Here we are, the penultimate chapter! Just so you know, I hate using those pseudo-emo-goth words like "childe," "childer," and spelling vampire with a "y," for example, so I'm not going to use them. "Vampyre" is not a "cool" play on the Romanian spelling of the word and slapping a random "e" on words, albeit a throw-back to Middle English at the biggest of stretches, is not "cool" either. It's lame and something for the "nonconformist" emo-goths to use in order to make themselves "different" when really they're just fitting the mold of being the same as the other "nonconformist" emo-goths, thus making them conformists. I'm sure emo weeps and sighs will be heard from as a by-product of that statement. There are vampires. There are makers and there are fledglings. They live in a whatever the hell they feel like calling it (group, gang, pack, clan, whatever). Flay me for not conforming to current emo-goth standards but I'm going to stick with the literary/lore-industry standard words that have superceded time instead instead of using words created by some knob in black with his hair in his eyes wearing more eyeliner than my Long Island cousin while writing emo poetry in the dark about how he was wronged by the letter q that makes my vocabulary die. Enjoy!
Is it wrong for me to laugh at my own jokes or am I just deranged like that?
Confusion didn't even begin to describe what Detta was feeling. Where did Max come into play in all of this? What was he doing here? What did he have to do with the boys? Was he…?
Detta felt a hand on her shoulder that gently pushed her down on to the couch. Her face looked pained, the comprehension just not coming to her. She rested her elbows on her knees and put her head in her hands, rubbing at her temples. She could feel a headache coming on.
"It's not a headache," Max broke through her thoughts, yanking that unspoken statement from her mind. He chuckled. "You won't be getting headaches anymore, Detta. What you're feeling, it's just an overload. Too much information. Your brain now has the capacity to soak up so much more…you just need to figure out how to sort through it so the pressure doesn't build like that. I've seen a few vampires go insane when they couldn't." He smirked and looked down at her.
"Max, what do you have to do with any of this? Her face was scrunched up, thoughts bouncing around inside her head like a game of Pong. She understood how one could be driven insane by such uncontrolled thoughts.
Max remained standing, the boys' eyes intent upon him. "Now, you can't have boys this young running around without any kind of guidance." This statement rendered dirty looks from everyone except Paul, David looking the most mutinous. Max ignored their gazes, rolling his eyes to Detta. "I guess you could call me their father," he said, shrugging his arms. "They're my boys, bound to me by my blood and now…I have a daughter. From the moment I saw you, Detta, I felt the need to protect you. I could feel you being hunted, and you were. I looked at you like a daughter then but bringing you into the fold, it wasn't something I thought of." Detta leaned back on the couch, tugging at her lip, staring transfixed at Max. His gaze turned to Marko, anger creeping into his features. "You know the rules, Marko. Never without my permission. I don't need you boys repopulating the planet." Marko's gaze didn't budge from Max, his face stoic, without emotion. Max returned his eyes to Detta. "You're lucky, Detta. If you were anyone else you'd be dead already. I'm still not sure about your abilities just yet but time will tell. If you can't handle it, and not all can, you'll die like the rest of them."
Detta frowned and sat up, dropping her hand from her lip. "You're a vampire," she addressed to Max. He nodded. "You turned these boys." He nodded again. "But you didn't turn me. How can I be connected to you, this…daughter, if I've never tasted your blood?"
"We're going to remedy that in a moment."
"You don't want me like you, do you?" Detta asked as she stood, looking Max in the eye.
His face dropped slightly and the boys looked from her to him, anxious for an answer. He rolled his eyes, looking anywhere but at her, prolonging the wait for as long as possible. "No Detta. I don't. You weren't ready but Marko's already made that decision, hasn't he?" Max glared at Marko.
Marko returned the look, his face devoid of emotion. He was going to retort. Detta could feel it rising inside him. She knew he shouldn't but she wasn't going to stop him. "Sometimes your rules need defying, Max. Even you've broken them over the years."
It was a stab, a hit below the belt that filled the room with tension. She felt him HisHHflush but no color rose to his cheeks. He was nervous about what Max would do but he wouldn't let him see it even though Max could dive into his mind like a pool.
Max turned to Marko, fury riddling his face. "As long as your maker is around, you will follow the rules issued to you."
