H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (50 page)

I looked at this fragile woman and I said,
“You understand that I am not a god. I am just like you. Except, I
have been given a gift. I am no better than anyone here. My desire
is to serve you, not the other way around.”

All eyes were on me. They needed to know
that I wasn’t bullet-proof, that I felt pain just like them.

The lady took my hand and said, “We all
understand that you aren’t invincible. What we’re hoping for,
correction; what I am hoping for, is that you can save us from
becoming extinct. We are dying off faster than we are evolving. We
kill our own for sport. As a people, we are in disarray. I am
hoping you can bring all Mani together. I’m hoping that the mere
idea of you gives each one of us hope.”

This woman spoke so pure and eloquent; for
the first time I realized I was a ‘symbol of hope’ as well as
someone who can help them.

“I am here to help,” I said to her. “I’m not
exactly sure what I can do, but I know for damn sure those who
follow us, who choose our side, will be rewarded.”

“So, sweet Josiah, will you show me?”

I smiled at the dear woman. For her and all
of those who have waited for this prophesy to come to pass, I ran
as hard as I could toward the middle of the Flatlands, and jumped
through the air and transitioned into the great white eagle and
flew up into the sky. I heard thunderous applause below me as I
circled this tiny strip of land. I looked down and I knew I was
among my people. They were looking to me for guidance. I understood
for the first time what Goshi meant by saying that my love for Lena
would only tear me away from my true calling. What happened between
Lena and Tommy didn’t matter. What did matter were the people right
here, right now, the ones who have fought the good fight and have
been persecuted for hundreds of years. I was here for them. I will
do whatever it is the Triat asks of me.

I spent the next two hours visiting all
three bonfires and telling my tales from the last few months.
Everyone was real interested in my trials and tribulations. I kept
the details of Tommy having cognitive thought and my feelings for
Lena private. Other than that, I let loose telling them all my
stories. I felt like an old grandfather telling his grandkids of
days gone by.

It was close to five in the morning and I
decided it was time to leave. Tonight, I had seen all types of
Mani. I saw them as they were and their most basic needs. I too,
had fallen for the stereotype that most Mani were savages and
hungered for the kill. But on this night, I saw mothers, daughters,
sons, and fathers. I saw people who were once flesh and blood just
like myself, but now had become immortal and were trying to live
with that on a daily basis. I saw people who needed to connect with
each other. To know they weren’t in this alone.

I said goodbye to my new friends and
transitioned into the eagle and flew off. I have never felt such a
positive feeling of acceptance. I flew back to Hollywood, knowing
in my heart, I was going to let whatever happened between Tommy and
Lena go for now. I had a much bigger destiny than to worry about
such petty things.

Or so... I thought.

When I came into the house, Tommy was lying
back in the easy chair and Lena was on the floor cross legged next
to him. I was hoping to feel a great abundance of forgiveness, but
that didn’t happen. I saw Tommy and Lena and I felt instant
betrayal. Lena popped up off the ground and came toward me the
second I got into the house. “Where have you been?” she asked.

“I went out to clear my head. I’ve had a
pretty stressful couple of weeks.”

“Where did you go?” Tommy asked.

I looked at Tommy and Lena and felt an
extreme amount of hurt. I wanted to yell at both of them and say,
‘HOW COULD YOU!’ But instead, I just calmly said, “I went out. It
was no big deal.”

“You okay, man?” Tommy asked,
suspiciously.

“Yeah, I’m great, Tommy.” I stared Tommy
down with a no-nonsense stare, and then gently smiled. “I have
never been better.” I turned and walked toward the bathroom. “I’m
going to take a shower.”

I went into the bathroom and closed the
door. I turned on the shower and made sure the water was scorching
hot. I took off all my clothes and stepped into the shower. I stood
there for at least thirty minutes, and just allowed the hot water
to do its thing. I needed a massage, and the water head was doing
the trick. I turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. I
dried myself off and put my jeans back on and left my shirt
off.

