Candice rounded the corner in Little Rock into the filth-covered, darkened alley. Since that fateful encounter with the albino, changes happened to her. She still shuttered at the experience of the past month, the running during the night, and the unexplained comatose state she experienced every mid-day. Her senses were heightened beyond anything she had ever experienced, overstimulating her brain for the first few days. Hearing that could pick up a whisper blocks away, eyesight that could see the warmth of every living creature and make low light look like a cloudy day. The inhuman speed that caused her to tear through several buildings on accident and her strength that made holding things precarious still weeks after the encounter. But the worst change was the hunger for blood.
That hunger brought on a rage when the dreaded hunger burned in her blood, which caused her to tear into the nearest human, leaving only limbs and shreds of flesh. She had tried to tone down her feeding process but she had yet to leave a person living once she stopped her feeding, but the dismemberment had ceased. The one possibility for what happened to Candice was an impossibility because they did not exist, vampires.
The once sheriff's officer, worked her way down, town to town, staying in grubby back buildings, trying to ignore the stench that had built up on her. When the deaths drew too much, she moved on to another town with no particular pattern. After a few weeks of this monotony, she wearily turned towards Little Rock, thinking she could sustain herself for quite some time among a large population where deaths and murders were more common.
That turned out to be a bad decision. Now she hid and ran from parties unknown, people who moved quicker than a human but slower than her. She knew she was being hunted, herded and on more than one occasion, only her speed had saved her from capture. But every time she tried to leave, they turned her back into the city. They were toying with her and she knew it.
Candice slowed down to a human trot as the sun slowly breached the horizon and its warm and once inviting rays, striking the building, at the end of the alley. The east/west alley afforded her shade from the dawning sun, as she could feel the now familiar lethargy pulling her towards sleep. She knew there was an abandoned basement ahead. Her years of law enforcement experience had not left her completely unprepared for a life on the run. Candice had thought ahead, planned safe areas, and was praying to whatever power would be listening, that she could make it there without any prying eyes.
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The cool concrete steps echoed in her sensitive ears as she eased her way ever so carefully down to the steel doored entrance, the door making a metallic clang as she opened it. She shrugged her lithe shoulders, no help for that but she quietly let it back closed, shaking her head at herself. If this was what the criminals she hunted all those years felt like, she could almost feel sorry for them. A boot scraped and a throat cleared in front of her, too far back in the pitch black for her to see.
"You know, you happen to be a very hard woman to track down." Came a smooth woman's voice from the darkness. A fluorescent light flared, temporarily blinding Candice. As her vision adjusted, three people stood before her, each pale-skinned, with sharp unusual features. The most remarkable feature is each bore pale, almost clear grey irises. The female who stood in the middle, one who could not be more than twenty-five years of age stood confidently leaning against the brick wall, hands tucked into her dark blue hoody.
Candice turned to go back to the metal door to find an even stranger man standing at the door, his features beautiful, alabaster, hair that was lavender blue with rose pink irises. His limbs were slightly elongated, and an air about him gave her a sense of reassurance, even an unexplained need for appeasement.
"Please Candice, sit," the strange man at the door gestured towards a waiting stool in the middle of the forming circle. Without knowing why, Candice moved towards the stool, knowing it would please the man.
"Candice, you have left quite a mess in your wake," the woman began as she shoved herself off the wall, "but the real curiosity is, we don't have any missing Vetalas for House Baciu. We know you are because that is our Maestru and as a Striga of the House Baciu, he knows one of our own. A sixth sense if you will."
Candice stared at him blankly and started to stutter uncertain what to say or even what the female was talking about but she continued, "And judging from your reaction you don't even know that the world, this new world, even exists. So the real question is then, who is your Maestru, erm Master? Who is responsible for your present condition."
Candice's shoulder started to shake as a sob came on, and the weight of the past weeks came crashing down on her. The strange woman laid a sympathetic hand on the crying woman's shoulder.
"Take your time, but it is important for you to both keep your life and take your place in the new world you have become a part of."
Candice nodded her understanding, "Ok..., I will tell you but..this whole new world, fuck Alladin! It is bullshit!"