by Sarra Cannon
“Powerful accident,” she murmured.
Was it? I had no idea what power really meant anymore.
“Can you do it?” I asked. “Make an orb, I mean.”
“I’m not great at it,” she said. “It’s not one of my gifts. Plus, I don't want to waste any of my power in case we have to leave again. I think I know where some candles are, though. Wait here.”
She tripped over a few more things as she made her way into another room off the main hall. A few minutes later, she came back carrying a long white pillar candle. She held her hand over the small flame to keep it from going out as she walked.
“Success,” she said. “I’m much better with fire.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So it seems.”
“Come on, let’s go upstairs. I need to get out of these ridiculous clothes and into something more comfortable,” she said. “Tomorrow’s going to be hell with no air conditioning.”
I followed her up the stairs, noticing along the way that there were no pictures or decorations of any kind here. It felt very empty and hollow.
We made our way into a bedroom in the back of the house. It was sparsely furnished with nothing more than a basic queen bed and a side table. Lyla set the candle on the table and pulled open the sliding doors of the closet.
“Rend keeps a bunch of spare clothes here for anyone who might have to hide out for a while without more than a moment’s notice to gather our things,” she explained. “There should be some toothbrushes and shampoo and stuff in the bathroom, too. Oh god, what if there’s no water, either?”
“You said Rend might be here tomorrow,” I said. “We shouldn’t have to rough it for too long before someone shows up.”
“We could both use a shower, though,” she said. “We smell like smoke from the fire. Besides, we need to get that cut on your forehead cleaned up and see what kind of damage there is.”
I raised my hand to the sore spot above my eye and traced my fingers along a two-inch cut caked with blood. “Shit, no wonder people were staring at us. I probably look like I’ve been in a fight.”
“We’re both caked in ash, too,” she said.
She rummaged through the closet and came out with a pair of yoga pants and a tank top. “Here, these look about your size if you want to change.”
I took the clothes and waited for her to find something for herself before we both made our way into the master bathroom. She crossed her fingers, then turned the faucet. Water sputtered out, then flowed freely.
“Yay, thank you Jesus.”
I smiled. “That’s something at least,” I said. “You’d think if he was going to keep this as a permanent safe-house, he would have kept the power on, though. It's not like he's hurting for money. I mean, have you seen his house?”
I said it as an off-handed comment, not really thinking, but Lyla nearly dropped the candle.
“Um, excuse me? Are you saying you have?”
I cleared my throat. Shit. I really needed to watch my stupid mouth.
“You have,” she said, her eyes wide. “I’m going to clean that cut and get changed, and then you’re going to dish the good stuff. We might be here for days, but now at least I know we’ll have something fun to talk about.”
She seemed giddy at the thought of me knowing secrets about Rend, but it made my stomach hurt. I’m sure Rend didn’t want me telling the rest of the staff what had been going on between us the past few days. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what was going on with us. I’d been hoping to get more clarity about our relationship after the club closed tonight, but now everything had changed.
“It’s not as juicy as you think,” I said.
I winced as she rubbed a cold washcloth on my forehead. Blood trickled down my cheek and she wiped it off.
“Hold still,” she said.
“I’m trying, but that stings.”
“Sorry, I’m just trying to get a better look at the damage. I don’t think the cut went too deep, so it should heal fine,” she said. “Let me see if I can find some bandages.”
She found a first-aid kit under the sink, rubbed ointment on the cut, and fixed a bandage over the top.
“Let’s get changed and see if there’s anything here to eat.”
“Are you serious? You said no one’s been here in four years. What could there possibly be to eat?” I asked.
She made a face. “Good point,” she said. “I would say let’s order pizza, but it's too risky at this point to let anyone know we're here. I’m starving, though.”
My stomach rumbled at the thought of food. “Me, too,” I said. “We’ll figure something out.”
We went back into the bedroom and changed out of our dirty clothes. I took my time, hoping by the time we got downstairs, Lyla would have forgotten what I'd said about Rend's house.
“Does this place have a phone? Or do you happen to have your cell on you?” I asked as we made our way back down to the kitchen.
“No,” she said. “But don’t worry, Rend will come for us. Everything's going to be okay.”
I nodded and followed her into the kitchen. I wished I could be so confident, but I didn't like the feeling of being so far away from him right now. And I really didn't like not knowing for sure that he was okay.
Lyla and I searched the cabinets, but there was nothing here other than a few packs of stale saltines and a very old can of baked beans.
“What if we ordered pizza and you did your little magical memory thing on the delivery guy?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know any place that’s going to deliver after two in the morning on a Sunday,” she said. “We’ll have to just wait until morning. We can walk down to the gas station around the corner when they open and grab something for breakfast. They should be open in about four hours or so.”
I groaned. I wished she had never mentioned food, because now I was starving, too.
“Do you want to try to get some rest?”
