Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Crystal ❯ Chapter 15

Crystal, Chapter 15:

 

 

We landed in Dublin to change planes, and from there, it was a hop, skip and a jump—literally—to Edinburgh. Michael had left his car at the airport, so after we cleared customs, we drove out of the airport. To my disappointment, we bypassed Edinburgh completely.

 

“You don't want to go there,” Michael said, uncharacteristically garrulous now that he was back on home ground. “The traffic is horrid.”

 

It already was horrid. Johnny and I sat in back this time with Uncle Robert as we inched our way out of the airport proper trying to get to the main highway, or motorway, as Michael called it. I tried not to look as we seemed to be going the wrong way to my newly-trained driver senses. For once, I had no desire to drive.

 

About an hour or two into our journey, Johnny sat up straight, throwing off the blanket he had pulled over his face and arms to ward off the worst of the sun. “I know this place,” he murmured, staring out the window.

 

“Bannockburn?” Michael twisted around in his seat, causing my heart to palpitate wildly since he was the driver. Thankfully, he turned back to concentrate on the road before continuing his conversation. “You were there?” Michael's voice took on an awed tone.

 

Johnny scowled and sunk lower in his seat, not bothering to look out the window any longer. “I want to stop, to rest until dark. Let me out here.”

 

“We were going to stop in Stirling. Can you wait? It's not much farther,” Paul said.

 

“I'll find you,” Johnny said. “Stop the car.”

 

Michael pulled over to the side of the road and Johnny got out, but not before he squeezed my hand and smiled at me. “I'll find you,” he repeated. “Tonight.”

 

I watched him take off, not sure what to make of his sudden disappearance. Michael started up again, and both Scottish brothers were extremely quiet as we continued the drive towards Stirling. We pulled up in front of a very old-looking pub, and stopped there for lunch. It was dark inside, dark enough that Johnny would have been fine if he had stayed with us. I hoped he really did know the area, and maybe knew about some lake where he could get out of the sun. Where was Great Britain's gloomy weather when you needed it?

 

After lunch, we walked around the old town, and Paul explained some of its history to me. Since we had quite a bit of time before dark, we even got to tour the castle. It made me less upset that I had missed Edinburgh.

 

“Why was Michael surprised that Johnny recognized Bannockburn?” I asked.

 

Paul took my arm and walked me around the top of the castle, where we could see the land stretched out all around us. “How much do you know of Johnny's—history?” he asked.

 

Some. What I knew had come to me in flashes of insight over the years. Bits and pieces. I knew Johnny was Eoin. I knew he once killed for blood and promises when his family called upon him, as did all his kind. “You mean about what the vampires did for the family?”

 

Paul nodded. “In the far past, they fought our battles for us, alongside us. Michael and I had no idea Johnny was that old. The battle at Bannockburn was fought in 1314.”

 

I had seen the plaques, read the descriptions of the various battles and historic events which had taken place in this region. Robert the Bruce was at Bannockburn. Many clans had fought with him.

 

“So you're saying that Johnny remembered this place.”

 

“It seems that way.” Paul led me towards the entrance, as the castle was closing shortly. “Has he told you much about his past?”

 

“Johnny? No, not really,” I hedged, not willing to let on that Johnny himself could not remember all of his past. “He was nearly killed in the big vampire purge in the mid sixteen-hundreds,” I said, figuring that much was safe. “That's when he came to America.”

 

“Then he missed the aftermath,” Paul said. I looked at him sharply. Aftermath? What aftermath?

 

“What do you mean? Did something happen?”

 

Paul chuckled and shook his head. “What do they teach you in your schools?” he asked. “I'm talking about what happened in Scotland at the end of the seventeenth century. Your Johnny got out just before it got really bad.”

 

I didn't think so. Johnny and all his kind, and all of the family who were known to carry his blood except the hunters, had been targeted and most had been killed. Paul was talking about history. It wasn't the same thing at all.

