The old man’s lips turned up into a smile at the memory.
“Even as a little girl, she trained constantly and learned with determination. It was her dream to be the best of all of us. For her, it was either be first or be killed.
“This amazing woman was your mother, Felicia. Felicia could take any of the men here in a fight. When it came to vampires, there was something about her that could almost mesmerize them, giving her the perfect opportunity to attack.
“That was until the day she met Trevor. We found ourselves in the midst of a battle one night in the park. She had tried to catch Trevor’s gaze and draw him into her grasp, because he appeared to be the leader. For some reason, her gifts did not work on Trevor. However, when Trevor saw her, he decided he wanted her. He kidnapped her.
“Your mother fought him, but he was the only vampire your mother could not kill. He took her, and they disappeared for almost a year.
“Your mother told me the time she spent with Trevor wasn’t so bad. I would like to think he was the most horrible man in the universe, but apparently he treated her pretty good. She was the only one he treated well."
My so-called grandfather paused to take a sip from his own water glass, which also sat on the nightstand.
I kept quiet because he asked me to and because the story was getting good.
He cleared his throat and continued. “Trevor’s intention was to turn your mother. She told Trevor she loved him, and she would never leave him. But she didn’t want to be a vampire. During her stay with Trevor, he treated her like a queen, gave her everything her heart desired. Unfortunately, he forgot one tiny detail: Felicia was a vampire hunter. The hatred for vampires ran deep in her veins and could not be forgotten, even by loving one of them.
“When one of Trevor's men tried to rape her, she killed him. Trevor would have killed him himself, had he known what the man had tried to do. Felicia had been embarrassed and had no intention of letting Trevor know what had happened. She told him the man had assaulted her. She announced she was pregnant, with you, and that she had only acted to defend her unborn child.
“Trevor was ecstatic. You have to realize how rare this was. Perhaps… once every couple hundred years is a child conceived with a vampire. But… a vampire child combined with the blood of a vampire hunter… that is completely unheard of.
“Felicia knew deep in her heart she could not stay with Trevor. She wanted her child to be safe, and have a good life, not to live in a world of darkness with a bunch of vampires. And there was the question of your safety. Children are like candy to vampires… the blood is sweet.
“So Felicia fled and came home shortly before you were born. When you were born a healthy little girl, we sent the two of you into hiding. Your father has been searching for you for years. That's why you've moved several times. That's why your mother drenched herself in that god-awful perfume and made you do the same thing, and that's why your mother was murdered right before your eyes. Because you are a very, very special child, Chloe Kallistrate.”
He bowed his head and placed his fingertips on his temples. “Trevor will stop at nothing until he has you.”
I had been laying back on my pillows, listening to this story. It did explain a lot of the weird behavior I had noticed in my mom. Sometimes she would get all crazy and just decide to move. She would start packing all of our stuff and clean the house with bleach from top to bottom before we left. Really, I just thought she was nomadic and had sudden urges to move. And the perfume, she changed her scent once a year and wore a lot of whatever she chose. She took about three showers a day, too. Yeah, now I get it, everywhere we went we left a scent.
I did have one question though. Actually, I had lots of questions, but just one for the time being: “How did you know that we needed help when Trevor’s men attacked us?”
His eyes met mine. “Chloe, our blood isn’t regular blood. We have the bloodline of vampire hunters. Our blood is almost magical. I just knew. Your mother is my daughter, and I just knew we had to go to her. We were too late to save her. Now we will honor her life by keeping you safe, because that is what she dedicated her life to doing.”
I nodded.
“We are going to let you rest here for a while, because you have been through a trauma. It will take time for you to feel normal again. Soon, however, you will have to get up and begin your training.”
“Training?”
He nodded. “Yes, I’m sorry, but one of the only ways for you to be safe is for you to learn how to defend yourself. If you had lived here with us since birth you probably could have helped your mother in fighting them. Sadly, she was out of practice and hadn’t trained for fifteen years.”
I could see he was becoming emotional.
“I would love to train.” I caught his eye, and held his teary gaze. “I’m going to get good, better than my mother, even. I’m going to kill Trevor for having my mother murdered.”
He nodded again and turned to leave.
“I swear it,” I whispered to myself when he left the room.
***
I lay in bed for a long time without sleeping. I kept thinking of the guy who called himself my grandfather as ‘the old man.’ I didn’t want to call him ‘grandpa’, but I didn’t know what his name was, so that only left ‘the old man.’
The room they had put me in was a bedroom. It was obviously a girl’s bedroom. There was a dark purple comforter on the bed, and the curtains were the same color. A large dresser pushed up against one wall had an old-fashioned oval mirror in the corner beside it. I saw an open door on another wall that I assumed was an attached bathroom.
The possibility of a bathroom almost painfully reminded me that I hadn’t peed at all since I woke. Slowly, I lifted myself into a sitting position. My arms screamed out in pain and refused to support me. Pushing the covers aside, I placed my bare feet on the hardwood floor and immediately wished I had some socks. The floor was freezing.
