Dead Wings

You now know who you are, so now you are binded by sacred rules. And you must do as we say or else a severe punishment will overtake you. Your grandfather was a victim of one of our own. As sorry as we are for your loss we need something from him, and you will be the one to take it. Your grandfather, you might not know was a Vamp Hunter. He's been killing our kind for years, and finally it caught up to him. You must collect his skin, and what hair he has left. The blood of our kind still flows through his veins even after death, and you must collect that as well. Do as we say or punishment will commence. Once you have collected these, you must bring them to our hide out on the country side at dawn where your final initiation will take place. Tell no one, and do as we say."

A shiver went down my spine as I read the entire message over and over again, trying to let it sink in of what I had to do. I shook my head, it was impossible this entire thing was impossible; there was no way I was going to do this to my grandfather. What if it was closed casket? I would have to somehow open it, and take his... skin? Also, his blood, did I have to suck his blood like a true vampire would? This was crazy, I felt crazy.

I glanced at the time and saw that it was almost 3 am, the time had flown by that night and I had to be up in a few short hours to leave for the funeral. I turned off my laptop and lay in bed and started to drift off to sleep. Just as I was close to dozing off I heard a voice in the back of my mind and a scream.

I shot up straight in bed and saw the sun shining through my window; I grabbed my phone and glanced at the time. It was 8 am; it didn't feel like I slept at all.

"Emily! Are you awake!?" I heard my mother shouting from downstairs

"Yeah, just woke up. I'll be down in a second." I yelled getting out of bed and glancing at the funeral dress I had picked out.

It was all black of course, and had lace arms and ruffled at the knees. It was a very beautiful dress, but more the type of dress I would have preferred to wear to a school dance not a funeral. I sighed and slid the dress on and peaked in my closet to pick out a pair of shoes to wear, I didn't want to wear heals so I chose a pair of plain black flats with a small bow at the toe.

I decided to just straighten my hair, and applied a light amount of makeup. After I was finished getting ready I made my way downstairs to have something to eat before leaving.

"Wow Emily, you look so grown up." My mother smiled beginning to get teary eyed. She always said stuff like that when I got dressed up, for any occasion really.

"Oh mom." I laughed putting some bread into the toaster and opening the fridge to get some Jam.

"I told your Dad and what's-her-face to meet us at the funeral. I know it's a short drive but someone's going to end up killing each other if where in the same vehicle for long." Mom said putting in an earring in the kitchen mirror.

"Yeah, we don't need another funeral to go to..." I lightly joked which made mom smirk a little.

My toast popped from the toaster and I grabbed a knife out of the drawer and put a layer of jelly and took a bite, after I had finished eating both me and mom where ready to head to the funeral.

*****************

We drove our way through the countryside, the sun started going down and the clouds made their way out and the rain threatened. I was glad I grabbed a sweater before we left or I would have been very cold.

We pulled up into the church parking lot after mom drove around for a while looking for a spot to park. My grandfather had a lot of friends so they were all here as well as family to say goodbye, I knew it would be packed in there.

"Of course your Father isn't here yet; he would be late to his own father's funeral." My mom sighed knowing that this would happen. I shrugged my shoulders and opened the car doors breathing in the fresh country air, I saw a hooded man off in the distance watching me. It was the same man from the other night, who told me who I was.

I ignored his glances and followed my mother into the church, which was packed of people as I suspected. There was no way I would get a moment alone with my grandfather to do what I was asked.

"Oh wow my dear, how grown up are you!" A woman came up to me who I didn't recognize and hugged me tightly.

"Isn't she!" My mother said proudly as the woman finally released me from her hug. "Emily this is your great Aunt Patricia. She used to babysit you a lot when you were a baby, which is why you probably don't remember her."

"Oh!" I exclaimed pretending to be excited about meeting new family. Which part of me was, but also not because they weren't my true family as far as I knew.

My mother slid past the crowd and made our way into the main room where people where lined up to say goodbye to my grandfather, the casket was open but I still didn't know how I was going to complete the task set before me.

"Did you want to line up now, or wait until later?" My mom asked eyeing the long line up.

"I'll wait, there's no rush we will be here awhile anyway the service isn't till 1 pm." I told her, and just then my father made his way into the room with his fiancé. She looked like she was dressed for a party not a funeral, her dress was a sparkly blue and she wore bright pink heals; her hair was done up curly and bounced as she walked. I looked at my mom who rolled her eyes at her appearance.

"Hey sweetie, how was the drive down." My father asked approaching me and my mother.

"It was long." I replied coldly.

"Help yourselves out to refreshments if you please, there's quite a lot that have been brought in by people." My father said walking off to go see other family.

