Elliot

Bethany glanced up from her sketchbook at the sound of a soft... scratching. She frowned, looking around. The placed seemed to be abandoned, and no-one else usually came here, it was her secret place.

Bethany had found the abandoned graveyard a while ago while in a mood. Some people threw things when they were in a mood, or punched people. Bethany just walked her anger off, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. She’d found this one when she’d come home from Uni to find that her sister had had a house party in her absence and wrecked her studio. Since then, whenever she was home, this was her place. Her secret place.

So what the hell was causing the scratching? It surely wasn’t rats or anything. Sucking on the blood still seeping from her hangnail, she got up, looking around, then at the sound of more scratching... then looked down. One of the flat stone slabs had been pried up. She’d assumed that it had been a grave marker, but it actually revealed a tunnel, with stone steps leading down into the dark...

Cool. Bethany liked the dark.

She bounced down, her pixie-cut of blonde hair waving around her face, the bright blue splashes picking out her blue eyes, power-blue strappy top, dark blue jeans and blue converse. You could say that Bethany also liked blue, and as she clicked out her smartphone, choosing the torch app, it revealed the unsurprisingly blue leather case. Tucking her (blue) covered sketchbook under her arm, she continued downwards, sweeping the place with the powerful flash of her phone.

Bethany had no problem with dead people, so she was more intrigued than horrified at the skeletons in niches on the walls. It kinda reminded her of...

“Skyrim.”

Her torch sweeping got faster. She didn’t mind the dead. What she did mind were the freakishly large spiders. She shuddered. She hated those damn spiders. It hadn’t stopped her playing the game, it just had freaked her. And they cropped up every damn where!

As no monstrously proportioned spiders threatened to leap out at her, she continued downwards, sucking her hangnail again. It was bleeding a stupid amount... but then she had managed to rip it most of the way down to the joint...

A loud clatter made her jump. She spun around... flicking the torch around. She was at the bottom of the stairs now, and there was a low doorway. Through the doorway was... a bigass stone tomb, Bethany thought practically. She ducked through, then almost leapt back through the doorway.

The lid lifted maybe an inch, shook a little, then clattered back down. She gaped at the lid, then heard a growled curse. It was such a proper swear, in such a cut-glass accent, she couldn’t help grinning, and the lid stopped bobbing up and down like a kettle’s lid, and silence reigned for a long moment.

“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to come over here and give me a hand?” the voice demanded, clearly irritated.

And Bethany grinned.

“Well, you seem to have it under control,” she said teasingly.

“Of all the people that could have come down here, I would have to get the joker,” the voice grumbled. “Look, will you please give me a hand?”

“Maybe,” Bethany said, her grin growing.

“Look, you have just descended into an ancient burial ground only to find some poor man in distress... and you are not going to help?”

“I never said that,” Bethany remarked. “I just plan to laugh a lot first. Also, being as this is an old graveyard and all, how do I know that you’re not some kind of undead that wants to eat me?”

“Of course I want to eat you,” The voice remarked, as if stating the obvious, half-bored. “I am a vampire, you are bleeding, it goes with the territory.”

“How do you know that I’m bleeding?” She demanded.

“Well, according to my internal clock it is about 4 hours past noon. I should not be awake,” he said flatly. “If you were not bleeding, I would not be awake. Also, I can smell you. It smells quite nice actually.”

Bethany folded her arms.

“You say that you’re a vampire and that I smell nommy,” She remarked.

“Oh do not paraphrase. I never said ‘nommy’,” he remarked with a pained tone. “And yes, I am a vampire. So either give me a hand or kindly go the hell away.”

Bethany smiled.

“You’re not exactly helping yourself here.”

He gave a sigh.

“You try being stuck in a coffin with a whole load of silver in here with you,” He said glumly. “If you could keep up a cheerful and happy demeanour, then you have a considerably more optimistic outlook on life than I do.”

Bethany set her sketchpad down on a nearby ledge, then looked around. There was enough light filtering down through some bores in the ceiling to mean that she could see without her torch, so she tucked that away and hesitantly approached the big stone coffin.

“Hang on, what kind of vampire are you?” She asked suspiciously.

“The kind that wants to hunt down and kill Edward Cullen?” he offered, then continued. “Also the one that wants to get the hell out of here and also the one that promises not to drink your blood unless you want me do. There, now can you please give me a hand?”

Bethany put her hands on the lid.

“Ok, hang tight,” She said. “I must be mad. Or this must be a dream.”

“Sorry my darling, but it cannot be either of the above, you do not have a good enough imagination to dream some-one like me up,” He advised her cheerily.

“Oi, Mr...”

“Elliot.”

“Seriously? A vampire called Elliot? Shouldn’t you be called Bartimaeus or something?”

“And I suppose you have a lovely ancestral name that rolls off the tongue?” he demanded, his biting sarcasm making her give a small laugh.

“Bethany.”

“Case proved.”

“Oi!” She laughed again. “Have you ever heard the rumour that you don’t insult the person trying to rescue you?!”

