“Did you honestly think that you could come in here with a very attractive young woman tossed over your shoulder less than twenty four hours after I last spoke to you and not have me question what happened? Especially considering I haven’t seen or spoken to you at all in the last thirty years or so, give or take a month or two?” He questioned dryly.
I grimaced and took a sip of my drink in order to stall having to answer that particular question. I knew I would have to but I didn't want to. Yes I was being childish but I didn't care and one thing I could always count on with Claus was his ability to tell me when I’d stepped in it, and right now I could tell that I had somehow managed to step in it up to my neck.
“Vera happened.” I muttered, eventually, sinking gratefully into a chair.
Claus let out a long, low whistle before he started laughing at my expense. “Damn have you ever stepped in it."
“How?” I asked, standing up as I did so. “How have I stepped in it? You know, it occurs to me that I had been off the radar for at least the last century, give or take a decade, and I hadn’t heard anything from the Brotherhood save running into you in that train station in Nam thirty five years ago. Then all of a sudden you show up last night out of the blue, Vera is in my apartment today, she tears my bike to pieces,” He let out another wide eyed whistle at that, “and now here I am hiding out in your hotel room, trying to avoid having my head forcefully removed from my shoulders by a sadistic were-bitch from hell.”
I knocked back the rest of my drink and turned to pour a third, heedless of the burn tearing its way down my throat and into my stomach. I poured a heavy amount of alcohol into the glass, slammed down the bottle and slammed back the liquor.
It was going to happen, it was just a matter of time and a moment later it did. The moment Claus had been waiting for since I’d walked through his door.
The snap.
I spun and with an inarticulate roar of rage and frustration I flung the heavy lead crystal glass across the room where it shattered against the wall with a sound like a cannon blast. Pieces of glass rained across the floor like a spray of diamonds and I turned and slammed my fists onto the heavy oak bar, cracking the wood and driving a sharp splinter through my arm in the process.
“WHY!” I roared, rounding on Claus. “Why is he doing this to me Claus? Why now, why her? Why did he send her to drag me back? Why does he want me back in the first place?”
“I don’t know.”
It was quiet. In the face of my rage Claus’s voice was a gentle whisper on the wind. Somehow those three simple words cut through the center of my blinding rage and like a balloon that had been popped I was suddenly, if not calm, not raging anymore.
I stood there, blood slowly dripping down my forearm to collect at my fingertips, breath heaving in my chest, my eyes wild and I could tell that my hair had flown loose from its braid and the only thing I could think was. “Why’d I throw that glass?” I muttered.
I started looking through the broken bar and managed to find another glass. Sifting through the various bottles I found a selection of Bourbons and picked out a full bottle of Wild Turkey. Tearing off the cellophane with my teeth I opened the bottle and poured myself another glass as I dropped into a chair.
Looking up I noticed the questioning look on Claus’s face at my sudden turnaround in demeanor.
“What? Did you think that just because things weren’t going exactly as I’d hoped that I would have completely fallen apart?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure what I expected. The rage a minute ago I did expect, but this…” He gestured to me. “You don’t have a history for being calm and collected under fire,” he said. “I remember specifically a little incident in Budapest.”
“Hey that guy had it coming. He wouldn’t let me into the museum and I wanted to look at the suits of armor.”
“You were drunk off a three day drinking and feeding binge. It’s no wonder he wouldn’t let you in, but did you really have to feed his testicles to him? The poor man was only doing his job.”
I smiled fondly at the memory. “That was fun. I’d heard the threat before but I’d never actually seen someone get their own genitals fed to them after being ripped off with my bare hands.”
“I think we’re getting a bit off topic, Gabriel,” he said, glaring admonishingly at me. "Genitalia has little to do with the current discussion."
“Don’t pull that aged mentor bull shit with me,” I snapped. “I’ve been expecting something like this for decades. It’s just been so long that I'll admit to a certain degree of complacency. Probably exactly what Threntü has been waiting for, I bet.”
“So what does that mean?” he asked, leaning forwards in his chair.
“It means, old friend, that I’ve made plans for just such an occasion as this. I’ve laid down contingencies for the Brotherhood actively searching for me. By the way,” I glanced around the room. “Does the Shadu still have you on their ‘untouchables’ list?”
“As far as I am aware,” he said. “Why?”
“Because I’d be willing to bet that I am no longer on that list, despite my supposed position within the Brotherhood. If you still are that means that not even Vera has the resources to find out that you’re holed up here, unless you happen to have gotten complacent as well in your old age and didn’t properly cover your tracks.”
“Don’t be insulting,” he scoffed. “Every law enforcement agency in the world working together in complete cooperation couldn’t find me if I put a blinking neon sign on the roof saying ‘Claus is here,’” he finished with a smug grin on his face.
“Good. I’m hoping it’d be ok if you’d let me relax here for a little few hours. I need to make a few arrangements before I can get out of town.”
“Out of town?” he asked, surprised. “You’re not staying?"
“Fuck no. Why would I stay when I’ve got Vera breathing down my neck and Threntü has a bleedin’ price on my head?”
