Title: blood brother
Tags: blood
Blog Entry: The ghost sat on the end of the bed and smiled at me. My brother’s ghost had been haunting me for five years now. A few weeks after he died I had seen him standing in the yard looking up at my window. I had yelled his name and run taking the stairs three and four at a time. I had tripped and fell over the hall rug. Got up and, flung open the door nothing he was gone. I stood in the wet grass looking up and down the shadowy street. From time to time I would see him a shadow that move and then was gone. Once coming out of the late move I had seen him. He stood watching me from the upper level of the mall. Our eyes had met and he had smiled and then disappeared into the crowd. He followed me home if I was out to late. My mother had sent me to a grief therapy. When I told her about the ghost. My father had got a cold look and stood looking out into the night. The ghost did not go away but I learned not to tell anyone about him. and now here he was sitting on the end of the bed. "You’re luck a anonymous soul call in the accident. Your friend is dead the car smashed his head like a grape," the ghost said. I closed my swollen eyes but the ghost did not go away. "What you don’t have a helmet? You think I have nothing to do," the ghost said. "You’re dead and I am messed up on pain pills," I said looking at the call button for the nurse. "Does this look dead to you," he said pointing at himself. "Here feel," he said holding out a warm hand. I held tight to his hand looking at the odd marks on the tips of his fingers and at his claw like fingernails. "I am not dead. Look I know that is what they told everyone when I run away but it is a lie. It is a useful lie but I am not dead. You however are going to be dead soon unless you get some help," he said. "You came back from the dead to tell me this," I asked. The doctors had more or less spelled it out for me a few days before. My father would not be budged in his anti- Cyborg beliefs. "You got two chances to live one father changes his mind and lets them put in replacement parts. Do you really think that will happen? Or two a miracle happens and your body start working right again. So do you want to live," he asked. I nodded. "How much do you want to live? What is life worth? Are you willing to give up everything to have a chance to live? Humans have forgotten how to live, how to feel. Are you the tiger cub I think you are? Are you willing to become a night hunter or do you want to die a pampered house cat? Or are you Mitford’s child or Mammu’s ? Are you willing to leave your safe little fish bowl world," he asked. "I’m not sure I understand." "I can save your life. I can give you a miracle but the only way I can do that is for you to stop being human," he said. I blinked. "Stop being human? How why?" "A human will die with wounds this bad. You are already dying I can smell death on you. The only way I can save you is with magic and blood. I was never human, brother, my soul and heart is that of a Bast . The god of the Bast smiles down one her vampire children to. Think it over I’ll be back," he said smiling a vampire smile at me as he went out the door. My brother a vampire, Sure the facts fit and he had just told me he was one but still it as hard to believe. Patrick had been my hero when I was little. He was fourteen years older then me. Some how I had never been a pest to him he had packed me around most everywhere with him. My parents had always seemed distant and cool if not cold in there affections. They had kids because it was expected that they people of there social rank would have kids. My mother had stopped by to see me birthed, paid the surrogate for her troubles, named me and handed me off to a wet nurse Mammu and went back to her life. My nurse, Mammu was a Bast a tigress who love me as a cub. My human mother looked me over the way she did her show dogs and then went back to her shopping and pills. But Mammu loved me and raised me as her own. "Drink my baby my cub. Drink my sweet milk and grow strong little hunter and make our clan proud when your grown…" was my lullaby. When I learned to talk it was the language of the bast I spoke. The god of the bast was my god. I learned to carry myself and walk like a cat, my brother and I were what Mammu raised us to be . Mammu , the woman cook auntie Lou, and the old troll Gaga that cleaned the yard, and Patrick had been my family. From time to time my father would come look at me to see if I was growing into anything he might want to admit having sired. "Looks that boy over the way he looks over us slaves like he getting ready to sale the lot of us and wondering how much we are going to bring," the cook said. "Maybe he thinks the boy is one of us. My little bast cub," Mammu had teased purring and rubbing my head. "Every thing has a price to that man. He would not be the first rich lord to sale a child on the slave block. That how he got the wife I am told," Gaga the gardener had said. "Patrick don’t seem to be liking his share of the empire. The old man is not happy with the young one. Means ill weather for us little folk," he added. "He would not forget his roots I raised my cubs well. Patrick will take care of things you will see," mammy said. "That is the problem, the boy just don’t have the makens of a drug lord or a slave dealer. He is to soft hearted you raised them to think like one of us," Gaga said. "I raised him to be a tiger not a slave or lord of slaves. It my revenge I have stolen the lords cubs and he has yet to see it," she purred. "The problem is not the gods the boy follows Mammu but the boy’s lover. Patrick has taken up with a Vampire girl a Bast one at that. The elder might tolerate a human vampire but a nonhuman one is out of the question. Worse he has got her knocked up from what I hear," cook said. "Not in front of the boy," Mammu had said stroking my hair. My brother had got in a fight with father shortly after that. "You’re the one with