Cherry Stem

by Sotia Lazu

  “Come by the mansion. I’ll take you to them.” So no inner circle for me.

  Alex was frowning at me, and I turned my back to him to whisper into the phone. “I don’t want you there, Constantine. Thank you for arranging it”—I didn’t sound very thankful—“but I don’t need you to cover my ass.”

  He tutted. “First off I prefer your ass naked. Secondly they requested I be there.”

  He was lying. It wasn’t a they that wanted him at the meeting; it was a she.

  A bitch, actually, who just happened to be one of the council members.

  Ádísa.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Chapter Seven

  As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one to grumble.

  Alex insisted on coming with me, but I couldn’t very well present him to the council and say, Hey, peeps, this human knows all about us, but it’s cool. Not if I liked my head where it was—and it just so happened my shoulders were kind of partial to it.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” He stood at the open door, blocking my way out of his mom’s ground-floor bathroom. His arms were stretched over his head, hands holding the door frame, as he rolled his shoulders and neck. His heartbeat betrayed that he wasn’t half as relaxed as he appeared.

  “Yes”—an endearment was about to roll off my tongue, but we weren’t to that place yet—“Alex. It’s safe. They’re the council. The good guys.”

  He snorted, a sound carrying much more snark than any nonverbal response should. I didn’t dignify it with a comment. “What about the warning?” he asked.

  I had to comment there; it was a thought that had been bugging me since I’d left Mark behind. “The warning was about you backing off, which you said you would. Plus I don’t see how he’d find out I’m meeting the council.”

  “You do realize I’m not going to officially withdraw from the case, right? Just lie low?” He sounded concerned. “That doesn’t mean the department is going to drop it, though. There are people looking into this even as we speak.”

  “I know,” I said. “And it’s not like you and I are gonna sit on our hands in the meantime; we’re just going to be more subtle.”

  “Still, maybe your going with him—”

  “Isn’t a good idea,” I finished his sentence. I had no time for jealousy and territory marking now, although I might enjoy Alex and Constantine comparing their machismo at a less panicky time. “The council asked for him, and they will know what to do.” I wholeheartedly hoped they would. If they couldn’t help, I doubted Dotty would be Willoughby’s last victim.

  “Fine! If you want to go, go.” There went the cool act, right out the window! His voice wasn’t raised, but there was an edge to it. “But if you’re not back by dawn, I’m coming after you.”

  “I am going, and I will be back way before dawn.” Not that he’d know where to begin looking. I rummaged through my bag, searching for a bobby pin. My nowhere-near-natural, bright red hair color was damaging enough for my credibility in front of the vampire ruling body. I had to at least pull the bangs back.

  Ah, there it was.

  “Fine,” he barked once more when I had the pin in my mouth and was trying to hold the front of my hair up to secure it.

  “Fine,” I spat back around the hairpin. Finally getting my bangs where I wanted them, I tried pinning them in place. No luck. Straight hair isn’t all that great at staying in place unless copious amounts of hairspray are involved. At least my hair isn’t.

  He plucked the thing out of my grasp and shoved it into my hair so hard that at a slightly steeper angle, it would have gone through my scalp.

  “Ow.” I ducked away and turned to glare at him.

  “Sorry.” No, he wasn’t. The corners of his mouth were lifting. Alex’s smiling was always a good thing, however, so I wasn’t about to hold that against him.

  I pinched his ass and begrudgingly returned the hug and peck he gave me. They felt too much like good-bye and made me want to burrow into his embrace and forget about the meeting. I couldn’t. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “I’ll be here. Told Roebuck I’m following a lead, so I won’t have to go by the department until we know something about the case. And I’ve got some research to do.” He pointed to the folders that were now strewn all over the coffee table. “So I’m clear, though, I don’t like this.”

  As I walked out the door, I couldn’t help but wonder how much harder letting him go for good would be if leaving him for a short time felt so bad.

