Avery and the Demonly Demise

These characters are mine, have nothing to do with True Blood or Charlaine Harris, both of which were just inspiration for a vampire story or 2 of my own. Hope you're not disappointed with the absence of Eric, Bill, Sookie, and the rest of the gang. Please, leave comments to the thread. I love comments and they make me work faster ;) I have to thank ByteMeBill for helping me out and answering any technical questions I've had along the way.

1
Avery and the Tide Demon










What do you do when your boyfriend, who happens to be a vampire, dies? You carry on and hope for time and space to grieve the loss. I couldn’t take time off work since he died during a bogus family emergency. Couldn’t support a request for more time since, number one, he was literally dead when you met him; number two, no one you worked with knew you had a boyfriend; and number three, when vampires die, they don’t leave behind a body. No body, no obituary, no funeral. So, what’s left? A curious feeling that maybe you imagined it all.
The fact that the rest of the vampires I’d met had disappeared didn’t help. I still had scars as a reminder and confirmation that I did know vampires and had been involved in killing most of a rival clan.
You might wonder why I’m involved with the impossible. You might ask if I’m a vampire, or a powerful witch, or perhaps, you might even suggest I’m a vampire hunter. I’m not. I’m not any of those things at all.
I’m a woman, a combat veteran and a nurse. I’m also short, brunette, twenty-four, and apparently, I taste REALLY good; or so my vampires told me.
None of that, however, tells you how I got involved with them. Scott, my boyfriend that died, had been brought into the hospital D.O.A. He’d been beaten and run through with a silver rod. He’d later snuck out of the morgue and hidden in my car.
Surprising to have a dead man grab me in my kitchen? Yes. Would I have seen Scott again after that night? No, except the Rory Clan, who’d been the ones to beat him, came questioning me.
So, why am I worried about the disappearance of a small clan of vampires? Because, I thought they were my friends. I’d saved them, they’d saved me. Seems like a good basis for friendship. I don’t risk my neck for nothing. That’s not to mention the vampire Hunter en-route to Seattle. The clan could be lying low, like I suggested, or they could be dead.
What in my life had changed in the last two months besides a lack of Supernaturals, as I had taken to calling them? The hospital had changed to a four on, four off schedule and I had changed to the day shift. I can’t hang out with vampires if I have to work while they’re awake. Now I work from seven in the morning, until seven in the evening while the rest of the staff’s schedule spirals out from there. Someone came in fresh for work every two hours. It was an ingenious way to cut the chaos of full shift changes and allowed for continuity in treatment that we’d never had before.
As brilliant as it all seemed, I’m a night owl by nature and despite the month in a half I’d had to get used to the change, I still wasn’t sleeping. It didn’t help that I had dreams--nightmares really, that I couldn’t quite remember upon waking, keeping me up when I did manage to lie down. My normally great—well, good, bedside manner suffered. No decent sleep and busier days left me irritable and my mind wandered constantly. Just call me A.D.D.
All these things played through my mind as I followed an ambulance into the parking lot, and while they went to the big, double doors for the Emergency Room, I pulled into the cavernous garage for employee parking. It had been raining all morning, and the depths echoed with a constant drip. This is Seattle, rain happens. Love it or hate it, it was a constant part of where we live.
I didn’t hesitate to get out of my Explorer, despite my fifteen minute early arrival. An emergency called for all hands on deck. Jogging straight for the break room, I passed Denise, the snarky receptionist, at the front desk, and Dr. Rosser, who’d been on since nine P.M., heading for the pneumatic doors. Jogging was good; I felt whole, exhilarated, my blood flowing, reaching the parts of me that had seemed numb with tired and I was myself again.
After I stashed my gear, I jogged back out to Dr. Rosser’s side. Her gray streaked hair had been pulled up into a bun, but after ten hours on the job, she was starting to get that wispy halo look. I didn’t have time to ask her how bad the night had gone; the EMTs were pushing in my first patient of the day.
The woman laid out in front of me was covered in slashes; the most notable went across her throat from ear to ear. How she’d managed to make it to the hospital was beyond me.
Our patient’s clothing was cut open and soaked in both rain and blood. “Assault victim, female, early thirties, lacerations to the abdomen, and mid posterior. The laceration to her throat seems to have missed her carotid arteries. She’s been unconscious since we picked her up five minutes ago, but her pulse is strong,” said the red haired EMT, pushing the injured woman into an exam room.
I brought out a penlight and pealed her lids open to check for dilation. Her eyes reacted as they should, but I didn’t. I stepped back, my purse speeding up and pounding behind my eyes. Her irises were black iridescent pools. I’d only met one other person with that particular quirk; he was a rain demon, by the name of Geshem. I go two months without anything more than mundane, and now I was treating a demon.
“Avery, she’ll need stitches. Doesn’t look bad besides that,” Dr. Megan Rosser said, irrigating the neck incision.
I needed some time alone with our Demon. Megan Rosser was a great doctor, but she’d had problems dealing with the supernatural. “Let me get that, I hear another ambulance coming this way,” I said, taking the squirt bottle as the distant siren wailed closer. She shrugged her shoulders and handed over the bottle. Megan stopped halfway to the door, swung her arms like a pitcher at the mound and turned out of the room with a little wave.
“Ma’am? Can you hear me? I’m Nurse Avery. I know you’re a demon, so if you’re faking it, you can cut the crap. I need to know the best way to treat you.”
The woman blinked her oil eyes and said in a dry croak, “I’ll be fine, I just need to go.” She struggled to sit up, causing half formed scabs along her partially exposed stomach to pull tight and ooze.
She cringed and eased back down to the mattress. I sighed and adjusted the ruined shirt to inspect her abdomen. “Look, they brought you in, you’re covered in blood, and you’re hurt. What do I need to do to help you?”
“I need a bath,” she whispered, sounding as if she’d eaten chalk. “I’m a water demon.”
“Be right back.” I laid a drape across her chest to cover what wasn’t injured and stepped out to retrieve the necessary supplies. Some people just don’t know when to take the help. As I came out of the supply room, a familiar voice called out to me.
“Ms. Sheridan?” I stopped and turned toward the warm, rich voice. “I’m not sure if you remember me.”
“Of course I do, Detective Jackson. Are you here about the assault victim?”
“Yes, Ma’am, this is my partner, Detective Walcroft.” I looked over the indicated man. He was mid-twenties, light brown hair, with dark eyes hiding behind thin framed glasses, and a Kmart, off the rack, brown suit jacket with khakis. I’m no fashionista, but I could see the tag peeking out from behind his lapel. To tell him or not to tell him?
“What happened to Detective Nicholas?” I asked, looking over Detective Jackson. His clothes were rumpled and his shoes were scuffed. He was carrying a large bag labeled in black sharpie.
“He retired over a month ago. I don’t mean to rush you, but if our vic is conscious, we need to talk to her,” Jackson said, pulling me from my visual inventory.
“No problem, Detective. This way,” I said, gesturing to the exam room. As we came to the doorway, Detective Walcroft stepped into the room, pressing his back to the door to hold it open. I slid by him and took the far side of the bed as Detective Jackson took the one chair in the room, sat the bag on the table beside him and palmed his chin. Detective Jackson was built like a tiger; he was bulky muscle made for speed, that left you no doubt he’d chase you down and maim you if he had too… Maybe not maim, he seemed too gentle a man for that.
“Ms. Morris, I’m Detective Walcroft, this is my partner Detective Jackson. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?” Walcroft’s voice was a warm baritone. He pushed his tweed sleeves up to the elbows, causing the dark hair of his arms to stand. The green, faded edge of a tattoo showed at the rumpled line on his forearm.
