Indulgence

by Liz Crowe

  I stood and backed away a few steps, not really believing what I had just done. It was not disbelief for having killed Lucious; I had to do that to ensure my existence. It was incredulity that I was actually able to overpower Lucious so easily; as if my agility and skill advanced the longer I fought him.

  I walked over to Lucious’s lifeless body and kicked his leg. There was no reaction. I tilted my head and stared at his face. His eyes, an abyss of black and red earlier, were now dull and lifeless.

  I felt the heat of the fire behind me and turned towards it. The flames would take over our battle ground in a bit. The smoldering leaves on the other side of Lucious would also ignite shortly. The smoke would eventually send a signal to someone to call the fire department. I figured it would be best to leave. With the condition my house was in, someone would assume there was a break in and then would find Lucious’s body in the woods. He would be blamed for the whole thing.

  I leapt over the flames to head back to Castle Adena.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It felt like an eternity, but I managed my way back to the castle. The fight with Lucious had drained me and I didn’t think I’d have the strength to keep my senses in check to prevent me from going on a wild hunt. Any unfortunate rabbit, pheasant, turkey or fox that came within one hundred feet of me became a meal. It was a good thing that this land was owned by the Drake’s, otherwise my trail of carcasses would have sent off bells and whistles with the mortals. The food was good but not enough to satiate me.

  Castle Adena’s security cameras must have picked me up because Lorenzo and Max rushed to the edge of the woods to help. My appearance must have been alarming considering all of the healing scrapes on my body and all of the tears in my clothing. Lorenzo grabbed one arm and Max grabbed the other to support me.

  “My God, Allison! What happened?” Lorenzo asked.

  “What did Vincent do to you?” Max questioned.

  I was too exhausted and too famished to speak. “It wasn’t Vincent,” I muttered.

  Lorenzo and Max looked inquisitively at each other and then back at me.

  “Then what happened? Who was it?” Lorenzo asked.

  “Lucious,” I choked out.

  “Lucious!” They shouted in unison. We approached a door at the rear of the castle that had been left ajar. Max opened it with his foot and my brothers escorted me inside. Lorenzo and Max peppered me with question after question.

  “What was Lucious doing there?”

  “How did he find you?”

  “What happened?”

  “Where is he now?”

  We walked down a long hallway and into the dining room. I waved my hand trying to call off their verbal assault.

  “Allison?” an angelic voice rang out. “Oh my, what happened?”

  It was Marlo, my ever thoughtful sister, with a goblet in hand just for me.

  I grabbed the cup and chugged the sweet liquid. The concoction was enough to relinquish the burning in my throat, but the relief would only be temporary. Hunger, it seemed, was a vicious cycle. I circled my tongue around the inside of the cup desperate for every last drop then feebly pushed the cup away once it was licked clean.

  “It was Lucious,” one of my brothers stated.

  “Lucious?” Felix questioned as he entered the room.

  Another barrage of questions was tossed at me but I didn’t have the energy to deal with them at the moment. I threw my hands on the table and rolled my head back.

  “He’s gone,” I muttered.

  A hush fell over the room as four sets of stunned eyes looked at me.

  “Gone?” Lorenzo questioned.

  “Dead,” I responded.

  “You killed Lucious?” Felix asked.

  I nodded my head in affirmation which sent off another round of questions.

  “But how? You are just an infant!”

  “Did he put up a good fight?”

  “Did you rip his throat out?”

  “How did you finish him? What did you use?”

  “Guys,” Marlo interrupted. “Not now. Can’t you see Allison is exhausted? Here, drink this,” Marlo instructed as she pushed another cup in front of me. “Let her rest,” she pointed a finger at our brothers. “Allison can fill us in on all of the details later.”

  I was thankful for Marlo’s interjection. All I wanted was to sit in my room, meditate and be alone for awhile. And I did just that.

