His Obsession

Felissia soaked her rag with wood polish and began buff the dark oak of the bar with loving care. Her husband had made the bar for her as a wedding present during their first year together. Many were-creatures attempted to claw it and many others tried damaging it in other ways. All of them either died or wished they were dead after Felissia got through with them.

Her day was going fairly typical since Talisa left for school. She swept then mopped the floors as was her norm. Felissia tried to get Puck to eat when he awoke but the boy had cloistered himself down in the basement and his blood laced mushroom soup still sat on the counter, now stone cold.

“Grammy, where is he?” Talisa shouted as she burst into the bar. She was still clutching the pages of news article she printed up in the library.

“Puck?” Felissia inquired with a frown as she walked around the bar toward her frantic granddaughter. “He’s in the basement.”

“Good,” Talisa replied and slammed down the articles on the bar fiercely, “You have to read this. Read it aloud.”

Felissia sat down in one of the stools as she picked up the top piece of paper and began to read. “Murder at the Disco, two teenager attacked behind local club. Do I have to read the author’s name as well?” Felissia said as she looked up at her granddaughter. She noted the younger girl looked a bit pale.

Talisa waved at her dismissively and so Felissia continued.

“On the night of April fifteenth, police were called to a local club where two victims were found in an adjoining alleyway. Witnesses say both victims appeared to be relatively the same age and description. Police are withholding the names of the victims pending the notification of their next of kin.”

“Read this one.” Talisa insisted shoving another piece of paper in front of her grandmother. It was the same one that first drew her attention.

“As previously reported on the night of April fifteenth, police were called to a local club where two victims were found in an adjoining alleyway. Police have positively identified Mikel Durant and his twin sister, Maeve Durant, both age eighteen. They are the children of attorney Donovan Durant. Mikel Durant was found dead at the scene. His sister was seriously injured and later slipped into a coma. A source within the investigation report that both teens were attacked and...” Felissia gasped.

“Raped.” Talisa finished. “Think about it, Grammy. He acts like a baby because Puck’s only been around for six months. The emotions I picked up last night. The freaky way he acted around those witch haters...”

“The strange way he was when I asked if he needed help bathing...Why he started getting upset when I asked about family. “ Felissia murmured. She rose to her feet and started off toward the basement.

“Where are you going?” Talisa asked as she stood and followed her grandmother into the kitchen back behind the bar.

“To see Puck. I have this feeling those Voices told him all about what you found.”
************************************************

The single light bulb dangling precariously from the ceiling only illuminated a few box and junk filled feet, leaving most of the cave like room in shadows. The creaky wooden steps let off puffs of dust as the two women walked down into the room. Finding Puck in the maze of crates full of alcohol, broken bits of nostalgia and web covered boxes was made easier by Puck himself. Felissia and Talisa merely had to follow the sounds of sobs and dull thuds.

They found him curled in the fetal position in between a stack of boxes and the furthest wall. He was rocking back and forth with such violence, Puck left small cracks in the concrete behind him.
“Puck?” Talisa whispered as Felissia cautiously approached and knelt in front of him.

“Evil its.” Puck hissed and clawed at his ears with sharp little fingernails. “Stop it! Stop calling me that! Not yours-not-beautiful.”

Felissia jerked the vampire’s hands away from him and pinned them to his side. He began to scream and kick like a wild animal forcing Felissia to hold the boy in a bear hug just to insure he wouldn’t hurt her, or Talisa or himself.

“Let go!” he roared as a mad kick sent boxes raining down upon them. Talisa watched in horror as the boxes contents, vases, shattered around them, slicing the two vampires’s faces and arms.

“Mikel listen to me.” Felissia shouted.

“No!” he screamed. “No Mikel, not him!”

“Puck, then. Listen, it’s Felissia.” She said. “Remember? I washed your hair last night, I told you about lavender.”

He seemed to pause for a moment and then rammed the back of his head into her nose, “No, you’re one of them!”

Felissia ignored the pain from her broken nose, the scream of her granddaughter and the blood pouring down her face to focus her telepathy on Puck. Roaring filled her skull and pain flooded her senses ten times worse than the last time she entered Puck’s mind. She tried pushing past the river of screams, seeking out a calm section of his psyche to communicate with and nearly was overrun by the sheer mass.

But then, before her psychic eyes she saw the thoughts and minds of millions swirl into two single entities of thought. They seemed to be looking at her. They seemed...amused.

We thought he was ready, a mass of male voices told her. He was doing so well.

We thought six months was long enough, said the other mass, one full of females.Long enough to gather enough of the fractured shards and face the truth.

“Six months isn’t a long time to get over the things that happened to him.” Felissia told them. “He was raped, his own twin was raped and that alone can scar a person for life. In addition to that he was unknowingly transformed into a creature most people think of as a myth.”

You don’t understand, the males told her. Puck knows what he is. But he doesn’t know who he is.

You see, Puck himself always thought Mikel Durant was one of us, the females revealed. And in a way, he was right.

That night he refused to face the truth of what happened to him. His mind fractured under the pressure...and some of it never returned from the void called death.

“So he was drained to the point of death, somehow consumed his attackers’ blood before he died of his wounds and when he came back to life as a vampire...some of him didn’t come back?”

Yes, that is correct, the males told her. That’s how he can hear us.

Because part of him is one of us, the females finished.

You should leave now. Talisa is concerned.

“But what about Mikel...I mean Puck?”

The Voices laughed, He’s unconscious. Your...struggle to get to his mind knocked him out. Go back inside your own head, your body is starting to shut down without it.
************************************************


Felissia gasped as she opened her eyes. A weight rested on her chest and as her eyes focused she discovered it was Puck’s head. Talisa was wiping her face free of blood with a warm wash cloth soaked in water. Felissia was rather proud of her granddaughter at that moment.

