**Hello again every one, I’m back and chomping at the bit to get this show on the road. Before you read any further though, I must warn you, you may want to go and grab a tissue or two. This story doesn’t have a vary happy start to it at all, but it is necessary to the story and the development of the character. So I hope you can forgive me for it. Major thanks to Enemyoffun, Maggie Finson, Lilith Langtree, Dr. Bender, Donjo, Wren, and Djkauf for their invaluable help in planning this story out and helping me get things to work, editing, and beta reading. Also, I may or may not have taken some small liberties with locations, names, landmarks and other such things. Any mistakes that you find are my fault. I had to change a few things around after the editing process. The image is owned by Wizards of the Coast, I just thought it looked pretty cool. Here’s hoping you have a good read.**

July 8^th 1995…

I couldn’t believe this was happening. I had come home from school to show my parents my exam grades, just to prove to them that Jimmy and I actually did study all night instead of just goofing around in front of some video game like they thought we would. I found a note that told me they had gone to get some groceries at the store. I figured couldn’t have missed them by more than two or three minutes. I saw that the new turbo charger kit I had ordered over a month ago from Germany had finally shown up. I put the letter that said what my grades were on the kitchen table for my parents to see when they got back, and lugged the box with the parts out to the garage and got to work installing them on my baby.

I was, and still am, the very proud owner of a 1984 Audi S1 Sport Quattro. Never heard of it? Don’t worry, not too many have. It’s old, and wasn’t all that popular here in the US. But these things are legendary in the European rally circuits. The first turbo charged car to be competitive, and the first to have any kind of four- or all-wheel drive.

After installing the new turbo, I was expecting to be getting about 550 horsepower at all four wheels (meaning the engine was making close to 675) and about 480 pound feet of torque. That may be over the heads of most people, but it boils down to this: with the special racing tires I had on the car and this new turbo, the thing could sprint from a dead stop to sixty miles an hour in about three and a half seconds. And that’s on a gravel road.

Cars like these are not easy to work on, being made in Germany (and by extension of this, everything is over engineered) as they are, and replacement parts are hard to come by. And they usually cost you an arm, leg, and the soul of your first born child IF you do eventually find something that MIGHT work. I got lucky and found what I needed locally and was able to talk the guy into straight up trade, the turbo I currently had for his. I would have paid about five grand for it otherwise.

I was about half way done with getting the old turbo off when I heard a car pull up the drive way and shut off. I remember thinking that they had gotten home kind of quickly, considering it usually took them about two hours to do the grocery shopping. I realized my error when I heard the knock on the siding of the garage. I slid out from under the car, where I was trying to loosen a bolt that had almost completely rusted to the point of fusing to the nut it was attached to. When I looked up, my heart dropped straight out of my chest. It was one of the local sheriffs and he didn’t look like he was here to share any good news.

“Are you Michael Fitzpatrick?” He asked, sounding much too somber for my liking.

“Yes sir, officer. I’m assuming by the look on your face that something went wrong, so go ahead and just tell me, please.” I asked. I really should have been able to put two and two together, but I guess I was just refusing to come to that conclusion.

“Son, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there was an accident involving your parents. There’s alive, for now, but it’s not looking too good for them. They’re being air lifted to the hospital as we speak. I’ve come here to inform you of what’s going on and to give you a ride to the hospital, if you need one.” He said, taking his ‘Smokie the Bear’ hat off and holding it over his heart in a gesture of compassion expected from someone like him in a situation like this. I was lucky to be standing near the lawn chair my dad kept in the garage for when he stepped outside to smoke in the winter, otherwise I think I might have fallen flat on my butt on the cement floor right where I stood.

“I don’t believe I’m good to drive, officer, so I’ll take you up on that offer, please. You can fill me in on the way there.” I told him. I saw my feet moving, but it didn’t feel like I was controlling them. I was still in shock. This kind of thing just couldn’t happen to my parents. He started to explain what had happened, but he didn’t get very far at all, nor did we even get half way out of the drive way before I lost control of the tears I was trying to hold back so I could learn what happened to my mom and dad.

