Divine Blood (Vampire Love Story #6)

by Night, H. T.

  We entered the billiards room, passing by the ballroom, the conservatory, the library, and so on. This house was laid out like a regular Clue board game. I kept my amusement of the architecture to myself.

  “Do you play?” Brock asked.

  “Pool?” I asked.

  “Billiards,” he said correcting me, as if I was a three year old.

  “No, it’s not my kind of sport. I’m more man versus man and see who is the baddest between them, not play a game where I hit balls with sticks in holes.”

  “Not even golf?”

  “Golf’s not bad-ass enough for me, sorry.”

  “I learned my lesson. I will never correct you again,” Brock laughed.

  I laughed, too. I guessed Brock wasn’t trying to be a total douchebag. Guys like him just had it oozing out of their pores: class consciousness. I could see that he was a nice guy, but he played the room like Donald Trump. Why did he play the room? What was he trying to gain? Was he just that much of a cocky ass who acted that way without having another agenda? At this point, I wasn’t certain what I believed, but I’m leaning to the latter. I think he was just born cocky.

  “You have to admit it,” Brock said to me.

  “Admit what?” I asked.

  “You and I are alike. In fact, a lot alike.”

  “How so?” I asked, thinking there wasn’t much of a similarity between us, beyond that we each governed an island for Mani people, but I was curious enough to see what he might say.

  He filled me in. “We understand the people around us. We understand how to impose our will onto others, so they believe it’s their own will. You and I are a lot alike. I want you to never forget that.”

  “Interesting perspective. I never thought of myself that way, that I was imposing my will on others. I think it’s time for us to go, but thanks for the lovely talk,” I said. “I think we learned a lot about each other tonight.”

  “Don’t be afraid, Josiah,” Brock said.

  “Afraid? Nothing makes me afraid,” I said indignantly.

  “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, my friend. Each of us has at least one thing that terrifies us to tears and deep, deep inside, we all know what it is that scares the hell out of us. It’s different for each of us, but we each have at least one thing that keeps us from thinking we’re gods.”

  “Speak for yourself. Without fear, we could not have courage,” I said.

  “That’s profound,” he said.

  “And with that, I’ll say good night, Brock.” I was beginning to understand that he was still a nice guy, but had a bit of a kook mentality to go with that nice-guy exterior.

  After dinner, Lena, the boys and I were flying back by helicopter to Helena, our island. Jason looked me straight in the eye and said: “I don’t trust him.”

  “Why?” I asked my thirteen-year-old son. Foreboding flooded me, even making the tips of my fingers hurt.

  “I don’t trust that family. Something isn’t right.” Jason would say no more on the topic.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I knew I was going to have to reheat the pancakes in the oven.

  Neither the boys nor Lena would want to get up yet. I’d let them sleep and work on another aspect of my lumberjack breakfast. I got out the bacon and sausage. It was also potato time. Time to dice up those babies and put the necessary oils on them to make them delicious. My boys ate a lot these days. Growing like weeds, it started happening about three years ago when they were thirteen. There was a sudden influx of quadrupled groceries into the house and they devoured just about everything in their paths, turning the copious amounts of food into muscles and energy. If they weren’t in their rooms, they were usually in the kitchen, making tall, thick sandwiches between meals to stave off their constant hunger.

  When they were thirteen, they seemed to scare me most. That was when Jason wanted to become the mystery healer, and the old superhero save-the-day gene that was deep in my soul was being fulfilled in helping him do this. The Deity had said no more Vampire superhero—she had said that I was to focus on my family. I did so, every single day, trying to be a super parent instead of a superhero. But the Deity had said nothing about the super dad who took his son to do some of the most amazing miracles, of all time. Well, since Biblical times.

  Now that my sons knew way too much for any two thirteen year olds to deal with, I decided that the only way Jason would feel good about his gift was to practice it and feel the gratification that came from healing the sick or injured. Plus, he was begging me every day to be able to do it. He was passionate about helping others with his healing gift, from the four-footed furry friends on the island to the two-legged beings, Jason wanted to touch and heal everyone.

  I let it be known in my smaller, private circles that if someone needed some miraculous healing, they were to contact me. I might or might not have my son try to heal the person. I wanted him to develop his skills, but I also wanted him to get experience helping others and discerning who to help. I wanted to keep things on the down low about his healing abilities, while his powers developed and he learned to use them properly.

  The next couple of years, we took in applications, basically from our friends, and we would determine who needed healing the most and prioritize his visits to them. When we made a schedule that would not interfere with studies, Jason and I traveled the islands in the Tasman Sea and to the States, healing those who managed to find us and express a need for healing.

  Jason was a natural at healing, and at communicating compassionately. He loved helping others. It gave him a sense of fulfillment that I had never before seen in him. With each healing, Jason rose up taller and stronger, and quieter...

