Take This to Your Grave and I'll Take It to Mine

"Cleo?" My voice was shaky, scared. "Cleo!?"

I was frantically rushing around looking for her.

"Cleo!" I called out this time on the verge of tears.

Everyone was standing in the doorway shocked at what they were seeing. I ran past them towards my room.

"CLEO! THIS ISN'T FUNNY WHERE ARE YOU?" I stopped abruptly seeing her sprawled out on my pillow... dead. "God no." I dropped to my knees only to be caught by none other then Pete who must have followed after me.

I sobbed blood tears into his chest.

I hadn't cried like this in what may have been centuries.

I started to get angry now just that anger that always comes with death rising in me. “Those bastards. My only friend." I pounded on his chest with the side of my fist.

He just held me closer. "Shh, it'll be ok." He was rocking me trying to soothe me.

Everyone by now was gathered around the door just looking at the scene before them. Me crying into Pete's arms and Cleo lying dead in my coffin.

I looked up with the red streams going down my cheeks. "Why? She's my only friend?" I asked with a slightly childish voice.

I looked around and Patrick had a tear in his eye too. He wiped his eyes.

I let go of Pete and turned my body towards Patrick.

"Come here Patrick." I raised my arms up to him; I still had tears running down my face.

He stepped over to me and knelt down and wrapped his arms around me.

"I'm so sorry Erin." He sounded like he was on the verge of tears. "She had been hanging around me when we were home so I wouldn't be afraid of her anymore. But every morning she asked for me to open your door and sleep on top of your coffin. She was so loyal to you Erin. It amazed me." He said these things and my tears just ran harder.

"But, I promise we'll try to be as loyal as her. So she wasn't your only friend. You have me, Pete, Joe, Andy, well he'll come around, and I'm sure Alessa is quite open to the idea of being your friend. So don't worry." He was rubbing my back and just trying his hardest to calm my torn soul.

"She was my other side. She was me, before I hated everyone. She still cared but could throw the insults back, we completed each other." I said softly. "For years that was my only companion and I couldn't have asked for a better one and I'd never change her. No matter how many times I said she talked too much or anything. I needed that from her."

I remembered something. I jumped up out of Patrick's arms.

I was seething when I realized what I had forgotten.

"Sorry Patrick." I said as I just walked through everyone with my tears still making their way down my face.

I stormed back toward the back yard when I noticed that damn bowler hat again. I picked it up and ripped it straight in half and I noticed a note addressed to me.

Erin,
You spoke to our prophet, which bothers us because he wouldn't say a word to us.
Why would he go to you? You the betrayer who only decide to befriend Pete because he'd be a great tool, and you plan on killing him and his little friends when your done anyways. Why you?
I don't even really know if you made the right choice or not.
That's all I know with my dreams, by the way how does it feel not having your powers or dreams anyway?
You have no hope,
William.

I hate him, so much. I shoved this into my pocket and continued on my quest outside.

There was a heavily beaten blind man sitting in the chair and it was just the blind man I was looking to have a word with.

"You knew about this didn't you!" I screamed at him and back handed him right across the face.

"Yes, but you wouldn't have listened. I told you if you didn't start on the selfless path people would die." He said chocking on his words a little from pain.

"What would have changed? There wasn't any time! Nothing would have been different!" I slapped him again.

"The littlest decision can make the biggest difference. Let's say you decided not to and start on the right path William doesn't get the dream. See little things." He said and I'm growing to hate him more and more by the second.

"You bastard you knew everything! I hate you!" I slapped him repeatedly. "I want you out of here!" I said and started to leave.

"Erin Enya Edalene, I suggest you listen to me I have more to tell you." He said in the strongest voice he could get out in the state he was in now.

"What did you call me?" I turned looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

That sounded so familiar, like my...

"It's your name Erin. Has it really been that long that you've been away from your home in Ireland? I bet you haven't visited their graves either?" He was just showing me that he could see all, this was his proof.

My name, God that's something I never thought I'd hear again. I've been using pseudonyms for so long that it's great just to hear the name that I didn't even remember.

"Forget about me. What do you need to tell me that I don't know?" I asked not wanting to speak on the subject he brought up.

"I know Pete is listening through an open window." He said not really pointing out which window.

"Hold on." I walked around to all the windows that faced out to the backyard.

It was my window that he listened through.

