by Lexi C. Foss
Crispin shook his head at her remarks, then reached out, took her by the shoulders and pulled her flat on her back. “You will learn to trust me in time,” he said, kissing her.
“You will learn to respect my boundaries in time,” she responded.
“I doubt it,” he answered.
“Me, too,” she snapped, rolling over and presenting her back to him.
Crispin settled in behind her, smiling to himself. She may be holding back secrets, but she trusted him. She’d invited him to shelter in her home. She turned her back to him to rest, and whether she admitted it or not, everything she’d done since he’d tapped on her window, including letting him in, was a sign of trust. She trusted him. And eventually that trust would grow and she’d share those secrets with him.
Crispin snuggled her from behind, looping an arm over her stomach and up over her chest to her shoulder to hold her tight.
Solange pressed a kiss to the back of his hand as it curled around her shoulder.
“Don’t bite me,” he warned teasingly.
“I don’t have fangs,” she snapped, grabbing her pillow and pulling away from him.
Crispin laughed as she tried to move away from him and he pulled her back to his chest.
“Rest, Solange. Give me this little bit of time until you must rise and work.”
She didn’t answer, but she settled down in his arms and closed her eyes, enjoying him being this close, knowing she’d not be able to have it for long. She thought over their conversations since she’d let him in. She thought about the way he touched her, the way she touched him; she was going to miss this so much. It would hurt like hell to let him go when the time came. She smiled to herself when she thought of his face, pressed up against her window, tapping incessantly to get her attention. Then her smile dropped when she remembered his exact words. ‘He was hunting.’
“Crispy?” Solange asked.
“Hmm?” came his sleepy reply.
“You said you were hunting… is Alastair here?” she asked.
“Pretty sure he is. But we can’t go after him now — sun’s up. We’ll hunt tonight.”
15
Solange slipped out of bed so’s not to wake Crispin. Quietly she gathered her clothes, her boots, and took her phone off her bedside table. She opened the bedroom door and silently let herself out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her. She smiled when Mr. Scruffikins greeted her, bouncing in circles at her feet as she walked down the hallway.
“Good morning,” she said, bending down to pat his head. “You hungry? I am, I’m starved. Or would you rather go outside?” He followed her into the kitchen where she put fresh water in his bowl and refilled his food bowl. Mr. Scruffikins drank his fill of water then ran over to the side door that allowed people to go out onto the terrace without opening the floor to ceiling windows. Solange followed him and opened the door for him, making a mental note that she needed to have a doggy door installed so he could come and go as he pleased. She watched as he ran around her pool yipping and barking at the birds that gathered there in the mornings, before finally making his way over to the small grassy area to relieve himself.
Solange gathered the ingredients to make her favorite seafood burritos. She had always, even when she was a little girl, preferred regular lunchtime and dinnertime foods for breakfast. She rarely ate eggs and toast first thing in the morning. She battered and fried the shrimp, oysters, and scallops she kept in her refrigerator whenever she was going to be home for more than just a day or two. When they were done, she warmed two tortillas and layered them with the seafood and potatoes, tartar sauce and cocktail sauce and wrapped it up. She plated one for herself and one for Crispin. Seafood fried so quickly it really took no time at all.
She sat down and turned on her TV, then reached for her phone to check messages. The Eyewitness Morning News was live on scene with several ambulances and at least a dozen police cars. The flashing lights caught her attention as she listened to the reporter give whatever little information he had. Four girls, three dead, one missing overnight in their off campus apartment near the University. The names were being withheld pending notification of the families. Her blood ran cold. She knew. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew without a doubt, Alastair was responsible for this.
Her phone began to vibrate, taking her attention from the newscast. Solange reached for it and looked at the name. She swiped green to accept the call and answered. “Do you see this?” she asked, still looking at the TV.
“Yes,” Gillian answered.
“It’s him isn’t it?”
