Casa del John

The Order revealed levels of sadism I never thought it was capable of reaching. They fed me for a week and kept me hydrated every day after that. The first time a guard slid a tray of food at me, I raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s this?” I asked.

He grinned while locking the door again. “It’s breakfast,” he said. He swung the key ring around his finger a couple of times, then turned his back on me and Lydia, leaving us to our fate again.

I looked at my sister and frowned. “This is incredibly fucked up.”

“Eat,” she murmured, her eyes still closed from sleeping. “Keep up your strength. I’ve you’re going to help feed me, you might need it.”

Nodding, I sighed and polished off the food, slipping the empty tray through the bars of our cell for the guard to pick up later. The process continued for lunch, dinner, and breakfast the next day. Three days in, I shook my head at the tray and called after the guard. “So, let me get this straight,” I said. “You’ll stick me in a fucking cell and condemn me to die, but you won’t be the one to kill me.”

The guard sneered. I lifted my chin in defiance. “You know what that makes you? A fucking coward, that’s what.”

“John…”

I ignored Lydia while the son of a bitch on the other side of the bars took a few steps closer. We stared at each other, locked in a stalemate until he smirked and laughed at me. I watched him turn and chuckle the entire way to the elevators. I issued the only protest I could at the time.

Lifting my tray, I threw it, food and all, through the bars and watched it land on the other side. It made a mess all over the concrete floor. I was rewarded a few hours later when they set off the sprinklers and soaked Lydia and I to the bone. It washed away the remnant, but I shivered for the rest of the night and wasn’t given dinner.

The meals continued the next day and stopped altogether on day seven. From there, only a cup of water every few hours found its way into the cell. I frowned when it happened and didn’t bother shouting at the guard. I knew what this symbolized. They wanted it to end and wanted me too weak to fight Lydia off when she lost her senses.

Although, my sister held on beyond that point. I started sitting as far away from her as possible and while I slept a lot during the first week, I only rested for the remainder of the time when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. Lydia began eyeing me hungrily on day eight, but she dug her nails into the floor and shut her eyes when the temptation became too much. On the ninth day, I woke with a start to the sound of her whimpering. Her fangs ran down and her eyes clenched shut. Hands over her ears, she had her knees bent close to her chest and rocked back and forth. 

I frowned, feeling faint, tired, dirty, and anxious. I didn’t want to wait any longer. “Lyd,” I said in a soft tone of voice. “Just do it. It’s going to happen soon anyway. Let’s get it over with.”

She shook her head emphatically and pressed her hands against the sides of her head as though trying to crush her own skull. I held my knees, sitting on the ground, staring at her and not able to sleep at all. As the sun rose on the tenth day, I figured I was down to hours now, not days. She couldn’t fight her instincts. She was already weak and while she passed out when the sun rose, I knew when she woke, it would come back in all its sound and fury. Slumping to the ground, I did something I rarely ever did. I cried until I finally gave in to sheer exhaustion.

A strange sound woke me up a few hours later. I lifted my head to see Lydia still passed out and raised an eyebrow. Sitting up, I looked around until I saw a figure in the darkness, headed right for us. He was armed, much more heavily than the guard usually was, and held a sheathed sword in his hands. My first thought actually came as a relief to me. Somebody was coming to put us out of our misery.

My opinion changed, though, when I saw who it was. Ben, the master seer who had been my instructor, whom I had started trusting and figured, with Lydia, had sold us out when he assigned us our second mission. I remembered a conversation from a few days before where we assumed he wasn’t any better than the elders on the High Council. “Ben?” I asked, squinting at him.

Coming to my feet made me dizzy. I held onto the wall and righted myself before my knees could give out. He watched me, frowning. “I’m sorry, John. I’m so sorry. I should have come a few days sooner,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck are you doing here anyway? You could get in trouble for…”

“There isn’t a lot of time to explain.” He passed me the sword and lowered a bag slung across his back onto the floor.

I looked at the sword and furrowed my brow. “This is mine.”

“Yes, you might need it.” He crouched in front of the bag and opened it.

I heard Lydia stirring in the background. My heart began to race. I shook my head. “I’m not going to off my sister, Ben. I’m sorry, but if that’s why you’re…”

“No, I’m here to rescue both of you.” He sighed, pulling two pints of blood from the bag and a set of keys. “The sword is for upstairs.”

Ben walked to the door and slid a key into the lock. I held the weapon with both hands and blinked. “What’s going on upstairs?”

“A distraction.” The door swung open. He looked toward Lydia and frowned, shaking his head. “When I saw they weren’t letting up after a week, I gathered the troops and we planned an uprising. Was easy to do, actually.” He looked up at me. “A lot of folks were pissed at the Council for doing this.”

