Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) (5 page)

On a table in the rear
of the room were three podiums with ancient books sitting on them. I
stood behind the first book and saw that it was the Bible written in
what I believed to be Aramaic. The letters were written with such a
flourish and attention to detail that I was sure it was a priceless
piece of history and kept my hands firmly behind my back. The next
two books appeared to be genealogical records. One had questions
about missing family members and where they may have immigrated to
and when. Someone was tracking down every lead into each missing
family member. It looked like it was taking several years and massive
amounts of resources to get about halfway done. I was immediately
envious of a person who knew this much about their family.

The last book on the
table appeared to be a descendant family tree with names and dates of
birth. The book’s cover was worn leather held together by a
piece of leather strap. The pages were uneven and frayed and smelled
like old flowers even though something told me that I was looking at
paper made from animal skin. I ran my hand over the cover and felt a
sense of home. Books were kind of my thing. I turned the book over in
my hands and stared at the strange bindings and seams. The book was
old. Much older than anything I had ever held before. I immediately
wondered if I should have gloves on.

As I sorted through the
pages of documents, I recognized the first few pages as census
records from the late 1700s. There were slave ship manifests, bills
of lading and ownership documents. I saw certificates of birth and
receipts of sale from hundreds of years ago and all of the
merchandise was human. I was looking at an historical record of how
Africans were bought and sold into slavery. I continued to flip
through the pages until I came to a family tree. The strange thing
about the tree was that the dates of birth were wrong. They had to
be. The name in the number one spot was Efia with 1768 as the date of
birth. Well, I had met Tabitha’s adoptive mother and I knew
that couldn't be the same woman. I realized that she must be named
after a distant relative and felt immediate jealously crawl through
me. I so wanted a family of my own and looking at Efia’s
centuries’ worth of family documents was depressing. I looked
for Tabitha’s Efia but came up empty. I decided to see if they
would have entered Tabitha’s name and then I would find her
adoptive mother. We were both almost 18 so I would just look for
1994.

I rolled my finger over
the page for several minutes, stopping to look at the different names
and to wonder about how their lives must have been. The 1768 Efia had
given birth to a daughter named Sarai, which I know is an ancient
form of Sarah. Sarai had five children of her own and countless grand
and great-grandchildren. I became drawn to one of Sarai’s
children because her name was Pleasant. What a great name to have;
Pleasant.

Pleasant had bore three
children and one of those had descendants well into modern times. I
traced her linage with my finger, curious about this woman, and found
that she indeed had a descendant from modern times. I found myself
looking at the entry for Pleasant’s many times over
great-grandchild and blinked hard. The date I landed on was 1994 but
instead of seeing any sign of Tabitha’s adoption I was seeing
spots. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, sure that I had misread the
document. I followed my finger to the 1994 entry once more, but
Tabitha’s name was not listed under the family members born in
1994…mine was.

I turned the page back
and forth to see if there was any way I could be hallucinating, but
my name was still listed there; Cheyenne (Redding) St. Clair. It must
be some sort of coincidence. I prayed it was. I started to feel light
headed and wondered what this meant. For starters, Tabitha had been
lying to me this entire time. She had to have known that someone put
my name in this book. And she took the plane ticket that my mother
sent to me. Was she trying to keep me away from my mother? Was my
mother related to Efia? I looked at the document again and found out
that my mother’s name was listed as Zola St. Clair and that I
was only one of four listed as her children. I quickly looked at the
names of my siblings; Zander, Jordan and Chloe. Jordan?

I sat down hard on the
floor next to the table. If Tabitha knew that Jordan was my brother,
why didn’t she tell me? And why didn’t Jordan want me to
know what is going on? I stood up again, so fast, in fact, I had to
steady myself on the table. I frantically traced around the document
looking for Efia’s name. Aside from the Efia born in 1768,
there was no entry. It was entirely possible that she had changed her
name at some point, so I did not feel defeated when I came up empty.
What I did feel was betrayed and lied to. I couldn’t believe
that Tabitha would do this to me. She had always had my back in the
past. Maybe she had another agenda. Regardless of what it was, I
wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

Chapter 3

I didn’t wait
for the entire house to get quiet. If it was silent then any noise I
made would be obvious. I snuck into Tabitha’s room to change
into jeans, throw some sweats into a duffel bag and grab my purse
before heading for the front door. I couldn’t have picked a
worse night to leave. It was rainy, cold and the streets were
starting to flood. I walked the 3 miles to the bus depot and waited
under the awning for the bus. I had money for a ticket to Vegas and
some food and I was going to find my mother.

From across the street,
a neon Budweiser sign was casting an eerie shadow on the street lamp
on the corner. The bulbs had long since been broken by local vandals
and the blinking neon was the only light for blocks. I prayed that
the bus would be on time so that I didn’t have to stand on the
dark, raining street for too much longer. Again the feeling that I
was being watched made my skin crawl. The shadows across the street
appeared to be changing. With every flash of neon, I imagined a
cloaked image just beyond the street light. The harder I looked, the
harder it was to determine if the image was real. After about 5
minutes, it was gone. Talk about your typical paranoid runaway.

The headlights of the
bus had just appeared about a mile down the road. With the fog this
heavy, the trip would be slow and tedious. I didn’t care,
though, because running away wasn’t easy or glamorous like
books and movies depict it. I knew I had a long hard way to make. I
was going to be eighteen in three months and I hoped I could find a
judge to emancipate me. I could not spend another night being
dependent on someone else.

The wind picked up as
the bus came closer and blew rain and debris in my direction. My
jeans and hoodie were soaked through to my skin by the time the bus
came to a stop in front of me. I stood slightly to the side to allow
passengers to depart. It was no surprise to see that not one of the
people on the bus wanted to get off in this hell hole.

