Twisted Blood

Ridley exited the infirmary shower slowly, feeling the dregs of the medicine wear off. Victorine had her uniform washed then spread it over the table bank for her. There was also a comb and toothbrush set up for the guardian. In place of going home for breakfast, Ridley joined the rest of the sun students in the dining hall. It was just more economical than to walk all the way across the private buildings and back again. The moon students were there too, injoining their dinner. The dining hall - despite its name - was made up of a series of rooms.

There was the massive kitchen; one half was used for the dining hall and the other half was the culinary classroom. The two were halved by an archway that was blocked by the dining hall kitchen's deep friers. The culinary classroom had desks and a bookshelf on either side of the chalkboard on the far side of the class.

Through the dining hall kitchen's two swing doors was the dining area for the student body and the staff. At the very back was also a smoking area which was cut off by thick glass walls. The dining room had light grey walls and a notice board by the main entrance with all sorts of notices.

The smoking area also cut off access between the sun dining room and the moon dining room. The moon dining also had a kitchen but not all the equipment for a versatile diet. The younger generations of ampyra - give or take nine hundred years and younger - could live off more than just blood. That's assuming they weren't goldbloods.

The goldblood lineage was unblemished and that's why they relied solely on stems. Marcus, Dane's roommate, was a goldblood. He may only have been six centuries old but he had 'purer' instincts than his schoolmates simply because he was inbred.

Also making up the moon students' dining space were the stem cells. Poorly named. Stems were people - non-ampyra and ampyra alike, save for goldbloods - who willingly donated blood to ampyrakind. Stems usually had to follow the same rules as blood donors; at least sixteen and weighed a minimum of fifty kilograms. Stemming was 100% voluntary so stems could choose to donate every fifty-six days or be once-off or irregular donors.

They could choose to be anonymous stems, which were donors who had their blood extracted then left without meeting the person who would consume their blood. Or be live stems who allowed ampyras to stem straight from them. It was mostly a taboo practice these days and mostly done as a sexual activity. Regardless of the views on live stemming, there was no intense pleasure when bitten.

The reason why goldbloods couldn't donate their blood was because of the highly addictive because of the naturally occurring amphetamine, which is a chemical used to make ecstasy. Like ecstasy, a goldblood's blood was a stimulant with potentially hallucinogenic effects if used too often in large quantities.

Even in small doses, gold blood was dangerous. It was a super steroid. Goldbloods may be in control of their increased strength and durability but their victims weren't. There was no ratio of dosage to strength that consuming gold blood had. A drop could give one the strength of ten men and a tablespoonful could give on the strength of five or visa versa. There was no known prediction for the outcome.

Ridley joined the breakfast line and surprised a few of her schoolmates with her presence. The ones who were in the know about the attack, weren't at all fazed by Scary Axel's presence. Others were whispering while she glided through the dining hall with her bowl of porridge. It didn't take much to know which of the identical twins she was; Ridley always looked angry.

In place of sitting down, Ridley stood outside with her bowl and leaned into the dining hall wall. It would have been nice to get a jog in before school but the circumstances didn't allow for it. With the early morning sun only on her Vans, Ridley took in the serenity around her. A chilly breeze combed through her loose hair while the moon students were leaving dinner.

Simon-Paul's thunderous laughter came out of the moon students' exit. He marched out proudly with a girl flung over his shoulder. She too was laughing uncontrollably while her face was scorching red. With them was the goldblood Marcus and Dane. Marcus too was humoured by whatever transpired inside but Dane wasn't.

The guardian set her bowl on the windowsill then straightened up with her tote bag slung over her shoulder. "Sorensen," she called.

Dane turned to her and his gloomy demeanor lightened while Simon put down the girl, clapping her buttocks as she bounced back to the girls' dorm. "Hey," Dane greeted, faintly relieved that Ridley was back in her uniform. "How are you?" She said nothing. Instead she dug out the dagger he left with her. "Oh," Dane replied as he took it. "Thanks."

Ridley nodded mutely then went on her way. "Damn. She really is cold," Simon-Paul commented.

The Danish ampyra exhaled heavily then persisted after Ridley. "Did you hear," he whispered. "About Oliver and Howard?" Ridley picked up her bowl then turned to him slowly. "So, er, O-Oliver said that they were attacked by an Axel. He said it was you or Ryan or... something. I'm still trying to piece it together. Surveillance showed that it was a goldblood woman." Ridley shrugged nonchalantly. "Look, this wasn't an ordinary goldblood. It was an eldritch. One who knows about the blindspot at the swimming pool. She knew where all the cameras were and didn't look at a single one of them. She had to have someone on the inside."

