“I'm not angry at Jess.” I told her. “What else did you learn? What did I do that made your father so angry with me? I mean I've done things, but...”
“That's probably my fault.” she admitted. “He is worried I won't be able to maintain a professional relationship with you.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, shaking my head and taking in the buildings we were passing. “That makes no sense.”
“He recently discovered I'm gay.”
“Oh.”
So? So she tells her dad she's gay and suddenly I can't be trusted? Well that makes perfect sense, in a sort of not kind of way. Parents are sometimes weird. Maybe she said something about me. Like maybe she said I was pretty or something, and he got concerned because of that. Is she as attracted to me as I am her?
“We're here.” she said, nodding toward a very nondescript building.
She got out of the car and locked her door. She waited there for me to do the same before we headed up the sidewalk. I think I was still tingling at the possibility of her being interested in me when she introduced me to the lady who runs the place.
“Ingrid.” the woman said. Or more like grunted, really.
She's an older lady, quite possibly born before I was. Probably not, but she looks like she could be eighty, for sure. She has gray shoes, gray pants, gray shirt, gray glasses, and gray hair. All of which fit really well with her wrinkly, gray colored skin. I'd shake her hand, but I'm afraid I'd break her.
“Aprons are in the back. Get busy.” she ordered.
“Yes, ma'am.” Celeste replied.
“And keep an eye on her.” she said, a crooked finger pointed in my general direction.
“I will, ma'am.”
I followed Celeste into the back and we put on aprons-- gray, naturally-- before heading out front to clean tables and get things ready for lunch. There were already people coming in, wanting their food.
“So how did you end up with the VI?” I asked Celeste as we cleaned a table together. “Your dad?”
“Not here, Brynne.” she said, scowling.
“For that matter, how did the VI even start? How old is it? Why did the church call it that? Who is actually in charge, anyway? The Pope?”
“Not here!” she said, clearly angry. She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I will happily answer your questions, but not when others are around. Wait until we're home.”
“Oh... um... sorry.” I said.
I don't deal well with people being mad at me. It really kind of hurts my feelings, honestly. Especially if they are people I like at all. So it kind of upset me that she was so harsh in how she said that. I understand that we can't talk in public, and I shouldn't have asked, but that was kind of mean how she said that.
“What's wrong?” she snapped.
“Nothing.” I whined. I felt my eyes watering.
“Sorry I got grouchy. But we need to have that discussion at home, okay?”
“Okay.” I said, sniffling.
“Brynne, I'm sorry.”
This is stupid. I have to get control of myself and stop being a baby. I just want to go home and forget all about this. They can keep the stupid money, just let me go back. I want to relax, knowing that I'll be having dinner tonight with Peggy, Ted and Barney. Instead I'll be having it with Celeste in a place I don't feel comfortable in. I doubt that apartment will ever feel like home.
I put my anger aside and was able to concentrate enough to work. Well, okay, so all I did was clean tables and help with trash, and cleaned up a few spills, but when we were done with lunch I actually felt pretty good about it. There were so many people coming in who looked as if they hadn't had a decent meal in a long time, and I know I played a part in providing that for them. Even if all I did was clean.
“You'll be back tomorrow.” Ingrid told us. It wasn't a question.
“Yes, ma'am.” I responded. Celeste wandered off.
“You cook?”
“Not very well.” This is exactly what I was afraid of. “I can cook some simpler things.”
“Tomorrow you will help in the kitchen. Clara is gone for the next two weeks.”
“Um, yes ma'am.”
“You will help Willa.” she informed me. “Willa,” she shouted.
“Hang on.” a voice from the kitchen shouted back. “Be there in a second, Ingrid.”
Ingrid was stone faced as she waited. It's almost like the woman is conserving energy by showing absolutely no feeling in her face. No smile, no frown, nothing. I wonder how she does that. Of course she is older than the state of Kansas, so maybe she just doesn't have the energy to express herself.
“What'd you want, Ingrid?” a girl not much older than I am asked, as she stepped into the room.
“Tomorrow this girl,” she said, looking toward me and waiting.
“Oh, uh, Brynne.” I said.
“Will be assisting you in the kitchen.” she told the girl. “Make sure she does her share.”
“Sure thing.” the girl said.
Ingrid disappeared into the kitchen. She moves quickly, surprisingly. I turned toward the girl. Maybe seventeen, tall and thin, long blonde hair streaked with pink, and six piercings on each ear.
“I'm Willa.” she said, giving a big smile and extending her hand.
“Brynne.” I replied. We shook.
“I'll probably have you handling the rolls, maybe stirring some soup, nothing too difficult.” she said.
“I can do that.”
“Good.” she said, smiling again. “So this the first time you've volunteered?”
“Um,”
“Brynne,” Celeste shouted. She was over by the door, and she waved me over.
