A Trail of Echoes(19)

“What are you, King Derek?” Cameron asked, half grinning and half frowning. “You’re warm like a human, and yet you hardly look a day older than when we last saw you.”

“And Sofia?” Liana said. “You’re a vampire? I thought you both turned back into humans.”

Derek looked like he wanted nothing more than to just stand there and talk, as did I, but the two of us looked anxiously toward the direction of the hunters’ ships.

“It’s not safe out here,” Derek said, clutching Cameron’s shoulder. “Let’s get on the other side of the boundary first.”

“I guess it’s been so long since we were last here,” Cameron said, his voice reminiscent, “we don’t have permission to enter The Shade like we used to.”

“So many things have happened since you left, Cam,” Derek said. “So. Many. Things. The spell has had to be recast a number of times.”

We moved toward the hatch of their submarine, and the four of us slipped down into it and made our way toward the control room. I was surprised to see, sitting in two of the chairs behind the main switchboard, a young man and woman. They were in their teens, but they looked younger than Rose and Ben.

“Meet Cedric and Pippa,” Liana said proudly.

The girl and boy stood up and shook our hands. Pippa had blazing red hair, like her father, but she shared Liana’s light amber eyes. Cedric on the other hand had dark blond hair, with Cameron’s brown eyes.

I stared at the teens in confusion. When Liana and Cameron had left The Shade, they’d said that they wanted to trace their descendants. They’d lived centuries regretting having to leave their young children when they were first turned into vampires. Then when finally we’d discovered a cure, they’d wanted to leave The Shade to live a normal life and watch over some of their distant relatives. I wondered if perhaps these teens were such distant relatives.

“And who are Cedric and Pippa exactly?” I asked.

Cameron and Liana exchanged glances. “Our son and daughter.”

I was speechless. I certainly hadn’t expected them to have more children. But now that I thought about it, it made total sense. Hundreds of years had passed since they’d last lived as humans. The relatives who would still be living would be very distant indeed. They had still been young when they left, in their late twenties. I should’ve expected that they would start a new family.

“Wow,” I said. Derek shared the same shocked expression as me.

I looked back at their two children. “What a pleasure to meet you. How old are you?”

“Fifteen,” Pippa replied.

“I’m sixteen,” Cedric said.

Apparently recovering from the shock, Derek proceeded to step behind the controls. “We should get inside.”

He moved the vessel the few feet that it took to pass through the boundary, and then stopped. He turned to me. “We still have our submarine floating nearby. We have to take that back to the shore, so Sofia, you stay with Cam and Liana, and I will navigate the other submarine back. We’ll meet at the Port.”

Derek didn’t look like he wanted to leave his two friends for even a minute after just reuniting with them, but we couldn’t leave our submarine stranded.

And so he left, leaving me still reeling as I looked from Cameron, to Liana, to their two children.

“So how are you a vampire?” Liana pressed, clutching my knee as Cameron took a seat behind the controls and navigated the submarine toward the shore.

I breathed out, and traced my memory back to when they had first left The Shade. Rose and Ben had still been newborns, and Derek and I had also left The Shade to move into our dream home in California.

I didn’t get far into our story before we arrived at the Port and Derek rejoined us.

We stepped out onto the jetty, and warmth filled Liana and Cameron’s expressions as they eyed their old home.

“I’ve got to say,” Cameron said hoarsely, “I’ve bloody missed this place.”

I saw tears in the corners of Liana’s eyes. She seemed quite choked up as she helped Pippa and Cedric onto the jetty next to them.

“You have no idea how excited everyone is going to be to see you again,” I said, my heart pounding at the thought of Vivienne’s eyes lighting up on seeing them again. Liana was her best and oldest friend. “We wondered what happened to you.”

It was late now and most people were in bed, so as we led the four of them through the woods, the only person we bumped into was Eli taking Shadow for a nighttime walk. He looked like he had just seen a ghost as he eyed Liana and Cameron. Then a huge grin split his face and he hurried forward to embrace them.