by Dima Zales
"Do you know Samantha?" I asked.
"Dirty blonde seductress with a star tattoo on her neck?" Clara asked in disgust.
"I didn't notice a tattoo, but she has dirty blonde hair and was acting very seductive and very full of herself."
"Samantha is back in town. How dare she?" Clara's face was red, and she looked like she was going break something. "Tell me everything you know about that wench."
"Did she steal your boyfriend or something?" I asked.
"No. She's my sister. Your cousin."
"What? No way. How is that possible? She said that she was turned twenty years ago."
"She's a liar and out for power. She can't stand the fact that our line is not on the throne. Because our dad is the oldest brother, she feels that it's her rightful place to be next in line. She's power hungry and has always wanted to find a way to sit on the throne. In fact, she was so jealous that you were born with the Sonnast mark that she went out and got that tattoo. She's pathetic."
"So that's why she was working with Adam and trying so hard to get to me," I said.
"What do you mean?" Clara asked.
"She's the one who got to Tanner. She told him a whole story about how she just happened to notice that I was transforming into a vampire. She got him addicted to vampire venom and then disappeared. He came after me so that I could use him as a human volunteer. Samantha had also given him a ring that she said kept him from being mind controlled by vampires, but it was actually a ring with a spell to make a transforming vampire fall in love with him."
Cliff's eyes looked like they would shoot out fire. "I'm going to finish her off myself."
"I already got her with a stake," I told him.
"What kind of wood did you use?" Clara asked.
I thought about what kind of tree I had gotten the branch from that day. "Pine, I think. Why?"
"She's not dead," Cliff and Clara said in unison.
"I was there. I staked her, and she…."
"Since she is from the bloodline of the Fyrsturae, she must be staked with wood made of the Icelandic Populus Tremola tree. It's one of the rarest in the world," Clara said. "Even if she appeared dead to you, she was not."
The blood drained from my face and my stomach dropped to my feet as I thought about Tanner out there without the right kind of stake, not even knowing that she could be after him. Again.
"Where do we get that wood?" I asked.
"I'll take care of that," Cliff growled, his fists clenched. "I will take much pleasure in eradicating her. What she has done to you, to us, is unforgivable." He stood up and began walking to the door. "I will avenge you."
"Right now?" I squeaked.
"Yes. You and Clara can find me once you are able to go into the sun again. I will not wait."
"But she's working with the Morettis. She may be waiting for you, knowing that you would come after her."
"Then she won't be disappointed."
"Won't you wait just a little bit?" I asked. "I can't imagine that this will take too long. We haven't even had a chance to talk." I pouted.
"I've waited long enough to deal with this," he said.
"That's for sure," I muttered, and then suddenly felt bad. "Sorry, that slipped out."
"I had it coming," Cliff said, and left the apartment.
"I'll be right back," Clara said. "I need to talk to Cliff real quick."
When she was gone, I turned to Gessilyn. "Can I ask you a favor?"
"What, darling?"
I sighed. "I have some friends who would like to be able to go into the sun as well. I have a piece of jewelry from each of them. Would you be able to bless the jewelry so that they can go into the sun while wearing it?"
"Let me see the jewelry," she said, holding out her hand.
I handed the pieces to her, and she examined them.
"This one," she said holding Tanner's ring, "appears to have some kind of spell already on it."
"That's the one that made me fall in love with the human," I mumbled.
She apparently heard me just fine. "Why does a human need a blessing to go into the sun?"
"He sort of isn't human anymore," I said, looking at my hands.
"Uh oh," she said. "Do Cliff and Clara know this?"
"Not yet," I said, sinking into the couch as far as I could go.
"What about these other three?" she asked.
"They belong to some vampires who helped me."
"I see," she said, and stood up. "Give me a few minutes. It may take a little extra time to remove the spell on the first ring. The others should be no trouble." She left the room.
I sighed and sipped my tea.
27
I was sitting in the middle of a circle of candles again. It seemed all too familiar, except that this time I was there because I wanted to be. Gessilyn was speaking in a foreign language. She had explained to me that she would need to use it to lift the curse before giving me the sun blessing.
Clara sat on the outside of the circle across from Gessilyn, who still looked like a yoga instructor. I had to close my eyes in order to concentrate because it all seemed too strange to me. I listened to the relaxing instrumental music that she had playing in the background.
I wasn't sure what to expect, as this was so different from the other circle that I had sat in. I felt like I was drifting off to sleep, but I was aware of everything going on around me.
"We're finished," Gessilyn announced, and I opened my eyes. I didn't feel or look any different, but I hoped that I would be able to handle the sun now.
Clara walked over to the curtains and said, "It's about 7:30 so there should be sunlight now. Shall I open the curtains?" She reached for the curtain, and I moved behind a door across the room hiding before she could even touch it.
"Wow, you must have had some experience with the sunlight." Clara raised an eyebrow.
I looked around the door and scowled at her. "You think?"
She grabbed the curtain, and I pulled my head behind the door again for cover. I wasn't taking any chances.
