Fledgling (The Vampire Manifesto, Book Two)

by Rashaad Bell

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “Then we’re all good.”

  I was back in the house, heading upstairs. Abigail was sitting next to Dakota. I could tell she was putting her through the best friend interrogation. “Go easy on her Abby, I like that one.”

  She looked over and grinned. “It seems you like them all to me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Get with Principle Girard sometime tonight and she should be able to answer most of your questions.”

  “Really?” Abby didn’t seem to believe it. “The Principle?”

  Girard made her way into the living room plopping down one the couch. She grabbed the bag of Doritos and started to munch. “I’m oddly knowledgeable on quite a variety of topics.”

  I was at the top of the stairs, beholding the three bedroom doors, speculating which one to try first. I choose Aiden’s, cracking open the door, peering inside. He was asleep in his bed, covers pulled up to his neck. I made my way in, sitting down next to him. His complexion was extremely pale and his lips seemed almost blue. There was a bandage on his neck. I didn’t touch it. He seemed peaceful, serene almost, which made what I did to him all the more horrible. I leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead then made my way back to the hallway, slowly closing his door.

  There were only two bedchambers left, my parents and mine. I turned towards my bedroom, hand on the knob, turning it slowly when I stopped, looking down the hallway towards my parent’s room. Before I had even realized it, I was walking towards their room, opening the door and closing it behind me. Connor was there, spread out on the bed in nothing but his jeans, his shirt folded up gracefully on the floor. He turned as I entered and in the darkness, his eyes glistened like small, emerald colored, glow sticks.

  He prompted himself up on a pillow. “Sex or imminent disaster?”

  I just stood there for a moment, regarding him, marveling at how stunning he was, yet underneath that beauty was a monstrous soul that cared about nothing if it did not reflect its own interest. Except when it came to me. I pulled my shirt off, tossing it on the floor.

  Connor didn’t seem surprised. “Sex it is then.”

  I crawled into the bed with him, into my dead parent’s bed and wrapped my legs about him. Even though the lacerations on my body were healed, I was still massively bruised over virtually all of my back. My hands were on his face, my tongue on his neck, kissing him inhumanely and with abandon. He embraced me even harder, biting my shoulder until the point that he drew blood.

  He tossed me on my back, immobilizing my wrists above my head. “What game are you playing at Madison?”

  “Do you love me?” I enquired in all candor.

  “What?” The question caught Connor by complete surprise.

  “Do you love me?” I asked again.

  He released my hands, coming to rest next to me, our bodies intertwined together in embrace.

  “Do you love Dakota?” He asked, his voice soft, tender.

  I refused to lie to him. “Yes.”

  “And Ethan?” Connor probed.

  “I love him as well.” It was my turn to flip him over on his back. I mounted him, kissing his chest sadistically. “I love them both, but in different ways and for different reasons.” I grabbed him violently by the face, harder than I would dare a human. “Is that going to be a problem for you?”

  He tossed me over, faster than I believed possible, his hand wrapped forcefully around my throat, his fingers digging into my skin until he drew blood. “Of course not.”

  I smiled, pulling him closer. “I didn’t think so.”

  We were kissing again, savagely biting into each other’s body, drinking our fill of blood, rolling about on the bed, consumed in our passion. My fingers raked across his stomach, penetrating his flesh, spilling his blood as I reached for his belt. His hand clamped down on my wrist and he pulled away from me, our bodies laying side by side as we both stared up at the ceiling.

  “Do you trust me?” He ultimately asked.

  “Of course I do Connor.” I turned to look at him. “I trust you with my life. I trust you more than any other person in the world.”

  “Why?” There was no malice, no sarcasm in his tone. “Why would you trust someone like me?”

  “Because you jeopardized everything to help me.” I said. “You’ve saved my life over and over again. You brought me back from the dead Connor. You’ve been here with me throughout the most tempestuous phase of my existence and when I’ve needed help the most, you’ve never turned me away.” I kissed him. “That’s why I trust you.”

