Chapter 7
The Meeting
It finally occurred to me that I was a vampire. I was a creature of the night; no longer human. I was a vampire. I was what many people like Lambert's family sought out to destroy.
I was relieved though. I would live… exist… through the bombs.
Mom said that we had to get moving. We had a meeting with others in the mountains. She said vampires and humans alike would be there.
We made our beds like good house guests and checked out. Big Dog couldn’t stop looking at my eyes. He must have noticed that they were dark brown just last night. I looked down while he stared at me. He made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like the looks of him; perhaps he was like Lambert’s family?
The meeting was in the Catskill Mountains, a very beautiful and peaceful place. I looked around at the trees and animals. The trees were so alive, they were like people. Each tree had its own personality, a life. Some trees told stories; the stories of what have happened to them over the years. One tree, an old, droopy pine, was split in half and slightly burnt; it must have been hit by lighting. The animals didn't seem skittish around my mother and I like when we were human. Birds landed on her shoulders as she walked and a rabbit came up to me and sniffed my foot. There was no fear in its mind; I could sense the female rabbit's emotions, it was at peace with me. I was no different than a rabbit to her.
"Have you noticed the animals? They seem to like us," I said to my mom. She bent over to pet the rabbit. It closed its eyes and enjoyed the attention.
"Yes. I noticed this, too. They think of us as another animal. Apparently they don’t see the danger we can put them in," she smiled at the rabbit. "I've always loved animals."
A thought quickly visited me… we didn’t get Dad! He’ll die in the bombs!
"Mom? What about Dad? Is he going to…?" I didn’t want to say the word… die.
"No, Alexis!" She looked down at me. "That 'meeting' he was going to is the one that we are going to, too… We will live."
Many things were going through my head at that moment: I was going to see my dad for the first time in a week! Is he a vampire and who changed him? Is he still human and will he be changed right in front of me… I don’t think that I could handle that. Also, I thought of Reece, the boy I never met but in my dreams. "Will Reece be there?"
"Yes."
"Oh… and may I ask about Lambert? What about him?" I was worried, I was a vampire now and my best friend was a vampire slayer. I’d rather he not be there. I didn’t want this to be the time I had to kill him but… I was afraid of him, truly, I knew he could never hurt me… or could he? Is that why he said I have to kill him?
"Yes," she said. I could tell she was listening to my thoughts, and I, for once, heard snippets of hers. My mind reading wasn’t nearly as great as my mother's. But I listened. She was thinking of how she was worried about him… and she wanted me to stop listening to her thoughts.
"But I know you listen to mine all the time!" I said annoyed. "I know you do. I can feel your feelings; your fear, your concentration, the dull pain in your throat. Why can't I hear your thoughts all the time like you listen to mine? I don’t have any privacy in your eyes?"
"That is interesting. I don’t get any feelings from you. But yes, I hear your thoughts all the time. Honey, you do have privacy, I just listen to make sure you're alright. I'm worried about you," she looked at me. Her love for her only child was clear through her now normally steel colored eyes. The hard metal seemed to melt as she looked at me. I didn’t need to feel her feelings to know she loved me, and I loved her.
We arrived at a clearing. I didn’t see anyone at first, but I could sense the presence of other beings. Soon after we entered the meadow, people started walking out of the trees; I could see figures forming in the mist. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the minds of everyone around me. There were about forty people here, vamps and humans alike. Why would we have humans here? Ha, lunch.
I could hear the nervous hearts fluttering in the humans’ chests; there were about five. My hearing was gradually getting better every second. I could hear the tiniest sounds around me: a leaf breaking from a tree a few miles away, rabbits burrowing, a fox sniffing around, and the blood pumping through the veins of the humans. The sound was enticing; I wanted their blood, I needed their blood.
There was one heartbeat that sounded familiar. I honed in on the person and tried to hear their thoughts. To my surprise, it was my father. He was still human! Great, I might have to watch him change or… change him. The thought raced through my mind; but I quickly pushed it out. I couldn’t think like that, but then again, one of the only ways to protect him is to turn him.
People were now in the clearing where Mom and I were.
“Stay alert, some people here are not too friendly,” she whispered into my ear. Or maybe I heard her thoughts. I did exactly as she said and my ears and eyes were completely focused, I positioned my body for an easy strike.
