My Familiar Stranger

by Victoria Danann

  Elsbeth had her bend over so that she could spray her hair upside down, then give it a blast of heat to keep it looking big and edgy for the duration of the night. As for makeup, she reluctantly agreed to some kohl around the eyes and blood red lipstick. The eye liner made her turquoise eyes pop like neon lights and Elora wasn’t keen on attracting too much attention. Elsbeth insisted that all attention is good attention, finished and hurried away because she had plans of her own.

  Elora took a look at the results. "Hey. Who’s the slut in the mirror?"

  It was too late to make changes because that was Ram knocking on the door right at eight o’clock as promised. She was tempted to tell him to go away, but knew he wasn’t good at doing what he was told. So she opened up and steeled herself for the laughter.

  He stared for a minute, the blank look out of place on his very expressive face. “Excuse me. I’m lookin’ for Elora Laiken?”

  Elora’s shoulders slumped and she rolled her eyes. “Okay so I’m out of my element. Elsbeth did a club night make-over. It’s all wrong, isn’t it?”

  Ram’s mouth curled up at the edges as his gaze lowered to where curls fell gracefully between her breasts. She caught her breath when he reached in to gingerly lift a spiraling lock and rub the silky texture between his fingers. His eyes moved slowly up to her mouth. As her lips parted under his stare, his tongue peaked out to wet his bottom lip as his gaze continued upward until he locked her eyes on his. What she saw in those eyes was unmistakable hunger and she knew in that moment that no woman had a prayer of refusing Rammel Hawking if he ever got serious about down and dirty pursuit. He pressed closer and showed her what sex looks like in a smile.

  “Let’s stay in tonight and let me show you just how very no’ wrong you look.”

  Elora’s breath hitched as some possible scenarios played out on the screen of her mind. This was far from Ram’s usual light hearted banter and it caught her by surprise since she’d grown comfortable with their unspoken understanding of flirt, but not seriously. Or maybe they didn’t really have an understanding? All she knew was that he was close enough for her to feel the heat coming from his body and his gravelly rasp made her stomach quiver.

  Wanting to dial things back to a manageable level, she stepped back and said, “So. Really. This is okay?”

  He slumped, leaning his shoulder into the door frame with an indulgent, but slightly disappointed smile. “Perfect. Let’s go.”

  They met Storm and Kay at the whister pad on the roof. Both did their share of staring. Storm made no comment, but Kay said, “Like the come-and-bite-me outfit.”

  The Order maintained four rooftop pads on the island of Manhattan. Each had a private elevator going straight to the top that could be accessed by key or palm recognition. Tonight they were going to the location at 50th and 6th and would walk the rest of the way.

  The flight in was a marvelous experience for Elora because she had never seen New York, in any reality, but the skyline at night by whister was a sight she wouldn’t forget.

  It was practically balmy for a late Fall night in New York. The walk took fifteen minutes because Elora tried to take everything in. Amidst the lights, traffic, crowds, shops, markets, and cafes, she managed not to miss the fact that many passersby did double takes when they saw her companions. She supposed that it was unusual to see three such breathtaking men out walking the streets like mortals. If B Team noticed the attention, they were skilled at ignoring it.

  They stopped in at the club level long enough to look around. There were three men looking for vampire and one woman looking with wide eyes at various expressions of undress performing group bump and grind. She couldn’t have been much more scandalized if it had been a full on orgy and she was sure her face was glowing as red as an exit sign. The music was too loud for talking. So, when they were ready to move on, Storm pressed his hand into her lower back and motioned toward the elevator.

  The Underground was much more subdued. The band playing was performing original music that was somewhat quieter, with a style that concentrated on lyrics and heavy blues influence. Elora’s gaze went straight to Baka. She judged that, of the two hundred people or so in that room, only four could conceive of a six-hundred-year-old vampire standing there looking for all the world like an exceptionally handsome thirty. There was no way to tell for sure with the gray lens glasses, but she thought he was looking her way, offering the barest hint of a smile in recognition.

