by Kiki Howell
Somehow as a young girl she’d moved past wondering what she’d done wrong and only wished for death. If she was as bad as this man said, why was she here? Then a few days later she would rally, live, maybe just to piss the man off, or in the hope of someday running away. She wished to live free among other sinners where she would be accepted. She figured they had to exist and took to dreaming of colonies of those who were like her. In the meantime, she’d thought on those out there that must have it worse than her and tried to be grateful for the normal days, the ones between beatings where she had a home, clothes, and books – a world to get lost in. Never, even in her wildest of those dreams though, had she imagined herself in this clan, a Vampire, but it seemed appropriate now.
And, her clan – her grandfather really– had killed the monster, alongside her lover. She had to let it all go. These thoughts and emotions were not worth being sorted out. Achim had not said anything to her when he left, just given her a hug, the first since Drake’s death. So, she chose to be grateful for just that. All that were left in the church now were two Vampires with her mother. The woman hung limply in their arms, acknowledged them as nothing more than support she assumed – if the woman could see anything at all.
With her father’s body gone, Amberlyn’s mother’s eyes had glazed over. Amberlyn touched the woman’s face. Her mother felt clammy, but didn’t react. When Amberlyn felt for a pulse at the woman’s throat, it was fast, but weak, another sign of shock. Then her mother started to mumble, but no one there could make out anything she said.
“Do you need to say good-bye?” The one Vampire – actually another brother of hers who she rarely saw – asked her. The man was one of Drake’s many converts to stay in the Willows, but one who also stayed to himself after his conversion. This one had told Drake that he wanted nothing to do with the politics of the clan, just a quiet life. This one seemed to Amberlyn to be almost brooding about what he’d become. But, who was she to judge?
This brother was another embodiment of diversity within one person. Maybe becoming a Vampire did that to you. Everyone called this bloodthirsty Vampire Devin. He was one who often took off to actually feed on humans, but kept to himself. Though an obviously strong person, if the rumor that he had come from a street gang was accurate, he’d always seemed a tad bit depressed anytime Amberlyn had contact with him. But, each of them had things they missed about being human. It was just how they reacted to those loses that shaped their new personalities it seemed.
“No, Devin, but thank you for asking. I said my good-byes when I ran away as human. I don’t want to repeat that. She was out of it that time too though. She won’t win any awards for being a mom that a girl could learn from, look up to, or depend on for protection.”
“Sorry, Amberlyn. I won’t patronize you by saying I understand, but I’m truly sorry. I know we’ve never been close – never acted like brother and sister– but if you need anything, you know where to find me.”
She did know where to find him, a house not far from her apartment actually.
“Are you ready to go home?” Kane asked her as he touched her shoulder gently, like she would bite him or yell at him now that they were alone. “You look, truly, like the walking dead right now.” His laugh came out slight, sounded as if he’d meant to test the waters.
“Listen Kane, I’m not mad about what you did. I understand it and I don’t mourn that monster’s life. I’m a bit sad, just no idea about what. Maybe it’s just latent feelings resurfacing from seeing him. And, I’m beyond tired. Seeing him brought up a lot of crappy memories for me.”
“I can only imagine. Let’s get you out of here, okay? I will stay at your place; stand guard. I just have this feeling, one that raises the hair on your neck, that trouble… well, it’s just waiting for us around the next corner. So, let’s get through the woods and home. You have about an hour till daylight.”
A sound of a scuffle in the woods caught their attention – A woman’s scream abruptly cut off.
“My mother?” Amberlyn yelled, though she’d not meant to. “The Vamps were taking her back. They just left.”
They took off on a run into the trees. Amberlyn didn’t even know how she moved her legs since she couldn’t even feel them under her any longer. She seemed to move across the ground at a speed slower then usual for her. Stopping only when she found her mother on the ground alone, she wondered what had happened to Devin and the other Vampire she had left with. Kane came up to meet her. As a were – he was fast, but not Vampire fast, not even ‘out-of-it slow’ Vampire fast.
