At the start of this chapter, I just want to say;

Thanks to all the people who reviewed this story, especially Ishandahalf, Enchantedlight, EE's Skysong, Chica De Los Ojos Café, Roguechere and Silkyblack,

because it feels really good to know people like what you're doing. And doubly good when they keep reviewing. :D . If you're reading this story (which you are, duh,) please, please let me know what you think. Good, bad, ugly, or plain evil (like a vampire), whatever, just let me know!

. . . okay, now on with the story. . .

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"I took part in the remainder of the feast," Remus continued without a hint of shame or self-reproach, "and after the feast Magnus officially introduced me to the others as a new coven member. I had not been consulted, but I would not have refused anyway. I had nowhere else to go and I knew no others of my kind.

"It took about a week to get settled. I learnt many interesting things about vampires and my coven, such as that the creator of all vampires' was the visionary Nur, who had lived in ancient Egypt, about four or five thousand years ago. His last coven had included Alexander, Magnus, and two other people, one of whom was the person who had come to me on the night I had become a vampire.

"I was as surprised then as you are now Madeline, when I found out that the man who had offered to help me was a vampire. Nathaniel was his name, and it seems he had disobeyed some command in doing so. He was locked up in the tomb of Nur by Alexander for his pains, and as far as I know, he is still there.

"The other vampire was perhaps the most famous one amongst us. He was Alexander's brother. He had been put in the sun by Alexander about a thousand years before my birth, but had somehow survived it and escaped."

"Why was he put in the sun?" Madeline asked.

"You might be surprised by what I tell you at the end of it," Remus said, looking at her, "He had committed one of the two unforgivable crimes, having a child with a human woman. The other, by the way, is killing another vampire.

"The child was disfigured and mentally disabled, as all children from such a union are – the reason for it being a crime, you see. Anyway, Alexander found out about it, and he had his brother chained to the gate of the castle, although his brother managed to make his lover and her child escape, somehow evading five or six vampires.

"I can kind of read minds you see, and when Alexander was telling me this, he let his guard down enough to allow me a glimpse of his brother and his lover and the child. Now this is the part which might surprise you. The woman I saw looked exactly like you."

A deep silence greeted his words.

"So this is why you asked me about the name Jean?" asked Madeline finally.

"Yes," Remus replied, "but I don't think you grasp the significance of this. If you are indeed a descendent of Jean and her son, as soon as Alexander finds out about you, he'll kill you."

Some of the colour left Madeline's cheeks. To have a friend loved by a vampire was one thing, but to be on the 'hit-list' of a vampire was another matter entirely.

"If yer makin' this up," James snarled, extending his claws and waving them about, "I'm gonna gut ya." He curled a clawed arm around Madeline, who shrank back from the extended bones.

"Think with your brain, James," Remus replied coldly, "Not with your balls. I'm telling the truth. I should also add that it was lucky that Alexander left for Egypt on the same evening you people arrived, or he would have found out by now about you, and all three of you would be incinerated, and me as well, probably. Alexander doesn't like this human side of me.

"Calm down, all of you, and listen to my story now, because he won't be back in the next couple of days.

"I think you people have noticed that I'm saying 'Alexander did this' and 'Alexander did that', while having mentioned that Magnus was the leader of the coven. Apparently Alexander had been leader of the coven until his rash anger in chaining his brother without telling any of the others and letting them confirm the business of the lover and child. Because of this, he was asked to step down and choose a successor. He chose Magnus, who had been made by him. Magnus was five hundred years younger, and he was a visionary like Nur was. He spent all his time plotting for the greater glory of the vampire race, not realising we are meant to be creatures' of the shadows. As a result of his preoccupation, Alexander was able to control him easily. It had been his suggestion that I be made a vampire, for reasons I still do not know.

