I Learned From the Best

Raine & Luke

Raine and I had left the baseball field about an hour ago and now we're at Rupin's house. We walk up to his doorstep and knock on the door. He answers a few seconds later and greets us with a smile. "Ah, Raine and Luke. What can I do for you?"

Raine looks at me with an uneasy look. Then she looks at Rupin and begins explaining, "A few days ago, I foresaw something. Something important. And we need your help, a little advice or something."

Rupin stares at us for a minute, probably considering what he could do in this situation, but then lets us in. "Alright, come on in and tell me about what you saw."

We walk in to his huge house composed of concrete walls and many, many rooms. All the walls are white and his living room is the size of three average size bedrooms put together. His library/office is off of the living room, through a heavy wooden door in a large doorway. There's a bay-window at the back of the library and on both walls to the left and right are dozens of bookshelves - all filled of course.

Rupin has so many books about so many crazy things, it's a wonder police haven't searched his house before. Zombies, vampires, mad science, experiments on human minds and bodily functions. Oh yeah, and more recently, wizards.

Some are portfolios of Rupin's life, some are journals, but most are books he bought and read. There's a desk in the middle of the room with papers and a lamp on the surface. A light hangs from the ceiling over the desk but no lights need to be turned on since the light outside penetrates the window and pours into the room.

Once we get settled inside his library, Raine tells Rupin about what she foresaw. Like she promised, she left out the location in which she saw the vampire, but tells him about what the vampire was doing and why they think they should go try to find him.

At the end of her explanation, she says, "What do you think we should do?"

"I have a few books on this history of vampires, which I think you should just skim over if you really want to get to know them. Before this, I didn't think it was possible for vampires to exist, but if you guys find him I would be glad to know what it was like. I definitely think you should go, but just be extremely careful. Promise?" Rupin says. Raine and I nod quickly and then Rupin walks over to one of his bookshelves.

"Alright, where to start." Rupin says, walking up to a bookshelf on the left. I see a label on one of the middle shelves that says Vamps/WereWs. Rupin runs a finger along the spines of the books as he searches for a certain one. "Ah," He says, pulling out a thin book named Vampires from the 30s - 40s. "Here it is. This author claims he's seen vampires in the United States. This book was published in the early sixties, two years before he died. It says where he last saw the vampire and where it possibly is now."

Rupin walks over to his desk and flips open the book after he put it on his brown, wooden desk. He leans over his desk, flipping through the pages.

Raine and I join him. Raine looks down at the pages, standing next to Rupin as I stand on the opposite side of them.

Rupin stops at a page in the middle of the book. "Here." He says. At the top of the page is a picture of a man with his arms out in front of him, his back a little hunched, looking like a zombie. From his fingers are long claws and you can just make out fangs in his upper set of his teeth. "This page says where the family of vampires started."

Rupin flips the book over so I can see it. Raine walks around the desk to stand next to me to read it.

It reads:

My First Discovery

My friend - Eric - was one of them. When he and I graduated college we moved out of state together and to Maryland. In the following years I found out what he was. It's a gruesome story that I will spare you.

After the night I saw him perform a murder, biting the neck of a human and sucking the man clean of blood, he ran away, leaving me in Maryland to fend for myself.

Ten years later I went back up to Michigan to visit family. There I ran into Eric again. I didn't walk up to him or converse with him, I merely saw him across the street. He looked the exact same. He did not age at all, he still looked like a young man, a thirty year old man, like he did ten years ago.

But he was not alone. Three other people were standing next to him. A woman, later I found out she was his wife, and two kids I found out were his own. He had made a family of the monster he had become. How he had done such a thing was beyond me.

After research and paying more attention to what was around me, I realized there were ten more immortals like Eric in Michigan, not including him and his family.

I soon came to a conclusion that Michigan was the main place for these monsters, and also where they breed. In the next few years there could possibly be ten more, maybe fifteen.

Soon there will be more among the United States, and soon they will be around us all. Killing innocent mortals and taking over life as we know it.

Later on in the book I explain how they are made and how the first had begun...

The chapter goes on but I stop reading. So does Raine.

"So they're in Michigan." Raine says. She looks up at me for a short second but then looks back down. "But by now...how many? He probably wrote that chapter in the forties. There could be millions by now; it's nearly seventy years later."

"Yes, that's what I thought. I figure they're all over the States by now, but there's got to be more in Michigan than anywhere else." Rupin explains, staring down at the book.

"Wait a minute." Raine says, "If these things have been around for over seventy years, how come we didn't know about it until now? Seventy years. And we're wizards."

"So you think they don't know about you?" Rupin points out. Raine opens her mouth to answer but then closes it and sighs, then nods.

"Right." She says.

I look down at the book, thinking. Where would we even start if we tried looking for the kid Raine foresaw? How do we know he's even in Michigan? Because Raine foresaw it? Yeah, right, because that's always a guarantee. "We need to find this guy and see what he knows about the vampires. He's the best lead we've got to finding them. I say we at least try." I say, standing up straight after pushing up from the desk.

"Right. You should leave soon, maybe even tonight. You guys better get packing." Rupin says, looking back and forth between Raine and I.

Raine looks at me and grins, then closes her eyes, concentrating. I sense her energy focusing on something far away in the distance and I begin to wonder what she's doing. After a minute she opens her eyes, snaps her fingers, and two black bags appear at her side. A large smile crosses my face and I copy her actions. I close my eyes, picturing my room at home with all my clothes, and the bathroom Raine and I share with all my bathroom supplies in it. I picture all the stuff I need for the trip inside my black suitcase. I, then, picture it teleporting to me at Rupin's house, in his library.

This is the hard part. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, picturing each particle of my suitcase and its contents coming through the air from my house to Rupin's. All the sudden, I feel my suitcase at my side and I open my eyes. I look down at my suitcase, seeing it glow with newly released energy.

I smile. Success! "Done." I say, looking back up at Rupin with a grin.

He looks at our bags, then at the two of us, "That's wicked cool."

Raine and I laugh. "Wicked cool . . ." Raine echoes. Rupin rolls his eyes and then leaves the room, leaving Raine and I behind.

After Rupin shuts the door and we hear his footsteps down the hall, Raine quickly loses her smile and picks up the book on the desk. "Where is it? Where is it?" She whispers, flipping through the pages frantically.

"Where's what, Raine?" I ask. She doesn't answer, just keeps flipping. What's wrong with her all the sudden. But after a minute, I realize what it is. "Raine . . . what did you foresee?"

She still doesn't answer, just quickly, furiously flips the pages, looking for a certain one. Until finally her hands stop and she lays the book back on the desk and leans over it. "There." She whispers.

"Raine, what is going on?" I ask her.

She looks up at me, "I foresaw something about Uncle Rupin. And it wasn't good. I want to see how these vampires were made because...I felt a connection between Rupin and the vampires."

"What?" I ask, shocked at her information. "What do you mean a connection? Rupin is - is human."

"I don't know what I saw or what I felt. Not really, anyway. But I know something is going on with Rupin, or something is about to happen. And I want to know." Raine looks up at me, a serious look taking over her eyes.

"Luke..." She says, looking at my with worried and sad yet serious eyes. "I - I just don't know about him anymore. I was wrong to trust him, Luke. I'm sorry."

Author's Note

I edited this chapter on November 14th, 2011. I really think it's a lot better now than it used to be and I like it a lot more now.

Reviews

[Jacques]

god do i love this chapter - i've got too say this is my favourite because it's the story is being paced slowly but fast aswell so it's at a nice balance and it's great that the peices are being put into place and i love this pair . a really awesome chapter and i can't wait for more and also an interesting but simple way to move the story along .