Chapter Text
It had been an uneventful twenty-four hours in Oakhurst. Almost suspiciously so, really, because not a single beacon had been converted all day and not one hunting party had left the castle all night. The humans had been too afraid to leave town since Drift’s turning, and Scott had kept the other vampires on lockdown in the castle for undisclosed reasons. Shelby was worried about him; the others thought he was being paranoid.
He had been awfully on edge lately. But Shelby trusted him! And if even he was lying to them, it took a lot to make the elder vampire afraid. Whatever intimidated Scott Goldsmith enough to lock the whole coven indoors and not leave even to hunt or defend the beacons was not something Shelby planned on meeting. They opted to follow Scott’s instructions and just hang out with Pyro until things— whatever that entailed— calmed down.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy.
At dawn on the second day of lockdown, a horrible noise woke the vampires from their sleep. Everyone rushed to the entry hall to find the source of it and saw Scott standing face to face with a winged beast. It was purple and black and made of feathers and shadows. It was covered in eyes like an angel, only darker and radiating a sense of terror. Its appearance shifted before their eyes; its image escaped them when they looked to closely. It screamed and the sound made some of the vampires collapse. Scott, however, was unaffected.
“Get out, Xelqua,” he snarled. “I cut ties with your kind long ago. I have no desire to participate in your games ever again.”
The creature— this Xelqua— cried out again. Then it changed.
Slowly, it morphed into a new shape. A man, tall and slim, with blonde hair and wearing elegant purple robes. The wings on his back and head remained, eyes covered by feathers.
“And if you had a chance to get your friend back?”
Scott stumbled back in horror.
“You aren’t Grian,” He said, every word sounding strained, like it hurt him to speak. “You aren’t my friend and you’ll never be him again. He’s dead. How dare you use his visage like this—”
“It’ll be so nice to see the look on his face when I tell him you’ve given up on him,” Xelqua laughed. “Don’t worry, you don’t get a choice anyway.” He snapped and before anyone could interrupt, the world turned dark.
She floated in nothing for a while. It was nice. Empty. Quiet. They couldn’t tell if their eyes were open or not. It should have been scary, the darkness, but she found it oddly soothing—
“Shelby. Shelby!” A voice called out to her and she snapped into awareness. She was sitting upright on the floor of a plain, unfurnished white room. “Shelby, are you ok?”
“Where are we?” She asked. Then she saw it. At the far back of the room, a doorway with a purple eye on it. An eye like Xelqua’s. “What’s…”
“We aren’t sure,” Cleo said. “We decided to wait for everyone to wake up before opening it. We’ve got company, by the way.”
The human townsfolk were huddled a few feet away, glaring with undisguised malice.
“Let’s get going already,” Pyro said sullenly, already halfway to the door. “We have to find Sire.” It was only then Shelby realized Scott wasn’t with them.
“Wait, what?” She asked. “Why isn’t he here with us? Did he leave? Did it take him?”
“We aren’t sure what happened to him,” Abolish said from where the humans were standing, “but for once I agree with Pyro. We should start moving.”
By the time they all reached the door— the room was longer than it had initially seemed— Pyro was there already, itching to open it. Finally he pushed it outwards and a blinding light filled the room.
They were in a forest. It was beautiful. There were animals wandering everywhere that couldn’t seem to see them. There were flowers in patches along the forest floor. There was sunlight filtering through the trees.
And a few feet ahead was Scott.
He was dressed very oddly, in a thin white shirt and denim pants, and his hair had turned back to blue.
“Scott?” Pyro called. He heard no response. Then he tried tapping the elder vampire on the shoulder. His hand went through Scott’s arm.
“WHAT THE FUCK?” Someone yelled. Apo and Cleo pulled Pyro away as he stood there in shock. They expected that something to happen, that Scott might turn around and scold them, or that the being from earlier would appear again. Nothing happened. In a few minutes, they’d all calmed down, and Legs addressed them from near Scott’s frozen form.
“Whatever is happening, it’s clearly beyond our control. We need to put our conflicts aside,” he said begrudgingly. I ask for the coven’s cooperation in this. We need to—”
HELLO.
...
Xelqua had arrived.