Bloodlines (11 page)

“It must have been nice,” I said, turning away from her to hide a rush of emotion.

“But you have all of us now,” she said, rubbing my shoulder. “I just wish we could have found you earlier.”

“Yeah.”

“So will you be moving up here?”

“I don’t know. I believe they were told to find me so it sounds like I need to be here for something.”

“I wish I knew what.”

“So do I, but what I don’t understand is – Lucian and the guys said everyone thought the bloodline died with Edward. So how did their grandfathers know I was alive?”

“Michael’s father said he could feel it in his blood. He knew there was another one out there with the power. I don’t know about the others, I never asked them. But if you’re going to see them maybe you should ask them.”

“Yeah, I will.”

“I think you would be very happy here, and with that in mind I have something for you,” she said, pulling an envelope from behind one of the cushions. “These are rightfully yours.”

I took the envelope from her and opened it – it was the deeds and keys to the Putnam house.

“I don’t know what to say…I feel like I should buy these from you…”

“Nonsense. They are yours. We have just looked after them for you,” she said, taking my hands and making me face her. “Just promise me you will consider moving here with the rest of us. When I first found out about Michael’s powers and the family history, he told me that there could be another out there somewhere just like him and the other guys’ fathers. I told him if it was meant to be, then one day your paths would cross, and now they have. We all look after one another and we would love you to be with us finally.”

“I promise.”

I hugged her then put the deeds and keys back in the envelope.

“Now, why don’t you go and see Lucian for a while. I know he would love to spend some time alone with you,” she smiled.

“OK. Thank you, Evelyn.”

“I look forward to talking to you again.”

“Me too.”

She took me to the bottom of the stairs and told me how to get to Lucian’s room. I walked up the winding staircase to the second floor, then to the end of the hall to the far west of the house. Even the hallway was beautifully decorated. The dark wooden floor perfectly suited the mahogany-and-gold paneled walls, lit only by a few wall lights. Lucian’s room was the one at the end. I knocked on his bedroom door.

“Come in!” he shouted. He was lying on his bed listening to Bon Jovi. “Hey.” he said, sitting up. “Come and sit down.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you get grilled?”

“No not at all. Your mom is really nice.”

“Did she ask you loads of questions?”

“No, she didn’t actually; only a few. Was I down there long?”

“Only about twenty minutes. So what you doing now?”

“I’m just going back to the motel, Lily’s gone out with Jake so…”

“Fancy going out for lunch…My treat?” he interrupted.

“Yes, that would be nice.”

“Great I know a nice little café bar near the harbor. It’s just outside of the new town.”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll drive,” he said, smiling and grabbing his car keys.

I folded up the envelope with the deeds in it and put it in my bag before heading out. When we were walking to the car I could see his mom and dad watching us out the window. I didn’t look at them though; I just got into the car.

Chapter 10

Over the Top

We parked facing the café bar. It was small but very modern and when we walked in I felt a bit out of place. It looked very upmarket – the walls were black and white with an art deco theme to them. The bar was black and chrome and all the bottles of wine and spirits were displayed neatly behind. It was only when we went to the bar to order our drinks that I started to feel comfortable. The staff were really nice and down to earth; I was expecting them to be snobby. Once we got our drinks Lucian led us to one of the private booths next to the window. We had a perfect view of the harbor and I could see fishermen loading their boats up and going to see what they could catch.

“I bet you thought this place was going to be full of stuck-up people, didn’t you?” he said, handing me a menu.

“I did actually.”

“I love this place. It never gets too crowded and you can relax in here.”

“It’s very nice,” I told him. My phone started ringing. “Sorry,’ I said, looking at it. ‘It’s Lily.”

“Answer it.”

“Hello…Yeah I’m fine…Very nice…Hmm…no of course I don’t; you have a good time…Lucian’s brought me out for lunch…I will…Oh shut up! I’m going now…Yeah, yeah, OK...Bye.” I said, laughing and hanging up.

