Not all the tables have human food, of course. The Vampires, who are part of the rebellion, have a table of their own. There are about twelve of them, all dressed up in sailor uniforms (white pants, white shirts with epaulettes on their shoulders displaying their rank) and they look tall, dark and gorgeous! Wow, I never thought I would consider any Vamp ‘gorgeous’, apart from that ‘Cato’ but he’s an Elder and he probably put a spell on me or something. Well anyway, the crew here looks hot! Their table is no better or worse than ours, in fact, it is in the middle, and they are whispering away to the other Clones and Watchers as they drink their synthesised blood. It’s a surreal sight for myself and my friends, but a welcome one.
‘Aecia.’
‘Uncle! At last! You’re a difficult man to get hold of.’
‘Have you eaten your fill?’
‘Yes, and I’m desperate to talk to you!’
He is smiling friend, he doesn’t look quite as worried as before. Perhaps we are nearing the end of this rescue. Perhaps we will be safe soon.
‘Come to my cabin Aecia and we’ll talk. There is much to tell you.’
‘You’re telling me!’
Chapter Eleven
ORIGINAL SINS
Uncle’s cabin, or at least, the one he has brought me to, is plain and cosy like ours.
‘Go!’
‘Okay Aecia, give me a chance to sit down. Now, first I’ll tell you how I came to own a ship such as this, and where we are going.’
‘Garok told me that you have two lives?’
‘Yes, I became Uncle Rauul when you were born, so that I could be part of your world and watch over you. I am a rich man Aecia. I have been a Vampire for a long time and I have accumulated wealth along the way.’
‘So you bought the ship?’
‘No. I had it made fourteen years ago. It is transport between my two lives. On the surface, I am an important but private Vampire, below, I am Doctor Rauul, founder of the rebellion.’
‘You are important? How important?’
‘The most important, to most of the Vampire race.’
An idea is growing in my mind Amica. Remember in the forest, when Uncle spouted all that weird, scary latin jargon, and frightened the life out of me? Not just me, the whole forest seemed to shrink and tremble at his words. No he couldn’t be? Could he?
‘Are you..? You’re not… You’re not the ‘Original’!’
‘Yes.’
I’m not frightened. Why am I not frightened?
‘I’m not frightened of you Uncle. Do I even call you that? You can’t be my Uncle, you are thousands of years old!’
‘Yes I am, and you’re right, I’m not your Uncle.’
‘But why did you look after me then, and pretend to be my kin? And what on earth do I call you? Yo! It’s Mr Original!’
Why am I being flippant friend? I’m sad, really sad that he’s not my kin. I’ve loved him all my life as my Uncle and best friend.
‘You can call me…’
‘What? Why won’t you look at me? Call you what?’
‘You can call me ….Father.’ What did he just say Amica?
‘What did you just say to me?’
‘I said, you can call me father.’
‘Wha….What? I’ve got to get out of here!’
Garok is outside the door and he has grabbed my arm to stop me fleeing from a truth I just can’t handle. I feel it’s true, it’s as if I’d always known. His constant attention over the years, his wise words and kindnesses, his love. I’ve felt his love always. I know it and I feel it now, but it’s just too much!
‘Aecia.’
‘Let me go!’
‘Look, I know you’re upset, mixed up, and I don’t know what he said to you in there, but look at him. He loves you. He told me it’s because of you he changed everything Aecia. He’s still your Uncle.’
Garok obviously doesn’t know everything yet friend. I can’t tell him now. I can see Uncle through the crack in the door (yes, he is still Uncle, not father) and he is sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. I can see you too Amica, with your arms wrapped around him, giving me daggers with your eyes.
‘My life is a lie Garok. Do you know how that feels?’
Garok’s eyes are narrowing as he mulls over what I have said. I can almost see the cogs in his brain turning as he tries to work out what I mean. He’s not stupid, he’s probably half way to the truth already, but I’m not telling him yet.
‘Whatever Aecia! It’ll all work out. Get back in there and talk to him.’
