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...

"I was never interested in Little Red and you know it." Julian said through his teeth. He moved his fingers ever so slightly against Ebony's back, trying to soothe her. He knew it wasn't working and she was probably going to hate him even more. "Stop playing games, witch. You're wasting my time." 

Katie held her breath when Tobias' cool tongue slid past her lips. His taste was something other worldly. Evan could in no way keep up with this. He fell sadly short. Gingerly she returned the gesture, her own tongue darting out and catching the edge of his teeth. It was then that she tasted the sharp metallic flavor of her own blood.

"Games?" Frost echoed with an amused smile. "My love, you were the one to humiliate the girl before the council. You think she is up here because she wants to be?" The witch tutted as she touched Ebony's icy cheek. "She came up here because you, dear puppy, unstuck the pieces she fights so hard to keep together. A little girl playing pretend at being the capable woman she thinks you crave."

It was too late then. Tobias could taste her blood and it clouded any rational thought he had. The vampire had pressed Katie up against the wall they had been stood beside, his tongue tracing her warm throat, craving the blood beneath.

"As if you'd know anything about that." Julian spat, his lips peeled back from his teeth. "You are nothing more than a sideshow freak that doesn't have a place among humans or hunters. No one wants you and no one is afraid of you." 

Katie was terrified, her chest rising and falling quickly. She didn't know how to deal with this or even how to tell him to stop. She placed her hands on his shoulders but didn't do anything else, too scared that it might set him off.

Frost simply accepted this comment with a smile. "You think it coincidence that no one has tasted her until you came along? There are only very few in this world who willingly give themselves to a witch." The elder woman smiled again, enjoying the delicious look of horror in Julian's eyes. "And you, my love, have already proven that witches are what get you off."Frost was close enough as she breathed those words that her lips brushed Julian's ear.

Tobias was breathing heavily as he fought the beast that craved Katie's blood as though it were life itself. He still held the little blonde tightly as his red tinted eyes looked up into her face. "Get away from me... Please!" He growled the words, though it was for her own safety.

"A witch?" Julian stared down at Ebony, deep lines in his forehead. "You lie."

Katie didn't need to be told twice. She ducked under his arm and ran. By the time Tobias went looking for her, he wouldn't find anything but the night gown he'd given her lying on the ground outside.

"Don't take my word for it. Go to the hall of records, see how few female births there are within the Saunders bloodline. You think they would keep her alive, or allow you to train her otherwise?" Frost purred, though the magic she had used to hold Ebony in place was now fading. The damage was done, and the elder witch was already gone as though she had never been there.

It took Tobias longer than he would have liked to calm the blood lust within him after Katie ran. He couldn't even kiss her without losing control like he had, and that troubled him. One moment of passion, and he may well end up ripping her throat out.

"Crazy bitch."  Julian muttered, resting his forehead against ebony's shoulder. "I don't know what I ever saw in her."

Alma appeared in the vampire courtyard, already frowning at the sight before her. Demons and vampires didn't get along. This meeting was going to be rather awkward.

Ebony was shivering now, not as accustomed to Frost's chill as Julian clearly was. "What do you see in me?" She found herself asking, though she was afraid of the answer and also hating herself for sounding to vulnerable.

"You have no business here, creature." Tobias snarled, able to smell the demon before he even looked at her.

"You are beautiful and feirce." Julian breathed, returning to kissing her smooth skin. "You haven't given up yet. No matter how much you consider it. Your smell..." 

Alma's bright green eyes glittered with her hate. She'd never gotten over what vampires had done to her hunter lover. Brock had been torn to pieces by Tobias' clan. "If thats what you think." The demon hissed, holding up the night gown.

"I smell?" Ebony asked, her ruby lips quirking into a smile that few people rarely saw, and Raife had been the last.

Tobias snatched the gown out of Alma's fingers and continued to glare at her. "You came here for Katie, is that it?"