“Really?” I perked an eyebrow and drifted closer to his side as Lydia started to wake. She groaned and I frowned. “She’s starving, Ben.”

“Yes, and we need to make sure we get this blood in her and not either of ours.” He stepped closer and looked around. “Damn cell. If I thought we could carry her out of it without her lashing out, I’d do it. Neither of us can use our powers here.”

I watched Lydia. She drew her knees close to her chest again and covered her ears. “She’s not going to attack us. Not yet. I don’t know if she could have survived another night, though, without losing it.” I held out a hand. “Give me one of those and get the other one ready. I’ll help her. Just as long as she has the blood to focus on maybe she’ll ignore us.”

“We can hope.” He sighed and walked with me closer to my sister. We both crouched down beside her. While I opened one of the pints, he opened the other and looked toward the corridor. “I don’t know how much longer we have, so let’s make this quick.”

I nodded. Touching Lydia’s shoulder, I whispered, “Lyd… C’mon, sis. We have something for you.”

She shook her head and kept her eyes clenched shut. I frowned and Ben smirked. “She’s stubborn, I’ll give her that,” he said. “Good for your sake.”

“Yeah.” I brought the pint of blood closer to her mouth. “Come on, Lyd. Drink this, damn it. We need to get the fuck out of Dodge.” When she still refused, I tipped the plastic bag and let a trickle of blood run onto her lips. She licked them and her eyes shot open. The response was immediate.

Lydia grabbed the bag from me and began drinking it down like she’d just walked through the Sahara and finally found an oasis. I held out my hand for the other pint and gave it to Lydia the moment she finished with the first one. Her fangs ran down while she drank from the second bag and when she finished, she shivered and looked at us, a flicker of deep-seated hunger flashing past her eyes. I shook my head. “Come on, Lyd. We’ll get you something more, but we gotta get out of here first.”

She stared at me. I didn’t know if she understood, but then she nodded and slowly came to her feet. I motioned to help her, but she shook her head. “No,” she managed and I didn’t bother complaining. Instead, I picked up my sword and followed Ben out into the corridor.

Adrenaline raced through my veins. The elevator door shut and Ben glanced at both of us before looking directly at me. “I know you’re probably weak, too, but you’re going to have to dig deep. We need to get you the hell out of here fast.”

I nodded. The doors opened and while the hallway we stepped into seemed quiet, a little further down, I could hear screaming and what sounded like mass chaos. Ben started running toward the source of the sound and Lydia and I followed as quickly as we could manage in our weakened conditions. The moment we rounded a corner, I saw it for myself. All the rank-and-file, the people who patted us on our backs when we returned from our missions, were fighting with the elders and the people who sided with the Council. I swallowed hard and continued onward, drawing my sword and readying myself for a battle. Ben drew one of his weapons and told Lydia to stay close. Then we dashed into the fray like a bat out of hell.

I deflected a few shots directed our way. Ben shouted for our supporters to clear a way and they pushed back our enemies, giving us a chance to break through. We dashed further down the corridor and even Lydia seemed to be regaining some strength or finding a well to draw from while we passed by the offices of the High Council.

But I stopped by one door in particular – one room with a light on and what looked like a locked door protecting the person on the other side. I scowled and whistled Ben and Lydia’s way.

They stopped and looked at me.

My eyes settled on my sister. “I think there’s one thing we need to do before we leave,” I said.

Ben frowned. “John, we have a car waiting. The sun just set. You need to…”

“I know.” I glanced at Ben, then looked back at Lydia and nodded. “Come on, sis. I doubt this will take long.”

Lydia glanced at the door and she scowled. She advanced forward while Ben remained standing in place. “I’m not going to be able to talk you guys out of this, am I?”

“It’s for the natural order,” I responded. My eyes shifted to the door. “God only knows this asshole’s been fucking it up enough lately.”

Ben sighed. He started walking backward. “I’m not going to stop you, but I’m not going to help you with this either. I’ll be waiting outside. Right out the front doors, I have a car waiting. You’re going to have to make it there by yourselves if you do this, though.”

I nodded, looking at Ben with the most solemn expression I’ve probably ever worn on my face before. “We’ll be there. Two minutes.”

“One and a half,” Ben said. Then he turned and started running again.

Lydia and I looked at each other. She turned her attention to the door and we both drew in a deep breath. “So, telekinesis, or do we kick the fucking thing in together?”

I saw her grinning from the corner of my eye. “Let’s try kicking it in first. Then we’ll go to Plan B.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” We nodded in unison and counted to three. With the last number, we both raised our feet and kicked the door as hard as we both could manage. The wood splintered from the lock and the door wobbled open, but we didn’t waste any time entering the office.

