1
Avery, a Body, and the Missing Girl
Dr. Rosser, standing at my side and said, flatly, “I know you haven’t heard since you just came in, they called ahead. It doesn’t look good. Kid’s in real bad shape. Found him badly beaten and left for dead as far as I can tell. He's been anoxic for at least ten minutes, should be a quick call.”
I always hated when the more experienced staff made life and death so mundane. I mean, we all do it in our heads, it makes our own lives livable, but I still hated hearing it. To say it out loud made it seem disrespectful.
EMTs pushed in the gurney, spouting out the details. “Young man, no ID, mid to late twenties, has been out since we picked him up ten minutes ago, started chest compressions.”
I had just heard it from Dr. Rosser but seeing the extent of the damage was a shock to me. Covered in blood, his face was completely discolored and misshapen. EMTs had cut open his shirt and I could see more bruising. Adding to my shock further there was about six inches of a metal rod standing awkwardly from between his ribs. It didn’t look good at all.
He was unnaturally pale from blood loss; a small dark stream crept slowly down his side from the base of the rod. I packed gauze around the wound and tried to patch it up as best I could without removing it. He already had a blood bag hooked up and we continued chest compressions, forcing air into his stubborn lungs. Nothing. Next came the paddles but it was a lost cause. He had been picked up ten minutes before we started our work and the fifteen minute fight for his life was drawing to a close.
“Calling it. Time of death 20:22.” Dr. Rosser wiped the sweat from her forehead with the crook of her arm and flipped her gloves in the trash on her way out the door, leaving without a second glance.
I was alone with the young man who would miss the rest of the life he was meant to live. I cut off the machines and turned to leave but stopped. I looked at the man, pushing his dark brown hair off his face. I noticed a fine white powder on his cheek and brushed it away. Deep hazel eyes stared back at me, still clinging to the spark of life. His skin felt lukewarm under my hand and I knew I was looking too hard. The young always reminded me of my own mortality. I was only twenty four but felt aged beyond my years. It seemed wrong to leave him in such bad shape, and I think what I did next was for my own benefit as much as his. I wouldn’t want to die this way and I could only hope someone else would do the same for me.
I slowly pulled on the rod from his ribs. It was stubbornly trying to keep a grip in his flesh. Breaking the suction with a final tug, I set it on a tray beside the body. I looked into the hole that remained. It was maybe the diameter of a quarter, the edge smooth, like a straw pushed into warm butter. Blackened skin circled the opening and red lines radiated out creating a web of dark irritated veins. Was the rod hot when it pushed into his skin?
Leaning to his ear, I softly gave him the last words no one else was here to give.
“I live for you…and the others who have lost it all. Good luck.” I wasn’t religious and not knowing him at all I couldn’t be sure a prayer would have been right. Closing his eyes, I felt a silly for having said anything. I was cliché and I knew it, but we were alone and he deserved something said in kindness.
I pulled out a sheet and a paper bag from one of the side cabinets. I checked his pockets and found them empty. Taking his watch off, I placed it with the rod in the bag. I set the personal belongings between his legs. He didn’t have much but I wanted to make sure it all went with him.
I had more work and I could hear an ambulance carrying another sad load towards us.
I hated working nights like this. Unusually clear for January in Seattle, the moon was shining its pregnant light on the damp sidewalks outside the emergency room doors. They say the full moon doesn’t mean anything, but the sound of the ambulances told me otherwise. Shrugging off my reservations about the night to come, I left him there. I should have paid more attention to my gut.
The next was a car accident and Dr. Rosser was once again beside me, awaiting the new arrivals. When the EMTs pulled her in I could tell she was in pain. A woman in her late thirties stretched on the gurney. I could see powder from an airbag lay heavy in her blond hair and her eyes were shut tight against the fire running through her broken limbs.
A young girl, with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises, was following along behind them. Her child-like face was oddly paired with her long frame. She had to be 5’9 or 5’10. Her deep red auburn hair hung in unruly waves down her shoulders and had flecks of glass sending extra dancing light through it.
“Car accident, they had to use the jaws to get her out, took forty minutes. Lady was pinned in the driver’s seat.” the EMT dipped his head to the woman as he gave his report. “Girl was standing beside the car when we arrived on the scene, she’s twelve, minor cuts and bruises, maybe whiplash. Mom’s got a firm belly, probably internal injuries,” he grunted.
We pushed the woman into an empty room, the girl following in silence the whole way. Turning to the girl, I needed information from her and Dr. Rosser had three other nurses assisting. I put my hands on her shoulders and moved to try and block her view of her mother. I was once again struck by her incredible height, even more so now that I knew how young she was. At just 5’3, I didn’t even show in her field of vision much less block her from the sight of the room behind me.
“Hey, what’s your name hon?” She looked down at me for a long minute, her face blank. I couldn't help but notice her blue eyes had speckles of brown and they were heavy, rimmed red with tears straining out.
“Audra Avinpala,” she peeped.
“Okay Audra, I am going to need your help so we can help your mom. What’s her name?” Seemed like the best way to calm her and a good start for the woman’s records.
“She, she’s Orenda, Orenda Avinpala,” she stuttered.
“Okay, honey, we are going to help your mom, do you know if she has any allergies?”
“No, no allergies.” She seemed to be gathering herself, finding strength in having something else to focus on.
“Now we are going to take this slow, do you know her blood type?”
She stiffened at the question and her eyes went milky as the pupils rolled into her head. I thought she was going to faint but as I watched she eased and her blues were once again looking at me.
“She’s O, O positive.” She calmed suddenly and I was a little disconcerted.
Calling the information over my shoulder to Dr. Rosser, I guided Audra away from the room. We were standing in the main hallway and I was hoped it would be easier to keep her from falling apart now that I was getting the information I needed. I didn’t want her to faint and add to the injuries she had already sustained in the crash.
“Okay, does she have anything we need to know about, heart problems, kidney problems, any diseases she needs to have treated, like diabetes?” She looked down at her feet and I could see her stiffen then ease again.
“No, nothing like that, she doesn’t smoke or drink either. She takes good care of herself.”
What else could I say to this girl? I lead her to the seats across the hall to wait, stealing another look into the room as we went. “Now Audra, are you in any pain?”
“My neck feels stiff, a little sore, like, like I slept on it funny. It is worse when I turn it to the left.”
I ran a quick exam and said, “Looks like minor whiplash, I will get you an icepack and some ibuprofen and we’ll get you set up somewhere comfortable."
Standing to go for the ice and the pill, I glanced back through the window on the door to her mother’s room. Orenda was flat lining. I needed to keep the girl calm. I literally ran down the hall for her pain relievers and was back in only a minute.
Handing her the pack I asked, “Where’s your dad, Audra? Was he in the accident too?”
“He and my mom divorced when I was six. I don’t see him much. He lives in Portland but should be here soon.” Audra seemed thoughtful, even though tears were staining her cheeks. She was at least calm.
“We were going to our place, me and my mom. We have been going to the Sound every full moon for years to watch the waves. We stand on the pier, by the ferry, and watch them. Now we’ll never do it again.” She sobbed into her hands. “I don’t want to go live with my dad. He is remarried and has new kids of his own. I just had my mom. She, she was all I needed.”
“Audra, it’ll be okay. We are doing the best we can in there... I know how you feel, my mom raised me. She died when I was your age. I went to foster care, you have to know, have to realize, being in your father’s home will be better than that. You’ll be a big sister and have those kids looking up to you. You’ve been so strong, you’ve--” I heard the doors open and looked up. Dr. Rosser was stepping out, her face grim. “Audra, I am going to sit right here with you, Dr. Rosser has to talk to you.” I hugged the girl into my shoulder as Dr. Rosser gave her the bad news.
“There was nothing left for us to do. Do you have someone coming for you?”
“My dad should be here in about eight minutes,” Audra said, looking at her cracked wristwatch.
Dr. Rosser and I exchanged a glance. The girl’s response had been fast and exact. It was a strange considering everything, but we didn’t voice our thoughts.
“Miss Sheridan, why don’t you take her into the break room, she can lay on one of the cots stored there and rest till her father gets here.”
I was happy to do anything I could to ease the girls grief.
I could see all the people in the waiting room as I stood with Audra. We’d pass the main desk on the way to the break room. With only the briefest pause I considered the two women who worked there. Neither was a great choice; both women liked to gossip and were rarely of use when it counted. I asked Denise to sit with the girl and she agreed without hesitation. She wasn’t exactly sad to get away from the crowd waiting to be seen. Denise tended toward laziness and often left her work for Patty or one of the girls on the other shifts.
Patty gave me a dirty look since she was swamped. I leaned over the desk with a leveling glare of my own, “This girl just lost her mom and I can’t sit with her or you’ll be swamped even worse.” I was in a short temper with Patty but she deserved it. She was the type of woman kind to your face, mean to your back and I didn’t mind putting her in her place. She was the more diligent worker and deserved the break slightly more than her friend, but only slightly. I needed a diligent worker with the crowd forming in the waiting room.
I left Audra there for Denise to take care of and I went to see another patient.
A little boy, maybe six, had a deep cut. After I cleared the glass from his hand, I left to get a suture kit and ran into Dr. Rosser and the tallest man I had ever seen. I knew he was Audra’s father as soon as I saw him. He was 6’8 or 6’9 his brows furrowed in concern over his brown eyes with their clear blue speckles. His dark brown hair was as wavy and wild as Audra’s. He was wearing a business suit and shifting his weight back and forth in frustration.
“Where’s the girl,” Dr. Rosser asked, concerned.
“In the break room, Denise is sitting with her.”
“No one’s in the break room,” she stated.
I looked at the front desk and saw Denise chatting away with Patty as if nothing was going on around them.
“Let’s go ask.” I was scowling as we three turned to confront the unaware woman.
I noticed the clock. It had only been nine minutes since the girl had told us her father would be here.
“Denise, where’s the girl?”
“What?” She had a look of bewilderment on her face.
“The girl from the break room,” I said.
“Oh yeah, she’s in the bathroom. Me and Patty been watching for her to come out.” She was being flippant about the whole thing.
I crossed the hall to the restrooms and opened the door. The room was dead silent. Worry seeped into me, the girl just lost her mom and teenagers can be so impressionable and overly dramatic. I put my guard up and glanced around the sea-foam blue room, whose square wall tiles reflected harsh fluorescent light. The counters around the sinks were dry and clean, so she hadn’t washed her face or hands. I turned to the large stall doors. They hung close to the floor for privacy, without lying on my stomach on a dirty bathroom floor I had no way of looking under them.
“Audra, are you in here?” I asked loudly. I could practically hear crickets chirping in response. I knocked on the first stall door, “Audra?”
I slowly pushed the door open. No Audra, just a lump of wet tissue floating in the bowl. I turned to the next door pushing it without saying anything. It was equally as empty as the first. Going to the last door, I knew she had to be in there.
Did she fall, did she finally faint?
Pushing it open, I immediately saw something red on the floor.
Oh god.
I pushed the door open the rest of the way, expecting to see her sitting in the floor, thinking the door might hit her as I pushed. There crumpled on the floor, was a red scarf. The bathroom was empty but for me and a cold draft. I charged out of the room whose shining blue walls now closely resembled my mood; depressed with a flashing sheen of anger. I left to confront Denise.
“She’s gone,” I demanded.
Denise turned red and charged over to look for herself.
“I just looked in here, my eyes work fine. Call the damn police,” I snarled.
In the time it took Denise to get back to the desk and pick up the phone two men had walked into the emergency room. As the first pushed back his blazer to slide a phone into his pocket I caught the gleam of a badge and the lumpy holster of his gun. Relief swept over me. I knew they were here to help, even if they didn’t know it yet.
They stopped to talk to Denise. The man with the phone was a large black man built like a runner, long and lean. His hair had gone halfway silver and he looked to be in his late forties. His partner, a balding white man of the same age, was looking around the room with an air of guarded vigilance.
Denise pointed to Dr. Rosser, who was a few feet away from me, and the two men converged on her like flies to honey. I could hear them from where I stood. I figured I should stay. They would have questions for me when they found out about the missing girl.
“I’m Detective Jackson and this is my partner Detective Nicholas. We got a few questions for you. The woman at the desk indicated you were the one to treat the man who was beaten tonight. We need to talk to him and get his story,” Detective Jackson said in a voice as deep and rich as Willy Wonka’s chocolate river.
“I treated him and I’m sorry to say you can’t talk to him. He was DOA and we were unable to resuscitate him.” Dr. Rosser was sweating again. She always pours under stress.
“Did he have anything with him? ID, business cards, jewelry, anything we can use to identify him?” Detective Nicholas asked.
“I just treated him. Avery!” I turned fully into the conversation.
“Did you prep the body to be taken to the morgue?” Dr. Rosser asked.
“Yes, he should be down there by now. I bagged a watch and the metal bar but he wasn’t carrying anything else that I could find.” I noticed Jackson had freckles peppering his cheeks. and.
“Look gentlemen, I or Avery would take you down to the morgue to look over the body and get his belongings but we’ve had a more pressing matter come up in the last few minutes. A girl and her mother were in a wreck this evening. The mother died and the girl has gone missing. Her father,” Dr. Rosser nodded toward Mr. Avinpala who was now leaning, hands pressed into the front desk and looking at his feet, “came to get her. Denise, the desk attendant, was watching her and lost track of the girl.”
“Who talked to her last?” Asked Detective Jackson.
“Well, I talked to her then asked Denise to watch her while I tended to another patient. Denise!” She practically tripped over her own feet to heed my call, not because she held any respect for me, but because she was dying to know what we were saying.
“You talk with the missing girl before she disappeared?” It was Nicholas’ turn.
“Only when she asked to use the bathroom.” She didn’t even have the verbal grace to call it a restroom. “She said she had to go and I said I’d take her.” Denise stood taller. She loved being the center of conversation, even if her lack of knowledge and the seriousness of the situation would render her word obsolete.
“I talked to her while Dr. Rosser worked on her mom, I checked over her injuries. They were fairly minor.” I hoped Mr. Avinpala was far enough away not to hear what I’d say next. With his current emotional state, I didn’t have the heart to tell him Audra hadn’t wanted to go with him.
I related my conversation in a hushed voice in the hopes it wouldn’t carry to his ears, relaxing a little as the last words fell from my lips.
“Is that all she said?” Detective Jackson’s voice was slightly strained. He knew as well as I did if we didn’t start looking for the girl and find her in the next twenty-four hours we would probably never find her.
“That’s all I can think of. She said she and her mom were going to the sound to watch the waves. She didn’t want to go live with her father and his second family.” I screwed my eyes up in concentration trying to replay the moment in my mind to see if I missed anything, but nothing else came to me.
“Okay Miss, Miss, I don’t think I caught your name.” Nicholas was pulling a pen and pad from his pocket, “I am going to need your full name.” His pen readied over the paper waiting for my response.
“Amara Avery Sheridan, A.M.A.R.A A.V.E.R.Y S.H.E.R.I.D.A.N.” I said so he could copy it down for his reports. I also gave him my phone number and the address of my small ranch-style home. “That’s Westbrook Rd, not Wesrook,” I said enunciating the difference as I looked down at his pad of paper.
“Here if you think of anything else call myself or Detective Nicholas.” Jackson was pulling two cards from his blazer pocket, “Our cell number and our office number are on there. You can get a hold of us anytime of day at one or the other of those numbers.”
I looked at the proffered cards, small shields embossed in the corner shone almost as much as the real thing.
They turned to talk to Mr. Avinpala as a pregnant woman with blood running down her legs waddled in through the hissing pneumatic doors. Dr. Rosser and I shared a glance and went to the woman’s aid. We couldn’t be anymore use to the detectives so the woman came first.
We managed to deliver a baby girl into the world. The woman had come in deep into labor and made it only minutes before the child came screaming into the world. At least something was going right and I had one really positive thing to look on. That job finished we sent the woman and the baby upstairs to the postpartum care.
Mr. Avinpala was still talking to the detectives but we already saw a smattering of blue uniforms passing through our doors and walking the halls.
Two other men entered the emergency room, in white shirts and black slacks. One had light hair and skin, the other was dark. I wasn't in the mood to deal with a couple of missionary types.
I pulled the next patient into an exam room, a bloody nosed drunk. I started to evaluate the extent of the damage when I heard the curtain rustle. I looked over my shoulder long enough to see the white shirts and black slacks of the men from the main doorway.
“Miss, you seen this guy, he a buddy of our and we heard he got hurt and came ‘er?” The pale hand shoved a rumpled picture under my nose.
The face was of a young man, maybe twenty five. Dark hair, nice eyes, but not anyone I could remember seeing.
“No, and I’m kind of busy here with a patient, as you can see. If you want to talk more, wait in the hall for me to finish.”
My comment was rewarded with another waving of the picture in my face.
“Ya sure, I mean ya didn’t even really look. I’m his brother an’ I gotter find him.” I didn’t trust the pale man.
“Look.” I said taking the rag from under the drunk’s pinched nose as I turned to face them, “I told you I haven’t, as in HAVE NOT, seen that man. And you,” this time pointing the bloody rag directly at the pale man, “you just said he was a friend, now he’s a brother, make up your mind. If you are related and you find him in this hospital you’ll be allowed to see him.” I was waving the bloody rag wildly, as if I could chase him out with the sight of it. (It worked with some of the more squeamish people I’ve had trouble with.) “Otherwise, friend or not, the nurse on duty will tell you to go the hell away just like I am!”
I turned back to the bleeding man in front of me, handing him the rag to mop his gushing nose. It was badly bruised but it didn’t seem broken. I went to get him an icepack and realized that without a sound the two men had left the room. They hadn’t even tried to get in a last word.
Mr. Avinpala looked ill when I stepped back out into the hallway. “Look, Miss Sheridan, Detective Nicholas thinks I could’ve had something to do with all this. He is thinking something along the lines of not wanting to ruin my perfect family with a daughter from a previous marriage.” He looked stricken at the very idea, “I don’t know some crap like that. He doesn’t seem to think my drive from Portland is enough of an alibi. I, I have to go talk to him down at the station. I want you to take this.” He saud fumbling with his tri-fold wallet, “It’s a picture of Audra and my card. If you see her, or, or hear anything, please call me… I wish I knew her better, maybe then I’d know where she’d go. I don’t…I couldn’t ever hurt her,” He said, trembling.
He handed me his card and went to stand with the detectives. I looked at it as I had the others before and tucked it away. Ansgar Avinpala, interesting name.
The police seemed to be finishing with their search of the hospital and the local area. They were making calls on their radios. I heard one saying to his partner that Audra had climbed out the window. I also noticed the detectives had used our printer to distribute pictures and maps to the men in blue. The police were all heading out to further the search for her. I only hoped they found her tonight. Ansgar, with the detectives at his back, were the last of the men to leave the building.
I went back to the restroom as soon as they left and took another look around.
The window was narrow, maybe six inches wide, seven at the most. It ran only a few inches below the edge of the ceiling horizontally. I grabbed a chair from the waiting room and dragged it under the window. The added height let me know about how tall Audra would have been at a jump, only tall enough to touch the window ledge; not even high enough to hook her fingers on it. It was an old restroom, added after the emergency room was built, and the ceiling in the room was about ten feet from the floor. I couldn’t see how she had gotten up to the window to climb out. I tried jumping, bracing my feet. I almost climbed on top of the paper towel holder but stopped when it groaned under my weight.
A woman in her thirties came in to use the restroom. A crazy look and a few tense minutes later she was gone and I was back to climbing all over the walls.
I tried to climb the support bar in the stall and see if I could get up using it and the door, no luck there either. I found the icepack I had given Audra in the corner, just behind the far curve of the round trash can. She’d missed the mark. I considered the trash can as being part of her stairway to heaven but immediately dismissed it. It was far too short to have given her the boost she would have needed to get out.
How in the hell did she manage to get out that window? No one had seen her in the waiting room. Denise and Patty had been watching the door and the security cameras hadn’t caught sight of her leaving. Police said it was the window. She’d slipped through it when she was alone. I just couldn’t see how. If we ever saw her again I was going to ask.