After a slow shuffle to the door, I discovered it was, indeed, a bathroom. Thank goodness.
On the way to the toilet, I had passed the mirror and immediately wished I hadn’t looked. My image was hideous. My eyes were all sunken in and dark underneath, my hair was all matted and greasy, and the handprint bruises on my arms were beginning to do that thing where they turned green and yellow. I had several bruises on my legs too. I noticed them after I sat down to pee.
When I came out, I decided to be nosy and look around the rest of the bedroom. Maybe the dresser had some socks in it. I opened one of the drawers and found a ton of socks in various colors. I chose a plain white pair for myself and shut the drawer.
One of the picture frames on top of the dresser caught my eye. I picked it up to get a closer look. There, sitting on a bench beside an older woman and staring at the camera, was a girl about my age. As a matter of fact, she looked so much like me that she could have been me.
My mother.
I couldn’t help it. I burst into tears and sobbed like a two year old. I rubbed my hand over the picture and let my tears fall. I wanted to see her again so badly. Knowing that was never going to happen was more than I could bear. My legs lost their strength, and I fell onto my knees, still holding the picture.
I hated those who had her killed. I can’t say for sure I had ever really hated anyone before. Without a doubt, I was going to avenge her and kill that man they all claimed was my father. He would never have me on his side.
She died saving me. How am I supposed to live with that kind of guilt?
I missed her so much already.
The bedroom door opened. I didn’t want anyone to see me sobbing on the floor. Crying was weak, and I didn’t think any of these vampire hunters would be found crying on the floor of their rooms. I quickly wiped away the tears.
“Are you OK?” asked a male voice from behind me. “What are you doing on the floor?”
I tried to get up and fumbled because I was still holding the picture. I felt warm hands gently circle my
waist to help lift me up.
“I dropped this picture off the dresser and slid when I bent to pick it up,” I told him. I turned around and found myself staring straight into those emerald eyes that had saved me from Eli and those other goons.
He nodded. “Well, are you all right? You look like you’re crying. Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, I’m OK. It’s just… these bruises, my… uh, my whole body is kind of bruised.”
He turned his lips up into what almost looked like a sneer. “Gotta get toughened up now. You're going to have a lot more bruises than that after you start training.”
While I was busy looking surprised and thinking he should have been a little bit more sympathetic, he gave me a little push toward the bed to get me moving.
I climbed back in the bed, and he sat in the chair that the old man had used. I still had the picture of my mother in my hand, so I placed it on the nightstand next to the lamp.
Finally, annoyed with this guy enough to ignore his cuteness, I curtly asked him, “So are you going to tell me who you are?”
He tilted the chair back a little bit and rocked it. “My name is Drew.”
“Why are you here, Drew?”
“I live here.”
I shook my head in frustration. “No, I mean, why you are here in this room?”
“Luke told me to come in here and talk to you about where you are and what we do.”
“Well, start talking then.” It was painful, but I defiantly crossed my arms over my chest.
He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have to be rude.”
“Huh?” Against my will, my eyes widened. “You were the one who was rude!”
“I did nothing rude.”
Ugh. He was right. All he had done was tell me I needed to get tough. I was just being a baby because I felt sorry for myself.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m just having a hard time right now.”
Again, he nodded. “Do you think you’re up for taking a walk?”
“I just got back in bed.” I paused. “I don’t have any clothes.”
“There should be clothes in the closet. Why don’t you find something that fits you? I’ll wait outside the door. I want to tell you about us, and it helps to be able to show you what I am talking about.”
I nodded and waited until he left the room. Why in the world did he let me get back in the bed in the first place if he was just going to make me get out again? With an enormous sigh and one last glance at my mother's picture, I lifted myself out of bed.
I managed find a top that looked like it was from this decade and a decent pair of jeans in the dresser. There were also plenty of shoes in the bottom of the closet. How weird that Mom had thrown her shoes on the floor of her closet too. I had never known that about her. Maybe she stopped doing it when she became a mom and had to be all responsible and tidy.
After I dressed, I cracked open the door and peeked out.
“You ready?”
Startled, I jerked backward, but then I realized it was Drew. Boy, I was jumpy.
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
I stepped out into the hall and looked around. The floors were a dark hardwood like in the bedroom, and the walls were a creamy pinkish color. There were pictures on the walls, everywhere, in those huge frames that hold, like, ten different photos. While we walked down the hallway, I also noticed that all the doors were shut on the top floor.
“Whose house is this?”
“It’s your grandfather’s, Luke’s,” he answered.
“Oh.” I had kind of figured it was, but thought it best to ask before assuming. Down the stairs we went and onto the main floor. From my spot, at the base of the stairs, I could see part of the kitchen and what looked like a living room.
Drew saw me straining to see the rest of the house. “Would you like to see the house first or take a look around when you get back?”
