In the Shadows by Lillith Devero (read along books .TXT) 📕

they wanted to avoid people. Everyone did. It was kind of a not-so-secret tradition at their high school. Some people even said that even some of the teachers used it. Since the school didn’t want any injuries to occur on school grounds where they would then be responsible, it was always ‘under maintenance’, supposedly to prevent people from using it. It was ‘tested’ by students almost daily and it was always fine and no one had gotten hurt yet.
As they wedged the window open with a pencil, like they always did, Sammy asked, “Hey, can I come over to your house? I don’t want to have to go home to my mom.”
Abby had met her mom before, not a pretty picture. “Yea, of course. I think Mom might even be making your favorite cookies.” She hinted.
“Nuh uh! Not my cauldron sugar cookies!” She almost screamed and jumped up and down, very un-Goth-like.
Abby only smiled and replied, “Why of course!”
“Yippee!” She actually did scream and it was very un-Goth-like.
They then proceeded to crawl out the window like well experienced ninjas, and they escaped into what was left of the day.

After five minutes, they were in front of Abby’s house. She was happy that she lived so close to school for one reason: She didn’t have to drive her death-trap of a car. It was dangerous because it was old but besides that she just hated driving with all of her being. Knowing what waited in the afterlife made some more cautious than others.
After stealing cauldron cookies from her mom they ran upstairs. Her mom was used to their ways and just kept on baking, knowing that they would want more and sneak down again and again.
“When does your dad get back from his trip?” Sammy asked as they slipped into Abby’s room, the second door on the left.
Her room was what she thought every Goth could ask for. The walls were painted black with a white lace patterned stripe going around the wall’s middle. The curtains in her corner room’s windows were black and lacy with some random strips of white fabric intertwined with it. She had two small bookshelves with various books ranging from, Paranormal Hauntings to How to Cast a Protective Circle for Dummies and to Potions and Spell Castings. There were also several shelves on the walls with some potion ingredients and glass vials. She also had a desk at the end of her bed with various papers written in Latin, which she was studying. She also knew that, underneath her circular wool rug, she had chalk outlined a pentagram. The best part? Her mom was completely fine with all of it! But she didn’t know about the pentagram.
In between nibbles on her cookie Abby replied, “Sometime next week, I think.” Simultaneously, they both fell onto her black sheeted bed, into an immense pile of pillows.
Sammy glanced around and nodded in approval at the witch related content. “I see that you decided to start my trade like I suggested.”
“Yeah. I kinda suck at it though.” She chuckled. “I tried a simple protection charm and it didn’t even work!”
“I would be surprised if you actually got it to work.” Sammy outright laughed.
Abby just stared at her. “You knew it wouldn’t work?”
Sammy laughed again, “I wanted to see if there was even the slightest possibility that you could contain some witch blood from a distant relative, but so far it just looks like you got stuck with your ghostly voodoo.” She smiled, shrugged, and bit into what was left of her cookie. “Besides, it would be nice if you knew what spell I was going to cast so if you had to, you could get out of the way.”
Abby still just stared at her.
Abby and Sammy had known each other since Sammy transferred to their school in third grade. They had become friends almost instantaneously because of each of them were too ‘weird’ to hang out with the other girls, but they didn’t really mind. They had never wanted to hang out with them either. In fourth grade, Abby and Sammy had been attacked walking home by some of the guys in their class, and Sammy had cast a protective circle around them. Abby couldn’t have fought them off because her grandmother hadn’t past down the duties of the Guide to her yet, and she wouldn’t for two years. Under Abby’s questioning later, Sammy fessed up to being a witch-in-training. Abby didn’t know who she was trained by but she knew it wasn’t Sammy’s mother.
Sammy nudged her with her elbow. “Why my dear Abigale!” Sammy said with a fake British accent, “I believe that I just tricked you into studying something!”
Abby groaned at her. “I told you never to call me that Samantha!”
Sammy gasped at her, “How dare you sir!”, still continuing her accent. To add further insult to injury Sammy threw a pillow at her.
After a quick gasp Abby replied, “Oh it’s on now, sister!” Pillow in hand, she smacked her over the head with a pillow.
After several more playful hits, Abby called time out and asked, “You wanna steal some more cookies?”
Sammy said in mock horror, “I’m shocked that you even had to ask!”