“Call me Kayla,” she said, as I tried to refocus and wash her wounded stomach.
This is a side effect of shitty sleep, as was the yawn I blew through flared nostrils. You try doing it without opening your mouth. It’s not as satisfying, but allows for a little discretion.
“Ms. Sheridan, are we boring you?” Walcroft asked, as a tear pooled in the corner of my eye. Yawns are contagious and could see Walcroft forcing his own into submission.
“Nope, I’m not a morning person, Detective. What’s your excuse, lack of oxygen to your brain?”
Walcroft glared at me from his side of Kayla Morris. She, on the other hand, had pursed her lips. The tension in her cheeks told me she was holding back a smile. Yay for speedy demon recovery.
“Sorry, Detective, I’ve only been on for fifteen minutes, cut me some slack.”
Walcroft turned back to the woman as her pseudo smile died. “Kayla, did you see who attacked you?”
“No, detective, that Asshole came at me from behind. Mr. Kennesaw from across the street came out. Didn’t he see what he looked like?” Rasped Kayla Morris.
“So, you think it was a man,” Jackson said, jotting the detail into a notebook that seemed to appear from nowhere.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him. I meant him in the abstract.” She rolled her dark eyes and pulled a tendril of long, black hair from the dried blood on her collar bone.
Detective Walcroft stepped around the bed, close to me and asked, “Can you give us a minute?”
“Not long, Detective, she still needs to be treated,” I said, looking up at him. He was at least a head taller than me. His eyes danced with an opalescent gleam behind the thin black rims. He too was a demon of some kind. Two full moons ago I was ass deep in blood suckers and now I was surrounded by Hell spawn…well, maybe not. I didn’t know enough about them to make that call and in the last few months I’d realized the importance of knowing who and what you were talking too.
“I’ll be back, Walcroft. I need a quick word with Ms. Sheridan about an old case,” Jackson said, standing from the wiry chair.
I made a bee-line for the exit. I leaned against the cream colored wall of the hallway and smoothed my hair back, taking deep calming breaths. I wasn’t panicking; I was being reminded of the lack of Supernatural in my own life. I was seeing things outside the mundane again, but I wasn’t a part of it. It was the same sense of loss I got after leaving the military. I wanted to belong but didn’t anymore.
“Ms. Sheridan, do you remember what I was here for the last time you saw me?”
“Call me Avery, please. You were here about a man who was attacked and a girl that was missing. Why do you ask?”
Jackson flopped into a blue, upholstered chair beside me and massaged the crease in his forehead. So much for his powerful persona.
“No one else I’ve said anything to knows what I’m talking about.” Jackson’s voiced dropped lower, “Why doesn’t anyone know?”
“She was special,” I said with a shrug.
“Avery, I talked to the girl. I had to track her father down after he left the city, but I found her. She told me you were the one to take her home.”
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “She wanted to see her family.”
“Did someone take her, or did she run like we suspected?”
I slid down the wall until I was squatting on the balls of my feet and could look him in the eye, “Audra Avinpala wasn’t a normal girl. There’s a reason so few people know what happened.”
“That’s it though, I don’t know what happened. She was gone, then she was back and no one noticed.”
I took another steadying breath. “I don’t know what to tell you, Detective.” This conversation was just another reminder of how normal I was. I didn’t want the reminder. “How’s your new partner?”
“David? He’s…he’s different. There’s something odd about him. Did you notice his eyes?”
“Not at first, but they’re…definitely different.” I may not have the exciting life I had a few months before, but I was better off than the man in front of me. Jackson didn’t know as much about the world as I did, but he wasn’t completely blind either, which was somehow worse.
I shook my head and let my pity go. My muscles ached like I’d run through the mall on Christmas Eve. It was only March, and I was already tired of the year. Detective Jackson lurched up from his seat.
“Let’s get back in there. She was in bad shape when we got to the scene. David will wrap this up and we’ll get out of your way, Avery.”
My knees popped as I stood from my crouch and I tried rubbing the soreness away. “I’ll be there in a second. I’ve got to grab a suture kit,” I said, as Jackson opened the door to the exam room.
Passing the supply closet, I headed for the break room and the ibuprofen that was buried in my behemoth purse. I popped the pills and headed back for Kayla. Harris, the newest nurse on staff, came from the supply closet as I turned the corner, with a kit in hand and a smile for me.
“Mind if I snag that?
“No problem, need any help?” Harris asked. Even his honey-colored eyes were cheerful.
“I need some cold saline, but I think I can handle the stitches on my own.”
Harris went ran out of the hall, calling over his shoulder. “I’ll get the saline.” He was in his late twenties but he had the exuberance of a nine year old with a six pack of red bull.
By the time I came back to Kayla Morris, the detectives were gone. I washed my hands at the in room sink and tried to ignore Kayla’s longing stare at the streaming water. “Can you help me to the sink?” She asked.
“I’ll get a bottle of cold saline solution for your cuts. The hot water’ll break up your clotting.” I pulled fresh gloves from the box on the wall and peeled open the suture kit.
Kayla tensed and shifted for the farther side of the bed. “Do I really need stitches? I’m healing fine without them.”
I mopped a fresh trickle of blood from her throat. “I know you heal fast, but if we close them up you’ll be less likely to scar, or get anything in the cuts. Can you sit up for me? I need to see your back.” I helped Kayla slowly shift upright. Harris knocked quietly and came in with the saline. He stood staring at my patient as I opened the bottle and started running the fluid down her wounds.
“Harris,” I said, pulling his attention back to me. “You mind? I think she might want some privacy.”
He stuttered an apology and left as I continued to treat the wounds. Kayla had a gaping hole in her shoulder that seemed to get deeper as I poured saline over it. She was shifting uncomfortably so I opted for a distraction tactic. “Kayla, I know you told the detectives what happened, do you mind telling me?”
Kayla pulled a rubber band from her wrist, gingerly twisting her black hair into a knot and piling it atop her head. She started with a loaded sigh, “I got up for work like I normally do.”
I’d emptied the saline bottle and set it to the side, preparing to close her gaping back wound.
“Everything was normal. I had breakfast, packed a lunch, and grabbed my house keys. My alternator’s blown, so I was going to catch the bus at the corner. Ow,” she said, as I numbed her ragged flesh.
“Just keep talking. I’ll be done back here before you know it.”
Kayla turned and stared at me over her injured shoulder, one eyebrow cocked, “Just start stitching. I’ll be done before you know it.”
“Kayla, I’ve met a rain demon before. Do you have a certain water affiliation?”
“I’m a daimon of the tide.” Salt water; that made sense with her salty attitude.
“Demons, daimons, potato, pa-tot-o.”
“If you’re implying its same thing, you’re wrong.”
“Do you feel this?” I asked poking a section, of what I hoped was numb skin, with the needle.
“A little pressure’s all.”
“Good. Tell me about daimons, Kayla.”
“How about I finish my attack story and go from there?”
“Whichever,” I said as I started a vertical mattress stitch. The tie pattern would be wide and limit her range of motion, but she wouldn’t tear them through the skin at least.
“So, I stepped out the door, turned around to lock it and got hit in the back. I think the Fuck twisted the blade. Then pervert grabbed me around the waist and started dragging me toward the alley by my house. Nothing good happens in alleys,” she added softly, almost to herself. “Mr. Kennesaw, my neighbor, opened the garage door to leave for work. The Fuck dropped me on my face on the sidewalk and tried to slash my throat. Well…he did slash it, but with the rain, I was healing before he’d even finished trying to kill me. The police and an ambulance showed up five minutes later. They saw all the blood and how deep the cuts were and dragged me here. I played dead so I wouldn’t have to talk to the cops. Thanks, by the way, for walking them right in here.”
