by Diana Graves
“Special how?” asked Michael.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“No, it’s not. Mom died when she was a baby,” Thomas began but Damon interrupted him.
“You can tell them later, son. We need to get Mom and Isobel dressed and up the mountain.” He picked up the diaper bag off the floor and set it on the bed. Charley set Isobel down beside the bag. Thomas approached the bed with his eyes glued on his new baby sister.
“I had a sister before,” said Thomas. “Great Grandpa’s werewolf ate her.” I watched Michael and Charley’s facial expressions change from worry to pity. Thomas touched Isobel’s head as Damon put her in a tiny fuzzy white sleeper. “Her skin is warm and soft but her hair feels like yours, Dad. It’s smooth and it moves like it’s got a mind of its own.”
Damon smiled at Thomas but then looked at me and said, “Your clothes are in Thomas’s backpack, Raina.”
“Thank you,” I said. Thomas came back to me and handed me his little round backpack. I pulled out a pair of black pants, panties, socks, my running shoes, a red top and a bra. The bra packed with my clothes wasn’t one of mine. It was a new nursing bra. The cups had snaps near the straps so that they opened for breastfeeding.
“I’m going to use the backpack for my candy tonight,” said Thomas.
“Clever,” I said. I handed him his empty backpack and picked up my jacket from the ground by Damon’s feet. I got cleaned up and dressed in the bathroom off the room, while Damon got the baby ready to go.
“I don’t suppose you guys want an escort to Darkness?” Michael asked after we left the room. We stepped into the elevator and pushed the button labeled number one, for the main floor of Bastion Fatal. “We can drive behind you. I just can’t leave without knowing you’re going to be okay, Raina.”
“It’s fine. We’ll make it. I have guards already anyway, see,” I said gesturing to the silent EI officers who had been guarding me all day. “They’ll be following us to Darkness anyway, right?” I asked them.
“No Mam, we’re heading back to the office. Fillips said she’s sending our relief officers to Darkness. We’re going to fill out our paper work and then we’re going home. It’s been a long day of standing in a hall, guarding a door,” said Jim. Yeah, that would be a most boring day.
“So we’re coming with you to Darkness,” said Michael.
ONLY GABRIEL
“WAIT!” SHOUTED GABRIEL. He was walking swiftly down Bastion Fatal’s busy main corridor, which had highly polished black and white marbled floors and walls and no other décor to speak of. A nurse was handing him paperwork as they walked and he was shoving them into a black leather satchel. “Wait! I’m coming with you.”
“Alistair didn’t tell me you were coming,” said Damon.
“I need to monitor Isobel. I’m her doctor. I need to be there if something happens.”
“Darkness has a clinic,” I said.
“But their doctors don’t know her. They haven’t seen her blood work or know her family history.” The nurse handed him her final file, while explaining to him that it was the blood work he just mentioned. He held it up to us as she walked away. “See, she needs me.”
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll meet you there.” And I started for the double doors that would take us to the parking lot outside, but Gabriel grabbed my shoulder and I turned back to face him. “What?”
“We’d save time and gas if I just rode with you,” he said.
“Why not just fly?” I asked.
“He can’t fly and he never learned to drive,” said Alistair from a doorway along the corridor. “If there’s no room for him in your car, I can have a driver take him.”
“No, we have room. So long as he doesn’t mind being sandwiched between a child and a newborn,” said Damon. “But where will he stay the day? I think I may have taken the last two available rooms in town.”
“I’ve arranged daytime quarters with Master Olathia. She says she has a bed available in their nest,” said Alistair. Knowing Olathia, I might guess that the bed she was referring to was her own.
Charley elbowed Damon. “Don’t worry about it, man. You can ride with us. I’ve never been to Darkness. I wouldn’t mind seeing it for myself.”
“It doesn’t disappoint,” I said. “This time of year the vampire town should be pretty lively.”
