The Vampire Legacy III; Familiar Souls (5 page)

"Yes, but if it will help us to help
you with your problem, Michael,” Julian added, taking a bite of his
Danish, then letting Jack loose again, "maybe, we should hear
it."

"And waste a good summer day?" Michael
questioned, then looked at his friends, and realized that they
weren't going to let him get away with it. He was going to have to
tell them; otherwise, they wouldn't leave him alone. "Where to
begin, because really, there doesn't seem to be a starting
point."

"Well, we know about Charles, and the
other two, Justin and Cristian, but we just don't know how they're
involved." Julian said and watched Michael sit back and get
comfortable in the chair.

"Charles isn't my sire, despite what
you might think." Michael said softly. "He was a vampire, but for
some reason, he wouldn't turn us. The three of us wanted
immortality, after hearing Charles tell his stories for countless
nights, and we wanted it so badly, we could taste it
already.

"It was Justin's idea to visit one of
Charles' friends, an old vampire that lived deep in the woods near
the town where we were living. She had a young figure, but seemed
to have many centuries behind her and when we asked her to change
us, she laughed. She told us that we were going about this all the
wrong way, and that our reasons for wanting this gift were
childish.

"She wanted us to think about what we
really wanted first, before jumping into it, and then, in a month,
she wanted us to come back and maybe she would introduce us to
another vampire she knew who would help us with the transformation.
So, the three of us sat and sulked for a month, trying to figure
out the real reason we wanted to become vampires so badly. Cristian
wanted the ability to do anything he wanted so that he could save
the world from us, noble, but silly, since he was only one boy and
there were thousands of people in the world, I wanted it for
myself, which I admit was a little selfish, but after the death of
my parents, I didn't want to die. I was afraid of the other side,
of the void I thought we fell into when we died. I didn't want to
be like my parents.

"Justin wouldn't tell us straight out
what he wanted it for, but I suspected that it wasn't good. He had
always had darkness around him darker then Cristian, which only
came out when really provoked. Justin was just darkness, even as a
mortal. He would tell us how he wanted it for the girls, so that he
could control their thoughts, and if he liked them and they didn't
like him; he could change their minds. I thought, at the time, that
it seemed like a good idea, to have whoever you wanted, Cristian
didn't see it as anything special, the reason, but after a while it
seemed to grow on him. So we had it, finally, the reason we wanted
it so badly was power.

"Plain and simple, and if the woman
didn't like it, there were other vampires that we could turn to."
Michael looked at Ashley, then at Julian and sipped at the coffee
that the maid had brought him.

"So, what happened then?" Ashley asked.
"Did she agree?"

"No." He answered.

"No?" Julian asked. Michael shook his
head. "After a whole month of making you wait, she said
no?"

"She felt our reason was too
destructive, that we three together, would do some irreversible
damage to this place. She thought that together we would be
powerful.”

“
So, you found someone
else?” Ash asked.

“
Actually, he found us.”
Michael smiled. He closed his eyes and thought back to that time,
when Charles was out of town and a stranger knocked on the front
door. “I told him not to answer it, because, even though I was
still a mortal, I could feel the danger from inside the house.
There was a presence outside that just should have been left there,
but it had always been a competition with Justin and me. If I
wanted it, he had to have it, and the other way around, so he let
the man in, and he looked like a vampire. His eyes were sunken in,
as if he hadn’t fed in months, his cheekbones and jaw seemed to be
noticeable under his skin, which looked as though it was pulled
tightly across his bones.

“
I think Justin regretted
opening the door once he saw what stepped through, but that all
faded, in each of us, as the man began to speak. He had an offer
for us and the conditions seemed simple enough. He would give us
what we wanted if we could prove ourselves worthy by bringing a
young girl, preferably a teenage virgin, to his large home in the
mountains; he gave us each directions to this place and one week to
complete it. Each of us had to bring a girl and whichever one of us
made it, would be given the gift, which was what we desired
most.”

“
You agreed, I assume.”
Julian said smartly. Michael smiled.

“
We agreed, and with
Charles out of town, no one could stop us.” Michael sighed. “Each
of us found our girl and brought them to the house where he had
directed us to. It wasn’t his home, but a place where the girls
would be taken off our hands and we would wait for him to send for
us. We were there maybe two days, wandering the city during the day
and sleeping in the finest inn at night. When the message arrived
that we should visit his home, we were whisked away in a black
coach, with a hooded driver. Something right out of a horror movie,
it seemed, though there were no movies back then. We arrived just
after dusk at the very large mansion that sat on top of a narrow
hill, with a lake in the back yard and no neighbors for
miles.

“
We were seen in, brought
to our rooms, bathed, dressed, and fed supper all before we met the
man who was to be our sire.

“
He stepped out of the
shadows and greeted us pleasantly, then asked us to follow him as
he made his way through the house. When he stopped and flung open
two double doors, we couldn’t believe our eyes. It was like a
shrine, a large stone statue of some horned beast sat in the middle
of the floor, swords and chains, and whips hung from the ceilings
and walls, and he asked us to enter freely and of our own will,
which we did.

“
Justin seemed thrilled to
be there, and ran up and touched the statue, which seemed to reach
out and punch him, for he flew back across the room, and then the
man smiled and instructed us not to ever touch the statue. Justin
mumbled under his breath and rubbed his head as I looked around
this dark place.”

“
So, how come you didn’t
just pack up and leave?” Julian asked.

