quivered from Demetri’s abrasive action but that did not matter to him. The male reached out and touched her soft skin while holding her chin and turning her porcelain face all about, grinning as if he were hungry.
“Tell me Kieran, why did you wish to become a Stalker?” he asked while pulling the woman closer so that he could smell the salt of her skin. This obviously pleased the male vampire as he let his tongue snake out of his mouth and lick his partner gently causing him to shudder from the ambrosial taste of such an innocent life, not yet scarred with tragedy. She was their youngest vampire. “You are obviously not experienced enough to handle the danger.”
Rather then be upset the woman smiled, revealing perfectly white teeth, two of which came down further then the others and were much sharper then all the rest. She placed her hands on his face while he liberally embraced her neck. “Perhaps,” she said as she moaned from the sensual and unexpected moment. “Perhaps I was hoping to become the great Demetri’s next lover. You have suffered her death for centuries, without another’s flesh to keep you warm. You must be lonely. It’s not natural for a vampire to be so celibate.”
The light of the moon reflected off his sharp canines as he bore them in a terrible grimace, disappointed at his desire for intimacy and he squeezed her neck from the comment causing her to sputter and cough. Hastily he pushed the female back against the stone wall and watched as she hissed her disapproval and rubbed her red neck.
“You are nothing compared to my Felicity,” he replied. “And you are ill suited for this job. If you live I will let our Queen know of your inadequacies. I’d rather work alone than be stuck with a love struck neophyte.”
“When are you going to realize you’re not human? You need a vampire lover to remind you how good flesh can feel.”
“All I need is for you-” but Demetri could not finish his request. A scurrying noise disturbed his lecture and the man turned his now shiny silver eyes upwards just in time to see some debris fall from the roof top of the shadow they hid within.
Kieran no longer fought the man, instead her own eyes began to shine the same sleek silver color but hers did not hold the same determination that was within his own. She was afraid of dying, a sentiment the male did not share.
Cautiously, Demetri removed a wooden sword from his back while his eyes stared intently on the spot the dust must have fallen from. Though it was made from simple wood, his sword was sharp and so thick it didn’t look as if he could be wielded by a normal man but there were no more of those, just vampires and the damned that ruined the city.
“Demetri, is it them?” Kieran cried. “Is it them?” She was frantic but what did he expect from a novice. Even with a full moon, he expected to run into the fallen ones.
“Be quiet,” he hissed. “No matter what we must get into that building. We must get into the lab. This is our last hope.”
“But it’s them. I know it is. They’ll kill us before we have the chance. We’re all doomed. It doesn’t matter what’s in that building. It’ll never help us.”
“Shut up,” the male hissed and he flashed a warning to his partner which told of her death if she could not remain at least quiet.
The two stood for a moment as everything around them was enveloped in silence. Not even the wind whispered to them on this evening. For all tense and purposes the night was dead, not a good omen for them.
A terrible clicking was heard from above, like the sound of a tongue rhythmically smacking about a mouth. At first it was a lone sound, almost commonplace but soon it was joined with others and before either vampire could react dozens of creatures fell from the roof, wildly screaming and landing mere feet from the two who brandished their weapons and ran to the center of the alley where the moon’s light could touch them.
“Just remain calm,” Demetri told Kieran. “The fallen can smell fear but even the light of the moon can hurt them.”
Kieran looked on with a turned up nose at hideous creatures, completely naked of both hair and clothes except for the odd one or two who still had some shred of material on their body and if they did it was tattered and filthy. Their long fingers were tipped with razor like claws and they constantly flicked them back and forth to hear the music they made when tapped together. Their eyes were pure white and they stood in the shadows trying to keep themselves from the bright moon that hung above. One by one they sniffed the air, clucking some message with their tongues and hunting for their next meal until finally the vampires were found. One of the damned looked right at Kieran, who stood with her back to Demetri and it smiled with a mouth full of pointed teeth.
Without hesitation the scrawny creature lunged out at the woman with such remarkable speed that Kieran barely had time to react. She managed to get her stake up and the deformed beast impaled itself on her weapon but it knocked her to the ground as it fell. Despite the wound it snarled contemptuously at her while she struggled to keep the beast from her. The creature was heavily drooling and flicked its tongue in an unnatural way, with quick repetitious motions as it tried to get to her neck.
Demetri turned to his partner, kicked the creature from her, stepped on its back and thrust his sword into its neck, severing the spinal cord, killing it. The angry vampire grabbed his partner as more of the damned risked the light of the moon for a snack and they ran pell-mell for the old science office of Professor Nosefentu.
Once through the door, Demetri pulled out a torch, flicked open a lighter and lit the material which seemed to burn unnaturally fast and bright but the flames caused all the creatures to squeal in agony and back away.
“How many of those do you have?” Kieran asked with a heaving chest as she gasped for a breath of air.
