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Embrace III: Blood’s Heir
Chapter One: The Lucai Family
Robyn McHenry was bored, and when Robyn McHenry was bored, she tended to pick on the outsiders of the pack, and the nearest outsider was none other than Cameron Lucai. Cameron had done nothing particularly life-scarring to Robyn, but it was her existence that got under Robyn’s skin. It was the girl’s lack of respect for Robyn’s obvious social authority over her.
Robyn turned in her library chair to look behind her for a sign of the telltale black clothing, and found it two seats behind her and three to the right. The slender back of Cameron Lucai was hunched over a huge book, one hand scribbling furiously and the other flat over several notebooks. Robyn waded up a piece of paper and threw it, watched it bounce off Cameron’s head and roll onto the book she was reading.
Cameron’s hand snatched up the wadded up paper and smoothed it out. She scrawled something on it, much to Robyn’s annoyance, and threw it over her shoulder without looking back at Robyn. The paper arced through the air and landed neatly in Robyn’s lap.
Robyn’s pink fingernails smoothed out the paper over her laptop and gritted her teeth when she saw what was written.
Piss off, scumbag.
“Freak,” Robyn hissed and crumpled up the paper again, and pushing it away from her. It was bad enough Cameron existed, but she constantly had to defy her! Robyn glared at the back of her life-long nemesis and clenched her jaw at the girl’s body, subconsciously envious of Cameron’s ability to be perfectly normal and uncaring of what other’s thought of her.
Cameron Lucai’s glossy black hair was cut short, almost like a shaggy bob, and a side swept fringe framed her face – and her most alluring quality – one which Robyn was deeply jealous of, but would never admit to even under torture was Cameron’s eyes. The lightest honey tone with a ring of blue around the pupil made her eyes flash out from across the room, and made Robyn’s own flashing aquamarine eyes look like dull cow eyes.
Robyn turned back around, and stopped when Cameron stood up, slamming the huge book closed, and gathering all her papers into one haphazard pile before cramming them into her orange messenger bag. She swung the bag so the strap crossed her chest and picked up the book and headed to the shelves.
Robyn met Cameron’s gaze when she walked past and Robyn had the strange urge to scoot her chair away from the girl when she moved past barely three inches away.
“Freak,” Robyn whispered again, almost instinctively and Cameron’s head moved an inch, as if to say ‘I heard you.’ Cameron placed the book on the desk where the encyclopedias were stacked and walked out of the huge library. Cameron shook her head and sighed. It was a daily battle of a never-ending war between her and high and mighty queen bitch Robyn who had the entire school wrapped around her little finger.
It was only third period and there were still four more hours to go of dodging Cameron-haters.
She walked in the middle of the hall, her cowboy boots making no noise on the dark blue carpet of the school. Her mother once said that the floors once used to be blue and white tile and there were only two levels of the school, not four. Cameron idly wondered if Robyn would follow. After nearly fifteen years of being bullied, beat up and verbally abused by Robyn, Cameron had grown immune to her by third grade, stood her ground by fifth and took every blow with her jaw stuck out and defiant, and viciously fought back by seventh grade until Robyn declared war and Cameron gladly responded.
Still, seventeen-year-old Cameron Lucai froze, her deer-in-the-headlights reflex making her tense only for a second, when she heard Robyn’s heels on the carpet behind her. Only she could make her footsteps heard, and even her footsteps sounded annoying. Cameron increased her pace and walked to her locker on the second floor, well aware of Robyn’s predatory footsteps.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
Cameron let out a breath and unclipped her phone from her belt and held to her ear, hiding the red phone with her hair, in case a security guard came by.
“Hello?” She said, and twirled the lock on her locker, matching up her combination to the little red line on the top and opened her locker.
“You’re being stalked by the Queen Bee,” came the very recognizable voice of her best friend, Lacey.
“I’m aware of it, thanks. Where are you?” She asked, nestling the phone between her ear and her shoulder, slid her laptop in the locker, and pulled out her Physics disk.
“Behind her. God, did you see those jeans? I saw then at AIMEE’s for four hundred,” Lacey said
“I don’t care about her jeans, you twat, I only care if she’s around me or not,” Cameron said in a low voice, slamming the locker shut to disguise her voice, and turning around to face those pretty aquamarine eyes. “Can help you?” Cameron asked, a drop of sarcasm tinged her voice.