About three hours later and here I am, completely alone in the ICU waiting room, cursing whichever one of the powers that be that decided to take my parents from me. I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye or tell them I loved them. I think, looking back on it, that this is what hurt me the most out of everything. It wasn’t that I didn’t make it in time, it was that they were brain dead before the fire even got to them. Blunt trauma to the head tends to do that kind of thing to the human body. They were buried two weeks later.

Turns out that my old man had invested in some penny stocks for me about six or seven years ago and didn’t tell me about it. I only learned about this through the reading of their wills. Dad left all of those stocks to me. As I was having a look through which ones were still there, there were two that jumped out at me. The first was IBM, and the second was Microsoft. Mind you, he only bought one ‘stock’ in each of the companies. However, if you leave it sitting for as long as he had, well, that’s still a lot of money.

In this case, it meant that I had just over one million dollars at age 24. That was more than enough to make up for the fact that they left everything else to charity, except the house and the cars. I was all set to go to one of the colleges in the area this fall anyway, might as well move out that way a bit early. I really didn’t want to, but I knew that I couldn’t stay here. I could barely even stand to be inside the house for any length of time, let alone actually live there any more, and I had no one here to tie me down. Both of my parents had been only children, so I had no cousins, aunts, or uncles. I looked at the recruitment brochure the school had sent me. Ravencrest seemed like it was as good a place as any to be this time of year.

Three weeks after the funeral…

“I still don’t see why you’re leaving so soon, man. You know you don’t have to, right?” Jimmy told me after we got the last of my stuff packed into the moving van. He had been practically living with me since my parents died. Every time I tried to shoo him back to his parent’s house, he tell me to shut up and that I’d be doing ‘the exact same damn thing, and you know it!’ He did give me my space, though, when the emotions started overwhelming me. He also helped me finish that turbo swap, and take it for a test drive through the curviest roads that we could find. And Sterns, Kentucky has quite a few of those. We even made a day trip up to Cincinnati and hit up Devil’s Backbone Road and Congress Run, both of which were taken at high speed. The first was fun, like a roller coaster ride. The second? Well, that one found us on the shoulder by the end of it, puking our guts out from pure terror. If I ever find the cracked out son of a bitch who laid THAT road out, well, let’s leave it at ‘you don’t want to know.’

I had decided to move to where I was going to be attending school this summer. A small town called Ravencrest, New York. The school had a killer reputation for turning out some of the top minds in their respective fields of study, which was why the town still existed at all. If the school went under, the town would invariably follow. The town itself was nestled in the Adirondacks mountains in the north central part of the state, about an eternity from anything else. I know they say that location is key in the business world, but they also say the world will pave a road to your front door if you build a good enough mouse trap. I had already gone out and gotten myself set up with a small apartment in town, not too far from the school.

There wasn’t much to the place, as it was just a small one bedroom, but it was going to be my new home.
“I thought we went over this already, dude. Too many painful memories. I may come back someday, but it won’t be any time soon. It just hurts too damn much to stay here. I’ll miss the hell out of you and the rest of the crew at school, but I need to get away so I can heal.” I told him. I was barely keeping myself together at this point. I was just too close to too many memories I needed to remove myself from.
“Hey, look man. You have my address. Send me a letter or something when you get there, ok? Let me know what’s going on and how your doing. Ok?”

“You got it, dude. In the mean time, no worries. Alright? You know I’ve got my head screwed on better than that.” I said as I smiled and shook my head. I knew that he was worried about me. He and I had been friends since we were both knee high to a grasshopper and our parents had been friends long before we were born.

“Yeah, well, I guess I’ll see you next time I see you, buddy.” He said as he walked over and got in his car. “Take care of yourself now, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do twice. And do try not to wreck you car like you did your last one. I still can’t figure how you survived that. Hell, I’d doubt even GOD knows that one.”

I couldn’t help it. I scoffed at his remark and about busted my guts laughing. I was expecting him to say something funny, he usually does when things get too serious for his tastes. I knew to expect something, but this wasn’t what I was thinking.

