Protector (9 page)

“Hey
Anna-Marie, what can I get you?” the guy asks from behind the counter.

Anna
-Marie . . . hmm . . .
Alessandro thinks to himself.  He didn’t know what her name was and decides immediately that Anna-Marie fits her.

She gives the man a seemingly forced but friendly smile
.  “Hey Pete, can I get a large Mocha and a banana nut muffin please?”

“Sure thing
!  How have you been?”

“Pretty good
, actually.  I’ve been working a lot more lately.  It helps.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear that.” 

After a few minutes he reaches over the register and hands her the coffee and the small bag with the muffin inside, “Here you go, the best Mocha around.”

“Thanks
, Pete.  I’ll see you later.”

“Bye
, Anna-Marie.  I’ll see ya.”

Alessandro doesn’t drink coffee, so he has no clue what to get.  Hell, he will just get the same thing as umm…
Anna-Marie.

Once he has his expensive coffee he picks the table behind hers and sits facing her back, so he can see what she is doing on her
bright pink laptop.  He cranes his neck and looks over her shoulder to see what it is she is looking at so.

“
Wild animal strikes again.”
reads the headline.

“
Dammit!” Alessandro says out loud and he knocks over his coffee after the words from the article slam into his brain.  Ignoring the spilled mess, he looks harder at the screen. 

It appears to be some kind of online news article.  Damn technology is growing.
 
He thinks to himself.

He watches as
Anna-Marie scans through the article.  She stops every so often to write down a few notes on a note pad before moving on to another article with the same contents screaming at him off of the screen.

“
Dammit all to hell!” He mumbles to himself and gets up from his chair, throws the spilled cup into the trash can and storms out of the coffee shop.  He paces back and forth close to the entrance, but far enough away so she won’t see him.

“Why the hell is she looking up that stuff?
”  Alessandro stops pacing remembering those last two nights he had seen her.

“Jesus Christ!  She knows too much
!  Dammit!  She is going to get herself killed.”

Alessandro thinks for a minute trying to figure out what he can do.

“I have to talk to my father about this.  He is not going to be happy that things have gotten this bad.  The Rogue is starting to get way too much attention.”

Night is coming soon so Alessandro heads back to his car
hoping to catch his father before he goes out for the night.  He drives his little car fast down the back roads along the coast, heading towards the manor where the Brotherhood lives for the time being.  This can’t wait; he needs to speak to his father now. 

        As he is driving to the manor he thinks back on the very first time he remembers seeing her
, this mysterious pain in the butt Anna-Marie.   The memory of the sight of her that night still sends chills down his spine.

On that night he was walking around the cemetery hoping for some action to calm his restless mind.  He stumbled across a sleeping beauty lying on a blanket beside a grave.  He stood over her, stunned and saddened for her.  He thought she was dead at first until he heard her mumbling something from her dream.  He was shocked and confused to see her asleep beside a grave.  He figured she must have known the young man whom the grave belonged to.  He remembers feeling a ting of jealousy that this woman felt so compelled to come out so late at night to a cemetery to visit this man and feel comfortable enough to fall asleep.  It could only be love, or insanity, and from what he has seen of her so far, it was probably insanity. 

He was so caught up in the moment; he almost missed the foul scent.  There was a Rogue there lurking in the dark close by.  He didn’t know where though.  However, he figured it knew she was there, or would soon, so he had to step back from this sleeping beauty and wait for him to show himself. 

Lost in his memory
, the drive goes by in a flash before pulling up to the manor’s iron gate.  The manor is a very beautiful old mansion that sits on the Neuse River in Wilmington, North Carolina.  Its appearance is very much the style of old southern wealth, with an immense lazy porch and wide stately white columns flanking the entrance.  It was once a plantation before the Brotherhood bought it.  It has been a part of the Brotherhood Order for about one hundred years. 

They have many houses all over the country that they rotate
their time in every so often.  Being immortal has many perks, other than the obvious of living forever.  Over time, the Brotherhood has collected a mass of wealth and priceless antiques which have all helped with their survival.  Since the very beginning, when the Brotherhood was founded, there has always been seven Brotherhood in a group, as well as seven Protectors, all living together in one house.

They ha
d come back to Wilmington about six months ago, once word got out that there has been some escalating trouble with Rogue in the area.  They have worked towards eliminating the problem for centuries, but they seem to keep repopulating, sometimes faster than others.

