Rising Son (The Juliana Lucio Series)

by L. C. DeCarlo

  “Trust me, Jules, I want him protected more than you know. I wish you had completed what you were working on. I’ve grown very fond of that son of yours and I want him as safe possible given the circumstances.”

  “Okay, thank you, Will.”

  Victoria started rapping on the car window with her knuckles letting us know it was time for us to get a move on.

  William took my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze, as we met up with the others making our way to the house. We all walked silently up the drive not really knowing what it was we were walking into. The yard was too perfectly manicured, the night too silent, even the night air around us seemed to mock us with its calming façade; seeming to throw in our faces it’s ability to remain steady and motionless, while we were filled with utter dread and turmoil.

  Ana, turning to face us, was about to say something, when she was cut short with the abrupt opening of the front stained glass door. Music poured forth reminding me of the first time I was introduced to the Coven, which instantly caused a thread of fear and worry to weave itself throughout my body. Michael was standing at the door with open arms waiting to greet us like old friends, which further turned my stomach sour. How Ana and William managed to do this for the past century I will never be able to comprehend. William was right—I was not cut out for this.

  “Hello, friends! So glad you could you make it again,” Michael greeted us as we stepped through the door.

  “What’s this? You’ve brought a human with you?” Michael eyes didn’t move from Christian as he asked the question. He eyed him hungrily having no reason to hide his obvious appreciation of him. I fought to reign in my control knowing this was going to happen, that he was going to be an object of much speculation before they left him to be ignored.

  “Come, Michael, I want to see the new place you’ve got,” Victoria purred into Michael’s chest as she sidled up next to him. When his brown eyes didn’t move from Christian’s own Victoria surreptitiously placed herself directly in between the two of them forcing the trance to break by lifting herself up onto her toes, and slightly running her tongue along Michael’s lips. This, finally, got his attention. It also got Christian’s as I could feel him stiffen up next to me.

  “Sorry,” he said shaking his head, “it’s just that most humans don’t come through the front door so willingly, at least not unless they are compelled. There is something unique about this one, no?”

  “He’s Gloria’s feeder. She likes to bring him along whenever she can, and I wouldn’t get any ideas, you know how she is about sharing. I still shake anytime I even think of stiletto heels.” Considering the subject dropped she took Michael by the hand and pulled him further inside.

  “So, what is your name?” Michael started to ask Christian.

  “His name is feeder, of course,” I replied in the most condescending tone I could manage.

  “Of course. Gloria, I couldn’t help but notice that you all came piling out of one car like clowns at a circus. What happened to all your others?”

  “They’re at the shop; you know getting the brakes done,” I said a little tightly.

  Michael started to laugh but realized he was the only one, “you’re kidding.”

  “Oh, she never kids about cars. They’re her second love after all,” Christian told him.

  “Is that right? Well, don’t be shy tell us what her first love is then?”

  Christian looked right at me as he answered. I could have killed him for bringing the attention back to him.

  “I do believe it’s me; well, my blood that is.”

  “Why don’t you go mingle or something, feeder,” I told him through gritted teeth, and keep your blood to yourself.”

  He gave me no expression as he started to walk past us. Victoria pulled Michael into the opposite room thankfully keeping his attention off of Christian. Before Christian made it two steps, however, he was stopped by none other than Monica. She stood directly in front of him blocking his path eyeing him up and down just as thoroughly as Michael had. I swear he is wearing a silver cross next time!

  “Gloria, is this an apology gift for what you did to my arm? You really should have. He’s my favorite flavor,” Monica said turning Christian’s head side to side as if inspecting him.

  Just as I was about to tell her to get her hands off him, Ana stepped in between them. I thought she was going to do the threatening for me, but Ana went a different route. An entirely different route.

  “Monica, I see your arm appears to be back to normal,” Ana commented in a low husky voice. She began lightly tracing her fingers along her shoulder where there should have been a scar from the healing of the limb.

  “Um, yes, it is fully healed,” Monica told her a bit confused to the way Ana was acting toward her.

  Ana let her fingers follow an invisible trail up her arm to then follow the length of Monica’s exposed collar bone, “you must have very strong blood for a healing of that magnitude to leave no trace whatsoever.”

  Monica didn’t respond, but started to look at Ana a little suspiciously. I slowly reached forward and pulled Christian back from the two women, a little like backing away from a snake. Ana leaned in and took a great breath next to Monica’s neck taking in her scent.

  “I would love to hear about it,” she told her simultaneously intertwining her arm with Monica’s and steering her into the other room. Monica was so focused on Ana that she didn’t look as if she even noticed us or Christian any longer. Leave it to Ana to always find the best way out.

  William, Christian and I began wandering further into the house; it was a moderately sized townhome with mismatched furniture of the La-Z-Boy variety, beer logos decorated the otherwise sparse décor. The only thing that wasn’t skimped on was the center piece of the living room. It was where most of the young vampires seemed to be congregating, around a 72” plasma television with every type of gaming system I had ever heard of; granted, I wasn’t up on the latest and greatest of the gaming world, but I knew jaw-dropping when I saw it. Christian was honed onto that screen like a bear to honey, and started walking off without another word to me.

