by Al K. Line
I had absolutely no idea what to do. So I went home.
So Strange
Our new place was very different to the last. More impressive, with a large double-bay front, a very cool ancient, battered wooden door that would make any dwarf jealous, chimneys twisted like a witch's finger, clematis and wisteria already scrambling over the dull stone.
The grounds were accessed by a large gate we never closed, as who needed the hassle, and a gravel drive headed straight up to a parking area lined with trees still in their infancy as we'd planted them just weeks after we moved in. We'd kept it lawned at the front, had begun to convert the rear to vegetable gardens and even a small orchard, but there was much to do.
I hardly glanced at the lawn as I drove down the drive and parked. A security light clicked on as I approached, bathing the front of the building and the drive in stark white light, exposing the damp grass. A light fog drifted as the ground cooled and the humidity from the surrounding forest swept through the clearing.
Paranoid, and for good reason, I retrieved the gun from where I'd put it in the passenger-side foot well, and unwrapped it from the blanket. I got out, grabbed a few bags, making sure to pick up the one including everyone's phones, and marched up to the front door. How weird to carry a weapon. I was usually the weapon, and I wondered why I took comfort from this cold lump of metal. Still, I gripped it tight, sorted out the keys, let myself in, closed the door quickly, and leaned against the wood as I breathed deeply.
The house was quiet, and empty, and there hadn't been a single day at this time of the evening when it had been like this. Before we left, I would have been getting Kane ready for bed, changing his nappy, giving him a bath, or putting on his night clothes. Mithnite would be grumbling about being hungry, Faz would be either working or joining me helping with Kane, and noise would fill our home.
Now it was silent. And I did not like it one bit.
I wanted my boys back. I wanted to hear laughter and be thinking about bedtime stories. Could I still read to Kane or was he past that already? What about his room? His toys? He didn't even have a bed to sleep in. The nursery was full of baby things. He was a teenager!
My legs went from under me and I slumped to the quarry tiles, not even feeling the cold. All those years, watching him develop, they'd been taken from me, stolen by the doppels for their own sick reasons. They'd done this, they'd robbed me of so much living, so many years, and I could never get them back. Ever.
I was gonna fucking kill them.
Emptiness
I was in a dark place. Both literally and physically.
Lost. Alone. Cold. And afraid.
I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who to trust. I didn't even trust myself.
Look what I'd done to my boy. I'd ruined him in the space of a few months.
"Get a grip, Kate," I whispered into the gloom. "Didn't he just tell you how much he loves being alive? How he feels amazing and is happy to be here? So quit your bitching and get busy."
Not exactly feeling better, but no worse either, I heaved my sorry ass, it was sorry because it was freezing on the quarry tiles, up and flicked on the lights for each room as I passed. In the kitchen I ate what was still fresh in the fridge, and drank coffee. Then I formulated a plan, decided said plan was stupid and would never work, so began again.
Several hours and many cups of coffee later, I got up, washed the dishes, took a shower, set my alarm clock for two hours time, then fell back, naked, onto the bed and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
When I awoke it was just after midnight, so the room was pitch black. The countryside takes some getting used to as there's no ambient light, no streetlights or cars going past, nothing in the distance lighting up the night sky. All is darkness. All is emptiness.
The house groaned as it settled into its slumber, and I let my hearing expand until it filled the house. I could hear the hobs talking in their fast, strange language, no doubt cleaning up any mess I'd left behind. I was glad I'd put warm milk out for them, even if it was UHT, pleased they'd decided to follow us to the new house, and it made me smile. What a weird, wonderful, dangerous place the Hidden world was.
As I sat up and shivered, welcoming the cold and emptiness, my nakedness and the feel of the new bedding against my pale skin, I smiled.
Who was I kidding? I wouldn't change this for my old life. I'd never go back, even given the chance.
Light on, I dressed, refusing to look closely at the marks still on my flesh from the rope burns, and went downstairs. More coffee, more food, what there was, and with a fresh head, there was more scheming and plotting too.
Mind made up, as many decisions made as were in my power to make actionable, I shouted goodbye to the hobs, called to the emptiness that I may be late coming home in the morning but I'd make it up to them once all this nonsense was over and we were settled back here as a family again, and with a lot of muffled grumbling from the tiny helpers in the shadows, I closed the door and stepped out into the frigid night air.
This was my time, when the vampire came alive. I felt the stirrings of my kind throughout the city, felt them concentrated in one place, Vampire HQ, and as sick as they made me feel, I reached out for them anyway. For their cold, uncaring welcome, the disdain, the downright hostility from many, but they were my kind and I needed the comfort, even if it was just so I knew I wasn't totally alone.
Then I got in the car and I drove back into the city.
I had business to attend to, and I wouldn't be back until it was finished with.
Home to Daddy
For my sins, and trust me, they'd escalated over the last few years, I went to the only place I knew I would be safe. Vampire HQ. It may sound strange, but what safer place when the Hidden Head, the top enforcer, and the deadliest shifter in the city if not the country have been taken by doppels than the heart of vampire territory?
