by Susan Stec
Jeni started laughing. "Oh God…Oh God, I'm sorry, but just the thought of Aunt JoAnn screwing up the whole eco-system all by herself is just too damn funny." She covered her mouth with her hand.
"There's nothing funny about any of this!" Warren yelled. "How the hell are we ever going to stop it? Single-handedly, your Aunt has jeopardized our livelihood! God only knows what the rest of you women can screw up!" He glared at Zaire.
"Oh, bite me, you homophobe!" Zaire shouted.
"I don't eat dark meat," Warren belted out.
"Oh that's it? I'm the wrong color? Step outside, Bubba." Zaire stood.
Warren got up. "Let's take it to the gym right now. The hell with waiting for this practice shit!"
Marcus growled.
"Warren, tomorrow we go to the gym - and not before." Dorius warned.
"Everyone sit the hell down!" I leered at Dorius. "I'm not going to be some glorified Animal Control Officer. Do I look like Ranger Rick?"
"I'm gonna kick some redneck ass tomorrow!" Zaire snapped, her eyes on Warren.
Jeni was still giggling.
"Ahh, fare impazzire qualcuno—all of you!—crazy!" Mom spat.
Gibbie buzzed in front of Zaire. "I'm getting a front row seat."
JoAnn clicked her sparkly red shoes together, praying for a reprieve. "I think once we're tested, we'll find that some of us are better suited for death and destruction than others."
Jeni stared at JoAnn with mild amusement and then turned to Dorius. "I assume you have some kind of training program?"
Paul leaned back with a sigh.
Dorius had a smile plastered across his smart ass face. "As a matter of fact we do, and I'm in charge of all new recruits. I educate, field train, and decide team formation and placement."
Jeni's face turned red, holding back her laughter. "Everyone feeling pretty?"
Resi glared at her, flinging her hair off her shoulder, adjusting her shirt around her chest. "I don't do critter control, thank-you-very-much."
Marcus' laughter barreled in my head. I turned to him, one eyebrow raised in warning. He smiled at Jeni and they both started laughing. I was seething with anger.
"Junior over there should do the animal control! Alone!" I spat. "He's the root cause of this shit. Not us!"
"A pretty girl…is like a melody," Jeni sang.
Christopher grinned.
"Hey, piazzaiolo, you know what il cacio sui maccheroni, means?" Mom asked, giving Christopher a nasty smile. "It means just what the doctor ordered. I'm gonna be all over you."
Christopher turned his smile from Mom to Dorius, his voice deep and dry. "No, no, no, not this time, Consigliary. No more meetin's, no more discussions, and no vamp-deer-dung for me. You give them the job…uh, I want an all-out war. They go to the mattresses on this one." Tipping his glass, he finished off his drink.
Dorius let out a long arrogant sigh. "Like you said Christopher, it's just family business. And you've always wanted to be part of a team. Now you are. Their team, along with Paul, Gibbie, the troll, and anyone else I deem necessary after the training sessions."
We all exchanged looks. No one said a word.
Christopher nodded toward a bottle of anisette sitting in the middle of a bar at the end of the room. "Give me a drop," he ordered Dennis, who was placing blood bags on the long table in front of all the council members.
"Last meal before you hit the zoo?" Dennis asked, shaking a bag of blood and shot glass full anisette in front of Christopher.
Christopher grabbed the drink, gulped it down in one swallow and turned to Dorius. "What are you gonna do, uh? You want to gun me down, captain? Why? Because I slapped you in the face a little? What do you think, huh? This is like the army where you can shoot 'em from a mile away? No, you gotta get up like this…" Christopher popped off the chair and strutted over to JoAnn, grabbing her hair and pointing a finger to her temple. "…and, badda-bing, you blow their brains all over your nice leather suit."
JoAnn wiggled free, climbed the back of the chair and plastered herself against the wall.
Christopher ignored her. "C'mere," he said to Dorius. "You want a piece of me? You c'mere and take it. Nobody gives me orders anymore! Yes, I killed your mate. Quite efficiently, I might add. I fuckin' turned Susan, too. Because you wanted a kid. A kid doesn't think. A kid gets pissed. A kid does stupid shit. I played the stupid little surfer dude with big angry fangs because my daddy tossed me aside for his new mate. Fuck you Dorius. I'm not a kid. This is who I am!" He hammered his fist against his chest.
