“The entire time,” I repeat.
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Will someone, for the love of god, please tell me what is going on?” Now I am the one screaming.
“Charlotte.”
I freeze. My heart pounds in my ears. I can’t move, can’t breathe. For a long time I try to reconnect with the Earth, swirling out in space. I swallow hard and wrap my hands around my arms, my body again shaking. It has been twelve years since I have heard her voice. Twelve years, full of nights weeping for her, days cursing her.
Her eyes are bright and blue like my own. The same soft, honey hair. High cheekbones that hold the same light freckles from too many hours in the sun. No wrinkles are carved into her skin. Her hair isn’t streaked with gray as I imagined. She is suspended in time, thirty-seven years old. My mother stands before me, exactly the same as the day she left.
Chapter Eighteen
The human mind is an incredible machine. It is in charge of sending messages to every single part of our bodies. Hardwired to find patterns, and make our eyes see what is right in front of us. It is designed to make sense of any situation. It is rational, or at least it is supposed to be. I’m pretty sure it is our emotions that mess up the signals. Making some of us see faces of god in pieces of bread or the sides of buildings. It is hope or faith that scrambles all rationale. Some of us succumb to these, some of us don’t.
I’m not one of them. I see the bread for what it is. Bread.
Though, I usually see the logic, I don’t forget there are different shades of gray that fall between the black and white. There is beauty in the Earths brutality, even a necessity to it. Light shines where one thinks only darkness falls, but I don’t ignore the shadows. I can still see the pretty rainbow and like the idea of a pot of gold. But I know it isn’t there. I base my entire life on this.
I stand staring at my mother and I think of two things. First and foremost: everyone has lied to me. Everyone. She looks healthier than the day she left. Second: my mother has found what is probably the best plastic surgeon in France. In the entire world.
I pride myself on my common sense.
Everyone in the room is silent, watching, like I’m under a microscope. Calmly, or at least I hope this is how I appear, I walk to the seat Aydin had thrown me in before and sitdown. My hands shake and I worry it is going to spread again to the rest of my body.
I do a quick calculation in my head. The last I saw my mother was twelve years ago. She would now be... do the math... almost fifty. Forty-nine to be exact. Yet, she isn’t. She is still in her late thirties. Almost exactly seven years older than me.
“Charlotte.” Abigail’s voice is quiet. She moves toward me, but I shake my head. My jaw clenches, the room seems to have lost all air, making it hard to force my lungs to work.
“You look well,” I say.
Claudette’s laugh is high, bursting with anxiety. The room is filled with it. The tension creeps out of my pores into theirs.
“I’m sorry I lied to you,” Abigail says. “I didn’t know of any other way to get you here. You would never come unless I lied.”
I nod. She is right. I wouldn’t have. I would never have flown to France if I hadn’t thought she was dying. But she isn’t.
“Are you going to explain to me what is going on?” My voice is quiet. Too calm. Too detached.
Everyone looks at each other. Their faces turn to one another like they are hoping someone else will volunteer to the task.
A figure comes into the room. He is tall and thin. He wears a dark navy suit, and I wonder what is so important that we are being interrupted by security. His face is distinctly Persian, his skin tanned and smooth. Long black hair is pulled into a low ponytail, with eyes so dark the pupils fade into the iris. He is young, very young. Maybe twenty.
Claudette rushes to him and gives him a hard embrace. I have yet to see her so happy to see anyone. She wasn’t even this excited to see Henri.
“Father.” Claudette kisses his face, smiling as she does.
I blink, hard, my lids heavy and slow. Everyone in the room turns again to watch me. I stand from my seat, my heart pounds in my head making me dizzy. A laugh rushes from my lips, a strange, strangled sound. I laugh again, this time louder. Eyes still watch, as what can only be described as complete hysteria bubbles up, and I continue to make these high pitched chortling sounds.
I have a tendency to have inappropriate timing.
Five faces look back. They hold the same expression; worry mixed with confusion. Except Aydin. He is still calmly watching me.
“Hello, Charlotte. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I am Ashur,” the man says.