Ridley shook her head. "She's been here before," was all she said.

"You know who it is?" Again Ridley said nothing. "Then how could you just guess that?" Still Ridley said nothing which left Dane to think over his question. "Even if she had inside help from a hunter, she couldn't have known that Oliver and Howard were on patrol. Only Jakob, Esmeralda and Clarke know when the Guardian Program is on duty. She would have had to overheard them talking about the schedule to know." Ridley still didn't comment. "Did you have family that ever attended school here?"

"Everyone," she replied.

"You're entire family? Do you know if you have any goldblood family?" Ridley only set her dark eyes on his. "Who?" She looked down at her bowl then brushed passed him. "Ridley, please," Dane pleaded. "Oliver's gone," he added softly. Ridley peered over her shoulder at him before heading back inside to return the bowl. Dane sighed. "Principal Axel it is," he concluded.

Ridley exhaled quietly then wove through the school to arrive at maths with Mrs Auths. Carson was whispering with her roommate, Emily, when they took their seats. Mrs Auths was an ampyra. A redblood ampyra, also called a peasant ampyra. She had dark brown wavy hair and hazel-brown eyes that were soulless like her scorn.

Emily puffed her cheeks with a heavy exhale as she whispered, "why are all maths teachers so frigid? It's like that's a requirement. Work experience, works well with people. Evil."

Carson sniggered until she saw Ridley fishing for her books. "On the topic of evil. Satan's Spawn is still alive."

"What's her deal," Emily whispered. "Abandonment issues?"

"Meh," Carson replied equally soft. "Ryan said that she watched their grandmother turn into a Class F after the Germainville raids."

"What," Emily roared softly.

"Shh! You didn't hear that."

Ridley turned to Mrs Auths and the ampyra teacher dusted her hands from writing on her chalkboard. "I need three volunteers. Caleb, Peyton and Ridley."

Ridley didn't budge from her seat and stayed perfectly still while Mrs Auths was paging through her notes. Eyes turned to the guardian expectantly and anticipation filled the classroom. When Ridley didn't want to do something, she didn't do it and led to the teachers losing their patience with her. She always just remained in her seat and as silent as ever but not that day.

Mrs Auths skimmed over her notes then turned to the board to see one problem left by itself. She turned back to her auditorium to see Ridley paging through her textbook. "Ridley? I have problems for you to solve," the teacher stated warningly.

Ridley merely looked up from her textbook while Ried had his phone's camera aimed on the guardian. The guardian said nothing. "Oh, I love these," Carson whispered.

"I mean it Axel! Either get down here or get out," Mrs Auths concluded. The guardian raised an eyebrow and collected her belongings and walked out of the classroom. "Hey, get back here!"

Scary Axel whipped out her staff and the force she generated sent the ampyra across her classroom. The staff retracted and Ridley went on her way mutely, leaving her class to snigger. Ried finished recording then sent it to everyone in the school.

The unmarked hunter made for the stables, her usual hideout. On one of the double doors of the stables was a sign reading 'no students without supervision'. Ridley glanced down to one of the badges pinned on her blazer's lapel. Polo captain, it stated as she opened a door. The doors on the other side of the stables were open, letting in the chilly breeze.

The horses weren't in their pens; probably grazing somewhere on campus. That meant that Ridley could be completely alone. She replayed spraying her maths teacher across the classroom; she hadn't intended on putting in so much force. That was a lot more force than she would generate in an indoor space. It wasn't entirely her doing.

The guardian caved onto the table used to repair saddles with her tote leaning against a leg of the table. The quiet was tranquil and shut out all the nonsense of high school. That tranquility died all too soon when the bell rang for second period. Before joining English, she went to go pick out her 'Picture of Dorian Gray' from her locker.

"Ridley Axel to the principal's office. Ridley Axel to the principal's office," Esmeralda's voiced boomed over the p.a.. "Immediately!"

Her unchanging mug remained unchanged as she detoured from the hallway where her locker was, to the main building. The guardian slid into the school office silently and school administrators were nonchalantly doing their work, except Esmeralda who was nowhere in sight. She was likely to be in Clarke's office, waiting to scold her stepdaughter.