Leaning over the woman on the ground she noticed her mother’s eyes were still open, blinked now rather then the straight stare of previous. Her chest rose and fell at a rapid pace, but just didn’t get the height one would expect of a woman who was afraid. Amberlyn’s ear close to her mother’s mouth let her hear the woman’s breaths, which came fast but were shallow. She had to wonder how much longer her mother’s body could remain in this unnatural state without any permanent damage.
A bright white light, like a fireball of some kind, moved past Amberlyn’s face. She could feel not only the warmth of it, but the electric-buzz it carried snaked down the side of her body. The light became momentarily bigger, causing her to shield her eyes as she fell behind her mother. Another light flashed, but this time her entire body buzzed, as if she had been mildly electrocuted. Then, she was out cold.
Chapter Four
The sound of a light whimpering hit her ears as she woke to the feeling of a warm hand that ran over her forehead, her cheek, and then over her hair.
“Kane,” Amberlyn croaked out lightly.
“No baby girl, it’s me…uhm…it’s your mother.”
Amberlyn’s eyes opened to a tender moment she’d longed for as a child, but had never come during those days. The dream of a mother who paid her some recognition, some love, offered a gentle touch – or lord forbid a fucking hug – had been a futile endeavor to even bother to wish upon back then. So, she’d given up hope long ago. Now, the moment had happened when she’d least expected it, as a grown woman, when she was – of all things – a Vampire. Now the woman chose to act her role? What the hell?
“Why the fuck now?” Amberlyn only realized the words had been said out loud when her mother pulled her hand back like she’d been burned. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Scare me? No, you don’t scare me…well…I saw the teeth…I don’t know exactly…I just…I just don’t want to overstep my place. And, I have no idea what my place is now that my husband no longer rules me. I sat here all day watching you sleep, regretting so much, actually free to feel the regret, to let it almost drown me. I never did right by you. I was weak. He told me all the time that if I stepped in between him and you that he would kill you on the spot; make me live, tied in the basement with your body...his descriptions were far more graphic than that. I was weak. I’m sorry.”
She watched her mother’s eyes cloud over like they used to, that dead look about them. But Amberlyn said nothing; she had no idea what to say anyway. Her mother was fighting her own demons now, and Amberlyn, despite the woman’s words, was holding back now, whatever time of day it was, wherever the hell they were. She braced herself and started frantically looking around as her mother spoke again.
“Even though there were times,” she continued, “that I thought you, me, both of us would be better off dead, I was too weak to do anything about it.”
“Why didn’t you just fucking take me and leave the bastard?” Okay, so she wasn’t so good at keeping her emotions banked at the moment. She wouldn’t chastise herself for it.
“I thought he was right, that my father was right, that I wasn’t good enough for anyone, fit to care for anything. My father actually handed me off to yours, gave me away, a daughter he called a piece of worthless trash, to a man he said could teach me how to act like a proper woman. I went from being beaten by one man to being beaten by another. It was all I knew. I stopped talking.
I stopped living really, and I couldn’t afford to let myself love you from the moment you were forcibly conceived. But I did. It was just too hard to bear, and I tried to ignore it as much as I could. My father was right. I’m so sorry, is all I can say.”
Her mother looked around them as if to see if anyone listened, though there was no one else in the room.
“Secretly though,” Amberlyn’s mother whispered, “I’ve wanted to call you my baby girl again for years now. First time I did, right after you were born, touched your tiny face, your thin baby hair, he beat me within an inch of my life. It was two weeks before I could even walk again on my own, till he even let me see you again. He wouldn’t even tell me if you were still alive.” The woman broke down in tears. Amberlyn hated to watch anyone suffer so much.
That concern meshed with her anger and the words spilled from her mouth like they were the only two left in the universe and she didn’t have to care about anything around them. There was just the two of them, a daughter who wanted, and a mother who’d not saved her. “I will never understand why you stayed, how you could have done that to us!”
Her mother scooted back into the corner of the room they were in.
“I’m sorry, don’t be afraid of me,” Amberlyn cried out.
