4. Where He Came From


It didn't seem to bother Daniel at all when I told him that he would be hunted and killed. Maybe he thought this vision to be false. I told him what I saw in my other vision, too, about us leaving the cabin and James finding us there, but we continued to stay here.

I was having trouble sleeping. Looking out the window into the cool misty morning I continued to see his face, the face of a murderer, the man that would kill Daniel. He never showed, in all the morning hours the only sign of life was a deer.

There was a very soft knock on my door as it creaked open. "Why aren't you sleeping?" Daniels malleable voice whirled into the room, his footsteps were echoing in the silence.

"I'm terrified," I breathed, not looking away from the window, sending fog running up the glass.

He gracefully walked into the room and sat beside me, taking my hand in his. His skin was cold as ice and hard, yet comforting.

"I won't let anything happen to you."

He put a light finger under my chin and turned my face to his, pressing his chilled lips to my forehead. I heard him breath deep at my scalp. I pulled away to look at him, not sure if I should be worried about his obvious love of my smell, probably the smell of my blood.

He smiled, "I'm sorry. You smell absolutely wonderful." He measured my expression. "I won't hurt you, I swear. I've lived among humans for nearly seven hundred years."

"Seven hundred years?" I gasped in stunned disbelief.

His smiled grew wider and he chuckled lightly under his breath. "Yes, I became a vampire around the thirteenth century."

I knew my face showed the awe and shock that I was feeling. "How long will you live?" I asked, curious.

"Forever."

My eyes burned suddenly as a feeling of dread crept over me. I looked back out the window so he couldn't see my face, a tear leaked down my cheek but he caught it with his finger.

"I'm not going to die," he promised, his face smoothly inscrutable.

I blinked and one more tear trickled slowly down my face. "I hope I'm wrong this time." My misty breath was fogging up the window.

I could see his reflection as the fog dissipated and he was smiling his mysterious smile. He suddenly brought me into his arms, hugging me gently.

"Don't worry about me. I've been through wars and many centuries of disease."

"Where were you…born, anyways?"

"Italy," he answered with a hint of an accent in his deep vibrant tone.

"How did you become a…a…vampire?" I whispered with difficulty.

"That's a long story and you need to get some rest."

"I'm not tired," I argued and my heart beat a little faster, punctuating my words.

He shook his head slowly while a low chuckled escaped his lips. "Fine, fine. But I'll just give you the short version."

"Okay. I'm listening," I turned my body to face him, not meeting his eyes.

"My human memories are fuzzy, at best, but I do remember some of them. My family was in a blood feud with another family."

"Blood feud?" I asked.

"Yes, just like Romeo and Juliet, many families were continuously fighting." His eyes were reminiscent. "My father hated the Caravelees and had many of their family members killed. One day a fight broke out in the middle of the street and I had been caught in one of the many battles of the war my father was raging. I was brought to the hospital where I met a beautiful nurse," his eyes were blank like he was looking in the past.

"And…" I insisted.

"Her name was Gisele and I loved her from the moment I saw her. It wasn't long after I met her in the hospital that I began to see her randomly popping up wherever I was." He sighed and I could see pain in his red eyes.

"What happened?" I coaxed.

His expression hardened. "I was asleep one night and suddenly she was in my room, like she appeared out of nowhere. She was like the wind, one moment she was standing at the other end of the room and the next she was in my bed," his eyes found mine; like he forgot he was talking to me. "I want to be a gentleman; I don't feel comfortable telling you the rest."

"You can't do that…just stop telling me the story when it was getting to the good part."

I was sitting on the edge of my seat now. It had been so long since I had heard any story at all, let alone one this exciting. My whole life I was stuck in an asylum and my family never visited.

