Charlotte

by Mima

He nodded. “Get your power off these people.” Reaching inside his leather vest, he withdrew sunglasses and put them on. Now he looked less like a biker and more like the Terminator. She’d always wanted cool sunglasses.

  Biting her lip, Charlotte closed her eyes and drew her power back, winding it like a skein of yarn. Cries of alarm echoed, along with laughter and babbling excitement.

  “What a fuckin’ waste.”

  The man stood massive among the humans who milled around, many heading back to their seats. Charlotte’s chin quivered hard enough to chatter her teeth.

  “No!” The scream hurled against Charlotte’s ears.

  Both of them, and the few people still on the stage, turned to look. Three men and two women pushed and pulled at the Elder, dragging her onstage by her cape.

  “I’m not using my power anymore!” Charlotte exclaimed. Why were they still following her command?

  “Human minds get stuck on things sometimes. Others’ suggestions can be adopted, and they’re mule stubborn.” The enforcer strode into the group and took the Elder by her tiny, papery wrist. “Good evenin’, Your Majesty.”

  “I insist you release me.” She twisted her arm while standing proudly. “This woman revealed herself on her own, and I did nothing to the humans who dared hunt me. I am innocent.”

  The man snorted. “Welcome to the fiesta.”

  She yanked on her arm uselessly, snarling. “Get your hands off me! How dare you even—”

  The crone clawed at her throat, mouth working to talk, but her voice suddenly shut off.

  The huge enforcer raised his voice. “All right, everyone. Show’s over. Take your seats.”

  People heckled him.

  “The doors are locked!”

  “What just happened?”

  “This isn’t the right show! What’s going on here?”

  He tipped his head back and blew fire twenty feet into the air. Screams and applause mixed together.

  “Sit the fuck down,” he snarled. “Silencio.” Apparently he wasn’t in the mood to be appreciated.

  More screams. And more applause. The Elder continued to struggle, plucking at his fingers. But her struggles seemed limited to her physical strength, which was no match for the enforcer’s brawn.

  The man looked over at Charlotte. “Go get Ryder.”

  “He’s unconscious.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Scurrying past people still making their way from backstage, Charlotte went into the dressing room and stopped short. Ryder stood awake, eyes blood red, lips peeled from his teeth. He was up, but she had no idea if he was really here.

  Charlotte whispered, “It’s me. Charlotte.”

  Ryder growled but stayed still, body quivering. It was a toss-up over who was scarier, the Latin enforcer or her vampire. Taking a big breath, Charlotte pulled over the small, scarred cane chair from the vanity and put it near him. He didn’t move, so she stood on it and studied his hands.

  The chain wound around and through itself, wrapped about his badly bruised wrists but not locked in any way she could see. She found the end link and began to work it free. It took awhile, Ryder’s body swaying sometimes from her efforts. When it was loose, he dashed out of the room like lightning.

  Charlotte stood on the chair and contemplated trying to run away. But in the end she got down and went back onto the stage. The house lights were up, people seemed generally settled back in their seats, and Ryder was being dragged onstage by two gorgeous topless women with elaborately upswept hair. One wore modern clothing and had silver hair, the other more historical clothing with salt-and-pepper hair. Despite their obviously mature age, they looked fit, powerful, and terrified. Both were slender yet held the larger vampire without effort.

  Ryder raged in between them, incoherent with growls. The biker was speaking to a tiny Asian woman who looked like she had escaped from The Matrix and a teenager of indeterminate gender with green hair.

  “—agree with you completely, Sam.” The woman nodded. She was clad head to toe in shiny latex and made Charlotte recall Drew, the black fantome. “Clearly she was an accessory to a revelation.”

  The kid kicked the skateboard s/he held. “No way. Letter of the law says she had no part of the revelation itself. She was not in control of the wisp through any psychic or magical means. Anti-Coercion Ruling of 1459.”

  “What about the Responsibility Sequence of 1862?” The Trinity-wannabe crossed her arms.

  The three of them looked at each other and the restless crowd, then at Charlotte, the Elder, Ryder struggling in the hold of the two women, and each other again.

