Prologue
Iris
~Nine Years Old ~
Something woke me up from the dream I was having. I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
I heard a thud coming from downstairs.
“Mamma?” I called out.
There was no answer coming from downstairs, so I pulled off my blanket and opened my door. I was halfway down the stairs when I got a look at the living room and I stopped, trying to understand what I was seeing.
“Mamma?” I called out.
She was sitting — no, slumping— on the couch. Her head laid to the side and ketchup was smeared down her neck.
Another thump called my attention to the kitchen and I walked down the rest of the stairs.
“Run, Louloudi.”
I turned back to the living room and noticed Dad on the floor. He was covered in red, too. He looked much paler than he usually did, his ginger beard contrasting with his skin more than usual.
“Pappa?”
“Run, Iris. You have to run. Be my brave little flower and run!” The urgency of his voice was a weird contrast to his low rasp.
My older sister suddenly stumbled out of the kitchen. Her shirt was torn, her boobies partially exposed. She was covered from head to toe in red. Behind her, in the kitchen, I could see my brother laying on the ground. He had ketchup all over him, too.
Blood. It was blood, my mind began to scream at me as I began to understand that something terrible was happening. I looked up at my sister again and I took a startling step back at the smile she was giving me.
“Ah, Iris. Sweet, sweet Iris. I want to see if you taste as sweet as you are,” she said, her words lisping. Her smile widened as I took another step back, my heart pumping fast. Her smile looked weird, though. Two of her teeth were longer than I remember — sharp.
“Thea?” I called out to my sister questioningly as she took another step toward me.
“Don’t you fucking touch her,” Dad rasped from the side, trying to scramble up but slipping on his own blood.
“What are you going to do about it, old man?” my sister cackled.
“Please,” Dad begged.
“But she’s so sweet. I can smell her from here. The way her blood is rushing through her veins. Her little heart pumping that blood so quickly through her tiny little body. It’s going to taste so good.”
She turned to me again, and I took another step back, hitting the bottom step and stumbling back, landing on my butt painfully.
“Don’t be afraid. It will only hurt for a moment,” she cooed.
She took another step forward, but then the front door burst open. She turned around to look at the intruder, and all I heard was a loud pop from behind my sister and she went flying backwards, landing on top of me. Warm liquid began to soak into my nightie and I cried out, trying to push her off me, but moments later, she was scrambling up with a hiss and charging at whoever had come through the door.
I didn’t see much of the resulting battle. All I saw, was her head rolling away from her body a few minutes later. I stared at it in shock, still not understanding what was happening as I heard a man talking to himself.
“I need clean up and a doctor. One male still conscious and one little girl still alive. She looks unharmed. One adult female and young boy deceased. The vampire has been taken care of.”
The rest of the night was a blur. Men came and took Dad and me away. They put us in a room and I watched them do all sorts of things I didn’t understand to my father.
It was another few days before he was conscious again and then two men came in and spoke with him while I was made to wait outside.
After what felt like forever, Dad came out wearing regular clothes, a look of devastation and anger on his face.
“Let’s go, Iris. These people are going to help us.”
“Help us with what, pappa?”
“Get revenge.”
