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Six years later

A small, mousy haired six year old wandered along the forest path alone; smiling. She kept glancing over her shoulder and smirked each time she saw it was empty. In the distance there was the sound of a woman frantically calling someone’s name; like they were searching. She skipped happily, glancing around at the forest with interest. The branches that hung over her head shone emerald green where the sun blazed upon them. Vanessa stood watching as the wind rustling through the leaves caused the light that peeped through the branches to wink. The rustle of the wind swept away from the trees and with it took all the sounds of a wood in the middle of a popular park. The only sound was Vanessa’s footsteps. She stopped still, trying to find the source of the sudden silence; curious where a child ought to be afraid. One of the fir trees caught her attention as it had shuffled with no wind to move it. It stood out amongst the other firs, which were all bright green; this one had a dark, deadened look. Vanessa smiled widely as a tall, muscular figure pushed past the dead fern. His eyes were blood red with a small black pupil in the centre; there was some deep hungry look within them as he stared at her. Vanessa stared back with polite curiosity and smiled still more widely.
“You have funny eyes.” She said with childish bluntness. The stranger cocked his head quizzically; it reminded Vanessa of a cat.
'Don’t run, you are safe' The words felt like they had been put straight into her head, rather then said allowed.
“Why would I run?” Surprise leapt across his features and he drew back his lips in an evil imitation of a smile; his aim being to frighten the child into the gibbering wreck that the muscled man was used to causing.
“My teeth are like yours!” She lifted up her top lip revealing her own strange canines. The man’s face bristled in amused surprise and he spoke again into Vanessa’s mind.
'Sleep mortal.' Vanessa frowned. Fine, she was going to try speaking his way.
'Why?' The word spoken from mind to mind unleashed something that had been bound deep within Vanessa her whole life. In that moment everything changed.

This time his surprise was not that of amusement. It was pure shock. Which made Vanessa happy, she liked to surprise adults.
'Sleep.' Vanessa was getting cross now, why did she have to sleep? It wasn’t bed time. She shouted back at him louder and more forcefully. Unaware she had not spoken aloud at all but straight into the man’s mind.
'No! I don’t want too!' Then she felt her knees buckle suddenly against her will and she fell to the ground. Vanessa frowned, she didn’t like this. Concentrating hard she made the forces restraining her simply melt away. Vanessa then turned her glare upon the man and thought as hard as she could, wishing he would disappear; she didn’t like him! He didn’t disappear but was thrown backwards and pinned to the floor. This time he spoke allowed;
“��Ƿ�…?”
“What are you?” Vanessa stood over him, eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“A vampire?”
“Seriously?” She giggled a little, “My mummy says that your made up but your here, so you must be.”
“Were real.” He said and Vanessa giggled again.
“But Vampires can’t read peoples minds or speak into them either.”
“How do you that that’s what we do?” He asked, curious despite his situation. Vanessa frowned.
“I just know.” A curious twinkle now formed in the vampire man’s eyes too.
“Can you read mine?” He asked, Vanessa screwed up her small face and listened hard. After a moment a different voice came to her, a softer, more private voice which had an echo to it.
“The child is mortal but why then, am I at her mercy? She won’t succeed in...” But he broke of mid sentence and gave a small gasp. Before both of their minds eye images began to flash and voices sounded inside their heads, they watched pictures of terrified women, men, children and many people with ghostly skin and red eyes. Vanessa could hear hundreds of conversations and terrified screams. She screwed up her eyes and tried to stop it, she didn’t want to see anymore. Too many people were dying! He’d done it all!

