Wake of Darkness (18 page)

Chapter 16

Present Day—Texas

 Sophie chewed on her thumbnail as
she gazed out the front window, basking in the early morning sunlight. She was
the first one awake. Her eyes were drawn to the tree which the vampire had been
pinned to when Zoey and Jim had killed him; the vampire that had asked her if
she wanted to know where her mother was.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Zoey
murmured.

Sophie turned and found Zoey
sitting on one of the couches behind her, still in her pajamas, her red hair
wild around her face.

“I’m just thinking about the
vampire who attacked here the other day.”

“Yes?”

Sophie sighed. “I feel like all I
do is ask questions around here.”

“But if you don’t know something,
it’s wise to ask those who do,” Zoey observed and gestured towards the open
seat next to her.

Sophie plopped down on the couch
and looked at the other girl incredulously. “How did you do that to the
vampire?” she asked. “You weren’t even outside yet.”

Zoey smiled. “Do you remember when
I said that my gift is different?”

“Yes.”

“Laney is able to move anything she
wishes, with just a thought. She catches glimpses of the future; she’s useful
in a psychic circle, just as you are.”

Sophie nodded and waited.

“I can’t move just anything, but I
do have the ability to manipulate natural objects.”

“And she’s damn good at it, too,”
Jim interjected, suddenly appearing across the room from them, on his way to
the kitchen.

“Yeah, I gathered,” Sophie replied.

“He flatters his sister,” Zoey said
reproachfully.

“It’s not flattery, it’s the
truth,” he rebutted. “Laney’s good and she’s getting better, but give Zoey a
wooden stake, and there’s not a vampire who stands a chance.”

Sophie looked at Zoey. “Is it just
wood that you can control?”

“No,” Zoey replied. “I can
manipulate several elements: water, fire, wood, and earth. Anything that is
natural to this world, I can move.”

“She’s trying to get wind figured
out,” Jim added with a smile. “Then she’ll really give ‘em a run for their
money.”

A smile played at the corner of
Zoey’s mouth.

“Oh!” Sophie exclaimed. “Is that
why there are piles of wood around the house outside – so you have plenty of
things to throw around if you have to?”

Zoey nodded.

“Huh,” Sophie mused. “But you’re
not good at the whole seeing the future thing we did, right?”

“That’s right. I can manipulate
parts of the physical world only.”

“You smelled the vampire,” Sophie
said, the realization dawning on her.

“Yes, but I didn’t
sense
him.”

“Hmm.”

Zoey watched her for a few minutes,
allowing her to stare off into space.

“What else is on your mind?” Zoey
asked.

“He said something about my
mother,” Sophie replied quietly.

“Yes, he did,” Zoey replied.

“I wonder what happened to her.”

Jim grimaced. “Probably nothin’
good, kiddo. He probably mentioned her because he knows where she is. You’re
here, so we know she didn’t die during the transformation; she’s a vampire. But,
she’s not your mother anymore.”

“I wonder where she is,” Sophie
whispered.

Zoey reached over and grasped
Sophie’s hand. “No good can come from those thoughts.”

Sophie sighed. “You’re right. I
know you’re right.”
But still…

The room fell silent. Sophie stared
down at Zoey’s hand where it held her own.

Sophie ran her finger over the band
of gold that encircled the ring finger on Zoey’s left hand. “That’s pretty,”
she said quietly. The band was etched with a swirling design that looked like
it was from the 1920s.

Zoey pulled her hand away. She spun
the ring around her finger and pulled it off. She handed it to Sophie.

Sophie glanced up to where Jim had
been standing, but he had disappeared. She looked back at the ring. There was
an inscription on the inside.

“What does this say?” Sophie asked
to herself, holding it up in the sunlight. “To my sunshine; my Hazel. Love always,
Jack.” She cocked her head to the side and looked at Zoey questioningly.

The redhead reached out and gently
took the ring back from Sophie. She pinched it between her fingers and read the
inscription. The sunlight reflected off of the shinning surface, and when the
light hit Zoey’s eyes, they were sad.

“Who’s Hazel?” Sophie asked,
feeling the sadness emanate off of her newly-adopted sister.

Zoey looked at her meaningfully.

“Oh,” Sophie whispered.

“I changed my name,” Zoey replied. She
slipped the ring back on her finger and tugged on a chain at her neck. Sophie
had seen the small cross at her throat, but she hadn’t noticed the long chain
tucked into Zoey’s shirt.

Zoey slipped the chain off over her
head and handed the locket to Sophie.

Sophie hesitantly took it from her.
Zoey nodded. Sophie carefully opened the locket to find a dashing face smiling
back at her in black and white.

“That’s Jack,” Zoey whispered
sadly. “I couldn’t bear hearing anyone else speak my name if he wasn’t around
to say it.”

“What happened?” Sophie gasped.

Zoey took the locket back and
tucked it safely back into her shirt, close to her heart. She smiled wistfully.
“We were attacked. A small coven came after us. They didn’t know what we were;
they thought we were human. We fought back, but there were too many for us. We’d
killed most of them, but there were still two. Jack took them on. He killed
them, but not before they killed him first.” She dabbed at her eye with a
shaking hand. “He died in my arms.”

Sophie didn’t know what to say. “I’m
so sorry,” she whispered and pulled Zoey into her arms.

The older woman sank against her,
and Sophie stroked her hair. Zoey didn’t cry, but she trembled in Sophie’s
arms. Sophie sighed, holding her there.

