by Dawn Gray
"You can go to hell." I said and stepped back, against a tree. He moved closer to me and I looked him in the eye. "You're darker than anything I've ever met."
"I'm darker than anything you'll ever meet again." He told me and leaned towards me, as he pushed his body against mine.
"You still haven't told me your name." I said and slipped away from him. "You must be Cristian's brother, so, you're last name must be Kingston."
"No!" He yelled and looked at me. "Why do you wish to know who I am before I kill you?" He asked and I smiled at him.
"Because, vampires are rare. I am not, so, I think I have the right to know the name of my killer." I told him. He moved towards me, with an angry look on his face. He knocked me over and laid his weight down on me. "I've always wanted to be drained by a vampire." I mocked. "It's been one of my fantasies."
"Shut up!" He ordered me and grabbed my wrists. I smiled at him, feeling his anger, and to my surprise, I liked it, but my smile seemed to make him angrier. "You want to know my name? You wish it to be the last thing you ever hear?" He asked viciously, and then shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that."
He kissed me hard on the lips, a passionate kiss that sent fire through my body, then he got up, quickly, and left me there, laying on the ground. I watched him walk away, then stop just before the woods and turn his head, so his eyes looked right into mine. He almost seemed as if he weren't there, except for his eyes.
"My name is Justin Tudorian, and you can tell Cristian that I'm here." He disappeared from view, suddenly. I sighed and looked at the sky.
"Justin, huh." I said softly and then looked around. "I wonder what vampires are doing in these woods?"
I got up and brushed myself off. I didn't really believe that Justin was a vampire, but if that's how he lived at night, then let him be, but how would it explain the dark feelings I had gotten from him, feelings that I had warned Taryn about when Cristian had shown interest.
* * * * *
Taryn and Cristian sat looking at the city from Brenda Miller's back patio. They were the only ones out there; it was very quiet. Taryn looked at Cristian and smiled, cutely.
"Why doesn't Sage like you much?" Taryn asked, looking into his face. "She gets such strange feelings from you."
"I've just gotten stranger ones from Justin." Sage's voice interrupted. They spotted her walking out of the woods; Cristian watched her long skirt sway. Why was she so captivating. "He decided to come and visit me in the woods."
"Justin is here?" Cristian asked. Sage nodded, as Cristian looked at Taryn and got up. "Taryn, I'll talk to you tomorrow morning, I have to find someone." He kissed her, quickly, on the cheek. "Goodnight."
Taryn watched him walk away and she looked at Sage, who looked up at the sky. "Well, I never!" She huffed. Sage smiled at her. "Sage, who's Justin?"
"Cristian's brother, I think, who apparently isn't suppose to be here." Sage said, softly. "He told me to tell Cristian."
"What the hell is going on here, Sage?" Taryn asked. Sage looked at her and shrugged. She knew just about as much of what was going on here as Taryn did, but she knew a little more. "Are you going home?"
"Yeah, I'll see you in the morning at breakfast." Sage told her and walked away, slowly. Taryn looked at the woods, and then went to find Bobbie.
* * * * *
Cristian looked at the doused fire and then looked round. He could feel Justin nearby. He knew his blood brother was somewhere close. He turned in a circle, calling out to Justin, with his mind, telling him to show himself.
"And, if I never decided to show myself, never decided to tell you I was here?" Justin asked as he stepped out of the woods. Justin looked over at him. "And, the girl, what if I had never decided to tell her anything and just killed her, what would you be doing right now?"
"That is your way, Justin, why didn't you kill her?" Cristian asked.
"She intrigues me, and she wanted to know my name. She knew exactly what I was and I'm attracted to her." Justin told him. "But, what I want to know is why you are in my territory."
"Your territory? I felt no signs of an immortal in this area." Cristian said, softly.
"So, tell me, brother, what did bring you here?" Justin asked. Cristian looked around and smiled. He thought about what brought him there, the eyes in the darkness, the whispers, the pulling that reeled him in like a fish on the end of a line, but, he looked at Justin and sighed.