“The one is a de—daimon like you though.”
“He’s a fire belly. I’ve met him a few times. I guess if I had to talk to a cop, one like me is easier. I don’t have to censor myself that way.”
If I’d been stabbed and cut as much as she had, I’d be dead. One point for the demons or daimons, they’re one step up the evolutionary ladder.
I closed her second smile in a mutual silence and filled in her chart as she pulled a jacket from her bag of personal belongings. Her purse pulled free on the leather sleeve and spilled across the floor, casting lipsticks, pens, a lighter and a scatter of odds and ends about the room. We kneeled, pulling the assortment of things together in a haphazard way.
“Where’d this come from?” Kayla asked holding up a necklace.
“It’s your purse, don’t ask me.” I held my hand out for the offending piece of jewelry. She laid a garnet colored rosary across my palm. “If it isn’t yours, it probably came from the last patient, or the EMTs found it in the back of the truck and assumed it was yours.”
Kayla zipped her jacket up to the neck and unbound her hair. “Whatever. How do I get out of this place?”
“I’ll get Dr. Rosser to come check you over one last time and if you’re good to go, Denise at the front desk’ll have your discharge papers to sign. I’ve got to see other patients. Wait here.”
I left without any goodbyes and walked back to the hallway and closing the door behind me. The sterile walls seemed more stark and raw than usual, but everything else was normal. The janitor that passed me with his cart was human. The bleeding man in the chair looked at me with nice, average, brown eyes. Back to reality for me. No more daimons, no more vampires, and the only witch I had to deal with, was my anomalous roommate Kim.
The smooth beads of the rosary were a comforting weight in my hand. I considered keeping it with me for my shift and dismissed the idea in the same breath. The lost and found was at the front desk…along with Denise the snarky.
“Stash this until someone comes back for it,” I said dropping the beaded strand over the top of the desk. Denise’s artificially blond hair sparkled with damage, and looked almost white under the fluorescent light. I’d call the color polar bear, since she’d bleached every last bit of her natural tone out of it. It hung down to her shoulders in poodle curls, making her face seem like a vast make-up grave yard, full of hues that hadn’t been worn since the original Night Rider.
“Avery,” she said, pushing her rolling chair back. “Why don’t you walk your butt back here and do it yourself. I haven’t got time for this right now.”
“But you’ve got time enough to stop what you’re doing and whine to me? In the amount of time it took you to complain, it could have already been put into the Lost and Found.”
Denise and I had never gotten along, but it’d only gotten worse since I threatened to sick my vampire, Clete, on her. She didn’t know he was a firm supporter of blood donations, but the threat was still there. She did know Clete hadn’t been around in a while and she’d figured out I couldn’t do much about her bad attitude. She didn’t work for me, only with me. I secretly vowed that if I ever caught her in a dark alley, I’d shave the poodle down to the skin.
I didn’t want to duke it out with the polar poodle today, so I walked away without a second glance. The rest of the day passed with no more than the usual pace, car accidents at rush hour, a heart attack or two, and a toddler with an overprotective mother and a rash. Before I knew it seven P.M. had rolled around and I was sitting in the break room staring at the wall. I blinked.
“Avery? Wake up Avery and go home,” Meagan Rosser said. Dr. Rosser came in at nine which meant I had been passed out in the break room for two hours. Oh, were does the time go?
“I’m up. I’m up,” I said, nodding into the crook of my elbow.
“Seriously, Avery, you need to go home and sleep a full night in your bed.”
I made a sound that was a growl, grumble and humph all in one, and sat up, wiping the damp from my cheek. There was a cold cup of coffee in front of me that I could only assume I’d poured at some point and my purse, which I’d been using as an impromptu pillow. I swallowed down the cool black energy for my drive home and turned to leave.
“Avery?”
“Yeah, Megan?”
“I think I’m going to try and switch my shift.”
“Why?” I wasn’t running on all cylinders.
“I’d rather be home at night. There’s too many…strange things out there. I saw a man chasing rabbits on my way in.”
“Megan, night or day doesn’t make it any safer. It’s just a choice between ignorance and truth. Would you rather pretend life is sunshine and cookies and knights in shining armor, or do you want reality and the benefits that come with it?” I walked out of the swinging door as she called, “What benefits?”
That wasn’t my question to answer. She had to decide if it was worth it. I already had.
Harris was leaning against his car smoking a cigarette as I entered the garage. His always messy hair was dark blond, almost brown but missing the mark and his eyes were shining golden pools. Harris wasn’t a big man, five eight or nine at the most and a little lean for my taste.
“Later, Harris,” I called, as I hit the button on my keychain. Harris blew a smoke ring and smiled as I climbed into the car and pulled away.
2
Avery, the Message, and the Evening Callers






Pulling onto Westbrook road, I could see Kim’s car parked on the curb, shining midnight blue in the Seattle drizzle. I could also see another car, a silver sedan parked in my driveway blocking my garage.
All the windows were lit up at my ranch style rental, creating pools of light and blind shadows on the lawn. I parked my SUV behind my roommate’s ride and pulled my phone from my purse as I climbed out. I’d forgotten to turn it back on after work and checked the mail as it lit up. The voicemail icon blinked and I wondered if Kim had left me a message about our guests. I hit the button and listened as a woman’s voice said, “One unheard message.”
I could hear shuffling and laughter in the background as Audra Avinpala whispered into the receiver. “Avery, it’s happening now. God is in the details.” With that the message ended and I was staring into the darkness trying to decipher the teenager’s cryptic words.
Audra was the thirteen year old daughter of a witch from a long line of witches and man who was a watered down descendant of the Grigori, which made Audra herself a bit of a mystery. She was wise to the point of disconcerting and was often vague. She knew too much about everything and took it for granted that no one else knew what the subject was… Maybe she didn’t take it for granted. She once told me she knew where I was going, but I had to blaze my own trail because I’d take the short cut and miss something if she gave me the map …Well, she said something like that anyway. Point is she probably won’t tell me what’s going on, which makes her message all the more frustrating.
My phone had been off and didn’t register the number she’d called from which left me one other option if I was going to try and find out more about what was happening. I stood in the rain halfway to my front door searching the depths of my purse for Ansgar Avinpala’s business card.
Ansgar was Audra’s father, a monstrously tall man who seemed scared of his own shadow. He’s what I’d call twitchy; like a deer in the woods ready to run at the slightest sound. Finally pulling the rumpled bit of card from my purse, I dialed the doe. He wasn’t a buck, he was definitely a doe.
“Ansgar Avinpala,” he answered cutting off the second ring.
“Ansgar, it’s Avery Sheridan. How are things with the new baby?” I asked as I heard a wail in the background.
“Tina’s fine, it’s time for a feeding,” he said, his voice in a questioning cadence. “I’m sorry ma’am, I’m terrible with names. How is it we met?”
Oops. Detective Jackson had said most people didn’t remember Audra had gone missing, though I never expected her family to be affected. If he had remembered, he know I was with him when we found a few dead bodies and that I’d brought Audra home, those seem like events you wouldn’t forget. “I treated Audra when she was in the car accident a few months ago.”
“Right, that’s right, Avery, the nurse. What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to speak with Audra.” I could hear the wailing on his end of the phone getting closer as I stepped under the shelter of my porch. As loud as things were on his end of the phone, my street seemed oppressively quiet, the shadows taking on a life of their own. The dark around me, crawling at the corners of my eyes and goose bumps rolled down my neck.
