I wish more than anything that I could just get some word out that I am alive and unharmed and despite my temporary circumstances, I am happy because I am with a man that I love and he is taking care of me. It is easiest if I think of our time out here as a little bit of a grand adventure that Ben and I are on, a big, long-term game of hide and seek. He says that to let anybody know that I am well right now will put the Negre back on our trail, so we need to wait them out.
I just don’t know how I, a mortal girl, will ever wait out a bunch of vampires that will live forever and are known to kill each other over things that happened five hundred years ago. He seems confident, though, that we can do it. Most of the time, I believe him, but him telling me the story of his betrayal, that has had him hiding out from them for more than a decade reminds me of who we are dealing with.
It’s a lot to take in, a lot to think about as I’m out wandering around the cabin foraging. I’ve got my eyes on fallen wood as I look for oyster mushrooms, when I hear a gunshot go off, just a little ways ahead of me. Instinct takes over and I immediately dive for the nearest tree that stands between me and the shot.
I hear somebody say, “What the…” I freeze.
“I didn’t see anything,” another voice says.
I can hear a little bit of rustling from the direction of the shot, but they don’t seem to be moving toward me. I stay as still as I can, breathing as little as I can, thinking as small as I can – tricks Grandma had taught me.
Finally, the first voice speaks up again. “Nothing,” he says, and I hear them tromp off down the hill.
Only then do I dare move at all, just enough to look toward the sound they’re making. Two guys dressed in camouflage, carrying light rifles. They don’t look in my direction at all, just keep walking, looking for something.
When they finally find it, I hear one say, “There you are,” then after a second. “Clean shot, Dan. Get a full pelt out of this guy.”
I finally let myself relax. Coyote hunters. The season for them runs year-round in Colorado. I get up as quiet as I can, and realize that I’d wandered quite a ways from the cabin while hunting for mushrooms. I tread as light as I can back toward the cabin. I see a No Trespassing sign Ben had set up to mark the property line. I also detect Ben hiding near it, using one of the vampire wards I’m practicing. I decide to give no sign I’m aware of him.
As I’m passing the sign Ben whispers, “Ivy!”
I jump and yelp, and look around for him, but it isn’t until I hear him say my name again that I look at him. He’s crouched down on the ground, and I walked so close that I’d nearly stepped on him. His clothing, all in muted shades of tan and green, seems to blend into the leaf litter around him. But it’s not Ben. It is his voice, but the face is completely different. I jump back again and nearly scream, this time for real.
He stands up, and I realize as he moves that his clothes aren’t actually camouflaged. He’s wearing a dark maroon shirt and black jeans. And it is Ben. I don’t know why I thought just moment ago that he was somebody else, just the same way that I can’t understand why just a moment ago all of his clothes were a different color. I wonder if whatever he just did to me is what makes it safe for him to go into town every few evenings.
“Did they see you?” Ben asks me.
“No,” I say.
“Did they hear you or otherwise know you were there?”
I swallow and look at my feet.
“Did they?” Ben asks again, this time with a different tone in his voice.
“I heard them shoot and just threw myself at the ground. They heard that, but never saw me. They’re just out hunting coyotes,” I say in one quick rush of words.
“It doesn’t matter what they were doing out here, Ivy. Stokers Mill is a small place, and in small places, word gets around when somebody goes missing. If you suddenly appear again, people will notice. People outside of the immediate area.”
“I know, Ben,” I say.
“Back to the cabin,” he says.
I’ve never heard Ben be so short with me before, nor have I ever seen him scowl at me as he is now.
“Go!” he snaps, quietly.
I want to snap back at him, but realize my feet have started moving on their own. I actually feel the desire to have some words with him dissipate. It doesn’t last long, just a dozen steps, but every bit of willpower I can muster can’t fight it. I am tempted to pull out some magic to fight it, but it’s too late for that. He’s already gotten the upper hand, and if I push back now with power of my own, he’ll certainly notice it.
“What did you just to do me?” I ask Ben.
“Same thing I did in the car a couple of days ago.”
“I don’t like it,” I say.
“Good. You’re not supposed to. I can’t do it for long, just a couple of minutes, and I can’t make you do anything that will bring you harm, but you see what I can do.”
“Why are you doing it?” I ask him.
Ben stops walking. “Ivy,” he says. “Look at me.”
His face is much softer now, his voice much gentler. “What?” I finally get to snap back at him.
“I’m doing this because I need you to understand what we’re dealing with. We are strong and powerful and terrible things, Ivy. Walk.” Ben points toward the cabin.
I turn away from him and start walking again, as if I’d always wanted to.
“Tell me your very oldest memory of something other than your parents,” he says.
