Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1)

by Beverly Toney

  The stairs to the Gulfstream G650 were raised and the captain began to make his announcements about safety and weather conditions taxi. I leaned over Chloe to glance out of the window in time to see the Stewards, led by Solomon, go to investigate something at the far end of the runway. Tabitha was looking as well and I knew that there had been a sighting of Raphael or another one of Grigor’s clan. The look on Tabitha’s face confirmed it.

  “Why do you always keep things from me? It’s not like I don’t know that they are after my blood…literally.”

  “Sorry. Efia didn’t want you to be any more nervous about the flight.”

  I glanced toward the front of the plane and saw Efia look in my direction. There had been many times over that past few months that I had wanted to hate her for the position she put Tabitha in. She forced her to keep secrets and deceive me all while being my best friend. But, like everyone else in the compound, I loved Efia and believed that she had my best interest in mind. With a smile and a nod in my direction, she turned back to her conversation with Pleasant and left me to wonder who Grigor had sent this time.

  Chapter 14

  I had plenty of down time during the flight to do my homework. Efia had instructed Solomon to pack a truncated history of Vampires that included their origins and the explanations of the clans or families that they were separated into. Even though I wasn’t quite 18 years old yet, I began to wonder how Vampires had kept themselves hidden from me all of these years. The way they moved was so graceful that it should have been a red flag when I met Tabitha. I mean, who can walk that well in the heels she had been wearing? At any rate, I started with the first book in the case. I figured I would need to know about the clans and the politics that surrounded them more than anything else. I was, after all, going to meet the heads of each clan in a matter of hours.

  There were five royal families that served as the head of each clan. This particular volume did not go into how each family became royal, just that they were. It was the typical creation myth writing style…this is true because you are reading it. Don’t ask any questions.

  Each clan had a specific attribute which made them different from the others. The royal families, after much thought, had deemed it necessary to keep each clan separate from one another. It was illegal for different clan members to marry without the permission of the Council. Apparently there was an issue of too many children born with mixed attributes. Some of these unions produced bright and powerful offspring while others produced beings that needed to be locked away or destroyed entirely.

  I was shocked to read the matter of fact way in which the Council had ordered the deaths of so many mixed Vampire babies. It was not regarded as murder or manslaughter but simply disposing of something undesirable. Chloe had warned me that I was going to read some things that I found unpleasant…that was an understatement. I was relieved to read that this practice had been frowned upon in the recent years due to the advancements in medicine. The offspring, however, were looked down upon until they reached maturity and it was determined if they could be a viable part of society. This made me think of Solomon. His mixed heritage had been hard on him but he had been highly sought after and any of his children will be as well.

  Solomon was the product of a Steward and a Vampire. His father, a Steward, had fallen in love with his Vampire Patron from the moment he met her. He tried to keep his love for her a secret but she could tell by the way he looked at her. Her parents did their best to keep them apart but she turned out to be the most powerful Vampire of her clan at the time. Solomon’s mother had been born into the Castellano clan but she was not an Achanum Vampire.

  Achanum Vampires, or Mutes, have no attributes whatsoever. Of course they are stronger than humans, Stewards and Fare, but they are weaker than an adolescent from any of the other clans. This lack of attribute made the clan even more dangerous than the others. They became ruthless, abusive and unpredictable. Their Stewards were trained to be a militia rather than servants while their Fare were treated like slaves. Some of them even captured and drained Vampires from other clans in order to gain their attributes. This practice had been the catalyst for the clan’s civil war. They are only still alive because they signed a treaty with the Council.

  Solomon’s mother had been born to two Mute Vampires after the war. It was not until she reached the age of 10 that they realized she had latent attributes. It began when she was able to lift items that her father couldn’t. Then her mother noticed she was getting away with things at school that the other kids were not allowed to. It turned out that Solomon’s mother had been born with two separate attributes; strength and compulsion.

  Her parents kept it a secret until she was 18 and only because it was becoming too obvious that she was different. The Castellanos wanted her to marry into their family of Royals to enhance their standing with the Council but she was already in love with her family Steward. When they threatened to have him killed, Solomon’s mother compelled the Castellano Prince to walk to the edge of a cliff in order to jump. The King and Queen were so distraught when they saw their son walking toward his death that they agreed to leave the couple alone if they would just leave the clan. So, she released the Prince from her compulsion just feet before he would have jumped and ran off with her Steward.

  After Solomon was born, the Castellanos invited them to come back to the clan but they refused. They had chosen to live on North Sentinel Island with the Stewards and Fare. Feeling shunned, the Castellanos sought to become Solomon’s patrons until Efia stepped up. By virtue of her attributes and favorable standing, she had been the first to choose a Steward that year and Solomon's family was overjoyed. But the Castellanos had resented her for it.

  The Castellanos resented all of the other clans. Deemed the lowest caste by virtue of having no attributes, the Castellanos were at the mercy of the Council. Although they had the same amount of members on the Council, their lack of attribute also meant the others had less respect for them. Their only chance at notoriety and power was to drain a Vampire with attributes, which was illegal, or to marry into a family with an attribute. The last time they had an opportunity for such a union, my brother Zander got in the way.

