Night and Day

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Katie Rivers stood on the bleachers, staring at the evening sky. She hated night. Darkness gave her a sense of unwelcome anxiousness that she would much rather ignore. She was a bubbly person filled with light and joy that was hard to surpress. 
"There they come." Ann Talley, another of the cheerleaders whispered with glee. She was talking about the night students, of course, those that only showed up at night. 
It was the first night of the year and all the students were gathering on the field for the annual "meet and greet" that kicked off the year. 
Katie stood on tiptoe on the bleacher to see, frowning at the sudden cloud of darkness that was preventing her from seeing anything at all. The night students were a mystery to everyone. They avoided the day class and no one really knew why. Rumor had it it was because they were from rich families. At least ones that were richer than all the others. 
The little blonde was looking so hard to see she slipped on the cold metal and lost her balance. The ground behind her began to come up fast and she shut her eyes. There wasn't even enough time to scream. This was going to hurt.

Raife Saunders scowled at the giggling girls that were watching the night students arrive. "Stuck up and stupid." He growled, not sure if he meant the girls or the night class. He hated them both. The cheerleaders were whores and hr had no words for the night class. This wasn't his first year with them. He knew something wasn't right. He just wished someone would listen. 
Sighing deeply he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. He was bound to get in trouble sooner or later. Why not start the year off right? 
He watched Katie Rivers as he took a drag and wondered where her sister was. Probably under the bleachers tying shoelaces together he concluded with a laugh. When Katie fell and hit that cotton ball head of hers, he'd know for sure...

Jack snapped his fingers and Alma moved forward whether she wanted to or not. The claws came out and she began to snarl. "My pet doesn't  like your attitude." He purred. "She might even kill you for it."

Katie would need little to be comfortable aside from blood as it turned out. She would sleep for days. Not even the sounds of the angry vampires, arguing about her stay and the guards who kept watch over her could wake her.

Frost smiled, being rather patronising as she reached out and patted Alma's cheek. "She's quite cute, for a demon." She mused. "Do you really think you the kind of power I have by fearing a lower being though?"

Tobias was sick of arguing about Katie. He felt like a child being scolded by parents. "You have no idea what is going on! The hunters guild is losing control, and if Jack Saunders gets hold of her, I assure you he will turn on us next!"

"Your kind of power is born of jealousy. It doesn't scare me." Jack said, waving his hand in Frost's direction. 

"She is like a time bomb!" One of the elders shouted. "Not to mention she is a half breed. Worse than a witch or a demon! She's not one of us!"

"Oh? And you weren't jealous of what the girl's father had? The power of a vampire, but able to walk in the daylight? That's correct, isn't it?" She asked, casting a glance to Julian for confirmation.

"She is not a half breed, she is a new breed!" Tobias hissed. "She could be the next evolution of our kind, and you are putting her in danger!"

"My power is more than that. The hunters guild was trying to hide it from all of you. They were going to do research on her which meant that one of the oldsters was going to use it for himself. Bullshit I say! I deserved it and I got it!" Jack answered before Julian could so much as nod. 

"I hardly think so. She is weak. She let the hunters fight and did nothing to stop them." One of the women shouted. 
"If she is the evolution let us taste her. Let us be the judge." A male said darkly.

"I'm sure you felt such mediocre power would make up for your... short comings." Frost replied with a suggestive smirk. "How else were you going to take revenge on the wife who left you for another?"

"She is mine." Tobias told them all with a dark hiss. "I tasted her, I marked her. No one else will touch her! Are we clear?!"

Jack glanced toward ebony. "And yet she came back to me. Otherwise the one you claim to be a witch would not have been born." His eyes turned on Julian who had moved forward. "Come wolf, try it if you will. I no longer possess you amulet it seems."

"Who made you her keeper?" The male hissed, narrowing dark yellow eyes. "I think you want the power for yourself."

"And she realised what a mistake she had made." Was Frost's icy reply as she again looked Ebony over. "This is a waste of my time. Come, wolfie, we're leaving." She informed Julian, holding out her cool fingers to him.

"And if I do? What would you even do about it?" Tobias replied darkly. "You would incite civil war, knowing the hunters have been waiting for that for centuries?"

Julian had no choice but to obey. The ice summoned him as it always did. Jack simply smiled, until he realized all the distraction had allowed Katie to slip out of his grasp. He was so angry he left without his pet demon. 
Alma dropped to her knees on the floor, feeling like a failure. She'd done nothing right. Hadn't even gotten revenge for Brock. 