“Sssh, ssh, ssh,” Ansgar cooed at the screaming that suddenly over took the call. “Sorry. Audra’s out of town on a school trip and we’ve got our hands full at the moment. Call back Friday, she’ll be home then.” His voice had risen to drown out the shrill Tina and I found myself holding the phone at arm’s length from my ear.
“Thanks,” I shouted back hitting the end button. I hadn't gotten to talk to the girl but, since Ansgar had his hands full, I hadn't had to think of an excuse for why a grown woman and supposed stranger called his teenage daughter.
As I dropped my phone back into my bag and pulled my house key out the front door opened. A woman with blond hair, going gray but not there yet, stood looking out at me. She looked to be in her mid forties and shaped like a Hershey Kiss. She wasn’t heavy or over weight, she just carried her junk in the trunk.
“You must be Avery,” she said in an aspartame voice.
I stepped past the woman as Kim came around the corner. “We have guests?”
“Avery, I was just going to call you. They’ve been here for a few hours waiting for you. Come into the living room,” Kim said with an unabashed smile.
“I’ll be in after I get a smoke,” the woman at the door said.
I followed Kim into the living room and went straight for my rocker. It was the “power seat” and since it was my house, I felt like I had a right to the position of authority. All rooms have it, it’s the head of the table, the chair in the corner where you can see all the doors, having a man to the left and right looking to you. It’s the natural human pecking order; body language and position in the pack. I didn’t usually actively think about it, but I was more prone to with my mind wandering of late and I had moved into this house and set my furniture during those first few paranoid months after my deployment. I didn’t want my back to the door.
When I say paranoid, I don’t mean crazy, or the governments out to get me, but there’s this tension. It’s a combination of things: a heightened sense of awareness, waking up and wondering why your weapon wasn’t within arms reach, being on the alert for something to happen for so long and strange dreams involving mortars in your regular life. I don’t mean your regular life as a soldier in a uniform, but dreaming you’re at the mall in jeans, shopping for shoes and telling the girl next to you, “This happens all the time.” Thoop, crunch, boom. “They hardly ever hit anything.” I put all those thoughts away, the mortars, the sound as they leave the tube, the crunchy noise and elephantine rumble as they hit the ground, the pecking order, the memory of the friend who taught room position to me in a Panera Bread and I focused on the now.
There was a man sitting on the lumpy couch with his face behind a photo album I recognized as mine. I cleared my throat and waited for him to get the hint, ‘my house, my book, what the hell do you want?’ It was all thrown into that sound.
The man shifted himself on the couch. “Ms. Anne,” he said facing Kim from behind the book, “Could you give us a few minutes.” The gruff voice was familiar but not one I could place. As I waited for the man to reveal himself, I crossed my legs and tapped my foot in annoyance. I don’t like surprises and I don’t like evasiveness. He seemed to be trying for both.
Kim winked at me and left the room. She’d been Intel in the Army and I knew she’d have vetted them, I just wished she’d given me the report before leaving me alone.
The man stood facing away from me and placed the album back on the table. He was fidgeting and wringing his hands. Minutes passed as he avoided my eyes and squirmed in silence. I took the time study what I could see of him. He wasn’t very tall, maybe 5’7. His hair was military style, buzzed close at the sides and dark in color, but without seeing the front I couldn’t tell an exact color or composition. He was dressed plainly enough in jeans and a gray polo shirt.
I was still in scrubs and ready to be out of them. I didn’t feel like peek-a-boo or hide and seek or whatever game he was playing. Just as I opened my mouth to smart off, I heard the front door open and the blond woman stepped around the corner.
“Have you told her yet?” She asked looking passed the man’s shoulder to me. She flipped her hair and the noxious smell of old cigarette smoke wafted through the room. It was like a cartoon, I could see it passing around the man, along the TV to the floor, swirling around the leg of the coffee table and infecting my nose. I used to be a smoker and found myself both loving and hating the smell. I wanted one, and that was what I hated.
“No. I was waiting for you, dear.”
“Avery, I’m Evangeline Carpenter, and this,” she said pointing to the man, “is Robert.”
Robert clasped her hand and turned to face me. His hair was curly and the same golden brown as my own. I stared at his familiar nose; it too was mine. Robert was a Sheridan, my father to be exact.
What could I say? Where the hell have you been? Why the fuck did you leave us? What the hell do you want? That last sounded pretty good and as I said it aloud, I didn’t change a damn thing. I crossed my arms and waited for an answer I was sure I wouldn’t like.
“I needed to see you,” Robert said as Evangeline lead him back to the couch.
I never took my eyes off of them. “You haven’t seen me in more than half my life and now you need to. I’m twenty-four years old. Where’ve you been for the last fifteen years?”
“I—it doesn’t matter and I don’t know how I’d explain it, but I’m here now,” he said looking to the woman and tugging his shirt collar uncomfortably.
Evangeline patted his arm in a reassuring way and he took a deep breath. “Robert, Avery, let’s not dwell on what’s done. Robert is here now and that’s what matters.”
I couldn’t help the twitch I felt starting under my left eye, or the string of expletives running through my mind. I counted to ten and said through clenched teeth, “That might be all that matters to you Evangeline. Mom died a few years after he left and I ended up in foster care, because dear old Dad was nowhere to be found. Let me know if I’m being silly and stubborn on the whole idea of ‘letting go’.”
“She’s gone?” My father asked in a hushed voice.
“Yeah, loooong time gone,” I said, maybe a little too coldly.
Evangeline didn’t hesitate to point her dainty pink nailed finger at me. “He is your father and I think you need to remember that when you talk to him. You wouldn’t be here if not for him and your mother.”
“Evangeline, Robert here served his purpose in my life, he was the genetic donor. He didn’t get me where I am now and he wasn’t there when I needed a father. I’m too old for daddy now. And you can stop waving your finger and scolding me, my mother’s gone and I’m not looking for anyone to repl--.”
In that instant I knew why they were here. Robert didn’t know mom was dead, he’d come to me to find her and close out their vacant marriage. He needed to know whether they were legally bound so he could be with the woman in my living room.
“Avery, you’re right. I should have been there. I can’t change that, but I can try and make it up to you. I’m working in the city for a while. Please, tell you’ll give me some time,” Robert said after a protracted silence.
“I’ll think on it. Here,” I said, fishing a notebook and pen from my purse. “Leave me a number and go.” Evangeline took the proffered paper, jotted the number in ultra feminine curly script and sat the pad on the table. All the while, my father stared at me as I avoided his eyes.
“We’ll go, but we’d like to see you again,” Evangeline said standing and pulling my father with her. “Even if he has been missing, there are always questions for your father, more so since you don’t know each other.”
I didn’t get up, I didn’t say goodbye and show them to the door. I sat in my rocker and listened to the door close behind them. Once the rumble of the car left the driveway, I knew I needed to talk.
I walked to the kitchen and dropped my purse in its regular spot on the table, then grabbed sweats and a tee from the clean laundry, calling Kim as I headed into my room.
“I’m coming,” she said stepping from her door a few minutes later.
“Kim, you might have warned me about what I was walking into.”
“I know. I didn’t want to ruin it though.” Her green eyes shone out from her pale, freckled face, her black hair framing a confused expression.
“Kim, there’s a few things I maybe should’ve told you. Do you remember Audra Avinpala?”
“Um. Yeah. She vanished two months ago and had us out looking for her.” Kim’s eyebrow did that little quirk it does when she wants to say, ‘Duh, do I look stupid?’