  * * * *

  Constantine was dressed this time and waiting for me at the door. Can’t say I wasn’t a bit disappointed over the lack of bare flesh, but most of me was relieved to see him in his black dress pants, designer black shirt, and purple tie. A vampire dressed in black and purple: Stereotypes-R-Us.

  He still looked scrumptious dressed up, don’t get me wrong, but at least with clothes covering his body, I had less trouble focusing on his face. I settled for tugging at the end of his ponytail.

  “My, my, aren’t we all spiffy for the meeting.” I wasn’t jealous at the thought he’d spent time to become even more gorgeous than usual because he’d see Ádísa. Wasn’t jealous at all.

  He narrowed his eyes and looked at me top to bottom and up again. He didn’t seem very pleased, and I instinctively ran my hands down my blouse. It was definitely a nicer top than the one he’d last seen me in, but the jeans and sneakers were the same. When he clucked his tongue, I wished I’d bothered to wear something fancier.

  “Does your human keep you too busy to clean up properly?”

  I’d have been offended if his tone didn’t hold a hint of covetousness. Touché! Er…I mean, I won! He was jealous, and I wasn’t. I feigned ignorance. “What human?”

  His nostrils flared, and damn, that was too sexy to be legal. “The one I can smell all over you.”

  Mega-oops: I hadn’t showered after that morning’s sexcapades with Alex. The council would smell him too. Not that they’d care, but I hated the idea of them knowing what I’d been doing earlier that day. I batted my eyelashes at Constantine and asked, “Are we driving? If we’re flying, you’ll have to tell me where we’re going.” I’m so smooth when I want to be. Not.

  He didn’t fall for my attempt at changing the subject. “Last time—” He pursed his lips, then let his eyelids flutter shut. “I didn’t realize he was more than food.” When he opened them again, he looked at me so intensely I felt he could see right through me.

  I couldn’t speak. His irises had turned nearly black, a color I hadn’t seen them before. They were mesmerizing. His face changed. There was no distinct movement, just the barest tensing of muscle. I can’t explain it, but it was the most vulnerable I’d ever seen him. A knot formed in my stomach; I’d done whatever that was to him.

  “Constantine…” What was there to say?

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, and when his hand withdrew, there was only a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. “We’re flying.” There was no time for me to react when he pulled me to him and cupped the back of my head. For a moment, I was sure he was about to kiss me—and wasn’t sure at all that I’d stop him. Instead he pressed my face to his chest. “You’re not allowed to see where we’re going.”

  There was no reason for all the secrecy. It wasn’t like the council would be visiting the place again. Snuggled in his arms and feeling the night air swish around us as our feet left the ground, I didn’t voice my thoughts. I let my body lean against his and trusted him to lead me where we were supposed to go.

  In retrospect that might not have been my best idea ever; I hadn’t felt dizzy after a flight since my second week as a vampire, but was decidedly light-headed by the time we landed. I could blame it on the flight, or I could blame it on the way Constantine’s thumb had been drawing circles on the small of my back and his lips had been moving against my hair, like he’d been whispering a secret.

  The flight it was, if I wanted to get any sleep that day.

&n
bsp; My knees buckled when Constantine let go of me—the way knees do because of uncontrolled landings, and nothing else—and he grabbed my shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. Good thing bruises fade fast on us. I found my footing and pulled away, but his grip lingered. “I’m not letting go,” he whispered.

  I knew he wasn’t talking about my shoulders. “It’ll be hard for us to walk this way.” Keeping my voice steady and my tone light took a lot of concentration.

  “But it will be fun.” His one hand ghosted up my neck, and his thumb traced my jawline until it stopped a hairbreadth from my lower lip.

  I turned my cheek to him, doing my best to gather my wits and figure out where we were. We stood on what seemed to be the runway of a deserted airport. “We’ll be late,” I said to the tarmac. There was no way I could face him.

  * * * *

  The good news was, I was too rattled by the moment I’d shared with my former lover to let the idea of facing the five vampires whose word was law frighten me. Plus they were supposed to be on my side.

