CH12
The blank look on Alexis's face told Kate that she wasn't putting all the pieces together.
"Sweetie, you remember what I told you about how you became my daughter?" Kate asked her.
"Only a vampire elder like you can turn humans into vampires. The most common method is to bite a human and drain them dry of their blood only to feed it back to them by biting you before they lose consciousness. Then they have to remain with you throughout the night buried in the ground. Ground where they were born works best since dirt in different places is different."
"Dirt in Hawaii is different from dirt in Florida, since it is mostly sand, and is different from dirt in the Northwest which is mostly clay. Though the chances of even using the correct dirt isn't good. It's one of the reasons why there are so few of us," Alexis explained.
"And in your case?" Kate queried.
"You said you were tracking a group of Lycans which took you to the morgue of the 12th Precinct. It was there that you found two humans that had been ripped to pieces, most likely by those same Lycans."
"You said you fell in love with me when you found me. But you were interrupted by someone walking in, forcing you to only be able to take the head and find out a first name. My name."
"You fed the head your own blood, removed a piece of your own heart and gave it to me. I'm still working out how you did that. And spent the night buried in the ground with it. I was born a 19 year old with your memories as a child since that was the part of your heart that you gave me. However, it cost you which is why you are 26 now instead of 19 which was your age when you were made a vampire."
"You gave up part of your life, part of your heart and part of your memories because you loved me before I was even born. And I love you because I'm literally a part of you. Though I still love you because I grew to love you over the years. You treat me like your daughter and an elder, even when I'm not an elder," Alexis explained.
Kate leaned over and kissed Alexis's forehead. "You're the best part of me and I can't help but love you. I just never knew your last name so I could tell you about your real past or who your father was, till now." She didn't know what else to tell her. "I even went back the day after bringing you to life as a vampire, but everything was gone. I never did find out anything more. But I was satisfied with what I had, since I had you." She wiped a tear away.
"What do Lycans have to do with this? What was so special about my old family?" Alexis didn't understand.
"I don't know sweetie but maybe it has something to do with why Castle, your father, has been tracked by Lycans," Kate guessed. She saw the lost and confused look on Alexis's face. So she explained what happened after she got that phone call from Castle and jumped away from her earlier.
"You said Castle said that this Gina and Paula were working with him since his first book of the Derek Storm series. So why were they chasing after him now when they already had him?" Alexis didn't understand.
Kate closed her eyes and concentrated. "Castle said that he was writing again and he thought it was because of me," she clarified.
"So if Castle is writing again, that must mean that he stopped at one time and that was when this Gina and Paula lost track of him. But how did they know he was writing again if he only told you?" Alexis didn't like where this was leading.
"He was under observation or they got lucky." Kate reasoned. "Search the apartment for bugs," Kate told Alexis and got up to help with the search.
It took them time to search everywhere and Castle slept through all of it. "Anything?" she asked, looking at Alexis who shook her head.
"Okay, so the apartment is clean but they learned of it somehow." Kate looked around again.
"What does he use to write with or on, mom?" Alexis asked.
Kate didn't have a clue. She had never seen him write which meant he was doing it during daylight. "Note books or by computer maybe?" she guessed.
"I found two laptops while searching," Alexis offered.
"Find them and search them. It will be daylight in 3 hours." Kate glanced at her watch.
Alexis was still searching the second one. "How's Castle?" Alexis asked. He was her father after all. "Still sleeping soundly." Kate replied. "Anything yet?"
"This one has what is likely a story on it, except dad has locked it behind a password protected area. It's going to take some time to break it. However, it looks like he has been accessing some interesting sights," Alexis explained.
"Dad?" Kate looked at Alexis sideways. "Well, he is my dad after all even if I don't remember him." Alexis smiled, causing Kate to chuckle. "Mom, this computer has a video on it. He has played it quite a few times."
"Let's see it, maybe it will give us a clue." She moved around to get behind Alexis so she could look over her shoulder.
"A bank heist?" Kate didn't see much. "Dad has created a note pad associated with this video." They both started reading his notes. "Looks like dad was trying to figure out where they went after they jumped over him. His guessing is… creative. Invisibility, rocket packs, teleportation, aliens. …I think I would like a new dad." Alexis teased, earning her a glare from her mom.
"Where was he when he was accessing the internet doing his search?" Kate wondered and watched as Alexis's fingers flew over the keyboard.
"Looks like he was in the main Public Library," Alexis answered. "That's the same place he called me from and where I found Gina, Paula and their…friend." Kate explained.
