by Chloe Garner
Tina turned her head, remembering that she wouldn’t be able to hear him.
“Yeah,” she said after a pause.
“You know that you need to sleep again, now,” Colette said. “Probably around now.”
Tina nodded again, watching with resignation as Colette lowered the blinds again. They’d been locked, at one point, but Tell had unlocked them for her. Even an apartment as nice as this one could cause cabin fever, especially if you spent most of your time alone.
Hunter was actually the first to come down, and Colette passed him on her way upstairs.
“Morning,” she said.
“Night,” he answered, eyes on Tina.
He came to sit across from her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
It hurt.
That was the simple truth of it.
It hurt like someone winding thread around her heart, tighter and tighter.
“Human,” she said after a moment.
He nodded.
“I’m happy for you.”
She smiled, not feeling anything resembling happy.
The pizza.
The sun.
Her own heartbeat.
The warmth of her flesh.
These things.
“I couldn’t marry you because we don’t work,” she said. “But I can’t even be with you as a human. I could have before. Just take the happy for a few years while it lasted, but now? I know. I know how you feel toward me. And I can’t do that, knowing.”
“You know that I love you,” he said. “Truly.”
She nodded.
“I do. That’s part of why it’s so hard. But as equals? We were really good. I can’t be something less. I can’t.”
“I know,” he answered. “It’s part of why you.”
She looked away, blinking.
Tears.
She could cry as a vampire, but it was so much more intensity. The tears came easily now.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“The doctor, though?” he said, an attempt at levity. “Really?”
She looked at him again, blinking.
“What?”
“You can do better than that nerd,” he said. “I’m telling you.”
She gave him a broken smile.
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t. But he wouldn’t have any interest in me as a human, and he needs to walk away from this life once he gets his license. I don’t want to do this to him.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, then he drew a sharp breath.
“Well, I guess I need to start making arrangements, then, don’t I?”
“What does that mean?” Tina asked, and he looked at her, his brave smile faltering for just a moment.
“You’re trapped here with me,” he said. “As a vampire, you were at risk. As a human, you’re a walking marshmallow. I… I need to go. Just hanging out here and hoping that someone thinks of something…” He shook his head. “I won’t trap you here with me. Not as a mortal.”
“Not yet,” Tina said.
He raised his eyebrows, and she rubbed her arms.
“The Order had a technology that made people turn from vampire to human temporarily. The Null turns vampires to human temporarily. Nothing has ever turned a vampire to human permanently. We have to wait. And until then, I’m stuck here either way. I don’t want anyone to know that I’m working on a cure. When I make my reveal as cured, it will be with the story that we bought it.”
He crossed his arms.
“How long constitutes permanent?” he asked.
“Four weeks?” Tina asked.
“You broke up with me and then told me that I’m trapped with you for a month?” Hunter asked. “You’re killing me, babe.”
“Don’t know any other way to be,” Tina admitted. “I’m sorry.”
The smile he gave her was more honest, and he nodded.
“I know. We need to get a pair of fountains in here tonight.”
“I’m getting Vince to stock the pantry back up,” Tina answered. “Colette is a health freak, and I hardly eat anything she’s got in there.”
He smiled, reaching across to touch the backs of her fingers with his fingertips, then looked over at Tell. Tina hadn’t yet noticed that Tell was there.
“Everything normal?” Tell asked, and Tina nodded.
“Yeah. Back to normal.”
Days.
She got up and sat with Colette, reading or working on her computer, eating three meals each day.
She sat up late with Hunter and Tell, watching movies or playing video games. Tell was off of cases for the time, unless he could do them from the apartment, and focused all of his energy outside of the penthouse on keeping tabs on the Order or hunting Kaija.
Colette moved out two weeks later, and while Tina was concerned that the woman was taking on more risk than she should have, Tell made the argument that it was Colette’s risk to take.
They couldn’t all just camp out in the penthouse forever.
So then it was just the three of them.
Tina got up in the early evening and sat with the windows open for a couple of hours, then she would close them again and spend the nights with the guys, though Hunter spent a significant fraction of his nights working, still.
Tina remained human.
And she remained human.
And she remained human.
Four weeks passed.
Her heart beat.
She ate food.
She slept.
She dreamed.
And she was very happy with all of it.
Except.
Hunter had slept on the couches for the two weeks that Colette had remained, and then he had moved back into the other guest bedroom.
They were awkward around each other, most of the time, which was bad enough, but it was worse when they were familiar and easy.
It was so easy.
Watching a movie and eating popcorn, she could have gone to lay across the couch in front of him, his arm across her hips, and it would have been right.
There was a timer, and when it went off…
She didn’t want to think about him leaving.
They talked very little about important things. All three of them were dancing around what was going to happen next unless something changed.
