Within the Cards (3 page)

“Dear God,” she thought I was insane. I couldn’t believe it. She thought I was a mental case. The sound of my non-beating heart became worse than the eerie silence it normally maintained it was deafening. How could she think there was something wrong with me?

My mind drifted to thoughts of our past life together. I was the only one of my kind. I wasn't a pureblood vampire nor was a Witchyre. Ellie did use her vampire abilities to bite and change into an immortal, but she wasn't a true vampire. She told me I was the only one of my kind that existed. A human being was never before changed into a vampire by the witchyre heritage. This was illegal. She had no reason to lie to me. After all, fabrications were not one of an immortal’s flaws. They were not like that of the human kind. Immortals were brutally honest. Perjury was a learned human quality, and witchyres never learned anything new. They didn't feel the need to learn anything, because they felt they were perfect. Now, my Ellie with her attitude of perfection was telling me she didn’t know who I was. Not to mention, she thought I was crazy.

She didn’t realize I was reading her mind. She thought I was an ordinary vampire. With her memory gone and not realizing she was my maker, she didn’t know she transferred some of her abilities to me. These abilities were what made me different from any other vampire. I had exceptional strength and would live forever, but I also had abilities that an ordinary vampire didn’t have. That was if you could ever call a vampire conventional. Nonetheless, when she realizes I could read her thoughts, she would be shocked. I had to let her know I knew what she was thinking. She had to know I wasn’t just a normal vampire.

I was different. I wanted her to know she changed me. I wanted her to remember telling me that this change made a dove of a man turn into a soaring Eagle. This tender dove was what humans saw as the spirit of the soul, and the representation of a new horizon of life everlasting. However, when she changed me, I manifested into an eagle. This eagle was full of strength and insight to the spiritual world. An eagle that was quick and deadly unlike the dove. My change was so fast that the eagle inside of me engulfed the dove. It swallowed it whole and gained its spirit. My strength now suffocated the soul of the dove, and with the eagle's insight on the horizon, my life, as I knew it was no longer just, as the dove no longer existed.

All I knew was I, Daughtry McRyne, was a vampire and Eleanor Valeness, the love of my immortality, was my maker. I wanted her to remember me, and I would do whatever it took to make this happen. I loved everything about her; her beauty, her laughter and her strength. She had the physical strengths that would make a grizzly bear blush, and the magical abilities of her ancestors the witches and wizards.

My creation was strange, but Ellie's heritage was even stranger. The Witchyre race came about when Ellie's grandfather, which was a vampire and her grandmother that was a witch, came together to create offspring. Their offspring was a combination of both races. They were no longer a pure race of either side. This created the Witchyres.

Each witchyre, as with all witches and wizards, had unique powers. Some powers were stronger for one than another, but they all had unique abilities. The witch side of their heritage had abilities that enabled them to cast spells, read the minds of other races, and to vanish in a blink of an eye. A witchyre differed from pure witches and wizards in that they were as with me, a vampire. They had all the wants and the thirst that I had as well as eternal life. A hybrid vampire didn’t have magical abilities. I was the lucky one that held that lone title. In essence, I wasn’t what other immortals thought. I wasn't a true pureblood. I wasn’t a true vampire or a true witch. I wasn’t even a true witchyre.

To become a true witchyre, you had to be born into the race. You couldn’t be turned as I. They were never normal mortals or immortals. Their body temperature was warmer than mine, but not as warm as that of a human. They didn’t have a conscience. They knew no fear or sorrow. They had no compassion for humans. This was with one exception; Ellie was different.

As I brought my thoughts back to the class where I sat with the one person in my entire existence that I loved beyond the boundaries of life and death, I reminded myself she had no recollection of our life together. I concentrated on reading the thoughts that lingered in her mind. This was easy because I found it hard to concentrate on anything except her wonderful, beautiful mind. She was doing the same with me. We were carrying on a conversation that no other in the room could hear.

“Why are you looking at me Vamp, and why do you assume to know me?” Her mind snarled several questions in my direction. I felt the hatred of her thoughts.

She didn’t realize her thoughts were not her own. I slightly laughed to suppress the horror at the change in my beautiful angel. Her clothing style was the same as the other females in the class, which was definitely different from the last time I saw her. Her thoughts still came across with the French Canadian dialect from a time far in the past, and her voice was the same as I heard the sounds of her thought. However, I heard the roar of darkness that echoed in her thoughts. Her tone was full of hatred, and I sensed something evil about her.

The misguided humor of my thoughts made the venom of hate overwhelm her taste for blood. I knew she was angry when I heard her hiss in my direction. If she had the nonexistent aqueous fluid we both craved flowing through her veins, it would reach the temperature of boiling as she looked at me. I had to be careful.

“You don’t remember me at all, do you?” I thought as I felt myself sink in the chair I once sat in with anticipation. I hoped she would have some recognition of me with the sound of my thoughts, but I could tell she thought I needed nothing more than commitment to an immortal insane asylum.

“If you had slithered through my thoughts in the past, I would have remembered the smell.” She snapped as she turned and shot ice shivers in my direction with her eyes.

Although, she didn’t realize I could hear her thoughts, she lashed them back at me. Hatred and evil bolted out at me with every thought from her beautiful head. She wasn’t the same Ellie I remembered. Her evil tone shot lightning bolts at me as if I were her worst enemy. As long as she thought of me as a purebred vampire, I was her enemy.

Her thoughts were driving me crazy, and I needed to know more about them. My next thought pushed her further.

“Awe, but I have my dear many times even in your bed,” I gloated as I sat up straight and taller in my seat so she would know I was directing my thoughts to her. I knew this would irritate her, but I wanted to hold her interest. My gloating response would have made the Ellie I remembered smile and become more playful, but this was a different Ellie. This wasn’t the Ellie of my memories. However, I hoped she was somewhere in the clone that reincarnated itself in her physical form.

