Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Crystal ❯ Chapter 27

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Crystal, Chapter 27:


We stood at the edge of Lachlan’s loch.  Johnny kept a tight grip around my waist.  Only the vampires had accompanied us on this final leg of my journey.  Uncle Robert and Rose stayed up at the house, and Michael had gone home so that Paul could come, but Paul had not arrived yet.  It was just as well.  This was a ceremony for blood-drinkers.

I shivered.  Johnny stroked my hair.  “It will be all right,” he murmured.

“I want to go home,” I mumbled into his chest.

“Soon,” he said.  “Once you’ve changed, you’ll feel better, and then we can go home.”

He called it home, too.  I was glad.  A part of me was afraid he would want to stay here, with his family now that he had found them again.  If he stayed, then I would, too.  I had already made up my mind.  But home was Lockwood, and our own lake.

The two women, Halla and Verica, gently pried me away from Johnny and regarded me with solemn eyes.  “We wanted to welcome you as our sister.”  Halla smiled a dimpled smile.  “It’s been a long time since a woman has come among us.  And a child,” her sister, Verica, added, the two speaking in tandem.

Verica made a cut on her palm and held it out to me.  “It will give you strength,” she said.  “Blood of my blood.”

My eyes widened as I realized Verica and her sister were making the blood offering to me!  I accepted, taking just a taste, and to my surprise, Owain, my actual ‘grandfather’ in a sense, made me the offering, too.  “Be strong,” he murmured in my ear as he pressed a quick kiss to my forehead.

I realized that none of them were certain this was going to work.  I could have told them it would; I knew that much.  But this wasn’t my lake, mine and Johnny’s.  I had really wanted it to be our own lake.  As I was now, however, I wouldn’t have been able to endure the plane ride back to the States.  I remembered the trouble Johnny had had, and he was already a true blood-drinker.  “I’m ready,” I said, turning back to Johnny.

I was prepared for what must happen next.  Johnny had to drain me of every drop of blood before he brought me under the water, so that all that sustained my life was that mysterious spark of something that made our line what we are.  Then the healing waters of the loch would take over, and I would awaken a true blood-drinker at last.

I was not prepared for what did happen next.  A silence fell over the gathering, and Johnny pulled me even tighter against him.  He made no move to pierce my throat, and instead stared out across the misty loch.  Something moved out there.  I strained my eyes to make out what it was—a boat?  Not a boat—a person.  My eyes widened.

“I thought she might be yours, Owain,” said Grandfather, jumping easily up the steep bank in dripping clothes.   A big grin split his face.  “She had that taste.  Hello again, Crystal,” he said to me.

Johnny didn’t lessen his grip on me, although his face, and every other’s face had the same astonished look.  “Father,” he said, using the ancient word.

Grandfather dipped his head in acknowledgement.  “Eoin.  You were looking for me?”

“I—“  Johnny hesitated.   His brow furrowed.  “You’ve already met Crystal?  How?  When?”

“At your loch,” I answered for him.  “While you were sleeping.  Grandfather came to me.  We exchanged blood.”

A sudden look of understanding crossed Johnny’s face.  “That’s why,” he said.  “When I awoke, you tasted—different.  Now I know why.”  He stared at his father.  “Crystal is changing,” he told him.  “Did you cause it to happen by giving her your blood?”

Grandfather walked over to us.  Imperceptibly, Lachlan and the others took a step closer as well, so it was all of us on one side and Grandfather on the other.  He stopped, and smiled.  “No,” he answered Johnny.  “Crystal is doing that all on her own.  Now, what is going on here?  Crystal, I thought you were going to wait until the time was right before you completed your change.”

“I wanted to,” I admitted.  “But I woke up and—look.”  I showed Grandfather my teeth too.  It was the easiest way to explain what had happened to me.

“I see.”  Grandfather was amused.  “So you just had to use them, is that it?”

“No, I—I couldn’t control myself!  I wanted blood all the time!  Johnny’s blood helped curb the cravings, a little, but they keep coming back, stronger and stronger.  I hurt Paul, I hurt Johnny, I almost hurt my father.  I don’t want to keep hurting the people I love!  We all decided the safest thing to do was to bring me under the water.  That’s why we’re here tonight.”

