Chapter Twenty-Two

'So, we finally caught a moment to teach you how to paint,' James stood in the middle of the art room the next day, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and his torso cockily apron-less for he believed in his own expertise. It was a Sunday so the art room was empty except for the two of them, the students could employ it for personal use at any time there weren't classes being held.

Andrew, on the other hand, already had one hand covered in yellow after trying to crack open a new paint can. He'd pulled it hard, underestimating his own impressive strength, and the lid had spilt neatly in half, spilling itself on the tarpaulin.

He dragged his canvas around the floor now, soaking up the yellow to use as his background colour. James had suggested he try a sunrise and had insisted it wouldn't be too difficult for a beginner.

James looked down at him with a smirk, his arms crossed over his chest.

'You know it's just mixing up with the other tarpaulin stains and turning blue?'

Ugh he's soo annoying.

Andrew lifted up the canvas grumpily to see that the edge had in fact turned rather blue.

'I need that anyway! It's the sea.' He hurriedly set it on the easel and slathered the bottom with a large stroke of turquois paint. It immediately mixed with the yellow and turned an awful shade of green.

'You need to wait for it to dry,' James pointed out rather vexatiously.

'Whatever,' Andrew grumbled, embarrassed at his blunder. He waved off James's offer of a new canvas saying he was probably going to ruin that too. 'It can be a painting of a sunrise back in the 21st century when the ocean was green and full of plastic.'

James shuddered at the memory, piquing Andrew's interest. He hadn't stopped bombarding him with questions ever since he found out about everything last night. Keeping him up the whole night through, with surprising energy for a human, and then shaking him awake at the crack of dawn with more queries in mind.

'What were the little fishies like?' he begged now, dying for more details than what he'd read in books.

'Dead.'

'No, I mean before!' Andrew waved his arms around in exasperation. 'And those hundreds of species of crawly things before technology replaced the whole ecosystem.'

'I was terrified of them,' James admitted, walking over to assess the damage on the canvas.

'No way,' he gaped, unable to imagine James being afraid of anything, 'Even the little fishies??'

'No, not the FISH,' James glared at him, annoyed that he was being judged by a human who had never felt the awful tingle of a spider running across his skin. He pointed at the now dry canvas and ordered Andrew to continue.

Andrew absently stirred his red paint around with a faraway look in his eyes, probably thinking of more irritating questions to ask. He started sweeping big strokes to and fro on the horizon, mixing it in to make it orange.

'Start here and work your way outwards,' James directed, placing his own hand over the human boy's as he controlled his strokes, 'You don't want to be creating such harsh lines over the water.'

Andrew's hand felt weirdly clammy under the vampyre's surprisingly warm touch. He awkwardly wiped the sweat off his brow with his free hand, the forgotten paint dragging across his hair and leaving it tipped in yellow along with most of his forehead. He pulled away with a groan of frustration, yanking out his other hand from under James's.

'You certainly have a knack for making yourself look like art,' he grinned as Andrew grumbled something rude under his breath and plopped down on the nearest stool, having given up on his artistic ambitions.

'Tell me more about this... eternal being or whatever,' he said, wanting to change the subject before he was ordered to paint again, 'Are they not a vampyre?'

'Technically they don't need to drink blood to survive; although they have fangs and can feed if they choose to.' James shrugged. 'They can eat human food or not eat at all.'

'So we know the murders aren't due to thirst,' Andrew concluded thoughtfully.

'I wouldn't say they're very similar to vampyres at all,' James continued, 'They aren't affected by iron or sunlight either. Basically, they're just like humans- except they have heightened senses and they're impenetrable to illness. And of course, they're eternal.'

'Do you burst into flames if sunlight touches you?' asked Andrew excitedly.

'I don't know, I haven't tried it,' said James irritably, 'I've had bad sunburns but I didn't stand under it long enough to check if I'd combust.' He turned his attention back to the painting moodily, trying to salvage Andrew's mess. 'As for iron, it burns my skin.'

Andrew fidgeted on his stool and James looked back to see him kicking at the tarpaulin, his hair spiked up with paint and smudges covering his delicate face. His large apron was still not big enough to protect the clothes underneath and the sleeves of his grey jumper were dribbled with colour, as were his black denims. James thought to himself that it suited him to be a splash of colour in his otherwise dreary life.

'That looks a lot better now,' Andrew said after a while, pointing at his painting, 'You even managed to blend in all the colours and paint the reflection,' he added, clearly impressed.

'I hope you were watching my technique,' James said, wagging the paintbrush at him, 'I fully expect you to recreate this on your own now.'

Andrew faltered slightly, knowing full well that he had been unproductively staring at James's face the whole time and not at his paintbrush.

'Of course, but... not today!' he said hurriedly, 'I still have so many questions about the eternal, and we have to come up with a plan to track them down!'

'What do you mean we? Certainly, you're not planning to help us find this bloodthirsty monster,' James frowned in dissatisfaction. Drat this meddlesome human.

'Marie mentioned that the both of you could become eternal too,' he said instead, intelligently changing the subject as James came towards him.