Suddenly, something in the air had
changed. She didn’t know what it was until Alexander suddenly appeared. Sophie’s
eyes met his and held them there. She tried to smile at him, but she was
struggling to hold back tears, and the look came out wrong.

He nodded, bowed his head slightly
and disappeared out of the room.

Zoey exhaled heavily and leaned
back from Sophie’s arms. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I don’t mean to get
upset.”

Sophie shook her head. “It’s okay. Don’t
worry about it.”

Zoey nodded. “Sometimes I wish our
memories didn’t stay with us as well as they do.” She sighed. “I’m going to go
get ready for the day.”

“Okay,” Sophie replied, and watched
Zoey disappear out of the room.

She shook her head and walked to
the window, running her fingers through her hair. She closed her eyes and let
out a long, steady exhale through pursed lips. When she inhaled, the scent of
coffee filled her nose, and it beckoned her to the kitchen.

It was occupied only by Alexander. She
found herself feeling awkward around him; she didn’t really know how to act. Everyone
else seemed to think the change in their relationship was normal and expected,
but for Sophie it was something entirely foreign.

Everything had been wonderful the
day before. She and Alexander had emerged from the weapons room, and when
they’d walked into the house, everyone acted like nothing had changed. He held
her hand, but no one noticed. They spent the evening talking quietly, their
heads bent towards each other and not one person commented on the change in the
pair.

Being together hadn’t seemed
awkward the day before, but now that it was a new day, it was almost like Sophie
didn’t know how to act.

“Good morning,” he greeted. “Did
you sleep well?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Thanks.”

“Would you like some coffee?” he
asked.

“Please,” she replied and walked
closer to him.

He walked over to the cupboard and
pulled two coffee mugs out.

“Zoey was up early,” he commented. “It’s
usually just me awake this early. Mornings will not be lonely any longer, now
that you are here.”

“I think she wanted to talk to me.”

He nodded as he poured two mugs of
coffee. “She needed to tell you her story.”

“It explains why she’s so quiet,”
Sophie said.
And why she’s not afraid of anything. She's got nothing left to
lose.

He nodded as he poured the perfect
amount of cream into one, stirred it with a spoon and then pushed it towards
Sophie.

“So what are you doing today?” she
asked.

“Just a few things to wrap up at
work. We’ll be leaving soon.”

“That’s right,” she replied
quietly. “It’ll be weird leaving this town.”

“Good morning!” Laney exclaimed,
suddenly appearing in the room.

Sophie jumped and Alexander took a
step backwards from her and picked up his mug of forgotten coffee.

A fully-dressed Zoey silently
appeared in one of the chairs at the table. Her tight white jeans and white
tank top made her red hair seem even more on fire.

As if someone had thrown a switch,
the room was suddenly filling up. Alexander meandered over to the table with a
newspaper under his arm as Catherina and Dante walked in the doorway. Sophie
wiggled up onto one of the barstools beside the long countertop and blew on her
coffee as she watched everyone mill about.

Zoey picked an apple up out of the
bowl on the table and bit into it. Dante set a cup of coffee in front of her
and another in front of Catherina. The latter looked up and smiled at him, and
then scowled at Alexander when she realized he wasn’t paying any attention to
the pair. Jim and Laney were bickering over the cereal and milk, which ended in
Jim tousling her hair and Laney punching him in the arm.

Alexander sat forward in his chair
and laid the folded paper in front of Zoey with a serious look on his face. She
snatched it up, biting her lip. Sophie pulled her cup away from her lips.

“What’s up?” Sophie asked.

Alexander grinned. “Shoe sale.”

Zoey tossed the paper at his head,
which he easily ducked.

            “I’ve got to go,” he said. He stood up and
kissed Sophie on the forehead before disappearing from the room.

            She and Zoey exchanged a look; Zoey smiled.

*

“How did it all begin? I mean us. How
did our kind come to be?”

“Well,” Alexander answered, “that
story is one in which Catherina was uncharacteristically useful. Many decades
ago, she was determined to find the answer to that question herself. From his
own research, Dante believed that our kind had originated in Mesopotamia. He
gathered stories of Kahala, the first vampire there and her daughter—I mean to
say her biological daughter—Ishta. Kahala was a beautiful young woman in life
and—as you would guess—with child when she was attacked and transformed.

“Legend holds that when Kahala traveled
to the underworld, the creature at the gate did not allow her entry. She
returned to the Earth with an insatiable thirst. And of course, her daughter
had sprung from her womb at her death.

“According to the stories, Kahala
was the epitome of evil and Ishta carried an inner light. It is a legend which
has been handed down verbally through many generations of humans and of our
kind.

“Catherina eventually found Ishta. At
the time, Catherina was truly remorseful of the lives she had taken. Ishta
believed she was good. She saw that Catherina was a creature like herself and
not a blood-thirsty vampire like her own mother. The two spoke with one another
for a time, but Ishta had no answers for Catherina except to say that she
believed that we are created for the sole purpose of balancing out the evils
brought into the world by our mothers and fathers.

“She said something to Catherina that
I shall always remember. To Catherina’s question of what we are, Ishta replied
that ancient India had named us untouchables—those cast out of society, but she
added, ‘Never forget that we are more immortal than the vampires; virtually
untouchable by the angel of death’.”

“But not immune to it."

He nodded. “That is true. We may
dodge death for centuries, but it does not mean that we will dodge it forever,”
he responded.
Then again, we may.

“Well…,” she began, but stopped.

“What is it?” he asked softly,
taking her hand in his own, stroking the palm with his fingertips.