It’s a whole hour before the girls are prepared to move.

  As they stand up, I speak, “I’m going to summon you kids, some weapons. You’ll need to learn on the go!”

  The two girls turn to eachother and open their arms for the weapons. I mold my energy, feeling it run through my soul and imagining two weapons.

  I slam my hand on the ground, white smoke envelops us, and two weapons clatter onto the ground. I look down and feel a shotgun and a metal bat.

  A sheepish grin spreads across my face.

  “Uh, I’m kind of low on energy. I apologize.”

  One of the girls replies, “It’s okay... uh... What’s your name?”

  “Lucia Lucard.”

  “Lucia? I’m Jen, and that’s Sienna.”

  The one speaking has a melodic voice and a clear Texan accent. The other doesn’t say anything, but I hear her move her head in agreement.

  I nod and motion for them to grab a weapon of their choice. I hear the one on the left, Sienna, ready the shotgun. So I know that Jen is holding the metal bat.

  “Quick lesson for each of you. Sienna? That has no bullets in it, but as I can’t explain why in this moment, just use it like a club. “

  I reach for their friend and lift her up with one hand over my shoulder.

  “Jen, just hit them really hard with the large part. If they attack, block.”

  I begin to run, exiting the city. I slow down considerably after remembering that I’m running alongside humans. We continue at their pace, which allows me to recover a great amount of my energy. I stay silent and keep moving as I need to focus, as I remember the entire city’s layout.

  It’s about one mile into the run that I begin to hear heavy breathing. I stop and turn around.

  I say, “Who’s breathing so hard?”

  “Me.”

  “Who’s me?”

  The girls stop saying anything for a second, and one of them speaks.

  “You can’t see us?”

  “No. I cannot.”

  “Oh... I’m Sienna.”

  I realized it was simply because I hadn’t heard her speak that I was confused. She speaks almost exactly like Jen, and I realize it’s gonna take more effort to tell their differences.

  “Sienna, you’re going to need to control that breath. It’s nighttime, and any deemons around will hear your noise. “

  “So then speaking should be off-limits?”

  “They recognize your breathing and other bodily noises, not speech. Speech doesn’t compute in their brains.”

  The one on the right, Jen spoke, “So then we can talk without a problem?”

  “Not if there is a vampyr lurking. Now quiet...”

  I turn back around and move back into a full run. The girls follow silently, and Sienna’s noise ceases.

  We keep running, and as we do, I reach into my soulscape.

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  It’s quiet, my soul is undisturbed, nor is it excited. I look upon it with the eyes I have kept locked in the physical world. It’s an array of color but green dominates all but the color Red.

  I reach out and let the green seep into my energy. I return to the physical world and feel my senses expand intensely. I can feel the girls’ heartbeats returning to an age when man was a force to reckon with.

  As we cross another street without looking, I turn my head and see whoever is on my right. Her soul is bursting with orange light. Her body is trying its best to catch up to the soul’s desires.

  I look over my other shoulder and see the same orange sphere glowing. They both can actually survive this, and I let a smile grace my face. I have no choice but to train them and keep them as my charges as we journey north.

  My attention is suddenly snapped away from them when my body itches all over. It travels quickly to my feet, and so in a split second, I’m in the air. I look down, and a grin sets across my face.

  Whichever girl is on the right, her soul has gone from orange and exploded into a fiery ball of red and blue. I hear a smack of metal against the face of the deemon that erupted from the ground.

  The battle has begun.

  I land on the ground and set down their friend. With my senses so expanded, I perfectly map out the make of the deemon in an instant.

  It’s triple the size of the girls, it’s four-legged, has two limbs for walking, and two limbs for other activities. It has two wings as well, and it’s holding a large blade that’s bigger than me.

  It’s the largest I’ve fought this evening, a real War Deemon. I hear the crack of the asphalt as more deemons crawl out of their realm.

  The girls cannot handle this alone, so I summon my spiked flail and axe. The chain connecting the two clinks to the ground, and I open my mouth.

  “Kill the little ones!”

  The girls presumably hear me as they shuffle away from the massive monster. I rush forward.

  The axe whips through the air and connects with metal. I shift on my feet and jump towards the deemon’s head.

  The whip of metal warns me as its blade slams against my side. I grin. My lover is not the only strong person to walk the heavens.

  I hear the gasp that the deemon gives when the very weapon bends around my form. For I am strength, I am the half-vampire.

  My feet touch the ground for less than a second before I’m rapidly approaching the deemons head. I blitz past its head.

  I throw my axe out and whisper, “Air Step Technique.”

  The air around my foot becomes a spring as I jump mid-air. I blitz back toward the ground.

  I know it knows where the axe is, and so I pull it back and toss the spiked flail at its head. My grin widens even further as it blocks that.

  My feet have time to rest as I begin both weapons at the same time. It’s as they spin that I feel a large spike in HE. I take a quick second to turn around and am blinded by the light of one of the girl's souls.

  Three colors clash with each other, a combination I’ve never seen in all my years.

  Black, White, and Orange?

  Orange is not a soul color, as far as I know. Then I freeze in horror, mid-air.

  There’s only one reason Orange would stay after Soul Completion. She’s got the ability to transform and the space for the secondary soul. I’ve only seen this in my lover’s soul, and I’ve lived for over a thousand years.

  My jaw drops. What a gem I have found, in the most random of places. I turn back around, dodge, and an incoming blade strike. It tries again, but this time I’m so prepared that I stand my ground.

  The blade bends and then breaks against my skin. I grin a maniacal grin. This one has lost everything it had. I can feel it squirming under my sightless gaze.

  “Hunter Technique: Red Blade!”

  My axe erupts out of the deemons neck. Blood spills from it, and then it ex[lodes into flame. I swing the axe four more times, making sure to cut it up with devastating ease.

  The smell of meat enters my nostrils, and I remember just how tasty these motherfuckers were before I went to heaven. I grin as I’ve just given us enough food for the journey. I turn around to see how the girls are doing, and indeed they are trying heartily to kill the small deemons.

  However, they do not know what they are doing, so I blitz all the deemons at once and, moving my blade at a good speed, their heads come off. I land in front of the girls and let the axe hit the ground. I cringe as I hear it scrape. I’m going to regret that later.

  “You kids did well. However, quick lesson: Go for the head.”

  One of them says, “Would’ve been nice to know about five minutes ago.”

  I nod and smile sheepishly. She’s right.

  “Let’s hunker down for the night. Moving during the day might be better. Plus, we’ve already made it 6 miles today.”

  One of the girls says, “Thank goodness, I’m exhausted. There’s a school nearby.”

  I laugh, “No. A school is not where we’ll be staying. We’ll stay in a residential home.“

  I motion for the girls to follow, and I hear their steps tentatively crawling behind me. I grab their friend and put her over my shoulder again. I walk down the street and can make out the rustle of leaves and the movement of grass.

  A single house with the smell of blood will be our best decision. If the blood is a couple of hours old, vampyrs and deemons alike will ignore it.

  The smell of blood fills my nostrils, and I turn, “How big is that house?”

  One of the girls says, “Two-story house, nice lawn.”

  “We’ll go there then.” I jump up and land on the porch of the house.

  The girls follow me, and I head inside.