Dawn's End

Robert didn't worry about her telling anyone about his gift. Who'd believe her anyway? He wasn't so invested. Hoped for more, yes, but fully invested in a relationship, no. He'd taken plenty of cold showers in his lifetime. What were hundreds more to him? He'd sat in the cheap seats for so long and watched everyone else have what he couldn't that it hardly mattered anymore. He could deal with whatever her response might be. "Cindy, I have to tell you something. About me."

Chapter 66

Megan clenched her fingers into a tight knot and settled them firmly in her lap. The Great Father's story, Drew, he wanted her to call him, closed to an end. She'd always prided herself for her ability to listen and hear what was being said without it being spelled out. Being a vampire was no picnic. Drew's past was terrible and frightening. As assured as he was about everything there was still so much a part of him that was uncertain and somewhat hesitant. He was a leader. He had accepted that fact long ago. He didn't always have all the answers though. He was pretty much just like everybody else put into a position of power and bore the weight of what was required, uncertain or not that he was right, with a certain dignity.

Her grades were not always the best. History had always come easy to her though. More often than not History class bolstered her GPA from a solid D to an acceptable C. Memorizing facts, dates, and people was super simple. Math was almost impossible. Biology was an embarrassment. History was a cinch. She stared at Drew in dumbfounded amazement. Everything she knew was nothing but an accumulation of half-truths and lies. The books got it wrong, so wrong. Vampires had changed the shape of human history more than once. A veil of evil had shadowed the past. A black cloud of deceit and lies tainted the present. The future, if there was one, was not the glimmering rainbow of dreams and aspirations she'd thought it might be. There were monsters, everywhere, and humans were just the devil's playthings.

Her hands shook in her lap, trembling with fine tremors of fear. The only reason she was alive was because the one who did this to her wanted her to be. She'd been left in that alley as a calling card. Drew stared up at her from his vantage point on his knees at her feet. His eyes bore into hers silently asking her to sift through her doubts and fears and to understand. He asked for her trust and nothing more.

She wanted to believe. She wanted to grab onto the warm fuzzy he offered her and wrap her frazzled mind around it. Wallow in its softness and security and put that night out of her mind forever. He'd assured her that the vampire that attacked her was tucked away somewhere under lock and key. On vampire death row waiting his execution.

It'd be so tempting to leave this room, tuck away the secrets Drew had entrusted to her care, and never think of them again. She wouldn't tell anybody. Unless she wanted to end up in a psych unit for the rest of her life, she couldn't ever breathe a word. His reassurances wouldn't help her when she closed her eyes. Her dreams were filled with horrors. Even if this vampire did die, as he deserved. The nightmares wouldn't stop. She'd always be afraid. She couldn't spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, avoiding dark shadows, shying away from strangers, and never knowing who the real boogiemen were. "I want to see him."

Drew sat back on his haunches and blew out a long sigh. The girl was terrified. Her heart pounded in her chest and the acrid taint of her fear hung in the air. Her chin jutted out in defiance and somehow, her fear made her brave.

Her fingers clenched and unclenched into tight fists on her lap, fidgety and nervous as she waited for his answer. Her life had been irrevocably changed that night. She had answers, falsehoods created to protect her. She could have grabbed onto the lies and believed in the fiction that hid the truth of her attack, but she hadn't. Megan had sought the truth out and he'd given it to her. Despite her horror, she wanted to confront her attacker. Drew doubted that any of O'Sullivan's victims lived to ask questions and demand answers. Perhaps, it was time O'Sullivan was held accountable to the ones he'd hurt. "Very well, I'll take you to him."

Megan stayed close to Drew. He led her from the comforts of warm diffused lighting and wide corridors down into dark hallways. Some of the twisting corridors were so narrow that his shoulders brushed the black, uneven surface of the jagged, rock walls. Last year in Science class, she'd spent hours studying white mice in mazes. Now, she knew how those mice must have felt. Except, she wasn't getting a nibble of cheese when she reached the end of this maze. She was getting the truth.

