Chapter 32a - Generation 2 - Tapestry

I am a little troubled by something that Crystal had said to us while she was here in the den, a few days ago, when Tapestry was rooting around in her head.  It has been playing on my mind for days to the point where I am struggling to think about anything else.

The name of her spirit - Saffron Shine is ringing loud alarm bells in my head.

When Crystal said the name Saffron Shine, I did not really think or pay too much attention to the name, because there are probably a thousand Saffron Shines in this world, on both sides of the fence, mortal and immortal.  

It was when she called him Saffy that the bells started ringing.

Okay, so I guess it is probably perfectly normal for someone called Saffron to have the nickname Saffy ... maybe? I don't know! ... but I have heard Sunny say that name so many times it is ridiculous!   Sunny has talked about his brother, Saffron who he called Saffy, so much in the past, especially when we were at school.  He has told us so much about Saffy that I feel like I know the fella, inside out, and I have never even met him.  I am actually not very surprised that he named one of his children after his older brother who he so totally idolized, almost obsessively.  
 

I have to laugh at Sunny, he is very family oriented, I am not really surprised that he ended up having eight children.  I am not surprised he could not watch his daughter fade, and why he had me turn her before that happened.   The same reason why he can not now cut ties with Honey and his Grandson, even though both of them are now living in the immortal world, which he is far from comfortable with.

I know Sunny was devastated when his brother faded because of a stupid accident when Saffy was a teenager, it almost broke Sunny and I am not sure that he will ever get over his brother fading!!  Then when his new born baby sister faded, before he even got the chance to see her,  Sunny thought that his family was cursed and it would be his turn next.  He thought his life was destined to be very short.  That thought changed Sunny, after his sister faded, he changed and became a totally different person, but it changed him for the better, he became a lot less serious and a lot more fun.  He wanted to enjoy as much of the short time that he thought he had left.  Little did me and Cosmic know at the time, while Sunny cried on both of our shoulders, it was me and Cos, who's days were numbered, not Sunny's!!  Both of us hardly had chance to get used to our adult life before it was cut short and our time as a mortal was over.

When Crystal said Saffy I automatically thought about Sunny's brother.  The bells started to ring even louder when Amber Meadow is mentioned and the colour yellow and Tapestry said that the spirit was a teenage boy ... it makes me feel like this is all a little more than just a coincidence.  It is just a little too much for my brain to take in and ignore ... I have to find out for sure!!

Of course I could be way off track, I could just be letting my imagination run away with itself and it could all be just one mad coincidence - but somehow I do not think so!!!  I just have a very strange feeling about it all.  If I am right about what I am now thinking ... it would be pretty ironic and Sunny is going to be in for one hell of a shock!!

"Where is your head at Jazzberry?"  Honey snaps at me.

I am usually in her bad books when she calls me Jazzberry, which irritates the hell out of me because only my parents ever called me by my full name.  I hate hearing my full name because it always makes me think about my parents, which I try not to do because it still upsets me, not being able to have any contact with them, and having to let them think I have faded.

I did not even hear Honey come into the room, so deep in thought, she has probably seen that I have been staring at the same spot on the carpet for ages while I have been letting my imagination run riot.  She is so demanding, she hardly gives me a minutes peace.

Shadow starts to cry so I get up off the couch and walk over to his cot.  As I lean into his cot and pick him up, I see that this has Honey pulling faces at me.   She kills me sometimes, she hates any attention that I pay to the boy, her son, that she can not even stand looking at.  I seriously do not understand her.  Just looking at her standing there with her hands on her hips reminds me that I am still mad with her for what she did a few days ago!! 

"I am just wandering what we are going to do if Tapestry realizes that the vampberry that he saw in Crystals head was you?!"  I snap back at her.  I am not going to tell her what I am really thinking about - it will just give her something else to nag me about!!  "I still  can not believe you were STUPID enough to go spying on Tapestry and Crystal and stand right in front of them after everything we had agreed!!"

"Not this again!!  It is getting boring!!"  she snaps at me  "Like I have already told you, I was curious I wanted to see what he looks like grown up."  she starts laughing  "I really do not know why you are stressing so much over this - he is too THICK to work it out!!  He will never guess it was me, he thinks I have faded and she only saw me for a split second ... how do you know that he saw me in her memory anyway?"  she frowns at me

"He is far from thick that kid!!!  He told River he saw the vampberry woman in Crystals memory.  She might have only seen you for a split second but berry knows how long he sat staring at you in her mind ... Berry help us if he works it out!!"

