Vince's weakness

Will learns the secrets surrounding his birth and death, all the while coming closer to realizing his ultimate purpose.

I opened my eyes to find Blake pinning Declan against a bookshelf that had fallen among the chaos. Declan’s eyes were wild with rage as he tried to break free of Blake, his dark blue veins visible under his pale skin. Ileana dragged me to my feet and pushed me back against the wall, away from their struggling.

 

I, surprisingly, felt no fear at this new discovery. They were vampires. Somehow I think I knew all along. It was a perfect explanation; I realized I hadn’t wanted to know, so I didn’t dig beneath the surface.

 

Blake had finally calmed Declan down. They talked in low voices for a while, until Blake finally considered him calm enough to be released. Declan shrugged out of his grip and shoved Blake back against the shelf. Blake tensed, ready for another fight; but instead, Declan walked past him toward the door.

 

Blake watched him walk away with torn eyes; something bigger than I thought had just occurred. Blake turned his gaze on me and stared with hatred in his eyes. I turned to Ileana and looked at her face. She seemed oddly happy with the situation’s turn of events. I, on the other hand, was furious. I’d been through hell and back. Now I had made an enemy of a man with whom I’d had no previous contact.

 

It was time I got some answers. I’d been relaxing a week too long. Blake started to walk toward the door, but I turned and grabbed his shoulder.

 

“Wait,” I said. He turned to face me, looking calmer now as well. “First off, thanks.” I smiled. “But don’t you think I deserve some sort of explanation? I mean I was just attacked for no apparent reason,” I pressed.

 

“I just saved your miserable life. I don’t owe you anything,” he snarled. He turned and shoved my hand from his shoulder and walked toward the door. He had just grabbed the handle when Dominic and two others opened it first.

 

“Well—well, I thought I heard a scuffle in the library, but I had no idea Blake would be involved.” Dominic smirked.

 

The two men behind him wore identical odd dark blue outfits and made no facial changes while Dominic spoke. Blake stopped short to listen to Dominic.

 

“Declan will be sore for weeks over this. Pity no one thought to tell him about our highly unusual visitor,” he said, amusement in his voice instead of concern. “Blake, I need a favor. I have some new information. It would appear she’s here in New York—inner city, rides the subway most days; look into it, would you?” he said, more of a demand than a request.

 

He turned to walk away, but I called to stop him. “Wait! Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?” I shouted, annoyed at the lack of explanation or elaboration with these people.

 

He turned and looked at me for the first time. “Will?” he said, bemused. “I’d completely forgotten about our most important visitor. Well, I guess it is time I’ve filled you in since Blake has assured me you have no idea about Vince’s current whereabouts.”

 

He turned and whispered something to the men behind him, and then they turned and walked out. He walked slowly over to the table where my overturned chair had earlier stood. He sat and motioned for me to join him. I looked at Ileana, and she nodded encouragingly. I sat at the table across from Dominic and gave him the once-over.

 

He sat so still that not even his hair moved when he turned. His dark eyes tried to read mine. He was wearing a black silk shirt and matching pants, his dark hair hanging exactly the way it always did. And he sat so nonchalantly, like he didn’t have a care in the world. I waited for him to speak first.

 

“Well, from what both Ileana and Blake have told me, you don’t seem to remember a thing since the fire,” he said.

 

What fire? What was he on about?

 

“From your expression, you don’t even remember that. Shame. Well, where to begin? Ah, let’s start with Vince. Well, I assume Ileana has told you about him somewhat, but he is the reason you are here. Ileana, fill him in on what he is, and I’ll do the rest.”

 

He looked over at her. She was staring at Blake, as if she were willing him to turn around. Blake finally turned and walked to the table to sit. Ileana gave Blake a smile before she began.

 

“Everett called us Doorways, and you would be second generation, which is unknown territory. But I should start from the beginning. I was thirteen years old and went to live with my relatives in England when my mother died of chicken pox. My aunt and uncle ran a boardinghouse in which I was to work. That’s when I first met Everett. Many of the other boarders found him strange and kept their distance, but I found him oddly fascinating. He was an alchemist, but his work was cut short when he found his heart was failing. My uncle told me to stay away; he thought Everett had gone mad, but his warning fell on deaf ears.

