I don't think I'm ever going to get done with this chapter, but I'm sure that it's going to take more than one post to put the whole up, so here's the first section. My characters will not shut up, and I can't find a decent place to break the chapter. People usually go to sleep, or get on the interstate, or do some other thing that makes it easy to break for a chapter, but not this time...

Arghh and stuff.

As soon as this chapter ends (if it ever does), I'll be back with the conclusion.

Of course, for NaNoWriMo, this is the good kind of problem to have! ^_^







~SIX~



Rayna woke to soft daylight shining into her room through a pair of small, slit windows that she hadn’t seen in the darkness the night before. Her stomach was growling, and her mouth felt very dry and strangely fuzzy at the same time, which was a disconcerting combination so soon after opening her eyes. She was warm and mostly comfortable except for the underwire pinching her right side. She furrowed her brow, trying to remember why she had slept in her clothes, but she was always so slow in the head when she woke up… And then she gasped and sat bolt upright in bed so quickly that her skull launched an immediate, stabbing protest against the sudden rush of adrenaline. She frantically inspected the entire room with her heart pounding in her ears. The lantern had burned out at some point, her keys were still next to the lantern on the table next to the bed, and while the fire was mostly burned out, there was still a bed of warmly glowing coals within the fireplace.

Everything seemed fine, but with trembling fingers, she reached up to inspect her throat, terrified that she would find a pair of small welts or a darkly purple oval bruise like the one that Radek had on his neck the last night. She inspected both sides of her neck, leaning her head far to the left, then just as far to the right, to stretch the skin smooth, but there was nothing to find. To her immense relief, Radek had kept his word, and she appeared to have survived the night unscathed. And she had even managed to sleep well, too. She only vaguely recalled laying down and getting comfortable, and then there was nothing at all, straight through until she had just woken up. She felt pretty well refreshed, except for the empty stomach, and for the first time in almost a month, she felt almost normal. She yawned and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to fluff up the flat spot on the side of her head where she had slept and noticing that all of her work with her flat iron was fading and her natural curls were springing back to life. She didn’t really want to be concerned about how her hair looked right now, but even that was a small sign that she was finally starting to get control back over her life and all of the recent chaos – better to wake up worried about bedhead than to be shaking and screaming from a nightmare.

Rayna paused and flopped back down on the bed, staring absently at the timber and stucco ceiling. She hadn’t had a single nightmare all night. That had not happened since the morning that she had gone to Hannah’s apartment and walked in on that hellish scene. She was beginning to think that she would never sleep peacefully through the night again, but she had. In a vampire’s house. There was something so twisted about that notion that Rayna could only chuckle about it before she tried to explain it away as the cumulative effect of sleep deprivation and emotional exhaustion that had finally shut her brain down so deeply that it couldn’t even produce the sort of vivid nightmares that burned into her memory and made her wake up screaming and shaking and bathed in sweat.

She checked her watch, and saw that it was not quite four o’clock. Based on the sunlight, she was sure that it was afternoon, but she couldn’t be sure of the day. She had either slept for about twelve hours, or for a day and a half, and she couldn’t be sure which was more likely. She really had been that tired. She didn’t even think that Radek had drugged her or worked some kind of hypnotic charm on her to get her to follow him up to this room and stay here for the night and sleep so deeply that the place could have burned down around here and she doubted that she would have noticed enough to wake up. She had the chance to make a run for it, or to sneak back out and explore this place a little bit to see if she could find an answer on her own, or even to find Gabriel and take the drastic step of trying to end her family’s shameful legacy once and for all. But she hadn’t done any of those things, not just because she had keeled over as soon as she hit the bed, but mostly because she simply didn’t want to. She had run as far as she could, and she couldn’t think of anyplace else to go, and there was no way that she was willing to turn tail and slink back home now. Not when she would have to answer to the police for her disappearing act, and face Alex and all of his questions that she still couldn’t answer, and apologize to Poppy for leaving without saying a word to her, and go back to living in fear of what was yet to come and who would be next.

She had made it this far, and she was confident that she was on the right track. Even Radek seemed to believe that there was more to her story that what she could see on the surface. She cringed when she realized that a vampire’s opinion suddenly mattered to her at all, but in a way, it was a relief to be here. Sadie was the only person whom she could really talk to about the Martine family’s secret past, and Sadie would only play along for so long before she changed the subject in that slick way that she had perfected during endless dinner parties and all of the other mind-numbing society page photo-ops that she attended with whatever man bought her the shiniest trinket that month. Rayna didn’t have to hide here, or pretend that everything was normal, and that her family was entirely human, and that vampires were fictional characters who didn’t walk the earth alongside all of the normal people.

It disgusted her and even turned her stomach a little bit, but some part of her honestly felt at home here. She hoped it was just some weird psychological fluke that had more to do with escapism and running away from the grisly realities at home, or even a post traumatic reaction to finding Hannah dead, and that it wasn’t an actual sense of paternal connection or some genetic memory that made her comfortable in this place and with these people.

Before Rayna had a chance to sink any further into that dismal thought, her stomach growled again, and she sat back up in bed, reaching for the water bottle that she had carried upstairs with her the previous night. At least a little water might calm her stomach until she could find something to eat, but then she noticed that she could smell something that not only made her stomach growl even louder but was enough to make her mouth water, too.