I treated a few more minor injuries, nothing to write home about. Let me just say, I was busy and filled the time with work. I didn’t want to think on the tragic death of man earlier, or of Orenda, and I really didn’t want to think about what happened or could be happening to Audra Avinpala. I was only interrupted from my work one other time that night.
The morgue called up to ask if any of our staff had come down tonight. We started the obvious two trips, the morgue attendant still didn’t sound satisfied with our answers. He told us there was a body missing. Denise and Patty were in hog heaven with the juicy events of the evening and they told everyone about it. Even me, and I had seen most of the goings on with me own eyes.
It was four a.m. and time for me to head home. I pulled my white Explorer out of the parking space and guided it from the garage. My dash clock glowed a green neon 4:12, making light of my own grim mood.
The drive home was short and didn’t give me the time I needed to fully relax. I pulled onto Westbrook Rd and could already see my house. Red brick and squat, it was a ranch-style from the ‘70s. I had gotten rid of the shag carpet but the paper still on the bathroom walls were clear indicators of it’s age. The front door was centered on the house flanked by two flowerbeds that held the skeletal remains of last summer's growth.
Kim, my roommate, wasn't home. Her little blue Tiburon was gone and I remembered she was in Portland to see her oldest son. I knew ahead of time she wouldn't be there, but I could still be disappointed not to have the comfort of talking to her tonight.
I hit the button above my head to open the door to my attached garage, glad for once to see my Bowflex. Not because I loved it or even used it that often, but its raised arms were a welcoming wave after everything that happened today.
I walked straight for the bedroom dropping my purse with a flop on the kitchen table. I needed to change into real clothes and wash my face.
I emerged refreshed but not at all relaxed. I looked around my living room and decided on watching TV with some comfort food. The lumpy couch was calling my name. I hit a button on the remote and the screen burned to life. I looked over my choices and settled on Clueless. Not the best movie I had ever seen, but it was lighthearted and funny and it was exactly the kind of thing I wanted after a night like the one I had.
I walked in sock feet back to the kitchen. I was making my favorite comfort food, dry instant oats with sugar and chocolate peanut butter. Filling and sweet, it was similar to no-bake cookies without all the fat and calories from the butter. I could just eat it out of the bowl without having to wait for it to cool which gave me the extra satisfaction of instant gratification. I pulled the parts and pieces I needed from the pantry and began stirring.
Where did Audra Avinpala go tonight? How the hell did she get up to that window and fit through it? The detectives were weird; they always spoke in turns, like Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. Okay, that wasn’t nice. I went to put everything away, glad the night was over, and I didn’t have to think of anything more tonight but my chick flick.
It happened so fast I dropped the peanut butter and let loose a scream. I am not a screamer; at least I like to think I’m not. There was a cold hand on my arm, crushing my wrist. It was like meat from the fridge. I felt the chill edging into me. It was trying to infect me with its freezing depths. It seeped into my heart as fear gripped me.
“Where are we?” Asked a harsh voiced man. I wondered what this frozen man was going to do to me. Scenes and images rushed through my mind, a rape from a movie, a kit I had done on a woman the week before, the bodies I had seen in the morgue… I felt the adrenaline running through me. As it hit my arms I did something I hadn’t done since I was in the Army, I grabbed the top of the cold hand with my free one, ducked under the arm and twisted it high into the man’s back.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?”
2
Avery and the Vampire
His body was as chilly, through his green shirt, as the arm I held pressed between his shoulder blades. Smelling lightly of Old Spice, the man’s dark hair tickled my nose as I stood pressed close to his back.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
His response was the fastest I’d ever seen and it wasn’t a verbal one. He jerked the top half of his body forward, startling me and forcing me to loosen my grip. Then, and here was the fast part, he dropped into a low crouch shot his leg out and swept it under me. I hit the floor hard but I was quick on my feet and a bit of a scraper. Lying on my back I kicked my feet and delivered a hard thrust into his mid chest, putting all the force in my heels. I didn’t have my shoes to strengthen the blow but I hoped it would still take his breath away or at least slow him down. Rolling left I ambled up off the floor. We were both back on our feet, but I was facing away from him and he grabbed my shoulder. Shifting my weight I used my leverage, holding and throwing the scruffy man off balance and over my shoulder. Now he was the one on his back. Reaching toward him, I had no idea what to do next. I was fighting completely on instinct colored only slightly by a few weeks of training in the South Carolina sun.
Gripping both my hands fast and hard, Scruffy gave me a jerk. My sock feet slid out from under me on the linoleum floor and sent me flying over his head. He wrapped himself around my arms and chest; I was now sitting between his straight legs.
It didn’t seem like anything was in my head but my body reacted all the same. Pulling my knees close into my chest, I hooked my feet into the loose extra fabric pooling around his knees and it gave me the leverage I needed. Shooting back, I forced my legs out till they were straight and unfolded full length into his torso. He hadn’t expected that. If he was counting on me to panic and fall apart, or thought I would give up, I was going to prove him wrong.
The sudden burst of adrenaline fed power, slammed him back into the cabinet doors. With a painful grunt he lost his grip on me. Crossing the room I was at my knife drawer in one quick leap. I pointed my new defense at him. I had the advantage of territory and I wasn’t going to let it get away from me.
Scruffy was still sitting on my kitchen floor leaned against my cabinets. Circling back, I edged around him in a wide loop to get to my purse and my phone on the table across the room. My eyes never left him, and I kept the knife trained on him with every step. I was heaving, breathing hard from the effort to defend myself. The man sitting on the floor seemed in a complete state of calm.
I bumped the table corner painfully with my hip but didn’t bother to look down. I was only feet now from my salvation. I took a slow step forward and around to slide along the side of the table. I stepped back so the table was lined up beside my left hip and sent my questing fingers out.
Finding my purse was quick and easy, it was the only thing on the table, but the phone was a whole other story. I regretted for the first ever that my purse wasn’t a cute little clutch. I am a utilitarian kind of girl, I want a purse that is sturdy and can hold all I need. Often weighing between eight and ten pounds I can on any given day be found carrying bottles of water, books, an Ipod, my phone, at least one pocket knife, an extra wall charger, band aids, a pack of mint gum, extra rubber bands, a highlighter, a permanent marker, a pencil and a black ink pen, a notebook, a small stash of ‘just in case’ make-up, a pair of earrings, and at least one chapstick. A few of these items never left my purse but most are transient to be traded in and out at will and depending on my particular mood.
Finally fishing my phone from the heaping depths I flipped it open, never looking down. Now what? I can’t type numbers if I can’t see the pad. Deciding it was time for a quick look away, I knew I’d need my eyes now. As I looked at my phone I noticed the adrenaline rush had left and in its wake tremors were rolling through my body.
Then my phone was gone. I had it, but it was gone, my eyes flashed back on the man. He was weakly leaning against my counter and holding the flip phone. I took a moment to study him. I still had my knife trained on him, but there was no easy fix now that he had taken my only way to cry out for help. He had dark brown hair that lay long against his cheek ending just at the jaw line. Hazel eyes peered out at me from a heavy well formed brow. His face was covered in old yellowing bruises but I could see he was handsome beyond that. I knew those eyes…
“Who are you?” I asked hoping I wouldn’t have to ask him again.
“Scott,” he said, in a hoarse whisper that I could clearly hear. God, he looked like five miles of bad road, his shirt was torn right down the front with the bottom edges tucked into his blood spattered pants to hold it closed.
“Scott, are you drunk? This isn’t your house you know….” No sooner had the words left my lips than I recalled why I knew those eyes. I had seen them hours before, looking on at me during a death.
His death, this man died, at 8:22, he was dead, he was dead and standing in my kitchen and dead.
That was it, I couldn’t take anymore, missing girl, missing body, police, worried parents, a fight that was completely exhausting for a body unused to the action and the last ebbs of adrenaline draining away. My knees were giving out, and my ears ringing. I was going to faint. Never in my life had I fainted and I was tipping over right here with a stranger in my home.
Moving too fast for my eyes, (especially since every thought in my head was slowing to a crawl), Scott was beside me. He was holding me. Sinking slowly to the floor, he held me in his arms.
We just sat slumped there together for a few minutes. I had no energy left for fear. The knife lay on the floor in my limp twitching hand. He wasn’t concerned for it at all. I might as well have left it in the drawer where it belonged.
He seemed as worn out as I was even if he wasn’t breathing heavy, as a matter of fact he wasn’t breathing at all. Not a sound escaped his lips. I could tell; they were close to my left ear. I shifted to face him fully. He was the man from the hospital, the same man who only hours before had a face that closely resembled ground beef. His torn shirt had come loose somewhere along the way and I looked into what was now a heavily scabbed circle over his ribs. What was this guy? I knew what happened to the missing body from the morgue, it had walked out on its own and followed me home.
“You said you live for me…”The whisper tickled my ear.
“What?” I asked, thinking I hadn’t said anything in the last few minutes.
“At the hospital, you said you live for me.”
God, he was some kind of dead stalker. If not for the very real, very solid fight we had, I would have thought my kind gesture had attracted a ghost.
“You, you were alone, and you died, I just…I just felt like I should say something.” I was looking at my lap, I was confused by the dead man and embarrassed that I hadn’t been as alone as I thought I was in that little room. I had been cliché and sentimental. I had no intention of being that way in front of people. I always wore my war face, better to show strength than let anyone see my vulnerabilities.
“What are you?” I was in awe of what I had been seeing, the whole moment was surreal. I knew what I had seen in that exam room and I never expected to see this man again.
Scott’s finger ran under my chin and guided my eyes back up to his, “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
It was such a final statement of the fact, that I hesitated to ask further, but having a dead man sitting on my kitchen floor holding me up forced the issue.
“You are dead, I mean you aren’t breathing and you weren’t breathing at the hospital.” I started in a questioning tone but ended with my own statement.
I reached for him, my fingers releasing the knife. They hovered just a few inches away from his body rising until they were level with his neck. I placed them there softly, like I expected him to buzz when I touched him or tear like wet tissue. There was nothing, no tearing, no buzzing, and no pulse either. Reaching his hand up as I pulled back, he brought my hand to rest over his quieted heart.
“You made it beat.” His voice was coming smoother. We were only inches apart studying each other with rapt attention, taking in every minute detail.
“How would I have done that?” I asked, in a tone full of sarcasm. It seemed like some strange pick-up line, not anything based in reality.
“At the hospital. I was looking at you and you did something and I felt it, I felt it beat. I haven’t felt it in so long. Not since Cherry Bomb was a top ten song.”
“What…wait, what are you talking about? Cherry bombs and heart beats, what’s one got to do with the other?” I asked. I had no clue where he was going with this. The ball was in his court.
“I was turned in 1988, Cherry Bomb was my favorite song…actually it was the last song I heard before I died.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, “You shocked me, I was looking at you. You were kind and you said such kind things to me, like I actually deserved it. You did save this life for me.”
“How exactly, did I save a dead man?”
“The stake, it missed my heart but it was killing me. It was silver: silver burns our skin and poisons our blood. I would have died if you hadn’t removed it.”
I held my hand up in a gesture that said stop, “Wait, turned, our?” I wasn’t even coherent.
“Yes, turned.”
“Like on Buffy and Interview with a Vampire and True Blood. You don’t expect me to really believe that do you?” He had said something vital that led me to grasp what he was, but I didn’t believe him. But he wasn’t breathing either. There were the facts to look at, he wasn’t really alive and there is no such thing as vampires. I was sure of it…well I thought I was.
“Yes just like that, and there are others. I am not the only one. What a lonely existence that would be, if I were it. I would have lain in the light by now. And yes, I do mean for you to believe me, I don’t waste words. Everything I say I have thought through.” He paused, studying my look of absolute disbelief.
“Look at it logically, forget about these shows, these fantasies,” he said waving his hand dismissively, “I am dead and yet I am here talking to you, so I must be something. I know of nothing else in this world or the Underworld who can be both dead and alive at the same time. Well,” he injected quickly, “there are zombies but if I was a zombie I would be chewing through your shapely limbs rather than sitting and trying to convince you I am what I am.”
I stood suddenly and felt the blood rush to my head, stumbling as I went. I steadying myself against the table, I asked, “You’re drunk, playing a trick on me...Are you schizophrenic?”
“What’s your name?” he said slowly, as if talking to a lost child.
“Avery.”
“Avery,” he said rising fluidly beside me. “Do I sound drunk? Am I stumbling wildly, am I talking to you and my invisible friend? No, I am speaking reasonably, calling on you to exercise your logical mind.” God he sounded like a typical man, “I know this comes as a shock to you. Your own life has taught you to believe only what you can see right in front of your face, what has been studied and scientifically proven and presented.” He said scientifically with distain, as if science was the joke and the fantasy he was feeding me was the only real truth. “You are a healer, a nurse and you have never seen anything like me. Knowing that I was dead in front of you and seeing me standing here isn’t proof enough of what I am saying?”
“I think…” I was struggling with what was happening and what it all meant. I came to my own conclusion, “I think maybe I am the schizophrenic…or I fell in the shower and this is all in my head.”
Jerking his body away from me, he started pacing like a lawyer making his closing statement. “You are absolutely lucid and plainly stubborn. I felt something tonight. You have to understand, you have to believe. The truth is standing right here in front of you.” Scott’s voice was pleading with me.
I felt pity, I just wasn’t sure if it was for the delusional man in front of me, or for my own loss of sanity.
“What you are telling me just can’t…it can’t work. The brain needs blood to function, the blood carries oxygen, and the lungs have to work to give the oxygen over to the blood. I must be the crazy one. Your body can’t support you. My logical mind tells me, you aren’t really here. I have either suffered a serious accident or my mind has completely gone.”
Scott was looking at me like I had just rotated my head 360, spewed profanities and thrown up pea soup. I couldn’t believe in him and he couldn’t believe I had doubts.
“You are right our bodies don’t run off of oxygen but that doesn’t mean they can’t run at all.” Scott paused and decided something to himself. “I can prove to you that this is no dream and that I am a vampire, but I don’t think you will like my methods.”
I detected the hint of a threat there, that wasn’t going to slow my conviction that I had lost it though. Since he wasn’t real there was nothing he could do to me. I felt no fear hearing that flash of a threat.
“Okay, look, you can do want you need to do, but I want you to go away once you fail to prove your point.”
Moving with a grace dancers would envy, he closed the distance between us in a few steps.
“Pick up the knife Avery… Know that what you have to do you will be paid for in kind.”
Jesus, what did he want from me, suicide by nurse? A murder suicide. That would really get the gossip girls at work going. I killed a man and myself in some melodramatic stand-off. I realized also, if by some stroke what he was telling me was true, my body would be the only one found in the house.
Bending to pick up my all but forgotten kitchen knife I rose up to him, questions showing in my eyes. Reaching forward he clasped my hand and drew the knife quickly across his open palm. I was trying to pull away from him, I knew he would do the same thing to me, and I couldn’t see how it was meant to prove his point. Scott’s bloody hand shot forward and pulled my own struggling hand from where it pushed on his chest. Scott’s grip was firm and I was pulled close, into his body.
He griped my fingers and forced my middle one straight. It was somehow appropriate in my struggle that he had flipped himself the bird. The knife slid across the end of my trapped bird drawing blood. He released the knife. Now that he didn’t need it, he had put it out of his mind. My hand and the knife were free but he was no longer threatening me with harm. I had no reason to use them against him. Scott switched hands, grabbing my cut finger with his free one. He raised his slashed hand into the air as if swearing in for court. I looked up into his face…fangs were sliding into view.
I suffered a break through, he was real. He was a real threat to me and fear flowed from deep in my bones, suffusing me out to the skin. I began to sweat it.
His fangs were in plain view around the finger that was in his mouth, something that under other circumstances could cause wild thoughts. I felt a slow gentle suction take me. Scott’s eyes darted to his raised hand and I realized he wanted me to look at it. Ripping my eyes from him, I stared in open mouthed awe. The cut was closing, in front of me, healing at inhuman speed. Like watching time lapsed photography, it pulled itself closed leaving no sign of the hole that had been there. I felt him release my finger and I jerked it back, clutching it to my chest.
“I told you, you would have to pay in kind. I had to spill my blood and yours to prove my point.”
I was looking at the end of my damaged digit. It didn’t seem like as big a cut as I had first thought. Maybe the fear had elongated it in my own mind. It was already clotting closed, a scab forming. At least I didn't have to fish for a band aid in my purse.
I looked up at Scott in wonder. It was still a hard to believe but he had basically proven his point. The pain at the cut in my finger told me I was conscious and not dreaming, and his fangs and ability to heal had just been shown to me.
Scott’s face was much improved. While still somewhat bruised along the jaw line, most of his skin was clear. His complexion was still unnaturally pale but slightly pinker and not at all unattractive. He looked like a picture I had seen somewhere. Realizing with his refreshed state, I knew someone had been searching for him…well besides the police and the morgue attendant. The missionaries, er whatever had come to find him.
“Okay, I am not sure I can completely concede to your point.” I said, stubbornly. “You should call your brother and friend…or was it your brother’s friend,” so much had happened tonight I was getting confused. “Two guys came in looking for you tonight. They got me while I was busy, kept interrupting me. I yelled at them, but the one said he was your brother and your friend or something.”
Scott looked pensive now. I could see he was deciding something for himself, how much to tell me.
“Did they give a name? It could have been my clan brothers.”
“Um…” I was thinking hard. “No, they just showed me a picture.”
“What did they look like?”
“No, it’s my turn for a question, what do you mean by clan brother,” I was genuinely interested but not because I necessarily believed. I had seen enough to believe, I just couldn't quite bring myself to completely believe...yet.
“I need to know this first, you answer my questions then I will answer yours.”
“Fine,” I said as I slid over into a chair at the kitchen table. “I didn’t get a very good look at them, like I said I was really busy. One was a really big guy and pale, pale skin, pale hair, the other was dark. They came in waving your picture in my face. Hey vampires take pictures?” Scott gave me a look that clearly said get back to it. I frowned, he was treating me like a child but I continued. “They had your picture and said they heard you came to this hospital. At first the pale one said he was a friend then he said a brother. That’s when I had enough and told them to get the hell out.”
“That’s it, you didn’t get anything else from them? Did you see how they got to the hospital or if it was just them?” He was tense with anticipation, I felt like I was telling a camper a ghost story.
“They were dressed alike…like missionaries or something. That’s what they looked like to me. Black pants, white button downs, like they had just gotten out of church.”
“Shit!” I hadn’t heard him swear at all, and while the words flowed freely from my mouth, a symptom of my military experienced, it didn’t sound right coming from him.
“What, what’s the problem?”
“They aren’t my friends or family, they are the reason I was in the hospital, not those two specifically but their clan.” There he goes again with clan talk. Scott caught the look on my face and explained, “The clan is a family, a hierarchy, we have a leader or father and we have our fellow members who are brothers or sisters.”
Wow, he hadn’t let me down at all there. I still had questions but he had strolled across the room and began making a call, on my phone…without asking. I stepped out to go freshen up, that’s a nice way to put it anyway. Looking in the bathroom mirror, I stood for a long minute. My brown hair was fuzzy and ragged on my head, half of it pulled free of the rubber band. Dark tired circles made loops around my brown eyes, and my clothes were rumpled from head to foot. I straightened my hair and smoothed my clothes and headed for the kitchen again. When I came back into the room he was seated at my table ready to continue our talk.
“My clan brothers are safe and night is closing so they should remain so.”
“What did this other…clan do, why did they beat you, what’s the fight for?” It was a lot of questions but I as sat there and talked to the most exotic person I had ever met, a vampire, I realized I could know him for fifty years and still have questions about it all.
“I don’t know they caused me a-problem earlier tonight that left me weakened and when I ran into them a second time they took the opportunity to try to finish me. I have never had problems with their clan before. My two clan brothers used to be a part of that clan.”
