Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) (8 page)

“
Have
you eaten yet”, Solomon asked while looking in the stainless
steel masterpiece.

“
No”,
I said simply. Not knowing what emotion I was feeling I stuck with
hunger. “Do you have grilled cheese?”

“
I’m
sure we could manage.”

I noticed that some of
the staff members were caught off guard by my food choice while
others seemed to be relieved that I had chosen something so simple. I
tried to figure out what the correlation was between the relieved and
the aghast and found that it had a lot to do with the initial on
their choker. The people with an ’E’ and the ‘P’
were appalled by the choice, but those with a ‘T’ or ‘J’
smiled and cast quick looks in my direction.

Since there probably
weren’t any people with a ‘C’ on their neck, I
stepped forward completely prepared to make my own food. I reached
for the bread that Solomon had just placed on the counter when the
girl with the ‘T’ on her choker appeared by my side,
gently moving the loaf of bread out of my reach. She was almost as
silent as Tabitha but she was taller with light brown skin and the
deepest dimples I had ever seen.

“
Let
me make it for you”, she said politely.

She looked directly
into my eyes for the first time since I walked into the kitchen. Her
eyes were the strange color of sea foam that sparkled when she
smiled.

“
Sure.
Thanks. I’m Cheyenne”, I said, extending my hand.

The girl looked at me
for a moment and then over to Tabitha before shaking my hand in a
very professional manner.

“
It’s
very nice to meet you, Cheyenne. I am Veronica.”

Either Veronica had
just made the best grilled cheese sandwich I had ever eaten or I was
starving. It really didn’t matter because my stomach was full
and I was ready to get some answers. I pushed back from the table and
watched Veronica as she took my plate to the dishwasher and left the
kitchen with the rest of the staff, leaving me alone with Tabitha and
Solomon.

“
Chey,”
Tabitha started, using my nickname for the first time since this had
all began.

It felt good and
familiar, as if everything would turn out okay in the end. But, I
wasn’t naïve enough to believe that anything would be okay
again. She must have realized that I wasn’t listening because
she stopped talking and put her hands on her hips in defiance.

“
Look,
Tabitha, you can’t expect me to just be okay. You can’t
expect me to act normal; as if people weren’t after me.”

“
You’re
right and I’m sorry. It’s just that…,” her
voice trailed off.

“
It’s
just what?”

Tabitha looked down at
her hands because she was at a loss for words. For the first time in
the last few days I saw that my friend was just as conflicted as I
was, possibly more. What was it about my life that could have such an
impact on her?

Solomon stepped up and
cleared his throat.

“
Tabitha.
Cheyenne. They are waiting for us.”

Tabitha raised her head
until our eyes met. There was pleading and apology in them as if she
wanted to change what was about to happen. A chill spread through my
body and I became paralyzed with fear. At that moment I had the
sinking feeling that I would be safer in the hands of Raphael and the
Grigor character. A feeling that was not at all comforting.

Solomon led the way to
a set of double doors at the end of a very wide and elegant hallway.
He lifted the ancient door knocker all of the way and let it fall.
The resulting noise filled the hallway and made my ears ring, but the
door was not immediately opened. For the next 5 minutes we continued
to stand outside of the closed doors in silence. I looked from
Tabitha to Solomon for any sign of annoyance or distress only to find
them patiently waiting for our knock to be answered. After a few more
moments, the double doors were pulled open my two very large men in
black uniforms. Each of them bowed slightly in both Tabitha and my
directions before they turned to stand with their backs against the
wall.

Solomon stepped over
the threshold before us and disappeared into the candlelit room. I
followed Tabitha as she walked at a steady pace toward something at
the rear of the room. As we walked, I admired the architecture. There
were large beams of wood intersecting at even intervals across the
cathedral ceiling. In between some of the beams were narrow skylights
that allowed the moon to shine in. The floors were a mahogany wood
with a pine inlay giving it an overall dramatic look. There were
candle sconces on the walls even though I was sure the room had
electricity.