She smelled meat cooking on a grill, and while rational, modern Rayna couldn’t begin to explain how that was possible out here in the middle of nowhere, her inner cavewoman didn’t much care for an explanation, as long as the powerful, savory aroma meant that dinner was served. She kicked off the blankets and stood up, carefully fishing her sandals back onto her feet. She stretched and was pleased to find that she had even slept the miles out of her stiff muscles. She collected her car keys and her water bottle, and walked to the door, only pausing as she reached for the levered door handle. Radek had told her to stay put last night, but he hadn’t really said anything about what he expected her to after she had gotten the good night’s sleep that he seemed to want for everyone but himself. She didn’t know if she was expected to sit in here until someone came to get her, or if she really was free to find her way back downstairs and follow her nose to the grill. In a strange sort of way, this would have been a little bit easier if Radek had locked her in last night like a prisoner. No wonder Adam and Eve had such a problem with this free will thing.

Rayna pressed her ear to the door to try to heat if anything was going on in the hallway, but she couldn’t hear anything at all and pulled away with a scowl when she got a lock of her hair caught on a rough spot in the center plank of the door and pulled a few hairs out by the root. She rubbed her scalp and rolled her eyes, then decided that she had come this far, and she was too hungry to sit here and hope that the vampires remembered that she was here.

She pressed down on the lever and pulled the door open, peeking around the edge and checking up and down the hall before she stepped over the threshold and into the corridor. She even looked up to make sure that no one was clinging to the ceiling and waiting to jump down and scare her to death if she decided to go wandering around on her own. The hallway was dim, even with the sun still up outside, and no one was waiting for her. Rayna pulled the door closed behind her and walked cautiously toward the stairs, ignoring her curiosity that urged her to open the three closed doors that she passed. Food first, nosy trespassing later.

She crept down the stairs, noticing in the light of day that Radek was right when he said that Gabriel kept a clean house. There wasn’t a single cobweb anywhere, and Rayna couldn’t even see any dust floating through the slanted shafts of sunlight shining through the windows. Even the wavy old glass in the ornate windowpanes was spotless. It wasn’t very vampire-like, but Rayna was glad that the general cleanliness eased some of the ick factor about being in a vampire’s home. It still left the question of why a vampire was living in a chapel in the first place, and how it was even possible for him to dwell on what should be hallowed ground, but Rayna simply added those to the long mental list of questions that she wanted to ask someone before this adventure was over.

At the bottom of the stairs, she looked into the sitting room where she had told Radek her story, and the fire still crackled away on the hearth, but no one was there. The grill smell was much stronger here, so she turned away from the sitting room and let her nose lead her a closed door that she had walked past the night before without even noticing that it was there. She didn’t hesitate and tried the door handle, not surprised when she found that it was also unlocked. So far, the only door that was locked around here was the front door, so the vampires seemed more concerned with keeping any stray visitors out, rather than with keeping Rayna in.

She found herself in a library, complete with several cozy leather armchairs and massive bookshelves completely lining the perimeter of the room from floor to ceiling. Every shelf was crammed with books, and she looked around, Rayna guessed that there were easily a few thousand volumes in this room, ranging from heavy leather-bound sets that looked antique to paperbacks that could have been sitting in a store yesterday. She resisted the temptation to find out what sorts of books a vampire reads in his spare time, but she walked to the next closed door instead, pulling it open to find a rustic parlor of some kind, complete with comfortable looking furniture and a well-stocked wine rack along the back wall. An open archway led out of the other side of the room, and Rayna was sure that was where the cooking smell was leading her, and that was confirmed a moment later.

“We were beginning to think you were waiting for an invitation, Rayna,” Radek called from somewhere beyond the archway.

Rayna snaked behind the massive sofa and stood in the archway, finding Radek sitting with his boots propped up on a simple dining room style table, drinking from a fresh bottle of wine, while Gabriel stood with his back to Rayna, in front of an old-fashioned wood burning stove, tending to whatever smelled so good. She was stuck by how odd the scene looked – some sort of surreal vampire version of domestic bliss – and she only hoped that Gabriel wasn’t wearing an apron as he turned around to greet her.

“Good afternoon, Miss Rayna Martin. Welcome home, my child,” Gabriel said in a clear, gentle voice. He bowed at the waist and smiled at her, gesturing for her to come in and join them. Not only had he changed clothes, out of the tired old outdated suit and in to a chic, expensive looking dark blue sweater and jeans, but he seemed more confident and alert as well. If not for the telltale jade green eyes, Rayna might not have immediately recognized him as same man as the dazed, faltering, pathetic shell that she had met the night before. Gabriel seemed aware of that fact as he continued, “I should apologize for my demeanor and condition last night. As Radek explained, I wasn’t entirely myself when you arrived.”

“Yeah, he mentioned that. So you’re feeling better today?” Rayna asked as she slowly approached the table. Radek pulled out the chair next to him and smirked a bit when Rayna slid the chair a little bit farther away from him as she sat down.

“Much better, thank you. I hope that you slept well, though I’m sure the accommodations were not up to your usual standards, and I do apologize if you were uncomfortable at all…” Gabriel began, before Radek interrupted him.

“I thought we agreed that you would keep the hand-wringing to a minimum,” Radek admonished.

“And I thought we agreed that you would be more polite to my great-great-granddaughter,” Gabriel countered, showing a great deal more fortitude than Rayna had imagined possible based on her first impression.

“I slept like a corpse… I mean, like a stone. Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that…” Rayna replied to Gabriel, unsure if she had just offended him or not.

“No offense taken, my dear,” Gabriel reassured with another kindly smile.

“We’re not exactly corpses, you know,” Radek added.

“Radek…” Gabriel chirped, clicking his tongue and shaking his head, which only made Radek laugh again.

“How long was I out? I’m not sure what day it is…” Rayna asked, choosing to ignore their entire exchange because she wasn’t sure how else to handle it.

“Sunday,” the vampires answered in unison, and then Gabriel continued alone, “You arrived on Saturday, and today is Sunday. I thought that you’d be hungry by now, so I took the liberty of preparing something, but it’s been such a long time since I cooked anything… I’m not sure if it’s going to turn out all right or not.”