"Trust me he won't!! He is an idiot, he is colourblind and has not seen me grown up so I doubt he would even recognize me anyway ... Tapestry does tend to need the stupidest of things pointing out to him even when its there blatantly staring him in the face!!"  she frowns at me  "So what has he been told?"

"We have had to feed him with another lie.  River has told him the vampbery woman that he saw is Omri's girlfriend who came to visit ... I hope for everyone's sake he buys it and forgets about it or YOU could well have messed everything up ALREADY!!"

"Stop nagging and put the brat down!!"  she says as she starts smirking at me  "You give him more attention than you give me!!"  Oh here we go, this only means that she wants one thing.

"Not now Honey I have things to do ... you can make yourself useful for a change!!  Shadow needs some more bottles making up, there are none left in the fridge and he will need feeding again in a few hours."  

Honey pulls a face at me.  She hates having anything to do with her son.  She is just like Maizie both women who should be Motherly don't have a maternal bone in their body's, even Lime has shown more interest in the boys crying than they do - it is me and Omri who are having to do everything for Shadow, not that either of us are complaining, but the boy needs a Mother and he definitely will not be getting one here!! 

This makes me really angry when I know Celeste would have been a good Mother for the boy - it was all that she ever wanted, a baby. I think she would have given anything to have had a baby of her own.  It breaks my heart to know she would have loved Shadow when his own Mother can't.  I recon Celeste would even have kept her mouth shut and not told the originals about Tapestry in exchange for the baby.  In the months leading up to Shadow's birth this has been eating away at me, I have wanted to wake her up to find out if I could have brought her silence with the baby.   In the end I just could not take the risk of even waking her up. 

Honey also complicated things, her binding with me has made it virtually impossible for me to ever wake Celeste up anyway.  The bind between me and Celeste is broken, which probably happened when I plunged the dagger into her chest and she solidified.  Waking her would not have rebound us as I am now bound to Honey, for my sins!!

"Honey PLEASE!!  It will save me a job if you make Shadow some bottles up while I do what I've got to do THEN you can have the attention you want!"  I smile at her.

I laugh at her as she smiles and says okay as she heads off towards the kitchen to make up some bottles - she is so easily bought!!  Then she is not normal for a woman, she only ever seems to have one thing on her mind, sex.  I remember Cos telling me once that she was killing Tapestry, he was struggling to keep up because she had them at it like rabbits, now it is my turn.  I never imagined it would get to the point where I would have to find excuses to continuously dodge it, because if I don't that is all we would ever be doing, left up to Honey.

I stare down at Shadow who is now silently sleeping in my arms.  I am a little, no VERY nervous, worried and scared about how he is going to turn out!!  At the moment he is just doing normal baby things - he is drinking milk, he appears to be sleeping like any normal baby does. he only seems to cry like a normal baby does for the normal reasons and he seems to be very content.  I actually find it a little strange that he is behaving like a mortal baby would, I never expected this, especially that he sleeps and as yet has not tasted blood, he is thriving on baby milk which does not make sense to me!! 

I put Shadow back in his crib and stand watching him sleeping.

This whole vampire baby thing is a little worrying because this is very much the unknown.  I have never heard of their being a baby like Shadow before born as a vampire - and he is a vampire and not a vampberry, you can see that by his red marked eyes.  There are no books that I can read, there is no one I can ask for advice, there is nothing to help me bring up a vampire baby because as far as I am aware it has not been done before, and if it has, it has been kept very quiet.

He will be an original vampberry, the first of his kind.  This is a very scary thought!!  He is going to be completely orange with the original eyes, that is if he keeps his orange skin and hair, it might change, he might look like an original by the time he has fully grown up with the pale skin and black hair, I just do not know!!  The not knowing - this is the scary part!!  What also scares me is the fact that he will be stronger than me, when he gets older I will not be able to control him, he will have both the power and ability to control me.  I only know one person who has the capability of controlling his mind at least - Tapestry, as he is able to get into and control an originals mind, which is something that us vampberrys are unable to do.