He has pushed me in and closed the cabin door behind me. I have no choice but to stay. Me, who gets annoyed at having to breathe, because it interrupts my sentences, can think of nothing to say. I’m confused, I’m angry, I’m scared. I don’t know who I am. He is looking at me with watery cat’s eyes. I do love him, but as my Uncle. How do I love him as my father? What about my real father who raised me? Was my mother, even my real mother?
‘Mother, was she my mother?’
‘In the real sense of the word, your parents were your parents. They brought you up, they cared for you, clothed, fed, and loved you all of your life.’
‘Good. I’m glad you know that. They were my mum and dad, and they always will be. You are my Uncle, that’s all, my Uncle!’
He looks sad. I don’t want to make him sad but it’s true. I loved my own mother and father. He can’t expect me to feel any different. Anyway friend, he gave me away. He didn’t want his feeble human child. They took me in, in spite of that fact.
‘Why did you give me away? Was it because I wasn’t a big strong, blood-seeking Vampire?’
‘No! No! Please don’t ever think that. I adored you from the second you were born! So small, tiny and helpless. I wanted to wrap you up in armour and keep you safe from all those who would harm you in this world. You were the first human I had seen as a living breathing miracle. Looking at you, a small bundle of delicate life, I remembered who Humans really were, who I was before I became Vampire. I was consumed with such painful emotion, when I looked at my sins since then. The thousands of Humans I had killed for pleasure, and to satisfy my thirst. The gallons of blood I had callously spilt for myself, and for all the other greedy demons I had created with my venomous blood.’
‘Well why give me away then? Wouldn’t I have been safer with you? You gave me away into a world created by you, full of those ‘greedy demons’ as you called them. You couldn’t wait to get rid of me.’
‘No! Never! I was consumed by you, imprisoned by my own heart, but I also knew myself. The changes I had decided to make were not going to be easy, and they had to start with me. I had grown addicted to my way of life, the ever-overflowing goblets of blood, multiple servants I treated like dirt under my feet, the power I enjoyed. I was spoiled, pampered, selfish, but above all, I was dangerous!’
‘I was in danger from you? You wanted to drink my blood?’
‘Of course not! Not in my right mind, but if I deprived myself of human blood, I didn’t know how I was going to react. I had never exercised any self-control in any area of my life. I never had to. I was the Original, feared and respected by all. I was horrible Aecia. A horrible, evil and remorseless being. I was a plague upon the earth. I didn’t deserve such a precious, innocent and untouched daughter such as you. You were safer away from me.’ I want to put my arms around him. He is almost shaking with emotion.
‘Uncle, it’s okay, You’re not like that now. You did what you said and you changed. Not just you, you have helped change the lives of other Vampires, and the Clones, look at the Clones and the Watchers you have helped. It’s okay, please don’t be sad, I understand, I do.’ We are disturbed by the sound of Garok knocking gently on the cabin door.
‘Rauul, the men need you on the deck. I think we’re almost here.’
Uncle wipes his tear-filled eyes brusquely, under Garok’s slightly surprised gaze, and quickly exits the room.
‘You okay?’
&
nbsp; ‘Yeah, just give me a minute would you?’
I’m alone friend and I don’t know how to feel. I can hear Garok talking to Lupe outside the door, but I’m not ready to go out to them yet. I can’t think straight and I don’t want to talk. Just sit here with me for a while friend. Did you ever feel like there wasn’t enough room in your head for everything you have just learned? I don’t just mean with Maths, English, Biology, theology and blah blah blah. I mean with just living; keeping secrets or holding confidences from one friend to another, loving your best friend’s big brother, maybe feeling like you’re ugly and useless at everything; maybe your mum’s arguing with your dad and you think they’ll split up etc. etc. Well think of that stuff and imagine a million times worse! Everything I thought I knew has just exploded from beneath me and I feel like an elephant, stranded on a frozen lake, and the sun’s coming out!
