ALL ENCOMPASING DISCLAIMER:
I don't own anything. It all belongs to Charlaine Harris and HBO. I don't make anything doing this except making an example of how much of a life I do not have.
This story will be updated on Wednesdays for the foreseeable future. This story also comes with required reading as this is a sequel. If it is not obvious, this is the sequel to Catalyst. I am looking forward to the months ahead and hope all of you enjoy this saga. Please be gentle about criticisms related to grammar and spelling. I am one person and doing the best that I can do with the resource that is me.
-Andi
Chapter One: Mistaken Identity
February 2027
Alexis's POV:
After Quigley's car pulls away, and I watch the tail lights disappear around a curve in the road, I finally turn toward my house.
The two small steps that lead to the front porch seem steeper than usual, and I climb them with a strange fatigue. Part of me is exhausted from the afternoon I've had, but another part of me is tired from the exchange with the mysterious new vampire I've just met. Most of our discussion felt like, I dunno, an interview? I feel like I have just been sized up for a job, and the results weren't favorable for me.
"Hi, Daddy," I greet as I open the door.
"What did you do?" Dad calls suspiciously from his office even as he strolls into the entryway of the house. Every time I'm about to confess to something, I call him Daddy. We both know it. It's almost a casual preparation for a bad conversation. A preemptive warning so he can keep his temper in check.
Taking a deep breath, I admit, "I went to Bella Sims' house after practice."
Dad lets out a little huff, but nods, "You behaved yourself? That is what matters." He pushes my hair from my face. "It has never been your judgment I have called into question," he reminds me, and I nod.
"Belly was there too," I assure him. "I was barely there even fifteen minutes," I continue on.
"All right, all right. Go do your homework," Dad nudges me toward the stairs, but I pause. "What is it?" he asks when I hesitate.
"Dad, you know a vamp named Quigley, right?" I ask nervously.
Dad pauses a moment before he says, "I do. Did you meet him tonight?" Of course he knows I met Quigley. I must smell like vamp. The fact he didn't mention that before seems peculiar, maybe even suspicious. Probably wanted to see if I'd fess up.
"He's a friendly vamp, right?" I ask instead of answer.
Dad nods, "Yes, he is a close friend of the bloodline. Quigley and his Maker, Diedre, were both planning on coming to visit this weekend. I suppose they arrived early? How did you meet him?"
"He was driving by when I was leaving Bella's house," I answer. "He stopped and recognized me, I guess. We talked a bit."
Dad frowns now, "You stopped and talked to an unfamiliar vampire?"
Suddenly I realize that there's no way of telling him that's not exactly how things happened without admitting that my friend hadn't driven me home like she'd promised. "Well, he knew who you were, and he knew about Mom and Uncle Jason," I shrug as I point at my head as we always do when referring to their abilities, as we rarely say out loud that they're telepathic. "I figure if he knew about them, he had to be a friend. Was that wrong?" I shrink a bit.
"It was wrong to assume they were friends of ours merely because they knew a family secret," Dad tells me sternly. "Go upstairs." Dad points to the stairs with a touch of disappointment in his eyes, and I sulk all the way to my room.
As I climb into bed with my tablet to do my homework, I can't help but feel a little indignant. If I hadn't tried to save face by agreeing to go to the Sims' place, none of this would have happened! Then again, if I hadn't gone, I might not have found out what a jerk Ethan is and still be drooling over him. I might not have met Quigley either, and that thought makes me... sad? No, no, I couldn't be sad, could I? All I know is the thought of not meeting Quigley makes my throat hurt in a way that I can't really describe.
"Hey," I jump as Leif slips into my room and startles me from my unfocused homework.
"Hey," I greet him as he comes to crawl onto my bed. "Where were you?"
"Gas station with Liam," he tells me, and his eyes are so bright they almost glow. "I met someone."
This announcement takes me by surprise. Leif doesn't usually get excited about meeting new people. He's always been more selective about people. Although, he has a habit of being really open with strangers when something is on his mind. It's like he uses them as a sounding board because he doesn't care what they think of him. "Who would you meet at a gas station?"
"Lex, she was so gorgeous," he tells me with a bit of a groan.
"Who was she?" I ask, and Leif takes my tablet from me and types out a message. We've taken to doing this when Dad is home because he can't help but overhear practically everything. To be fair, he does his best to ignore most things, but there's always that concern he will get curious and just blatantly listen.
Leif hands me my tablet back and I read the message:
'She was a lady vamp named Diedre, and she was fucking STUNNING! About came in my pants just looking at her!'
"Ew," I shove at my brother's shoulder for his crudeness and quickly delete the statement. Wait, Diedre? Isn't that Quigley's Maker?
I quickly respond, with my own experience:
'Hey, I met her Child tonight! His name's Quigley and he's this big Irish vamp. Not tall, just, like, broad, I guess.'
