Cas. I’d see him soon.
In the car and moving, I didn’t know where to go or what to do next. “Lee didn’t say what to do next.”
Calum lowered the glove box door. Inside, he pulled out a folded transparent bag with paper neatly folded and taped. Open, we found a map, a note, and a key. The note simply said,
Pint under seat. O positive.
Nothing more, nothing less. Lee wasn’t into to giving details, I see.
“The map leads to Drac I assume.” I said this hoping to gain insight thinking Calum might know more.
“It does.”
I was right, unfortunately. I squeezed the hurt away. “And how did you come to know where he is located?”
He flipped a scouring look my way from the driver seat but said nothing.
“Fine. Keep your secrets. I’m used to it with Cas.”
“You kick butt better than any Hunter girl I’ve ever seen Stace, but you’re still naive.”
“Then why did this mother put me in charge of something I can’t even seem to stay in charge of.”
He sighed, “When are going to realize that it’s not just you? We are a team. You compliment our need to pulverize with your quick witted rationalizations. Without them, we’d all be dead.”
I’d not seen it that way. “Still, it seems more like I’m following, not leading or even at the same pace.”
“This is a setback. After Cas is through this, things will come back to some kind of norm.”
“Yeah, cuz’ norm is our business. Calum, we’ve not seen normal since the day we met.”
In the darkness of the car with only the dashboard lights, he slid his eyes once more to me. I heard his hard swallow before he said low and a little too huskily, “A day which means more to me than you.”
I let it go. He could drop those bombs all over the city and I’d still be looking in every direction for Cas as I did now. As one sided as it was, I didn’t want him to hate me either. So I kept my thoughts to myself.
The map led us to a side of this predominately human town I’d not been to except to Cas’ club. I wouldn’t have guessed Drac to live so close, nor that he would live in a suburb of Gem City. The factions were all located right outside of a major city that is never disclosed to humans, but close enough to keep tabs on each other. There were smaller faction houses in all major cities, but only one stood above them all and that’s where I’d been my whole life. Living in the city that had the highest population in the continental U.S. was by far busy enough with the supernaturals, much less to travel to the others. The lords of each faction traveled once a year to visit the east coast faction house, as well as the overseas houses located in England and Japan, but the others fared on their own unless needing assistance. Our city’s factions seemed to have the most problems, but maybe it simply rooted to the lords, not the supernaturals.
Cas even told me once that Chicago and Los Angeles both had their Vampire rogue problems, but nothing like ours. He reasoned that they flocked to us because of who we are as faction leaders, nothing more. You’d think the “rogues” would want to go away from the ones who could do them in for good.
Drac and several of the prior lords did a lot of the traveling for Cas. I knew Szar had even been as far as Dallas to check in with the Valkyrie factions. I guess they all have “check in” representatives. I’d have to ask Cord and Calum who went for their factions.
We rolled into downtown with the traffic. Even after midnight, it was still heavy slow and stop. Calum flipped the turn signal for the next exit making me sit straighter in his seat. I looked for a sign of where we were headed and compared it to the map. Calum looked at it once and not again.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
“Yes,” he punctuated the word. He seemed even more ticked off than earlier.
“Do you know where this leads on the map?”
“Yes.”
I feared I already knew the answer to the next question. “Have you been there before?”
“Yes.”
Last burning question to come. “Have I?”
“No.”
His hands on the wheel, he had yet to look my way since my Q and A.
“Tell me about it,” I asked.
He sighed heavily before saying, “I suppose I should warn you. It will likely be hard to see, so stay close to me. Guard your body against anyone nearing you and talk to no one. I won’t let anyone harm you.”
“Those sound more like fatherly rules. You act like I’m some innocent girl who is stepping for the first time into the world. Why don’t you tell me where we’re going and what’s there so I can be prepared?”
“No need. We are here.”
Pulling in a parking lot, I recognized exactly where we were. The club across the street from Cas’ club. This one was called Incisor and looked darker and well, all human. Allusive in his parking, Calum pulled around the back in the shadows. We rounded to the front like we were club patrons and stood in line of what I swear used to be a church. The stained glass windows were still there, just painted over with black spray paint.
I glanced forward and back at the others trying to reach the same destination. With a giant Hunter beside me, we weren’t exactly incognito.
“With you beside me, we stand out Stace.”
The soft-toned way that Calum always let his breath out and then held it made its way across to me signaling he was taking care of the current threat even if there wasn’t one. I readied my dagger, but knew internally he had this.
The way he looks at me has changed. His eyes are sad, but full of emotion that can only be comprehended as a caring type of love. I think that he is past the point of being in love with me, but rather his gaze tells me he is worried more and desperate. He makes me want to do the impossible just as Cas says I can. He believes in me, but he worries about my safety. Kind of ironic since I’m almost completely invincible when I have my head on straight. Maybe it’s the other times they both see me as weaker. Maybe they see my weak sides more than I realize.
“Funny, I just thought the same thing about you,” I looked up at his hardened face and nonchalantly checked for my weapons as we stood there.