 

“Everett had an odd obsession with the unnatural. He claimed the dead could rise and walk among us, and that strange stones could grant immortality. He spoke to me so lovingly I couldn’t help but be bewitched by him and let him do whatever he wanted to me. He used me for his experiments and I didn’t know just what I had gotten into before it was too late. I began to see strange things, flying monsters, even death. Everett kept experimenting until he was thrown out of the house.

 

“I followed him, afraid of what he had given me, and how accepting my aunt and uncle would be. He kept me by him for a few years. I saved him many times from impending deaths; it seemed death wanted him and would find a way to take him even if his heart prevailed. Over the years, others joined us—Henry first, then Alexander, Piper, Connor, and lastly Blake. She glanced at him for a moment.

 

“He used us for various things. We became very popular, and he passed us off as fortune tellers specializing in deaths. For a while, we lived contently, taking care of Everett. But something was hunting us; they were a coven of Everett’s precious undead, curious to see what he had created. Everett made an exchange with them: He gave them Henry for immortality. Once Everett had changed, so did everything else. He didn’t love or appreciate us the way he used to; he had turned cold and dark.

 

“With his newfound life he began his search for wealth to occupy his time, and as the decades flew past, Everett unchanging, I noticed we didn’t as well. I grew, but not by much. And one day I realized I had stopped altogether, frozen in time like him. It seemed in his younger years he acquired a vampire’s blood and synthesized it to create us. Everett promised me to a doctor, Vince Berrisford, and I was separated from the others.

 

“But I had you and your brothers to keep me company. You were the first of your kind—something Everett never anticipated, but a blessing all the same. But soon things took a turn for the worst. Vince, so young, had changed; he never spoke to us. We thought it was just his nature. But then the deaths started.

 

“People were coming up dead every week or so. Many blamed the epidemic of cholera that had broken loose in London, but I knew better. There was something strange about Vince. As he grew, it got worse. I felt fear of my own son. He hardly spoke a word to me.” She shuddered at the memory of her silent son.

 

“The one person he did speak to was Connor’s daughter, Serena; the last of your kind. None of the others could breed; Everett never could figure it out. Vince and Serena were never separated. Connor even moved to London so she wouldn’t be apart from him. I had no idea what he was capable of until Everett showed up. He had gotten wind of a mysterious killing agent in London and came to investigate it, but instead he found Vince.

 

“Vince was able to control death instead of just see its plan like the rest of us. The monsters it embodied followed him silently. He spoke their ancient language and used it to his advantage,” she said with a hard note in her voice. Her eyes clouded, envisioning her Vince all those years ago, a dark and twisted person staring back at her. “His brothers called him Dead Sight,” she continued. “A sort of play on what he was capable of.”

 

She stopped suddenly. “Enough! I can’t talk about this anymore.”

 

Ileana turned and buried her face in her hands. Her silent sobs left the rest of us stunned—or at least, I was stunned. I turned to look at the others. Dominic was staring with a feverish gleam in his eyes as if Ileana had just unlocked the secret to eternal happiness. Blake just stared, his blue eyes lit up, his face expressionless. Then it clicked in my brain: The reason I was here somehow revolved around what Vince was capable of.

 

As I was thinking, Dominic cleared his throat to draw my attention away from my thoughts and toward him. “Nicely done, Ileana,” Dominic started. “But it appears to be my turn for the floor. Let’s see, where to start.” He contemplated for a moment. “Ah, alright. Well, you see, since you want answers so badly, the whys and what not, here you go.”

 

He rushed. “I was surprised how easily we found you. Not every day does someone get hit by a truck and nearly drown, and then turn around and wake up in a hospital.” He stared at me like I had made some huge mistake, a notion that I didn’t shoot down just yet. “You’re the perfect proof, you see. If you survived the fire, then so did Vince and Wesley. The only problem is, you don’t remember a thing since then, which puts us at a disadvantage.