Ridley glided passed the administrators and lightly pushed open her father's office door. Inside wasn't just Clarke and Esmeralda, as she anticipated. The entire Guardian Program was there, including Jakob. Dane, Jason and Ryan were all standing before the principal and his wife while Jakob was leaning into the space next to the door. They made nothing of Ridley coming in, although Clarke did stand up after she did.

"Now that you're all here, I want to make this explicitly clear," Esmeralda began sternly. "Nothing you're about to here leaves this office. Nothing!"

Clarke exhaled heavily then took in the four young hunters before him. "Usually this brief would be restricted to only the best hunters but you have a right to know that you're in danger, and mostly likely, so are the rest of your peers. These incidents weren't random. I'm sure by now you all know that one of your own is dead. He wasn't killed by a Class E or F, like the previous attackers were. Jakob?"

Jakob stepped forwards and placed the tablet on the desk for them to watch the surveillance video. "This woman is a type of goldblood thought to have died out centuries before any of the Scourges ever started," the one-eyed man began. "She's an eldritch. For those of you not familiar with the term, simply put; she's going to be impossible to track and even more so to stop."

"She walked in and out of school property like it was nothing," Clarke went on. "She knew who would be on patrol and when they would be on patrol and she knew how to avoid being identified. We have round-the-clock patrol throughout the town and the surrounding areas and we're upping security around the school."

Esmeralda nodded as she went on, "effective immediately, none of you are guardians. You're recognised hunters and have all the privileges of any hunter around you." The ampyra was filled with dread for the idea but she clearly understood there was no practical alternative. "Even if they don't know it, everyone in the school and the town is now depending on you to keep them alive."

"It's an enormous responsibility to take care of that many people and that's why you need to be on guard 24/7," Clarke stated. "Until this is resolved, I'm allowing you to fail in class. Eldritch goldbloods are on a different magnitude of dangerous. They're more dangerous than ordinary goldbloods, Class Es and even Class Fs."

Jason and Ryan went pale while Ridley and Dane maintained their cool. The worry was heavy in the air and Clarke's usual unbending expression was challenged by the glimmer of fear, not just for the naive ones in front of him but that his daughters made up 50% of the naive ones. More so, there were oblivious teenagers who outnumbered the hunters five-to-one. That's just excluding the campus staff! The teachers, the cleaning staff, the ground staff, the maintenance staff. All of them combined outnumbered the hunters a hundred-to-one.

"If you know anything or hear anything," Clarke concluded, "no matter absurd or impossible it sounds, you're obligated to report it." Only Jason nodded in reply. "Okay," Clarke sighed. "Dismiss."

"Clarke," Dane called, gaining attention from his fellow proteges, "I-I mean, principal Axel. Oliver told me something before he died. About the woman."

Esmeralda and Clarke went stiff, with Esmeralda's eyebrows hitting the ceiling. "What did he say," Clarke asked urgently.

"It doesn't really make any sense," Dane admitted. "He said that the woman told him 'anti dune astro' and something about a roe deer."

"Anti dune astro," the principal echoed.

Clarke furrowed his eyebrows pensively but Esmeralda gasped and went pallid. "Clarke," she called fearfully. "Ante Deum Asto."

That made the principal's already fair skin go a deadly pale. "What language is that? Italian," Ryan voiced.

"Latin," Ridley replied. "'I Stand Before God'."

"So the woman's doing a cleansing," Jason asked.

"It's a house motto," Dane corrected. "They were common between the fifth and nineteenth centuries. A house motto reflects the general character, philosophy, or political strategy that the family espouses."

"Like Game of Thrones," Jason added. "'A Lannister always pays his debts'."

"Then the roe deer must be the house sigil. Oliver must have seen a brooch or a necklace, even a ring," Dane stated, ignoring the youngest hunter. "But what house is it? There were thousands of noble houses throughout that time frame. At least 46% shared the same sigil."

Esmeralda and Clarke eyed each other fearfully then turned to their proteges. "You're dismissed," Clarke stated breathlessly. For the first time in their lives, the twins saw their father show a face awash with fear.

Jakob rolled his remaining eye then blurted out, "it belongs to House du Luq." Clarke and Esmeralda's fear turned to rage as their eyes shifted to Jakob in perfect synchronicity. "You can't keep the truth buried forever," he stated then turned to the proteges. "House du Luq was a French family of goldbloods; one of the oldest in France. You two," he directed to Ryan and Ridley, "recognise the name Renee du Luq?"