She continued to lash hate in my directions and thoughts of my instability. My mind began to wonder about my own sanity. Perchance, her thoughts of me were right. Perhaps, I had gone crazy. For a few seconds, I almost convinced myself I was hallucinating, but then I realized what she was doing. She was using her powers of persuasion to convince me I was mentally insane. She had developed a cunning way about her. She almost convinced me the insanity was real. She began to smile, an evil smile. When she realized I knew what she was doing her smile turned into a grimace. That wasn’t the only thing she realized. She knew I could read her mind, and this puzzled her.

“I would never lower myself to your kind. I am above the lines in which you crawl.” She returned with a hiss. Again, the daggers of ice froze my physical form.

“Oh my dear, what little you have remembered. Of course, I can thank your family for that,” I stated. The thought of her sisters made the venom that dripped from my fangs engulf my mouth. I felt the heat in my ice-cold body as it rose.

Her return response was to hiss in my direction. She again turned and pierced me with her eyes. I knew this was my second warning. I would not get many more warning before she turned this class into a blood bath, and she removed anyone that could repeat anything that happened. It would simply be all out war. I backed off from infuriating her because an immortal’s maker was the only one that could end their eternal life. Before today, I dreamed of such an ending to my miserable existence, but now that I had seen her again I would not tempt fate. She did not remember she was my maker, and I wouldn’t give her the opportunity to kill me by accident.

I went from a suicidal, companionless vampire to a preposterous pansy in a few minutes. I shook my head because it began to look as if I were developing some lunacy for real. Love was a powerful thing, and I wouldn’t give up on Ellie.

My attention turned to the professor that suddenly addressed her. When he called the roll, you could tell he was somewhat dyslexic. This professor named Mr. Dundford was a small framed man. His height was no more than five foot-four inches tall. I heard many of the female’s thoughts of him being a “mousey little man”. His tone showed him as an unhappy depressed man. He was partially bald with graying hair. His unsightly ragged clothing dated him as still being in the nineteen sixties. He dreaded coming to class. He hated his uneventful job of teaching such ungrateful students. His thoughts were of violent actions against these spoiled rich bastards that felt he owed them a substantial grade. Their meager attempts at learning their nation’s government outraged him. He was a strange man. If anyone else could read his mind, he or she would know this professor could flip-out any minute.

Ellie had the same thoughts as I did about this man. I began to worry he might have a gun and was ready to use it. The only problem with this was I would want to drink the blood that he spilled, and I would no longer be in hiding as an immortal. Of course, Ellie would be in the same situation as I was, but I was quite sure she would enjoy it.

Mr. Dundford’s dyslexia was extreme. All of the names he called were in reverse order, as well as the roll itself. He began the roll at the end of the alphabet.

“Valeness, Eleanor.” He called from the desk where he sat as he looked over the dark rimmed glasses that sat on the bridge of his nose.

She acknowledged her presences. This was the name I longed to hear for many decades. It was a name, which if I could dream would fill my nights with sweet memories of our past. However, I wasn’t capable of dreaming, that was exclusively a human endowment. My nights filled themselves with nightmares of death and destruction. Regardless, I knew it wasn’t a dream or a nightmare because I was wide-awake.

“Eleanor, I do prefer.” She answered him, and then gave him a look of ‘this is enough’. The daggers she shot in his direction and the fierceness in the evil look she gave him made him clear his throat. I knew her point came across when he continued through the roll. After several names, he reached mine and called it.

“McRyne, Daughtry,” he called.

I tried to answer without showing her I hoped she would recognize my name, but I couldn’t help myself I had to look in her direction. I saw no recollection.

“Are you called by another name?” He questioned again looking over the black-rimmed glasses.

“Yes sir, Daught.” I responded. I glanced at Ellie, and she was smiling. Had she recognized the name she called for so long? However, that was when I saw the evilness in her grin. I tried to remove myself from her thoughts, but they were loud and vicious.

“Daught is it? You look more like a scared vermin rat to me,” she lashed her thoughts at me. She sat in her seat with a smirk of pride. She flipped her hand through her hair and sat up straight and tall in her seat.

“Ellie, you never had trouble calling my name in the past,” I playfully thought back at her. She didn’t take my words as playfully as I intended. She raised the upper lip of one side of her month and exposed her razor sharp fang. I knew this was my final warning for the day. I backed off without a response. I felt the hatred she employed for my kind and me. Once again, I realized she was a different being than the one I last spoke with so many decades ago.

As the hour block sped by, the class ended. The other students filed out of the room. They were ready to continue to their next class, but I wasn't so eager to start mine. We both stayed in our seats. It was as if we tempted the other to move first. We were at a standoff, and I knew she would react to this as a threat. My normal behavior was to never back-down to anyone, but I knew she wouldn’t back down either. I made the decision to retreat and to give her the space she needed. This was not the time or the place to confront her. At least, not before she had time to remember who I was. She had to remember me. I would make sure of this; I could not let her walk away from me again. I wouldn’t lose her this time.

I moved from my seat and started to the door. She persuaded behind me. I felt the heat from her scowl. Her kind hated hybrids and she saw me as one. They considered us the lower class in line for the human-food chain. We were mongrels. As for most of my persuasion, as well as hers, this was true, but she forgot she taught me her ways. I existed by these ways for the one hundred and ten years, since I became an immortal vampire.

I spent my first ten years as an immortal with Ellie. The ten years we spent together lingered in my memory, but she didn’t remember them. This was no fault of her own, but I still had hopes somewhere inside of her, she would remember something about me. For now, my hopes were not working out. She didn’t remember me, and her thoughts were of wanting me worse than dead.