no heart," Patrick had yelled. "Tell the girl to get a abortion I wont tolerate a half breed brat. Pay her off and I’ll buy you a concubine," father said. "Like how you bought mother. You clam to be a full blood, a human, but I think it is a lie. A human would…" My father had slapped him. The young man’s eyes had narrowed and he sort of hissed. My father’s face went from red to white. "You’re one of them," he said. "So what if I am," Patrick asked. "It won’t affect the way I do my work. You think I won’t be able to count slaves and collect payment from the dealers. We buy off the law if anyone finds out. Everyone is for sell laws are made to be broken you taught me that. It not a big deal so I got fangs," he said licking his teeth. My father’s eyes rolled with fear. "I’m still Patrick can’t you see that," he said. " Get out and don’t let me ever see you again. You are no longer my son. You come back and I will call the law down on you myself," father said. Patrick glanced at me as he picked up his coat. "If you try to corrupt your little brother I will kill you myself you need not worry about the battle pits," father said. Patrick pulled his coat on and smiled. "Good night then sir be careful when you go walking I would not want you to trip," he said. He winked at me a then walking into the night whistling a happy song. I never say Patrick alive after that or so I had thought. Mother told me Patrick had died in an accident a few weeks later. But I had seen him I told father my brother was alive. "He is dead don’t say his name again," father had said. After Patrick left father took notice of me. I could no longer hide in the corner of his life. "At least one of my sons is going to amount to something. You will come with me to the markets and learn," he said. "Is that wise," mother asked. "Take the boy’s nurse with you." Mother said. "He is to old to have a nurse," father spat. "Fine Mammu you are now the boy’s concubine do as you see fit just keep the boy out from underfoot," Mother said. "Concubine the boy is only twelve," Mammu said. "He is to old to have a nurse if you can’t do the task the markets are full of slaves who would be all to happy to." "No lady I am pleased to serve," Mannu said. " good then," mother said and then went back to her show dogs. "Where did Patrick go," I asked Mammu that night. "He is free little kitten. He hunts the night a might tiger but we must not say his name for the old one fears it and we are not yet free," Mammu purred. She remained what she had always been my Mammu and I remained her cub. She taught me to walk as a tiger for a tiger walks with pride even when it is a slave. I was born the son of a rich slave dealer but in my soul I was a Bast the son of a slave. I tell you these things so that you night understand who Patrick and I were and why we picked the paths we did. He had chose to become a hunter of the night a vampire and me I had not yet chosen which way to go. I had been aware that vampires were not just stories for a long time. There were laws against being a vampire. Heck there was laws against even talking to vampires. It was death or slavery at best if a vampire was caught. And here my brother was asking if I wanted to be a vampire. Do I want to be treated like dirt, hated and feared? Did I want to not be able to ever go home? Do I want to have to hide from the sun and drink blood? Or would I rather be crippled or dead? His parting words hung in my mind ‘the god of the bast smiles down on her vampire children’. He came in the night but he did not come alone an older man and a girl came with him. "His lungs are crushed and the lags and back. Patrick even with our magic it will be months before he is on his feet. He will need blood and lots of it. Someone will have to hunt for him. We have no way the risk is to great," the old one whispered. "Just help me do the deed. I will see to the rest let it be on my head. It will be months before he grows his fangs no one will know. I will move him when I can," Patrick said. "Has he even said yes to this. There is no going back does he know what it is to be a vampire," the girl asked. "Who but a vampire knows that. " Patrick asked. "So little brother," he asked. "So you are right I am Mammu’s cub not Mitfords ." I said. He smiled and bit each of my fingers and then each of his own. He pushed his finger to mine they glowed and then I closed my eyes as his blood and mine ran together. His blood ran up my arm hot as fire in my body changing me as it went. My heart jumped and I shivered. The old one bit his own fingers and pressed them to mine adding his blood to the mix and then the girl. I flopped back on the bed felling drained and looked at them when it was finished. Patrick took a small flask from his pocket and held it to my lips. "No silliness about not drinking blood drink little brother," he said. I did as I was told and closed my eyes. "Can I give him animal blood," Patrick asked. "Yes be less risk to get," the older man said. "I know friendly humans who will trade blood for venom. I hate to leave him here with the humans," the girl said. "He will be ok Mammu will keep her cub safe a little longer. You are one of us now Walter little Tiger. You shed the old name and get a new one. No longer are you human. Humans are your enemies remember that. you need not fear the light of day nor anything silly. You are going to change in a hundred little ways. You won’t notice a change at first. No one will but you are a hunter now, a vampire. One of us little brother, I will come back for you but for now I need you to pretend to be human a little longer. I will bring you blood soon," he said and kissed me. My fingers healed before he had gone out the door. I was a vampire. Now what I wondered looking at the tine mark on each finger. One of my fellows would know what the ten tooth marks meant. But would a human know? What do vampires do all day? How do you act normal after you become a vampire?
VIEW FULL VERSION: Link