The Progeny

by Shelley Crowley

  “Well.” Varsee clapped her hands together, bringing everyone’s attention to her. “Now that everyone is clean and revitalised, I think it’s best if we got to know each other better and laid down some ground rules before the sun comes up. Sound good?”

  Chapter 13

  The four vampires congregated around the fireplace that was now lit to give the room a more homely feel. Caius’ tall, pale physique leaned against the mantelpiece. Evie was fiddling with the fringing on the armchair. Varsee had taken the other chair and had pulled a face when Alexander first sprawled across her lengthways, but now she seemed content as she languidly played with his hair.

  “How long have you been settled here?” asked Caius, first to break the silence.

  Varsee looked to Alexander as if to find the answer on his face. “Erh… must be coming up to twelve years. We’ve move around a lot since our Maker passed. But, I dunno-” She took in the room with a smile. “We like it here.”

  “When the Nest doesn’t bother us,” added Alexander with distaste.

  “Nest?” inquired Caius. “There’s a Nest around here?”

  “Yeah. They were the ones who attacked Evie.”

  Evie shuddered at the memory and Caius frowned apologetically to her, sorry to bring it up. “Will they attack again?”

  “Not while we’re in here but out there-” Varsee shrugged. “We’re hoping the Court will sort them out.”

  Caius flinched at the mention of the Court and his eyes casted to the floor. Evie’s heart constricted at the anguish that set his body taut.

  “Evie told us you had a run-in with the Court. That they were the ones that made you Turn her. What they did was awful.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t just kill you.”

  The three vampires shot Alexander a sharp look. He held up his palms with a shrug. “What? It would have been easier, right?” Varsee swatted him on the back of the head. “But the fact they didn’t-” He scowled at his sister and rubbed his head, “shows that clearly they had a little thing for you. Maybe that’s why they haven’t come after you since you killed those humans.”

  “Can we please stop talking about the Court?” mumbled Caius, sounding dreary.

  Varsee lifted her palms before going back to stroking Alexander’s hair like he was a cat. “I’m sorry.”

  Caius offered her a thankful smile. “So, do you have any other progenies?”

  “Not at the moment, just Evie. So don’t worry, she has my full attention.”

  “Not that she really needs it,” chimed in Alexander. “Having a progeny that’s already been a vampire? That’s like buying a puppy that’s already been housetrained.”

  Evie pulled a face, feeling a little insulted by the comparison.

  “Plus, it’s not like you’re a single mum.” He gestured to Caius with a sweeping hand, “with her dad still around, you’re like divorced parents trying to make it work.” He snorted.

  The idea that Caius playing the role of her dad made Evie feel queasy and shift in the uncomfortable chair awkwardly. Caius too, look at little disturbed at the thought and sent her a sideways glance.

  But she guessed in a way he had been a father figure. He had been her role model. He had introduced her into her new life and watched her grow and develop as a vampire. And he was still here, watching over her to make sure she was okay.

  I have never known a Maker and a progeny to be in love. It’s just so… peculiar.

  She thought back to how Varsee had compared her progeny to her children and shuddered. But Evie and Caius were different. The lingering bond between them was proof of that.

  “Do you have any progenies, Alexander?” Evie asked, finally entering the conversation to dissipate the hanging silence.

  Alexander’s blue eyes flicked to her. “Not at the moment.” He snuggled closer to his sister, burying his head into the curve of her neck. “I lost most of them in the Rage and the few I Turned since were a little… erratic. Got themselves caught feeding without consent and were forced to meet the sun by the human authorities.”

  “That’s what happens when you Turn those who aren’t worthy,” sighed Varsee.

  “I guess you wouldn’t win father of the year,” Evie jested, getting him back for the awkwardness he had planted between her and Caius.

  The atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted. Varsee bowed her head as Alexander’s smug expression was wiped clean. His eyelids started flickering as his eyes grew dark and glassy. His jaw set.