The figure closest to us, a female, said, “Be calm, my sisters. We are all friends here.”
Never trust anyone but me, Lex. This time I knew that my mother thought that for me to hear.
“Everyone, come together and meet our new member!” the vampire directed to the forty others around us. “Sisters, my name is Lila. Welcome to The Group.”
“Hello again, Lila,” my mother carefully said. “As you know, I am Elizabeth; this is my daughter Alexis.” I could hear my father’s heart flutter; he just realized that the two women in the clearing are his family.
“You have come at the right time, girls. This meeting is important. It will determine each of our destinies!” She was speaking to everyone now.
There was silence among the people. It seemed that everyone was awaiting Lila’s next words. She was obviously the leader of The Group.
It was then that I noticed something. I could see these odd mists around the figures. Each individual’s was different in a way. The mist that I thought I had seen in the clearing looked to come from each figure. They seemed to be different colors for each person; I had never seen these before.
“Mom, do you see different colored mists around each person?” I asked in my mind.
She quickly replied, “No, we will discuss this later. Remember, stay alert.”
I kept my senses sharp, there was something about this Lila that I wasn’t too comfortable with. Her mist looked like it had a dark red tint to it…
“We have banded together to defeat a greater evil than each other,” Lila looked around the whole circle of people. “You all know what will happen in the near future.”
I looked at my mother; she looked at me with weariness. If everyone knew about what will happen, then the bombs have been confirmed to detonate around the entire United States.
“The Group will be the ones to stop these events,” I found it odd that she had not said “bombs” yet. She looked at my mom, “Our sister Elizabeth has seen into the future and told us of the bombs.” Aha, now she said it… I could hear my father’s heart flutter again, he is scared. “We kidnapped two men who work for the government to confirm this monstrosity. Come forward!” She yelled at two frighten human men. They were still wearing the suits they wore to work. From across the field, I could read the small letters on their breasts: CIA. Lila’s people must have kidnapped them very recently. “You two, tell the rest of us what you know!”
“Fuck you, demon-bitch,” spat the taller, more intimidating looking agent. His mist seemed to keep flashing a deep blue. “Kill me already.”
“Oh, you’re just so sweet. We’ll grant your wish after you confirm what we know,” Lila sneered and showed her snake-like fangs. I touched my tongue to my palate; I could feel my fangs resting easily there. I was growing more uncomfortable near the human man; all I wanted to do was have a drink… Lila walked over to the man as if she were a cat stalking a helpless rodent. She stopped behind him and grazed her fingers over his deliciously pulsing arteries that I could see, hear, and smell in the side of his throat. The burning in my throat was becoming a distraction. Lila then licked the man’s neck, causing him to fall to the ground screaming in pain. Her saliva had burned him like an acid would have. It was then that I let out a whimper, I needed a drink.
Lila turned to my mom and me, “Have you not fed her, Elizabeth?”
My mom looked down, “Only on the night she was changed…” She looked at me and whispered, “I’m sorry, the first kill is hardest on you. Good luck.”
Lila addressed me then, “Alexis, are you thirsty?”
“Very much so, Lila. I need him.”
“First, we get his information, dear… After that, he’s all yours,” I could hear groans coming from other vampires. “Shut up! She hasn’t fed in many hours,” she turned back to the man and lifted him up off the ground with one arm. “Now, tell everyone.”
“Will you kill me?” I could hear the fear in his voice, I liked it.
“No,” she turned him so he saw my face, “she will. But now,” Lila took a breath, “tell everyone you disgusting piece of shit!”
The man sighed as she let him stand. “I have been a liar to this country. I have been working for the Central Intelligence Agency for many years… and for several of our enemies. I have been selling information about our nuclear weapons to them. They now have access to our nukes and have their own… they plan to strike the United States on December 21, 2012. They find it… entertaining to end the world as we know it on a date that everyone fears. All of our enemies have agents working for our government, waiting to kill millions of Americans. I gave all of the agents’ names to your leader,” he looked miserably to Lila, then to his partner. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”
I could hear the hearts racing in the few humans among us, my father among them. They clearly had more to worry about than the vampires did. We were more… durable than the humans.
