Eternal Rest

Elaina backed out of the apartment and turned and ran when Jimmy told her too. She got to the bottom of the stairs and ran straight into someone. When the guy tried to grab her she did the only logical thing. Kicked him in the groin, which turned out to be a good move considering that he hissed and showed his fangs almost immediately. She did everything she could to keep from screaming as she busted out the doors to the apartment building. The cold night air that she was expecting was hot and sticky. It was getting harder to concentrate on what was real at the moment. She tore down the sidewalk and got about two blocks when she ran straight into Syn, she doubted she would ever call him Brian.

“Marius, apartment… Jimmy…” She managed to get out. He nodded and took off at a run Matt following and Johnny led her to the car that the guys had just jumped out of.

“Get her to someplace safe.” Matt yelled. Johnny nodded. She said nothing as he opened a car door for her. He drove like a maniac. She held onto the side of her seat and kept telling herself she was dreaming. Even though some part of her knew that she wasn’t. They pulled up in front of a large gate and it opened automatically when he hit a button on the dash. When they got up the long drive he motioned for her to get out of the car. She did and followed him up the steps in front of a large manor. He unlocked the front door and they walked into a giant entry way. There was a large staircase leading up to the next floor she followed him up the steps. He led her into a room full of couches and tables.

“Make yourself comfortable. You’ll be safe here. I have to go back and help the guys. There is a bathroom through that door. Towels are hanging on the back of the door. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Zack is trying to find your friend. When he does I’ll let him know to bring her here. I’ll bring clothes back for you.” And with that Johnny walked from the room. When he was gone she burst into tears. Alyx was dead. Vampires existed, and Adele was missing. So much for a happy night. Laying down on one of the couches she cried herself to sleep.

Johnny burst through the door of Elainia’s apartment ten minutes later and saw that the rest of the team wasn’t there. But he followed the blood scent Marius left in his wake and jumped from the balcony and onto the street. Five minutes later he found them fighting in a local park. He wasn’t expected apparently because when he kicked Marius in the back and wrenched his arms behind his back the other vamp was taken by surprise. Syn who was bleeding profusely nodded in acknowledgement to his friend and kneeled down beside Marius. Looking around he saw that he, Matt, Rev, and Johnny were surrounded.

“Call them off Marius. NOW” Syn demanded placing a long silver blade at the downed vamp’s neck.

“Enough of this stand down.” Marius yelled it was barely audible but with their enhanced hearing the goon vamps stopped and turned toward their master.

“Now you will die, for everything that you have done. Any last words mother fucker?” Syn demanded his eyes almost black as he locked eyes with the grey eyes of the older vampire.

“You’ll die, just like your family. The others are coming, and they will hunt you down and kill you. All of you. The time will come when Vampires are in control…” And that was all he was able to say because Syn slit his throat at the same time that Johnny staked him in the heart through the back. They watched as the vampire turned to ashes from the double assault. The others scattered as soon as they realized that they were next. None of the three men followed them. They walked back to Alyx and Elainia’s apartment and Syn picked up a framed photograph of his older sister. She was dead. Setting his face he began to clean up the mess that had been made during the fight. The others followed his lead. None of them went into Alyx’s room.

Elainia woke up with a start and jumped behind the couch when she heard voices in the hallway. She peeked out from around the end of the couch as she heard a female voice. Adele. She jumped up and ran to her friend. She was bleeding pretty badly but she was alive. The two women hugged and both began crying. Zacky the dark haired man turned and walked out of the room and down to the kitchen. He passed a giant black dog and nodded as he grabbed the bag of dog food. It would only figure that Johnny would bring the girl to his place. He feed his dog and walked to his fridge opening a compartment at the bottom he grabbed a bag of blood and poured it into a large glass. He drained it in three seconds. He needed to order more, so he didn’t have the second bag that he wanted. He didn’t need it as much as he needed sleep. But he couldn’t sleep until one of the other guys showed up. He sat down at the table and rubbed Fang’s head as he laid it on Zacky’s lap. Zack looked up as four people walked into his kitchen.

“Where are they?” Brian asked.

“Upstairs” was all he said.

“We stopped and got clothes for them, and got our own blood supplies, figured if we were running low, then you were too. We had to find Alyx’s supply. We couldn’t find one. Syn thinks she was feeding from the source.”

“She had a mortal roommate; she could have a separate place somewhere for feeding. If she does we’ll find it.” Matt said.

