Daughters of the Damned
Desert Academy
Book One
Cecily Dawson
Copyright © 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without written permission from the author, excerpt for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Student Name -Number -Classification
Students
Rune Porter- # 1176- Vampire
Akela Truit- # 1170 – Werewolf
Lucy Blessing - # 2342 – Dark Angel
Natira - # 1189- Alien
Administrative Team
Duchess – Administration DOD Agent
Drisdol Prescott- Head Council
Mrs. Willowbrook – Instructor Class One
Chapter One
The early morning foliage was still damp from the falling fog when a couple walked through the dense forest. The National Park had been closed to the public before six am on winter mornings because it was still dark, but the couple was familiar with the trails since it had been their routine over the past six months, and because they lived so close. When they passed the 2-mile hike point they found her crouching in a patch of hedge. She was only about five years old and she was still wearing her pink bunny night dress. It was smeared with dirt and leaves and she was holding onto a tattered and worn stuffed bear. When the couple looked into her face her sad eyes melted their heart. They were still wet with tears.
“Are you ok? Where’s your mommy honey?” The lady crouched down beside her and pulled leaves from the girl’s long dirty blond hair.
The girl didn’t say anything but she desperately reached out for the woman who readily picked her up and held her close. Perhaps she had come from one of the nearby campgrounds up the hill.
“Where is your mommy sweetheart?” the woman pointed toward the campgrounds.
The girl shook her head from side to side.
“Honey, I think it’s best we call the police and have them meet us here.”
“No, we will not she’s terrified and she’s shaking like a leaf. She needs to get inside; we’ll call them when we get back to the house.”
“I don’t know,” the man hesitated. “What if her parents were murdered or something and she was hiding away from them, I think we should leave her with park officials.”
“You watch too many crime-shows,” the woman dismissed her husband and walked back down the path toward their cottage. It was located just outside the park and they had only lived there for the past six months. She and her husband moved to Yosemite National Park because her husband was hired with the National Research Institute.
Inside the cottage, the man went straight to the telephone to contact the park service and the lady took a closer look at the little girl. She was a beautiful girl with wide brown eyes, full lips and a tout nose.
“Look at you honey, are you hungry?” she pointed to the kitchen.
The little girl slowly shook her head.
“Don’t worry honey I will fix you something really yummy. You just sit right here, and I will go over there and see what I have.”
The sound of the television could be heard from the living room, the man had a habit of turning on the news when he came in, having something in the background was always reassuring, especially since they lived so far away from any neighbors. When he walked into the kitchen what he saw made him gasp. His wife lay on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood and the little girl had buried her head into the crest of his wife’s neck and all he could hear was an agonizing slurping sound. When she turned her head to look at him her entire face was filled with blood and her teeth had grown in length.
He opened his mouth to yell his wife’s name, but she flew from her position on the floor to where he was and when she landed on his chest she was not a five year old, but as strong as his fathers golden retriever when he jumped on him. How had she found this strength? What was she? What was happening. Before he could put answers to these thoughts he blacked out.
Minutes later, blue and red lights could be seen outside the cottage. The park officers were outside. Rune wiped her mouth with her forearm. She looked at the bodies sprawled out in front of her, she wanted to keep feasting, the mans blood tasted so much better than the women’s. She took another taste and soon she was indulging in a feast again. A crash. Glass breaking in the room startled her. The doorbell rang. Rune looked at the door, she could see their shadows, but then sucking at the blood as quickly as it came gushing out of the man’s jugular vein.
The doorbell rang again. Now they were banging at the door.
“This is the police; we’re breaking the door down!” a voice yelled from the other side. A huge thump hit the front door.
Rune heard footsteps coming from the room, down the hall. Another thud to the door and it cracked at the center, once more and they’d be inside. Suddenly, hands lifted her from the body of the dead man and took her away just as the third thud broke the door down.
That morning was the first time I knew what I was. After that day it became harder to stop my cravings. When the urge had come upon me and it was so strong that I couldn’t control it. The craving for blood was so overwhelming that my stomach hurt. It was a deep hunger that could not be satiated by food alone and it grew in intensity until I fed. In my preteen years blood took over my every thought. When I looked at people, I only saw their veins, the blood pumping through veins called me like an ocean calls its waves. I had become a predator, creeping and watching my prey at all hours. The thumping of the jugular vein was the loudest, the swooshing of blood grew louder as my hearing was intensified with age. I understood why predators went for the neck, it was the source of life and death.
Since then, I had made 12 successful kills over the next eleven years, but my mother had doubled, even tripled that number as it was, she who supplied the source of most of my nourishment and that is why I am standing here today.
Chapter Two
“I’m sorry Rune,” a lean boy around sixteen years old said before placing a white rose on my dead mother’s grave. He was the closest thing I had to a friend. He had come to Texas with his family from Mexico two years before and we were the “new kids” that year. So we stuck together.