“Um, I gotta go.” I told Willa. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Later.” she said, smiling and giving a half a wave.
The ride back to the apartment was more of the silence. I wasn't sure how to take it, honestly. I just learned this morning that she may possibly be interested in me, but then since then she has been grouchy with me. I don't get her at all.
“How long have you been doing this?” I asked. It was my subtle way of asking her age. Or not so subtle, maybe.
“Driving?” she asked.
“No, the VI thing.”
“I've been with the VI for a while now.”
“How long?”
“Oh gosh,” she said. “Since I was a teenager, at least informally, and officially since I turned twenty.”
That didn't work so well. I mean at least I know she's over twenty, but I have no idea how much over. I kinda knew she was older than twenty before, though. Or suspected.
Jess's car was there when we got to the apartment. It wasn't supposed to be. She was supposed to work until four, and it was only a little after two. Celeste seemed as concerned about that as I was. She hurried from the car as soon as she had it parked. I beat her to the apartment door, but I was quite impressed by her speed.
“Jess!” I shouted, upon entering the apartment. “Jessica!”
“Over here.” she said. I spun toward her. She was sitting on a seat by the front window. “I'm okay.” she told me.
“What happened?” Celeste asked her. “Why are you home?”
“They closed the store for the investigation.” she explained. “There was a body found in the back store room.”
“I knew it!” Celeste said. “We have to call Paolo, we need to get people rolling to see if we can catch the striga before they...”
“I don't think it was a striga.” Jess told her. “There were bite marks, and I think the blood was drained.”
“A vampire?” Celeste asked. “Not you?”
“Well duh.”
“Jess wouldn't do that.” I said in her defense. “I can't believe you'd think she would.”
“I'll still need to call Paolo.” Celeste told us. “This is good, you're helping already.”
“No, this is bad.” I said.
“Well no, not that she is dead.”
“He.” Jess corrected.
“Not that he is dead. Just that you helped find another vampire. One more we can eliminate, who won't have a chance to do it again.”
“I don't want Jess involved in that.” I told Celeste.
“Neither do I. As far as anyone is concerned, she is just one of the employees who were sent home today.” she headed toward her bedroom. “If you'll excuse me, I have calls to make. You'll have to fend for yourselves for dinner, I'll probably be busy all night.”
There goes our plans of her telling me how the Venator Inmortuorum began. I'll just have to remember to ask her again tomorrow. And the next day, if I have to.
“How did your day go?” I asked Jess. I sat on the floor at her feet. “I mean other than the dead body.”
“Not too good, actually. I'm not sure what I'm doing, for one thing. And all the girls I work with are like super smart, for some reason. It's kind of intimidating. Makes me feel like a moron.”
“You're not.”
“Feels like it. So how was your day?”
“It was kinda okay.” I said, thinking about Celeste's admission that she is a lesbian, and her hint that she is interested. Of course then she was grouchy with me all day, so who knows. “The lady that runs the place might be a mummy.” I told her.
I spent the next five minutes explaining that Ingrid really is not a mummy, because Jess thought I was being serious. And then I described the rest of the day to her. She kept asking me if Willa was cute. I swear she just thinks I'm going to fall for someone else and completely forget Teresa. That can never happen.
Friday May, 23
“I might get a tattoo.” Jess said. We were all at the table eating our cereal.
“What would you get?” Celeste asked her.
“A zebra.”
“Why a zebra?” I asked.
“I don't know. Zebra's are interesting, don't you think?”
“Interesting enough to have for the next ten thousand years?” I asked.
“Yeah, not really.” she said. “I always liked the sound of a xylophone.” Jess said, her randomness coming out again.
“You want a tattoo of a xylophone?” Celeste asked.
“What?” Jess said. “No. That's just weird.”
“You said...”
“I like the sound of a xylophone. I didn't say anything about a tattoo.”
“Oh.” Celeste said. She looked down at her cereal and scrunched up her nose.
The past few days have been very interesting. Jessica has continued to work at the store in the mall, and she has seen a couple of suspicious people lurking around, but none appear to be the vampire who attacked the dead guy. At least one of them appears to be your typical stalker, and he seems to have eyes on the store manager. Then there is another guy we think is a druggie, looking for a guy who comes in once a week to help unload the truck when they get a new shipment in. It is apparently well known by the other store employees that the guy who works once a week is a drug dealer.
My work at the shelter has actually ended up being somewhat enjoyable. I get along great with Willa in the kitchen, so that's good. And Ingrid hasn't said a single word to me since Tuesday, so I'm fine there as well.
But at the apartment we have been inundated with visitors from the VI, and every time they come we have to answer a million questions and they make us go through stacks of pictures to see if we recognize anyone. They are very hush hush about what all they are doing, but they clearly are conducting an investigation apart from just me and Jess trying to find the striga. I don't know why they aren't sharing any information with us.