The last thing I want to do is have to bring Tapestry in here to control the boy, so I have to make sure that I get this right with Shadow. I have got to make no mistakes raising this boy and hope that I can steer him in the right direction to being a good person, and not an evil moster!!  I think Omri has a better chance of helping me with that, he has lost none of his mortal emotions and I have only lost a few of mine.  Keeping him away from both Maizie and Honey is probably the best thing, because I do not want their cold hearted selfishness rubbing off on the boy!!

  

If ever Shadow turns out to be bad or evil, we are ALL in trouble, not just us vampberrys, but also probably this town!!!  I have to keep pushing these thoughts to the back of my mind, they are my worries for the future.  He is still a baby yet, these are the least of my worries right now.

It is the whole blood thing that worries me most at the moment, he has not yet had any, he drinks baby milk not blood.  When will he start needing it?  Should I actually be giving it him now?  While he appears to be content like this on just baby milk I feel that he does not need it but I do not know, it is scaring me not knowing what is the best thing to do for him.  When he does start taking in blood is he going to become a wild animal like most newly turned vampberrys?  Oh berry I really wish I knew what I was doing!!

I think my biggest fear is the originals finding out about Shadow's existence.  I do not doubt that they will take him away - he will become their test subject and I never want that for him, just like Tapestry and now Crystal if they ever found out what they are capable of doing in mortal form.  Besides it will probably be instant disposal for me Omri and Maizie because we have been hiding Shadow when our duty should be to hand him over to them.  Our disposal for hiding him would be our punishment and also to keep Shadow's existence a secret - the originals like everything to be hidden away especially from us vampberrys.  If only they knew half of what Celeste has told me they would have disposed of me especially a long time ago!!

My phone starts to ring, Mango's name flashes up on the screen. 

  

As soon as I say hello to him, he is off and rambling.  I stand listening to him telling me that Vanilla, Shadow's twin sister, has gone missing out of her cot during the night and they think someone has come into the house and taken her.  I am a little shocked hearing this and wander who would want to do such a thing.

"Jazz I need to check, you do still have Lime safely locked up don't you!!"  Mango asks me and I laugh at him.  I guess Lime would now be his only worry, but he is worrying needlessly.

"Yes of course we do Mango!!  I can hear her evil thoughts right now so Lime is not your baby snatcher!  Mango I doubt she even knows that Vanilla exists anyway!!"  

I laugh at him for a moment then realize I should not really be laughing, I would not be laughing if it was Shadow who had gone missing and I can only guess what he must be going through, after everything he has been through this past nine months, it never seems to stop for him. 

"Mango I would help you if I could, but I can not do anything because of the daylight, but I will send Storm and Cosmic over, when i find them, to see if they can help find her!"

I am not surprised that Mango only asked about Lime.  Mango has had Honey and Shadow faded in his head.  He could not live with lying to Tapestry and his family about their existence forever.  He was already cracking under the strain and I can tell he is not very comfortable with this whole vampberry thing.  Now that this is all over, he refuses to come near the den, which is a shame, because I know I am going to miss him like I did before.  This is why I hate my life and hate being a vampberry, even my own school friends can not look at me in the same way and I know exactly what is going through their heads because I can hear their thoughts. 

As soon as the call is cut off with Mango my phone starts to ring almost straight away again.  This time it is Sunny, I guess I should have expected it.  While Sunny's head has been left untouched, he still remembers everything,  Sunny is here nearly every day to visit Honey and Shadow, not that he gets to see that much of Honey, she is so cold and heartless now, she does not care about anything or anyone, including her own father and son, which I know is really upsetting Sunny.

"Honey has not had a mad fit of spite has she and snatched Vanilla from Tapestry's?"  he asks as he is panting, it sounds like he is running.

"No mate!!  You know she does not want Shadow so I doubt she will ever go anywhere near Vanilla, she is not even curious about the little girl!!"  I laugh at him  "I've just had Mango on the phone and before you ask, it is not Lime either!!  I have told Mango I will send Cosmic and Storm out to help look for her."

"No don't bother them, if it is not Honey or Lime then I know who it is going to be Strawberry!!"  he laughs  "I doubt it will take us long to find them!"