“This is it,” he said with a steely and knowing voice and they both gazed the creatures who moved back far enough to be out of the way of the light but still waited for their meal. “I was hoping to use it as our escape.”
“What do we do now?” the female asked with more then a hint of trepidation in her voice.
“This,” and the man bent down and began setting random debris on fire. “Professor Nosefentu’s lab is on the twentieth floor. Let’s find what we need and get the hell out of here.”
“How?” she asked and obediently followed the man as he ran up the side of the walls, all but ignoring gravity in the common sense. There were no stairs in this building; it was designed only for vampires.
“The next building is close. We’ll jump for it from the roof but we only have minutes before the fire takes the whole building. Hopefully the creatures will consider us dead and we can run for base.”
The two came upon the open doors to the main laboratory and walked in. All manner of device was strewn about, waiting dormant for some scientist to find use for it. Microscopes, test tubes, needles, wires, containers labeled with poison warnings, broken lamps and cameras, steel doors that were once cold storage units, all lay about, broken or unused. In the center of the room were giant tubular vats made of glass and full of a hazy liquid. Hundreds of them going up and down the length of the corridor, all full of murky water so dense it made it difficult to see through.
Kieran walked up to one of the large tubes while Demetri began hunting through mounds of paper. The vampire began running her fingers along the cool glass and trying to see what made the water so filthy while her partner worked.
“What was Professor Nosefentu’s field of study?” Kieran asked while stepping over the dusty remains of her brethren who died from the virus hundreds of years ago and continuing down the corridor, just looking at all the odd containment units. One of them housed a small child whose body was badly decayed from the liquid. Now the female knew why the water was so murky, it had flesh stored in it but when the electricity failed from lack of attention the people inside obviously died.  
“Nosefentu was the lead researcher on cloning human blood in an attempt to end the spread of the virus. He thought that if he could mass produce blood we could eradicate all the humans before their tainted blood infected the rest of the vampire race,” the male answered while siphoning through stacks of papers.
“Really,” she responded but screamed loudly when she turned back around and sharply pushed herself onto a table to escape what she saw, knocking all the medical equipment to the ground as her shrill voice echoed loudly down the halls.  
“Kieran, what the hell are you-” Demetri looked over at the woman and froze, dropping all the papers he had found. The fire flickered in the background and he knew they would need to leave soon but the vampire could not move. What he saw amazed him.
In one of the vats was clear, bubbling water full of light. It was hooked up to a small battery that apparently ran on sunlight. The ceiling had a hole punched through it so that the light could bathe the battery each day and within the containment unit were two girls, holding onto one another. They were beautiful, one obviously old then the other but virtually the same. Long flowing red hair reached to the top of the unit like flickering flames, while slender fingers grasped a hold of one another and a slight smile with pout coral lips seemed to be their only adornment.
“What are they?” Kieran asked.
“Humans,” Demetri replied and he ran his fingers across the glass and studied the fascinating creatures with a huge smile across his face.  
“Impossible,” she hissed. The floor began to splinter just a few levels below them and the whole place began to cave in from the inferno that blazed on.
“Quick, help me,” Demetri demanded.
The two vampires frantically fumbled about but had no idea what they looked for, so instead Demetri picked up a chair and began thrashing it against the glass. Kieran too grabbed a blunt instrument and the two worked to free the bound women. Finally the grass cracked and with one more blow it shattered into millions of pieces and the two bound women came flooding out.
Demetri and Kieran barely caught the two before they were washed down into the flames below. “Quick,” Demetri demanded. “Outside.”
The two ran from the squelching flames and leaped desperately onto the next roof top, dropping their cargo and rolling to a stop. “Are you alright?” Demetri inquired.
“I’ll live,” Kieran answered. “But I think your right. I’m not cut out for this.”
“Get back!” the taller red haired woman cried as the younger one hung onto a small necklace and stood behind the woman. Both bled from small cuts all over there body after being broken out of a glass tube. “Get back or I’ll…”
“You’ll what,” Kieran sneered and the woman hissed loudly revealing her sharp teeth. The natural born hunter within had been awoken from the presence of human flesh.
“Stop it Kieran. We need them,” Demetri firmly stated and the woman looked over slowly with her eyes furrowed together and her lips curled into a sinister and angry expression.
“We only need one of them. We could share one, taste real flesh again,” she coerced the man, her black eyes turning silver from the raw emotion that now pumped through her body. “We haven’t had fresh meat in hundreds of years.
“I won’t let you do this,” the man flashed his own angry silver eyes and bore his feral teeth to warn the woman.
“Then die!” she screamed the female vampire lunged at the man with another stake she had removed from her back. Now that she smelt fresh blood she had no fear, only hunger and the frenzied vampire attacked her partner with an unabashed passion that all vampires suffered from.
