Chapter Nineteen

Forcing himself to stay away from Dawn was more difficult than Mateo imagined it would be. He had every intention of being with her last night and again tonight, but things were not going so good in his village.

The previous evening, when he had awoken from his daylight slumber, he learned Rafael’s mate, Lydia, had gone into labor with their latest dhampyre. His grandmother and mother, as well as Anton’s mate, had been attending the birth as was the custom of his clan. For the first time in their history, something had gone horribly wrong.

As he returned from the bottom of the mountain where he had gone to get cell service so he could call Dawn to make their dinner date, he saw his grandmother waiting for him. Her poignant smile tugged at his heart. He forced a weak grin when he walked up to take her out-stretched hand.

“We are ready to begin,” she said in a soft tone, motioning for him to accompany her. She was wearing her best ceremonial dress made of soft cream colored deer skin. It was knee length with long fringe hanging almost to her ankles. The same trim edged the shoulders and cascaded over her arms. The intricate beading decorating the upper body of the ancient dress was exquisite and fragile. This gown was worn for the most special of occasions, and today, one of the saddest. Her long thick black hair hung in two braids over her shoulders and was adorned with eagle feathers. She was beautiful and regal. As always, Mateo filled with pride and awe knowing she was his grandmother.

As they entered the sacred circle where they would perform the primitive curing ceremony, he saw his own parents standing beside the pit where a massive fire roared. They both wore their finest ceremonial gowns, and were as impressive looking as his grandmother.

He drew in a heavy breath and smoothed down the front of his heavy leather ceremonial shirt. In traditional Apache fashion, it was decorated with striped raccoon tails and brightly colored ribbons. In his hundred years, he had only worn this shirt and the matching leather leggings a dozen or so times before. Those times had been happy occasions when Anton and Rafael each brought their mates to the village and when each of their children had been born. Wearing them now felt so uncomfortable.

He watched his grandfather walk up to the fire pit as another strong sense of pride washed through him. Drago was without a doubt the most extraordinary man he had seen or known. He, too, wore his best ceremonial shirt and leggings, but he also wore an elaborate headdress made of eagle feathers and porcupine quills.

Mateo’s mother motioned for him to come to stand beside her as the ceremony was about to get underway. Tonight, they would pray to the Gaan, the Apache reference to spirits of the mountain, for guidance. Then, they would ask the Apache God, Usen, to take the spirit of Rafael and Lydia’s stillborn dhampyre son to the Apache afterlife. Although these ancient ceremonies were traditionally conducted when someone passed away in the Apache tribe, they had never been performed by Drago’s Clan before now.

Lastly, they would perform the curing ceremony to hopefully rid the Clan of whatever curse had been put on them to bring this tragedy upon their village. Always before, dhampyre children were born strong and healthy; their fragile human genes were infused with the nearly indestructible genes of the century old vampires who sired them.

The previous night, however, after an especially long and grueling labor, Lydia had given birth to a boy who was beautiful and flawless in appearance. But he never took a breath regardless how hard the women attending the birth tried to revive him. The remains of the tiny infant were now wrapped in a blue and tan woven blanket and laying on a rock altar built beside the fire pit.

Mateo stared at the tiny lifeless bundle through the flickering flames of the fires. The death of this dhampyre was the most tragic thing to ever happen in their village, and it left the entire clan in a state of disbelief and shock. His grandfather instructed members of the Clan Society on the Apache Reservation to get in touch with other society members from Blood Clans in different parts of the world to see if any of them experienced such an unexpected tragedy, or if any of them had heard of a stillborn birth in all of the Blood Clan’s history.

Late last night, Drago called a meeting of his entire clan so they could discuss different theories as to why this misfortune might have occurred. They wondered if a new and unheard of virus could be affecting the Clan, either from the blood supplies they drank from or the tainted environment itself.

