Lies are easily uttered, but hard to cover up. To cover one lie, a thousand more are required to support it, and hold up the one untruth; almost like a steadily building up of a tower that has no base, no truth, no strength.

All the material is flimsy, easy to break, and easier to topple. There are always loopholes, hidden within, awaiting the observant to pick them out and expose the fraud for what it truly is. Once the small breath of truth and the wind of honesty blows past this tower of deceit, it topples, a great collapse, and the pain inflicted on everyone involved, in the end, is greater than any pain that the truth could cause…..

BREAKING THE TOWER OF DECEIT...


The door opened with a quiet snick as he entered the house. Gently, he pushed the lock back into it’s place and slid the deadbolt into position. With the easy, almost cat-like grace that he so naturally possessed, he had begun to climb the stairs when a muffled cough alerted him to someone else’s presence.





‘Hello…Warren,’ said Andromeda with low menace in her voice as she clicked the light on beside her. ‘Dromy, my love!,’ said Warren exuberantly as he stepped forward to embrace her, but something in her gaze gave him pause.



‘What's wrong, baby is everything ok?,’ Warren cooed in his falsely cheery voice. ‘Why are you up so late? Were you waiting for me? Couldn’t sleep?’

It was finally time for the winds of truth to break this tower of deceit...But how many would topple with him into the abyss?

He smiled at her, but his good humor evaporated upon seeing the cold look she gave him. ‘Do you love me?’ she asked him? ‘What? What do you mean? Of course I love you! Why would you even ask me such a question?,’ he laughed.



‘If you really loved me, then why did you lie to me? Who are you? I know all that ‘Warren Ravenheart from the film industry’ is bull shit. You’ve never even been to Bridge Port, have you? What is all this, Warren, who and what are you?’ Her voice quavered as her gaze raked him from top to bottom.

As Warren stood stolidly before her, not saying or uttering a word, she was filled with a sudden terror. She remembered the bundle of papers, even now lying warmly in her pocket, a dark brand, almost pointing a finger of accusation against the man standing before her.

‘You’re not human, are you? ARE YOU?,’ she screamed with terror as a stab of pain and fear fluttered her heart. When he slowly shook his head, she whimpered pitifully and fell away from him, knocking the chair behind her in the process. ‘What are you?! Tell me! Now! I have the right to know after you…after everything…. What really happened to Ebony?’



‘She came to know, She stood in our way. She would tell you. You would leave me, or worse…. She stood in between US, Andromeda, in between our love! She had to go!’ Andromeda screamed, horrified at this latest revelation, and reeled backwards, almost fainting in shock and fear.



Warren rushed forward in concern to steady her before she fell, but she screamed and threw his hands off herself, repulsed. ‘Don’t touch me, you inhuman creature! What is wrong with you?,’ she screeched, besides herself in rage, fury, grief and shock.

Another blow, another piece of deceit, another false love. But before she could fully contemplate this, this fresh wound of betrayal, she couldn’t digest the normal, almost pleading tone of voice he used with her…Almost as if he was trying to JUSTIFY his actions, as if what he did was RIGHT….

‘Tell me what you are,’ she said when she had grappled with her emotions and has forced them into temporary submission, and what you want with me.’ ‘I want nothing from you, Andromeda, just your love, only your love…..’ ‘Start talking. Now,’ she growled.




‘Alright, but please don’t scream, and calm yourself. Please.’ He paused, waiting for her to say she was ready and when nothing changed her horrified expression, he jumped in, ‘I am what your race would call part vampire. My name is Cortez Draponis, and my great-great grandfather was a full, proper vampire.’ Her eyes widened as she listened to his tale.

‘I am the last of my kin to walk this earth, the last of our diluted, distributed race to live. Once we were many heads strong and we roamed freely, happily, feeding, living, bringing more to our clan….,’ his tone turned bitter as he continued, ‘Then, the vampire hunters came…’

‘Though we slew many of them, we were a limited, divided family and though each of us had the power of ten men, we were often set upon by twice that number of skilled warriors at a time….’



As your myths dictate, we cannot walk in the sunlight, though the stories of our inability to touch holy objects, places and things are false, borne of your kin’s desire to seek protection through the grace of their God… We are immortal, we drink your kind’s blood, but we can be hurt and killed by guns, knives, and such objects, though it is usually thought impossible because of the swiftness of our step and our various powers and abilities….’

‘We cannot breed. Our females are always sterile, though our males, it had been discovered, when lying with a human female, could reproduce. A child borne of this union would usually have all the makings of a true vampire, he would be stronger than most, overcoming the setbacks of both our races....

‘The part vampires borne of this liason were more tolerant to sunlight, and it was then thought that since the half breeds inculcated all the boons of our race along with the boons of your own, we could create an immortal dynasty which would last forever. So we bred, sowing our seed amongst your women, seducing them and then stealing away the children they bore in the dead of the night.’



‘But soon, we found that our first impressions were false: these children started to feel compassion and sentiment and would prefer not to feast on human blood, as it was usually done, but to drink the bare minimum required and let your people live…’

‘In anger, the leaders of our race killed most, but few survived. My ancestors were borne and raised from these. They bred further and further within your race, and now, the only living remnant is me…..’

