CHRIS

Chris groaned and opened his eyes. There was an arm wrapped around him. He looked at its owner and smiled slightly. Lianndra’s hair was flopped over one eye, his face was half-covered by his pillow, and he snored softly in sleep.

He looked so young when he had his eyes closed. He was a soft, kind little kid when he was unconscious, not at all like when he was awake. Chris couldn’t help laughing.

He carefully moved out from under the arm and stood up. With the blanket drawn back, he saw the boy was naked. He probably hadn’t bothered to dress after his shower.

Chris shook his head and re-covered Lianndra with the comforter. He looked so innocent while asleep. Chris contemplated waking him up, but decided against it. He looked around trying to remember where he’d put the clothes Lianndra had given him.

He almost missed it, but he saw it when he just about stepped on it. Lying on the floor by the bed was a note. He quickly read through it, then sighed and put it on the desk.

So Lianndra didn’t want to be awakened, so what. But still he wished he could reach over and shake the boy awake.

The apartment was just a little too quiet for him to be comfortable. Chris had never really been alone, had lived with his friends, and before that with his Aunt and Uncle, and before them his mother. All people that had left him in the quiet of the night, none given the time to say good-bye.

He padded out the door and down the hall to the living room. He would dress later. For now, he was hungry.

He opened the refrigerator door and stepped back with shock. It was jammed full with untouched food. He dug through the stuff and saw that it was all fresh as if someone had bought it all just for him.

His stomach growled and he gladly gave up on the puzzle of how someone so small could get so much food up the stairs by himself. Or why a little kid would even need so much. He stuffed himself, then searched for the TV so he could watch a movie instead of thinking and wondering.

The cabinet was huge. When he opened it he didn’t expect what he saw. The TV filled the whole thing. It reached a little past his shoulder in height.

In another cabinet right next to the TV, he found a VCR and a bunch of tapes. A few of them were not appropriate for children to watch. They had so many X’s on them that they went around twice. He left those alone and watched the others.

Chris was worried. Lianndra still hadn’t gotten up yet. Could the kid be sick? And if he was, was it life threatening? Should he be calling someone right now?

He had the sudden urge to wake Lianndra, but he shoved it down. The boy didn’t want to be woken up.

He just couldn’t get rid of the thought that something was very wrong.

Finally he gave up the battle and went into the bedroom to check on the boy. Nervousness churned in his belly and he had the sudden thought that he was going to look into that room and find a fleshless skeleton lying on the bed, yellowed bones patched and knotted with gentle rot eating away in the half-light. But when he got there he saw that nothing was wrong, nothing at all. Lianndra was just like he had been before.

That was when the feeling grew. The boy was just like he had been before. He was even in the same position and everything. It was as if even after three hours he hadn’t moved a muscle, not even his fingers which were still bent at what could only be an uncomfortable angle.

Chris stooped over the bed and touched the soft whitish-blond hair. In repose Lianndra looked like an angel, while in motion he was like cold fire given form and life. Yet both views were clouded by something, something he had forgotten, something he didn’t want to remember.

Where had he met this small boy in fancy clothes? When had he met Lianndra?

As soon as Chris started thinking about that his thoughts began to break apart and slide away unnoticed and uncared-for. What had he been thinking about? It was as if it had just disappeared like a popping soap bubble.

He frowned and thought. Something was missing, but he couldn’t remember what. Of the night before all he could remember were soft sheets and a vision of Lianndra in the painting. Other than that, he had no recollection. What had been done to him? Had he hit his head somewhere and suffered from partial amnesia?

The harder he thought about the night before, the farther the memory slipped away. It was like the time he had gone to the pool to play Water Polo. The ball had slipped out of his hands and floated away from him. When he reached for it, the waves he made with the motions pushed it farther out.

He had a picture in his mind of being in a giant pool, the round ball that was his memories of the night before bobbing just out of his grasp. Then he reached out ever so slowly and caught the ball. The memories came rushing in.

His friends were all dead. But that wasn’t it. There was something else he had forgotten, something he didn’t want to remember at all. Something he hoped he never remembered--something terrible.

LIANNDRA

It was five in the afternoon before Lianndra came back to full awareness. He yawned hugely, showing his fangs, opened his eyes and looked up. The room was empty, but his preternatural hearing told him that Chris was watching TV, something on tape (he could hear the whir of the VCR in use.)

He smiled sleepily and stood. He pulled on his robe and headed out the door. There were so many things he could do tonight.

