by R. E. Carr
“He killed a werewolf after the furball had received a sound thrashing from Minerva,” Steve muttered. “Sis is a trained killer.”
“She is not your sister,” the sheriff said, making Steve raise a brow. “And Minerva nearly died after the beast gutted her and ripped out her eyes.”
“Hey, Minerva might hate me, but at least she’s been there for me my whole life. Hell, even Claudia bothered to look out for me until I was on my feet. All you’ve ever done is bust my chops and use me to clean up messes.”
“You made plenty of messes of your own, boy.”
“I know you’re about to read me some line about how you watched me from afar and taught me all these important lessons while you hid as the sheriff—”
“Which I did,” the sheriff added softly.
Steve balled his hands into fists. “Yeah, yeah, thank you. Isn’t that what you want to hear? Thank you so very much. Why are you here? Why did you lure me out here? I’ve got enough borrowed brass right now to just lay it all out, Ma.”
The sheriff raised a brow again. She looked over at Gail. Steve buried his face in his hands. “Spit out whatever you want. You’ve got your second-string significant other at the table, why can’t I? No offense, man.”
“None taken,” Mr. Sugar replied passively. Gail, on the other hand, turned slightly pink at the implications. She bit her tongue though as the sheriff seethed.
“We will have this conversation one day, boy.”
“But not today,” Steve growled. “And I don’t feel like bringing up the past. What do you want?”
“I need your . . . help.”
“And if I say no? I really don’t have much to lose. You gonna threaten Gail here? That doesn’t have a lot of teeth, and we both know it. Now spit it out. What could you possibly need from me that you can’t do with all your infinite wisdom and powers, Ma?”
“For one, I need you to learn some manners. The second part is already done,” she said, licking her lips. “Let’s see how much you truly take after your father.”
Steve furrowed his brows and licked his lips too. He then sniffed his empty cup. “Oh man,” he whined as he puckered and gagged. “That’s just wrong.”
“You always drink too much, too fast when you’re upset, son,” the sheriff said as she pushed away from the table. “I’ll be back in a few days to check on the results.”
“How did you even get this?” Steve said, now trying to spit into his cup. Mr. Sugar smiled sadly as he escorted his lady towards the door. Gail jumped to her feet and hurried after them.
“What did you slip him?” Gail demanded.
The sheriff’s eyes flashed brilliant green. “Aren’t you getting bold, girl? Listen, while I admire those with the balls and brains to escape my little tests, I also very much enjoy crushing those who lose sight of their place in this world. You’re rather lucky. With the human freak out of the picture, you’re suddenly a valuable and rare commodity, Harker. I’d be very interested to see if my brother’s commands work on you or if you’re just a liability to me.”
“What the hell did you give him?” Gail said, even more forcefully.
“Hopefully the ability to be memorable rather than pathetic and forgotten. Then again, miasma only helps so much.”
“Way to believe in your son,” Gail said. Before she could turn and walk away, the sheriff grabbed her arm. “What?”
“Maybe you can convince him that he doesn’t have to play the fool anymore, girl. He needs to learn and accept his new place, especially as Merlin and Arthur try to take over again—”
“And what is his place exactly? You just pop in and out with riddles and annoying demands. Sure, you helped us, but I’m also pretty sure you’re keeping the tab, so we’re all forced to bend over the moment you need us.”
The sheriff’s eyes twinkled a bit. “My eldest son is weaker than I anticipated, and my middle son is in the hands of the enemy. Whether I like it or not, that petulant youngest son of mine may be my only remaining line of defense against my brother. Somewhere in that drunken mess is a proud bloodline that likes to rebel and resist. I have a terrible feeling that those qualities will be sorely needed in the days to come.”
Gail looked back at Steve. His hair flopped over his eyes, and his beard seemed even shaggier than it had been a mere hour before. He gave Gail a pleading glance.
“How much vampire blood did you give him? Anything I should expect?” she asked, turning back to the sheriff.
“You do care about him—interesting.”
