Battle of the Bloodline

The morning coffee rush was over and it began to die down before the lunch rush would set in about an hour from now. I grabbed a rag and the bottle of cleaner from under the counter by the sink and began to wipe off the counter space and the spilled caramel syrup that got all over a stack of lids we had stored by the espresso machine. I began wiping down the sides of the metal machine when Rachel handed me a cup to start on the next order. White Chocolate Mocha. My favorite. It was my favorite to make too.

The customer who ordered it walked toward the end of the counter with his eyes staring at his wallet, struggling to get the change into the correct slot. He took a seat at the nearest table to the end of the counter. There was something about him that seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. With all that thinking, it made me lose track of what I was doing. The milk I was steaming over flowed and ran onto my nice clean counter. Rachel walked over with her arms crossed.

“I already sent one person home for burning themselves because of that,” she teased. “I don’t want to send a second person home.”

“Sorry,” I muttered.

Rachel was a tall brunette who always wore floral scented perfume and neutral colored makeup. Her light pink glossed lips slipped from a smile to a concerned pressed line. “You okay, there?” She picked up a new cup and began to remake the drink.

“Remember what I told you earlier about the guy I bumped into and the book in my car?”

“Yea?”

“That’s him sitting at the end of the counter,” I stated. It had finally hit me. That’s who it was. He wasn’t wearing his fedora, but I swear he was wearing the same leather jacket. When Rachel was finishing his drink, I ran to my locker in the back and grabbed the book which I stuffed into my backpack, then walked his drink and the book out to his table and sat in the seat across from him. I dropped the book on the table, which made a louder sound than I had anticipated, but I didn’t care.

“What is this?” I demanded.

His green eyes popped out from behind his shaggy black hair. His thin lips curled into a smirk as he grabbed his coffee and took a sip. “It looks like an old book,” he replied sarcastically.

“Oh really? Care to explain why you put it in my car this morning?”

It caught the attention of others sitting within earshot, which was about the entire building. The discomfort my stomach had after the words were spoken made me wish I hadn’t said it so loudly. However, his facial expression didn’t change to confusion, but to surprise. He lifted an eyebrow as if he was impressed with my accusation. I didn’t understand.

“Wow,” he muttered with coffee still in his mouth. He swallowed another sip of coffee before continuing. “You figured that out a lot faster than I thought you would.”

“I’m sorry,” I threw my hand up to stop anything he was going to say next. “Do we know each other?”

“No,” he replied, setting his mug on the counter. “Not formally.”

He had a deep, raspy groan of a voice which seemed lower than I would have expected for someone who looked like him. He had pale skin contrasted with his dark hair and green eyes, and he couldn’t have been older than twenty. From all the fiction books I’ve read he would fit the description of a vampire. As he started to talk next I paid more attention to his teeth… is he a vampire?

“Have you opened it yet?” He asked leaning back against his chair, nodding toward the book. Still sitting between us, undisturbed since the abrupt impact, the light rays of the sun caught the remainder of dust floating around it which I had also disturbed.

“Yes, it’s blank,” I stated in a disgusted tone as the smell of it’s age reached my nose.

“Look at it again,” he urged. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms as a sign of defiance.

“Why should I?” I scoffed. “It’s not like the words and pictures have magically formed on the pages in the last two hours.

“You might be surprised,” He picked up his cup and began to take another sip making his sentence a little muffled.

I scoffed. “Try me,”

He placed his hand on the book and shoved it across the table top until it sat right under my nose. “Then open it,” he said with a smirk.

Spinning the book around I flipped open the cover and in fancy, medieval style, cursive writing covered the page from left to right in big letters reading “Once Upon a Time.”

“That’s so cliché,” I muttered as I flipped to the next page. In full detail from the table and the chairs of the coffee shop was a very well replicated illustrated photograph of me sitting at my table a couple weeks ago. You could clearly see the Beats logo on my headphones and the names of the books that I had stacked on the table behind my laptop. Harry Potter, The Hobbit, and InkHeart. Their spines were so clear and concisely drawn that it was as if someone took a photo on that day.

“How?” it came out as more of a whisper. I was surprised anything came out at all. I looked into his green eyes that were already looking at me as he watched me examine the book. “Is this even possible?”

His lips curled into a smirk as his shoulders rose and fell shrugging. “You tell me,”

My disbelief and confusion turned into anger. “What exactly am I supposed to say?” I raised my voice a little bit louder than I had intended as guest’s heads began to turn towards us again. I leaned in closer, lowering my voice to just a whisper. “If this is some kind of joke…”

“Look,” he interrupted. “I knew you weren’t going to believe me even if I showed you the rest of the book or even said that it’s magical,”

“Magical?” I questioned throwing my back against the back of the chair and crossing my arms. “There’s no such thing as magic. And how do you expect me to believe in magic when I don’t even know your name?”

“This is the key to unlock whatever you've been looking for when you sit down to write,” he stated tapping his finger on the table top. I began to speak, but he interrupted again. “Looks like you’re going to discover a lot about yourself and what you’re truly looking for.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You have a destiny far beyond words can explain,” His hand slid over curling over the top of mine; my fingers twitched at the sudden touch of his cold hands. “It’s time you found out.”

With a snap of his fingers our surroundings formed into darkness. The coffee shop. Him. The book. There was nothing. The darkness made my stomach churn as if butterflies were about to fly out of my mouth. The ground I stood on became less and less sturdy and solid until it became so thin that my weight wasn’t supported anymore and I started falling. If black could get any darker than it already was, that is what I could see. Darkness with no end. It felt as if I was falling with no intention of coming to a sudden stop. This felt like the end. I closed my eyes letting out a shrieking scream as I fell further and further into the darkness.