Dell looked for her mother in the darkened room. Mom, I need you! Dell called to her silently.
Before Dell could blink, her mother was at her side, blowing on her skin, waving her hands around like windmills to cool her escalating temperature. "My baby," she crooned. "It's coming along, baby. Don't fight."
Mentor retreated to the dressing table chair he had pulled over to the bed. It was too small for his bulk, giving him the appearance of a creature on a perch. He sat in the shadows, his aging, craggy face hidden in darkness. Dell began to fear him until she caught the thought he projected to her. It was the very first time she had read anyone's thought at all, and she was glad it had come from Mentor. We love you, he said simply. We're here for you. Don't be afraid. This is not the end.
~*~
What Mentor had promised Dell was the truth. Dying this way was not the end. Becoming vampire was not the end. The end might never come for her, and there lay the problem for all of them, even himself. Especially himself. Though he had earned his respectful nickname more than a thousand years in the past, and though it had been his job to mentor, to help, and to guide new and desperate fledglings for as long as the memory of his race could remember, sometimes Mentor questioned not only his advice and the relevance of his role, but the very meaning of vampiric existence.
The wise men who had trained him in human psychology during the time of the ancients when there were so few of his kind could never have envisioned their teaching would have to sustain him throughout not one lifetime, but dozens of lifetimes. Certainly he had kept up with psychology and both the human and vampire spirits. He had augmented his education over progressive generations until finally, one day near the beginning of the new millennium in the year 2000, he turned away from scholarship and said to himself, "Enough. I can learn no more.”
Yet even that was a lie he told to himself. He learned something new about spirit every time he was called upon to minister to someone as sick and miserable and dying as the girl now lying on her bed in a comatose trance. It was this challenge that kept him going, the task that drove away his own misery long enough so that he could reach out to vampire children such as Dell. What he had learned already from the girl was that teens today were just as earnest, needful, and as full of pure light as their predecessors had been.
Some parents had tried to tell him the young people were subversive, rebellious, uncontrollable, and sometimes conscienceless, as if born with deformed hearts. Mentor knew that was wrongheaded at the outset. But Dell Cambian was further proof. He could sense her true essence, and it was as uncontaminated by fraud, evil, and envy as a newborn babe's. Dell Cambian was worth saving, worth bringing into the Natural life. He would fight for her soul and show her how to fight for it. He would guide her to the other side and bring her back whole again.
Changed, of course, yes, changed. But whole and saved from the baser life of a Predator. Or, God forbid, the non-life of a Craven.
Most of his kind believed that what one became—Natural, Predator, or Craven—had to do with the progression and mutation of the disease. For many years it was what he thought, too, but he came to realize it just was not so. Many of the Naturals had entered medical research trying to find an end to the disease. The first discovery they made was about the nature of the actual human death.
Mentor had been trying to spread the truth of the matter. The disease that made vampires, the mutation that killed and made men live again, did not determine a man's state of moral being. All it did was turn human into vampire. What sort of vampire one became had to do with the state of the soul. And how hard that soul fought for freedom from the prevailing darkness.
If the patient brought back too much of the darkness, he was Predator—vile, often depraved, without empathy, and truly heartless. A wicked creature. If the darkness brought back was less, the vampire suffered physical weaknesses, a faint hold on the world, and a depression that never relented. They were called the Craven. They were the cowardly and weak, useless to themselves and society. The Naturals brought back the least darkness from their encounter with death, and they were never as human as they once had been, but they longed to be, and that made all the difference.
"You must fight off the dark wood," Mentor whispered to the now comatose Dell. He projected his firm thought with the spoken words. He knew she could hear him on some level.
"Take her through it, Mentor," Dell's mother pleaded at his side. "Don't let her be lost to us."
Mentor looked up at the mother, a handsome woman with blonde hair and dark skin, her eyes shiny with tears. If she shed them they would be her blood and weaken her. He took her hand for a moment. She was as strong now as when he'd helped her through her own change. "Go and pray," he said.
"God doesn't listen to me. I prayed that neither of my children would ever get sick, and my prayers went unanswered."
"You merely prayed for the wrong result," Mentor said. "God does not bargain."
Dell's father approached the bed and behind him in the shadows came Eddie, Dell's younger sibling. The rest of the family gathered together in a corner of the room, standing close, holding a silent vigil. The elder Cambian said, "I would give my soul if this could be stopped."
Mentor knew his job included the family, not just Dell. He could not have any more mention of sacrifice. That simply created shame, when the sacrifice could not be given. Even now, he could see how the father's hands shook in rage and how the mother's face belied her pain, and even the boy child had bared his teeth, the incisors growing of their own accord, as if he might rip open a vein in his own arm and feed his sister to hurry her back to the world.
Mentor did not know if prayer helped, of if God even existed, but he encouraged his people to believe. Believing might create truth. It was written in Romans, in the Bible, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God." If a man believed, then he always had God on his side.
"Go with your wife, take your son, and pray for Dell," he said, gesturing them away. He turned to the assemblage and commanded, "Leave us alone. Let me save what I can. We need to be alone for the journey."