"You have no idea." Julian purred, gently pulling at her clothing. "And your eyes. I could just eat you up...you have no idea how much I want you."

"It would seem I am a little late for that." Alma observed, narrowing her eyes. "Did you already lose your prize, your highness? Your so-called father is dead as well. He looks much like my beloved did. Pieces scattered all over your drive way."

The eyes in question were staring up at Julian, filled with a mixture of joy and trepidation. Before he could stop her, Ebony had rolled them over, now pinning Julian beneath her slender frame. "Prove it." She breathed with a grin as she stole another kiss. "Take me to the records hall."

Tobias outwardly seemed unaffected by this revelation. "If something has happened, it is your hunters guild that are to blame."

Julian wondered if this is what it was like to feel like bait. He felt extremely stupid all of a sudden. "What is it you wish to find there?" He asked her, pulling away and frowning down at his hands.

"They are not my guild. They were his. I was summoned by a fool and now it seems like the same man is trying t [ stir up trouble. But since you seem to have it under control..."she dusted her fingers and shook her head.

Julian's reaction was quick to wipe the smile from Ebony's lips. The rather fragile young woman took a step away from Julian, everything about her body language screaming that her walls were rebuilding. "Myself." She whispered.

"And you came to warn me?" Tobias asked uncertainly. "What is it you're asking for in return?"

Ebony wasn't the only one building walls. Julian got to his feet and zipped his pants, a deep scowl on his lips. "You could have just asked. You didn't have to play with me. But hey, it's something I would have done. So good for you." He dropped a set of keys in her lap. "Have fun. When you're ready...Come ask me the questions that we couldn't lie about in those books."

"A vial of her blood. Just a small one." Alma said, crossing her arms over her chest. "The hunters know many uses for it. Did you know by drinking it you can walk in the light? Her father did it quite often to spend daytime with his wife. She simply thought he was a special vampire. She thought he daughter's weakness was simply because she was hybrid. How absurd."

Ebony looked down at the keys in her lap, then back up at Julian with an upset and confused expression. "Don't hold your breath!" She spat, wounded by the sudden turn things had taken when she was simply joking with Julian. It was dawning on the young woman how close she had been to giving this man something she could never get back, and it was apparently all one big game to him. Ebony was quick to flee the rooftop before Julian saw her tears.

Tobis had balled his fists up tightly without even realising it. "Her own parents abused her for their own need?" He breathed. "Why would I give you any of her blood? So the hunters can use it to hurt yet more of my kind?"

"Go ahead." Julian said once Ebony was gone. "Come out and gloat, Frost. Say you were right. Remind me that I am nothing more than a pet to a hunter." 

"And your kind do not return the favor?" Alma said bitterly. She looked away from him, biting her lip to keep her emotions in check. "I do not have to tell you what I need a tiny vial for. All you need to know is that it is not for those that bind me."

"My love, I never put the words in your mouth." Frost chided. "You were the one to tell the girl she was but a game to you." She added, standing before Julian as she traced her icy fingers against his bare chest.
Ebony understood now why she had avoided people, and situations like the one she had been in with Julian. She summerised he was probably having a good laugh at her expense as she ran all the way back to the room she had woken in earlier that day.

Tobias was still highly suspicious. "Even if I did agree to help you, as you can see... Katie isn't here." He replied. "She is out there somewhere, right where your precious hunters guild can end her life."

"She will survive much longer if she believes this is so." Julian said sadly. "She is my charge. I am responsible for her life." 

"The headmaster has her." Alma told him. "Getting her back will require help from those that don't like you."

"And what you were getting up to with her only a few moments ago, that was just a ruse? You were testing her resolve?" Frost asked with a snort of disbelief.

Tobias visibly tensed with this news. "Where? Tell me!" He demanded. "Tell me where he has taken her, and you can have the damn vial!"

"Perhaps." Julian said evasively. "It's not like I'm the only one who has more than one lover here, Frost. Why are you so jealous?"