"You don't have much faith in me, do you?" Gessilyn asked with mock offense. She smiled at me. "Come on out. I assure you that you'll be fine."
I hid behind the door like a scared little mouse.
Clara sighed loudly. "What was the point of coming all the way over here to get you your blessing back if you won't even use it? Come out here, you baby."
"You can call me what you want. I'm not budging."
They both came to me, grabbed my arms, and pulled me out into the light that was streaming through the window. I closed my eyes and struggled against them, but noticed no daggers or heat on my skin. I stopped struggling and opened one eye.
I was directly in the sun, and it wasn't bothering me in the slightest. I opened the other eye and smiled. "Yes."
They both let go of me, and I walked over to the window and looked, surprised. It really hadn't been all that long since I had lost the blessing, but it had felt like a lifetime.
"Thanks, Gessilyn," Clara said. "What do we owe you?"
"It's an honor to be able to help the princess," she said. "It's my gift."
"Are you sure that you don't want anything?" she asked.
"Someday I may need something," she said, smiling.
"Well, I definitely owe you," I said, not taking my eyes off the sunny outside view.
"Let's get going, Alexis. We have a lot to do."
"Has the time has come to fight the Morettis?" I asked.
"Yes, and we need to find Cliff. He was really determined to find my sister and destroy her. I hope she isn't with the Morettis, because with Cliff's state of mind he would march in there by himself."
We walked toward the door, and Gessilyn snuck the now-blessed jewelry in my hand with a wink. Clara didn't see the exchange at all.
"Thanks for everything."
"Yes, thank you for being so readily available to help us out," Clara added.
"It's my pleasure," Gessilyn responded.
"Let me know how everything goes with the Morettis."
"You know I will," Clara said with a wink as we walked through the door.
When we got outside, I asked, "What's our plan?"
She looked at me. "You're going to need to be the one who devises the plans pretty soon, you know. You're going to have to princess up."
"Am I going to get any training in the meantime?" I asked. "I missed our previous appointment. You know, getting abducted and everything."
"Don't remind me. That was horrible timing. I need to get back to the house before your parents think I've gone missing, and freak out. Then I have to find Cliff and get you some training so that we can battle with the Morettis."
"We?"
"You didn't think it was just you and Cliff, did you?" she asked.
"Nobody tells me anything around here," I reminded her. "All I know is that the prophecy says I will defeat them."
"Yes, but not by yourself. We're going to have plenty of help going in with you."
"So am I going to meet you somewhere for training?" I asked. "I obviously can't go home."
"No, you can't. Your parents won't let you out of their sight once you return, plus there will be a ton of publicity. You'll have to wait until we finish off the Morettis. Meet me in the woods where we first met, in a few hours. If I have to skip school, I will."
"So you and Natalie have been going to school, like nothing's wrong?" I asked, hurt.
"Your parents want us to feel as normal as possible. Natalie's having a horrible time. I've tried reassuring her that you would be okay, but I don't think she'll believe it until she sees you."
I felt bad. "We need to take care of the Morettis as quickly as possible. I can't stand to think of what my family is going through."
"That's right, which is why I need to get going. I'll see you in a few hours."
"I might have some other vampires with me that you can train. I'm sure they'll probably want to help."
"You've made friends with common vampires?" she asked. "Well, we can use all the help that we can get." She ran off and was out of sight in a couple of seconds.
I closed my eyes to get my bearings and started running towards the house where Tanner and the others were. It actually wasn't too far away. I had almost traveled in a circle from there to Brooke's house and then to Gessilyn's apartment.
I ran the whole way back to the house without stopping. It felt wonderful to be running in the daylight again. I hoped I would never again lose that sun blessing.
When I got to the house, I went through a wall in the back, listened for the others and didn't hear anything. They might have heard me and were being quiet in case I was someone else.
I walked up the stairs to the closet that Tanner and I had hidden in, hoping that they would still be there. I didn't want to have to track them down. I had an uneasy feeling. Something was wrong.
They were all in the closet. Tanner looked like he was going to be sick, and Brad and Eric had tear-stained faces. That's when I noticed Kayla laying on the floor.
"What happened?" I exclaimed.
Brad sighed and said, "We went out to get some blood and ran into some of Vince's runaways. There were a lot more of them than us, and we fought them. You should have seen Tanner. He killed at least five by himself. But Kayla got injured, and she hasn't woken up. There was no silver liquid from her anywhere so we think she's still hanging on."
"It's hard to tell since we're already dead," Eric said. He hadn't moved from her side.
I had a feeling that I should be able to do something to help. I sat down next to Kayla and placed my hands on her head. I thought I should place my hands on her stomach. I could feel some kind of sharp vibration. "I think this is where the injury is," I said, closing my eyes and imagined a vibration of healing, radiating from my hands to her injuries.
Just when I was beginning to wonder if I was helping at all, Kayla sat up. She looked around and asked, "What's going on?"
Eric pulled her into an embrace. He said, "You were injured when those vampires attacked us. Alexis just healed you. I wouldn't have believed it, except that I saw it with my own eyes."