Sunny sounds like he has stopped running now but he is out of puff.  He explains why he thinks it is going to be Honey's twin sister Strawberry.  

"Sunny do me a favour, when it has all settled down, can you remind Mango our supply is running low, I would have asked him just when he phoned, but he was flapping, you know what he is like!!"

"Yeah okay!"  he starts to laugh  "I'll phone you and let you know if we need Cos and Storm, but I doubt we will!"

We end the call because he is just going into Mango's house.  Sunny tickles me, he does not doubt for a second that Cosmic and Storm are still around even if he can not see them, whereas Mango is forever doubting.  I sometimes wander how Alpine would take to our immortal lives now?  I think he would be a lot like Sunny and just take it, it is a shame that his brain damage stops us from even taking the risk of showing ourselves to him. I would love for us all to be together again, but I know that is never possible, unless he becomes one of us.

I push my phone back into my pocket and turn to look at Shadow again, he is sound asleep.  I run upstairs to the kitchen and take out a bag of blood.  I sigh seeing that our supply is starting to run a lot lower than I thought.  This is where I really miss River, he always kept the fridge well stocked up, and took that worry away from me.  Now I have to keep bugging Mango, who I know is not too comfortable about stealing blood from the hospital for us.  I wish there was a way round it where I did not have to involve Mango.

After I have fed myself, I go back downstairs to check on Shadow.  I hate leaving him alone for long, I know if it is left to Honey she will just let him continuously cry so me and Omri try to stay around him as much as possible.

"You need to give that kid a break, you are going to suffocate him!!"  Cosmic says laughing as he floats through the wall, almost scaring me to death with his sudden appearance.  "You and Omri are like a pair of Mother hens, you both never leave the poor kid alone!!"

"HELL!!  I wish you would stop making me jump!!"  I laugh at him.

In a way I hate spirits, they are undetectable to us, we can not hear them or read their thoughts, Cosmic and now Storm are both springing up on me when I least expect them too.  I only know they are there by sight or by hearing them talk.  It always reminds me of the first time that Cosmic jumped out on me and showed himself to me.  I had been visiting Cosmics grave late at night, I was just stood there staring at it and thinking.  Suddenly he just jumped out at me.  It panicked me, not realizing who he was at first.  I had not been a vampberry for very long and was still learning the ropes, up until that moment I had never been so up close and personal with a spirit before.  

I had seen plenty of spirits wandering around since I had been turned, and was still getting used to the fact that spirits exist and that ghosts are in fact as real as vampires.  All I knew about them was that they are stronger than vampires and vampberry's, as they have the advantage of being able to physically touch our solid form, whereas we can not touch their ethereal form.  The vampire world and spirit world, as a rule, do not generally mix, but of course, me and Cosmic were always going to bend those rules!! Being mates for life came first, our different life form states, was just an inconvenience.  Neither of us chose to become the immortal being we now are, it was the hand that Lime had dealt us. 

"What's up Cos, are you feeling left out?!  Are you jealous of the attention Shadow is getting, just like Honey?"  I laugh at Cosmic but he pulls a face at me and reminds me that babies always make him think about Twilight, his and Lilly's stillborn son, who he still gets upset over.

"Sorry mate ... I forget!!"  I smile at him sympathetically.  "I was just about to come looking for you, I have got a job for you to do."

"Celeste?"  he says smiling at me

"No, something else."  I smirk at him because he thinks I have not noticed Celeste has now vanished from the cold room.  "I'm sending you both on a little holiday. You might need to take Storm with you too because he knows the area."

"How am I suppose to do that on top of everything else you have got me doing here?"  he moans at me.  He is running a little ragged at the moment trying to keep his eye on Tapestry and Crystal as well as being camped out at the police station keeping an eye on the closing of the case to make sure no nasty surprises spring up.  He starts laughing suddenly.  "You haven't even noticed have you!!  When was the last time you visited your dear departed wife?"

"I know she has gone Cos!!  I don't want to talk about it!!" 

I pull a face at him.  I knew he was going to do it sometime, take Celeste's body out onto the roof to leave out in the sun, when I was not watching and around to stop him.  It is what we had agreed on - I could not have watched him take Celeste's body out knowing he was taking her to be disposed of completely.  I noticed yesterday that she was no longer here and have spent every minute since trying to distract myself, trying not to think about her and stopping myself from tearing up onto the roof and bringing her back inside. 