  Mostly.

  That last word flashed bright neon in my head as soon as the first of the council members walked inside the cold room in the middle of which Constantine and I had been seated by a tiny scrap of a human man.

  Ádísa glanced at me with a smirk on her full, red lips. She would have headed the council if the job description depended on age. Legend had it she was a Valkyrie, a chooser of the slain, who’d escaped Odin and renounced Valhalla, the Old Norse version of warrior heaven. I thought she had created that legend herself because she loved being the center of attention.

  With her long blonde hair braided at the sides of her neck and her barely there leather getup, she definitely looked the part as she regarded Constantine with a small smile. Her breasts were too firm to spill over her bralike top, even if they looked like they were about to do just that, I thought with more than a hint of jealousy. Whether because of better genes or Odin’s favor, she would never curse herself for not having gotten a boob job in time.

  In her wake came Gheorghios. Second oldest of the council members, he’d for a while followed the archbitch’s example and tried to convince people that he was the Saint George who had slain the dragon. Even one-day-old newbies knew he’d pulled that out of his ass, yet nobody would dare say so in his presence. Unlike his story about his past, his viciousness and quick temper were never disputed.

  I felt his hawkish gaze on me like an actual physical weight and strove not to show my discomfort. I couldn’t exactly smile at him; he might take it as insolence. So I met his eyes with the best combination of respect and earnestness I could muster. I guess I did well enough, because he nodded at me and my escort and took a step back to stand on Ádísa’s right. The way they were beginning to line up made me think of a beauty pageant. And now, our next contestant, in dark ’n’ gloomy wear. I shushed the thought. This wasn’t the time for me to giggle.

  The urge to squirm was overwhelming. I wasn’t there to get judged; nevertheless I felt every part the naughty schoolgirl who had to appear before the school board—an extremely strict school board, with a propensity for bloodshed.

  I calmed down a little when the third of the five we were to meet strutted our way and graced me with a full grin and a wink. He shook hands with Constantine and took his place at Gheorghios’s side. John—Johnny Boy to his friends—had been turned in his late teens and dressed as if he was still in them. His jeans were faded and ripped, his boots heavy and with metal fronts, his T-shirt snug. Barely a century undead, he’d managed to have a great following and had gained the respect of friends and enemies, despite being known as a pacifist—something not guaranteed to gain you status among our kind.

  I had spoken to him once before; he’d been the one to approach me for that spokesperson deal in the past, and I knew he was as mellow as vampires come, in spite of the bad-boy exterior.

  Hui Zhong, following close behind him, was the exact opposite. Her china-doll appearance, complete with a silk robe—which I’d called just that and had subsequently been glared at, ’cause “it’s a hanfu”—belied her bloodthirsty nature. She had been turned in China in the late 1800s, and her kills during her fledgling days rivaled the number of deaths from the plague epidemic, which had conveniently covered said kills.

  She didn’t smile, frown, or even look at us. A demure bow, aimed at nobody in particular, was all the acknowledgment we received. I found the entire act too much, like the outfit, but resisted the eye roll I felt coming. I’d heard she always carried a sword under that robe—hey, it’s my head, and I say it’s a robe—and didn’t really care to find out for sure.

  The last vampire to walk in before I heard the door being bolted on the outside was Benjamin. He was a paradox in that he’d been turned in his sixties and had been one of us for just seventeen years. There was a theory that he’d only been recruited for the council to be able to represent a different demographic. The same theory supported that Hui Zhong was there for the same reason: diversity. The new council advocated it, and that was the basis of its power. One look into Benjamin’s flat eyes, however, and one could see the cold calculation and single-minded determination that had gained him his position.

  He had been the instigator of the coup that ended the old council, the first to dust one of them. One moment he’d been one of those present at the hearing about my irresponsible turning, the next he’d been yelling that the council was inadequate and driving a wooden stake through the oldest vampire’s heart in the ensuing melee.

  He scared me shitless.