Dorius' fangs slipped from his gums. He took three quick steps and had Christopher against the wall, his lips on his ear. "You had to fuck with me, didn't you? I saved your ass. I took care of you, damn it."
All eyes were riveted on the two immortals.
Christopher turned his face and spit two large pieces of wet cotton in Dorius' face, sending the smell of anisette around the room.
Dorius slammed him against the wall and dug his fangs into Christopher's neck.
The council sat riveted to the table. Marcus didn't move.
Christopher hissed, "You treated me like a joke and I mentally got older - and a whole hell of a lot angrier. Then you found a mate, something I will never have, and you just had to rub it in my face. Insult after insult until finally I lost it. Hell, you can't blame a woman for wanting a normal sized man. I sure as hell wouldn't hook up with someone that looked like a six-year-old. But you gave me no outlet for my frustration. Actions create reactions, Dorius. You got what you deserved."
Damn, even I could see the kid's point.
Dorius pulled his teeth from Christopher's throat. He swiped his lips with the back of his hand.
No one in the room breathed.
Christopher looked up at him. "I fucked with you, man. So go ahead and kill me…." He grinned at Dorius. "…or let me be all that I can be."
~~~~
Chapter Thirty-four
~~~~
Marcus opened the doors of the training room and my lungs sucked in way too much air when the noise of a loud boisterous party flooded into the hallway.
Gibbie flew up in a sparkle of fluttering wings. "You ready to show your stuff?"
My eyebrows slammed together. "I thought this was just a training session, Marcus!"
"Every frickin' vamp in a fifteen-hundred mile radius, and God knows what else, has showed up for this. You guys are big news," Gibbie giggled.
"I am not getting in front of all these people to fight anyone!" I yelled.
Marcus moved forward, pulling me with him. "Alright fairy, enough! Let's not get her all cranked up before she even gets out there." He put his hand at the small of my back and guided me in the direction of a long table against the far wall of the gym where the girls were pulling out chairs.
I followed him, a mass of disconnected muscle from nerves.
My mother was out in the middle of the large room, dressed in tight, black leather chaps over a pair of lime green tights. A purple halter top exposed most of her upper body and clashed mindlessly with the green leggings. She had a black studded collar around her neck with long silver daggers for earrings and black, ankle-strapped, three-inch heels on her feet. I wondered how in the hell she was going to fight in those babies.
I felt the strings of my sanity snapping as I sat down between Marcus and my grinning sister.
Christopher was sitting against the wall in a folding chair at our far left. He winked at me. I hooded my eyes and dropped my fangs with a snarl.
Gibbie strutted across the table and up to Resi, colorful wings falling behind his shoulders as he jumped on her arm.
Zaire placed herself on the opposite side of him with eyes shooting those daggers they were famous for. Jeni and Paul were at the far end, leaning toward each other, both with smiles on their faces. I made a mental note to find out what was going on with those two…
Dorius walked into the middle of the gym to stand next to Mom. "Alright, everyone quiet down." D
orius shouted, the room becoming a whisper as he went on. "I assure you, none of you have witnessed anything like what Chick is about to demonstrate." The crowd hushed, giving him their full attention.
I looked around at the anticipation on everyone's faces. The spectators were lined up on benches, shoulder to shoulder on both sides of the long room. There was no freaking way I was getting out there.
Dorius shot me a glance. "We'll go through a short demonstration of Chick's gift, then some attack patterns with Susan, Resi, and Zaire. I've worked with our new immortals independently over the last few days and I have elected to put JoAnn and Jeni in charge of communications for this new team. They will not be in the field with the rest of the family."
My body began to vibrate. He hadn't done shit with me.
JoAnn wiggled her fingers at the crowd and then pointed at Jeni. Soft sounds of amusement filtered around the room when she sucked loudly on her bendy straw stuffed into a bag of blood.
