3. Mentor

I stood bewildered with my back to my friends as I witnessed two vampires (that’s what I figured they were), a man and a woman, appear out of thin air.

“My name is Sage,” the woman, poised with perfection, said down to me. I suddenly felt very small, childish, and intimidated.

“I am Leithe,” he looked as perfect as and even taller than Sage, who also towered several inches above me, “So sorry for the line. It’s so clichéd but it was appropriate,” he smiled.

“I-I-I…” I stuttered idiotically, but couldn’t think of anything to say so I just sighed.

Sage didn’t wait for an intelligible answer, “I am the vampire who transformed you and my brother, Leithe, here, is going to be your mentor.”

All I could do was stare in disbelief in their inhuman perfection.

The woman was tall and lean, looking as though she stood at five feet, eleven inches. Her shimmering hair was deep burgundy in color and flowed down to just above her waistline. Her almond-shaped eyes were lined with black and her pale purple pupils sparkled even in the dim light. Her skin was a flawless beautiful pale, perfect enough to make any model jealous.

The man, Leithe, was a few inches taller than her. His short, black, hair was gelled into a spiky disarray. His eyes, like mine, were lined with dark black and were colored like mine, tinted with red. His skin was as perfect as Sage’s, absolutely flawless and shimmering, snowy pale.

Something caught my eye. A strange mark, like mine, was on each of their necks. Mine still appeared as a crescent, like  a moon.

The two marks were different, though. Sage’s moon was completely filled in with royal, celestial purple, and Leithe’s mark was the same shape and size but not completely colored. Only about a third of the moon was filled.

I pondered over possibilities as to why it would be that way. My complete train of thought had only lasted a fraction of a second; like my running, I was faster at everything: thinking, reading, writing, and even talking.

“O-okay,” I stuttered. My mind cleared and I started to believe that what was happening was actually occurring.

“Would you like to start training basics today?” Leithe asked, “Or you could wait until tomorrow. I can promise you that you won’t get much sleep.”

“I don’t really care but why wouldn’t I get that much sleep?

  “You just fed. When you feed, the blood acts as oxygen, energy, and food for your body.  We’ve been assigned to monitor your behavior, which has been fairly professional considering the confusing circumstances.”

“Umm, thank you?”

  “It just means that your training will be much easier on the both of us.”

“I don’t mind if we start the training tonight.”

“Alright, first we need to know what your powers are. Has anything unusual happened lately?”

“Other than becoming a vampire, looking completely different, and drinking blood? No.”

Sage leaned to whisper something to Leithe. She was so quiet that there was no chance of me hearing her. Leithe’s eyes widened slightly before he turned his head to her and nodded, noting that he understood.

“I want to test something,” he turned to me composed, but had a tense energy radiating from his body.

“Okay. Why are you so stressed? Will it hurt?”

His faced looked alarmed and surprised, “How did you know that I was stressed?”

“I don’t know. I can just sense it.”

“I told you. There’s no need to test him,” Sage said to Leithe.

“Excuse me but, um, could you enlighten me with the knowledge that I obviously do not have?” For some reason I felt abnormally irritable and impatient.

“Yes, of course Mr. Kallett,” Leithe still looked alarmed.

Mr. Kallett? What’s with the formality? I’m only seventeen.

“The Night People have been searching for the Chosen vampires’ leader,” he paused for a short moment, “It seems that we’ve found him.”

Me? How could this be real? I’ve never been special or anything like that.

“Wait, you’re talking about me, right?” I was stunned, and of course I could only come up with the dumbest response.

“Yes,” Leithe replied, patiently.

I felt an annoyed sense radiating from Sage, but I didn’t have to be Chosen to know that. She shifted her weight to one leg, crossed her arms, and rolled her eyes. I felt stupid.

“Oh, well, are we going to start training?” I asked. I looked back at the line of friends behind me. Jared and Mack were sitting on the couch with Sydnye sitting on the floor, cross- legged and leaning forward, between them, “Do you think that they could stay?”

“Of course,” Leithe said. Sage seemed hesitant and leaned to whisper something to her brother.

“Oh, I see,” Leithe replied to Sage, then spoke to me, “They may need to step back a few feet.”

“Alright,” I looked back to them, “Do you guys even want to stay?”

“Yes!” Mack.

“Duh!” Jared.

Sydnye just shook her head rapidly making her high ponytail bob up and down.

“Okay, you can scoot the couch back some so I can start learning,” I pushed against the bulky piece of furniture to help. It easily slid backward on the carpet but I soon noticed that nobody had gotten up. Strength?

I wanted to make sure but I didn’t want to break anything so I picked up the closest person to me, Sydnye, and held her above my head. A pen had felt heavier. At least, when I was human it had.

When she started squirming I put her down.

“Thanks for that little show, but weren’t you getting to something?” asked Sydnye sarcastically.

