XIII

David watched Julie closely as she fed from his wrist; she shook, and sobbed while doing so, choking and coughing at times, David guessed from the pungent smell his blood gave out-but she did not stop drinking. Julie was trembling from the shock of tonight’s event, David sensed confusion and fear from her, but he did not dare speak a word as she fed from him. He knew that they had plenty of time to talk later. They had eternity now, and soon the boys would be back and his circle would be complete.

“That should do it kid, you’ve drank at least a pint from me. You’re like me now, so no need to drink anymore.” David spoke quietly, taking back his arm and placing his ungloved hand on the cut he had made. David looked down and shut his eyes; he felt a sting from the cut as it closed under his palms. He felt the skin grow and seal, but he did not like watching himself heal, it sickened him for some reason. Funny, that he a vampire that enjoyed killing and dismembering humans would be disturbed by his own bodies’ regeneration, he would have to talk to Julie about that someday, and maybe they’d have a big laugh.

He was sure that they would go back to the cliff and joke about it some other day. Hitting the town, or boardwalk was out of the question tonight, David knew that Julie was far to shaken up to go anywhere this evening, eyeing her; David reached up and touched her forehead. Julie’s face was wet with tears, sniffling here and there; she flinched when David’s palm rested on her head, but not out of fear of his touch, but because she had a large bump forming on her head. He shook his head.

“You got hit pretty hard huh?” David looked her over from head to toe, she sat before him on her knees, Julie’s brand new clothes were torn, she had bruises forming on her face and neck, David knew that they would heal come the following evening with his blood now in her system. But still, the fact that she had gotten hurt on his watch pissed him off.

He had not expected her to remove his glove, his demonic nails came out when he slept, that very sight of his nails must have been what sent her running out into the night. David was angry with himself, how could he have slept thru that? It was so unlike him. What had made her go and check out his hands anyway? He would ask her soon, right after he was done explaining things to his charge; David knew that she would ask questions too, especially about his feeding form and her own transformation.

“I…I tried to get back to you…I got in a few hits before that.” Julie croaked weekly, her voice was groggy from the crying and screaming that she had done. David nodded, smirking at her.

“I saw, you cracked his nose pretty good.” She had made him proud somewhat, he liked that she had stood up for herself, he felt as if he had installed some sense of fight in her. David noticed how bloody the man had been when he swooped in and dragged him off of Julie; David had known immediately that she had done that damage to his face.

“Yeah.” Julie nodded her eyes downcast, silence, the two said nothing for a few minutes just sitting there as the sound of the waves crashed against the bluff. David eyed her ripped spaghetti strap; the fabric was hanging on to her frame-barely, he looked to his right and saw ripped discarded white panties, Julie’s underwear. He scowled, David was glad that that man was dead, he was so damn glad.

“Let's go back inside; we’ll get you some new clothes tomorrow.” David stated as he got up on his feet, Julie looked at him and nodded. She was about to get up when she noticed David crouch down, with a grunt he moved one of his arms under her knees and wrapped the other around her shoulders. Climbing back effortlessly, David now had Julie in his arms, bridal style, as he had carried her four weeks ago the night they first met.

Julie in response rested her head against his shoulder, she let out an anguished cry, and again she bawled, really letting her tears fall, her lungs felt relief as she finally let the pain she felt in her heart out with the loud cries that escaped her lips. David; surprised by this-said nothing, for once he could not bring himself to insult a girl for crying like a little baby. He would allow it this time and only this once.

Once inside the safety of his haven, David immediately headed for Julie’s canopy, he lay her down carefully on the bed; then turned and headed towards the canister that lit the center core, and he reached into that old fountain full of knick knacks and grabbed some fuel and relit the fire that was dying down. Immediately the place was illuminated by the fire, David then went back to Julie’s side. Crouching down by her bed, she had made herself comfortable by this time, her head was resting peacefully on one of her pillows, her tears were slowly starting to dry up, she was calming down.

“So…you have any questions?” David asked her, Julie nodded, he knew that she would. “Ask then, but remember this, I’m only going to tell you what you need to know and I’m not going to repeat myself so listen carefully-you understand?”

“I do.” Julie answered.

“All right then.” David cleared his throat “What do you want to know?” He knew what she was going to ask even before she spoke, since it had been the first thing he had asked Max after drinking his blood.

“What’s going to happen to me?” her voice was so raspy, so silent. He began to explain what would happen to her, the changes that would occur.

The transition from human-to vampire was a slow and grueling process, David remembered that much from his own death, he remembered that it took a few hours for Max’s blood to take effect on him. The blood did not work fast as commonly believed in folklore; the blood took awhile to travel through one’s system. Max had gone on to describe that a vampires blood was like a slow working poison- killing the human slowly from the inside after being digested-where the spell would then break, transforming the newborns body to accommodate a faster, stronger creature. Thus creating a vampire.