And so it was, early in the evening right around the one month mark that Tina had been human again, she arranged for Anton to come over.
He was only in town for a couple of days, and she knew that he’d rearranged his schedule to make it happen at all, but she’d promised him that this would be worth it to him.
Hunter appeared over the railing as the elevator doors opened, and he tipped his head to the side in quasi-mock dismay.
“Really?” he asked. “That guy?”
“Come on in,” Tina said to Anton, motioning him to come join her on a couch.
“You’re…” he said, and she nodded.
“I am.”
Tina settled in as Hunter and Tell came downstairs and Anton tucked his bag against the side of a couch and sat down.
“You on a Nag trip?” Anton asked. She watched as Tell sat, meeting his eye. He was curious, but patient. Hunter sat next to her, leaving a big gap between them.
“I’m not,” Tina said. “I have a problem, a lot of problems, actually, and I think that you’re the only person I trust enough with the qualifications to solve them.”
Anton glanced at Hunter with a bit of a defiant expression - they’d never tolerated each other at all - then folded his arms and leaned back against the couch.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“I’ve created a cure for vampirism,” Tina said.
There was a long silence.
“That’s not possible,” Anton said.
She spread her arms.
“You can believe me or not, but you can see as clearly as you like that I’m human. You can ask either of them anything you like about it
, except what I did to do it.”
“All right,” Anton said slowly. “Let’s say I just take you at your word. What has that got to do with me?”
“The life of a vampire is hard, without money,” Tina said. “I’ve been living at Tell’s pleasure for too long, and I’m ready to make my own fortune.”
“You want to sell it,” Anton said flatly.
“I do,” Tina said. “But I need a fence to keep my name from getting attached to it. And if I recall correctly, you refused to tell me anything about what you did, save that people would kill you if they knew exactly where you were going to be, far enough in advance.”
“That’s true,” Anton said. “You don’t want them to know who you are because they’ll kill you for it.”
“Precisely,” Tina said with a smile. “You won’t know how to create it, nor will you deliver the raw product to anyone. It’s delivered via fountain, so I will give you both the dose and the antidote - the dose stands some reasonable chance of killing the fountain, so they need both - and you will deliver them with the dose already administered. They feed, and then the fountain returns to you for the antidote. The vampire becomes human again.”
Anton rolled his jaw to the side, nodding slowly.
“It would be hard to weaponize that,” he said, and she nodded.
“I would require that the vampire who contracts the service is also the one who uses it, unless the one who is going to use it is fully involved and informed of the process. I don’t mind a wealthier or older vampire paying to cure one that has regretted turning, for example. But no sending Trojan fountains to unsuspecting third parties.”
“Sounds like a lot to manage,” Anton said, and Tina nodded.
“I believe in you,” she said. “And I think that the price you’ll be able to command will make it worth your while.”
“I’d set my own price and take thirty percent,” Anton said, and Tina shrugged.
“I’d haggle to prove that I know better, but that’s fair and I’ll take it. There’s one additional condition, though.”
He raised an eyebrow and Tina looked at Hunter.
“Hunter has gotten himself into some trouble with a vampiress named Sophie. You know her?”
“I do,” Anton said.
“I want you to barter with her. I’m willing to trade up to four cures to her in exchange for her dropping the bounty she’s put on Hunter. The hard part of this is going to be keeping away from her who is making the offer. I would suggest that you imply strongly that it’s Ginger. It’s very important that she not know it’s me.”
Anton snorted.
“And what are you going to pay me for that?” he asked.
“The business,” Tina said.
“No,” he answered. “You don’t know anyone else in my line of work that you could trust. We… I’m not going to sell your name, and we both know that.”
“I’ll pay you the bounty straight up,” Tell said.
“No,” Hunter muttered. “I will. Don’t embarrass me.”
Anton nodded.
“That’s more like it. How long is it going to fill demand? I could see this blowing up huge, in certain populations.”
“I don’t want vampirism to be a tourist economy,” Tina said. “You keep the price high enough that this is only a solution for the very rich and the very needy, not over-indulged frat kids looking for a new extreme sport.”
He grinned.
“There’s certainly a market, there. Okay. Okay. I can… I can agree to that. I don’t want to be the cure concierge, anyway.”
“I can get you as much as you want basically as fast as you want,” Tina said. “But I don’t anticipate that it’ll be more than a couple dozen a year, after the first year or two.”
“We’ll see,” Anton said. “How long have you been human?”
“A month,” Tina said. “It’s my understanding that no other method of generating human characteristics will last longer than two weeks.”
“Still,” he said. “It’s risky. You’re promising cure, here.”
“You can sell it as a trial product for a bit if you want,” Tina said, looking at Hunter. “But I’m not staying human. It’s too risky for me to be the first success. No one knows that I’ve been human, other than Colette, and I think she’s safe. I’m going back.”
