Dad nodded. "They're sorcerers."
I snapped my fingers. "That would totally explain the frogs and rats."
"So, you listened to my voicemail."
"You're darned right I did. I needed answers and you weren't here to give them." I stood up and paced restlessly, grabbing an apple from the fridge and taking a bite. "I take it Mom is also demon spawn?"
Dad leaned back in the wooden kitchen chair. "Your mother and her family are human."
"I'll bet her family didn't like the idea of having you as a son-in-law."
"No more than my family wanted me to marry a human." He twirled a pen on the table, his eyes giving it a thousand-mile stare. "My kind collectively calls itself Daemos, though everyone else refers to us as spawn. Had I not left home I would have been forced to mate with my sisters, my mother, and other female relatives. I would have been little more than a stud horse for breeding."
I spat apple chunks all over the place. "Mate with your sisters and mom? Holy crap, Dad! What kind of family do you come from?"
"Inbreeding doesn't affect spawn like it does humans." His eyes left the pen and settled on me. "But it's revolting and I'll have nothing to do with it."
"Good lord. Don't I have any normal relatives?"
"Define normal."
Considering I wasn't even human, I supposed my life wasn't meant to be full of your typical nuclear family activities. "If Mom is human, does that mean I'm half human?"
"Spawn consider interspecies breeding disgusting and repugnant."
"As if sex with your relatives isn't the worst ever!"
A chuckle lit his face for a moment. "True. We hadn't seen the result of a spawn-human mating in centuries, but it's rumored the resulting children are born true—either entirely human, or spawn."
"But don't spawn have sex with humans when they're feeding?"
"Oh yes. But never mistake feeding for breeding."
"Have I told you how mental your family is?" Talk about double standards. "So I can't be half-and-half?"
"I don't think so. You appear to have inherited the skillset from my side of the family. As such, that would mean you are pure spawn. Like me, you are soulless."
Another wave of panic hit me when I realized what he was saying. I took a deep breath to banish an anxiety attack. "I don't have a soul? Oh, God this sucks."
"Our demonic nature gives us a form of immortality in exchange for souls, or so I've been told. "
I fought back the dread until another thought burst into my mind. How can I have a soulmate if I don't have a soul? Was true love even possible for my kind? Had Elyssa been right about me from the start? This was horrible news.
I found my voice. "This makes no sense. Do vampires have souls?"
He shrugged. "I believe they forfeit their human souls for immortality, but I'm no specialist. Your mother and I escaped the supernatural life and tried to make normal lives. But you'll have nothing approaching a normal life if I don't teach you to use your powers responsibly."
"Better late than never, I guess." My dread morphed into anger. How could I have been so blind all this time? It seemed my parents might have told me something. But if I'd turned out human maybe they would have worried me over nothing.
Dad's voice broke through my stony silence. "Justin, listen to me. The world is far more dangerous than you know. When you feed on psychic energy, your activity burns bright like a beacon. Any nearby leech can feel it. That includes felycans and vampires. Werewolves can smell our kind especially well when we're leeching. While they probably won't interfere, vampires regard us as something of a rare treat. Not only is our blood like a fine wine to them, but some believe it can increase their vampiric abilities. Imagine being reduced to a living wine cask for vampires."
I shuddered at the image. "Point taken."
"Also, there are ways to feed without exposing yourself. You've been going about it a bit too enthusiastically."
"I did feed on those laughing guys in the bathroom."
"Exactly. I've found comedy clubs to be a good focal point of positive energy. Passive feeding takes longer and is less satisfying but it will keep your nature hidden. That, I think, will be the first lesson I teach you."
I furrowed my brow. "Dad, the cravings are intense. Are you telling me that all the time you were with Mom you never fully satisfied your hunger?"
"She was worth the sacrifice. Our kind are not the sort who fall in love, but your mother won me over from the first." Pain knotted his features. He grabbed the pen from the table. It crunched as his fist clenched around it.
A knot formed in my throat. The pain in his eyes probably echoed my own. I found it hard to speak for a moment but I had to know. "Is Elyssa a vampire?" He hadn't said a thing about her.
"It's best you forget her," he said.
"But I love her."
"Love is powerful. Very powerful. But it can't overcome some obstacles."
"Enough with the mysterious nonsense. Is she really a vampire of some sort?"
He hesitated. "Yes."