When we turned our heads, we saw Wallace Alexander cowering behind his chair, looking at us with panicked eyes. “No,” he said. “No, you don’t want to do this. You don’t…”

I raised my hand and shut him up, opening my fingers and clamping them shut in a gesture that evoked my psychic powers and forced his mouth closed. My green eyes blazing, I turned my hand, palm facing upward, and lifted it, watching Wallace levitate off the ground a few inches. He issued a muffled scream and I grinned. Then I whipped my hand to the side and watched him fly.

He sailed over his desk and tumbled onto the ground. Lydia and I walked over to him and smirked as we looked at him. “Do the honors, sis,” I said.

I passed my sword to Lydia. She took it in both hands and lifted it while I used my powers to hold Wallace in place. It was a shame, really. All that blood she probably could have used, but we knew better than to risk him having some sort of spell protecting him. Besides… the part of me that knew I’d be a vampire soon took a little pleasure out of seeing Lydia swing the sword down and end the bastard in one blow.

She passed me my weapon. I flicked the blood from it, then slid it into its sheath and nodded. “Do we have time to fetch a few things from our room?” I asked.

She nodded. “If we make it quick.”

“Then, let’s make it quick.”

We ran for the corridor and charged as fast as possible for the dormitories, each of us splitting up to run into our respective rooms and grab whatever our hands could carry. I threw everything I could find in a bag and slung it over my shoulder before picking up my guitar and running for the hallway. Lydia met up with me a few seconds later and the commotion on the other side of the large complex gave us more than enough time to dash out the front doors and into the car waiting for us.

Ben drove us to the airport, where I had left my Mustang and wished us well. I didn’t bother to ask what kind of shit he’d be in for saving us because I was too dead set on getting us out of there.

***

Now, however, I stared at the road ahead and hoped to God nobody punished him for doing the right thing.

My eyes rose to my GPS as the traffic began to clear. “Portland,” I said as Lydia hung up my phone and opened the glove compartment again. “Let’s stop in Portland, find some place to shower. Buy a change of clothes, some shit like that, and you can get something else to eat.”

I glanced at Lydia. She nodded and smiled at me. “Sounds good, little britches.” She looked away and breathed in deep. “Probably going to have to spend the day somewhere, too.”

“We’ll see how fast your lead-footed brother can get us into California. I don’t plan on making any other stops if I can help it.”

“Not going to argue with that.”

We exchanged one last grin and broke free from the traffic, my foot pressing hard on the accelerator and the Mustang’s engine springing to life as we gained speed and barreled toward Oregon. Whatever we were leaving behind, I prayed for it to stay there and for us to make it to San Francisco safe and sound. We nearly died twice, and miraculously she and I lived to see the other side. While I knew being a seer would always bring some danger with it, I knew exactly what was going to happen when we reached California.

I was going to sleep and then ask Victor to finally make good on turning me. Because after all that, I didn’t want to take any chances. Staying mortal was overrated.

“Dad says they’re in San Francisco.”

I glanced away from the road, realizing I had been lost in thought, and looked at Lydia. She held my phone to her ear and looked at me with the same haunted expression in her eyes.

I nodded. “Tell ‘em we’re headed that way, then,” I said. I reached for my GPS and plugged in Victor’s address. The screen flashed with our first set of instructions and traffic crawled forward another few feet. “If we can ever get out of here,” I added, murmuring the words under my breath.

Lydia frowned. “You don’t think they’ll follow us there, do you?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “Considering how we left the place, though, they might be preoccupied for a while.”

“Good point.” Lydia went back to talking to Dad and I focused on the road ahead of me again.

Our first mission hadn’t been too much to sneeze at, but we made it out of there in one piece. The second mission, though… I shivered at the thought. I’d never stared death in the eyes like that before and yet, the mission was the least of our problems.

We didn’t realize it at the time, though. One of the underlings working for our first enemy slipped away and when it happened, we didn’t think much of it. Not until we faced our second enemy and realized he was a much bigger fish to fry than the first guy we killed. Much more skilled, much older and faster, and with the one who got away by his side, telling him what we were capable of doing.

Ben hadn’t made it sound like a big deal and I believed he thought that was the case when he sent us off, otherwise he wouldn’t have given us the plane tickets without somebody helping us. The fact that we didn’t have anybody to report to immediately raised my suspicions, but me and Lydia walked into danger anyway. And promptly got knocked on our asses with the first wave of attacks.

I still couldn’t remember all the details, because it was a blur. A mortal woman in danger. Vampires descending on us from all angles. Lydia with her weapons drawn and I, with my sword in hand, and supernatural abilities flying this way and that. Lydia used her precognition and I, my telekinesis. Our opponents nearly got the better of us several times and several times, Lydia warned me of an attack that could have very well meant my death. A few deep cuts and bruises and protection spells later, we stood in the middle of a room full of ashes and I almost collapsed. Like two heroes, we staggered our way from the wreckage.