"Someone told me that there was plenty of young blood at this college. This is a private, well diverse place. I could have the pick of the litter and be very discrete about it." Cristian replied. "I have found that he was quite right."
"What do you know about this young woman, the one who so bravely stood up to me?" Justin asked. Cristian looked over at the ashes of the fire and sighed.
"She's a witch." He replied and then thought of Sage. "Quite powerful, but not nearly skilled enough to use the powers against us. Her name is Sage Owens."
"Certainly, a name fit for a witch isn’t it? Sage?" Justin sat down on the ground. "In all my immortal days, I've never met a woman who makes me so mad, but, also makes me feel so alive with...with..." he paused and shook his head, then looked back at Cristian. "Oh, she's unique."
"Justin, we haven't been together in almost two centuries, why would we, suddenly, end up here, in these woods?" Cristian asked, looking at the sky.
"I've been here almost a year." Justin smiled and stood up. "What brought me here was, oddly enough, a feeling of being close to home."
"You don't think he's in the area, do you?" Cristian asked, thinking about the third blood brother, the one who disappeared.
"I would have known by now if he was. New England isn't all that big, Cristian." Justin smiled at him then looked at the sky. "The three of us together, once again. What an interesting thought."
Cristian watched Justin walk off into the woods, leaving him there to be by himself. Slowly, as the night dragged on, Cristian made his way out of the woods, and slowly across the campus. He found himself in front of a large red brick building and slowly, as if commanded too, he looked up at one of the high windows. There, silhouetted by a small candle near here, was Sage, and she was looking down at him. He began to walk away, but he kept his eyes on her, until the curtain closed.
The cafeteria bustled with excitement as Cristian walked in the next morning. People were yelling over other people to hear the person next to them, and it seemed the more people who talked, the louder it got. He spotted Chris Tanner as he made his way through the crowd and he smiled when he saw Taryn sitting with him.
"Well, well. Good morning." Cristian smiled at her.
"Have you seen Sage?" Taryn asked him, quickly. He looked at her then shook his head. "She's been missing since sometime last night, and usually, she's the first one here."
"No, the last time I saw her was when she was with you, at the party." Cristian sighed and rubbed his eyes. "You checked everywhere for her, though?"
It seemed that just as he asked it, he heard a commotion out in the hallway, then someone, suddenly, yelled that there was a fight.
The three of them got up and pushed their way through the crowd to look at the two people, standing tall, facing one another. One was a young man, whose hair was all disheveled, bleeding from the corner of his mouth, and the other, was Sage, who stood proud and angry.
"Sage!" Bobbie yelled, coming closer to her friend. Sage put a hand up and continued to look straight at the young man in front of her. "Sage, don't do this! There are other ways to get your point across."
"Yeah, Witch!" The young man hollered, as he stood there, smiling. "Why don't you just ride away on your little broom stick and POOF, be gone?"
"You don't even know, do you?" Sage said and stepped forward. Bobbie grabbed her arm as she started to chant in Latin. Cristian watched the whole thing begin to unfold in front of him. Sage continued to walk closer, as she raised her hand and pointed a finger at the boy's forehead.
"Sage!"
Taryn yelled out. "Stop!"
Sage smiled as she looked at the suddenly terrified young man and touched his forehead with her pointer finger. He looked at her, wide-eyed, and scared, as she suddenly screamed out several words in Latin. The boy turned and ran, and Bobbie quickly grabbed her and led her passed Cristian and Taryn, and sat her down on the nearest bench.
"What did you say to him?" Bobbie asked as she stared at her cousin. Sage smiled at her, a humorous smile then waved Bobbie closer. "This isn't funny."
"I told him to get out of my face!" Sage said to her, quite loudly, and then watched as Bobbie backed away. Cristian smiled at her then shook his head. Bobbie and Taryn both looked at her in shock.
"Are you sure? No magic words, no hocus pocus?" Taryn asked.
"No, no Poof, be gone, as he put it." Sage shrugged. "Just get out of my face."