Dorius pointed at a group of men against the wall. "Ladies, the immortals you see on the left side of the room are trained to take punishment and they heal fast. They work with new recruits on a regular basis, much like our mortal police department does with the training of attack dogs. They can withstand whatever you can dish out, so don't worry about being forceful. I'm interested in seeing what you can do."
"You mean we're fighting real immortals? What the hell?" I leered at Marcus.
"Shush, Susan. Just listen," Marcus smiled. I wanted to slap him.
Dorius bowed to a handsome Latin man, who returned the bow. "The immortal on the right, Jake Blu Lopez, is a Draco Americanus Lat, born of the Blu Lpozane Clan. Dragons, known for their ability to heal with lightning speed, are a valued part of our team. If the immortals are stabbed or bled, Jake will heal them quickly. He uses his saliva to…" I turned away from Dorius as he prattled on.
"Marcus, tell me my mother isn't going to try to kill one of those men? I thought this was about animals not humans."
Marcus chuckled, watching me with twinkling eyes. "Watch, Susan. Your mother is about to show you something extraordinary."
I was trying to come up with a snappy remark when Dorius' loud voice got my attention again. "Chick, Darren, places please."
Mom faced off with an immortal that outweighed her by at least a hundred and fifty pounds. Darren had blond hair, angry black eyes and a chest you could play baseball on. I trembled with the urge to get up when she lifted one hand toward him in a 'bring it on' gesture.
I eased to the edge of my chair, ready to pounce if she needed me. Marcus put his hand firmly on my thigh. The rest of my family looked relaxed. I clenched my teeth. "Hey, do any of you care that she's going to get her ass beat out there, or what?'
"I've seen what she can do and I'm not the least bit worried," Jeni said, smiling at me.
"Just watch, Susan. Mom's fine," JoAnn said.
"I didn't see shit! Am I the only one who doesn't know what's going on here?" I felt like the odd girl out.
Gibbie flew over to land in front of me, his hands on his hips. "We all promised to sit here and keep quiet. Don't make me dust you."
I watched Paul lean back, crossing his arms over his chest, a smile on his face.
"I don't like this," I said, my back rigid.
A war cry sent me three inches off my chair and my head jerked in the direction of the little clown center stage. Darren was running at my mother so fast, he was a blur. I tried to push Marcus' iron grip from my leg. It was impossible.
I watched a bolt of gold light shoot across the room and followed it back to my mother. An energy field extended from her outstretched fist to the immortal's midsection. She threw her hand open, flipping it in the opposite direction, her knuckles facing him, and the force-field of gold propelled him at a neck-breaking speed into the far wall. He slid to the floor, unconscious, blood running from his nose.
The room came alive with the thunder of immortal screaming and applause.
The Latin man, his black hair fluttering behind him, ran toward Darren. His boots drummed on the floor.
I laughed. "OK, so what kind of parlor trick was that?"
"It's not a trick, Susan," JoAnn announced with the clarity of a perfectly sane woman. She picked up her "juice box" of blood, lipped the bendy straw sticking out and sipped on it.
"Damn…" Marcus said, letting up his grip on my leg, "Your mother's ability with telekinesis is magnificent!"
Dorius looked like a proud peacock. "That was a mild example of Concetta's ability at telekinetic power." He turned to my mother with admiration. "Concetta put Darren on the bleachers for us. Gently, please."
My mother lifted her hand, much like a conductor in an orchestra, opened her fist and wiggled her fingers at Darren. The huge immortal slowly floated from the floor in a gold haze. The weighty bundle, following her hand, turned circles, swinging from side to side, and then started to spin around in a blur.
What a little actress! She's enjoying this way too much, damn it. It can't be real.
I assure you, my love, it is real. Marcus pushed with an amused smile.
Dorius cleared his throat. Mom stopped her spinning fingers, pointed at Darren, and he floated gently away, landing lightly on the bleachers, shaking his head.
The room leapt to their feet with another round of applause.
My mouth fell open, Marcus laughing in my head.
Dorius looked at us. "Resi, will you step forward?"
"How come I get to be first?" Resi teased.
