Chapter Two

Small town. Small town. Cornfield. Bean Field. Cornfield. Small town. The drab exterior bored me more than the radio stations sizzling in and out as we drove the four and a half hours to Minneapolis. My mom kept a hand on the wheel and sent a smile in my direction every few miles just to let me know that not only was she all right with this, she wanted me to know that she was there for me. I felt like I was drifting in and out of the twilight zone.

"Mom, you do realize I could die? Right?" Of course, I needed to be the one to drop the bomb on the small happy innocent seeming village that was my mother.

She took a deep breath and looked down for a second before glancing instantly back at the road seemingly having regained her composure. Her dark brown hair, like it had been forever, fell down past her shoulders, but in recent years held a few lines of gray. She turned to me and gave me a smile just like the others. "Derek, we could get into a car accident and we both die before you ever get to the House of Night."

"But that would be like fate." I really did not know much about fate, and did not think about it too much. I was sixteen. I was a bit big around the middle, and felt out of place while surrounded by my so-called friends. Fate had nothing to do with it, that was just the way reality happened.

She drove silently for about a mile before she began to speak in the same elegant tone she'd spoken to me after my brother died. Except this time, she did not have any tears falling down her face and marring her aged beauty. "You know I read a lot of those trashy books right? The ones that turn vampyres into blood thirsty killers or god-like lovers…"

"Please don't go into any more detail than that, but yeah, I've seen the books with the half naked vampyres on the cover." I coughed for a few seconds wiping the blood on the back of my jeans. I had been doing it since I got into the car.

My mom glanced down at my pants, but did not say anything else in regards to the blood. "The vampyres are chosen to do great things in the world. I told both you and your brother that you were going to do great things."

"Quinn is dead, mom. He can't do great things." I cut her off, and I saw that the blade of words cut her as well. I should have been helping her with all of this, instead of taking cheap shots at my mom through my dead brother.

"Quinn is dead, but that doesn't mean you can't do great things in his memory." She ground her teeth together to hold back the tears that prepared to fall at the edge of her eyes. "God help me," She spoke quietly as she pulled the car over slamming on the breaks to look over directly at me. "We are both dealing with this, Derek. You're right. You're my only son now that you brother has died, but if I don't believe this has happened for a reason, that you're going to live past the Change, and do great things with your life, then I'm not going to be able to get through it. If you don't think that, if you don't know that in your heart that you're destiny is at the House of Night, then you're not going to have the strength to go on. I love you, and this is a blessing. Got it?"

Bernadette Johnson. That was my mom, the woman who would tell God himself what he needed to do to be happy. You almost had to listen to such determination. I looked at her as more tears began to fall down my face. She made everything seem so exactly, like it was the only real choice I had. She unbuckled her seatbelt and hugged me. I unbuckled my seatbelt returned the hug.

The coughing started again, and this time, the tightening in my chest wasn't coming from stress. "I…" The coughing began again in torrents. "On your shirt…" My whole body shook as I coughed. I felt my head pounding. I felt the car once again go back into gear as my mind slowly began to fade. My chest felt like an alien was trying to burst out of it, while my throat felt like a demon was crawling up out of it.

The thick coppery taste flowed into my mouth. The pain throughout my muscles and my body continued to rise inside me. My mom suddenly slammed on the breaks. I turned to look at her feeling the blood drift down my face. The side of my head hit the dash and everything went black.

I opened my eyes slowly. I expected my entire body to be covered in blood, but as I looked down at myself I realized that was far from the case. I wore the same pair of torn jeans and a deep blue Abercrombie polo that my mom bought me in September. It was then I realized I woke up on grass, not in the front seat of the car I passed out in. "Where…" I tried to keep my voice quiet, but I knew the answer as soon as I looked around. It was Blue Valley Lake.

Blue Valley Lake wasn't more of a large pond than a lake, but people still swam and fished there. It was the convergence point of five small streams, which was probably what originally made it as large as it was. I still went there from time to time. It rested in the bottom of a small valley, and it was quite the work out to run down the hill and then back up on the way out. "How did I…"

For a second, I saw my body resting in the front seat of the car. My mom was holding the steering wheel tightly; her knuckles were white from the pressure. She put the car once again in gear, and then began to drive. I saw myself with my eyes closed. There was a small gash right above my temple. "I died?"

Follow the wind…

A gentle breeze seemed to entrap me and drive me forward down deeper into the water. It was walking that I figured out my feet were barefoot. I felt the grass beneath my feet, and the entire scene seemed to create a deep-rooted peacefulness inside of me. I still thought I happened to be dead, but this place seemed kind of…well dead to be Heaven, or Hell, which ever it may be. Maybe that was hell, maybe it was wandering aimlessly to an unknown voice that kind of sounds like your dead grandma.

I moved down the pathways I'd known since a kid, smiling as I saw the tree my brother and I once carved our names into. I moved over to touch it, although the wind told me I needed to keep going. I gave it a short wave as I walked on. For some reason, something felt odd about this place. It was Blue Valley Lake, but at the same time, I knew by the feel of the ground beneath my naked feet that it wasn't.