But like a scared child, I curled on the couch back at our safe house and wanted to go home.

That night was strange. Lydia wandered out for a hunt while I sat in the living room, trying to convince myself I was still alive and in one piece. The doorbell rang and I debated answering it for two solid minutes until I realized the woman we’d saved stood on the other side of the door. Once it opened, she looked at me with a coy expression on her face. “You’re the young man who rescued me,” she said.

I stole a minute to take a better look at her. She couldn’t have been more than ten years older than me and with a look in her eyes that made me swallow past a lump in my throat. I invited her in despite my better judgment. By the time the lock clicked into place, she was in my arms.

I didn’t have a chance to issue a protest before I found myself on the couch, my shirt being pulled over my head. The woman kissed me hard and deep and several times, I tried to break away until I felt her hand dip underneath my pants. In the end, I didn’t bother to fight it because I was still scared to death and sex seemed a better alternative than hugging my knees in the dark. We stumbled into the bedroom and I tumbled into bed with her.

At some point after she straddled me and slipped me inside her – after the orgasm and the aftershocks – I realized what the fuck I’d done. She laid on the bed beside me and watched the myriad of reactions pass across my face until she finally said, “Please tell me your name.”

I turned my head to look at her and issued a nervous chuckle. “Now you want names?” Smirking, I turned to my side. “John Michael Dawes,” I said.

She smiled. “Stephanie,” she said. “Stephanie Costello.” Her hand brushed across my shoulder. “I’m usually not this forward, but it’s not every day somebody saves my life.”

I nodded. Her words knocked me back into the realization of how close I’d come to it all ending. No chance for Victor to turn me, not another day with Delilah. A frown settled on my face as I thought about my vampire lover and Stephanie picked up on it. She touched the chain around my neck and studied its pendant. “This must have been given to you by someone special.”

“Yeah.” I smiled softly. “Somebody very special who I’m hoping is also very forgiving.”

Stephanie frowned, her eyes meeting mine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see a wedding ring and you looked too young to…”

I held up a hand. “It’s alright. I’ll deal with that later.” Sighing, I ran my fingers through my hair. “I honestly don’t know what the hell just happened to me in more ways than one. Not talking about… this… but about… the night in general.”

She nodded. Curling closer to me, she slipped an arm around me. “I can’t imagine.” She paused. “Well… I know how scared I was, but still…” I watched her glance away. “It’s not like I’m not used to vampires.”

An eyebrow lifted in response. “So, this wasn’t just a case of a damsel in distress, eh?”

Stephanie chuckled. “No, it was, but…” She shook her head. “My family’s been their accountants for years now, dating back to my grandparents. I remember the first time I ever saw one meeting with my parents.” The corner of her mouth curled upward. “Probably why I decided to become a legal secretary.”

I laughed and draped an arm around her, settling my hand on her back. “I entered the family business, but not by choice.”

When she looked confused, I grinned. “I’m a seer. My dad’s a seer as well and my sister’s a sorceress. She’s the one who was fighting beside me.”

“Oh, right.” She chuckled. “I thought I saw a little resemblance.”

“A little. I look more like my dad.”

Stephanie nodded. Her smile turned solemn. “A lot of danger in this line of work.”

“Yeah, and the pay sucks.”

She laughed. I grinned more readily. “I imagine it’s a thankless job.”

“Well, I don’t know. Right now, I think I just received a hell of a thank you.” I winked.

Stephanie curled closer and brushed lips with me. A long, sensual kiss passed from her to me and back again until I forced myself to break it. She opened her eyes and spoke in a whisper. “I’m sorry. Is it your girlfriend?”

My eyes flicked up to hers and down again, but I didn’t back away from her. Instead, I sighed and said, “I’ve never come so close to dying. Granted, I’ve only been a seer for a few months, but this was…” I shook my head. “I keep thinking about the fact that I might not have ever seen her again. Or my father, or the rest of my family. Dead and bleeding in the middle of some vampire’s house without even getting a chance to tell her I love her again.”

Stephanie’s fingers brushed through my hair as I shut my eyes. She kissed my forehead. “I’m sorry, John. I love my family, but I’m not close to them. I stumbled into all of this by accident and have every intention of driving into Canada and not looking back tomorrow.”

My lids lifted. I looked at her and she looked back at me and before I could stop myself, I pushed her onto her back and climbed on top. Her arms and legs wrapped around me and her lips kissed up my neck until they hovered over my ear. “Let it out, John,” she whispered. “Go ahead and let it out. I need it as much as you do.”