"She's telling the truth." Cristian smiled at them, both girls looked up at him, quickly, as he stood with his arms crossed. "I speak Latin, and that's exactly what she said to him."
"Thank you." Sage said and stood up. She looked at her friends then, suddenly, back at Cristian. "Did you find who you were looking for last night?"
"Yes, thank you." Cristian replied. He didn't want to discuss Justin's appearance, not in front of Bobbie and Taryn, anyway. Sage nodded at him, then turned and walked away. Taryn looked at Cristian, quickly, and took his hand. "She's just upset, I'm sure."
"So, what was she saying before she told him to get out of her face?" Bobbie asked as they sat at the table.
"Some not so very nice words." Cristian replied and sat down with them. "Tell me, is she really a witch?"
"She knows things." Bobbie said, rubbing her forehead, and then she looked sternly at him. "She has some gifts and feelings, that aren't usually wrong. She has one about you, you know."
"Yes, so I've heard." He answered. He looked down at his books, then back up at the two girls. "Can you tell me what those feelings are? I mean, do you know how she feels?"
"She said that you weren't what you appeared to be." Bobbie spoke up.
"And, she warned us not to get involved with you." Taryn said, smiling. "She said that she felt darkness around you. Where are you from?"
"West Virginia." He spoke up, quickly. Bobbie nodded, probably starting to agree with her cousin. "Listen; don't let her go out into those woods alone at night, if you can help it. It's not a place for a young woman to be."
"Sage can take care of herself." Bobbie said and got up. "I think I'm going to track her down, actually. See you later."
Cristian looked at Taryn and watched Bobbie walk away. He glanced at the girl sitting in front of him, then down at his hand.
"How did you three meet? I mean, I know that Sage and Bobbie are related, but what about you?" He questioned.
Taryn smiled and rolled her eyes. "I met Sage when I was seven. Her parents died in a fire, so, she came here to live with Bobbie who is my next door neighbor." She looked at him, deep into his eyes and she smiled. "Why the sudden interest?"
"My friend, Justin, the one she was talking about last night, has seemed to take an interest in her and I thought if I knew her background, Maybe, I could help her stay away from him." Cristian sighed. Taryn looked at him, oddly, which made Cristian smile. "The darkness that you mentioned to me, that she had said she felt around me, well, Justin would be even darker to her, but, from what he told me, she seemed to be attracted to that."
"Sage attracted to anything seems kind of funny in itself." Taryn said and shook her head. "She's very much a loner, has never had a boyfriend that I know of anyway. In fact, Bobbie and I almost believed that she was, well, a lesbian. She never shows interest in anyone, let alone a man she meets out in the woods one dark night."
"She's never mentioned any man to you?" Cristian said, thinking that it was a little odd that Sage would be a lesbian.
"Well, there was this one man that she used to talk about all the time when she first moved here. His name was...was...well, I guess I can ask her, but one day she just stopped talking about him, this was about four years ago." Taryn shrugged.
"That she stopped talking about him, or when she started?"
"When she stopped talking about him. She had always talked about him, since she arrived here." Taryn smiled. "You don't think that Justin will hurt her, do you?"
"No if I can help it." Cristian said, softly, but then looked at Taryn. "Justin finds her, well, he calls her unique and that may keep her out of harm’s way for at least a little bit. The thing, though, is that I'm not sure how little a little bit is."
"Maybe, we should warn her." Taryn sighed. "But, you would think her intuition would warn her about this man."
"It might have, and she might have decided to ignore it." Cristian reached out, took Taryn’s hand, and squeezed it. "I promise you, though, that I will do everything in my power to protect her. You have my word."
Taryn reached over the table and kissed him softly on the lips. Cristian smiled at her as she backed away and prayed, to himself, that he had the ability to make good on the promise. He didn't know why Justin was there in the first place, let alone, how strong he might have become.
* * * * *
I stepped back out into the clearing that I had been in the night before. The sun was just setting behind the trees to my left and the night was pulling me to that spot. I was dressed in a bright red sweater and a pair of black jeans. My black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, exposing my white neck, and my blue eyes, though they were not totally visible in the twilight, scanned the area for any sign of life.
