The Haventon Chronicles One: Haventon Born – Chapter Six Part Three

January 3rd, 2012  |  Published in Haventon Chronicles

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Author’s note: Sorry if there are more errors and clunkiness than usual but my beta still hasn’t had chance to edit chapter 6 (what with christmas and New Year) so these are still going up raw. Sorry folks.

Haventon Born

Chapter Six Part Three

Michael was sleeping when the death link snapped into focus. The always unexpected pain of it made him sit up with a gasp. In the three centuries since he’d risen he’d lost several young ones, so he knew immediately that something was wrong with the link. Every other time it had been powerful and vividly clear, but Ian’s link was cloudy and occluded. Someone was trying to stop them communicating. In a way it was a blessing – experiencing someone’s death as they did was harrowing – but he could sense Ian was desperately trying to communicate something to him. He strained to hold on to Ian’s mind and make the link clearer, but all he gained was a fleeting impression of a dark haired vampire who had somehow paralysed him and an image of the hunter’s face. At the last instant the link cleared and he heard Ian’s voice.

I am sorry, Michael, you were right. You were so so right. Then the young vampire was gone and Michael collapse back onto his pillow with bloody tears stinging his cheeks. It wasn’t unexpected of course. This sort of thing was never unexpected. And from the resemblance to Sarah and Emma he guessed that the hunter must be David. He couldn’t even bring himself to be angry with the boy. He was only doing as he’d been taught and there was compassion in him and the first signs of a dawning comprehension. No wonder Leisa had taken a shine to him.

It was a very good thing that he was coming here tonight. Michael had picked up enough to know that David had broken the rules and spoken to Ian. He’d have to make sure the boy stayed over – he might be able to find something out from his mind. Because if he understood what Ian had been trying to tell him then something very dark and dangerous was going on. The very concept of a vampire who was attacking other vampires with some unknown power was frightening. And Ian’s last words were equally disturbing. What possible connection could all this have to Ian’s werewolf hunting? Ian had certainly felt there was one.

Which meant he’d have to tell Sarah and Meredith about this. It was possible the vampire in question had a similar problem to him with werewolf hunters, but was more proactive about it. They might be in danger as well. He climbed out of his bed and headed down to the office where Sarah was working on the web site. He rapped quietly on the door frame to get her attention and she looked around in surprise which faded to worry when she saw his expression and the traces of his tears on his face.

“Michael? What’s wrong?”

He considered several ways to break the news to her but in the end he discarded all of them in favour of bluntness. “Ian’s dead, Sarah. David killed him. The death link woke me up.”

“Oh God!” Sarah raised her hands to her mouth in horror. “I’m so sorry.” She took a few breaths and closed her eyes. “I’ll have to tell Meredith, of course. We’ll need to send someone to collect his journals.” She chewed on her lower lip worriedly. “Are you still okay with Dave coming over this evening?”

“I’ll tell her,” he said. “I’ll need to tell Leisa as well, because someone had paralysed Ian before David got there. They blocked the clarity of the link as well.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “And don’t worry about David coming over, I’m not mad at him. From what I got over the link he seems like a good kid – I see why Leisa likes him. I need him to stay the night though, because I think Ian might have managed to communicate more to him than he did to me.”

“Ah.” She gave him a wan smile. “You’re going to read him?”

“Actually I’ll probably get Leisa to do it. She is more familiar with his mind than I am, so she is less likely to do him an accidental damage.”

“Okay.” She nodded and blinked back tears. “Damn! I liked Ian. He was a good kid, even if he’d been a little wonky recently.”

“Wonky?” he asked curiously.

“Meredith thought Rhianne might have got her claws into him, he was getting a bit overzealous and talking about possible ways of screening entire populations by dosing the water. Right up until Meredith pointed out that both silver salts and aconite were toxic to humans as well.”

“What a strange idea. It wouldn’t have worked anyway.” He gave a sigh. “There’s more but I’ll wait until Leisa gets here to tell you the rest.”

Start | Chapter Six Part Two | Index | Chapter Seven Part One

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