“I care about an unstable, grieving vampire starting to get different powers while he keeps crashing at my place.”
“Well then, I suggest you take care of him. I tried when he was young, but I thought he just inherited my power. It’s interesting that it seems to be changing now. If you find any patterns in his gifts, I’d love to share notes—”
“You’re unbelievable,” Gail said before running back to Steve’s side. She tossed money on the table for their real server. “Come on, Steve. Let’s get you home before anything weirder happens.”
“What could possibly be weirder than my mom slipping me a vampire blood micky? What? Are you going to jump my bones the second we get back to your place and call me your dark prince?” he said with a little laugh as he grabbed her arm to steady himself.
An hour later, Gail shoved Steve against her bedroom wall, kissing him passionately before running her fangs hungrily along his neck. “I’m going to rip you apart, my dark prince. First you are going to enjoy it, then I’m going to get literal.” Steve rolled his eyes back and groaned as she rubbed her body against him. Just as her fangs nicked his skin, he found the willpower to push her away.
“Stop,” he choked out. Gail froze, blanching in horror.
“How could you even . . .?” Gail stammered. “To me!”
“It was an accident, I swear!” he called after her, but Gail flipped him off before stomping to her bathroom for a shower. She could hear him gasping in between desperate mutterings of, “No, I am not that guy, I can’t be that guy . . . shouldn’t be that powerful . . .”
“Excuse me?” Paige said as she untangled herself from Lorcan. He reached over and pulled her close but made sure she could still get a clear look at his dreadfully serious stare.
“I need to see Mina as soon as possible before I lose control of this body again,” the vampire replied softly. “I know it seems odd, but—”
“I just got you back! I finally get a chance to talk to you, and the first words out of your lips are, ‘Gee, I want to see my ex-wife’. How am I supposed to react to that?”
“With anger, naturally,” Lorcan replied, a hint of British accent mixing with the guttural Texas drawl of his new host body. “A rún, please let me explain.”
Paige leaned against him again and let him rub her back and her hair. She even smiled a little as their tails flopped against each other. “How in the seven hells is a man supposed to get used to a tail?” he asked softly. “I confess to some curiosity as to how you dealt with it, but I never in my wildest dreams—”
“You still love to change the subject. Lorcan, what is going on?” In the dim morning light, while resting her hand against the side of his face, she could see both Jonathan’s features and Lorcan’s blending together in the shadows. Above all else, she could see his green eyes dancing nervously towards the corners of the room. “Lorcan, please. I can’t handle games right now.”
“The time for games is long past, A rún. I am . . . I am still not well.”
“No, not again.” Tears welled up in Paige’s eyes. She felt his forehead. “No more fevers, no more rotting. Please . . .”
“No,” he whispered, holding onto her. “No, not like that. My body is strong, almost freakishly so—”
“Then what is it?”
He pressed his forehead against hers. “I fear that my sickness is in the mind, my love, and in Mr. Dean’s.”
“I don’t understand. You’ve final
ly recovered. I mean, isn’t this what happens? You’re the vampire, and Jonathan is in there too. Ugh, is this one of those vampire existential dilemmas? I think I’d rather hear about your ex.”
“A rún, I have missed you so,” he said, kissing her. “It’s not as simple as Mr. Dean and I, and even Mordred, all taking polite turns at being in charge. Half of a life leads to madness and despair. In the darkness of my own subconscious, all I could do was dream and wallow in my past. I saw all versions of myself, and the new victim joining the fray. If I am awake, then Jonathan shares my misery, and Mordred—well, he was so miserable, he tried to escape into you. We influence each other, we bleed into each other, but we are still fragmented. You of all people should understand the annoyance of having a voice nagging you at all times.”
Paige nodded and then buried her face in his chest. She listened to the weird mix of a normal heartbeat and the swishing sound of the vampire buried under his scar. She traced one of his new tattoos with her fingertips. The dark pattern swirled ever so slightly under the gentle pressure and returned to a line as she pulled away.
“What can you do, though? Do you want us to put you back in a bag?”
