New Day, a new Sam and Francis novel (PG-13)

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Penina Spinka
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New Day, a new Sam and Francis novel (PG-13)

Post by Penina Spinka »

For those who have enjoyed POSSIBLY SAM, here is another Sam and Francis story. Mick and Josef are in it but it will take some time to recognize them, as most of this story happens 3000 plus years ago. It takes off at the end of POSSIBLY SAM, when Sam & Francis let the L.A.vamps off at Josef's hanger at Kennedy Airport.

I don't own Mick and Josef, but the OC's belong to me. Comments and thoughts are sought, needed and appreciated.

New Day - A Moonlight story - Rated PG-13
(3593 words)
Penina Keen Spinka

Chapter 1

The early sun was only a slight irritation to Francis, vampire though he was, as they drove back to the City. He did not bother to wear his sunglasses as they were headed west. They had just delivered their friends, Josef and Mick, to Josef’s private terminal at Kennedy Airport and said their goodbyes.

“How long do you think it will take for Josef to get over what happened last night?” Sam asked as they pulled out of the terminal. “He lost Sarah for good because of what I did.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Sam. She was already gone, but Josef didn’t know it. He begged you to contact her soul. You were right all along that Sarah wasn’t in a coma. Her body wouldn’t decay, but she had moved on to her next life. As bad as it was for him, Josef is already healing. As long as he has Mick, he’ll manage. If Sarah and Josef are meant to find each other in the future, they will. People who are that important to each other manage to find the ones they love again. Josef doesn’t like to admit how much he needs Mick, but their bond is the only thing that brought him back to life.”

Sam closed his eyes for a moment of introspection before he spoke. “I feel a connection to Mick; I have since we met, but his first love will always be Josef.”

Francis nodded, and softly added, “And mine will always be you. Actually, I believe you and I first met them more than 3000 years ago when early Babylon was under attack by Persian barbarians.”

“Three thousand years ago? You never said our friendship went back that far.” The Mohawk drummer was a young man, only 25. His vampire friend had told him they’d been friends in previous lives, but he had always kept his age and certain other details about how they became friends to himself. Was he finally going to reveal the rest of the story? “Tell me more,” Sam said.

Francis nodded, both to himself and to Sam. “All right. No more evasions or excuses. What just happened with Mick and Josef convinced me. You are more than ready to accept and believe our history now, and what we are to each other.” Sam straightened in the passenger seat of Francis’s car, giving his full attention to what his friend would say next. “But, you need breakfast. Last night was draining in more ways than one. You must be hungry. I’ll tell you how everything came about while you eat. How does The House of Pancakes sound?”

“You’re stalling,” Sam accused.

Francis lowered his head a bit. “You’re right; I am. It’s not easy for me to talk about it. There’s no reason to rush into this. We’ll talk over breakfast. You waited this long,” he reminded Sam.

Sam sighed. “I’ve waited two years, but fine; I’ll wait a little longer. The House of Pancakes always sounds good.” He looked at his watch. “For once, I’ll eat breakfast at breakfast time. I think I’d like basted eggs, lots of home fries with ketchup, and rye toast thick with butter. And coffee. Can you imagine what coffee tasted like to Mick that week he was human again? Like a little bit of heaven, he said.”

“Since I never tasted coffee, I’ll take your word. I suppose it tasted as good as blood tastes to him now, especially yours. You made him very happy yesterday.”

Sam recalled the pleasure he felt at feeding Mick the previous afternoon. “Yeah. He got a hint of maple syrup from my memories and loved it.”

“I’m sure it was you more than the maple syrup, but he knows what’s good. The traffic in New York City,” Francis muttered with an exaggerated sigh. “Except for you, I’d rather be back in Bucharest. Maybe you’ll come for a visit after I’m finished with my work at the U.N., when you’re done with your gig at the Vanguard. You haven’t seen our homeland for a few centuries.”

“Our homeland? I lived in Romania? You’re making it hard to be patient. Instead of throwing hints, why not just tell me already?” Francis was driving so Sam could afford to take a long, thoughtful look at his friend.

“Well, it wasn’t Romania yet. It must feel strange that I know more about your past lives than you do, but most humans don’t remember them at all. It’s the advanced age of your soul that allows you to remember as much as you do. I have to admit you’ve been patient with me. All right, I’ll begin now. It’s a very long story that will take more than one day to tell. Our story began more than four thousand years ago when you and I were twin brothers. We were born to royalty in the dark of the year. I was firstborn, so, according to custom, I was dedicated to our Gods, as we thought vampires were then. You were raised to be king.”