When they'd left the room, Mentor placed his hands on each side of Dell's temples and turned her sweaty face toward him. He leaned in dose. "I'm coming, Dell. I won't let you walk through the dark without me."
Chapter 2
She was alone, dreadfully so. Not just alone as she had been at home before, when her parents were out and her brother not yet home from school. Not alone the way she'd felt one day at the mall with her friends when they shopped for clothes and she discovered that she hadn't any interest in fashion.
This time, she was alone in a terrible place, a reality she never had known existed. It was a barren, scraggly wood where the moon was an improbable blood red and there was no path, no starlight, no hope. She had been here recently, she knew, and thought it a dream. Mentor had brought her out and in an insane way she had been momentarily furious with him.
Now she called his name, at first softly, "Mentor . . . Mentor," then louder, and louder, until she was screaming his name, frantic to find him or someone, anyone, to rescue her. The moon, escaped from a Salvadore Dali painting, was melting now and oozing down the sky like thick red paint. When it touched the horizon, she knew something would happen, something unforeseen and quite fearsome. The trail lengthened, the trees pressed in on all sides, their bare limbs almost touching her, and she found she could not breathe. It was as if all the air had been sucked from this surreal universe, forgetting her, leaving her to suffocate, to fall to her knees gasping.
"We must turn back," came a voice.
"Mentor! Where are you? Why can't I see you? Get me out of here, please. Mentor, I can't breathe!" As she said it, it was true. She grabbed at her throat and opened her mouth fish-wide, sucking, finding nothing to breathe. I'll die now, she thought. So this is how
it happens? My lungs burst and fill with the blood-red moon.
Someone had her hand and was dragging her back the way she had come. She could not see who it was, could not bend her neck and try to see behind her, but it didn't matter anyway; she was blacking out from lack of oxygen. Stars that had not been there before lit the Dali sky, flaring just at the back of her brain. She thought her mouth was working, gaping, and she was still struggling, but a small voice in her mind whispered in a childlike singsong, "You're dead, you're dead, you're dead now, you're dead."
"Don't listen," Mentor said, and she knew the voice belonged to him. "It's not really the truth. Only listen to what I tell you, Dell. Try to get to your feet."
Get to her feet. She had always been obedient, at least almost always. But how could she stand if she could not catch her breath? She gasped and tried to turn her head so he could see for himself that she was losing the battle.
"Up! Get up, get to your feet, it's coming!"
She wanted desperately to comply. Something was coming, and maybe if she could ascertain what exactly that was, she would be motivated to climb to her feet, air or no air in her poor scalding lungs. Whatever it was it had produced panic in Mentor's voice. He jerked at her arm, and she flipped over onto her back. It was then she could see the thing that frightened Mentor so.
Her mind raged against it.
"Dell, you must help yourself. If you don't get up and move, all is lost."
He must be a Predator, but more bloodthirsty than any she had known on Earth. He stood so tall his cape blocked the bloody sky and the moon's melting curves seemed to be red wings attached to his back. He swept down toward them from a hill, his face set against any plea for mercy.
Suddenly the world filled with his thunderous voice. "In order to wreak revenge, you must come with me!"
No, I can't, she thought, I won't.
"Don't listen to him," Mentor said, drawing her away from the approaching demon.
"I will give you the power of a god," boomed the Predator's voice. "You will be ruler over the Earth, if only you'll come with me."
And I will kill and take innocent life the way you do, she thought. No, no, that's not what I want.
Dell found the last bit of air in the bottom of her burning lungs and drew strength from it. She scrambled to her feet and, turning her back to the marauding creature, clutched Mentor's hand. They ran swiftly, barely touching the ground, and she knew Mentor was supernaturally speeding them away. They moved so fast past the blackened trees that the trunks were but a blur to the right and left of her. The light glowed red all around and from out of the clouds it dripped like liquid to cover the earth. Mentor led her into the clouds, which were more mist than anything else, the moisture cool against her skin. If she were dead and being pursued by a devouring vampire, then she must find some way through this death dream and back to her parents where they might lay her to rest. She would not be taken.
The clouds parted, and Dell stood alongside Mentor at the edge of a great cliff. Below she could see for miles, and across a chasm there appeared to be numerous dark-mouthed caves yawning.
"Come back to me," screamed the creature at their backs. "Be one of my children. I will give you all the power of the universe."
"Hold tight to me," Mentor said. "Don't listen to his promises."
She clutched at his hand. Suddenly, Mentor stepped off the cliff and pulled her with him into clear space above the canyons. Behind her, she thought she could hear the frenzied footsteps of the Giant Predator, thought she could smell his fetid breath at her neck. She would not look back, never would she look back. And she would not look down, knowing if she did she might collapse and lose touch with Mentor, to fall forever into oblivion.
They crossed the chasm through thin air, air that was without air, and settled on the lip of a cave opening. Mentor drew her inside.
She did collapse now, falling to her knees in a near faint. She realized with a shock that she had not taken a breath since she first heard Mentor's voice back in the red forest. Could she speak, without air in her lungs to voice the words?
"I . . . I . . ."
"Yes," he said, sitting beside her on the cold, damp earth of the cave floor. "You can speak. And you have no need of air here. This is the place where the soul lives once the body's heart has stopped beating."
