Encounters (The Elder Origins #3) by Bre Faucheux Page A

his insanity, or how it had been permitted to cause such suffering. There was no other way to see it now but a tragedy, one that the Vam-pyr-ei-ak foresaw as their only salvation.
    Akecheta and Jamison took the coffin within their hands and carried it into the depths of the cavern. Caspar’s victims, still sick from their gradual change into vampyrs lay just outside it now.
    “What is to be done with them?” asked Madison looking at the ten people lying helplessly on the ground.
    Nayati answered as the others disappeared into the shadows ahead. “We will heal them of their thirst. Then the rest is up to them. Nothing more can be done,” he said gravely.
    “Do you regret having to be here?” she asked.
    “No. We are the privileged few, Madison. We know what we are and we have a purpose for living. Others with this affliction will merely have to find ways to continue their lives as immortals. I daresay it is not as easy a task as it may appear.” He stopped to look at her, sincerity passing through him.
    The others appeared from behind the veil of darkness within the cave before them, without the casket in tow. A small light broke through the blackness and Jamison took his place beside her. The enclosed space set aflame before their eyes. Madison waited to hear Caspar’s screams, but they never came. Nothing but the sound a roaring blaze reached their ears. Madison hoped to feel relief from the knowledge that Caspar was no more. But there was none. Lyndon waited behind them, growing increasingly reassured that this would n’t be his fate too.
    One by one, the people whose coughs had been lulled down into a deep slumber were taken to nearby lodging. A descent distance away from the fortress, a quiet and undisturbed village slept. A stable for horses made for a suitable accommodation until the people recovered. Madison did her best to tend to the children amongst the victims. As much as she abhorred it now, she took what little blood she could from the local people to feed their needs, but only enough to get by.
    She expected that a few of the people resting before her were families, unfortunate enough to all be drinking from the same well that Caspar had poisoned with his blood. In a few days, they would awaken with new lives. And within that same day, Jamison and the others would be forced to heal them of their new affliction. She only wished that the others who had been misled to attack her brother and new companions had been so fortunate as to know another way existed.
    It was then that she realized it was only right to give Lyndon what he desired. He said himself that he never wished to be this way, or to live with the knowledge that he didn’t have to service his constant need for blood.
    “Your sympathy is well guided,” said Akecheta as he came to sit beside her as she fed one of Caspar’s victims. He took blood from the bowl that she had collected and fed it to a teenage girl laying near him. “But there will be more in the future beyond saving. We will have no choice but to end them.”
    “We must try when we can, sir,” she said. “If we do not make the effort, then we are no better in our search to end this violence.”
    “I would not have learned how to heal vampyrs from their thirst if I had no intention of doing it. I promise you, Madison. We will do what we can whenever possible.”

Chapter 8
     
    It was over a fortnight before the group of people Jamison discovered within the cavern were completely healed. Madison knew she would be better off not knowing too much about them. She left that duty to Jamison. When Madison looked at them, all she saw were their children. Young people who would never age. The cruelty of what Caspar had done to them was beyond the mere act of changing them into vampyrs. Their eternal youth would undoubtedly destroy them once they came to understand what they had become.
    The small town they had come across managed to stay ignorant of their presence there. Madison