Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1)

by Beverly Toney

  Tabitha smiled at my feigned confidence but allowed me to retain my dignity, however false it was. I was not looking forward to finding out what role I played in all of this, but didn’t feel like I had much of a choice. I sat cross legged waiting for her to explain this craziness away. But something had changed between us. Tabitha was looking at me with a kind of reverence that I wasn’t use to.

  “Cheyenne, I really need you to have an open mind right now. There are forces at work that are stronger than the two of us and you need to become aware of them.” She sat there for a moment, all Yoda-like, letting her statement sink in.

  She walked over to a table and opened a very large very old book. When I followed her I found that the book was titled “Historia Lamia”, “The History of Vampires”. I sat down, hard, and began to read.

  Everything that I thought I knew about Vampires was wrong. First off, wrapping my brain around the fact that they actually existed would take some time. Next came the illogical nature of their existence. I wasn't sure if I wanted them to be reanimated corpses or people afflicted with hemophilia. It turned out that both of those were wrong.

  The brain seemed to be the key to the genetic differences between Vampires and humans. It had been proven time and time again by world renowned scientists that humans only used 10% of their brain. I had always thought it was a waste and wondered how we could tap into the remaining 90%. Vampires, I read, not only had a completely different cerebral make-up but they enjoyed life with 100% brain function. With the brain working at full capacity, vampires were more feral than humans. They had not evolved in the same way that the Homo-Sapien had, rather they had gone a route closer to that of the Lion. In the beginning, as the Homo-Sapien foraged for fruits and vegetables, the Vampire hunted for flesh. It wasn't known when the Vampire went from chewing to drinking, but their historians wrote that the nutrients from blood were more quickly adsorbed and utilized by the body. In fact, most Vampires had never ingested flesh at all, choosing instead to live off of a diet of fruits, vegetables and human blood.

  Through time, some Vampires observed a type of hibernation to conserve their energy. Originally it was easy since there were fewer dangers and Vampires were able to sleep their days away in any available cave. The dangers from animal threats were small due to the fact that Vampires seemed to smell like predators themselves, keeping other predators away. And the so-called caveman was too busy hunting and staying alive to cause the Vampire any trouble. As a matter of fact, many cavemen became food when they stumbled into the cave of a sleeping Vampire. Lions and tigers and bears…and Vampires? Oh, my!

  So, if I was to believe this tale of Vampires being real, I would have to accept that the long held myths about them were false. The list of possible clues that my best friend and her family were Vampires dwindled to nothing if I used today’s explanation. Sunlight, religious items, garlic; my time with Tabitha allowed me to cross all of them off of my list. Tabitha had spent many days with me in the sun even though her skin never seemed to burn or tan. She also ate regular food although she very rarely ate meat. When she ate my spaghetti, she used more sauce than meat and the strong smell of the garlic bread always made her nose twitch. We had attended church and shopped for silver crosses for my mother. Tabitha had held each and every one with no burns or other aversions so that shot down two myths at once. But, I never saw her wear any jewelry, not even earrings, and that was strange for someone so fashionable.

  With my limited Vampire myths obliterated I researched more of them. Tabitha was definitely faster and stronger than humans and possessed keener hearing and eyesight. They could bleed and even die, but they were not as fragile as humans. The regeneration of their cells was so fast that the only surefire way to kill one was to remove his or her head. Their hyper-functioning brain was the key to life for the Vampire. Not even a stake in the heart would kill them; they would simply lie in a form of paralysis until it was removed, although it was not documented how long they could remain that way. I ran through the list of myths and found all of them lacking except one: the need to be invited into someone’s home. I couldn’t prove or disprove this one since it was simply good home training that had me invite Tabitha into my home when we first met. I didn’t know of many people who simply walked into someone else’s house without permission, so that one had to stay on the ‘maybe’ list. But one thing was certain, Vampires had supernatural attributes.

  Continued research could not help me confirm nor deny their existence, which I was sure was the point of the myths in the first place. The myth of ghouls, or Renfield’s from the Bram Stocker novel, was actually true. As humanity invented tools for protection against threats, animal and Vampire alike, the need for daytime protection grew. It was most likely that a female Vampire took a human mate and accidentally produced the first Stewards. This man was an ancestor of the Spartans and was more resilient than other humans; the combination of genomes made the offspring perfect for the job. The Stewards grew stronger and lived longer than humans but did have the need to drink blood. As the population of Stewards grew, early leaders sought to breed them with Vampires to reduce the need for blood or hibernation. These offspring simply created stronger and longer lived Stewards, but did not fix the Vampire problem. For many years the Stewards simply captured humans in order to feed their Vampire patrons. Entire villages, living in fear of their mysterious neighbors, began to form lynch mobs and killed several hundred Vampires. Humans outnumbered Vampires and Stewards, so an all out war was out of the question. And the idea of treating humans like cattle was not appealing. As time went by the mysterious nature of Vampires drew the attention of admirers. Men and women alike flocked to the edges of villages and townships for a chance encounter with the mythical creatures.