He looked into the living room and saw the TV flickering, a movie in play. It involved a young girl, a priest and pea soup. It always made him laugh; it was just so silly. But as he looked from the TV around the rest of the room, he saw it was empty. Chris was gone.

Lianndra frowned and looked farther. Then he saw it. The big bay window was open, the curtains sucked out by the breeze. There were marks on the sill. Fingernail marks.

Something had been dragged out the window, something the size of a boy about Chris’ size. He had been kidnapped.

Lianndra cursed as he frantically sent his mind out, searching for the boy. Where had that beast taken him? Then it hit him.

There was only one place in the entire world that could be considered a vampire safe haven, a place where no vampire would ever willingly go, not without a damn good reason anyway. The tomb.

With surprising speed, he was on his way to Greece and the tomb. He had been there once before to pay tribute to the Queen, hidden safely away behind a solid rock wall.

That time he had been frightened. This time he was angry. How dare that poor excuse for a vampire steal his guest?

He knew who had done it. Who had taken Chris and killed some of the Brethren. There was only one with that much power.

Lianndra had always known who the true murderer was. Sure, the one that had taken Karetta may very well have been Ralsbet, but who was to know? He had just thrown the man’s name into the argument to see what would happen. He had been trying to flush out those who might have conspired in the murder of their own kind.

CHELSEA

Warmth, it flooded the system. It made her gasp in ecstasy. It surged through her veins and passed in and out of her heart. Her limbs felt power and the chill was chased away along with the bad thoughts.

Some of the warmth dribbled down her chin, staining the front of her shirt. She opened heavy-lidded eyes wide with shock. The warmth that had stained through her tee shirt was fast cooling. David hadn’t wanted to give her his life force, and now, after twenty years, he had given it to her freely. She didn’t want to waste any of it.

When she was finished, she dropped his dried out husk. He was no longer inside of it, so there was no reason to be gentle with the scraps of what he had been. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

If she had seen herself now, years ago, she would have been shocked. The refinement she had been so proud of had long since deserted her, leaving a wild creature behind, a creature that would do anything to survive in a hard world.

Lately she had gone by the name of Chelsea, but deep down inside she knew it wasn’t her. That was where the bad thoughts stemmed from; they were the memory of before she had become Chelsea and had Woken for the first time as a vampire, without a memory and with no real past.

All she could remember of the before-life was a feeling of being safe, clean and happy. She also knew that she had once been mortal.

She shook her head hard, her hair whipping about her face so fast and hard it should have drawn blood. She didn’t want to remember what she was and what she might have been. Didn’t want to know how far she had fallen.

She scrambled to her feet. She needed more life. She needed the Feed.

Chelsea Fed that night and two more nights nonstop. She knew it was stupid, if she Fed too much she would have to get rid of it and the only way to do that was to vomit it back up, but she needed the single-mindedness of the Feed. The bad thoughts kept intruding themselves in her mind.

Once, she seemed to lose consciousness in the middle of the Feed. No matter how much she took, she couldn’t achieve the single-mindedness that she should have. The bad thoughts were too strong. If she had been a stronger vampire, like the ones in London and America, she could have done it, could have pushed the thoughts away.

Yet she was a Scottish vampire with barely any knowledge on how to act and take control of her own mind. She felt most peculiar about it all.

She remembered when she had met the great European/American vampire, Lianndra. He was just a little boy, or so she had thought at first. He had taken one look at her and shaken his head sadly. She still remembered his words: "You poor soul. You cannot rid yourself of your hurts by Feeding. You have to confront them or they will never leave you."

How had he known what she had been doing? It didn’t really show, did it? Could he actually see the amount of blood she had swallowed? Did she slosh when she moved?

She shook her head. Until he spoke, he had seemed like such an innocent. Now she knew the truth: he had never been innocent. He had always been knowledgeable and adult-like. He had seemed so young though, only six or seven, his hands small and delicate. He had worn slender black gloves over them. His whitish-blond hair was carefully brushed and his cape had fallen in perfect folds. He had been perfect in every way.

Chelsea thought back to her meeting with him. It had been in the year 1842, if she remembered correctly. She didn’t know why she could remember that far, it was just something she could do, the same as she couldn’t do some other things.

Who had she been before she had received the BloodTouch? It was a real mystery, one she felt she ought to know. Her memories began in the 1830’s, which wasn’t so very long ago. It had only been one hundred and sixty years. There were so many things she couldn’t remember. So many things she had to wonder about. Like she didn’t know how she had gotten such a good education, but it was all hers.