  “Chris--!” I called out to him in a hushed whisper.

  He abruptly stopped but kept his back to me, “I’ll be fine. Let me know if you need to feed.”

  I couldn’t do anything right then about Christian being upset and my heart ached at the wedge that was being shoved between us. As I looked over at William I was slightly taken aback at the distance he was portraying. He was scanning the rooms of the house with such focus that I couldn’t catch his eye. Everyone in the place knew him and with Michael distracted by Victoria they were all anxious to come ask Will what he thought about the latest operations, where he had been; the women especially fawned over him. The younger vampires looked up to him and the older ones respected him; considering we were in the midst of our enemy I couldn’t help but wonder what he had done to earn it, and why he was apparently so indifferent to my very presence.

  The more William ignored me the harder Michael tried to get my attention from the back room. Turning away from William and his growing crowd of groupies I went to look after Christian to see what info I could scope out. I found him sitting on the only small couch in the entire place with a vampire on each side of him. They all looked like they were concentrating on something important as they squeezed in together on the couch, at least it looked important until half the room started cheering while the other half was cursing. Regardless of the reason, however, it was the T.V. they were yelling at. Christian was playing Call of Duty with them and apparently he was pretty good at it. I was at the edge of the room when Christian turned just enough to catch my attention. He shook his head so slightly no one would have caught it. Trusting he knew what he was doing I backed out of the room and was struck with the realization that I had nowhere to go. Everyone was occupied distracting, awing and hopefully learning some useful information, but me. I had nothing to do and no one to talk to.

 
; “You need to break things off with me,” I heard William say quietly behind me.

  “Excuse me?” I turned to face him a little dumbfounded.

  William took me by the elbow drawing me into the corner.

  “You need to make it look like you are breaking things off with me and it needs to be public so Michael will see it. After the way I just ignored you everyone suspects that we are having problems.”

  “Why in the world would I want to do that? But to be honest you’re pissing me off enough that I just might do it for real,” I shot back at him angrily. I knew his ignoring me wasn’t in my imagination.

  “If you are no longer with me then Michael will swoop in and you need to get as close to him as you can. We need to find out who the other leaders are and when the outing is supposed to take place,” he stopped talking for a second trying to weigh his next words, “Jules . . . you need to do whatever necessary to find out who the spy within the Coven is.” His eyes didn’t stray from mine as he said it.

  “I don’t like how you just said ‘whatever necessary’ William.”

  “Whatever necessary, Jules lives depend on it.”

  I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t speak let alone believe he wanted me to do what he was implying.

  “You bastard. Last week you destroyed everything you could get your hands on because he tasted a drop of my blood and now you want to pass me around like I’m some kind of whore?”

  When he didn’t respond it was an admission all on its own. His face betrayed no emotion, no remorse in what he asking he just stared back at me waiting for his answer. I thought back to what we had just done together in my room a few hours before and knew he couldn’t possibly want me to do what he was asking. I did need to make Michael believe it however. I reached back and slapped William across the face leaving a bright red handprint in its wake.

  “I’m not a whore, Will,” I said just loud enough that the eavesdropping ears would be able to hear. I reached up on my toes and placed a light kiss in the middle of my red handprint letting my words barely brush across his skin, “not even you can force me to betray you. I will get the info.” I turned my back on him letting a few tears that weren’t entirely fake fall.

  William was certainly right about Michael. I had barely made it across the small room when Michael was by my side.

  “Are you alright? I couldn’t help but see what happened,” Michael turned his brown eyes to me. They were so intoxicatingly sweet that I had to keep reminding myself that he was the bad guy. He had light stubble across his sharp jaw line he rubbed across my inner wrist when he took my hand kissing my palm. I cursed myself for the flutter that it sent through my stomach.

  “Yeah, I—I’m fine.”

  I had to pull my hand back from him and hated the knowing smirk he gave me as I did it.

  “Well, no matter what is going on with the two of you I’m glad you could make it tonight. It’s going to be an eventful evening.”

  “Oh, why is that?”

  “I’m taking everyone out; I want to show them one of the production centers.”

  My alarm was instant. “What is a production center?”

  “It’s going to be the way of the future, the very near future. Think of it like a dairy farm, but for humans.”

  “What? Where is it? Are there going to be a lot of these places? How does it work?”

  “They are all over the country, we have them set up in almost every major city.”

  The excitement was shining through his face. Just as he was undoubtedly going to go into all the gory details of how to milk a human like a cow his phone rang.

  “Would you excuse me for a moment?”

  “Michael! Wait, I want to talk to you about this,” I called after him my compulsion reaching out to him without warning. I hadn’t meant for it to happen it just flung from me like electricity from a storm cloud; one moment I was calling after him the next I was trying to force my will upon him.