"Just make sure you go and fetch that dagger off the roof when it's done ... we might need it again in the future!!"

"I got sick of your bitch nagging me to get rid of the ex!!  I am sorry Jazz!!"  he looks at me awkwardly.  "Omri has already got the dagger, along with her jewelry.  Jazz it is done, she has gone!"

I gasp suddenly and close my eyes.  I feel like my legs are going to give way from underneath me as the shock hits me, I can not believe she has gone.  Cosmic starts to apologize as he holds me up.  We stand in silence, for quite a while, until I have composed myself and I can tell him not to stress because I know it really needed to be done, for all our sakes.

Just keeping her here, in her frozen state, was running the risk of her waking up or the originals might visit and find her - Celeste being disposed of completely is what I should have done from the start but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  I have found it very hard to let her go, my mortal emotions getting in the way.  I have been ruled by my heart and not my head by keeping her here for so long. 

"So come on, don't leave me in suspense!!   Where are me and Storm going on our little holiday?  I hope it's somewhere nice!!"  Cosmic snaps me from my thoughts.

"Rainbow Valley and Amber Meadow."  he pulls a face at me  "Am I right in thinking that you spirits, only tend to stick to your own and who you know - you wouldn't go bonding with just any old random mortal stranger?" 

"Not as a rule why?"  he frowns at me  "Although, in the case of Tapestry and Crystal, I think any old spirit might try to bond with them as they can see and communicate with them - it is nice to have mortal contact when you live this side of the fence."  he smiles at me  "Does this have something to do with Saffron Shines spirit by any chance?"  I smile at him I wander if he has been thinking along the same lines as I have.

"Yeah, Cos, cast your mind back to school, do you remember Sunny's baby sister who faded not long after he came to the boarding school - what was her name can you remember?"  I ask him thoughtfully, not really expecting him to remember.

"Yeah, it was Magnolia."  he laughs  "It is funny you should ask that, I only know because I watched Sunny kick off not too long ago - he was not impressed about Cherry and Affair calling one of the triplets Magnolia because of his sister."  he frowns at me  "Why are you asking about his sister anyway?"

"Oh no reason, it does not matter!!  I think my imagination probably ran a little too far with that one!!"  I laugh at myself for even thinking it   "I am not even going to tell you what I have started to think, because you will probably think I am nutz!!"

"So come on - our trip to Rainbow Valley and Amber Meadow - what is going on in that head of yours?"  he frowns at me.

"You are going ghost hunting!"  I smirk at him as he looks at me like I've gone mad for a moment.  "I want you to try and track down this Saffron Shines spirit."  he rolls his eyes at me  "I want to know who he is?   If he is related to Sunny?   and why he was hanging around Crystal?"  I scratch my head for a moment  "More importantly, I want you to try and bring him back with you!!"  he frowns at me.  "He might have some idea why Crystal and Tapestry are seeing spirits plus I want to know about those vampberrys that he was helping Crystal to fight off!  He has got to have come up close and personal with them, he might even know them."

"You know, Crystal did say the spirit left years ago, it is more than likely he has passed over."  Cosmic starts to mumble.  "This will probably be a wasted journey!"

"Well if it is a wasted journey, so be it, but I HAVE to know!!  Just think, if it is Sunny's brother and you bring him back with you, Sunny will be well stoked!!"  I frown at him because he is now having hysterics.

"Yeah he would be very stoked if he could damn well see him!!  You forget Sunny does not see us you idiot!!"  he continues to laugh at me.

"Okay smart ass!!"  I roll my eyes at him.  "Track his grave down, did you not tell me once that you spirits can tell if the grave is occupied or not."

"Yeah,  we can tell who has passed over and who is still here."  he smirks at me  "You know there are now three "fake" graves in Sugar Valley cemetery!"  I frown at him  "Honey and Shadows graves are fake graves,  headstone and no bones."  I smile at him now realizing what he is saying, then frown at him wandering about the third one.  "There is another one tucked up in the corner of the cemetery ... Shale Rock ...  That grave has never had any bones in it either.  His wife and baby's grave contain bones, but his doesn't."   I just laugh at him as he starts to muse.  "I wander if Gravel Rock, knows his fathers bones are not buried in that cemetery?  I have seen him putting flowers on his parents' graves, but never the babies which I find strange, especially as he gave his son the same name as the faded child - Slate!!"