”It smells great,” Rayna said eagerly, hoping that her stomach wouldn’t growl again while she was sitting there because she was sure that Radek would pounce on the opportunity to make fun of her. He seemed in very high spirits, Gabriel seemed normal, she was both strangely comfortable and yet on the verge of squirming, and the whole situation was just weird.

“Well, I’ll take that as a good sign,” Gabriel said. He checked the cast iron pot on the flat cooking surface of the old stove one more time before he shrugged, put the lid on the pot, and sat down at the table across from Radek and Rayna. A serene smile still lit his face, and he gazed at Rayna without saying a word for what felt to her like a very long time until she did squirm a little bit under the intense attention, which caused him to finally blink and avert his eyes for a moment.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but you look so very much like… someone I used to know a long time ago,” Gabriel concluded with a wistful smile. “But enough of that. Radek recounted your conversation to me while you were resting. I’m so sorry to hear of the passing of your friends. You have my deepest sympathies, and I will try to help you in any way that I can, though I worry about where that may lead us…”

“He worries a lot, but this time, there’s a valid point to it,” Radek interjected, lifting his boots off the table and rocking his chair back down onto all four legs with a loud thud against the stone floor. “Would you like to eat dinner in peace, or should we just get right into it?”

“Before we do either one of those, umm, do you happen to have a bathroom around here?” Rayna asked, staring at the edge of the table because she was too embarrassed to look at either one of them. She didn’t know if vampires still had basic biological functions, but she did, and it was quickly reaching a critical point, so she didn’t have any choice but to ask.

“My home is rather old-fashioned, I’m afraid, but if you step through the door in the back corner, you’ll find what you need. After dinner, I’ll help you to draw a bath, if you’d like,” Gabriel offered, then furrowed his brow. “I don’t think I said that quite correctly – I only meant that you’ve probably not drawn water from a hand pump or heated a bath from a wood fire before, so I could show you how to do so, not that I wish to do anything improper…”

“Hand-wringing…” Radek teased in a sing-song voice. Gabriel stopped speaking and returned his attention to Radek with a heavy, dramatic sigh, which allowed Rayna the chance to slip out of her chair and bolt for the door in the rear corner of the kitchen. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, slightly overwhelmed by the off-kilter tone of the entire conversation to this point. She shook her head and exhaled slowly, then looked around, dreading that she would find nothing more than a glorified hole in the floor, so she was infinitely pleased when she recognized a perfectly fine, flushing toilet complete with indoor plumbing in the furthest corner of the room, discreetly hidden behind a folding screen. Like everything else she had seen in Martine Chapel so far, even the facilities were very old-fashioned but immaculately clean.

Rayna wondered if she might be able to just hide in the bathroom for a while – maybe for a very long while. Every second she spent with Gabriel and Radek twisted her preconceptions about vampires more askew to the point that she wasn’t sure that vampires were even the bad guys. She didn’t even feel threatened anymore, and she certainly couldn’t picture either of her hosts gleefully slaughtering anyone to get her attention. After being in contact with Gabriel for less than a day, she was absolutely sure that he wasn’t the culprit simply because the reclusive neat freak never could have left such a mess at the crime scenes.

Rayna delicately pulled the chain on the porcelain tank, disturbingly fascinated that an antique like this was still in use and in perfect working condition when it probably belonged in some sort of museum. She washed her hands in the basin, glad that the large pitcher next to the sink was already full of water because one look at the hand pump near the mammoth bathtub established that she had no idea how to operate such a thing. After studying her reflection in the mirror, she decided to wash her face, too, and see if she couldn’t do something better with her hair. The cross-country trip had not been kind to her appearance, and in comparison to the two vampires waiting for her in the kitchen, she felt even worse about how grubby and unkempt she looked. She was definitely going to ask Gabriel to help her draw a bath later.

She finally gave up trying to smooth an argumentative ripple out of her hair on the right side of her head and grudgingly accepted that she had wasted as much time as she could before she really did have to admit to herself that she was truly hiding in the bathroom like a petulant child. Besides, the dinner aroma grew stronger by the minute, and she was too hungry to skip a meal. She walked back into the kitchen to find Gabriel and Radek still seated at the table, engaged in a quiet conversation that suspiciously stopped the moment she reentered the room.

“What?” she asked, sitting back down next to Radek. The vampires looked at her, then looked back at each other.

“If you don’t tell her, I will,” Radek said, raising his eyebrows when Gabriel pursed his lips together in protest.

“Tell me what? Have you figured something out, because if you have, I think that I have the right to know,” Rayna insisted, feeling her heart rate escalate and no longer feeling all that hungry despite the gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach that made her feel that a vast empty void had opened within the core of her being.

“We each have a theory, but there’s no proof,” Gabriel emphasized, more to Radek than to Rayna. “But you should eat first – your color isn’t very good today.”

“Never mind how my color is, and stop trying to mother me, Gabriel. You’re not my mother. My mother is human, and she’s at home, and she learned that I can take care of myself a long time ago, so just stop avoiding the subject and tell me what you’ve come up with. I need to know.”

“And you need to eat,” Gabriel insisted, standing up to walk back over to the stove. He ignored Rayna’s glare boring into his back and quietly retrieved a bowl from the cupboard and tended to the pot on the stove.

“I wonder if you might be to blame, and that you’ve only come here looking for a better scapegoat so that you don’t feel so guilty yourself,” Radek said, coolly appraising Rayna’s stunned reaction. She felt her eyes widen and her mouth fall stupidly open, but she couldn’t do anything but stare at Radek in shock. She thought that they had gone over this last night and already cleared her of any guilt, and now he had suddenly decided that she had done it, after all? It was more than Rayna could tolerate.

