Two Bodies One Soul: Brothers

By Alannah King

The Maverick coven holds a meeting pointedly for its two youngest and strangest members. Twin vampires that are adults trapped inside boyish bodies.

Tristen and Lukas are to be formally melded into the family frame by way of an induction ceremony, one such event that Maliki believes will harm the family and put him in the line of danger.
Maliki plots with one of his lovers as to how to handle the problem without either of them being fingered as the culprit. Together the couple decide to trick a local band of nameless rouge vampires into attacking on the night of the party and kill the twins before they can upset the balance.

Jaquelin knows about the induction and has spoken to Jak about the twins becoming more instrumental to the family. Jak tells her that such will not be the case and they will remain mostly hidden from the outside world as they have been for their entire lives within the clan.
Thinking the treatment unfair for the two vampires, she disobeys Jak and takes the twins into the town of Harding so that at least once in their lives they may taste freedom. During the visit Tristen breaks away on the streets and meets another vampire that calls himself Vincent Summerset and tells Tristen that he, the small weak undead, is his master and he wishes to serve him again. Before he can explain the vampire flees as he hears Luke and Jaquelin returning only leaving Tristen with a brass pin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524684921

Alannah King

Alannah King was born in 1991 on September 23rd at the army hospital at Fort Bragg during a horrible thunderstorm. A sheer sign that she was either a creature of massive power and destruction...or only destined to write about such monstrosities. And write she did. As early as the age of six she was already writing sequential pages of stories, complete with scribbles that were most likely depictions of the tale being told. Throughout her youth she was fed a diet of fantasy stories bursting with shining knights atop sturdy white steeds and fiery dragons to battle forlorn heroes. And thusly did her heart follow, enchanted by these tales of majesty. On into her middle and high school career Alannah acquired a taste for the horror genre, and she ate up as much of it as fast as she could. Everything was fair game, from the famous vampire to the midnight slasher all the way down to the crummy B grade monster movie...none were safe. This affected not only her writing tremendously but also her art and helped to add realism and tragedy to her tales of whimsy she was already beginning to spin. All her life she's wanted to write. And all her life she has been preparing stories for the world to get lost in.

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© 2017 Alannah King. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/20/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8491-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8492-1 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter One Assembly

Chapter Two Problems

Chapter Three A Family Tree has Many Branches

Chapter Four Back Biters

Chapter Five Brink of Disaster

Chapter Six One Door Opens Another One Closes

Chapter Seven Paved in Good Intentions

Chapter Eight Carnal Carelessness

Chapter Nine Trust

Chapter Ten Trials of Loved Ones

Chapter Eleven Reliance

Chapter Twelve Changes

Chapter Thirteen Calm Before the Storm

Chapter Fourteen The Storm Rolls In

Chapter Fifteen The Storm

Final The Sun Comes Out

About the Author

The sun is a phoenix. With each new dawn it takes fiery wing across the sky, as unchallenged as a king and just as powerful, only to crash back into it’s grave in a display of burning reds and golds. It then rises up anew the next morn and repeats itself over and over again unceasing - for all eternity.

I too am like this.

I am Samuel. I am the second Adam. And there is no creature subject to the pain of death that is like me. Just as our sun who has no equal in the heavens, there is no star that can compare and the moon hides herself from him in shame for her lacking. He calls the world his home but he is without another. He is alone and uniquely made. And no matter how many times he searches his world the truth remains.

So too do I fall victim. I have looked without end, I have devoted my all to this pursuit with no reward. I live as a king with no court. I rule a kingdom, but my subjects are beasts that do not comprehend.

And as I live over and over again in this endless loop I loose hope that there is anything more than this for me.

Only the rising and falling in repetition like the sun. Living as a king and dying like a fire, and being born again and again only to the same effect.

But a voice still lingers. Still whispers to me in my waking and sleeping in a quiet voice.

I’m waiting, still waiting for you, And though I know I will never find this phantom I still find my feet pointed after it and my body being pulled toward it’s pleading call.

Chapter One

ASSEMBLY

T he sun set against a canvas of royal purples with brilliant streaks of red and orange playfully smeared across the greatest expanse of sky. Brazen stars twinkled in the waning light of the dying sun; too anxious were they to wait for the final breath of twilight to adorn the heavens. The fresh summer grass swayed in the breeze in a synchronized dance with the branches in the silhouetted trees as though they were waving off the fiery sphere to its slumber. Finally the last ray of careless yellow light was licked up by the night and all became dark – he stirred.

