Minutes to Midnight

by Phaedra Weldon

  My jaw broke the sound barrier traveling to the ground as it dropped. "Thirteen…hours? I've been out that long?"

  "You hit your head several times, Dags. And from what I could see from the ash and zombie parts in your wake, you shot fire and slung that sword of yours."

  "Why do you sound mad?"

  "Christ, Darren. How much magic do you have?" His brow furrowed. "It's like I don't know what's coming next with you. You're either freezing things in mid-air, or setting them on fire, pulling a sword out of your ass—"

  "Hand."

  "Shut up. And every time you do I find you asleep somewhere. Or unconscious."

  I lowered my hands and looked sideways at him. "You were worried."

  "Only because I can't afford this place without a roommate."

  I gave him my best smirk and he reached over to ruffle my hair. "Stop that."

  "You have bedhead. Get a shower. I got breakfast fixed."

  I did manage to half-fall, half-stumble out of bed. Mike caught me and made sure I wasn't going to face-plant into the floor. I was still light-headed, and the headache pounded against the front of my skull. A hospital would be the best place for me, but we were already dodging calls from Memorial University Medical Center. I'd spent a bit of time there a month ago—after having landed in the Savannah River escaping from Alfheim with some seriously open wounds. At first things seemed fine. They cured a staph infection; I went home.

  Then the phone calls started. Some doctor there took a closer look at my blood and wanted me to come in for tests. I did, just because I didn't want to risk any other infections I might have contracted. But Dr. Lisa Pollard wasn't interested in infection—she was more interested in the fine wood residue she'd found in my blood.

  After giving my teacher, Nona, a call about Pollard's enthusiasm and wanting to pay me for a blood study, we avoided the woman like the plague. Nona didn't trust the woman and warned me to stay as far away from conventional medicine as possible. Unfortunately, the only healer we knew was Samantha Hawthorne, a witch living in New Orleans and a friend of Mike's. I'd first met her a month after I arrived in Savannah. She'd saved me from an Angel attack in a different cemetery and then healed me several times during our little adventure in the world of Alfheim.

  Maybe I should avoid cemeteries?

  Pollard was still calling. And I was just as happy not to visit a hospital.

  I figured if Mike ever got wounded, I'd dial 911. I didn't want to take chances. But then…Mike never got hurt. Dude was made of Teflon or something.

  He was looking down at me funny. "What?"

  "You think it was the book that healed you?"

  "Maybe it did? Maybe that's why I don't have a bite mark?"

  "Well, I thought about that, but why not heal everything? You're still black-and-blue in all the worst places and the look on your face tells me you've got a massive headache. It just seems a little weird. And a little picky. There's aspirin and bottled water in the bathroom. I suggest a long shower." He pointed to the bathroom. "We have a class at four."

  "Class?" I called back as I shuffled out the door in front of him and turned to the right into my bathroom. It was a pretty cool townhouse, with a master bedroom and private bathroom on the third floor. My bedroom was one of two on the second floor. The bathroom on this floor was bigger, but split between my room and the other one. I flipped on the light and saw the aspirin and water. After I threw the pill back and drank half the bottle—pausing for brain freeze—I turned a confused face at Mike in the doorway. "What class? I gotta be at work at five."

  "Sword class. You missed it on Wednesday and Shi-han Shu noticed."

  "I had to work."

  "Sword classes come first."

  "No, making money to pay rent comes first." I finished up the water and looked in the mirror. Wow. Shouldn't have done that.

  I don't consider myself an attractive man. I did have serious bed-head. The thick shit was sticking up at odd angles, which only gave a humorous note to the mottled bruises on my cheek, over my left eye, and on the right side of my jaw. I turned my face to the right, then the left and looked down to the darker marks on my chest and upper arms. "You think this makes me look tougher?"

  Mike looked pained. "No. It makes you look beat to shit. Just make sure if they ask if it was me, say no."

  "No one's going to think you beat me. Hell, they still think we're a couple." I glanced back at him and made a motion to close the door. "Gonna…make myself pretty."

  "Yeah. Good luck with that." Mike left.

  I leaned against the door for a time, listening as he went downstairs. I worried about him, more than I wanted him to know. He was sadder now than when we first met.