“So main fridge or mini fridges in our rooms?” Jimmy asked holding up his supply.

“Minis” Zack said shaking his head. All the guys had rooms at one another’s houses for occasions such as this. It was easier to stay under one roof to protect people than it was to stay under five separate ones and not be able to find each other when there was trouble. Johnny sat down across from Zack and sighed. Tonight hadn’t been a complete waste.

“Marius is dead.” Johnny told the younger vampire.

“I hope it was painful.” Was all Zack said before he walked out of the kitchen and upstairs. His body was already healing itself but it would work faster if he got some sleep. A concert on top of fighting evil vampires that was a tiring night for him. He was still young compared to Matt and Jimmy, so nights like this took a lot out of him. He knew anger would keep Syn going for a few more hours.

The girls were asleep when Brian walked in. He sat the clothes that he had picked up from Elainia’s places on the table at the end of the couch that she was sleeping on. She saw a bag of clothes on the floor and figured that they belonged to Adele. He walked back out and went down to the basement. He planned on working out some before he went and got sleep. Grabbing a bag of blood out of his cooler he ripped it open with his teeth and drained it. He wasn’t bothering with a glass tonight, so some of it got on his shirt. It wasn’t like he didn’t already have blood all over it.

The next morning Elainia woke up with a headache and reeking of after stink of the explosion from the night before. Sighing she remembered where she was and that Adele was at least safe there with her. She saw that her friend was sleeping and got up and shook her head as she grabbed the clothes she saw on the table. She walked into the bathroom that had been pointed out last night and took a shower. When she was done she pulled on clean underwear and a bra, kind of embarrassed that some guy she really didn’t know had gone through her clothes. At least whoever had grabbed her clothes had grabbed boy shorts, and not a thong. She pulled on her jeans and the black tank top that was in the bag. She would have to get them to let her get more clothes later from the apartment. She had a feeling that she was going to be here for a while. She walked barefoot out of the room and headed toward the staircase. She figured that the kitchen had to be on the first floor. She was right. Zack was in the kitchen looking stupidly at a cook book.

“Uh need a little help?”

“I don’t normally cook, but I figured you and your friend would be hungry.”

“Do you even eat?” then she realized what she said, “I meant…”

“It’s a common question when someone finds out what we are, but yes we do eat, it’s just I’m not the best cook.”

“Well I’m pretty good at it, why don’t I make something and you can go do what you have to do.”

“I don’t really have to do anything today, at least I don’t think I do, we usually take a day off, after nights like last night, to make sure we heal completely.”

“Oh, well uh yeah, I’m just gonna shut up and cook something. How much do you guys usually eat?”

“A lot.” They both turned as Matt walked in. Elainia nodded and putting the cook book on the shelf she saw next to the counter she opened the fridge. She saw everything she needed and only asked about a few things that weren’t in the fridge and Zack showed her where they were in cabinets. Brian, Johnny, and Jimmy walked in ten minutes later and raised their eyebrows as they joined the other two in watching her cook. Johnny and Matt sat the table and then they all watched as Elainia finished just as a clean showered Adele walked in. Adele helped Elainia put food on the table and when the whole group looked at what was on the table they looked at Elainia.

“My mom is, well was, I don’t know if she still is, a cook. She taught me when I was younger.” Was all she said and they all sat down. The guys normally dosed their eggs in blood like some people did with ketchup but with mortals being at the table they couldn’t. They had all had two bags of blood before they came downstairs. Surprisingly they all decided that the food didn’t need blood. There was no conversation as they ate. When Elainia finally looked up from picking at her food she was surprised to see that Adele had barely touched her food as well. The guys on the other hand were already on seconds or thirds.

“Um are we gonna be able to go to work tomorrow?” Adele asked. She was close to losing her job and she needed it.

“Where do you work?”

“The same place as Elaina, WCR Reality.” The guys looked at one another.

“How many people are in the office normally during the day?” Matt asked.

“The two of us, our secretaries and two other realtors, as well as our boss.” Elainia said. She really wanted to go to work.

“Can you call in sick?” Matt replied.

“Not unless I want fired.” Adele said.

“Then expect one of us to go with you.” Brian said as he stood from the table and rinsed his plate putting it in the dishwasher.

“Um that’s going to look a little odd.”

“Say we’re a client.”

“Uhm, yeah you showing up before or after we open?” Elainia said anger in her voice.

“Same time as you.”