  He turned to face me holding his phone to his chest, giving me a sidelong glance. I couldn’t tell if it was one full of anger or if I had just confirmed for him what he was seeking to know about me all along.

  “When I get back, my sweet, we will definitely be talking some more.”

  Before I could respond he had disappeared almost before my eyes as I was left standing alone near the kitchen. If they had production centers set up in almost every city already how close must they be to revealing our existence? Why did they want production centers? I thought they just wanted to be recognized by the rest of the world, not commit genocide.

  After the scene I just had with William I couldn’t go to him and I had no idea where Ana or Victoria were. I could think of turning to one other person. I ran upstairs clutching my purse while trying to find an empty bedroom. The only place I found was an empty hall bathroom. Except when I got inside it wasn’t as empty as I thought. There was an obviously drained and very dead man lying haphazardly in the bathtub. He was so pale I don’t think there was an ounce of blood left in him. I couldn’t focus on that now though, I might only have a minute or two before Michael came looking for me.

  I pulled out my phone and called Sebastian.

  I was sent to his voicemail. Called again. Voicemail.

  “Are you kidding me?” I looked at my phone like it was in on some sort of conspiracy.

  “I don’t have time for this!”

  Resting my head in the palm of my hand I made the decision to call the only other person who might be able to do something. I loathed him for the way he treated me. The phone rang once before the voice on the other end picked up.

  “What?”

  “It’s nice to talk to you too, Martin.”

  After quickly telling him what Michael said about going to see where the production centers were I hung up and went downstairs to wait for Michael. I didn’t see him anywhere so he was presumably still on his call. I might only have one shot at this and I didn’t see any of the others around so I made a snap decision. I went straight to the room that I last saw Christian playing video games with the other vampires. As soon as I walked in they all slightly stiffened up and tried to keep their eyes averted from me.

  “Hey guys, how’s it going?”

  No one answered and Christian just gave me an uneasy look. With each second that passed I was becoming more anxious and less patient. Just because I couldn’t compel Michael didn’t mean I couldn’t compel these fledglings. There were only three of them left in the room two of which were crammed in on either side of Christian.

  After one quick look out of the room to scan for Michael I came back in the room.

  “Feeder, come here.”

  Christian didn’t waste any time jumping to my order; in fact I think he had been looking for a way out already. My compulsion flew to the edge of my psyche as if it were another entity just waiting to be let free, to go on the attack. Where before I had to focus and concentrate for it to do my bidding, now I didn’t have to give it a fully conscious thought and it was there. It felt powerful and frightening stitched together as one. I made quick eye contact with the lone vampire in the chair telling him to sit by the others. Oh God, I hoped this worked. I’ve never tried to compel three vampires before, but everyone keeps telling me to get the info at all costs, right.

  I looked the three male vampires briefly in the eye and made no attempt at introductions.

  “When does the Coven plan to reveal vampirekind to the human world?”

  Instead of answers flowing back to me I had slack jaws and blank gazes, this told me they were under my influence, but why weren’t they answering? I pushed my will further onto them until I could feel the boundaries of their mind.

  “Answer me,” I growled at their seeming incompetence.

  “We don’t know.”

  “He doesn’t tell us.”

  “They don’t want anyone to know the date,” the three droned back to me.

  Great, it was going to be harder than ever to get the info w
e needed. I was beginning to feel the strain of holding three vamps under my control and I knew I was running short on time. I wasn’t sure what they would know. I couldn’t be sure what to ask. My muscles were starting to shake as I felt one of them trying to break the hold. It was a pressure being forced back onto me. Christian whispered in my ear, I think he was afraid if he spoke he would break the trance, and he might have. I nodded back to him before asking the question.

  “What do you know about the Coven’s plans?”

  “They plan on creating mass numbers of vampires because it is easier than converting old vampires to their way of believing.”

  “The nightly vandalism and public feeding are going to escalate and become more and more public.”

  “They don’t think the Council really wants to stop any of it, and even if they did Michael says they can’t. They have grown too weak over the years and with the spy on our side it would take an all-out war to stop us.”

  “Which would reveal our existence anyway,” I finished for them now feeling a little dizzy.

  “Yes. There is nothing to stop us.”

  I started wavering and felt Christian grab hold of my elbow to steady me.

  “None of you will remember any of this conversation. None of it.”

  I walked Christian to the side of the couch before finally releasing my hold. Just as I did I heard the front door open followed by Michael’s distinct footfall.

  “So, how do you play this game of yours? Do you mind if I give it a shot?”

  The three of them looked a little confused at the sudden change in seating arrangements, but didn’t speak up about it.

  “Um, sure you can have my controller. What you want to do is—”, a young red head was cut off by Michael making his presence known to all around him.

  “Hello everyone, there you are Gloria. I was looking for you.”

  “I’ve been in here. As a matter of fact, it’s my turn to play,” I held up the controller as if to prove my innocence and plastered my face with a sickly sweet smile.

  “It’s too bad you won’t get your chance, it’s time we left for our tour.”