I nod. Of course, he is. Because it makes perfect sense, that Henri’s uncle from France, my fathers childhood friend, looks like he is barely old enough to buy alcohol.
Oh no. The laughter stops abruptly. I rub my arms hard, digging my nails into the skin. I have lost touch with reality, yet my brain is amazing clear.
Dear god. I am insane.
They are here to help me. That is why they have brought me to France. I’m crazy, like Emily. Or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe it is only me. Maybe I can’t read people and feel their emotions. I just think I can. I see people how they couldn’t possibly be, plastered too young of faces on their bodies. Do crazy people know they are crazy?
“She’s going to pass out,” Claudette says.
Noise roars in my head. Breathing is impossible, the air in my lungs comes out in chopped up bursts. The tingling signs of panic caress my fingers, spreading up my arms. Aydin’s hand wrap around my arm and everything stops. The sound vanishes and my breathing slows.
“How did you do that?” I ask him, still staring at the newly introduced Ashur.
“I can control your energy,” Aydin says.
I nod and look at him. His face is serious, but the corners of his mouth pull down. What he says makes sense in my new crazy world. My insane version, where people don’t age, and others can change your emotions with a simple touch.
My mother makes a movement indicating everyone should leave. Aydin starts to walk away.
“No!” I scream the word. Everyone freezes, staring at me. I don’t want him to leave. He is like a drug. Without him near, I may fall over the brink.
“Everyone needs to stay. But someone, anyone, better start talking,” I demand. Somehow I sound in control of myself. I sit back down and wait for them to situate themselves around the room. Aydin stays close to me, while Henri makes the wise decision to sit far away.
No one wants to be the one to start, so I turn to Aydin. There is no way a man that looks as thin as he, has the strength to throw anyone hard enough to shatter bones. No man does. I heard them crack, I heard the ranchers scream, saw his pain. I also saw the man standup and walkout from the bar. I rub my face with my hands. I look at Aydin’s eyes, liquid pools that seem to move in the light.
“What are you?” My jaw is so tight, my head aches.
“We have many names.”
“Any one of them will be a helpful explanation,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my words. Pieces try to put themselves together, but my rather smart brain refuses to let them go there. Dark nights. Long days alone while they worked. One word keeps flashing in the front of my mind. Like a cartoon trying to teach me the meaning.
“Vampire.”
The answer is simple. I laugh again, but less edgy, more incredulous.
“The man that you say tried to claim me? Whatever the hell that means?”
“Vampire,” Aydin says.
“Oh, OK,” I say, smiling, my head nodding. This is funny. Joke is on me. I look over at my mother. “So that means, what, you are a Fairy? No wait. I have one better. A werewolf.” My sarcasm is back. I use it as a shield.
“Don’t be silly,” Aydin smiles.
“Me? Never,” I mock and return my eyes to him.
“There are no such things as fairies,” Aydin informs me, “Or werewolves.”<
br />
“Just vampires.”
“Yes.” A smile slither’s over his lips.
I stare at him and then look around the room. My eyes land on Henri. Claudette has her fingers intertwined in his, consoling him.
“This isn’t funny,” I choke. My chest tightens, a thick rope pulling my heart taunt.
“No, it isn’t,” Aydin says. I look back at him. He is easier to look at. Henri’s a damn liar and I can’t look at Abigail.
“Like blood sucking vampires,” I say.
“Yes,” Aydin’s lips pullup, flashing his charismatic grin. I glance back to Henri.
“But you aren’t.” Henri shakes his head solemnly, “And you are,” I say to Claudette. She smiles at me, almost sheepish. I look back to my mother. She is dressed in a simple black pantsuit, her hair down around her shoulders. My god, I look just like her.
“You haven’t aged.” It is an obvious observation, one that needn’t be said, but my brain is trying to process the information. And failing.
“No, I no longer will.”
“Like, ever?”
“That is part of being a vampire,” Claudette says.
I really don’t like her.
“This is why I couldn’t come to see you,” Abigail says. “I wanted to see you desperately, Charlotte.” A single tear falls over her cheek, it is tainted a pale pink.