It took me a moment to
realize that we were not alone. As soon as I dragged my attention
away from the architecture, I saw them. On a raised dais on the far
side of the room sat seven people. In the center position was Efia,
Tabitha’s adoptive mother. I knew Efia from the times I had
visited Tabitha at her house, but I was still struck by her beauty.
It was unusual that a person of African descent would adopt someone
so obviously not African like Tabitha, but the two of them were so
devoted to each other that it made sense. Efia was from Ghana, spoke
the language and wore the clothing. She owned an international
marketing company and provided Tabitha with a lifestyle that any high
school girl would dream of. Like so many nights before, I wondered
what my life would have been like if Efia was my mother.

Anger and confusion
raced through me. My foster mom had been great and I had never wanted
to change that. She raised me by herself and struggled to make sure I
had the best that she could offer, or so I was led to believe. The
truth about her raising me purely for profit left a bitter taste in
my mouth. And, standing in front of the same woman who has me listed
on her family tree didn’t help matters.

I stared at the dais
and its occupants. There were three people to Efia’s left and
three to her right and all of them were staring back at me. I felt
movement from behind me and exhaled when Tabitha came to stand at my
side. She bent into a low curtsey and stayed there. I was so shocked
that my mouth dropped open. I looked around frantically and, not
knowing what else to do, I sank down into the best curtsey I could
manage with my set of curtsey-skills. I almost tumbled over, which
brought a thinly veiled laugh from a member of the dais.

“
Stand”,
Efia’s accented voice commanded. “Solomon, please bring
Cheyenne a chair.”

Solomon was carrying a
large chair in one hand as if it were a paper cup, and when he set it
down quietly, he bowed at me and then at the dais and walked
backwards to his post by the door. My legs started to get weak and I
was beginning to feel like I was going to be sick. Tabitha put one
hand on my elbow and, to my amazement, she was supporting all of my
weight. I backed into the chair and sat down. This was not good.

“
Welcome,
Cheyenne”, Efia started. “I know you have questions about
why you are here and what is going on so I will get right to it. I am
told that you have seen the family tree, is this correct?”

Efia stared at me while
I tried to get my mouth to work. Based on our surroundings and the
fact that we were just bowing in front of her, I expected her to be
impatient with my lack of response. She surprised me, however, by
looking directly into my eyes and smiling. That smile was so like the
one that Jordan had given me that I found myself even more anxious
than ever. Efia also had my eyes.

“
Yes,
Ma’am,” I finally sputtered out. “Yes, Ma’am,
I did. I have a lot of questions.”

“
I
know, my child, and I will try to answer them all, but we no longer
have the luxury of time and leisure. There are things that you must
know about your family and such knowledge is hard to bear.”

I stared back at her as
her words sunk in. I looked across the dais to find the assembled
group looking at me with a mixture of anxiety, relief and fear. The
conflicting emotions almost made the air too thick to breath and I
found my vision going blurry.

“
Have
you been having any dreams, Cheyenne?”

My attention was
snapped back to Efia in the center of the dais. I had been having
dreams; a lot of them. They had started when I was a child and
increases every year since. The day after my 17th birthday they began
to include smells and they always ended one way; with me awaking up
screaming. As I recalled the number of dreams I'd had over the past
year, it became strange that my foster mom had not once come into the
room to see if I was okay. I wondered if she knew what was happening
or if she just didn’t care. Or both.

“
Yes,
Ma’am. I have been having dreams.”

“
I
would love to hear about them. Just pick the most vivid one you can
recall.”