His eyes snapped open so suddenly that they stung. He threw up his hands and covered his pained orbs. It was always like this, had always been like this. It mattered not the season or the place. When the sun set his body jolted, regardless of his sleeping state or no, snapping him to a rude and sudden awakening.

He lay like that for several moments; his hands against his eyes, his mouth ever so slightly strained, and his body rigid and cold as iron. Slowly he took down his arms and stared into the tangible darkness that engulfed him. He had dreamed while the world was awake, yet he could only recall the skirting of the vision as it was chased away by his waking mind. Now he was left with only a foggy image and an empty feeling he was forgetting something important.

‘’Why?’’ He whispered into the the void. He continued to look into the darkness as though he waited to hear an answer, but the darkness had no answer; only patient listening ears with which to hear, as all good shadows do.

So, with no forthwith reply, Lukas thrust forward the heels of his hands and pushed back the lid of his coffin. A streak of heavy light snaked in and scared off the shadows to the farther corners revealing a small boy lying within that crypt. A small and unimaginably beautiful boy of only eight or nine. But to see him one would be full of dread for the unseen secret that lie within that tiny body. Like a frightful picture secured in a lovely frame; a vampire.

Hastily Lukas pulled himself from the coffin and came before a large iron wrought mirror.

This was his game, a cruel and masochistic practice that he tortured himself with. The lad came swiftly to the smooth surface. An enchanting boy stood looking back with an anxious expression on his round delicate face. Luke pulled back his shining blood colored curls from his face and all but pressed his nose against the mirror. He turned his head first right then left; his milky blue eyes ever scrutinizing his features. There were another few twists of his head with no more satisfactory results and Luke let down a handful of hair and traced his jaw with his bone tinted fingers. Locks of long red coils fell gently on his cheek as they were released and cheerily bounced as the curls uncoiled and recoiled sending little shimmers of light on the mirror as they did.

A depressed sigh escaped the youth and the rush of air whistled in his empty lungs.

‘’At this point,’’ He spoke out softly. ‘’I’d be happy for as little as stubble,’’ and that was the truth of it. For even though in appearance Lukas was a mere child, in mind and spirit he was a man, and so had been for some time now.

Luke.tif

They had been discovered over twenty years ago, yet for all that time they’d not grown at all by measure of the body. But the mind was not such a easy thing to suppress. Lukas was every bit an adult in action and thought, but was confined to this prison of a corporal vessel. Though this had been the case for at least the last two decades Luke persisted in checking himself nightly to see if anything had matured in the day.

With a disappointed frown he let loose his dashing hair in it’s entirety and let his arms fall limply to his sides. He dallied no more than that. With all swiftness he went to his closet and began to change out of his linen resting clothes and into his more presentable wear. A pair of black dress pants, a flowering sleeved cotton shirt, and of course his leather buckle shoes. He poked about in the closet more until he came across a silk vest. With a grin he pulled it down and put it on over his shirt. After which he again set himself before his mirror and took care to button the vest and admire the decorative silver buttons emblazoned with little foxes. He inspected himself in the the looking glass as he finished. He noted his shoes had diminished in their usual glamor, he began to head back for the closet for his shoeshine. But as he started to redirect himself, a loud chime burst and echoed through the entire mansion. Luke paused to regard it as a second chime followed the first.

‘’That’s unusual,’’ he commented. He turned himself to investigate his windows. The night had only taken it’s first breaths and the horizon was still pale with heavy shades of blue to contrast the devouring black sky.

‘’Evening has only barely begun,’’ He added in after the quick inspection. Though he knew all this he still rushed in gathering up all his hair and roughly began braiding it as he made his way to the door.

He exited his room and entered into the dim hallway. He hated these passages. They were always eerie to him. The walls were adorned in portraits of persons of import in history. Though all these people accomplished great things and lived mostly well lives, not a single one put forth the effort to smile for their picture. All their expressions were sour or stoic and their glaring eyes seemed to follow you as you passed by. Side tables were set against the walls for every twenty feet or so, all in sturdy oak with dark stains to match the embroidered royal blue carpet that divided the wooden floor. And on every table there stood a silver candelabra with four candles in it. One for each of the heads of the Maverick coven. Candle light was cast along the walls creating patches of oranges and yellows, but also leaving blotches of shadow that seemed all the darker in comparison. They fell upon the portraits and gave the stiff faced cast an even more befittingly unpleasant appearance, as though they themselves were creeping out of framed pits.

