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Chapter Fifty
"She's innocent you know," Will was saying to Matthias. "Innocent."
The emphasis made her cheeks burn.
"Serious? Didn't she just go through heat?"
"Yeah, but my dad....he helped her out without taking that from her."
"Shit. I have just gained all kinds of respect for that man. Do you have any idea how difficult that would be, to resist a vampiress in heat?"
"I have some idea. My old man is a rock. They don't make them any stronger."
"No kidding."
Will poured his own shot and tipped his head in the direction of his father's table. "Michael, he seems solid."
"Oh fuck yeah, that boy is as solid as they come. He should be on a poster with the words High Moral Fiber written across the top. I've got nothin' but love for him, he's the anchor to our band of misfits. Though I gotta say Wolfie comes in a close second. A lot more wild because of his animal nature, but grounded at the same time. I can easily see His Hairiness with a couple of brats bouncing on his knees. All it'll take is the appearance of his mate and he'll be domesticated. Of course he has a strong family still living so that helps."
"And then there's Code-red. Now there's an interesting story.” He leaned back in his chair eyeing the golden-haired, amber eyed vampire. “He was among the last born, about fourteen years before Michael, who is only a hundred and thirty by the way, a mere adolescent in our world. Anyway Code’s mother was being hunted by a vicious vampiress called Sandrayna." He said her name like there was dirt on his tongue. "One night the bitch caught up with them and his mother fled with seventeen year old Coderin who was still several years away from being able to tear that bitch apart. See vampires don't come into their own until they reach about twenty-five, until then they’re little different than humans. Anyway, she fled and found an underground cave where she put her son in hyberstasis...know what that is? Yeah, so the problem is he was too young to turn on his own internal clock, and she intended to come back for him as soon as it was safe. But she never did, the assumption being she was killed. Cody boy was in stasis for the full one hundred years, which is the maximum length we can go under. So about twenty five years ago he woke up and found his world had drastically changed. He actually lived with some humans for awhile, passing himself off as a teenager--which is the other thing, his aging process didn't continue while in stasis, so when he climbed out of that cave he was still seventeen. We age until about mid to late twenties right, so yeah he lived with humans until he ran into us at a bar about fifteen years ago. So essentially he’s still a kid, vampirically speaking."
Anna was loving Matthias at the moment, being able to learn so much about the males she would be staying with. It definitely eased her mind to know that for the most part they were good.
"Shit, that would've been nuts to wake up after a hundred years, it's like the movies about people who were put under deep freeze. So what about creepy over there, what's his story?" Will nodded at Tyros.
Matthias followed the direction of his nod and looked at Tyros for a long moment, then shook his head. "No one really knows. He just showed up one day about five years ago, said he wanted to help us in our mission to take out the evil ones. One thing I can say about him- he's a vicious fighter, and since it looks like war is coming our way that's a damn good quality."
"How does that work exactly, what you do?"
"At this point the demons are mostly child's play. Occasionally we'll come across a big enough gathering to have our hands full for a second, but they're not physically powerful. It's just the mind shit you have to worry about, they reach inside and try to warp you. For most of us three or four are easy, you build walls against them in your head, a kind of mental fortress. You'll still come away with that sick diseased feeling for awhile-although with Anna around that will change. Generally we have to get some R&R between attacks, let the evil dissipate, but a healer can merely touch you and it's gone. She'll be an asset, especially if things are going like we think."
"Which is what? You mentioned war, what do you think's happening?"
"The second gateway has moved and it hasn't been found, on top of which we think the Guards have absconded. The Dantalion are a bitch. They have the mental powers of the Jinn coupled with physical strength and speed. It's been a long time since I've seen any real battle, but it looks like that's about to change."
"We thought it was something like that. I know you guys deal with them in their basic form, but even their possession of humans is changing."
"Hell yeah. They're much more aggressive and they team up."
Anna shifted her focus to Michael, Jack, and Seth who were talking about the same things.
"What we really need to know is why this happened or happens. What about this particular time is different?" Jack looked to Michael.
"Like I said, every hundred years the potential for it is there since the time vampires were first created. At that time all the doorways were wide open and demons ran rampant through the world. The why's we don't know, but we were created to take care of the problem and angels were put at three of the gates once they were closed again."
"All right, so every one hundred years the demons attempt to move the doorways, but is it the Angels that find them or vampires?"
Michael shook his head slightly. "Matthias is the only one who was around the last time the Dantalion got through, and all he did was fight the fight. He was basically a soldier in the army who followed orders but wasn't privy to all of the reasons behind them. There are ancients of our kind who are supposedly involved in the process, as far as we know these ancients locate the doorways and they, with the help of the angels, get them closed again. The problem is so many of our kind were hunted down and killed by fallen vampires or human mobs who equate all vampires with evil, that much has been lost. We once had detailed accounts written down, but no one knows where these accounts are. So unfortunately we're about as much in the dark as you are."
"Damn." Jack said, leaning back in his chair.
Michael looked up as Anna walked over and smiled warmly. She smiled back thinking that if there were ever a man to fall in love with it would be him. Considering the things Matthias had said a girl could not go wrong. She sat down next to Josh and pictured herself spending eternity with the vampire, and faltered.
I shouldn't have made that Austin comparison, she thought. But that was the problem, he did remind her of Austin. On top of which she felt no spark. Don't be ridiculous, you just met him, she scolded herself. And Jack is here muddying your thinking. The mostly part of her crush squashing still left a lingering part that had not entirely left. Her eyes shifted over to the man in question and saw he'd returned to the bar, along with Seth...Wolfie, she snickered to herself as she thought about Mathias's nicknames and descriptions, and the young yellow haired and eyed Coderin...Code-Red.
Josh asked Michael several questions about his demon slaying process and she listened to the exchange watching Michael's expressions. He was beautiful, with his thick glossy brown hair and his vivid sapphire eyes, not to mention his muscular physique...how could she not be attracted to him? But she wasn't. She could already see him in Josh's role, growing to love him quickly but not in the fireworks, want to take her pants off for him kind of way. Matthias, with his powerful body, piercings and his platinum hair that stood out in stark contrast to his tanned skin, not to mention that tattoo climbing his neck, inspired more excitement in her. But he didn't seem right either.
Oh Jesus, she thought, are you really going to look at every vampire as a potential mate and then discard him based on a couple of hours? No more thinking about it, she decided, things like that should just happen so let them. She heard her phone ringing from the deep recesses of her purse and pulled it out.
"Anna?"
"Jess! How are you, I haven't talked to you in forever!"
"I know, I miss you. And my sister. Speaking of which, have you talked to her lately?"
"This morning actually, why what's up?"
"My parents are flipping out. Apparently she messaged them that she was going to France with Aunt Harriet-they thought this whole time she was with you, did you know that? Anyway they messaged her back a bunch of crap and she ignored it then ended up turning off her phone. And I wanted to go with her!"
"Wait, what? You want to go with her? What about Nate?"
"We broke up. He's an idiot who I never want to see again. But that's not why I want to go, I want to meet Aunt Harriet, I want to find out about where we came from. I've been...well, a week ago I went to this party with some girls I met at work. Since Marina moved to Buffalo to live with Macey I've had to make a few new friends, or at least people I can spend time with. Anyway, they wanted to play with a Ouiji board, and you know how I am about that stuff, it scares me. So I just watched, but apparently you don't have to participate for something to happen, you just have to be there!" She sounded distraught and Anna could tell she’d begun to cry.
"What happened?"
"I can see them now...the shadow things."
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