"Well, Miss Heath, it's lovely to see you again. Please, have a seat. Mr. McGavity, if you would?" Mr. Lister says as he ushers them into his office.

Timothy stiffens immediately. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe we've met." 

Mr. Lister smiles, "No, but your reputation precedes you boy. Now, please take a seat."

Timothy raises an eyebrow at the way he's being spoken to, but decides to humor the human before him.

"Mr. Lister, you seem to be aware of Mr. McGavity, can you tell me please how you know about him?" Melissa does her best to calm ruffled feathers. The last thing she needs right now is for the males to get all pissy.

Mr. Lister settles himself behind his desk making himself comfortable before answering. "Things aren't always what they seem in this life." He finally says, enigmatically, looking at Timothy before turning to Melissa.

"I think I like your new name, Melissa much more than Pimpernel. Why your father ever put that name on you, I will never understand. Melissa suits you far better. The pimpernel only shines in bright light, you on the other hand have bloomed and grown beyond my best expectations. Your father would be proud," Lister tells her.

"Oh, I seriously doubt that, sir. I realized that my father had cameras all over the house. He knew exactly what was going on for years. He had that penthouse that he stayed in when he didn't want to be around Marissa, which I don't blame him for. But since he left me there in that toxic environment, yeah, that I can blame him for. I think he left me everything more out to spite Marissa, not because he loved me." Melissa says finally putting to words her bitterest feelings.

Trevor Lister sighs, "He loved you more than you can imagine. His problem wasn't that he didn't love you, Melissa, it was that he loved you too much. He knows that Marissa is a bit unbalanced. Yes, he saw the abuse  you went through, he also heard on more than one occasion that she would kill you if you weren't going through that. He couldn't allow that, so he permitted the mental abuse. He was working on getting her committed for psychiatric evaluation when he was killed. He just about had enough evidence to do it, when he was killed.

"He never stopped loving your mother, Melissa. It broke his heart when he broke things off with her. He never did understand why he married Marissa, but once it was done he was determined to make the most of it. Perhaps if he'd known that your mother was pregnant with you, well, might haves and could haves will never be, so there is no use going over them. 

"When your mother died something in your father died as well. He became harder, colder and in some ways crueler, except when it came to you. With you, he was the person he was before Marissa destroyed his life. You became his world and his reason for living. It caused him a great deal of agony having to hear the abuse they put you through. When Tad turned against you as well, he was ready to kill Marissa.

"He saw that Sarah was nothing more than a carbon copy of her mother. He was sickened by her, but, although he wasn't thrilled with TJ, he saw something redeemable in him. He only left Tad his trust fund, because of how much you loved him. His first reaction was to deny him anything. He knew, though, that you wouldn't approve of that.

"He also knew that Marissa was likely to challenge the will." Trevor smiles darkly. "So I had everything ready should she do so. She saved me a lot of work, actually. Her going to jail made it so that she couldn't challenge the will. It was written in the prenup that she signed before they got married. Of course there is also the part about her being faithful to him. I have the paternity test on Tad and all that lovely video evidence to back me up. Your inheritance was safe."

"You knew my mother personally?" Melissa asks softly.

Trevor smiles softly at her, "Yes, she was a lovely woman, much like you. You are far lovelier now that you're vampire than you were as a human. You were beautiful then, too, just like her."

Timothy stiffens and stares at Trevor when he mentions Melissa being a vampire. "Did she have that birthmark too?"

Trevor smiles at her, ignoring Timothy's reaction altogether. "Not like yours, but she did have one. A far smaller one, she hated hers nearly as much as you hated yours, I imagine." Trevor then turns to Timothy and stares him down.

"Calm down, boy, you've been around long enough to know if I am a threat to your child. Although, she isn't bound to you. You really should rectify that before something is done about it, to you. I would really hate for anything to happen to her. I promised her father that she would be kept safe. Don't make me a liar, boy." Trevor growls a warning to Timothy.

"Just who the fuck are you, to be talking to me like that?" Timothy growls back.

"I've been around for a very long time, boy. More than double your life time. I survived two of the vampire purges. Indeed my maker was the creator of the first vampire purge. She didn't like having been turned, she was to get married and the vampire turned her because he wanted her. He was her first vampire victim, after her creator forced her to kill her lover. She really didn't like that at all. Made her rather insane, really.

"But, I don't think she was any where near as powerful as I can feel Melissa to be." Timothy looks at Trevor in shock. The first purge was more than two thousand years ago. It was lead by what was to be believed a psychic vampire.

