Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (35 page)

“So am I—a vampire,” I added, unperturbed by her disbelief. “And so is David.”

Her eyes landed on him, changing slightly. Clearly, she believed
that
one.

“The bite marks?” She touched her neck, slumping breathlessly down on the chair behind her. “When you were attacked at the ball.”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “It was a vampire.”

“Was it you?” Sam stood up, towering over the table with a look of vengeance in his eye.

“No,” David said.

Sam sat down. Slowly.

“And… so…” Vicki stuttered, trying to make sense of it all. “My husband was…”

“
Is
, I think she said, Mom,” Sam muttered, his voice shaky. He stood again, his lips tight, cheeks stiff and hollowed. “Dad
is
a vampire, right, Ara?”

I saw the hope mingle with uncertainty and fear in his eyes; I saw the trail of thoughts that his mind would follow when I answered with what he so badly wanted to hear; I saw the questions fill him up with raging fire.

“Is,” I confirmed again, and Sam sat down.

“He’s… but he died,” Vicki said in a hollow, breathy voice, her eyes lensed by tears. “He died.”

“He faked his death,” David said, his own voice fragile with tenderness.

Vicki folded forward, crying into her hand.

I held my breath, grasping on tight to the strong, dutiful person I’d grown to be.

“He left to protect you,” I lied, hoping it would help. And it was a lie because, in truth, he left to protect Sam from the repercussions of killing my unborn baby. He never intended to stay with Vicki forever.

“To protect us?” Vicki looked up, her aged cheeks streaked with tears. “From what?”

“There is a war among our kind,” David advised. “Ara and I moved away to take care of it, but things went… bad, and Vampirie—” We both cringed. “
Greg
needed to return to help us.”

“Return?” Vicki just looked more confused. She wiped her sleeve under her nose—something I’d never ever seen her do—and suddenly she was just a woman with a broken heart—not a mom, not the super-strong leader of the family. Just a woman.

“He needed to fake his human death,” I started, and as if that was what Sam needed to hear to confirm it, he leaned over and rested his head in his hands on the tabletop, sobbing quietly to himself. “But he’s alive,” I added. “Just… he… he um…”

“Ara, spit it out!” Vicki said with urgency.

“He’s young.”

“Young?”

“He’s a unique kind of vampire—one that can age if he denies himself blood,” I told her, leaving out the part that this was a secret; we’d fill in the gaps later. “When he does drink blood, he… it reverses the ageing.”

Vicki and Sam both looked up at me like fourth grade children in a birthing class.

“This is a lot to take in.” I rubbed my face with both hands, pushing my hair off it then tidying it back down over my forehead again. “Vampires. Blood drinking. Immortality. Dad…”

David leaned purposefully forward and looked right at Sam, bringing his face down in line with the way Sam slouched. “Mike’s coming back in a few days—”

“He is?” Sam looked up.

David sat taller. “He found out about what’s going on with our kind, and he got in the car immediately to come back.”

“So he knows?” Vicki asked, then she looked at me. “He knows you’re a…”

“Vampire. Yes.”

“Has he always known?”

“No,” David said quickly, as though the answer to that mattered more than it seemed to.

“He suspected for a while,” I added. “But he didn’t actually
know
until he came back here after the wedding was called off.”

“Does he know that Dad’s… alive?” Sam asked, concentrating on that last word like it was a life lesson.

“Yes.”

“How come he didn’t tell
me
?” His face crumpled and his mouth turned down, the tears falling freely out from between his lashes and down his cheeks. “We talk all the time. He knew what I was going through, why would he—”

“Mike couldn’t tell you, Sam. Because Dad, and I, forbade him.”

“So what?” he said. “We—”

“He’s bound by his word,” I explained. “Like a priest—kind of.”

“And yes,” David cut in. “Mike’s a vampire, too—”

“He is?”

I nodded. “He’s my head of security, and it is his responsibility to protect me and my people, and telling anyone about Dad could have put him, me, and you all in real danger. This isn’t a joke, Sam! If anyone finds out that Dad can reverse the ageing and become a more-human and less-powerful version of himself, they may wait until he does just that, and then kill him.”

“Did he… did he ever plan to tell us?” Vicki asked, but I knew that she already knew the answer to that.

“He thought he was doing the right thing,” I said.

No one spoke then. Sam sat back, exhaling. Vicki did too, but a bit slower and with a bit more grace. And David I just sat waiting, our shoulders tight and high.

“I just wanna kick something.”

“I know, Sam. I felt the same when I found out.”

“So you didn’t know?” Vicki asked. “At the funeral—”

“No. God, no.” I shook my head, my eyes wide. “I would never have pretended to grieve for him, Vicki. I just wouldn’t do that.”

She nodded, looking a little relieved.

“He came to me after—a
while
after. And it wasn’t exactly a hold-me-in-your-arms reception either.”

“Did you punch him?” Sam asked.

I shook my head softly. “Do
you
want to punch him?”

“Will I get the chance?” he asked, that teenage adrenaline filling his eyes out with a look of egotism. “Is he ever coming back?”

“That’s why I’m here—telling you this,” I said. “He asked me to… soften the blow before he returns.”

“All this time…” Vicki’s voice and her eyes trailed off to emptiness. “How could he do that to us?”

“I’ll never forgive him,” Sam assured us, his face twisted up like he’d eaten a lemon.

“Can I say something?” I interjected. “And you don’t have to take anything from it, but I just ask that you hear me out.”

Vicki gave a nod. Sam shrugged.

