Tears in the Dark

Chapter 1

Weakness of the Mind

“I don’t think you should go. You’re weak from no food.

“I have to go. It’s the last one before it all goes back to normal.”

“You’re going to hurt someone and you’ll regret it later.”

There was no reply from the darkness.

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A tall man pushed the glass doors open and strode into the room. Sunlight streamed in, touching his glossy brown hair and bathing his marble body in a pale gold gleam. Every girl and woman in the room seemed to melt as he pulled of his t-shirt and slipped the red clothing over his shoulders. He pushed his hair away from his face and his piercing blue eyes surveyed the room. As always, a large range of people from different standards sat on the chairs waiting for him. Most of them were female while a few men stood to the side, waiting. The man strolled onto the middle of the room, bare feet making no noise on the padded floor.

“Surits, line up!”

The man watched as his students clambered up and stood in a line, black belts at the top. One particular black belt, right at the start of the line caught his eye. She smirked at him and mouthed a few words.

‘Why were you late?’

The man winked and rolled his eyes, keeping back a smile. A moment after, he yelled out to the class.

“Otegani Rei!” The man bowed to his students and lifted his head expectantly.

“Ous!” The students cried sleepily as they bowed to their teacher at 8:30 in the morning.

“Warm-ups! Running around the mat! NOW!”

The students began running slowly around the mat, pacing themselves. As they passed the man, the women would drink in a deep breath of his smell. Yet with all this attraction, none of them ever approached him. There was something about him which did not seem right. Every one of them gave him a wide birth as they ran. All except one black belt. She stopped running and traipsed over to him.

“So Dmitri, you still haven’t told me why you were late.” she teased him in a sing-song voice.

Dmitri sighed and playfully shoved her. “Come on Amber, get back to work. I can’t keep letting you slack off.”

“You only let me slack of ‘cause you like me and you know I’m the best here after you.”

“What makes you think I like you?”

“Because, I’m one of your closest friends.” Amber laughed as she skipped back into the running row of people.

Dmitri looked at the girl and smiled. He stopped the class and started barking out orders. Quite suddenly, he stopped in mid-sentence. His eyes became unfocused and he shook his head jerkily. Amber looked at him with concern in her eyes. He scrunched his eyes close for a second and opened them again. He gave a small nod to Amber and continued with giving the class a number of combinations for a defence strategy. Amber continued to watch him carefully.

“Ok. New combo. I know, I know. Tami has a test today so I have to do some combos. Get over it. Now start of with a thrusting front kick, landing in shikodachi, front hand lower block, pivot punch and then front hand lower block again. Then bring your front foot back into cat-foot stance and finish with a mawashi block. Got it?”

A tall man near the end shook his head and a few others followed suit. Dmitri sighed and looked around the room, eyes searching for a volunteer. He knew that none of the people would want to be near him except for Amber. The only problem was that Amber was one of the best fighters here so she wouldn’t be brought down that easily. Dmitri sighed and motioned to Amber.

Amber smiled. “Want me to be the test dummy?”

“Uhuh. Just stand still and don’t try anything funny ok? I have to explain this to the younger belts.”

“Fine, I’ll be like jelly.”

“Good. Now watch me everybody. She steps forward and punches.” Dmitri performed the series of combos on the girl.

“Now when you’ve done that, you end up a few feet away from each other, your opponent slightly of balance. All you have to do now is take two steps forward and then bam! Do a take down on them.”

Dmitri stepped up to Amber and took her into a hold. He didn’t take her down, but held her at a position where she could fall to the ground at any time if he let go. Dmitri’s eyes unfocused again and his arms went limp. Amber fell to the ground and jumped up in surprise. She put her arm on Dmitri’s shoulder.

“‘Mitri? You ok?”

“Hmm? Yeah, sorry about that.”

“You sure you don’t want to sit down or something?”

“Nah, I’m fine.”

“Ok… If you say so…” Amber walked back to her spot, disbelieving.

“Back to work! Now that you’ve seen how it’s done, how about you add in the takedown as well. Work with a partner. Amber, can you work with Tristan? Make sure he knows how to do the take down properly.”

The class shuffled round and got to work. Dmitri walked around the room pretending to survey the class as he tried to steady himself. He snuck a quick look at the clock. 9:20. Almost time to go. Wait; correction. There was ten minutes left for the normal class and about an hour left for Amber and him.

“Good Tristan. Make sure you don’t go easy on her just because she’s a girl. And Amber, try to be nice. He’s a yellow belt.”

“Aren’t I always nice?” the girl smiled cheekily.

Dmitri smiled and continued to walk around the room, making sure to give each pair a wide birth. He knew how much he discomforted them. From experience, Dmitri knew that as much as they couldn’t resist him, people were generally weary of him, as if he gave of a type of aura saying ‘Stay away from me’.

“Alright people, back into one line.” Dmitri walked up to the front of the class and grabbed a black tag. “I’ve got one tag to present and that’s to Tami. Everyone give her a big hand.”

As the class clapped, Tami went up to collect her very first tag and quietly sidled back to her spot, unconsciously touching the part where Dmitri had shook her hand.

“Good work. Make sure you go home and practice what you’ve done. See you all soon.”

