Within the Cards (2 page)

Delmont was a town that strived to maintain the small-minded views of old money. These people never knew my kind lurked among the innocents of their metropolis. It would scare the living hell out of them if they realized my kind existed among them, not to mention attended school with their children.

The largest things about this town was its claims to this place of higher learning, the raging river that ran through the middle of the town, and the old money that controlled every aspect of its heart. As I thought about the narrow-minded people of this town, I began to snicker at the thought of these mortals finding out my kind existed. I was sure in their stuffy way they would take the same stand as those in the past attempted against my kind.

These humans of the past came with torches in the air, wooden stakes, crucifixes, and garlic as well as other things they thought worked to kill an immortal. With the people of Delmont, the only stand they would take would be peeing in the old-stuffy pants they wore. The thought of these people running away knowing their old money meant absolutely zero as they cried for mercy and begged God to spare their lives. This was the God they prayed to when they attended church services, and the same one they cursed at times they didn’t need him to save them.

What I became was not my fault. Once bitten there was no turning back the clock. I couldn’t hit the previous scene button on a DVD player and change the course of my future. The director wasn't going to yell ‘cut’. My changing was something far in my past. Before that, I don’t remember. I was different from others, but yet similar. The thing that made me normal to these humans was I looked like any other student except I’m sure they thought I needed a little time in the sun.

My life as a human faded like written words over time. My years were short. I was just a kid when I died. I didn’t die in a car crash, nor did I fall asleep from an overdose. That would have been an invited death if I were so tragically finished with life. My death was one no human should ever endure. Had it not been for Ellie, it would have been unbearably painful, and I doubt I would have survived. I would be like the other victims of many immortals, drained of my blood while my corpse was left to rot and return to dust.

When a person died, they had no idea there were things past death that were not of the norm. There are several levels of death. The first level of death housed my kind and other immortals such as witches, werewolves, and spirits with unfinished business. We remain in the human world but dance on the edge of a thin string that can cause our existence to crash over to the world of demonic darkness. This is the place where things that human never imagined live. These mystical dangers lurked just past the other side of life. This was a space in the Universe called the final phase of purgatory. It is where no immortal, much less a human wants to reside. For a human you were lucky if you made it to heaven. Most of my kind thought you were even lucky if you made it to hell. The first ten years of my new existence danced between heaven and hell in a place that was beautiful and full of peace, but this Garden of Eden turned dark and the string holding me in the human world stretched and frayed.

My life with Ellie ended abruptly the day her sister Dee arrived and my solo trapeze act followed. Ellie sensed she was coming, but hoped she was coming to check on her as her sisters did from time to time. At the last minute, she realized she was coming to take her back.

Ellie's race was different from any other immortal race. Ellie would never allow herself to be considered a normal vampire. She was a Witchyre and her race hated all other immortals. The Witchyres were considered a mixed-breed. She came from a family of two immortals from different races.

In the immortal world, she was not supposed to exist, but she did. She was taken away from me because the rulers of her race demanded Ellie return to the Witchyre coven. They would no longer stand for her to exist as she had for the last several decades. She had lived as a nomad away from the rules of the Witchyres. She didn't believe in the ways they believed.

The history of the Witchyres changed over the time Ellie was born. Her grandparents were the original rulers, but were over-thrown by her uncles. Now, they demanded her to live as they thought a true Witchyre should, which in its self was a tragedy for an immortal.

When Dee came for her, she hid me to keep her from knowing of my existences and from knowing of her betrayal to her race. My making was illegal. Ellie knew the rulers would make her extinguish me. She broke the laws of her race when she changed me. It was taboo for a witchyre to change a human. They saw humans as only a food sources.

Ellie knew neither she, nor I would be able stand against them. We loved each other more than immortals were supposed to love another. However, our love could not withstand the hatred that festered in this race. The Witchyres were immortals that didn’t love. This wasn’t an emotion they knew about, nor was it an emotion they care to know. They saw love as a mortal flaw that made a being weak. The only emotion they knew was the emotion of hate. Hate was taught to them from the beginning of their birth, and this emotion increased with time.

When Ellie’s family took her, neither of us realized she would leave me never to return the same being, and never to remember our lives together. We didn't realize the power of this hate. Her last words to me were, "never forget me, I will come back for you, I love you too much to forget you". I didn’t understand her words at the time, but she knew her sisters true intentions. The word ‘forget’ rang in my mind. She knew their powers. The memory of this event ran chills through my already frigid spine.

Chapter Two

ELLIE ARRIVES

The thoughts of the hatred that ripped us apart shocked me back to this morning's event. Just moments before I smelled her scent, I sat and waited for my second class of the day to begin in the large partially filled lecture hall. The class was Government 1220. I knew this class would end up being the same as past government classes, but with updated history. I had already heard many of these lectures. I could recite many of these impervious documents. After all, I was at many of the signings of these documents throughout my time on earth. I continued to sit and wait for this new class of old material to start while the other students filed into the room. They took their seats while they mumbled conversations to one another that I tried to ignore. Their self-absorbed egos bored me. However, I never thought within a few minutes as I sat in this room, I would find showing up for class would change the misery that had become normal for my existence.

The lecture hall I sat in was a large room with seats that descended down to a stage. On the stage sat a small desk and a lecture podium that reminded me of the time I waited for an audition for a part in a play. There were no windows in this dull, drab room. It sat nestled in the middle of the large white stone building known as Jefferson Hall. This room was a replication of the theaters that presidents of the past sat in as they watched and laughed at plays, as well as one of the presidents was murdered.