"I also found out something about the vampires' there. All the men were castrated, save Alexander." James made an indelicate sound and surreptitiously moved his hands near his groin, while the girls looked disgusted. Remus continued, smiling slightly at James's reaction. "This was a law Alexander had passed after his brothers' child. All the old vampires' could not have the deed done to them because their organs grow back over time, but any new vampire made had to have it done to him. Female vampires' cannot conceive, and so they were left alone."

"So you're – you're," Jessica said, for a second not looking at his face, but at the space between his legs, before she flushed and met his eyes, "you're um – fixed?"

Remus smiled easily. "Actually, I'm the only vampire made in the past two thousand years who has not been – fixed. Magnus was hardly concentrating when he made. He did not even talk to me, tell me how to survive, let alone mutilate parts of my anatomy. I'm pretty sure Alexander realised this sooner or later, but he could not do anything after I had been Born into Darkness, as we vampires' call it."

"Accurate term," James muttered.

"Thank you," Remus replied, "now let me get on with the story. I'm not going to describe all the things I learnt, the ritual starvations which were a month long, or the way to drain the blood without leaving a mark, etcetera; these things are significant to vampires only. Besides, dawn is about an hour or two away.

"The first few weeks passed without incident; there was nothing much to do except feed off the nearby villages, and discover more about our past from Alexander. Then, one day, Katherine came to talk to me, which was pretty strange, as I was generally left alone, probably because I made no attempt to be friendly with anyone, and stayed inside my rooms at all times when I was not feeding.

"She came into my room, and I looked at her properly for the first time. I had only seen her at the first day of the feast, and her face had been bloodstained, and a hefty villager was thrown across her lap, obscuring her body. I had noticed her face of course, her brown hair and eyes, but I had not noticed the rest of her body. Oh, don't look so disgusted, Madeline, I'm not a chauvinist pig; I'm a vampire.

"I had thought she was merely a very short person, but when I saw her standing in my doorway, I saw that she was merely ten or eleven years old; and tall for that age. A child vampire.

"She came into my room without asking, and plopped down next to me on my bed. Needless to say, I was surprised at this intrusion of privacy, but I did not say anything. It was she who spoke finally, after a minute or two of examining me.

" 'So you're the new vampire,' she said, giving me a very matter-of-fact look. I nodded.

" 'Are you always this silent?' she asked, eyes wide open and serious, in the manner of a child.

" 'I speak when I have to,' I replied.

" 'You must be very boring then,' she said. I did not reply, because I had figured out that she was testing me, although how, I did not know. The silence stretched out until I finally gave in and spoke.

" 'So you're the one called Katherine, right?' I asked, because I had nothing else to say, 'Who made you?'

" 'Piotrvich,' she replied. 'I was dying in a field, and he could not bear it. He's very emotional, you see, speaks about love to all his victims before he kills them, and speaks about love to the corpses afterwards. Falls in love with all his victims too.'

" 'So, when did he make you?' I asked her. I was pretty sure what she was testing me on now.

" 'It's coming around to my two hundredth birthday in a year or two,' she said, looking at me intently. What I said now would have a great impact on our future relationship.

" 'You come bouncing in here, ask me all these childish questions, and make empty-headed remarks. Instead of acting like a kid, why don't you act your age?' I asked. She beamed delightedly and clapped her hands.

" 'You and me are going to get along fine,' she said, hugging me, 'all the others treat me like a child. They don't realise that I've lived twice as long as a normal woman already. I'm smarter than most of them as well, but they don't pay any attention to that. I don't like any of them, especially Alexander. He doesn't talk disparagingly about me like Mikhail and Elizabeth, but he ignores my existence completely! That's so unfair, don't you think?'

"Startled by this assault, I could only nod my head. She grew serious then.

" 'It's not fun, Remus,' she said, looking at me like a woman, not a child, would, 'I'm trapped in this body, misjudged by others because of my appearance. Alexander I dislike, but I hate Elizabeth because she has a wonderful body, and she makes horrible comments about this,' she gestured at her shapeless chest and hips. 'Moira is very unthinking as well. Every evening, she puts me on her lap and strokes my hair like I am still ten years old.'