Lukas did his best to not look upon those faces. They made him uneasy. So he set his eyes downward as he passed – such was his practice now. Thus was his march as he made his way down toward the dining hall; the place they were to meet when the bell was tolled. On the norm it was a call to the breaking of fast and where one might be given their duties for the night. But on an ordinary night this was held an hour after sunset, not just after. So Luke was swift of pace as he sensed this might be of more weighty matters.

As he made his way down the long hall he went by many doors. The Maverick manor itself had more room than the somewhat small family could ever have need of, this was the case the majority of the time - unless the entirety of the Maverick clan were assembled. Which is why the house was so large, so there would be room enough for all in such a case. But that only happened for celebrations or some rituals. Luke halted at one of these doors though. It was like all the other doors in every way – save one, this door had a occupant behind it. This was Tristen’s room.

Lukas looked on down the passage, but all was quite. Usually he could hear footfalls that should have been Tristen some distance ahead of him. But not this night. Feeling that this was all very suspect he breached the two steps between him and the portal. With a stiff wrist he knocked twice and the hard door enlarged the thunk thunk that it produced. He paused the length of a breath; but took none. Silence.

‘’Tristen,’’ he spoke out ‘’Tristen? Are you there?’’ More unhelpful silence. Lukas sighed despite his patient nature, the air rushed out to create a deep whistle sound.

‘’Stubborn as usual, consistency has always been your strong point,’’ he whispered to the lonely hall. ‘’Tristen, I’m coming in,’’ He announced as he slowly turned the handle. The red haired vampire half expected to hear the clink of a fastened lock, but no such thing came to be. The door glided open on it’s well greased hinges, welcoming the intruder within.

The chamber was spacious, very nearly twice the size of Lukas’ room. But where his room was prim and as kept as a scholar’s study, Tristen’s room was more an organized disaster. Piles of books were towered across the room with only little alleys of floor between them were one could tiptoe around the space, several large bookcases stood along the walls and each was crammed to bursting with tomes and scrolls, and even the sturdy desk in the far corner was burdened with its share of documents and writing implements. But for all that was in the chamber it was somewhat orderly. One (with some effort) could see that the piles of books were alphabetized starting with A at the desk and ending at Z near the door, the cases were assembled based on content, and even though the desk was weighed down the papers they were well stacked and the wells and quills neatly organized and within easy unthinking reach of a writer.

Lukas tread carefully into the cluttered room. He did fit so well into the narrow runways with his childish body. A moment later and he successfully came to the center of the room and stopped to survey about him.

‘’Consistency,’’ his brain whispered as a light grin spread on his face. ‘’Tristen,’’ he said aloud ‘’We’re being summoned,’’

In a whirl the leather desk chair spun and there seated within it, as a single pea in an entire pod, sat his mirror image.

The look on Tristen’s face was a collaboration of shock and anger. But that dissolved quickly as a chuckle escaped Luke.

‘’That seat does not be suit you brother,’’ Tristen’s retort started with a scoff.

‘’Lukas, I dare to say that nothing in all this world ‘’be suits’’ either one of us,’’ Defeated on the point Luke could do little more than bow his head and nod.

‘’So it would seem. Can I assume then that your remedy did as little as my own?’’ he pressed. Tristen waved a hand at him, as chubby as any nine year olds.

‘’Need you even ask?’’ Another nod from the younger twin.

‘’Perhaps then this is why we’re being summoned so early,’’ Luke said with his voice catching a more positive tone. ‘’Perhaps…!’’ But Tristen wouldn’t hear.

‘’It’s not that, it will never be that…’’ Tristen scowled harshly at Luke. ‘’A man in mind, but in spirit you are still an idiotic child,’’ he sneered coldly. ‘’Just like our damned bodies…’’ Lukas shrunk back at Tristen’s venomous words. They hurt him as surely as the sting of the sun, yet he had no way to combat against those disenchanting truths. So, as he did with the sun itself, he avoided them.

