Forever Young - Book 2

by Daniel Pierce

  Copyrighted Material

  Forever Young 2 Copyright © 2018 by Daniel Pierce

  Book design and layout copyright © 2018 by Daniel Pierce

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

  Daniel Pierce

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  Forever Young 2

  Book 2 in the Forever Young Series

  Daniel Pierce

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

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  About the Author

  1

  I couldn’t sleep.

  It wasn’t that I thought the compound was insecure. On the contrary, the water Ferin compound was the stuff of legends. I’d never heard of anything quite like it in any American city. As a Mainer born and bred, my mental image of New York City consisted almost entirely of concrete and steel, along with the nauseating press of people that was Times Square. As it turned out, though, there was a massive chunk of wild space and greenery protected by the federal government, right within the New York city limits, and that was where the compound sat.

  Not Central Park, which really was something to behold. Their compound was in the Gateway National Recreation Area.

  Most people had heard of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Golden Gate Park nearby. Well, the Gateway National Recreation Area was created at the same time. It was the east coast equivalent. It was spread over the border, being in New York and New Jersey. The area was a sprawling place, with an old airfield, a marina, an old fort, and even a nude beach for the brave souls who thought sunburn and bare skin were meant for each other.

  Apparently, some things were consistent between all Ferin because the first place these water Ferin took us was the nude beach. We weren’t the only ones out there, even though winter had fallen with a gray thud.

  I wanted to be able to relax and enjoy myself a little, but I couldn’t. New York was a jewel, but I didn’t have time to sit around and enjoy the unintentional hilarity of a wintry nude beach. I couldn’t afford to wait around, isolated out here at Fort Hancock. I needed to be honing my abilities and doing my job—eradicating vampires.

  A small part of me pointed out that my job wasn’t officially eradicating anything. I was supposed to be staying safe and keeping my found family far from danger. But this was a war, one I hadn’t sought, and keeping my family safe was going to involve a hell of a lot more than just hiding Tess and Kamila from the vampires.

  I tried to calm my mind, the way the New York Ferin had taught me. Water didn’t work the same way fire did. Fire was passion. Water was soothing and gentle. I reached out to the ocean and coaxed a column of water up into the sky. It didn’t take as much out of me as it had when I’d been fighting Chilperic. Bill, one of the New York Ferin whom I’d been working with, told me that only made sense.

  “When you were fighting this ginger vampire, you were emotional about it,” he’d said. “You were angry, and you were frightened. You didn’t have control of your abilities. They controlled you. That’s always going to take something out of you.”

  Remembering Bill’s words brought the memory of my fight with Chilperic to my mind. Sure, I’d won. Rather, we’d won. In some ways, we won in spite of me. I was more or less watching the fight, rather than participating in it. I also knocked out water to most of Twin Falls for two days, a feat I still find vaguely unsettling.

  It was worth it, but still, taking out the water infrastructure for a city wasn’t exactly subtle. It didn’t keep us under the radar, which had been a goal of ours since the beginning. I understood that no one would automatically assume a paranormal battle had taken place under their city just because a water main broke. But eventually, if I caused enough destruction, someone might notice. Then all bets were off, and we Ferin would find the one thing we had to avoid. The spotlight.

  I might not have been as old as Kamila or Margaret, but I knew what tended to happen when normal people found out about the supernatural. It was rarely a pretty sight. They wouldn’t exactly differentiate between us and the enemy, and even if they did, vampires had been manipulating humans since the beginning of time. It wasn’t going to turn out well for us Ferin.

  I let the column of liquid fall. I’d won the fight by keeping Chilperic out of reach with water and then burning him with fire. I couldn’t exactly keep my mind both calm and impassioned, and the water ability had erupted from me in a deeply emotional moment. How was I supposed to reconcile the two?

  I massaged my temples and sat down on a park bench, the waves gentle in the distance. I could still hear Chilperic’s voice taunting me if I didn’t block it out with work. I could almost see Tess lying still before me, just like Margaret had in the moment of her death. I visualized Kamila lying on the sand right here on this very beach, just before I burned her body in its funeral pyre.

  You’ll make it happen. You’re the Lifebringer, the one who’ll cause the death of every Ferin on the planet.

  Chilperic was long gone, just so much ash washed into the sewers, but he still mocked me. I could not—I would not—let his repulsive prophecy come true. I would fight against it with everything in me. Nor would I become complacent or lax in my defenses, not even for a moment. I would die before I let either Kamila or Tess come to harm.