Alessandro pulls up to the expanse estate as the sun is setting and parks his car in their massive garage built off the side of the main house.  The garage houses up to seven cars at a time as well as five motorcycles, but it’s usually not full due to all the coming and goings of all of the residen
ts.

As he enters the manor he runs into Michael leaving the dining
room. 

“Hey
, Ales, where have you been?”

“Dude, it’s a long story.  Have you seen my father?”

“Yeah, last I saw him he was in the downstairs dining room eating breakfast with the Brotherhood and going over tonight’s plans.”

“Thanks
, Michael. I’ll find you again after I talk to my father.  We can catch up then.”

“Alright
, dude.  I’ll be around.”

Alessandro walks straight ahead to the staircase.  There is a hidden elevator built into it so if anyone was able to breech their high tech security system and make it past any of the fourteen deadly residents that live here, they won’t know there’s another dwelling underground.  Alessandro
presses on the paneling and a key pad appears.  He punches in his code and the paneling comes apart to expose the inside of the compartment.  There’s only one way to go from here and that’s down to any of the three levels.

   They expanded
the manor when it was bought a century ago to accommodate the Brotherhood’s need to stay out of the deadly sunlight and has a few renovations since.  

The Protectors stay above ground and the Brotherhood stays under, but the underground layer was modeled to look identical to the above
, that way they wouldn’t feel so separated.  The only differences are in the decor.  The upper floors are more modern and contemporary and the under ground is more traditional with centuries of priceless antiques.

Once off the elevator
on the first floor Alessandro turns down the hall to the left to look for his father in the dining room.  In it sits a grand sight of seven of the Brotherhood Orders most powerful and deadly members in the country.  It’s an honor to be in their presence, but at the same time very intimidating, with Alessandro’s dad, Marquis, at the head of the table. 

Marquis Pierre was born into an aristocratic family and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1801 during the French rule.  He was bitten one night after leaving a bar as he stumbled through the quiet darkened streets when he was thirty-five.  He hasn’t aged a day since.  His long ash blond hair and clear sage green eyes are just as vibrant as they were all those years ago.

“Alessandro, my boy, how are you today?” Marquis asks in his thick French accent as he beams at his only son.

“I’m good
, thanks.”  Alessandro walks further into the room until he is standing beside his father.  “Excuse me, father, but I really need to speak to you about a potentially urgent situation that has just come up.”

“Of course, what’s going on?”

Alessandro looks around the table at the six other vampires, who in turn look up from their meals and stare at him.  He knows there’s no point trying to be quiet about it.  Vampires have super sharp hearing, so they will all know anyway.

“Well, there is this lady that I have had the misfortune of running into on a few occasions.  It has come to my attention that she may be catching on to what has been going on around here lately
with the Rogue.”

Marquis looks at his son patiently trying to decide what to say.  Calmly he says, “Okay, and what makes you think this?”

“Like I said, I’ve seen her a few times.  Two of which were by protecting her from a Rogue and today I followed her to a coffee shop and saw her researching on her lap top the supposed animal attacks that have been happening around here.”

Marquis slams his fist down on the table
causing a thunderous crack to vibrate off the walls and pushes his chair back and stands up.

Marquis’ sage eyes flash with rage
, causing the pupils to dilate making all color vanish, “God damn pests!”

The Rogue has always been a problem, but in the past year their numbers have grown again.  They are young reckless vampires here in Wilmington and they need to be taught a lesson.  They may not want to follow the laws of the Brotherhood, but they will not be allowed to be exposed.

Marquis puts both hands on the table and leans over looking Alessandro square in the eye.  “You have to find out what she knows, and if it turns out that she does know too much, there are really only a couple of options.  I trust you will handle this situation, Alessandro.”

“I know
, father.  I will see what I can do.”

Marquis seems to be satisfied with that answer
.  His sage eyes clear in a flash and he stands up straighter and then leaves the room. 

Alessandro turns from his father’s descending back to look at the other Brotherhood sitting around the table.  They are all still staring at him, probably thinking the same thing he is. 

How in the hell am I going to do it?

7

Anna
-Marie pulls into the cemetery watching very closely at all of the people around in various states of mourning.  After a month she is still paranoid from her past couple run-ins with what she now believes to be cannibals.  First was the man here in this cemetery, then there was the one in the alley only a couple of weeks later.  Both incidents scared the hell out of her, enough so to remind her to be very cautious everywhere she goes because there’s no telling how many there actually are.