Resi walked over to Dorius. Mom stepped to the side. I couldn't help feeling this was all a joke. On me.
Dorius began, "Resi has the gift to confuse as well as direct and implant. We call your rare gift, a Manipulator."
They grinned at each other. I seethed with anger.
"Warren, can you come out to the arena, please?" Dorius ordered.
"Give 'um all you got, Baby," Zaire yelled.
Gibbie strutted to the end of the table and smiled at me.
Warren walked forward dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt that strained against his large upper body. He snarled at Zaire. She snarled back.
Dorius nipped it. "Resi, I want you to use your mind to manipulate Warren. Surprise us." Dorius looked directly at me.
"OK…" Resi said, studying Warren.
"Big deal, we can all read minds and plant thoughts," I said.
Marcus gifted me with a sexy grin.
Damn him. I started to tell him just what I thought of this charade when I suddenly forgot what I wanted to say. I got up, shaking my head, frantically. My feet, with a mind of their own, walked toward Christopher, who was sitting on the far side of the room. My lips joined my legs in complete disobedience and smiled at him. "Christopher, have I told you lately that I love you? I appreciate the way you sank your fangs in my neck and made me look thirty years younger."
"No problem, Suzie-Q," Christopher smiled. "I'm a breast man, by the way," he said, eyeing my chest. "Can I touch 'um?"
I battled with myself in my head. I wanted to scream, 'Oh hell no,' as my frigging voice, completely ignorant of my orders, came out as sweet as honey. "I owe you big time, buddy. Step right up and cop a feel." I shook my head violently and heard laugher coming from the whole room. Even Marcus was laughing.
Christopher started walking toward me. I frickin' couldn't move.
My head, totally out of my control, turned to Resi. She winked at me and I was myself again.
"Don't you come near me you little shit!" I immediately yelled at Christopher.
Christopher laughed and wiggled back into his chair.
I faced off with Marcus. His lips turned up in a wicked grin.
"I thought after we were mated, no one was supposed to be able control my frigging mind," I scolded to a background of laughter. "I felt like a damn wind-up doll—you shit."
Marcus burst out laughing. "Sorry, darling, but Dorius asked if I would step back for a few minutes. They were sure you would have
a hard time believing all of this so he suggested Resi helps you out a little."
My teeth clenched down hard enough to crack my jaw as I sucked in lungs full of air. "You are in, OH, so much shit!"
I heard Jeni giggle and shot her some angry Italian eyes just like my mother gives me.
Gibbie was all a flutter with laughter as Resi came sauntering up, grinning at me.
"I'm going to kill your happy little ass as soon as I find out what it is I can do to make this little foursome complete," I said with the room full of immortals and God knew what else watching us fight, and loving every minute of it.
"Sorry, Mommy Dearest. Dorius made me do it," Resi said, clapping her hands.
I was steaming to a hard boil as I glared at all of them.
Marcus patted the chair beside him.
"Zaire's turn," Dorius said, saving his brother's ass.
I walked around the table, took a seat next to Marcus and grabbed his thigh in a vice-like grip.
"Ohhh, that's nice, and I believe pleasuring you under the table would top the interlude in the car. Don't you agree?" Marcus' hand slid up my thigh, tickling a place I didn't want tickled.
I sat there trying to find a snarky response, but once again, Dorius got our attention.
"Alright, we have a Seraph with telekinetic power and an immortal with the ability to confuse and manipulate." Dorius shot me a nasty grin. I gave it right back to him, and then some. "It's time to show you what Zaire adds to the combination."
I wanted to puke. I seemed to be the only one in this damn room that didn't have a clue.
"Victoria, Megan, Peter, and Camillio; on the floor please," Dorius shouted.
I'd never watched Zaire in action as a mortal, but I knew she was a boxer before she met Resi. I was looking forward to seeing her fight. It seemed Dorius thought her a formidable opponent to have brought out four immortals to fight her.
"And begin, please," he told them with a wave of his arm.
Zaire advanced slowly with eyes like daggers, mouth in a snarl, her fangs hanging out. With hands in tight fists, her knees bent, she danced around them, glancing in several directions while they split up into two groups.