“Some people don’t remember. I had to know if you did before I got into anything… Audra’s strange. She can predict things, change people’s thoughts and memories, and maybe read minds. I’m not exactly sure what she does, but it’s some major mojo. The night I found her out at the pier, she told me I have a half brother and that he and my father would bring danger into my life.”
Kim stood in silence muddling through what I had told her. Instead of asking about Audra like I expected she said, “Robert didn’t mention anything to me about you having a brother. Did he tell you about him?”
“Kim, I didn’t ask, and he didn’t volunteer the information.”
“But,” she said, sitting on the edge of my bed as I paced the floor. “Your brother didn’t cut himself from your life, he was disconnected by circumstance. Even if it means danger, do you really want to live your life without any family? Talk to your dad, find your brother. Deal with the scary shit as it comes. It’s not like you’ve never been in danger before.”
I thought back to the talk with Audra on the pier and everything she’d said to me. She said there was something I needed but didn’t realize it was missing. Maybe it was my family.
“I didn’t say I’d cut them just because of what Audra told me…But, my father fucked up. I know you thought I’d want to see him… I’m not sure I needed too. He didn’t even explain why he left.”
“Maybe he will when you see him again,” Kim said standing.
“I have to sleep and not think about this for a while.” I shooed Kim out, lay down, and cut the lights.
Did asking my father count as searching out my brother? Audra told me not to search for either of them. Was my brother here in the city too? If it isn’t my family that I’m missing, what else could it be?

3
Avery and the Police Business




I spent the morning much the same as the day before. I got about four hours sleep, stood in the shower, dressed for work, ate breakfast and drove to the hospital trying to remember the dreams that were plaguing my rest. I was as successful today as I had been the morning before, still no idea what was keeping me up at night.
I went straight to the break room as usual, avoiding as many people as possible. It wasn’t hard, Denise was reading a romance novel at the front desk, her blond hair a high rise poof showing above the book’s cover. Dr. Rosser was with a patient, the other nurses on shift were making their rounds. The only person out of place was Harris, our messy, young at heart nurse. His dirty blond hair was particularly wild this morning. He was also at work at least two hours earlier than usual.
The other strange thing was Detective David Walcroft sitting in the break room, looking tired but at home with the gray lockers and the buzzing fridge in the corner.
“Detective, is there something I can do for you?” I asked, as politely as the hour allowed.
He looked up from studying his palms, his black opalescent eyes unguarded; his glasses peeking from the pocket of his gray suit jacket. His brown hair was cropped close to the scalp and he had five o’ clock shadow peppering his tanned cheeks, which lead me to one question…where do you get a nice tan like that in a city as perpetually cloudy as Seattle. He didn’t strike me as the tanning bed type.
“I’m here on police business.”
I looked at him, my eyebrow arched waiting for an explanation and when it didn’t come I probed further. “Would this be the type of police business with a victim in the emergency room?”
“Sorry, Ma’am, it’s police business.” He leaned his chair back on two legs and crossed his arms over his chest.
“My name is Avery, Detective.” When he didn’t acknowledge me, I continued. “You can sit there all smug, make me go out to the emergency room and find out, or you can tell me and save me the trouble.”
He chose smug.
I only made it about ten feet into the hallway when Harris came from the nearest exam room.
“Avery! Perfect, I’ve gotta get some supplies can you give Dr. Rosser a hand? Male GSW, he’s already been for a CT scan. We’ve gotta dig six bullets outta him, looks like small caliber and poor aim saved his life.”
Gee, sounds like police business to me and I didn’t even have to go looking. “Sure, Harris, hurry up though, you don’t want to miss all the action.”
Walking into the room, I found a man on the exam table laid out on his stomach and Megan leaning over his back with a set of forceps. He was chatting idly of soccer and Muay Thai, not that I could tell what one had to do with the other. Aren’t painkillers fun?
One look at the man’s face and I knew why it was Detective Walcroft and not Jackson waiting. This guy was another fucking demon. Were there always this many denizens of the underworld coming through the hospital and I missed it or was this a new trend?
The demon looked young, just barely legal. The scruff on his cheeks was fine like a teenage boys and his hair was dyed an unnatural red, spiking haphazardly on his crown. He was built like a good ole boy, soft flesh atop heavy muscle.
I watched as Megan pulled the first metal lump from the meaty part of his shoulder. I wrapped the fragment in gauze and set it to the side for our Detective. The twisted metal was mushroomed and smaller than the end of my pinky. We made it through three before Harris came in with a stack of suture kits. He left a few out and stocked the rest into the cabinets.
Megan pulled the last three from along his ribs and wrapped them all together. “Start stitching him up while I have a word with the Detective.” She left us to finish the job. I don’t think she did it on purpose, but it seemed like Megan found a reason to leave the room as soon as she could when we had supernatural patients.
Harris took one side of the man and I took the other stitching as we went. Harris’ mouth was turned up into a wry smile and he kept casting glances between our patient’s face and mine. I finally had to come around and close the last wound. There were only two on this side of the body, but Harris wasn’t making much progress alone.
“What are you doing in this early?” I asked, pulling the flesh together and ignoring the continued rambling on making goals and take downs.
Harris dropped the smile and leaned closer to the looping thread before him. “I switched for an earlier shift…I’m going to be taking night classes.”
“Good for you, Harris. You might work on you suture skills while you’re at it. Check with local butchers for pig skin.”
Harris honey-colored eyes widened. “It’s not that bad…is it?”
I looked over at the tangle of threads poking from the patient’s ass—yes, he took a hit to the ass. “You need some practice. Look, I’ll straighten this out and clean up in here. Why don’t you go work on the discharge papers for this guy?”
Harris teetered back and forth looking between me and the demon before finally sighing and walking out the door. Paperwork gives me hives and since Harris is the new guy…he can take this one.
“What’s your name?” I asked the demon as soon as the door closed behind Harris.
“And if you can get into his guard—what?”
“What is your name?” I asked while straightening the mess Harris had made of a simple job.
“Paul,” he said with a grin.
“Paul, what kind of demon are you?”
His eyes seemed to double in size. “Most people don’t know about us, makes it easier to talk to a woman that already know though. I’m an earth demon. Metal’s my thing,” he said, his smile widening. Paul made a fist then emptied it onto the table, leaving a shining lump in front of him. I picked it up and studied the lines left from his hand on the gold.
“I can make things when I’m focused.” I continued to stare at the shard. It felt warm and heavy in my hand.
“I do figures and jewelry in any kind of metal.” When I didn’t say anything, Paul reached out and touched my arm. His skin was rough and hot. The gold clattered to the floor, echoing in the sudden silence.
“What’s your name?” He asked softly.
“Avery,” I whispered staring into darkness of his eyes.
“Avery, you want to come to one of my fights?”
I felt my face screw up. “What?”
“I do MMA.” When I continued to stare at him with a furrowed brow he said, “Mixed Martial Arts. I do cage fights like the ones on pay-per-view. I’m not great at it, but I’ve only been doing it a few years. I studied Muay Thai and boxing and…” At that point my mind started to wander.
“Avery?”
“Hmmm?”
“Where you at? I’m trying to ask you on a date.”
“Sorry, Paul. I’ve got…I don’t date and I don’t know you.”
“That’s what the date’s for.”
“Thanks, I’m flattered. What happened to you?”
Paul gave me an aw-shucks grin, scratched his head and sat up, swinging his legs off the table. The fine, dark hair on his chest was eye level to me. I could feel the blush rise to my cheeks. “Paul, h—how old are you?”
