The Vampire Hunter's Daughter: Part I (2 page)

“Get out of my way,” Eli told them in his smooth voice, which always sounded calm. “You know I could take all of you by myself if I wanted to.”

“Well,” the blond-haired guy spread his hands out, “it looks like that’s what you’re going to have to do.” He cocked his head to the side. “I’m ready.”

Eli flew forward. Yes, he literally lifted himself off the ground and flew at the group of rescuers. The fighting was a blur of bodies, blood and the occasional cry of pain. I watched while the blond guy took one of those arrows and stuck it into Eli’s eye for distraction, while another rescuer slammed his long shining blade into Eli’s heart.

James and I cried out at the same time. Mine was a cry of triumph, while his sounded painful. He threw me to the ground and rushed to Eli's side, catching his body as it fell roughly to the ground.

I watched from my place on the floor. The fight James put up was nothing compared to what Eli had given them. He didn’t last long.

I lay there on the floor with my arms and legs dead. My vision blurred and my eyelids felt heavy. The blond guy stuck his face in front of mine.

“Come on, Chloe. We need to get you out of here and take you somewhere safe,” he said. He lifted me into his arms and carried me into my new life.

***

When I woke, all I could think about was water. My mouth felt like sandpaper, and my tongue was so dry I could barely move it. I didn’t try to sit up right away. I wanted to take in as much of my surroundings as I could before I let anyone know I was awake.

Yeah, I remembered everything. I didn’t think it was all a dream. I knew I was not in my own bed, and the room I was in was not mine. I turned my head slowly to the right and saw, with great joy, a large glass of water sitting on the nightstand beside a couple of pills. I also saw, with not as much joy, an old man sitting in a chair beside the nightstand. He appeared to be snoozing while he waited for me to wake.

Trying to be as quiet as I possibly could, I slowly sat up. My arms protested. When I looked down I could clearly see dark purple bruises in the shape of fingers where James had had his hands clamped down on me.

“Ugh,” I muttered and reached out for the water, clamping my teeth together to keep from crying out.

When I finally got that glass of water to my lips and was able to drink, it felt like what I imagined water would taste like in heaven. I guzzled it down so fast that I felt a little sloshy in my stomach by the time I set the glass back on the table. I left the pills alone. Exhausted from the simple act of getting a glass of water and drinking it, I fell back onto the pillows and shut my eyes again. I passed out within minutes.

I woke again later and the whole place was dark, so I assumed it was the middle of the night. The glass of water had been refilled, and the old man was still beside my bed. This time he was awake and had seen me open my eyes.

“Hello,” I greeted him. “Could you hand me that glass of water?”

I grimaced and pulled myself into a sitting position.

“Sure.” He handed me the water with a steady hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Chloe.”

By this time, I figured I could be OK with weird.

“What do you mean by 'finally'?” I asked him.

He cracked a grin, and his blue eyes lit up a little, even in the dark. “Why, child, I’m your grandfather.”

I choked on my water, even spit a little bit out on him, “You’re my… grandfather? Uh... I… OK.”

He took my water glass and set it on the nightstand. He took my hand and held it, patting the top.

“Chloe, it is time to explain your heritage to you. You are old enough now to understand these things.” He smiled at me. “So are you ready to hear it?”

I shrugged. I really didn’t have a choice. I really just wanted to lay in bed and be sad that I would never see my mother again. But his explanation was something I hoped would explain all that had happened last night. Maybe it would explain why they had killed my mother. I wanted to find out who I had to kill to avenge her.

“Sure,” I said.

“Chloe, much of what I am about to tell you will be hard to believe, but it may also fill in some of the blanks that you have wondered about at particular times in your life. Have patience and listen.

“Those people who killed your mother, I’m sure you noticed something different about them, like their strength and the way they died. If you guessed they aren’t normal, you would have guessed correctly.”

He paused.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he quickly lifted his hand to silence me.

“Yes, as you probably suspected, they are vampires. And we… we kill them. We are vampire slayers, or hunters, whatever you prefer. For generations, our family's bloodline has borne hunters. It is our job to kill the evil to keep humanity safe.”

My mouth dropped open. I wasn’t really that surprised about the vampires and stuff. I think it was more the issue of hearing someone else say there were actually vampires.

“Now a story begins,” the man who called himself my grandfather announced. “About fifteen years ago a young woman who had been raised right here in this very community with our hunters fell in love with a vampire. She was one of the very best of us.”

The old man’s lips turned up into a smile at the memory.

“Even as a little girl, she trained constantly and learned with determination. It was her dream to be the best of all of us. For her, it was either be first or be killed.

“This amazing woman was your mother, Felicia. Felicia could take any of the men here in a fight. When it came to vampires, there was something about her that could almost mesmerize them, giving her the perfect opportunity to attack.

“That was until the day she met Trevor. We found ourselves in the midst of a battle one night in the park. She had tried to catch Trevor’s gaze and draw him into her grasp, because he appeared to be the leader. For some reason, her gifts did not work on Trevor. However, when Trevor saw her, he decided he wanted her. He kidnapped her.

“Your mother fought him, but he was the only vampire your mother could not kill. He took her, and they disappeared for almost a year.

“Your mother told me the time she spent with Trevor wasn’t so bad. I would like to think he was the most horrible man in the universe, but apparently he treated her pretty good. She was the
only
one he treated well."

My so-called grandfather paused to take a sip from his own water glass, which also sat on the nightstand.

I kept quiet because he asked me to and because the story was getting good.