"After what you did a few years ago to one of their hunters, we really should." The female snapped. "Ripped the fool to tiny pieces so your fledglings could feed on him. You are working against us. We should have known then. This just seals it."

Ebony would be found in a blood covered room, a sobbing demon in there with her and the seemingly lifeless body of her hunter mother. The guild would ultimately blame the young hunter in training and she was subjected to physical punishment for showing weakness when faced with the task of stopping her father.
Frost was well aware of what was happening to Ebony, and it was the sole reason she continued to make Julian stay with her.

"I'm sorry, are vampires not supposed to stop those that hunt them?" Tobias asked with a dark smile at the thought of what he had done.

Alma sat with Ebony once her punishment was over. The demon was silent for what seemed like an eternity. "I can heal some of those wounds. " she whispered "it's the least I can do for you."

"You're asking for them to murder us and you know it." The female snapped. "It started with the hunter whether you see it or,you dont."

Ebony shook her head slightly, her grey eyes seeming almost lifeless now. The whole time she was being punished, the young woman could think only of how she had disappointed Julian, and that was why he had abandoned her now. "I don't deserve it." She whispered, though it caused her superficial pain with her lower lip being split and swollen.

"You really think hunters are stronger than us?" Tobias asked, clearly offended by the very thought. "The took their power from us, they are nothing more than a dilute version of what we once made them!"

"I know that feeling." Alma whispered,  placing cool fingers against her lips. "So...will you go looking for a way to help your man or will you give up like I did?"

Without warning the female began to scream. She was clutching her throat. Katie stood at the top of the stairs. Her eye were fixed on the women."leave my dreams alone." She growled

"He's not mine." Ebony whispered quietly. "I think that's been made perfectly clear." She added, having to blink rather slowly, as one of her eyes was deeply bruised.

Tobias glanced up to where Katie stood, smiling when he saw the regal way she now seemed to hold herself. "You you thought you were better than her?" He sneered, turning back to address the rest of the council.

"But he gave you the blade." Alma sighed. "Why didn't you use it? He feels like you betrayed him. Jack has been a bad man for so long. No one has any idea..."

"She isn't even full blooded. She's a freak." The male said with a sneer. "How dare you act like she's better."

It stung Ebony to hear that Julian felt she betrayed him. "I don't expect any of you to understand." She whispered. "My whole life was a sham, my mother even confessed I was her greatest mistake. Then I find out Jack Saunders was my birth father, and I stupidly allowed myself to think that maybe things would be different. Maybe I would finally know what it felt like to be loved unconditionally like Katie always was." The dark haired girl shook her head with a bitter snort. "So you're telling me the only way I can please Julian is to murder my father? You ask too much of me... All of you. I hate this guild, and everyone stupid enough to give their loyalty to it!" She spat.

"I don't act anything." Tobias purred. "I know she is better than you. I know she is more powerful than you, and I know the whole lot of you are terrified of what she will become!" The golden haired vampire paused to turn and extend his hand to Katie as he gestured her closer.

"Then you should have gone with your father." Alma pointed out. "If you truly hate it so bad, why not help him destroy it when you had the chance?"

Timidly Katie took his hand, refusing to look at the others. She no longer knew where her place was in the world but she had a feeling  she had better figure it out quickly. Tobias it seemed had a better idea than most.

"You were there... You heard the things he said to me. I might not want to kill him, but I doesn't mean I can forgive so quickly." Ebony whispered. "Like I said... I don't expect any of you to understand."

"Do you have any other underhanded ways you wish to use to cause Katie harm?" Tobias asked the council thinly.

Alma sighed. "You think me a lowly demon like everyone else, don't you?" She asked. "That's why you won't let me help you. Brock was the only one that didn't treat me that way. But I suppose that doesn't matter. He's long dead now and will remain so." 

Slowly but surely the council began to disappear one by one until Tobias and Katie were completely alone. When this became true the young woman let out her breath, leaning hard against the vampire she'd come to trust.

"It's not because you're a demon... I don't let anyone help me." Ebony whispered, her eyes seeming almost glazed over as she stared at nothing in particular. "I let my only friend die... How can I ever let anyone in again?"

Tobias slid his arms around Katie and buried his face in her sweet smelling hair. "I'm sorry... I had hoped there would be time to break you into this life slowly." He whispered.