“Yeah just what I need, rumors about why you show up with me, and then hang out all day. Maybe Maddie and Kim will be nice enough and not talk shit about me and Adele in front of us, but if you go in with us, then it’ll get back to us, and that is so not what we need. Adele’s job is on the line, and Maddie will do anything to ruin my rep.” Elainia yelled and stormed out of the kitchen, her half eaten plate of food left forgotten on the table. “I’d rather die than have that happen.” She ran up the stairs and slammed the door to the big room she had stayed in last night. The door opened moments later.

“We could have let you die.” Jimmy said, “But we didn’t, because you didn’t do anything. At least that’s what we think, wanna tell us otherwise.”

“I didn’t even know Marius; I’ve been rooming with Alyx since I was 17. My mom and dad kicked me out. Alyx took me in, and I barely knew her very well, even though we lived together. I didn’t even know what she was for Christ sake.”

“What about me?” Johnny said walking in. Elainia rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in the air.

“Look, we know this is hard on you, but Marius was after you as well as Alyx, we need to know why. He said that others were coming. We are just trying to help okay.” Matt said joining them. Zack followed moments later and the only one not in the room was Syn.

“Alright fine, we’ll call off work. Better yet, I’ll quit so they can’t fire me.” Adele muttered under her breath.

“I have extra rooms if you two don’t want to stay in here.” Zack said.

“You have extra rooms… you mean this place is yours?”

“Yeah it is, all of our places are like this. Only way in is if you have a remote sensor in your car or you get buzzed in by one of us.” Zack said.

“Yeah a room would be nice. I’ll call off work too.” Elainia said from her spot on the couch. She was staring out the window. “I should probably go apologize to him.”

“Maybe later, let him calm down some. He works out in the basement; let him work off some aggression first. Alyx was the only family he had left. Marius killed his parents, and his brothers.” Jimmy said. Elainia nodded and Zacky grabbed her bag of clothes and Jimmy grabbed Adele’s and they showed them to two rooms across the hall from the one another.

“Here, you’ll be across from one another, and Brian is in the room next to Elainia, Adele, is beside Jimmy, my rooms at the end of the hall and up the steps, Johnny’s room is by the steps at the opposite end of the hall and Matt sleeps in the room beside that stupid statue at the end of the hall beside Johnny.” Zack said. The girls walked into their rooms and noticed immediately that they each shared a bathroom with the person rooming beside them.

‘Great, I have to share a bathroom with him.’ Elainia thought. She tossed her dirty clothes on the bed and walked back out of the room. The guys were still standing in the hall.

“Any questions?” Johnny asked

“Yeah, can we go to my apartment and get me some more clothes?” Elainia asked somewhat snidely.

“Unfortunately no, we had to set fire to the apartment, to get rid of evidence that Alyx lived there.” Syn said walking up. There is however more of your belongings, that weren’t destroyed out in Johnny’s car. Syn walked past her and into his room slamming the door behind him. Elainia followed Johnny out to his car and sighed. Her whole life was gone. She had maybe two more outfits, and the dress that she had bought six months ago, as well as her laptop, and the book of discs that she saved everything on.

“Before we can let you use the computer, we need to make sure there isn’t a tap on it.”

“Yeah sure whatever. This is all that you could save?”

“Well it didn’t occur to us until after Brian started the fire. Vampires and fire don’t exactly mix.”

“Well then Johnny will they one of you take us to the mall so we can get clothes and other necessity’s?” Adele asked.

“Brian can come with us, he needs to get out and not stay closed up.” Johnny said. The three of them walked inside and Elainia handed her laptop over to Matt who took it into the kitchen. They took up Elainia’s clothes and dress, and then coaxed Brian out of his room.

“Only if we take my car.” Brian muttered.

“Sure, whatever lets go.” Johnny said. They walked out to the stand alone garage that was big enough to hold ten cars. Brian walked over to a jet black mustang drop top and smirked as he unlocked the car and hit the button to put the top down. Johnny jumped in the back with Adele and Elainia sat up front. They pulled out of the garage and it turned out Brian drove just as crazily as Johnny. They got to the mall and Elainia made sure she had her credit card and some cash in her purse. She had checked before she left, but she had to double check.