I gasped as a shiver ran up my spine. Our lips met and as we kissed, I couldn’t help but think of Delilah and how much I wanted to be with her again. I didn’t know where she was, except that she had Robin, Dad, and Victor with her, and I ached for her in the worst way possible. It made my eyes well with tears. I wanted her to be the one below me, whose lips I was kissing, and I became so intent on the thought, I didn’t notice my tongue slipping past Stephanie’s lips. Her fingers clawed at my back. My teeth nipped at her neck and I entered her in one solid thrust. I knew she wasn’t Delilah, but the more I lost myself in the moment, the more I heard the hints of a German accent, felt my fingers tangling in long, blonde hair, and imagined the heels digging into me belonged to the vampiress I adored.

Holding Stephanie tight, I fell asleep beside her. When I woke a few hours later, she was gone. Not even a note, which was probably just as well, but I had to wonder if the experience could get any more surreal. Especially when Lydia told me about the night she’d had as well. Confessions and revelations dotted our conversation as we packed our bags and didn’t stop until we’d reached the airport. It was at that point that the thought of returning to Seattle started to make me nervous.

Lydia and I didn’t speak much on the flight. Not until the plane began its approach to the airport. “I have a bad feeling,” I said to Lydia. “The kind of feeling like I want to get off this fucking plane and just board another one.”

My sister nodded and looked at me. “Still feeling shaky after what happened back there?”

“Just a bit.” I sighed, glancing toward the night sky visible in the airplane window. “I need some time to clear my head.”

“Yeah, and the Order isn’t going to give us any breaks when we get back.”

“No, they’re not.” Frowning, I stared at the city lights becoming visible through a veil of clouds. “Something’s wrong about all of this, though. We went from fighting the bottom rung people to trying out for the major leagues. Why the hell would they do that?”

“I don’t know.” I turned my head to look at Lydia. She frowned. “But Ben’s the one who gave us the assignment. He wouldn’t trick us like that.”

“Yeah, I know.” I paused. “Maybe they just didn’t know how difficult it’d be.”

The moment I said the words, I felt like I was choking on them. Like a lie had lodged in my throat and started strangling me. We made our way back to the headquarters and the knot of dread forming in my stomach got larger and larger until we walked through the doors and stole a glance at the people around us.

The rank-and-file were there again, and gave us a hero’s welcome, but after we had the chance to drop off our suitcases and equipment, the anxiety started up once more. We were summoned into Wallace Alexander’s office for a report on our mission, but the closer we got to it, the more I noticed the looks of scorn the elders and their assistants shot our way. One woman frowned when she saw us. I read pity in her eyes. My inner alarms started screaming at me to grab Lydia and run for the doors, but we walked into the office and sat down like the obedient people we were.

As soon as the door shut, though, I knew we’d made a huge mistake.

Wallace turned to face us. We sat in the chairs on the other side of his desk. He paused by the door and stared at us for a few seconds, then drew in a deep breath. “Your little game has finally reached an expiration date,” he said, folding his hands in front of his waist.

I raised an eyebrow. Lydia blinked. “Excuse me?” she asked.

He glanced at her, an eyebrow lifted. “Miss Dawes, when I allowed you and your brother to join this Order, I told you that if I suspected you were here to cause trouble, there would be grave consequences. Do you remember this?”

“Yes, and I told you we understood.”

“Yes, you did.” Wallace paced closer to his desk. “If I remember correctly, you agreed my point was crystal clear.”

“What does this have to do with the price of rice in China?” I asked, lounging in my chair. “We haven’t caused any trouble. In fact, we just got back from staking a dark magician.”

“I’m well aware of what you just did, Mr. Dawes.” He sat in his chair and steepled his fingers. “It might surprise you to learn I’m actually very disappointed you were successful in your mission.”

“I beg your pardon?” I asked.

His voice rose in volume and became sharp. Angry. “It was a challenge, Mr. Dawes. A challenge I assigned specifically so you might fail. As I just said, your little game has finally reached its expiration date and while I hoped that mission would take care of the matter, apparently we need to make a public spectacle out of you.”

Lydia glanced at me, looking like somebody’d just told us Elvis was alive and living in our basement. “Maybe… if you could explain what game you think we’re playing?” she asked.

“Oh, I know it, Miss Dawes. I see it every day you’re here. You and your brother gallivant around these headquarters as though you’ve become the public relations team for vampire equality. You make friends and do your best to try undermine everything we teach about how dangerous vampires are.”

“Whoa.” I held up a hand. “We might be friendly to the people around us, but we’ve never tried to say vampires aren’t dangerous.”

“Besides,” Lydia added, “I didn’t realize us making friends wasn’t allowed.”

I nodded. “Maybe, just maybe, they’re learning they’re not all the monsters you keep trying to make them out to being.”

