Antithesis: The Vampire Alliance Book Three - FIRST DRAFT COMPLETED

Antithesis Chapter 15: Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan June 2013

Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan, May 2013

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Tul admits as we walk back to our room, “the paladins who attacked us, they were turning into zombies too. Why? Surely if your blood made Rob into a Paladin rather than zombie, then the Paladins were created from him, they should be immune too?”

“Surely if 1352 could begin remembering bits of his life then we should’ve had cases of other Paladins doing the same by now?” I answer with a shrug, “There was only ever one 1352. The scientist would’ve used his blood and venom to create more but I think Charleston intervened. That process would have been too slow. All natural conversions are. How many people can we usually sire a year before they start having problems?”

“One,” Tul responds self-consciously, “at most, even that’s too many for young vampires who should stick to one or two a decade for the first five or so decades.”

“Exactly. But Charleston didn’t want to create one Paladin a decade. Also, at the point in time when 1352 awoke I was, well, causing trouble. I think, I know, he thought 1352 would be more useful to control, goad or injure me than being stuck in the science facility converting others.

Let’s be honest,” my voice is a little sad as I confess, “if it had been anyone else in the arena I would’ve fought. I might still have ended up fatally wounded, but surrender wouldn’t have been on the agenda. But because it was 1352...”

Rob’s remorse wells quickly and powerfully, aching inside me. “It’s not your fault,” I remind him. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You aren’t 1352.”

“Part of me is,” he answers softly, “isn’t that the reason I was different; the part of me that you had changed didn’t die. I, Robert Blakethorn, was part of 1352. Now 1352 is part of me.”

Smiling as my fingers squeeze his I add, “Good, I’d hate to think I’d killed off 1352 completely, he grew on me.” My laugh eases some of the tension and I admit, “Either way though, I forgave 1352 a long time ago. Earlier than I should’ve done, probably.”

“Certainly,” Rob and Tul answer together and I hit them both. They just grin at me as I roll my eyes.

“Anyway, back to the point. Because it was you, specifically, to be the first to convert with any sort of success, you had other uses. I think Charleston probably did with the Paladin’s exactly what he’s doing with his Strix.”

“Synthesising drugs, rather than using a more organic conversion.” Tul finishes for me but he still looks confused, “Is it so different, being synthetically turned rather than pure-blooded?”

“Yeah, I think it is.” Although my answer is honest, it is just a thought; a speculation based on the whispers in my head but nothing definite. “We’re the goal. Everything the Senate has created is just a stepping stone towards being what we are. Even the Senate Strix with their blood shot eyes.

The zombies aren’t interested in us because they recognise us as related to them; Andrea and I were sister, there’s familiarity. They don’t recognise our synthetic counterparts.

I think the zombies were created with Andrea’s blood and only the venom was a synthesised substitute. 1352 got a mix of my blood and Andrea’s blood and that caused a different reaction when mixed with the venom substitute. Then, after 1352 provided the key, the Senate started synthesising everything including blood substitutes so that 1352 could be used against me.

We are organic and the zombies’ conversions were organic where it mattered, in the blood. That makes us, not sister species exactly, but we share common ancestry through the blood. Everything’s always blood, in the end.” I comment wryly, “Everything comes back to what’s pumping around my veins.”

“I like what’s in your veins,” Tul teases, leaning towards me and pressing a kiss to my throat.

My body reacts automatically to him. My hearts speeds, my skin tingles and flushes and I tip my head, willing to give him access to my blood.

“I love how you react.” His grin is broad as I struggle to regain control, blushing slightly.

“Yes, well, I’m too young to be expected to possess perfect self control.”

“You’ve never had a newly-turned outburst. The closest you’ve ever come was just before you went after Donal and even then you were methodical,” Rob laughs at my poorly conceived defence before lifting my wrist to his mouth and circling his tongue slowly over my slowly pulsing artery.

A bolt of heat travels through me and I want to demand he bite me. He moans, feeling my desires as his eyes silver. Tul presses another kiss to my neck, licking my skin, just as affected by my need to be fed on as Rob is.

“And you two are both models of self control,” I whisper.

As much as I’d like to take this further I’m very aware that we’re stood in a public corridor and this behaviour is inappropriate, especially considering what’s just happened. They show no sign of caring about that and I wonder how much immortality damages a person’s sense of propriety.