“Maybe that’s why they came after you, because they are traitors to their original clan or something so they lump the blame on you too. Maybe it would have been that way, whichever of you showed up there would have been beaten.” I thought it sounded pretty good and plausible, but Scott was not giving it a serious thought at all.
“It doesn’t really work that way, this is unusual. Clans don’t generally inflict this much damage without a blood conflict.” He was scowling, his face full of thought.
“A blood conflict?” I looked him square in the face looking for the truth, and the truth was all I saw.
“Like tonight, except in situations of declared war, it is unacceptable to, to…let me start over. We thrive on trade. We will trade for anything we want. Other clans will do the same. We trade in territory most often. The clan gets tired of a place, they find another clan who’s tired or needs to relocate because they have been in the same place so long and they will switch homes. All trades must be equal. Tonight I cut myself, it causes little pain for me but I bled for your sake, so you had to bleed for mine. It causes you much more pain so your cut was smaller. All things must be equal. Tonight I was attacked twice without provocation. I haven’t done anything to have to pay with bodily harm, besides the beating I have lost some other important things tonight. It is strange clan behavior all the way around.” He was practically an open book.
“So who enforces the equality rules?” I was going to get as much as possible out of him while I could, I had no way to know if he was always this open so I was taking advantage.
“The clan itself. The Laws of Equality are something all vampires know. It’s like a moral compass and a guide for living our long lives without pissing someone off for an eternity.” His voice was completely smooth, almost buttery.
“So there’s no Dracula, or vampire godfather system, or vampire cops?” I knew it sounded silly as soon as I said it. “I mean is there no higher authority to settle these issues, like a court?”
“I cannot speak of that. It is getting early and I need to clean up before I leave for my clan home. I would be shamed for them to see me this way.”
“Oh yeah, sorry, bathroom’s just there, in the hall,” I said, pointing to the door.
I heard the water turn on a few minutes later and knew he needed new clothes. I had nothing for him to wear. I went through my closet and found a Hard Rock Café shirt a friend had picked up for me in Singapore. I wondered if Scott had ever been there before.
The shirt was an extra large and I had only ever worn it to sleep in so I didn’t mind giving it up to my strange guest. I also managed to dig out a pair of shorts. They were long basketball shorts and still had plenty of stretch in the waist. I knocked on the bathroom door, Scott said to come in. I opted instead to reach through the cracked door and put the clothes on the counter. I only peeked through the shower curtain a little. Not that I saw much when I did, he was using every drop of hot water I had and the clear curtain was steamed opaque. Grabbing the dirty clothes I left the room and went back into the kitchen. I saw a familiar brown paper bag on the floor by the garage door. I brought them back to the table, pulling out the silver rod and sliding it into the back of my silverware drawer. Seemed an appropriate place to keep it and you can never be too careful. I didn’t think he would want to keep it around anyway since it could burn as well as poison him. I left the watch out on the table and stuffed the ruined clothes into the bag.
Scott emerged finally just wearing shorts, the shirt was over one arm and I noticed he had snagged one of my disposables and shaved his face smooth.
“Thanks for the clothes.”
“Sure, ah, can I take a look at the…stake wound?” I was curious to see how far it had come in the last few hours.
Stopping halfway through pulling the shirt on, Scott eased it back off. Indicating the mark, he sat on the couch beside me. Scott was all smooth muscle. Built like a swimmer, he was well defined. It made me wonder immediately about his relationship status.
The scab was already turning smooth and pink. His bruised face was complete and perfect and I was beginning to wonder what other scars he had. He wasn’t ancient or anything, turned in ’88, but he had to have seen some crazy things.
“Do you always scar?” I had to ask.
“Only silver scars, so this,” he pointed, “stays with me now until forever.”
Slipping the shirt on over his head and the tennis shoes he had been wearing before, he looked down as he put on his watch and added, “Sun will be up in thirty minutes and I have to go. Thanks Avery, I put my number in your phone. If those guys come looking for me again call.”
Snatching the bag off the table, he headed for the door stopping as he got there, “Avery, don’t invite anyone you don’t know well into the house.”
Then he was gone. I looked out the door after him, in the moonlight I could see him walk slowly out to the street. I caught the nuance of every step he took. When he got to the street he disappeared, gone into the darkness.
“I wonder if he is dating a clan sister. Would that be considered incest? Does it matter at all, since I probably won’t ever see him again?”
3
Avery and the Rory Clan
I had come into work at eight as usual and gone straight from my car and through the blandly sterile emergency room. The only colors to be seen were the broken faces and bodies of those waiting for relief of their traumas. After the strange turn the previous day had taken, I wasn’t in much of a helping mood.
Shit. This is my job, my life and I had to pull it together for their sake and mine.
Staring into the mirror, hanging in my iron gray locker, I wasn’t taking in what I was seeing at all. If I had been absorbing the woman staring back at me, I would have noticed my usually sleek brown hair was mussed and my matching brown eyes were framed by dark circles. I hadn’t slept well and it showed. Realizing my physical state, I was appalled. Straightening my wildly flying hair, I threw on a little make-up to cover the heavy bags under my eyes. I usually didn’t wear much if any make-up but I had the little stash in my purse and I was glad for it tonight. I finished making myself look halfway human, (a saying I would never again take for granted after last night) and headed for the door back to the real world waiting outside it.
I only managed about three steps out of the break room when Dr. Rosser burst from around the corner. A combination of fear and determination danced across her face and through her eyes. Not a woman easily rattled, her fear seeped into my chest and lodged there. She looped her arm through mine and dragged me right back into the room I just left.
In a hushed voice she said, “They’re looking for you.”
“Who’s looking for me?” I asked, in my own strained whisper.
She looked left and right as if she expected at any moment someone would jump out of the lockers or burst from the fridge. “Those men from the other night.” I looked at her quizzically. “The ones who were looking for that kid. The one that came in beaten to death with the metal bar in his chest.”
It only took me a second to figure out she meant Scott. To her he was dead. Well, he was literally dead, but she didn’t know he was walking around somewhere even as we spoke. I also realized, as I should have sooner, the men I chased away had talked to more people than me. I hoped Dr. Rosser and I were the only ones who recognized the face from the picture and the kid that looked like ground beef were the same person.
“Oh, yeah,” I said vaguely. “Why are they looking for me?”
“I don’t know! But they have a picture of you and it looks like it was taken from our security cameras.” She sounded on the edge of hysterical. “I think you should get out of here right now. They look...” She wrinkled her nose, “unsavory.”
“Now when you say unsavory-“ I started sarcastically.
“Dangerous!”
“Okay, I get the idea.” Pausing to gather my thoughts, I had to figure out how to tell her running was a bad idea. People don’t generally like it if you tell them flat out they are being stupid and irrational. “Don’t you think if they can get a picture of me, from our security cameras, they can get a lot more? They can probably track me to my own home, or come right back here.”
Hesitating, she looked at me like I had just sprouted a third eye and then she said, “I didn’t think of all that. What are you going to do?”
“Well,” I said slowly “I think I need to take this head on. I will just go talk to them before they find me on their own. This is probably nothing anyway. Just because they have my picture and look less than kind, doesn’t mean they aren’t here for a legitimate reason.”
Now she was really looking incredulous. “Do you always have to take the bull by the balls?” She asked.
Of course, charge blindly ahead, be high speed, why show fear when I could chase it down and kill it. I didn’t say it, but it was running through my head as I stood looking at her.
“No,” I said simply.
“Well, they’re in the main hall, asking everyone if they have seen you. Someone will tell them you are in the building soon enough, so whatever you are going to do, I would suggest doing it now.” She turned to the door to go, then immediately back to me in a disjointed sort of pirouette. “Be careful, you’re a nice woman and a great nurse. Just watch it and don’t get too far ahead of yourself. You don’t know anything about these men.” And with that she turned out of the room slamming the door behind her.
Slouching against my locker, the knot in my stomach tightened. “What now?” I asked aloud. “Cell phone.”
Suddenly, I was very glad Scott had used my phone and been presumptuous enough to leave his number in it. I tore my locker door open like it would save a life. I hoped it would save mine. The hinges of the door squealed in protest at my harsh treatment. I fished my phone from my purse and turned it on, dialing Scott’s number after the screen loaded. It rang for days.
“Hello.” Oh thank god. “I am sorry I can’t come to the phone, leave it.”
Shit, fuck, shit!
“Scott, its Avery. Someone’s here looking for me. Same guys who were looking for you the other night. Fuck, I wish you’d answered. I am going to go talk to them. So, if you never see me again…” Lord, what was I saying? “Um, well wish me luck.”
Feeling lost, I hung up. Scott hadn’t answered and I needed to know what to do. Turning my phone to silent, I slipped it into my pocket. Maybe I could use it again later if this meeting turned bad on me.
Time to meet the horror’s in the hall. Walking to the door, I steeled my nerves, ready to face whatever was waiting. I opened the door. It was unusually quiet in the back hall, but that could have been my own sense of paranoid fear. Taking a deep breath and a right turn into the main hall, it looked completely normal. No dark men waiting to kill me or worse. No one screaming, and while people were bleeding all around me, it wasn’t because all hell had broken loose. I felt relief roll through me. And then there was a cold hand on my shoulder. Tensing at the unexpected touch of a stranger, the cold hand turned me. I was looking into black eyes colder than Alaska and full of malicious fire.
I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out and I stood there with my jaw flapping.
The man holding me lifted his hand up beside my face. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a wrinkled piece of photo paper. Satisfied, he tucked the paper back into the pocket of his neat black slacks. He was wearing a white button down, making his dark skin seem all the darker. His black hair was cropped short, close to his head and his overall neat appearance was spoiled by a heavy five o’clock shadow.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked, trying to sound calm and missing the mark marginally.
“Mr. Rory wants a quick word.” He graveled as if he hadn’t spoke for days.
“Who? I don’t know a Mr. Rory. Was he or is he a patient?” I asked, wondering if playing dumb would save me.
“My…” He was searching for a human appropriate response, “employer is not one of these broken.” He said this with a haughtily, waving his hand indicating those waiting in the ER around us.
“Okay then, I’ll be on break at midnight, he can come see me then.” God let that work, let that be enough.
“No, now, it’s important. You might even say an emergency.” His voice quality wasn’t improving with use.
“You just told me he isn’t ill or ‘broken’ and I am kind of at work here just at this moment.” Never a religious person, I was definitely asking God for a favor.
“Ma’am, we will give you a ride and return you here. Right back here,” he said pointing straight fingered at the floor tiles under us. “He just wants to talk for a few minutes.”
I was looking like I very much didn’t believe what he was saying.
“Look,” he said squeezing my shoulder tighter in his grip. “I was sent here to get you and bring you back to him. I am asking as kindly as I can,” (not that he was looking kind at all). “You need to come with me now.”
“I don’t think I can. I really am at work, as you can plainly see.”
Leaning in closer, I could smell cheap cologne and blood on him. Both smells I was used to working around in an ER but smelling them on a completely uninjured man was disconcerting. He was also beginning to crush my shoulder in his grip. It was only through shear strength of will that I didn’t begin to whimper in pain.
“You will come of your own freewill, walking on your own two feet or I shall carry you out.” He hissed and those dark eyes were boring holes through me.
I tried to take a step back away from him, only to run into a wall, one that wasn’t part of my hospital. Stealing a quick glance behind me, I found myself looking at another man dressed very much the same as the dangerous stranger in front of me. The man behind me was as pale as the other was dark, like salt and pepper. The new man, Salt as I called him in my head, had pale green eyes showing a hint of glee as they stared into me. Hoping the joy I saw there wasn’t on my behalf, I weakly croaked, “Excuse me.”
This mountain of a man had light blond hair and skin so pale college rule was jealous. His square jaw was set tight as he looked over my head at the man holding me. He tipped his head at his partner. Much to my relief that look was all it took for Pepper to let go. I breathed a sigh, thankful to have my own arm back. Facing Salt, I knew he was the threat and he seemed to bear the authority of the two.
“I really have to go do my rounds now,” I said looking Salt in the eyes and edging away.
“Listen Miss.” He drawled with a slow southern accent keeping his green eyes fastened to mine, “We are just gonna take ya for a short talk and bring you right back ‘er. Ain’t nothin’ to worry about at all.”
I felt a prickling at the edge of my consciousness, almost like I knew him from somewhere outside of this hospital. All the while he was looking at me in earnest. Between the soft accent, the look in his eyes, and his calm manner, I was ready to trust him. Well, more than Pepper anyway.
I foolishly asked, “You swear?” It must have been the accent. It seemed almost natural that I ask him.
“On ‘er whole stack of Bibles,” he said bibles with a long sinuous ‘I’.
Well, no help for it. Salt and Pepper weren’t leaving without me.
“Can I get my bag?”
“Sure Miss,” Salt crooned.
Stepping away from Salt and Pepper, I rushed back to the break room, pushing the door so hard it slammed the stub in the wall behind it. Shit! I grabbed my purse quickly fishing the four inch pocket knife from it and stashed it in my empty pocket. Whipping my phone from the other pocket, I fully hoped for something of use. Nothing from Scott, not even a text message. A lot of help he was. I thought about calling him again but what was there to say? ‘Hi. I’m crazy, left with two dangerous men, prolly vamps. I’m scared shitless.’ Nope nothing to say.
Stashing my phone back in its pocket, I stepped back into the hall. Salt and Pepper had been flanking the door and stepped forward to stand on either side of me.
“I, uh, need to tell my boss I am leaving.”
“Sure,” Salt said in an understanding tone.
We walked back into the main hall of the ER and I saw Dr. Rosser with a chart in her hand by the front desk. I started in her direction and stopped when I realized Salt and Pepper were matching me stride for stride. Looking to them, I placed my hands on their chests. “Guys, she’s already uneasy about you looking for me. Let me just go talk to her.” I saw the look on Pepper’s face and quickly added, “I’ll stay where you can see me.” I walked calmly over to Dr. Rosser hoping she wouldn’t see my agitation.
“You in trouble?” She asked, glancing over her shoulder at the two men hovering near-by.
“No, I…have a family emergency, they were sent to pick me up.” I needed a good excuse for them to be escorting me out. “They are drivers.” I was glad she didn’t know me better or she would have seen right through the lie, since I didn’t have any family left to have emergencies. She studied my face without saying anything for a long minute.
“I don’t know how long I will be gone.” I added.
“I don’t like he looks of those two but you never ask for time off and it’s a family thing. Take all the time you need.” She put her hand on mine briefly. The act alone was enough to make me consider confiding in her. I looked back across my sore shoulder and saw Pepper was gone. Salt was standing unnaturally still watching and waiting for me.
“Okay,” I said, as I took a pen and scrap of paper from my purse, “if my car is still here when you get off, call this number.” It was Scott’s number. He was the only person I could think of. Her call plus the message I left earlier would be enough for him to figure out what happened to me if I didn’t come back.
Taking the paper, she looked appraisingly at me but said nothing. She tucked it away into her pocket as I said, “Time to go.” I hugged her, not that we were friends enough for that normally. I wanted Salt to know, someone would notice if I disappeared.
“Be careful.” She whispered.
Time to face my new problems. Walking back to Salt, he put his arm around my shoulders like we were old friends. We stepped out together to meet the night.
I looked up as we met the damp sidewalk. No moon. The clouds were making up for the unusually clear sky of yesterday. They hung heavy and low, hinting of the rains to come. The patient parking lot was dark but for the light spilling out of the door behind us. The lot was all blacked out tonight. Wishing for long sleeves or a jacket, I was chilled all the way to my bones by the darkness pressing close at the edges of the spilled light. Not good, not good at all. I wondered if they would take me out into the dark lot and end me right then.
I shuddered at the new thought as a shiny black sedan pulled up in front of us. The windows were tinted deep black and the vanity plate said ‘BIT10’. If I had any doubts before about the two men I met tonight, I was now sure they were vampires.
Salt opened the back door for me and I gave him a subdued thank you as I slid into the back seat. He followed me in. Damn, no using my phone now. The car pulled slowly away from the curb and out of the parking lot. Great don’t make a scene. Don’t give the mortals inside anything to worry about. The car slid onto the quiet streets and headed towards I-5.
As we moved off the side streets and onto the interstate, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and looked at Salt. He was dragging two small plugs from his nose. The look I gave him must have been one of curiosity because he turned to me. Some excuse for the odd behavior on the tip of his tongue but he stopped, mouth hanging open waiting for the words to escape. His nostrils flared and his nose wrinkled as he took in my scent. Must have been good to stop him in his tracks. He leaned in, uncomfortably close and drew in more of my smell. When I looked at him, it was in a combination of shock and fear. I knew he was a vampire but now I could see his teeth run out and that was a whole new level for me in vampire relations.
“‘Cuse me miss, not tryn’ scare you. I went hungry tonight comin’ a get you and you smell…real good.” Salt said it like it was run of the mill normal, but the look on his face said ‘yummy’ like I was a porterhouse.
I felt no comfort in his southern roots. “You, you’re a, a…” I knew what he was, but I couldn’t stop myself from stating the obvious.
“I think you’re lookin’ for vampire miss, and yeah, I’ma vampire. Don’ worry none, I’m charged for getting’ ya to Mr. Rory intact.” He showed a toothy grin. I relaxed some since he was smiling and back on his side of the seat, even if the smile was too toothy for my liking.
“Name’s Clete.” Salt added.
“I’m, I’m Avery,” I managed to stutter. He offered his hand to me. Surprising myself I placed mine in his. Clete’s hands were large and cool. Carrying, despite his vampiric nature, heavy calluses showing he had been a working man in life.
“Sorry fer the nose thang. Gotta plug it ya know. That hospital could drive a dead man to drank,” he laughed.
Must have been the tension because I found myself laughing with him. I caught a dark glance from Pepper in the front seat. Clete caught it too and pointing to the back of Pepper’s head said, “That there’s Doug, he ain’t too bad when you get to know ‘em.” He softly added, “He ain’t real funny though.”
I openly smiled at the candid vampire beside me. I could get to like this guy. Besides the teeth, he was so…normal. I relaxed further into the seat and glanced out the window. We were going south on the 5 but we were slowing down to take an exit. I couldn’t see the sign since Clete was beside me filling most of my vision.
Oh well, that didn’t help me any.
“We almost there Aave, just stay calm and be ‘onest. You be right as rain and on your way back in no time.”
I liked how he dragged my new pet name. I didn’t have many real friends to do it and the southern accent made it all the sweeter and more genuine.
“Thanks Clete,” I said as I started my own mental prep work.
Be cool, be calm, play it cool no big deal. I’m just going to have a little talk…with a vampire. I had to add that part. I had no real idea what I was about to walk into and that brought a whole new lump into my throat.
I didn’t have long to wait, we were pulling into a parking lot. I was glad to see it had at least a few lights on, revealing five other cars much the same as my current ride. Plates that read ‘BLD RED,’ BITE U,’ ‘GOT BLD,’ ‘BLDY ME,’ and ‘BLDNGUT’ were ranged throughout the lot. I was noticing a theme. The cars had the same heavy dark tinting on the windows.
There, tucked into the back corner of the lot, was a small plain-ish restaurant. I could see figures inside through the dimly lit windows but that’s about all I could tell from here. Doug pulled into one of the front most spaces and shut the engine down.
Clete and I got out on opposite sides of the car and I got my first good look at the place. I was facing a cream colored cinder block building. It was ugly. Someone had tried to add some appeal by putting out planters. They were nothing more than half barrels full of dirt and dying pansies. The place was called Mia’s. I hated it on sight. Clete opened the clear glass door, following me in.
The restaurant was gaudy to say the least. Red carpeting with the worn paths of those who came and went and surprisingly enough, long ropes of garlic hung decorating the walls. So much for that being my first line of defense against them at home. They obviously couldn't be bothered to uphold my illusions. There was a desk beside the door, a woman with a vacant expression stood behind it. She gave no indication she even saw us enter.
“Been glamoured,” Clete muttered into my ear.