‘Aecia, we are here. Come quickly, we need to get everyone off as fast as we can.’
I can hear the sound of a thousand tiny Watcher feet, gently but rapidly, padding past the door. As I come out of the cabin, I can see they are not running to the stairs and up to the higher levels, they are rushing towards one of the cabins on the farthest left side of this level.
‘What on earth? Garok, why are they going in there, and not up to the top deck to get off?’
‘You’ll see.’
As we move nearer, I can see the Watchers filing into the cabin, three at a time and shutting the door behind them. They don’t come back out, and then three more go in and disappear.
‘I am not going in there Garok until you tell me what’s going on.’
‘All I know is that there is a hole in the floor of that cabin; we are lowered down in a kind of cylindrical lift. On the other end of it, lies your Uncle’s hide-out and the headquarters of the Rebellion. I’ve never been here before either you know, so I haven’t a clue what it’s like, but I do know it’ll be a damn sight safer than standing in this lobby arguing with you!’
‘Come on Aecia, it’s our new home!’
Lupe throws me a very articulate comment as she whooshes past, excited, red faced and eager to be the next one in the queue.
‘She’s back eh Garok? Back to her effervescent self. We’ll never know where she is now, especially if this place is big. How big is it?’
Garok is shaking his head, ‘I don’t know, just said I don’t know what it’s like, I’ve never been.’
‘Well it has to be spacious because look how many of us there are, and there must be people there already. I wonder how..’
‘Go on!’
Well of all the cheek Amica, he has just pushed me in with him to shut me up! Oh how lovely, Bill is here, he’s going down in the lift with us.
The room is small, it’s not a cabin, more like a broom cupboard, with a gaping hole in the middle of it. There is a gentle vibration from the floor as the lift ascends up its smooth tunnel towards us. It feels like I am in a stream-lined car with an engine humming, even before I get into the lift. Here it is, it’s almost completely made of glass, but it must be reinforced glass or surely it would be too fragile to transport us all from a ship to a headquarters, or underground land, or wherever it is we are going. It is cylindrical as Garok said, and the doors slide open silently, more than half-way of its circumference, and Bill, Garok and I are stepping in.
I feel nervous, there are new people here, new Vamps in particular, what if they are imposters and not part of the rebellion , but are spies? What if some other Vamps now have the ‘shadow’ pill, and have seen Uncle’s enormous ship during the day, and followed us here? They could be waiting at the other end of this lift. Bill, intuitive and sensitive as ever, has taken my trembling hand in his own three-fingered grasp. Garok has reached out and is holding my other hand and they are both smiling at me. Their hands are warm in mine and I realise just how lucky I am friend. We’ll be okay. We are all together and we’ll be okay.
Chapter Twelve
TODAY AT ‘HOME’ 01.01.3013
Amica, it is exactly one year since I first met you! It is your birthday and it is mine! We are twins, friend! So much has happened to us since then. Our lives are so different since the day we arrived on Uncle’s island. When I stepped out of that lift I walked into my very first home.; somewhere that it didn’t matter that I was only human, not Vampire. A place where everybody is different, yet everybody is the same; Human, Watcher, Clone, Sanguis and Vampire live beside each other in peace and we are a family. ‘Home’ is the perfect name for the island of sanctuary where we all live together. In just fifteen years, Uncle, his brother and his closest like-minded friends built an underground city with all that entails. The only requirement is an open mind, willingness to compromise and an open heart.
The surface is held back with reinforced steel and each section is divided into about twenty ‘houses’; each community has its own greenhouse sustained by U.V.A light. We grow all kinds of vegetables and fruits; tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, apples and pears. The smell inside it is glorious and I love to tend the gardens in there. Our water is collected through millions of tiny shoots bored into the ceiling of the city and this is filtered and collected in enormous vats in the storage area. This is then distributed through pipes to all the dwellings in each section.