“How dare you sit there and accuse me of murder? I told you last night that I didn’t do it, and that’s the truth. Just because I’m descended from a killer doesn’t mean that I’m one, too. Maybe you’d be happy to think that I’m just like you and that I enjoy running around and murdering innocent people for no reason at all, but I’m not like you. I’m nothing like you. So fuck you and your smug little superior attitude about everything,” Rayna spat, glaring at Radek and for the first time, truly not caring whether he was a human or a vampire, because either way, she would still feel nothing but contempt toward him right now.

“Bold words from the little human girl,” Radek replied. “I know that you didn’t kill anyone with your own hands, but perhaps this is the end result of your actions anyway. You protest and complain about having a vampire in the family. You bemoan the Martine curse. You carry it around with you like a martyr bearing a cross so that the world can see how miserable you are and how heavy your burden is. And just like that martyr, you can’t suffer in silence. As much as you claim to despise your ties to a vampire, you obsess over it, you labor over it, and I wonder how many times someone has asked you about the cross you bear so prominently and you’ve told them your secret, just for the chance to deny your heritage and decry our very existence.”

“You think I run around telling people that vampires are real just so I can bitch about the fact that I’m related to one?” Rayna asked incredulously. “You’ve got to be kidding, or you’re just stupid. Do you know what would happen if I started running around telling people about you, about Gabriel, about this place? Do you have any idea what people would think? They would think I was crazy. They would think that something horrible must have happened to me for me to sink into a little fantasy world and start believing that vampires are real and that I’m related to one, and that all of my problems stem from the deep, dark secret in my family’s past. No. Sorry to break it to you, but there’s no way in hell that I would ever tell anyone anything about you. You’re just not that important to me.”

“The more passionate your denial, the less I believe it,” Radek countered calmly, almost sneering at her as he spoke.

“Fine. There are exactly five people on the face of this planet that I’ve ever talked to about Gabriel, and exactly none that I’ve talked to about you, because until yesterday, I didn’t even know that your arrogant little prickish self even existed, so sorry about that,” Rayna snarled, her voice dripping with venom and echoing a bit off the high ceiling. She held out her hand, splaying her fingers apart for emphasis and ticking each digit off, one by one, as she spoke. “My dad, who goes on and on about the Martine legacy like descending from vampires is just as good as coming from old money or high society. My mom, who sees the whole thing like some tragic gothic romance that should break my heart for whatever could have been. My half-sister, Sadie, who thinks that I’m crazy for coming out here and expects that if I managed to find Gabriel, he would probably just kill me anyway. Gabriel. And you. Five whole people know about what you are and where I am and how I feel about the whole damn mess.”

“You expect me to believe that you’ve never told anyone else, not in all these years of carrying this secret around with you?” Radek continued, unswayed. “You never breathed a word of this to Hannah, who you claim was your best friend. You never confided in your boyfriend, not even during your most intimate and unguarded moments catching your breath after a particularly spirited lay? You never bragged to your distraught teenage friends that you were surely darker and more tortured than any of them because your angst ran deeper and had perfectly literal teeth? You expect me to believe that you’re the first human in history who could truly keep a secret?”

“I can gossip with the best of them, but I’ve never said a word about Gabriel to anyone. Why would I want to? Why would I brag about something that could get me locked away in a psychiatric hospital? Sorry, but you’re just not that important to me. You’re nowhere nearly important enough for me to throw my life away just to ruin your secret to spite you.”

“Radek, enough,” Gabriel interceded before Radek could reply. “I believe Rayna, and I trust her, just as I have trusted every generation of my family. They have far more to lose than I do.”

“Even after they abandoned you and buried you away out here, you still defend them?” Radek scoffed.

“They are my family, Radek, and I will always think of them as family, regardless of what may come to pass between us. I understand why the modern generation would want nothing to do with me, after all. I have nothing to offer them, so perhaps it is best for everyone to simply leave me in the past with all of the other outdated relics. I’m not offended by that.”

“But you are wounded by their callous neglect,” Radek countered, and Rayna could tell that Radek was telling the truth when she saw Gabriel flinch in response, but the break in his demeanor was merely transient, and he immediately composed himself and returned to the table, setting a bowl down in front of Rayna, followed by a neatly folded fabric napkin and a heavy silver spoon. He looked down at her and offered her a smile, but as she looked into his eyes, she recognized that there was a deep pain hidden behind that smile, and for the first time in her life, Rayna wanted to reach out to Gabriel, regardless of what he was.

“Gabriel…” she whispered, but he interrupted before she could even organize her thoughts into something coherent enough to say out loud.

“Hush, child. You have nothing to explain to me. Now, please eat before it gets cold,” Gabriel said quietly, smiling at her again before he sat back down and absently picked unseen lint from the front of his sweater.

The three of them sat in a very uncomfortable silence. Rayna tried to convince herself that she wasn’t all that hungry anymore, because she was never able to eat when she was so upset, but as she stared at the bowl in front of her, the homey appeal of the thick stew got the better of her and reminded her stomach that no matter what might be going on in her head, she was very hungry after all. She mumbled an almost inaudible word of thanks and tried Gabriel’s stew, smiling when she discovered that it tasted even better than it smelled, though she couldn’t immediately identify what sort of meat she was eating.

She quietly plowed through her first bowl of stew, and before she had the chance to put down her spoon, Gabriel took the bowl back to the stove and refilled it for her.

“Thanks, Gabriel. It’s really good,” Rayna said, offering him a meek but genuine smile.

“I’m relieved to hear that. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been forty years or more since the last time I tried my hand at any cooking. Please feel free to eat as much as you’d like, as Radek and I aren’t able to join you,” Gabriel replied, smiling warmly, though his eyes were still distant and pained.