" 'Er, why are you telling me all this?' I asked because I myself would never open up like this to a stranger on the first meeting. She smiled at me, a calculated smile.

" 'You're new.' She replied, 'I just wanted you to know which way the land lies.' Then she stood up and walked out of the room while saying 'We'll have another talk sometime.'

"A few days later, Elizabeth approached me. She was, as Katherine had mentioned, possessed of an exceptionally good figure, although I had not noticed this earlier. I noticed it now, because she was wearing something that left her shoulders, arms and calves bare; as well as most of her bosom. It was unheard of in those times, and the old me would have been shocked, and in all probability aroused, although the new me just watched her expressionlessly.

" 'I was wondering,' she said, her purples eyes looking smokily at me, 'if you wanted a drink?'

"I knew what she meant. She wanted us to drink from each other, the vampire equivalent of making love. I thought it was strange for her to do that, because she was about three to five hundred years older than me, and consequently much more powerful. If we drank from each other, I would get a lot more power, though she would not. I accepted, however, because I wanted the power."

"Was she good-looking?" Jessica asked sourly.

"Divine," Remus replied, pretending not to notice Jessica's expression of disgust. "Anyway, so we drank from each other, and I actually felt my power increase by quite a lot. Then, as we lay in each others arms, I found out the reason she had wanted to drink my blood. When a vampire drinks, if he wants to, he can read the other persons' mind, delve through memories. When a person is being drunk from, he is vulnerable to an all out mind scan. This is what she had done to me, read my mind.

" 'So, lover,' she said to me, tracing the side of my cheek with a fingernail as we lay in her bed. 'Katherine has come to see you, has she?'

"I was pretty startled, as you can imagine, and I could do nothing except nod dumbly.

" 'And you thought of her as a woman?" she asked coolly, her other hand on my chest. I opened my mouth to speak, but she closed it with her finger, shushing me. Realising that I was not to speak, I nodded.

" 'Who do you prefer, darling, her or me?' she asked, kissing me. My old self felt disgusted as it realised that this had been an attempt at garnering loyalty and allegiance. Some of this disgust rubbed off onto my new self, and the result was that I jerked off the bed. She looked at me innocently, demurely pulling the sheet over her breasts, although she would have walked naked in the streets if it suited her plans.

" 'Did I upset my darling?' she asked coolly.

" 'I'm not your darling,' I replied with as close to a snarl as my new self had ever come, 'and I'm not getting caught in the middle of you two. Have your battles, but leave me and the others out of it.' Saying that, I left her room.

"The next night, Katherine came to my room, her face all excited.

" 'You told that bitch off?' she asked gleefully. I looked at her without expression, noting how strange it was to hear someone who looked like a kid abuse.

" 'I told her to leave me alone, nothing else.' I replied. Katherine's enthusiasm didn't wane, however.

" 'Does that mean you're squarely on my side?' she asked, like a little child again.

" 'Katherine,' I said, walking up to her and taking her by the shoulders. I had to bend on one knee to look at her face, 'I'm not with her, or with you. I'm to be left alone, you understand?'

"Her lower lip quivered and she looked like she had been refused a favourite toy.

" 'But they all hate me!' she exclaimed, crying. Those were the first tears of blood I saw. 'You are the only one who understands me, and you don't care!'

" 'I have not cared about anything since I was Born to Darkness, Katherine,' I said, not too gently.

" 'Drink from me,' she said, her tone desperate, 'let me show you what I've gone through. I'm not as powerful as Elizabeth, but your power will increase.' I shook my head, and my old self was saddened at the desperation in her voice, but also a bit angry at the attempted bribery. When she saw me shake my head, she turned and ran out of the room sobbing.

"I stuck mostly to my rooms after that, and for about the next year or so I only left my rooms to hunt. I spent this time carving a gravestone for myself, an incredibly ornate wooden one, for no reason other than to convince myself I was dead. When you're immortal, you have a lot of time to do all these useless things like sitting in a room for a year.