I gasp in horror. Aydin’s hand finds mine and grips it tight. Peace falls around me like a blanket. He controls my energy. I yank it away.
“Don’t touch me.” My voice is ice, hysteria edging back in. “Don’t ever touch me.”
Is that why I had been so calm in the bar? Had he been controlling me then? I had been calm in a situation where I shouldn’t have been. Snuggled up and cozy with this man that is telling me they are all vampires. His face turns to stone, and he quietly leaves the room.
“Don’t take it out on him, Charlotte,” Abigail pleads. “He is only trying to help you.”
My head swims, my arms tingle. I almost want to bring Aydin back, but I sent him away. Henri stands coming to sit next to me.
“No one come near me,” I swat him away, practically screaming.
Claudette rolls her eyes and stands. “I’ll come back when you have calmed down.”
Ashur nods in my direction, before following her out.
I stare at my mother a long time. She is so beautiful, even more beautiful than the last time I had seen her. Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes so blue; a crystal ocean. They sparkle, the light hitting them, and they flicker alive and charged. Like Aydin’s. His liquid steel eyes, like nothing I have ever seen before. Like Claudette’s, the dark blue flecks that hold too many secrets.
I think of Abigail’s face the day she left. Her arguing with Daddy, the sounds of things breaking. Had she been forced to go? Was this her choice?
Her skin is completely flawless, but she still has the scar that runs down her jaw, a small line of raised flesh. From when the bathroom mirror fell and shattered, cutting her face. She is the same, exactly the same. No, not exactly. More alive. More vibrant.
“When were you going to tell me?”
“On your birthday.” Another pink tear falls. I wish she would stop. It’s inhuman. No one cries blood stained tears. Except maybe, vampires.
“Which one?”
“Your twenty-fifth,” she says.
The birthday my sister died. The day she tried to kill me.
“And then I couldn’t. You would not have been able to handle it. You wouldn’t be able to understand then,” she says, desperately.
“I’m not having such an easy time understanding now. I don’t understand why you left.” I have waited almost half my life, I needed her to tell me.
Chapter Nineteen
The best stories always start at the beginning. But not at the plantation, well before then. Way back, when humans were taking their modern form, thousands of years ago. Well before the first civilization settled. Back to when our ancestors hunted and gathered. During the time when men were cave dwellers, and passed their history to their decedents through words and songs. It could have been before this. We have no idea how old humans truly are.
It starts with the story my mother would tell Emily and I as children. Of the heavenly man that fell in love with a woman of the Earth. The woman gave birth to twins, born in the hottest time of year, before harvest. When the sun sat high, and grasses grew long from the rainy season. The orchards were in bloom, the delicate flowers covering the branches of the rows of trees.
The twins were like nothing the Earth had ever seen. Like their mother, the girl’s skin was fair, with eyes as bright and blue as the daytime sky. They held the beauty of the woman of the Earth, their features frail and glowed with the light of the Heavens. They were named Ana and Eresh, though, throughout time; man has given them different names. Ana had golden hair that shone as bright as the sun. Eresh’s golden locks were streaked a bright red, flowing like lava.
Upon the girl’s eighteenth year on Earth, Ana and Eresh were separated. Ana was to rule the sky as the Queen of Heaven and Eresh was to rule the Netherworld, a rite given to them by their Moon God father. Ana was to watch over the men of Earth, for their passions often lead them astray. Man is driven by his heart, the need for love and thirst for revenge. Eresh was to usher the dead, helping them find their way to a peaceful Afterlife.
In a time when Gods walked the Earth and Demons weren’t forced to hide in the shadows, the Twins were worshiped. They possessed the powers of the Heavens and the Gods themselves. Some stories tell, not of Twins, but of a single woman, torn apart by her inner battle of darkness and light.
Over time, the sisters fell in love with the men of the Earth and had children. These children gave seed to sons and daughters of their own, each new generation passing along the powers of the Heavens. Superior knowledge, strength, and great empathy. Ancient stories tell of demigods and oracles born to Earth. Powerful beings who could see the past and sing the songs of the future.