“What is this, exactly? I’m not complaining, just curious.”

“Venison.”

“Oh. I’ve never eaten deer before. It’s really good, though.”

“You’re not going to complain about eating some cute little woodland thing?” Radek grumbled under his breath, and Rayna was left with the impression that he was pouting like a child who had just been scolded by his parent in front of the company.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Rayna said, glancing briefly at Radek, but turning her full attention to Gabriel. “I jumped to a conclusion that I shouldn’t have, and I was wrong, and I’m sorry. I had no right to walk in here after all these years and accuse you of murdering Hannah and Audrey. I know that you didn’t do it, and I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, Rayna, but there is nothing to apologize for – don’t you agree, Radek?” Gabriel said firmly, lifting his eyebrows as he waited for Radek to reply.

“There have been misunderstandings on both sides of this, I suppose,” Radek grudgingly conceded, before he sighed and shook his head at Gabriel. “Perhaps we can simply move on from here because simply rehashing grievances won’t do any of us any good.”

“Agreed,” Gabriel nodded. “So, Rayna, we have determined that I am innocent, and that you are innocent, and that you haven’t revealed any information to your fellow humans, so they are innocent, as well. I have given this some thought today, and while I freely admit that the crimes do sound like the sort of thing that a vampire could do, I rather doubt that a vampire is your culprit, either.

“You see, there are at least a few among us who have so little use for humans that they wouldn’t hesitate to do such a thing, no matter how heinous and cruel it might seem, for no other reason than their own amusement or some petty offense. I haven’t encountered any of them in a great many years, so I asked Radek for his opinion…” Gabriel trailed off, catching Radek in the middle of a long gulp of wine. Radek grimaced as he hurriedly swallowed and set the bottle heavily down on the table.

“Two of them are in Europe, two of them are dead, another is based in Shanghai but periodically roams throughout China, and the sixth hasn’t been seen in almost a century, though I rather doubt that anything could kill him so easily. Rumor has it that he was in Petrograd when the Bolsheviks turned on the czar, but I haven’t heard anything about him since then,” Radek recited, drumming his fingers on the table when he spoke about the Russian.

“Are you saying that Rasputin is a vampire?” Rayna gasped, horrified at the notion, though it would certainly go a long way toward explaining why he had been so famously difficult to kill.

“The monk? No. No one would have turned him,” Radek shook his head in vigorous denial. “He was crazy enough as a human. Power hungry, pious, and insane – not the sort of combination that you look for when you’re thinking of giving someone supernatural gifts and then spending eternity with them.”

“Perish the thought,” Gabriel added for good measure.

“Oh. Sorry, then. You said this guy was hard to kill, and I guess I just jumped to the wrong conclusion,” Rayna said, loudly clicking her tongue at herself when she realized that she had just repeated her earlier mistake. “Again. I jumped to the wrong conclusion again. It looks like I do that about you guys a lot, so I’ll try to stop, or at least not say anything out loud. Sorry…”

“This is an odd and unique encounter for all of us, or at least for you and I, my dear, so we would all do well to try to leave our preconceptions out of it,” Gabriel agreed.

“Just for you and I? What about him?” Rayna asked, still edgy where Radek was concerned.

“Unlike Gabriel, I deal with humans on a regular basis, so talking to you isn’t particularly unique to me, except that you know what I am,” Radek clarified.

“And that’s unusual enough, don’t you think?” Gabriel prodded.

“I suppose so,” Radek acquiesced, though Rayna was sure that he would have played along with anything that Gabriel said, as long as it moved the conversation forward.

“So the bottom line is that you guys don’t think that a vampire did this, either. Can you really be sure about that?” Rayna asked, hoping to steer the subject back to what she really wanted to know because while the tangents were interesting, she didn’t want to be interested in Gabriel and Radek. She wanted to get the information she needed, solve the crime, and go home and try to forget that this whole thing had ever happened.

“Completely sure? Probably not,” Radek admitted before Gabriel had the chance to speak. “But sure enough, yes. No vampire would do such a thing. Not only would such a brazen and public spectacle draw exactly the kind of attention that we all avoid, but to intentionally target Gabriel’s mortal family… That would be the sort of unforgivable act that would rekindle old grudges and lead to the unrest and strife that we put aside once and for all over a hundred years ago. No one wants a return to that way of life, not even the most bloodthirsty among us.”

“Wait, are you saying that other vampires know about my family? How is that possible?” Rayna asked. “How could you let that happen? It can’t be safe for us at all if a bunch of monsters know that we’re out there and defenseless.”

“You’re not defenseless. You’re untouchable,” Radek corrected.

“What? Like unclean? Vampires leave us alone because we’re not worthy of even being bothered with? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Rayna sputtered, shocked to learn that her family was considered so lowly and outcast. She’d never felt that way before, and there was no way that she was going to sit here and let a vampire inform her that she wasn’t even worth his time.

“No, no, my dear. Not untouchable as in the caste system,” Gabriel clarified. “Untouchable in that my kind know and respect that my family is off limits and that all of you are not to be harmed. You are protected from harm under a great threat of vengeance if any of you were ever to be hurt by any of my kind. We reached an accord a long time ago, and it was decided.”

“What?” Rayna asked, more confused than angry now. “I don’t think I understand what you’re saying. So like, you sat down and talked about this? Like an undead peace conference or United Nations or something?”

“Something like that,” Radek interjected. “All vampires begin as humans, and then we are changed, yet none of us have a direct line of blood descendants left among the humans. We have human ancestors, and perhaps a handful of peripheral descendants through a sibling’s progeny or a cousin’s family, but to have a surviving child who then has children who then has children… To have a direct descent of the family name through the generations is unique among our kind. Gabriel and the Martine family is unique in that perspective. As you might imagine, your family was the source of a great deal of debate in the beginning.