The other vampires, even Johnny, had grown completely silent.  It was as if Grandfather and I were the only two people on the beach.  “Your father?”  Grandfather asked.

“He doesn’t know about us,” I quickly said, thinking of my father sleeping deeply upstairs at Rose’s house.  “He did, but then Johnny made him forget, and now he doesn’t remember anything about the family.  He came because we thought we could find out where I came from.  Owain,” I glanced at the silent figure of Owain to Johnny’s right.  “could taste that he was a descendant of his son Ewen.  So, I guess that makes Owain my Grandpa and you my Great-Grandpa,” I finished with a little smile.

“One you didn’t know about?”  Grandfather fixed Owain with an intense stare.

Owain shook his head.  “We didn’t keep track after—after the purges.  There was one son, a sea captain, who went to the Americas.  It could have been one of his descendants.  I taste me in Crystal’s father’s blood.  It is more present in him than it is in her.”

“It’s impossible, unless he has your strain on both sides.  Who are his parents?  His grandparents?  The ancestor would have had to marry one of his own relatives in order for Ewen’s blood to be so prevalent this far down the line.”

“We don’t know,” I said.  “My father doesn’t know, either.  That’s why it’s best that he forget.  What’s done is done.”  I thought of my mother’s father, whose parents had been cousins, and whose birth had been hidden from their families for good reason.  My mother’s strain was powerful in the blood, too.

Grandfather smiled beneficently at me.  “That is your decision.  So be it.  What’s done is done.  Tell me, great-granddaughter, are you really prepared to go under the water tonight?  Once it’s done, as you say, it will be done.  You can’t change your mind.”

We had been through this before, at Johnny’s loch.  Grandfather had asked me this same question three times, and finally, on the third time, I had said ‘no.’  I wanted to wait.  “This isn’t my loch,” I said slowly.  I glanced at the moon.  “And this isn’t the Equinox.  If there were any other way, I would wait until I was home and go under the water at the time of the Equinox.”

“And how do you know this, great-granddaughter?” he asked.  I could tell that the others were curious, too.  Johnny, however, nodded his head sagely as if it all made sense now.  I suppose, to him, it did.  He had known about my special talent since I was six years old.

I shrugged.  “I just do,” I said.

Grandfather laughed.  “Eoin,” he said, stretching out a hand.  “My youngest son, the most human of all my children, will you trust me?”

Johnny held me protectively in his arms.  I could see the frown forming between his eyebrows.  He wasn’t sure he liked being considered the ‘most human.’  “Are you going to change her?” He asked warily.  For that, he would release me to his father.  I felt his arms loosen around me.

“No,” Grandfather replied evenly.  “I will not change her.”

Johnny sucked in a breath and almost drew me back.  Almost.  He caught his father’s gaze and let his arm drop.  Quicker than Johnny, Grandfather had me in his embrace.  He held me in a deliberate mirror of how Johnny had held me when he was about to take my blood and bring me under the water once and for all.  None of the other blood-drinkers moved, but I noticed all their eyes had gone dark and flat, Johnny’s included.  He didn’t look human then; none of them did.

Before Johnny could react, Grandfather bared his throat to me and hissed, “Drink, Crystal.  Blood of my blood.”

How could I resist?  Somewhere on the periphery of my vision I saw Johnny halt his headlong rush and fall to his knees beside us.  I buried my wonderfully sharp teeth in Grandfather’s throat and threw my full weight against him so that we fell, oh so slowly, to the damp sand.  Grandfather must have let me push him, because I wasn’t that strong on my own.  I drank and I drank and I drank.  His blood surged through me, and it was life that filled my veins and made me whole.

“Crystal.  Crystal.”  Vaguely I heard my name.  “Enough.  Let go.”  Gentle arms pulled me back, and I allowed it.  I floated in blissful peace.

Grandfather lay before me on the beach.  His throat, a bloody mess where I had feasted upon it, slowly mended before my eyes.  He raised himself up on his elbows and winked at me.  “Better?” he asked, exactly as Johnny had said it earlier that evening.  The two were very alike.  I smiled.

“Will it hold?” I asked.  “Or will I crave blood again in the morning?”

“Oh, it should hold you until you get home,” Grandfather assured me.  “My blood has nothing human in it to get eaten by the sun.  It won’t last forever, and you will need to go under the water if you still choose my son’s life, but it should give you control until the Equinox at least.”