“Thank you, oh great sage of wisdom, for guiding me away from so many paths..” I snarked back at him. making a very formal bow, my hands brought together in front of me like I was some kind of monk or something. “And be sure to tell your parents not to worry too much. And that I’ll be back to visit y’all one of these days.”

“You got it, Hoss. Like I say, take her easy now.” He said as he got in his car, fired it up and left. After watching him go until he turned onto the main road, I went to make sure that the trailer for my car was hooked up the right way one last time before I left this home for whatever awaited me beyond.
Most of that first term wasn’t all that memorable. Wake up, shower, dress, eat, go to class, do the work, come home, finish the work, eat again, go to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat until Friday. I had decided on adding a second major to my transcripts once I had finished moving into the apartment I know lived in. My first major, before you ask, is Acting. When I was in my early teens, a friend of the family had taken my parents and me to see a live theatrical production about an hour and a half north of Sterns in the Newport Shopping Plaza. We were expecting something like a more traditional production with memorized scripts and the normal kinds of stage props and stuff. What we were NOT prepared for, however, was what we got at the Shadowbox Cabaret. They had a special show going on that night and the theme was “Improv and Ad Lib.” It was about the funniest thing any of us had ever seen. They made the story up as they went along, coming up with lines off the tops of their heads and grabbing at random objects on stage as needed for props.

At one point, during a musical number, the actors were by the drummer and they grabbed the drum sticks right out of her hands and started sword fighting with them. It made such an impression on me, that I decided then and there that it was want I wanted to do with my life. Which leads me to my second major: Psychology. I decided that this would help me in my acting by giving me a better understanding of the roles that I would be playing. When trying to pass yourself off as a certain kind of person, it helps if you know not just how that kind of person normally acts, but also why they act that way and what they are usually trying to accomplish. As the actors and actresses put it, it helps me ‘get into character’. And that was the edge that made my grade in my acting classes so much higher than the majority of my class mates.

All told, I was doing alright in my classes, well enough to pass quite well, but not enough to really stand out and draw attention to myself. I didn’t really want to know anyone here, as I didn’t want any ties to this region, aside from the school itself. I wasn’t into the whole Fraternity/Sorority thing, nor was I a partier. I didn’t drink or do any drugs. I did smoke though. Picked that one up just recently. I found it helped me calm my nerves and keep them from going completely on the fritz after my parents’ death. I know it’s a bad habit, but I never really cared. If I died, oh well. No one lives forever, right?

April 11^th 1996…

I was sitting at the kitchen table of my little apartment watching the news on TV when the story was interrupted by a breaking report. The view on the screen switched to the White House where President Clinton came on and said that He was pulling all US military forces and Government personnel out of Liberia due to the "deterioration of the security situation and the resulting threat to American citizens." I didn’t realize it at that time, but that was to be the harbinger of yet another personal tragedy.

April 21^th 1996…

I awoke to my alarm blaring out the sweet sounds of “Overkill” by Motorhead and hit the snooze button after mentally jamming out for a minute or two. I got out of bed and went through my daily routine of getting cleaned up and dressed, fed, and dropping the dishes off in the sink to clean later. I went down to the front door of the building and grabbed my mail on my way out for my first cigarette of the day.
Hmm… Now this is odd. Why would Jimmy’s parents send me a letter and not Jimmy? I thought to myself as I lit my cig and sat down to open the letter. I almost burned my leg when the cig fell out of my mouth and got caught in the folds of my jeans.

Dear Michael,
We both hope you are doing well and wish you the best. I am sorry to be letting you know this by a letter, but we don’t have your phone number. On April 9th there was an incident in Liberia. I don’t know if he told you or not, but Jimmy enlisted in the Army and that was where he was stationed. There was an incident with some militant locals during the US evacuation and during a small firefight…

There was a bit that looked like it had been waterlogged and scribbled out, but the letter continued a little further down the page.