‘’Even so,’’ Luke ventured, his face taking a slightly more serious expression. ‘’a summoning is still a summoning and as we are at the mercy of the Mavericks, it is better we show,’’ Lukas put on a brave smile and gestured for Tristen to follow.

‘What a good dog you are Lukas,’ Tristen thought to himself. But he didn’t voice it. No, he’d thrown enough barbs Luke’s way this night. Or at least this early. So in good brotherly love he sparred his twin the words and came down from his seat and shadowed him out the door. He easily caught up to him and they walked side along side as they entered the dining hall.

It truly was a grand space indeed. A one hundred foot long table took center stage with plenty of room to mill about around it. And upon the finely polished surface was a velvet running table cloth of royal blue and at each end of it was a silver stitching of a fox running through a patch of flowers with petals fluttering out behind it; the family crest. Above that there was a golden chandelier that hung down a curtain of diamonds that scattered white light over all the room like a fanciful sun. The walls here were different as well, they were more than just the wood paneling like on the second floor. These walls had moldings on them that ran three feet up. The molding itself was of a mighty oak that had twenty-one branches that stretched their limbs to connect with all the other molded trees branches. And on each of these individual limbs four flowers blossomed.

It was all very symbolic. The tree itself stood for the Maverick coven and the branches the twenty-one divisions of that coven. And of course the flowers were the heads of the clan themselves existing with and separate from the branch, just as a flower. Above the molding the wall paper was a simple sky blue, a nice contrast to the complected impression. The room itself was well lit, easily the brightest space in all the manor. The chandelier made that possible but the wood stains and the lighter tints of blue also lent strength to that factor. Yet for all the splendor the room offered one to gaze at, all the twins could see were the giants of the Maverick clan.

They were not giants by stature, (though to Lukas and Tristen that may be the case as neither of them were even five feet tall) but rather were so in their station in the clan itself. Few in number they made the hall look abandoned, as though they were the last stragglers of some pompish ball. They were even dressed to the part.

There was the lowest on the totem, Zachariah, who sat at the table with his hands folded in his lap and a neutral expression on this squarish thin face. His hair was neatly tied off and his clothes were ever so crisp, to look at him though you may think him a man of wax. He never blinked never shifted - as though the pressure made by the other three attendees had compressed him to a stone.

The next on the line of power was Jaquelin. She was the youngest of the four but she was only the third lowest in power. She had a carelessness about her, as to say this meeting were nothing more than a distraction from something far more important, and she displayed this by occupying herself with fiddling with her silken black curls as she beamed a radiant smile at the two twins.

Farthest from the other three was the second in command, Maliki. He was lazily leaned against the corner of the door frame catty corner the portal the twins had used to enter the room. A devilish grin warped his sharp good looking face.

‘’Ah, so they finally arrive,’’ he said his voice dripping with equal parts sarcasm and malice. ‘’How thoughtless you children are to leave us waiting so very very long…’’ That incited a reaction in Tristen as he now stood scowling so lowly one would think his eyebrows would drop into his pupils. But if he was stewing up a hot retort it would have to boil over as a single word halted even the air.

‘’Enough,’’ The voice was as authoritative as it was unshakable. This was the voice of Jak Maverick, the clan master of the coven. He sat as a rightful king in his dining chair, strait backed and proud. Though his large size dwarfed his throne, his broad shoulders were wider than the arms of the seat after all. He was youthful by appearance, his face had the look of a man who’d only seen thirty winters, but his eyes betrayed him. He had eyes like ancient tomes, weathered and faded in their binds holding all the hardships of the world in their rigid sapphire glow. And he now cast those very old orbs on Maliki now.

‘’Sit,’’ It was an unarguable command. As were all of Jak’s words. If every thing that Maliki spewed were a vicious wind storm banging and screaming so that all could hear, then Jak’s were as a single boom of thunder; so powerful that all stood still to take notice.

Maliki could only make an annoyed ‘’tsk’’ as he came to rest beside his elder brother; his long silvery hair wisping behind as a princely cape. Lukas and Tristen also took their seats. They sat beside Jaquelin whom was next to Zak. She smiled sweetly down at the smaller vampires and then she giggled despite herself.

