Dawn's Destiny

Chapter 35

Barbara did what she'd been ordered to do and sat cross-legged on the floor. She didn't know why she was letting Doc boss her around. All in all she thought things were going pretty good. She was getting the hang of hunting. She was learning to be a vampire. And most of the brothers, not the one sitting across from her, of course, were patient teachers. Yes, things were going great, except for the fact that she was dead.

Thomas reported that the funeral went as expected without a hitch. No questions asked. Her death and the closed casket simply accepted. Barbara rolled her eyes at the silent Shaman, who hadn't bothered to explain why she was here. Watching him meditate was booorrrrinnggg. She supposed everyone in the Sons had their talent. And the Shaman, despite his talent for being her personal pain in the ass, was no exception. He was trying to help her connect with her spiritual side. And she was stubbornly making it her mission in death to treat him likewise and be a pain in his ass.

She was a bit insulted that he assumed because she didn't go around waving feathers over smudge pots and spouting off bits of outdated wisdom to anyone who didn't move fast enough to get away from him, that she wasn't spiritual. She was. Before she got sick she sang in the church choir. She baked the most beautiful pies Moore County had ever seen for the annual ladies auxiliary bake sale. And she'd crocheted her fingers to the bone for charity for more years than she had fingers and toes to count. She went to bingo, bunk-o, fundraisers, and even bought cookies from the damn Girl Scouts. She was involved in the community and did more than her part for the greater good. And when her illness got the better of her on those terrifying nights when she'd stay awake for fear of closing her eyes and never opening them again, she prayed. A lot.

She didn't believe the whole crosses and vampires don't mix thing. She had shied away from God because she'd cheated his plan. She'd given Death the middle finger and she wasn't quite so certain how God felt about that or about her anymore. Vampires were supposed to be these dark and evil creatures. And sure, sometimes her thoughts were a little bleak. But, she certainly didn't feel like the spawn of Satan. For the most part, she didn't feel any different at all.

Barbara sighed and fingered the bracelet on her wrist. Earning her a stern disapproving scowl from Doc. She squared her shoulders and vowed to keep still while he did his thing. The room reeked with the pungent smell of burning sage and lemongrass. And the feather he used to waft the smoke from his smudge pot over her head certainly didn't help matters much. She tried not to cough and blinked her watering eyes. Maybe, she was allergic or something. Whatever was supposed to happen, the deep moving experience she was supposed to have. Just wasn't happening.

Her butt was numb and her legs cramped from sitting on the floor. She was so uncomfortable that she couldn't sit still. She was the annoying kid in church. The one that always sat behind her and kicked the pew with the toe of his Super Center patent leather loafers while she was trying to listen to the sermon. Sitting here, fidgeting and trying so hard to pay attention, she almost felt sorry for the kid who had earned so much of her scorn.

Doc cracked an eyelid open and looked at Barbara. He stifled a grin as she tried so hard to do as he asked and behave. She was a fidgeter, a doer, and not even strict orders from the Jimmy Swaggart himself could have forced this woman to sit still. Barbara was conflicted and confused about her place in the universe. She assumed God didn't love her anymore. That he didn't see her the same because of what she was. And while his religion and practices were very different from her staunch fundamentalist upbringing and her Southern Baptist beliefs, the whole point of this exercise was to show her that God still had a place for her.

He wafted more smoke from his smudge pot, sending the plumes of his feather over her head. It truly didn't matter what a person believed. It was more to the point that God was real. And no vampire this side of the grave doubted it for a minute. Humans were the doubters, the scoffers. They wore their religions on their sleeves while their hearts were as distant and unreachable as the moon's cold surface. There was but one creator of the universe and He had a plan and a place for everyone in it, including Barbara.

The goddess served the will of her father. She was just another piece in a very big inexplicable puzzle. The brotherhood carried out her command. Righting the wrongs done by her siblings in a distant past so very, very long ago. They protected her Father's creation. They bled for her cause. And when the time came, they crossed her Great River to return to the source of the magic that had birthed them and everything else in the universe. Doc didn't doubt his place in the grand scheme of things. He did not struggle with his faith. He believed. He'd seen. And he trusted.