I waited for about ten minutes, standing there in the middle of it, with my hands in my jean pockets, watching the sky as it changed to a dark blue. The stars started to appear over head and I decided that whatever had led me there wasn't going to show itself tonight. As I stepped away, just beyond the clearing I felt him, the waves of danger swept through my body and I turned to see him standing in the pale moon light, what little of it there was.
I thought witches celebrated the phases of the moon." He smiled at me. I stepped back into the clearing and looked at him, dressed in more normal clothing, a dark sports coat, a white three-button shirt and blue jeans. His face seemed, somehow, friendlier, as his hair fell down into his eyes. It wasn't long in the back, but cut short and close to his head, but as it came more around to the front, I could tell that he liked to hide his eyes, which seemed to look right through me.
"The new moon and the full moon are celebrated; they're more of a lesser Sabbath, then others." I replied and looked at the sky. "It's only a crescent moon, and has about seven days before it becomes full. Who are you?"
"Well, that's direct." He said as we stood ten feet apart. "I told you last night who I was."
"No, you just gave me a name. It could have been anyone's name, not yours. I want to know who you are." I said and knelt down by the rocks. I took a lighter out of my pocket, along with a small can of lighter fluid and started a fire in the same spot I had it the night before. I looked up into his eyes as he stepped closer.
"Who do you think I am?" He asked me. I stood up and walked towards him, stopping only a few feet away, just out of arms reach.
"Darkness." I whispered.
"Darker than you've ever known." He replied, and then smiled at me, looking over my body, and then he stared me in the eyes. "Are you always this brave?"
“No, I'm a coward." I replied, stepping back, to the other side of the fire, and looked at him from across the flames.
"Tell me, witch, who are you?" He asked. I, who usually found the word "witch" a distasteful way of describing me, found that I like when he called me that.
"My name is Sage." I replied and watched him sit down just to my left, on the ground. I, slowly, sat down myself and watched him out of the corner of my eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"I told you last night that I live off this land." Justin looked at me, his eyes narrowed and he leaned towards me. "What are you doing
here?"
"I live here, with my cousins." I replied and backed away from him. "Are you related to Cristian?"
"In some way, yes." He answered.
"What does that mean?" I asked him. "You must be a brother, right? If you feel the same, you must be the same."
"I am what you might call a blood brother." He replied and took a stick from beside him and played with the fire. "You know more about us than you think, Sage."
"All I know is that you're here,” I said, feeling another presence coming closer and I got up, "and, I shouldn't be."
"Why?" He asked.
"It's dangerous for us to be together, Justin." I replied. He stood as I backed into the woods. "Meet me on the full moon."
"At dusk?" He asked. I whispered a faint yes, and then there was nothing but silence.
Chapter 2
August
His eyes fluttered wildly as he dreamed of a time that, in his mind, was not all that long ago. In his ears, the sounds of guns firing close to him seemed to echo through his head. Cannons, which were being set off in the far distance, rocked the ground where he stood as the cannon balls hit their targets or close to them.
He looked around, panicked and alone, and then jumped into a stream, where he could use the eroded banks for protection, for a hiding spot. His blond hair, caked with dirt and grime, seemed to stick to his forehead, and his brown eyes scanned the area around him for enemies. An explosion shook the Earth under him and he ducked as the dirt flew at him. Branches and limbs from falling trees landed beside him. That blast had hit quite close to home.
Michael opened his eyes, glanced around the stream once more, and then he climbed out of his hole and made his way through the thick smoke towards the land just beyond the fighting. Once he was there, and looked up at the blue sky, he felt the heat of a bullet as it entered his abdomen, and he looked up at a young man with dark eyes, as he smiled down at Michael from up on his horse.
"Serves you right, traitor!" The boy smiled evilly at him, then turned his horse and rode off. Michael looked down at the wound, which he covered with both hands, then at the road ahead of him. He began to walk, as he watched the sun set just beyond the trees.