“We think it is. We think he’s back, Solange. That’s why I’m calling. To let you know in case you didn’t already, to ask if you have any idea of where to start, and to give you first shot at the assignment. We received no intel to let us know he’d returned to New Orleans. We have eyes and ears scattered about the city all the time, but no one reported him or word about him coming back,” Gillian said.
“First shot? That was our deal. If he’s on the radar at any time, for any reason, I’m on him. Me! No one else!”
“I know. And I’m honoring it. But I'm asking you as my friend, not my operative, to please allow me to send backup with you. Don’t go in alone, Solange. He’s completely unpredictable. It’s too dangerous for one operative alone.”
“I know exactly what he’s become. I know exactly what he has always been, Gillian. You forget who I am. You forget exactly how I came to be.”
“Where are you going? I’ll send backup.”
“I don’t need it. It’ll be fine.”
“Where, Solange?”
“Bye, Gillian.”
“Solange! He’s more dangerous than he’s ever been. He’s completely off the rails, Solange. You can’t do this one alone.”
“I was always going to do this one alone.” Solange hung up before Gillian could say anything else. She didn’t want anyone else involved in what she was about to do. She was going to kill her father, and anyone else involved would only distract her, make her have to protect them as well. She didn’t need that.
She pushed her burrito away from her, got up from the table and changed into her clothes. She called Mr. Scruffikins inside and picked up her plate while Mr. Scruffikins ate. She glanced at the notepad lying on the kitchen counter and picked up a pen. After writing a quick note she put both burritos on one plate, grabbed a bottle of tea from the fridge and headed back to her bedroom. Quietly she opened the door and smiled when she saw Crispin snuggled in her bed, soundly sleeping. If she’d been anyone else, she could have loved him.
Crispin reached out in his sleep, pulling her pillow into his arms and settling down again, still asleep. Solange watched him. There was no ‘could have loved him’ about it. She did love him. But she could never allow him to know. If she did, he’d never leave, and if he never left, E.V.I.E. would find out about him, and they’d have him eliminated. She smiled sardonically. Cursed. Everything about herself, everything she came into contact with, one way or another ended up causing pain. She was cursed when she was conceived. She was cursed when she was born, and she was cursed now. But it was time to end the curse. It was time to end the sonofabitch who was responsible for her existence.
She quietly left the bedroom, telling Mr. Scruffikins to stay when he tried to follow her.
Crispin awoke hours later, face down in Solange’s pillow, alone. He turned over and moved to sit up, dislodging a warm ball of fur from the small of his back when he did. He looked down at the small dog. “Where is she, Traitor?” The dog just lay there and looked at him, before sitting up and using his back leg to scratch his neck. His tags jangled on his collar, and Crispin could see words on them. He reached out and held the tag still so he could read it. “Mr. Scruffikins?” he asked. “She named you Mr. Scruffikins? That is a travesty — just won’t do. Even Traitor is a better name than that. I’ll come up with something better,” he said, getting out of bed. Crispin ran a hand through his bed-head
hair and yawned. He looked over at the dog again, sitting on the end of the bed and watching him. “Mr. Scruffikins,” he scoffed.
“Yip!” the dog answered excitedly, getting to his feet and dancing around.
Crispin walked over to the door and without thought pulled it open. Bright sunlight streamed down the hallway from the huge wall of windows in Solange’s living room. He slammed the bedroom door closed, his heart pounding. Sunlight would kill him. It would burn him in seconds, and turn him to ashes. “Fuck!” he breathed out, still pumping adrenalin from the unexpected scare.
He looked down at the little dog standing beside him. “Sunshine is bad, Scruff. Remember that. Sunshine bad.” Crispin cracked the door open and shouted out into the rest of the house. “Solange?” He waited a few moments and when he got no answer, he called, raising his voice to an almost unbearable level. “Solange, are you here?!”
“Damnit!” he cursed, closing the door and looking around the room. Then he saw it. A plate on the dresser across the room. He walked over to it and pulled a note from beneath it.
