Distract my hunger (7 page)

Their hair was the colour of pale carrots and their faces were mirrors of each other. Both girls were pale, tall and impossibly thin. They looked like those runway models look like nowadays, on the verge of anorexia, with inexpressive yet gorgeous faces. Their movements were perfectly synchronized while they seemed to walk on air. By looking at them I recalled every mental image I had of what a high priestess would look like in the ancient times. They looked perfect and stern, two completely untainted, inexpressive mirrors that looked way to sacred to belong to the “real” world.

They were both dressed with long, pastel-green, flowing, silk dresses. Both had their hair loose and shoulder length combed away from their high foreheads. Their manes sleek and perfectly cut straight, making their incredibly thin hair look almost razor-like on the edges. These twins looked solemn and serious, yet almost in a trance. I wouldn’t call them striking if I saw them in the mall, but their solemnity reminded me of sacredness once more.

Their eyes were perfect copies of Jonathan’s, yet their expression was not playful as his. Their eyes were like the eyes of an oracle. You could imagine those feline windows of their soul seeing things that no ordinary being could see; they were uncanny bottomless images of his.

When they stood just in front of us they started speaking in a most peculiar manner, they spoke in unison, uttering one sentence each in perfect synchrony. If I were just listening to them and not looking, I would believe that only one person was speaking,
that
perfect was their eerie way of speech.

“I’m June and I’m Summer” They said in their one-person-speaking kind of way. “We are James’ twin daughters, and Jonathan’s older sisters. We are different from the rest of our family for we share our thoughts completely with each other. We share our feelings and our dreams; we can transmit the dreams of others who are around no more. We can speak for those who were and those to come, we were waiting for you.” On saying the last word they simply bowed and walked backwards until they remained statue-like in the exact same place they were before.

Weird girls, they acted as if they were speaking of something obvious yet in riddles, they completely puzzled me.

Upon their retreat somebody coughed to attract the attention towards him. I searched and let my eyes fall upon a gorgeous man I had completely missed before. He was standing slightly behind the twins and grinned like a Cheshire Cat.

His strawberry blond hair fell bluntly on one of his electric blue eyes making him look like a twenty year old, mischievous Peter Pan. He grinned even wider as soon as he realised he had caught my complete attention and with a jester manner moved forward, nearly dancing diagonally, while he exaggeratedly spoke to me.

“Please forgive my ever-so-grave nieces, they are not very talkative as you can see but believe me they see where eyes do not.” He waved forward with one of his arms making his white t-shirt strain over his muscled shoulders distracting me for a slight second and with a playful wink at me continued: “My name is Corbin and I’m
at
your
service
.” Saying that, he bowed mischievously like a comedian and held his exaggerated pose for a second.

His straight hair fell loosely hiding his face and then with a flash of blond, he stood upright at the side of my sofa.

He moved with impossible speed, and cockily arched his eyebrows at me before he continued talking to me with his honeyed-voice.

“You see, darling-doll, the twins don’t speak much, unless they are reciting a prophecy or having a vision. And
that
doesn’t happen every day. They are quite special, and since they communicate with each other in special ways we don’t completely understand, they don’t interact much with other people. Not even with us.

I’m James’ younger brother, and
I
am here for
anything
you need.” He said, emphasising a little bit too much the word “anything” for my taste. He then took hold of my hand and kissed it while he looked at me with his deep blue eyes. Those eyes now looked like the sea in a calm summer day instead of electric, it was the weirdest thing. Corbin’s eyes seemed as unpredictable as his behaviour.

Everyone has a “strange” uncle or aunt I’ve been told and well, I guess Corbin was just it. I remember thinking that he must be Jonathan’s peculiar relative.

He was completely drop-dead gorgeous in a completely different way my guy was. Corbin was much more muscular than any of the other guys in the family and moved up and down like a jester. His face was wholly perfect, with high arched brows and a well-defined jaw-line, and he was flirtatious as hell! How could this guy be James’ brother? He looked younger and definitely sexier.

His lips were perfect and his teeth glowed white with a constant grin on his face. He was one of those guys that knew the effect he had on girls, and loved it. His smug manner just reflected this constantly, so was this that he even reminded me of a proud peacock.

Jonathan looked unexpectedly amused by his flirty uncle; he seemed to be delighted with his odd manners and just laughed lightly at the whole scene. I just couldn’t believe my eyes. He seemed to look up to him in a sort of way—and to think that I was worried he would be jealous!

“My uncle Corbin is one of my favourite people in the whole world,” he whispered in my ear as if answering my unspoken thoughts, “that is, besides
you
of course.”

I just flushed at his words and didn’t know what to say. I felt wordless and shy, yet at the same time delighted and cherished. His lips still stayed near my ear just making me want to kiss him. I just wanted to truly kiss him so badly and melt in his arms that it hurt.

“Come on love birds! Please don’t interrupt my amazing speech with all the corny stuff and the swooning looks!” said Corbin in playful response to our “moment” and continued talking almost lightly: just as if he’d never been interrupted.