"Hey buzz off I'm having a private conversation!" I shouted at him and grabbed the window and slammed it shut.

"Now what were you saying?" In a much nicer tone.

He chuckled at the mood change. "You know you should give him a brake he really likes you."

"Tell me something I don't know. Like what you told me you had to tell me." I said once again agitated.

"Well you do need Peter and the rest of them, because there will be an epic battle that will decide the fate of the vampire race. Which in turn will decide the human's fate as well." He paused gathering his thoughts. "You guys will be greatly out numbered but numbers don't matter. It's faith that wins a battle. On this night Pete has a shot, only one, to get his wish."

"Ok you've said, 'his wish' a thousand times. What exactly is this 'wish' you speak of?" I asked in an aggravated sigh.

"Oh come on, you know what it is. Anyone who's sat down with the boy for five minutes knows." He said back in the voice that just says, 'you know what it is you moron just think about it.' I hate that tone of voice.

It dawned on me. "No. It can't be what I'm thinking. That's impossible."

"Anything's possible." He smiled at me knowing that I realized what it was and I was right.

He has the chance to be human again, but what's going to happen?

"How? How would it work?" I said slightly more strung up then I was a moment ago and I ran my hand through my hair as I often did when I was nervous.

He again laughed at me. "I can't tell you exactly how it works, I don't think anybody knows because it's never happened. Just think of the biggest cliché on how the little storytellers made it happen, that's his way out, but he's only got one chance. He has a great destiny either way, but this is the one he'll be the most happy with." This earnestly poured out of him like water from a waterfall.

"Wait what is his other destiny?" I am a curious one.

"You've already heard about it. He is the one to start an even stronger race with your assistance of course. You can't give him your blood if he wants to have a chance of being human, so it really is your call." He told me because I was supposed to make this decision for him.

Why?

"Because it affects your future too." He answered my unasked question without hesitation. "But he has one perfect time to save himself. On this night in which the battle is to happen it will be a blood moon. It will be a horribly overcast night so you won’t be able to see more then the red glow from the moon. When he goes to complete the act of killing William the clouds will move to expose the full red moon, but it won’t be staying that way. He has to kill him before the moon returns to its hiding place behind the clouds. I can't tell you how long he'll have but once the whole moon is cloaked by clouds again he's out of time and he doesn't have another chance."

"Ok, I still don't get why it will effect my life so much." I muttered.

"You'll understand one day." He said rising and walking over to me and resting his hand on my shoulder. "If you make the decision, you'll still have something to remember him by." He walked towards the back door.

"Could you help me find my way to the front door?" He asked politely.

"Sure." I took his arm and led him to the door as I got lost in my own thoughts.

I thought about the graves in Ireland that he talked about. Which made me think of the funerals and the old Irish song, 'O Danny boy.'

"Goodbye Erin." He said politely as he walked out the door.

"Bye." I said slowly as I closed the door.

I started to sing to myself as I walked back to my room.

"Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.
And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.
And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me."

I looked around the room and Pete must have moved everything including the bed from the attic.

"Erin you have a beautiful voice." Pete said from behind me.

Causing me to nearly jump out of my skin and turn toward him.

"Sorry." He said with his usual smirk. "I got everything moved so you don't have to do anything."

"Thanks. What did you do with Cleo?" My voice was the same sad voice that I knew from all those years ago where I first dealt with death.

"We didn't know what you'd want to do with her so we decided that you'd choose what we do with her." He said in a gentle voice, that made me feel like glass that was only one word away from shattering.

"I want that song, it was traditional to Irish funerals." I said softly.

"Oh we're all great with music. Before all of this," He gestured to his fangs, "Happened we were going to be a band and try to get famous. So what song is it?" He asked excited he really did love music, I always did too and I've gotten to see it's whole evolution and it's only gotten better.

"That song I was singing. I don't know the music, only the words.” I said with a sigh. This was all depressing me.

"Patrick's our singer, he sings really well." Pete smiled at me.

"I'll go talk to him." I smiled back looking him in the face.

Is that a smile your willing to go without forever now that you've become so accustom to it?

Of course I don't need him, I don't need anyone.

Patrick as always was by his desk.

"Hey Patrick." I said softly so he could barely hear me.

He turned and his face softened. "Yeah Erin." He replied softly.