“Is she OK?”

“Yeah, she was just telling me that Jake was taking her out for the afternoon and she wanted to make sure I didn’t mind. I don’t know why she thought she had to check.”

“She probably wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be on your own.”

“I do like my own company sometimes though.”

“You’re very close, aren’t you?” he said, waving for the waitress to come over.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t swap her for the world.”

The waitress came and took our orders.

“How did you meet?” he asked.

“Long story.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Well, we went to the same school. We saw each other quite a bit but never spoke. I didn’t fit in very well because I was very dark and the other girls were all stupid dizzy bitches.”

He started to chuckle.

“They were!” I laughed. “All they talked about was who they liked that week and how drunk they had got at the weekend. When I first started at the school a few of them tried to jump me on my way home. More fool them! They got their backsides kicked.”

“Ah, the joy of having power.”

“No, the joy of not being soft. I can hold my own when I need to and I showed them that.”

“How many were there?”

“There were five of them but only three tried to attack me.”

“Hmm, remind me not to piss you off,” he smirked.

“Anyway, after that nobody bothered me and I kept to myself. Some of the guys would hit on me and I would tell them where to go; I just wasn’t interested. They were all stupid too,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Did you ever get along with anyone?”

“Yes, Lily.” I told him. “One day I was on my way out of school when I saw three girls pushing and shoving her. When I got closer I noticed they were the same three that had picked the fight with me. The only difference was Lily wasn’t a fighter and was scared to death. She’s very clever when she actually uses her brain, so people got jealous. I could see her looking at me, like she was begging me to help her.”

“Did you?” he asked.

“I walked over, grabbed one of the girls and threw her against the wall,” I told him, nodding. “When they saw it was me they ran off. She thanked me and I walked away.”

“Was that the start of it?”

“It was when I first noticed her properly but not the start of the friendship.”

We stopped talking for a moment while the waitress served our lunch.

“Carry on,” he said.

“The next night she was walking home just in front of me and I found out that she only lived two streets away from me. I watched her walk in the house every night for about three weeks after that. Then one night – it was about 8 p.m. – and I was walking home from my granddads. I had to pass her house to get to mine. As I was just passing her garden I saw her coming out. I stopped walking and watched for a moment. She had steps leading to her front door and she went and sat on the bottom one. I carried on walking and she looked up, so I shouted to see if she was OK and made my way towards her...

“At that moment I saw a guy running out of the corner of my eye and a brick heading straight for her. She turned around and saw it heading towards her. I panicked and put my hand up – the brick stopped in mid-air. She stared at me and I lowered the brick to the ground. My eyes had changed and she was staring right at me. I started to walk away quickly, thinking, you idiot, well done, but she shouted me and ran after me.”

“So she wasn’t frightened of you?” he said.

“No, I’d just stopped her from being badly hurt – why would she have been scared of me? I didn’t want to hurt her. I think it freaked her out a bit but that’s all. She asked me how I’d done it but I wouldn’t answer her; I just kept walking. So she ran and got the brick and threw it at me. When it stopped again she told me she would tell everyone if I didn’t tell her what was going on.”

“That was nice of her.”

“She wouldn’t have, but I didn’t know that then. I grabbed her and took her into her garden. To cut the story short, I told her the truth – that I didn’t know and it was just something I had inside me. Then the guy I saw running away after the brick was thrown came back. He looked really pissed off when he saw she wasn’t hurt and started shouting really nasty things to her. I grabbed the brick and told her to throw it back at him. She said she couldn’t throw to save her life, but I assured her it would hit him. She threw it as hard as she could and I did the rest. I turned away from the guy so he couldn’t see my eyes and kept the brick in mid-air until it hit him. He ran off the best he could in a great deal of pain.”

“Nice shooting,” he laughed.

“Thank you. So when we saw him running we started laughing. That was the start of it. We spent every minute we could together. She never told anyone about what had happened and we both finally had a friend we could trust and talk to. Now she more or less lives with me.”