Robyn’s eyes swept over Cameron and her nose wrinkled in distaste at the destroyed jeans, the black spiked belt and the long-sleeved Emigrate top. Robyn’s expression said she would rather wade in a pool of manure than be anywhere near Cameron.
“I… don’t think so. I was just wondering… are those dollar-store rejects?” Robyn asked looking at Cameron’s scuffed red cowboy boots and Cameron rolled her eyes.
“Whatever,” Cameron sighed, shoved rudely past Robyn and caught sight of Lacey, who was less than thirty feet away. She flipped the phone closed and walked towards her friend. Lacey waited for Cameron and they both began walking back the way Lacey had come, towards the cafeteria. Cameron adjusted the strap and slid her phone back on her belt.
“You would have thought she would have gotten tired of this game,” Lacey said, fearlessly looking over her shoulder at Robyn’s form, still staring after Cameron.
“You would have thought people would have killed her to put everyone out of their misery too,” Cameron said, and Lacey laughed. They stepped into the cafeteria and walked to the deli line where Cameron got her daily roast beef sandwich. Lacey found seats in the way back of the cafeteria where it was deserted and Cameron set her tray down.
“This research paper is killing me,” Lacey groaned and took a swig from her water bottle as if it was a really good beer.
“You shouldn’t have left it till last minute, silly. Or you should have paid me to do it for you, then you wouldn’t have anything to worry about,” Cameron grinned and bit into her sandwich.
“Oh, be quiet. I don’t know where you find the time to do …anything,” Lacey said and popped a fry into her mouth.
Cameron rolled her eyes. “We’ve been through this before, - I don’t have that many classes, and my job is on the weekends and that gives me way too much time to waste by playing Resident Evil 4.” Cameron offered her Pepsi to Lacey and took it back when Lacey waved it away.
“No, thanks. I need to loose some poundage,” Lacey said.
“You’re eating French fries,” Cameron pointed out. Cameron had witnessed Lacey’s struggle with her weight. She had once been a chubby girl with dirty blonde hair, and then joined Cameron on her daily jogging and had lost a fair amount of weight and managed to keep it off until the school year started.
“I know. Wanna trade?” Lacey sighed.
“Sure,” Cameron pushed the sandwich with the single bite mark and pulled Lacey’s fries toward herself. “So you want me to wait for you in the library until you finish?” Cameron asked and already knew the answer.
“Yes, please, Cameron you rock.”
To Cameron, loyalty was like breathing. It came to her naturally so Cameron readily sat down at the library, prepared to wait two hours for Lacey to finish her classes. She set her bag on the set next to her and stood up, waving towards the librarians who waved back. She browsed the library, looking for a book she hasn’t read. She slid into one of the secluded shelves, and looked around.
The library was practically empty. Cameron had a clear angle to see the open space in the middle of the library that was taken over by a grid of tables and chairs. The walls were lined with shelves – perpendicular to the wall so each shelf made a tiny cubicle with books for walls.
Cameron faced away from the rest of the library and pulled her shirt over her stomach until her ribs where bared. She traced the red lines that appeared on her skin, forming a strange insignia on her body.
She had no idea where it had come from, what it was, or what it meant, but whatever it was, it was under her skin. Cameron pulled her shirt down and walked back out to the open space of the library and headed for the station where she could browse for books. She typed ‘symbols’ in the search bar and slid her ID from her pocked and scanned the barcode when it asked for her identity. A list of 500 books came up and Cameron picked the ones she hadn’t already looked at.
The marks had appeared two years ago, and a worried Cameron had read nearly all the books on the subject of symbols in the library. She printed out the page with all the book’s locations and traveled around the library and picked them off.
She set them back on her table and began her search.
Cameron’s eyes drank every word, she scrutinized every illustration but found no symbol or insignia that matched or remotely resembled the one on her rib, just below her heart. Seven books later Cameron felt the back of her neck tingle and she looked up, startled, her eyes sweeping the silent library and then jerked around to catch …someone walk away. She blinked and turned back to her book and turned the page.
And turned back to the former page.
Cameron frowned and looked the top right corner of the page and saw it was numbered as page 78. She flipped one page and read 87. Her fingertips felt the binding between the pages and found scraps of paper. Someone had torn out six pages in the section European Mythology and Symbolism. Cameron frowned and flipped through the rest of the book, noting when an hour had passed, meaning that Lacey was running to her next class.
She flipped through several and nearly squealed when she saw a part of her insignia. It was a part of the inside of it.
