Avenging Amethyst (Immortal Eyes) (3 page)

The second I
opened the door, I knew that wouldn’t be a problem. I froze in the
doorway at the sight of a man in the corner, staring back at me with the same
amethyst colored eyes as mine. It both terrified and excited me to finally meet
someone with the same anomaly.

He looked to be
about the same age as me, maybe a year or two older, with shaggy black hair
that reached the top of his ears and skin that was slightly on the pale side.
Even though he was sitting, I knew he would be at least half a foot taller than
me. He was thin, but still muscular and his tight black t-shirt showed off his
chest well. Damn, he was hot.

I suddenly felt
myself blushing and wanted to retreat but the sound of an impatient cough from
behind me made me realize I was still frozen in the doorway, blocking the
entrance. I apologized to the irritated man behind me and made my way into the
coffee shop, deeply breathing in the scent and hoping it would calm my nerves.
The man in the corner made a small gesture with his head, motioning for me to
take a seat next to him.

I walked up to
his table but didn’t sit down. "Are you the one who left this note
for me?" I asked and pulled the note from my pocket and placed it in
front of him.

He gave me a
cocky smile and nodded slightly. "You can sit down. I’m not going
to hurt you."

I slowly took a
seat in the chair across from the man, still uneasy by being near him but at
least the coffee shop was full of people. He’d be stupid to try to hurt
me here.

"My
name’s Felix," he said when I was seated.

"Avery,"
I said, sounding a lot more standoffish than I planned. Felix hadn’t done
anything threatening yet and I had no reason to be rude.

He kept the
cocky smile on his face, not phased by my attitude one bit. "I know who
you are. We’ve had our eyes on you since you were born."

"We?"
I fought the urge to look around the shop for more purple eyed people.

"Did your
mom ever tell you why you moved around all of the time or why she lived in a
constant state of panic?" he said instead of answering my question.

"No,"
I said through clenched teeth. The last thing I wanted to talk about was my
mom. I didn’t want to break down and cry in front of this stranger.
"But I trusted my mom. I know she had her reasons. It doesn’t
matter now though. She was murdered last night."

Finally, the
cocky smile left Felix’s face, replaced by a frown and a look of concern.
"I’m really sorry about your mom. I promise we had nothing to do
with her death."

"Who is
‘we’?" I asked, frustrated. I wanted answers and I wanted
them now. I was sick of not knowing.

Felix let out a
loud sigh and ran his hands through his hair. "I’m going to tell
you a lot of information but you have to promise you’ll hear me out until
the end. I know you’ll have a hard time believing any of it, but you need
to keep an open mind."

I hesitated.
"I can’t promise anything but I’ll try."

Felix leaned
closer to me and lowered his voice before saying, "Do you believe in
mythical creatures?"

I couldn’t
help myself from laughing. "Of course not. That’s why their
mythical. Is this some kind of joke?"

But
Felix’s face was completely serious. "Mythical creatures are not
mythical because they don't exist. They're mythical because human minds aren't
capable of accepting the fact that there might be intelligent creatures other
than themselves walking the earth. Mythical creatures are very real. We’re
proof of it."

"Whoa,
whoa, whoa," I said, putting my hands up and glancing at the door. I
contemplated making a run for it and getting away from this crazy person.
Mythical creatures did not exist. "What're you talking about? I'm a human.
I'm not mythical at all."

Felix caught me
glancing at the door and I could see him tense. "You were raised by a
human, who raised you to think you were human. If you were raised like I was,
then you would laugh at the thought of being human."

"Then what
am I?" I challenged, scooting back in my chair just an inch.

"We’re
called Lovac. We're half human."

"Now
you’re just making stuff up. I’ve never heard of a Lovac before.
Who are you really? And how do you know anything about me?"

Ignoring my
questions he continued on with his fairy tale. "We’re born from a
human mother and a Zhulik father. I know you haven’t heard of Zhulik
either. No one has, because we are all classified as what you call Vampires.
There was only ever one original Vampire that descended into two species, the
Zhulik and the Nesmyr. From Zhulik and human mating, Lovac were born. All three
races are considered Vampires by humans."

I was trying to
concentrate on what he was saying but it was so hard for me to believe that
someone was actually telling me that Vampires existed and I was having a hard
time following him. I looked around at the people in the coffee shop, wondering
if any of them were over-hearing our conversation and thinking the same thing I
was. I needed to get away from Felix and go back to finding real answers.

Keep an open
mind
, I
heard repeated in my head when I almost stood up to leave. Along with the
voice, came a strange tingling sensation in my head, like I needed to scratch
an itch on my brain.

I shook my head
and saw that Felix was staring at me intently. Somehow I knew that whatever I
was hearing in my head was coming from him. "Do you have some kind of
mind-control power?" The tingling sensation was distracting and while it
wasn't painful, it was definitely uncomfortable.

"How you can
tell I'm doing anything?" he asked, clearly shocked. His gaze broke and
the feeling in my head went back to normal.

"You were
staring at me weird and I heard a voice in my head along with feeling a weird
tingling sensation." After I finished talking, I knew that I sounded like
the crazy one. Yet, for some reason, Felix didn’t seem to agree.

"Interesting,"
he muttered. "But no, I don't have mind control. What I have is the
ability to encourage someone to do something. Something they may deep down want
to do but don't feel comfortable actually doing."

"So
you’re not only crazy, you’re a freak, too?" I asked. I still
felt a desire to get up and leave, but my damn instincts were telling me to
stay and hear him out. An unsettling feeling sat in my stomach that what he was
telling me might actually be true.

Felix only
smiled at my words, amusement clear in his eyes, and continued talking.
"All Lovac have a unique power. A good friend of mine can see the future,
another can control any element. You’ve got a power too, I just
couldn’t tell you what it is."