I could see the door to the kitchen in the back of the room. There were booths with cracked red upholstery lining the walls and tables up the middle made of cheap laminate wood. With his hand lightly resting on the small of my back, Clete guided me through the empty tables. He led me towards a doorway in the far right corner of the room that I assumed went to an alcove reserved for parties. A girl of maybe, seventeen pushed through the curtain that separated the rooms as we came close. She didn’t seem to have the vacant expression of the previous woman. She did give me a look full of hostility as she passed. Clete held open the cheap fraying red curtain for me as we stepped into what I can only describe as the seventh level of hell.
My eyes were immediately assaulted by so many different shades of red, they clashed with each other. The carpet was the same shade of red from the main room, right down to the brown spots and the matted down paths leading between the tables. The owner might as well have left the bare concrete. It would have been just as comfortable under foot and looked worlds better. I stood a minute in the doorway to take in the rest of the room around me. There were a few tables scattered around the small room. Most were covered with cheap orangey red table cloths fraying around the edges. They looked like the same material as the curtain Clete was holding for me. The wall paper was a fading burgundy color, with a few scattered pictures and sconces mounted covered in chipping paint. Yuck, I don’t particularly like red and I was glad I couldn’t overdose on a color. I noticed there were eight people already in the room. I assumed vampires same as my escort. They were spread out at the tables in groups of two’s talking quietly to each other.
Clete was gently guiding me through the room, leading me to a table in the back corner that bore its own dark couple. I wanted nothing more than to turn around and leave the way I came. Didn’t vampires know three’s a crowd? Sensing my apprehension, Clete absently patted my back, as you would to console a child.
When we arrived at the little round table, Clete pulled my chair out for me. I accepted his gentlemanly behavior with what little grace I could muster and mumbled a thank you. To my surprise, Clete took the last empty seat. Looking at him with gratitude I hoped he could see. I fully expected him to leave me here with these people and go back to Doug in the car. I was more than relieved to have his familiar face with me.
I gathered my wits and looked at my new companions. The woman to my left scared the hell out of me. She was unusually muscular for a woman. I could see all of her well defined arms since she was wearing a tight sleeveless muscle shirt. She had smooth caramel colored skin, large dark brown doll-like eyes with thick full lashes and well defined brows. Her hair was a soft brown with blond highlights scattered through it. Full lips and a pert upturned nose completed her beautiful face. She looked about twenty five and as I looked at her, I knew that meant nothing. I had no way of knowing, short of asking, which I wasn’t about to do, how old she truly was. Her appearance was modern, but that was no real gage. Who could say if she was newly made or a thousand years old?
Directly opposite of me, sat her partner. His chair was pulled a little back from the table, his hands resting one on top of the other on his right leg which was crossed over his left. He looked young too, younger than the woman, maybe twenty. His hair was short and greasy black. He had a birthmark the size of a thumb print just at his hair line. He was an average build, not slim or sleek, not fat or bulky and he didn’t seem to have any real muscle definition. He wore a worn out Lynard Skynard tee shirt and a pair of ragged blue jeans. Whatever I had expected when I got out of the car, this wasn’t it.
“Now to business,” he mewed, his voice as unimpressive as the rest of him.
I cleared my throat and took a sip of the water sitting in front of me. “Can I at least know who I am talking to before we get into anything?” I didn’t feel that brave and I hoped my question had sounded more polite to them than it had to my own ear.
The woman turned her empty doll eyes on me and said, “Human, I am Cwenhild Bishop, you will call me Cwen.” It hissed off her tongue as Swen, “It is the name I choose lesser beings to use for me.”
“I am Avery, Avery Sheridan,” I said, extending my hand to her. She looked at it with obvious distain and I quickly withdrew it back to my lap. I bumped a lump in my pocket and remembered the knife. Thank god for that shitty table cloth, it protected my hands from the sight of those seated around me. I pulled the knife out with as little movement as possible and slowly opened it in my lap. They might be stronger and faster, but I wasn’t going down without putting up a hell of a fight.
“This,” she said pointing to the man across from me, “is Eric Rory, the master of our clan. You will answer his questions without further interruptions,” she was growling low in her throat, and I was glad to have at least the illusion of protection the knife afforded me.
“Now that we have cleared the incidentals, Miss Sheridan, let’s continue. It has come to my attention you may have some information of use to me, information I require,” Eric said.
“Exactly what do you think I know?” I hesitated, afraid I sounded too pushy for the company I was keeping.
“A patient passed through your care and I need to know where this person has gone.”
Eric sounded smooth. Nothing like his initial comments and it helped to re-enforce my need to take him as deadly serious as I am sure he was. It helped me to be afraid since he was showing some level of authority in the room. I noticed most of the vampires in the room were well dressed. The women seated at the other tables were wearing dresses or skirts and the men appeared business casual. It was a steep contrast to Cwen and Eric. Eric Rory’s clothing was without a doubt casual. The other vampires were dressed up for them. These two were obviously the ones in charge, if I had any doubts before.
“Can you give me a little more to go off of? I mean I have had…” I stopped to think, “I have seen over two hundred people in the last week alone.” Made me tired just thinking about them all.
“This one is special…this one is different. If they revealed themselves to you, I am sure you are smart enough to tell me…everything you know about them and where they are.”
God he was vague, that could work in my favor, easier to play dumb. He was talking about Scott, how much different could you get than the walking dead. Scott was a vampire, a young one. Made in ’88 his afterlife had been relatively short so far and I had no intention of doing anything to shorten it further.
“I am really not sure I can help you if you don’t give me some more information. What did they look like? What did they come to the hospital for? Was it a man or a woman? How old?”
Cwen and Eric exchanged a long glance. It said volumes, just none I could read. Clete was sitting as motionless as he had been all along so I couldn’t glean anything from him. The other two completely ignored his presence at the table and I wondered what his role was here. He had escorted me here, but I couldn’t see why he was sitting with me.
“This being,” I didn’t like the way he said that, “would have walked out of the hospital on their own, after serious, possibly fatal injuries. They may have come in looking terribly injured but healed too quickly or even right in front of you.” Oh yeah, Eric was talking about Scott.
“I really haven’t seen anything like that, maybe you should try a different hospital,” I said, as flatly and normally as I could. God help me if he could tell I was lying.
Eric leaned forward a little and a smile crossed his face revealing white fangs. “Ah, our friend didn’t reveal anything to you. That makes it harder on those of us searching, but no one else will come looking this way. Once they realize the value of our ace, we will have to be on alert.”
He smiled to Cwen and she returned it with her own toothy showing. I would have shuttered to see it but I didn’t want to draw anymore attention to myself. I did breathe a small sigh of relief. Scott was safe and as far as they were concerned I didn’t know anything.
“Now Avery,” Eric saying my name drew my attention back to his face and I immediately regretted it. “Come; come over here for just a minute.” He patted his leg, now I shuddered. I couldn’t believe I had looked into his dull gray eyes. I was no expert but I had read enough fiction and watched enough movies to know better. Clete had pointed out the glamoured woman as we came in. His observation should have been a warning.
My head was tingling. It was like my scalp was falling asleep. I just wanted to look away and run for the door. I felt myself standing, despite my brain telling me to sit, my body was on its own program. I wondered if I had the same vacant look as the woman at the desk. I remembered I was still holding the knife in my hand. It had to be clearly visible now that I was standing. SO BAD.
Passing Clete I was surprised to see him watching me as I walked around the table. I could feel all the eyes in the room on me, I knew they were looking. Silence had fallen over all the side conversations that had been hovering around us.
I sat on Eric’s knee, even with my mind screaming, my body eased slowly and smoothly to him. My eyes never left his.
“Now Avery,” he said sensuously.
Feeling the knot rising high in my throat, I wasn’t sure if I would puke or cry. I wondered if either could end this strange moment with him. I wondered if I could even do either with the glamour tingling around my head.
“Why don’t you just stay here with us? You are lovely, and while you have given me nothing of use in my search, there are things I would like from you.” He glided a finger across my cheek and down my neck as he finished.
I wanted to tell him to go to hell and stick my knife in his groin up to the hilt. I wanted to scream and cry and tell him no, but my mouth wouldn’t work and my arms and legs were stone still. Studying my face closely, he watched me. Maybe I wasn’t as vacant as the woman I had seen before. Maybe I gave him a go to hell look or he could read it in my eyes because he suddenly moved. It was so fast I couldn’t process it. One second he was looking me in the eye. The next he held my wrist, wretched the knife from my hand and was running its sharp blade down my forearm with just enough pressure to cut. At least he had looked away and my body was my own again. Even if it did hurt, at least it was mine to use. Not that it mattered with the iron grip he had on me. It happened so fast I didn’t even have a chance to struggle.
Running the blade down my skin, Eric drew a line of blood from me. Leaning forward, he took in my scent as he traced his finger down the line. His tongue flicked out and tasted what he had stolen from me. Then he stuck the finger in his mouth as if he was the one cut. It was such a human gesture, one I had used myself when I had cut my fingers at home making dinner, or from a paper cuts I got while paying my bills. I didn’t know what to think of this strange man.
Cwen and Clete had both stood up so fast their chairs fell over. They were appalled at the behavior, or maybe angry, it was hard to say. Eric was still holding my arm, but I could see he was swirling my blood in his mouth, like it was a fine wine to be savored and not a vitally important part of what kept my heart beating.
Finally releasing his grip on me, he tasted my vintage. Stumbling out of his lap, I ran to stand behind Clete, the closest thing to a friend as I had in the room. I could see Cwen was wearing tight black pants with a cargo pocket on one side and a large westernized tanto knife strapped to her right thigh. Not a woman to be messed with and she glared at me with pure hatred.
“Miss Sheridan,” Eric said finally, “you must come see us again.” He seemed dazed, like he was talking to me but his mind was somewhere else.
“I don’t think so. I am sorry,” (not really sorry at all, relieved I had an excuse never to see him again), “but you high jacked my body, and physically hurt me. I won’t be coming back and when I get home I will be sharpening a stake and carrying a lighter for you and your friends. I have every intention of, if not killing you, doing some damage if I ever see you again,” I said full of righteous anger. Just because he was a vampire, didn’t mean I was going to hold my tongue. “I think I will be avoiding this side of town from now on and I might just consider avoiding the whole state to stay away from you.”
Eric’s eyes blazed as he took in my anger fed refusal. Cwen seemed perfectly fine with my conviction never to return. “You may go for now, but I will see you again, and I will enjoy my next taste even more. Clete! Take her back. The clan has more business elsewhere this night. We must find,” he squinted at me, “what we seek, the sooner the better. We will need your skills.” Eric said hissing.
With that my interview was over. Cwen gave Clete and me a dismissive wave and I was eager to comply. Walking out of the curtained doorway the girl was back, maybe seventeen head full of blond hair and she was definitely here of her own accord as far as I could tell. She didn’t wait for us to step out of the way to pass. She tried to step right through me, giving me a jostle as she headed deeper into the room. Glancing back over my shoulder, I remembered Eric still had my knife. Cwen was standing behind him with her arms around his shoulders, cheek resting on one arm. The girl I had just passed was presenting her neck for him. My knife was on the table but I knew instantly I wasn’t going back for it. I cringed automatically but continued moving away from the scene.
As if he could tell I needed it, Clete once again put his arm around my shoulders. This time I felt like we really were friends, even if I knew in the back of my mind I would never see him again after tonight. At least that was my most ardent hope.
Clete held my door for me again and slid back in beside me. Doug the friendly was our driver still, he seemed to have waited for us in the car while we had been inside. He didn’t look like he had moved at all since I last saw him. We pulled out as slowly as we had at the hospital and I was wishing he would just squeal tires and get me out of here. Making our way back to the I-5, we rode in silence. I was too overwhelmed to think.
“Look, Aave, I can…I can help that to heal fasser, if ya want,” Clete said, pointing to my arm, his voice helping to sooth me and my nerves some.
The knife had been sharp, my own damn fault, and the cut was stinging like a massive paper cut. I could feel the two sides of the skin rubbing against each other with every move I made. Slowly I handed my arm to him.
“Na, this is gonna seem strange, and personal, but it will help ya. Just truss me.”
I nodded. If I looked scared, it’s because I was. Leaning down over my arm, he examined the cut. So far, so good. It was deep, but not horribly so, not so much as to need a bunch of staples, but I might have to get stitches. Clete shifted for a closer look, then he…licked the length of the cut.
Jerking my arm back, I stammered, “Wa, what the hell?” It came out a lot louder than I expected.
“Tole ya it might seem strange. Eric did that just to show ya he has power o’er ya. Just to show that he could hurt’ cha. The spit, I don’ know all the technicools of it, but it helps clean the wound and heal ya.” He looked at me, sadness and hurt in his eyes. I assumed because of my reaction to his help. “If we didn’t have that lil’ special trick, them we didn’t drain, that we just took a lil’ sip of or tasted would bleed out or get fections.” Laying his hand on my shoulder, he added, “Wouldn’t do us no good if we killed everyone we tasted. Don’t work like at.”
“So, what are you saying? You do this to a lot of people?”
“Oh yeah, lots and lots. They don’t member see, cause of the glamour. It does more than control ya. It can make you forget. Eric didn’t make you forget, he wants you to worry, he jus’ like that.”
“Well, thanks. I just…after Eric, it just makes me a little nervous to be that close to teeth like that,” I said pointing as if he didn’t know what I was talking about already. We fell back into silence and Clete seemed thoughtful.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked the silence making me nervous, uncomfortable, and jumpy.
“Well how you taste.”
I gave him a look that said, ‘go on’.
“You taste, you taste like…” he was looking for something buried deep in his mind, “like summer, all warm and sweet with a kick.” Clete smiled like a kid with an ice cream in July.
“Um, is that different?”
“Oh yeah, everybody tastes a lil’ different. I ain’t never tasted nothn’ like you though. It’s like, I can almost see the sun agin’ when I taste ya.” He seemed surprised he was telling me.
“Thanks, I guess. So how old are you? I mean maybe lots of people taste this way and you just haven’t had one yet.” I was a little worried as I said it. I wasn’t sure how he would react. What’s off limits to a vampire?
“Believe me Aave, I been round and I tasted people you only read bout.”
“No sorry, no offense intended, I just wanted to ask,” I apologized.
“Na, na, no big thang Aave. It’s jus’ age is a closely guarded secret with us.”
“Not so different from us then.” I smiled up into his face and he returned it.
“It’s jus’ our power, it’s tied into our age, so if everybody knew how old we were, they’d have an advantage over us, lettem’ know how much power we got. It can tell um how much it takes to ‘urt us or kill us.”
Doug pulled into the garage at the hospital, stopping a little ways from my car, much to my relief. It also confirmed my suspicion to Dr. Rosser that they could and did find out more about me than they let on.
I started to get out but before I could Clete was out and opening my door. He even walked me the ten feet to my drivers’ side door. Leaning close he said, “Goodbye Aave, maybe we’ll see each other again.” I seriously doubted it.
Clete covered the short distance between us and softly touched his lips to my cheek, then shifted closer to my ear. Softly and clearly he said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” He said it smooth as silk, no accent, no stress on the words, they just flowed out of him and into my ear. When I looked up, he was gone, back to BIT10, back to riding with Doug and back out of the garage faster than they had taken us from the hospital. They were pulling away out into the darkness before I could even wrap my head around what had just happened.
“Now what the hell did that mean?”
4
Avery and the Glamour Trap
Climbing into my car, I started the ignition. It was only 9:30. It seemed like it should have been later. I didn’t have the heart or the energy to go back to work. I didn’t want to face Denise and Patty and whatever gossip they had come up with for my absence tonight. I didn’t want to have to face Dr. Rosser with my wounded arm and I REALLY didn’t want to explain where I had been for the last hour to anyone who might and probably would ask. I pulled my car out of my space to go home. I was relieved to be on my way to Westbrook road, even as the clouds began to let loose.
Pulling into my driveway, I noticed a figure on my small front porch. Had the Rory’s figured out where I lived too? I hadn’t left the porch light on and the rain was pouring down hard enough my view through the windshield was distorted. All I could see was the silhouette of the person, vampire, being, whatever on my step. I pulled straight into the garage not bothering to acknowledge my unexpected guest.
Watching in my rear-view mirror, I wanted to see if they would approach me while the door was open. Nothing flashed through my vision and I breathed a sigh of relief as the door lurched to a stop at the floor. I stepped out of my car now that I was separated from ‘it’ and felt the relative safety of the familiar room. I passed through the door into the kitchen, dropping my purse in its usual spot on the dinner table as I went. I took a right out of the kitchen door to the entry way hitting the switch for the outside light.
Standing up on tip toes, I peeked through the peephole. To my relief, it was Scott standing in the light on the other side of the door. Opening it slowly, I gave myself a chance to take in his appearance before allowing him to step in. He was in jeans again and wearing a gray polo shirt with a light jacket. Scott’s skin was smooth and clear, almost glowing with the rain reflecting the soft light from the fixture on the porch. His straight lips were set firm, he looked like he had a thing or two to say to me.
“Well, come in.” I said feeling bad he had waited in the rain for me. As he stepped into the house I walked out of the entryway and took a right at the main hall. I pulled a large towel from the linen closet and brought it back for him to mop dry with. Scott was still standing in the entryway as I stepped back into view. He looked around the space like it was the first time he had been in my house and brushed the rain off his face. He discarded his jacket on the floor by the door.
“Lets go sit in the living room, you look like you want to talk,” I said, guiding him around the corner to the room. I motioned for him to sit on the couch while I sat kitty corner in the only other chair in the room, a sad old rocker I had found the previous summer.
“Avery, you were just supposed to call me, not go with them.” He was jumping right into it. He was more than direct. It was said in an accusatory tone.
“There was no point in waiting around for them to find me, it would have looked worse. Besides, they knew what I looked like and dropped me off by my car in a garage full of others. They would have gotten me one way or another. You didn’t answer when I called.” I said, looking directly at him as he found it easier to study the coffee table. “You should have told me about them.” I continued as he opened his mouth raising my hand to hush him. “They had a picture of me from the security cameras at the hospital. They must have seen you follow me home, or that I worked on you or something. They were asking me questions, trying not to let me know it was you they wanted.”
“I didn’t follow you here.”
I had just told him dangerous men were looking for him and all he could say was that he didn’t follow me home. He still hadn’t told me so many things, like about the garlic, or how I was supposed to have avoided leaving with Clete and Doug. And why was it important to say he didn’t follow me? Obviously he had or he wouldn’t have been in my house at all and I wouldn’t have had to talk to the Rory’s. Well that wasn’t completely accurate. I did help treat Scott and they would have come anyway, but he could have at least warned me about what I was getting into.
“Well you didn’t just vanish and appear here. And how did you think I could have gotten out of going with those two men if they really wanted me to? I don’t even know how to defend myself from you guys. I mean garlic, is that a joke or what? They had loads of garlic all over the place and none of them were even bothered by it. I had no way to get out of going with them.” I said angrily since Scott was acting like I had just been asking for it.
“No, garlic is fine and most of us even like it. As far as how I got here, you brought me here.” He just loved to be vague.
“I think I would remember bringing you here, you are kind of hard to miss being cold and dead. You need to tell me something besides pointing out vampires’ existence. I mean did you know they would come to talk to me? Is that why you left your number for me?”
“I thought they might. They seemed pretty bent on finding me and you did interact with me at the hospital. Probably didn’t hurt any that you had dismissed them yesterday. They might have wanted to prove a point to you.”
I nodded waiting for more but he was stalling out on me. So much for the open book of yesterday. Why did he even bother showing up to talk if he wasn’t going to actually speak? I didn’t have the patience to talk slow and ask him single direct questions all night.
“Okay Scott, lets get a thing or two straight here. You came to talk to me, but I am doing most of the talking. Get your head out of your ass and just answer my questions. Give and take, remember? The Laws of Equality and all that crap you told me last night. I am giving you information you need. You should to do the same for me. Have a little decency, I risked my ass tonight.”