The symbol on her rib consisted of a spiky V in a diamond, and she was looking at the exact same V on the page. Her fingertip traced the elegant letter and attempted to read the small letters underneath the symbol. She couldn’t because the ink was so badly disintegrated. She unconsciously traced the symbol on her rib, feeling how the lines on her skin were cooler than the rest of her skin.
Her mother had one, Cameron thought. Cameron remembered dropping a glass of water in the kitchen one hot summer day when everyone was wearing a tank top and her mother had turned around and Cameron saw the V on her shoulder blade. It was identical to hers, but had her mother’s emerged from under her skin?
Cameron closed the book and sighed. An ache pounded behind her left eye and she closed her eyes and let her head drop to the desk with an audible thump.
“Ow,” she muttered.
It didn’t take long for Cameron to become lost in her own thoughts about her mother and her infamous memory gap and about the cryptic V on their persons. It seemed as if one minute had passed when suddenly Cameron’s shoulder was tapped and she jerked to meet Lacey’s blue eyes.
“Sleeping?” Lacey asked with eyebrows raised.
“Nah, just zoning out,” Cameron stood up and picked up her Death Proof messenger bag from the floor and followed Lacey out of the room.
“Mr. Callahan gave me a C on my paper,” Lacey whined and Cameron laughed. Lacey’s strength was based in numbers and complex calculations – hence her status in AP Calculus.
“You should have let me write it,” Cameron nudged Lacey when Lacey’s crush passed by, sending a flirty wink in Lacey’s direction. Lacey nudged back, hard and grinned. Cameron blew a kiss towards Lacey when they split up – Lacey to her car, and Cameron headed for the treadmill.
Cameron changed out of her jeans, top and cowboy boots and changed into running shorts, a tank top and running shoes. She stretched on her way to the main floor of the school’s gymnasium, and headed straight for her usual treadmill, the middle one that was always unused thanks to the unspoken pact between her and everyone else who went down there – including Robyn.
She started her warm up and was at the end of her first mile out of her peripheral vision she noticed the dirty blonde hair heading for her, and then Leon Kennedy started running next to her. If her heart hadn’t already been racing, she would have expected it to reach heart-attack level.
Her face was flushed so he couldn’t tell when she felt a wave of heat rush up her neck, making her face redder than it had been before. She sped up until the three-mile mark blinked on her machine.
“Coach’s wants me to sweet-talk you into joining track again,” Leon panted, watching Cameron closely. She was running at the fast pace and it looked like she wasn’t going in stop anytime soon. His stride was longer than hers so he sped up and tried not to look down she turned those incredible eyes towards him.
“Everyone on the team hates me,” Cameron panted and sped up a bit. “I don’t think the concept of teamwork would apply to me if I joined.”
“Maybe, you should give it a shot. He wants you to – can you slow down a bit? – for the long-distance,” Leon forced himself to keep up, watching when Cameron sped up more and Leon felt the familiar burning in his legs when It was time to slow down.
“Cameron?” Leon asked and felt a surge of relief when she began to slow down to a slow, easy jog. He’d cut her run short. Leon knew she usually did five miles everyday because he liked watching her. It wasn’t in his guy mentality to admit that he actually liked her. Leon jogged with her until the treadmill stopped and Cameron grabbed her water bottle and drank its contents greedily.
Cameron brushed her sweaty hair from her forehead and stared up at Leon, aware that she was sweating lakes and her hair was stuck to her face.
“I don’t… think I’d do good on the team,” Cameron said slowly, watching Leon’s eyes darker. Either, she thought, he really wanted her to join or he really wanted me to join so Coach Stark can give him brownie points next time. Leon himself was on the boy’s track team, and he, like Cameron, liked long-distance running.
“Why not?” Leon asked. He thought he’d be able to sweet-talk her into joining the team, but it was hard, once he got close to her, to try to do anything. Even though she had a strange charisma about her, he still sometimes felt the urge to edge away to give her a clear berth. It was strange that she didn’t seem to notice the effect she had on everyone around her, the way they instantly became intensely aware of her, and yet always wanted to keep her at bay.
“Er. Running is something I like to do for myself and I don’t want… joining a team to ruin that. Especially this team,” Cameron said, nodding to the track girls.
“What’s wrong with this team?” Leon asked curiously.
Cameron blinked up at him, “They hate me, remember?”