Alistair beckoned Damon and me to follow him into the room he was standing in the doorway of and we did, but not without protest from Damon. “We really must go. I’m not sure I can last much longer on my feet.” It wasn’t in Damon’s character to complain, but he had been up for well over twenty-four hours, a stressful twenty-four hours.
Gabriel followed also, even though Alistair hadn’t asked him to, leaving Charley, Michael and Thomas out in the hall with Isobel in her car seat.
“I was waiting for you to walk by so that I could say goodbye, but I overheard you say that you’d consider taking Isobel to Darkness’s clinic. She’s your child, so I won’t tell you what to do. But I will tell you what I think is in her best interest, and I think it would be best for her if she didn’t see any other doctor ever. I’ve seen her blood work, and she is her mother’s daughter in everything: vampirism, some unknown DNA that we can only assume is what makes you a demigod, and of course, she’s part human, elf and witch. Add barguest on top of all of that and she’s more than just a passing curiosity.”
“How did you get the blood work done so quickly? It took the clinic in Darkness weeks to get it done,” I said.
“They sent your blood out to be tested through the proper channels of bureaucracy, making sure every t was crossed and every i was dotted. We did it right here, quick and in secret.”
“It just occurred to me that my blood results are out there somewhere on a government database, aren’t they?”
“Yes, definitely,” he said. “But I don’t think they know what they have. We would know by now if they did.”
“Darkness’s old doctor, Tasha, knew what that little bit of DNA meant. Nick said he heard her say as much before he killed her,” I said.
“I can’t pretend to know what Doctor Tasha did or did not know. As you said, she’s dead,” he said.
“If I might interject, Master,” said Gabriel. “I run the Bastion’s Vampire Care Center and I deal with the Vampire Regulatory branch of government on a daily basis as vampire hopefuls opt to come to us to undergo their rebirth rather than a state run VCC. It might give you some peace of mind to know that all they look at when running tests is signs of infection. Once that’s evident, they put your name in a registry with your social security number and nothing else. If this doctor in Darkness did in fact know what you are just by looking at your test results, then she had some special knowledge that died with her. Your samples and paperwork were stolen by your brother, so unless you give the government a reason to take a second look at your blood tests, you should be fine.”
“Thank you, Gabriel,” said Alistair before he turned back to Damon and I. “Do you think giving birth to the first successful barguest-human offspring is reason enough for the government to look closer at your test results? Do you think the scientific community wouldn’t be just a tad bit curious of a shape shifting child vampire demigod? They’d run cruel tests on her for years and when they learned all they could from tests, they’d dissect her to learn more.”
“I don’t think they’d do that. It’s not humane,” I said.
“Since when have humans ever been humane?” asked Damon. “You’re young. You don’t remember firsthand the cruelty of curious humans. When I migrated to America they did more than give me a new last name. They took my right hand as payment. They knew that a new hand would grow back eventually, so they just took it, never mind the pain it caused me.”
“They wouldn’t cut up Isobel like that,” I said, but I wasn’t really sure of that. I took a lot of biology classes while in college. I might not have experienced the evils of humans playing with their strange planet
ary cohabitants, but I’d read about it. De-fining mermaids, declawing werewolves, demanding every non-human give an ounce of blood so that they could test it, map it, and create diseases specifically tailored to it in order to control certain populations from growing into the majority.
“Best case scenario: they’d cut off something small just to see if it grew back,” said Gabriel, “a toe or something. They’d demand she come in periodically for physical exams, and yes, they would probably be uncomfortable for her. Those performing the exam would treat her like a freak. Worst case: I could very well see the government taking her away from you. They’d say that a government-run hospital would be a better place for Isobel for the sake of public safety. In fact, I could see them putting you in such an institution, Raina. That’s why I have to remain Isobel’s and your only doctor. We can’t trust anyone else.”
“Okay, I get it. You’re our family doctor, never go anywhere else and you’re coming with us to Darkness—I just wish I could have more faith than this in my fellow man,” I said.
“Human?” asked Damon.