  His ex, Teresa, and I had been friends. She had given him custody of their child a few years ago, in an attempt to start the reconciliation process—not to get back together, but to make their divorce as easy for their daughter as possible.

  Then something horrific happened. Something no parent ever wants to experience.

  Something unimaginable killed Teresa and took Brendi from school. I hadn't been there for him, and the guilt of that weighed on me. The thing that attacked his ex-wife and kidnapped his daughter had been a Changeling, created by Queen Maab of Alfheim. Now Maab's crystallized head rested in a safe place in New Orleans, and his daughter Brendi lived as a Faerie of Alfheim.

  Yeah…the guy had been through a lot. And I planned on being there for him from now on.

  THERE ARE NO SUCH THiNGS AS VAMPiRES

  The shower eased a lot of the stiffness, but to be honest, I dreamed about a hot soak in a Jacuzzi somewhere. The aspirin helped with my headache. By the time I washed away all the blood, the zombie goo, and the graveyard dirt, I was feeling…okay.

  My stomach growled as I stepped out of the bathroom just ahead of an outpouring of trapped steam. The aromatic smell of bacon and fresh coffee set my digestive noisemaker off at a much higher volume but I did take the stairs at a much slower pace than usual. Mike sat at the table, an empty plate and cup of coffee in front of him. Bacon, cheese-and-broccoli quiche, pan-fried potatoes, freshly squeezed orange juice, and a bowl of cut-up fresh fruit covered the counter. I piled my plate with all of it, poured a huge glass of OJ, and sat down beside him.

  Unfortunately, eating wasn't really on Mike's mind as he shoved a folded newspaper under my nose. "Look."

  I did. I really didn't have a choice.

  And who could miss the headline?

  FOUR BODIES MUTILATED IN SIX NIGHTS.

  I dropped my fork and took the paper from him. "Is this the first we've heard of these?"

  "Yeah. I called Illiana over at the Savannah Morning News. Apparently they've been sitting on it by order of the mayor. But last night's bodies…" He nodded at the paper in my hands. "Just read."

  I knew my appetite would pretty much take a dive the moment I sunk deeper into this. And…I was right.

  Damn.

  Last night's bodies brought the count to four because these two bodies were kids. Five and seven years old. Daughters of a local family, from what I managed to read as anger seethed in the pit of my stomach. The kids were in the backyard of their townhouse—their home being one historic town square over from our own in Madison Square, set behind the DeSoto Hilton—when the mother heard the children's screams. The description given in the article didn't fit any of what Mike and I suspected happened. "She saw several men with knives dragging her kids off their swing set?"

  "That's the bubblegum version." Mike finished his orange juice. "They're not going to print anything about zombies."

  "Are we sure it's the same things that attacked us last night?"

  "The father claims he shot at them, but he didn't know if he hit them or not. By the time the police showed up, a couple of kids walking down Franklin had found the kid's bodies, drained of blood I might add—I got that from Illiana, not in the article—near a dumpster." Mike rubbed at his chin. "I'm not sure, but the last time I shot at n
ormal humans, they went down. They didn't keep going. That's if the father hit them with his gun."

  "Fuck…you don't think if they'd have carried me off—"

  "They'd have sucked your blood and eaten you and we'd be reading about a club kid found in the cemetery."

  I started to make a comment, then paused. "Club kid? I do not look like a club kid." Another pause as I tried to process that. "I'm not even sure I know what that is." I tossed the paper to the side of the table.

  No bacon goodness for me—not after reading that and putting those kids together with the nastiness that nearly took me out last night. Instead, I stabbed at a slice of melon and ate it off my fork as I rose and grabbed a cup from the sink drainer. Gore demanded coffee.

  Black.

  "You looked at yourself since moving here?" Mike held his cup up and I refilled it as well. That drained the carafe, so I gestured to the coffee maker, silently asking whether I should make another pot. Mike shook his head.

  "I see myself in the mirror once a morning." I set the empty carafe in the sink and ran water into it. "It's the same face I've always looked at."

  "With that haircut?" He gave me an appraising look. "I remember the ponytail-and-suit-jacket Dags from Atlanta. This short-haired, denim- or leather-wearing version is a bit different."

