Will You Keep The Secret

A few weeks later, Delaney was sat on a fallen log near the small stream at the bottom of the cliffs watching the fish.

Dallas was attempting to climb up the cliffs not to far from where Laney was.

"No, didn't do it right..." Apollo grimaced, watching as a rat withered at his feet. "How are you ever going to do what you want if you can't bring back a rat right."

"Oh shut it, its alive isnt it? Maybe I wanted it to be unable to walk." Persephone sneered as she picked the creature up and observed it for a moment, beginning to walk to the stream. "You get to master the easy thing."

"Easy?" Apollo snorted. "Its elements of what I do that you are struggling with."

Delaney was transfixed on a fish that had an odd marking on it, the same one from several weeks earlier.

"Damn it!" Dallas hissed when his foot slipped off a tiny ledge and he had to catch himself on the rocks, scraping his arm in the process.

"Whatever," Persephone mumbled, pausing when she saw Delaney up ahead and shaking her head; turning and heading towards the cliffs instead.

Apollo sighed and watched her go, continuing to walk ahead to Delaney, sitting down beside her, "Hey,"

Dallas grumbled under his breath pulling himself up onto a ledge that he could sit upon.

A smile tugged at her lips as she glanced at him. "Hey."

"You have your intrigued face on... What are you looking at?"

----
Persephone climbed up to join him

"It's the same fish I saw a few weeks ago when we were down here," she said nodding at it.

----
He wiped his arm on his shirt, grinned when he saw her.

"How can you tell?"

---
Persephone sat herself down beside him on the ledge, staring out at the view.

"It has the same strange marking on it, don't cha see it?"

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"Hey," he greeted lightly bumping her shoulder with his own.

"How is your family visit going?"

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Apollo shrugged, "That mark doesn't really mean anything."

"It's alright. They don't have me running for the hills to get away from them just yet."

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"No? Then how come none of the other fish have it?"

"It just means it came back to life after dying, thats all." Apollo answered with a small shrug. "It must like you, if you keep seeing it."

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"Why is it exactly your visiting them?"

"Is it... one of yours?" she asked quietly, glancing sideways at him.

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"Delaney wanted to. Wherever she goes, I go."

Apollo nodded subtly. "Mm, anything with a mark like that is one of mine. The marks are individual."

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"Has she not given you a reason?"

"The... dog then too?"

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"Other than 'they're family, we should be visiting them more regularly' you mean? No."

"Mm, thats a nasty cliff. Always find animals down the bottom." Apollo whispered.

---
"Mm, I just struggle to believe your actually related to vampires."

She nodded slowly. "You help them all?"

----
"Why's that? Because I'm not one of them?"

"Because your nice,"

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"Not all of them, I'm not good enough at all this kind of stuff to help all of them yet."

"Oh... are you... new at it?"

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He scuffed. "They're not?"

"Six months ago Persephone and I got initiated, we're still in the process of it really. The first step nearly killed her."

---
Persephone shook her head. "Not in my experince."

"Initiated... so you weren't born into it?" She asked softly. "And you? You handled it okay?"

----
"Cain isn't that bad. Serena is probably one of the nicest ones I've ever met."

"Born witches, necromancing is different though. We weren't born into necromancing, nor did we choose it. It chose us." He whispered, "I managed the first stage fine but, I had it easier, Persephone is tackling the scarier stuff. She's like a viper though, so she can handle it."

---
"I've heard the first five are the most ruthless of them all."

She wrinkled up her nose a little. "I-.. what do you mean.. it choose you?" She shifted on the log to face him.

----
"M' you would be right. Cross them and they'll make you pay... they're pretty normal though for the most part."

Apollo exhaled slowly and pulled his right sleeve up to show her where his veins ran black. "There always has to be a certain amount of us in the world, always connected to families. My parents died, early this year, so it... Whatever it is... Came out of them and into us."

---
"Normal people aren't thousands of years old and described as ruthless. The youngest is weird too, the one that does stuff with the dead, he isn't meant to be able to do that."

Delaney looked at his arm, a look over confusion but also interest in her eyes. "Oh.. I'm sorry.." she whispered. "Does it hurt?"

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"I said for the most part," he laughed. "Alexander? I don't know what all he does but Laney says they all have something they can do..."