by Amira Rain
Placated, I asked him if we should have a seat at the island, and he said yes.
Thirsty, I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, had a seat across from him, and then took a quick drink before speaking. “Please tell me how all this started…and go back as far in time as you need to in order to explain it all to me. I have time.”
Kind of leaning over the island, forearms on it, and his gaze down, Hayden hesitated in answering me, finally speaking in a quiet voice. “I’ll start about a hundred years ago…when Watchers came into existence.”
“And what are Watchers?”
Hayden answered without lifting his gaze. “Essentially, our job is to protect humans from vampire groups like the Warrens. There are a few dozen of us Watcher groups spread all over the country…each of us entrusted to keep people in that part of the country safe.
We MacGregors have always lived in the Midwest, moving around from time to time every so often, sometimes because the Warrens and other threatening groups change location, but other times for a different reason. Maybe every decade or so, we move to a different town just so that the locals don’t get suspicious as to why no one in our family ages.”
“So, how long have you all lived here at the farm?”
“About three years. So, we’ll stay here for a good while longer, probably.”
Having started to like the farm a lot, I was kind of glad to hear that.
With sun streaming in through the kitchen windows bathing his skin in a golden glow, Hayden continued. “The Warrens are the whole reason that we Watchers came to be. Different vampire covens have lived here in the United States for hundreds of years, living peacefully with each other for the most part, and feeding on animals, also for the most part. Every so often, maybe there would be some rogue vampire who would feed on humans, and sometimes, those humans would be killed, either accidentally or intentionally.
Those rogue vampires were always quickly dealt with, though. But, then…about a hundred years ago, a large group of vampires from the Warren coven came over to the United States from England. This large group splintered into different smaller groups right away, with many of them adopting peaceful ways. Now in modern day, the largest of these smaller groups are known as the Southern Warrens, the Asher-Pearson Warrens, and the Pacific Warrens.
Unfortunately, though, many of the Warren splinter groups soon proved to not be peaceful at all, feeding on humans and often killing them wherever they went. To make a long story short, leaders from several peaceful groups of vampires got together and decided to establish the Watchers, which is to say, different covens tasked with protecting citizens from the violent Warren groups all over the country.
My grandfather was the first leader of the MacGregor Watchers, although unfortunately, he was killed by a member of the Anarchist Warrens, which is what we call the group of Midwestern Warrens that we ‘police.’ They first earned that name about a hundred years ago because they seemed to do nothing but cause chaos and destruction.”
“And how many of them are there?”
Hayden said about a hundred. “Which means that they outnumber us, unfortunately, although they don’t outnumber us as much as they used to. When my grandfather became leader of us MacGregor Watchers, the Anarchist Warrens numbered nearly two hundred. Over several decades, my grandfather and the vampires he was leader of, some of whom still live in this community, were able to nearly halve their group before my grandfather and grandmother were ultimately killed when the Warrens attacked their Watcher farm.”
“And is that when your dad took over as leader?”
Hayden said yes. “My grandfather had three sons, with my father, Declan, being the middle son. Sam and Trevor’s father, Michael, who was the youngest son, chose never to become a vampire himself when he became of age, and he ultimately took his own life when Sam and Trevor were teenagers.”
“And where’s Sam and Trevor’s mom?”
Hayden said that she’d been even more troubled than their dad. “She overdosed on heroin when Sam and Trevor were just toddlers. She never even knew that her sons’ family members were vampires, because Michael never even told her. Mark and his late wife, Michelle, ultimately kind of took Sam and Trevor under their wing, and it was Mark who eventually turned Sam and Trevor into vampires when they made the choice in their mid-twenties. Mark, being the oldest brother, has always been something of a family caretaker in a lot of ways.”
“So, why, since he was the oldest of your grandfather’s three sons, didn’t he take over as the family leader of the MacGregor Watchers?”
Finally making eye contact with me, Hayden lifted his broad shoulders in the hint of a shrug. “Early on, he and my dad had very different personalities. Mark has always seemed to be…I don’t even really know how to say it. Fundamentally good, maybe. He’s always seemed to have a strong moral compass, and he’s always seemed to make decisions slowly and carefully.”
“Sounds like a good leader to me.”
“You’d think so, but Mark has never liked conflict. From a young age, he never had the desire to deal with the Warrens like my dad did. Mark loathes fighting, honestly. He’s a physically strong vampire, and he’ll fight when needed, which has been often sometimes over the years, but his heart has always been in practicing law, and then, when the girls were born, in raising his family. He’s just never had the aggression, for lack of a better way to say it, that being a Watcher leader requires.”
“And your dad did?”
Dropping his gaze to the island again, Hayden hesitated before responding. “Yes. My dad had aggression in spades, actually. Most of the time, he was able to keep it in check, and sometimes, he even went long stretches where he seemed to be a generally decent man and leader.
But other times…he could be a not-very-nice man, I guess. In contrast to Mark, he actually loved fighting the Warrens, to the point that I don’t think saying that he had ‘bloodlust’ at times would be too far off the mark. He could also be a real hothead in terms of reacting out of anger and making rash decisions…and all these things in combination ultimately hurt everyone in our whole extended Watcher family in one way or another.
