Chapter II

Embraced Into Clan Alainn

It was here in London she also met Dominic MacIntyre, who too had psychic gifts - speaking with him about it gave her a sense of comfort, thinking that maybe there was a place for her to fit in after all. He was an unusual looking man, with two different colored eyes and silvery white hair. One night, he took her aside and revealed to her a string of dark secrets - he was a vampire, and it had been decided by his sire, Damon Leith MacNeill, that Zoë would become one of them. Hit with the startling realization of the meaning of her nightmares, she begged Dominic to help her, for if Embraced she knew her life would eventually end in a painful fiery death. She had convinced Dominic to at least help her prolong it as long as possible so she could leave the city. But there was no avoiding fate...it was too late, as Damon caught up with the pair. He held Zoë in an iron grip as he had Dominic take her. All her screaming and struggling were no match for two such powerful vampires. Her lifeforce was drained, then fed back to her again - just enough for her to survive. Weak and barely coherent, she was buried alive and left to crawl her way out, as is consistent with Sabbat creation rites (the sect Damon belonged to for many many years). After finally coming out of the ground, the two men hosed her down, knocked her out, and drug her off, then awakened and fed Zoë enough blood to sustain her, and set her off into the night...

(Un)Life As An Alainn Childe

Appearance: As with most vampires, Zoë became thin and drawn, especially around the waist as the inner organs die and flatten out. Her heart stopped beating and her body became cold. There are two major ways to point out an Alainn, though, and these two traits now belonged to Zoë - one is how extremely pallid the skin becomes, and two is the hair, which gradually turns silvery white.

Frightened out of her mind and feeling utterly alone, Zoë wandered her first night as a vampire aimlessly. She found Gilead who instantly knew something was very wrong as he looked at his blank-expressioned friend. His fears were confirmed when the lightest touch upon her neck sent her into practical hysterics. It was he who convinced her not to watch the sunrise that morning and promised to help her in her new way of existance. And help her he did, along with a few new friends she made along the way, such as Amano (a man of Asian descent who walked around in knight's armor who she knew only as Percival) and another who was Embraced into the clan a few weeks later, Jalen Lozano...

Many aspects of the vampire's extistance weren't easy for Zoë to adjust to. The loss of sunlight didn't really bother her since she had always felt more attuned to the moon and the night anyway, but the loss of normal food and drink and the Alainn clan weaknesses were unsettling: the loss of reflection and the deeply rooted lunacy flaw (moods drastically affected by the phase of the moon). But the worst was the hunger. Control was nearly impossible for Zoë to master at first. Damon and Dominic were powerful vampires, and now she was part of their bloodline (to be more specific, she was now a 17 year old 5th generation vampire). Zoë only allowed herself to take sustenance from animals at this time, and when she accidentally took the life of a deer, she began to starve herself. After two weeks without feeding, she learned an important lesson about blood frenzy. This was a very difficult time.

One night, while thinking in the moonlit clearing behind her mother's estate, a man came to her. He had been drawn to Zoë since she was mortal and had taken note of the changes in her. Taking a cautious stance, he looked into her eyes and told her that he knew what she was because he was a vampire hunter...and the reason he was telling her this was because he had fallen in love with his prey. Unbelieving that someone could love a creature such as herself, but unable to ignore what her empathic abilities told her, Zoë and this man, Chris McMasters (who usually went by the nickname Leadfoot), soon became close. And, though she didn't know it yet, she had just found her soul mate.

The months began to go by. Zoë's sire Dominic played virtually no role in her life at this time, being the wanderer he was. Feeling abandoned, she looked to others for sources of learning. The secret of using the shadows was revealed by Damon, who compared it to calling the elements, something she was naturally gifted with anyway. Her natural mental and empathic capabilities excelled with vampiric ability at an extraordinary rate. The use of moonlight was taught as only the Alainn know how. All the while, Damon seemed to be letting go of his callous nature and gaining Zoë's trust as she also grew increasingly close to Chris - it wasn't long before her and the former vampire hunter were engaged. Damon also seemed to approve of her choice. Chris used a chunk of his inheritance to purchase a home and they soon took in an orphaned baby girl, a beautiful three year old named Ava. Zoë seemed to be salvaging the normal life that was taken from her.

The Beginning Of The End

Things began to spiral downward after a few key occurences: One was Jalen's potent blood which Zoë had unknowingly taken, forming a growing bond. Though Chris didn't know of this, he did notice there was a closeness between Zoë and Jalen. This resulted in a nasty confrontation between the two men, which Damon took notice of. Second was the return of one of Damon's childer, Gwydion, who reminded him of his glory days with the Sabbat. Third, and probably the worst for Zoë, was Damon's realization that she had not lost her humanity. This discovery, coupled with the fact that losing his mate had still left Damon horribly mentally scarred, pushed him over the edge. Losing his grip on sanity and reason, he flew into a blind rage, beating her mercilessly as other Alainn struggled to keep him from killing her.

