Vampires that are forsaken are know as Raven, (or crow, not sure yet). They are solitary, have no court, and are outcasts. One such turned Mercy. One such killed justice. One such was Arleigh. (Arleigh, the raven. Because he took himself from a forsaken, and made a pact, or a court, or whatever this is called.).They become kind of like monsters, mindless killers, but smart also, like a master, but not as careful. (Search bird names, this would be interesting, to find a bird name that could be used for the vamprye.)

Perhaps, as a historical reference. The reason for this is the very first one. His name was Ravenous




(Rewrites, add these today.....
I slid from one lightless bay to the next, gliding through the open spaces in between with a beam at my back, and a tremor in my heavy breathing that seemed to echo all the way to my heart. That, that peotic organ of love and betrayal, had a crescendo of its own. A deep, heavy clamor that echoed in my ears, pounded through my veins, and seemed like more than any one body could hide. It was so loud it was making me deaf. It was all I could hear. To me it seemed that if someone waited above, they must surely hear me, if not my blind stumbling through the dark, then the loud beating of my heart most surely.


Lawrence drove a teal blue ‘85 Chevy Malibu with one brown door and one brown fender. On opposite sides. But that wasn’t important, that wasn’t even worth mentioning. What was is first impressions.  (Use to begin the chapter where Law picks him up or something. Might need to check on the year, that of the buddies of Harley.)


A clutch of vampires. Not clan, not coven, clutch. Clutch is the term for a nest of alligator eggs.


       Fire pits ringed the center, five, each at the corner of a giant pentagon. Were there should have been pitch blackened ash there instead were five contraptions of metal. A girder of steel led from each to the other. Then to the center, and a blackened chalice.
       My feet were moving, pulling me along, and I knew it must be Law leading me once more. To one of the corners of the pentagram and to the device within, they led me. A frame of dark iron, rusted and pitted, that slashed through two great bits of wood. Blocks of oak or cherry were driven in with deep wooden dowels through  the frame. Each with three carved half circles. One large in the middle, two small at each end, and the three of the lower containing dagger-like blades pointing upwards. There were no chains or locks to secure them once dropped, both were too heavy to be lifted. At the bottom, where a victims feet would hang, there was a shallow bowl shaped indent in the piled stones. From this led the girder.
       I was moving again, following the course of the star toward it’s next arm. To where another device waited, and then to the next, where there was another. All different, all creative in their torture, and all created for a purpose. All were old with disuse, corroded and worn by years in ill care, but all were oiled. Freshly used. Still containing their victims.
       Climbing over the framework of half pipes and lumber and supports (most made from the stumps of chopped tree’s), I made my way to the center. I noticing for the first time the lines of white chalk spread across the ground, leading from one point to the next, and spread across a central isle that led to the middle, that I had missed.
       I lifted my foot over the last brace and approached what lay at the center. The ground was broken here, lifted as if in some great upheaval that left the soil soft and spongy, leaving the worms and beetles scrambling to find their darkness. The chalice was only a short distance away, a small golden cup tinged with the blackness of flames and ash. As I approached I could see the age, the dents and cracks that scoured its’s surface. The warped melding of it’s decorative sigils from repeated heatings, the off shaped oval of it’s top, and as I grew nearer, the places where the tackish golden plait had begun to chip away.

The Three Rules of Horror="ONE; The innocent must suffer. TWO; The guilty must be punished. And THREE; You must drink blood to be a man."-Sam Raimi, August 24, 1979 Detroit News
If it's Evil, and it still has its limbs, then you still got some work to do......

       The couch wasn’t uncomfortable, just too small. I didn’t dream, they seemed ot be taking an intermittent vacation, but woke frequently to change positions.
       When I woke, the man from the night before was still there. Only now it appeared to be a cup of irish coffee (from the smell) that sat steaming on the worn surface of the table before him. Beside it rested several smaller shot glasses, the liquid inside ranging from deep brown, to amber, to clear. As I watched he lifted the yellow mustard dish from where it rested at the head of the table and dispensed a small quantity to each glass.
       No. If he did that I was going to be sick.
       In a move almost to swift to follow, he raised the first shot to his lips, the dark brown, and downed it. Nothing passed over his face. He sipped his coffee.
       Empty bottles of Peroni littered what little space of the table was clear. I held off asking such stupid questions as “You still here?” or “Late night?”  When I knew he wouldn’t respond. So I turned my attention elsewhere. It was still early, or late, depending on how you looked at. Warren was absent, as well as his assistant. It wasn’t quite opening time, but it was close.
       My back cracked when I pulled myself loose of the corner, I took a moment to enjoy the exquisiteness of it, the bony series of ratchety cracks that put a person between quiet breathlessness and pain. I had to pause before continuing, and this did draw a look from the corner of the mans eyes. Nothing so great as a movement, but his eyes had slid my way.

