CHAPTER ONE
August 1943 As usual, I start my letters by reassuring myself that I still miss There are those who say war is hell. But I must contest this I joined the army to fight against Hitler, but of course, like any But there is no God. If there were, you wouldn't have been taken from It's quiet on the front tonight, which is why this entry in long and I have prattled on for two and a half pages. It's almost my turn to I miss you, Rosie. I miss the things we'd talk about. I miss… life as I love you, I miss you with every passing hour.
Dearest Rose,
It's been ten years since I've seen your pretty face. You have no
idea how much I miss you, darling sister. Your death was a great
shock to us all, but as time has passed, people seem to have
forgotten the exact colour of your eyes – azure – and only harbour
fleeting memories of you. It feels wrong.
you and that I have not forgotten you in any way shape or form.
It seems silly, to carry this journal with me wherever I go. You
have become my journal, where I tell you the thoughts that run
through my head every day of this Goddamned war.
overview. Which circle of hell do they refer to? Perhaps the
fifth circle, Anger? Or the seventh circle, Violence? Whichever
circle it is, I think that the assumption in grossly underestimated.
politician, he hides behind wave upon wave of soldiers doing his
bidding like he is God.
me. Royce King Jr. would have faced up to his crimes. Father wouldn't
have shot himself and Casper might not have gone mad and tried to
kill Mother. I still hear her haunting screams as I tried to pull Casper
off of her. Casper, the different Hale. The mad one. Isn't it strange
how we all had our own titles? Rosalie, the beauty; Lucian, the
quiet; Casper, the mad.
rambling. I could spend the time talking to my friend, Laurent,
but he is on watch tonight… it'd be best not to distract him. Though
I believe it takes a lot to fully distract him. Even when his attention
is on you, he seems to know when something's about to happen.
take up watch, so I'd better sign off and get ready. The captain might
not be impressed if I'm late.
it used to be. When things were simpler. Before the Depression,
before the war, before our family was thrown to the four winds.
Your brother,
Luc
)*+*(
Bombs were whistling. Bullets whizzed passed his ears as he ran, making his way to a ditch where he could stop and assess the situation. A voice groaned in his ear, pain evident. The man threw the youth off his shoulders as he slid down the embankment just into the tree line.
There was no one else. The battalion was all gone. The last one of them lay there in the dust, groaning in pain as the bullets lodged in his stomach caused him to slowly bleed to death.
"Please… help… me…" The man – not much older than a boy – groaned.
Had his red-eyed companion not felt compelled to save the one he'd grown close to – a friend, as strange as it seemed – he might have killed him where he lay. As it was, the dark skinned man couldn't bring himself to murder his comrade, and he had to hide himself and the younger man before they were found by the enemy. The last thing that Lucian Hale heard before he passed out was his own gasp as teeth pierced his neck.
)*+*(
The burning, the thirst, the desire… Lucian's eyes popped open, instantly assessing his surroundings. The air was silent, the dust that blew over the field would have hindered his gaze, had he not been able to see every single mote that floated on the air.
"Water…" He rasped, his voice sounding different, like a distant orchestra. He might have taken more notice had he not been so very thirsty. His ears pricked at the sound of water running over rocks, a stream… perhaps three miles away. "Water…"
Before he knew what had happened, he was flying. No, not flying, but running extremely fast – faster than what was normal for a human, the sound of his booted feet barely touching the ground, giving off no more sound than the rustle of leaves.
The thirst was burning in his throat. How did he have the energy to run when he was so parched? Impossible, one might have thought. As he ran, his enhanced senses picked up movement to his left – a wild boar. Instinctively, the man changed course, unsure as to why. With a roar, the wild pig scuffed the ground, ready to attack the approaching creature, but before it could so much as getting footing on the wooded floor, the man was on top of it, ripping into its muscular neck and feeding off its blood.
A shriek that could have woken the dead that lay out on the field was quickly silenced to a gurgle as the pig died. The man emptied the animal's veins of its blood and lay, panting, on top of the carcass.
After a moment, he stood, unsure of what had just happened. He had… fed off a pig. And not only that, the thirst had diminished. Not vanished, but had ebbed away until it was barely noticeable.
What was happening to him?
"So, you have awakened." A French-accented voice pierced his thoughts. "I would have thought, surrounded by so many humans, you would have fed off one of them, but… I suppose they've all met their demise. I cannot hear a heartbeat anywhere."
Lucian turned slowly to face the speaker. His eyes alighted on a tall man, beautiful, despite the dirt and blood that caked on his face. The man's hair was black, his eyes were dull red.
"Laurent?" Lucian stammered. "Wh…what has happened to me?"
"Shh, shh, Lucian." Laurent was suddenly in front of him, calming the young one down. He studied the young man. "You were wounded… the Germans, they ambushed during the night, three days ago, just as you were about to take over my watch… they shot you, massacred the battalion. I am the one who saved you."
"How?" It had occurred to Lucian that his heart should have been thudding painfully against his ribcage. As it was, he could feel nothing at all. He looked at Laurent, a questioning look on his face.