“Can’t let Puck see the blood since he’s calmed down.” The witch sniffed.

“What did I miss?” she asked wryly. The worry in Talisa’s eyes faded away.

“After he busted your nose, he kinda seized up and he fell back on you. Then after I had a minor breakdown, I went and started cleaning you up in case he woke up before you did.” Talisa replied then joked weakly. “What did you learn on your head trip?”

“Puck’s special ability as a vampire isn’t talking to the dead.” Her grandmother revealed. “A part of him never returned from his human death. And Puck thinks that Mikel Durant is just another of the Voices he has to help.”

“Wow...” Talisa sighed. “What are we going to do?”

Felissia gingerly sat up and carefully sat Puck to the side before climbing to her feet and picking the younger vampire up.

“Go up to my room, there should be a box of clothes by the closet and find something I can change him into.” Felissia instructed. “I’ll meet you in your room and we can get him out of this blood stained stuff before he wakes. Now that he’s peaceful, I don’t want to take any chances of setting him off again.”

“Gotcha.” Talisa responded and followed her grandmother through the basement and upstairs before darting off to do as she was asked. By the time the witch came back with a button up short sleeved white shirt and a pair of jeans, Felissia had him stripped.

“Holy shit.” Talisa hissed as she finally saw all the scars of Puck’s creation.

“Yes, I know.” Her grandmother replied grabbing the jeans and slipped them onto the unconscious boy with only a minor bit of difficulty. “Makes everything all the more real, doesn’t it.”

“The articles never mentioned the sheer...savagery of the attack.” Talisa said quietly. “How many vampire’s do you suppose got to him and his sister?”

“Four.” Her grandmother replied solemnly as she pulled Puck up and laid the shirt down under him before laying him back down in bed. “Standard protocol in group hunts is while everyone else dines, one has to keep lookout. There’s three different set of bite marks on Puck, plus one lookout...”

“So which of the four brought Puck over?” Talisa asked Felissia finished dressing him.

“All of them.” Puck replied. The two women jumped away from him in surprised only to notice that his eyes were closed.

“Is this the Voices speaking?” Felissia asked cautiously with a frown.

“Yes.”

“How are they doing that?” Talisa mused aloud.

“Easy.” The Voices replied. “A group of us gives energy to manipulate Puck’s body, while another group does the manipulating and yet another forms the words we speak.”

“So what were you saying before,” Felissia interrupted before Talisa could quiz the Voices possessing Puck. “All four of Puck’s attackers made Puck into a vampire.”

“Yes. During the attack, he bit one’s tongue...” the Voices began before Talisa interrupted.
“Were they kissing?!”

“Yes.”

Before Talisa could voice her disgust, Felissia told the Voices to continue.

“After the rape, Mikel tried tearing out one’s throat. The mastermind thought it was kinda funny a mere human boy pulled a stunt like that and shared a bit of his own blood with him then cut open another vampire and tossed Mikel at him.”

“Two guys and two girls?” Felissia inquired.

“No. Three men, one female.” The Voices corrected. “Puck doesn’t like the color red because the female had red hair and the mastermind had red eyes.”

“Got a name to these freaks?” Talisa demanded. “I wanna know who to put a curse on.”

“Ask Puck, he’s waking up now.” The Voices replied before Puck’s eyes fluttered open.

“Witchy Poo? Ms Grammy?” he croaked. “Puck’s...head hurt.”

“I’ll go get some asprin.” Talisa said before hurrying away. Felissia saw as Puck’s eyes became distant.

“Here’s some aspirin for your head...” said a familiar voice from Puck’s memory. A name came to him, a name that belonged to that voice. Seymore Puck...

“Whatcha thinking about, kiddo?” Felissia inquired snapping Puck from his reverie.

“Puck remembered someone with the same name as him.” He said quietly.

Yes, you remember Seymore Puck don’t you? The Voices told him. He wasn’t the least bit upset about what happened. He went to a better place happy to have met you.

Voices made Puck bite him, made him drink the red... Puck shuddered and whispered, “Voices made Puck kill Seymore Puck.”

“It’s okay.” Felissia murmured as she pulled Puck into her arms. Talisa returned with two aspirins and a glass of water. “You must have been very weak and hungry. You didn’t mean to.”

Talisa came over and put the glass and pills down before hugging Puck as well.

“Puck doesn’t like the red!” he sobbed. “But Voices and Witchy Poo say Puck needs it!”

“Is it the taste?” Felissia asked as her and Talisa released Puck.

He nodded and Felissia smirked.

“When I was young, I couldn’t stand the sight of...” Puck’s eyes suddenly went wide in expectation of the word blood.

“The stuff.” She covered quickly. “So I learned ways to mask the taste. There’s some mushroom soup downstairs with your name on it.”

“Puck loves shrooms!”

“I’ll go get it.” Talisa volunteered in between giggles.

Voices, Puck gets shrooma rooms.

Yes ,it’s been waiting for you for hours, the Voices replied

“Don’t put it in the microwave.” Felissia told Talisa. “The bowl isn’t meant for doing that. Pour a little back in the pot and heat it on the stove then refill the bowl. If Puck here doesn’t want the entire thing, I can eat the rest.”

The young vampire smiled fondly as Talisa sped off to bring Puck his food. He swallowed the aspirin with a mouthful of water and winced. For some reason he couldn’t...or wouldn’t fathom, the water tasted rather nasty.

“After you eat, get some sleep. Okay?” Felissia said as he laid down and she began to tuck him in. “I’ll be in my room across the hall if you need anything.”

“Okay.”
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