  Every time was the same. We would meet the person who needed healing and when Jason was ready, he laid his hand directly over the chest of the individual. It didn’t matter where the injury was. That was my son’s style. He would put his hands on the person’s chest, and close his eyes. He would take the person into his heart, and read their needs and fears. He told me that he saw visions of the past, present and future when he trusted his heart and allowed the healing to flow through him and into the person who was sick or injured.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. We were going to meet in eight hours. Unfortunately, I had planned on both boys stumbling out of bed around noon. Joshua was sleeping in after playing video games all night and Jason from reading, and from being in deep thought. If there was one thing I did know, inside and out, it was my boys.

  I grew to know those who lived on my island and even some of the residents of Attica, as well. As a matter of fact, around these parts, the only person I didn’t know well was my next-door-island neighbor Brock Houston...and that made me feel uneasy. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? I guess, it all depended on the kind of person that Brock Houston was. As the seconds ticked closer, I was reminded of why we were having a meeting later on today.

  After that first dinner meeting where we bonded, governor to governor, and then Jason’s expressed mistrust of the Mani governor afterward, Brock Houston didn’t invite me over often. He especially didn’t invite me to a one-on-one discreet meeting. I sent a reciprocal invitation to him to bring his son and come to my castle for dinner, but he declined the invitation due to a schedule conflict and let me know that he would tell me when he had a free night. He did not accept my dinner invitation.

  Though Jason did not trust Brock, I was of the opinion that in order to know thy enemy, one should engage in social events and figure out how they tick. Perhaps, it was the ex-superhero in me who wanted to face him, mano a mano. I was itching to test his mettle.

  Brock had now fully taken over for Atticai. The island had flourished in ways Atticai couldn’t even comprehend and the prosperity of the island even got me to take notice. He seemed to be quite a successful governor, despite coming from old money as a human and transferring those skills to his life as a Mani for the past five years. He seemed to be an ex
cellent manager and I heard no criticism from those he governed, not a peep of dissonance. He seemed to be a squeaky-clean governor, without opposition. Strangely, instead of reassuring me, that lack of dissent from his island worried me. It wasn’t normal for citizens not to have one complaint.

  To his credit, the guy wasn’t doing anything bad that I could see. Jason avoided all of my queries about Brock, and I finally realized that Jason saw what Brock would become, not who he was today, and was put off by it.

  In a weird way, if I would only trust my son’s intuition, I could probably save myself a lot of grief down the road, but the father in me was too stubborn to believe that my son’s instincts were better than mine. Jason was young and had not ever experienced battle, an adult adversary, or even a serious conflict in his young life. I knew my boys were sheltered by our living situation and by having two full-time parents who lived to raise their kids and knew where they were at all times and what they were doing.

  Regardless, if Jason was the prophesied Messiah of the Mani or not, I’d seen the kid pee his pants at the park. So excuse me if I wasn’t on board when he wanted to overrule one of my ideas. Even if he was the Messiah of the Mani, first and foremost, he was my child.

  Jason did not like Brock, but would not speak about his reasons. To my perspective, Brock seemed to turn the bad economic situation on Attica Island upside down in just a matter of weeks. That was pretty remarkable to me. Maybe there was a part of me that thought it was a little too quick, a little too easy, a little too suspicious, but I pursued my suspicions no further at that point. I allowed the residents of Attica Island to flourish without interference from my quarter, mostly because Brock was doing a stunning job at bringing everyone on his island to prosperity.

  I think Brock appreciated that admiration from me because I received a private Mani-to-Mani invitation for a meeting from him. No kids, no significant others, just us. That was his specification and I had no problem with it.

  Brock had me meet him in the back study of his house, next to the big library in his castle. The meeting was to be just the two of us. That was a high form of respect given to someone you trusted, to allow them into your office where all of your work took place and where it was spread out on conference tables in orderly piles and with checklists. Nothing was hidden from me. I was taken aback at the trusting gesture and wondered what it all meant, that I was now privy to the inner life of my friendly, but potential rival governor. He wanted to show me that he was an open book, and yet something prickled at the back of my neck that I was missing something critical about Brock Houston.

  I made my way to the back of the study, shown in by a staff member in a suit, but had a seat offered to me by Brock Houston himself.

  I was a pretty established Mani, comfortable in my own skin after years of adjusting to being an immortal and a mortal, but Brock Houston had the inconceivable ability to almost intimidate me, not physically, but in the way that he carried himself. His bearing was a high-energy but honorable way in which he went about life. Above all others, regal even, as if he thought of himself as a king. Perhaps I was being naive that there was only goodness in Brock Land.

  He just stood in his office like he was the Alpha male. In my line of work, there was only one Alpha male and he was me. So, I had a conflict building, and felt a bit of a power struggle within my core. As a line began to be drawn between my respect for what he had accomplished on the island of Attica in such a short time, and my annoyance that he was pretty damn puffed up by his accomplishments, I began to dislike the guy for no particular reason, except that he held himself in such high regard.

  He was like one of those boxers who paraded before the media as a prelude to the big prizefight in order to show the opponent who was top dog. Well, Brock wasn’t top dog. I was.