  “Good point,” the kid admitted. “By delaying the opportunity to register, the Elder withheld the laws from the wisp, and the Minor Acknowledgment of 1514 says the greater charge rests with the registrar.”

  Charlotte jumped from sheer nerves when one of the women holding Ryder spoke. It was the one in tailored gray slacks.

  “The wisp is the one who delayed coming to us first.”

  The Asian woman shrugged. “But as soon as the Elder approached her, she was in the position of registrar. If she’d merely ignored her, then the onus of ignorance rested with the wisp. I’m sorry, Winter.”

  The kid tossed the skateboard up onto one shoulder. “I still don’t agree with a joint death in this case.”

  “You think she deserves leniency because she’s Queen?” Sam the biker-terminator snapped. “That’s bullshit.” The Elder flailed and smacked at him, but he just stiffened his arm and held her at a distance from his body.

  “Nah. I just mean that it’s a waste, you know?” The kid shrugged. “The Kingdom is a player, and losing their queen along with her power would really shake things up. This was greed-n-weed. She was supposed to suck up some naïve ass and walk away, burying the dirt.

  “Only reason she didn’t was a weird set of circumstances. So are we going to set the vamps and the shifters into full boil, basically whacking the heads off the fairies for a generation? ’Cause then we’re gonna be, like, you know, busy.”

  The scary Matrix woman looked up at Sam. “He’s right. It’s not that she deserves special treatment but that her death has repercussions for the cohesion of the fantastical realm as a whole. I vote for redistribution of her power instead of execution.”

  The other woman by Ryder, the one in the shelf-corset and long bustled skirt, cried out, head bowing. “Thank you, enforcers. You are as wise as you are generous.”

  “Shutthefuckup, Willow.” The Asian woman turned on her. “You stupid weak bitch.” Something personal was clearly going on, because the calm, even blasé, attitude the woman had previously displayed was completely gone.

  She leaned toward Willow as if she wanted to attack her but was stuck on a leash. “You just sit by and let her evil spread and spread, and then you go all teary with woe-is-me bullshit. We had something beautiful, but you were so fucking afraid—”

  “Kim.” Both the kid and the biker spoke at the same time, and she cut herself off.

  With a huff, she turned on her steel heel and headed into the seats. “I’ll take the humans.”

  Willow cried quietly while Ryder lunged and growled.

  The kid dropped the skateboard, hopped on, and coasted over to the trio. “I’ll feed the vampire.”

  Sam looked down at the small woman he gripped. He smiled, and Charlotte thought she saw a flash of neon green from behind his shades. “Then I guess I’ll strip the Elder of her power.”

  The Elder went insane, kicking with her legs to reveal a long gray skirt under the black cloak. The hood had fallen off, and her wispy hair in a neat bun loosened, flying around her grimacing face in tufts. She looked pathetic and terrified.

  “You’ve been found guilty. By the power of Enforcement, I declare your fantastical abilities null.” He tore her cloak from her.

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nbsp; A moan drew Charlotte’s gaze. Heart thundering, she saw Ryder wrapped around the young person, face buried against the kid’s neck. It wasn’t clear which of them was moaning. Winter and Willow, who seemed to be fairies attached to the Elder somehow, stood off to the side, holding each other.

  Ripping sounds drew Charlotte’s gaze back. The Elder’s gray dress had been torn to the waist. Her shriveled breasts flapped. Charlotte pressed her hands to her mouth, horrified with the violence.

  Sam flattened one enormous hand to the center of the Elder’s chest. “In service to the cosmic balance, your power is gifted to your people.”

  The Elder’s face stretched into a soundless wail. Her knees gave out and she fell, dangling from his unforgiving grip. The agony on the Elder’s face tore at Charlotte’s stomach. She’d have nightmares about that look until she died.

  But then the Elder’s hair fluttered, disintegrating. In a shower of particles, the edges of her shoulders blurred, and then her cheeks. Charlotte gagged. Her skin withered and faded into dust. She appeared as Swiss cheese for a moment, then her whole chest caved in, followed by her legs, then her head fell, sifting into ash before it landed. Finally, Sam fluttered his fingers and the arm he held was gone, too.