"After that year, which was meant to be an adjustment period, Alexander began my training.

"On the first day after the end of my adjustment period, I was woken up a few minutes after sunset by a hand which grabbed my throat and pulled me out of the coffin. If a human had tried to touch me, I would have strangled him in my sleep, but this was a three thousand year old vampire.

"He held me, and I dangled, trying to pry his grip while frantically trying to escape the purple sky. In those early days I could not come out unless the sky was pitch-black, and as Alexander choked me, my skin started to smoke.

" 'You're weak, hatchling,' he said, referring to my age."

Remus broke off as he sensed a question.

"If you were a hatchling then, what are you now?" Madeline asked, then added, "And what other terms are there for a vampires age?"

"I'm a vampire Elder," Remus replied. "The actual naming depends on power, and every vampire has a different amount of power, but the age of a vampire can be taken approximately as proportional to the power. Therefore, a vampire less than ten years old is a hatchling. A vampire between ten to a hundred years old is a vampire fledgling. A vampire between a hundred to five hundred years old is simply called a vampire; because to live over a hundred years means that the will and ability to survive has been proven. A vampire between five hundred to a thousand years old is an Elder. Any vampire over a thousand years old is an Ancient, and there are only two that I know of still alive today; Alexander, and Francis. There aren't too many Elders around anymore either."

"But what about your creator, Magnus, what about the coven?" Madeline asked, her face reflecting a touching concern over even the deaths of mass murderers.

"Let me tell you my story as I intend, Madeline," Remus said, and waited for her nod before resuming his story for the umpteenth time.

"I was smoking from my shoulders and chest, and I think that was what made Alexander let go of me. However, he stopped me from trying to re-enter my coffin.

" 'It's training time, Hatchling,' he said, grabbing my collar and dragging me out of the castle. Mercifully, by the time we actually reached outside, near total darkness had descended, mainly due my grabbing any object I could hold onto to avoid being dragged out into the open.

"I was able to stand in a few moments, instead of crouching to hide from the last vestiges of the sun. Alexander brusquely tossed me a villager. I barely caught the man, a strapping big person, but I was strong enough to hold onto him, and stop him from escaping.

" 'Build your strength,' Alexander told me, striding about twenty paces away from me, 'you're going to need it.' Knowing that this did not bode well for me, I drank from the man, making sure I got all the blood I could, which was quite a lot, for the man was over six feet five inches tall, and had the girth of a horse. When I was done, about an hour later, Alexander fired a bright blue beam of energy which missed my head by a finger-length.

" 'Fight me, Hatchling.' He said, and a blue nimbus of energy seemed to surround him. 'Use the powers you yourself have.'

"I was in denial about the powers, and I never wanted to use them again, but there was no time to say all this as Alexander loosened another salvo on me, this time aiming for my heart. I barrel-rolled to the left to avoid it, faster than the flight of an arrow, but he was quicker, and hit me on my shoulder as I hit the ground. I got up and could only stare as a shot hit just below my crotch. Realising that Alexander was playing with me, I turned and ran.

"He shouted at me to come back and use my powers on him, but I knew I would have no chance even if I did use my hateful powers again. With this in mind, I ran toward the battlements. I stopped at the edge of the moat, twenty feet away from the sixty foot high stone walls. Alexander stepped closer and closer, as relaxed as if he were a puppy ambling besides his mother.

" 'If you don't use the power that got you into this, Remus,' he said, stopping not ten paces from me, 'I shall be forced to hurt you.'

"My response was to turn and jump, twenty feet across the moat, and ten feet high. I landed on the stone wall, twisting to face Alexander, and with my hands punched holes in the wall so I could stay suspended there. Alexander stepped to the edge of the moat and looked at me angrily. I began climbing up the wall by punching holes in it with my hands and feet. It was not something I had attempted before, and ordinarily I would have been a little proud of its success, but at the moment, all I could think of was getting away from Alexander.