At least there I'd know what was what. Namely, that everyone was a freak and couldn't care less about me as an individual, but would go seriously medieval nasty on anyone or anything that dared even try to hurt one of their own. This is the true dichotomy of the vampire. Most hate each other, not as much as humans, but they have no compassion for their own, would secretly laugh and enjoy the hurt inflicted on other vamps, but it was the principle that mattered. You don't fuck with us. Ever.
So I went to see Oskari.
He was like the father I never had, just not in a good way. My dad was a joke. A lazy, cold, mean, apathetic creature. Oskari was none of those things. He had ambition, was very proactive, and although about as emotional as a brick when it came to love and affection, he was full of other kinds of emotion. Namely, anger and a pathological expectation of respect for his position, his authority, and his sheer vampireness.
HQ was teeming with activity. Everyone was rushing this way and that, the patrols with the vampire Dobermans were moving with intent, more vigilant than usual, cars came and went as I drove through the grounds after waiting an interminable time at the gates to get given the all clear, and as I pulled up to the house things seemed to be bordering on manic.
Without thinking, I grabbed the gun, slung it over my shoulder, and got out of the car.
I didn't stop to ask questions, went straight where I'd been told by the guard. Into the dining room where I usually met Oskari now.
I was ushered in and the door was closed gently behind me by a mean aide I disliked in the extreme—he always reminded me of a vulture with his thin hair and sharp beak of a nose. Plus the talons, a favorite of the elders.
Expecting him to be eating, and maybe offered a seat, I was surprised to find Oskari standing at the head of the empty, polished table. Crossing the floor made me edgy; my heels clicked loudly on the dark wood. The pictures of his ancestors that lined the walls all seemed to follow me with their disapproving eyes, and I was glad to reach him.
"Oskari, I—"
Oskari's head was bowed as if in thought, his long white hair hanging over
his features, but I caught a glimpse of incredible anger as he raised his head then moved faster than I'd believed possible, even for a vampire.
He was behind me, and he pinned my arm up my back, making my shoulder scream, smashed my head so hard into the table that my skull cracked and so did the table, then hissed in my ear, "You really screwed up."
Oskari slammed my head down again, then yanked on my arm and twisted my forearm until the wrist snapped. I screamed as he pounded the broken arm onto the table beside my head, but that didn't satisfy him. He chopped down onto my forearm and pain lanced up as the radius, or ulna, I'm never sure which is which, split like it had been hit with an axe.
"I don't like guns," he hissed as he ripped the machine gun from my shoulder. Then things got really dicey.
As I said, he's like a father to me.
A Deep Hurt
Oskari released me, leaving my head stuck to the table by blood. I watched him side-on from my awkward position as he stepped away, disappeared for a moment, then came back into my line of vision. He smoothed down his black silk shirt, adjusted the cuffs, ran his slender hands through his hair, then put a bloodied finger to his mouth and licked delicately.
"You taste of betrayal," he said, voice so flat, so cold, just like his eyes, that it felt like the worst kind of blow. Not that I wasn't hurting from the damage, but it was as if he'd already dismissed me from his mind, like I was no longer of any importance whatsoever to him. Ancient history, now just a mess to be cleaned up.
"I… I don't understand," I mumbled, finding it hard to speak with my face glued to the table and the fiery lances of pain shooting through my arm and head. I grunted and pushed with my legs to get unstuck, and as I did so the table finally caved in. I collapsed on top of it; blood ran along the wood and dripped onto the expensive Persian rug.
"Don't lie to me," snarled Oskari. "You have betrayed me. Your son is vampire, you made him vampire."
"No, that's not what happened. He made himself vampire, he forced me to, to protect me. To protect himself. He chose."
"Liar!" Oskari hissed like a snake, his eyes dead and predatory. "There were plans, there were things that had to be done first. He should not be vampire. Not now, not yet. You have betrayed us all, ruined our future. All of us are in danger now, all of us are in peril. This is your doing."
I couldn't think straight through the pain. What was he talking about? I took a moment, lying there in a mangled heap on the floor, to focus on the magic and let it surge. It shunted so hard into my arm and head that my muscles spasmed. I screamed as I rolled sideways onto the rug. My arm was locked solid as the wrist snapped back into position. Compounding the pain, the broken bone in my forearm dove under the skin and wriggled about until it found the sweet spot while crazy strong magical forces burrowed through the already reconfiguring nerves until I managed to control the flow and make it smooth and steady.
My head buzzed as tiny fractures healed and burst capillaries and blood vessels were cauterized then connected together again, giving me a blinding headache that left me almost unconscious. But I wouldn't lose it now, had to remain alert, as this was far from over.
This entire episode took but several seconds, so by the time I'd finished hitting the ground and rolling away from the table my bones were already repairing. My heart remained broken though.
I should have known better. I did know better. Oskari had no love for me. Sure, I was valuable to him, a strong, strange vampire that had grown to immense power and status over the years. From a scared, reticent woman to something unique, and with Kane I was probably the most valuable piece of meat in the country, maybe the world.
He had me. He had plans. He wanted to use me.
Well, I was over being used. I put a stop to that years ago. He wanted to use my son, he wanted to make him vampire but on his terms, when he was ready.
