More to the Story

Raiden only stayed a short while at Jack's, he waited till the lights went out in Sophia's window. The guys down in the courtyard, didn't quite push him out, but they confirmed they would make sure she was safe and welcome.

The next stop was Maude's, even though it was known he was coming in tonight, he still needed to make a quick appearance, to formalize his arrival. As a vampire there were some formalities that one did not skip. It was after one am when he made it to the bar, Roxa was at the working behind the front bar. He said his hello, and said he would be back for lunch with a friend around eleven or so when the bar opened back up. Roxa gave him a quick hug, and Raiden was on to his last stop; his old family home.

One of the drawbacks of living for hundreds of years, is that you have to keep moving. On average one can stay is the same place for twenty to thirty years, sometimes a little longer, but that can get a little hairy; as one can only look the same age for so long. So to deal with this sometimes vampires will "time share" a residence. Every family gets the house for twenty or thirty years, then it passes to the next family and so on, after a hundred or so years you get to have your turn again. This is the case with his home in New Orleans. It is quite a large old estate, large enough that everyone has their own permanent room, even with the time share. It is nice to have a place you can keep your stuff you wish to save, pictures, mementos, diaries and letters. It would be nice to be in his old room, maybe not his old bed, he would definitely be ordering a new one, but to be back with family and his old possessions would be nice.

As much as he wanted to do some research into the full story of Sophia, he wanted and needed to catch up with his family. This was not his biological family, as they had all died around the time he had turned. This was his blood family, his vampire family, the ones who chose him to be part of them, and their family. He was a middle child in this family, they had added two more younger vampires, after he had joined them. Their were two older siblings if one could call them that and then the head of the family, who they lovingly called mom and dad. They were the ones that had kept the five young vampires in line as they aged and became mature vampires.

The thing about vampires is vampires need humanity, so they don't just become angry dark, killers. Thus having a family unit is important, his gives one back a small amount of ones humanity that is lost, when one die and comeback as a vampire.

Walking in the door of his old home, Raiden was greeted with the whole family. Mom and Dad Ruth and Arther, his siblings (in order) Randall, his wife Luisa, Daniel, (Raiden in the middle), Adel, and the youngest Darek. There were lots of hugs and excitement as he entered the house. But very quickly, the sent of Sophia had everyone on edge and asking questions. One of the great things about his family, is nobody went through anything alone. Ruth was the one to get everyone to settle down so Raiden could deal with the elephant in the room. He kept it short and sweet, he could explain everything else later.

"I found my light, her name is Sophia, and she is in danger. " He put his hands up to stop the barrage of questions. "We just found each other at the airport in Atlanta, she dose not know that I am her other half yet. All her energy right now is trying to stay alive. No, I don't know what the danger is yet, and I put her up at Jack's place." That should at least cover the first set of questions that they would ask.

It was Adel that broke the silence. "How can we help?"

Raiden took a deep breath. How could they help? "I don't know who is after her, all she would say was "she was at the wrong place, and the wrong time, and that she was dead if she did and dead if she didn't."

"Well that's a bit cryptic. " Darek quipped.

It was Randell That came to the rescue with the solution. He grabbed his laptop, opened it up, and looked at Raiden. "What's her full name?"

"Sophia L. Ricker. "

That was all it took, with vampire speed everyone went and grabbed their laptops, and the research began. It didn't take long for the story of her life to come together. (There may have been some hacking going on as there are some advantages of being old as dirt, and constantly having to change up your life story.) After a few hours as the sun was starting to come up, Raiden and the family and peiced together the life of Sophia. For the most part she had lived a quiet life, traveling with her parents from a young age, receiving good grades in school, was a safe driver, owned a home and land in Western New York, it was registered as a homestead, with agricultural land. And her life turned upside down less than three months ago. And boy did it take a nose dive.

It all started with a simple drive a few towns over to go shop at a farmers market and do some shopping in the little town. Simple and innocent enough, but no, she was in a small shop when an older woman came in wielding a large kitchen knife. The woman was hell bent on attacking one or more people in the shop, Sophia had intervened, allowing the other people to escape, for her efforts she was slashed on the arm, needing to receive over forty stitches, she ended up taking the woman down to the ground, detaining her until the police and medical showed up. This is where one would think the trouble would be over, but no. the old woman died of natural causes two weeks later, the family blamed Sophia. The granddaughter then attacked Sophia on the street of Sophia's small town, stabbing her in the ribs and slashing her back before Sophia could fully defend herself. Sophia was not so kind to the granddaughter, Sophia may have ended up with quite a few more stitches but the granddaughter was carted away with a broken jaw, a dislocated knee, and a major concussion. She would be eated from a feeding tube, for the foreseeable future. Which now one would think the problems were now over, but no. Three weeks into the granddaughter's stay in state lock up, the granddaughter gets a bug up her butt, and commits suicide. So two mentaly unstable people dead, and then the story gets even worse.

A month or so later Sophia was home one evening with her dog, the dog heard a noise and went to investigate, Sophia hears someone, and then hears her dog growl and then cry out, by now Sophia has called 911, asking for the police. After hearing her dog cry out, she recommends an ambulance. The 911 operator reports hearing gun fire and then what sounded like something falling down stairs. When the state police and medics arrive they find Sophia dragging a body down her driveway by a pant leg. The man died in route to the hospital. There was a bullet hole through her bedroom window, and blood splattered down the stairs. She had defended herself with a hunting knife, by stabbing the man in the throat, he lost his balance and fell down the stairs, she dragged him out of the house, and down the driveway. When asked why, she said she didn't want the negative energy on her property. The dog died that night as well.

So far the State Police had tracked down two other local thugs that had been given contracts to kill Sophia. They didn't have who was putting out the contracts yet, and had offered Sophia protective custody is a safe house, she declined the offer, not wanting to be trapped in a hotel room for who knows how long, she would rather leave town. And that was the sequence of events that led to Raiden finding his light. He was not happy.