Summer didn't know how long she stood alone in the unending whiteness of her environment. It didn't feel too long but it was hard to tell because there were no reference points at all. There was just the whiteness everywhere, surrounding her, disorientating her. A man suddenly appeared in the distance, walking quickly towards her. He was dressed completely in white, his hair as golden as hers, his face as beautiful as Nathaniel's. She watched him carefully as he neared, wondering if she should fear him or welcome his approach.
He smiled as he reached her, a feeling of peace overcoming her as his lips tugged into a gentle curve. "Welcome, Summer," he said softly. "I have been waiting a long time for you."
His opening words surprised her. His voice was rich and deep, his expression almost reverent as he looked at her. "Where am I?" she asked in confusion. "Who are you and why have you been waiting for me?" She wondered if she was sleeping.
She toyed with the idea that she was dead and was now in Heaven, but after the wicked acts she had just performed with Nathaniel, she quickly dispelled that idea. She would most definitely be in Hell if she were dead. So his next words surprised her completely when he patiently answered her questions.
"Where are you? Well, you are technically dead at the moment," he replied, his smile never wavering even though she gasped in shock at his words. " I am Lucas, your instructor. I was so excited when I was told you would be coming to join us, Summer. I had hoped it would be before you met up with Nathaniel but it appears it wasn't to be." He appeared slightly peeved as he mentioned the vampire, but then his beautiful face cleared and he was smiling once more.
Summer stared at him, his words making no sense, her confusion growing with each passing moment. "You know Nathaniel?" she finally asked, deciding she didn't want to know any of the others things he had mentioned. Not if he was going to tell her she was dead. The thought of her family grieving over her was more than she could bear.
Lucas sighed softly and rolled his eyes. "Everyone knows Nathaniel," he sighed dramatically. "Such a disappointment he was. He used to be one of us but chose to go down another path. I tried to dissuade him from doing so but he always did have a mind of his own. So stubborn; so certain he knew what was best."
It was disconcerting having someone talk about things that she knew nothing about. Lucas appeared to assume that she would be able to follow this conversation intelligently when in fact, her confusion was just growing steadily. "One of us?" Summer questioned.
"One of the Síochán," Lucas smiled, his blue eyes twinkling as if that explained everything. He watched her confused face for a long moment and then gave her a sheepish grin. "I suppose I should explain a little," he said ruefully. "But first, let's get out of here. This endless white is painful on the eye." He didn't appear to do anything but suddenly they were no longer surrounded by the whiteness but were instead in her parlour.
Summer gasped in shock as she looked around the room. There was no apparent transition between the two places, they were just suddenly surrounded by a different environment. She looked closely at the parlour and detected a very slight, dull edge to the room. The colours were less vibrant, the room slightly less tangible than she was used to.
"Very good," Lucas praised with a wide smile, as if he had just read her mind. "You will learn very quickly, I think. You have already determined that this is not your real home. It is merely an approximation of it. We can make it more real so it truly reflects the place, but we tend to leave it a little off kilter just so we know that we are not on the mortal plain. Sometimes it can be a little confusing, all this hopping about. I remember when Marcus first joined us. He spent countless hours in one location only to discover he hadn't actually gone to the mortal plain and was working here instead. He was very angry when he discovered his error."
Lucas laughed loudly at the memory, his long blond hair swaying as he threw his head back. It seemed to take him a moment to realise that Summer had no clue as to what he was talking about and he shot her another sheepish grin. He wasn't doing a very good job on this introduction thing. His excitement at finally having someone as strong as Summer to train was overtaking his duties.
"My apologies, Summer. I digress a little," he smiled, waving a hand towards the chair she had sat in earlier. The same one Nathaniel had sat in as she knelt between his thighs and took his hardness into her mouth. She blushed furiously at the memory and tried to put it out of her mind as she tentatively sat down. Whether the chair was real or not, it felt real enough and as she sank back into it, she felt slightly comforted at being in familiar surroundings.
Lucas sat in the chair across from her and once again smiled a comforting smile at the beautiful woman before him. She really was quite exquisite. He could understand how Nathaniel would have been drawn to her before she crossed over. He was finding himself immensely attracted to her himself but he knew that he would have to contain himself. The poor thing was already overawed by everything that had happened to her, but he had no doubt that he and Summer would enjoy some delicious, carnal pleasures in the near future.
He quickly brought his mind back to the task at hand. "Now where was I?" he mused quietly. "Ah, that's right! We are the Síochán. It is our job to ensure that harmony exists between good and evil on the mortal plain. We are the Peace Makers so to speak. When something threatens the balance too severely, we step in and correct it so everything is back in harmony again. Síochán means peace." He frowned slightly and pursed his lips. "Though I suppose that is a bit of an oxymoron, having a name meaning peace when the nature of our work is often quite violent."
Summer stared at him open mouthed and wondered if she was really even here with him. What he spoke of was so out of her comfort zone. It didn't sound possible at all, and yet, if someone would have told her a day earlier that she would have given herself so wantonly to a vampire, she would have laughed and thought the person mad.
She eyed Lucas quietly for a long moment, waiting to see if he would say anything further but he didn't, so she finally broke the silence. "You said Nathaniel was one of you?" she queried. The vampire seemed to be the only thing they appeared to have in common. Plus he was all that Summer seemed capable of thinking of at the moment. His beautiful face kept coming to her mind unbidden, the memory of his intense lovemaking swirling madly in her head.
Lucas's beautiful face creased in a small frown before he relaxed and rested back in his chair. "He was one of the very best of us," he answered quietly. "He was always sent on the toughest assignments because he always achieved such positive results. We didn't notice how much he longed to walk in the world below, until the need was ingrained too deeply inside him. He chose to become mortal and then realised he would eventually die, so he sought a way to stop that from happening, and ended up becoming a vampire. Nasty creatures, vampires. We have to intervene with them quite often. I had hoped Nathaniel would police his own kind, given his dual nature, but he steadfastly refuses to get involved."