He let down some people, not protecting our community well enough, and other people, he simply put in unnecessary danger, even if they weren’t ultimately harmed. Some people, though, my father hurt in very specific and direct ways.”
“What do you mean?”
For a long moment or two, the only sound in the kitchen was birdsong coming in through the open windows before Hayden finally responded, keeping his gaze on the island.
“The first person my father directly hurt was my mother. No one knew it until my Aunt Michelle found one of my mom’s journals after she died. My father hit her sometimes and no one, including me, ever saw it, and my mom never told anyone.
I can only guess that she thought that no one in the community would go against my father to help her, and she might have been right. I really don’t know. And as far as ever calling the police, I’m sure she figured that my dad would simply ‘clear’ their memories of anything that she told them, and I’m sure she figured right.
So, she suffered in silence. She couldn’t even try to physically defend herself against my father, because she hadn’t been turned into a vampire. My father wouldn’t allow it yet, because he always wanted more children and thought that eventually, my mother would conceive again. She never did, though, because she died when I was seven.”
Feeling terrible for him, I told Hayden that I was so sorry. “How did it happen?”
After another moment of staring at the granite surface of the island, he finally lifted his gaze to my face. “She accidentally shot herself. Without telling anyone, she’d bought a gun, probably to defend herself against my father if she ever felt her life was in danger. Being that he was a vampire, being shot, even in the head, wouldn’t have killed him, but it might have at least slowed him down just long enough for my mom to run out of the house.
&nb
sp; She never did use it for that purpose, though, and apparently, she always kept the gun hidden from my dad. When she died from accidentally shooting herself, my dad seemed genuinely stunned by all accounts.”
Unable to help wondering if Hayden’s dad had actually shot his wife and had simply done a brilliant acting job in claiming surprise about her death, I said nothing, not sure if it was my place, or the right time, to voice such a thought. However, after a brief pause, Hayden spoke again, seeming to read my mind.
“My father didn’t do it, by the way; it was truly accidental. He was outside their house at the time, having a few drinks out on the back deck with Mark, when they heard the gun go off. And when they got inside the house, my mom was already gone. The police didn’t believe it was suicide, either. They said my mom had a gun cleaning kit out, and maybe she just wasn’t sure how to clean the weapon properly, or she mistakenly thought she’d already unloaded it.
Later, my Aunt Michelle found an entry in my mom’s journal where she wrote that she was ‘pretty sure’ that she’d figured out how to clean her new gun after every secret session at the shooting range.
At any rate, no matter what went wrong, it was just a tragic accident. However, it wouldn’t have happened without my father’s abuse, so I have a hard time not holding him responsible in a way, even though he didn’t pull the trigger and apparently didn’t even know about the gun. The fact remains that if he hadn’t made my mom fear for her safety and her life, she never would have even bought the gun.”
Breathing out a very quiet sigh, Hayden abruptly raked his hands over his face before speaking again. “Anyway. My mom was the first of many family members my father hurt. I was the second, because then I had to live without my mom. After that, my Aunt Michelle became like a mother figure to me, and she was the third person my dad hurt, although hurt isn’t nearly strong enough of a word. My father essentially killed her.”
Horrified, I asked Hayden what had happened, and he continued.
“To make a very long story short, the Warrens were causing particularly bad problems about two years ago. My father wanted to attack their compound in order to kill their leader. So, an attack ‘team’ of sorts was created. Mark, Michelle, and about a dozen others were supposed to stay behind at the farm where we lived at the time, to protect the children and non-vampire members of the community in case any Warrens slipped away from the attack to retaliate. Michelle didn’t want to stay; she wanted to fight. Mark refused to let her.”
“Why? Just because she was a woman?”
Making a faint scoffing noise, Hayden cracked a small smile. “Not even remotely. We have many female vampires in our coven who regularly join in physical fights and are a huge asset to us. We have many female vampires who can go toe-to-toe with any male Warren vampire, because they’re just that strong. The problem was that Michelle wasn’t one of our strong female vampires…and, in fact, not even close.
I hate to say anything negative about her at all, because I loved her like a mother and still do, but she was actually a remarkably weak vampire…and I really can’t even stress that ‘remarkably weak’ part enough. She probably only had double the strength of a regular human woman, and that’s being generous.
To put that in perspective, the average vampire has the strength of a hundred or so non-vampire regular humans. Michelle was extremely petite, too, like Jen… only a hundred and ten pounds or so, if that. I’m sure you’re getting the picture, but I guess I’ll just say that an average, reasonably in-shape human man could have taken her out, despite the fact that she was a vampire.
So, because of this, Mark absolutely refused to let her fight, saying that he hated to forbid her from doing something that she wanted to do, but that he wasn’t just going to stand by while the woman he loved committed ‘suicide by recklessness.’ In the end, though, he couldn’t stop her.”
“So, what, he didn’t even try to physically stop her from going? He just stood back and let her go?”
