Midnight Solstice

Chapter 8

Photo: Lorne Morgynstein
********************************************
When Katerina finished her speech, it was as if a thousand hands shot up. She rolled her eyes.
"I've just explained everything about me to you in great detail and you still have questions?"
"Uh yeah, how the hell were you turned three months ago if you've been like this all of your life, huh?" George asked. His tone came out a bit harsher than he expected. "I mean it just seems kind of strange."
"There was an...accident when Uncle Lorne helped me escape from my father. My father decided to stop us from leaving himself instead of letting his goons do it for him. He cornered us and pushed me out of a two story window." She paused for a moment and took a deep breath.
"By that time, my father had already turned Uncle Lorne into a vampire. He jumped out after me. My father didn't think he would have since he was just recently turned. My father turned Lorne a couple of years after he got turned because he believed that Lorne would be better off that way. Uncle Lorne also didn't know much about vampires other than the obvious. He freaked out once he was on the ground. He thought I was dead at first, I wish that I was..."
She cut herself off and looked at the ground. Caleb walked over to her and sat her down on the black leather couch that was directly behind them. Brynn sat on the other side of her and started rubbing her back.
"It's okay, take your time, we understand that this is going to be harder for you than it will be for us." She told her in a soothing voice. Katerina gave her a small smile and then continued.
"Once Lorne realized that I was alive, he tried to turn me so that I wouldn't die. I could only imagine what it would have been like for him if I did. He couldn't bare to lose another person from his family. He lost my mother, Carissa, and my father. Even though he's not dead, Uncle Lorne would always tell me that the only difference between him and a corpse is that he can act human, but we all know he's just dead on the inside. Lorne had a big heart, and this was just as traumatic for him as it is for me."
"He did save me, obviously, but his venom didn't turn me. Since I was already part vampire from my father's DNA and his tests, I was already accustomed to taking in venom. I took in more than the usual dosage so it did have a greater affect on me. After that I could drink blood, and I could see a little better too. The only problem is, instead of feeling the pain of the venom, I just passed out and didn't feel anything. And that brings me to the current state that I am in right now."
"So basically the only time you have any sort of significant change, it's when vampire venom gets put into your system naturally?" Demetri questioned.
"It appears so." Felix said. "But why would Old Man Morgynstein keep doing those test on her if they weren't doing anything?"
"He was very persistent, he wouldn't quit unless he knew he couldn't do something. Maybe he just didn't know that Katerina needed to be turned naturally." Jane thought aloud.
"Or he was, and still is just a sadistic asshole with control issues." Adeline added, flipping her long copper curls as she spoke.
"For once, I agree with you." Andi told her.
"Katerina, do you remember when you told me that your mother and father believed that vampires can uncover special abilities?" I asked her.
"Yeah, if vampires harness their inner power, all sorts of things happen. It's easier if you don't have a gift though, mainly because once you uncover an ability, it's harder to balance between those and any gifts you may have."
    "What kind of things can you do?"
     "It's hard to describe...but right now I can only do one thing well."
     "Why don't you show us?" Felix suggested.
      "Felix you can't actually see it happen, it's more of a mental thing, but I guess I will try."
     She stood up off of the couch and walked away. She was turned away from us so all we saw was her hand go up. Her hand began moving around in the air; slowly at first, but then quicker as the minutes passed. It looked as though she could feel the air around her. She stopped abruptly before walking back over to her spot and sitting down once again.
   "In a couple of seconds, a woman is going to walk down that hallway." Katerina told us as she pointed across the room. "She seems anxious so be careful of what you say." Adeline scoffed.
    "Yeah right! Let me guess, Beyoncé is going pop out from behind that chair over there." She said pointing to an empty chair across the dimly lit room. A moment later, we heard the clicking of heels on the cobblestone floor. Adeline's smirk fell right off her face.
    "I'll be damned..." Fred whispered.
     "I think we were damned as soon as we were turned." George told him. Fred smiled and smacked him lightly on the back of the head.
Soon we saw a woman turn the corner. As she came closer I noticed it was Heidi, and she did look rather anxious. Everyone was looking at Katerina in bewilderment, except for Heidi who looked at all of us like we were deranged psychopaths. She brushed her mahogany hair out of her face and crossed her arms over her chest.
"What are you all looking at? All I did was walk in here and you all stare at me like I'm some sort of psychopath. What the hell is going on?"  She asked.
She tried to sound like she wasn't scared. Someone must have told her about the Morgynstein case. When we were investigating him last time, we got extremely close to his hide out and he had these mutts around the outside. We thought my numbing mist took them all out but it didn't. As we got closer, they jumped out and attacked us. Felix, Demetri, and Heidi almost didn't make it out alive. Even I was close to dying there. The scar that would forever remain across my back was one of the less fatal injuries.