His fangs were showing over his lips. Stepping on his toes, I had forced him to concede to my point, using information he gave me yesterday to barter for what I wanted. He didn’t like that, or the fact I that I told him he had a cranial/rectal inversion problem. Not to mention I was the one talking to him like a three year old and dismissing his value system as crap…it was all kind of worth it. I was just paying him back in kind. I mentally smiled at myself, but kept the firm set to my jaw for glaring back at him. It was getting easier to pretend he wasn’t scary as all get out.
“Fine. I will yield to your request, but there are some things I cannot tell you and you will have to be satisfied,” he said, with narrowed eyes penetrating my own. The look reminded me to focus on some other part of his face. Clete wasn’t here to stand up for me if Scott decided I was dinner. I focused on his nose instead and began committing it to memory.
“No, no, you answer all my questions. Otherwise you could go without answering any,” I said, shaking my head to reiterate my point.
“Avery, I would tell you everything you asked if I could but knowing some things can get you killed. You know that’s true, just having been in the same building as me and you have been pulled into danger. They could have killed you tonight, or if they were sure you knew me and you refused to talk they could and would have tortured you. They could have tortured you just for the fun of it. Vampires don’t generally hold any value on human life. Over time we become hard towards humans. You will pass we do not. Why value what is nothing more than a blink of the eye in our time? You all die, we learn after the family and friends from our life all pass that becoming attached is…almost impossible and it causes us great pain. You are too fleeting in the larger scale of our world,” he said looking heavily at me.
I found myself looking in his eyes again. “You aren’t all like that. I mean, not all humans are the same. We all place different values on the things in our lives.” I was looking for some sign his answers to know I wasn’t just an ant on the sidewalk.
“No, you are right, we aren’t all that way. My clan brother tends to place some value on the fleeting. He told me once that to him you humans and your lives are like, like snow flakes, each different and unique. Each life is a different shape with hidden facets but none lasting for long.” Scott relaxed some into my couch. I think it was a release to tell me and he seemed content now that he had.
I was a little dazed by his simile. I wanted to hate it because it was true and I wanted to love it for the same reason. It was a beautiful thing to compare us to. I found my mind wandering as I thought of other ways it applied well to humans. I shook myself out of my ravelly. He was going to answer questions. I needed to ask them and share my own information of value.
“Okay, if you didn’t follow me how did you get here?”
Stretching out on my couch in comfort, his eyes were closed letting the question roll over him.
“Your car, I couldn’t stay for the corner. I snuck out an exit that led to the garage and smelled your scent. I followed that to your car and climbed in the back. You brought me here.” As he said it, he looked smug, like he had somehow outsmarted me.
“My turn, how many men came to you tonight and what were their names?”
“That’s two questions,” I pointed out.
He just shrugged and I knew, either way I would end up telling him everything. I might as well just give it all to him as quick and easy as possible.
“There were two that picked me up at the hospital, they were Clete and Doug. At the restaurant there were eight others but I only got introduced to Cwenhild something and Eric Rory.”
He sat straight up so fast I almost expected him to fly off the couch.
“What’s the big deal, yeah, they were kind of scary but they didn’t seem any scarier than you or the other vampires I have met.” I thought comparing those few I met gave me an idea about how they were.
“Cwenhild Bishop is a force. She has her own reputation and if she is back with Rory, we could end up with big trouble. I can’t say much but they are powerful old creatures of our race, not to be taken lightly. As for the other two, I have never heard of them.” he said, then looking away added more to himself or the coffee table, “They don’t mean anything.”
I didn’t get it. Was he talking about them not being worth getting concerned about or was I missing something more subtle?
“How can I defend myself against you guys, garlic doesn’t work, silver does, what else?”
“Decapitation will stop a vampire. Fire, sunlight or UV, silver, stakes through the heart…Um, oh, this won’t kill but it can keep you safe. No vampire can come into your home unless invited, it’s our curse really. I could come into your home because you carried me into it, that’s as good as an invitation.”
“Well I will have to tell Kim so she doesn’t let a killer in.” He looked at me inquisitively and I realized I hadn’t told him about Kim yet. “She’s my room mate.” he glanced back at the wall. “She is out of town visiting her son, but she’ll be home in a few days. Holy objects, do they do anything? I asked.
“We aren’t children of Satan or any of that crap, why would a cross or a little water bother us?” Well that answered that, vampires weren’t bothered anymore than I would be by religious artifacts.
“Where did you? Oh forget it.” Scott waved his hand dismissively, “Just tell me what happened, I hate this back and forth crap.”
I was glad he wanted to get straight to the point. I wanted my answers but I didn’t want to push my luck with him too much. As he said, I am nothing more than a snowflake. He could melt me on his tongue whenever he wanted.
“Clete and Doug asked around for me till I went and found them. They took me to a restaurant south of here somewhere called Mia’s. God it was ugly,” I injected. “There was a girl there, maybe seventeen, who didn’t seem to like me much, and as we left she offered herself to Eric. Cwen thinks humans are a joke, I think she called me a lesser being. Eric thinks he is smart. He misses the mark obviously. He asked a few questions. He was really vague which is lucky for me since I can’t lie worth a shit.” As a matter of fact, I couldn’t lie to save my life, but I didn’t want to take the pun. “I definitely got the impression he wants you bad, but he didn’t want me to know. He told Clete at the end that he had to bring me back quick, that they had something important to do. Oh I saved the best part for last, he glamoured me. My head was numb and my body wasn’t mine.” holding my forearm out so he could see the scab, it was only just visible and I realized the finger Scott cut the night before was completely healed. “He cut me, to taste me or something, used my own knife against me and kept it.”
“He didn’t? This is strange, the drink is very personal. We don’t like to feed, or even taste in front of others, even of our own kind.”
“Well that explains why Clete and Cwen jumped so fast. She doesn’t like me at all by the way.”
“Oh it is more than that I am sure. How did he act after he tasted you?”
I thought about it for a second, “Well weird, he kind of swished with my blood and acted spacey, like he was high or something.”
“Then she was jealous, they must be coupled.”
“Why would she be jealous? That’s like getting mad because your boyfriend enjoys Big Macs.” I wasn’t anything for her to get jealous over, especially since I was just his evening snack.
“Can a boy-friend have an intimate relationship with a hamburger or be satisfied by it alone? No, we can have that with humans, and they can be fulfilling, at least for a while.”
Studying my reaction to the information, he was looking at me.
I laughed.
“Most choose not to do it, but some of us do enjoy the company of a human. What about that is funny?”
“There are commercials from this fast food place with guys in hamburger suits and I just pictured one running away from a crowd of men with roses and candies.” I rocked back giggling a little harder. I was tired and the giddy reaction made it clear. Scott still wasn’t laughing. I figured, ‘he ain’t that funny.’ I stifled the giggles, the moment had passed.
“What else? This cut has healed a great deal so something else must have happened.”
“Yeah in the car, Clete he did a little vamp first aid. He licked it. I was grossed out, to say the least.”
Scott smiled, “He had better hope Rory doesn’t find out. He would make Clete regret his kindness to you. Rory obviously has designs on you. He didn’t make you forget and he displayed private behavior for all to see. He was making sure they all knew not to mess with you.”
“So he marked me, without any of the mess of lifting his leg?” I was in full sarcasm mode. I didn’t like the idea of being marked by anyone, (it rated up there with being called ‘woman’), much less by a grease ball like Eric.
“You could say it like that yes,” Scott said, actually chuckling.
I was suddenly eager to get off the subject. I decided not to mention the kiss on the cheek. “Clete said, so that only I could hear, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Do you know what that is about? I know what the words mean, but do you know why we would share an enemy? I am assuming Eric is who he meant, but he works for him.”
Scott pinched the top of his nose between his eyes, while he thought. The gesture made me wonder if he had worn glasses in life and the habit had just stuck. “I can’t say that I know anymore about that than you can. What else do you want to know?”
“Tell me about glamouring. Is there anyway to keep from getting the whammy put on me?”
“Hmm, where to start? There are different levels of the glamour. Some just tickle your mind, some can make you forget, or affect your mood, some take your physical control from you and some can be used to glean information. The older the vampire the stronger the glamour generally, though that is not a hard and fast rule. There is some leeway either direction. As far as I have ever heard besides avoiding eye contact there is no other way to prevent the glamour.” Scott seemed pleased by my interest and I could see a smile tugging the corner of his lips.
“Do it to me, I want to know what they all feel like. Maybe then I can judge how old or powerful the vampires I deal with in the future are.” I rocked all the way at the edge of my seat, listening, waiting for an answer. I didn’t really like the idea of letting someone into my head, but I wanted to know what I was up against. I knew their weaknesses and now I needed to know their strengths to fully understand how to fight my new enemy.
Scott was looking hard at me. I think he was trying to see how serious I was. “Avery, I can’t do any kind of glamour right now.” He seemed almost embarrassed by the fact, “I am too young, most vampires don’t manage even the lowest level until near their hundredth deathday and that is only with considerable practice. Are you even sure you really want this? It is no little thing to give over control to someone else, much less, let them into your mind.”
Leaning back I thought about it. I really hated to lose control over myself or hand it over to someone else, but the education could keep me from having it happen, like it did tonight. It would solidify the experience for me and keep me from making the same mistake again. At least this time I would be with someone I sort of knew. Besides my finger he had never done anything to hurt me intentionally and had come here to check on me after my call. He owed me anyway. I had saved his life, according to him.
“Yes,” I nodded emphatically, “yes I want to know. I am already tangled in this and I doubt I will be out of it just by asking you to leave. They could decide tomorrow night that I am a liar and come looking for me again. I need to know what I am up against.”
“I have to make a call. Like I said I can’t do this one for you, but I know someone plenty old enough and strong enough to do it.”
Twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door. Checking the peephole again, all I saw was a circle of black tee shirt. I hesitated to open it. I knew Scott had called someone but I couldn’t be sure who I was opening my home to. I remembered what Scott said about inviting them in and realized just because the door was open, didn’t mean whoever this was, would have free access to me. Pulling the door open I stepped back from the threshold. The sound of the door brought Scott around the corner to take a look for himself.
The man standing on my stoop was, tall, really tall but not ridiculously so. He had to be 6’4 or 6’5, which was only almost overpowering compared to my own 5’3. His hair was a light brown with streaks of natural blond highlights. He had broad shoulders and was built like a soccer player, looking slightly tan, (something I didn’t think vampires could be). His overall appearance was sun kissed, something impossible for a vampire. I continued to stare taking in all of him. If I hadn’t met Eric I would have assumed all vampires were perfectly formed. The others I had seen made the word beautiful inadequate.
“I am Alex, Scott called me.”
“Hgmmmh.” Scott cleared his throat bringing me back to the present. He couldn’t invite his friend in since this was my home. I was still staring and quickly dropped my eyes.
“Come on in…Alex, right?”
“Yes, and you are?” His voice was honey like everything else about him.
“I’m Avery,” I said, dipping my head in a nodded greeting.
“Scott, you are keeping strange company lately.” Alex had crossed the entryway to stand by his…brother. I wondered what that actually meant to the dead. I also understood, I was the strange company to which he was referring and it wasn’t a compliment. The fact that I stood in the door staring like an idiot had probably prompted at least part of the judgment.
“Lets take this to the kitchen. I have more space for us there.” I pointed to the opening. My living room would almost be considered crowded with two of us and the furniture. Considering the scale of the new man, there was no way I was going to squeeze us in there.
Scott led the way to the kitchen with Alex following closely at his heels. That left me with a pleasant view of the two of them from behind. They were dead, but it didn’t seem to take away from their appeal at all.
I pulled a bagel stick from the fridge and popped it into the microwave. “Do you guys eat or drink anything?” Shaking their heads, I wasn’t sure if they didn’t eat, or if they just didn’t want anything. Surely they could drink water. I knew blood is mostly made of water. It might not sustain them but it shouldn’t hurt them. With that in mind I pulled a pitcher of filtered water from the fridge and added some empty glasses to the table.
They just looked at it until I sat down. Alex was at what I considered the head of the table his back to the corner. Scott was at the foot and I was sitting to the side. Thinking about how we arranged ourselves, was Scott subordinate to Alex and that was why he was at the foot, or did they each think they were at the head? They could be equals I guess if neither was the leader. It didn’t matter really, not in relation to me and my house and my request.
“So, why have you called on me Avery? I know this is something you want or Scott would have asked me on his own at our place.” Alex’s voice was deep but not booming, it ran smooth from full lips. A perfect cupid’s bow rested under his slightly rounded nose. His strong jaw ended with a dimple on his chin that held the base of his light goatee.
Pulling myself together, I considered whether to just plunge in and ask him or start at the beginning. Surely the Rory Clan is his problem too so I chose the latter. Relating my strange night to him, Alex sat perfectly still. If he found Clete or Eric’s behavior bizarre he gave no indication of it.
“So I was glamoured and I want to explore the issue. I need to be able to tell you and Scott if it happens again. If I know what they all feel like I can give you a better gage of the power we are dealing with. Besides if they come back I need to at least know if they are influencing me.”
“It seems a logical thought, but this is no easy thing. I will have access and control of your mind and body, this is something not done for fun. It’s almost exclusively used for the feed or in other times when our survival depends on it.” Alex seemed to be fine with telling me things; Scott had only told me what would happen under the glamour but not why they needed the ability.
“I get that, but I will need the information and the only way to actually understand, is to do it. I wouldn’t do it if it was just me and you, but I trust Scott.”
I evaluated my last statement. If I hadn’t known Scott couldn’t glamour me I would have thought he had. What did I have to base my trust on? We had physically fought one another only yesterday night. I had started that though. I was the one that jumped when he grabbed me. I had twisted his arm and all he had done was stand there. He had cut my finger, but again that was my own fault. I wouldn’t believe him and told him to prove it. I had asked for it. He had come over after I called him, was it to see if I was okay, or just to find out what I knew?
“Fine, have it your way,” Alex said as he shifted his chair while grabbing the arms on mine and dragging it to sit a foot from his. Scott picked up his own chair and carried it over to get a better view. I felt like Monday night football with the two men now focusing all their attention on me.
“You have to look at me for this to work, Avery.” I had been a little self-conscious about looking at him since I had made such a fool of myself at the door, but I knew I had to now. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, at least I could stare without being thought of as simple this way.
As I looked up into his blue eyes, I noticed they weren’t just blue. They were a clear artic blue. I began to get tense. My last experience with the glamour had not been pleasant and I knew this man about as well. Scott trusted him, I decided I should too.
“We will go through this in stages. I will do the glamour and tell you the type so don’t forget. Well, there is one we can avoid I guess since you wouldn’t remember it anyway. Just relax.” I didn’t realize I was so readable till Alex told me to relax. I couldn’t think how I had been so obvious.
I felt a prickling just at the edge of my mind, like a tiny bug buzzing around me. I had felt this before…Clete. When I met Clete in the hallway at work, he made me feel familiar with him. I had only just figured it out. Was that it, just those first few minutes we talked or did it extend to the feeling of kinship I had developed by the end of the meeting?
“This is just a minor adjustment to your mood and emotions.” Alex’s voice was so rich I wanted to make it my own. I wanted to swallow it up. I was at a loss, and completely attracted to every bit of him. I couldn’t pull myself away. He was just so…so…I got it, he made me feel love or lust, something in that family. If not for the prickling, I might not have noticed it. I had been thinking like a school girl with a crush since he had shown up. I guess it was only a minor jump or increase in feeling toward him.
There was a slightly different sensation, a little flutter. “This time I will compel you to speak.” I think he was enjoying. It had to be a different experience for him to fiddle around with someone’s head at their insistence. He wasn’t smiling or anything but his pleasure played across his face.
I could hear something, just softly. I wasn’t hearing it with my ears but I was hearing it. It got a little louder…then a little louder…then louder still until it was pulsing painfully through my brain.
“Två berusad har rättvis fått kastat ute om stången och går ned gåtan när de komme över den här hund , sittande på det kindkedja , slicka hans balerna. De stannande där vaktande och efter en fördriva tiden en av dem säga, ‘JAG säker önskan JAG kunde gör så pass! ‘Annan en ser på honom och säga,’ brunn, JAG tänka I'd sällskapsdjur honom första’”
I yelled it out, and it was Germanic gibberish to me. Alex’s lip actually twitched, a smile almost came out there for a minute. Alex broke eye contact and said turning to Scott, “That’s my favorite joke.”
If that was his favorite and he didn’t even actually smile I figured he never laughed either. All these serious guys around, couldn’t I just have one that was funny? Well Clete was funny but I couldn’t be sure of him since I knew he had glamoured me.
Alex turned back to me picking up where he left off. His eyes met mine again and I was locked in. “This will be physical, prepare yourself.”
I felt the burning tingle. My scalp had the dead asleep feeling again. I hated this one, passionately. I felt myself rising out of the seat. There wasn’t much space between us. Standing between Alex’s legs, in the triangle they created with my chair, I felt myself rise on pointed toes, going up and doing a little spin. My long hair was swirling some around me. I stopped and dipped back down into the chair. He had proven his point and thankfully hadn’t made me do something I would be embarrassed by or regret later.
Leaning forward, Alex put his hands just above my knees. He was great looking, but he had just invaded my comfort zone. “Okay Avery, this last one is the most personal. I will go into your mind and actually try and pull knowledge from you. It is the most difficult on the vampire and almost never used at all. Knowing I will actually be in there,” he said softly touching my forehead, “are you still sure you want to do this?”
I nodded, his hesitation adding to my own. I did ask for this and I couldn’t back down now. He relaxed back into his chair.
The sensation was completely new, no tingles, no flies, flutters, or prickles. This was a heavy weight settling on me. I felt like I was being crushed down but I remained perfectly upright. Then he was there, I could feel him sliding through me. My imagination began to paint it for me.
I could see him there, in my head. I created the space. It was my house. I could see him inside it. We were in the kitchen of my mind and he was poking his head in my pantry. I knew where we were, this was the emotion area. I could feel it, not that he was setting me wild or changing how I felt right now, it was like all the jars had the emotional labels on them. I imagined I would feel something if he opened one, but he didn’t. He started walking the halls of my mind again. I felt invaded. I felt like he was taking everything out of order and leaving muddy foot prints behind. I started to re-organize my thoughts, I did this all the time in the ‘real’ world but with the visualization it took on a whole new aspect of action now. He was dropping his own dirt into my head.
I could see little broken images that made up the mud he traipsed through my head home. So I grabbed a broom and started following him around. I couldn’t quite make out what he was leaving behind. I saw myself in his dirt and Scott, some woman with black hair, a little blond boy swatting tall grass with a stick. None of it was in context so I didn’t know what it meant, or even what it was. I swept it away into the corner.
I wasn’t sure if this was real to the glamour or if my mind was just wandering until he found what he wanted and ended the exercise. He actually looked over his shoulder at what I was doing. He seemed a little bewildered by the scene I had created. The next room he walked into spread out hugely before us. It was not something from my house, it was a large storeroom full of boxes and boxes, and they were all marked. My OCD showed up in my head too. This was where my memories lay. I didn’t want him here, this was the last place I wanted him snooping, I should have told him before we started to leave that alone. I had things in my past I didn’t want to talk about and I didn’t want people to know about. There didn’t seem to be any sound so I reached out to touch his back.
He jumped, physically in front of me on the chair in the real world and in my head.
I gestured him out. He had caught sight of something sticking out of a box though and had gone back into the room. He tugged out an old ragged teddy bear.
Suddenly I was looking at the casket. God I didn’t want to be here, real tears started to leak out of my real eyes in my real kitchen. I was looking down at my mother’s body in that cheap gray steel casket. I dropped my Bub-Bear into the casket with her. Bub had been with me since I could remember and I was leaving him with her. I turned to go back to my pew and saw Alex in his black tee shirt and jeans standing directly in front of me. He was holding a Bub-Bear too. It was too much. I walked over and jerked it out of his hands, and as soon as I did we were back in my brains storeroom. I tucked the bear back in the box and turned to guide him out but instead he was walking deeper in.
