The Vampire & the Rebel (Completed)

Part 1: Chapter 13

Drak had headed off on his little willing human hunt and I was left to my own devices for a while. Though Drak was a total pain in the butt, he was one of the few vampires that I did not need to watch like a hawk while in my home.

The other vampires who knew of him likely would have called him a hippy, if they had only been old enough to know what the word meant.

Sometimes, it was like I lived alone in a different world, parallel to the real one, but not quite touching anyone, even the other vampires in my midst. Other than the handful of other old vampires left, no one remembered the civilization that we had dismembered and brought to its knees.

It had been so big, so vast, so intricate, but it had fallen like a house of cards. It had been ridiculously easy to knock the structure to the ground.

That was another good thing about Drak. Like me, he remembered. When I spoke of things of the former world, he did not give me that confused stare I was so accustomed to. I knew the other old ones, but I was not so close to any of them.

Most of the other vampires I had cared about were long gone. I had thoughtlessly joined the wars on the side of the vampires in a fit of grief after seeing my beloved sister fledgling brutally murdered and having scarcely escaped with my own existence intact. My sire had been killed shortly thereafter and I lost many friends, besides. Before I knew it, I was in the thick of the battles, destroying the very world that I had once enjoyed slipping through like a shadow.

I came to regret the part I had played in the suppression of humans over the years. The first sparks of misgivings had come even before the wars were completed, but I had already been in too deep to back out.

The humans believed us to be cold monsters, but at that time I and others had let ourselves be ruled by emotion, something I had ever since sought to avoid.

Drak, on the other hand, had stayed out of the battles entirely, choosing to continue to hide amongst the very humans who wanted to destroy us. Our peers still remembered his disloyalty and looked down on him and his ilk for it.

I did not hide my disdain for such traitors amongst the other vampires, but secretly I envied them their innocence in not taking part in the forming of the bleak world we now inhabited.

This was the downside of Drak's visits, because along with the sense of nostalgia for a lost age, he dredged up unpleasant memories I preferred to ignore, like the very musings in which I was currently wallowing. Thankfully, footsteps sounded outside my doors just in time to distract me from my unentertaining melancholy. "Open," I commanded my guards.

The doors opened and Leif came inside. He looked stiffer than usual as he gave me a respectful nod. "What is it, Leif?"

He paused, inhaled deeply and finally said, "Trisha and Jamie are now branded."

I did not fail to notice how his voice caught on Jamie's name.

"Oh?" I was very unhappy with the information, but I was not going to lash out at Leif for doing what in truth had to be done, regardless of the strange regret curling in my stomach.

He inhaled again. "I know you were stalling, but it could not wait much longer. It's been more than a month, and you know as well as I that you do not need additional scrutiny on your affairs. I am prepared to take my punishment for overstepping my bounds."

I sighed without breath. "No, you're right."

He tried to hide it, but his relief was apparent in the slight slackening of his form.

"I was taking too long to get it done." I did not want to consider why that might be.

"I'll take responsibility, and tell him I made the decision, if you wish."