"Our dearest Katerina just has showed us a new skill." Jane told her in her "oh so famous" bittersweet tone. Heidi looked over at Katerina, who gave her a small wave.
"You look oddly familiar...You're Fern's daughter aren't you." Katerina nodded.
"Yeah that would be me. I'm sorry that they are all staring at you like idiots."
"I'm used to that, they do it often." She teased looking back at us. Felix gave her a small wink which caused her to roll her eyes and turn her attention back to Katerina. "I'm Heidi by the way. You probably don't remember me because of your mother's gift, but we did meet before."
"I'm sorry I can't remember, but I've been getting that a lot lately." She gave Katerina a warm smile and decide to change the subject.
"So why are they staring this time?"
"Well she kind of just predicted that you were going to walk down that hallway." Caleb told her.
"So you are the newborn with the visions."
"No, that's Caleb. I'm the one with the gravity." She informed Heidi, pointing her thumb at Caleb who grinned and bit his lip. He looked at the ground for a couple of moments before looking up again.
"Yeah, I...I'm the vision boy." Fred and George fought to control their laughter. It wasn't uncommon for men to fall for Heidi's beauty. That was her gift after all. Heidi looked a little bit confused for a second, she must not have been trying to use her gift on him. She shook it off and smiled.
"Well Caleb, it's a pleasure to meet you and I'm sure your gift is going to come in handy." Caleb nodded, the smile on his face grew.
"Yeah, I hope so!" Katerina elbowed him lightly in the ribs, fighting her own laughter. "I mean it should come in handy, visions of the future are very useful." She laughed.
"I'm glad you are on our side then. We need some strong people here, I think the old timers are growing soft." She sat down next to Caleb. "Especially that one." Heidi said, waving her index finger at me. I shrugged.
"What can I say, I'm old. I'm expecting to fall down and become a pile of dirt any day now."
"Anyway, why don't we let Katerina explain what her skill is." Jane sneered. Heidi's eyes grew wide and she inhaled sharply. "Unless you want to tell us Heidi." She smirked as Heidi turned to her.
"You know Jane, since you seem to know so much about this, why don't you just explain everything to us?"
"I never said I knew everything..."
"And neither did I so why don't we let the poor girl tell us what's going on since I can guarantee you that no one but her understands any of this."
"Fine then, so Katerina, what did you just do?" Jane asked with fake enthusiasm.
"I guess I felt the vibe of the area I'm in...I felt a disturbance when Heidi entered the area I was watching. Once she entered, I got insight to specific details about her and what she was feeling. It's pretty useful, especially when I have to hide from someone. I can sense the spots that are less noticeable to that person."
"Remind me not to play man hunt with you." Brynn joked as she gave her a small squeeze around her shoulders.
"Can you do anything else?" Felix asked.
"I don't know if this counts as a vampire thing or a fae thing, but I have an influence on nature. Like if a plant dies, and I touch it, it will sometimes grow and come back to life. I'm still working out the kinks on that one."
"There are four types of fae that represent each of the four elements. It's possible that you are an Earth faerie. Your mother was as well before she...embraced her vampire side." Demetri told her. That was just the watered down version.
"I'm glad that makes sense. Nothing about me really does anymore." I took her silence as opportunity to end the meeting. I stood up out of my chair and addressed the group.
"Now that we have seen what Michael Morgynstein has done to Katerina, we know more of what he's capable of. Who knows how many more people he will do this to?"
    "Sure...Because of what he did, Katerina now has amazing abilities, but what she had to go through to get to this point is unacceptable. That is why we must stop this. No species, vampire, fae, human, and all the others, should not have to suffer the same fate. This time, we will stop him and end this case once and for all. You are all dismissed until further notice. Training will commence tomorrow as usual. Thank you."
I looked over at Katerina who stood up and followed me down the hall. She gave me a small smile once she caught up to me.
    "You sound just like Aro when you have to act all manly leader like." I smiled.
   "You think so?"
    "Yeah, it's pretty amazing actually." After a couple moments of silence, she spoke again.
"Do you really think we can do it?" She asked me quietly.
"Do what?"
"Stop my father." I sighed.
"I'm tempted to tell you that we can and everything will be okay, but I'm honestly not sure. I do know this, now that you are here, we might actually stand a chance. We now have an insight to his process, but there is still so much that all of us, even you don't know. If we can catch him and stop him, it won't be over after that. We will still have to deal with the consequences of his experiments."
"You'll have even more to deal with if I can't get myself under control."
"Please pet, you are the least of my worries. You'll gain control with time."
"I'm afraid I won't have enough time to gain enough control before I have to face him again."
"Hopefully by that time, we won't have to rely so heavily on you." She laughed softly.
"I don't mind that, it's nice to feel wanted here. Believe it or not, you guys are some of the nicest people I've ever met." I began to laugh so hard, I nearly fell on the ground.