She looked at me. "I don't know how you did that, but thank you."
"I don't know how I did it, either. I just did it."
"Did you have the jewelry blessed?" she asked.
"Yes." I gave everyone their pieces.
"Let's go try these out," Brad said. "It's been a couple of years since I've been able to even look in the direction of the sun."
"I can't even imagine," I said. "The short time that I couldn't go into the sun was torture."
They all ran downstairs where the light was brightest.
Kayla began dancing around. "Look at this glorious sun. Look at us in this glorious sun."
"Where should we go first?" Eric asked.
I looked at Tanner. "I have a battle that I need to prepare for. It's against the Morettis. I think that their leader might be the same Vince that you keep hearing about. I could be wrong, but it's too strange to be a coincidence. The Morettis are trying to take the throne, and it only makes sense that they would be creating vampires for just that."
"A battle?" Kayla asked.
"That sounds right up my alley," said Brad. "I'm in."
"What throne?" Eric asked.
"There is a queen and king vampire who rule the entire vampire world," I said. "The Morettis are jealous and power hungry. They want to take down the king and queen and rule the throne themselves. They are cruel, but the current king and queen rule with kindness and justice."
"I'd be more than glad to use my new vampire strength on them," Tanner said.
"There's more," I told Tanner. "Samantha is still alive."
He gave me a look of total shock.
"As it turns out, she is a descendant in a line that was removed from the throne, and she's working with the Morettis. Because she's still a royal vampire, even though she's not on the throne, she can only be killed with a stake made of one of the rarest types of wood on the planet."
"I'm going to…."
I looked away. "Cliff is already on it."
"What? Cliff is back? When did this happen?" He looked very disappointed.
"Sometime while we were away," I said. "As soon as he heard what she did with your ring, he took off again, this time to kill her."
Eric looked at Kayla and said, "I feel like I should help out with this. When I'm done, we can meet up again. I will only go if you're okay with it. Especially after what you've been through."
She looked disappointed and sighed. "It's okay Eric. You know where I'll be."
He nodded.
"Since we're going to be in training soon, we might want to get something to eat to give us strength," I said.
"Food or blood?" Tanner asked.
"It would probably be best if we have both," I said. "Also, even though we can go out into the sun, we should still be careful because everyone is looking for us."
"Why?" Brad asked. "What did you do? Wipe out a whole neighborhood or something?"
I laughed. "No, nothing like that. We were abducted by the vampires that Tanner killed, and now our families and our pictures are all over the news. After we finish fighting the Morettis, we can go back home, but not before."
"Your human families?" Kayla asked. "How recently were you turned?"
Tanner laughed nervously. "I was turned a couple of days ago."
"Dude, you're going to keep getting stronger for a few weeks. Take full advantage of it while you can!" Brad exclaimed.
"I plan to," Tanner said.
"I'm going to get going," Kayla said, looking at Eric. "I am looking forward to getting out into the sun."
Eric gave her a hug and said, "I will come back to find you."
"Hey guys, let's go to the kitchen and see if there's any food," I said, trying to give Eric and Kayla their space as they had done for Tanner and me. "Bye, Kayla."
"Bye, and thanks for everything. You d
on't know how much this means."
"I do, actually," I said. "But you're welcome."
Tanner, Brad and I went into the kitchen and found it pretty bare.
"Where are we going to find food?" Brad asked.
"Where do you guys usually find your food?" Tanner asked.
"We eat what we can find at night, and then, of course, feed on people as they sleep."
"It might not be easy finding people asleep during the day," Tanner said. "We could feed on some animals."
I looked at him. If we can get away, we can feed on each other. I'm still part human.
He smiled at me.
Tanner, Brad, Eric and I were waiting for Clara in the exact spot that I had first met Clara. We had come across a large group of die-hard campers and had more than enough blood to fill each of us. We figured they had been up into the wee hours if they were sleeping in so late. Our gain.
Clara showed up. "You weren't kidding when you said you'd have company."
I introduced her to the three guys, and she said, "So, I finally get to meet the famous Tanner."
"Famous?" he asked.
"Sure. You're all over the news. I've also heard a lot about you before that, and you're giving Cliff a run for his money."
He grinned and stood taller. "Well, Alexis needed a good friend, and I didn't see anyone else stepping up to the plate."
"When did you become a vampire? That's an interesting twist that I wasn't aware of." She raised an eyebrow at me.
"Just a couple of days ago," I said. "Samantha left him for dead and I was trying to save him. I ended up turning him instead."
"That's convenient," she said. "It also adds some complications that I'm sure you know nothing about."
"Complications?" I asked. "What kind of complications?"
"It's complicated," she said, smirking at me. "Too complicated to get into right now. You'll have to put your curiosity on hold for now. I'll explain it all later."
"Can't you tell me something? The suspense is going to drive me crazy."
"It should, because you've really complicated things," she said. "You fit in perfectly with our side of the family, Alexis. You can take the vampire out of the family, but you can't take the family out of the vampire."