"Were all of them of them Lycans?" Alexis asked. "Gina and Paula certainly were since they transformed on me. I don't know about the male for certain but it is likely or else they simply promised to pay him after he found Castle," Kate guessed.
"Where are those three now?" Maybe mom could jump at least one of them to one of their satellite sites and they could question them.
"They can't help us anymore. He's feeding the sharks and the other two have broken necks and are baking in the sun." Kate looked at her watch. "Well, they will be shortly."
"So our only lead is in this computer," Alexis said.
"Or maybe Castle knows," Kate offered.
"You love dad, don't you?" Alexis stopped work on the computer and looked at Kate.
She sighed heavily and hung her head. "I almost lost him today, and yes, I'm in love with him. Just like you're in love with Paige," Kate countered.
"Touché mom," Alexis admitted to her mother that she was in love with a human female.
Kate shook her head. "We're both doomed." They were both vampires who drank human blood and they were both in love with humans.
"Or blessed." Alexis preferred to look at the brighter side.
"Let's hope so sweetie, let's hope so."
"What do we do with dad, mom? The Lycans have obviously found him and if you leave him here they will eventually find him and take him." They had a huge problem on their hands.
Kate only knew of one place. Well, a place short of locking Castle up in one of the cells in one of their satellite locations meant to hold Lycans.
"It's the only place mom. We can stop somewhere and buy him some take-out, show him the kitchen so he can get some water and heat up his take-out. And the bathrooms still work. Give him back his laptop and maybe he will just spend the day writing or maybe he'll figure out how those robbers disappeared," Alexis offered.
"The house is going to go nuts when they find out there is a human running around while they are sleeping." Kate pointed out an obvious problem.
"Good thing we have a vampire elder in the house then." Alexis was smiling while she chuckled.
"Oh, you are just having too much fun today, daughter of mine." Kate wasn't seeing the fun in today's happenings since Alexis's teasing was at her expense.
"Oh, come on, mom. It's not every day you find out you have a father that you can't remember and he's sleeping in the other room. Oh, and he's wanted by our enemy and if they find him in our house while we are sleeping, we'll never even know that we died." Once Alexis worked it all out it sounded at lot worse than she had intended.
"We really are doomed." Kate repeated herself.
"We should get started mom. We only have a couple of hours left to us and dad is going to be all alone in a house filled with sleeping vampires. Vampires that he doesn't likely even know about yet," Alexis pointed out. Paige didn't know she was a vampire so it was likely that her mother hadn't told her dad yet either.
"Yup, we're doomed. Ok, let's get Castle some clothes to change into. You gather up his laptops and if you find his cell phone destroy it. I don't want them using it to trace it back to us."
"We have an empty bedroom since we are down two people and we can lock Castle inside it after we explain things to him. I'm going to jump Castle to that bedroom and leave him on the bed. I'll come back to get you and we'll go from there," she told Alexis.
"I'm really beginning to hate this day," Kate moaned and headed for Castle to jump him to their house wondering if simply locking him up was going to be enough. This had all the makings of a full blown disaster.
She picked him up carefully not intending on waking him just yet and jumped for the open bedroom. She laid him gently down on the bed, then she went into the bathroom. Satisfied that it would have everything a human would need, she jumped to his living room and walked into the bedroom.
"Almost done, mom. His laptops are there." Alexis pointed while continuing to pack a suitcase that she had found. Kate picked them up, waited for Alexis to finish, and they jumped for home.
"Go tell the house to lock their doors for tonight, just don't tell them why. We'll, …I'll do that tomorrow," Kate asked Alexis and watched her leave.
Kate didn't really know what she was going to do or how Castle was going to take this. She climbed up onto the bed on the opposite side and sat there Indian style and waited.
She checked her watch and saw she only had an hour to get into bed before sunrise, so it was time to wake Castle up. Kate got up, removed his shoes and his socks, and sat back down. She started running her finger nail up and down the bottom of his foot.
His foot jerked to get away from her teasing. She was starting her fourth attempt when his foot moved well away and he suddenly sat up. Kate smiled. "Hi Castle."
Rick was confused. This wasn't how he remembered things. Looking around he was definitely not in his bedroom. "Where are we?" Rick kept looking around. The room was small. The bed looked like a full size bed with very nice sheets and comforter. The bed and the single dresser looked as though they were antiques. One wall had wallpaper while the other three walls were painted.
What was probably the window had blackout drapes over it. The light, or more precisely crystal chandelier, was hanging from the center of the ceiling and it provided the only light in the room. There were two doors, one was open and one was closed. The open one probably lead to a bathroom, he was guessing.
