The Progeny

by Shelley Crowley

  It was only her eyes that reflected a glint of her exhaustion. Exhaustion and emptiness.

  She closed her eyes and felt for the ties between her Maker and her lover. They were both there, one far stronger than the other. Because they were both at such a close proximity, it was dizzyingly intense as she felt them fighting against each other. And there was a clear loser. The one that flickered haphazardly, merely fighting for survival.

  “Right, this should be okay.”

  Evie caught the jumper flying at her.

  “It’ll probably be a bit big on you but it’ll do for now.” Varsee smiled from the doorway. She had also changed from her blood covered olive blouse to a cream one. She cocked her head towards the stairs. “Throw it on and we’ll go and see how they’re doing downstairs.”

  Evie shrugged on the navy jumper. She could tell it was supposed to be form-fitting but it hung a little loosely on her small frame.

  Caius was sitting on the sofa when they came down the stairs, staring absently at the black screen of the T.V. The ugly hippy jumper had been replaced a simple black t-shirt. The pallor of his skin stood out in stark contrast and the shadows casted by the lamps in the room enhanced the definition of his arms. Like her, he was completely clean of blood. She looked around for Alexander and heard him shuffling around in the kitchen. Varsee must have heard it too because she disappeared through the kitchen door without a word.

  Evie dropped onto the flowery upholstery by Caius’ side.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, carefully tucking the curtain of hair behind his ears. His eyes were cold and unreadable as he gazed at her.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  The hollowness of his tone made her gulp back a sob. She cupped his face in both her hands. “I wanted to save you. I chose you. You know that, right?”

  A muscle in his jaw flexed. “And yet I ended up with a bullet in my chest.”

  There was thinly veiled anger in his tone.

  “I know.” She nodded, her vision staining red. “It was because of the bond, nothing more. I chose you.”

  He looked down and let his hair sweep over his face. “But your choice means nothing anymore.”

  She tried to angle his face back to her but he stiffened all over so she couldn’t make him budge. Sighing and trying to hold back the burning tears, she let go. “You were my everything for a hundred years, Caius. But now there are more people in our lives and we just have to accept that.” She placed her hand on his knee. He didn’t stir. “Varsee saved my life. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead. Is that what you would’ve wanted?”

  “Of course not.”

  “She had to save me because you weren’t there.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.” He looked up at her through the strands of his hair.

  “See.” Evie’s shoulders sagged. “You didn’t want to leave me but you had to. You felt my pain but you still couldn’t go back to save me. That is exactly like what just happened with me. I wanted to save you, Caius, but I just couldn’t.”

  The defeat in Evie’s voice seemed to have shed Caius of his hostility towards her because he offered her the glass of blood she had drank from earlier. She took it with a soft smile. “Thanks.”

  He nodded in reply and picked his up from the floor.

  After being shot in the chest, the blood was well needed. Drinking it was like absorbing power. It sizzled inside her, sparking off her nerve endings and making the dark world she lived in seem that little bit brighter.

  “Wow, I needed that,” she laughed, still riding on the buzz.

  Caius nodded while downing his mug. He let out a sigh of bliss. “That’s good stuff.”

  The kitchen door clattered open and Alexander sauntered through, the cuffs of his jumper red with dried blood. “Right, I’d better get ready for work.”

  “You’ve got a job?” asked Evie, hoping that the surprise in her tone wasn’t insulting.

  Alexander spun to face her and raked his fingers through his hair to push it out of his face. “Sure do. Someone’s got to pay the bills and bring home the bacon… well, blood.”

  “What do you do?”

  He grinned. “I’m an exotic dancer.”

  “You’re a stripper,” Varsee appeaered in the doorway.

  “You make it sound so cheap and sleazy.”

  Varsee shrugged, leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded across her chest. “You take off your clothes for money. You’re a stripper. It is cheap and sleazy.”

  He just rolled his eyes and took off upstairs. “I’m going getting dressed.”

  “He’s really a stripper?” Evie asked Varsee after hearing Alexander’s bedroom door close.

  “Yep.” She pushed herself off the doorframe. “He works at a vampire bar in the town a couple miles down the road.” She looked to Caius. “Did my brother clean you up okay?”

  Caius just nodded in response and pressed his palm to his ribs where he’d been shot as if suddenly remembering the pain.

  “Sis! Have you seen my leather chaps?!” Alexander called down the stairs.

  Varsee’s eyes shifted to the ceiling. “Which ones?!”

  “The black ones with the studs!”

  “I think they’re in my wardrobe!”

  “Why would they be-?... Oh yeah.” His laughter filled the house as the heavy footfalls of his boots sounded above them. “Found ‘em!”

  Moments later, Alexander was making his way back down the stairs with a small duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He’d changed into a t-shirt with sides slit almost to his hip bones and a pair of ripped up jeans that were barely clinging onto his waist by his studded belt. He gave them all a mock salute and headed towards the door.

  “Oh, Alex.” Varsee stepped towards him and he turned to her, his eyebrow cocked expectantly. “Could you grab Evie some clothes while you’re out? Something that will actually fit her?”

