The Vampire Legacy; The New Queen Rises (21 page)

The smell was evident even before he swung
open that heavy door. Something was burning. We both stepped up
dunes and looked at the house as it was engulfed in flames. I
looked in shock as Quinn put his hands to the side of his head.

"NO!” He yelled and started to walk towards
the house. I realized then what had him so frightened. The three
vampires that had been in the house when we had disappeared into
the tunnels, their presence, their connection with us, was gone.
They were nowhere to be found by either of us. I grabbed Quinn's
arm as he began to walk towards the house and I stopped him. He
looked at me, his eyes blood red and he snarled. "Let me go!" He
demanded. I held him tightly, without budging. "MY brother is in
that building."

"No Quinn, they're not, he's not," I told
him, trying to calm him down. "Can't you feel it; they're not in
the building." Then I stopped and rephrased that response. "No,
they're not on the property."

Quinn and I stood on the grass and watched as
the house went up in bright red flames. There were no mortals or
immortals in that building. There were no minds screaming out for
help, no heartbeats to be heard, and no sign of anyone at all.
Quinn collapsed to the ground and I held him as I would anyone,
tightly, as he cried for his brother. For any kind of sign, but
none came and so the two of us sat there until morning, watching
the firefighters do their best to save some of it.

Near sunrise, I helped Quinn back in to the
darkness of the tunnels, back to his room, and watched him lay down
on the bed. His eyes were closed but I could see the hurt on his
face.

Julian, where are you
? I asked with my
mind, then looked at his younger brother once more before I left
the room and pulled the curtain across.

As I rested on the couch, I closed my eyes
and tried to concentrate on feeling anyone's presence; I couldn't
feel anything. This made my heart break, but I couldn't give up
hope.

I sat up on the couch and walked over to
Quinn's room. He was laying there staring at the ceiling. He turned
and looked at me and smiled.

"So," I said and crossed my arms. "Do you
want to go up and look for clues?"

"Very much," he said and the two of us left
the room. "If I find out that David had anything to do with this,
I'll kill him."

We walked hand in hand through the still
dripping, charred remains of the once beautiful three-story house.
Quinn stopped in the sitting room and stood there looking out the
empty frame of the large window that use to be there. I walked on
and made my way to the second floor, the stairway was still sturdy
enough to hold my weight.

I walked to the side where my room had once
been, just below Julian's third floor hideaway, but now my room was
open to the sky and I could see the clouds passing by. I looked
down around the floor and noticed something under the ashes. I was
bending down to pick it up when I heard Quinn step closer.

"What is it?" He asked.

I picked up the small piece of wood and
brushed it off. It was Julian's image and the way the face looked,
I knew where I had seen it before.

"It was a picture you're brother had painted,
on the underside of his canopy." I smiled and looked up at Quinn.
"It was just something that he had painted to make himself feel
manly."

"And, that was?" Quinn questioned. I looked
up at him.

"It was him with a bunch of women at his
feet."

"Typical Julian." He smiled. I closed my eyes
as I held the painting in my hand. I thought back to before I left,
after I had told Julian that I was leaving. He pulled me into a
tunnel and brought me out to the island.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" He had asked me as we
stood at the edge of the water.

"Sure, if I knew where I was," I had
replied. He had walked me up to the top of the hill, and I saw that
the house had looked much like a matchbox car. My only expression:
"Wow."

"Yeah, I know," he said and smiled at me
with pride. "No one else knows about this place."

I opened my eyes and looked up at Quinn and
then stood and took his hand. "Where are we going?"

"I think I know where they are," I told him
and we walked back down to the first floor. I started to take him
down into the tunnels, but he stopped me and I looked at him.
"Look, Quinn. I have a good feeling about this."

"I trust you," he said and kissed me
gently.

We walked on and just as we got to the end of
the long tunnel, I grabbed the heavy door to my left and started to
pull. My hand slipped off and the handle sliced my skin, the blood
started to bubble as soon as I looked at it. I looked at Quinn then
back at the bright red liquid that covered my hand and arm. Quinn
grabbed the door and pulled it opened. He stepped out into the sun
then turned and looked at me.