Leif reads my words and frowns before tapping out another message:
'Why would they show up on the same day, do you think?'
All I can think is our eighteenth birthday is a couple days away, and it feels like Diedre and Quigley are coming for our party. It's only supposed to be family, so I don't understand why our parents would invite a couple vamps Leif and I don't even know.
'Our birthday?' I suggest to him and Leif shrugs.
'But we don't even know them? The fuck they care about our birthday?' he asks in typical Uncle Jason fashion.
'Unless there's something else happening in the next week, I don't know why they'd show up now. Dad mentioned Quigley and Diedre are old friends of the bloodline, but I haven't heard him mention any fallouts or vampire political shifts recently. Unless there's some kinda coup or something, I don't know why else they'd come.' The supernatural community tends to give our family a wide berth most of the time, and only really talks to us when they need something. It's cool, I guess, because Dad says it's a respectful distance. They know they can lean on us during hard times, but otherwise they leave us alone.
Leif reads my response and hands my tablet back without replying. I guess we're both stumped by this turn of events. Rather than ponder the meaning behind the visiting vampires, I instead regale my brother with the story of how I met Quigley. He gets angry at my friends and threatens to beat Ethan to pulp for me, but I assure him it's just not worth it.
Finally, we settle in and do our homework together, and it's dinner time when we're all complete. Mom calls us downstairs for food, and Dad sits with us like usual while we eat.
"How was practice?" Mom asks me as she takes a bite of her salad.
I mope as I poke at my own food while telling her the same story I told Dad. Leif gives me a sympathetic look while Mom scowls at me for standing around chatting with an unfamiliar vampire.
"You're lucky it was Quigley!" Mom snaps. "Of all people, you should know better!"
My head bows a little lower as I'm scolded, but I don't say anything. She'll just bring up my near abduction from when I was four that I can't remember other than through their stories about it. I think it gets more elaborate every time we hear it.
Finally, dinner ends and I banish myself up to my room. Leif tries to follow and console me, but I don't want it. I just want to be left alone. I know I screwed up a lot tonight, and I just want it to be tomorrow so I can get a new chance to prove this isn't the usual me. I know it. They know it. I just need tomorrow to be me again.
Around midnight, Leif comes back to my room, doesn't even knock! He just plows through the door and flops onto my bed.
"Are you still sulking?" he demands as I roll onto my other side to turn my back to him.
"Leave me alone," I mumble into my pillow.
Leif curls up behind me and hugs me tight, "Hey, it's okay. I get Mom and Dad pissed at me all the time. It'll be fine. They'll let up tomorrow. We all know they will."
"Do you think I'm being silly wanting to be a surgeon?" I ask in a soft whisper.
Leif crawls around me to look me in the face. He smells like cigarettes and bubblegum when he speaks. "I think you're being silly by questioning something you've always wanted just because a guy laughed at you."
"But it was Ethan Sims," I moan.
"So what? Ask Uncle Godric if he thinks it's silly. The dude's, like, over two-thousand years old. I'd take his opinion over someone in their twenties! Godric literally has a hundred times the experience someone our age has," he tells me.
I take my brother's point into consideration and relax a little. Uncle Godric's told me at least a dozen times since I was ten that he's proud of my commitment to going into the medical field. I already know he doesn't think it's stupid.
"You're right," I sigh.
"Of course I'm right," Leif puffs out his chest importantly. "I'm your big brother!"
"By, like, twenty minutes," I roll my eyes and smile as Leif rolls out of my bed and flicks off my lamp. "Good night."
"Night, Sis," Leif sneaks back out of my room and I listen until I hear his door close. Sometimes he'll lunge back into my room suddenly to try and scare me. Not tonight, though. He goes straight back to bed.
Quigley's POV:
I've always known that I loved Cassie's spirit, but I never thought that I was in love with it...
After my exchange with Northman's daughter, a heaviness weighs upon my heart. At first I thought it was the sense of loss meeting my former Maker's spirit had brought. It was not until I watched her walk to the front steps of her home that I understood what the weight truly was: Longing.
So different from Cassie. So much her own person, but so beautiful and bright like her mother! I truly expected Cassie's spirit to be more assured and less focused on what others thought. That is where Northman and Cassandra were very much alike. They share a similar ego, one that is deserved and respected. However, meeting Alexis, I found that she felt nothing like my Maker, nothing like her father. Instead she felt-
Stop it, you idiot! I snarl internally at myself. There is nothing to be done about the situation. Alexis is your Maker's Mate, and that is that!
Still, that longing returns unbidden by me. It clutches at my dead heart as though it is trying desperately to make it beat once again. Instead it aches painfully and brings a desire to end it all at once. To claw open my chest and rip the offending organ from my body seems a greater relief than going on feeling this way.
Like I am about to lose the most important thing in the world to me, I think traitorously.