Sam was a trained shaman, although he had left his reservation in Canada for New York City and, to the disappointment of his family, was pursuing a career in jazz. He had recently contacted a ghost and persuaded it to inhabit its body once more. He had convinced a 400-year-old vampire to let his true love return to her real life. Sam’s abilities might seem miraculous, but this information left him speechless. He stared at his friend, shaking his head. He forced himself to blink and shut his mouth while he tried to think what to say next.

“Four thousand years ago, you and I were twins?” Francis nodded slowly, his eyes still on traffic. “In the two years since we met again, you kept things back. I knew that, but this is different than anything I imagined.” Sam took a long breath and exhaled. “So, we grew up together as princes of some lost kingdom before the beginning of recorded time and you’re still alive, living in the same body?”

“As alive as one of my kind can be, but you have the idea.”

“If I was raised to be a king, did I become one?”

“You did, but not for long. Our parents were killed in the first invasion. An army from the kingdom west of ours, what you would call Hungary today, attacked us. They hoped to annex our country. We escaped the fires and confusion and gathered the survivors into the mountains. You and I tried to organize a strike to take out their leaders. You held the people together until we were ready, but their weapons were superior. Our resistance only made them angrier. We died the following year in the second attack and our kingdom was lost. All our men were killed and the women and children were taken captive and made slaves.

“Our enemies knew vampires protected our kingdom and they hated us for it. I’ll use the word ‘vampire’ for convenience, although you know I don’t care for that word. They pretended to be our friends. Our guardians were too trusting. They made themselves known. That’s why they were targeted while they were sleeping in the daytime and beheaded. Our foes had bronze axes while all we had was stone weapons. They would have beheaded me too if they knew I was fated to become our God’s replacement if he died. That was the one bit of information our father kept from them.”

Francis sighed. “They thought I was dead. Their king had no idea I had returned to life many times stronger than I was when I was mortal. Our women fed me during those first days after I came into my new life. They urged me to avenge the deaths of their fathers, their husbands and sons. I owed them that. I never thought I’d take blood in anger. Giving blood had always an act of religious worship between my sire, and me but freeing my people from subjugation was my first priority after I changed. Sometimes, there are good reasons for the worst of actions. You don’t want a vampire for an enemy.”

Sam swayed back and forth against the back of the passenger seat. His eyes closed. “My shaman training is letting me see your memories. How awful it must have been for you to experience what you did!” He was silent for a long moment. “Two years ago, you met me and showed me what you are. You wouldn’t tell me your age, but I felt your soul was ancient, as you knew I would. We are so much more than friends; we were together in the womb. No one could be closer. I’m glad you didn’t tell me the rest of our story right away. Shaman training or not; I would have rejected it. I’m only human.”

Francis nodded. “Now, you know why I waited. If you want to know how you looked then, look at me. Every time I look in a mirror, I see you as you were in your first life. Only our mother could tell us apart. I should explain something else. You already know that vampires are sired by others, don't you?”

Sam nodded. “Mick explained it to me. The human must be near death from loss of blood, most often because his sire drank it. To turn him, his sire feeds him vampire blood. That is what kills him and brings him over.”

“That is true, but it isn’t the way we did it then. In those days, in the two countries where vampires began, one male child in each royal line was chosen, one from the north and one from the south. We were closely allied, since our father and his were brothers. Because we were to be the future Gods, my cousin and I were well prepared. He and I exchanged blood with our protectors many times. After several years of this, we would change upon death. My younger cousin was captured in the first attack on our kingdom and he was taken away. I learned he changed later, but I never saw him again. For all I know, he’s still alive somewhere on earth.

“When you and I attacked our enemies, we were captured on opposite fronts. Each group thought they had captured the new king. You were king, but they didn’t know you about me. The general on one side killed you. The other brigade decided to kill me, thinking I was you. Fortunately the executioner used a sword and did not take my head. That would have killed me for good. A single sword thrust through my heart ended my human life.”

Sam reached out to him, but Francis shook his head. “I’ve suffered worse pain than that, my brother. It was an easy death, as yours was, that time. I woke up in a pit beside the bodies of our men. Confused and horrified that this could have happened, I crawled through them, looking at every face until I found you.” He wiped tears from his eyes. “That was worse than dying.”

