AN: Alright everyone, I'm really warning you about this chapter. It's gonna be weird. I can feel it coming. But read it anyway, okay? I'll try to incorporate my bizarre ideas into good writing! Review please!
BEYOND WHAT MEETS THE EYE CHAPTER 2
BY EMPRESS JADE
Lily continued to stare in awe at her best friend.
And Eve's eyes continued to glow silver. Not gray, but silver as she stared straight ahead. She looked vicious. Like a hunter.
"Eve?" Lily cursed her voice for sounding so afraid. For a moment, she listened to the rain pound on the window.
Eve's eyes blinked and were brown again. She too, looked afraid. And like she hadn't eaten or slept for days.
"Lily?" Eve sounded like a little girl who had just woken up.
"Yeah, it's me."
"Help me."
"Sure sweetie," Lily's voice became soothing, but she was still afraid to touch Eve.
"Dumbledore. Take me. Right now." She spoke in short, clipped phrases, as if speaking in itself was too difficult.
"Come on." Lily placed one arm around Eve's shoulders and took hold of her hand. Eve's hands were clammy and ice cold.
Once Lily had lifted her off the bed, Eve was actually able to walk, but she shook. Uncontrollably. She placed one foot in front of the other just fine, yet her eyes were dazed. They made their way down the hall and the stairs, which were a bit more difficult. Eve hadn't seemed to understand that she had to go down and not just forward anymore.
"There," Lily let go of Eve's arm as they stepped off the last stair and into the common room.
There were still a few people there. James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were sprawled on the floor, undoubted planning something illegal.
Eve's body suddenly went rigid. Her head jerked toward the boys.
Then it happened again. Her eyes turned silver, bright, like a beacon shining. She stared at them like an eagle perched on a limb. She lunged at them.
But her eyes began to fade. Back to brown, and then silver again. Brown, silver, brown, silver. As if the two colors were fighting each other for the limelight. Eve stopped, mid-leap at the boys.
They jumped up and looked at her, in shock.
"Eve, what the hell?" Sirius hopped over a pillow and knelt beside her. She was lying on the floor now, still trembling. He turned her on her side and saw the pained look on her face. "Lil? What's going on?"
"I…I don't know," Lily stammered. "But I have to take her to Dumbledore. That's all she could say."
"We'll come with you," Sirius declared.
"No…" Eve managed to murmur.
Sirius looked almost offended. If it was possible for him to be offended.
"I'll take her, and let you guys know what's up, k?" Lily offered. "None of us are really supposed to be out of the tower anyway," she added, hoping to make him feel better. Not that breaking the rules had ever stopped him before.
"Yeah," he replied in a very un-Sirius-like tone. It was like…concern.
"Hur-ry…" Eve gasped through her breaths as Lily and Sirius pulled her up.
Lily pushed her friend along after they had maneuvered through the portrait hole. Dumbledore's office (she assumed that's where he would be) was quite a ways from where they were. She felt desperate to kill some of the silence, even though she wasn't sure if Eve could hear her.
"Well…at least it doesn't get much worse than this," she said, more to herself than Eve.
There was a roll of thunder that could be heard in the center of the castle.
And the ground shook. First it was just a tremble, then more and more until it was like canons going off.
Lily and Eve were thrown to the ground where they fought to stand back up. But it was useless.
Bits of the ceiling's plaster started to sprinkle on them.
"Ahh!" Lily screamed and covered her face with her arms. "Ow!" Chunks of the ceiling were falling on them.
And then it stopped.
Lily slowly removed her arms from her head. Eve was lying on the floor next to her, on her stomach.
They were trapped. Pieces of wall and ceiling surrounded them and it didn't seem possible to get out.
"Eve, we're trapped," Lily stated the obvious.
There was no answer.
"Eve?"
No answer.
"Eve!" Lily shouted in desperation.
There still wasn't a reply, but Eve began to slowly push herself up with her arms. She was soon kneeling with her head bowed down, hair veiling her face.
Her head jerked up and her dark hair flew backwards.
The silver was back. And gleaming brighter than ever.
Eve pounced and Lily found herself on her back. Her opened her eyes and saw the silver. Silver had never been so scary.
"Eve! No! Stop! Please!" Lily begged. She tried to get up, and she couldn't. Even for being an athlete, Lily had never imagined that Eve could be this strong.
Eve looked down on her, a smile playing on her lips. But all she did was look at Lily. Like a cat toying with its mouse. A hunter that had found its prey. This wasn't Eve. Not Lily's Eve. It was like someone else took over when the silver crept in.
"Please…" Lily whispered. She closed her eyes again and prepared for the worst.
With that last plead, the brown was back. Fearful, but warm brown eyes.
Eve immediately jumped off and huddled against some debris. She shivered and shook, wrapping her limbs around herself and making herself look about five times as small as she really was.
"Just tell me what's wrong, I can help you. Are you sick?" Lily cautiously placed an arm around Eve.