  I ignored him. Yeah, I'd drastically changed the outer me in hopes of somehow remolding the inner person. Did it work?

  Not really. I was still a man in search of a purpose, running from a hazy past….

  "What's not sitting right with me is the drinking blood part," Mike said, switching subjects. He did that a lot, and it usually gave me a headache. "All the information I've gleaned about zombies is they go after brains. But none of the reports I got from Illiana—which you now owe her a dinner for, by the way—mentions missing brains. Just missing blood—"

  "Mike!" I set my coffee cup down hard on the table. The black liquid inside sloshed out and ran down the sides. "Shutthefuckup. Come on man, it's too damn early for this."

  He was quiet but I could hear him grin. The part about taking Illiana out for dinner wasn't all that bad. She was cute and only a year older than me. We met a week after I got out of the hospital. I'd been sitting on what the locals call the "Forrest Gump bench" (I had no idea) and she sat down beside me, waiting on a bus. She said I had that 'lost' look.

  I still don't know if that was a good comment or a bad one. But she took pity on me, took me to an excellent local diner, and we had a nice long breakfast. Illiana Goldwater. Reporter and fact checker extraordinaire. According to Illy, the paper was a small enough operation that doing double duty and sometimes triple kept the lights on. The economy, plus the electronic media explosion, hadn't helped the paper's sales. Illy's interest in establishing an online presence as a reporter came just in time and it landed her a job.

  We snatched a quick visit, a meal, and a movie when we could. But to be honest, I really wasn't looking to get my feet wet in the dating pool just yet, and to make myself sound like an even worse asshole, I hadn't let Illy in on that fact, either. Because to do that meant telling her a little bit more about myself than I wanted to.

  See…I was missing an entire year of my life. Friends told my they were rewritten in the Grimoire, stolen by an Angel. Reads like bad pulp fiction, huh? Too bad it's true. A lot happened during that year—including the Grimoire. I just couldn't remember any of it.

  After defeating Maab and her Changeling, Mike had made a wish granted to him by Maab and created a page for the Grimoire complete with my lost memories. The catch to it was that it had all of my lost memories, even those from my childhood when my mother disappeared.

  Those were memories I wasn't ready to see yet. Why? I didn't know. But the thought of bringing them back and somehow changing the me now into the me that was—it just wasn't what I wanted. So I buried them in the back yard and the moment I was done…I saw my mother. Or maybe…someone I believed was once my mother.

  Mike was watching me. "So work or class?" He'd dropped his wondering about the zombies and concentrated on me again.

  "Yes." I stretched and winced, and found it odd once again why I didn't have a bite mark on me from the zombie but I had—

  "Sshh…just relax, Guardian. It's not your time to die. I haven't even started with you yet."

  I froze. That…that's what I'd heard someone say before I passed out. I didn't remember it until that moment. There had been cold hands, too. Touching my face. And lips brushing my neck…

  I bolted out of the kitchen and ran to the downstairs half-bath under the stairs, which consisted of a toilet, sink, and mirror. I leaned in and turned my head at the same time as I tried to get a good look at my neck.

  Mike appeared in the reflection. "What's wrong with you?"

  "Do you see anything on my neck?" I turned to him and tried to tilt up to compensate for his height. "Did you see anything last night when you found me?"

  "No." Mike's right brow arched, and he reached out and gripped my jaw and the opposing shoulder. "I don't see anything. Why? Did it get you there, too?"

  "No…" I pulled back and looked in the mirror. Her voice echoed in my ears. The more I thought about her, the more I remembered. "I think I was saved by something else, Mike. Someone else."

  "Someone else—as in, we weren't alone with the zombies last night?"

  "Right." I stepped back and threaded my way between Mike and the door frame, then wound back to the kitchen. I told him what I'd heard and felt before I blacked out. I sat back down and he stood behind his chair.

  I finally attacked all of my breakfast. A growing man's stomach trumps all sensitivities, it seems. He grabbed hold of the back of the chair and braced himself as he leaned forward, watching me. "You're sure that's what you heard?"

  "Yeah. Pretty sure. And I don't think she was human."

  "Then what was she?" A grin pulled at his mouth. "The way you were looking at your neck—don't tell me you think a vampire bit you?" Laughter broke free. Not the crazy kind of laughter, but more of the you're shittin' me kind. "Dags…vampires?"