Sam stared at him. Francis was still grieving over his first death. “I wasn’t strong enough to protect you and keep you safe that time. I held you and rocked you in that pit that reeked of blood and death. I promised your shade that I would find you when you were born again and make it up to you.”

Sam noticed his own eyes were wet. “You have, probably many times over. Please don’t blame yourself. How terrible it must have been for you.”

Francis brought his memories under control. “I wanted to die too, but dying the true death was not easy once I’d changed. I began to hunger for the one thing no one there could provide, living blood. I had to find humans and feed. There were rumors about our Gods, but our enemies did not understand what we were. They left a guard to keep watch, to tell them if our Gods rescued the dead in the pit. Because I had changed, there was only me. His blood was my first meal. “I found where they brought the women and girls and made myself known to them.”

Sam touched Francis’s hand gently. He felt his friend’s unhappiness at a life without him in it. “We are together again. You don’t have to tell me more now. I’m sorry I pushed you to tell me. It hurts you to talk about it.”

“No. Now that I began, I’ll tell you the rest. Our women hid me and fed me to make me strong enough to avenge their men. I was more cautious than my predecessors, learning how to use my strength and avoid sunlight while I made my plans. Being young in my new life, I was very thirsty, but I never took more from them than they could spare. Every woman among them was willing to provide for me, and I loved them for it. I awaited my opportunity. When it came, I took the lives of our enemy’s king, his sons and their officers with great satisfaction. Their country crumbled and their men had no appetite for war again.”

“Our women found new homes in the remainders of small villages or built new ones in the mountains. Before I left them, I brought two into my life to protect the others. These women were the leaders of the refuges and most likely to do well. There was little time, so I had to invent the way of turning you know about. I told these two what to expect and how to deal with the change. I also warned them to never sleep together so enemies of our people could not find them both and dispatch them, as were done with our protectors. The other women would hide them in daylight and make sure they were nourished.

Once I had done all I could for the last of my people, I set off to travel the world beyond our mountains in my search for you. Your soul called to me even then, like it does now. I hid from daylight and taught myself how to exist among strangers. I learned new languages and kept my nature secret. I traveled at night, often feeding from animals. It turned out the wise man foretold our future when we were boys, was right when he said we would never be apart for long. You were reborn in the area south of ours, in the mountains of Greece. I found your soul in a boy of ten, guarding his father’s goats. You were playing reed pipes. When I stopped to listen to your music, I thought of my brother, Sammik. He had played on a clay flute when we were both boys at the beginning of our tenth year. He tried to teach me. I learned music because he loved it.

The goatherd beckoned me closer and I reached out to take his hand. The moment we touched, I knew it was you, my brother.” Francis pressed his lips together. “It was a pleasant song. You quickly learned to trust me. When you were old enough, I told you what we once were to each other. To my great joy, you believed me. You’ve lived many lives since then.”

Sam did not speak for a long moment, while he thought over what Francis told him. “I understand now why you thought in Romanian when we first met. It annoyed me, but you were right. I couldn’t have handled knowing this. As strange as his story was, Sam’s words told Francis that his brother believed him.

Francis smiled. “You accepted me into your life. You let me become your friend. Your first death when we were brothers was the hardest for me, both to experience and to talk about. Now, you know why I searched you out, why I always will search you out. From this moment on, I will answer any question you might have. You have the right to ask.”

They drove for several more minutes in silence. “You were born before the dawn of recorded history. You say I’m just as old, but I moved through time, from one life to the next.” Sam believed him. He looked out the window to see where they were, and then looked back to Francis. “Is it worse to be you or to be me?”

Francis looked down the line of cars, then over to Sam. “Everyone we knew is gone, or if they live in other lives now, I don’t know them. To think that I can find you again is why I remain alive. I spend every lifetime searching for you, over and over. It’s lonely, but I know you are waiting for me and that when I find you, you will know me. You’re what now, twenty-three years old?” Sam nodded. “I’ve been looking for you for twenty years. When you are lonely or in need of understanding, your soul calls out to me. That is how I found you.”

“I was feeling lonely and lost in New York. I wish I could remember the details of my lives. I could listen to you telling me stories about my lives all day.”