I shrugged like I didn’t care. “I’ll just explore after we get back. That’s fine.”
Drew opened the door and I followed him outside. It was super chilly and broad daylight. I hadn’t realized that when we were back in the bedroom. I wondered just how long I had been sleeping and how long I had been here.
“See that?”
We stood at the railing on the covered porch connected to the house. He pointed directly in front of us.
“I see that we aren’t in the city anymore.”
He nodded. “We aren’t in the city, but we aren’t out of it either. Our community is sort of like a suburb. It’s gated. No one comes in or out, except mostly just the people who live here.”
Wow. They were a whole community of just vampire hunters. That was wicked. “How many of you live here?”
“There are about one hundred homes in this community. We aren’t the only vampire hunter community. There are many, many more all over the world.”
“Wow!” That time I said it out loud. I could see the tops of many houses poking up through the trees. The view was spectacular. In the distance, the lush green mountains rose high into the clouds. I saw the tiniest bit of snow on the top of the mountains, and the trees cascaded down into the valley where they surrounded the houses.
I turned to look at Drew. “It’s beautiful here.”
He simply nodded. “Let’s move on.”
We took a path through the woods instead of the gravel driveway leading out to the road.
“This path is a shortcut into the main village,” he told me while we walked.
I followed without saying anything. The path was covered with leaves, so the only sound I heard was our footsteps crunching over them. When we left the forest, we were on a street. A few blocks more and we were on what I assumed was the main drag of a small town. We passed a diner, a quickie mart, a drug store, a video store. There was even a flower shop and a bakery.
Nice.
The street came to a split where we could only go left or right. Drew veered us to the left. We passed a cute little church with beautiful stained glass in the windows and continued walking until we came to a large building that looked like a giant shop. Drew held the door open for me, and I quickly passed through it. Once inside, I stood in awe, with my mouth hanging open.
It was a training area… a very big training area.
Drew appeared beside me. “Most everyone who lives in this community has training equipment and space in their own homes, but this one is open for everyone.”
There were people using weight machines, cardio equipment and sparring. On closer inspection, I realized there were also children using the training equipment. Drew followed my gaze to one particular little girl who had her hair in a ponytail and was hacking away at a punching bag.
“We start early here. I have been training for this since I could walk.” He paused. “And you probably would have too, if your mother hadn’t taken you away.”
I jerked my head to face him. “What would you know about that?”
He shrugged. “We all know about it. Trevor has been attacking directly at us since your mother ran with you. Obviously, we would have to know about you guys so we would know why we were being attacked.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I whispered.
“I’ll help you.” Drew met my eyes with his flashing green ones, and for a moment, I felt a strange connection to him. With a jerk of his head, he tore his eyes from mine and turned away. “Let’s go, we have more to see.”
Confused by the brief moment we had, I stumbled through the door behind him. After seeing the gym, we went to the shooting ranges. By this time, I wasn’t surprised to see that there was a range for guns and another for bows. When we left the ranges, we paid a visit to the library. The library was awesome. It was a huge, two-story stone building with tons of old books inside. I immediately fell in love with the library. While we strolled through the shelves of books, I wondered how often the people in town actually used the library. “Don’t most people use the Internet for researching stuff nowadays?”
“You‘d be surprised,” Drew told me. “When it comes to killing vampires, and other things, most of what we need to know we find in here.” He gestured to the shelves. “These books are ancient. They aren’t your basic encyclopedia or articles written by a blogger.”
I walked among the books and decided the library was probably going to be my favorite place in town. After we left the library, we went back to the old man’s house. Well, I guess I could call him Luke, since Drew had told me his name.
Once back in the house, we found Luke in the kitchen making a salad.
“Hey, Luke,” Drew greeted him when we entered the room. Drew pulled out a chair and sat.
It dawned on me, when Drew had said he lived, here he really meant that he lived here, in the house. I wondered why he live here with my grandfather. He hadn’t said anything about us being related.
“Drew, Chloe,” Luke nodded to us. He pointed his chopping knife at the pile of lettuce on the table. “One of you wash that lettuce, and the other can get those red bell peppers sliced up.”
“Chloe, did Drew show you around town?”
I nodded. “Yes, it’s a very quaint little community.”
“Well, I hope you are going to like it here. I had some of the crews who weren’t busy go after your things. I hope we got everything you would have wanted. I told them to make sure to get any and all photographs or memorabilia for you.”
I stopped slicing the peppers and realized what I had failed to before: This place was going to be my home. My mother was gone forever. Her family I had never known were vampire hunters. My father was a vampire.
Life as I had known it would never be the same.
“I’m sure whatever they bring will do,” I told him blandly.
I gripped the knife even tighter. Far off in the distance, I could still hear them speaking, but only one thing was clear in my mind: Trevor, my father, was going to die.
From that moment on, I was Chloe Kallistrate, a vampire hunter.
The Vampire Hunter's Daughter: Part I Page 2