  Violeta came to the attention of the Council after she had been found by a Council member. She and her twin brother were nearly starving, having not fed for almost a year. They had been the heirs to the Miklos royal family and were strict adherers to the feeding laws. Without their own Fare the two of them often went without. After eight months of running from their pursuers, the twins were found in the Carpathians Mountains. When the Council held an emergency session to select a suitable family to foster the pair, the Castellanos made every effort to win the honor. When the decision was made that the young Royals would be fostered by the St. Clairs, there was so much animosity that the Council feared another civil war would break out.

  The Castellanos appealed the decision stating that Efia was unfit to care for the twins based on the threat that Grigor posed to her. This argument would have had more weight if it had not been rumored that the Castellanos were the Vampires pursuing the twins through the mountains in the first place. Every other Vampire clan stood behind the Council’s decision and made it clear that any threat to the St. Clairs would be met with certain annihilation.

  I stopped laughing at the irony that Violeta was from Transylvania when I saw the fate of the Miklos clan. Having the attributes of physical strength and agility, the Miklos Vampires are called Physice, pronounced Fizz E ChA. I really hoped I wouldn’t be tested on this. Violeta and her brother, Dominic, were the only survivors of an attack on the Miklos royal compound. Caught unaware, mainly because no one had ever dared attack such a physically powerful clan, most of the Miklos died when every structure was set on fire. The twins were smuggled out of the compound by their Stewards at the last minute. And, the pair was forced to flee or perish with the rest of the clan. As I looked back on my training sessions, I could see how her attributes would be coveted by any
Vampire clan. But, if the Castellanos did kill every member of the clan to get the twins, then they were more brutal than these books revealed.

  With Violeta and Zander set to marry, the future of the Miklos Family, and thus the Physice Vampires, was hopeful. The Council also looked forward to Dominic finding a partner amongst the attributed Vampires to secure the family once more. It was rumored that Efia had wanted me or Chloe to partner with Dominic so that our two families would gain an advantage over the rest of the clans, but it didn’t appear to be the case. She was just fine with the news that Dominic was traveling the world in search of a suitable bride, regardless of her attributes.

  I wondered if the Council would have even let both Miklos Royals partner with the same family. The potential for a monopoly of power was colossal. It was hard to fathom what kind of attributes the children would have if both of their parents had more than one. Also, the acceptance of mixed attribute unions was just returning to the minds of Vampires. After such a long and deadly civil war, the clans tended to keep to themselves for their own protection. The Council had only recently been able to renew betrothal negotiations without threat of secession.

  The Dewhurst family was the head of the clan with the ability to perform a type of mind control. Only a small percentage were able to read your mind but they could place images and ideas there. These Vampires are called Cerebralis due to the fact that they mess with your brain. I only recently found out that Tabitha is a Dewhurst heir. She was captured by Grigor before her maturation and when he called for ransom her grandmother Matilda answered. Tabitha and her grandmother were tortured by Grigor and his people for months until both of them were near death. The Council was able to gather enough information to put together a rescue team and Efia was one of the volunteers. She led one of three teams into Grigor’s dungeons and freed the pair before ultimately fighting Grigor himself. Efia barely escaped with her life when Grigor turned the tables on her and was about to throw her into the flames when Tabitha’s grandmother put fear into his mind.

  Once they were safely at the St. Clair compound, Efia was the only high ranking official present and strong enough to perform Tabitha’s Ritus Transitus before she died from her injuries. The Ritus Transitus is the ritual performed when a Natus, born Vampire, comes into maturity. Like the Motus, a Vampire who has been changed from human, a Natus needs the blood of another Vampire to complete the transition. With an Elementarium performing the Ritus on a Cerebralis Natus, the resulting Vampire could be amazing or disastrous.

  As they waited to see how a Cerebralis would evolve with the blood of another attribute in her veins, news from the Council arrived. Tabitha’s great aunt, the barren Dewhurst Queen, had set her up in the hopes that she and her grandmother would die before her Ritus Transitus thus leaving the position of heir open for appointment. The Council would not interfere nor would they condone the interference of one clan to another. It was written that each clan may govern in the way they saw fit as long as the common laws concerning other Vampires were kept. Efia was determined to interfere.

  Matilda was still too weak to go up against her aunt by herself and needed a strong ally. Having the support of a queen of any stature was great but having the Elementarium Queen on your side was a coup. Efia was one of the most powerful Els, as they are called, in recorded history. Although most of the Elementarium Vamps could only control Air, Efia had had some success with all of the elements making her, and her blood descendants, the most powerful Vampires alive.

  When I asked about the powers of the other clans and why controlling the elements was the most powerful and not mind control or strength, Efia blew me a kiss and the lights went out. I woke up 30 minutes later with a headache and a bruised ego. It was that easy for her to deprive my brain of just enough oxygen to knock me out but not enough to do any permanent damage. Her control was amazing and I knew why the others were hoping I would be able to gain control over my attributes quickly. Efia could also control fire, water and Earth, but only in very limited degrees. Pleasant tried to get her to train more but she was far too worried about all of her blood descendants to concentrate on her own attributes.