"Forget the Rocks!!  Just find Saffron's grave, then check it out.  Try Rainbow Valley cemetery's first, just in case there is a Saffron Shine buried there.  Then Amber Meadow, where you will definitely find Sunny's brother's grave, next to his sisters grave.  I have asked Sunny he has visited the graves so you will find them there.

"Have you already told Sunny?" 

"No I have not told him anything yet,  I just did a bit of fishing."  Cosmic laughs at me "After you have scowered Rainbow Valley cemetery, even if you do find a Saffron Shine grave there, I still want you to check both Saffy's and Magnolia's graves out.  I have just got the feeling her grave is going to be a fake one."  he looks at me wide eyed then starts laughing.  "If Saffy is still with us ... find him.  If he has passed over, come home!"  I smile at him.  "You never know you might end up bringing two Saffron Shine spirits home."  I smirk at him and he just laughs at me and calls me a twat!!

I tell Cosmic to make sure that he goes and explains to Tapestry why he and Storm are going away for a while.  The last thing we need Tapestry doing is missing them, especially Storm and coming here to the den looking for them.  I am not comfortable about Tapestry not being watched, but what else can I do.  My biggest fear is that he will try to come here for some reason and spot Honey or Shadow.  If he does come, I will not know he is here unless I physically see him, he is undetectable to us, like spirits are, and could slip into this place unnoticed if he has a mind too.

After Cosmic leaves to find Storm, Shadow starts to grizzle so I pick him up.  I still need to do something before Honey returns to pounce on me so I go in search of Omri, to see if he can watch Shadow for a while.  I do not have to go searching for him, because once I tune into my surroundings I can hear Limes thoughts and I know that Omri is down in the basement with our green pet.  This irritates me a little because I have tried to keep the baby away from Lime.

I walk down the steps to the basement and see Omri sat on the chair, close to the cage, they are deep in conversation, he seems to be having quite a pleasant discussion with Lime, he is telling her all about his family that he has had to leave behind, now being a vampberry, his family that he still misses.  I will always feel a little guilty for that, but it is not like I did not give Omri the choice, of the certain premature fading because of his illness or more life on this earth becoming a vampberry.  He chose to be turned, but I sometimes now think that if we could roll back time and he had the choice given to him again, he would not have taken the vampberry route, he would have just accepted his lot in life.

Lime must be in a civil mood today, I am amused, I can hear her thoughts and she is actually feeling sorry for him, because she knows exactly how it feels.  She seriously does pine after Prelude and strangely she does miss her children, Parsley, Storm, Forrest and Pine in particular.  I wander why she never really connected with her two girls, who she barely knows. 

As soon as I start to make my way down the steps Shadow starts to grizzle again which attracts Limes attention.  She instantly gets up off the bed and moves towards the bars and stands there staring at me and the baby.

"Can I see the baby?"  she says as I approach the cage.  I frown at her for a moment, wandering why she would even be interested in the baby  "I keep hearing him crying, but I have never seen him before."

At first I think she might be up to something, but I listen to her thoughts and she is genuinely curious about the baby, she has no evil thoughts in her head.  So to satisfy her curiosity, I open the cage door walk in and close it behind me.  She wants to hold him, she does not tell me but I can read her mind.  I laugh at her.

"Try anything, and you know what you will get!!"  I say as I hold the baby out to her.

She takes Shadow off me carefully.  I must be mad, I do not even know why I am doing this.  I suppose it is because for once she does not actually have any of her evil thoughts in her head, she is actually genuinely ... I would even go as far as saying she is broody!!  This shocks me!!  

I know that Lime has six children, but I can not imagine her being any sort of Mother to them.  I remember Ice telling me once, when she had just two boys, that Lime was surprisingly actually a pretty good Mother.  I did not believe her!!  However, as I stand here watching her now, rocking the baby and talking to him, and listen to what is running through her mind ... Ice might have been right!!  I am a little shocked and amused!!

"He is Tapestry and Honey's baby isn't he!"  she smiles at me when I tell her that he is  "Does he know that Honey and his baby are here?"  I listen to her thoughts for a moment, she is very confused by it all and is genuinely curious.