She shook her head and mumbled incoherent words.
"I can't understand you, dear."
"I can't tell you," Eve said clearly. "They'd kill me."
"Who would kill you?" Lily asked.
"The elders."
"The elders of what?"
"The Night World," Eve whispered. It was barely audible. Lily blinked to make sure she had heard correctly.
"Eve, the Night World is just a myth that wizarding parents use to scare their kids with," she replied matter-of-factly.
"No, it isn't," Eve retorted. Articulately, but not harshly.
"Honey, it's okay."
Eve shook her head again.
"Just tell me," Lily persisted.
Eve sighed and bit on her lower lip. Then she pulled back her top lip.
"Oh my…" Lily faltered.
Eve's canine teeth were about an inch and a half long, pointed and femininely curved. Not teeth. Fangs.
"You're…" Lily paused.
"A vampire."
"I can't believe it." Lily said with eyes as wide as saucers.
"Well you'd better," Eve stated plainly. "If I don't feed in a few minutes, my hunting instincts will attack the nearest person."
"Me." Lily put the pieces together.
"Exactly."
"How often do you have to…" Lily searched for the right word, "feed?"
"Once a day."
Lily gasped. "So you kill someone everyday?"
"No, they don't die."
"They just get better?"
"Yeah, pretty much, as long as I don't take too much," Eve forced out between her breaths.
Lily's mind was racing. She didn't like problems. That's why she could always come up with a solution. To any problem. Any problem. But right now she could only think of one to think problem. And she was definitely one to act on her plans.
She slowly pulled her robes away from her neck. "So go ahead." She moved her neck toward Eve.
But Eve shook her head. "I can't do that."
"Why not?" Lily asked indignantly.
"You don't feed off people you care about. It just isn't done." When Eve saw the questioning look in Lily's eyes, she went on. "Lil, we live in the same room. I could have fed off you any night. If I had wanted to. But I didn't. And I'm not going to."
"But you just said yourself that you were going attack the nearest person anyway. So you get my blood no matter what. You can at least just do it now, while I'm offering."
Eve realized that she really didn't have a choice. She bit her bottom lip again and her fangs were back.
"No, not like that," she said. "We can be a little more civilized." Instead of leaning toward Lily's neck, she took her wrist instead and pulled her sleeve back. "Sure?"
"Yeah," Lily gulped and held her breath.
There was sting at contact. But Lily was surprised that there was no pain after that. She decided to keep her eyes closed. And what she saw was amazing.
Gold and black swirls, like rings around Saturn, with a great burst of light from behind them.
Eve's mind. A complicated, fuzzy sphere of good thoughts and bad thoughts. But most of all, feelings. Guilt, pain, and love. Hidden love and must stay hidden. Lily was in the midst of searching for more information about that love…
It disappeared.
Lily opened her eyes and Eve was wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve.
Her skin was glowing again with light and color. But there was still the look of guilt.
"I shouldn't have done that."
"Eve, we both know that you didn't have a choice. And I offered. It's not you attacked me."
"I would have. A few minutes more and I would have." Eve continued to look at the floor.
"It wasn't that bad. But why did you stop? It's was so cool…I could see your mind. I guess I really shouldn't be so happy about prying in your thoughts."
"I had to stop. You wouldn't have had any more blood left. I would have drank you dry."
"Oh," it was so obvious to Lily then.
There was another uncomfortable moment of silence. Lily had to speak.
"So, if you've always been a vampire, how come you look older than you did when I met you?"
"That's just a story," Eve dared to look Lily in the eyes now. "Well, it's kind of true. There are two kinds of vampires. You didn't know that did you?" Lily shook her head no. "There are made vampires, they become vampires after they get bitten. They stay the same age as they were when they were bitten. But you have to go through a blood exchange process. Don't worry, you're not going to sprout fangs any time soon."
Lily half-smiled at this statement, and waited for Eve to keep speaking.
"The other kind is called the lamia. LAY-mee-uh. That's me. We're born vampires. Our children are vampires. And we're the best kind of vampires. I know that sounds prejudiced, but we are. We age, but we can stop aging whenever we want."
"How come you guys have to drink blood though?" Lily had always wanted to know this about vampires. She was expecting some kind of 'we just do' answer, but that's not what she got.
"Vampires are immortal. You knew that though. Only burning will kill us, and wood of course. Yes, that's one myth that's true. But like all living things, we need oxygen to survive. BUT, our immortal vampire cells don't carry oxygen. Catching on?"
"So you have to take blood from humans because it already has oxygen in it," Lily suggested.
"Right. You see, up until last year, I had to feed off people."
"Which is why you had all those boyfriends, but you always dumped them."
"Yes, I used all those guys to feed off of. And I didn't feel bad at all because I didn't care about them," Eve replied without the slightest bit of sorrow in her voice. "But now, the Elders of the Night World want to make it easier for vampires living with humans to feed. So they've got this thing where they mail a package of blood to you everyday. That's why I was always so anxious to get my mail in the morning."