He reached in for another item it was a denim wallet with a little fish keychain attached to it. I was back in the recruiting office. The SSG was sitting in front of me at the desk. He reached around me and pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and began looking through it. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I knew what was coming. He reached back into my jean pocket and gave me a little squeeze. He then shifted his hand to slide down inside the back of my pants. I looked away and saw Alex standing in the room again. I could feel my face burning with shame and tears were returning to my eyes. Alex was seeing this, this thing I had buried and never intended to look at again. Alex saw where this was going. He saw the pain on my face and dropped the little wallet.
We were back in the storeroom again. Alex was looking at a box with a duffle bag in it now. He started to reach out for it. I couldn’t stand it here anymore and I couldn’t go through all this. I stormed back out of the room, slamming the door behind me.
I heard banging almost immediately. Alex didn’t come out though. I never wanted to see him again. And still he was not coming out. I imagined brick and mortar and started closing off that room. All the things in my life I didn’t want to think about were in that room. That room was a secret place, separate from the other normal memories. This is where I tucked the worst of my life. I was closing it up and I didn’t care if he was in there or not.
Alex, in front of me on the chair, made a strange face, but he didn’t say anything. I could still feel him but it was muted, like hearing sound through a wall. I placed the last brick in my mind, I found I was no longer immobile and raised my arms over my head in a long stretch.
Looking at Alex, Scott was waiting to hear what he had seen, what mundane trivia he knew about me. Alex didn’t move, his eyes glazed over and I knew I hadn’t imagined everything I had seen.
I got up to get a drink of the water I had set out. I wore a Cheshire grin as I looked at Scott and he figured something wasn’t right.
“What, what happened?”
“He went somewhere I told him not to and I closed him up.” What I had just done gave a whole new meaning to mind like a steel trap. I smiled again.
Scott panicked, “You have to undo it, he’s, he’s my clan brother. I am responsible for this if it goes wrong. I asked him here.”
“Well he shouldn’t have gone there. He made me see things I had put away. He was going through private things that are mine and mine alone.” I my smile was sliding off my face as anger flashed through me. Hadn’t Alex deserved this at least a little? “Curiosity killed the cat.”
Scott began pacing, stopping to look at Alex mid loop each circuit. I was on the edge of feeling guilty. Scott would be considered responsible but it was me who asked for this little game. Sinking back into my chair, I re-engaged Alex’s eyes. I wasn’t sure if I needed to but better safe than sorry. I didn’t really want him stuck in my head forever and I really didn’t want his eternal body sitting at my table. I liked conversational pieces but catatonic man didn’t really fit with my decorative sense.
I pulled the bricks down one at a time.
It sounds like slow work, but my mind was running full throttle. Pulling the last brick away, I realized I had learned to defend myself. I couldn’t really hurt the vampire here in my head, as far as I knew, but he couldn’t do anything to defend himself out there. So this was not a wasted effort.
I pulled open the door and Alex practically fell out on his face not that meant that much here as far as I could tell.
Alex in front of me stood up. The thrall was over. Scott was startled out of his pacing and asked Alex a million questions in fast secession. I couldn’t even keep up. Alex looked weary and for the first time a little pale. He looked a ill actually. Drained, not vampire drained, but energy drained.
“You, you just left me in there?” Alex said, in a hushed voice. You’d think I had just admitted to killing his dog or something.
“I told you not there and I had to relive some of the worst days of my life because of it. I decided to ground you. It was only a few minutes.” I was trying to sound calm as I said it, instead of furious that he had pulled those moments out of me.
Alex stared down at his feet and tapped his fingers on his knee as he sifted through his own thoughts.
I couldn’t do that at least, dip into minds, but maybe I could trap others who strayed into mine. Maybe I could build my brick wall around my little head house and keep them from coming in at all. It had to work, look what I had done to Alex.
Scott was more than ready to leave and kept checking his watch. Glancing at the microwave, I saw it was four. They would be turning in early if they left now, but they were both on edge with me. Waiting for me to sprout horns, I guess. They forgot they could kill me in a matter of seconds. One of them is all it would take, two would just be overkill.
“That has never happened before,” Alex said in awe.
“Are you sure, maybe it was just a fluke, you weren’t concentrating?” Scott said, desperate to come up with the easy answer. I could tell he felt he had done something wrong.
The weight of what I had managed to do was crushing. The panic, the self blame and self doubt swirling around the two of them and none of it should be theirs to bear.
“I’m sorry. I just didn’t know that would do anything. It didn’t occur to me at the time that it was anything but my imagination and I was angry and just thought it.”
“Look Aave,” Alex said that little nickname from Clete, I had never been called that before tonight. I suspected Alex had pulled that from my mind too, “that has never happened before, not to me, not to anyone I know. For now, keep it to yourself. I am not sure if this is normal and other people just haven’t thought it, or if your visualizations made the difference. I can tell you I have never seen it or felt it like that. I am going to get in touch with a few people and see if they have heard of it. Maybe even get them to set their own trials for it.” Well at least Alex wasn’t mad, but I could tell he was itching to leave.
Silence fell between us, standing there in the kitchen. It was awkward. I scooted them to the door. I had to call Kim about this she wouldn’t believe it. Walking them to the door without conversation, I showed them the porch.
5
Avery and the Silver Circle
I was dialing my phone before they even got to the edge of the yard. I had to call Kim. I shouldn’t, it was too early for her but I had to tell someone. I walked back into my kitchen as the phone rang and sat in the chair Alex had vacated only minutes before.
“Hello?” Kim had been asleep. I could hear it in her voice. It had the heavy crinkle to it of someone who had been snoring a moment ago.
“Hey, Kim, I know it’s early, super early but I had to call. I was glamoured tonight.”
I heard the sharp intake of breath, so I knew what I had said registered with her. I could almost hear her brain start up and I knew she would have to know everything. I told her about Scott, everything about Scott, and sat listening for her response, as I finished.
“Was it that guy from the other night? He didn’t?” She paused recalling some tidbit, “You aren’t hurt are you? I mean, they only do that to feed. I…you have to tell me.”
“No to all questions. He didn’t hurt me at all, he wasn’t the one to glamour me either it was a friend of his. You should have seen this guy, gorgeous from the tip of his hair to the bottoms of his feet.” Not that I had actually seen the bottoms of his feet.
“Well, well, well, it’s raining men up there, and I just had to be out of town for it.” Kim was green with envy and I could hear it in her voice. She was generally the one telling me about some great guy and how I needed to get out more. Somehow I didn’t think these guys and my adventures of late were what she meant.
“Yeah, what can I say, I am a death magnet.” It came out sounding more serious and heavy than I intended but I couldn’t change that now.
“You doing okay?” Kim heard it in my voice.
“Yeah, just find it ironic that death seems to follow me around, although with the vampires that could be way more literal now.” I relaxed a little. I was wound tight with a mix of excitement and apprehension when it came to thinking about everything that happened.
I talked to Kim, letting all the events out for her eagerly listening ears. I altered the story a little. Alex had told me it was better not to mention what I had done to him during the glamour. So I gave her the scrubbed version, where he just walked around my head then left.
“Um, Avery,” she said, hesitating. She didn’t often clam up on me and she had never hesitated to tell me something before. “I know about how all this works, I dated a were-person once.”
“I must not have heard you right did you just say?”
“Were-person,” my friend said.
“So, is that like a creature that turns human at the full moon or what?” Even after everything that had happened the last few nights I knew I sounded like I didn’t believe her.
“No, no, that’s what he told me to call him, said it was…not politically correct to call him a werewolf. The weres are a united group despite the variations in packs. So I know what vampires are like. I have met a few. That’s the other thing. I am in Portland right now working a witch function. It’s like a conference thing. The company I work for provides staff for…odd clients.”
“What? What do you mean by odd?” Had she really just told me there were were-people and they gave a crap about being PC? I had known Kim worked and she traveled regularly, but she never really got into it about work with me. We did different things and so we didn’t have common ground when it came to work talk. Sure we both complained about the other people not pulling their weight or whatever, but not the details.
“Oh, witches, vampires, weres, there is so much more out there girl. Now that you are in the mix at least I can talk to you about it.”
“You didn’t think you could talk to me about it before?” I was hurt at the idea that she kept something so big from me, I understood the work thing. I had never asked about it directly, but she had intentionally not told me everything.
“Well you would have thought I was just watching too much TV.” She was right about that, if she had told me a week ago I would have shrugged it off as wishful thinking or a delusion.
“So are you a, a?” I couldn’t even get the words out.
“Oh, no, no, I am good old fashioned grade-A human through and through.”
“Not a witch then either?”
“Nope, I am friends with a few. I am just content to know about it all and be on the peripheral.”
Our conversation waned some after that. I blamed it on how tired we were and ended it there. Kim worked with witches and vamps and God knows what else. She knew all along and left me in the dark. I like to think, I’m open minded, that perception had taken a few bad blows in the last forty-eight hours.
I was jittery and needed to do something. The sun was just coming up, the soft light touching my kitchen. I needed to clean, I always clean when I am nervous or stressed, even when I am happy sometimes. It lets me do, without thinking.
I woke up lying on my couch, the little dirt devil vacuum I had been using still clutched in my hand. The sound of my phone reverberated in my ears. I had no idea what time it was but the windows were dark.
“Hel-hello?” I sounded like hell.
“Avery, we’re going out tonight. Get yourself ready.” It was Scott. The idea of going out with him sent a flutter through my stomach. I was awake now.
“Um, okay, how should I dress?” I was over the moon
“You ever hear of the Silver Circle? It’s a club on the north-side of Tacoma. It caters to humans and my kind alike. Think…goth when you get dressed. I will be there at 7:45, you’ll have to drive. I don’t generally get around by car.” He hung up. I didn’t even get a word in.
Looking in my closet, I found nothing there that could pass as goth or dressy enough to go out in. I didn’t own any goth clubbing clothes. I didn’t club. I was a jeans and tee shirts kind of girl. I was feeling the crunch to get ready. I burned too much time looking for something to wear and I only had a half an hour till Scott was supposed to show up. I was ready to call him back and tell him I couldn’t go.
Then I saw Kim’s door. It was a stroke of genius. She always wore black and had been that way since I had known her. I wasn’t even sure what her natural hair color was since she had it dyed a deep black. She was covered in tattoos. They were brightly colored so she was a palette of color and the canvas too. I hadn’t barrowed clothes from her before but I was sure she wouldn’t mind. I walked into her room slowly. She had a black area rug and her bed was covered in its own layer of black. She hadn’t made the bed and there were little lumps of dirty clothes spread about the room.
I went to the closet and found a dress. Well on Kim who was at least six inches taller than me it would have been a long shirt. It was black, of course, and was made of strips of fabric that kind of hung like it had been slashed or shredded. It was so not my style at all. It was short on me, but a good short. It was snug hitting me at mid-thigh The front was a deep V that hit just above my cleavage. I turned and looked in her tall mirror and was overall happy with the look. It wasn’t me, but it worked for me. I turned to Kim’s vanity next and braided the sides of my hair into long strands. I left the back flowing and I ran the few braids I had done into it securing them on the back of my head. It was a nice effect that kept the hair out of my face but it had more elegance than the pony tail I usually put it up in.
Kim’s vanity was covered in discarded packets of make-up. I was naturally pale so I skipped her white powder foundation. When I was finished I had dark smoky eyes and a dark lip. I eyed my reflection in the mirror satisfied that I had managed to blend a workable goth and my own no-nonsense style.
I heard a knock on the door and threw on a pair of my own spiked heels. They were an impulse buy, I had only worn them once before. I ran down the hall feeling lighter than air. Looking through my peephole, I was happy for once that I didn’t have to do anything to see out of it. Scott was there on my porch…surrounded by people.
My heart leapt to my throat. Throwing the door open, I expected Scott to dash into the protection of my house, but he just eyed me from my feet to the top of my head. I was standing stock still staring at his six inch Mohawk.
Alex was with him, as well as the dark haired woman I had seen when he was plodding around my head. There was another couple too, a man and woman. Scott and Alex strolled on in like they owned the place, the dark haired woman on Alex’s arm.
The woman was about six feet tall and looking down her nose at me. She had long crows black hair that hit her in the small of her back. Her skin was pale, so pale she had a glow about her. She was pale like the moon is pale. I would have thought she was a vampire if she hadn’t already entered the house without my invitation. Her eyes were a foggy blue above freckles in a fine smattering across her nose and cheek bones.
Looking at her reminded me of the conversation I had with Kim earlier and I wondered if this woman was one of the things I didn’t know about.
I gestured for the other couple to come in. The man was around 5’9 with blond hair and green eyes buried in a square face. His mouth had a thin straight top and a full bottom to it. The woman beside him was the same height. Her straight blond hair hung to her bust and her eyes were green like the grass on the ninth hole. She was tan with a small thin scar running along her right cheek bone. I was beginning to feel like the ugly duckling in the room.
I guided the assorted group back to my kitchen. I was a bit, no a lot disappointed about how things were turning out. I hadn’t been told about the extra bodies when Scott said we were going out.
“This is Elfrun,” Scott said, pointing at the woman with black hair.
“Call me Elle.” Her voice was small and peepish, like a sparrow. I had expected something much stronger from a woman so tall.
“This is Altsoba and Flannchadh.” Scott indicated the other couple in the room. I noticed they had a large gym bag and Scott and I were the only ones who looked ready for a night on the town.
“Sobie and Chad,” said the blonde woman as she shook my hand with a surprisingly firm grip.
“We heard you already met Alexander,” said the gruffy voice of the man Chad.
Considering the strange group of people in front of me I asked, “Why do you all have nicknames?”
“We choose our names. Names have great meaning, we go by the nicknames so we don’t stand out as much,” Alex said coolly.
“Why do your names have to mean anything?”
“It is to convey to others of our own kind something about ourselves. It’s a descriptor of sorts. It can name your allegiance. It can indicate what you are or what you value. My name means defending men.” Alex’s eyes met mine, holding my gaze before he went on. “Chad’s name means Red Warrior. He was a soldier before he was made. Altsoba means all are at war and relates to her heritage I guess you would say, Elle-”
Speak of the devil. Elle stopped Alex to say, “Hey I don’t want to interrupt the lesson or anything but can we use your bathroom to get ready?”
She was rude. Great I just loved having attractive girls who think somebody owes them something around. Placing a polite smile on my face, I pointed down the hall. Sobie gave me a knowing smile as she passed, one that said “hey she is what she is, you’ll get used to it”. Elle and Sobie took control of the room closing the door behind them.
I was left alone with the men. Alex turned back out of the room, heading for my tiny living room. Scott and Chad followed and I wondered again about whether Alex was the leader of this band of merry men. Heaving an exasperated sigh, I joined them. Chad had sat on the floor Indian style in the corner of the room. Alex was sitting in my rocker, the power seat in the room. Scott patted the empty space on the couch. I sat between him and Alexander.
Scott looked nice at least. His black button down shirt un-tucked and pooling in his lap over a pair of jeans so tight they left nothing to the imagination. Alex and Chad were in street clothes, jeans and another black shirt for Alex and Chad in khakis and a green shirt that complimented his eyes.
“Okay, Scott you didn’t give me much on the phone, what’s up?”
Alex and Chad shared a significant glance.
“We are going to a club, like I said on the phone.”
“Why, I mean why are ALL of us going to a club?”
Alex chimed in, “The Rorys will be there.” He must have seen the look of horror on my face as he continued. “We need to find out why they want Scott dead. This is the perfect chance since they can’t hurt us at the Silver Circle.”
“Its spell bound to be a neutral place. It is a human club at the surface level with a hidden lower level for our kind.” Scott contributed.
“You don’t think they will notice me as the only human in the room?”
“No, there will be a few others I‘m sure. It isn’t just for vampires. We wouldn’t all be able to go if it was so xenophobic,” Alex said.
Chad added, “It’s where Sobie and me go and Alex met Elle there.”
“They aren’t human or vampire then.” I stated, beginning to wonder how much I should fear this ‘little’ outing. Going to see the vampire that assaulted me, with a group of dangerous Supernaturals seemed like a bad idea. I would be the only human, no super strength or magic or anything else to defend myself with.
“No, Elle and Sobie are special in their own way.” Chad smiled as he said Sobie’s name. I realized they were a serious couple, he was absolutely in love with her and it showed.
“And I am going because?”
“Because, we will be pairing off and scattering through the club, you make six. We will divide the stronger among the weaker,” Alex said, eyeing me.
I hated being the weak one.
Sobie and Elle emerged from the bathroom and Chad was out the room in a blur. Stepping into the doorway, I was shocked to see Sobie had black tipped hair and was wearing a tiny plaid dress. It showed a powerful feminine frame, covered in lean muscle. Chad was wrapped around her waist like she had been gone for hours instead of minutes. Elle had adopted a bottle tan and her black hair was tucked under a red wig. She looked strange with her red hair and black eye brows, but I wasn’t going to say anything. Alex got up and walked to the bathroom with Chad. It seemed like strange behavior for the men, but I didn’t know the dynamic of their relationship.
I left the room for water and came back to find Sobie and Elle were sharing the couch cushion I had been sitting on. I was more than happy to take back my rocker.
“I heard you talking in here, now you know we are not what we seem,” Sobie said, looking at me with a light in her eyes. “Considering you have been invited along, I am going to say you aren’t quite what you seem either.”
“Oh no, er yes, I am exactly what I seem. I am a human, a nurse at the hospital.”
“I can tell you are human, but you really can’t be what you seem to have been included in this. We don’t just pull anyone in.”
I considered what she was saying, I still couldn’t see myself as anything but a plain normal old human. Elle was staring me down, maybe she was threatened by me. Maybe she was just a bitch. Her behavior so far had indicated as much.
“Will you tell me about your name?” I wanted to know, I wanted to get a gage of the group I was becoming a part of.
“Well I was a warrior of sorts. We were chosen as part of nine who would pick the victor of a battle. There were more than nine of us but only nine were sent down amongst the fray, we even had our honorific titles. We could take the bravest of the dying. I was numbered among them till I chose to walk the world. I met my Chad that way,” Sobie said wistfully.
She flushed when she said his name. They acted like they were in the honeymoon phase, but knowing he was a vampire, I assumed they had been together much longer than a human honeymoon phase.
“You met Chad on the battlefield, is he why you chose to walk the world?” I asked.
“Oh no, Chad isn’t that old. I left service after our leader died. I met Chad as a human. He was on a battlefield when he was made though, so you were close.” She flashed me a smile. “I heard from a friend, still in the service, about a battle she was going to. It happened to be where Chad was in France. I knew it was going to be big if they were going, so I went to him. When I found him he was already wounded. He was dying and I couldn’t stop that. I called in a vampire who owed me a favor and had him ‘made’ so he could stay with me. His death released him from his military service and we left there with the vampire clan.” She screwing up her eyes, she did a quick mental tally. “That was December 1944 and we have been together since.”
“How did you meet?” I was totally into her romance.
“Oh, he trained in Ireland, where I lived at the time. When he left, we wrote everyday. I knew when his unit set up in the Ardennes for some down time. Like I said, I had it on good authority; the shit was going to hit the fan. Chad lived with the Rory clan, until we met Scott. Scott was a new vampire, he had no clan. We pulled him in, to help him out. Alex and Chad were friends, and Alex had never gotten along well with the former leader so he came with us.”
Going back to the Rorys I had to ask, “Why were the Rorys in France?”
“Oh, I forgot you are a human and wouldn’t know. Vampires tend to be drawn to wars.” I looked at her with obvious questioning in my eyes. “They are secretive as you may have noticed. They don’t want to reveal themselves to the larger world. That would be the quickest way to end their afterlife. They follow war to feed. How better to go undetected than picking off the already injured? They don’t have to work as hard to get their food or hide the evidence of the feeding and they can completely drain someone if they want.”
It made me a little sick to my stomach thinking about it. It was a smart plan for the vampires though. “Why didn’t I see any in Iraq when I was there?”
