Sanctuary: Book One of Bloodlines

by C. L. Stevens

  “It's hard to believe,” Kennedy said more diplomatically. “Meilin… uh, she's not what you would call... She doesn't really...” He began again, but Eric finished for him.

  “Meilin doesn't give a flying fart about humans.” Eric finished for him and gave the other boy an annoyed look. “That is what Care-Bear over there was trying to say.”

  Kennedy rolled his eyes but Desiree noticed how he didn't refute the claim about the Vampire.

  “Meilin is practically royalty and near an Ancient herself,” Kennedy explained further when she turned a not so friendly gaze his way. “She certainly doesn't recruit, nor does she spend enough time with the likes of us to ever be a patron.”

  “She is kind of a bitch, her nose so high she can't even see the likes of us,” Eric said scathingly. But then his face took on that cocky grin of his. “But she can feed on me anytime she damn well pleases.”

  “You and me both,” Kennedy agreed and they both shared twin juvenile looking grins.

  Idiots!

  “I have been here for almost seven months and she has never sponsored anyone that I ever heard of,” Kennedy said with a shrug.

  “Well, she is my patron.” She assured them. “And I would appreciate it if you wouldn't say such things about her.”

  Kennedy threw his hands up in exasperation. “If you don't want to tell us, then don't. It's not like we won't find out sooner or later anyway.”

  Eric nodded.

  “This house isn't THAT big. And I wouldn't advise telling those lies in the barracks.” He warned. “You don't want to start off badly with everyone.”

  “I am actually going to stay with Meilin until her personal guest quarters are ready,” She told them. “Though I kinda wish I were with everyone else, to be honest.”

  They rolled their eyes and she just shrugged, not really caring what they believed. But she did want answers, so she changed her tactics.

  “Maybe I want to see if I got a fair deal with my offer,” She lied. “What did they offer you guys?”

  “I think it's pretty standard for everyone,” Kennedy replied. “A year of service for whatever you wanted. For me, it's my tuition paid in full. That's like 80 grand.”

  “You've been here for 7 months you say?” She commented casually. “Do you feel it's been worth it so far?”

  “Of course.” He replied emphatically. “Sure, it hurts when they feed sometimes,” He raised up his sleeve to show a bite mark on his arm that looked fresh. She winced at the sight. “But I mean, free room and board, spending money AND my tuition paid?”

  His expression asked if she were crazy enough to believe that it wasn't worth it. She had to admit that it did sound like a great deal for someone in his position. She herself planned on giving a lot more time of her life to the military for her tuition. In fact, It sounded too good to be true and that's why the alarm bells were going off in her head.

  “So, when your year is up, they will just let you leave?” She asked, not even trying to hide her doubt. “Aren't they afraid someone will tell about this place?”

  “They erase all memory of you being here.” He replied. “You won't remember anything about this place or vampires or any of it. They will make you think you were just part of some year-long trial or something along those lines.”

  “How do you know that they won't just erase all memory of the agreement?” She asked in surprise. “They could just send you off with no memory at all and dump you in an alley someplace.”

  “Ha! And you call me paranoid, Ken.” Eric said with a laugh.

  “We are paid in advance,” Kennedy assured her. “I am already enrolled for the semester I leave here, tuition paid in full.”

  Desiree nodded, not really fully convinced but she saw no reason to push the subject.

  “They let you guys come and go as you please?” She asked, casting out another line in her attempt at fishing for information.

  “I can,” Eric stated, almost as if he were boasting. “Part of my contract.”

  “What about you?”

  She looked at Kennedy expectantly. He was too busy passing a dirty look in the other boy's direction to notice. But he answered all the same.

  “I can leave,” He said, sounding oddly defensive. “I just have to be back at a certain time is all.”

  Eric snickered but she paid him no mind.

  “Do you go out in the regular world, or do you stay in this safe area thingy?” She asked, splitting her gaze between them.

  Surprisingly, it was Eric who replied.

  “Safe area thingy.” He repeated and then laughed. “How eloquently put Desiree.”

  There was a nasty mocking tone to his words that made her cheeks feel warm.

  “We mostly stay here in the Sanctuary.”

  He overly emphasized the name while looking into her eyes and winked. She rolled her eyes at him and he continued, doing little to hide his obvious amusement.

  “There is pretty much everything here that we need and leaving is sometimes a pain because you need someone available who can get you back through the gate.”

  “Someone available who has the rank to get through,” Kenneth added in clarification. “That's not always easy because of course there needs to be a plan for you to get back inside. They don't want people just waiting by the gate and drawing unwanted attention.”

  “And usually only your patron would take the time for something like that,” Eric said. “They all act like they are soooo busy, but I don't ever see them doing shit.” He spat, sounding more than a little angry.

  “How long have you been here Eric?” She asked him, genuinely curious.

  He rolled his eyes in what could only have been a mockery of what she had done to him. She gave him the finger. He just winked at her again.

  “Well I know one of them I will never ask for anything like that. The old vampire with the red eyes. He gave me the creeps.” She admitted and shivered at the memory of looking into those amber orbs. Both boys laughed then but they were also nodding enthusiastically.