  A cold wave washed over Evie and she found herself shrinking back into the chair as he pushed himself off of Varsee and flew to his feet.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he spat, not able to look at Evie. “I’ve had enough of this Happy Families shit.”

  He stormed off into the kitchen.

  Evie and Caius looked after him. “W-what was that about? What did I say?”

  Varsee’s eyes were heavy and mournful when they met Evie’s. “Do you remember me mentioning that Alexander had chinks in his armour?” Evie nodded and Varsee sighed. “Well, you just hit one. A pretty big one.”

  “W-why? What did I do? It was just a joke.”

  “It’s really not my place to say. If you want an explanation, you’re going to have to get it out of him yourself.” She rose to her feet and looked to the kitchen.

  Evie nodded and stood up. “I’d better go and apologise.” She sent Caius a sideways glance as if for support but he still seemed bewildered by Alexander’s outburst. Nodding to herself, she headed to the kitchen.

  And found it empty.

  Just as she was about to turn around on herself, she noticed that there was a light on outside through the frosted glass in the backdoor. She paused when she reached for the handle, suddenly feeling nervous.

  An image of Alexander snapping and baring his fangs at her made her want to draw back. But she was in his home. Sure, it was Varsee who had welcomed her in but he had fought off the crazy Nest vampires alongside her and practically saved her life. The last thing she wanted to do was make him regret it. Even if he wasn’t the nicest person in the world.

  Sucking in a breath, she opened the door with a wince.

  He was sitting on the step with a cigarette dangling between his thin fingers. The gleam of the floodlight bounced off his long blond hair as it blew in the breeze. He turned his head at the disturbance, one shining blue eye peering at her through loose strands of hair. He sneered and looked back ahead.

  A huge field spread out before them. Even with her vampire sight, she couldn’t determine how far back the emptiness was. It was like when she looked through the window, everything was just black except for the sprinkling of stars that covered the sky like sugar.

  But she did notice that the section where the floodlight reached was cordoned off by a rather flimsy fence and the upturned soil of empty flowerbeds ran along it, separating the garden from the grazing field.

  Finding her voice, Evie managed to stutter out, “I’m sorry.”

  Alexander huffed and took a drag of his cigarette, his face shielded from her by his hair. “For what?” he exhaled, puffing smoke into the clean, country air.

  “For upsetting you.” She dropped down beside him and tucked her knees up. A flagged strip ran along the back of the house. Evie placed her socked feet flat on the concrete and re-rolled up Varsee’s jeans just for something to do in the silence that followed.

  “You didn’t upset me,” he said, resigned. “You just reminded me of something I try my best to forget.” He let out a humourless laugh. “Well, not forget. I can’t forget. The past… is the past.”

  Evie stayed silent beside him. He turned slightly and cocked an eyebrow as he tipped some ash onto the flags. “Did Varsee tell you?”

  She shook her head. “She said nothing. Just that I hit a weak spot.”

  There was that laugh again. “A weak spot? That’s one way of putting it.”

  “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.”

>   He regarded her and took another drag. “The past is the past. No point hiding from it, is there?”

  Her shoulders sagged. “I guess not.”

  As he looked back into the vast blackness, Evie noticed something change in his eyes. There was a clouded emptiness in them as if he were working on autopilot. “I was a soldier in World War One. A member of the British army. Joined as soon as I turned nineteen. Three years later, in 1916, it was in the Battle of the Somme -as it’s called- where I lay in No Man’s land, bodies around me left right and centre, a piece of jarred shrapnel sticking out of my gut.

  I thought that was the end for me. And I’m not going to lie, I was terrified of dying. Not like that. Alone in the dirt. And then, through the ash and bloody mist, I saw him, wandering around the bodies, checking for life. Godfrey. I managed to call out to him and he spotted me. Of course, back then, I had no idea what a vampire was so when he chewed into his own arm and fed me his blood, I was a surprised to say the least. Then something snapped and everything went blank.” He took another long drag of his cigarette, jutting out his jaw as he exhaled so the smoke streamed upwards.