“Suffice it to say that while some vampires believed that mortal descent was a mistake that needed to be immediately corrected, most found the notion intriguing. Some were even comforted by it, clinging vicariously to their own lost humanity by observing what Gabriel still had. In the end, it was decided that the Martine line was to be left in peace, to live and prosper or to fail and wither away on its own merits, and without interference from vampires. For any of us to cause any of your family harm would be unforgivable and immediately punished,” Radek concluded. Rayna wasn’t sure how vampires meted out punishment to one of their own, but it sounded a little ominous.

“So you see, Rayna, none of my brethren would dare to lay a hand on any of you,” Gabriel assured. “There would be dire consequences because vampires have no patience with one another when the secrecy and safety of our entire existence is at risk.”

“But that technically wouldn’t stop any of us from killing your friends and associates, though they would be walking a ridiculously narrow line to do so,” Radek continued. “Only a very few vampires would be so bold, and I’ve already ruled them all out. I also believe that none of them would be so discreet. They would have made contact with you already, or they would have followed you here. If a vampire was involved, we would all know.”

“So you guys got together and decided that none of you would ever come after the Martine family, and so just like that, we’re all vampire-proof. And you’ve known this the whole time, and you didn’t say anything to me about it until just now?” Rayna complained. “Why wouldn’t you have just said so right away? And for that matter, why haven’t you told my father about this? I think he would have mentioned that while we were related to a vampire, we didn’t need to worry about being bitten by one because there was some kind of treaty that made sure that no vampire would ever come after us. Why would you keep that information from us? That makes no sense at all – like even less sense than all the rest of this mess.”

“My family has been distant from me for many years now, generations worth of years. I have come to accept that, as I have chosen to respect their wishes. I know that all of you are safe, and that’s enough for me. My son was aware of the accord before he ever chose to take a wife. Without the security that his beloved Victoria would be protected, I doubt that he would have married, and the Martine family would have died with him. Why that information was not handed down through the family I do not know, nor can I explain his decision. I’m sorry that you didn’t know, but I have to admit that I am also glad because you are here now, and if you had known that a vampire couldn’t be responsible for the horror that has recently touched your life, you never would have suspected me, and you never would have come,” Gabriel admitted quietly, looking down at his hands so that he wouldn’t have to make eye contact with Rayna.

“Great. So you didn’t have anything to do with the murders, but it all worked out okay because I’m here anyway. I was wrong about you doing this to get my attention, even though the end result was that you got my attention. None of you vampires will kill a Martine, but you also don’t have a problem with killing everyone around us. And I’m pretty much back where I started because I still don’t have the first clue who killed Hannah and seems hell-bent on ruining my life in the process, and this whole trip was a waste of my time,” Rayna grumbled. She wasn’t even sure that she was surprised or angry anymore. She was just getting so tired of the whole thing.

“That’s not true because I wasn’t finished yet,” Radek said. “You have such a flair for the dramatic.”

“So get to the point, because this whole thing is just wearing me out,” Rayna said flatly.

“In the course of my time among the humans, I’ve come across a certain group – I think it’s safe to call them a cult. It’s a mystery to me, but some humans are willing to believe in almost anything. They call themselves the Aoiva-Nor. Have you ever heard that name before?” Radek asked Rayna.

“No. I don’t even know what language that’s supposed to be,” Rayna shrugged.

“I don’t think it’s what would be recognized as a legitimate language, but Aoiva-Nor is Enochian that roughly translates to ‘Sons of the Star’.”

“Enochian? Isn’t that Biblical?” Rayna asked, searching her memory for which tribe in the Old Testament had spoken that language, but it had been far too many years since her last CCD lesson to pull any details out of her brain.

“Not especially. Enochian is supposedly the lost language of the angels, which was rediscovered by some occult fanatic, but I don’t think it’s ever been recognized by any legitimate sources, and it shouldn’t be recognized because it’s fictional. There’s no such thing as angels, so there’s no such thing as their lost language, either,” Radek explained.

“So do vampires just not believe in God, or do you actually know that for sure?” Rayna asked. She was surprised that the conversation had turned to such a deep subject, and she wasn’t sure that she was ready to know the answer to her question, but how often was she going to have the opportunity to ask about such a thing?

“What answer do you want to hear?” Radek countered.

“The truth would be nice.”

“And why do humans always think that vampires hold the key to the truth about the existence of God?” Radek asked.

“I don’t know – God is just always wrapped up in the whole vampire mythology. You guys are supposed to exist beyond the grace of God, or because you’re cursed by God – or maybe because the first vampire cursed God Himself to become immortal in the first place. I’ve also heard that vampires are descended from Cain or from Lilith or that you’re the lost Thirteenth Tribe. Vampires are always mixed up with Christianity, so I just assumed that you must know the truth about all of it.”

“Humans are far more tangled in such lore than we are, and much more interested in such things. I’m sorry to tell you that vampires don’t have the big answers, so I can’t confirm or deny your faith, or even your lack thereof,” Radek revealed, proving that he once again had a bit more insight into Rayna’s inner turmoil than she cared to think about.

“Fine. So just get back to these occult people – what were they called again?” Rayna asked, yielding another tangential conversation.

“The Aoiva-Nor,” Radek repeated. “One of the other fables surrounding the origin of vampires concerns the fallen angels. The Aoiva-Nor believe that vampires are descended from the fallen angels, or to be more specific, that we are descended from the Fallen Angel, from the Morningstar himself.”

