Fledgling (The Vampire Manifesto, Book Two) (15 page)

“Keep thinking like that buddy.” Abigail was particularly sarcastic. “Fucking pussy.”

“Besides I’m not concerned about him.” He added. “So what’s the deal with you and this Dakota chick?”

“Really?” Abigail shot herself in the head with her index finger and thumb. “That’s what you’re worried about? Dakota? Seriously, are you a fucking idiot or do you just play one on TV?”

“Look. Neither one of them are going anywhere anytime soon.” I rubbed my eyes. This conversation was making my head hurt. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I just wanna say goodbye to parents.”

“Just remember I tried to warn you.” Abby turned into the hospital parking lot, pulling the car up to the entrance. “You two go on ahead while I find parking.”

I got out, closing the door and walked inside. Ethan had to run to catch up to me. I had never been to this hospital before and I wasn’t certain where I was going at first. Everything smelled so sterile here, but just beneath that, it was still there, the smell of death. You couldn’t hide that stench no matter how much disinfectant you used.

I followed it.

“You know where you’re going?” Ethan asked.

“No.” I disclosed. “Not really, but I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“I can smell the decay in this institution. Some of it is older than the others. I’m thinking that’s where the dead bodies are at.” I construed.

“Shouldn’t we just talk to a doctor?” He asked.

“Yeah, you go do that.” I stepped into the elevator.

We got off at a lower level and I continued to walk, trusting in my prenatural senses. We entered a restricted area, but there wasn’t anyone around to stop us, so we continued on. I took a left, went down an extensive hallway, took a right, went a little bit further, then another left and stopped.

We were here.

I could smell my mom beyond the door in front of me. I turned the doorknob, but it was locked. I gave it a good twist and the lock popped. I stepped in, pulling Ethan inside with me and closed the door. Even amongst all this death, he still managed to smell like oranges. The wall was lined with numerous little freezer units, at least twenty.

“Do you know which…”

I walked to one in particular and pulled the handle on it, a counter with my mother’s body slid out in front us.

“…yeah, never mind.”

There she was, eyes closed, a white sheet pulled up to her collarbone. She didn’t really look dead yet, just like she was asleep. At least she looked peaceful.

“Oh…broken lock.” Abigail was sneaking in. She checked to see if she was being followed before she closed the door. “Is that her?”

“Yeah.” I walked a couple of units down and opened a handle. My father’s body slid out this time. I let out a chuckle. Even in death, he still looked a little cocky. Like he wasn’t that pissed at being dead. I bent down and kissed him on the forehead.

“Did my Cousin call while I was sleep?” I pushed his body back into the unit and closed the door.

“Yeah.” Abigail seemed preoccupied. She wasn’t used to being this adjacent to dead bodies, but she was doing her best to hide it. “He said he was running late.”

“Typical.” I bent down and kissed my mother as well, then pushed her back inside and closed the door on the unit.

I went down three more units then opened the door and pulled out the body that was inside. It was a middle-aged, auburn haired woman.

“Who is that?” Ethan asked.

“This is Dakota’s mother.” I leaned forward and kissed the small bullet hole on her forehead. “Not everyone gets to walk away from one of these. I’m sorry Mrs. Theia. I’ll take care of her, I promise.”

I sealed up her unit then turned around. “I’m ready to go home now.”

I didn’t speak the rest of the way. I just wasn’t in the mood for conversation. All Abigail desired to do was talk about Connor and the only thing Ethan wanted to speak about was Dakota. I didn’t feel like I needed to clarify myself to either one of them. Isn’t it sufficient that I’m putting my life on the line to protect them? What I really needed to do was to go into hiding, just disappear somewhere and not be seen or heard from for a couple of years, but no, here I am, endangering my life to safeguard them. Like I need...

I stopped. I sound like Connor. I never want to sound like him. We pulled up into our driveway, yet I declined to get out the car.

Ethan leaned in the passenger window. “You coming?”

“Yeah, just give me minute okay?”

“Sure.” He started to walk off.

I called out after him. “Hey, tell Girard to come out here for me.”

He gave me a wave. I was grateful to be alone. I thought I was going to cry and yet I realized I had no more tears left to shed. I was all cried out and to be honest, I was done crying and I silently swore to myself that I would never shed another tear again. It didn’t take long before Girard came outside, getting in the driver’s seat next to me.

“Do you have that material I asked for?” I asked as soon as she settled in.

“Yeah, it’s…”

“Keep it for right now, that’s not what I called you out here for.” I said.

“Oh, okay.” She got really nervous. She was speculating if the reason I brought her out here was to kill her. “What’s up?”

“I want you to explain to me about enthralling.” I clarified.

“That?” Girard exhaled, severely relieved. “It’s kind of like mind control or a sophisticated form of hypnotic suggestion. The subject is advised to do something or to feel a certain way and the subject does this, thinking that the way they feel or whatever it is that they are doing was their idea.”

“Do they remember being enthralled?” I asked.

“No.” She said. “The subject always reasons that it was his or her idea.”

“Is it permanent?”

“As far as I can tell.” Girard was watching me very closely now, she was piecing things together. “The only way to breakdown compulsion is for the original Vampire to, in essence, enthrall the subject again and instruct them to disremember all previous things they compelled them to do.”

“Could I, if I wanted, enthrall another Vampire if I needed to?”

“Anything’s possible, but I’ve never read any documented cases of that happening.” She said.

It was the subsequent question that I wanted to ask the most. “Does compulsion carry over if the subject has been transformed into a Vampire?”

