The Vampires of Soldiers Cove: The Unborn

by Jessica MacIntyre

  She rests her head on my shoulder and I feel a peace wash over me.

  Then Phillipine begins to grow restless. She has an increased need for blood and I have tried to provide for her but it just seems insatiable. One night she goes out hunting. I offer to go too but she declines telling me to rest because I haven’t in a while. She leaves and I lie down. I haven’t slept in a month or so, so I sleep all the night. When I wake up she is in bed next to me. I put my arm around her and she startles, looking at me for a moment like she doesn’t know me.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her.

  “Nothing,” she says. “I’m just exhausted.” She puts her head back down and sleeps all the day. The next night she goes hunting again. She insists on going alone. This is not unusual. Sometimes we hunt separately and she seems anxious to go. I have no need for blood this night and so I stay home, reading.

  As the sun begins to rise she comes through the door. Hair dishevelled and clothes torn, stumbling as if drunk. I catch her before she hits the floor. Her skin feels different, colder than normal. Suddenly she begins retching and then vomits right there. “What’s the matter?” I shout in a panic. She is beginning to pass out. This should not be happening. The only time I have seen her physically ill was on the one night I knew her as a human. I am so frightened I don’t know what to do. I have heard of a doctor in Soldiers Cove that Ian talks about. His sister I think. Perhaps she can help. She’s a vampire too and something is definitely wrong.

  Phillipine passes out and I put her to bed and go looking for Ian. I find him and tell him what’s going on. He is anxious to help and comes back to see her with me. When we get there she is gone. We go looking for her and find her a short time later. She is lying, naked, on the ground and a dark haired young man I don’t recognize is on top of her, making love to her. She isn’t responding, her eyes are blank, emotionless.

  I fly into a blind rage and race toward them, but just as I am about to reach them the man lifts his head, spots me and raises his hand, fire bolting from his fingers. I jump back just in time to avoid being hit. Ian tries too, but with the same result. The man’s eyes glow red and then he turns his attention back to Phillipine, opening her mouth and placing his on top.

  Suddenly he begins to disintegrate. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. He is melting, seeping into her, taking over. Then he is gone. Phillipine screams and cries. We go to her but nothing we do gives her any comfort. She is delirious with pain. She passes out and I take her in my arms, racing back toward our little house. I put her on the bed and pace back and forth.

  “Your sister!” I scream at Ian. “You have to go get your sister.”

  He is hesitant. There is some kind of bad blood between them, I’m not sure what it is and right now I don’t care. I just need someone, anyone, to do something to save my wife and child. Ian says he will go, but just as he is about to leave we hear a noise coming from the bed. Phillipine is awake. Only it’s not Phillipine anymore. It’s something else. Looking at her now I know she is gone, and all the doctors, be they vampire or human, could never bring her back.

  She stretches as if testing out her limbs, touching her skin, marvelling at its softness. Her hands flow to her belly and her face contorts in disgust. With decisive action she begins to give birth. She screams as she gives three or four good pushes and the baby comes out with ease.

  My child, my daughter, and all I have left of her. I run to the bed and take the baby in my arms as fast as I can. She’s so tiny. I look at her and know right away she is gone as well. A wall of grief hits me and I fall to my knees, clutching the little girl to my chest, feeling my heart break into a thousand pieces. Phillipine just laughs.

  “What are you?” I say.

  “You’ve never seen one of my kind before? I am a servant of evil. A consort of the devil.” I just stare at her in confusion.

  “You’re a fucking demon,” I hear Ian say from behind me. I turn to look at him.

  “A demon?” It seems impossible to me that I’ve lived so long and not known of them.

  “He’s taken over Phillipine’s body, and murdered your baby.”

  I turn back to the demon and hear myself asking what powers she holds. “You want me to bring your child back, don’t you vampire?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I’ll do anything.”

  Suddenly there is a stomping outside. Hunters are on the mountain and they are anxious for a kill. Someone has set them on the demon’s trail.