“Me? You’re blonde and beautiful unlike human girls. They will know your some kind of goddess and question us,” he scoffed. “If you’d worn clothes, it might have helped.”
“Yeah right. And six and a half feet men are the norm.” He ignored me. “What? Gorgeous, built like a battleaxe, and broody Hunters aren’t normal for their kind. It’s the stuff of story books.” I noted to those around us. “And I’m not naked.”
He blinked twice. “Gods, Stace. Saying stuff like that doesn’t fair well for me keeping my hands off you.”
I flipped forward to the bouncer to avoid the look in his eyes. I can’t seem to be candid or funny or honest with Calum sometimes. It sparks a fire I can’t seem to douse.
“We’re almost in,” I said to alter the situation back to the reason for being here.
“Stay low. It is an all human bar and we are headed straight for the back.”
“Why are we here anyway? How does it lead to Cas?” I looked carefully at some of the humans. They were all jumpy and dancing to the loud music blaring from somewhere inside. They didn’t seem so bad. Didn’t we all want the same things?
“Thorn is in there.”
I looked up at him confused, “Then that would mean Drac is here.”
“He is the owner.”
“Drac, a Vampire lord, is the owner of a human club.”
He looked at me like I had screws loose. “Uh, you mean he feeds on the humans?” I was horrified. I knew Vamps did it, but I didn’t know any of those personally. Cas warned me the world wasn’t always black and white like I wanted it to be.
When he didn’t answer I turned back to the bouncer in wait to enter. Calum pulled out his wallet but the huge, not quite as big as Calum, bouncer rubbed a hand over his bald head and said in a booming voice, “FRE
E. IN.”
I peered up at Calum. My body hummed to life making me arch.
“He knows you’re here.”
“Does Cas?”
“Not sure. Have you turned on your inner radio and tried to call him?” he grimaced saying it.
“Not lately. HE...turned it off.” I frowned accordingly to make my point and then focused on sensing him. “Besides, he can already feel me. He has to know.”
“Because you feel him like I do you. Yeah, yeah. Come on.” Calum gently pulled my arm.
I was dressed for fighting, but the black “cat suit” as the guys called it was strangely appropriate attire against most of the humans girls were wearing. Though they had way more skin to view. I didn’t know how the males could focus. Cas seemed to blur around the edges when I neglected to put on yoga pants or jeans on days I had sleep shorts on. Even the tanks were a distraction. While I liked the attention (from him) I didn’t like the constant ogling of others. These girls seemed to relish in it. Eww!
We skirted the room side by side. Calum didn’t once look at any of the girls in question. I found that odd considering he should be a little girl crazy for his age. I wasn’t termed as “boy crazy” by any means. I guess we both were a little mature for our ages with all the doom and gloom in our lives.
Around the first corner we found a narrow passageway filled with writhing bodies and a few acts I wasn’t sure if I should hide my eyes away from or not. I was trying to act less like a prude, but this kind of stuff should be hosed clean from the human cops or something. It was despicable.
Calum leaned in keeping my body flattened across his front. I didn’t argue and I didn’t mind it so much after the second hand groped my arm and went for the nether regions of my body I considered off limits to all. When the third hand reached for my chest, I yanked it hard into me and twisted like it was on fire. And on fire the human felt by the time I quarter turned their arm the opposite direction than it was situated. His scream was drowned out by Calum’s one hand on his mouth and the other on his throat.
I think the human then passed out, but I couldn’t be sure. Calum propped him against the wall never disturbing the grope happy couple going to town beside where he lay. I watched as Calum returned to my side like the event was an everyday thing. I worried for what Calum might be doing in his spare time. The term, “fighting demons” was not far from the edge of my brain.
The last door on the left came into view. White washed and void of any sign for who was contained within the walls, Calum positioned me right in front of it. The outside of the building was like an old church, but the inside was drab and dirty. If they were worshiping gods in this place, they weren't heavenly ones.
“What you see behind this door is not Thorn. He had no alternative. And remember…you insisted on coming.”
“If it is to help Cas, then it doesn’t matter what I see.”
“Are you sure about that?” Calum lifted my chin.
I couldn’t help but let the worst possible scenarios play out in my mind with what’s behind that door, but whatever the case I would hate myself more for not helping. If Cas was doing it to protect me then I would handle what consequences he had accepted for himself.
“Ready?” he asked with the slightest remorse in his voice. The blood bag was in his hand.
When the scene unfolded, I wanted to close my eyes and cry. I’d never been a crier, but for once, Calum had been right. A tall man, with dark as spades black hair halfway down his back, stood in the corner of the room smoking a pipe. His notched chin moved with his jaw as he exhaled the puff of air that only added to the stale scent of the room. He was watching on with a sloe-eyed transfixed stare as my Cas hovered over a body. I could tell the rather colossal sized body wasn’t female which gave me only the slightest relief. Cas’ back was to me, but I knew him well.
In the other corner, two other men watched. A woman stood with them. All were obviously Vampires, but they didn't dress the way others had at the Cross Manor. These guys resembled what I termed as street walkers. Any movement from the girl and she might fall out of what she styled as an outfit.