  "You believe in zombies, Fetches, lemures, and all manner of oogie stuff," I protested around a mouthful of potatoes. "You know about Revenants. Why the disbelief?"

  "Because I've been here longer than you and I haven't bumped into a Revenant the entire time. And what would one of those things be doing in the cemetery at night? That's just so…cliche…" He continued laughing as he left the kitchen. "Finish up and put the dishes in the washer, and I'll make sure no sparkly undead get in."

  I didn't want to ruin his little laugh-fest with facts. Corrections, really. First of all, vampires were not reanimated corpses. Not in the zombie sense. They were in fact humans who shared their bodies—bonded with, for a better tern—with spirits known as First Born from the Abysmal Plane. Laymen would call the place Hell, so they'd think of a bonded human as a demon-possessed human. In truth, the Abysmal was the yang to the yin in the planes. The opposite was the Ethereal Plane, or Heaven. Two halves that encircled the universe.

  How did I know this?

  Because one of my closest friends was a vampire. They called their combined creation Revenants. His host's name—the human—was Jason. And his First Born, the creature that shared its power and long life with Jason, went by the name Mephistopheles. They were one, and they were separate.

  I hadn't told Mike about Mephistopheles, or Jason. In fact, the only person I'd really referenced was Nona. I'd come to Savannah for a sort of do-over on the surface. But in truth…I was looking for me, and allowing time to heal wounds that one day would give strength to what was coming.

  Not to mention all my friends had been threatened by an Angel named Gabriel—the one that removed the year of my life. She promised me that if I didn't distance myself from all of them, she would kill them, one by one.

  Starting with Nona's daughter, Zoë. Something inside of me didn't want Zoë harmed. I didn't want anyone to hurt because of me. And because it
was obvious my presence alone did enough emotional damage to Zoë, leaving Atlanta seemed the right thing to do.

  My memories were fine until after I'd been marked by the Cruorem. Then it was like fast forward and I was surrounded by Revenants, witches, a Wraith, and a society created to watch and if need be, direct creatures from the outer planes.

  Creatures like me.

  They said Zoë and I were lovers. But I just…couldn't…remember…

  "Well, whatever it was," Mike was saying, "it knew you were a Guardian, and it might have saved your life. No idea who?"

  I shook my head. "No. And that scares me more than the walking undead."

  THE PERiPHERAL

  Mike's idea of getting an early start was heading back to The Night Pub where we got the tip about Bonaventure Cemetery. The bar was one of Savannah's landmarks. It'd been several things over the years, from a boarding house to a brothel. The building sat in what was once Savannah's red-light district, diagonal to Franklin Square.

  The name came from a time when this part of town was known as the Red Light area and the building was used as a brothel. Later the building was turned into a three story single family home before it sat vacant for a number of years. It was finally bought in 1995 and turned into a bar. The place was always busy.

  And there was always the rumor of ghosts. Recent ghost-hunting shows had brought attention to Savannah over the years, and a local hunter team had a successful night at The Night Pub.

  I've been a ghost magnet all of my life and I'd been in the place a dozen times and the only thing I saw regularly were drunks, women, and a floor covered in peanuts. If there were ghosts, they were on an extended vacation.

  The place wasn't open when we got there. Hours on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were 1 p.m. to 3 a.m. I expected to be knocking for some time, and given Mike was a bit of an obsessive when he made a decision, I settled in for the long haul. But for some reason, the moment Mike knocked on the door at this un-bar-like hour, it opened.

  Darius Parker appeared in the doorway but didn't open it for us to enter. He stood half-hidden by the door's shadow as he glared at Mike, then down at me. Darius was a bit of a legend on the seedier side of Savannah. And I don't mean red-light seedy. He knew about the planes and what lived in them. Darius had been a bit of a Hunter in his time, claiming to have abbreviated (that's what he called it) Fetches, Daemons, Symbionts, and a succubus. But even I had a hard time believing in that last one. Of all the things I'd seen and experienced in the past few months, the idea of a succubus just never came up. I wasn't going to toss the idea, though, anymore than I wanted Mike to toss the idea of vampires.