Awakening - Book of Fire (Blood Heritage #1) (33 page)

"As long as there’s no funny business without me getting to watch."
he says giving her a huge smile and a wink to ensure she knows he is kidding. Amber slaps him on the arm anyway sending him into helpless laughter.
One catastrophe diverted, that was a little too close for comfort.
He wonders if he might have made a mistake taking out the bedroom, so much has changed since she expressed her desire to change up that room.

The arrangement gives him an excuse to check out the progress of his master plan without having to sneak around. His friends have certainly come through for him. There is no sign they were even in Amber's home, and the room is coming along amazingly. He can see her in there swirling across the floor, sweat breaking out all over her body, the sheen of it making her glow with sensuality. James has to bring his mind back to the present and push his arousal back into check. He can't wait to see her in action. Only one more day and then he can stop hiding it from her, he feels a tiny sting of guilt for keeping secrets, even good ones.

He is all too familiar with how people who have been robbed can't wrap their minds around the thought of strangers touching their things, and he knows Amber has similar trust issues. She doesn't seem that worried about things in general but he doesn't want to ever be the cause of her feeling hurt or invaded. He is only a guest in her home and he has to remind himself of that occasionally. It has become too natural, too comfortable to wake up next to her. He feels like this is home, like there is no other place he could possibly be.

When Rissa arrives, Amber is in such a state of excitement she gives Rissa a crooked smile saying, "
Come in, come in! You do have to invite a vampire into your home, don't you?"

Rissa laughs and then stops, "
Actually, I'm not sure about that one. I guess it's too late to experiment with it."
The girls behave as if their conversations are about boys and shoes and not the balance of good and evil within humanity. When Amber brings out the book, dinner is forgotten completely. James listens to their conversation from a safe distance, he doesn't want to seem obtrusive.

Rissa reads a few passages as Amber explains other details they know are connected with it. As she digs deeper into the text, Rissa's mood begins to darken. She closes the book about halfway through looking intensely at Amber. "
I was thinking about those girls, you say they are all late teens?"

"Yup, that seems to be his pattern and if the book is correct it has been going on for quite some time." Amber responds.

Rissa is dwelling on an experience that she and Dawn shared a couple weeks ago.

"This may sound crazy to you," she says, "but I believe in some way it might be connected. We went to see a movie, Dawn and I. She loves the thrillers and this one was about werewolves and vampires, she thought it was the perfect combination. The movie was a teenage romance novel set to a backdrop of Native American beliefs and vampire lore." There was a particular scene that strikes her now as important. One of the lead characters was proving to another that all of the lore about his kind was wrong. He ripped open his shirt to reveal how instead of killing him sunlight caused him to sparkle like diamonds. Now as ridiculous as this seemed at the time, it now feels to Rissa in her current state of understanding a bit more truth than she is comfortable with. The movie and countless others like it are designed to make young girls swoon over the idea that a vampire might be willing to fall in love with them. That he might take her as his own and give her the gift of the change. These young people are being prepared for the time when he will come for them, this figure who takes them away from their mundane lives and chooses them to become something more. The modern media has branded the vampire a hero of sorts, made him a romantic and sensual creature that can take away all the pain of living and replace it with immortality. The children of our culture are being desensitized to the idea that creatures like this exist, that they have the power and desire to kill, but that if you are special enough, you will be spared. Even if they choose to kill you, the experience will be pleasant and you will die with a smile on your face. Within all these fantasies are grains of truth. Truths that make these vulnerable young girls unafraid to face the darkness when it comes for them.

There has been a major shift in the storytelling of cultures since the invention of television and radio. The traditional folktales meant to warn children of the dangers of the world and to pass down important information on how to defeat such danger have been replaced with fantasy stories where the division between good and evil has been erased. The murderer can become your lover and provide you with the most desirable life possible, full of riches, fast cars, beautiful people and pleasures without measure. Young girls are crying in their beds, begging to become what he can make them. They beg for release from their damned human existence and willingly offer themselves to him.

If the Creator and his Son are the original characters of these stories, then they must be truly powerful. Perhaps each comes to these girls as the image of their hopes. Perhaps he plays the role of the charming and sexy high school boy, the misunderstood werewolf or the brooding and sensitive vampire. The women of the world will throw themselves at his feet and offer up their souls for one night with him. This truly is a terrifying idea to Rissa.

There is no fear anymore. How powerful are these players? Rissa ponders. Are they truly engineering it all carefully placing their slaves in all the right places? Have the award-winning writers of these books, the creators of these movies, or the apathetic press been influenced or even planted? Are they willing and cooperative slaves to the will and desire of their dark masters. It seems there are many well laid plans playing out that must be defeated if there is any hope of restoring the world to it's natural order. Humans shouldn't be sheep waiting to offer themselves up for the slaughter, blind cows walking willingly into the kill room hoping to be given a treat for their good behavior.