Across the water…

Even as the inner voice stated it, I came to the end of the path that led into the lake proper. The lake stood still as it did on most days. Some days, you could see the water moving, but right now it looked like it had many times before, calm, placid, and beautiful with the sunset in the west. I placed my foot out over the water and stuck my foot on it wondering if I would in fact walk across the lake. A large gust of wind told me that was not the case, I lost my balance falling right into the water.

The waves seemed crash over me. The fact that lake was serene seemed to pay them no mind. They wrapped around me and pulled me. I was not a bad swimmer, but I was not prepared for the water to grapple me like it had. I took a deep breath as it pulled me under again, and then pushed with all my might skyway.

The darkness seemed to be setting in as I broke the surface. I began to swim to the other side, which took more effort than it had ever had before. Swimming across the 'pond' as they called it was a ritual for anyone who went swimming. I had probably done it hundreds of times, but the water never grabbed a hold of me before, not like that.

Upon the earth…

"What does that even mean?" I pulled myself up on the other shore, and it was clearly now night as I looked up at the sky. The moon rested in a deep crescent. It was then I moved up to touch my forehead. The crescent was still there, but I had to be sure. I looked down at the dark black waters on Blue Valley Lake. Oddly, I could see myself perfectly. There stood the outline perfectly centered on my forehead. For the first time, I looked at it and smiled. The blue of the crescent matched my eyes.

Onward to fire…

Like the lake simply appearing, I could smell the smoke, but it was more like incense than the smoke from a wood fire. It glowed off into the distance, and was easy to follow. I saw a dark figure sitting close to it, and as I approached I called out. "Do you mind if I sit with you?" It would have been impolite to do otherwise.

Even before I sat down, I felt like this meeting had happened before. Something seemed redundant, ceremonial, and almost ancient. This meeting happened to hundreds of men and women before me. They sat at this fire, or sat next to this woman, even when I had no idea who she was.

"Of course, my son." It sounded like my grandmother in tone, only the woman who sat beside the father could not be that ancient. She was probably the most beautiful woman I'd seen. Her skin seemed brown like the earth, while her eyes resembled that lake water. As I sat down beside her, I could feel the warmth of the fire, but there was another warmth coming from her. She moved over and touched me, "Do you know my name?" Her touch felt like a gentle breeze, but like the wind there was an odd fierceness to it.

"You're not my grandmother."

The woman let out a small laugh, "No, not really." It sounded like a child giggling, a woman's snicker, or an old woman's chuckle.

"But, I could almost swear I've seen you before. You're…" It took me a second to realize it, but as she stood before me, it was almost like the night engulfed her. "Night."

"Nyx is the name your world knows me, or at least the vampyres and those associated with them do. They've long been in my care." She seemed to poke at the fire for a second as she watched me.

I waited for a few seconds and began to look into the fire. "Am I dead?"

"No, you're not dead, but your spirit has been free to wander."

"So, I'm in the ether?" I was trying to keep up with the woman, but it was not as easy as I would have liked. There was so much that was currently happening around me. As I looked into the fire, I saw my mom meeting with a blonde woman, although I couldn't see much else. "I need to get back."

"You will be back soon enough."

I quickly blurted out another question, as I continued to feel my forehead. The burning was slowly subsiding, but something felt odd. "Are you like the vampyre goddess? You mentioned them…and you're coming to me."

"The ancient Greeks, your forefathers, touched by the Change first worshipped me as their mother. I have been pleased to call you and your brethren my children. Many of them are called vampyres, although not all of them. They have many names for me."

The fire seemed to mesmerize me as I watched it. Nyx once again touched me and pulled me out of the trance. Her face was soft. It looked how cream cheese felt, soft and malleable. "Your destiny awaits you. I have Marked you as my own. You will be one the first Son of Night in this age. You are special, and you are not alone. Accept that about yourself, and you will begin to see the power that is inside of you. Within you is combined the knowledge of the past as well as the adaptability of the modern world."

The Goddess seemed to lean in close to me. "Quinn Northstar, Son of Night, I name you my eyes and ears in the world today, a world where the past and presence struggle to find a balance."

"But…" This all seemed like a ceremony, that I should be watching and not truly a part of it. "I don't know what I'm doing. I might not even make it through the change. How am I supposed to be anything but lost?" The name did not seem odd to me, but felt like something honest inside of me, something I had yet to realize yet.

Her smile seemed to make blanket the worry and create a warm feeling inside of me. "Believe in yourself. Believe in your friends. But remember, darkness does not always equal to evil, just as light does not always bring good."

"I…" The Goddess of night, Nyx, pressed her finger against my lips. "Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again." She pressed her own lips against my forehead. As my eyes drifted shut, I wondered if I passed the test, if the ceremony was over, and if this was just the start of a much longer journey.