Perhaps it is the lingering shreds of the eighteen year dead Binding of my and my Makers' souls. Maybe that is what causes this pain? Maybe it hurts knowing that I will lose my tie in the connection? To no longer be the knot of a beautiful, unending love? Is that what this feeling is? The untying of a knot that has always existed in my chest? Surely that would feel like a relief rather than torture!
The uncertainty and questions only make my pain more frustrating and elusive. Only one thing can bring me any sort of comfort in this situation, and that is why I fall to my knees.
"God," I murmur under my breath, "please give me the strength to turn my eyes from her. Return to me the chasteness I once wore as a suit of armor against my lustful urges. If ever in the last one thousand years I have needed that mindset of purity and chastity, it is in these upcoming days. Please, God, grant me the serenity to find happiness in my Maker's completion instead of this rotting envy!"
For the first time since Cassandra assured me the only monster I had become is the one I turned my own self into, I do not feel the Lord's hand guiding me. In fact, it feels more like I am being gazed upon in cruel amusement instead!
I decided very quickly that I cannot stay cooped up like this. There is a desperate urge to get out for the remainder of the evening and let myself wander. After all, stillness while alone in my thoughts feels even more maddening than this sickened sensation building inside of me.
With the urgency to let my mind and body be free of the confines this building and my own brain have created, I remedy half of the problem by wandering out into the night. The stars glitter in the crisp winter air, and I feel their presence looming over me with a critical eye. Am I being judged for my selfish yearnings? Does the night sky know that I desire that which belongs to my Maker?
In over a thousand years, I have never coveted that which belonged to another, and I have never felt the envy that I feel in this moment. It is raw and burning. It scratches at my throat and fingertips, yowling to be let free. It wants to take that which it desires.
"Quigley?" I freeze at my name and turn to see Diedre standing behind me.
"'Ey, Mum," I raise my hand in greeting, glancing around to see where I've wandered. Shit, I'm nearly thirty miles from my hotel, I realize with annoyance.
"Are you alright?" Diedre asks cautiously.
"Of course," I nod as I try to get my bearings on the situation. "Where you been?" I distract her from her original inquiry with one of my own. Suddenly her presence in me is unlocked for the first time in nearly two decades, and there's this blossom of joy that makes me realize something awful. She's already ran into her future Bonded.
"I met Northman's child," she beams happily.
"Oh?" That crawling feeling inside stills. "How'd that come about?"
Diedre's smile breaks into a distant gaze of whimsical recollection, "Our eyes locked at a local convenience store. You know Eric's eyes are stunning. Same exact eyes. I just knew," she sighs and plays thoughtfully with the ends of her hair like a lovestruck teenager.
"I see," I wonder for a moment when she'd had time to run into Alexis, but consider the fact that she might have done so before I had run into the girl.
But I didn't smell Diedre on Alexis... Did I? Maybe that's why I felt so immediately connected to the girl! Diedre's scent could have been on Alexis and stirred that connection I felt. Relief floods me, and I feel the weight of my previous envy evaporate. Diedre feels this as well and smiles.
"You were worried about me? About how I'd feel meeting Cassandra's reincarnation?" she asks.
Obviously I can't confess that I was worried that I would not be able to stand the idea of Diedre taking Alexis from me. Instead I smile and nod, "Aye, Mum. I thought she'd be too different, not enough the same, you know?"
My Maker smiles and nods in understanding, "I do know, I worried about the same these past few years. As eighteen years came closer and closer, I wondered if I was at peace with Cassandra's death. I wondered if I was ready to meet her again. So different. So young and... You know, I think the foresight is gone?"
I nod, but recover by hiding that I've met her future Mate as well by saying, "That's a good thing. Cassie hated her gift."
The smile on Diedre's lips widens, "Yes. I hope this time around both of us get to fall in love together. Cassandra knew from her first rising that I was her destiny. She knew everything about me when we first met. This time... It will be nice to get to know each other."
Alexis' scent is on Diedre, and I breathe it in distractedly. It smells different. Masculine. Perhaps I'm smelling that Ethan boy that Alexis mentioned. Maybe he was with her at the convenience store and it is blended into the fragrance clinging to Diedre.
I do not try to suss out the change in scent. I only feel the sweet relief that I do not find it alluring anymore. The scent mingled with Diedre smells right.
"Were you on your way to church, Quigley?" Diedre frowns while gesturing to my hand. It is then that I realize I have been clutching my rosary up until this point.
"Oh, I suppose so," I reply lamely. I had not even realized that my artifact had been calling to me and now rests in my grasp.
"Were you on your way to pray for me?" she asks amusedly.
"Perhaps," I answer, but I believe I had actually left to pray for myself. The meditation of the rosary has always given me clarity beyond the mysteries of Christ.
"Quigley," Diedre catches my gaze, "are you alright?"
"Yes," I tell her, and pray to God that I will be.
TBC
A/N: I hope all of you enjoyed the first chapter and will leave reviews for me to enjoy just as much!
-Andi