“That was a singularly disturbing experience,” Lorcan muttered, shuddering involuntarily. He tilted her head back towards his face. “No, I’d rather like to be with you again, A rún, and I would like to see my child, and hold him in my arms, if that’s not too much to ask the universe. It is strange to be jealous of a man I share a body with, and I must confess, I hated him for being able to use my subconscious to win your heart.”
He looked down and smiled slyly. “Alright, he may have used his more impressive physique as well. I cannot believe that any descendant of mine managed to inherit a body like this.”
Paige snarled and punched his arm. “It wasn’t all you,” she growled.
“Yet the moment I returned . . .” he said, looking down at their bare bodies lightly draped in sheets. “Not that I’m complaining. As much as I am loathe to admit it, our shared attraction to you allowed us to blend just enough that I could finally awaken.”
“Somehow you are making me feel like I cheated on you, with your body, and that’s making my head hurt,” Paige groaned. “These are problems only Paige Presley DeMarco manages to get herself into.”
“Half a life is torture, Paige,” he said sadly. “This is why almost all the Undying go mad, but there is a way.”
“You aren’t going to say something stupid like retreating into your subconscious and letting Jonathan take over forever, are you?”
“No. I am fairly certain that if I said that, you would rip my face off . . . quite literally. A rún, what I need to do—well, what we need to do—is become one.”
“Um, didn’t we already . . . do that?”
“Not you and I, I mean me and . . . well the other versions of myself,” he said with a little sigh. “I need to connect with them, eliminate the boundaries between us and become a single person, a single consciousness. I nearly achieved it once before with Mordred, but I couldn’t quite reach one lost fragment of myself, and now there is a whole other personality to contend with. I . . . I need help.”
“And that is why you need Mina?” Paige asked softly.
“I need both of you, A rún. I need your help, and I need Mina’s to help me reconcile all these pieces. I honestly have no idea what is going to happen, but if you don’t help me, I will surely go mad.”
“You and me both,” Paige muttered as she wrapped her arms around him. “You and me both.”
7
“I’ve gone completely mental,” Gail said, rubbing lotion onto her forearms and sides. “Steve is lucky he’s a fairly hot grieving widower, or I would rip his throat out. Oh god, I’m justifying and going all Stockholm Syndrome on his slimy miasma-mickying ass. I am going to finish getting dressed, and I’m going to give him a piece of my mind! My god, what if he hadn’t stopped me? Ugh!”
She stared into the empty bathroom mirror and growled. “Damn it. Still not used to that.” Gail made a frustrated horsey noise and yanked on her clean clothes. As she tugged her sleeves down, she felt a slight row of bumps on her skinny excuses for biceps. She pushed the pink fabric back up and stared at the faint welts on her skin, placing her hand over the markings and cocking her head as the welts neatly matched a handprint. “Contact . . . poison?”
Her musings were interrupted by a thud, followed by a crash. She gritted her teeth and stormed into her living room to find Steve on the floor—his bloody head smashed through the remains of her coffee table. She wasted no time brushing the safety glass shards away, so she could get a better look at the gash on his forehead. Once he groaned and fluttered his eyelashes a little, she let out a sigh of relief.
“What the hell happened?” she asked as she eased him away from the mess. One whiff of his breath gave her a clue. An empty handle jug of rum lay next to her sofa as well as a stack of flattened blood bags and Steve’s empty flask. “How did you even find my Captain?”
He responded by rolling onto his side and vomiting on her carpet. Gail balled her hands into fists but resisted the urge to drive them into Steve. Instead she grabbed towels, her first aid kit, and cleaned him up. She raised a brow as she was easily able to lift him and carry him to her bed. “Am I dreaming?” Steve slurred as she sat him down. “You’re strong.”
“You’re shitfaced, even by your standards,” Gail replied. “Oh, and it’s your Jaeger credit card that is totally paying for these damages. I’m pretty sure I burned all my stipend just for first and last months and Biogenesys does not pay enough for new rugs.”