“I don’t think I could sleep right now even if I tried,” I said. I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep until I saw Rend walk through that door.
Lyla set the candle down on the coffee table in front of the couch and walked over to the large window in the living room. She reached over and pulled a thick, dusty curtain across the window, closing off nearly all the outside light.
“I don't want someone out there to notice the candle and call the police or anything,” she said, sitting down on the couch. She pulled her feet up and placed them under her, turning to me with a sparkle in her eyes. “I'm dying to know what's been going on, Franki. When did you see Rend’s house? What’s it like? And what did the two of you do there, exactly?”
I sighed. So much for hoping she'd forget. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to let it go until I gave her something.
“I don’t really know how much there is to tell,” I said, sitting across from her. “To be honest, I’m still confused about what’s going on between Rend and me. He's confusing.”
“Give me the basics and I’ll see if I can interpret,” she said with a giggle.
I sighed. Other than Katy, I'd never had true girlfriends to chat with and spill my secrets. Somehow, this terrible night had turned into a gossip session, and I was mega-uncomfortable.
“Let’s start with this,” she said. “Has he kissed you?”
I closed my eyes and tensed my lips.
“Oh, my God, he has,” she said. She grabbed my hand. “Franki, this is huge. I have known Rend for years, and he has never, and I mean ne-ver, gotten romantically involved with anyone in all the time I’ve known him.”
“Until right now, you didn’t know he was romantically involved with me, either,” I said, raising one eyebrow.
“True,” she said. “But I had my suspicions. I’ve never even almost suspected he was dating someone before this.”
“We're not dating.” I bit the inside of my lip and gave her a sideways look, my heart beating a little faster. “Not even Azure?”
I sai
d it so quietly, it was almost a non-question. I was terrified the moment the words left my lips. I definitely had my suspicions about Azure’s feelings for Rend. What I didn’t know was how Rend felt about her.
“What? Are you serious? Never,” she said. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why? Did she tell you there was something between them?”
I shrugged, wondering if I’d already said too much. “Not exactly,” I said. “She’s just been really hard on me from the moment I walked into Venom, and the closer I get to Rend, the more she treats me like shit. Then tonight...”
My voice trailed off. I had almost let myself forget the horrible things she’d said to me tonight, behind the bar. She’d called me currency. I hoped he thought of me as more than that, but what if this was all some game he was playing with me?
“What?” Lyla put her hand on my leg and leaned closer. “What did she do?”
“She said something awful to me tonight when we were working together behind the bar,” I said. “It made me wonder if there had ever been something more between them. Something romantic.”
“Not that I’ve ever known about,” she said. “Azure has been with him from the beginning, so she's known him a lot longer than I have. Still, I think everyone would know if there had ever been something between them.”
“He trusts her,” I said. “He’s apparently filled her in on all the things he found out about me, when he obviously didn’t tell everyone else.”
“Like what?”
“Like who my real family is,” I said. “When she was talking to me tonight, she mentioned it, so he had to have told her. How else would she have known?”
Lyla went back to chewing on her fingernail. “What if he didn’t tell her? What if she had some other way of finding out information about you?”
I shook my head. “Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “Forget it. I’m just thinking out loud. What was it she said to you tonight that was so awful?”
I shrugged. I hated even to utter the words, because they had been so hurtful. Mainly because I was worried they were true. I wasn’t sure I wanted to lay my heart on the line in front of Lyla.
“You can tell me,” she said. “I’m not going to go blabbing back to the rest of the girls, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“I don’t know,” I said. I felt terrible talking about the people in the club when we didn't even know how they were doing or where they were right now. Were they really okay? “Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re awesome and you’ve made me feel welcome from the second I started working at Venom.”
“But?”
“I haven’t had a lot of people in my life that I’ve gotten close to,” I said. “When I was growing up my mother kept me very sheltered. We moved around a lot and I didn’t have many friends. She never really let me have girlfriends over or get too close to anyone. It’s hard for me to really open up sometimes.”
Lyla leaned over and put her arms around me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’ve been going through a lot the past week and here I am, forcing you to spill all your personal shit. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”
I hugged her back, grateful she was at least willing to listen and empathize.
But the truth was, now that she’d basically given me a pass, I realized I wanted to tell her. I desperately wanted someone I could talk to about all this.
Talking to Katy was one thing. She was my dearest friend and I knew I could talk to her about anything. At the same time, she had no clue about how this new world worked. She didn’t know any of the players involved so she couldn’t completely understand what I was going through.
It would be nice to have someone, apart from Rend, to confide in and ask for advice.
I took a deep breath. “Do you know who Rend is?” I asked. “I mean, do you know what he is?”
Lyla leaned back against the arm of the couch. She opened her mouth in a moment of realization. “Ah, you mean the vampire thing? I wasn’t sure if you knew. He doesn’t keep it a secret, but he also doesn’t exactly advertise the fact.”