"You must
have the wrong person. I don’t have any special powers." I’d
never had any visions of the future, never made anything move with just my
mind. Besides moving around a lot, nothing strange had ever happened in all my
eighteen years of life.

"You may
not have noticed anything, but you could still have a power. You said you would
hear me out completely, though. Will you listen to everything I have to say or
are you going to bolt out of here?"

I glanced at the
door once more, but I couldn’t leave. Not yet. I would listen to
everything Felix had to say and then I would bolt. "I’ll
listen."

"Well then,
as I was saying, all three of our races, Lovac, Zhulik and Nesmyr, come from
the same bloodline. The original Vampire was Nosferatu. I’m sure
you’ve heard of him, though his story was never told right. Humans mess
up everything when it comes to mythical creatures."  He paused to
laugh to himself but when he saw I wasn’t amused, he continued. "He
was born from humans but was cursed by a sorceress while still in his
mother’s womb to be an abomination. He constantly craved blood and needed
to drink it to survive and while he had super speed and strength, all humans
were terrified of him. No one is sure of the exact reason he was cursed, but
once he was old enough to understand what had happened to him, he pledged his
life to serve the sorceress in order to get the curse removed. Unfortunately,
the sorceress could not remove the curse. Instead, she agreed to bless him with
children but the best the sorceress could do was allow him to have children
with demons and fairies. Zhulik were born from his mating with demons. The gene
combination made them almost completely evil. And Nesmyr were born from his
mating with fairies. Nesmyr aren’t as pure as fairies but they’re
angels compared to Zhulik. Any questions so far?"

"Millions,"
was the only thing I could manage. My mind was swirling with information that I
didn't know how to comprehend. I was still trying to keep an open mind, but it
went against everything I was ever taught. I couldn’t believe he was
telling me demons and fairies existed, too. I wanted to ask questions but I had
so many I didn't know where to start. Finally, I blurted out the first one that
came to mind when I thought about Vampires. "Do they drink blood?"

"Zhulik and
Nesmyr need it to survive. Lovac have enough human genes in them that we can
survive on just food though drinking blood will strengthen us. Nesmyr and
Zhulik also have fangs but Lovac just have slightly pointier teeth than an
average human," he paused to flash a smile and sure enough, his teeth were
pointy, just like mine. My mom had wanted me to get them filed at the dentist
but I refused, mainly out of fear of the pain.

"So do they
kill people when they drink blood?" It was the question I was most curious
to ask but I was afraid to hear the answer. I also worried that I was starting
to believe him.

"Nesmyr
don’t. Most Nesmyr own blood donation companies or have a small group of
humans they feed off of. The humans are paid, of course, and hardly remember
anything about the blood-taking. Zhulik on the other hand, always kill when
taking blood. It makes them almost immortal. Nesmyr are much weaker than Zhulik
because of this, and if a Nesmyr does kill someone while feeding, then they
become a Zhulik. Lovac can become Zhulik if they kill someone while drinking
blood, too."

"How does
someone become one of these… things?" I wanted to say monsters or
abominations but I was trying my best not to be rude, especially if it turned
out I really was one of them.

"Nesmyr
are usually born into that race. They can turn humans but the process is
painful and most of the time kills the human before it’s complete. Zhulik
can’t have children and resort to turning humans, or luring Lovac and
Nesmyr into joining their ranks. When Zhulik are first turned, they lose
control of themselves and tend to rape and kill a lot of women. They can get
psychic human women pregnant, which results in Lovac."

Hadn’t my
mom said she had psychic powers? Maybe Felix wasn’t quite as crazy as I
thought. "How come Zhulik can only have children with psychic humans? If
Nesmyr can have children, shouldn't Zhulik be able to, too?"

"Zhulik
are only evil because they were born from almost pure darkness. When Zhulik try
to have children with other Zhulik the darkness completely destroys the baby
before it even has a chance to start developing. Psychic women are strong
enough to keep the baby alive until it’s fully developed."

"What
exactly is darkness?" I asked. It sounded completely made up, and I was
hoping to call him out on it.

"Darkness
is an evil manifestation of magic. Fairy magic is good; darkness is what
results in bad magic. Demons were created because of it and the magic the
sorceress used to create Nosferatu was darkness. It’s also what drives
Zhulik into insanity and it lingers in Lovac, since we're part Zhulik."

"What does
that mean for Lovac, then?"

"Eventually
we go insane," he said, not sugar-coating it for me. "Most Lovac
don't live past twenty-five, a rare few make it close to thirty. The darkness
starts to take over our minds the day we turn eighteen and most Lovac kill
themselves before they can do any damage. There’s only one way to survive
the darkness."

"What
exactly does darkness do to Lovac?" I asked, thinking back to the strange
things that started happening when I turned eighteen.

"It starts
with the nightmares. Darkness has an easier time working its way into our minds
while we sleep. It likes to use any recent traumatizing events to torture us.
We also start to see shadows where there aren’t any and hear voices in
our heads. Eventually, it gets so strong that our mind is not our own
anymore."

A chill ran down
my back at his words. All I could think about were the crazy nightmares
I’ve had every night since my birthday and that they kept getting worse.
No normal nightmare should be able to leave me feeling completely terrified
during them and for a good time after waking up.

"You’ve
been having the nightmares, haven’t you?" Felix asked gently,
breaking me out of my thoughts.

All I could do
was nod slightly. I didn’t want to believe anything Felix told me, but
somehow I knew he hadn’t lied about anything.

"I
don’t want to go insane," I said quietly. The thought of not being
able to control my own mind was a thousand times more terrifying than the
nightmares.