Now, as she walked down the streets of New York, her heart felt heavy. She had just killed her one truelove, David.

She had first met him in a park in the 1970’s. He had been walking his dog Rufus. He had been only twelve years old then, and they had been friends ever since, secret friends. After he married, he had to move though, so she had followed him.

Now, at the age of thirty-six, he was dead. He had wanted to die. His beautiful wife Reanne had thought he had been having an affair when he stayed out every single night for a month and had filed for a secret divorce, thrusting the papers upon him with no warning, just an accusing look in her eyes that had been like a knife to the guts.

In answer to his grief, Chelsea had given David what he had wanted, as she always had. In the end of 1978, she had given him money for his first car. In the beginning of the 1980’s, she had helped him bury his dog, the dog after Rufus, named Tycko. In the end of 1985, she had followed after him to New York. Now she had given him what he wanted once again. This time though, it was something different. She had given him peace.

Chelsea clutched her head. Why had she done it? David had been the only person that had ever cared about her. She could have given him the BloodTouch while she was sucking him dry. But she knew why she hadn’t. He was her friend and she knew he would have been miserable as a vampire, not to mention he didn’t want to live any longer. Now, though, she would have given anything to have David with her.

Jagged lightning bolts sizzled behind her eyes. She felt fright grip her. This was how the bad thoughts always got through to her, by lightning.

The memories were close; she could feel them pressing against her mind, trying to get in. By now the lightning had changed to sickening flashes of color and horrifying images of her life before.

She screamed in agony. She felt as if her head was splitting apart.

A mirror appeared before her and in it she saw herself, changed. This Chelsea was evil. All she wanted was to kill and Feed. The Chelsea in the mirror was dressed in a long ivory gown that put her fourteen-year old body to good use.

The girl smiled and the mirror shattered. She was going to take over. Chelsea screamed and fled in terror, the girl’s dark laughter following her down the long dark hall of her mind.

At the end of the hall, she found a door. With a quick twist, she had it open and was inside. She fumbled in the darkness and found what she was looking for--a chair. She blocked the door shut with a sigh of relief.

She had no sooner done this then there was a pounding on the door. She held back a scream of terror. There was no reason to be afraid, she assured herself. She knew that no matter what, she was safe here.

That was when the crack appeared. It was about two inches long and ran along the bottom of the door upwards, and it was growing.

The thumping filled the room. She stared at the crack as it got larger and larger until it was the whole length of the door. The door splintered, letting in the dark image of herself. One of the splinters of wood imbedded itself into Chelsea’s leg. She screamed in pain.

The figure in the ruins of the door laughed and stepped forward. The nightmare had come to life.

Chelsea screamed and sat up. She seemed to have fainted in the middle of the street. She could still feel the evil in the back of her mind, laughing at her, mocking her and everything she thought she was.

Who had that other been? Where had she come from? God have mercy on her soul if that other ever took control.

She stood and stumbled off to her daily resting-place. She prayed that the other wouldn’t attack while she was Asleep. She was helpless in that period when the sun was at its brightest. What was the word for that time? Noon.

Deep in the shadows of her mind, something dark laughed. It was a shadow of what it once had been, but it was gaining strength with every passing moment.

Soon the time would come and all those that had wronged it would not live to see another day. It would sink fangs into helpless mortal throats and rejoice at the power. It would all be so easy.

LIANNDRA

He climbed the steep embankment to the tomb, and just as he knew it had, the huge stone wall had shifted. He remembered coming here sometime during the late 1800’s and re-closing the tomb. Now someone knew his secret. The Queen wasn’t in there and hadn’t been for a long time.

She had been free, roaming the world, and now someone had to pay for her freedom. And who was the convenient fall guy? None other than Lianndra himself.

He groaned. He was screwed.

Later he wasn’t sure how long he stood there, just that the interrupter was someone important. If it hadn’t been, he probably would have stayed there forever, sunk in his own misery. Staring stupidly at a wall of stone that wasn’t going to instantaneously transmogrify into something else, something that didn’t leave him wanting to smash chunks out of his own skull.

It was Maude. She had been following him for some time--he just hadn’t known it. She had suspected something strange at the meeting and feared that the insanity of immortality might have come on him like it had come to Tispith. She had been following him and watching to see if her suspicions were founded in fact, or if they were just paranoia.