As the students continued to enter the room, my nose caught a scent. Then it hit me. I couldn’t believe what I was about to encounter. It had been one hundred years since I saw her face, one hundred years since I heard her voice, one hundred years until now. This was the day my existence began the whirlwind of my future. Although I celebrated the sight of Ellie, I knew she was different, and I knew this would prove to change my existence forever.

The minute the door opened, I smelled her scent: roses, lilac and lavender. This scent brought the memories of her back as if a tsunami crashed in to the brick wall that surrounded my existence and washed the mortar of the barricade I had built away. All of a sudden, time reversed and it felt like I saw her yesterday, but then reality set in and I realized it had been a century.

I sat in my seat frozen as a mortal freshman scared to speak or move for fear of upper classmen laughing at me for some stupid reaction I might have. I didn’t turn around to look at her. I didn’t have to because when I closed my eyes I could see the things that were behind me. This, along with reading minds, was one of the several mystical abilities transferred to me during my change. I remained frozen in my seat as I waited for her to realize she was not the only immortal in the room. If I were human, I would rub my hand down my arm and feel the texture of my skin. I would have goose bumps all over my body, but I wasn’t human so my already chilled body sat there frozen like some stupid paranoid statue.

She moved through the aisles as if she floated on air. Her hair was brilliant black. It was short, about neck length with wistful spikes that stood out against the pale cream skin of her face. Her eyes were a light gray. They looked like the ice on the side of a glacier. They were clear and refreshing. She was petite, a small frame that looked frail to those that didn’t know her strength. This beautiful being was no more than five foot two inches tall. She was light on her feet and held her head high with her nose slightly tilted upward. She never looked down. She was sure of her steps. With her jacket thrown over her shoulder, the black long-sleeved shirt that formed to her body and exposed every perfect curve of her torso moved with her footsteps. The black jeans she wore were low cut and tight enough to compliment the hourglass shape of her body. She wore a familiar belt that she had worn in the past. It was made of black leather with what most would think were tiny, cheap pieces of glass stones that sparkled when the light caught them as her body moved down the aisles. I knew these stones were delicate diamonds that waved around her tiny waist. They ended at a buckle encircled with this precious stone. In the center of the buckle was a Celtic cross that symbolized her heritage. It was made of the same sparkling jewel, which completed its brilliance.

Her beauty made the entire room stop and take notice as she flowed down the aisle. The males in the class turned to catch her entrance. She entered the room and floated down the aisle with the grace of a model on a runway. The females were in reverence of her beauty, but were resentful of it in the same glance. None of them would ever match the elegance and grace of her flow. Her alabaster skin only enhanced her sophistication.

I heard every thought in the room. I could hear every thought from everyone, which in my world could even drive a vampire insane. These inconsiderate males wanted to “hit that”. I wanted to tear the heads off these males for the thoughts they had of my Ellie. Their thoughts were sick and perverted. The females smirked with insecurity. One of them, whose voice drove me into a demented state, had thoughts that were louder than the other females in the class.

“What are they looking at? She doesn’t look better than I do. Does she?” This squeaky voiced female thought. She looked Ellie over and turned back to the males in the class with a disgusted look as she rolled her eyes and extended her bottom lip into a pouting stance.

Ellie paused at the row of seats where I sat and with her nose slightly raised, she sniffed the air. She knew her immortality was not alone in the room. She glanced down the row as her eyes met mine. With a millionth of a second, she glared at me. I hoped for a brief recognition in those icy eyes, but with that time gone, I saw the proof that her memory no longer existed. I was glad my heart didn’t beat, because it would have stopped with that one glare. She hissed at me once to warn me that she knew what I was and that would be my first warning.

The playful, happy, quick-witted love of my life that left me so many years ago was gone. She was as evil and as cold as the eyes that stared back at me. This scared even my immortality. She was my maker, and I knew from the look in her clear eyes, she wanted to take me out of my misery. She didn’t realize how easy that would be, and I was glad she didn’t because if she had it would be over before she had a chance to remember me.

She returned her focus on her intended destination. She continued to glide down the aisle as she found her resting place. This beauty of my past sat two rows in front of me. Her scent was so strong it over-powered my ability to pay attention to my meager surroundings. I was a rancid dog in heat, unable to focus on anything, but the need for her. The scent of roses, lilac, and lavender blended in the right proportion radiated through my senses. I smelled this scent many times. It was one I lavished in during our long hours of holding her in my arms. This was the scent I longed for, and one I would not let leave me again. That was at least if I survived her hatred until she could remember me.

She had to remember me. I would make her remember. Little did I know the journey to return her memory would be the hardest odyssey I attempted in my mortal life and my immortal existence. Nevertheless, I wanted her in my arms again, and I could not think of anything else. I wanted her to remember me, and I would do whatever it took to accomplish that task. I no longer wanted to exist without her. This nightmare of an existence was monotonous and isolated. However, with Ellie’s return I was sure I would find the rest of my existence would never be monotonous or isolated again. Although, I welcomed a little excitement, I feared I was in for more than I wanted to know.

My attention remained on her. My eyes continued to follow her throughout the time it took her too settled in her seat. She was aware I was watching her. I knew her abilities better than anyone. She knew her surroundings and paid close attention to anyone she thought was a threat. How could she think I was a threat to her? I loved her more than humans loved the air they needed to breathe, even more than the skin that covered my soulless body.

I knew they took her memories from her, but I could feel her powers were still as forceful as they ever had been. Including the power, she had over me. She knew my every thought. She read minds and could change the attitudes of anyone. She controlled the four elements of the universe: earth, air, fire, water. She was more powerful than I was in many ways, but the love I held for her was stronger than any power she maintained. My mind focused on her thoughts.