Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Crystal ❯ Chapter 28

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

Crystal, Chapter 28:


Johnny laughed a little too sharply.  “I get it now,” he said.  “Crystal.  I should have guessed.  Yes, Paul is yours.  We are all yours.  But you are mine.”  He gave Paul a fierce look before sweeping me up in his arms once more.  “What next, my Crystal ball?”

I squirmed uncomfortably in his grasp.  I hadn’t asked for this.  It seemed I had acquired an instant family, and they all wanted things from me.  Sure, I saw things sometimes, and I was really, really glad Johnny had found his past.  I liked Lachlan and Owain, I loved Paul like a brother.  But all I wanted right then and there was Johnny.

“Can we get out of here?  Maybe down the road a ways?”

Lachlan looked up and grinned, although he made no move to join us.

“Come, my children.  Paul.”  Grandfather spread his arms wide.  “Introduce me to my other relatives.”  He left no room for disagreement, and started up the hill with the vampires—and Paul—trailing in his wake.

I gulped as I realized he meant not only to meet Robert and Rose, but also my father sleeping in his bed.  His visit might reawaken my father’s memories, but at that point I didn’t care. I didn’t like being the family’s future.  I needed a little time to be plain old me.

I watched them go, Paul in their midst, the sole human in a crowd of blood-drinkers and one other.  I didn’t know exactly what Grandfather was.  Paul didn’t look all that different from most of them, and I realized it was their resemblance to Grandfather that connected them all beyond subtle shades of coloring.

“Come on,” I said to Johnny, taking his hand.  I wanted to see if I was as fast as he was now.  I felt wonderful, more like my old self before the cravings had overwhelmed me, but at the same time more alive, more aware of everything around me.  I still felt desire for blood, maybe I always would from now on, but it no longer ruled me.

We ran through the dark, and it seemed I could see more clearly, but maybe that was my imagination.  My feet seemed faster, too, but it might have been Johnny slowing down to accommodate me.  We passed Michael’s village where Annie and the baby Annalise slept.  I thought briefly of stopping to see them.  Michael would be there with them, surly Michael, now a new father.  I wondered what he really thought about Lachlan’s command to bring him the baby before winter.  He had been willing enough to obey when it was my brothers who were being summoned.  I changed my mind.  Not tonight.  Tomorrow would be soon enough.  “Not here,” I said.

“On down the road,” Johnny agreed, leading me faster.  Johnny must have been this way before with Lachlan, because he led me unerringly to another remote village in the hills, this one a little more affluent with a paved road, a little pub, and a convenience store in the center, surrounded by several houses.  We picked one at random; I let Johnny make the call.  If he had been here before, he would know whether or not any of these people carried our blood.  “You think you can handle it?”  He challenged me with a grin.

“Piece of cake,” I replied, and felt it when my answering grin exposed my teeth.  We entered a back room where two people slept.  Johnny took one, watching even as he drank while I took the other.  All by myself!  It was easy!  It wasn’t so much that I was stronger—technically, I was still human—but I was a lot faster!  Pleased, I drank from the woman’s throat.  Her blood was human with no trace of family in it, which is just what I wanted.  I had no problem stopping after a few mouthfuls either, thanks to the infusion of Grandfather’s non-human blood I had taken earlier.  He said it would last until the Equinox, but then I had to go under the water.  The water would relieve my cravings for blood so when I awoke, I would want blood but not need it so desperately.  That’s why the water was so important.

We left them both sleeping in their bed.  They wouldn’t wake until late morning, so we had the run of their house to ourselves.  We settled in the living room, and Johnny found the television and turned it on.  I curled up next to him on the sofa and rested my head on his shoulder.  What a day.  “Can we go home soon?” I asked, not bothering to raise my head.