 

Johnny found us in the old town, as he said he would. His cheeks looked rosy, and immediately I suspected him of having found himself some blood. The Brown brothers thought so too. All three of us gave Johnny disapproving looks, mine because I was jealous he hadn't waited for me, and the boys because they didn't like the idea of Johnny feeding upon their fellow countrymen, I guess.

 

“Ready?” Johnny asked, cheerful after his day of rest and infusion of fresh blood.

 

Paul took over driving and we resumed our journey, driving at night for Johnny's sake.

 

“Do you mind if we take a slight detour?” Paul asked, heading north and west. “I want to stop at Glen Coe. It's very beautiful, and it has a history I think even Johnny will find interesting. We can spend the day there while Johnny rests, and finish our trip tomorrow evening instead.” He looked in the rearview mirror at Johnny's annoyed expression. “It's important,” he said.

 

I snuggled next to Johnny in the back seat and yawned. “Great. More history,” I murmured. “Wake me up when we get there.”

 

While I dozed, snippets of conversation floated in and out of my consciousness.

 

“. . . . Cromwell,” Paul was saying. “You must remember Montrose at least. . . .”

 

“. . . . not aware. . . . slept beneath my loch for decades until . . . . old Jack woke me up . . . .”

 

In my dream-state, I saw the flames. I smelled them. Johnny, no, Eoin, rushed from the loch towards the burning village, weak from not having taken blood in so long, but eager to protect his people, this new generation of family. Why was old Jack trying to stop him? Johnny shook him off and ran faster. He was in the center of the village now, surrounded by smoke and screams and the smell of blood, but it was wrong somehow. He whirled, trying to pinpoint the enemy, but there was no enemy. I saw a man with a pike slink towards Johnny, and I tried to scream, tried to warn him, but no sound came out. Johnny turned at the last minute and spotted the man, but instead of attacking, or running away, Johnny came towards him, greeting him with the ritual phrase, `blood of my blood, blood of my enemies.' And the man stabbed him. I saw shock and surprise fill Johnny's eyes, and could only watch in helpless horror as one after the other, men from his own village, family, stabbed him over and over and then threw his unmoving body onto the burning pyre in the village center. I sobbed, wrenching myself awake.

 

“Are you all right?” Johnny's arm came around me and I realized we still sat in the darkened back of Michael's car. I nodded and surreptitiously wiped my eyes.

 

“He doesn't remember,” I said sullenly to the Brown brothers in the front seat. “He was sleeping and he didn't know what had happened. Stop asking him about it.” I wasn't sure who I was trying to protect—Johnny, or me—from the awful memory of that final night.

 

Johnny tightened his arm, drawing me closer. “Did you have a vision?” he whispered, and I nodded.

 

“They burned you,” I said in a low voice. “I saw it.”

 

“I'm fine now,” Johnny assured me, his voice softly amused. “It was a long time ago.”

 

The first rays of dawn were just hitting the tops of curving mountain peaks, and I realized that we were parked. This must be Glen Coe. I sat up and looked out the window. “It is beautiful,” I said, watching as the sun lit up the mountains and the soft fold of a valley down below. “Now, why are we here?”

 

Michael started up the car, switching places again with Paul, and we drove through some breathtaking scenery as dawn broke. Even Johnny watched in fascination, regardless of the ever-lightening sky.

 

“Our blood can be found in many of the highland clans,” Paul said, “or at least it could be found, long ago. We don't belong to any particular sept or clan, but instead, traces of our blood can be found in several of them. After the purge which killed off most of our blood, including the vampires,” Paul glanced uneasily at Johnny, who showed no reaction and continued to stare out the window, “there were still branches who had family blood, mostly weak strains, and most of them didn't know they carried our bloodline. It was a double tragedy when clansmen were massacred at Glen Coe. We lost good countrymen and we also lost family here, whether they knew it themselves or not. It happened after you left Scotland,” Paul continued, talking just to Johnny now. “It wasn't the first, or the last, but it was the most memorable. I thought you should know.”