There was a knock at the door. “Yeah, who is
it?” I yelled

“Hey, Jo, it’s Tommy! When you get out, I
want to talk to you.”

Really? I thought. I wonder what he wants to
talk about. He probably thinks Yari said something to me and wants
to pick my brain to see what I know. At times, Tommy had the worst
OCD of anyone I ever knew. No wonder he’d put on a little weight.
He was probably feeling guiltier than shit.

“Sure,” I said. “Give me a minute.”

I sat down on the toilet seat and sighed out
loud. I eventually walked over to the door and opened it. “Where do
you want to talk?”

“We can talk in the living room.”

“What about Lena?” I asked.

“She went to the guest room.”

I nodded my head and walked out of the
bathroom and sat on the couch. Tommy came into the living room and
sat on the easy chair.

“What’s on your mind, Tommy?”

Tommy was quiet and rubbing his knuckles. He
stared blankly ahead and had very little facial expression. Then he
said something that nearly made me fall off the couch. “I think I’m
in love with your girlfriend.”

Huh? No set up? No beating around the bush?
Just a flat out, ‘I think I’m in love with your girlfriend’?

I didn’t know how to respond. I thought at
best, he would come clear and admit he kissed her . But, in love
with her? What was this? Days of Our Lives?

“Did I hear you right?” I said.

“You heard me, Josiah.”

“How?”

“Over the past month I have fallen for Lena.
I feel horrible about it. I can’t figure out why I even allow it to
happen, but it did, and it’s fucking me up inside.”

If my head was spinning before now it was in
manic hyper-speed.

Holy shit! My best friend in the entire
world just manned up and told me he was in love with my
girlfriend!

I looked at Tommy and I could tell it was
eating him up inside. I needed to know why he felt that way toward
Lena and what she felt for him. “How did it happen?” I asked.

“Josiah, when you left, none of us really
knew how to act around each other. Yari and I messed around for a
while, but she’s not the type of girl you keep that up with. God
knows what she does when she leaves here. I don’t ask her because I
don’t want to know.”

“Did you tell Yari how you felt? She’s not
just a fuck toy that you can bang and then toss to the side.”

“I know that.”

“Do you know that? Yari has more depth than
either of us will ever know. She’s saved both of our lives and
never asked for a damn thing from us.”

“I know that Josiah and I care about her.
But she has dark fucking secrets that scare the shit out of me.
There’s a little too much going on with her.”

“So, let me get this straight. You realized
you didn’t care about Yari, so you decided to fall in love with my
girlfriend instead?”

“Nothing is that simple, Josiah. Do you
think I went after Lena and pounced on her the second I knew she
was vulnerable and missing you?”

I stood up off the couch and walked to the
window. I peeked behind the wall panels that covered the windows so
no sunlight could come in. I saw that the sun had not come up yet,
but it was about to. I closed the panel.

“I don’t know Tommy. I don’t know how you
think. You do things that I would never do. You cross over the
lines that are beyond my imagination. You’re a different breed than
me in more ways than one.” I walked over to the hallway and pointed
down the hall at Lena in her room. “That right there, Tommy! That’s
a line you never cross.”

“Why, Josiah? Because you’re the fucking
Chosen One, and God forbid that anyone crosses you?”

“No, you dumbass! It’s a line you don’t
cross because we’re best friends! Because we’re brothers. We’re
more than brothers! We have a connection that is beyond this world.
At least I thought we did. But you fucked everything up! You don’t
allow yourself to develop feelings for your best friend’s
girl.”

“I didn’t plan on it happening. It just
did.”

“Have you acted on it, Tom?” Tommy was
extremely quiet. “Have you?” I shouted. Lena had to have heard me
in the other room.

“Yes, I have.”

I knew he had, but I wanted to hear it from
his own mouth.

“What happened?”

“I kissed her. We were at the beach, just
hanging out and I told her I was having feelings for her and I
didn’t want to act on them because you mean too much to me.”

“You told her that?”

“Yeah.”