  But first, I had to improve my skills because I couldn’t afford to lose a single fight. The vampires could sustain a few setbacks. It didn’t matter how many of them we killed; they could always make more. Us Ferin? We were it, and frankly, I was okay with that.

  Ferin could only be created by a vampire when they tried but failed to completely drain a human victim. We were born from trauma. It wasn’t necessarily a terrible life, and we got some superb benefits from it, but that didn’t mean I wanted more of us to be created. Every time a Ferin was created, it forced that person into hiding, uprooted them from a life they probably valued. We also couldn’t exist without vampires, and I wasn’t about to go asking for their help.

  Because of that, every Ferin we lost was devastating. The only solution I could see was to keep improving and become stronger. I had to keep struggling, to keep growing my skills, or we really would all die.

  Kamila and Tess th
ought my near obsession with the fight against Chilperic was weird and downright obsessive. They didn’t get it. Elite athletes watch endless hours of video, trying to analyze their own performance. Why shouldn’t I spend time trying to figure out what went wrong and how I could fix it next time?

  I sent up another column of water and directed a stream of flame at the top. Steam erupted immediately, and I dropped both with a smile. Instantaneous steam. I was definitely getting better and stronger. Sure, I didn’t have another power pressing down at me, but even so, the reaction time was more or less instantaneous.

  Chilperic might not have gotten a chance if I’d been able to use my water abilities then.

  I repeated the process a few times. No one could have known it was me if they’d been able to see me. I was sitting on a bench in the middle of the night. Fortunately, I was completely alone. My water senses let me detect other humans based on their water content, like radar, but humming from the composition of their bodies.

  It was a useful trick. It made practicing with my abilities here in one of the world’s biggest cities much more feasible.

  Once I got bored with the same trick I’d used on Chilperic, I tried something new, picking a spot in the water and making it spin clockwise. It was as if I’d opened a drain in a bathtub, and with a nudge of power, the whirlpool grew.

  I played with my vortex for a little while, letting it get grow and recede, until I’d satisfied myself that it had done enough. Sea life had almost certainly gotten caught up in it, and crabs and fish and such didn’t need to spend so much time in the spin cycle. In a momentary flash of intention, I released the vortex, sensing it dissipate in the dark sea.

  I tested out my powers in other ways, using the night to shield me. I created a blast of water, like a water cannon, and hit a buoy out in the channel. I shielded that same buoy with a dome made from spinning water, the edges sluicing out into the darkness. I did the same with a shield made of fire, but it melted the plastic, so it wasn’t quite as effective. With each experiment, I grew. My knowledge grew. I felt alive, if haunted, sitting there in the cold wind on a deserted beach.

  I gave some thought to hopping into the water and playing with some of my abilities that way. The other day, Bill had taken me into the bay, and we had some fun going invisible, speeding around underwater, and exploring some old wrecks. I decided to hold off for now, though. The fun aspects of my abilities were a pleasure to use and had some practical applications for the war, but they weren’t immediately useful. That would come later.

  I checked my watch. It was three o’clock in the morning. I should be back inside, in bed beside Tess. I could see my breath in the air, but the fire inside me kept me warm enough. I yawned. This was the time when my desires had to come second.

  I couldn’t rest until I saw measurable improvements.

  I ran through my mental catalog of issues from the Chilperic fight in Twin Falls. One of the biggest problems was my control over my water abilities, or lack thereof. Another issue had been my stamina. I thought, at the time, I’d been doing well. But well just wasn’t enough. I needed to be able to fight longer, harder, faster. We’d been swarmed by the remaining vampires in the lair and only made it out by the skin of our teeth. I needed to make sure that never happened again, and the answer to that need was clear.

  But how was I supposed to improve my stamina with my Ferin abilities? No one had any advice for me, other than “keep using them” or “you’re already beyond what you should be able to do at this age.” I came out here to practice just about every night, and I had run the gamut of self-made tests. My ability was, in a sense, a mystery, even to me.

  I would not allow myself to be that vulnerable again.

  I decided physical stamina would have to be a good substitute. My Ferin skills could only be helped, or so I hoped, by being physically tougher. I did the only thing before me, there in the darkened night. I went for a run. I did see one other person out there, a young man who was chemically altered, humming to himself, and in no condition to see me, let alone hurt me.

  I pushed myself to the absolute limit and set off water or fire attacks on the bay whenever I thought I could get away with it. That gave me the combined workout I needed. I could feel the fatigue in my neck, my legs, and my head, a buildup of the best kind of pain as my muscles began to howl in silent protest. It wasn’t painful. It was a runner’s high, augmented with the drain of a Ferin workout taken to the extreme.