“Nineteen.” I stepped back about three feet and chanted to myself, he’s only nineteen, he’s only nineteen, he’s only nineteen. Not that he’s a minor or anything; it’s that he was in middle school when I was a freshman in college. I liked Ninja-Turtles while he was watching Sesame Street from his high chair.
“Paul, what happened to you?”
“I was out on my morning run. I do twelve miles a day. I was about half-way through when the shots started.” He rolled his eyes and said, “It was probably one of the guys from the ring. They don’t take loss too well.”
“You didn’t see who did it though?”
“Nah, I was by the cemetery. People from a funeral started screaming and running. There was too many out there to pick the guy from the crowd.”
“Do you know Kayla Morris?”
Paul scrunched his nose and shook his head like a horse shooing flies. “Yeah, she’s too old for me. Why do you ask?” He said, squinting at me.
“She’s a demon and she was in here yesterday.”
He scoffed. “You know about demons.”
“Is that what you call yourself?”
“Yeah, something like that.” Paul rubbed his palms together and laughed as he stood and stepped closer to me. “Kayla ain’t my kind. We don’t mix.”
I walked to the door and opened it as Walcroft approached from the end of the hall. “Paul, I figured out as much. Detective, he’s all yours. Find me when you get done with him. I’ve got some questions and considering the nature of this case,” I said, pointing between the men, “I think this goes beyond police business.”
Walcroft leaned in next to my ear and I wondered if he could hear the sudden pounding of my heart. I could smell his after-shave and something spicy. He whispered into my hair, “Police business or something else, that doesn’t make it your business.” He stepped forward causing me to back into the hall and closed the door between us.




4
Avery and the Talk of the Hunt



It was a slow morning, so I found excuses to stay near the exam room Paul and the Detective were in. Normally I would have treated the patient and been done with it, but with the vampires missing and demons turning up left and right, I was beginning to wonder if the two weren’t connected.
Two months ago I heard a Hunter was on their way to Seattle. The demon that told me, Geshem, seemed concerned and even a little fearful. At the time I assumed it was because his clientele were vampires but recent events made me rethink it.
I knew for sure that Hunters were bad for vampires; could they be a danger to the whole supernatural community?
Forty minutes later the Detective emerged and saw me puttering around the hall outside the door. He took a sharp turn toward the hospital exit determined to avoid me, but I was more determined to talk. I cut off his retreat only feet from the pneumatic doors.
“I need to talk to you, Detective.”
He scowled at me and said, “I don’t have time for nosey nurses, Avery.”
“Glad to see you didn’t completely ignore me earlier.” He started to walk around me and I stopped him again. “Look, I think I may know something about…your friends being here. I can blurt it out right here in the hall or we can go sit down in the break room, in relative privacy and discuss this.”
Walcroft heaved a sigh and began rubbing the bridge of his nose where the glasses normally sat. Patty, the other half of the gossiping reception crew came into the hall. She stood and stared at us standing there and I noticed Denise, at the desk, had sat down her book and was doing the same. Megan and Harris weren’t far off casting long glances in our direction.
“Walcroft, we’re drawing attention here. Let’s go to the break room. I’ll tell you what I know and you can ignore it or not.” He stopped rubbing his face, bowed his head and pointed down the hall for me to lead.
I latched the door as soon as we were both through it and turned to look at Walcroft. He was sitting staring at his palms as he had been when I first came in for the night.
“What do you know?” he asked before I could even sit down.
“Have you heard of Hunters, Detective?”
“Yes. They’re vampire exterminators. Vamps come in but they don’t come out. What’s that got to do with my case?”
“I met a vampire here at the hospital a few months ago. Another clan had come in and were causing trouble. Part of that trouble was an invitation to a Hunter.”
“Still not my problem,” Walcroft said, closing his dark eyes and putting his hands behind his head.
“Well, I heard it from a demon, who seemed scared, and my vampire clan has gone missing. The timing doesn’t seem a little too perfect to you?”
“No, Avery, it doesn’t. Hunters go for vampires; my kind has their own enemies.”
I leaned my elbows on the table and waited for the Detective’s eyes to open before I continued. “This Hunter would be a rogue. I was told he was paid to come here by this clan. If the Hunters are the enemy of the vampire, then why would one work for a clan? I don’t know why they sent for a Hunter and Eric Rory, the undead bastard that hired him, is nothing more than ash. What if this Hunter is going after the supernatural community? Eric was taking over the area, maybe this was the plan and without Eric to stop the Hunter, he’s carrying it out on his own.
“I’ve got friends missing and if your case can lead me to find out what happened to them, I’m going to stalk your ass to get to the bottom of this.”
Walcroft stood suddenly and leaned across the table into my face. “I have a full case load and I don’t need a tag-along while I’m trying to work. I don’t have time to do your missing persons, and I don’t deal with vampires,” he hissed. “I suggest you find your friends on your own, or hire a P.I. that specializes in this sort of thing.”
I stood and closed the small gap between us. I was only inches from his face and I could make out each opalescent swirl in his eyes. “If this is related, the problem is way bigger than two demons getting banged up.”
“There’ve been five others.”
“What?” I asked, pulling away to take in all of his face. Walcroft’s jaw was clinched; his brow furrowed deep with…concern…anger…both?
“There have been five others attacked in the last month. Most haven’t had to come to the hospital because they were isolated and had time to heal on their own.”
“What are the police doing?”
“I’m doing everything I can. The police don’t know about four of the attacks and don’t know what the vics have in common. I do and can’t say anything.”
“When are the attacks happening?” I asked, since I had broken his silence.
He sat back down and rubbed his face again, rolling his fingers along his dark brow and over his closed eyes. “Between sunset and sunrise. Paul and Kayla’s attacks were at sunrise.”
“The same hours a Hunter might be stalking prey?”
“They aren’t vampires, Avery. Most of the supernatural aren’t confined to the night.” Walcroft stood again and said, “I can’t help you find your friends right now. The assailant is escalating. Each attack is more violent and the method is changing with each new victim.
“How long have your friends been missing and what have you done to find your friends?” He asked, taking out a small notebook.
“I haven’t seen any of them in a month and a half. I haven’t really looked for them though. I told them to lay low for a while.”
The detective closed the notebook and slid it back into a pocket, while my guts twisted. “So, they haven’t called to hang out and now you think they’re missing or worse.”
I felt the blood rush to my face, both in embarrassment and anger. “Detective, this isn’t about hanging out. I lost a vampire I was close to. I saved their lives and they saved mine. This isn’t something I take lightly,” I said, slamming my fist to the table between us.
The demon placed his large, febrile hand over mine. I stared at his scarred knuckles and almost leaned closer to him, drawn to the heat and the comfort it could provide. “I know this is serious for you, it may not be for them.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he squeezed my hand gently to hush me. “I suggest you try and contact them. Search them out. Check anywhere you’ve ever seen them. I’ll keep my ear open for news about vampires or this alleged Hunter. Why haven’t you tried to contact them sooner?”
I thought about why I wouldn’t have called them. I pulled my hand from his grip and laid it back in my lap. “I’m not a desperate woman, Detective. I don’t depend on others for comfort, or anything else. I won’t become a groupie or stalker or a nag.”
“Funny. You’ve been nagging me since you got here and you threatened to become my stalker,” he said, with a hesitant smile.
I got up and unlatched the lock. “Very funny, Detective,” I said, opening the door.
“Avery, if I hear anything that might help you, I’ll call.”
“Thanks, Detective Walcroft. If I find anything out, I’ll call the station.”
