Chapter 2

I led the horses into the barn. They were still saddled, one with a pack harness, the other with my newly acquired, custom made, Wilson saddle, and took the time to remove them. I threw a bit of alfalfa into their feed-bins, thinking about Anita, and closed the heavy barn doors of metal to keep the bears out.

I walked to the north side of the house and removed my clothes and continued down slope through the open meadow. I raised my arm as I walked and pulled at the sky with my power and began the process of gathering the moisture into thick coagulating clouds and one horrific churning wave that would create a lot of electricity, in line with her direction as I continued northward.

When I looked up, again, being inside the thick woods for ten to fifteen minutes, the sky had turned an unnatural green. It was ready, so, I closed my eyes and summoned the first bolt of lightning.

The sound alone would have killed a human being and possibly shaken up an undead, but I was not entirely human, nor was I vampire.

I kept my eyes closed for just that momentary flash and rode the blinding bolt a mile into the sky and ten more into the northern distance. I let the lightning bolt die out just below the cloud layer where it flickered from existence while my body catapulted further up through the storms violence.

The wind hissed like a torrential river and I sensed cold water and ice as I flew ever upwards into the clouds. When the trajectory took me to a moment of floating, without any sensation of gravity, before descending out of the massive cloud layers, I enjoyed the feeling of flying through the air and its swirling winds and felt perfectly comfortable and natural in these elements.

The unnaturally formed, but active lightning, crackled with electrical sparks all around me and tickled my ears, in its unbridled directions, as I began to fall, letting and encouraging the wave in these clouds build for my next jump, some of those bolts striking me, but feeling very little other than noting that it was there. It actually feels good, like a powerful bold of emotion, but it didn't harm me. I'm immune to that sort of thing.

I scanned the area, below, as I descended, looking through the flora in the last direction I'd sensed Anita running -- and did not see her. She was very fast.

I hit the ground with a deep echoing thump but immediately jumped from the crater and summoned another, longer bolt of lightning.

It carried me further north this time, twenty or so miles, and as the bolt flickered out, I opened my eyes again, looking through and past the trees and thick brush of the land with my strong eyes, and saw her off in the distance, almost on the horizon. I let myself fall to the earth, keeping my eyes on her and in her exact direction.

I landed on stone this time, some kind of granite, and it shattered into thousands of shards, taking out several trees and impaling many others. I stood where I landed and called in another bolt. It took me up and within easy sight of Anita and I fell within a couple hundred yards of her. I began to follow the young vampire, looking into her mind and reading every facet of her life, cutting through trees like an artillery shell, heading straight for her.

I didn't want to catch Anita and bring her down. I wanted her to weary of her flight and my following, to know it was fruitless, and have her let go on her own accord.

She looked back at me as she jumped a ravine in full flight. She knew I was there. But she missed-stepped her landing, and went tumbling into the earth and stone on the far side, gouging out a deep trench but was up on her feet for another five miles before slowing.

The clothing I'd given her was almost completely torn away and only shredded pieces of the jeans and the belt remained on her body. She knew I was there, behind her. She slowed then came to a bumpy stop at the end of the valley we were in and slid to the ground, weeping, arms and legs flopping wildly in a tumbling sign of surrender.

My heart went out to her. I hated to see this young woman in so much pain.

I came up behind her and stopped. I was ten feet away when she sensed my closeness and spun like a screaming banshee and tried to get up, but I fell onto her and wrestled with her anger, hands, and teeth flashing as she tried to destroy me. I thought it best, keeping her on the ground, and she eventually ceased her struggle to rise, while she swore and kicked at me and the dirt. The soil looked as if a backhoe had been digging in the area, but even those ceased. Still, her face was contorted into an ugly, angry snarl for one so young, and she strained, off and on, to break free. I finally took her power to move away till she was limp in my arms, forcing her to calm down.

"Shhhh!" I said, "Shhhh! It's okay. It's okay. I'm not going to harm you," I spoke, moving stray bits of hair off her face and holding her like a small child.

I stroked her head and kept a firm grip on her then gave her some ability to move and a lot of my warmth, letting it build up inside of her until she felt it in her immortal body, that human kind of warmth that she now recalled, and the sensation had an effect. It made her look up into my eyes and something in her changed for the better.

"How did you do that?" she asked. "That is human warmth. You are not human."

"No. I am more than that, I told you."

A bolt of lightning flashed nearby, lighting up her face with a heavenly glow of brightness. I was keeping the storm active and felt the tingle of the bolt through the earth and air.

"What are you?"

"I'm not sure, Anita. I've never met my kind, before. My father hadn't either, but I only mean you good. I will not hurt you."

"You cannot hurt me," she spat, still rebellious.

"I wouldn't, intentionally, no. I won't do that. But we can live happy, Anita. Won't you come home with me?"

"Why? So you can make love to me? Is that why you come here without clothes?"

"I came to you on this," I said, holding my hand out and away from her, watching her face for a reaction. I let String-Lightning hit my hand and linger, dancing there in my palm for about three seconds. I wanted her to be impressed. "The clothes can't survive it when I travel this way."

There was a pause as she considered but I knew she marveled that I could do such a thing.

"I am Vampire. Lightning is endurable to me, but not good. I cannot move in this manner," she claimed.

"I can, my little cabbage," I said, having seen that her mother and father had used that expression. "And I will protect you, if you stay with me."

Her eyes flashed to mine. "Do not use your skills to placate me, half human, or whatever you are. My memories are mine and I do not wish to remember those things."

"Your mother loved you, Anita. She still does, as does your father."