"How? Lucian, my friend… have you ever wondered why I never seem to come out in daylight unless it is overcast? Have you ever wondered why I never seem to eat with the other soldiers? Why I take the night watch every night?" Laurent smiled. "I… and now you too, am a vampire." He rested his muddied, bloodied hands on the young soldier's shoulders. "Now, you might say that vampires are the stuff of children's stories." He glanced at his friend's eyes, a small smirk on his face. "Believe me, I was just like you in that respect. But… it is true. Vampires walk the earth. And you and I are two of them."
Lucian had been quiet all through Laurent's monologue. Although part of him wanted to scoff, wanted to walk away from a man who was clearly insane, he had to wonder. There was rhyme to his reason. He brought up many valid points. "But… why me?"
"Lucian, Luc… you are the only one I can honestly call 'friend', even after two hundred years." Laurent shrugged. "And from what I have come to understand, friends don't let friends die… especially not in a war as hellish as this one." He placed a heavy hand on Luc's shoulder. "Come, we must make a move. Listen, you can hear the soldiers scouring the field."
Luc listened hard. Laurent was right. He could hear the faint hum of voices, speaking to each other in German as they looked for survivors in the massacre that was once his battalion. Looking back at Laurent, he nodded. There was plenty of time for questions. Right now, they had to get away.
)*+*(
"So… we sparkle in the sunlight. I thought it burned us." Lucian was taking to being a Vampire well, seeing as up until a week ago, he had no idea the supernatural existed.
Laurent laughed heartily. "A mere fairy tale to scare children. Most of what you have heard about our kind is false. We don't burn in sunlight, a crucifix and garlic don't bother us, we don't sleep in coffins – or sleep at all. We can't turn into bats or smoke… the only thing that is true is that we feed off of blood."
"I'd rather not feed off a human, if it's all the same." Lucian shuddered. "If blood has a flavour, then most humans must be sour as lemon… the people I've met in my lifetime… well, it only props up my theory."
"I agree… but I don't have your stamina… for a newborn Vampire, you're showing excellent restraint. Perhaps because your first meal was that boar?" Laurent pondered for a moment before shrugging off his questions with a sigh. "I suppose everyone takes to this life differently."
"You said I was your only friend in two hundred years… what did you mean?" Luc asked, changing the subject. Laurent had told him horror stories of Newborns that he'd come across, and the younger man had thanked his lucky stars that he was (supposedly) different.
"I meant what I said." Laurent murmured, looking around the wood. "I was a loner in my human years. I never had friends. I was a homeless urchin, no one would want to even look at me, let alone try to befriend me. I grew up on the streets of Paris, watched my family die from plague. " He smirked. "But… that was two hundred years ago… my story is only getting older… and no more interesting than that."
"I beg to differ, but…" Luc grinned at his fellow vampire. "If you say so." He coughed, changing the subject. "How long until we can get out of France?"
Laurent raised an eyebrow. "In a hurry to go back to your family that by now thinks you are dead?" He asked before he could stop himself. At Luc's facial expression, he backtracked. "I apologise, Luc… that was uncalled for. But you remember what I told you. You cannot go back to your family, you can not expose the secret."
"I remember." Luc sighed. "It's not like I have a family to go back to anyway." He poked at the drained carcass of his most recent meal – a wolf. Laurent raised his eyebrows questioningly. "My sister, Rosalie, was murdered when I was fourteen." Luc said after a silence that seemed to last an age. "By her fiancé. But that's an opinion held by myself alone."
"I am sorry to hear that, Luc." Laurent sounded genuine. "To lose a family member so harshly…" He trailed off, obviously thinking of his own kin that had been ravaged by plague, leprosy and malnutrition. "But what of the rest of your family?" He asked, shaking himself from his reverie. "You told me once that you had a brother… and what of your parents?"
"My father shot himself soon after Rose's death. After he was fired from the bank for my implications that it was Royce King Jr who murdered her." Luc lowered his red eyes. "I still have not forgiven myself for it. My brother, Casper… he's currently in Byberry Asylum in Philadelphia."
"How did he come to be there?" Laurent couldn't help but be curious. In the months that he'd known Lucian Hale, he hadn't realised the depth of the boy's pain. If he had known, he might have let him die on the fields, saved him from an eternity of pain.
"Casper was always quiet, We just naturally assumed he was shy." Luc leaned against a tree and stared at the stars showing through the gaps in the foliage. "After Rose's death, he seemed to withdraw into himself even more… began spouting stories that he'd seen Rose on the street, covered from head to foot in clothing, as if disguised. We assumed he was taking the loss very hard, but about six months before I joined the army, he seemed to get better. He came out of his shell, he talked to us more openly. It was when I came home from my job at the lumber yard that I found him choking my mother to death." He stopped, clearing his throat unnecessarily. "I managed to pull him off her, and he came after me. My mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis a month after Casper's incarceration and died last year. I got the telegram on my birthday."
