It is odd to be in a room full of people who all seem to look up to my dad, like he is some kind of hero. A part of me wants to see him through their eyes just for a moment. I try to picture him as the man everyone saw, but I just can't do it. I know his secret, I know the truth behind his lies.I have seen the face that lies beneath the disguise.  Most people see my dad as the mayor that turned this town around, took it from a crumbling mess of crime-ridden neighborhoods and drug-filled alleyways and made it a town people wanted to live in. Everyone in town thinks he is the man with the plan, the one who’s saved us, in reality, he is the devil in disguise. 

 

You see, when we first moved here, we relied on the people on the streets. OK, we actually fed on them, but it was survival of the fittest. They were dying anyway, so if a couple of the scumbags went missing a week, no one cared, or cried, no one bothered looking for them. 

 

My family was different from people, all people, even the people like us. We were true outsiders in a world of outsiders. Even among our own people, we were shunned, except somehow here in this little shit-hole of a town, my dad seemed to have found his true calling, politics. You, see our kind is gifted, or cursed, depending on how you look at it, with various gifts. My dad has the gift of persuasion, he can make humans do what he wants them to do. He's never used it at this level before, and to be honest, I wish he never had.eing in the spotlight like this cannot be goodfor us. There is a reason we are shunned by both humans and our own kind alike. A very good reason why we should stick to the shadows and to ourselves.  Both of my parents seem to have forgotten that fact, my father showing his face on the television, running campaign ads, using his power like a fool. My own mother, using her ability, to shift her body into the form of another person's body. In order to make it look like my father's competitors were cheating on spouses, doing drugs in dark alleyways, picking up hookers, bribing cops, and all other sorts of illegal activity. 

My parents did not understand why I was hesitant to go along with this plan, why I so desperately fought to keep us in the shadows. It was as though they had forgotten how we betrayed our own kind, the reason they had turned us out, but I had not forgotten, could never forget. I may look seventeen, another blessing and curse, but I was in fact much, much older, much, much, wiser than my appearances would suggest. My memory was sharp, clear, and I often thought about leaving my mother and father in this town and never looking back. 

If only it were that easy, you see, my mother and father aren't my true parents. You probably guessed that by now. No, my true parents, the man who sired me, the woman who birthed me, are centuries dead, as I should be. Those I call mother and father now, they are my second-life parents. As I lay, dying from the same sickness which had taken my true family, and fate had decided I should be the last to die, these two came upon me. Quietly in the night, they offered me something I could notresist. I made the only choice I thought I had, the only rational thought was why die if given the choice for life? How many times I have regretted that choice since I cannot say. 

This is the reason, though, I cannot just run from them, that I must stay and witness this suicidal dive into insanity. Since it was these two who had given me a second-life, my blood ran in them, their blood ran in me, this blood bond lasted for an eternity, no way to shake it, no escape from it. I will forever know where they are on this planet, and they will forever be able to locate me as well.  So running will do me no good, especially since they need my ability too much to let me go. If I play along with the charade, keep going as the fresh-faced teenage cheerleader with the straight A grades and hopeful future, maybe I'll get out of this with my life, I just have to play my cards right. You see, my ability, what makes me so special among our kind, is that I know when others of our kind are around, can sniff them out in a heartbeat. Not by scent, mind you, no nothing that simple, I can sense them on a psychic level, their very being is what I smell. This is the real reason my parents kept me around after their betrayal, not because what they had done had backfired and landed on me as well, not to keep me safe, but to use my ability for personal gain.