The air was thick this far down, infused with a dank chill that settled into her bones. She suppressed the urge to shiver and followed at Drew's heels. Her heart pounded against her ribs as they rounded a corner and came to a brightly lit open space at the end of a long hall. Men dressed in leather as black as the walls stood at attention, watching their arrival with concentrated deference.

She supposed she should be comforted by the presence of so many heavily armed men. She wasn't. The buzz of electricity hummed in her ears. Warning signs in bright yellow with black block letters warned of the dangers of touching the door while the electricity was on. She'd be fried to a crisp. Her eyes followed Drew's long fingers as he punched a series of numbers into a keypad and pressed his palm to an electronic reading device embedded into the wall. The door opened with a hiss as a magnetic seal disengaged. From the dark interior of what could only be a holding cell, she heard the metallic rustle of heavy links of chain.

Drew keyed in a series of commands and brought the lights in the cell up to a dim glow. He wanted to give the girl a list of instructions a mile long and words of caution and preparation for what she'd see. Instead, he said nothing. Megan was petrified enough as it was. Instinct would keep her safe and if it failed, he'd be right there beside her. "Are you certain this is what you want?" Speechless, the girl nodded in reply. He took her by the hand. Her fingers quivered as she slid them into his. Together, they went inside of the cell.

O'Sullivan winced against the harsh light from the overhead bulbs. After so many days of being in virtual darkness, the glow of incandescent light was almost blinding. He wondered whose presence he was being graced with now. It seemed on the verge of death he was even more popular than he had been in life. So many visitors, so little time, he chuckled in amusement at the thought.

The scent of fear rushed in with the opening of the magnetic door. His fangs elongated in response. A hunger he'd never felt, even in his first days caused his stomach to spasm. Caged and chained in the darkness he'd lost track of time. Had four days passed so quickly? Without the rise of the sun and the glow of the moon to track the passing of time, he had no way of knowing. The acrid smell of terror was an exotic spice to the scent of humanity flooding the room. His last meal, he assumed, was being delivered. His fangs throbbed and an ache gnawed his gut in anticipation.

Megan squeezed Drew's hand so tightly that her fingers had gone numb. She had to force her feet to follow him through the entryway into the cell. From all the security precautions in place, her mind concocted some Hannibal Lecter kind of villain. Nice to know her imagination still worked in vivid technicolor despite the fear threatening to overload her central nervous system.

Her feet wanted to take flight away from the grizzly scene her eyes couldn't quite make sense of. Serene landscapes scrawled in vivid detail in a rusty reddish-brown scroll of dried blood, decorated every inch of the grayish brickwork of the walls. They were as macabre and terrifying as they were beautiful. She expected to find a muzzled fiend cowering in a dank corner. That night, she hadn't gotten much of a glimpse at her attacker. Her mind had been too preoccupied with the agony of his fangs in her neck to take in many details about his appearance. Maybe, she would have taken some comfort, felt more of a sense of justice served, if his outward appearance had reflected the blackness of his heart. It didn't. He was just a man.

O'Sullivan...Eric... Drew had willingly given her his name. Eric was not the twisted, gnarled, embodiment of evil she'd expected. Her mind could not accept that the thing that had attacked her had a name and an identity beyond the Devil himself. Despite the thick steel cuffs encircling his ankles and wrists and the lengths of heavy steel bands and chain, and the filthy, torn and disheveled clothing he wore, he maintained an air of dignified grace.

She'd expected to see something straight out of a horror movie. He was young and his skin pale and smooth. His hair was a rich walnut brown, trailing to the tops of his shoulder blades in a knotted unkempt ponytail. His eyes, a green so dark they were almost hazel, shone with the knowledge of centuries and keen intelligence. They were not dulled with the haze of crazed dementia she had anticipated. A row of perfect white teeth gleamed beneath a pair of lush, full, sensuous lips curving into an alluring smile. He wasn't a big hulk of muscle like the guards. He was lean, well built, but not so tall or so broad that he'd tower over her and she'd feel utterly intimidated by his size alone. It would have been so much easier if he'd been the image her frazzled mind had dreamed up. He was...beautiful in the way that men of culture and grace were. It'd be so easy to be taken in by him. So easy to lose herself and surrender to his arms and forget.