So she knew. That was a relief, because even if I decided to spill my own secrets, I wouldn’t feel right spilling his.
“I just found out last night,” I said, leaving out the details of how I’d found out. She didn’t need to know everything. “I almost didn’t come back to the club tonight, which is why you found me outside before we opened. I was trying to make up my mind about whether to even go inside.”
“He’s not like the rest of them,” she said. “Not all of them are like the Devil, you know. I mean, some of them are, but a lot of the vampires are really great.”
“They drink the blood of witches,” I said. “That’s hard to redeem.”
She shrugged. “Did Rend explain why they do it?”
I shook my head.
“Do you know where demons come from? Has anyone explained that to you, at least?”
I shook my head again, feeling for the millionth time like a clueless child.
“Okay, so I’ll give you the short version. Demons are not native to this world. Neither are witches. Demons come from another world called The Shadow World. They came here hundreds of years ago through a portal. The first demon was named Mythic and he fell in love with a human woman. They had a child together. The very first human with magical powers. The first witch. See, a witch is just a human woman with the blood of a demon running through her veins.”
“What about men? Are there male witches?”
“No, only women,” she said. “I don’t really know why, but only daughters get magical powers through demons. The strength of a witch’s line begins to diminish the farther the line gets from the original demon union, but any girl who has magical abilities is a descendent of a demon somewhere along the way.”
I ran a hand through my hair, allowing her story to sink in.
“When a witch casts spells here in the human world, she connects to the power within herself to cast. But when a demon from the Shadow World casts magic, they pull energy from the life around them,” she said.
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means that if a demon was standing here and he or she wanted to cast, they would need to pull energy from you or me or the grass outside or a bug sitting on the windowsill. Something living. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah.”
The candle on the coffee table flickered, throwing eerie shadows across the wall.
“The problem early demons had with this, is that every time they cast, they left a mark on this world. Grass or animals around them died when they used their magic. It made them easy to track. They had reasons they needed to keep their presence secret from the rest of the human world, so one of the demons in charge came up with a very creative solution.”
I nodded, my skin tingling. “They drank the blood of witches.”
“Exactly,” she said. “You catch on fast.”
“It makes sense,” I said. “If they can drink the blood of a witch, they can pull from the power inside without anyone ever knowing.”
“Yes,” she said. “Of course, they still left dead bodies of the witches they drained completely, but they could drain a witch of her blood in Chicago and then go to New York and cast in secret without anyone being able to detect their presence,” she said. “That’s where the lore of vampires began and, of course, humans took that to the cinema and glorified it.”
“Fascinating,” I said. “And very creative, when you think about it.”
“The tough part is that when a demon took the oath to become a part of the Brotherhood of Darkness, which is the order of the vampires, they had to undergo a very painful transformation that allowed them to use the blood in the most efficient way possible. Over time, the demons who transformed into vampires became unable to cast without the blood.”
“So they lost their ability to cast in the normal way demons cast?”
“Yes,”
she said. “Some of them, like Rend, got tired of all the senseless killing of the Brotherhood. They rebelled, refusing to drink the blood of witches. That’s when Rend came up with the idea of opening Venom. For him, it became a refuge from the evils of this world.”
I leaned against the cushions on the couch and thought about how hard it must have been for Rend to make that decision. To turn away from what he had become and start a new life.
But I had seen him cast an orb. How did he do that without blood?
Or was he still drinking blood in secret?
I reached up and touched the spot on my neck where he had bitten me. With horror, I realized that after the excitement of the explosion, I had forgotten all about re-casting the glamour that hid the wounds.
Lyla grabbed my hand and pulled it away from my neck. “Holy fuck,” she said. “Who did that to you?”
I pulled away from her, wishing I’d never touched the spot. In the dim light of the candle she might not have noticed it without me drawing attention to it.
“Did Rend do that?” she asked. Her hands were shaking.
I swallowed and stood up, avoiding her eyes.
“Franki, I’m serious. Did he hurt you?”
“I think it surprised him as much as it surprised me, to be honest. He barely broke the skin before he stopped himself.”
Lyla brought a trembling hand to her mouth. “I have never seen him lose control like that,” she said. “What happened between the two of you?”
I blushed as butterflies stirred in my stomach. Thankfully, there was no way she could see the flush of my cheeks in the darkness, but every time I thought about how close we had come to making love, my body grew warm.
“Oh,” she said. “OH.”
“Please, don’t tell anyone else,” I said, turning to her. The candlelight flickered across her shocked face.
“I don’t even know what to say,” she said. “I've just never seen him lose control, especially not over a woman. You must really get to him.”
“He gets to me, too,” I said. “I—”
My words caught in my throat as the back door clicked open and footsteps rushed across the tile in the kitchen.
Lyla sucked in a scared breath and grabbed me, pulling me back toward the stairs as a tall black man with thick dreadlocks stepped into the dim light of the candle still burning on the table.
