Resurrection

Seeing my wife and a grown daughter who shared our features, felt less real to me than my own extraordinary existence…but the truth of my own circumstance made this is impossible reality at the very least plausible. I had buried my dead pregnant wife with my own two hands, along with my humanity. Now I felt like I was being given an opportunity to reclaim all I had lost. I was overwhelmed and consumed by fear.

Louis was almost as old as I was and seemed more comfortable with his abilities. He also seemed more certain of my place as the most powerful of our kind, second only to La Safer, whose true agenda and abilities were still mostly unknown. Still, we were cautious in our observation of Sophie and the daughter she called Victoria. The daughter cast an almost maternal watch on the mother who was in the constant company of at least ten vampire guards when she walked the grounds of Antonio’s castle like house.

On this evening she tended to the flowers in the substantial garden with a pained expression in her eyes. This activity had always brought her peace and contentment at our home, in a life that now felt strangely like someone else’s. Now she appeared tired, distracted, and perhaps even afraid. Louis kept a firm hand on my shoulder as a reminder that we had not yet formed a plan and that we should have one before we acted.

But behind Sophie’s sorrowful expression I saw a glimpse of something so familiar and as she pruned a rose bush her lips recited a song that only my wife would know because she created it when she found out we were going to have our first child.

‘My love, my love, we have created a new

A brand new life a replica for true

In their eyes I see me and you

My Nicholas It’s my gift to you…’

I blinked tears away and tried to focus on Victoria. She seemed full of life and promise. She was never far from Sophie and in her erect posture and uncompromising gaze I sensed a strong will that seemed all but broken in my Sophie. As we crouched within the canopy of the old tree, less than half my age we were not only physically camouflaged, but our essences were undetectable to those younger and less sophisticated than Louis and myself.

“What do you see?” Louis asked quietly, calmly looking at me.

“I’m not quite sure.”

“I know you were understandably skeptical when I told you about them, but now that you have seen them for yourself?”

“I believe.”

Louis nodded solemnly.

“What would you have us do?” He asked with his head still bowed.

“I think it best that you tell me all that there is to know about this nest.” I began, once again focused on Sophie.

“Then?”

“Then you, Elizabeth and I will come to them when they are most vulnerable and take what is rightfully ours.”

“What of Antonio and La Safer?”

I turned and looked into Louis’ eyes and spoke with quiet certainty as the weight of our existence settled on me.

“The father and the son must be destroyed Louis, I can no longer ignore my responsibility.”