In the three centuries he lived, the senior vampire had seen so many changes already. He talked about the human blood sources they needed for survival and how he was concerned they were now contaminated with synthetic food supplies and numerous diseases. He worried the air they breathed was filled with putrid fumes and toxic wastes that drifted up from the world of the real ones. Nothing was pure in this world anymore, he warned.

Drago even suggested perhaps some of the venomous infections of the real ones, like cancer, were somehow infiltrating the strong immune systems of the Blood Clan. If this was true, their entire existence could be threatened. Once again, he contemplated if the time had come to cut all ties with the modern world and live in total seclusion as the clans in olden times had done.

As Mateo had listened to his grandfather speak the previous evening, he realized the changes he felt were imminent for his clan could be the exact opposite of what he was hoping for. He envisioned they would soon find ways to live among the world of the real ones without living in dread of extinction.

But his grandfather was constantly suggesting they become even more reclusive than they were now. In spite of how much Mateo loved and respected his wise grandfather, he knew if Drago ordered them to stay on the mountain and never go down to the world of the real ones again, he would have a difficult decision to make.

His heart ached now as he watched Rafael approaching the fire pit, holding his sobbing wife against his side. Lydia’s face was pressed into her mate’s chest and her body shook with inconsolable sorrow. She wore a white shawl over her black hair and a loose-fitting buckskin dress. Rafael was decked out in his ceremonial suit like the rest of the clan. They stopped next to the alter that held the lifeless body of their newborn son.

Anton and Nita appeared next, leading all the dhampyre children of the clan. Their six children walked beside Anton. The oldest, one of three sons, Chaz, was fourteen years old and Mateo was surprised to see the boy recently cut his long dark hair short in a choppy style like many of the real ones in his age group. Mateo could not remember any of the males in their clan ever cutting their hair.

A faint smile curved Mateo’s mouth as Chaz walked past him. He was a tall handsome boy and carried himself in a dignified way that suggested he was older than he really was. In Blood Clan years, fourteen was still considered barely more than an infant for a male since Chaz would not become a fully mature vampire for another eighty-six years.

Chaz’s mother, Nita, carried Lydia and Rafael’s three-year-old son on her hip, and their ten-year-old twin daughters walked beside her. All three children resembled their Canadian-born mother more than they did their vampire father. Right now, they all focused their full attention on the rock altar where their baby brother lay silent and cold.

With the entire clan gathered around the fire pit, Drago began the ceremonies with ancient Apache and Spanish prayers, a combination of his original Mexican Blood Clan and those of his Apache mate, Raven. They danced one of the Apache dances of her ancestors, and when the praying and dancing were done, they consumed blood drawn from the human sources held in the caves.

There were three real ones in the cave at this time. Typically, there was only one blood source kept in the cave at a time since the full grown male vampires needed only a small amount from a real one every few days to suppress their thirst for blood. Raven and Rosa, who were also immortals now, drank a minimal amount of blood and usually not as much their male mates. But when a dhampyre child was about to be born, Drago would request the Clan Society to bring an extra real one to the mountaintop. Blood from the additional human would be used for the special ceremonies they conducted in the few days preceding the impending birth.

In spite of the fact the Clan was educated from the books and teachings of the world of real ones, Drago and Raven still adhered to the outdated beliefs that preparing special potions from blood to be drunk by everyone in the clan, even the children, would help ensure the birth of a male child. Human blood would also be massaged into skin on the belly of the mother once she went into labor.

Regardless of Mateo’s past attempts to talk to his grandfather about the complete contradiction to scientific fact that a female or male child was determined from the genes of the father’s sperm at conception, Drago still believed the sex of a dhampyre child was not established until the final moments before they entered the world, and the outcome was greatly influenced by the special ceremonies conducted and blood potions consumed by the clan in the days preceding the birth. The elder vampire could be open-minded about many things involving the world of the real ones, but he refused to consider any other possibilities when it came to the birth of the dhampyre children.