  Alexander’s eyes raked up Evie sat on the sofa in Varsee’s ill-fitting clothes. He smirked, making Evie cover her chest with her arms self-consciously. “Yeah sure, no problem.” With a half-hearted backwards wave, he left.

  The three vampires watched the closed door for a moment. And then the silence lengthened so long it became awkward. Evie glanced up at Varsee and then turned to Caius sat behind her. His eyes flittered and caught hers. He offered her a half smile but then his expression tightened and he dropped forwards with his head in his hands.

  “Caius?” Evie panicked and squeezed his shoulder. He let out a groan and pushed his fingertips to his temples.

  “It’s Milah,” he said, his voice strained.

  “Again?”

  “Yeah.” He let out another groan and stumbled to his feet, veering off dangerously and finding his balance on one foot. “She’s summoning me.”

  He staggered across the room and fell against the table by the wall and almost knocked the lamp onto the floor. Turning, he dropped against the front door and clung onto the handle as he pressed his face against it to muffle his cries of pain. “I’ll be right back,” he wheezed, not looking back before he yanked the door open and stumbled out like a drunk.

  Varsee heaved out an over exaggerated sigh in the silence that hung after him. “And then there were two.”

  Chapter 15

  It had been three years since Milah had summoned Caius and that had been because she was on the run and was bored being on her own. Now she had summoned him twice in the space of three nights and he knew that Evie would grow suspicious. This wasn’t like his Maker. She usually left him alone because all she was met with after she summoned him was hostility.

  She was now standing by the edge of a field, holding onto the fence before her. Her long raven hair blew from her face in the clean, country breeze. She was as beautiful as the night Caius had first met her. And in white as usual. He figured she wore it ironically. The harlot before him was far from pure.

  She turned her head slightly, sensing him, and fixed her eyes on Caius who had bee
n carefully approaching. His blood turned to ice in his veins and he was pinned to the spot by her piercing cerulean eyes that shone like cut crystals. This woman -this powerful, dangerous, indomitable woman- had a hold on him like no other. He wanted to believe that it was just because of their bond but that wasn’t true. He had felt the same way when he had been a mortal man.

  It had been in the early years of the 11th century when Caius had lost his life and had been reborn into the world of blood and darkness. He had been a simple country boy, had worked on the farms every once in a while, but his heart had been in carpentry. The sky had grown dark when he had worked late in the shop one night.

  He never made it home.

  On his way down the road, he had started at a noise. The sound of a woman wailing. He had had the urge to keep going, it wasn’t his problem, someone else would deal with it. But what if no one did? What if that poor woman was in serious danger? He couldn’t just leave her. What sort of man would that make him? And being the man that he was, thirty-two years old with no wife and no children to speak of, he needed to prove himself. And so he followed the screams, his heart in his throat and sweat on his brows.

  It was coming from a cottage a little way down the road. A light flickered in the window and the screams were getting louder and louder. Panic turned into adrenaline as he burst through the door.

  Then the screams stopped.

  Caius found himself alone in the cottage. The thumping in his chest started to calm as he scratched his short scruffy hair with confusion. He got ready to head right back out the door when he heard it clatter shut behind him.

  He turned to see a woman dressed in a floor length white nightgown made from a material so thin that it did not leave much to the imagination. Her back was pressed against the door and her shockingly brilliant blue eyes were trained on him. She was the most exquisite thing he had ever seen and Caius, not being that confident around woman in general, found himself utterly speechless in her presence.

  She smiled- a look of soft pity for the man before her- and Caius let himself relax, if only a little. But then something changed in her. Her expression cracked like a mirror. That look in her eyes that had only moments ago brought him ease suddenly made his heart contract. Her gaze raked up every inch of him, making the hairs on his skin stand on end. Her full lips split into a grin not fit for a lady but for an animal. An animal that had spotted its prey.

  When Caius noticed her fangs, he backed away, only for the woman to lunge and pin him to the floor. He tried to cry out for help but she tore at his throat. He felt her suckling on his neck and her moans of bliss made his stomach knot and the pain of her ever-digging fangs clenched his muscles. His legs were kicking. His hands were grabbing. Everything began to grow dark, his vision blackening at the edges as his life faded away.

  He awoke on a bed feeling faint and strange. His head was cushioned on the lap of the woman. She was gazing over him, caressing the curls at his temples. He watched her in awe. Her skin as pale as snow. Her hair as black as the night. Her eyes as blue as the sea. The flickering light from the fire brought out the sharp eagle-like features of her face.

  She smiled down at him and he reached up to cup her cheek without hesitation, and wiped the red that smeared across her lips. It took him a moment to understand what it was as he rubbed it between his fingers. And then he took in the whole of her- the billowed white night dress she wore and the huge red stained that covered the front of it.

  He jerked up and had every intention of running away. But he held her gaze and something inside him forced him to stay. To stay with her. Forever.

  “We really need to stop meeting like this.” Her red lips parted into a grin, the tips of her fangs pressing against her lower lip.

  “You summoned me.” Caius’ voice was gruff as he stiffly made his way towards her. “What do you want?”

  “You know how I warned you about Guardian finding out your little secret?”

