Midnight Solstice

Chapter 6

Photo: Brynn
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    For the remainder of my time before I had training with Katerina, I decided to go to my art room. Every since I could remember, I loved drawing. In my human life, I would always draw with a stick on the ground. My mother and Jane always loved to see my drawings, even if they were with dirt. Mother believed I was the best artist in the entire village.
   When I got turned into a vampire, after we took over the vampire world from the Romanians, Aro had a room in the back of the castle set up for me with paints, canvasses, and other art supplies so I could paint and draw. I always thought that was one of the greatest things he had ever done for me, besides saving my sister and I from burning at the stake, but that's a story for another time.
     The room was filled with white sheets that covered the walls and floor which had paint splatters of various colors all over it. My paintings were scattered around the room, propped up on whatever I could find. It was a release for me to draw and paint, I felt...human again I suppose you can say.
    I took out my sketch pad and a freshly sharpened pencil from the drawer of the small wooden desk I had in the corner of the room. I sat on the stool next to it and began drawing. I never really know what I start drawing until I'm nearly finished with it. I draw at a human pace, making surely every line is placed in the perfect spot on the paper. I smudged the pencil lines every now and then when I need to shade in an area. It was nice to feel the texture of the graphite of the pencil rub off onto my fingertips, it was relaxing to me, like therapy. Maybe that's why I haven't gone crazy yet.
   When I finally finished, I was confused. I thought I was just drawing some sort of gate. Instead, I found a girl with long curly hair that looked as if it was blowing in the breeze. She held an axe in one hand, and a pair of ballet shoes in the other by the strings, the kind that a ballerina would go all the way up on her toes in. She had dark swirls running up her arms, like swirling tattoos that didn't seem to have any pattern. The girl was standing on what looked like clouds that surrounded a large gate. On one side of the gate, my shading was lighter than the other side. The darker side had creatures that were trying to jump out from behind the gate with their clawed hands sticking out from the metal bars. I guess I drew a lot more than I thought.
    How much time do I have until I have to meet Katerina? I pulled out my cellular phone out of my pocket. It was one of those fancy iPhone devices that I still don't know how to work. The time read 6:30 p.m. That would mean Katerina is already there. I threw my sketch pad and pencil on the desk and quickly ran out of the room. I ran at vamp speed as fast as I could to get back to the training room. Katerina was sitting outside the door, using her cellular device. She stood up when she saw me.
    "Hey." She said quietly.
     "I am sorry I am late, I got sidetracked and lost track of time." I told her quickly.
   "I would have gone in but the door was locked."
   "It's fine, I don't have the slightest idea why it was locked though." I said as I unlocked the door. We walked in the room. As I turned to talk to her, she tripped through the doorway. I put my arms out and caught her before she hit the ground. I pulled her to my chest before she could slip out of my grasp. I felt her hands rest lightly on my chest as her big blue eyes looked up at me. She smiled.
  "Sorry about that. I am such a klutz." She moved out of my arms. I felt an absence of warmth as she moved away that left me more cold then usual. She closed her eyes as familiar formation of veins popped out around them. They quickly went away and she opened her eyes to reveal a pair of Crimson eyes that twinkled in the artificial light coming from the long light bulbs hanging from the ceiling.
"I think I'm ready now as long as I don't fall again." Every time we have training, she has to change into her vampire form so that she can use her gift. She can't do too much in her fae/human/other form. I can't imagine what she'll say when she figures out that she's half vampire, half fae. But hopeful that day won't come for a long time.
    "So I was thinking that maybe this time you can try to crush something as opposed to trying to make it float." I told her. She raised an perfectly arched eyebrow at me.
    "Okay...how do I do that?" She gave me a nervous smile.
   "I was hoping you could tell me how you do it."
   "Like how I use my gift?" I nodded.
    "I just want to know how you get objects to float, or how you crush objects."
    "It's kind of a long story."
     "Well, we got forever don't we pet?" I asked.
     "I can't believe you're still calling me that." She said, dodging my question.
      "We may have forever, but we don't have all day here." She rolled her eyes.
   "I just think about it."
    "You just think?"
     "Yeah, sort of."
      "What do you mean sort of?"
    "When my mother was still alive, she thought that vampires were capable of more things that what they were told they can do. She and my father believed that if vampires could just harness their inner power, they could do different things with their gifts. I try to think about that, and hope things don't go flying everywhere."
   "So you knew about vampires before you were turned?" I asked.
    "Yeah. But that's why I don't know what I am. I know the fae exist too. But I'm not one or the other. So what the hell am I?"