“By the way,” he said, standing from his chair. “What’d you say to Paul? He wouldn’t stop talking about you and how he’s going to take you to one of his fights.”
I shrugged and rolled my eyes. “I didn’t say anything to encourage him. Watching a nineteen year old boy get beaten to a bloody pulp isn’t my thing.”
He looked down toward his black shoes and scratched behind his ear. “It’s better that way. Paul’s…well, let’s just say Paul’s never lonely for company.”
Stepping out the door, I looked over my shoulder at him. “Eww, Detective. Eww.” Man-whores are yucky. I left him alone with the lockers and tried to ignore the pointed stare Harris was giving me as I walked through the hall. Megan grabbed my arm and pulled me into an empty exam room before I even made it to the front desk. “Would that be one of the benefits?”
“What?”
“I’ve seen his eyes. There’s nothing human about them, or the assault victims he’s come to see.”
“No, Megan. Detective Walcroft isn’t a positive for me. He’s arrogant and rude, but he might be able to help me find someone.”
Megan tucked the gray fly-a-ways back behind her ears and said, “Maybe I’ll go have a chat with him.” She turned to leave the room but stopped mid-step. “Avery, what is he?”
“It’s his business to tell you, not mine. I’d just talk to him for now. Don’t be too forward. I don’t know how old he truly is. He looks mid-twenties, but that’s just looks.” She started to turn to leave but I stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Oh, and if I were you, I’d talk to him in the break room, away from prying eyes. If Denise or Patty see you, the whole hospital’ll think you’re a cougar by tomorrow.”
Megan smiled and nodded, leaving me behind in the exam room. I guess all it took was a pretty face and she’d forgotten her apprehension toward the supernatural.

5
Avery and the Red Wet Hell



Harris spent most of the day following me around, asking questions about the Detective and what was going on between us. I deftly avoided that conversation, as well as ignoring the ribbing Denise and Patty were giving me over it. Megan didn’t even ask. She was too busy thinking about other things. Her talk with Walcroft had gone well from what she said. There wasn’t a plan for a date, but he apparently flirted back and Megan was satisfied to spend the day telling me her strategy for getting him on one.
Megan had no children and no husband, sadly enough. She had been focused on her career and married another doctor in her early thirties. As far as she was concerned, everything was wonderful, right up until the day she came home from her shift early and found him in bed with a first year resident. I wished her oceans of luck and rivers of courage in her pursuit of the demon.
I managed to leave work, go home for a change clothes, grab a bite to eat, and get to Alex’s house as the sun dropped below the horizon. Alexander was the leader of my freaky friends, the vampire clan made up of Scott, before his death, Chad, Sobie the Valkyrie, and maybe Clete, ever the southern gentleman. Alexander, the defender of men according to the meaning of his name, was a Swedish soldier from the 1700’s and Chad was made in Bastogne during WWII. I had no idea where Sobie and Clete had come from.
I parked on the curb and stood in the yard staring at the two story house as the shadows deepened under the trees on the lawn. The cedar shingles were faded to black and greenish streaks and the porch looked skeletal with it’s spindly columns. I knew the upper windows, with their heavy drapes were illusion; they were all bricked over from the inside. The windows on the first floor remained dark, hollow gaps in an otherwise solid façade of normality.
The minutes ticked by slowly, as I waited for the light. The longer the light was absent, the louder my heart seemed to beat. The stars were beginning to twinkle into life as I stepped up to the door and knocked. My head was pounding to the rhythm in my chest. When no one answered, I took a bolder step, I turned the knob. The house was unlocked.
It was also silent as the dead. It looked the same inside as it had the last time. The living room was full of the same rugged furniture, the dining room had it’s table and the hutch full of antiques and the stairs were still a dark walk to the cave-like second floor. The hard wood floors had a fine layer of dust coating them that clung to my shoes and the bottom of my pants.
I made my way up to the second story and peeked into what was once Scott’s room. Nothing was where he’d left it. The bed in the room was a queen size with white cotton sheets, rather than the plaid Scott preferred. His posters were gone too, replaced by framed pictures. There was a group shot of miners, one of the Titanic at the dock, the tower of London with brightly lit windows, a shield with a black bird emblazoned on it, and some sort of animal skin on the floor as a rug. This room, which had been a sanctuary for me one night months before, was a different place. I closed the door and headed back out to my car.
The house had been empty for a while, but most everything was still in place, as if the clan had dropped everything and left. I didn’t know where they could have gone, so my next stop would be to someone who might know why they’d gone. I needed to see the demon Geshem.
Twenty minutes later, I was looking at the empty parking lot in front of the restaurant. The half barrel planters were in full bloom, the purple pansies dotted the cream-colored cinderblock walls. The hours on the door said open, so I stepped into the red nightmare that was Mia’s.
The first thing I noticed was the stained red carpet squishing beneath my feet. The second thing I noticed was the smell, a cross between barbeque and burnt hair. Water droplets pooled on the laminate tables and red pleather booths.
“Hello? Anybody here? Geshem?”
The ropes of dried garlic were water-logged lumps on the burgundy walls and the crucifix dripped from the toes. A drop slipped down the back of my shirt causing me to look up. The sprinkler heads were dribbling and the textured ceiling was puckered and pealing. I cut through the scattered tables to the door in the back. It opened to the kitchen where the smell grew stronger.
The water stood in a thin layer across the tiles and the far wall was black with ash and smoke. There were shattered liquor bottles littering the floor and counters. I stepped around the metal prepping table and found the man I had been searching for. The eye that was intact had faded to a pale blue, the opalescence dead.
Geshem’s face was half gone. His salt and pepper hair, button down shirt, and jeans burned, revealing scorched flesh and yellowed bone. My heart was in my throat, my nose burning in the acrid air. The demon’s mouth was charred and pealed back, bearing his teeth in a gruesome grimace. I backed toward the door knocking blackened pots to the floor with a deafening crash.
A scream exploded into the room and I found myself cowering in the corner. My mouth closed as I realized the tortured noise was coming from me. I had seen and done some horrible things in my life, but nothing in my past compared to this.
There was a crash and I moved as the door swung back toward me. There was a woman standing in the room with me. She was tall, maybe 5’11, her long willowy frame vaguely familiar. She stood there for a minute and then started around the prep table. I reached out to her before she cleared the side and whispered, “Don’t,” causing her to gasp and jump back against the metal making another crash as dishes fell off the shelf and over the other side--toward Geshem’s body. I gagged as that realization came.
The woman kneeled beside me, her long, dark hair curtaining me off from the room. She helped me stand and pulled me back out into the dining room of the restaurant.
“What are you doing here?” She asked as she forced me to sit in a booth near the front desk.
“I—I came to talk, but he’s dead!”
She cocked her head to the side and looked at me with a frown. “Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”
I continued to heave as I pictured Geshem’s body, crumpled and charred on the floor. It flashed through my mind; his arm was twisted under him, his legs splayed out, and the liquor bottles crushed around him.
She stood from her crouch beside me and said, “I’m going to call the police. Just—just sit here and try to think of something else.” Ms. Willowy turned and headed back toward the kitchen.
I managed to croak, “What’re you doing?”
She didn’t even look back at me as she said, “I have to get my cell from my purse.” I hadn’t seen her with a purse, but I hadn’t exactly been looking for it either.
I sat and stared out the windows over the front desk. It seemed like the woman was taking a long time to come back, but everything was slow suddenly, even the ticking clock over the desk. Looking at it all, it occurred to me she was the hostess. I had seen her twice before; once when Eric Rory had been here probing me for information while she stood glamoured right under the slowly ticking clock. The second time I’d seen her, she was coherent, telling me to have a seat. That was the same day I found out about the Hunter on his way to Seattle. That was the same day Geshem sat with me and assumed I was the Hunter.