Marko motioned to Detta as if presenting her. "My defiance is standing right here Max, looking you straight in the eye. The only way to fix it would be to kill her." Detta's head whipped around to look at Marko, shock on her face. "Do it, Max. Kill her. Follow your own rules. Kill her!" His voice was nearing a yell as he spoke to Max.
Marko didn't do this often, if at all. She saw in him obedience, quiet solitude, never one to question anything. She kept coming to roadblocks in his psyche, ones she couldn't get around, couldn't feel him. He turned to her and shot her a look that screamed 'stop.' She quickly looked away from him and back to Max who looked angrier than she had ever seen him. He turned to her, his eyes a blazing orange, his fangs descended. He was going to kill her just to prove a point.
Detta shrieked as she backed up on the couch, unsure of where to go from there.
"Looks like we're out a sister," David's smug voice rang over the crowd around her.
There wasn't room enough in her head for her to react. All she saw was Max's fury, his adamance at proving his point. He leaned towards her but quickly rescinded himself, his fangs retracting and his Nosferatu face returning to its human form. His eyes were the last pieces of evidence of his vampiric nature to fade away. Detta's rapid, useless breathing began to subside as Max tucked away the Mr. Hyde side of himself. He looked defeated but hid it behind a smug façade. She heard a breathy whisper of 'damn' float to her ears, probably coming from David no less. Max straightened out his clothes and turned to Marko who, very briefly, let his defiant 'I told you so' smile shine through before Max quelled it.
"I'll deal with you later, Marko. We have other matters to tend to now." He rolled his eyes over to Detta before speaking again. "Under normal circumstances," he quickly eyed Marko, "you wouldn't know about me until after your first kill. The secret is too precious but, considering the factors: I'm your boss, your neighbor, the fact that Marko fed you without my permission," his bitter tone quickly seeped through but receded just as fast, "it was impossible for me not to step in." Max picked up the knife and ran it along his palm. He passed it along to David and picked up the glass, holding the wound over its opening and squeezing the blood out of his hand. Detta watched as blood dripped into the wine glass and this surge of hunger came over her, a lust for the blood being wrung out of the body in front of her. She breathed deeply, trying to control her urge.
David followed suit, followed by Dwayne, then Paul, the knife and the glass passing by Marko. She looked at him, the question written on her face but Max was the one that answered. "You have more than enough of Marko's blood in you." Max took the glass from Paul and held it out to Detta, his eyes telling her to take it. She did and looked to him, waiting for an explanation. "Our connection to each other is what makes us a family, a pack, a gang, whatever Hollywood is calling it today," he waved his hand dismissively at the thought. "Marko cannot be your only connection. It's not safe for us, for me. Drink that and you will be bound to these boys as brothers and me as a father."
Detta's eyes widened, a demented thought coming to her mind. "Brothers…" she started, looking towards Max with a raised eyebrow, a little anxious to go any further.
He returned her look and shook his head, hiding what could very well be a smirk. "A vampire's sense of family is vastly different from that of a human's. We share blood, yes, but there's nothing…incestuous about it. We were born as humans from different parents and born into a new life with a common blood. Drink."
Detta brought the glass to her lips, looking over the lip at the eyes boring into her. "That's good. The last thing I want to do is fuck my brother," she mumbled into the blood, feeling it slide down her throat, whetting her palate. Paul covered a laugh with a cough and Detta heard Marko clear his throat, pushing out the laugh that was forming there.
Detta smiled to herself as she felt the blood run it's course through her body. With every step it took, it unlocked new doors for her to wander through, connections to those standing around her. Paul had a tune running through his head. Dwayne was thinking about his next kill. Max had too many thoughts running by to pinpoint any one and David, David was blank. She looked at him and saw the sly grin on his face. The thought of him blocking her ran through her head and he nodded slightly, reassuring that thought.
"Privacy," Max's voice rang out over them and Detta turned to face him, "is key. Our guards aren't always up. Therefore it's your job to turn away if you come across a thought you're not supposed to know," Max chuckled. "You're not doing it purposely, of course, but you're diving too deep. Stick to the shallow end unless you have permission. And you'll want to close yourself off as well because we'll be able to see everything running through that head of yours."
Detta looked down and saw Max holding the knife out to her. She took the handle and looked up at him, puzzled. "The connection's complete when we drink from you," Max answered her.