The proverbial coin stood on edge for a time as Chris kept Zoë hidden away. It was during this time that she heard that one of her mortal friends, Ghost Corbin, was forcefully Embraced by the Alainn. Jalen, infatuated by now with Zoë, also tried to see her from time to time. Another man in her life was a friend named Nikos, a wraith who had been watching over her for a while. One night, Nikos came to Chris and Zoë's home. A night that would leave them both changed forever...

Death Of The Soul

Through all the tension, an argument erupted. The end of it found Chris packing his and Ava's things, preparing to leave the city. Tearing her heart out, but thinking in all this it would be safest for them to be out of her life, she let him continue to think she didn't want him. It was better that way, in her mind. It was as Chris was bringing his suitcases downstairs that Nikos came to their home, bringing a warning, telling them that the reason Ghost had been Embraced was so that he could be used to kill Chris.

Not long after this, Chris received a phone call from his best friend, Amas Meinert. A strange man was following her and making her very uneasy. Chris told her to stay put, that he would come for her. And a few minutes later, he was out the door to do just that. In the meantime, Zoë stayed in the house and spoke with Nikos.

Some time went by...then the gunfire started.

Shots rang out in the front yard of Chris and Zoë's home. Realizing what the sound was, she pushed past Nikos and flew open the door. What she saw was Amas running for the door to get help as Chris stood in the front yard holding his left shoulder as it bled profusely. Time seemed to grind to a halt as she couldn't run fast enough to get to him. Amas tried to hold her back, but Zoë pushed past her, running full tilt as more lethal shots were fired into Chris's mortal body... Making her way to him as he dropped to his knees, she tried with all her might to lift and carry him to the house, but failed as the excruciating hellfire shells now entered her body. She was left helpless to do nothing but scream to Amas to go for help and shield Chris's body as she was shot over and over in the back and in the head.

As she held tightly to Chris's dying body, growing weaker, a phrase of mental communication came from Amano who had followed Chris and Amas. He stood within the shadows of the treeline and had the shooters in sight. One, a man named Kirin, he did not mention. The other, he spoke to her through the ability of Auspex, his voice in her mind simply saying, "It's Damon."

As a final expert shot rang out, hitting the gasline, Zoë saw her house explode and heard the screams of Ava who had been sleeping in her upstairs bedroom, now surely dead. Her world went black as she slipped into torpor, everything she held dear and loved now gone.

Recovery...

Blood...the euphoric taste of blood was the first sensation...but this wasn't human oxygenated blood, warm and rich...it was vampire's blood, strong and powerful. A wrist pressed to her mouth and Jalen's voice, begging her to drink, to live. Then the pain. The all-consuming blinding pain of the hellfire shells, still embedded in her body.

Hazy visions through the pain. They were in what the Camarilla called the Elysium, a 'safe' place...Jalen sitting over her as he cradled her in his arms, feeding her his potent blood to wake her...Amano walking off, saying he would confront Damon. She would never see her dear friend Percival again.

Moaning weakly through the pain, she asked about Chris and Ava. Jalen told her the truth, that they were both dead. Crimson tears streaming down her pallid cheeks, she exhaustedly slipped back into unconsciousness.

Jalen kept Zoë hidden there for the rest of the night and through the day. When the sun set, he took her to a friend's place, an artist and Toreador named Babbs. A few others who were close friends and had already heard of what happened were there. One, curiously enough, was a man she didn't know with long brown hair. As she moaned in pain, he came to her bedside and looked at her in such an inwardly sympathetic way that she was sure she could trust him. Babbs shooed him out of the room, along with the others, all except Jalen. Zoë held tightly to Jalen's hand and begged him not to go, inexplainably panicked by the thought of him leaving her side. She didn't realize it yet, but his potent blood he fed her at the Elysium had bonded her to him.

Later, when Zoë was alone, the man with the long brown hair snuck in and appeared at her bedside. He carefully took her up in his arms and stole her away into the night. That man would later become one of her closest and most trusted friends. His name was Forest Robinson. As he carried her back toward the heart of the city, he was stopped by one of Zoë's friends who was understandably worried and suspicious of the man who was carrying her nearly lifeless body. It was Rusty Zimmerman, a mortal college student who didn't know the truth about her, or any of the supernatural things that existed in this world. Zoë convinced Forest that Rusty could be trusted and they both took her weak and pained body back to his dorm. Once there, Forest sent Rusty out of the room then proceded to his special vampiric gifts of Obeah to numb her body temporarily, ceasing the intense pain. He then used his medical knowledge to remove the shells and used his Obeah again to heal the unusual damage they caused. Promising to return soon, he left Zoë in Rusty's care for the rest of the night and into the next day. As she drifted into exhausted sleep, she murmured about how the windows had to be kept shut during the daylight hours. Afraid Rusty wouldn't understand, all she could tell him was that sunlight, should it come in contact with her body, would kill her. Though he was slightly confused and pegged her as some sort of 'goth' or 'vampire wannabe', he complied anyway and secured a heavy blanket over the already existing curtains.

(The remainder is under construction...)

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