“My second day of kindergarten,” I say. I don’t even have to think about what I want to tell him. The memory just shoots right up out of the back of my mind. “Grandma dropped me off. Because it was the second day, she wasn’t allowed to come in with me. Only on the very first day was that allowed. I was so shy then, you really wouldn’t believe it. Me, scared to be around so many other people and having no idea how to talk to any of them! I just walked across the playground and into the building and looked for my classroom, the one with the big ‘K’ on the door. I just needed to be away from everybody!”
I can’t help but smile at the next part of the memory. “But there was already somebody in the classroom. I actually stamped my foot and told her to get out! She looked up at me as if I’d just kicked her puppy and started crying. I felt so terrible about that, that I ran up to her and gave her a huge hug and told her I was sorry, and that my name was Ivy. She told me her name was Kate.”
“That’s when you met one of your best friends?” Ben asks.
“Yes. Nathan was in that class, too, but I didn’t get to know him for a couple more weeks. He was a lot more reserved then.” I realize that my answer to the second question didn’t feel like Ben had pulled it out of me. It was just me speaking, answering a casual question.
“You did it to me again, didn’t you?” I ask him.
“Yes. We can compel an honest answer out of somebody. Just one or two questions is all, but if you ask the right questions, that’s all you need. Just like I can only control you for very short periods, and each time I do it, you can resist it more.”
“So eventually, you’ll no longer be able to compel an answer from me?” I stop walking toward the cabin and turn to face him.
“Correct,” Ben says. “If you’d like, I can do it enough to you, over the next few days, to let you resist me completely.”
“Will it let me also resist other vampires?” I ask him.
“It will help greatly, but there are some out there much stronger than me that could still have some advantage over you. It won’t be as strong, though, and you will be able to resist it sooner.”
“Then you should do it,” I say.
“I will,” Ben says. “But don’t let it lull you into a false sense of security. I can help teach you to resist us, but others are still vulnerable. Did you notice how quick you gave me the memory I asked you for? Normally, people take a bit to think about what that memory is.”
“Yes.”
“If either of th
ose hunters had actually seen you, and a vampire asked them what they saw, they would give up more details than they had consciously noticed at the time. Even if they wanted to hide something, if somehow they got the sense that they needed to protect you, whoever you were to them, they wouldn’t be able to. Do you understand?”
“I do,” I tell him. I start walking toward the cabin again, this time by my own choice. “The way you’ve described the other vampires. A lot of them are evil, aren’t they, Ben?”
“Yes.”
“These kinds of powers you’re showing me, that’s part of what does it to them, isn’t it? They see us as weak, as less than they are, and they hold us all in contempt.”
“Exactly,” Ben says. “Remember what I told you about how easy it is to be cruel to something you no longer recognize as human.”
“It’s possible to be different, though. You are different. You are kind to us. Your brother that helped you escape the castle. He’s a good person, isn’t he?” As I ask this, I understand that what I’m really asking is whether it’s possible to use such intense power responsibly. I’m at the age now where Grandma will start training me in earnest. As soon as Ben and I come out of hiding, that is. I know Grandma is an upright and a good person, but I need to know that people like her and Ben, who use great power with kindness and compassion, are not true anomalies, that there are others like them out in the world to balance out the evil ones.
Ben walks in silence for a while before answering me. “Remember, that I came to be who I am now only by sinking to depths that now horrify me. It was only by looking at myself and seeing nothing but darkness looking back at me that I set myself on the path to where I am now. My brother had the same experience. He was a very dark creature at one time, too.”
We get back to the cabin. I walk around to the back, where there’s not a real porch, just a few steps down from the door. But it’s in the shade. I sit down and gesture for Ben to sit next to me. Looking back on my life, especially since high school, I can see there have been times when my popularity has gotten the better of me. I was never one of those terrible girls, never a bully, but there were times when I turned away genuine attempts at friendship because I didn’t think somebody was really worthy of my time and attention.
Then I look at how things have gone with Ben and me. Ben was such an outcast at the school, would still be if we were in class today instead of out here. I was one of the few that accepted when he reached out. Maybe I had my own flirtation with the darkness that power and influence can give you, and maybe seeing just a little bit of it was the nudge I needed to not really go down that road and become a horrible person.
But the fact is, at one time not too long ago, I did have it. I liked the sense that I was unapproachable, that a word or a glance from me carried more weight than it did with anybody else. I loved the fact that I could use magic, real magic that nobody else around me knows anything about. I chose to be a better person then, but what if the temptation were greater? Like when the magic I know is substantial and strong? The way Ben describes it, a lot of vampires, maybe even most of them, give in to the temptation. Even my loving and kind Ben may never tell me just how far down he’d gone before he came back. Then I start to wonder what kind of person I might be if I had both Ben’s blood and Grandma’s teaching. This terrifies me.