  As I pulled out of my meditative trance, I heard my siblings talking somewhere on the first level of the castle but I ignored their chatter. I was pretty sure they were still talking about the day’s events, something I would much rather forget. I examined myself in the mirror. My scars were all healed, as if I had never been in a fight hours earlier. I changed into a pair of black tights, a long burgundy sweater which coordinated nicely with my oval ring and black boots. I walked to the window and sat and stared at the late afternoon sun. For starting out like Hell, a truly beautiful autumn day had unfolded. For the first time in many weeks the sun was out in full view, no rain or gray or clouds in sight. The leaves were losing their vibrant colors, turning brown and falling from the trees. I was entranced with them as they blew over the vast yard behind the castle. The air smelled clean and felt crisp against my warm skin. After taking in the scenery for some time, I decided to eavesdrop on my siblings.

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” I heard Lorenzo ask.

  “Lorenzo, the forest was completely charred,” Marlo replied. “There’s no way anyone survived that.”

  “But what if he wasn’t dead before the fire consumed the area?” Felix questioned.

  “I’m sure he’s dead,” Marlo reassured her brothers. “I told Allison everything she needed to know about how to kill a vampire.”

  “And you’re sure she understood?” Max asked.

  “Yes!” Marlo exclaimed. “Allison is quite smart. I’m sure she remembered.”

  “I just don’t get it,” Lorenzo announced. “She’s only an infant! How could she have destroyed someone of his age and skill? How could she be that strong?”

  “Maybe that was her trait from her mortal life that was enhanced through her transformation,” Felix offered up.

  “Yeah, you know how it goes,” Max chimed in, “no one ever knows what mortal strength will be augmented when someone is transformed, if they get a special gift at all.”

  “I guess that’s a possibility,” Lorenzo resigned.

  I crept down the spiral staircase and moved into the dining room. I wasn’t fooling anyone; I couldn’t sneak up on a group of vampires who were keenly aware that I was on the premises and who desperately wanted to hear my tale.

  “Allison!” Lorenzo exclaimed. “Tell us what happened.”

  “Come on Lorenzo,” Marlo pleaded. “Allison has been through a great ordeal today; she’ll tell us in time.”

  “No, Marlo,” I stated. “It’s okay. What do you want to know?” I really didn’t feel like talking about this but figured I needed to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

  “Where did he come from? How did he sneak up on you?” Max inquired.

  I sighed as I felt the heat climbing its way up my throat. “Can someone please get me another cocktail? I’m thirsty.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Marlo responded and disappeared from the room.

  “I don’t know where he came from,” I started. “I’m sure by now Marlo filled you in on why I was at my house -- to confront Vincent.”

  “Actually, I think we forgot about Vincent after you mentioned Lucious,” Felix stated. All three of my brothers nodded their heads in unison. A snarl crossed over Lorenzo’s lips at the mention of Vincent’s name. “Marlo mentioned that you were going to meet Vincent. What happened?” Felix asked. “Did you get the answers you were looking for?”

  “No,” I curtly replied. “You all were right and I didn’t see it. Vincent is completely and totally selfish. He wouldn’t tell me where Matt is or why he went to such lengths to kid
nap him and hide him. In fact, he thought I should have been thanking him.”

  “Thanking him?” Lorenzo questioned. “For what?”

  “For removing Matt from our home before my symptoms advanced to the point where I possibly would have attacked or killed Matt.”

  “You have to be kidding me!” Max exclaimed. “He knows we wouldn’t have let it get to that point.”

  “Yeah, well, apparently Vincent couldn’t wait. He wanted me and was going to do whatever he had to in order to get me to run away with him. I told him that would never happen after what Marlo told me she discovered the night Vincent transformed me. It’s unfathomable what he did to me and Matt and my friends and he still expected me to run off with him! I told him to leave and never return or I’d kill him myself.”

  Silence fell over the room as my last words settled on my brother’s ears. I continued after a brief pause.