They gossiped to immense proportions and Sammy taught Abby techniques, still hopeful that she could be a little witchy, until the clock struck ten after they had gone through about a dozen cookies.
Sammy had very unenthusiastically called her mom to tell her where she was and instructed her to be home by ten. They would have argued, but Sammy’s mom is more frightening than any Enforcer that Abby had ever met and she wouldn’t go up against her even when she had the phantom-abulous powers of the undead on her side and some very minimal witchy-ness. So Abby only ended up walking Sammy home.
They walked and talked with what was left of their cookies, until they came upon Sammy’s house way too soon.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Sammy asked.
“Yeah, unless something comes up, but I doubt anything will.” Abby said.
After a quick hug, Sammy walked into her house and Abby pitied her for having to go home to that woman. They were juniors though so she only had one year left with her mom. Praise the lord.
Abby turned around and looked in the direction that they had come. Because of where they live and because it was summer it was hot, humid, and downright terrible when you wore black twenty-four seven.
Ew.
Sammy and her mom lived in the ‘bad’ side of town, and Abby had to walk about a mile home, in the dark, alone.
Well, almost alone.
She began to feel the slight chill that felt like heaven in the hot night. Followed soon by the scent of freshly bloomed flowers, that, she had discovered, was basically what heaven smelled like. She could feel her floating there to her right. She turned with a smile and greeted the transparent figure with the blonde hair and the mysterious, stormy blue, sparkling, eyes.
And Alexandria smiled back.
Chapter 2

They had stopped in this small town to feed and rest.
They had been traveling nonstop since he had been awoken from his long and dreary sleep, three days ago. Apparently Yarwood had grown into a great ruler of his vampire community. When he had known him he had barely embraced his vampiric nature. Of the triplets, he would have expected for Xavier, the eldest, to take the throne, but apparently he had grown soft.
He used to be known as ‘Lord Tempest’. He had been the most respected, most feared vampire in the entire world. He could feed from any woman that he pleased; in fact, he could do anything that he pleased. He had been more than a king… He had been an overlord! Until he became locked in that godforsaken box!
It startled him to his very core that so much of his world could be destroyed by a simple box made of wood and nails! It was more than startling… it was absolutely terrifying! In fact, even though it was safer, he refused to sleep in another coffin. He would not feel so helpless ever again.
He was a king…
a ruler…
an OVERLORD!
And he would be treated as such!
He continued stalking the night in search of his prey, quieter than a mouse.
After only a matter of several seconds he smelled one.
Female…
He moved closer.
alone…
He quickly sped forward, shortening the distance between him and his meal.
odd scent?
That threw him off for a second. He had never smelled such a scent on a mortal.
It was the scent of death; musty, dirty, aged, and some other part that only made it more threatening.
She was just down the street from him now. From where he was he could see that she had satiny black hair that reached almost all of the way to her waist, not that all different from his. The only real difference was that his only barely went past his shoulders. Because of its length he often pulled it up with a ribbon. It was one of the habits he had gained as a ‘professional’ overlord. Near her shoulder he noticed a slight shimmer in the air but he ignored it as his need increased.
Once he got several feet closer to her he found another layer in her scent. She had the smell of darkness about her too that was more than just the scent of death; it was nearer the scent of evil.
That completely stopped him in his tracks. He stood there in the dark musty smell of the alley as she walked under a street light and turned around, looking with her star filled stormy grey eyes, full of curiosity, as if she was looking for him…
No. That’s impossible.
She shrugged and continued walking less casually than before.
He started to move in for the kill. He ignored the glimmer in the air as he got closer, the need for blood becoming stronger with each step nearer the woman.
As he focused on her stronger he realized that she was whispering as he came up behind her.
He heard her whisper “Now?” before he felt strangely intense pain shooting across his jawbone as he fell to the ground.
The woman seemed to glow with a sinister shimmering energy as she picked him up off the ground by the front of his shirt and shoved him against the wall. Behind her the glimmer that he had noticed manifested itself fully into the transparent form of a woman.
Dammit. The glimmer had been a Crossover, a ghost that moved on but came back to assist the living, or in most cases; the undead or partial dead. Why is she with this mortal?
The girl shook him to pull his attention back to her. “What do you want?” She asked, her