“Promise me something,” I say. I don’t know what is making me speak now. It’s not Ben that has words coming out of me. I don’t think I’m doing it. Maybe it is the spirit of my better nature taking control of my voice.
“Anything,” Ben says.
“Promise me you’ll never turn me. What you have. I don’t want it.”
“I told you before, I wouldn’t turn you, even if you asked me to. I know that the life I live is not truly a good one. Certainly not better than the one you have.”
“Don’t dance around it, Ben. Promise me. Promise me that you will never turn me.”
Ben turns to face me fully. He puts his hands on my cheeks, and looks straight into my eyes. “I promise, Ivy. I will never turn you. I promise that I will never turn you into what I am.”
“Thank you,” I say. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I have to turn away from him and look down. The intensity of his gaze while he made that promise was almost unbearable. That intensity, though, convinced me that he was speaking from the heart.
“One other thing I would like to promise you,” Ben says.
“What?” I look into his eyes again.
“I will give you the best life than any warm woman could possibly have.”
This brings a smile to my face.
“I will try to do something, every single day that you walk this earth, to make it a beautiful day for you.”
I lean into him, and he wraps his arms around me in a big hug. I rest my hand on his shoulder, and he kisses the top of my head.
“What are you going to do to make today a beautiful day?” I ask.
“Come here,” Ben says. He stands up and offers me a hand. We go into the cabin, and he goes into the little cabinet in the bedroom where he keeps his spare clothes.
“When I was out the other night getting you new clothes,” he says, pulling a paper bag out from the bottom of a stack of his jeans. The bag is horribly gaudy, pink on pink stripes. It has to be from that adult store he told me about. “I swear, that what’s inside is nowhere near as tacky as the packaging. But when you’re ready again, I got you something to wear.”
I take the bag from him. Whatever is inside is either very light and fine fabric, not much fabric, or both. I open the bag enough to take a peek inside, and see something in a soft, pale green.
“That shade should stand out nice against your skin,” Ben says.
I look at my hands. A lot of bold colors really do make me look even paler than I actually am, and not in the lovely porcelain doll way. I think he’s right, the softer color will suit me. “And the green will go nice with my eyes,” I say.
Chapter Twenty
Nathan Marsh
“Hello,” I say into my phone.
“She’s back in town,” Emily says. I can tell by the tone of her voice that she means the hunter, not Ivy.
“Where?”
“She’s gone back up that trail over the house, same place you pointed out to me before.”
“Is she still there?”
“No. She was by while I was on the road. That’s all I got out of the imp.”
“Is the imp still present?” I ask.
“Yes, and it’s a difficult little bastard. It’ll only tell me that she was here, looked in on the house, and left.”
“I can be there in twenty minutes,” I say. Stationing an imp on the trail to watch it is an unconventional solution to watching a piece of property, given the capriciousness of imps, but with my influence upon the little demon, we might be making it work. The hunter is just too good for Emily to monitor physically, and magic is of extremely limited use as passive surveillance. We will decide, based on whether the imp cooperates with me or not, whether using one is a workable solution.
I am loathe to leave my overnight surveillance of Carl’s house, because he is still very touchy and volatile, but a chance to get some solid information about the hunter is too good to pass up. I just have to hope that Carl stays home for a while instead of going out looking for Ivy and Ben again. Now that we know for sure that the hunter is back in town and sniffing around, the only safe assumption is that she will come around to check on Carl some time, too. I know that he is closing in fast on Ivy and Ben, and I need to keep the hunter from following him out anywhere near them if he goes out looking again.
I briefly consider using my telekinesis to temporarily disable his car while I am gone, but his knowledge of vehicles is vastly superior to mine. Anything I can think of to keep him from using his car would be easy enough for him to diagnose.
Fretting over that, however, is getting me no information, so I have to take my chances. Besides, it is a
bout three in the morning. It is likely that if he has not left his house yet, he will not do so until it is time to go to school. I cover the distance to Emily’s house quickly, and find her outside waiting for me.
“Let’s go,” she says, before I even set foot outside my car. The imp must be annoying her something fierce for her to be so curt with me.
We make our way carefully up the ridge behind the house, taking great pains to leave no prints of our own, and to break no twigs or branches. If the hunter is going to continue to watch the house, we want her to feel secure returning to the same place to do so.
I can feel the binding spell Emily cast, with my help, long before I can see the darkness that emanates from it. It is only when I have direct line of sight to the center of the spell’s focus that I can see the deeper blackness standing out against the darkness of the woods at night. Though the focus is small, it is intense, so much that the baleful red light of the imp’s eyes does not escape it, even though I know it is looking right at me. I know it wants to pretend it does not see me. I could order it out, or even draw it forth, but this particular kind of imp responds best to silent threats. I just stop on the trail, and look toward the focus, as if it is the least interesting thing I have seen all day.
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