  “Madison…” He averted his eyes. There was a gentleness about him that I’ve never perceived until now. “…I’m not a good man. I haven’t been one in so long, I doubt I even know how anymore.”

  “I know Connor.” I sat up so I could look at him directly. “And that’s why I could never love you.”

  I got up from the bed, slipped my shirt back on and left the bedroom, closing the door softly. I needed to shower, the grime of the day covering my body. I stripped off all my clothes in the bathroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror. Even though the wounds I acquired during the night had healed, my back was just one substantial bruise. My spine had healed, yet it was still excruciatingly sore, too much movement sent stabbing pains throughout my body, but it was something I could deal with at the moment.

  I climbed in the shower, letting the warm water wash my sins away. Crimson stained water swirled above the drain as all the dried blood peeled itself away from me like dead skin. I didn’t know how long it would take for my back to repair completely. Although I was mentally ready for another fight, I don’t think my physique could take it. My mind replayed my encounter with Colonel Hawking, how effortless it was for him to eliminate me from the equation.

  I guess he wouldn’t be a Super Soldier if he couldn’t.

  I was exhausted. I just needed to rest. I wrapped a towel around me and then headed to my bedroom. Dakota was already there, curled up on my bed asleep. I slipped into some baggy sweatpants and tank top, then crawled into bed with her. Her eyes fluttered momentarily and when she saw me, she smiled, pulling me close to her, wrapping me up with her arms and legs, before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep again. I just stared at her for a while, watching her sleep, feeling her breath against her face. For a long while, I calculated her heartbeats unobtrusively to myself before closing my eyes and falling asleep.

  Chapter 5

  Street dreams are made of these…

  It was the dream again. The same woodland grove, the landscape littered with dead Vampires at the feet of my dreamself as she pointed the Blade of Osiris in my direction. The last time I had seen this dream version of myself, I recalled how authoritative she was, how ferocious and fearless she appeared paralleled to what I was. I had tried so hard to envision what it was that had transformed her so, forged her into the warrior that she had become.

  As I looked upon her in this moment all I saw was a reflection of what I am now.

  “Who are you?” She commanded, encircling me as she spoke. The Blade of Osiris extended out, going from the size of a bayonet to a full sized broad sword. I observed as the bottommost tip of the Blade hollowed out into a barrel, a Gunblade that shot soul-shattering bullets.

  “We are the same.” I strode towards myself as she deliberately began to lower the Blade of Osiris. I made my way behind my dreamself and moved adjacent to the woman, her back pressed against my chest. My fingers trailed down the side of her arm, my hand wrapping about hers as we both clutched the hilt of the Blade of Osiris.

  “We are the same.” She repeated, tilting her head to the side, kissing me.

  I closed my eyes and kissed her back and once I opened them again, she was gone and only I remained, standing in the midst of deceased Vampires, the Blade of Osiris in my hand. I overheard applause and when I spun around that’s when I saw it.

  Not far off, resting in a truncated sapling branch was a man and yet, the way the face was configured
it may well have been a woman, the sexual characteristics being ambiguous. Whether man or woman, it was something beyond magnificence, to the point that the term was insufficient to illustrate what it was that I saw. It was garbed in an extravagance that I was unsure of, seeming somewhat ultramodern and yet antediluvian at the same time.

  “I don’t recall seeing you here once I reached this focal point of the dream.” I treaded closer to it, mystified by its unexplained appearance. “Who are you?”

  “I am called Oneiroi.” It announced, vaulting down from the bough, settling before me. “Though which one is immaterial.”

  On closer examination, I could comprehend that its skin was to a certain degree semitransparent, an auburn electrical current running underneath its epidermis that flickered and effervesced where its eyes ought to have been. It made an even disquieting appearance even that more alien, yet all the more alluring as well.

  “Oneiroi?” I clutched the handle to the Blade of Osiris even tighter. “What is it that you want?”