"Well me and Pete were talking about a funeral for Cleo." I paused to collect myself because it was just hard to say her name. "And there's only one thing I want, and it's not speaking or anything it's just a song that was traditional for Irish funerals. Pete said you might help me sing it?"

"Sure. What are the words?" He asked.

"Do you want me to sing it for you?" I asked raising an eyebrow. "I think I might not remember it well enough to sit down and write it down. I think I just have to be going and singing it for me to remember."

"That works I have a fairly good memory." He said shrugging his shoulders in a way that insinuated he didn't care if I just sang it to him.

"Ok." And I sang it for him.

"I think I can remember that." He nodded his head. "You have a beautiful voice you know. For a girl it's deep but still beautifully feminine."

"Thank you, everybody in my day and age was raised to do something with music, and I just had a natural gift for singing. Singing wasn't what they wanted then so my family wasn't proud of me so I sang in a tavern where they actually appreciated it." It was strange to open up to someone about my past, I never had before.

"You don't talk about your past much do you?" He asked after noticing the look on my face that said it was weird of me to speak of it.

I just nodded my head and responded, "I never really have."

"Well what was your family like?" I think he wanted me to open up.

Is he insane? I never open up.

"Royal. But my mom was almost disowned because she fell for an Italian and they already had her betrothed to a royal Irishmen from another part of Ireland. They would have never wanted her with an Italian man because then they loved Ireland’s pure white skin and Italians were dark. So they found about my mother's relationship and put him to death.

"His name was Drago Martello. After he was put to death my mother found out she was with child and they had killed the father. The man she was betrothed to refused to go through with marrying her now and she was left to become a spinster. The only reason she got to stay with the family was because she was an only child and no one else was alive from our family to take over the thrown. So they let her stay in hopes that I would marry well and have a plethora of sons to keep the family line in power." I stopped for a minute unsure of if I should go on or not.

"So why was your family so small? There weren't condoms back then." He said with a quirked eyebrow.

I laughed at his comment. "People didn't live half as long as they do now and this was only shortly after the plague devastated Europe. That killed a lot of my family off even though it wasn‘t huge in Ireland."

"Well tell me the rest of the story like the part with you in it." He said just wanting to know what happened.

I never thought my story was this interesting.

"Yeah Erin tell us about your human life." Pete said leaning on the doorframe at the top of the stairs.

"How much did you hear?" I asked Pete who I didn't know was there.

"All of it. I'm a sneaky bastard." He smiled down at me.

The smile that could make the average girl melt. Lucky I'm not the average girl.

"Then why can't you get your socks back?" I smiled back.

He started down the stairs. "Shut up." He laughed back.

"Remember how I said they wanted more out of me then what I gave?" I received a nod from Patrick.

"Well ok I missed something." Pete said sarcastically.

"It was like that my whole life, but it was my grandmother not my mother. She was the one who took care of me because she said my mother couldn't even take care of herself or she wouldn't be a spinster. I was the first in my family to have dark hair and before I was a vampire I had a darker complexion then anyone in my family. Not dark, but darker. My grandmother hated it. She always powdered my face and made me wear a wig. I hated that, but she didn't care.

"As she got older and I got taller and stronger I rebelled against her more and spent more time with my mother. When I was 16 I was at the market because I had to get out of that damned castle because I hated my grandmother. I saw a tavern. I saw a woman who was a tavern wench singing to the men and them giving her all of this attention. I had never gotten any attention like that because my grandmother kept me away from boys. From the fear of what happened to my mother could happen to me.

"So I decided that I was going to take a job there during the night so my grandmother wouldn't find out. They loved me in the tavern and my voice got me lots of extra money. I lived a double life for a year before I met a man that enchanted me in way that I never knew existed. His named was Andres and he was from Spain so he had dark hair like me and skin darker then mine. He was beautiful and he looked at me the same way I looked at him, with love.

"Not even a week after I met Andres my grandmother told me she had me betrothed to the son of the man my mother was to marry. I wanted to die because I didn't want Andres to die like my father but I didn't want to marry this man I didn't love and wasn't even as old as me.

“I talked to my mother about it because I didn't know what to do. She told me to follow my heart but to be careful so I wouldn't get caught.

“In the mean time I told Andres who I was and everything about my family. He suggested we run away to Spain together and I agreed to go.

"By the end of the same week I had the conversation with my mother, her health started failing her, but she was healthy when I had spoken to her. Another week passed and she was dead.