“I’m not. Why would I be afraid of you? Just giving you space. I assume you don’t want my company, let alone my frail excuses. I thought of it, of trying to escape, but it seemed there was not a way. I was a sick, weak woman. I’m sorry.”
Amberlyn didn’t know what to say to that. Obviously her mother didn’t understand the value of a life, or what seeing her daughter bare her fangs last night meant. Her father had though, and she found some sick amount of pleasure in that fact.
Amberlyn finally sat up all the way, looked around them. The reality of their total situation started to leak into her consciousness. They were in a basement, she guessed, or some back room somewhere. There was a cement floor under her with markings on it, a circle and various other words and diagrams. Wooden shelves of all shapes and sizes held books and all manner of other things – jars, bowls, a skull, you name it.
“Damn Witches!” Amberlyn stood while she looked around. She halfheartedly tried the door and wasn’t surprised they had found a way to make it so even a Vampire couldn’t open it or break it down.
“Did you say Witches? Is that what all of this is? I’ve seen stuff like this on TV, but never in real life. I must have misunderstood you.”
“Ah, yes, actually, Witches. Wiccan, you know?” Amberlyn figured that was a good cover. The woman didn’t need to know that they could actually shoot wounding balls of light from their fingertips any more than she needed to know that Amberlyn drank blood for food. Speaking of which, she was beyond dangerously thirsty now.
“Why are we in here, Amberlyn? A woman came in this afternoon while you slept. I’d asked if something was wrong with you, as I couldn’t get you to respond to me at all. She’d said yes, but not to worry, you wouldn’t die or anything, it wasn’t possible again. Then before I could ask her what her strange words meant, she laughed, loudly, ridiculously, as if she was being tickled to death or something, like she couldn’t stop laughing at her own joke. Only, I hadn’t heard her tell one. She said you would wake up when the sun went down. She was a strange woman. I guess a Witch. Dressed strangely, but she warned me you were dangerous. Then you asked me not to be afraid of you. Are you dangerous? Should I be afraid of you too?”
“No, you shouldn’t. The woman is crazy,” Amberlyn grumped. And a dead Witch as soon as I get my hands on her. “Do you remember seeing a man last night or today? His name is Kane.”
“No. I was a bit out of it when we were brought in. It was like I was trapped inside myself. It took me a while to believe your father actually gone. Strangely, I still don’t feel safe. Why are we here?”
“Well, I don’t want to alarm you, but they hate me. They’ve basically kidnapped and locked us up down here. Didn’t you ask the strange lady who was down here earlier why we were here?”
“She didn’t give me a chance really.”
“Right. Of course she didn’t.” Amberlyn bit her tongue to avoid saying anything too mean to the woman about once again not having done shit for her.
Amberlyn began banging on the door and on the walls. Then she threw bottles and broke them, as she yelled and demanded her release. She stopped only when she had become angry enough that her fangs started to come out. She turned from her mother to cover them, knowing her eyes would be as dark as night, more like a zombies. Though she’d already noticed how the woman cowered at her displays of rage; she probably compared her to her father. How do you like those fuckin’ rotten apples that don’t fall far from the diseased tree?
Luckily, a few labels on the bottles displayed that the contents were animal blood, so she stuck her head in between the shelving to guzzle them down. It wasn’t much, but she hoped enough that she’d stop her thirst for her mother.
She demanded of anyone who might be within hearing range of the room to know what happened to Kane. She’d even screamed, asked what had happened to her brother and the other Vamp from last night that they’d taken her mother from. But the house was silent, as if everyone just slept through her screaming, banging and breaking. She knew it was night, windows or not, or she wouldn’t be up.
After what seemed like forever, she slid down the wall, skin off her knuckles, her body shook from her fits of rage. Somehow she prayed to anyone, anything, which would listen to the likes of her, that Kane was safe, as was her brother and all the others in her clan, even the sincere Witches in Winter’s covens. Beyond all hope, she thought that somehow she would be able to feel, if Kane was hurt or worse.
