"Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I should love a loathed enemy"
~ William Shakespeare, "Romeo & Juliet", act I, scene V
******
"I'm hungry."
The black-haired boy stopped walking, and looked at his female companion.
"I reeeaaaally need something to eat," Lucy complained.
Justin sighed.
"Fine. Where?"
She looked towards a dark alleyway.
"That looks promising."
Lucy ran into the alley, Justin slowly following. Lucy crouched on the side of a few trashcans, sniffing deeply. With a swift, cat-like motion, her arm shot out into the space between the cans. Lucy stood up, grinning. In her hand she held a large, struggling rat.
"Sorry, little buddy. You're out of luck tonight."
Justin turned away with a disgusted grimace as she sank her teeth into the animal.
"Yuch," he said. "I'll never get used to that."
"A girl's gotta eat," Lucy laughed, completely unembarrassed, and dropped the dead rat into one of the garbage cans.
Justin looked at the her. She looked like she was just in her early twenties, when in reality, she was much older. Long, flowing blonde hair, laughing eyes and an infectious smile.
"Awfully cheerful for a vampire," Justin thought.
"Shall we go?"
"Is that enough?"
"A little blood goes a long way. I'll have a little more when we get home." She held out her hand. "Let's go."
A sudden noise made them both turn around. Further back into the alley, the could see two figures; one tall woman and a slightly shorter man. They approached, and Lucy positioned herself in front of Justin.
"What are you doing?" the tall woman asked, her voice very stern and authoritative.
The two came into the light, allowing Lucy and Justin to see them more clearly. The woman was very beautiful, and dressed in an impeccable black pant-suit. She had long, curly red hair, and her expression reminded Justin of a proffessional poker player -- completely unreadable.
The young man resembled the woman, except his hair was more brownish-red, and his finely-chiseled face wasn't quite so cold. As Justin met his dark gaze, he felt his heart start to pound and his face flush. When their eyes met, the young man's eyes widened and a soft gasp escaped his lips. If the woman noticed, it didn't show. She fixed her eyes on Lucy.
"I don't know who you are, and I don't like to cause trouble with one of our own kind," she said, "but if you're intending to hurt that boy, I assure you we will stop you. We will not permit a human to be hurt by another vampire, if we can help it."
Lucy looked at Justin.
"You have the wrong idea," she said to the woman. She quickly glanced around the alley. A couple more vampires were perched on a fire escape. Lucy narrowed her eyes.
"Maybe your intention is to trick me into letting my guard down, and then take my friend." Lucy sneered. "We are not unprotected, lady."
Lucy put her fingers to her lips, and a shrill whistle echoed in the alley. Seconds later, three new vampires appeared.
"Lucy, Justin, are you all right?" one of them, Damon, asked. He looked at the woman and the young man, and his whole body jerked in surprise. His eyes narrowed and he bared his fangs.
"Tenumago!" he growled.
Lucy gasped. Justin looked confusedly at the red-headed pair and saw that the woman's poker face was gone. Instead, her expression was one of dark hatred.
"Petulac," she hissed.
"We didn't know you were here, Codie," Damon said to the woman. "We were under the impression that you were in France."
"We were. But now we've returned. As have you, apparently."
"Believe me, we would have picked another place if we'd known you'd be here," Damon spat. "It's always unfortunate to run into you Tenumago scum."
The vampires on the fire escape jumped down, hissing angrily. The ones that came with Damon moved forward, baring their fangs in bloodthirsty grins, eager to fight. Damon smiled crookedly.
"You're no match for us, Codie."
"We don't intend to be. Not tonight, at least," she replied indifferently.
"Huh?"
Codie's companions looked at her, stunned.
"Codie, we can take 'em... They're just Petulac creeps."
"True... but they have a human with them." She glanced at Justin. "We cannot risk him getting hurt."
Damon looked at Justin as well, scratching his head.
"That's right, I almost forgot... Armand would have our heads on pikes if anything happened to Justin. Very well, Codie. We'll let you go in peace... for now."
Codie smiled wickedly.
"I was just going to say the same thing." She turned to the young man at her side. "Ean, let's go."
He stood still, as if he hadn't heard, his eyes fixed on Justin.
"Ean!" she repeated, raising her voice a little.
Ean tore his eyes away from the human boy and started walking down the alley, Codie at his side. Their companions followed, throwing back suspicious glances. When they reached the end of the alley, Codie looked back at the group behind them.