 

“If Vince is around here somewhere, we’ll never get within fifty feet of him; he’s too smart for that. But he and Wesley are running, which is unusual. He’s never dragged either of you along before.” He said this thoughtfully, as if Vince was playing a trick. “Then again, he hardly ever runs without her; he disappears, so does she. Hmm.”

 

He went silent again. “Well, back to you. Since we can’t touch him, we’ll send you.” He then turned to look at me as if I was the key to all his problems.

 

“Why would I help you find him? Seems to me he’s better off alone. And I have to get back to Brighton. I can’t just walk around New York expecting no one to recognize me!” I said heatedly.

Dominic looked unperturbed. “Well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but no one’s looking for you.”

 

He said this with a smile on his face. My heart nearly stopped. Surely Tara would, and even Leon might have gotten involved.

 

“What?” I asked incredulously.

 

“You were in the hospital for a week. In fact, you woke up and walked out at three in the morning on June second.”

 

My brain clicked in realization: I would have been legally declared an adult on the second.

 

“Just another runaway the police can’t do anything about, since technically you’re an adult—at least, in their eyes now.”

 

I jumped up. “I didn’t walk out, and Tara would never believe I would run away and leave everything behind just like that!”

 

Dominic stood as well, only just taller than I. “No one saw a thing, and I have it on good authority that a young man with dark hair, strange eyes, and standing a little over six feet tall was seen dangerously close to the edge of seventy foot cliff.” He snarled. “Now, I was trying to do this civilly, but I see you’re just like your brothers and must be dealt with by force!”

 

He sat again and waited for me to do the same before he spoke again.

 

“How do you even know Vince is alive?” I asked, staring.

 

“We caught a glimpse of him once, nearly twenty years ago. But that doesn’t matter now. What matters is her.”

 

He pulled some photos from his pocket and threw them down on the table in front of me. Blake turned his eyes from the photos, and Ileana stared at Dominic before getting up and walking out of the room. Blake’s eyes followed her as she walked away. I looked down at the pictures. There was a girl, probably Ileana’s age, with very dark red hair and brilliant green eyes a shade I hadn’t seen very often. Her full lips were a slight shade of pink in the cold—the picture looked like it was taken as snow was falling. I looked to Dominic for an explanation.

 

“Serena Harris, Connor’s only daughter,” he said. “She goes by Vivian Welsh, last seen in a New York subway station. I want you to bring her here; she’ll trust you.”

 

“And if I don’t?” I questioned.

 

“You don’t have a choice.” He looked at me smugly. “Why do you think Ileana is here? You Doorways think you’re so indestructible. But I have a few tricks up my sleeve, and she would make the perfect audience,” he said darkly.

 

At that, Blake jumped up. “Remember what I told you,” he whispered. Our previous altercation in the hallway, the day of my arrival, flashed in my mind.

 

“Don’t worry. Once Serena’s given us all she can, I’ll make sure it’s left up to Declan to dispose of her—an eye for an eye, eh, Blake?”

 

Blake shrugged and sat back down thoughtfully. Even though I was curious about what he meant, I ignored it for now and pressed more serious issues.

 

“And if I fail? What if Vince has already warned her to stay away?”

 

“Easy enough to deal with. Why do you think I’m sending Blake with you? You’re Plan A.”

 

Dominic started to get up, but I needed more answers. “Why?”

 

“Why, you ask? ‘Why not’ is a better question; but I’ll humor you. Vince, of course. You see, Gerard is dead,” he announced. Then he laughed, long and hard. “Miriam is weak, and it’s time for a new era, and with that, a new authority.” He looked at my face. “You know, you’ve caught on much more quickly than most. And I have to say, you’ve handled it rather well. Don’t worry; as long as we’re fed, we’re tolerable. Besides, Doorways don’t taste very good. Oh, and speaking of feeding—I think it’s time for dinner.”

 

He stood and walked away, the two people he had dismissed earlier by his side in a matter of seconds. I turned my gaze from him and found Blake staring at me.