A Cat's Chance in Hell

by Sharon Hannaford

  Byron had arranged secure and far more humane facilities for the remainder of them, and the first task of the evening would be for Gabi, Kyle and whatever Vampires Julius could spare, to transport the pitiful bunch to the new facilities where they could be monitored and cared for. After that, they would be splitting into three Patrol groups with a mix of MV staff and Vampires for a patrol through areas where strong ley line convergences occurred. As there was still a fairly large cloud of suspicion and enmity surrounding the inclusion of the Vampires in the Patrols, it was decided that a ‘referee’ would be needed in each group. Kyle would go with one group and Gabi with another. Lance had worked with the Vampires the previous night and didn’t seem to have any problems with them, so he was their natural choice to lead up the third, Matt could take his pick of groups to join.

  Gabi knew this would be her time to make a contribution, not wandering around the warehouse during daylight hours pretending to know what she was looking for. So she and Kyle drove back to her house for a nap until sunset.

  Gabi had texted Julius before going to sleep, asking him to meet her at the warehouse with as many of his guard as he could spare. His reply woke her just before dusk. He and his guard would meet them at the warehouse at 8 pm. She rose, stretching, and still enjoying the lack of pain, and went to kick the guest bedroom door, rousing Kyle. As she changed into fighting gear, she wondered how long her new speed and strength would last, if it would disappear in slow increments or vanish abruptly. She sincerely hoped it wouldn’t vanish in the middle of a battle. That could prove disastrous.

  The two of them stopped at a burger place to fuel up on the way. Gabi caught the nervous stares that were being directed their way and had to suppress a grimace. She glared at the diners, thinking they were lucky she’d decided to remove the knives and swords before she walked in. Still, at least they weren’t going to be harassed by anyone. The heart rate (which Gabi could hear quite clearly) of the freckle-faced teen who was serving them ramped up to dangerous speeds as he stammeringly confirmed their order and took the cash Gabi held out to him. He dropped the change onto the counter and looked up with nervous eyes as he stuttered his apology. Gabi rolled her eyes as Kyle tried not to snicker.

  “I told you we should’ve used the drive-thru,” she grumbled, briskly scooping up the scattered money and going to sit at a vacant table in a dimly-lit corner, leaving Kyle to collect the tray of food and drinks. When the food arrived, Gabi found she was hungry, though still not starving as she would normally be; she actually had to make an effort to finish the three burgers and extra large fries.

  Kyle found himself contemplating her lack of appetite a few hours later while sitting holed up in one of three secure vans transporting the wretched looking humans. Facilities had been set up for them in an abandoned mental asylum on the outskirts of the city. It had been earmarked for demolition in a few months time but was still mostly functional at the moment. Byron never ceased to amaze Kyle in his ability to source absolutely anything. Between Byron, Irene, and Ian they’d set up everything in less than twenty-four hours.

  His Vampire companion for the journey had surprised him. Somehow, he’d ended up in the van with Julius, though he assumed that was because Kyle chose the lead on the van that contained the woman who’d tried to attack Gabi; obviously neither of them were prepared to let Gabi anywhere near the woman again. He’d seen the loaded looks being traded back and forth between Gabi and Julius and had assumed Julius would take the first opportunity to get Gabi alone, but instead, as the Hunters each chose a van to guard, Julius had joined Kyle, Alexander had teamed up with Gabi and Fergus had eagerly joined Lance. As there was only space for two guards inside each van, the rest of them were following in separate vehicles, two of these assigned to each van in case of trouble.

  The driver of the van sat in a separate cubicle, completely protected by thickly armour-plated steel. The steel was embedded with silver, as the vans were frequently used for bringing in renegade Werewolves. The only communication Kyle and Julius had with Rory, the Werewolf driver, was by intercom. Julius and Kyle were in small, cramped seats in a separate, barred area at the front of the van which afforded them a clear view of the grieving mother and another male huddled in separate heaps on the floor in the rear of the van.

  Kyle didn’t foresee any problems with the male; he was so scared as to be almost catatonic. He hoped the Magi would be able to erase the horrors of the past few days if they didn’t turn, but he secretly thought it was a vain hope. Nobody could go through what they just been through and walk away unscathed, and no one could give the woman back her dead daughter. Of course, first they had to stay human.

  Kyle tried to shake himself out of his morose thoughts and turned to study Julius instead. He assumed that Gabi and Julius had gone the ‘whole hog’, so to speak, the previous night. He was pretty sure Gabi would have discussed anything else with him and was well aware of Gabi’s physical attraction to the Vampire. Gabi wasn’t easy to read on that score, unless you knew her particularly well, or had supernatural senses. He had both. He spoke without changing the direction of his gaze; he looked straight into Julius’s soul-swallowing eyes.

  “If you hurt her, I’ll be forced to make you bleed,” he said with a calm matter-of-factness.

  Julius was silent for two heartbeats; there was no question he knew who Kyle was referring to. “You love her,” the Vampire stated, “I understand that.”