She grabbed the glass and placed it on the table in front of her. She looked at the knife blade for a moment before running it along her palm like the others did. She clenched her fist, forcing the blood to flow from the wound and into the glass, the sight of her own blood making the hunger within her rise again.
"Fill it." David was staring intently at her, throwing her orders.
Detta glared at him. Even after his confession, and their deal, she still didn't trust him. Again, the glass was passed over Marko. She looked at him, a mixture of emotions controlling her face and they were all overwhelming, everything that was happening to her: Marko, David, finding out about Max, the pile was too high for her to see over.
"Picture yourself in a bubble," Marko whispered to her.
But her reaction was too slow. Once the boys started drinking, the window into her soul began to open and visions of herself came pouring out, released to the minds of the boys around her, gravitating towards them. She closed her eyes and pictured herself behind a wall, a shield, contained in Marko's bubble. The hundreds of voices talking in her head began to quiet, the images subsided and everything was silent again. She opened her eyes slowly and saw the eyes of the rest of the boys on her, the glass in Max's hand empty.
He raised it in a mock toast to her. "Welcome to the family." He placed the glass back on the table and started walking towards the door. "I'd love to stick around but I have work to do. Detta, just come in tomorrow night and we'll finish that ad."
"But—"
"The boys can answer any questions you may have. David?"
Detta started walking towards the door after Max when David grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back to him, brining it up to his mouth and tearing into her skin with his teeth. She tried wrenching her arm away from him but he only clung tighter.
"Stop it!" she shrieked, looking to Max and then to Marko.
Marko shook his head slightly from side to side, telling her to stop fighting it. She looked back to Max who had one foot out the door.
"We need to get you turned. I can't have a half vampire knowing about me. David will take you hunting."
She heard the door click shut behind her but her eyes were focused on David drinking from her wrist. His eyes wandered up her arm and met her's, seeing a sneering look of disdain on her face. He cleared her wrist of the remnants of blood and stood up. He removed the glove from his hand and pushed his sleeve up, offering his wrist to her. She looked to his arm, then up to his face, that same sneer etched firmly into her features.
He raised his eyebrows to her. "Finish the deal, Detta. This is how we shake hands."
Detta looked over to Marko for reassurance and he gave her a quick nod, easing her tension.
"You don't need Marko's go-ahead."
"When it comes to you, I need all the reinforcement I can get," she sneered through clenched teeth before reaching for his wrist.
His veins pulsed out to her, begging her to sink her teeth in. And she did. She heard the razors in her mouth snap through his skin as his blood poured into her mouth. Her eyes closed as she drank, savoring every drop of his life as it danced over her tongue and tumbled down her throat. She could feel Marko. Seeing her feed stirred something in him, this want to drink from the same vein, lick the blood off her body but at the same time he was apprehensive, waiting for something to happen.
Detta felt a harsh tug on her hair as David yanked her from his arm, the wound still exposed, her fangs dripping blood.
"Enough." He threw her head away from him and she stumbled. "I'm not your victim."
Detta looked up at Marko as she righted herself from David's shove, her vampire face gone, her human mouth covered in blood. He wanted so badly to taste that blood on her but now was not the time. His mind reveled in the thought of killing with her. He had made a vampire. It was his blood, for the most part, running through her veins. They had eternity now to rummage around their souls, searching for the base to this connection of theirs. His dark lover returned to him from the brink of death. She stood before him, searching him for answers to the infinite number of questions she had. Patience. One of the lessons of a life long lived. She'll learn it too. It's up to him to teach her. Max will blame her failure on him and if that happens he'll be forced to kill her. It would be Max's punishment for him. He would not fail, for her sake and for his.
"Let's go. Time to make you immortal."
Detta watched as David walked to the door and waited, tapping his finger gently on the doorknob. She looked back to Marko again.
"Go. We'll be at the cave when you get back."
Her brow furrowed. "I can't come back here?"
Marko shook his head.
"Immortality doesn't work if you turn to dust the day after you're made," David broke in.
Marko rolled his eyes at him. "Your house needs to be prepared, windows covered. We can do that later. For now you stay with us."
"With you." Her moment of weakness in front of the boys.
"With me." And his.
"Lovely. I'm hungry. Let's go." David grabbed Detta's wrist and pulled her out the door. She clamored onto his bike, not holding on nearly as tightly as she would to Marko, and they drove off into the darkness as it wrapped its arms around its new child.
Reviews are always appreciated.