“No. He would have definitely tried to physically stop her if he’d known. He would have literally put her in the metal cage-type thing we keep for vampire prisoners in order to save her life. He didn’t know, though. Michelle betrayed his trust. She told him that she accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to let her fight. She put him at ease about the whole thing. And then she went behind his back and followed the team of vampires who went to attack the Warrens’ compound anyway.”
“But…why? Was she actually suicidal or something?”
Hayden shook his head. “Not even remotely. She actually loved life and enjoyed the little things in life more than anyone I’ve ever known, except maybe Jen.”
“Well, then, why did she do it?”
“Well, no one will ever know exactly what she was thinking, but Michelle was a lot like Jen. Very impulsive, sometimes overly confident about her abilities, and frequently feeling overshadowed and not good enough. Mel likes to say that Jen is the way she is as a result of being born so tiny and possibly suffering brain damage, but I honestly think that Jen is just plain Michelle’s daughter.
I think it all boiled down to Michelle feeling like she had something to prove. To herself, and maybe even all us other Watchers. I think she wanted to prove that she was one of us, and was strong like us, and could fight. A few weeks earlier, she told me about feeling ‘set apart’ from everyone else, and said that she was determined to ‘fix’ this if it was the last thing she did, which it turned out to be. It didn’t have to turn out this way, though, and it was my father’s fault that it did.”
“How so?”
“Well, because he was so reckless in his pursuit of the Warrens’ leader at the time that he didn’t even care if his own family members got hurt or killed. When Michelle told him that she was determined to fight, he said fine, thinking that even though she wasn’t nearly strong enough to be of any real use as an offensive fighter, maybe he could still use her by doing a ‘bait and switch’ sort of thing.
Meaning, he’d put her in some kind of an obviously vulnerable position near the fight, maybe completely by herself, and then when several Warren fighters swooped in on her, thinking that she’d be easy prey, he’d then have a horde of his own fighters come out to ‘ambush’ them. This is what my father’s reluctant right-hand man told me later, and it was all just plain crazy and stupid. ‘Hare-brained’ might be a good description. My father was just blinded by what he wanted at the time, which was to take out the then-leader of the Warrens. He didn’t give a thought, or at least not much of one, to Michelle’s safety, or the fact that her husband and children wanted her to stay alive.
My father indirectly killed Michelle is the way I see it, because if he’d refused to let her fight, as he should have, that would have been the end of it. Michelle may have gone against her own husband’s wishes, but I don’t think she would have dared go against my father.
And even if she had, and had tried to sneak along during the attack without his knowledge, my father would have found out and stopped her if he was any kind of a real leader. But, of course, he wasn’t. He gave Michelle more than his full blessing to participate in the fight, even full well knowing that his own brother had forbidden her from doing so.
And, as a result, Michelle was killed. Afterward, Mark had some sort of a mental breakdown and was really not well for about six months; Jen began acting out and dropped out of public school at age sixteen without ever having really learned how to read; and Mel, who’d graduated high school at age fifteen, dropped out of an ivy-league university to come home and care for her mentally broken father.
It was all just a complete mess. But….” Heaving a sigh, Hayden suddenly raked his hands over his face. “I haven’t even told you the worst thing my father ever did, which concerns you and me, and our baby.”
CHAPTER 15
Not sure that I wanted to know the answer, yet desperate to hear it at the same time, I asked Hayden what his father had done.
With a resigned sort of sigh
, Hayden moved from a casual lean over the island to sit up straight on his bar stool, arms loosely folded across his chest. “To condense a very long, complicated story, about twenty years ago, your mom was involved with a cult-like group of sorceresses. How this came to be is another extremely long story, which maybe will keep for another time.
But, anyway, your mom, being pretty young and impressionable, became involved with this magical cult. Soon, the leader, who was a woman named Marzia, decided that she wanted to rule a vampire community, and she chose the MacGregor Watchers for whatever reason, as the group that she wanted to take over. I guess she was thinking that she would enslave us or something and use us to do her bidding in the supernatural world.
Being that I was only four years old at the time, I’m kind of fuzzy on all the specifics of her plan. What I do know is that she tried to take over the farm where we were all living at the time, and it was a complete failure.
The sorceresses’ magic tricks were no match for our vampire strength, but they continued trying to fight us, even hurting some of the children in our community at the time. Now, normally, my father and his vampires probably wouldn’t have tried to kill the sorceresses, at least not unless they absolutely had to for self-defense; but when the sorceresses resorted to hurting our kids in their attack, even trying to kill them, things changed, and vampires in our coven began killing them, until eventually, all but one of them were dead.”
“My mom?”
“Yes.”
“And why wasn’t she killed?”
“Basically, because she was sorry, and caused no harm to our community herself, or at least not much. Very early on in the attack, she stopped actively using her magic to fight, and instead became more of an observer, from all accounts. Then, when the sorceresses began attacking our community’s children, your mom seemed horrified, and began using her magical powers against her own fellow sorceresses, screaming at them to stop.
Noticing that she wasn’t exactly behaving like her friends, the vampires didn’t try to harm her; and when the dust cleared, your mom begged forgiveness from my father, saying that she hadn’t known that her fellow sorceresses were going to attack children.