  “What’s that?” she says.

  “Hunters,” Ian says. “Looks like someone was on to you. You can’t kill them all. They’ll tear you to shreds.”

  “How many?”

  “Hundreds.”

  “I can help you,” I hear myself say. “I’m very old. I can take out enough hunters for you to get away. For the lova god please, bring her back and I’ll see that you get away.”

  “Duncan no!”

  I ignore him and keep reasoning with the demon, begging before it’s too late. Finally she agrees, holding her arms out to the child. I place the little bundle, still unmoving and covered in blood in what used to be Phillipine’s arms. She takes the child to her breast and after a few moments the child stirs and begins screaming as if she’s been set on fire.

  A relief floods my body and I know what I have to do. I run outside, taking out as many hunters as I can. Ian was right, there were hundreds. I make short work of them, slicing their heads from their bodies one after another as they go down in piles of ash at my feet. The rest, seeing what is happening, retreat. Not out of fear, because they have no fear, but out of logic. They know they are unmatched and the five or six that are left scurry away and back into the woods.

  By the time I get back to the cabin Ian has wrapped her in a blanket and is cooing to her. He hands her to me and I clutch the tiny girl to my chest as silent tears fall. She’s so frail and helpless. Born early and with no mother. What am I to do? I look down at her and she looks back at me, quiet now with her large brown eyes, her mother’s eyes, seeing me, trusting me. She is going to look just like Phillipine and looking at her causes a grief so deep I can’t stand it. I feel a twisting in my gut as the blood bond I had with her mother breaks and then suddenly I am screaming. Being torn from the inside out.

  Ian takes her from me as I fall to the floor in sickness. A sickness that I know will last for many years. “You have to take her,” I beg Ian. “Put her with a human family. Somewhere that she’ll never know and never be turned.”

  “I know a place she can go where she’ll be safe.”

  “Will they take her?”

  “I’ll blood influence them. They’ll never know she isn’t theirs and so there’ll be no hope of her finding out at all.”

  “Do it.” Ian passes her to me one last time and it’s all I can do hold on to her. I’m so sick but I want to look at her, to memorize her tiny face.

  “What do you want to name her?” he says to me.

  “Rachel.”

  “Rachel,” Ian repeats.

  “Go,” I say, kissing her on her tiny head. Ian takes the baby and leaves, and I collapse back to the floor. Screaming, sobbing and alone.

  ***

  Duncan let go of my hand dropping both of us back into reality. He was frail now, looking every day of his one thousand years. Both of us sat in silence, tears streaming down our cheeks. “Don’t ever think I didn’t want you,” he said, stroking my hand. “You’ve seen the way a blood bond sickens you when it breaks. I could never have cared for you.”

  “And that’s why you wanted me to come back with you when you thought I was going to lose mine.”

  “Yes,” he said, meeting my eyes finally. “I’d never let you go through something so awful alone. It went on for years, and in a way it’s still going on. I’m not supposed to look this old you know. I was turned when I was twenty-five.”

  “She was beautiful,” I said.

  “She was. And smart, and saucy, and so brave. She was my every
thing. I don’t know how to put into words how I felt about her.”

  “You don’t have to put it into words. I felt it. I felt it all.”

  “I supposed you did,” he said. On wobbly legs he stood and opened up a drawer in his little kitchen taking out a small wooden box. Inside was a simple silver bracelet, it looked more like a thin piece of wire, and a picture. The photograph was of Phillipine, looking just as beautiful as I’d seen her.

  “It was your mother’s. It came from Scotland. It was my mother’s before that. I gave it to her and now it should be yours. It’s over a thousand years old.”

  “Duncan, I can’t take this.”

  “Nonsense. It’s yours by rights. I wasn’t a king anymore when I married your mother and I never made her a queen formally, but she’s the one true queen of my heart and always will be.” He slipped the simple silver bracelet on and it gleamed as the light hit it. “And you may not officially be royalty like you should be, but I think you’re the queen of that creature talker’s heart too. True love and devotion are so rare, Rachel. I’ve lived for a thousand years and only found it once. You have yours so grab it with both hands and don’t let go.”