*

I can recall the time of the betrayal clearly, a photographic memory being another blessing slash curse of mine, although I've had that since my true birth. It was shortly after my second-birth, and Ijust knew my new parents were up to something,We had been moving around a lot then, always at night, of course, our kind had a distinct disadvantage in the sunlight. I could hear them whispering about something at times, so low that even my elevated sense of hearing could only pick out a word or two. When I worked up the nerve to ask them about it, they told me they were simply trying to show me the world I had never seen, show me what it was like outside the village I had spent my true life in. At first, I was more than willing to accept this as fact, because no matter where we went, we always spent a good deal of time exploring the area, looking at old churches and monasteries. And of course, feeding a newborn was a lot of work, it was difficult to stay in one place long without drawing too much attention to oneself. I took what they told me at face value, allowing myself to get lost in the pleasures of the flesh I had been denied in my first life, in the riches I now knew., Having been a poor village girl, scraping for every morsel of food, every drop of water, this new world seemed like Heaven to me. But, oh, how quickly Heaven can turn to Hell.

The whispered conversations between my new parents kept going, but in a language, I did not understand. Again, I asked questions, why did they feel they needed to keep secrets from me? The answer, they had a surprise for me, something special they had been working on for awhile, and I was an important piece. They knew it,  as soon as I developed the ability to psychically sense others of our kind, thatI was the one they had been waiting for. If I could just be patient, have fun in our travels, enjoy myself, and let them finish their work, great things awaited me. 

Again, taking what they told me at face value, promising to not tell others of our kind of my parent's work, what little I knew of it anyway, I went on with my self-indulgence. I carried on exploring the sins of the flesh with men and women, sometimes many of them at the same time. We crisscrossed the globe, North Pole to South Pole, all along the equator. I paid no attention to what my parents were up to at first. Content to explore carnal desires and feed on exotic flesh, I was finding that each region of the globe had a unique flavor to it, and I was determined to taste them all, to truly decide on my favorite and then settle there after my parents completed their work.

One night, after I had taken my fill of a young woman's body and a younger man's blood while resting in the mausoleum of a nearby deserted temple where my parents and I sought shelter from the sun, they approached me. Claiming their work was nearly complete, they asked me for a small sample of my blood, for a test run, they said, although no matter how many times I asked, they would not say a test run for what. Still reeling from the pleasures of the night, I gave in to their demands without too many questions. Content to lay upon my desecrated grave and sleep the day-lit hours away, pick up my pleasure where I had left off again at sunset. I did not know then, this would be my last night of peace, my last night ofpleasure. 

I woke a little past sunrise, in pain, so much pain, my body was on fire, I was sure my skin was melting, my insides boiling. I did not know what to do. I screamed, I flailed and tore at myself, trying to put out flames, invisible to my eyes but burning me alive nonetheless. Confused and in agony, I at first mistook the other screams as my own, echoing off the walls of the long-abandoned mausoleum. My thoughts were scrambled, had the people in this area cursed us? Had the restless spirits that dwelled within this tomb decided to exact revenge on us for desecrating their resting place? Not knowing why I was in pain or who had caused it, scared my second-life was ending, I desperately searched out my parents, hoping, praying to the gods of any kind, they knew a way to end it without ending me. Stumbling along, bouncing off walls, tripping over debris and finding it harder and harder to get to my feet, the pain within my body increased to levels I never thought possible, and which in my true life I would have very well died from, I searched the chambers of the mausoleum for my parents, wishing against the odds they were safe from whatever had afflicted me. Realizing now, not all the screaming I heard was my own, seeking the source of the other voices, I found my parents in a dimly lit chamber, before a makeshift altar. Both were on the floor, writhing back and forth, in obvious pain. What had happen to us?

Trying to keep my eyes in focus and my mind clear, I took a closer look at the altar. A book, a dusty tome, was lying open, one I had not seen before. There were three needleson the altar, much like the one my parents had used to take a sample of blood, each one with a red stain in them. A bowl sat in the middle of the altar, within it was a burning black candle, the candle sat in a pool of liquid, but in my current state, I was unable to determine what the liquid was. Could my parents have done this to us? Did they know it would cause us this agony, this pain? I thought if my parents were to blame, if they had cast a spell or done some ritual involving the flame from the candle, perhaps, just maybe, if I blew the candle out, the fire within me would go out as well. 