Wallace stared us both down. “Are you finished?” The office fell deathly silent. I locked eyes with him and his scowl turned into a glare. “Good. Because you won’t find me as easily deceived as the people you’re been trying to brainwash. And it is for the sake of this Order, its mission, and its integrity that I and the Council have voted to make an example of you both. You have been trying for weeks to inspire rebellion. Abject rebellion and don’t think for a moment I believe you aren’t well aware of what your father and his so-called companion are doing.”

“You mean Victor?” I grinned smugly. “I’m aware you’re full of shit. That’s all I know.”

Wallace slammed his fist onto his desk. Lydia and I both jumped. “Enough!” he shouted. “I have had enough of the both of you and this circus sideshow act you’ve been orchestrating in my Order.” I watched him press a button on his phone and lean close to the speaker. “Jennifer, send in the seers.”

“The seers?” Lydia asked as a reflex. The door opened and we both shot our attention toward the two men who walked in, heavily armed and holding shackles in their hands. My eyes widened and Lydia turned whiter than a ghost.

“Yes, seers.” Wallace nodded at them both. “Restrain them and take them down to the cellar.”

“Whoa.” I shot up to my feet and held out my hands. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m taking action.” Wallace raised an eyebrow at me. “You both have been charged with subversion. Like I said, we are going to make an example out of you and the example is this.” His eyes shot to Lydia. “You and your kind are nothing more than demons who would kill your own brother if starved for long enough. The rest of this Order is going to watch you both in a cell and see these so-called instincts of yours at work. And after you kill your brother, you will be staked.”

“Oh God,” Lydia murmured in a small voice.

The two seers advanced toward her and I shook my head. “Oh, no you don’t,” I said and charged for the first seer with all my might. While I expected to be able to tackle him down onto the ground, he held up a hand and threw me onto my back with his telekinesis. “Fuck,” I murmured after my head impacted with the floor. “Two master seers.”

The first one walked toward me while the other strong-armed Lydia and forced her hands behind her back. I didn’t have the chance to see what he did to her as I kept trying to stand and kept getting sent back down by the first seer’s psychic powers. He tossed me onto my stomach and pressed my face against the carpet while securing the shackles around my wrists. “You motherfucker,” I murmured.

He pulled me to my feet. The other seer shoved Lydia forward. I glared at Wallace as we walked out of his office, but then kicked and screamed and bucked as hard as possible while a crowd of onlookers watched the seers escort us to the elevator. I almost freed myself long enough to run when we reached the prison cells in the basement, but the seer threw me back onto the ground and this time, my head hit unforgiving concrete when it impacted.

I felt a cut on my forehead weeping blood and the room spun long enough for him to shove me into a cell and remove the shackles from around my wrists. His partner threw Lydia in with me and closed the door before either of us could react. I tried everything. I raised my hands and attempted to summon any of my abilities, but none of them seemed to work.

“Don’t bother,” Lydia finally said. “The cell’s protected with magic.”

“Son of a bitch.” I stood and slapped the bars with my hand, murmuring under my breath after the impact caused my fingers to throb. I ripped them through my hair. “What the fuck are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know.” The sound of Lydia’s voice forced me to turn around and face her. For the first time, it truly hit me what was happening. I had been locked in a cell guarded with a spell preventing me from using my abilities. With me was my vampire sister who wouldn’t harm a hair on my head, but starved? I frowned. Without blood, she would get weaker and weaker and one of these days, she would snap and her instincts would get the best of her. She’d drain me as dry as a vampire can and then they’d drag her out and stake her for killing a seer.

My knees felt weak. I slid to the ground and sat there, staring at her and shaking my head. “How long can we hold out?”

She glanced at me, looking frightened. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to starve myself before, John.”

I nodded, tempted to mirror the look in her eyes. “What if you fed from me a little here and there?”

“I could do a few swallows every few days, but…” She trailed off.

Frowning, I walked over to my sister and hugged her. Sitting beside her, I sighed, wrapping an arm around her as much to be comforted as to comfort her. I could hear the rest of her sentence just fine. ‘… but at some point it’s not going to be enough.’ Maybe if she had been Dad’s age, or Robin’s; definitely if she was Victor’s she might be able to hold out a little longer, but as it was, past a few days, we’d be living on borrowed time.

“What’ll we do ‘till then?” I asked, not realizing I meant until the end came for me.

“Sleep, I guess.” Lydia shrugged. “Conserve our energy.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, sis.” I rubbed her shoulder. “I’m glad I have you. We’ll get through this somehow.”

Lydia nodded, but didn’t answer. I realized I fell silent after a while, too, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say that didn’t sound like false hope. How would we get through it? Who’d come charging in to save the day when it was obvious we wouldn’t be able to save ourselves? I ached for home, for Delilah, and for the second time in two days I wished I was with her – home – instead of there. Unless The Fates had some card up their sleeve to play, though, we were screwed.