  I took the small box out of my pocket and slipped my rings back on. For the first time in months I felt whole again. “I will,’ I said.

  “It’s time for you to go. You’ve been here long enough.”

  “I only just got here,” I said.

  “You’ve been here for ten days, love.” He crouched low as if in pain and made his way to a small easy chair.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Oh yes, child. Old Duncan needs his nap after reliving all of that. I’ll be fine. I just need some sleep.”

  He leaned his head back against the chair, closing his eyes as he did, his hands gently hugging the armrests. I got up, slightly weak myself and planted a kiss on top of his head. He was sound asleep before I had a chance to get out the door.

  I sat in the car alone for a long time trying to digest everything I had just been shown. My parents were never my parents, although none of us had known that, and Ian had been responsible for placing me with them. Duncan was my father, who was once a king of all things, and my mother was…dead. Killed by the same demon that took Ian from us. Now I had to go home and beg Gavin’s forgiveness, again. This time for letting Ian blood influence him. As I turned the engine over I was overcome with anxiety. How far could I push before finally destroying the feelings he had for me? I turned the car and headed down the mountain as fast as I could in the direction of Soldiers Cove, hoping it wouldn’t be too late.

  Chapter Six

  The sun was shining, reflecting on the newly fallen snow that gave everything the appearance of being fresh and clean. It was only about half an inch, but enough to give everything a sense of calm and peace. I took in the trees that lined my long driveway as I pulled in. I always loved seeing them covered in snow. It meant Christmas was coming and winter, my favorite time of year, was truly on its way.

  I was so overcome with the beauty of it all that I didn’t notice the change in my little house until I actually parked the car. I threw the door open and gawked at the transformed structure. It had been widened significantly with an additional story added. In ten days my tiny little home had been turned into a two story house with large windows and a deck that wrapped around the entire thing.

  My head was spinning, I didn’t know where to look first. Suddenly Alexander and Maggie burst out the brand new red front door at the same time. I squatted to give the little dog a pat on the head as she licked my face, tail wagging forcefully. Then I stood again, coming face to face with Alexander.

  “Alexander, what the hell happened here?”

  Isn’t it great? Gavin has been working round the clock. I helped too. We got it all up so fast. Again here was vampire speed coming in handy for construction. Do you like it?

  His voice reverberated inside my head with an excitement I hadn’t heard before. His bright eyes looked at me hopefully. “I love it,” I said. He glowed. “Where is Gavin?”

  He fell asleep upstairs. Come in and see it

  I followed Alexander inside as he took me through every room, showing off all of their handy work with pride. New furniture had replaced all of the old dilapidated pieces I’d been hanging on to, and all of the kitchen appliances had been replaced. The downstairs consisted now of a beautiful foyer, the new kitchen, outfitted with all stainless steel appliances and a large living room and a dining room with a table that seated eight. The pets even had their own little space and Gizzy, lounging on her fancy new pink cat bed, raised her head, mewed at me and promptly rolled over and went to sleep.

  “I missed you too Gizz,” I said. Alexander pointed to the stairs, urging me on. I began to ascend but turned noticing he wasn’t with me. “Aren’t you going to show me the rest?” He shook his head no, and went into the dining room where he had left his current drawing and got back to work.

  I continued on alone, coming first to a small but cozy bedroom. All of Alexander’s things were in here. I had to admit I liked the thought of him living with us. He and I had a special bond. I had always wanted a little brother and now it seemed I had one. I smiled taking the room in for a moment and kept going. Next I came to another bedroom. It was a bit larger but had only a twin bed in there. Must be a guest room. There was also a laundry room with no sign of my ancient washer dryer combo. He had replaced those as well. There was another bedroom similar to the one I’d just passed and a beautiful bathroom.

