The Blank Book

'Fuck. I don't think I'm ready yet,' Billie thought.

The air was suddenly filled with bats all flying at them. They circled the three members of Green Day and touched down. As they did so, they became vampires. One of them was Kandra, Veldenbarr's assistant.

"Remember, don't kill them," Kandra instructed the vampires. Then she turned to face Mike, "Hello again. Thank you for bringing your buddies with you just like Veldenbarr told you to."

Billie and Tré looked at each with puzzled looks.

"I'm guessing they haven't found out yet?" Kandra didn't seem all that surprised, "Well, no matter. Now are we going to cooperate or are we going to have to do this the hard way?"

Mike stood there, not responding and displaying no emotion. Billie and Tré were completely confused. Finally, Tré decided that they should put up a fight. He threw the stake in his hand and hit a vampire directly in the heart. His eyes widened and he collapsed. Seconds later it turned into dust.

The rest of the vampires seemed to spring into action following the death of one of their own. Billie got into demon form and Tré rapidly transformed twigs into stakes and kept throwing them, always hitting their marks. Billie had his back against Tré's and opened a crack in the earth under some of the vampires and then closed it. This kept up for only about a minute. The two were too busy to notice that Mike just stood there, watching boredly. None of the vampires seemed to pay him any mind.

Neither of the two parties seemed to be gaining any ground though Billie and Tré were getting visibly tired. Mike had felt a slight pain for the past few seconds. Knowing what he was meant to do, he pointed a finger at Billie and lazily said, "Parakiln." Tré stopped moving. Mike then did the same with Billie. "Levint," Mike was pointing to both of them. They hovered in the air about an inch off the ground. Mike felt a hand on his shoulder and turned and saw Kandra grinning. Annoyed and not hiding it, Mike brushed it off.

"Fine then, but don't expect me to be nice to you in the future," Kandra said.

Mike just rolled his eyes. The vampires all transformed back into bats and took off, flying to the castle. Kandra stayed behind with the three men.

Billie and Tré could still move their face and Billie spoke up, "What the fuck is going on?!"

Kandra gave him a sickeningly sweet smile. "You'll see in just a few minutes."

Tré decided to say something too. "Mike, why are you doing this?"

Mike didn't answer. He just guided them onwards. Soon they were at the castle. They entered it and found a bunch of vampires who stopped whatever they were doing and stared at them. They made their way through many stone corridors led by Kandra. She stopped outside of a door.

"This is where we part," she said, "go through that door and you will be in the throne room, as you probably already know." She paused and looked at Billie and Tré. "You should've listened to him when he was suspicious about the book." She winked and left them.

When she was out of sight and they heard her footsteps no more, Billie shouted angrily at Mike, "What the fuck are you doing?! And why won't you tell us what the fuck's going on?"

"Shut up, Billie," Mike said coldly. Billie was stunned and didn't say anything more as Mike pushed the door open.

At the far end of the room, sitting on his throne and smiling with great satisfaction was Lord Veldenbarr. There were at least two dozen more vampires in the room as an extra precaution. Mike released the spells and Billie and Tré fell. They tried to turn around, but Mike steered them forwards. A few feet from the dais that the Veldenbarr's throne was on, Mike stopped them and made them bow. He did the same.

"Thank you for bringing them to me, Michael," Lord Veldenbarr said, "Now I can finally get my revenge."

"Now wait a minute, mister," Tré said defiantly, "we didn't agree to help you out with your 'revenge or whatever'. We're here to get rid of you."

Veldenbarr laughed. "You naïve fools. You really think that you were sent here to save Surtomb? Like your friend Michael found out already, it was just a trap to get you to come here so I could take over your world too. I just gave you two powers so that you wouldn't be suspicious. Plus, you'll make good servants."

"I will never serve you," Billie said angrily, "not now, not ever."

In his anger Billie attacked some of the vampires with fire. They cried out in pain and Tré joined in with his stakes.

Mike felt energized and happy. He knew he could count on them. He had been eyeing a sword that was on the wall above Veldenbarr's head. He stretched his hand out towards it and said, "Comart." It flew into his hand and he charged Veldenbarr who had stood up. Before he could react, Mike was on him and he sliced through Lord Veldenbarr's neck. He left the sword there and watched as Veldenbarr sank to his knees.

The whole room fell silent as all its occupants watched Veldenbarr.

When he appeared to be dead, Mike let out a low chuckle. The vampires just stared in awe before getting down on one of their knees and bowing their heads in submission to Mike. Two of them pushed Billie and Tré down on one of their knees to do the same. They looked up at Mike with confusion and terror. They feared for what was to come next, but mostly they feared for their friend as he took the crown that was on Veldenbarr's head and placed it on his own, looking extremely pleased with how everything had turned out so far.