  “I woke up in a bed with Godfrey sat by my side. He told me what had happened but all I could think about was that I was still alive. All I wanted to do was see my wife, to go back home and hold her in my arms. But of course, Godfrey told me I couldn’t go back to my old life. After pleading with him non-stop, he gave in and told me that I could see her but only from afar, just so I knew she was okay.

  “When we got there, my heart sank. She had clearly gotten the news of my disappearance and that I was more than likely dead.” His face pinched in pain and red pools gathered under his eyes. “She was crying. I still remember the sound. But then… she bent down, away from my view from the window and when I saw her again… she wasn’t alone. Held close to her chest was a baby.” He shook his head and stabbed his cigarette into the step, grinding it into ash. “She had been pregnant and she had never told me. She had let me leave her. She’d given birth and I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there to hold her hand. I wasn’t there to see him come into the world.” He swatted away a tear irritably and clenched his jaw.

  “I wanted so desperately to be there for her, to help her, but all I could do was watch her struggle. I watched my son grow up without a father. I was right there and I couldn’t help. I couldn’t risk it. The thought of my hunger winning, of losing control-” He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. “I should have never let Godfrey take me. It was like torture. I watched them both age, wither and die while I never changed.” He hung his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “So you were right-” he said through a tight laugh and looked out into the field. “I’m a terrible father.”

  Evie’s throat seemed to have closed up while he was speaking and now, in the silence, her lips were moving but nothing was coming out. The way he had told the story, it had been with so much emotion yet it had sounded rehearsed. She thought about how many other passing friends and acquaintances he had poured his heart out to. As so easily. So quickly. It was as if he wanted people to know of his heartache. But he was so cool and indifferent most of the time. So different to how he looked now as he sat beside her, deflated and defeated. No, he didn’t want her sympathy. He wanted her to judge him. To judge him for not being strong enough to die a soldier’s death. But she didn’t.

  Then his eyes flicked to her, impossibly bright against the night sky.

  “I-I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  He just shrugged and plucked a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. “You weren’t to know.”

  And for a moment, Evie just watched him as he lit his new cigarette, folding his hand over it to block the wind. His armour had teared with one silly joke. He was a lot more fragile than she had first thought.

  He looked so vulnerable and wounded. His face was sharp and pinched as if he were reliving the pain. Then he shook his head, his fair hair whipping across his face, and all that went away. A smile cracked on his lips as he surveyed the darkness and lifted the cigarette to his lips. “So, what’s your story?” His eyes flicked to her as he took a drag.

  Evie shrugged and hugged her arms. Of course, the cold air had no effect on her now that she was a vampire again, so the action was more of a reflex. “You know my story. Caius was forced to Turn me when he was caught having a relationship with a human.”

  “That’s Caius’ story. I mean your story. Like, how your life changed once you Turned.” A pause followed and Alexander leaned back, resting his back against the frame of the backdoor. She could feel his gaze on her, burning into her cheek as she stayed hunched forwards, looking ahead. She shifted awkwardly and hung her head.

  “I was engaged.” It hurt to say it. It didn’t feel right. It was like she was retelling a dream. “His name was William. We were getting married in three weeks. My parents didn’t like me being with him. They thought I was just in it for the money.” Her throat started to feel tight again and the backs of her eyes burned with tears of guilt and shame. “We weren’t poor, exactly. We got by. But when I started dating William, who came from a family of Old Money, they thought I saw him as my ticket out. And so they shunned me, saying that I was a disgrace to the family. That I was ashamed of who I was. But none of that was true.” Her voice came out shrill and desperate, broken with tears, as if she were back in that old, shabby house, pleading with her mother not to give up on her.

  “I loved my family but it was clear that they had lost all respect for me. So I moved in with William, ready to start a new family with him.”

  “Your family casted you out because they thought you were going to cast them out?”