How nice of the Sons to bring him something so succulent for his last meal. He'd left the girl alive for a purpose and now, surprisingly enough, they'd delivered her for his dinner. Perhaps, there was hope for the miserable group of do gooders after all. The Great Father's grip on her arm was the only thing holding her back from coming into his reach.

He'd locked onto her mental signature the second she'd entered the room. Once he tasted of a human, he never forgot. About that, he hadn't lied. Silently, Eric beckoned her forward. The girl's body trembled in response. She stared down at him wide eyed and fearful. Lost to the pull of his call. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. The neatly trimmed ends trailed to the small of her back. Her blue eyes were oceans of terror in which he could happily drown. Her innocence and fear would make her all the sweeter and he couldn't wait to drink it down.

Drew felt the tingle of power flowing from O'Sullivan. He should not have brought the girl here. She was under O'Sullivan's spell, gently tugging against his hold on her arm to get closer to Eric. Drew narrowed his eyes in warning. O'Sullivan's ability to captivate victims was not uncommon. Many of his Sons could do the same. Drew growled, "Release her." His free hand rested on the hilt of his sword ready to act.

Eric huffed a breath of impatience. He merely wanted to savor his last meal. If the Great Father didn't bring her here for him to finish what he'd started. Then why was she here at all? Begrudgingly, irritated by Drew's insistence that he release her and a bit worried at the way his hand rested on the hilt of his sword, Eric relinquished his hold on the girl. He meant to deliver the girl without pain or fear. If the Great Father wanted her to hurt, he could do that too. A bit of pain made the game all the more fun.

Megan blinked to clear her head. Repulsed by where her thoughts took her she stepped closer to Drew. If she had to choose one vampire over the other, she was siding with the one that hadn't tried to kill her. O'Sullivan was still just a beautiful. But, she was not in that dreamy place she had been a few minutes ago. Even though he had a name, one she would never forget, she saw him for what he was, a murderer. Her mouth was dry. Her throat parched as the desert. The ache from the stitches in her neck became unbearable. Her fingers clinched Drew's hand tighter. His hand trembled from the force of the quivers running up her arm. "Why?"

Eric had never come face to face with one of his victims before. He never left them alive afterward for a heart to heart conversation. Her question took him aback. The scent of fear replaced by the dull aroma of her sadness. He'd never questioned his motives when it came to the selection of victims. He had needs. They fulfilled them. He drank. They died. There were other people out and about that morning, hustling in the darkness to carry out their routines. He could have chosen someone else just as easily as he'd chosen her.

Cocking his head to the side, he studied the girl. Perhaps, for the first time really saw the reasons behind his selection. Her pale blonde hair, her pallor, her youth, innocence, and in the drowning pools of her eyes, he saw his answer. "You remind me of someone. I should have let her die that night, so long ago, but I didn't. Even when I saw what my blood created, I couldn't end her. She suffered because of my selfishness."

Out of all of the answers he could have given. The words out of his mouth surprised Megan the most. If he'd said something cocky and self-serving, she would have expected it. If he'd lied, his answer wouldn't have shocked her at all. He answered honestly. She could hear the truth grating in his voice. "You loved her."

O'Sullivan looked away. Perhaps, it was starvation that pulled the truth out of him. Perhaps, it was her uncanny resemblance to Yessette that made him want to confess. He had a dozen answers he could have given her. Because. I wanted to. You're just so much meat. Dozens of others and all of them would have been perfectly viable options to the truth. Damn him. He'd spent centuries perfecting his craft. Becoming the vampire, cold and calculating, and self-serving only to have a human girl be his undoing. It wasn't the chains or his impending execution that made him feel so weak and vulnerable. It was the terrified gaze of a seventeen year-old girl that made him feel something he hadn't felt in such a long time. Something he doubted he still had the capacity to fall victim to. He felt human.

"I thought so. I believed myself to be altruistic caring for her all those centuries. Catering to her every whim, I spoiled her like an over indulged child. I realize now that I didn't love her at all. If I had, I wouldn't have clung to her so selfishly. I would have released her from the hell that was her twisted existence and freed her. I would have given her peace." O'Sullivan wrenched his gaze from the girl and stared at his chained wrists. The thick bindings were the only thing that kept his beast from killing the girl.