He laughed at my obvious curiosity. "Okay," he conceded. He studied my face like he was trying to choose his words carefully before he spoke. "We made love," he hesitated with a heavy reluctance, "but it was violent and she nearly killed me. She was so strong; I didn't know how to stop her. When it was over, I was close to death. She brought her face to my neck and bit me. I remember thinking that she had lost her mind, but she continued to suck at the bite wound. At first it was almost sexual, but then it was painful – it felt like I was burning alive." His gleaming red eyes found mine and his breathing was harsh and ragged. "She pulled away from me, and then she was gone. After several days of the…pain - burning, it went away and I was strong and different. I craved blood immediately. It was in that instant that Gisele appeared in front of me. She must have moved my body when I was burning, because I had no idea where I was at." He was quiet then and I could see the ongoing battle inside him.

I didn't say anything – I was stunned into silence while I pictured his story in my mind. The beautiful woman, the painful transformation, it all seemed mysterious, scary and wonderful all at the same time. The silenced spiraled for a minute.

"Are you thirsty?" he asked and before I could answer a glass of water came hovering into the room, several feet off the floor. My eyes fell immediately upon the empty space between the glass and the ground below. Daniel reached out and grabbed the glass casually and tried handing it to me. My mouth was hanging open in utter shock so huge I was rooted to the spot. I brought my hands to my eyes and tried to wipe the tiredness from them, thinking that maybe I imagined what I saw. I tried to speak but all I did was stutter and rub my eyes again.

"I'm sorry." He sat the glass of water down next to me. "I didn't mean to scare you. I guess I have some explaining to do," his lips twitched like he wasn't sure if he should smile or not.

My voice came out unnaturally high pitched, "Did that glass just..."

"Hover?" he finished. "Yes. I can move things with my mind. It's not nearly as interesting as Gisele's abilities. I always had trouble finding her when I would see her in a crowd or she would disappear from right in front of me. When she changed me she finally told me that she could become invisible, but for only short periods at a time."

The things that he told me would normally be something that a human would not believe, but I could see the future – so I shouldn't be surprised that there are other people or vampires with abilities, also.

"Why only short periods of time?" I wondered, my mind racing.

"If she were to stay invisible for too long she would…well, it's hard to explain. I guess you could say that she started to fade away, disappear. She lost a finger once, and so she never stayed invisible for long," his voice was pained, like he was remembering something that brought him great agony.

"What happened to her?" I whispered, though I knew this story didn't have a happy ending.

"We were in what you would call Russia. We ran into a large coven of four vampires – something unheard of for our kind. This coven didn't like the fact that we were on their hunting land and captured me. Gisele was with me but instantly became invisible and stripped off her clothes making it even harder for the vampires to track her. They kept me alive just so she would try and save me." His nostrils flared at the memory before he took in a deep breath and his face contorted in sadness and anger. "She did what they wanted – she came to find me. When she did, they trapped her and one vampire pulled her head off, and it instantly became visible."

A little scream exited my lips at his words. "Her…head?" The last word got caught in my throat.

"Yes," he whispered, his loss and despair obvious in his voice. "Well, to kill a vampire you must rip apart the pieces and burn them. We can always put ourselves back together again so the pieces must be burned. When they pulled her head off, the rest of her body stayed invisible. They finished tearing her apart." His face looked like the pain of the story was threatening to overpower him but I wanted to know the rest.

"Did they burn her?" I barely mouthed, scarcely recovering from the shock of hearing about her head being ripped off.

"No, but she couldn't make the rest of her body become visible when she wasn't intact so her body faded away. The coven buried her head in clay and mud." He was silent then.

I decided that I shouldn't press the matter any further. I picked up the glass of water he placed next to me and began chugging it down. I didn't realize how parched I was until I began drinking. When I finished gulping down the water I reached out to place the glass back on the table when a terrifying new vivid image flashed in my mind as a vision swept over me. A female vampire with flaming red hair was holding me against a tree while James and Daniel were fighting. Fear stirred in my chest. This was the first time I had seen this woman and I knew instantly that I had altered the future into something more evil and sinister.