"No he does not, and it is staying that way for everyone's sake!!"

"Jazz how did she become a vampberry?  Did it happen when all those vampberry came and drained her and Tapestry?"

I really am not sure why but I end up explaining to her what happened to Honey, from start to finish, as well as how Shadow became a vampire when his twin sister did not.  Lime already knew that Honey was pregnant and she was confused as to why Honey is now a vampberry and here with the baby, who she did not realize is also a vampire.  I guess she is down here most of the time kept in the dark about everything, Honey has been down here a time or two to feed her, but has not really spoken to her, and she has heard the baby crying.  Omri has refused to tell her anything like Maizie has, because I have told both of them not to tell her anything. 

"Is Storm here right now?"   she asks me as she starts to look around her a little nervously. 

"No, he has gone away for a while with Cosmic, they are doing a job for me."  I smile at her.  "However, he does avoid coming down here, you are not his favourite person right now, especially for what you have done to Lilly, Alpine and Ice."  I laugh  "Also he blames you for Honey and Shadow!"

I am a little surprised by her thoughts as she looks down at the baby she is holding.  I just stand and listen, almost in shock, it is almost like she is mellowing.  Being locked up in this cage all the time, with virtually no company for most of the day, has beaten her down, she is virtually defeated and being pleasant because she is just grateful to have some company for a change.  She gets very bored and lonely down here, which has given her a lot of time to reflect on her life and everything that she has done!!  She is being 'nice' in the hope that we will start to spend a little more time down here with her.  I can not help but be very amused by this.  However, I am not going to let this fool me for a moment, I know how sickly nice she can be one minute and how quickly she can switch back into evil mode.

"OUCH!!"  she says as she looks down at Shadow and holds out her free arm to me.  "The little blood sucker just bit me!!"  

She was stroking his head, her arm pretty accessible to him with a turn of the head.  I laugh because I felt her pain, which she actually made worse for herself by pulling her arm away quickly, so his teeth tore through her flesh.   She is holding her arm out and I can see the blood bubbling up on the surface of her skin from two little teeth and scratch marks.  Omri, who is still stood outside the cage watching us and has probably been trolling through her head like I have, hisses.  He smells the fresh blood in the air, he tells me he is out of here and shoots off up the steps.  I take it he is hungry as I laugh at his quick exit.  Shadow starts screaming, like I have never heard him scream before.

I check Shadow's mouth, I had not noticed that he has little fangs growing already.  His gums are all smooth all but for the two tiny fangs growing either side of his mouth.  This makes me laugh, now I think he has tasted blood it is game over.  I wander why he has not tried to bite Sunny who is always here with him whenever he gets the chance.  Shadow trying to bite someone is what I think I have settled my mind on waiting for him to do, but did not expect it to happen until he was a toddler with a full mouth of teeth.  

I squeeze Limes arm a little to help the blood to pump out a little quicker,   She snatches her arm away as she scowls at me for a moment, but it is not like I am hurting her.

I explain to her what I am doing so she does not kick off or try to walk away.  It is just a good job that I have not long had a feed, so the smell and sight of her blood now freely running down her arm is not troubling me like it did Omri.   

Lime continues to stand there and holds her arm out for me again, while I wipe her blood onto my finger and place the finger in Shadow's mouth.  He really starts to suck on my finger quite hard, he even sinks his tooth into my finger, but he is not going to get anything out of me.  He screams when I remove my finger, so I wipe some more of her blood on my finger and repeat the process.  I can tell he is loving the blood that he is sucking frantically off my finger.

"Give him your arm."  I laugh at Lime as her eyes widen  "He is only a baby it is not like he will drain you dry."

"Not on your life!!"  she snaps at me  "Go raid your blood bank - I am not his dinner!!"

 I guess the very last thing I should really be encouraging him to do is learning him how to bite and feed off mortals.

"It looks like you have just given him a taste for blood!"  I laugh at Lime who is just standing there staring wide eyed down at the baby attacking my bloody finger.  

No more blood on my finger Shadow starts to scream the place down.  

Definitely game over!!