And then Celeste. Well, she seems to avoid me now, for some reason. I haven't been able to pin her down long enough to get answers out of her. About anything, really. I still have no idea what is really expected of us here. Are we supposed to just wait to stumble upon the striga?
“Tell me about how the VI began.” I said.
“Well,” she looked at the clock. “We don't...
“We have time.” I told her. “You've been avoiding talking to me all week.”
“Jessica, don't you have to be at work soon?” she asked.
“I don't go in 'til ten.” Jess said. It's only eight now.
“Oh.” She looked around, then pulled her phone from her purse. “I need...”
“Stop it!” I said, yanking the phone from her. “What is the big deal? Just talk to us.”
“Brynne,” she sighed and closed her eyes. “I've already divulged more than I am supposed to.”
“You've divulged nothing!”
“Why so secretive?” Jess asked plainly. “We're working for them now too.”
“No, you aren't.” Celeste told her. “You're just... outside contractors, at best.”
“Tell us.” I said.
“Well,” she sighed again. “It's nothing too exciting, we're just not supposed to talk about it. I promise you it's nothing that matters, but we take a vow when we sign up, and... well, honestly I wasn't even supposed to tell you that much.”
“When did the church start the VI?”
She sat very still for a minute, eyeing her phone. She darted her hand out and snatched it from me, taking me by surprise. She put her finger to her lips in a shh sign, then carried the phone over, and buried it under the cushions of the sofa. She then waved us back into our bedroom.
“They listen.” she told us. “To everything. To everything we say and do, and everything you've said and done in the past year.”
“They've been spying on us?” Jess asked.
“Wouldn't you?” was Celeste's response. “They needed to know they could trust you.”
“So all this time when we thought we had privacy,” I began.
“They didn't hear everything, obviously.” she said. “Just whatever you talked about when the cooler with the blood was around.”
“Isn't that some kind of violation of our rights?” Jess asked.
“Jessica, you're a mythical creature who doesn't exist, as far as everyone else is concerned, so what makes you think you have rights?” Celeste asked her. “And we do what we have to in order to protect the world. Individual rights are secondary to that.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “So why so secretive about things? It's not like we're going to tell anyone.”
“Because...” she said. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. “Because the only reason you exist is because of the VI.”
“I don't understand.” Jess said.
“Me either.” I added.
“Just... you should know this, I guess.” Celeste said. She pointed to my bed. “Sit down.”
She took a seat on Jess's bed and waited until we were sitting on my bed before she began. And even then, she was shaky and jittery, playing with the zipper on her sweater and not looking at us.
“Around the second century BC several groups of druids came together to form what we now know as the Venator Inmortuorum.”
“Wow, that long ago?” Jess asked.
“Yes. And the reason it formed is because there were a lot of attacks of demons all through Europe. At least that's what they were convinced of, anyway. So they formed the VI to hunt down and destroy the evil creatures.”
“How does that make the VI responsible for our existence?” I asked.
“Around the year 170 AD the group realized they were losing ground, that they would send people out to fight these demons and they would be slaughtered. Many were infected by the demons and would become one themselves. That's how it works, they infect you and you become whatever it is.”
“So Alejandro infected me?” I asked.
“Well yes, but it's different.”
“And I infected Jess?” I asked. She nodded.
“So anyway, around 170 they
decided they were losing ground, and one of the... I guess you could call him a scientist now, maybe. Anyway, he decided to find a cure. A vaccine to prevent the infection from these creatures they viewed as demons.”
“Sounds reasonable.” I said.
“His first few test subjects all failed. Miserably.”
“They died?”
“The lucky ones.” she said. “Some went mad, some became very ill, but didn't die for decades.”
“And some became vampires?” Jess asked. “Is that how we came to be?”
“We're not...” I started to say.
“No.” Celeste answered. “At least not directly. They had two subjects who took the vaccine and seemed okay. But they were attacked by a vicious creature, one whose bite would cause its victim to slowly wilt away, rotting from the inside over a period of weeks. Except these two didn't react that way. Something different happened to them. Instead of rotting away they grew stronger, gained some of the creature's extra senses, and they almost stopped aging.”
“Vampires.” Jess said.
“And non-vampires.” Celeste added for my benefit, giving a little smile. “If the VI hadn't been playing around with the human immune system then the vampires would never have existed.”
They created us. Wow. So... so we're an early failure of genetic manipulation, or something like that. All this time they have been trying to make up for their own mistake. I wonder how many have died because a group of druids twenty centuries ago decided to create a super-human. How much evil have they unleashed on the world?
Betrayal: Book 2 of the Non-Vampire Series Page 4