I sat there in awe and
tried to figure out why Efia was interested in my dreams. The most
recent dream that I dreamt hadn’t been pleasant. I remembered
trying to escape the bowels of a ship where monsters were feeding on
the slaves. I could clearly see the ship’s interior. The wood
was warped by the salt water and winds and had begun to smell like
mildew. I saw buckets of food mere inches from buckets of human
waste. Even the memory of the dream seemed real as I recalled
crawling over the debris toward the ladder. And then I froze. The
person in the remembered dream was racing past a series of hanging
pots when she turned her head and I saw her reflection. In my dream I
was Efia.

The dream Efia turned
and looked behind us at the sound of a pot hitting the floor. There
was something there in the shadows just out of our view. We slowly
continued toward the ladder believing that help would be on deck. Our
feet slipped on the first rung and we fell to the floor splitting our
lip open. We heard a groan from the shadows and looked in the
direction of the sound. Squinting against the darkness, we could
almost make out a silhouette of something…something crouched
in the corner.

We looked for something
to arm ourselves with and found an old mop handle. We lay on the
floor gripping the mop handle and praying that someone would come to
our rescue.

I opened the eyes that
I had not remembered closing and stared at Efia as if she were a
ghost. Her eyes and nose and mouth were exactly the same as the girl
in the ship. The same as the girl in every single one of my dreams;
my nightmares. I was shocked that I had never noticed that before.
Even more, I was shocked that I was having dreams about Efia being on
a slave ship.

I took a deep breath
while Efia continued to wait for me to tell her of my most vivid
dream and began to recount the last dream in the series. It felt as
if I were living the dream rather than retelling it and, as soon as
my eyes closed, I was running as fast as I could…as fast as
the skirts I was wearing would allow. They were never made for
running; Victorian walking dresses were apparently made just for
walking. If it weren’t for the forest canopy, I would have seen
the fullness of the moon as it lit my path, but the darkness
overwhelmed me threatening to hinder my flight to safety. And, I had
to get to safety, after what I had just witnessed, because the
monsters were on my trail.

The fact that I had
lost a shoe and was 7 months pregnant had not slowed my stride,
however the low tree branches were slicing into my skin and drawing
blood; sweet, life preserving blood that flowed down my cheeks and
arms. If I could just make it to the river I believed I could hide.
The monsters were said to fear the water, but I knew better. I met
them on the water during the long cruise from my home to this
dreadful place. Those monsters showed no signs of fear the entire six
month trip. Never showed the kind of fear that I experienced at that
moment. I needed to concentrate and get away.

The sound of my
heartbeat was as loud as the stomping of my feet along the forest
floor. Desperately trying to quiet myself without slowing my pace, I
stumbled as I came across a fallen tree and lay there as still as a
doe caught in the sites of a rifle. For what felt like a fortnight,
nothing happened. No monster jumped out of the shadows. No monster
descended from the forest ceiling.

Slowly I sat up,
gathered my skirts around my calves and took a deep, nerve calming
breath. I looked around even though I knew it was useless. The only
thing I knew for sure is that I was running away from the burning
plantation and the horrors that occurred there. My stomach threatened
to empty its contents and I was forced to place my head between my
knees. That was when I heard it. Just the smallest of noises like a
foot stepping on a twig, perhaps. I hoped for a rabbit or even a
skunk, but I had no disillusions that I had been found.

I struggled to stand
just as I heard another sound behind me and felt someone grasp me
around the waist before pulling me into a bush. The moment I tried to
scream a smelly rag was stuffed into my mouth and I found myself
wrapped in a wet, warm cloak of some sort. The stench was horrendous
but my fear was overwhelming the rest of my senses.

Within moments, I was
completely covered with the smelling cloak, branches and dirt from
the forest floor. Something was burying me alive and there was
nothing I could do about it. Fear paralyzed my entire body and I
prayed to my God to deliver my spirit back to my homeland. I prayed
so hard that I swore my God was going to come right out of the sky
and delivery me from this evil. But, either evil was stronger than I
thought or my God simply did not wish to hear me, for at that moment,
I turned to look in the face of the person whom had smuggled me to a
safe place.