"I know that feeling better than you think." Alma confessed. "I adored Brock. He was the only human that was ever kind to me. He had this silly grin. The vampires...they...tore him apart like he was a rag doll...I could hear his screams no matter how far away I was...Jack wouldn't release me to go...even to ease his pain. It took him hours to die...all my fault. I live with that every moment. So yes, I know how you feel."

Katie closed her eyes, flashes of both her dead mother and father running through her mind. "All I was thinking about was going to prom this year." She whispered.  "It was not my intention to murder my family and my sister hate me..."

"Raife was the only one to ever show me kindness too." Ebony confessed softly. "He was my only friend... And I couldn't even stop what happened to him. I don't think anyone every really understood." She added, finally meeting Alma's gaze.

"Your sister knows only hatred, it is certainly no reflection on you." Tobias told Katie gently. "This is all the fault of Jack Saunders. His lust for power caught you in the crossfire."

"Raife was not real." Alma whispered, ashamed of herself for having to say it. "He was something Jack made. He was like a Frankenstein. He put together what was left of Brock and brought him back. A dancing puppet...a cruel joke. I'm so sorry..."

"The school will need a new headmaster. How do we make that happen?" Katie asked, trying to force herself to think of something else. "There are children depending on us."

"Stoppit!" Ebony was backing away from Alma, if possible seeming even more distraught. "Don't you dare try and take the only happy memories I have away from me!"

"Then perhaps we should be the ones to take charge of the school?" Tobias suggested with a grin. "Headmaster Grey has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" He teased.

"I don't know why he chose to do those things to someone. To make them happy when he himself wasn't even happy." Alma whispered. "Perhaps it was the spirit the returned to the body, longing for love. For the touch of another. He begged to stay with you when Jack put him back to sleep. Jack  cut his throat and only laughed. He said he wasn't deserving of a girl like you....How lucky you are to be so adored by so many...

Katie's dimples returned for a brief moment and she found herself sitting on the couch beside him. "You'd really go from student to teacher? Won't the human kids think that strange?"

A fat tear rolled over the bruise around Ebony's eye and she shook her head. "I'm the puppet." She breathed. "Raife was all I had... And Jack stole him away to try and subdue me." She wiped at her nose before remembering it was broken and rather painful. "So much death and suffering... And it's all my fault. If it wasn't for me Raife would still be alive, my mother would still be here, even Katie's dad would still be alive."

"The human kids don't really know me, do they?" Tobias breathed as he slid his arm around Katie, pulling her a little closer against him. "I could give you the perfect prom you've been dreaming about."

"Raife was never alive." Alma said bitterly. "And he never belonged to you. Why do you not understand that? You drove away the one that clearly adored you. He is in the service of the Ice witch and you don't even care." She got to her feet, shaking her head. "Go back to your dorm. Both sides will cover this up by pretending it never even happened. They have done that before. Perhaps we should take a lesson from them." 

"Seems shallow of me to wish for a prom doesn't it?" Katie whispered softly. "It's all falling apart Tobias...I don't even know where to go...I can't even plan a funeral for my mother..." She leaned back against him, pulling in a shaky breath. "How could I have been so blind to all this?"

Ebony was glaring hatefully at Alma, filled with the dark desire to rip the demon's head from her shoulders. It was as she battled this darkness that a sudden and wild wind seemed to whip through the room until Ebony too rose to her feet. "Oh yes, it must be so hard for him to be at the beck and call of a beauty like her!" The young woman couldn't help but recall all the times Julian had called her 'child' or 'girl', making it sound very much like she really was just part of the job to him.

"You are not to blame, kitten." Tobias breathed, pressing a tender kiss to the top of Katie's head. "Jack started this. We have no idea how long he was putting this plan into motion. It could have been since before you were born, or just since you and your sister came back into his reach."

"You sound jealous." Alma said thinly, knowing she was goading the other woman into something. "Too bad you are too weak to have teacher for yourself. It's no wonder he calls you child."

"That's no excuse,  Toby. I should have seen something. I should have transferred like my dad said. How stupid am I? So many people died because of me. And what about the school? Where do they go now? I was just kidding before. It's too dangerous to stay here with me around..."

"He calls me child, because that's what I am." Ebony whispered, the blade Julian had given her suddenly sliding up between Alma's ribs. "A monstrous child."

"Then we will go somewhere far away." Tobias breathed, like it was the most simple thing in the world. "Life doesn't have to stop, you can still mourn and carry on, or even start a fresh."