Thoughts flashed through my mind as I finished my roll. He wanted to manipulate Kane, to turn him into something dark and dangerous, to use him to fight for his own ends and that of the vampires. But there was more. Something else. Something I hadn't even considered.
I sprang, cat-like, to my feet, refusing to be a victim, refusing to be treated like this.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?" I spat, knowing I'd been warned about ever talking to Oskari this way.
"I'm your Head. I own you."
"Nobody owns me. Not you, not Faz, not anyone. You think I'm scared? Maybe, but that doesn't mean you can abuse me. I've had abusers in the past, never again. You want to use my son, you want to turn him into something despicable, something cold and uncaring like you? I won't allow it." I put my hands on my hips and stared down the most powerful vampire in the country, refusing to look away.
Oskari laughed. "Haha. You are such a simple creature. You have no concept of the pain I can inflict on you. But you will find out. I will have the boy. It's not too late to salvage this mess you have made. You let him become vampire before his time, before he was ready. Before I was ready. Still, I may be able to show him the way, teach him."
"You're scared of him," I said, suddenly understanding exactly why Oskari was so incensed. "You're afraid of my son. You didn't want him turned until you'd filled his head with your crap so he wouldn't be a threat to you. You. Are. Scared."
Oskari didn't flinch, but I saw him swallow hard, saw the slight tic at his cheek, and I knew I was right. He was scared because he knew the power Kane would have, did have, and knew that given time Kane would threaten his position. More, threaten the entire vampire way of life, the vampires themselves. Why? Because he was my son and I would rather die than let him ever become cold like the others, like Oskari. I would instill virtue and understanding in him from my own somewhat warped perspective. But he would always have love and compassion, never look at humans as cattle, or in any way inferior.
"You wanted to take him from me and use him for your own gain. To become like you but under your control."
"Of course. He's a valuable addition to our family, to my Ward. He is a child with Hidden magic, born of vampire. It was clear he would be unique, but with your rapid pregnancy and his obvious awareness of his surroundings, which you overlooked, it became apparent he would develop fast. Now you've ruined it. They've ruined it."
I went hot, then cold, then hot again.
"You planned this didn't you? You took Faz and the others, had the doppels take Kane and me. What, to keep us separate from them? To control us?"
"They betrayed me, just as you have done. They were to bring you both back safe and sound, let you escape, let you return to me, your family. But they wanted him for their own, made you change him, made him change himself. It was too soon, they betrayed me," he said again, almost a whisper, and then I finally understood all that had happened.
"You bastard! What, I was to come home, think everything was all right? Ah, the doppels were to replace Faz and Dancer, take their place with some pretend fight or something so I'd think they'd won and the doppels were beaten. My God what is wrong with you?"
"I would have been in control, had people in place to run this country, control all Hidden. You all betrayed me," screamed Oskari.
Then things got serious.
A Big Fight
"Where are they?" I shouted. Everything felt out of whack. I watched, mesmerized for a moment, as spittle caught the light cast by the numerous lamps, tiny particles of hate directed at Oskari. They twinkled like flailing stars as they traversed the void, and one tiny, almost imperceptible speck landed on Oskari's pale, flawless cheek.
It sent him apoplectic with rage.
"Taken, being meticulously copied as instructed, no doubt. But the doppels overstep the boundaries, same as you. They've deceived me, want to assume the positions for themselves. They will use Kane."
"Like you want to. You deserve this, you are the one who has betrayed. You betrayed me, your own kind. You're just a manipulator like the rest."
"Enough!" Two spots of color darkened Oskari
's cheeks and he wiped at the spittle that kept flying. Somehow we were mere feet apart now, like he'd moved without me noticing. The failure of his plan and the realization nothing was going as he'd wanted seemed to consume him.
My son, my baby boy, was feared by the likes of Oskari, and that scared me, truly it did. What was to become of him? What now? Oskari would kill him, I felt it in my bones. If his plan to have those under his control assume Dancer's position and to use Kane to do his bidding had been ruined, then Kane was a danger to him.
I had to get to him, protect him. The others too. Oskari would eradicate them all, including the doppels. The doppels themselves would be trying to mimic them exactly and the moment their studies were over they'd kill them.
It was a race to get them first, so I'd better get going.
Just one slight problem.
Oskari punched at me, and in my dazed and confused state I was slow to react. His fist hit me square on the nose—yes, my nose again—and it not so much broke as shattered then splatted across my face. The force whipped my head back, almost breaking my spine, and as it rebounded forward the muscles strained then snapped, sending me flying across the room and hammering into the wall. I slumped to the floor and sat there, head lolling to the side, the muscles ruined, my face broken, bloodied, and bruised. I held in my screams.
I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
I pushed with my hands to get to my feet but Oskari was already on me. He snarled and punched out again and again, pulverizing my face, smashing bone to pulp, and as my eyes swelled up until I couldn't see, I felt his fierce, cold breath on my face before the beating stopped.
I heard him step away and shout, "Bring me food," and then there was a scuffling and the sound of doors opening and closing.