“
After that incident, you
think we would have, but immortality was in our grasps and we were
so power hungry that we didn’t even care.” Michael sighed and got
comfortable in the chair again. “We spent the next week in
preparation for the big night, a full moon night, when we would
become immortal. Every day, Devon, as he asked us to call him,
would make us drink this thick red juice, at least twice a day,
then we would have to sit down to a five course meal and eat all of
it. Before this ever happened, I wasn’t as big as you see me now, I
was a lot skinnier, but Devon made us eat so much that I put on
weight.

“
The night of the full
moon came quickly for me, I was too nervous to care about the rest
of the week. Justin seemed quite calm about the whole things, but
Cristian did a lot of disappearing the days before it. That night
Devon asked us to come into the hall where the large statue was and
kneel before it. We all were there, in our red robes and black
clothes and we did everything that he instructed us to do. With our
wrists up so that we could see them, he used a sword and slashed
them. The blood was everywhere, but no matter how much I wanted to
run for my life, I just sat there and watched my own blood run from
my veins. It seemed like hours, as I watched the blood seep out,
before 1 saw the movement of my skin, as it seemed to lace itself
back together, closing the wound, then it appeared as if it had
never happened.

“
We were vampires and we
hadn’t even realized what he had been doing with us. The red liquid
that we drank was his blood, and it had started the process for us,
which was why he was so stern about us taking it. The room seemed
to change as our blood touched the alter, where the large statue
was. It seemed to glow red, and we watched as a man brought in an
unconscious girl. He laid her down on the altar, bound her tightly
and woke her up.”

“
They sacrificed her?”
Ashley asked him. He nodded. “Michael, what kind of dark world had
you fallen into?”

“
The kind that I thought I
would never get out of. She was sacrificed and we were lead to the
dungeons where we took the blood of the three girls we had brought
there. It was complete, the transformation was done, but the dying
period had begun and it was like nothing I had ever
experienced.

“
While Cristian and I
seemed to have problems dealing with our bodies, Justin seemed to
be basting in the glory of it. He was what he had truly always
wanted to be, powerful. I could see it from the moment we changed
that something darker was in Justin’s blood, darker that both
Cristian and I put together.” Michael sighed. He looked up at the
sky then out at the grass once again, watching Jack play with the
birds. “We escaped after several weeks, knowing that Charles would
be out looking for us, and I remember looking back at the house as
we ran away. I remember thinking about how much it looked like an
old castle, hiding up in the fog, looking down on the village
below, casting its shadow on the people there, and I wanted nothing
more than to be far, far away from it and never go
back.”

“
So, what did Charles say
when you returned?” Julian questioned.

“
He noticed the change
right away and he brought us to a sorceress that he knew well, she
tried everything to reverse it, but nothing worked, what was done,
was done.” Michael pulled out a stone from his pocket that was
wrapped in gold and hung from a necklace. “She gave us this, to
help with the darkness, but Justin refused to take his. He didn’t
want help; he wanted more. More of anything, blood, power, life. I
thought that he would harm anything that he touched, until he met
Jescinda, who would become his dearest friend, but nothing more
than that. She was already married when they met.”

“
So what happened to her?
Did Justin hurt her?” Julian questioned.

“
No, I did.” He replied.
His friend looked at him oddly. “After a while of not feeding, when
I was new, the bloodlust became so intense that I blacked out and
took Jescinda, body and blood, and Justin found out. I left to keep
him sane, to help him see that he didn’t have to hurt to get his
point across. Jescinda refused to see anyone of us after that, and
Justin lost her as a friend. I left the state, and came down here,
and I have been living in New London since. I know that Cristian is
here, he’s close by with Sage, but I don’t know about Justin, he
hides himself well. If he were here, -whether he would accept the
invitation or not, I would like him to be here.”

“
Blood ties, my friend.”
Julian smiled. “Nothing can break them, not even time.”

“
Who’s Sage?” Lauren’s
voice asked suddenly. He turned in his seat and looked at Quinn and
Lauren, who apparently had been sitting behind him listening to the
story the whole time.

“
She’s the daughter of an
old friend of mine. When her parents died, I became legal guardian
of her, but her aunt and uncle insisted that maybe the young girl
would be better with them, since I had no one else, except the
three of you. She’s in New London, at college, and she lives with
her cousin Bobbie.”

“
I assume you asked her to
come home.” Julian replied.

“
Yeah, but how do you
explain to a young woman that you haven’t aged since she was
seven?” Michael asked.

“
Don’t worry, we’ll help.”
Lauren said and put a hand on his shoulder. Michael looked at her
and smiled, then looked out at the ocean and sighed. He wondered if
she’d even remember him.

Chapter
3

January

I walked in the front door and closed
it quietly, then looked around the room and began to sneak through
the house. A light flipped on and I turned to look at Bobbie and
Taryn, as they stared at me with anger in their eyes. I smiled and
pulled my sweater off, revealing the light T-shirt
underneath.

“
Are you insane?” Bobbie
asked.

“
No, and I’m an adult, I
think I can make my own decisions.” I replied.

“
What are you talking
about? Sage, it’s the end of January, you know, the middle of
winter, what are you doing wearing just a sweater out there?”
Bobbie asked, looking at me sternly as she took on a parental
tone.

“
I don’t think it’s that
cold.” I replied. “Besides, there’s no snow on the ground and it’s
like fifty degrees out.”

“
So, where were you?”
Taryn asked. I looked at her, knowing that she might know where I
had gone. “Who were you with?”

“
Does it matter?” I
questioned. “And, if you must know, I was in the woods.”

“
It’s not a full moon yet,
Sage.” Bobbie replied and sat on the couch again. “There’s no
reason for you to be out there.”

“
Look, I love you two, but
please, don’t tell me what and what not to do.” I asked.