"I was devastated and couldn't get the idea of foul play out of my head. I was sure that my grandmother had something to do with it.

"The same night my mother died I was in the tavern I was sitting on Andres' lap singing some old, Irish, folk song and I noticed someone watching Andres and myself. I knew he wasn't safe. That night I told him he had to catch the next ship home because our plans wouldn't work because someone knew. We were going to take a ship next month but that wasn't soon enough to save him. So he had to go sooner without me." I paused saddened by the thoughts of Andres the only man I ever loved.

Pete wrapped his arms around my shoulders from behind. "You don't have to finish if you don't want to." He said gently.

"I have to. That night I got him to agree to go and promised that I'd find a way out there someday soon, but before I left that night I gave him something you can only give once to show I wasn't lying. I left him that night in faith that I'd see him again. “Once I arrived home and snuck in my usual way I found my grandmother in my room waiting for me. She yelled and told me she knew about my double life in the tavern and that's why she had to poison my mother and Andres was going to die next. I screamed back about knowing she was the evil whore who killed my mother and I begged for her not to kill him.

“She just locked me in my room and had a guard standing outside my door. I just laid down and cried because I knew he didn't have a chance. Later that day my grandmother dragged me out of my room by my hair. She let go before we got outside and led me by my arm outside. To my horror and dismay there were the makeshift gallows set up and across from where I stood a guard had Andres with his hands bound behind his back. I screamed out, that didn't do a thing except make my Grandmother's smile to grow. I told him I loved him. This caused the crowd to laugh and heckle him and me. I tried to run to him but the guard my grandmother had with us grabbed me and held me back. I screamed his name as they had him stand there and they put the rope around his neck. I saw them make him clime on top of the barrel that they were just going to kick out from under him. I put my head down and fell to my knees as I heard the other guard kick the barrel. Crying, I looked up just in time to see him falling an the rope stopping the fall and snapping his neck. The guard let me go now and I just laid flat on the ground and cried.

“But not for long I got up and this was the first time I'd ever use the phrase 'I had fire in my eyes' to describe my anger. I stood up and walked next to the 'gallows' as I think they're called. I said to them that they were all terrible people and asked if they ever loved, things like that. One of the older people stepped out of the crowd and said to me, 'This speech is only moving the first time, your pathetic mother spoke the same words 18 years ago. I guess what they say is true, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.'

“Profanity of every type flowed from my mouth. I cursed them all a thousand times over in Gaelic. Of course that was the language we were all speaking so their jaws dropped and they started to boo and say things back and my grandmother grabbed me again and dragged me back inside.

“I stayed in my room after the funerals and those are the only funerals I've ever been to and they were both on the same day. Mother was buried next to Dad and Andres next to her.

“The next few weeks (About 6 weeks I think) I only excepted letters from the people who knew how to write from the tavern and I was feeling weird. I couldn't get the night I had with Andres out of my head the whole time I was feeling sick and awkward. I wrote to one of my friends who was a tavern wench, (she was the only one who could read and write) and she had kids, about being with child. She told me to get out of my room and come speak to her in person. So I did, not giving a shit as to what my grandmother would do.

“We sat at a table and spoke on the subject and she asked me about my cycles and I hadn't had them for 8 weeks. From there she said I probably was but she asked what I was feeling that wasn’t normal for me that lead me to believe I was with child. I told her that I was sick a lot, I had to pee more then usual, and I ate more then I used to as well. She told me that I was pregnant without a doubt. So I had to keep this from my grandmother for as long as possible. I didn't know how to do it but I would.

"I started going to the tavern again but this time not to work but to be around people I actually liked. Two months passed and my belly was rounding out and poking out I had to wear more empire-wasted dresses or I’d even dress in men’s clothes sometimes just so no one would notice. The only people who knew were my friends from the tavern. They asked me everyday if I was ok, or if I needed anything.

“My grandmother was starting to get suspicious but she was also very old and her vision was getting bad. I figured that once I was showing to much to hide that she might show me pity and not do anything, and who knows it could be the boy she was dying for me to have.

"The man I was betrothed to died. I don't even remember how. Another two months passed and I was at the point where it was nearly impossible to hide. I was five and a half months pregnant and I don't think I could see my feet any more but in the past months my grandmother almost lost her vision entirely.