“Oh, right,” I replied. I clapped my hands together and turned to Leithe, “So, what are we doing?”

“How about we do some power training?”

“Alright, what do I do?”

“First is mind reading. It is very simple to understand the basics, but can be as complex as reading a person’s memories. Memories that even they can’t remember all too well,” Leithe walked me through the short process, “Visualize the person, whether it is by mind or sight. It doesn’t matter. Then concentrate on listening to only them because, otherwise, you may skip from one mind to another too quickly and confuse yourself. The harder you concentrate and the less people you have to distract you, the deeper into a person’s thoughts you can hear.”

“Okay,” it was really easy for me to understand the instructions.

“Now practice. Close your eyes and visualize a person in this room,” Leithe instructed.

I closed my eyes and tried to visualize Sydnye. I had always wanted to know what she could be randomly thinking. She always seemed random, at least.

Her mind worked quickly and, as I had predicted, randomly.

What was that one movie where two plus two equaled fish? Goats are really cute now that I think of it. I wonder what that one song by Eminem was called. I think it featured Dido. Was it “Stan”?

I snapped out of her mind as quickly as I could. I visualized Jared.

I wonder if he can actually hear my mind. Hi, Luke…err…Damien! Can you hear me? HOW ABOUT NOW?!

Whoa, instant headache. He was really loud. I went through everybody’s mind, everybody’s mind that was in the room, at least.

“Sydnye, what are you on ‘cause I think it’s something a little more than caffeine,” I threw her a fake concerned look.

She showed a deer-in-the-headlights look, noting that she hadn’t completely been listening at all. She blushed.

Jared laughed, “What was she thinking about?”

I looked over at Sydnye for permission, she shrugged.

“Hah! Everything. By the way, you didn’t need to brain-scream at me. I heard you perfectly fine,” now it was his turn to feel embarrassed.

“I want to try a power that is slightly more difficult, but still part of the mind reading,” Leithe said before another part of the conversation could begin, “It’s sharing the power of mind reading with someone. Therefore, you can have a conversation using nothing but your mind. If you learn how to do it well, it can become a very useful power to have as a vampire.

“Umm…” I didn’t completely understand the concept, but it sounded useful.

We trained until early morning, when Leithe and Sage had to leave. The sun was just barely beginning to show through the trees.

Jared, Sydnye, and Mack had fallen asleep. Jared and Mack were each sprawled out on each ends of the couch, and Sydnye had picked out the middle cushion of the couch and a furniture pillow to curl up on.

I took this as a chance to hunt since I now knew that I would have to feed daily. I left a note on the coffee table for them to see, on the odd chance that they woke up while I was out. Then I stepped outside to look for any witnesses to my inhuman speed. There were none. I broke out into a full sprint.

 

I ran downtown, then outside of the city limits, and into the forest where I knew nobody could see. I wanted to test something. But I had to do it fast because I also learned that if I use a lot of Power, I would have to feed more, and according to Leithe training takes a lot of Power.

I dragged the massive black bear, which I had easily tackled and knocked unconscious, deeper into the forest. I bit through its thick fur and skin under the chin perfectly to pierce the main artery.

It didn’t taste right. It wasn’t sweet, but slightly bitter. I almost pulled back, but I knew that I would need the energy if I wanted to go to school and not attack some random kid.

Finally, all of the blood was drained but I didn’t feel right. I felt sluggish and sick. I had only taken a few steps toward home before I collapsed to my knees and rejected the blood. All of the blood from the massive bear flowed out of my body quickly and roughly. I continued retching for a few minutes before all of the blood was cleared from my system.

Well, that obviously didn’t work, I thought sourly.

Then another harsh wave of sickness rushed over me. Instead of in my stomach, though, it was in my throat. I was suffocating.

“The blood acts as oxygen…” I remembered Leithe telling me before.

I panicked and ran into town before I could do anything to cover up any of the bear incident.

There were few cars on the scattered lines of asphalt downtown in the early morning. I hoped I wouldn’t attract any attention as long as I kept quiet.

I was still running when my sense led me to somebody sleeping in a deep alleyway. Alleys seemed to be one of the key places to feed. The person was obviously homeless, but it didn’t matter to me at the time.

Because they were sleeping, the blood flowed much more slowly than I’d have preferred. It was probably because I was so used to my victim panicking and the adrenaline pumping through their veins until they breathed their last breath.

But the blood was sweet and so, as the human part of me regretted every bit of the moment, I, the vampire part of me, bled the unfortunate human to death. No matter how much my human self resisted, the stronger smarter sense of a vampire overwhelmed my weak efforts. I couldn’t resist the scent of blood.

When I was finished, I had only been gone fifteen minutes, according to my phone. I still had plenty of time to get everyone up and out of the house. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be any incidents.

 

Reviews

[ebur™]

Nice chapter, I liked the mind-reading part: funny :P Moving on to the next chapter >:D