‘I drink human blood, it is true. But I need to set upon a proper transfusion before I can bring them to our clan. It is rarely possible. I am weaker than my ancestors by far, but in truth, I can stand the sunlight for almost an entire day, though I must then reside in darkness for 3 days after to strengthen again.

I have lived a hundred and thirty four winters so far, and I am, by our immoderate standards, in the prime of my youth, as you in yours.’ His voice turned mellow and intimate as he said, ‘The moment I set eyes upon you, the first time I saw you one late night when I was out preying, I could not forget you. I fell in love with you, you Andromeda Rhodes, and we are destined to be together. Your father and sister….’



‘What?!?!,’ she cut sharply across him. ‘What do you mean by that? How were they involved at all? You entered my life after their death…..’ ‘No, Andromeda, they were not. I knew you before that, since the time that you three shifted into this house together…I have loved you since then…’

‘It was YOU,’ she exclaimed! ‘Your eyes that I felt on me, watching me, staring at me, and whenever I looked around, I couldn’t find anyone there…..’

‘Yes, it was me,’ he said, with a sickly sweet, reminiscing smile. ‘But you see, I knew of your family, I had heard of them from a time before, and I knew all that lay in your father’s book, and he was the only person who traced the secrets of your ancestress and who connected it all to her…’



‘You see, our people know you because it was your ancestors who tracked us down through the centuries, your women who found us, your men who hunted and killed us. We know you, your very scent is familiar to us.’



‘Your sister would know me for what I was immediately, just as your aunt did, and as your father would recognize her animosity for what it was, and I would never get close to you…… So I had to… I had to do….’ ‘To do what?,’ she asked him, her heart racing. ‘To do what? What did you do? What more could you have done to break my heart and to ruin my life?’



‘Don’t say that, baby, I did it for us, so that we could be together, wasn’t it worth it? It was all for us….’ ‘You set that fire, didn’t you? You used your body, your abilities, your powers, your whatever to kill them? You wanted them dead, isn’t it true?’

No matter what she said, in her heart she knew that she wanted him to say no, that he hadn’t done it, that it wasn’t true, and that he would never do something like that to her. When he didn’t respond, once again, her worst fears were confirmed and she sobbed for fear and heartache.

‘I know it’s hard for you, my love, but think about it: I did it all for you, for us! To keep us both happy!,’ he said desperately as he stumbled towards her. I love you and I know that you love me, too. Let’s forget all this, get over all of it, start life afresh!’




‘You didn’t do it for me, Warren,’ she said between sobs. ‘You did it for yourself, to make you happy, to enjoy me, to have me for yourself….. And can you ask me to forgive the murders of my entire family? You just mentioned how you lost your ancestors, your ‘pure bloods’ to men, some including my family. Can you forgive and forget all that?’

Warren remained mute for awhile, and then, as she turned away from him, he gave a little breathy cry and latched onto her arm, calling her back. She whirled around, her face a mask of despair, sorrow and heartache, and then he muttered again, ‘Please. Please forgive me. Let’s try again, let’s make it worthwhile, now there are no more secrets, let’s forget the past….’

Andromeda looked at him again, she looked at the despair and sorrow in his eyes, the penitence in his gaze, the mat of hair which she so loved, his pale, milk-white skin, the deep, ruby red eyes, the colour of his elixir of life, the very blood that flowed through her veins and the veins of all people, and suddenly, her expression cleared, and with a cry of joy, she smoothly fell into his waiting embrace.









She withdrew the knife with a thick slurp as she sobbed, holding a hand to his mouth as she struggled to muffle his scream of pain. When he finally fell to the floor beside her, she knelt down beside him, cradling his head in her lap. ‘For….you,’ he said as he looked up into her eyes and smiled for the last time, before his expression slowly glazed over, and the smile froze on his face for the last and final time before there was nothing but a pile of ash in his place.






She screamed, then. She didn’t know when she started, or when she stopped, but it continued on and on till her voice finally broke, and she crumpled to the floor beside the stale ash, touching it and hoping, somehow, wanting to bring him back to her. She now knew that she could never have continued living with him, but nowhe knew that she could probably never continue living without him.

Love had failed her, and so had life. Nothing had worked for this poor, sad, broken woman, who shattered each and everytime but yet, she found a different reason to go on living, until that was torn to pieces, too. Nobody had seen him, there were no excuses to be made anywhere about his disappearance. There was no body to clean up, nothing to remember him by at all except for……



She felt a sudden stirring in her belly- the first, proper stirring of life within herself. She had hidden it’s existence, hidden the truth, hoping to surprise him with it soon enough- but now there was no ‘he’ to surprise any longer. Something in that light, faint feeling gave her hope; something in it felt like a promise- a promise of peace, a promise of better things to come….

She could have ended her life that day, but instead, Andromeda Rhodes chose to live, chose to survive, chose to fight another day. For though she had lost all her family, she was now creating one for herself from within.
Though love had cheated her, she knew that maybe now, the love that the little bump in her belly exuded would warm her and keep her happy in the days to come. Though pain had wracked her and hammered her into submission, maybe the pain she would experience seven months down the line would bring with it something worth living for.
She chose to live because, like always, she chose to hope.



Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this last, final chapter...but don't worry, there's the epilogue that's yet to come, and since I've already finished writing it, I'll probably post it in a day or two...So stay tuned til tlhen: trust me, this one's worth it

The Observant Lefty.