“Earthlings,” I said. “We’re our worst enemy: war, poverty, disease, discrimination. It’s enough to drive you into solitude.”
“Makes you want to build a cabin in the woods and live off the land, doesn’t it?” Damon asked.
“Yeah, it does.”
“Maybe, once we get through this, we can sell the house and move out into the wilderness. We can raise Isobel and Thomas in a hate-free environment.”
That did sound like a nice idea. Peace and quiet and no ill will directed at us for the sake of our differences; but it was just that, an idea. In reality Isobel needed to know the dangers of the world. She needed to be prepared for the kind of bigotry people are capable of. As much as I wanted to shelter her, she needed to know how to survive. But I didn’t feel like being a bubble buster. I felt like being overly optimistic, or at least playing at it.
I smiled and said, “Yes, definitely.” Whoever said I couldn’t act? I put my arm around Damon’s neck and drew him into a tight hug. “Let’s get going. I’m driving, though. You look as if you’re ready to pass out.”
“Do you feel up to driving?” asked Gabriel. “You just gave birth this morning.”
“I feel great. I feel normal. Must be that vamp blood running through my veins; better than Flintstone vitamins.”
“Ten-million strong and growing,” said Alistair in a sing-song voice mocking the commercial’s old lyrics. I laughed heartily because I was singing that very song in my head just then and it was such an unexpected thing for him to do.
HOLIDAY IN DARKNESS
DARKNESS SAT HIGH on Mount Rainier, hidden from European vampire hunters for over a hundred years. Living mostly underground and feeding off of the wildlife was how they survived the near extinction of their race. It was only after the Native Vampire Treaty was signed into law in the 1950’s that Darkness was discovered. And because they were already too numerous to comply with the fifty vampire limit for each vampire collective set by the government, a grandfather clause was made. Darkness had no limit to how large it could become but most weren’t worried. Native American vampires were picky as to who could join their collectives, their families. It wasn’t commonplace for them to accept new members, let alone a white bred barbarian like myself, yet the offer was implied. I never gave them my answer.
As we drove into Darkness in the middle of the night, it was bustling with life. There were a lot of people going about their business, partying the night away in celebration of Halloween. There were more humans than usual. ‘Twas the season. Besides vampires, many witches, ogres, trolls, satyrs and lycanthropes called Darkness home. Only very few humans lived in Darkness, but all were welcome. Native American vampires had a rich culture and like most vampires, they were gregarious. The more the merrier.
I had never brought Thomas up here before and as tired as he was, he sat up straight in his seat the moment my tires hit the cobblestone road. The stone was new, yet it was made to look as though it had been there for an age. His face was up against the window and his eyes were huge, taking in all the gothic wonderment. The buildings hugging the main road, Artery Boulevard, were huge and gothic taken to the extreme. Most of them were shops and eateries with cute names like Chains of Death: Candy & Gift Shop, Dark Ally’s BooX and Zombie Hut. That last one was new, and it wasn’t a terribly clever name. But zombies were popular for the moment, like vampire used to be years ago. Still, I’m not sure I’d trust a pizza from there if that’s what they were selling.
Thomas went mad with glee when he saw the horse drawn carriages strolling up the street beside us. They were made to look dark and complicated in a steampunk sort of way, with gears of metal to work a convertible top that could be brought up during rain and stay down on rare clear nights, when the clouds are sparse and the stars are too plentiful to count. The man behind the reigns was tall and dressed in heavy black clothes with a black hood. The horses that pulled the carriage were white with impressive head gear.
“That’s scary,” he said with joy in his voice as he pointed to the dark and sinister looking totem poles standing between the gaudy streetlamps. They stood maybe thirty feet in the air, with disturbing looking animals of the night like bats and owls and possums.
“Do you see the Gargoyles on the court house down there?” I asked Thomas. He leaned over my seat as much as his seatbelt would allow in order to see them. They were a strange mix of Gothic Victorian and Native American design, with large teeth and eyes and forked tongues.