“Crispy, had to go out — extermination of the evil vampires of the world never stops. Hope you get some good sleep. Here’s some lunch if you’re hungry. You’ll have to wait until about 7:45 this evening before you can leave. That’s about when the sun goes down this time of year around here. Good news though, I have cable — and lots of vampire movies to make you feel right at home. Just hit saved on the remote, they’re lined up and ready to play.
PS: If any evil vampires happen on my place, please slay them for me. I’ll be tired when I get home and not up to the job.
PSS: There’s no garlic in the food. I don’t use it.
PSSS: Take care of Mr. Scruffikins for me.
Crispin glanced down at the dresser again and saw the remote. He looked over at the TV mounted on the wall and picked up the remote, pressing power. He rolled his eyes when ‘Interview With the Vampire’ started playing. He looked over at Mr. Scruffikins. “She thinks she’s funny.”
Crispin picked up the plate and removed the foil. He lifted one of the burritos to his nose and sniffed, but rather than the anticipated Mexican seasonings, his nose picked up the scent of the ocean. “But it seems she can cook, so we’ll forgive her,” he said to Mr. Scruffikins. He grabbed the bottled sweet tea that Solange had left on the dresser beside the plate and took the top off, tossing it back onto the dresser top. He stuck the remote under his arm, grabbed the plate he’d set down long enough to open his tea, and took a seat on the bed, with Mr. Scruffikins hopping up right beside him.
As Crispin settled the bottle of tea between his legs so he could eat without having to hold it, he noticed the little dog, leaning his entire body against his hip. Crispin looked down at him. “Mine,” he said. “You can go out there and get some kibble or whatever it is she feeds you. I have to stay here.”
Mr. Scruffikins blinked his huge, sad, puppy dog eyes at Crispin and let out a little whine. “Oh, fine!” Crispin snapped, just after taking a bite. “Oh my god,” he said, looking at the inside of the burrito where he’d just bitten it. It was a seafood burrito. Shrimp, scallops, and oysters, all fried to perfection and rolled up with roasted potatoes, tartar and cocktail sauces in a buttered tortilla.
Mr. Scruffikins whined again. Crispin dug a potato out of the burrito and handed it to him. Mr. Scruffikins eagerly took it from him, mouthed it around a bit, then spit it out.
“I take it you don’t like potatoes.”
Mr. Scruffikins jumped off the bed and pawed at the door.
“You better be able to service yourself, Scruff. I can’t go out there,” Crispin said. He let the dog out, closed the door and resumed his position in front of the TV to finish his food.
Not ten minutes later the dog was scratching at the door to get back in. Crispin opened the door and let him in before tightly closing the bedroom door again. “That’s it. You can’t get back out until I do.”
Some while later, he’d eaten, watched part of a movie, taken a shower, and was pacing the room. “I don’t like this, Scruff.”
Mr. Scruffikins just reclined on Solange’s pillow and watched him, walking back and forth.
“Where is she? Has she found Alastair, or is it some other assignment?” he asked the dog. Every twenty-to-thirty minutes he’d stalk to the bedroom door, open it just enough to peek at the hallway, see the sunshine and bellow at it before slamming the door shut again.
The next hours were excruciating for Crispin, unable to leave the bedroom, not knowing where Solange was. He checked the clock beside Solange’s bed again. Two more hours. He had two more hours before he could leave here. He growled out his frustration, and threw himself down on the bed to wait.
Solange stood outside the deserted mansion in the Garden District. Its windows and doors were boarded up, and the roof had partially collapsed. There were keep out signs posted by the city on the black wrought iron fence standing guard around the perimeter of the property. It was condemned — had been for as long as she could remember. But a long battle between the city council and the historic society of New Orleans kept it from being torn down, or restored.
Solange stood there regarding the mansion. She’d been drawn here over and over again as a child. It was as though the old house called to her. As she grew older and better understood the story told to her by her grandmama about her mother, she’d convinced herself this old house was where her mother had lived the last months of her life with Alastair.