'Well, it's a little complicated, see,' James started to explain, thankfully having temporarily forgotten about Andrew's scheme to help, 'An eternal can bite a human to turn them into a vampyre, like my sister and I, but if either an eternal or a vampyre meets their human soulmate they will both start to transform into eternals. I don't know how true it is, however,' he added off-handedly, 'I've been around for centuries and it hasn't happened.'

Andrew looked up, concerned at his tone. James was now sitting in the stool right opposite him, their knees almost interlocking.

'At first, I thought it was just because of... me. But my sister hasn't changed either, and Goddess knows she's tried.' His eyes weren't holding anything back as they gazed into the human's. Andrew could almost swear he could see straight into his bare soul.

James hadn't said it outright but they both knew what he was speaking of. He had basically admitted to spending centuries searching Ather for his other half.

Andrew saw the look on his face and instinctively knew that James had been searching not only for his soulmate but also for his soul. He understood now the darkness that was within the other boy. He understood what he'd meant the other day, when they were painting the dragon and he'd said that his life had no meaning.

It was because love was what gave life meaning, and a vampyre couldn't find it with just anyone because they were tied to their soulmate bond. And James had not yet found his.

James saw the look on Andrew's face and belatedly realized that the boy was perceptive enough to have caught on to his admission. He hadn't really meant to divulge so much but the human was incredibly easy to talk to. It felt like he could spend eternity just sitting there talking.

James broke the charged silence by suddenly getting up, having remembered the human's plans to help.

'You're not to join the hunt, Andrew. It's much too dangerous for you.' he stated fiercely, 'Marie and I cannot die, even in a fight against an eternal.'

'Of course not,' Andrew agreed obediently, having no intention of keeping this promise.

Andrew tried to get to his feet and ended up tripping on his stool and then slipping on the puddle of paint he'd spilled on the floor earlier. James quickly caught him around the waist before he fell and then groaned when he saw that the paint stains that covered Andrew now covered him as well.

Andrew grinned a little impishly, 'Maybe you should've worn an apron.'

'Or maybe I should've just let you fall,' James teased, knowing full well that this was something he could never do.

~~~

They met up with Marie later, back in their dorm. Andrew had showered again and changed into a dark grey t-shirt which James had inexplicably commented upon for being "too grey". They sat in a small circle now, with the two boys sitting cross-legged on one of the beds and Marie spinning around gaily in the rollie chair.

'Do you think... it's the same eternal who turned you?' Andrew asked James hesitantly, curious about his past but not wanting to pry.

James shook his head and then nodded towards his twin. 'She turned me.'

'Oh, I thought you were both turned together,' Andrew said in surprise, turning to Marie, 'How did you turn then?'

Marie suddenly got very absorbed in a piece of lint stuck on the back of her chair as she surreptitiously rolled away from him, pretending not to hear. 'It was soo long ago I can't even remember, haha. Anyway, James was so devastated without me that I had to let him join the ranks of the undead.'

Her twin just rolled his eyes at her comment but Andrew had a suspicion that she was quite right. From what he'd witnessed so far, the twins were very close although they bickered about everything. And after watching all their friends die, who else would they have left but each other?

'Anyway, what's with these creepy lilies?' she asked now, 'It's like the work of a serial killer.'

James frowned at that, pondering the question. 'Finding the lilies will likely lead us straight to the eternal, but it won't be easy now that everyone's getting rid of them. I checked all the flower shops on the mountain but no one is supplying it anymore. The last place to check is the meadow...'

His words hung in the air as his face turned ashen in remembrance. The meadow was where the last and worst war had been fought. One look at his face told Andrew that he had been there; and had been the only one left alive from his platoon. The meadow covered the entire distance from the mountain to the ocean on the side of the archipelago, where the battle had occurred, and it was now littered with the flower of death, still glistening after more than a hundred years, having reveled in enough life to shine forever.

Andrew had glimpsed it through the fog on his flight from the islands. It was a terrifyingly beautiful sight. They all knew it would be impossible to get there however, the only mode of travel were the weekly cargo planes which rarely carried passengers; and anyway, even if they got on one, it dared not fly close to the meadow, let alone land. The trains not venturing above a mid-high level of the mountain, they would have to travel on foot to the top of the icy mountain - the top being thousands of kilometers above the college - and then go down the other side. Of course, the moment they reached the top they would be instantly blinded by the lilies' glow, so really this plan was futile.

'We could check the crater,' Andrew said quietly.

'Whatever is growing in gardens they would have destroyed by now.'

'They wouldn't they... couldn't,' he paused sadly, 'The flower is too valuable to forgo the chance of being able to sell.'

They realized with regret that he was absolutely right; the vendors in the crater simply couldn't afford to throw out their goods, dangerous or not.

'We'll go next weekend,' James said decisively, 'If we leave Friday night we can be back before classes restart on Monday. That will hopefully give us enough time to track them down.'

Their plans been laid, they finally turned in for the night; all three of them at last getting some much-needed peace of mind.