Sobie looked at me surprised before she answered. “Well, well, I was right you are more than you seem.” She reappraised me in her head. I could tell by the way she was looking at me. “The vampires only go to the bloodiest wars. They go where the pickings are good. Iraq is a fist fight in comparison. There are clans who live there permanently and do quite well for themselves though.”
And I thought the guys had been sharing with me. I like Sobie already.
“What about you Elle?” I wanted to know everything and I was getting a lot right now.
Elle looking down her long nose at me said, “Yes my mother was human, my father was not. My parents both died and I needed a family. I was on my own for many years, after my mother died in ‘59. I looked nineteen at the time and had a hard go of it for while. It is a relief to find a family to depend on.”
I did the math; she only looked twenty-five or twenty-six. She was actually somewhere in her seventies.
“So, why the disguises?” I asked.
“The clan knows all of us except Elle. We will position her closest to the clan’s table and see what she over hears. Alex, Sobie, you and I will position our selves upstairs. Chad and Elle will go down. This way wherever the Rorys go, whether they hide in plain sight upstairs or stay with their own kind downstairs, we will be able to get close to them,” Scott said.
“So why is Elle wearing a disguise?” I asked, getting a dirty look from Elle. Sobie just rolled her eyes where she couldn’t see.
Elle didn’t like to be upstaged. She was an attention whore. It made sense with her personality as I had seen it so far.
“Will we all fit in your car?” Scott asked, suddenly taking the reins of our conversation and leading it elsewhere.
I did a quick head count and seat count. “Well sure if someone lies down in the back. Maybe Alex since he is the biggest and he won’t crowd anyone that way.”
The look on their faces told me that wasn’t going to be the way it went. I almost had to laugh at Scott’s slack jawed expression. “Fine figure it out your selves, I know where I’m sitting.”
I heard the bathroom door open and I wondered what I would see the men looking like. Stepping in first, Chad’s clothes were all black and his head gleamed. It was freshly shaved and oiled with tribal tattoos covering where hair had been. I wondered if they had been there before or if he had applied them in the bathroom. He tucked his hand into his pocket and brought out something tiny and shiny. Shocking the hell out of me, he forced it through his lower lip giving himself an instant labret. Alex stepped forward too, sans goatee. He had adopted blue streaks for his hair. He was garbed in black from head to toe and I was glad to see, he didn’t feel the need to pierce his face in front of me.
“Lets go,” Alex said, jerking his head.
He was definitely taking on the leadership role in the group. I walked past him, as those seated on the couch stood up to go. I led them through the kitchen, to the garage, grabbing my purse as I passed. Pulling my keys out, I hit the lock button on the chain.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, I turned to see Alex in the car beside me and I was slightly annoyed by it. I wanted Scott to sit with me. He was the reason I had gotten involved with these people and I had thought I was going out with him tonight. Alex was arrogant and I didn’t like it at all.
“Where to?” I asked to no one in particular.
“Take the 5 south.” Alex, always the one to take charge, answered me.
We were quiet on the drive to the Silver Circle. The silence was only broken when Alex gave me some direction. I get antsy during protracted silences, so I turned on the radio low.
We pulled into the Silver Circle parking lot and I asked, “Isn’t there a club, closer for you guys than this one?” I was desperate for someone to say something.
“Of course, but this is the one Rory prefers, so this is the one we are at.” Alex, he had such a way with words.
I got out of the car and took my first good look at the Silver Circle. The building was a plain brick structure. It was two stories tall and the windows running under the edge of the roofline, showed lights swirling behind them. The front of the building had a large set of double doors centered on it, with a giant backlit silver ring and the club name over the top in the same silver material. Leaving my purse in the car, I tossed my keys to Scott. The bouncer didn’t bother to card us. Did he know what beings this motley crew contained?
Stepping inside the doors, I saw the ceiling vaulted high above me. There was no second story at all. There was a dark wood bar on the front wall and the DJ platform with a large circular dance floor directly in front of it. Strobes were flashed down on the crush of human bodies swaying there. The table area was in front of the bar and I could see both side walls had padded benches scattered along them. The color scheme was deep red browns.
Turning to see where Scott wanted to go, I saw him walking away, holding Sobie’s hand. I wasn’t pleased, he asked me here but he was taking her to the dance floor. I knew I shouldn’t be jealous for them this was a work thing, but for me it was decidedly more confusing.
Alex clasped my hand like we were a couple, as Elle and Chad made for the door in the center of the back wall. She flashed me an angry glare over her shoulder. I was almost glad to see I wasn’t the only one who had some issue with the division in the group. Alex pulled me through the tables and led me to a gap between the benches. His hand was smooth and large, swallowing mine in its grip.
“Watch the back door. I will be watching the front. If you see anyone you recognize go through that door, let me know,” Alex said leaning against the wall and arranged himself in a natural way.
“Why did we divide up like this?”
“The Rorys know us all so we dressed up. To make sure it’s harder to recognize us, we have broken from those we are normally associated with.” He looked down into my eyes and I was struck by how deep and blue his were. “I am the strongest of the clan and you are the weakest in the party, the pairing seems natural. Scott is young still so he and Sobie are evenly matched. Chad and Elle were paired using the same principle. Besides, the Rorys know Chad and Sobie are inseparable and have been since he was made. Even if they see him they may dismiss it because of his appearance and the fact that she isn’t with him.”
We stood, just leaning against the wall for a few minutes. Afraid the silence would continue to drag on between us, I asked “How old are you?” while I watched the back door.
“I was born in 1690, but I wasn’t ‘made’ till 1722.”
I had asked but I hadn’t actually expected him to answer. Not only had he answered, but he mentioned his former life. He was significantly older than I had expected him to be. I now understood, he wasn’t the named leader of their clan but his age made him the assumed leader.
“I was ‘made’ by the Kehrov Clan while they were in Sweden after the war.” He made it sound like I should know what war he was talking about.
“Did you have a family?” I asked looking back into his eyes. I saw pain in them. The artic blue dulled some as the question ran through him.
“I…” He stopped and I saw his eyes clear, “Of course I had a family, we all did at some point.”
He had shut me off. I had gone too personal with that one. The silence fell between us again and my mind was starting to wander. Glancing over to the dance floor, I saw Scott and Sobie looking like they were having fun. I guess that was the point, they needed fit in. Maybe they really were having fun and I was just sour about my own partner for the evening. They had been easy to spot despite the crowd on the floor. Scott and Sobie were far too good looking to go completely unnoticed.
Scott had his hands on Sobie’s waist, she leaned her hips into his. Sobie arched her back deeply until she was looking at us against the wall, then she winked at me and rose back up to Scott. Resuming my watch on the far door, I grumbled to myself. Honestly, I wanted nothing more than to dance that way with Scott. He was handsome and I couldn’t help my attraction to him. Thinking about it, even the night he showed up in the hospital, I felt drawn to him. I felt for him then.
Alex said something.
“What?” I said, drawing myself back to the now.
“I said I made some calls. That thing you did last night, there are others who can do it too. You are the minority though.” I caught a look from a man standing near-by. I could only imagine what he thought we were talking about. He stepped away when he noticed I was staring him down. “Most don’t have the…mental flexibility to adapt the experience to their advantage the way you did.”
I wasn’t special or Supernatural or even freaky as the company I was keeping. It was disappointing to find I was average, once again. Well not average, but not really unique either. I blew out the disappointment I felt. Grabbing Alex’s wrist, I looked at his watch. I was bored pretending I was having a good time. Alex gave me an odd look but didn’t say anything.
“I like your hair this way,” he said, twisting a braid between his fingers.
“It’s just braids, not a big deal. It wasn’t even hard to do.” I was looking up into his blues again.
“It frames your face well and they have a golden shine in the light.”
I looked away and said coldly, “Thanks I guess.”
I could feel another silence settling awkwardly between us and realized I should return the compliment.
“I like your streaks. You should do them more often. They make your eyes really stand out.” I stopped then added, “I liked your goatee. You should grow it back.” I sounded like a twit when I said it like that. “Sorry, I just don’t get compliments that often and I don’t know how to take them. Just excuse my social clumsiness.”
He raised an eyebrow at me without comment. I was watching the door when I noticed Alex had gotten tense, and then he surprised me. Grabbing my face with both hands, he kissed me.
My reaction was almost instantaneous. Leaning into him, I wrapped my arms around his waist. There was a charge between us, he was magnetic. It was like the whole world was on mute. Nothing existed for me but that kiss. He had been doing it since the 1700’s and it showed. He was a pro and made all the kisses I had before this, look like Disney moments. It was long and deep, though probably short in reality, it seemed to stretch on into forever.
Alex was excited by my response and his fangs slid out, into my private eternity. Alex gently bit my lower lip and the kiss suddenly tasted of copper. That was my cue to disengage. Slowly pulling away from him, I brought my hands back to their place at my sides. He hadn’t glamoured me, but my body had betrayed me all the same.
Alex had a look of dazed contentment on his face which turned into a sexy half smile. I hadn’t seen him smile at all since I had known him. He gestured to my ear and I forced my gaze from him. I saw Scott staring, my attraction to him was returned. He was jealous.
“The Rorys just walked in and I figured we would stick out less if we were as engaged as those around us,” Alex said into my ear. Looking past his shoulder, I saw most of the benches were occupied by couples actively trying to count each others teeth with their tongues. They all looked clumsy compared to what I had just experienced. “Besides it’s harder to recognize me if I am attached to your face.” He finished with a chuckle.
Alex started to straighten back up but leaned in again, “You taste like honey and gunpowder,” he said offhandedly.
Was that really a good thing? It seemed like it was to him and it bore some similarity to the last compliment I was given about how I tasted. Looking back up at him, I saw his shape white teeth, showing through a sexy half smile.
6
Avery and the Acrobat
Why can’t a breathing man look at me the way the vampires do? It’s probably because a breathing man can’t look at me and see sex and dinner in one package.
Grabbing Alex’s hand, I dragged him through the tables and patrons to a round top in the corner. Scott and Sobie took their cue from me and were on the way over. Sobie grabbed a few drinks by the bar. I guessed so that we would blend in with everyone else. Scott was staring at me as he sat down on the other side of the little round table. We sat quiet until Sobie came back with the drinks. She sat the short bottles down in front of each of us.
I took a sip immediately. The drink was fizzy and fruity. They were Vodka Twisters, apple flavored. Not a very manly choice for Scott and Alex, but they weren’t really drinking them.
“So, what’s next?” I asked.
“We go down and get a closer look since they didn’t notice us here, it shouldn’t be a problem to get a little closer,” Alex said, lifting his drink and sitting it down.
“Avery, you should go wait in the car for us. You don’t really need to go down there. We can watch them and let you know if we find out anything,” Scott said.
Always being the big strong man, he had to tell me not to go.
“Look guys, you brought me here. I have gotten sucked into this. Scott it was your idea I come and if you think I am going to wait in the car to play taxi, you got another thing coming. I want to know why they want you, as much as you want to know.” I was looking at him in complete seriousness. I had no intention of back out now.
“It wasn’t exactly my idea,” he grumbled looking at Alex over his raised glass.
I took a bigger drink of mine. My nerves were tensed and every swallow seemed to ease the strain in my body. My life had taken a strange turn in a matter of days. Had it only really been three days since I got wrapped in all this?
“Aave, we don’t really need you down there. We can handle this. You are…fragile, we don’t have that problem,” Alex’s blue eyes scowled at me.
“I know I am fragile, but I am capable too. I managed to man-handle Scott the other night and I can deal with the glamour. I am in this thing, like it or not. I am learning something new every time I see you, things I never thought possible. Let me do this. It’s a club down there too. You’ll stick out less with a…date on your arm. From what you said this place is neutral so I can’t really get hurt.”
“Just because you can’t get hurt down there, doesn’t mean they can’t take you outside to do it. This isn’t a sure thing,” Scott said staring me down.
“How is Elle supposed to defend against that? How are you? You guys pulled me in and when I agreed to come, I accepted the possibility that things wouldn’t go smooth. I am a grown woman and I want to do this. It might be stupid but it is the course I choose to take.”
“Elle, like all of us, is more than she seems. Her abilities are…dynamic,” Sobie said, looking at me with concern. If she was scared for me, maybe I should be scared for myself…nope. Like Dr. Rosser said, I tend to ‘grab the bull by the balls’.
Alex put his hand on top of mine and I looked up into his chilling blue eyes. I felt a flutter and a tingle edging in on me. He was trying to make me afraid, trying to compel me not to stay.
“Uh-un. You know what happened last time you tried that. You can’t make me change my mind. I know when you’re up there,” I said tapping my temple.
Alex gave me a sheepish look that said, ‘well it was worth a try’ or maybe it said, ‘shucks you caught me again.’
“Girl, are you completely sure about this?” Sobie didn’t like the idea any better than the vampires did.
“You said I was invited, you called me. If I leave now, I am taking the car and going home. You can walk, or fly, or whatever it is you do to get yourselves back. I won’t be used by you just because I have a car.”
Sobie gave me an approving nod, she had been playing devils advocate.
“Avery, just...stay with one of us at all times. If you are dead set on this we won’t stop you.” The way Scott said ‘dead set’ bothered me. He could have just said determined and not reminded me how dangerously I was living.
“Then we’re ready. So what’s the plan?” I might have been foolish and indignant, but I was going to see what happened just under the surface of my life. I was going to see the underworld.
“Scott you and Sobie go down first. Sit close but not too close to the clan. Scott you keep your back to them. Sobie will be watching it for you. Sobie…do something with your hair. Keep it in your face some, so you aren’t so obvious. Aave and I will follow down in a few minutes.” Mr. Take Charge was doing just that. Now that they knew they were stuck with me, they weren’t putting up a fight.
Sobie and Scott got up together then. Scott leaned toward me as he got up and kissed me. It was a soft lingering kiss, so delicate, I was afraid if I breathed too hard he would fall over. Scott sent one last unhappy look at me. He looked resigned. He couldn’t change my mind and he couldn’t really protect me. Watching Scott walk away, I stared at Sobie’s low backed dress shirt until they stepped through the doorway, into the back hall.
“Aave, you don’t have to be brave all the time. You are human, embrace that fact. It’s okay to be scared or angry, even if people are watching.” Alex said leaning close to me, his lips practically brushing my ear.
“I wasn’t raised to be weak. I am still a soldier at heart and I will take the danger with my war face on. I have no good reason to turn and run every time things get hard,” I said looking him right in the eyes. I wanted him to know I wouldn’t be dismissed and I wouldn’t lean on his shoulder and cry.
“Have it your way. It’s been long enough, let’s go,” he said, pulling me to my feet.
I reached down and finishing my drink and moving on to his. I needed that liquid courage. It was one thing to talk like a warrior; it was another to feel like one.
Alex let go of my hand and I followed him to the back door. We stepped into a dark bland hall. It had black walls with a stripe of red light on either side leading to the stairs. There were red lights in the bottom hall and I could see a restroom to either side, as I hit the bottom step. The stairs came straight down to the room ending at its center. Alex turned left at and walked to the wall behind the stairs.
I hesitated realizing how obvious I would be to the Rorys. I looked the same as I did the first night I met them. My hair was up, but it was still me. I turned to the restroom to the right of the stairs without saying anything to Alex. I took care of business and turned to the mirror to inspect myself. My hair looked good and my make up had stayed put. If it hadn’t, there was nothing I could have done about it. I left my purse under the seat in the car. It didn’t have the right make-up in it anyway. I considered my reflection thinking of how to hide myself and settled on pulling loose strands into my face. Better to have bangs of some kind, break up my familiar face a little at least. I emerged from the restroom feeling a little better about my disguise.
Alex was leaning against the stairs like a good date waiting for me. He took my arm without comment and led to me the back wall. I came up a little short here. The wall was completely blank, no buttons, no pictures and no door.
“Take a deep breath. We have to pass the barrier. It will feel strange but it’s completely normal.” He watched as I inhaled deeply and pulled me through.
It felt like water as I passed through. I could feel it caress my skin and flow around me and then I was dry in a larger room. I had my first look at the supernatural Silver Circle. The room was even larger than the upstairs. It was set up the same way but the colors were silver and reds. Not faint shiny reds, deep blood reds. I could see rafters above me and a silver band ran the upper reaches of the walls around us. Was that part of the spell binding? I glanced back at the door I had just passed through and I could see out into the hall, like a two way mirror. The silver band made up the top of the door frame and since I was close I could see words inscribed on it there.
We fit right in. There were lots of people, most of which looked human. Mostly. The music was filtered in from upstairs there was no DJ here. Instead the DJ platform had a strange buffet. There was a brunette woman on one end with little puncture marks and cuts running over her body and a blond man behind her who was also on tap. Beside them there were cakes and large hunks of raw meat. I even saw a large window behind the bar full of white rabbits. It made me think of the lobster tank at a fancy restaurant. I shuddered a little as a tall man walked past me for his table with the live animal held tightly in his hands. The man looked a little hairy and his eyes were yellow like dandelions. I could only wonder what he was.
Alex was holding my hand and leading me to the corner farthest from the door where the tables sat. I glanced around his shoulder and caught my first look at the Rorys since Mia’s. Cwen was in the same clothes from that first meeting I had with them. Eric was just as greasy as I remembered. He was wearing jeans again. They were more ragged than the last pair I had seen. His shirt looked just as old; it was gray with a skull on the front. He had no fashion sense. There were seven other vampires with him. I saw a man with red hair and a dense build, beside him a woman with blond hair with her back to me. There were two brunette women with full lips and tight eyes looking around the club. They were twins I realized. There was a black vampire who was a little on the soft side. He had a buzz cut and a bad attitude. He was talking fiercely to the vampires on either side of him. His companions were looking at him like he was an idiot. One had even rolled her eyes at him as he talked at the other.
I think Alex was trying to use his body to block me from their eyes. As we passed them and headed a little farther into the darkened corner I saw Clete. He was in brown slacks and his shirt was a dust color. Doug was of course wearing the same. They were men in uniform. Clete’s green eyes caught mine and he inclined his head in such a slight way I wouldn’t have even noticed him if I hadn’t been looking right at him. He was sitting with Doug but Doug wasn’t facing me.
Elle and Chad were sitting only one table away from the Rorys and I was suddenly nervous for them. It was a bold move since Eric knew Chad and had probably known him for years. The Rorys didn’t notice though. Clete and Doug were sitting at a small table while the rest of them shared a larger one. They were getting deep in a conversation I could barely make out. We sat at a small table in the corner, only a table away from where the Rorys were talking.
“Are you going to get anything?” Alex was looking at me for the first time since we had come down.
“Maybe a water, I don’t think I could force anything else down.”
“While you’re up could you get me a small glass of the brunette?” He was serious and handing me a few dollars. I just sat with my arms crossed looking at him. He leaned forward and quietly added, “I know it isn’t polite, but can you hear what they are saying?” He pointed through himself at the table of vampires absorbed in conversation. “I didn’t have any of Elle tonight either since we were coming here.”
I shook my head at him while I took the money and got up. That was way more than I needed to know about their relationship. Do all relationships with vampires work like that?
There was a bartender. He was awful looking. His dirt brown hair hung long and scraggly down his back and over his shoulders. His face was pocked and his bulbous nose was crooked. He smiled at me which only made things worse.
“Can I get water and a, a small glass of the brunette,” I said pointing with a shaking finger at the woman on the buffet.
“Sure thing miss. You want that warm or on ice?” He voice was high pitched for a man and it cracked as he spoke.
I figured Alex would probably like it warm since vampires, I assumed, preferred their blood fresh from the source and warm was close to it. “Warm please.” I wondered if I was turning green. The idea was making me feel a little woozy.
I watched as the man walked over and cut deep into the woman’s arm just above the elbow. She bent it so the blood would follow down her arm and into the glass. I was ready to fall over. My knees were buckling some already when a hand steadied me. I expected to turn and see Alex or Scott but was surprised to see Clete standing there. The bartender set the glasses down beside me as I threw the money on the bar top.