Switching tactics, hoping to anchor Barbara to the roots of her faith. Doc snubbed out the burning sage and set his smudge pot to the side. He reached across the narrow space separating them and took her tiny, delicate hands in his. Hands that had worked so hard to make a life for herself and her son. Hands that held onto hope when there was none to grasp onto. The hands of a survivor, of a mother, and those of one of the strongest women he'd ever met.

He started the prayer, his voice low and reverent, the tenor reverberating off the walls adding power and purpose to his words. He prayed in terms she'd understand, simple and truthful, free from flowery prose. He prayed the way the missionaries had taught him when they came to his village when he was just a boy. He said the Lord's Prayer and Barbara, grasping his hands with her trembling fingers, joined in.

Doc's gesture touched her heart. Their beliefs were the same, even if their practices were very different. She recited the words, meaning each and every one of them as they tumbled from her lips. At the end of the prayer, she continued to grasp his fingers. Drawing on their strength. At last blinking back tears, she released his hands. "Thank you, Doc."

Doc gently slid a fingertip down Barbara's cheek, collecting a stray tear on the pad of his index finger and holding it up to the glowing light of the fire on his grate for her to see. "A vampire without purpose is a dangerous thing. You held on to life because Thomas needed you to. But, Thomas will not be able to do the same for you."

Barbara shrugged doc off with a wave of her hand. "You don't know that. He might decide...,"

Doc cut Barbara off mid sentence, "Don't." Cupping her cheeks in his palms, he tilted her face up, forcing their eyes to meet. "Thomas couldn't let you go. He was selfish and you suffered more than what you should have. Pay him the kindness that he could not pay you. When his time comes, love him enough to let him go."

"I won't have to worry about that for decades," Barbara scoffed. The Shaman's brows knitted together in an intense frown. He didn't say what he was thinking and he didn't have to. Decades were but a drop in the bucket to an immortal. "A mother should not out live her children."

Doc smoothed his thumbs over Barbara's cheeks. Such sadness shone in her eyes at the realization of what would happen, sooner rather than later. "I am sorry, Barbara. You've lived most of your life for Thomas. Now, it's time for you to start living it for yourself. And for him to stop living his for you. Find your purpose, Barbara. Ground yourself in your faith. Worship however you choose. Pray long and hard, Barbara. And most of all, believe."

Thomas had no idea of what to do with himself. The house was too quiet, too empty without his mom's presence to fill it. He carefully folded her clothes and boxed her things like a grieving son was supposed to do. And although his mom was perfectly healthy and very much alive, he began to wonder in a way if a part of him wasn't grieving her loss. If he wanted to hear her voice, all he had to do was pick up the phone and call her. But, he didn't. They both needed time to adjust. Him, to the empty house and the sudden abundance of free time he found himself with no purpose, no desperate need, to fill. And her to the world he'd all but forced her into.

He'd spent the last four years of his life, struggling to find ways to keep her alive. And before that he'd been so busy with med school and his residency he hadn't had time to think of himself. And now, suddenly confronted with endless possibilities, he found he wasn't quite certain what he should do next. He'd have to stay close enough to care for her needs. That was a given. But, there was nothing saying he couldn't go back to the city and start up a practice there. There were fields of medicine he was interested in, research primarily. And the big drug companies were always willing to pay a nice sum to the physicians under their employ.

He thought about it, briefly and just as quickly squashed the idea. People here relied on him to treat their ailments. And he was more than just their doctor. He lived in the town. Saw his patients in passing on the streets. He knew their kids, their parents, and for more than one family, he cared for the generations, one spectrum of life to the other, from grandparent to great-great grandchild. He was Doc, to some, Doctor Sterling to others, and to a select few, just plain Thomas, Barbara's son.

His third grade teacher, ancient at the time he'd sat in the desk in her class, was still alive and kicking. She lived on the next block over and came into his office at least once a month with one ailment or another. Half of the time, he didn't even charge her for the visit. She was a spry ninety-something and she really didn't need medical care so much as she just needed someone to talk to. Her husband was long gone and her kids had abandoned her for the big city years ago. Once in a while, they came to visit her. And other than Thomas and the quilting club her hands were too arthritic to participate in, she had nobody in her life.