  “Guácala. So that’s what happens when unicorn blood gets taken back.” He wiped his hand on his stiff chaps and spat into the ashes.

  Winter and Willow both turned and walked offstage, a graceful but strange display of bared feminine power with their arms around each other’s waists, in perfect step. The sounds of people calling from the audience faded. Charlotte turned to see Ryder glaring at the ashes, wiping his mouth on his arm. The kid was gone, skateboard, too.

  The big guy stalked up to Charlotte. She trembled against the urge to run.

  “Your turn, chica.”

  Charlotte’s gaze tore back to the now-drifting dust of the Elder.

  “That won’t happen to you.” He said it gruffly, like he didn’t appreciate reassuring her. “Unless you’ve been sucking on unicorns for a dozen decades.”

  Charlotte shook her head. It had looked so painful. Ryder stood next to her. A glance down his torso showed that while he was still messy, he appeared healed. Apparently feeding on enforcers was allowed for vampires.

  She tried to smile at him. “I’m s-so glad you’re okay.” The words stuttered out, shaky.

  He nodded, face as serious as she’d ever seen. He reached for her, skimmed his palms over her shoulders. Without saying a word, he untied the halter knot at the back of her neck. Charlotte stared at the gaping dress, then remembered how Sam had ripped the Elder bare. She clenched her fists in the folds of the skirt.

  Ryder let the ties go. The bodice fell but the dress hung on her hips. They were useful for once. He undid the specially designed pretty yellow bra she’d hoped to please him with. Her shoulders hunched in reflex as he drew it off her, dropping it to the stage.

  Her gaze darted around, but she’d become light-blind again and couldn’t see any distinct people in the crowd. Her breathing rasped in her throat, fast and loud. Ryder shifted to her back, his hands gentle on her upper arms. Sam raised his hand and pressed it to the center of her chest along the breastbone, or as close as he could with her breasts in the way.

  The step backward was pure instinct, but Ryder was immovable. The urge to beg hovered on her lips, but she couldn’t get her thick tongue around the words. I’m surprised I’m not crying, she thought.

  Sam’s bass voice rumbled, “Your power is revoked.”

  Breath catching, she stared, frozen, at her reflection in his sunglasses. His beard looked surprisingly soft this close up. For one endless heartbeat, she waited for pain. Ba-dum. Her heart kicked hard enough to bounce off his touch. His palm was warm and firm, his large fingers almost spanning her upper chest.

  He took his hand away and turned to the crowd. “Time to finish blurring memories. This is gonna give me a headache.” He stomped away in his blunt, ugly work boots.

  Ryder drew up the front of her dress, covering her. He tied the halter. With his arm around her shoulders, he turned her and guided her offstage. They walked through a hall and out into a service corridor. From there they went to an elevator and up two levels. She recognized the main concourse of the ship. As if in a dream, she clung to his waist as he led her through a wide atrium and up a metal staircase with dramatic plants and lighting.

  At the landing the staircase split in two, rising right and left. She stared at a huge modern mural, fingers tight against Ryder’s slightly sticky waist. People gave puzzled glances at his slashed leather pants and bare chest and feet, but cruises contained so many styles of dress no one commented.

  Sucking in a huge, hard breath, lashes blinking furiously, she stared at the painting. It was as wide as the landing, surrounded in a semicircular frame that rose twenty feet. Yesterday, when she’d been wandering the ship, the frame had been an archway, and this image of a woman dancing on a beach wasn’t there. The archway had led to another staircase just like the ones to either side of her. This had been the entrance to the fantastical deck, with the lily pad bar.

  “It is closed to me now.”

  “I’m so very sorry.” Ryder nodded, his hand stroking up and down her arm with slow, soothing sympathy. “I owe you my life. Thank you, Charlotte. Merci. Je suis désolé.”