"Perhaps many of us have come to that," Amber says. "Perhaps we have been told for so long that our souls belong to God that we are forgetting what it's like to choose our own destiny. Perhaps the promise of eternity is so much more enticing than the hard work it takes to live each day here and now. The idea that something better is out there and all we have to do is lay down and worship a power greater than ourselves to receive it is an excellent way to bring the focus of existence off the reality of living and into some world where we wait for salvation to come at the blade of a sword or the barrel of a gun." It sounds truly pathetic when it is spoken out loud." This idea is really scaring me." Amber fights off a chill that runs up her spine as she begins to grasp the potential scope of their problems.

Have we truly been raised to follow, and not to lead? We have given up what we might have become to settle for what they allow us to be. The human mind is obviously capable of so much more"! Anger begins welling up inside Amber as she thinks of how ugly the heart of man can be, and now for her to accept that there is something out there far more cruel and cold takes her breath away.

The entire train of thought has the girls in a state of disbelief. They can think of hundreds of examples where the truth is right there in front of them. There is no way to pretend they have not hit on a major part of the plan. James stares at them in wonder. He has not even begun to theorize that the girls might have gone with him willingly. The possibility they wanted to be taken makes his stomach turn. They could not have known what was waiting for them, surely could not understand what it was they were asking for.

Is it possible they all died with stars in their eyes, overjoyed to be chosen by what they perceived to be a beautiful soul trapped in dark circumstances. Were they in love with him, giving him their bodies and blood willingly hoping that he would turn them into what he is? Though the idea is ugly, it fits the details of the case so perfectly. Even as they died these women were in ecstasy. He knows there is truth in what they are talking about, he doesn't want to admit it to himself. What hope is there in stopping someone who has that kind of hold over his victims? Were they even victims at all at that point? Consenting adults and not the kidnapped little girls as he has been seeing them. James pushes the thoughts out of his head, either way they are murder victims and his dedication to them must remain the same.

Yes, he decides, they are definitely victims, only they have become victims of their own beliefs, their own desperation as well as of their self-proclaimed God. Humanity has become just as much to blame for this tragedy as those who hold the blades. They will have to wake if there is going to be any chance of escaping the inevitable. The end is near, all the books say so. The Father God is planning on coming to take his people home leaving the unworthy to suffer in the mess he leaves behind. James struggles with his background, his fading religious education and what little remains of his beliefs. He fears the terrifying predictions that gave him nightmares as a child might actually come to pass. The book of Revelation's somehow warped into some kind of futuristic space age reality.

The war is coming and they will need to have soldiers on their side. James has been focused internally, missing much as they continue talking, he focuses back to reality sitting down in the chair across from the women. They both look at him with a bit of uneasiness. It seems they have forgotten about him. Rissa asks how much he knows and Amber admits he is right up there with them so its ok to tell him anything.

"
Oh, hi sweetie, did you hear all that?"
Amber asks him sweetly, as she tunes back into their shared burden. Everything seems so much less daunting with James by her side.

"Kind of," he says, "and now I want some details."

"Rissa has come in to her full powers
," Amber explains, showing him the family tree page and explaining the way things appear for her now. The women describe what she is, and what she isn't, as James stares at them open-mouthed. This is all a bit too much for his mind to wrap around. The entire situation full of powers, magic, stories, and aliens is just a bit more than his skepticism will allow. Not that he has the luxury of disbelief, he is not ready to accept what he doesn't want to be true yet. He wants a few moments to sit in silence, to absorb all that has happened. Amber gets up and pours him a shot of Southern Comfort keeping her hand on his shoulder as he drinks down the warm liquor. The exquisite burn coursing through his body, a welcome feeling, something he knows is real. She pours him another and he begins to settle into his head for some serious thinking.

"I
have to go, Amber,"
Rissa says with a smile. "
I have to feed, or I won't be at work tomorrow. Don't worry I won't hurt anyone,"
she winks and smiles at James. He barely registers the exchange just nodding his ok as she walks out the door.

"
See you tomorrow"!
Amber calls after her friend.

"Well that was kind of awkward," James says. "Now not only do I have to deal with ghosts and visions and Gods...now my fiancé is a witch and her best friend is a vampire...wait where's the werewolf in the mix?

Amber smiles clearing her throat.

He realizes what he’s said only when he catches the strange way she's looking at him.

"
Fiancé?"
she asks, "
Is there something I should know about?"
She always finds a way to make him laugh no matter how tense the situation.

"Really, after all that, what you hear is fiancé? nothing else in what I said throws you, just the thought of being my wife, Well, we might just have to see about that," he says scooping her up into his arms. Another night without dinner, he throws her on the bed squealing she scoots across the bed to freedom running from the room, he chases her, laughing and giggling each time he comes close to catching her. He tries to reach for her and she tickles him. He catches her, wrestles her to the floor and she wriggles free. The game lasts for a few minutes and ends in her grabbing a pillow off the bed to defend herself and him tossing her not so gently back onto the bed, straddling her, her wrists in his hands, his weight holding her down at the waist. The sexual tension is thick in the air as he kisses her heavily. Then, keeping her wrists tight in his hands, he holds them on the bed over her head. She squirms under his weight but resists little. He kisses her neck and returns to her lips. She arches hard against him, whether an effort to throw him off of her or to get closer to him, he is not sure.

He releases her hands and she squirms out from under him and runs for the kitchen. "
Not going to bed without dinner, and the food has to be put away, love"!