He treated the children of the kids he went to kindergarten with. He treated the old woman who owned the dime store, long since closed, where he used to stop on his way home from school and buy penny candy from in fourth grade. He had friends and family here. A presence. And he'd made a connection with the town and the people in it. He could no more leave them than he could have his mother when she'd been so close to dying.

And then there was the brotherhood. He owed them his life. He wouldn't be here now, if it hadn't been for them. His mother wasn't the only one who cheated death. He had too that fateful day he'd fallen from the cliff and shattered his internal organs and several bones on the rocks below. Sometimes, late at night when he couldn't sleep, he wondered why they'd saved him at all. He was a doctor. But, other then the calling of his profession, there was nothing especially spectacular about him. He'd tried so hard to ferret out the secrets in their blood. And hit roadblock after roadblock with no clear explanation as to how or why the blood worked to heal and to save the way it did.

Oh, there were differences in human blood and the samples he'd managed to sneak over the years. White counts and helper T cells, basophils, eosinophils, blast cells the numbers of which were completely off the charts. And he'd come to a hypothesis about why vampires needed human blood to sustain themselves.

For all the wonder contained in their blood, there was one thing missing. The very thing that if not carefully governed would consume them with bloodlust. Vampires had a very high red corpuscle count. And Thomas mussed that the ridiculously elevated count, at least ten times higher than that of an average human was the reason behind the vampires' legendary strength and endurance, the fuel for the fanged, so to speak. Vampires could live a very long time. But, without human donors, while vampires might technically survive without them, they couldn't truly live and have any resemblance of a fully functioning mind.

Thomas had the vague idea, once upon a time, of capturing a vampire and doing all sorts of experiments. Tissue and DNA sampling. Psychological and physiological workups. But, he had neither the equipment nor the resources to adequately pull it off. And Dane had thoroughly squashed any thoughts of the scientific research Thomas had wanted to pursue. Thomas thought he could rid the world of all its problems. Win a Nobel Prize for his research. Cure everyone. But, Dane thought otherwise. Vampires had to remain a secret. And Dane was willing to do everything in his power to keep that secret contained. Even kill, if it came down to it.

Thomas had had a long time to think about things. And now that his mother was part of that secret, his worldview had changed dramatically. He truly wasn't a mad scientist. He just wanted to help people live better, live longer. But, Dane and Doc were right. People had to die. If the world were populated by the virtually immortal and indestructible, what value would there truly be to life if it never ended? Ultimately, his research had paid off. He had gotten what he wanted. And his mom had reaped the benefits. She was alive. And that was all he'd really wanted.

Sifting through his mother's things, emptying the cedar hope chest at the foot of her bed, the contents of her entire life, into a cardboard box. Thomas sipped on a beer and riffled through the tattered photo albums that contained a woman and a life he knew very little about. His mother had loved his father, Thomas assumed. She'd gotten pregnant with him way too young. Whenever he asked her about it, she'd shrug and say he was her gift from God. Whatever that meant. But, she never spoke of the man who had donated half of his DNA to bring him into the world.

There were no pictures of him in the album. No hints as to who he was or exactly what he'd meant to her. No identities of the grandparents he'd never met. Thomas's birth certificate bore her name only. She'd never listed a father. His grandparents on his mom's side were gone. And he'd been too young at the time to question them about it. He couldn't help but wonder, given how tightly closed lipped his mother was about his father, if he had asked, what they would have told him about the mystery man. Thomas knew his father was dead. His mom had at least divulged that tiny piece of information. She wouldn't tell him anything else though. He'd come to the conclusion that she hadn't because after all, this was a small town and even the tiniest piece of information such as a birth date, a surname, or the date of his death would have solved the whole puzzle.

It was possible that his father wasn't from here. But, Thomas didn't think so. And he had no idea why, his father's identity, or keeping it a secret, mattered so much to his mother now. Thomas had his theories. But, they were pure speculation without a shred of fact. All small towns had their secrets and the truth about his father was just one more in a very long list. Thomas drained his beer and set the empty bottle down on the dresser. He neatly packed up his mother's scrapbooks. The bits and pieces of another life and another time and carried them to his Blazer.

