Donor House: Jean-Luc: First Visit to the Donor House

The letter Jean-Luc had received from Nick had been interesting. For a couple of weeks it had sat on his desk, so he knew where it was if he wanted it, and finally he decided he was going to visit the donor house. Maybe it would be the something he’d been searching for. It seemed unlikely, but it was worth an attempt. Obviously the house was something Nick cared about, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent out any letters, and normally they only had contact by accident, because Jean-Luc was the vampire child of one of Nick’s many vampire siblings.

After an uneventful train journey, taken during the day because Jean-Luc loved the sun too much to give it up just for a convention, he’d spent his afternoon asleep. When the alarm went off at sunset he read through the letter one last time. Nick was eloquent and it made Jean-Luc more certain that he was doing the right thing. Alice had been mentioned a couple of times, as though seeing her was a bribe, which is sort of was. The last time they’d seen each other had been a decade before, when he’d walked into the two of them shopping, and he hated that Nick’s feelings about the vampires who were related to his creator affected Jean-Luc’s relationship with both of them.

Knowing he was doing the right thing didn’t stop Jean-Luc from procrastinating. First he stopped off to pick up a present for Alice. It was easy to understand why Nick loved her. Sometimes Jean-Luc thought everyone fell in love with Alice, because she was that sort of person. Then he stopped off at an internet cafe and checked the donor house website again. He’d checked the website once a day since he’d received the letter, even though it hadn’t told him anything more than Nick had in his letter.

Eventually, holding tight to Alice’s gift, Jean-Luc found himself on the doorstep of the donor house. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d got there, but that didn’t matter. Breathing deeply, he opened the door and stepped into the reception, which was quieter than he expected. It was something he was grateful for, because it meant he didn’t have to deal with too many people. Even as a human he’d never been much of a people person. Slowly he looked around, taking in the decoration, the items of furniture, the doors that led out of the room, and then the vampire behind the reception desk.

“Hello, Jean-Luc,” Alice said, smiling at him. “Nick told me he’d written to you, but I never believed you’d actually turn up.”

Smiling back, Jean-Luc crossed the room. “Why not, Ally? Did you really think I’d miss a chance to see you?”

“You’re a charmer.”

“I’m telling the truth.” He held the package out for her to take. “How have you been?”

Alice took it, but didn’t look at it, instead keeping her eyes on Jean-Luc. “Life’s been interesting.” She bit her lip, looking thoughtful. “I convinced Nick to turn an addict into a vampire who then left. We created the donor house. Nothing’s easy.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

Donor House: Cate: First Visit to the Donor House

It was something Cate had thought about for a long time before making her decision. The donor house was a good idea, even if very few people agreed, and going there didn’t worry her. She wasn’t scared of vampires because of what they were, but she knew that there were vampires who were very dangerous, in the same way there were humans who were dangerous. Ever since she’d mentioned that she might visit the house and ask a vampire to speak at her shop Sam had tried to talk her out of it. His opinion was that all vampires were unnatural creatures who should be destroyed by any means necessary. Normally they avoided the subject, because she hated the way he’d been brainwashed by their parents.

Sighing, Cate stood in front of the building that housed the vampires and their donors. If she was honest vampires had always fascinated her, so she was strangely grateful for the chance to possibly get to know at least a couple of them as people. There were lights on in all the windows on the ground floor, but that was the only sign of life. Since the building work had finished the place had been silent, even during the nights when the vampires were meant to be awake, and people couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.

The only thing that Cate was slightly worried about was convincing a vampire that talking to a group of humans at her shop was a good idea. She could understand why they’d be unsure, but there were humans who didn’t view all vampires as monsters. Unfortunately most of those humans didn’t speak up, because they were scared of the reactions of other people, and Cate was determined not to be one of them. Maybe it was a bad idea, like Sam had said, something she’d regret in the future, because her customers no longer visited and she had no money to pay her bills. Instead she chose to look at it as a positive thing, which may end up gaining her customers.

Words whirled around Cate’s mind as she walked up to the front door. Before she’d chosen her day to visit the house she’d worked out exactly what she was going to say. Of course now that she was actually going to make the speech, instead of just thinking about it, the words were fading away, thanks to the excitement. Anyone else would be terrified at the thought of entering a building that was probably full of vampires, but she wasn’t anyone else. She was the owner of Echoes of Alexandria and she was going to have a vampire in her shop talking about history.

Unable to stop herself Cate smiled as she reached her hand out to touch the door handle. It was really happening. She was really going to step inside the donor house and meet a vampire. A shiver of excitement travelled down her spine, even though she couldn’t help thinking that the vampires would turn her down at least once. She just wasn’t going to take no for an answer because they had to become a real part of the community if the house was going to work and she wanted to help them.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

Donor House: Alice: Visiting Cate

Echoes had become the place Alice went if she needed some time away from the house. She was happier than she had been in years and things seemed to be going well, but that didn’t mean being around the same people all the time didn’t get too much occasionally. Especially with Nick, because they’d been together for decades, and slowly their relationship was getting back to what it had been before she became a vampire. The last thing she wanted to do was damage it again by being impatient with him or snarling at him for no reason. So she was going to talk to Cate.

It was strange for Alice to think that her first female friend since she’d left home was a human. All of Nick’s vampire friends and acquaintances had been male, so having any female in her life was amazing. She had occasionally sent letters to her mum, but their relationship had been broken in a way that couldn’t be fixed when Alice had become a vampire. The loss of her family still hurt, even though she was building her own family around her, because it wasn’t the same. Until they’d told her to leave and not come back she’d believed deeply that the love of your family was immutable.

Alice knew the shop was closed. Cate had started keeping it open two nights a week, for the vampires and donors of the house, but couldn’t afford to do it more often. That was something Alice wanted to change, because Echoes was important to her for many reasons. Cate was important to her. If it hadn’t been for Cate walking into the house and asking for a vampire to give a history talk at Echoes then things would have been very different. Slowly the people of Bognor were beginning to accept them, thanks in part to the work Cate had done. Unfortunately there would always be humans who hated vampires because of what they were.

The shop itself was somewhere Cate spent almost all her time, whether it was open or closed, because her empty flat couldn’t be called a home. It was simply a place she had rented in order to get away from her family. Home was Echoes, which Alice understood, and she had Lewis watching the property above the shop. When it became available it would become another cog in the machine that made the house work. Thinking about Lewis made her smile, because he believed in the house even more than she did, so did everything he could to keep it working, even though there had been a time when he wasn’t sure.

Gently Alice knocked on the door. Cate knew that she was heading over and had the door opened moments after she knocked. Alice was grateful, because she never felt totally safe unless she was somewhere she knew or was with someone she trusted. Nick wouldn’t let her walk to Echoes alone to begin with, in case something happened to her. Sometimes she hated him being overprotective, but she knew what had caused it, so she never got angry with him. Venting at Cate helped.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.