And now, and excerpt from The Clearing

       A place to hide, a safe place... but where? Lawrence’s? Surely not,, if they found the school chances were they had found Lawrence’s place as well. Which also lead to the conclusion that Lawrence himself was probably also dead, but where did that leave Mikhail and Sandra? Neither had been in attendance at either the school, or the mansion. Was Mikhail the one they were looking for? Lawrence? Or was it someone else, someone I had no knowledge of.
       The forests moved on, becoming a blinding screen of green mist, jumbles shapes mixing in the shadows, but no longer did I see the faint trailing visage of a protector, no longer did they track our path. And finally the trees gave way, however grudgingly, to limitless fields of wheat, unattended, grown into wildness, them too finally giving way to smaller, more tended strips of land. I was left with only one place to go, and it was there, that I headed. Towards the rising son, its startling brilliance growing as we escaped from the forest, becoming more pronounced as we traveled on. As it drifted towards noon I came to the startled recognition of the eager sounds escaping from my gut. My body needed fuel, already I had begun to feel rundown, bedraggled. Sleep called to me dreamily, tempting me into it’s false peace. But I could not stop for food. It was day and the sun hung in the sky but I had no way of knowing whether those two trailing shadows had truly given up, or if they had returned to the mansion and fixed the third van. Aside from even that, while my shirt was mostly free of blood it was torn and tattered from my fight with Antoine and then Shiny. Even my pants had not escaped unscathed, from the knees up they lay stained darkly, probably with blood or some thicker fluid. The only truly serviceable part of my wardrobe that remained were my boots, the blood washed away by the hurried escape over damp grass.
       But finally I did stop, if only for the sake of Vin. Her shattered screams had begun almost as we had left the woodlands, faint moans of pain. Now they were truly that, screams. I stopped the van in the shadows of a convenience store, parking around back, away from traffic, hoping to avoid the questioning stares that would invariably lead to police. The van was a panel, so it left the rear in darkness, heavy cloth formed a living curtain across, separating the front compartment completely from the rear, cutting off most chances of death bringing sunlight from seeping into the darkness. I crawled in back, checking her gore soaked body as best I could, finding nothing wrong aside from thin slits covering her skin, still issuing slight streams of the dark red liquid. Ah, but she had been cut with silver, with the other in control my mind had not been focusing on what had been taking place around me but that which was taking place within, especially in accordance with that concerning how to get my body back. But yes, even now I could see those moments that had taken place without my control. The rooms of silver, their tortured implements hanging in places of honor over the victims. Her wounds wold be a long time healing, achingly slow, taking even longer than if she were a human recovering from those same injuries.
       Her pained screams continued unabated, if nothing intensifying, I could hold out no longer, carefully I climbed out, smoothed the torn remnants of my shirt, and proceeded. Five minutes later I was out and we were gone. The owner of the place had openly stared, plastering his questioning glances across his face, the phone call had not been long coming. But still it takes the police time to respond, time I was surely not going to give them, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, peroxide, sterile bandages, and a few other things, the least of which, a cheap second hand shirt just incase I had to do this again. Paying I had left the cash floating down to the stained counter  top, not bothering with change, the sounds of approaching sirens calling in my head.
       I waited to stop the second time, proceeding over her harsh screams of pain, finding an old abandoned gas station off main street, again we pulled around back. The best way to heal silvered flesh is fire, cauterize the wound, stop the bleeding and it will heal a little faster, perhaps even human slow. From the extent of Vin’s damage it was not an option, the damage they had done slowly emerged as I used what was left of my original t-shirt, drenched in stinging alcohol, to clear the gluey redness from her body. Head to toes it was a slithering mass of wounds, thin slices, deep enough to puncture the flesh, leave the muscles below gleaming as they pumped blood thin streamlets of blood outward. I started at the bottom, working my way over the broken smoothness of her legs, wipe the blood, pour a little peroxide onto the wound, bandage it quickly before her body recovers and starts pumping again. We must have set there for hours, slowly working my way upwards, bypassing certain area’s, hoping there would be nothing I missed, until finally it was finished. Vin lay, almost completely wrapped is gauze. bandages, looking for all the world like a freshly wrapped mummy. Only her face remained unscythed, her tormenters perhaps leaving that one thought of hope in her tortured mind, leaving that one part that all would see hanging as a silent reminder of what would happen once her body no longer held interest. Her screaming had stopped and once again she had lapped into unconsciousness, sinking into the darkness of sleep, trying to do exactly what my own body wished to do. Before moving on I left Vin setting alone in the darkened isolation of the van, going to use a payphone nearby, hoping, praying for someone to answer Lawrence’s phone, and someone did just that;
       “Hello?” Antoine’s now all to familiar voice passed across the miles separating me from Lawrence’s place, causing me to hunch in upon myself within the phonebooth. I hung up, cutting off his questioning voice mid word, walked back to the van, and continued on alone now but for Vin, having no way of finding the others and them having no way of finding me.
       I had been active all night, the previous day, and what little of this day had passed, and my body was not unlimited in it’s potential. Sure I got the day, but what good would that do me if my exhausted body forced me to sleep through it, in turn giving the other, wren.... Wren a full night ahead. But still we moved on, hoping my concentration would keep us going. Along the way stopping at a fast food restaurant, moving through the drive-in quickly, emerging with heaping bags of food. I ate while we moved, consuming the half cooked meet, washing down the greasy mounds of uncooked cholesterol with sugar loaded soda, even succeeding in getting Vin to munch on a few fries before she tired again.