"I'm sorry, it's just that I wouldn't really peg us as nice people." I told her I between laughs.
"It's okay, I think it's tragic, but it's so tragic that it's funny. Besides, I think you need to smile and laugh more, it's a good look for you. I think your old age is making you grumpy."
"Yeah that's it, get me a wheel chair before I have a heart attack from all of this laughing and walking."
"Don't worry, I'm right there with you. You know what we need? We need those elevators that move sideways as well as up and down. Kind of like the one from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Not the old one though, the one with Johnny Depp."
"Even though I have no clue what that is, I do think that's a great idea."
"One of these days, I'm going to make you watch that movie with me."
"Oh I can't wait!" I told her sarcastically.
"Yeah me too!" She said copying my tone.
The sound of our laughter flowed through these depressing halls, bringing life to the deadly silence that has lingered here all these years. She has already changed so much in the short amount of time she has been here. So much change is going to come, I can just feel it. And I don't think it's going to be a bad thing for me. We've all been dead for so long that I'm thankful some life is coming back to us. But I'm probably the only one who notices it right now.
We soon approached the door to Aro's study. I quickly knocked before opening the door. Aro was seated at his desk, looking at the papers that were spread out across it. He looked up when we walked in. Katerina shut the door behind her and stood next to me.
"Alright, I need you to go reinterview Pauley Sutherdale. See if he knows anything new about Michael Morgynstein." I groaned.
"Not him again..."
"Alec you and I both know he was our most viable witness."
"Who's Pauley?" Katerina asked.
"He's a very rich vampire who funded some of your father's experiments before he got interested in experimenting on people. Pauley has been very cooperative and has helped us uncover others involved in Michael's games."
"Huh, okay, what's so bad about that?"
"Let's just say he's overly eccentric and enthusiastic and likes to avoid answers." I told her. She gave Aro a skeptical look.
"He doesn't sound very cooperative."
"I know but we got the answers we needed from him in the end. But you two are wasting the night. You can head out now so you can be back before dawn."
     I began walking out of the room. Katerina said a quick goodbye to Aro and followed. A couple of laughs and jokes later, we were in the garage. It's was just a normal garage with concrete floors and plain black walls, with a metal door that lifted up so that a car could easily get out. Our garage however held all of the cars for the guard members, and the masters and let me tell you, it was as big as a freaking car dealership.
     The cars were all different colors and from an abundance of very expensive car companies, from the yellow Porsche Aro has to the dark purple Jaguar that Felix spent so much money on. Katerina was silent as we walked through the garage, her face twisted into an expression of awe and amazement.
     Our footsteps fell in time until we reached my black Porsche. I had just gotten a new paint job done on it a couple of months ago so the sleek black paint reflected the light, making it look new again.  Katerina was still as quiet as a mouse.
   "Are you alright?" I asked her. She nodded and smiled.
    "Yeah, you guys have so many cars. It's pretty amazing actually. All of them look in top condition so they are worth a lot of money. I'm surprised no one as stolen anything from here."
   "Humans have tried, however I can say that they cease to exist after the attempt and everything is returned to where it belongs." I opened the passenger side door for Katerina and then walked over to the drivers side and got in. She looked a little hesitant at first but soon relaxed.
   "You know, my mother warned me about getting into fancy cars with men in fancy suits." I chuckled and began to pull out of the garage.
   "Well, I can tell you if this weren't an important mission, I don't think I would return you before dawn, pet." She raised her eye brows at me as a mischievous smile spread across her delicate face.
   "Really? Well no wonder she warned me. If this weren't an important mission, I would make sure we returned before dawn...a couple of months later." I couldn't help the smirk that began to appear on my lips.
   "And what would we do in those months?" I asked, though it came out more like a devilish purr.
   "I don't know, we could go to the beach and terrorize some humans with our thirst for blood and our sparkly skin."
   "And what if some of those humans got away, and told their doctors and physicians about us? What would we do then?" I asked her as my eyebrow raised.
    "That's the thing, they wouldn't be able to get away. Between you and I, they would be trapped by numbing mist and gravity. That's why it would take a couple of months. We can't eat too many humans at once, so we save them for snacks and such until they are all gone." I let out a laugh that sounded much darker than I expected.
    "I like the way you think." I told her. "This is going to be the start of a very interesting friendship."
     And with that, I pulled out into the dark night. The moon and stars lit up our path as I drove us through a forest of green trees, that were just talk black figures against the night sky.
   I'm just hoping this mission goes well. Pauley better get to the point about what we need to ask him or else that maniac is going to be dealing with a lot of  pain for several days. Oh, and did I mention he is also a ginger? Yep, welcome to Volterra, Italy. Population, a shit load of gingers with a minority of other hair colors.