Pulling away I revert to considering the matter at hand, which is sure to dampen desire. “Anything turned with synthetic blood substitutes is foreign to the zombies, because they don’t smell of the organic markers which come from my line.”

“So we’re it then, the only ones not at risk of infection if they escape?”

“Us and Charleston,” my reply to Rob’s question ends on a growl, “fucking bastard. Of course we may be able to protect a few people, if it becomes necessary.”

“We can’t convert more, you’ve said so yourself.” Tul points out but I already know that, better than he does.

“Not conversion, not to start with. Ideally we won’t ever make more Strix, but what if it were Johan about to be bitten by a zombie? Wouldn’t you be grateful for the chance to save our leader, the person we’re all descended from?”

There’s a loaded pause before I ask, “I wouldn’t change him on the off-chance he might get bitten, he doesn’t have the ties we do to help retain his, well, humanity, for want of a better word. However, what if we dose him with my blood? Or your blood, for that matter, it doesn’t have to be me anymore.”

“If he was bitten he’d become Paladin,” Tul murmurs, finally following my meaning, “which might at least give him a chance of surviving long enough for us to convert him fully. We need only need to change him if it became essential rather than as a precautionary measure. Or would being dosed on our blood stop the zombies biting him in the first place?”

“Maybe,” there’s doubt in the word though, and I’m not convinced it would work that way. “I’m not sure it would be enough though, because he’d still just be a vampire, their prey for all intents and purposes. I think it takes being a pureblood Paladin, the sister species of the zombies, before immunity is possible. It might be enough though, although I suspect not. I don’t know; this is all just speculation.”

“Informed speculation,” Rob reminds me as he unlocks our door, “we ought to put it to Johan at least, then he can make the call if those things ever do get out into...” His voice trails off as we gawk at the man standing in the middle of our room.

“Who the hell are you?” demands Rob, as stunned as Tul and I are to see a stranger stood in our room.

“Security told me to wait here for you,” the vampire admits and I resent that Zachary has a master key for all the rooms. He shouldn’t have brought whoever this is here, it’s against protocol. I’ll be having serious words with him later, and with Johan. Hadn’t we been through enough at the last base without Zach letting strangers in?

I asses the man with hair and eyes the colour of Rob’s and begin giggling, long before Rob demands the man’s name for a second time. The three men raise their brows as I laugh hysterically, finding this situation hilariously funny despite knowing it’s going to be an unprecedented complication.  Aemilana’s gift has plagued me today but right now I wish it had given me a warning vision rather than simply giving me the truth now, when it’s too late to warn Rob and Tul or collect my own thoughts.

“Sit down, Rob, love. You’re going to need it. Actually,” I consider Tul, “you’re both going to need it. Do try and control your temper and remember it’s not his doing.” Pointing at the stranger, I perch on the bed as my husbands take a seat on our second-hand sofa. They eye me in concern but that may be because I can’t stop my nervous giggling.

The stranger considers me, his expression unfathomable before he turns back to face Rob. “My name is Robert Blakethorn the third, but you may call me Robbie.”

The silence is deafening. The men stare at each other, two faces easily readable masks of disbelief, one slightly defiant. “That’s not possible,” Rob manages to growl at last. “Who are you?”

“Your son.” My statement is assured. He may have an easier time believing me, not that this is ever going to be easy to believe. “You got Tess pregnant.”

I wait for Tul’s anger but it doesn’t come. He really has forgiven Rob and while he’s undoubtedly shocked his irritation is only mild. Well, I say mild, it’s not so slight he can bite his tongue, “As I said at the time, you should’ve taken your mother’s advice on waiting until after you were married.”

“That’s about as helpful as the last time you said it,” Rob murmurs, tension radiating from him in waves. Glancing at me, his eyes are pleading as he asks, “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. You’re his father.” Neither congratulations or commiserations are appropriate so I don’t try to offer either. He’d appreciate neither.

“Huh.” His response is substantially shorter than I’d expected. Then Rob stands up, turns on his heel and walks out. My soul shudders at his confusion, weeps at his pain, quakes at his sudden burst of anger as he flees. There’s nothing I can do though, nothing I can say, not yet. He has to come to terms with this one on his own.

“That’s a lot of anger.”

Shrugging, I acknowledge Tul’s observation. “How would you feel?”

“The same,” he answers honestly.

“Anger?” Rob’s son hisses. “He thinks he has a right to anger?”