  Efia went to visit the Dewhurst Queen under the guise of bringing the news of her nieces’ escape. She was treated to a royal welcome with all of the pomp and circumstance that went with it. Once seated at the Queen’s right hand, Efia waited for Matilda to come forward. She was meant to answer for her disobedience in trying to rescue Tabitha on her own when the Queen had expressly forbid it. Before she could even execute a respectful bow, the Queen ordered her execution on the spot. The executioner never made it to his position, however, as Efia thickened the air around him and forced him to the ground. Then, she then turned on the Queen, held her off the ground with an invisible hand. If she and Matilda had not shared blood hours before, Efia would have succumbed to the Queen’s attempts to scare her away. Instead, she looked toward her new friend, who was still weak from her ordeal in Grigor’s dungeons, and snapped the Queen’s neck instantly making Matilda the Dewhurst Queen.

  The Council recorded the event as self-defense since Efia had claimed she was Tabitha’s guardian. That meant that Tabitha was to live with the St. Clairs and that Matilda and Efia were not going to be put on trial for killing a Queen. Since that day, the Dewhurst Queen felt like she was in Efia’s debt. She defers to her in Council meetings and expects her clan to yield to the St. Clairs. Efia, on the other hand, simply saw the matter as helping save the life of her friend. The two monarchs were as close as two powerful Vampires could be.

  Vampire politics was so complicated that it was simple. Just stay hidden and don’t kill each other were about the most important laws they had. There were, however, the traditions to consider. These traditions were centuries old and nowhere near fading in significance. The most prominent tradition was predicting the future and this attribute was almost as much a curse as a gift. The Oraculum, the Oracles (or the Orcs as Chloe calls them), are a strange clan. Their ability to see into the future gave them power and prestige but the side effects of the attribute were often times deadly. Since Oracles go into a narcoleptic type trance when a vision comes to them, they can be a danger to themselves and others if not careful.

  I read that an Oracle was passing for a knight at a human king’s table. He wanted to win the hand of the princess and entered his name into the jousting competition. He did very well, winning his first 4 matches. Right before the 5th match, the princess leaned over the railing of the royal viewing box to present him with her kerchief. She had yet to present anyone with a token of favor, so the Vampire knight knew the significance of her gesture. Filled with pride, he urged his horse forward, lowering his lance as he approached. When he was a just a few yards away, however, he had a seizure and blacked-out. When he awoke he was in irons and being hauled to the gallows. His seizure had been the precursor to a vision; a vision that told him that his soul-mate would meet an untimely death at his hands. When he discovered that his seizure had caused his lance to run through the princess he wept and welcomed the hangman’s noose. He was saved, however, when his three brothers, having had visions of his demise, appeared under the cover of night to rescue him.

  The Oracles were called upon by the other four clans to offer insight and help them to gain advantage over the others. Most of the time, due to the nature of their attribute, the Oracle lived with the family or clan that they were employed by and under 24-hour guard. I wondered if Efia had an Oracle for our family. If so, had all of the events in my life been predicted up to this point? Could one of them have foreseen my childhood and allowed Efia to change it? I wasn’t sure if their attribute worked that way or not but it was definitely something I was going to look into.

  As Efia’s granddaughter I needed to be familiar with the royal families and their attributes, so I began to write the names of the reigning sovereign and the flower that was used as their icon. I knew that the St. Clair flower was the Calla Lily, so I chalked that up as a win. The
others would have to wait because I was so sleepy from reading about the different attributes and why they were special. I just wanted to close my eyes for a few minutes and then I would start again.

  When I woke up we were landing in Hong Kong for refueling. All of the books that I had been reading were neatly stacked in the rear of the jet and someone had put a soft blanket over me. Stiff and groggy, I was glad to hear that we were more than halfway there. There was enough head room on the jet for everyone to stand and stretch but we still disembarked and walked around on the tarmac. Efia and Pleasant joined Solomon at the far end of the runway to have a private conversation while everyone else looked for souvenirs to purchase. I could see Chloe speaking with a young Chinese boy about the hand painted sphere he was selling. The boy spoke perfect English and, after a bit of haggling, Chloe walked away with a victorious smile and a beautiful trinket.

  Tabitha was hugged up with Jordan and Zander was looking into Violeta’s eyes lovingly. I was happy that my brothers had found true love and even happier that it had been with families that could help us if we were ever in need. Oracle or not, I had the feeling that we would need as many powerful friends as we could get.

  As if to confirm my suspicions, Solomon turned and looked in our direction. As he did so, I noticed a small Chinese woman in a crisp black suit. Her jet black hair was streaked with silvery gray but she didn’t have one wrinkle on her face. She was very animated in her exchange with Efia and Pleasant, to the point of hysteria. I saw Solomon reach into his jacket pocket before he touched the woman’s neck. She instantly stopped talking and went limp, falling into Solomon’s arms.