She cleaned out the gash and spat into the wound, crossing her fingers that she didn’t accidentally spray him with acid. Once he was bandaged up, she began the annoying process of cleaning up bloody rum and broken glass. Her stomach growled loudly enough for her to chug the stale bottle of pig’s blood he had so thoughtfully left for her, before she finally returned to find him snoring.
Her phone indicator light flashed rapidly. She groaned as she flipped it around to see a row of missed messages. She banged her head as she saw multiple lines of, “Have you seen Steve?”
“Steve is currently unavailable,” she texted back. “Jesus, can’t they make it twenty-four hours without needing him? You will have to wait, guys.”
Gail dragged her laptop into her room and pulled up the latest files that Kayleigh’s program had decoded from the Arce Monstrorum’s leaky archives. Her phone buzzed again and flickered with a bunch of weird warnings and out-of-control changing screen brightness. By the time she got her phone restarted and working again, a new file lay open on the desktop.
“‘The Beast of a Thousand Names,’” she read, raising a brow. “Why do I get a sneaking suspicion that someone wants me to read this?”
She spent the next few hours ignoring her phone and reading intently, occasionally highlighting or typing a note on her desktop. Finally, she checked her notifications and the unconscious vampire still recovering. She made a call.
“Dr. Nakano, just how much alcohol can a vampire process without killing himself?” she asked after the usual pleasantries. “Mmm-hmm, so it’s virtually limitless as long as they ingest a near-equal amount of blood. Good to know. Yes, of course it’s Steve. Also, can you send me any info you have on . . . well, poisonous vampire fingers? Nope, that is not a euphemism.”
Gail ran to the kitchen and grabbed a little plastic baggie before returning to gingerly turn over one of Steve’s hands. She squinted to focus on his pores and what looked like flakes of dry skin stuck to his fingertips. “Yeah, I’ve got a sample for you, Dr. Nakano,” Gail muttered as she inverted the baggie to collect some of the flakes and sweet-smelling sweat. “Talk to you later.”
Steve groaned and rolled to his side as she set down the phone. A spiderweb of crimson striations spanned from the base of his neck to the arch of his back. His hair fell over his damp forehead and cheeks, now more Lost Boys length than his u
sual close-cropped look. Gail raised a brow as her laptop screen flickered, and a new article popped up on the display.
“Is someone there?” Gail asked.
“Tasukete kudasai,” Steve muttered in his sleep. “Tasu . . . ke…”
“‘Signs of Vampire Distress,’” Gail read. “‘Prolonged emotional distress leads to increased keratin production. Vain vampires are known to purposefully seek out traumatic situations in order to grow luxurious nails and locks.’ Seriously, drama leads to good hair days? I wonder what you need to do to get out of a B cup?”
“Tasukete . . .” Steve whimpered again. “Otousama.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Gail said as she tried to gently shake him awake. “Steve, come on, wake up.”
Steve gasped and lurched to a sitting position. He tore at his hair and let out a terrified yowl. “Wasurero! Wasurero . . . Georgia!”
“Steve, it’s me. It’s Gail,” she said as she gently grabbed his arm. He replied by seizing her roughly and snarling. His fangs protruded over his bottom lip, and Gail gasped as one of Steve’s eyes flashed brilliant green, rather than his normal puppyish brown. “Steve?”
“Help . . . me . . .” he choked out before falling into the pillows.
“How?” Gail asked. “How can I help?”
“Drink . . .” he moaned, clutching his head. “Need a drink.”
“You need blood,” Gail said, pulling free of him so that she could furiously text for help. She immediately regretted her words as Steve stared at her hungrily. “Human blood,” she corrected.
“Oh god, my head . . . Atamaga itaii.”
“Steve?” Gail said, eying her flickering phone light. Steve crashed to her floor and grabbed his temples. He kept moaning bits and pieces of English and Japanese until he fell into a shuddering heap on her carpet. She cringed as his nails looked more like claws and tore into the plush with surprising ferocity.