It was ironic, really. Kidnapped and held only blocks from her actual home, yet still a world away, help not a feasible thing. Her poor mother had most likely never even realized where she was and had no idea she was so close to home. Solange reached out and placed a hand on the iron gate. She felt no magics, no conjurings meant to keep others out. But there was an inordinate amount of anguish trapped on this property.
Solange looked up at the boarded up windows again. “Is this where you were, Mom?” she whispered aloud. Hand still on the gate, she let it slide down to the latch and let herself into the front yard of the dilapidated mansion. She opened herself up, sending out her energies, searching for any presence at all. Immediately she got several signatures back, but they all seemed animal, not supernatural. She looked up at the sky and took notice of how late in the day it was. She only had about an hour before the sun set, but that was enough time to drive a stake through a deserving heart — especially if the deserving heart was still slumbering.
16
Crispin opened the bedroom door for the thousandth time since waking up and finding himself alone. The sunshine that greeted him was still bright enough to cause him harm. In fact, any sunshine at all would cause him harm. “Fuuuuuck!!” he shouted, stomping back over and sitting down on Solange’s side of the bed forcefully. He looked down at Mr. Scruffikins. “This is fucking ridiculous,” he declared.
Mr. Scruffikins sat at attention at his feet, watching him to see what would happen next.
Out of boredom, Crispin reached out and yanked open the drawer of the bedside table. He huffed a laugh when he found a gun, two knives, a small squeeze bottle of water and what appeared to be a small, wooden, pointed stake. He leaned over, using two fingers to gingerly lift the small plastic bottle of water. He wasn’t sure, but seeing as it was stored with weapons that would be deadly to both human and vampire alike, the chances that he was holding holy water were very high. Grimacing, he set it back where he’d found it. When he did, his eyes caught the faded photo of a woman on the old, yellowed page of a newspaper.
He very carefully slid the newspaper out from under the weapons to get a better look at it. His immediate impression was that the woman was familiar to him. He squinted his eyes to better see the photo, but it was a very old newspaper so it didn’t do much good. His eyes jumped to the article accompanying the photo and as he read his dread grew.
The photo was of Adrienne LaCelle De’Mers. He didn’t know her personally, but anyone moving in supernatural
circles had heard tell of the LaCelle Coven. And Adrienne was the granddaughter of the Granddame her self - Marceline. She’d died, and left behind an infant daughter. Crispin cocked his head just slightly to the side as his thoughts began to play catch up.
Solange had magics about her. And she never spoke of her family. Crispin turned the newspaper over and unfolded it, looking for a date. “Holy hell,” he said out loud. The date on the newspaper was about twenty-two years ago. Solange was about the same age if he had to guess. He got up and replaced the newspaper beneath all the weapons in Solange’s nightstand. Then he went on a search mission, trying to find anything that had Solange’s full name on it.
He went through everything in the bedroom, but found nothing more interesting than the weapon drawer and the old newspaper. Then he stalked over to the bedroom door again and pulled it open. He’d been prepared to slam it shut again, but fumbled the door handle when he realized no sunshine greeted his peek down the hallway. “Ha! Come along, Scruff, we are free!” he shouted.
Carefully Crispin advanced down the hallway toward the living room, hesitant to just rush into the living room just in case there was some measure of sunset still shining through the windows. On finding the apartment in the dark except for the lamp in the living room and the light above the stove in the kitchen, he relaxed measurably.
“Is she Solange De’Mers?” he asked Mr. Scruffikins. “Me thinks she is,” he answered himself, nodding. He stood in Solange’s living room looking slowly around himself when his eyes fell on a very modern, sleek, computer desk and a laptop sitting upon it. He grinned as he hurried over to the desk, rifling through the neatly stacked papers sitting to the right of the mouse pad.
His fingers hesitated over a folded piece of paper. “Electric bill…” He lifted the sheet of paper and unfolded it, his eyes skimming the print all over the page looking for her name. His suspicions confirmed, he raised his eyes from the bill in his hand to gaze out over her private terrace and the swimming pool nestled there. Now he understood her abilities. He looked down at the bill once more before folding it as it had been and placing it neatly back in the stack.