“I thank I will have me some of that little dark one too,” Clete was back to his southern ways. The bartender left again as Clete leaned onto the bar close to me, “Not the smartest thing Aave, showing up here with the Rorys around. I see you are keeping company with the Strange Clan.” He had dispensed with the accent while talking to me alone.
I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask. “What’s strange about them?”
“They don’t keep with their own kind. Most Clans are of a purist frame of mind. They don’t like to mix.”
I couldn’t help but wonder why creatures so old would be so petty.
“So are you with the tall one now?” He had a little light in his eyes and I was didn’t know where this conversation was going.
“No, I am not with anyone.”
“Didn’t look like it upstairs.” He said with a chuckle and a wink.
“That’s not any of your business. What did you mean the other night when you dropped me at my car, and why no accent?” I sounded irate as it came out. He looked like I had slapped him in the face with my words. The bartender came back with his blood and he tipped it back in one big swallow.
“Thank ya,” back to the accent with the bar keep around.
“Well ma’am, I would love to talk but I gotter get back ta work,” he jerked his head toward the Rory tables.
We stepped off, I was following behind him when he stopped and turned to me again. We were under one of the loud speakers that flooded the room with sound from the booth upstairs. He got close to me again.
“I will talk to you about this later, at your place,” I was about to choke, he knew where I lived! “Yes I know where you live. Look, get out of here while you can, before they realize you’re here. If they see you they will know something is going on and then they’ll look for your friends too. I will drop by later and explain myself some, and what I know of the Rory plan so far.” He stopped for a second to consider something, “I don’t know if I can come by tonight, you may have to wait for the information.” He turned then blocking me from the sight of his tables. I reached for his arm instantly, bumping him with my water glass and he turned back with a speed that startled me.
“Why did you glamour me the other night?”
“I needed your trust and had no other way to get it fast.” He was surprised I knew and more surprised that I had asked.
“Was it just when I met you, or were you influencing me all night? I need to know if I am your…friend because I want to be or if I am because you want me to be.” I was serious; I wanted to think of him as a friend even now with everything I knew.
“I want you to be my friend, yes but I wouldn’t force that on you or it wouldn’t be true. The glamour was only for a moment. Only long enough to get you to come with me. I didn’t know why Eric and Cwen wanted you and I couldn’t find out if you didn’t come with me. Here.” He pulled a small folded piece of paper from his pocket and pushed it into my hand behind the red glass. He turned now and left me standing under the speaker.
I walked back toward Alex a little dazed, my back to the Rory’s tables as I went. I needed to get the glass of red warm liquid out of my hands as fast as possible. It was all I could do, looking down into it, not to gag.
I sat across from Alex and slid his hot mess over. I took a large gulp of water, tucking the small square of paper into my tight sleeve as I sat the glass down. Whatever the note said it could wait. Alex was looking at me a little strangely.
“Why did he come over to you?”
I didn’t know he had been looking. I glanced around the room and saw Scott was watching me around Sobie’s shoulder from his corner. Everybody was so damn worried about me.
“That was Clete,” I was whispering now, but he was hearing me just fine. “He wants to talk to me when he can. Told me to get out of here.” I thought for a second longer,
“Hey what’s the bartender?”
“Oh, he’s a human.” I had trouble believing that but I took his word for it.
Alex leaned back into his chair and a new look crossed his face. He scooted his chair around the table toward me a little.
“They are talking about it now. They are looking for something.”
“I already-”
“Shhh, it’s hard enough to hear with the music. Cwen just asked a woman, ‘did you find anything at the hospital?’ ‘No, nothing was left behind.’ Eric’s asking someone something. It’s a human, a woman, young. ‘Hasn’t your magic pulled anything?’ He sounds angry.” Alex looked positively gleeful over the idea. “She says, ‘No there was nothing left there to tie the magic too.’ She is scared. I think she’s a witch.”
“Have they said anything about why they are looking for him yet?” I was whispering, trying to get the question in without interrupting what he was hearing.
“No. Eric is saying that the little witch is the reason they started all this. It was her information that began the search. She is begging him to give her more time. She wants to prove something, but she hasn’t said what. Cwen says they won’t turn her unless she proves her use. The witch says…” Alex looked at me and I think I saw fear in his eyes. I don’t think he was afraid for himself though. “Uh-oh.”
I looked around his shoulder and saw a finger pointing at me. They were only about ten feet away and I knew I was dead. I just had to be a tough girl and come down here. I recognized the owner of the finger. It was the girl from Mia’s and now I knew why she was there. She wanted to be one of them and she was using me to prove she had what it takes to be a Rory. When I counted I had assumed she was a vampire and now I knew she was just a wanna-be.
7
Avery and the Chase
Eric stood up so did Cwen and the rest of their table. I wanted to tell myself it was all okay and they couldn’t hurt me here, but the look on Cwen’s face told me they would figure out a way.
Suddenly something flew through the crowd of vampires. It was Elle without the wig. She jumped on the table and crouched like Spiderman or something and bounded up into the rafters. She was flipping through the group. She was distracting them. She was distracting me. Her feet were pressed between the rafters and she was literally twisting and spinning her body in ways I had never seen before. She was a trapeze artist without the trapeze. I saw her plant herself on the wall and spring back up into the rafters. Alex already had my hand and was pulling me through the room when Cwen charged between us. She couldn’t do violence here but she could disrupt our escape. I lost my grip on Alex’s hand. I was floating alone in the crowd of people in the room. Cwen was close, standing between Alex and I. I saw Elle drop from the ceiling like it wasn’t twelve feet high and swing between Cwen and Alex.
Someone scooped me up and was moving at high speed with me for the door. I was afraid until I looked up into Scott’s hazel eyes. His brow showed deep furrows of concern as we rushed from the scene. Chad was close behind pulling Sobie by the hand. Great billowing wings were following her.
I looked twice at that, we were almost out the main doors now and the wings were wrapped cape-like around Sobie. We didn’t bother to slow down as we burst from the bar. I heard the doors bang open behind us and I looked in time to see Alex and Elle. They were being followed but at a slower pace. I reached down into Scott’s front pocket as he carried me and pulled my keys out hitting the lock button as I went. I had never moved so fast. In one smooth movement Scott slid me into the drivers’ seat. Sobie’s wings were shrinking down even as I watched and she and Chad slid in seconds later. Sobie left the door hanging open for Elle and I reached across the seat to let Alex in as fast as I could. Scott hopped in the back hatch.
The Rory goons had slowed to a walk as they came out the door and came toward us. There were only two of them coming, but that was more than enough for me.
I was fumbling with the keys and Alex had to take them and turn them in the ignition for me. The first vampire was right in front of us. In my head lights I could see his red hair shining. He was only about 5’6 but he was built like a pit bull, short and powerfully stocky. I did the only thing I could I threw the Explorer into drive and clipped him as I sprang forward. I slowed down long enough to see him standing back up. His leg was obviously broken at the knee. Red just pushed it back into place and started to stagger toward the car again. The stagger was less pronounced with each step. I pulled onto the surface streets of Tacoma and saw him running behind us. The second running vampire was the soft black man I had seen downstairs. He was slower than Red, his own mass seemed to hold him back. I floored it. I ran a red light or two in the process. Red was still behind us and with the Friday night traffic there was nothing I could do about him catching up. The I-5 was close by and I hit it. I had been going about 40mph and pushed the car up to 80mph in a matter of seconds.
The Explorer roared to life underneath me. I could hear the hum and it was soothing me. I passed a little red mini-van on the right median. Alex was white knuckling the dash like that might make me slow down. I passed another car dangerously close on the passenger side. I was running for dear life. I stopped even looking for the men chasing us.
“Aave, I think we lost him. Let’s slow this thing down a little.” Alex was patting the dash and looking at me like I was off my rocker.
I looked into the rear-view mirror and saw he was right, the man was gone. I could also see Scott peeking over the back seat and Chad and Sobie looking like we were all going to die any minute. Elle just looked at me like I was a damn idiot. I had to mentally agree with her that I felt like one now. It says something about your driving when even the undead and supernatural are afraid to ride with you.
“What are you guys so worried about? I am way more likely to get killed like this than any of you.” Alex actually laughed at me. The tension in the car eased immediately. A deep hardy chuckle erupted out of him. The fear of the last half an hour came roiling out of my mouth. I couldn’t help but laugh, they were scared I was going to kill them and I was scared I was going to get killed for knowing them. It wasn’t funny, but adrenaline will do that to you.
I looked back in the mirror to see everyone else was laughing too. They were genuine laughs mostly. Scott’s was not as deep or rolling as Alex’s but it was nice and sent a little flutter through me. Sobie and Chad laughed about the same way. They had a full body laugh. They didn’t just laugh with their mouths, they laughed with their hands and their eyes too. Elle was laughing too but it was a stage laugh. It was canned and false and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like her much either but she had been the distracter that allowed us all to get out.
She was just one of those people that rub you wrong. It’s like nothing about her felt right. She was too important to herself. She wanted too much. She wanted the attention and the glory. Really if I thought about it, I could chalk her willingness to throw herself out there in front of the Rorys up to being nothing more than another attempt at being the center. It didn’t really matter why she had done it, or if I liked her though. She had saved my ass tonight.
I pulled into my garage at midnight. My strange guests and I headed into the house and spread ourselves out in the kitchen. Chad and Sobie climbed up and sat on my counter. Alex was at the head of my table again with Scott at the foot and Elle at the far side.
“What did you hear?” Alex turned and asked Elle.
“They talked to the witch a lot. She said she could find it. It shouldn’t be that hard. Eric wanted to know how long it would take to start, what he called, the Genesis. He didn’t explain that though.”
“He wants to start it soon. Eric said that if anyone found out the clan could be destroyed. I couldn’t figure out if it would be as a punishment or because of a battle over whatever it is. I don’t think they want Scott though. I don’t know why they attacked him either. Eric and Cwen never mentioned it.” Chad had leaned forward onto his hand as he said it. He was very much The Thinker.
“Well I guess that means you were off the hook with them till tonight,” I was looking at Scott like he was a naughty child. He had dragged me out and maybe put us all in danger without considering whether the issue was dead or not.
“We had to be sure though. We still don’t know what they actually want though.” Alex was looking at me like I was the answer.
“Hey, we know it’s not me. I have already been to see them and come back. I think if it had been us they wouldn’t have given up the chase tonight.”
“Did Clete say anything that might help?”
I leaned against the wall and thought about it. “No but he knows where I live.” Everyone turned to look at me, “He was blocking me from them tonight. He warned me to leave. I would have walked out but they started talking and I wanted to know what they said. Besides, if he wasn’t on my side as he has indicated so far, he would have led them here already. They may not be able to come in, but after being in that club tonight, I don’t think that would stop them from finding the help they’d need to get us out.”
I was exhausted and everything I had seen and heard was weighing on me. I slid down the wall to the floor.
“Tell me about the Rorys, maybe there is some clue to Genesis in their past.” I was tired but there was plenty more to learn. It seemed like I had been tired every minute since I had met Scott and his freaky friends.
Alex gave me a hard look. Scott ignored it and began the story.
“Eric was made in 1050. He is very old and set in his ways. He is from Denmark and was turned by chance. In those days being turned was almost like arranging a marriage. People were chosen in advance after the vampire who was to turn them had time to evaluate the person. Eric was in a sea battle of some kind. He exhausted himself swimming from his sinking ship and washed up on shore. The vampire who made him was exiled from his clan and he was lonely and weak from lack of nutrition.” Scott was telling me all this like it was a history lesson. Something he had been told and was repeating in the same way.
“Why was the vampire exiled?”
“He tried to make a child. It is forbidden to turn someone too young to fend for themselves. The child would have been strong but it’s mind would never progress. It would never grow. It wouldn’t be able to adapt and survive, always dependant on another for support.” Alex couldn’t stop the story so he had decided to fill the gaps.
“So vampires don’t feed on children either?”
“It depends on the vampire. Some like the taste of a child’s blood, but they aren’t supposed to make them.” Chad looked at me for a minute after he answered.
I began to wonder if Audra was drained somewhere.
“What about Cwen, is she as old?”
Elle answered this time, surprising me and as far as I could tell everyone in the room.
“I heard she was born in 1649 in London. Vamps went to London in 1654, I think it was. Plague was spreading and the bodies were starting to pile up. The vamps of the day were using the illness as an opportunity to eat their fill. From what I have been told, maybe a third of the deaths there were actually from them. Cwenhild Bishop was made by Eric in 1665. They have parted ways a few times but Cwenhild always comes back to him. They left London a year later when it began to burn in the Great Fire. Anybody else know anything about her?” Elle looked happy that she had gotten her input. There was something else in her eyes too though.
“She lived on the streets when she was alive. It made her hard. She is very intelligent and ruthless. I remember when she killed her child,” I looked at Chad with horror on my face. “Not her human child, her vampire child. His name was…Peter I think it was. He had been her brother in life. He was a few years older. She had turned him after he was burned some in the fire. He was horribly scared. Peter had taken a liking about, 40 years ago now I guess it’s been. He took a liking to a human that Cwen wanted. She killed him for it.” I couldn’t stop staring at Chad. To hear she would kill her own brother, her…clan child? I was appalled. Ruthless didn’t cut it when describing Cwen.
“That’s why she’s the number two in the Clan. There are others in the Clan that’re older. The twins are almost as old as Eric but they won’t take that from her. They won’t even try because to do so might be the end of them. They might end up totally dead if they went against her,” said Sobie. She was trying to think of what else she might know but was at a loss.
“The twins are African, Hasana and Ata. They were made a few years after Eric by the last Clan leader. They don’t talk about it so their story is a bit vague.” Alex had passed a little more information which was nice. I was the child in the room and everyone was building the bedtime story.
“Caedmon is the red head that chased us. He was from Ireland he is Cwen’s child. She tends to make warriors. They picked up the Rory name then.” I gave Scott a dumbfounded stare. “Just like we choose our names we can change them as we move about.”
There was a knock at the door and we all jumped. We all went on high alert, the three vampires dropping their fangs. I crossed the room in two steps and pulled the silver rod from the drawer. Sobie pulled a small knife from somewhere and Elle was crouched in a position to pounce. I wasn’t sure what jumping on someone would do, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
I walked to the door by myself, the freaky friends positioned at the kitchen door and the hall in case all hell broke loose on me when I opened it. I had taken off the heels I wore to the club so I had to stand on tip-toe again to see out. To my relief it was Clete.
He was still wearing the brown clothes from the club and he looked tired.
“Come in.” I said gesturing for him to enter. I might have worried about having him in the house if not for the silver rod behind my back and re-enforcements waiting around every corner.
“I like the dress. Did you wear it for me?” His eyebrows bounced on his forehead as he said it and I knew he was both picking on me and flirting with me.
“Now Clete, we are just friends.” I batted my eyelashes in the same exaggerated way he had done his brows.
“Well shucks Miss Aave, a boy can hope for more right?”
“Hope all you want, but you won’t fool me by calling yourself a boy. You are definitely not a boy.” I was thinking vampire but realized once it was out that it could be taken another way.
Clete walked over to me and looked right into my eyes. I felt a flutter in my head and a thought popped in. I wasn’t on my guard but since it was just a thought and Clete hadn’t forced me to say anything I thought it was okay.
“You know I would do things to you that can’t even be mentioned. I know tricks that would keep you from ever dating another human again. I would ruin you for all other men if you would let me.”
He was looking at me completely sincerely. I could feel the glamour pull out. I was seriously intrigued by his offer. But I wasn’t going to take it. Obviously, I am not that kind of girl. I liked him, but I still couldn’t be sure of him.
I realized Scott had stepped out of the hall and I wondered if somehow he had heard what Clete just told me. The look on his face said he did, but it could have just been the flirting banter we had gone through. Scott couldn’t have seen our faces and might have thought it was serious.
“Uh…let’s all go back to the kitchen.” I was nervous, too many men suddenly paying too much attention. It was the perfect example of too much of a good thing.
We all settled back into our places, with the exception of Clete since he was the new one to the group. Clete stood right beside me leaning against the wall.
“Well, what do you have for us?” Alex was taking charge again. That was okay with me for now, but I was going to eventually have to tell him to chill out with that. This wasn’t his house even if he could come in.
“I think you should know why I am here since your…” he looked around the room at the assembled beings, “clan area and the Rorys overlap some.”
We were all looking at him, but he was drawing it out now.
“I am a scout for the Blut Clan from Atlanta. That’s part of why I choose that accent.” He was looking down at me as he said this. “I came to look over the area, gather information on the local vampires and Supernaturals and then to report back. I started hearing about the Rory Clan doing…unusual activities and I started to get suspicious. I sent a report and chose to stay here and find out what they were doing. I couldn’t bring my Clan here if the Rorys wouldn’t give it up and I couldn’t send them to Georgia if they were going to destroy the other Clans around them. That seems like what they have done here. I managed to meet Doug and he got me into the Clan so that I’d have the inside edge.”
“I had noticed the area seemed to be clearing out. It’s part of the reason we are a mixed Clan. We have found since we came together that there is certain strength in this. We play off of each other well and where one is weak another is strong. Have you found out the Rory’s plan? What is Genesis?” Alex stood up and stretched as he finished. A strip of muscular abdomen showed between his pants and shirt. I mentally picked my tongue up off the floor.
“Not yet. They don’t trust me and usually send me on errands. That’s how I met Aave.” Clete nodded toward me, “They sent me for her. Whatever it is they are searching for they seem to think it has to do with the two of you. It is going to be worse after tonight. Seeing you both there seems to have re-enforced the idea to them.”
He was pointing out both to the left and right. He was pointing at me and at Scott. Besides having met, I couldn’t think of anything we had in common that would cause us to be targets.
I looked at the microwave, it was 3:55 in the morning and I was beginning to hope they would all leave soon. “Is there anything else you can think of Clete?”
“Not right now, I’ll look into it some more and let you know.”
“Okay, I am exhausted. Please feel free to leave…like as soon as possible. I have been through a little more today than my brain can handle.”
Scott and Alex both looked like they had something to say. Clete was already heading for the door. I went to see him out. I didn’t feel like getting some man speech from the vampires in my kitchen.
“Aave, you be careful. They are going to get you killed at the rate they’re going.” Clete leaned down and gave me a kiss on the forehead and left.
Alex, Chad, and Sobie walked out of the kitchen now and stopped in front of me.
“Elle wants to stay till it’s light out to make sure you don’t have any…troublesome guests later,” said Sobie hugging me. It was a little strange for me. I didn’t know her very well, but after tonight I was feeling a bit of a bond; like soldiers in battle or something.
Alex grabbed one of my hands, “Elle is plenty capable, rest easy.” He gave my hand a little squeeze and he stepped out after Sobie.
“Thanks for the ride.” That was it from Chad. He didn’t strike me as much of a talker.
I walked back into the kitchen to see my last guests. I didn’t have the fight left in me to get rid of Elle. “There are sheets in the closet in the hall, get what you need. You can park it on my couch tonight.” Elle didn’t say anything, but I could tell she wasn’t pleased about the couch as she left the room. I wasn’t giving her my bed though. The other bed in the house wasn’t mine to offer.
“Avery, I wanted to go out with you tonight, other things just got in the way of it. I gave you my number because I hoped you would call. I want you… I want to tell you everything. Ever since I saw you in that hospital I have wanted to be close to you.” I lost all my footing and flopped into a chair.
“I couldn’t stand seeing you with Alex and you could tell.”
Scott was kneeling in front of me. I was in shock. He had seemed so blank to me. He hid everything and now because he saw other’s wanted me, he did too. I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t know what I should say. I just stared at him.
“I know you have to think about it, just consider it.” Scott leaned into me and laid a firm kiss on my lips. It wasn’t the fragile thing he had given me earlier, and it wasn’t the scorcher Alex had planted, it was more. It was just right, not too much, not too little. He caressed my mouth with his own, and then he was gone.
“Why did it take him so long?” | |
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