Reborn: Chapter Twenty Eight "Tell Me About...Vampires"

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Chapter Twenty Eight

Anna knocked on the door to their motel room and Will opened it, flashing her a smile she knew had stolen many a woman's heart. He swung the door open wide, then stepped to the side to let her in. As she walked passed him she noticed he was watching her movements with interest, and it made her think about the whole ‘vampires can't come in unless invited’. But if that wasn't a myth then it didn't pertain to her.

Josh smiled warmly. "Nice to see you again."

"You too," she smiled back and turned to Will. "Sorry I didn't get here sooner to help with your car."

"No worries, I took care of it." He walked over to a drawer and pulled out a stack of papers then turned and held them out to her. "We photocopied a bunch of stuff for you. It's sort of a Faerian basic history, most of it has been passed down through the generations of our family, some we've added along the way. I thought you could hang out here and look it over while we go shoot some pool. Just jot down questions as they come. Of course you won't get through it all in a day, but we can answer some things now and down the road you can always give us a call."

She frowned and Josh looked at her apologetically. "Will's in a rush to get going now that his car's back in action. We're fugitives now, so not a whole lot we can do in this area."

She nodded, deciding she might as well do as they were asking for the moment. She could talk to them more when they got back. She might find out some useful things about her own kind....God that sounded weird, and she was still a little nervous about her proposal.

"All right, so we'll see you in a few hours," Josh told her, and she watched the door fall shut before settling back in the armchair with the papers.

Two hours later she rubbed her eyes and set the stack aside. It was interesting stuff, a lot of it written as if it were a diary. She'd learned the brothers’ line came from Ireland, and their family had immigrated around the time of the civil war. She'd also found out the "seeing" trait was passed either daughter to daughter or father to son, so of course in their case it was on the paternal side all the way down through. Which meant that in her family it came from her mom....she wondered if her mother had been able to "see" and mentally kicked herself for not confiding in her.

Their father was in his late seventies if she figured the dates correctly, and the two of them were in their early thirties. They looked no older than twenty-five, but they'd already told her Faerians lived for about a hundred and fifty years, so that made sense. Their mother had been run of the mill human and only thirty when she and their sister were murdered. The brothers had only been six and three and Anna felt a pang of sympathy for them and their dad. That could not have been easy times.

She’d found a few notes about vampires but it was mostly stuff they'd already told her. She'd only learned one new thing of interest- there were vampires in America, but only those that enjoyed the Vegas, Orleans type of scene. Apparently they weren't overtly dangerous to people, but at the same time they no longer fought the good fight. Seemed it was only in Europe that they were completely warped.

She wondered if the brothers had ever met a vampire and leaned towards No since she’d read the things they’d added and they hadn’t mentioned it. That might make things harder. Or easier maybe, at least it would mean they had no bad personal experiences. Their dad on the other hand, some of the things she gathered from what he’d written made it pretty obvious he held a great disdain for all non-humans. Don’t want to meet him anytime soon, she thought, or for him to know what I am at least.

She was learning a vast amount of useful info pertaining to the shadow men. They referred to the ones they dealt with most often as the Jinn. They also made reference a few times about possible Dantalion, which she was able to deduce was some sort of demon class distinction, the Jinn being lower on the totem pole. While she couldn't have guessed that, she might have deduced some of the other information on her own if she'd only faced them instead of shutting them out every chance she got.

If she had studied them she might have noticed the significance in the distances they were from a person they shadowed. Apparently this said everything about how much influence they had. For instance if they were trailing several feet behind, that meant their influence was minimal. They would put a slightly negative slant on the person's perspective, but that's about it, and the person could literally shake the demon off by simply making a decision to look on the bright side.

Seers didn’t concern themselves with cases like those, it was only when the shadow was close enough to be touching that it became a concern. This generally meant they'd been with the person awhile and were making some headway. She remembered times where it had appeared they were riding piggyback, apparently that was when the individual was allowing them to influence some large decisions on a subconscious level.

