Angel Series Books 1-3 Boxed Set

A Face from the Past-2

“Then you learned nothing. You needed to be on the receiving end to witness it. You should have asked me about what happens to vampires, I could have told you.”

“Okay, okay,” I put up my hands in surrender, “I’m sorry. So what does happen?”

“They come back crazed beyond belief, savage and uncontrollable. The only instinct that remains intact is the need to feed, and this drives them to kill everything they can — mortal, monster, angel and animal alike.”

“That’s nasty!” I said.

“Very. That’s why we only use the light for transportation.”

There was a rustling outside the entrance to the cave.

“This must be party night,” I mumbled and turned to see who or what was coming.

It was another vamp, a female this time.

“I found you!” she said excitedly. “I’ve been tracking your scent for hours. It was easier when the rain eased off, your scent didn’t wash away so quickly.”

Danny was about to raze her to ash when I placed a restraining hand on his arm. He looked at the vampire, sighed, and let his arm drop to his side.

“Helena, don’t you remember me?” the vampire said.

I peered into the face. There was something familiar about it, but I couldn’t place it. She couldn’t have been one of the preacher’s girls — she was much older than he preferred. Then where did I know her from?

“You really don’t recognise me, do you?” her voice was tinged with sadness.

“I know your face, but I don’t remember where from.”

I looked to Danny, who had seen all my memories. Perhaps he could shed some light on who she was. His face was a mixture of sorrow, pity and disgust — a strange combination.

“Danny, what is it? Who is she?”

“Oh, he knows. I can see it in his face. Tell her, or I will. Your lips or mine, the choice is yours.”

Danny sighed. “She’s your mother.”

I looked more closely at her face, the dimples and freckles, all still there. The colour of her eyes, the colour of her hair. She was shorter than I remembered, but to a child all grown-ups are giants. I shook my head in disbelief. This could not be true. My mother had disappeared, presumed dead.

I turned to Danny. “At least now I know what that vampire meant about Drake having someone he thought I might be interested in … but my mother disappeared the night my father was murdered. She was presumed dead.”

“Do you remember the night your father put you in the blanket box?” she asked, trying to convince me she was who Danny said she was. “Did we save you only to condemn you?”

“She’s not like you,” Danny replied. “She’s not corrupted, not evil. She kills your kind, not mortals.”

“This is not the life of my choosing,” she said sharply. “I never asked for this.”

“Nor did your daughter,” he said angrily.” She at least does not feed off mortals.”

“Do you think I want to? I hate myself every minute of every day.” I could hear the loathing in her voice.

“Then you know what to do about it!” Danny said sharply.

“Yes,” she mumbled, “but I can’t bring myself to do it. The instinct to survive is too great.”

“You’re just like the rest of them.”

“Shut up!” I yelled. “Both of you just shut up, and let me think.”

I sank to the ground and rested my head in my hands. Danny stood beside me to make sure my mother did not try anything stupid — to ensure this wasn’t a trap. She fell to her knees in front of me. Danny placed a restraining hand on her shoulder.

“Let her go, Danny. It’s two against one if it comes down to it,” I said.

“I watched your father die,” she whispered. “He was involved in matters he didn’t understand. Neither of us did. He was blamed for snitching, which was bad enough when we thought we were dealing with the mob. When it turned out to be vampires, that was worse.”

“You expect me to believe that my father was killed by vampires? That you were taken and changed by them?” I asked, shaking my head doubtfully.

“How else do you think I came to be like this?”

“But my father was hit on the head — blunt force trauma. He wasn’t bitten,” I scoffed.

“Biting people isn’t the only way to kill them, Helena,” She chided me. “Hasn’t he,” she pointed to Danny, “taught you anything?”

“You leave him out of this,” I warned her, waving my finger in her face.

If vamps killed my father, why not her as well? I was confused.

“Why didn’t they kill you?”

“Female shortage, plain and simple. I became a prostitute of sorts, unpaid, but a prostitute all the same.”

“Must run in the family,” I mumbled.

She grabbed my arm. “What did you say?”

I shook her arm off. “I said it must run in the family.”

She looked from me to Danny and back to me again.

“Damn perverted angel,” she hissed.

I slapped her face. It just happened. Without thinking, my hand struck out of its own volition. The sound of my palm striking her face resounded throughout the cave.

“He is not perverted!” I yelled. “If anything, I’ve perverted him. He has done nothing wrong. Danny has helped me and protected me ever since I was changed. Don’t you ever say anything bad about him!”

She rubbed her face and said, quite simply, “You love him.”

I looked at Danny’s face and my heart fluttered. “Yes, I love him.”

It was the first time I’d said the words out loud. For a moment the rest of the world disappeared and I saw my love reciprocated in his eyes and smile.

“Well, if not him, then what do you mean about prostitution running in the family?” she sounded impatient now, like I’d deprived her of eighteen years of my life. I ignored her question for the time being.

“Didn’t you ever try to find out what happened to me after you’d left?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to trust myself,” her voice quivered with emotion, “and you were the last thing I wanted to hurt.”

Damn her emotions to hell! I thought.

“I was stuck in that box for at least thirty hours. When they found me, I was delirious. I was sent from foster home to foster home, a problem child no one wanted. Eventually I was fostered to a last chance couple. Do you know what that means?” She shook her head. “It means that if I’d have set one foot wrong I would’ve been sent to an institution where they’d have locked me up in a room slightly bigger than that box each night. I hate confined spaces. I couldn’t go back to a box.