"But she goes to school. She doesn't burst into fire in the sun."
"Vampires, as a general rule, don't like the sun because it makes them lethargic, but it won't torch them."
"She doesn't seem tired to me. Would SPF three-thousand sunblock do the trick?"
He offered a grim smile. "She may be a djadajii, also called a dhampyr, a very rare breed of vampire."
"Oh, how wonderful. A rare kind of bloodsucker." I tossed the remains of my apple into the trash.
Dad stood and brushed the crushed pen bits from his hands then wiped at the spilled ink with a paper towel. "True vampires cannot breed. Only those of great age and potency can successfully turn a human into their kind. However, in the dark days it was a known practice of some old and lonely vampires to approximate families by turning a woman while she was pregnant."
"Babies can survive that?"
"Rarely. Vampiric metamorphosis is brutal on the body. Even strong adults die during the process."
"Did your parents homeschool you about this stuff?"
"It's certainly not something you'd learn at public school. Your mother and I left you dangerously ignorant of the facts. We'd hoped you would be a human child and that we could offer you a normal life. We were so very wrong. And for that, I'm sorry."
I thought of Elyssa, eyes blazing and fangs glistening. Scary as hell but so damned sexy. "So you're saying the baby could come out as a vampire. A dhampyr. What makes it different from a normal vampire?"
"Dhampyrs have souls. They are immortal but they can also procreate like humans."
"How can an immortal age?"
"Even our immortal bodies have a growth phase because we are born and not turned. Our aging simply slows and then ceases. A mortal turned vampire, however, would not age from that point on."
I thought about what that could mean. Elyssa's entire family could be vampires. But why would she call me a monster if she was a vampire? It made no sense. She was every bit the monster I was. Unless her soul negated the monster inside her.
"Elyssa almost killed me. She called me a monster."
"Aren't we?" Dad said. He scrubbed at the ink on his hands but it wouldn't come off.
"Hang on a second," I said. "This isn't just about me, it's about Mom too. Does she think you're a monster? Does she think I'm a monster?"
"It's very complicated, Justin. Your mother still loves us despite all outward appearances that she's abandoned us."
"Then why did she leave?" I pounded the table in anger. A crack ran down its center.
"Her parents are very powerful in the sorcery community. Our blessed union was a huge embarrassment to them. Your mother forgave me for being nonhuman although those were very trying times. She loved me enough to bear my children. However, your mother's parents stole something very precious from us, and she couldn't bear the pain any longer. It nearly destroyed us."
"What could be so precious that she'd abandon us?"
He seemed to weigh his next words carefully. "Your little sister."
Chapter 25
I sat there, mouth gaping in stunned silence.
"Her name is Ivy, and she's about to turn eleven," Dad said, jaw tightening like a vice, eyes literally flickering with an unholy blue light. "Eliza and Jeremiah Conroy, your mother's parents, took her shortly after birth and the Arcane Council supported keeping her out of the hands of 'an irresponsible girl'."
"I have a sister," I said. "My mom is a sorceress, and my dad is a demon." I slumped in my chair. "And I thought people on reality TV had it bad."
Dad smiled grimly. "Like I said, son, love doesn't conquer all."
"Why did Mom wait all this time to go to Ivy? Why didn't the Conroys take me?"
"We managed to hide from them for years, but they found us while your mother was pregnant with Ivy. Their price not to reveal our location to the Slades and to let us keep you was our daughter. They forbid us from seeing her until she turned eleven, at which point your mother could return home to them."
I did some quick math in my head. "How in the world don't I remember Mom being pregnant? I was only seven, but I think that would stick out."
"All those times you mother charmed you, she also blurred your memories. Made it harder for you to remember certain things. She thought it was for the best, sparing you the pain, although I disagreed."
"You're damned right it was wrong! I have a sister. I want to remember everything about her, no matter how painful."
I thought back to the mystery pregnant woman who had stepped in front of my car after my first encounter with Stacey. She had looked like Mom. I remembered the nightmare with the long dark hallway and the shadowy figure with the cane. Now that I was thinking about it, I remembered other times I had dreamt of crying babies and mystery pregnant women. Trying to recall any of it in detail, however, was like trying to peer through a shimmering haze. It made sense now. My subconscious had known all along. My first encounter with Stacey had triggered Mom's protective charms and that must have jarred loose a few suppressed memories.