"Back to his office. He is calling me to cast a spell and make her his own. You are running out of time." Alma told him darkly.

Frost had no real answer to that. Why was she so jealous of someone she considered a mere child? "You may have more than one... She has never had one, and you just tried to mount her like an animal, out here for anyone to see." She spat a moment later. "My, how special she must be feeling right now."

"Dammit..." Tobias ran his fingers over his hair, still not knowing his eyes betrayed the fact he had taken Katie's blood. "I'll kill the bastard if he hurts her!" He declared as he stormed out of the courtyard.

"I never tried to do that to you." Julian chuckled. "You are again sounding very jealous." He was grinning as he shoved his fingers through his hair. 

Alma waited until he got to where he was going and appeared again. "Didn't you hear me about needing help? You're going to need the wolf. And myself. But you're going to owe him a favor. Like you owe me."

Frost hated it when he did that, she liked almost nothing more than to run her fingers through his soft hair. "And if I am?" She asked, reaching up on her tip toes as though to kiss Julian, only to pause a few millimetres short. "Would you care?"

"I will not ask that mangy dog for anything!" Tobias hissed, a renewed passion fueling his words.

"When will you learn that you and I will never be more than a passing fancy?" Julian asked. He shook his head to try and clear the hair out of his eyes. It didn't work. 

"Then I will allow her to die." Alma said shaking her head.

"Because of her?" Frost asked, for the first time seeming genuinely afraid she would lose Julian to the younger witch.

"How could that wolf possibly help with anything?" Tobias asked after a brief moment of thought. "He is the hound of a witch, nothing more."

Julian didn't answer. He was staring at the record hall, wondering if Ebony had made it inside to find what she was looking for. He hadn't even heard what Frost said to him.

"The headmaster has been playing with fire, Tobias." Alma said, looking around the office as if she recognized the place. "If the other hunters knew the things he has been doing...the wolf is not enchanted against speech as I am. He can tell you things that I cannot. He can save your kitten. Even if you do not deserve it." She added, stroking a deep grove in the desk that had been been made by her former lover's bolts. "He was a good man. He was just doing as he was told..."

Ebony was somewhat overwhelmed when she made it inside the large building that housed all the guild's records. She was looking back through the family tree, flicking page after page of male births to the women the Saunders men married. It wasn't until she reached the records that dated back to the Inquisition that she saw a female Saunders child. Ebony suddenly snapped the book shut, her grey eyes staring at it rather fearfully; she was afraid to admit that Frost may have been telling the truth.

"The wolf cannot be trusted." Tobias pointed out. "He doesn't answer to the guild, only his witch." The vampire was moving around the office now, pausing where Cyrus had been killed. "I thought he was acting strange because he had lost his son. I thought grief changed him, but now you ask me to accept it is something more?"

Julian knew she was soon to discover that Raife had never been human. Like himself and Alma, Jack had been doing many things he shouldn't. Like creating a child from the body parts of another hunter. The little demon had never forgiven him for it. Alma's lover had murdered by Tobias' clan and instead of a proper burial his remains were used in forbidden expirements. 
It was no real wonder the boy had gone mad. 

Alma nodded slowly, thinking of Brock. "He never...no son..."again her fingers went to the deep groves. "Refuse the wolf once more and we are done, vampire. I am longing for revenge so much it hurts. You have no idea." The mousy haired woman turned away, no longer able to touch the desk.

Ebony was pacing the small room she was inside of within the records hall, chewing nervously on Her thumbnail. "He's not there..." She had gone through the family tree of Jack Saunders three times now, and she couldn't explain why it bothered Her so much that Raife wasn't listed. Until now she had never questioned who Raide's mother had been, or why Hack had had two children so close in age, yet for some reason ignored his daughter to raise his son. 

"Where do I find the wolf?" Tobias asked at last, disturbed by Alma's reaction to whatever had happened  in this room. "And why would he even help me?"