Chapter 213Train of Thought

Nuru and I went back into the living room. Rain was of course very curious to what we discussed in there. It made me smile, she looked like all danger just passed her by. Although, her eyes showed how tired she truly was, about to fall over and sleep for days. She must have been awake for a long time and spend all her energy long ago.

"Hey Rain, I've asked Nuru to be with you for tonight so I can go make things in order. Is that alright with you?"

I knew it would, they'd taken to each other quite quickly in the car.

Rain smiled. "Sure! Is Afentis going to stay as well?"

Now it was my time to smile. "Of course, he's the reason I brought you here, he should be able to protect you against things I couldn't even withstand. So, you're safe here."

Rain nodded happily.

I turned to Afentis. "Can you show them a room upstairs for them to sleep in? Knowing Faith there's rooms aplenty in here."

he nodded. "Of course."

As this was goodbye for now, I gave Nuru a quick hug (again) and held Rain to me for a moment as well. Both of them waved as they went to the stairs with Afentis. He just smiled faintly, presumably enjoying this refreshing shower of humanity.

If he was the same one I had read about in the book, it didn't look like he kept up his lifestyle of holding parties for intelligent people. Nowadays, it'd be a lot harder to have people coming over for intellectually challenging debates, like in the past, without raising some suspicion or the wrong questions. A curious question rose up in me. Did he paint?

So many questions I wanted to ask later. But I felt the whole situation around Rain and her parents was more important right now. The words said by Faith actually surprised me so much that I was getting worried about my own self-being. To be honest, I wasn't sure I was going to come back. Rain was in a safe place right now, so was Nuru. Of course Hitori and Anka were safe as well. They each had their own, relatively uninterrupted, life to lead. It wasn't even worth being worried about Valerie and Khuna, they'd been vampires much longer then I and knew how to survive.

I wasn't all that sure about Kai though. His disappearance worried me but it was something that had to wait for later as well.

Sighing a little and not at all happy for the things that were to come I went outside and looked back to the castle. There was light on the second floor with, probably, Rain and Nuru getting a guided tour through history by Afentis. Faint giggling and laughter drifted out into the night. It lifted a little worry off my heart as I rose up in the sky.

The air cooled my skin and my senses. It gave me the curiosity to see how fast I could go, I pushed myself more. The ground rushed by faster and faster, reaching town way before I had the feeling I was getting to the limit. Of course it meant that it'd only taken a minute or two to get back to Hitori's place. It became easier all the time to fly above the city and rearrange all the information in my head for a top-down view by which I navigated. Skills I would never have thought of before.

It was fun being a vampire sometimes. I'd learned more new things, I felt, in the past two months than I had in a long time before. I didn't want to loose it.

So I decided I wouldn't.

If the group wanted to have revenge on me and make a trap, I could try and think like they did. They'd try and use their numbers to their advantage. And, if they payed any attention, although I'd fight if I had to, I really didn't like to hurt people. I sincerely hoped they weren't too aware of that, especially since they had no such restraints. Even Kryss' death was accidental of sorts, mostly caused by his own inability to stop fighting.

I'd automatically landed in front of Hitori's door. Not smart. I was just lucky that there was no one around to see it, but I'd been thinking so deep that the world around me had vanished. Strange, it didn't used to happen outside of reading. Not many times, anyway. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I knew my thoughts were just working in overtime because I wanted to be completely prepared.

But there's no such thing.

You can't ever account for every eventuality. So it's better to just prepare yourself well enough and hope for the best. Of course I did know my enemy somewhat and had a feeling where they could be. Unless...

They'd seen me fly to take Kryss, something they would surely remember. I knew I had to be really subtle with my abilities to them. Even though they could not follow me in flight, their awareness of my abilities was a major disadvantage. Also, of the three of us, I was the only one that could fly. I had to take everything into account and always keep the balance tilted towards us.

It was time to ask if Khuna and Valerie would help me. All three of us still had to drink, I presumed. But we could hunt together and, hopefully, take care of a strange annoyance of vampire existence.

I rang the doorbell...