Staci Girard was silent at first, just regarding me. “You believe Connor was compelling you to do things while you were human, don’t you?”

“Yes.” I admitted.

“Madison, he could have enthralled you to do virtually anything while you were human. Not even virtually, let me change that, I mean anything.” She leaned close. “And all of it would transfer over if you were turned into a vampire. All of it. The way you act, what you wear, the emotions you feel, he could have modified all of that and you wouldn’t even notice, you would just think it was all you.”

I didn’t want to hear anymore and yet I needed to.

“That’s the thing about compulsion, Madison. It makes your entire memory suspect because you don’t know which thoughts are authentic and which ones are fabricated.” Girard sighed. “Do you recall how you were turned into a Vampire?”

“Yes.” The night in San Francisco flashed in my mind, the train I was riding on, me bleeding to death. Waking up and my wounds being healed, killing that cop at the Bart station. “Well, kinda.”

“What do you mean kinda?” Girard asked. “Either you do or you don’t.”

“I don’t know, everything was chaotic, I was bleeding, dying. I blacked out.” I explained. “When I woke up I was like this.”

Everything was quite between us.

“Madison, how do you know that’s what actually transpired?” She finally asked.

“Because I was there.” I said. “I remember it.”

“But you don’t.” Girard declared.

Silence again.

“When was the first time you meet Connor?” She asked.

“At a bonfire.” I answered. “Not that long ago really.”

“But are you positive? How do you really know that for sure?” She asked. “You could have met him months ago and you wouldn’t even recollect it.”

I disagreed. “I would remember.”

“No you wouldn’t. That’s the whole thing about being enthralled. It’s the fact that you don’t remember.” She said. “Madison...” Her voice trailed off.

“What?” I asked.

She touched my hand. “He could have turned you weeks ago and you wouldn’t even have known it.”

I laughed. “You can’t be serious?”

“When it comes to compulsion it’s all about the wording.” She sat up straight in her chair and gazed into my eyes as if she was a Vampire. “I’m going to turn you into a Vampire and you are not going to know you are a Vampire. After you drink someone’s blood, you will forget that you did it. If you notice that your eyes are brighter than normal you will drink blood until they look human again and you will forgot that you did it. You will act and behave like a normal human. On a certain date, you will forget all the rules I have implied upon drinking blood and act and behave as a normal vampire does.”

She sat back in her seat. “Of course it would be tremendously more comprehensive than that. If I was him, since I couldn’t enthrall you again once you became a Vampire, I would want practice out the wording on other people first, over and over again until I got the phrasing down exactly how I wanted it. Then I’d kill all of those other Vampires and come find you.”

I just couldn’t believe her. “You give him too much credit. He really isn’t that clever.”

“You don’t get as old as him by being stupid.” She countered.

“Old?” I thought about it. “He’s only thirty something. And that’s human and Vampire years combined.”

“Madison, we have historic accounts on Connor dating back to World War One.” She said.

He lied to me.

“You really need to read the files I have on him.” Girard sat there, thinking things through, ambiguous about it all. “But really, to do all of that? That just seems particularly unnecessary to me, I mean and don’t take this the wrong way, your cute and all, but you’re not that cute. Not to strategize all that out. I mean, what would be the purpose? What’s the end game?”

Of course he lied to me. He wants whatever it is inside the Box of Pandora.

“Your right Madison. That actually doesn’t make sense.” She admitted. “Besides, it’s like you said, he’s not that smart.”

I needed time to contemplate about everything I just learned. “You got the stuff on the Eden Complex ready?”

“Yeah.” She said. “Everything you asked for is on a USB.”

“I’ll find you sometime tonight.” I said.

“Anything else?” She asked.

“Yeah.” I admitted. “If I had been compelled as I human and it has carried over to me as a Vampire, what else can I do to cancel it out and get all my original memories back?”

“Other than Connor releasing you from it himself, you’d have to kill him.” Girard got out the car and went inside.

I sat alone for a while, rerunning our discussion over in my mind. Everything she said was conceivable and if there was anyone who was maniacal enough to put something like that together, it’s Connor. On the other hand, any and everything that comes out of Girard’s mouth is suspect. She’s already betrayed us once and this could be her divide and conquer tactic.

“Have a nice little conversation did you?” I looked up and saw Connor standing in front of the car.

“You heard?” I asked.

He pointed to his ear. “Of course I heard.”

I got out the car. “Got anything to say about what she said?”

“Believe it.” He replied. “Believe every word of it.”

“You can’t be serious Connor?”

“I don’t have anything to prove to you Madison.” Connor walked towards the house. “Your Cousin is here by the way.”

“He is?”

“Yup.” He was almost at the door. “And guess what?”

“He doesn’t like you.” I answered.

He raised one finger in the air. “You got it.”

I followed after him, finding everyone in the living room. Frankie was there, on the couch, next to Aiden. Frankie had some timeworn, beat up photo album resting on his lap opened to about the midway point. They were all photographs of my parents and him when they were young.

Aiden saw me come in. “Hey Madison, come check these out. Its mom and dad.” He pointed to one picture of dad. “What’s going on with his hair?”

Frankie burst out laughing. “That’s what we used to call a mullet.”

He looked pretty good for his age, which if I had to guess was some around his mid-fifties. His hair was cut short, but was still black and all there. He had on a pair a jeans and a black tee shirt, with black cowboy boots on. Next to the couch was a green military C-bag, which I assumed belonged to him with a motorcycle helmet on top.

Frankie got up and gave me a hug. “How you doing Madison?”

He smelled like cider wood and old spice, which I found oddly comforting. “I’m doing okay, all things considered.”