He hated Carter for loving Yessette more than he ever could have. Hated that Carter possessed a selflessness to do what needed to be done when he could not. Carter had set Yessette free and delivered her into peace.

Megan leaned heavily against Drew. His body held her upright. Her knees wobbled as if they were going to collapse under her weight. Love. The vampires in the compound seemed human, bantering playfully with one another, mulling over fashion, and baking cookies. She'd never suspected how human they really were. That they could love at all. She noticed a tear streak down O'Sullivan's dirt smeared cheek. She never realized that they could cry.

Drew gripped Megan's wrist as she stretched out her hand to O'Sullivan. He forced her arm to her side and held it trapped in his grip. "Don't forget what he is. A few tears of regret change nothing. If he could get his hands on you, he would kill you where you stood," he warned.

Eric pressed his back into a corner of his cell. As far away from the girl as his chains would allow. He lifted his chin, staring at the girl. That she could feel pity for him when he felt nothing but the growling of his appetite aroused by the scent of her blood made him all the more the monster. "He's right." He exchanged a glance with Drew over the girl's head. He was too far gone for hope of redemption and they both knew it. Even if he lived for another thousand years, he was still a condemned man in the end.

"But," Megan whispered in protest. Maybe there was something she could do. Some way Eric could be saved. She couldn't believe she felt pity for the man who felt nothing for her. "What happens now?"

Eric raised a brow at her question. He expected she'd feel a great satisfaction at his impending execution. "I die and you...live a good life, Megan." He watched as the Great Father guided her out of his cell. "Megan, for what it's worth, I'm am sorry I chose you. I regret every nightmare that haunts your dreams and that I have a starring role in them all."

Megan stopped and stared around Drew's thickly muscled arm. He pushed at her back with a gentle press of his hand. Eric huddled in the corner, as if he couldn't put enough distance between them. She saw the flash of his fang peeking out beneath his lip. He was a killer. Of that, she had no doubt. He would kill her if he got his hands on her. But, unlike before when he left her bleeding in the alley without remorse or pity, he would hurt because he had done it. Maybe, he would hurt more than she would. "For what it's worth. I accept your apology. I hate myself for saying this, but I'm sorry you have to die."

The cell door whispered shut, separating her from Eric. So many things ran through her head as she stared at her reflection in the door's slivery reflective surface. She didn't know if vampires went to heaven or hell or if they even believed in such a thing. She had a feeling though that this vampire knew exactly where he was headed to in the afterlife, because he was already there.

Chapter 67

Carter stayed on the bluffs till the cold thoroughly infused his limbs. He was in no mood for forced cheer or the companionship and warmth offered in the compound so far underground. A light dusting of snow drifted down from the velvet night sky, melting from the heat of his body. He had been standing in the cold, battered by the winds long enough that a crust of ice had frozen, dangling like beads from the ends of his hair. Midnight had come and passed. The dawn rode soft and gray on the heels of the darkness. There were three days left.

His fingers clenched into stiff fists. The knuckles cracked and popped from the cold. There was no wind riding on the dawn. Everything was a dead calm without so much as a stir of air rustling through the winter bare branches. The world was eerily still as if holding its breath in anticipation for the oncoming day.

Time was running out for Eric. The whole of his father's existence could be broken down into hours and minutes. Less than seventy-two hours, Carter thought. He'd spent countless lifetimes despising his maker, plotting his death, and hating him. Now, with Eric's end so near, Carter felt empty. How ironic. That Carter was denied the one thing he thought he would feel upon his maker's demise. He expected to have at least some small measure of satisfaction.

Carter had been alive a long time, perhaps too long. During all that time, Eric had been the focal point of all his rage and blame. Only now at the end was he beginning to realize that he'd blamed Eric for the wrong things. Eric tempted him, but Eric had never forced him to do a damn thing. Carter had done them all on his own. With that realization on his shoulders, Carter began to wonder, if when the time came, his convictions would fail him. He'd promised Eric a good death. No one would drag Eric to the gallows. He wouldn't want to go out begging for his life. Carter had vowed to Eric that he wouldn't. Could he really see it through?