The driver looked like
he had seen better days. The only problem was that those better days
were in the 1950s. He was old, smelled like he was wearing ‘Stale
Cigarette, Body Odor and Scotch No. 5’ cologne. The interior of
the bus was stifling hot and the occupants matched the driver’s
fragrance like it was a competition.

I found a seat
somewhere in the middle of the bus; far enough away from the driver
that I could breathe without gagging. I sat down and tried to rest my
eyes. Later, how much later I was not sure, I was jolted awake when
the bus came to a sudden halt. The doors opened and a gush of cold
air rushed in. There were four passengers waiting at the tiny
roadside bus stop; an old lady and three hooded figures. The old lady
hobbled down the aisle with her cataract eyes narrowed on the window
seat next to me. I swept my legs into the aisle to allow her entrance
when she stopped short. She stood right next to me while the three
hooded figures lowered their hoods and boarded the bus.

The first to board the
bus was the boy with the white hair. I sank low into my seat and
covered my face with my hand just as the other two boys followed him
toward me. The second two looked like they were twins, both having
jet black hair and brown eyes. All three of them were dressed in
black jeans and matching hoodies. They walked slowly down the aisle
and appeared to be looking right through me, as if I wasn't there.
They passed, one by one, slowly making eye contact with the old lady.
The old lady, not one to be bullied by young people, simply lifted
her chin and stared until they each took a seat.

“
Do
you know those young men”, the old lady asked as she was taking
her seat next to me.

“
No
Ma’am. I don’t know anyone on this bus.”

“
Well,
you be careful, then. Nothing good comes out of carelessness”,
she finished and promptly went to sleep.

If she only knew just
how careless I had been hours before. I sighed deeply and tried to
figure out how to lose those three boys during the trip. Pulling out
a small map of the western states, I figured a place like Las Vegas
was as good as any to meet my bio-mom. We were currently in Las
Cruces, New Mexico and traveling West. I wasn’t able to get a
bus that went straight to Vegas. The bus I was on would go through
Arizona and Los Angeles before heading north to Las Vegas. With all
of the stops, this was going to be about a 24 hour trip, and I hoped
it was long enough to formulate a plan.

I closed my eyes and
slept until the bus came to a stop. It was around 9:00 AM in Tuscon
and we'd been on the cramped bus for almost 7 hours. Not hungry but
desperately in need of a good stretch, I waited until the bus was
only occupied by sleeping passengers before I stepped off into the
cool sunlight. One thing I could say about Arizona was that the air
was crisp and clean. I took several deep breaths to clear my head
before returning to the bus. On the way, I saw the three boys.
Something, though I didn’t know what, told me to avoid them at
all costs. They were standing right next to the entrance, so I wasn’t
sure how I was going to do that.

“
Nice
day, isn’t it?” the old lady asked from behind me.

It took everything I
had not to scream out. That old hag was going to be the death of me
if one of us didn’t get off of this bus. I turned slowly to see
her chomping on a carrot and eyeing me with amusement. I took a
moment to get a good look at her. She was about 5 feet tall with a
slight hunchback. Her hair was not entirely gray, more like salt and
pepper in color, and it lay on her back in a long braid. She must
have weighed about 100 pounds but she looked like she was wearing
every stitch of clothing that she owned. The longer I looked at her,
the more familiar she felt, like an old comfortable sweatshirt. Her
eyes held mine and my shoulders relaxed infinitesimally. Although I
didn’t know why, this old lady was okay.

“
It
would be nicer if we would just get back on the road,” I said,
looking past her toward the three boys and the bus entrance.

“
The
driver said that this would be a short stop. I think we are ahead of
schedule and he wants to make up for the time he will lose in
traffic. Where are you headed?”

“
Las
Vegas, to see my mom.”

“
Las
Vegas, huh?” The old lady looked as if she didn’t approve
but, to her credit, she didn’t say anything else.

It was obvious that she
wasn’t going to leave my side, so I resigned myself to the fact
that I would have company. She watched me as I watched the three
boys. They were looking around as if they had lost something or
somebody. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but I felt like I was the
object of their search. It was probably just my nerves. How could I
possibly rate that kind of attention? I shook off the feeling just as
the bus driver came stumbling out of the restaurant.

The bus began to fill
up with passengers as the three boys looked around. The engine
started and the driver took the tickets of the new arrivals all
before I stepped out from my hiding spot. The old lady walked just
steps in front of me as we approached the bus doors. I lifted the
hood of my sweatshirt as I tried to hide my face from the three boys.
The old lady, on the other hand, looked straight ahead and confronted
the trio. Either out of respect or contempt, the three moved out of
the way for her, all the while continuing to look behind her. It was
strange that they didn’t appear to see me standing right there.
My first instinct was to wave a hand in their faces to make sure I
wasn’t simply being ignored, but the old lady stayed my hand
while gesturing for me to board the bus ahead of her.

The boy with the white
hair stiffened as I passed and turned his head toward me as if
looking for something. He continued to stare at the space that I had
just passed by until the old lady poked him in the stomach and
lectured him on how he should be a gentleman and help her onto the
bus. The trio quickly jumped into action, almost throwing the old
lady onto the top step of the bus’s interior. The other
passengers and I reached out to catch her, since she should have been
off balance after being handled so roughly, but she landed squarely
on her feet and wobbled to her window seat.

The next leg of the
trip was marked by multiple stops and tons of traffic. The driver had
to maneuver around several accidents and lanes that were closed due
to construction. We finally limped into the parking lot of a
restaurant around 2 in the afternoon and I was starving. I jumped out
of my seat and waited for the old lady to go ahead of me but,
surprisingly, she wasn’t there. She must have left the bus
while I was busy looking through my maps of the Las Vegas Strip. I
shrugged and departed the bus with the rest of the passengers.