“Lucifer? These whack jobs think that you guys are the spawn of Satan, and that makes them form a cult for you? Lovely…” Rayna muttered. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“Hence the ‘Sons of the Star’ bit. They’re wrong, of course, because the Morningstar had nothing to do with our origins. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong concept completely, but no one has ever been able to convince the Aoiva-Nor of that basic problem with their organization, and so they have quietly gone about their business for the better part of almost five hundred years.”

”And what business is that?” Rayna asked.

“What does any cult try to accomplish? The Aoiva-Nor worship vampires. They dedicate their lives to keeping records and tracing origins and attempting to catalog and categorize all of us. I know they’ve attempted to construct a sort of genealogy to trace the entire vampire species back to the Morningstar directly, but I think that met with slightly less success than tracing an Arabian horse back to a handful of the west wind. For a time, the Aoiva-Nor tried to establish relationships between themselves and whatever vampire they happened to identify and fixate on. Gabriel was the unfortunate recipient of that attention at one time.”

“It was indeed unfortunate, and I did everything I could to put an immediate end to it. Don’t worry, Rayna, my son had already married and moved on with his life, and my grandson – your grandfather, Edouard – was not living here at the time, either, so the Aoiva-Nor had no idea that I had any living, mortal descendants. I would never share your secret any more than you would disclose mine. I remain confident that the Aoiva-Nor did not learn of my family lineage from me, though I’m no longer so certain that they have no knowledge of you.”

“So you think these guys might have something to do with Hannah’s murder?” Rayna asked. “Why would a cult all about vampire worship want to come after me? If they know that I exist, then they have to know that I have other family, other half-siblings. Wouldn’t it make more sense to try to contact my dad? I mean, he’s a closer relative to you than I am, and he’s actually met you and knew where you were. Until all this started, I was still trying to convince myself that you didn’t really exist, and I was trying pretty hard to get through my whole life without even dealing with you at all. I’m sorry if that upsets you, but it’s the truth. Why would a vampire cult come after me when I don’t want anything to do with vampires?”

“We’re not sure about the details, Rayna,” Gabriel admitted, shaking his head. “This group has been underground for some time now, and I had no idea that they were still operating in this area at all. I was sure that they had lost interest in me after our last confrontation…”

“Confrontation? Are you saying that this Aoiva-Nor is violent? If that’s the case, then I need to get my phone out of the car because I need to call Sadie and warn her about these guys,” Rayna insisted, feeling a bit foolish that she hadn’t thought about the safety of her friends and family at home since her arrival.

“They’re as capable of violence as any human, but not particularly prone to such outbursts. I don’t think they had any intention of violence when they first contacted me, but I can only be pushed so far…” Gabriel smiled serenely, allowing his silence to complete his thought.

“Yes, yes, even Gabriel has his breaking point,” Radek broke in. “He’s still a vampire even when he refuses to act like one.”

“I’m not trying to minimize your contribution, Radek,” Gabriel cooed. “I was only able to discourage the Aoiva-Nor to a certain point. They were willing to keep their distance, but they refused to leave me in peace, and we were at a bit of a stalemate until Radek finished what I had started.”

“You mean that he went out and killed them for you – that’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?” Rayna asked. “You might as well come out and say it because I’m not naïve enough to think that neither of you have ever killed anyone. It’s obvious that you have because that’s what vampires are supposed to do.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what Gabriel is implying. I didn’t think that I had any alternative but to end their interference once and for all. No amount of logical conversation or even threats carries the same permanence as the grave,” Radek clarified. His voice was flat and dispassionate, expressing neither pride nor remorse in his choice of action.

“True, though I still wish we could have found some other alternative,” Gabriel whispered.

“Whatever. I’m not going to tell you that I approve of slaughtering a bunch of people, but I can see that sometimes you have to do what you have to do, in a way, it was self-defense,” Rayna rationalized. She couldn’t believe that she had just said that out loud, but it was the truth and she was having a lot of trouble feeling sorry for this pack of vampire groupies. They had to know that if they followed a bunch of undead killing machines around long enough that someone would eventually get hurt. It was just common sense, though devoting their lives to the pursuit of vampires might be proof that there wasn’t enough common sense in the entire cult to convince them to come inside from the rain.

“Right or wrong, it was a long time ago and I haven’t seen anyone else from the Aoiva-Nor since then. I’m sure they still have some record of me because record keeping was so important to them, but they seemed to have learned their lesson and left me alone to pursue some other vampire,” Gabriel concluded.

“No doubt someone more interesting,” Radek scoffed.

“I’m quiet but not uninteresting,” Gabriel insisted.

“You never see anyone, and you never leave this place,” Radek countered. “To a human in pursuit of the excitement of following a vampire to learn their secrets, you aren’t much of a challenge.”

“Perhaps not – whatever the reason, I’m glad to be free of the attention, not only for myself but for the safety and peace of Rayna and her family.”

“But you think that they still might have found out about me?” Rayna asked. “How do you think they managed that? And more important, how can we find out for sure?”

“We can ask them,” Radek replied.

“Wait – you just said that you killed them and that took care of the problem, but now you’re saying that you know where they are?” Rayna asked, confused by Radek’s mixed signals.

“The Aoiva-Nor are an old organization, with many members in many places. I eliminated the handful who refused to leave Gabriel in peace, but I did not hunt down every single one of them. The Aoiva-Nor are not to be underestimated, Rayna. Like any secret society, some of the lower level members are nothing more than harmless buffoons who cling to any idea that catches their fancy and are as eager to march to their deaths as lemmings parading off a cliff, but within the heart of the organization is a group of charismatic and devoted individuals intent on achieving whatever agenda moves them to passion,” Radek cautioned.

“So you killed some soldiers but not the general?” Rayna mused. “And now you think they might be back on the hunt?”

“I think we need to find out one way or the other,” Radek said.

