Desire of the Soul

by Alana Topakian

Family Ties

  Dracul turned to me, a look of disbelief on his face. “Your parents? Your parents are the Directors? The measly humans?” 

  I nodded once, hearing the voice of my mother again as she called out to me, her figure just as imposing as my fathers who sat next to her. Neither looked measly, neither looked human.

  “Yeah. I don’t know how...it makes absolutely no sense. And before I could figure anything out, I kind of...fainted,” I said, looking down in embarrassment. I mean I’m supposed to be some big shot ‘Queen’, but I fainted when I saw my parents seated at that table. 

  Dracul opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again and looked at something beyond me. “They’re calling you back. Get information, I’ll try to dream-call you as soon as I can,” he said, and then disappeared.

  ---

  “Tammy, finally. You’re awake!” It seems I’ve been hearing those words a lot lately, ‘You’re awake’. Probably because of the fainting habit I seemed to have inherited when I turned. 

  I looked towards the voice, and my mom’s head came into view. She looked like a Goddess, her black hair falling straight down her back, and her brown eyes sparkling. Nothing like the mom I knew, with her hair that was always frizzy, her eyes always dull.

  “Mom?” I whimpered, and felt tears fall down my face. 

  “Oh Hun, don’t cry Tammy. Don’t cry baby, everything is just fine. I’ll explain it all to you alright?” my mom murmured, stroking my hair in the maternal way that showed me it really was her.

  “Your father and I are the Directors of the Ater Council. We’re the ones who took over after the other Directors died. Neither your father or I are fully human, we were made to be the Directors before our birth, made to be together. I am half-Plefesa, your father half-Expletus. A Plefesa is a Goddess or God who mixed with a Shifter. My mother was a Plefesa, my father a Human. Your father’s mother was Human, his father an Expletus. 

  When we had you, all the tests showed that you were human, completely human. 

  It made no sense, as a child could not have two parents who had genetic codes of the Paranormal, and not have any Paranormal at all in him or her.

  At first, your father thought that I had an affair with a human man. What a time that was, the screaming and yelling could probably be heard from miles away.

  Finally I agreed to a paternity test, and it showed what I already knew, you were my and your father’s child. He still didn’t believe it at first, but the tests did not lie, and so we did with it what we could. 

  We raised you like any other human child, with love and care, trying our hardest not to show that we were anything but human. 

  We both began to notice something though, something different about you. You were meticulous when it came to anything that could possibly harm you. It was like you were determined not to do anything that could possibly hurt you enough for blood to spill.

  Your father and I then realized, that you were protecting your blood. Protecting it from what? We did not know. We just knew that where other kids were always spilling blood, you were not.

  At age three, we took you to a doctor for those of the Paranormal.  He was an expert in his field, and the perfect one to go to for help. 

  We explained what was wrong with you, and he took the initiative. While we held you down, he poked you in the leg with a needle and drew your blood.

  You were out of our hands in seconds, your eyes burning a brilliant shade of crimson. A scream erupted out of your mouth, and you attacked the doctor. 

  You were only three, so young, but so strong. Within seconds the doctor was out cold, and the vile of your blood shattered on the floor. You drank it up, every last drop, and then sat down on the floor as if nothing had just happened.

  After that, we kept you from all doctors, anyone who would try and take your blood. 

  It was obvious you were not human. But that was about all we could figure out. No one had any records of a Paranormal like you; one who protected their blood like it was worth millions. Like it was a diamond among piles of trash, as if it was a needle within thousands of haystacks.

  After many years, you were probably only eleven, we met Duke. A charming man he is, so handsome. I see why you fell for him; although I would have much rather you follow the path we had laid out for you. We’d rather you have become the Queen of the Ater Council, a Director like your father and I, instead of becoming Queen on the Lucis Council. 

  Anyway, we met Duke. He’d been following you, something we realized he must have been doing for a while for him to know your exact whereabouts.

  When we figured out who he was, the Second Amatores, we dug in on why he would want to follow you. Follow our precious, beautiful little girl. 

  That’s when we saw the prophecy.

  We tried to sway you toward choosing the Ater Council first; even pairing you up with the half-Witch Luke, but it was a lost cause. You were set on Duke, set on following his path-”

  I cut my mom off with a gasp, my eyes widening. “Luke was half-Witch? What are you talking about? I fed from him, and he tasted completely human!” I blurted out, chewing anxiously on the inside of my cheek.

  Thank god I had crazy healing powers, or else I’d probably have lost my lips and cheeks by now.

  “Yes, he’s half-human, half-Witch. Ever since the Salem Witch Trials, the Witch population has been terrified of becoming hunted once again. 

  Once a baby is born in their family, they put a spell on that baby so it appears human in all ways, all senses. Taste, smell, sight, you can name any sense; they all appear normal.