“Maybe if we hold out long enough, somebody’ll issue a protest,” I said, breaking the silence.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

I inhaled deeply and nodded again, but didn’t say anything else. At some point, I paced, and soon after that, I fell asleep. Our first day in the cell passed without anything momentous happening, but I knew the battle’d just begun. 

“Shit.” Glancing in the rearview mirror, I threw the transmission into reverse and slammed hard on the gas while twisting the wheel. My black Mustang peeled backward, out of the parking spot, and righted itself until it faced the road ahead of us. I stole a quick look at Lydia and frowned. “How’re you doing, sis?”

Her haunted eyes shifted from the windshield to me. “Get us the hell out of here, John,” she said. Lydia hugged her chest like she was cold, but being a vampire and all… Let’s just say, I knew exactly why she was doing it.

It was kind of hard for me to forget it myself.

“Getting us out of here,” I said. I focused on the road ahead, shifting into drive and hitting the accelerator. Rubber spun and stuck and with that, we barreled out of the airport parking where my car had been sitting for three months. Three months spent with the fucking Order and the shit finally hit the fan. The Interstate would be next and from there, we could get the hell out of Seattle.

“Do you need to feed again?” I merged onto the busy freeway, forced to slow when we hit a sea of cars. The sun had just set a few hours ago. Fucking rush hour traffic.

“We’ll worry about that closer to dawn.”

I nodded. As I came to a stop behind a minivan, I looked at Lydia again. “If you need my wrist before then… .”

She shook her head emphatically and closed her eyes. I frowned. Lydia had spent so many days repeating the mantra that she wouldn’t feed from me and even now, I could tell she hadn’t gotten over it. I wasn’t about to argue with her, either. Nodding, I left it at that. The car fell silent for a few moments.

“Where are we headed?” she finally asked.

“I don’t know.” My Mustang crawled forward a few yards and stopped again. “We need to get ahold of Dad and Victor.”

“Do you have your phone?”

“In the glove box.”

I heard her open the glove compartment, but didn’t look at her again. Instead, I listened to her press buttons and ripped my fingers through my hair, my hand shaking slightly. The adrenaline of the last hour started to work out of me and I knew I’d need a cup of coffee and something to eat to make it wherever we were going. Stopping for anything else seemed too risky, though. I didn’t want them to get ahold of us again.

Hard to believe, but only two weeks ago, Lydia and I had been sitting with my weapons instructor, a master seer named Ben, receiving orders for what would be our second mission. The first mission had been tricky, but we made it out the other side with only a few scratches and a bruise or two to show for it. The other watchers and seers-in-training applauded us and looked at me and Lydia both like we were heroes. I couldn’t have been happier. Finally, a vampire was receiving some recognition by the Order as something other than a killing machine.

Maybe I was stupid to think our problems ended there. Granted, I knew Wallace Alexander, my great-uncle and the head of the Order’s High Council, had it out for us, but I didn’t know how badly. Stuck in the trenches with the rank-and-file, things looked to be going pretty good for Lydia and me. People liked us. Ben had started respecting me after weeks of giving me shit and I had the chance to talk to him more about the first mission we went on and how I could do better the next time. He listened to me and patted me on the back for a job well done, all said.

Things snowballed from there, though.

While Lydia and I were in Seattle to fulfill our calling, we still had other very pressing things to figure out. Namely, what led my sister to drawing out my powers in the first place, the reason why we traveled across the country to the front step of a place we once considered a prison. The videos. They had started spreading like wildfire around the internet, implicating Victor’s bloodline as being nothing more than sadistic monsters when we knew nothing could be further from the truth. Prior to my first mission, I wandered the halls and heard dear ol’ Uncle Wally chatting about Victor and Dad. Before the second one, I decided to take another late night stroll.

Maybe this is why we got in trouble. I don’t know if one event led to another, I just know how they played out. We had already warned Dad and Victor they were on the Order’s radar screen, but this wasn’t enough. Slipping through the vacant halls, I crept up on Wallace’s office and heard my cousin David talking. I raised an eyebrow. Pressing my back against the wall, I waited and relaxed only when I realized nobody else was in the administrative wing at this time of night. That was right around the time David went on to say, “We have our reasons to believe Victor Mason is knee-deep in dark magic.”

I blinked. My future maker wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole, and neither would my Dad let him without a fight. I came close to barging into the office to tell them they were both full of shit. That is, until Wallace responded with, “Like the other two reports we’ve been investigating?”

Other two reports? Now, I was interested.

“Yes.” David cleared his throat. “We… might have more of an epidemic than we thought.”

