Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Crystal ❯ Chapter 13

Crystal, Chapter 13:

 

 

At an ungodly hour when not even the birds were awake yet, my mother knocked tentatively at my bedroom door. I grumbled something; she took it as `come in,' and pushed the door open. Johnny and I both squinted in the light from the hallway. I guess it wasn't so early after all.

 

“Are you awake?” she whispered.

 

Johnny groaned, and rolled over. “We are now,” he said, sitting up.

 

“Yay!” My little brothers barreled into the room and jumped all over Johnny, pulling the covers away from me. Mom quickly averted her eyes, but she needn't have bothered. Johnny and I were both decent.

 

“Hey! Quit it!” I said, as one of Kevin's feet caught me in the side of my jaw. He seemed to have recovered from his ordeal yesterday with the resilience all kids were known for. The older I got, the more I missed that resilience.

 

“Boys, over here,” my mother said sternly. “We talked about this, remember?”

 

Reluctantly, my two brothers climbed off the bed and went to stand by my mother's side.

 

“What time is it?” I asked, pushing back the covers and stretching my arms above my head. I had on my summer jammies, basically a tank top and shorts.

 

“Ten,” my mother said shortly. She seemed nervous. She took a deep breath. “Johnny, I want you to taste the boys' blood,” she said in a rush. “If anything happens, I want to know that they're yours.”

 

What? If anything, my mother had been paranoid about that very subject. She was too aware of the boys' bloodline and wanted them to grow up first, without being initiated into Johnny's world. Unlike me. She was afraid that once they did, they would choose it, like I had.

 

Johnny sat stone still. In his mind, the boys already belonged to him. He had been there since they were born. He didn't need to taste their blood to make it official. Wasn't yesterday proof of that? Kevin and Ian already had his protection.

 

“Please?” My mother asked again. My little brothers stood uncharacteristically quiet beside her.

 

Slowly, Johnny stood up. He motioned for me to come to him, and I did. Johnny still wore his clothes from yesterday, the ones he had put on after we both had showered. The first set had been covered in blood. I saw my mother's eyes widen. What did she think? Last night was about comfort and security. Otherwise, I would have locked my door.

 

Kevin stepped forward, nudged by my mother, and stuck out one hand, palm up.

 

Johnny's lips twitched.

 

Ian immediately copied his big brother.

 

My mother, dismayed, hurried over. “Not like that, like this,” she said, showing them how to cup two hands together. “Now, what do you say?”

 

“Blood-of-my-blood,” the two boys sing-songed.

 

“Do they even know what that means?” I asked, skeptical.

 

Johnny, still fighting not to smile, knelt down so that he was at eye level with my little brothers. “Do you?” he asked, letting his eyes flash once to my mother's face before she could answer. He wanted to hear it from their lips.

 

Kevin nodded. “We want you to taste our blood.”

 

“You're not scared?”

 

Both boys shook their heads. They weren't scared, not of Johnny, although Kevin at least seemed a little apprehensive of the formality of the situation. Johnny was usually their playmate.

 

“Donnie likes blood,” Ian quipped, and finally a spill of laughter passed Johnny's lips.

 

“So I do,” he agreed. “I promise it won't hurt.” He carefully pierced Kevin's palm and took a little sip of the blood that quickly pooled there. “Crystal.” He called me over to taste, too.

 

I wasn't sure what to expect, whether or not to feel guilty for tasting Kevin's blood. He was my brother, after all. But the words flowed out of me after I tasted, and as I said, `blood of my enemies,' I realized I was giving him my protection, too. Johnny took a final sip and repeated the phrase, giving my brother his official protection.

 

Kevin stared at his unblemished hand in wonder. “It didn't hurt!”

 

“Me next, me next!” cried Ian, jumping up and down. He forgot to hold out his cupped hands until Johnny picked him up, then he twisted in Johnny's arms and put his two hands together like he was going to get a drink of water. His eyes got big. “Blood of my blood,” he whispered shyly, ducking his head.

 

Johnny held Ian's two small hands in one of his and repeated the process, tasting, letting me taste, and offering back the ritual response. The boys were ours now, by blood and by blood. My mother sagged with relief.

 

“Do you want to taste my blood?” Johnny asked, and my mother immediately stiffened up. That wasn't what she had intended. Again, Johnny fixed her with an implacable stare. She was not to interfere. The boys must answer on their own, never mind their tender ages.