  I was in his home, so I let him have the spotlight and I was polite and listening sharply to his every word. I gave him the nod that said, “Hey, if there’s something I can help you with?”

  “Please come sit down, Josiah. Relax. Will you have a brandy with me?”

  “Thank you. That would be fine.”

  Brock was a large man, about six feet, four inches and likely weighed at least 270, but looked like he could take care of himself at a moment’s notice.

  “What can I do for you?” I finally asked out loud, wondering what the heck spurred the invitation to this peacock strutting himself for no reason that I could discern.

  “I need a favor, Josiah. I know I might be crossing a line here by assuming that I could even ask such a favor of someone who has done so much already for the Mani people. But this favor I need is beyond my own means. I come to you, completely humble and just with a glimmer of hope. I’m asking you a favor. A personal favor.”

  This was big, scary big. So, I needed to quickly find out what he needed. “Please tell me, Brock, what can I do for you?”

  He took a heavy breath. “You know my son, Pierce. I know he seems healthy but don’t let his appearance fool you. He’s dying slowly and he needs a miracle.”

  “Dying?” I echoed.

  “Yes, dying. I’ve heard in the most secret of ways that not only you, but your son, Jason possess this certain gift: the gift of healing.”

  My back stiffened. Who was spreading this around in wider circles than beyond the few people who knew, plus the ones Jason had healed?

  “Healing?” I echoed again. I wanted to know what he knew and the only way I could do that was to let him talk.

  “Yes. I heard you’re in the business of performance of miracles.”

  “It’s not a business and I don’t call them miracles.” Not out loud.

  “Maybe it should be. If it’s money you need, you name your price and I’ll make sure you get it.” Brock said.

  “We don’t do it for the money. We have never asked for a dime. We do it because it feels right. And I’m a man of instincts.”

  “What do your instincts tell you now?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure and that’s unusual for me.”

  A long minute went by while we looked at each other over the snifters of brandy.

  I finally spoke. “What you need to understand, Brock, is that my healing powers are one hundred percent in the hands of the Triat. The Triat calls the shots. I do not choose who to heal, or how to heal.”

  “And what about your son?” Brock asked. “Does the Triat control him, too? And is that Him with a capital H?”

  Alarm bells went off in my head. How the hell did he know that my son was to be the savior of the Mani? I was even more quiet as Brock treaded in dangerous waters. Disconcerted, I didn’t want to put my son’s abilities on blast to the Mani, nor to the media, if there was a leak from our community.

  “Brock, what you ask is very dangerous. First of all, to acknowledge that my son even has a gift like that, if he truly did, would put him in extreme jeopardy. He lives his life like a normal boy. He is educated, plays sports, and has a deeply happy family life.”

  “You don’t wish to let me know, Josiah?” Brock asked.

  “That’s not it, not at all. We are talking about my family. Our discretion about my son’s gift is paramount. If my son can even help, this matter needs to be handled with the utmost of care. There can be no strong persuasion from anyone to do this, and there can be no intimidation, nor any threat of backlash if he is unable to heal him.”

  “I promise there will be none. That is absurd to me that any threat is even suggested,”

  “I have to say it. We are talking about my son. His life.”

  “And we’re talking about my son’s life.” Brock was getting angry. His cheeks were getting red and his nostrils flared.

  “If you’d like my son to try to use his gift and heal your boy, then you need to come to me as a humble servant of the Mani people, not as a tyrant, ready to squash someone if your demands are not met.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My son is not a magician. He does not put on a big tent s
how for all comers. He has no religious conversion spiels. He also has the gift of discernment and that is still developing. Do you understand where I am coming from? He is a youth with special abilities and compassion.”

  Brock nodded his head and smiled in a grin that did not quite reach his eyes. I shivered inwardly. Something was definitely off about the guy.

  “How did you find out about my son’s gift?”

  Brock said, “There are many ways to get information, in the Mani world, as in the Tandra. Most motivation to share secrets in both societies comes from prosperity, or rather, a lack of it.”

  “You paid someone for this information?”

  “I ask you with a father’s heart if you would do any less for one of your own sons.”

  I let out a sigh. “Point taken.”

  “So, I take it you’re both going to give it a try? Healing my son?”

  I also smiled in a manner that did not quite reach my eyes. My guard was up because my son’s secret was out. Outside the family and friends’ circle, now there were at least two people who knew that Jason could heal others. I did not like the leak of this crucial information about Jason.

  “I will speak to Jason about the matter. My sincere wishes for the health restoration of your child.”

  “I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  I did not finish my huge snifter of brandy.

  “I’ll go speak to him right now.” I paused. “I want to make it very clear that information about my son is not to be shared with anyone, not for any price.”

  “Your concern is understood. A son is precious and irreplaceable.”

  “Indeed.” I took my leave and went home the way I had come, in Great White Eagle flight. I got home and went straight to bed and Lena was awake, waiting for me.

  “You were gone for a long time. What happened?” she asked.