“You didn’t seemed too concerned about it last night when I warned you that there was a price on your head,” he pointed out. "I would think after a hundred years that you would want to finally get this over with and get Threntü off your back permanently."
“Last night I thought I had a little more time on my hands. I didn’t expect to find the she-bitch in my apartment, nor did I expect to get a human involved. Worse, an uninitiated.”
“You mean your lovely young morsel over there doesn’t know about us?” he asked, glancing over at Rachel.
“Keep your claws to yourself, ‘old friend,’” I snarled, letting some of my power color my voice. “You aren’t going to touch her.” A stiff breeze began to blow through the suite, starting from nowhere and centered on me and my eyes began to gleam slightly as I taped into the power inside me..
“Of course not,” he said, raising his hands in a placating gesture as he leaned back and took a sip of his drink. “I wouldn’t dream of it, I was just… intrigued.” He regarded me thoughtfully. “What possessed you to bring in an uninitiated?”
“I spent some time with her last night, after you and I spoke,” I said offhandedly. If I had expected him to overlook the statement because of the casual delivery I had forgotten to take into account that Claus rarely overlooked anything that was said to him.
“So all your talk about thinking you had more time was tripe,” he smirked. “You were distracted by a piece of tail and forgot my warnings.”
“Shut up,” I shot back, oh so wittily. “I honestly didn’t think things would move so fast, I thought I could afford a little… diversion.”
“You of all people should know better. You know more than anyone how he works. He did have a heavy hand in your training.”
“I know, I know,” I sighed. “I fucked up big time here, alright?”
“You still haven’t told me why she’s here,” he prompted, tilting his head towards Rachel again.
I nodded, staring thoughtfully at the girl. “Vera smelled he
r in my apartment. She was going to kill her. I couldn’t let that happen to her when she had nothing to do with us and had no idea what I am or what she was getting herself involved in when she went home with me.”
“Sympathy? For a human?” He was shocked. I could hear it in his voice and feel it in his thoughts. “You have gotten soft lately, haven’t you?”
“I’m beginning to think exactly that.” I looked up at him. “I’m in a lot of trouble, aren't I?.”
He nodded.
“That you are, Gabriel. That, you most definitely, are."
6
Long Beach, California: February 4, 2005
Claus and I sat and talked for another couple of hours and the clock eventually struck 7:00 p.m. I glanced over at Rachel, starting to feel a little bit of concern. I was pretty sure I hadn’t scrambled her brains with that blow but, humans were so fragile sometimes. I couldn’t be positive that I hadn’t seriously hurt her in my rush to get away from her school.
I focused my thoughts and probed gently at her mind. Regular brain activity, obvious minor damage and light bruising.
“Do you have any aspirin?” I asked Claus. “Preferably something a little stronger than your average, over-the-counter, painkillers.”
“I’ve got some Tylenol with Codeine,” he said.
“Why is that anyway? I never did understand why you always had pharmaceuticals. You’re a werewolf, what do you need with pain meds?”
“I created a number of them myself,” he stated. “If you’d always been so curious why didn’t you just ask me?”
“It never occurred to me. Well I’m gonna need a couple of those and some water.” I glanced at Rachel and tapped my temple with one finger. “She should be waking up soon.”
“What are you going to tell her?” he asked as he got up and walked over to the glass coffee table to rummage through an old and well worn brown leather bag.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I muttered, chewing pensively on my lower lip. “I’ve obviously got to tell her something.”
“Obviously,” he muttered sarcastically.
“Shut it,” I snapped.
“Just agreeing with you. If my two cents mattered at all, I believe that you should just tell her the truth of the situation.”
“Yeah that will go over really well,” I snapped. I couldn't help it. I was usually somewhat caustic but when I got stressed my sarcasm really started to show.
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and handed me two white pills and a glass of water, which I set on the table next to the couch Rachel was lying on just as she began to stir.
She turned her head and a low moan escaped her as her eyes fluttered open, only to snap shut again and her face contorted into a grimace of pain.
“Oh shit,” she swore, one hand going to her bruised forehead. “What the fuck hit me?” she muttered.
“I’m afraid that would be me,” I confessed, a trifle nervously. She squinted one eye open and looked towards me.
“What the fuck is going on?” she snapped. Well, as well as she could snap considering the pain she was most likely feeling. “Where am I. What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you and you’re in a safe place. I can promise you that much.”
She just glared at me.
I sighed. I did like them stubborn and full of fire. I got that in spades with her I guess. “There are some pain killers and some water on the table next to you,” I said. “You can not take them if you wish. But keep in mind if I had wanted to hurt you I could have done it while you were unconscious. I wouldn’t have to resort to drugging you or poisoning you or anything of that sort. I would recommend you take them and when you are feeling a bit better you can ask all the questions you want and I promise to answer them truthfully. Even though you won’t believe me, in the slightest.”
She was silent for a time. Studying me through squinted eyes. Finally, she glanced at the table and picked up the pills. She studied them suspiciously for a moment before deciding that I was right and popped them into her mouth, swallowing them with a few sips of water. I held up the bottle of Wild Turkey?