“Do you want to know what atrocities happened to me there — with that last chance family — and how by the time I was fourteen I’d had two abortions?”

“Stop, please,” she pleaded. “How could I know? What could I have done about it, being what I am?”

“You couldn’t have done a thing,” I sneered at her. “The past can’t be changed. I don’t even know your first name.”

“Michelle. My name is Michelle.”

I narrowed my eyes, suspicious of her motives. “Why are you here? Did you think to catch me or trick me into going to Drake? Did you think the fact that you’re my mother would sway me?”

She shook her head. “No. Drake doesn’t know I’ve come here.”

“Then what? To relive old times, times I had no recollection of until recently?”

“No,” she replied, crying softly now.

I rubbed my temples. “So what then?”

“I came to warn you.”

“Of what?” I asked.

“Drake has rallied a number of clans and they’re on their way here.”

So the vampires were having a big get-together, big deal! It meant I’d have less distance to travel to do my job.

“And that concerns me because?” I asked impatiently.

“Because the sole purpose of the gathering is to hunt and kill you,” she blurted out, “and the angel who runs with you … if possible.”

Was this some sort of trap, a plot within a plot?

I eyed her suspiciously. “Why would you want to warn me?”

She reached out and stroked my hair. I pulled back reflexively. The intimacy of her action repulsed me. I fought to keep the revulsion off my face.

“Because I still love you, no matter what you’ve become, and despite what I’ve become.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Maybe, maybe not.”

“What can I do to prove it to you, Helena?” she asked.

I looked at Danny, but he offered me nothing. I was on my own here.

“We need more information. When are they to arrive? Where will they meet? What are their numbers? Do they have any particular strengths or weaknesses? What’s their plan of attack?” I stopped to take a breath. “If you don’t want to see me dead you need to provide us with more than just a warning — that’s not good enough.”

She sighed. “Fine, I’ll tell you what I know.”

I pulled at Danny’s pants, encouraging him to sit down. He refused to sit, but crouched down, ready to spring into action should the need arise.

“Five of the eight closest clans are on their way. Drake contacted them four or five days ago. He received word early this morning that they’ve agreed to come. They should arrive in another three days. They’re travelling great distances — all on foot.”

“What numbers are we looking at?” I asked.

“I don’t know exactly which clans have elected to come to Drake’s aid, but their numbers vary from twenty to eighty-five. Potentially you could be looking at about another three hundred vampires in this region.”

I looked at Danny. “Is that a lot?”

“For a vampire gathering, yes. To meet in such numbers is very rare. Add the fifty odd that are already here and it’s a sizable force.”

I turned back to Michelle. I couldn’t think of her as my mother. “Where do they plan to meet?”

“The temple is too small —”

I interrupted her. “Where’s the temple?”

“You should know, Helena, you’ve been there a few times. It’s where the trees have been moulded to form a type of shelter.”

“I know the place. I just didn’t know it had a name. We,” I pointed to Danny, then myself, “refer to it as … something else. I agree that it can’t accommodate the numbers you’re suggesting are on the way.”

“They’ll congregate in the underground tunnels. The network is very large and there are a number of chambers big enough to hold close to a thousand. I’ve been told that ten thousand years ago it did hold that many — the first and last of the great meetings the clan leaders hoped to have. Mind you, I have no way of knowing if that’s true. We only have Drake’s word to go on.”

“Drake is over ten thousand years old?” I asked incredulously.

Danny answered, “Much older than that.”

I turned to look at him. “How old is he?”

“He was one of the first to be bitten after Satan created vampires.”

I whistled. “Wow, that old, hey?”

“Yes, that old.”

I turned my attention back to the vampire who claimed she was my mother. “What about strengths and weaknesses?”

“That I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders. “The same as any other clan I expect.”

“What about their plan of attack?”

“I think they plan to have large numbers of vampires waiting in the various places you frequent. Big enough numbers to overwhelm you.”

I snorted. “You know we can get ourselves out of a situation if it comes to that.”

“All I know is that Drake believes he has found a way to keep you in the one place. I think he means to use me against you.”

“So Drake no longer wishes to convert me, to convince me to swap sides?”

She shook her head. “No. You’ve gone too far in his eyes. He sees you as a direct threat to his position.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” I asked.

“I won’t let him use me against you. I’d rather die first.”

Danny nodded his head in agreement. “If that’s all she can tell us, you know what has to be done, Helena.”

Michelle looked at him, her eyes grateful for his decision, and she mouthed the words thank you.

“No, we leave her,” I said. “Her time will come soon enough. Drake can’t use her against me.”

Danny did not agree, but he wouldn’t raise a hand against the woman who had given birth to me unless he was provoked, or I gave permission. I took his hand and we turned to leave the cave.

“Don’t go,” she cried out. “I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

I stopped and turned to look back at her. “You have no choice, just like the rest of us.”

Danny and I continued walking. Michelle rushed towards us with such speed — perhaps speed was a family trait — that she was upon me before we had time to look back and see what she was doing. My hand automatically reached behind me and made contact with skin before I realised who it was I’d be killing.

When her body fell to the ground, cold and empty, I noticed her face was stained with tears and I began to weep uncontrollably.

“It’s what she wanted,” Danny said.

He leaned down and touched her body, causing it to turn to ash. He didn’t want me to have to look at the tears that were crystallising, like salt, on her dead face. He didn’t want her body to remain in the cave to rot with the other vampires, where I might come and torture myself over what had happened. It was compassion that drove him to destroy all trace of the woman who had once been my mother, and I had once loved. He was giving me closure.