The class broke up and Dmitri walked over to the desk and sat on his chair. Amber walked over to him, a glass of water in hand. She leant over the table and stared into his eyes, beads of sweat rolling down her face.

“What?” Dmitri asked finally,

“Nothing. Just wondering why you never seem to break a sweat, no matter how much work we do. I’ve seen you do a hundred push-ups nonstop with not even a drop of sweat coming out.”

“I’m fit. What can I say?”

“Fit my ass. Anyway, how’re you feeling? You up for my lesson or you want me to go home? I’m ok as long as you’re feeling fine.”

“No, no. Let’s get on the mat. I’ll be ok. What do you want to practice first?” The pair walked onto the dojo mats and stood opposite each other.

“Um… I was hoping to work on my kyogi. I’m hopeless at the second dan level kyogi!”

“You’re only supposed to be doing the standard level kyogi.”

“Yeah, but I know them all and the first dan level too.”

“We’ll see. What is kyogi? You’re going to have to know that first if you want to pass your kyogi test.”

“Kyogi is the art of taking a move from a Kata pattern and turning it into a whole defensive and offensive combination.” Amber rattled her answer off.

“Good, straight from the book. Ok. What kyogi do you want to work on?”

“Um… well ok, I’ve tried a few at home and the one that doesn’t seem to work is my take down one.”

“Show me.”

“Alright.” Amber agreed shakily. “Step forward then do an urashuto.”

Dmitri stepped forward and did as she asked. Amber swiped forward in a tricky combination which ended in Dmitri half falling towards the ground and half getting stuck in between her legs.

“See! I told you it doesn’t work.” Amber helped Dmitri up and looked at him expectantly.

“Ok, why don’t you use part of the combo I taught today as well as the part from the kata in your kyogi?”

“Huh?”

Dmitri stopped for a second and turned around, not letting Amber see that his head was hurting again. He shook his head and faced the concerned girl again.

“Look, how about I show you.” He continued as if nothing had happened.

Amber raised her eyebrows but complied with his request. She stepped forward and performed an urashuto or on other words, a knife-hand strike. Dmitri grabbed her arm and twisted it round, bringing it into a lock. Then twisting her back, he did a pivoting thrust punch and quickly moved into the take down position. His face was right at her neck. Amber’s heart was racing as she expected a fall. But none came. She was stuck in Dmitri’s arms while his face was inches away from her neck. Raising her eyebrows, she opened her mouth to say something when a small growl came from behind her. The hairs on her neck rippled with the warm breath that pushed onto her skin.

Amber whirled around. “What are you - ”

A sight that she would never forget greeted her. Instead of the sweet Dmitri, with his perfect brown hair and beautiful blue eyes, a new Dmitri stared at her. This Dmitri grinned and displayed fangs that protruded out of his red lips. Amber dragged her eyes away from the blood red eyes on Dmitri’s murderous face to stare at the knife-like fangs. She drew in a sharp breath and before anything could happen, pain raced through her body. Her breathing became ragged as Dmitri sucked the blood from her tan neck. Soon her body became limp and shut down as the blood rushed out of her body and into the vampyr’s mouth.

Almost as suddenly as they changed, Dmitri’s eyes flew back to its icy blue colour and his fangs receded back into his mouth. He stood like a statue, his marble body curled around Amber’s limp form. Abruptly he dropped her, as if she were made of hot coals. He brought a long finger up to his mouth and touched the red liquid that was around his mouth. His tongue flickered out and tasted the blood and his eyes flashed towards Amber’s neck where the same blood was dripping out of her body. Dmitri groaned and clenched his eyes shut, putting his arm on his head.

“Great… I am so dead.”

Bending down, Dmitri picked up the girl as if she weighed nothing at all and placed her by the side gently. He looked down at the floor. Luckily only a drop or two stained the white mats. He could explain that as a sparring injury. There were old blood stains everywhere anyway. Cleaning of his clothes, he picked up Amber’s form and locked the door behind him. Laying her in the back of his car, he started up the engine and flew off towards Chatsworth House.

Chatsworth House. One of England’s most visited and best loved historical homes. The front garden boasts more than 200 yards of green lawn and an amazing long fountain, flowing down from the top of Chatsworth to the bottom. The back garden is a 105 acre magical landscape, fulfilling anyone’s dream. There are five miles of walks with rare trees, shrubs, formal hedges, temples, sculptures old and new, streams and ponds and finally leading to a huge hedge maze where you could run around for more than half a day. Waterworks, fountains, rock gardens and sculptures follow you around no matter where you go. The house itself is almost as big, with historical furniture and amazing paintings dating back to the first duke of England. Visitors far and wide come to view this house in its entire splendor. Its caretaker and owner Vladimir descendent of the 1st duke of Devonshire gladly allowed almost anybody to come through except into a few select rooms.

Of course, that’s by day. Through the night and whenever Vladimir wished, the house was closed. At that time, the vampyrs ruled. Vladimir was the first duke of Devonshire and a vampyr lord. And that was where Dmitri was taking his friend. Flickering through the crowds, faster than a human eye could see, he flashed into a dark room where he laid her on a bed gently.

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“I told you it would happen.”

“Shut up.”