“Drink?” I asked.
“No, thanks.”
I practically snorted trying not to laugh as I poured her a glass of liquor. “Trust me, after you finish asking questions you’ll want it.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Every time I’ve ever explained myself to someone they always want a drink. Or three.”
"Kidnap a lot of young women have you?"
"Huh?"
"If you've had to give this explanation before than this must not be the first time you've had to kidnap someone and explain yourself?"
"Oh." I could tell I wasn't getting very far with her. At least not yet. And I couldn't really blame her either, I did knock her out and kidnap her, like she said. "No this would actually be the first kidnapping."
“Really?”
“Really,” I nodded. “On that note, are you sure you want the real story, or would my word that I don’t mean you any harm and I’m just trying to save your life suffice?”
She gave me a rather pointed glare. I sighed. “I didn’t think so.”
Rachel slowly sat up, wincing in pain as she did so, and looked around the room. She let out a low whistle. “Nice,” she commented.
“Thank you.” She turned sharply and looked at Claus.
“God, where the fuck did you come from?” she snapped, one hand going to her chest. I couldn’t help but think again how beautiful she looked. Brief memories floated through my mind of the night before, and the body encased in those leather pants and black halter top but I quickly shook those thoughts out of my head.
“This is Claus,” I said, introducing them. “Claus this is Rachel.”
“Charmed,” he muttered over the rim of his glass. “Are you going to tell her?”
“Tell her what?” I shot back, my eyes wide and innocent. I'm sorry I just really did not want to have the conversation that I knew was coming my way with all the inexorable inevitability of a glacier sliding across the continent. There was no escaping it but I would stall a moment longer.
He arched an eyebrow at me. “I will if you do not. I think it would be best if she heard it from you though.”
“Somebody better tell me something,” she growled, her voice lowering dangerously. “I’m starting to get annoyed."
“I am a vampire.”
She blinked, all the growing anger leaking out of her in a sudden rush. She stared at me. She looked at Claus. Claus nodded solemnly. She looked at me again, then burst out laughing.
I sighed. “I knew she would do that,” I told Claus. He shrugged unapologetically and sipped at his drink in silence while Rachel laughed.
I watched her laugh for nearly five minutes, taking small sips of my drink as she rolled around on the couch clutching her sides with tears streaming down her face. She gasped and hiccuped several times, wiping the tears from her eyes as she straightened up on the couch.
“That is just about the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. So am I here so you can drain my blood and kill me?”
“Of course not,” I snapped, getting a little irritated. “I never kill the people I feed from anymore. Not for about two hundred years now.”
“You really think you’re a vampire huh?” she asked. She seemed more curious than anything. I guess she felt I was just a slightly deranged, but otherwise harmless fool. Time to disabuse her of that notion.
“What would I have to do to prove it?”
“Show me something vampirey?”
"Vampirey? Really?"
"Oh you know what I mean." She snapped her fingers several times while she searched for the word she wanted. "Vampiric."
“Like what?”
“Turn into a bat?”
“Can’t”
“Wolf?”
“Nope.”
“Mind control?”
“Nada.”
&nbs
p; “Mist?”
“Not a chance.”
“Well what can you do?” she asked, still giggling slightly.
“I can bench press a Buick, float and control the wind, change my physical features, read your mind and emotions or talk to you telepathically as well as moving objects telekinetically, I can also turn myself into a physical representation of a shadow but it’s too well lit in here, it’d be dangerous.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me," she scoffed. "None of that crap is really possible."
I grinned. “You really think so?” I asked as I focused and made the glass of Bourbon I had poured for her float off the table and towards her open hand.
She gaped at it, looking as if she just seen a rattle snake appear in front of her. “How’d you do that?” she asked, shakily taking the glass in hand.
“I told you. I’m a vampire.” I looked around and stepped over to the broken bar. Picking up a heavy crystal glass I walked to the center of the room and held it out on the palm of my hand so she could see it clearly. A moment later it slowly floated off my palm, hanging in the air for a few heartbeats before it made a circuit around my head and then came to rest on my hand again.
Her eyes had widened considerably and she took a long gulp of the liquor in her glass. Then I closed my hand. I squeezed it slowly, harder and harder until the glass cracked, then shattered, crushing the heavy lead crystal base in my fist. She yelped and jumped, spilling what was left of her drink onto the couch and plush peach carpet.
I opened my hand, picking the bits of embedded glass out of my palm then held it in front of her eyes so she could watch the deep cuts rapidly heal themselves until the only sign of my injury was the blood staining my hand, which I quickly wiped away with a damp cloth Claus handed to me.
“Do you believe me now?” I muttered quietly.
She nodded dumbly, her emotions going haywire. I could feel fear and shock and surprise running through her mind distinctly tinged with excitement and curiosity. Not a combination I was used to I can tell you. Usually most peoples reaction stopped at fear and shock. Fear usually took a front seat, reaching deep into a primal part of the human mind where it took hold of you and shook you until you were frozen with terror.
The Fifth Clan Page 3
