A Bride Contested By Vampire And Angel

Chapter 6

With a lit candle standing stably on its candlestick in my left hand, my right hand held firmly onto the hilt of the knife I had retrieved from the kitchen. I was standing by the doors that led into the backyard, my breathing was hitched but my mind very clear. I was feeling brave internally but my body was evidently trembling; and it was not the cold that was to be blamed for that either.

I grabbed the doorknob with my right hand and pulled one of the doors to open, but the moment it was opened ajar, a gust of the coldest wind I had ever felt rushed in and instantly blew out the candle. I cursed underneath my breath as I placed the candlestick down on the floor by the door. My only source of light could no longer help me out in the dark and the cold winter night was as terrying as it was freezing.

To avoid having the inside of the mansion becoming cold and disturbing those that were unlikely asleep, I hurried past the door and closed it behind me. Then I spent the next minute with my back against it and staring straight at the figure in the distance as it continued its work by digging a deeper hole.

"Hey...!" I called out with a soft voice. The fear was laced in my voice but the cold was what made it almost difficult to speak. I did not prepare myself for the outside before I left the warmth of the mansion. The figure stood upright, searched around for where the voice had come from, saw me standing by the door, then proceeded to dig the hole in the ground.

It was then that I noticed that the figure, the girl I had met at Miss. Catherine's shop a day or so ago, was not as dressed as I was to combat the cold. She had on a mere short sleeved t-shirt and denim pants with sandals. She retained the same somber expression on her face as when I first saw her.

"What are you doing out here?" I asked next, taking a couple of steps away from the door and further into the backyard. I did not walk past that point the first time I saw the backyard. The cold was suddenly accompanied by an eerie feeling. The girl did not reply and continued to dig. I stepped closer and closer until I was only a few feet away from her.

"Aren't you cold?" I asked once again, hoping that she would at least reply this time. She did by shaking her head, her long dark hair that draped down her shoulders swaying with the motion. She really wasn't cold. The pale skin of her thin arms revealed not even one goosebump. It was perfectly clear, as though her body felt no cold. It confirmed the theory that I had come to when I saw that she had no scar anywhere on her body; she wasn't human either. Just like Daryl and my parents.

"Why are you digging a hole out here and in the middle of the night? ... Does anyone else know you're here?" I was shuddering when I asked her those questions and not once did I think that I was asking too much. She had to explain why she was doing what she was and at that time, too. But she kept quiet and continued to dig.

I don't know if it was because of whistling wind or because some supernatural force was used, but I did not hear anyone walk up behind me until a hand was rested on my shoulder and I immediately turned around the second my heart skipped a painful beat. It was beating so hard and fast that I was certain Daryl or the girl would have heard it if they strained their hearing enough. Behind me stood said man, hand outstretched in surprise; surprise because of the way I reacted.

I had my guard up and was pointing the knife I had in hand towards him, holding tightly onto the hilt with both of my trembling hands. It was when I fully realized whom it was did my guard drop a little, but only a little. I was standing between two creatures, one of them who was extremely fast and agile and the other who was digging a hole for God knows what reason.

"Hey, now... put that down before you hurt yourself," Daryl suggested as he dropped his hand to let it hang by his side. His words only made me hold even more tightly onto the knife.

"How do I know you won't try to harm ne?" I asked with a wary tone. He simply scoffed.

"Even if I did try to harm you, what would you do? Stab me? You and I both know that's an ineffectual method when it comes to trying to kill a vampire." He spoke with so much arrogance and cockiness that I felt the inside of my head begin to boil from annoyance. But what he said wasn't entirely false. As demonstrated earlier, his wound healed quickly and it was as though he did not take any damage when I bit his palm open. It would make no difference if it was a knife.

"By the way, what did you say your name was?" Daryl's next question made me drop my guard. My arms fell to my sides when I sighed.

"I never told you my name and frankly speaking, I don't want to tell you either... I thought you left," I stated as I watched him walk around me. He stopped before the hole the girl was still digging and scanned all the edges and corners. Looking at it from a closer distance, I noticed that the hole was actually long and wide, enough to fit a whole human in it. I looked up at him as he inspected the hole with one hand holding his chin.