  Kay located a corner table. Elora listened to the music. B Team looked for intel. After a couple of hours, they were satisfied they had seen what there was to see and decided to move upstairs to street level for dinner. At the bistro, they settled into a red, leather booth and ordered enough food to make the waiter raise his eyebrows and chortle even though chortling is always risky behavior when tips are in the offing. The joke was on him when he came back to find empty plates looking like a plague of locusts had swarmed the booth on their way to a Biblical nightmare. Black Swan knights burn a lot of calories that have to be replenished often.

  All that eating didn’t stop them from taking a look around. Elora took note of the fact that they turned supper as stake out, no pun intended, into an art form of dining and conversing while surreptitiously sweeping the surroundings, mentally cataloging every detail.

  Storm paid the bill with a platinum American Express. Just when he finished signing, Kay said, “Two and a vic. Eleven o’clock.”

  Ram leaned over, grasped Elora’s forearm to be sure he had her attention and locked her eyes with enough intensity to convey that he meant business. “Stay here. Do. No’. Move from this table until I come back.”

  Trying to be as covert as the behavior she had witnessed all evening, she glanced toward the door. Two ice-eyed vampire and a young woman who looked strung out were leaving through the front door. Ram, Kay, and Storm followed. A few seconds later a third figure with impossibly pale irises was walking toward the door to exit the same way, clearly following them.

  Suddenly, staying put in a snug didn’t feel like the right choice. The choice was: leave or lose the vamp. She left. When she emerged onto the street, she saw that he was already half a block away. She took off after him, grateful that she was wearing the riding heel boots instead of absurd platform stilettos like those she had seen in the club.

  Other diners who had emerged from the bistro were strolling away on the sidewalk, reviewing service and cuisine. One of them was using a toothpick. On impulse she reached out and grabbed it on her way by with a, “Sorry. And thank you.”

  She caught up with the vampire just as he turned into an alleyway. Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned thinking that perhaps he wouldn’t need to insist that the pair he was following share their meal. When he turned to see what supper looked like, he found Elora advancing in a red skirt and told himself it was his lucky day. He smiled a predatory smile.

  Elora wasn’t sure how hunters normally confirm that a target is vampire, but straight forward generally worked for her. So, when she was just out of arm’s reach, she simply said, “Show me your fangs.”

  Naturally, he was initially stunned by the request, but decided there was no reason to be shy. He opened his mouth wide and proudly demonstrated the descent of two very long, sharp, white canines. That was just before he was dispatched to hell or wherever his final destination might be.

  Using a combination of the precision punch she had mastered over a lifetime of martial arts training, the extra strength she had gained at the price of being cruelly sucked into this dimension, and a toothpick snatched from a random mouth, she drove all two inches of the tiny stake into his heart killing him instantly. The force was sufficient to prevent either splintering or breaking the soft wood. The vampire’s eyes and mouth went wide with shock before he succumbed and crumpled to the cracked tar pavement of the alley.

  Behind her she heard peals of gorgeous laughter, unmistakable in its unique, musical resonance. That could mean only one thing. Istvan Baka was occ
upying the same alleyway as herself and the departed.

  “You took him out with a toothpick? Oh, God in heaven, as long as I have lived, I’ve never seen anything so priceless!” He was laughing so hard she thought he might cry. “Show me your fangs!” He repeated what she had said to the unlucky vampire with added incredulity and laughed all the harder.

  “What are you doing out here, Baka?” Somehow, encountering him “in the wild” made him seem more appealing instead of more frightening which was disturbing.

  “Following you of course,” he said with matter of fact ease looking down as he circled the corpse. “Although it seems there was no cause for concern, Lady Laiken.”

  “You’re saying you followed me because you were worried? About me?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” His pale eyes sparkled in the dim light of the alley, still damp from a fresh shower that magically turned the entire city into a slick surface of reflecting light. Every couple of seconds his gaze wandered back and forth between the open ends of the alley before coming back to fix on her with a concentration that made her want to squirm and press thighs together. He knew he was having that effect and was enjoying it. Thoroughly.