Knowing it was a long shot and not guaranteed to work, but being  the only thing I could think of to do to help myself, to help my parents and to stop myself from burning alive from the inside out, I inched my way around the flailing forms of my parents, trying my best to cause them no further pain. The closer I got the flame of the candle, the higher it grew, the faster it flickered.The more it flared, the more the fire within me burned and the more my pain intensified It was if it knew what I had in mind and was doing whatever it possibly could to slow me down, to stop me from blowing it out. My parents screaming reached new heights as I got closer to the flame, their pain increasing with mine, only strengthening my resolve to blow out the candle.

I reached out and grabbed the edges of the altar, it took me a couple of tries to get get a breath deep enough that I felt it would bestrong enough Even then the flame resisted my efforts, bending to the feel of my breath, but not going out. The flames within me burned hotter, I could feel my consciousness slipping away, in a last effort of will and strength, I simply pushed at the altar, putting the rest of my new found strength behind my effort. To my genuine surprise, the altar, began to tip, the liquid under the candle sloshing in the bowl. Feeling good about this development, I continued to push against the stone, feeling it start to crumble under my fingertips. I gave everything I had left within me into one final desperate shove against the stone of the cursed altar, screaming until I could feel my vocal chords shredding in denial, my insides liquid within me, feeling as though I was nothing but bone and ash left on the floor, as the altar, finally, blessedly, gave away against my effort. 

I felt the stone begin to shift, to slide on itself, just as my strength was waning. I collapsed next to the fallen altar, but to my dismay, to my horror, the candle remained lit. The damned thing lay on its side, the flame defying gravity, by still burning in a line straight out from the wick, parallel to the floor. My mind shuddered at the thought of the black magic involved in this ritual. What could my parents have wanted so desperately do succumb to this level of madness? What did they hope to achieve, to gain by this act of insanity? 

Having no other choice but to wait for death to claim us, as I was certain it would, I watched the gravity defying flame burn parallel to the floor. I watched in horror as the pool of liquid once again gathered itself aroundthe candle, the bittersweet smell of blood causing my parched throat to cry out in hunger. Blood? They needed my blood for this? But not just mine, it smells human as well. I had very little time for other thoughts. My vision slowly began to fade from the edges in. Soon I could see nothing but the flick and flare of the flame and soon, even this was gone and I knew a darkness I had never known before. 

*

 

How much time passed for sure, I do not know, the next thing I was aware of was my second-mother, gently shaking my shoulder. I moaned in protest, muscles stiff, throat dry, eyes itchy. At first, it seemed like a normal sunset, how she would wake me, soft shakes, the tempting smell of fresh blood waiting below soft flesh ht my nose and my mouth watered. Perhaps, it was but a dream, brought on by the recent stress, maybe the young man I had feasted on was cursed in some way, I told myself as I slowly wakened to the world. Stretching out those stiff muscles, I opened my eyes, and realized it had not been a nightmare. 

The remains of the broken altar lay before me, a small black stain all that was left of the candle, the blood which had surrounded the flame was now sticky and congealed, dried and crusty around the edges. My eyes flew open in horror. Jumping to my feet, I quickly scanned the room, my sense had not been wrong, second-mother had brought me a meal. A teenage girl sat tied in the corner, her eyes wide in fright. Second-mother and second-father looked well fed and pleased I was awake. They told me to feed, they had a surprise for me, but I would need allmy strength if I was to handle it. Confused, the questions poured out of me: what had they done? Why had they done it? Are we okay? What did they do to us? Second-mother smoothed my hair back from my forehead and told me they would explain everything, but I needed to eat. I had been asleep for three nights and days, I was weak. 