“Who would have known Peter Dawes would be that ignorant?” Wallace scoffed. “I knew we should have killed him sixteen years, when we had the chance. He’s been looking for a way to retaliate and we honestly shouldn’t be surprised.”

“So, you believe Peter Dawes is doing this willingly?”

“Nobody forces him to do anything. He might have even presented the offer to Mr. Mason; what’s so hard to imagine about that? Find an ambitious vampire on the other side of the fence and give him a way to access dark magic.” The next few words came out in a lower tone of voice. “He’s going to equip them all for Armageddon.”

There was a pause. “You think he’s plotting something grand scale?” David asked.

“What else should we believe? Of all the bloodsuckers in the Lamiae, he gets cozy with someone in politics?”

“So, this is a conspiracy, then.”

“One gets the power, the other gets the revenge.”

David grunted. “I wonder why The Fates haven’t sent us any warnings.”

The sound of leather creaking preceded my Uncle Wallace speaking with what I could imagine was a slimy grin on his face. “Because we are already on the case, David.”

“Good point.” They shared a chuckle. My skin wanted to crawl. I dashed away and found Lydia, telling her what I’d overheard the moment I found her. The entire thing was utter bullshit – Dad and Victor married and bonded for love. While I knew Victor did hold a decent position in his bloodline, he never threw his weight around like he was entitled by the universe. What Lydia and I both agreed on, though, was neither of them would ever betray the other for something like vengeance or power. It would break both their hearts.

“I keep thinking about what you said… about the other reports,” Lydia said after a few moments of silence settled between us. She sat at her desk and I, on the edge of her bed.

Looking up at her, I raised an eyebrow. “We could always pull the trump card,” I said.

“What trump card?”

“The passwords.”

Lydia furrowed her brow at me. “You think we should?”

“Somehow, this is all tied together. I can feel it.” I lifted a hand to start enumerating items. “The videos, the paranoia, the fact that the videos only out Victor’s bloodline, and this weird suspicion that Dad and Victor are in cohorts to do something stupid. If they have other reports, I can’t help but wonder…”

“… if this has something to do with why they have it out for Victor’s bloodline.”

I nodded slowly. “We’re missing a piece to the puzzle, but this all seems to be related.”

“Yeah, I agree.” She glanced away, then looked back at me. “Did you say Wallace and David were the only ones in the office?”

“Yeah.” I cocked a thumb toward the door. “I didn’t see many other people out, either. It’s getting to be that hour.”

She nodded. “Let’s give it another couple of hours. Do you still have them memorized?”

I tapped the side of my head. “Locked away in the ol’ noggin.”

“Great.” She spread her lips in a broad smile and I had to mirror it. In the space of a minute, we went from speculating to plotting espionage and the thought made me rub my hands together in anticipation. By the time we crept out into the dark corridors winding back toward the offices, I felt the hair on the back of my neck standing up, a rush of adrenaline shooting through my veins.

The passwords. They were given to us by Lydia’s former boyfriend Zach, who once worked as his uncle’s assistant before he flew the coop himself. Our gateway into the Supernatural Order’s intel. The moment we found his uncle’s office, I focused on the door’s lock like Dad had taught me and listened to it turn until it clicked. Twisting the knob, I swung the door open and we slipped inside before shutting the door behind us. The office was dark, but we didn’t risk turning on any lights in case security came strolling by. Instead, I sat in the plush office chair and waited for the computer to power up.

A few keystrokes later, we found ourselves staring at shit labelled ‘Classified Information: For Approved Eyes Only.’ Sorting through the documents related to Dad and Victor only told us a lot of the same stuff we already knew. Once we scrolled past the most recent correspondence, something jumped out at Lydia and she pointed at the screen. “That. Click on that,” she said.

I read the subject line and nodded. ‘Updated Information: The Lamiae and Revenir Bloodlines and Dark Magic.’ “Huh, there’s that word again,” I said while the message loaded. “Lamiae. I think that’s their designation for Victor’s bloodline.”

Lydia nodded and we both began to read.

Lydia and I stared at the screen, our mouths hung agape, for what seemed like minutes. Finally, I muttered, “So, that’s the reason behind all of this? That’s fucked up.”

“You said it.” Lydia frowned. “We definitely have to let Dad and Victor know about this.”

“Damn straight we do.” We clicked through a few other documents, even finding the one marked ‘The Final Resolution’, but it only told us more of the same. There had been a meeting, the Order decided to start farming videos of the Lamiae, and everything happening now was because of the people surrounding us every day. And now, they were after our family.

When Ben pulled Lydia and I aside to tell us about our second mission, I had it in the back of my mind the entire time. That would be when we would call Dad and Victor, to let them know with Delilah and Robin what was going on.

Little did I know what would happen when we returned.