0324: The Vampire’s Daughter, Book Four

“What happened that your father relinquished his power?” Sol asked.

“Time.”

“Time?” Gan questioned.

“My father is very old, as am I. Time does strange things. I have seen mountains fall to the ravages of time. He simply grew tired. He had no purpose to drive him. The threat of the prophecies had died down. John Paul had not yet revived then. Our kind had fallen sharply from power thanks both to Gan acting as the tool of my father and the humans' growing ingenuity. He gave up.

“He selected a group of vampires that were close to him, including both Gan and myself, to watch for the messenger. I was waiting with the hope of the Lord, as I believe was Gan.”

“Yes. And the hope that I might one day see you again,” Gan said.

“And thanks to Sol it has come to pass,” Meredeth said with a smile. “But, as you have seen, I do not believe the others had God's intentions on their minds. I believe they were instructed by my father to destroy the messenger. To save our world from the one to come. As if that would be possible if God had not willed it.”

Sol looked at her and said, “Your faith in God is strong. I am afraid I don't share your strength.”

“No? Then why are you here?” Gan asked.

“The choices I have made and been involved with,” Sol said. “I don't know how to explain it. But my free will has brought me to you. Perhaps God chose me, but perhaps I simply chose myself. I don't know. I don't even know that I am who you believe me to be. All I know is that I need to find out more. John Paul told me to find the Keeper. That he would help me to understand myself.”

“Faith is hard,” Meredeth said, touching his face. “You performed a miracle when you healed me. I know you are the one. But perhaps you need to see for yourself, to touch the wounds of Jesus. Regardless, the first thing that needs to be done is to finally end the rein of my father.”

“What?” Sol asked in shock. “Isn't he of the four?”

“Not directly,” Meredeth said. “and he is not as powerful as you may think. He sired often and he has been asleep for a long time.”

Gan continued, “And you have been awake and sired but a few, select vampires.”

“Yes,” Meredeth said. “I have been waiting for this day to come.”

After a long pause, Sol said, “I don't understand. You are called the queen, but your father is the king. Doesn't that make you a princess?”

“Yes and no,” Meredeth answered with a smile that quickly faded to a vacant look.

“I'm sorry, perhaps I shouldn't have asked that question,” Sol said with genuine regret.

“No, it's fine. I haven't thought of my mother for a long time. When my father was a human king he was brutal and ruthless. It's why he was selected, or at least that's what he told me and my mother after it had been done. I have never met his sire and there is much more to the story than that.

“But he said that we were to rule for eternity. I was,” she said, standing and showing herself with her hands, “very young when it happened. I didn't really know any better. My mother, however, was older and wiser. She was certainly wiser than my father.

“They fought for days about it. He insisted that he change she and I. She refused. There was more fighting, eventually he made her and destroyed her. Right in front of me. Then I was made. He told me I would take the place of my mother as his queen.

“He meant it figuratively of course but I hated him for it. I was held on high. But I began to realize what eternity meant. The humans around me all grew older. My new friends, vampires, were not like my old friends. They were selected by my father and were as heartless as he.

“After a generation of human years, my father and I had begun to fight more often. We fought so often that we lived very separate lives. I hand selected a few vampires based on their compassion and love. In defiance of my father they became my handmaids. We lived among humans more than my father and the humans didn't seem to mind. Of course they never knew, but we were like them in most ways.

“But then the wars began. The humans and the vampires. It was bloody and brutal. There was a new civilization in the south it was banding the humans together. We lived internally in the north. It took a long time for them to reach us. But when they did reach us life changed forever.”



[The Vampire’s Daughter: An ongoing vampire story. Copyright Reuben Gregg Brewer, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved.]