“James is my older brother, so I share his blood more than any other in this clan. We are different yet he is my complementary colour; we’ve always been a team: Not as much as
the
twins
but a team none the less.” Saying this seemed to provoke mild laughter in the room. I believed it was some kind of joke they had or something.

“Ever since we were very young we heard rumours of a prophecy, a prophecy that envisioned a final battle in the vampire world. You see, since ancient times there have been different attempts to rule our world, none of them have ever been successful. There are different philosophies and many power thirsty vampires; this has led us all to numerous wars. To cut things short, this ancient prophecy says that one will come to rule or destroy us all. We have been looking for that newcomer for centuries, and the twins have dreamt of him since their birth. We always believed that we were linked to him in a way and now we are sure. You are that vampire.”

CHAPTER 6

An Ancient Prophesy

Crossing northern seas and more to come

A newborn baby, a rising sun.

From noble cradle born

And human raised,

Strongest blood

Will someday praised.

Raven feathers on his head

Eyes to see beyond the dead.

Amethysts will crown its sight,

In dark moments all its might.

For when the time shall fall

Only he will choose:

To change our world

Or doom us all.

He will see beyond the hearts

And make us see beyond all fear.

The purest blood will make him come,

In newborn’s hands

The truth will steer,

And make our fate forever clear.

T
he twins recited the weirdest poem as soon as Corbin said that I was some eerie prophesized vampire or I don’t know what. My life had just gone bonkers in a few months, and over-night it became a loony’s dream.

When I passed-out in my holiday house in Punta del Este I was human, and in my mind: I was dying. I woke up and things just jumped off the deep end: I was now a
vampire
, but not just any regular vampire I was a one-of-a-kind vamp who had far-fetched gifts and could change the world. Take
that
for a life-changing story.

Both girls recited what seemed an ancient poem in their strange talking manner. Their pale faces became complete blank masks while they spoke, their stares far from here, seeing something distant and ominous. Believe me, it was a very disturbing sight! They seemed to be deep in some kind of trance. It was very difficult to look at them because in some way they were quite scary but it was impossible to look sideways since they were like huge magnets for my eyes.

Only their mouths seemed to move, they were like talking statues that synchronised their voices. Their perfectly even voices could not be set apart one from the other, not one of them uttered a slightly different intonation or had a different timbre. The twins were clearly two people, but at times like this it was clear that they were one soul.

Every one of us in the room fell silent while they spoke; Ginny looked at them in fearful admiration while everyone else’s stare was quite blank. You could see some kind of sweet emotion in Ginny’s face, her lips almost imperceptibly curved upwards and her head ever so slightly tilted to the side. I imagined her seeing something of her daughter in them. Did they look something like she used to be? Did she see things like the twins? I had no answer to any of my questions but I could imagine Violet as a wiry redhead with pale complexion going blank to recite foretelling stanzas.

As all prophesies, this one sounded quite cryptic. It was not clear at all and the vagueness of its message just made it even more confusing. I didn’t feel I exactly fit into it, though I must admit that some of its lines did adjust quite well. After all, I was the first person I ever met with violet eyes. Ok, ok, I know they say that Liz Taylor has violet eyes too, well hers have a sort of violet tone . . . mine are deep violet.

The electric silence that followed the poem stretched for some minutes after the twins fell silent. I could feel smooth waves of energy pulsing through the room, coming from every one of the clan members. My heartbeats seemed to freeze and I felt my blood being pumped by theirs. For the first time in my life I felt I belonged somewhere, I felt an honest bond with every single one of the people that surrounded me. It was as if invisible umbilical cords were joining us and making our energy flow in unison. I was held in bliss and let myself go.

*     *     *

“I think she’s trying to handle too much before she has even fed.” I heard Corbin’s voice say and opened my eyes through blotches of colour.

Pastel shaded circles seemed to cover everything when I opened my eyes. I felt as if I had pressed my eyeballs for a long time and they were now completely useless: I just couldn’t see anything for a couple of seconds until my sight slowly returned.

I was once again lying on my back with Jonathan holding me. His warm hands were holding my head and his sweet smell flooded me. I felt safe and not sick finally in a very long time. Slowly, I felt all my senses return and I was back in the room.

“I believe somebody’s tired and needs to feed before she goes to bed for a while,” said Ginny with a very grandma-like manner and a face that looked like anything but that.

Her voice was sweet though almost whiny and a very subtle Texan accent seemed to linger in her voice. “I imagine a huge emotional turmoil under that pretty face of yours honey, you only passed out for a second here so don’t worry, nothing happened. We can talk about all this prophecy nonsense another time. You need to eat something and rest now.” She said and smiled at me.

Her sweetness made me smile, she was one of those people you just couldn’t stop adoring and she was right about me needing some food. That
something
that had been building up inside me for some time was clearly hunger, though I hungered for something quite specific now, something thick and warm tickling down my throat.

As right as she was about that, she was completely mistaken about something else: I was now remembering something I dreamt about in the few seconds I passed out . . . and that dream was not “nothing” at all.