  Oneiroi fell back, yet as it did, a gnarled, crooked seedling sprung forth from the earth, twisting, heaving, forming a colossal oak born throne and Oneiroi landed into it as if it had eternally been there, destined for it to sit upon. The scenery began to modify, restructuring at will into something altogether different and yet the will utilized to redesign the dreamscape around us was not my own. The wooded area was gone, the foliage and vegetation being drawn back into the very earth itself, along with the grasslands and plant life. Before long, there was nothing but a sweeping field of soil and gravel as far as the eye could appreciate and even then, that also was dragged into the topography leaving nothing but a fractured, forsaken, wasteland in its stead, the solitary thing alive being the demented oak tree that Oneiroi sat upon.

  It was still twilight and yet miles off at the horizons brink, it was as if the night was painted on but half of a wheel being rotated, with day being on the nethermost half. The wheel upon which they were portrayed was being turned and the division that divided the two rose up from the horizon and made its way to the other side. At one point, the divide line amongst the two reached the midway point and stood straight up in the sky. One-half of the landscape was blanketed in darkness with the moon at the edge of the horizon and while simultaneously on the opposite side of the division line, the landscape was covered in daylight with the sun intensifying, rising up from the horizon. The wheel continued to turn until the night and moon disappeared altogether and it was as if it were midday.

  I raised the Blade of Osiris, pointing it towards Oneiroi. “Who are you?”

  This seemed to entertain Oneiroi and as it laughed, crimson rose petals began to shower down from the sky.

  “I am Oneiroi.” It restated. “Celestial of the dream.”

  “Celestial?” I reiterated.

  Oneiroi propped forward on its throne. “How is it that you came by that weapon?”

  “What do you want from me?” I demanded.

  The creature on the throne seemed appalled. “Orangutan’s have grown audacious in the absence of divinity.”

  I sprinted forward, quicker than Oneiroi realized I could, pressing the Blade of Osiris across its throat to the point that a single drop of glittery golden blood slid down its neck. “You speak of this weapon as if you have knowledge of it. It is rumored that this Blade can slay anything. I am willing to wager that means a Celestial as well.”

  “Hardly.” Oneiroi stated. “To be Celestial is to be beyond death.”

  “Are you willing to put that assumption to the test?” I challenged.

  The catalysts in its eyes flared up even brighter.

  The body of Oneiroi began to grow, larger and larger, to the point that I fell backward to the bleakness of the earth. Oneiroi continued to grow, higher and higher, beyond that of the loftiest skyscraper and it was at this point that I myself seemed to grow or maybe it was creation that appeared to shrink, though which I know not.

  Taller and taller I became, until my head was as high as the stratosphere and yet I was still not as enormous as Oneiroi who continued to escalate in magnitude. Soon I was beyond the size of the earth and I had grown into the very cosmos itself, the universe detectible to me by eye alone, the planets in revolution around our sun appearing as nuggets within the inky blackness of the solar system. So immense did I grow that the earth was but a stepping-stone underneath my foot and I fought to maintain my balance on it for fear of falling off and being lost to space itself.

  Yet I did not stop increasing or was it the universe that had grown too small? I couldn’t see the world beneath my feet, but to my side, not far away was the moon and I reached for it, catching the moon in my palm. I hauled myself up to the asteroid belt beyond it, clinging to the rocks, pulling myself among them, slowly repositioning the asteroids, moving each one this way and that, until I was able to sit upon them, all of the asteroids arranged in such a fashion that they could support my weight.

  I gazed out upon the solar system, seeing it from within the solar system and was in reverence, yet as I turned towards the sun I saw Oneiroi resting upon it as if it were a chair, his feet propped up on the planet Mercury, the universe nothing but a cosmic living room to him.

  “I have a message for you.” Oneiroi proclaimed. The sun flared and boiled about him, yet its burning heat was but water to Oneiroi’s body.