"I felt lucky, but she did come to me and tell me someone told her I was pregnant and she believed me when I said they lied. My luck was soon to run out though. I was walking to the kitchen for food and as I rounded a corner my grandmother bumped into me. Once she realized it was me she rubbed my stomach and all the way up to make sure it was as she thought. She realized I was pregnant and slapped me across the face. She told me I'd regret ever being a 'tavern whore' as she called me.

"Another two weeks went by with nothing more then my paranoia getting the best of me but that was to change. I was awoken by the familiar feeling of being dragged out of my bed by my hair. Who ever was pulling was trying to do real damage though, because they pulled me so I fell out of bed on to my stomach. I screamed in pain and was immediately in tears because this could make me lose my baby. I looked up and it was the same wretched guard that held me back the day Andres was killed. But this time he actually looked sorry. I screamed at him and tried to hit him but then was when he started to really do what he was here to do. That was beat me until I lost my child. When he left I was on the floor bleeding, crying, and vomiting. I knew I didn't have a chance.

"My only faithful servant went to get my friend from the tavern to bring her here. She got here and she was hysterical and helped me to the bathroom that connected to my room. She helped me get cleaned up and took me to our physician of the time. I have no idea what he did because by the time I woke up it was done, I had passed out. I just wasn't pregnant any more my stomach was considerable amount flatter but not the way it was or is now. The last part of Andres I had left was just snatched away from me but I would get revenge.

"I went home and rested for a week and once I had my strength back I decided it was time. I got a hold of the most powerful poison I knew of. When I speak of powerful I mean all I had to do was pour it into her ear canal and that would be the end of it. (Shakespeare mentions it in Hamlet.) So I waited until she was asleep. I walked into the room that she shared with my grandfather. You never hear about my grandfather because he was the best I loved him more then anything and he couldn't do much because he was ill and has been bed ridden for years. I crept next to her quietly a poured it into her ear and left the room quickly. Everything went well from there; she was buried far from my mother and Andres.

"My Grandfather called me to his room one day to speak with me. He told me that he knew everything that went on through all the years and he was sorry he could never stop it. He even knew that I killed my grandmother and he forgave me because she killed everyone else so it must have been the right fate for her. He told me that he had an agreement with the king of the nearest land and they are to take rule of this land but I'd get the family fortune.

“I still have money from that. That is the money I live off of now. I have it in lots of banks all over and I have some of it in things to make me money. That's why I never had to work, I'm smart.

“I lived in a small house in the town after my grandfather died I worked then (because I enjoyed it) as a tavern wench again until my maker turned me. So the rest is history." I said ending as strong as I started not letting myself cry for the hellish things my grandmother did to me.

"Oh my lord Erin." Patrick sighed feeling sorry for me.

"No wonder you’re so distant. Everyone that you could trust dies and there are a million people you can't trust at all. I'm so sorry." Pete said turning me around into his chest holding me close rocking me back and forth.

"Did your maker know your story?" Patrick asked curiously.

I pushed away from Pete enough to speak. "They know everything. Blood is life. Drinking someone's blood is a deep spiritual connection." I said and slowly detached myself from Pete. "I think it's time for the funeral before the corpse starts stinking more then she did when she was alive." I said sarcastically.

They both laughed and followed me upstairs where I saw Alessa, Joe, and Andrew standing in the kitchen. Joe had a small box in his hands. Ok it wasn't small it was cat sized. Fat cat sized. Cleo's own coffin. They all looked at me after I abruptly stopped looking at the box in Joe's hands.

The looks on their faces said they felt bad for me, even Andrew.

"We figured you'd be ready to have a funeral for her." Joe said almost in a shy manner.

"Thanks Joe." I said quietly back as he handed me the box.

We all started to walk to the backyard and once we were there were all gathered around the tree where we decided would be the best place for her. Joe dug a hole deep enough for a cat and moved for me to sit the box down.

I nudged Patrick and we sang 'Danny boy' the same song that was sung at my mother's funeral, at Andres's funeral, and now Cleo's.

As we sang Joe slowly and reverently put the dirt back in the hole.

By the end of the song one last tear rolled down my cheek.

Pete walked over to me and wiped it away and tilted my head up to look in his eyes.

"She's in a better place, don't cry for her because she's crying for us." He said simply.

"Why would she cry for us?" I asked not getting what he was saying.

"Because we're still here, and this is hell." He said with deep sorrow in his eyes. He really believed what he was saying.