After a few hours of meeting family and enjoying some homemade cooking for the family I was finally in line to say my goodbyes.

"Don't forget what you need to do." A voice in the back of my mind spoke softly, like as if they were right there in the room with me but I knew that they weren't.

I couldn't do any of what I was told to do with so many people in the room. I shakenly made my way up to the open coffin and saw my grandfather lying there; it just seemed like he was in a peaceful sleep but that wasn't the case. He was gone forever, and would never wake up.

I looked around the room to see if anyone was paying attention to me, there was nobody behind me and my mother was talking to some family. So I quickly grabbed a chunk of my grandfather's greying hair and placed it in a tiny baggy. I took out some nail clippers and cut off a piece of skin on his hand and also placed it in the bag. Now the blood part would have to wait, there was no way I was getting away with that. "Goodbye papa.."

I felt my mom rest a hand on my back.

"You okay hunny?" She asked getting ready to say her own goodbyes. I nodded and wiped away the tear from my eyes and backed up giving my mom some space.

I looked around the room and saw the same man staring at me, he had the hood up still and his eyes where bright red. No one else seemed to notice the strange figure; I had assumed I was the only one able to see him.

"Good work, now the final part must be collected." The voice was him, and the message must have been him as well.

I ignored him again and waited patiently for my mother to finish, she made her way back to me the tears pouring down her face; I handed her some Kleenex to wipe her eyes with. Just then the funeral works came in the room and closed the casket, there was no way now to do my needed task.

"If the family could make their way into the service hall first followed by friends and others close to Mr. Peterson that would be greatly appreciated." The man supervising the funeral called out to the crowd as he assisted some men in moving it to the room.

"I'll meet you in there mom, I need to use the rest room." I informed my mother making my way away from the crowd.

"I'll save you a spot at the front." I nodded at her as I broke away and entered the bathroom. I glanced at myself in the mirror, my eyes had become a dark black and I could feel my true form coming on.

"You haven't gotten the blood yet." A voice called out, I jumped at the realization I wasn't alone and saw the hooded man standing next to me.

"What are you doing here?"

"Making sure what was set before you gets completed, the great Vamp does not like his tasks to go undone." He informed me, his eyes glowing a deep blue unlike earlier when they were red.

"How do you expect me to get blood, out of a dead guy, in a room full of family?" I turned and crossed my arms in apprehension awaiting to hear his conclusion.

"With this." He reached into the pocket of his hood and pulled out what looked to be a normal looking syringe. Yet it had two needles at the end instead of one, and they looked like snake heads and not a normal needle. "Stick it onto the casket when no one is looking and the snake suctions will do the rest. Do not touch them with bare hands, they are meant for the dead not the living."

He handed the weird looking syringe and faded away into the air, I stood perplexed but relieved that it wasn't as hard as I thought it to be.

I left the bathroom and made my way into service hall before the ceremony had begun. Sitting down next to my mom she had seemed to be crying some more, I put an arm around her as the man from earlier made his way up to the podium and tapped on the microphone.

"Can you guys hear me in the back? Okay good." He began. "Ladies and gentlemen we are gathered here today to Celebrate the life of Markus Peterson. He was truly loved by his entire family, including his children and grandchildren. Many memories where made with Mr. Peterson that will live on in all of our hearts."

The rest of the service went by smoothly, more people came up to talk and share memories including my father who told the story of how when I was younger we would go to his house for dinner on Sundays and I always cheated at chess. That got a chuckle out of the audience and a major blush out of me.

"That concludes our service for today, you are all welcome to stay behind and enjoy some refreshments and family company for awhile. And if anyone wants to say their final goodbyes please do so now."

Now was my final chance to get this insane task out of the way, I turned to my mom and asked her quietly if I could have some alone time with my grandfather.

"Of course sweetie, I'll be outside if you need me."

I made my way to the front of the room, everyone else had finally left and I was alone with my dead grandfather.

I looked around and seeing that it was safe I took out the syringe and placed it on the casket as I was told to do. The small snake heads opened their eyes and latched on to the casket and began making suckling noises and I saw a dark red liquid begin to poor into the small bottle. It filled up quickly and I attempted to release it from the casket but it wouldn't budge. One of the snake heads looked up at me and hissed and went back to sucking the blood. A panic fell through me and in a final attempt it finally released and I fell backward on to the floor.

I grabbed the syringe and noticed that the blood had begun to glow a bright blue color, the hooded man appeared in front of me and smiled deeply.

"Yes, perfect. Tasks are completed and the blood of pure Vamp don't forget that tomorrow at dawn to meet. I will give you the location once it draws near." He faded away and I was once again alone in the room.

Just then a high pitch scream was projected from the lobby.