Even though the wooden box was closed I could image what she looked like inside. Her long dark hair was tucked up in a neat bun atop her head and her hands were folded on her belly. A belly that was probably still full of blood. The letter had been delivered from the Council just days before, in it, they warned that her if she killed again, she’d pay the ultimate price. The next day, she once again satiated her appetite for blood on human flesh.
The Council of the Gods was the dark side organization that oversaw all the Daughters of the Damned. My mother had been one of them, until she was released from Desert Academy just sixteen years and four months ago today. She had not graduated from Desert Academy but was released by the Council, she never said why, but she’d often mumbled about a fire in her dreams. I’d meant to ask her about it but now it was too late.
After the academy, she was sent out into the world to live as a mortal on her own, but she had been warned to follow the rules set forth by the council, or she would die. The first four years were easy, she hadn’t craved blood at all, thanks to the tiny blue suppressant pills she was ordered to twice a day. Every now and then, she was able to find a few stray pets on the streets, which was allowed but when she craved human blood things got dangerous. For the most part, she lived on monthly blood deliveries that came in unmarked blue boxes at the beginning of every month. A mass shipment that went out from the Council Warehouse to four corners of the globe where all supernatural and dark side
rs resided. There used to be four schools, one run by each of the original council members but she’d heard her mother saying that now, there was only one school left and it was located in a secret realm surrounded by four mountains.
“Rune, your mother was a very kind woman” Mrs. Sullivan said placing a rose on the coffin. She remained quiet for a while letting it sink in before speaking again. “You will be ok; didn’t you and your mother have family in Arizona?” she asked with a look of pity in her eyes.
I nodded. If I could call the council her family, the answer would be yes. But they weren’t family. They were the reason for all my pain, nightmares. They were the enemy. They brainwashed you. Taught you to suppress your true self in order to fit into society. Be human.
“A few,” I said to appease her and make her feel better about walking away.
I looked around the cemetery. The faces that stared back at her were not her family. She had no family. Everyone had only come out of obligation to her mother. She had been an active part of the community and she had been a good friend to many of the families. She had even driven the carpool. Imagine…two vampires being trusted with a car full of kids. Oversized pints of blood. When I looked up, I saw an unfamiliar face standing among the mourners as my mothers’ body was being lowered into the ground. He was a thin man dressed in a black suit, his eyes were covered by dark shades. He looked at me and then he looked at the box that held my mother. Who was he? I had not seen him before. The South Texas community was very small, and everyone was known to everyone.
The next day, I saw the man again at the dollar store. This time he came up to me and introduced himself.
“Rune, my name is Professor Hodges. I am from the Desert Academy. He searched my face for some reaction to what he’d said. None. The Council has sent me to retrieve you. Since your mother is deceased, you will have to come with me.”
“No.” I protested. “This is my home. I am fine here; when I graduate in another year and I will be going to college.”
“Rune, I’m afraid you don’t understand. When you turned 16 your mother was required to deliver you to the council. That was four months ago, she ignored all of the notices and phone calls and so we had no choice.”
“No choice other than what?” I looked him in the eyes, I wanted to hear him say they had no choice but to kill my mother for breaking one of their rules.
“You belong to the Academy Rune, you will be safe there, plus you must be trained. Your cravings will overpower you soon, and you will not be able to stop yourself. You will turn into a beast without the training of the council.”
“I am half human. I have lived among humans for the past sixteen years and I am fine. It was true, my mother had worked very hard to retrain me. She wanted me to be able to live among them without detection. As a baby she’d given me milk which I refused to drink until she’d placed small drops of blood into my bottles, slowly training my body to accept that which it wanted to reject. Everybody knew Vampires only drank blood. Mortal food made us sick, but she successfully reprogrammed my body to accept both. As I grew, blood became a treat like sugar for most kids. If I ate my food, I’d get a treat before bed, a little blue Juicebox from her supply. But as I grew so did my appetite for blood.
“You are not fine Rune.” The man took out a pocketknife and held out his hand. He proceeded to press the knife into his flesh until a bright red river of blood came streaming out, dripping onto the white tile floor. I looked away, but something inside me started to push its way up from the pit of my stomach. It was as if another human being lived inside me and was crawling its way out. Involuntarily, the fangs came out when I saw it. I placed my hand over my mouth and backed away from the man before me. He was part mortal, because I could smell his blood. I watched the trail of blood form a river across the aisle. Waste. Without hesitation I went to my knees and instinctively licked it from the floor. Delight. It was a small treat. I’d learned to suppress my ravenous greed for so long, that even a treat would fulfill my desire and suppress the beast within me. A taste was enough.
“You are kneeling in the middle of an aisle, mind you, in public licking blood from the floor. You call that civilized?”