“Your eyes…what’s wrong with your eyes, Amberlyn?”
“I’m fine, Mother,” she spat out. The name felt foreign to her, like she’d said it because someone told her to call this woman that, but it held no decipherable meaning to her. “Sorry, it’s not you I’m mad at. I just need to know if Kane, the man I love, and my people are okay.”
“So, you found friends, people to stay with once you ran away, I guess. Have you been happy since you left?” Her mother’s voice had cracked on a sob.
“Yes, I did. The first few years after leaving your home were rough, stealing, doing what I had to in order to survive. But later, a man found me when I was in a bad spot. He…well, he changed me, treated me like a daughter should be treated. He taught me about his world, brought me here, took care of me, made me…different. Yes, a different person, one stronger, able to battle and more… and he helped me to exorcise the demons from my past. I was one of the few lucky runaways. Don’t know if you ever worried about me, knowing what happens to runaways, my age, my sex. Most of us become prostitutes to survive. Of course, an occasional bad client I knew would have been better than dad was when I left. But again, I was saved from all that. And then I met a man named Kane. I’ve fallen in love. Only these Witches and others, they say we can’t be together.” She waved her mother silent when the woman opened her mouth again. “Don’t ask. It’s really complicated. It’s just that my new family and Kane’s family don’t get along. A real Romeo and Juliet thing.”
The idea of it all hit her at that moment, as her own words started to sink in. They were the Romeo and Juliet of the Vampire and Werewolf world. Suddenly amused for a blessed second, it was cut short by her mother’s voice.
“Romeo and Juliet?” her mother said softly, like she romanticized it all. She remembered how her mom had watched television when she wasn’t working like a slave in the house. She would quietly talk to Amberlyn sometimes about the shows, the same romantic look in her eye, like she dreamed of living the make-believe lives the actors on the television set did. These weren’t conversations mind you, but the closest thing the two of them had ever had together when her father was out.
“Something like that; definitely two warring cl… families. But, he’s worth the fight. He is a great man. St
rong. Caring. And he loves me, scars and all.” She looked daggers at her mother, unable to stop herself. Funny how she never thought of her scars anymore when Kane undressed her. Her father had always made sure her injuries could be hidden. Therefore, unlike her brother Isaac, her scars were hidden underneath her clothes.
“Sorry,” the woman whispered.
An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Amberlyn started to pace. Her mother finally fell asleep, so she started to look at the things left on the shelves. This was obviously some kind of meeting room. Large books, some traditionally bound, purchased book on spells, leaned there. The others looked like large scrapbooks. Grimoires she assumed. Drake had taught her about them; these personal journals the Witches kept of the spells they did and other things, and then passed down through the generations. He said if she were to rule the clan she needed to know as much as she could about the other clans in the area. The best leader didn’t fall from surprises.
Guilt sliced through her as it hit again her that her surprise had lead to Drake’s death. She heard his voice in her head though. Words he’d said before. He told her to be strong, to fight, to be herself and to never look back with regret. At the time he’d been talking to her about her father. She shook her head, ridding herself of the memory and the feelings it brought with it. Not now. You need to concentrate on getting out of here.
Taking a grimoire from the shelf, she placed it on the stand in front of her. The thing looked something like a podium that a leader would speak from, only it was draped with a green cloth and flowers and had a few candles and stones along the back of it. Likely an alter for rituals and other spells. She could imagine their high priestess, that nasty Sashia, standing here and leading.
The large tomb was covered in a soft leather cover, the outside rustic but pretty, decorated with a metal pentagram at the top with some Gaelic or Celtic writing burned into it underneath. She didn’t know if the languages were different or the same. Come to think of it, it had always sounded like Drake had used them interchangeably. There was an ache in her chest. She missed the only real father she’d ever had. The fact he was no longer around so she could ask her stupid questions of him deflated her more. It had always been so nice, so unbelievable a thing to be able to ask a man a question, no matter how dumb it, was without fear of some sort of discipline. Usually, from Drake, what she got was a laugh and an explanation.