  Many Vampires lived on the blood of these admirers and began to keep regular human hours. As the years went by and Vampires began to thrive and prosper, differences in attributes caused divisions. The most powerful Vampires separated the population into five different clans and led them as their sovereign monarchs. These Royals had set up a governing body called the Council that was granted the power to create, implement and enforce laws. This new governing body sought out the brightest of the Vampires and set them to work on biological issues within the species. These Vampire scientists had worked tirelessly for solutions to the problem of feeding without the fear of discovery.

  At the same time, Vampires and Stewards began to mate with humans. Many Vampire/human offspring were abnormal and deformed causing their superstitious human parents to put them to death. The Steward/human offspring were much healthier, however. They were so healthy, in fact, that they were found to be the perfect source of food for the Vampires. It was discovered accidentally when the teenage twins of a Steward/human relationship were being educated by a Vampire scholar in an Italian monastery. One evening the scholar began to feel ill. He had been so engrossed in his studies that he had gone without feeding for over a month. It was the middle of the night when he fell to his knees and called for the Steward half-breeds to get a human for him to feed upon. The human donor they found, however, was insufficient to repair the damage of his unintentional fast. As the scholar continued to waste away, the twins, being of Steward blood and having the innate nature to care for Vampires, offered their own blood. Each day one of them would puncture their wrist and fill the scholar’s chalice. Slowly, the scholar returned to his senses, but he had many hallucinations while he healed. Each morning when he was fed, he looked up and saw sun streaming in through the window to illuminate the chalice and each twin. When he regained his common sense he wrote that he had been saved by “the getter of blood” or “the carrier of blood” which he wrote in a combination of Italian and Latin; Sanguine Fare. He did not know that the twins had fed him their own blood until he called them for his weekly feeding. When the human donor did not satiate him, he asked them how many humans they had used for his restoration. At first, the twins were afraid that the scholar would be angry at thei
r news, but they soon found out that they had solved a problem plaguing the entire Vampire population.

  The Vampire Council formed a society with the Stewards and the Sanguine Fare and explorers were commissioned to find a place that was free from the prying eyes of humans. At first they went to Africa and then to the New World before settling on a small island near the coast of India.

  Chapter 5

  Tabitha had been flipping through magazines the entire time I was reading. Watching my reactions and offered looks of sympathy where she felt appropriate, she offered support in the only way she knew how. When I finished and pushed away from the table, she set her magazine down and started to offer explanations.

  “I know that your life has just turned upside down and I am sorry for that, but it was hard to find you after you were adopted the last time. Those boys on the bus, well, they were sent to take you to a man that your mo…well, a man who wanted to use you for his own purposes, so we ….”

  Tabitha kept talking but I was stuck on two points. If all of this was true, why was I in the system at all? Why didn't Efia or one of the others simply adopt me instead of allowing my adoptive mother to do it? And was Tabitha about to say something about my birth mother? And did Tabitha know where she was right now?

  I didn’t remember much about my mother, in fact all that I remembered were her eyes being the same color as mine and the sound of her voice. My mother’s voice would make angels weep. It was deep and sultry and felt like a warm blanket wrapped around your shoulders. It felt like love and I had never felt that way since. I was put into the foster care system around the age of 2 and had been bounced from home to home ever since. Like Tabitha had said, my life had been turned upside down.

  “Cheyenne? Are you listening to me?”

  “Not anymore. I want to know about my mother. What do you know about her? And what does she have to do with the boys from the bus or any of this?”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  We both turned at the sound of a new voice and saw a short girl wearing the same black military suit that Tabitha had on. She was followed in by the largest of the three dogs and came to a stop directly in front of me.

  “This is Zeus,” she said, introducing me to the dog as if it was the most normal thing to do. “He's the father of the twins and very sweet.”

  I looked at the large dog and his black eyes and didn’t see sweet. His head was massive and I assumed that his teeth were extremely sharp, although I couldn’t see them. Zeus and I stared at each other for a few moments before he sneezed and walked away. Artemis and Apollo rose slowly and followed their father out of the room without a backwards glance. These dogs were starting to creep me out. Their human mannerisms were a bit unnerving.

  After the dogs departed, my attention returned to the girl standing in front of me. She looked to be about three inches shorter than me with wonderfully curly black hair that sat on her shoulders. A headband held her hair off of her face and I could see a strong forehead and intelligent eyes; chocolate brown eyes. She had clear creamy brown skin with tiny little freckles across the bridge of her nose and a perfect heart shaped mouth. Without an ounce of makeup on, this girl looked as if she could walk on to any movie set and be the next great teen pop star.

  “Hi. I’m Chloe St. Clair…your sister.”

  Efia had informed me that I had a sister in the house somewhere, but I hadn’t had time to imagine what she would look like. Now that I saw her standing in front of me, I couldn’t be happier. I fought back my emotions and cleared my throat in preparation for my response when she flung herself into my lap and hugged me. I lifted my arms and held her there as if my life depended on it and cried.