Kieran thrust her stake into his chest deeply, leaving a fist sized hole but then leaped off of him and ran towards the humans content that his wound would bleed him. “Now tell me again, what were you going to do, you little cows?” she taunted the two who had fallen and began weeping loudly. “I know, you are going to be-” the tip of Demetri’s sword burst through the woman’s heart and she shrilly screamed yet again, but this time it was pain and the two human’s watched as she began to shrink from all the loss of blood until her once full cheeks were hollow and her eyes bulged out of her face.
“I’m sorry,” Demetri said and he fell to the ground, heaving with exhaustion.
“Nissa, help him,” the young girl said and the elder of the two ran to the fallen vampire.
“Samara, he’s badly wounded.” She took a piece of glass that was impaled in her flesh, removed it and began forcing the blood out. “Here, open your mouth,” she told Demetri.
“No you mustn’t,” he said. “I’ve not tasted human blood in hundreds of years. I will lose control and you will both be in trouble.” The vampire smiled, his silver eyes had gone back to the soft black hues he was born with and the sympathetic human ran her fingers through his long black hair to console him.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked as tears began to slip from her eyes.
“Your voice reminds me of someone I knew a long time ago. A human I loved,” he admitted through labored breaths. “It is the voice of angels.”
“Funny how creatures who feed on humans can speak of angels,” the smaller child responded.
“Samara, don’t be rude. Professor was working to change that.” The vampire reached up and touched the soft red hair that was still wet and she turned back to him and smiled with deep green eyes full of understanding. “That was such a long time ago, when vampires and humans warred. And look what we did in our attempt to kill off their race. We injected ourselves with a virus that created worse monsters. Professor was right, the war had to end.”
“What happened to him?” Demetri asked and the small child moved and knelt down next to the man.
“He’s very handsome,” the child said with a smirk and her old sister blushed but nodded.
“Yes, just like the Professor,” Nissa replied with a kind smile that touched the vampires cold heart. “The professor was madly in love with my mother and when her ex-husband enlisted to be injected along with hundreds of thousands of other humans she ran to him with us in tote. I don’t think even he understood how quickly the virus worked. One bite from an infected human transformed your kind into those awful beasts who ate anything made of flesh. Everything began to crumble so quickly that he didn’t have a chance to find the cure for the disease the humans had created and a peaceful end to the hunger your kind suffers from it. Our building was attacked and those monsters got in. He put us both in the containment unit with a copy of his work on cloning blood and the cure.” Nissa pointed to her sister’s necklace which was a small chip full of all the information Nosefentu had worked on. “He was very close. He told us that someone would find us and when they did to give them the chip. Now we have found you.”
“He can’t die Nissa,” Samara spoke wisely and she pointed out his blue, shivering lips.
“I need more blood then just your few scratches could possibly provide,” Demetri admitted. “You must run east and look for the bright lights. That is the safe hold for vampires who have survived.
“What is your name?” the older sister asked.
“Demetri,” he responded and the vampire smiled at the soft face whose alabaster color made his body warm with expectation.
Slowly she removed the hair from her neck. “You only need one human,” she smiled.
“Are you sure Nissa?” the small child questioned without fear. “I could be the sacrifice if your not ready.”
“No Samara, they will need time to figure out the cloning method and you are younger. Time is what we need.” The woman turned her attention back to the injured vampire laying almost lifeless. “Demetri, drain me.”
“NO! You’ll turn into one of us.”
“So,” the young woman stated.
“You’ll never see light again, you’ll become monsters.”
“Yes, I accept that and when my sister’s blood begins the process she too will be changed for the day of humans is gone, like the professor explained to us and my mother’s wish, as she died in his arms, was for us to survive. Please,” and she bent down holding her hair and teasing him with her pulsing veins. With each approaching breath Demetri bore his teeth wider from the smell of such sweet meat and sweat began to pour from his body for the desire he felt. “I want you,” she began to say.
But that was all the vampire needed to hear. The harmonic voice, the decadent smell of flesh and her green eyes drove him made with desire. He sunk his teeth deeply into her neck, ignored her screams and began to drink in the sweet ichors that pulsed with so much life. His eyes fluttered and he moaned so deeply that he promised to devote his life to this one woman, something vampires never did. When he was finished he looked to the moon and howled in delight as his chin dripped with the blood of an innocent and when he gazed back into the face of the angel who saved him he watched as her hair dried and fixed itself perfectly. He watched as her green, lifeless eyes turned black, her lips juicy and red; he watched as she became a vampire.
“You,” he said with a sultry and wanting voice, and she ran her hand across his face. He bent down to embrace a woman he had just met yet it was a soul he had known for all time. “You are mine.”
“Forever,” she said responded with a demure grin.
“Come sister, let’s save the world, shall we,” the small child responded as if it were nothing that her sister had been changed into a creature of the night.  
“Yes Samara, just like our mother told us to.”
“Are there anymore infected out there,” the small child looked to the street.
“You leave them to me,” Demetri responded with a smile. “I’m ready.”