Laurent stayed silent throughout the telling of Casper Hale. He had never found humans particularly interesting, and now that Lucian was one of his kind, he supposed he still didn't. But he'd never heard of another of his kind that had seen as much death and misery in their first life. "You are so young… to have seen so much pain… I would have said one of our kind wouldn't have seen this much hardship until they'd at least been living their second life three or so years."
"What about you, then?"
"Hmm?"
"You saw a lot of pain in your first life…"
"It was only me… my 'family' were a pack of street urchins that cared more for themselves than their mates. First in, first served… the unwritten rules of the homeless, I suppose you could say."
"Oh." Luc looked back up at the stars. The night was fading fast. When would this godforsaken war be over? He knew that it would best be safe to stick around with Laurent, at least until he was used to his new life as a Vampire, learning the ins and outs of the nature. But he wished to be back in America, back on familiar soil; back in familiar surroundings and with people who spoke Goddamned English!
"Luc? Luc!" Laurent was looking at him with a curious gaze. "It's time to get going. The Germans are not entirely stupid. They will be searching here too, very soon."
They got up, preparing to make a break for freedom. Dawn was when soldiers would be changing guard, it would be safest to run now. Luc had questioned this strategy the day before, but Laurent had reasoned that though vampires were uniquely fleet of foot, it would be best not to cause more attention to come their way in case of being labelled as deserters.
)*+*(
October 1945
"This is where I bid you adieu, my friend." Laurent put his hands on the now-golden-eyed Vampire's shoulders and kissed both his cheeks. The boat that would take soldiers back to the United States sat in the dock, impatiently waiting for its passengers to embark so that it could set out on its journey home.
Luc grinned. "Laurent… it was a pleasure knowing you. Thank you. For everything." His face, swathed in bandages, giving the appearance that he had had an unfortunate meeting with a landmine, but in reality, stopped his fellow Americans from seeing the diamond-like shine to his skin. "You are a true friend. Maybe we will see each other in years to come."
"Hopefully not as soldiers in another war." Laurent laughed, before turning serious. "I must away, now. The smell here is too… tantalizing to my senses." He grinned. "I have a feeling we will one day meet again, my friend. Take care of yourself."
"And you, Laurent. Be well." Luc managed to smile through his bandages. "Until we meet again, my friend." He allowed himself to be lead away by a young nurse who was to help him to a cot where he could supposedly rest.
Laurent, melting into the crowd and virtually disappearing into the masses of wounded and nurses, made his way back to the forest that the two had been living in up until a week ago. He had promised his newest companion that he wouldn't feast on any of the returning American soldiers, and he had made good on that promise. Now, with his red eyes almost black, he had to find a meal.
)*+*(
Two days passed. The trip was long, and many of his comrades had become infected in their wounds from gangrene. The smell to his sensitive nose was appalling. Death and dying were not so appealing when you had enhanced senses such as that of a Vampire.
Every time the nurses came in to change his bandages around his face, he would think of a new excuse, but they were beginning to see through the pattern and began to enforce the changing. Or they were about to. It was soon time to get away before they could find that he wasn't really injured. He should have taken Laurent's advice and swum back to America. Vampires were good at swimming he had discovered, and it would have taken a shorter time than the usual five days on a boat.
And judging from the hushed whispers from outside the door of the 'ward', as he had taken to calling it, he'd have to escape soon off the ship he'd had come to know was named USS Lake Chamberlain.
Looking around the room with his one 'good' eye, he saw that all of his comrades were either sleeping or in too much pain to notice him. That would come in handy. Slipping from the bed, he freed his head of the bandages and stealthily made his way out onto the deck, thanking his lucky stars that he'd been placed in such close proximity to an escape.
Looking at the direction the ship was going, Luc climbed the railing and, with one final look around the ship that he had called home for two days, he jumped overboard, beginning his swim to what he had deduced, would be Maine.
The swim, although long, seemed to last for no more than a few minutes to Luc. Thankful for not needed the necessity to breathe and the internal compass that seemed to point him toward American soil, he was in Jonesport, Maine within thirty hours of jumping the rail. The nurses would have almost certainly noticed his missing person, but at the moment, he was far too busy being happy to be on home territory.
From Jonesport, he made his way to Bangor, then to Newport, across Vancouver, to his home town of Rochester in New York State, stopping, only once, when he needed to hunt. The full trip, which would have taken a normal human about a day in travelling by car, took him five hours and forty-three minutes on foot, thanks to his impressive speed.
Once back in Rochester, he made his way to the family home, surprised that the family servants, although few, still made their life at the house. It occurred to him that the house now belonged to him, the oldest surviving heir to the name of Hale.
The house, although desolate on the outside, still felt as warm and inviting as it had in his youth. Mrs McLachlan, the housekeeper, and Mr O'Reilly, the butler, had stayed, even after 'the grievous affair of Master Casper's incarceration, bless his soul', as Mrs McLachlan had put it. Although not expecting Lucian home, they went right about making him feel welcome and in charge.
Being a simple soldier, not having a great amount of cash, Luc soon took to travelling, finally letting the staff go with a full pardon and excellent recommendations. He couldn't stand to be in one place for too long… people would start to notice that he didn't age after all.
And that was when his travels began.