  We sat there crying in each other’s arms for what seemed like an eternity when the bedroom door opened and closed. Tabitha had left us alone. I pulled away from her only so that I could see her face. Her nose was smaller than mine, a little bit more turned up. She would have looked snobbish if not for the tears running down her face. I grabbed the corner of the comforter and wiped them one by one until she stopped crying.

  “Hi,” I said with my gruff voice. “I’m Cheyenne.”

  “I know. It’s nice to finally meet you. Now I should take you on a tour.”

  Chloe led the way out of the room, down the stairs and through the kitchen to a large garden. We walked through an ivy covered gate and under an arbor into the most majestic garden I had ever seen. There were aisles upon aisles of rose bushes, tiger lily plants and fruit trees. The mixture of smells was so intoxicating that I swooned on my feet for the first few seconds. We wound through the plants until we came upon a solid marble bench near a fountain the size of an Olympic practice pool. Between the calming sound of the fountain and the singing of the birds, I was completely relaxed within minutes.

  “We have a lot to tell you,” Chloe started. “I asked if I could do it and Efia said that I could start. They think I'm a child, but I want to do this. I want to tell you.”

  “Are you a, you know, Vampire?”

  “Me? No, no,” she laughed. “Not until I’m 18. I’m only 15 1/2.”

  Chloe went on to tell me the ins and outs of our Vampiric family. Efia was our Great grandmother many times removed. I was apparently dreaming about her early life and the events that led to her abduction from the Gold Coast of Africa and transportation to the New World when she was just seven years old. She had witnessed vampires killing off her tribal family, but for some reason she was spared.

  At the age of 10 she was sold to a wealthy New Orleans family, and was immediately put to work taking care of the mistress and her children. On any given day she could be seen walking with and caring for the family’s four young children as well as attending to the needs of the plantation mistress.

  Once, while walking with the children, she saw a man in a cloak following them in the fields. Her screams brought the slave owner and his men with guns ready to fire. They chased the cloaked figure into the forest at the edge of the property and lost him. After that, Efia always felt as if she were being watched.

  When she was eleven years old, a slave from a neighboring plantation asked for her hand in marriage. He was only eighteen years old, but had been a slave all of his life and knew how to survive. When she told her mistress that she truly loved him they began to hope for the best. Although there was no way to legally marry two slaves, the plantation mistress so loved Efia that she convinced her husband to purchase the boy so that they could have a wedding.

  The couple lived as comfortable a life as a slave could under the protection of the plantation mistress who was only ten years older than Efia herself. The upkeep of the main house, and grounds immediately surrounding it, were left in their care. Efia and her husband were so loved by their owners that, once they announced they were expecting, they were given a manumission document for their unborn child. Satisfied with the fact that their child would be born free, Efia and her husband became even more loyal to the family.

  One night, when thirteen year old Efia was about 7 months pregnant, a fire broke out in the barn near the main house. All of the field hands raced to the scene to help save the animals from the flames. Efia went immediately to the children of the house and found each of them with their throats ripped out and laying on the kitchen floor. The mistress of the house was screaming as she was dragged out of the side door and down the steps by a cloaked assailant. Efia screamed for the slave owner and led him to the place where she last saw her mistress. The slave owner and his men took off in the direction of his wife’s screams and disappeared in the darkness.

  After what seemed like hours, people from neighboring plantations arrived to help extinguish the multiple fires that were now burning and to find the slave owner and his wife. Efia’s husband and the other slaves on the plantation had managed to lead most of the animals to safety before the barn and other structures were destroyed. The property was full of panicked people, animals and debris, but all Efia could think about was the well being of her
mistress.

  Efia went to stand on the porch, hoping that the elevated height would give her a better look into the wooded distance, when she heard a noise. She had thought that the house was empty until she heard footsteps and an upstairs door slam. Even though everything in her body had told her to run in the other direction, Efia thought if her mistress had returned it was her duty to help. Quietly she went the rear of the house and up the stairs. Habit forced her to skip the third step to avoid the predictable creak that she knew it would make. Once on the second floor landing, Efia heard the sound of water dripping on the floor of the room nearest the stairs. She turned the door handle and opened the door and found her mistress hanging from the ceiling by her feet. Her throat was ripped open and three Vampires were lapping at the blood on the floor. So absorbed in their feast, none of them heard or saw Efia as she closed the door and ran down the stairs. Once outside her desire to scream was cut off when she saw the helping neighbors and her fellow slaves running from or fighting with Vampires. With a hand on her belly, Efia searched the crowd for her husband. He was in the arms of a female Vampire and his throat was torn out. Shock kept her in place for longer than was safe, but a cool breeze and the sound of movement upstairs snapped her out of her trance and she ran.

  I stopped Chloe mid sentence to catch my breath. The entire time she recounted the events of that night I felt as if I was living it in real time. I felt the heat from the fire and the adrenaline from seeing Efia’s mistress being dragged by her hair. I even smelled the blood from the floor. Then, sitting there in the garden, I had to calm myself down before continuing.

  “So, this is where my dream comes in. Efia is running from the plantation when someone saves her.”

  “Yes,” Chloe said with a nod. “The person that grabbed Efia in the woods was…well, that part of the story can wait.”

  “Why?”