  “That was Count Kisiv.” Kenneth supplied. “He gives everyone the creeps.” He promised.

  “When you looked into his eyes, you wanted to run didn't you?” Eric said to her with a knowing grin. She shrugged ambiguously.

  “Don't trip. Everyone who makes eye contact with him wants to run.” He promised in consolation. “Even some vampires.” He added for emphasis.

  I wanted to strike out at him, not run. Maybe I am not such a wimp after all.

  “Funny thing is,” Kenneth was saying, pulling her from her thoughts. “He is probably the kindest of them all. I would go to him if I needed help before anyone else besides my patron.”

  Eric was nodding his assent. He suddenly snapped his fingers and got an excited look on his face.

  “Do you wanna hear some crazy shit I found out the other day?” Eric asked but didn't wait for a response from the other two and went right on without pausing.

  “I was going through some old books in the library…”

  “You can read?” Desiree couldn't help but ask.

  He shot her a withering look but Kennedy graced her with a huge smile that she returned just as big.

  “I was going through some of these books when I came across one about the witches and their dealings with vampires. Apparently, they were not always on good terms. Anyway, the crazy part was how hard it said, the book I mean, how hard it was to actually create a vampire. Something like one in ten.”

  “Wait,” Kennedy interrupted. “I thought they only needed to feed you some of their blood and will it on you?” He asked in confusion. “That doesn't sound too hard to me.”

  “That's the thing. The book stated that half die because the virus that makes you a vampire is extremely unpalatable, basically poison. That's why you will notice that most of the time they are either already old or they were gravely injured, basically already dying in some other way when they were turned.”

  “But that's st
ill 50%,” She felt compelled to say.

  50/50 odds were too high for her but of course but that was just her. She suddenly noticed that his blue eyes sparkled with excitement and she knew that he was anticipating the response.

  “Only one of those five turned out like the fun-loving bloodsuckers we all know and love.” He confided in a conspiratorial whisper.

  “What were the other four like?” Kennedy asked in child-like wonder.

  Desiree almost laughed aloud. He really did sound like a 5-year-old boy begging for another scary bedtime story.

  “Soulless monsters,” He replied breathlessly. “Killers with no tie with their humanity anymore. They killed without remorse or pity. They had no sense of kinship or social structure, not even amongst themselves. They would kill one of their own as quick as a human. One of them would wipe out a whole coven or village in one night if they weren't stopped, men, women, and children all.”

  “Wow,” Kennedy stated in awe, echoing her thoughts perfectly.

  “Have you ever seen the movie 30 Days of Night?” Eric asked them.

  They both nodded, neither looking particularly pleased with where the question was leading.

  “The book described them more like that. Not all nice and pretty like the ones we see, but evil to the core, delighting in causing misery. And their faces would become warped, twisted and evil, hardly human looking anymore when they killed like this. The book made it sound as if there was a god out there somewhere, those vampires were definitely not in his grace.

  “The Damned.” She heard Kennedy whisper breathlessly.

  “How could they tell if they would be this soulless kind or the normal kind before it was too late?” She asked but had an eerie feeling she already knew the answer.

  “Red eyes.”

  She mouthed the words as he spoke them. They all stared at one another in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts. It was Kennedy who broke the silence.

  “I will never look at Count Kisiv the same again, that's for sure.” He said and then swallowed hard.

  “So, it was the witches who made vampires?” She asked when the silence grew unbearable, as much to change the subject as seeking information. “I mean, they made this place.”

  “No, I don't think so,” Kennedy replied, sounding all too eager to speak of something else. “I read somewhere that vampires are even older than witches. But isn't this place awesome enough?”

  “I know, right?” Eric piped in. “This place is insane. 50 miles of extra dimensional space.” He sounded extremely impressed.

  “What does that mean?” She asked them. “Extradimensional space. Where are we exactly?”

  “It means that we are in a pocket of space that is sheer creation. Space that did not exist before.” Eric tried to explain.

  “But I was told that the gate that we used to come here, the one in San Francisco, is in the exact same place.”

  “Yes, that's correct.” Kennedy and Eric agreed.

  “Yet we could travel five miles here in the sanctuary and pop out another gate in Europe. How is that possible?”

  “Think of it like this.” Eric began and Desiree noticed Kennedy was listening just as intently as she. “The world is not round but flat... like a map instead of a globe.” He began and they both nodded. “Now this map could be the size of this table or a notebook, yet all the lands and seas are represented in perfect proportion. Now imagine the sanctuary as a clean sheet of paper. And that's what it was like, err, that's what the witches said it was like when they created this place, a clean sheet of paper. Well, before they filled it, made it a map too so to speak, they placed it over the map of the world. They then made parts of that blank sheet of paper in the exact same position as certain places on that map of the world. Think of it as poking a hole through both with a pencil. Now when they pulled the paper away, the sanctuary away, the holes remained on each. They then made the sanctuary into the 50-mile paradise we see now. The holes remained though, both in the sanctuary and the world. Now you could pass through these holes and go from paper to map and back again, the world to Sanctuary.”

  “I'm not sure I get it,” Kennedy admitted.