  “I’ve always known the best match for her would be a supernatural,” Kyle tried to explain. “It’s always been hard for her to hide her non-human side. She couldn’t keep it up in a one-on-one relationship, not and still be happy. She manages it in her business but even that takes a toll on her; she has to be careful in so many ways. At least her gift with animals, though generally seen as remarkable, is never suspected by humans to be anything supernatural,” he paused for a moment lost in thought but then continued. “But I guess I had always thought of her with a Werewolf or Shapeshifter, possibly a Magus if she could find a really tough one,” he said with a slight lift of his lips. “I’d never considered her with a Vampire. I know that probably sounds terribly prejudiced, but then we hadn’t met any Vampires to actually form relationships with.” He finally looked away from Julius’s gaze. “The more I think about it the more it begins to make sense. You understand her in many ways better than anybody else does; even me, her closest friend for nearly half her life. I realise now that she has more in common with Vampire nature than either of us ever thought possible.”

  It was Julius’s turn to look away now; he looked down, as though studying his hands. “You understand her just fine. The two of you would make the perfect couple. Have you ever considered that?” he asked still looking at his hands.

  Kyle actually barked a short laugh. “Yeah. Yeah. The idea did certainly occur to us.” Kyle acknowledged. “It definitely seemed like the perfect solution for both of us. When she turned seventeen we gave it a shot,” he felt his eyes go distant, remembering. “But you can’t make chemistry work by ordering it to. If it’s not there it’s just not there. For me, it was there; she’s not exactly unattractive after all, but Gabi just couldn’t get into it. I think I was too much like a big brother to her, too familiar.” He snorted now. “And with senses like ours you can’t even fake it, can you?”

  Julius nodded rueful agreement, looking up now but staying silent, allowing Kyle to continue his discourse.

  “Anyhow, after a couple of tries, we gave it up and decided the sibling relationship worked best for us. So, we rib each other about our romantic flings and help each other pick up the pieces when things fall apart. I’ve never seen her lose her heart though; she never makes herself that emotionally vulnerable to anyone. She’s seen her mother go through losing her father, and then she watched her mother nearly make a catastrophic mistake with a violent boyfriend. You are the first person I would be worried about really hurting her emotionally, because I can see that she has become emotionally en
tangled with you already. As a man who cares deeply about her, I want to ask you to think carefully about becoming more involved with her. If you’re not serious about her, you need to distance yourself from her now, before she gets in so deep that she can’t untangle herself.” He said this last bit in a deadpan rush. He didn’t relish taking on the stern big brother role, but he’d do just about anything to protect her. He also knew that if she found out about this conversation they’d both be bleeding.

  Julius finally spoke. “I’m not a Magus, so I don’t like to make predictions about the future, and I have no idea whether it can actually work between me and Gabrielle, but I can assure you that I also have her best interests at heart. I find myself feeling extraordinarily protective of her but not in a brotherly kind of way,” he said with a slight smile. “If anyone else tried to hurt her, I would rip their throat out without a second thought, so I understand your feelings on the matter, I would expect nothing less from you if I were to hurt her myself.”

  There was silence in the space as Kyle tipped his head in acknowledgement of Julius’s statement.

  “Tell me about her mother’s violent boyfriend. I was under the impression her mother was happily remarried,” Julius asked, steering the conversation away from the apparently sensitive topic.

  “She is happily remarried, now, at least. The chap is very pleasant and comes from a line of Shapeshifters, but isn’t a Shifter himself. So at least her mom doesn’t have to cover up for Gabi all the time; it makes it easier for Gabi and her mom that way. The violent boyfriend came when Gabi was still at school. I guess it would help you understand the story if you have a bit more background to it. I’m going to vehemently deny ever telling you this if she finds out that you know about it though.”

  When Julius wryly nodded his acceptance of the conditions Kyle continued, “Gabi was only ten when her dad was killed. Her mom went into a serious depression and was almost catatonic for weeks afterwards. Byron and his wife helped look after Gabi and cover things up from social services, if the social workers had any idea how bad it had actually been they would’ve hospitalised her mom and put Gabi in foster care. Anyhow, they eventually managed to get her onto medication and she was able to function almost normally, but a lot of the household responsibility fell on Gabi’s shoulders. She had to grow up fast and in a way the mother/child relationship became almost reversed. Gabi felt responsible for her mom, and although their relationship wasn’t exactly plain sailing, she was very protective of her mother. I guess we also have that in common,” he mused, half to himself.

  “Several years later, her mom met a man in the local book store, and they began dating. When I met Gabi, the man was pushing to move into the house with them. Gabi was dead set against it, she had some sixth sense about this guy, she didn’t trust him or like him one bit. I have to admit, at the time I felt it was simply the fact that she didn’t want her dad replaced, perfectly understandable under the circumstances. The only reason her mom hadn’t let the man move in was because he was full human, and she wasn’t sure how he’d react to Gabi’s supernatural abilities, which would become obvious once he spent enough time around her.” He gave a brief snort of laughter. “Gabi absolutely delighted in giving him a hard time; she’d even ask me for ideas on how to annoy him further. She mouthed off to him every chance she got, she pushed every one of his buttons, and was rude and obnoxious every time her mom was out of earshot. She even encouraged her gazzilion pets to give him a hard time. They’d bite him, peck him, shit on him, trip him up, scare him.”