‘’Lukas,’’ She whispered gingerly bending in closer to the red head. So close he could smell her floral perfume. ‘’you still can’t braid your hair on your own?’’

‘’Well I was rushed and…hey?!’’ was all he manged in a whisper himself before she leaned down all the more and undid his hair and began to redo it, smoothing it with her hands and fingers through the glossy red locks. In so doing now she was pressed up against the childish vampire, her ample breasts pushed against his shoulder and her curtain of black hair washing over his head and face. He flushed as brightly as any undead being could, something that only translates to a grayish pink hue across his cheeks. He braced himself against the chair and tightened his lips, unsure how to react with Jak Maverick just across from him. Next to him Tristen glared fiercely and his lip curled in a snarl though he remained quiet. He gripped the arm of the seat with his nails so hard that he left scratch marks in the grain.

‘’Jaquelin,’’ Jak said frustrated but without the bluster of his former authority.

‘’Just go on,’’ she chirped. ‘’I’m still listening,’’ She was the only person immune to Jak’s power. She feared him no more than she feared that the sky would plummet down on her head to strike her down. And this lacking was not born of disrespect of Jak or even ignorance of his influence, rather it came from the fact Jak had raised her as more a spoiled daughter than suppressed underling.

So Jak merely shook his head knowing that any further argument would soon be exhausted by a pair of fluttering blue eyes. Instead he redirected himself at Luke and Tristen.

‘’This meeting this night is not of the common sort we are accustomed to,’’ he began. ‘’It is of the utmost import, particularly to the two of you,’’ That information alone was enough to enthrall the ears of all at the table. ‘’Come the next new moon you two will be inducted into the Maverick coven,’’ he paused and closed his eyes. ‘’Officially,’’

With those words this meeting should have come to its conclusion with only a few tasks in preparation for the event assigned to everyone as its finale. But there was one in attendance that simply would not let that be so.

‘’I must protest!’’ It was half excited shriek and outright yell but it was all Maliki’s. All the group was his audience alone now as all the eyes swiveled to him. ‘’This is foolishness,’’ he went on without waiting for permission from Jak to speak, his outrage preventing him from conforming to laws of the house as he agonized on.

The patriarch allowed it though. He often thought Maliki’s weak and selfish rebuttals amusing – pointless and selfish as they often were.

He simply sat straight backed and watched with open ears, a dangerous glint in his old eyes.

‘’What cause do we have to grace them with the protection of our family? How do they better us?’’ he spouted on, his gray eyes aflame in passion, dull to any disrespect he was performing in the name of his argument. ‘’They are but children and are weaker than even those lowly dead that can not even so much as feel or taste. And I know you plan to argue that they are men, but that is sheer rubbish!’’ Now he pointed at the twins. ‘’Look at them now and tell me they are more than boys! That very appearance ALONE is reason enough for the rest of the clan to rebel!’’

‘’We’re more worthwhile than you!’’ Tristen screamed back standing in his seat and pounding his palms into the table as he leaned over it.

‘’Tristen, stop,’’ Luke pleaded meekly. All the while Maliki shook his dashing head and crossed his arms over his chest.

‘’Let me speak bluntly so that even you may understand,’’ His voice was condescending and he spoke slower now as though he were, in fact, addressing a small unwitting child. ‘’The other covens try very hard to topple one another and we are a smaller family. If we go and bring little children into our flock the others will have their excuse to finally gather against us and eliminate us Mavericks. They’ll think we’ve broken the cardinal rule of enlisting children… or that our tastes are like pedophiles… We’ll be deemed filth and pay with our heads. Is that simple enough for you to comprehend?’’

With a hiss Tristen lunged at the upstart but Luke caught hold of his waist so that he only managed to throw himself against the table edge pushing the long wooden surface forward in a jolting scrape against the hard flooring.

‘’Enough!’’ The yell was so great that it rippled the air. The table trembled fearfully and several chairs fainted from the sheer force of it while the chandelier tinkled lightly like soft scared sobbing.

‘’Enough,’’ He repeated now at only an aggressively raised level. ‘’I will not suffer quarreling in my household, at my table!’’ His tone raised with every word until the last one was a shout that rattled the chandelier even more forcefully than before so that it clanged above their heads. ‘’Sit,’’ He commanded Tristen. And with more than a little bit of