Blinking away the vision she realised that all she could see now was the even paler face of the vampire, still pinned to the ground. Vanessa now knew all the terrible things he had done and suddenly wanted the bad man to die. It was an unbidden passion which suddenly overtook her, making her feel much, much older. She looked straight into the vampire’s eyes; her thoughts full of hate. He suddenly howled in pain and shrank away from her. Vanessa didn’t know what she had done but she tried with all her might to keep hurting him, so he wouldn’t hurt her or anyone else again, wouldn’t make another woman scream or another man cry at his feet; wouldn’t kill another child again. The vampire shrieked again, he shimmered and disappeared; she was left glaring at a patch of leafy ground which blew into the air in a mini tornado and then settled. Vanessa stood a moment reeling in shock, he had disappeared; just like magic. She closed her eyes and tried to find the creepy, dreamy voice that she heard in her head. Gone. She smiled and continued on up the path, the vampire’s memories still ringing in her ears.

‘That little git, where did she run off too this time? Vanessa! Vanessa!’
“Mum?” Vanessa called back, she was bored of wandering and wanted to go home now but her mum wasn’t listening properly! She couldn’t hear Vanessa’s replies.
‘Come on Vanessa! I know you always hide at the bridge.’ The bridge? That was ages away, why would mummy be shouting for her that loudly? Vanessa turned left and crawled through a hole in the bushes; it was one of her short cuts, they were quicker than her mum’s way round the park. It felt like forever before she finally reached the bridge.
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“You can stop shouting now mummy, I’m here.”
“I wasn’t shouting.”
“Yes you were! I heard you from all the way in the woods!”
“I didn’t shout,” Her mum said, frowning “and what were you doing in the woods young lady? You had me worried sick!” Vanessa followed her furious mum towards the car park in a confused dawdle. Her mum had been shouting; she’d heard it!

A room of pale faces surveyed an even paler one with dark hair and strong muscular tone; although currently he appeared to be in severe pain. He was in the centre of the shrouded clearing; the audience watched him looking amused. Their red eyes surveyed his panting form with no sympathy although he was clearly in excruciating pain.
“You’re saying that a child did this?” Mocked a red haired man close to him.
“Yes, a child did this” the man in the centre grimaced; fighting the pain wracking his body. The entire room rang with mocking laughter, although it was cautious; ready for the backlash that was surely to follow. No one laughed at the master.
“Quiet.” He spoke the word in a deadly quiet voice but it caused the room to flush into silence within a second, every face faded from laughter to angst. Each suddenly as still as the next. His voice rang with the undertone of authority; “Such impudence.” The red head crashed to the floor is sudden agony, clutching his head his terrible shrieks ringing through the clearing. Every ghostly face became slightly more pale and frozen in rigid fear. “You forget your place Nicholas.” A hand seemed to hold him upright for a moment until a flick of the masters wrist flung him to the ground.
“I believe she’s a child of Laurence’s.” He continued as though nothing had happened. The faces of the ensemble around him flitted to hatred before returning to tension as their master began to pace angrily.
“There are more than those we were aware of?” One inquired tentatively.
“It would seem so. She’s extremely powerful too.”
“I thought Laurence was dead?” A dangerously beautiful woman stepped from the crowd, her voice rang with the similar tone of authority as his.
“Yes, as did I.” He talked differently to this woman, as though she was an equal.
“He may yet be dead since the child’s conception? What age was she?”
“Six years I would think, my love; she is beyond all the others in power.” The women laid a hand on his arm.
“She will die like the rest; there is no need to have worry of her yet. No one is impossible to kill.”

Little Vanessa sat feeling puzzled, everyone kept speaking to her without moving their mouths; she was definitely going mad! She looked at her untidy toys and sighed, she didn’t feel like playing she liked listening to the words in her head. One of them had the voice of her mum, it was the funniest voice. She had thought for maybe a second that she was like the vampire but he hadn’t bit her and that was what all the movies said made you into a vampire. To Vanessa it did feel like she was hearing people’s thoughts. But normal people couldn’t do that, so she was just crazy. Vanessa had felt funny since she’d met that vampire, like she was always running, or like there was electricity inside her. Everything had become sharper and more colourful. She’d seen a rainbow the other day; it was so pretty that she even gasped out loud but mummy had said it looked no different. It was all so confusing and her head suddenly felt very loud and cramped.