“What?” Hunter asked, and she nodded.
“This is the path,” she said. “If Sophie finds out that I’ve been human, or I am human, she might come after me to hurt you. But if she thinks she’s dealing with Ginger? She’s not going to cross Ginger over you making a mess of her dance.”
“That’s true,” Tell muttered.
“Being a vampire sucks without money, so I’m going to be rich. Independently wealthy. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, this month, and I’m going to choose being a rich vampire with you over being a broke human on my own.”
“It took you a month to work that out?” Anton asked, and she looked back at him. He smiled. “Look, if you found what you want, I’m happy for you.”
“You said it yourself, we don’t work,” Hunter said. “You’d give up your shot at being human for this?”
She snorted.
“Things don’t work out with you, I can always wait a couple of years and then say that Tell bought me a cure as a gift. No. Um. I think that this is a one-time decision, really. It’s radioactive, the knowledge that I’ve got right now, and either I need to only use it for myself once and not ever talk about it, or I need to never touch it and be a vampire… and just be a vampire. And it still sucks, but so does being a human.”
“What about your devoted doctor?” Hunter asked.
“What about him?” Tina asked. “He’ll grow up, he’ll get over it, and he’ll move on.”
“You could walk away,” Hunter said quietly. “We both know… we all know just how into you he is. You could go… do the human thing. He would make you happy.”
Tina reached up to take his jaw in her hand, pulling his chin down toward his chest and looking him in the eye.
“You idiot,” she said. “Will you take victory? Or are you going to try to talk me out of it?”
“I’ll take it,” Tell said, standing. “You have a standard contract that your clients sign?”
“I do,” Anton said. “I’ll put together the details and send a draft to you by courier yet tonight. If you can sign it by dawn, I might be able to get in to see Sophie by tomorrow night.”
“Done,” Tell said, shaking Anton’s hand. Tina was still watching Hunter, whose eyes hadn’t moved from her face.
“She’s going to take your deal,” he said. “You know that. And she’s going to use it for tourism for rich people.”
“Very rich people,” Tina said. “And they can take their own chances. You tell them that coming back is hard, and there aren’t any guarantees that it won’t kill them.”
“How hard?” Anton asked.
“Same as any other way,” Tell said. “There are fatalities. Sophie knows, but you should remind her. And everyone else.”
Tina was still looking Hunter in the eye, though she let her hand drop from his jaw, now.
“You know me,” he said. “You know I’m terrible at this.”
She reached up to touch the sapphire hanging around her neck and she nodded.
“I know.” She paused, sucking on her lower lip for a moment. “But this is the only way to know.”
He nodded slowly, not taking his eyes away. Standing, Tina shook hands with Anton, Hunter’s face following her and Tina unable to look away.
And then the switch happened.
If she looked away, if she blinked, he was going to be wrapped around her. He was going to come for her.
She smiled, hypnotized.
His voice in her head.
What if I told you I want to drain you to your toes and then fill you back up on my own blood?
If she blinked.
“You and Tell can work out the detail
s,” Tina said, swallowing. Giddy. She was grinning now. “I have another obligation.”
Hunter slid to the edge of the couch, his weight poised over his toes. She held up a finger.
“Once,” she said. “Exactly once.”
He nodded slowly, predatory.
She blinked.
THE END
Hooligans
There's a scratching noise in the walls...
...a man with a forked tongue sitting in the living room...
...and the whispering always stops the moment Lizzie enters the room.
Robbie has struggled with hallucinations and paranoia his whole life. It didn't seem like there was anything Lizzie or anyone else could do for him.
Then he met Lara, and everything changed. Robbie got healthy. He got happy. Lizzie got her brother back.
Now Lara has died, and Lizzie is determined to figure out what it was that Lara did to help him, to keep Robbie from slipping back into his old life.
The problem is that it's looking like Robbie's delusions might have been real, all along...
You aren't going to want to miss this one, because there's no going back after you've seen what's on the other side.
Get it now.
More Fiction by Chloe Garner
Anadidd’na Universe
-Rangers
-Shaman
-Psychic
-Warrior
-Dragonsword
-Child
-Gorgon
-Gone to Ground
-Civil War
-Book of Carter
-Surviving Magic
-Unveiling Magic
-Real Magic
-Gypsy Becca: Death of a Gypsy Queen
-Gypsy Dawn: Life of a Gypsy Queen
-Gypsy Bella: Legacy of a Gypsy Queen
Other Urban Fantasy
-Hooligans
Science Fiction
-Portal Jumpers
-Portal Jumpers II: House of Midas
-Portal Jumpers III: Battle of Earth
Space Western
-Sarah Todd
-Sarah Todd: Rising Waters
-Sarah Todd: Clash of Mountains
About the Author
