Vampire Nightlife

And then found himself floundering at the last moment. His legs felt like jelly and he hobbled for a second, only moving a couple steps forward through the van instead of leaping towards the giant worm.

"Any luck?" Theodore had rolled down the window and called out from below.

"Uh, give me a minute–" Lukas replied. "Performance jitters."

"We don't have that much time to spare!"

"I know!" Lukas clenched his fist, holding onto the spear as tightly as he could. He was going to make it work this time. And yet he also couldn't help but feel as if his plan was possible. "I'm not some fuckin Vampire kangaroo here but this is..."

But all of a sudden, there was a ruckus below him.

"What are you doing?" Stacy called out aghast.

Not a moment later, Alexei clambered back up into the roof of the van. He grunted and looked at Lukas.

"What are you doing here?" Lukas asked, repeating Stacy's words from earlier.

"Do you trust me–nah, we don't have any time for that crap." Alexei laughed and walked over towards Lukas, his own cloak flowing behind him.

There was a confident swagger in the way that the Vampire walked, almost a strange noble-like air that made Lukas raise his brow. Almost perplexed and amazed, but then was suddenly grappled.

"Hey!" Lukas said.

"Don't you know what I'm planning–" Alexei said and took a deep breath.

"Well, yeah–!!!"

Before Lukas could say that he understood what the man was going for, he was suddenly tossed up into the air at a trajectory and speed that he didn't actually think was possible.

Lukas's body hit against the sand worm, and while it almost seemed like he'd fall off and end up crashing down into the sand–his hand gripped the sand worm's plate-like scale and he lifted himself up towards the top of the worm to get his footing.

He held onto the spear with his other hand and then looked for the area where the worm didn't have any sand-like plating and jabbed the spear downward to strike it at its most vulnerable moments.

Lukas felt the worm almost shudder, and yet it was still moving forward and there was no bleeding.

"Crap, I gotta do this faster." Lukas did it again and again, trying to embed the spear and twisting it into the worm and he was making progress. He really was, but time was ticking and there wasn't–

"Heavens above, must you really go through all of this with that pathetic weapon?" a voice suddenly sounded.

Lukas' eyes widened. He looked around for the speaker, but he was familiar with it. Had heard it before and he couldn't help but mutter. "Sanguise House ancestor?"

Another impatient sigh sounded. "That's a start, but it seems like I'll have to lend you a hand with this plan."

"... Or else you'll fall into the hands of poisonous scorpions, huh?" Lukas couldn't help but say.

"You have the time to be cheeky when your life is in danger alongside your friends, brat." the voice spoke again.

However, this time, something had changed. Lukas felt a thrum again in his blood and the ornate Sanguise House dagger suddenly materialized out of thin air.

"Let me be your weapon for this pathetic worm." the woman haughtily spoke.

Lukas didn't need further encouragement and drove the dagger down into the giant sand worm's flesh–and immediately felt the entire thing buckle and bleed. Copious amount of blood started to leak and pour as if the dagger itself was sucking up the blood and yet that wasn't it all.

The sand worm was sinking back down into the sand.

Instead of merely moving away from the swarm of scorpions, the wound inflicted on it made the worm choose to retreat back into the sand instead.

Theodore and the others watched.

"We can get a move on now!" Alexei shouted down towards Theodore.

"I can see that for myself." Theodre started driving towards the disappearing worm, speeding up and calculating their own time.

Both Stacy and Chaerin couldn't believe it themselves, but the two of them had gotten preoccupied with jabbing the scorpions who managed to scale up into the van's side–oddly working together.

"Now jump you fool." the woman hissed into Lukas' ear, the dagger once again vanishing from his hands.

"I can see that for myself."

This time, Lukas leapt out of the sand worm and managed to move towards the van–except it rushed a little too much and he landed on the very edge of the van instead and was at the danger of falling back into the horde of scorpions still following them.

Alexei reached for his hand and yanked him forward.

"Phew, thanks–I could have handled it myself." Lukas said.

"Yeah, sure ya would." Alexei shook his head. "But this trip would have been for nothing if you fell to your death so quickly."

"What?" Lukas raised a brow.

"Let's just get back into the van. The sun's killing me." Alexei complained and made his way down back into the inside of the vehicle.

Lukas soon followed after, avoiding the nearby scorpions still trying to attack them with their stingers as they fit through the window.

"That was a stupid idea," Theodore suddenly said as he sped faster and started to finally leave the scorpions in the literal dust.

"But it worked out," Lukas said.

"But it worked out." Theodore agreed with a sigh and focused on the rest of their path forward. "Let's not risk ourselves this time again."

"It's not like we all wanted this to happen or intentionally attracted the herd of scorpions by ourselves did we." Lukas pointed out as he collapsed into the seat beside Chaerin.

"That was a dangerous thing, Lukas." Chaerin's face was stern, but she quickly pulled him into a tight hug. "Don't you dare do something like that again without letting me know."

"I mean, I can't exactly promise that–" Lukas said.

"I know, I'm just relieved you're safe."

As the Vampires all sped away from the scorpion herd and into the distance, there was something that suddenly glowed amidst the sea of black. It was a blue little thing that fluttered its translucent wings.

It moved after them.