  Next I came to a large door. Much larger than the other doors. I pushed it open all the way and stepped inside. A four poster king size bed was the centerpiece of this room, draped in black sheets and beautiful black lace pillows. There was also a large bookshelf built into the wall, and all of my books were lined up perfectly on it. He had also included a window seat which lined a very large window. I went over and looked down on my backyard, covered in beautiful white snow, everything sparkling and bright.

  Another door in this room led to another bathroom with a tub big enough for two and a dual shower. He had really outdone himself. But where was he?

  I made my way out of the master bedroom and down the hall a tiny bit further to yet another door. How many bedrooms did we need? Pushing this door open I peered in, not prepared for what I saw. The sight of it caused tears to sting my eyes. It was a nursery. Not just any nursery. The most beautiful nursery I had ever seen.

  A brand new crib sat in the center of the room, the sheets a shade of baby blue with a blue baby quilt hanging over the rail. The walls were covered in drawings of baby animals, most likely painted by Alexander, and trees, clouds. It was such an elaborate mural that I walked up to the wall, touching it, wanting to make sure it was real. A rocking chair sat in the corner along with a change table, which was fully stocked already. A dresser was there too and I opened one of the drawers to see a multitude of blue onsies and baby pjs. He had truly thought of everything.

  I turned to leave the room, intending to continue my search when I spotted him, asleep on the nursery floor. A baby swing was in pieces next to him, the instructions in his hand. Kneeling down I placed my hand on his bare shoulder. He was only wearing jeans, no shirt and barefoot and I think it was the most handsome I had ever seen him.

  He startled awake when I touched him. “Rachel?” he said, sitting up as quickly as he could. I sat on the floor next to him, cross legged as he reached out to stroke my hair. “Thank god. I was so worried. I tried to come for you. I tried to leave but… Are you alright?”

  “Yes. I’m alright,” I said softly. “Gavin, I’m so sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you let me come with you?”

  “I couldn’t risk it. I needed to do this alone.”

  “You could have been hurt,” he said, leaning in to kiss me.

  “Gavin, can you forgive me? I mean really forgive me for everything?”

  His eyes softened, his brow drawing up into a question. “I made a
horrible mistake letting you go that night you ran out of here. I should have gone after you right away. Instead I let my stupid pride get in the way. I stopped myself, but if I had it to do over again things would be different. You’ve done nothing you need to be forgiven for, not in my eyes. I think the question is can you forgive me?”

  “You were hurting. So was I. There’s really nothing you need to be forgiven for either.”

  He smiled with relief. Then another look of worry crossed his face. “But are you sure it’s… me? Is it really me that you want? Ian has feelings for you. Do you have feelings for him? If you do you have to tell me.”

  I swallowed hard, not wanting to deliver the news I was about to give. “I thought maybe I had feelings for Ian, and I was grateful to him for being there when I needed him, but it wasn’t love. I see that now.”

  “Good,” he said. “Is he ok with that?”

  “Gavin, there’s something I have to tell you.” I clenched my jaw and took his hand in mine. “Ian is gone.”

  “Gone? He’s left? I knew he would. Did he say where he was going?”

  “No, Gavin, he’s…gone.”

  “What?” Even though they had been on the outs at the time of his death, Gavin’s love for his brother still remained and I could see the grief beginning to make itself known. “How?”

  “He was killed by the demon, but he saved both Duncan and I by doing it. He fell on the sword for me, for us.”

  He rubbed his eyes trying to process the news, and then took me in his arms holding me close to him. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Just thank god you’re ok. The baby?” he said, alarmed realizing that something could have perhaps gone wrong with that as well.

  “The baby is fine,” I said. “Gavin, you’ve done all of this for me. Why?”

  He pulled me away to look me in the eye. “Why? Because I love you. You have to ask why?”

  “But Gavin, this baby, he’s not yours. Most men would never entertain the thought of raising a child that wasn’t his. I don’t want you to feel obligated…”