  With Benjamin in place, they had formed a semicircle around me and Constantine. A black semicircle, with the exception of Hui Zhong’s colorful attire. A shiver ran down my spine. Constantine’s fingers found and squeezed mine. I squeezed back. I knew there was no reason for worry; they were scary-ass, all right, and I had to tell them something they wouldn’t like, but they wouldn’t turn their wrath for the rogue against us.

  Hopefully.

  “State your name, please.” The man who had told us to sit was now between the council and us, looking at me expectantly and waving a pen over a pad. He didn’t seem nervous enough for being in the presence of so many of us. I certainly felt more apprehensive than he looked.

  “Your name?” he asked again when I took a whole entire second to reply.

  “Cherry Stem.”

  Someone snorted; I’m not sure whether it was because that was my screen name or because of what I’d been doing on said screen. Either way my money was on Ádísa having made the rude sound, but I didn’t even glance her way. The secretary, or whatever Little Man was, squinted at me briefly before jotting my name down.

  “Is your reason for requesting an audience with our rulers political, ethical, or personal?”

  I’d always rocked multiple choice quizzes in high school and was about to say that when Constantine nudged me with the heel of his shoe. “I am not sure,” I said. “It affects all of us, but it’s not political.”

  The guy’s eyes narrowed again. “Ethical, then?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  The pen scratched the pad once more. “And who vouches for Ms. Stem?”

  Umm, what was that?

  Before I could tell him that I had no clue someone was supposed to vouch for me, or what said vouching was about, Constantine spoke up. “I do.”

  “Are you sure?” I muttered the question under my breath without looking at him, but the council members no doubt heard it.

  He wasn’t perturbed, of course. “Yes. They needed someone to vouch that you had a valid reason for asking to see them. I did. They know and trust me.”

  I tried not to dwell on the fact that, last time I’d checked, only one of the members, his maker, knew him well enough. I smiled at the human, who was clearing his throat to get our attention.

  “Yup, he’s the voucher, all right.” His frown seemed to tell me that a bit more formality wouldn’t hurt. I beamed a smile at him, grateful I di
dn’t have a pulse. If I did, it would be racing now.

  Constantine’s name was noted down—he didn’t give his real name, either—and we were finally done with the formalities. The human moved to the side and sat behind a little desk.

  I turned to the standing vampires, studying each face briefly. They were all looking at me in expectation. Don’t waste their time, I told myself. Yet my brain froze momentarily. How was I supposed to start?

  I wet my lips and went for it. “I have reason to believe there’s a rogue vampire turning young women.” There. Like pulling off a bandage.

  I’d expected some reaction to my statement, a widening of the eyes at minimum, maybe a gasp, but all I got were blank looks. I hate blank looks.

  “A woman in my apartment building has gone missing, and I overheard the police talk about how that fits a series of other disappearances.” They were still not saying anything. They weren’t even blinking. Fortunately John gave me an almost imperceptible nod, so I went on. “The thing is, the day before the disappearance, I was attacked by one of us. He was masked, but I recognized him as Willoughby. My maker. I thought he was dead.”

  Benjamin spoke. “Willoughby? That’s highly improbable.” His frown made him look even scarier than before.

  “It was him. He said he should have killed me.”

  “But your attacker was masked.” Hui Zhong’s voice was light, like a chirp, and neutral.

  “And I’m sure more than one of us has thought about killing you.” Ádísa was friendly as always.

  I huffed. I had to tell them the whole story or a version of it that would keep me out of trouble. The lie I had decided on just wouldn’t cut it. “I was with a man. A human.” I felt Constantine tense beside me. “I was at his place for…dinner, when Willoughby broke in. He attacked us both.”

  I should have told them about Ted too, but something held me back. “I didn’t realize who he was at first,” I said, “but then I recognized his voice. The man I was with turned out to be the detective investigating the disappearances. See? It all makes sense. Willoughby must have planned the attack. He had to have gotten a member of the family to invite him in the house earlier on, or he wouldn’t have been able to enter.”