Finally there was the cloaking effect, where they seemed to surround a person. A “cloaked” individual could actually hear a voice directing them to do things, and once they acknowledged this voice it was only one small step to possession. They need only say “Yes, I know you're there,” and give permission for them to “share” control. She'd just asked herself why a person would do something like that, when she found the answer. In a nutshell, the kind of person who would allow a demon so much access was completely self-absorbed and had little to no conscience. And the demon was deception and manipulation. It would seduce its hosts with visions of wealth and power, and once the person invited it in consciously, it was game over, no going back. And the sharing thing was a laugh. The demon absorbed the person, consumed them, became them.

The movies had it all wrong. Death was the only exorcism that could be performed once the demon took over. At the levels before-hand there was a potential of turning back, and in that sense exorcism worked in a way. But only if the person desired it. No priest could come along and force it with prayer, the will of the person had to be involved in the process. It all made sense, she was a firm believer in the idea that if one wants to change their circumstances, most of the time they just had to change their perspective.

She heard footsteps and the door swung open, Will sauntering inside with a smug look on his face, Josh trailing behind looking perturbed.

"I still say that was a damn lucky shot, no way you meant to pocket four balls on the break."

Will cupped a hand to his ear and made a smart ass face, "Who won?"

Josh shook his head in irritation.

Still cupping his ear, Will squinted and leaned forward, "I didn't hear you."

"Oh shut your face, I paid up."

Will shook his head, "Uh uh, you have yet to pay in full, not until I hear the words Will you are The Billiard Master and I am but your lowly apprentice."

Josh smirked, "In your dreams."

"Sore loser."

"Ass face."

Anna watched the exchange in growing amusement. She felt an enormous amount of affection for the brothers already. That they spent their lives taking on the darkness and still managed to have moments like this? Worthy of serious admiration and respect.

They finally focused on her. "So, whatcha got for us?" Will asked.

Questions. Right. "Uh, well let's see. It's very detailed and likely whatever questions I do have will be cleared up once I read it through more thoroughly."

"Oh? So you don't have any questions?"

"Well...I do. Just not about Faerians and demons."

"What about then?"

She looked down at her hands. "Vampires," she said softly.

Will quirked and eyebrow and glanced at Josh who cocked his head and frowned. "What do you want to know?"

"Whatever you can tell me beyond what you said the other day."

Will obliged, still looking at her in his shrewd way. "Well, let's see. Like I said, vamps were created to take out demons, so once upon a time they did what we do, only a helluva lot better because they can take 'em out in their shadow forms."

Anna cringed. "How? Do you mean they're solid?" She did not like that idea.

Will frowned slightly, looking at her strangely. "Well, a vamp makes them solid with their touch and then rips them apart with their fangs and bare hands. This actually destroys them, whereas what we do just sends them back to hell. And we can't do anything about them in shadow form other than convince the people they're dogging to get a new outlook on life and kick'em to the curb.”

"You said "once upon a time,” do you mean they no longer do it, not any of them?"

"We don't really know, definitely not the ones who reside in this country. They prefer to hang out in places like Vegas and debaucherize. Which...hell, as long as they don't hurt anyone, it ain't our place to judge."

Anna absorbed the new info and tried to think of what else she could ask. It didn't appear they were aware of the whole underground scene going on in London, and she wondered if they would have reason to know if it was going on in America. Jake had brought her to that place after setting up the circumstances in such a way that her friends wouldn't know where she was or where to look. Obviously they kept their activities well hidden.

"Are their seers who do what you do in London?" she asked finally.

They both nodded. Which meant it was possible the vamps here were exactly like the ones there and they simply didn't know it. Jake had certainly come across as someone who just "debaucherized". Which left her where, exactly?

"All right, gotta ask, why so interested in vampires?" Will pulled a chair up, turned it around backwards and sat, folding his arms over the back. Josh remained standing with his arms folded over his chest, both of them wore expressions of curiosity and suspicion.

What choice did she have? Time to clue them in.

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