 

Johnny stopped peering out the window. “And now?” he asked. “Are there any places in Scotland for our people? Or are they all dead?”

 

“We exist,” Paul replied. “In many instances we had to leave our homes to escape persecution, or from political unrest, or were cleared off our lands simply to make way for sheep. It was the same for all of the highlanders, not only those who carried our bloodline. Those of us with family blood were persecuted as well as by those you call `hunters,' who used to be the strongest of our people. They were the ones who killed us without mercy.”

 

“But not all of you.” Johnny said it flatly, with no emotion.

 

“Not all of us. Not all of the keepers of our family lore agreed with the purge. Some of us protected those who carried our blood. We had to leave our ancestral villages and settle in other places, to muddy the waters, so to speak, of the keepers who still hunted for those of our bloodline.”

 

I leaned forward. “So where you live now isn't necessarily the same village your branch of the family originally was from?”

 

“That's right,” Paul agreed. “My mother's ancestors were keepers who protected their blood during those turbulent times.”

 

Michael pulled into a parking space in front of a bed and breakfast. We had come to the town of Glencoe, where we would spend the day while Johnny rested. Already, I was disliking this vacation if it meant I had to be separated from Johnny at every turn. But I could see that the light of the sun was bothering him already. He needed to rest.

 

“You didn't just protect the humans who carried our blood, did you?” asked Johnny. “You protected your blood-drinker as well.”

 

Paul exchanged a glance with his brother, who shook his head. “I'm sorry, Johnny,” he said. “As much as I would like to tell you what you want to hear, I can't. Michael and I owe you our lives, and more, if you are the blood-drinker of our father's people, but we have a prior obligation we must discharge first. I wish I could tell you more.”

 

Johnny grinned. “You just did.”

 

Johnny accompanied us into the hotel, where we all shared one big space. We would sleep for a few hours, then wait for nightfall to finish the last leg of our trip, back up across Scotland, heading steadily north, towards a village where Paul and Michael's mother awaited our arrival, and possibly one of Johnny's brothers slept beneath their deep loch. Neither one of them had any idea yet that we were bringing a vampire with us.

 

“Are you tired?” Johnny asked me. He stood close to the door, and I knew he wouldn't stay.

 

“Not that much,” I lied, trying not to yawn. I had slept in the car a little bit.

 

“Want to go for a quick walk?”

 

Uncle Robert glanced up in surprise. He still found it hard to believe that Johnny could function during the day. I didn't bother to tell him that it cost Johnny dearly, or that he made up for it by drinking more blood. Didn't want to scare our allies any more than we already had.

 

I nodded, pleased to have a little time to spend with Johnny by myself. Michael was already snoring softly on the pullout sofa in the corner, and Paul was taking a shower. “I'll be back in a little while,” I told Uncle Robert.

 

Johnny pulled up his hood as we walked steadily through the town. There was a lake on the edge of the village, and I knew that's where Johnny would leave me. Like everything else here, it was beautiful. I kissed Johnny, as we walked along the edges looking for an unobtrusive spot.

 

“You know how to get back?” he asked me, pulling me close for a last hug.

 

“Yeah,” I replied, not letting go.

 

“Do you trust me?” His voice whispered in my ear.

 

“Yes.”

 

He held me tighter. With me still in his embrace, he had us kneel down on the very edge of the lake. His lips came down and sought out my neck, and I closed my eyes. I knew it wouldn't hurt, and it didn't. I thought he would take a taste of my blood to last him through the day, but he intended to do our blood exchange, which we hadn't done since we left Lockwood. He didn't let go of me, but he bit his own wrist and, still clasped together on the banks of the lake, he let me drink.

 

“Soon,” he promised, as we reluctantly let go of each other and stood up, “You will be able to pierce my neck on your own.”

 

My eyes lit up. “Really?” I asked, and he laughed. I watched him walk into the water and disappear.