 

“Okay!” Ian looked expectantly at Johnny's hands, and Johnny chuckled, setting him down and sitting on the edge of my bed.

 

“Just a taste,” he said, using his teeth to make a neat hole in his own palm.

 

Ian solemnly bent to drink from Johnny's outstretched hand. He straightened out. “It's good!” he proclaimed, earning him another chuckle from the big, bad vampire.

 

“Do you want to try?” Johnny asked Kevin.

 

Kevin did. With a pleased grin, he bent to take a sip. “That was cool! Can we do it again?”

 

Johnny glanced at my mother. She was pale, but resigned.

 

“We'll see,” he told Kevin, tousling his hair. “You know what we did means you belong to me now. Outside of your mom and dad—,“ he glanced at me—“and Crystal—you never ever talk about it. Right?”

 

“We know!” Kevin replied. “Mommy told us.” He tilted his head and gazed at Johnny appraisingly. “You belong to me now, too,” he said. “Right?”

 

Johnny answered him seriously. “That's right.”

 

For some reason, that made my mother feel better. She brightened up, smiling, and shooed the boys out of my room. “I trust you,” she said to Johnny, just before she closed the door. She could have been talking about his influence over the boys' lives from this point on, but I don't think that was it.

 

I yawned, and sat down on the bed beside Johnny. I could hear the boys running down the stairs, racing for the remote control in the living room. I sighed. “Might as well get dressed,” I said, all thoughts of snuggling out of my mind. Mom trusted Johnny not to take advantage of me. Damn. He kissed me softly. I could still taste blood on his lips. “Damn,” I whispered out loud.

 

“I've got to go rest,” he said.

 

The sun was a faint white line around the seam of my door. “I know.” I sighed again. “I wish I could go with you.”

 

“Soon.” Johnny tied his sneakers and shrugged his jacket on. He raised the hood to protect his face. When he opened the curtains to leave, the sun hit me full in the face.

 

“Ouch!” I said, and dove under the covers.

 

I heard Johnny's chuckle as he pulled the curtains closed behind him. When I poked my head out again, he was gone.

 

 

Making arrangements to leave the country took some time. Johnny had been thinking quick when he asked Michael to get him a fake passport like they had done for my two brothers. Obviously, they had planned to kidnap my brothers from the beginning, as they had gone to a lot of trouble to create false passports for them. Now that their little plot had been foiled, there was no way Mom would allow the use of the two fake passports. Trouble was, getting real passports took a long time, time we didn't have. So far, Uncle Robert had convinced his sons to abide by Johnny's wishes—Johnny's command—and not mention anything to their counterparts in Scotland. But they had to tell their mother something. She had known about the plan to take the boys and possibly me, too. When her sons didn't show up as scheduled, she called. Uncle Robert made sure he was there to monitor the conversation between his ex-wife and his sons.

 

There had to be others involved besides the ex-Mrs. Brown of Scotland. Johnny was sure he recognized the vampire from the picture I'd drawn. But for reasons of his own, Johnny insisted we could not tell this vampire, whom Paul and Michael still denied existed, about him. Maybe he wanted to surprise him, or maybe it had shaken Johnny up more than he wanted to admit when the Scottish vampire had orchestrated this kidnapping to obtain more of us who carried the family blood. I think Johnny wanted to stake his own claim to us, in person. Or maybe I was completely wrong, and there was something between Johnny and this other vampire that I couldn't begin to guess at.

 

So Paul and Michael told their mother that there had been a slight change in plans, that Kenny and Lisa, my parents, would be coming to Scotland with their family for an extended visit so there was no need for them to go through with their original plans. Their mother had been suspicious, but Paul was a sweet-talker, and eventually she believed him. She was good. There was no mention in any of their conversations of other people, or vampires. She was less pleased when she learned that Uncle Robert, her ex, was coming with us, and so was my boyfriend Don. In fact, she was annoyed, according to Uncle Robert, when Paul told her I already had a boyfriend. In her mind, Paul had not done enough to convince me to follow my destiny and marry him so we could do our bit to strengthen the family blood.

 

In the meantime, I continued taking my driving lessons, babysitting my brothers, craving blood, and daydreaming about what it would be like to meet another vampire. What would he think of me? I was excited about our trip, but scared at the same time. I didn't want anything to change between Johnny and me, and I had a feeling that everything was going to change once he found his brother vampire again.