“Yeah, I remember Jake saying her parents treat her like a bank.”

“They do. She was slowly moving her stuff into my house before we came here.”

“I could see from the moment I met you both that you were close. You’re more like sisters than friends.” he said.

“I know. I love her to death. She was the only one other than my granddad I could talk to about what I had inside me, if I ever wanted to. She never ran away from me or anything, and, although she didn’t understand it, she would listen. I didn’t talk about it often though, and sometimes it upset her. I think she thought I didn’t trust her. The first night I scrapped with you she questioned me about things; it was the first time we had properly spoken about it in years.”

“You know I’m really sorry we were so horrible with you,” he said sincerely.

“It’s OK, like I told your mom, if I were in the same position, I would have done the same thing.”

“It doesn’t make me feel better – you saying that I mean.”

“Look what’s done is done, and we’re all OK now, even me and Danny, so let’s just forget it, shall we?” I told him.

“Yeah, OK. How’s your meal?”

“It’s lovely, thank you”

“So Lily is spending the rest of the day with Jake…Hmm.” he said with a smirk.

“Yeah, I think romance is definitely in the cards with those two.”

“I think they look good together, so I hope it works out for them.”

“So do I.”

“What about you? Have you got someone waiting back home for you?”

“Nope, I was seeing someone for a while but I didn’t like lying to him, plus, we didn’t really have anything in common.”

“It’s hard, isn’t it, having a relationship and having to keep secrets.”

“Yes,” I sighed. “I kept saying to Lily I wanted one of two things, either to have this power taken away so I could be a normal human being. Or, to meet someone who was the same as me.”

“And now you have met four. Well three really since I think we both know Jake is taken.”

My phone started ringing again.

“Is it her?” Lucian asked.

“Yes, sorry,” I said, before answering.

“Don’t worry.”

“Hey, what’s…What is it?…Err, OK, where are you?…OK, I’ll tell Lucian…See you soon.” I closed my phone with a worried look on my face.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. She sounds unnerved and I could hear Jake telling her to tell us to come quickly and that we needed to see something.”

“Where are they?”

“It sounded like Willow Lane.”

“That’s not far from here. Are you finished?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He paid the bill and we left the café and made our way to Jake and Lily.

Willow Lane was really long, heading deep into the countryside. We had driven about a mile and a half when we saw Jake’s car. We stopped behind them and got out. They didn’t need to point out what it was they wanted us to see. We looked out across the field. All the cattle were dead. There was so many of them.

“What could have done this?” Lily asked when we walked over to them.

“I don’t know,” Lucian answered.

While I was walking I picked up a familiar scent and decided to follow it. I walked past Lily and Jake with a thoughtful look on my face.

“Keira, what is it?” Jake asked.

“Can’t you smell that?”

              “Smell what?” Lily frowned.

“Sulfur!” I said, finally remembering the smell. “I used to hate the smell of it in chemistry classes. I could smell it a mile away.”

“Sulfur? Why would there be sulfur in the air?” Jake asked.

“I can smell it now,” Lucian added.

“It can come from coal fires. It’s in the smoke, or…no, I’m being stupid just ignore me…” Lily said.

“Go on,” Jake pressed.

“Well, don’t laugh at me but I watch a lot of these spooky programs on TV and apparently whenever a spirit or a certain type of demon has been present, they leave a trace of sulfur behind,” she said, wincing a little at her admission.

She was waiting for us to laugh but none of us did. Then she realized that, after what had happened with their fathers, it was possible that she was right.

“Can you pick anything up, Keira, like you did with the hazes I mean?” Jake asked.

“Not really, but there was definitely something here.”

“How do demons get here?” Lily asked.

“People with some forms of power can summon them apparently,” Lucian answered. “But it would take a hell of a lot of power. I suppose people may conjure things if they are into the dark arts, but only low-level things, and I’ve only heard rumors of people actually being able to pull it off.”