  But she finally did.

  “So, in essence,” She began slowly, “While the sanctuary was in that blank paper mode, no definitive time and space, they could just as easily have placed it over a map of the galaxy or the entire universe and poked those holes.” Her eyes opened wide in wonderment. “We could have been traveling instantly to the moon or Jupiter, or planet a billion light years away.”

  “Wow,” Eric said, eyeing her appreciatively. “You are more than just a pretty face after all. It took me months to make that correlation.” He shook his head sadly. “It's too bad that they are all dead or we could have the means for interstellar travel.”

  All three of them sat there silently thinking about that. But something else was troubling her and it took a while before she could puzzle it out. Then it dawned on her and her face scrunched up in confusion.

  “Wait?” She said, thinking back. “I was told the sanctuary was only 20 square miles.”

  “The Sanctuary is 50 square miles,” Eric repeated. “But only about half that is still habitable.”

  “What? How, why?” She asked perplexed.

  It was Kennedy who answered and he sounded regretful.

  “Some of the Sanctuary turned dark a long time ago.”

  Eric was nodding. “And not just dark like nightfall mind you,” He added. “Pitch black. Sunlight doesn't even pierce it an inch. You can't see into it at all. It's like a wall of… nothingness.”

  “But they say if you go right up to the border, you can hear stuff in there, in the blackness” Kennedy was saying. He shivered and didn't even seem aware that he had done so. “They say you can hear stuff moving around in there… and that they sometimes whisper to you.”

  “What do they say?” Desiree asked, fully engrossed in the tale. “Does anyone know what's in there. Has something ever come out?”

  “Hell if I know!” Kenneth replied vehemently. He was staring at her as if she had lost her marbles.

  “I said it's what I heard. Do I look crazy enough to go to a place even the vampires are afraid to go?”

  “What's going on in here?” Came a feminine voice and all nearly jumped out of their skin. The three turned to see Elizabeta enter. The two boys stood up immediately and greeted her respectfully if not with enthusiasm. She eyed them curiously for a moment before turning her attention to her.

  “Males,” She muttered and it did not sound a compliment. “They are all the same. You leave a little blood in the water,” She said, gesturing her way, “And the sharks come circling.”

  Kennedy looked around sheepishly but Eric only stared at the two women with his signature grin. He even winked at Elizabeta though she was ignoring him entirely now.

  “Meilin summons you child,” She said with an offhanded wave to her. “I am to escort you to her quarters.”

  Desiree nodded her assent and then yawned so hard her jaw popped.

  “I see you are as tired as she. You are to rest with her until her guest quarters can be prepared.”

  Kennedy gasped. “You weren't kidding!” He blurted out. “The lady Meilin really is your patron!”

  Eric looked no less surprised. But that juvenile looking grin replaced the look of surprise on his face almost immediately.

  “And you really are sharing her room,” Eric confirmed, still smiling and looking quite impressed. “I wouldn't mind being the meat in that sandwich.” He added as if musing to himself but the words were meant to carry and did.

  She somehow managed to stumbled on the smooth ground and would have fallen flat on her face had Elizabeta not caught her by the arm. She stared back at Eric in surprise and embarrassment.

  Kennedy was staring at him too and looking embarrassed enough that you would have thought it was he who had said it. He picked something off the tray and threw it at the other
boy.

  “You are incorrigible,” He chastened, shaking his head.

  “What? Oh please, as if you weren't thinking the same thing.” Eric accused.

  Kennedy’s mouth worked but no words came out. He turned to look back her way as she rounded the corner and his face looked as guilty as a lawyer in church.

  “Men,” Elizabeta mumbled again as she half towed Desiree along. After a moment Desiree stopped looking back and started walking alongside her. “The boy has the manners of a goat sometimes, but he does have a way about him.” She was saying but Desiree wasn't sure if she was actually talking to her. She had this weird sort of satisfied mixed with a disgusted look on her face.

  Why do you have to disrespect goats like that?

  But deep down she had to agree. There was something about Eric. The boy certainly had issues but he had a way about him too. She smiled at the thought of him smiling that boyish grin of his. And the way he looked at her. So intense. Then she thought of his unfortunate accident when he held her close and laughed out loud.

  “What is it that you find so humorous?” Elizabeta asked her accusingly.

  She missed a step again, having forgotten that the vampire was even there. You forget how to walk in the last 24 hours or something?

  “Nothing,” She mumbled. “Just remembering something Kennedy said earlier.” She lied. Elizabeta continued to eye her as if she didn't believe a word. Desiree just walked along and didn't meet her eye. After what seemed like ages the vampire grunted and looked forward.

  They came to a spiraling stairway and she followed the vampire down. After a few twists and turns, Elizabeta spoke again.

  “You must have an interesting story to tell,” She said in an overly casual manner.

  Desiree gave her a wary sidelong glance.

  “What do you mean?” She asked cautiously.

  “You and Meilin,” She clarified. “You two were out there for some time. I can't image what the two of you got into. Must have been interesting.”

  “You will have to ask Meilin.” She replied. “I don't feel comfortable sharing her business.”