  His jaw clenched. “Yes.”

  “Well… he’s found out.”

  Pressing his tongue into his cheek to suppress a growl of frustration, he fisted his hair. “What was the point in you calling me to warn me when neither of us could do anything about it?”

  Her wicked gaze softened and she reached out to stroke his cheek, a motherly gesture that Caius slapped away. “It was an excuse to see you. I am your Maker, I do like to check up on you and see if everything is okay. Is that so terrible?”

  “Yes,” Caius gritted out. “Because, while you were relaying pointless information to me, Evie was attacked and Turned.”

  “Ah yes.” Milah retracted her hand and smoothed down the front of her slim white dress that fell over her strong figure like liquid. “I felt your pain. But why so distraught, Caius? You wanted her to be a vampire again. Her being human was simply killing you. I almost had the urge to do something about it myself.”

  “But she’s not mine.” Caius’ cold heart contracted in his chest.

  “If she still loves you, she is still yours.”

  “You know that’s not true.” He sent her a hard glare. “I never loved you and I am yours.”

  Milah pouted and reached out to brush his hair from his face. This time, he let her, watching her with distain. “Yes you are, my sweet. And do not pretend like you don’t enjoy it. I still remember those days when we were inseparable. And you had loved me, even if it was just for a fleeting moment.”

  “I still despised you then, I was just so drugged up on the thrill of being a vampire that I had forgotten.”

  She grinned, showing fangs, and held his face up by the tips of her fingers. She inspected his features like she hadn’t seen him only two moons ago. “Those were the times. Back when you were fun. Before you went all soft on me.”

  “Killing innocent people is not supposed to be fun.”

  She cackled. “Oh, but it is when you have a good partner.”

  Caius clenched and unclenched his jaw making Milah drop her hand. The memories of those nights were beginning to rise up to the forefront of his mind. All the blood. All the terror. All the death. And all the sickening pleasure he had gotten from it.

  “Why exactly have you summoned me, Milah?” Caius said finally, not enjoying the trip down memory lane.

  The mischievous twinkle in his Maker’s eyes vanished and what was left behind was hard and serious. “Guardian wants to see you.”

  Caius’ eyes bugged. “Now?”

  She nodded and gestured into the field. “He’s waiting.”

  “Wh-what exactly does he want from me?”

  She shrugged and jumped over the fence. “I don’t know. He just told me to summon you.”

  Caius stepped over the fence with an easy long-legged stride. “How much does he know?”

  He had started following her down the field which was shrouded in complete blackness. The sprinkling of stars in the sky offered no help with the lack of light but luckily his vampire sight made everything just clear enough. It was like he was looking through a poor quality, grainy video recorder.

  “Everything I know about you. So, anything that’s worth knowing. He compelled me. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t block anything from him. He’s too powerful.” Milah was looking down at her feet and Caius got the feeling that she was hiding the guilt on her face. But it wasn’t her fault. Well, it sort of was, actually.

  Caius huffed his annoyance. “Why does he have to be a bloody direct descendant of an original?” he grumbled. It was Guardian’s perfect link to an original vampire that gave him the ability to not only compel humans, but to compel any vampire that was less powerful than him. Which meant every vampire except the originals and his brothers and sisters. “And please remind me why you decided to join the Vampire Court again?”

  Milah raked her pale fingers through her sea of hair and looked straight ahead. The moonlight shone off her eyes and made them look luminous. There was a sadness in them that Caius couldn’t help but find endearing.

&
nbsp; “You know why, Caius. I have too many enemies out there. The Court guarantees my safety.”

  “He’s using you as a lap dog.”

  “It’s better than being a puddle.”

  They walked on in silence through the field. Caius continued to follow Milah over a wall and into another field that looked more like a dump, with broken shells of cars dotted about in the long grass.

  He was hit with a cold chill that seeped into his bones and froze him to the spot. Milah, noticing that he was no longer following, turned to look at him. The breeze whipped her black hair across her face and the thin material of her dress flapped around her legs like a flag of surrender.

  “They’re here, aren’t they? They’re close?” His eyes flickered to his Maker.

  She nodded. “Just behind that pile of cars.” She flipped her hand in general backwards direction but her concerned gaze never left him. “If I had a choice, you know I wouldn’t have done this, don’t you?”

  “What? Throw me under the bus?”

  The muscles in her jaw tightened and that guilt she had tried to hide flared in her eyes. “The Court is here for a reason, Caius. When vampires start getting special treatment, the whole order would come apart.”

  “But you’re getting special treatment. You’ve done some awful things, Milah. Things you should meet the sun for, but you’re still here.”

  A beat of silence fell between them as Milah searched her progeny’s face, angst tightening her sharp features. “Giving you up is my punishment, Caius.”

  His eyes grew wide with a mixture of surprise and horror. The bond between them hit him like the slash of a whip and he was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to grab Guardian by the throat and pull him apart piece by piece for making his Maker look at him the way she was doing now.

  But then the anger in him subsided and was replaced with the cold indifference he had trained himself to feel towards Milah. It had taken him a good few centuries and he knew it was only a veneer but it was better than being in her absolute control like he had been at the beginning.