“Rayna, I know that I’ve already asked this, but please be certain: have you noticed anything at all that you would consider to be unusual or suspicious? Have you been followed at all, or has anyone attempted to contact you or somehow insinuate themselves into your life? Has anyone been asking prying questions or inquiring about your background or your family?” Gabriel asked anxiously, actually wringing his hands as he spoke.

“No. I’ve been very careful all the time since Hannah’s murder and no one has been watching the house or following me around. I never give out any personal information to anyone because that’s never a good idea anyway. Nothing like that has happened,” Rayna insisted, but then she paused and furrowed her brows in concentration at a sudden, disconcerting idea. “Well, I guess there was something, but I don’t believe – no, I can’t believe that it has anything to do with this Aoiva-Nor or the murders. I mean, it couldn’t…”

“Rayna, whatever it is, please tell us. It could be important,” Gabriel asked plaintively.

“Ever since Hannah’s murder, the cops have been pretty focused on me. They’ve interviewed me, and there have been a lot more patrols in my neighborhood. Sometimes they follow me to work, or when I run errands in the evening. But that’s just part of their investigation. It would be weird if they weren’t doing those things because that would mean that they weren’t doing their job and that they weren’t even trying to solve Hannah’s murder. Right? I mean, don’t you think it would be strange if they weren’t doing everything that they could think of to try to solve this case?” Rayna asked, hearing an edge of desperation creeping into her own voice.

“I’m sure you want to trust the police, but there could be something more to it,” Radek pondered slowly, motioning for Gabriel to stay silent, “Has any one individual given you more attention that the others?”

“The lead detective has always been the one who questioned me. Anderson is his name – Dominic Anderson.”

“Do you find him suspicious?” Radek continued.

“I’ve never really thought about it that way. He’s suspicious of me, that’s for sure. He spends about half the time treating me like his prime suspect, but then he spends the other half practically warning me that he thinks I’m going to be the killer’s next target.”

“Have you told him anything about your family – anything that he could use to trace back the Martine legacy?”

“No. Nothing at all. I’m sure of that,” Rayna quickly replied, shaking her head. “I don’t think he ever asked about my family at all. Maybe that’s a little bit weird all by itself, but he didn’t take down any information about my family. He asked if we had any enemies, or if anyone had any trouble with drugs or gambling, but he only asked about my siblings and my parents. He didn’t go back any farther, but I guess if he’s part of this cult that he might not have to ask about anyone farther back… Maybe he would already know about the generations up to my dad, and so he would only have to ask me to fill in the details after that.”

“Perhaps,” Radek mused. “Or perhaps not. We’ll have to ask the Aoiva-Nor for their membership list while we’re there.”

“Radek, I don’t think they keep such a list…” Gabriel shook his head, continuing to rub his hands together in agitation.

“It’s a figure of speech, old friend,” Radek replied gently. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m just anxious, as you might imagine,” Gabriel answered, looking down at his hands and clenching each of them into a fist to stop the repetitive gesture. “It’s nothing.”

“Liar.”

“Now is hardly the time…” Gabriel protested before Radek cut him off.

”Either we correct the problem, or you’ll have to stay here, and I doubt that you have any intention of staying behind and leaving your dear granddaughter in my charge,” Radek smirked.

“What problem?” Rayna interrupted, choosing to ignore Radek’s last crack about her. “Gabriel, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, my dear. The situation is just rather upsetting, and the prospect of leaving my home, even for a short while on a most important errand… The mere idea of going… out there…” Gabriel trailed off, shaking his head and wrapping his arms around his chest in such a way that he looked more huddled and fearful than defiant.

“The sun will set in an hour or so, and Gabriel needs to replenish his strength again before we leave,” Radek said, reaching up to unbutton the collar of his crimson shirt for emphasis.

“Oh,” Rayna acknowledged, wondering just how often Gabriel needed to eat, and then immediately wondering what Radek was doing to keep his strength up is vampires really did need to feed everyday to keep from slipping into the stumbling, confused fog that had enveloped Gabriel the night before. “Are we leaving tonight, then, to find these Aoiva-Nor guys?”

“No. I think I should call and make an appointment first. We’ll set out tomorrow at sunset. Gabriel is right, Rayna – your color isn’t good tonight, and wasn’t there some talk of a bath?”

“Are you worried about me, or just trying to tell me that I stink?” Rayna asked, arching one eyebrow at Radek.

“Gabriel is worried about you, and since I look after Gabriel, tending to your needs soothes his worry as well. Though I have to admit that you have brought a certain liveliness back into this place that has been sorely lacking for a very long time,” Radek replied.

“I guess I can live with that for now,” Rayna shrugged. “So am I allowed to go out to my car to get some stuff? While we were talking, I realized that I haven’t called Sadie yet, and I promised her that I would call when I got out here. I’m sort of feeling like a bad sister right now, and she might be climbing the walls wondering if I’m okay. Plus, my shampoo and stuff is out there, and some clean clothes, because I think I do smell a little funny.”

“You’re my guest here, child, not a prisoner, regardless of what Radek might have told you last night in my absence,” Gabriel assured. “I do hope that you’ll choose to stay with us for a while longer, not only because I enjoy your company, but also because I hope that we can help you find the answers that you seek.”

“Thanks,” Rayna smiled. “And don’t worry – Radek didn’t exactly call me a prisoner. He just made it pretty clear that I shouldn’t leave. I’ll be back in a little bit. I’m going to call Sadie from the car, I think.”

“Of course, you want to speak to your sister privately. There’s no need to explain,” Gabriel said. “I’ll get started with your bath. The fire takes a bit of time to warm the water to a reasonable temperature.”

“Come, Rayna, I’ll walk you to your car,” Radek volunteered. Both vampires rose from the table and stood quietly, waiting for Rayna to join them.






On to part two...