  Alexander watched her with a pinched expression.

  “Yeah… kinda.”

  He huffed a laugh and lifted his cigarette to his lips. “That’s ridiculous.”

  Evie’s jaw slackened, offended at how easily he was able to disregard the most painful experience of life.

  “After Caius Turned me, I disobeyed his orders and went back to our house. Of course, I couldn’t get in but our housekeeper heard me. She came outside and…” She swallowed down the hard lump in her throat.

  “And?” Alexander pressed, actually looking interested. She wanted to be angry at him for digging up her past. But she had done it to him so she guessed she owed him her heartache.

  “I killed her,” she continued with a wince. “William found me drinking from her. I still remember his face. The horror. The fear.” She wiped away her bloody tears. “Then Caius came and pulled me away. He grabbed William and compelled him to forget what he saw. He changed our ending. Instead of me being taken away in the dead of night, I had packed up my bags and left him.”

  She felt sick to her stomach. That memory ate away at her every second of every night. “He must have carried on the rest of his life thinking that I hadn’t loved him.”

  Alexander’s eyebrows had rose in surprise. Then he simply said, “That’s bad.”

  Again, Evie felt her resentment towards him rise up but then, as she stared at his light, easy expression, it dissipated. It was just an act. She had glimpsed at the real Alexander. The one stuck in the past. The one torturing himself for something that he had no control over. And he was hurting every bit as much as she was. He was just handling it the only way he knew how.

  A small smile curved on her lips and she looked up towards the stars which were starting to fade as the night sky began to bleed into a deep navy. “Yeah.”

  The door opened behind her and she turned to see Varsee looking down at her from the kitchen, her blonde hair blowing back from her strong yet beautiful face. She glanced to her brother still relaxed against the door frame. He gave her a salute and a wink.

  “Made friends?” asked Varsee.

  Alexander grinned up at her like a Cheshire cat. “We were swapping stories.” He pointed to her and looked at Evie. “Varsee used to be a tramp.”

  His sister exhaled and rolled her e
yes. “I wasn’t a tramp. I was a homeless orphan.”

  “Same thing.”

  Varsee just gave him an exhausted look before her eyes fixed on Evie. “My parents died of a sickness that spread through my village back in South Africa. A few years later, living on the street, Godfrey found me. I was dying of hyperthermia and he Turned me.”

  Evie thought back to something Caius had said to her, about being a lot older than him. “When did you get Turned?”

  The edge of her lips twitched, a ghost of a smirk. “The start of the fourteenth century.”

  Evie’s eyebrows rose, impressed. She’d never known a vampire older than Caius, well, except for Guardian. “So, you’re like super ancient?”

  She smiled. “Please don’t call me that. Ancient makes me sound too old already.”

  When the information sunk in properly, Evie furrowed her brows. “But, hang on, how can you?… oh.” It clicked. “You two are vampire siblings. Because you have the same Maker.”

  “Yup.” Alexander bounced to his feet and flicked his cigarette into the garden. “She’s my blood sis.”

  “Okay.” Evie nodded, pushing herself to her feet as well. “The way you act makes sense now. I was a little confused.”

  “The way we act?” asked Alexander but then he grinned and stepped into the kitchen, brushing past Varsee. “Oh, you mean, our relationship is not the conventional brother and sister relationship?”

  Evie shrugged, now feeling a little awkward as he smirked at her like a mischievous child. Varsee seemed relaxed. Her arms were folded across her front as Alexander pressed his chest close against her side and lifted his lips to her ear, his eyes still on Evie. “And she doesn’t know the half of it.”

  A giddy smile cracked on Varsee’s lips. Her eyes widened as if shocked by the little giggle that escaped her and she quickly straightened herself. She turned and looked to her brother. They were almost the same height but he still somehow curled over her like a willowing branch. Their faces were only inches apart. “The sun’s coming up soon,” she said with a slightly husky edge to her tone.