"Give my best to Armand!" she shouted, and with a gust of wind, she was gone, along with Ean and their companions.
******
"Tenumago..." Armand growled. "Are you sure?"
"Completely sure," Damon said, expecting Armand to start throwing things any minute. "We saw Codie and Ean, along with a couple of their followers."
"Codie!" Armand hissed, curling his lip in disgust. "The queen bitch!"
"Mmm, I wish I could get my hands on her," Adele, Armand's mistress purred, licking her lips. "Her eyeballs would make great earrings."
The leader of the vampire clan called Petulac paced the room in his office, running his hands through long and straight light brown hair, his golden eyes sparkling with anger. The Petulac clan and the Tenumago clan had been enemies for almost two hundred years now, but it had been quite a while since their paths had crossed. Armand took a deep breath, as if trying to control his temper.
"Okay... I don't want Justin getting caught in the middle, so I'll keep the peace for now. As long as they stay out of our way, we'll stay out of theirs. But if they try to pick a fight, they're dead. Is that clear?"
"Crystal clear," Damon said.
"Good, then tell everyone else."
Damon left Armand's office. Armand turned to Lucy.
"You did a good job keeping Justin safe. Well done."
"Thank you, sir."
"Maybe next time the two of you will be ready to go out together alone, with no bodyguards. Just make sure you stay in places where there are people around, and you'll be safe."
"Yes, sir."
"You may go."
Lucy gladly left the office. She was always uncomfortable around Armand, and Adele was even worse. Sometimes she regretted having joined the Petulac. If it wasn't for the wonderful friendship she had with Justin, she might have gone off on her own, or joined another clan.
Lucy walked through a corridor of the large mansion. Turning a corner, she reached Justin's door. Knocking gently, she entered and found Justin sitting on a chair by the window, staring outside.
"Hey," Lucy said, taking a chair by the window as well.
"So what was all that about?" Justin asked. "Who were they?"
"Tenumago, another vampire clan. They have been enemies with our clan for a long time now."
"Why?"
"No idea," Lucy shrugged. "It's been less than thirty years since I joined the Petulac. In all that time, we've never encountered the Tenumago, so I never really thought to ask. All I know is that there was some form of disagreement between the former Petulac and Tenumago leaders, and they were both killed. Ever since then, there's been bloody fights whenever the two clans meet. The woman, Codie, is the Tenumago leader. The guy who was with her is her son, Ean."
As she mentioned Ean's name, Lucy glanced discreetly at Justin who was blushing slightly as he remembered the other boy.
"A mother and son who are both vampires?"
"Yeah. It's not so common, but it happens sometimes that people from the same family get turned." Lucy smiled at Justin. "You like him, don't you? Ean."
"Please...!" Justin said turning away, blushing even more. "I only saw him for a moment, and I didn't even speak to him."
"Sometimes one moment is all it takes."
"Give me a break!"
"Hey..." Lucy took Justin's hand, dropping her teasing tone of voice. "You can tell me anything. You know that, right?"
"Yeah, I know."
Justin had been ten years old when he'd been taken in by the Petulac clan. He was an orphan with no knowledge of who his parents were, and at the time he'd been in a foster home with the worst kind of people. One night he'd been beaten so bad that he lost conciousness, and when he woke up he was in a strange place, with Armand was sitting by his side. Armand had explained to Justin who and what they were, and that they had happened by when he'd been beaten and saved him, and decided to take care of him.
He could never explain why, but Justin was never really afraid of his strange saviors, even when he gradually began to understand that they were telling the truth about what they were. Perhaps, starved for affection as he was, being suddenly treated like a prince was enough to banish any fear. Even of vampires. Not once did they try to hurt him, like the people at his foster home and so many other people he'd known. Lucy was assigned to be a sort of nanny for him, and she completely stole his heart. They had been inseparable friends ever since. That was eight years ago.
Justin looked at Lucy and, as usual, he couldn't help smiling; her presence always made everything better.
"Actually... I do think I like him. When I saw him... I've never felt anything that strong before. But it's so confusing that a person you saw for about three or four minutes can have this weird effect on you. It was just a moment, and I can't stop thinking about him!"
"Hmm... I felt that way once, too," Lucy said, and a rare tone of sadness crept into her voice. It only took one second however, for her to perk up again.
"Anyway," Justin sighed. "I guess it's useless to be thinking about him. If he's an enemy, Armand would never let me near him."
"There's nothing wrong with a little daydreaming," Lucy grinned. "If it's just a crush, it'll go away soon enough."