Mateo shifted his weight from one foot to the other in a nervous motion as the gourd of blood began to circulate among the clan. Chloe Webster’s blood was not needed for the birthing ceremonies. But her relentless curiosity and determination to find the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine led her to the location of the village hidden at the entrance to the legendary gold mine. As with all the others in the past who wandered too close, she could not be allowed to discover the secrets of the gold mine without paying the ultimate price.

Even the crazy old miner, Jacob Waltz, had not climbed high enough to follow his own clues. The smaller vein of gold he discovered was in caves lower down the mountain. He mined out that limited source long before his death in 1891.

The Blood Clan left him alone for two reasons, the main one was because most of the people he told about his gold mine thought he was crazy; and also, because the zealous gold seekers who did believe his wild tales of endless veins of gold sometimes got a little too close to the secluded caves, which provided an extra bonus of human blood to the clan.

“Drink, my son.”

Mateo snapped out of his deep concentration about the past and the present, and how it would affect the future of the clan. He reached out and took the antiquated gourd flask from his mother and tipped it to his mouth. The blood was lukewarm and thick going down his throat. It satisfied his primal need, but since tasting the indescribably sweet blood of his eternal mate, the life source of any other human was not so tempting right now.

Udaya. His Dawn. Her name and her beautiful image floated through his mind. He couldn’t wait to be with her.

Mateo’s hands shook slightly as he handed the blood-filled gourd to Anton. He did not know which of the human blood sources provided this drink for the ceremony, but the thought it could belong to Chloe Webster made it a bitter taste to swallow. He wondered if Chloe would still be alive when he finally brought Dawn up here to the village.

The homeless alcoholics who usually provided them with blood did not last more than a couple weeks before their emancipated diseased bodies gave out from lack of blood. But a young healthy source like Chloe could last several weeks or longer, and as much as he hated to acknowledge it he knew the time was drawing near when he would be forced to bring Dawn here.

He glanced around at his solemn family. They all looked like they belonged in a different century. Tonight, even the youngest children wore the ceremonial outfits crafted hundreds of years ago, most likely by his grandmother’s family when Drago had first come here to claim Raven as his mate.

Right now, Mateo also looked entirely different than when he left the mountain to visit the world below. In addition to his centuries old tanned buckskin outfit and knee high moccasins, his hair was hanging in two long braids over each of his shoulders. There were red streaks of human blood drawn across the sides of his face. He was the epitome of a savage vampire in every way.

Tomorrow night he would dress in his trendy clothes and drive his shiny new truck to town, where he would pretend to be just a regular man, a real one, for the short time he would spend with Dawn.

As he stared into the fire pit where the fiery fingers of the crackling orange flames were reaching toward the ebony sky overhead, he felt a sinister omen lurking in the shadows. At this moment, he realized just how drastically different his vampire world was from the world below the Superstitions. Was there really any way to combine the mysteries of his vampire clan and Dawn’s human world without incurring tragic consequences?

The ceremony finished with the heartbreaking burning of the tiny body in the roaring fire pit. Lydia’s tormented wailing drowned out all other sounds. Mateo looked up at the unusually cloudy sky. The barely more than a fingernail moon peeking from the shadows of the clouds curved in a menacing and unnatural looking shape. He lowered his gaze just as Rafael and Lydia were walking past him.

His brother leaned toward him and hissed through gritted teeth, “This is your fault. Because of you wanting to change the way we have done things since the beginning of time, our Clan is now cursed.”

He stared at Rafael in stunned silence, before he reached out and touched his brother’s arm. “I’m sorry, my brother. I don’t understand why you would think I caused this?” Rafael pulled his arm away without answering. His cold unyielding expression bespoke his innermost feelings.

A current of icy wind whipped through Mateo as he watched the remainder of his family began to move away from the fire and the last remains of the burning child. He glanced around to see if anyone heard his brother’s harsh words, but it appeared no one else was aware of the accusation Rafael hurled at him.

There was no basis for his brother’s allegation. But he had to find a way to prove it wasn’t true—to his brother and to himself, because if he was the reason this tiny dhampyre male was now no more than a pile of smoking ash, he would never forgive himself.