He was a little buzzed and a lot confused with what to do with the rest of his life. He supposed he should start by grocery shopping. Picking up iron supplements and plenty of leafy green vegetables and beef liver to stave off anemia. His mom had a voracious appetite. Doc assured him it would pass once she got better control of her fangs. God, he hoped so. Being a perpetual pint low was starting to wear on him. The tea Doc kept him stocked with a generous supply of helped. But, the stuff was awful. Bitter and damn nasty, and Thomas regretted that he'd prescribed it to the other donors to keep them healthy and strong. It did beat the shit out of getting a shot in the ass though or resorting to blood transfusions to replace what was lost. Thomas as adamant, as much as Doc tried to talk him out of taking on the task. That nobody was feeding his mom but him.

Thomas shuffled to the fridge and grabbed another beer. Hardly the iron supplement he should be taking. But, he enjoyed self-medicating on occasion. And the buzz kept his mind from wandering too far off the beaten path. Flopping down on the couch, he flipped through the TV stations and refused to contemplate life too deeply. Tomorrow, he had an appointment with the insurance company to settle his mom's affairs. The brotherhood had generously agreed to foot the bill for her funeral. And it truly was a nice parting gift from the life she'd lived, the open parts and the secret parts he could only speculate at.

What he was going to do with the insurance money and all the spare time he had on his hands, he had no idea. Pay down some of the debt on his student loans, probably. Find a nice girl and settle down with. Fill this empty house with the two point five kids and a dog, named Shep, maybe. Leave this town with its secrets, the vampires and werewolves or whatever the hell they were. Never. Good, bad, paranormal, and whatever else this town was. It was home. And he, like it or not, was part of it.









Chapter 36

Grant cast a doubtful stare at the little boat and flicked his eyes to Claire. "Are you sure this thing will float?" He could swim. But, he didn't like water. And despite the deceptive warmth of the sunny afternoon, the lake would still be freezing cold.

Claire laughed at Grant's reluctance and shoved an oar in his hand. He was such a baby. Terrified of a little boat. Ok, so the paint was peeling and the boat had definitely seen better days. But, it still floated. They'd spent the morning lounging in each other's arms. Making love. Their words devoid of promises and talk of a future they both knew they didn't have. And it had been wonderful. But, she wanted a shower. And instead of walking or taking the car, which he assured her he was fine with, she'd opted for a slow, sort of romantic boat ride across the lake. "Get in."

Grant pursed his lips and climbed aboard. Shivering at the coldness of the water lapping around his ankles as he pushed the boat away from the shore. He was right. The water was damn cold. Clare stashed the bag containing her toiletries and two changes of clothes, one for him and one for her, underneath her seat. Grant relaxed a little after spotting the twin lifejackets stashed in the boat. At least they wouldn't drown, he mussed. Taking the oars, he dutifully rowed toward the shower house at the opposite side of the lake. He hated the boat. Hated the fishy smell of the lake. And the musty reek of the lifejackets. But, he took his time rowing as Claire contemplatively dipped her fingertips into the gentle waves made by the boat.

"I go back to work in a couple of days," Claire said. As far as her vacation goals went, she hadn't accomplished one of them. She'd barely managed to read a few paragraphs out of one of the pile of books she'd packed. She hadn't put on last year's bikini and spent the day lounging in the sun like she'd planned. And she sure as hell hadn't gotten caught up on all the hours of sleep she'd missed out on over the last six months. But, she had done something she hadn't planned on. She'd had a wonderful time with a potential fugitive of the law, a kidnapper, and much against her will, fallen in love with him. No, it wasn't Stockholm syndrome. It was that Grant was Grant. And somehow as crazy as it sounded, against her better judgment, they just clicked.

She'd tried and she couldn't explain it. She couldn't have chosen a worse man to fall in love with. He wasn't going to be around more than a couple of more days, if that long. He had told her everything he could about his past and hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of the mystery of him. Sure, he was all that and a box of chocolates. But, he was so wrong for her. It was stupid of her to fall so hard for him. And probably, next week when the logical part of her brain finally kicked back in, she'd hate herself for letting him work his way into her heart. He'd be hard to get over and the time they'd had together even harder to forget.