"Who's Renee du Luq," Jason asked.

"Nobody," Ryan blurted out. "Just an old ghost story," she added, feeling a shudder run down her spine.

"Dane, Jason. You're dismissed," Clarke stated. The two left after taking in how stiff Ryan was between them. Ridley, however, still held onto her cool. Clarke looked over at Jakob and beckoned him to leave too. "I was hoping to spare you from this," the principal started as he rummaged through his desk drawers.

"We both were," Esmeralda added.

The principal laid a cream envelope sealed with green wax with the sigil of the roe deer on it. "Neither one of you ever asked about your mother so I hoped there would never be a reason to ever bring her up," he admitted. "Still, a part of me couldn't throw this away."

"What is it," Ryan asked with a tremble.

Clarke turned over the letter. In an elegant handwritten curled cursive were the words 'Ridley & Ryan'. "She wrote it before she left." Neither one of them made a move to the letter. Clarke swallowed hard then broke the seal to read: "my dearest daughters. I can't-" Ryan stormed out of the office while Ridley was unfazed.

A small part of her had always wondered but her instincts as a hunter always told never to go digging for answers. Answers were dangerous, especially the personal kind. One answer could turn the most feared hunter into nothing more than a pathetic worm.

Clarke exhaled heavily then slid the letter towards Ridley. "It isn't really my place to read it anyway," he stated. "She wrote it for you."

The heartless hunter hesitated before gathering the silky paper in her toned fingers. 'My dearest daughters,' Renee wrote. 'I can't imagine the pain I've caused you with my absence and I can't imagine the hurt I will inflict on you after you read this. Hopefully when you read this I will still be alive for you to hate me, in place of having it easy by being dead in the ground.

The naked truth is that I never loved you. Either of you. Shamefully I admit that I chose my work over you, not that I didn't try. I held you both and only saw the life I vowed I would never have. When I saw what was becoming of me, I fled back to my home country. There I'll stay until my past will or will not catch up to me.

For what it's worth, I imagine you both as strong and skilled women and hunters, if that's what you chose.

Renee du Luq'.

Answers were dangerous.

Ridley returned the letter to the desk then mutely exited the office. Esmeralda took the paper to read it. "How old is Renee," she asked then finished the letter.

"Old enough to be an eldritch," Clarke stated.

While Ridley ventured off to English, Ryan chased herself through the tree at the rear of her house. "Renee," she called urgently as she ran. "Where are you!" She haphazardly wove through the low-lying branches and skidded across a patch of damp moss. "Renee," Ryan bellowed as she reached the clearing.

"What am I, a genie," Renee replied from up in a tree branch. "Call me and I appear? That's not how it works. I say 'jump' and you jump." The ampyra jumped out of the tree. In place of a green ball gown she wore a black corset with a full skirt. "What do you want?"

"You killed Oliver!"

Renee threw Ryan into a tree coolly. "And you waited two days to feed your sister my blood," she stated. "Anything else, Captain Obvious?"

"Why!"

"Call it a declaration," Renee replied coolly while Ryan peeled herself off the ground. "It's just a way of saying 'I'm here. Look at me'." Ryan pulled out her handgun. "Now, now. Don't forget that I know everyone you love," Renee cautioned. "Some centuries ago, I used to call clusters of teenagers a buffet. Don't get me all nostalgic."

"I want out. You want Ridley, take her but leave Dunon alone. The town and the school."

"Too late. You made your bed now rest in it. Even if I did let you out, how would Daddy feel about you plotting to kill your own sister?" Ryan gasped her surprise. "Exactly. So if you want to keep your hands clean, you're going to go into town, tomorrow, with the rest of your school for that party I've been hearing so much about. After that, you're going to go on with your life as if nothing is wrong until one day, I won't say when, you find your sister's lifeless body in that meadow near the school stables. Deal?"

"Only if you promise not to kill anyone else," Ryan stated firmly but Renee could smell the fear she radiated. "You didn't say anything about innocents."

Oh, all right. I won't kill anyone else," Renee stated with a chuckle. "Is that it?"

"One more thing," Ryan went on. "The first two attacks. Were you behind those?"

Renee chuckled as she circled her youngest child and paused behind her. "What did you think I meant when I said I wouldn't kill anyone else," she whispered into Ryan's ear. Ryan spun around but Renee was gone.