  “Vincent actually listened to me and left. I figure his bruised ego wouldn’t allow him to beg for my forgiveness. After he left I was exhausted and hunger was starting to set in. I knew I didn’t have enough energy to make the trek back to the castle so I decided to meditate. And I remembered the first rule of mediation – make sure to pick a safe spot. So I picked a safe spot, or so I thought.”

  “Your house,” Max quipped. “That normally would have been a good choice.”

  “Right,” I concurred. “So I perched myself in the loft and went to sleep and the next thing I knew I was being attacked. Lucious somehow knew I was there; I’m not really sure how he knew.”

  “He probably kept tabs on you after Jordana’s party and tracked you,” Felix suggested.

  “And then what?” Lorenzo eagerly asked.

  “Then there was a fight. It felt like it lasted forever. I doubted my skills initially but the longer we fought, the stronger I seemed to become.”

  “Interesting,” Felix mused.

  “Yeah well, thankfully I was able to overpower Lucious and I finished him off. He’ll never be able to torment me or any of my kin ever again.”

  “How did you ‘finish him off’?” Max asked.

  Marlo entered the room with a goblet and pitcher and poured me a drink. “Max,” Marlo snapped. “Not now. Why do you need all of the details? Can’t you see Allison is tired and doesn’t want to talk about this?” She cast a glance in my direction and I returned it with an appreciative smile before sipping my drink. “Lucious is dead and that’s all that matters.”

  My brothers stood in silence, obviously disappointed with my abbreviated, detail-lacking rendition. But Marlo was right; I didn’t want to rehash what I had just lived through.

  “Do you want to go back to your room?” Marlo gently asked me.

  “Actually, I want to see the sunset.”

  Marlo gave me directions to one of the highest peaks in Ridge Hollow. She offered to accompany me but I declined. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts and figure out what I was going to do next.

  I sat high above the valley, the sun a bright orange ball against the purple sky. An oak tree served as a chair and an umbrella, shielding me from the sun’s rays. Enormous buzzards filled the hollowed ridge, their silver trimmed wings spanning the emptiness. I chuckled at the irony of it; buzzards circle over dead carcasses – their next meal. Maybe they were circling me for a better view.

  My thoughts drifted back over the past several weeks. I couldn’t believe how much my life had changed. I went from being just any other mortal to…well, to this, whatever you want to call it. The accident changed my life forever, for eternity. In a blink of an eye, life as I had known it was gone.

  It still angered me that I hadn’t seen what was going on around me, especially that Vincent had caused my car accident. After all, it was his crystalline eyes I had seen in the blackness of the windshield as his truck plowed into my vehicle. I had seen those shimmery eyes so many times before. When he followed me to Whipps Ledges, it was his eyes that emerged first from the darkness. Then there was the time in my backyard, before the accident, when I fell asleep on the hammock after another sleepless night. I thought I saw lightening bugs disappearing into the woods, but now I knew otherwise. That was Vincent keeping a close eye on me, watching my symptoms. He was waiting for the slightest sign that my symptoms were accelerating so that he could intervene for his own selfish purposes; so he could have me, a mortal descendant of Cain and part vampire, something that had never existed before, for himself.

  Vincent got what he wanted. Something in me had changed and he noticed it. Had it been my cyclical body temperature – cold during the day and hot at night – or my infertility, or my change in diet, or my insomnia, or a combination of everything? Whatever it was, Vincent took it upon himself to steal my husband and his memories and hid him somewhere; where, I didn’t know. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Vincent had altered my friends’ and coworkers’ memories, making them believe his fictional tale that Matt had died and I had struggled over the past three years to come to terms with it. He had essentially cut everyone out of my life so he could act on his plan. Only a cold and vile person could do something like that.

  Anger bubbled in my stomach and I let out a long yell. It felt good to release the anger. I listened to my voice echo through the empty abyss as venom began to pour over my cheeks. I wiped my face so my tears wouldn’t stain my skin but instead began sobbing uncontrollably. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life and bit my lip when I thought about the word life. Life? What life? I had no life. That was taken from me and I was left with this existence I had no idea what to do with.