Once the body was half dead, the pain would start from the body’s need for fresh blood, a pain that would not go until the body was satisfied with warm blood. Even if one refused to complete the ritual; that pain would remain until the spell was complete with the first kills blood, either kill and become a full vampire to get rid of the pain or stay in limbo and deal with the consequences, David had thought nothing of it when Max had turned him. He had gone out and killed the following night of his transformation.

Julie’s face remained blank, she stared ahead as he finished explaining this to her. David stopped and looked at her, his face stern.

“You are going to be a bit tired, but you’ll be alright. Any other questions?” David waited, Julie sighed.

“Why didn’t you tell me what you were earlier?” David held back from scoffing at that.

“Would you have stayed if I’d told you sooner?” he remarked with a snort. Julie shook her head.

“I guess not.” she blushed; David scratched the back of his ear. Waiting for another question. “Were you as scared as I am? I mean finding out that vampires exist?” now that was an interesting question. David was not about to answer that one honestly though, he had an image to uphold.

“What do you think?” he answered stoically, they both got quiet then. The silence was uncomfortable, again Julie spoke up.

“Your friends…the one’s you were talking about earlier…are they vampires too?” that was an easy one.

“Yes…They are vampires…were.” David’s eyebrows scrunched together as he added that last part it pained him somewhat. But they would be back soon, now that Julie had taken his blood, all he’d have to do is take her to make her first kill and await further instruction from Rayne. Course he still had to find that book that Rayne had mentioned, but he was sure that that would not be a problem.

“What do you mean were?” Julie shifted in her place, her eyes showing confusion and surprisingly concern as well.

“They were killed; some little shits got all high and mighty on us and killed them.” David said this with hate in his voice, Julie’s eyes widened as he told her this “We had a leader, he was my creator. I’d kept him a secret from the newer members of our family; my friends were named Dwayne, Paul, and Marko.”

David paused, why was it so hard? Why was he having trouble talking about them?

“My maker wanted a woman; she had two sons that he wanted us to recruit into the family. So my boys and I did what we could and it all went wrong. That woman’s sons fought us, and they succeeded in killing them. I almost died fighting the older son. But I made it out somehow.” David could not explain how he had been revived that night by Rayne, particularly because he could not recall a damn thing after being run though by the antlers. David decided then to keep Rayne a secret, he was sure Julie would not understand.

But judging by the look that she had on her face, David knew that she was already pretty damn confused.

“But…You said that your family was coming back” Julie sounded puzzled “How can they be coming back, if they are dead? And what do I have to do with them coming back?” David remained calm; he already had an answer for this.

“Resurrection.” He muttered “I’m going to revive them, I need you to help me bring them back, I can’t go into detail but you play a big part in bringing them back to life.”

“But…Why do you need me? Couldn’t you have brought them back to life on your own?”

“Like I said, I can’t go into detail. But you had to join our family, let’s just leave it at that kid.” David looked away, he was sure that that was not the right way to go about it. But he couldn’t and explain Rayne’s role in this whole play, he knew that Julie was already pretty overwhelmed didn’t need to make things worse. He was ready for Julie to ask another question; to his surprise she was done asking- surprisingly she was taking most of this quite well.

“Thank you.” She shut her eyes tightly. “Thank you for coming to my rescue”

“Well…it’s not like I could turn away.” David cleared his throat, he was not used to this sentimental crap, even Star had not acted like Julie, but then they were two different people. “You were calling out to me; I couldn’t leave ya there for that bastard to hurt ya.” David looked away. He had never spoken like this, to anyone. Damn that Rayne, he knew she had something to do with this.

“I didn’t think you’d hear me, but you did. I’m glad” Julie added. David raised an eyebrow.

“How could I not have heard you? You were screaming David please help me, David please.” He repeated what he had earlier, at that Julie sat up, her eyes confused.

“I wasn’t screaming that.” Julie added quietly.

“Yes you did, I heard you loud and clear.” David shrugged, Julie shook her head.

“No I didn’t, I thought it…but I didn’t say anything…”Julie looked at David in the eyes, something she did not like doing. It was then that David knew that she was telling the truth; Julie would not have looked him in the eyes otherwise. It was David’s turn to look confused. But instantly he thought of Rayne, he knew that she had something to do with that. He would clear this up later, once Rayne decided to come to him again.

“Forget it.” David decided he was going to change the subject “Why did you look at my hands? Who said that you were allowed to take of my gloves?”

“I don’t know…I just…”Julie immediately thought of the dream she had just had, the one with David, and the girl and the father. She wanted so badly to tell him about it, but then what would David think? She realized how ludicrous this reasoning was almost instantly, seeing that David had kept such a secret from her all this time. Julie knew that he had a good reason, she would have run. She was still tempted too, even though she had drank the putrid blood that came from his wrist.