We have smallholdings where we keep chickens for their eggs, and cows, sheep and goats live up above on the surface. We grow soya beans too because most of the Clones don’t like to eat meat now that they have seen the living breathing animals; they are so in love with them all, killing them is out of the question. We do shear the sheep for wool though, drink the cows and goats milk, and eat copious amounts of vegetables!
Uncle’s island is truly a secret island; it is not on the map so it is safe to go up above during the day, at least for short periods of time. It is lush and wild up there for the most part. Wild animals like wolves, monkeys and wild-cats live beside snakes, squirrels, and a rainbow of different birds. It is an incredibly beautiful, noisy and dangerous place; untouched and untamed (apart from our little section farm) and it is the perfect disguise for our city beneath. Garok and I slip up there alone sometimes just to marvel at the sight of animals enjoying absolute freedom in their natural surroundings. We were imprisoned by our own humanity from the day we were born into a Vampire world, and the scene reflects our new life; we are free here. Free and in love, and there is nothing that stirs the soul more than the view up above.
Amica, do you remember the day I discovered who ‘Disembodied voice’ was? It was the day after we arrived and Garok took me by the hand and led me to the infirmary. I was to meet the Sanguis, both of them; the female who had saved Garok in the tunnels, and her mate, who had fought Anne in the forest. I wasn’t eager to do this as I still had my reservations about the Sanguis, but Garok is persistent, he wouldn’t take no for an answer so I begrudgingly went with him. Before we got to their curtained bed, my head started to feel odd, it was like the volume of my own heartbeat had been turned up to maximum and it was filling my head with its boom! Then the buzzing started, followed by the familiar tone of ‘Disembodied voice’ and I nearly fell to my knees in shock.
‘Hello Aecia.’ I couldn’t believe I hadn’t even asked about him yet; how he was, WHO he was?
‘Hallo Aecia.’ This time there was an echo behind his words and I felt him near.
‘Garok, it is voice! Where is he?’ Garok said nothing but held my hand tightly as he drew the curtains around the first infirmary bed. It’s a good job he did have me restrained when the open curtains revealed who was sitting up in it!
‘Are you not going to say hallo friend?’
‘KASEN!!’ My god Garok let me go! You know who he is, what he did to me! He sent me to be strung up and drained! He probably is responsible for the deaths of many of my clan! He is evil!’
‘Aecia.’
‘Listen voice, this is not the time for idle chatter. I’ve just found one of the evil Elders in our home! He is a spy, he is dang
erous! I have to find Uncle to tell him!’
‘Aecia, I am sitting on the bed in front of your face.’
‘Wha…What!’
I looked to Garok to help make some sense out of my confusion, but he was just standing there, grinning. I looked towards the bed to see the same grin living on Kasen’s face, and then he spoke and I knew. It was the same tone, the same warm accent; it was ‘Disembodied voice’. Kasen was ‘Disembodied voice’!
‘Come here to me Aecia, it is wonderful to be able to show you my true self. I’m not Kasen the elder; cruel, selfish and loathing all Humans; I am Kasen, brother to the first one, and rebel to the Rebellion!’
‘But you sent me to the Clone farm! You tried to kill me when Uncle and the rebels raided the farm!’
‘An act, a theatre production, I had to do those things to maintain my credibility as an Elder. My position as a spy within their ranks is crucial to the Rebellion. We need to monitor the High Council and the Elders to find out their plans. Anything I learn from them gives us the advantage. Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.
‘But you left me there, on the Clone farm. If it wasn’t for Uncle and Garok I’d still be there!’
‘Correct, but did you ever ask them how they knew which farm you were in? There are many, many Clone farms all over the country, five in The Capital alone. ‘
‘Well no, come to think of it, I didn’t ask them tha…You, it was you that told them! My god!’
‘Yes, and who do you think had the Watchers on guard, ready to rescue you when it all started to go wrong at your raid, after you had been in the Haven?’
‘You again, and you know about the Haven! I just never would have believed it, not in a million years would I have believed that my ‘Disembodied voice’ was you!’
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