  “I like the costume. Especially the very red, very short skirt.” His gaze scanned her slowly and appreciatively, top to bottom and back again before coming to rest on her mouth. “And the lip stain. Enticing. Would you call that blood red?”

  “Okay. Look. I’m kind of an amateur at this. I don’t know what they usually do about, er,” she glanced down at the dead vampire, “clean up. Do you?”

  “Yes. They have people who take care of it. They conceal the evidence as best they can and call for pick up.” He grabbed the body by the arms, easily pulled it next to a pile of garbage bags stacked next to a trio of dumpsters, and sat it upright against the brick wall so that it looked like it could have been a drunk passed out.

  “Right.” That sounded like a good plan. “I don’t know who to call.”

  Baka pulled his phone out of his pocket and speed dialed a number. “One of your knights just bagged a vamp, but she didn’t have the clean up number.”

  Baka held the phone away from his ear. Elora could hear Sol shouting curses on the other end. “She? What the great father of fuck do you mean she?”

  “You didn’t intend to turn the Lady Laiken loose on a poor, unsuspecting population of vampire who’ve been running amuck, digging in and planting roots in the community? Surprising considering that she has to be the best weapon you’ve got.” There was quiet on the other end of the line. He glanced up at Elora. “We’re in an alley off Broadway between 38th and 39th. The package is semi-concealed and I will stay here to make sure the scene is secure from discovery until your people arrive.”

  She could hear the murmur of Sol talking, no longer shouting. Baka said, “Okay,” and hung up.

  “He wants to see all four of you when you get back. No matter how late it is. His office. He’ll be waiting.” Baka tilted his head as his lips spread into a beautiful, white fangless grin. Captivating. Then, he held his phone up saying, “Did that qualify as being a good vampire?”

  Elora studied him for a second, then reached out and took the phone from his hand as casually as if she was taking hot chocolate from The Hub barista. She programmed her number into the phone and handed it back. “Don’t make me sorry.”

  “Cross my heart.” He took the phone and slid it back into a jeans pocket.

  “Oh very funny. So you’re a painter, a musician, an author, an interior decorator, a vampire, a spy, a possible stalker, and a comedian.”

  With the hint of a sardonic smile he said, “At a lounge near you. Shows nightly at ten and twelve.”

  While Elora was trying to process this bit of cognitive dissonance, he went on. “You’d better get back to the cafe. If bits of Bad Company come back and find you missing, at least two of them will turn Manhattan into a state of chaos, bedlam, and pandemonium.”

  Well, what could be said to that? “Thank you for your help with the, uh, mess.”

  With a flourish he executed an old world bow with grace and a lack of self-consciousness that could only be managed by someone who had lived during the time when such things were en vogue. “I live to serve.”

  “Uh huh.” She started toward the mouth of the alley then looked back to say, “By the way, that was bad ass bass tonight.”

  Through the darkness she could see white teeth flash. “I take requests.”

  She chuckled half way back to the bistro replaying in her head Baka’s dry humor, quick wit and sexy mannerisms, asking herself what she was doing semi-flirting with the most infamous vampire in the annals of The Order.

  She ran into the bistro just as B Team had finished its first sweep of the place and realized she wasn’t in sight. They were wearing a range of expressions from worried to perturbed. She could see relief wash over Ram’s face when he spotted her. He hurried toward where she waited just inside the door.

  “What part of stay here and do no’ move did you no’ understand?” he demanded.

  Elora grabbed the sleeve of his leather jacket and urged him toward the door. “Get them now. Let’s talk outside.”

  Ram motioned for Storm and Kay who followed them outside onto the sidewalk. Elora urged them into a huddle where she could talk quietly and began to explain that a vamp left on their tail, that she didn’t want them caught unaware, so she followed and killed him before he could become a problem for them.