An evil force wanted the powers of the human descendants, for they carried the blood of the great Goddesses, the knowledge of the Heavens above and the secrets of below. Lamashtu she was called, though humans have given her many names. She walked in the night, where willow roots twisted, and owls called out, fearful cries, in warning. It is said she laid out serpents in her wake, and the winds howled, and shook bones in her presence. Lamashtu was a dark force who preyed on the flesh of the living, born of the Gods just as her cousins Ana and Eresh. Stories said that she had long wicked teeth and clawed feet. That she stole babies in the night and chewed man’s bones and sucked their blood.
The Demon Queen, Lamashtu, hated the Queen of the Netherworld, for she had taken Lamashtu’s lover before his time on Earth was complete. She swore revenge on Eresh, and after years, finally lured her into a deadly trap. Lamashtu then drained Eresh of all her Heavenly blood. With Eresh so close to death, Lamashtu forced her own blood down the Queen’s throat, changing her body and the Earth forever. From that day forward, Eresh was never to leave the darkness of the night, or her throne in the Netherworld.
Angered by her unjust sentence to an eternity in darkness, Eresh created an army of powerful creatures. She took the men of the Earth and fed them her new blood, transforming them, just as she had been. With elongated teeth, the blood of the Heavens, and the dark of night in their veins, they swept the Earth hunting for the Demon Queen.
These predatory beasts were soon feared by man, calling them the Mitutu or the un-dead. They were cursed, just as their creator to live in darkness and drink the blood of man. For a hundred years, they hunted for Lamashtu but were unable to find the Demon. What they did discover however, threatened to destroy the Earth and sweep it forever into darkness.
The Mitutu discovered the descendants of the Twins, who were still ruling as Queens. Few humans with the blood of the Heavens, roamed the Earth and possessed great powers of empathy. If the Mitutu drank the blood of these de
scendants, the Mitutu’s powers were that of the Gods themselves. It made them stronger, faster, and even more deadly. Soon the Mitutu gave up their quest for the evil Lamashtu and began hunting down the offspring of the Twins. They killed or enslaved them, marking them with venom and feeding on the human until they were too weak to carry on.
Ana saw the evil that was consuming Earth and begged her sister to stop the horde of creatures she had created. Eresh knew then, if not stopped, evil would take root and destroy every last of the offspring of the Gods. Once again, Eresh used her demon blood and the very first Nassaru was created. A Guardian so powerful, he was feared by all, and humans quaked at his feet. This Guardian was instructed to protect the innocent human descendants of the Twins, keeping them hidden from the evil that hunted them. Eresh gave her blood again and made the first Sar Mudutu, the Keeper of Knowledge. He was to record the names of the descendants and work alongside the Guardians, keeping Eresh and Ana’s bloodlines in secret.
Over the generations, new offspring were created, more Keepers and more Guardians, as the family line of the Twins grew and spread over the world. For thousands of years, they watched over and protected, from the shadows, and at a distance, the descendants of the Heavenly Queen Ana and the Queen of the Netherworld, Eresh. They kept the family in hiding, away from the evil that wanted to consume them. My family. My bloodlines. Me.
I blink. “You are telling me that I, we, are of these bloodlines?”
“Yes.”
OK. I nod slowly.
“I don’t understand why I am here,” I say. Not like I understand much of anything else either.
“You are here because there are people in the Organization that want to use you,” Abigail says. “This is the only place you are truly safe.”
“Because I carry unique genes.”
“Yes,” she says it like this is a reasonable explanation.
I nod and take a deep breath before running my hands over my face. Suddenly I am spent, and my shoulders sag. No more information can be dropped on me. There is no way to carry any more. I try to focus on what I know. Henri studies genes. He said with my father's help, they could create a potent cure, all from a gene he refused to tell me about. At the time, I didn’t know vampires roamed, or that special bloodlines existed. Now I do, and I wish I can go back to being ignorant.
In the Shadow of Angels: The Guardian Series 1 Page 15