His face was lit up and he smiled. "I can
feel them."

I pushed the door opened in front of me and
looked into the cabin. Michael stood in the corner looking out the
window and Lauren was asleep in the floor beside the fireplace. As
we walked in, Michael looked over and his face seemed full of
shock. He walked over quickly and hugged me quite tightly. He
kissed my check and then pushed me away so that he could look at
the two of us.

"You're alive," he said softly. I nodded and
looked at Lauren, then at Quinn. "She's fine, just exhausted.”

"Where's my brother?" Quinn asked quickly.
Michael looked at him, then at the curtain that hid the twin-sized
bed that had been over by a large window the last time I had been
there. Quinn walked over quickly and pulled back the curtain.

I watched his face, as it seemed to turn
green, then he looked at me and shook his head. He looked over at
Michael and let the curtain drop.

"What happened to him?" Quinn questioned. I
let go of Michael and walked over to the curtain. Quinn grabbed my
arm and I looked up at him. Why would he try to stop me? I snatched
it away and moved the curtain. "Ash, please."

I looked at Julian as he lay there on the
mattress, his clothes off and his face bandaged. I knelt down
beside his face and picked up some of the wrap to see underneath
it. His skin had blackened, and his skin smelled of burnt flesh. I
looked back at Michael also and sighed.

"After we had gotten everyone out, or after
we thought we did, Julian felt that there was someone still in
there. It was Dedra, the maid that you had almost attacked. She was
on the second floor, tucked in a bathroom. Julian went in and got
her out safely, but something happened and he walked out of there
on fire," Michael said and sighed. "He saved her life."

"What about his life?" Quinn asked. Michael
sighed and looked down at me as I took Julian's hand. I knew, and
so did Quinn, that Michael didn't want to discuss anything in front
of me. I watched them leave, and I turned back to Julian.

I placed my hand on his head, the one that I
had sliced, which was still covered in blood and bleeding. I
watched my blood seep through his bandages and then I looked down
at his eyes.

"Hey Gorgeous," I said and sighed. "Aren't
you going to open your eyes for me?" I talked to him. "Julian,
listen to me. You can't die; I won't let you leave me again. You
have to help me get Jack back. You have to explain your brother to
me and I need you. I love you." I fought back the tears and I shook
my head. "Damn it, Jules. You better not die or I swear I'll come
after you."

I moved to touch his face, the side not
covered with the bandages and I happen to rest my bloody arm
against a part of his burnt one. It looked the skin of a chicken
leg does after it’s fried on an open grill. I could feel it against
my skin, hard and crusty, but I looked away.

I leaned over and kissed him on the lips
lightly, then sat back and looked into his face. When I looked down
to intertwine my fingers with his as I held his hand, I watched, as
his arm seemed to suck in the wet blood that dripped down my arm. I
put my bleeding hand on this spot and let the blood flow onto him,
then I took it way and watched how quickly my blood disappeared
into the cracks of his charred flesh.

This was fascinating to me as I watched this
process, then I heard very quiet popping sounds and I leaned down
towards his arm. I could hear it coming from under the burnt flesh.
This made me curious. I reached out, took hold of a cracking piece
with my fingers, and pulled it away from his body. Underneath this
blackened skin was, unbelievably, white, almost porcelain skin.
Julian's skin. It was reconstructing itself with my blood, which I
could see still seeping into the pores of his new skin.

This gave me an idea. It wasn't even really
an idea, but just an impulse to do. I brought up the lower arm of
my right hand, to my mouth and I could feel my teeth sharpen. I
breathed in deeply, and then sank my teeth into my own flesh. The
pain was immense as I dragged them across my skin, opening a wound
wide enough for the blood to flow. I slid my other hand under
Julian's neck, brought my newly opened wound to his mouth, and
forced it in. With his mouth around my arm, I waited for a
response, but none came.