Johnny chuckled.  “As soon as Paul can book the flight,” he replied.  He stretched his legs out in front of him, and I shifted so I could lie on his lap.  His eyes were half-closed, and his head was laid back against the sofa.  It was the most relaxed I had seen him since we got here.  I tended to forget that meeting his siblings and finding his father again was not the main purpose of our visit.  Johnny was relieved that I would survive the transition from full human to full blood-drinker.  He had his father’s word on it, even though I had been telling him it would all work out from the beginning.

I was relieved that we would be home to Lockwood to do it.  I sighed.  “This is nice,” I said, meaning the house, the TV, us.    Johnny nodded his agreement.

“There’s a log house near the lake,” he said.  “I happen to know it’s for sale.  It’s very rustic, but private.  I thought I could buy it and maybe we could live there whenever, you know, we wanted a place of our own.  Of course, we would need to get a TV, maybe a computer.”

I sat up and gazed at him incredulously.  “Seriously?  We can do that?  My mom would have a fit!”  It was true.  My mother accepted the fact that I was becoming a vampire, and that I would need to go under the water like Johnny at some point.  But living together?  At my age?  I knew how she thought, and that would not go over well.

Johnny’s carefree tone turned ominous.  “Lisa won’t say a word,” he promised.

Of course she wouldn’t, not if Johnny told her that’s how it was going to be.  Sometimes, it was convenient having a vampire boyfriend.  “So I’m yours,” I commented, tapping his chin with my forefinger.  “In what way?”  I grinned.

“You like those teeth, don’t you?” Johnny teased, leaning over to kiss me.  “In every way,” he answered, when he let me up to breathe.

So many things ran through my mind that night as we made love there on a stranger’s couch.  Would it ever be the same again after I went under the water?  Would I be the same?  I ran my hands over Johnny’s back.  It was warm and smooth and rippled under my touch.  “Don’t leave me,” I whispered.

He flipped us around until he was staring into my eyes.  “What’s this about?” he asked.  He was so beautiful poised above me looking at me with concern and something more.  Could love be conveyed in just a look?  This is what I wanted, him and me, forever.  With Johnny, it was possible.

“I’m not a Crystal ball,” I mumbled.  “I don’t know as much as everybody thinks.”

He laughed.  “Is that what this is all about?  Silly girl, none of us cares about what you know.  You underestimate yourself.  It’s you.  You have all of us wrapped around your little finger, even my father.  Sometimes it makes me jealous.”

Johnny?  Jealous?  No!  I was surprised he would admit it.  I smiled.  “Well, if that’s all it is . . . .”  I didn’t get any farther.  Johnny tackled me and play-bit my neck, and I forgot all about the others as the bloodlust surged through me again, along with other lusts.  Johnny assuaged them all nicely, and we lay in each other’s arms on the couch with the TV flickering in the background.

We drowsed like that until the sky lightened just before daybreak.  Our unwitting hosts wouldn’t stir for a long while yet, but others in the village would be up and about.  We had to go.

I imagined our future in the little replica log cabin in Lockwood.  I wanted that.  Johnny had told me once that he could age if he stayed out of the water for any significant length of time.  It was the human in him.  Of course, there was a trade-off, as I knew all too well from recent experience.  If a blood-drinker stayed away from the rejuvenating water, he had to drink prodigious amounts of blood to make up for it, and self-control became shaky at best.

There would be time enough to figure all that out later.  Johnny and I left through the front door, bold as you please.  We waved at a delivery truck which was unloading supplies in front of the little store; nothing unusual, just two teenagers out for an early morning stroll.  Come to think of it, that was unusual.   Teenagers in general kept vampire hours whenever possible.  We hurried past, until we could run without the danger of being seen.  I was moving faster; it wasn’t just my imagination!

We raced the sun back to Rose’s house.  She and Uncle Robert sat alone in front of the cold fireplace.  I don’t think they had ever gone to bed.

“Where is everybody?”  I asked.