I take Shadow off Lime and let myself out of the cage and lock the door behind me.  Shadow's high pitched screaming has me running up the stairs with him.  I go into the kitchen and get some blood out of the fridge.  Omri takes the blood off me and fills up a bottle with the blood.  I have never heard Shadow scream so much, Omri stands there laughing at him because I think he knows.  

Omri hands the bottle of blood to me and I feed it to Shadow.  His little arms and hands start flapping, almost in excitement, as he sucks frantically on the bottle.  This makes both me and Omri laugh.  He definitely has the taste for blood.  I have never seen him attack a milk bottle with this much enthusiasm!!

"It looks like he has just graduated onto vampire food!!"  Omri starts laughing.

We are both feeling a little lost in knowing what is best to do for Shadow.  Omri has children, he is well accustomed to looking after a baby, whereas I am not, never having any of my own.  Most of the time I am having to follow his lead and ask his advice.  But of course Shadow is no ordinary baby!!  We stand debating, while we watch him attack the blood.  Does this mean he needs all blood feeds?  Do we continue to give him baby milk in between?  How often will he need blood?  Our questions are never ending!!

"You know it is probably a good thing we start him early, he can not really go wild being a baby can he, hopefully he will be over the blood craze by the time he is walking."  Omri mumbles quietly.

"Yeah, I guess you are right!!"  

I guess he does have a very good point and I should really have thought about that.  Newly turned vampberrys are a nightmare to control sometimes, depending on how strong their will power is, however, every new vampberry suffers from blood craze.  Some worse than others!!  We can smell a mortals blood running through their veins, from a mile away.  Old vampberrys can control the urge to sink their teeth in, and the blood smell does not really bother them unless they are very hungry.  New vampberrys can not control themselves, the slightest smell of blood and they are sinking their teeth in.  They go wild at the slightest smell of blood, especially spilled blood.

"We will need to warn Sunny too, for a while he will not be able to hold Shadow unless he has had a blood feed."  I laugh  "He might not actually be able to hold him at all, until after Shadow has been through his blood craze, or Sunny might end up looking like a pin cushion!!"  

"Maybe we should go and test him out on Lime once he has finished that bottle.  We have the perfect guinea pig down in the cage to test how he reacts around mortals."

We both stand laughing at each other for a moment.   

"When do you think he will get his venom?"  Omri suddenly frowns at me. 

"Oh Don't!!"  I suddenly get horrible visions of Shadow as a toddler turning Sunny, or even worse Lime into a vampberry not knowing what he is doing.  "Fudge!!  I never even gave that a thought, we are going to have to watch him carefully around Sunny and Lime!!!"  I pull a face at Omri  "Let's just hope his venom is like mortal sperm and won't be able to do any damage until he is in his teens when he will be old enough to understand what he is doing!!"  this makes Omri laugh for a moment.

Honey walks into the kitchen and frowns at me and Omri as she watches me place the empty bottle on the side.  I am guessing because I sent her to make bottles in our kitchen downstairs, and I told her there were no more milk bottles left in the fridge.  I tell her that Shadow is drinking blood not milk and she just rolls her eyes at me.  I know she is not really interested, but I tell her anyway.  She has to know that her Dad needs to be warned before he picks the baby up again, not that she really cares.

"Omri can babysit!  You promised me some attention after I had done the brat some bottles."  

Omri starts laughing because he must know what she is after, what she is always after.  He takes Shadow off me and smirks at me, which is not really helping me dodge this!!  I so wish I had got Omri to turn her sometimes, then this could have been his hassle not mine!  

I am kind of amused by Honey's behaviour as she grabs my hand and tries to drag me off in the direction of the bedroom.  She reminds me so much of her Mother, Ruby, when we were in school, back then I loved having sex on tap, it was every school boys dream, which me, Sunny and Alpine took full advantage of.  However, after a while it does get very tiring. 

I suddenly smell and hear Sunny. 

"Sorry Honey, it will have to wait, your Dad is here."

"Oh you have got to be joking me!!"  she snaps at me.

"No, I am sorry!!   I have some important things to discuss with Sunny, that really can not wait"  I smile at her as she scowls at me.

I tell Omri to follow me and bring Shadow.

We both quickly escape the kitchen.

"Well dodged!!"  Omri sniggers

We both walk down the corridor, in Sunny's direction, laughing.

~~~~