" 'Damn it!' he shouted at me, 'use your Goddamned powers to save yourself! Crawling up the wall like some contemptible insect will not save you!' To demonstrate this, he blasted a hole some two or three inches above my shoulder and in panic I began to lose my precarious hand holds. It was then, out of sheer desperation, that I first consciously used my powers. I hardly noticed it then, because I had launched myself from the wall like a missile, straight at him, from a thirty foot height.

"Even he was too stunned by the stupidity of what I had done to move out of the way. I landed on top of him in a shoulder-tackle, and punched him five or six times before he pushed me off himself casually, contemptuously. I landed five feet away. He was about to hit me with his energy beam again when he looked at his hands, frowned for a moment, and then smiled.

" 'It seems you finally used your God given talents,' he said, showing me his palms. They were healing rapidly, but I could make out the burn marks, and in some places, flesh exposed where the skin had been burnt out. He said that the test was over, and as he helped me back to my rooms, he explained what I had done.

"Apparently I had charged his gloves as I punched him and he blocked with his hands, though I had not realised this, and neither had he. The gloves had exploded after a few seconds, just like the arrow I had used against the wolf, and just like the chain I had killed Belle with.

"When we reached my rooms, he congratulated me without too much enthusiasm, although it was clear that he viewed this as a beginning to whatever he had planned for me. After he left, I lay on my bed, recovering from the energy blast.

"This nightly routine continued for the next ten-twenty years. I don't remember the exact duration, but when it was over, Alexander declared I was not a hatchling anymore. During this time I had developed my powers to the extent where I could explode things from afar, though this gave me a headache and took at least two to three minutes to carry out. By hand, I could charge a two pound rock in a second, and could even control its exploding time, though to a very limited extent.

"As soon as Magnus heard that I was not a hatchling anymore, he set me a coming of age mission. A test, to be more accurate. This was one of his many schemes to get the attention of humans turned onto mutants. I was to go to the palace in Paris and terrorize the residents, killing anyone I chose save the king himself, and his heirs. Magnus also appointed two companions for me, to judge my performance, and with his usual preoccupation with himself and his plans, he appointed," Remus broke off as Madeline said the next words.

"Katherine and Elizabeth," she breathed without a hint of doubt. Remus nodded.

"I knew," he continued, "that at least one of them would not survive the time spent in France away from the restraining hand of Alexander, and that of Magnus as well. When they were told of the undertaking, Katherine emanated a hatred so deep even I could feel it, and Elizabeth spiked off a sense of disgust mingled with irritation and loathing.

"The trip to Paris was reasonably quiet, because Magnus, as coven master, could read the thoughts of his coven, and take steps to correct any resentment before it could flower fully. Even Magnus could not arrive at Paris in time to stop an all out fight however, and this was what the two women were counting on, consciously or not, I do not know.

"It was during the nights in an abandoned house on the outskirts of Paris that I learnt never to interfere between two women hell-bent on a fight; especially not when I was trying to make peace. I ended up slapped on two separate occasions, and even had a clay pot broken over my head at one point. After that I resigned myself to scaring the living daylights out of the king and his entourage, returning to our resting place usually to see everything in the house smashed to bits, and the women sitting glowering, as far away from each other as possible. We even had to shift twice in the month that we were in Paris, because of the suspicion of 'haunts' in the house – ghosts, in modern terminology, and daylight raids by our rather superstitious neighbours. The fact that all our exchanges took place in pitch darkness, with not even a solitary torch, usually convinced the people in the adjoining houses that the house we were in was haunted, and that the sounds were disembodied voices of lost souls."

Remus paused for a second, lost in memories from ages ago. For a minute, no one spoke, no one even moved except James, who stirred restlessly. And then Remus began speaking again, staring at nothing, his voice keyed low, his empathy creating a depressing effect on them all, perhaps consciously, perhaps unconsciously.

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Questions? Comments? I don't have a toll free number, but e-mail is the next best thing, so review away, and get ready for the final chapters of this fic.