The thought of Geshem brought another flash of the scene in the kitchen. I could see his skull, cracked, revealing the pale shining mound it once protected. I curled into a ball in the booth and tried to stop the shaking that traveled from my toes to the tips of my fingers. I could hear sirens drawing closer as the hostess came back and wrapped her arms around me.
“They’ll be here any minute. Try and focus on me. What’s your name?”
“Avery,” I said, looking over my shoulder as she leaned over me.
“I’m Vanessa. Can I get you some water? Would that help?”
I was in shock, but managed a weak, “Yeah.” She left me alone again and I considered what to do about the shakes. I stood from the booth, shuffled to the door, and out into the parking lot, where I slipped into the backseat of my car. I pulled a towel from the floor and covered myself as I propped my feet high against the window. Blue lights flashed into the dark of my SUV.
Vanessa came out with a bottle of tepid water and a candy bar and went to talk to the arriving police. As my heart beat steadied, I eased myself up enough to drink and nibble the candy. I looked out beyond my feet and saw Detective Walcroft scowling at me through the glass.

6




Between my car and what I assumed was Vanessa’s, stood Detective Jackson and the hostess. I sat and chewed on a lump of chocolate, listening to her account of the evening. I knew it was probably against police procedure, but she hadn’t said anything, Jackson hadn’t seen me through the tinted windows, and Walcroft had gone inside with the CSI.
I wasn’t sure if Jackson had asked her anything, but she was rattling off her night all the same. “I went on my dinner break about twenty minutes ago, but I forgot my purse so I had to come back. John had said he might close early, ‘cause it was so slow. He was fine when I left, bless him. He was such a nice man. He isn’t religious, but he let me put up my crucifix and he was okay with me putting church fliers on the desk.” Jackson started to mumble a question out but she kept talking. “Oh, good lord, what am I going to do about a job now?”
Jackson managed to break her rambling and ask, “Was Mr. Cahill married, by any chance?”
“He was but they’re separated. There were some infidelity issues; I’m not sure who had the issue though.”
That was all of her account I heard because Walcroft yanked the door open, dropping my feet to the seat. He gave my ankle a swift jerk, pulling me to within inches of his face. “What are you doing, Avery?”
I pulled back a few inches and said, “Heeding bad advice from a cop.”
“I meant, listening to them,” he said, pointing through the glass behind me. “As far as my advice goes, I specifically told you to stay out of this case. I told you to go try and find your friends. At no point did I say go talk to…to…”
“Searching for an appropriate word in mixed company, Detective?” I asked in a whisper. “My friends aren’t home and haven’t been in a while. Geshem—“
“John you mean?”
“Whatever. You’ll have to explain the fucking naming convention to me some other time. John was the guy that told me my friends were in trouble.”
Mia’s was a stand alone, but the neighboring lot held a strip-mall, and a crowd gathering to stare on the mall’s side of the yellow police tape. There was also a group of uniforms talking and pointing surreptitiously in our direction. Our current position suddenly seemed a bit compromising. I was sitting up on the seat, my feet resting on the door frame with Walcroft standing between my knees, leaning into the car to hiss in my face.
I pushed against his chest and when he didn’t move said, “We’re drawing attention again, Detective.” He looked over his shoulder and eased back away from me as I stepped down from the Explorer. He led the way to the corner of the restaurant farthest from the prying eyes of the crowd outside the strip-mall and the uniformed officers.
“Geshem told you about the Hunter. Any particular reason you didn’t mention that tidbit sooner?”
“I did. I told you it was a rain demon who told me.”
“But you didn’t say it was Geshem.”
I scowled up at him in the dark. “So what?”
“I knew him. We all did.” Walcroft took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“All of your kind knew him?”
He hesitated then turned to face the dark trees along the building. “Yeah, he had meetings here, for our kind and other races.”
“And?”
“And if you’re right, the Hunter may have everything he needs to kill us all. Geshem was a paranoid, organizational nut. He kept logs on everything. He always seemed to stay out of trouble, so no one had a problem with it.”
I scratched my head and tried to piece together what this meant for everyone I knew outside the realm of normal. “And?”
“And?” He yelled. “And this was more than just who was coming and going. Geshem kept addresses, descriptions, line by line transcripts of everything. I don’t know how much information his killer has on us now. His office is behind the kitchen gutted by the fire. The killer could have it all.”
“Or the killer could have nothing. What was he paranoid about?”
“Avery,” Walcroft said, with a sigh and the shake of his head. “Geshem was crossed, about a century ago, by a few of his own and some were-pups up to some mystical no good. He was suspicious of everyone after that.”
“How long, exactly, do you guys live? I mean you are mortal, right?”
“We’re mortal, we live extremely long lives.”
“Like how long are we talking here?”
“I was a kid when Atlanta burned.” I closed my eyes and tried to remember when that would have been. “When Sherman marched,” he said, interrupting my train of thought.
“During the Civil War?”
“I haven’t heard of any other Sherman marching on Atlanta.”
“Holy shit, Walcroft. Were you there?”
“Let me just say I know who started the fire.” The Detective shrugged and started pacing the narrow trail between the building and the woods on this side of it.
“What happened to the guys who crossed Geshem?”
“He got some undead help for the pups. The Quenchers dealt with the others.”
“Quenchers?”
“Yes. Those that crossed Geshem wantonly took lives and were punished. We’re off topic, let’s focus.”
“I think we’re right on topic. Geshem, demons, Hunters, what else do we need to discuss?”
“Fuck, Avery, how about the fact that he’s dead and you discovered the body!”
“Do you have to be such an ass all the time,” I asked, raising my own voice. “I know you want to know what happened, but I don’t want to think about that shit! Talking to you about everything but what I found in there is exactly what I need.
“I can’t keep picturing his face in my head. I came in, smelled something horrible and followed my nose to the body. I was the only one in the parking lot and I didn’t see anyone else until Vanessa came in!”
“Stop fucking yelling at me!”
“Then stop fucking yelling back,” I managed to say in normal tones, through gritted teeth.
“Detective!”
Walcroft and I turned toward the voice calling out to him. Vanessa was standing at the front corner of the building with her hands on her hips. “What do you think you’re doing? Avery saw something in there that turned her into a shaking mess and now you’re yelling at her?”
Walcroft’s mouth was hanging open by the time Vanessa stepped up to us and put her arm around me. “Take a break, Detective. She’ll be out front when you want to talk to her like a grown-up.” With that she turned and marched us out of the dark shadows beside the building. Walcroft could have stopped her, and should have since he was the law, but Vanessa had caught us both off guard.
She deposited me in front of the restaurant and went back to talk to Jackson, who was looking strangely at the two of us. Walcroft came back around the corner and stood with me. We watched through the windows as the coroner pushed the bagged body through the kitchen door.
“Walcroft, how was he killed?”
“Call me David.”
“Okay. David, will you answer the question?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Fire kills everything.”
Vanessa ran up as the gurney hit the sidewalk in front of us, and torn open the zipper revealing the unharmed side of his face. David reached out to stop her, but I put my hand over his. Vanessa slid a small bible into the bag to sit on the rain demon’s chest and wiped a single tear from her eye before turning away.







I hope you guys like this story so far, I have to take a break from it, my personal life has hit some speed bumps and I have to take care of it. I will come back to it, so don't worry you will get an ending, it will just take a little longer than I planned to get there.