At our obtrusion, the three Vampires signaled to the dark haired man who snapped his fingers to the air like a verbal command. Very little furniture made up the room so there was plenty of space for a fight if it came to that. Odd as it was, the room wasn't neat as drab as the rest of the place. The two windows were boarded up, but their obvious ornamental scrolling designs encased with whorls of faded colors were still visible. I'm betting, at one time, they matched the windows I saw blacked out.
With a myriad of emotions, I watched as Cas lifted off the man whom I recognized without a doubt. Dr. Mar Quinn.
My mind was screaming words I’d never uttered before. He was being made to drink from Quinn? The whys started to mount in my head. And the man in the corner had to be Drac.
“Your thoughts are not your own,” Cas stated in a low, distant tone. It was either a good act or he really felt nothing for me.
I glanced sideways at Drac. Cas meant that someone else could hear me. I wondered if all could or just Drac. I realized quickly I had my own act to play if I wanted back out of there.
“I guess I am to assume Dr. Quinn, that you asked for this?”
“My young princess, I wanted nothing more.”
Was that a yes or a no? “There were other options.” I knew the loss of his family would drive him to something outrageous and this constituted as slightly past that stage.
“This was my choice.”
Answering my thoughts, I wondered if he could read me too.
“No my dear one, he is yet too young to find the patterns. Only the well aged may trace another. Although, your connection with Thorn is quite intriguing. I have analyzed that one to no avail. Do what do we offer to you on this day of your visit? I had on very good word that you were a distant memory. However, if you’re here to follow in the good doctor’s footsteps, I would be most obliged.”
His fangs extended to show me exactly what he wanted of me. I wanted to look back to Cas for any type of assurance, but he wouldn’t give it and I couldn’t ask it of him. I kept my mind empty.
I reached for the blood and laid it in the table beside me. It wasn't until standing here that I remembered he was a prior lord. It was customary to have an offering of sort to speak with one, though after I sat it down, I remembered I was to be one myself. I should think that would negate the act, but Lee was giving me an in. I wouldn't argue with that small element. I had bigger fish to fry.
“I am here to verify the whereabouts of the current Vampire lord. Since his disappearance, his people are in an uproar. I am aware he is taking care of something for you, and I see now what that is, but it will not do for him to leave his people without a leader. How much longer do you anticipate keeping him out of commission.”
“And of what concern is it to you?” Drac asked.
“Do you wish to address me before you introduce yourself or are your manners as ancient as you?”
He twisted his neck in both directions before smiling. His smile could not be called anything but demonic and all too effective. Without taking an eye off me, he sat the pipe down on the tapered end table beside him. In small meticulous steps towards where I still stood right inside the door, he watched me then Cas. Before his hand made it halfway to the part of my face he was aimed at touching, I grabbed hold and pressed. With amazing strength, he didn’t budge. As impressed as I was, I didn’t want to test it further. My point was made.
“While I’m as equally impressed, it doesn’t favor well for you who stands in my domain. Thorn will return on my decision. He is here for my bidding. I am aware of your status and how you weigh with the male population of the current faction leaders. It is my understanding that you are to be returned to your own court. I will return our good doctor and your previous to our faction’s court when you have returned to yours. For you are the only reason he is still here.”
With that
, I self-consciously turned to Cas. His mad stare bore into mine. Drac knew my status. Like the rumors, everyone saw me as the leader of the factions. Not everyone favored it. “And if I wish to remain exclusive to being at all of them at my own leisure, what will that harm?”
“Nothing so long as you keep your physical distance.”
This was about Cas and I specifically, nothing more. “And what of the doctor?”
“He will join Thorn.”
I wasn’t stupid. “As?”
That demonic smile returned. “You said she was clever. I like you, princess. You would do well on our side.”
Cas’ heart rate increased making me worry what could become of it in front of the present crowd, but my own heart swelled at the meaning.
“I am happy with my current situation as is. I am only here to restore order among the factions as I was sanctioned to do.”
A step closer than I liked, Drac asked with malcontent in his voice, “By who?”
Knowing this was not a time for acting timid, I stepped into his personal space more than he had mine and relayed ardently, “The Goddess Anat.”
“Ahhh. Mother of the Godslayer. I knew the Valkyrie women of old would come back to haunt us one day.”
Not much can catch me off guard, but that did. “And what do you know of her?”
“What do I not?” He slid his hand down the front of him and took a puff of what he was smoking. It swirled upward bleeding into the staleness.
Now I’m usually easy going with new knowledge, but this couldn’t be ignored. “And you know her how?”
With the silence in the room you could hear every sound even over the horrid music coming form the other side. I also recall the discussion from Lit class at the Hunter school concerning the book Dracula and how it led to the fact that Dracula himself couldn’t help his own forthcomings. He certainly mimicked the man before me in a lot of ways. But I rescind my earlier assessment of his choices and “you are who you are”. I think this man could take a lesson from the Count himself.
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