"This is a spare bedroom in my house. You'll be staying here for the day." Kate tried to not make it sound like a command, but it did anyway. "How do you feel Castle?"
"Terrible, I hate remembering what happened to my baby girl. All I feel is pain. It rips what's left of my heart right out of me. …Mistress." He added that last word as an afterthought to cover himself.
"It's understandable Castle, you lost a family member. What happened to her mother?" Kate was interested in the history of her daughter.
"I asked Meredith, her mother, to marry me after I found out she was pregnant. At first she wanted an abortion but I talked her out of it. Alexis was only about a year old when I came home and found Meredith in our bed with another man."
"I had suspected she was cheating on me, but I had no proof. We were divorced weeks later. Meredith got half of everything since we lived in California and I got Alexis in the deal. I think I got the better part of that deal," Rick paused and saw his Mistress slap a hand over her mouth. A tear escaped and rolled down her cheek.
Kate hated this Meredith with a vengeance since she had almost killed her daughter before she was even born. "Where is this Meredith now, Castle?" Kate was going to jump there first chance she got and drain her dry.
"Meredith is a sort of actress and she lives in our house in California. …Well, her house now," he explained. Kate cursed internally since that was going to make finding her that much more difficult.
"Mistress, …did I see correctly?" Rick was beginning to remember what happened at the library.
It brought a smile to Kate's face which was soon mimicked on Castle's face. He was still remembering his training even after this.
"Yes, Castle, you saw correctly. I had planned on telling you eventually, I just wanted to wait and make sure…Castle I don't really know how to say this so I'm just going to say it."
"I'm a vampire and the Mistress of this house you are presently in." Kate simply told him.
Castle was too quiet for too long. "Castle?" Kate was wringing her hands again.
"Vampire, right. Vampires are in movies, Mistress. They don't really exist." Rick wasn't ready to believe.
"Oh, we exist alright, there just aren't that many of us. This is the only vampire house in New York City or the State of New York for that matter," Kate corrected him.
"So you think you go around biting people and draining them of blood?" Rick questioned her. "Mistress," he quickly added.
Kate wasn't liking where this was going. Now he thought she was delusional and his training was fading with it.
"Okay, Castle. I guess a demonstration is in order," Kate decided, got off the bed, walked around to his side, and held out her hand. "Out of bed."
Rick got up and slowly took her hand. "You're going to bite me!" He was scared stiff.
"No Castle, I would never intentionally hurt you. I love you," she said the words and saw the shock on his face. "Hang on Castle." She jumped to the empty Yankee Stadium since the Yankees had an away game.
"Yankee Stadium." She waved her hand, and then jumped again. "The Statue of Liberty. We're inside the torch where no one is allowed to go anymore." Kate waved her hand, and then jumped again. "La Guardia Airport. In this case, we're on the roof overlooking the runways." She motioned with her hand and then jumped again. "Times Square on another roof in this case." Kate waved her hand a final time and jumped them back to the bedroom.
Castle was standing there with shaking legs and wide open eyes. He was breathing heavily. "I call it jumping. I can jump anywhere on the planet in an instant, taking someone or something with me. I can do it as many times as I want, whenever I want. Only vampire elders like me can do it though. I only knew of one other elder who could jump," she tried to clarify things for him.
Rick tried to absorb all of this, but it was difficult. Still that didn't make her a vampire. "Knew?" He had heard that word.
"I'm 26 years old Castle and I've lived 617 years. I was born in a tiny town just outside what is today Budapest, Hungary. November 17, in the year 1304," she explained.
His eyes only got wider. "Six…six…" Rick tried to spit it out.
Kate smiled. "617 years old," she said it again. "Oh, I almost forgot." She jumped away and was back in a heartbeat and dropped an armful of vibrators, dildos and lube onto the bed.
It didn't take Rick long to recognize them as coming from his bedroom where they had been sitting on his dresser. "Vampire?" he still questioned. Kate stepped up to Castle and took his arm again and jumped for the kitchen which is thankfully empty.
She walked over to one of the large refrigerators. There were four of them and they looked to be commercial size units. Rick watched her open one and saw it was filled with blood bags like those used at hospitals. She took one out, closed the refrigerator, then walked to a bank of microwaves. She placed the bag inside and pressed a button that turned on the microwave which hummed like one.
"It goes down better when it is warm. We can drink it cold but it tastes like crap." Kate made a face and stuck out her tongue, causing Castle to chuckle a little and smile, which made Kate smile.
She hadn't lost him yet.
The microwave dinged. She opened it, pulled out the bag, and opened an overhead cabinet above it that was filled with boxes, one of which was open. He watched as his Mistress pulled out a straw, poked it into the bag, and started sucking.