Lila turned to me finally and said, “Alexis, have fun with him.” She then walked over to his partner and whispered, “You shouldn’t have tried to help him, I might have let you live.” She then thrust her hand though the man’s upper back and tore out his spinal cord and threw it in the woods. Walking to me, she said to the others, “Dispose of him.” Two young vampires around my age were to first to the body lying lifeless in the grass. Lila addressed me now, “You have now witnessed death, get used to it,” and she walked past me and conversed with my mother.
I did not have the patience to listen to them. I ran to the man who would soon be my meal with the speed of a vampire. I reached him in less than a second; he didn’t even notice I had moved until he was pinned on the ground with an eighteen year old thirsty vampire on top of him.
Demon bitch were his last words. My instincts took over as I slashed open the man’s throat with my deadly sharp nails freeing his beautiful blood – the feeling of the warm liquid on my fingers... I touched my lips to red fluid and felt my body energize. This man’s blood was better than anything I have ever touched my tongue to. My mother’s vampire blood was nothing compared to the fresh blood of a new victim.
I laid there drinking the man’s blood for several minutes. When I had drained him of every drop I sat up. Even though I loved the feeling of my thirst quenched, I started to feel sick. I felt… guilty. I had never killed someone before. This is what Mom was talking about… I looked up to her and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, it is in your nature to kill,” said both my mother and Lila in sync. Once again, my chilling reality set it. If I don’t get over myself, we will surely fail at our mission. I had to shut it off.
I don’t know how long I stayed in the middle of the clearing, I felt eyes on me. When I finally stood up, I saw that everyone was staring at me. My new vampire eyes were super alert now that I had just fed. I was turning slowing in a circle and checking out everyone who was looking at me. Everyone’s mist was a different color; it was almost pretty… until I realized I was in the middle of a meadow surrounded by vampires. Though I was one, it is still unnerving to be surrounded by things that could end me permanently.
Lila came up to me and said, “You have passed.”
“Passed what exactly?” Great, vampire games.
“We had to make sure you could actually kill a human. I hope it doesn’t scare you. You’ll have to do it many times over the next couple of month,” Lila said with a smile that looked almost false.
“May I speak now, Lila?” said a man’s voice, my father’s voice.
“You may, Anthony,” she addressed my father personally.
“Elizabeth, Lex, I’m so happy you are ok. But we have a problem, as you may have noticed; we have many humans in The Group – humans that need to be changed. Something else Lex has to officially pass is to see someone she loves changed… by herself.” He faced me, “I’m so sorry, but you have to change me.”
“What? Mom, you never told me this!” she looked at me with sad eyes, a few of the younger vampires in the circle looked down. “I have to don’t I? When?”
“Now,” said Lila. “We have no time to waste. We need to give you more information about what you and the younger vampire’s jobs are.”
“Here? In the meadow? But what if he needs a hospital or something?!” I know I had to do it, I didn’t really want to, but if I wanted The Group to trust me, I had no choice. I sighed and felt as if I was crying without tears. My father sat in the center of the circle. “Ok, dad, I love you.”
“I love you, too,” were his last human words.
I remembered what my mom had done to change me. She did it out of love, still knowing that I’d have that horribly real dream. I had to do this. I sat behind him; I didn’t want him to see the pleasure in my eyes when I taste his blood. I flicked my fangs out, and bit him in the jugular. God, the taste of blood was amazing, I loved it more than anything. I could hear my father’s mumbles of pain, but I couldn’t stop. I had to let my venom infect his blood stream. I sat there drinking from him as I heard some vampires and humans alike gasp. “Her eyes, they aren’t normal” or “Something is different with her.”
I felt my father becoming stronger as my venom was infecting his body. His body became or muscled, his hair was thicker and no longer graying. I then turned him around and hugged him, as I let go he said, “Your eyes, they’re purple.”
I then remembered what my mom had done for me when she changed me. To solidify the change, and to strengthen him, I cut my wrist and let him drink my blood now. When I felt it was enough I pulled back and licked my wound which healed it. The puncture wounds on my dad’s throat were completely healed. He was now a vampire. I whispered, “I’m sorry”. My mother ran over and hugged both of us. She said everything was going to be fine.
“Alexis, you are now a complete member of the group. Congratulations, you will have a hand in saving this country,” Lila announced to the whole group. “You will now be introduced to your peers.”