 

Paul and Michael were stuck here until Johnny's passport came through. They had contacts who knew nothing of our family or vampires, but who were very good at counterfeiting passports, among other things. It made me wonder what other things our Scottish cousins were into. Then again, Johnny had nefarious contacts, too. It came with the territory, I guess.

 

At first, Paul stayed far away from me. Both he and Michael thought of Johnny as something otherworldly, so far removed from us that they couldn't comprehend how the rest of us treated Johnny as one of the family. They might all talk about us being from one family, but to the Scottish brothers, there was the human branch, and there were the blood-drinkers.

 

And then there was me. Paul didn't know what to make of me. I was definitely from the human branch, but I drank blood. I wasn't a vampire, but I was. I didn't fit his neat little world view. He found me at the little library again, where I had taken my brothers for storytime, and we talked a little. Afterward, we walked home together, with Paul glancing warily around him every so often.

 

“It's okay, he's resting,” I finally said.

 

“That's not—maybe it is,” Paul said, smiling ruefully. “I don't want him to get the wrong idea about us. If I had known, I would never—“

 

“I know. He knows, too,” I said. I smiled back. “It doesn't mean we can't still be friends.”

 

I gave the boys their lunch, then had them settle down for quiet time. Kevin was getting too old for naps and Ian hardly ever slept, so quiet time was about as good as I was going to get. Paul and I sat on the porch, where it was shady and cooler than the rest of the house.

 

“Crystal.” Paul turned to look at me, really look at me. He peered into my face and finally shook his head. “How is it possible that you drink blood like a—like him? You're still human, I know you are.”

 

“I'm human,” I replied. “But there are cases in our family's history where some of us are able to become blood-drinkers. Isn't that what you wanted my brothers for?”

 

“Yes, but they have the double-blood that is necessary. You just have it on your mother's side. . . . “ Paul's voice faded away. “Your father's name is not in the records. I thought it was because he wasn't related to the family. He was, though, wasn't he? Who is he? Who is your father, Crystal?”

 

“None of us thought he had family blood,” I admitted. “We found out by accident several years ago, right before my parents, my current parents,” I clarified, “got married.”

 

“So who is he?” Paul asked again. “Why wasn't he added to the list once you found out?”

 

I just gave him a look. It took him a moment to realize what I meant. “Oh,” he said. Then, “Why wouldn't Johnny want anybody to know your true bloodline—oh!” His face reddened. “How long has he been feeding you blood, Crystal? This isn't something recent, is it?”

 

“A long time. Before we knew about my father, we started the blood exchange. Once we realized I had strong strains of the family blood from both sides, we knew it would work.” Or, I knew. Johnny still had a few doubts because he couldn't remember how the entire process was supposed to work. I didn't say that part out loud.

 

“And you want this?” Paul gestured. This—this life, my future as a blood-drinker. Johnny.

 

“Oh, yes,” I said softly.

 

“I would have made children with you, and our children would be groomed for this life,” Paul said dreamily. “If things had been different.” It was the closest he had ever come to admitting there was a vampire in Scotland. He would have needed a vampire to complete the process.

 

He sat up straight. “We need to find out where your father came from,” he said suddenly.

 

“Why? He doesn't know anything about us, about the blood. He was adopted.”

 

“It matters,” Paul replied. “Look at Michael and me. We didn't know about our father's family history until it was nearly too late.”

 

I smiled. His father's `family history' had nearly killed him!

 

“I'll take my chances,” I said drily.

 

“You really consider him your boyfriend, don't you?”

 

“Johnny? Of course, he is my boyfriend. Why?”

 

“What do you think will happen when you finally join him, when you finally become a true vampire in every sense?”

 

“You mean when I go under the water?”

 

Paul winced. “Yeah.”

 

“Why should anything change?” I asked. I would join Johnny under the water and we would rest, away from the burning light of the sun, until we woke up. Okay, so I would just drink blood instead of drinking blood and eating food, like I was doing now. But nothing important would change for me, really. Johnny and I would stay the same age as long as we continued to go under the water periodically. That's how it worked. I even got the bigger picture, that my family would get older and eventually pass on, but they understood about me and Johnny. They would have no regrets, and neither would I.

 

“He's not like us. They're not like us,” Paul said. “The blood is everything.”

 

Paul was wrong. The blood was great, wonderful, life-giving, but I didn't need it. Johnny didn't need it. We loved each other, and that was more important than blood. “You're wrong,” I told Paul. “Johnny is exactly like us.”

 

Maybe I told him more than I should have.