  “A message from who?” I probed. Underneath me I could feel the asteroid’s shift and move, as if I were sitting on an air blown ball in a pool, yet they still sustained my mass.

  “Thanatos.” It answered.

  I knew exactly whom Oneiroi meant. “The White Wolf.” I said.

  “The death Celestial.” It corrected.

  Not far off from me, the illuminations of universe seem to grow dim, the planets bordering its blackness drawn into its epicenter, crushed into nonexistence. A black hole was take shape, attracting everything into it and even from where I sat; I could perceive the tug of its gravity well.

  “What did she say?” I asked. The periphery of asteroid belt I was resting on was being pulled into the ever-increasing black hole. I struggled to stand and yet found that I couldn’t, the gravity so great that I found myself being pulled towards it instead.

  “They know who you are.” Oneiroi said.

  I was being wrenched backward now, along with the moon and the earth. Jupiter had fragmented; continent sized sections being sucked into the black hole, crushed into oblivion.

  “They know where you are.” It continued.

  I couldn’t struggle anymore, the gravity around me so intense, so substantial about everything around me that I felt my bones snap and crack, the atoms in my body being ripped apart along with the universe around me as I was dragged into the black holes event horizon.

  “And they are coming for you.” It declared.

  Chapter 6

  It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday…

  I awoke screaming, clutching my chest, gasping for air. Connor was there in an instant, analyzing the room for interlopers and when unearthing none, drawing close to my bedside.

  “Are you okay?” He seemed so scared for me. My bedroom door flung wide open and Dakota rushed in followed by Abigail.

  I couldn’t stop trembling and before I realized it, Dakota was close, her arms swathed around me, stroking my hair. “It’s okay baby.” She was whispering, her voice having a cooling effect on my vapid temperament as I began to calm almost at the sound of it. “It was just a dream.”

  Connor left the room.

  “What time is it?” I asked. I was content to just lay there, my head against Dakota’s chest, the cadence of her heart playing a concerto that only I could hear.

  “Little bit after six.” Abigail said.

  I looked up. “In the morning?”

  “P.M.” Abby corrected. “You slept all day. Connor figured after the night you had, it was best that you got all the rest you could.”

  I got up. “I need to go.” I
was searching my room for clean clothes, pulling off my sweats and putting on some jeans that were crumpled up in the corner. “Where are Aiden and Girard?”

  “At the supermarket.” Abigail said.

  I stopped what I was doing. “The supermarket? By themselves?” I pulled off my tank top and rummaged in my dresser. I found shirt with a picture of a Super Nintendo on the front of it and put it on.

  “We were running low on food.” Abigail explained. “You were asleep and Connor wasn’t here so I made a judgment call.”

  “Where was Connor?” I put on some deodorant and laced up my Timberlands.

  Abigail shrugged. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”

  “Where are you going?” Dakota asked.

  I was brushing my hair, looking at my reflection in the dresser mirror. “To say goodbye to my parents.”

  “I’m coming with you.” Abigail announced.

  I spun around. “No, it’s too dangerous to be seen with me. Its better if you stay here.”

  Abigail closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. She paused then exhaled slowly, opening her eyes. “If I have to spend one more minute in this house with Connor, I’m going to stab him in the chest.”

  “You know I can hear you right?” Connor was leaned up against the doorframe to my bedroom.

  “I’m leaving in five then.” I said. “Connor, I need to talk to you.”

  He began to snap his fingers as he walked in. “You hear that kiddies, grown folks business going on in here, get the hell out.”

  Abigail stormed passed him. “I’ll be ready in two.” Dakota waved goodbye then followed after her.

  I waited until they were downstairs before I spoke. “You left?”

  “Yup.” He was sipping a strawberry milkshake, using a twizzler as a straw.

  “Where did you go?” I asked. “You need to lay low Connor, Hawking is looking for you.”

  “Somebody is always looking for me. If I worried about that, I’d never leave the house.” He explained. “Here drink this.”