“You know what…never mind” David interjected “forget it, what happened- happened…lets just worry about your recovery…and your next step.” David thought it was best to drop it for now, he knew that they still had a lot of work to do, and interrogating her now would only complicate things. It was best to just talk about her actions later on, there was time now, her father was no longer around, all they had left was the woman. David then stood up, preparing to leave stopping only when Julie reached up and grabbed for his hand.

“No…I want to explain myself, honest. I do…”Julie looked at his hand; his nails were no longer demonic looking. Not now anyway. She eyed his hands, reminding her of the dream she had, that little boy in the dream, it must have been him…right?. Julie gulped and looked up at David with watery eyes, David returned her stare, raising an eyebrow at her as if to say “go on”.

“I had a dream…now before you say a thing…I need you to know that it was a really graphic dream, a little boy was in it and he was getting beat up by his father, whom had been drinking…” Julie blurted out, by saying it fast she was hoping that the story would sound less strange to David. But if she had paid closer attention to her friend, she would have noticed that he stood frozen in place, the look on his face shown pure surprise and confusion. And as she went on and on about the dream the more his stomach twisted into terrible knots.

“Then there was this girl…”Julie’s voice cracked then, David listened carefully, for he David, leader of the gang was growing somewhat sick with fear…yes…fear!. Every detail she gave him reminded him of he and his father, this girl that Julie was talking about was new…who was the girl?.

“The man raped her, I heard him do it, and the little blond boy was crying, then the room changed and the little boy was with the girl the two were brother and sister. Their father had been abusing them both, but the girl was the one he was sexually abusing. The girl drank something in the cup and killed herself…that’s when I grabbed onto the boy and then the boy started to change in front of me” Julie paused and looked up at David once more.

“The boy turned into you…” Julie said this under her breath, David heard her. He looked down towards the floor of the cave, he knew immediately whom was the cause of this dream; Rayne. Damn her! She was the reason that Julie had gotten so curious. Julie looked down, her face was red.

“That was me…you were seeing my past. Don’t ask me to explain how you saw this, but that was me.” David looked away from Julie. Rayne had shown Julie his past, like David had been shown Julie’s…but if that were the case…who was the girl that Julie had talked about…a sister? David had not had a sister. It was just him. David felt a strange pain in the pit of his stomach , strange he had never felt this before. But suddenly it just didn’t feel right anymore.

“Oh god! David” Julie gasped in shock “I knew you had gone through a rough time…but I didn’t know you had to go through that, and lose your sister.”

David said nothing, staring at Julie whom was becoming quite emotional. His head was spinning with confusion, sister? Did he have a sister? If so why couldn’t he remember having one? And why was he feeling so sick all of a sudden ? although he didn’t remember having any siblings…why did the mentioning of a sister make him feel so damn sick. While David stood there motionless, something strange happened. Something he had not expected from his charge.

Teary eyed Julie had stood and wrapped her arms around his midsection, catching the always alert vampire off guard, She was hugging him tightly. And crying, David remained unemotional, his face was still blank with confusion, somehow though, he managed to return the hug. The two stayed this way for some time.

Mentally David could only think of one thing: Rayne…was this plan all along?

He was sure that he would find out soon.

-

Two nights passed in Santa Carla, A woman with graying red hair was out on the town looking for someone, two people now. Her husband and their step daughter, Julie. The woman was quite angry; her husband had not return from his search for the girl. In the woman’s mind, she was sure that her husband had found the girl, and was probably having his way with her. The thought sickened her. Sure she wanted the man for herself, but he needed the girl, he preferred them young, and wouldn’t it be better for the world that the little orphan be off the streets giving back to a man in need?.

The women was wondering if she would find them, she wanted to go home, she also wanted to teach that little girl Julie a lesson.

Shhhhhhhhh.

The woman heard rustling, looking around her she noticed that it was not windy out, and that the trees were not shaking, she shrugged perhaps it was a cat looking through the trash. She heard whistling then, something fast was in the air, the woman look up, her eyes widened and her mouth h opened to scream before she was scooped up from the ground. Leaving behind a gold purse and a stick of lip stick rolling out of the purse, someone else would find it, most likely a surf Nazi, or perhaps a kind stranger wanting to do good, but they would not be returning the purse to the owner.

David was going to make sure Julie completed her last task.

-

Hey everyone! Thanks for reading my story!, wow these are the most reviews I’ve ever received for my chapters, I’m really touched!, I have a lot more time on my hands now so I’m hoping to finish this story soon, there is something bad going to happen to Julie though. There’s a spoiler for you guys.