Fratelli: Eternal Bloodlines (The Vampire Cartel #2)
Prelude
Brown Plantation / Louisiana Bayou
April 19, 1933 (Julia Brown)
A white mist glided low over the swamp floor, thick and silvery. Its unnamed power clung to the reeds that stretched out like skeletal fingers. It was the dead of night, and all remained silent except for the occasional croak of a bullfrog or the distant howl of a swamp wolf. The bayou felt alive. The dark shadows watched. It protected the secrets of the slaves by blocking out the moon and offering only natural darkness for their escape. It was as if the darkness knew light needed a guide because something even greater was coming.
Through the mist, a group of fifteen moved silent and watchful, their dark forms nearly blended into the shadows. Each step was deliberate, guided by something beyond sight—a power ancient and unyielding. At the forefront was Julia, the youngest of the group. At just seventeen, she carried the weight of centuries in her blood. Her skin, deep brown and richly melanated, was forged from labor in the sun and held the untapped power that flowed through her veins—a power that called to the stars and the ancestors of the First People. Her beauty was haunting, her eyes deep brown, her form petite, her hair thick and curly like refined wool. She had a fierce determination to be free, but that night her eyes were clouded with something darker—an internal battle between duty and revenge.
The slaves had escaped the plantation and broke through the chains of their oppressors. The journey to the coast and eventually to freedom in Texas was paved for them ahead, but Julia’s heart remained behind. She wanted to free them all—the men, the women, and the children who still suffered under the brutal hand of the overseer and plantation owners. She had the power to do it. She could taste the power in the night air and feel it hum in her bones. But the Chosen One, the leader of their group, stood in her way.
The Chosen One’s name, given by the slave master, was Lizzie—a simple name meant to strip away her regal lineage. But to her people, she was Amina, a name that carried the strength of queens. Amina was resolute. Her dark melanated skin shimmered with a more potent power than Julia’s, controlled, more seasoned.
Amina had died through countless battles over the millennia, seen the darkness that lurked in the world, and knew that the universe would correct itself in time. This universe had brought her back as Lizzie, and she had a mission for them. The abolishment of slavery was not part of it.Lizzie believed their mission was not to fight but to survive, to live so they could carry on the legacy of the First People—for the coming of the darkness a century away.
“You are blinded by your rage,” Amina said, her voice steady but with an edge of warning. “Hoodoo is an abomination. It twists the light within us, corrupts it.”
“It’s a weapon of peace and retribution, not destruction!” Julia spat back. She stepped closer. “A gift we can call upon to end this. We can free them all, Amina. We don’t have to run. We can do it together.”
Amina shook her head, her expression sorrowful. “You don’t understand what you’re playing with, child. This power within you was never meant for you to wield like this. You are not a guardian, you are a servant. Your skin, your pain, your suffering fuels you to make a choice that protects differently.”
The tension thickened the night air around them. It thickened the fog at their feet. Instead of a moon glow, it was the mist that cast the escaping slaves in an ethereal light to guide the way. Julia’s frustration boiled over. She was tired of being told what she could and couldn’t do, tired of watching her people suffer. She lashed out. A pulse of energy that her proximity to Amina could only summon surged from her hand, aimed directly at their leader.
Amina was ready. She deflected the blow with ease, her own power manifested in a flash of light that pushed Julia back. The other thirteen members of their group quickly formed a protective circle. Their collective powers, thanks to the gifts from the Chosen One, created a barrier that concealed the fight from any prying eyes, especially the slave patrollers, also stalking the swamp.
The clash between Julia and Amina was a ferocious display of power and determination. Julia fought with all the pain and anger that had built up inside her—the loss of her two baby girls snatched from her breasts while nursing and sold into slavery, the brutal torturous death of her lover that left him weeping as he burned alive for all slaves to see over his rebellion, the years of oppression that cost her friends, her parents, even pets.
Amina exuded an air of tranquility, her every action deliberate and calculated, delivering punishing lashes and blows to Julia without causing fatal harm.
In the end, Julia was no match for the Chosen One. Amina’s last strike sent Julia sailing, landing hard on her back. The mystical fog moved in swiftly and covered her, drowned as she lay on the ground, breathless and defeated. The light from the battle dimmed. Pity was clear in the eyes of the others. They knew the pain that drove her, but also that her bravery meant nothing. They would follow Amina to their end.
Amina knelt beside her. She placed a gentle hand on Julia’s breast where her heartbeat was the strongest. “Your pain is a part of what makes you the greatest, but it cannot be your guide. If you return to that plantation, you will become what you hate. A different kind of slave. One ruled by the darkness that is trying so desperately to exploit you.”
Julia’s eyes were wet with tears, not from the fight, but from the agony of her memories. “I hate you. Do you hear me? I hate you. You watched them take my babies. You watched Heathcliff suffer and burn. You did nothing! None of you have ever done anything for our people!” she pointed at the others.
“You can’t save them all, Julia,” Amina said, as soft as an apology. “Not this way. This life is temporary. The universe recovers.”
But Julia’s heart wouldn’t listen. She sat up and drew away from Amina. The resolve in her eyes hardened her stance. “I will do what you don’t have the power to do. I will protect them… no matter what. I don’t need your power. There are other Gods. New Gods. Truer Gods in this world.”
Amina’s heart broke as she watched Julia get to her feet and storm away. She knew this was the last time she would see the girl she had come to love as a daughter. But she also knew that Julia’s path was her own to walk. Without the rebellion, without the hoodoo magic, the darkness would win the eternal fight that had yet to come. They all played a part.
The group moved on without Julia. She turned to see them disappearing. Their powers guided them safely through the mist and away from the plantation. Julia felt abandoned as the group left, burdened by the heavy choice she had made. She cried out to the night, her sobs swallowed by the fog that pressed in around her.
Unbeknownst to her, she was not alone.
The vampire had watched from the shadows. The scent of her power, her pain, had drawn him in. He had tasted the blood of an escaped slave earlier, but this—this was someone different. He drifted closer, a dark shape within the mist, his form barely distinguishable from the fog itself. His ancient, jeweled eyes gleamed with interest as he studied her, this girl who radiated potency and enriched blood and sorrow in equal measure.
She reminded him of another—a woman he had loved and lost in the Great War, a guardian whose life he had taken in his thirst for power. Her memory, once dulled by centuries of darkness, now surfaced in the essence of Julia.
But as he drew nearer, something shifted. Julia’s sobs ceased, and her breath steadied as if she felt the air around her change. She could sense the darkness creep in, the malevolent presence that sought to consume her. But she was no helpless girl. She had power—ancient, raw, and untamed when with Amina. With her goddess still near, she could summon enough to save her life.
With a low chant, she drew in the fragments of energy from nature around her, forming a protective barrier that cackled lightning and then flared out like a shield. It pushed off the darkness. The surrounding fog swirled violently, repelled by her force.
“Whatever you are,” she whispered into the night, her voice carrying both warning and defiance from her mind, not her mouth, “know this—I am not your prey, demon. I am your nightmare.”
The vampire recoiled, and his shadowy form retreated to the edge of the swamp. He would not take her tonight. But he would remember her—this girl with the power of the First People in her veins. She was something different, beautiful, and dangerous. And he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame.
As the night deepened, the vampire disappeared into the shadows, leaving Julia alone once more. Her heart pounded with both fear and triumph. She had faced the darkness and survived. But the battle was far from over.
Julia turned back toward the plantation, the place where her pain and power intertwined. She had made her choice, and now she would see it through. Whatever came next, she would face it with the strength of her ancestors and the fire of her own soul—never again belonging to the First People