Children of Sol was a story I started a few years ago and something happened to give me pause in the writing of it. The other vampire story today has rekindled this one and I've added a good portion to it.

I wasn't entirely happy with the story I shared, so I sat down to write something else. This will be the start. Let me know what you think please.

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“There’s no such thing as vampires!” he said. “They’re a myth, a story. A children’s story at that!”

The way he emphasised his staunch belief that only children and naïve, or simple souls would believe in such a thing made his companion think maybe he had an inner nagging voice telling him he was wrong.

“Are you sure about that, Paul?” she said.

He looked at her. Not in the way a teenage boy would look at a hot teenage chick - and he had to admit, Angelica (Jelly for short for as long as he’d known her) was growing up really hot. Paul looked at Angelica like she had tried to persuade him a certain wizarding school had sent a letter by owl-mail to tell her she’d been accepted as a late entry student.

He snapped out of his contemplation. Her question, the way she asked it had a ring to it that made him wonder.

“Why? What do you know about it?” he said. He regarded her with deep suspicion. She always pulled stunts and tricks on him. He put up with looking the fool because Jelly would give him a sideways grin as though it was all in good humour. He put up with her making fun of him because she kicked anyone else’s arse if they picked on him. She tolerated no one else taking the piss out of him.

“Come on, I’ve found something that might make you change your mind,” she said and jogged off up the lane.

“Jelly! Don’t go up the lane!” he called after her. “You know I hate going past the church.” He said the last in a quiet voice as though he didn’t want anyone – especially Jelly – to hear his confession.

“Come on, Pissy,” she called. “It’s a-fucking-mazing!”

“Don’t call me Pissy,” he said. “Don’t fucking call me Pissy! I’ve fucking told you!” He followed her up the lane, stomping as much as he could without looking like a spoiled child.

She turned a corner and went out of sight before he caught her up.

She sprang out into the open, hands up like claws, just as he reached the tree she hid behind. “Rawr!” she yelled, imitating a big cat’s growl. “That’s why I call you Pissy,” she said.

“I pissed myself ONCE!” he said, knocking her claws away from his face.

“Yeah, but I won’t let anyone else call you that. You’re my Pissy, no one else’s.”

She grabbed his sleeve at the wrist and dragged him hard, almost hard enough to pull him off balance.

He stumbled along after her, through tussocks of long grass and patches of bare soil.