“Gone, back to their lochs, our loch, who knows?”  Uncle Robert said.  He had his arm around his ex-wife and she curled into his side like she belonged there.  “The tall one said to tell you he will see you in America.”  He raised his eyes.  “He said he’s related to us.”

I smiled.  “He is.  He’s their father.”  I nodded towards Johnny.  “And so all of ours.  He really said he’s coming to America?”  In a way, I was disappointed I wouldn’t get to see Grandfather again before I left.  I had so many questions I wanted to ask him.

“He can stay at the Uncle’s place then,” Johnny said.  He never bothered to call Uncle Robert by his name.  “We’re not gonna have room.”

Uncle Robert gave us a puzzled glance, but didn’t ask.  Just as well.

“Paul?” I asked.

“Upstairs.  In your bed.  He didn’t think you were coming back tonight.  He was on the phone until just a little while ago making arrangements for your dad’s flight home.”

“Did Johnny’s father talk to my dad?”

Rose nodded.  “It was the strangest thing.  He went upstairs alone for about a half-hour.  He told us when he came back that he’d had a good talk with his grandson.  But when Paul went up later to check on something for the flight, Sam was still deeply asleep and showed no signs of ever having been awake.  Your . . . father . . .”  She stumbled over the words as she looked at Johnny, who stared back at her impassively.  “. . . said he had conversed with him, however.”

I didn’t doubt it.  There were many things about Grandfather we didn’t know.  But if Grandfather said he had talked with my dad, I believed it.

Johnny headed for the stairs.  “Paul has a little more arranging to do,” he said.  “And Crystal needs her bed.”  I followed Johnny upstairs.  He switched on the light by my bed and simultaneously hauled Paul, who had been sound asleep, onto the floor.  “Wake up,” he said roughly.  “It’s morning.”

Paul scrambled to his feet quickly enough when he saw who was standing over him.  “Crystal,” he said with relief, focusing on me instead.  “Of course.  I’m sorry.  I was just resting my eyes for a few minutes.”

“Yeah, right,” scoffed Johnny.  “I’ve got a job for you.  I want you to get Crystal and me on the same flight you booked for Sam Porter.  We’re going home.”

I almost squealed in happiness.  “Wait.  We can’t go with my father.  If he sees you, he’ll remember everything, won’t he?”

“I didn’t say put us next to him,” Johnny said.  “Just on the same plane.”

“I can try, but it may not be possible,” Paul replied.  He took in Johnny’s scowl.  “Okay, I’ll call the airline right now.”

Johnny closed and locked the door behind him.   “Let’s get some sleep,” he said to me, stripping down.  He crawled into my bed, which was still warm and rumpled from Paul, and held open the blanket for me.  “Well, come on.”

I shed my clothes and hopped into bed as naked as Johnny was.  I’d better get used to it.  Naked was the way to go for sleeping under the water, too.  It saved on having to get new clothes all the time.  “You’re staying?”  I asked, cupping his face and giving him a lingering kiss.  Already, I felt the pull of the sun, and if I could feel it, then Johnny must feel it ten times worse.  We wouldn’t have time for anything more than kissing and cuddling.

Johnny kissed me back, and twined his leg over mine.  “I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he murmured, and then promptly closed his eyes and fell asleep.  I giggled.  My own eyes closed.  I yawned like a cat, feeling Johnny pressed tight against me.  Too bad we were both so tired.

I woke before Johnny and thought I would take a quick shower while he was still resting.  The house was quiet.  Robert and Rose finally went to sleep.  Paul was nowhere to be found.  I peeked in on my father and he was still out like a light.  I had the house to myself.

I wandered downstairs after my shower, a little restless, a little hungry.  The sun beat at me through the window glass but it couldn’t hurt me.  I was too human still, or maybe it was because of Grandfather’s blood.

“Crystal.”  I heard my name called, faintly, and I glanced around.  “Crystal.”  It was coming from outside.  I looked out the front window.  Grandfather stood, in full daylight, beckoning for me to join him.
 
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