I looked up at him, a few small kids were standing in the aisle watching the whole debacle unfold. Their mouths were wide open to match their eyes. Dumbstruck. The man whose blood I’d just lapped up from the floor, looked around and with one wave of his hand the blood became a can of paint that had fallen from the shelf and the kids became uninterested and went on their way. He waved his hand again toward the camera overhead and then bent to assist me from the floor. I was humiliated, but more than that, I was afraid of what he said lurked inside me.
We rode for miles along a bumpy dirt road, canvased by mountains in the middle of nowhere. Outside my window I could see an occasional mountain ridge. The monotony of it all made me drowsy and before I knew it, I had drifted off into a troubled sleep. I dreamt of my mother. I was drowning in a sea blood when I was awakened by a man holding a flashlight. It was now dark outside.
“Where are we?” I mutter half asleep. The light was blinding. Outside the window I could see a huge brick building, it reminded me of the buildings at Auschwitz, the German Camp Hitler erected during the Holocaust. The school faced a set of huge black wrought iron gates.
“Name.”
I squinted from the brightness of his light. A tall thin man wearing a pair of black pants and a white shirt entered the van. On his gold crescent badge were the initials D.A. Agent. His pudgy face was oddly flat and his features were huge, especially his eyes.
“Name?”
“Rune,” I said.
“Rune who?”
“Where am I? I ask.
“Full name?”
“Rune. Rune Porter.”
“Follow me Rune.”
I followed the officer out of the van and looked around in the darkness. The landscape was dotted with huge white pillars that seemed to touch the sky. I could only make out a few other shapes, but the tall pillars of white stood out brightly in the darkness.
“What are those?” I pointed to the pillars that stretched for miles.
“Those are wind turbines. Desert Academy is located on a very large wind farm, the location is kept confidential for your safety,” the guard said, handing the clipboard to a lady who approached.
“Hello Rune, my name is Duchess, I am with the DOD Agency and I will be your screener for tonight. I will check you in and explain a few procedures to you.” She held a clipboard and had a serious disposition, she started walking and I followed.
“Wind Farm? Is there such a thing?” I had never heard of a wind farm. A farm with no animals was not very farm like.
The driver, Professor Hodges chimed in and said, “Wind Turbines stretch upwards of 400 feet into the air and there’s this big fan at the top that catches the wind, that wind is converted into electricity that can power up to 600 American homes. These things go on for miles, so imagine how much electricity all of these can produce.”
“They’re a non-renewable energy source, better for the economy. Their energy helps to neutralize any threats we may encounter from outside forces,” she checked off something on the clip board and looked up at the turbines again. “Just forget about them or they can make you sick,” she said.
“Either that or the noise will drive you stir crazy at night, worse than living smack under a freeway, “Professor Hodges said, pulling the last of my luggage from the van.
Rune had never done either. The lady who called herself Duchess was very petite, her dark hair framed her thin pale face and hung past her waistline. She was wearing a white lab coat and a badge that said: Desert Academy Staff.
“Rune you may follow me,” she punched a few numbers into the gate, and it opened for her, we stood on the front lawn of the school now. “There are a few rules I’ll need to go over while we are outside. First, under no circumstance are you allowed to be outside, unless you have been escorte
d by your professor or myself. We usually come out in groups. In the daylight you’ll be able to see that the school is surrounded by four mountains in the distance, each representing one of the four council members.” I’d heard about the mountains from my mother.
“Who is my headmistress?”
“You are a first year, so your headmistress will be Mrs. Teasley. There are three years or, classmen. First Classmen are the new recruits, those who don’t really know the true strength of their power, so they are forbidden from using them. Second Classmen, or years are the novice group, they have a hold of their power but have not yet conquered their cravings. Third Classmen, or years are in control of both their power and their cravings and are ready to be mainstreamed into society again.”
“It sounds like high school.”
“It’s small school, more of a finishing school than a high school. Now, see those barbed wire fences in the distance?”
“Is this prison or a school?”
“They surround the entire perimeter of the school and are powered with over 1000 volts of electricity from those wonderful wind turbines in the distance. Anyone who tries to come in or out of here will never make it past those gates. Over there, there is a guard who is instructed to shoot anything that tries to cross, human or animal.”
“Why?” Rune didn’t know if she should run at this point or continue into the school and be trapped forever.
“You have been sent here for your safety Rune. Had your mother been able to successfully adapt to society and teach you how to live as a mortal then you wouldn’t be here. We taught her well, but her cravings got the best of her.”
IT WAS NOT MY MOTHER, IT WAS ME!!! I yelled inside. I was the one who was weak. If I had controlled my own cravings for blood, then she wouldn’t have had to keep killing for me. It all started with the couple in Yosemite, and from there it was town after town, school after school because I kept getting weak. I DID IT!!! I’d killed my own mother. The Council ordered her death and within a few months she was gone, and I was sentenced to serve three years at the finishing school that started it all. I was here to avenge her, I was here to find out who they are, The Council of the Gods were murderers and I would make them pay for this.
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