"There are only two reason a bond doesn't form between the creator and created, the first is likely the only one you know of, a forced turning. The other is so rare that I doubt any even know of it's existence at this point."

Timothy is looking at Trevor with narrowed eyes. "Then how do you know of it's existence?"

"You aren't listening are you, boy? I was there. The first purge was done by the first psychic vampire. She didn't have a bond with her maker, every one assumed that it was because she was forcefully turned. That might have been part of it, but only part.

"I was there when the second psychic vampire was created. She too, didn't have the bond, but this time, it wasn't because she didn't want to be turned. She was marked by her creator before she was turned. They later claimed each other. It was their child that caused the second purging."

"Her child? I thought vampires couldn't have children, or are you talking about turned humans?" Melissa asks starting to get a headache.

Trevor sighs, "You haven't taught her much history of our kind have you?"

"She was rather upset at me and wouldn't talk to me for some time after turning her. I haven't really had much chance."

"It's not easy for us to have children, not impossible, but not easy. The two vampires have to be claimed and a certain amount of physical intimacy needs to take place before the actual act for both partners to be viable. That's a survival protection built into our kind. Otherwise the sensualists would have us over run with vampires and no humans to feed from.

"On the flip side, it's also very hard to kill one of us. Have Timothy, here explain how to kill one of us. It might come in handy, especially since you are a rare one of us and therefore, highly sought after for your abilities."

"I don't understand, if you are a vampire, how come you don't look like one?" Melissa puts her hand up to her head and tries to rub out the headache taking up residence there.

Something happens and power washes through the room. Suddenly a powerful presence makes itself known. Melissa looks up in alarm. "Like I said, Melissa, things aren't always what they seem. I don't like uprooting my life every ten years or so. It's far easier to change my appearance. Although, I've been here almost too long, it will soon be time for me to move along."

Melissa and Timothy both look in awe at the lawyer that had changed radically. He lost several years and gained an almost terrifying appearance of beauty and power.

"You are one of the elders that chose the council." Timothy finally recovers his equanimity enough to say.

Trevor smiles approvingly, "Yes, you really should think about not keeping such a high profile until  you learn how to mask yourself like this. 

"Oh, by the way, thank you for taking care of that pest, Tavistock and his ilk. I told the other elders that it would be a mistake placing him in that kind of power, but they insisted."

Trevor looks over to Melissa. He sends her some information mentally that she absorbs with a stunned look. "Marissa is starting to lose control. She wants your father's money and if she had any idea just how much you've added to it and the money you inherited from your mother, she would kill you without a second thought. She would then challenge the will."

"She wouldn't touch a cent. I've had copies of the abuse sent to my other lawyer, should any of my so called family challenge the will, the tapes will be shown to argue against them. He assures me that it would be highly unlikely that any one could win against that unless they had more money than it would be worth to fight."

"Good. The files are uploaded in my cloud account. I gave you the information to access them. If there are any problems, leave a note and I'll get back to you. Don't believe everything you hear, Melissa, like I said, we are not so easy to kill. If you hear of my death, wait for me to contact you, if I don't after a month, then you can believe that I am dead."

"You think that you are under threat of death?" Timothy asks the lawyer before him.

Trevor smiles a bit wickedly. "Not really, do I think that she'll try or have someone try? Absolutely. I am even harder to kill than you are Timothy. Keep her safe no matter what."

"She has yet to accept me or this life." It pains Timothy to say this.

Trevor looks sharply over to Timothy, "You are a fool and an idiot, but thank you."

"What?" That's all Melissa could say to that.

"You didn't want to turn, did you?" Trevor demands.

"No."

"Then Timothy was a fool and an idiot for turning you, knowing the probable outcome for doing so would be his death. I was thanking him, because it is giving you another chance at life. This life can be better, Melissa, so much better than you can imagine. Give it a chance. Bind yourself, if not to Timothy here, who is a good person, then to someone that he can recommend.

"Now, I have other clients coming in and since we spent all our time talking about vampire and family stuff, you will need to review the documents through the cloud account. We will talk again, Melissa." Trevor says ushering them to the door.

Melissa tells him all the courtesies even as she is still reeling from all that she's learned in the last bit.

"Well, that was sure enlightening." That's all Timothy would say as they make their way back to the penthouse.

"Yeah, I guess. I didn't understand a lot of it."

Timothy sighs, "I'll answer any questions you have, that I can. I won't keep things from you, but when it comes to Trevor Lister, I don't have much in the way of answers."

They enter the penthouse and make themselves comfortable. Then Timothy tells her some of the history of the vampires that he thinks she needs to know about.