"Of course not, my job here isn't done yet," he spoke in a deep and masculine voice that would not have meant much to me if he did not have the expression of full concentration on his face. When he wasn't behaving like a brat or egotistically, he was actually quite appealing.

"What job are you talking about? And why is this hole being dug here?" I asked after I averted my gaze from his face when he noticed I was basically staring at him. My cheeks were tinted by a red hue, but I managed to cover it up quickly by looking away before he would notice.

"Where else would it be?" He asked, making me more confounded than I already was. My confusion was written on my face, prompting Daryl to remember that I had arrived there only two nights ago and I was still in the dark about most of the events that took place in the mansion.

"Look, I don't mean to alarm you... but you're currently standing in a graveyard." At that moment, all the color was drained from my being. I was very alarmed by what he said, but when I took the time to scan my surroundings, it did not seemed at all like a lie, except for the fact that we where behind the mansion in the middle of a small town. It made no sense that the backyard would be a graveyard, but what made little sense was why the girl was digging up the hole.

"But nobody died," I said naively and as far as I was concerned, vampires were basically near immortal.

"What makes you think we want to bury someone?" Daryl's question had me thinking. Then it dawned on me that they weren't digging the hole because they wanted to put someone in it, they were digging it to get something out. I was not at the right place at the appropriate time. I wanted to run back in the mansion into my room and forget everything I had just heard.

I was prepared to ignore the fact that my new home served as a graveyard as well as long as I wasn't out there in the middle of the night. So I asked no further questions and turned to leave, but in a second, Daryl was standing before me, blocking my path.

"Don't you think you should stay and familiarize yourself with this place?" He asked with half a smile on his face. I looked away and tried to walk past him, but he once again prevented me from moving forward by moving in front of me.

"I would rather not. I hate myself for asking too many questions and now I want to sleep." He still would not let me move past him, so I gave up and looked up at his face.

"Sleep, huh?" He had a look of what seemed to have been amusement on his face.

"Well, enjoy it while it lasts," he finally stepped aside and returned to his original position by the hole. I was free to go back to the mansion and that is probably what I should have done, but there were still some questions he didn't answer. While I was frightened, my curiosity was greater.

"You haven't told me what you came here to do. What's buried there that you want to get?" I was being nosy at that point and wasn't at all ashamed of that personality trait of mine. Daryl turned his head to face me with a c****d eyebrow. He then turned around and approached me.

"I never said that we're digging something out. This is a shallow grave... for burying someone." I was at a loss for words. Indeed, he never did say that they were digging something out, I had made the assumption on my own accord.

"Who died?" I asked. Was I wrong about vampires being immortal after all?

"Anybody can die and someone definitely will soon," Daryl answered.

"I guess they don't teach much at orphanages," a new voice entered the conversation and I looked around Daryl at the girl who was still digging the hole. She was just about done but decided to enter the conversation.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You think that vampires are immortal and can't wrap your head around who we're going to bury. But if vampires were immortal, our numbers wouldn't have fallen so drastically," the girl said, saying more than she had ever said to me since I met her. While the orphanage did teach some form of self defense and fighting styles, they did not teach how to defeat a vampire, and because of that, I assumed there was no way to kill them and that they were immortal.

"Is one of my parents...?" I couldn't finish the question. Nothing made any sense and Daryl and the girl giving me small pieces to solve the puzzle wasn't helping either. They were satisfied by the notion of me struggling to understand their methods or anything about them. Mocking humans was something they took pleasure from. The idea that they were making fun of me made my face turn bright red.

"Quite playing with me and tell me what's going on," I said in half a yell. The expression of amusement on Daryl's face remained. In fact, he was more than amused.

"Fine, I'll tell you," he began, "... as I said earlier, this is a graveyard, where all the previous servants of your parents are buried after they died in that explosion. I'm sure you know of this town's history." I was still very confused.

"But why are they buried here?" I asked next.

"Because they know too much. Dead people can talk despite what the expression says. They're buried here to keep any outsiders from learning any secrets," as he spoke, Daryl was inching closer to me until he was standing directly before me. I was engrossed in his explanation and did not notice until he used his right hand to caress my cheek, causing me to flinch and move away from him. His face was so close and my cheeks were heating up once again.

"The one who will die soon is Mary, and when you die, this is where you'll be buried."