"You know about the fae?"
"Of course I know, it's kind of hard not to, considering the fact that my father was obsessed with anything supernatural and my mother was a fae."
"I've heard rumors that he preformed tests on supernatural creatures." Her eyes darted down for a moment and I could have sworn I saw them fill with tears. She blinked quickly and looked back up. "He has, hasn't he?"
"I don't know if they are really called tests..."
"Katerina, we've been investigating him for quite a while, and if you have an information about anything he's done, we can stop him."
"I thought we were here for training?" She questioned coldly. Clearly this was something she didn't want to talk about...but I can't help being curious about her old life.
"How about I cut you a deal? We can train your gift for half our time today, and then you'll tell me everything you know about Michael Morgynstein for the remaining half hour. Agreed?"
"I'm not sure I can tell you...you wouldn't believe me. And didn't Aro read my mind when I first got here? He already knows."
"Not unless you blocked it from your mind." I spoke before I could tell myself not to.
"What?"
"Look, there isn't an easy way to say this. You are half vampire, half fae, it's just that your characteristics are confusing. You are just so much more different than any of us have anticipated. The normal fae can block memories from their minds when their memories are too painful to bear. The Air far do a lot more of the mental blocking than the other faeries do, but it is possible that this is what happened. It's a survival instinct. If those memories were too painful for you, you may have blocked them. And that's why Aro hasn't done anything about the old Morgynstein case. He has no idea about what you know." She stayed silent for a while, soaking it all in.
    "Alec, I don't know what to say...it makes sense but..."
   "But what?"
    "Aw screw it, I might as well tell you everything now. I'm warning you now, this story, my story, is disturbing. I have to start at the beginning for you to understand."
   "Don't worry pet, I think I can handle it. After being in the Volturi for over a millennium, I've seen pretty much everything."
    "You have never seen anything like this, trust me."
   "Come on, just tell me. We only have forty-five minutes now."
   "Oh alright. My mother was a faerie, my father was a vampire. When I was younger, I was more like a faerie than a vampire. My father didn't like that, no he didn't like that one bit. My mother never knew what he was up to, he was always so clever at hiding things from her..." She titled her head to the side and her watery eyes stared at the ground, giving into the memory.
    "What was he hiding?" I asked, trying to prompt her. Aro gave us training in handling witnesses many years ago, but I've never had to use it until now. I only handled the physical cases where all I did was use my gift. The more personal cases were given to Felix and Demetri.
   "When my mom was gone he would strap me to this hospital bed in our basement. He injected me with a serum, to make me more like him. But he wouldn't give me a lot. Just one little prick that sent me into a psychotic break down or something. The pain was the worst part of it. I saw my life flash before my eyes everyday. It was like a movie. I saw myself doing things with my mom, then running and hiding from my father came next, and then it ended, and I was back in my body, screaming at the top of my lungs for help. He would leave me there for hours before he sucked the serum out. He told me that if I told anyone, he would make the pain worse."
   "He did his tests on you?!" I was about to hunt this man down and rip his head off. How could someone be so cruel? I mean not that I'm a saint, but how could a man abuse his own flesh and blood in that way?
   "There was no one else he could test to give him his desired result. Sure there were others, but none like me. I was around ten, maybe eleven when he started his experiments on me and it went on until I turned seventeen, then Uncle Lorne got me away from him. I've lived with him until now."
   "Lorne knew and he didn't do anything until you were seventeen?!" I'll rip his head off too while I'm at it.
   "Not until I was thirteen. But he already had Gracie-Lynn to take care of. My father would have killed her and me too if he didn't turn the other cheek for a while. Gracie's mother died because he "stepped out of line" and so did mine."
    "Did they know?" She nodded.
    "That's how they got killed. I finally got the courage to tell my mother what my father was doing to me. She got really pissed and went to Uncle Lorne for help. Carissa, Gracie's mother wanted to help, but Lorne told her to stay with Gracie. He and my mother were going to kill my father. Mom knew how controlling my father was, she knew that was the only way. I snuck out of Carissa's house to go after them. But I shouldn't have. I could have stopped Dad from killing her if I stayed..." She started to cry. Without thinking, I pulled her into my arms.
   "Take your time, I know this must be painful for you." She pulled away from me and continued as best as she could.
    "He wasn't at our house when my mother got there, so she waited. Lorne was positioned at another end of the woods surrounding my house so that my father wouldn't know he was there. Although, I'm not sure what Lorne would have done since he was still human. My father would've just shook him off and went on his way with things. He's Lorne's brother you know, and if he figured out the whole family was plotting against him, we would've all died on the spot. When he got home, he was covered in Carissa's blood. Lorne knew it too, and was about to go kill my father, I was kind of hoping he would.