He raised himself to his knees and gazed around the beach at his sons and daughters of various human mothers over the ages.  His eyes softened.  “My children,” he murmured.  “Can you forgive me?  I was selfish.  I was wrong.  You are human.  I should never have tried to keep you away from your human families.  I almost lost you all.”

He cut open his wrist with a quick slash of his teeth.  All Grandfather’s teeth were sharp, not just the two eyeteeth.  Still kneeling, he held out his wrist, which dripped precious blood all over the sand.  “Come, drink,” he invited them.  “Blood of my blood.  As much as you are human, you are also Mine.”  He said it in the old language, and the meaning, the original meaning, became crystal clear.

One by one, his children knelt before him and accepted the offering from his wrist.  Did he not feel weakness from the loss of so much blood?  He didn’t appear to.  Then again, he was not human at all.  He had told me he liked the taste of blood, but he didn’t need it like we did, with our human bodies and immortal spirits.

“This little girl, this Crystal, has shown us our future.  We had lost sight of our family, but now we have found each other again.”

I hadn’t done anything like that, to my knowledge.  I tried to say so, but nobody listened.  As if the floodgates were suddenly opened, the blood-drinkers all started talking at once.  Grandfather sat in the middle of them all, laughing and talking with them.  I was happy for him, even if I really couldn’t take credit for all of it.

Johnny caught me up from behind and kissed me.  “Little vampire,” he whispered in my ear.  “You are amazing.”

“Not you, too!” I said in dismay.  “All I wanted to do is be with you.”  I snuggled closer to him, glad that the others were distracted.  “Do you think it will work?” I asked.  “Do you think Grandfather’s blood will keep me calm until we get home?”

Johnny’s eyes glinted and he gave me a calculating grin.  “I hope not,” he answered.  “Although I do think you’ll be able to control your blood-craving.  As for the rest, want to test it?”  He tickled me, and I giggled, very un-vampire-like.  It must have looked like something else from a distance, because we both looked up as we heard a shout from the top of the bluff.

“Crystal!”  Paul started running down the path, recklessly, considering it was dark and he was human.  Somehow he made it in one piece.  “Are you all right?” he called out, gasping for air.  He slowed down as he recognized Johnny, who held me possessively and glared at Paul in annoyance.

Paul stopped completely as he found himself in the midst of Johnny’s siblings, staring at yet another blood-drinker, this one taller, older, and very formidable. “Who’s this?” he asked in a small voice.  It had been a rough few days, what with me draining his blood, and with vampires from all over Scotland suddenly appearing in his living room.

Grandfather slowly stood up, all signs of his earlier smiles wiped from his face as if they’d never been.  Lachlan, Paul’s vampire, stood also.  “Speak carefully, Paul,” he warned.  “Or not at all.  That might be best.”

Johnny snorted, and stalked over to Paul, cuffing him lightly on the back of his head.  “Say what you want, Paul,” he advised.  “We’re all family here, right?  Although your timing stinks.  What did you think was happening down here?”

“Who are you?”  Grandfather’s voice cut through Johnny’s little speech.

Paul glanced at Johnny, who gave him no help, then at Lachlan, who sighed and said, “Say what you want.”  I rewarded Lachlan with a big smile, and he looked at me, confused but pleased.  

“Paul Brown,” Paul said, holding out his hand as he would to a new acquaintance.  “Pleased to meet you.”

The vampires collectively held their breaths.  Paul should have immediately made the blood offering to this new vampire, as he would have assumed Grandfather was.  But Grandfather wasn’t nearly as stuffy as Lachlan.  He grinned suddenly, and held out his own hand to shake Paul’s.  “Pleased to meet you,” he said.  “So you’re a relative?  I’m father to this group,” he continued.  “I suppose you can call me Grandfather.  Crystal does.  What are you to Crystal?”  He glanced quickly at Johnny, then back.  “Not her lover.  Cousin?”

Paul blinked rapidly as Grandfather continued to pepper him with questions.

I stepped forward and quickly held up Paul’s wrist.  Fully in control now, I slashed my teeth across it and drank, just a taste, and held it out as it healed to a thin red rash.  “Mine,” I said firmly in our shared language.

That answered that question.

 

 


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