Matt had gotten into the main system of the computer and so far he had no luck with anything. He went up to Zacky’s office and plugged the laptop in and sat in on Zacky’s desk. He went and got Jimmy up from his nap and had him help. Zacky wondered in fifteen minutes later and between the three of them they discovered a bunch of e-mails that Elainia had ignored and finally found where the tracer on the laptop was located. Yep they had to get rid of the lap top, deleting the music files wasn’t going to cut it this time. Whoever had put the locater in had programmed it into just about all the main programs, as well into all the music files. They went downstairs and out the back door to the fire pit that was dug about twenty yards from the house and placed the laptop in the pit and Jimmy tossed a small explosive in after it. They stood and watched the explosion and sighed. Back in the house Matt picked up the phone.

“Hello” Brian asked as he answered the phone and kept an eye on Adele who was currently happily sorting through tank tops on a nearby rack.

“You’re going to need to buy Elainia a new laptop.”

“Lemme guess…”

“Don’t need to. Whoever it was, was a fucking genius with taps, and tracers. Tell Johnny not to be alarmed if he hears that there was a small explosion out this way.”

“Couldn’t you have just dumped it somewhere; did you have to blow it up?”

“Did you have to set fire to the apartment immediately?”

“Touché alright. Want to tell me what about shopping makes women happy?”

“Uh, they get to buy nice things? The hell if I know.” Matt said and hung up the phone. Brian sighed and closed the phone. He walked over to Adele.

“Um we have to go to the electronics store, before we leave to meet up with the other two. I have to buy a laptop.”

“For Elainia?”

“Yeah”

“Um, she’s picky about that kind of thing; you’ll have to take her with you.” Adele said and took the three tank tops, two skirts, four jeans, and seven t-shirts up to the counter to pay for them. Brian sighed, he was afraid of that. As they walked out of the store, they headed toward the food court. The other two were already there and it looked like they had just as many bags as Adele. Brian shook his head.

“Elainia, we need to buy you a new laptop, so come on.”

“Great, can we get rid of some of these bags first, because we still have one stop to make after the electronics store.” Brian nodded and the four of them walked out to the car. Brian popped the trunk and they somehow managed to get the bags in the trunk. They walked back in and straight to the electronics store. Adele and Johnny went off to look at music and Elaina was looking at laptops with Brian.

“Hey, umm can you help me find a bunch of rock CD’s for Elainia, since she lost all of hers?” Adele asked Johnny he nodded. Adele immediately went to the ‘A’ section and grabbed all five of the Avenged Sevenfold CD’s. Making sure they had the parental advisory on them. She made a small comment about that to Johnny and they ended up finding at least thirty or so CD’s together. Mostly Papa Roach, Saliva, Three Days Grace, and several others. Adele grabbed a few CD’s that she knew Elainia had songs on that she liked. They met up with the other two at the entrance to the store. They headed out and Johnny was debating with Brian on what to do for dinner. Brian just wanted to order a pizza, Johnny wanted to grab something on the way back.

“Oh my god just stops arguing, I can make something when we get back.” Elainia said exasperated. They pulled up to the house and Brian parked in front of the house so they could carry things in easier. Zack raised an eyebrow when he saw all the bags the girls had. Johnny carried in the laptop box and the bags of CD’s. He dumped the computer and music on Elainia’s bed and noticed that between the seven of them they had gotten everything in one trip. Elainia walked downstairs to the kitchen and started opening up cabinets and doors to see what all Zack had in his kitchen. She found everything she needed to make homemade pizza. She was making the pizza sauce when she heard someone walk in the kitchen. She turned but didn’t see anyone. She looked around and was shocked to see a huge black dog. She held back the scream that was trying to be released from her throat. She backed up a little and stared at the dog until he walked out of the room obviously not interested in what was going on in the kitchen. She finished letting the pizza dough rise and added the sauce to the tops of all five pizzas and added the ingredients to them. One was all meat, one was veggies, for her and Adele and the others were a mix of everything. She placed them in the oven two at a time and about an hour she was calling everyone that was still in the house into the kitchen.

“Something smells good!” Johnny said as they entered.

“I smell Pizza, I didn’t hear the buzzer go off, and who let the delivery person in. They all walked out into the hall and saw Brian was still upstairs and headed down the huge front staircase. Elainia rolled her eyes and went back into the kitchen. She sat the last two pizzas on the table and Adele sat out plates. Using a rather large knife Elainia cut the pizza into eight slices per pizza. When Brian finally got there everyone was waiting on him. He was shocked to see homemade pizza on the table. And what was even more shocking was each of the tall glasses on the table that sat in front of the guys was currently having blood poured into them. Brian raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He sat where he had last night and they all dug in.