“Creepy,” he said. Indeed, and these were all permanent features of the town. Darkness was positively covered in Halloween decorations. Professionally carved Jack-o’-lanterns lit the sidewalks well and plastic streamers hung from trees, lights, signs and basically anything that wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. The streamers danced in the October wind, while laughing kids, teens and adults ran amuck from shop to shop and everywhere in between.
“Are you looking forward to celebrating Halloween here?” asked Damon. His voice was low and full of sleep. He’d had a two-hour nap while I drove, but it probably didn’t help very much.
“Yes, definitely,” he said.
“I wish we could have had a costume party at home, but I guess getting freaky geeky in Darkness is the next best thing,” I said. Samhain’s was my number one favorite holiday. Costumes, feasts, candy and games. I looked forward to it each and every year. “I wish I had time to get a costume.”
“Mom,” Thomas said. “You can be Fire Princess!”
I smiled in the rearview mirror. “That would be staying with the theme of this Halloween, but I wouldn’t want to catch anything on fire.”
“We’ll think of something,” Thomas said. “I’ll ask Katie what she thinks when we get there.”
“Where are we heading anyway?” I asked Damon. “Where’s this Bride of Frankenstein’s Bed and Breakfast?”
“Take the left coming up here, on Haunted Hill Road just over the Black Stream.” I turned on my left turning signal and Michael did the same behind us.
“I wish we lived here. This place is awesome!” Thomas shouted as he fist pumped himself silly, but he startled the baby and had to pat her softly, making soothing noises to calm her back down. “This worked when my other little sister was crying,” he whispered. “I sang to her, too,” He began singing to Isobel in another language, probably Greek.
“What was her name?” I asked.
“Michele,” he said softly.
He continued singing until we pulled into the large dirt parking lot in front of a huge Victorian mansion painted white and red. The flickering sign above the black awning read, ‘The Bride of Frankenstein,’ and a smaller lit sign read, ‘no vacancies.’
Charley, Gabriel and Michael didn’t pull into the parking lot behind us. Instead they drove on by and flipped a U-turn in the middle of the road to head back to the town center where all the action was. Charley stuck his head out the
window. I stopped the car and rolled down my driver’s side window.
“Woo, you made it!” he said as they drove slowly by us. “We’re going to party here! See you mañana, Raina!” and they sped off.
“You said we have reservations, right?” I asked as I parked next to a beat up old Ford truck.
“Yeah,” said Damon. “It wasn’t easy finding rooms on Halloween night. Even with a credit card on the reservation they wouldn’t guarantee our rooms because of the holiday, so I had to send Katie and Everett ahead to check in while we picked you and Isobel up. The rest of your family has to wait until tomorrow to come up.”
The lobby of the bed and breakfast was jam packed with kids and adults, but mostly kids dressed in their Halloween costumes. They were shouting, screaming, growling and running around. It was a madhouse! The lobby was probably a pretty quiet place most of the year, full of Elizabethan furnishings and paintings meant to instill the creeps in giant gaudy frames hanging on the walls.
Katie was sitting on a low, but solidly built bookcase with her feet in Everett’s lap. He was sitting in a high-backed chair just to the side of the bookcase in question. Katie’s hair was dyed black and flattened with hair jell on one side to create the illusion that half her head was shaved. She was wearing fake elf ears, hair extensions and vampire fangs. Tight blue jeans, red boots and a grey tank top made it obvious to anyone who watched the cartoon who she was dressed as, but the red axe guitar in her hand was really the piece that brought it all together, as was her devilish smile and throaty chuckle. Everett was dressed as himself, and Katie finally looked like she belonged with him. The kids knew who Katie was supposed to be and they assumed Everett was Marshall, Marceline’s male counterpart. When Thomas walked up to the couple, another kid dressed as Swamp Thing asked him where Fionna was (Finn’s female counterpart). Thomas told the boy that she couldn’t make it and Katie helped hoist him up on the bookcase to sit beside her.