“You manipulative motherfucker!”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you played the ‘I’m in love with
you but I want to do the noble thing card’. You’re a fucking
douchebag. You forgot you taught me everything you know, Tommy.
That was ‘lesson one’ in the ‘Tommy getting laid handbook’!”

“It’s not like that, Josiah. That’s not it
at all.”

“But yet, you still waited for an opening,
didn’t you? You waited for the right moment to stick your tongue
down her throat!”

Tommy was again quiet.

“Am I right? You played her good, didn’t
you? Did she bite, Tom? Did she nibble on the line? Did she kiss
you back?”

“Yes and no.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means in the moment she went with it,
but only in the moment; within seconds she regretted it and felt
awful.”

“What about you? What the fuck did you
feel?”

“I felt bad, but...”

“But what? There’s is no but. You are lucky
we have a history, Tommy.”

“Why, because you would kick my ass
otherwise?”

“No, Tommy, I’m not going to threaten you.
You’re not worth it. To threaten you would mean I give a shit about
you!”

Tommy looked at me shocked as hell. “What
are you saying, Josiah?”

“I’m saying that you stepped over a line
that can’t be fixed.”

“Okay,” Tommy said quietly. “So, that’s it?
You and I are done?”

“I’m sorry that it even started.”

Tommy nodded his head at me. I could tell he
felt awful. Then his face turned malicious and he transitioned into
the werewolf. I thought he was going to attack me, but instead he
crashed through the window and wall panel, spraying glass and wood
bits everywhere. Tommy ran up the pathway and leaped over the main
fence at the front of the community.

Then I heard a voice in my head and it was
Tommy’s. It was short and to the point. “I’m sorry, Josiah.”

Lena rushed into the living room once she
heard Tommy crash through the window and wall panel. “What
happened?” she yelled.

I looked at her and felt disgust in my
heart. The morning sun had now come up over the horizon and Tommy
blasting through the window allowed a ton of sunlight to get into
the townhouse.

That sure was considerate of Tommy to make a
giant hole in a house filled with vampires.

“Go back to the room, you’re going to burn!”
I said to Lena.

“What happened, Josiah?”

I calmly looked at Lena and said slowly, “Go
back to the room or you’re going to burn!”

Lena knew I wasn’t messing around, and it
was really the first time I ever threw my weight around when it
came to her. Lena turned around and walked slowly back to her
room.

I needed to get out of the living room where
most of the sunlight was making its way through. I went into Yari’s
room and shut the door. I took my phone out of my pocket and walked
over to Yari’s computer and looked up a twenty-four hour
maintenance company in the Google search engine.

I called up the service and told them to
come out and fix the window. Also, to put up another panel so no
sunlight could make its way into the living room. I added my wife
had a very sensitive skin disease. The guys came and were gone in a
matter of hours. I gave them Hector’s credit card number and they
were on their way.

I decided not to head to the back of the
house, because I was not ready to confront Lena. I remembered what
Goshi had said to me. He told me how my feelings for Lena would get
in the way of my true destiny. Today, it was extremely apparent
that he was right. But, nonetheless, it’s what I had to do. I
needed to know how she felt about Tommy. But more importantly, I
needed to know how she felt about me. Even though I wasn’t ready, I
needed to know some answers. I reluctantly walked to the back of
the house.

I opened the door to the guest room and
walked in. Lena was lying on the bed with her back to the door.

“Hey!” I said out loud.

“Yes.” Lena still had her back to me.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked

“I don’t know. What’s wrong with you? Why
did you talk to me like that?”

“Why do you think?”

“I didn’t do anything, Josiah.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“He kissed me and that was it.”

“Is it?” I asked.

“Is what?”

“Is that all there is? Are there feelings
between the two of you?”

Lena was quiet.

“Are you quiet because you have feelings for
him, or are you quiet because I had the gall to ask that
question?”

Lena whispered, “The first one.”

“What was that?”

Lena turned over and looked at me. “It’s the
first one, Josiah.”

“You have developed feelings for Tommy?”

Lena nodded.

“How?”