It was half empty in almost no time. "Want a taste? It's not bad, I think this one is AB negative, not that we care. Blood is blood." Kate held it out to Castle and offered it to him.
Kate was actually a little surprised when Castle took it and started to place the straw in his mouth when he stopped. But only for a moment. He put the straw in his mouth and Kate could see him start to suck.
Castle instantly stopped and handed it back to her as he started a coughing fit. "I could search for a type O if you prefer." Kate was grinning at him, and started laughing at the face Castle was giving her for that comment.
She drained the bag dry quickly and dropped it in the recycle bin. If you inserted the straw properly and sterilized it properly they could re-use it. That way Kate didn't have to jump and obtain more in a midnight raid.
"Back to bed Castle." Kate reached out, took Castle's arm, and jumped them back to the bedroom.
"You're a vampire!" Rick actually believed it now.
"Who am I, Castle?" It was time to test his training.
"You are Mistress Kate and you own me. You own my heart, mind, body and soul, and you can fuck my ass anytime you please," he repeated it back to her without much of a delay.
"And you are?" she questioned.
"I am yours and you own me." Rick responded a little faster.
"I have something for you, Castle." Kate jumped away again, and was back a moment later with a wrapped box in her hand.
She handed it to him. "Open it, Castle, it's for you. I had it made just for you," Kate told him.
Rick smiled since he loved presents, even if he hadn't gotten one from anyone in years. He ripped the paper off and dropped it on the bed. Inside was a box that he opened. He pulled out a leather strap that had a tiny lock on one end. "What is it Mistress?" Rick's excitement was diminishing. However, he did see that it had fair sized diamond attached to it near the lock.
Kate took it from him and removed the lock. "It's your collar, Castle," she stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She proceeded to attach it around Castle's neck using the lock to hold it in place. It was a choker necklace that was a little snug.
"It says, 'Property of Mistress Kate.'" Kate ran her finger over the words. "You're mine, Castle. I own you." She moved in close and kissed him softly while wrapping her arms around him. She felt him hold her close and kissed her back.
Kate pulled away from the kiss to give Castle a chance to catch his breath. She was learning. "You said you loved me?" Rick whispered into her lips that were just a breath away.
"That's because I do love you, Castle, and I own you." She brushed her lips lightly across his.
"I think I love you, too, Mistress," he replied.
Kate backed away from him. "THINK!?" she questioned, hurt.
"You're a vampire Mistress. You want to drink me dry." He feared that was what she wanted to do.
"I would never drink you dry Castle. I love you and I'm going to protect you," Kate said and gently brought her head in close to place a ghost of a kiss to his lips. "I do need to get going, the sun will be up soon." Kate knew she was running out of time.
"What do I do Mistress?" he asked.
"I'm going to lock you in this room for the day Castle. You've got some Chinese take-out. Some of your clothes are in that suitcase and the bathroom with everything a human should need is through that door. You also have your laptops and they are already connected to our Wi-fi network. The only TV is in the living room that you can't reach." Kate told him.
"You don't trust me, Mistress?" Rick was hurt.
"I do trust you Castle, I love you. But there are 23 vampires in this house and they don't know you're here yet. This house is not set up for humans. You saw the largest of our two kitchens. This is one of the few bedrooms with its own bathroom." Kate counted her lucky stars at that since only half the bedrooms in the house had their own bathroom along with two half baths downstairs.
"You should be safe here, Castle. Just don't open the windows or the blackout drapes. We're vampires and we have enemies," Kate explained.
"Enemies? Who?" Rick was curious.
"Not now Castle, I just don't have the time. The sun will be up in minutes. We'll talk tomorrow. Remember, do not open your window. I'm trusting you with all of our lives, including mine." Kate prayed that he was trustful or none of them would wake up tomorrow.
"I'm deadly serious, Castle. It is more dangerous than you think." Kate tried to impress seriousness of the situation on him.
"I promise not to open the window or open the drapes, Mistress Kate." Rick held up his hand. She glared at him and retreated for the door. "Remember Castle, there are 22 vampires on the other side of this door. Twenty-one of them will likely drain you dry if they find you before I can talk to them." She left and locked the door behind her then jumped for her bedroom.
"How did dad take it, mom?" Alexis was already in bed with the windows secured.
Kate jumped into the bed still naked, afraid she didn't have the time to put on a sleep shirt. She pulled Alexis in tight feeling Alexis wrap her arms around her. "Better than I…" And the two of them died as the sun hit their windows as did everyone else in the house, save for one human male.