"I don't believe all this. Am I dead?" She clutched at her chest, feeling for a heartbeat.
"The disease has taken you away, Dell."
"Dead, then?" She had her hand flat against her rib cage, and there was silence beneath it.
He nodded. He reached out and touched her face tenderly. "Don't be afraid. You'll live again."
"And breathe again? Just like my parents and Eddie?"
"Yes, like them. But you must understand you will never need breath again. You'll have to learn to breathe only to pass through the world without arousing suspicion."
"It took them hours to learn how to breathe again. It was awful watching Eddie like that."
"I'm afraid that's part of the learning process."
"What was that … that thing back in the woods? I know he was evil, but what was he?" she asked.
Mentor gazed over the gorge to the far side and the red, misty clouds there. It was as if he could see through it to the heart of the haunted woods. There was no sign of the large Predator. "It was The Maker. He isn't the only one. There's one more."
"The maker of Predators? That's what I saw?"
"Yes."
"And if I hadn't run, he'd have made me one, too?" She knew the answer, but she had to ask it. "Yes."
Dell thought it over. "And the other one … somewhere in this place is a Craven Maker?" She shivered at the thought of the Craven and what it might be like to meet the one who made them all. They weren't as scary or ferocious as the Predators, but their lives on Earth were full of suffering and loneliness, which seemed to her just as horrible a fate.
"This cave," he said, "is the place of the Mistress."
"Then why did you bring me … ?"
She never got to finish her question. From out of the vast darkness at the back of the cave came a shuffling sound, and into the red light spilling from the chasm into the mouth of the cave came a creature that could stir pity in the hardest soul.
She was ancient, far older than Mentor, Dell knew it from the depths in her eyes. Down those blank corridors lay a million years of anguish. She was stooped and dressed in tattered layers of soiled white cloth. She shuffled rather than walked, and her mouth hung open on empty gums, her chin almost touching her chest.
Dell pushed back along the ground, heading for the void. "Get her away from me," she cried, flailing her arms to ward off the presence. "Oh, dear God, save me."
Mentor was again at her side and said quietly, "This time you do not run away. The Predator would have made you one of his had he caught you, but the Craven one comes as a supplicant. She begs your sympathy and asks you to join her. You must find a way to deny the request."
Dell turned wild eyes to Mentor. "Can't you help me?"
"I am helping you. It was your own will that propelled you away from the red moon. It must be your will to turn away from the Craven's cave. Use me as your staff, lean on me when you feel weak."
Dell hardly understood what was being asked of her. She faced the apparition. The devastation, the blasted landscape hidden behind the blank eyes made her weep. Tears ran down her cheeks unchecked. She nearly reached out to take the ancient woman's frail hand. But she felt Mentor strong next to her and knew she could not do it or she would be giving permission. She would return to herself in the real world weak and nearly blind, hiding from the sun, unwilling to walk free ever again among humanity. If she gave in now, she would forever be tormented and tortured by illness and despair.
"If you are mine," said the Craven, “you will never kill. Others will care for you. You will seek the darkness that comforts. You will leave behind comradeship of mankind so that you won't envy him.
All things of the world will fade away and mean little to you."
She looked full on the ancient's face and said, "I know you've suffered an eternity and you want me to go with you, but I can't. You have to understand. I can't go with you."
"Forgive her," Mentor instructed.
"I forgive you for hoping to spirit me away and make me a part of your suffering," she said meaning every word.
The Craven Maker sighed and it was harder to bear than if she had wept and begged. It was the sigh of a loneliness that had gone on forever without abating.
Dell felt herself weakening, making a move forward as if to embrace the old sick woman, but resolve held her back. She bowed her head and shook it slowly from side to side. "I can't help you," she said. "I can't spend the rest of my time in sorrow and sickness, never to see the light of day, never to be dose to humans again. I would rather be dead in my grave." She didn't know where the words were coming from to explain her position and to deny the old woman satisfaction. It was as if she had aged fifty years in only a few hours since the onset of the mutated disease.
The Mistress turned slowly and padded back into the black hole of the cave until they could not even hear her footsteps.
Dell turned into Mentor's arms. "Can I go home now? Please, help me find my way."
Mentor lifted her into his arms and ascended from the mouth of the cave, over the deep chasm, above the red clouds, beyond the haunted forest, and past the sagging blood moon. When again Dell opened her eyes, she was in her bed, in her own bedroom, holding onto Mentor's strong hands.
She tried to breathe and couldn't. She tried to cry and couldn't. She wanted to speak and nothing came from her lips.
"Now you learn how to be a Natural," he said. "The first step is to relax into your body and get to know it again. You have passed the hardest tests of all."
Dell gazed down at herself. Someone had changed her clothes and dressed her in a long granny nightgown. She tried to remember it. Maybe she'd gotten it for Christmas or Aunt Celia had given it to her for her birthday. She was closest to her Aunt Celia of all her aunts, but she had to admit Aunt Celia always gave her old-fashioned things that a girl her age privately shunned. Carolyn often complained that her mother belonged in another age, one of long dresses to the ankles and button-up shoes.
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