    "My father started to hit my mother around and I was stupid and jumped out from the bush I was hiding in. I stood in between them and was trying to calm them both down. He pulled out a gun. Lorne was quick to run out from where he was hiding, but he could only save me. He shot my mother right between the eyes...and I saw the whole thing." She was back in my arms sobbing again.
  "I know you probably don't want to, but we need to go talk to Aro, now."
   "No...no, no, no, we can't tell him. Do you know what happens after we do that? The world may change as we know it, there is more to the story than you know. I still haven't told you the reason my mother was going to kill him."
   "Alright, you tell me that and then we will go to Aro." She shook her head. "Katerina, you know that the next time Aro checks in with me, he will know everything and the consequences for not saying anything will be worse than if we just go tell him now."
    "Please don't make me." She begged. "Mom made me swear not to tell."
   "Don't make me get Adeline to come down here and compel you to tell me." She flinched.
   "My father figured out how to do other things that other vampires couldn't. He could change his eye color, feel when a shield was being used, and detect when someone was going to use their gift minutes before they use it! He played it off as if he couldn't harness his inner ability and what not, like mom thought he could, but he was doing that stuff in the background! Not even Uncle Lorne knows about it!" I froze for a moment, trying to comprehend what she just told me.
   "He had multiple gifts?" I asked.
    "No, he taught himself how to do those things! He was trying to teach me how to do it too."
   "We need to go to Aro now!" I grabbed her arm and dragged her down the hall behind me. Running at vampire speed was a lot harder when you had to drag someone along with you.
   "Alec no! He can't know! You don't know what he will do if he knows." I ignored her and quickly knocked on the door to Aro's study. He opened the door with the same smile on his face that scared so many people. It faded when he looked at Katerina, who was still sobbing. He sighed.
  "What happened now?" He questioned as we entered the room. I sat Katerina down in the chair across from his desk and stood behind her so she couldn't get away.
   "I have more information about the Morgynstein case." I told him.
   "I thought we closed that case years ago."
    "We did, but Katerina has more information." He stood in front of Katerina and held out his hand. She started to sob some more. He looked back at me.
   "What did you do to her?" He asked.
   "I didn't do anything. She told me what knows. I guess it's upsetting for her to go through her memories again." He sighed and crouched down beside her.
   "I can't fathom how hard this must be for you. But I can promise you that we will keep this case as high profile as we can. Not many people have to know. But if you do have any information on your father we would like to know about it. We will be able to stop him if you tell us what you know."
   "Are you sure?" She sniffed.
   "Of course."
    "Are you absolutely positive that you're sure?" He chuckled.
   "I cross my heart and hope it beats again." He told her.
     I had to stifle a laugh. When you've been here as long as I have, you realize that Aro actually has a pretty decent sense of humor. Sure, he may find ripping someone's head off funny at times but...who am I kidding, he has an unusual sense of humor, but at least he has one. That's how he manages here. We all have our way with coping with whatever goes on within these castle walls and his sense of humor happens to be his.
     Katerina but her lip, as her hand slowly stretched out to Aro's. He gave her a genuine smile and read her thoughts. His eyes moved back and forth, his smile faded into a confused grimace. He let go of her hand and stared at her in what looked like pity mixed with anger. Aw shit, this can't be good.
   "Alec, get Jane, Felix, and Demetri down here immediately. We are reopening the Morgynstein case for investigation."
   "We're what?" Katerina asked. "I thought you said no one had to know!"
    "I said few people have to know, but this is worse than we thought. You were right by the way, about her blocking this from her mind. Good thinking on your part." He picked up his phone that was connected to a wire on the phone station and pressed multiple numbers as he put the phone to his ear. "Caius, can you get Marcus and meet me in my study, we have to reopen a case from a couple of years ago due to new evidence...brother don't be unreasonable...yes it is because of her but I'm sure she'll be a big help...do hurry, time is being wasted..." He hung up the phone.
   "Should I go get them now?" I asked Aro. He nodded.
   "I will keep Katerina company until you return." I looked down at her. Her eyes were back to their original blue color and tears sent black trails of makeup down her delicate face.
    "Everything will be alright, I promise." I rubbed her shoulders for a minute before I ran to go get Jane, Demetri, and Felix.
    I can tell you right now, I don't know what is going on. But if what Katerina says is true, I know one thing. All hell is about to break loose.