Page 3 of Blood Lovers (American Vampires #1)

I’d rather die than be this.

Everyone has secrets . Even me. Because I have never told Zusi about the dreamwalks. When I was young, and we were at the Guild boarding school together, I was embarrassed about what happened in my sleep. I never fit in. I wasn’t like everyone else. Zusi was the ‘popular girl’ in our year. And she was my friend, so everyone was my friend. But that didn’t stop the imposter syndrome.

I was a Guild school student, but I wasn’t a member of the Guild. In fact, I was something of a sworn enemy. I was there because they were hiding me. I had none of their talents, none of their beauty, none of their smarts. All I had was my evil blood and the Black magic of my grandma, stolen from my dead mother at the moment of my birth, to cloak me.

But I was very, very lucky. Because neither my grandma nor my mother ever had the protection I do.

That vampire steals their souls when he drinks their blood. I know this to be true. Because this woman on the bed in front of me is what a soulless feeder looks like when she dies.

I’d rather die tonight than end up here, in a room like this, alone, and frail, and wearing a nightgown covered in my own filth.

As the the leftover remnants of the dreamwalk fade, I return to the present and feel nothing but despair. I’m here, in this room again, and my grandma is dying right in front of me. I have her cold, frail hand in mine as she moans.

I don’t even allow myself a glimmer of hope that she will wake. She’s beyond that now. She’s beyond this world now. And I find that I am jealous. I want my time here to be over too.

It’s not even like I believe in God, or Heaven, or even some spiritual otherness. I hope there is nothing more than this. I hope . Because I am the worst of the worst. I was born evil. And everything that is wrong with me is so much more than just some stupid original sin because I come from an ancient line of baby-killers and no amount of fancy Guild School upbringing can change that.

My ancestors were horrible people. I don’t think God, if there is one, passes judgement on people based on the actions of their ancestors. It’s just not fair. And if you’re going to be some all-knowing, all-powerful god who claims to be the be-all and end-all, and you turn out to be corrupt and unfair?

Well, to put it simply, fuck you.

If God isn’t fair, then God isn’t God.

That’s how I see it.

I just want this all to be over. I don’t want there to be reincarnation. I don’t want there to be judgement. I want this life to be meaningless and final.

The end .

Because if it’s not meaningless and final then I will play my part in the evil. I feel this in my heart. One day, there will be a child. She will appear, just like I did, and I will have the same choice my mother did, but never had a chance to exercise, thanks to my grandma.

I will either kill that little girl and take that power for my own, thereby becoming even more disgusting and evil than I already am, or I will give that baby to the demon vampire, Paul, to feed on until she grows old and dies. A carbon copy of my grandmother on the bed next to me.

Because that is the purpose of the Black witches.

We are food.

I have spent the last ten years hating my grandma. Blaming her. Judging her in the way that I wish not to be judged. And it’s not fair.

When Zusi came to tell me the news about Grandma’s declining state she brought a file with her. A file that had all kinds of information I had never been told. She risked all kinds of punishment to let me read that file, even though she knew it would change me.

My grandma didn’t ask to be who she is any more than I did. Her own mother gave her up to the beast, Paul, and she was raised his feeder in a small mountain town. The vampire bled her thousands of times before she was ten. He bagged up her young blood, put it in a cooler, and sent it away to some secret vault.

Then, after the age of ten, she was given to the others on his compound. The file didn’t elaborate much on that part. It simply stated that Grandma was taken to his home and fed on by others. They ate her slowly, taking their time over the years, careful to never drain her too much.

And then, when she was twenty years old, it was time to put her to use in Paul’s breeding program to continue the line of feeders he needs to survive.

She was taken back to the coven, bred—somehow—and then after my mother was born she was sent back to Paul to live out her life as food.

It is the coven who decides if the baby will be a feeder, or killed for power, or kept for the magical harvest to keep the coven going.

Birth is a ritual for my people. One stained with blood, and pain, and the cries of the innocent.

The coven decided to give my mother to Paul to feed off of. This went on for many years until the cycle was repeating itself and my mother—pregnant with me—was taken back to the coven to give birth to her own little evil creature.

They decided I should die so my mother could steal my power and… I dunno. Go on to do great things, I suppose.

That’s where Grandma enters the story once again. After escaping the vampire, Paul, she went back to the coven and killed them all. Wiped them completely out.

Then she took my mother and hid her until she gave birth to me and just moments after I was born, she didn’t kill me to steal my power—she killed my mother to steal hers . Who knew that could be done?

Not me.

Grandma used this stolen power to cloak me, making me invisible to the monster who wanted my blood.

I am the last in a long line of evil and that is why the Guild decided to protect me, I suppose. If they could change me—if they could… fix me—then my kind doesn’t need to go extinct. My kind might rise again, but instead of feeding evil, we would feed goodness instead.

I like this idea. A lot.

Are there more Black witch covens? The file didn’t say.

There must be more. Somewhere.

But I don’t care about the Black witches. I am not loyal to them.

I hate them.

I hate myself, too.

I am evil and all I want to do is leave this world with a cleaner soul than when I entered it.

On the bed beside me, my grandma moans.

“Grandma? Can you hear me? It’s Syrsee. I’m here, Grandma. Zusi brought me to say goodbye.”

Her face is so pale. And her skin is so thin, it’s an almost transparent blue color. I can see tiny blood vessels and, if I let my imagination go, I can almost see her bones.

She moans again.

“Grandma?” I scoot in closer to her and squeeze her hand.

Do I love my grandma? I don’t know.

Ask me today, and it’s a maybe. Ask me last week, and it was a definite no.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel sorry for her. Or that I haven’t always wanted the best for her. I bitch and moan about the things she’s done, but these were the same things that saved me. And yes, she killed my mother. But she’s the reason I’m the last of the Black witches.

There’s a part of me that applauds my grandma’s bold move. The part that lives, obviously. But I admire the way she didn’t let anyone stop her. Like… how the hell did she even escape the vampire’s feeder compound? And how did she know the exact moment that I would be born?

This was not in the file. The story is missing a lot of details but the obvious answer is—she’s a Black witch. And even though I am one of them, I do not understand their full power.

Here is what I do know, and ultimately, this is all that matters:

The Guild has been great to me. I have a very comfortable life with them.

But I am not one of them.

Black witches are awful. We’re horrible. And I do not want to be one of them, either.

My grandma is so… gross. So weak, and evil, and sick, and repulsive. And sitting here I feel, with a hundred percent certainty, that this is my bleak future if I don’t stay true to the Guild.

And I’d rather die than be this.

But my grandma really did do her best. She saved me from a life unimaginable. She killed my mother, but she freed her, as well.

I’m here, I’m alive, and I have a life outside all this darkness. And the simple fact is… I owe it all to Grandma and I would like to tell her this before she goes.

So I lie down next to her, and I hold her hand, and close my eyes, and I call up the purple fog so I can dreamwalk my way into her mind for one last goodbye.