“You have before and you will again.” Francis merged his BMW into the slow-moving lane for the Queens-Midtown tunnel. The wait gave them time to really look at each other. Sam was attractive enough to turn the heads of both sexes. He had tied his long, black hair behind him the previous afternoon before they drove to Josef’s lower eastside brownstone. His neck was smooth since he’d drunk vampire blood from Francis two mornings prior and from Josef last evening. Francis’s old bite marks had healed and new skin had replaced the old.

“It’s good to know you as you are, Sam, but maybe in your next lifetime, you’ll be a woman again. We could be closer than we are now, or maybe…” Francis continued with a wistful smile, thinking something he did not say.

Sam did not appear to have heard the last. “Me? A woman? I can’t imagine it, but I believe you. I think I feel more your equal being a man,” Sam admitted. “Too bad neither of us is drawn sexually to our own gender.”

Francis laughed. “Speak for yourself, my brother. As long as it’s you.”

Sam mouthed a surprised Oh. “You never seemed to want ‘that’ from me.” At least they were off the subject of death, but this one was more awkward.

“Nearly the first thing you said when I found you is that you are not drawn to men. ‘Not gay’ is how you phrased it. I respected that. I would not ask more from you than you are willing to give.” He paused to change the subject. “We were always equal. If you were born first, you’d have been the immortal, and I’d be living life to life. Gender doesn’t matter much in Western-style countries. Today’s women claim the same rights they possessed in Babylon 3000 years ago when the most important deity in the empire was Divine Mother Ishtar. Now that the Taliban has expanded their control, women under their authority have no freedom to drive or to show themselves uncovered outside their houses. Civilization goes back and forth, warming, chilling, between light and dark. We’ve seen it all, you and I.”

The BMW paused while the laser scanned Francis’ transit pass on the BMW’s dashboard. His diplomatic license registered on the computer with a green light and the automatic arm lifted. They descended into the tunnel.

Sam said, “Mohawk families have been led by our women as long as anyone remembers. You never came to the reservation and met my grandmother. The White nations are just catching up with us.” The tunnel lights seemed to fly by, turning the tiles a yellowish white as they traveled under the river.

They emerged and headed for FDR drive. They came into Sam’s neighborhood, driving through the streets until they saw the familiar sign. Francis pulled into the parking garage. “You’ve heard the worst of it, but we will continue over breakfast. To speak freely inside, we’ll play author and literary agent. I’ll tell you when we met Mick and Josef as if I was describing my manuscript. It will be a fanciful historical with gods and a sorcerer, and a few vampires. My novel might appeal to a Hollywood producer. As my agent, you’re very excited about it, and with good reason. Are you ready?”

“I can hardly wait. Your imaginary manuscript sounds promising. Maybe we can collaborate and really get it published.”

“Type it out yourself if you want. This story began about three millennia ago when I was only a thousand years old.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t put in that part.” Sam walked around the car and joined up with Francis.

“It’s important to the story. Vampires are back in style, as long as people think we’re imaginary. Look at what’s popular at the movie houses and bookstores, not to mention television. I think I’ll order a short stack with maple syrup,” Francis said. Sam looked at him sideways. “You’ll enjoy it. You must be hungry.” They followed the arrows to the elevator and pressed the down button to the International House of Pancakes.
Read Sam stories by Penina My index: http://www.moonlightaholics.com/viewforum.php?f=560
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francis
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Re: New Day, a new Sam and Francis novel (PG-13)

Post by francis »

I love that you bring this story over. Sam and Francis are a very nice pair of original characters, and their backstory is fascinating.
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AggieVamp
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Re: New Day, a new Sam and Francis novel (PG-13)

Post by AggieVamp »

Penina -

This is SOOO Interesting! And I'm very much looking forward to more of Sam & Francis.

Karen
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Penina Spinka
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Re: New Day, a new Sam and Francis novel (PG-13)

Post by Penina Spinka »

Thank you for writing, Karen and Francis. When I finish posting NEW DAY, I have a full length novel more than half finished of Sam and Francis at the very beginning. Francis is a 3rd generation vampire from the very first one. BECOMING tells how he got that way. I have to finish writing it to discover what happens, but the first chapter of NEW DAY summed it up for Sam (and me). I love when one ideas brings on the next. - Penina
Read Sam stories by Penina My index: http://www.moonlightaholics.com/viewforum.php?f=560
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