  Luke was the half-Witch I had paired you with, as he was supposed to lead you towards the Ater Council. He failed terribly at his job, instead becoming so addicted to your bite that we had to admit him to a Recovery Home. I’ve never seen anything like it, the power your bite put over him. It was quite amazing to say the least.”

  Guilt filled me at the thought of Luke sitting in a crazy house, all because of me. Sitting there, probably begging to be let out, his eyes filling with unshed tears. Poor Luke...

  I swiped at a tear that had unconsciously fallen, and look back up at my mom. “Dracul is here, isn’t he? I want to see him,” I said, changing the subject as quick as I could.

  My mom’s eyes hardened, and I felt myself shrink against the bed I was lying on. They must have stuck me back in my old room once I fainted. It felt like my mom had grown larger, even though her petite body stayed the same size.

  “How do you know Dracul is here?” she retorted back, her voice sending a shiver down my back. Never have I been afraid of my parents, I never had a reason to be, but now I know that I underestimated their power. 

  “I-I guessed? Mom, please, if he really is here...can I see him? I’m your daughter, not your prisoner; so stop treating me like a prisoner. You keep going on about how you want me to rule the Ater Council, but I definitely will not want to if I’m treated like a damn criminal. So mother, may I please go see Dracul?” I stood from the bed, my eyes narrowing against my moms. 

  My fear of her had evaporated in seconds as the Reds anger filled me, and I saw the red haze that would soon encompass my whole being if my mom didn’t comply to my requests.

  “Fine,” she huffed, and opened the steel door out of the room. “You may see Dracul. But I am just warning you; it is not a pretty sight. He put up quite the fight, and has been attacking anything in sight trying to get to you.”

  My heart leapt, a grin breaking through the coldness that had threatened to overtake me.

  I followed after my mom with the smile still plastered on my face, taking long, twisting hallways until we arrived in front of a door.

  The door was barred on the front, and behind the bars was a door made of thick steel; it seemed the Ater Council enjoyed steel.

  A crash echoed from behind the steel door, and a voice called out. “Tammy! Tammy, is that you? Why are you here?”

  Dracul. I would recogniz
e his voice anywhere. “Dracul! Yeah, it’s me! I had to make sure you were okay! Mom, please open the door.”

  I nodded my head toward the electronic lock that stood beside the door; joy lifting my being at the thought of seeing Dracul.

  Click. Click. Click. Click. My mom entered the code into the lock, and the thick door swung open, revealing Dracul behind it.

  I ran towards him with my arms outstretched, pulling him into a tight hug. 

  He felt thin, even thinner then before when we’d been in the Fire.

  “Dracul, are they feeding you here?” I asked, anger at my mother and father for obviously treating him so terribly.

  His room stank of decay, an uncomfortable looking bed cemented into the wall, and a hole in the floor for where I assumed he would go to the bathroom. 

  “Not much,” he admitted, raking a hand through his greasy hair; definitely in need of a shower. “More than the Unseelie Queen fed me, but not by far. I’ll live though. More importantly, are you okay? You look healthy. The Hudas you drank from must have helped some. Are you feeling any cramps? Headaches? Bursts of anger?”

  My thoughts focused on the Red exploding out of me multiple times today. “Uh-yeah-the third one. Why?”

  “The Transformation is coming soon. You’ll need to be placed in a comfortable room…I need to speak to your mother about this.”

  My eyes hardened, and I scoffed. “No Dracul, you need to speak to me about this. What do you mean the Transformation is coming soon?”

  “Fine, the Transformation. Something I’ve no doubt some have mentioned,” Duke said, looking at me warily as if I might explode on him.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard a bit about it. Atmaja said something about a prophecy. She didn’t tell me what the prophecy was though, just that there was one.”

  “The Transformation from dark to light,

  Will be one that She’ll incur,

  From eyes to pain,

  Throughout the night,

  She’ll swiftly,

  Quickly change.

  Goddess blood,

  Mixed with the Amatores,

  One whose power is so great,

  Sacrifice love,

  To save Her life,

  And,

  Complete the change.”

  Dracul closed his mouth, the prophecy tingling at my skin. Why were there so many of those damn things? Wasn’t one enough? But no, there were more and more each day. Stupid things were beginning to blur with one another in my head. “So what does that mean?”

  Dracul sighed, once again running a hand through his hair; what seemed to be a nervous tic of his. “It means that you’ll soon change, as in very soon…tonight most likely. But to complete that change…you’ll have to drink from me.”

  There was more to it, it was obvious from the way Dracul kept darting his eyes left and right. Dracul was the First, he was always composed, never like this. “You can tell me anything, you know that. What’s going on?” I asked him in a whisper, my voice shaking slightly.

  Obviously it was really bad if it made Dracul like this.

  “You’ll have to drink from me…until you’ve drained me completely. Until you’ve killed me.”