The streetlights glared down on the quiet residences of Sunny Ray Lane as the black of night filled in the shadows. It was a cool night; a spring breeze weaved through the trees as if playing a child’s game. The street rested in the absence of activity as the people dreamed in their homes, lulled by a false sense of security.

The trees offered relief from the steaming heat with their soft shade during the day, and now they shaded three men from the blinding lamps. Two sat on the hard ground idly, waiting for a reason to move. The other stood watch from his perch in the oak. He squinted down at the street patiently, looking for the signal.

The breeze tangled itself in the tree limbs, rustling his head of brown hair into his dark eyes. He brushed the rebelling strands away with an absent flick of his hand, never letting his eyes leave their mark. The moonlight reflected off his visage, and despite the night chill, he was quite comfortable in a black short-sleeved shirt. There were no flaws in his features except for a faint scar above his left eyebrow.

He looked down at his companions below. They were very similar in appearance, with dark hair and eyes against pale skin. Although they sat close to each other, they never spoke or made any move to communicate with each other. They were hardly amateurs at these operations.

The man in the tree exhaled slowly. To a quick glance, he appeared to be in his mid-twenties, but a further study fostered doubt in the beholder. Although his eyes reflected innocence, there was something in his aura that reflected knowledge beyond what was expected. Of course, not too many people had time to wonder about him, as he rarely joined in their society. He lived in a shroud of mystery, hidden from the eyes of common mortals.

He glanced back to the house he’d been watching since the sun had gone down. It looked like any other house on the block with the white siding and the pale blue shutters, but he knew it was much different than the others. He could taste the evil in that house on the tip of his tongue, the pungent hatred like a lemon on a wound. The house was dark, indicating the occupants had turned in for the night. Their people were never night owls.

Right on cue, the streetlights flickered out, as if a fuse had blown. The darkness was welcomed after the florescent lamps. His eyes didn’t have to adjust at all in the absence of light. In fact, his vision improved greatly.

Silently, he jumped from the tree and landed on his feet with ease. One of his companions raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question. He nodded in reply, clenching his fists in anticipation.

“Everyone knows the plan, but we’ll go over it again in case anyone wasn’t paying attention the first fifty times. We all go in together. Then Cairo and I go for the witch and her human. Rhett, you’ll find the study and get the witch’s books. We’ll burn them when the kill is complete. Is that clear?” Sirius asked monotonously, fulfilling his duty as the senior member among them.

Rhett and Cairo nodded. Rhett was disappointed to be given such an unexciting part in the operation, but he knew it was his obligation as this was his first time. Rookies always had to keep watch and get the books. It was a rite of passage, in a way.

With a satisfied nod, the companions strode purposefully toward the house. Rhett

felt a ripple of anxiety in his gut. Many werewolves and vampires had been destroyed by

witches before, and he hoped tonight would not be his last raid.

Sirius stepped forward with the key. Witch doors were always sealed with spells against forced entry, so breaking and entering was hardly an option. How Orpheus came by the key, Sirius wouldn’t say. Cairo knew as well, but both were keeping their mouths shut in an attempt to torment the rookie on his first raid. The door opened silently, and Sirius slipped the key into his back pocket. With a wave of his hand, they trailed him into the witch’s home.

Rhett followed closely while looking around curiously. He’d never seen a witch’s house before, and he’d expected the normality of the exterior to be just a mask. But the inside was nothing remarkable. The kitchen looked like any other kitchen he’d seen. The halls were decorated with pictures of what seemed like a normal life. He shook his head impatiently, returning his thoughts to the task at hand.

The staircase was short and they had reached the second floor in no time. Cairo patted Rhett on the back with a small nod of his head. Rhett sighed and turned toward the room at the end of the hall. He cracked the door slightly and peered inside. The bookshelves told him he’d reached the right place.

He slipped inside slickly and started gathering the books in his arms. There were only a few tomes of spells in this library. He’d heard many tales of whole rooms full of spell books from the older vampires, but this home only possessed the bare minimum. He stuffed the volumes in his bag and checked to make sure he’d gotten all of it.

“No!”

Rhett dropped the bag. The voice didn’t belong to Sirius or Cairo, rather an unfamiliar woman. The shout was followed by a cry of agony and a large thud. Leaving the bag, he raced to the room at the other end of the hall.

Cairo lay motionless at the doorway; a thick stake plunged through his heart. Fighting back the anger, Rhett ran into the room and narrowly dodged another stake aimed at him. Sirius had his foot on the human as he snarled at Rhett. “Don’t just stand there!”

Rhett jumped into action. Grasping the witch by the arm, he threw her against the wall with enough force to kill a human. She, however, was just severely stunned. He looked to Sirius hesitantly, not sure if he should take the witch.

Sirius shook his head violently. “I’ll deal with her,” he said gruffly, taking his foot from the now dead man’s neck.

Rhett removed himself from the room silently to retrieve his bag from the study. It was right where he left it, and he returned to find Sirius dropping the drained body and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You got everything?” Sirius asked superiorly.

Rhett nodded. “What do we do with Cairo?”

Sirius’s expression darkened. “We’ll leave him here. The fire will destroy everything.”

Rhett turned his head away from Cairo’s lifeless form to the sound from downstairs. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

The door slam reverberated through the house. Rhett met Sirius’s eyes expectantly. The vampire handed Rhett a long silver dagger. “Aim away from the heart. We don’t want to be killing one of our own.”

Rhett descended to the first floor slowly, trying to keep the floorboards quiet beneath

his feet. There was definitely someone moving around in the kitchen. He crept to the

entranceway stealthily and stepped around the corner clutching the dagger in his fist.

The girl he found staring at him paled and opened her mouth to scream. Then her eyes fell on the blood on Rhett’s hands.

“No,” she whispered, tears filling copper eyes.

Rhett raised his blade to kill, but he hesitated. The girl looked to be no more than thirteen years old. Her school uniform was spotlessly neat and tidy. She was the dictionary definition of innocence.

Instead of slitting her throat, Rhett grabbed her by the waist and carried her to the foyer, despite her screams of protest. Opening the door, he threw her onto the sidewalk. “You’ll leave now if you want to live,” he said harshly, slamming the door.

He ignored the sound of sobs and screaming as he ran back upstairs to get Sirius. He found him pouring gasoline over the bodies and over the floor. He didn’t make any acknowledgement of Rhett except to ask, “Why did you let her go?”

Rhett shrugged. “I couldn’t even feel her aura. It was like… like she wasn’t even a witch. She was too young.”

Sirius threw the can in the corner and walked past Rhett, glaring darkly. “Don’t let yourself think that even the youngest of them are innocent. As it is with all witches, she’ll grow up and join the fight against us. We must be at war with all of them or we will perish.”

Rhett nodded silently as Sirius threw the match on the slick carpet. The inferno was born in an instant, raging with the fury of vengeance. As smoothly as they’d entered, they left the burning house and disappeared into the night. Although none of them could forget that one of their team had been lost, and he would never be found.

-- Wow! You actually read the whole first chapter! Amazing! You're still breathing, right? Hello? Okay, in a serious note, this is my 2005 Nano. So I haven't really edited much. Review away and come back for more if you can stomach it!

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