Three nights? I thought to myself. Before I could argue more or ask more questions, my fangs grew sharp, and my stomach called out, eliciting a small chuckle from my second-father, who simply pointed at the frightened young woman, who by this time had backed herself into a corner of the room, no doubt hoping we had forgotten about her. However, in the process she had scraped her arm, right above the elbow, it bled, the smell of her blood intoxicated me, making me realize just how hungry I was. I stood up slowly, unsteady feet taking me to her. As I always did, I promised I would do my best to make it quick and painless, unless she wanted it otherwise. The fear in her eyes, and the way her whole body was shaking gave me my answer. I drained her quickly, with as little pain for her as I could manage, but oh, was I ravenous.

Hunger satisfied, I turned my attention back to the altar and the questions at hand. Second-mother almost laughed out-loud and asked me one question in return which shook me to the core. “Do you not realize what time it is?”

As soon as the question was out, I realized it, something I should have known right away, but didn’t think about. Second-mother would never have woken me if... she herself wouldn’t be awake if... no, no, I refused to believeit. Seeing the disbelief on my face, my second-father came to me, taking my hand in his. He told me to follow him, it was true, and it was okay, no longer a problem for the three of us, thanks to me. Unsure, but having no reason not to trust them, they had given gme this second-life, why would they take it away? I followed, I followed up from the depths of the mausoleum, up into the deserted church on top of it where sunlight streamed in through the windows, bright and colorful in the openings which still housed the stained glass. Frightened, I turned and tried to run back into the darkness, sunlight meant death, I knew this, it was one of my first lessons, one which had been taught through practice, allowing a single ray of light to pierce through the wall onto my wrist, the pain unbearable for the mere second it had touched bare flesh. Now, my second-parents expected me to walk into this deserted church, full of the one thing outside humanity which could kill me. 

Watch me, my second-father said to me, letting go of my hand, he slowly walked out into the sunlit room, I could not tear my gaze from his face, I waited, not breathing, for his face to contort in pain, for him to scream, to fall upon his knees and go up in flames. Yet I waited in vain, nothing happen. My second-father stood there, in the sunlight, with motes of dust dancing around him, smiling like a child given a sweet. Unable to believe it, not wanting to hope, not wanting not to hope, I watched as my second-mother joined my second-father in the sunlight, they held hands, and reached out to me, smiling, as if it were nobig deal, we did this all the time.

Hesitantly, I took my first steps into the sunlight, putting out a hand as well, keeping mostly to the shadow, unsure how long it would take to succumb to death once I started to burn. Closing my eyes against the pain I knew would come, I stepped fully into the sun, holding my breath, I wouldn’t scream, my second-parents would not have to hear me scream. I would die with dignity. I held my breath until my lungs burned with the need for air, gasping I opened my eyes and looked down at myself, I was unharmed. I could feel the sun starting to warm my cold skin. I wondered if my skin would tan like it used to when I worked in the field? My eyes suddenly felt moist, and I quickly brought a hand to them, I was crying, for the first time in the near century since I had been given my second-life, I had tears in my eyes, real tears, I felt them trace their way down my cheeks, one by one, and felt a joy I thought I never would again.

 

*

 

The joy quickly turned to fury. Within twenty-five years of having a life in the sun, our kind had turned against us but still wanted to know our secret. My second-parents, however, stayed quiet and try as I might, I was never able to pry this particular secret from them. I never figured I would see the book which had been laid upon that damned altar again, never figured I would come across it while cleaning my second-parent’s closet, have it tumble out of an old shoe box. Which has led us to tonight.

My parents have gathered their closest human allies, those who voted for father, who believehim to be the only one who can truly save this city. I, however, have other plans for this city.

What they don't know is tonight, we are surrounded. My second-parents should have never hosted a gathering in the dark of night, then again, they thought they had nothing to fear, why would their beloved daughter ever betray them? The town clock begins to strike the ten o'clock hour, the hour of my redemption, of my second-parent's judgment, of the end of this shit-hole of a town. I make my way silently to the back door, opening it to the night, turning my back, I say clearly, “Please come in.” My fangs grow long in my mouth, after all, it has been awhile since I have tasted blood untainted by drugs.