Book Two Chapter Nine: Fratricide

Nick commits a horrible dead while under blood withdrawal. Nick finds a strange password that opens Saja's Vault...

Chapter Nine Fratricide: I woke up on the ground.

"Is he alright?" Lauren asked.

I was about to say that I was fine, but they weren’t talking about me, they were talking about Fenton. I looked at him from on the ground. He was pale. Very pale. I got up quietly.

"Is he alright?" I asked, repeating the words I had heard a second ago.

"You! You did this!" shouted Carlos.

"You killed Fenton! You killed your friend! You killed one of us!" Carlos yelled again.

I then remembered drinking Fenton dry. When I blacked out, I must have still been drinking his blood! I always thought I would be able to resist the thirst. I could see I was wrong.

"I'm sorry...." I trailed off.

Carlos shook his head.

"No, you are sustained, you don't get to be sorry!" He yelled.

“Carlos, calm down!” Lauren pleaded.

He then lunged for his gun and shot at me. My sadness bogged down my thought process. Fenton was dead. I dodged Carlos's bullet rain as I thought. I killed Fenton. I fed on his blood to sustain myself.

"Carlos! It wasn't me! It was the thirst!" I yelled, only speaking my mind.

"There is no difference!" He yelled back.

Fighting Carlos would just cause more tension. I decided to try to calm things down. He retreated back about ten feet, keeping his gun on me. I took a cautious step.

"Come on, you don't want to do this." I reasoned.

Carlos stepped backwards a little.

"Oh, yes I do!" he emphasized that last word with a shot.

He missed.

"What will you gain by killing me?" I asked, trying to calm him down.

"Fenton will be avenged!" Carlos yelled.

He shot again. I dodged, careful not to step towards him. I was half way to him.

"Killing me won't bring him back!" I yelled.

He looked like he wanted to say something. His eyes softened as reason seeped into his mind. They then hardened. His anger was running on fumes. I stepped forward again and calmly took the gun from him. Carlos fell to his knees, his expression was tense, a mixture of sadness and anger.

"I'm sorry. Just, Fenton was my friend, and I couldn't stand to watch him die at the hands of another friend, a friend that I had trusted for a long time." Carlos said.

Throughout the whole scene, everyone else sat and watched in horror. They looked relieved, probably because they didn’t need to witness another fiend die. Sadness flooded me as I pictured what Carlos had just seen. The girls in our group, Saja, Lauren and Serena had made a makeshift grave and we laid Fenton in. I found a piece of bark and carved, much like I did with Serena when she died on Ectoclis.

Here lies Fenton.

A friend

Murdered by a friend.

May Tigiti himself watch over and guide his soul to peace.

 

It killed me writing the truth of the situation there, but it had to be done. I replayed the memories of Fenton's death in my head, then a thought hit me.

"How did you know about my blood withdrawal, Saja?" I asked.

 Saja closed her eyes.

"I have many abilities, Nick. As you know, vampires can have supernatural abilities. I hid my most valuable ability from you, although you may have guessed what it is. I have the ability to sense weakness. Whoever has it and wherever it is." Saja said. I frowned.

"Is that how you always knew where to send Luna on Ectoclis?" I asked.

Saja nodded.

"Yes. Vampires acquire different abilities based on the nature of their soul. Your soul is pure, so you may end up with an accelerated healing ability someday. Mine is corrupt, coated with darkness and sin. My cursed ability took over, driving me mad, to the point where I killed anything weaker than myself, but I soon acquired the mental capacity to push past it." Saja finished.

Saja closed her eyes, letting that sink in. So there it was, she wasn't power mad, she had another sense driving her crazy, and it took over. It was sad really.

"So what is a blood withdrawal?" I asked.

Saja looked at me, opening her eyes.

"It’s where a young vampire neglects his or her hunting instinct and doesn't realize it. Their body cries out for blood, but the mind unwittingly neglects it. I think that you subconsciously suppressed your hunting instinct because you dislike killing." She said.