"Damn it, Julian. You better start drinking,"
I whispered at him with a bit of anxiousness in my voice. After
another minute of watching my blood seep out the corners of his
mouth, I started to get upset. I connected with his mind, feeling
the slightest bit of activity in there and I yelled at him with
both my mind and my voice. "Julian, you son of a bitch, you better
start drinking before I have to come in that little pea brain of
yours and get you."

I was about to enter his mind completely,
which would have been an ordeal since I didn't know exactly how to
do it, but then I felt it. His tongue hit my skin and then he
started to swallow, gulping at it as it ran down his throat. I
could feel his tongue tracing the gash on my arm, then, suddenly,
he latched on. His teeth buried themselves deep into my flesh and I
jumped at the pain, I fought with myself to let him continue
instead of pulling my arm away, but Quinn did that for me.

"Ashley! No!" He said and pulled me away from
Julian. My body weakened the moment that he moved me, and all I
could do was lay in his arms. "What the hell were you
thinking?"

"Julian," I whispered and smiled. Quinn
looked at me quite strange. "He'll be okay."

"She's lost a lot of blood," Michael said to
him as he stepped into my fading eyesight. "We have to get her some
soon."

"No, really. I'm fine," I insisted as I
watched his face.

"I'll help," Lauren said and walked up to me.
I started to shake my head as they explained to her what she was
volunteering for, but I watched her nod and shake her head, as I
continued to protest, but they didn't hear me, they weren't
listening. They tried to force me to take her wrist, but I wrestled
with them and became angered.

My eyes started to glow a bright red, which I
could see the outline of in my vision. My top teeth grew quite
sharp as I growled at whoever was holding me, and I could feel my
lower two teeth grow just as sharp as I went on with my struggle. I
opened my mouth to take a chunk out of whoever's arms were around
my neck, and before I could close it, someone had slipped a
cloth-covered bit of some sort between my jaws.

I thrashed and snarled, kicked and growled,
but I was being held tightly and couldn't get away. I was pure
animal then; I couldn't feel anything but the urge to be safe. My
fight or flight instincts had kicked in and all I could do was try.
Suddenly, like a wave of red, blood was poured down my throat and I
could either choke on it or swallow. I tried the first and failed,
then just accepted my second option. After what seemed like an hour
of the crimson river flowing down my throat, it stopped and I was
released.

I just slumped back against the wall and let
my body lay on the floor as my neck was contorted to let my head
lean against the wall, so that I could see everything. The blood
haze was still there and I could still feel my teeth. To Lauren, I
must have looked like an animal, because she looked at me in
absolute terror.

"One time won't change you," I told her in a
raspy voice, still not quite my own, after reading the thoughts on
her mind.

"It changed you," she whispered to me as she
touched the bandage on her arm.

"It didn't. My parents were vampires. I was a
vampire already; I was born one. It just linked me to them more," I
said and looked over at Quinn who was staring at me from the chair.
Michael was standing above Julian, checking his wounds. I could see
it in his mind, using our connection. I watched him undo the
bandages and look at the skin underneath the charred flesh.

I watched him slowly peel away the blackened
skin to reveal the whiteness underneath, and on top of his head,
was the dark hair that he had always had.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God," Michael exclaimed
aloud, which caught Quinn's attention. Quinn looked at me quickly
then walked over to where his brother lay and watched as Michael
cleared away the rest of his blackness. "Ashley, what did you
do?"

Quinn glanced at me, then back at his brother
when I looked away. In Michael's mind, I looked at the healed face
of my beloved Julian, almost perfected in every way, except for the
fact that his eyes had not yet opened.

You can’t hide for much longer,
Julian,
I whispered to his mind, and then listened to the light
laughter that rose in my head.

What did you do to me
? His strong,
sexy voice asked me.

I gave you strength
, I whispered to
him.
You need to open those grass green eyes of yours and show
your brother that you’re all right
.
He won’t rest until you
do.