Now she knew the truth, had probably suspected it on some subconscious level. The fact was that she had found the truth too troubling and had tried to ignore it, but now with actual proof, she had to believe.

Tispith was free.

CHELSEA

She groaned and sat up. In some puzzlement she looked around. She had gone to Sleep in her daily resting-place and had awoken in some strange land. She looked around and felt something sink in her stomach. She recognized this place.

She was in the place with the long hall and the door. She was in the tomb.

With sudden clarity she knew who she was. She was Tispith, the Queen of the vampires. The only problem was that she was changed. She wasn’t evil anymore and she wasn’t in control of her body. She was in the same place where the other had been trapped. She was imprisoned in the hidden recesses of her mind.

That other had taken over her body while she had Slept, now all she could do was wait and watch.

Chelsea explored the strange environment that was her mind and had to wonder what kind of person she really was.

She was just about to look over everything again, when around her things began to shake. She fell sideways, scraping her palms on the rough ground. The air shimmered and there was a strange, musky odor.

Suddenly she found herself in another, equally strange place. Obviously she had been plunged into another facet of her mind, a terrible and dark one.

She looked around in wonder. It was horrible and yet wonderful. It was both light and dark, ugly yet beautiful, all at the same time. The two seemed to be interlocked in a battle that couldn’t be won by either side. Every time the ugliness had about reached new heights, the beauty came and changed it so that the ugly held a hidden beauty it had no way to cope with.

This place is so strange, Chelsea thought to herself. It’s hard to believe that these are supposed to represent me.

She turned around and around, trying without much success to see everything at once.

She felt wonder change inside of her as understanding flooded her mind. Chelsea knew why she was showing herself this. She was showing herself that there was beauty and ugliness in everything. That other self was her ugly side, and she was the good and beautiful side. Or at least, she had to hope that was the way it was. She would hate to find out that she was the ugly part of her own personality.

Then again, perhaps she was, partially. There was ugliness in everything, beauty as well. Later she would think more on it, but for now she had to get out of this place and try to set things right before it was too late.

She closed her eyes tightly and wished with all of her might to go back to where she had once been. She had to end this now before it got out of control and somebody--the wrong somebody--won.

The world rippled and Chelsea disappeared back into the land of consciousness, leaving the world of her own mind’s creation behind.

LIANNDRA

They both sat and stared at the tomb. They hadn’t enough will between them to go inside and investigate. They were each drowning in their own thoughts and weariness.

They had about lost all hope of finding an answer when they heard a sound. They were on their feet in the same instant. Their eyes locked on the shadow making its slow way out of the tomb.

Out of the tomb came a slight figure. It was a beautiful vampire girl. She was perfect, could almost have been mortal, all except for one thing. Her eyes seemed to suck in the moon’s light and reflect it back brighter.

Her whitish-blond hair was long; it fell almost past her knees. Her eyes glowed a startling violet. The glow was not the glow of a usual vampire, which was flat and unemotional. This was the glow of pure and uncut evil, shining out from behind her eyes like a beacon in the dark.

She smiled when she saw them standing there, both probably looking filthy and ridiculous.

"Lianndra, so good to see you. Are you glad I finally acknowledged my memories?" She turned to look at Maude. There was a spark behind her eyes. "And Maude, long time no see, aye baby-cakes? Haven’t seen you since T-Day. Do you know what that means? Tomb Day."

She came a little bit farther down the hill, moving with a slow, easy grace. Her hair flickered behind her in the breeze; invisible fingers making it dance to some soundless music.

"I really would have visited you, but I couldn’t, could I?" Tispith’s voice was soft and cruelly cutting as she gave the evil eye to her once-friend. When she was sure she had gotten her message across, she turned again to look at Lianndra, her eyes glittering with a manic light. "Oh, did I tell you what a delightful little boy you managed to find, Lianndra? He really loved the hill."

Lianndra felt horror go through him.

Of course this girl was Tispith. He had suspected the truth about her for a very long time but had decided to ignore it. He had known that she had become a different kind of person, so he had allowed her to roam free, keeping tabs on her, but otherwise letting her live whatever kind of life she could make for herself. He had done it out of respect for her position as Queen and because of a genuine liking for the person she had let herself become.

Now he was going to pay and pay dearly for his folly.