I really don’t know to say this, but Jimmy was killed in that firefight. Janelle and I want to know if you would be willing and able to speak at his funeral.
Your second parents,
Ralph and Janelle

After swatting the cigarette off of my pants leg, I picked it up and leaned back against the building. I was too numb to even cry, at that point. I flicked my cigarette away and went back up to my apartment, called my boss to explain why I wouldn’t be in today, and went straight back to bed. I didn’t get up for about two or three days.

April 29^th 1996, 3:40 A.M.

I may not have mentioned anything about it before, but the one thing my dad did get me into, aside from working on cars, was music. All I’ve ever learned to play was the guitar. I never wanted an electric guitar or to go nuts and be a rock star or anything, but I do like playing and it soothes my nerves when life is just too much to take. I’ve been playing for a few hours every night since I got the letter from Jimmy’s parents, just sitting on a small stool on the roof of the apartment building. It was fairly convenient since I had a fire escape right outside of my bedroom window that led all the way up. I’d just climb up and play under the stars. I don’t like it all that much, but I’ve been told that I have an amazing singing voice. I probably got that from my mother, because I know for a fact that my old man couldn’t sing to save his soul. The last time he had tried, I saw a fish try to drown itself to get away from the noise. True story, I swear!

I know that it may sound like I was a loser at this point, but I still hadn’t returned to the college yet. I had gotten a job there as a grounds keeper while I studied Psychology and Drama, but it was no more because I hadn’t returned. And yeah, it might seem like a strange pairing for a double major, but the Psychology lessons were a gold mine for information on how different kinds of people behaved in various situations, and that helped quite a bit with my acting classes.

Sitting up on the roof, I tore myself away from my thoughts and looked up for the stars like I used to back home, but I didn’t find very many due to all the street lights. At least this is an unseasonably warm night, so I didn’t need to bundle up like a penguin. Sighing, I picked up my acoustic guitar and start to tune it to play a song I learned a couple of months ago. It was only from a demo tape that was left in a bus station, but one of my buddies, Charlie, had mailed it to me before I moved because he thought I would like it. It was a very depressing song, but it fit with where my mood has been since finding out that my best friend died eight months after both of my parents were killed. Yeah, it wasn’t exactly in a very happy place any more.

After getting the strings tuned right, I stopped to take a few breaths. I don’t know why I chose that moment of that night to play guitarist on the roof top, but it was almost a compulsion to play. After adjusting the guitar in my lap and the pick in my hand, I started playing intro to the song. It is a truly hauntingly beautiful riff with a very tricky picking pattern and once I got through that, I took a deep breath and all of my pent up emotions, remorse and anger, al of my sorrow at losing first both of my parents, then my best friend in such a short time. Little did I know that I was giving a live performance, let alone that the instant I started singing, I would seal my fate forever.

On the sidewalk below…

Carmilla was not having a very good night. Wisteria was being even more of a bitch than normal and it was grinding her nerves. She had left the house in need of something to occupy her mind and had happened across one of Suzanne’s infamous parties. She had invited herself in and had some how managed not to put her troubles out of her mind. Suzanne, with ashy blonde hair falling down to her thighs, along with Josephine, who had gone with her mother to said party, had both left to keep an eye on the second eldest of them, lest she do anything rash in her anger. Josephine and Suzanne were walking a couple of steps behind Carmilla, in an effort to avoid upsetting the second eldest of the clan any further until Carmilla came to a sudden stop. Josephine looked around, expecting some kind of trouble, but then heard a haunting melody being strummed somewhere over their heads. Then, he sang.

Carmilla was almost literally entranced by the mystery man on the roof. It had been a very long time indeed since she had heard anyone perform with that level of emotion. She looked up to the roof of the three story apartment building and she saw him. From the first, she knew that he would be a perfect addition to the House. He may not like the sex change, but he would be much happier in the long run and would thank her for it. She was sure of it.