  Storm just stood there without expression shaking his head back and forth like he was choosing to simply not accept this as part of his reality. She had the inappropriate passing thought that he reminded her of a bobble head. So she turned to Ram whose color had left his face.

  He spoke so quietly it seemed like he was talking to himself. “You went after a vamp with no back up.”

  “Well, somebody needed to do it!” Seeing that Ram was growing steadily paler, she became alarmed. “Do not start hyperventilating!” That admonition infuriated him, but did not rob him of air.

  “Somebody needed to do it?” Kay repeated. “Elora, that was truly a dumb ass thing to say, but maybe it fits because I’m starting to think you are one.” In an exquisite moment of irony, it seemed the berserker was the only one present who was capable of controlling his emotions. “Why don’t you just take us to the scene?”

  Elora nodded and started walking that direction. She was explaining exactly how it happened; that she hadn’t been sure how to verify beyond question that a suspect is a vamp. “So I asked to see his fangs and he showed me. Then I gave him wood.”

  They were just turning into the alley when she finished that sentence. Baka, still there waiting for pick up, started laughing all over again.

  “Gave him wood!” He shook his head and reached for moisture at his eyes. “This just gets better and better.” All three members of B Team tensed when they realized Baka was in the alley. “She killed him with a toothpick that she grabbed out of some fellow’s mouth as she ran by. Did you know that?”

  Ram, Kay, and Storm forgot being wary of Baka and simultaneously turned to look at Elora like she was an alien which, technically, she was. But they were looking at her like they’d never seen her before. Finally, she raised her hands.

  “What?”

  “And did you tell them that Sol is waiting to see all of you in his office as soon as you get back? No matter how late?” Baka was thinking she is very cute when her nostrils flare.

  “I hadn’t gotten to that part,” she said through clenched teeth while glaring at Baka like the traitor he was. “Yet,” she said while giving him the finger.

  Storm wheeled on Ram with seething accusation written all over him.

  Ram recoiled and gaped in response to Storm’s seemingly irrational behavior. “Why be glarin’ at me? She’s the one who gave him the bloody finger!”

  “Because. Rammel. Somehow I see yer bluidy influence all over this.” Storm was unrepentant about mock
ing Ram’s accent. “I don’t think she even knew what a rude gesture was before she started spending time with you!”

  Baka broke apart in new waves of laughter. “Better and better. I haven’t had so much fun in… well… ever.” He patted his shirt pocket. “I need to take notes. I’m putting this in a book.”

  Kay decided to intercede before things escalated. More. “Okay. Everybody settle down. Let’s hitch a ride with clean up. We’ll get back faster and sort this out.”

  “You mean ride with the, uh, body?” Elora glanced at the corpse feeling inclined to balk at the idea.

  Storm’s black eyes settled on her coldly. In a mercilessly detached tone he said, “If you can kill it, you can ride with it.” Then to Baka. “You’re relieved.”

  Baka tilted his chin up at Storm in a reverse nod, said, “Fine by me,” and strolled away leisurely casting a grin back over his shoulder at Elora.

  Needing to have the last word in this exchange, Elora looked over the trio and said, “By the way, you’re all bloody welcome.” Too exasperated to argue further, she found a place several yards away to lean against the brick wall, arms crossed in front of her, and have a miserable wait for a ride.

  The van arrived in a few minutes. It took two trips in the elevator to get everyone, living and dead, up to the whister pad on the roof. They rode in silence back to the base. Elora couldn’t decide whether she was more creeped out about riding with vampire remains or angry about the confusing reaction she’d gotten from her friends. She really was just trying to watch out for their well-muscled behinds. Why didn’t they get that?

  As promised, Sol was waiting in his office, rolling a small black cigar between his fingers, and staring straight ahead. She had never seen facial features cast in such rock hard planes. As they crowded into the office Storm opened his mouth to speak, but Sol held up a hand to stop him. “I want to hear it from the young lady.”