  Julius echoed Kyle’s smile, as though he, too, could picture the scene of a young, short tempered, foul-mouthed Gabi trying her damnedest to annoy a human without giving herself away.

  Kyle continued, “But though she did seem to get to him, none of her efforts actually deterred him. I think now that she may have been spot on with her idea that he was only there to get his hands on the large inheritance her dad had left for the two of them. A few months later, he was becoming increasingly insistent that he should move in with them, bringing up news reports about house burglaries and crime in the area and how they needed him to protect them. Gabi thought her mom was close to cracking, but she got home early from school one day to hear them arguing in the house. This ignorant dipshit was screaming and hurling verbal abuse at her mom, Gabi opened the door on the scene and saw her mom standing across the room with a terrified expression; she had a puffy red mark across her face and blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.” He noticed Julius fists clench tight as though he wanted to hit something.

  “She didn’t even hesitate,” Kyle said with all the gloating of a proud big brother, “she walked straight to the hall closet and took out her father’s nine iron.” He felt a dark-humoured smile creased his face. “She never described much of the scene to me; I don’t think she remembers much of it, but I can picture his cockily confident face as she approached him. He would have been thinking he was quickly going to take that golf club away from that dainty, little fourteen year old and put her in her place at long last. He could never have imagined how she was about to let loose on him with it.” He saw Julius’s hands relax from their tendon-straining clench. “Her mother finally managed to pull Gabi off of him; he was still alive at that point but just barely. They called Byron, not wanting to involve the police and not knowing what else to do. He arrived quickly and threw the man in his car, helped them clean up the mess in the house and told them they would never have to worry about the man again, and for Gabi that was the end of the story. Her mother was far more cautious about going out with men after that, and Gabi, for a time, had a severe distrust of all men.”

  “What happened to the boyfriend?” Julius asked calmly and without apparent interest, but not fooling Kyle in the slightest.

  “Gabi has still never asked Byron what happened to him and claims she doesn’t want to know. But I asked him one day, I wanted to be sure that he could never try and reappear in their lives, or that’s what I told Byron anyway,” his expression turned chagrined. “I obviously didn’t fool him because he wouldn’t tell me anything beyond that the man’s memories had been wiped, and he would never get the chance to hurt another woman again. I’m guessing he was made the scapegoat of a vicious crime, made a full, magi-induced confession to police and is now serving a long prison sentence somewhere in the world.”

  Julius eyebrows rose in surprise.

  Kyle chuckled. “Don’t forget that Byron is at least as protective of Gabi as I am, and he’s a downright crafty old fox when it comes right down to it. Don’t ever make the mistake of underestimating him.”

  Rory’s voice crackled over the intercom as the van’s engine cut off. “We’re here guys.”

  It didn’t take them long to unload the humans and leave them in the capable hands of a group of dedicated Magi Healers. Gabi was secretly very relieved that the woman who’d staked her was under heavy sedation, mainly because she had continued to react with violence toward anyone who came near her, but the rest of them gave no trouble, following orders with a numb obedience. She was intensely glad to be done with that part of the evening’s work.

  They quickly split up into three groups as planned, this time Julius joined Gabi’s team and Alex took up his habitual position alongside Julius. Fergus and Nathan had a brief, silent squabble about which of them would be the fourth member of Gabi’s team, and it was Nathan who backed down in the end and joined Lance, along with Marcello and Matt, who was still trying to get used to the idea of working with Vampires. Kyle’s team consisted of Charles and Quentin, who’d both fought with them in the train station, and a Vampire Gabi recognised as the dark complexioned Vampire from the bar a few nights ago. His name was Tabari, Alexander had told her, explaining that Tabari was something of a rarity in Vampire society, being of black, African decent. For some reason, Alexander didn’t know exactly why, there were very few black Vampires in existence. The paleness of Vampirism sat strangely on him, turning his skin a dusty ash
en hue. When he spoke, his fangs were unashamedly visible and his accent was strong enough to bring Gabi vivid memories of her time in Southern Africa.

  Kyle pulled out and map and spread it over the bonnet of a car. They quickly divided the City and its main ley line areas up into sectors and chose their sectors. They agreed to check in with each other every hour, then piled into the cars and vans and headed out on patrol. Gabi’s Mustang had been left at the warehouse so she knew she’d have to join Julius in his car. This time he’d arrived in a less conspicuous Audi. A quick glance from Julius had sent Alexander and Fergus to join the driver and medic in one of the SMV vans specially equipped with weapons and medical supplies.

  The tension in the car when she climbed in was almost palpable. Julius was obviously not comfortable around her. She was fairly certain he would’ve noticed that she took a shower before leaving this morning, which should have told him that she hadn’t bolted like a startled lamb when she woke up and found him comatose next to her. He probably even knew that she and Kyle had stayed long enough to have breakfast before they left the estate. She wondered why he still seemed so tense. Was he regretting what had happened last night? She couldn’t stand the silence a moment longer.

  “I feel like I owe you an apology,” she said, breaking the silence first.

  “What?’ he asked; shocked by her comment.