Strange, Bliss thought, there’s a stronger concentration of vampires in this city, but the Bliss wasn’t surprised. There are cities that was swarming with vampires and there are cities completely void of vampires.
Bliss knew how to mask her self and blend into a crowd of humans perfectly so when the three vampires walked behind her, they only felt slightly perturbed at the woman in the short green skirt, black boots, white tank top and long red hair. She shifted from foot to foot, looking down at her phone. The three young vampires dismissed her, and Bliss couldn’t help but smile. There were many advantages to being a several-centuries old vampire. The smile faded when Bliss saw a face she recognized.
Bliss turned and walked, keeping the woman across the street and fifteen feet behind her. Bliss crossed the street so she was walking barely a man’s length in front of the woman. She sent a vampiric pulse at the woman and didn’t stop when the woman stumbled, but didn’t cry out her name. She still didn’t know, and yet Bliss could smell the vampire blood in her veins.
She wanted to turn around and shake the woman by the shoulders and make her remember.
Mia Lucai – forty years old, mother of two, husband to James (Jimmy) Lucai and writer – had no idea that she had once been a vampire.
Bliss turned abruptly and hailed a cab, not looking when Mia walked by cautiously, and told the driver the address she’d memorized a month before. She’d get to Mia’s house before Mia, so Bliss would have enough time to position herself across the street. The ride was ten minutes, and she paid the driver and gave him a generous tip. Once the bad was out of sight Bliss looked around the empty street, listening for approaching cars, and walked slowly to the house across the street from the Vampire Queen’s residence. Bliss walked down to the side door of the pretty blue house and clawed her way up the side, to the kid’s open bedroom window. Bliss smelled pot and nicotine the moment she stepped into the room and stood stock still, listening.
School hadn’t let out yet so whatever juvenile delinquent lived here wouldn’t be for another two hours, so Bliss moved into the hall, looking cautiously around the strange home. She slid into father’s study and moved to the floor to ceiling windows and was presented with a perfect view of Mia’s home. Bliss pulled a tiny camera, the size of Bliss’s thumb and snapped a shot of the neat home. It was a two story stone house, done with a castle-like feel to it. Bliss moved closer and looked down the street.
Mia’s metallic orange car rolled down the street and pulled into the driveway. Bliss squinted, focusing on Mia’s smooth face. She looked thirty instead of the forty she was, and Bliss was betting it was the vampire blood that was keeping her body in shape. Mia unlocked the door and barely five minutes later Jimmy was home. Jimmy the Aeronautics professor walked into the kitchen and kissed his wife hello and Bliss felt a pang of jealousy. It had been Bliss’s hope to find Mia in a state where she would be able to be transformed again bit Bliss knew she couldn’t. The transformation would rip her body apart. Bliss licked her lips and moved to the master bedroom to get a different angle. She watched for nearly an hour until the school bus came by and thirteen year old Zach Lucai burst through the door into the living room. Bliss tried to block out the ring of Mia’s voice when she saw her son and for the first time Bliss wished Mia had died. The jealously had a sharp, painful edge, but Bliss watched until the arrival of Cameron Lucai.
Before the girl took her next step, the smell and the power hit Bliss like a cannon to the stomach. Bliss gasped and stumbled back, her hand shot out to grab the armoire and, with wide eyes stared at the girl.
The smell of vampire blood was so strong; Bliss could smell it from inside the house across the street. Bliss’s eyes focused on the girl’s face – she looks just like Mia, Bliss thought – and snapped ten pictures. Her eyes sought out something about the girl and she noticed how the girl’s hand was held loosely, unconsciously over her left rib.
Bliss’s eyes narrowed and watched the girl disappear inside and reappear after twenty minutes in her room, which was directly across from Bliss. The girl dropped her bag on the floor and slipped off her shirt – and that’s when Bliss’s heart actually did two thumps. Her hand clapped to her mouth when she saw the insignia on the girl. The blood was right there, and Bliss could tell it was beyond powerful.
Bliss shuddered at the thought of the girl becoming a vampire –
Bliss stopped dead and stared at Cameron.
“Oh, my God.”
That was it, Bliss thought. It wasn’t Mia that needed to take the throne and lead them; it was Cameron. It was Cameron who was the true Vampire. A born vampire, Bliss thought and she bolted from the house.
She didn’t stop until she had reached the hotel and she slammed her fist against a very attractive blonde’s room.
“Cendres, you have to see this,” Bliss gasped. “I found her. I found our queen.”