He cleared his throat and continued. “Trevor’s intention was to turn your mother. She told Trevor she loved him, and she would never leave him. But she didn’t want to be a vampire. During her stay with Trevor, he treated her like a queen, gave her everything her heart desired. Unfortunately, he forgot one tiny detail: Felicia was a vampire hunter. The hatred for vampires ran deep in her veins and could not be forgotten, even by loving one of them.

“When one of Trevor's men tried to rape her, she killed him. Trevor would have killed him himself, had he known what the man had tried to do. Felicia had been embarrassed and had no intention of letting Trevor know what had happened. She told him the man had assaulted her. She announced she was pregnant, with you, and that she had only acted to defend her unborn child.

 “Trevor was ecstatic. You have to realize how rare this was. Perhaps… once every couple hundred years is a child conceived with a vampire. But… a vampire child combined with the blood of a vampire hunter… that is completely unheard of.

“Felicia knew deep in her heart she could not stay with Trevor. She wanted her child to be safe, and have a good life, not to live in a world of darkness with a bunch of vampires. And there was the question of your safety. Children are like candy to vampires… the blood is sweet.

“So Felicia fled and came home shortly before you were born. When you were born a healthy little girl, we sent the two of you into hiding. Your father has been searching for you for years. That's why you've moved several times. That's why your mother drenched herself in that god-awful perfume and made you do the same thing, and that's why your mother was murdered right before your eyes. Because
you
are a very, very special child, Chloe Kallistrate.”

He bowed his head and placed his fingertips on his temples. “Trevor will stop at nothing until he has you.”

I had been laying back on my pillows, listening to this story. It did explain a lot of the weird behavior I had noticed in my mom. Sometimes she would get all crazy and just decide to move. She would start packing all of our stuff and clean the house with bleach from top to bottom before we left. Really, I just thought she was nomadic and had sudden urges to move. And the perfume, she changed her scent once a year and wore a lot of whatever she chose. She took about three showers a day, too. Yeah, now I get it, everywhere we went we left a scent.

I did have one question though. Actually, I had lots of questions, but just one for the time being: “How did you know that we needed help when Trevor’s men attacked us?”

His eyes met mine. “Chloe, our blood isn’t regular blood. We have the bloodline of vampire hunters. Our blood is almost magical. I just
knew
. Your mother is my daughter, and I just knew we had to go to her. We were too late to save her. Now we will honor her life by keeping you safe, because that is what she dedicated her life to doing.”

I nodded.

“We are going to let you rest here for a while, because you have been through a trauma. It will take time for you to feel normal again. Soon, however, you will have to get up and begin your training.”

“Training?”

He nodded. “Yes, I’m sorry, but one of the only ways for you to be safe is for you to learn how to defend yourself. If you had lived here with us since birth you probably could have helped your mother in fighting them. Sadly, she was out of practice and hadn’t trained for fifteen years.”

I could see he was becoming emotional.

“I would love to train.” I caught his eye, and held his teary gaze. “I’m going to get good, better than my mother, even. I’m going to kill Trevor for having my mother murdered.”

He nodded again and turned to leave.

“I swear it,” I whispered to myself when he left the room.

***

I lay in bed for a long time without sleeping. I kept thinking of the guy who called himself my grandfather as ‘the old man.’ I didn’t want to call him ‘grandpa’, but I didn’t know what his name was, so that only left ‘the old man.’

The room they had put me in was a bedroom. It was obviously a girl’s bedroom. There was a dark purple comforter on the bed, and the curtains were the same color. A large dresser pushed up against one wall had an old-fashioned oval mirror in the corner beside it. I saw an open door on another wall that I assumed was an attached bathroom.

The possibility of a bathroom almost painfully reminded me that I hadn’t peed at all since I woke. Slowly, I lifted myself into a sitting position. My arms screamed out in pain and refused to support me. Pushing the covers aside, I placed my bare feet on the hardwood floor and immediately wished I had some socks. The floor was freezing.

After a slow shuffle to the door, I discovered it was, indeed, a bathroom.
Thank goodness.

On the way to the toilet, I had passed the mirror and immediately wished I hadn’t looked. My image was hideous. My eyes were all sunken in and dark underneath, my hair was all matted and greasy, and the handprint bruises on my arms were beginning to do that thing where they turned green and yellow. I had several bruises on my legs too. I noticed them after I sat down to pee.

When I came out, I decided to be nosy and look around the rest of the bedroom. Maybe the dresser had some socks in it. I opened one of the drawers and found a ton of socks in various colors. I chose a plain white pair for myself and shut the drawer.

One of the picture frames on top of the dresser caught my eye. I picked it up to get a closer look. There, sitting on a bench beside an older woman and staring at the camera, was a girl about my age. As a matter of fact, she looked so much like me that she could have
been
me.

My mother.

I couldn’t help it. I burst into tears and sobbed like a two year old. I rubbed my hand over the picture and let my tears fall. I wanted to see her again so badly. Knowing that was never going to happen was more than I could bear. My legs lost their strength, and I fell onto my knees, still holding the picture.

I hated those who had her killed. I can’t say for sure I had ever really hated anyone before. Without a doubt, I was going to avenge her and kill that man they all claimed was my father. He would never have me on his side.

She died saving me.
How am I supposed to live with that kind of guilt?

I missed her so much already.

The bedroom door opened. I didn’t want anyone to see me sobbing on the floor. Crying was weak, and I didn’t think any of these vampire hunters would be found crying on the floor of their rooms. I quickly wiped away the tears.