  The night was beautiful, cold, and crisp. It was everything you’d expect for New York in January. I wallowed in the starlight, letting the stars tell me their distant stories, and then I went back to the fort, my body telling me I’d earned my rest.

  The New York Ferin lived in a compound in old Fort Hancock. More specifically, they lived in a compound in a part of Fort Hancock that used to be the fort at Sandy Hook. The fort buildings looked derelict from the outside and were even marked as unsafe for entry. Inside, they were perfectly safe and well-appointed. There wasn’t any electricity, but I’d already gotten used to that, thanks to Owl’s Head and Kamila’s place in Virginia.

  I nodded to the sentry, and she nodded back. Everyone had gotten used to my late-night ramblings, and no one seemed to be bothered by them so long as I stayed discreet and kept the rest of them safe. Apparently, I wasn’t the only Ferin with insomnia. My feet didn’t make a sound against the old dirt floor as I made my way back to the bedroom I shared with Tess.

  As I changed into shorts, Tess didn’t stir. She looked angelic when she was sleeping, with her dark hair fanned over the pillow in a soft tumble. No one would ever suspect she kept an old railroad spike tipped with silver right by her hand, or that she could fight with the skill and ferocity of a pack of wild dogs.

  I smiled and kissed the top of her head. I kind of missed the days of sleeping in a big pile with her and Kamila and Daisy, Kamila’s dog, in the back of the van. We’d get there again, but for now, a proper bed was enough.

  2

  I laid beside Tess, but my mind still whirled. I couldn’t stop thinking about my water skills. I’d made progress, sure, but I didn’t have control over them. Not the way I wanted to. When I’d been in that fight with Chilperic, I’d slipped into a kind of trance. My abilities had taken over my body, and I was just along for the ride.

  It hadn’t been a good feeling. What if that, rather than some obscure and weird demonic prophecy, had been the origin of Chilperic’s warning? I could see it. I wasn’t being arrogant when I said I had dangerous levels of power, more than almost any other Ferin I knew. What would happen if I lost control of that power and turned it against someone I loved?

  I needed to get control of myself before I hurt Tess or Kamila. Or Daisy.

  I struggled against the memory of Chilperic’s laughter as I closed my eyes. Because my eyes were closed, I couldn’t see anything above me. I couldn’t see the horsehair and plaster ceiling. I couldn’t see the weird stain that lingered up there, possibly from some poor soldier lodged in here a century ago.

  And I damned sure didn’t see the giant pool of water forming over the bed until it crashed over us, drenching me, the bedding, the mattress, the pillows, and poor Tess.

  Tess woke up screaming obscenities, which seemed perfectly reasonable, considering the situation.. When she found her way to words of more than four letters, she jumped out of the bed and turned her accusing eyes toward me. “That water is cold, you son of a bitch! Cold! You’re a fire Ferin! Couldn’t you at least magic up some warm water to douse me with?”

  I shrank into myself and the soggy mattress. It squelched. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  She stomped her foot and grabbed a towel. “Ugh!” She stripped off her nightgown and threw it at me.

  I moved a little slower in getting out of bed, my own guilt keeping me from enjoying the view as much as I might have. “Look, I’m really sorry. That wasn’t on purpose.” I peeled myself out of my clothes. “I was trying to get to sleep, and I was
just anxious.”

  “Anxious about what? Drought? Surfing?” She glowered as she toweled herself off.

  I let my internal fire deal with my waterlogged self. I was dry before I opened my mouth to reply. “Um, no. I’m still worried about what Chilperic said.”

  Her shoulders slumped for a second. Then she straightened herself up and put her hand on my lips. “Don’t even give that foul little worm the dignity of a name. He was a disgusting monster, and I hope he’s writhing on a spit somewhere in the deepest pit of Hell.” She took a deep breath and evened out her tone. “You’re not going to bring harm to us, Jason. You’re not going to hurt the Ferin. There isn’t even such a thing as ‘the Ferin.’ We’re not a monolith. We’re individuals, you know?”

  “Yeah—okay.” I found some dry clothes in my bag and shimmied my way into them. “But the thing is, I wasn’t trying to drench us both with a gift from the North Atlantic either. I didn’t mean for that pool to appear. It just did.”

  She looked up sharply. “I thought these guys were helping you.”

  I sat down on a rickety old chair that probably predated the fort. “They are. They’ve shown me amazing things, and I’ve had a blast learning. But I still don’t feel like I’m completely in control, you know? And I’m not. I just gave you the worst wakeup call of your life.”