Josephine looked over at Suzanne and saw a tear run down her cheek, something she hadn’t seen Suzanne do for a very long time. She followed the blonde’s gaze back up to the lone singer/musician, who by this time was making his way off the roof by way of the fire escape and shimmying his way into a room on the second story. She looked to Carmilla and already knew what the woman was thinking. She knew because it was what she was thinking as well. That one would become one of the sisters, one way or another.

An hour later…

“I know you want him, but I still don’t see why we would need another sister here. We have enough.” Wisteria said. Carmilla was growing more and more agitated. She was sure that her maker was still just being a bitch.

“How about this then. We can hold an outdoor concert, and I will have him play. Then you judge for yourself if he worthy of our gift or not, Mother dearest.” Carmilla retorted, trying hard not to lose her temper again. She knew that it wouldn’t do to have Wisteria become so angry that she dismissed it out right.

“If you insist. I’ll leave the planning to you. But I had better not be disappointed by him, or I will make sure no one shall have him.” Wisteria said with a sigh. There was no mistaking what the woman meant by that. The upcoming performance would decide Michael’s fate.

He had better play his absolute best for this. I’m not going to let that bitch keep us from gaining his gift. Carmilla thought to herself as she turned on her heal and glided out of the room, not quite slamming the door on her way out. She had to figure out if there were enough bands and solo musicians in the town to make this look legitimate and to find a suitable charity for the proceeds to go to. She stopped and turned one of the sisters passing the other way in the hall.

“Darcy, have you seen Josephine lately?”

“The last I heard, she was going to her quarters to rest.”

“Good. You would do well to return to your own soon, child. It’s almost curfew.”

“Of course, that is where I’m going now.”

“Very well.” Carmilla told the younger vampire with a sigh. “Run along, now. It wouldn’t do for you to be
in trouble, especially not on this night.”

“Yes ma’am.” Darcy said somewhat nervously as she shuffled off to her room for the night. Carmilla watched her go until she rounded the corner and disappeared from sight, then continued on her own way. She knew she had many things to do if this was going to go the way she wanted. She would also need to get Suzanne to help with most of the logistics and event planning. Then there was advertising the concert, setting up the stage, acquiring the sound and lighting equipment needed. Then figuring out what to do with it all afterwards, and organizing the grounds clean up as well.

But all of that can wait until tomorrow. Tonight, I think I’ll slip out for a quick snack. Hell, I’ve earned it after the day I had today. She thought to herself with a crooked little smile as she glided out of the front door to do exactly that.

May 1^st 1996, 8:00 AM…

I was dreaming. All around me was darkness. It was all too familiar. I’d been having this dream ever since my parents had died, but it didn’t start getting this bad until Jimmy died. All around me was total darkness, I couldn’t even see my hand touching my face. But I could feel something in that darkness. It was lurking, waiting for something. It scared me, but couldn’t figure out why. I just had a feeling about it that screamed “DANGER! Keep Away!” and that is exactly why I was running for everything I was worth to do that. But I just couldn’t move fast enough. It always caught up to me in the end. Then I’d wake up about half way through the song Battery by Metallica.

“Man, I really need to change out the CD in that alarm…” I said to no one at all. I got up and stepped on a fork that had somehow been left at my bedside from a prior meal. cursing all and sundry around me, I sat quickly back down on the bed and steeled myself to inspect the damage. It almost looked like something tried to bite the heel of my foot. Luckily, it didn’t break through the skin. I threw the offend utensil away from me and tried to go back to sleep. I wasn’t doing very well at all. I hadn’t shaved in almost a month and I didn’t really leave my apartment for anything aside from food anymore. I hadn’t even been back to class after I got that letter from Jimmy’s parents. I figured that they had put me on academic probation by now, so I didn’t see the point in bothering with it.

I was almost back to sleep when I heard a knock at my door. This was rather unexpected, as I hadn’t really made any friends, at least none of the few people I did talk to for longer than it took to ask the time or for directions didn’t know where I lived. When I looked out of the peep hole, I almost forgot to open the door. She had her back to the door and was tapping her foot impatiently while waiting for me to open it. Which I quietly did and peeked out into the hall to see what she was looking for.