"The Night World really is real," Lily said in half-disbelief. "But I thought they were bad, why would they want to help anyone? Even someone that's one of them?"
"Well, you're right. The Night World is a society all around us made up of dark creatures…vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, and certain kinds of witches. So we are more ruthless. But the most important law of the Night World is not to let anyone else find out about it. So if they mail blood to me, I won't have to hunt, making it a lot easier to hide the fact that I'm a vampire," Eve explained.
"Where do they get this blood?" Lily asked cautiously. She almost didn't want to know.
"Don't worry, it's not that bad. They have some human donors, mostly witches that will give blood, but not many. Most of the blood comes from animals. Deer are the best. And they don't die either."
Lily nodded. It was all coming together. Eve's boyfriends, the "vitamins" that she got in the mail every morning, but…
"I thought that Night people were supposed to hate humans, or is that just a myth too?"
"No it's true. I'm not sure why. It might be because we have special powers, that Night Worlders think they're better than humans.
"What kind of special powers?" Lily asked.
"Well, vampires for instance, we're a lot faster and stronger than you, no offence, and our senses are stronger: better sight, smell, and hearing. And we're telepathic."
"Oh."
"But it might also be that you have something we don't," Eve continued.
"Like what?"
"I'll use vampires as an example again. Humans automatically have oxygen. They don't have to hunt for it everyday. See what I mean?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Lily replied. "But wait, didn't you say the Night World law wouldn't let you tell a human about the Night World?" Eve nodded. "Didn't you just tell me everything?"
"I did. And for that I could be killed. And you could be killed."
Lily became extremely nervous.
"But only if they find out that I told you."
"So we're pretty much safe, right?"
"Yep."
Lily sighed. "Ugh. Great."
"What is it?"
"We're still trapped," Lily motioned toward all the debris around them.
Eve tossed her head backward and laughed.
"Eve! This isn't funny, we could be here for hours before they find us!"
"Chill, it isn't a problem." Eve stood up, well, as far up as she could in that tight amount of space.
She placed her hands on the pieces of ceiling.
Her eyes turned silver, and Lily was very much afraid again.
But with one swift motion, Eve pushed the debris, and there was a gap of light shining through.
Lily's fear left her. "For a second, I thought you were gonna jump on me again."
"Nope, remember I told you that we're a lot stronger than humans."
"So you're eyes turn silver every time you do something…vampirish?" Lily asked, not quite sure whether 'vampirish' was really the right word, or even a word at all.
"Yeah, it's kinda scary, huh?"
"Very scary." Lily crawled through the hole, followed by Eve.
The girls started on their way back to the tower, since they had no reason to find Professor Dumbledore anymore. Lily felt that they were closer friends than ever.
But as they dusted bits of dry wall off their robes, a thought came to her. "Hey Eve?"
"Hm?" Eve replied, obviously also in her own thoughts.
"Remember when I could see your mind, when you were…feeding?" Lily asked.
"Yeah, don't worry, that always happens. Whenever I feed off anyone."
"Good, but that's not what I was going to ask."
"Oh, go on."
"Well," Lily tried to find the words to explain it. "I could see all this stuff in your mind. And most of it was pretty normal stuff that I would expect in your mind, had I known I was going to see it."
"Uh huh."
"But there was one thing I didn't understand. There was this one thought about love in your mind. And it was like you were focusing all your attention on keeping it from everyone."
Eve stopped walking. Her eyes looked panicked, and she stared at the floor.
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Okay…that was kind of a strange chapter, huh? Not what you were expecting, was it? But the reason I wanted to add it in was because I made a deal with a friend. We would switch favorite books. I gave her mine, and she gave me hers. I gave her Rebecca (well…it's ONE of my favorites), I typically read classics and other "deep" books. She gave me Secret Vampire by L. J. Smith. Don't laugh at the title, I know it's stupid…and the cover was even worse, but it was actually pretty good. I've never read a book like that before. So after I read it, I was hooked. I've read the next three books in the series and I'm waiting for her to bring me the rest. The series is the Night World (duh…).
Apologies to those who've already read Night World books about that whole, VERY long explanation about the Night World. It was necessary for those who haven't read it. I love the characters in those books, but I'm not going to put any of them in this story. (Goodbye Ash…he's the coolest character!).
More apologies for any typos in this. I was writing it really fast and I wanted to post it today without having to read through the whole thing. Let me know if there are serious grammar problems, I'll fix them.
You know what's coming: REVIEW PLEASE! Even if you thought it was totally weird. Or that Eve being a vampire was totally out of place. Or even if you absolutely hated it and all you're going to do it flame!
Expect one or two more chapters in this series, then I'm going to start the next L/J one.
THANKS FOR READING! I LOVE YOU GUYS! (Yes, even more than I love Ash) (Okay, maybe not) (Just kidding)