  “It didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel a thing. It’s like I’m the same as I’ve always been.” As soon as she said the words, she knew they were wrong. She was not at all the same. She’d had her first lover, her first adventure, had lost a newly found heritage. The woman in the painting had long orangey-red hair like hers, studded with gleaming carnelian stones. It flew around her in artistic curls and ribbons.

  “I think it’s a blessing you had so little time with your magic. It will make living without it more tolerable. And yet, I find it also the most heartbreaking thing, that you never got to know your abilities.”

  Charlotte turned in to him, resting her cheek on his strong shoulder. The longer she looked at this image, the more she liked it. The wind tossed the waves and palm fronds, and the pale-skinned woman wore a purple dress. Real strips of fabric threaded through the thick paint. “I’ve got a whole week left on this ship. Will they bother me, the other fantasticals? What about the fairies?”

  “They won’t bother you. But I’ll stay close just to be sure.” He rested his cheek on her hair. “You’re not mad at me? I’m sure I would be bitter if our roles were reversed.”

  Charlotte considered. The dancer was leaner than her but also very stylized, with generous hips and breasts. It was easy to imagine this picture could be of her. It seemed nice, that her image was stamped over the hidden entrance to a magical deck. “I’m not bitter. I had to do something to save you. I thought I would die, so being alive is a very big plus.”

  She lifted her face, studying his. No scars marked him at all, but his shorn hair was a wreck. “Are you allowed to talk with me? Now that I’m not magical?”

  He paused, his face tightening. Thoughts raced across his dark eyes.

  “What is it?” She disengaged herself and moved to stand in front of him, suspecting he had something of importance to say.

  He licked his lips. “You are now a very rare category of being, Charlotte. You are a fantastical. It’s what you were born as, and nothing can change that. Your children will be fantastical. But you are also human, empty of magic.”

  She studied him, waiting. “You said they were unlikely to bother me. Is there a problem?”

  He took her hands, toying with her fingers and stepping in close. His face hovered near hers, and for the first time since last night, his magnetism came roaring back over her. His eyes sparkled with roguish intelligence. His lips parted with seductive heat. “I cannot feed on fantasticals. To do so is to become enslaved to the magic in their blood, my mind lost to the Hunger.”


  His breath washed over her, warm. She held herself still, anticipation a fire in her throat.

  “I’m also forbidden to reveal myself to those I feed on. I compel them before I take them, so they are lost in a dream of pleasure, and they do not remember me. All my feedings are meaningless. I never really have the chance to touch someone, to share my true self.” He angled his chest forward, walking them farther back until she pressed against the sandy beach of the mural.

  People streamed up and down the staircase, but it was so big that they were several yards away, oblivious. In the large cathedral space, the murmur of voices and piped music provided a sense of privacy. Charlotte twisted her hands free and hooked them over his shoulders, toying with his nape. She knew this body well after just one night but wouldn’t mind learning it even better. He was only a few inches taller than her, and with her pretty sandals and him barefoot, they were almost nose to nose.

  She nuzzled his cheek. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I could be with you. I can feed from you. While you know what I am.” His voice caught, and when he spoke again it was husky, the words thick and slow. “I have never had that.”

  She smiled. It didn’t seem like such a big deal to her. But it did sound like a potentially really nice deal. “You mean you would like to keep seeing me? To be my lover?” Her interest in what it would be like to experience a vampire bite roared back. She was pretty much positive he could make the experience mind-blowing.

  He nodded. “Is that—would you—I hope you are not insulted by how excited this makes me. I enjoy you for more than this unique—”

  She put a finger against his lips. “Ryder, it isn’t using someone if you’re in a relationship. We have a week to see if our personalities work together as well as our bodies do.” Nibbling across his jaw to his mouth, she brushed her lips over his. “But I think we’re on the way to a friendship with some serious benefits.”

  His hands clasped her head tightly as his mouth crushed hers. His jaw pumped hers wide, and his tongue stormed over hers. Flattening her to the wall, he ground his erection into her hips. Fingers kneading his shoulders, she wildly returned his kiss. His lips were so soft, his hot breath tugging at hers. Her loose breasts throbbed and ached where his hard chest pressed to hers.