“Since I don’t see any balloons or a giant cardboard check, I’m gonna guess you’re not with Publisher’s Clearinghouse.” I said, still rather bleary eyed and slightly annoyed at having the precious little sleep I was able to get lately being interrupted. “So, What can I do ya for?”

“Hey, I’m Suzanne. I was walking by here the other night and I heard you singing up on the roof and I just had to meet you. You know you’ve got an amazing singing voice, right?” She said in a voice that would have left angels jealous. “I gotta say, I don’t think I’ve ever been that moved by just one person singing a simple song before. You really shouldn’t keep that kind of a gift all to yourself.”

“Uh, no, I guess I shouldn’t.” I said. Strangest thing about that morning is that I don’t remember much after that. Just that somehow, I seemed to have been beamed straight up to Cloud Nine and left there for a while all as a reward for wanting to sing and make Suzanne happy.

A short while later…

After I still have no idea how long, I snapped into wakefulness, wondering what I was doing spacing out at my kitchen table of all places when three things all came to my attention at once. The first was that I felt both emotionally drained and spiritually empty Almost like something in my life was missing, beyond the people I had already lost. The second was that every part of my body felt more relaxed than I ever remembered feeling. The third was the exception to the first. That meaning: the junk hanging from my groin felt like it had been run over by a Mack truck. And let me tell you, that was about the strangest damn thing I have ever experienced, especially since I can’t remember what I got hit with that would cause that much pain.

Anyway, I was waiting for said pain to go away before finishing my morning routine, I noticed a flyer on the table. It was advertising the concert I was playing in. And there were a few numbers there. One was for the Sorority house, another was to call to RSVP, and the third was for musicians to call to schedule auditions. I flipped the flyer over and found a hand written note on the back.

Hey, you don’t need to audition. I’ve already heard you perform and you are more than good enough. Just play that song again and you’re sure to be a huge hit. Why don’t you give me a call, too. I know a few people that could form a band for you to play with. Just do something about that beard of yours. It’s making you look like a hobo.

P.S.
Here’s my number, Handsome. 315-867-5309.

A hobo? I asked myself as I reached up and scratched along my jaw line. I didn’t think I looked that bad, but if someone who knew as much about looking good as she did said it would help, then why not? Worst case would be that it just grew back. But I didn’t understand why she wanted me, of all people. I was a nobody, even if it was by choice. I hated being at the center of attention. Why me?

Well, either way, it wasn’t like I was going to turn down an invitation from someone like that. I grabbed a pen off the table and started making a list of what I would need to do to prepare for the show. While I had never knowingly put on a live performance before, I knew that I didn’t want to screw it up, I’d probably die of embarrassment. It was this point in time that inspiration slapped me right in the face. A slow smile crossed my lips as I started writing out my set list and what equipment I would need. I should have been a bit worried about how intensely I was going at this. I didn’t even know this chick and her I was, trying to figure out ways to impress her and make here happy.

That night, I even had a dream about her. Normally I would have been pissed off about something like that, but for some reason, it didn’t bother me. The note she left on the flyer said that she might have some people that could form a band to back me while I did my thing. I’d have to call her soon to figure that out. The next morning found me in the kitchen staring at the flyer. In particular, it was the note on the back that had my undivided attention. As I got up from the table, I felt like I had a bajillion thoughts racing through my head. But somehow, I couldn’t call even one of them to the forefront of my mind. I went to my bedroom and fished my phone out from under the bed. I dialed Suzanne’s number and waited for her to pick up. She answered on the first ring. Had she been waiting for me?

“Hey Suzanne, it’s Mike. You left a flyer at my apartment with your number on the back.”

…

“Yeah, How many people are you talking about for that band?”

This story has only just begun…

If you liked my offering to you (or not, as the case may be), please let me know. I am looking to become a better writer and that is one of the most effective way to do so. As Enemyoffun always says, comments are an author's life blood.

*Author's note: If you have not seen the video for the song mentioned in the is story, or you've never heard of the song before, I strongly recommend you check out the link to the youtube page for it. Just click the song's name.