Lianndra looked at her as she stood there and knew that today another of the dark angels would fall. As he faced her, he knew without a doubt that a mistake had been made and it was repairing itself in the best way it could. Maybe he would be the sacrifice or maybe it would be her--there was no way to know. They would have to wait and see who was to live and who was to die.

Children are heavenly creatures usually thought of as angels, but even angels can fall into the pit of darkness. On the day the BloodTouch is accepted they are left to their fates. They lose all of their innocence when blood slides between their lips. They become dark angels, creatures of the night.

They are worse than any adult vampire could ever be. They grow into their roles and they fit well.

They are children that have barely tasted from the cup of life when they drink deep from the nectar of death. They do not sip as they did from life--they swallow as a drowning man does air. They become the very visage of death, and they revel in the feeling of power it gives them and drink deep.

As the two that had once been children but were not any longer, faced off, something in the very pit of the earth stirred and opened one eye. It sensed that the time had come for it to awaken once again.

It howled and the world shook.

Earthquake!

"Our battle will have to wait, little Lianndra, and when it comes you will die." With that, Tispith disappeared.

No puff of smoke, no wavering of the air, nothing. One second she was there, and the next she was gone. That was that.

During her time hiding in her mind, she had learned a few new tricks. Things that a lesser vampire would have been unable to do. Things that a modern day enchanter would have been hard pressed to copy.

While Chelsea was trying to forget memory, Tispith had been left to do whatever she wanted. She had been sucking information out of the brains of the helpless mortals Chelsea had been Feeding off of, information about modern life and how it worked.

LIANNDRA

Lianndra slowly picked himself up off the ground and looked around in shock. The large hill that had held the tomb had been totally leveled. It was almost as if something that had been underneath it had left, suddenly and without warning.

He looked around and saw a pile of rocks with something that might have been a blue tee shirt sticking out from underneath them.

He raced over and moved the rocks with his superhuman strength. He uncovered the still form of Maude.

It was disgusting, but not fatal. Her once unblemished skin was marred by the fact that a wedge-shaped rock had forced itself into one of her cheekbones. Little sharp-edged pebbles had scratched her skin. The lower half of her body had been completely crushed.

Lianndra cursed and tried to straighten out her mangled limbs. He shook his head when the once perfectly made body would do little more than mush between his fingers. She had been jellified.

He stepped back to keep the sluggishly moving puddle of blood off his clothes. His nose wrinkled with disgust.

Even as he watched, the flesh around the rock in Maude’s face tried to heal itself. The flesh was trying to close, but the rock was getting in the way. He cursed and wrenched the rock out of her skin and bone with ruthless strength. It came free with a wet, popping sound.

In moments the gaping wound in her face had closed up. In a few hours there would be no sign that her skin had been torn or that part of her body had been almost completely crushed, just a faint bluish cast to her skin where she had been hurt.

He sighed and began again to work on the lower half of her body. Lianndra just hoped she would hurry up and heal. He had better things to do than hold her bones together as they mended.

He was leaning against a large bolder when Maude at last groaned and opened her eyes. She made a sound that could have been a curse or a scream.

"Oh, I think my left leg bone is backwards," she moaned.

Lianndra gritted his teeth, why had she allowed herself to be injured when he had such important things to do? "Fine, you stay here and recuperate," he said. "I have something more important to do. Be careful and find a place to stay before sunrise." With that he levitated and floated away through the night air.

There was something that absolutely had to be done.

He landed gently on a hill overlooking the city, which was shining brightly as if it were welcoming him home from Greece. He looked around and spotted what he was looking for. He floated off the ground and followed the wind in the direction of a small shack.

Lianndra ripped the door off its hinges and peered in. Tied to a chair, Chris looked up at him out of wide, frightened eyes. The boy had been locked away without food and water for days and had begun to fear that this was where he was going to die, alone, with no one to call for help.

Lianndra stalked forward and tore the ropes so that they split and let the boy free. "Are you okay?" he asked in a gentle voice.

Chris nodded slowly. His face was scratched and he was filthy, but other than that he seemed to be all right. He shivered and clutched at his arms.

"I’m s-s-so c-c-c-cold," Chris stuttered, his teeth chattering in the chill air.

Lianndra took off his coat and wrapped it around Chris’ trembling shoulders. "It’s okay now. Come with me, I’ll take you back to the apartment."

He grabbed Chris’ hand and led him out of the shack. He floated slowly and carefully up into the night sky. He would have been able to stand a fall, but he doubted that Chris could have. Mortal flesh was so easily damaged.