Very slowly, with supernatural grace, I ease back onto my feet. He flinches as I stalk towards him, perhaps there’s a little too much of Rob’s fury showing in my silvering eyes. “He has every right to anger. One of the first things we come to realise as vampires is that it is unlikely we will ever have a child. We’ll sire others, maybe, but we’ll probably never create life from scratch. We’ll never watch our offspring grow and learn and develop the strength to stand on their own.

Your mother never told him. Your mother betrayed her fiancé to bed him while he was hurting, because she hoped to get his money. Then she never told him he had a son. Nothing will give him back your birth, your childhood, your life. A century and he never knew, you grew up, you became a man and even though he was a public figure and easy to find you never sought him out, you never gave him any importance. He has every right to anger.”

“My mother told him and he didn’t want to know.” Robbie’s tone is matter-of-fact although Rob’s reaction has given him doubts, that much is clear from his scent. “He’s filled your head with lies; my mother never had a fiancé.”

The door slams as Tul departs as well, his own temper finally flaring too. “The man who’s just left is Tulloch Sullivan. Why don’t you go and say his name to your mother and see how she reacts?” The dare surprises Robbie but he doesn’t understand until hearing my next words. “He was a servant in Rob’s house, he proposed to your mother and she accepted. Then she seduced her employer, a man who was drunk and despairing. Go on, go and ask your mother to deny it.”

“I will,” Robbie answers but his voice is cold, “as soon as you tell me where she is, Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan.”

Realisation dawns and I hurt all the more for Rob. “You’ve lived a century and when you finally haul your arse into his house it’s for me, not him.”

“He means nothing to me,” Robbie announces, “but my mother does.”

Shaking my head I turn from him, positioning myself on the sofa. “I don’t know where your mother is, the last time I saw her she was fleeing through the woods away from here after challenging me over Donal.” Pausing briefly, I consider the man stood defiantly in front of me, “You’ll mean something to Rob, you know. You would have always meant something.”

He ignores that assertion. “You haven’t seen my mother since the start of the challenge?” He demands, concern creasing his brow, “You only fought once?”

“We only fought once,” I confirm but I frown too, confused. “What do you mean, start of the challenge?”

He laughs, a chilly, mocking, chuckle, “I forgot you’re a baby. Challenges are to the death. You have so much to learn, so much you’ll never learn. Her challenge is still going on. When I couldn’t get in touch with her I thought she must have come after you again. It’s better this way.”

His expression turns sinister as he assesses me, “Tell me, before I kill you, why it is you would suffer for the likes of Robert Blakethorn but would kill my grandsire?”
The hilarious nature of his statement would have me doubled over with laughter if it weren’t such a serious subject. “A man like Rob? I would suffer for him because he is a good man. He has always fought to make this world a better place and to save whoever he could while risking his life to do so. Donal though? Do you really want to know why he died?”

At his nod my eyes bore into his, searching his expression for each flicker of understanding as I tell him the truth. “Donal Murphy murdered my family. He gave my sister’s blood to the Senate in order for them to create super-soldiers, although all they managed were monsters.

He killed them to give the Senate a way to frame Rob for a crime which would amount to a death sentence. He took my mother, my father, my sister and my husband from me. He used me and he would have gladly taken my second husband from me too. As it is, all he managed was taking his hand. He chopped off the hand of a man he had once called brother and do you know what he did before I killed him? He laughed about it. He mocked Tul and he made light of how he’d bitten my terrified sister before he killed her. That is why Donal Murphy died.”

Studying him closely I see a truth that’s easy to read, “You won’t kill me. You can’t, but more than that you won’t even try. You see, Robert Blakethorn the third, whether you like it or not you do believe me about everything.”

“My mother will come for you.” Robbie states simply, “she phoned just days before she stopped answering my calls. She hates you, right or wrong, and she will come.”

“Then I’ll kill her.”

The vision is more this time although it’s still just a flash, just Tess’ gleeful face and then the bite of steel and the burn of silver at my neck. The sensation only lasts a second, as it had done the last time I felt it, as it tears from one side of my neck to the other. Then there’s blackness.

When I come round again, Rob and Tul are hovering over me while Robbie watches from the other side of the room. “Eve, honey, you have to stop doing this,” Tul starts, only for Rob to finish, “That’s three times today. These visions are taking too much out of you.”

Perhaps it is the panic building in my gut that focuses their attention as they ask together, “What did you see?”

“Tess March will kill me, there is no other future.”