“When he died—after the funeral, I don’t know what thoughts went through your mind. And I was in a bad place then—with David. With everything. But all I can remember about that day is thinking that I would give
anything
to have him back. No matter what.”

Vicki looked up; I made deliberate eye contact with her and held it there.

“No. Matter. What,” I repeated sternly.

She lowered her eyes and just nodded.

“Be angry at him,” David said, his deep voice such a shock among the softer, higher voices so far. “Hate him for a while if you need. But after that, try as hard as you can to understand why he did what he did.”

“Why should I?” Sam spat.

“Because he is your father. Because you are a soon-to-be very powerful vampire. And because he loves you and you love him,” I said. “You owe it to your heart to give him a chance.”

Sam looked down at his lap, but before I could speak to answer a question in Vicki’s mind, Sam looked up again and said, “Will I drink blood—and kill people?”

“Samuel!” Vicki spun around to look at him.

“What?” He rolled both hands out in a dismissive gesture.

“No, Sam,” I assured him. “Not human blood, anyway.”

“Don’t tell me it’s animal blood then.” He screwed his nose up. “I’m not gonna sparkle am I?”

David and I laughed. Vicki just looked at Sam blankly.

“No, buddy,” David said. “You’re a vampire-hunting bloodsucker. Your species are called Lilithians.”

“Lil-what?”

“Lil. Ith. Ians,” I stated. “It’s what I am, too.”

“And Dad?”

“No, he is Vampirian, and his other son is a…” Crap!

“
Other
son?” Vicki screeched.

“I have a brother?” Sam’s feet tapped excitedly under the table.

“An older brother. Centuries older,” I added, when Vicki’s mind went down the road of betrayal. “His name is Drake.”

“Jake?” Vicki said.

“No. Drake.”

“Drake?” She grimaced. “What kind of a name is Drake?”

David and I laughed.

“So where is he?” Sam said. “Dad? Where is he now? Why didn’t
he
tell us this?”

“Because he thought you might freak out too much to listen, but,” I added, holding a finger up to shush the sudden protest, “he
has
been keeping an eye on you both—because he cares.”

Vicki’s facial muscles went slack and her cheeks dropped as she put two and two together.

“Yes,” David said with a laugh. “The dog.”

“What!” Sam barked, leaning right forward. “The dog?”

I nodded, grinning at Vicki. She was thinking all the same things I had when I found out: did I do anything in front of that dog that I wouldn’t want my dad, or in her case, husband, to see?

“That explains why he scratched at the door so badly when I—” Sam stopped, his eyes flicked sideways onto his mother, then he bit his lip, his cheeks going red.

David rocked forward and slapped the table top, burying his nose in his fingertips, laughing so hard it was silent.

“What?” Vicki looked at David then back at me. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” I put my hand on David’s—a warning not to overload their brains with the truth about our powers—or the fact that David just saw so many things both Sam and Vicki would never have wanted him to see. I didn’t see them, but I could imagine what they might have been.

“Will he be back?” Vicki asked. “The dog?”

“I don’t think so.” I looked at David to see what he thought.

“No,” he confirmed, blinking back the tears of laughter. “He doesn’t need to be the dog now. But we do need to move you both to a safe place.”

“Safe place?” Vicki gasped. “Why?”

“There’s going to be a war—”

“War?”

“Between Drake’s Warriors and our Knights—”

“War?’ Vicki said again to herself, shaking her head. “This sounds insane, you do realise that?”

I nodded. “The people that want us dead may come for Sam—because of who he is.”

“Why? What did I do?”

“Nothing. Neither did I,” I said. “But Dad made an agreement with someone a long time ago—to give them something. But that something is evil and he wants to back out of the deal, so they may try to kill those he loves most in the world.”

Vicki stood up. “Then we have to pack. Now!”

“You have a week.” I stood too. “Nothing needs to happen until then.”

“But what if they come tonight—while we’re sleeping? What if—”

“It’ll be fine, Vicki,” David insisted, appearing at her side.

She took such a quick, sharp breath that even Sam jumped out of his skin.

“How did you do that? Appear out of nowhere like that?”

“I’m fast,” David grinned, appearing by the window. “Once you become a vampire, Sam, I’ll teach you how to do it.”

Sam’s world changed then. Everything we’d told him sunk in on a different level and the sun rose in his eyes. His dad was alive—was a vampire; and one day he would also be really cool. “When? When will I become a vampire?”

“When you’re about twenty-five—unless you drink vamp blood before that.”

“So blood turns me?” he asked, looking with wide eyes to me then David.

“It does,” David said in a warning tone. “But if you make the change or, as we used to say, ‘trigger the curse’ too young, you’ll be that age forever. And it’s not fun, trust me, having to show ID every time you want a beer.”

Sam nodded. “Right. So just wait until it kicks in naturally then?”

“That’s the smart option,” I said. “Look at me; I’m stuck at nineteen.”

“But nineteen and beautiful,” Vicki offered in that motherly way.

“Aw.” I cocked my head. “Thanks, Mom.”

***

Thinking about everything that happened today with Sam and Vicki, and the fact that Mike was on a plane right now—headed back to fight for me—and that Jason was, as we lay in bed, driving toward the lake house, I just couldn’t sleep. I threw another log on the fire and sat at the dining table, peeling the skin off an apple so it looked like a snake. When I finished, I held it up and went with it back to a day after school where I made one of these for Sam. He’d always been such a kid at heart, and to see the news about his father destroy him that way hurt me deeply. It hurt David, too, but he didn’t say it. The fact was, one day, Sam would be a member of our immortal community, and right now neither David nor I was all that sure what kind of a community this fun-loving little brother of mine would enter.