  I heard a twig snap but didn’t move. I could have cared less about who or what was approaching.

  “Allison,” a soft voice called. “It’s Marlo.”

  “Go away,” I yelled. “I told you I wanted to be alone.”

  Marlo didn’t listen and walked closer. “I thought you might want someone to talk to.”

  I stood, crossed my arms and stared at Marlo. What a good sister she had been to me over these past few weeks. She took care of me in the hospital, risking her own existence by surrounding herself with all of those mortals. If she had slipped, taking just one life, her existence would have been over. I couldn’t understand how she had so much self control to not lose it. She also forewarned me about this life when her brother, Vincent, was trying to convince me it was something grandiose. She ran after Vincent to learn the truth after he transformed me and she took me under her wing. I felt the need to repay her but couldn’t think of something to do or say to someone who had been around for thousands of years.

  I broke down in tears and wrapped my arms around Marlo.

  “What has happened to me?” I moaned into her shoulder. “Just a few weeks ago, life was normal. And now what?”

  “I know, I know,” Marlo cooed in my ear. She pulled away from me and wiped my tears with her jacket sleeve. My tears singed the fabric.

  “You need to stop crying,” Marlo said as she grabbed my chin. “Before you set me on fire!”

  We both chuckled as I finished wiping my tears and tried to compose myself.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Marlo asked.

  “I don’t know what to talk about. I mean, I don’t even know where to begin, Marlo. What happened? Why me? And where am I supposed to go from here?”

  “I don’t know why it happened to you, Allison. But look at it this way, you are still here. Lucious didn’t win and you still have an existence to fill.”

  An existence to fill. No longer a life to live.

  I scoffed. Her explanation wasn’t enough to satisfy me. I wanted to know why my symptoms had come about and what I had done to bring this upon me and why this had all happened now. These were questions I would probably never know the answers to.

  “The grass is always greener, isn’t it?” I whispered.

  “What was that?”

  “It’s something Matt used to always say to me when I told him how frustrated I was in not finding my t
rue calling. He would say ‘the grass is always greener until you get to the other side.’ I can’t help but feel that he was right. I feel that I somehow brought this upon me in my never ending search to leave a mark on this world. A lot of good that did me. A lot of good that did Matt.”

  “You have left your mark on this world, Allison. You destroyed Lucious. He’s gone. Forever! He can never, ever harm any other descendants again. Think about how many people you saved. It’s one life sacrificed to save so many.”

  I let the words sink in. How many people – descendants – were out there that didn’t know their bloodline dated back to Adam and Eve and Noah and Cain’s other relatives? They didn’t know that they had been born with targets on their backs. They didn’t know they had a mortal enemy whose sole purpose was their demise. Yes, by transforming, I had somehow acquired enough skill and strength that I was able to destroy their adversary and in doing so, ensured my relatives, people that I had never met, could live out their lives in peace.

  I should have felt better about my situation, but I didn’t. I was now part of the undead. I had no soul. I was a killer. There was nothing glamorous about this existence. That boring, average life I complained about only weeks ago…I wanted it back.

  “I want Matt,” I stated.

  Marlo let out a sigh. “We don’t know where Matthew is,” she gently stated.

  “We can look!”

  “Where would we start?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe one of Matt’s favorite places.”

  “Do you really think Vincent would have been thoughtful enough to place Matthew somewhere where he wanted to be? Some place where you might look for him?”

  Marlo had a good point. I picked up a baseball sized rock and heaved it over the edge of the cliff. We both waited several seconds as it descended into the darkness, finally clunking into the river.

  “I have to say something that I don’t think you are going to like,” Marlo said, breaking our silence. I had a hunch I knew what she was about to say and she was right, I didn’t want to hear it.