I looked over to Fenton's grave. It was now fully covered in dirt. More sadness washed over me. Is this what it meant to be a vampire? Kill, drink, and repeat?

"I can't believe I killed him." I said.

Carlos walked over to where I was sitting.

"I will not forgive you, but I will not let my anger blind me to our cause." said Carlos, he had remained quiet, with his head bowed in respect for Fenton moments before.

"Thank you, friend. It means a lot." I said.

I turned my attention to the book that had fallen from my pocket when I had killed Fenton. It was Hale's journal. I don't know why I kept it with me all this time. I had plenty of opportunities to leave it behind. I can't help but think it holds some sort of importance, like I was meant to find it underneath Danabro...

 

***

 

After a few hours of mindless talk, the sun started to dip below the horizon. Carlos spoke up.

"We need a plan to kill this new Saja. We cannot charge at her mindlessly hoping for an advantage. We actually need a PLAN, so I thought of one." He said.

Relief filled me.

"What is it?" I asked him.

Carlos began.

"Well, so far we only know of one thing in the universe that put the vampires away, until Saja started the revolution, that is." Carlos said.

Saja looked sheepish, like she was being wrongfully blamed for it.

"The Essence of Life." I said.

Carlos nodded and pointed a finger at me.

"Precisely. So we need to find the twelve shards, form the Essence of Life and defeat Saja. We need to take her down once and for all!" He said, thrusting a fist in the air.

“What? That’s absurd! We don’t even know where the shards are!” Lauren objected.

I nodded.

"Easier said than done, Carlos." I told him.

Carlos must have heard the legend of the Essence of Life beforehand, maybe on Ectoclis.

"I have two shards, and Anara told us the others landed on Hemlon, so that means that we have to keep searching through these ruins.” I said, taking the two shards of the Essence of Life out of my pocket and holding them up.

“You have shards of the Essence of Life?” Asked Lauren.

“Well, that makes our job easier.” Fenton said with a laugh.

We needed to scour the place.

"All right, we need a clean, quiet sweep of the place, just in case. Once we finish we meet back here, agreed?" I asked.

They all nodded and we took off it separate directions. I put the two shards back in my pocket. Soon the new Saja would die. Soon there will be peace. I looked around, all I saw were rocks and girders. I saw a concrete hut much the same as the one that Saja had left the transmission in. I walked over, puzzled. The hut was horribly cracked, but seemed to be in better condition than the other one. The door on this one was still intact, and the hut was less damaged than the other one, regardless of how cracked it was. I walked over to the door and tried opening it, but it was stuck. The lock on the inside must have gotten crushed on impact with the ground, sealing the door. I tried opening it again, but with vampire strength this time. The door let out a groan as the metal contorted and tore. With a little effort, I tore the metal door clean off. I discarded it and stepped into the hut. It had to windows or any other openings. There were panels on the inside of this one, too. There were sparks flying everywhere and there was exposed wiring all around me. The only light came from the panels and the sparks. The rest was dark. However I seemed to see pretty well in the dark since I became a vampire. I walked over to one of the panels. Below the panel was a keyboard. It had odd characters on it, along with symbols, and checks and Xs. Seeing the checks and Xs gave me an idea. I tried the arrangement that I found on the tablet earlier.

�"------X------X-----X

 

I heard a click, click, click, and then a beep. Four digits, three clicks. I must have gotten the last digit wrong, was this like a password? If it was, having Saja give me the code to something that was probably of importance would have been too easy. I tried another arrangement. Again, three clicks and a beep. I tried possibility after possibility. Still the same sounds. I thought I had exhausted all my options. A thought came to me: maybe it wasn't just the last digit? I had an idea. I tried switching the first with the last.

X------X------X-----�"

 

I heard three clicks, then another click. A message displayed itself on the screen.

 

Password Accepted. Hello Saja. Initiating connection to vault…

 

What? ‘Hello Saja’? What did that mean? What was the vault? I guess I’d find out.

 

Connection initiated. Opening Vault…

 

Author's Note

Please tell me what you think!