“I took that as more of a guideline...”

Bethany rolled her blue eyes and shoved the lid. It gave a teethgrittingly horrible grinding, graunching, noise as it slid about half an inch. She shoved again, and a sliver of darkness appeared in the corner. A pale hand appeared in the gap.

“Beth, kindly step back.”

“My name’s Bethany,” She growled.

“Apologies, but still, please stand back.”

She backed off... and the lid shot sideways, slamming into the wall and shattering, leaving a cloud of dust... and a slender silhouette that seemed to just appear, leaning nonchalantly against the side of what had just been his prison.

Bethany stared long and hard at the man as the powder settled, artist’s eyes flickering over him, taking him apart in her mind, then putting him back together as a seamless whole. He was certainly striking, pale skin with a sable pelt of hair, worn long, but plaited back out of his face, a face so sharp and elegant that it could have been carved out of wax with a scalpel. He was striking, she thought, deep, dark green eyes, ringed in long black lashes fit to make any girl jealous, full lips with a habitual almost mocking smile...

She folded her arms again, determined to seem unimpressed, although he was the most gorgeous bloke she’d clapped eyes on...

“So you’re a vampire,” She stated coolly.

He tilted his head slightly, the smile becoming more corporeal, eyes sparkling.

“Indeed I am,” he admitted.

“And you were in a...”

“Sarcophagus,” He supplied helpfully.

“Yeah, that thing,” Bethany said uncaringly. “Why?”

He shrugged with a roguish smile.

“Well, surely every-one has a rather peculiar past time?” He offered.

“No, not really,” Beth said flatly.

He looked put out.

“Well, how very dull of them,” the vampire smiled, then relented. “Apologies, I was... tricked into this by a certain acquaintance of mine, upon whom, I assure you, I will be reaping vengeance down upon tenfold.”

Bethany raised her eyebrow, not exactly disbelievingly, but wryly.

“4 in the afternoon,” She looked up. “So they shut you in a...”

“Sarcophagus.”

“Whatever,” Bethany said irritably. “They shut you in a big stony coffin for the shits and giggles?”

The Vampire looked thoughtful.

“Sadly, that is fairly accurate.”

Bethany sat down on the plinth of a pillar to stare at him. He gave her a small, encouraging smile.

“Like I said, my name is Elliot,” He said after a moment. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, although I would have preferred to have met you under more salubrious circumstances. Preferably in a bar.”

Bethany gave him a long look.

“You talk really oldly.”

“The word is ‘archaic’,” he stated precisely.

“I don’t care what the word is. The fact is you are it.”

He gave her a look that was almost disparaging.

“Well I am a vampire. I am entitled to my quirks, am I not?” he demanded. “The world may fall into wrack and ruin, but that is surely no excuse to allow my language to deteriorate?”

He saw her give him another long look, and now it was his turn to be irritable.

“What?” He demanded.

“Has any-one ever told you that you talk entirely too much?” She demanded.

Elliot hesitated.

“To be totally honest, no.”

“Well ya do,” Beth stated decisively.

Bethany didn’t see Elliot move,  but suddenly he was stood right in front of her, his handsome face twisted into a crooked grin, one pierced eyebrow raised.

“Well,” He breathed in a tone that was almost a purr. “Perhaps you should attempt to silence me?”

She raised her own eyebrow in response.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

He shrugged one shoulder.

“On the odd occasion I also...”

However that sentence was going to end, Bethany never had the patience to find out. Vampire or not, he never saw it coming. She stepped into him, her leg hooking around his to knock him off balance and onto the floor, her sat on his chest, her hands buried in his hair, mouth pressed almost violently against his. His lips parted for her, and she felt the strange sharpness of his long canines, and the metallic click of his tongue piercing...

She sat back, panting, as he propped himself up on his elbows underneath her, grinning mischievously.

“Sorry, what were you saying?” Bethany asked him casually.

“To be totally honest, I do not have a clue,” he said brightly. “But we do have about two, maybe two and a half hours before the sun goes down, and as you do not seem to want to pass the time with civilised conversation...”

He trailed off delicately and Bethany felt her traitorous mouth spread into a smile.

“I’ll have you know that I’m not the kinda girl that usually has sex with total strangers.”

Elliot’s eyes widened innocently.

“When did I mention sex?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Darling, you ooze sex,” She tilted her head. “And you’re also my exception.”

“Your sexception?” Elliot asked, then caught her look and shrugged with a sheepish look.

“Look, just shut up and kiss me.”

Elliot reached up, his hands with their slender, dextrous fingers sliding under the fabric of her t-shirt and resting like white stars on her skin, cool on her skin, and gave her a small smile.

“At least no-one got tied up this time,” He remarked.

Bethany leant over him, her necklace dropping forwards from out of her neckline to gently brush his nose.

“Now,” She breathed warningly. “What did I just say to you?”

He winked one of those captivating green eyes.

“Make me,” he challenged.